by John Smolens
“Wait.” Abigail picked up the fresh egg and stepped out into the sunlight. He paused and turned, watching her walk toward him. “I’ll take her the medicine,” she said, taking the package from his hand. “And this is for your trouble.” She placed the warm egg in his palm, and then walked on toward the kitchen door without looking back.
So it began and she thought of it, how she felt about him at first, as though it were an egg, its perfect ovoid shape, the shell hard and protective, yet fragile. They carried it together, it seemed, nestled in the palm of their union, a delicate secret. Love proved to be a kind of conspiracy. They met in streets and squares while she was ostensibly on errands; at dockside they looked over the day’s catch together. But soon enough there were trysts after sundown. She would claim she was only going into the North End to visit with Rachel, who was more than happy to be complicit, providing the alibi so that Abigail and Ezra could meet in one of their chosen darkened corners of Boston. She had kissed boys certainly, but previously it had always been a form of teasing, a game. Rachel, who was five years older and just beginning to be courted by the older silversmith widower Paul Revere, said bluntly and with her snorting laugh that it was about time Abigail went into heat. Rachel found all matters of sex intoxicating and hilarious. Most Boston girls your age, she would say, already have a brood of chickens huddled about them. Often Ezra would wait for Abigail after dark. Claiming that she wanted to visit Rachel, Abigail would leave the house and walk up School Street, past King’s Chapel, across the burying ground, to the bushes along the brick wall surrounding the granary courtyard. There, in the shadows, she and Ezra would hold each other, his whispered breath warm on her neck, while his hands.…
The thought of the sergeant’s rough hands clutching her breasts struck through her, causing her to walk faster, almost at a run, breathing long and deep through her mouth as she repeatedly glanced over her shoulder. Nothing like Ezra’s hands, tender, loving.…
Abigail had not seen Ezra since January, when suddenly, without explanation, he had quit Boston. She tried not to think on it, but it was impossible to put aside.
One of Dr. Warren’s apprentices answered the door, and he led her up the stairs to Dr. Warren’s office. Dr. Warren was seated at a polished mahogany table with Dr. Church, and they got to their feet and greeted her cordially. Dr. Warren was a widower and he had a large house across the Neck in Roxbury where his four children were cared for by various family members. Here in the city, his rooms were sufficient for his medical practice. He had wavy blond hair and pale blue eyes, and, as always, his cheeks bore a high flush. Dr. Benjamin Church was more somber, and his straight black hair held a fine gloss in the candlelight. His eye had a tendency to dwell, lingering upon Abigail’s face.
“A glass of wine?” Dr. Warren asked, nodding toward the decanter on the table.
“No, thank you, Doctor. My brother has sent me.”
“How is James’s health tonight?” Warren asked.
“It has been better.”
“Encourage him to come and see me, will you?” Dr. Warren offered her a chair at the table, but Abigail shook her head. “You bear a letter from him?”
Dr. Church had moved to a window, hands clasped behind his back. He was often reticent in Abigail’s company, since two years ago when Ezra Hammond, one of his apprentices, had begun to court her. Since then, Dr. Church had seemed careful around her, distant, and yet she was always aware of his presence. When she wasn’t looking, she felt that he was watching her, and now she suspected that rather than gazing down into the street, he was actually observing her reflection in the glass.
“No, there is no letter tonight,” she said. “My brother said there wasn’t time.”
“Just as well,” Dr. Warren said. “James has a reputation for missives that are impossible to decipher. But then he’s a schoolmaster’s son.” He could be polite to a fault, and he seemed now to cut himself short—there wasn’t time for pleasantries this evening. He raised a hand and with his fingers gently massaged his jaw. For the briefest moment, he seemed to be in considerable pain, but then he said, “So then, Abigail, what have you to tell us?”
“There was a report, from Province House,” she said. Dr. Church turned away from the window now. “As most Bostonians know, General Gage has a sizable force gathering on the Commons, an estimated eight hundred grenadiers and light infantry. The letter says they will cross the Back Bay by longboat.”
“By water,” Benjamin Church said. “You’re sure of that?”
“Yes,” she said. “The troops will disembark somewhere between the Cambridge marshes and Lechmere Point, and then they’ll march out through Cambridge and Metonomy to Lexington and Concord. Their objective is to secure weapons, ammunition, powder, and cannon stored there. They are also to seize Mr. Adams and Mr. Hancock, who are currently stopping at Concord.”
Neither doctor spoke for a moment, until Warren looked at Church and said, “This confirms the other reports we’ve received. If nothing else, our system of observation is alert and responsive to the movement of our British brethren.”
“Yes.” Church turned back to the window. “It’s as we expected.”
“Now that we know how they’re leaving Boston,” Dr. Warren said, “we’ll send Dawes and Revere.”
Both doctors were members of the Committee of Safety and the Parliamentary Congress. Warren was famous (or notorious, in the view of the Tories) for his eloquence. For years he had produced a constant barrage of articles, broadsides, and speeches, issued on behalf of the cause of liberty in the colonies. In March he gave a speech commemorating the fifth anniversary of the Boston Massacre. Old South Meetinghouse was packed, and there were dozens of British officers seated directly in front of the pulpit. Warren delivered a rousing speech in a white toga while the lobsterbacks expressed their displeasure by rolling and clicking lead shot in their hands like dice. As the doctor concluded his speech, some of them shouted “Fie! Fie!”—which was misunderstood by the huge crowd as “Fire! Fire!” A riot broke out as everyone tried to evacuate the building. In the street a detachment of armed soldiers happened to be passing by (by design or coincidence, no one could say), and there was a confrontation between them and the Bostonians, most of whom had cudgels of various sorts which they’d kept hidden beneath their coats. A fight was barely averted.
Church glanced away from the window. “We’ll send both Dawes and Revere?”
“Yes,” Dr. Warren said. “No doubt Gage already has soldiers out there, watching the roads. At least one express has to get through to Concord and Lexington. I’ll go send my runners to fetch them.”
Warren left the room, closing the door behind him. Abigail turned and went to the other window. Down in the street, several redcoats marched by.
“This is a larger expedition than before,” she said.
“I’m afraid it is.” As Church approached her, she continued to stare out the window. “How did your brother come by this information from Province House?”
Abigail watched his reflection in the mirror. “By letter.”
“You saw it, the letter?” He stood behind her, off to the right as though he wished to accommodate her as she gazed at his reflection.
“I did.”
“And the source, it’s reliable?”
She turned around, which seemed to at first surprise him, but then his eyes softened and he appeared relieved. “What are you asking me, Doctor?”
“It’s only that General Gage is himself well versed in subterfuge.”
“The letter came from Province House,” Abigail said. “It was given to me.”
“By whom?”
“By an intermediary, Doctor. So perhaps it was from General Gage? Or perhaps from Mrs. Gage, who is, after all, an American, and is often suspected of sympathizing with the Whigs.” She took a step closer to Church. “Or maybe I wrote the letter, and it’s full of misinformation? Maybe the British troops aren’t headed for Lexington and Concord at all? Instea
d, they could be going south, or is it north? Perhaps they’re boarding ships that will take them to Gloucester or Newburyport—”
“Abigail, please—”
“Or perhaps the ships will take them down the coast to New York, where they’ll sever us New England upstarts from the rest of the colonies. Wouldn’t that be an ambitious yet sensible plan?”
Church unclasped his hands and raised them as though to protect himself. “Really, Abigail, I only—”
“No, Doctor, let’s think this all the way through. You suspect something? There’s so much suspicion—no one’s to be trusted. Maybe I am not to be trusted, even by my own brother. Maybe this is a question of my loyalty.” She moved closer still, causing him to lean back slightly. “Because everyone knows about the Lovell family—reputable educators, father and son, but look how divided they are in their allegiances.”
He placed his hands on her shoulders, gently, and then he said, “I must apologize, Abigail. I mean to make no inference—”
She turned her head, glancing at the hand on her right shoulder, and then looked back up at him. Embarrassed, he removed his hands as though he had committed some heinous crime and walked back to the other window.
“It’s just that we—we are overly wary and cautious,” he said. “It’s the nature of things now, particularly since we are forced to have His Majesty’s army live among us. I think it very brave of you to venture into the streets on a night such as this.”
“You have no idea,” she said with a sigh, calming down. “The redcoat patrols … they show no respect.”
“This, I suspect, is what makes matters so difficult,” Church continued. He seemed not to hear her; he seemed not to want to hear what she’d just said. “Why? Because so many Bostonians are obligated to bivouac soldiers in their homes. Provide them a bed and food and drink—and the Lord knows what else—without any say as to what or how many soldiers will live under one’s own roof.”
“And all for no compensation, regardless of their circumstance.”
“Exactly,” he said. “Other than the privilege of accommodating the king’s men.”
She thought of Munroe and Lumley, their hands, and said, “There has been enough accommodation for the king’s men.”
He seemed nervous, standing at the window. “I am sorry. I wish there was something that could be done.”
“There is.” She waited, but he would not turn from the window. “You could tell me what happened to Ezra. You do know, don’t you?”
“Well, I can’t say. I shouldn’t say.” After a moment, he added, “I realize how hurtful to you this has been, his sudden—”
“Do you? Do you, Doctor? He suddenly comes to me in a hurry one night and says he’s leaving Boston. No explanation about where he’s going, when he’ll be back, and now he’s been gone more than three months.”
“I wish I could tell you—”
“But you can’t? You know, but you can’t?”
“I can’t.” Dr. Church looked around, slowly. “I’m sorry.”
“Ezra is your apprentice. Surely he would not leave without your permission.”
Dr. Church considered her for a long moment, until they both suddenly looked toward the door. There were footsteps out on the stairs, and then Dr. Warren reentered the office. Abigail realized that she was blushing, but Warren was too preoccupied to notice.
“So,” he said, “that is done. I have sent for express riders.”
Down in the street there was a familiar cadence, running footsteps. Abigail looked out the window and caught sight of her brother Benjamin just as he sprinted around the corner. “You’ve sent my brother Benjamin,” she said, “to fetch Mr. Revere?”
“No, another boy’s on that mission,” Dr. Warren said. Again, his hand tenderly rubbed the side of his face, just beneath the left ear. “I sent Benjamin for Mr. Dawes, who is already preparing to leave the city.” Abigail thought his faint smile was intended to be reassuring. “They’re as good as we’ve got, your brothers,” he said. “James’s fierce pen and Benjamin’s swift feet.”
“And with this we’re to rid ourselves of the king’s men?” she asked.
Dr. Church went to the table and poured himself a glass of wine. “And with your help, as well,” he said, though he wasn’t smiling. “How can we lose?”
III
Into the Country
BENJAMIN HAD BEEN INSTRUCTED BY DR. WARREN TO GO TO the Green Dragon Tavern, where he would find William Dawes, the tanner. Dawes was already drunk. Or pretending to be—it was always hard to tell. Most likely he’d had a few bowls of flip, for he reeked of the sweet concoction. After they left the establishment, he let Benjamin help him climb on his horse and then take the reins as they walked through the city toward Boston Neck. Dawes was tall and lanky, with a long nose and the expression of a half-wit, and he rocked from side to side in his saddle.
“Where are we going if we get through the gate?” Benjamin asked.
Dawes slumped forward until his head rested against the horse’s mane. “You are to take me only as far as the gatehouse, understand?”
“But I always accompany you through the gates—”
“I know, but tonight is different. I will give you a coin for your trouble, which the guard will find quite a distraction. I know the soldiers that stand duty at the Neck, and not one of them can see past the glimmer of a coin.” When Benjamin did not respond, Dawes said, “You understand?”
It seemed Benjamin was always being asked to understand. To understand was to be told no. By his father, his mother, Abigail, and James. And now, when Dawes asked a second time, reluctantly Benjamin nodded his head.
Of course, it wasn’t fair. They had gotten through the gates together so many times. Dawes was a convincing thespian, an accomplished smuggler. He would assume different costumes, sometimes a farmer, sometimes a tanner, sometimes a farrier. Often drunk, real or pretend. When they brought gold out of Boston, to be delivered to his wife who had removed to her family’s farm with their small children, the coins were covered in cloth and sewn on to his jacket as buttons. Dawes was fearless. He would smuggle anything, coins, a lamb shank, butts of beer. By water, by land, and often right through the city gates at the Neck. Guards could be tricked, they could be bribed.
But Dawes’s greatest feat—his legend, which was now whispered about by the Bostonians—were the cannon. It took months, several trips a week, to take two stolen British cannon, piece by piece, out of Boston. Beginning in January, he and Benjamin dismantled the cannon Dawes kept hidden in his tanner’s shed. The wheels were laid in the bottom of a wagon, loaded with hides. One barrel was concealed beneath bales of hay, the other a boatload of seaweed. Other, smaller parts were buried in bushels of oysters or boxes of cod. Once, a firing pin, tied to a leather strap which was then wrapped about Benjamin’s waist, had been hung down into his breeches, the steel bumping against his inner thigh as he walked out the Neck alongside Dawes’s horse, which had more parts sewn into the underside of his saddlebags. Dawes was adept at fashioning leather pouches that would fit beneath their clothing. The trick, he would tell Benjamin, was to walk as though you weren’t carrying the weight, as though heavy steel, cold in the winter air, wasn’t pressed against your skin.
Since his youth, Benjamin had loved cannons. There was the fearsome noise when they fired, jarring the earth and belching smoke, followed by the terrible whistling of the projectile as it hurtled toward its target—which brought a distant, spectacular explosion. Countless times Benjamin had watched the redcoats conduct artillery drills on the Common or Fort Hill or the North Battery. With other Boston lads, he observed the intricacies of loading and firing a cannon, the methods of cleaning the sundry parts, the specifics of design. But he’d never actually gotten his hands on a cannon until the last time he and Dawes had traveled to Concord. It was a miserable night as they rode the wagon through a driving sleet, with steam rising off the backs of the team as it labored through the icy mud. Finally, at d
awn, they arrived at Colonel Barrett’s farm across the river from Concord village. Several men were in the barn, their tall lantern shadows thrown up on the stalls as they considered the pieces of cannon which lay spread out on tarps, awaiting assembly.
There was bread, cheese, and whiskey. There was laughter among the men. Colonel Barrett, commander of the Concord militia, presided over their activities much like a preacher before his congregation. One minute he would chastise them for not taking care in their handling of the parts, while the next he would slap his girth, thrust his hips, and crow about the day when they would give Tommy Gage a bit of his own cock.
Benjamin was given the task of climbing into the back of the wagon with a pitchfork and digging out the three crates, bound up in old sailcloth and concealed beneath the pile of seaweed. Dawes and the colonel’s men removed the crates and laid them on the ground. It was a solemn moment, silent with anticipation. Dawes opened each crate and the men leaned in closer. No one moved, no one spoke. Finally, Dawes reached into one of the crates and then stood up, holding a cannonball in his hands. There was something tender, even loving in the way he cradled the leaden orb in his hands.
“Ben,” he said, looking up. “We’ve made many a journey together, and I think you should do the honors.”
The other men gazed up at him, some smiling, though a few of the younger fellows were clearly envious.
“Come on down now,” Dawes said.
Benjamin jumped off the back of the wagon. Dawes walked toward him and handed the ball over, gently, as though it were alive, a new-born living creature.
In his hands the ball’s surface was rough. There were nicks and ridges beneath his fingers, which made him think of a face, a lead face, with nose and eyes and perhaps even dimpled cheeks. The other men stared at him expectantly.
“Round shot, solid iron,” he said, and then he paused and gazed down at the ball, as if to make sure that it was really there, in his hands. And looking up at them again, he said, “I believe this is … an eight-pounder.”