Johnny Tremain (29 page)

Johnny wanted to tell him about those eyes, but instead he said, 'I guess you really want to get out to Lexington—and do some more dancing.'

'Here's hoping.'

From then on Johnny said nothing, sitting glumly on his bed, his head bowed. Then Rab came over to him and put a hand on his shoulder.

'Goodbye, Johnny. I'm off.'

Johnny did not look up.

'You're a bold fellow, Johnny Tremain.' He was laughing.

Johnny heard Rab's feet going down the ladder. The door of the shop closed after him. He ran to look out the window. Rab was standing outside the Lorne house shaking hands with his uncle, saying goodbye like a grown man. Now he was bending down to kiss Aunt Jenifer—not at all like a small boy kissing an aunt. He picked up Rabbit, who could toddle about, and kissed him, too. Then half-running, he passed lightly up Salt Lane and out of sight.

One moment too late, Johnny ran out into the alley. He couldn't let Rab go like that. He had not even said good luck, God be with you. Why ... he might not ever see Rab again. He went back to his garret and flung himself on his bed. He half-wished he might cry and was half-glad he was too old for tears.

Today there was no sound from the shops and wharves. No cry of chimney sweep, oysterman, knife-grinder. The town was whist and still, for it was Sunday. As Johnny lay upon his bed, the church bells began to call for afternoon service. They babbled softly as one old friend to another. Christ's Church and Cockerel, Old South, Old Meeting, Hollis, King's Chapel. He knew every one. He had heard them clanging furiously for fire, crying fiercely to call out the Sons of Liberty. He had heard them toll for the dead, rejoice when some unpopular act had been repealed, and shudder with bronze rage at tyranny. They had wakened him in the morning and sent him to bed at night, but he never loved them more than on Lord's Days when their golden clamor seemed to open the blue vaults of Heaven itself. You could almost see the angels bending down to earth—even to rowdy old Boston. 'Peace, peace,' the soft bells said. 'We are at peace...'

Suddenly close by, over at the Afric Queen, the British drumsticks fell. The fifes struck up 'too-too—tootlety-too.' Even on Sunday they were out drilling. So were other men—even on Sunday. For instance, over in Lexington.

The sixteenth of April drew to a close.

Monday was a quiet day. Lieutenant Stranger looked very solemn. Maybe there was not to be an expedition after all.

The eighteenth of April.

By afternoon the sergeants were going about the town, rounding up the grenadier and light infantry companies, telling them (in whispers) to report at moonrise at the bottom of the Common 'equipped for an expedition.'

The sergeants would tap their red noses with their fingers and bid the men be 'whist,' but it was common knowledge in the barracks and on the streets that seven hundred men would march that night.

This very night—come darkness—the men would move, but in what direction? And who would be in charge of the expedition? Surely not more than one of the colonels would be sent.

Johnny, who had his own colonel to watch, Colonel Smith, hardly left the Afric Queen all day and helped the pot-boy serve drinks to the officers in the dining room. A young officer sitting with Stranger did say, as he stirred his brandy-and-water with his thumb, that he hoped before long thus to stir Yankee blood—and what of that? Colonel Smith did have an army chaplain to dine with him that day. Did that mean he was suddenly getting religious, as people are said to before they go into danger?

Of one thing Johnny was sure. Dove knew much less than he did. Dove was so thick-witted he had no idea anything unusual was afoot. He honestly believed that the grenadiers and light infantry were merely going to be taught 'new evolutions.' As usual, Dove was too wrapped in his own woes to think much of what was happening about him.

By five Johnny thought he would leave the Queen and report to Paul Revere that he had discovered nothing new. First one more glance at Dove.

For once he found him hard at work, his lower lip stuck out, his whitish pig-lashes wet. He was polishing a saddle.

'That guy,' he complained, 'hit me for nothing. He said I was to get to work on his campaign saddle.'

'Who's he?'

'Colonel Smith, of course.'

'Did you do as he told you?'

'I tried. I didn't know he had two saddles. So I went to work on the usual one. I shined it until you can see your face in it. And he takes it out of my hands and hit me on the head with it. Says I'm a stupid lout not to know the difference between a parade saddle and a campaign saddle. How'd I know? Why, he's been over here about a year and that campaign saddle hasn't ever been unpacked. I had to get it from Lieutenant Stranger. How'd I know?'

Johnny said nothing. He realized he had heard something which conceivably might be important. Careful ... careful ... don't you say anything to scare him.

'Where's your polish? I'll help with the stirrups.'

The instant Johnny went to work, Dove as usual lay back on the hay.

'One of the stirrups wrapped 'round my head. Cut my ear. It bled something fierce.'

Johnny was studying the saddle on his knees. It was of heavy black leather, brass (not silver) mountings. Three girths instead of two. All sorts of hooks and straps for attaching map cases, spyglasses, flasks, kits of all sorts.

Colonel Smith is going on a campaign. But perhaps not. He might merely be riding down to New York.

He leaned back on his heels. 'Say, what if you and I took time out to eat supper? The Queen's cook has promised me a good dinner, because I helped them at table this afternoon. Roast goose. I'll fix it so you can get in on it, too.'

'Oh, for goodness' sake—no.'

'It's past five o'clock. Colonel can't be going anywhere tonight.'

'Oh, for land's sake, Johnny, he says I'm to show him that saddle by six sharp, and if he don't like its looks he's going to cut me to mincemeat. He's always saying things like that. He's the...'

Johnny did not listen to what Colonel Smith was. He was thinking.

'Well, after that—when Colonel Smith has settled down to play whist. Can you get off?'

'Tonight isn't like any other night. He told me to bring Sandy around for him, fed and clean and saddled with this old campaign saddle by eight o'clock tonight...'

Colonel Smith is going on a long journey. Starting tonight at eight. It might be a campaign. He had an idea.

'I should think if the Colonel was making a long trip he'd take Nan, she's so light and easy to ride ... if he has far to go.'

'He does like her better—she don't jounce his fat so. He always rides her 'round Boston. But only yesterday he had Lieutenant Stranger take her over to the Common when the men were drilling. Stranger says she still is squirmy when she hears drums and shooting. I heard him say so.'

'Oh.' Drums and shooting. This was not to be a peaceful ride to, say, New York. His cloth whipped over the black saddle leather. He spat on it and rubbed even harder. The one thing he must not say was the wrong thing. Nothing was better than the wrong thing. So for a while he said nothing.

'Sandy's good as gold, but he's an old horse and a little stiff. His front left leg won't last forever.'

'Colonel Smith didn't say he was going off on him forever.'

This did not help much. But Dove went on:

'He and the horse doctor and Lieutenant. Stranger were all looking at him just this morning. The horse doctor said old Sandy could do thirty miles easy. And Stranger said, no, he wouldn't swear you could get Nan on and off a boat without her fussing.'

So ... the campaign would start around eight that night. The Colonel's horse would be put on and off a boat. There would be a risk at least of drums and shooting. They were not going farther than thirty miles. Those men who thought the target of the expedition was going to be Lexington and Concord were right. And it would be Colonel Smith who would go in command.

All Johnny's hidden excitement went into his polishing. The brass mountings turned to gold. The black leather to satin.

'There! You take that in and show your Colonel!'

But he would wait one moment more, Dove might have something more to say when he came back after he had seen the Colonel.

Johnny went into Goblin's stall, but the horse pretended not to know him, and put back his ears and nipped at him.

Sandy next. The big yellow horse carefully moved over to give him room in the stall, nickered a little. He fondled the broad white-striped face, pulled gently at the ears—little furry ears, lost in mane like a pony's.

'I guess,' Johnny said, 'it looks like you'll be seeing that Rab before I do. May be Lexington. You tell that Rab he'd best look sharp. Take good care of himself. Tell that Rab ... oh, anything.'

Dove came back in a jubilee.

'Colonel says I've done a fine job and so quick he's going to give me tomorrow as a holiday. He don't expect to get back before night.' Certainly this campaign was going to be a short one—if everything went as the British expected.

'It is tonight all right,' Johnny said to Doctor Warren, 'and Colonel Smith will command.' He went on to tell what he had found out from Dove. That the expedition would start tonight and that Lexington and Concord were the likely objects, the men sitting about in Warren's surgery had already guessed. But they were interested to learn that the Colonel and presumably his troops, expected to return to Boston the day after they set out and that he was to command them. Seemingly Gage, a punctilious man, had chosen Francis Smith because he had been in service longer than any of the other (and smarter) colonels.

'Hark.'

Outside the closed window on Tremont Street a small group of soldiers were marching stealthily toward the Common. These were the first they heard. But soon another group marched past, then another. A man whose duty it was to watch the British boats at the foot of the Common came in to say he had actually seen the men getting into the boats, heading for Cambridge.

Doctor Warren turned to Johnny, 'Run to Ann Street. Bid Billy Dawes come to me here, ready to ride. Then go to North Square. I've got to talk to Paul Revere before he starts. Both he and Dawes will be expecting a messenger.'

Billy Dawes was in his kitchen. He was a homely, lanky, young fellow with close-set eyes, and a wide, expressive mouth. He and his wife had dressed him for the part he would play—a drunken farmer. His wife, who looked more like a schoolgirl than a serious matron, could not look at him without going from one giggling fit to another. She laughed even more, and Billy joined her, when Johnny came in and said the time had come. The young man stuck a dilapidated hat with a broken feather on his head and his wife picked up a bottle of rum and poured it over the front of his torn jacket. Then she kissed him and they both laughed. As he stood before them, his expression changed.

His eyes went out of focus. His grin became foolish. He hiccoughed and swayed. He both looked and smelled like a drunken farmer. But he did have money in his pocket which no country blade would have had after a big toot in town. He knew one of the soldiers guarding the Neck that night. He believed he'd get out all right.

The scene in the Dawes kitchen was so light-hearted and so comical—and Johnny as well as little Mrs. Dawes laughed so hard—he wondered if she had any idea of the risk her husband was running. For by any law of any land a man caught exciting to armed rebellion might be shot. The second the door closed after the young man, Johnny knew. Mrs. Dawes stood where her husband had left her, all laughter wiped from her face. Billy Dawes was not the only gifted actor in his family.

From Ann Street Johnny ran toward North Square. This he found crowded with light infantry and grenadier companies, all in full battle dress. They got in his way and he in theirs. One of the men swore and struck at him with his gun butt. The regulars were getting ugly. He could not get to the Reveres' front door, but by climbing a few fences he reached their kitchen door, and knocked softly. Paul Revere was instantly outside in the dark with him.

'Johnny,' he whispered, 'the
Somerset
has been moved into the mouth of the Charles. Will you run to Copp's Hill and tell me if they have moved in any of the other warships? I think I can row around one, but three or four might make me trouble.'

'I'll go look.'

'Wait. Then go to Robert Newman—you know, the Christ's Church sexton. He lives with his mother opposite the church.'

'I know.'

'They have British officers billeted on them.
Don't rap at that door.
Take this stick. Walk by the house slowly, limping, tapping with the stick until the light in an upper window goes out. Then go 'round to the alley behind the house. Tell Newman the lanterns are to be hung now. Two of them. He knows what to do.'

As Johnny stood among the graves of lonely Copp's Hill looking across the broad mouth of the Charles, he could see lights in the houses of Charlestown. And over there he knew men were watching Boston, watching Christ's lofty spire—waiting for the signal. And as soon as they saw it, the best and fastest horse in Charlestown would be saddled and made ready for Paul Revere, who had himself promised to get over—if possible. Ride and spread the alarm. Summon the Minute Men. He watched the riding lights on the powerful sixty-four-gun
Somerset.
The British had evidently thought her sufficient to prevent boats crossing the river that night. She was alone.

The moon had risen. The tide was rising. The
Somerset
was winding at her anchor. The night was unearthly sweet. It smelled of land and of the sea, but most of all it smelled of spring.

Salem Street, where the Newmans lived, like North Square, was filled with soldiers. The redcoats were assembling here, getting ready to march down to the Common—and they would be a little late. Their orders were to be ready by moonrise. A sergeant yelled at Johnny as he started to limp past them, but when he explained in a piteous whine that his foot had been squashed by a blow from a soldier's musket and all he wanted was to get home to his mama, an officer said the men were to let 'the child' pass. Johnny was sixteen, but he could pull himself together and play at being a little boy still.