Bunker Hill (26 page)

After
landing and anchoring their boat with a rock, they made their way up Breed’s
Hill toward the redoubt. As they climbed the hill, they saw the flaming torches
of the British soldiers, who were still looking for their own dead. They
advanced carefully, crawling sometimes. Once they lay absolutely still as a
couple of British soldiers passed within a few feet of them. Finally, they
reached the redoubt.

There were
four dead bodies
lying
in the redoubt, one of them a
black man. Now the moonlight, which had been blocked by clouds, was sufficient
for them to recognize the body of Dr. Warren. He lay naked, stripped of all his
clothes, his body stained with blood and dirt.

By now the
boys, who had started their mission with a high sense of excitement and
purpose, were thoroughly frightened. Crouched in the redoubt, they saw torches
all around them, and for at least an hour they were trapped where they were,
not daring to leave the redoubt. They were gagging and vomiting at the sight of
one of the dead militiamen, whose chest and stomach had been ripped wide open.
To make matters worse, rats were scampering about, eating the flesh of the
dead. They crouched quietly and prayed that no soldier would enter the redoubt.

When the torches finally
moved away, they tried to lift the body of Dr. Warren over the port entry. For
all of his apparent slenderness, Dr. Warren had been over six feet in height,
with wide shoulders and large bones. Rigor mortis had already set in. As much
as they struggled, they only managed to lift the body to the firing step when
they saw torches approaching up the hill. At that point, their courage failed them,
and they tumbled out of the redoubt and ran down the hillside to where their
boat was tethered. They pushed off the shore and paddled back up the Mystic
River.

Fame,
fortune, and the fulfillment of a dream come to people along various avenues,
and Joshua Loring was not the first to achieve his ambition through a marriage
to a woman who despised him but cherished his wealth. Not only could he boast
of his rank as captain in His Majesty’s armed forces, but here he was wearing
the red coat, the white britches, and the high black boots of a British
officer, not to mention a dress sword by his side. Along with his uniform, a
detachment of six British marines was his to command, as well as Sergeant
Perkins to relay his orders to the ordinary enlisted men.

At seven
o’clock, on the seventeenth of June, Capt. Joshua Loring received thirty-one
American prisoners of war on a dock in Boston, brought there by lighter from
Breed’s Hill. All of them were wounded, some so badly they could hardly walk.
When Sergeant Perkins suggested that litters might be found for the most sorely
wounded, Capt. Loring replied that they had come to the battle on foot and they
would damn well walk to jail. One of the prisoners, Caleb Johnson, was
supporting Col. Moses Parker, who had been seriously wounded with a musket ball
that shattered his kneecap in the struggle in the redoubt. Each step was agony
for him. Johnson, who had kept a chicken farm in Dorchester, had often sold
fresh eggs to the Loring household. He had a nodding acquaintance with Joshua
Loring. Now he pleaded, “For God’s sake, Mr. Loring, this man can’t walk. Show
some mercy.”

Loring
specified his rank with a blow across Johnson’s face.
“
Captain
Loring, you rebellious son of a bitch!”

Then he led his contingent
of thirty-one wounded men through the streets of Boston to the jail, a trail of
blood marking their passage.

At eleven
o’clock, on the night of the seventeenth of June, Sir William Howe was
cleansing himself of dirt and perspiration in the anteroom of his commodious
bedroom. His personal orderly, Dick Higbe, had filled the tub with hot water
and then had been sent packing by Mrs. Loring, with instructions that they were
not to be disturbed for any reason whatsoever before ten o’clock on the morning
of the following day.

General
Howe was a large man, and the tub, typical of the time, was rather small, so he
sat in it with his knees drawn up while Betsy Loring soaped him and gently
sponged the various parts of his abundant body.

“Not even
a scratch anywhere on your dear body,” she observed. “Here I died a thousand
deaths and you not even one.”

“Oh, say
not so.”

“True, true.
And when they
brought the news that your wonderful grenadiers had suffered so, I fell into a
faint. I cried out for death to overtake me.”

“Forgive
me for causing you such pain, my darling, and if you continue to wash that part
of me, we shall waste what has been waiting for you all this terrible day.”

“What
strength,” she said admiringly. “What wonderful strength and fortitude!”

“You give
it to me, my love,” he replied gallantly.

“You were
in God’s hands.”

“I find no
other explanation. A thousand men took aim at me. Every gallant officer in my
grenadiers fell, and I was unharmed. There are ten rents in my clothes where
the musket balls tore through, yet my skin—”

“You have
the skin of a young man.”

“What have
I done to deserve God’s favor?”

“Something
noble,” Mrs. Loring assured him. “You were a mountain of courage. God rewards
courage.”

“My
darling Betsy,” he said gently, lifting her hand away, “don’t
deprive me of what we should share.”

“How very well said, Sir William.
I have always been of the opinion that a proper man makes love with
his speech as well as his hands—”

“Hands?”

“Would you want me to speak less delicately?”

“Say what
you will, in prose or poesy.”

“If all
the world and love were young,” she said softly, “and truth in every shepherd’s
tongue, / these pretty pleasures might me move, / to live with thee and be thy
love.”

“You quote
me Raleigh,” he said, surprised.

“You
thought me no more than an ignorant wench, Sir William,” she replied, feigning
hurt.

“Never!”

“And ignorant of the finer things.”

“Never, my dear Betsy.
Enough, now.
Help me out of this miserable little tub.”

He stood
up, and she folded the towels around him.

“And now to bed,” she said.
“Give me a moment and I will be with you.”

At
midnight, Feversham and Gonzales were still at work in the big holding room of
Rev. Samuel Cook. Mrs. Cook had found them clean shirts. Almost three hundred
of the militia had been wounded, and the men lay on the floor in the holding
room, the adjoining parlor, and the dining room. Three doctors and two leeches
were already at work when Feversham and Gonzales arrived, all five of them part
of the group Feversham had spoken to earlier. They were full of explanation as
to why they had not appeared in Charlestown. They were reluctant to probe for
bullets, and only two of them had ever sewn with catgut.

By
midnight, Feversham’s hands were shaking with fatigue. He had come to the end
of his strength. Feversham said to Mrs. Cook, “I don’t think Dr. Gonzales and I
can do anymore. We must rest.”

“Poor man,
of course,” Mrs. Cook agreed.

“The worst
are taken care of, and these doctors can do for the others. If there’s a place
where we can lie down…”

A
comfortable, motherly woman, she clucked with sympathetic sounds and offered to
feed them. They shook their heads. “Only sleep, please, Mrs. Cook.”

She led
them upstairs to a tiny room where a small boy lay on a trundle bed. “Every
other place is taken. Can you sleep on the floor here? There is a chamber pot,
if you need it.”

“The child?”
Feversham
wondered.

“You won’t
wake him.” She spread a quilt on the floor. “It’s a warm night. Will you want a
blanket?”

Feversham
shook his head.

She left
them, and the two men pulled off their boots and lay down on the quilt.
Feversham fell asleep almost instantly, but for the next hour, Gonzales stared
into the darkness. Then he, too, slept.

E
van Feversham awakened in response to a gentle
pressure on his shoulder and a soft whisper in his ear. He opened his eyes to a
room lit by diffused morning light and saw Mrs. Cook bending over him. “Forgive
me, Dr. Feversham,” she said softly, “for waking you when you need your rest so
much, but Abraham Watson is downstairs and says he must see you.”

Gonzales,
sprawled face down on the floor, still slept. Feversham struggled to his feet,
every muscle in his body aching. He told Mrs. Cook that he would be downstairs
in a moment or two, wondering who Abraham Watson might be. She whispered in his
ear that Mr. Watson was a member of the Committee of Safety. This information
puzzled Feversham, since the day before, on Breed’s
Hill,
he had not heard a good word spoken about the Committee of Safety.

He came
downstairs a few minutes later, rubbing his beard and wondering where he might
shave and from whom he might borrow a razor, or did he have one in his
saddlebags? He was met by a tall, gray-haired man of middle age who Mrs. Cook
introduced as Mr. Watson. They went through the holding room, still crowded
with wounded men, some asleep, some awake and in pain, to a table in the yard
outside. There they found a crowd of men, women, and boys: relatives of wounded
and missing men, militiamen with their muskets slung over their shoulders,
women desperate to find their husbands, boys and girls who should have been in
school but were a part of the general disruption.

Watson
motioned to the bench at the table, and Mrs. Watson brought them two steaming
mugs of coffee.

“I have
heard good things about you, Feversham,” Watson told him. “Prescott says you
are not a fearful man.”

Feversham
gathered that this was praise in spite of Watson’s misuse of the term. “If you
mean that I am courageous, let me disabuse you.”

“I like a
man who will not speak well of himself. Let me get to the point. They have
taken a round number of our men prisoner, exactly how many we don’t know, but
the indication is that most of them were wounded. The committee chose me to go
to Boston with a white flag and to plead a doctor’s attendance to our men who
are their prisoners. I am told that you are the best surgeon we have and that
you have years of experience with military wounds. Will you come with me?”

Feversham
felt a cold chill in his heart, and he took a long moment before he said, “I am
British, you know.”

“I know
that,” Watson said. “Do you think you might be recognized?”

“I don’t
know. I have never met any of the officers whose names I heard spoken, and it is
full seven years since I left the British army.”

“If you
refuse, I shall understand.”

“The
trouble is,” Feversham said ruefully, “if I refuse, will I understand?”

“Sir?”

“I would
want to shave,” he said, rubbing his beard, “and find my horse and my
instruments. It will be best if you do the talking. I feel a proper fool when I
try to cover my accent. I’ll want a jug of rum and a couple of skins of fresh
water.”

“Then you’ll
come with me?”

Feversham
said, “I don’t feel hopeful about it, but I’ll come with you.”

An hour
later, Feversham, shaved and with a clean waistcoat, rode with Watson down the
Boston turnpike and through Roxbury to the Boston Neck. They led a third horse,
loaded with water skins and jugs of rum. Where the land narrowed, at the edge
of Roxbury, the American fortifications had been set up—a stone and dirt wall,
with embrasures for five cannons, eight-pounder field pieces. The cannons were
loaded with grapeshot, gun crews in attendance. In a field nearby, a large
force of militia, at least two thousand men, were encamped. Feversham reflected
that a hundred men could have defended the position. The sight of this army
sitting around their cook fires or lounging in the shade of the trees evoked
bitter memories of the day before. He felt a surge of anger at the thought of
Ward’s plea that he needed his army of twelve thousand men to keep the British
bottled up in Boston, while less than a thousand fought to the death on Breed’s
Hill.

Captain
Appleton, in command of the fortification, welcomed them without enthusiasm.
“God’s will that the bastards don’t shoot you down.
The
gossip is that they’ve a raging hate for the damage done yesterday. Were you
there, sir?”

“Dr.
Feversham was on the hill,” Watson said.

Captain
Appleton voiced his admiration. Watson took a staff from the packhorse. A white
banner was attached to the staff. Watson anchored the pole in his stirrup, and
the two men rode through the opening in the wall and on across the Boston Neck.
For a quarter of a mile there was nothing but marsh grass and sea gulls, and
then, suddenly, the British fortification came into view; a few hundred yards
down the road, rock and sand and cannons, houses beyond the wall, and the cross
of St. George flapping in the breeze. They walked their horses slowly, coming
into view, and drew up forty or fifty feet from the fortification. They could
see the faces of soldiers now and the place in the wall where a gate had been
constructed.

They sat
on their horses and waited.

“What
now?” Watson wondered. He was a calm man, Abraham Watson, not an easy thing
when there was a reasonable chance that the British might decide to blow them
out of existence. “Will they let us sit here and ignore us?”

“Or kill
us.”

“Do you
think so, Doctor? I have heard that they abide by the rules of engagement. We
come under a white flag.”

Still,
they sat and waited.

“I think,”
Feversham said, “that a captain or possibly a lieutenant would be in command
here at the gate. He’d probably decide that it’s not his to judge, and he would
send someone back for a higher rank. They’ll guess that we’re here for the
prisoners, and there would be some talk on that score.” He took out his watch
and looked at it. “If only we had something to bargain with.”

“They have
a sense of decency.”

“What
makes you think so?” Feversham asked. “It comes down to class, doesn’t it? A
gentleman deals with a gentleman. It’s their credo. We don’t have a knight, a
lord, or a duke among us.”

“I
consider myself a gentleman,” Watson said. “I consider you a gentleman.”

“That’s
generous of you,” Feversham replied.

And still they sat and waited.

“Should we ride up to the gate?” Watson wondered.

“I don’t think so. They might consider that a
provocation.”

“Or
dismount?”

“No!”
Feversham said sharply. “Please, sir, do not think of those bastards as men of
honor. If they should take it into their heads to shoot us down, we have a
chance on horse.” He looked at his watch again. “Ten minutes.”

“Can they
ignore us?”

“I don’t
think so. Plain curiosity will bring them out sooner or later. For all they
know, we come to surrender the whole army.”

“Really, Doctor?”

“It would
not be inconceivable. Mr. Watson, when you introduce us, would you call me Dr.
Smith? It’s a long chance, but someone might recognize my name.”

“Of course.
I should have
thought of that.
If they did recognize you, what then?”

“They’d take me and hang me,” Feversham said simply.

“God willing, they won’t.”

Looking at his watch, Feversham said, “Twenty
minutes.”

The gate
opened, and two men on horseback rode through, walked their horses up to a
point a few feet from Feversham and Watson, but made no move to dismount. They
wore the red coats and cocked hats of the light infantry. From the insignia,
Feversham recognized one as a major and the other as a captain.

“I am
Major Butler,” the senior officer said coldly. “This is Captain Selkirk. What
business do you have with us? Have you come to surrender?”

Feversham’s lips twitched in spite of himself.

“I am
Abraham Watson, member of the Committee of Safety, and this is Dr. Smith.”

“We recognize no Committee of Safety, Mr. Watson.”

“Nevertheless,”
Watson said evenly, “I represent the patriot army which holds Boston in siege.”

“I know of
no patriot army, as you call it. A mob of lawless men hold this neck of land
until we see fit to sweep them aside.”

“Will you allow me to state my case, Major?”

“If you wish.
Tell me why
you have come here under a flag of surrender?”

“It is a flag of truce, sir.”

“Whatever,” Major Butler said.

“Would you
be kind enough to tell me how many Americans you hold as prisoners?”

Major
Butler took a few moments before he answered. “Thirty-one,” he said.

“Many of them, I presume, are wounded?”

No reply.

“Major
Butler,” Watson said, “I speak not of war now but of human suffering and
Christian mercy.”

“A mob
that resisted the lawful progress of British troops on British soil can hardly
speak of mercy.”

“I will
not argue legalities, sir,” Watson said softly. “I ask only that you allow Dr.
Smith here and
myself
to give medical aid to brave
soldiers who fought under the rule and orders of the Continental Congress,
which is convened in Philadelphia and was duly elected by the American people.
Like the soldiers of the king, they are enlisted and did their duty.”

“I
recognize no Continental Congress,” Major Butler said shortly.

“Will you allow Dr. Smith to attend their wounds?”

“That is
impossible.”

Watson
took a deep breath. Watching him, Feversham had new respect for his restraint
and courage.

“Major
Butler,” Watson said, “there are rules and practices of civilized warfare.”

“Warfare,
Mr. Watson? A mob of criminal bandits resisted arrest and fired upon the king’s
troops. If you wish to render medical aid, you can surrender yourselves and
join these criminals in Boston jail.”

“Is that
you last word, sir?”

“It is.”

Watson
turned to Feversham. “Come, Doctor. There is no more to say to these men.”

They drew
their reins and turned their horses. After a few paces, Feversham said,
“Slowly, sir. Don’t let those bastards see us run.”

They rode along the Boston
Neck, back to the American barricade.

In the early evening of that
day, having found himself a bed and shelter in the home of Rev. Gideon Cooper
at Cambridge, and having completed his rounds of the wounded, Dr. Evan
Feversham

sat
down to write to his wife. Reverend Cooper was kind
enough

to
offer the use of his desk and his study. Feversham,
shaved and

bathed
and moderately rested, was able to contemplate, more
or less

objectively
, what he had been through during the past few days.
“My dear and beloved Alice,” he wrote.

I
have written to you a few days ago—it seems like months—but I am afraid the
letter is lost. In any case, now, on the evening of the eighteenth, I am well
and whole, unwounded by the grace of God, although what I have done to deserve
such fortune, I do not know. If God is love, as my mother used to tell me, then
perhaps my love for you defended me, although in all truth I struggle mightily
for any belief.

When
I came to Boston and to this army of militia that surrounds it, I was taken
into the trust and confidence of a wise and thoughtful man, Joseph Warren by
name, a physician, who won me immediately not only by his grace and courage but
by agreeing with me that raw liquor poured into a wound, in spite of the pain
it causes at the moment, will prevent festering, but you know my arguments on
that score. In the few hours I knew Dr. Warren, we became close, a kind of
closeness that binds men in battle. He is so loved by the Boston folk and the
people here about that they made him a sort of honorary commander of the army,
but he went into the redoubt built here on Breed’s Hill as an ordinary soldier
and surgeon, and there he died. Two brave boys who climbed the hill, slipping
past the British, found his body, stripped naked, and it lies in some nameless
grave, tossed there by our enemies.

I
speak of Warren thus because I recall how often you would accuse me of being
cynical and disbelieving, in God as well as other things, but all I know at
this moment is that I have been witness to such nobility and courage on the
part of plain people as I have never known and also witness to a terrible
display of the madness we call war.

The
town of Boston here is a peninsula, and alongside of it, separated by half a
mile of water, is another peninsula called Charlestown. Of course, you have
heard of both these places, but they were new to me. The British had occupied
this peninsula, a hilly piece of land a half a mile wide and about a mile long,
which overlooks Boston town, and then for some reason, they abandoned it, and
the Committee of Safety decided to occupy it and mount guns on the hills, which
would have made Boston town untenable for the British.