by Ron Carter
He pushed the envelope towards Margaret. “Caleb told me the drum on the well was starting to wobble. I’m going to look.”
“Tom’s coming to fix it.”
“Good. We’ll work on the yard this weekend.” He did not look at Margaret directly as he continued. “Is everything all right here? Enough money?”
Brigitte answered. “I’ve got work, and Mama’s doing ironing and sewing. Caleb’s delivering papers and running errands for Daniel at the print shop. We’ll manage.”
“Promise you’ll tell me if you need help? money?”
Margaret interrupted. “Don’t worry about us. We’re fine.”
He faced her directly. “Promise you’ll tell me?”
She nodded. “Promise.”
“When you write to Matthew, tell him I said hello, and to be careful.”
“I will.”
Billy rose and stood hunched over his cane for a moment, waiting for the injured muscles in his midsection to relax and allow him to move. He shuffled towards the door, and Margaret gently took his arm as he reached for the handle, and she spoke quietly. “Billy, thank you. For everything.”
“No thanks necessary.” He grinned, and for the first time in three months Margaret saw the gleam of the irrepressible, irresistible boy in him, and for a moment she felt a violent wave of nostalgia. She watched through the window as he patiently worked his way up the street, and then she turned back to Brigitte.
“Better get out of those clothes and wash yourself and lie down. You need your rest.”
The heat of the day had passed and the sun was settling towards the western rim of the world when Brigitte came from her room, eyes still filled with sleep, hair damp against her forehead. Cabbage steamed on the stove, and Margaret had cut the cold leg of lamb and strips of cheese.
“Set the table,” Margaret said, “and get the children washed for supper. Caleb should be home any time.”
Caleb ate second helpings with abandon while Brigitte picked at her food. Margaret hovered over the twins until they cleaned their plates.
“It’s too hot,” Brigitte complained. “It was hot at the bakery and it’s hot here.”
“It’s going to storm tonight,” Margaret said. “I can feel it.”
With supper finished, and shadows lengthening in the streets and yards, the two women cleared the table, and Margaret began washing the dishes in steaming suds while Brigitte rinsed and dried. Margaret finished and handed Brigitte the last pot. “Billy’s looking better.”
Brigitte nodded but said nothing as she dried the pot and set it in the cupboard.
Dusk settled and they lighted the lamps, and Margaret read to Adam and Priscilla. Caleb wandered aimlessly, restless, and finally settled at the table with one of Matthew’s old college books.
Brigitte brushed her hair and spoke as she walked to the front door. “I’m going to see Billy.”
Margaret raised her head. “It’s getting dark and it’s going to storm.”
“I’ll be all right.”
“What do you need to see Billy about?”
“Captain Buchanan.”
Margaret turned to Caleb. “Come read to the children for a minute.” She walked out the front door with Brigitte and faced her in the deep shadows.
“Let go of it. Can’t you see it will only bring heartache?”
Brigitte stared at her hands. “I can’t help it, Mama. I can’t.”
“Sooner or later you’ll have to. Do it now, before it’s too late.”
Brigitte shook her head.
Margaret sighed. “You’re of age. I can’t force you.”
Impulsively Brigitte reached to grasp Margaret’s arm. “I’ll be all right, I promise. Don’t worry about me.”
“Huh!” Margaret grunted. “Just like that. Don’t worry about me.” Her voice rose. “I’ll worry about you and the others as long as I’m alive!”
“I love you, Mama.” Brigitte turned, and Margaret watched her move up the street with determined stride.
Brigitte entered at the white gate with the carved sign “WEEMS” on it and knocked on the door. Dorothy Weems cautiously opened it six inches.
“Who’s there?”
“Me. Brigitte.”
Dorothy opened the door wide. “Come in. Is anything wrong?”
“I’m fine. Could I speak with Billy?”
“Of course. Sit down. I’ll get him.” She called down the hallway, and Brigitte heard a door open and close, and Billy walked into the room, hunched over his cane.
“Brigitte!” He glanced at the clock on the fireplace mantel and sobered. “What a surprise. How are you?”
“I’m fine.”
“Sit down.”
Facing each other at the table, Billy waited.
“Billy,” Brigitte began, “could you find out more about Captain Buchanan?”
Billy shrugged. “Depends.”
“If I sent food, would he get it?”
Billy slowly straightened. “You want to send food?”
“A cake. Cookies.”
Billy rounded his lips and blew air, and his forehead wrinkled. “You sure about this?”
“I’m sure.”
A time passed while Billy weighed his words carefully. “I’m a little confused. John’s gone, I was nearly gone, and Matthew’s still fighting the regulars, and you’re helping them.” He raised his eyes to hers, testing.
Her head was high, her chin firm. She raised no defense, made no argument. “Will you do it?”
He studied her for a moment and then broke it off. “I’ll find out.”
Brigitte relaxed for a moment. “Is Kathleen still working in the laundry?”
“Yes.”
“Can she find out?”
“I’ll ask.”
______
Notes
It will be remembered that Doctor Henry Thorpe, who appears in this volume as the informer who was delivering colonial secrets to General Thomas Gage, was actually Doctor Benjamin Church in history. Doctor Benjamin Church was discovered and went through a lengthy and bitter process of hearings, convictions, and appeals. A letter dated in 1782 states that he was finally “exiled to some Island in the West Indies, and threatened with death in case he [should] ever return” to the colonies. He boarded a small schooner under the command of a Captain Smithwick, sailed away, and was never heard of again. Historian Allen French writes that Doctor Church’s father, “in a will dated November 18, 1780, bequeathed five pounds and his library to his son Benjamin, if alive, ‘for alas; He is now absent—being cruelly banish’d his Country—and whither living or dead God only knows.’ ” (See General Gage’s Informers, pp. 183–201.)
However, for purposes of accommodating the time sequences in this novel, the banishment of the fictional Doctor Henry Thorpe proceeds much more rapidly than that of the historical Doctor Benjamin Church.
July 1775
Chapter XX
* * *
The destruction of Colonel Francis Smith’s elite column of regulars by the Massachusetts citizens’ militia on the narrow country roads between Concord and Charlestown stunned the British empire, sent it reeling in disbelief. The dead and wounded filled the British military compound and spilled out into taverns and inns, which were commandeered at bayonet point. Desperate officers ordered squads of armed soldiers into the colonial homes of Boston and Charlestown to seize medicines and bandages and bedding wherever found. The terrible stain on the honor of the mightiest army on earth rode relentlessly on the shoulders of every British officer, every regular in the colonies like a great black suffocating cloud. General Thomas Gage was disoriented for days, unable to accept the obvious. When the horror of full realization set in, he wildly searched for any plan by which he could redeem himself, regain some shred of standing before the king.
Bunker Hill! The colonials have filled the streets of Boston and Charlestown, but they have not taken the high ground on the mainland that commands the entire peninsula. Seize the
high ground! Take control! Redemption! Glorious redemption!
June 16, 1775, the British gunboats in the Back Bay moved towards Charlestown, and one anchored in the mouth of the Mystic River, another in the Charles River.
Thoughtful colonial eyes watched and reported. That night, one thousand militiamen silently moved to Breed’s Hill and, just north of that, Bunker Hill. With picks and shovels, or their hands, or whatever they had, they dug rifle pits and trenches and built breastworks on Breed’s Hill and threw up a fence at the base of Bunker Hill. Then they loaded their muskets and raised their flag.
In the bright morning sun of June 17, 1775, the roar of cannon from the British men-of-war shattered the silence on the Charles River, and for more than two hours, over eighty cannon blasted the colonial positions on the two hills while General Sir William Howe marshalled twenty-five hundred of the best officers and regulars on the continent. Charlestown was devastated, in flames. On his command, with fifes and drums pounding out the cadence, he started his army up the gentle slopes of Breed’s Hill, his troops aligned row upon row, their white breeches and red coats and tall hats sparkling in the sun.
At the crest of the hill, General Israel Putnam and Colonel William Prescott, the latter having been designated as the one to command the colonials, stood on the colonial breastworks, watching the steady upward flow of the red-coated army, fully aware that the militia behind them had nearly no powder or shot. To their left, Colonel John Stark and his forces were lined up behind a rail fence extending down to the Mystic River. Among the colonials waiting in the breastworks was General Joseph Warren, who had volunteered to serve simply as another soldier under Prescott’s command.
By the time the leading rank of redcoats reached the two- hundred-yard mark, General Putnam was riding up and down the lines of colonials, shouting, “Steady! Do not fire until you see the whites of their eyes! Make every shot count!”
The cannon from the British gunboats quieted, and Colonel Prescott stood on the breastworks, fully exposed, watching every step of the oncoming troops. At one hundred yards he turned his head and shouted, “Cock your muskets,” and the clicks of drawn hammers rattled up and down the trenches and rifle pits, and narrow-eyed militiamen settled their muskets over the breastworks and began picking targets where the white straps crossed on the chests of the officers and surging regulars.
At fifty yards Prescott drew breath and shouted, “Fire!” and four hundred muskets blasted in unison and the front two ranks of regulars broke, staggering back against those behind. The return volley from the British ripped into the breastworks with little effect, and moments later the second colonial volley roared and two hundred regulars dropped in the third and fourth ranks. Wild confusion erupted. Half the officers were down. The dead and wounded in the first four ranks were piled like cordwood, and those behind were climbing over the bodies. Suddenly the ranks broke, and then they backed up and turned and ran down the hill like a great red tidal wave.
The colonial militia leaped up and raised triumphant fists and shouted their defiance.
General Howe rallied his army and once again started up the slope. There were no more drums or fifes. At one hundred yards General Howe ordered the first volley, and some militiamen jerked and went down. At fifty yards he ordered the second British volley, and once more some militiamen toppled. Then Colonel Prescott leaped to the top of the breastworks and in full sight of the oncoming British army shook his fist and shouted, “Fire!” and every colonial musket on Breed’s Hill blasted. Thirty seconds later the second colonial volley roared, and to the British it seemed the entire front wall of their army collapsed. They turned and clambered over the bodies of their own dead in their second headlong retreat to the bottom of the hill.
“Warren!” someone shouted, and every eye turned.
Joseph Warren was down. Strong, gentle hands lifted him from atop the breastworks, opened his shirt, and felt for heartbeat, and then their eyes dropped.
Colonel William Prescott stood. “Report on ammunition!” he shouted.
There was none left.
“Withdraw! Down the back slope!”
Tom Sievers and ten picked men covered the escape.
The British lost over one-third of their 2,500 troops—one thousand regulars and officers shot, with over two hundred of those being killed. The colonials lost some 450 men, with about 140 killed, and most of those casualties had been suffered after their ammunition was gone and they were forced to retreat from the two hills. General Gage declared the battle a resounding victory. King George declared it a resounding humiliation—just over one thousand colonials with nearly no ammunition had destroyed over one-third of the Boston fighting command in one day, and when their ammunition failed they had slipped away with less than half the casualties suffered by Gage’s command.
General Thomas Gage was instantly relieved of command. General Sir William Howe, who had led the British into the battle, succeeded him.
When the report of the Bunker Hill battle was delivered to General George Washington, he realized he had to have powder and shot, and the only place he could see to get it was from the enemy. To do that, he had to have a navy. He began writing letters of marque, and thus it was that a general in the army created his own navy.
For the second time in two months, Boston and Charlestown were inundated with wounded and dying British regulars. General Howe gave orders to hire anyone the British could for the endless task of changing, washing, and drying the bedding and clothing and bandages necessary for care of the wounded. The colonials who accepted the work were shunned by many of their own as traitors.
For days Kathleen Thorpe had walked the streets of Boston to find honorable work, only to be turned away time and time again by shop owners with hard words and cold eyes when they learned her father was the infamous traitor under trial for treason. She sold much of the family silver to buy food for the children, until Phoebe discovered it and cursed her and slipped into a coma for two days. When Phoebe recovered, she began speaking in unfinished sentences, of things that had never happened.
Two days later Kathleen dressed well, spent time on her hair, and walked rapidly to the British compound, looking neither right nor left. The following day she reported for work at the laundry at midnight, to work until eight o’clock in the morning. Strong soap and scrubbing heavy, wet bedsheets on a scrub board had dried and cracked her hands. She slept when she could during the day, did the necessary housework, tried to console Phoebe, and cared for the children. Her cheeks were becoming hollow and her eyes sunken, and her clothing hung on her dwindling frame. She wept at her image in the mirror but could find no way to rise from the desolation that was destroying their home, their bodies, their lives. The pay from the laundry was poor, but it bought milk and bread for the children.
At seven fifty-five a.m. Major Avery Roy McMullen walked out of the officers’ dining quarters and paused to look at the dark, overcast heavens. He wiped sweat from his hatband with a silk handkerchief, then wiped his forehead, and settled the hat back onto his head. The night had been sultry, and since five o’clock the thick gray clouds had been showing lightning flashes inland, but only in the past twenty minutes could the rumble of the distant thunder be heard in Boston.
Stocky, round faced, jowly, meticulous in every detail of his appearance, he glanced at his boots, shined each night by his orderly. He would have to instruct better attention to the sole dressing; it was sloppily done. The grumble of far thunder reached him as he walked with measured stride across the compound toward his quarters, and he muttered, “It’s coming—hurricane season down south in the West Indies—storms.” He wrinkled his nose, disliking the wind and rain that ruffled and spotted uniforms and sullied boots.
He glanced at movement to his right, past the flagpole, and as he walked he idly watched the eight o’clock laundry crew silently coming on duty and the midnight shift leaving. The laundry demands from the battles had resulted in quickly constructed wooden stands along the
south and east walls. Twenty new large brass washtubs were set on the heavy timbered stands, and crews were hired for two shifts—midnight until eight a.m., eight a.m. until four p.m.—heating water, washing, hanging the wet, gathering the dry from the ten lines, thirty yards long, strung next to the stone wall of the compound.
McMullen’s lip curled for a moment. Colonials doing our dirty laundry—how appropriate. He was turning towards his quarters, when something moving near the laundry building caught his eye and he slowed to look. It was a white scarf tied about the long dark hair of a tall girl who had finished her shift at the washtubs and was leaving the compound. Even at a distance he was struck by the grace of her movements and the clean, clear beauty of her face. He stopped, unaware he was staring at her. She stopped at the gate beside a corporal carrying a musket and showed her work card to a second corporal, who checked her off his work roster, and she quickly disappeared outside the compound walls.
Two minutes later McMullen slowed at the gate, and the corporal with the musket barked, “Attention!” and the corporal with the work roster jumped, surprised, and instantly snapped ramrod straight.
“Yes, sir,” said the corporal with the musket. “What would the major want, sir?”
“The tall girl who left a minute ago—dark hair, white scarf—do you have her name?”
The corporal with the roster instantly ran his finger down the column. “Does the major mean the, uh, the . . . pretty one?”
The major sniffed. “That description would be accurate.”
“Yes, sir, right here, sir. Thorpe. Kathleen Thorpe, sir.”
“Address?”
The roster corporal glanced at the musket corporal for a moment, then back at the major. “Sir, is something wrong?”
“Not yet.”
“We got only names, sir. Addresses are kept at the adjutant’s office.”
McMullen stopped at the adjutant’s office before going to his office to resume his duties as officer in charge of base records, an assignment at which he could give full rein to his inherent need for perfection in all about him. Seldom were any of his records less than current or perfect. In matters related to his obsession for perfection in records, no one challenged or questioned his requests or orders. And seldom did anyone assigned to his office find more than revulsion and disgust for his petulant, unending demands and superior, condescending handling of his subordinates.