Johnny Tremain (28 page)

A blue smock, a mop of orange hair. So they had caught Pumpkin. He was not to die in the handsome uniform of the King's Own Regiment which he had disgraced, but in the farm clothes Johnny had procured for him.

The boy gritted his teeth, but he was trapped among the hurdles. He could not get away. Standing at attention, eyes straight ahead, were one or two thousand men in front of him and behind him the firing squad. And the river. The drummers in their high bearskin caps stood with lifted sticks, waiting. The sound of the volley and the roll of the drums came together. What had happened behind his back he saw reflected in the stony eyes, the white and sweating faces before him. One young officer looked positively green. Only Sandy seemed to enjoy the occasion. As he heard the drums and the firing, he lifted his head even higher. Nan squirmed—if Colonel Smith had been on her he would doubtless have rolled off.

Johnny put his hands to his face. It was wet and his hands were shaking. He thought of that blue smock his mother had made him, now torn by bullets. Pumpkin had wanted so little out of life. A farm. Cows. True, Rab had got the musket he craved, but Pumpkin wasn't going to get his farm. Nothing more than a few feet by a few feet at the foot of Boston Common. That much Yankee land he'd hold to Judgment Day.

'Hurrup! Hep! Hep!'

The firing squad was coming up behind him. He did not turn his head. Now they were passing close to him, their backs coming into his range of vision. Grenadiers they were, in bearskin caps, coat tails buttoned back to show their white breeches. Squared scarlet shoulders—and on each shoulder a musket.

Each musket ended with a wicked round eye—watching him so it seemed. Eight cruel eyes. It was like looking into the face of death.

Johnny had always been bold enough, taking about what came, never fearing a fight, and there was much fighting among the boys along the wharves. He had never once doubted his physical courage. But now he did.

He could not see how anyone, certainly not himself, could ever have the courage to stand up and face those murderous little eyes.

That night for one horrible moment he was glad his hand was crippled. He would never have to face the round eye of death at the end of a musket. For days he felt his own inadequacy. Was the 'bold Johnny Tremain' really a coward at heart?

Had Rab ever felt as he did now? You could not guess by looking at him. If he had had any qualms, he would never mention them. Johnny decided to do the same, but Pumpkin's death badly unnerved him.

T
HE
fourteenth of April, 1775.

General Gage had sent out spies, dressed as Yankee men looking for work. The spies came back on this day. All the colonels were at the Province House with General Gage listening to their reports. Joseph Warren knew this, and so did Paul Revere, even Johnny Tremain. It was easy enough to find out that spies had returned, were reporting to the commanding officer—but what had they reported? This was not known.

The fifteenth of April.

This fell upon Saturday. At every regimental headquarters the same general orders were posted, signed by Gage himself. All the grenadier and light infantry companies were to be taken off duty until further orders. They were to be taught some new evolutions.

Johnny himself read these orders posted in the lower hall at the Afric Queen. One man was grumbling, 'New evolutions. What was Grandma Gage thinking about?' But Lieutenant Stranger as he read whistled and laughed. 'That,' he said, 'looks like something—at last.'

Each regiment had two companies picked and trained for special duty. The light infantry were the most active and cleverest men in each regiment. Lieutenant Stranger was a light infantry officer. These men were lightly armed and did scout and flanking work. In the grenadier companies you found tall, brisk, powerful fellows, hard-fighting men, always ready to attack.

If you have eleven regiments and pick off from each its two best companies, it adds up to about seven hundred men.

All day one could feel something was afoot. Johnny read it on Colonel Smith's florid face. He was stepping across the Queen's stable yard very briskly and remembering to pull in his paunch. There was ardor in his eye. Was it martial ardor?

Lieutenant Stranger was so happy over something he gave Dove threepence.

Spring had come unreasonably early this year. In the yard of the Afric Queen, peach trees were already in blossom. Stranger was so happy something was bound to happen. Over on the Common Johnny found Earl Percy's regiment unlimbering, polishing two cannons. The soldiers were forming a queue about a grindstone sharpening their bayonets. What of it? They were always doing things like that. Did all this mean something or nothing?

He went to Mr. Revere's, whose wife told him to look for him at Doctor Warren's. The two friends sat in the surgery making their plans and listening to reports that were coming from all directions. Seemingly the excitement among the officers, the preparations among the soldiers, had been noticed by at least a dozen others. But where were they going? Who would command them? No one knew. Possibly only Gage himself although before the start was actually made he would have to tell his officers.

All that day the British transports had been readying their landing boats. This might mean men would be taken aboard, move off down the coast (as Salem had been invaded two months before), or that they were standing by merely to ferry the men across the Charles River, land them in Charlestown or Cambridge. The work on the boats suggested that the men would not march out through the town gates. And yet ... Gage might have ordered this work done merely to confuse the people of Boston. Blind them to his real direction. The talk at Doctor Warren's went on into the night.

Johnny relaxed on a sofa in the surgery as the men talked. He was ready to run wherever sent, find out any fact for them. It was past midnight. He would not have known he had been asleep except that he had been dreaming. He had been hard at work down on Hancock's Wharf boiling lobsters—he and John Hancock and Sam Adams. The lobsters had men's eyes with long lashes and squirmed and looked up piteously. Hancock would avert his sensitive face to their distress, 'Go away, please' (but he kept pushing them under with his gold-headed cane). Sam Adams would rub his palms and chuckle.

Johnny woke up and realized that only Revere and Warren were still in the room and they were talking about Hancock and Adams. These two gentlemen had left Boston in March. They were representatives at the Provincial Congress at Concord. The British had forbidden the General Court to meet, but the Massachusetts men had merely changed the name of their legislative body and gone on sitting. But did the British know that both these firebrands were staying at the Clarks' out in Lexington?

'It will do no harm to warn them,' Revere was saying, getting to his feet. 'I'll row over to Charlestown tonight, go to Lexington, and tell them a sizable force may soon move. They had best hide themselves for the next few days.'

'And get word to Concord. The cannons and stores had best be hidden.'

'Of course.'

'Tell them we here in Boston have the situation well in hand. The second the troops move—either on foot or into those boats—we will send them warning in time to get the Minute Men into the field. I'd give a good deal to know which way they are going.'

'But suppose none of us can get out? Gage knows we'd send word—if we could. He may guard the town so well it will be impossible.'

Johnny was still half awake. He yawned and settled back to think of those lobsters. With eyes like men ... long lashes ... tears on their lashes...

Revere was pulling on his gloves.

'...Colonel Conant in Charlestown. I'll tell him to watch the spire of Christ's Church. You can see it well from Charlestown. If the British go out over the Neck, we will show one lantern. If in the boats—two. And come Hell or high water I'll do my best to get out and tell exactly what's acting. But I may get caught on my way over. Another man should also be ready to try to get out through the gates.'

They talked of various men and finally pitched upon Billy Dawes. He could impersonate anybody—from a British general to a drunken farmer. This might help him get through the gates.

As Paul Revere with Johnny at his heels left Warren's a man emerged from the darkness, laid a hand on Revere's arm. In the little light Johnny recognized the rolling black eye, poetic negligence of dress. It was Doctor Church.

'Paul,' he whispered, 'what's afoot?'

'Nothing,' said Revere shortly and went on walking.

'The British preparing to march?'

'Why don't you ask them?'

The queer man drifted away. Johnny was surprised that Revere would tell Church nothing, for he was in the very inner circle. Seemingly Revere himself was surprised by his sudden caution. 'But I can't trust that fellow ... never have, never will.'

The sixteenth of April.

All over Boston bells were calling everyone to church. As though they had not a care in the world the British officers crowded into the Episcopal churches and army chaplains held services for the soldiers in the barracks. Paul Revere was over on the mainland carrying out his mission. Boston looked so usual and so unconcerned, Johnny began to wonder if they all had not made mountains of molehills, imagined an expedition when none was intended. But Rab was so certain the time was close at hand that he told Johnny that he himself was leaving Boston for good. There would be fighting before the week was out and he intended to be in it. Now he must report at Lexington.

Johnny took this news badly. He could not endure that Rab should leave him: desert him.

'But as soon as the first shot is fired, no man of military age can possibly get out of Boston. They'll see to it. It's now or never.'

He did not seem to feel any grief at abandoning Johnny, who sat disconsolately on his bed watching Rab. The older boy was cutting himself a final piece of bread and cheese. How many hundreds of times Johnny had seen those strong white teeth tearing at coarse bread. Rab had been eating bread and cheese all through their first meeting—and that was long ago. It seemed he'd be eating bread and cheese to the end. There was a sick qualm at the pit of Johnny's stomach. He couldn't eat bread and cheese, and it irritated him that Rab could.

The older boy was glowing with good health, good spirits. He was eighteen, six feet tall and a grown man. He looked it as he moved about the low attic, stuffing his pockets with extra stockings. Rolling up a shirt in a checkered handkerchief. He is leaving me—and he doesn't care—thought Johnny.

'Perhaps I'll go too,' he offered, hoping Rab would say, 'I'd give everything I've got—even my musket—if you could come,' or merely, 'Fine, come along.'

'No, you can't,' said Rab. 'You've got your work to do right here in town. You stick around with your fat friend Dove. Gosh, I'm glad I'll never have to listen to Dove again. But you'll have a fine time with Dove, while I...'

'You know I cannot stomach Dove.'

'No? I thought he and you were getting on fine together.'

'And there's not one reason why I can't leave for Lexington too, except you don't want me.'

He knew this was not true, but he could not help badgering Rab, trying to make him say, 'I'll miss you as much as you'll miss me.'

Rab laughed at him. He was going to leave and he wasn't going to be 'slopped over.' Johnny was gazing at him sullenly. Rab took the extra stockings from his pocket, untied his handkerchief, and added them to his shirt and other necessities.

'You
want
to go,' Johnny accused him.

'Yes.'

'Well, then—
go!
'

'I'm going fast's I'm able.'

Oh, Rab, Rab! Have you ever seen those little eyes at the end of a musket? Rab, don't you go. Don't you go!

Rab was singing under his breath. It was the song of the Lin-colnshire Poacher that Mr. Revere had taught Johnny and Johnny had taught Rab. There was something about Rab's singing, low, a little husky and not too accurate, that always moved Johnny. It was a part of that secret fire which came out in fighting, taking chances—and dancing with girls! The excitement glowed in Rab's eyes now. He was going into danger. He was going to fight—and the thought made some dark part of him happy.