The Road to Paris: A Story of Adventure

by Robert Neilson Stephens

Warfare and orders were different with the Yankee army on the hill, from what they were with the disciplined soldiers marching up to the attack.

Dick was dimly aware of flashes from British artillery posted near some brick-kilns near the hill's foot, but all his thoughts were on the infantry, as yet distant but steadily approaching, with a precision that was proof against marshy ground, tall grass, stone or rail fences, and other impediments. On they came, at a steady walk, to the beating of their own drums, marching in silence, looking neither to right nor to left, outwardly as calm as if on parade, showing in their faces no complaint against the heat nor any fear of the fate that might await them, men patient, machine-like in response to orders, their scarlet coats blazing in the sun, their steel bayonets flashing, men perfectly groomed, lifted to disdain of death by the sense of comradeship and of the occasion's bigness and by devotion to the sun-lit flag that fluttered slightly in the faint breeze,—so they came, their faces fixed with a mild curiosity on the redoubt, and it seemed to Dick that, coming in fashion so orderly and businesslike, they could not in possibility be turned back or stayed. Thrilled with admiration, "By the Lord," he said to MacAlister, "that's the way to march to one's death! Who could be afraid to face all hell, either marching with them, or waiting here to fight against them?"

"Bedad, ye've got the feeling, lad!" Tom answered. "When great matters do be brewing, a man's ain life is sic a wee sma' thing, he'll no haggle over it!"

The British left wing approached in long files, its right composed of tall-capped grenadiers, who came towards the breastwork north of the redoubt, its centre consisting of several regiments of ordinary foot, its extreme left being made up of marines, whose commander's figure was recognized by one of Dick's comrades as that of Major Pitcairn, who had called on the rebels on Lexington Common to disperse. When the redcoats were still at a considerable distance, they deployed into line and fired at the Yankees' works, all in unison, as if each was part of a great machine. In his admiration of their movement, and of the quiet and easy manner in which the marching officers had ordered it, Dick heeded not the whizz of bullets overhead. On some of his comrades the strain was too great to resist, and they impulsively fired their pieces at the approaching scarlet lines. Prescott's voice rose in loud reproof of these, and some of the officers ran along the top of the parapet, kicking up the guns of men who were taking aim.

On came the enemy, firing at regular intervals in obedience to slight gestures of their officers. And now they were so near that man might be distinguished from man, each by his face, though all the countenances had in common the impassive, obedient, patient, unquestioning look of British veterans. With the Yankees the tension of inward excitement was such that Dick and most of his comrades would not trust their voices to speak; but some grumbled nervously, or even growled as in ordinary moods. "Bean't we ever going to give it to them?" demanded one, and "Air we going to let them walk right into the fort, 'thout our moving a finger?" queried another. It began to look to Dick as if the enemy were indeed dangerously near, and he glanced at Tom MacAlister, who was motionlessly breasting the parapet, gun-butt against shoulder, eye following out the barrel, finger bent to pull at the word. Presently all growlings ceased, and nothing was heard but the roar of the cannon, the throbbing beat of the enemy's drums, and the singing of the bullets in the air. Then the powerful voice of Prescott rang out in the single word, "Fire!"

There was flash, a crack, a belch of smoke, along the whole redoubt; and, when the smoke rose, Dick got an indistinct impression of great gaps in the scarlet lines, of red-coated soldiers lying on the ground in various positions, some writhing and grimacing, some perfectly still, some pierced and bleeding, some without visible wound. Those still afoot were looking astonished and were trying to retain or recover the regular formation of their lines. Some of them fired back at the redoubt. Dick mechanically grasped the loaded gun handed to him by a man behind the platform, and as mechanically relinquished his own emptied weapon to the same man; in another moment he was blazing away again at a scarlet coat. Then he himself reloaded, and fired a third time; and after that he saw the broken scarlet lines in front of him roll back down the hill, in a kind of disorderly order, many of the redcoats falling behind and plunging presently to the earth.

"We have actually driven them back!" was his thought, and he bounded to the top of the parapet, thrown forward by an irresistible impulse to give chase; but he was stayed by the hindering grasp of Tom MacAlister upon the seat of his breeches. He looked around in surprise, for several men had leaped over the parapet, with a cheer, to follow the fleeing foe. But officers leaped after these men and vehemently ordered them back into the redoubt. "They're beaten!" cried Dick, ecstatically.

"Maybe," quoth old Tom; "but it'll no be them, I'm a-thinkin', if they stay so!"

All the world knows they did not stay so; that the rest of that hot, eventful afternoon, until the termination of the fight, had nothing in it to give Dick an impression different from those he had already received; that the British re-formed by the shore, charged up the hill a second time, and were a second time driven back by the deadly American marksmanship; that to aid their second attempt they set fire to Charlestown, but, the smoke being driven westward, failed to accomplish their purpose thereby; that the British cannon did a little more work this second time; that the British soldiers were somewhat impeded in their charge by the bodies of dead and wounded comrades they had to step over; that their officers had to do some threatening and sword-pricking and striking to persuade them forward; that their second retreat was in greater disorder than their first, and left the ground covered more thickly with dead and wounded; that they waited a long time before they began their third attack; that on the American side there was much bungling in attempts to bring on reinforcements that arrived over Charlestown Neck; that many of the cowardly and the disgruntled slunk away; that in each charge the occurrences at the redoubt were similar to those at the breastwork and at the stone and rail fence; that the second attack left the Americans with very little ammunition. The few artillery cartridges that contained all the powder at hand were opened, and the powder was given out to the men with instructions to make every kernel of it tell.

"If they're driven back once more, they can't be rallied again," said Colonel Prescott; and his men cheered and replied, "We're ready for them!" The few men with bayonets were placed at points the enemy would probably attempt to scale. It was seen that the British boats had been sent back to Boston,—so that the British troops would not have them to flee to, as old Tom divined,—also that the British had received reinforcements from the vessels.