Time's Convert

by Deborah Harkness

  “No.” Marcus kept his responses to a minimum.

  “Obadiah isn’t going to like it when he finds out,” Pomeroy said.

  “What’s he going to do? Disinherit me?” Marcus snorted. Everybody knew the MacNeils didn’t have a penny to bless themselves.

  “And your mother?” Pomeroy’s eyes sharpened.

  Marcus looked away rather than answer. His mother didn’t need to be part of this. His father had pushed her out of the way when she tried to stop their last argument, and she’d fallen and injured her arm. It still wasn’t healed, not even with Tom Buckland’s salve and the ministrations of the doctor from Hadley.

  “One of these days, Marcus MacNeil, you’re going to find someone whose authority you can’t wriggle out from under,” Pomeroy promised, “but today isn’t the day. You’re the best shot in Hampshire County and I need every gun I can get.”

  Marcus joined a line of soldiers. He filed into line next to a gangly fellow about his age wearing a red-and-white-checked shirt and a pair of navy breeches that had seen better days.

  “Where you from?” his companion asked during a momentary lull in the action.

  “Out west,” Marcus replied, not wanting to give too much away.

  “We’re both country bumpkins, then,” the soldier replied. “Aaron Lyon. One of Colonel Woodbridge’s men. The Boston boys poke fun at anyone who lives west of Worcester. I’ve been called ‘Yankee’ more times than I can count. What’s your name?”

  “Marcus MacNeil,” Marcus said.

  “Who you with, Marcus?” Lyon rooted around in a pouch at his waist.

  “Him.” Marcus pointed at Seth Pomeroy.

  “Everybody says Pomeroy is one of the finest gunsmiths in Massachusetts.” Lyon produced a handful of dried apple slices. He offered some to Marcus. “Picked last year from our orchard in Ashfield. None better.”

  Marcus devoured the apples and mumbled his thanks.

  Their conversation dropped away to silence when they reached the narrow neck of land that connected Cambridge to Charlestown. It was here that the scope of what awaited them became visible. Lyon whistled through his teeth at their first good look at the smoke coming from the distant prospects of Breed’s Hill and Bunker Hill.

  The line drew to a halt as Seth Pomeroy stopped to converse with a rotund man on horseback wearing a powdered wig and tricorn hat that sat on his balding head at opposing angles. Marcus recognized the unmistakable profile of Dr. Woodbridge from South Hadley.

  “Looks like you’re joining up with us,” Aaron said, watching the exchange between Pomeroy and Woodbridge.

  Woodbridge rode down the line, calmly surveying the soldiers.

  “MacNeil, is that you?” Woodbridge squinted. “By God, it is. Go with Pomeroy. If you can put buckshot through a turkey’s eye in my back pasture, you can surely hit a Redcoat. You, too, Lyon.”

  “Yes, sir.” Lyon’s s’s whistled through front teeth that let as much daylight through as the pickets on Madam Porter’s fence.

  “Where are we going?” Marcus asked Woodbridge, planting his feet a bit farther apart and cradling the gun in his hands.

  “You don’t ask questions in the army,” Woodbridge replied.

  “Army?” Marcus’s ears pricked at this piece of intelligence. “I’m fighting for Massachusetts—in the militia.”

  “Shows what you know, MacNeil. Congress, in its wisdom, decided thirteen different colonial militias were too much. We’re one merry Continental army now. Some gentleman from Virginia—tall man, good on a horse—is headed up from Philadelphia to manage things.” Woodbridge spat on the ground, a damning pronouncement intended to cover southern landowners, tall men, equestrians, and city folk. “Do as you’re told, or I’ll send you back to Hadley where you belong.”

  Marcus reached the Northampton gunsmith just in time to hear him address the motley company of soldiers.

  “We don’t have much ammunition,” Pomeroy explained, handing out small leather pouches, “so no target practice unless it’s got two legs and is wearing a British uniform.”

  “What’s our mission, Captain?” A tall man in a buckskin jacket with sandy hair and the sharp eyes of a wolf weighed the pouch in his hand.

  “Relieving Colonel Prescott on Breed’s Hill. He’s stranded there,” Pomeroy replied.

  There were groans of disappointment. Like Marcus, most of the men wanted to fire upon the British army, not help fellow colonials who’d gotten themselves into trouble.

  Pomeroy’s men began their march in silence, the bombardment from British canon shaking the ground and rattling nearby buildings to their foundations. The king’s troops were trying to blast to pieces the fragile strip of land they were walking on, thereby cutting Charlestown off from Cambridge. The land rolled under Marcus’s feet. Instinctively, he picked up his pace.

  “Even the whores left Charlestown when they saw what was coming this way,” Lyon said over his shoulder.

  “What was coming” looked to be Armageddon, or at least that was Marcus’s conclusion once he saw the number of British ships on the Charles River, the heavy bombardment from guns across the water, and the thick plumes of smoke.

  Then he caught sight of the masses of red-coated British soldiers marching briskly toward them from a distance, and his bowels turned to water.

  When Pomeroy’s troops finally met up with the other colonials, Marcus was surprised to discover that some of the soldiers were even younger than he was, like the freckled Jimmy Hutchinson from Salem. Only a few were as old as Seth Pomeroy. But most of the men were around Obadiah’s age, including the hatchet-faced captain whose orders Marcus now followed: John Stark of New Hampshire.

  “Stark was one of the first rangers,” Jimmy whispered to Marcus as they crouched behind a makeshift protective bulwark. Rogers’ Rangers were legendary for their keen eyes and steady hands as well as their long rifles, which were accurate at far greater distances than the muskets most men carried.

  “One more word out of you, boy, and I’ll gag you.” Stark had crept up to the front line, silent as a snake. A red flag ornamented with a green pine tree was wound around one hand. Stark fixed his attention on Marcus. “Who the hell are you?”

  “Marcus MacNeil.” Marcus fought the urge to jump up and stand at attention. “From Hadley.”

  “You’re the one Pomeroy says can shoot straight,” Stark said.

  “Yes, sir.” Marcus couldn’t hide his eagerness to prove it.

  “See that stake?”

  Marcus squinted through a small gap in the hay that had been wadded between the fence rails piled atop the old wall to provide better cover. He nodded.

  “When the British reach it, you stand and shoot. Shoot the fanciest uniform you see. The more brass and braid the better,” Stark said. “Every man against this fence will do the same.

  “Eyes or heart?” Marcus’s question earned a smile from the forbidding marksman.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Stark replied, “so long as one shot is all it takes to bring him to his knees. After you discharge your weapon, hit the ground and keep your head down. Once you’re down, Cole will shoot with the second line.”

  Stark pointed to the sharp-eyed man in buckskin. The soldier nodded and touched his hat.

  “Once Cole’s down,” Stark continued, “Hutchinson and the final line will take aim.”

  The strategy was brilliant. It took a count of twenty to reload a musket, give or take. Stark’s plan meant there would be no lull in the attack, in spite of the relatively small number of colonials behind the fence. The British were walking straight into a barrage of fire.

  “And then?” Jimmy asked.

  Cole and Stark exchanged a long look. Marcus’s racing blood stuttered. He’d weighed the pouch when Pomeroy gave it to him, and suspected it contained only enough powder for one shot. That look proved
it.

  “You just wait by me, Jimmy,” Cole said, patting the boy on the back.

  War involved far more waiting than it did shooting. It was nearly half a day before the British came into view. As soon as the Redcoats began to approach the stake, however, everything seemed to happen at once.

  The fife and drums struck up a tune. The drummer was a boy of no more than twelve, Marcus saw—no older than Patience.

  One of the British soldiers whistled along. The rest of the red-coated line picked up the song with enthusiasm, belting out the words with jeers and catcalls.

  Yankee Doodle came to town,

  For to buy a firelock,

  We will tar and feather him,

  And so we will John Hancock.

  “Bastards.” Marcus’s finger quivered on the trigger at the insult to one of his heroes, and the president of the recently convened Continental Congress.

  “Hold your fire,” Cole whispered from behind Marcus, reminding him of Stark’s orders.

  Then the first of the British soldiers, his red-and-gold uniform flaming in the hazy air, stepped past the stake.

  “Fire!” Stark shouted.

  Marcus sprang to his feet, along with the front line of men packed along the fence.

  A British boy—someone Marcus’s age, who looked so like him they might have been cousins—looked directly at him, mouth round with astonishment. Marcus aimed.

  “Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes!” Stark shouted.

  The British lad’s eyes widened.

  Marcus pulled the trigger.

  A dark hole appeared in the soldier’s eye socket. Blood trickled out, increasing to a flood.

  Marcus froze, unable to move.

  “Get down!” Cole pulled him to the ground.

  Marcus dropped his gun as he fell, his stomach heaving. He was dazed, his ears ringing and his eyes burning.

  The British fixed their bayonets with a loud snick. The soldiers roared as they ran toward the wall, a hail of bullets accompanying them, hurtling toward the colonials from behind the British line.

  Stark waved the red-and-green flag. Cole stood along with the second line of men.

  Lying faceup on the ground, Marcus followed a single bullet as it passed overhead. He watched, dumbstruck, as it hit Cole in the chest just as the man was aiming his long rifle. Cole grunted and fell—but not before discharging his weapon.

  The British line shouted in surprise. They had not been expecting a second round of fire so soon. Shouts turned to screams as colonial bullets found their marks.

  Marcus crawled over to Cole.

  “Is he dead?” Jimmy asked, eyes wide. “Oh, God, is he dead?”

  Cole’s eyes stared at the heavens, unseeing. Marcus knelt, hoping to feel the breath coming from Cole’s lungs.

  Nothing.

  He closed Cole’s eyes.

  Stark tossed his flag in the air, deliberately drawing British fire.

  Jimmy and the remaining colonials stood, took aim, and shot.

  The screams and shouting continued on the other side of the wall.

  “Fall back! Fall back!” The British officer’s command carried on the wind.

  “I’ll be damned.” Stark propped himself up against the stone wall while the farmers, woodsmen, and hunters of New England—now soldiers in this new “Continental Army”—turned to one another in disbelief.

  “Well, lads,” Stark continued, mopping his brow with his sleeve, “that was a good afternoon’s work. Seems you turned aside the great British army.”

  Cheers rose from the ranks, but Marcus couldn’t bring himself to join in. Cole’s gun lay in a pool of his blood. Marcus took it and wiped the grip on his sleeve. It was even finer than the one Pomeroy had loaned him. And he might need another gun before the day was through.

  God knew the New Hampshire man didn’t. Not anymore.

  * * *

  —

  THE REST OF THE BATTLE passed in a blur of blood, buckshot, and chaos. There was no water, no food, and little respite from the fighting.

  Stark and his men turned the British aside again.

  When the British attacked a third time, the exhausted colonists had no ammunition to fight back.

  The heartiest and the oldest men volunteered to stand at the wall while the rest retreated.

  They were almost across the neck and safely back in Cambridge when Jimmy Hutchinson suddenly fell, a piece of shot embedded in his neck. Blood spatters mixed with the freckles on the boy’s face.

  “Am I gonna die like Mr. Cole?” Jimmy’s voice was faint.

  Marcus ripped the bloodstained sleeve from his own shirt and tried to stanch the flow.

  “Not today.” If it gave Jimmy a shred of hope to cling to—though Marcus knew the boy would curse fate before his ordeal was over—how could it hurt?

  Marcus took a coat from a dead British soldier. He and Aaron Lyon made a makeshift stretcher out of it. Together, they carried Jimmy toward the camp hospital that had been set up in Harvard Yard.

  The area smelled like a charnel house, the scent of blood and singed flesh filling the air. It sounded even worse. Groans and pleas for water were punctuated by screams of soldiers in agony.

  “Bless me, is that Jimmy Hutchinson?” A stout woman, fiery headed with a pipe clenched between her teeth, appeared out of the smoky twilight, barring their way.

  “Mistress Bishop?” Jimmy said weakly, blinking up at her. “Is that you, ma’am?”

  “Who else?” Mistress Bishop replied tartly. “What fool let you come up here and get yourself shot? You’re not even fifteen.”

  “Ma doesn’t know,” Jimmy explained, his eyes rolling shut.

  “I should think not. You should have stayed in Salem, where you belong.” Mistress Bishop gestured to Marcus. “Don’t just stand there. Bring him here.”

  Here was not the direction that most of the wounded were being carried. Here was a small fire, with a group of makeshift beds arranged around it. Here all was quiet, as opposed to there, where shouts and cries and utter bedlam proclaimed the location of the surgeons.

  Marcus eyed the woman with suspicion.

  “You can take him to Dr. Warren if you want to, but Jimmy’s chances of surviving are better with me.” Mistress Bishop shifted her pipe from the left side of her mouth to the right.

  “We left Dr. Warren on Breed’s Hill,” Marcus said, pleased to show up the woman as a liar.

  “Not that Dr. Warren, you dolt. The other one.” Mistress Bishop was equally delighted to let Marcus know he was a conceited fool. “I reckon I’m more familiar with the medical men of Boston than you are.”

  “I want to stay with Mistress Bishop,” Jimmy mumbled. “She’s a healer.”

  “That’s a polite term for it, Jimmy,” Mistress Bishop said. “Now, are you two louts going to carry my patient to the fire, or do I have to do it?”

  “He’s got a piece of shot in his neck,” Marcus hurriedly explained as they lugged Jimmy the last few yards. “I think it cut through the veins. It could be lodged in the artery, though. Some of the flesh around it is black, but that could be a burn. I tied my sleeve around his neck as tight as I dared.”

  “So I see.” Mistress Bishop picked up a pair of nips, a rushlight pinched between them. She peered into the wound. “What’s your name?”

  “Marcus MacNeil. Here.” Marcus fished around in his pocket and pulled out a bit of candlewood he’d brought from home. The resinous pine splinter would cast a brighter glow than the flickering rushlight. He thrust the end of it in the flame. The wood caught immediately.

  “I thank you.” Mistress Bishop swapped her nips for the candlewood. “You know your way around a body. Are you one of those Harvard boys?” Her look of derision was reason enough to deny it. Mistress Bishop clearly had no use fo
r the college educated.

  “No ma’am. Hadley,” Marcus replied, his eyes pinned to Jimmy’s pallid face and blue-tinged lips. “I don’t think he’s getting enough air.”

  “None of us are. Not with all this smoke.” Mistress Bishop contributed to it by drawing on her pipe. She sighed, a fug of tobacco surrounding her, and looked down at Jimmy. “He’ll sleep a bit now.”

  Marcus knew better than to ask whether Jimmy would wake up.

  “It took me eighteen hours to bring that boy into the world, and no time at all for some idiot with a gun to steal him away.” Mistress Bishop pulled a small bottle out of her pocket. “War is such a waste of women’s time.”

  Mistress Bishop used her teeth to pull the cork from the bottle and spat it into the fire. It popped and sizzled for a moment before igniting in the flames. She took a substantial swig and offered it to Marcus.

  “Thank you, no.” Marcus still felt as though his stomach could rise up at any moment. Memories of the battle struggled to the surface of his mind.

  He had killed a man. Somewhere in England, a mother was waking up without a son—and it was his fault.

  “Think about that weeping mother before you pull the trigger next time,” Mistress Bishop said, returning the flask to her own lips.

  Somehow, the woman had divined the contents of Marcus’s guilty conscience. Alarmed and overwhelmed, Marcus clapped a hand over his mouth as his guts heaved. Mistress Bishop looked at him sharply, her hazel eyes snapping.

  “Don’t you dare go all missish on me. I haven’t got time for your nonsense. One of the Proctor boys broke his leg running away from the guns. Fell in a hole. First sensible story of battle I’ve heard today.” Mistress Bishop took another swig from her bottle, then lumbered to her feet. She beckoned for Marcus to follow.

  Marcus remained where he was until his innards returned to their natural place. It took rather longer than the redheaded healer found acceptable.

  “Well?” she demanded, standing over a prone soldier whose eyes were bugged out from pain and fear. “Are you going to faint, or are you going to help me?”