The Schoolmaster's Daughter (42 page)

Benjamin watched the field pieces as they were being wheeled into place and prepared by teams of men, under the direction of officers, some of whom were on horseback. Equipment was still being unloaded from one of the barges, and the ammunition crates were carried up from the beach. Out on the water, longboats were returning with yet more soldiers.

“They are giving us time,” Lumley said. “To run.” He looked down along the wall, where men were still furiously reinforcing the redoubt. “I've never seen such confusion. Except for this fellow Prescott, no one's really in charge.”

“He's leading by example,” Ezra said.

True. Prescott spent much of his time striding back and forth along the top of the earthen wall in his shirtsleeves, white waistcoat, and broad-brimmed hat. He talked to men and he shouted orders, most of which were ignored. Men were constantly looking back toward the Neck. On the far side, the crowd of people had grown—Lumley estimated that there were at least two regiments—but because of the constant raking fire from the
Symmetry
, which stood in the river off the mill pond, few ventured across to the Charlestown peninsula. Several bodies could be seen lying in the road, taken down by grapeshot.

At one point, a couple of hundred men did cross the Neck, led by a tall thin man—word went through the redoubt that this was John Stark and his militia from New Hampshire. As they crossed the spit of land, the cannon fire from the
Symmetry
intensified, but Stark insisted that he and his men march across at an unhurried pace. The men in the redoubt cheered them on. A few of the New Hampshire boys fell, but most made it across and, after consulting with Prescott and Putnam, Stark led his men out to take positions behind the split rail fence that ran down the left flank toward the Mystic River.

After two o'clock, a horseman rode across the Neck, bringing another huzzah from the redoubt. Even from several hundred yards it was clear that the blond, finely-dressed gentleman was Dr. Joseph Warren. When he arrived at the redoubt, he met with Prescott, as well as several of his apprentices, who were setting up a field hospital farther up Bunker Hill. There was speculation that he would take command of the redoubt—the provincial congress had just granted him a military commission—but instead he removed his coat and accepted the use of a musket. When he joined the men along the embrasure, they greeted him with respect that bordered on reverence. He walked among them, pausing to talk with men as he went—many had been his patients, and he would ask after their wives and children.

As he approached Benjamin, Ezra, and Lumley, he shook hands with men all around.

“Still glad that you came over to our side?” he asked when he reached Lumley.

“I venture, sir,” Lumley said, “that if you stand up on the ramparts, the advancing redcoats will be blinded by the sun reflecting off that satin vest.”

The doctor laughed. “You know, I almost missed this occasion. All morning I was laid up in Cambridge with one of these headaches. Quite blinding it was, but I'd like to take a try with this musket. General Ward would surely join us, but he's got a bad case of gout.”

The men had often heard about the general's gout, but coming from Dr. Warren it caused them to laugh like mischievous children.

When the doctor shook Benjamin's hand, he smiled warmly. “You got out of Boston just in time, eh?”

“Yes, sir. I rowed across this morning.” Benjamin took a letter from his jacket. “My brother intends this for you.”

“Thank you, Benjamin,” the doctor said as he broke the seal on the envelope. “He is in good health?”

“Passable, sir.”

“I see. Well, you wanted to fight, Benjamin. And now this seems to be our day.” Warren became preoccupied with the contents of the letter as he moved on down the wall, still pausing occasionally to speak to men.

The men watched as the doctor moved on. Their faces were weary, covered with sweat and dirt. Yet they seemed encouraged, resolved.

Lumley gazed downhill toward the British soldiers. “They have a few such men, real leaders, but not enough. The way men are promoted, it's different. All too often a truly good officer will be bypassed. It has to do with, you know, breeding.” Then he grinned. “It don't account for much with your lot, does it? Not a duke, a baron, or an earl among you. I suppose you think you're better off.”

“It's what you came over for?” Ezra said. “It's what you're fighting for, is it?”

“Each of us, master of our own, and all that?” Lumley snorted. “Never work. You can't just eliminate things like greed and jealousy. There's always someone who's going to seek the higher place, the status of privilege.” He glanced at Ezra and then Benjamin, a glint in his eye that seemed complicit. “If we were smart, we'd take our chances now in crossing that Neck. Get to the other side and just keep going.” They stared at him, until he leaned forward and rested his arms and musket on the top of the wall. “I'm just saying it would be the reasonable thing to do, is all.”

Upon the command of their officers, the redcoats had begun to fall into formation. Each man bore full battle gear, which Lumley said weighed about a hundred pounds. He was keenly interested in the field pieces, which would be fired before the soldiers advanced up the hill. There were two twelve-pounders situated on Morton's Point, which began erupting, belching a flash of fire and a plume of white smoke from their barrels. The smaller, mobile guns, however, seemed to be encountering considerable difficulty. Their crews struggled to get them across the swampy areas near the beach, and their wheels often bogged down in mud.

“Too many problems there, it seems,” Lumley said. “It's not just the muck. Look at those men—they're not loading and firing. They should be doing so, even if they are stuck. Those guns should be doing most of the hard work here. We should already be torn to pieces, but those grasshoppers are silent. I don't understand it.”

“Look there,” Ezra said, pointing. “See how those men are going from one crate to another, opening them. And see that officer—he's livid.”

“That's Colonel Cleaveland,” Benjamin said.

Lumley shielded his eyes from the sun as he looked down the hill. “I believe you're right. He's the commander of artillery, but I don't understand what the problem is, why those guns aren't firing.”

Ezra had turned and faced Benjamin. “You know that officer by sight?”

Benjamin nodded. “His men have discovered that they have the wrong shot, the wrong gauge balls.” Lumley had also turned to look at him. “I switched them, last night.”

Ezra and Lumley considered this, until Lumley finally whispered, “No. No, those crates would have been stored in the armory at North Battery, and the colonel—”

“How did you do it?” Ezra said.

Benjamin looked down the hill, where the phalanx of soldiers was slowly beginning to advance, moving through the tall grass in tight formation. “It was all because of my sister,” he said.

“Abigail?” Ezra said.

“We went to North Battery and—” Benjamin paused. He wanted to look at Ezra but couldn't. “She provided a distraction while I worked on those crates.”

Ezra was quiet for a moment. “A distraction.”

“With the colonel of artillery.”

They all stared down at the columns of redcoats. Along the redoubt, men had put down their tools and had taken up their arms. Though the two twelve-pound guns on Morton's Point roared away, sending balls into the hillside, the smaller field pieces were useless.

“What kind of a distraction?” Ezra asked.

Benjamin didn't answer.

Shortly after Abigail returned to the sail loft, the cannon fire from the British ships and from Copp's Hill ceased. The silence was so heavy, so frightening, that Sympathy would not let go of her hand.

Joshua Tigge finally said, “They're on the march,” and everyone crowded toward the open windows. At first they were quiet, awestruck, but then some whispered
Good Lord
or
My God
.

Red phalanxes moved up the hillside with an undulating quality to their advance that reminded Abigail of how a flag might flutter in a slow breeze. Rags of smoke drifted across the sky, at times making it difficult to see across the harbor. Sporadic cannon fire could be heard from the small hill to the right of Breed's Hill, but smaller guns at the foot of the hill all were silent.

Joshua raised his spyglass to his eye and said, “There's some problem with their field guns. They should be peppering that hill right now.”

Abigail looked for smoke from their barrels but saw none. “It's the ammunition,” she said. Everyone turned and stared at her. “They have the wrong gauge balls.”

“How do you know?” Sympathy's mother asked.

“They're the wrong gauge,” Abigail repeated without bothering to look at the woman. “My brother Benjamin, he tampered with the cases.”

Sympathy's mother said, “It's that officer you've been keeping company with, isn't it? He had something to do with artillery, I heard in market.” Then she expelled a robust laugh. “They have the wrong
balls
over there, all right.” Other women began to laugh, hysterically, defiantly. “She had
his
balls, so that little brother of hers could have at
theirs.”

The women howled and chortled so now that the men became alarmed, even embarrassed. Some sought refuge by looking out the window again.

The men along the redoubt watched the soldiers come up through the tall grass, rising and falling with the uneven lay of the land. There were perhaps a dozen fences strung across the meadow, some wood, others stone. The soldiers were dressed in full battle gear, and their advance was ponderous, deliberate, but relentless.

Lumley scanned the field and said, “Looks different from up here, I tell you. Two thousand men, at least.” He seemed impressed, even proud as he watched. “To our, what, seven, eight hundred?” Turning, he glanced back at the hundreds of men gathered along the higher brow of Bunker Hill. “And do you suppose those bastards will come down here and join us? They'd likely double our numbers, but it's safer up there, and there's an excellent view.”

“Spectators,” Benjamin said.

“There're always spectators,” Lumley said. “And then there's us.”

Well down to the left, standing on the wall, Colonel Prescott was continually shouting encouragements to his men. Other men who had been designated officers ran behind the men, telling them to hold their fire. Benjamin recalled hearing about the morning on Lexington Green, how one shot was fired—no one knew where it came from, which side had fired first. Prescott kept shouting. One man quipped, “Whites of their eyes, he says. How close is that?”

“You'll know,” Lumley said. “The longer we wait, the better. And not all at once.” He looked at Ezra. “I'll go first, and then you, right?”

“You weren't too keen on shooting at your countrymen last time,” Ezra said.

“True.” Lumley turned and looked at Ezra.

“Right,” Ezra said. “Then you have first crack.”

“And you,” Lumley said to Benjamin. “Be ready to reload us quick.” He leaned toward Benjamin and whispered, “And after they get off a volley, there will be plenty of muskets. Find yourself one.”

Benjamin nodded.

Lumley looked up at the sky a moment, long enough that Benjamin did as well. “I always liked blue,” Lumley said.

When the first line of British soldiers was less than a hundred yards from the redoubt, Benjamin could make out distinguishing characteristics—hair color, noses, mouths: they were no longer a row of soldiers, but men. Some were young, their skin marred with acne. He kept expecting them to stop upon command, take aim, and fire, but they continued to climb up through the meadow. The grass collapsed before them, a dry, crisp sound.

Down to Benjamin's right, one man said, “Lord, I'm thirsty.”

Benjamin wondered if he was lightheaded from the lack of food and water. It seemed to give all that lay before him a rare clarity. He could now see brass buttons on the men's red coats. Each soldier was greatly burdened with backpack and cartouche box, and a Brown Bess fitted with bayonet. Each wore white belts, forming an X on his chest. Officers had silver plates about their necks, which glinted in the sunlight.

Lumley pointed off to the right. “See how they are coming up slower—the delaying action.” And then he swung his arm over to the left, where the British were approaching the fence. “And there they are in the lead. That's where they expect to break through, then they will swing round and come upon the redoubt from the side.”

When the front British line was less than a hundred feet from the redoubt, every musket was laid across the wall, but still no one fired. The soldiers were so close now that Benjamin could see sweat and dirt on their faces. With each step he expected someone to fire, but there was only a hard stillness. Everything seemed poised, while in the distance there was the squawk of seagulls on the harbor and the crackle of burning wood coming up from Charlestown village.

Then, off to the left, there was a single shot from behind the wood fence. There was shouting, and then the Americans opened fire, a burst of sparks and smoke all along the line. Benjamin had never heard such noise—it felt as though feather pillows had clapped over his ears. Soldiers in the front line fell by the dozen. They staggered, they sprawled, they turned in a circle and collapsed over each other in the grass.

Lumley had fired, and he thrust his musket in Benjamin's hands. As he tore open a cartridge with his teeth, Benjamin watched Ezra take aim and fire. The man he hit, an officer, fell to his knees and raised his head to the sky as if in submission, perhaps even in prayer, and then he lurched forward into the grass.

Benjamin worked quickly, without thinking, and then he handed the loaded gun to Lumley. Ezra gave him his musket, and Benjamin began loading again. The smoke was overwhelming. Some of the British soldiers fired, but many who had not been hit began to move back down the hill, first tentatively, as though they expected to charge at any moment, but then more and more of them began to turn and run downhill. Still the Americans fired, their shots now random and sporadic. There was the sound of huzzas all along the embrasure. Some men tried to go over the earthen walls and take chase, but they were restrained.