A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [584]
“Now, this is all at night, mind. I was with one of the Massachusetts companies, and we marched right smart, then spent the whole night through, ’twixt midnight and dawn, diggin’ trenches and raising up six-foot walls about the perimeter.
“Come the dawn, and we skulked down behind our fortifications, and just in time, too, for there’s a British ship in the harbor—the Lively, they said—and she opens fire the minute the sun’s up. Looked right pretty, for the fog was still on the water and the cannon lit it up in red flashes. Did no harm, though; most all the balls fell short into the harbor—did see one whaleboat at the docks hit, though; stove it like kindling. The crew, they’d hopped out like fleas when the Lively took to firing. From where I was, I could just see ’em, hoppin’ up and down on the dock, a-shakin’ their fists—then the Lively let off another broadside, and they all fell flat or run like rabbits.”
The light was nearly gone, and Lee’s young face invisible in the shadows, but the amusement in his voice made a small rumble of laughter run among the other men.
“They was some firin’ from a little battery up on Copp’s Hill, and one or two of the other ships, they let off a pop or two, but they could see ’twan’t no earthly use and ceased. Then come in some fellows from New Hampshire to join up with us, and that was purely heartening. But General Putnam, he sends a good many men back to work on the fortifications at Bunker, and the New Hampshire folk, they’re crouched way down on the left, where they’s got no cover beyond rail fences stuffed with mown grass. Lookin’ at ’em down there, I was pleased as punch to have four feet of solid earthwork in front of me, I tell you, gentlemen.”
The British troops had set out across the Charles River, bold as brass under the midday sun, with the warships behind them and the batteries on shore all providing covering fire.
“We didn’t fire back, of course. Had no cannon,” Lee said with an audible shrug.
Roger, listening intently, couldn’t keep from asking a question at this point.
“Is it true that Colonel Stark said, ‘Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes’?”
Lee coughed discreetly.
“Well, sir. I couldn’t say for sure as no one said that, but I didn’t hear it myself. Mind, I did hear one colonel call out, ‘Any whoreson fool wastes his powder afore the bastards are close enough to kill is gonna get his musket shoved up his arse butt-first!’”
The assembly erupted into laughter. An inquiry from Mrs. McMillan, who had come out to offer further refreshment, as to the source of this merriment shut them all up sharp, though, and they listened with a fair assumption of sober attention to the rest of Lee’s account.
“Well, so, then, on they come, and I will say ’twas a daunting sight. They’d several regiments, and all in their different colors, fusiliers and grenadiers, Royal Marines, and a proper boiling of light infantry, all comin’ on over the ground like a horde of ants, and just as mean.
“I wouldn’t make great claim to bravery myself, gentlemen, but I would say the fellows standin’ with me had some nerve. We did let ’em come, and the first ranks weren’t no more than ten feet away when our volley cut into them.
“They rallied, came back on, and we cut them down again—like ninepins. And the officers—there was a powerful lot of the officers went; they were on their horses, see? I—I shot one such. He keeled over, but he didn’t fall off—his horse carried him away. Kind of lolling, with his head loose. But he didn’t fall.”
Lee’s voice had lost some of its color, and Roger saw the burly form of the Reverend Doctor McCorkle lean toward his secretary, touching his shoulder.
“They rallied a third time, and came on. And . . . we were most of us out of ammunition. They came on over the earthworks and