“There’ll be an officer come amongst you. There’ll be....” His voice
grew fainter as he turned to deliver his message in another direction,
but the words still sounded plain.
Tom put his blunderbuss down and leaned on it. He spoke to the man who
stood in the marsh grass just ahead of him.
“Got any idea what this is about?” he asked.
The other man took his time in answering. He was older, Tom sensed, and
more heavily built. In the silence they heard shouting and the rattle
of musket fire. A ship’s gun flashed on the dark waters of Chelsea
Creek.
“Yea--a,” said the man slowly. “I was down by the ferry stage awhile
back.”
“Was there fighting there?”
“Fighting there was. The British ships firing at us, and our men
waist-deep in water shooting back--even the General himself, Old Put.”
“Did you hear what the volunteers be for?”
“Maybe. You haven’t been here all along? You’re one o’ the reserves who
come in late last night? One o’ Stark’s men?”
“Aye. One o’ Stark’s men, and proud of it.”
The man was chewing tobacco, Tom’s keen nose told him. He spat suddenly
into the reeds, his own mouth tasting rancid.
“Likely some day you may have something to be proud of. You done no
more yet than anyone else, as I can see.”
Tom ignored the rebuke. “Volunteers now,” he murmured. “If I knew what
’twas about, likely I might take a notion to go.”
“Likely they wouldn’t want you,” sneered the older man. “If I was
Putnam--which I ain’t--I’d give the job to one o’ the Essex County
boys.”
“Why?”
“Because ’tis a seafaring operation, of a sort, and there be none like
the Essex men for maneuvers at sea.”
The firing from the river was steady now.
“Maybe,” said Tom. “What is this operation that takes such a picked
crew? I never see salt water yet will fight a man as hard as old
Merrimack when the freshets come down.”
“Volunteers!” sang out a voice nearby. A man, bareheaded, wearing a
torn brown coat, stood before them holding a carefully shielded lantern
in his hand.
“Eleven picked men I got. I need one more.”
“Twelve men, you got,” said Tom, shouldering his blunderbuss. “Where do
I go?”
The man held up his lantern so that the dim light shone on his new
recruit.
“Built for it, you be,” he said after a moment. “Long, and lean, and
tough, by the look of you. Are you tough, lad?”
“Tougher’n a biled owl,” said Tom imperturbably.
“Can you swim?”
“Like a muskrat.”
The man grinned. “What’s your trade?”
“I’m a timber man. Floating logs downstream out of the Hampshire woods
is my trade.”
“Good! Come along then. Down by the water. Ike Baldwin has charge o’
the action, and he’s gathered his men there.”
Tom followed as he was bidden, down a rough path to the border of
Chelsea Creek. Looking over his shoulder once, he saw in the sky a long
streak of sunrise, salmon and silver-gray.
The Neck ended in a narrow strip of shaly beach, and as Tom moved out
of the protecting reeds he drew his head down turtle-fashion. A British
ball whined past him, and then another. Half an hour now, and it would
be broad daylight. Whatever this seafaring operation was, they’d
better get it over, and soon. Then a little group of men loomed up in
the thinning mist ahead of him. Eight, nine, he counted, most of them
no older than he. They were stripped to the waist and unarmed, save
for their leader, a stalwart man in a blue coat and knee breeches who
leaned on a musket. Tom and his guide approached the group.
“Here’s your twelfth, Ike,” said the brown-coated man. “Swims like a
muskrat, tougher’n a biled owl, and is used to riding log rafts down
the Merrimack. Think he’ll do.”
Ike cleared his throat and spat into the water lapping gently along
the beach. “Have to, now,” he said. “We’ll be sitting ducks in fifteen
minutes more. Cal and ’Lisha’s gone for a keg of pitch.” He turned to
Tom. “You one o’ Stark’s men?”
“Aye. Tom Trask of Derryfield.”
“Good. Get rid of your gun and strip down.”
Tom looked around and found an outcrop of ledge where he thought he
could probably leave the blunderbuss in safety. Then he peeled off his
hunting shirt. British mortar fire still droned overhead--too high; he
had heard back in camp that the British usually shot that way. As he
shook his hands free from the loose sleeves and flung the garment down,
he lifted his head and looked at the man nearest to him. Then a wry
smile twisted his mouth.
“I think I seen you before,” he said.
The other lad peered through the thinning mist, then his eyes widened
in recognition and he smiled.
“Aye,” he answered jauntily. “Last time I seen you, you was playing
hide-and-seek. You grown up yet, I wonder?”
“There was others playing it, too,” retorted Tom.
“Yes, others. Kitty Greenleaf, you’ll likely remember.”
“Kitty Greenleaf! So that’s her name. I never did know the whole of it.
Promised her I’d call by and see her, if I ever happened back that way.”
“Don’t take the trouble. Kitty’s closer now. She’s in Charlestown with
her cousin, Sally Rose. I went home to get some clean shirts and a
better gun, and ’twas there I heard it.”
“In Charlestown?” asked Tom in surprise. “Charlestown’s not held to be
very safe these days. ’Tis thought the British may strike at us from
there. I heard there be only a couple hundred people left in the town,
and most of the women sent away.”
“I heard so, too. But Sally Rose took a notion to go home and nothing
would stop her, so Kitty went along. I ain’t got over there yet to see
them, but I mean to. I heard Granny Greenleaf went legging after them,
mad as time.”
Tom laughed in spite of himself as he remembered the thin old voice
quavering excitedly, “Stop, thief, stop!”
“Maybe I’ll just go along with you, when you do go,” he said. “What’s
your name now? Eben, was it?”
“Eben! No! You’re thinking of Eben Poore. He’s naught but a foolish
little lad. I be Johnny Pettengall.”
“So,” said Tom. In the river ahead of him he could see two low green
islands getting plainer every minute as the mist cleared away. “Well,
Johnny, for old times’ sake then, tell me what’s afoot and what are we
down here for?”
Johnny’s face brightened and his voice grew eager, now that he was
intent again on the business in hand.
“Likely, being a New Hampshire man, you come in with Stark’s reserves
last night.”
“No. I wasn’t detailed to go--nor to stay, either. Couldn’t sleep, and
long in the night sometime, I thought I’d just wander this way.”
“I been here all along. We was sent over to Noddle’s Island yesterday
to drive the cattle off. Farmers who pasture there have been selling
beef to the British. We’d cleared off Noddle, burned the house of one
man who resisted, and was on our way back across Hog Island, when a
sloop and a schooner sailed close in. Fired on us, they did, and o’
course we answered back.”
“O’ course,” agreed Tom.
“Been firing ever since, except for the schooner--the _Diana_, she is,
one of our men said who recognized her. She’s run aground and been
abandoned. It’s her we’re going out to burn.”
Tom looked where the other lad pointed. Sure enough, there in the gray
light, not very far from shore, rode a two-masted schooner, listing
badly to one side. Her foresail hung in long streamers that stirred as
the morning wind blew through them. Her colors had been shot away, and
the lower side of her deck was all awash with sea.
“All right, boys!” Ike Baldwin straightened them to attention with his
command. “Here’s Cal and ’Lisha with the pitch. Now we can go.”
Two young men, dark-haired and muscular, came panting up with a heavy
keg between them, swung in a cradle of stout rope. Baldwin went on,
speaking rapidly.
“Cal and ’Lisha will tow the pitch out to the schooner. Got that now?”
General murmurs of assent passed among the little group.
“Aye,” murmured Johnny brightly, like a smart lad repeating catechism.
Tom inclined his head and chewed nervously at a bit of grass he had
picked up somewhere. It had a rank salty taste. He wished he knew
exactly what he was supposed to do.
“The rest of you ain’t going along for the swim, remember,” the
relentless orders went on. “You’re there to help get the pitch aboard
and spread it around on whatever parts of her is driest and most likely
to burn. Don’t want her to go back into British service again. Don’t
want the British to think they can come shooting amongst us any time
they choose without having to pay.”
He stood still for a moment, in a defiant attitude, waiting for his
words to take effect.
“How we going to kindle the pitch, Ike?” asked a voice at the rear of
the group. “Flints and tinderboxes’ll be wetter’n a drowned cat ’fore
we get there.”
Isaac Baldwin frowned. Then his face cleared and he waved a nonchalant
hand. “Likely there’ll be a cookfire in the galley,” he said. “She
ain’t been abandoned long. Likely you’ll find a tinderbox there--or
somewhere else aboard. Her crew must ha’ had some means to light a
fire.”
“Maybe,” said Tom. He stood thoughtfully for a moment, wondering how
much time he would have before Ike Baldwin ordered them into the water.
It would take a few minutes, the thing he wanted to do.
Luck was with him, for Baldwin bent over just then to speak with Cal
and ’Lisha who were tightening the cradle ropes about the keg. He
looked up the hill in the direction he had come, then back at the creek
again. Out beyond the stranded _Diana_, the guns of the sloop were
still firing harmlessly away. After a moment of indecision, he turned
and ran up the hill.
He found the man he had been talking to a short time before, seated now
on a tuft of marsh grass, his gun beside him. He was just in the act of
filling a pipe, as Tom had gambled he would be. The New Hampshire man
loped up and accosted him.
“You with that pipe there!”
The man did not look up. His fingers moved leisurely with flints and
tinder. He lit the pipe, drew on it deeply, then took it from his mouth
and asked, “Was you speaking to me?”
“Yes. General Putnam gave out the word there was to be no smoking
amongst the men. He sent me to collect every pipe I found lighted. Like
this.”
Tom’s hand reached forth lightning quick and snatched the pipe from its
owner’s startled jaws. Then he sprinted off, down the Neck.
“Hey! Give me back my pipe!” yelled the man, scrambling to his feet,
his arms flailing the air. “Them orders against pipes was night orders
only. It’s safe enough, now day’s come.”
“Tell it to General Putnam,” called Tom over his shoulder. He did not
slow his pace until he reached the beach. Cal and ’Lisha had waded out
waist-deep, floating the keg between them. The others plunged in now,
and began swimming toward the schooner. Their officer laid his musket
down and shed his clothes, obviously intending to follow them, like a
shepherd after his sheep.
Tom stood still, put the pipe in his mouth, and took a pull on it.
Great Jehovah, it tasted worse than sulphur and molasses that the old
women dosed you with in the spring. It tasted worse than wormwood and
bear’s grease, worse than dragonroot tea. Ike Baldwin stepped into the
water now, and Tom followed at a little distance. By and by he felt
the river floor sloping away under his feet, but he managed to keep on
wading, though the others launched forth and swam. He held his head
high and his neck still, and kept puffing on the pipe. The schooner was
only a little way off, stranded in shallow water, but it seemed to Tom
as if he would never get there, with the ill-smelling wooden bowl and
its little treasure of fire. Maybe they wouldn’t need it, he thought,
but if they did they would need it bad, and he meant to have it on hand.
Once a British ball struck close by, throwing up a shower of spray that
left him shaken and half blinded, but he kept puffing away at the pipe
and forged steadily ahead. Then another ball struck even closer. The
British were finding the range, he thought. They must have realized
what their opponents meant to do.
When he reached the schooner, she was so sharply tilted that he found
it as easy to climb aboard her as it would have been to swarm up a
sloping beach. The other lads were there ahead of him, busy spreading
pitch on a pile of canvas mattresses and hammocks fetched up from the
sleeping quarters below, spreading it on the dry parts of the deck
above water line.
A brisk wind sang through the _Diana’s_ broken rigging. It struck cold
on Tom’s bare shoulders and drove the last of the mist away. Sounds of
firing came from the British sloop, but he forgot the sloop. He cupped
his hands about the pipe bowl to shelter its living contents from the
wind. He took a long puff.
“So this is the way Stark trains his lads!” Isaac Baldwin’s voice
lashed out at him. He turned sharply and looked into the grim, angry
face of their leader.
Tom took the pipe cautiously from his mouth. “’T hasn’t got nothing to
do with Stark,” he said.
“If this were a regular engagement, you could be court-martialed.
Smoking a pipe! Skulking here smoking a pipe! Look at the other lads!”
Tom stared miserably at the busy group who were still heaping up
whatever inflammables they could find. Then he put the pipe back in his
mouth and gave another dogged puff.
“Here! Give me that!” Livid with rage, Ike Baldwin made a grab for the
pipe.
Tom put one hand up before his face and ducked away. The deck under
his feet was worn by the tramp of many men, and it was slippery with
morning dew. He fell, half recovered himself, and then went down on his
knees, his teeth still clamped to the pipestem.
From the hatchway that led below came confused cries.
“Oh, Captain! Tell the Captain there’s not a spark aboard her! Galley
fire’s been put out and the ashes raked over! Not a flint! Not a
tinderbox! How’s to have a burning without fire?”
Tom felt his pulses quicken. It was as if there were shooting sparks
of triumph in his blood. His guess had been right, then. He lifted his
head. Baldwin had turned away, having greater troubles now.
“There must be flints somewhere,” he exclaimed crustily. “Have you
searched the officers’ quarters? The mess cabin? The hold?”
“Aye, sir. Everywhere.”
Tom got to his feet and looked around him. The men were standing idle
now, about the heap of mattresses. They looked bewildered and--well,
not afraid--uneasy, maybe. Turning his head a little, he saw the green
shores of Hog Island with Noddle’s Island just beyond it, and far
beyond that, the roofs of Boston touched with the morning sun. In the
foreground hovered the British sloop. Her guns were silent now, but her
sails were spread and she seemed to be drawing close. Perhaps this was
the time for him to speak.
“Give me that pipe!” Isaac Baldwin’s command had a different tone to
it this time. Before he had been angry and somewhat scornful. Now his
voice was full of eagerness, quick and keen.
Tom took the pipe from his mouth. “Yes, sir,” he said. “I thought we
might need it, sir. That’s why I brought it along. I--I’m not much of a
smoking man.”
“Good boy,” said Isaac Baldwin.
He walked quickly across the deck, knelt down, and ripped a bit of tow
from a mattress, testing the dryness of it with his fingers. Then he
placed it lightly across the bowl of the pipe.
The other men were holding their breaths as they looked on. Tom
watched, too, but he felt a strange dizziness coming over him, so he
went and clung to the rail.
At first nothing happened. Then it was as if the tow began to melt
away. Ike held a larger piece of tow above the first one--a fluffed-out
piece. Suddenly the fluff burst into open flame. Someone started to
cheer and quickly choked the sound back. From the fluff, Ike lighted a
still larger piece of tow and dropped that on the heap of bedding. The
men watched, fascinated. First one little tongue of flame leaped up and
then another. Then a tiny roaring sound began, growing louder every
moment.
When he saw that there was a splendid bonfire a-going, Tom turned to
the rail and hung weakly overside. He knew now that his trick had
worked and the British schooner would soon be a seething mass of
flame. Soon his comrades, their mission accomplished, would be leaping
overside and swimming back to Chelsea Neck. When that time came, he
knew, he would straighten himself up and go with them, but right now
there was a rancid taste in his mouth and the smell of burning pitch in
his nostrils. He’d had enough of pipe-smoking to last him a lifetime,
and he didn’t feel very well--in fact, he didn’t feel well at all.
_Chapter Nine_
NO CLOUDS ON BUNKER HILL
“Never expected to see you keeping a public house, Ma’am
Greenleaf--leastwise, not one with a strong drink license.”
Old Timothy Coffin’s voice had disapproval in it, Kitty thought, as she
turned from the small oak bar where she was polishing glasses. The warm
June sunshine struck through the diamond-shaped panes and lay in pools
of light with rainbow edges on the sanded floor, on the worn tables and
benches. A gentle breeze stirred the tall hollyhock stems outside the
window. Sally Rose was weeding the hollyhocks--or supposed to be. Now
that Gran had come to take charge, there was a task for everyone.
“You’re a-going to see a deal of things you never expected to see,”
said Gran tartly. She was seated by the hearth shelling peas, while
Timothy swept the tiles with a birch broom.
“Happen you’re right, Ma’am,” agreed the old man. “Never expected to
see the King’s men shooting at us--and we going to meeting, praying for
the King, all the while.”
“Yes, it’s a strange state of affairs, Timothy,” answered Gran. Her
voice had turned suddenly thoughtful, and her fingers played idly with
the empty pods as she stared through the open door at the empty house
across the way.
Kitty looked at the empty house, too. Most of the houses in Charlestown
were empty now, and scarcely any women left in the town at all. The
men came back sometimes to cut hay and weed their gardens, but they
had sent their families away to the inland towns, and swore they would
leave them there till this fuss with the British soldiers was ended,
one way or another.
This was bad for business, of course. Here it was, nearly ten o’clock
of a fine hot Tuesday morning, sixth of June by the almanac, and she
hadn’t served a single customer.
Everything seemed to be set up in terms of this “fuss,” nowadays.
For instance, she and Gran and Sally Rose living here in Charlestown
and running the Bay and Beagle, while Uncle Job was away with the
Massachusetts troops somewhere. Not knowing they were here, thinking
Sally Rose was safe in Newburyport, he hadn’t come home. Then when Gran
came to join them, hopping mad at the trick Sally Rose had played, she
brought Dick Moody and Timothy along to do the men’s work about the
place. They hadn’t stayed in camp long, for Dick was young and couldn’t
shoot well enough, and Timothy was old, and his bones creaked. But all
they wanted to talk about was the camp and the goings-on there. But
they didn’t call it a “fuss” like Gran did. They called it a war. And
that had a much more important and terrible sound.
War was terrible, Kitty knew, so terrible that it couldn’t be going to
happen right here in front of her eyes, to people she knew, maybe to
herself--not really.
Dick came in from the backyard with an armful of wood and stacked it
carefully beside the hearth. Then he stood silent and respectful,
looking at Granny.
Dick had grown taller, Kitty thought, and next time he went to camp,
as he threatened to do every day or so, it wasn’t likely they’d send
him home for being too young. Sometimes he and Timothy went to the
cow pasture at the foot of Bunker Hill and practiced a little with
Timothy’s gun--not much, though, because they didn’t want to waste
powder and ball. Suddenly she realized Dick was speaking. He looked at
her, but he addressed himself to Granny.
“I thank you for bringing me down here, near where I wanted to be. But
I’m quitting your service now, Ma’am Greenleaf.”
“Oh, go get yourself a slice of bread and molasses, and you’ll think
better of it,” said Granny. “You can put maple sugar on it, too,” she
added.
Dick’s face grew red, and his young voice had an unfamiliar harshness
in it. “You’ve fed me well enough, Ma’am. It’s not on account of the
food and wages I’m leaving.”
“What is it then, and what do you think to do?” asked Gran, with an air
of rapidly exhausting patience.
“Up the Mystic a ways--in one o’ the swamps there--some men from
Gloucester are building fire boats. I been in the ship-building trade.
They said I could help them.”
“Fire boats!” Granny tried to laugh, but there was no merriment in the
noise she made. It sounded like a cackle. “And what do you think to do
with fire boats, pray?”
“Why, what do most folk do with fire? Burn something. Maybe one o’ the
British schooners, or men-o’-war, even. Maybe burn Boston, for all I
know. Whatever our orders say.”
“You can’t burn Boston,” retorted Granny severely. “Boston don’t belong
to the British soldiery. Houses and shops and all belongs to Americans,
as good as you be. True, they’ve most of them fled from it now, but
they’ll be back some day--when this fuss is over, and God send that
happen right soon. Now whatever is that drum a-beating for?” She held
up her head and listened. “I’ve heard fife and drum music enough to
last me a long time.”
“You’ll hear more of it before you hear less, Ma’am,” muttered Timothy.
Dick hurried to the door and stared up the road that led to the Neck,
from which the sound came. Kitty went to stand beside him.
“Are you really going back to be with the Army, Dick?” she asked, in
one of the brief pauses between the slow beats of the drum.
Dick cleared his throat. “Seems like I have to,” he murmured. “Would
it matter to you, Kit, if I--” His voice broke off, and his hand just
brushed her shoulder.
“Oh Kitty! Kitty!” cried Sally Rose as she came flying down the street,
her bright hair loose on her shoulders and her cheeks flushed with
excitement. “They’re bringing the prisoners! There’s going to be an
exchange! Perhaps Gerry will be in it!”
She dropped down on the broad doorstone and sat there, trying to get
back her breath.
“How do you know?” asked Dick quickly. He was not looking at Sally
Rose, but up the winding street that led to Charlestown Neck and the
towns beyond it on the mainland.
Kitty looked, too. Down the narrow way between the gabled houses came a
slowly moving procession. First the drummer stepped out, a scrawny lad
not much taller than Dick. He walked all alone, beating a brass-bound
drum, and behind him followed a black horse drawing a phaeton with two
men in it. After the phaeton rode two British officers on horseback.
She could see nothing more at the moment because of a crook in the
street. A little crowd was beginning to gather in the direction of
Market Square. Sally Rose finally got back her breath and answered
Dick’s question.
“When I heard the drum I ran down to Mr. Bassett’s wine shop. He’s back
in town, you know, to cut his hay on the Point Road, and I asked him
what was happening. He said he heard--”
The drummer had come even with the Bay and Beagle now, and his steady
beating drowned out the girl’s excited voice. Sally Rose stopped
talking and got to her feet. She and Dick and Kitty stood together in
the tavern doorway and watched the slow procession advance and pass
close by them.
The two men who rode in the phaeton behind the drummer were in odd
contrast to each other, and yet there was the same air of dignity and
purpose enveloping both of them. One was old--not so old as Timothy,
but not young any more. He was broad-shouldered and sturdy and had a
round, good-natured face and a shock of tousled gray hair. He wore a
blue uniform. His companion was younger, fair-haired and blue-eyed,
with a ruddy face and a fresh, scrubbed look about him. He was not a
soldier, apparently, for his coat was fawn-colored with a white-fringed
waistcoat underneath.
“That’s Old Put,” said Timothy proudly, for he and Gran had come to
stand just behind them. “See! In the blue coat there! General Putnam.
His wife must ha’ sent him his uniform.”
“Why would she have to do that?” asked Gran tartly. “Wouldn’t go off to
war without it, would he?”
Timothy chuckled. “That’s just what he done! When he heard about
Concord Fight, he was building a stone wall on his farm away down in
Connecticut. But he come just as he was, in leather breeches and apron.
Got here at next day’s sunrise, they say.”
“I guess there was others got here just as quick as he did,” answered
Gran. “Yourself for one.” She peered over Kitty’s shoulder. “Who be
that by his side?”