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?