Cannons for the Cause

by Martin Ganzglass

  At the top of a broad street that Will knew led down to Long Wharf, the artillery regiment turned left into a large square, passed a courthouse, paraded left through sparser crowds, and headed back in the direction of The Neck. At the Commons, the Regiment lined up for the reading of the orders of the day and then disbanded. All married men or soldiers with relatives and family in Boston, which was most of the Regiment, were given three days leave. The rest were given leave for the remainder of the day, to return to barracks at night, and to report for the morning roll call on the Commons. Leave for them would be granted, depending on the availability of other troops to patrol the town.

  After settling Big Red in one of the sheds that served as a barn, Will walked into one of the wooden barrack buildings and found himself alone. It was now early afternoon. The wind had turned chilly. He pulled Elisabeth’s scarf more tightly around his neck and thrust his hands deeper into his pockets. He retraced their parade route to the central square and found the street leading to Long Wharf. That would be as good a place as any to start, he reasoned. People seemed to be going about their normal business. He passed women coming up the cobblestoned street from the harbor with shopping baskets, the occasional fishtail protruding from underneath a cloth. Several patrols of soldiers marched briskly by. They were from units whose uniforms he did not recognize, bayonets fixed on their muskets. As part of the orders of the day, read to the Regiment earlier, General Washington had promised the severest punishment for pillaging and looting. From the show of troops patrolling Boston, Will thought he intended to enforce them.

  Will passed several taverns crowded with soldiers on leave and men of Boston celebrating, drunk and boisterous, spilling out of the taverns, leaning against brick walls, and making lewd remarks about any women passing by. Will hurried down to the wharf, astonished at the number of people and the activity. There were sloops sunk alongside the piers, with their masts cut down to thick stubs a foot above the decks. Soldiers and dock workers trod along the awash decks, lowering ropes and chains under the hulls in preparation for raising them. He walked along the pier, part of the curious crowd staring into the harbor waters. People scrambled and fought to pull out of the shallow water the goods their Loyalist neighbors had jettisoned in their haste to depart. Men’s waistcoats and women’s dresses and shawls floated amidst the broken wood of carts and furniture. A man emerged dripping wet and fully clothed from the cold water, hoisting a trunk above his head. He handed it to an accomplice before diving back under.

  “There’s hogsheads of sugar and salt down there,” the man said gesturing to the dark waters. “No use to us wet, but there is treasure to be found still,” the accomplice said to the small group of inquisitive bystanders. He cocked his thumb toward his wheelbarrow. It held a small wooden night table, the place where the drawer had been now gaping like a mouth without any teeth. Will saw it had been carelessly tossed on top of a clock in an intricately carved case. The man cradled a china tea pot without a lid in his hands while keeping a foot on an already tarnished silver tray. “And there are frilly ladies’ things to purchase the favors of the harbor whores without spending a shilling,” he said. He leered knowingly at the men around him, smirking to himself in anticipation of such encounters.

  Further down the wharf, Will stopped to watch soldiers of the Rhode Island Artillery haul a brass nine-pounder from the waters alongside the pier, swivel it over the wooden planking and lower it next to three other cannons they had salvaged. Will observed that the trunnions were broken on all of them and they had been spiked. He guessed there were gunsmiths in Boston who would know how to repair them.

  He was tempted to stay and observe the activity on the wharf but felt compelled to look for Johan. He scanned the faces of the men around him. He hoped that perhaps Johan, now free to move around the city, would be among the curious on this wharf. He made his way back up the pier, turned right and found himself on a narrow street lined with solid brick warehouses. Two sentries, dressed in buff britches and red scarlet coats crossed with white straps, blocked the double doors, which hung askew from their broken hinges. Will peered through the opening and saw more red-coated soldiers inside.

  “What unit are you from?” he asked the sentry. The man shifted his feet. Will noticed his thin black low shoes and the stain of slush and mud on the lower part of his white wool leggings. His feet must be frozen, Will thought, thankful once again for his boots.

  “We are the Essex Militia,” he answered proudly, holding his musket with the bayonet affixed at the ready.

  “You were on the far right on the Heights, closest to Dorchester Point, were you not?” Will asked.

  The sentry smiled, pleased Will knew the Militia had been ready to repel the British assault. “Yes, we were there,” he said. “We were ready for the Redcoats and would have made them sorry had they attacked our positions ” the other sentry added boastfully. He readjusted his tricorn and squared his shoulders.

  “What are you guarding?” Will asked.

  “Chaldrons of coal. The finest of English coal the Redcoats brought over will now heat our barracks and homes,” the first sentry answered, stamping his feet.

  “Good thing too,” the other added. “The Sabbath breakers burned everything for fuel, including our churches. And there is not a single fence or shack left standing in the town.”

  Will moved down the street until he found another warehouse with a street-level office. He saw two men seated, copying into large bound books that were propped up on writing desks. He knocked and entered.

  “Excuse me, gentlemen. I am looking for my brother, Johan Stoner, who was employed by a merchant in Boston. Perhaps you know. . .”

  “Never heard of him,” the older one interrupted, eying Will’s dirty coat and the worn red and blue scarves loosely tied under his collar, before resuming making entries in the ledger.

  The younger clerk was more sympathetic although his information was not helpful. “When the British closed the port, many merchants lost everything. If they managed to scrape by, it was most likely without a clerk.” He blew on his fingers to warm them.

  Will nodded, thinking his search was an impossible task.

  “Your brother, if he was let go, may have been employed by someone not on the wharves.” He noticed Will’s look of hopelessness. “There are more warehouses down by the Town Dock and Woodman’s Wharf,” he offered. “And of course there are the wharves east of Long Wharf toward The Neck.” He lowered his voice. “I would exercise more caution in that part of the harbor, if you know what I mean.”

  Will did not understand what he meant. He intended to work this side of the harbor anyway. He spent what remained of the afternoon and early evening, knocking at the doors of warehouses and shipyards, and talking to fishermongers, all to no avail.

  The next day, he resumed his quest, working his way north through Burrell’s Wharf, Clark’s Wharf, Gallop’s Wharf and Halsey’s Wharf. At each place he stopped, the answer was the same. No one had heard of Johan. Sometime after midday, while he was sitting and watching the sea gulls dive for offal thrown by a fisherman cleaning his catch at the end of the short pier, there was a tremendous explosion, followed by another. Then silence. Everyone around him began talking at once. One man yelled the British fleet was back. “The Redcoats have blown up Funnel Hall,” another shouted. Men looked around for clouds of smoke or warships in the harbor. When neither materialized, they continued to speculate on the cause of the explosions. None of their talk made any sense to Will. He looked toward the end of the pier. Off to the east, beyond Dorchester Heights, a dirty grey plume began to rise slowly in the sky. Will thought it must be from Castle Island. The Americans still occupied The Heights and the British had assembled and left from Castle Island. He kept his opinion to himself as others pointed in the direction of the short thick cloud. What a waste of good powder. He smiled to himself. You are beginning to reason like an artillery man, he thought.

  Returning to the barracks late in th
e afternoon, he found himself again on the narrow street of the coal warehouse. He passed a line of waiting women, their shawls tied tightly over their hats to ward off the chill, baskets on their arms, gossiping amicably with each other. Two different sentries stood in front of the broken doors, flirting with the women at the beginning of the line.

  At the top of the street, after he turned the corner, he heard the women scream and shriek in panic. He ran back toward the warehouse, as some women rushed up the hill and others scattered in terror down the street. Several of the Essex Militia, led by a Sergeant, emerged from the brick building adjacent to the warehouse.

  “You men search the buildings below as well. You others, those across the street,” he ordered. “What do you want?” he asked Will gruffly, looking up and down the hastily deserted street. Two militiamen lowered their bayonets at him.

  “Nothing, sir” Will replied quickly. “If I can be of help, I am willing.”

  “No need. I have men enough to do the job. The gentleman who owns this building,” he gestured to the open door behind him, “now the British are gone and we are on patrol, bravely returned to inventory his property. He found a train of powder hidden under straw leading to a number of loaded shells against the wall with the warehouse.” He looked about angrily. “The damn fool ran screaming into the street, yelling ‘run for your lives!’ and panicked the women. At least they have an excuse for fleeing,” he said contemptuously.

  Will hesitated for a moment. “I am with Colonel Knox’s Massachusetts Artillery Regiment. I was returning to the barracks.” The Sergeant looked askance at him, taking in Will’s shabby appearance. “I will inform an officer,” Will continued. “The Regiment could use the powder and shells.”

  “You tell who you have to tell,” the Sergeant said, still skeptical that Will really was with the artillery. “There may be more in the other buildings. It only needed a flame from a British spy or bloody Tory to ignite an explosion.”

  “Or an accidental spark,” Will said. “You should break the powder train in several places, working backwards from the shells,” he suggested.

  The Sergeant nodded and turned to the soldiers returning from having scouted the other nearby buildings. Will hunched his shoulders against the wind coming from the harbor and strode back the street up toward the Commons.

  That night in the nearly deserted barracks, Will took stock of what he had accomplished since entering Boston. In two and a half days he had made inquiries from Hancock’s Wharf at the northern end to Bull’s Wharf past the South Battery and Fort Hill, and found not a single soul who had even heard of his brother. Tomorrow, he hoped to start at Sea Street near Winchmill Point and work his way down toward The Neck. If he hadn’t found Johan, Sergeant Merriam would be back from leave by then. He would ask for his help.

  On Friday he started his search later than he had intended. Most of the morning had been spent hauling planks of lumber the British had cached, but not destroyed, from a field near the powder tower below Mt. Whoredom to the Commons. He left some of the gunners and local carpenters repairing the wooden barracks, fed and brushed Big Red, and started out just before noon. The sun was pleasantly warm and the sky a crisp blue. He stuffed the scarf his mother had made for him into his coat pocket and loosened Elisabeth’s scarf, feeling the breeze cool on his throat. Walking briskly past the Common Burying Ground, he inquired of a passerby how to get to Winchmill Point and was directed down Frog Lane and Essex Street to the harbor.

  As he approached the water, the clean salt smell of the sea air was overpowered by the strong stench of human piss and excrement. Broken bricks impeded the flow of the open drains carrying human waste downhill to the harbor, forming small cesspools that made the adjacent cobblestones slippery with filth. He glanced down a narrow alley between the low wooden buildings. The stink was worse, and he thought he saw the body of a man, sleeping, drunk or dead, curled up against a wall. Will noticed that the warehouses were outnumbered by stillhouses, grog shops, taverns and brothels.

  After inquiring unsuccessfully at the few warehouses, he began asking laborers on the wharves, those who seemed to belong to the few boats tied up, and fishermen repairing nets, boxing their catch of fish, or sorting mussels or oysters onto wheelbarrows. No one knew of Johan, many were gruff in their response and some simply ignored him. He did attract the attention of several of the harbor whores, eager for business in the early afternoon. They quickly lost interest when he made clear he was not interested in their services. Some of the women were garishly dressed with mismatched shawls over what he thought were tops of ballroom gowns, or pieces of taffeta or silk hastily stitched onto old worn dresses.

  By late afternoon he was near Arbuthnot’s Wharf, where, from Nook’s Hill, Sergeant Merriam had pointed out the men loading bales on wagons. He recalled Merriam had said his tannery was nearby. He wandered around until he found it, hoping to find the Sergeant. It was a small two-story brick building. Above the entrance, a weathered simple sign for Merriam’s Tannery swung in the wind, hanging askew by a chain from one hook. The doors had been torn off and the ground floor was empty. Before entering he called out, “Sergeant. Sergeant Merriam.” There was no answer. A few slats and occasional iron rims were all that remained of the wooden tanning vats. He noticed several unfinished hides piled up in a corner, covered with shattered glass beneath what had been a window with panes. The long flat work tables had been smashed with sledgehammers and axes. The looters seemed to have taken all of the tools of the trade, scrapers, leather cutters, sewing awls, as well as the finished hides. These would have been useful to the army, to be made into boots, belts, shoes, harnesses, haversacks and saddle bags.

  As he left the tannery, he reached up and for no reason touched the swinging sign with his hand. He noticed a man dressed in the work clothes of a dockhand staring at him. Will smiled, as if embarrassed by being caught in the act of doing something silly. The man scowled at him, rubbed his index finger over his bulbous red nose and kept staring. Will shrugged and continued down Short Street to the harbor.

  He stepped through the mud and ducked his head to clear the doorway of a grog shop at the junction where the unpaved street met the wharf. The one room was noisy and dark. It smelled of stale beer, piss and vomit. The low ceiling kept the smoke from the poor draft of the narrow fireplace from escaping. It made Will’s eyes burn. The room was crowded with men, some already in a drunken stupor, their heads either lolling back or resting on the rough wooden tables. Will waited until his eyes adjusted to the dank gloom. A man stood behind three flat boards resting on two stools, which served as the bar. He was ladling mugs of rum from an open vat and appeared to be in charge, if not the owner.

  Will pushed his way past some men to the front.

  “Excuse me, sir,” he said. “I am looking for my brother, Johan Stoner.”

  The man focused his beady eyes on Will and rubbed his chin.

  “I do not give anything away for free. That includes what I may know.”

  “If I buy a drink, would that help?” Will asked.

  “It might make me more favorably minded to think about your question. Beer or grog?”

  Will thought both were probably diluted, the rum perhaps more so.

  “A mug of rum.”

  “Twenty pence first.”

  Will knew he was being overcharged but didn’t want to argue. He reached inside his pocket. He didn’t want to bring his purse out and show anyone in the grog shop how much money he had. He pried open the pouch with his fingers, felt around and pulled out two ten pence coins. He dropped them in the man’s extended dirty hand and took the mug in return. It was barely half filled, which suited Will. He took a sip. He had guessed correctly. It was slightly more rum than water but not by much.

  “Well,” he asked, and waited.

  “Another cup might help my memory,” the man said.

  Will shook his head. “Twenty pence for this one mug is more than enough for your watered drink and your informati
on.”

  The man shrugged as if to say you get what you pay for.

  “Never heard of your brother or any other man of that name. Of course, those who come here don’t usually tell me their names.” He laughed, revealing his brown stained teeth. “You might ask some of the whores,” he said loudly. “All the men they know are called John or Tom.” A few of the men at the bar laughed in hopes of ingratiating themselves with the owner.

  Will put his unfinished drink down. As he turned to leave, the man to his right grabbed Will’s mug from the table and emptied it before Will was out the door.

  Once on the street, Will was undecided how to proceed. He pulled Elisabeth’s scarf closer around his throat to protect against the cold wind blowing off Roxbury Bay. Going from grog shop to stillhouse did not seem very promising, and there were more shops than he had money. He stood there in the gathering dark. There were no street lights in this part of town. The only dim light came from the narrow doorways and the small windows covered with thin sheets of horn rather than more expensive glass. From the alley next to the grog shop he heard a woman’s laugh, a man’s insistent whisper, the clink of coins and the rustle of clothing. Probably not the time to ask that whore if she knew Johan Stoner, he smiled to himself.

  “Hey you,” someone shouted. Will turned and saw the man with the bulbous nose, from outside Merriam’s Tannery, approaching. “I heard you asking about your brother. I have a friend who may be able to help,” the man said in an ingratiating manner.

  This was the first piece of good news Will had heard since he began his search. It was either perseverance or luck, but no matter, he thought, as long as he found Johan. “Where is your friend,” he asked eagerly.

  “Up the street. At Child’s Stillhouse. A larger and more friendly place than the grog shop you have just come out of.” The man touched Will’s elbow and guided him along the harbor. They passed the street to Merriam’s Tannery. Will wanted to hurry along, run if possible, but did not know the way and he could not compel the man to walk any faster. In answer to his questions about his friend and what he knew about Johan, the man offered vague tidbits that gave Will hope he would soon find his brother. Yes, his friend had seen Johan, within the past two weeks. Yes, he knew who employed him but no, he didn’t think his friend knew where Johan was now. And here they were now and Will could ask the man himself.