by Ron Carter
Twenty minutes later Pitcairn ordered his column back onto their feet and started them east towards Lexington, and before they had moved ten yards another colonial volley raked them from one end to the other. A musket ball cut a channel across the hindquarters of Pitcairn’s horse and it screamed and reared, and Pitcairn was thrown rolling into a ditch, while the horse stampeded away from the road.
From that moment, neither Pitcairn nor Smith was able to again take control of their command. The column started forward with no thought of organization or formation, no thought of who was in command, ignoring the frantic orders of their own officers. They saw Fiske Hill and they marched on, knowing what lay ahead but no longer caring. At that moment none of them could remember a world that was not filled with muskets blasting in their faces and men crumpling to the ground and the groans and cries of the dead and the dying. They moved forward knowing only that they would eventually either be killed or reach Boston, and they did not care which came first.
As they came abreast of Fiske Hill, fresh militia from Cambridge and Gardner, under the command of Captain Samuel Thatcher, were waiting. Crouched behind stone fences and rocks and trees on both sides of the road, they waited until the column was squarely in the middle of the trap before they fired.
The regulars in the column broke. They did not raise their muskets as they ran forward, stumbling, ignoring their officers, abandoning their wounded, with but one instinct and that was to find a place where the unending musket blasts and the whine of incoming musket balls would go away.
Two miles east, past Lexington, Brigadier Hugh Percy, travelling west with his relief column, raised his hand and his drummers sounded the halt. One thousand troops from the Fourth Foot, the Forty-seventh Foot, the Twenty-third Royal Welch Fusiliers, and the First Battalion of Royal Marines came to a stop. Sitting his horse, he turned his head to listen, and heard the distant, continuous rattle of muskets. He was half a mile short of reaching Lexington, just approaching the low, gentle hill that commanded the town on the east side. For long minutes he sat listening and pondering how he could best accomplish his mission of rescuing Smith’s devastated column. Should he continue on through Lexington and meet the militiamen in open meadows and fields, or set up his cannon and let them come to him? He made his decision and gave his orders.
Twenty minutes later his cannon were aligned on the crest of the hill overlooking Lexington, and his column flanked the cannon on both sides, red coats shining, muskets and bayonets glittering in the late afternoon sunlight. The sounds of the fighting were becoming louder, more distinct, and Percy dismounted and took a position in front of the cannon muzzles. He watched the Lexington Road through his telescope and waited for Smith’s battered column to appear.
Moments later he gasped and peered intently through his telescope. “Militia!” he exclaimed. “Where’s Smith’s command?”
Militia and minutemen from every command were running into the open fields and meadows half a mile past Lexington, where they crouched behind the stone fences and trees, and in ditches and streams, and waited, muskets pointed at the roadway.
And then the first flash of red showed on the roadway, and the red coats of Smith’s command came stumbling on with no hint of officers or any semblance of military decorum. They were a disintegrated, beaten army in full running retreat. Regulars broke from the accursed roadway into the meadows and fields on both sides of the road in the desperate hope they could escape the cross fire, and the colonials once again appeared from nowhere and everywhere to fire at point-blank range.
From a ditch where he had crouched to fire, John leaped back into the grassy meadow and ran on towards Lexington, reloading as he moved. He glanced back only long enough to see Tom and Matthew and Billy following, strung out behind him, and beyond them the red-coated regulars scattering into the meadow to escape the cross fire on the road. Reloaded, John stopped to once again take cover behind a low stone fence, and a moment later Tom dropped beside him and then Matthew. John turned to look for Billy, and he was not there.
Billy had been last in line, and none of them had seen him grasp his left side and go down behind them and lie twisting in the grass, trying to rise, nor had they heard his cries for help above the heavy sounds of battle.
“Where’s Billy?” John shouted desperately, and Tom and Matthew instantly turned panic-stricken eyes to look. Three retreating red-coated regulars were nearly on top of Billy before they saw him. The leader raised his musket, made one stroke downwards, and drove his bayonet home, then jerked it out for a second stroke.
“Billy!” Matthew screamed, and his musket barely touched his shoulder before he fired, and the regular flung his musket high and fell, twisting. The two behind him slowed for a moment, and Tom fired and the second one buckled and went down. John sprinted towards the third, musket held at chest level, and the third redcoat stopped five feet short of Billy and turned, slipping, falling, scrambling back to his feet as he ran blindly back towards the roadbed.
In a moment the three men were crouched around Billy. Tom ripped Billy’s shirt open and gritted his teeth at the sight of the blood running from the bullet hole low in his left side, and John winced at the purple-ringed hole in his chest where the bayonet had plunged through. Matthew choked in rage as he looked into the face of his lifelong friend.
Billy opened clenched eyes and recognized Matthew. “He killed me, he killed me, I don’t want to die, Matthew, don’t let me die,” Billy pleaded. His eyes were large, panicked.
John shoved his musket into Matthew’s hand and grasped Billy under his arms and stood him on his feet, then draped him over his shoulder.
“Watch my flanks,” he shouted to Tom and Matthew, and started across the meadow for Lexington at a run.
On the hilltop at the far side of Lexington, Brigadier Percy studied the battle scene for ten seconds through his telescope, then jerked it from his eye in total, stark disbelief as he struggled to understand what he was seeing.
“They’re surrounded, in a full retreat!” he exclaimed. “They’re beaten! They’ll be annihilated within minutes!”
He spun and shouted orders to his cannoneers. “Load and fire!”
Lieutenant Buchanan, fourth cannon from the north end of the line, barked orders, and his sergeant measured powder into the cannon muzzle, rammed it home, seated the cannonball, and nodded to Buchanan. “Fire,” ordered Buchanan, and the corporal smacked the match onto the touchhole, the powder caught, and the heavy gun bucked and roared. The other cannon blasted, and the first fusillade whistled over the Lexington Green and crashed into the trees on the far side.
Instantly every eye on the battlefield turned east to look, and they saw the red-coated fusiliers and marines lining the crest of the hill east of Lexington and the white smoke drifting from the cannon muzzles. A moment later a ragged cheer rolled out from every throat among the regulars down on the roadbed. Never had they seen a more beautiful sight! They moved back to the roadbed and on towards Lexington on feet and legs trembling from exhaustion, counting the moments until they would be under the protection of the cannon and muskets of Percy’s relief column.
Tom took one look and fell back, watching as the colonials scattered, uncertain what to do in the face of cannon fire. Tom waved his arms and shouted, “Divide and go around! Divide! Go around! The cannon can’t hurt you if you’re moving around. Get behind them!”
He waited to watch the militia recover from the sudden shock of cannon, and those in front rallied and began to divide, moving north and south, angling around the hill dominated by Percy’s redcoats. The others behind followed as the cannon roared again and the cannonballs ripped harmlessly into the meadow and the woods beyond. Not one militiaman had been injured by the cannon fire.
On the road, one wounded British regular could go no further. He simply sat down, slumped over, unable to rise. Another threw down his musket and collapsed beside him. Within seconds four more had gathered in the group, bloodied, exhausted, tongues s
wollen from thirst, unable to move further. Colonial hands grasped them, lifted them, carried them as the militiamen continued their relentless pursuit, and they stopped at the first farmhouse and banged on the front door. A terrified woman opened the door, and the militiamen begged entry and laid the wounded British on the floor of her parlor.
“Can you help these men?” they asked. She nodded her head vigorously, and the militiamen were gone as the woman and her children set water to heat and began tearing bedsheets into strips.
Tom turned once more and sprinted to catch up with John and Matthew, and he grasped John’s shoulder and pointed. “Take him there! Jonas Parker’s house.” They crossed Lexington Green amid militia moving north to circle Percy’s cannon, then crossed the Bedford Road. Tom hammered on the door of Parker’s home. Lucy Parker peeked from behind a window curtain, recognized Tom and Matthew, and threw the door open.
“Ma’am, we got a boy hurt bad, and—”
Tom got no further. Lucy Parker exclaimed, “Bring him here,” and led them running to a bedroom. She stepped aside while John gently lowered Billy onto the bed and straightened his feet, Tom and Matthew by his side. Lucy Parker’s three teenaged daughters gathered behind them, silent, wide-eyed.
Lucy turned to the oldest of the three daughters. “Prudence, boil water,” and to the other two, “Get bedsheets,” and the three left at a run.
Tom spoke again. “Ma’am, it was Matthew and me brought your husband home—”
“I know who you are, God bless you! Where is this boy hurt?”
“Here, ma’am.” Tom pulled open the shirt, and Lucy looked and closed her eyes and groaned, then asked, “Bullet?”
“One. One bayonet wound. Is there a doctor?”
“There are half a dozen doctors here to help from towns all around. There are bound to be some down at the meetinghouse on the Green or at Buckman’s tavern just up the road.”
Without a word Matthew darted from the room and left the front door standing open as he sprinted down to Buckman’s tavern, one hundred yards south.
The two younger daughters returned with bedsheets, and John rolled the limp, unconscious Billy onto his side while Lucy slipped double layers under him. John settled him back onto the sheets, then worked Billy’s shirt off and folded it with the blood inside and laid it beside the bed.
Prudence returned with the first kettle, with steam rising from the spout. Lucy poured half an inch of water into the porcelain bowl on the nightstand, soaked a torn bedsheet and wrung it out smoking, and expertly began washing around the two wounds. She signalled for John to once more roll Billy onto his side while she looked at his back to see if either the bullet or the bayonet had gone through. There was no sign.
“The bullet’s still in him,” she said and dropped her eyes for a moment.
Tom rolled him once more partially onto his side and gently laid the flat of his fingers against Billy’s back and pressed and shifted and pressed again. “I think I can feel the ball, not deep.”
Lucy continued to wash the wounds with the steaming water, then left for a moment to return with a bottle of wood alcohol and poured it into the bowl with fresh hot water and continued washing. While she was gone John felt Billy’s throat and found the faint, irregular pulse and the beginning of fever.
Five minutes later Matthew was back in the bedroom leading a small, wiry man with a black satchel. He was coatless, his shirt blood spattered, sleeves rolled up, and his hair askew. He had not shaved, and his thin, sweating face showed fatigue and irritation. His spectacles had tiny flecks of blood.
“I’m Doctor Atwood from Woburn. Who’s hurt?” he demanded. “There are twenty men on the Green that need help and I need to get back there.”
John and Tom moved aside, and he saw Billy.
“Dead?” he asked.
“No,” John answered. “Bullet and bayonet wounds.”
The little man dropped to one knee beside Billy and felt his pulse, then his throat, and he shook his head but said nothing. He rolled Billy far enough to see that neither the bullet nor the bayonet had gone through. Then he looked at the bullet hole for some indication of angle, and pressed gently on Billy’s back, above the belt for several seconds, before his fingers stopped.
“Bullet’s right there. We better get it out while he’s unconscious.”
He rolled Billy onto his stomach, then opened his satchel and drew out a scalpel and a probe. He dropped them into the porcelain basin and poured the last of the steaming water in, then half of the remaining alcohol. He draped torn bedsheets on Billy’s back and spoke as he drew the scalpel from the bowl.
“You folks better look away.”
None of them turned or moved.
Billy groaned and twitched as the scalpel bit, and the doctor gave John a head sign and John kneeled to hold Billy still as the doctor dropped the scalpel back into the bowl and took out the probe. He slipped the pointed probe into the incision and struck the bullet on the first try. One minute later he had it in the palm of his hand, and the big .75-caliber ball seemed monstrous as he dropped it plunking into the porcelain bowl and once more reached into his satchel. He soaked a needle and gut in the alcohol and water, and eight stitches later washed Billy’s side with alcohol.
“That’s all I can do for now. Leave him on his stomach for a while. He’s going to fever badly. It’s up to him now.”
Matthew asked, “What are his chances?”
The doctor dropped his head forward to look over the top of his glasses. “I don’t know. If he can taste blood when he wakes up, he may have a punctured lung, and if he passes blood in his bowels, that bullet could have destroyed his kidney, and either one of those could be fatal. Or if either one of those wounds hit an intestine, that could be fatal too. But he’s young and strong. He has a chance. Keep cold packs on him when he fevers. I’ll come back as soon as I can.” He started for the door.
Matthew accepted it. “Thanks.”
The doctor raised a hand without looking back and was gone.
Outside, on the east hill, Percy’s cannon blasted again, and one errant cannonball ripped completely through the meetinghouse on the Green, where the colonials had laid out their dead from the morning’s battle. Miraculously the ball struck nothing but the wall going in and the opposite one going out, disturbed nothing inside, and gouged a ten-foot furrow in the dandelions. Not one of Percy’s cannonballs had harmed a colonial.
Billy groaned and moved his legs, and Matthew dropped to his knees beside him. “Can you hear me, Billy?”
Billy’s eyes fluttered open and he tried to focus. His face was flushed and twisted in pain. “Matthew?”
“Billy, can you understand me?”
“It hurts awful.”
“Billy, can you taste blood?”
Billy worked with his tongue and swallowed. “No.”
Matthew’s head rolled back in relief. “You’re in a bed with a good family in Lexington. A doctor got the bullet out.”
“My chest burns, and my side.”
“You were wounded. Don’t talk.”
Billy forced his eyes to focus. “Matthew, am I going to die? Tell me true.”
Matthew reached to touch the flushed cheek. “The doctor doesn’t think so. Now, lie still.”
Matthew rose, and Billy tried to raise his head. “Matthew, are you going? Don’t leave me here.”
John glanced at Tom, then spoke quietly to Matthew. “You’ve done your share. Stay with Billy. He needs you more than we do. Come home when you can. Here. Take these bandages.” He handed Matthew the torn strips of sheeting he had brought from home.
Matthew drew up a chair and settled beside Billy and reached to take hold of his hand. “I’m here, Billy. I’m not leaving.”
Billy smiled and his eyes closed, and he tightened his grasp on Matthew’s hand.
Tom spoke to Lucy. “Ma’am, could we leave him here?”
“Of course!”
John extended his hand, and Lucy shook i
t strongly. “Thank you, Mrs. Parker.”
“It is us that owes you men,” she replied.
John and Tom picked up their muskets and quietly slipped from the bedroom and out the front door. They walked onto Bedford Road and stopped, startled at what they saw.
Lexington was surrounded! On every hill, in every meadow and field, from the Green down past the hill where Percy and his command and the tattered remains of Smith’s column had taken their stand, colonials were concealed behind everything that would afford cover, pouring an unending stream of fire into the regulars’ positions.
John and Tom trotted north on the Bedford Road, then cut east when they came to the Reverend Mr. Clarke’s home. Twenty minutes later they had circled past Percy’s hill and were once again within one hundred yards of the Lexington Road.
Percy stood before his cannon and surveyed the town of Lexington, studied both sides of the road, then turned to his adjutant. “Get Rooke.”
“Who, sir?”
“Lieutenant Rooke. Fourth Regiment. General Gage’s aide-de-camp.”
Five minutes later Lieutenant Rooke stood before him at rigid attention.
“Go back to General Gage with this message. We found Smith and we’re returning to Boston and will arrive late this evening, probably heavily engaged. We will probably need further reinforcements. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir.” Rooke saluted and vaulted onto his horse and was gone in a cloud of dust, covering nearly the identical route Revere had covered but fifteen hours earlier, but in the opposite direction.
Then Percy turned to study the Lexington Road he had travelled earlier. Near the road were a dozen large homes and barns, and while he watched, white musket smoke came from the windows and around corners.
He turned to Colonel Maddison. “Take your company and go burn those buildings and knock down those stone fences and walls. Too much cover for sniper fire.”