“Said he had no time now to talk o’ private affairs,” answered the veteran. “Look there, in the front ranks of ’em! That’s General Howe. I fought under him at Quebec in ’59. I’d know him anywhere.”
Tom looked where the other pointed, but he did not see the proud pompous figure of the British general leading on his men. He saw instead a New Hampshire mountainside in the fall, young Caleb Stark walking under the golden beech leaves, with his head up, laughing in the crisp air. He saw Caleb skating on Dorr’s Pond in the winter moonlight; pitching hay on a summer afternoon. And now at the rail fence Caleb lay dead. By Jehovah, he’d fix the British for doing that to his friend.
“Here they come, lad,” warned the man at his side.
“I’m ready,” said Tom. He gripped the blunderbuss, and all his rage and vengeance sounded in the roar of it as it spoke.
The British were not so easily beaten back this time. Stepping over their fallen comrades they marched up to the wall, staggered back at the withering blast of fire, and came on again. But at last their officers could no longer urge them forward. Once more Tom found himself staring at the redcoats fleeing away.
It was a long time before they formed again, and the whole American line was jubilant. It began to seem as if a handful of farmers with nothing but courage and gunpowder had turned back the British Army. Tom climbed up the bank in the interval and took a look at the redoubt. It was untaken, and there were still, red-clad forms lying all over the slope before it, and the gleaming brass of abandoned artillery. In front of his own line the dead lay as thick as sheep in a fold.
“We ought to send for more powder,” he muttered, as he went back to his place and loaded the blunderbuss. “More men, maybe.”
“Prescott already sent for more men,” growled his neighbor. “Been sending for ’em all day. Ward keeps ’em all close to Cambridge because he thinks they’re in danger there. As for powder, there was only ’leven barrels in the whole camp this morning. Bet there’s powerful little of it left by now.”
“I got three more loadings,” said Tom. “I’ll give ’em that. Then I’ll have to bash their skulls if I bring ’em down.”
“Bash their skulls then,” said the older man. “That’s as good a way as any for the varmints to go.”