by John Jakes
“The others may speak or not, as they choose.”
“They’ll damned well speak or we’ll blow their God damn heads off,” another officer growled.
Mitchell raised his free hand. Then:
“What are you doing on this road, Mr. Revere? Riding express, perhaps?”
“I esteem myself a man of truth, sir. So to that, I can only answer yes.” With audacity that astounded Philip, the silversmith went on, “May I ask the nature of your mission?”
Major Mitchell chuckled, genuinely amused. Philip couldn’t help being surprised at the civility of it all. These redcoats were the enemy! Perhaps it was a measure of the reluctance of those on both sides to bring matters into open conflict that Mitchell deigned to answer at all.
“Why, Mr. Revere, we’re out chasing deserters.” His tone implied that he didn’t expect Revere to believe the statement. He added, “And that’s as much information as you’ll get. But I expect a good deal more—”
He pointed his pistol at Revere’s forehead, his voice less affable.
“I am going to ask you some questions, sir. If your replies are not truthful, I’ll shoot you down.”
Another of the men said, “There’s moonlight back in the pasture, Major. We can get a better look at them there.”
“Very well,” Mitchell agreed. He indicated the prisoners. “Turn your horses about. Ride through that break in the stone fence beyond the trees.”
Philip tugged the reins, fell in next to Dr. Prescott. The physician leaned over quickly to whisper something Philip couldn’t catch. An officer thwacked Prescott’s shoulder with the muzzle of his pistol.
“No talking!”
The young doctor swore under his breath.
As the four prisoners and their nine captors proceeded back along the road to the gap in the wall, another of the officers behind Philip exclaimed:
“By God, Mr. Revere, we’ve all heard of your riding. You will take your hands off those reins and let your horse walk.”
The first officers reached the stone wall. They positioned their mounts to either side of the opening, waiting for Prescott to go through. With a yell, the doctor dug in his spurs. His horse leaped the wall.
A pistol exploded. Men cursed. Another gun went off, streaking the night with a bright powder flash. Then a half-dozen things seemed to happen at once.
Revere jumped to the ground, dodged between the startled officers and vaulted the stone wall on the other side of the road. Dawes, with an almost jovial shout, turned full about and spurred past Major Mitchell, clouting him with a fist as he raced by.
The major reeled in the saddle. His pistol discharged in the air. Smoke and the fumes of powder swirled. The officers’ horses neighed and reared.
Philip saw the gap in the wall standing open. He kicked the mare forward, sighting on Dr. Prescott. Man and mount were a blur of silver out in the pasture, racing away from the stone wall.
Philip’s horse plunged through the opening. He sensed rather than saw a pistol whip up on his left; an officer fought to control his horse and aim at the same time—
The mare almost stumbled in brambles as she cleared the wall. The pistol crashed, the orange glare blinding Philip momentarily. He felt the air stir behind his head where the ball passed. Bent over the mare’s neck, he shouted to her for speed.
She escaped the brambles, sped across the loamy earth of the pasture, Philip still bending forward from the waist to present the smallest possible target. Another pistol exploded.
On the road—dwindling—sounds of confusion. Oaths. Commands bawled by one officer, then another. Revere had run off one way, Dawes had escaped another. They seemed to be the quarry Major Mitchell’s party wanted most. At least, glancing over his shoulder, Philip saw no immediate signs of pursuit.
The ground swept by beneath the mare as she tried to respond to Philip’s hammering boot heels. He could already feel her flagging. Ahead, where the pasture ended and a grove rose against the moon, Dr. Prescott had already disappeared.
Philip looked back again. One of the British officers was galloping after him, cloak streaming—
The mare reached the safety of the trees. Philip reined in. The pursuing officer stopped in the middle of the pasture, cursing loudly.
New shouts rang from the Lexington road. The officer in the pasture abandoned Philip for the more important fugitives, and cantered back toward the stone wall.
ii
After twenty minutes of walking the mare through the wood, Philip finally picked up the road to Concord again. He surveyed it in both directions from the screen of trees. Then he bore left toward the village cupped among the hills.
The brilliantly white April evening was still warm and sweet. But he was cold. Pistol fire and Mr. Revere’s news—The regulars are coming out—had at last struck a heavy note of dread. Well before he rode into visual range of Concord, he heard the church bell begin to toll.
The alarm echoed from ridge to ridge, to wake the sleeping farmers, bring them hurrying into town. Philip recalled Dr. Franklin’s grim reservations about the ability of country folk to stand against crack British regiments.
Clang and clang, the Concord bell pealed in the April stillness. He rode into the village to see a repetition of the sight glimpsed from the outskirts of Lexington. Men criss-crossed the street near Wright’s Tavern, lanterns bobbing. Doors opened as young men and old turned out—with muskets. Dr. Prescott, then, had gotten through ahead of him.
In the confusion outside Wright’s, he saw two boys on farm ponies start in the direction of the South Bridge. Sent to summon militia companies from the neighboring towns, undoubtedly. Philip had seen it all rehearsed before. Heard it planned at the militia musters. Yet tonight, as men bawled questions, orders and milled uncertainly near the tavern, he could sense a difference. Voices were hoarse with strain. This was no rehearsal. Tonight—clang and clang—the regulars were coming out.
He hauled his aching frame down from the mare, pushed into the crowd. By a lantern’s glare, he saw Dr. Prescott trying to answer a dozen questions at once:
“Yes, I think Mr. Revere is captured. Yes, he personally saw the regulars on the move. No, I don’t know how many. More than five hundred, he was sure of that—what? No, not complete regiments. Flanker companies from different regiments. The light infantry, the grenadiers—”
That information produced a murmur of apprehension from the Concord men, perhaps fifty strong by now. Most had muskets. They understood the implication of Prescott’s news. If General Gage had dispatched light infantry and grenadiers into the countryside, he was in deadly earnest. The flanker companies were the toughest, bravest fighters, the soldiers most accustomed to the heaviest combat—
A stocky man Philip recognized as Major John Buttrick, Colonel Barrett’s second in command, fought his way to the stoop of Wright’s. He raised his hand for silence. Gradually, the crowd quieted. Buttrick said:
“All those already armed remain here. Those not yet equipped, get your muskets and reassemble as quickly as you can. We have stores still to be moved here in town—we’ll need every hand.”
“Are we getting any help?” someone shouted.
“Yes! We’ve already sent to Lincoln for their minute companies. We should be in good force if the lobster-backs get this far.”
No one appeared encouraged by Buttrick’s words. Everyone from stripling to graybeard knew full well that even several companies of militia could probably not stand for long against thoroughly trained British troops. But no one voiced the fear openly.
Buttrick continued to issue orders. Philip’s attention was distracted. In the lantern light around Wright’s stoop, hostile eyes locked with his.
Lawyer Ware.
His nightshirt was carelessly stuffed into his trousers. His thin hair blew in the breeze. The protruding eyes that could look so comical now looked anything but that.
At Buttrick’s command, the crowd broke. Philip started for the tavern. Despite Ware’s threatening expre
ssion, he intended to find Anne. Ware stood on the stoop, waiting. Never had the little man looked so formidable—or so full of wrath.
Philip had gone half the distance to the glowering lawyer when Buttrick caught his arm.
“You’re Kent, aren’t you? From O’Brian’s place?”
“That’s right.”
“When you go to fetch your musket, make sure Barrett’s heard the bell. Sometimes,” he added with an empty smile, “Jim’s fond of the rum jug and sleeps too deeply.”
Then Buttrick was gone into the confusion of lanterns and shadow. Men were scattering to the various houses that held caches of supplies.
Lawyer Ware continued to stand on the step of Wright’s. As Philip approached, the little man barked:
“Gone to Philadelphia, were you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, you’ve come back at a most inauspicious time. I’m sure you regret it.”
“Regret it? Why?”
“I presumed you wanted to flee from danger—and your shameful actions.”
Philip didn’t fully understand Ware’s scathing words. They angered him. A vein stood out on his forehead as he shot back:
“I went on necessary private business, Mr. Ware. Is Anne inside?”
“Whether she is or isn’t makes no difference. I warned you in Boston, boy. I said I wouldn’t have her hurt. What you did—and what you must have said when you left—have brought her such grief as I’ve never seen before. I pressed her, but she refused to give me any details—except to say there was nothing more between the two of you. Go carry out your commander’s orders. And don’t try to see her again.”
“Mr. Ware—”
“Don’t. Ever.”
“Mr. Ware, listen! Anne understood I had to leave. Had to settle one matter before—”
“Understood? No, she didn’t!”
Caught in the impulsive falsehood, Philip turned scarlet. He began:
“If you’ll let me explain—”
“I want none of your damned explanations! Neither does she. Annie risked her life for you when the British investigated the death of that officer. And your repayment was to leave her and give her grief. I warned you against it!” he repeated, his frail shoulders trembling.
“Let Anne be the one to say she doesn’t want to see me!” Philip said, reaching out to shove Ware aside. The lawyer’s veined hand darted for a trousers pocket—
And Philip was staring into the round black circle of a gun muzzle.
The beautifully worked silver scrolling of the pocket pistol flashed in the lamplight. The lawyer’s hand shook so badly that Philip expected the pistol might go off any second. Ware had it cocked. At close range, the ball could tear half his head away.
“I’ve kept this for emergencies,” Ware said. “Thinking that if I was ever caught by redcoats wanting to arrest me, I’d use it on them. I’ll use it on you if you don’t leave. Don’t ever let me see your filthy face again.”
“Damn it, Mr. Ware, I don’t understand why—”
“You don’t eh? Then you’re stupid! Wanting to protect you in some misguided way, Annie’s hid the truth. But she can’t hide the white look of her face. The spells of weakness that come on her more and more—”
Against the mournful tolling of the bell, Philip’s thoughts flashed to the last time he’d seen her. He recalled the strange, unnatural pallor very well.
Ware said, “I will make you one last promise, Kent. If my daughter is, as I suspect, carrying a child—”
“A child!”
“—and if the child’s yours, I’ll find you, wherever you are. And I’ll kill you. Don’t make the mistake of doubting me.”
He spun and walked up to the door of Wright’s, wispy hair blowing back and forth across his forehead, the pocket pistol still shaking in his hand.
Stunned, Philip considered trying to lunge, disarm the little lawyer. At all costs, he needed to see Anne—
A voice bawled behind him, “Kent, damn you, get going to Barrett’s! That’s an order!”
Buttrick ran on. The door of Wright’s slammed. The bell shattered the night, clang and clang—
Philip stumbled toward the mare. As he hoisted himself to the saddle, he glimpsed Abraham Ware peering from one of the front windows of the tavern, frail, yet somehow almost Biblical in his wrath.
A child, Philip’s mind kept repeating, as if that would help him comprehend the astonishing fact. Our child?
He tried to recollect when it might have happened. Surely it had to be the night before New Year’s. He had to see Anne! Suppose she and her father fled before morning. He might never find her again—
He almost turned the mare’s head back. But he encountered Buttrick once more. Again the major yelled for him to hurry. So he kept on toward North Bridge, past silent, hard-breathing men rolling flour barrels to a new hiding place.
As the mare clattered over the plank bridge, the church bell finally stopped its wild pealing. One thought thundered in Philip’s mind, so compelling he almost wept.
She knew the day I left her. She knew but she wouldn’t use it to hold me—
And now, with the regulars marching somewhere beneath the paling stars, it might be too late. If the British came as far as Concord, men could die—
Philip Kent among them.
iii
At Colonel Barrett’s farm, lanterns burned in the barn. Philip found the militia commander assembling his gear. A bit addled and still smelling of rum, he had nevertheless wakened to the bell.
“Did Buttrick think I wouldn’t, for God’s sake?” Barrett belched. “That’s one tocsin I’d hear even if I were down in hell. I’m glad you’re back, Kent. Some said you’d gone for good. To the Tory side, maybe.”
“I couldn’t ever stand on the Tory side, Colonel.”
“Good. Because we’ll need every man if they’re sending fifteen hundred to strip this farm of all we’ve hidden away. Good black powder in the attic with feather ticking over it. Cannon buried in the furrows of the back field—and d’you know how much is left in Concord?”
“I saw flour barrels being moved—”
“That’s a fraction! There’s nearly ten tons of musket balls and cartridges. Thirty-five half-barrels of powder. Gun carriages and tents and salt fish and beef and harness and spades and—well, plenty to make it worth Gage’s while to search it out, I’ll tell you. Worth our while to defend, too. A couple of days ago there was a rumor this raid might be coming. So some of the stuff’s been hauled to towns west of here. But by no means all. Here, I’m talking too much—get going!”
iv
Not many minutes later, Philip turned the mare into the yard of O’Brian’s. He found the whole household—the Irish farmer, Daisy, Lumden and Arthur—awake and wondering at the exact meaning of the alarm.
Because of the tense situation, Philip’s sudden appearance elicited only momentary surprise, and the briefest of greetings. They all wanted to know why the bell rang. Philip explained. Arthur finished rounding up the arms for him and for O’Brian: a musket apiece and shoulder-strap cartouches packed with lead ball and paper-wrapped powder charges.
O’Brian hummed a military tune, checking his supplies with a sprightliness more appropriate to a man half his age. Lumden voiced the wish that a spare musket could be found. He felt obliged to be ready to defend O’Brian’s house.
Arthur’s teeth showed in a hard smile. “Don’ fret, Sergeant George. Tommy comes this far, there’s sickles and scythes in the barn. And a loft where you can drop down on ’em by surprise.”
“By God, you can count on it.”
Philip found a moment to draw Daisy aside.
“I tried to see Mistress Anne in the village. Her father wouldn’t permit it. I don’t want to put you in danger, Daisy, but is there any way you can get to her? Slip in and give her a message and then get out before there’s trouble?”
Daisy didn’t hesitate. “Of course I can.”
“Then tell her—
” A lump seemed to congeal in his throat. Already the musket felt dead heavy in his right hand. “Tell her she has my love. In case I don’t see her again.”
“All right,” the red-haired girl whispered, awed by his stark look.
“And tell her I’m sorry I caused her any—”
“Kent! Let’s move out!” came O’Brian’s hail from the front of the house.
Nodding wanly, Philip started away. A thought crossed his mind. He called, “One moment more, sir—” He turned back to the girl, who was already pulling a shawl around her shoulders. “Daisy, are my things still stored in the clothes press?”
“Your sword and the tea bottle—?”
“And the box.”
She nodded.
He leaned his musket against the wall, went to the clothes press, knelt and rummaged in the bottom until he located the leather-covered casket. He opened the lid, drew out the document on top, replaced the casket, shut the press doors and walked swiftly back past Daisy to the kitchen, where Arthur had already kindled a fire.
He stared at his father’s witnessed letter for a few seconds. Then he put it in the flames. He retrieved his musket and left the house by the front door.
He drew a deep breath of the sweet morning air as he joined O’Brian out by the road. Behind the ridge, the eastern sky was already growing light.
CHAPTER VI
“God Damn It, They Are Firing Ball!”
i
THE HOT MORNING SUN beat against Philip’s neck as he obeyed the command to load.
He braced the musket’s butt on the ground. He tore one of the paper cartridges with his teeth, poured its contents down the muzzle, then dropped the ball in after it. Three twisting strokes of the ramrod and the load was seated.
He was conscious of sweat on his palms, the nervous expressions of the men around him. Several hundred by now. The Concord companies had been reinforced with units that had marched in from Lincoln, Acton, Bedford. And there were young and old men who belonged to no company at all, but who had brought their ancient squirrel guns, even a few pistols, in response to the couriers and the tolling bells that had spread the dreadful tidings across the countryside—