Angels & Patriots

by Salina B Baker

  “The regulars are landing in Charlestown, and Father says you must all meet and march immediately to Bunker Hill!”

  Without question, Captain Chester ran to his quarters and retrieved his musket and ammunition. Then, he went to the Anglican Church, which served as a barracks for his men, and ordered them to ready and march.

  In Roxbury, Fergus received a desperate message from the Committee of Safety. “The troops are now landing at Charlestown from Boston. You are to judge whether this is designed to deceive or not. In haste, we leave you to judge of the necessity of your movements.”

  To the right of the redoubt and breastworks, William Howe was arranging his command.

  “You will fall into two horizontal lines consisting of 300 men each!” he ordered his officers in command of their perspective companies of light infantry and grenadiers.

  Howe considered the rebel company stacking stones into a barricade near the beach. He wiped one white-gloved hand across his sweating brow. It did not occur to him that donning gloves on a windless, stifling June day was ludicrous, because no self-respecting British officer would do otherwise.

  “Colonel Abercrombie! Captain Osborn!” Howe shouted.

  The officers immediately attended—high on adrenaline after months of doing little more than drilling in the mud on Boston Common.

  “Form columns of your infantrymen and march them to the beach toward the rebels building that stone barricade. You are to execute a bayonet attack unless forced to do otherwise,” he ordered Osborn.

  “Colonel Abercrombie, form columns of grenadiers to attack the rebels in the right flank. I want to form the right side of a pincer that will enclose the rebels in our claws. Is that clear?”

  “Aye, sir!” they responded, enthusiastically.

  Artillery led the way with cannons blasting as Howe’s regulars began their march toward the beach of the Mystic River and what was the right side of the redoubt from where the regulars marched. There were unanticipated complications. Most of the cannon had been provided with the wrong size cannonballs, and the artillery men had to fire alternative projectiles called grapeshot. This stalled the initial momentum.

  Further, most of the hay on the hillside had not been harvested, forcing the regulars to wade through waist-high hay where rocks, holes, and other obstacles lurked under the soldiers’ feet. When they encountered a rail fence, the column had to stop to take down the rails.

  After landing on the beach near Charlestown, General Robert Pigot and Major John Pitcairn prepared to lead their men against the left and center of the redoubt and breastwork to form the left pincer of the British claw.

  The detachment of men Colonel Prescott sent into Charlestown hid inside unoccupied buildings. They watched while Pigot’s regulars and Pitcairn’s marines fell into the same formation as Howe’s troops. Then, the rebels opened fire.

  Major Pitcairn was reminded of the ambush the British had suffered as they retreated from Concord to Boston two months before. He urged his marines to make haste toward the rebel’s redoubt.

  The British had yet to load their muskets.

  It was three o’clock in the afternoon when one of Joseph’s former medical apprentices, twenty-two-year-old Dr. David Townsend, arrived at Hastings House. David learned that the British were firing heavy on the provincial soldiers on Bunker Hill, so he hurried to Cambridge to assist Dr. Warren with the wounded if needed.

  When Townsend arrived, the town of Cambridge was silent and deserted. The troops were gone and Hastings House was empty. He sat in a chair in the living room to rest after his two-hour walk from Brighton. The sound of footsteps approaching from behind startled him. He jumped up and whirled around.

  “Dr. Warren!” he exclaimed. He saw that the doctor’s blue eyes were strained and tired. He knew immediately that his former master physician was suffering from one of his oppressive nervous headaches. “Were you resting?” he asked.

  Joseph had done well to hide his sick headaches, which often drove him to lie down in a dark quiet room until they passed, from acquaintances and more importantly, Colm. But like William Eustis, Townsend had lived in the Warren household for two years, and it was difficult for Joseph to hide his affliction from a member of his household.

  “Yes, I was resting,” Joseph admitted.

  David was sympathetic to his mentor’s pain, but stress compelled him to blurt out, “Then perhaps you have not heard that the men on Bunker Hill are being fired upon by the British?”

  Joseph’s head pounded, his eyes hurt, and his stomach was queasy. He could not allow this appalling news to make his symptoms worse and debilitate him. His mind raced, and his adrenaline spiked, but he had to force himself to settle down and take relief.

  “I have not heard. We will make haste to Bunker Hill to offer our services. First, I must have a cup of chamomile tea to calm my headache. Will you join me?”

  After they shared a cup of tea, Joseph rose and went above stairs to his bedroom.

  He wrapped the curls above his ears around his index finger to neaten them, and adjusted the fashionable pins that held the horizontal curls in place. The clean elegant shirt, vest, and coat he wore when he wedded Elizabeth Hooten in 1764, hung on pegs in the shallow closet in his bedroom. He washed his face and hands before removing his clothing in favor of his wedding suit. The small scarred mirror on the wall over the wash basin reflected the physical beauty of a man with smooth skin, sandy blond hair, blue eyes, a straight nose, rounded chin and fine stature. The beauty that resided in Joseph’s mind, heart, and spirit needed no mirror to be seen by others.

  Joseph descended the stairs to the living room.

  “Your eyes look brighter and color has returned to your cheeks,” David observed as if Joseph was his patient. “Are you feeling better?”

  “I am. Shall we go?”

  Joseph and David walked toward Charlestown Neck. As they approached, several provincial soldiers recognized the two doctors and stopped them.

  “We just took five wounded men to that house,” one said, and pointed to a house just up the road.

  “David, please stay and administer care to them,” Joseph said. Without waiting for a response, he turned to continue on toward Bunker Hill.

  “Dr. Warren,” a soldier called.

  Joseph stopped.

  The soldier held his musket in one hand and his cartridge box in the other. “Take these, Dr. Warren. You cannot go into battle unarmed.”

  Dark smoke and deafening noise engulfed the Charlestown peninsula. The spectators on hills, rooftops, and steeples in Boston watched the encroaching death and destruction.

  On Copp’s Hill, Generals Henry Clinton, John Burgoyne, and Thomas Gage watched William Howe’s troop formations and maneuvers with discerning eyes.

  Henry said to John and Thomas, “Howe’s advance is exceedingly soldier-like. Whatever misgivings I may have had were unfounded. His troop disposition is perfect.”

  “It needs to be,” John said sourly. “A defeat here will be the final loss to the British Empire in America.”

  Thomas raised his spyglass and focused on Howe’s troops. He could have cared less about Howe’s disposition. What worried him was General Henry Hereford’s presence among the troops. Thomas was certain Henry would be the cause of something horrible, as if the coming battle was not horrible enough.

  Aware of their short supply of gunpowder, Colonel William Prescott ordered the rebels to hold their fire until they could see the whites of the regulars’ eyes. Colonel John Stark issued the same order to his men along the rail fence and behind the stone wall near the beach.

  The men standing on top of the redoubt walls had diminished to Colm, Abe, and William Prescott. Private Peter Brown was now at the ready in the redoubt beside Jeremiah, Gordon, William Dawes, Peter Salem, and the angels. Captain Benjamin Ames’ and his company, under the command of Colonel James Frye’s regiment, had recently joined the provincials in the redoubt.

  The angels were trying desper
ately to control their wayward auras and wings, but to no avail. Ian’s rebellious wings irritated the elderly grizzled man beside him, as they continued to intermittently unfurl and flap in the man’s face. With the British regulars advancing and the shifting atmosphere of bravado, determination, and trepidation, the elderly man began to soften toward the angel. There was a human quality about the angel, which the elderly man had not recognized until then.

  The man said to Ian, “Degory Bennett’s me name.”

  Ian didn’t look at the man. The angels were distressed, overwhelmed, and unable to focus on much of anything but their archangel’s emotions. Their loss of control over their auras and wings was impossible to comprehend, and although they reached for one another spiritually, and succeeded in making and maintaining that connection, they were tormented and afraid.

  “You got a name?” Degory asked Ian.

  Michael could no longer contain his anxiety. He released some of it by yelling at the old man, “Leave Ian alone! He can’t help it! None of us can help it!”

  Degory thought he had offered an olive branch to the angel with the red aura, therefore, Michael’s angry words surprised him. Then, the seventy-seven-year-old man saw the sigil on Ian’s neck and experienced a revelation that he knew had not come from God. The revelation had come from within his heart.

  He dodged Ian’s rogue wings and went to confront Michael. Never in his life had he seen such a beautiful young man as he saw in Michael, and the angel with the blue aura who stood beside him. Both had the same sigil tattooed on their neck. “What are ya names, boys?” Degory asked.

  “I’m Patrick,” Patrick tilted his head. “He’s Michael.”

  “Ya boys come here to die today?”

  Neither angel was sure of the answer. Cannons boomed and arcing balls whistled past them, then slammed into the redoubt dirt floor. No one flinched. Finally, Patrick shook his head and said, “No.”

  “Tell me, then. Why are angels marred with the Sigil of Lucifer?”

  “It’s demons,” Peter Salem interjected.

  Degory asked Peter, “Is that so?” but he kept his eyes on Michael.

  “Leave them alone, old man,” Gordon warned. Degory’s eyes slipped from Michael’s face. Gordon tilted his head to the left and ran his index finger over his tattoo. “It’s demons, alright, but if you distract us from killing them, they will kill us all.”

  Salem Poor, a young free black man enlisted in Captain Ames’ company, listened without comment although he was somewhat surprised that the black man with the tattoo on his neck knew the angels.

  “’Tis no way for me to kill demons, then?” Degory asked.

  “You gotta stab them or shoot them in both eyes, but your chances of gettin’ away with that and survivin’ ain’t good,” Seamus interjected. His wings threatened to unfurl.

  Private Peter Brown found this bit of information exciting. “I shall do so!” he exclaimed.

  Seamus lost control of his wings. They unfurled in a bright shower of silver crystals, causing several men to complain.

  Barnabus Miller, a blue-eyed, thirty-year-old father of six from Menotomy, sniped, “You are getting me wet with your silver rain.”

  Seamus thought of Ian’s original human vessel when he looked at Barnabus, which led to remembrances of Liam. Seamus shoved those thoughts away as hard as his spirit would allow.

  Above the noise of cannon fire, a cheer of “Huzza! Huzza!” rose from the ranks of the anxious provincial soldiers.

  Jeremiah, Gordon, William Dawes, and the angels turned to see Joseph walking through the open space in the back of the redoubt. He was dressed impeccably, carrying a musket, and smiling. Colm, Abe, and William Prescott didn’t immediately hear the cheering from where they stood on the redoubt wall.

  “Oh Lord,” Jeremiah said to himself. “This is exactly what Colm was afraid of when I accused him of choosin’ Joseph over us. He is gonna have ta choose.” He looked wildly at Gordon. They both ran toward Joseph.

  “Go back ta Cambridge now!” Jeremiah shouted at Joseph.

  “I cannot walk away while you, my friends, are facing Hell on Earth. I must not act cowardly and leave my fellow rebels to fight what I would not.”

  “Your responsibility for these rebels ain’t fightin’ demons and the British in a filthy little redoubt,” Jeremiah said. He hoped that his words had come out sounding strong instead of quivering with the dread he felt inside.

  William Prescott realized that Joseph was in the redoubt. He jumped off the wall and strode, with a brave heart to meet him.

  Prescott’s sudden departure brought Joseph’s presence to Colm’s attention. He leaped onto the floor of the redoubt with the intention of running to Joseph’s side, but he saw Michael and froze in his tracks.

  “General Warren, I relinquish my command to you,” Colonel Prescott said, bowing.

  “No, William. My commission is not official yet. I am here to fight as a volunteer under your command.”

  The angels looked on from the place where they stood by the redoubt wall. Their millennia-long discipline and order in a battle situation held them firm. Their out of control auras and wings were a horrible intrusion that felt akin to their emotions running blindly through a fog bank filled with creatures they couldn’t see or imagine.

  Yet, the spirit of Colm and his men was made of love, devotion, and bravery; those qualities returned to the forefront of their spirits. They would realize a victory for their fallen brother, Liam. Fergus was absent, but he wasn’t dead. In fact, his safe place in Roxbury gave them an anchor to hold them steady in the roar of a tempest.

  The angels huddled together. For a short while, they were who they used to be before they fell from Heaven—a brotherhood devoted to comforting humans and escorting souls to their egress. A brotherhood devoted to one another no matter the atrocities others benevolently committed.

  Colm looked at the faces of the loyal angels whose intentions were never heinous. Despite their lustful transgressions, they were honorable and trustworthy. Then, he looked at Joseph—a man who was just as honorable and trustworthy. Colm loved them all and knew if he didn’t make a move soon, he would lose them all.

  Colonel Prescott walked past Colm and returned to his position on the redoubt wall. Howe’s regulars were almost upon them.

  Joseph joined the angels and the others at the redoubt wall. He felt Colm’s eyes on him as he loaded his musket. When he finished, Joseph went to stand beside Colm. He saw gold light flash in the archangel’s eyes. The sight should have alarmed Joseph. Instead, it served as a sign that the warrior in the archangel had returned.

  “I have to do this, Colm,” Joseph said with determination. “It is better to die honorably in the field of battle than ignominiously hang upon the gallows. You must understand and accept that.”

  Joseph’s words tormented his spirit, but Colm nodded mutely.

  Prescott suddenly shouted, “AT THE READY!”

  The men in the redoubt positioned themselves into a three-man-deep line across the front and left flank walls and stood at the ready.

  “FIRE!” Prescott yelled.

  The rebel line exploded with a roar of thunder and a profusion of gun smoke. British Colonel James Abercrombie’s grenadiers brandished bayonets and tried to scale the small fort’s walls. As one rebel reloaded his musket, another stepped forward and shot at the grenadiers.

  “FIRE LOW!” Prescott shouted. “SHOOT THEM IN THE LEGS!”

  The rebels adjusted their aim.

  The grenadiers fell like sacrificial lambs. They screamed and dropped from the redoubt walls. Their excruciating wounds, imbedded with musket balls, were aggravated further by their fall to the ground. Leg wounds almost always resulted in amputation. William Prescott knew that suffering trumped death.

  Salem Poor finished reloading his musket in time to see Colonel James Abercrombie scramble over the redoubt wall. Salem had no idea who the soldier was, only that he was a British officer. He fired his mus
ket and shot James Abercrombie in the heart. Prescott turned in time to see Abercrombie’s body drop from the wall onto the redoubt floor.

  Michael and Joseph stayed close to Colm. Colm struggled with their proximity to one another, as the last men in the initial line of grenadiers and infantry were shot down. If Michael and Joseph stayed near him, he could watch over them and protect them. On the other hand, they were vulnerable to being captured or killed in one fell swoop. Although, there were no orange eyes among the first line of regulars the rebels shot down, Colm knew for certain they would come, and he didn’t want to leave Michael and Joseph to pursue Henry.

  Forty

  As they marched from Charlestown to the redoubt, Major John Pitcairn and his marines, and General Robert Pigot and his regulars heard the deafening rebel volley and saw black smoke roil from the redoubt.

  John Pitcairn thought, At least I am facing this with my own marines, instead of with companies of unfamiliar men that General Gage forced me to command at Lexington. He resisted the urge to turn and look for his twenty-three-year-old son and second lieutenant, William, among the 300 Royal Marines marching behind him.

  At the beach, Colonel John Stark, Captain Thomas Knowlton, and their men, were positioned along the rail fence and behind the stone wall. The approaching column of light infantry, led by Captain James Osborn, had yet to load their muskets.

  With a loud “Huzza!” the rebels fired on them. With nowhere to run and hide in the open fields, and steep banks sloping down to the Mystic River, the front lines of the British were slaughtered.

  A second line of infantrymen stepped over the dead bodies of their comrades to attempt a bayonet assault. Colonel Stark, Captain Knowlton, and their men faced a column of flaming orange eyes.