Imogen Robertson - Instruments of Darkness

7 APRIL 1775, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS BAY, AMERICA

Captain Hugh Thornleigh of the 5th curled awkwardly over his writing desk and stared at the wall of his billet, trying to compose his thoughts.

He understood little of the complexities of the political situation of the colonies and cared less. The legal niceties of taxes and teas did not concern him. The army had appealed to him as a career, not just because of the possibilities to give further glory to his ancestors’ name, and create a comfortable life for himself independent of the family estate, but also because it knew how to use men of action like himself. He hoped he would one day lead armies rather than companies into battle, but he fully expected to leave the rationale for those battles to other men. He cared for those under his command, and was known as a fair commander: ready with his fists, but as ready to laugh and knock the air from a man’s lungs with a slap across the back. He needed only a wife to spoil, and a son whom he could teach to shoot, to make himself content. Still, this letter to his father must be written. He began as follows:

My Lord,

I wish I had better news for you since our arrival in America. The situation of Boston is indeed pleasant-good, green, rolling country not unlike our own-so the provisions are plentiful and our men remain healthy and alert, for the most part, to their duty. There are some gentlemen in town with whom one would be happy to dine anywhere in the world, but the manners of the common sort show a strange lack of regard for rank. It is hard to put across.

It is not the surliness of the London mob so much, but a rather more insidious habit of behaving as if we were all cut from the same stuff, if you take my meaning. By way of example-if eating outside the regiment, a fellow may serve you your food and sit down to conversation as if you had both just come in from the fields together. This lack of awareness of station and position in the ordinary sort of people must be the root, I believe, of the mood of rebellion that approaches like a contagion both from the countryside around us, and even within the town itself. The people are arming, and though they are in no way proper soldiers, and any but the largest force of them must be short work for a small company of His Majesty’s own, they have begun to gather in great numbers and a dark mood. We may have to slaughter a fair number of them before they are willing to slink back to their farms. A sad state indeed, when the king’s subjects find themselves facing each other in such a situation.

Thornleigh paused, and resumed staring at the wall again with a worried frown till a voice called from his door.

“Thornleigh, drop your pen. No one can read a word you write anyway. I am ordered to see how the hospital arrangements are being managed. Will you come with me?”

Hugh turned toward the voice with a ready smile. It was his friend Hawkshaw, so light and thin he seemed to have been wound together out of odd bits of rope. Thornleigh unfolded himself from his round-shouldered hunch over the letter, and placed on it his pen with the awkward delicacy of a bear attempting to arrange roses for a drawing room. Hawkshaw walked quickly across the room and peered over his shoulder at the page.

“Did you never go to school, Thornleigh? My masters would have whipped me to shreds for having such a horrible hand.”

Hugh grinned. “Old Lobster Grimes beat my hands till they bled. Funnily enough, it never made me write any better. I’ll come to the hospital with you, though I cannot let another packet sail without reporting to my father. He likes to claim firsthand intelligence in the House.”

Hawkshaw grimaced. “Lord! Politics! Well, it may come to nothing as yet. We must be all civility and neatness and keep our powder dry. In the meantime, let us enjoy the air a little and look at all these pretty green hills and roads like travelers till we must watch them like soldiers.”

“I did not come here to admire the country.”

Hawkshaw did not reply, but looked out of the window into the quiet streets of the town. The trees planted at intervals along the wide and pleasant streets gave the whole an air of peace and solidity. A woman, her maid following close behind her, was walking by. She blushed a little to see the officer watching her, then with a smile, she looked back down at the path in front of her.

“Ah, the fair ladies of this city,” he murmured. “Yet she may slit my throat soon as lie with me, sell my pistols to the Minute Men and call herself a daughter of liberty.” He turned back toward Thornleigh with a crooked grin. “Which is why I always visit the ladies of this town wearing my sword only, so as not to tempt their revolutionary fervor.” Hugh laughed. “There are rumors that some of us may see action soon enough, Thornleigh. Talk of a march on Concord to relieve them of the arms we suspect are being collected there.”

Hugh snorted. “Hardly an action. I have stolen apples from my neighbors’ orchards with more risk to life and limb. These rebels are cowards and braggarts. As soon as they see a company of British soldiers drawn up in front of them, they shall hand over whatever we ask for.”

“I wish I had your confidence. They may not look like an army at the moment, but I think I see a determination in their eyes that could make any soldier cautious. Some of them fought in the last wars alongside us, remember. The reports of them were not all bad.”

“What good will determination do them against ball and bayonet and trained men? Determination doesn’t render them bulletproof.”

“Nor us our red coats.”

“They are farmers! Hunters! If they can reload more than once in a minute I’ll buy them all the tea and stamps they want myself.”

“If they fire straight with every shot,” Hawkshaw said quietly, “they need not worry if they fire slow.”

Captain Thornleigh was not by nature a reflective personality, but his friend was. Indeed, the friendship that had grown up between the two captains since Thornleigh had transferred to them had surprised many in the regiment. They were now known among the officers as the Bull and Whippet; if either man knew, they did not seem to mind it.

As they left the room, a breeze knocked the shutters against their frames, catching the curtains between them so the clack was muffled, like gunfire echoing across a body of water.

The building requisitioned for the hospital was a former warehouse situated on the wharf. The surgeon obviously saw their arrival as something of an imposition, and having greeted them briefly, turned to his nurses, both wives of sergeants in the regiment, to further instruct them on the preparation of bandages, and asking the officers to direct any further questions to his assistant.

The young man he indicated stood up from his desk and approached them. He was well made, dark in his coloring and moved with a certain grace. Hugh was reminded of the foxes on his estate. The impression was strengthened by the man’s high cheekbones, the cautious assessment of them apparent in his dark eyes.

“I am Claver Wicksteed,” he introduced himself. “You are Captains Thornleigh and Hawkshaw. Did the Colonel send you down to see how we get on?”

“He did.” Thornleigh was a little taken aback by the man’s attitude. Wicksteed continued to watch him.

“And how do you get on?” Hawkshaw asked pointedly. “Do you have all you require? You are new to this doctoring line, are you not?”

“Not sure if you could call it doctoring, sir, what I do. The surgeon said he needed more help and here I am. He saws and sews people up, I help hold them steady then write out the requisition for blades and needles. Would you like to see around the place?”