“And you, Adam?” Will asked, barely able to contain his curiosity.
“Jeremiah mentioned barrels, and indeed it is fitting because it is where my story begins.” Will had avoided staring at him but now since he was speaking he was free to look directly at him. Adam’s teeth were a dazzling white in comparison to the stained yellow and brown color of Solomon’s and Jeremiah’s. The skin inside his lips seemed pinker. Will thought it might just be the contrast to his skin color which was lighter than charcoal but darker than the old oak table at his father’s farm. Adam’s voice was deep but as he spoke Will could detect no difference between his accent and those of Solomon and Jeremiah. All spoke with that broad enunciation he had grown accustomed to, listening to Nat for the past month and a half.
“My father,” Adam said, drawing out the a sound and dropping the r at the end, “was born into slavery. He bought his freedom in the year ‘54 for twenty-seven pounds, from his master in New York City. There he remained to work, and in another year he had earned enough money to purchase my mother’s freedom as well. She was a house slave for my father’s former master’s wife,” he added by way of explanation. “When I was born in 1756, my parents were already living in Boston where my father worked as a cooper. He also did some metal working, making rims for wagon wheels, runners for sleds and such. It followed naturally from doing the hoops for the barrels.” He looked at Solomon and Jeremiah. “You two, whom I have known for five or six years, have never heard this part.”
The four of them were on two beds facing each other, the candle closer to Adam, casting a flickering shadow of his silhouette on the far wall. Will observed all their shadows were black in the candle light, Adam’s being no darker than his. That made sense, he thought. A white candle and a black table cast the same shadows.
“My father decided there would be no slave name for me. Not his last name, Gooding, which had been his master’s family name. And not a slave first name, the masters used to give, taken from Roman history, such as Cato or Caesar.” /2
“We have a few named like that in the Mariners,” Solomon interrupted. “There’s Quintus Gill and Titus Fuller.”
“And Fortunatus Fleming and Caesar Winship,” Jeremiah added.
“You mean, you are not the only black in the Mariners,” Will blurted out.
“Solomon and Jeremiah just named four others,” he replied quickly with an edge to his tone, pointing out the obvious. “And there are several mixed bloods from the Azores as well.” Adam saw Will’s puzzlement. “Those are islands off the coast of Portugal in the Atlantic Ocean,” he added by way of clarification. “You need to learn some geography,” he said, pointing his finger at Will.
“Get back to your naming,” Solomon reminded him, stretching his long frame on his cot.
Adam nodded. “My father decided since I was the first in our family not born a slave he would call me Adam. After the first man. And then, because he was a barrel maker, he took the name Cooper as our family name. So that is how I am named as I am,” he concluded and stood up. He pulled his white canvas breeches on and then his boots.
“Enough of this talking. There may be food for us in the kitchen, behind the General’s headquarters. Otherwise, we need to repair to the common room and see what remains available. You are welcome to join us,” he said to Will, motioning for him to follow.
Over the next few days, when Will was not on the icy roads hauling provisions to the artillery companies, or training Big Red during the dry fire drills, he joined the men in the common room of their barracks building for the late-afternoon meal, and listened to their speculation about the battle to come. Most expected General Washington to order an attack by water, launching south of Charlestown and landing just north of the Mill Pond, accompanied by a simultaneous direct assault at The Neck.
It was Adam who urged Will to recount Colonel’s Knox’s speech before the ascent of the Blandford Summit to the Mariners crammed in the common room. There were about thirty men at the time. Some continued their conversations, but as Will recited from memory the Colonel’s description of the impact of the Coercive Acts and the suffering of the people of Boston from the occupation of their homes and the denial of their rights, they ceased talking. There were nods of agreement as they listened intently to Knox’s praise of the innocent citizens who died at the Boston Massacre, the bravery of the militias at Lexington and Concord, the savagery and pillaging of the Regulars on their retreat and the lonely, courageous stand of the old soldier at Menotomy. “They left him for dead and the doctor counted fourteen bayonet wounds on his body,” Will said, repeating the Colonel’s account, adding that he himself would like to visit the old man to pay his respects. He concluded with the Colonel’s exhortation to the Massachusetts teamsters to continue as part of the noble train of artillery so future generations in Massachusetts would live as free men without fear of arbitrary rule by King or Parliament, free to speak their own minds and live under laws they themselves had made.
The room was silent for a moment, the men mesmerized by the Colonel’s words. Then the Mariners broke into prolonged cheers. Will knew they were not cheering for him but blushed anyway. His recitation of the Colonel’s speech gained him some notoriety. He was invited to the other barracks to perform, and in return to eat in their mess. He improved his delivery with each telling as he became more confident and recalled more of what the Colonel had said and how he had said it. He even picked up some of Knox’s intonation and rhythm, although he never tried to imitate his accent.
He was accepted by the Mariners, whether for his oration or for the squash, potatoes, turnips, pickled onions, beets, dry corn and peas, and occasional pears or apples Will contributed to the common meals. He readily purchased food from farmers willing to part with something stored in their stone-walled, dirt-floored root cellars, or in the simpler charcoal-lined pits, mounded and covered by corn stalks. Most of the Mariners were only five or six years older than Will. He regarded himself as simply in the company of many older brothers, and settled gratefully and comfortably into the routine of barracks life.
On Saturday, Will returned to the barracks early, after a short run to deliver a light load of tent canvas, poles and cooking pots from a warehouse in Cambridge to one of Knox’s artillery companies, posted temporarily along the road to Roxbury. During the day he had been composing another letter to Elisabeth in his mind. He had decided he would not wait for her reply to his first letter. Instead, he would inform her of his life with the Mariners guarding General Washington and his constant thoughts of her. He would ask the Colonel’s brother when another courier might be leaving for Albany.
He arrived at his barracks building just as Adam and others were marshalling in the main room for their shift as sentries. Will watched the two uniformed columns of ten men each march out smartly down the road to the main entrance and disperse evenly along both sides of the stone wall. There were two other black men among the twenty sentries. The fresh snow powder, which had fallen before dawn and had turned into slush under the late morning sun, had frozen back into dirty, treacherous ankle turning ice as temperatures dropped by mid-afternoon. He sat down at a table, first making sure there was no food grease to stain the paper. Carefully, he removed his remaining sheet which he kept protected behind the inside cover of The History of Tom Jones. He was almost finished reading it. He would have to ask the Colonel for another book soon. Taking the inkwell and quill from the mantle, he loosened Elisabeth’s scarf from around his neck and began to write.
Two shots rang out followed by loud cries of “Marblehead Mariners to me.” He heard the pounding of boots on the wooden floors as the Mariners erupted from their barracks. Will jumped up and dashed out, sprinting toward the sentries at the gate, a distance of more than fifty yards. He was aware other Mariners were pouring out of their buildings in response to the alarm. Ahead, Will saw a group of militia men, clad in brown hunting shirts and leggings the color of dead leaves, pushing the Mariner sentries back from t
he entrance road. Others clambered over the stone wall and attacked the remaining sentries, some of whom were already on the ground buried under a mass of brown-shirted men.
Will was slightly ahead of the Mariners from his barrack. He launched himself at a man who sat astride one of the sentries banging his head against the hard frozen ground. Will’s impact knocked the man off and Will drove his elbow hard into his throat and punched him in the face for good measure. He rolled over and grabbed at the legging of another running by, felt the bony ankle beneath the fabric, and yanked hard with both hands. The man fell on his stomach and Will was on him instantly, kneeing him in the small of his back and jerking his head up by the hair before slamming his face into the icy slush.
He fought with a berserk rage, lashing out with his fists and feet at any brown-clad soldier, sometimes standing, sometimes rolling on the ground, snarling, gouging, biting, barely aware it was his own voice that was screaming in anger. The cold air caught in his lungs. The sprint from the barracks made his breath come in gasps. Still he fought on. He was aware of being grabbed, his arm almost wrenched from its socket, but he spun away and jumped on the back of a militiaman who was intent on punching a downed Mariner.
All around him, men were fighting, singly or in groups, slipping on the frozen ice, cursing, yelling and shouting at they went at each other. It seemed as if the entire field was filled with swarms of the nut-brown-clothed militia attacking the outnumbered blue jacketed Mariners.
Will heard someone shout, “Get the negrahs. Over there, over there,” and turned just as he was punched on the back of his head by a blow meant for his nose. He staggered forward, fell rolling to his right to avoid a kick, grabbed at the foot, lost his grip on the man and was left holding a worn leather moccasin. He saw a tall, wiry man jumping at him. He managed to get his knee up in time to land an effective blow to the groin before the man’s weight knocked Will’s head against the hard ice. His vision blurred. Instinctively, he grabbed the man by the ears and twisted his head hard, rolling his assailant off him.
Groggy, down on his hands and knees, panting to regain his breath, Will wondering why his hand hurt so much. He noticed his thumb was at a strange angle. He was vaguely aware of shouts of “the General, the General,” and cries of “Stop fighting, Stand down, all of you. Stand Down.” The ice was cold on his knees and the palms of his hands. He forced himself to get up. All around him Mariners and the militia were standing, recovering from the shock of the fighting, bruised, bleeding, with clothing torn, holding broken wrists or arms, or hobbling on injured feet, bashed knees or twisted legs. “Marblehead Mariners. Line up by Companies,” Colonel Glover commanded. “Lieutenants. Get your men in order. Immediately.” The Colonel, his hat in his hand, his fiery red hair loose and blowing, strode among his men as they shuffled into place. The anger in his voice was controlled. His cold blue eyes stared through the Mariners, while he waited for them to form up.
In the gathering darkness, the militia men limped off the field, through the entrance and down Brattle Street toward the town. Will turned back toward Headquarters and saw General Washington dismount from his white horse. His manservant walked their two horses around the side to the barn. The General did not look back as he strode into Vassall House. Will, not belonging to any company just stood where he was, next to a column of Mariners.
“You there,” Colonel Glover ordered pointing at Will with his crop. Will looked down at his boots. “Be gone with your fellows or I will have you arrested and thrown in the brig.”
“He is one of us, Sir,” Solomon said stepping forward and out of his line. Solomon was bleeding from his nose and mouth. There was an ugly red welt on his throat. “A friend of Lieutenant Holmes, Sir. He is staying with us in the barracks.”
“Is that so, Lieutenant?” Glover asked angrily, turning toward Nathaniel.
“Yes, Colonel.” Nat said, limping toward Glover from his place in front of his Company, favoring one leg. “This is Master Stoner, Sir. The young man I told you about on our return from Salem.” Nat held a handkerchief to a bleeding scrape on his forehead.
“Well, Master Stoner,” Colonel Glover said, eyeing Will up and down, noting his torn sleeve and breeches and the bruises, lumps and cuts on his face that Will felt but couldn’t see. “I hope you gave better than you received.”
“That I did, Sir,” Will replied, drawing himself erect and involuntarily wincing from a sudden stabbing pain in his ribcage.
“The good Book tells us it is better to give than to receive,” the Colonel said loudly for the Mariners to hear, the anger in his blue eyes diminishing. “I am proud you Mariners fulfilled your religious obligations today.” He turned to Lieutenant Holmes. “Organize an able-bodied complement of sentries for the evening. All others are to return to barracks. There will be doctors and surgeons making the rounds to address your wounds. Now march the men off smartly. I have to report to General Washington along with Captain Morgan.”
When Will returned to the barracks, two steaming iron pots of boiling water hung from long sturdy hooks in the fireplace. Several cots had been moved into the common room. The more seriously injured, those with broken bones and dislocated limbs, lay on them, closer to the warmth of the fire, waiting for the surgeons. The others washed their own cuts and bruises and recounted the fighting. Will hobbled up to the fireplace, took a hot wet cloth and wiped his face, wincing when he raised his right arm and again when he tried to use his left hand. He put the cloth to his mouth and gently pressed it against his split and swollen lower lip. He loosened Elisabeth’s scarf around his neck and absent-mindedly began cleaning the dirt from it. Some of the stains did not come off. He realized her scarf now was dyed with some of his blood. The thought appealed to him as if he somehow was more closely bonded to her than before.
“You have received your baptism of fire but only on land, Will. Nothing is meaningful until you have been to sea.” Will turned and saw Adam sitting on a cot, his jacket hanging off one shoulder, the arm at the socket of the other out of the joint. The skin of his face was a mass of darker bruises, one ear was swollen and Will thought a chunk was missing from the lower lobe.
“I do not feel like going to sea right now and you do not look ready to row me,” Will replied.
“Oh come spring, after we retake Boston, I will row you out of the harbor and we will catch fish, Will. That is a promise. You need to experience the rhythm of the sea.” He smiled at Will through swollen lips. “You are one of us now. The Colonel himself approved it.”
Will remembered seeing Adam swing his rifle as a club, before going down in a mass of brown-clad militia. The exhilaration and thrill of the fight drained out of him. Will’s body now sent urgent signals to his brain he was in pain. He found space and sank down against the wall near the doorway, aching and exhausted and vaguely aware of the conversations around him. He looked at his crooked thumb. The sharp stab in his ribs was present every time he shifted his weight or took a deep breath. He didn’t recall being kicked. Maybe it happened when he had fallen on the frozen ground. A dull throbbing from the top to the back of his head caused him to gingerly feel the large knot under his thick hair, which was matted and sticky. There was congealed blood on his fingers. He wiped the blood off on his pants. They were torn at one knee. He held the now-warm cloth to the back of his head and pressed it against the wound.
Will surveyed the room, attempting to see how badly his friends were injured. On the floor near one cot he saw his precious piece of paper, muddy and unsalvageable. It had been tread upon countless times as the men returned from the melee. He noticed thankfully that the inkwell and quill had been returned to their usual place on the mantle. He would have to ask the Colonel for more paper. There was something else he was wanted from the Colonel. He couldn’t remember it now. Through his pain and grogginess he heard his stomach rumble and felt hunger pangs. He stifled a laugh so that it came out as more of a snort. He didn’t want the others to think he was being giddy.
&n
bsp; “What I want to know is, how did it start?” a loud voice demanded. “One moment we are on normal sentry duty, the next, these foulsmelling backwoods militia are charging the gate and climbing over the walls.”
“Did they not know this is General Washington’s headquarters? At first I was afraid they were after the General.”
“No, they were after us,” another Mariner said.
“I saw the General,” Jeremiah said. Everyone was quiet. He dabbed at his bleeding mouth. His lips were swollen and cracked from the blows he had taken. One side of his face was a solid bruise from forehead to lower jaw, as if he had been kicked in the head or stomped on. Someone gave him a mug of warm water, he took a sip, swished the liquid around inside his mouth and spat out bloody liquid into a bowl. His two teeth which had grown together and earned him the nickname “Snaggletooth” were broken off. They were now jagged stubs protruding from his swollen bloody gum.
“I was to the right of the entrance about thirty feet back when I saw General Washington on his big white horse come sailing over the stone wall at full gallop.” Jeremiah paused to run his tongue over the rough edge of his broken teeth. “His manservant, Lee, jumped the wall right behind him.” Jeremiah rinsed his mouth again. “It would be nice to have something to drink,” he said wistfully.
“Go on with the story, Jeremiah,” someone said. “Tell us what you saw,” another yelled impatiently.
“Well,” Jeremiah continued, smiling at the attention. “The General leaped off his horse even before it had stopped. He grabbed two of the militiamen from behind by the neck and shook them like geese readied for the chopping block. I was in front and saw their faces. Their eyes were bulging out from the tightness of the General’s grip. All the time he was shouting ‘Stop fighting. Cease this immediately.’” 3
Cannons for the Cause Page 15