“Here. Take this to the head of the Common when you hear them blow a bugle up there. Give it to the mess sergeant, and he’ll see you have some supper.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Tom. He went back to where he had left his companions.
He found them sitting along the top rail of a fence while the horses cropped the wayside grass.
“Did you find out what’s afoot, Tom?” asked Hugh Watts eagerly.
The men in the streets were thinning out, but those on the Common, though no longer drawn up at attention, still remained there.
“Oh, there’s a war beginning, and nobody knows where the lead is,” said Tom, flinging himself down on the grass. “Didn’t find out a thing beyond that.”
“We did,” said Asa. “After the man got through praying, we asked around. Seems Colonel Prescott’s taking out twelve hundred men with packs and blankets and a day’s ration. There’s a fatigue crew along, and picks and shovels like they mean to fortify. Nobody knows where.”
“It’ll either be behind Dorchester or Charlestown,” said Tom. He thought fleetingly of Kitty, and the yellow-haired minx, and the gallant old woman. He hoped they’d got safe away, but he didn’t think of them long. “There’s the bugle,” he said. “Let’s go get supper.”
Supper in Cambridge camp that night, for such men as did not have regular rations, consisted of a slab of salt fish and a hunk of hard, grayish bread, served with a noggin of sour beer. After the boys had eaten they walked about the town, down to the red brick buildings of the college, filled now with soldiers instead of scholars, and into the gray flush-board English church to see if by any chance the lead was still there. The church was full of Connecticut men who were using it for barracks, and they knew nothing about the lead at all.
By nine o’clock the twilight had gathered thickly about the little town, and the men on the Common formed in ranks and began their march. Two sergeants walked ahead carrying dark lanterns, half open so as to throw the light behind. Then came two blue-coated officers, Colonel Prescott and Colonel Gridley, then the rest of the detail, made up of Massachusetts and Connecticut men. Tom was not surprised when he saw that they took the Charlestown Road.