Part 2

A continuous rolling and flashing of muskets ran down the line. Back upon the doctor arrived the acrid powder smoke and the labored cries of the freshly wounded. Here and there the parapet showed a gap. Men were kneeling and men were sprawled out in stark silence. The shouting of the British officers seemed, on the moment, to become small and lonely. A mutter of satisfaction trembled on the lips of the defenders. The god of war, somewhere above the struggle, peered between the rolling clouds and was still unsatisfied. The scales trembled and the British retreated doggedly down the hill, their ranks decimated and their officers sadly reduced. Still they had the will to close upon that redoubt wall. At the bottom of the slope they halted, threw off their heavy packs, closed the empty gaps and gathered their weary bodies for a last desperate try. In one section nine men dressed up ranks that earlier had been forty strong. Across the water in Boston town the loyalists watched the scene in silent horror. The day had turned bloody, sinister.

Within the redoubt was a different scene. The first two assaults had been repulsed with a great expense of ammunition, and it was now nearly gone. The recharging of muskets left most of the powder horns and cartridge boxes empty. Prescott hurried a detail out for a few cannon cartridges and these, broken open, augmented the supply.

“When that goes,” added the veteran, “we fall back to bayonets.”

Brent, working feverishly, felt again a slow churning of his heart. His ruddy cheeks suffused with color. These men could fight! They were not afraid to die. They stuck to their places as if bent on taking root there. Suddenly, in passing from one wounded provincial to another, he saw upon the ground, with a wistful face to the smoke-obscured sky, the old and rheumatic Caleb Gorham. Brent dropped to his knee and spoke sharply.

“Caleb, where did they strike you?”

Gorham shook his head and twitched a finger weakly.

“Won’t do you any good to find out, Isaac. I’m past mendin’ now.”

“I told you to keep away from here,” muttered the doctor, ripping open his friend’s vest. Upon the bony chest he saw death’s signature written by a heavy ball from a Tower musket. He closed the shirt and eased Gorham’s head.

“----, Caleb, you were always stubborn to deal with! Did I not tell you there’d be time enough to die if you disobeyed me?”

The watery, wistful eyes closed sleepily. Gorham took hold of the doctor’s hand and gave it faint pressure.

“I’d died anyhow, Isaac. Had a chance to make a good bargain, so I took it. Yankee blood. Can’t overlook a bargain.”

It had been long since Isaac Brent had been called upon to express emotion, and it came out now in the characteristic way, a brusk reproof.

“And what about your wife, you old idiot?”

“Ah! She’ll--be a--proud--widder,” said Gorham, and died.

The men of the redoubt found their voices. A warning found its way around the parapet, and wearily the fighters took place. Brent saw a black spiral of smoke rising skyward, and asked one of those at the parapet whence it came.

“Charlestown burnin’.”

“Here they come, boys!”

“Godfrey!” exclaimed Brent. “When will they have enough?”

But the god of war had decided to force the issue. The drums and the fifes sounded defiantly. Brent heard less of officers now. Something in the silence of the upward striving soldiery challenged the provincials. They fiddled with their weapons and dug their heels well in as if to resist the shock. Of a sudden, from the left flank, artillery began to rake the redoubt. The earth geysered high. Prescott spoke amid the absolute silence of his men.

“Save your powder. Let not a grain be wasted in a foolish shot.”

“Ain’t got none to save,” muttered one. “By Joshua, I’d give a peck o’ money fer two charges.”

Brent, standing in the center of the redoubt, felt a rising excitement grip him, as the wave of British rolled nearer. As well as his instruments allowed he had cared for the wounded. There was nothing left for him to do but go with the tide. If it came to bayonet and bayonet the British must conquer, for not one provincial in four was equipped with the blade. He looked speculatively at a gun discarded by a dead man.

As on the two previous occasions, the storm burst suddenly. One tremendous blast of gunfire issued from the redoubt, and for a third time the smoke swirled back and dimmed the setting sun. Brent choked and closed his eyes. The effect of that volley was only too audible to his ears. He wondered how the attackers, so openly exposed and so indiscriminately stricken down, could continue on.

But continue on they did. A shout of warning echoed in the redoubt and a rush was made toward the south parapet. The British, right under the outside scarp, set up a vigorous huzzah. Bayonet tips glinted over the top. The scene began to partake of disorder and confusion. Amid the choking dust Brent saw his comrades rushing toward the focal point of conflict. A British officer, his scarlet facings showing dimly through the smoke, sprang over at the head of his company and died immediately with innumerable bullets in his body. But he was the advance of an irresistible wave. Behind him came a dozen and behind the dozen arrived the full weight of a battalion, all its members pressing vigorously to the front, firing no shot, but extending the steel blade.

Now the clamor rose toward the heavens. A few irregular shots answered for the provincials, and that was the end of their powder and shot. Swords flashed upward and hoarse voices cried out the gallant names of their dead. Gunstock banged gunstock and strange oaths were sworn. Men fell and were engulfed in the rapidly overflowing area. The pressure of the newly arriving British companies inexorably forced the provincials backwards toward the rear of the redoubt.

Isaac Brent struggled in the crowd to maintain his footing. His heart pumped unusually strong and his temper turned warmer and warmer. The fury of those dogged men around him seemed to pass over and infuse him with a reckless resentment. Directly in front a British bayonet plunged forward and impaled a lad barely beyond the first score years. The attack drove the boy against Brent; he heard the lad sob and saw him slip down, releasing his gun. In one vigorous move Brent had secured that gun and had raised it. He found himself lagging in the retreat. About him were red-coated men, mustached men, all sweating profusely and gaping for the dust-laden air. One such came onward swiftly and presented his bayonet at the doctor.

“Here’s a tonic, you cursed rebel!” he panted. “Take it!”

“I need no tonic!” said the doctor.

He parried the thrust and, as the momentum carried the Englishman onward, he reversed and brought up the gun butt with all his strength. He heard the impact of that butt striking flush beneath the other’s chin and saw agony spring to the soldier’s face. Then he was caught in a milling crowd and jammed tightly against the rear parapet. The sallyport was too small an exit; they leaped over the wall and retreated toward the base of Bunker Hill. Brent never knew how he got over the parapet. He was aware that some time later he, too, was retreating stubbornly, elbow to elbow with others, swearing large epithets and praying for a drink of water.

If the confusion within the redoubt was great, it was still worse in the ground immediately outside. Here the dust, under the converging points of British attack, rose in billows, and the two sides were so mixed that no man could tell friend or foe beyond a few yards. Now and then, on the left, Brent heard the popping of a musket and knew that those stationed along the rail fence were covering the retreat of the redoubt defenders.

“By Godfrey!” he gasped. “We can fight!”

He seemed to be emerging from the area of a storm into comparatively quiet territory. The noise and the dust alike grew fainter as he retreated. He scrambled over a fence, still holding to his musket, and almost automatically joined in a kind of organized body retreating along the road to Charlestown Neck and the mainland. Brent looked behind him as the scene began to clarify. The redoubt was well surrounded by British who were halting and dressing their lines. The provincials at the rail fence, once the redoubt had been cleared, were very slowly giving ground, holding off pursuit. From every direction men and companies converged into the road. The doctor, carried along in the throng, turned his face to the front. The road swung and cut the battlefield from sight.

He lagged wearily, hearing now and then a mumbled word from his neighbors; but for the most part he was a silent part of a silent and sullen crowd. Their heads were down in sheer exhaustion and their steps were shambling. A fresh company from Cambridge came up, heard the news and turned back. In no great time Brent roused himself with an effort and saw that he was with a much smaller group. They had crossed the Neck, and the men were splitting along the various routes to their homes. He too, turned. In a half hour he came to the Lone Oak tavern, found his horse and climbed into the saddle. It was then for the first time that he noted the afternoon gone and evening advancing swiftly. There was a throbbing in his wrist; he looked down to see the blood congealing over his hand.

* * * * *

It was pretty late when he got inside his own house and relaxed before the hearth. The kettle sang on the crane and the table was set for the evening meal. His wife poured water in the wash basin and waited upon him while he went through the motions of straightening his attire. Once at the table she ventured to break the silence.

“I wish you had taken more breakfast. It has made you look peaked.”

“A touch of the sun, perhaps,” said he. “The hill was hot.”

“You were kept busy?”

“Yes. There was enough to do.” He forgot the food on his plate and sank into a deep reverie, waking from it with a jerk of his head. “I have been mightily wrong, my dear. I now confess it. I thought this a war of agitators. But when men fight so well and so stubbornly they can not but be sincere. There can not but be stout principles in their minds and courage in their hearts.”

“You have changed your opinion, Isaac?”

“I think,” said he very slowly, “that I have changed my opinion and my political allegiance.” He shook his head, playing with the silverware. “Strange. I don’t quite understand it. I went to the hill a Tory doctor and came back a baptized patriot. Somewhere I changed my mind, but to save me I can’t tell where.”

He drank his tea--or that imitation which passed for tea--and got up, turning toward his surcoat, the very picture of a man who fumbles in his mind for a lost idea.

“I did them an injustice. Ten thousand agitators could not make men fight like that if they had not some just cause.”

“Where are you going now?”

“To see Missis Hammersley.” He buttoned his coat and, characteristic gesture, struck the wall with his hand. “She must change her doctor. If the provinces are good enough for such men, the provinces are good enough for me. Tomorrow I join the army.”

[Transcriber’s note: This story appeared in the May 8, 1926 issue of _Adventure_ magazine.]