Out of Time: A story of archaeology... sort of

by David LaVigne

  He tucked the pistol tightly into his belt and felt into his pouch to make sure the machine was still there. He thumbed it to make sure it was all intact, a subconscious habit he had picked up over the past months. Then he headed down the stairs after the others.

  “We need to get out of the city,” he said as he came up to the small group. Abigail was cradling her children on the step next to her husband who seemed to have recovered a bit.

  “How?” Josiah asked.

  “Where?” Abigail asked.

  “Are you kidding?” said Mary, “We need to be out there.” She pointed toward the distant sounds of gunfire.

  “I’m not letting you get yourself killed, you foolish girl. And these people can’t stay here. The British are going to overrun this town very soon. There’s no way that the militia can hold out for long.”

  “The harbor,” Josiah piped up. “We can take a boat and sneak out down the river.”

  “Not bad,” Campbell said. “Can you walk?”

  “I’ll manage,” Josiah replied.

  Mary protested but to no avail. With all her recklessness she wasn’t willing to go charge the British on her own. She followed Campbell and so the group headed for the wharf.

  Their pace was slow. Josiah was having a lot of trouble walking and needed Campbell’s support most of the time, and the three scared little girls slowed them even more.

  As they got closer to the docks Campbell’s hopes of an easy escape were crushed. They could hear the gunfire before they even got close and the sky was periodically lighting up above the houses. They stopped two blocks away from the water front and Campbell told the group to stay put while he scouted.

  “Sure,” Mary said. Then she followed a half step behind him. Josiah’s family found shelter in a tool shed and said they’d stay right there till he got back.

  Campbell and Mary crept between two buildings until they reached the street that ran abreast of the wharf. They stayed in the shadows for a moment, Campbell just popping his head out to look around.

  There were soldiers crouched behind barricades, he saw two groups of five. There was another group a little further south, where one of the long gangplanks led down to the docks. They had removed the plank and used it, along with a random assortment of boxes and barrels, to make a wall to hide behind and fire. It wasn’t much of a defense against cannons, but would hold up well enough against muskets and at least that was something.

  He looked where the soldier’s muzzles were pointed and saw three large British warships slowly maneuvering so that their broad sides were facing towards the docks. One of them had already dropped anchor and was loading a longboat full of Redcoats to lower down to the water.

  “Crap,” Campbell said.

  “You say that a lot,” Mary said, “what does it mean? Is that some slang from your mysterious country?”

  “It means we’re in trouble. There are three frigates out there getting ready to bombard us.”

  “We have men as well, we can fight them off.”

  Just then there was a commotion behind them. Campbell walked back through the alley and saw two colonial soldiers taking Josiah and his family out of the shed. They were drafting every man they could find and forcing them to the defenses. Campbell walked over to the men.

  “Let those women go,” he said to the soldiers. He had his hands in the air and walked calmly towards them.

  “By order of Colonel Richter,” the soldier told Campbell as he approached, “all able bodied men in Boston are to man the defenses.”

  “Does he look able bodied to you?” Campbell asked.

  “He’s in one piece and conscious,” the soldier replied. “That’s enough.”

  “Alright,” Campbell said, he could see this wasn’t going to go well for him. “Let the girls and their mother find shelter. We’ll fight.”

  He walked between the soldiers and placed his arm under Josiah’s and helped him to his feet. They followed the soldiers the two blocks back to the wharf where a group of other soldiers were crouched behind the makeshift wall, loading muskets and preparing for a fight.

  Mary crouched in the shadows in the alleyway, watching as Campbell approached the soldiers. When she saw him and Josiah getting taken away by the soldiers she made sure to stay a short distance away and hidden as well as she could manage, but she followed them.

  As they approached the makeshift wall she hung back at the edge of the building. She watched a man crouching by a large wooden crate pull out two muskets and hand one each to Campbell and Josiah. Then he gave them each a powder horn and a small leather bag full of lead shot. Campbell appeared to be complaining about the provided ammunition.

  He waved all around and talked rapidly, pointing to the small groups of men. Then he stood up and pointed into the harbor at the large warships. The soldier pulled him down and shoved another musket into his hand and four times the shot and powder, which he split with Josiah, who also grabbed another gun out of the box.

  Campbell helped Josiah to the right edge of the wall and into the prone position. He found a barrel and a sack of wheat for him to prop his weapon on since he wouldn’t be able to use his left arm. Campbell loaded all four muskets, helped Josiah get his into position, then leaned his back against the wall and waited.

  When the broadsides fired the sound was deafening. There were thirty two guns on each of those ships, sixteen to a side. That meant between the three of them they could fire forty eight iron balls of death at a time.

  There were bright flashes from the ships and a few seconds later sections of the wharf and seawall and the buildings behind them all burst into splinters at once. All of the soldiers crouched behind their feeble protection. Campbell tensed up at the sound of every shot and his heart threatened to jump out of his chest and for a moment he clutched the device in his pocket.

  I could just go, he thought to himself. I could just turn it on and be sometime safe. “No,” he said aloud to himself, “you can’t just leave. Too many things are wrong already.”

  No one took notice of him talking to himself. Most of the men around him were praying and after the second broadside everyone was hard of hearing anyway.

  When there was a lull in the barrage from the ships Richter, who was kneeling only a few feet away from Campbell though neither had noticed the other, ordered the men to return fire with a shout. Campbell looked over to see who was giving orders and saw Richter.

  “You nutjob,” Campbell yelled at him. “You’re wasting bullets.”

  “How the hell are you here?!” Richter exclaimed.

  “Stop ordering them to shoot when it’s not going to do anything,” Campbell yelled.

  “I think I know how to fight an eighteenth century battle,” Richter yelled back. “I have read my history.”

  “I know you’re trying not to let the colonies win,” Campbell was getting angrier. “But I’m not going to die here because you’re a fucking a moron.”

  Richter yelled back at him in a long stream of German which Campbell didn’t understand, and that just made him even more angry. Then another broadside swept the seawall and the barricade to the left of them burst into splinters. All the men ducked back down and there were screams from the broken defenses. The Cannon fire died down and another musket went off.

  “Hold your fire!” Campbell yelled at the troops.

  He poked his head up from the wall for a second, just enough to get an eye over the barricade, and saw a dozen longboats in the water packed with Redcoats. They would probably fire another broadside or two over the foot soldier’s heads but the cannons would slack off when the infantry hit the shoreline, Campbell thought.

  “Hold your fire!” he screamed again.

  Mary was crouching in the dark shadow of a building, watching Campbell. He seemed to be having an argument with Richter. There was another series of explosions and she crouched even tighter, clutching her musket so hard her hands were turning white.

  The explosions were coming in
waves. Every time they died off she tried to force herself to run up to the line and fight but she was so scared she couldn’t get her limbs to work. When she watched the men doing drills it was exciting. When the battle started and the fighting was close enough to hear but too far away to see it was enticing. Now that it was right in front of her it was scary.

  There was another explosion and one of the barricades gave way and the entire group of men manning it fell apart in cloud of wood, metal and smoke. She saw body parts and bits of wood flying through the air and into people, and blood. There was so much blood. She curled into a ball even tighter.

  There were three more broadsides before the army was dangerously close and the ships had to stop firing. The longboats slid up to the docks and men hopped off to secure the mooring lines. About a hundred soldiers were packed into the boats and when the cannons stopped the muskets started.

  They were firing in waves. A few men from each boat would hop onto the dock and start to shoot, then kneel and reload while another group moved a few steps in front of them and fired so that by the time all the men were out of the boats they covered half the distance to the seawall and the men in the back were already moving up to the front, ready to shoot again.

  “On my command,” Richter yelled to the men. Campbell had managed to convince him to wait until the enemy soldiers were close enough to hit.

  Josiah aimed his musket carefully at one of the few men he could see holding a sword. Campbell had told him to aim for officers first to confuse the troops. He carefully pulled back the hammer until it clicked into the cocked position. Then he placed his finger gently against the trigger. His mind started to conjure up images of what the British might do to his family if they were to lose. He pushed those thoughts out of his head, he needed to be present. He was in excruciating pain from head to toe, but the sounds of the gunfire and smell of the smoke and the feel of his heart trying to jump through his chest forced him to concentrate.

  Campbell was kneeling above him, his head ducked just below the rim of the wall like all the others. There was a short pause in the gunfire from below and they would be able to hear the men on the dock reloading, if it weren’t for the loud ringing in their ears. He raised his head just enough to get a look over the edge of the wall and glanced down at the Redcoats. He looked just long enough to confirm that they were all occupied reloading and then ducked again and told Richter to fire, but he did nothing.

  He kicked Richter’s leg and the German yelled to fire. All at once all of the colonials popped their heads up, set the barrels of their muskets against the top of the wall and pulled their triggers. There was an almost simultaneous flash along the wall and most of the front row of Redcoats dropped to the dock or into the water.

  Each man had another loaded weapon ready and immediately switched to the backup. Another dozen Redcoats went down before they had a chance to recover. Then the colonials ducked back down and started to reload as fast as they could.

  There was another barrage from the docks below and a few of the militiamen didn’t duck fast enough. They were down another four men. A musket ball grazed the top of Josiah’s shoulder but he fired his second shot without flinching. It wasn’t until he glanced down on accident and saw the torn sleeve and the little bit of blood pouring out that he realized he’d been shot.

  Mary, crouched in the shadow, couldn’t pull her eyes off of the fight. She had been trying to convince herself to get up and fight, but as much as she tried to will herself to do it she was too scared. But when she saw the little bit of blood spray up from Josiah’s shoulder it was enough for her to force past her fear. She ran towards the barricade.

  She kept her head down as musket ball after musket ball flew over her and into the wall behind her. She dropped to her knees as she got close enough to the wall to see over it and then ran forward at a crouch until her shoulder smacked the wall between Campbell and Josiah.

  Immediately she grabbed the musket Josiah had just fired out of his hands and replaced it with her own. Then she helped him position her weapon so he could fire again and picked up another musket that was at Campbell’s feet and began to load it. Campbell had been looking over the wall, risking a glance at the Redcoats below, counting heads. When he ducked down again he saw Mary reloading his musket

  “What are you doing here?” Campbell shouted.

  “Helping,” she said, pushing powder into the barrel of the musket with the ramrod.

  “What?” he yelled.

  “Shut up and fight,” she said a little louder as she placed a lead ball into the barrel of the musket, but it still wasn’t loud enough for him to hear over the gunfire below them and the ringing in his ears.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” he yelled. “Go find somewhere safe.”

  There was another lull in the fire from the docks below.

  “Fire!” Richter shouted and Campbell popped up and pointed his musket at the advancing Redcoats and, in unison with the rest of the defenders, fired. He didn’t take the time to see if his bullet had hit it’s mark, instead he immediately ducked his head back down and took the loaded musket Mary was offering him and popped up to shoot again.

  “There isn’t anywhere safe,” Mary screamed at Campbell, grabbing the weapon out of his hands and shoving the next loaded musket against his chest.

  Mary took turns loading weapons for Campbell and Josiah and the two of them started putting up a fairly steady rate of fire. There were twenty women hiding in a house behind them that had been battered by the cannon fire from the ships. A few of them took courage from Mary and ran out to their husband’s and neighbor’s aid.

  The women crouched beside the soldiers and started loading weapons. One young girl, no more than thirteen, grabbed muskets from the crate and starting distributing them so that each man had three or more. Pretty soon there was a rush of women and young boys running to help.

  Within a few minutes there were two people loading for each man firing and some of the women were firing as well. The Redcoats below couldn’t keep up with the quick rate of fire coming down from the wall and, though a few more men and women received wounds on the colonial side, after ten minutes of not making a step of progress and half their force down the only British officer left on the dock called a retreat. The Redcoats started piling back into their boats.

  “They’re retreating!” someone shouted from the other barricade.

  “Hold your fire!” Campbell ordered, but many didn’t hear him and it was the women who were firing with such ferocity they didn’t seem to want to allow a single Redcoat to escape with their lives.

  Two of the women started pushing down the other barricade so they could charge the docks. Campbell yelled at them to stop but it was useless, they were full of victory and rage. Within a minute the barricade was gone and thirty men and women were charging down the remaining gangplank towards the retreating British troops.

  Campbell watched as they ran, some with bayonets affixed to their musket, some just swinging wildly with their guns as bludgeoning devices. A few of the Redcoats dove overboard and tried to swim to the ships, but they would never make it. The harbor had turned a very dark red in the moonlight.

  One of the soldiers in the lead longboat fired a shot up at the makeshift wall as his friends rowed him away. Josiah fired at him simultaneously. Both projectiles hit their mark. The Redcoat doubled over and slipped into the water. A chunk of Josiah’s skull flew into the air and he slumped against the barrel he had been using as support.

  “No!” Mary screamed, clutching the dead militiaman.

  “Come on,” Campbell said, taking her arm. “Once their men are out of the way those ships will start firing again and they won’t stop until we’re all dead. We need to get out of here.”

  He pried her off of Josiah’s body and the two of them ran towards the buildings. Everyone around the barricades was too focused on the Redcoats to notice the two of them and they were able to sneak off into town unseen.

  Once t
hey were out of sight of the fight Mary stopped and ripped away the skirts of her gown, she needed freedom to run. Campbell looked at her naked, perfectly shaped legs and once again had to push inappropriate thoughts out of his head. Battle, he thought to himself, you’re escaping a battle, focus on that.

  They had both taken muskets and Mary still had her powder horn and bag of shot. It wouldn’t be much, they wouldn’t be able to sustain a prolonged fight, but it was something. Campbell took Mary by the arm and led her into the town but almost instantly got lost. Mary shook herself free and pulled Campbell down a side street.

  They made it to the river and found a small row boat pulled up on the sand. The tide was low so they had to drag the boat pretty far to hit the water. Once they got it down the bank they jumped in and Campbell grabbed the oars and set them in the oar locks. They were drifting at first but Campbell quickly got the hang of rowing and they pushed off down the river.

  A few minutes later they were nearing the British line. They could see a battery of cannons was aimed at river traffic. It was manned by Redcoats. They would never make it through.

  “Well that’s not good,” Campbell said.

  He thought about steering the boat towards the far shore, but that would mean trying to evade the British forces on land and he had no idea how far their occupation stretched. He reached down to feel the device again, but his pouch was gone.

  Richter ran away from his men as soon as he found a chance. The majority of the colonial forces had rushed the docks chasing after the retreating Redcoats. Most of them were busy firing into the bay. He had tried to order them back, but they were all so caught up in the moment that no one listened.

  During the fighting everyone was so focused on firing and reloading as fast as they could that no one noticed him cut the pouch loose from Campbell’s belt. He had noticed when they talked before that Campbell’s hand frequently went to the pouch and fiddled with something. He guessed it had to be the machine.