The Bastard: The Kent Family Chronicles (69 page)

And now, with the regulars marching somewhere beneath the paling stars, it might be too late. If the British came as far as Concord, men could die—

Philip Kent among them.

At Colonel Barrett’s farm, lanterns burned in the barn. Philip found the militia commander assembling his gear. A bit addled and still smelling of rum, he had nevertheless wakened to the bell.

“Did Buttrick think I wouldn’t, for God’s sake?” Barrett belched. “That’s one tocsin I’d hear even if I were down in hell. I’m glad you’re back, Kent. Some said you’d gone for good. To the Tory side, maybe.”

“I couldn’t ever stand on the Tory side, Colonel.”

“Good. Because we’ll need every man if they’re sending fifteen hundred to strip this farm of all we’ve hidden away. Good black powder in the attic with feather ticking over it. Cannon buried in the furrows of the back field—and d’you know how much is left in Concord?”

“I saw flour barrels being moved—”

“That’s a fraction! There’s nearly ten tons of musket balls and cartridges. Thirty-five half-barrels of powder. Gun carriages and tents and salt fish and beef and harness and spades and—well, plenty to make it worth Gage’s while to search it out, I’ll tell you. Worth our while to defend, too. A couple of days ago there was a rumor this raid might be coming. So some of the stuff’s been hauled to towns west of here. But by no means all. Here, I’m talking too much—get going!”

Not many minutes later, Philip turned the mare into the yard of O’Brian’s. He found the whole household—the Irish farmer, Daisy, Lumden and Arthur—awake and wondering at the exact meaning of the alarm.

Because of the tense situation, Philip’s sudden appearance elicited only momentary surprise, and the briefest of greetings. They all wanted to know why the bell rang. Philip explained. Arthur finished rounding up the arms for him and for O’Brian: a musket apiece and shoulder-strap cartouches packed with lead ball and paper-wrapped powder charges.

O’Brian hummed a military tune, checking his supplies with a sprightliness more appropriate to a man half his age. Lumden voiced the wish that a spare musket could be found. He felt obliged to be ready to defend O’Brian’s house.

Arthur’s teeth showed in a hard smile. “Don’ fret, Sergeant George. Tommy comes this far, there’s sickles and scythes in the barn. And a loft where you can drop down on ’em by surprise.”

“By God, you can count on it.”

Philip found a moment to draw Daisy aside.

“I tried to see Mistress Anne in the village. Her father wouldn’t permit it. I don’t want to put you in danger, Daisy, but is there any way you can get to her? Slip in and give her a message and then get out before there’s trouble?”

Daisy didn’t hesitate. “Of course I can.”

“Then tell her—” A lump seemed to congeal in his throat. Already the musket felt dead heavy in his right hand. “Tell her she has my love. In case I don’t see her again.”

“All right,” the red-haired girl whispered, awed by his stark look.

“And tell her I’m sorry I caused her any—”

“Kent! Let’s move out!” came O’Brian’s hail from the front of the house.

Nodding wanly, Philip started away. A thought crossed his mind. He called, “One moment more, sir—” He turned back to the girl, who was already pulling a shawl around her shoulders. “Daisy, are my things still stored in the clothes press?”

“Your sword and the tea bottle—?”

“And the box.”

She nodded.

He leaned his musket against the wall, went to the clothes press, knelt and rummaged in the bottom until he located the leather-covered casket. He opened the lid, drew out the document on top, replaced the casket, shut the press doors and walked swiftly back past Daisy to the kitchen, where Arthur had already kindled a fire.

He stared at his father’s witnessed letter for a few seconds. Then he put it in the flames. He retrieved his musket and left the house by the front door.

He drew a deep breath of the sweet morning air as he joined O’Brian out by the road. Behind the ridge, the eastern sky was already growing light.

T
HE HOT MORNING SUN
beat against Philip’s neck as he obeyed the command to load.

He braced the musket’s butt on the ground. He tore one of the paper cartridges with his teeth, poured its contents down the muzzle, then dropped the ball in after it. Three twisting strokes of the ramrod and the load was seated.

He was conscious of sweat on his palms, the nervous expressions of the men around him. Several hundred by now. The Concord companies had been reinforced with units that had marched in from Lincoln, Acton, Bedford. And there were young and old men who belonged to no company at all, but who had brought their ancient squirrel guns, even a few pistols, in response to the couriers and the tolling bells that had spread the dreadful tidings across the countryside—

The regulars are coming out.

From the slant of the sun, Philip judged the time to be near eleven o’clock. He stood next to O’Brian on the Muster Field, a high hilltop place well back from the north side of the road that led west from the river bridge.

As the mounted officers resumed their conference, he wiped his sweating forehead. Squinted at the white clouds sailing calm and stately overhead. His mouth was dry, with a metallic taste. Was this how it felt when a man faced death in battle?

Because there was no longer any doubt that the stage was set for conflict. Just down the hillside, invisible from the Muster Field to which the militiamen had retreated, British units in their brilliant, blazing red had crossed the bridge to the west side—

It still seemed unreal.

So did the whole morning. Since first light, he’d lived through a terrifyingly swift sequence of events. Events far different from any his wildest imagination had ever conjured in Auvergne. Or London or Boston, for that matter.

Through it all, he’d searched for Anne. He hadn’t seen her—nor her father, thank God.

Perhaps he’d only missed her by moments. But that was no comfort. Not now.

He and O’Brian had arrived in Concord at dawn. People were everywhere: armed men tramping in from the hills, others still moving stores to new hiding places. In dooryards, women gathered with their sleepy children, whispering, their faces drawn.

About six o’clock, a scout brought news from Lexington.

Many companies of British soldiers were indeed on the march. At Lexington green, the arriving redcoats and Captain Parker’s minutemen had exchanged shots. The scout had spurred his horse away at the first sounds of firing. Thus, he couldn’t answer what seemed to be everyone’s question—including O’Brian’s:

Were the British firing ball or only noisy powder?

The scout swiped at his mouth. “I do not know. But I think it probable they were using ball.”

The man could offer no more definite information as to who had fired first, the Crown soldiers or some hot-tempered colonial. But the stunning truth spread throughout the village in a few minutes, casting a new pall—

Shots exchanged.

A war of words had turned to a war in fact.

The Concord companies formed up and marched out toward Lexington before seven, to probe the enemy’s strength.

A slender country fellow Philip knew as Hosmer beat time on his drum as they trudged east in the steadily brightening light. At that hour, the column comprised not many more than a hundred men, drab in their plain shirts, their farm-muddied boots and trousers.

Someone let out a yell, pointed. Away in the east, Philip and the others spied the head of what seemed a great red serpent crawling along the level road to meet them—

Several hundred grenadiers and light infantrymen at least. Preceded by their musicians thudding drums and tootling fifes. Bayonets glittered in the rising sun. Ornamental plates on the tall black caps of the grenadiers winked like mirrors. Crossbelts and pipe-clayed breeches showed brilliant white. The music and the sound of their coming filled the countryside.

Colonel Barrett reined in, scowling. A moment later he ordered his companies to turn about and countermarch. The men in the colorfully faced red uniforms pouring along the road far outnumbered Barrett’s force. There might be as many as five hundred or a thousand approaching, their brave music louder by the moment.

So on Barrett’s order, the Concord companies preceded their enemies back to the village, keeping in surprisingly good formation and showing no panic. But their own riffling drum and single fife were all but drowned out by the massed instruments behind them.

A strange procession indeed, Philip thought as he tramped back into town. He and his companions marched—even joked—as if that immense scarlet serpent didn’t exist—

The officers spurred ahead to warn the women and old men to retreat to their homes. The flood of armed redcoats would be sweeping into Concord before another hour was up—!

The militiamen kept in their ranks and halted on command. Philip again searched the scurrying clusters of townspeople for a glimpse of Anne. He didn’t see her.

He reflected with a grim amusement that the colonials had almost behaved like a sort of advance honor guard for their foes—music competing against music in the warmth of the April morning. Toward the end, Hosmer had actually picked up and matched the cadence of the British drums.

As the British tattoo grew still louder, officers and townsmen argued briefly. Some, the Reverend Emerson for one, wanted an immediate confrontation right in the village. Barrett finally overruled the hotter tempers. The supplies in town had now been reasonably well hidden, he said. No one as yet had a clear indication of how thorough—or how violent—the British search would be.

“And if it does come to battle, the longer we wait, the better. We’ll have more men from the neighboring towns.”

Many questioned Barrett’s decision loudly and angrily. But no one disobeyed when he gave the order for the men to march.

They headed up the road in the direction of North Bridge and the high ground of the Muster Field. On the way, scouts reported that the British bandsmen had broken formation. Retreated to the rear of the column. Some light infantry companies were leaving the road, scaling the ridge on their right to search for hostile forces—

Once across the bridge, Barrett ordered his officers to clear the hillside of a considerable number of townsmen and farm families who had waded the river to watch any forthcoming action. Looking back during the ascent to the Muster Field, Philip saw red and white uniforms through the trees lining the road from Concord.

Six or seven companies of light infantry, it looked like. Moving westward—no doubt to find the supplies at Barrett’s farm.

The colonel left Major Buttrick in command as the country soldiers reached the hilltop. Barrett galloped off to his farm for a last-minute check of the hidden stores.

The sun grew hotter.

The British companies advanced across the bridge. Three deployed on the river’s west bank. The other four marched on toward Barrett’s, to the steady thumping of the drums.

Soon Barrett came riding back, having circled wide to elude the searchers. He dismounted on the brow of the hill and surveyed the situation down at the bridge.

All the time, more men arrived. From the south, from the north, they flowed in singly and in groups. The sun kept climbing toward the zenith.

Philip and the others fidgeted while Barrett spoke with his officers. The morning wind blew warm across the hilltop.

Word circulated that Barrett was gambling on the main thrust of search and seizure being aimed at his farm. Perhaps all that the redcoats left in town wanted to do was show their authority—by means of their presence.

Before long, however, he was proved wrong. About ten, a man slipped across the river. He reported that the leader of the expeditionary force, a Lieutenant Colonel Smith, had established a command post at Wright’s. His soldiers were scouring the town for stores.

With restraint, the spy said. The townspeople were not being abused—or even touched. But sacks of bullets and barrels of flour were being pitched gleefully into the millpond by the redcoats. That remained the extent of the damage to the moment—

The whole action seemed hesitant, Philip thought. It was as if the British still hoped to bring the colonists to heel without violence. Could the report from Lexington have been exaggerated? The possibility helped him breathe a little easier—

Especially about Anne. Wherever she might be in town, her safety seemed more certain than it had a few hours ago.

Then, just before eleven, the black plume of smoke climbed into the sky.

From the Muster Field, it wasn’t possible to see what buildings were afire. But the meaning of the smoke column seemed unmistakable. One of Barrett’s adjutants confronted him angrily:

“Damn it, sir, will you let them burn the town down?”

A few moments later, Barrett gave the command to load with ball.

Hosmer struck up his drumbeat again. In a column of twos, the country soldiers marched to the edge of the hill and started down.

From his position alongside Martin O’Brian, Philip saw the Irish farmer grin a hard grin. And realized Barrett’s strategy had been sound. The double file trailing away ahead and behind surely must total five hundred by now. The three British companies on this side of the bridge appeared to number no more than a hundred or a hundred and twenty at most.

Barrett sat his horse at the crest of the hillside. As Philip and the others trudged past, he kept repeating a stern command:

“Don’t fire first. If there’s to be shooting, don’t fire first!”

Philip’s heart beat hard, almost matching the rhythm of Hosmer’s drum. Below him, the head of the column reached level ground, turned in the direction of the bridge. The whole proceedings still did not seem quite real—

Except for that black pillar of smoke over the treetops that screened out all sight of the village.

“Hah, look! They’re scurrying back!” O’Brian rasped cheerfully.