by Ron Carter
Astounded, Thompson’s head dropped forward. “What do you mean?”
“He had to have a lookout somewhere while he was setting the gunpowder.”
“How do you know?”
Stroud ignored the question. “Was there anyone else close to those cannon when you got there? maybe hurt?”
It took Thompson two seconds to remember. “A man was pinned under one of them.”
“Alive?”
“Yes, over at the command tent.”
“Can he talk?”
“A little.”
“Mind if I ask him a couple questions?”
“About what?”
“A confession.”
“You think you can get a confession from him?”
“Maybe. Nothing to lose by trying.”
Thompson turned on his heel and led the way to the command tent. Stroud stopped him at the entrance and spoke quietly. “What’s this man’s name?”
“McMurdy.”
“What’s the dead man’s name?”
“Pinnock.”
“Let’s go in.”
Thompson ducked his head through the flap, with Stroud and Bascom following, and Billy stopped outside, head cocked, listening. Thompson pointed, and Stroud walked to McMurdy, who had his arm thrown over his eyes, half asleep. Stroud dropped to one knee beside him and spoke quietly, gently, while Thompson and Bascom stood back watching, listening intently.
“Can you hear me?”
McMurdy uncovered his eyes and focused, then nodded.
“Much pain?”
Again McMurdy nodded.
“We got Pinnock. We know he’s the one who blew the gunpowder, and we know you helped him. Smuggled it into camp in flour barrels. Looks like there was a third man, but we’re not sure of his name. Want to tell us? You’ll feel better if you confess and name that third man.”
McMurdy’s lips compressed, and he closed his eyes and turned his face away.
Stroud gently laid a hand on his shoulder. “You don’t want to die with this on your conscience.”
McMurdy slowly turned back to face Stroud, eyes panic-stricken. “Am I going to die?”
“By hanging.”
McMurdy gasped and his frame shook with a sob.
Stroud waited a moment. “Tell us. At least they might put you before a firing squad. It’s better than hanging.”
Tears trickled from McMurdy’s eyes, down the sides of his face, and his poise, his defenses crumbled. He whispered, “It’s true. I was lookout for Pinnock. No third man. I swear.”
“Ever hear the name Eli Stroud?”
“No.”
“Was he the third man?”
“No third man. Never heard of Stroud.”
“You brought the gunpowder in flour barrels?”
McMurdy nodded.
“You’re sure there was no third man?”
“Pinnock and me. That’s all.”
“How about back in Boston?”
“A lot of Loyalists. Some helped. I don’t know who.”
Stroud nodded. “Anything I can do for you?”
McMurdy’s eyes were pleading. “Tell my mother I’m sorry. Sorry.”
“What’s her name?”
“Beatrice McMurdy. Charlestown.”
“I’ll do it.”
Stroud rose and walked past Thompson and Bascom, out through the tent flap into the bright sunlight and the scolding of blue jays and of bees working busily in the wildflowers, away from the smell of carbolic acid and raw alcohol and blood, away from the sight of men crippled and bandaged, away from a man who was broken in heart and soul and going to be executed before noon. He settled cross-legged onto the grass, laid his rifle across his lap, and bowed his head, sickened by the black evil of war and what it does to men and all that is good in the world.
Billy walked near him and stood silent, not moving. Thompson and Bascom ducked out the tent flap and started towards Stroud, then slowed. Thompson paused before he spoke. “Stroud, I think any questions about you have been answered. You still want to join this regiment?”
Stroud nodded his head without raising his face.
“Ever been in battle before?”
There was a pause while Stroud calculated. “Six years, eleven battles.”
“Speak Iroquois?”
“Iroquois, Huron, Seneca, Onondaga, Mohican, Mohawk.”
“The Mohicans are gone.”
“Their dialect isn’t.
“Ever live off the land?”
“For seventeen years.” Stroud rose to his feet, rifle in hand.
“Do you want to tell us why you want to join?”
“No.”
Thompson drew and released a great breath. “All in good time.” He turned to Bascom. “Assign this man to a company that’s at less than full strength. Get the morning meal finished. Then get the list of disabled from Doctor Nolan and arrange wagons and a detail of men to return them to Boston. We’ll march this afternoon.” He looked at the ground for long moments before he continued. “And arrange a firing squad for eleven o’clock.”
At ten-thirty, Colonel Israel Thompson convened a court-martial at the table outside his tent, flanked by two officers and a scribe. He appointed an officer to preside and another to defend Darren McMurdy. The bill of particulars was read to him by an appointed officer. McMurdy refused to enter a plea. A plea of not guilty was entered for him. McMurdy refused to testify or call witnesses. Eli Stroud and Lieutenant Holgate were called as witnesses to his confession. At ten minutes before eleven o’clock the three-man court conferred for one minute, and the scribe recorded their verdict of guilty of spying. The entire regiment was as- sembled and ordered to attention. At eleven o’clock McMurdy was tied onto a chair in front of them in the tall grass amid a carpet of red and gold and blue wildflowers.
Ten soldiers were picked by lots and handed muskets. At a range of thirty feet, they primed and cocked and held their muskets at the ready. McMurdy was asked if he had last words. He did not. Did he want a blindfold? He did not. Did he wish to make his peace with God? He bowed his head and spoke words known only to him, and then raised his head. His face was white, eyes wild, his entire body shaking uncontrollably, and he could not control a high, thin whine.
At five minutes past eleven o’clock, Major Bascom barked orders and the ten soldiers brought their muskets to their shoulders and aimed; and when the shouted command came and the sword dropped, all ten muskets blasted. McMurdy was slammed backwards in his chair. It nearly tipped over, then settled, and his head slowly slumped forward onto his chest. At 11:10 a.m. Doctor Nolan pronounced Darren McMurdy dead. A burial detail picked him up, still strapped to the chair, and removed him to a freshly dug grave one hundred yards west of the campsite, where they placed him in a hastily constructed pine box and lowered him into mother earth. Twenty minutes later they returned to the campsite with the chair. They had placed no marker on the grave.
A somber despondency crept into camp. The regiment felt little appetite for the noon meal. At two o’clock they gently loaded the wounded and three days’ supplies into two wagons and hitched up the horses, and a ten-man escort led the small column back towards Boston. The regiment stood in silence, watching the men and wagons until they disappeared behind the thick, lush woods at the first bend in the winding, crooked dirt road, and then they turned to the work of striking camp and preparing to march.
Thompson slumped into a chair inside his command tent, drained, hating the killing and maiming of some of his command, hating the court-martial, hating a duty that required him to sit a man on a chair and kill him before the entire regiment. He drew and slowly released a great breath, then glanced out the tent flap. Over six hours of daylight left. They could be twenty-four miles from this melancholy place by dark. They need the marching, the sweat, to fall onto their blankets tonight exhausted.
Wearily he walked to the tent entrance and motioned to Bascom. “Get the regiment ready to march as soon as possible and then assemble them. I need
to talk to them.”
Thirty minutes later he stood ramrod straight before his command and raised his voice. “Men, today we all endured terrible events. Spies struck a blow against us; a court-martial tried and condemned the survivor, one of you, to death; and we all witnessed his execution. The man who died and the man who was executed by firing squad after a fair trial were Tories, allies of King George, and instruments of British plans to establish a tyranny over us and to deprive us of our God-given rights. I hope that there are no more such men in the regiment, but we all know the risks. We who are loyal to our country’s cause will be vigilant. Any among the ranks who is a Tory and whom we discover will be dealt with severely but with justice. Any blow against this regiment, any act of violence, any deed of malice or stealth will be punished by legal means, but that punishment will be swift and final, as you saw it executed on McMurdy today.”
He thrust a fist into the air and his eyes were ablaze. “Do I make myself clear?”
No one moved or spoke.
“We have many miles and many battles before us. We will drive the king’s lobsterbacks from our soil—we will secure our liberties and our rights. These are the goals we must keep constantly before us. These are the goals from which no hardship, no tragedy, no calamity must distract or dissuade us. Remember your wives and your mothers and your sisters and your daughters at home, and resolve in your hearts that the cause to which we are committed is worthy of our every effort.”
He paused to pace for a moment. “We’re marching in five minutes. We must be at New York before the battle begins, and I warn you now, one-half of the citizens of New York City are Tories! Be constantly on your guard, ever vigilant.”
Again he paused to collect his thoughts. “Now, put the events of today in their proper place, take courage in our cause, and conduct yourselves as befitting men from Massachusetts.”
By midafternoon every shirt in the regiment was sweat-soaked. All talk had ceased. They marched mechanically, while in their minds they were again seeing flames leap into the black sky and hearing the deafening roar and feeling the shock wave roll through their rain-drenched camp. Then they were seeing a man sitting on a chair, ribs bound and bandaged, wild-eyed, mortal terror on his face, and then the blast of muskets and his head falling forward. In the mindless monotony of marching they could not push the bright images away. At dusk they silently made camp in a meadow beside a stream, ate fried mush and salt fish, and spread their blankets.
In the light of a flickering campfire, Billy dug a pencil stub and a paper tablet from his knapsack, smoothed the wrinkled paper, and placed the tablet on his knee. He gathered his thoughts and put pencil to paper.
My dear mother:
I take pencil and paper to inform you I am uninjured and in good health, and that you are not to worry about me when you hear the news of today’s events, as you surely will.
He sensed a presence from behind and turned his head to look. Eli Stroud stepped forward, rifle in hand.
“I’m Eli Stroud. I was assigned to the Ninth Company an hour ago. Writing a letter?”
“Yes.”
“Family?”
“Yes.”
“Charlestown?”
“No, Boston. Across the river.”
“When you finish, could I write a message to go with it?”
Billy’s eyes widened in surprise. “You have family in Boston?”
“No. I promised McMurdy I’d deliver a message to his mother. I hope it gets there before she learns he was shot as a Tory spy. Her name’s Beatrice McMurdy, in Charlestown. Anyone in your family who would deliver it for me?”
______
Notes
The character Eli Stroud is fictional, as are the characters Darren McMurdy and Oren Pinnock.
The event described wherein McMurdy and Pinnock use gunpowder to blow up two of the cannon of the Boston regiment marching to New York is also fictional. However, it is consistent with the actions of the Tories as described in a letter of August 1, 1776, by Henry Flint to his brother Josiah, wherein he writes: “They had undermined the magerzine [sic] in the ground Battery in York and General Washington’s house and had got all things almost ready to give the fatal blow.” The plot was discovered and undone (see Flint, Flint Family History, vol. 1, p. 85).
Boston
June 1776
Chapter IV
* * *
An easterly breeze arose in the night and carried the tang of salt air from the Atlantic through the narrow cobblestone streets of Boston Town. By seven a.m. a thin skiff of high clouds moved steadily to the west, and dark smoke rose from countless chimneys to disappear in the light wind, as all proper Boston goodwives set great copper kettles of water on kitchen stoves or hung them on black iron arms and swung them over fires in dining room fireplaces to heat.
Monday was wash day. One hundred years of relentless custom required all Boston matriarchs to have smoke rising from their chimneys by breakfast time, heating wash water. Midmorning must find them in their backyards in ankle-length work dresses and heavy aprons, hair wrapped in scarves or linen caps, hunched over huge wooden washtubs, grinding bedsheets and pillowcases and the week’s soiled clothing on corrugated washboards. By noon they must be finished with the hot-water rinse and hanging the finished wash with wooden clothespins on outdoor clotheslines, visible to all who passed by in the morning traffic. In bad weather they strung lines in the kitchen and hung the laundry indoors. Those who did otherwise felt the ostracism of over-the-back-fence gossip and stony stares in church.
Dorothy Weems reveled in the salt breeze on her face, and she did not realize she was humming an ancient fisherman’s folk song as she set the clothespin on the corner of the last pillowcase and stood back for a moment to survey the morning wash, fluttering in the warm wind and the brilliant sunshine of a rare June morning. She smiled as women do at the soul-satisfying feeling of fresh wash on the line.
“Get the basket,” she said, and Trudy dropped the last half dozen clothespins into the large wicker basket and followed her mother into the kitchen. She set the basket beside the stove, and they both worked with the tie strings on their wet aprons, then hung them on pegs on the back of the door.
Suddenly Trudy pointed through the parlor window. “I think I saw Abraham from the hardware shop at the front gate with a letter!” She ran to get it, and studied it as she brought it to Dorothy, who waited with clasped hands at the dining table. “Mama, it’s from Billy!” Her eyes shined with excitement, and they both sat as her mother broke the wax seal with trembling fingers.
Dorothy quickly scanned the letter, and then her shoulders slumped as relief flooded through her body. “He’s all right.” She looked at Trudy. “I’ll read it to you. ‘. . . I am uninjured and in good health . . . you are not to worry about me . . . terrible explosion . . . two men killed, several wounded . . . caused by two Tories in our regiment . . . one killed in the explosion . . . second one shot for spying.’ ”
Dorothy paused and studied Trudy’s serious eyes for a moment before she continued. “ ‘. . . marching on to New York . . . expect a major battle . . . regiment improving each day . . . eating well . . . letter enclosed for Beatrice McMurdy in Charlestown . . . message from her son the traitor, shot . . . will you find her and deliver it? . . . share this letter with Margaret and Brigitte . . . will write again soon.’ ”
Dorothy laid the letter down and picked up the second folded piece of tablet paper with the blocky printing on the outside, “Beatrice McMurdy, Charlestown, Massachusetts.” It was not sealed, and she read and re-read the name while she pondered if she should unfold it and read the message. She carefully tied the letters together with string and raised her eyes to her daughter.
“We’d better change and go see Margaret.”
The sea breeze tempered the mid-June heat and moved the leaves of the oak and maple trees lining the streets to make a shifting patchwork of the brilliant sunlight on the walkways and the streets. Dorothy felt a rise
in spirit as she opened the gate of her small home and glanced back at the fruit trees and the grass and flower beds. Trudy slowed her skipping and reached for her mother’s hand, and the two walked side by side the two blocks to the home with the white picket fence and the sign in the front yard, “John Phelps Dunson, Master Clockmaker and Gunsmith.”
Margaret was wiping her hands on her damp wash-day apron when she opened the door. She knew instantly what had brought Dorothy and she blurted, “Is he all right?” She stood rooted, not moving.
“He’s fine.”
Margaret’s eyes closed and her shoulders slumped as she exhaled, and then she reached to embrace Dorothy. “Come in, come in. I’ll set some coffee.”
She settled Dorothy at the dining table and spoke to Trudy. “Adam and Prissy are in back, raking up the chips in the wood yard.” Dorothy nodded and instantly Trudy was gone and the back kitchen door slammed.
Margaret sat down at the head of the table, next to Dorothy. “You heard from him?”
“Yes. Today.” She drew the tied letters from her handbag and handed them to Margaret. “He said I should share it with you and Brigitte.”
“She’ll be home from the bakery in an hour or two.”
Margaret untied the string and looked at the two separate folded sheets inquiringly, and Dorothy pointed. “That one’s from Billy. Read it first.”
Margaret flattened it on the table, then held it as she read it silently, and then re-read some parts of it. Her forehead wrinkled. “Have you read the one marked for that poor boy’s mother in Charlestown?”
“No. I didn’t feel it proper.”
The coffeepot suddenly whistled and they both flinched, and moments later Margaret set on the table a silver tray with cups and saucers, thick, rich cream, and sugar. They both silently poured steaming coffee, stirred in sugar and cream, and then picked up their cups to sip gently, avoiding the burn while they savored the first taste.
Margaret shook her head. “Billy’s been through a bad experience already, and they haven’t even reached New York.”
Dorothy’s eyes fell for a moment. “I’m just thankful he’s alive and unhurt. That explosion killed two men and crippled more.”