Captain Enos Woodbury asked, “Does this mean the British have lost focus on attacking Roxbury?”
“I cannot say for sure,” Paul said.
Fergus tried to sense Colm, but he couldn’t make the connection and that scared him. “Is Colm with them?” he asked Paul.
Paul nodded grimly.
“And Joseph? Where is he?”
“I do not know,” Paul admitted. “He did not deploy with Putnam and Prescott last night.”
“What are General Ward’s orders for us?” Fergus asked.
“For now, he wants you to be aware of the situation, and that it may quickly turn. You may need to deploy on a moment’s notice.” Paul studied Fergus. “You know something that perhaps I should know as well. What is it?”
Fergus thought of what Colm told him the last time they were together. “Henry’s going to try to make me choose between Michael’s life and Joseph’s life. The children of man will die.”
“I do,” Fergus admitted. “But I can’t tell you, Paul. Colm confided in me, and I can’t betray that confidence.”
Paul gave Fergus a rare smile. “I understand.” He looked at the other officers. “I will try to keep you abreast of developments on the Charlestown peninsula, if it all possible.”
Then, he was off, galloping the road back toward Cambridge.
Fergus wondered who of his brotherhood and human friends he would ever see again.
Paul had assured Fergus that Joseph did not deploy with Prescott and Putnam the night before, but Joseph had frightened many of his colleagues with wild words about joining Prescott and his men on Bunker Hill. And now, Joseph was nowhere to be found. With Joseph out of commission, no one seemed willing to act. Finally, General Ward reluctantly sent all of the New Hampshire regiments stationed in Cambridge to the Charlestown peninsula.
By noon, Prescott felt satisfied the redoubt and breastworks were completed. Israel Putnam tried to cajole him into sending men back to Bunker Hill to dig entrenchments in case of the need to retreat.
“I have already lost a significant number of men to desertion,” William replied. “If I send any of the men away with tools, not one of them will return.”
At that moment, a cannonball flew passed them. The shockwave narrowly missed the head of Captain Ebenezer Bancroft, one of Prescott’s fellow French and Indian War veterans. Bancroft clapped a hand to one eye and collapsed. Several men ran to attend to their downed comrade.
At this, Putnam left with the tools and a considerable number of soldiers—none of whom would ever return to Breed’s Hill.
“FUCKER!” Prescott screamed at Putnam’s retreating back.
Bancroft and those attending him were bathed in blue light, when Michael and Patrick arrived to offer comfort to the war veteran suffering from the shock of losing sight in one eye.
Prescott stalked off after Putnam. Colm intercepted him. Cannonballs rained from the sky and landed thickly in the ground around them.
“General William Howe is coordinating a strike against us,” Colm said.
Prescott opened his mouth to ask Colm how he knew, but realized it was better to listen to what the archangel had to say than to wonder.
“They’ll land at high tide,” Colm said. “That leaves us scant time to be certain we’re ready.”
The noise of an artillery captain and his men arriving with several field pieces distracted them. The redoubt Colonel Gridley had laid out made no provision for cannons. There were no openings in the walls, and Putnam had taken the digging tools back to Bunker Hill.
“Can you disintegrate Putnam?” Prescott seethed.
Colm realized then that William was a strong warrior by his own right. Still, his frustration over Putnam’s behavior was not to be taken lightly.
Generals Gage, Clinton, and Burgoyne positioned themselves at the battery on Copp’s Hill. Except for the distraction of the British sloops and warships, Lively, Glasgow, Symmetry, Falcon, and Spitfire, their eyes traveled across the harbor. The water shimmered under the boiling June sun; each small ripple flashed points of glaring diamond light.
Now, they saw the first wave of British boats, twenty-eight of them, rowing across the harbor with forty regulars in each, their muskets glittering in the sun. In the forward-most boats, brass field pieces glistened. Two raft-like gondolas, each equipped with a twelve-pound cannon, brought up the rear of the flotilla.
The fighting at Lexington and Concord was only visible to Bostonians as a distant cloud of dust and powder smoke moving across the countryside. This morning, the big guns of the warships and the battery on Copp’s Hill were already filling the air surrounding Boston with booming noise and gray smoke, but that was just a prelude.
The people were witnessing what was going to be a true battle, unfolding with painstaking deliberation before their very eyes as Howe’s red-coated army rowed across the sparkling harbor toward a green hill where the provincials were entrenched.
Howe’s order of battle included two regiments and ten senior companies of grenadiers and light infantry to depart from Long Wharf. Two more regiments were to march to the North Battery and embark from there. The regulars were alert and ready to make a good landing and march to action the moment their boots hit the ground.
Three additional regiments, Major John Pitcairn’s First Battalion of Marines and several more companies were held in reserve and ready to embark if needed.
Colm, Prescott, Jeremiah, Abe, Captain Thomas Knowlton of Connecticut, and an artillery officer, Captain Samuel Trevett, stood atop the redoubt walls and watched the British long boats grow closer to Morton’s Point. The rebels had become accustomed to the onslaught of British cannonballs and learned how to avoid them for the most part. The earthen walls of the redoubt and the breastworks absorbed the impact of the cannonballs as well.
Colm ordered his men to remain within the protection of the redoubt and stay near him. He turned and looked into the redoubt for reassurance. The angels were there with their muskets at the ready, alongside the other rebels. Seamus motioned for Colm to come closer.
Colm squatted so he could hear Seamus. “We cain’t control our auras, and the men cain see them,” Seamus said. “Some of them said the light is distractin’ them.”
An elderly grizzled man standing beside Ian shoved his thumb in Ian’s direction and grumbled to Colm, “His wings unfurled twice and got in my face. How’s I supposed to shoot accurate if I suddenly got feathers and silver snow on me?”
Prescott squatted beside Colm and said, “I heard what Seamus said. Do not think of leaving. When this thing begins, light from six angels’ auras is going to be the least of their distractions. I’m going to see if some of these artillery officers actually know how to fire their own field pieces.”
He stood up in time to see three companies deserting the redoubt and running toward Bunker Hill. “Damn!” He and artillery captain, Samuel Trevett, climbed down the redoubt wall toward the cannons that protruded through the earthen walls. With their tools on Bunker Hill with Putnam, the artillery officers had blasted the openings using those same cannons.
“Where’s Gordon?” Colm asked Seamus.
“I got no idea. He muttered somethin’ about rebel demons and stalked off.”
“Are you the archangel?” a young black man, standing beside Michael, asked.
“Who are ya?” Colm asked.
The man’s wide brown eyes shifted to Michael.
“Why’re ya looking at me?” Michael asked. “Colm asked ya a question.”
“I’m Peter Salem,” the man said as his eyes slowly moved to behold Colm.
“We can’t protect ya, Peter. Do ya understand me?”
Peter nodded. “I do. Michael said there is real life demons coming to fight this battle with the redcoats, and if’in I see orange eyes, I’m supposed to shoot them in both eyes.”
Colm swallowed hard. Michael’s propensity to befriend humans and offer them kindness when he saw fit hadn’t changed. They had rejected H
eaven, lost control of their auras, lost control of their wings, but they were still angels.
“Ya will do well to listen to Michael,” Colm said to Peter, and stood up. “And, Peter, I am indeed the archangel.”
Prescott returned to the redoubt wall alone. He addressed Colm and Captain Thomas Knowlton. “I ordered Captain Trevett to move two of his field pieces in the direction of Morton’s Point and fire on the British when they disembark from the boats. Captain Knowlton, I want you to take your men and provide Trevett with whatever protection he might need when he opens up on the regulars.”
“Yes, sir,” Knowlton said. He jumped from the redoubt wall and gathered his company of 200 men from Connecticut. Along the way, they came across a ditch. Just ahead of the ditch was a fence made of stone at the bottom and rails of wood at the top. It ran parallel to the ditch as it extended across the width of the peninsula to the Mystic River. With a few modifications, the fence could at least look like a sturdy defensive structure.
Prescott then sent a detachment of men into Charlestown to join the sharpshooters he had sent earlier. If the British landed or moved troops in that area, the rebels were to fire on them.
The first wave of regulars landed at Morton’s Point. Colm, Abe, and Jeremiah saw hundreds of sets of simmering orange eyes among them. Henry had infused Howe’s army with his demons. Colm was sure there were hundreds, perhaps thousands, more, including Henry himself, in the second wave of longboats that rowed across Boston Harbor toward Morton’s Point.
Gordon had run some distance back toward Bunker Hill and climbed a tree to get a better view of the surrounding farmlands and pastures. He was sure that Colm and the angels had forgotten the possibility of rebel demon possession because Henry and Robert were entrenched with the British.
He watched the longboats come ashore and the British regulars, dressed in heavy woolen clothing and burdened with full haversacks, disembark with ordered confidence. Grenadiers unloaded the glistening brass field pieces and ammunition from the boats. There was no mistaking the number of orange eyes that swept the shore and hills above them.
“What are you doing?”
Gordon looked down from his perch. William Dawes stood with his neck craned and a hand shading his eyes from the bright afternoon sun.
“Is that you, Gordon?” Dawes asked.
Gordon climbed down from the tree. “William! I had no idea you were a soldier.”
“I am not,” Dawes quipped. He brandished his pistol. “I am stubborn. At least that is what my wife, May, says.”
“They’ve landed,” Gordon said. “Henry has sent an army of demons with them.”
Dawes thought of his wife and four children trapped in Boston. Like Paul, he had no idea how his family was faring because communication was cut off. He supposed if he died today, he would die trying to free them. He and Gordon walked toward the pathetic little fort on the wrong hill.
“You are about to face demons and your sigil is not visible,” Dawes derided. “I did not spend all that time crafting a tattoo on your neck so that it would never be seen.”
Gordon huffed a laugh. He untied his cravat, slipped it off his neck, and dropped it. “Better?”
They entered the redoubt and joined the angels. William Dawes’ appearance was bittersweet. At William’s urging, Jeremiah, Abe and the angels cut their cravats and neck scarves away to reveal the Sigil of Lucifer.
As this reunion of men and angels reinforced the strengths they had so desperately reached to build together, the second wave of Howe’s troops came ashore.
Colm leaped onto the redoubt wall. He saw what he knew he would see eventually—Henry was disembarking at Morton’s Point with his minions by his side. The only comfort Colm could muster was that Joseph wasn’t among the provincial army on the Charlestown peninsula.
William Howe’s regulars landed on the Mystic River side of the Charlestown peninsula unopposed. This eastern side was not visible from Boston.
Howe and his temporary aide-de-camp, Captain Richard Seton, walked up the hill with Henry. Anthony lagged behind the two generals with Robert. From the top of the hill, they saw the rebels had been successful in building a redoubt and breastworks. Past the rebel fort, on Bunker Hill, was a line of provincial soldiers. This, along with the rail fence that Howe misinterpreted as an earthwork, moved him to send a request for reinforcements to General Gage. He and his aide-de-camp left without a word and walked back to Morton’s Point.
Henry, on the other hand, was not distracted with the rebel position or movement. His eyes swept the area near the redoubt and found what he was looking for—the archangel standing atop the redoubt wall. Behind the archangel, five glowing auras emanated from the angels standing in the redoubt. Henry frowned. Two of the angels were not there.
He looked at Robert questioningly. “The angel they call Liam is not there. He could not have died of his wound. I do not sense him chained in eternal darkness.”
“The second they call Fergus is also not there,” Robert added. He glared across the fields at the rebel line.
Henry produced a spyglass and held it to one eye and squinted with the other. After several minutes of surveillance, he lowered the glass and handed it to Robert. “I see the angels’ human friend, Jeremiah Killam, standing on the redoubt wall, but I do not see Joseph Warren.”
Robert took the spyglass and commenced his own surveillance. Just as Henry didn’t need a spyglass to see Colm and his men, Colm didn’t need a spyglass to see Henry or Robert, but the demons needed a spyglass to get a clear view of the rebel humans. When Robert’s magnified view fell on Colm atop the redoubt wall, Robert sensed something was amiss—no it was more than that—something was different about the archangel.
Colm looked at Robert.
Robert saw a phenomenon never seen in all the millenniums the demons had pursued the angels. Gold light glimmered in Colm’s green eyes. An angel’s aura was not visible in their eyes, nor was the gold radiance God had bestowed to the archangels. Robert dropped the spyglass as if it had burned his hand.
Irked by Robert’s behavior, Henry snatched him by his coat lapel and jerked him in close. Anthony, who thus far had not uttered a word, flinched and took a step back.
“I do not care what you think you sense or what you think you saw,” Henry fumed. “You WILL carry out your orders to the letter. If you do not, I will kill you myself without hesitation, and I promise you that my execution will be so much more painful than death by disintegration from an archangel.”
Henry shook Robert then shoved him away. He snapped his fingers at Anthony.
Anthony came to the general’s attention.
“You have been my third in command for quite some time; therefore, I am not sure why your possession of Captain Anthony Jameson has not gone well in contrast with the satisfying officer I had in the possessed Lieutenant William Sutherland. Nevertheless, I give you the same warning I gave Robert. Is that clear?”
“Aye, sir.” Anthony now realized that his possession had somehow been tainted. That arrow-wielding hag, Serepatice, is responsible for what I have become, he thought; unaware that angels had witnessed his possession ceremony on the shore of Back Bay while they rescued Joseph Warren’s children.
The three demons’ attention was redirected to the sound and sight of British reinforcements landing on the beach southwest of Morton’s Hill near Charlestown. Brigadier General Robert Pigot and Major John Pitcairn, along with 700 troops, had arrived.
Thirty-nine
A scrappy spirit of backwoods New Hampshire, and the man who General Ward had sent to Chelsea Creek, forty-six-year-old John Stark, had the largest regiment in the provincial army with 400 men. His major, Andrew McClary, six foot six and of athletic build, marched proudly alongside a scowling Stark toward Charlestown Neck.
Warships had clustered gunfire around Mill Pond Road and had turned Charlestown Neck into a war zone. Cannonballs flew across the narrow strip of land and ripped the earth into ragged furrows.
The ships fired bar shot: evil-looking dumbbells of metal designed to take down the rigging of a sailing vessel, but which also did devastating things to a human body. The smoke, dust, deafening roar, and bloody chunks of torn flesh had paralyzed a crowd of provincial soldiers on the approach to the Neck.
Major McClary boomed at the soldiers, “Step aside so that Colonel Stark and his regiments may march across to Bunker Hill!”
Stark was not impressed by what he found on Bunker Hill. Israel Putnam sat atop his white horse sans the long-sleeved coat an officer was expected to wear. A thousand mostly idle soldiers were assembled around the peak of Bunker Hill. To Stark, it seemed as if Putnam was unable to focus.
Later, Stark would say, “Had Putnam done his duty, he would have decided the fate of his country in the first action.”
Stark led his regiment south. The British directed their artillery fire toward the swarm of rebels on Bunker Hill, and as a consequence, the march south proved to be almost as hot as what they had encountered on the Neck. Up ahead and to his right, Stark saw the redoubt and the breastwork; directly in front, he saw Thomas Knowlton and his men fortifying the rail fence; to the left was the Mystic River. Beyond, about a half mile to the south, were more than two thousand British regulars.
Colonel Stark’s eyes followed the rail fence. It did not extend all the way to the water’s edge, where a steep bank went down to a narrow beach. If General Howe sent a column of soldiers along the beach, he would render useless the rebels’ efforts with the breastwork and rail fence.
Stark’s men began to build a stone breastwork that would fill in the gap between the beach and the rail fence. They were soon aided by the arrival of a New Hampshire regiment of 300 men led by Colonel James Reed.
Captain John Chester of Connecticut had just finished his mid-day dinner in his quarters in Cambridge when beating drums, ringing bells, and shouting commenced. He dashed outside. Israel Putnam’s son Israel, Jr., rode up in a full gallop. Captain Chester was immediately apprehensive of this messenger. “What is the matter?” he asked.
Angels & Patriots_Book One Page 44
