Marcus joined a line of soldiers. He filed into line next to a gangly fellow about his age wearing a red-and-white-checked shirt and a pair of navy breeches that had seen better days.
“Where you from?” his companion asked during a momentary lull in the action.
“Out west,” Marcus replied, not wanting to give too much away.
“We’re both country bumpkins, then,” the soldier replied. “Aaron Lyon. One of Colonel Woodbridge’s men. The Boston boys poke fun at anyone who lives west of Worcester. I’ve been called ‘Yankee’ more times than I can count. What’s your name?”
“Marcus MacNeil,” Marcus said.
“Who you with, Marcus?” Lyon rooted around in a pouch at his waist.
“Him.” Marcus pointed at Seth Pomeroy.
“Everybody says Pomeroy is one of the finest gunsmiths in Massachusetts.” Lyon produced a handful of dried apple slices. He offered some to Marcus. “Picked last year from our orchard in Ashfield. None better.”
Marcus devoured the apples and mumbled his thanks.
Their conversation dropped away to silence when they reached the narrow neck of land that connected Cambridge to Charlestown. It was here that the scope of what awaited them became visible. Lyon whistled through his teeth at their first good look at the smoke coming from the distant prospects of Breed’s Hill and Bunker Hill.
The line drew to a halt as Seth Pomeroy stopped to converse with a rotund man on horseback wearing a powdered wig and tricorn hat that sat on his balding head at opposing angles. Marcus recognized the unmistakable profile of Dr. Woodbridge from South Hadley.
“Looks like you’re joining up with us,” Aaron said, watching the exchange between Pomeroy and Woodbridge.
Woodbridge rode down the line, calmly surveying the soldiers.
“MacNeil, is that you?” Woodbridge squinted. “By God, it is. Go with Pomeroy. If you can put buckshot through a turkey’s eye in my back pasture, you can surely hit a Redcoat. You, too, Lyon.”
“Yes, sir.” Lyon’s s’s whistled through front teeth that let as much daylight through as the pickets on Madam Porter’s fence.
“Where are we going?” Marcus asked Woodbridge, planting his feet a bit farther apart and cradling the gun in his hands.
“You don’t ask questions in the army,” Woodbridge replied.
“Army?” Marcus’s ears pricked at this piece of intelligence. “I’m fighting for Massachusetts—in the militia.”
“Shows what you know, MacNeil. Congress, in its wisdom, decided thirteen different colonial militias were too much. We’re one merry Continental army now. Some gentleman from Virginia—tall man, good on a horse—is headed up from Philadelphia to manage things.” Woodbridge spat on the ground, a damning pronouncement intended to cover southern landowners, tall men, equestrians, and city folk. “Do as you’re told, or I’ll send you back to Hadley where you belong.”
Marcus reached the Northampton gunsmith just in time to hear him address the motley company of soldiers.
“We don’t have much ammunition,” Pomeroy explained, handing out small leather pouches, “so no target practice unless it’s got two legs and is wearing a British uniform.”
“What’s our mission, Captain?” A tall man in a buckskin jacket with sandy hair and the sharp eyes of a wolf weighed the pouch in his hand.
“Relieving Colonel Prescott on Breed’s Hill. He’s stranded there,” Pomeroy replied.
There were groans of disappointment. Like Marcus, most of the men wanted to fire upon the British army, not help fellow colonials who’d gotten themselves into trouble.
Pomeroy’s men began their march in silence, the bombardment from British canon shaking the ground and rattling nearby buildings to their foundations. The king’s troops were trying to blast to pieces the fragile strip of land they were walking on, thereby cutting Charlestown off from Cambridge. The land rolled under Marcus’s feet. Instinctively, he picked up his pace.
“Even the whores left Charlestown when they saw what was coming this way,” Lyon said over his shoulder.
“What was coming” looked to be Armageddon, or at least that was Marcus’s conclusion once he saw the number of British ships on the Charles River, the heavy bombardment from guns across the water, and the thick plumes of smoke.
Then he caught sight of the masses of red-coated British soldiers marching briskly toward them from a distance, and his bowels turned to water.
When Pomeroy’s troops finally met up with the other colonials, Marcus was surprised to discover that some of the soldiers were even younger than he was, like the freckled Jimmy Hutchinson from Salem. Only a few were as old as Seth Pomeroy. But most of the men were around Obadiah’s age, including the hatchet-faced captain whose orders Marcus now followed: John Stark of New Hampshire.
“Stark was one of the first rangers,” Jimmy whispered to Marcus as they crouched behind a makeshift protective bulwark. Rogers’ Rangers were legendary for their keen eyes and steady hands as well as their long rifles, which were accurate at far greater distances than the muskets most men carried.
“One more word out of you, boy, and I’ll gag you.” Stark had crept up to the front line, silent as a snake. A red flag ornamented with a green pine tree was wound around one hand. Stark fixed his attention on Marcus. “Who the hell are you?”
“Marcus MacNeil.” Marcus fought the urge to jump up and stand at attention. “From Hadley.”
“You’re the one Pomeroy says can shoot straight,” Stark said.
“Yes, sir.” Marcus couldn’t hide his eagerness to prove it.
“See that stake?”
Marcus squinted through a small gap in the hay that had been wadded between the fence rails piled atop the old wall to provide better cover. He nodded.
“When the British reach it, you stand and shoot. Shoot the fanciest uniform you see. The more brass and braid the better,” Stark said. “Every man against this fence will do the same.
“Eyes or heart?” Marcus’s question earned a smile from the forbidding marksman.
“It doesn’t matter,” Stark replied, “so long as one shot is all it takes to bring him to his knees. After you discharge your weapon, hit the ground and keep your head down. Once you’re down, Cole will shoot with the second line.”
Stark pointed to the sharp-eyed man in buckskin. The soldier nodded and touched his hat.
“Once Cole’s down,” Stark continued, “Hutchinson and the final line will take aim.”
The strategy was brilliant. It took a count of twenty to reload a musket, give or take. Stark’s plan meant there would be no lull in the attack, in spite of the relatively small number of colonials behind the fence. The British were walking straight into a barrage of fire.
“And then?” Jimmy asked.
Cole and Stark exchanged a long look. Marcus’s racing blood stuttered. He’d weighed the pouch when Pomeroy gave it to him, and suspected it contained only enough powder for one shot. That look proved it.
“You just wait by me, Jimmy,” Cole said, patting the boy on the back.
War involved far more waiting than it did shooting. It was nearly half a day before the British came into view. As soon as the Redcoats began to approach the stake, however, everything seemed to happen at once.
The fife and drums struck up a tune. The drummer was a boy of no more than twelve, Marcus saw—no older than Patience.
One of the British soldiers whistled along. The rest of the red-coated line picked up the song with enthusiasm, belting out the words with jeers and catcalls.
Yankee Doodle came to town,
For to buy a firelock,
We will tar and feather him,
And so we will John Hancock.
“Bastards.” Marcus’s finger quivered on the trigger at the insult to one of his heroes, and the president of the recently convened Continental Congress.
“Hold your fire,” Cole whispered from behind Marcus, reminding him of Stark’s orders.
Then the first of the British soldiers, his red-and-gold uniform flaming in the hazy air, stepped past the stake.
“Fire!” Stark shouted.