by Tony Roberts
Casca sometimes worried about Rose. Her disappearance bothered him, and he hoped she was alive somewhere. But it was not worth beating himself up over. Whatever had happened to her had happened, and he could only hope to find her again during the course of the war. Maybe he’d go to Philadelphia at the earliest opportunity and seek out her mother.
As the days dragged on a few skirmishes took place on the bigger islands in the bay. Livestock was taken and crops burned, trying to deny the British any local food supplies, and some reports from those who had fought in the actions bragged that hundreds of soldiers had been killed for just one or two Americans. Casca didn’t believe those exaggerations. That always happened in times of war; each side upped their wins and reduced their losses. Even the Romans had done that; Tacitus was very imaginative with his casualty lists in favor of Rome. Casca had even fought in one or two battles described by the historian, and knew what had been written down was horseshit.
The weeks went on. Incidents were few and far between, so when anything did happen it went round camp like wildfire. The arrival of ships from across the Atlantic was soon known to everyone and the militiamen discussed what could have come with them; reinforcements, almost certainly. Supplies, without a doubt. Orders, maybe. Casca kept his own counsel, wishing rather to wait and find out what was going to happen as opposed to passing on or listening to the rumor mill working overtime.
After a few weeks orders came to move. It was just after dark. Casca and his men plus a few others were told to pack up from Cambridge Common and march to Charlestown. Word was that the British were going to try to retake the peninsula, and reinforcements were needed. So they marched north and then turned right and walked down the slope towards the sea, crossing over the narrow neck to the promontory and up the hills again to where earthworks had been thrown up and men were milling about. This was Bunker’s Hill. They stopped and gratefully began to rest, but an argument broke out between their commander and another senior officer. Casca picked out a few words and guessed it was over the place they were to take up positions.
After a few minutes, the order came to carry on down the other side of the hill so they grumbled, picked up their guns and packs, and trudged on. Torches lit the way as the ground was uneven and littered with old brick kilns. In the dark they could be lethal if someone lost their footing.
Another hill was reached, the locals in the unit informing the others that this was Breed’s Hill and that Charlestown was but a short distance down the hill to the right.
Casca’s pulse quickened. It all had the feel of a prelude to a battle; he’d lived too long and seen too much to ignore the atmosphere of expectation, apprehension and tension. A fight was coming.
CHAPTER TEN
Digging equipment was passed around and Captain Fisher turned up, looking unenthusiastically at the hill. “Orders are to dig earthworks here. Don’t ask me why,” he quickly added as men opened their mouths, “that’s what I’ve been told so we’d best get to it.”
Casca reckoned it was sensible advice. “Come on, lads, sooner we dig us some protection the better. Want to be open to any bombardment from the British?”
The men began to take the spades and shovels and dig the ground away. They hacked away at the earth, piling up the soil into a parapet in front of them and used felled tree trunks to reinforce the sides to stop them falling in. There were hundreds of men digging or using pickaxes, and it was beginning to form a huge redoubt. Midnight had come and gone and still they toiled, expanding the earthworks and piling it up higher.
“Any water around?” Casca asked during a short break. It was uncomfortably warm and sweat was dripping off his forehead, and his shirt stuck to his back. His coat was hanging from the barrel of his musket, propped up against the redoubt wall.
“Sorry,” Fisher’s voice came to him out of the darkness. “Nobody’s thought of bringing any.”
“That’s dumb,” Casca said. “Captain, if we’re digging here we’ll need to refresh ourselves. Best if someone organizes drinking water.” He deliberately refrained from adding that water would be needed during any fight; men worked up a terrible thirst in battle.
“I’ll see what I can do. Not promising anything, mind,” Fisher’s dour voice came at him again.
Casca muttered under his breath. Rob glanced at him, his features hard to read in the poor light, but he wasn’t best pleased. Casca shook his head. The new ‘Army of Observation’ would need a proper administration if it were to survive; otherwise men would start to drift away.
As daylight began to filter across the eastern sky, the scene gradually came into view. Charlestown rested peacefully against the shore ahead and to the right, while the land dropped much more sharply off directly to the right before flattening out and running to the sound. The slope was relatively even down to the water ahead, beyond which Boston could now be seen over the other side.
Two warships were in the sound and the bells ringing aboard them could be heard. They’d seen the new fortifications and were raising the alarm. Now even Gage would have to do something. The American positions on the Charlestown peninsula threatened the supply lines to Boston.
Casca peered back to Bunker’s Hill. “Christ,” he exclaimed before he could stop himself.
Rob turned in alarm. “What’s the matter?”
Casca pointed at the smooth slope that led to Bunker’s Hill. “That.”
Rob frowned. He clearly didn’t get what Casca was seeing. So the Eternal Mercenary explained. “That slope is totally exposed. If anyone tries to go up or down it while there’s a battle here, they’ll be open to anyone who decides to have a shot at them.”
“Our side’s up there, Cass. The British won’t be coming from that direction.”
“I’m not thinking of that, Rob,” Casca shook his head. “But what happens if we get overrun and have to retreat? We’ll be so exposed going up to Bunker’s Hill. It’ll be a duck shoot.”
Rob’s face said it all as he realized the truth of Casca’s words. Casca decided to keep Rob busy and not think of it too much. The digging went on for a few more minutes, then suddenly a distant crash from the water brought their heads up and a rising fizzing sound came towards them. Without warning the ground close by erupted into a fountain of dirt, mud and rocks. One of the men digging in the redoubt span round and fell to the ground, blood masking his face.
The others dived to the ground and covered their heads. Small pieces of earth and stone rattled down and covered many of them. “What was that?” someone cried out.
“British guns; they’ve spotted us,” Casca said, wiping himself and getting to his feet. “More of that to come, boys. Welcome to the war.”
The men’s expressions varied. Casca knew what they were feeling. He ordered them to get their guns and take cover close to the ramparts. At least they’d be protected from one direction. If a shot landed in the redoubt itself, well there was nothing anyone could do about that. Fortunate, perhaps, that they didn’t have mortars. At least he thought they wouldn’t. That took some space and lots of supplies, and Boston didn’t look as if it had either.
“If we keep our heads down they shouldn’t cause too much damage! That shot came from that ship out there in the sound. If we keep down they can’t see us from there.”
The men grabbed their muskets and crouched in the lee of the sheltering side of the redoubt. Officers scuttled from one group to the other, checking on the men. The one who’d been hit was dead and some were already arranging a burial party. By now the day had broken and Casca sat with his back to the breastwork and tipped his hat backwards. “Anyone got any food or drink?”
There were mute shakings of heads. Casca sighed. There was a limit to what men would go through, and being short of food and water made this likely to be reached sooner rather than later. More distant cracks of cannons came to the men and it was clear the ships were now firing at another target. Off to the left, along the brow of the hill, more men were digging in, making t
riangular shaped fortifications known as fletches. Linking the redoubt to these was a single long line of a hastily thrown up earthen wall with a ditch on the other side. It wasn’t much and wouldn’t stop the British if they came that day, but given enough time, and men to man it, they could probably build enough defenses to stop anyone.
But it looked like time wasn’t on their side that day. The rooftops of Charlestown were fairly close to them but there was a fairly long slope that led up to the redoubt from the edge of the settlement and it would give them plenty of time to see what was coming at them if Charlestown fell. The British would certainly want to retake it. Off to the right there were stone barns and some American militiamen were settling in amongst these, defending the extreme right of their line.
The bombardment carried on intermittently but without much incident, and two cannons were wheeled into position in the redoubt and their crews began placing their equipment down by the sides of the guns. Casca got up and cautiously moved from group to group, checking on their ammunition and making sure they knew what was expected of them. A few had sneaked off but that was to be expected. What worried Casca more than anything was the lack of ammunition. Each man had a box of lead balls and a powder horn, but not much else. There were no supplies in the redoubt. He sought out Captain Fisher, and found him staring morosely down the hill towards Charlestown.
“We’ve no stocks of ammunition, and still no water, Captain.” Casca slid into a crouching position by the side of the captain.
“Yes, I know,” Fisher said gloomily. “Don’t think I haven’t asked, because I have. They’ve got other things on their minds, and giving us food and bullets aren’t obviously high up in their priorities.” He sounded fed up. Casca felt fed up, but at least he knew it was important for him not to demonstrate it. Fisher wasn’t a professional so he wasn’t to know.
“It’ll be tough to hold this hill if Gage decides to send in his troops before we get supplied, Captain. And the men won’t be able to stand up to them in a hand to hand if they get past the parapets.”
“Let’s hope they don’t come today then,” Fisher said and resumed his contemplation of Charlestown. Casca pushed away from the parapet and went back along the line, slapping the men on the shoulders and giving them words of encouragement.
The British carried on bombarding the American positions at the neck of the peninsula, keeping any supplies from being brought forward as well as reinforcements. The day went on, getting warmer, and just past midday there was movement from the waterfront at Boston. Heads came round to see a flotilla of small boats peeling away from the warships and the jetties, filled with redcoats. Casca’s heart sank. “Here they come, boys, it looks like they intend asking us to leave.” A few faces smiled, but the sickly expressions betrayed what they felt inside.
Puffs of smoke appeared from the battery high up above Boston’s rooftops and a sudden fizzing sound got Casca flying face down into the earth. Seconds later the ground erupted into fountains of earth and mud as the shots plowed into the redoubt. “Christ!” he exclaimed, clawing at the packed earth. Men screamed and the rest dived for cover.
“Any medical staff around?” he shouted in the aftermath.
Mute head shaking said it all. A couple of men had been hit and what they’d been transformed into was giving the others a nightmarish idea of what was in store for them. Casca scuttled across to the remains of the men hit. One had been decapitated while another had been struck in the leg. Where the leg was he didn’t know, but the wound had to be seen to. Casca pushed his hat back and shook his head. The man was a goner.
Others came crowding round, muttering angrily. “Give him space,” a man said, pushing his way through. “I’m a doctor.”
“He needs a priest, not a doctor,” Casca said.
“I’ll see to him, thank you,” the doctor said, placing his musket against the redoubt wall.
Casca nodded and waved the others away. “Come on, fellahs, let’s leave the poor soul alone. There’s nothing anyone can do about that.”
The two cannons in the redoubt were swung ninety degrees to their right and pointed in the direction of the battery on the right hand side of the Bostonian peninsula. Casca pushed the men out of their way and crouched down by the parapet. The two guns, 6 pounders by the look of things, roared their defiance and the men peered to see where the shots went. A fountain of water shot up in front of Boston and the second shot smashed into the town, below the battery.
A second salvo came from the British and screamed overhead to crash into the defenses further along. “Aw hell,” Rob groaned, “they got us outgunned.”
“Looks like 24 pounders,” Casca said. “They’ll laugh at our pop-guns.”
They tried to ignore the artillery shots and followed the British troops’ progress, rowing past the town of Charlestown and crossing in front of them to the left. British warships escorted them, blasting away at the shoreline further along, and then the boats turned to disembark the soldiers. The attack was going to take place off to the left, away from the redoubt. Casca hoped whoever was there would be able to hold them off.
Now the sound of shooting increased and the men grew more and more nervous. Strained expressions, sweaty faces, forced jokes. The occasional shot from Boston crashed into the redoubt but most of the defenders were now wise to what was expected and had taken up positions that kept them away from the worst effects of the 24 pounder shots. The small American guns had fired a few times but their shots were ineffective and they had stopped to save ammunition.
A body of British soldiers appeared from the left, way down the hill, moving towards Charlestown. The officers called out the alert and everyone pressed themselves against the parapet, muskets pointing down at the distant redcoats. “Where are they going?” someone asked.
“Charlestown, by the looks of things,” Casca said. “If they take the town they’ll be able to sneak up under cover and get close to us before launching an attack.”
As the British got closer, snipers in the town began shooting at the advancing troops and the British stopped to take cover. The men at the redoubt cheered and shouted encouragement to the snipers. But the British changed tactics and a short while later a ship came close by and began bombarding the town, setting it alight. Soon the houses were burning and the smoke drifted up the hill, adding to the discomfort of the men in the redoubt. Casca’s mind went back to Hattin, hundreds of years before, when he’d been with Saladin fighting the crusaders. The poor devils had marched through a waterless plain and had been harassed by the mobile archers before Saladin’s soldiers had set fire to the vegetation along the valley side, which had billowed into the crusaders’ faces.
Casca knew a little of what they’d felt now, with no water and acrid, dense smoke drifting up from the burning settlement a few hundred yards away, borne on the winds coming from the sea inland. Some of the men began coughing and covering their noses; the smell of burning houses was particularly strong. Many were muttering angrily, outraged at the destruction of Charlestown.
Now the black bearskinned soldiers could be seen advancing up the hill parallel to Charlestown and the Massachusetts men in the redoubt grimly loaded up. Casca regretted that they had no bayonets, but the Army of Observation was pitifully short of these. The British were well known brawlers and in a hand to hand fight not many could take them on and win, so without bayonets Casca had no doubt the raw militiamen would collapse. Casca just hoped the British troops weren’t Scots or Irish. They were the crazier units used by the British.
A volley of shots came spitting over their heads and the Americans enthusiastically blasted away in reply downhill. “Hold your fire!” Casca yelled, realizing the British were encouraging the defenders to use up precious ammunition. At the range they’d fired there was little chance they’d hit anything. But the relatively untrained militia units had fallen for it and were firing merrily at the distant figures who were now moving in on the burning town.
“Cease fire
!” Casca repeated, even louder. He grabbed one man’s musket and pushed it upwards, glaring at the man who’d been ready to shoot again. “You won’t hit a damned thing at that range! Wait till they get close enough for you to see every feature of their faces!”
Even so, another ragged volley rang out to his left. He stood up and screamed at them, ordering them to stop shooting. Captain Fisher looked at Casca in surprise. “They’re shooting at us, Sergeant, what do you expect?”
“I expect, sir, for us to exhibit a bit of common sense and self-discipline! How many have you hit so far? None! They’re deliberately making you use up our low supply of bullets! If you keep it up, sir, when they do attack you’ll have nothing but your fists to hold them off!”
Fisher stared at him for a moment, then turned and slapped a raised musket down. “Wait,” he said calmly. “Wait until I order you to shoot.”
“But Captain, we’re keeping them back!” the young militiaman next to him objected.
Casca ran over to him and pulled him up so his head cleared the lip of the parapet. “How many have you or anyone here hit? Count them! I count zero. Want me to count them again? Zero! You won’t hit anything with that until they get to a hundred yards or less. They’re not coming this way, kid. But rest assured, when they decide to, you’ll know it.” He pulled the shocked man back down again. He threw a quick salute to an open-mouthed Fisher. “Sir.” He scuttled back to his position.
The shooting increased way off to the left and smoke began drifting up into the air from the shooting, but so far nobody had come their way. The redoubt was beginning to fill up with reinforcements, and it was getting hard to move without bumping into someone.
The ships had stopped shooting at them now, but Casca guessed that was due to the proximity of their own soldiers to the defenses, and he looked to the right. Down the hill stood a couple of barns, and the retreating Americans coming out of Charlestown took cover there. It looked like they were being chased, and Casca peered through the drifting smoke. Figures were appearing, red coated with white facings, and black hatted.