Cannons for the Cause

by Martin Ganzglass

  “Where am I?” he asked.

  “You are in the home of my mother and me. Samuel and some other soldiers brought you here. This is his bed. My brother is staying with the Regiment at the barracks.” Her voice was soft and the tone very matter of fact. Will imagined the commotion there must have been when the two women had been disturbed by his arrival. Suddenly he wondered, if he was alone in this house with the two women, who would attend to his bathroom needs and clean him up afterwards? He blushed to think that the Lieutenant’s demure sister was nursing him in that way.

  “You are flushed,” she said, feeling his forehead. Her hand felt cool and he sighed with pleasure. “I do not believe you are feverish,” she continued, unaware the color in his cheeks was due to embarrassment.

  “We must wash you and attend to your needs before you sleep,” she said matter-of-factly. Will barely had time to think. He was more afraid of this than the threatened tar and feathering. He started to protest, but Priscilla swiftly glided from the room. He was helpless. He couldn’t attend to his own needs. He could not even move without pain, let alone use a chamber pot. He closed his eye and tensed with anticipated shame and embarrassment.

  Priscilla returned with a soldier in uniform and discreetly left, closing the door behind her.

  “How are you feeling, lad?” the soldier asked. Will looked at him through his one good eye. He was from the Massachusetts Artillery. The man removed his regimental coat, hung it on a peg, and unbuttoned his waistcoat. “Since I am going to handle your privates, you would probably like to know who I am before I do so. Right?” He gently folded down the quilt and moved the chair so he could reach the basin in the small wooden table.

  Will nodded, more than grateful it was the soldier and not the sister sitting next to him.

  “Isaiah Chandler,” he said by way of introduction. In the confines of the small room, he seemed older to Will than other soldiers of the Regiment. His brown hair, which he wore long and fluffed out on the sides, was tinged with grey at the temples. His arms lacked the thick muscle of one accustomed to constant physical labor. “No need to tell me who you are. I was up on the Heights, the night you and Lieutenant Hadley delivered food for us. Saw you standing in the back of the wagon, unmindful of the driving sleet of that terrible storm, handing down boxes of meat and kegs of rum.” He continued chatting as he pulled up Will’s nightshirt and cleaned him with a wet linen. “That food and drink sustained many of us through that cold night and into the day beyond.” He washed Will’s arms and chest and put the linen back in the basin.

  “This is going to hurt a bit lad,” he said, putting an arm under Will’s waist and rolling him on to his side. Will gritted his teeth but emitted a soft groan anyway. “It was easier to do when you were unconscious.” He quickly folded a clean linen on the bed underneath Will and then rolled him back.

  “Were you here after they brought me?” Will managed to say once he was lying flat again.

  “Here afterwards? I was down at Child’s Wharf when the Lieutenant rescued you,” he said emphatically. Isaiah took a clean linen and began washing Will’s legs.

  “Tell me what happened.”

  “Well,” Isaiah said, leaning closer to examine the strips binding Will’s ribs. “Doctor told me to look for blood seeping through,” he said by way of explanation.

  “Is there?” Will asked, unable to see for himself.

  “No. They are as white as when you were bound up,” he replied before continuing with the story. “We had begun that morning. Early. At Hancock’s Wharf. The Redcoats had dropped a large mortar off the pier and the Colonel wanted to salvage it. That took most of the morning.” He described how squads of gunners, throughout the afternoon, had gone from wharf to wharf with block and tackle and tripods of sturdy poles loaded on wagons, hoisting cannons from the muck of the harbor. He and several gunners had been trying without success to raise a brass twelve-pounder near Child’s Wharf. It was getting dark.

  “The British must have tossed it overboard from a sloop and not off the pier because it was a ways out. The trunions were broken and we were having trouble getting chains around it. Then, this flat bottomed boat comes up, rowed by some men in sailor like uniforms.” He lifted Will’s head and washed the back of his neck.

  “Marblehead Mariners,” Will whispered hoarsely, noticing smallpox scars on Isaiah’s face for the first time.

  “Yes,” Isaiah confirmed. “And all the better for you, as it turned out, friends of yours.” Will nodded and smiled.

  Isaiah continued with the details of how two of the Mariners had stripped down and dived into icy waters to fasten the chains on the cannon. The gunners erected the hoist on the flat-bottomed boat, and together the two groups of men pulled the twelve-pounder out.

  “The Redcoats had stripped it from its gun carriage. But that is no matter. There are plenty of skilled Yankee carpenters in Boston town,” he said. “By now it was dark, but Lieutenant Hadley wanted to finish the work that evening.” Will lay quietly in the bed, warm again under the quilt. “Let me take these linens out. We do not want the room smelling like a latrine. Not with the Lieutenant’s mother and sister about.” He threw his coat on, carefully tucked the dirty linens under his arm and disappeared for a few minutes. When Isaiah returned, he stoked the fire, added another log and pulled the chair closer to the bed.

  “Where was I,” he asked himself.

  “The twelve-pounder was . . .,” Will reminded him, unable to finish the sentence.

  “On the boat. Yes. Right. So we stayed at the wharf, unloaded the cannon from the boat and hoisted her on to our wagon. The Lieutenant had been talking to this young Lieutenant of the Mariners. They seemed to know each other. Then Lieutenant Hadley mounted the wagon. He was standing on the wagon seat and noticed this commotion on the street. Good thing our Lieutenant has sharp eyes. Later, he told us he recognized you in the light of their torches.” Isaiah shook his head in disbelief. “Given the beating they gave you, I would have thought your own mother would not have known you in broad daylight.”

  Will stifled a sob at Isaiah’s words. It was he, Will, who wouldn’t recognize his own mother, her face lost to him in his dreams and memory.

  Isaiah misunderstood Will’s sound. “You have been through a good deal, lad. I know that. Sorry to take you through it again but you asked.”

  Will shuddered at the memory of being carried on the planks. When Hadley fired his pistol, that was when they dropped him. He stiffened, as if he were going to be thrown to the cobblestones again.

  “Our Lieutenant jumped down from the seat and dashed down the pier, shouting for us to follow. We had no muskets. We were on work detail. Myself, and the rest of the gunners grabbed whatever was handy, chains, poles, ropes, even block and tackle and raced after him as fast as we could.”

  Will kept his one good eye on Isaiah. He began to see how it happened, as Isaiah continued his account. Lieutenant Hadley had arrived at the scene, fired a pistol in the air and ordered them to release Will. Brackett, ever the bully, had challenged the Lieutenant, asking him what he was going to do now that he had discharged his piece. Hadley pulled another pistol from his belt and aimed it at Brackett’s broad forehead, saying even one as stupid as he would not risk a ball in the head.

  “There were only eight of us, armed as I said with our work implements. There were almost one hundred of them,” Isaiah observed. “It was dicey for a minute there. Like when a cannon is primed with the quill in the touch hole but the powder has not yet caught fire. You understand,” Isaiah said, more as an affirmation than a question.

  Will nodded. “I have been on the lines . . .,” he said, his voice tighter, as his recollection of the night’s events came back.

  “Of course you have. That is when your other friends, the Mariners arrived. There were ten of them, armed with muskets and fitted with bayonets. Smarter than we were,” Isaiah chuckled. “Gunners without guns we were and they were sailors without sails.” Will smiled numbl
y but didn’t see the humor.

  “They came down the pier at a run, shouting all the while, ‘To me! Marblehead Mariners to me!” As they came up the crowd was quiet. From all about from the darkness, it seemed every direction of the compass, there were answering cries of ‘Mariners are coming!’” He nodded to Will. “The Mariners had other work crews out and they were converging on us. The crowd did not know how many, but there were no heroes in that bunch of misfits ready to find out. One of the Mariners, a strong stocky African fellow handed me his musket, and parted the crowd as if he were taking a Sunday stroll after church. Next thing I saw, he came back carrying you over his shoulders as easily if you weighed less than a sack of flour. We cushioned you on the wagon with some canvas and, at the Lieutenant’s order, brought you here.”

  Will felt exhausted, as if he had relived the terrible night again. Nat, he thought, with tears in his eyes. You have been such a good friend to me. And Adam. It is a good thing for me that Dr. Thaxter put your dislocated shoulder right. And if it hadn’t been for the Lieutenant, standing up to the mob. He felt the tears trickle down his cheeks.

  “If I cry from my bad eye, does that mean it will get better?” he asked Isaiah, with a weak smile.

  “I have seen worse,” Isaiah replied. “It should begin to open in another day or two. It appears to me the swelling has gone down some. Time for me to leave before I am reprimanded by Miss Priscilla for depriving you of your healing rest.” He stood up.

  “Isaiah. Why are you here taking care of me?”

  “Oh,” he shrugged, putting on his coat. “The Lieutenant asked for a volunteer. It seemed like easy duty. No hauling salvaged cannons about. I sleep in the shed attached to the house, instead of the barracks. And I get to eat Mrs. Hadley’s cooking instead of that of the Regiment’s cooks.” He gave Will a wink and a goodbye wave. “Sleep and get your appetite back. You will soon see the benefits of healing here.”

  After he left, Will could not fall asleep. He saw the Mariners in the harbor hoisting the cannon. Nat and Adam had been there for certain. Were Solomon and Jeremiah? And Titus? Was he back? Well, if his right eye never healed, he and Titus would be a pair, wouldn’t they? Titus without his left and Will without his right.

  He awoke before dawn to the smell of freshly baked bread and muffled noises from the kitchen. He lay quietly, testing his body, assessing what he could do and what he dare not try. He knew from prior beatings, at the hand of his father, the few days after the beatings were the worst. The bruises, battered muscles and open wounds tightened, making every step, twitch and gesture painful. There was not much he could do about his face. He imagined he looked terrible with his right eye still swollen shut. The lump on the back of his head still throbbed, although he thought, not as much as the day before. It was his ribs and shoulders that caused him concern. Every breath caused sharp pain in his chest and side. Very carefully, he made an effort to raise his arms, first one and then the other. He could barely move either one higher than a hand’s breadth above the bed before the pain warned him to go no higher. It was bearable when he shifted his weight or bent his legs at the knee. He was encouraged by being able to make such small movements and surprised at how exhausted he felt from the effort.

  The bread was the first solid food he ate, biting off small warm chunks from the large slice Isaiah held for him and eagerly taking the spoonfuls of broth to wash it down. It was another clear day, as he could see out the ground-floor windows. Isaiah pulled the curtains back, and when Will was not asleep, he amused himself by watching people passing by. He slept on and off most of the day, and when he awoke in the late afternoon he was both slept out and bored. He tried to compose a letter to Elisabeth but had trouble telling her either too little about the entry into Boston or too much about Johan. As he struggled to find the correct balance, there was a sharp knock at the door and Nat came in.

  Will smiled and instinctively started to sit up and shake hands. The pain in his ribs made him gasp. Instead of greeting Nat with a broad smile, he uttered a groan and fell back on the pillow. He did manage to smile wanly.

  “I am lucky you were there on the wharf. They were about to tar and feather me.”

  “How are you healing?” Nat asked. “You do look awful.”

  “That is what everyone either tells me or I can see it in their eyes. And you look very well and fit. I gather married life is appealing to you.”

  Nat grinned. “I am as happy as I could be. Anna and I have dined with Colonel Glover, whose wife is still unfortunately in poor health, and earlier this week with Colonel and Mrs. Knox. And you. What does your body tell you?”

  “That it is sorely smashed and broken.” He chuckled, careful not to bring the laugh from too low down in his chest. “I am both bored and depressed. I wish I could see with my right eye. That would serve to cheer me up. Follow that with being able to walk and use my arms, and then I will know I am on the mend.”

  “Well. That is too much to expect so soon. Perhaps, I can dispel your boredom with some news.”

  Will nodded eagerly. It was rumored General Washington would move the army to the port of New York to defend against the anticipated British attack there. While the troops would march the two hundred and fifty-plus miles, the Marblehead Mariners would proceed by ship. “A much more pleasant way to travel than jolting along on your hard wooden wagon seat,” Nat added. “For me, it fulfills my father-in-law’s prediction that I would be gone more than at home. But it matters not now. We are married and Anna understands I must go.” He was silent for a moment.

  “Another bit of news is not rumor. I have seen the orders.” There was disappointment in his voice. “General Washington has asked the Colonels of each of the established regiments to recommend four men to form a personal guard for the General and his baggage. They must be between five foot eight and five foot ten inches tall. And ‘neat and spruce’ were the words used in the order.”

  4

  Although Nat looked unhappy, Will could not help laughing. He did so with difficulty. “Well, it seems to me,” he said, “in General Washington’s judgment, the Mariners were short pitch pines instead of taller spruce trees.”

  Nat scowled at him, before breaking into a grin. “If your sense of humor is returning, then I would say you are on the mend,” he said, acknowledging Will’s joke. “Colonel Glover told the men it is better procedure to draw the General’s guard from among the soldiers of the different regiments than to choose a single regiment for that honor. It can create friction among the units, as we have seen.” They both were silent, remembering the bloody riot at the General’s headquarters in Cambridge. It seemed so long ago to Will. “And yet,” Nat continued, “it would have been more courteous if the General had told Colonel Glover in advance.”

  “In advance of what?” Will asked.

  “In advance of our Colonel finding out when the orders of the day were delivered, to be read to all Regiments,” Nat replied simply.

  Will had no answer, although he thought General Washington might have been too preoccupied with everything he thought commanding generals did, to have time to forewarn Colonel Glover.

  “And, as for Regiments, the Mariners are being reconstituted as the Fourteenth Continental Regiment.”

  “You will no longer be called the Marblehead Mariners?”

  Nat shook his head. “All militias are being made over into Regiments of the Continental Army. General Washington is restructuring the entire army. We will keep our distinctive uniforms,” he added hastily.

  Will looked at his friend mischievously. “Somehow, the cry, ‘Fourteenth Continentals to me’ does not sound the same rallying note as Marblehead Mariners.”

  Nat nodded in agreement before realizing Will was teasing him.

  “Nat. If you had not called out for the Mariners on Child’s Wharf, I would have suffered much worse at the hands of those men.”

  “Even though you do not wear our uniform, we consider you one of us. Remember, you earned our
friendship and respect. It was not an act of charity, so do not think you owe us anything.”

  “If not my life, at the very least you saved me from being tarred and feathered,” Will said gratefully. “It is the truth.”

  Nat seemed embarrassed by this turn of the conversation. “Here is a piece of news you may find satisfying. None of the Rifles, including Morgans, were allowed to enter Boston. Too ill-disciplined was the word. General Washington is sending some to Albany to join General Schuyler’s forces in opposing the British Army coming down from Canada.”

  “To Albany?” Will said, shocked. He sat up abruptly, his face pale and drawn. Nat assumed it was from pain.

  “Will. You should not move so suddenly.”

  “Do you not see what that means? Colonel Knox now has a reason to adhere to the agreement he made with my father. Without Johan in Boston, there is no longer a need for me to remain.” He shook his head in despair. “Indeed, there is a need for me to be a teamster, and transport the supplies accompanying the Rifles to Albany.”

  Nat thought for a moment. “Whether the Riflemen go to Albany or not is of no consequence. Your brother is not here. You are free now to decide whether to return or not. Make your wishes known to the Colonel. I am sure he will be sympathetic.”

  Will shook his head. “No, Nat. It is finished. Colonel Knox will use me as a teamster to help move the troops and supplies to western New York.” Nat continued to argue with him, but Will had ceased listening. He saw himself on a wagon, one of many on the thawing, muddy roads passing through Springfield, heading west to the border with New York and north to Albany. And then back to the farm.

  Nat stood up, unhappy he had made Will depressed. “I have to go. I leave you with this one encouraging thought.” Will licked his lips and waited, ready to reject Nat’s words. “You recall you once believed your journey would end when the artillery train crossed from New York into Massachusetts? I told you my belief was Providence had a different plan. Now you think Boston will be the end. I think not.” He tugged at his short blue jacket and pointed a finger at Will. “You are destined to continue on. Keep that thought as your North Star and speak up for yourself with the Colonel.” He paused in the doorway. “And for the love you claim to have for Elisabeth, write the dear girl quickly, now that you know there are troops and dispatches bound for Albany.”