Scenes from Crossing the River

 

A Curious Movement of Hats, Pages 142-145

 

 

The sound of the bell had brought most of Lexington’s militiamen to the Meeting House. Told by their captain, John Parker, that the redcoats were marching, malcontents had started a contentious argument.

     “We don't even know they're marching!” one militiaman shouted, addressing Parker. “It's been what, an hour, since you sent out your last scout? We should have heard something by now!”

     “Maybe he was arrested! Think, why don’t you?!”

     “We don’t know nothing!”

     “I'll send out another scout, right now, if any of you be willing!” Parker answered.

     He watched them turn their heads, a curious movement of hats, quick to criticize, not quick to volunteer!

     “I will,” a voice sounded. Parker located the young man, Asahel Porter, leaning against the back wall. Porter was from Woburn. He motioned Porter to come forward. As they conferred, the arguers continued.

     “We can stay here, and wait. Or we can go over t'the Tavern. It's warm there. It's just one night!”

     “Some of us, Jonas, live too far away. Our families are goin’ t’need us, close by.”

     “One night! What’s one night?!”

     “Say that again, Johnson! These ears don’t believe they heard what you said!”

     “I said my wife and children need me, close by.”

     “Horse crap! You want t’be gone, before they get here!”

     “If you lived where I live, Harrington, you'd do the same! Don’t be so quick to judge!”

     “Talk all you want, Johnson. Once you leave here you’re not comin’ back! I’ll wager anyone a crown!”

     “Judas, those of you leavin’, you'll all get back! We'll be firin' a musket, beatin' a drum!”

     “That’s if'n our scouts do what they’re supposed to do!”

     “We'll know soon enough!” Captain Parker bellowed. “Stop all this bickering!”

     He witnessed again their redirection of heads. Damn them! He would make them listen! “No more talk about whether they’re coming! They are! When they do, I expect every last one of you to be here waiting!” He dared them to object.

     “What I have t'decide,” he said, having daunted them, “is what we do once they get here!” Again, the hats. “Do we form up lines and stand against 'em?” It was the key point the Reverend had told him to advance.

     “I say we stay out o' the way and watch 'em! What can we do against five, six hundred?”

     “Get ourselves killed! That's your answer!”

     “If they molest us, insult us, then we fight! Otherwise, …”

     “We should stay over at Buckman's. Then go follow ‘em up the road.”

     “That’s right, Eaton. Follow ‘em wagging our tails!”

     “Listen! If there’s trouble at Concord, we'll be able t'help! Damn little we can do here!”

     “Enough!” Parker’s fierce demeanor silenced them. “Having fought the French,” he roared, “I know better'n most of you what it’s like standing against superior numbers!” He hooked his thumbs over the front of his belt. “When the time comes, we'll see what we have t'do. It seems t'me, though, that we should let them know what we think o' them, what they're doing!”

     “You mean fire on them?!”

     “No! Stand our ground! Show them we've got principle! We’ll stand aside in good order if they move at us.”

     He watched them twist about.

     “I'm not for hidin' here or hidin’ at Buckman’s like some cornered weasel!”

     “If we just stand there, in plain sight, showin' them we aim not t'shoot …”

     “They'll fire on us! Count on it!”

     “Ah, go home t'yer wife, Samuel.”

     “Go hide under your bed! Like Johnson here!”

     Three proponents continued to speak. It was clear to Parker that most, because they were silent, favored watching the redcoats pass leaving open the option to follow at a safe distance. It was what he would have decided, had he …

     “As I said,” he shouted, “when the time comes! When our scouts let us know the British are near! Then we'll decide!”

     “What good'll that do?!”

     “I’m for decidin' now! The hell with all this jabber!”

     “All right!” Parker raised his right hand. “All right! Then here it is!” Several standing men sat down. “If we don't change our minds, we'll not meddle with 'em! Sounds t'me that's what most of you want. We'll let them pass, if they don't abuse us.” He looked across the room at their attentive faces. “Those that want t'leave do so now. But listen for a drumbeat! Get back here then as fast as you can! Meeting over!”

     He heard the sound of their weight on the plank floor. Sharp words were exchanged as they crowded toward the exit. He had not convinced them, but he still had time. Questions. So many questions. What had happened to Patterson, Loring, and Browner? What would they say, when they returned, that would muddy the water?

     Musket shots outside the Meeting House startled him. For an instant the room was deathly quiet. What the hell! he thought. Outside, he found several young men, inside a growing circle, grinning.

     “We'll put 'em all on the ground, Captain!” one of them, brash John Winsett, shouted.

     “Just a little practice, Captain. Sorry about that,” the boy next to Winsett shamefacedly said.







Scenes from Crossing the River

 

 

Striving to Rid Himself of Shame, Pages 215-220

 

     Safe in the wood lot next to the burying grounds, Sylvanus Wood had tried to attach meaning to particular sounds. The beating of a drum had preceded the shouts of individual officers. Later, he had heard the strident voice of one officer. A colossal musket volley had made him start. Three massive, deep-throated shouts had quickened his pulse. Hoarse commands had followed. Finally, he had heard the marching sound of hundreds of feet.

     The trill of fifes and the tattoo of drums told Sylvanus of the column’s fading proximity. Leaving the grove of pine, catching sight of trailing militiamen on the Concord road, Sylvanus felt the strong tug of obligation. His compulsion to return to where he had stood, to where comrades had died, was stronger.

     Sylvanus Wood walked abashedly across the Common’s sparse grass. From different edges of the field other men were converging, six contorted bodies their lodestone. Three, Sylvanus saw, had fallen where Captain Parker had stood!

     A militiaman who had hurried across the grass from the northeast side of the field was staring at them. He was John Munroe. Staring back at his nephew, arms out, hands open as if to embrace him, old Robert Munroe was as indifferent to life and death as the hat that lay next to him. Blood stained the leather coat below the neck, where the ball had penetrated.

     Sylvanus walked past them. Several feet away lay the twisted corpse of Jonas Parker, his coat and the grass beside him recipient of the esteemed veteran’s blood. His hat lay open to the sky. Sylvanus saw inside it the musket balls, wadding, and flints that Jonas had intended to use. He recalled how the man had touched the brim of his hat when Sylvanus had been introduced. Jonas Parker had said that he would not run from the British. Because he had fled, Sylvanus had lived.

     “I saw what happened. He got hit and dropped t'his knees.” Someone behind Sylvanus had spoken. Sylvanus did not recognize the man. Tolerating Sylvanus’s stare, the militiaman nodded. “He fired his musket just the same! Lobsterback stuck him.” The stranger stared at the Concord road. “Old Jonas never had a chance.”

     Sylvanus grimaced agreement. He walked, morosely, toward the Meeting House. Halfway there, he paused to watch two wounded men being tended. He recalled the beating of the drum, the cordiality of strangers, the talk of old veterans. Like an excited child he had courted Captain Parker's favor. How easily he had been chased away!

     Striving to rid himself of shame, he loitered beside the large oak stump near the back of the Meeting House. Close by, Jonas Parker had asked, “What's it t'be, John? Hide or go out on the Common?” Live or take a musket ball or the blade of a bayonet!

     Sylvanus walked past the southwest corner of the building. Two men were carrying a wounded man to the front door. The man’s face was the color of slate.

     “The Captain was wounded in the leg,” a tall, dark-haired man exiting the building said to someone behind Wood. For a moment Sylvanus thought the man was speaking to him.

     “Where’s he at?”

     “Over at the Reverend's house, I figure.”

     The two men were silent a moment, each staring northward.

     “Does … Captain Parker know his cousin's dead?” Sylvanus asked. His tone of voice surprised him.

     The taller of the two looked at Sylvanus. After a moment, he nodded.

     “Probably the first thing he knew, I'd say,” the older man answered.

     “So you were there?” Sylvanus responded. He grimaced. Needing to say something, he had misspoken.

     The taller man stared at him an entire five seconds. “We don't know you,” he said.

     “I'm Sylvanus Wood; no, you wouldn’t.” He paused. “I live in Woburn. I stood near the Captain, 'til after the first volley, when he said t'take care of ourselves.” Looking down, he saw a gash mark across the top of his right shoe.

     “So you ran.”

     He had made an enemy of this man.

     “It's all right. We all ran. Except those that got shot.” The older man likewise stared at his shoes.

     The taller man walked away. After glancing at Wood, the older man strode after him.

     The two men who had carried the wounded man inside the building, having exited, stamped their feet. One of them, a stout man with graying temples, glanced sideways at Sylvanus. “Need your help carryin' in the wounded,” he said.

     Sylvanus walked over to them.

     A third man, who had come around the far corner of the building, joined them. “Some were wounded on the Bedford side,” he said, without introduction. Sylvanus felt even more the outsider.

     “That's taken care of, Winsett,” the second man, his mouth twisted, said. “They’re bein’ takin' t’ the Reverend's house.”

     They began their walk toward the middle of the Common.

     “After we get all the wounded, we'll take in the dead,” the gray-haired man said, neither looking to his left nor right.

     “How many?”

     The man gave Sylvanus a peculiar look.

     “I seen three or four,” Sylvanus said. He had meant the dead. Had he made this man think he didn't want to carry in the wounded?!

     “More'n that,” the second man said. “John Brown died near the swamp north of the Common, I was told. We'll have t'get him. An' Robert Harrison told me Samuel Hadley's behind a wall in John Buckman's garden.”

     “Asahel Porter, he didn't make it neither.” His lips compressed, the third man, Winsett, shook his head. “He was caught scouting. When the shooting started, he tried t'run down the Bedford road.”

     “How d’y’know that?!”

     “I was with him. They caught me after they did him.”

     “But you didn’t try t’ run, did you?” the second militiaman responded.

     “No.” Winsett looked off across the field.

     “Too bad.”

     “Asahel Porter’s from Woburn,” Sylvanus said, softly. Hard-working Asahel Porter, close to his own age, father of a year old son. Always keen to help somebody. Because of it he was dead.

     “They just rushed away from me. Left me. Then I ran.”

     I would have done that, Sylvanus thought. I wouldn’t have tried right away to escape, either.

     “I hid behind a tree just off the road,” Winsett said. “I saw Jonathan Harrington drag himself off the Common to that house o' his; I was thinkin' a redcoat was gonna see him and bayonet him, but that didn't happen.”

     The man that had been captured and that had escaped brought his left shirtsleeve across his mouth. Having everybody’s attention, he hesitated, inhaled, afterward blinked. “Must have been fifty feet or so,” he said. “He got t’his doorstep. Ruth came screamin' out the door and flung herself down.” His voice quavered. “Went over there as soon as they left. Jonathan died right there on his doorstep. His nine year old boy … saw it all from upstairs.”

     “Caleb Harrington was shot down, too. Just outside the Meeting House,” the second man said. “Him and some other men were inside gettin' powder.” He, too, blinked. “They tried t'run for it, so I heard.”

     When they reached the two wounded men that Sylvanus had seen being tended, three men stood up.

     “Can they be moved into the Meeting House?” the leader of Wood's group asked.

     “They walked out of the trees just awhile ago. Collapsed right here. S'pect so. We'll take them there right now.”

     “Then we’ll be movin’ on.”

     The third man, Winsett, the one that had witnessed Jonathan Harrington's death, hesitated. He looked at Sylvanus’s companions, briefly, then stooped to grasp a leg of one of the wounded.

     “Least he’s helpin’,” the second militiaman said, after they had walked a distance.

     “That’s so.”

     They reached the bodies of Robert Munroe, Jonas Parker, and, five yards away, a militiaman that Sylvanus didn’t know. Sylvanus stared at the pine trees into which he had fled. “We’d best get started,” he heard the gray-haired man say. Sylvanus sensed they were not yet ready.

     “Guess we'll take Isaac Muzzy first,” the gray-templed man said, grimacing. “Someone will have t’tell old John. Maybe he already knows.”

     “He does.” The other man pulled his hat down about his head. “I seen him go off down the road after the redcoats.”

     “All right then.”

     Having stared a bit longer at Muzzy, they took each of the dead man's arms. Sylvanus lifted the legs.

     “I didn't think this would happen,” the second man said when they had stopped half way to the Meeting House.

     “I guess them that did weren’t out here,” the other one said, with restrained malice.

     “Maybe next time they will.”

     “I expect not,” the gray-haired man said.

     They completed the trip in silence.

     Inside the Meeting House the two Lexington men started a conversation with a man tearing cloth. Feeling ill, Sylvanus exited. For a short while he stood at the southwest corner, facing the Concord road. “Shame’s squeezing my heart,” he said.

     Jonas Parker. Asahel Porter. Other men he’d never met. For what?! Angrily, he gripped the barrel of his musket, which minutes earlier he had propped against the building’s wall.

     They’d marched to Concord. They’d be marching back!

     This time he would not run and hide. Nor would he stand in the open. From a secure place off the road he would burn every ounce of powder, fire every musket ball he possessed!



Scenes from Crossing the River

 

 

Two Lanterns, Pages 117-119

 

     Having dragged his trailing leg awkwardly through his opened bedroom window, Robert Newman lowered himself onto the roof of the abutting shed. For a good twenty seconds he listened. Across and down the roof he then proceeded, slowly -- silently, he prayed -- lest he be heard by the British officers downstairs at their game of whist. He had excused himself from the general company ten minutes earlier, telling his mother that he was tired and wanted to retire. At the edge of the roof, listening, staring, he detected no one in the street. Carefully, soundlessly, he lowered himself, his shoes reaching the top of an upright, empty flour barrel. Crouched atop the barrel, he extended his left leg until the toe of his shoe touched the pavement.

     Had they heard him? Stiff as a grave marker, he listened.

     The dark shape of Christ Church dwarfed him. He moved quickly across the street into its shadow. A young man, twenty-three, he was the church sexton. His older brother was the organist. Times were hard; Newman did not like his job; too bad. When Paul Revere had explained to him what he had wanted, Newman had been eager to participate. Afterward, he had reckoned the peril.

     Hearing footsteps on the cobblestones, he stepped behind the church’s corner. John Pulling emerged from the darkness. “Sssst! Over here!” Newman whispered.

     Pulling was a church vestryman. Revere had recruited him to be Newman’s lookout.

     “Not here yet?” Pulling asked.

     “He didn't say when. Any time, I suspect.” He was right. Soon they heard aggressive footsteps. Paul Revere’s broad figure approached.

     “Nervous?” Revere asked, joining them at the church’s darkest corner.

     Newman nodded.

     “You become accustomed to it.” For perhaps ten seconds Revere gazed at the deserted street.

     Newman was taken by the silversmith’s air of confidence.

     “The British soldiers are in the boats,” Revere informed. “Go easy. Take your time. But do your work to its completion. If I’m arrested, our fortune may rest entirely upon what you accomplish.” He patted Newman’s left shoulder. “I must prepare to leave. God be with you.”

     Newman listened to Revere’s footfalls and then, too soon, but the night sounds.

 It was too late to renege.

 “All right,” he said, raising angrily his hands. He pulled out of his side coat pocket a ring of keys. He inserted a long key into the lock of the side entrance door. He turned the key and pushed open the door. Pulling nodded. Newman closed the door, locked it, and in darkness felt his way to a closet. Leaving it, carrying two lanterns, he moved to the stairway that led to the belfry.

     Past the bell loft he climbed, the eight great bells within somnolent. He reached the highest window. To the north he saw in the moonlight the shoulder of Copp's Hill. Beyond lay the mouth of the Charles River and the glimmering lights of the Somerset, a moving, ethereal flicker.

     He reached downward, lit the lanterns, and raised them chest high. Somewhere amid the lights of Charlestown, beyond the Somerset, Sons of Liberty were watching. They would now know that Gage’s soldiers were crossing the Back Bay.

     Having counted to twenty, he set the lanterns down below the window. He extinguished them. Such a short while they had glowed, but Mr. Revere had assured him that patriots of Liberty would be watching. He had not wanted others, especially sailors on the man-of-war, to see them!

     Other people, however, just might! An officer, taking a brisk walk along Snow Street. Newman imagined others: a soldier at the burying ground engaging a whore, sentries idling at the Charlestown Ferry. How swiftly might the source of that strange illumination be determined? How soon might soldiers be dispatched to investigate?

     He heard unnatural sounds in the street! Sounds loud enough to startle him. What was Pulling doing? His heart thumped.

     He waited a full minute.

     He imagined Pulling arrested, soldiers posted silently outside the main entrance. Impeded by doubt, by anxiety, he tarried.

     Ashamed of his cowardice, he willed himself down the dark stairway. He returned the lanterns to the closet. Then, to the opposite end of the church he walked, stopping to listen after each step. Eventually, he reached the window farthest from the main entrance. He opened it, not without some noise, listened again to silence, climbed through it, and placed his shoes on firm soil.

     Five minutes later he was standing on the roof of the shed adjacent to his bedroom window. He eased himself soundlessly over the sill. Leaving his outer garments on the floor, he climbed into his bed. For at least an hour he lay still, his agitated mind imagining frightful consequences.

     Below, concluding a most delightful evening, the officers jested and guffawed.