Bunker Hill (24 page)

Prescott,
pulling himself away from the unbelievable sight of a British army in full
retreat, called out to Feversham, “Doctor, spare me a moment.”

His face
grim, Feversham went on with his ministrations to the groaning, bleeding
militiamen. Prescott went to him. “Can you take a moment to look?”

“No,”
Feversham said shortly.

“They’re in full retreat, all of them.”

“Yes.”

“You know them. What will they do now?”

“How many men have they lost?”

“Five, six hundred.
Maybe more.
How the hell do
I know?”

“They
still have two thousand.” He paused, a needle in his hand. Head to foot, he was
covered with blood, exhausted for want of sleep. Putnam and Johnny Stark joined
them.

“We’re
almost out of powder,” Putnam said.

“God help
me,” Feversham exploded. “I don’t understand your people. What in hell goes on
here? You have twelve thousand men around Boston sitting on their bloody asses.
Why don’t you ask for reinforcements? With a few thousand fresh troops, you
could go down the hill and sweep the British into the sea. What are we?
Some kind of stupid sacrifice?”

Controlling
himself
, Prescott said quietly, “I sent messengers
five times. I sent runners to plead for reinforcement. There are no
reinforcements.”

“That
bastard Ward,” Putnam said bitterly. “He’s a coward or a traitor.”

“I don’t
want that kind of talk,” Prescott said. “We’re here, and there’s no hope of
reinforcement.”

“I can’t
hold my position,” Stark said. “I have three hundred men, and half of them are
out of powder. They can’t use the British cartridges, and even if they break
them open, they won’t rob the dead, and even if they take those guns, they
can’t fight with bayonets. It’s not their way. They won’t give up their
rifles.”

“Feversham,”
Prescott said, “you were in the British army. You spent years with them. You
know how they think. What will they do?”

“They will
attack again. They must,” Feversham said tiredly. “Their position down at the
water’s edge is untenable. A British army was half-destroyed by a handful of
Continentals. Every officer in the army faces court-martial and disgrace. If
they go back to Boston, they carry a badge of shame forever. That’s how they
think, and that’s how they come to a decision. So what is their choice?” As he
spoke, in fits and starts, he sutured a hole in a militiaman’s

side
, aware that the ribs under his fingers were
shattered, knowing

that
the wounded man would die.

“What
is their choice?” Prescott insisted.

“They will attack,”
Feversham muttered. “That is all they can do.”

Knowlton,
Stark, Putnam, and Gridley held council together on what the next hour might
bring them. Since Putnam had been instrumental in preparing a line of defense
on Bunker Hill, arguing that the attack would be there rather than on Breed’s
Hill, the others questioned him about the possibility of falling back to that
position and surrendering both the breastworks and the redoubt.

“There
were over a hundred men on Bunker Hill when I left,” Putnam said.

Gridley
laughed painfully and declared that he would eat his hat if a dozen of them
remained.

“I won’t
surrender this position,” Prescott said. “We tore them to pieces when they came
at us before. We can do it again.”

“Not without ammunition.”

“We can
use the British powder bottles. They don’t all carry cartridges.”

“We’ll find little there,” Knowlton.
“My men searched.”

Stark
said, “The point is
,
we don’t have the powder. You
can’t brush that away.”

“Can’t we
spread it?” Prescott wondered. “Have we enough for two volleys?”

“Hardly,” Gridley said.

“I never
agreed with this redoubt,” Putnam said. “I went along with it for Warren’s
sake, but it’s wrong. Without Stark’s riflemen, they turn our flank. We can
fall back to Bunker Hill, and if we hold Bunker Hill, we can keep the neck
open.”

“On the
other hand,” Prescott argued, “if we can hold the redoubt and the line of
entrenchments and send those bloody bastards down the hill one more time, then
it’s a victory plain and simple, and the war’s done.”

“Not so
simple,” Putnam said slowly. “Wars aren’t done that way.”

They were
interrupted by a rattle of drums from Morton’s Point, and the men at the
barricade crowded the embankment to see what was happening below. The light
infantry, the marines, and another brigade of troops Prescott did not recognize
were being formed into ranks.

“By God,”
Prescott whispered, “Feversham was right. They’re going to attack.” He swung
around to the four officers who shared his command. “What do you say,
gentlemen?”

“We
fight,” Stark said. “I won’t show those red-jacket bastards my heels.”

“We
fight,” Knowlton agreed.

Gridley
nodded.

Putnam
shrugged. “What the hell, fuck the lot of
them.
At my
age, what difference does it make?”

Knowlton
said that men whose powder was either gone or down to the last shot were
slipping away.

“Let them
go,” Prescott said. “We have more than enough to man the barricade.” Stark’s
riflemen had joined the Massachusetts farmers behind the barricade, as had
Knowlton’s Connecticut men. Prescott walked over to where Feversham and
Gonzales were still treating the wounded.

“Doctor?”

Feversham looked at him without expression.

“I’m sending the wounded across the neck.”

“How?”

“Let those
who can walk do so. There are men—” He paused, unwilling to say that his men
were beginning to desert. “Some of them have no powder. They won’t fight
against bayonets. They don’t know how. We’ll send them to you and let them
carry the

wounded
down to the neck.”

“Some of these men can’t be
moved.”

“Then the
British will finish their work,” Prescott snapped. “Don’t argue with me,
Feversham. You assured me that the British will attack. We have ten, fifteen
minutes, and I have work to do. Do you want to go with them?”

Feversham
shook his head. “I’ll stay,” he said bleakly.

Prescott
had forgotten Gonzales’s name.
“You, Doctor Spaniard, or
whatever.
Do you want to leave with the wounded?”

“I’ll stay
with Dr. Feversham,” Gonzales replied without looking up.

“As you wish.”

“The doctor with Stark—where is he?”

“Dead.
Shot through the head,” Gonzales said.

“I’m sorry. Feversham, do you want a gun?”

Feversham managed a hollow laugh.

“You find
humor, sir?”

“If I do,
it’s a poor joke, isn’t it? No, Colonel, I don’t want a gun. I’m a surgeon.
What would I do with a gun?”

“I’m
sorry,” Prescott said. “Today is not good for any of us, is it, Doctor?”

“No,
Colonel.” Feversham rose. “Try to walk,” he said to the man whose leg he had
just bandaged.

Prescott
took Feversham aside. “Doctor,” he said, “you’re English, and you have a
British army record. They’ll hear it in your speech, and as sure as God,
they’ll hang you.”

“Only if they defeat you.”
Feversham smiled and rubbed his bloodshot eyes. “I’m tired and cranky, Colonel,
but I’m filled with admiration for you and your demented farmers.”

“And who
is
more sane
? Those bastards who have left their dead
like a carpet on the hillside? Go with the wounded, Doctor.”

Feversham
shook his head. “It would set a poor example for that man,” he said softly,
nodding at Gonzales and smiling bitterly. “He’s a Jew out of Providence. Would
you have a Christian gentleman take off, where he is willing to stay? Only one
favor from you, Colonel, and I know the burden you carry. I have a wife in
Ridgefield in Connecticut, and I have a letter to her in my pocket. If you live
and I die, will you see that it reaches her?”

“That I will.”

Prescott
strode off, eager to get away from the moans and whimpers of the wounded. But
he had no feeling that he would live through this day, and he passed
Feversham’s letter on to Dr. Warren.

A lighter, pulling alongside
Vindicator
, informed Captain Woodly that Sir William’s grenadier
guardsmen had been practically wiped out. An officer on the lighter
commandeered the eight marines stationed on board Captain Woodly’s ship for
reinforcements onshore. It fell to Lieutenant Threadberry to bring the news to
Mrs. Loring.

The two
women, Elizabeth Loring and Prudence Hallsbury, had been watching the battle on
Breed’s Hill with interest and mounting excitement. The view from their place
on board
Vindicator
was interrupted only by the clouds of smoke from the
gunfire, the smoke from burning Charlestown blowing away from the battleground
and toward the Charles River. At this distance, the lines of soldiers in their
bright red uniforms were quite unreal. The encounter of the light infantry,
which attacked the American left flank, defended by the New Hampshire riflemen,
was hidden from their view by a fold of ground. The charge of the grenadiers
was hidden in part by brush and gunsmoke from the riflemen. The main attack
against the redoubt and the breastworks held by Colonel Prescott and his
militiamen was in full view. The ladies cheered and clapped and toasted the
exciting toylike soldiers until the attack was sent reeling back, after which
both women became silent.

However,
Mrs. Loring’s faith in the prowess of Sir William was unshaken until Lieutenant
Threadberry appeared with the bitter news. She asked him why they were taking
away the eight marines.

“Well,
ma’am,” he said uneasily, “they
be
wanting all the
reinforcement they can find.”

“Are we
losing the battle, then?”

“Oh, good heavens, no.
The battle’s only begun.”

“And what of Sir William?
What news do they bring of him?”

“Well,
ma’am—”

“‘Well, ma’am, well, ma’am.’
I asked you a question!”

“Not
easily answered, ma’am.”

“And
what does that mean?”

“It’s
hard to say.”

“Please say it!” she snapped.

“Well,
ma’am, the grenadiers have suffered, yes, they’ve suffered deplorably—”

“Go on.”

Threadberry
sighed and shook his head. “They’ve been wiped out, more or less.”

“Wiped out?”

“Killed and wounded,” Threadberry replied unhappily.

“And Sir William?”

“We don’t know—”

Mrs.
Loring did what was expected of a woman in such circumstances. She fainted, but
slowly enough for Lieutenant Threadberry to catch her and ease her abundant
body onto the deck. Prudence immediately searched in her bag for smelling
salts, and the lieutenant, taking advantage of his position and the emergency,
allowed one hand to cover her breast, the better to hold her as he lowered her.
Her eyes fluttered, but she did not ask him to remove his hand. Prudence came
to her aid with the smelling salts, and Threadberry had quick visions of what
the future might hold if the commander in chief passed out of the picture.

“I am all right now,” Mrs. Loring whispered. “Please
help me up.”

Lieutenant
Threadberry helped her back to her chair, and she did not chide him for his
loose hands.

“You must
find out,” she begged him. “I will die a thousand deaths if you don’t find
out.”

“Well,
ma’am, unless a boat comes from shore…Well, I don’t know how.”

“You have signal flags.”

“But that’s an odd one to
signal. I don’t really know how to put it into flags, but I’ll try.”

Burgoyne
and Clinton had picked up over a hundred men by the time they reached the mass
of retreating light infantry and marines from the burning houses of Charlestown
to Morton’s Point. Their broken ranks were spotted with wounded men in
bloodstained uniforms, men on the ground, groaning and weeping with pain, men
trying to stanch the flow of blood. In all his years of war in Europe, Burgoyne
had never witnessed a scene like this one, an army smashed and disorganized so
quickly. And there was Howe, alive, unhurt—and ready to embrace Burgoyne.

“We must
go back,” Howe shouted.
“Now!
We must attack again.”

Burgoyne
grabbed him by both arms. “Steady, sir. Steady. Of course, we must go back.”

Major
Pitcairn joined them. “We lost most of our officers. The bastards picked them
off. If we are to attack again, General Burgoyne, you and Sir Henry must lead
us. There’s Captain Freddy with the Irish Guards and Templeton with the
marines.
Maybe half a dozen other officers.”

“Good
man,” Howe said generously. “Good thinking, Pitcairn. Go with the marines.
Henry, you command the light infantry. I’ll lead.”

“What’s
our point?” Pitcairn asked, quivering with excitement.

“The
redoubt, left and right flank,” Howe said. “Sir Henry, you agree?”

The question gave Clinton
leadership, and he did not hesitate to accept it.
“Absolutely.
The redoubt and that damn barricade. Now, these are the orders. All men are to
drop their packs. We go in with bayonets. No stopping to reload. We go up in
four columns, four abreast, no pause, no mercy, no quarter. We mount the hill
slowly, save our strength. We’ll each of us head a column. No turning back.” He
turned to Admiral Graves, who had just appeared. “Admiral, I want every gun you
can give us on the Charleston Neck!” He took out his watch. It was four
o’clock. “An hour from now, gentlemen, we’ll have this cursed peninsula, and
this rebellion will be over.”

There were
no more bandages or dressings. The catgut was gone. The rum and water had been
used up. Gonzales and Feversham had treated thirty-two wounded men as best as
they could. The dead and those wounded who could not walk were on their way to
the Charlestown Neck. Two mule-drawn carts had appeared. One was loaded with
dead bodies; the other, with the badly wounded. Feversham had put his bloody
instruments in his bag.

From the
waterside, at the foot of the hill, the British drumbeat began. The guns on the
ships in the Charles River stopped firing as they began the process of being
warped toward Charlestown Neck. In the strange silence that ensued, the tattoo
sounded clear and sharp. Overhead, the afternoon sun was hidden behind one of
the fluffy white clouds that sailed slowly through the burnished blue sky, and
a cool shadow covered the men behind the barricade. The fire in Charlestown
village, which had eagerly consumed the dry wooden houses like an angry,
ravishing dragon, began to die down.

“If they
hold,” Gonzales said to Feversham, “we can help. But if the British break
through—”

“
Which is why I say you should go.
”

“I
understand that, Dr. Feversham.”

“Damn it,”
Feversham said, “I don’t know why I’m here. Chances are we’ll both be dead
before this day is out. What’s your stake here?”

“My
great-grandfather, Dr. Feversham, was driven out of Cuba by the Inquisition. He
came to Providence a hundred years ago, and I am the third generation in this
land. That’s my stake here. And now I think the attack is beginning.”

Gonzales
rose and walked to the barricade. Feversham walked with him. Even with the
addition of Stark’s New Hampshire men and the few hundred Connecticut
volunteers who had been with Knowlton, Prescott’s line was no thicker than it
was before the first attack. At least two hundred men were missing, slipped
away for want of powder or excess of fear—or wounded or dead.

There was
no need now to pretend that the barricade was undefended. The line of militia
and riflemen watched in silence as the four columns of light infantry, royal
marines, and even a small cluster of the surviving grenadiers, in their big
bearskin shakos, began their slow, deliberate approach up Breed’s Hill.

“My God,”
Knowlton said to Prescott. “Give the bastards their due.”

“That’s
Burgoyne leading them,” Prescott said.

Walking
along the position his riflemen had taken, John Stark said quietly, “If you
have powder, start picking them off at two hundred yards.”

The sun
glinted from the bayonets of the advancing soldiers.

Here and
there, along the American line, men turned and ran. Prescott ignored them. From
the redoubt, Gridley shouted to Prescott, “Colonel, can you spare us a few
men?”

“Any volunteers for the redoubt?”
Prescott called.

The
bleakness of it struck Feversham. Why had they ever built that cursed redoubt?
It was a death trap.

Half a
dozen men left the line, walked to the redoubt, and climbed over the entry
port.

Feversham
thought,
More
courage than I can understand. He tried
to comprehend them—Prescott and Gridley and Stark and Warren and Putnam and the
hundreds of men crouching behind the barricade.

Prescott
paused by Feversham. “We have two shots, Doctor. Will they run again?”

“No.
They’ll come in with their bayonets.”

Now the
New Hampshire riflemen were beginning to fire, a ragged shooting, and here and
there a British soldier collapsed, but the pace of the advance neither slowed
nor quickened. Clinton led one column; Burgoyne, another. Sir William Howe and
Pitcairn marched before the marines. At fifty paces, they surged into a run,
screaming at the top of their lungs, and the farmers and riflemen behind the
barricade and in the redoubt fired their volley. The front ranks of the four
columns went down, but those behind them leaped over their bodies and swarmed
over the barricade and into the redoubt. The Americans clubbed their guns and
swung savagely. Some of them beat back the light infantrymen, and others were
skewered with bayonets, stabbed again and again by the hated and fear-crazed
British soldiers, and over all a screaming, wailing sound of pain and terror.

Feversham
saw a bayonet coming at him. He had no memory of the man who held it or how he
was able to dodge the blade, but suddenly, he was on the ground, struggling
with the British soldier for his weapon, and then a militiaman swung his musket
against the soldier’s throat. With all the sound, Feversham heard the man’s
neck snap, and he scrambled to his feet, dazed as the battle surged around him.
He saw Prescott, standing on the barricade, swinging his sword, and all along
the barricade, the same wild struggle.

Later,
dressing Gridley’s wounds, Feversham heard the story of the fight in the
redoubt. A young fellow from Amesbury, name of Currier, took command with
Gridley after Dr. Warren was killed, shot through the head as the first marines
leaped over the wall, led by Major Pitcairn. The Negro slave—Gridley knew him
only by the name of Robert—shot Pitcairn and killed him, a sort of grim
justice, since Pitcairn had been in command of the troops that shot down the
minutemen at Lexington two months before. Gridley had laid about him with his sword,
and three other marines were either killed or wounded, which halted the attack
on the redoubt long enough for the rest of the men there to leap over the rear
wall, giving up the redoubt and running down the road to Bunker Hill.

Prescott
saw this pell-mell retreat from the redoubt. Knowing that now his right flank
was undefended, he realized that the less than two hundred men fighting the
bayonets of the light infantry on the barricade were getting the worst of it.
He shouted for them to retreat.

Putnam,
amazingly calm, yelled, “Follow me!” Along with Knowlton, he led the wild
scramble down behind the redoubt toward Bunker Hill, while Stark’s New
Hampshire men formed a sort of line, facing the British, their long rifles
presented, Stark at one end of the line, Prescott at the other end. About a
dozen of the New Hampshire men, their rifles still loaded, fired at the light
infantry, and six of the British soldiers fell. The British paused, and the New
Hampshire men, in an incredible display of calm and discipline, moved backward,
their rifles still presented. The ground between them and the barricade was
littered with the dead Connecticut and Massachusetts militiamen.
General Howe, standing on the wall of the redoubt, screamed,
“Onward!
Onward! Charge the fuckin’ bastards!”

Still, the
British held back.

Then
Burgoyne and Clinton burst through to the barricade, waving their swords
wildly, and Prescott yelled, “Run! Run!”

The
riflemen poured down the slope behind Breed’s Hill, the light infantry after them.
Feversham, who had witnessed this scene from a dozen paces behind the riflemen,
ran with them, desperately fighting not to stumble and fall. One of the
riflemen fell, and British bayonets stabbed into his back.

The
distance between the base of Breed’s Hill and the barricade Putnam had ordered
built that morning on the slope of Bunker Hill was no more than 150 paces. As
he ran down the hill behind the redoubt, Feversham saw, to his amazement, a
line of sixty-five men standing in open order and facing the oncoming British.
They stood like rocks, allowing the men racing away from the British to pass
through their line and forcing the oncoming mass of light infantry and marines
to halt their pursuit. The men running down from Breed’s Hill slowed, stopped,
and turned. The calm, stolid courage of these sixty-five men had an electric
effect on the militiamen who had been driven off Breed’s Hill and out of the
redoubt. The riflemen who had powder left reloaded with desperate speed, as did
those of the militia who had powder for their muskets, in all perhaps two dozen
of the Americans. They moved up Bunker Hill, walking slowly backward. Another
hundred or so men, who had been waiting as a second line of defense on Bunker
Hill, took courage and left their stone wall and advanced down the hillside.