The Road to Paris Part 7

This little force followed the captain down into Charlestown, whose commodious houses among the trees were now deserted. When the party neared the Old Ferry, which led to Boston, the men were a.s.signed to different posts along the sh.o.r.e, to watch the motions of the enemy, on their men-of-war in the river and in Boston opposite, during the night.

With what delicious feelings did d.i.c.k pace the sh.o.r.e, to the sound of the lapping water, in sight of the dark looming vessels of the foe, in hearing of the British sentinel's voice who pa.s.sed the "All's well" on to his comrade! Twice during the night Colonel Prescott came down with another officer to see what might be seen from the sh.o.r.e. It was almost dawn when Tom and d.i.c.k were marched back to the hill, where the men had been doing beaver work in the night.

A great change had been made in the appearance of the hill. Mounds of earth six feet high now enclosed the crest on three sides and most of the fourth. A rough breastwork had been thrown up as if in continuation of one of the sides of this redoubt. On the inner side of these works rough platforms of wood and earth were being made, and d.i.c.k and Tom were now a.s.signed to aid in this duty, the rule of the night having been that men should dig and mount guard alternately. Dawn came, calm and clear, while the men were working at the spades. As both mounted a pile of earth, to level it, d.i.c.k took the opportunity to look down over the parapet, towards Boston. At that instant there came a flash of fire and a belch of smoke from the port-hole of a vessel in the river, a sullen boom, and a spattering of earth and dust in the near hillside.

"Bedad," said old Tom, looking down towards the man-of-war, "that vessel's called the _Lively_; and frae the way she says good morning I'm thinking we're like to have a lively day of it!"

CHAPTER VI.

THE WIND OF CIRc.u.mSTANCE.

It was a fine, clear morning, promising a hot day. Looking across the earthwork, d.i.c.k could see people on the housetops and hills of Boston and the near-by country, attracted by the sound of the _Lively's_ firing and by the news that the Yankees had fortified the hill. d.i.c.k and MacAlister were presently relieved, whereupon they rested at their rifles, while others went on working at the platforms. The firing from the river ceased, but the calm which followed was so like that which precedes a storm, that d.i.c.k was not even startled at the louder booming that soon arose, from a hill-battery in Boston as well as from the war-vessels in the river. The men around d.i.c.k made jokes about the enemy's fire, and about what fate might befall one another within a few hours. The prevalent spirit accorded with the half tragic, half comical feeling that thrilled d.i.c.k's breast and showed in his face.

There came a slight shock and a general sensation when the word went around that one of the British cannon b.a.l.l.s had struck and killed Asa Pollard, of Stickney's company in Bridge's regiment; and there followed some ado over the matter of his burial, Colonel Prescott commanding that he be buried immediately, a chaplain insisting on performing a service over the body, and Prescott thereupon ordering dispersed the crowd of men that gathered to hear the service. At this a number of men rebelliously left the hill. To shame the timid and encourage the brave, Prescott stepped to the top of the parapet and walked calmly around thereupon, coolly giving orders, in perfect heedlessness of the b.a.l.l.s that plowed the hillside near at hand. A captain did likewise, and thereupon the men took to cheering defiantly at each notable specimen of British marksmanship.

Keyed up to the pitch of recklessness, the men could laugh at the British fire, but the intense heat of the sun, the fatigue of their labors, and the hunger and thirst due to the neglect of many to bring provisions, were foes not as easily disdained. Thanks to d.i.c.k's respect for orders, and to Tom's wisdom of experience, these two had enough to eat and drink; but many, as they perspired or lay exhausted, growled or cursed, and thought war a useless, uncomfortable business.

During the morning, while the men worked with the spades, or waited idly and wondered when, if ever, their first shot would be fired, there were frequent consultations of the officers, frequent despatchings of messengers from the hill, or from one part of the hill to another, frequent signs that seemed to promise action but brought none. There was a moment of interest for d.i.c.k when he became aware, first by sound, and then by sight, that the cannon in a corner of the redoubt had begun to reply to the British fire, which had gained in severity and in the number of its sources.

At about eleven o'clock the men were ordered to cease work on the entrenchments, and their tools were piled in the rear. General Putnam now rode up, evidently from Cambridge, and had some discussion with Prescott, and, apparently as a result thereof, a large party took up the tools and started off towards Charlestown Neck. Some of this party stopped at the next hill, to which Putnam rode, and there they began to throw up breastworks under his orders. Thus the morning pa.s.sed, in tedious expectancy.

The burning noon found d.i.c.k and Tom again at the parapet, which was now manned with waiting musket-men. d.i.c.k's wandering gaze rested on two war-ships that were moving up the river towards those already firing.

"Begorra, there's a thing or two doing, yonder in the town," said MacAlister, with a slight revival from a tone of languor. d.i.c.k looked across to Boston. Through some streets and towards the wharves, trailed a long, wide line of scarlet, flashing at countless points where the sunlight fell on polished metal. The line was of British regiments, doubtless coming to attack the Yankee redoubt.

An oppressive silence fell for a moment on d.i.c.k and all his comrades, while their eyes glistened; then, simultaneously, they raised a wild, half hysterical cheer, and many a man grasped his weapon tighter, and sent towards the scarlet line afar an unconscious smile of defiant welcome.

The thunder of the British batteries and ships all at once swelled to tremendous volume. The fields by the river, below the redoubt, were deluged with cannon-shot. "To hinder us frae ganging doon to stop their landing," explained MacAlister to d.i.c.k. Scarlet troops could be seen moving in Boston towards different wharves, from which at last they crowded into barges, a few of them hauling field-pieces along with them.

d.i.c.k thrilled at the fine sight when the barges were rowed out into the river and towards a point of land eastward from the hill on which the Yankee army waited. Pa.s.sing between the belching vessels and the river's mouth, and as the wind drove the cannon smoke westward, the barges with their loads of scarlet and steel stood out clear in the sunlight.

It was one o'clock when the barges huddled together at the point, and the red-coated troops filed ash.o.r.e, and began to form in lines, now on the same side of the river with the colonials who had defied them. d.i.c.k admired the precision of the three lines in which they formed, the patience with which they waited while their officers consulted and while the barges went back apparently for more troops, the matter-of-fact manner in which many of them ate their dinners while they stood.

He was drawn from this sight presently by a cheer from his own comrades, which heralded the arrival of some teams with provisions and barrels of beer. While he was partaking of the consequent good cheer, there was another outburst of enthusiasm, this time over the arrival of Doctor Warren, recently made a general, and General Pomeroy, who both came to serve for the day in the ranks, as volunteers. Soon General Putnam rode back again to the redoubt.

Now the British were seen beginning a movement from the point, and along the Mystic River, which ran by the hill's northern base as the Charles ran by its southern one. Some artillery and some Connecticut troops, detached to oppose this movement, went down the hill and began to construct a kind of breastwork of a pair of stone and rail fences and some fresh-cut hay that lay in the fields. But d.i.c.k had no attention for this business, or for the reinforcements that began to arrive over Charlestown Neck in the fire of the British ships and batteries. All his powers of sight were for the well-drilled enemy, who had ceased to move along the Mystic, and now stood near the point.

At about three o'clock the British barges came back from Boston on their second trip, and, landing short of the point, disembarked their troops at a place much nearer the redoubt than the first force was. "It's them we'll be having dealings wi'," said MacAlister, nodding towards the new arrivals. "There's a regiment that we'll ken the name of later, and a battalion of marines, not to speak of them companies of light infantry and grenadiers. Whist, lad, it's like we'll hae the worth of our labors."

While d.i.c.k waited, with his eyes on the force at the foot of the hill, in front of him, he was vaguely conscious that things were doing elsewhere; that the field-pieces of the British right wing--the force first landed--were conversing with the Yankees' cannon; that parties were being sent out from the redoubt to flank the enemy and were doing a little futile skirmishing; and that the roars of cannon were more deafening, the b.a.l.l.s raining more thickly and incessantly on the hillside from the ships and the Boston batteries. At last the British left wing--the newly landed force, of which Tom had spoken--began to march towards the redoubt. This left wing had meanwhile been augmented by some of the regiments that had crossed the river on the first trip of the barges.

"They're coming, boy," said old Tom. "It's a general movement of both divisions. They are the best troops in the world, son, dour devils every ane of them, and they mane to tak' this hill as sure as we mane to hould it. It's a grand disputation ye're like to see this day, lad!"

Colonel Prescott strode around the platform, instructing the men upon it how to fire, the men behind it how to hand loaded guns to the first, how to reload, how to take the places of the disabled. "Remember," said he, "wait for the word before you fire. Mind you put every grain of powder to good use; there's none for wasting. Aim at their waist-bands, and bring down their officers. That musket must be lower, man, when you come to fire. You, there, with your finger ready to pull, wait for the word, I tell you!"

Warfare and orders were different with the Yankee army on the hill, from what they were with the disciplined soldiers marching up to the attack.

d.i.c.k was dimly aware of flashes from British artillery posted near some brick-kilns near the hill's foot, but all his thoughts were on the infantry, as yet distant but steadily approaching, with a precision that was proof against marshy ground, tall gra.s.s, stone or rail fences, and other impediments. On they came, at a steady walk, to the beating of their own drums, marching in silence, looking neither to right nor to left, outwardly as calm as if on parade, showing in their faces no complaint against the heat nor any fear of the fate that might await them, men patient, machine-like in response to orders, their scarlet coats blazing in the sun, their steel bayonets flashing, men perfectly groomed, lifted to disdain of death by the sense of comradeship and of the occasion's bigness and by devotion to the sun-lit flag that fluttered slightly in the faint breeze,--so they came, their faces fixed with a mild curiosity on the redoubt, and it seemed to d.i.c.k that, coming in fashion so orderly and businesslike, they could not in possibility be turned back or stayed. Thrilled with admiration, "By the Lord," he said to MacAlister, "that's the way to march to one's death! Who could be afraid to face all h.e.l.l, either marching with them, or waiting here to fight against them?"

"Bedad, ye've got the feeling, lad!" Tom answered. "When great matters do be brewing, a man's ain life is sic a wee sma' thing, he'll no haggle over it!"

The British left wing approached in long files, its right composed of tall-capped grenadiers, who came towards the breastwork north of the redoubt, its centre consisting of several regiments of ordinary foot, its extreme left being made up of marines, whose commander's figure was recognized by one of d.i.c.k's comrades as that of Major Pitcairn, who had called on the rebels on Lexington Common to disperse. When the redcoats were still at a considerable distance, they deployed into line and fired at the Yankees' works, all in unison, as if each was part of a great machine. In his admiration of their movement, and of the quiet and easy manner in which the marching officers had ordered it, d.i.c.k heeded not the whizz of bullets overhead. On some of his comrades the strain was too great to resist, and they impulsively fired their pieces at the approaching scarlet lines. Prescott's voice rose in loud reproof of these, and some of the officers ran along the top of the parapet, kicking up the guns of men who were taking aim.

On came the enemy, firing at regular intervals in obedience to slight gestures of their officers. And now they were so near that man might be distinguished from man, each by his face, though all the countenances had in common the impa.s.sive, obedient, patient, unquestioning look of British veterans. With the Yankees the tension of inward excitement was such that d.i.c.k and most of his comrades would not trust their voices to speak; but some grumbled nervously, or even growled as in ordinary moods. "Bean't we ever going to give it to them?" demanded one, and "Air we going to let them walk right into the fort, 'thout our moving a finger?" queried another. It began to look to d.i.c.k as if the enemy were indeed dangerously near, and he glanced at Tom MacAlister, who was motionlessly breasting the parapet, gun-b.u.t.t against shoulder, eye following out the barrel, finger bent to pull at the word. Presently all growlings ceased, and nothing was heard but the roar of the cannon, the throbbing beat of the enemy's drums, and the singing of the bullets in the air. Then the powerful voice of Prescott rang out in the single word, "Fire!"

There was flash, a crack, a belch of smoke, along the whole redoubt; and, when the smoke rose, d.i.c.k got an indistinct impression of great gaps in the scarlet lines, of red-coated soldiers lying on the ground in various positions, some writhing and grimacing, some perfectly still, some pierced and bleeding, some without visible wound. Those still afoot were looking astonished and were trying to retain or recover the regular formation of their lines. Some of them fired back at the redoubt. d.i.c.k mechanically grasped the loaded gun handed to him by a man behind the platform, and as mechanically relinquished his own emptied weapon to the same man; in another moment he was blazing away again at a scarlet coat.

Then he himself reloaded, and fired a third time; and after that he saw the broken scarlet lines in front of him roll back down the hill, in a kind of disorderly order, many of the redcoats falling behind and plunging presently to the earth.

"We have actually driven them back!" was his thought, and he bounded to the top of the parapet, thrown forward by an irresistible impulse to give chase; but he was stayed by the hindering grasp of Tom MacAlister upon the seat of his breeches. He looked around in surprise, for several men had leaped over the parapet, with a cheer, to follow the fleeing foe. But officers leaped after these men and vehemently ordered them back into the redoubt. "They're beaten!" cried d.i.c.k, ecstatically.

"Maybe," quoth old Tom; "but it'll no be them, I'm a-thinkin', if they stay so!"

All the world knows they did not stay so; that the rest of that hot, eventful afternoon, until the termination of the fight, had nothing in it to give d.i.c.k an impression different from those he had already received; that the British re-formed by the sh.o.r.e, charged up the hill a second time, and were a second time driven back by the deadly American marksmanship; that to aid their second attempt they set fire to Charlestown, but, the smoke being driven westward, failed to accomplish their purpose thereby; that the British cannon did a little more work this second time; that the British soldiers were somewhat impeded in their charge by the bodies of dead and wounded comrades they had to step over; that their officers had to do some threatening and sword-p.r.i.c.king and striking to persuade them forward; that their second retreat was in greater disorder than their first, and left the ground covered more thickly with dead and wounded; that they waited a long time before they began their third attack; that on the American side there was much bungling in attempts to bring on reinforcements that arrived over Charlestown Neck; that many of the cowardly and the disgruntled slunk away; that in each charge the occurrences at the redoubt were similar to those at the breastwork and at the stone and rail fence; that the second attack left the Americans with very little ammunition. The few artillery cartridges that contained all the powder at hand were opened, and the powder was given out to the men with instructions to make every kernel of it tell.

"If they're driven back once more, they can't be rallied again," said Colonel Prescott; and his men cheered and replied, "We're ready for them!" The few men with bayonets were placed at points the enemy would probably attempt to scale. It was seen that the British boats had been sent back to Boston,--so that the British troops would not have them to flee to, as old Tom divined,--also that the British had received reinforcements from the vessels.

When they advanced in column to the third attack, they came without knapsacks, and their whole movement was concentrated upon the redoubt and breastwork, while their artillery was sent ahead and so placed as to enfilade the Americans in flank. The red lines were but twenty yards away when Prescott gave the order to fire. The columns wavered at the volley, but recovered form in a moment, and sprang forward with fixed bayonets, without firing in return. d.i.c.k, knowing he had fired his last round, and following Tom's example, turned his weapon around to use it as a club. He was now at the southeastern corner of the redoubt.

The British surged up to the southern side, like a tidal wave, their front line being lifted by the men behind. A red-coated officer set foot on the parapet, cried out "The day is ours!" and fell, pierced by the last bullet of some Yankee inside the redoubt. The whole first rank that mounted the parapet was shot down, but there was no powder left for the ranks that followed. d.i.c.k brought down his rifle-b.u.t.t with all his strength on the head of the nearest redcoat. Before he could raise his weapon, he felt in his leg the violent thrust of a British bayonet. He made a wild movement to clutch it, but it was drawn out of him by its owner's hand. d.i.c.k fell forward on one knee, and a moment later toppled over the parapet and fell outside the redoubt, upon the quivering body of a dying redcoat, by whose advancing comrades he was soon trodden into insensibility.

When he opened his eyes again it was late in the evening. The melee was over. He lay on some hay on the hillside, with a number of other men, some wounded, some apparently whole, all under guard of sentries who paced on every side. He soon perceived that the men under guard were of the Yankee army, while those who guarded them were British, and, as he presently recognized the redoubt not far away, he knew that the British had won the day and that he was a prisoner. Before night a surgeon came and examined his wound, had it washed and tied up by an a.s.sistant, and p.r.o.nounced it of no consequence. d.i.c.k pa.s.sed the night in exhaustion, pain, and thirst, on his bed of hay on the hillside.

The next day, while the British were fitting the redoubt for their own service, and also beginning new works, d.i.c.k and his fellow prisoners were marched down to the river, conveyed by boat to Boston, and led through certain streets of that town, some of which were curved, some crooked, some steeply ascending, some flanked by closely built rough-cast houses with projecting upper stories, some by commodious brick or wooden residences in the midst of fine gardens; and so into a stone jail that stood with its walled yard on the south side of the way. At one side of the entrance, within this prison, was a guard-room, into which each prisoner was taken for his name to be entered in the records. d.i.c.k was the last to be directed thither. When he had been duly registered by the proper officer, he turned to follow the guard to the cell a.s.signed him.

"So we've got you at last," came, in a slightly Irish accent, from a British officer, who appeared to be in some authority at the prison, but whom d.i.c.k had not before observed closely. "Faith, we'll take care you shall stay with us awhile, and we'll not give you a chance to murder English officers, either, as you tried to murder Lieutenant Blagdon in New York. What have you done with my sword, you spalpeen?"

d.i.c.k recognized the officer in whose company Blagdon had been at the time of the occurrence in the King's Arms Tavern. He would have made an answer, although the other's question did not in its tone imply expectation of one; but the guard hurried him away, in obedience to a sudden gesture of the Irishman.

"At least," thought d.i.c.k, "though that man, as Blagdon's friend, counts himself my enemy, he has done me the service of informing me that Blagdon is not dead. '_Tried_ to murder Blagdon,' he said. Tom the piper's son was right. And, thinking of Tom, I wonder where he is now.

Evidently not a prisoner, for our lot seems to comprise all that were taken. Killed? I can't think that! Does he know what has become of me, I wonder? Shall I ever see him again?"

Having been conducted up a narrow stairway, he was led along a corridor and ushered into a large, bare apartment whose wooden door opened thereupon. But if this apartment was bare as to its wooden walls and floor and ceiling, it was far from empty, being occupied already by half a score of men, some of whom were of the party of prisoners that had come with d.i.c.k. The guard now closed the door and fastened it on the outside, d.i.c.k having been the last prisoner lodged.

d.i.c.k and his roommates had of floor s.p.a.ce barely sufficient for all to lie down at once, and of light they had only what came from a single window, which looked across the jail-yard to some rear out-buildings and gardens appertaining to houses in the street beyond. The unpainted wood that encased the cell was interrupted only by the window and in certain places where the inside of the stone outer wall of the prison was visible. There were in the cell two large wooden pails, which were removed and returned once a day.

Regularly each day the door opened to admit men who brought water, bread or biscuit, and sometimes porridge or stew or other food; and the prisoners were now and then taken, singly or in small parties, to walk in the yard. They were made by their guards to suppose themselves recognized not as prisoners of war but as rebels or traitors, and to consider the slightest acts of consideration towards them as unmerited privileges. As the days pa.s.sed, it became manifest that d.i.c.k received fewer such privileges than fell to any of his fellow prisoners. He promptly attributed this to the influence of the Irish officer.

Did that officer, d.i.c.k asked himself, know the story of the miniature?

Probably not, or he would have made some attempt, on Blagdon's behalf, to obtain it. Such an attempt would doubtless have failed, however, as was shown in the search made of d.i.c.k's person on his capture, a search which had not disclosed the picture. For d.i.c.k, to be ready against the chance of war, had encased the keepsake in a tight-fitting silken bag, which he had then concealed in his plentiful back hair, fastening it by means of tiny cords entwined with locks of hair and with the ribbons that tied his queue. There it remained during his imprisonment.

Of the thirty prisoners taken by the British in the battle, only a few were in d.i.c.k's cell, the others being confined in other apartments in the jail. Among d.i.c.k's roommates were some citizens of Boston, in durance for various alleged offences against the royal government. One was charged with having drawn plans of British fortifications, another with having given intelligence to the rebels by means of correspondence smuggled through the lines, another with having had firearms concealed in his house,--the people having, on unanimous vote of town meeting, delivered up their weapons on April 27th. A printer was held under the accusation of having published seditious matter, and one childlike old gentleman pined in the cell because he was said to have made signals to the rebels from a church steeple.

This last-mentioned person, a mild, bewigged individual, his features rendered sharply angular by age, spent his time sitting in a corner of the cell, his eyes fixed distressedly on vacancy, his lips now and then opening to utter a childish whimper of protest against his situation.

The printer knew this old gentleman, and gave d.i.c.k an account of him. He was, it appeared, a retired merchant and ship-owner, who, at a time when people were frequently ascending to roofs to view the doings of the besieging Yankees, had climbed to a church steeple, on being bantered by some jocular fellows who had cast doubts on his ability for such exertion. The gesticulations with which he had called attention to his success were taken by some prominent Tories to be designed for the information of the rebels outside the city. Denunciation and imprisonment had speedily followed. The printer, although he had no sympathy for the old man, whom he p.r.o.nounced a rank Tory, said that the charge was all the more absurd for the very reason of the prisoner's Toryism, which captivity had not extinguished. When the old gentleman came out of his state of staring and moaning, as he infrequently did, it was to deplore articulately the rebellion that had got him into trouble, and to curse the rebels who were responsible. "Though he has enemies among the Tories," said the printer, "he has friends among them also, and it is quite likely he will be released as soon as General Gage takes time to consider his case."

But July came and went, and the old Tory still lingered in prison, growing constantly more fretful in his active moments, more trance-like in his pa.s.sive ones, more feeble and more attenuated. Meanwhile, d.i.c.k suffered exasperatingly from the heat, confinement, vile air, want of sleep, and lack of exercise. His wound, slight as it was, was slow in recovery, because of the bad conditions of his prison life; yet he scarcely heeded it, so insignificant it was in comparison with the wounds and other ailments of some of his fellow prisoners. One of these, in whose thigh a grape-shot had torn a hideous gash that finally became insupportable to more senses than one, was declared by the surgeon to require amputation, and the operation was consequently performed in the prison, little to the sufferer's immediate relief, although he ultimately recovered. Accounts came, through guards and surgeon's a.s.sistants, of similar operations in the jail, not all of which were as successful as that performed on d.i.c.k's cell-mate.