Once more had we whipped them in fair fight, and once more we gave way to rejoicing, no longer believing that the battle was won; but grown strong in the knowledge that twice had they sent their best men against us, and twice we had driven them back in ignoble defeat, even though during the last assault General Howe himself led the way to give his men courage.
One of our Minute Boys had been killed outright, and lay on his face upon the ground within a few feet of where I stood. How long he had been there no one could say; but we knew that he was alive when we were rejoicing over the first repulse.
Singular as it may seem when so many among us had been killed and wounded, no other of the Minute Boys had fallen, and while we stood inside the redoubt in the first flush of this second victory, we clasped each other by the hands as if congratulating ourselves that we were yet in the land of the living after having, as it were, gone down to the very brink of that dark river which separates this world from the next.
It is not well that I set down very much concerning our lads, for even at this late day it makes my heart ache as I recall to mind their appearance.
One could see hunger and thirst written on their powder-begrimed faces. It seemed to me as I looked at Archie, that his eyes were sunken, and I know full well his lips were drawn apart as are those of one who has been suddenly killed.
Save for the excitement of the battle we would have been in most painful distress; but the mind is so much stronger than the body that even when we had time to think of our condition, little heed was given to anything save the desire to do once more what we had twice done before, and make an end by the final repulse of the lobster backs.
Yet even I, raw recruit as I was, understood with a sinking of the heart which I cannot well explain, that we were far less able to cope with those lines of red now than when they first came upon us.
It was not that we counted our loss in numbers, nor that our bodies were more illy fitted to stand the strain; but we were sorely weakened because of lacking that with which to fight. Our ammunition was well nigh spent; I question if we had fifty bayonets among us all told, with which to resist an attack should the Britishers succeed in scaling the breastworks, and when the last ounce of powder had been burned what would be our plight?
I was not the only one who speculated upon these terrible things. Every man in the redoubt knew that we had not of powder and ball sufficient to repulse the next assault however desperately we might strive. There were many who did not have a single charge for their muskets, and Colonel Prescott gave orders that we should divide, those having considerable sharing with those who had none, until, when this was done, I had mayhap four charges, while those around me could boast of no more.
Some among us gathered up rocks to be used as missiles; others ventured out, even though the enemy was pouring from Copp's hill and the ships of war, volleys of grape and solid shot upon the hillside where the red-coated dead lay in such numbers, and strove to add to their store, more than one losing his life in the attempt to get that which he needed in the hope of saving it.