Prelude to Glory, Vol. 1

by Ron Carter

  There was no time to ponder. Their church had been desecrated and their minister held under armed guard like a criminal, and what they intended doing about it had to be decided and accomplished by dawn. The talk began slowly, then gained momentum as they argued and debated and hammered out a plan for redress. It was after one o’clock, with dark questions still nagging, when Warren blew out the lamp and they walked back into the street and turned north, towards the church.

  The hated sound of commands and marching boots reached them as they turned the corner, and they slowed. In the dancing light of torches carried high above the soldiers’ heads, Colonel Norse marched the last squad of twenty men in double file away from the churchyard towards the British military base. The colonials stopped squarely in his path and he halted his column.

  “Where’s the minister?” Warren demanded.

  “In his quarters.”

  “You found no muskets, of course.”

  “Correct.” Norse was smiling.

  “We intend speaking with the minister.”

  “As you wish. We left no guards at the church.”

  “You’re afraid of reprisals.”

  Norse sneered. “Step aside. I have troops to move.” He barked orders over his shoulder and the column marched forward, and the four men let them pass. They trotted up the path, through the large front doors, and down the aisle towards the rear door to the living quarters of Silas Olmsted and Mattie. John knocked.

  “Who is it?”

  “Warren.”

  Silas opened the door a crack, then threw it wide and the men entered.

  Mattie was seated in the corner, white, shaking, still in shock. Warren placed his hand on her shoulder and looked into her frightened eyes. “Are you all right?” he demanded, controlling his anger.

  “Yes.”

  Warren turned to Silas. “Are we alone? Can we talk?”

  “Only Mattie and I are here.”

  John interrupted, urgency in his voice. “The muskets?”

  “Gone. The militia got them five minutes before the soldiers forced their way through the front doors.”

  “How did you get word to the militia?”

  “Molly Telford. Her husband’s in the militia. She sends Amy every afternoon with fresh milk. I send notes back hidden on Amy. She’s seven years old.”

  “Did you hide the muskets in the well?”

  “Yes.”

  “I thought the militia didn’t come to the well until after midnight.”

  “They usually don’t. This time I said come as soon as it was dark.”

  “Why?”

  “Fear. The British are learning of such things too quickly.”

  “How did you get the muskets past the guards, out to the well?”

  “They let us go to the well and the outhouse when we want. We waited until dark. Mattie and I went together and they didn’t pay any attention.”

  John paused and asked, “Who besides the Telfords did you tell?”

  “No one. Why?”

  John considered his words before he answered. “Someone got word to Gage within two hours of when you got the muskets.”

  Silas glanced at Mattie and then back at John, and said, “I don’t believe it was Ben Telford. I’ve known Ben since he was born. He’s a captain in the militia.”

  John exhaled a weary sigh, and his eyes ran over the sparse furnishings in the small, humble quarters. “Silas, I’m responsible for them coming here today and putting you under armed guard and frightening Mattie. I don’t know how to say how sorry I am to have brought this down on you.”

  Mattie took Silas’s hand, and Silas squared his thin, pinched shoulders. His gray eyes came alive. Imperceptibly at first, then growing, a feeling crept into the room. No one spoke as they felt it settle into them.

  “No need,” Silas said. “The church wasn’t harmed. Mattie and I will be all right. But I fear the cost we will pay—all of us—when we finally rise against them in the streets and in the fields. I see blood and tears in this land, and great sorrow lying like a dark cloud, and then a new land being born.”

  It was as though his unexpected words struck into the very core of each of them. The strange, new spirit settled into the tiny, austere room, and it overwhelmed them, subdued them. For long seconds they shrank from the bright and awful truth that burned into their beings with a sureness never before known by any of them. None could withstand it, nor did they try; it cut them low, humbled them, awed them.

  It was coming, imminent, at the very door. There would be war. Blood would flow. Many would die. Their fair land would suffer much destruction. From the blood and pain and devastation would rise a new, shining land to take its place as a guiding star for the weary people of a tired and battered world. They knew it more clearly than any other truth in their lives, from some unknown source they dared not challenge, nor could they explain.

  They could become part of the struggle and the pain and the sorrow and of the birth of the brave new land, or they could withdraw to safety and let others bear the terrible burden and gain the incomparable victory. The choice was theirs. More than that they did not know, could not see, but it was enough.

  Seconds passed while the spirit slowly withdrew, and they did not look at each other or speak or move. It was as if they had no will, no thought of their own—only an impression so powerful that it robbed them of being conscious of any other thing. So powerful was the impression that they dared not speak of it.

  Finally John swallowed and spoke. “Will you be all right, Silas?”

  Silas nodded.

  “Then we have work to do. People will be here tomorrow to straighten up whatever they disturbed in the chapel, and to take your statements. We have a petition to prepare, and much that we must find out and do. Are we all agreed?”

  All of them sensed in their hearts that in this austere, humble place, John had placed the choice squarely, inescapably before them. Their decision would somehow turn the history of the colonies irrevocably. They could force the battle, or they could seek safety, and once they decided, there would be no turning back. For long moments the air was charged in the thick silence.

  Tom faced John. “Let’s be about it.”

  Silently, as one, the men walked out of the small quarters, through the dark chapel, and into the stillness of the warm Boston night, and for a moment they paused in the bright moonlight. They looked about and up at the endless stars in the heavens, and oddly, knowing in their souls the holocaust that was coming, they felt a sense of peace. They separated, Tom walking with John and Thorpe the five blocks to John’s home, each man working silently with his own thoughts. They stopped at the front gate and said their good-byes, and Thorpe continued on towards his home.

  John asked Tom, “Do you want to come in? You can stay here tonight.”

  “No, but I need to tell you some things. I followed that citizen that comes and goes from Gage’s quarters. He has a room at Sailor’s Cove Inn. Calls himself Amos Ingersol. Stops at Hubbard’s ale house, over at Enid’s bakery for bread, buys tobacco at Hilda’s, cheese and sausage at Reichman’s, but never comes close to anyone that would know things that are getting to Gage. Maybe I’m wrong about him.”

  “Does anybody else come and go at Gage’s quarters? maybe a scrubbing maid?”

  “No. Soldiers do the cleaning.”

  “Did that man come tonight?”

  “If he did, it was after dark and I missed him.”

  “Keep looking. We’ve got to find out.”

  Tom nodded and faded into the shadows and was gone. John pushed through the gate and rapped gently on the front door. Matthew opened it, with Margaret behind, and she stepped forward and threw her arms about him and buried her face in his chest. For a moment he held her.

  “What’s happened?” he asked. “Are you all right?”

  She stepped back. “We’re all right. What happened at the church? We heard the soldiers were there with bayonets and they had Silas under armed guar
d, and then you didn’t come home.”

  John sat them down at the table, and for several minutes Margaret and Matthew did not move as he talked. He did not speak of the powerful, strange experience they had shared in Silas’s small living quarters, because he did not yet understand it, nor could he put it into words.

  When he finished, Margaret’s shoulders slumped. “It’s coming. The shooting is coming.”

  John knew no words to help, and he covered her hand with his. They remained silent for a moment, and John said, “There’s nothing more we can do tonight. We need to go to bed.” He stood and helped Margaret to her feet and started for the bedroom, when Matthew stood.

  “Father, could we talk a minute?”

  Margaret nodded consent, and continued through the archway to the bedroom, and John walked back to the table and sat across from Matthew and waited.

  “Today Mother and Kathleen could have gone to prison.”

  John nodded.

  “What would we have done if they had?”

  “Try to get them out. The muskets had to go to the church. The women made their own choice. Why do you ask?”

  Matthew stared at his hands. “So far this thing with England has been mostly talk, but today it could have become more than that, and I realized something.” He raised his eyes to John’s. “Some of us could be killed.”

  John held a steady gaze but said nothing.

  “Is it worth that?” Matthew settled back into his chair and waited.

  John leaned forward, forearms on the table, fingers laced. “What do you think this thing with the British is all about?”

  Matthew shrugged. “Tyranny. Freedom.”

  “Anything else?”

  “No. Not that I know about.”

  “Get the Bible.”

  Matthew blinked, startled. “What does that have to do with this?”

  “Get it.”

  Matthew picked the heavy family Bible from the fireplace mantel and set it before John and waited, eyes narrowed, questioning, while John turned pages and then pushed the Bible to Matthew.

  “The Apostle Paul’s letter to the Hebrews. Read it. Start here at chapter nine, verse seventeen.” He pointed.

  Matthew turned the Bible around and studied the words for a moment, then began to read deliberately. “ ‘For a testament is of force after men are dead: otherwise it is of no strength at all while the testator liveth. Whereupon neither the first testament was dedicated without blood. For when Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of calves and of goats, with water, and scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book, and all the people, saying, This is the blood of the testament which God hath enjoined unto you. Moreover he sprinkled with blood both the tabernacle, and all the vessels of the ministry. And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission. It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.’ ”

  “Stop,” John said, and Matthew looked up, startled. “What was the first testament?”

  “The law of Moses.”

  “What was the new testament?”

  “The law of Christ.”

  “Neither came without the shedding of blood.”

  Matthew nodded. “What does that have to do with the British?”

  “The two events in history on which all mankind will be judged are connected with the shedding of blood. Do you know how Christ’s Apostles died?”

  Matthew reflected. “Most of them were killed.”

  “Eleven out of twelve. We don’t know what happened to John the Beloved. They couldn’t deny what they knew, and it cost them pain and sorrow that tested their souls and finally took their lives. The price for what they knew was their lives, and they paid it.”

  Matthew slowly settled back in his chair, eyes wide in the yellow glow of the lamp, mind racing. “What are you saying?”

  John’s voice was quiet, but there was an intensity as never before. “There is more to this than throwing off tyranny. There is more than freedom. I don’t know all of it, only part, but what I do know is that somehow what we do now, in the next days and weeks, is part of a plan made by the Almighty, and that plan is beyond anything any of us can dream. Somehow this struggle is going to affect the history of this world forever. I don’t know how, only that it will.” John paused, eyes like lightning, face bright in the lamplight. “And I know in my soul it will not happen without the shedding of blood.”

  Matthew released held breath, stunned by the conviction he felt coming from his father, like nothing he had ever felt before. He spoke quietly. “Has something happened?”

  Instantly John answered. “Yes. Tonight. In Silas’s parlor. Standing in the chapel, we all felt it. We all knew.”

  Matthew swallowed. “Knew what?”

  “That the need to be free of the British is of God! Something is supposed to happen soon, and it can’t happen until we’re free of them. I don’t know what it is, only that it is coming.”

  The spirit that had pervaded Silas’s humble quarters slowly settled over Matthew and John, and Matthew dared not move or speak as it grew. It held them for a time and then slowly withdrew.

  Matthew remained silent for a time, then finally spoke. “You intend carrying a musket when the war begins?”

  “If needed, yes, I do.” John’s eyes were steady.

  “You’d risk being killed—leaving Mother and the family without you?”

  John did not hesitate. “Yes, if I have to.”

  “Is that part of God’s plan?”

  “I don’t know. What I do know is, what is now before us has to be, and because I know it I cannot refuse to be part of it. If it costs me my life, I will have to go. I would never be a whole man again, for your mother or for anyone, if I don’t do this thing.”

  Matthew’s eyes fell for a long time. “I don’t know if I can go to battle, and leave Kathleen. I can’t think of leaving her.”

  “I understand. You’re young. The sweet years of life are ahead for you two. You will have to look inside yourself for your own answer. I can only decide for myself.”

  Again Matthew’s eyes dropped while he considered. Then he raised them and said, “You taught us not to shed blood. How do I justify it now?”

  “I taught you what God said to Moses on Sinai and what Jesus said in the Beatitudes. Killing men is wrong. The teaching is right, but it is not the whole teaching. The whole teaching is, there is a time for all things. There is a time to rise up and do what is necessary to bring God’s plan to pass, and sometimes that may require standing up against tyranny and putting our lives on the line. I believe we are facing such a time now.”

  “What happened at Silas’s place?”

  John stared at his hands for long seconds. “I don’t know. Standing there in his parlor I told Silas I was sorry for bringing it all down on him, and he said it was all right. No one had been hurt.”

  He raised his eyes to Matthew and continued, his voice low, his words paced, thoughtful. “Then he said he saw great sorrow and pain coming, to lie on this land like a dark vapor. And something happened. I don’t know what it was, but all of us at that moment saw and felt what he saw and felt, and we all knew, and we didn’t move or speak for a time because it was too powerful. I know he was right. It is coming, and it is of God. I felt the same spirit, not as strong, here with you.”

  Neither man knew how long they sat, unaware of time or surroundings. Finally John drew a deep breath and let it out. “Was there anything else you wanted to talk about?”

  Matthew shook his head and rose and walked silently to his room.

  ______

  Notes

  The events that take place at the Old South Church are fictional, as is the character Richard Arlen Buchanan.

  Tuesday, April 18, 1775

  Chapter VII

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  A chill east wind arose from the Atlantic in the gray before sunrise, and swells rolled into the harbor and Back Bay to set every vessel rocking. Seagulls quarrelled over things the tides had abandoned on the beaches and shoreline in the night, while the four o’clock watch on ships changed to the cadence of the clean sound of brass bells. High clouds in the east quadrant of the sky thickened and settled and came scudding on the raw wind to hide the rising sun, and the new day was born chill and gray.

  Shoulders hunched against the bite of the wind, Tom Sievers stood beneath the greening branches of a large maple tree across the street from the huge British military compound. Inside the stone wall, barracks formed the north and south boundaries, with infirmary, mess halls, stockade, and stables on the east, and officers’ quarters on the west. The square created by the buildings was centered by a flagpole, with drill and parade grounds on all sides. Sleepy-eyed sentries stood at the wrought-iron gates into the streets, occasionally shaking their legs against the stiffness and cramps of four hours of guard duty.

  At five-thirty a.m. a bugler with his tunic half-buttoned and hair awry blasted the morning wakeup call, and lights began showing through shaded barracks windows. At six-fifteen the soldiers emptied from the barracks in full uniform, red coats and white belts crossed bright on their chests, and the tall, pointed hats of the light grenadiers square on their heads. They fell into ranks on four sides of the flagpole while two drummers sounded the assembly drumroll. On command every arm was raised in salute while the drums crescendoed and two soldiers raised the Union Jack proud in the cold wind. Officers barked more orders, and the hands snapped down from the salute. Lieutenants shouted to their companies, and the ranks and files marched smartly in order to the mess halls.

  Boston City stirred and stretched, and life began to trickle into the streets. A large dog harnessed to a two-wheeled milk cart leaned into the leathers and scratched the cobblestones, stopping from time to time on voice command while his master dipped fresh milk into pails on doorsteps. A man in heavy rubber farm boots trudged towards Gerhard’s cheese house with two forty-pound rounds of cheddar cheese sealed in half an inch of wax and wrapped in linen in his backpack. Women with hand-knitted shawls wrapped about their shoulders hurried from bakeries with baskets of smoking bread loaves to be delivered to the inns and boardinghouses in time for breakfast.