The New Land

by The New Land (retail) (epub)

  Christopher’s eyebrow went up again. Ben spoke indistinctly. After stopping for a breath, Franklin scrambled over the redoubt wall and followed the others to the site for the new breastwork.

  After an hour of digging on the Mystic River side, the sky behind Boston began to lighten. The men were leaning on their shovels more often. They licked parched lips and swallowed with dry throats. Muscles cried out for rest and sleep. No one knew what the morning would bring.

  Before he heard the hollow boom of a cannon, Franklin saw the first puff of smoke and flash from the sloop off the eastern point. A cannonball whistled overhead and landed hard. Several men dropped to their knees and covered their heads. Franklin’s stomach turned over.

  “Seems like our secret’s out,” Ben said in his normal voice, using his foot to drive the shovel. “At least we can talk now.” He threw his shovel load on the breastwork.

  “You figure we’ll be having company?” Franklin said.

  “Amen, son,” Ben said. “If we had any damned artillery, we could rain bloody murder down on them.” He shook his head. “They’ll come after us for sure.”

  Franklin nodded, then swung the pick again. Another cannon boomed. Then a different sound, like a gourd being squashed. The soldiers on the breastwork looked to the redoubt. A body lay on the ground, its top part mashed to jelly. Franklin looked away. “Dig, son,” Ben said. “May the Lord bless that poor man’s soul.”

  Soon five ships were firing up at the redoubt and the breastwork. Across the harbor, British artillery on a facing hill opened up. Balls constantly arced overhead now. The Americans could see them against the high, white sky, bending down to smash whatever lay at flight’s end. Their impact was sickening. Fear revived Franklin’s weary body. He swung the pick with a vengeance. Maybe he could burrow deep into the earth, away from this insanity.

  The men’s grumbling was gaining volume now. The officers were fools who knew nothing of war. The soldiers were fools to follow them. They’d been led to their deaths, sent up on this godforsaken hill with more hope than water. It was suicide. If the cannonballs didn’t get them, they were sure to die of thirst or exhaustion. Captain Bellamy, working a few yards from Franklin, didn’t chastise the complainers. He kept digging. When Franklin looked to his left, he saw a gap among the men. A dozen were walking uphill, away from the redoubt, some singly, some in twos or threes.

  “Captain.” It was Prescott again. Bellamy stepped back to confer with the commander, who was animated. The captain picked his coat off the ground and pulled it on, then began walking the line of the breastwork, speaking in low tones to the men, encouraging them.

  Prescott stalked off. When he neared the point where the breastwork met the redoubt, he made a long-legged leap onto the lower wall, then sprang up on the redoubt wall. Waving his hat with one arm, he flashed a broad smile. “Boys,” he shouted, “we’ll let those bastards aim at me first, so you can get your work done.”

  He strutted down the rim, calling out to soldiers he knew, swatting others on the shoulder with his hat. At the corner closest to the British ships, he turned his back on Boston and faced them all. “Those sons of bitches’ve got the same chance of hitting me,” he called, “as I have of dining with King George this afternoon!” Some of the men smiled and shook their heads. As if to make Prescott’s point, two cannonballs passed harmlessly overhead and a third fell short. Prescott spread his coat to put his fists on his hips. “Which is lucky for me, because Mrs. Prescott would insist on a whole new rig for such a dinner, and I can’t afford it!” The grins spread. A few men called out to the commander.

  Resuming his walltop saunter, Prescott threw jokes to the men, praised the work, told them they’d soon be grateful for every spadeful of earth they packed down.

  “Now that’s a man,” Ben Talbot said. “I’ll follow that one.”

  Prescott’s stroll on the redoubt stanched the trickle of men heading to safety, but only for a while. For two more hours, the British barrage kept up, doing little real damage beyond smashing two water casks, a bitter loss to thirsty men who hadn’t eaten in fifteen hours or slept for thirty. The guns fell silent in the late morning, leaving the ascending sun as the Americans’ chief tormentor. Exposed on a hill without trees, the men suffered. Thirst and fatigue mounted. Captain Bellamy pronounced the breastwork completed and led the company back into the redoubt. They dropped their tools, fetched their rifles and muskets, and collapsed.

  When the British cannon resumed, spirits plunged anew. Why no reinforcements? Thousands of Americans loitered in camp in Cambridge a few miles away. Why didn’t they send food and water? Had the men on the hill been forgotten? Were they to be sacrificed?

  The exodus began innocently. General Putnam strode into the redoubt and exclaimed that no battle could be fought with all those shovels and picks lying around. He called for volunteers to carry them up Bunker Hill. Dozens leapt at the opportunity to leave, many carrying a single shovel. “Say good-bye to those fellows,” Ben said. More left, many not even pretending to carry any tools. Franklin felt anger, fear, and envy.

  Captain Bellamy crouched before him. “There’s a call for a squad of sharpshooters to drop down to the village.” He stood and pointed southwest from the redoubt. Franklin rose to look. “The villagers have left, it’s empty. You can find a good spot to shoot at the redcoats when they land.” His finger swept around to a beach next to the buildings, directly across from Boston. “With that rifle of yours, you could do us proud.”

  Franklin nodded. He followed Bellamy to the high end of the redoubt, where a dozen soldiers clustered around Prescott. All held rifles. “We need you boys to disrupt them, make them think twice about their choice of profession. Aim at the officers. Without officers, their men’ll lose heart.”

  “How do we pick them out, the officers?” a man asked.

  “They’ll have the brightest uniforms,” Bellamy broke in. “Pure scarlet. Soldiers can’t afford a new uniform every year, but officers can. Look for the brightest colors.”

  “And,” Prescott said, “aim for their belts, where they cross each other, right here.” He put a hand to his solar plexus. “If you’re new to this”—he looked straight at Franklin—”shoot lower than you think you should. We all shoot high.” He looked at each man in turn. “Don’t stay too long. When they start after you, pull back into the trees behind the village, there’s a farm there. Or even slip up here and lend a hand.”

  The best part of the assignment came early, when they reached the village. One of the sharpshooters discovered a well. Franklin drank deeply, letting the cool liquid filter down his throat, washing out the dust of the digging. He felt reborn.

  It took nearly an hour to find a spot he liked. Some shooters settled inside houses, their rifles poking out the windows. Franklin didn’t feel right stomping into someone’s home, bringing war with him. Also, he didn’t want to get trapped inside a building. He found a thick oak at the village’s eastern edge, the pride of a grove surrounded by heavy undergrowth. He set up there, plotting how after each shot he could move to another sheltered spot, confounding return fire. He cleared passages between those shooting stations, so he wouldn’t stumble.

  He settled down to wait, grateful to be in the shade, to be kneeling. When his head hit the tree trunk, he realized that he had fallen asleep. He was startled by two blasts that came from up the slope, at the redoubt. Had American cannons arrived? That would help. They were drowned out by answering fire from the British cannon.

  He studied the sloops in the channel as they fired up the hill. The largest had ten guns facing the Americans, puffs of white smoke billowing with each blast. Two smaller sloops had seven gun ports on each side. Without return fire from the Americans, they rode at anchor, firing at steady intervals. He wondered how fast the ships could sail with such heavy guns. Franklin felt a guilty relief that they were shooting up the hill, not at him in the village.

  Movement on the channel’s far shore drew Franklin’s eye.
Lines of redcoats were entering boats. They didn’t hurry. When loaded, the boats launched across the channel. The water was calm, lending the procession a majestic quality. He counted two columns of fourteen boats each. Franklin drew himself up to firing position, but the boats veered north and came ashore far beyond his range. The redcoats walked up a small rise and lingered there while the boats went back for another load. The process took much of an hour.

  At midafternoon, a detachment of redcoats broke from the main body and marched toward the village, then swerved right, massing for an attack on the redoubt from this side. Franklin settled on one knee, the rifle barrel on the ground. They were in range, but he waited for another shooter to fire first. He noted three of the enemy whose uniforms sparkled in the afternoon sun. Officers. Targets.

  He wiped sweaty palms on his shirt, then rubbed dirt into them. He had never shot a man, or at a man. This was no time to dwell on that. He thought of Marcus, who made the sacrifice without getting into the fight. He thought of his father and the battles he survived. He thought of Jane. He had a job to do for all of them, and for his friends in the redoubt. His heart was beating hard.

  A shot came from his right. Franklin had a target in his sight, a tall man with a uniform that fairly glowed. He squeezed the trigger. The rifle jolted. His target fell backward. Franklin spun round, his back to the tree trunk, and reloaded, reminding himself to slow down. Others fired. He had no cartridges, so he had to pour the powder down the muzzle, load the ball, then level the rifle to pour powder into the pan. There was no return fire. He decided to shoot again from this spot.

  When he turned to take aim, the sight was shocking. None of the British troops had moved. They weren’t kneeling or lying down or making any effort to protect themselves. They weren’t firing back, probably because their muskets couldn’t reach this far. He couldn’t decide whether to admire their bravery or scorn their stupidity. He fired again and cursed. He had to keep his mind on shooting. Nothing else. He hurried his next shot and the gun misfired, only a click sounding after he pulled the trigger. Taking a breath, he cleaned the muzzle, emptied the pan, and concentrated, then moved to another shooting station.

  Franklin was at his third station when he heard the whistle of a cannonball, then a crunch as it hit a building to his right. So that was it. The British would blast the sharpshooters with artillery. He aimed in a standing position, impressed that targets in the brightest coats still presented themselves. Didn’t they notice the danger? He shot. He thought it hit home. He decided to move back to his first station. More cannonballs shrieked into the village. One whumped into the ground. Others smashed wood and glass.

  When he set up for his next shot, Franklin sniffed. He turned around. Black smoke spiraled up from two houses. The village was burning. More British shells flew in. Two sharpshooters were running toward the farm, back toward Bunker Hill. He fired a last shot and didn’t stay to watch. The smoke was billowing now, blowing toward Franklin and the British troops.

  He jogged through the grove, then out into open ground. The sharpshooters had gathered near a stone barn. “Can’t burn this,” one of them said, but Franklin wasn’t so sure. The roof, any hay inside, all would burn easily. He decided to keep going. He looped around so he could climb the hill. His breathing grew labored. This hill was steeper than the hill where the redoubt stood.

  At the summit, he stopped to catch his wind. Hundreds of Americans milled aimlessly there. Some looked anxious. Others looked bored. The slope down to the redoubt was dotted with traffic, soldiers fleeing the redoubt and others—fewer—approaching it. British troops on the Mystic River side had formed into a line, two-deep. They were moving against the breastwork and another structure that looked like a fence. In the front, wearing tall hats that made them seem a race of goliaths, marched the British grenadiers. Franklin’s heart pounded. The battle was starting. A man near him called out, “Who’s for the redoubt? Who stands with our men?”

  Franklin joined the group that formed behind the man, walking next to a black soldier carrying an ancient-looking musket. He wondered how an African ended up descending this hill to fight the British, but then focused on the British advance. The line of red on the river side had started to move forward.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  †

  “It’s young Overstreet,” Ben Talbot cried out as Franklin threw himself against a rampart. The older man gave him a sidelong look. “You’re showing more loyalty than judgment.” Christopher clapped Franklin on the back, but said nothing. Both brothers, coatless now, leaned against the embankment. “We were hoping you’d have drove the bastards off by now,” Ben added.

  To their right, the village was aflame, thick smoke cloaking the British muster. Nothing could survive that conflagration. On the other side of the redoubt, the British still advanced along the river. Stumbling over pasture fences, the attackers stopped to batter them to pieces. Their lack of haste was unnerving, like the ice coming down the Medomak in spring.

  As the redcoats kept coming, the British cannon fell silent. The stillness left a ringing echo. Tension built inside the redoubt.

  Franklin looked around after he loaded his rifle. “We could use a few more men.”

  “See Dr. Warren there,” Ben said. Christopher nodded his head to the right. Amid the dirt-crusted soldiers stood a handsome fellow in a black suit, holding a musket and chatting with a neighbor. “Boss of the whole colony he is, and came here to stand with us.”

  Franklin grunted.

  “Also,” Ben said, “we’re not to shoot until we see the whites of their eyes.”

  “Hope the redcoats don’t squint,” Franklin said.

  Ben smiled. “Good man.”

  Franklin felt lightheaded under the blazing sun. Lifting his hat, he wiped his forehead with a sleeve. He still hadn’t eaten or slept, but he’d had water. He closed his eyes and thought a short prayer. The men climbing the slope were offering the same prayer. How would God choose?

  Well beyond rifle range, the redcoats had formed a long line before the village, one that curled around the redoubt’s eastern and northern sides. Overlapping both ends of the American walls, the line looked like a vise that would slowly close, crushing the fort and everything within it. Drums began a steady, slow beat. At the pace of a Sunday stroll, the redcoats started.

  Some Americans were leaving the redoubt wall on the river side, across from Franklin and the Talbots. Colonel Prescott rushed to them. “Fellows, you’ve built these stout walls,” he said in a steady voice, managing a smile. “We can do this now. We must do this. This is why we’re here.” The men paused. They looked uncertainly at each other. Prescott spread his arms to herd them back. They resumed their positions.

  Franklin peeped over the wall at the British advancing from the village. They had stopped, evidently to wait for three small cannons to be muscled past fences. The drums kept pounding. Then the line of red coats, white belts, and white britches started again. They looked a proper army, not like the men in the redoubt, who resembled impoverished gravediggers. Nor did the British look thirsty or hungry or unslept.

  The redcoats stopped to send a volley up the hill. Musket balls thumped into the redoubt wall. Others whistled overhead. No American cried out.

  Some Americans fired back, but Prescott stopped them. “The whites of their eyes,” Ben muttered, taking his own peep over the wall. The British line began again. Franklin took aim. They marched closer. And closer. So close that he barely needed to aim. He could simply point the rifle in the right direction. When the British were thirty yards away, still at their Sunday pace, Prescott shouted.

  Franklin’s shot was swallowed in the roar. Flames sprang from muzzles up and down the wall. The British front line fell, swept to the ground as though a giant scythe had swung across them. Or the hand of God. The American musket fire kept up. By the time Franklin had reloaded, the British were moving back down the slope. Few fired back. Some British officers shouted, smacking soldiers with t
he flats of their swords to drive them forward, but the red wave was ebbing. As they backed away, they left behind a scattering of broken and bleeding soldiers. Franklin heard cheers from soldiers around him. They had stopped them.

  But the redcoats weren’t through. They stopped out of musket range and reassembled. Franklin thought his rifle could reach them. He aimed at a man trying to organize a new line. He kept the muzzle on the man as he strode up and down the line, waiting for him to stop. The man paused to shout at a soldier. Franklin squeezed the trigger. He saw the man jerk, drop his sword, and fall to his knees.

  By the time Franklin had reloaded, the drums were beating again. The British line was moving. They’re not cowards, Franklin thought. He tried to ignore the groans and cries from the enemy wounded who lay before the redoubt.

  The next scene was an eerie reprise of the first attack. The Americans held their fire. And held their fire. The British kept coming. And kept coming. Franklin remembered his father’s words. On either side, the soldier’s comrades are shot down, but the soldier continues on. It was madness.

  Prescott shouted. The American line erupted. More redcoats fell. The men behind them tried to get past crumpled bodies. Some tripped. Others wavered. More shots came from the redoubt. The redcoats fell back down the slope.

  Prescott screamed to stop shooting. This time there was no cheering. Prescott walked behind the men. Powder was low, he said. Make every shot count. Retreating to the middle of the redoubt, he started tearing open artillery cartridges for cannon that had never arrived. Men trotted over to receive loose powder from him.

  “I’m out,” Ben said to his brother.

  “Yup,” Christopher agreed. Franklin poured his remaining powder into his hand.