Prelude to Glory, Vol. 1

by Ron Carter

  “I don’t know. I suppose so. But that’s not the worst of it.”

  Brigitte waited.

  “They found out that Henry Thorpe is the one who has been informing Gage. He’s been arrested. Kathleen closed the door against Mathew.”

  Brigitte clenched both hands beneath her chin. “Henry Thorpe!” Seconds passed while she neither moved nor spoke. Then she whispered, “Mother, that can’t be true! I don’t believe it.”

  “Enid Ferguson and a man named Ingersol were arrested along with him. They’ve both signed confessions and they include Henry.”

  Brigitte melted. Her shoulders slumped and then began to shake as silent tears fell. She raised her head. “Did Kathleen know? or Phoebe?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Will he be hanged?”

  Margaret shrugged. “He could be.”

  Brigitte sagged against the back of her chair. “Kathleen and Phoebe. The poor children! How is Matthew?” She stopped, unable to find words.

  “Heartbroken.”

  “She just turned him away?”

  “She’s trying to protect him.”

  “From what?”

  “Disgrace.”

  “Does Matthew care about disgrace?”

  “No. But what can he do about it if she does?” Margaret waited a few moments.

  “We’ll give it a little time, and then we’ll go visit.” She bowed her head for a moment, sick in her soul with thoughts of the bottomless abyss of black pain into which Kathleen and Phoebe had been plunged without warning.

  She raised her head, eyes narrowed, calculating, suspicion growing. “When I told you our men had gone to Concord, you didn’t ask about them. You asked about the British marines. Why?”

  Brigitte recoiled and fumbled for words. “I was just . . . I . . . I don’t know. I just asked.”

  Slowly Margaret shook her head. “No, not you. What was your reason?”

  Brigitte’s head slowly nodded forward and she buried her face in her arms on the table. With hot tears flowing, she sobbed, “Mama, I’ve done a wicked thing. I’m so sorry.”

  Margaret pursed her mouth and waited.

  “I sneaked out of the house Monday night and I went to the church and I found the young lieutenant we saw Monday—the one at the church when we took the muskets. He knew my foot wasn’t hurt, and I had to find out if he had told his superior that I had pretended and if that’s why they invaded the church. I had to know. I had to!”

  “What happened between you two?”

  “Nothing. He hadn’t reported me. I wasn’t responsible for what they did to the church. When the colonel came over, Richard told him I was only looking for my family, and sent me home. Mama, he’s honorable. He’s fine and honorable!”

  “Richard?”

  “That’s his name. Lieutenant Richard Arlen Buchanan. He’s a marine.”

  “You’ve seen him twice, and he’s fine and honorable?”

  “Yes! I know it.”

  Margaret waited and said nothing, and watched the defensive light in Brigitte’s eyes fade. Self-doubt crept into Brigitte’s steady gaze, and her cheeks flushed as she stared into Margaret’s eyes. She leaned forward and seized Margaret’s arm. “Mama, what’s wrong with me? I went up to the church at night, alone, in the dark, looking for a British soldier I’ve seen twice. What’s happening?”

  “Listen to yourself,” Margaret said quietly, and waited.

  “Listen to myself?”

  “Yes. Why would a colonial girl go looking in the night for a British soldier she had seen twice?”

  Brigitte’s fingers bit into Margaret’s arm, and she leaned forward and spoke with intensity. “Mama, it doesn’t happen that way.”

  Margaret held her steady gaze, and a hint of a smile formed for a moment, but she said nothing, and waited.

  “Well,” Brigitte demanded, “isn’t it true? It doesn’t happen that way.”

  “Love happens on its own terms, and it can bring trouble.”

  Brigitte recoiled. The flush left her cheeks and her face turned white. She put both hands over her face and covered a sob. Margaret reached to hold her for a moment. The sobbing quieted, and Brigitte raised frightened eyes to Margaret’s. “It’s all wrong, Mama.”

  Margaret nodded. “A colonial girl and a British soldier? Probably. Love doesn’t recognize uniform or country, but I doubt it will make any difference anyway.”

  Brigitte tensed. “Why?”

  “I doubt you’ll ever see him again.”

  Brigitte straightened, startled. “You think he’ll be killed?”

  Margaret held a steady gaze. “I meant that sooner or later he’ll go back to England. No matter what happens, he will not be here very long.”

  Brigitte leaned forward. “You don’t know that.”

  “I do, and so do you.” Margaret could not mask the deep fear that was rising inside as she watched and listened to Brigitte. She spoke low, measuring every word. “Child, don’t do this to yourself. He’s an enemy soldier. You carried muskets to the church to fight him. Let it go. It can only break your heart.”

  Brigitte stood facing her mother with her feet spread slightly, eyes locked with Margaret’s, struggling for control. Never had she disobeyed or been divided from her mother. Suddenly, for the first time in her life her self-confidence wavered and her thoughts fragmented. She groped for words that would not come and then bowed her head, and silent tears rolled down her cheeks.

  Margaret felt the pain and gently held Brigitte until the trembling and the sobs and tears quieted. Brigitte pushed back and looked at her, and Margaret handed her a handkerchief. Brigitte wiped her tear-stained face while a sense of calmness settled on her, and she spoke quietly. “What am I going to do?”

  Margaret was surprised by her own reply. “Wash your face and go to bed.”

  Brigitte stopped for a moment. “I mean about Richard.”

  Margaret let a moment pass in silence. “There’s nothing you can do tonight, and tomorrow is a new day and it will look different in daylight. Wash your face and go to bed.”

  Brigitte shook her head but said nothing. Margaret slipped her arm about her waist and together they walked through the archway, down to Brigitte’s bedroom, and Brigitte faced her mother. “And if I don’t see it differently?”

  Margaret’s eyes dropped for a moment. “You will.”

  To the north, at the British military compound, Lieutenant Richard Arlen Buchanan lay in his bunk in the junior officers’ quarters, lost in turmoil, staring vacantly at the ceiling in the darkness. The sounds of sleeping soldiers went unnoticed. The light of a nearly full moon turned the drawn window blinds a dull gray and faintly defined objects in the large, sparse room.

  Brigitte Dunson. Brigitte Dunson. The name ran through his brain out of control. Blue eyes. He closed his eyes and her face was there and he studied it. He saw her as he had seen her last, standing in the dark street at the church, proud, defiant, frightened. She came back because she had to know I had not betrayed her. She had to know.

  He laid his hand across weary, tormented eyes in the darkness, and thoughts and remembrances came reaching from his past. Lichfield, the dirty little coal town in central England—his mother dead on his twelfth birthday—going to the mines with his father at fourteen—his stepmother with the mean eyes and the heavy hickory stick—his father dead the next year of miner’s black lung—his stepmother claiming the ancient, crumbling family home—leave, get out—the freezing two-week walk north to Liverpool in January to find work on the shipping docks—no work to be found—starving—then one day the soldiers marching past the docks and in uniforms with muskets—young—following them—the lie about his age—signing the enlistment—a uniform—a bed—warm food every day—pay—not enough but more than he had ever known—and then the drunken private asleep on graveyard guard duty at the ordnance depot—the fire—the explosion that shook the entire garrison and blasted windows out of his barracks—the sprint in his stock
ing feet and pants to the fire—knocked off his feet by the second blast—into the inferno with ordnance exploding all around—there’s one—onto his shoulder and outside to drop the limp body out of harm’s way—back into the inferno three more times—three more burned, semi-conscious bodies—the last with the braid of a major on his shoulders—the third blast that levelled the depot—the red-hot metal hitting, burning a dozen places—the cut to the bone above his eye, in his eyebrow—unconscious—waking in the hospital—the colonel beside his bed—the commendation for conspicuous bravery—the order to appear before the brigadier—the rare invitation to enter officers’ training—the four years of rising above his beginnings—receiving his officer’s commission.

  He swung his feet to the hard, cold floor and sat up, hunched forward, hands on his knees, staring at the floor in the murky twilight.

  Orders to sail for the colonies—the preparations for war that could be coming—assigned to Percy’s cannon—the rising tension with the colonials—Brigitte Dunson and the smuggled muskets—the church desecrated in the search—Brigitte returning to the church at night. And in his mind he saw her again.

  Once again the wondrous feeling welled up inside, and then he felt the cold perspiration forming on his forehead as the agony came hot.

  A colonial girl—a British officer—it can never be—it can never be. How did it happen? Why did it happen? Why, why? Where’s the answer?

  He sat thus for a long time, and then he lay back down on his bunk, pulled his blanket up, and lay staring into the dark void until heavy weariness came and his eyes closed to troubled sleep.

  Wednesday, April 19, 1775

  Chapter X

  * * *

  The two mounted men appeared as by magic in the one o’clock a.m. moonlight, and in the instant of seeing them Revere saw the crossed belts on their chests. He hauled back too hard on the reins of his running mare, and she dropped her hindquarters nearly to the dirt of the crooked road and slid to a stiff-legged stop, throwing her head high against the bite of the bit.

  “Halt!” came the shouted order from the British officers.

  Revere jerked the mare around and jammed both spurs into her flanks and raised her to a stampede gait heading northeast, retreating from Cambridge, back towards the fork in the road near the Mystic River.

  The blue-caped British officers slammed their spurred boot heels into their horses’ ribs and kicked them to a headlong run in the moonlight, into the dust left hanging in the air by the pounding hooves of Revere’s mare. For more than half a mile they held their reckless pace, watching the faint image of horse and rider ahead of them slowly begin to pull away.

  Revere looked back over his shoulder, then straightened in his saddle. Eight hundred more yards, he thought, just eight hundred more yards. He rode easy in the saddle, feeling the power in the thrust of the haunches and the smooth reach and gather of the forelegs of the mare, and he knew they would not catch him.

  Four hundred more yards. He stood in the stirrups, searching for the hard turn to the east in the road, followed by a second hard turn back north, around the oozing muck of the natural clay pits. And then it was there. He reined the mare in to make the turn as he swept past the pits and the thick, rank smell. Thirty yards farther he made the second abrupt turn back north, towards the river, and once again he twisted in the saddle to watch. He held his breath as the two officers came hurtling into the east turn.

  “Take the shortcut, take the shortcut,” he breathed to himself, and set his teeth to watch. The charging officers separated, one leaving the roadbed at the east turn to charge straight north, cutting across what in the moonlight appeared to be smooth, open ground, directly towards Revere. Revere slowed his horse to watch. The officer held his wild pace for thirty feet before his horse plowed into the thick, sticky clay up to its belly. It sucked the horse down, floundering, and the officer pitched headlong over its head into the slime. The terrified horse turned back, buck jumping, churning, reaching for solid footing, and its hooves struck bottom and it dragged itself out, while the officer shouted and cursed, battling to get the ooze out of his eyes. It was up to his shoulders before he spread his arms to keep from sinking, and began working his way back towards his horse, which stood trembling, covered with the sticky muck. The officer on the road reined in his stamping, winded mount for a moment to watch aghast until his slime-covered companion staggered from the clay pit to slump on the ground, finished. Then he spun his horse and once again kicked it to a high run, straining to see Revere ahead.

  Revere allowed himself one wry smile at the sight before he turned his horse and raised her to a steady, ground-eating run and watched her distance the pursuing officer. He turned at the fork, and one mile later pulled the mare to a stop and dismounted to watch and listen while she caught her wind. There was no further sign of pursuit. He remounted and passed Prospect Hill to his left, then climbed the gentle incline of Winter Hill and followed the road north towards Mystic, riding easy, listening, watching for anything that moved. He stopped at Maughan’s inn on the right side of the road approaching Mystic, and leaned from the saddle to bang on the door.

  “The regulars are on the move to Concord!”

  Owen Maughan bobbed his head and watched for a moment as Revere spurred the mare to a run on into Mystic. He slammed the door and pivoted and ran to his bedroom for his clothes and his musket.

  The hammering of the iron horseshoes on the Mystic cobblestones sounded loud in the darkness as Revere held the mare to a run into town, where he pounded on the door of the captain of the militia.

  “The regulars—coming to Concord!”

  Lights began to glow behind drawn shades. Second-story windows opened and heads appeared as Revere rode on, clattering on the cobblestones. At the Mystic common he suddenly tensed and leaned forward, peering into the darkness at a mounted rider facing him, and he jammed his spurs home and reined the running mare straight at the rider. If it was a British soldier, he intended running over the top of him.

  From forty feet he saw the three-cornered hat and pulled the mare down.

  “Who are you and what’s your business?” he challenged.

  “Martin Herrick. Medical student under Doctor Tufts.”

  “From where?”

  “South Reading.”

  “Are you loyal to the crown?”

  “To the colonies. I heard the regulars are coming.”

  “Will you a carry the word north?”

  “I will.”

  “They’re marching for Lexington and Concord. Rouse the militia.”

  “I will. I can pass through Stoneham and South Reading.”

  “Do it. Watch for British patrols. They’re out tonight.”

  “I will. Who are you?”

  “Revere. Paul Revere. Boston.”

  “I’ll tell them.” Young Herrick spun his horse, and Revere watched and listened as Herrick pounded off into the night before he once again raised his mare to a run, due east, on the road to Menotomy. The nearly full moon was now directly overhead, and the easterly breeze settled and died, and Revere was running free in the moonlight. To his left, in the distance, he could see the thin silver thread that was the Mystic River, and there were no British patrols as he held the mare to her steady run.

  He crossed a bridge over a brook leading to the Mystic River and saw the moonlight reflecting off the lakes to his right where the road angled southwest. He slowed as he approached the junction with the Boston Road, and reined the mare into the yard of Cooper’s tavern, where he leaned from the saddle to hammer on the front door.

  “The regulars are marching for Concord!”

  Benjamin Cooper walked outside in his nightshirt to watch Revere gallop on northwest into Menotomy, soon lost in the night. As he galloped through town, he reined in the mare eight times to lean from the saddle and pound on doors. At the far end of town he once more let her out to a lope, holding her in, feeling for the first time a raggedness in her breathing and a slight
break in the rhythm of her stride.

  The whirr of the ball and the muzzle flash from the trees near the road came in the same instant and then the pop of the musket, and Revere flinched and then leaned low over the neck of the mare and kicked her to a hard gallop. He held the pace for more than half a mile before he reined into a thicket of low oaks seventy yards from the road and waited, listening while the horse battled for breath. Slowly the mare’s breathing settled, and there was no sound from behind, no pursuit. He mounted and once again continued west towards Lexington.

  Six hundred yards from the place where the Lexington and Bedford Roads joined, forming the junction around which the town of Lexington had grown, Revere pulled the mare to a halt and studied the road ahead and the town.

  If they intend stopping the road traffic, they’ll do it either here or just this side of Concord. He stared at the ground while he considered. I have no time to waste finding out which.

  He set the horse at a steady lope, standing tall in the stirrups, watching everything ahead for movement in the shadows, but none came. He reined in at the junction of the Bedford Road and banged on the door of Buckman’s tavern. A light flickered on in the first-floor bedroom window, and Ruth Buckman opened it and leaned out, a lantern in her hand, digging sleep from her eyes.

  “Who are you?” she called to him.

  “Paul Revere. Boston. The regulars are marching to Concord. Tell your husband to spread the word.”

  The window closed and the lights came on in the tavern as Revere crossed the road to the huge two-and-one-half-story meetinghouse, with the belfry built just to the northwest, its spire pointed into the heavens. He stopped at the home of John Parker, captain of the Lexington militia, near the southwest corner of the town. Big, rawboned, with broad, plain features and a booming voice that rang with authority and command, Parker answered Revere’s pounding with a lantern in his hand. His hair was messed and his nightshirt was open at the neck.

  “Who’s there?”

  “Revere. The regulars are on the road, coming here now.”

  Fair, fearless, tough, Parker bellowed, “You sure?”