In the farmhouses candles were quickly lighted, and the minute-men, who had agreed to obey a summons at a moment’s warning, came running with musket, bullet-pouch, and powder-horn, to the rendezvous. They formed in line, but, no redcoats appearing, broke ranks and went into Buckman’s tavern.
Silently, without tap of drum, the grenadiers and light infantry under Colonel Francis Smith, at midnight, marched from their quarters to Barton’s Point, together with the marines under Major Pitcairn.
“Where are we going?” Lieutenant Edward Gould of the King’s Own put the question to Captain Lawrie.
“I suppose General Gage and the Lord, and perhaps Colonel Smith, know, but I don’t,” the captain replied, as he stepped into a boat with his company.
It was eleven o’clock when the last boat-load of troops reached Lechmere’s Point,—not landing on solid ground, but amid the last year’s reeds and marshes. The tide was flowing into the creek and eddies, and the mud beneath the feet of the king’s troops was soft and slippery.
“May his satanic majesty take the man who ordered us into this bog,” said a soldier whose feet suddenly went out from under him and sent him sprawling into the slimy oose.
“By holy Saint Patrick, isn’t the water nice and warm!” said one of the marines as he waded into the flowing tide fresh from the sea.
“Gineral Gage intends to teach us how to swim,” said another.
With jokes upon their lips, but inwardly cursing whoever had directed them to march across the marsh, the troops splashed through the water, reached the main road leading to Menotomy, and waited while the commissary distributed their rations. It was past two o’clock before Colonel Smith was ready to move on. Looking at his watch in the moonlight and seeing how late it was, he directed Major Pitcairn to take six companies of the light infantry and hasten on to Lexington.