The Gentle Rebel (33 page)

When he got back to town, he went to bed, but as the dawn came, he got up without having slept. He ate breakfast, then was greeted by his father, who found him drinking a last cup of coffee.

“Glad you’re back,” Adam said. He sat down and poured himself a cup of the strong brew. “None of my business, son, but did you get your business done?”

“Yes, sir. But if I hadn’t had that pass you got for me, it would have been impossible. The roads are crawling with our guards.” He looked around and saw through the window of the mess shack that men were everywhere, running and calling urgently to each other. “What’s going on?”

Adam smiled at him, sipped his coffee, then said, “Washington and Knox—they’ve decided to use those guns you brought back.”

“When?”

The question came so sharply that Adam blinked. Then he said, “Well, it’ll take a little doing, Nathan. If the British
see
us fortifying those heights, they’ll come out and fight. We’ll have to do it without their knowing it.”

“Don’t see how.”

“It’s strange, son, but I think God has moved into this thing.” A light touched his father’s eyes, and he leaned forward and said in a lively tone, “A young engineer named Rufus Putnam was just passing by General Heath’s quarters, and he had to wait for the general. There were some old books there, and he spied a book on field engineering. He noticed in the book a diagram and a description of something called a ‘chandelier’—which is a piece of French equipment new to him. It’s a sectional wooden framework, they tell me, designed to hold in place ‘fascines,’ which is French for large, tightly-bound bundles of sticks. And, son, when you join these chandeliers together, you get a barrier as effective as a trench. Young Putnam told Heath, who told Washington, and the order’s out to make hundreds of these things.”

“You think they’ll work?”

Adam shrugged and leaned back, his eyes dim with memory. “In the French and Indian War, I saw British troops stopped by heavy brush and timber—the general was there and saw it, too. These things are a heap tougher than any brush you ever saw—and if the Redcoats charge them—they’ll be knocked down by our rifles!”

“It’ll take a while, won’t it, to build those things?”

“Not long as you might think. We’ve got a lot of men with nothing to do, and most of them are experts with an axe. Guess we’ll be waiting for the right weather more than anything. Got to have a nice ground mist covering the base of Dorchester Heights, but with a full moon to light the top, so we can see what we’re doing.”

Nathan nodded, calculating days in his mind, then got up, saying, “How’s Mother?”

“Worried about you.” Adam grinned crookedly at him and said, “She and Laddie had quite a talk—mostly about
you, I reckon. That boy gave you the hard side of his talk, didn’t he?”

“Oh, he was just worried about me.”

“I’d say so. But I guess Molly calmed him down—or maybe it was that Quaker preacher.”

“He still here?”

“Oh, sure.” Adam got up and took one final swig of his coffee. “Far as I can tell, he’s settled in.”

“For a man who doesn’t believe in war, he’s sure put himself in the middle of it.”

“Isn’t that a fact?” Adam looked out the window, straightened up and said, “The general said you and Laddie were to be in my company. But you know these boys—fact that you’re a sergeant doesn’t mean anything to them. You may have to pound a couple of them in the ground, just to show you’ve got a right to give orders.”

“They’re pretty tough, Captain,” Nathan said with a grin. “Might be they’ll pound me in the ground.”

“Well, guess if one of them does that—
he’ll
be the sergeant.”

“Not likely. I’ll use an axe handle on him!”

He worked all day with the company cutting saplings for the fascines, and after they had quit, he encountered Laddie. She was sitting outside Knox’s tent working on a map that was pinned to a large table, and he was not surprised to see Daniel Greene bending over the same table, looking at something Laddie was pointing out.

“Hello, Laddie,” he said. “You going into map-making, Friend Daniel?”

Greene flushed slightly, then shook his head. “Just trying to figure this thing out.” He looked at the map, shook his head, and said, “Can’t make much out of it.”

Nathan went to stand between them, looking down from his great height at the map. “You draw this, Laddie?”

“Yes.” Her tone was short, and he looked at her, noting that she was not smiling as usual.

“Something wrong?” he asked.

“No. Nothing’s wrong.”

He hesitated, then said, “Well, guess I’ll get something to eat.” He stood there staring at her, then said, “Now, you see I didn’t get killed or anything.”

“I’m glad of that,” Laddie said steadily, then looked down at the map and cut him off, saying, “You see, Dan, if we can get these guns in place . . .”

Nathan walked away, and Daniel said quietly, “He’s confused. Thee is not being fair to him.”

She threw the stick she’d been using to the ground and said, “Dan, I don’t
care
what Nathan Winslow does! Let him kill himself over that woman if he wants to!”

“Thee is in love with him.”

“That was before he started running around after her!”

Dan stared at her, and there was compassion in his brown eyes. “Julie, it’s bad to deceive anybody—but the worst thing is to deceive thyself.” He shook his head sadly and said, “I thought at first that Winslow was going to hurt thee—but I see now that he won’t be the one—” He touched her arm gently and said quietly, “It’ll be thee who will bring the grief!”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

“I’LL DO WHAT I HAVE TO DO!”

“This isn’t an army—it’s a theological seminary!” Henry Knox snapped impatiently.

The lights of Boston winked up like fireflies at the small group sitting around a cheerfully blazing campfire. For three weeks the plan to fortify Dorchester Heights had been delayed by weather, for though warmer breezes had come to melt the snow, Knox was forced to wait for a night when Boston itself would be beneath an umbrella of mist, while the heights would be clear enough to get the guns in place.

Adam had come most nights to sit with Nathan and Laddie as they waited, and Greene was usually there. Greene and Adam enjoyed talking about the Bible, and some of their finer points about the prophetic books grew heated. “Father,” Nathan had grinned once when both men had lost their calm, “you and Dan get more worked up over the gray beard of that billy-goat in the book of Daniel than you do over shooting Redcoats!”

Colonel Knox had suddenly appeared, listened to the heated discussion, and made his disgusted remark. But he had sniffed the air like a hound on the scent. “This could be it,” he remarked eagerly.

“Not enough mist to cover us,” Adam commented. But he stood up and looked down the hill, adding, “Fog
is
rolling in, though . . .” He slapped his hands together impatiently, looked at Knox, and asked, “What does the general say?”

Knox shrugged his heavy shoulders and grinned suddenly.
“He’s champing at the bit as usual.” He laughed quietly and gave a sly look at Adam. “He ordered the chaplain to pray for mist on Boston. You think the Lord will hear the good chaplain, Captain Winslow?”

“I refuse to limit God,” Adam answered with a smile. “If God can flood the earth, I suppose He can whip up a little mist.”

Knox asked innocently, “But how does God settle on which prayer to answer? I mean—the British chaplain is praying for victory in this war, and our chaplain is asking God for the same thing. Now, He
can’t
please both of them, can He?”

Adam knew full well that Knox loved to poke fun at such things, so he said, “You know that’s a question no man can answer, Colonel. But I’ll tell you one thing—General Washington is a praying man.”

Knox suddenly flushed and said quickly, “You’re right, Winslow—and I was wrong to speak in such a way. I know full well that if all the praying men in our army left, we would be lost. Matter of fact, I think this army comes about as close as any to the Model Army of Oliver Cromwell. The pastors all over are making it a holy war.”

“Did you hear about Muhlenberg?” Nathan asked from where he sat propped up against a tree. “He was a Lutheran pastor from our state, over in the Shenandoah Valley. Right after Lexington he preached a red-hot sermon on the text, ‘For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.’ Then at the end of his sermon, he threw off his pulpit robe and he was wearing the uniform of a colonel in the Continental Army.”

“I’ve met him,” Knox answered. “And there’s that preacher from Chelsea, Philip Payson—captured two British supply wagons single-handed—and there’s Major Craighead—he raised his own company and they say he alternates between fighting and preaching.” He shot a sudden look at Dan, who was listening intently, and asked, “Friend Daniel, I talked to your uncle, General Greene, last week. He’s anxious to see
you. Said the two of you ought to get together, since you’re both likely to be ex-Quakers for ignoring the rules.”

Greene nodded his head, saying only, “I’d like to see him.”

Then Nathan asked directly, “Are you going to get into this war, Dan—I mean, sooner or later the fighting’s going to start! We can’t sit up on top of this blasted hill forever! What will you do then?”

“Haven’t decided.”

“Well, you’ll have your chance soon.” Knox stared down and said, “I’m thinking that fog is rolling in pretty thick—and if it stays still like this—and if it doesn’t rain, but just stays damp—and if about twenty other things happen, we could move tomorrow or the day after. I’m going to bed. Sergeant Smith, you wake me up if that chaplain’s prayers get answered.”

“Yes, sir.” Laddie watched Knox stalk away into the darkness, and Nathan got up and left the fire. Adam watched him go, and said quietly, “I hope he doesn’t try to leave camp again.” Twice in the last two weeks Nathan had managed to get free of duty and had disappeared, showing up the next morning looking hollow-eyed from lack of sleep. Laddie knew he was going to see Abigail, and was certain that Adam and Molly knew as much.

Adam got up, stretched, and said good night, then left the fire. It was late, but Laddie loved the sharp air, so she pulled her coat closer around her and sat there poking a stick at the fire. Finally she looked up and asked, “Have you heard from your mother?”

“Just today. Been waiting for a chance to give thee this.” He reached into his pocket, extracted an envelope and passed it to her.

Laddie read her name on the front, broke the seal and held it up to the fire. As she read it her cheeks grew red, and finally she folded it up and put it in her pocket. She picked up the stick, poked the fire and watched the sparks swirl upward.
Then she looked suddenly at him, and asked, “Do you know what she said, Dan?”

“No.”

He had the Quaker habit of silence, which she had grown accustomed to. Most men would have asked at once what the letter said, but he sat there, a mild look on his square face, gazing at her across the fire. He was not like other men, she had discovered, and knew that his mother and his religion had melded him into a strange combination of strength and gentleness—a combination that she found most attractive.

“You haven’t said a word about—about us,” she said. “I guess you’ve changed your mind.”

“No, I haven’t.” Again he sat there quietly, but he added after a time, “I don’t change easily—but until
thee
has a change, I’ll not be saying much about us.”

“That’s—that’s sweet of you, Dan.” She knew he was thinking of her feelings for Nathan, and she struggled to find something to say, but there was nothing. Finally she said, “Dan, do you think God is in this war—I mean, I hear all this talk about freedom and how it’s God’s will for us to fight for it. You never say anything.”

“Haven’t decided yet. But I’m pondering it.” He shook his head and looked down at the dim lights of the city, saying quietly, “I think maybe that fog is getting thicker.”

They sat there for an hour, talking quietly—and Laddie did not realize how much she had come to rely on being able to speak openly with someone. Finally, she said, “It’s getting late. I’ll see you in the morning, Dan. Tell your mother, when you write her, that I’ll pray about—what she says.”

She got up and left him, and for a long time Dan sat there watching the lights. Then he said aloud, “Well, Lord, I’ll add my voice to that of the chaplain. Let it fog up so that the army can get this job done. I don’t know what Thee has in mind for this country—but let me in on it, as soon as Thee finds it convenient.”

The next morning Knox was up before dawn, pacing back
and forth, and at noon he turned to Laddie and said, “Write this down, Laddie: ‘General, we will fortify the hill as soon as possible. If you will give us the cover of a bombardment, it will be most helpful.’ What’s the date—March 2?” He signed the order and handed it to an orderly, saying, “Get this to His Excellency at once!”

All day long the camp hummed with activity, and all that night and the next what guns were available poured a steady stream of shot and shell down on Boston. Washington stayed up to count the shots and make sure that his limit of twenty-five shots was observed.

The next night was remarkably mild, and Boston was covered with a haze that made the top of Dorchester invisible. “All right,” Knox snapped as dark fell, “Howe won’t have his mind on us tonight, so get going!”

Nathan worked with the Virginians, and Adam was right beside him. He stopped to say, “We could have waited a year and not had a night this good! I reckon that chaplain’s prayers are right forceful!”

Eight hundred men worked madly to place the pre-assembled chandeliers in position and load them with fascines—all of which were brought up the hill by three hundred amazingly quiet teams and drivers. Silently these men worked hour after hour in the moon-lit darkness. As dawn broke across the east, the last gun was rolled into place, and Knox said quietly, “Well, I’ve seen at least
one
miracle. To do a thing like this—
and nothing go wrong
. . . !” He took off his hat and added, “God has been with us.”