It was a still, hot day, with a blue haze over the water to the southward. The boys in the little boat drifted rather than sailed about the Battery point.
"Now, to begin with," said George, as he seated himself in the stern-sheets beside Carter, who was steering, "how does it feel to be in battle? Tell me something of Bunker Hill."
"I was rather frightened at first, I take it," said Carter. "But I tell you it was grand to see the way they landed. Just across the river were the batteries on Copps Hill. The guns were firing at us, and the cannon-balls howled over our heads or threw up the sand all about us. I was in the earth-works, and off to one side stretched a line of rail fence; before it had been piled new-cut hay, making a breastwork like a great windrow. Behind it crouched our men in double line. When the 'redcoats' from the boats landed we could see the officers running up and down the lines, flourishing swords and shouting and pushing the men into place here and there. I tell you, George, they are brave men, no matter if we do call them 'tyrants.' They came up the hill with their drums beating, and were so close that we could hear their tramping, and ahead of them all was Howe. We fired into them. They went down like nine-pins, and some lay so close to us that we could hear the groaning. But talk of excitement! It was frightful. You seem to act without knowing what you do. Many of our greenhorns forgot to fire, and put in one load on top of the other. Did you know that men shout and scream in battle as if they were wild Indians? It's a strange sound, I can tell you. Probably you will hear it before long."
George had fairly shaken with excitement. It did not seem possible on this peaceful day that these scenes would be repeated, or that he could ever be in the midst of them.
"Let us go into this cove straight ahead; then we can tie up this leaky old tub and climb the hill," he said.
The two young soldiers jumped ashore as the keel grated, hauled up the boat, and went into the woods; when they reached the top of the incline they sat down and gazed around them.
The placid water below scarcely rippled, except where the tide seethed about the point of Governors Island; to the east of them stretched a beautiful country, but the heat had shrivelled the leaves of the trees, and the stretches of meadow-land were burnt bare and brown. Through the blue haze the towering masts and spars of the British vessels showed plainly rising against the hills.
"The Lord has been kind in sending us no wind," said Carter, "otherwise that fleet might be all about us here." He waved the large spy-glass, which he carried under his arm, in the direction of the lower bay. Then he adjusted it to his eye. "Those British must be hungry," he said, "for they've eaten every horse on Staten Island, I've heard tell. Have a look," he added, extending the glass. "I beg your pardon for taking the first squint."
George took it and levelled it across the water. The powerful lenses brought the ships as near as if they had been anchored close to shore. There lay one of the greatest fleets of vessels that had ever met together in the history of warfare, larger in numbers of men and armament than the Great Armada which Philip II. had sent against England—ships of the line, frigates, armed sloops, brigs, corvettes, and innumerable transports—thirty-seven men-of-war altogether, and four hundred other vessels loaded with troops; it was almost impossible to count them. Without the glass their hulls looked like a flock of gigantic wild fowl that had suddenly swooped down and covered the waters to the southward. Fully thirty-five thousand men were waiting there a chance to be landed to take the field against the nondescript army of the new-born country.