The Rebels Page 2

  Again he wished for a drink of water. There was none. Overhead, visible through the smoke that had thickened considerably, the sun broiled. With numbed fingers Philip checked his powder horn.

  He’d loaded and fired so often, it was half empty. Others around him were grumbling over a similar lack.

  “Hold your places,” came the command. “They won’t give up so easily.”

  Philip closed his eyes, tried to rest. He didn’t want to die any more than the others did.

  Near him, a Rhode Islander groveled in the dirt, gut-shot by a chance ball. A Massachusetts man was methodically relieving the wounded man of his musket, powder horn and crude wooden cartouche containing the precious wadding and ball.

  The drumming had receded. But for how long?

  The British would certainly try a new strategy next’ time, he felt. Advancing in perfect order, with perfect discipline, had given them command of the world’s battlefields. Today, that method of fighting had proved disastrous.

  But whatever their strategy, if they ever reached the American lines with those bayonets—Philip tried not to think about it.

  iii

  After Concord, Philip Kent had experienced an almost euphoric joy that lasted several weeks.

  The British had run—run—back to Boston. And an American army—ragtag, poorly organized, but still an army—had encircled the city where hostile attitudes between Crown and colony had built to the breaking point over a period of some ten years.

  Once the siege lines were in place, the small local militia companies of the kind in which Philip had served in Concord were reorganized into larger state regiments. Similar home or state guard units from other colonies arrived, the whole being commanded somewhat haphazardly by old General Artemas Ward. Ward was lying abed in Cambridge this June afternoon, trying to manage the military force while the agony of a stone burned in his flabby body. The Massachusetts men on Breed’s Hill had volunteered to serve in the new regiments until the end of the year. The eight-month army, the officers called it. Not exactly with humor.

  Other colonies sent reinforcements to Boston. Rhode Island and New Hampshire and Connecticut—Old Put, the Indian fighter, had brought in three thousand Connecticut men plus a herd of sheep for food. Meantime, matters political were directed from the temporary provincial capitol, Watertown. Cambridge served as army headquarters.

  But control resided in Watertown. From there came the orders that sent Colonel Benedict Arnold of Connecticut westward in late April, to raise a new levy of Massachusetts men and join forces in early May with Ethan Allen, a rough-hewn fighting man from the Hampshire Grants. Allen led a contingent whose members styled themselves the Green Mountain Boys.

  Continually wrangling over who had command of the expedition, Allen and Arnold still managed to surprise and force the surrender of the small garrison at Fort Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain. Not much of a victory in military terms, the officers around Boston admitted. Hardly more than forty Britishers captured. The value of Ticonderoga lay in its supply of military stores, the most important being cannon.

  No one knew for sure how many cannon. But the prospect of even a few pieces in patriot hands was considered a blessing.

  To the accomplishment of routing royal troops at Lexington and Concord—or the crime, depending on a man’s political position—the colonials could now add the seizure of a royal fort and a quantity of royal artillery “in the name of Jehovah and the Continental Congress,” as Allen put it when presenting the surrender demand. It was doubtful that the second Continental Congress, commencing to sit in Philadelphia in May, was aware that Ticonderoga’s capture had been made in its name until one of the express riders pounding between the north and the Quaker City bore the surprising news. A rider making the return trip reported that the Congress intended to appoint a supreme commander to take charge of the Massachusetts siege.

  But something far more important than military developments had contributed to Philip’s happiness that spring. Philip and the girl he’d courted, Anne Ware of Boston, had been married in late April, in a small Congregational church in Watertown. Anne’s father, a pop-eyed little lawyer who had written numerous essays supporting the patriot cause, gave the couple his grudging blessing. After all, Anne was already five months pregnant with Philip’s child.

  Like so many young husbands and wives, Philip and Anne faced a cloudy future. Philip’s dream of establishing himself in the printing trade would have to wait until the armed struggle was resolved. It might end soon, in a truce; reconciliation along with redress of colonial grievances. Overtures in that direction were being considered by the Congress, Philip had heard.

  But if firebrands like Samuel Adams had their way, the war could go on and on—a titanic struggle whose goal would be Adams’ own: complete independency for the thirteen colonies.

  Re-loading his Brown Bess now, Philip could hardly believe that this corpse-littered battleground was the same pastoral peninsula where, back in September of ’73, he had clumsily tried to seduce Anne. It seemed unreal, all that long past with its beginnings in the French province of Auvergne, the trouble in England with the high-born Amberly family, Philip’s emigration to America and his work for the patriot printer, Ben Edes. Philip had come a long way in the rebel cause, from indifference to confusion to firm belief.

  Still, a cause was one thing, reality another. He glanced up at the scorching sun behind the smoke, wiped his sticky forehead. He wanted to live. He wanted to see Anne again; see their child born whole and sound—

  But he and Anne had agreed that he had to serve. In truth, Philip had been the first to raise the issue—at the same time he announced his decision. He was committed to the cause. Anne had fired him with her own zeal. So when he told her he would henceforth be living in the military barracks hastily converted from buildings at Harvard College, she had nodded and kissed him gently, holding back her tears—

  Last night, around six, Reverend Langdon, the president of the college, had prayed for the men who mustered in Harvard Yard, bound for the Charlestown peninsula. The move was designed to counteract a British attempt to fortify the Dorchester Heights, rumored to have been scheduled for Sunday, June eighteenth.

  With blankets, one day’s provisions and entrenching tools, the Americans—no more than a thousand, Philip guessed—had marched into the darkness, leaving General Ward groaning in bed, and Reverend Langdon seeing to the loading of wagons that would carry the precious volumes of the Harvard library to safety in Andover. If the British ever stopped hesitating and moved out of Boston in massive numbers, those books could be burned—destroyed—just like Charlestown this afternoon—

  On Breed’s Hill, Philip felt none of the exuberant confidence he’d enjoyed in the days following the skirmish at Concord.

  Wounded men moaned in the redoubt. Philip looked around as Salem Prince said quietly, “They coming again.”

  Philip closed his eyes and drew a deep breath of the fetid air. Prince was right.

  He heard the drums.

  iv

  The second attack was much like the first. Stupid on the part of the British, Philip thought. He and the others fired and fired and fired again. The withering flame that leaped outward from the American muskets devastated the steadily advancing soldiers a second time. Sent the survivors into retreat a second time. Now the colonials had real cause for cheering—

  But it was short-lived:

  “I’ve only powder for two or three more shots,” Philip said to the black man after the second charge had fallen back. The smoke in the redoubt was thicker than ever.

  “You better off ’n I am,” the black said, up-ending his empty powder horn. “Ball almost gone, too.”

  A passing officer spun on them. “If you have powder, fire anything you can find. Rocks—or this.” He snatched up a bent nail left over from the erection of the redoubt’s timberwork. He disappeared in the smoke, leaving Philip to stare in dismay at the nail.

  How late was it? Fo
ur-thirty? Five? Philip peered over the earthwork, saw hundreds of fallen grenadiers and light infantrymen, flowers of scarlet wool and blood strewing the hillside. He squinted through the acrid, choking clouds, hastily grabbed the black’s arm, pointed.

  “General Howe, he finally got some brains,” the black observed. But his eyes were fearful.

  The re-forming British ranks looked different. The soldiers were stripping themselves of their cumbersome packs and field gear. They tossed aside their mitre-like hats or bearskin caps. Threw off their white crossbelts, red uniform jackets—

  Down the line, Dr. Warren was likewise discarding his fine coat. “I think they mean to break through this time,” he said. “Howe has all the powder he needs. He must know we’re running short.”

  “Why the hell doesn’t someone send for more?” a man complained.

  “Someone did,” Warren told him.

  “Then where the hell is it?”

  Warren shook his head. “I don’t know. Perhaps the message was intercepted.” His mouth twisted. “Or the messenger ran away. I’ve noticed that’s not unusual this afternoon—”

  The drumbeats resumed. Philip swallowed, reloading.

  The British marched up the hillside and across the swampy patches in front of the rail fence and stone wall. This time, they looked much grimmer. They stepped over their fallen comrades without glancing down, but the rage on their faces was obvious.

  The soldiers kept coming, gaiters splashed with blood from the previous engagements. Up and down the line, the Americans began firing. For a few moments, it seemed as if the pattern of the first two assaults would be repeated. The front ranks faltered. Men stumbled, pitched over, shrieking—

  The smoke in the redoubt was suffocating. It settled over Philip and the others like a pall. He was frightened out of his wits when he used his last powder to shoot the bent nail. The Brown Bess might explode—

  It didn’t. But he couldn’t see whether he’d hit anyone.

  Bayonets shining dully in the smoke, the British were halfway up the side of Breed’s Hill. Suddenly Philip heard a change in the level of sound—

  Fewer and fewer American muskets were shooting. “Fire!” Colonel Prescott screamed, somewhere out of sight down on the left. Hoarse voices answered:

  “Powder’s gone!”

  Then Philip’s heart nearly stopped. The loud gulp of Salem Prince was audible too. They and the others still on their feet in the redoubt heard a dreadful new sound, almost like a mass chant on the other side of the earthwork. The British soldiers were calling encouragement to one another:

  “Push on. Push on. Push on—”

  Philip peered over the lip and knew what was coming: a direct breach of the redoubt. There was no longer enough firepower to repel the advance.

  All at once a few British soldiers began to run toward the hill’s summit. Then more. Soon the whole front rank was charging, bayonets thrust out ahead. Salem Prince leaned his elbows on the little ledge to steady them, fired his last ball with powder he had borrowed from Philip. The ball drilled a round red hole in a portly sergeant’s forehead.

  But they kept coming, on the run:

  “Push on. Push on. Push on—”

  In the last terrible seconds of waiting, Philip raised his Brown Bess like a club, grimly aware of its limitations as a weapon against bayonets. British discipline, instilled as a tradition not to be violated, had paid off after all. In the wake of two disastrous charges, they intended to make the third succeed:

  “PUSH ON! PUSH ON!”

  A bayonet flashed above Philip’s head. Musket clutched in both hands, he fended the downward thrust of the British light infantryman towering at the edge of the redoubt. Philip smashed the musket against the soldier’s left leg. The man pitched forward into the redoubt. His bayonet gored Salem Prince through the chest.

  The black fell screaming. The British soldier floundered on top of him, struggling to rise. A bayonet raked Philip’s left shoulder from behind. He dodged away, raised his musket by the muzzle, struck the fallen soldier’s head once, twice, three times, panting as he hit. The soldier’s skull caved in. He collapsed across the dead black man.

  But there were hundreds more of the soldiers jumping into the redoubt now, those murderous bayonets slashing and stabbing. In the smoke it was almost impossible to tell friend from foe. Philip heard an officer’s cry:

  “Retreat! Retreat to Bunker’s! Abandon the redoubt—!”

  Hysteria then Pandemonium.

  Royal Marines who had reinforced the infantry regiments leaped into the redoubt, firing at close range. Philip kicked and clubbed his way toward the narrow entrance packed with frantic men. His chest hurt from breathing smoke. He coughed. His eyes streamed tears.

  Another bayonet wielded by some phantom came tearing at his cheek. Philip kicked the unseen soldier, hit his calf, heard him curse. The bayonet slid by Philip’s shoulder and into the eye of a Rhode Islander behind him in the stampede. Blood gushed over Philip’s filthy neck, hot, ripe-smelling. He wanted to scream but he didn’t.

  He saw Dr. Warren in the crush, brandishing a musket. Random sunlight made Warren’s face gleam like a medal for a moment. A bayonet speared Warren’s ribs. Then the doctor went rigid, as if a musket ball had hit him. Horrified, Philip watched the patriot leader disappear in the smoky carnage.

  He fought ahead. Saw sunlight gleaming—the outer end of the entrance passage. He raised his Brown Bess horizontally, ducked and battered through, his only goal that patch of brilliant light beyond the earth walls.

  His chest on fire from the smoke he’d inhaled, he broke out and began to run down through the orchard on the northwest slope of Breed’s Hill. From the redoubt he still heard screaming, muskets exploding, and the howls of the redcoats taking vengeance.

  v

  The sun was dropping behind the smoke. It had to be almost six o’clock, Philip thought as he scrambled toward the top of Bunker’s Hill. There, Old Put’s men had dug another fortification—

  Empty now.

  Everywhere, the colonials were fleeing. Rushing toward the all-too-narrow strip of land that was the only escape route from the peninsula jutting into Boston harbor. Philip headed that way, running for his life because that was the order he heard yelled from all sides:

  “Retreat, retreat!”

  The Charlestown Neck proved almost impassable. Men shoulder to shoulder beat and clawed one another to gain a yard’s forward passage. Off in the Mystic River, the guns of Glasgow erupted. Cannon balls tore the Neck to pieces, shot up huge gouts of earth, blasted men to the ground. Philip felt something sticky strike him in the face. He glanced down, gagged. A hand blown from a body—

  He wiped some of the blood away and struggled ahead, trying not to be sick.

  Near him, a weary Rhode Islander shouted with false jubilation:

  “I hear Tommy lost a thousand ’r more, and us but a hundred!”

  It might be so, Philip thought, gouging and shoving his way over the perilously narrow piece of land. It might be so, but it was no American victory. Even if the British had paid with fifty times the number of dead, how could anyone call it a victory? Though the king’s troops had died by the score in the first two charges, they had broken through on the third—with those invincible bayonets that still blazed in Philip’s imagination—

  All at once he felt totally discouraged, disheartened. Even more disheartened than he’d been during what was perhaps the lowest point in his life: the grim sea voyage on which his mother, Marie Charboneau, had died, and he had taken a new name before stepping foot on the shore of his adopted land. Years from now, Breed’s Hill might or might not be deemed a victory of sorts. But he saw it as a clear defeat.

  As he ran on in the smoky sunset, glimpsing safe ground ahead at last, he knew that he and his wife and their unborn baby confronted a future that had become utterly bleak in a single afternoon’s two-hour engagement.

  The thirteen colonies faced exactly the same future.
At last, the might of Great Britain had asserted itself.

  Very likely the king would spare nothing to bring the Americans to their knees with fire and steel; that terrible steel—

  The struggle of the patriots could be very long.

  And doomed.

  CHAPTER II

  Sermon Hill

  “JUD DARLIN’?”

  He reached across her naked hip for the jug of rum they’d shared. The cabin was warm this June evening, accentuating the woman’s smell: a faintly gamy combination of sweat and farm dirt that never failed to excite him. When he’d consumed sufficient rum.

  “Jud?” she said again.

  “What?”

  “That all for tonight?”

  “Not by a damn sight, my girl.”

  He drank; emptied the jug. Dropped it and heard it thud on the dirt floor. He rolled toward her, stroking a moon-dappled patch of thigh. She guided his hand up her hard belly to one of her breasts. She laughed; a coarse, harlot’s laugh:

  “Good. The old fool, he won’t be back till the cock crows, I bet. Means to show the gentry he’s doin’ his duty, ridin’ patrol with the best. If he only knowed he could meet some of the gentry right, in his own bed—!” She giggled.

  “Lottie, stop talking so goddamned much.” He gave her a fierce kiss that was half passion, half punishment.

  She complained that it hurt, shoved his exploring fingers away. The straw crunched as she shifted out of his grasp:

  “You’re not treatin’ me proper this evening, Jud Fletcher. Like to took my head off with that kiss.”

  “Sorry.”

  He reached for the rum, remembered it was gone, swore softly. A ravening thirst still burned in him. But then, when didn’t it?

  “That all you can say? Sorry?”

  “What else should I say, Lottie? Conversation’s not one of your better skills, so let’s get down to the one in which you excel, shall we?”