The Rangers Are Coming (14 page)

Robby exited the tent and walked over to a crowd of young men.  He estimated there were about thirty men.  Robby joined them.  “Good afternoon, anybody have an idea of what comes next?”

“None of us know anything,” said a young man who seemed a little older than Robby, “I was one of the first people to be interviewed, and I’ve been waiting here for hours.  One of the fellows wearing those strange clothes left a while ago, so it slowed things down.  The other two fellows are still talking to people”

Robby turned and looked at the line.  It had gotten longer.  “Some others must have come later.”

“What did your man ask you?”

“He wanted to know where I was from, how old I was, everything about my family, whether or not I had any infirmities, and then he asked me to repeat a verse from the Bible.  After that, he wanted to know what I thought of the British and whether I would be in favor of separating from England and making a new country.  What did he ask you.”

“Almost exactly the same things,” said the young man.  “Say, where are you from anyway?”

“My friend and I came in from Concord last night.  My name is Robby Pierce.”

“I’m Charlie Arthur, and I’m from nearby in Watertown.”  The two shook hands.

“Did you come on account of the posting in the paper?”

“Seemed like a good idea at the time.  I’m beginning to wonder after waiting for so long.  But I guess they’re doing the best they can.”

After talking with some of the other men, Ronny found out that everyone in the group were devout Christians and hated the British.  “This is a smaller group than this morning,” said Ronny.  “Did some of boys get sent away?”

“Quite a few, actually,” said Charlie, and some of them were pretty upset about it.”

Willis came out the tent about an hour later, and came over to Ronny, “Looks like not being able to read and write mattered very much.  I sure did give that sergeant a shilling’s worth on my feelings about the British.  I sure hope he was telling the truth about not being a British sympathizer.”

It was late in the day when the last person was interviewed.  Sergeant Seacrest came out of the tent and stood in front of the men.  “I apologize for the long wait most of you have had today.  You 47 men represent those who’ve passed the first test in our selection process.  As you can see, we have three wagons.  I think we can fit you all in, so get aboard.”

“Where are we going,” asked one of the men?

“Someplace a little more private,” said Seacrest.  “It’s a place we’ve already chosen and set up.

There was just enough room to fit all the men into the wagons, and they rolled away.  Seacrest led the wagons clear out of Boston and pulled into a wide meadow that was far away from any houses, but had woods lining the meadow.  They put the wagons into a sort of circle, and Seacrest hopped down.  “We need a fire.  Some of you boys head over to the forest and gather enough wood to last the night.  Half the group jumped out of the wagons immediately and headed for the forest. 

Seacrest nodded his head to his own men, and they went to the wagons and brought back several large cardboard boxes and three big coolers.  They quickly set up the tent again and put the three tables together, with the boxes and coolers sitting on them.

The men began coming back with bundles of wood.  One of Seacrest sergeants gathered up a hand full of dry grass and pulled a small tube like thing out of his pocket and flicked the top of it.  There was an instant flame, and in no time a fire was lighting and warming the encampment.  There were also several lanterns set out, but they were unlike anything the colonists had ever seen.  They seemed to light without anything more that flipping a switch.

“Ever seen anything like those lanterns or that fire starter?” asked Ronny to Willis, who just shook his head.

Sergeant Seacrest turned to the group and asked, “Anybody hungry?”

There was a rumble of agreement to that among the young men.

“All right then,” said Seacrest, we have a meal for you right here, just line up and  pick up box, there are cups for you to drink.  By the way, the drink is not water, but a special mixture of ingredients that are very healthy for you.  Before we do that, I would like to offer thanks for our meal.”

Everyone bowed their head and a few of the men kneeled as Seacrest prayed, “Dear Lord, we offer our praise and gratitude for this day, and the bringing together of these young men.  May they all be successful in our efforts tomorrow.  Bless these men Lord, and watch over them and protect them.  Now we offer thanks for our meal, that you have provided.  We pray in the name of our savior, Jesus Christ, Amen.”

Robby and Willis got in line and received a fairly large brown box, and a big glass that wasn’t glass, but made of strange material that bent easily if you squeezed it.  They pushed a button on the cooler and an amber fluid came pouring out.

The two sat down on the grass and opened their boxes.  They were crammed full of packages that Robby read, “It says to push the top of this package and mix the ingredients with the water at the top.”  He did that on the biggest package, breaking the seal of water and massaging the package.  As he was doing this, the package got hot in his hand.  There was a line down the middle of the package that the instructions said to puncture with the enclosed knife.  The knife was hard but clearly not metal, but it cut open the package and the delicious smell of beef stew came out.  Both men took the provided spoon and fork and dug in.  The food was quite good, and very filing.  They opened other packages that contained bread and finished with a hot pudding for dessert.  At the bottom of the box was a large package that said “chocolate” on it.  Neither, Robby or Willis had ever eaten chocolate, but they had heard about it.  They wolfed it down, wondering how they had missed such luscious stuff all their lives.  The drink was cold, and was quite sweet with a hint of tartness  It was delicious.

It was fully dark when they finished.  The Sergeants came around and gathered all their trash in bags, which they threw on the fire and when everything was burned, there was no trace that anything had been there.

Sergeant Seacrest threw a few more logs on the fire, and spoke to the group,

“Men, I hope you got enough to eat.”  There was an outburst of applause and cheers of agreement.  “When we’re in the field like this, we have to make do as best we can.”

Robby and Willis laughed at this, they hardly ate better when they were in their own homes.

Seacrest continued, “Tomorrow we’ll get up early, have breakfast, and then begin the physical portion of our testing.  We’ll be seeing how fast you can run, how much weight you can lift, and we have agility tests.  We’ll finish the day with an old-fashioned tug of war.  Now men, we are looking for a particular kind of person, with certain skills.  We need special people to do very specialized tasks.  Not all of you have them.  If you don’t meet our standards, we don’t want you to feel slighted or disgraced in any way.  Remember the ad only promised you an opportunity.”

While he was talking, the other four sergeants were spreading out a huge canvas not far from the fire.  “I’m sorry we can’t provide you with better sleeping arrangements,” said Seacrest.  “For those of you who did not bring a blanket, we have enough to go around.  Our field cover will keep the chill from reaching you.  The bumps in the ground, we can’t do much about.  Remove your shoes and boots before walking onto the field cover.  We have dug slit trench latrines just beyond the far wagon.  Please use them.”

“That’s all I have for you tonight.  Get as good a rest as you can and we will see you for breakfast.  May God bless you all.”

Robby didn’t realize how tired he was. He went to the edge of the field cover and slipped off his boots.  He was very surprised to find that his stocking feet where stepping onto warmth as he walked out on the field cover.  He lay down, and the whole cover was radiating a cozy heat from it.  He pulled his blanket over him and looked at Willis settling down next to him.

“All of this is getting stranger and stranger,” he said, “Food you don’t have to cook and comes out hot all by itself, now this big cover that radiates its own heat.”

“It’s strange all right,” said Willis, “but it’s all been good.  I can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings.  Night, Robby, sleep well.”  Willis turned over and seemed to be asleep in a minute.  Robby was not far behind him, as the rest of the men went to sleep quickly as well.”

                                                                                   
14

Outside Boston, Massachusetts

The following morning Robby woke feeling quite refreshed, and warm all night from the heated field cover.  He was one of only a few men awake and stirring.  He gave Willis a shove, and the big fellow rolled over coming awake and wiping the sleep from his eyes.  The two of them stepped over other sleeping men and found their boots.  Then they went to the tent where they got another box of rations.  There was a big pot of coffee hanging from a frame over the fire.  They poured themselves a cup in a different kind of glass then they had used the night before.  This one did not let the heat of the coffee burn their hands.  Robby tasted the coffee and found it was excellent, the best he’d ever drunk.

They opened their boxes and found the big bag contained sausage and gravy.  There were biscuits in another bag and a plate that spread out like a fan to make a circular plate.  They opened the warm biscuits and poured the hot sausage gravy on them.  At the bottom of the box was another big chocolate bar.  It was a very satisfying breakfast.  Robby had two cups of the coffee.

When the entire party had eaten, three of the sergeants hitched up the wagons and headed back into Boston.  Their job was to bring in another group of recruits.

Sergeant Seacrest stood in front of the men and said, “We’ve set up a course for you to run today.  It begins with a test of agility.  As you can see, we have set up a series of posts in the meadow, they’re spread out in two rows, and there is a small dummy on the top of each post.  We want you all to line up and run this course.  I’ll demonstrate how I want it done.  Then he took off from the starting line toward the first post, slapped the dummy  going by. It let out loud click. Seacrest was racing for the second post on the other side of the line and further along, he hit that dummy and got another loud click.  He continued through the course, producing ten loud clicks.  Then he sprinted across the finish line.  Everyone was amazed at how fast and agile the Sergeant was.

“I ran the course in just under 30 seconds,” said Seacrest, the maximum time for you is 50 seconds.  The men lined up at the starting line and Seacrest went to the finish line with a flag that he dropped to start each man on his run.  Robby watched the men run the course.  None of them were as quick as Seacrest, and he recorded results next to the name of each man on a score sheet.  When Robby’s turn came, he dashed with all his might, making the sharp changes in direction and slapping all ten of the dummies.  “Good” said Seacrest, “you did the agility course in 35 seconds.”

The next test was a run of 40 yards.  The course was marked off with a start and finish line.  Seacrest demonstrated again.  He crouched down in a stance with both hands on the ground, and then shot away at great speed, crossing the finish line, and causing most of the men to look at each other in surprise at how fast the big man was.

“Now each of you try it.  The standard is seven seconds.  I did it in a little over four.”

   Once again, when Robby’s turn came, he crouched down as Seacrest had and ran as fast as he could.  “5 point 5,” said Seacrest, “Not bad.”

The tests went on.  Robby was required to lie on his back on a bench and lift a bar with weights on each end.  He did it five times.  There was a vertical jump pole with dowels sticking out horizontally from the pole.  The idea was to jump as high as you could and hit the highest dowel you could reach.  Seacrest wrote down all the results.

Finally, Seacrest called all of them together and showed them an oval that was marked with short poles with string between them.  “This is our long distance run.  You must run around the oval, staying outside the poles and strings, four times.  The distance you are running is one mile.  You will run in groups of four and I will record your time as you finish.  The standard for this distance is 7 minutes.  That’s not very fast, and you’re not wearing proper equipment.  Do the best you can.  I’ll shout out your times as your group passes the start/finish line with each lap.”

Robby was happy for this test, he ran long distances every day on the farm and was sure he could do the distance in 7 minutes, although he’d never timed himself.

As it turned out, he ran the fastest of anyone that day.  He was happy that Willis ended up in the top five.

Seacrest went to the tent and sat down to count up the results.  When he was finished, he came out and called 11 names.  He took all them aside and Robby could see they were very disappointed.  They had not passed the tests with high enough scores to qualify.  When the wagons came back from Boston, loaded with another group of 50 eager men, the 11 were loaded on one of the wagons and driven back into to Boston.

The new arrivals gathered wood, and ate as night fell. Seacrest took his group of 36 qualifiers away from the main group, toward the tree line.  He was carrying a lantern and had five more brought by people in the group.  All of them had their personal bags with them.

“Men, you are the 36 who have passed our screening and physical tests to move to the next level.  Since we started out with more than 60, I think you can congratulate yourselves on making the cut.  Now we come to the really sensitive matters.”   

“How are you at keeping secrets,” asked the Sergeant, “a solemn oath taken before God with your hand on a Bible?  If there is one of you who is unwilling to do that, please drop out now, because after this there is no turning back”

“I can do that,” said Robby, looking straight into the Sergeant’s eyes.

“Very well,”  said Seacrest, “sit down and let me tell you a story.  All the men sat down by the light of the lanterns.  “Our ad was run in every paper in all the colonies.  There are teams out now doing exactly what we are doing here.  However, we could not very well put our real purpose in the ad.  The British would take a dim view of that.  So, the ad was written to attract the best men in the colonies, and you will certainly get the adventure of a lifetime, and be well paid for your service.  All of that was true.  It is also true that you are making a career commitment that will last for at least fifteen years.  You will have  opportunities to visit your families, but they will be few and far between and you’re not permitted to tell them the entire story of our total mission.”