April 19, 1775.  Simon Winsett and his two brothers, Samuel and John, all of them Lexington militiamen, have marched to their cousin’s house by Spy Pond near Menotomy, Massachusetts Colony.   Their intention is to fight the British column that is retreating under heavy fire through Menotomy (present day Arlington) toward Cambridge and Boston.  Stopping by the cousin’s house to eat something before continuing on to Menotomy, they find that Mary, their cousin’s wife, is bedridden and that her disobedient daughter Prudence has wandered off.  Fearing that Prudence might fall accidentally into the pond (her grandfather had drowned there), they go searching for her: Samuel and John traveling the path along one side of the water and Simon the path along the other side of the pond.  It has been established earlier in the novel that Simon is disrespected by his family and is an outcast in the community.  His fighting the redcoats this day has been a concerted attempt to win favor.

 

"Rendered Mute"

Pages 358-362

 

           Samuel and John had sent him off to search this side of the pond while they walked the path paralleling the other side, reasoning probably that if Prudence had taken the path Simon’s way they would have seen her. Leave him waste his time investigating on the slim chance that she had crawled into some little nook of vegetation. Maybe that had been their thinking, more than their wanting to get rid of him. Whichever was true, he didn’t care. His day’s accomplishments had pretty much quashed his need to be resentful.

     The qualities that he had demonstrated no enemy of his could successfully deny. Any man that called him a scheming no-account would be seen for what he was, a peaching liar! Why, therefore, should he be angry about this assignment? Why not take advantage of it? Enjoy the sun’s warmth, Simon. Listen to the waterfowl. Look at the reflecting water. He would continue to push away low-hanging branches where burrows of earth and thickening moss might lay hidden. He would do that, knowing he wouldn’t find anything. Not a raccoon or any other wild animal certainly, which would be instantly gone upon hearing his approach. It didn’t matter. Samuel and John were right in their thinking. Let them find her. Let them receive Mary’s gratitude.

     He came upon where he and his brothers had forced their way onto the path. What lay ahead was new. Conceding the slim possibility that Prudence could have strayed this far and beyond, he would search more carefully, yet continue to enjoy his surroundings.

     Hearing the noise of nearby waterfowl, he stepped off the path and stood at the top of a steeply inclined bank, the terminus of a narrow inlet. Black-billed ducks, searching for food, were paddling through tall reeds. Perhaps old Jason Winsett had fallen in here. What made brother John such an authority about this, or anything else he claimed he had an answer for? John’s bluster and bantering ways, and the gullibility of fools! Why was it that he alone saw John for what he was?

     Simon, you’re bitter, he chided.

     What of it?

     He expected to hear at any moment a shout of discovery, a “Simon, we found her!” but, then, maybe not. More likely they would be thinking, Let old Simon wander about while we bask in Mary’s joy. John’s thinking anyway.

     Rather than voices he heard the distant pop of musketry. From Menotomy. A bit west of the town, he judged. So, the regulars had finished their rest at Will Munroe’s tavern and were about to catch hell. And he and his brothers had missed their chance to be a part of it. He thought it funny that they had walked five miles and might not have a thing to say for it tomorrow but that they had searched for a disobedient child.

     Simon came to where creek water emptied into another cove. Evergreen branches hid much of the little gully. Heeding his responsibility, he stepped off the path. Planting his left foot on a twisted root, he raised the lowest pine branch.

     Almost immediately he saw white leggings. A heartbeat after he beheld the grim face of a British soldier.

     Shock waves radiated beneath his flesh. God Almighty, was his first thought.

     “Stand easy! I be yer prisoner!” the large figure exclaimed.

     “What the hell!” Simon responded.

     “I naught be ‘avin’ me musket, see? I naught be wantin’ t’fight!”

     “All right, then,” Simon answered. God in heaven!

     “‘Ere. ‘Ave a look.” The soldier raised his hands above his shoulders. Simon noticed that he was big, and young, close to John’s age. A grenadier, he thought. Strong, and because he had gotten here so soon, damned swift!

     “I’m comin’ in,” Simon said, drawing back a second branch to see where he could place his left foot. “Don’t be tryin’ nothin’.”

     “Don’t be afeared o’ that. I’ll be stayin’ right ‘ere.” The soldier was seated on what looked like a flat-surfaced rock.

     Simon jumped; the branches recoiled. Straining to see, Simon remained stooped. Should have ordered him out! he thought. Stupid!

     “There be a little bank ye can sit on.” The soldier pointed. “Ye’ll see better in a bit.”

     Reaching with his right hand, Simon found the mossy surface.

     “Just be knowin’. I naught be intendin’ no ‘arm.”

     Simon sat on the bank.

     Silence.

     Simon was able to see the man’s features.

     “I coulda charged ye just now.”

     “I know.”

     “But I didn’t, see. I naught want t’fight.”

     Simon nodded. Had he sensed that?

     “That’s why I ran.”

     Like the wind! Simon had to ask. “How … how did y’get here so fast?”

     The soldier stared. Turning his head a bit, he listened to the far away sounds. Of a sudden he laughed.

     Sensitive to mockery, Simon flushed.

     “That? I be in this ‘ole ‘ours now.”

     “How’s that?”

     “When we be marchin’ past ‘ere in the dark, I be tellin’ me sarge I be havin’ t’drop a loaf, see? He didn’t like hearin’ it so I said in me best toad-eatin’ voice, ‘I’d not be wantin’ ye havin’ t’be smellin’ me backsides all the way t’Concord. Be back in a blink, I be.’ Got into some bushes, kept goin’, never looked back.” Watching Simon, the soldier grinned. “Not too comfortable ‘ere. Bloody stiff I be. Bloody ‘ungry, too. But I did drop me loaf!” The grin stayed.

     Simon wanted to smile.

     “You’re tellin’ me you deserted, early this morning? And you’ve been here ever since?”

     “I be mindin’ now maybe tis a mistake.” He sighed. He stared down his left leg.

     Seeing as how he had been discovered, yes, it had been a mistake. A big mistake!

     The young man touched his left knee.

     Simon had a second question. “Why did y’desert?”

     “Because … I don’t be wantin’ t’ …” He looked off. “I hate me life!” The grenadier’s eyes bored.

     “Why?” Simon asked after a reasonable silence. “Why do you hate your life?”

     The soldier glared. “I be a miner, not a bloody soldier!” He grimaced. “Least, I was a miner, ‘til the cough d’got me. Then what t’do? Work’n the fields? No ‘irin’. So I put on me stock, see. Floured me ‘air. Sold me soul t’the Sarge ‘n’ Lieuten’nt Hull!”

     “And now you’ve deserted.”

     The soldier scowled. “You against that?”

     “No. I want t’know why you chose today. Why not before? How long y’been in Boston?”

     “A lot a questions, rebel.”

     “I’m … curious.” Simon hesitated. “I don’t mean no offense.”

     The grenadier stared at him for several seconds. “Suspect not.” He flexed his left knee, grunted, extended the leg.

     Simon waited.

     “We come down from Canada, the 4th Regiment, last December. Too cold there. Bloody cold in the tents ‘ere. Then we moved into the new barracks. Like bein’ in a bloody gaol. ‘Ow t’get out? Some did; some from the 10th got caught! Not me! Figured I’d better wait.”

     Simon was taken by the soldier’s courage. Not too long ago he had considered leaving the family farm to start a new life in Connecticut. This was different. To have struck out blindly in a foreign land!

     “But … you must’ve had a plan!” Simon exclaimed.

     “Right. Like I said. ‘Please, sarge, I gotta go,’ hide in the bushes, run. That was me plan.” He winked.

     Simon laughed.

     Seconds passed.

     The soldier said, “The trouble ‘ere be I don’t be knowin’ what t’do.”

     “How’s that?”

     “I’m . . . afeared.” He looked away. “Ye be ‘earin’ that?”

     Simon listened to what was now fierce combat.

     “I’m affrighted t’be showin’ meself.”

     “I would be, too.”

     The soldier nodded.

     “What is it you want?” Simon asked, anticipating the answer.

     “I want t’be goin’ someplace, away from ‘ere. Go where I can work, be me own master!” He looked at his rolled up coat, wedged beneath his bent right knee. “Far away from that!”

     “Travelin’ about, lookin’ like y’are, talkin’ the way y’ do, that would be difficult.”

     Slivers of light were streaking through the branches.

     “All this while, I be sittin’ ‘ere thinkin’ and thinkin’. Comin’ up with nothin’. Maybe I should just give meself over.”

     “No!”

     Startled, the grenadier looked at Simon strangely.

     Surprised also, Simon knew his outburst required an explanation. He recognized as well that the soldier had stopped talking like a prisoner. “If you do,” Simon said, disturbed by the second thought, “the first angry militiaman that sees you will shoot you. Or you’ll get swapped for one of ours.”

     The young man grinned. “Don’t be wantin’ that.”

     “So, … what are you plannin’ t’do?”

     “Aye, there’s the rub.”

     Simon knew how the soldier might accomplish it. Provided he, Simon, helped! Because of what his life had been he was tempted. Tempted and threatened. Rendered mute, beside this humorous, pathetic redcoat, whose name he didn’t know, who wanted him to speak.

"God Is My Protector"

Pages 364-366

 

       Hannah Adams heard them burst open her front door. Upstairs in her curtained bed, scrunched in the fetal position, she implored her merciful Protector.

       Foremost in her entreaties was her infant daughter, Ann, asleep in Joseph’s handcrafted crib.

       She had pleaded for her husband’s and her older children’s safety; they had left the house; it was Ann now who needed her Lord’s protection!

       Her anguished husband had departed minutes ago, breaking his pledge to remain beside her.

       “Joseph, if you stay, they will kill you!” she had declared. “Go! Safeguard the children! I’m feverish, too weak. Hide in Reverend Cooke's hayloft. Go!”

       “I’ll not leave you!”

       “They’ll see I’m helpless. They’ll spare me. The Lord is with us.”

       She had watched him redirect his eyes, seen him move peculiarly his head.

       She had pressed her advantage. “You must pray for me, Joseph. Let us do what we can for ourselves and pray for the Lord’s intercession!”

       Turning his back, he had hidden his anguish.

       Watching him, she had felt a nascent resentment.

       “No time, Joseph. Do not delay! Leave! Now!”

       He had stood at the doorway, staring, a full thirty seconds. Making a choking sound, he had closed the door behind him. Listening to his footsteps on the stairway, she had beseeched again the All-Mighty Creator.

       Now her brutalizers, despoilers -- murderers? -- were ascending the stairs.

       She heard on the landing preparatory footfalls.

       The door, thrust open, slammed against the wall.

       Three soldiers rushed into the room. Heads swiveling, they inspected.

       One approached.

       Using his steel blade, he parted the curtains. He pressed the point of his bayonet against her left breast.

       “I have children!” she cried. “God is my protector! He will punish you!” She gripped the blade.

       “Damn you!”

       He glared.

       “We will not hurt the woman,” she heard a second soldier declare. “But she must leave the house. Immediately. For we shall burn it.” The soldier positioned himself at the opposite side of the bed. “Is that not the way of it, private?” he said, authoritatively.

       Muttering an oath, the first soldier stepped back.

       Hannah raised herself to a sitting position. She extricated her legs from her twisted bed sheets, placed her feet on the bare floor. Adrenaline enabled her to rise, enabled her to correct a sudden wobble. Reaching, she grasped and pulled to her chest the top blanket. Across the room, a bit dizzy, dropping the blanket, she gathered up her wailing child.

       Leaving the front door, she sank to a sitting position. Having secured every ounce of her ebbing strength, her infant clasped underneath her chest, grunting, she began the fifty-foot crawl to the door of the family corn-house.

       Reaching it, turning her body, she saw that soldiers had entered neighbor Jason Russell’s house. He, his wife, and their daughters, having had the sense to leave hours ago, were safe! Was Joseph safe? Were her children? He had sent them off to the Reverend Cooke! Had they been taken? She thought not. She was far less confident about him.

       She strained to hear the sounds of her house’s immolation. Why were they pillaging, burning, murdering?

       She heard the raised voice of her nine-year-old son Joel! Joel had returned!

       She prayed. She begged. She offered herself in his stead.

       Sensing change, she looked through the corn-house doorway. The last of the soldiers had moved beyond her house. Townspeople were following them.

       There, peering out the doorway of her house was Joel! Her impetuous Joel!

       Two men carrying buckets, heeding the gesturing boy, were hurrying to the door.



"Tied Tightly with Hope"

Pages 342-344

 



            Substituting for William Munroe -- a man with a deformed leg could still mix and tally drinks if he could sit awhile -- forty-three year old John Raymond hadn’t worried much about the soldiers returning. Hearing the redcoats were just about done in, being chased by a thousand militiamen, being shot at from every direction, what lobsterback would want to be stopping by for a tankard of ale? Dozens of militiamen would be doing just that, after the redcoats had been sent bleating and bawling back to Menotomy!

     He’d been wrong!

     Who would have predicted that an army straight from Boston, not the regulars leaving Concord, would arrive first?! Who could have imagined its commander making this tavern his headquarters?! Who would have thought these drinks he was mixing would be for the gratification of hordes of cutthroats?!

     It was their look much more than their hard words that frightened him. He knew what they had in store for him once they had had their fill of ale, flip, and hot toddies!

     That wasn’t going to happen! The first chance he had he would bolt out the back door. Get to the birch trees by the creek. He would have to cover a hundred feet of open ground, maybe too far! But then, because they were bone-weary and damn thirsty, and he was just one man, a cripple, having done them a service, they might just say, being he was already gone, “T’hell with the bugger!”

     Reaching the trees would be the first part. He’d have to get well past them. If he didn’t, it would be just his run of luck that some bloody redcoat, done emptying his bladder, would come pushing his way through bramble and discover him!

     Hope. Getting to the trees, finding a hiding place, getting rescued: all of it was wrapped all around and tied tightly with hope!

     When the time is right, you must do it!

     Ten minutes passed.

      Four regulars entered the tap room half-carrying two bloodied soldiers.

     “Lay ‘em down here,” Raymond said, pointing to that part of the room closest to the back exit. “I’ll just go push away these two tables.”

     “Shut yer flamin’ butt hole!” one of the soldiers assisting the two shouted.

     “Piss-mouthed gammer!” a second one snarled. “Y’naught be tellin’ us what t’do!”

     “Get o’r here!” yelled a red-faced lieutenant from the far end of the counter. “You’ll be fixin’ us drinks! Nothing more!”

     Every bloodyback villain was staring at him!

     He pointed toward the front door. “Look! More of your wounded! A major!”

     They turned. Raymond shoved open the back door.

     He was cut down twenty feet short of the trees. No one knew whose ball had been true. The burliest of the three, bothering to walk the distance, speared the writhing bartender with his bayonet.

      

 

     “It's gone through the bone. It’s lodged inside the skin.” The 43rd Regiment surgeon's mate, Mr. Simes, withdrew his bloodstained hands from Jeremy Lister's right arm. “Good time t’remove it, before we get t’ Menotomy.”

     Lister thought about it.

     “You'll be more ‘n’ some weak, but better t‘ave it out.”

     “How much will it hurt?” Feeling faint, the young ensign reached back with his left hand to locate the closest table.

     “Bloody ‘ell fire. Be less after it's out.”

     Finding the table, Lister sat. Staring at his dangling arm, he expelled air. “How deep will y’ave t’cut?”

     Simes shook his head, revealed a gap-toothed mouth. “I'll be getting’ the ball out easy enough. The arm won't be much good t’you though. Learn t’eat left ‘anded.”

     “Could have been worse,” Lister muttered. No, if he hadn’t been so bloody curious about seeing what the river crossing was about, this wouldn’t have happened!

     “I've got others t’tend. Make up yer mind.”

     Lister sighed. Tightening his lips, he nodded.

     Simes looked through the doorway into one of the tavern’s back rooms. “I'll do it on that table,” he said, gesturing.



"An Inexorable Rage"

Pages 317-319

 

            An inexorable rage had propelled him.

     Hurrying across broken fields, thrusting his way through branches of pine, lurking behind boulders, tree trunks, and weathered barns, he had committed terrible acts. He had killed his first soldier near Meriam’s Corner east of the little bridge, having fired off three balls in two minutes. He had dropped another where Mill Brook passed beneath a second bridge. He had participated in five minutes of shooting between each of three evenly spaced houses near the by-road to Lincoln. The first of these buildings had been a tavern. Outside a second tavern he had fired at a looter devouring a hunk of bread.

     Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord. It was not! It was his! His alone!

     God had killed his dearest friend!

     For twenty-five years James Hayworth had been Isaac Davis’s neighbor. James and his brothers and sisters had been raised some twenty rods down Farr’s To Meeting Road from the house of Ezekial Davis, Isaac’s father. James and his brothers, Samuel Jr. and Paul, had played with Isaac. They had labored together. They had taken their school lessons together, where James was now the school master. Every Sunday they had worshipped at the Meeting House. Weeks had passed during which he and Isaac had communicated daily.

     So worthy a leader, so beloved a mentor, so magnificent a friend, husband, and father!

     A week ago God had delivered to Isaac an enigmatic message. Perplexed, Isaac had permitted James -- who had come to the house to ask about Davis’s feverish daughter Mary -- to bear witness.

     “I want you to see something quite strange,” Isaac had said. “Come into the sitting room.”

     Isaac had gestured at his musket, positioned across two wall brackets. Perched on the musket barrel, its feathers ruffled, its dark eyes piercing, had been a barred owl.

     “How did it get in?!” had been James’s first question.

     “I have no idea.”

     “You’d think it would leave!”

     “It’s been here since yesterday. Hannah and I found it here when we came home from Jonas Hosmer’s.”

     Noticing that Isaac had placed rags on the floor to catch the bird’s droppings, James had said, “I’d drive it off.” He had wondered why Isaac hadn’t.

     “I’ve left the front door open. It refuses to leave.” For perhaps a half minute, showing the strangest of expressions, Isaac had stared at the owl. Its reciprocal scrutiny had been unrelenting. Turning to James, Isaac had said, “Ask your father about this.”

     “Ask him what, Isaac?”

     “Ask him if this owl’s visitation is an omen.”

     Later that afternoon James had related the incident. After frowning the Deacon had resumed his repair of the kitchen chair, James presuming that he would eventually comment. The following day the owl had flown out of Isaac’s house. That same day Isaac’s younger daughter, Hannah, had become ill.

     “Malignant sore throat,” Isaac had informed James that afternoon.

     That night James had beseeched God to be merciful. The All-Mighty Father had already taken to His house two of Isaac and Hannah’s children. The second child born to them, Baby Hannah, had died eight years ago after living one month. Two winters ago the infant Paul had survived but one week. Both of Isaac’s living daughters had contracted a disease that had killed at least three dozen children during James’s lifetime.

     If he could have foreseen what the owl’s visitation had
portended …

     But he hadn’t.

     Nor had Isaac.

     Eyes tearing, James seated himself in the shade of a tall maple, at the base of Fiske Hill. A corn shed belonging to a two-story, red-roofed house hid him from the back half of the redcoat column, which was laboring past. Feeling simultaneously God’s betrayal and Man’s innate cruelty, despising himself, he wept.

     Like the Biblical rider upon the pale horse he had administered horrific death!

     For what purpose?! Isaac was gone!

     The back of his head pressed fiercely against the maple’s rough bark, James heeded the cacophony of battle.

     We risk our lives to defeat tyranny! Why, Lord, do You punish us?!

     You have slain Isaac, to serve Your selfish purpose! You are cruel, Lord, heartless! Now take Your vengeance upon me!

     Minutes passed. His thinking shifted. A part of him asked, Who was he to pass judgment? His father had once said that a man was but a mote of dust amidst God’s great creation. He could no more fathom God’s design than he could the apostle John’s account of the opening of the seven seals. Was God speaking to him now? Answering him. Could he believe that God’s purpose had not been punitive or selfish? That His action had been -- so difficult for him to embrace -- necessary! Could he fire his musket again without believing he was being tricked?!

     Inspired by conviction, other men were fighting, whatever their inner turmoil. Should he not also, if not for pure justice then for something approximate? Maybe. But he would not. He had neither the strength nor the will. Nor the opportunity, the fighting having traveled to Lexington itself.



 

"Ye Are the King's Finest!"

 

Pages 314-316

 

    Pitcairn, ahead of the column, studied the wooded hillside to the left of the road’s summit. It was the briefest of examinations. As the front of the column reached him, musket powder exploded. Wailing soldiers broke ranks.

     Down the incline of the road they careened!

     He would have to seize this hill!

     How? Where were the soldiers with the requisite stamina and courage?!

     Nowhere.

     His lengthy career in the Marines had taught him the fallacy of equating assumptions with outcomes. Perversity did work its will upon the embattled. In perceived victory there could be unexpected loss. In certain defeat there was survival, escape, for the few, individual triumph. Good fortune, bad, entered, walked the boards, exited. Nothing perceived was absolute. Approaching him was a company from his own battalion, forty marines that the General had detached for Colonel Smith’s use.

     Standing on the road’s hillside embankment, he exhorted. “Marines! Ye are the King’s finest!” Pointing his sword at a company of grenadiers skulking past, he shouted, “There! Take heed! Cowards flee!”

     Shoulders squared, chin raised, Pitcairn marked them. “Every man of ye I trust! Marines do not flee! They fight! To save this arrmy we must climb this hill!”

     Their assent was coarse, guttural.

     “Together now, men! Brave hearts ye have! None braver! Grave duty it shall be! Two lines, lads! Quickly! Courageously! We will have these scoundrels know we do not countenance defeat! We shall take no quarter!”

     Pointing his sword at the hill, he shouted, “Advance!”

 

 

     The huzzahing of his men energizing him, he galloped ahead. Not more than 100 rods farther, at the bottom of the hill, he spied the inverse of valor! Looters were exiting a tavern! Many were carrying vessels of spirits. Others were clutching large, torn apart loaves of bread! How ravenously they chewed and drank!

     Galloping farther, he observed that the road ascended yet another elevation, the last, he prayed, before Lexington!

     Lexington. Their survival there would require strict obedience and zealous engagement! Beyond all expectancy! There, where the road crested, by threat of execution if need be, he would instill it!

       Hard riding took him past the front of the column to the top of the hill. Standing in his stirrups, facing the advancing soldiers, he shouted, “Halt! Ye will halt and forrm up!”

     He saw sweat-drenched, dust-encrusted soldiers possessing scarcely the strength to stand. How in God’s name am I to incite them? He began with six choice obscenities.

     “Beyond this hill is Lexington! We are the King’s soldiers! We are not afraid! Hear this!” His eyes scorched the faces of those closest.

     “We will have splendid fighting orrder! We will stay together! We will obey absolutely every officair! We will not yield! We will not succumb! Mark this! If we do these things, only if we do these things, we will prevail! Forrm up, two deep! Quickly now! Do it!” To the officers that had formed the restraining barrier behind him, he shouted, “It is imperative that ye enforrce this orrder down the column!”

     Off both sides of the road gunpowder blasted. Pitcairn's horse reared. Twisted in his saddle, Pitcairn toppled.

     Seated in the road, legs spread, he felt a sharp pain in his right hip, then in his right elbow.

     Had a soldier seized his horse’s bridle?! Ignoring the pain, standing, staring up the slope, he spotted his mount vaulting a fence, carrying to the rebels, holstered upon his saddle -- buggering crap! -- his prized, ivory-handled pistols!

       Desperate men were surging past him.

    Where was the fatigue he had witnessed?! Crazed, stampeding horses they were, charging down the long slope! Fleeing to Lexington hell-bent!