James Fenimore Cooper's Five Novels

by James Fenimore Cooper

  The right of the British once more disappeared in the orchard, and the columns in front of the redoubt again opened with the imposing exactness of discipline. Their arms were already glittering in a line with the faces of the mound, and Lionel heard the experienced warrior at his side, murmuring to himself—

  “Let him hold his fire, and he will go in at the point of the bayonet!”

  But the trial was too great for even the practised courage of the royal troops. Volley succeeded volley, and in a few moments they had again curtained their ranks behind the misty skreen produced by their own fire. Then came the terrible flash from the redoubt, and the eddying volumes from the adverse hosts rolled into one cloud, enveloping the combatants in its folds, as if to conceal their bloody work from the spectators. Twenty times in the short space of as many minutes, Major Lincoln fancied he heard the incessant roll of the American musketry die away before the heavy and regular volleys of the troops, and then he thought the sounds of the latter grew more faint, and were given at longer intervals.

  The result, however, was soon known. The heavy bank of smoke which now even clung along the ground, was broken in fifty places, and the disordered masses of the British were seen driven before their deliberate foes, in wild confusion. The flashing swords of the officers in vain attempted to arrest the torrent, nor did the flight cease with many of the regiments until they reached their boats. At this moment a hum was heard in Boston like the sudden rush of wind, and men gazed in each other’s faces with undisguised amazement. Here and there a low sound of exultation escaped some unguarded lip, and many an eye gleamed with a triumph that could no longer be suppressed. Until this moment the feelings of Lionel had vacillated between the pride of country and military spirit, but losing all other feelings in the latter sensation, he looked fiercely about him, as if he would seek the man who dare exult in the repulse of his comrades. The poetic chieftain was still at his side, biting his nether lip in vexation; but his more tried companion suddenly disappeared. Another quick glance fell upon his missing form in the act of entering a boat at the foot of the hill. Quicker than thought, Lionel was on the shore, crying as he flew to the water’s edge—

  “Hold! for God’s sake, hold! remember the 47th is in the field, and I am its Major!”

  “Receive him,” said Clinton, with that grim satisfaction with which men acknowledge a valued friend in moments of trial; “and then row for your lives, or what is of more value, for the honour of the British name.”

  The brain of Lionel whirled as the boat shot along its watery bed, but before it had gained the middle of the stream he had time to consider the whole of the appalling scene. The fire had spread from house to house, and the whole village of Charlestown, with its four hundred buildings, was just bursting into flames. The air seemed filled with whistling balls, as they hurtled above his head, and the black sides of the vessels of war were vomiting sheets of flame with unwearied industry. Amid this tumult the English General and his companions sprung to land. The former rushed into the disordered ranks, and by his presence and voice recalled the men of one regiment to their duty. But long and loud appeals to their spirit and their ancient fame were necessary to restore a moiety of the former confidence to men who had been thus rudely repulsed, and who now looked along their thinned and exhausted ranks, missing in many instances more than half the well-known countenances. In the midst of the faltering troops stood their stern and unbending chief; but of all those gay and gallant youths who followed in his train as he had departed from Province-house that morning, not one remained, but in his blood. He alone seemed undisturbed in that disordered crowd; and his mandates went forth as usual, calm and determined. At length the panic, in some degree, subsided, and order was once more restored as the high-spirited and mortified gentlemen of the detachment regained their lost authority.

  The leaders consulted together, apart, and the dispositions were immediately renewed for the assault. Military show was no longer affected, but the soldiers laid down all the useless implements of their trade, and many even cast aside their outer garments, under the warmth of a broiling sun, added to the heat of the conflagration which also began to diffuse itself along the extremity of the peninsula. Fresh companies were placed in the columns, and most of the troops were withdrawn from the meadows, leaving merely a few skirmishers to amuse the Americans who lay behind the fence. When each disposition was completed, the final signal was given to advance.

  Lionel had taken post in his regiment, but marching on the skirt of the column, he commanded a view of most of the scene of battle. In his front moved a battalion, reduced to a handful of men in the previous assaults. Behind these came a party of the marine guards, from the shipping, led by their own veteran Major; and next followed the dejected Nesbitt and his corps, amongst whom Lionel looked in vain for the features of the good-natured Polwarth. Similar columns marched on their right and left, encircling three sides of the redoubt by their battalions.

  A few minutes brought him in full view of that humble and unfinished mound of earth, for the possession of which so much blood had that day been spilt in vain. It lay, as before, still as if none breathed within its bosom, though a terrific row of dark tubes were arrayed along its top, following the movements of the approaching columns, as the eyes of the imaginary charmers of our own wilderness are said to watch their victims. As the uproar of the artillery again grew fainter, the crash of falling streets, and the appalling sounds of the conflagration, on the left, became more audible. Immense volumes of black smoke issued from the smouldering ruins, and bellying outward, fold beyond fold, it overhung the work in a hideous cloud, casting its gloomy shadow across the place of blood.

  A strong column was now seen ascending, as if from out the burning town, and the advance of the whole became quick and spirited. A low call ran through the platoons, to note the naked weapons of their adversaries, and it was followed by the cry of “to the bayonet! to the bayonet!”

  “Hurrah! for the Royal Irish!” shouted M’Fuse, at the head of the dark column from the conflagration.

  “Hurrah!” echoed a well-known voice from the silent mound; “let them come on to Breed’s; the people will teach ’em the law!”

  Men think at such moments with the rapidity of lightning, and Lionel had even fancied his comrades in possession of the work, when the terrible stream of fire flashed in the faces of the men in front.

  “Push on with the ——th,” cried the veteran Major of Marines—“push on, or the 18th will get the honour of the day!”

  “We cannot,” murmured the soldiers of the ——th; “their fire is too heavy!”

  “Then break, and let the marines pass through you!”†

  The feeble battalion melted away, and the warriors of the deep, trained to conflicts of hand to hand, sprang forward, with a shout, in their places. The Americans, exhausted of their ammunition, now sunk sullenly back, a few hurling stones at their foes, in desperate indignation. The cannon of the British had been brought to enfilade the short breast-work, which was no longer tenable; and as the columns approached closer to the low rampart, it became a mutual protection to the adverse parties.

  “Hurrah! for the Royal Irish!” again shouted M’Fuse, rushing up the trifling ascent, which was but of little more than his own height.

  “Hurrah!” repeated Pitcairn, waving his sword on another angle of the work—“the day’s our own!”

  One more sheet of flame issued out of the bosom of the work, and all those brave men, who had emulated the examples of their officers, were swept away, as if a whirlwind passed along. The grenadier gave his war-cry once more and pitched headlong among his enemies; while Pitcairn fell back into the arms of his own child. The cry of ‘forward, 47th,’ rung through the ranks, and in their turn this veteran battalion mounted the ramparts. In the shallow ditch Lionel passed the dying marine, and caught the dying and despairing look from his eyes, and in another instant he found h
imself in the presence of his foes. As company followed company into the defenceless redoubt, the Americans sullenly retired by its rear, keeping the bayonets of the soldiers at bay with clubbed muskets and sinewy arms. When the whole issued upon the open ground, the husbandmen received a close and fatal fire from the battalions which were now gathering around them on three sides. A scene of wild and savage confusion succeeded to the order of the fight, and many fatal blows were given and taken, the mêlée rendering the use of fire-arms nearly impossible for several minutes.

  Lionel continued in advance, pressing on the footsteps of the retiring foe, stepping over many a lifeless body in his progress. Notwithstanding the hurry, and vast disorder of the fray, his eye fell on the form of the graceful stranger, stretched lifeless on the parched grass, which had greedily drank his blood. Amid the ferocious cries, and fiercer passions of the moment, the young man paused, and glanced his eyes around him with an expression that said, he thought the work of death should cease. At this instant the trappings of his attire caught the glaring eye-balls of a dying yeoman, who exerted his wasting strength to sacrifice one more worthy victim to the manes of his countrymen. The whole of the tumultuous scene vanished from the senses of Lionel at the flash of the musket of this man, and he sunk beneath the feet of the combatants, insensible of further triumph, and of every danger.

  The fall of a single officer, in such a contest, was a circumstance not to be regarded, and regiments passed over him, without a single man stooping to inquire into his fate. When the Americans had disengaged themselves from the troops, they descended into the little hollow between the two hills, swiftly, and like a disordered crowd, bearing off most of their wounded, and leaving no prisoners in the hands of their foes. The formation of the ground favoured their retreat, hundreds of bullets whistling harmlessly above their heads; and by the time they gained the acclivity of Bunker’s, distance added to their security. Finding the field lost, the men at the fence broke away in a body from their position, and abandoned the meadows; the whole moving in confused masses behind the crest of the adjacent height. The shouting soldiery followed, pouring in fruitless and distant volleys; but on the summit of Bunker the tired platoons were halted, and they beheld the throng move fearlessly through the tremendous fire that enfiladed the pass, as little injured as if most of them bore charmed lives.

  The day was now drawing to a close. With the disappearance of their enemies, the ships and batteries ceased the cannonade, and presently not a musket was heard in that place where so fierce a contest had so long raged. The troops commenced fortifying the outward eminence on which they rested, in order to maintain their barren conquest, and nothing further remained for the royal lieutenants but to go and mourn over their victory.

  * The Americans used no artillery in the battle, as there was a mistake in fitting the ammunition. [1832]

  † This circumstance, as, indeed, most of the others, is believed to be accurately true. [1832]

  Chapter XVII

  “She speaks, yet she says nothing; what of that?

  Her eye discourses—I will answer it.”

  Romeo.

  * * *

  ALTHOUGH THE BATTLE of Bunker-hill was fought while the mown grass lay on the meadows, the heats of summer were followed by the nipping frosts of November; the leaf fell, and the tempests and colds of February succeeded each other, before Major Lincoln left that couch where he had been laid, when carried, in total helplessness, from the heights of the peninsula. Throughout the whole of that long period, the hidden bullet defied the utmost skill of the British surgeons; nor could all their science and experience embolden them to risk cutting certain arteries and tendons in the body of the heir of Lincoln, which were thought to obstruct the passage to that obstinate lead, which, all agreed, alone impeded the recovery of the sufferer. This indecision was one of the penalties that poor Lionel paid for his greatness; for had it been Meriton who lingered, instead of his master, it is quite probable the case would have been determined at a much earlier hour. At length a young and enterprising leech, with the world before him, arrived from Europe, who, possessing greater skill or more effrontery (the effects are often the same) than his fellows, did not hesitate to decide at once on the expediency of an operation. The medical staff of the army sneered at this innovator, and at first were content with these silent testimonials of contempt. But when the friends of the patient, listening, as usual, to the whisperings of hope, consented that the confident man of probes should use his instruments, the voices of his contemporaries became not only loud, but clamorous. There was a day or two when even the watch-worn and jaded subalterns of the army forgot the dangers and hardships of the siege, to attend with demure and instructed countenances to the unintelligible jargon of the sages of the camp; and men grew pale, as they listened, who had never been known to exhibit any symptoms of the disgraceful passion before their acknowledged enemies. But when it became known that the ball was safely extracted, and the patient was pronounced convalescent, a calm succeeded that was much more portentous to the human race than the preceding tempest; and in a short time the daring practitioner was universally acknowledged to be the founder of a new theory. The degrees of M. D. were showered upon his honoured head from half the learned bodies in Christendom, while many of his admirers and imitators became justly entitled to the use of the same magical symbols, as annexments to their patronymicks, with the addition of the first letter in the alphabet. The ancient reasoning was altered to suit the modern facts, and before the war was ended, some thousands of the servants of the crown, and not a few of the patriotic colonists, were thought to have died, under the favour of this discovery.

  We might devote a chapter to the minute promulgation of such an event, had not more recent philosophers long since upset the practice, (in which case the theory seems to fall, as a matter of course,) by a renewal of those bold adventures, which teach us, occasionally, something new in the anatomy of man; as in the science of geography, the sealers of New-England have been able to discover Terra Australis, where Cook saw nothing but water; or Parry finds veins and arteries in that part of the American continent which had so long been thought to consist of cartilage.

  Whatever may have been the effects of the operation on the surgical science, it was healthful, in the highest degree, to its subject. For seven weary months Lionel lay in a state in which he might be said to exist, instead of live, but little conscious of surrounding occurrences; and happily for himself, nearly insensible to pain. At moments the flame of life would glimmer like the dying lamp, and then both the fears and hopes of his attendants were disappointed, as the patient dropped again into that state of apathy in which so much of his time was wasted. From an erroneous opinion of his master’s sufferings, Meriton had been induced to make a free use of soporifics, and no small part of Lionel’s insensibility was produced by an excessive use of laudanum for which he was indebted to the mistaken humanity of his valet. At the moment of the operation the adventurous surgeon availed himself of the same stupifying drug, and many days of dull, heavy, and alarming apathy succeeded, before the system, finding itself relieved from its unnatural inmate, resumed its healthful functions, and began to renew its powers. By a singular good-fortune the leech was too much occupied by his own novel honours, to follow up his success, secundum artem, as a great general pushes a victory to the utmost; and that matchless doctor, Nature, was permitted to complete the cure.

  When the effects of the anodynes had subsided, the patient found himself entirely free from uneasiness, and dropped into a sweet and refreshing sleep that lasted hours without interruption. He awoke a new man; his body renovated, his head clear, and his recollections, though a little confused and wandering, certainly better than they had been since the moment when he fell in the mêlée on Breeds.* This restoration to all the nobler properties of life occurred about the tenth hour of the day; and as Lionel opened his eyes, with understanding in their expression, they fell upon the
cheerfulness which a bright sun, assisted by the dazzling light of masses of snow without, lent to every object in his apartment. The curtains of the windows had been opened, and every article of the furniture was arranged with a neatness that manifested the studied care which presided over his illness. In one corner, it is true, Meriton had established himself in an easy-chair, with an arrangement that spoke more in favour of his consideration for the valet than the master, while he was comforting his faculties for a night of watchfulness, by the sweet, because stolen, slumbers of the morning.

  A flood of recollections broke into the mind of Lionel together, and it was some little time before he could so far separate the true from the imaginary, as to attain a tolerably clear comprehension of what had occurred in the little age he had been dozing. Raising himself on one elbow, without difficulty, he passed his hand once or twice slowly over his face, and then trusted his voice in a summons to his man. Meriton started at the well-known sounds, and after diligently rubbing his eyes, like one who awakes by surprise, he arose and gave the customary reply.

  “How now, Meriton!” exclaimed Major Lincoln; “you sleep as sound as a recruit, and I suppose you have been stationed like one, with twice-told orders to be vigilant.”

  The valet stood with open mouth, as if ready to devour his master’s words, and then passed his hands in quick succession over his eyes, as before, though with a very different object.

  “Thank God, sir, thank God! you look like yourself once more, and we shall live again as we used to. Yes, yes, sir—you’ll do now—you’ll do this time. That’s a miracle of a man, is the great Lon’non surgeon! and now we shall go back to Soho, and live like civilizers. Thank God, sir, thank God! you smile again, and I hope if any thing should go wrong you’ll soon be able to give me one of those looks that I am so used to, and which makes my heart jump into my mouth, when I know I’ve been forgetful!”