Crossing the River, Chapter 4, Section 2

 

Characters Mentioned

Barnes, Henry – Helpful Marlborough Tory

Bliss, Daniel – Concord Tory

Brewer, Jonathan – Waltham tavern owner

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

Coolidge, John – Watertown 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, Isaac – Weston tavern owner

Smith, Lieutenant Colonel Francis – commander of the 10^th Regiment, in charge of the expedition sent to Concord to seize rebel stores

Thomas, Benjamin – Tory Worcester merchant

Wetherby – friend of the black man that provided Howe refuge from a frigid night

Wheaton – Tory in whose cabin outside Weston Howe briefly stayed

Map

Chapter 4, “In Grave Danger,” Section 2

“He told you what?!” Isaac Jones touched his throat. “Jonathan Brewer is a rebel! So is Coolidge! Both of them know everything about me!” General Gage’s unopened letter, in Jones’s right hand, quivered.

“You d'think he's set a trap?”

Jones grinned, painfully. “Oh yes. You must leave, at once.” He saw that the young Englishman was not entirely convinced. Cockiness. Youthful invincibility. “Even if you hadn't gone to Coolidge’s tavern,” he emphasized, “you wouldn't be safe! Townspeople are much more suspicious of strangers now. No thanks to your companions’ last visit!”

Howe stared past Jones's left shoulder.

The proprietor’s fault-finding went deeper. Why hadn't General Gage sent the dark soldier, the one that measured what he said? This one, the quietest of the three, the deferential one, wasn't even an officer. To entrust matters of high importance to such an inferior!

“Where'll I go?”

“All right. I'll feed you. My servant will take you into the woods. I know a Tory there, Wheaton. You’ll stay with him.” Had his resentment gotten through? Too bad. The General's intended enterprise was beginning to look like a fool's errand, a repeat of the Salem expedition. He and others like him would end up suffering worse.

“Thank you,” the dull-witted soldier said.

“But no delay. I have a bad feeling about this.”

Howe spent the night and the following day inside Wheaton’s pine-shrouded cabin. In the late morning of the second day a gentle snow fell. After furnishing Howe information about the local militia, the Tory left Howe to himself. At 8:00 p.m. Isaac Jones's black servant returned.

At 11 p.m., thirty minutemen entered Jones’s Golden Ball Tavern, their purpose to arrest two British spies seen in John Coolidge’s establishment thirty-four hours earlier.

Leaving Wheaton's cabin, Howe and Jones’s servant followed a dark path through mixed hardwood and pine. Twenty minutes later they intersected the Marlborough road. They stopped for a few minutes at the bridge that spanned the Sudbury River, in part because Howe wanted to rest but in part to ascertain where the General’s soldiers could ford the river should the local militia choose to remove the bridge’s planks.

They arrived at Henry Barnes’s house at 2 a.m. While Esquire Barnes read General Gage's letter, Howe’s guide, expected back at Jones’s tavern before dawn, ate cold chicken in the kitchen. Taking the letter with him, Barnes escorted Howe to the guest bedchamber.

It seemed so brief a time before strong hands awakened him.

Militiamen? In the street?! At the front door?!

Henry Barnes was standing beside the bed.

“It's past noon,” the merchant said. “I have allowed you to sleep as long as I dared.”

Sunlight was streaming through the dormer window. Howe drew his legs out from beneath the bedding.

“I've been outside. People say a Sudbury woman saw two men last night, one white, the other a servant or slave. Both were studying the bridge.”

Howe compressed his lips.

“The woman was awake with a sick child. She saw them from an upstairs window. She said they crossed the bridge headed in this direction. Everyone here is looking for two British spies. You,” he said, pointing an index finger at Howe's nose, “must stay hidden. If the militia comes again to my house, you must hide in the swamp.”

Late that night Howe borrowed a horse. Snow speckling the shoulders of his coat, he rode into Worcester two hours before sunrise. He spent the new day with Benjamin Thomas, a Tory merchant whom Henry Barnes had credited. Thomas had compiled a list of Worcester’s munitions. After midnight, standing beside the Tory under the eave of a large tool shed, hands clamped in his armpits, Howe stared at the back of a nondescript, lean-to inside which was stored a large quantity of the town’s powder.

Nobody was about. Nobody before dawn, Howe believed, had seen the stranger on a brown horse ride stealthily into town. He believed that no militiaman had been assigned here to watch. Who would be willing to lose sleep to stare at shadows? Another chance occurrence -- a second woman, past midnight, spying out her window – seemed equally far-fetched.

A cat was moving about against the gray backdrop of the shed. Large bodied, entirely white, it touched its nose to something -- a tuft of coarse grass, Howe guessed, the scent of another animal, he supposed. Feeling exposed, he stepped farther back in the tool shed’s moon-shadow.

Spying was about finding things out and not getting caught. So why hadn’t Browne and De Berniere used the night? Looking out for his comfort, Browne would not have permitted it. As for De Berniere, Howe suspected the ensign would have wanted a clear look -- at the street, the shed, all the surrounding buildings -- so as to draw an accurate map. Howe believed that his rudimentary directions to and his description of the shed would serve just as well. It had all been easy. He had used common sense. He pictured Colonel Smith bumbling about in the dark.

Back inside Thomas’s house, Howe recorded in his journal the location of nearby wells, into which flour and cartridges might be dropped. Later, over Madeira wine, he and his host discussed the likely outcome of a forthcoming raid.

“I do not think any one of them will raise a musket,” Thomas declared. A graying man in his late forties, the Loyalist had strong opinions. Captain Browne and his officer friends shared them. “Faced with the steel of the bayonet, I think there can be no question about their conduct!”

Howe had a different opinion. Warming his shoeless feet by Thomas’s fire, he recalled the ignorant beliefs the district gentry held about country folk like him. Browne and his top-lofty friends were just as ignorant. So was this Loyalist.

“What say you, young man? I should like to hear your judgment. Do you concur?”

Reading his host’s expectant face, Howe was tempted to speak the truth. Had he not earned the right? And, having taken risks himself, didn’t this Tory deserve to hear it? “If you promise naught t'be tellin’.” He took in a deep breath. “If General Gage sends his entire force here with a train o’artillery, from Boston t’Worcester, … not one o' them’ll get back. Not one.”

Suffering a bitterly cold ride, Howe returned to Henry Barnes’s house before sunrise. At breakfast Howe showed the Loyalist his notes. Impressed, Barnes shared information about militia activity between Marlborough and Worcester, intelligence obtained during Howe’s absence. The previous day Howe had decided to visit Concord. During his lonely, star-bright journey he had weighed the danger of being recognized. He was reasonably certain that no one would recall him. He, De Berniere, and Browne had entered Daniel Bliss's house at dusk. He had left Concord very early the next morning, earlier than Browne and De Berniere, and he had stayed separated from them. He had spoken to no one. As far as any townsman might have judged, he could have been a tradesman from another town starting out early for Bedford or Lexington. Having convinced himself that the risk was minimal, early that evening he told Barnes his intention.

“Then you should go due east to Sudbury and from there proceed north. When it is darkest. I will station you in my garret. Leave through the window, about eight o’clock. But do so cautiously. They watch my front door every day, until about midnight.”

They entered the room in which Howe had slept. Barnes filled two glasses with brandy. Each drank to the other's good fortune and health. Afterward, Howe added his papers to the belongings in his handkerchief while Barnes poured himself a second glass. Howe placed the bundle on the little table beside the bed. Barnes poured brandy into Howe’s empty glass.

A heavy knock halted their activity. Each looked at the other. Barnes nodded.

Howe had gone about his business always at night. He had been wrong to have assumed that nobody had noticed. Somebody in Worcester that night, or here in Marlborough, had seen him moving about!

“Be quiet,” Barnes whispered. “If I don’t return in a minute, leave by the window. Slide down the roof of the shed. Run directly to the swamp. I’d better hide these glasses,” he added.

Howe heard Barnes's footsteps on the stairs. Then, nothing, until the door was opened. A loud voice.

“Esquire, we have come to search your house of spies!”

“I am willing,” Barnes responded.

Having thrown his hat and bundled handkerchief out the window, Howe eased himself onto the snowy roof. As he stooped to grasp his belongings, his right foot slid out from under him. Off the edge of the roof he skidded.

Spread-eagled beneath the eave, he labored to regain his breath. Snow covered the left side of his face, filled his left ear. He felt pain in his left hip.

He crawled over to his hat, then to his handkerchief, his left leg throbbing. He stood. Bent at the waist, he hobbled away from the house. He heard the crunch of snow beneath his shoes. He was leaving a trail. Looking back, he saw movement behind the lighted downstairs windows. He thought he heard horses in front of the house.

He continued past the smell of the swamp. The pain having subsided, he ran and then walked, four miles he estimated, in snow two inches deep. They could easily follow him. He had to keep walking. Walking would keep his blood pumping. God in Heaven, he was cold!

He risked stepping on rocks to cross a frigid brook. His leg throbbed as he pulled himself, grasping at exposed roots, up the opposite bank. Thereafter, he discovered a small clearing. Smelling smoke -- from a nearby chimney, he believed -- finding then a cabin, he chanced arrest.

Flintlock pistol held in his right hand, a gray-bearded black man answered Howe's knock.

“I've lost my way.” The man's face was leathery, deeply furrowed. “Where do I find the road t’Concord?”

“Who you be?!” Having stared at Howe five seconds more, the man looked at the corporal’s footprints. “What you be 'bout?”

“You d’have a fire in there. I see it. God Almighty, let me warm a bit. I'll be no harm t'you.”

The man measured him a second time. He drew the door farther back. “Who you be?”

Moments later Howe was crouching in front of the rude fireplace. Water from his coat dripped onto and disappeared between the pine floorboards. The man, having left the room, returned with a towel. “Who you be?” he asked again. A plump woman, the man’s wife, seated across the room, watched him.

“A gunsmith.” Howe had planned to present himself in Concord as such.

“Gunsmith, eh? T’Concord, you say? They do need gunsmiths there; that's a fact.” He took a pipe out of the right pocket of his framer’s frock and looked at the stem. “You better stay here. Too cold t' be out.” He put the towel over the back of a wooden chair.

“Thank you, no,” Howe responded. However much he needed warmth, he could not risk arrest. “I’m … wantin’ t’get t’Concord. T’get started.”

The man's mouth curled a bit, in disbelief?

“I'm expected there. I don't want t' worry 'em.”

The black man tapped ash from the bowl of his pipe. A log shifted on the grate. The man sat down by the fire.

“If you'll guide me there ….” The man looked at him, put the pipe stem in his mouth. “T’night. I can pay you.” Howe took from his coat pocket a sovereign, showed it. To offer the man tobacco, meager supply that he had, would not have answered.

The man nodded; Howe wondered if he had agreed or just acknowledged what he had said.

“I’ll be makin’ guns t’kill the regulars. The sooner the better. They be marchin’ out a Boston in a few weeks, I d’hear.”

The old woman spoke. “That be good; you make guns t’kill the regulars. They be a number a them by Esquire Barnes’s awhile back.”

“I need some tobacca,” her husband interrupted. “My friend, Wetherby, he be half way there. He got some. I’ll get my tobacca; he take you t'see Maj'r Buttrick. You pay Wetherby.” The man rose slowly from his chair. He shoved the empty pipe into his pocket. “I be gettin’ my coat.” He glanced at Howe with raised eyebrows. “They think regulars be out there soon, too.”

“Esquire Barnes, is he a Tory?” Howe asked the old woman, who had taken her husband’s chair by the fire.

“He is. Hidin’ spies, he was.” Nodding her head twice, she watched Howe open the front door. A draught of cold air agitated the fire.

“I hope they d’catch ‘em,” Howe answered. His host approached the doorway with his left arm not yet in the coat sleeve. “Catch ‘em an’ hang ‘em. Every last one o’ them.”

Crossing the River, Chapter 4, Section 1

 

Characters Mentioned

Brewer, Jonathan – Waltham tavern owner

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

Coolidge, John – Watertown 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

Smith, Lieutenant Colonel Francis – commander of the 10^th Regiment, in charge of the expedition sent to Concord to seize rebel stores

Map

Chapter 4, "In Grave Danger," Section 1

       Three days after Browne, De Berniere, and Howe had returned to Boston, the corporal was ordered to report to Command Headquarters. He was both conflicted and perplexed. Being sent out on another spying mission meant more freedom and adventure. To be told about the mission at the Province House would mean he would have to suffer unnecessary senior officer scrutiny. Why had this particular assignment not worked its way down the chain of command? Why should he, a lowly corporal, be told about it by anybody other than Captain Browne?

The past three days the Captain had been the house guest of a Tory merchant and his spinster daughter. He would be returning to his lodging the next day. His absence would not have been the reason for Howe being summoned. Everybody knew where Browne had been staying. The General’s messenger would have known, also.

Why then had he been ordered to report?

As a reward? For his past service? Absolute hogwash!

But, … if he were wrong, … De Berniere’s hand had to have been in the working!

At 9 a.m. Howe ascended the Province House’s worn steps. Entering the adjutant’s office, he was surprised to see De Berniere and Browne not present. Ignored by the captain seated behind the room’s desk, Howe assumed they were with the General. Very soon they would come through the doorway and the three of them would leave, his privileged attendance concluded!

A minute passed. The ridiculous thought that De Berniere and Browne had not reported caused him to grin. He imagined Browne’s explanation: “But, sir, the gentleman’s daughter demanded I inspect her daffodils,” followed by De Berniere’s stammer, “Sir, permit me to explain. By the sheerest coincidence …,” all of it bubbled tomfoolery.

The corn on the side of his right little toe was pressing against the inside of his shoe. He stared at the empty chair next to the adjutant’s desk. The captain, turning papers on a green blotter, had not yet looked at him. He dared not sit.

He watched the purposeless movements of a large fly. It had landed on the captain’s blotter, on the back of the unoccupied chair, on the sill of the room’s single window. It had buzzed past his head twice. When it alighted suddenly on the top of his left ear, he flicked it away.

Distracted, the officer -- his cheeks pitted with tiny holes -- turned his head. “You are Howe, I assume. Right. When the General is done with Colonel Smith, he will see you.”

You?! “He will see you”?! Howe blanched.

He hadn’t heard correctly!

There was some mistake!

He remembered what De Berniere had told him during their walk to Concord: “General Gage has inquired about you.”

Blather. Poppycock, he had thought.

God’s angels!

The General had wanted the three of them present! He was honored, privileged! But Colonel Smith was with the General! Therefore, … Goddamn Browne’s bleeding balls! Browne hadn’t reported, and, probably because of him, neither had De Berniere!

To punish them the General might give their assignment to somebody else!

General Gage’s office door opened. The stout, middle-aged commander of the 10th Regiment filled the threshold. Colonel Smith’s small, round eyes examined Howe a full ten seconds.

“Captain, send this man in,” Smith ordered.

Glancing at Howe a second time, the adjutant waved four stiff fingers toward the door.

“Don't stand there, you flat! Report!”

His shoulders and upper back tingling, Howe edged past the glowering Colonel.

Twenty feet within, behind an immense mahogany desk sat His Majesty's Commanding General of North America. Howe, five steps into the room, snapped to attention. “Corporal Howe reporting as you d’ordered, sir!”

Thomas Gage’s neutral eyes inspected him.

Moving behind and to the right of the General, Colonel Smith stifled a yawn.

“So you are Howe.”

“Yes sir.” He cleared his throat.

The general nodded, gripped his waist with his right hand. His gray eyes bored.

“You have the good look of an Englishman, good common stock, a country lad, Ensign De Berniere has told me.”

Howe felt his face flush. “Yes sir, I be o' the country. Sir.”

“Stand easy, corporal. I cannot measure a man if he is a tether post.”

Howe exhaled. He expanded his chest.

“At ease, Corporal Howe. At ease, for God's sake.”

Howe separated his feet, placed his hands stiffly behind his back.

“As you please.” Gage half-circled his desk, eased himself down on its front edge. “I am told that you have exhibited good common sense. Even your Captain admits that.”

“Captain Browne? Sir?”

“Does that surprise you? In truth, you have Ensign De Berniere mostly to credit.”

So Browne and De Berniere had talked to the General before Browne had gone off to inspect the spinster’s flower beds. That meant the General …

Howe’s conceit soared.

“Because they have given you good marks, because you possess, in their judgment, wit, resourcefulness, and, not least in importance, a feigning aptitude, I am sending you out again.” He rose from the desk top.

“Sir.” Colonel Smith beckoned. Turning his back to Howe, Gage listened to Smith’s whispered observation.

Being sent out he had expected. Standing in front of the Commanding General had been the flaming opposite! It was a reward beyond true dessert! Which, because he needed to be alert, he couldn’t immediately savor! Where would they be sent this time?! Portsmouth? Salem?

The General engaged him.

“Corporal Howe, you are to accompany and be under the direction this time of Lieutenant Colonel Smith,” -- Christ in heaven! -- “who, I suspect you know, stands before you. You will be his guide as well as his servant.” -- Jesus! -- “You will, should he request it, advise him regarding the habits and behavior of the inhabitants. As the Colonel has reminded me, regarding matters necessitating military judgment he will brook no counsel.”

Howe risked a quick look. The Colonel was cleaning his left thumbnail with his right forefinger nail.

The man was fat! Old. What if they had to run? Smith was an anvil! What in God's name was the General thinking?!

      Colonel Smith whisked something small off his yellow sash.

How could he tell this officer what to do?! He couldn't, until he had proved himself all over again; and then he could only advise; and what might happen to them before that? General Gage didn't see his mistake, and he couldn't tell him!

“You will disguise yourselves as itinerant laborers seeking employment. Together you will determine those measures the Worcester provincials” -- God in purgatory! -- “have taken to defend themselves. This will include the size of the garrison that would defend the town.”

“Sir, we shall do so expeditiously,” Colonel Smith declared.

The General nodded.

Howe realized why Browne and De Berniere had not been selected.

“I am familiar with the roads. I need detailed information about the location and quantity of the stores. After you have obtained that information, you may, at your discretion, return by way of Concord. Ensign De Berniere's report and maps have provided me essential information. Nevertheless, changes since then may have occurred, which you, Corporal Howe, having been there, would be able to ascertain.”

“Sir, we shall exceed all expectation!”

“Meeting it, Colonel, will suffice.” The Commanding General raised a cautionary hand. “Corporal Howe, be advised! Because you have been to Concord, you suffer the risk, which your captain and Ensign De Berniere would have entertained, had I sent them to Worcester, of being recognized!”

Ferried across the Charles River to Cambridge, the two men began their midmorning journey to Watertown, Waltham, and Weston -- Howe, not having the allowance or authority to speak, in a flaming temper.

The plan that he and Colonel Smith were expected to follow was horse dung! Neither De Berniere, Browne, nor he had been consulted! Decisions, other than the big one -- the choice of Colonel Smith -- had to have been made by staff officers, whey-faced gimcracks!

A laborer with a big belly looking for work! Identical clothing: leather breeches, a gray coat, blue-and-white knit stockings, a silk neckerchief, a three-cornered hat! The same checkered handkerchief for carrying personal belongings! Two Merry Andrew walking sticks! Smith was fifty, Howe guessed, soft, fat. He was twenty-two, healthy, athletic -- out of work or no, why would either choose to be with the other? Nothing answered! The lowest lobcock, taking one glance, would be suspicious!

Even the weather was against them. A heavy haze, blocking the sun, had dropped the temperature into the forties. Gusts of wind off the Charles River were biting at them. As for what there was to see -- the trees not yet being in leaf -- the land had a barren look.

Nothing was right.

He felt powerless, stymied.

They were leaving footprints on the road’s gritty surface. Soon they would have to scrape off the soles of their shoes! Walking on caked mud had always irritated him.

His early training, he thought. His mother's scolding. His consequent scrubbings of their cottage floor. He wondered if she thought of him now, this particular moment. When he thought of his mother he saw her through a prism of guilt. He remembered her face the morning he had walked down the cottage lane with a bigger bundle than what he carried now, eager to begin a better life, cock-sure he knew what was best.

From that experience alone he had learned about the dishonesty of people, how for their own benefit they twisted the truth. That recruiting sergeant. His tales about sovereigns for enlistment, noble duty, manly company, young lasses, quick promotion. Bloody buggers they were. You learn from your mistakes, his father had said once. But why did those mistakes have to keep weighing on you? Why couldn’t a man simply cast them off?!

His attitude about spying had changed! Walking this country road with De Berniere and Browne, he had been excited. Each successive morning had promised challenge, adventure. He had had so much time to remember, plan, dream. Everything now was different. This morning he had thought first of the hard-faced doxies at the barrack gate. Not what the lying sergeant had promised, was it, Howe? What was real; what was said. Soldiering disgusted him.

Their pace was too damn slow! Colonel Smith was huffing and puffing. Already, he wanted food!

“Where shall we have breakfast, Howe?” A demand more than a question. They had stopped to rest against a rail fence. Perspiration was spotting Smith’s brow. “Good ale and beef pie, eh? Just reward for the invigorated appetite!”

Howe had intended to stop in Weston at the Golden Ball Tavern, not at the Brewer Inn in Waltham, where Captain Browne had been identified. He hadn’t anticipated their dawdling pace.

“We’ve a ways t’go, sir. Two hours I d'think.”

       “Two hours?! Ecod, man! We need sustenance! Do better than that, corporal!”

“Bread and cheese, sir?” Howe raised his bundled handkerchief.

“I want good thick ale!” Folding his arms over his paunch, Smith stared at the road. “I was told you were resourceful. Be so!”

There was, Howe recalled, a tavern close by. In Watertown. Browne, De Berniere, and he had passed it on their walks out from or back to Boston. Would His Lordship expect an ale-stop every five miles?! Howe scraped his right sole against the lower rail.

“There’s a tavern in the next town, sir.”

“Where?”

“Watertown.”

“Where is Watertown?” Smith scowled.

“Maybe, a half mile. Sir.”

“Excellent!” Smith pushed his bulk away from the top rail. Moistening his lips, he stepped onto the road. “We shall persevere that half mile!”

Thirty minutes later, seated in the Coolidge Tavern’s taproom, Howe was stunned to see the black serving woman who had recognized Captain Browne. She had been working in the Waltham tavern! Why was she working here?!

She approached.

Keeping his head down, he mumbled his order.

Ram rod straight, Smith declared, “Where may two good but jobless men find employment here in the country?”

She marked them. Spacing her words, she answered. “Smith, you will find employment enough for you and all Gage's men in a few months. Seeing you’ve put on weight, I’m thinking you’ll be wanting lots of ale and mutton pie!”

They were served. His eyes boring through two patrons and the far wall, Smith chewed. Having swallowed his last forkful, grating the legs of his chair on the plank floor, he rose. Howe placed his tankard down beside his plate.

At the counter the amused innkeeper said, “Did you enjoy your food?”

Smith slapped down several coins. “Very well, but you have here a saucy wench! She has mistaken us for British officers! Hah!”

Smiling politely, John Coolidge gathered up the coins. “Well, until recently, sir, she lived in Boston. She has probably confused you with somebody.”

“Indeed!” Smith rapped the counter. “We are itinerant laborers, seeking employment!”

“Ah. Then perhaps you should visit Waltham. My friend, Jonathan Brewer, owns a tavern there. Ask him, or his patrons. Or go to the Golden Ball Tavern, in Weston. Stay a night. You might have better luck.”

Smith raised his chin. “I thank you, sir.”

Howe followed Smith out the tavern door.

“This way,” Howe said needlessly.

Out of sight of the tavern, they commenced to jog.

“Stop!” Smith shouted, seconds later. He was wheezing. His right hand was supporting his stomach.

They clambered over a stone wall and sat.

Neither spoke. Colonel Smith's rapid breathing eased.

What to do? Howe thought. Go back. Their mission had failed, although not the way he had expected. Twice! In separate taverns! Identified! By the same wench! How was that possible?!

“We cannot continue,” Colonel Smith announced. He repositioned his rear on the gravely soil.

Howe nodded.

“I am in grave danger.”

The man's jowls hang like bunches of grapes, Howe thought.

“Here.” Smith untied his bundle, reached into it, grasped envelopes with his right hand. Perspiration dripped from his brow.

“Take these letters of introduction and instruction. Find the Loyalists to whom these letters are addressed. And take this journal, this pencil.” He reached into his coat pocket. “I can give you this. Ten Guineas.” Opening, then cupping his left hand, he revealed the coins.

“You want me t'keep on goin'? I’d be findin’ trouble that much as you!”

“No, Howe, you will not!” Again the scowl. “You … blend in with the provincials.” Flexing his right leg, Smith gouged a groove in the loose dirt. “That damned wench will have my description sent throughout this bloody countryside! I shall have to walk through thicket and bramble if I am to reach Boston!”

“Sir, you d’expect a lot o' one man, a corporal.” He pictured himself jailed in Worcester, with nobody in Boston knowing!

“Look here, Howe.” Smith’s eyes were moist, his voice charged. “You must finish this assignment! I beg you!”

Each stared at the other.

I would be on my own! Howe thought.

“You shall have a commission! When you return, successfully, I will see to it!”

They continued to stare. Let him wait a minute, Howe thought. It’s his reputation he’s worried about. As for becoming an officer, that wouldn’t happen; but he did have a mind to try it, didn’t he?

Smith stood, eased himself over the wall.

Howe recalled the militiaman that had overtaken the three of them walking the Marlborough road. He remembered how the rebel had studied them before riding off. He had known immediately what to do. De Berniere, recognizing that, had used him to persuade Browne to return to Weston. Had he gone to the Waltham tavern without Browne and De Berniere, the wench would probably have taken him for a colonial. Here, also. But she had known him from before, and she knew Smith, not because he couldn’t play-act.

Colonel Smith was staring at a column of smoke, rising from one of the Coolidge Tavern’s several chimneys. His face was red. “If I ever come up this road with my regiment,” he declared, “I will kill that wench!”

Crossing the River, Chapter 3, Section 2

 Characters Mentioned

Barnes, Henry – Marlborough loyalist

Barnett, Colonel James – Concord militia commander

Bliss, Daniel – Concord Tory

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

Buttrick, Major John – Second in command of the Concord militia

Carter, Elisha – Concord resident

Curtis, Dr. Samuel – leader of the Marlborough committee of correspondence

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

Fuller, Charity – youthful Concord resident

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

Hosmer, Joseph – Concord militiaman

Howe, Corporal John – servant of Captain Brown. Spy

Johnson, Amos – Concord resident

Jones, Issac – Weston tavern owner

Map

Chapter 3, “Guests to Entertain,” Section 2

“Stand aside, Barnes,” the aproned militiaman demanded. “We aim t’have ‘em!”

“Whom?!”

“The British officers, damn you!” Thrusting a thick forearm against Barnes’s chest, the blacksmith shoved the merchant aside. The file of townsmen, the first two snickering, tramped into the house.

“They are my wife's relatives, from Penobscot! They’re traveling to Lancaster,” Barnes told Doctor Curtis, the last to soil his entry hall carpet. “They’ve already left!”

Half turning, Curtis sneered.

The militiamen began their “search.” They overturned chairs, lifted and dropped beds, yanked off their rods drapes, scattered books, and emptied desk drawers. Two men hurled to the floor every garment hung in the bedroom closet. They tracked across his clothing, drapes, books, papers, the oak plank floor, and every imported carpet liquid filth. So angry did he become that, returning to the foyer, Barnes withdrew from his ornate floor vase his mahogany walking stick.

The aproned militiaman, carrying a gilt-edged serving plate, approached him. His belligerent eyes moved from Barnes's grip on the walking stick to the Loyalist's compressed lips. A grin cleaved the man’s heavy face. Away from his belly, gift-like, he advanced the plate. Barnes reached for it; the militiaman watched it drop. With the sole of his right shoe he pulverized the largest piece of broken china. “Barnes!” he snarled, pressing his belly against the merchant’s abdomen. “You hide and feed the enemy! You're a damned traitor! If we don’t catch them, we're going t’burn this house down!”

They went through his rooms a second time. Two of them scoffed at him, walking stick held impotently across his thighs. Briefly unattended, shame-faced, he placed it back inside the vase.

Staring at its handle, he listened to the mob’s utterances. His disdain had become full-bore hatred. Like a potion heated in a cast-iron pot it would bubble, until His Majesty's fist expunged every trespassing criminal! Save physical confrontation he would do anything to assist his government. He would celebrate the red-coated army’s arrival; he would direct joyously their plunder. They, his Majesty's foot, would be his redeemer, their destructiveness his rejuvenation!

He would prepare for the event with disciplined restraint. He would exercise forbearance, as he had not wielding his cane. The deadliest enemy is he who by appearance is judged the milksop. How vengefully he would assist all to rent them asunder!

As they were preparing to leave, one of them said, “If we catch ‘em in your house again, we'll pull it all the way down about your ears!” The villain’s right hand struck Barnes’s stomach. “Mind my words!”

He would. He was heeding their threats, their insults, their wanton destruction, safe-keeping every injury this day and the many days antecedent!

It had been the cruelest day of Henry De Berniere’s young life.

He and Browne had walked sixteen miles in the teeth of a blizzard. They had had but the preamble of sanctuary before they had been forced back into the storm. Having no other recourse to evade arrest, they had traveled half the distance back to Weston not daring, except for one brief detour, to stop.

Not one rider had passed them.

They had run from Henry Barnes’s house, found the Sudbury Road, and hurried on until, thoroughly spent, they had turned into a wood near a causeway to devour the apple-jack merchant’s bread rolls. Back on the road, not having gone twenty rods, they had been challenged by an elderly man who had rushed out at them from a white-shrouded house.

“What do you think will become of you now?!” he had shouted.

They had deigned not to answer. Or inquire.

De Berniere knew all he needed to know. While they had been eating in the wood, Marlborough militiamen had ridden past. Having gone this far, would they not ride to the Sudbury causeway to lie in wait? The image of a crouching cat -- eyes iridescent, chin on paws, haunches tensed -- appended his thoughts.

A prayer? However dire their circumstance he would not, like the Sunday psalm singer, implore divine intercession. He had seen in the hovels and the taverns of his father’s parish enough of the meanness of life not to countenance a benevolent Father. Man made his own way, cunningly, stupidly, reaping apposite consequences. He, De Berniere, had acted rashly. Nothing else but happenstance, utter coincidence -- their stopping in the wood to eat -- could rescue them.

Kinetic indefatigability brought them finally to the stretch of road that De Berniere feared most. Approaching the dreaded causeway, he saw appearing out of the darkness four tightly grouped horsemen. First would come pistol shots, immediately thereafter, searing pain.

The distance between De Berniere and Browne and the horsemen shortened. Thirty feet … twenty … ten …

Moving to De Berniere and Browne’s left and right, the riders passed.

Very late that evening the two soldiers entered Isaac Jones's Golden Ball Tavern.

“All the way back!” His arms folded across his chest, Jones wagged his head. “Nit ‘n’grit! I say. Amazing luck!” The two men were pulling off each other’s clothing. “You must tell me all, once you’ve rested!”

De Berniere’s friend disappeared behind the closing door. Friend he was, as was this room, the very room in which he had agonized about the pitfalls that he had predicted had been awaiting them.

Anxieties verified. Safety achieved. He could now be charitable. Browne seemed even the most valued of companions. In this room all that was animate and all that was not merited his approval. Soon he would lie upon the left side of their bed, wrap himself in many blankets, and sleep, hours later to awake analytical and confident.

They had been valiant! He would detail their intrepid endeavors. If his service were not immediately rewarded, it would be remembered. The door to promotion would remain open. Worthy officer that he was, he would analyze his mistakes, most of which, given their circumstances, had been unavoidable. (He sensed that he had already begun) He would examine them all tomorrow, allow his sharp mind to draw conclusions. Tomorrow, he would begin anew.

“To walk thirty-two miles in a snow storm, in one day!” the innkeeper had marveled.

Just so.

Using pitchers provided by Jones, they bathed. Attired in borrowed robes, they savored hot mulled Madeira wine. Ensconced in woolen blankets, they drifted into a lengthy sleep.

2

Howe was ecstatic.

The cage had been unlocked, the door opened; once more, like the trained bear on a short chain, he was walking “the grounds of the fair.”

They had crossed the River, he and his “keepers” assigned again to spy! Splendid “grounds” they were, made more so by the mid-morning, late-winter sun, the sound of hungry gulls, the sweep of ocean air!

God Almighty, how much he hated what he had left: during Browne’s absence the half-witted mutter of barrack mates; the preying nastiness of the Sergeant, his brass-tipped, jabbing cane; the foul, grubby scrubbings of latrine benches and mess hall floors; the interminable inspections during which he had stood resentfully alert, obedient, expecting indiscriminate abuse. Then, after the Captain had returned, the purchasing of his fancy food, the polishing of his boots and brass, the washing and ironing of his precious garments, the exercising and grooming of his bay colt. His special duties completed, right-wheels on the Common, drill after drill and standing and waiting, waiting and standing, more marching and more standing and waiting. How he hated this life! How he rejoiced in his reprieve!

During their meeting with General Gage, Browne and De Berniere had requested his service. According to De Berniere the General had taken an interest in him. Who in the King’s army would have suspicioned that?!

They had a different destination. Concord. They would be seeing different people. He would be speaking to them. Each man recognized the rebel’s attentiveness, his sudden decisiveness. Each man would be carrying a pistol. Benefiting from experience, appreciating De Berniere’s abilities, confident of his own, Howe was excited and expectant.

He was tested outside Concord.

They had been instructed to spend the night at the house of a prominent Tory, Daniel Bliss. Their most difficult moment, De Berniere had warned, would be their inquiry of where the Tory resided. They were strangers. Their manner of intercourse with the citizenry, Howe notwithstanding, would attract attention. Requesting directions to the house of a known Loyalist was, of itself, sufficient cause for arrest. Whom they asked, therefore, and where they asked were singularly important. Their having come upon a young maiden, a servant girl in Howe’s opinion, harvesting mushrooms by the road, the first building of the town some fifty rods away, De Berniere ordered Howe to proceed.

Exhibiting not a shard of suspicion, the girl identified Daniel Bliss’s house. Fifteen minutes later, enjoying a glass of port in their host’s drawing room, tracing the grooves of his chair’s intricately carved arm rests, Howe was enjoying De Berniere’s description of the two officers’ Marlborough escape.

Yes, Daniel Bliss responded, he did know Henry Barnes. He did appreciate the Tory gentleman’s valor and his allegiance to Crown and country. He hoped that they would not suffer here a similar experience; but, he confessed, he, too, was watched, although he had not been threatened. Their stay (Did they not agree?) should be brief. As soon as they had enjoyed a second glass, he would show them his map.

A noisy commotion at the front door interrupted their conversation. The girl to whom Howe had spoken, eyes large, face flushed, hurried into the room.

The four men stared. Abruptly, De Berniere stood. Bliss's servant, having followed the girl into the room, reached to grasp her right forearm, hesitated, removed his hand. Lips quivering, she attempted to speak. Cradling her face, she sobbed.

“Mary, dear, what has happened that disturbs you so?” Bliss gathered her against his chest.

Seeing her kneeling by the roadway, Howe had judged her to be no more than fifteen, the same age as his sister Milliscent the week he had enlisted. A poor farmer’s employable daughter. “Oh yes,” the girl had said to him. “Mr. Bliss lives in the two-story house t’the left o' the road. You'll see bricks by his chimney, which's t’be repaired, I believe.” A simple, trusting child. Having smiled at him, she had returned wholeheartedly to her task. “We have been fortunate,” De Berniere had said after they had traveled a hundred yards.

Leaning forward, Howe listened.

Her mistress had wanted … men had scolded her! Two men from a house across from where she ... “If I don’t leave town, they said they'd tar an' feather me!” she exclaimed, amid sobs. “They said I did direct Tories in their road!”

Bliss comforted her. Her “mistake” was but a trifle. “They would never do such a thing. Not for you to worry, my dear.” Their anger was directed at him! With fatherly assurance he escorted her to his front door. “Go to your mistress but say nothing of this,” Howe heard Bliss say. “Let us hope today she’ll be less unpleasant.”

Having returned, Bliss identified the two men. His old enemy, the mechanic, Joseph Hosmer, was one of them. It had been Hosmer’s house that the girl had spoken of. Months ago Hosmer had denounced him, had belittled him, after Bliss had spoken his mind at the Meeting House. Likely, Hosmer and his companion were alerting one of the militia captains, if not Major Buttrick himself. However, Bliss would challenge them, bluff them. The British soldiers were business associates, he would say, English traders who had journeyed to Concord to speak to him for the very first time. How could Hosmer, or anyone he might bring to the house, know otherwise?

They heard a resounding knock on the front door.

Bliss directed Howe and the two officers into a large kitchen. Leaving them, he walked into the vestibule. Staring at a meandering crack in the plastered ceiling, Howe heard the opening and the closing of the large front door. Bliss swiftly returned.

“I have been handed a message.” With squinting eyes he read it. Looking up, he said, “If I attempt to leave, I am to die.” His expression indicated quiet disbelief. “I find this difficult to countenance.” His lips moved across the tops of his teeth.

“You must leave with us!” Captain Brown revealed his pistol.

“Be assured that we will protect you,” De Berniere answered.

Turning away, Daniel Bliss stared across the kitchen, at cooking utensils dangling from iron hooks.

No. Stay, where you have the right, Howe thought. Defeat them! Stay and fight!

Their message made no sense. Why would they not want him to leave? Because of what he knew? He could pass everything he knew on to them! Without stepping outside his house! Their message, their nastiness, what they had done to the servant girl, all of it angered him. He hated bullying. Whatever you thought about somebody, by right you ought to leave him alone! You didn't just … threaten his life!

“In truth, I’m in greater danger if I stay. This moment has been long in coming.” Eyes tearing, Daniel Bliss sought their advice.

“Go with us,” Browne insisted.

“The Committee of Safety knows I have misused them.”

“I regret that our presence has forced this,” De Berniere declared.

Stay, Howe had wanted to say. But the man now standing before him was not the defiant Tory that moments ago had thought to play-act. His leaving seemed suddenly the right choice.

“There are so few of us.” Bliss expelled a lengthy breath. “I may not see this house again.” His voice quavered. “Alas, we give up everything.”

This man, holding fast to his beliefs, was called a traitor. Because of what he had bravely chosen, because of what his enemies believed, he would lose everything he had the right to own!

Howe wanted to say something. Because of his station -- and because instinct was telling him that something about his thinking was wrong -- he didn’t.

He wondered. What of the rebel? Was he bullied? So he said. Wasn’t his rebelness a standing up to the bully also? In so doing wasn't he choosing a future, too, and wouldn't he also suffer? Howe thought about his musing of the day before, of being “released” from the bear cage at the country fair. Forced to return to his own cage, the rebel farmer had balked! Better to fight and suffer and hope to prosper than to give up and definitely suffer. Here he was, John Howe, a stable boy from England, servant to an officer with a limited brain, doing exciting work for the King. He had seen what these rebels were about and he had seen what this prosperous Tory countryman was about and he knew everything he needed to know about the King's men!

Who were the bullies?

Howe hadn’t chosen this work, but he loved it.

Wrongnesses. Actions. Outcomes.

His misfortune had been that he had chosen to be a redcoat soldier. If he wanted to change that, what in fact would he gain and how might he suffer if he tried? The thought agitated him. The “poltroon” provincial was Howe's opponent, true, but not without exception his mortal enemy, so he had the mind to believe.

“The town of Concord lies between two hills,” Daniel Bliss said, pointing at his drawn map. “The Concord River, which is little more than a stream, runs between them. The town has two bridges, one to the north, here, the other to the south, here.” De Berniere and Browne examined his markings. “At various places, in houses and in the woods, they’ve hidden four brass field pieces and ten iron cannon. I’ve marked their locations with X's.”

It was precisely what the General had instructed them to obtain. De Berniere would duplicate the map. His would be the only map the General would see.

“They have collected a wide assortment of arms and equipment,” Bliss stated. “I have made a list.” He handed De Berniere the paper.

The ensign read the column of words: cartridge boxes, harnesses, spades, pickaxes, billhooks, iron pots, wooden mess bowls, cartridge paper, powder, musket balls, flints, flour, dried fish, salt, and rice. He would copy this as well.

“Also, Colonel Barrett has a magazine of powder and cartridges hidden at his farm.”

“Where?” Captain Browne asked.

“Here on the map. I have written his name and circled it. His farm is about two miles beyond the North Bridge.”

Leaning over the table, De Berniere found the name, and the road that led to it.

At dawn Daniel Bliss, exhibiting a stoic countenance, readied himself for departure. As promised, the two officers would accompany him, the enlisted man having volunteered to leave ahead of them to scout the way.

“Twould be fittin' not t'be seen with you. I’d be movin' 'bout with naught someone suspectin'. Might see somethin' needin' t'be known.”

“Wait for us, a mile east of the town,” the dark officer had answered, the fleshy, sour-faced officer-in-charge having deigned not to respond.

Frost lay upon the road. Footprints and hoof indentations marked the predawn passing. Sunlight had begun to streak. Roof tops steamed.

Two townspeople, pausing at the door of Ephraim Jones’s Tavern, marked them. Amos Johnson and Elisha Carter were out for an early morning toddy. Raucous laughter. Upon seeing them, hateful faces. Too early for them to do him any damage, Bliss decided. They would be well toward Lexington before Jones and Carter could alert Major Buttrick, should they be so uncharacteristically motivated.

Having taken the road east of the mill pond, they passed the burial ground on the hill. Near Reuben Brown's house Charity Fuller was carrying water, her breath visible in the crisp air. The young maid turned her head once.

They passed the road to Waltham, the tightness inside his chest caused, he believed, by his fear but also because of what he was leaving.

“The ground is open here,” the younger officer, De Berniere, said to him, as they approached Meriam's Corner.

“From here to Lexington it isn't,” Bliss said. “The road in places is very narrow. It surmounts two major hills and passes stands of hardwood and pine.”

Later, “Stone walls. Too many stone walls.”

“We like to mark our property lines,” he explained.

They stopped, repeatedly. Each time Ensign De Berniere had sketched. “These delays increase the likelihood of my capture,” Bliss had complained after the third stop.

“A well aimed pistol shot will remedy that!” Captain Browne had boasted. The young officer’s eyes had flitted toward his superior and had lingered, briefly. The enlisted man, ten feet behind the Captain, out of the dark officer’s vision, had smirked.

Three pistol shots against how many, ten muskets? What sort of fool had General Gage sent? The other one, De Berniere, excessively pleased with himself, had seemed competent.

“Bad ground here,” Bliss heard the officer say to Browne at the top of Brooks Hill. The Captain nodded, flicked a speck of bark off the front of his coat.

When the King's Foot marched this way -- Bliss could not phrase the event as a question -- who would lead them? The best, he would have assumed two days earlier, had he had special reason then to consider.