Bunker Hill

by Howard Fast

  “Where’s O’Brian?” Clinton asked her.

  “Sleeping, the lazy pig. Take off the shirt, General, and I’ll be refreshing you.”

  He stared at her for a long moment, pulled his singlet off over his head, and then stood by the bedside while she sponged his body with the towel. Then she took a fresh towel and dried his body, her fingers gently massaging his flesh through the cloth. He had no thoughts in his mind, indeed no mind at all, only a luxurious sense of the passion rising inside of him. She finished drying him, then turned down the covers of his bed.

  “Will ye be wanting a nightdress, me lord?” she asked, a note of archness creeping into her voice.

  He shook his head.

  “Then will ye have the left or the right side of the bed, me lord.”

  “I am no lord, as you damn well know.”

  “In my eyes, me lord.”

  He grinned at her, and she grinned back.

  “Is O’Brian really asleep?”

  “Who the hell cares!”

  She unbelted her robe and slipped it off, a great mountain of a woman, as tall as Clinton, yet not fat, as he had thought; her breasts high and enormous, her hips wide and womanly, and quite beautiful, with her dead white skin and her mountain of red hair.

  Clinton crawled into the bed. She stood at the foot of the bed, naked, until he growled, “What in the devil’s name are you waiting for?”

  “For your sweet summons, me lord.”

  Then she snuffed the candles, and a moment later he felt her warm body next to him.

  JUNE 14

  Feversham did not like Dr. Church, and as always when he disliked a person, he found himself bending backward to disguise his distaste and replying to the obvious with inanities. The small, fat man played the role of patriot and fire-eater—a condition which Feversham despised—and at the same time he toadied to Feversham’s English accent and English manner. He had assumed Feversham like a garment; Feversham was his.

  “Did I not tell you, sir,” said Dr. Benjamin Church, “that Joe Warren is my friend. Friend and student. I said to him, I am bringing around a Dr. Evan Feversham. Connecticut man, but born and trained in the old country. You will want to meet him, I said to Warren. Just those words. You will profit from meeting him. Are you a married man, Doctor?”

  Feversham nodded. They were walking their horses through Cambridge in the early afternoon of a lovely June day. On both sides of the road, shoulder to shoulder, it would seem, in two unbroken lines, stood the endless tents, shelters, lean-tos, and brush huts of the volunteers who had flocked in from all over Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, and even from Vermont and New Hampshire and Maine, with their muskets and bullet pouches and not much else. Now they lay around, sunning themselves, picking lice from their clothes, shaving, cooking, urinating, playing games of lacrosse and Johnny-jump-the-pony and tag, or flirting with the girls and women, who were almost as numerous as the men.

  “Good heavens,” Feversham said, “how many of them are there?”

  Dr. Church shrugged. “Who knows! We try to make a count, and one day it comes out fifteen thousand and the next day perhaps ten thousand, and then maybe twelve thousand. They drift in, and then they go home, and then sometimes they come back again. Or a captain will come in with a band of a hundred or so, and he’ll make his camp in one place, and then, by golly, off he goes to another place, or maybe he marches them through the back country to scrounge for food. Now if you were not a married man, you could get yourself as fine a little filly as you’d want to look at for a shilling for a night.”

  “Where do the women come from?” Feversham asked.

  “Everywhere, Doctor. It’s in the nature of women.”

  “Is no one trying to make something out of it? They’re wallowing in their own filth. If someone doesn’t take it in hand, the British won’t have to move out of Boston. Disease will do the job for them.”

  Church smiled smugly and nodded. “So you’re one of them.”

  “What the devil does that mean?”

  “Oh, yes, Dr. Feversham, I know the story, dirt breeds disease. It’s one of Warren’s small pets.”

  “And you don’t think dirt breeds disease, Doctor?”

  “Rank superstition. The evil humor comes from within, not from without.”

  “Does it? Then how do you account for plagues?”

  “Not from filth but from man to man, sir. It awakens the evil humor within.”

  Feversham stared at him in amazement. There was no retort to such an argument, nor did he see any profit in persuading Dr. Church to accept his views.

  “How much farther is it?” Feversham asked.

  “Watertown. Just a few miles. He’s staying with the Hunts, you know.” Church was a name user and a name dropper. “We’re all doubling up, since we’ve been kicked out of Boston. Joe and Betsy Palmer are there—she’s Hunt’s daughter—and Joe Warren’s children. Well, these are sacrifices a patriot makes. Hunt is a patriot.”

  He broke off as a cluster of men in front of one of the shacks moved out into the road. One of them pointed to Church.

  “That’s him!” another shouted. “That’s the bastard!”

  “Hey, Doctor. Hold on!”

  They were a wretched-looking lot to Feversham’s eyes, four of them, unshaven, barefoot, their shirts stained and dirty. When Church would have ridden by, one man grabbed his bridle while another caught him by the arm and tumbled him into the dust. For all of Feversham’s dislike, he felt pity for the fat little man lying face down in the road. Other men and women came running to see what the excitement was all about, and by the time Feversham had reached Church and helped him to his feet, there was quite a crowd around them. The man who had tumbled Church off his horse grabbed him by the lapels of his jacket and began to shake him violently.

  “Let go of him!” Feversham snapped.

  “He put death’s touch on my brother.”

  Church tried to speak, but he had lost his breath, and he could not get a word out. “The devil you say!” cried Feversham. “No one puts death’s touch on anyone. Suppose you talk sense.”

  “Who are you?”

  “He’s a limey, that’s who he is,” said the man who was still hanging on to the bridle of Church’s horse.

  “I’m Dr. Feversham. Now what’s all this about your brother?”

  Church found his voice and remembered. He had been called there the day before and had given the boy medicine. He had a bit of fever and vomiting.

  “What kind of medicine?” Feversham demanded.

  “Salts.”

  “No one dies of salts.”

  “Are you a real doctor?” the man asked him. Feversham simply stared at him. At the coldness of his look, the crowd quieted.

  “Is your brother dead or alive?”

  “Alive.”

  “Where is he?”

  The man pointed to the shack. Feversham started for the hut, and the four men stood still, watching him silently. Then, when Feversham reached the door, the man with the brother ran after him, grasped his arm, and whispered into his ear, “Smallpox.”

  Feversham took a deep breath. “How do you know?”

  “I seen it plenty. Don’t go in. Make that little bastard go in. He give it to him.”

  “Don’t be an ass,” Feversham muttered, and went on into the shack. It was hot, dark, and airless inside. A boy of fourteen or fifteen lay on a blanket, and as Feversham bent over him, he began to whimper.

  “I got the pox, mister. Don’t you come near me.”

  “Sit up,” Feversham told him brusquely.

  “I be sick nigh to death.”

  “Sit up!”

  He sat up, and Feversham peered at his face. From outside, Church whispered hoarsely, “Get out of there, Feversham. It’s the pox.”

  “Look, son,” Feversham said gently, “I want you to get up and come out into the light.”

  “I can’t. I’m dying.”

  “You’re not dy
ing. Now do as I say!”

  The boy groaned, climbed to his feet, and then followed Feversham out of the shack. By now almost a hundred men and women had gathered around from the sprawl of tents and lean-tos. Feversham looked at the boy’s face and touched one of the sores with his finger.

  “Church!”

  The doctor hung back, just in front of the crowd that was carefully keeping its distance. Now a tall, lean man, who had an old sword slung over his shoulder, pushed through the crowd and made his way over to Feversham.

  “I’m Captain Hawkins,” he declared. “What’s all this? Has the lad the smallpox? If he has, it’s sure enough hell in store for us.”

  “Goddamn you, Church,” Feversham said. “Will you come over here and look at this boy, or must I drag you over?”

  Church came with slow steps, stared, and then smiled.

  “Chicken pox?” asked Feversham.

  “Chicken pox,” Church agreed. “Plain as the nose on his face.”

  “Chicken pox!” Hawkins yelled to the crowd. “Chicken pox!”

  “Ignorant louts,” said Church as they mounted their horses. Feversham made no comment. “Connecticut,” Church went on. He was thick-skinned. His feelings were not to be hurt, or else they had been hurt so often that it no longer mattered. “There’s the most benighted place on earth, and what a pretty rabble they sent us here!”

  “I’m from Connecticut,” Feversham said.

  “Well, no. Only in a manner of speaking.”

  Feversham could endure it no longer. “Dr. Church, I asked you to bring me to Dr. Warren, and now I am bloody damn sorry that I ever did. Ride with me if you wish, but keep your mouth shut. I cannot tolerate your conversation.”

  “Well, now—” He rode on a few paces more, took a deep breath, and exploded, “You are an arrogant son of a bitch. Just who in hell do you think you are? How dare you speak to me like that. I am Dr. Benjamin Church, member of the Committee of Safety. Do you know what that means? How the devil would you know? You, a damned Englishman. Or a spy. Would you be a spy, sir? I find you intolerable, sir. To hell with you and be damned.”

  He reined his horse aside, and Feversham rode on, regretting his own outburst. The little man had done nothing so terrible. It was his own malaise operating here, his doubts and loneliness, his sense of disorder and chaos, riding for hours through the disorganized rabble that called itself an army, and then turning it against the wretched little man. It was arrogant of him, and he felt sick at the thing that was eating his craw and tying him up in knots. Well, it was done, and if he wanted to see Warren, he would have to do so on his own. Certainly he would have no trouble finding his way to Watertown, since the little village was now the functioning capital of Massachusetts, and for all of his guilt, it was a relief to be traveling alone.

  Asking the way, he was told to follow the path along the river and that it would bring him to Watertown in no more than an hour. In any case, he could hardly desire a lovelier day to be traveling. The river path was shaded by great elms, maples, and oaks, and the countryside was as pretty as anything he had ever seen. As he made his journey away from Boston, he left the tents and shacks of the militiamen behind him—and this with a sense of relief. It was beyond his comprehension that an army of several thousand British regulars should consider themselves besieged in Boston. Why didn’t they simply cut their way through, or was the memory of how they were decimated on their march back from Concord too much for them? Or were they simply unwilling to make war?

  He found the latter thought comforting, at least to some degree. He had insisted to his wife that there would be no war, and then her question was inevitable: “Then why must you go there?” His action was not connected with anything he could put to words.

  Yet now, as he pondered it, he realized that he had fled her and the responsibilities that went with her, and his home and his practice, for war was the ultimate male liberation, especially the war that was no war but only an eloquent excuse for the children to escape from the schoolroom. Men were a race of children, he thought, more sadly than bitterly, and war was a child’s game until death and horror brought maturity. And then the young were old, and there was no interval to mark the passage of time.

  So it had been with him. He once had a childhood, but no youth, and now, past forty, he comforted himself with the thought that he was a healer, not a destroyer. But even such small comfort was fraught with deceit, for he had shed all responsibility except the bundle of surgical instruments in his saddlebags. Even the label of patriot was no rationale, for the sense of himself as a Roman Catholic in this rocky bed of Protestantism never left him, nor did he truly know whether his taste for New England was so much deeper than his distaste for old England, whether he was a man of principle or a turncoat. As always, such musings always led Feversham to accept the fact that he knew himself very little.

  His period of introspection had carried him some miles on his way, and now, ahead of him, he saw a cluster of buildings that might well be Watertown. And coming toward him, a group of twelve mounted men in striking, if outlandish, uniforms of yellow and green and pink. He hailed them to ask directions. The leader of the group was a bright-faced young man of nineteen or so who hastened to inform Feversham that they were the Independent and Loyal Third Company of Mounted Artillery out of New Haven, Connecticut, that they had been assigned to duty in Dorchester, whence they were bound—and while they did not have any cannon at the moment, they had been promised two of the guns that were captured at Fort Ticonderoga—and that he himself was Capt. Emil Williams. Through it all he grinned with pride, for what could be more fun than riding through the countryside on a delightful June day in their wonderful uniforms?

  Feversham informed him that he himself was from Ridgefield, in Connecticut.

  “By golly, isn’t that a fine thing,” Captain Williams said.

  Feversham said that he was looking for Dr. Warren, who was staying at the Hunt house in Watertown.

  “That’s Watertown,” the boy said, pointing, “and the Hunt place is the big house on your right as you ride in.”

  With that, he saluted and trotted away, his grinning fellow artillerymen trotting after him, and such was their pride and pleasure in what they were and how they looked that Feversham found himself smiling in response. Certainly they were the envy of the army, twelve uniforms in twelve thousand.

  He rode on into Watertown, and there was a crowd of more than a hundred men, women, and children milling in front of the big house on the right, waving their hats and cheering. Obviously, he decided, the Hunt house, and obviously an occasion of importance. He dismounted and led his horse to the edge of the crowd.

  They were applauding a man who stood at the front door of the house, looking hesitant and uncomfortable as he shook hands with one person after another. He was a man in his mid-thirties, tall, well built, with bright blue eyes and a great head of sand-colored hair—a very handsome man whose uneasy and embarrassed smile was most winning. He wore a loose white comfort shirt, black trousers, and white stockings. Feversham suspected that this was Joseph Warren. After watching him for a minute or two, he decided that he liked him—and felt that most people did. There was something totally outgoing and ingenuous about the man. Feversham had no notion as to why they were congratulating him, but he appeared to accept their praise with such boyish gratitude that his manner was most winning.

  Bit by bit, the crowd drifted away. Feversham remained, his arm through the reins of his horse. Still engaged with two men at the front of the house, the tall blond man noticed Feversham and nodded at him. A few words more, and then he walked over to Feversham and looked at him inquiringly. “I’m Dr. Warren,” he said. “And you, sir?”

  “Dr. Feversham. Evan Feversham.”

  “Oh, of course, of course. I knew you would be coming by. General Putnam told me. What a pleasure. Indeed, what a pleasure.”

  He shook hands with Feversham, and now the two men who had been speaking with Warren j
oined them. “You must forgive all this fuss and bother,” Warren went on. “You see, they’ve just made me a major general, that is, the Congress did, and the news is just arrived. Incredible, isn’t it? A bit ridiculous, too. It boggles my mind, and you must forgive me if I make no sense whatsoever. I simply say it in the way of explanation.”

  “Not ridiculous at all,” said a short, stocky, middle-aged man, bespectacled, his shirt and hands ink stained.

  “This is Benjamin Edes, who prints the Boston Gazette. He’s in exile here, like the rest of us, chased out of Boston and making the lives of the poor folk in Watertown utterly wretched, and this”— indicating the second man, stocky, wide-faced—“is Paul Revere, who’s printing money for us, although heaven knows what we can buy for it.” And to them: “And this is Dr. Feversham, who worked and studied with Dr. Suffolk in London when he did away with the hot-oil nonsense and developed his method of tying off the vessels. That makes no sense to you two, does it? It does to me. But come inside. You must be dog weary.”

  He called a stable boy, who took Feversham’s horse, and then Edes and Revere left, and Feversham followed Warren into the house. It was a large house, but all too small for the population it contained, and Feversham’s first impression was of unlimited confusion. At two sawbuck tables in the sitting room, half a dozen men were at work scribbling in record books and on sheets of foolscap paper. Journals, rolls of paper, and stacks of newspapers were piled everywhere. At least a dozen shouting children of every age were darting in and out of the room, chased by women, dodging, playing their own games. At one side of the sitting room, half a dozen men were in a heated discussion, voice raised over voice in anger,