The Pilgrim

by Hugh Nissenson

  We were armed to the teeth. I took up my piece, six musket balls, two flasks of powder, and a forked gun rest.

  Standish asked me, “Have you ever shot a man to death?”

  I said, “Never, sir.”

  He said, “You will find it difficult to kill even a savage. When the time comes, don’t think of him as a man. Fancy him as a ravening two-legged beast. Rest your barrel upon your gun rest, take aim, and shoot! Aim at the savage’s stomach or breast. Squeeze—do not jerk—the trigger, and you will kill your prey.”

  I took up my matchlock, primed its breach and pan, and rammed one musket ball, wrapped in a piece of tow, down the muzzle. The one-ounce ball could pierce a savage’s breast at a distance of fifty yards. I hoped that was farther than he could shoot an arrow at me.

  For the first time, it struck me that the design of the matchlock was diabolically clever. What European gunsmith had thought of the five-foot-long inflammable braided linen match that, when I pressed the trigger, ignited the powder in the pan, which in turn ignited the powder in the breach and propelled the musket ball from the muzzle? I was sure that the ingenious gunsmith had been inspired by the Devil. On the other hand, he had given Christians a weapon far deadlier than that possessed by the heathen savages in New England.

  Captain Standish said to me, “Remember! Before you discharge your musket, blow on the burning coal at the end of the match. But take care! A burning match is a constant hazard in the presence of the powder carried upon your person.”

  “Yes,” I said. “I’ll remember.”

  Captain Standish addressed the company. “The undisciplined behavior of Captain Green’s men hath undoubtedly inspired the savages with contempt for all Englishmen. They come amongst us, few in number and unafraid. It is likely that the two most dangerous of them—Wittuwamat and Peeksuot—will arrogantly return here on the morrow with a small body of men. Secure all the gates, save the one facing west, to make sure they will use that to enter the stockade. As soon as they are all within, William White will make the west gate fast. My seven other men and Master Wentworth will be concealed with charged muskets within the shed. Let us pray the savages do not smell your burning matches.

  “I will welcome them in my shirt-sleeves and unarmed. Then I shall kill Peeksuot. Pray, do not inquire how. I will show him what this runt of an Englishman can do. I will then run the short distance back to the shed as fast as I can, doubtlessly amid a shower of arrows. Pay me no heed. By that time, the eight of you will have emerged from behind the shed and formed two lines, one behind the other, facing the savages. At Stephen Hopkins’s command, the first line of four men will shoot, then step back, and the second line of four men, with charged muskets, will take their places. Meanwhile, the four men behind them will charge their muskets, and after the four men standing before them have shot off theirs, the two lines will once more exchange places.

  “Obey Hopkins’s orders. I have full confidence in him. He is disciplined and a good shot.”

  Then Standish called out, “Winslow, sharpen your cutlass! I promised Governor Bradford that, with God’s help, I will bring Wittuwamat’s head back to Plymouth and display it atop the blockhouse.”

  Henry said, “I sharpened my cutlass this morning.”

  For the remainder of the afternoon, we rehearsed our parts in the morrow’s battle, but without discharging our muskets for fear the noise would alert the savages to our purpose. Trusting in Providence and wanting to display my courage, like Caesar in his red cloak, I chose to be the last man on the right hand in the first line, one of the positions which was most exposed to the Indian arrows.

  Again and again as we rehearsed, I stepped back and forth, carrying my musket, my gun rest, my bullet bag, and two powder flasks. It seemed to me that I was dancing an English war dance.

  Standish removed his dented helmet, his coat of mail, and his rapier. He and William White ran five times from the west gate to the shed. They ran the forty-foot distance not in a straight line, but hither and yon, as if they were dodging falling arrows.

  Standish did not say how he intended to kill Peeksuot. Why did he not first kill Wittuwamat? Was Standish vain? Did he intend to kill Peeksuot to revenge himself upon the savage for publicly taunting him about his short stature? I gazed upon Standish’s bearded face. It was the countenance of a reliable, seasoned soldier. Perhaps I was wrong, and he planned to kill Peeksuot first for sound military reasons. I did not have the courage to inquire.

  We secured all the gates, save the one facing west. That evening, after we had supped on nokake, Standish said, “Let us make our peace with God, as some of us may die on the morrow.”

  He then led us in prayer and read aloud from the ninety-first Psalm. When he recited the fifth verse, “Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night, nor for the arrow that flieth by day,” I was reminded of Abigail’s letter, in which she had paraphrased the same verse from Scripture.

  I took the coincidence as a bad omen. Of a sudden, I was terrified of being killed by a flying arrow.

  The next morning, being Monday, the fourteenth of April, was a fair, spring day. We cleansed and charged our muskets. Eight of us concealed ourselves in the crowded shed. Hopkins and I each digged a peephole in the wall that faced west. We watched Wittuwamat and Peeksuot, accompanied by six other armed savages, come into the stockade, wherein they were greeted by Captain Standish in his shirt-sleeves. I saw William White surreptitiously make the west gate fast. None of the savages observed him. They were gathered about Captain Standish.

  Behind me, Hopkins said in a loud voice, “Light your matches.”

  We all ignited both ends of our matches with firebrands. The smoke was stifling. Everyone save Hopkins and myself fled without, behind the shed.

  Behold the providential care of God! The wind was from the west. It blew the smell of our burning matches away from the savages.

  I peered again with watery eyes through the hole and saw Captain Standish snatch Peeksuot’s knife from its scabbard, leap upon him, and stab the savage in his left breast. Peeksuot slowly sank to his knees and fell over upon his back, where he lay still.

  Hopkins yelled, “Quick! Each man to his appointed place.”

  We did as we were bidden. The savages let their arrows fly. Yet, by the especial Providence of God, none of them hit us. I saw an arrow flying at me, and I stooped down; it flew over my head and likewise missed the man behind me.

  Standing up straight again, I replaced the barrel of my musket on my gun rest and took aim at the left breast of a savage, who at that very moment reached over his right shoulder with his left hand for an arrow from the quiver upon his back. Without waiting for the order to shoot, I squeezed the trigger. My musket went off. My eyes burned from the sulphurous smoke blown back in my face; a man on my left hand called for a firebrand to ignite his match. Then I spied the savage I had shot. Directed by the provident hand of the most high God, my ball had shattered his left elbow and severed his forearm, which lay upon the ground at his feet in a growing puddle of blood.

  I heard three more of our pieces go off. Two more savages fell. The dreadful cry of another was after this manner: “Hadree, hadree, succomee, succomee!” Memsowit cried out in English: “We have come to drink your blood!”

  I exchanged places with the man behind me, whose name I did not know. I watched him shoot Wittuwamat in the bowels. Robbed of my revenge, I howled.

  Standish shot off his musket. His ball struck a savage in his mouth, scattering his teeth all about. The three savages who were left alive neither tried to flee, nor asked for quarter. I shot at Memsowit but missed. He let fly an arrow that flew over all our heads. Then blood spurted from a wound in the right thigh of the savage near him, who fell upon his back.

  We then quickly overpowered Memsowit and the unwounded savage and bound their hands behind them.

  We took up thirty arrows from the grou
nd. Some were tipped with brass, others with deer horns or eagles’ claws. By the especial Providence of God, none of them either wounded or killed any of us, though many came close. We thanked God for our deliverance. Then Standish shot the unwounded savage in his forehead, and we hanged Memsowit from the same oak upon which Rigdale had died. Memsowit spake not a word. I watched him slowly strangle.

  We examined the corpses of the eleven savages. They had all emptied their bowels and stank of excrement. I stared at the face of the one I had slain. He was the savage with a big nose who had lately spied upon us. The ground all about him was red from his blood. A bone protruded from his shattered left elbow. His severed forearm lay near his left thigh. A black-and-yellow-striped wasp alighted upon his right palm.

  I said, “Death, there is thy sting,” and Henry laughed.

  Standish found Wittuwamat’s corpse, swarming with fat black flies. His belly was caked with blood from his wound. His left eye was shut, and his mouth was wide open.

  Standish said to Henry, “Cut off his head.”

  I said, “Allow me, sir.”

  Henry gave me his cutlass. I knelt down, hacked through Wittuwamat’s throat and spine, and cut off his head. There was but little blood; his stomach wound had bled him dry.

  Henry took the cutlass from my trembling hand and said, “How dost thou, Charles?”

  I said, “To tell thee true, I am of such a cowardly nature that I was terrified during the entire battle.”

  He said, “To tell thee true, so was I.”

  I said, “Now I am sick at heart.”

  Henry said, “How so?”

  I said, “I know not. I delighted in killing and beheading those savages. But now I am sad. And you?”

  He said, “Not a whit. Why, I feel merry! I only regret that I did not kill Wittuwamat.”

  I said, “I too. He wanted your dagger and its green leathern scabbard. I shall always treasure them as mementos of our friendship.”

  Said he, “And of our victory today over fear, when we two cowards stood our ground and faced death down.”

  By that time, we were surrounded by more than a score of Green’s men, who had returned to the stockade.

  William Butts grasped Wittuwamat’s head by its long, greasy hair, held it up, and spat in its gaping mouth.

  Standish wrapped the head in a length of soiled white linen. To prevent it from being devoured by vermin, ravens, and wolves, he hung it in my knapsack from a rafter within Captain Green’s empty house, midst a multitude of flies. Then Standish donned his coat of mail and dented helmet and ordered the nine of us in his company to cleanse and charge our pieces and march through the woods to Wittuwamat’s village.

  Behind us, as we marched west, a flock of ravens circled above the stockade. We lit our matches. There was no wind amongst the trees. The smoke from the matches swirled about our heads. It was hard going; each of us carried two flasks of powder, a bullet bag, a musket, and a five-foot-long gun stick. Standish showed us how to carry our gun sticks in our musket barrels.

  We found five women in the village. All the men, save two, had fled. One of them was Wittuwamat’s son, Tokamahamon, whom I recognized by his bone necklace and his ears pierced with bear claws. He was stricken with a bad cough.

  Standish said, “You shall do well to be bled. ’Tis a sure cure for an obstinate cough. I will bleed thee.”

  He lay down his lighted musket and gun stick upon the ground. Then he withdrew his rapier from its scabbard and stabbed Tokamahamon through the right side of his neck, under his ear. When Standish pulled out his blade, blood spurted all over his face and dented helmet. The women wailed.

  The other savage was little more than a boy. Standish picked up his piece and shot the boy through his right eye. His face burst apart. The women wailed again. The youngest was Memsowit’s widow, marked across her forehead by the black image of a crow.

  Standish washed himself in the village stream. He permitted the women to drink their fill and then released them. But they remained in the village, wherein they heaped handfuls of earth upon their dead.

  It was about five of the clock in the afternoon when we returned to the stockade. The eyes of all the corpses had been pecked out by ravens, which were now tearing gobbets of flesh from the bodies. I watched two birds with bloodstained beaks squabble over an ear.

  Standish discharged his musket in the air. The ravens all rose, cawed at the musket’s report, and once again circled above the stockade.

  Standish said, “On the morrow, Captain Green’s men will cast away these corpses in the forest before they swell, break wind, and breed maggots. Meanwhile, I and my small company will hunt down and kill all the savages we can find.”

  We were beset all the night in our house by buzzing flies. A sailor named Gillingham slept on the floor beside me. A fly stung me upon the back of my neck. The sting swelled into the circumference of a shilling.

  Gillingham said, “I am sorry I missed the battle with the savages. I can tell you tales of sea-fights and name all the chief pirates, but alas, I have never slain a man on land. Tell me, sir, what’s it like?”

  I could not reply. I closed my eyes. A fly crawled into my left nostril, and I stopped my right nostril with my thumb and blew hard out of the other. The expelled fly flew away. Then I fell asleep and dreamed that a maggot, bred from my decaying brain, wriggled out of my nose.

  • • •

  The next morning, I marched through the woods to the west with Standish and eight other men. We had gone less than a mile when we spied about ten savages making their way east through the trees in the direction of Wessagusset. Both parties caught sight of each other at the same time and hurried to secure the advantage of a nearby rise. We got there first, thrust our gun rests in the ground, placed our musket barrels upon them, and blew upon our matches. The savages, protected by the trees, let fly their arrows at us. We then shot at them. No one on either side was hit.

  The savages fled and hid themselves in an adjacent swamp that stank of rotting meat and sour milk.

  Standish said, “That swamp must be where Green and his men cast away the corpses.”

  I said, “How so, sir?”

  Standish said, “The stench, sir, the peculiar stench.”

  We charged our muskets; neither our taunts nor our challenges could induce the savages to show themselves. I cried out, “Hadree, hadree, succomee, succomee!” (“We have come to drink your blood.”)

  There was no reply. Standish ordered five of us to shoot into the long grass, the shrubs, and the undergrowth of the swamp, whilst the other four stood watch. The roar of our muskets stilled the croaking frogs in the swamp. The savages remained silent. I was relieved that they would not come out and fight.

  The frogs resumed croaking. The five of us cleansed and charged our muskets. Then we all returned to the stockade, wherein I spake with Gillingham.

  He said to me, “Why look you so sad?”

  “I am beset by perpetual guilt and melancholy.”

  “Tell me what it is that troubles thee, and I shall try to help thee by comfort or counsel.”

  I said, “I braked my dearest friend’s neck while he was being hanged to spare him from being slowly strangled to death. I spared him an agonizing dying but brought perpetual guilt and melancholy upon myself.”

  Gillingham said, “Pray for forgiveness.”

  That evening, trying to pray, I found in my heart that I could not serve God.

  I trembled and sweated. My heart beat faster. My entire body was first hot and then cold. It was hard to breathe. The answer came to me. I was damned. God had damned my immortal soul before He had created the heaven and the earth.

  At dawn, I left the stockade with my charged musket on my shoulder and walked about a mile into the woods. I had but one thought: I must kill myself. I walked discoursing with this thought for the
better part of an hour. At length, I chose the lesser of two evils, which was to kill myself rather than live and sin against God.

  I removed my right shoe and right stocking and set my matches alight. Then I stood atop a big stone and set the musket’s butt upon the ground. I put the muzzle under my chin with the intention of pressing the trigger with the big toe of my right foot. I thought of Abigail. Many things about her came into my head; one was my memory of the full moon shining upon her uplifted face on the Swan’s quarterdeck. Her face had a bluish tinge in the moonlight. What would she think of me if I killed myself?

  I stepped down from the rock, donned my stocking and shoe, and much lost in my soul, I walked with my musket back to the stockade.

  • • •

  Standish addressed us in the stockade. He said that Weston’s people could return to England or remain in Wessagusset, if they so desired. The crowd refused the latter choice with a tumultuous uproar. Then Standish said, “Let me proffer Governor Bradford’s invitation to return with me to the Plymouth Plantation, where for the rest of your lives, you will live, work, and pray with the rest of the Elect.”

  No one in the crowd showed any interest in returning to the Plymouth Plantation.

  I alone called out, “I am with thee, Captain Standish.”

  He replied, “You are most welcome, sir.”

  Standish then proposed that Weston’s men sail on the Swan to the coast of Maine, buy victuals from the fishing boats at the fishing stations there, and then sail back to England.

  The crowd cheered.

  When it quieted, Butts called out, “A word, I beseech you, sir. What if there are no fishing boats on the coast? From whence would we get the victuals to sail back home?”

  Standish said, “Why, from the savages. On the morrow, we shall return once more to their village and steal all their seed corn.”

  I cheered with the rest.

  Captain Green said, “With God’s grace, in three or four days, we shall set sail for London—for home. Home, lads! The city of London! Castles, towers and gates, parks and taverns, swans on the Thames. Swans with their tails above water and their long necks below, diving to catch tasty little gudgeons. My good wife, Alice, buys gudgeons from a fishmonger on Lime Street and serves ’em before the mutton at Sunday dinner. Hurrah for tasty little English gudgeons! Hurrah for England!”