Harold Titus's Blog, page 14
February 11, 2021
Crossing the River, Chapter 6, Section 1
Characters Mentioned
Barrett, Colonel James – Concord militia commander
Browne, Captain John – 10th Regiment. One of three spies sent to Worcester and Concord
Church, Doctor Benjamin – Boston physician, paid spy of General Gage
DeBerniere, Ensign Henry – 10th Regiment, spy, scout for Colonel Smith
Gage, General Thomas – military governor and commanding general of British forces stationed in Boston
Howe, Corporal John – servant of Captain Brown. Spy
Percy, Lieutenant Colonel Hugh – commander of the 1st Brigade, commander of the relief column that rescued Colonel Smith’s forces
Revere, Paul – Boston silversmith and express rider
Commentary
This section provides contextual information vital for the reader’s understanding of forthcoming events.
Chapter 6, “Acute Hostility,” Section 1
In his study one hour each afternoon, recalling past friendships, recreating personal and professional accomplishments, Thomas Gage warded off his anxieties. Intermittently, he indulged in flights of fancy: Tom Gage, suave, virile lothario; Thomas Gage, vanquishing general/enlightened prime minister. Revitalized, he returned to his duties primed to vanquish each new outrage directed upon his competency. Once or twice every fourteen days or so his methodology of self-renewal failed him. This afternoon his apprehensions and resentments had not receded.
Having stared for two minutes at a spot of sunlight on his threadbare carpet, annoyed by the tick of his wall clock, Gage pulled open his bottom right-hand desk drawer. He removed from beneath scribbled drafts of correspondence his in-laid oak letter box. Having placed it on his blotter, he removed his Provincial Congress informant’s most recent letter. The physical act of retrieval triggered what he had been unable the past half-hour to evoke, a filtered recollection of past martial achievements.
He recalled his participation in the Battle of Fontenoy, on Flanders Field, three decades past. He had beheld appalling death. Afterward, to harden himself, he had walked amid the dying and dismembered. A year later in Scotland he had survived the Battle of Culloden -- a victory, the power of the Highland clans broken -- witnessing again terrible carnage. They had called him, a young lieutenant, “Honest Tom.” Twenty years ago, ambushed near Fort Duquesne leading Braddock’s advance guard against the French, he had been one of 1,600 British and American soldiers wounded or killed. Three years later he had directed the light infantry for Abercromby at Fort Ticonderoga and had again been wounded. The war against France concluded, the King, acknowledging Gage’s lengthy, steadfast service, had appointed him commander-in-chief in North America. He had persevered in that capacity nine difficult years.
Provincial lawlessness had culminated in 1770 with the libelously propagandized Boston Massacre. Shortly thereafter, risking his career, Gage had advised the King and his counsel to initiate a policy that would restrict “the growth of virulent democracy.” Confine the colonials to the Atlantic seaboard, where they must adhere to English law and authority, he had by letter declared. Abolish immediately their rancorous town meetings, which were the wombs of sedition. Remove trials of such matters to England, away from intimidated judges and corrupt juries. The King had ordered him to sail to London to confront his critics. During his absence lawless Bostonians had seized and destroyed 342 chests of imported East India Company tea. The need for harsher administrative policy affirmed, King George had returned Gage to Boston as Massachusetts’s military governor.
What the King had demanded had proved impossible to enforce.
Refusing to violate constitutional law, eschewing heavy-handed repression, implementing, instead, a benign, yet firm, consistent policy, Gage had attempted to win the obedience of the populace. His attempts to do what was lawful and just had been thwarted at virtually every turn.
He had been unable to stop the town meetings in Salem and Boston. He had nominated royal judges to the Massachusetts bench. Loyalist juries had refused to serve. Many judges, fearful of reprisal, had refused to sit. Seven months ago he had removed 250 half-barrels of powder from the Provincial Powder House at Charlestown and, additionally, several cannon at Cambridge. The powder had been the lawful property of the Province of Massachusetts, not the illegal Provincial Congress and the proliferating town militias. The following day 4,000 provincials, incited by fraudulent rumors, had demonstrated on the Cambridge Common! Dubbed the “Powder Alarm,” the uprising had instructed him to proceed thereafter with greater circumspection.
Subsequently, he had fortified the Neck; entrance and egress were now carefully monitored. He had ordered the inhabitants of Boston to surrender their weapons, after having purchased the inventory of every gun merchant. He had advised Lord Dartmouth in London that there was “no prospect of putting the late acts in force, but by first making a conquest of the New England provinces.” That would necessitate a force of at least 20,000 soldiers. In November he had urged that the Coercive Acts be suspended until more troops were provided. Waiting for Dartmouth’s response, in December he had planned the removal of Provincial gunpowder and cannon from a crumbling fortress near the entrance of Portsmouth Harbor. The mechanic Paul Revere had alerted the local militia before Admiral Graves and a detachment of British soldiers had embarked on the sloop H.M.S. Canceaux. Four hundred militiamen had overwhelmed the guard of six, injuring its captain. A regular had been struck on the head with a pistol. One hundred barrels of gunpowder and sixteen cannon had been carried away. Shortly thereafter, militia companies had seized munitions at royal forts in Newport and Providence.
Two months ago he had attempted to remove from a Salem forge eight new brass cannon and field pieces converted from the cannon of four derelict ships. Despite the care he had taken to keep the operation a secret, word had reached the town of Salem before the seaward arrival of Colonel Leslie’s regulars. Thwarted by a raised drawbridge that provided access to the forge, Leslie, to avert bloodshed, had acquiesced. Despite his efforts to act humanely, to respect the constitutional rights of the populace, to restrain his soldiers’ desire to respond aggressively to invidious criticism, Boston’s citizenry perceived their governor/commanding general to be a tyrant.
From the Earl of Dartmouth’s most recent letter, dated January 27, which he had just received, Gage had learned that the King had angrily rejected his requests. Troops were, in fact, on the way: 700 Marines and three regiments of foot. But, the King and his ministers did not accept Gage’s estimate that 20,000 soldiers were needed to quell the rebellion. If General Gage sincerely believed that more soldiers were required than what he was being provided, he should recruit men from “friends of the government in New England.” Dartmouth had stated succinctly Gage’s duty. “The King’s dignity, and the honor and safety of the Empire, require, that, in such a situation, force should be repelled with force.” Seize the ringleaders; disarm the populace. They are “a rude Rabble without plan, without concert, and without conduct. A smaller force now, if put to the test, would be able to encounter them with greater probability of success than might be expected from a great army.”
He was bitter. He had three good reasons to be. The “rude Rabble” had rejected with prejudice his benign governance. His superiors were demanding outcomes that no governor or general or he could realistically accomplish. If men in Government like Sandwich, Townshend, Rigby, and Germain continued to have their way, despite what he might yet practically achieve, he would be relieved of his command.
Touching absently the blemish below his right cheekbone, Gage exhaled a lengthy breath. His reminiscences had not brought about mental and emotional rejuvenation. They had advanced instead his bleakest thoughts.
He stared at length at the envelope, unopened on his ink-stained blotter.
His spy, in another letter, dated March 4, had reported that the Provisional Congress had appointed a committee to “watch” the Army. If you should decide to send armed soldiers into the country, minutemen would be summoned to oppose them. “The Minutemen amount to 7,500 and are the picked men of the whole body of the militia and are properly armed,” the message stated. Nearly their entire magazine of powder, some 90 to 100 barrels, lies hidden at Concord. This, together with information received from other agents that British soldiers, traitorous riffraff, were selling their muskets!
On March 9 he had received a note in French from John Hall, of Concord. Food supplies as well as armament were being stockpiled in that Middlesex County town. Hall had been useful; in earlier reports he had described the route out of Boston taken by deserters and their method of getting past the sentries at the Neck, a procedure devised by unknown rebel conspirators. Hall had identified the exact location of the dumps, the main magazine being at the farm of James Barrett, the recently appointed colonel of the town militia. Hall believed that Barrett had the four brass cannon stolen out of Boston.
Hesitant to order the magazine’s immediate destruction, he had sent his three spies -- Browne, De Berniere, and Browne’s young servant -- to Concord to scout the roads and to corroborate his intelligence. They had brought back Ensign De Berniere’s meticulously drawn maps and a knowledgeable Tory, Daniel Bliss. On April 5 he had sent Colonel Smith and Browne’s servant to Worcester to ascertain the location of a second munitions depot, with the option, thereafter, to inspect Concord. Corporal Howe, the servant, had just returned. His report had been a mixture of old and new information, indisputable corroboration that the rebels’ stockpile of arms and powder had to be destroyed.
The contents of this most recent letter, dated April 13, authored by his spy, Doctor Benjamin Church -- an important member of the Congress's Committee of Safety -- was especially important!
Take action within the next several days! his informant had advised. When it serves your purpose! Sam Adams and his cronies want confrontation. Defeat their designs when their Congress least expects it!
Their “justification” for an armed confrontation -- they would have the populace believe -- is the damage to private property caused by Colonel Percy's First Brigade during its recent training exercise. Their confrontation, their “defense of private property,” they will turn into a clash of arms, its true purpose being to incite reluctant provincials to commit to their cause.
They seek to replicate on a much larger scale the late, so-called Boston Massacre. By passing a truculent resolve Congress has set the stage. Should soldiers be marched out of Boston again with artillery and baggage, expect numerous militia companies to combat them.
Planning farther ahead, Congress has agreed to raise an army of 18,000 men. 8,000 are to come from Massachusetts. Important Committee of Correspondence leaders from New Hampshire and Rhode Island are taking part in Congress's discussions.
Daunting in concept, these plans are but a dog’s bark. The Provincial Congress suffers much irresolution. “Great division among the members … Many of them opposed raising an army … many insurmountable difficulties … no determination.”
His spy had written, “A recess at this time could easily be brought about.” Congress, despite its belligerency, because of its division of opinion, rather than escalate matters will probably wait, in abeyance, until you receive your official dispatches instructing you as to how the additional troops crossing the Atlantic are to be utilized. During this recess a sudden blow by you would remove their powder, scuttle their idea of a provincial army, and dissuade Connecticut and New Hampshire interference.
He could not do otherwise. The festering sore that he had attempted to salve would not heal. If he did not immediately lance it, others would attempt to excise it at great cost. The problem was no longer the decision of whether to do it. The difficulty was logistics.
His plan to destroy Concord’s munitions would require swift execution!
Logistics indeed. The particulars!
For several months Gage had considered combining the elite elements of his infantry into a swift, powerful attack force. He had done so. He had but days ago removed light infantry and grenadier units from specific regiments. Special training exercises had been his official explanation. He had sent those elements of the 38th and 52nd Foot on a long march to give credence to that explanation and to accustom Middlesex County provincials to the army’s presence. Now he needed to transport his enlarged force across the water.
A swift raid upon Concord would require their removal across the Charles River to a location near the Cambridge/Lexington road. To take the circuitous land route from Boston Neck to Cambridge would add hours to the expedition. Making the necessary preparations without exposing his purpose was a major difficulty. He would send most of the Navy's launching boats -- his long-standing enemy, Admiral Graves, had already lowered them conspicuously into the water -- to the 70 gun Boyne, moored in the Back Bay near Boston Common. Would that frigate's vastly increased number arouse suspicion? Certainly. Would intelligence of it be sent into the interior before the boats were launched? Probably. Could he do anything about either? He could the latter.
Every exigency he had thought of he had acted upon. Transported across the River, the expedition would advance swiftly beyond his reach. What contingency had he miscalculated, or neglected? Too much of his plan depended on probabilities, reasoned assumptions. If he had been accurate in his assessment of the major difficulties, if he had chosen effective measures to negate them, the expedition’s outcome would be determined by how well its commander executed the plan and how rapidly and aggressively the enemy responded. Intangibles all!
He looked again at the envelope, undisturbed on his blotter. He had taken it from his correspondence box to remind himself … of what? He had set in motion a sequence of events the outcome of which only the Heavenly Father knew. Was that what he had wanted evoked?
Barrett, Colonel James – Concord militia commander
Browne, Captain John – 10th Regiment. One of three spies sent to Worcester and Concord
Church, Doctor Benjamin – Boston physician, paid spy of General Gage
DeBerniere, Ensign Henry – 10th Regiment, spy, scout for Colonel Smith
Gage, General Thomas – military governor and commanding general of British forces stationed in Boston
Howe, Corporal John – servant of Captain Brown. Spy
Percy, Lieutenant Colonel Hugh – commander of the 1st Brigade, commander of the relief column that rescued Colonel Smith’s forces
Revere, Paul – Boston silversmith and express rider
Commentary
This section provides contextual information vital for the reader’s understanding of forthcoming events.
Chapter 6, “Acute Hostility,” Section 1
In his study one hour each afternoon, recalling past friendships, recreating personal and professional accomplishments, Thomas Gage warded off his anxieties. Intermittently, he indulged in flights of fancy: Tom Gage, suave, virile lothario; Thomas Gage, vanquishing general/enlightened prime minister. Revitalized, he returned to his duties primed to vanquish each new outrage directed upon his competency. Once or twice every fourteen days or so his methodology of self-renewal failed him. This afternoon his apprehensions and resentments had not receded.
Having stared for two minutes at a spot of sunlight on his threadbare carpet, annoyed by the tick of his wall clock, Gage pulled open his bottom right-hand desk drawer. He removed from beneath scribbled drafts of correspondence his in-laid oak letter box. Having placed it on his blotter, he removed his Provincial Congress informant’s most recent letter. The physical act of retrieval triggered what he had been unable the past half-hour to evoke, a filtered recollection of past martial achievements.
He recalled his participation in the Battle of Fontenoy, on Flanders Field, three decades past. He had beheld appalling death. Afterward, to harden himself, he had walked amid the dying and dismembered. A year later in Scotland he had survived the Battle of Culloden -- a victory, the power of the Highland clans broken -- witnessing again terrible carnage. They had called him, a young lieutenant, “Honest Tom.” Twenty years ago, ambushed near Fort Duquesne leading Braddock’s advance guard against the French, he had been one of 1,600 British and American soldiers wounded or killed. Three years later he had directed the light infantry for Abercromby at Fort Ticonderoga and had again been wounded. The war against France concluded, the King, acknowledging Gage’s lengthy, steadfast service, had appointed him commander-in-chief in North America. He had persevered in that capacity nine difficult years.
Provincial lawlessness had culminated in 1770 with the libelously propagandized Boston Massacre. Shortly thereafter, risking his career, Gage had advised the King and his counsel to initiate a policy that would restrict “the growth of virulent democracy.” Confine the colonials to the Atlantic seaboard, where they must adhere to English law and authority, he had by letter declared. Abolish immediately their rancorous town meetings, which were the wombs of sedition. Remove trials of such matters to England, away from intimidated judges and corrupt juries. The King had ordered him to sail to London to confront his critics. During his absence lawless Bostonians had seized and destroyed 342 chests of imported East India Company tea. The need for harsher administrative policy affirmed, King George had returned Gage to Boston as Massachusetts’s military governor.
What the King had demanded had proved impossible to enforce.
Refusing to violate constitutional law, eschewing heavy-handed repression, implementing, instead, a benign, yet firm, consistent policy, Gage had attempted to win the obedience of the populace. His attempts to do what was lawful and just had been thwarted at virtually every turn.
He had been unable to stop the town meetings in Salem and Boston. He had nominated royal judges to the Massachusetts bench. Loyalist juries had refused to serve. Many judges, fearful of reprisal, had refused to sit. Seven months ago he had removed 250 half-barrels of powder from the Provincial Powder House at Charlestown and, additionally, several cannon at Cambridge. The powder had been the lawful property of the Province of Massachusetts, not the illegal Provincial Congress and the proliferating town militias. The following day 4,000 provincials, incited by fraudulent rumors, had demonstrated on the Cambridge Common! Dubbed the “Powder Alarm,” the uprising had instructed him to proceed thereafter with greater circumspection.
Subsequently, he had fortified the Neck; entrance and egress were now carefully monitored. He had ordered the inhabitants of Boston to surrender their weapons, after having purchased the inventory of every gun merchant. He had advised Lord Dartmouth in London that there was “no prospect of putting the late acts in force, but by first making a conquest of the New England provinces.” That would necessitate a force of at least 20,000 soldiers. In November he had urged that the Coercive Acts be suspended until more troops were provided. Waiting for Dartmouth’s response, in December he had planned the removal of Provincial gunpowder and cannon from a crumbling fortress near the entrance of Portsmouth Harbor. The mechanic Paul Revere had alerted the local militia before Admiral Graves and a detachment of British soldiers had embarked on the sloop H.M.S. Canceaux. Four hundred militiamen had overwhelmed the guard of six, injuring its captain. A regular had been struck on the head with a pistol. One hundred barrels of gunpowder and sixteen cannon had been carried away. Shortly thereafter, militia companies had seized munitions at royal forts in Newport and Providence.
Two months ago he had attempted to remove from a Salem forge eight new brass cannon and field pieces converted from the cannon of four derelict ships. Despite the care he had taken to keep the operation a secret, word had reached the town of Salem before the seaward arrival of Colonel Leslie’s regulars. Thwarted by a raised drawbridge that provided access to the forge, Leslie, to avert bloodshed, had acquiesced. Despite his efforts to act humanely, to respect the constitutional rights of the populace, to restrain his soldiers’ desire to respond aggressively to invidious criticism, Boston’s citizenry perceived their governor/commanding general to be a tyrant.
From the Earl of Dartmouth’s most recent letter, dated January 27, which he had just received, Gage had learned that the King had angrily rejected his requests. Troops were, in fact, on the way: 700 Marines and three regiments of foot. But, the King and his ministers did not accept Gage’s estimate that 20,000 soldiers were needed to quell the rebellion. If General Gage sincerely believed that more soldiers were required than what he was being provided, he should recruit men from “friends of the government in New England.” Dartmouth had stated succinctly Gage’s duty. “The King’s dignity, and the honor and safety of the Empire, require, that, in such a situation, force should be repelled with force.” Seize the ringleaders; disarm the populace. They are “a rude Rabble without plan, without concert, and without conduct. A smaller force now, if put to the test, would be able to encounter them with greater probability of success than might be expected from a great army.”
He was bitter. He had three good reasons to be. The “rude Rabble” had rejected with prejudice his benign governance. His superiors were demanding outcomes that no governor or general or he could realistically accomplish. If men in Government like Sandwich, Townshend, Rigby, and Germain continued to have their way, despite what he might yet practically achieve, he would be relieved of his command.
Touching absently the blemish below his right cheekbone, Gage exhaled a lengthy breath. His reminiscences had not brought about mental and emotional rejuvenation. They had advanced instead his bleakest thoughts.
He stared at length at the envelope, unopened on his ink-stained blotter.
His spy, in another letter, dated March 4, had reported that the Provisional Congress had appointed a committee to “watch” the Army. If you should decide to send armed soldiers into the country, minutemen would be summoned to oppose them. “The Minutemen amount to 7,500 and are the picked men of the whole body of the militia and are properly armed,” the message stated. Nearly their entire magazine of powder, some 90 to 100 barrels, lies hidden at Concord. This, together with information received from other agents that British soldiers, traitorous riffraff, were selling their muskets!
On March 9 he had received a note in French from John Hall, of Concord. Food supplies as well as armament were being stockpiled in that Middlesex County town. Hall had been useful; in earlier reports he had described the route out of Boston taken by deserters and their method of getting past the sentries at the Neck, a procedure devised by unknown rebel conspirators. Hall had identified the exact location of the dumps, the main magazine being at the farm of James Barrett, the recently appointed colonel of the town militia. Hall believed that Barrett had the four brass cannon stolen out of Boston.
Hesitant to order the magazine’s immediate destruction, he had sent his three spies -- Browne, De Berniere, and Browne’s young servant -- to Concord to scout the roads and to corroborate his intelligence. They had brought back Ensign De Berniere’s meticulously drawn maps and a knowledgeable Tory, Daniel Bliss. On April 5 he had sent Colonel Smith and Browne’s servant to Worcester to ascertain the location of a second munitions depot, with the option, thereafter, to inspect Concord. Corporal Howe, the servant, had just returned. His report had been a mixture of old and new information, indisputable corroboration that the rebels’ stockpile of arms and powder had to be destroyed.
The contents of this most recent letter, dated April 13, authored by his spy, Doctor Benjamin Church -- an important member of the Congress's Committee of Safety -- was especially important!
Take action within the next several days! his informant had advised. When it serves your purpose! Sam Adams and his cronies want confrontation. Defeat their designs when their Congress least expects it!
Their “justification” for an armed confrontation -- they would have the populace believe -- is the damage to private property caused by Colonel Percy's First Brigade during its recent training exercise. Their confrontation, their “defense of private property,” they will turn into a clash of arms, its true purpose being to incite reluctant provincials to commit to their cause.
They seek to replicate on a much larger scale the late, so-called Boston Massacre. By passing a truculent resolve Congress has set the stage. Should soldiers be marched out of Boston again with artillery and baggage, expect numerous militia companies to combat them.
Planning farther ahead, Congress has agreed to raise an army of 18,000 men. 8,000 are to come from Massachusetts. Important Committee of Correspondence leaders from New Hampshire and Rhode Island are taking part in Congress's discussions.
Daunting in concept, these plans are but a dog’s bark. The Provincial Congress suffers much irresolution. “Great division among the members … Many of them opposed raising an army … many insurmountable difficulties … no determination.”
His spy had written, “A recess at this time could easily be brought about.” Congress, despite its belligerency, because of its division of opinion, rather than escalate matters will probably wait, in abeyance, until you receive your official dispatches instructing you as to how the additional troops crossing the Atlantic are to be utilized. During this recess a sudden blow by you would remove their powder, scuttle their idea of a provincial army, and dissuade Connecticut and New Hampshire interference.
He could not do otherwise. The festering sore that he had attempted to salve would not heal. If he did not immediately lance it, others would attempt to excise it at great cost. The problem was no longer the decision of whether to do it. The difficulty was logistics.
His plan to destroy Concord’s munitions would require swift execution!
Logistics indeed. The particulars!
For several months Gage had considered combining the elite elements of his infantry into a swift, powerful attack force. He had done so. He had but days ago removed light infantry and grenadier units from specific regiments. Special training exercises had been his official explanation. He had sent those elements of the 38th and 52nd Foot on a long march to give credence to that explanation and to accustom Middlesex County provincials to the army’s presence. Now he needed to transport his enlarged force across the water.
A swift raid upon Concord would require their removal across the Charles River to a location near the Cambridge/Lexington road. To take the circuitous land route from Boston Neck to Cambridge would add hours to the expedition. Making the necessary preparations without exposing his purpose was a major difficulty. He would send most of the Navy's launching boats -- his long-standing enemy, Admiral Graves, had already lowered them conspicuously into the water -- to the 70 gun Boyne, moored in the Back Bay near Boston Common. Would that frigate's vastly increased number arouse suspicion? Certainly. Would intelligence of it be sent into the interior before the boats were launched? Probably. Could he do anything about either? He could the latter.
Every exigency he had thought of he had acted upon. Transported across the River, the expedition would advance swiftly beyond his reach. What contingency had he miscalculated, or neglected? Too much of his plan depended on probabilities, reasoned assumptions. If he had been accurate in his assessment of the major difficulties, if he had chosen effective measures to negate them, the expedition’s outcome would be determined by how well its commander executed the plan and how rapidly and aggressively the enemy responded. Intangibles all!
He looked again at the envelope, undisturbed on his blotter. He had taken it from his correspondence box to remind himself … of what? He had set in motion a sequence of events the outcome of which only the Heavenly Father knew. Was that what he had wanted evoked?
February 7, 2021
Crossing the River, Chapter 5, Section 2
Characters Mentioned
Adams, Samuel – Continental Congress delegate. Leader of the rebel patriots of Massachusetts
Gage, General Thomas – military governor and commanding general of British forces stationed in Boston
Hancock, John – Rich Boston merchant. Continental Congress delegate
Howe, Corporal John – servant of Captain Browne. Spy
Leslie, Colonel Alexander – In command of British troops sent to Salem to remove rebel cannons
Mitchell, Major Edward – 10the Regiment. In command of a body of officers assigned to intercept express riders prior to the raid upon Concord
Percy, Lieutenant Colonel Hugh Earl – commander of the First Brigade, in charge of the relief column that rescued Colonel Smith’s forces
Pitcarin, Major John – commander of the Marines. Second in command of the forces sent to Concord
Smith, Lieutenant Colonel Francis – commander of the 10th Regiment, in charge of the expedition sent to Concord to seize rebel stores
Chapter 5, “Officers’ Company,” Section 2
“This past winter Providence has treated us kindly,” General Gage resumed. “The Charles River has not frozen, despite the one recent storm.” Reaching back, he located his wineglass. “It has always frozen. But for our good fortune, their militia companies could easily have laid a siege upon us. Even so, providing our soldiers their necessities has been a trying enterprise, I need not inform you!” His eyes studied each attentive face.
“But, sir,” Mitchell declared, “the time has arrived to take precipitous action!”
“No, Major, it has not!”
Mitchell’s face darkened. He glared.
Again, sound and movement ceased.
"Perhaps, Major, …” -- General Gage's face softened -- “I have misconstrued your meaning.”
Pitcairn flexed his right wrist.
“Immediate action without prerequisite planning, no. Never. But I do agree with you that we must act, soon, decisively. Not to be found wanting, as at Salem.”
The name of that northern town prompted comments Howe had heard in Wright tavern. Colonel Leslie’s soldiers had been sent to Salem to seize cannon, not one shot had been fired, and the regulars had returned to their ship empty handed.
Major Mitchell nodded. Ever so slightly he bowed. Eyes fixed, he returned to the liquor table.
“Your Lordship,” the General said. “As military governor I have avoided provocation.” He turned. “I believe, gentlemen, in the rule of law. I subscribe to the belief that all people are entitled to enjoy basic common rights without molestation. But, gentlemen. Instead of being accorded reciprocal accommodation, and reasoned discourse, I have been practiced upon! My orders that our soldiers treat the inhabitants on all occasions with lenity, with justice, have invited grievous impudence, abhorrent licentiousness, vicious enmity. Their provocations have forced me to confiscate stored munitions and powder. Samuel Adams and his associates have capitalized, spreading forth amongst the populace the grossest absurdities and forgeries!” Again, Gage felt for his wineglass. Grasping it, he said, “I must therefore engage these people militarily. London and present circumstance demand it! Gentlemen!” he exclaimed. “With careful planning and modest expectation, we may yet achieve what my successors, I fear, with brash procedure would fail to accomplish!”
“Sir.” Heads turned toward Mitchell. “One good push by His Majesty’s foot and the scoundrels will flee!”
“Pray that it be so, Major. I am inclined to believe you. But I am not entirely convinced.”
“Sir! They would not do otherwise, I say!”
Gage stiffened.
“Ah, but to run our steel blades through their bloody throats!” Mitchell was up on the balls of his feet. “Our fighting men crave it! I and every officer I know yearn for it!”
Gage waited five seconds. “What you presume, Major, about the provincial’s deficient fighting prowess,” he said, evenly, “you and they will have the opportunity to corroborate. How and where? This young man's opinion, factored with the recommendations of others, will assist me in making that determination. Corporal Howe.” Gage pivoted. “I have read your report. It is factual. You did not, however, venture an opinion. I should like to hear it. What say you of the practicality of an armed expedition directed at Worcester?”
God in heaven!
“Speak up, young man! How many men would it require to destroy the stores in Worcester and thereafter return?!”
Howe’s face burned.
Gage was using him! Giving him over!
Two farmers and a mechanic had challenged him outside Concord. Championing the defeat of tyranny, faking great ardor, he had persuaded them. Afterward, most of the Concord townsmen had believed him, had laughed at him, had taken him for a wild-eyed rebel. He had enjoyed their hearty companionship. This question! He saw no way to play-act around it. He knew what they wanted. They were wrong. He had risked his life. What he knew was important. Wanting his true thinking or not, the General was going to hear it!
“If y'd’march 10,000 regulars, an' a train o' artillery t' Worcester … the roads bein' crooked and hilly, Worcester bein' 48 miles from Boston …”
“10,000 regulars!” Mitchell exclaimed. “Pah!”
“10,000 … 5,000, the amount don't matter. The provincials aim t'be free or die. Not one o' us'll get back alive.”
Instant silence. He read their faces. Shock. Disbelief. Seconds later, resentment. A sneering superiority. Only the faces of General Gage and Colonel Percy remained unchanged.
“Well, faith, I think we have a young man made afeared by the stories of old women!” Colonel Smith scoffed. Pushing his hands into the sides of his waist, he chortled.
“Old women ye say.” Pitcairn snorted. “Not a black, uppity tavairn wench?”
Laughter reverberated. Colonel Smith's face reddened. Despite his own roiled emotions, Howe, surprised that Smith had talked that much, smirked.
“I fairly own,” Smith began, “that the incident’s appearance is material for jest, … but, if you were there, in my stead, …”
“Be assured, Colonel. My remarrks are inspired only by my friendship for ye.” Major Pitcairn reached out. “I have been over familiar. I confess it. I ask humbly your parr-don.” He smiled contritely.
Colonel Smith blinked. General Gage, arms folded, was squinting at him. “Be it so,” Smith said haughtily.
“This presupposing man-jack,” Major Mitchell exclaimed, stepping forward, “this empty cove, privileged to opine in our company, overestimates the peril of such an expedition!”
I’ve put a burr up his crack! Howe thought.
“Provincials will never stand before His Majesty’s professionals! Never!”
“Perhaps,” General Gage answered. “Perhaps.” Watching Colonel Smith’s retreat to the liquor table, he rubbed aggressively the hollow of his left cheek. “But in the late war I fought beside the provincial and I attest to his courage! Additionally, Corporal Howe's observation about distance and poor roads is well taken!”
Howe’s face tingled.
“You should also know, gentlemen, you better than a corporal, never to disregard your enemy!”
Mitchell scowled.
“But your confidence has justification!” Eyes large, Gage paused. “An army requires confident officers! You do me that honor, gentlemen. You do me that honor!” He separated his hands. “The reprimand, you see, is as much a compliment! What you ascribe greater import to, the head or the tail, as with a harlot, is what you profess a greater fancy for!”
Major Pitcairn laughed first.
“By God, well said, General! By my word, well said!” Colonel Smith exclaimed.
The General's eyes glistened.
“Have a caution, sir,” spoke the ruddy-faced officer, the same that hours ago had teased Colonel Smith about the absence of brandy. “His Lordship's ears are burning!”
More laughter. They turned upon Colonel Percy, who had politely smiled.
“Ye don’t deceive us, Sir Hugh.” Pitcairn wagged a finger. “We know why ye have been seen ‘bout Mairchant Hancock's house that much. I fancy ye and the Lady Quincy have a mutual fancy! But tis not for me to conjectaire. Nay, tis not. But tell us, Hugh. Tell us. Reassure us that your heart is pure for an English girl.”
“I’ll tell you nothing, John,” Percy replied, good-naturedly. “Save your concern for your sons, I would advise.”
“Aye, my sons.” They laughed at Pitcairn's expression. “Indeed, Tom, my tom-cat son!”
Three officers walked to the liquor table. Major Mitchell filled the empty space opposite Howe. Looking at him with half-lidded eyes, the lank officer arched his back. “You say the road to Worcester is too long and treacherous. Concord is but 17 miles. What say you about Concord? Regale us again with your conscript acumen.”
Piss-in-the-corner sodomite! Seeing his hands were fists, Howe hid them behind his back.
General Gage, standing four feet away, watched.
Being he had the General's ear and the General had just defended him, and because he wanted to, Howe answered.
“I know, sir, about their military stores, the terrain, an' the roads. Five hundred mounted men could do it, I think.”
“Mounted men, corporal?”
“Yes sir. Foot soldiers, no. There be thousands of militiamen a'waitin' for 'em.”
“God rot you! God rot your perfidious pronouncements!” Mitchell's chest heaved.
“Mispairceptions, Major. At worst, unpremeditated declarations.” Pitcairn waved his left hand. “Wrapped, maybe, about a kairnel of truth. Give the lad fair latitude. Ye asked him a direct question. He has forthrightly answaired.”
Mitchell glared. “Be it so!” he spat. “I shall give him the widest of latitudes!”
Pitcairn’s eyes narrowed.
Mitchell turned upon Howe. “Assume for the moment, corporal, that what you say is true! Would not our Loyalist friends prevent that?!”
“No.”
“Pray tell why not?!”
“First, ...” Howe softened his voice. “There aren't many o' them, and, they be so terrorized they can't help no one, not even themselves. They be generally cowards, not t’be depended on.”
“Indeed!” Mitchell rolled his eyes. Colonel Smith tittered.
“You have recruit's disease, I believe,” Mitchell said.
“Sir?”
“The runs, corporal. Fire a few musket balls at the recruit and you see him run.” Eyes expectant, Mitchell waited.
Howe turned to see the General’s reaction.
Gage was gone!
“Your sergeant has the cure for that.”
“Sir?”
“A well aimed stroke to the testicles. That would answer precisely, I should think. Do you not agree, Major Pitcairn?”
The Scotsman frowned.
Heat radiated off Howe’s flesh. His thighs shook. Tightening his body, he stared at a framed landscape hung on the opposite-facing wall. Maidens in frocks were entertaining themselves by a misty stream. Howe fixated on the painting. Declaring Howe a milksop, Mitchell walked away.
“Young man.”
Howe started. General Gage was standing beside him.
“How old are you, corporal?”
“Twenty-two, sir,” Howe said, hoarsely.
“Your judgment has been very good for a beardless boy of twenty-two.” The corners of his mouth twitched. “Officers' company, an experience for you, is it not? Yes. Let me say, you are a good soldier, and a lucky and expert spy. You have earned this.” He handed Howe the coin purse cradled in his right hand. “Here also, as promised, is your ‘manuscript.’” Howe accepted the journal. “You shall be exempt hereafter from carrying a firelock. I shall expect you to report to me again tomorrow, at nine o’clock.” General Gage offered him a knowing look.
It wasn't a commission, as Colonel Smith had promised, but Howe had not expected that. He had received, instead, money. Sovereigns. He had been ridiculed and threatened and paid for his service. He would put the coins to good use, having entertained already tentative thoughts. What purpose General Gage had for wanting to see him the following morning mattered not one blazing straw, so strong was his disaffection.
Adams, Samuel – Continental Congress delegate. Leader of the rebel patriots of Massachusetts
Gage, General Thomas – military governor and commanding general of British forces stationed in Boston
Hancock, John – Rich Boston merchant. Continental Congress delegate
Howe, Corporal John – servant of Captain Browne. Spy
Leslie, Colonel Alexander – In command of British troops sent to Salem to remove rebel cannons
Mitchell, Major Edward – 10the Regiment. In command of a body of officers assigned to intercept express riders prior to the raid upon Concord
Percy, Lieutenant Colonel Hugh Earl – commander of the First Brigade, in charge of the relief column that rescued Colonel Smith’s forces
Pitcarin, Major John – commander of the Marines. Second in command of the forces sent to Concord
Smith, Lieutenant Colonel Francis – commander of the 10th Regiment, in charge of the expedition sent to Concord to seize rebel stores
Chapter 5, “Officers’ Company,” Section 2
“This past winter Providence has treated us kindly,” General Gage resumed. “The Charles River has not frozen, despite the one recent storm.” Reaching back, he located his wineglass. “It has always frozen. But for our good fortune, their militia companies could easily have laid a siege upon us. Even so, providing our soldiers their necessities has been a trying enterprise, I need not inform you!” His eyes studied each attentive face.
“But, sir,” Mitchell declared, “the time has arrived to take precipitous action!”
“No, Major, it has not!”
Mitchell’s face darkened. He glared.
Again, sound and movement ceased.
"Perhaps, Major, …” -- General Gage's face softened -- “I have misconstrued your meaning.”
Pitcairn flexed his right wrist.
“Immediate action without prerequisite planning, no. Never. But I do agree with you that we must act, soon, decisively. Not to be found wanting, as at Salem.”
The name of that northern town prompted comments Howe had heard in Wright tavern. Colonel Leslie’s soldiers had been sent to Salem to seize cannon, not one shot had been fired, and the regulars had returned to their ship empty handed.
Major Mitchell nodded. Ever so slightly he bowed. Eyes fixed, he returned to the liquor table.
“Your Lordship,” the General said. “As military governor I have avoided provocation.” He turned. “I believe, gentlemen, in the rule of law. I subscribe to the belief that all people are entitled to enjoy basic common rights without molestation. But, gentlemen. Instead of being accorded reciprocal accommodation, and reasoned discourse, I have been practiced upon! My orders that our soldiers treat the inhabitants on all occasions with lenity, with justice, have invited grievous impudence, abhorrent licentiousness, vicious enmity. Their provocations have forced me to confiscate stored munitions and powder. Samuel Adams and his associates have capitalized, spreading forth amongst the populace the grossest absurdities and forgeries!” Again, Gage felt for his wineglass. Grasping it, he said, “I must therefore engage these people militarily. London and present circumstance demand it! Gentlemen!” he exclaimed. “With careful planning and modest expectation, we may yet achieve what my successors, I fear, with brash procedure would fail to accomplish!”
“Sir.” Heads turned toward Mitchell. “One good push by His Majesty’s foot and the scoundrels will flee!”
“Pray that it be so, Major. I am inclined to believe you. But I am not entirely convinced.”
“Sir! They would not do otherwise, I say!”
Gage stiffened.
“Ah, but to run our steel blades through their bloody throats!” Mitchell was up on the balls of his feet. “Our fighting men crave it! I and every officer I know yearn for it!”
Gage waited five seconds. “What you presume, Major, about the provincial’s deficient fighting prowess,” he said, evenly, “you and they will have the opportunity to corroborate. How and where? This young man's opinion, factored with the recommendations of others, will assist me in making that determination. Corporal Howe.” Gage pivoted. “I have read your report. It is factual. You did not, however, venture an opinion. I should like to hear it. What say you of the practicality of an armed expedition directed at Worcester?”
God in heaven!
“Speak up, young man! How many men would it require to destroy the stores in Worcester and thereafter return?!”
Howe’s face burned.
Gage was using him! Giving him over!
Two farmers and a mechanic had challenged him outside Concord. Championing the defeat of tyranny, faking great ardor, he had persuaded them. Afterward, most of the Concord townsmen had believed him, had laughed at him, had taken him for a wild-eyed rebel. He had enjoyed their hearty companionship. This question! He saw no way to play-act around it. He knew what they wanted. They were wrong. He had risked his life. What he knew was important. Wanting his true thinking or not, the General was going to hear it!
“If y'd’march 10,000 regulars, an' a train o' artillery t' Worcester … the roads bein' crooked and hilly, Worcester bein' 48 miles from Boston …”
“10,000 regulars!” Mitchell exclaimed. “Pah!”
“10,000 … 5,000, the amount don't matter. The provincials aim t'be free or die. Not one o' us'll get back alive.”
Instant silence. He read their faces. Shock. Disbelief. Seconds later, resentment. A sneering superiority. Only the faces of General Gage and Colonel Percy remained unchanged.
“Well, faith, I think we have a young man made afeared by the stories of old women!” Colonel Smith scoffed. Pushing his hands into the sides of his waist, he chortled.
“Old women ye say.” Pitcairn snorted. “Not a black, uppity tavairn wench?”
Laughter reverberated. Colonel Smith's face reddened. Despite his own roiled emotions, Howe, surprised that Smith had talked that much, smirked.
“I fairly own,” Smith began, “that the incident’s appearance is material for jest, … but, if you were there, in my stead, …”
“Be assured, Colonel. My remarrks are inspired only by my friendship for ye.” Major Pitcairn reached out. “I have been over familiar. I confess it. I ask humbly your parr-don.” He smiled contritely.
Colonel Smith blinked. General Gage, arms folded, was squinting at him. “Be it so,” Smith said haughtily.
“This presupposing man-jack,” Major Mitchell exclaimed, stepping forward, “this empty cove, privileged to opine in our company, overestimates the peril of such an expedition!”
I’ve put a burr up his crack! Howe thought.
“Provincials will never stand before His Majesty’s professionals! Never!”
“Perhaps,” General Gage answered. “Perhaps.” Watching Colonel Smith’s retreat to the liquor table, he rubbed aggressively the hollow of his left cheek. “But in the late war I fought beside the provincial and I attest to his courage! Additionally, Corporal Howe's observation about distance and poor roads is well taken!”
Howe’s face tingled.
“You should also know, gentlemen, you better than a corporal, never to disregard your enemy!”
Mitchell scowled.
“But your confidence has justification!” Eyes large, Gage paused. “An army requires confident officers! You do me that honor, gentlemen. You do me that honor!” He separated his hands. “The reprimand, you see, is as much a compliment! What you ascribe greater import to, the head or the tail, as with a harlot, is what you profess a greater fancy for!”
Major Pitcairn laughed first.
“By God, well said, General! By my word, well said!” Colonel Smith exclaimed.
The General's eyes glistened.
“Have a caution, sir,” spoke the ruddy-faced officer, the same that hours ago had teased Colonel Smith about the absence of brandy. “His Lordship's ears are burning!”
More laughter. They turned upon Colonel Percy, who had politely smiled.
“Ye don’t deceive us, Sir Hugh.” Pitcairn wagged a finger. “We know why ye have been seen ‘bout Mairchant Hancock's house that much. I fancy ye and the Lady Quincy have a mutual fancy! But tis not for me to conjectaire. Nay, tis not. But tell us, Hugh. Tell us. Reassure us that your heart is pure for an English girl.”
“I’ll tell you nothing, John,” Percy replied, good-naturedly. “Save your concern for your sons, I would advise.”
“Aye, my sons.” They laughed at Pitcairn's expression. “Indeed, Tom, my tom-cat son!”
Three officers walked to the liquor table. Major Mitchell filled the empty space opposite Howe. Looking at him with half-lidded eyes, the lank officer arched his back. “You say the road to Worcester is too long and treacherous. Concord is but 17 miles. What say you about Concord? Regale us again with your conscript acumen.”
Piss-in-the-corner sodomite! Seeing his hands were fists, Howe hid them behind his back.
General Gage, standing four feet away, watched.
Being he had the General's ear and the General had just defended him, and because he wanted to, Howe answered.
“I know, sir, about their military stores, the terrain, an' the roads. Five hundred mounted men could do it, I think.”
“Mounted men, corporal?”
“Yes sir. Foot soldiers, no. There be thousands of militiamen a'waitin' for 'em.”
“God rot you! God rot your perfidious pronouncements!” Mitchell's chest heaved.
“Mispairceptions, Major. At worst, unpremeditated declarations.” Pitcairn waved his left hand. “Wrapped, maybe, about a kairnel of truth. Give the lad fair latitude. Ye asked him a direct question. He has forthrightly answaired.”
Mitchell glared. “Be it so!” he spat. “I shall give him the widest of latitudes!”
Pitcairn’s eyes narrowed.
Mitchell turned upon Howe. “Assume for the moment, corporal, that what you say is true! Would not our Loyalist friends prevent that?!”
“No.”
“Pray tell why not?!”
“First, ...” Howe softened his voice. “There aren't many o' them, and, they be so terrorized they can't help no one, not even themselves. They be generally cowards, not t’be depended on.”
“Indeed!” Mitchell rolled his eyes. Colonel Smith tittered.
“You have recruit's disease, I believe,” Mitchell said.
“Sir?”
“The runs, corporal. Fire a few musket balls at the recruit and you see him run.” Eyes expectant, Mitchell waited.
Howe turned to see the General’s reaction.
Gage was gone!
“Your sergeant has the cure for that.”
“Sir?”
“A well aimed stroke to the testicles. That would answer precisely, I should think. Do you not agree, Major Pitcairn?”
The Scotsman frowned.
Heat radiated off Howe’s flesh. His thighs shook. Tightening his body, he stared at a framed landscape hung on the opposite-facing wall. Maidens in frocks were entertaining themselves by a misty stream. Howe fixated on the painting. Declaring Howe a milksop, Mitchell walked away.
“Young man.”
Howe started. General Gage was standing beside him.
“How old are you, corporal?”
“Twenty-two, sir,” Howe said, hoarsely.
“Your judgment has been very good for a beardless boy of twenty-two.” The corners of his mouth twitched. “Officers' company, an experience for you, is it not? Yes. Let me say, you are a good soldier, and a lucky and expert spy. You have earned this.” He handed Howe the coin purse cradled in his right hand. “Here also, as promised, is your ‘manuscript.’” Howe accepted the journal. “You shall be exempt hereafter from carrying a firelock. I shall expect you to report to me again tomorrow, at nine o’clock.” General Gage offered him a knowing look.
It wasn't a commission, as Colonel Smith had promised, but Howe had not expected that. He had received, instead, money. Sovereigns. He had been ridiculed and threatened and paid for his service. He would put the coins to good use, having entertained already tentative thoughts. What purpose General Gage had for wanting to see him the following morning mattered not one blazing straw, so strong was his disaffection.
February 4, 2021
Crossing the River -- Chapter 5, Section 1
Characters Mentioned
Smith, Lieutenant Colonel Francis – commander of the 10th Regiment, in charge of the expedition sent to Concord to seize rebel stores
Howe, Corporal John – servant of Captain Browne. Spy
Gage, General Thomas – military governor and commanding general of British forces stationed in Boston
Browne, Captain John – 10th Regiment. One of three spies sent to Worcester and Concord
Hall, Captain – billeted in the same privately owned Boston house as Captain Browne
Pitcarin, Major John – commander of the Marines. Second in command of the forces sent to Concord
Percy, Lieutenant Colonel Hugh Earl – commander of the First Brigade, in charge of the relief column that rescued Colonel Smith’s forces
Mitchell, Major Edward – 10th Regiment. In command of a body of officers assigned to intercept express riders prior to the raid upon Concord
DeBerniere, Ensign Henry – 10th Regiment, spy, scout for Colonel Smith
Buttrick, Major John – second in command of the Concord militiaman
Burgoyne, General John – one of three general officers in route to Boston from England
Howe, General William – one of three general officers in route to Boston
Clinton, General Henry – one of three general officers in route to Boston
Adams, Samuel – Continental Congress delegate. Leader of the rebel patriots of Massachusetts
Hancock, John – Rich Boston merchant. Continental Congress delegate
Warren, Dr. Joseph – Second to Sam Adams in the Sons of Liberty leadership
Chapter 5, “Officers Company,” Section 1
Pivoting on the Province House’s top step, Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith harangued the enlisted man reluctantly following him.
“Howe! Be quick, I say!”
“Sir! I need t'be washin’. Shavin’. I be out t’be havin’ me breakfast.”
“Corporal, you’re under me now! Tell me nothing about your breakfast!”
“Sir! T’be seein’ General Gage! I …”
Smith hurried down the steps. “The General will brook no delay!” He seized the corporal’s right arm.
Howe had returned to Boston shortly after 2 a.m. He had entered the house where he and Captain Browne were billeted, had collapsed on his bed, and had immediately slept. He had disturbed no one, not the house’s owner, his wife and two children, not Browne and Captain Hall lodged upstairs, and not Hall’s servant, with whom Howe shared a room.
He had awakened to see sunlight on his blanket. Tom, the servant, had been snoring. Determined to steal a final hour of independence, Howe had risen quietly. Avoiding the activity in the kitchen, he had passed unnoticed out the front door. His destination had been the tavern four blocks along King Street where he would use Colonel Smith’s gold to enjoy a final meal of pastry, beef, and ale. There he would make a final entry in his journal. The very last person he had expected to meet had been the Colonel.
Entering the outer room of General Gage's headquarters, Colonel Smith and Howe passed the pit-faced adjutant. “Colonel!” a voice exclaimed as Smith entered the room next to the General’s office. “The brandy is well used! You must content yourself with port!”
“Stuff! I know where he keeps his best!” Colonel Smith sallied forth. Like trawlers before a frigate three officers standing in the way parted.
“That you do!” the voice guffawed. About to say more, seeing Howe, the officer stiffened.
Faces. Seven or eight faces were staring. Howe recognized several. Squat Major John Pitcairn of the Royal Marines; Hugh, Earl Percy, the bony but youthful commander of the First Brigade; beside a large liquor table Major Edward Mitchell, commanding officer of the 5th Regiment. They had been taking their bumpers freely, surprisingly early, Howe judged; but that was a strange criticism for him to make, wasn’t it, considering where and when he had downed recently his own alehouse liquor!
“Gentlemen, see what I have swept off King Street!” Colonel Smith shouted, brandy bottle in his left hand, oblivious of the transgression he had committed.
“Aye, your recent traveling companion and tavairn frequenter, is it not?” Major Pitcairn answered in his Scottish brogue.
The fat officer’s face soured. “You ill use me, sir.” he answered. “Pray do not excite a resentment I cannot govern.”
“In jest, sair. I speak only in jest, pray be assured.” Grinning, Pitcairn reached out, patted Smith’s right shoulder.
“Yes, yes. Least of all do we wish to witness you ungoverned!” the officer that had hailed Smith jested.
Smith frowned, afterward grimaced. Recognizing high spirits, not malice, he did not speak.
“Here now!” a voice declared. “Extraordinary! The mumchance cove, frequenting the very quarters of the highest command!” Holding two glasses, one half empty and the other full, Major Mitchell advanced.
Enmity glistened in his rheumy eyes.
“I shall not permit this! God’s life, I shall not! Unless, ….” Mitchell’s eyebrows arched. “Unless, you accept this offering without complaint!”
The officers guffawed. Howe’s face colored. He took the filled glass.
Mitchell nodded, stepped back. His eyes continued their inspection. Howe heard a door open and close.
“Drink up, lad! Ye are not standing in the veritable lion’s den!” Pitcairn declared. “By delivairing ye upon us, the good Colonel has in his inimitable fashion commended ye!”
“An order, corporal,” Major Mitchell said. “You are not half drunk enough for officers' company!”
Self-consciously, Howe raised his glass. Looking between Pitcairn and Mitchell, he saw General Gage approaching.
De Berniere had twice criticized the General within Howe’s hearing. Standing before Gage days ago, recalling the criticism, Howe had taken a different opinion. He had liked the commanding officer’s conduct; he had appreciated greatly the General’s courtesy and flattery. His conversation with the General had caused him to question much of the criticism he had heard at Captain Browne’s weekly card games.
That cloudy March morning De Berniere had said that “Tommy Gage” had a kind word for just about everybody, including the rebels! The General was practically a provincial! He had lived in the Colonies too many years! His wife was not an English gentlewoman. She was a New Jersey Tory. According to De Berniere, General Gage mistook the provincial. “Would you believe, Captain, he respects the miscreant!” How surprising, that coming from De Berniere, after what he and Browne had just suffered. Despite his cleverness and quick thinking, like most high-born officers De Berniere believed what he wanted. Because he was a commoner, Howe thought differently. Maybe because he had spent so many years in the colonies, “Tommy Gage” did, also.
Howe recalled the old man he had bought food from in Lexington, how the man had been cleaning his musket. When Howe had asked him what he was going to kill, being so old he probably couldn't see far down his gun barrel, the man had said, “A flock of redcoats at Boston. They be very good marks.” Well how old was he? Howe had asked. “Seventy-seven.”
De Berniere didn’t know these people. Neither did these rooster-crowing majors and colonels, swallowing the General’s liquor. He believed he did, and he suspected General Gage did, too.
“Corporal Howe. Very happy to see you.”
Major Pitcairn stepped back to provide the General space.
“I hope, corporal, that you bear useful information.”
“Thank you, sir. I … I d’cross the River early this morning. I didn’t expect t’ ….” His face was hot. “I ‘ave ‘ere my report.”
“Excellent. Let me have it.” The General accepted the rolled up papers.
“Thank you, sir. Thank you.” He felt foolish. Other than to say “yes sir” and “no sir” and “thank you, sir,” how could an unlettered cove such as he speak to a general?
Half-smiling, Gage said: “Tell me about the provincials. How well do you like the rebels?”
“I’d not be wantin’ t’fall into their ‘ands, sir!” Worried immediately that he had misspoken, he was startled by Pitcairn’s jovial laugh.
“No, lad, I suspect you wouldn’t.”
“Sir, I … by your leave, ….”
“Yes?”
He winced. What was he going to say now?! he thought. Going to have to say?! He gazed downward. “Would you ... would y’be returnin’ the papers t’ me, sir, … after y’be readin’ ‘em, sir?”
The General’s mouth widened into a smile. “I see.” Gripping loosely the rolled papers, he tapped his sash. “The author wishes to keep his manuscript. Just so. You shall have it, later, corporal, after I have read it, and, depending on its content, perhaps you will receive something more.” The Commanding General regarded him with quiet humor.
Howe heard again Pitcairn’s hearty laugh. Gazing over Howe’s left shoulder, Gage made a beaconing gesture. The pockmark-faced adjutant, his right palm pressed gently against his chest, advanced. “Captain, take possession of these papers.” Addressing Howe, Gage said, off-handedly, “Young man. Take this. Get yourself some liquor.” Amazed, Howe received the guinea offered him. The Commanding Officer nodded. “Major Mitchell is correct. You are indeed not half drunk enough for officers’ company.”
Headed for the doorway, Howe stopped. He turned about. He had been dismissed, hadn’t he? “Sir?” he asked, tentatively.
It occurred to him then that they had tolerated him because he had provided them entertainment. He had been paid for his performance.
“Return here at eleven o’clock, Corporal Howe,” Gage said authoritatively, “at which time you may retrieve your manuscript.”
“Gentlemen, I should inform you of Corporal Howe's late accomplishment. I dispatched Colonel Smith and the corporal to Worcester to ascertain the site and quantity of its stored munitions. Misfortune precluded the Colonel’s participation. Visiting Concord as well, exhibiting manifest ingenuity, Corporal Howe completed the assignment.”
“What ye be saying, sir,” Major Pitcairn declared, “is he’s a damn good spy!”
Hearing cautious laughter, Howe blushed.
Eyes shining, the Scotsman joined the drove of officers facing Howe and the General. “Tell me, lad,” he said spiritedly. “How did ye do it? How’d ye make the gillie the fool?”
Shaved, washed, properly attired, Howe had returned punctually at eleven o’clock. Here he was sipping brandy, the focus of everybody’s attention, the liquor, he thought, not having the power to enlarge one centimeter more his swelled head.
Colonel Smith’s small, round eyes peered. “Give us the particulars, man! Let us hear the particulars!”
“Yes sir.” Glancing at Pitcairn, Howe questioned where to begin. “Colonel Smith and me, … when we left Boston, we d’pretend we was provincials wantin' work.”
Stealing a look at Smith, Major Pitcairn grinned.
The Colonel frowned. “Come. Come. We know that. Skip the preliminaries. Press on!”
“Yes sir!” Howe cleared his throat. “After the Colonel d’come back,” he said, addressing Pitcairn, “I told anybody I d’meet I'd take whatever they d'offer me, but I be trained t'repair guns. I figured I’d be fetched t'where they had all their weapons. Major Buttrick in Concord, the militia officer, he himself set me t'work; an’ later I said I’d fixed a few more guns. But then I told ‘em I could make ‘em some, but I d'need my tools. I'd go back to Pownalborough t'go fetch 'em.”
“Well done, corporal! God’s breath, well done!” Colonel Smith's meaty hand thumped Howe’s left shoulder.
Hearing easy laughter, Howe beamed.
“By your own account, corporal,” -- Major Mitchell was speaking to him -- “you are, it would seem, a skillful dissembler. But I wonder. You paint your portrayal of the rebel with an extraordinarily broad stroke.” He peered over his raised brandy glass. “Gullible. A bit too gullible, I should think.”
“You, … you're sayin' I didn't … you're sayin' I didn't coney ‘em, sir?”
“That is my meaning.”
Of course he hadn't! Not all of them! Had he said that? Blaterooning high, he had forgotten about this officer! Like Howe’s company sergeant, like Browne just about every day, Mitchell was baiting him. Painting him the mooncalf. Despite, or because of what he had accomplished. Bugger that! He’d do exactly what Mitchell said he was good at. Dissemble! He guessed he knew what “dissemble” meant!
“Sir, they didn't all believe me, no sir.” But his cheeks were hot! “You see, there was rumors about” Too damn hot! “Spies had been sent out.”
“That was my understanding,” General Gage said.
Pitcairn snorted. Two officers guffawed. A third officer, laughing while swallowing brandy, choked.
Eyes glittering, Gage said, almost apologetically, “Forgive ... my interjection of humor. Do continue.”
Two officers behind the General grinned.
“Yes sir. I ….” Howe looked at Mitchell. The Major’s expression hadn’t changed. “I didn’t fool all o’them, sir. No sir. Not right off. I asked two teamsters on the road, near Worcester, if anybody wanted t’hire. They said, 'We don't know o' nobody that wants t'hire a Englishman.' They said I be like them rascals they saw in Boston. After that I hurried right along.”
More laughter.
Mitchell’s eyes bored.
“Depend upon it, gentlemen,” Major Pitcairn declared. “'Them rascals will soon give those rascals little ease! In truth, they’ll have the living hell to pay!”
“Just so, Pitcairn!” Colonel Smith exclaimed. “You have stolen my words!”
Mitchell raised his glass in salute.
“Sir, I commend you for your forbearance.” The previously silent Earl Percy, standing behind Pitcairn, had spoken. The Scotsman and Mitchell turned to face him.
“I … do not take your meaning, Sir Hugh,” General Gage responded, ending a brief silence.
“I mean, sir, that many of the younger officers, in your stead, would have addressed our difficulties quite differently.”
The silence this time persisted.
A floorboard creaked. Major Pitcairn cleared his throat.
“You speak, Colonel Percy, of … my reluctance to punish? To arrest their leaders?” The Commanding Officer raised his chin. “Pray explain yourself.”
“More particularly, in the face of egregious provocation, of your refusal to invade the interior, willy-nilly.”
Howe was stunned.
The General’s face darkened. His right hand closed.
“We all know what they think of me!. Their opinion is shared by many of higher authority!” He glared. “Soon I shall be replaced, recent rumor has it, by one of three ‘illustrious’ generals, sent by London to instruct me with their infinite wisdom!”
“John Burgoyne, William Howe, and ….”
“Clinton. Yes, Major, that is correct. Henry Clinton. They in the cabinet do not share my assessment. They believe that the provincial lacks conviction; with a display of arms he may be readily subdued. 5,000 men are sufficient to engage in offensive operations, they say. In truth, as a defensive force they barely suffice!”
Howe was awe-struck.
“The arrest of Samuel Adams, Merchant Hancock, and Doctor Warren, however desirous for many, would, your lordship, be a violation of constitutional law! It would ignite a passion of rebellion heretofore unseen in this colony!” Scowling, General Gage deposited his wineglass on the small table situated behind him. “But they in London do not believe so! They at their comfortable distance perceive all!”
“Men who rise to high positions in government,” Earl Percy responded, “too frequently perceive themselves omniscient.”
“Well, Colonel,” the General said, blinking, “no one has accused me yet of that!”
Major Pitcairn guffawed. Several officers dared to smirk. Recognizing belatedly the humor in his remark, Gage, of a sudden, winked.
Howe joined the delayed laughter. He liked what the General had said. He sensed also why Percy was respected by many of the men in his brigade.
Smith, Lieutenant Colonel Francis – commander of the 10th Regiment, in charge of the expedition sent to Concord to seize rebel stores
Howe, Corporal John – servant of Captain Browne. Spy
Gage, General Thomas – military governor and commanding general of British forces stationed in Boston
Browne, Captain John – 10th Regiment. One of three spies sent to Worcester and Concord
Hall, Captain – billeted in the same privately owned Boston house as Captain Browne
Pitcarin, Major John – commander of the Marines. Second in command of the forces sent to Concord
Percy, Lieutenant Colonel Hugh Earl – commander of the First Brigade, in charge of the relief column that rescued Colonel Smith’s forces
Mitchell, Major Edward – 10th Regiment. In command of a body of officers assigned to intercept express riders prior to the raid upon Concord
DeBerniere, Ensign Henry – 10th Regiment, spy, scout for Colonel Smith
Buttrick, Major John – second in command of the Concord militiaman
Burgoyne, General John – one of three general officers in route to Boston from England
Howe, General William – one of three general officers in route to Boston
Clinton, General Henry – one of three general officers in route to Boston
Adams, Samuel – Continental Congress delegate. Leader of the rebel patriots of Massachusetts
Hancock, John – Rich Boston merchant. Continental Congress delegate
Warren, Dr. Joseph – Second to Sam Adams in the Sons of Liberty leadership
Chapter 5, “Officers Company,” Section 1
Pivoting on the Province House’s top step, Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith harangued the enlisted man reluctantly following him.
“Howe! Be quick, I say!”
“Sir! I need t'be washin’. Shavin’. I be out t’be havin’ me breakfast.”
“Corporal, you’re under me now! Tell me nothing about your breakfast!”
“Sir! T’be seein’ General Gage! I …”
Smith hurried down the steps. “The General will brook no delay!” He seized the corporal’s right arm.
Howe had returned to Boston shortly after 2 a.m. He had entered the house where he and Captain Browne were billeted, had collapsed on his bed, and had immediately slept. He had disturbed no one, not the house’s owner, his wife and two children, not Browne and Captain Hall lodged upstairs, and not Hall’s servant, with whom Howe shared a room.
He had awakened to see sunlight on his blanket. Tom, the servant, had been snoring. Determined to steal a final hour of independence, Howe had risen quietly. Avoiding the activity in the kitchen, he had passed unnoticed out the front door. His destination had been the tavern four blocks along King Street where he would use Colonel Smith’s gold to enjoy a final meal of pastry, beef, and ale. There he would make a final entry in his journal. The very last person he had expected to meet had been the Colonel.
Entering the outer room of General Gage's headquarters, Colonel Smith and Howe passed the pit-faced adjutant. “Colonel!” a voice exclaimed as Smith entered the room next to the General’s office. “The brandy is well used! You must content yourself with port!”
“Stuff! I know where he keeps his best!” Colonel Smith sallied forth. Like trawlers before a frigate three officers standing in the way parted.
“That you do!” the voice guffawed. About to say more, seeing Howe, the officer stiffened.
Faces. Seven or eight faces were staring. Howe recognized several. Squat Major John Pitcairn of the Royal Marines; Hugh, Earl Percy, the bony but youthful commander of the First Brigade; beside a large liquor table Major Edward Mitchell, commanding officer of the 5th Regiment. They had been taking their bumpers freely, surprisingly early, Howe judged; but that was a strange criticism for him to make, wasn’t it, considering where and when he had downed recently his own alehouse liquor!
“Gentlemen, see what I have swept off King Street!” Colonel Smith shouted, brandy bottle in his left hand, oblivious of the transgression he had committed.
“Aye, your recent traveling companion and tavairn frequenter, is it not?” Major Pitcairn answered in his Scottish brogue.
The fat officer’s face soured. “You ill use me, sir.” he answered. “Pray do not excite a resentment I cannot govern.”
“In jest, sair. I speak only in jest, pray be assured.” Grinning, Pitcairn reached out, patted Smith’s right shoulder.
“Yes, yes. Least of all do we wish to witness you ungoverned!” the officer that had hailed Smith jested.
Smith frowned, afterward grimaced. Recognizing high spirits, not malice, he did not speak.
“Here now!” a voice declared. “Extraordinary! The mumchance cove, frequenting the very quarters of the highest command!” Holding two glasses, one half empty and the other full, Major Mitchell advanced.
Enmity glistened in his rheumy eyes.
“I shall not permit this! God’s life, I shall not! Unless, ….” Mitchell’s eyebrows arched. “Unless, you accept this offering without complaint!”
The officers guffawed. Howe’s face colored. He took the filled glass.
Mitchell nodded, stepped back. His eyes continued their inspection. Howe heard a door open and close.
“Drink up, lad! Ye are not standing in the veritable lion’s den!” Pitcairn declared. “By delivairing ye upon us, the good Colonel has in his inimitable fashion commended ye!”
“An order, corporal,” Major Mitchell said. “You are not half drunk enough for officers' company!”
Self-consciously, Howe raised his glass. Looking between Pitcairn and Mitchell, he saw General Gage approaching.
De Berniere had twice criticized the General within Howe’s hearing. Standing before Gage days ago, recalling the criticism, Howe had taken a different opinion. He had liked the commanding officer’s conduct; he had appreciated greatly the General’s courtesy and flattery. His conversation with the General had caused him to question much of the criticism he had heard at Captain Browne’s weekly card games.
That cloudy March morning De Berniere had said that “Tommy Gage” had a kind word for just about everybody, including the rebels! The General was practically a provincial! He had lived in the Colonies too many years! His wife was not an English gentlewoman. She was a New Jersey Tory. According to De Berniere, General Gage mistook the provincial. “Would you believe, Captain, he respects the miscreant!” How surprising, that coming from De Berniere, after what he and Browne had just suffered. Despite his cleverness and quick thinking, like most high-born officers De Berniere believed what he wanted. Because he was a commoner, Howe thought differently. Maybe because he had spent so many years in the colonies, “Tommy Gage” did, also.
Howe recalled the old man he had bought food from in Lexington, how the man had been cleaning his musket. When Howe had asked him what he was going to kill, being so old he probably couldn't see far down his gun barrel, the man had said, “A flock of redcoats at Boston. They be very good marks.” Well how old was he? Howe had asked. “Seventy-seven.”
De Berniere didn’t know these people. Neither did these rooster-crowing majors and colonels, swallowing the General’s liquor. He believed he did, and he suspected General Gage did, too.
“Corporal Howe. Very happy to see you.”
Major Pitcairn stepped back to provide the General space.
“I hope, corporal, that you bear useful information.”
“Thank you, sir. I … I d’cross the River early this morning. I didn’t expect t’ ….” His face was hot. “I ‘ave ‘ere my report.”
“Excellent. Let me have it.” The General accepted the rolled up papers.
“Thank you, sir. Thank you.” He felt foolish. Other than to say “yes sir” and “no sir” and “thank you, sir,” how could an unlettered cove such as he speak to a general?
Half-smiling, Gage said: “Tell me about the provincials. How well do you like the rebels?”
“I’d not be wantin’ t’fall into their ‘ands, sir!” Worried immediately that he had misspoken, he was startled by Pitcairn’s jovial laugh.
“No, lad, I suspect you wouldn’t.”
“Sir, I … by your leave, ….”
“Yes?”
He winced. What was he going to say now?! he thought. Going to have to say?! He gazed downward. “Would you ... would y’be returnin’ the papers t’ me, sir, … after y’be readin’ ‘em, sir?”
The General’s mouth widened into a smile. “I see.” Gripping loosely the rolled papers, he tapped his sash. “The author wishes to keep his manuscript. Just so. You shall have it, later, corporal, after I have read it, and, depending on its content, perhaps you will receive something more.” The Commanding General regarded him with quiet humor.
Howe heard again Pitcairn’s hearty laugh. Gazing over Howe’s left shoulder, Gage made a beaconing gesture. The pockmark-faced adjutant, his right palm pressed gently against his chest, advanced. “Captain, take possession of these papers.” Addressing Howe, Gage said, off-handedly, “Young man. Take this. Get yourself some liquor.” Amazed, Howe received the guinea offered him. The Commanding Officer nodded. “Major Mitchell is correct. You are indeed not half drunk enough for officers’ company.”
Headed for the doorway, Howe stopped. He turned about. He had been dismissed, hadn’t he? “Sir?” he asked, tentatively.
It occurred to him then that they had tolerated him because he had provided them entertainment. He had been paid for his performance.
“Return here at eleven o’clock, Corporal Howe,” Gage said authoritatively, “at which time you may retrieve your manuscript.”
“Gentlemen, I should inform you of Corporal Howe's late accomplishment. I dispatched Colonel Smith and the corporal to Worcester to ascertain the site and quantity of its stored munitions. Misfortune precluded the Colonel’s participation. Visiting Concord as well, exhibiting manifest ingenuity, Corporal Howe completed the assignment.”
“What ye be saying, sir,” Major Pitcairn declared, “is he’s a damn good spy!”
Hearing cautious laughter, Howe blushed.
Eyes shining, the Scotsman joined the drove of officers facing Howe and the General. “Tell me, lad,” he said spiritedly. “How did ye do it? How’d ye make the gillie the fool?”
Shaved, washed, properly attired, Howe had returned punctually at eleven o’clock. Here he was sipping brandy, the focus of everybody’s attention, the liquor, he thought, not having the power to enlarge one centimeter more his swelled head.
Colonel Smith’s small, round eyes peered. “Give us the particulars, man! Let us hear the particulars!”
“Yes sir.” Glancing at Pitcairn, Howe questioned where to begin. “Colonel Smith and me, … when we left Boston, we d’pretend we was provincials wantin' work.”
Stealing a look at Smith, Major Pitcairn grinned.
The Colonel frowned. “Come. Come. We know that. Skip the preliminaries. Press on!”
“Yes sir!” Howe cleared his throat. “After the Colonel d’come back,” he said, addressing Pitcairn, “I told anybody I d’meet I'd take whatever they d'offer me, but I be trained t'repair guns. I figured I’d be fetched t'where they had all their weapons. Major Buttrick in Concord, the militia officer, he himself set me t'work; an’ later I said I’d fixed a few more guns. But then I told ‘em I could make ‘em some, but I d'need my tools. I'd go back to Pownalborough t'go fetch 'em.”
“Well done, corporal! God’s breath, well done!” Colonel Smith's meaty hand thumped Howe’s left shoulder.
Hearing easy laughter, Howe beamed.
“By your own account, corporal,” -- Major Mitchell was speaking to him -- “you are, it would seem, a skillful dissembler. But I wonder. You paint your portrayal of the rebel with an extraordinarily broad stroke.” He peered over his raised brandy glass. “Gullible. A bit too gullible, I should think.”
“You, … you're sayin' I didn't … you're sayin' I didn't coney ‘em, sir?”
“That is my meaning.”
Of course he hadn't! Not all of them! Had he said that? Blaterooning high, he had forgotten about this officer! Like Howe’s company sergeant, like Browne just about every day, Mitchell was baiting him. Painting him the mooncalf. Despite, or because of what he had accomplished. Bugger that! He’d do exactly what Mitchell said he was good at. Dissemble! He guessed he knew what “dissemble” meant!
“Sir, they didn't all believe me, no sir.” But his cheeks were hot! “You see, there was rumors about” Too damn hot! “Spies had been sent out.”
“That was my understanding,” General Gage said.
Pitcairn snorted. Two officers guffawed. A third officer, laughing while swallowing brandy, choked.
Eyes glittering, Gage said, almost apologetically, “Forgive ... my interjection of humor. Do continue.”
Two officers behind the General grinned.
“Yes sir. I ….” Howe looked at Mitchell. The Major’s expression hadn’t changed. “I didn’t fool all o’them, sir. No sir. Not right off. I asked two teamsters on the road, near Worcester, if anybody wanted t’hire. They said, 'We don't know o' nobody that wants t'hire a Englishman.' They said I be like them rascals they saw in Boston. After that I hurried right along.”
More laughter.
Mitchell’s eyes bored.
“Depend upon it, gentlemen,” Major Pitcairn declared. “'Them rascals will soon give those rascals little ease! In truth, they’ll have the living hell to pay!”
“Just so, Pitcairn!” Colonel Smith exclaimed. “You have stolen my words!”
Mitchell raised his glass in salute.
“Sir, I commend you for your forbearance.” The previously silent Earl Percy, standing behind Pitcairn, had spoken. The Scotsman and Mitchell turned to face him.
“I … do not take your meaning, Sir Hugh,” General Gage responded, ending a brief silence.
“I mean, sir, that many of the younger officers, in your stead, would have addressed our difficulties quite differently.”
The silence this time persisted.
A floorboard creaked. Major Pitcairn cleared his throat.
“You speak, Colonel Percy, of … my reluctance to punish? To arrest their leaders?” The Commanding Officer raised his chin. “Pray explain yourself.”
“More particularly, in the face of egregious provocation, of your refusal to invade the interior, willy-nilly.”
Howe was stunned.
The General’s face darkened. His right hand closed.
“We all know what they think of me!. Their opinion is shared by many of higher authority!” He glared. “Soon I shall be replaced, recent rumor has it, by one of three ‘illustrious’ generals, sent by London to instruct me with their infinite wisdom!”
“John Burgoyne, William Howe, and ….”
“Clinton. Yes, Major, that is correct. Henry Clinton. They in the cabinet do not share my assessment. They believe that the provincial lacks conviction; with a display of arms he may be readily subdued. 5,000 men are sufficient to engage in offensive operations, they say. In truth, as a defensive force they barely suffice!”
Howe was awe-struck.
“The arrest of Samuel Adams, Merchant Hancock, and Doctor Warren, however desirous for many, would, your lordship, be a violation of constitutional law! It would ignite a passion of rebellion heretofore unseen in this colony!” Scowling, General Gage deposited his wineglass on the small table situated behind him. “But they in London do not believe so! They at their comfortable distance perceive all!”
“Men who rise to high positions in government,” Earl Percy responded, “too frequently perceive themselves omniscient.”
“Well, Colonel,” the General said, blinking, “no one has accused me yet of that!”
Major Pitcairn guffawed. Several officers dared to smirk. Recognizing belatedly the humor in his remark, Gage, of a sudden, winked.
Howe joined the delayed laughter. He liked what the General had said. He sensed also why Percy was respected by many of the men in his brigade.
January 31, 2021
Crossing the River -- Chapter 4, Section 2
Characters Mentioned
Barnes, Henry – Helpful Marlborough Tory
Bliss, Daniel – Concord Tory
Brewer, Jonathan – Waltham tavern owner
Browne, Captain John – 10th Regiment. One of three spies sent to Worcester and Concord
Coolidge, John – Watertown tavern owner
De Berniere, Ensign Henry – 10th Regiment, spy, scout for Colonel Smith
Gage, General Thomas – military governor and commanding general of British forces stationed in Boston
Howe, Corporal John – servant of Captain Brown. Spy
Jones, Isaac – Weston tavern owner
Smith, Lieutenant Colonel Francis – commander of the 10th Regiment, in charge of the expedition sent to Concord to seize rebel stores
Thomas, Benjamin – Tory Worcester merchant
Wetherby – friend of the black man that provided Howe refuge from a frigid night
Wheaton – Tory in whose cabin outside Weston Howe briefly stayed
Chapter 4, “In Grave Danger,” Section 2
“He told you what?!” Isaac Jones touched his throat. “Jonathan Brewer is a rebel! So is Coolidge! Both of them know everything about me!” General Gage’s unopened letter, in Jones’s right hand, quivered.
“You d'think he's set a trap?”
Jones grinned, painfully. “Oh yes. You must leave, at once.” He saw that the young Englishman was not entirely convinced. Cockiness. Youthful invincibility. “Even if you hadn't gone to Coolidge’s tavern,” he emphasized, “you wouldn't be safe! Townspeople are much more suspicious of strangers now. No thanks to your companions’ last visit!”
Howe stared past Jones's left shoulder.
The proprietor’s fault-finding went deeper. Why hadn't General Gage sent the dark soldier, the one that measured what he said? This one, the quietest of the three, the deferential one, wasn't even an officer. To entrust matters of high importance to such an inferior!
“Where'll I go?”
“All right. I'll feed you. My servant will take you into the woods. I know a Tory there, Wheaton. You’ll stay with him.” Had his resentment gotten through? Too bad. The General's intended enterprise was beginning to look like a fool's errand, a repeat of the Salem expedition. He and others like him would end up suffering worse.
“Thank you,” the dull-witted soldier said.
“But no delay. I have a bad feeling about this.”
Howe spent the night and the following day inside Wheaton’s pine-shrouded cabin. In the late morning of the second day a gentle snow fell. After furnishing Howe information about the local militia, the Tory left Howe to himself. At 8:00 p.m. Isaac Jones's black servant returned.
At 11 p.m., thirty minutemen entered Jones’s Golden Ball Tavern, their purpose to arrest two British spies seen in John Coolidge’s establishment thirty-four hours earlier.
Leaving Wheaton's cabin, Howe and Jones’s servant followed a dark path through mixed hardwood and pine. Twenty minutes later they intersected the Marlborough road. They stopped for a few minutes at the bridge that spanned the Sudbury River, in part because Howe wanted to rest but in part to ascertain where the General’s soldiers could ford the river should the local militia choose to remove the bridge’s planks.
They arrived at Henry Barnes’s house at 2 a.m. While Esquire Barnes read General Gage's letter, Howe’s guide, expected back at Jones’s tavern before dawn, ate cold chicken in the kitchen. Taking the letter with him, Barnes escorted Howe to the guest bedchamber.
It seemed so brief a time before strong hands awakened him.
Militiamen? In the street?! At the front door?!
Henry Barnes was standing beside the bed.
“It's past noon,” the merchant said. “I have allowed you to sleep as long as I dared.”
Sunlight was streaming through the dormer window. Howe drew his legs out from beneath the bedding.
“I've been outside. People say a Sudbury woman saw two men last night, one white, the other a servant or slave. Both were studying the bridge.”
Howe compressed his lips.
“The woman was awake with a sick child. She saw them from an upstairs window. She said they crossed the bridge headed in this direction. Everyone here is looking for two British spies. You,” he said, pointing an index finger at Howe's nose, “must stay hidden. If the militia comes again to my house, you must hide in the swamp.”
Late that night Howe borrowed a horse. Snow speckling the shoulders of his coat, he rode into Worcester two hours before sunrise. He spent the new day with Benjamin Thomas, a Tory merchant whom Henry Barnes had credited. Thomas had compiled a list of Worcester’s munitions. After midnight, standing beside the Tory under the eave of a large tool shed, hands clamped in his armpits, Howe stared at the back of a nondescript, lean-to inside which was stored a large quantity of the town’s powder.
Nobody was about. Nobody before dawn, Howe believed, had seen the stranger on a brown horse ride stealthily into town. He believed that no militiaman had been assigned here to watch. Who would be willing to lose sleep to stare at shadows? Another chance occurrence -- a second woman, past midnight, spying out her window – seemed equally far-fetched.
A cat was moving about against the gray backdrop of the shed. Large bodied, entirely white, it touched its nose to something -- a tuft of coarse grass, Howe guessed, the scent of another animal, he supposed. Feeling exposed, he stepped farther back in the tool shed’s moon-shadow.
Spying was about finding things out and not getting caught. So why hadn’t Browne and De Berniere used the night? Looking out for his comfort, Browne would not have permitted it. As for De Berniere, Howe suspected the ensign would have wanted a clear look -- at the street, the shed, all the surrounding buildings -- so as to draw an accurate map. Howe believed that his rudimentary directions to and his description of the shed would serve just as well. It had all been easy. He had used common sense. He pictured Colonel Smith bumbling about in the dark.
Back inside Thomas’s house, Howe recorded in his journal the location of nearby wells, into which flour and cartridges might be dropped. Later, over Madeira wine, he and his host discussed the likely outcome of a forthcoming raid.
“I do not think any one of them will raise a musket,” Thomas declared. A graying man in his late forties, the Loyalist had strong opinions. Captain Browne and his officer friends shared them. “Faced with the steel of the bayonet, I think there can be no question about their conduct!”
Howe had a different opinion. Warming his shoeless feet by Thomas’s fire, he recalled the ignorant beliefs the district gentry held about country folk like him. Browne and his top-lofty friends were just as ignorant. So was this Loyalist.
“What say you, young man? I should like to hear your judgment. Do you concur?”
Reading his host’s expectant face, Howe was tempted to speak the truth. Had he not earned the right? And, having taken risks himself, didn’t this Tory deserve to hear it? “If you promise naught t'be tellin’.” He took in a deep breath. “If General Gage sends his entire force here with a train o’artillery, from Boston t’Worcester, … not one o' them’ll get back. Not one.”
Suffering a bitterly cold ride, Howe returned to Henry Barnes’s house before sunrise. At breakfast Howe showed the Loyalist his notes. Impressed, Barnes shared information about militia activity between Marlborough and Worcester, intelligence obtained during Howe’s absence. The previous day Howe had decided to visit Concord. During his lonely, star-bright journey he had weighed the danger of being recognized. He was reasonably certain that no one would recall him. He, De Berniere, and Browne had entered Daniel Bliss's house at dusk. He had left Concord very early the next morning, earlier than Browne and De Berniere, and he had stayed separated from them. He had spoken to no one. As far as any townsman might have judged, he could have been a tradesman from another town starting out early for Bedford or Lexington. Having convinced himself that the risk was minimal, early that evening he told Barnes his intention.
“Then you should go due east to Sudbury and from there proceed north. When it is darkest. I will station you in my garret. Leave through the window, about eight o’clock. But do so cautiously. They watch my front door every day, until about midnight.”
They entered the room in which Howe had slept. Barnes filled two glasses with brandy. Each drank to the other's good fortune and health. Afterward, Howe added his papers to the belongings in his handkerchief while Barnes poured himself a second glass. Howe placed the bundle on the little table beside the bed. Barnes poured brandy into Howe’s empty glass.
A heavy knock halted their activity. Each looked at the other. Barnes nodded.
Howe had gone about his business always at night. He had been wrong to have assumed that nobody had noticed. Somebody in Worcester that night, or here in Marlborough, had seen him moving about!
“Be quiet,” Barnes whispered. “If I don’t return in a minute, leave by the window. Slide down the roof of the shed. Run directly to the swamp. I’d better hide these glasses,” he added.
Howe heard Barnes's footsteps on the stairs. Then, nothing, until the door was opened. A loud voice.
“Esquire, we have come to search your house of spies!”
“I am willing,” Barnes responded.
Having thrown his hat and bundled handkerchief out the window, Howe eased himself onto the snowy roof. As he stooped to grasp his belongings, his right foot slid out from under him. Off the edge of the roof he skidded.
Spread-eagled beneath the eave, he labored to regain his breath. Snow covered the left side of his face, filled his left ear. He felt pain in his left hip.
He crawled over to his hat, then to his handkerchief, his left leg throbbing. He stood. Bent at the waist, he hobbled away from the house. He heard the crunch of snow beneath his shoes. He was leaving a trail. Looking back, he saw movement behind the lighted downstairs windows. He thought he heard horses in front of the house.
He continued past the smell of the swamp. The pain having subsided, he ran and then walked, four miles he estimated, in snow two inches deep. They could easily follow him. He had to keep walking. Walking would keep his blood pumping. God in Heaven, he was cold!
He risked stepping on rocks to cross a frigid brook. His leg throbbed as he pulled himself, grasping at exposed roots, up the opposite bank. Thereafter, he discovered a small clearing. Smelling smoke -- from a nearby chimney, he believed -- finding then a cabin, he chanced arrest.
Flintlock pistol held in his right hand, a gray-bearded black man answered Howe's knock.
“I've lost my way.” The man's face was leathery, deeply furrowed. “Where do I find the road t’Concord?”
“Who you be?!” Having stared at Howe five seconds more, the man looked at the corporal’s footprints. “What you be 'bout?”
“You d’have a fire in there. I see it. God Almighty, let me warm a bit. I'll be no harm t'you.”
The man measured him a second time. He drew the door farther back. “Who you be?”
Moments later Howe was crouching in front of the rude fireplace. Water from his coat dripped onto and disappeared between the pine floorboards. The man, having left the room, returned with a towel. “Who you be?” he asked again. A plump woman, the man’s wife, seated across the room, watched him.
“A gunsmith.” Howe had planned to present himself in Concord as such.
“Gunsmith, eh? T’Concord, you say? They do need gunsmiths there; that's a fact.” He took a pipe out of the right pocket of his framer’s frock and looked at the stem. “You better stay here. Too cold t' be out.” He put the towel over the back of a wooden chair.
“Thank you, no,” Howe responded. However much he needed warmth, he could not risk arrest. “I’m … wantin’ t’get t’Concord. T’get started.”
The man's mouth curled a bit, in disbelief?
“I'm expected there. I don't want t' worry 'em.”
The black man tapped ash from the bowl of his pipe. A log shifted on the grate. The man sat down by the fire.
“If you'll guide me there ….” The man looked at him, put the pipe stem in his mouth. “T’night. I can pay you.” Howe took from his coat pocket a sovereign, showed it. To offer the man tobacco, meager supply that he had, would not have answered.
The man nodded; Howe wondered if he had agreed or just acknowledged what he had said.
“I’ll be makin’ guns t’kill the regulars. The sooner the better. They be marchin’ out a Boston in a few weeks, I d’hear.”
The old woman spoke. “That be good; you make guns t’kill the regulars. They be a number a them by Esquire Barnes’s awhile back.”
“I need some tobacca,” her husband interrupted. “My friend, Wetherby, he be half way there. He got some. I’ll get my tobacca; he take you t'see Maj'r Buttrick. You pay Wetherby.” The man rose slowly from his chair. He shoved the empty pipe into his pocket. “I be gettin’ my coat.” He glanced at Howe with raised eyebrows. “They think regulars be out there soon, too.”
“Esquire Barnes, is he a Tory?” Howe asked the old woman, who had taken her husband’s chair by the fire.
“He is. Hidin’ spies, he was.” Nodding her head twice, she watched Howe open the front door. A draught of cold air agitated the fire.
“I hope they d’catch ‘em,” Howe answered. His host approached the doorway with his left arm not yet in the coat sleeve. “Catch ‘em an’ hang ‘em. Every last one o’ them.”
Barnes, Henry – Helpful Marlborough Tory
Bliss, Daniel – Concord Tory
Brewer, Jonathan – Waltham tavern owner
Browne, Captain John – 10th Regiment. One of three spies sent to Worcester and Concord
Coolidge, John – Watertown tavern owner
De Berniere, Ensign Henry – 10th Regiment, spy, scout for Colonel Smith
Gage, General Thomas – military governor and commanding general of British forces stationed in Boston
Howe, Corporal John – servant of Captain Brown. Spy
Jones, Isaac – Weston tavern owner
Smith, Lieutenant Colonel Francis – commander of the 10th Regiment, in charge of the expedition sent to Concord to seize rebel stores
Thomas, Benjamin – Tory Worcester merchant
Wetherby – friend of the black man that provided Howe refuge from a frigid night
Wheaton – Tory in whose cabin outside Weston Howe briefly stayed
Chapter 4, “In Grave Danger,” Section 2
“He told you what?!” Isaac Jones touched his throat. “Jonathan Brewer is a rebel! So is Coolidge! Both of them know everything about me!” General Gage’s unopened letter, in Jones’s right hand, quivered.
“You d'think he's set a trap?”
Jones grinned, painfully. “Oh yes. You must leave, at once.” He saw that the young Englishman was not entirely convinced. Cockiness. Youthful invincibility. “Even if you hadn't gone to Coolidge’s tavern,” he emphasized, “you wouldn't be safe! Townspeople are much more suspicious of strangers now. No thanks to your companions’ last visit!”
Howe stared past Jones's left shoulder.
The proprietor’s fault-finding went deeper. Why hadn't General Gage sent the dark soldier, the one that measured what he said? This one, the quietest of the three, the deferential one, wasn't even an officer. To entrust matters of high importance to such an inferior!
“Where'll I go?”
“All right. I'll feed you. My servant will take you into the woods. I know a Tory there, Wheaton. You’ll stay with him.” Had his resentment gotten through? Too bad. The General's intended enterprise was beginning to look like a fool's errand, a repeat of the Salem expedition. He and others like him would end up suffering worse.
“Thank you,” the dull-witted soldier said.
“But no delay. I have a bad feeling about this.”
Howe spent the night and the following day inside Wheaton’s pine-shrouded cabin. In the late morning of the second day a gentle snow fell. After furnishing Howe information about the local militia, the Tory left Howe to himself. At 8:00 p.m. Isaac Jones's black servant returned.
At 11 p.m., thirty minutemen entered Jones’s Golden Ball Tavern, their purpose to arrest two British spies seen in John Coolidge’s establishment thirty-four hours earlier.
Leaving Wheaton's cabin, Howe and Jones’s servant followed a dark path through mixed hardwood and pine. Twenty minutes later they intersected the Marlborough road. They stopped for a few minutes at the bridge that spanned the Sudbury River, in part because Howe wanted to rest but in part to ascertain where the General’s soldiers could ford the river should the local militia choose to remove the bridge’s planks.
They arrived at Henry Barnes’s house at 2 a.m. While Esquire Barnes read General Gage's letter, Howe’s guide, expected back at Jones’s tavern before dawn, ate cold chicken in the kitchen. Taking the letter with him, Barnes escorted Howe to the guest bedchamber.
It seemed so brief a time before strong hands awakened him.
Militiamen? In the street?! At the front door?!
Henry Barnes was standing beside the bed.
“It's past noon,” the merchant said. “I have allowed you to sleep as long as I dared.”
Sunlight was streaming through the dormer window. Howe drew his legs out from beneath the bedding.
“I've been outside. People say a Sudbury woman saw two men last night, one white, the other a servant or slave. Both were studying the bridge.”
Howe compressed his lips.
“The woman was awake with a sick child. She saw them from an upstairs window. She said they crossed the bridge headed in this direction. Everyone here is looking for two British spies. You,” he said, pointing an index finger at Howe's nose, “must stay hidden. If the militia comes again to my house, you must hide in the swamp.”
Late that night Howe borrowed a horse. Snow speckling the shoulders of his coat, he rode into Worcester two hours before sunrise. He spent the new day with Benjamin Thomas, a Tory merchant whom Henry Barnes had credited. Thomas had compiled a list of Worcester’s munitions. After midnight, standing beside the Tory under the eave of a large tool shed, hands clamped in his armpits, Howe stared at the back of a nondescript, lean-to inside which was stored a large quantity of the town’s powder.
Nobody was about. Nobody before dawn, Howe believed, had seen the stranger on a brown horse ride stealthily into town. He believed that no militiaman had been assigned here to watch. Who would be willing to lose sleep to stare at shadows? Another chance occurrence -- a second woman, past midnight, spying out her window – seemed equally far-fetched.
A cat was moving about against the gray backdrop of the shed. Large bodied, entirely white, it touched its nose to something -- a tuft of coarse grass, Howe guessed, the scent of another animal, he supposed. Feeling exposed, he stepped farther back in the tool shed’s moon-shadow.
Spying was about finding things out and not getting caught. So why hadn’t Browne and De Berniere used the night? Looking out for his comfort, Browne would not have permitted it. As for De Berniere, Howe suspected the ensign would have wanted a clear look -- at the street, the shed, all the surrounding buildings -- so as to draw an accurate map. Howe believed that his rudimentary directions to and his description of the shed would serve just as well. It had all been easy. He had used common sense. He pictured Colonel Smith bumbling about in the dark.
Back inside Thomas’s house, Howe recorded in his journal the location of nearby wells, into which flour and cartridges might be dropped. Later, over Madeira wine, he and his host discussed the likely outcome of a forthcoming raid.
“I do not think any one of them will raise a musket,” Thomas declared. A graying man in his late forties, the Loyalist had strong opinions. Captain Browne and his officer friends shared them. “Faced with the steel of the bayonet, I think there can be no question about their conduct!”
Howe had a different opinion. Warming his shoeless feet by Thomas’s fire, he recalled the ignorant beliefs the district gentry held about country folk like him. Browne and his top-lofty friends were just as ignorant. So was this Loyalist.
“What say you, young man? I should like to hear your judgment. Do you concur?”
Reading his host’s expectant face, Howe was tempted to speak the truth. Had he not earned the right? And, having taken risks himself, didn’t this Tory deserve to hear it? “If you promise naught t'be tellin’.” He took in a deep breath. “If General Gage sends his entire force here with a train o’artillery, from Boston t’Worcester, … not one o' them’ll get back. Not one.”
Suffering a bitterly cold ride, Howe returned to Henry Barnes’s house before sunrise. At breakfast Howe showed the Loyalist his notes. Impressed, Barnes shared information about militia activity between Marlborough and Worcester, intelligence obtained during Howe’s absence. The previous day Howe had decided to visit Concord. During his lonely, star-bright journey he had weighed the danger of being recognized. He was reasonably certain that no one would recall him. He, De Berniere, and Browne had entered Daniel Bliss's house at dusk. He had left Concord very early the next morning, earlier than Browne and De Berniere, and he had stayed separated from them. He had spoken to no one. As far as any townsman might have judged, he could have been a tradesman from another town starting out early for Bedford or Lexington. Having convinced himself that the risk was minimal, early that evening he told Barnes his intention.
“Then you should go due east to Sudbury and from there proceed north. When it is darkest. I will station you in my garret. Leave through the window, about eight o’clock. But do so cautiously. They watch my front door every day, until about midnight.”
They entered the room in which Howe had slept. Barnes filled two glasses with brandy. Each drank to the other's good fortune and health. Afterward, Howe added his papers to the belongings in his handkerchief while Barnes poured himself a second glass. Howe placed the bundle on the little table beside the bed. Barnes poured brandy into Howe’s empty glass.
A heavy knock halted their activity. Each looked at the other. Barnes nodded.
Howe had gone about his business always at night. He had been wrong to have assumed that nobody had noticed. Somebody in Worcester that night, or here in Marlborough, had seen him moving about!
“Be quiet,” Barnes whispered. “If I don’t return in a minute, leave by the window. Slide down the roof of the shed. Run directly to the swamp. I’d better hide these glasses,” he added.
Howe heard Barnes's footsteps on the stairs. Then, nothing, until the door was opened. A loud voice.
“Esquire, we have come to search your house of spies!”
“I am willing,” Barnes responded.
Having thrown his hat and bundled handkerchief out the window, Howe eased himself onto the snowy roof. As he stooped to grasp his belongings, his right foot slid out from under him. Off the edge of the roof he skidded.
Spread-eagled beneath the eave, he labored to regain his breath. Snow covered the left side of his face, filled his left ear. He felt pain in his left hip.
He crawled over to his hat, then to his handkerchief, his left leg throbbing. He stood. Bent at the waist, he hobbled away from the house. He heard the crunch of snow beneath his shoes. He was leaving a trail. Looking back, he saw movement behind the lighted downstairs windows. He thought he heard horses in front of the house.
He continued past the smell of the swamp. The pain having subsided, he ran and then walked, four miles he estimated, in snow two inches deep. They could easily follow him. He had to keep walking. Walking would keep his blood pumping. God in Heaven, he was cold!
He risked stepping on rocks to cross a frigid brook. His leg throbbed as he pulled himself, grasping at exposed roots, up the opposite bank. Thereafter, he discovered a small clearing. Smelling smoke -- from a nearby chimney, he believed -- finding then a cabin, he chanced arrest.
Flintlock pistol held in his right hand, a gray-bearded black man answered Howe's knock.
“I've lost my way.” The man's face was leathery, deeply furrowed. “Where do I find the road t’Concord?”
“Who you be?!” Having stared at Howe five seconds more, the man looked at the corporal’s footprints. “What you be 'bout?”
“You d’have a fire in there. I see it. God Almighty, let me warm a bit. I'll be no harm t'you.”
The man measured him a second time. He drew the door farther back. “Who you be?”
Moments later Howe was crouching in front of the rude fireplace. Water from his coat dripped onto and disappeared between the pine floorboards. The man, having left the room, returned with a towel. “Who you be?” he asked again. A plump woman, the man’s wife, seated across the room, watched him.
“A gunsmith.” Howe had planned to present himself in Concord as such.
“Gunsmith, eh? T’Concord, you say? They do need gunsmiths there; that's a fact.” He took a pipe out of the right pocket of his framer’s frock and looked at the stem. “You better stay here. Too cold t' be out.” He put the towel over the back of a wooden chair.
“Thank you, no,” Howe responded. However much he needed warmth, he could not risk arrest. “I’m … wantin’ t’get t’Concord. T’get started.”
The man's mouth curled a bit, in disbelief?
“I'm expected there. I don't want t' worry 'em.”
The black man tapped ash from the bowl of his pipe. A log shifted on the grate. The man sat down by the fire.
“If you'll guide me there ….” The man looked at him, put the pipe stem in his mouth. “T’night. I can pay you.” Howe took from his coat pocket a sovereign, showed it. To offer the man tobacco, meager supply that he had, would not have answered.
The man nodded; Howe wondered if he had agreed or just acknowledged what he had said.
“I’ll be makin’ guns t’kill the regulars. The sooner the better. They be marchin’ out a Boston in a few weeks, I d’hear.”
The old woman spoke. “That be good; you make guns t’kill the regulars. They be a number a them by Esquire Barnes’s awhile back.”
“I need some tobacca,” her husband interrupted. “My friend, Wetherby, he be half way there. He got some. I’ll get my tobacca; he take you t'see Maj'r Buttrick. You pay Wetherby.” The man rose slowly from his chair. He shoved the empty pipe into his pocket. “I be gettin’ my coat.” He glanced at Howe with raised eyebrows. “They think regulars be out there soon, too.”
“Esquire Barnes, is he a Tory?” Howe asked the old woman, who had taken her husband’s chair by the fire.
“He is. Hidin’ spies, he was.” Nodding her head twice, she watched Howe open the front door. A draught of cold air agitated the fire.
“I hope they d’catch ‘em,” Howe answered. His host approached the doorway with his left arm not yet in the coat sleeve. “Catch ‘em an’ hang ‘em. Every last one o’ them.”
January 28, 2021
Crossing the River -- Chapter 4, Section 1
Characters Mentioned
Brewer, Jonathan – Waltham tavern owner
Browne, Captain John – 10th Regiment. One of three spies sent to Worcester and Concord
Coolidge, John – Watertown tavern owner
De Berniere, Ensign Henry – 10th Regiment, spy, scout for Colonel Smith
Gage, General Thomas – military governor and commanding general of British forces stationed in Boston
Howe, Corporal John – servant of Captain Brown. Spy
Smith, Lieutenant Colonel Francis – commander of the 10th Regiment, in charge of the expedition sent to Concord to seize rebel stores
Chapter 4, “In Grave Danger,” Section 1
Three days after Browne, De Berniere, and Howe had returned to Boston, the corporal was ordered to report to Command Headquarters. He was both conflicted and perplexed. Being sent out on another spying mission meant more freedom and adventure. To be told about the mission at the Province House would mean he would have to suffer unnecessary senior officer scrutiny. Why had this particular assignment not worked its way down the chain of command? Why should he, a lowly corporal, be told about it by anybody other than Captain Browne?
The past three days the Captain had been the house guest of a Tory merchant and his spinster daughter. He would be returning to his lodging the next day. His absence would not have been the reason for Howe being summoned. Everybody knew where Browne had been staying. The General’s messenger would have known, also.
Why then had he been ordered to report?
As a reward? For his past service? Absolute hogwash!
But, … if he were wrong, … De Berniere’s hand had to have been in the working!
At 9 a.m. Howe ascended the Province House’s worn steps. Entering the adjutant’s office, he was surprised to see De Berniere and Browne not present. Ignored by the captain seated behind the room’s desk, Howe assumed they were with the General. Very soon they would come through the doorway and the three of them would leave, his privileged attendance concluded!
A minute passed. The ridiculous thought that De Berniere and Browne had not reported caused him to grin. He imagined Browne’s explanation: “But, sir, the gentleman’s daughter demanded I inspect her daffodils,” followed by De Berniere’s stammer, “Sir, permit me to explain. By the sheerest coincidence …,” all of it bubbled tomfoolery.
The corn on the side of his right little toe was pressing against the inside of his shoe. He stared at the empty chair next to the adjutant’s desk. The captain, turning papers on a green blotter, had not yet looked at him. He dared not sit.
He watched the purposeless movements of a large fly. It had landed on the captain’s blotter, on the back of the unoccupied chair, on the sill of the room’s single window. It had buzzed past his head twice. When it alighted suddenly on the top of his left ear, he flicked it away.
Distracted, the officer -- his cheeks pitted with tiny holes -- turned his head. “You are Howe, I assume. Right. When the General is done with Colonel Smith, he will see you.”
You?! “He will see you”?! Howe blanched.
He hadn’t heard correctly!
There was some mistake!
He remembered what De Berniere had told him during their walk to Concord: “General Gage has inquired about you.”
Blather. Poppycock, he had thought.
God’s angels!
The General had wanted the three of them present! He was honored, privileged! But Colonel Smith was with the General! Therefore, … Goddamn Browne’s bleeding balls! Browne hadn’t reported, and, probably because of him, neither had De Berniere!
To punish them the General might give their assignment to somebody else!
General Gage’s office door opened. The stout, middle-aged commander of the 10th Regiment filled the threshold. Colonel Smith’s small, round eyes examined Howe a full ten seconds.
“Captain, send this man in,” Smith ordered.
Glancing at Howe a second time, the adjutant waved four stiff fingers toward the door.
“Don't stand there, you flat! Report!”
His shoulders and upper back tingling, Howe edged past the glowering Colonel.
Twenty feet within, behind an immense mahogany desk sat His Majesty's Commanding General of North America. Howe, five steps into the room, snapped to attention. “Corporal Howe reporting as you d’ordered, sir!”
Thomas Gage’s neutral eyes inspected him.
Moving behind and to the right of the General, Colonel Smith stifled a yawn.
“So you are Howe.”
“Yes sir.” He cleared his throat.
The general nodded, gripped his waist with his right hand. His gray eyes bored.
“You have the good look of an Englishman, good common stock, a country lad, Ensign De Berniere has told me.”
Howe felt his face flush. “Yes sir, I be o' the country. Sir.”
“Stand easy, corporal. I cannot measure a man if he is a tether post.”
Howe exhaled. He expanded his chest.
“At ease, Corporal Howe. At ease, for God's sake.”
Howe separated his feet, placed his hands stiffly behind his back.
“As you please.” Gage half-circled his desk, eased himself down on its front edge. “I am told that you have exhibited good common sense. Even your Captain admits that.”
“Captain Browne? Sir?”
“Does that surprise you? In truth, you have Ensign De Berniere mostly to credit.”
So Browne and De Berniere had talked to the General before Browne had gone off to inspect the spinster’s flower beds. That meant the General …
Howe’s conceit soared.
“Because they have given you good marks, because you possess, in their judgment, wit, resourcefulness, and, not least in importance, a feigning aptitude, I am sending you out again.” He rose from the desk top.
“Sir.” Colonel Smith beckoned. Turning his back to Howe, Gage listened to Smith’s whispered observation.
Being sent out he had expected. Standing in front of the Commanding General had been the flaming opposite! It was a reward beyond true dessert! Which, because he needed to be alert, he couldn’t immediately savor! Where would they be sent this time?! Portsmouth? Salem?
The General engaged him.
“Corporal Howe, you are to accompany and be under the direction this time of Lieutenant Colonel Smith,” -- Christ in heaven! -- “who, I suspect you know, stands before you. You will be his guide as well as his servant.” -- Jesus! -- “You will, should he request it, advise him regarding the habits and behavior of the inhabitants. As the Colonel has reminded me, regarding matters necessitating military judgment he will brook no counsel.”
Howe risked a quick look. The Colonel was cleaning his left thumbnail with his right forefinger nail.
The man was fat! Old. What if they had to run? Smith was an anvil! What in God's name was the General thinking?!
Colonel Smith whisked something small off his yellow sash.
How could he tell this officer what to do?! He couldn't, until he had proved himself all over again; and then he could only advise; and what might happen to them before that? General Gage didn't see his mistake, and he couldn't tell him!
“You will disguise yourselves as itinerant laborers seeking employment. Together you will determine those measures the Worcester provincials” -- God in purgatory! -- “have taken to defend themselves. This will include the size of the garrison that would defend the town.”
“Sir, we shall do so expeditiously,” Colonel Smith declared.
The General nodded.
Howe realized why Browne and De Berniere had not been selected.
“I am familiar with the roads. I need detailed information about the location and quantity of the stores. After you have obtained that information, you may, at your discretion, return by way of Concord. Ensign De Berniere's report and maps have provided me essential information. Nevertheless, changes since then may have occurred, which you, Corporal Howe, having been there, would be able to ascertain.”
“Sir, we shall exceed all expectation!”
“Meeting it, Colonel, will suffice.” The Commanding General raised a cautionary hand. “Corporal Howe, be advised! Because you have been to Concord, you suffer the risk, which your captain and Ensign De Berniere would have entertained, had I sent them to Worcester, of being recognized!”
Ferried across the Charles River to Cambridge, the two men began their midmorning journey to Watertown, Waltham, and Weston -- Howe, not having the allowance or authority to speak, in a flaming temper.
The plan that he and Colonel Smith were expected to follow was horse dung! Neither De Berniere, Browne, nor he had been consulted! Decisions, other than the big one -- the choice of Colonel Smith -- had to have been made by staff officers, whey-faced gimcracks!
A laborer with a big belly looking for work! Identical clothing: leather breeches, a gray coat, blue-and-white knit stockings, a silk neckerchief, a three-cornered hat! The same checkered handkerchief for carrying personal belongings! Two Merry Andrew walking sticks! Smith was fifty, Howe guessed, soft, fat. He was twenty-two, healthy, athletic -- out of work or no, why would either choose to be with the other? Nothing answered! The lowest lobcock, taking one glance, would be suspicious!
Even the weather was against them. A heavy haze, blocking the sun, had dropped the temperature into the forties. Gusts of wind off the Charles River were biting at them. As for what there was to see -- the trees not yet being in leaf -- the land had a barren look.
Nothing was right.
He felt powerless, stymied.
They were leaving footprints on the road’s gritty surface. Soon they would have to scrape off the soles of their shoes! Walking on caked mud had always irritated him.
His early training, he thought. His mother's scolding. His consequent scrubbings of their cottage floor. He wondered if she thought of him now, this particular moment. When he thought of his mother he saw her through a prism of guilt. He remembered her face the morning he had walked down the cottage lane with a bigger bundle than what he carried now, eager to begin a better life, cock-sure he knew what was best.
From that experience alone he had learned about the dishonesty of people, how for their own benefit they twisted the truth. That recruiting sergeant. His tales about sovereigns for enlistment, noble duty, manly company, young lasses, quick promotion. Bloody buggers they were. You learn from your mistakes, his father had said once. But why did those mistakes have to keep weighing on you? Why couldn’t a man simply cast them off?!
His attitude about spying had changed! Walking this country road with De Berniere and Browne, he had been excited. Each successive morning had promised challenge, adventure. He had had so much time to remember, plan, dream. Everything now was different. This morning he had thought first of the hard-faced doxies at the barrack gate. Not what the lying sergeant had promised, was it, Howe? What was real; what was said. Soldiering disgusted him.
Their pace was too damn slow! Colonel Smith was huffing and puffing. Already, he wanted food!
“Where shall we have breakfast, Howe?” A demand more than a question. They had stopped to rest against a rail fence. Perspiration was spotting Smith’s brow. “Good ale and beef pie, eh? Just reward for the invigorated appetite!”
Howe had intended to stop in Weston at the Golden Ball Tavern, not at the Brewer Inn in Waltham, where Captain Browne had been identified. He hadn’t anticipated their dawdling pace.
“We’ve a ways t’go, sir. Two hours I d'think.”
“Two hours?! Ecod, man! We need sustenance! Do better than that, corporal!”
“Bread and cheese, sir?” Howe raised his bundled handkerchief.
“I want good thick ale!” Folding his arms over his paunch, Smith stared at the road. “I was told you were resourceful. Be so!”
There was, Howe recalled, a tavern close by. In Watertown. Browne, De Berniere, and he had passed it on their walks out from or back to Boston. Would His Lordship expect an ale-stop every five miles?! Howe scraped his right sole against the lower rail.
“There’s a tavern in the next town, sir.”
“Where?”
“Watertown.”
“Where is Watertown?” Smith scowled.
“Maybe, a half mile. Sir.”
“Excellent!” Smith pushed his bulk away from the top rail. Moistening his lips, he stepped onto the road. “We shall persevere that half mile!”
Thirty minutes later, seated in the Coolidge Tavern’s taproom, Howe was stunned to see the black serving woman who had recognized Captain Browne. She had been working in the Waltham tavern! Why was she working here?!
She approached.
Keeping his head down, he mumbled his order.
Ram rod straight, Smith declared, “Where may two good but jobless men find employment here in the country?”
She marked them. Spacing her words, she answered. “Smith, you will find employment enough for you and all Gage's men in a few months. Seeing you’ve put on weight, I’m thinking you’ll be wanting lots of ale and mutton pie!”
They were served. His eyes boring through two patrons and the far wall, Smith chewed. Having swallowed his last forkful, grating the legs of his chair on the plank floor, he rose. Howe placed his tankard down beside his plate.
At the counter the amused innkeeper said, “Did you enjoy your food?”
Smith slapped down several coins. “Very well, but you have here a saucy wench! She has mistaken us for British officers! Hah!”
Smiling politely, John Coolidge gathered up the coins. “Well, until recently, sir, she lived in Boston. She has probably confused you with somebody.”
“Indeed!” Smith rapped the counter. “We are itinerant laborers, seeking employment!”
“Ah. Then perhaps you should visit Waltham. My friend, Jonathan Brewer, owns a tavern there. Ask him, or his patrons. Or go to the Golden Ball Tavern, in Weston. Stay a night. You might have better luck.”
Smith raised his chin. “I thank you, sir.”
Howe followed Smith out the tavern door.
“This way,” Howe said needlessly.
Out of sight of the tavern, they commenced to jog.
“Stop!” Smith shouted, seconds later. He was wheezing. His right hand was supporting his stomach.
They clambered over a stone wall and sat.
Neither spoke. Colonel Smith's rapid breathing eased.
What to do? Howe thought. Go back. Their mission had failed, although not the way he had expected. Twice! In separate taverns! Identified! By the same wench! How was that possible?!
“We cannot continue,” Colonel Smith announced. He repositioned his rear on the gravely soil.
Howe nodded.
“I am in grave danger.”
The man's jowls hang like bunches of grapes, Howe thought.
“Here.” Smith untied his bundle, reached into it, grasped envelopes with his right hand. Perspiration dripped from his brow.
“Take these letters of introduction and instruction. Find the Loyalists to whom these letters are addressed. And take this journal, this pencil.” He reached into his coat pocket. “I can give you this. Ten Guineas.” Opening, then cupping his left hand, he revealed the coins.
“You want me t'keep on goin'? I’d be findin’ trouble that much as you!”
“No, Howe, you will not!” Again the scowl. “You … blend in with the provincials.” Flexing his right leg, Smith gouged a groove in the loose dirt. “That damned wench will have my description sent throughout this bloody countryside! I shall have to walk through thicket and bramble if I am to reach Boston!”
“Sir, you d’expect a lot o' one man, a corporal.” He pictured himself jailed in Worcester, with nobody in Boston knowing!
“Look here, Howe.” Smith’s eyes were moist, his voice charged. “You must finish this assignment! I beg you!”
Each stared at the other.
I would be on my own! Howe thought.
“You shall have a commission! When you return, successfully, I will see to it!”
They continued to stare. Let him wait a minute, Howe thought. It’s his reputation he’s worried about. As for becoming an officer, that wouldn’t happen; but he did have a mind to try it, didn’t he?
Smith stood, eased himself over the wall.
Howe recalled the militiaman that had overtaken the three of them walking the Marlborough road. He remembered how the rebel had studied them before riding off. He had known immediately what to do. De Berniere, recognizing that, had used him to persuade Browne to return to Weston. Had he gone to the Waltham tavern without Browne and De Berniere, the wench would probably have taken him for a colonial. Here, also. But she had known him from before, and she knew Smith, not because he couldn’t play-act.
Colonel Smith was staring at a column of smoke, rising from one of the Coolidge Tavern’s several chimneys. His face was red. “If I ever come up this road with my regiment,” he declared, “I will kill that wench!”
Brewer, Jonathan – Waltham tavern owner
Browne, Captain John – 10th Regiment. One of three spies sent to Worcester and Concord
Coolidge, John – Watertown tavern owner
De Berniere, Ensign Henry – 10th Regiment, spy, scout for Colonel Smith
Gage, General Thomas – military governor and commanding general of British forces stationed in Boston
Howe, Corporal John – servant of Captain Brown. Spy
Smith, Lieutenant Colonel Francis – commander of the 10th Regiment, in charge of the expedition sent to Concord to seize rebel stores
Chapter 4, “In Grave Danger,” Section 1
Three days after Browne, De Berniere, and Howe had returned to Boston, the corporal was ordered to report to Command Headquarters. He was both conflicted and perplexed. Being sent out on another spying mission meant more freedom and adventure. To be told about the mission at the Province House would mean he would have to suffer unnecessary senior officer scrutiny. Why had this particular assignment not worked its way down the chain of command? Why should he, a lowly corporal, be told about it by anybody other than Captain Browne?
The past three days the Captain had been the house guest of a Tory merchant and his spinster daughter. He would be returning to his lodging the next day. His absence would not have been the reason for Howe being summoned. Everybody knew where Browne had been staying. The General’s messenger would have known, also.
Why then had he been ordered to report?
As a reward? For his past service? Absolute hogwash!
But, … if he were wrong, … De Berniere’s hand had to have been in the working!
At 9 a.m. Howe ascended the Province House’s worn steps. Entering the adjutant’s office, he was surprised to see De Berniere and Browne not present. Ignored by the captain seated behind the room’s desk, Howe assumed they were with the General. Very soon they would come through the doorway and the three of them would leave, his privileged attendance concluded!
A minute passed. The ridiculous thought that De Berniere and Browne had not reported caused him to grin. He imagined Browne’s explanation: “But, sir, the gentleman’s daughter demanded I inspect her daffodils,” followed by De Berniere’s stammer, “Sir, permit me to explain. By the sheerest coincidence …,” all of it bubbled tomfoolery.
The corn on the side of his right little toe was pressing against the inside of his shoe. He stared at the empty chair next to the adjutant’s desk. The captain, turning papers on a green blotter, had not yet looked at him. He dared not sit.
He watched the purposeless movements of a large fly. It had landed on the captain’s blotter, on the back of the unoccupied chair, on the sill of the room’s single window. It had buzzed past his head twice. When it alighted suddenly on the top of his left ear, he flicked it away.
Distracted, the officer -- his cheeks pitted with tiny holes -- turned his head. “You are Howe, I assume. Right. When the General is done with Colonel Smith, he will see you.”
You?! “He will see you”?! Howe blanched.
He hadn’t heard correctly!
There was some mistake!
He remembered what De Berniere had told him during their walk to Concord: “General Gage has inquired about you.”
Blather. Poppycock, he had thought.
God’s angels!
The General had wanted the three of them present! He was honored, privileged! But Colonel Smith was with the General! Therefore, … Goddamn Browne’s bleeding balls! Browne hadn’t reported, and, probably because of him, neither had De Berniere!
To punish them the General might give their assignment to somebody else!
General Gage’s office door opened. The stout, middle-aged commander of the 10th Regiment filled the threshold. Colonel Smith’s small, round eyes examined Howe a full ten seconds.
“Captain, send this man in,” Smith ordered.
Glancing at Howe a second time, the adjutant waved four stiff fingers toward the door.
“Don't stand there, you flat! Report!”
His shoulders and upper back tingling, Howe edged past the glowering Colonel.
Twenty feet within, behind an immense mahogany desk sat His Majesty's Commanding General of North America. Howe, five steps into the room, snapped to attention. “Corporal Howe reporting as you d’ordered, sir!”
Thomas Gage’s neutral eyes inspected him.
Moving behind and to the right of the General, Colonel Smith stifled a yawn.
“So you are Howe.”
“Yes sir.” He cleared his throat.
The general nodded, gripped his waist with his right hand. His gray eyes bored.
“You have the good look of an Englishman, good common stock, a country lad, Ensign De Berniere has told me.”
Howe felt his face flush. “Yes sir, I be o' the country. Sir.”
“Stand easy, corporal. I cannot measure a man if he is a tether post.”
Howe exhaled. He expanded his chest.
“At ease, Corporal Howe. At ease, for God's sake.”
Howe separated his feet, placed his hands stiffly behind his back.
“As you please.” Gage half-circled his desk, eased himself down on its front edge. “I am told that you have exhibited good common sense. Even your Captain admits that.”
“Captain Browne? Sir?”
“Does that surprise you? In truth, you have Ensign De Berniere mostly to credit.”
So Browne and De Berniere had talked to the General before Browne had gone off to inspect the spinster’s flower beds. That meant the General …
Howe’s conceit soared.
“Because they have given you good marks, because you possess, in their judgment, wit, resourcefulness, and, not least in importance, a feigning aptitude, I am sending you out again.” He rose from the desk top.
“Sir.” Colonel Smith beckoned. Turning his back to Howe, Gage listened to Smith’s whispered observation.
Being sent out he had expected. Standing in front of the Commanding General had been the flaming opposite! It was a reward beyond true dessert! Which, because he needed to be alert, he couldn’t immediately savor! Where would they be sent this time?! Portsmouth? Salem?
The General engaged him.
“Corporal Howe, you are to accompany and be under the direction this time of Lieutenant Colonel Smith,” -- Christ in heaven! -- “who, I suspect you know, stands before you. You will be his guide as well as his servant.” -- Jesus! -- “You will, should he request it, advise him regarding the habits and behavior of the inhabitants. As the Colonel has reminded me, regarding matters necessitating military judgment he will brook no counsel.”
Howe risked a quick look. The Colonel was cleaning his left thumbnail with his right forefinger nail.
The man was fat! Old. What if they had to run? Smith was an anvil! What in God's name was the General thinking?!
Colonel Smith whisked something small off his yellow sash.
How could he tell this officer what to do?! He couldn't, until he had proved himself all over again; and then he could only advise; and what might happen to them before that? General Gage didn't see his mistake, and he couldn't tell him!
“You will disguise yourselves as itinerant laborers seeking employment. Together you will determine those measures the Worcester provincials” -- God in purgatory! -- “have taken to defend themselves. This will include the size of the garrison that would defend the town.”
“Sir, we shall do so expeditiously,” Colonel Smith declared.
The General nodded.
Howe realized why Browne and De Berniere had not been selected.
“I am familiar with the roads. I need detailed information about the location and quantity of the stores. After you have obtained that information, you may, at your discretion, return by way of Concord. Ensign De Berniere's report and maps have provided me essential information. Nevertheless, changes since then may have occurred, which you, Corporal Howe, having been there, would be able to ascertain.”
“Sir, we shall exceed all expectation!”
“Meeting it, Colonel, will suffice.” The Commanding General raised a cautionary hand. “Corporal Howe, be advised! Because you have been to Concord, you suffer the risk, which your captain and Ensign De Berniere would have entertained, had I sent them to Worcester, of being recognized!”
Ferried across the Charles River to Cambridge, the two men began their midmorning journey to Watertown, Waltham, and Weston -- Howe, not having the allowance or authority to speak, in a flaming temper.
The plan that he and Colonel Smith were expected to follow was horse dung! Neither De Berniere, Browne, nor he had been consulted! Decisions, other than the big one -- the choice of Colonel Smith -- had to have been made by staff officers, whey-faced gimcracks!
A laborer with a big belly looking for work! Identical clothing: leather breeches, a gray coat, blue-and-white knit stockings, a silk neckerchief, a three-cornered hat! The same checkered handkerchief for carrying personal belongings! Two Merry Andrew walking sticks! Smith was fifty, Howe guessed, soft, fat. He was twenty-two, healthy, athletic -- out of work or no, why would either choose to be with the other? Nothing answered! The lowest lobcock, taking one glance, would be suspicious!
Even the weather was against them. A heavy haze, blocking the sun, had dropped the temperature into the forties. Gusts of wind off the Charles River were biting at them. As for what there was to see -- the trees not yet being in leaf -- the land had a barren look.
Nothing was right.
He felt powerless, stymied.
They were leaving footprints on the road’s gritty surface. Soon they would have to scrape off the soles of their shoes! Walking on caked mud had always irritated him.
His early training, he thought. His mother's scolding. His consequent scrubbings of their cottage floor. He wondered if she thought of him now, this particular moment. When he thought of his mother he saw her through a prism of guilt. He remembered her face the morning he had walked down the cottage lane with a bigger bundle than what he carried now, eager to begin a better life, cock-sure he knew what was best.
From that experience alone he had learned about the dishonesty of people, how for their own benefit they twisted the truth. That recruiting sergeant. His tales about sovereigns for enlistment, noble duty, manly company, young lasses, quick promotion. Bloody buggers they were. You learn from your mistakes, his father had said once. But why did those mistakes have to keep weighing on you? Why couldn’t a man simply cast them off?!
His attitude about spying had changed! Walking this country road with De Berniere and Browne, he had been excited. Each successive morning had promised challenge, adventure. He had had so much time to remember, plan, dream. Everything now was different. This morning he had thought first of the hard-faced doxies at the barrack gate. Not what the lying sergeant had promised, was it, Howe? What was real; what was said. Soldiering disgusted him.
Their pace was too damn slow! Colonel Smith was huffing and puffing. Already, he wanted food!
“Where shall we have breakfast, Howe?” A demand more than a question. They had stopped to rest against a rail fence. Perspiration was spotting Smith’s brow. “Good ale and beef pie, eh? Just reward for the invigorated appetite!”
Howe had intended to stop in Weston at the Golden Ball Tavern, not at the Brewer Inn in Waltham, where Captain Browne had been identified. He hadn’t anticipated their dawdling pace.
“We’ve a ways t’go, sir. Two hours I d'think.”
“Two hours?! Ecod, man! We need sustenance! Do better than that, corporal!”
“Bread and cheese, sir?” Howe raised his bundled handkerchief.
“I want good thick ale!” Folding his arms over his paunch, Smith stared at the road. “I was told you were resourceful. Be so!”
There was, Howe recalled, a tavern close by. In Watertown. Browne, De Berniere, and he had passed it on their walks out from or back to Boston. Would His Lordship expect an ale-stop every five miles?! Howe scraped his right sole against the lower rail.
“There’s a tavern in the next town, sir.”
“Where?”
“Watertown.”
“Where is Watertown?” Smith scowled.
“Maybe, a half mile. Sir.”
“Excellent!” Smith pushed his bulk away from the top rail. Moistening his lips, he stepped onto the road. “We shall persevere that half mile!”
Thirty minutes later, seated in the Coolidge Tavern’s taproom, Howe was stunned to see the black serving woman who had recognized Captain Browne. She had been working in the Waltham tavern! Why was she working here?!
She approached.
Keeping his head down, he mumbled his order.
Ram rod straight, Smith declared, “Where may two good but jobless men find employment here in the country?”
She marked them. Spacing her words, she answered. “Smith, you will find employment enough for you and all Gage's men in a few months. Seeing you’ve put on weight, I’m thinking you’ll be wanting lots of ale and mutton pie!”
They were served. His eyes boring through two patrons and the far wall, Smith chewed. Having swallowed his last forkful, grating the legs of his chair on the plank floor, he rose. Howe placed his tankard down beside his plate.
At the counter the amused innkeeper said, “Did you enjoy your food?”
Smith slapped down several coins. “Very well, but you have here a saucy wench! She has mistaken us for British officers! Hah!”
Smiling politely, John Coolidge gathered up the coins. “Well, until recently, sir, she lived in Boston. She has probably confused you with somebody.”
“Indeed!” Smith rapped the counter. “We are itinerant laborers, seeking employment!”
“Ah. Then perhaps you should visit Waltham. My friend, Jonathan Brewer, owns a tavern there. Ask him, or his patrons. Or go to the Golden Ball Tavern, in Weston. Stay a night. You might have better luck.”
Smith raised his chin. “I thank you, sir.”
Howe followed Smith out the tavern door.
“This way,” Howe said needlessly.
Out of sight of the tavern, they commenced to jog.
“Stop!” Smith shouted, seconds later. He was wheezing. His right hand was supporting his stomach.
They clambered over a stone wall and sat.
Neither spoke. Colonel Smith's rapid breathing eased.
What to do? Howe thought. Go back. Their mission had failed, although not the way he had expected. Twice! In separate taverns! Identified! By the same wench! How was that possible?!
“We cannot continue,” Colonel Smith announced. He repositioned his rear on the gravely soil.
Howe nodded.
“I am in grave danger.”
The man's jowls hang like bunches of grapes, Howe thought.
“Here.” Smith untied his bundle, reached into it, grasped envelopes with his right hand. Perspiration dripped from his brow.
“Take these letters of introduction and instruction. Find the Loyalists to whom these letters are addressed. And take this journal, this pencil.” He reached into his coat pocket. “I can give you this. Ten Guineas.” Opening, then cupping his left hand, he revealed the coins.
“You want me t'keep on goin'? I’d be findin’ trouble that much as you!”
“No, Howe, you will not!” Again the scowl. “You … blend in with the provincials.” Flexing his right leg, Smith gouged a groove in the loose dirt. “That damned wench will have my description sent throughout this bloody countryside! I shall have to walk through thicket and bramble if I am to reach Boston!”
“Sir, you d’expect a lot o' one man, a corporal.” He pictured himself jailed in Worcester, with nobody in Boston knowing!
“Look here, Howe.” Smith’s eyes were moist, his voice charged. “You must finish this assignment! I beg you!”
Each stared at the other.
I would be on my own! Howe thought.
“You shall have a commission! When you return, successfully, I will see to it!”
They continued to stare. Let him wait a minute, Howe thought. It’s his reputation he’s worried about. As for becoming an officer, that wouldn’t happen; but he did have a mind to try it, didn’t he?
Smith stood, eased himself over the wall.
Howe recalled the militiaman that had overtaken the three of them walking the Marlborough road. He remembered how the rebel had studied them before riding off. He had known immediately what to do. De Berniere, recognizing that, had used him to persuade Browne to return to Weston. Had he gone to the Waltham tavern without Browne and De Berniere, the wench would probably have taken him for a colonial. Here, also. But she had known him from before, and she knew Smith, not because he couldn’t play-act.
Colonel Smith was staring at a column of smoke, rising from one of the Coolidge Tavern’s several chimneys. His face was red. “If I ever come up this road with my regiment,” he declared, “I will kill that wench!”
January 24, 2021
Crossing the River -- Chapter 3, Section 2
Characters Mentioned
Barnes, Henry – Marlborough loyalist
Barnett, Colonel James – Concord militia commander
Bliss, Daniel – Concord Tory
Browne, Captain John – 10th Regiment. One of three spies sent to Worcester and Concord
Buttrick, Major John – Second in command of the Concord militia
Carter, Elisha – Concord resident
Curtis, Dr. Samuel – leader of the Marlborough committee of correspondence
De Berniere, Ensign Henry – 10th Regiment, spy, scout for Colonel Smith
Fuller, Charity – youthful Concord resident
Gage, General Thomas – military governor and commanding general of British forces stationed in Boston
Hosmer, Joseph – Concord militiaman
Howe, Corporal John – servant of Captain Brown. Spy
Johnson, Amos – Concord resident
Jones, Issac – Weston tavern owner
Chapter 3, “Guests to Entertain,” Section 2
“Stand aside, Barnes,” the aproned militiaman demanded. “We aim t’have ‘em!”
“Whom?!”
“The British officers, damn you!” Thrusting a thick forearm against Barnes’s chest, the blacksmith shoved the merchant aside. The file of townsmen, the first two snickering, tramped into the house.
“They are my wife's relatives, from Penobscot! They’re traveling to Lancaster,” Barnes told Doctor Curtis, the last to soil his entry hall carpet. “They’ve already left!”
Half turning, Curtis sneered.
The militiamen began their “search.” They overturned chairs, lifted and dropped beds, yanked off their rods drapes, scattered books, and emptied desk drawers. Two men hurled to the floor every garment hung in the bedroom closet. They tracked across his clothing, drapes, books, papers, the oak plank floor, and every imported carpet liquid filth. So angry did he become that, returning to the foyer, Barnes withdrew from his ornate floor vase his mahogany walking stick.
The aproned militiaman, carrying a gilt-edged serving plate, approached him. His belligerent eyes moved from Barnes's grip on the walking stick to the Loyalist's compressed lips. A grin cleaved the man’s heavy face. Away from his belly, gift-like, he advanced the plate. Barnes reached for it; the militiaman watched it drop. With the sole of his right shoe he pulverized the largest piece of broken china. “Barnes!” he snarled, pressing his belly against the merchant’s abdomen. “You hide and feed the enemy! You're a damned traitor! If we don’t catch them, we're going t’burn this house down!”
They went through his rooms a second time. Two of them scoffed at him, walking stick held impotently across his thighs. Briefly unattended, shame-faced, he placed it back inside the vase.
Staring at its handle, he listened to the mob’s utterances. His disdain had become full-bore hatred. Like a potion heated in a cast-iron pot it would bubble, until His Majesty's fist expunged every trespassing criminal! Save physical confrontation he would do anything to assist his government. He would celebrate the red-coated army’s arrival; he would direct joyously their plunder. They, his Majesty's foot, would be his redeemer, their destructiveness his rejuvenation!
He would prepare for the event with disciplined restraint. He would exercise forbearance, as he had not wielding his cane. The deadliest enemy is he who by appearance is judged the milksop. How vengefully he would assist all to rent them asunder!
As they were preparing to leave, one of them said, “If we catch ‘em in your house again, we'll pull it all the way down about your ears!” The villain’s right hand struck Barnes’s stomach. “Mind my words!”
He would. He was heeding their threats, their insults, their wanton destruction, safe-keeping every injury this day and the many days antecedent!
It had been the cruelest day of Henry De Berniere’s young life.
He and Browne had walked sixteen miles in the teeth of a blizzard. They had had but the preamble of sanctuary before they had been forced back into the storm. Having no other recourse to evade arrest, they had traveled half the distance back to Weston not daring, except for one brief detour, to stop.
Not one rider had passed them.
They had run from Henry Barnes’s house, found the Sudbury Road, and hurried on until, thoroughly spent, they had turned into a wood near a causeway to devour the apple-jack merchant’s bread rolls. Back on the road, not having gone twenty rods, they had been challenged by an elderly man who had rushed out at them from a white-shrouded house.
“What do you think will become of you now?!” he had shouted.
They had deigned not to answer. Or inquire.
De Berniere knew all he needed to know. While they had been eating in the wood, Marlborough militiamen had ridden past. Having gone this far, would they not ride to the Sudbury causeway to lie in wait? The image of a crouching cat -- eyes iridescent, chin on paws, haunches tensed -- appended his thoughts.
A prayer? However dire their circumstance he would not, like the Sunday psalm singer, implore divine intercession. He had seen in the hovels and the taverns of his father’s parish enough of the meanness of life not to countenance a benevolent Father. Man made his own way, cunningly, stupidly, reaping apposite consequences. He, De Berniere, had acted rashly. Nothing else but happenstance, utter coincidence -- their stopping in the wood to eat -- could rescue them.
Kinetic indefatigability brought them finally to the stretch of road that De Berniere feared most. Approaching the dreaded causeway, he saw appearing out of the darkness four tightly grouped horsemen. First would come pistol shots, immediately thereafter, searing pain.
The distance between De Berniere and Browne and the horsemen shortened. Thirty feet … twenty … ten …
Moving to De Berniere and Browne’s left and right, the riders passed.
Very late that evening the two soldiers entered Isaac Jones's Golden Ball Tavern.
“All the way back!” His arms folded across his chest, Jones wagged his head. “Nit ‘n’grit! I say. Amazing luck!” The two men were pulling off each other’s clothing. “You must tell me all, once you’ve rested!”
De Berniere’s friend disappeared behind the closing door. Friend he was, as was this room, the very room in which he had agonized about the pitfalls that he had predicted had been awaiting them.
Anxieties verified. Safety achieved. He could now be charitable. Browne seemed even the most valued of companions. In this room all that was animate and all that was not merited his approval. Soon he would lie upon the left side of their bed, wrap himself in many blankets, and sleep, hours later to awake analytical and confident.
They had been valiant! He would detail their intrepid endeavors. If his service were not immediately rewarded, it would be remembered. The door to promotion would remain open. Worthy officer that he was, he would analyze his mistakes, most of which, given their circumstances, had been unavoidable. (He sensed that he had already begun) He would examine them all tomorrow, allow his sharp mind to draw conclusions. Tomorrow, he would begin anew.
“To walk thirty-two miles in a snow storm, in one day!” the innkeeper had marveled.
Just so.
Using pitchers provided by Jones, they bathed. Attired in borrowed robes, they savored hot mulled Madeira wine. Ensconced in woolen blankets, they drifted into a lengthy sleep.
2
Howe was ecstatic.
The cage had been unlocked, the door opened; once more, like the trained bear on a short chain, he was walking “the grounds of the fair.”
They had crossed the River, he and his “keepers” assigned again to spy! Splendid “grounds” they were, made more so by the mid-morning, late-winter sun, the sound of hungry gulls, the sweep of ocean air!
God Almighty, how much he hated what he had left: during Browne’s absence the half-witted mutter of barrack mates; the preying nastiness of the Sergeant, his brass-tipped, jabbing cane; the foul, grubby scrubbings of latrine benches and mess hall floors; the interminable inspections during which he had stood resentfully alert, obedient, expecting indiscriminate abuse. Then, after the Captain had returned, the purchasing of his fancy food, the polishing of his boots and brass, the washing and ironing of his precious garments, the exercising and grooming of his bay colt. His special duties completed, right-wheels on the Common, drill after drill and standing and waiting, waiting and standing, more marching and more standing and waiting. How he hated this life! How he rejoiced in his reprieve!
During their meeting with General Gage, Browne and De Berniere had requested his service. According to De Berniere the General had taken an interest in him. Who in the King’s army would have suspicioned that?!
They had a different destination. Concord. They would be seeing different people. He would be speaking to them. Each man recognized the rebel’s attentiveness, his sudden decisiveness. Each man would be carrying a pistol. Benefiting from experience, appreciating De Berniere’s abilities, confident of his own, Howe was excited and expectant.
He was tested outside Concord.
They had been instructed to spend the night at the house of a prominent Tory, Daniel Bliss. Their most difficult moment, De Berniere had warned, would be their inquiry of where the Tory resided. They were strangers. Their manner of intercourse with the citizenry, Howe notwithstanding, would attract attention. Requesting directions to the house of a known Loyalist was, of itself, sufficient cause for arrest. Whom they asked, therefore, and where they asked were singularly important. Their having come upon a young maiden, a servant girl in Howe’s opinion, harvesting mushrooms by the road, the first building of the town some fifty rods away, De Berniere ordered Howe to proceed.
Exhibiting not a shard of suspicion, the girl identified Daniel Bliss’s house. Fifteen minutes later, enjoying a glass of port in their host’s drawing room, tracing the grooves of his chair’s intricately carved arm rests, Howe was enjoying De Berniere’s description of the two officers’ Marlborough escape.
Yes, Daniel Bliss responded, he did know Henry Barnes. He did appreciate the Tory gentleman’s valor and his allegiance to Crown and country. He hoped that they would not suffer here a similar experience; but, he confessed, he, too, was watched, although he had not been threatened. Their stay (Did they not agree?) should be brief. As soon as they had enjoyed a second glass, he would show them his map.
A noisy commotion at the front door interrupted their conversation. The girl to whom Howe had spoken, eyes large, face flushed, hurried into the room.
The four men stared. Abruptly, De Berniere stood. Bliss's servant, having followed the girl into the room, reached to grasp her right forearm, hesitated, removed his hand. Lips quivering, she attempted to speak. Cradling her face, she sobbed.
“Mary, dear, what has happened that disturbs you so?” Bliss gathered her against his chest.
Seeing her kneeling by the roadway, Howe had judged her to be no more than fifteen, the same age as his sister Milliscent the week he had enlisted. A poor farmer’s employable daughter. “Oh yes,” the girl had said to him. “Mr. Bliss lives in the two-story house t’the left o' the road. You'll see bricks by his chimney, which's t’be repaired, I believe.” A simple, trusting child. Having smiled at him, she had returned wholeheartedly to her task. “We have been fortunate,” De Berniere had said after they had traveled a hundred yards.
Leaning forward, Howe listened.
Her mistress had wanted … men had scolded her! Two men from a house across from where she ... “If I don’t leave town, they said they'd tar an' feather me!” she exclaimed, amid sobs. “They said I did direct Tories in their road!”
Bliss comforted her. Her “mistake” was but a trifle. “They would never do such a thing. Not for you to worry, my dear.” Their anger was directed at him! With fatherly assurance he escorted her to his front door. “Go to your mistress but say nothing of this,” Howe heard Bliss say. “Let us hope today she’ll be less unpleasant.”
Having returned, Bliss identified the two men. His old enemy, the mechanic, Joseph Hosmer, was one of them. It had been Hosmer’s house that the girl had spoken of. Months ago Hosmer had denounced him, had belittled him, after Bliss had spoken his mind at the Meeting House. Likely, Hosmer and his companion were alerting one of the militia captains, if not Major Buttrick himself. However, Bliss would challenge them, bluff them. The British soldiers were business associates, he would say, English traders who had journeyed to Concord to speak to him for the very first time. How could Hosmer, or anyone he might bring to the house, know otherwise?
They heard a resounding knock on the front door.
Bliss directed Howe and the two officers into a large kitchen. Leaving them, he walked into the vestibule. Staring at a meandering crack in the plastered ceiling, Howe heard the opening and the closing of the large front door. Bliss swiftly returned.
“I have been handed a message.” With squinting eyes he read it. Looking up, he said, “If I attempt to leave, I am to die.” His expression indicated quiet disbelief. “I find this difficult to countenance.” His lips moved across the tops of his teeth.
“You must leave with us!” Captain Brown revealed his pistol.
“Be assured that we will protect you,” De Berniere answered.
Turning away, Daniel Bliss stared across the kitchen, at cooking utensils dangling from iron hooks.
No. Stay, where you have the right, Howe thought. Defeat them! Stay and fight!
Their message made no sense. Why would they not want him to leave? Because of what he knew? He could pass everything he knew on to them! Without stepping outside his house! Their message, their nastiness, what they had done to the servant girl, all of it angered him. He hated bullying. Whatever you thought about somebody, by right you ought to leave him alone! You didn't just … threaten his life!
“In truth, I’m in greater danger if I stay. This moment has been long in coming.” Eyes tearing, Daniel Bliss sought their advice.
“Go with us,” Browne insisted.
“The Committee of Safety knows I have misused them.”
“I regret that our presence has forced this,” De Berniere declared.
Stay, Howe had wanted to say. But the man now standing before him was not the defiant Tory that moments ago had thought to play-act. His leaving seemed suddenly the right choice.
“There are so few of us.” Bliss expelled a lengthy breath. “I may not see this house again.” His voice quavered. “Alas, we give up everything.”
This man, holding fast to his beliefs, was called a traitor. Because of what he had bravely chosen, because of what his enemies believed, he would lose everything he had the right to own!
Howe wanted to say something. Because of his station -- and because instinct was telling him that something about his thinking was wrong -- he didn’t.
He wondered. What of the rebel? Was he bullied? So he said. Wasn’t his rebelness a standing up to the bully also? In so doing wasn't he choosing a future, too, and wouldn't he also suffer? Howe thought about his musing of the day before, of being “released” from the bear cage at the country fair. Forced to return to his own cage, the rebel farmer had balked! Better to fight and suffer and hope to prosper than to give up and definitely suffer. Here he was, John Howe, a stable boy from England, servant to an officer with a limited brain, doing exciting work for the King. He had seen what these rebels were about and he had seen what this prosperous Tory countryman was about and he knew everything he needed to know about the King's men!
Who were the bullies?
Howe hadn’t chosen this work, but he loved it.
Wrongnesses. Actions. Outcomes.
His misfortune had been that he had chosen to be a redcoat soldier. If he wanted to change that, what in fact would he gain and how might he suffer if he tried? The thought agitated him. The “poltroon” provincial was Howe's opponent, true, but not without exception his mortal enemy, so he had the mind to believe.
“The town of Concord lies between two hills,” Daniel Bliss said, pointing at his drawn map. “The Concord River, which is little more than a stream, runs between them. The town has two bridges, one to the north, here, the other to the south, here.” De Berniere and Browne examined his markings. “At various places, in houses and in the woods, they’ve hidden four brass field pieces and ten iron cannon. I’ve marked their locations with X's.”
It was precisely what the General had instructed them to obtain. De Berniere would duplicate the map. His would be the only map the General would see.
“They have collected a wide assortment of arms and equipment,” Bliss stated. “I have made a list.” He handed De Berniere the paper.
The ensign read the column of words: cartridge boxes, harnesses, spades, pickaxes, billhooks, iron pots, wooden mess bowls, cartridge paper, powder, musket balls, flints, flour, dried fish, salt, and rice. He would copy this as well.
“Also, Colonel Barrett has a magazine of powder and cartridges hidden at his farm.”
“Where?” Captain Browne asked.
“Here on the map. I have written his name and circled it. His farm is about two miles beyond the North Bridge.”
Leaning over the table, De Berniere found the name, and the road that led to it.
At dawn Daniel Bliss, exhibiting a stoic countenance, readied himself for departure. As promised, the two officers would accompany him, the enlisted man having volunteered to leave ahead of them to scout the way.
“Twould be fittin' not t'be seen with you. I’d be movin' 'bout with naught someone suspectin'. Might see somethin' needin' t'be known.”
“Wait for us, a mile east of the town,” the dark officer had answered, the fleshy, sour-faced officer-in-charge having deigned not to respond.
Frost lay upon the road. Footprints and hoof indentations marked the predawn passing. Sunlight had begun to streak. Roof tops steamed.
Two townspeople, pausing at the door of Ephraim Jones’s Tavern, marked them. Amos Johnson and Elisha Carter were out for an early morning toddy. Raucous laughter. Upon seeing them, hateful faces. Too early for them to do him any damage, Bliss decided. They would be well toward Lexington before Jones and Carter could alert Major Buttrick, should they be so uncharacteristically motivated.
Having taken the road east of the mill pond, they passed the burial ground on the hill. Near Reuben Brown's house Charity Fuller was carrying water, her breath visible in the crisp air. The young maid turned her head once.
They passed the road to Waltham, the tightness inside his chest caused, he believed, by his fear but also because of what he was leaving.
“The ground is open here,” the younger officer, De Berniere, said to him, as they approached Meriam's Corner.
“From here to Lexington it isn't,” Bliss said. “The road in places is very narrow. It surmounts two major hills and passes stands of hardwood and pine.”
Later, “Stone walls. Too many stone walls.”
“We like to mark our property lines,” he explained.
They stopped, repeatedly. Each time Ensign De Berniere had sketched. “These delays increase the likelihood of my capture,” Bliss had complained after the third stop.
“A well aimed pistol shot will remedy that!” Captain Browne had boasted. The young officer’s eyes had flitted toward his superior and had lingered, briefly. The enlisted man, ten feet behind the Captain, out of the dark officer’s vision, had smirked.
Three pistol shots against how many, ten muskets? What sort of fool had General Gage sent? The other one, De Berniere, excessively pleased with himself, had seemed competent.
“Bad ground here,” Bliss heard the officer say to Browne at the top of Brooks Hill. The Captain nodded, flicked a speck of bark off the front of his coat.
When the King's Foot marched this way -- Bliss could not phrase the event as a question -- who would lead them? The best, he would have assumed two days earlier, had he had special reason then to consider.
Barnes, Henry – Marlborough loyalist
Barnett, Colonel James – Concord militia commander
Bliss, Daniel – Concord Tory
Browne, Captain John – 10th Regiment. One of three spies sent to Worcester and Concord
Buttrick, Major John – Second in command of the Concord militia
Carter, Elisha – Concord resident
Curtis, Dr. Samuel – leader of the Marlborough committee of correspondence
De Berniere, Ensign Henry – 10th Regiment, spy, scout for Colonel Smith
Fuller, Charity – youthful Concord resident
Gage, General Thomas – military governor and commanding general of British forces stationed in Boston
Hosmer, Joseph – Concord militiaman
Howe, Corporal John – servant of Captain Brown. Spy
Johnson, Amos – Concord resident
Jones, Issac – Weston tavern owner
Chapter 3, “Guests to Entertain,” Section 2
“Stand aside, Barnes,” the aproned militiaman demanded. “We aim t’have ‘em!”
“Whom?!”
“The British officers, damn you!” Thrusting a thick forearm against Barnes’s chest, the blacksmith shoved the merchant aside. The file of townsmen, the first two snickering, tramped into the house.
“They are my wife's relatives, from Penobscot! They’re traveling to Lancaster,” Barnes told Doctor Curtis, the last to soil his entry hall carpet. “They’ve already left!”
Half turning, Curtis sneered.
The militiamen began their “search.” They overturned chairs, lifted and dropped beds, yanked off their rods drapes, scattered books, and emptied desk drawers. Two men hurled to the floor every garment hung in the bedroom closet. They tracked across his clothing, drapes, books, papers, the oak plank floor, and every imported carpet liquid filth. So angry did he become that, returning to the foyer, Barnes withdrew from his ornate floor vase his mahogany walking stick.
The aproned militiaman, carrying a gilt-edged serving plate, approached him. His belligerent eyes moved from Barnes's grip on the walking stick to the Loyalist's compressed lips. A grin cleaved the man’s heavy face. Away from his belly, gift-like, he advanced the plate. Barnes reached for it; the militiaman watched it drop. With the sole of his right shoe he pulverized the largest piece of broken china. “Barnes!” he snarled, pressing his belly against the merchant’s abdomen. “You hide and feed the enemy! You're a damned traitor! If we don’t catch them, we're going t’burn this house down!”
They went through his rooms a second time. Two of them scoffed at him, walking stick held impotently across his thighs. Briefly unattended, shame-faced, he placed it back inside the vase.
Staring at its handle, he listened to the mob’s utterances. His disdain had become full-bore hatred. Like a potion heated in a cast-iron pot it would bubble, until His Majesty's fist expunged every trespassing criminal! Save physical confrontation he would do anything to assist his government. He would celebrate the red-coated army’s arrival; he would direct joyously their plunder. They, his Majesty's foot, would be his redeemer, their destructiveness his rejuvenation!
He would prepare for the event with disciplined restraint. He would exercise forbearance, as he had not wielding his cane. The deadliest enemy is he who by appearance is judged the milksop. How vengefully he would assist all to rent them asunder!
As they were preparing to leave, one of them said, “If we catch ‘em in your house again, we'll pull it all the way down about your ears!” The villain’s right hand struck Barnes’s stomach. “Mind my words!”
He would. He was heeding their threats, their insults, their wanton destruction, safe-keeping every injury this day and the many days antecedent!
It had been the cruelest day of Henry De Berniere’s young life.
He and Browne had walked sixteen miles in the teeth of a blizzard. They had had but the preamble of sanctuary before they had been forced back into the storm. Having no other recourse to evade arrest, they had traveled half the distance back to Weston not daring, except for one brief detour, to stop.
Not one rider had passed them.
They had run from Henry Barnes’s house, found the Sudbury Road, and hurried on until, thoroughly spent, they had turned into a wood near a causeway to devour the apple-jack merchant’s bread rolls. Back on the road, not having gone twenty rods, they had been challenged by an elderly man who had rushed out at them from a white-shrouded house.
“What do you think will become of you now?!” he had shouted.
They had deigned not to answer. Or inquire.
De Berniere knew all he needed to know. While they had been eating in the wood, Marlborough militiamen had ridden past. Having gone this far, would they not ride to the Sudbury causeway to lie in wait? The image of a crouching cat -- eyes iridescent, chin on paws, haunches tensed -- appended his thoughts.
A prayer? However dire their circumstance he would not, like the Sunday psalm singer, implore divine intercession. He had seen in the hovels and the taverns of his father’s parish enough of the meanness of life not to countenance a benevolent Father. Man made his own way, cunningly, stupidly, reaping apposite consequences. He, De Berniere, had acted rashly. Nothing else but happenstance, utter coincidence -- their stopping in the wood to eat -- could rescue them.
Kinetic indefatigability brought them finally to the stretch of road that De Berniere feared most. Approaching the dreaded causeway, he saw appearing out of the darkness four tightly grouped horsemen. First would come pistol shots, immediately thereafter, searing pain.
The distance between De Berniere and Browne and the horsemen shortened. Thirty feet … twenty … ten …
Moving to De Berniere and Browne’s left and right, the riders passed.
Very late that evening the two soldiers entered Isaac Jones's Golden Ball Tavern.
“All the way back!” His arms folded across his chest, Jones wagged his head. “Nit ‘n’grit! I say. Amazing luck!” The two men were pulling off each other’s clothing. “You must tell me all, once you’ve rested!”
De Berniere’s friend disappeared behind the closing door. Friend he was, as was this room, the very room in which he had agonized about the pitfalls that he had predicted had been awaiting them.
Anxieties verified. Safety achieved. He could now be charitable. Browne seemed even the most valued of companions. In this room all that was animate and all that was not merited his approval. Soon he would lie upon the left side of their bed, wrap himself in many blankets, and sleep, hours later to awake analytical and confident.
They had been valiant! He would detail their intrepid endeavors. If his service were not immediately rewarded, it would be remembered. The door to promotion would remain open. Worthy officer that he was, he would analyze his mistakes, most of which, given their circumstances, had been unavoidable. (He sensed that he had already begun) He would examine them all tomorrow, allow his sharp mind to draw conclusions. Tomorrow, he would begin anew.
“To walk thirty-two miles in a snow storm, in one day!” the innkeeper had marveled.
Just so.
Using pitchers provided by Jones, they bathed. Attired in borrowed robes, they savored hot mulled Madeira wine. Ensconced in woolen blankets, they drifted into a lengthy sleep.
2
Howe was ecstatic.
The cage had been unlocked, the door opened; once more, like the trained bear on a short chain, he was walking “the grounds of the fair.”
They had crossed the River, he and his “keepers” assigned again to spy! Splendid “grounds” they were, made more so by the mid-morning, late-winter sun, the sound of hungry gulls, the sweep of ocean air!
God Almighty, how much he hated what he had left: during Browne’s absence the half-witted mutter of barrack mates; the preying nastiness of the Sergeant, his brass-tipped, jabbing cane; the foul, grubby scrubbings of latrine benches and mess hall floors; the interminable inspections during which he had stood resentfully alert, obedient, expecting indiscriminate abuse. Then, after the Captain had returned, the purchasing of his fancy food, the polishing of his boots and brass, the washing and ironing of his precious garments, the exercising and grooming of his bay colt. His special duties completed, right-wheels on the Common, drill after drill and standing and waiting, waiting and standing, more marching and more standing and waiting. How he hated this life! How he rejoiced in his reprieve!
During their meeting with General Gage, Browne and De Berniere had requested his service. According to De Berniere the General had taken an interest in him. Who in the King’s army would have suspicioned that?!
They had a different destination. Concord. They would be seeing different people. He would be speaking to them. Each man recognized the rebel’s attentiveness, his sudden decisiveness. Each man would be carrying a pistol. Benefiting from experience, appreciating De Berniere’s abilities, confident of his own, Howe was excited and expectant.
He was tested outside Concord.
They had been instructed to spend the night at the house of a prominent Tory, Daniel Bliss. Their most difficult moment, De Berniere had warned, would be their inquiry of where the Tory resided. They were strangers. Their manner of intercourse with the citizenry, Howe notwithstanding, would attract attention. Requesting directions to the house of a known Loyalist was, of itself, sufficient cause for arrest. Whom they asked, therefore, and where they asked were singularly important. Their having come upon a young maiden, a servant girl in Howe’s opinion, harvesting mushrooms by the road, the first building of the town some fifty rods away, De Berniere ordered Howe to proceed.
Exhibiting not a shard of suspicion, the girl identified Daniel Bliss’s house. Fifteen minutes later, enjoying a glass of port in their host’s drawing room, tracing the grooves of his chair’s intricately carved arm rests, Howe was enjoying De Berniere’s description of the two officers’ Marlborough escape.
Yes, Daniel Bliss responded, he did know Henry Barnes. He did appreciate the Tory gentleman’s valor and his allegiance to Crown and country. He hoped that they would not suffer here a similar experience; but, he confessed, he, too, was watched, although he had not been threatened. Their stay (Did they not agree?) should be brief. As soon as they had enjoyed a second glass, he would show them his map.
A noisy commotion at the front door interrupted their conversation. The girl to whom Howe had spoken, eyes large, face flushed, hurried into the room.
The four men stared. Abruptly, De Berniere stood. Bliss's servant, having followed the girl into the room, reached to grasp her right forearm, hesitated, removed his hand. Lips quivering, she attempted to speak. Cradling her face, she sobbed.
“Mary, dear, what has happened that disturbs you so?” Bliss gathered her against his chest.
Seeing her kneeling by the roadway, Howe had judged her to be no more than fifteen, the same age as his sister Milliscent the week he had enlisted. A poor farmer’s employable daughter. “Oh yes,” the girl had said to him. “Mr. Bliss lives in the two-story house t’the left o' the road. You'll see bricks by his chimney, which's t’be repaired, I believe.” A simple, trusting child. Having smiled at him, she had returned wholeheartedly to her task. “We have been fortunate,” De Berniere had said after they had traveled a hundred yards.
Leaning forward, Howe listened.
Her mistress had wanted … men had scolded her! Two men from a house across from where she ... “If I don’t leave town, they said they'd tar an' feather me!” she exclaimed, amid sobs. “They said I did direct Tories in their road!”
Bliss comforted her. Her “mistake” was but a trifle. “They would never do such a thing. Not for you to worry, my dear.” Their anger was directed at him! With fatherly assurance he escorted her to his front door. “Go to your mistress but say nothing of this,” Howe heard Bliss say. “Let us hope today she’ll be less unpleasant.”
Having returned, Bliss identified the two men. His old enemy, the mechanic, Joseph Hosmer, was one of them. It had been Hosmer’s house that the girl had spoken of. Months ago Hosmer had denounced him, had belittled him, after Bliss had spoken his mind at the Meeting House. Likely, Hosmer and his companion were alerting one of the militia captains, if not Major Buttrick himself. However, Bliss would challenge them, bluff them. The British soldiers were business associates, he would say, English traders who had journeyed to Concord to speak to him for the very first time. How could Hosmer, or anyone he might bring to the house, know otherwise?
They heard a resounding knock on the front door.
Bliss directed Howe and the two officers into a large kitchen. Leaving them, he walked into the vestibule. Staring at a meandering crack in the plastered ceiling, Howe heard the opening and the closing of the large front door. Bliss swiftly returned.
“I have been handed a message.” With squinting eyes he read it. Looking up, he said, “If I attempt to leave, I am to die.” His expression indicated quiet disbelief. “I find this difficult to countenance.” His lips moved across the tops of his teeth.
“You must leave with us!” Captain Brown revealed his pistol.
“Be assured that we will protect you,” De Berniere answered.
Turning away, Daniel Bliss stared across the kitchen, at cooking utensils dangling from iron hooks.
No. Stay, where you have the right, Howe thought. Defeat them! Stay and fight!
Their message made no sense. Why would they not want him to leave? Because of what he knew? He could pass everything he knew on to them! Without stepping outside his house! Their message, their nastiness, what they had done to the servant girl, all of it angered him. He hated bullying. Whatever you thought about somebody, by right you ought to leave him alone! You didn't just … threaten his life!
“In truth, I’m in greater danger if I stay. This moment has been long in coming.” Eyes tearing, Daniel Bliss sought their advice.
“Go with us,” Browne insisted.
“The Committee of Safety knows I have misused them.”
“I regret that our presence has forced this,” De Berniere declared.
Stay, Howe had wanted to say. But the man now standing before him was not the defiant Tory that moments ago had thought to play-act. His leaving seemed suddenly the right choice.
“There are so few of us.” Bliss expelled a lengthy breath. “I may not see this house again.” His voice quavered. “Alas, we give up everything.”
This man, holding fast to his beliefs, was called a traitor. Because of what he had bravely chosen, because of what his enemies believed, he would lose everything he had the right to own!
Howe wanted to say something. Because of his station -- and because instinct was telling him that something about his thinking was wrong -- he didn’t.
He wondered. What of the rebel? Was he bullied? So he said. Wasn’t his rebelness a standing up to the bully also? In so doing wasn't he choosing a future, too, and wouldn't he also suffer? Howe thought about his musing of the day before, of being “released” from the bear cage at the country fair. Forced to return to his own cage, the rebel farmer had balked! Better to fight and suffer and hope to prosper than to give up and definitely suffer. Here he was, John Howe, a stable boy from England, servant to an officer with a limited brain, doing exciting work for the King. He had seen what these rebels were about and he had seen what this prosperous Tory countryman was about and he knew everything he needed to know about the King's men!
Who were the bullies?
Howe hadn’t chosen this work, but he loved it.
Wrongnesses. Actions. Outcomes.
His misfortune had been that he had chosen to be a redcoat soldier. If he wanted to change that, what in fact would he gain and how might he suffer if he tried? The thought agitated him. The “poltroon” provincial was Howe's opponent, true, but not without exception his mortal enemy, so he had the mind to believe.
“The town of Concord lies between two hills,” Daniel Bliss said, pointing at his drawn map. “The Concord River, which is little more than a stream, runs between them. The town has two bridges, one to the north, here, the other to the south, here.” De Berniere and Browne examined his markings. “At various places, in houses and in the woods, they’ve hidden four brass field pieces and ten iron cannon. I’ve marked their locations with X's.”
It was precisely what the General had instructed them to obtain. De Berniere would duplicate the map. His would be the only map the General would see.
“They have collected a wide assortment of arms and equipment,” Bliss stated. “I have made a list.” He handed De Berniere the paper.
The ensign read the column of words: cartridge boxes, harnesses, spades, pickaxes, billhooks, iron pots, wooden mess bowls, cartridge paper, powder, musket balls, flints, flour, dried fish, salt, and rice. He would copy this as well.
“Also, Colonel Barrett has a magazine of powder and cartridges hidden at his farm.”
“Where?” Captain Browne asked.
“Here on the map. I have written his name and circled it. His farm is about two miles beyond the North Bridge.”
Leaning over the table, De Berniere found the name, and the road that led to it.
At dawn Daniel Bliss, exhibiting a stoic countenance, readied himself for departure. As promised, the two officers would accompany him, the enlisted man having volunteered to leave ahead of them to scout the way.
“Twould be fittin' not t'be seen with you. I’d be movin' 'bout with naught someone suspectin'. Might see somethin' needin' t'be known.”
“Wait for us, a mile east of the town,” the dark officer had answered, the fleshy, sour-faced officer-in-charge having deigned not to respond.
Frost lay upon the road. Footprints and hoof indentations marked the predawn passing. Sunlight had begun to streak. Roof tops steamed.
Two townspeople, pausing at the door of Ephraim Jones’s Tavern, marked them. Amos Johnson and Elisha Carter were out for an early morning toddy. Raucous laughter. Upon seeing them, hateful faces. Too early for them to do him any damage, Bliss decided. They would be well toward Lexington before Jones and Carter could alert Major Buttrick, should they be so uncharacteristically motivated.
Having taken the road east of the mill pond, they passed the burial ground on the hill. Near Reuben Brown's house Charity Fuller was carrying water, her breath visible in the crisp air. The young maid turned her head once.
They passed the road to Waltham, the tightness inside his chest caused, he believed, by his fear but also because of what he was leaving.
“The ground is open here,” the younger officer, De Berniere, said to him, as they approached Meriam's Corner.
“From here to Lexington it isn't,” Bliss said. “The road in places is very narrow. It surmounts two major hills and passes stands of hardwood and pine.”
Later, “Stone walls. Too many stone walls.”
“We like to mark our property lines,” he explained.
They stopped, repeatedly. Each time Ensign De Berniere had sketched. “These delays increase the likelihood of my capture,” Bliss had complained after the third stop.
“A well aimed pistol shot will remedy that!” Captain Browne had boasted. The young officer’s eyes had flitted toward his superior and had lingered, briefly. The enlisted man, ten feet behind the Captain, out of the dark officer’s vision, had smirked.
Three pistol shots against how many, ten muskets? What sort of fool had General Gage sent? The other one, De Berniere, excessively pleased with himself, had seemed competent.
“Bad ground here,” Bliss heard the officer say to Browne at the top of Brooks Hill. The Captain nodded, flicked a speck of bark off the front of his coat.
When the King's Foot marched this way -- Bliss could not phrase the event as a question -- who would lead them? The best, he would have assumed two days earlier, had he had special reason then to consider.
January 21, 2021
Crossing the River -- Chapter 3, Section 1
Characters Mentioned
Barnes, Henry – Marlborough loyalist
Bigelow, Captain – Marlborough militiaman
Browne, Captain John – 10th Regiment. One of three spies sent to Worcester and Concord
Curtis, Dr. Samuel – leader of the Marlborough committee of correspondence
De Berniere, Ensign Henry – 10th Regiment, spy, scout for Colonel Smith
Gage, General Thomas – military governor and commanding general of British forces stationed in Boston
Howe, Corporal John – servant of Captain Brown. Spy
Jones, Issac – Weston tavern owner
Jones, Issac – Worcester tavern owner
Swain, Private – Captain Brown’s deserter drummer boy
Chapter 3, “Guests to Entertain,” Section 1
Citing the consequences of abandoning their mission, De Berniere had swayed again Browne’s thinking. The thought of being passed over for promotion; of being branded by junior and senior officers as shy, irresolute, insufficient; of being forced, conceivably, to leave the Army had convinced De Berniere that they had to risk a second attempt. Making the decision to return to Worcester had not reduced, however, the ensign’s angst. He had new uncertainties that were distressing him.
They were probably damned, regardless! That he had not told Browne! The less he gave the depleted captain reason to question, to make decisions unilaterally, the better for both.
There stood Browne, De Berniere’s imperious, fifteen stone anchor weight, obtuseness’s brother, gazing out the window, witnessing the harbingers of a great storm: massing clouds, the rumble of thunder, blasts of wind bowing their windowpane.
Rain, snow, sleet were not the greatest of De Berniere’s concerns. Two situational difficulties weighed far heavier.
Except for the recalcitrant innkeeper, Isaac Jones, De Berniere knew of no one in Worcester who supported the Crown. It was incumbent, therefore, that he and Browne make the cowardly innkeeper serve! Loyalty. Sacrifice. “Your safety is secondary, sir. We must call upon your courage, your devotion, your fidelity to King and Country.” Or, because that loyalty had caused him grievous injury, “Punish them, Mr. Jones. What better way to punish them for what they have done to you, sir, than to apprise General Gage of what they attempt to protect!”
Beneath their window a mongrel dog, its fur rippling and flattening, stepped gingerly over icy wagon ruts. Its ears lifted. Something cast from a downstairs window had landed four feet in front of the dog's front paws. The dog munched on it.
De Berniere turned away.
He could, decidedly would cajole Jones; but more than likely he would have to bully the man. De Berniere frowned at the road, frowned at the gray-nosed mongrel. The problem was that forced information could easily be false information. Providing General Gage bad intelligence would destroy his career!
Persuading Jones presupposed the surmounting of their second difficulty, their safe arrival! They would have to pass through Marlborough, where, he was convinced, militiamen had awaited the arrival of three British spies. Despite what he had told Browne’s servant, could they realistically assume that, three days having elapsed, the Marlborough town leaders had ended their vigil?
Experiencing mild abdominal discomfort, De Berniere accompanied Captain Browne downstairs for an early lunch. When the snowfall, which had begun before noon, relented at 2 p.m., like criminals escorted to the gibbet, De Berniere and Browne stepped onto the Weston/Sudbury road. Twenty minutes later they were in trouble.
What had begun as a light snowfall was now a full-blown snowstorm. Gusts of wind staggered them. Icy particles pelted their faces, leggings, and coats. Their heavy, buckled shoes soon carried balls of frozen mud, which they scraped off every so often on road-side fence rails. Sixteen miles to walk, De Berniere calculated. Each foot up, each down, circulate the blood, don’t stop. He began to count. One left finger down every ten steps. Two thousand steps, one mile.
It occurred to him that the storm might work to their benefit. Whomever they might pass would not see British officers in questionable disguise but two snow-covered travelers. Who would take singular notice?
They passed through Sudbury, then over a causeway across a great swamp. Only when they were within three miles of Marlborough did they see their first traveler. They did not hear his approach. Not until he had ridden past did they notice him, and then, only briefly, their heads lowered against the wind.
Seconds later, feeling Browne's pushing hand, De Berniere saw that the traveler had stopped. His horse, blasted from behind, side-stepped and bridled. The traveler signaled for them to halt.
“What is your destination?” he commanded. Not receiving an answer, he repeated the question.
“Marlborough!” Captain Browne shouted. “To see a friend!”
The man stared at Browne, then De Berniere.
“Bad weather for it!”
“The storm caught us!” De Berniere said. He kicked the debris-laden sole of his right shoe against his other shoe.
“A local man knows when a 'northeaster' is comin'! From where do you travel?!”
“Boston!”
The traveler smirked. “They in Boston also know a 'northeaster'!”
Neither De Berniere nor Browne answered. De Berniere feigned indifference. “I didn’t think the weather would be this bad,” he said truthfully, ending the awkward silence.
Another pause. The surly rider continued to stare.
“We shall see our friend soon enough!” De Berniere added. “In about three miles, I conceive.”
The man frowned, deeply. The horse bridled; he pulled its reins toward his chest. Stooping, he asked, “Is it true … that you are British officers?”
De Berniere's chest pounded. His cheekbones tingled. Yet he kept his eyes fastened.
“No!” Captain Browne shouted, more loudly than what the wind required. “We live in Boston, I said!”
“We promised our friend in Marlborough that we would see him, today!” De Berniere glared at the provincial. “It doesn’t matter what you think!” His angry response surprised him. He determined the reason. Not having accepted his explanation, the man had dishonored him.
Another silence. The horseman maintained his scrutiny. They, powerless to control his questioning, waited.
How would he answer if the man asked for the name of their “friend”? De Berniere recognized. He had forgotten who it was in Marlborough that the Weston innkeeper had recommended. The Loyalist’s name was written on a torn piece of paper deep inside his right coat pocket.
Pulling his reins sideways, the provincial turned his horse around. Putting boot heels to flesh, he rode off into the gusting snow.
De Berniere and Browne resumed their tussle with the storm.
“We are in grave danger!” Browne declared.
“I realize that, sir!”
“Our speech is not in character with our appearance!”
“I do not believe Howe could have helped us!”
“Howe be damned! That rider will spread an alarm against us, and we walk into it!”
“Where else are we to walk except back to Weston?! Can we do that now?!”
“Do you see a farmhouse?! This snow blinds me!”
“I have seen nothing! We will see nothing until we reach Marlborough!”
“You realize what they will do to us! Once this storm is over, they’ll display us on their bloody common! Exhibit us, De Berniere! Sweat us!”
“Or tar and feather us, Captain! Force us thus the entire way to Boston!”
Thereafter chagrined, striving to appear resolute, they did not speak.
About to remove his right glove to retrieve the piece of paper, De Berniere recalled the Loyalist’s name. Henry Barnes. The Weston innkeeper, Isaac Jones, had told them that the Tory was a wealthy applejack distiller and merchant, a man of commercial importance. De Berniere and Browne had intended to pass through Marlborough separately fifteen minutes apart. Due to the storm and the near certainty that they would soon be arrested, they would now have to seek refuge at the merchant’s residence. If they were lucky, the storm having abated, they would strike off separately for Worcester early the following morning. All was predicated on the fanciful notion that they could ask a bystander, out in the storm, to direct them to Barnes’s residence without suffering immediate, harmful consequence! Who would be so bold as to station themselves by the road in such a fierce storm? Forewarned of their proximity, militiamen!
Madness.
Reaching the outskirts of the town, they passed two buildings and saw directly ahead a large white empty space surrounded by skeletal trees. Here is the village common, De Berniere concluded. Eight or nine onlookers were watching in front of what had to be the town’s meeting house. De Berniere saw no firearms. Where were the militiamen? Out of sight? Waiting? Why were these particular townsmen attending? To witness his and Browne’s arrest!
A squat, burly man wearing an apron stepped in front of them. Browne, two steps ahead of De Berniere, commenced to stare the provincial down.
“Where d'you be going in this storm, master?!” the man questioned. Flakes of snow eddied past him.
“Pray direct us to the house of Mr. Henry Barnes,” Captain Browne responded haughtily. De Berniere winced.
Raising his broad chin, the man pointed toward bare-limbed trees and a barely discernable house. Shielding his eyes with a gloved hand, Browne stepped off. De Berniere followed. Ten seconds later De Berniere looked back. His thick legs spread wide, his stout arms folded across his chest, the aproned man returned De Berniere’s stare.
Approaching the house, De Berniere saw two figures scurry away.
Henry Barnes immediately opened his door.
“You needn't explain who you are,” Barnes interrupted as they began their apology. “Every person in this town knows who you are. Monday night a party of liberty men had planned a welcome for you. Captain Bigelow did see you previously on the road.”
The silent horseman that had stared at them three days ago, De Berniere concluded.
“Is there a safe tavern for us here?” Captain Browne asked.
“No.”
“Any place?” De Berniere asked.
“Not one!”
Browne's harried look matched De Berniere’s.
“This town is violent, gentlemen. Consider my house but a temporary sanctuary.” Again De Berniere nodded. “Did you speak to anyone within the town?”
“A burly man wearing an apron. He stopped us,” Brown answered. “He directed us to your house.”
The merchant's ruddy face paled.
“A man of importance, I conjecture,” De Berniere responded.
“A leading militiaman of this town.” Henry Barnes tightened his face, pressed together opposite fingertips. “He hates anything British. So much so that he harbors a deserter. A drummer boy named Swain.”
“God’s wounds!”
De Berniere looked at Browne's astonished expression.
“Did you … say 'Swain'?!”
“I did.” The Tory merchant frowned. “Of what matter is it to you?”
Browne pivoted. Lips issuing silent words, he glared. Wide-legged, he rocked.
De Berniere looked for someplace to sit. Limb-enervating, thought-destroying fatigue had vanquished him. “Temporary sanctuary,” he had heard Barnes say. God’s love, he wanted everything -- hot food, good liquor, a snapping fire!
“What is it?” the Loyalist asked. Browne had faced about. De Berniere observed the Captain’s twisted mouth.
“Until less than a month ago, this ‘Swain,’ Private Swain, was my drummer boy!”
Barnes inhaled, then grimaced.
De Berniere’s mindfulness returned.
Had the drummer boy accompanied his protector out into the cold?! While the aproned man had spoken to them, had Swain recognized Browne?
Barnes opened the front door, just as quickly closed it. “You can’t be seen again,” he declared. “You must leave before dawn even if the storm continues! Let us hope Swain remained indoors. Let us hope your enemies hold greater import to their physical comfort!”
De Berniere removed his coat. Happenstance. Coincidence. His machinations had availed him nothing. Holding the dripping garment in his right hand, he shook his head.
Barnes walked to the doorway of the adjacent room. Beckoning them to follow, he said, “You’ll find a good fire in my study. Take off your clothing. I will bring you robes.”
A heavy knock on the front door stopped them.
“I saw nothing just now,” Barnes whispered.
De Berniere followed Browne out of the foyer. Barnes pointed to the wall that separated the entryway from his drawing room. Behind it, listening for voices, they heard initially the raw wind.
“Hello, Barnes,” a voice insulted. “I've come to pay you a friendly visit.”
“Doctor Curtis, how kind of you. We haven't spoken in two years.” A pause. “But I beg that you excuse me. I have guests to entertain.”
Another pause. “Who are your father's guests, my dear?” the first voice said, this time without malice.
De Berniere was startled by a child's voice. “Papa said it's not my business to know.” Polite but emphatic. Notwithstanding his alarm, De Berniere smiled.
The sound of the storm silenced, Barnes entered the drawing room. “He is off to the Meeting House.”
“Who is he?” Browne rubbed his left eye vigorously.
“Doctor Samuel Curtis. A leader of the local Committee of Correspondence.”
Barnes directed them into his study, where he advised them to spread their clothing on the hearth’s bricks.
“You realize now you must leave much sooner,” he said, returning, the robes folded over his right forearm. “I think it best that we change our plans. You will not have time to wear these.”
“The militiamen will be arriving,” De Berniere responded.
“I’m certain of it.” He looked at their clothing, steam starting to rise from the fabric. “You’d better clothe yourselves, now, however wet they may be. Then come into the next room. You have arrived just after dinner. You may have time yet for a steaming meal. Let us hope.”
His soaked clothing adhering to his skin, De Berniere eased his body down upon one of the dining table’s cushioned chairs. Smelling the roasted venison, he felt conjointly the release of tension and absence of volition. So this is resignation. This is capitulation, he thought. There is nothing, nothing whatsoever that I can achieve, save appease my appetite.
He was ravenously hungry. Making eye contact with his host, he smiled. A sumptuous, final meal, he thought. Intending to enjoy every morsel, he reached for a bread roll.
“Sir! Sir!”
The animated servant commanded the passageway between the foyer and dining room. Barnes rose instantly from his chair.
“Sir, many men! From the Meeting House! They carry muskets!” Snow was embedded in the man’s hair, layered on the shoulders of his coat.
“How many?!” Barnes asked.
“Maybe, … twenty!”
“Be gone!” Barnes ordered. They rose from the table. “Hurry!”
“I’ll attempt to delay them,” he said as they pulled on their coats.
Having snatched four bread rolls off the table setting, De Berniere and Browne followed Barnes’s servant out a back door into a yard. The servant pointed at what appeared to be stables, were stables. The two officers hurried past them, hurried across a snow-laden field, scrambled over a whitened rail fence.
Discovering a country lane a half mile away, the wind at their backs, the cold seeping through their coats, fearfully, miserably, they fled.
Barnes, Henry – Marlborough loyalist
Bigelow, Captain – Marlborough militiaman
Browne, Captain John – 10th Regiment. One of three spies sent to Worcester and Concord
Curtis, Dr. Samuel – leader of the Marlborough committee of correspondence
De Berniere, Ensign Henry – 10th Regiment, spy, scout for Colonel Smith
Gage, General Thomas – military governor and commanding general of British forces stationed in Boston
Howe, Corporal John – servant of Captain Brown. Spy
Jones, Issac – Weston tavern owner
Jones, Issac – Worcester tavern owner
Swain, Private – Captain Brown’s deserter drummer boy
Chapter 3, “Guests to Entertain,” Section 1
Citing the consequences of abandoning their mission, De Berniere had swayed again Browne’s thinking. The thought of being passed over for promotion; of being branded by junior and senior officers as shy, irresolute, insufficient; of being forced, conceivably, to leave the Army had convinced De Berniere that they had to risk a second attempt. Making the decision to return to Worcester had not reduced, however, the ensign’s angst. He had new uncertainties that were distressing him.
They were probably damned, regardless! That he had not told Browne! The less he gave the depleted captain reason to question, to make decisions unilaterally, the better for both.
There stood Browne, De Berniere’s imperious, fifteen stone anchor weight, obtuseness’s brother, gazing out the window, witnessing the harbingers of a great storm: massing clouds, the rumble of thunder, blasts of wind bowing their windowpane.
Rain, snow, sleet were not the greatest of De Berniere’s concerns. Two situational difficulties weighed far heavier.
Except for the recalcitrant innkeeper, Isaac Jones, De Berniere knew of no one in Worcester who supported the Crown. It was incumbent, therefore, that he and Browne make the cowardly innkeeper serve! Loyalty. Sacrifice. “Your safety is secondary, sir. We must call upon your courage, your devotion, your fidelity to King and Country.” Or, because that loyalty had caused him grievous injury, “Punish them, Mr. Jones. What better way to punish them for what they have done to you, sir, than to apprise General Gage of what they attempt to protect!”
Beneath their window a mongrel dog, its fur rippling and flattening, stepped gingerly over icy wagon ruts. Its ears lifted. Something cast from a downstairs window had landed four feet in front of the dog's front paws. The dog munched on it.
De Berniere turned away.
He could, decidedly would cajole Jones; but more than likely he would have to bully the man. De Berniere frowned at the road, frowned at the gray-nosed mongrel. The problem was that forced information could easily be false information. Providing General Gage bad intelligence would destroy his career!
Persuading Jones presupposed the surmounting of their second difficulty, their safe arrival! They would have to pass through Marlborough, where, he was convinced, militiamen had awaited the arrival of three British spies. Despite what he had told Browne’s servant, could they realistically assume that, three days having elapsed, the Marlborough town leaders had ended their vigil?
Experiencing mild abdominal discomfort, De Berniere accompanied Captain Browne downstairs for an early lunch. When the snowfall, which had begun before noon, relented at 2 p.m., like criminals escorted to the gibbet, De Berniere and Browne stepped onto the Weston/Sudbury road. Twenty minutes later they were in trouble.
What had begun as a light snowfall was now a full-blown snowstorm. Gusts of wind staggered them. Icy particles pelted their faces, leggings, and coats. Their heavy, buckled shoes soon carried balls of frozen mud, which they scraped off every so often on road-side fence rails. Sixteen miles to walk, De Berniere calculated. Each foot up, each down, circulate the blood, don’t stop. He began to count. One left finger down every ten steps. Two thousand steps, one mile.
It occurred to him that the storm might work to their benefit. Whomever they might pass would not see British officers in questionable disguise but two snow-covered travelers. Who would take singular notice?
They passed through Sudbury, then over a causeway across a great swamp. Only when they were within three miles of Marlborough did they see their first traveler. They did not hear his approach. Not until he had ridden past did they notice him, and then, only briefly, their heads lowered against the wind.
Seconds later, feeling Browne's pushing hand, De Berniere saw that the traveler had stopped. His horse, blasted from behind, side-stepped and bridled. The traveler signaled for them to halt.
“What is your destination?” he commanded. Not receiving an answer, he repeated the question.
“Marlborough!” Captain Browne shouted. “To see a friend!”
The man stared at Browne, then De Berniere.
“Bad weather for it!”
“The storm caught us!” De Berniere said. He kicked the debris-laden sole of his right shoe against his other shoe.
“A local man knows when a 'northeaster' is comin'! From where do you travel?!”
“Boston!”
The traveler smirked. “They in Boston also know a 'northeaster'!”
Neither De Berniere nor Browne answered. De Berniere feigned indifference. “I didn’t think the weather would be this bad,” he said truthfully, ending the awkward silence.
Another pause. The surly rider continued to stare.
“We shall see our friend soon enough!” De Berniere added. “In about three miles, I conceive.”
The man frowned, deeply. The horse bridled; he pulled its reins toward his chest. Stooping, he asked, “Is it true … that you are British officers?”
De Berniere's chest pounded. His cheekbones tingled. Yet he kept his eyes fastened.
“No!” Captain Browne shouted, more loudly than what the wind required. “We live in Boston, I said!”
“We promised our friend in Marlborough that we would see him, today!” De Berniere glared at the provincial. “It doesn’t matter what you think!” His angry response surprised him. He determined the reason. Not having accepted his explanation, the man had dishonored him.
Another silence. The horseman maintained his scrutiny. They, powerless to control his questioning, waited.
How would he answer if the man asked for the name of their “friend”? De Berniere recognized. He had forgotten who it was in Marlborough that the Weston innkeeper had recommended. The Loyalist’s name was written on a torn piece of paper deep inside his right coat pocket.
Pulling his reins sideways, the provincial turned his horse around. Putting boot heels to flesh, he rode off into the gusting snow.
De Berniere and Browne resumed their tussle with the storm.
“We are in grave danger!” Browne declared.
“I realize that, sir!”
“Our speech is not in character with our appearance!”
“I do not believe Howe could have helped us!”
“Howe be damned! That rider will spread an alarm against us, and we walk into it!”
“Where else are we to walk except back to Weston?! Can we do that now?!”
“Do you see a farmhouse?! This snow blinds me!”
“I have seen nothing! We will see nothing until we reach Marlborough!”
“You realize what they will do to us! Once this storm is over, they’ll display us on their bloody common! Exhibit us, De Berniere! Sweat us!”
“Or tar and feather us, Captain! Force us thus the entire way to Boston!”
Thereafter chagrined, striving to appear resolute, they did not speak.
About to remove his right glove to retrieve the piece of paper, De Berniere recalled the Loyalist’s name. Henry Barnes. The Weston innkeeper, Isaac Jones, had told them that the Tory was a wealthy applejack distiller and merchant, a man of commercial importance. De Berniere and Browne had intended to pass through Marlborough separately fifteen minutes apart. Due to the storm and the near certainty that they would soon be arrested, they would now have to seek refuge at the merchant’s residence. If they were lucky, the storm having abated, they would strike off separately for Worcester early the following morning. All was predicated on the fanciful notion that they could ask a bystander, out in the storm, to direct them to Barnes’s residence without suffering immediate, harmful consequence! Who would be so bold as to station themselves by the road in such a fierce storm? Forewarned of their proximity, militiamen!
Madness.
Reaching the outskirts of the town, they passed two buildings and saw directly ahead a large white empty space surrounded by skeletal trees. Here is the village common, De Berniere concluded. Eight or nine onlookers were watching in front of what had to be the town’s meeting house. De Berniere saw no firearms. Where were the militiamen? Out of sight? Waiting? Why were these particular townsmen attending? To witness his and Browne’s arrest!
A squat, burly man wearing an apron stepped in front of them. Browne, two steps ahead of De Berniere, commenced to stare the provincial down.
“Where d'you be going in this storm, master?!” the man questioned. Flakes of snow eddied past him.
“Pray direct us to the house of Mr. Henry Barnes,” Captain Browne responded haughtily. De Berniere winced.
Raising his broad chin, the man pointed toward bare-limbed trees and a barely discernable house. Shielding his eyes with a gloved hand, Browne stepped off. De Berniere followed. Ten seconds later De Berniere looked back. His thick legs spread wide, his stout arms folded across his chest, the aproned man returned De Berniere’s stare.
Approaching the house, De Berniere saw two figures scurry away.
Henry Barnes immediately opened his door.
“You needn't explain who you are,” Barnes interrupted as they began their apology. “Every person in this town knows who you are. Monday night a party of liberty men had planned a welcome for you. Captain Bigelow did see you previously on the road.”
The silent horseman that had stared at them three days ago, De Berniere concluded.
“Is there a safe tavern for us here?” Captain Browne asked.
“No.”
“Any place?” De Berniere asked.
“Not one!”
Browne's harried look matched De Berniere’s.
“This town is violent, gentlemen. Consider my house but a temporary sanctuary.” Again De Berniere nodded. “Did you speak to anyone within the town?”
“A burly man wearing an apron. He stopped us,” Brown answered. “He directed us to your house.”
The merchant's ruddy face paled.
“A man of importance, I conjecture,” De Berniere responded.
“A leading militiaman of this town.” Henry Barnes tightened his face, pressed together opposite fingertips. “He hates anything British. So much so that he harbors a deserter. A drummer boy named Swain.”
“God’s wounds!”
De Berniere looked at Browne's astonished expression.
“Did you … say 'Swain'?!”
“I did.” The Tory merchant frowned. “Of what matter is it to you?”
Browne pivoted. Lips issuing silent words, he glared. Wide-legged, he rocked.
De Berniere looked for someplace to sit. Limb-enervating, thought-destroying fatigue had vanquished him. “Temporary sanctuary,” he had heard Barnes say. God’s love, he wanted everything -- hot food, good liquor, a snapping fire!
“What is it?” the Loyalist asked. Browne had faced about. De Berniere observed the Captain’s twisted mouth.
“Until less than a month ago, this ‘Swain,’ Private Swain, was my drummer boy!”
Barnes inhaled, then grimaced.
De Berniere’s mindfulness returned.
Had the drummer boy accompanied his protector out into the cold?! While the aproned man had spoken to them, had Swain recognized Browne?
Barnes opened the front door, just as quickly closed it. “You can’t be seen again,” he declared. “You must leave before dawn even if the storm continues! Let us hope Swain remained indoors. Let us hope your enemies hold greater import to their physical comfort!”
De Berniere removed his coat. Happenstance. Coincidence. His machinations had availed him nothing. Holding the dripping garment in his right hand, he shook his head.
Barnes walked to the doorway of the adjacent room. Beckoning them to follow, he said, “You’ll find a good fire in my study. Take off your clothing. I will bring you robes.”
A heavy knock on the front door stopped them.
“I saw nothing just now,” Barnes whispered.
De Berniere followed Browne out of the foyer. Barnes pointed to the wall that separated the entryway from his drawing room. Behind it, listening for voices, they heard initially the raw wind.
“Hello, Barnes,” a voice insulted. “I've come to pay you a friendly visit.”
“Doctor Curtis, how kind of you. We haven't spoken in two years.” A pause. “But I beg that you excuse me. I have guests to entertain.”
Another pause. “Who are your father's guests, my dear?” the first voice said, this time without malice.
De Berniere was startled by a child's voice. “Papa said it's not my business to know.” Polite but emphatic. Notwithstanding his alarm, De Berniere smiled.
The sound of the storm silenced, Barnes entered the drawing room. “He is off to the Meeting House.”
“Who is he?” Browne rubbed his left eye vigorously.
“Doctor Samuel Curtis. A leader of the local Committee of Correspondence.”
Barnes directed them into his study, where he advised them to spread their clothing on the hearth’s bricks.
“You realize now you must leave much sooner,” he said, returning, the robes folded over his right forearm. “I think it best that we change our plans. You will not have time to wear these.”
“The militiamen will be arriving,” De Berniere responded.
“I’m certain of it.” He looked at their clothing, steam starting to rise from the fabric. “You’d better clothe yourselves, now, however wet they may be. Then come into the next room. You have arrived just after dinner. You may have time yet for a steaming meal. Let us hope.”
His soaked clothing adhering to his skin, De Berniere eased his body down upon one of the dining table’s cushioned chairs. Smelling the roasted venison, he felt conjointly the release of tension and absence of volition. So this is resignation. This is capitulation, he thought. There is nothing, nothing whatsoever that I can achieve, save appease my appetite.
He was ravenously hungry. Making eye contact with his host, he smiled. A sumptuous, final meal, he thought. Intending to enjoy every morsel, he reached for a bread roll.
“Sir! Sir!”
The animated servant commanded the passageway between the foyer and dining room. Barnes rose instantly from his chair.
“Sir, many men! From the Meeting House! They carry muskets!” Snow was embedded in the man’s hair, layered on the shoulders of his coat.
“How many?!” Barnes asked.
“Maybe, … twenty!”
“Be gone!” Barnes ordered. They rose from the table. “Hurry!”
“I’ll attempt to delay them,” he said as they pulled on their coats.
Having snatched four bread rolls off the table setting, De Berniere and Browne followed Barnes’s servant out a back door into a yard. The servant pointed at what appeared to be stables, were stables. The two officers hurried past them, hurried across a snow-laden field, scrambled over a whitened rail fence.
Discovering a country lane a half mile away, the wind at their backs, the cold seeping through their coats, fearfully, miserably, they fled.
January 17, 2021
Crossing the River -- Chapter 2, Section 2
Characters Mentioned
Browne, Captain John – 10th Regiment. One of three spies sent to Worcester and Concord
Buckminster, Joseph – Framingham tavern owner
De Berniere, Ensign Henry – 10th Regiment, spy, scout for Colonel Smith
Gage, General Thomas – military governor and commanding general of British forces stationed in Boston
Howe, Corporal John – servant of Captain Brown. Spy
Jones, Issac – Worcester tavern owner
Chapter 2, “A Pinch of Freedom,” Section 2
He heard behind him the clopping sound of an approaching horse. They had been passed twice by disinterested travelers. This one, too, would probably not want to talk. Walking ten feet behind his officers, his head down, he trudged.
Seconds later, he saw that the rider, ahead of them now, had stopped. He was staring at them! Blood and bones! The day’s first excitement! What should he say? “We be intendin’ t’visit a friend,” a friend that had better be living in some distant town, he thought, the rider more than naught a local! And there was Browne, and De Berniere, musket-barrel straight -- he had to laugh -- taking measured strides toward this provincial like soldiers on parade!
The rider turned his horse, moved it forward. The man looked twice over his right shoulder. Seconds later he kicked his horse’s ribs. They disappeared over a hill.
A bit of excitement that! Howe thought. Whoever the man was, he’d gotten his eyeballs’ full! What would his two Jack-Puddings be deciding to do now?
They formed a triangle in the middle of the road.
“That, I suspicion, was a militiaman,” Browne began.
“He takes with him a detailed account of us, make no doubt!” De Berniere answered. “Expect his return, with, at a minimum, ten militiamen!”
Browne rubbed his chin.
The rasp of a crow reached Howe from tree limbs beyond a damp field.
“Since it is some distance to Marlborough, the nearest settlement,” De Berniere offered, “we are safe, for awhile. We need not be alarmed.”
Howe disagreed.
“An hour would you say?”
“Perhaps.”
“Then we should carry on, locate a copse of trees, a barn, remain there until after they pass,” Browne said.
What would be the sense of that? Howe thought.
De Berniere touched, then scratched his left ear. “Let us not forget, sir, that to carry on we must pass through Marlborough.”
Wanting to grin, Howe stared at his shoes.
“Corporal Howe!”
He almost jumped.
“What, corporal, is your take on this thorny situation?” His hands gripping his elbows, De Berniere waited.
Hell fire!
Howe fought the urge to swallow. He swallowed. There stood Browne, eyebrows raised like a magistrate’s, expecting something stupid. “I’ve … I’ve a mind we d’go back t’ Worcester,” he said, facing De Berniere.
“Back to Worcester?!” Browne exclaimed. “What in God’s name for?!”
“By yer leave, Captain,” Howe answered, hiding his resentment. “There's naught but difficulty ahead an' the only other road t’Boston be the old one we d’take.”
Browne stared down his bony nose.
“So I figure we should go back through Worcester, not stoppin', get on t’Grafton, an’ spend the night at Framingham, where we was before.”
“Humph.”
Browne scowled at distant treetops. Staring at the crest of the hill where the militiaman had disappeared, De Berniere slapped his right thigh.
Why did you bother to ask?
“Damme, to turn tail and run! I do not countenance it!”
“But the alternative, Captain?”
“Yes, the alternative!” Brown pressed his right thumb against the side of his jaw. He spat on the dirt. “I allow there is more danger ahead of us than behind. Damme, I allow that!”
Howe realized De Berniere’s purpose.
“Clearly the rider intends to intercept us,” the ensign responded.
He waits, giving Browne time to own his thinking. Howe scraped the soles of his shoes on the road’s gritty surface.
They would be returning to the inn at Framingham after all, which was what De Berniere had expected him to say. Back to the same room, maybe, he the servant, arranging the basin of hot water, the towels, the sponge, wringing the sponge over the basin after the two had bathed, emptying the murky water in the mound of pine needles outside the inn’s rear door. He was taken suddenly by De Berniere's use of him. It suggested the ensign had some regard for him. Had he been De Berniere’s servant, his situation might have been acceptable. But he was Browne’s servant!
“All right! Damme! Discretion having primacy, I agree!” Browne grimaced. “We will walk through Worcester without stopping, allowing us to reach Buckminster Tavern before dark!” He frowned at the roadway. “The General's troops would not take this road anyway!” he declared. “No need, therefore, to waste our bloody breath mapping it!”
From his upstairs window Ensign De Berniere had watched the Framingham militia drill on the town common. For thirty minutes the provincials had marched to commands beat on a drum. These were the farmers, shopkeepers, would be soldiers that every British officer derided.
They were lean men. Young men and older men but healthy, vigorous men. Muscular. Accustomed to hard work, De Berniere judged.
They appeared very different from British enlisted men, taken mostly off the streets and out of taverns and jails, uneducated, unmotivated failures one step above animal proclivity. You controlled them with stern discipline. You indulged them with beer and access to women and in foreign locations you allowed them -- though not in Boston -- to pillage.
The militia captain called his company to attention. De Berniere listened to the officer’s oration.
New England militia had helped defeat the French and their allies, the savages, in the late war. England would not have prevailed in America without their skill and courage. “Americans are equal to the best troops of any nation.”
Rubbish!
Scornful of the character of the individual British soldier, De Berniere knew what excellent training and harsh discipline accomplished. No soldier anywhere was the equal of the aroused, resolute grenadier! The militia captain had spoken pretty words.
His advice, however, was accurate! Be cool under fire, be patient, control your fear. Always wait for the command to fire; afterward, as a disciplined unit, charge. De Berniere could not have instructed better.
The dismissed men cheered their captain! In a mass they converged on the tavern’s front entrance. For more than an hour De Berniere, Browne, and Howe heard them tramp and jest, reveling in their “pot-valor,” delaying their return to wives, children, and parents.
Witnessing in drill these merchants, mechanics, and soil tillers had been instructive. British trained and directed, they would make a formidable opponent. Because they were not so trained, despite all their drilling and speech making, they would remain cross-minded, boisterous peasants!
They walked the nine miles to Weston the next day without incident. Having consumed a sumptuous dinner at the Golden Ball Tavern, they returned to their room satiated. Standing beside the door jam, watching the officers remove their boots, Howe sighed.
This last day, maybe because he had wanted to savor it, had been the best of the lot. It had begun with a hearty breakfast, served to him affably by the Framingham tavern owner, Joseph Buckminster. He had enjoyed the sun’s warmth during their short walk, but a stroll, it had seemed, down a country lane.
A warm bath at the day’s end had removed the last vestiges of discontent. His having been the last of the baths, he had stood in a large wash basin in the middle of the floor, Browne and De Berniere pouring water over him from two pitchers, one hot and one cold. He had lathered himself with strong lye soap. Afterward, they had cleansed him with additional rinse water. Using large, coarse towels, he had dried himself.
Invigorated, he had accompanied the officers downstairs to satisfy a great hunger. Roast beef, steak-kidney-oyster pie, and a colonial dish they called Indian pie -- yellow cornmeal which, according to the proprietor, the cook had baked eighteen hours in a brick oven -- washed down by pewter tankards of ale!
Would he ever enjoy such a fine meal again?
He stepped into the room. De Berniere was staring at him.
What had he done?!
Instantly, he knew. Their mission was ending; his freedom was ending. Wanting him to know it, they were going to dress him down.
“Captain Browne and I have decided to return to Worcester. By ourselves. You will return to Boston with my sketches.”
Howe’s face colored. About to speak, he turned his head.
Arms akimbo, Browne scrutinized.
“We shall return to Worcester by way of Sudbury and Marlborough. Logic persuades us to believe that, sufficient time having elapsed, the ambuscade that we had anticipated has been disbanded.”
“Why don’t y’want me with you?” he blurted. Embarrassed, he looked sideways.
De Berniere raised his eyebrows. “You are not content with this, I see.”
“No need to justify our decision, De Berniere.” Aiming his nose, Browne scowled.
“Forgive me, Captain, but I must disagree.” De Berniere made a deprecating gesture. “I presume that we both agree, do we not, that the corporal has exercised craft in assisting us?” He waited for Browne’s acknowledgment, a curt nod. “The explanation for our decision,” De Berniere stated, addressing Howe, “is two-fold. I must map this other road to Worcester. Our duty necessitates it. Should we be apprehended -- our experiences having strengthened in our minds that potentiality -- we would not want what we have previously written and mapped taken from us, would we?”
Howe recalled Browne's statement that the Army would not use this road. How he wanted to wipe Brown’s eyes with it!
“Better that the General have in his possession what we have thus far accomplished than not one scrap of information should the three of us be arrested.”
Howe nodded. He turned away. He walked to the dingy window, pretended to look through the glass.
There was nothing that he could say to change their decision.
Browne, Captain John – 10th Regiment. One of three spies sent to Worcester and Concord
Buckminster, Joseph – Framingham tavern owner
De Berniere, Ensign Henry – 10th Regiment, spy, scout for Colonel Smith
Gage, General Thomas – military governor and commanding general of British forces stationed in Boston
Howe, Corporal John – servant of Captain Brown. Spy
Jones, Issac – Worcester tavern owner
Chapter 2, “A Pinch of Freedom,” Section 2
He heard behind him the clopping sound of an approaching horse. They had been passed twice by disinterested travelers. This one, too, would probably not want to talk. Walking ten feet behind his officers, his head down, he trudged.
Seconds later, he saw that the rider, ahead of them now, had stopped. He was staring at them! Blood and bones! The day’s first excitement! What should he say? “We be intendin’ t’visit a friend,” a friend that had better be living in some distant town, he thought, the rider more than naught a local! And there was Browne, and De Berniere, musket-barrel straight -- he had to laugh -- taking measured strides toward this provincial like soldiers on parade!
The rider turned his horse, moved it forward. The man looked twice over his right shoulder. Seconds later he kicked his horse’s ribs. They disappeared over a hill.
A bit of excitement that! Howe thought. Whoever the man was, he’d gotten his eyeballs’ full! What would his two Jack-Puddings be deciding to do now?
They formed a triangle in the middle of the road.
“That, I suspicion, was a militiaman,” Browne began.
“He takes with him a detailed account of us, make no doubt!” De Berniere answered. “Expect his return, with, at a minimum, ten militiamen!”
Browne rubbed his chin.
The rasp of a crow reached Howe from tree limbs beyond a damp field.
“Since it is some distance to Marlborough, the nearest settlement,” De Berniere offered, “we are safe, for awhile. We need not be alarmed.”
Howe disagreed.
“An hour would you say?”
“Perhaps.”
“Then we should carry on, locate a copse of trees, a barn, remain there until after they pass,” Browne said.
What would be the sense of that? Howe thought.
De Berniere touched, then scratched his left ear. “Let us not forget, sir, that to carry on we must pass through Marlborough.”
Wanting to grin, Howe stared at his shoes.
“Corporal Howe!”
He almost jumped.
“What, corporal, is your take on this thorny situation?” His hands gripping his elbows, De Berniere waited.
Hell fire!
Howe fought the urge to swallow. He swallowed. There stood Browne, eyebrows raised like a magistrate’s, expecting something stupid. “I’ve … I’ve a mind we d’go back t’ Worcester,” he said, facing De Berniere.
“Back to Worcester?!” Browne exclaimed. “What in God’s name for?!”
“By yer leave, Captain,” Howe answered, hiding his resentment. “There's naught but difficulty ahead an' the only other road t’Boston be the old one we d’take.”
Browne stared down his bony nose.
“So I figure we should go back through Worcester, not stoppin', get on t’Grafton, an’ spend the night at Framingham, where we was before.”
“Humph.”
Browne scowled at distant treetops. Staring at the crest of the hill where the militiaman had disappeared, De Berniere slapped his right thigh.
Why did you bother to ask?
“Damme, to turn tail and run! I do not countenance it!”
“But the alternative, Captain?”
“Yes, the alternative!” Brown pressed his right thumb against the side of his jaw. He spat on the dirt. “I allow there is more danger ahead of us than behind. Damme, I allow that!”
Howe realized De Berniere’s purpose.
“Clearly the rider intends to intercept us,” the ensign responded.
He waits, giving Browne time to own his thinking. Howe scraped the soles of his shoes on the road’s gritty surface.
They would be returning to the inn at Framingham after all, which was what De Berniere had expected him to say. Back to the same room, maybe, he the servant, arranging the basin of hot water, the towels, the sponge, wringing the sponge over the basin after the two had bathed, emptying the murky water in the mound of pine needles outside the inn’s rear door. He was taken suddenly by De Berniere's use of him. It suggested the ensign had some regard for him. Had he been De Berniere’s servant, his situation might have been acceptable. But he was Browne’s servant!
“All right! Damme! Discretion having primacy, I agree!” Browne grimaced. “We will walk through Worcester without stopping, allowing us to reach Buckminster Tavern before dark!” He frowned at the roadway. “The General's troops would not take this road anyway!” he declared. “No need, therefore, to waste our bloody breath mapping it!”
From his upstairs window Ensign De Berniere had watched the Framingham militia drill on the town common. For thirty minutes the provincials had marched to commands beat on a drum. These were the farmers, shopkeepers, would be soldiers that every British officer derided.
They were lean men. Young men and older men but healthy, vigorous men. Muscular. Accustomed to hard work, De Berniere judged.
They appeared very different from British enlisted men, taken mostly off the streets and out of taverns and jails, uneducated, unmotivated failures one step above animal proclivity. You controlled them with stern discipline. You indulged them with beer and access to women and in foreign locations you allowed them -- though not in Boston -- to pillage.
The militia captain called his company to attention. De Berniere listened to the officer’s oration.
New England militia had helped defeat the French and their allies, the savages, in the late war. England would not have prevailed in America without their skill and courage. “Americans are equal to the best troops of any nation.”
Rubbish!
Scornful of the character of the individual British soldier, De Berniere knew what excellent training and harsh discipline accomplished. No soldier anywhere was the equal of the aroused, resolute grenadier! The militia captain had spoken pretty words.
His advice, however, was accurate! Be cool under fire, be patient, control your fear. Always wait for the command to fire; afterward, as a disciplined unit, charge. De Berniere could not have instructed better.
The dismissed men cheered their captain! In a mass they converged on the tavern’s front entrance. For more than an hour De Berniere, Browne, and Howe heard them tramp and jest, reveling in their “pot-valor,” delaying their return to wives, children, and parents.
Witnessing in drill these merchants, mechanics, and soil tillers had been instructive. British trained and directed, they would make a formidable opponent. Because they were not so trained, despite all their drilling and speech making, they would remain cross-minded, boisterous peasants!
They walked the nine miles to Weston the next day without incident. Having consumed a sumptuous dinner at the Golden Ball Tavern, they returned to their room satiated. Standing beside the door jam, watching the officers remove their boots, Howe sighed.
This last day, maybe because he had wanted to savor it, had been the best of the lot. It had begun with a hearty breakfast, served to him affably by the Framingham tavern owner, Joseph Buckminster. He had enjoyed the sun’s warmth during their short walk, but a stroll, it had seemed, down a country lane.
A warm bath at the day’s end had removed the last vestiges of discontent. His having been the last of the baths, he had stood in a large wash basin in the middle of the floor, Browne and De Berniere pouring water over him from two pitchers, one hot and one cold. He had lathered himself with strong lye soap. Afterward, they had cleansed him with additional rinse water. Using large, coarse towels, he had dried himself.
Invigorated, he had accompanied the officers downstairs to satisfy a great hunger. Roast beef, steak-kidney-oyster pie, and a colonial dish they called Indian pie -- yellow cornmeal which, according to the proprietor, the cook had baked eighteen hours in a brick oven -- washed down by pewter tankards of ale!
Would he ever enjoy such a fine meal again?
He stepped into the room. De Berniere was staring at him.
What had he done?!
Instantly, he knew. Their mission was ending; his freedom was ending. Wanting him to know it, they were going to dress him down.
“Captain Browne and I have decided to return to Worcester. By ourselves. You will return to Boston with my sketches.”
Howe’s face colored. About to speak, he turned his head.
Arms akimbo, Browne scrutinized.
“We shall return to Worcester by way of Sudbury and Marlborough. Logic persuades us to believe that, sufficient time having elapsed, the ambuscade that we had anticipated has been disbanded.”
“Why don’t y’want me with you?” he blurted. Embarrassed, he looked sideways.
De Berniere raised his eyebrows. “You are not content with this, I see.”
“No need to justify our decision, De Berniere.” Aiming his nose, Browne scowled.
“Forgive me, Captain, but I must disagree.” De Berniere made a deprecating gesture. “I presume that we both agree, do we not, that the corporal has exercised craft in assisting us?” He waited for Browne’s acknowledgment, a curt nod. “The explanation for our decision,” De Berniere stated, addressing Howe, “is two-fold. I must map this other road to Worcester. Our duty necessitates it. Should we be apprehended -- our experiences having strengthened in our minds that potentiality -- we would not want what we have previously written and mapped taken from us, would we?”
Howe recalled Browne's statement that the Army would not use this road. How he wanted to wipe Brown’s eyes with it!
“Better that the General have in his possession what we have thus far accomplished than not one scrap of information should the three of us be arrested.”
Howe nodded. He turned away. He walked to the dingy window, pretended to look through the glass.
There was nothing that he could say to change their decision.
January 14, 2021
Crossing the River -- Chapter 1, Section 1
Characters Mentioned
Browne, Captain John – 10th Regiment. One of three spies sent to Worcester and Concord
De Berniere, Ensign Henry – 10th Regiment, spy, scout for Colonel Smith
Gage, General Thomas – military governor and commanding general of British forces stationed in Boston
Howe, Corporal John – servant of Captain Brown. Spy
Jones, Issac – Worcester tavern owner
Chapter 2 : "A Pinch of Freedom," Section 1
Encumbered by intermittent cloudbursts, they walked the nine miles of muddy road to Framingham, De Berniere sketching topographical and wooded trouble spots.
Six miles short of their destination -- John Howe having disappeared behind a stand of pines to relieve himself -- De Berniere broached his solution to their third perceived difficulty.
He began obliquely. “The mud makes its attempt to disguise our disguise.”
“Disguise? Mmm, yes. I take your meaning. That nestlecock in the wagon. Tearing suspicious, he was!”
“Indeed, Captain. Despite our dissembling endeavors we are conspicuously British! The behavior of the landlord, Jones, was further evidence.”
“Mmmm. Yes.” Centering his weight on the heels of his shoes, Browne rubbed his ample chin. He looked down his thin nose. “I suppose we shall have to do something! Our attire. As you say, it declares, ‘Arrest us!’ What's to do?”
“Sir. What would you suggest?”
Browne’s face flushed.
Lord, I’ve embarrassed him!
“When I ask you a question, ensign, I expect an immediate answer, not a question!”
“Yes sir.”
“Be advised not to make game with me!”
“No sir, I would not, sir.”
“Answer the question! What have you to advise?”
“Nothing, sir, beyond what you yourself, I am certain, have contemplated.” He regarded Browne guilelessly.
Arms folded across his chest, Browne frowned. “Perhaps not, but I want to hear.”
“Yes sir. I should be happy. Permit me, however, to say that I was seeking by my question the opportunity to profit from your appreciation.”
“Of what?”
“Of our situation.”
“Yes, yes. Go on.”
“Yes sir. I shall.” De Berniere straightened. “First, … do you not think, sir, that the less we converse with the local inhabitants the less we endanger ourselves?”
“I do.”
“Yet some intercourse must transpire?”
“It must.”
“Though I have knowledge of how the provincial speaks, I confess I have not the vocal facility to mimic him.”
“I couldn't speak his buggering tongue if life depended on it!” Staring over De Berniere's head, Browne scowled.
“Indeed, sir. You have identified our predicament precisely.”
Again Browne looked past him. De Berniere detected a blush of satisfaction. Proceed cautiously, he told himself.
“As to the matter of communication,” he continued, hesitantly, “have you considered Corporal Howe’s usefulness?”
“Howe? God’s life, explain yourself!”
“To act as our spokesman, if you will. Do you think he has the right necessities? He does have the common touch, I would say.”
Browne drew his lips back against his teeth. De Berniere waited for the idea to germinate.
“I admit that he does talk like them, being the lout that he is. As for knowing what to say, … what not to say …”
“He was quick to recognize the wagon driver's suspicions.”
“Yesss. But to know what to say … I suppose we could direct him beforehand, …”
“I conceive that we could.”
“But, damme, I do not like it! We should have to treat him as a bloody equal!” Browne’s scowl persisted.
“In public you mean.”
“Exactly!”
“He will eat with us in taverns.”
“Precisely.”
“If I catch your meaning, sir, he must be one of us, or rather, if he is to represent us in conversation, we must in our deportment be quite like him.”
The Captain harrumphed.
“I see,” De Berniere said. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“I do not fancy the arrangement, De Berniere, but, given the importance of our assignment, I accept its necessity.” Looking past the ensign, focusing on the pines into which Howe had disappeared, Browne glowered. “He has been my servant several months. I am not entirely satisfied with him. This will swell his head. He will come out of this expecting a commission, which if I have my say, he will not receive!”
“Little chance of that, I should think, sir.”
“I suspect not. I fancy not!” Browne answered. “Cuffy enlisted men do not become officers. But I will not tell him! What we have decided. Tell Howe what we have agreed upon, how he must proceed. Unless he gets above himself, I shall not speak to the man!”
They arrived at Buckminster Tavern in Framingham in the late afternoon. Speaking confidently to the proprietor, then to three servants separately, Howe performed his assigned task, De Berniere closely attending.
Entering Worcester the following day, February 25, De Berniere had become cautiously optimistic.
Not one provincial had exhibited suspicion while they had waited that morning for the Buckminster cook to prepare their lunch -- boiled tongue and cherry brandy -- which they were to take on the road. Thereafter, Browne, following De Berniere’s suggestion, had announced that they would not stop at any tavern during their thirty mile trek. Having covered the distance without incident, De Berniere was hopeful he would obtain the Worcester innkeeper’s complete assistance.
A sour-mouthed, balding man, the landlord was a relative of the Weston tavern owner. Both had the same name, Isaac Jones. Accepting De Berniere’s invitation, Jones accompanied the three soldiers to their room. Two weeks earlier, he immediately told them, Worcester’s militia had ordered all townspeople to shun his establishment. Thenceforth, he had been treated with contempt. “As certain as November rain” he was being watched. Listening to the man’s whining discourse, De Berniere again felt thwarted. Only after they had established their credibility, aided in no small measure by their demonstrations of empathy, might this peevish man be willing to impart what they wanted. The next day being Sunday -- Jones having told them that Massachusetts law forbade anybody on the streets during the hours of church service -- they would have sufficient time to sway him.
Sunday dawned through dark storm clouds. Speaking to Jones while taking his breakfast, De Berniere was pointedly cordial. Browne, following De Berniere’s unspoken prompt, behaved amiably. Between breakfast and the mid-day meal, adding details to his topographical sketches, De Berniere questioned whether inviting the proprietor to inspect his work might work to his advantage.
Shortly before the noon hour -- the ensign yet speculating -- Jones appeared at their door. Two gentlemen wished to speak to them.
“Who are they?” Browne asked.
“Friends, let me say.”
“But do we know that?”
“I know it as fact!”
“My companion is apprehensive because your establishment is watched,” De Berniere interpreted. “It follows that these ‘friends’ are also watched. If we should receive them,” he said gently, “it could be to our detriment.”
“I will not have our purpose compromised,” Browne declared.
“As you wish.” His face devoid of expression, Jones left the room.
“May God save us from inquiring friends!” Browne exclaimed after the landlord had descended the stairs.
Half-turned, De Berniere glimpsed on Corporal Howe’s face a chary smile.
A half hour later the sour-faced proprietor returned.
“The gentlemen have left,” he announced. “I bear their message.”
Raising his chin, Browne managed to look down his nose. “And?”
“They know you to be British officers.”
“Indeed! I think not!”
“Be advised that but a few friends to government know you’re in town.”
“What then was their purpose in coming?” Browne said sarcastically.
“That all the Loyalists of Petersham have been disarmed. The same is about to happen here.”
Browne grunted, angled his head, uttered an expletive. “Then I suppose we shall have to conclude our business tonight!”
De Berniere agreed. He had anticipated generalized hostility; he had not expected preemptive militancy. Jones’s establishment was watched. Three strangers had spent the night. Prominent Tories had subsequently visited. He and Browne could not risk further delay. Nor could he allow Browne to commandeer -- conviviality already shot to pieces -- this conversation!
“You are to direct us this evening to where the town’s military stores are safe kept,” Browne said.
Jones stiffened. “Not tonight! Not any night!” Eyes flashing, he fixated on the officers’ personal effects, arranged neatly on a narrow table beside their bed.
Five seconds elapsed.
De Berniere spoke. “Let us talk gently about this …”
“Damn your bleeding tongue!” Browne bellowed. “By God, I shall rip it out! Do not tell me what I do not want to hear!” His face choleric, Browne advanced. “Your loyalty, man! Your loyalty to the King! You will assist us! ”
“So I have, as far as keeping myself safe. And I'm not so certain of that!” Appalled, De Berniere watched Browne rise on the balls of his feet, lift aggressively his hands.
“You need not endanger yourself. If you think that, I have misspoke.” -- Too late, De Berniere thought, too late, Captain, for that! -- “We are not behindhand in our regard. We are sensible of your difficulty!”
“Entirely,” De Berniere responded. “Let us talk about this.”
Looking between them, not at them, Jones glared.
“We ask only that you stroll with us about the town, in the direction of the stores. You need not point out the stores’ location! Your word of it upon our return will answer.”
Isaac Jones shook his head. Browne’s neck muscles tightened.
“You must accompany us to the site! We must inspect it!”
“I am a watched man. You want me to walk the street with strangers who walk as soldiers, with no purpose apparently but to socialize, when my business is here in this tavern, where I would do that and no place else. I will not!”
Browne’s large body expanded. “You blackguard! You … offspring of a rancid whore!” Storming past the proprietor, he pulled the door open. “Out! Get out!”
John Howe fantasized.
Who could say what a resourceful young knave might discover prowling about in the dark? He imagined himself, holding his shoes, stealing out the door while the two officers snored. Thirty minutes later he would be looking at a weather-worn outbuilding, inside which the town’s powder was kept. The next morning, when they were all downstairs, he would mention the building to Innkeeper Jones to see how the grouch-faced proprietor reacted. The secret out -- Jones admitting to it -- De Berniere, flaming amazed, would declare, “I’ll be damned!”
“Howe. Pack our effects.”
He started.
De Berniere gestured at the table and the floor. “We are finished here. We leave for Boston tomorrow morning, by way of Shrewsbury, Marlborough, and Sudbury. Leave my sketching material separate. I will be mapping the way.”
“Yes sir.”
They had given up!
He wondered just how useful De Berniere’s sketches of this or any road would be without the General knowing the whereabouts of the town’s powder. It would be like readying the squire's horse for the hunt, he wanted to say, without knowing the day of it. So it was too bad for the Yellow Sashes back at the Province House, and too bad for them. To be defeated, despite all their work, by one sour-faced innkeeper!
Not if he had been in charge.
The next morning Howe had changed his anger to disappointment. Better to have their mission end poorly, he had reasoned, than not to have had it. He had relished the physical activity, the food, and the lodging. He had enjoyed the locals, very much like him, commoners he had sometimes chatted while Browne and De Berniere had kept their mouths shut, trying to be like him! Entertainment! The fun of watching De Berniere get his way without Browne knowing it! Never had he been entertained so much beginning with the day the black tavern maid, flirting with him, had identified Browne.
Captain Browne! Maybe the man knew something about soldiering, but he was not his better!
Walking these roads had given him lengthy stretches of time to think!
Foremost of his thoughts was how much his life had changed since that day he had signed up! A stable boy at Audley, his father a personal servant to the Squire, he had chosen to put on the red coat and white stock and here he was tramping about Massachusetts Colony the servant of a simpleton captain turned spy! Not in his wildest imaginings!
His decision to leave Audley had been plain eighteen-year-old stupid! How quickly he had come to hate soldiering! During the rare occasions when he had been permitted the chance to think, he had analyzed his mistake.
He had come to see himself a beast of burden, each day suffering the same food -- salt beef and beer -- the same work, the same abuse. Several months ago he had had the mind to change that. His father, by example, had taught him how to serve the high and mighty. The company captain's servant having died of the malignant spotted fever, Howe had pressed his case. Here he was on this gray, wet winter morning walking this road because that very captain, wanting to advance his career, had volunteered to try his hand at spying!
Serving Browne had not been that much of an improvement. His food and lodging were better; his work was not. The plow was gone; the bit in his mouth had remained. Walking these country roads, served at the same tavern table with Browne and De Berniere, given a pinch of freedom to exercise his lights, he had enjoyed the bit’s temporary removal. He would be back in Boston very soon, back to the same drudgery, to Browne’s daily abuse. Twice this morning he had thought about the lad in the teamster’s wagon. Doing that would be the ultimate right turn in any young knave’s life, wouldn’t it? The hard part about making that big a change, he thought, was not the doing so much but not knowing whether the doing was smart or stupid. What was so special about the lives of these country people, he wondered, that made them so rebellious?
Browne, Captain John – 10th Regiment. One of three spies sent to Worcester and Concord
De Berniere, Ensign Henry – 10th Regiment, spy, scout for Colonel Smith
Gage, General Thomas – military governor and commanding general of British forces stationed in Boston
Howe, Corporal John – servant of Captain Brown. Spy
Jones, Issac – Worcester tavern owner
Chapter 2 : "A Pinch of Freedom," Section 1
Encumbered by intermittent cloudbursts, they walked the nine miles of muddy road to Framingham, De Berniere sketching topographical and wooded trouble spots.
Six miles short of their destination -- John Howe having disappeared behind a stand of pines to relieve himself -- De Berniere broached his solution to their third perceived difficulty.
He began obliquely. “The mud makes its attempt to disguise our disguise.”
“Disguise? Mmm, yes. I take your meaning. That nestlecock in the wagon. Tearing suspicious, he was!”
“Indeed, Captain. Despite our dissembling endeavors we are conspicuously British! The behavior of the landlord, Jones, was further evidence.”
“Mmmm. Yes.” Centering his weight on the heels of his shoes, Browne rubbed his ample chin. He looked down his thin nose. “I suppose we shall have to do something! Our attire. As you say, it declares, ‘Arrest us!’ What's to do?”
“Sir. What would you suggest?”
Browne’s face flushed.
Lord, I’ve embarrassed him!
“When I ask you a question, ensign, I expect an immediate answer, not a question!”
“Yes sir.”
“Be advised not to make game with me!”
“No sir, I would not, sir.”
“Answer the question! What have you to advise?”
“Nothing, sir, beyond what you yourself, I am certain, have contemplated.” He regarded Browne guilelessly.
Arms folded across his chest, Browne frowned. “Perhaps not, but I want to hear.”
“Yes sir. I should be happy. Permit me, however, to say that I was seeking by my question the opportunity to profit from your appreciation.”
“Of what?”
“Of our situation.”
“Yes, yes. Go on.”
“Yes sir. I shall.” De Berniere straightened. “First, … do you not think, sir, that the less we converse with the local inhabitants the less we endanger ourselves?”
“I do.”
“Yet some intercourse must transpire?”
“It must.”
“Though I have knowledge of how the provincial speaks, I confess I have not the vocal facility to mimic him.”
“I couldn't speak his buggering tongue if life depended on it!” Staring over De Berniere's head, Browne scowled.
“Indeed, sir. You have identified our predicament precisely.”
Again Browne looked past him. De Berniere detected a blush of satisfaction. Proceed cautiously, he told himself.
“As to the matter of communication,” he continued, hesitantly, “have you considered Corporal Howe’s usefulness?”
“Howe? God’s life, explain yourself!”
“To act as our spokesman, if you will. Do you think he has the right necessities? He does have the common touch, I would say.”
Browne drew his lips back against his teeth. De Berniere waited for the idea to germinate.
“I admit that he does talk like them, being the lout that he is. As for knowing what to say, … what not to say …”
“He was quick to recognize the wagon driver's suspicions.”
“Yesss. But to know what to say … I suppose we could direct him beforehand, …”
“I conceive that we could.”
“But, damme, I do not like it! We should have to treat him as a bloody equal!” Browne’s scowl persisted.
“In public you mean.”
“Exactly!”
“He will eat with us in taverns.”
“Precisely.”
“If I catch your meaning, sir, he must be one of us, or rather, if he is to represent us in conversation, we must in our deportment be quite like him.”
The Captain harrumphed.
“I see,” De Berniere said. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“I do not fancy the arrangement, De Berniere, but, given the importance of our assignment, I accept its necessity.” Looking past the ensign, focusing on the pines into which Howe had disappeared, Browne glowered. “He has been my servant several months. I am not entirely satisfied with him. This will swell his head. He will come out of this expecting a commission, which if I have my say, he will not receive!”
“Little chance of that, I should think, sir.”
“I suspect not. I fancy not!” Browne answered. “Cuffy enlisted men do not become officers. But I will not tell him! What we have decided. Tell Howe what we have agreed upon, how he must proceed. Unless he gets above himself, I shall not speak to the man!”
They arrived at Buckminster Tavern in Framingham in the late afternoon. Speaking confidently to the proprietor, then to three servants separately, Howe performed his assigned task, De Berniere closely attending.
Entering Worcester the following day, February 25, De Berniere had become cautiously optimistic.
Not one provincial had exhibited suspicion while they had waited that morning for the Buckminster cook to prepare their lunch -- boiled tongue and cherry brandy -- which they were to take on the road. Thereafter, Browne, following De Berniere’s suggestion, had announced that they would not stop at any tavern during their thirty mile trek. Having covered the distance without incident, De Berniere was hopeful he would obtain the Worcester innkeeper’s complete assistance.
A sour-mouthed, balding man, the landlord was a relative of the Weston tavern owner. Both had the same name, Isaac Jones. Accepting De Berniere’s invitation, Jones accompanied the three soldiers to their room. Two weeks earlier, he immediately told them, Worcester’s militia had ordered all townspeople to shun his establishment. Thenceforth, he had been treated with contempt. “As certain as November rain” he was being watched. Listening to the man’s whining discourse, De Berniere again felt thwarted. Only after they had established their credibility, aided in no small measure by their demonstrations of empathy, might this peevish man be willing to impart what they wanted. The next day being Sunday -- Jones having told them that Massachusetts law forbade anybody on the streets during the hours of church service -- they would have sufficient time to sway him.
Sunday dawned through dark storm clouds. Speaking to Jones while taking his breakfast, De Berniere was pointedly cordial. Browne, following De Berniere’s unspoken prompt, behaved amiably. Between breakfast and the mid-day meal, adding details to his topographical sketches, De Berniere questioned whether inviting the proprietor to inspect his work might work to his advantage.
Shortly before the noon hour -- the ensign yet speculating -- Jones appeared at their door. Two gentlemen wished to speak to them.
“Who are they?” Browne asked.
“Friends, let me say.”
“But do we know that?”
“I know it as fact!”
“My companion is apprehensive because your establishment is watched,” De Berniere interpreted. “It follows that these ‘friends’ are also watched. If we should receive them,” he said gently, “it could be to our detriment.”
“I will not have our purpose compromised,” Browne declared.
“As you wish.” His face devoid of expression, Jones left the room.
“May God save us from inquiring friends!” Browne exclaimed after the landlord had descended the stairs.
Half-turned, De Berniere glimpsed on Corporal Howe’s face a chary smile.
A half hour later the sour-faced proprietor returned.
“The gentlemen have left,” he announced. “I bear their message.”
Raising his chin, Browne managed to look down his nose. “And?”
“They know you to be British officers.”
“Indeed! I think not!”
“Be advised that but a few friends to government know you’re in town.”
“What then was their purpose in coming?” Browne said sarcastically.
“That all the Loyalists of Petersham have been disarmed. The same is about to happen here.”
Browne grunted, angled his head, uttered an expletive. “Then I suppose we shall have to conclude our business tonight!”
De Berniere agreed. He had anticipated generalized hostility; he had not expected preemptive militancy. Jones’s establishment was watched. Three strangers had spent the night. Prominent Tories had subsequently visited. He and Browne could not risk further delay. Nor could he allow Browne to commandeer -- conviviality already shot to pieces -- this conversation!
“You are to direct us this evening to where the town’s military stores are safe kept,” Browne said.
Jones stiffened. “Not tonight! Not any night!” Eyes flashing, he fixated on the officers’ personal effects, arranged neatly on a narrow table beside their bed.
Five seconds elapsed.
De Berniere spoke. “Let us talk gently about this …”
“Damn your bleeding tongue!” Browne bellowed. “By God, I shall rip it out! Do not tell me what I do not want to hear!” His face choleric, Browne advanced. “Your loyalty, man! Your loyalty to the King! You will assist us! ”
“So I have, as far as keeping myself safe. And I'm not so certain of that!” Appalled, De Berniere watched Browne rise on the balls of his feet, lift aggressively his hands.
“You need not endanger yourself. If you think that, I have misspoke.” -- Too late, De Berniere thought, too late, Captain, for that! -- “We are not behindhand in our regard. We are sensible of your difficulty!”
“Entirely,” De Berniere responded. “Let us talk about this.”
Looking between them, not at them, Jones glared.
“We ask only that you stroll with us about the town, in the direction of the stores. You need not point out the stores’ location! Your word of it upon our return will answer.”
Isaac Jones shook his head. Browne’s neck muscles tightened.
“You must accompany us to the site! We must inspect it!”
“I am a watched man. You want me to walk the street with strangers who walk as soldiers, with no purpose apparently but to socialize, when my business is here in this tavern, where I would do that and no place else. I will not!”
Browne’s large body expanded. “You blackguard! You … offspring of a rancid whore!” Storming past the proprietor, he pulled the door open. “Out! Get out!”
John Howe fantasized.
Who could say what a resourceful young knave might discover prowling about in the dark? He imagined himself, holding his shoes, stealing out the door while the two officers snored. Thirty minutes later he would be looking at a weather-worn outbuilding, inside which the town’s powder was kept. The next morning, when they were all downstairs, he would mention the building to Innkeeper Jones to see how the grouch-faced proprietor reacted. The secret out -- Jones admitting to it -- De Berniere, flaming amazed, would declare, “I’ll be damned!”
“Howe. Pack our effects.”
He started.
De Berniere gestured at the table and the floor. “We are finished here. We leave for Boston tomorrow morning, by way of Shrewsbury, Marlborough, and Sudbury. Leave my sketching material separate. I will be mapping the way.”
“Yes sir.”
They had given up!
He wondered just how useful De Berniere’s sketches of this or any road would be without the General knowing the whereabouts of the town’s powder. It would be like readying the squire's horse for the hunt, he wanted to say, without knowing the day of it. So it was too bad for the Yellow Sashes back at the Province House, and too bad for them. To be defeated, despite all their work, by one sour-faced innkeeper!
Not if he had been in charge.
The next morning Howe had changed his anger to disappointment. Better to have their mission end poorly, he had reasoned, than not to have had it. He had relished the physical activity, the food, and the lodging. He had enjoyed the locals, very much like him, commoners he had sometimes chatted while Browne and De Berniere had kept their mouths shut, trying to be like him! Entertainment! The fun of watching De Berniere get his way without Browne knowing it! Never had he been entertained so much beginning with the day the black tavern maid, flirting with him, had identified Browne.
Captain Browne! Maybe the man knew something about soldiering, but he was not his better!
Walking these roads had given him lengthy stretches of time to think!
Foremost of his thoughts was how much his life had changed since that day he had signed up! A stable boy at Audley, his father a personal servant to the Squire, he had chosen to put on the red coat and white stock and here he was tramping about Massachusetts Colony the servant of a simpleton captain turned spy! Not in his wildest imaginings!
His decision to leave Audley had been plain eighteen-year-old stupid! How quickly he had come to hate soldiering! During the rare occasions when he had been permitted the chance to think, he had analyzed his mistake.
He had come to see himself a beast of burden, each day suffering the same food -- salt beef and beer -- the same work, the same abuse. Several months ago he had had the mind to change that. His father, by example, had taught him how to serve the high and mighty. The company captain's servant having died of the malignant spotted fever, Howe had pressed his case. Here he was on this gray, wet winter morning walking this road because that very captain, wanting to advance his career, had volunteered to try his hand at spying!
Serving Browne had not been that much of an improvement. His food and lodging were better; his work was not. The plow was gone; the bit in his mouth had remained. Walking these country roads, served at the same tavern table with Browne and De Berniere, given a pinch of freedom to exercise his lights, he had enjoyed the bit’s temporary removal. He would be back in Boston very soon, back to the same drudgery, to Browne’s daily abuse. Twice this morning he had thought about the lad in the teamster’s wagon. Doing that would be the ultimate right turn in any young knave’s life, wouldn’t it? The hard part about making that big a change, he thought, was not the doing so much but not knowing whether the doing was smart or stupid. What was so special about the lives of these country people, he wondered, that made them so rebellious?
January 10, 2021
Crossing the River -- Chapter One
Today I begin a series of chapters from my first novel, "Crossing the River." about events in 1775 that began the Revolutionary War.
Characters Mentioned
Brewer, Jonathan – proprietor of a Waltham tavern
Browne, Captain John – 10th Regiment. One of three spies sent to Worcester and Concord
De Berniere, Ensign Henry – 10th Regiment, spy, scout for Colonel Smith
Gage, General Thomas – military governor and commanding general of British forces stationed in Boston
Howe, Corporal John – servant of Captain Brown. Spy
MacKenzie, Lieutenant Frederick – adjutant general of the 23rd Welsh Fusiliers Regiment of Foot. Amateur cartographer
MacKenzie, Nancy – Wife of Frederick MacKenzie
Chapter One, “A Very Fine Country”
Feeling his wife's hand on his right shoulder, MacKenzie put down his quill.
“You laugh,” she teased.
Closing his eyes, he placed the back of his head against her enlarged abdomen.
“You are a sober sides, husband,” she said, cupping his right ear. “Pray that your soldiers hear you guffaw … on occasion.”
“Pah! Twould be the regiment’s ruination!”
“Lieutenant Frederick Mackenzie, 23rd Welsh Fusiliers Regiment of Foot,” she mocked. “Lieutenant Discipline. Though at times, … devoted father.”
“At all times.”
“Would that the soldier with dirty cross belts receive such devotion.”
He chuckled.
“The proof, dear husband, is not to be found in your words but in your actions. Your daughters demand your attention.” She tapped his left shoulder.
He secured her forearm. He stroked it. As vivacious and radiant as when he had courted her, she was his counterweight to what with rare exception had been a tedious existence. “But a few minutes more, my dear,” he responded. “To order my thoughts.” Enjoying her close proximity, he gazed at the half-filled page of his journal.
“Ill-formed words, Frederick, from such an …”
“Ill-forged mind?”
“Orderly mind. You should not interrupt. Wiggly words I should have said. Pray what has aroused your humor? I must preserve it. Store it in a bottle.”
Face beaming, he pointed at his compressed lips.
“Speak, chuff cove! Do not make sport with me!” To observe him better, she walked half way around his desk.
He touched the folded dispatch beside his journal. “General Gage inquires if there are officers with drawing experience that would make sketches of the countryside.” He studied her expression.
“Why is that … basis for mirth?” The skin at the corners of her eyes crinkled.
“Tis not his words, my dear, but his intentions that I find amusing.”
“General Gage would enjoy your description of his intentions.”
“I will not provide him the opportunity.” He smiled, wryly. “You have misconstrued my meaning. His intention, to find somebody to ‘sketch the countryside,’ is reasonable. What amuses me is what he tries in this dispatch to hide.”
“Oh? And what, Mister Constable,” she said merrily, “is that?” She was surprised at his change of expression.
“Something rather dangerous actually. For those who volunteer.”
“Indeed.”
“He wants officers that will map roads and bridges to Worcester and just as probably Concord, where the provincials are storing powder and such. He desires, in a word, spies. Having the ability to draw.”
“And you?” she asked, after a lengthy pause.
“Not I.”
She maintained her doubting look. He felt a rush of temper.
“I sketch what interests me. As you well know,” he said, gruffly. “I am not a young whelp. I have you and our family and our future child to factor. I’ll not be risking my neck and your welfare to play at spying!”
“That is a comfort.”
“Somebody else, somebody reckless, will!” He touched his eyelids, blinked, tapped with an index finger his blotter. “You needn’t worry,” he said, less aggressively. “The General will having lean pickings. He should be the one to worry, not you.”
Neither her head, her arms, nor her hands moved. “Why does he want maps of roads and bridges?”
He scowled. “To know what obstacles lay before him when he sends foot soldiers. Nancy! Trust what I say! It will not be me!”
He watched her dissect his words.
At length she asked, “Will they fight?”
“Who?”
“The provincials! Your friends believe they’re cowards. Will they?”
“Have they not made preparations to?”
She studied him a full five seconds. “Attend your daughters when you deem it convenient,” she said. Averting her face, she left the room.
It was her accustomed way of punishing him.
Knowing that she expected him to follow, he stared, resentfully, at his written words.
“January 8, 1775. It has been signified to the Army, that if any officers of the different regiments are capable to taking sketches of a country, they are to send their names to the Deputy-Adjutant General.”
“Will they fight?” She had gotten to the heart of it.
Angry commoners in the Boston streets shouted their contempt daily. A year ago they had destroyed a ship’s entire cargo of tea. 4,000 soldiers were encamped on Boston’s narrow peninsula. Angry? Rebellious? Yes. Would they wage war against His Majesty's Foot? He didn’t think so.
Nevertheless, Gage's spies would operate at great risk. The General would do well not to select officers motivated by the desire for promotion, or fire brands ablaze for adventure. Who else but the reckless or the ambitious would apply? Gage needed experienced officers possessing wisdom, judgment. He would not get them. Utilizing those attributes, they would decline to volunteer.
As for the ability to draw maps, “I am afraid,” MacKenzie wrote, “not many officers of this Army will be found qualified for this service. It is a branch of Military education too little attended to, or sought by our officers, and yet is not only extremely necessary and useful in time of war, but very entertaining and instructive.”
2
The black woman who labored amongst the tables took little notice of the three men standing near the front doorway until one of them, a blonde-haired, lean-bodied youth, separating himself, walked toward the kitchen. Widowed, gregarious, passionate, she appraised his physical attributes. Afterward, she regarded, less lasciviously, his traveling companions, who were taking chairs at a nearby table.
One of them was two or three years older than the boy now in the kitchen. He was, perhaps, twenty-two, twenty-three, dark-featured, slightly built, angular-faced. She watched his eyes, his inquisitive eyes -- face devoid of expression -- study each customer while his companion, fifteen or twenty years his senior, spoke. When his eyes fastened upon her, feigning indifference, she looked away. Having collected empty tankards and dishes from a vacated table, she walked into the kitchen.
When she returned, the dark one was speaking to the older one. She studied the man who now listened. Broad forehead, round eyes in close to a thin nose, large lips -- a face his mother had probably regretted -- his was a countenance quite different from the many that demanded each day her service. Using a wet cloth, snorting derision, she brushed pastry crumbs off the top of an empty table.
When they spoke to her, telling her what they wanted, she knew they were British officers. The way they spoke, the way they moved their heads as they spoke, their gestures: all was too familiar. For six years she had worked in a Boston tavern off King Street, an establishment frequently attended by the scarlet-coated officers of His Majesty's foot.
She had quit her job there and had left Boston during the first week of December. One of her current employers, Jonathan Brewer, had hired her the week before Christmas. Normally thick-skinned, she had had more than her fill of the arrogant, besotted British gentleman. One could not smile, banter, or laugh indefinitely when the jibes she parried revealed a bigoted nastiness. With their first words the two officers at the table had exposed themselves. The one with the broad forehead and thin nose she had previously seen.
Angrily, she returned to the kitchen.
Who was he? His name! She believed she knew his name. She glanced at the not pretty but rather handsome youth eating kidney pie at a little table pushed against the far wall. He was not an officer. More probably he was a servant of the man whose name escaped her. Enlisted men never ate in the same room with officers, one fact of many that she had involuntarily gleaned from her Boston patrons.
“More ale for you, sir?” she asked.
He glanced up at her, grinned, started again to chew.
“So you like eating here in the kitchen t’eating with your friends? What's wrong with them now?” She laughed with good humor.
“Oh, they be weary o' me. They want t'talk, I think, ‘bout me, private like. They be strangers here 'bout, surveyors, y' know. They hired me t'show ‘em about. Now I think they might be wantin’ t’give me the boot.” He shrugged, offered her a silly grin.
“How do you weary them, boy? Do they not take t’funnin'? You have that look about you, seems to me.”
A mischievous grin. “Tis true, ma'am. Tis true. They're a stiff bunch, all serious like. They'll have their maps out in front o' them in a minute, you'll see. You watch.”
Well, she didn't resent him, despite his being a soldier -- he might have passed as a young apprentice had she not connected him. In truth, she fancied him, despite being four or five years his senior. But when had age mattered, she reminded herself, when the look of a light-hearted, well-featured man had stirred her?
The one in the other room, the one she had recognized, his name was Browne. Such a common name. It had come to her, effortlessly, while she had been thinking of the boy. She had seen Browne five years ago. Browne had come to the Boston tavern often, right up until the time of the Massacre. His regiment had then left the city. During the past three months -- during her absence -- the regiment had evidently returned. From Canada. What was he doing here, dressed in his silly costume, the same costume this boy and the dark officer wore? Pretending to be surveyors, wearing brown clothing with red handkerchiefs tied around their necks, country people they were pretending to be!
Standing in the passageway to the taproom, she saw that they had spread a map across the table. The dark officer was pointing a stiff forefinger at the center of it. Browne nodded. Oh yes, they were surveying. They were taking a lay of the land. They were spies, insulting her intelligence!
Well, she would play with them a bit. She would let them fancy their success. When they left the tavern, she would tell her employer. He would send their description to the local militia, and that would be the end of Officer Browne! Good riddance. But not of the boy in the kitchen.
Having served the two officers their food, she watched the blonde-haired servant finish his tankard of ale. Smiling across the kitchen at her, he placed the vessel noisily on the table. Straightening his legs, leaning backward, he sighed. She walked over to him.
“The bigger one in the other room. The one with the thin nose. I know him.”
His eyes flashed. “Oh, I don't think so. They be strangers to the county, like I said. They've not been here before.” He looked at her guilelessly.
Oh, he was good, likable, convincing.
“I know your Captain Browne from a Boston tavern where I worked, maybe five years ago. I know your errand. You mean to take a plan of the country for your General Gage, I think.”
He moved his legs, then his upper body. He started to rise. Placing a hand on his left shoulder, she said, “I'll not betray you, not yet; rest easy. Let your friends enjoy their pie and ale. Once on the road, …”
The young man stared at the pie crumbs on his dish. He shrugged, then grinned. Sitting, then lifting his tankard, he said, “I'll be havin’ some more ale. Bein’ that Captain Browne does pay for it.”
“The young lad in the kitchen says you are surveyors,” she said as they stood to leave. Wanting him to recognize her, she stared at the older man.
“Just so. A very fine country hereabouts,” Browne replied, as though he were answering a voice.
She slammed his empty tankard upon the table. He stared at her, his startled eyes crowding the bridge of his nose.
“It is a very fine country!” she exclaimed. “And we have very fine and brave men to fight for it!”
He blinked, twice, several times more.
“If you travel much farther you will find out that is true!”
If he had learned anything the past half-hour, maybe it was that staring at a dirty windowpane changed nothing.
Well before they had been rowed across the river he had accepted the fact that their mission entailed risk. He had not expected immediate difficulties.
The third son of a privileged family, Henry De Berniere, meticulous, resourceful, was not habituated to defeat. From his boyhood to his present situation, proceeding logically, methodically, he had achieved his ambitious goals with admirable constancy. Commissioned an ensign at nineteen, at twenty-one bored, disaffected, he had a month ago employed his particular talents to attempt to achieve that most difficult of martial accomplishments, career promotion.
Before responding to General Gage's request for volunteer officers to map the roads to provincial military depositories, De Berniere had analyzed the risks. Paramount would be the difficulty of being what he was not, a colonial commoner. After he had submitted his request to serve, he had spent four days in the streets and taverns of Boston listening to the syntax and vocabulary of the populace. He had written down each night much of what he had heard. To demonstrate initiative during his interview with the Commanding General he had raised the speech difficulty and what he had done to try to surmount it. He had also presented a precisely drawn, detailed sketch of the roads and bridges of his parents’ parish, in Warwickshire. Analysis, preparation, performance. What he had not anticipated about his mission were, one, the limitations imposed upon him by his superiors and, two, capricious coincidence.
He had been upset about the clothing that he, Captain Browne, and Browne’s man had been obliged to wear. They had begun this first day in virtually identical dress. Who in the commanding general’s service had made that decision? A quartermaster sergeant, he surmised.
Then there was Captain Browne, De Berniere’s immediate superior. The man was dense, obtuse, fence post stupid! His performance this day had been appalling! Why had he been selected?!
Several reasons, De Berniere supposed. One, a senior officer had to lead; two, Browne also wanted promotion; three, Browne, having spent several years garrisoned in Boston, “knew” the populace; and, four, very few senior officers, perhaps only he, had volunteered.
De Berniere had not yet concluded his evaluation of Browne's servant, John Howe. Watching Howe arranging towels across the back of a chair preparatory to procuring hot water for their baths, De Berniere suspicioned that the servant was more percipient than his master.
Howe spoke and behaved much like the Boston commoners that De Berniere had observed. He had not this day embarrassed himself. He had exhibited an alert mind and a readiness to act. Outside the Waltham tavern Howe had explained the behavior of the serving woman. With a rush of advice for which he had immediately, ingratiatingly apologized, Howe, stating the obvious, had recommended immediate haste.
A teamster had overtaken them a mile or so down the road. De Berniere had persuaded the man to carry them. Almost immediately, he, and Howe, but not Browne, had recognized his blunder.
The teamster's companion had instantly aroused De Berniere’s suspicion. The tense young man would not look at them. His body resisted the wagon’s jostle. His hair had been cropped, unnaturally, at the back. A deserter, De Berniere had concluded, a guileless simpleton spirited from the city by Sons of Liberty, driven westward by a teamster militiaman.
Howe’s eyes had revealed the same conclusion. Twice Howe had glanced at the “deserter,” then at the teamster, then at De Berniere, before De Berniere had nodded acknowledgment. Browne, jostled by the wagon's movement, had stared vacantly at wet fields.
The teamster’s silence the first fifteen minutes of their journey had added weight to De Berniere’s supposition. A taciturn man voices a word or two in passing, De Berniere had reasoned. This man, maintaining his hard look at the road, schemes our arrest!
“’Spect I could take you the entire way t’Worcester,” the driver had thereupon declared, confirming De Berniere’s judgment. “I do have business there. Might as well get it done t’day.”
“Thank you, no,” De Berniere had declared, before Browne had been able to speak. They had reached the crest of a low hill. Seeing several distant buildings in the hollow beyond, concluding that they were approaching Weston, he had said, “We aim to be let out at the next tavern.”
Thereafter, the wagon driver had watched the road. Answering Browne’s perplexed expression, De Berniere had nodded at the deserter. Browne’s subsequent furrowed brow had vexed him. Belatedly, Browne had answered, “Yes, the next tavern, please.”
“Stop here, please,” De Berniere had said, sharply, when the wagon had closed to within twenty yards of the tavern.
Offering no acknowledgment, the teamster had kept his horses moving. De Berniere had imagined the three of them having to jump from the wagon a mile or two down the road to hide in thicket and pine. But, no. The man had pulled his horses suddenly -- angrily, De Berniere had judged -- to a stop directly in front of the building.
Captain Browne had displayed his stupidity again when they had seated themselves for refreshment.
“May we have coffee?” Browne had asked the landlord, having been warned in Boston not to request tea.
Straightening, the landlord had answered, “You may have what you please, either tea or coffee.” Staring at the man’s inquiring eyes, De Berniere had divined his message, that he was a Loyalist, that he recognized them to be soldiers, and that he wanted his presumption corroborated by their selection of tea.
“Coffee. I said coffee!” Browne had answered.
“Tea, actually,” De Berniere had corrected, witnessing immediately Browne's confusion, then resentment.
De Berniere stepped away from the window. His window-staring had, in fact, benefited him. Analyzing the day’s events, he had drawn conclusions.
He had isolated three difficulties. Foremost of these was Browne's impercipience. Somehow, subtly, De Berniere had to lead, without Browne knowing it.
Another difficulty had been the landlord’s lack of cooperation. Two hours ago, having accompanied them to their room, the man had given Browne the names of safe taverns in Framingham and Worcester but nothing else. He either did not known where the Worcester military stores were hidden or he had chosen not to tell them. Being obtuse, Browne had not asked. Because the man had not wanted to talk, De Berniere, not wanting to prolong the landlord’s unprofitable stay, had chosen not to question him.
Other than downstairs where he conducted business the landlord did not want to be seen with them. This had caused De Berniere to draw two inferences. The locals were vindictive toward anybody that harbored British spies. And any local with two eyes to see knew -- the third difficulty that he had isolated -- that they were indeed spies!
He recalled the time before his eighteenth birthday when he had waded into the ocean to impress two female cousins. A strong undertow had carried him one hundred yards off shore. Thrashing against the current, he had feared that the shore was unreachable. It had taken him an hour to fight his way back.
Characters Mentioned
Brewer, Jonathan – proprietor of a Waltham tavern
Browne, Captain John – 10th Regiment. One of three spies sent to Worcester and Concord
De Berniere, Ensign Henry – 10th Regiment, spy, scout for Colonel Smith
Gage, General Thomas – military governor and commanding general of British forces stationed in Boston
Howe, Corporal John – servant of Captain Brown. Spy
MacKenzie, Lieutenant Frederick – adjutant general of the 23rd Welsh Fusiliers Regiment of Foot. Amateur cartographer
MacKenzie, Nancy – Wife of Frederick MacKenzie
Chapter One, “A Very Fine Country”
Feeling his wife's hand on his right shoulder, MacKenzie put down his quill.
“You laugh,” she teased.
Closing his eyes, he placed the back of his head against her enlarged abdomen.
“You are a sober sides, husband,” she said, cupping his right ear. “Pray that your soldiers hear you guffaw … on occasion.”
“Pah! Twould be the regiment’s ruination!”
“Lieutenant Frederick Mackenzie, 23rd Welsh Fusiliers Regiment of Foot,” she mocked. “Lieutenant Discipline. Though at times, … devoted father.”
“At all times.”
“Would that the soldier with dirty cross belts receive such devotion.”
He chuckled.
“The proof, dear husband, is not to be found in your words but in your actions. Your daughters demand your attention.” She tapped his left shoulder.
He secured her forearm. He stroked it. As vivacious and radiant as when he had courted her, she was his counterweight to what with rare exception had been a tedious existence. “But a few minutes more, my dear,” he responded. “To order my thoughts.” Enjoying her close proximity, he gazed at the half-filled page of his journal.
“Ill-formed words, Frederick, from such an …”
“Ill-forged mind?”
“Orderly mind. You should not interrupt. Wiggly words I should have said. Pray what has aroused your humor? I must preserve it. Store it in a bottle.”
Face beaming, he pointed at his compressed lips.
“Speak, chuff cove! Do not make sport with me!” To observe him better, she walked half way around his desk.
He touched the folded dispatch beside his journal. “General Gage inquires if there are officers with drawing experience that would make sketches of the countryside.” He studied her expression.
“Why is that … basis for mirth?” The skin at the corners of her eyes crinkled.
“Tis not his words, my dear, but his intentions that I find amusing.”
“General Gage would enjoy your description of his intentions.”
“I will not provide him the opportunity.” He smiled, wryly. “You have misconstrued my meaning. His intention, to find somebody to ‘sketch the countryside,’ is reasonable. What amuses me is what he tries in this dispatch to hide.”
“Oh? And what, Mister Constable,” she said merrily, “is that?” She was surprised at his change of expression.
“Something rather dangerous actually. For those who volunteer.”
“Indeed.”
“He wants officers that will map roads and bridges to Worcester and just as probably Concord, where the provincials are storing powder and such. He desires, in a word, spies. Having the ability to draw.”
“And you?” she asked, after a lengthy pause.
“Not I.”
She maintained her doubting look. He felt a rush of temper.
“I sketch what interests me. As you well know,” he said, gruffly. “I am not a young whelp. I have you and our family and our future child to factor. I’ll not be risking my neck and your welfare to play at spying!”
“That is a comfort.”
“Somebody else, somebody reckless, will!” He touched his eyelids, blinked, tapped with an index finger his blotter. “You needn’t worry,” he said, less aggressively. “The General will having lean pickings. He should be the one to worry, not you.”
Neither her head, her arms, nor her hands moved. “Why does he want maps of roads and bridges?”
He scowled. “To know what obstacles lay before him when he sends foot soldiers. Nancy! Trust what I say! It will not be me!”
He watched her dissect his words.
At length she asked, “Will they fight?”
“Who?”
“The provincials! Your friends believe they’re cowards. Will they?”
“Have they not made preparations to?”
She studied him a full five seconds. “Attend your daughters when you deem it convenient,” she said. Averting her face, she left the room.
It was her accustomed way of punishing him.
Knowing that she expected him to follow, he stared, resentfully, at his written words.
“January 8, 1775. It has been signified to the Army, that if any officers of the different regiments are capable to taking sketches of a country, they are to send their names to the Deputy-Adjutant General.”
“Will they fight?” She had gotten to the heart of it.
Angry commoners in the Boston streets shouted their contempt daily. A year ago they had destroyed a ship’s entire cargo of tea. 4,000 soldiers were encamped on Boston’s narrow peninsula. Angry? Rebellious? Yes. Would they wage war against His Majesty's Foot? He didn’t think so.
Nevertheless, Gage's spies would operate at great risk. The General would do well not to select officers motivated by the desire for promotion, or fire brands ablaze for adventure. Who else but the reckless or the ambitious would apply? Gage needed experienced officers possessing wisdom, judgment. He would not get them. Utilizing those attributes, they would decline to volunteer.
As for the ability to draw maps, “I am afraid,” MacKenzie wrote, “not many officers of this Army will be found qualified for this service. It is a branch of Military education too little attended to, or sought by our officers, and yet is not only extremely necessary and useful in time of war, but very entertaining and instructive.”
2
The black woman who labored amongst the tables took little notice of the three men standing near the front doorway until one of them, a blonde-haired, lean-bodied youth, separating himself, walked toward the kitchen. Widowed, gregarious, passionate, she appraised his physical attributes. Afterward, she regarded, less lasciviously, his traveling companions, who were taking chairs at a nearby table.
One of them was two or three years older than the boy now in the kitchen. He was, perhaps, twenty-two, twenty-three, dark-featured, slightly built, angular-faced. She watched his eyes, his inquisitive eyes -- face devoid of expression -- study each customer while his companion, fifteen or twenty years his senior, spoke. When his eyes fastened upon her, feigning indifference, she looked away. Having collected empty tankards and dishes from a vacated table, she walked into the kitchen.
When she returned, the dark one was speaking to the older one. She studied the man who now listened. Broad forehead, round eyes in close to a thin nose, large lips -- a face his mother had probably regretted -- his was a countenance quite different from the many that demanded each day her service. Using a wet cloth, snorting derision, she brushed pastry crumbs off the top of an empty table.
When they spoke to her, telling her what they wanted, she knew they were British officers. The way they spoke, the way they moved their heads as they spoke, their gestures: all was too familiar. For six years she had worked in a Boston tavern off King Street, an establishment frequently attended by the scarlet-coated officers of His Majesty's foot.
She had quit her job there and had left Boston during the first week of December. One of her current employers, Jonathan Brewer, had hired her the week before Christmas. Normally thick-skinned, she had had more than her fill of the arrogant, besotted British gentleman. One could not smile, banter, or laugh indefinitely when the jibes she parried revealed a bigoted nastiness. With their first words the two officers at the table had exposed themselves. The one with the broad forehead and thin nose she had previously seen.
Angrily, she returned to the kitchen.
Who was he? His name! She believed she knew his name. She glanced at the not pretty but rather handsome youth eating kidney pie at a little table pushed against the far wall. He was not an officer. More probably he was a servant of the man whose name escaped her. Enlisted men never ate in the same room with officers, one fact of many that she had involuntarily gleaned from her Boston patrons.
“More ale for you, sir?” she asked.
He glanced up at her, grinned, started again to chew.
“So you like eating here in the kitchen t’eating with your friends? What's wrong with them now?” She laughed with good humor.
“Oh, they be weary o' me. They want t'talk, I think, ‘bout me, private like. They be strangers here 'bout, surveyors, y' know. They hired me t'show ‘em about. Now I think they might be wantin’ t’give me the boot.” He shrugged, offered her a silly grin.
“How do you weary them, boy? Do they not take t’funnin'? You have that look about you, seems to me.”
A mischievous grin. “Tis true, ma'am. Tis true. They're a stiff bunch, all serious like. They'll have their maps out in front o' them in a minute, you'll see. You watch.”
Well, she didn't resent him, despite his being a soldier -- he might have passed as a young apprentice had she not connected him. In truth, she fancied him, despite being four or five years his senior. But when had age mattered, she reminded herself, when the look of a light-hearted, well-featured man had stirred her?
The one in the other room, the one she had recognized, his name was Browne. Such a common name. It had come to her, effortlessly, while she had been thinking of the boy. She had seen Browne five years ago. Browne had come to the Boston tavern often, right up until the time of the Massacre. His regiment had then left the city. During the past three months -- during her absence -- the regiment had evidently returned. From Canada. What was he doing here, dressed in his silly costume, the same costume this boy and the dark officer wore? Pretending to be surveyors, wearing brown clothing with red handkerchiefs tied around their necks, country people they were pretending to be!
Standing in the passageway to the taproom, she saw that they had spread a map across the table. The dark officer was pointing a stiff forefinger at the center of it. Browne nodded. Oh yes, they were surveying. They were taking a lay of the land. They were spies, insulting her intelligence!
Well, she would play with them a bit. She would let them fancy their success. When they left the tavern, she would tell her employer. He would send their description to the local militia, and that would be the end of Officer Browne! Good riddance. But not of the boy in the kitchen.
Having served the two officers their food, she watched the blonde-haired servant finish his tankard of ale. Smiling across the kitchen at her, he placed the vessel noisily on the table. Straightening his legs, leaning backward, he sighed. She walked over to him.
“The bigger one in the other room. The one with the thin nose. I know him.”
His eyes flashed. “Oh, I don't think so. They be strangers to the county, like I said. They've not been here before.” He looked at her guilelessly.
Oh, he was good, likable, convincing.
“I know your Captain Browne from a Boston tavern where I worked, maybe five years ago. I know your errand. You mean to take a plan of the country for your General Gage, I think.”
He moved his legs, then his upper body. He started to rise. Placing a hand on his left shoulder, she said, “I'll not betray you, not yet; rest easy. Let your friends enjoy their pie and ale. Once on the road, …”
The young man stared at the pie crumbs on his dish. He shrugged, then grinned. Sitting, then lifting his tankard, he said, “I'll be havin’ some more ale. Bein’ that Captain Browne does pay for it.”
“The young lad in the kitchen says you are surveyors,” she said as they stood to leave. Wanting him to recognize her, she stared at the older man.
“Just so. A very fine country hereabouts,” Browne replied, as though he were answering a voice.
She slammed his empty tankard upon the table. He stared at her, his startled eyes crowding the bridge of his nose.
“It is a very fine country!” she exclaimed. “And we have very fine and brave men to fight for it!”
He blinked, twice, several times more.
“If you travel much farther you will find out that is true!”
If he had learned anything the past half-hour, maybe it was that staring at a dirty windowpane changed nothing.
Well before they had been rowed across the river he had accepted the fact that their mission entailed risk. He had not expected immediate difficulties.
The third son of a privileged family, Henry De Berniere, meticulous, resourceful, was not habituated to defeat. From his boyhood to his present situation, proceeding logically, methodically, he had achieved his ambitious goals with admirable constancy. Commissioned an ensign at nineteen, at twenty-one bored, disaffected, he had a month ago employed his particular talents to attempt to achieve that most difficult of martial accomplishments, career promotion.
Before responding to General Gage's request for volunteer officers to map the roads to provincial military depositories, De Berniere had analyzed the risks. Paramount would be the difficulty of being what he was not, a colonial commoner. After he had submitted his request to serve, he had spent four days in the streets and taverns of Boston listening to the syntax and vocabulary of the populace. He had written down each night much of what he had heard. To demonstrate initiative during his interview with the Commanding General he had raised the speech difficulty and what he had done to try to surmount it. He had also presented a precisely drawn, detailed sketch of the roads and bridges of his parents’ parish, in Warwickshire. Analysis, preparation, performance. What he had not anticipated about his mission were, one, the limitations imposed upon him by his superiors and, two, capricious coincidence.
He had been upset about the clothing that he, Captain Browne, and Browne’s man had been obliged to wear. They had begun this first day in virtually identical dress. Who in the commanding general’s service had made that decision? A quartermaster sergeant, he surmised.
Then there was Captain Browne, De Berniere’s immediate superior. The man was dense, obtuse, fence post stupid! His performance this day had been appalling! Why had he been selected?!
Several reasons, De Berniere supposed. One, a senior officer had to lead; two, Browne also wanted promotion; three, Browne, having spent several years garrisoned in Boston, “knew” the populace; and, four, very few senior officers, perhaps only he, had volunteered.
De Berniere had not yet concluded his evaluation of Browne's servant, John Howe. Watching Howe arranging towels across the back of a chair preparatory to procuring hot water for their baths, De Berniere suspicioned that the servant was more percipient than his master.
Howe spoke and behaved much like the Boston commoners that De Berniere had observed. He had not this day embarrassed himself. He had exhibited an alert mind and a readiness to act. Outside the Waltham tavern Howe had explained the behavior of the serving woman. With a rush of advice for which he had immediately, ingratiatingly apologized, Howe, stating the obvious, had recommended immediate haste.
A teamster had overtaken them a mile or so down the road. De Berniere had persuaded the man to carry them. Almost immediately, he, and Howe, but not Browne, had recognized his blunder.
The teamster's companion had instantly aroused De Berniere’s suspicion. The tense young man would not look at them. His body resisted the wagon’s jostle. His hair had been cropped, unnaturally, at the back. A deserter, De Berniere had concluded, a guileless simpleton spirited from the city by Sons of Liberty, driven westward by a teamster militiaman.
Howe’s eyes had revealed the same conclusion. Twice Howe had glanced at the “deserter,” then at the teamster, then at De Berniere, before De Berniere had nodded acknowledgment. Browne, jostled by the wagon's movement, had stared vacantly at wet fields.
The teamster’s silence the first fifteen minutes of their journey had added weight to De Berniere’s supposition. A taciturn man voices a word or two in passing, De Berniere had reasoned. This man, maintaining his hard look at the road, schemes our arrest!
“’Spect I could take you the entire way t’Worcester,” the driver had thereupon declared, confirming De Berniere’s judgment. “I do have business there. Might as well get it done t’day.”
“Thank you, no,” De Berniere had declared, before Browne had been able to speak. They had reached the crest of a low hill. Seeing several distant buildings in the hollow beyond, concluding that they were approaching Weston, he had said, “We aim to be let out at the next tavern.”
Thereafter, the wagon driver had watched the road. Answering Browne’s perplexed expression, De Berniere had nodded at the deserter. Browne’s subsequent furrowed brow had vexed him. Belatedly, Browne had answered, “Yes, the next tavern, please.”
“Stop here, please,” De Berniere had said, sharply, when the wagon had closed to within twenty yards of the tavern.
Offering no acknowledgment, the teamster had kept his horses moving. De Berniere had imagined the three of them having to jump from the wagon a mile or two down the road to hide in thicket and pine. But, no. The man had pulled his horses suddenly -- angrily, De Berniere had judged -- to a stop directly in front of the building.
Captain Browne had displayed his stupidity again when they had seated themselves for refreshment.
“May we have coffee?” Browne had asked the landlord, having been warned in Boston not to request tea.
Straightening, the landlord had answered, “You may have what you please, either tea or coffee.” Staring at the man’s inquiring eyes, De Berniere had divined his message, that he was a Loyalist, that he recognized them to be soldiers, and that he wanted his presumption corroborated by their selection of tea.
“Coffee. I said coffee!” Browne had answered.
“Tea, actually,” De Berniere had corrected, witnessing immediately Browne's confusion, then resentment.
De Berniere stepped away from the window. His window-staring had, in fact, benefited him. Analyzing the day’s events, he had drawn conclusions.
He had isolated three difficulties. Foremost of these was Browne's impercipience. Somehow, subtly, De Berniere had to lead, without Browne knowing it.
Another difficulty had been the landlord’s lack of cooperation. Two hours ago, having accompanied them to their room, the man had given Browne the names of safe taverns in Framingham and Worcester but nothing else. He either did not known where the Worcester military stores were hidden or he had chosen not to tell them. Being obtuse, Browne had not asked. Because the man had not wanted to talk, De Berniere, not wanting to prolong the landlord’s unprofitable stay, had chosen not to question him.
Other than downstairs where he conducted business the landlord did not want to be seen with them. This had caused De Berniere to draw two inferences. The locals were vindictive toward anybody that harbored British spies. And any local with two eyes to see knew -- the third difficulty that he had isolated -- that they were indeed spies!
He recalled the time before his eighteenth birthday when he had waded into the ocean to impress two female cousins. A strong undertow had carried him one hundred yards off shore. Thrashing against the current, he had feared that the shore was unreachable. It had taken him an hour to fight his way back.
