The Schoolmaster's Daughter

by John Smolens

  Benjamin was relieved but didn’t want to show it. He nodded once.

  At one point, a man from Lincoln named Nichols walked down the hill unarmed, intending to negotiate. When he reached the bridge, he spoke calmly with a captain for a good while. They might have been discussing crops or the price of a cow. Word went around on the hill that Nichols was English-born, a fact which seemed to suggest that a settlement might be achieved so everyone could go home. There were jokes about fields needing to be tended and children waiting to be conceived. It was getting very hot, standing in the sun. Finally, Nichols climbed back up the hill, took his gun, and said he was going back to Lincoln. A few others left as well, but most continued to wait on the hill.

  When smoke rose above the trees in Concord, the provincials became agitated. Sitting on his horse, Colonel Barrett hollered, “Will you let them burn the town down?” And the men, shouted, “No!” The colonel gathered the elders together and, after a brief confab, word was passed along the hill that no one was to fire unless the redcoats fired first.

  Ezra gave his powder horn and cartridge pouch to Benjamin, which he slung from his shoulders, the straps making an X across his chest and back. “Use your teeth to tear open the paper roll containing ball and powder,” Ezra said. “Put a little of the powder into the pan of the firing mechanism, once I have it half-cocked, and then pour the rest of the powder down the barrel of the musket. Then the lead ball goes down the barrel, followed by the wadded-up paper, which keeps the ball from rolling out as I raise the gun up to my shoulder. Finally, you ram everything down snug, using the wide end of this iron rod, which slides out of this tube on the underside of the barrel. See?” He looked at Benjamin, who nodded his head. “We work together,” Ezra continued, “we should be able to get off two or three shots in a minute.” He watched Benjamin slide the rod back down the tube, and added, “It might get to the point where it’s better not to bother doing that each time. Just stick the rod in the ground, but don’t lose the damn thing.”

  Benjamin felt the cartridge pouch hanging at his side. “How many?”

  “Twenty-three balls.” He looked away. “We’ll find more, off dead and wounded.”

  Smoke now billowed into the sky above the village. Orders were shouted and the provincials were organized in a column and a company from Acton led them down the hill. Colonel Barrett remained on horseback on the ridge, hollering that they should not be the first to fire. Benjamin walked beside Ezra through the tall grass. The air was filled with bugs and the sound of the men’s equipment rattling with each step.

  “I wish I had a gun,” Benjamin said.

  “So do I.”

  When they were about halfway down the hill, shots were fired. Benjamin couldn’t tell where they came from—the reports seemed to roll up and down the hillside. Immediately, the line of provincials broke apart and firing commenced. The redcoats fired as well and quickly the air was filled with smoke, making it difficult to see. The sound of gunfire was constant, and again the echo off the hill made the barrage of noise seem to be near and far, as though there were fighting off in the distance as well. Clumps of earth leapt into the whistling air. Men were sprawled on the ground, bleeding into the grass. Amid the shouting, Benjamin heard Ezra’s voice below him, and he ran down the hill. He took a cartridge from the pouch, tore it open, the taste of gunpowder filling his mouth, and together they reloaded the musket.

  The redcoats on the near side of the river were falling back, and a few attempted to tear up planks in the bridge. But some were felled in the effort, and soon all the soldiers abandoned the bridge. The provincials continued to descend the hill—no order now, and men fired at will. Ezra took aim and fired, but there was too much smoke to see what he hit. He and Benjamin ran down the hill to level ground. Across the river, the redcoats were trying to organize themselves in lines, but they seemed to be having difficulty. Their shots, indicated by white bursts of smoke from the muzzles of their guns, did not slow the provincials’ advance. As they started across the bridge, the redcoats began running back toward the village, leaving their own dead and wounded behind.

  The smoke stung Benjamin’s eyes and he hated the taste of gunpowder. He wanted nothing more than to lie down on the grassy riverbank and take a long drink of water.

  Abigail was walking home from Dr. Warren’s when a boy rode a swaybacked gray mare into Dock Square, shouting about fighting in Lexington. A great jostling crowd gathered about him. Shots had been exchanged on Lexington Green at dawn. Dozens of provincials had been killed and wounded. The redcoats then marched on to Concord, burning everything in their path. People in the crowd contributed what they had heard. Last night’s expedition that had gathered on the Common was led by Lieutenant Colonel Smith, who was fat and incompetent, but his second in command was Major John Pitcairn, and that one there, Pitcairn, a man in a bloodied butcher’s apron shouted, he be a strong advocate for just such a smart action: burn a few villages and the entire rebellious sentiment would itself go up in smoke. An old woman leaning on a walking stick surmised that the reinforcements that had left Boston this morning—perhaps a thousand soldiers—had been sent for so that the expedition might cut a wide swath of destruction through the countryside.

  She asked the boy, “How’d you come by all this?”

  “’Twas a fisherman,” the boy said, his voice cracking with excitement. “He heard it from a girl who had come running down to the marshes by Lechmere Point, and he rowed for Boston, shouting the news across the Charles. I was on the shore, there near the Mill Pond, helping my uncle caulk his boat.”

  Abigail gathered up her skirts and rushed home. People were running everywhere, like ants, going in every direction. There was yelling from windows above the streets. When she reached School Street, pupils were fleeing the small building that housed the Latin School. Father, dressed in his wig and black robe, stood in the doorway, shouting in Latin.

  She met him as he came out the gate. He seemed unsteady on his feet and didn’t resist when she took his arm as they walked up the street toward home. He continued to mutter, in Latin.

  When they reached the house, Mother came out on the front stoop. “I just heard—”

  “I know,” Father said. “Perhaps this nonsense will finally be over.”

  “Mother, has Benjamin—”

  “No,” she said. “He’s not come home.”

  “I must find him,” Abigail said.

  “You shouldn’t be out on these streets,” her father said.

  Her father looked at the frightened, angry Bostonians that had filled School Street, and said, “War’s begun—school’s done.” He pushed his way by his wife and went into the house.

  Remaining out on the stoop, Mother said, “We should all lock ourselves indoors and pray for deliverance. But where can Benjamin be?”

  “I’ll keep looking for him,” Abigail said as she started down School Street.

  “Look at James’s house,” Mother said.

  “I doubt he’ll be there, not now.”

  “Find him, please. But be careful.” Mother turned and went inside, closing the door as though to keep a pestilence out.

  Abigail worked her way through the crowd, heading down toward the waterfront. Benjamin’s secret places—he was frequently drawn to the water. She went to Long Wharf, looking in doorways of taverns, sail lofts, and chandlers. She went by the ropewalk, but the men there hadn’t seen Benjamin. Finally, she went to Anse Cole’s clam shack and found his daughter alone there, sitting with her back against the shingles, mending baskets.

  “Mariah, have you seen Benjamin?”

  “No, I ain’t, Miss,” Mariah said, getting to her feet. She had a shucking knife in one hand, a ball of hemp in the other. “Ain’t seen him in days.” She was perhaps sixteen, thin and rather plain, but she had kind gray eyes and she took to Benjamin. Once last summer Abigail had come upon them in an alley off Salt Lane, kissing. He was frightfully embarrassed, but Mariah kept her arms about his neck a m
oment longer, possessively. “You look concerned,” she said now. “Has he not been home?”

  “Not last night, no,” Abigail gazed out at the harbor. The water was glass, pastel blue. Ships at anchor seemed to rise up out of their reflections. “Tide’s in, so he can’t be clamming. Do you think he’s out there fishing?”

  “Could be,” Mariah said. She nodded toward a row of skiffs pulled up on the shore, tilted over on their keels, leaning this way and that, looking like sleeping animals. “But if he’d a gone out, he’d a taken one of my father’s boats, and they’re all here.”

  “The sail loft.” Abigail looked toward the longer building at the end of the row of clam shacks. “Might he be there?”

  Mariah raised a finger to her mouth and bit on a nail. She had strong hands from shucking, the fingers scarred from the sharp edges of seashells. “He wouldn’t be up there, alone.” Again, the gray eyes, guarded now. She stood up and began to pick up a stack of baskets she’d been working on.

  “Here, let me help you.” Abigail took up several more baskets, and followed Mariah into the clam shack, where they set them down. It was damp inside, smelling deeply of the sea, and Mariah led Abigail back outside.

  “Thank you, Miss. It wasn’t necessary for you to—”

  “So you have no idea where he might be?” Abigail’s tone was doubtful.

  Mariah’s eyes suddenly grew large with trepidation. “I wish I knowed. I been worried about him, all his running for your older brother and the Sons of Liberty. And now there’s word of this fighting out Lincoln way.” Her eyes were pleading, for understanding, sympathy. “You know there will be more executions. Hangings from the Great Elm on the Common.”

  Abigail took a step closer, and for a moment she almost thought the girl was going to fall into her arms, weeping. But she began gnawing on another fingernail, broken and cracked. “If you see him, Mariah, you tell him to get home.”

  “I sure will, Miss. As I said, I been hoping he’d come by.”

  “Good.” Abigail began to turn away, but then said, “Trimount. Did he go up there?”

  Now the girl glanced toward the three hills that loomed above the waterfront and she seemed embarrassed as a blotchy flush came to her cheeks. “I don’t venture up there with him, no.” She was so frightened now, earnestly so, as though confessing. “No, I don’t go up the Trimount, not to the top anyway. Maybe the lower pastures a couple of times, but never all the way up, no.”

  “I see,” Abigail said softly.

  She began walking down along the beach, thinking of heading toward the Charlestown ferry landing, and then on to Mill Pond. When she was a ways down the beach, she looked back toward the row of clam shacks. Mariah was sitting on her stool again, back against the weathered shingles, gazing out at the harbor. Abigail began to turn and continue on, but then, farther down the beach, she saw someone, a man, peering out from the corner of the sail loft.

  A redcoat.

  After the engagement at North Bridge, nothing happened. No more shots were fired. The redcoats had retreated to the village. The smoke rising from the village had stopped—so the urgency of saving Concord from burning seemed to have passed. Some men went looking for food and beverage at nearby houses and taverns. For the time being, the provincials just seemed to evaporate in the heat of the day.

  Ezra and Benjamin, sitting in the shade of a tree on Punkatasset Hill, shared the wallet of victuals: more salt cod, and bread. Below, they watched as the redcoat detail that had gone to Barrett’s farm returned, meeting no resistance as they crossed North Bridge. They collected their wounded and took them into Concord. The dead, however, were left behind, lying in the sun. Benjamin’s eye kept wandering back to one body, lying near the bridge. A boy with an axe had approached the soldier, who was already mortally injured and crawling on all fours. The boy took the axe to the soldier’s head, and for a long time after the man lay in his own blood, moaning, but now he was quiet and still.

  It was difficult to determine what the British were doing in the village. The soldiers would form a column, parade in one direction, stop, and then after a considerable wait, they would be ordered to march in the opposite direction.

  Both sides seemed to be in shock, stunned by their encounter, regretful that it had occurred, and now neither could decide what to do next.

  At least two hours passed, and then around noon the soldiers began to march out of Concord, taking the road back toward Lexington. There were no fife and drums, which in itself was a significant victory. The provincials began to follow the British column, at a distance, keeping to the woods. Ezra and Benjamin walked swiftly, sometimes jogging, through stands of trees. When they crossed pasture land, which locals called the Great Fields, it suddenly became apparent how many had responded to the alarm. Hundreds of men streamed across the field, creating rivulets in the long grass, which reminded Benjamin of the wind on the salt marsh.

  They kept to the high ground. There was no order to it. Yet word was passed: about a mile from Concord there was a stream ahead, at Miriam’s Corner. Get there before the British. And wait.

  From the Great Fields they climbed up a wooded hill until they could see down to a fork in the road, one branch running north to Bedford, the other continuing east toward Lincoln and Lexington. Militia had gathered behind the Miriam farmhouse, barns, and outbuildings. Coming out from Concord, the British light infantry had been flanking both sides of the road, but here they would have to rejoin the column of grenadiers to take the narrow bridge across the stream.

  The British column could be heard before it was seen, the sound of boots on the hard-packed dirt road. There was not the cadence of a march, but the shuffling sound of men who were tired. A cloud of dust rose above the trees. When they came into sight, the wounded could be seen walking between the columns. There were also a number of chaises, which carried other wounded.

  “Officers,” Ezra whispered. “They wear those silver plates hung about their necks.”

  As the column neared the bridge, the flanking infantrymen could be seen pinching in until they too were walking along the road. The men in the woods waited in silence. Benjamin thought that perhaps they were going to let the soldiers pass, allowing them to return to Boston without further harm. He was about to say as much to Ezra, when the first shot was fired, and then the shooting began, puffs of smoke drifting up through the trees until the hill was in a cloud. Soldiers fell, and the column broke into confusion. Some returned fire, but it was futile. Many ran for the bridge, and there they were soon shot. So many men piled up on the bridge that it became difficult for other soldiers to get across the stream.

  Benjamin continued to reload the musket, his actions becoming swift and economical—the ramrod, he stabbed into the ground. His face and hands were coated with sweat, greasy and blackened with gun powder. Ezra was careful in his aim, and with almost every shot another soldier went down. Officers, he shouted. The barrage was so loud, Benjamin thought he would go deaf.

  Abigail had gone to all of Benjamin’s secret places—the ones she knew about—and found nothing. It was mid-afternoon and the heat and the sun shimmered off the water. The air didn’t move and Boston was oddly quiet.

  She had seen the redcoat several times. He kept his distance, often looking out from the corner of a house, once slipping behind a fishing smack on a cradle. It was then that she recognized him: the corporal. Lumley. The way the smell of liquor came off of him that dark night. The way he pinned her shoulders to the clapboard wall. The way Sergeant Munroe handled her breasts, until he found the letter. Angered, she began to walk back toward him. Scare him off, she hoped (he was, after all, hiding from her). She strode down the street, as though to flush him out there in that doorway, or there in the darkness of the barn door left ajar. But she didn’t see him, and was startled when she heard footsteps to her left, running up an alley.

  “I found you!”

  It was Mariah Cole.

  “What is it?” Abigail said. “Benjami
n?”

  Mariah emerged from the shade of the alley. “No, but I couldn’t just sit mending baskets no longer, and I began to thinking.” She raised a hand to shield her eyes from the sun, and gazed up toward Trimount. “I was afraid you’d climb up there—alone.”

  “Well—”

  “Benjamin does go up there, you know. And as I said, I’ve been only as far as the lower pastures with him, but he …” She took her hand away and gazed at Abigail, her gray eyes large with regret. “I should have told you before, I suppose, but he has mentioned that he goes up there.”

  “Why?”

  Mariah shrugged, but then she smiled, now complicit. “So he can see. He once said there was a great view. He said you can see everything from there: Lechmere Point, the Mill Pond, Charlestown, the Mystic River, Noddle’s Island, the open ocean. He’s wanted to show me, but I wouldn’t go up.”

  “I will go up,” Abigail said. “Thank you, Mariah.”

  “May I go, too?” Abigail looked at the girl, her face turned slightly toward the sun as she looked up at the Trimount. “I mean, you shouldn’t venture there alone.”

  “No,” Abigail said, glancing down the street. There was no sign of Lumley, though she doubted that he had fled. “I believe you’re right. Please come, if you wish.”

  There were three hills: Cotton Hill, named after the Reverend John Cotton, who used to have a house there; Beacon; and Mount Vernon, which was to the west, overlooking the Charles River. It was often referred to as Mount Whoredom, and it was a place where respectable women should not go. Everyone knew of the stories about men going up the hill where there were women of leisure waiting in caves and copses. Stories of all-night revelry, dance, drinking, and fornication. There were few diversions in the city, not a single theater was allowed, a lingering consequence of Boston’s Puritanical heritage, and yet prostitutes abounded, obliging the needs and fancy of the king’s men. Bostonians saw this as the result of their confinement with the soldiers on this small peninsula. And one need not look far to see that it was not just the behavior of the redcoats that encouraged wanton behavior. Many a young Bostonian woman was already well along on her wedding day.