A few minutes later they were all drawn up in a low-lying field where Charlestown peninsula extended, pear-shaped, into the sea. Gerry found himself in the front line, far to the right, with the light infantry of the Twenty-third and the King’s Own. To the left stood the grenadiers, and behind him the Fifty-second and the Fifth. He was feeling cheerful and brave now, and as safe as London Tower. It reassured him even more when the order came to break ranks and dine on the rations in their knapsacks before going farther along.
Sprawled in the hot sun, chewing his beef and biscuit, he eyed the landscape round him: the green, sloping fields, some cocked hay, and some standing grass; the swamp and brick kilns to the left; Breed’s Hill above, where the black dots still crawled around the tiny redoubt. He talked with the other men.
All the young lads, he found, were in their glory that the attack was to be made straight on, that this detachment of the British Army would pound forward full force and set the Americans running, or beat them down into their native clay. But the old wise sergeants shook their heads and said it was a pity Gage hadn’t ordered them to land at the Neck. They could have bottled up the Yankees in Charlestown then, and starved them out, and not had to fire a shot.
No, somebody else said, for to do that would have meant sending a force between two wings of its enemy, and that was a tactic frowned upon long before Caesar marched through Gaul. In the end they all agreed that they were well enough satisfied with the way things had fallen out. They’d march up that hill in double-quick time, drive the cowardly Yankees out of their burrow, and be back drinking beer in Boston before the sun went down.
They were beginning to take out packs of dog-eared playing cards when the word passed among them that reinforcements were disembarking on the fields to the left; that Howe had sent for the reinforcements because the Americans were bringing in more troops, the earthworks had been extended far to the left, and he didn’t like the looks of things at all.
Gerry began to put his uneaten food away in his knapsack. There wasn’t as much room in it as there should have been, because at the last moment he had decided to stuff in the rough shirt and breeches he wore when he went about the Yankee countryside. He smiled now, as he saw them there. Didn’t think he’d have a need for them, but you never know. Just then the bugles sounded and the officers called them to attention. Like one man the assembled army was on its feet. Gerry could see the newly landed troops drawn up away to the left, facing the redoubt.
General Howe, dark, florid and heavily built, stood forth and spoke to his men.
“Gentlemen, I am very happy to have the honor of commanding so fine a body.... I do not doubt that you will behave like Englishmen and as becometh good soldiers. If the enemy will not come from their entrenchments, we must drive them out, otherwise the town of Boston will be set on fire by them.... I shall not desire one of you to go a step further than where I go at your head. Remember, gentlemen, we have no recourse, if we lose Boston, but to go on board our ships ... which will be very disagreeable to us all.”
General Howe stepped a little aside and stood smiling proudly round him, his hand on his sword. The troops stood tensely, bayonets in hand, waiting the order to move ahead. The cannonading from the ships was so steady that they did not hear it any more, but the guns of Boston now set up an iron clamor that seemed fit to shake the earth. Now the artillery rolled toward the redoubt.
Gerry looked up at the serene blue sky, at a cluster of apple trees a little way ahead. There were trees like that on his father’s farm in Devon, and he wondered if he’d ever again see them growing there. He looked at the hill where spouts of dust shot upward as heavy balls hit the turf of the redoubt. Suppose they did have to board their ships and sail away? Maybe he wouldn’t sail away, maybe he’d go and find blue-eyed Kitty. Maybe he would....