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.”