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Alexander pulled himself from the Schuylkill River with shaking arms, clothes sodden and freezing against his back. Moving as quietly and quickly as he could, he made his way to the rendezvous point. By the time he got there, he could not feel his ears, feet, or hands, and was hoping there would be a fire going. But no one was there. Fresh tracks and what looked to be the remnants of a long-dead fire told him that someone had been here, but they hadn’t stayed. The others had abandoned him.
He did not have any flint-and-tinder on him, not since his saddle-bags had been lost along with his horse. Taking deep, shuddering breaths, Alexander leaned for a moment against a tree cold with the frost that had begun to gather during the nights. He was freezing. His horse was dead on the other side of the river, and the closest fire were the flour mills he had set ablaze, which were now guarded by British soldiers.
He knew how to get to camp from here, but could he make it before he died? On his own, most likely not. He knew he ought to take off the sodden coat weighing his shoulders down, knew that it was doing nothing to warm him up. But he could not bring himself to remove the heavy comfort. Instead, he tucked his limp, numb fingers into his armpits and began the long trudge back to camp. Alone.
The first time he falls, he’s able to get hold of a tree before going all the way to the ground. He takes a few moments to recover, heaving breaths into his shivering chest. The shivering has ceased the second time he falls, and this time he falls to the ground, unable to get his arms in front of him quickly enough to break the fall. His nose is numb now too, but he’s fairly sure it was broken when his face hit the dirt. He takes a few deep breaths, which may or may not be sobs, before clambering back to his feet. He sways dangerously but manages to keep on his feet. Which he cannot really feel, frozen as they are in his sodden boots.
He stumbles forward a few more steps, and falls for the third time. This time, he curls up into a ball on the path and tries desperately to find the will to keep going. How far is camp from where he is now? He’s not sure.
“Help,” he tries to call, but it rasps from his throat as if his vocal chords had frozen along with the rest of him, and his jaw aches at the pitiful attempt. Oh God, he was going to die here, in the cold. He hated the cold.
Numbly, he pushed himself to unsteady feet again, and kept walking. ‘Just walk,’ he told himself, repeated it to himself over and over even as his muscles seized and seemed so very unwilling to move. The fourth time he falls, Alexander is very nearly ready to give up. But if he dies here, he will die unknown and unmourned. No. He wants to make something of himself. He wants to see this war through. He doesn’t want to be killed by something as dull as cold. So he crawls.
He’s just barely in-sight of the gates before he cannot possibly go any further. The last thing he hears is sentries calling for assistance.