You Give Liberty a Bad Name (a Percy Jackson AU)

Training

Virginia: August 1, 1776
Beckendorf lowered his gun and shot. He was pleased when it hit its target. He felt a clap on his back and looked up to see the officer in charge of training his regiment, Hylas, looking very pleased.
"You've done well," he said.
He turned to the other members of the regiment. All of them were former slaves who owed their freedom to the British.
"In fact, you have all done well," he said. "I would never have suspected that men who had never seen fighting before could take to battle so readily. I know you will all make great soldiers."
The men cheered. Hylas may not have understood why the men trained so diligently, but Beckendorf did. Most of the British army were fighting to uphold the honor of their country and the mercenaries were fighting only to pay their bills. Beckendorf and the others in his regiment were fighting for their freedom and to repay the debt they owed the British for it. It was the difference between fighting for one's life and one's meal; it was a difference Hylas would never have to appreciate.
When the training was over for the day, Beckendorf gathered around a fire to cook his meal alongside his comrades. He slept in a tent with three other men: Carter, Walt, and George. Carter was the illegitimate son of the daughter of a southern planter. He had been raised by his father after his mother's death and he was hoping to gain his freedom and then leave America. He told Beckendorf that his family originated from Egypt, but his father had been caught by slavers while on a journey to the coast.
     Walt had escaped from the same plantation as Carter's sister, Sadie, lived on and from the way he talked about her, Beckendorf suspected they were close. George was the oldest of the lot; he had three decades on them and after his former master died, he joined the British army rather than become the slave of the blacksmith's cruel son.
      "Hylas is impressed with us," George said. "If only he knew why."
      "He need not know, so he never will," Walter said. "That's the way of the world. People close their eyes to those they see as unlike themselves."
     "Maybe the war will change that," Carter ventured. "If the British see that we fight as well as other men, then they will have to respect us. They have already given us a chance for freedom, but if the British win, perhaps they will give our families freedom too."
      "And if the colonists win?" Beckendorf ask.
        "Then God help us all," Carter said. "I do not wish to think of how they would treat slaves who rebelled against them."
       "They would punish us worse than the British will punish them," George said.
       "Then we better fight to the best of our abilities," Beckendorf said. "We are fighting not just for our freedom, but for our very lives for freedom is to life as water is to cotton."