Crossing the River, Chapter 2, Section 2

 

Characters Mentioned

Browne, Captain John – 10^th Regiment. One of three spies sent to Worcester and Concord

Buckminster, Joseph – Framingham tavern owner

De Berniere, Ensign Henry – 10^th Regiment, spy, scout for Colonel Smith

Gage, General Thomas – military governor and commanding general of British forces stationed in Boston

Howe, Corporal John – servant of Captain Brown. Spy

Jones, Issac – Worcester tavern owner

Maps

Chapter 2, “A Pinch of Freedom,” Section 2

He heard behind him the clopping sound of an approaching horse. They had been passed twice by disinterested travelers. This one, too, would probably not want to talk. Walking ten feet behind his officers, his head down, he trudged.

Seconds later, he saw that the rider, ahead of them now, had stopped. He was staring at them! Blood and bones! The day’s first excitement! What should he say? “We be intendin’ t’visit a friend,” a friend that had better be living in some distant town, he thought, the rider more than naught a local! And there was Browne, and De Berniere, musket-barrel straight -- he had to laugh -- taking measured strides toward this provincial like soldiers on parade!

The rider turned his horse, moved it forward. The man looked twice over his right shoulder. Seconds later he kicked his horse’s ribs. They disappeared over a hill.

A bit of excitement that! Howe thought. Whoever the man was, he’d gotten his eyeballs’ full! What would his two Jack-Puddings be deciding to do now?

They formed a triangle in the middle of the road.

“That, I suspicion, was a militiaman,” Browne began.

“He takes with him a detailed account of us, make no doubt!” De Berniere answered. “Expect his return, with, at a minimum, ten militiamen!”

Browne rubbed his chin.

The rasp of a crow reached Howe from tree limbs beyond a damp field.

“Since it is some distance to Marlborough, the nearest settlement,” De Berniere offered, “we are safe, for awhile. We need not be alarmed.”

Howe disagreed.

“An hour would you say?”

“Perhaps.”

“Then we should carry on, locate a copse of trees, a barn, remain there until after they pass,” Browne said.

What would be the sense of that? Howe thought.

De Berniere touched, then scratched his left ear. “Let us not forget, sir, that to carry on we must pass through Marlborough.”

Wanting to grin, Howe stared at his shoes.

“Corporal Howe!”

He almost jumped.

“What, corporal, is your take on this thorny situation?” His hands gripping his elbows, De Berniere waited.

Hell fire!

Howe fought the urge to swallow. He swallowed. There stood Browne, eyebrows raised like a magistrate’s, expecting something stupid. “I’ve … I’ve a mind we d’go back t’ Worcester,” he said, facing De Berniere.

“Back to Worcester?!” Browne exclaimed. “What in God’s name for?!”

“By yer leave, Captain,” Howe answered, hiding his resentment. “There's naught but difficulty ahead an' the only other road t’Boston be the old one we d’take.”

Browne stared down his bony nose.

“So I figure we should go back through Worcester, not stoppin', get on t’Grafton, an’ spend the night at Framingham, where we was before.”

“Humph.”

Browne scowled at distant treetops. Staring at the crest of the hill where the militiaman had disappeared, De Berniere slapped his right thigh.

Why did you bother to ask?

“Damme, to turn tail and run! I do not countenance it!”

“But the alternative, Captain?”

“Yes, the alternative!” Brown pressed his right thumb against the side of his jaw. He spat on the dirt. “I allow there is more danger ahead of us than behind. Damme, I allow that!”

Howe realized De Berniere’s purpose.

“Clearly the rider intends to intercept us,” the ensign responded.

He waits, giving Browne time to own his thinking. Howe scraped the soles of his shoes on the road’s gritty surface.

They would be returning to the inn at Framingham after all, which was what De Berniere had expected him to say. Back to the same room, maybe, he the servant, arranging the basin of hot water, the towels, the sponge, wringing the sponge over the basin after the two had bathed, emptying the murky water in the mound of pine needles outside the inn’s rear door. He was taken suddenly by De Berniere's use of him. It suggested the ensign had some regard for him. Had he been De Berniere’s servant, his situation might have been acceptable. But he was Browne’s servant!

“All right! Damme! Discretion having primacy, I agree!” Browne grimaced. “We will walk through Worcester without stopping, allowing us to reach Buckminster Tavern before dark!” He frowned at the roadway. “The General's troops would not take this road anyway!” he declared. “No need, therefore, to waste our bloody breath mapping it!”

From his upstairs window Ensign De Berniere had watched the Framingham militia drill on the town common. For thirty minutes the provincials had marched to commands beat on a drum. These were the farmers, shopkeepers, would be soldiers that every British officer derided.

They were lean men. Young men and older men but healthy, vigorous men. Muscular. Accustomed to hard work, De Berniere judged.

They appeared very different from British enlisted men, taken mostly off the streets and out of taverns and jails, uneducated, unmotivated failures one step above animal proclivity. You controlled them with stern discipline. You indulged them with beer and access to women and in foreign locations you allowed them -- though not in Boston -- to pillage.

The militia captain called his company to attention. De Berniere listened to the officer’s oration.

New England militia had helped defeat the French and their allies, the savages, in the late war. England would not have prevailed in America without their skill and courage. “Americans are equal to the best troops of any nation.”

Rubbish!

Scornful of the character of the individual British soldier, De Berniere knew what excellent training and harsh discipline accomplished. No soldier anywhere was the equal of the aroused, resolute grenadier! The militia captain had spoken pretty words.

His advice, however, was accurate! Be cool under fire, be patient, control your fear. Always wait for the command to fire; afterward, as a disciplined unit, charge. De Berniere could not have instructed better.

The dismissed men cheered their captain! In a mass they converged on the tavern’s front entrance. For more than an hour De Berniere, Browne, and Howe heard them tramp and jest, reveling in their “pot-valor,” delaying their return to wives, children, and parents.

Witnessing in drill these merchants, mechanics, and soil tillers had been instructive. British trained and directed, they would make a formidable opponent. Because they were not so trained, despite all their drilling and speech making, they would remain cross-minded, boisterous peasants!

They walked the nine miles to Weston the next day without incident. Having consumed a sumptuous dinner at the Golden Ball Tavern, they returned to their room satiated. Standing beside the door jam, watching the officers remove their boots, Howe sighed.

This last day, maybe because he had wanted to savor it, had been the best of the lot. It had begun with a hearty breakfast, served to him affably by the Framingham tavern owner, Joseph Buckminster. He had enjoyed the sun’s warmth during their short walk, but a stroll, it had seemed, down a country lane.

A warm bath at the day’s end had removed the last vestiges of discontent. His having been the last of the baths, he had stood in a large wash basin in the middle of the floor, Browne and De Berniere pouring water over him from two pitchers, one hot and one cold. He had lathered himself with strong lye soap. Afterward, they had cleansed him with additional rinse water. Using large, coarse towels, he had dried himself.

Invigorated, he had accompanied the officers downstairs to satisfy a great hunger. Roast beef, steak-kidney-oyster pie, and a colonial dish they called Indian pie -- yellow cornmeal which, according to the proprietor, the cook had baked eighteen hours in a brick oven -- washed down by pewter tankards of ale!

Would he ever enjoy such a fine meal again?

He stepped into the room. De Berniere was staring at him.

What had he done?!

Instantly, he knew. Their mission was ending; his freedom was ending. Wanting him to know it, they were going to dress him down.

“Captain Browne and I have decided to return to Worcester. By ourselves. You will return to Boston with my sketches.”

Howe’s face colored. About to speak, he turned his head.

Arms akimbo, Browne scrutinized.

“We shall return to Worcester by way of Sudbury and Marlborough. Logic persuades us to believe that, sufficient time having elapsed, the ambuscade that we had anticipated has been disbanded.”

“Why don’t y’want me with you?” he blurted. Embarrassed, he looked sideways.

De Berniere raised his eyebrows. “You are not content with this, I see.”

“No need to justify our decision, De Berniere.” Aiming his nose, Browne scowled.

“Forgive me, Captain, but I must disagree.” De Berniere made a deprecating gesture. “I presume that we both agree, do we not, that the corporal has exercised craft in assisting us?” He waited for Browne’s acknowledgment, a curt nod. “The explanation for our decision,” De Berniere stated, addressing Howe, “is two-fold. I must map this other road to Worcester. Our duty necessitates it. Should we be apprehended -- our experiences having strengthened in our minds that potentiality -- we would not want what we have previously written and mapped taken from us, would we?”

Howe recalled Browne's statement that the Army would not use this road. How he wanted to wipe Brown’s eyes with it!

“Better that the General have in his possession what we have thus far accomplished than not one scrap of information should the three of us be arrested.”

Howe nodded. He turned away. He walked to the dingy window, pretended to look through the glass.

There was nothing that he could say to change their decision. 

Crossing the River, Chapter 2, Section 1

Characters Mentioned

Browne, Captain John – 10^th Regiment. One of three spies sent to Worcester and Concord

De Berniere, Ensign Henry – 10^th Regiment, spy, scout for Colonel Smith

Gage, General Thomas – military governor and commanding general of British forces stationed in Boston

Howe, Corporal John – servant of Captain Brown. Spy

Jones, Issac – Worcester tavern owner

Map

Chapter 2, “A Pinch of Freedom,” Section 1

    Encumbered by intermittent cloudbursts, they walked the nine miles of muddy road to Framingham, De Berniere sketching topographical and wooded trouble spots. Six miles short of their destination -- John Howe having disappeared behind a stand of pines to relieve himself -- De Berniere broached his solution to their third perceived difficulty.

He began obliquely. “The mud makes its attempt to disguise our disguise.”

“Disguise? Mmm, yes. I take your meaning. That nestlecock in the wagon. Tearing suspicious, he was!”

“Indeed, Captain. Despite our dissembling endeavors we are conspicuously British! The behavior of the landlord, Jones, was further evidence.”

“Mmmm. Yes.” Centering his weight on the heels of his shoes, Browne rubbed his ample chin. He looked down his thin nose. “I suppose we shall have to do something! Our attire. As you say, it declares, ‘Arrest us!’ What's to do?”

“Sir. What would you suggest?”

Browne’s face flushed.

Lord, I’ve embarrassed him!

“When I ask you a question, ensign, I expect an immediate answer, not a question!”

“Yes sir.”

“Be advised not to make game with me!”

“No sir, I would not, sir.”

“Answer the question! What have you to advise?”

“Nothing, sir, beyond what you yourself, I am certain, have contemplated.” He regarded Browne guilelessly.

Arms folded across his chest, Browne frowned. “Perhaps not, but I want to hear.”

“Yes sir. I should be happy. Permit me, however, to say that I was seeking by my question the opportunity to profit from your appreciation.”

“Of what?”

“Of our situation.”

“Yes, yes. Go on.”

“Yes sir. I shall.” De Berniere straightened. “First, … do you not think, sir, that the less we converse with the local inhabitants the less we endanger ourselves?”

“I do.”

“Yet some intercourse must transpire?”

“It must.”

“Though I have knowledge of how the provincial speaks, I confess I have not the vocal facility to mimic him.”

“I couldn't speak his buggering tongue if life depended on it!” Staring over De Berniere's head, Browne scowled.

“Indeed, sir. You have identified our predicament precisely.”

Again Browne looked past him. De Berniere detected a blush of satisfaction. Proceed cautiously, he told himself.

“As to the matter of communication,” he continued, hesitantly, “have you considered Corporal Howe’s usefulness?”

“Howe? God’s life, explain yourself!”

“To act as our spokesman, if you will. Do you think he has the right necessities? He does have the common touch, I would say.”

Browne drew his lips back against his teeth. De Berniere waited for the idea to germinate.

“I admit that he does talk like them, being the lout that he is. As for knowing what to say, … what not to say …”

“He was quick to recognize the wagon driver's suspicions.”

“Yesss. But to know what to say … I suppose we could direct him beforehand, …”

“I conceive that we could.”

“But, damme, I do not like it! We should have to treat him as a bloody equal!” Browne’s scowl persisted.

“In public you mean.”

“Exactly!”

“He will eat with us in taverns.”

“Precisely.”

“If I catch your meaning, sir, he must be one of us, or rather, if he is to represent us in conversation, we must in our deportment be quite like him.”

The Captain harrumphed.

“I see,” De Berniere said. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

“I do not fancy the arrangement, De Berniere, but, given the importance of our assignment, I accept its necessity.” Looking past the ensign, focusing on the pines into which Howe had disappeared, Browne glowered. “He has been my servant several months. I am not entirely satisfied with him. This will swell his head. He will come out of this expecting a commission, which if I have my say, he will not receive!”

“Little chance of that, I should think, sir.”

“I suspect not. I fancy not!” Browne answered. “Cuffy enlisted men do not become officers. But I will not tell him! What we have decided. Tell Howe what we have agreed upon, how he must proceed. Unless he gets above himself, I shall not speak to the man!”

They arrived at Buckminster Tavern in Framingham in the late afternoon. Speaking confidently to the proprietor, then to three servants separately, Howe performed his assigned task, De Berniere closely attending.

Entering Worcester the following day, February 25, De Berniere had become cautiously optimistic.

Not one provincial had exhibited suspicion while they had waited that morning for the Buckminster cook to prepare their lunch -- boiled tongue and cherry brandy -- which they were to take on the road. Thereafter, Browne, following De Berniere’s suggestion, had announced that they would not stop at any tavern during their thirty mile trek. Having covered the distance without incident, De Berniere was hopeful he would obtain the Worcester innkeeper’s complete assistance.

A sour-mouthed, balding man, the landlord was a relative of the Weston tavern owner. Both had the same name, Isaac Jones. Accepting De Berniere’s invitation, Jones accompanied the three soldiers to their room. Two weeks earlier, he immediately told them, Worcester’s militia had ordered all townspeople to shun his establishment. Thenceforth, he had been treated with contempt. “As certain as November rain” he was being watched. Listening to the man’s whining discourse, De Berniere again felt thwarted. Only after they had established their credibility, aided in no small measure by their demonstrations of empathy, might this peevish man be willing to impart what they wanted. The next day being Sunday -- Jones having told them that Massachusetts law forbade anybody on the streets during the hours of church service -- they would have sufficient time to sway him.

Sunday dawned through dark storm clouds. Speaking to Jones while taking his breakfast, De Berniere was pointedly cordial. Browne, following De Berniere’s unspoken prompt, behaved amiably. Between breakfast and the mid-day meal, adding details to his topographical sketches, De Berniere questioned whether inviting the proprietor to inspect his work might work to his advantage.

Shortly before the noon hour -- the ensign yet speculating -- Jones appeared at their door. Two gentlemen wished to speak to them.

“Who are they?” Browne asked.

“Friends, let me say.”

“But do we know that?”

“I know it as fact!”

“My companion is apprehensive because your establishment is watched,” De Berniere interpreted. “It follows that these ‘friends’ are also watched. If we should receive them,” he said gently, “it could be to our detriment.”

“I will not have our purpose compromised,” Browne declared.

“As you wish.” His face devoid of expression, Jones left the room.

“May God save us from inquiring friends!” Browne exclaimed after the landlord had descended the stairs.

Half-turned, De Berniere glimpsed on Corporal Howe’s face a chary smile.

A half hour later the sour-faced proprietor returned.

“The gentlemen have left,” he announced. “I bear their message.”

Raising his chin, Browne managed to look down his nose. “And?”

“They know you to be British officers.”

“Indeed! I think not!”

“Be advised that but a few friends to government know you’re in town.”

“What then was their purpose in coming?” Browne said sarcastically.

“That all the Loyalists of Petersham have been disarmed. The same is about to happen here.”

Browne grunted, angled his head, uttered an expletive. “Then I suppose we shall have to conclude our business tonight!”

De Berniere agreed. He had anticipated generalized hostility; he had not expected preemptive militancy. Jones’s establishment was watched. Three strangers had spent the night. Prominent Tories had subsequently visited. He and Browne could not risk further delay. Nor could he allow Browne to commandeer -- conviviality already shot to pieces -- this conversation!

“You are to direct us this evening to where the town’s military stores are safe kept,” Browne said.

Jones stiffened. “Not tonight! Not any night!” Eyes flashing, he fixated on the officers’ personal effects, arranged neatly on a narrow table beside their bed.

Five seconds elapsed.

De Berniere spoke. “Let us talk gently about this …”

“Damn your bleeding tongue!” Browne bellowed. “By God, I shall rip it out! Do not tell me what I do not want to hear!” His face choleric, Browne advanced. “Your loyalty, man! Your loyalty to the King! You will assist us! ”

“So I have, as far as keeping myself safe. And I'm not so certain of that!” Appalled, De Berniere watched Browne rise on the balls of his feet, lift aggressively his hands.

“You need not endanger yourself. If you think that, I have misspoke.” -- Too late, De Berniere thought, too late, Captain, for that! -- “We are not behindhand in our regard. We are sensible of your difficulty!”

“Entirely,” De Berniere responded. “Let us talk about this.”

Looking between them, not at them, Jones glared.

“We ask only that you stroll with us about the town, in the direction of the stores. You need not point out the stores’ location! Your word of it upon our return will answer.”

Isaac Jones shook his head. Browne’s neck muscles tightened.

“You must accompany us to the site! We must inspect it!”

“I am a watched man. You want me to walk the street with strangers who walk as soldiers, with no purpose apparently but to socialize, when my business is here in this tavern, where I would do that and no place else. I will not!”

Browne’s large body expanded. “You blackguard! You … offspring of a rancid whore!” Storming past the proprietor, he pulled the door open. “Out! Get out!”

John Howe fantasized.

Who could say what a resourceful young knave might discover prowling about in the dark? He imagined himself, holding his shoes, stealing out the door while the two officers snored. Thirty minutes later he would be looking at a weather-worn outbuilding, inside which the town’s powder was kept. The next morning, when they were all downstairs, he would mention the building to Innkeeper Jones to see how the grouch-faced proprietor reacted. The secret out -- Jones admitting to it -- De Berniere, flaming amazed, would declare, “I’ll be damned!”

“Howe. Pack our effects.”

He started.

De Berniere gestured at the table and the floor. “We are finished here. We leave for Boston tomorrow morning, by way of Shrewsbury, Marlborough, and Sudbury. Leave my sketching material separate. I will be mapping the way.”

“Yes sir.”

They had given up!

He wondered just how useful De Berniere’s sketches of this or any road would be without the General knowing the whereabouts of the town’s powder. It would be like readying the squire's horse for the hunt, he wanted to say, without knowing the day of it. So it was too bad for the Yellow Sashes back at the Province House, and too bad for them. To be defeated, despite all their work, by one sour-faced innkeeper!

Not if he had been in charge.

The next morning Howe had changed his anger to disappointment. Better to have their mission end poorly, he had reasoned, than not to have had it. He had relished the physical activity, the food, and the lodging. He had enjoyed the locals, very much like him, commoners he had sometimes chatted while Browne and De Berniere had kept their mouths shut, trying to be like him! Entertainment! The fun of watching De Berniere get his way without Browne knowing it! Never had he been entertained so much beginning with the day the black tavern maid, flirting with him, had identified Browne.

Captain Browne! Maybe the man knew something about soldiering, but he was not his better!

Walking these roads had given him lengthy stretches of time to think!

Foremost of his thoughts was how much his life had changed since that day he had signed up! A stable boy at Audley, his father a personal servant to the Squire, he had chosen to put on the red coat and white stock and here he was tramping about Massachusetts Colony the servant of a simpleton captain turned spy! Not in his wildest imaginings!

His decision to leave Audley had been plain eighteen-year-old stupid! How quickly he had come to hate soldiering! During the rare occasions when he had been permitted the chance to think, he had analyzed his mistake.

He had come to see himself a beast of burden, each day suffering the same food -- salt beef and beer -- the same work, the same abuse. Several months ago he had had the mind to change that. His father, by example, had taught him how to serve the high and mighty. The company captain's servant having died of the malignant spotted fever, Howe had pressed his case. Here he was on this gray, wet winter morning walking this road because that very captain, wanting to advance his career, had volunteered to try his hand at spying!

       Serving Browne had not been that much of an improvement. His food and lodging were better; his work was not. The plow was gone; the bit in his mouth had remained. Walking these country roads, served at the same tavern table with Browne and De Berniere, given a pinch of freedom to exercise his lights, he had enjoyed the bit’s temporary removal. He would be back in Boston very soon, back to the same drudgery, to Browne’s daily abuse. Twice this morning he had thought about the lad in the teamster’s wagon. Doing that would be the ultimate right turn in any young knave’s life, wouldn’t it? The hard part about making that big a change, he thought, was not the doing so much but not knowing whether the doing was smart or stupid. What was so special about the lives of these country people, he wondered, that made them so rebellious? 

Crossing the River: Chapter 1

 Today I begin a series of chapters from my first novel, "Crossing the River," about events in 1775 that began the Revolutionary War.

Characters Mentioned

Brewer, Jonathan – proprietor of a Waltham tavern

Browne, Captain John – 10^th Regiment. One of three spies sent to Worcester and Concord

De Berniere, Ensign Henry – 10^th Regiment, spy, scout for Colonel Smith

Gage, General Thomas – military governor and commanding general of British forces stationed in Boston

Howe, Corporal John – servant of Captain Brown. Spy

MacKenzie, Lieutenant Frederick – adjutant general of the 23^rd Welsh Fusiliers Regiment of Foot. Amateur cartographer

MacKenzie, Nancy – Wife of Frederick MacKenzie

Map

Chapter One, “A Very Fine Country”

      Feeling his wife's hand on his right shoulder, MacKenzie put down his quill.

“You laugh,” she teased.

Closing his eyes, he placed the back of his head against her enlarged abdomen.

“You are a sober sides, husband,” she said, cupping his right ear. “Pray that your soldiers hear you guffaw … on occasion.”

“Pah! Twould be the regiment’s ruination!”

“Lieutenant Frederick Mackenzie, 23rd Welsh Fusiliers Regiment of Foot,” she mocked. “Lieutenant Discipline. Though at times, … devoted father.”

“At all times.”

“Would that the soldier with dirty cross belts receive such devotion.”

He chuckled.

“The proof, dear husband, is not to be found in your words but in your actions. Your daughters demand your attention.” She tapped his left shoulder.

He secured her forearm. He stroked it. As vivacious and radiant as when he had courted her, she was his counterweight to what with rare exception had been a tedious existence. “But a few minutes more, my dear,” he responded. “To order my thoughts.” Enjoying her close proximity, he gazed at the half-filled page of his journal.

“Ill-formed words, Frederick, from such an …”

“Ill-forged mind?”

“Orderly mind. You should not interrupt. Wiggly words I should have said. Pray what has aroused your humor? I must preserve it. Store it in a bottle.”

Face beaming, he pointed at his compressed lips.

“Speak, chuff cove! Do not make sport with me!” To observe him better, she walked half way around his desk.

He touched the folded dispatch beside his journal. “General Gage inquires if there are officers with drawing experience that would make sketches of the countryside.” He studied her expression.

“Why is that … basis for mirth?” The skin at the corners of her eyes crinkled.

“Tis not his words, my dear, but his intentions that I find amusing.”

“General Gage would enjoy your description of his intentions.”

“I will not provide him the opportunity.” He smiled, wryly. “You have misconstrued my meaning. His intention, to find somebody to ‘sketch the countryside,’ is reasonable. What amuses me is what he tries in this dispatch to hide.”

“Oh? And what, Mister Constable,” she said merrily, “is that?” She was surprised at his change of expression.

“Something rather dangerous actually. For those who volunteer.”

“Indeed.”

“He wants officers that will map roads and bridges to Worcester and just as probably Concord, where the provincials are storing powder and such. He desires, in a word, spies. Having the ability to draw.”

“And you?” she asked, after a lengthy pause.

“Not I.”

She maintained her doubting look. He felt a rush of temper.

“I sketch what interests me. As you well know,” he said, gruffly. “I am not a young whelp. I have you and our family and our future child to factor. I’ll not be risking my neck and your welfare to play at spying!”

“That is a comfort.”

“Somebody else, somebody reckless, will!” He touched his eyelids, blinked, tapped with an index finger his blotter. “You needn’t worry,” he said, less aggressively. “The General will having lean pickings. He should be the one to worry, not you.”

Neither her head, her arms, nor her hands moved. “Why does he want maps of roads and bridges?”

He scowled. “To know what obstacles lay before him when he sends foot soldiers. Nancy! Trust what I say! It will not be me!”

He watched her dissect his words.

At length she asked, “Will they fight?”

“Who?”

“The provincials! Your friends believe they’re cowards. Will they?”

“Have they not made preparations to?”

She studied him a full five seconds. “Attend your daughters when you deem it convenient,” she said. Averting her face, she left the room.

It was her accustomed way of punishing him.

Knowing that she expected him to follow, he stared, resentfully, at his written words.

“January 8, 1775. It has been signified to the Army, that if any officers of the different regiments are capable to taking sketches of a country, they are to send their names to the Deputy-Adjutant General.”

“Will they fight?” She had gotten to the heart of it.

Angry commoners in the Boston streets shouted their contempt daily. A year ago they had destroyed a ship’s entire cargo of tea. 4,000 soldiers were encamped on Boston’s narrow peninsula. Angry? Rebellious? Yes. Would they wage war against His Majesty's Foot? He didn’t think so.

Nevertheless, Gage's spies would operate at great risk. The General would do well not to select officers motivated by the desire for promotion, or fire brands ablaze for adventure. Who else but the reckless or the ambitious would apply? Gage needed experienced officers possessing wisdom, judgment. He would not get them. Utilizing those attributes, they would decline to volunteer.

As for the ability to draw maps, “I am afraid,” MacKenzie wrote, “not many officers of this Army will be found qualified for this service. It is a branch of Military education too little attended to, or sought by our officers, and yet is not only extremely necessary and useful in time of war, but very entertaining and instructive.”

2

The black woman who labored amongst the tables took little notice of the three men standing near the front doorway until one of them, a blonde-haired, lean-bodied youth, separating himself, walked toward the kitchen. Widowed, gregarious, passionate, she appraised his physical attributes. Afterward, she regarded, less lasciviously, his traveling companions, who were taking chairs at a nearby table.

One of them was two or three years older than the boy now in the kitchen. He was, perhaps, twenty-two, twenty-three, dark-featured, slightly built, angular-faced. She watched his eyes, his inquisitive eyes -- face devoid of expression -- study each customer while his companion, fifteen or twenty years his senior, spoke. When his eyes fastened upon her, feigning indifference, she looked away. Having collected empty tankards and dishes from a vacated table, she walked into the kitchen.

When she returned, the dark one was speaking to the older one. She studied the man who now listened. Broad forehead, round eyes in close to a thin nose, large lips -- a face his mother had probably regretted -- his was a countenance quite different from the many that demanded each day her service. Using a wet cloth, snorting derision, she brushed pastry crumbs off the top of an empty table.

When they spoke to her, telling her what they wanted, she knew they were British officers. The way they spoke, the way they moved their heads as they spoke, their gestures: all was too familiar. For six years she had worked in a Boston tavern off King Street, an establishment frequently attended by the scarlet-coated officers of His Majesty's foot.

She had quit her job there and had left Boston during the first week of December. One of her current employers, Jonathan Brewer, had hired her the week before Christmas. Normally thick-skinned, she had had more than her fill of the arrogant, besotted British gentleman. One could not smile, banter, or laugh indefinitely when the jibes she parried revealed a bigoted nastiness. With their first words the two officers at the table had exposed themselves. The one with the broad forehead and thin nose she had previously seen.

Angrily, she returned to the kitchen.

Who was he? His name! She believed she knew his name. She glanced at the not pretty but rather handsome youth eating kidney pie at a little table pushed against the far wall. He was not an officer. More probably he was a servant of the man whose name escaped her. Enlisted men never ate in the same room with officers, one fact of many that she had involuntarily gleaned from her Boston patrons.

“More ale for you, sir?” she asked.

He glanced up at her, grinned, started again to chew.

“So you like eating here in the kitchen t’eating with your friends? What's wrong with them now?” She laughed with good humor.

“Oh, they be weary o' me. They want t'talk, I think, ‘bout me, private like. They be strangers here 'bout, surveyors, y' know. They hired me t'show ‘em about. Now I think they might be wantin’ t’give me the boot.” He shrugged, offered her a silly grin.

“How do you weary them, boy? Do they not take t’funnin'? You have that look about you, seems to me.”

A mischievous grin. “Tis true, ma'am. Tis true. They're a stiff bunch, all serious like. They'll have their maps out in front o' them in a minute, you'll see. You watch.”

Well, she didn't resent him, despite his being a soldier -- he might have passed as a young apprentice had she not connected him. In truth, she fancied him, despite being four or five years his senior. But when had age mattered, she reminded herself, when the look of a light-hearted, well-featured man had stirred her?

The one in the other room, the one she had recognized, his name was Browne. Such a common name. It had come to her, effortlessly, while she had been thinking of the boy. She had seen Browne five years ago. Browne had come to the Boston tavern often, right up until the time of the Massacre. His regiment had then left the city. During the past three months -- during her absence -- the regiment had evidently returned. From Canada. What was he doing here, dressed in his silly costume, the same costume this boy and the dark officer wore? Pretending to be surveyors, wearing brown clothing with red handkerchiefs tied around their necks, country people they were pretending to be!

Standing in the passageway to the taproom, she saw that they had spread a map across the table. The dark officer was pointing a stiff forefinger at the center of it. Browne nodded. Oh yes, they were surveying. They were taking a lay of the land. They were spies, insulting her intelligence!

Well, she would play with them a bit. She would let them fancy their success. When they left the tavern, she would tell her employer. He would send their description to the local militia, and that would be the end of Officer Browne! Good riddance. But not of the boy in the kitchen.

Having served the two officers their food, she watched the blonde-haired servant finish his tankard of ale. Smiling across the kitchen at her, he placed the vessel noisily on the table. Straightening his legs, leaning backward, he sighed. She walked over to him.

“The bigger one in the other room. The one with the thin nose. I know him.”

His eyes flashed. “Oh, I don't think so. They be strangers to the county, like I said. They've not been here before.” He looked at her guilelessly.

Oh, he was good, likable, convincing.

“I know your Captain Browne from a Boston tavern where I worked, maybe five years ago. I know your errand. You mean to take a plan of the country for your General Gage, I think.”

He moved his legs, then his upper body. He started to rise. Placing a hand on his left shoulder, she said, “I'll not betray you, not yet; rest easy. Let your friends enjoy their pie and ale. Once on the road, …”

The young man stared at the pie crumbs on his dish. He shrugged, then grinned. Sitting, then lifting his tankard, he said, “I'll be havin’ some more ale. Bein’ that Captain Browne does pay for it.”

“The young lad in the kitchen says you are surveyors,” she said as they stood to leave. Wanting him to recognize her, she stared at the older man.

“Just so. A very fine country hereabouts,” Browne replied, as though he were answering a voice.

She slammed his empty tankard upon the table. He stared at her, his startled eyes crowding the bridge of his nose.

“It is a very fine country!” she exclaimed. “And we have very fine and brave men to fight for it!”

He blinked, twice, several times more.

“If you travel much farther you will find out that is true!”

If he had learned anything the past half-hour, maybe it was that staring at a dirty windowpane changed nothing.

Well before they had been rowed across the river he had accepted the fact that their mission entailed risk. He had not expected immediate difficulties.

The third son of a privileged family, Henry De Berniere, meticulous, resourceful, was not habituated to defeat. From his boyhood to his present situation, proceeding logically, methodically, he had achieved his ambitious goals with admirable constancy. Commissioned an ensign at nineteen, at twenty-one bored, disaffected, he had a month ago employed his particular talents to attempt to achieve that most difficult of martial accomplishments, career promotion.

Before responding to General Gage's request for volunteer officers to map the roads to provincial military depositories, De Berniere had analyzed the risks. Paramount would be the difficulty of being what he was not, a colonial commoner. After he had submitted his request to serve, he had spent four days in the streets and taverns of Boston listening to the syntax and vocabulary of the populace. He had written down each night much of what he had heard. To demonstrate initiative during his interview with the Commanding General he had raised the speech difficulty and what he had done to try to surmount it. He had also presented a precisely drawn, detailed sketch of the roads and bridges of his parents’ parish, in Warwickshire. Analysis, preparation, performance. What he had not anticipated about his mission were, one, the limitations imposed upon him by his superiors and, two, capricious coincidence.

He had been upset about the clothing that he, Captain Browne, and Browne’s man had been obliged to wear. They had begun this first day in virtually identical dress. Who in the commanding general’s service had made that decision? A quartermaster sergeant, he surmised.

Then there was Captain Browne, De Berniere’s immediate superior. The man was dense, obtuse, fence post stupid! His performance this day had been appalling! Why had he been selected?!

Several reasons, De Berniere supposed. One, a senior officer had to lead; two, Browne also wanted promotion; three, Browne, having spent several years garrisoned in Boston, “knew” the populace; and, four, very few senior officers, perhaps only he, had volunteered.

De Berniere had not yet concluded his evaluation of Browne's servant, John Howe. Watching Howe arranging towels across the back of a chair preparatory to procuring hot water for their baths, De Berniere suspicioned that the servant was more percipient than his master.

Howe spoke and behaved much like the Boston commoners that De Berniere had observed. He had not this day embarrassed himself. He had exhibited an alert mind and a readiness to act. Outside the Waltham tavern Howe had explained the behavior of the serving woman. With a rush of advice for which he had immediately, ingratiatingly apologized, Howe, stating the obvious, had recommended immediate haste.

A teamster had overtaken them a mile or so down the road. De Berniere had persuaded the man to carry them. Almost immediately, he, and Howe, but not Browne, had recognized his blunder.

The teamster's companion had instantly aroused De Berniere’s suspicion. The tense young man would not look at them. His body resisted the wagon’s jostle. His hair had been cropped, unnaturally, at the back. A deserter, De Berniere had concluded, a guileless simpleton spirited from the city by Sons of Liberty, driven westward by a teamster militiaman.

Howe’s eyes had revealed the same conclusion. Twice Howe had glanced at the “deserter,” then at the teamster, then at De Berniere, before De Berniere had nodded acknowledgment. Browne, jostled by the wagon's movement, had stared vacantly at wet fields.

The teamster’s silence the first fifteen minutes of their journey had added weight to De Berniere’s supposition. A taciturn man voices a word or two in passing, De Berniere had reasoned. This man, maintaining his hard look at the road, schemes our arrest!

“’Spect I could take you the entire way t’Worcester,” the driver had thereupon declared, confirming De Berniere’s judgment. “I do have business there. Might as well get it done t’day.”

“Thank you, no,” De Berniere had declared, before Browne had been able to speak. They had reached the crest of a low hill. Seeing several distant buildings in the hollow beyond, concluding that they were approaching Weston, he had said, “We aim to be let out at the next tavern.”

Thereafter, the wagon driver had watched the road. Answering Browne’s perplexed expression, De Berniere had nodded at the deserter. Browne’s subsequent furrowed brow had vexed him. Belatedly, Browne had answered, “Yes, the next tavern, please.”

“Stop here, please,” De Berniere had said, sharply, when the wagon had closed to within twenty yards of the tavern.

Offering no acknowledgment, the teamster had kept his horses moving. De Berniere had imagined the three of them having to jump from the wagon a mile or two down the road to hide in thicket and pine. But, no. The man had pulled his horses suddenly -- angrily, De Berniere had judged -- to a stop directly in front of the building.

Captain Browne had displayed his stupidity again when they had seated themselves for refreshment.

“May we have coffee?” Browne had asked the landlord, having been warned in Boston not to request tea.

Straightening, the landlord had answered, “You may have what you please, either tea or coffee.” Staring at the man’s inquiring eyes, De Berniere had divined his message, that he was a Loyalist, that he recognized them to be soldiers, and that he wanted his presumption corroborated by their selection of tea.

“Coffee. I said coffee!” Browne had answered.

“Tea, actually,” De Berniere had corrected, witnessing immediately Browne's confusion, then resentment.

De Berniere stepped away from the window. His window-staring had, in fact, benefited him. Analyzing the day’s events, he had drawn conclusions.

He had isolated three difficulties. Foremost of these was Browne's impercipience. Somehow, subtly, De Berniere had to lead, without Browne knowing it.

Another difficulty had been the landlord’s lack of cooperation. Two hours ago, having accompanied them to their room, the man had given Browne the names of safe taverns in Framingham and Worcester but nothing else. He either did not known where the Worcester military stores were hidden or he had chosen not to tell them. Being obtuse, Browne had not asked. Because the man had not wanted to talk, De Berniere, not wanting to prolong the landlord’s unprofitable stay, had chosen not to question him.

Other than downstairs where he conducted business the landlord did not want to be seen with them. This had caused De Berniere to draw two inferences. The locals were vindictive toward anybody that harbored British spies. And any local with two eyes to see knew -- the third difficulty that he had isolated -- that they were indeed spies!

He recalled the time before his eighteenth birthday when he had waded into the ocean to impress two female cousins. A strong undertow had carried him one hundred yards off shore. Thrashing against the current, he had feared that the shore was unreachable. It had taken him an hour to fight his way back.