Getting home to our house, beyond Lexington on the road to Concord, was never as difficult as it was that night. Everywhere, I saw women with their maids and children shopping, craftsmen at work at bellows and wood lathe, yet scores of soldiers walked the streets and it seemed as if one or more of them would stop us at every corner. They wore pistols in their belts, some carried muskets with bayonets affixed. After no less than seven times when we were bade to stop and alight while they looked fore and aft in the little wagon, the sun was down and mist rolling in from the bay made every step of the road treacherous.
At the last search, I laughed in the soldier’s face. “It is not enough room to hide a dog or a boy, this small wagon. You can see the back is empty. What do you think we are doing? Smuggling?”
Cullah sat like a statue. He seemed half asleep, but I saw the flicker of a muscle in his jaw.
“It is orders, Mistress. We have word traitors are hiding under women’s skirts to get in and out of town, and that some pockets are full of lead. Move along.”
As we drove along, I asked, “Margaret said tonight. What if it is not?”
“The minutemen would rather be called out falsely than be called not at all.”
I remembered so many years back when I had offered to carry a message, and had been soundly rebuffed by the men in Lexington, including my own husband. “A woman? It’s terrible. It’s ungodly. It’s brilliant. It’s heresy.” This night, I had done just that, in a way no man could ever have done. I wondered how many of men’s bold plans throughout history had actually turned on the passing of a shilling between two women? It was past midnight when we got to the house. Bertie and Alice came downstairs. Cullah went to the barn to fetch his musket. I heard church bells. Any joy I felt at having stayed on our mission was soon lost with the face of this boy before me, so eager to see battle.
“What is that sound, mum?” Bertie asked.
Cullah answered for me when I hesitated. “Church bells from Lexington and Concord.” He reached for his fowling piece, a pouch of shot, and a powder horn.
Bertie jumped from his seat. “Is it the call to arms?”
I took a deep breath and said, “Yes.”
Bertie jumped to his feet. “I’ll get Pa’s drum.”
I blinked back tears. “Very well, Bertie. Go with Grandpa.”
Before long, Dolly and her children came to the door. They hid downstairs by the loom. Roland fetched a musket and a lantern while Alice and I climbed the stairs to watch that dim light cross the road and descend the slight hill toward the green of town. Bells rang across the countryside. Drums sounded from every direction.
We made tea. We sat in the parlor and tried to rest, but there was no rest. Surely, surely, until there was bloodshed, there could still be peace. The answer came to me as drums echoed across the hills. I opened the window and leaned out. The night was clear, though the moon rose late, and every echo of every bell seemed to make the stars move.
And then I heard it. Dozens, perhaps, or hundreds most likely, of boots, marching in step. British soldiers marched up the road, among them, cavalrymen and officers.
“I am going,” I said to Alice. “I stayed behind before. Always waiting, wondering. Benjamin is no doubt there, Cullah and Bertie are, too. I am going.” I pulled on my bonnet and tied it under my chin.
“Mistress, you can’t go up there. Them men are going to start a war.”
“I have spent too much of my life waiting for Cullah to come home. I can be there to bring him home if such is the end.”
“I will come with you.”
We took a lantern and made for the road then into the woods until I found the old trail Cullah had shown me. We hurried to the edge of the swamp, across a stream, and over a small meadow, then on through thick maples, birch, walnut, and hemlock. I stopped at the edge of the woods where we could see the village green, for to move forward would have put us in the ranks of the British army. There looked to be hundreds of them. Our fellows gathered on the green, bonfires and torches still alight, adding heavy smoke to the scene. The regular soldiers bristled in their ranks, so precise, so practiced. Our men looked as they were, men who had just stumbled out of bed and off a farm. In the distance, horses rode at full gallop. Men called to one another.
Alice warned, “Find a big tree. Any balls come this way going to kill us, standing here.”
One of the British officers shouted at our men to disperse. Cullah, I saw, stood right out in front. I had just slipped behind a wide tree to get my footing betwixt the roots. My head was down, my sight in shadow. Clearer than the beat of my own heart I heard the hiss of a flash in a pan. A chorus of sound filled the air, the clash of metal and clatter of musket fire. I could see nothing for the smoke. I knew not whether our Bertie lived or died. Alice and I held each other in the shadow of that tree, and in a few minutes, British Regulars began to stream through the woods.
I took her hand and screamed, “Run!” I ran, pulling Alice as fast as we could move, though she and I both stumbled. We splashed through the swamp. Men ran behind us. Someone came closer and closer. I could hear him breathing, running, and then he seemed to have fallen back. I crossed the stream. Musket fire rattled behind us, and shot riddled the trees beside us.
Alice fell. “My knee,” she said.
“Are you hit?”