Imogen Robertson - Instruments of Darkness

He hesitated again, but seeing the sense of what she said, took it from her with a bow.

“I am grateful that you trust me, Mrs. Westerman.”

The thought seemed to surprise her, and he watched her exchange a glance and shrug with Crowther.

“It seems we do, Mr. Clode. Are we wrong to do so?”

He shook his head. “No. You are not wrong. I can leave from here now. May I write a note to be sent on to Pulborough in the morning? I would rather not leave my parents worrying for me. I shall say business detains me here a few days.”

“Of course,” Harriet said. “Good. Rachel, go and fetch one of David’s riding cloaks for Mr. Clode. We shall tell him what we know.”

Without even troubling to take their seats again, Harriet and Crowther told the young man everything they had seen, thought or suspected since the dawn of Friday. The young man said very little and what questions he had were intelligent and to the point. He had the best of it by the time Rachel returned with the cloak, and a little bag of provisions culled from the kitchen, including half a bottle of Harriet’s most expensive brandy. Then he was gone.

The door swung to behind him, and Rachel, Harriet and Crowther looked at each other a little dumbfounded. When Mrs. Heathcote came in to clear the almost untouched refreshments as brisk as a lieutenant clearing the decks for action, Harriet drew herself up behind her desk.

“Very well,” she said. “What next?”

17 JUNE 1775, BREED’S HILL NEAR CHARLESTOWN, MASSACHUSETTS BAY

Try to imagine a fog. It is as dense as that which crawls from a still river in darkness so you can see only a few feet in either direction, but it is still tinged yellow by a sun you can no longer see, and it is acrid and smoking in your nose and mouth. Gunsmoke. A world of burned powder. The noises around you are like thunder, but muffled; you can no longer tell the difference between the sound of your own and your companions’ feet hitting the ground under your boots and the thump of your own blood. Your eyes are streaming, one is swollen shut and tears at you like a rat trapped in your skull. You would pluck it out and throw it from you, but your hands will not part from the musket they hold. The air is alive with hisses and explosions. There are groans and cries, some in the distance, then suddenly almost under your feet. You can feel wet heat and sear on your cheek. Evil little balls of shot rattling past you. You cannot see where they come from, or from how close. Now, you catch a flash of gunpowder in the gloom in front of you. You are almost upon them. The man to your right stumbles, you curse the broken ground and reach down to pull him up again; only when you are bent by the effort, bring his lolling head up to the level of your stooped shoulder, do you see the man is dead, the side of his face broken away. You let him fall. You call out to the men around you and plow forward again, bayonet raised, knowing that it is impossible you will survive, only sure you will take one of these murderous bastards, cowering behind their defensive arrows, with you, determined to bring a little of your hell over their redoubt and into their midst.

You are there. The fence between you and the other man gives under your weight, he has fumbled his reload. He looks up into your face, you tower above him as he crouches over his cartridge case in his homespun shirt, his ill-shaped cap. There is a scrap of old newspaper at his feet, scattered with crumbs. He must have eaten between the last attack and this. He brought something from home. You see it all without looking away from his face. You lift the barrel and drive the foot of steel at the end of your gun into his chest, thrusting as you breathe out, even while he stares at you. Blood bubbles in his mouth, his eyes go slack. The bayonet is buried so far into his chest you have to stand on his breastbone to pull it clear. You turn to find another. This is dancing. The world has slowed, your movements are fluid and there is time and time to take another partner, obey the impulse of movement, pull free and turn to take another, and another-his flashpan fizzing-lets fly almost into your face. You wait for the world to blacken; it does not, the shot failed him. There is a moment when he realizes this as you lift your weapon and fall foward. He crumples, you stumble into him, then back onto your feet. Your eye is caught by another man scrambling away; he is too slow. A shot flashes to your right and he is lifted and thrown forward onto the ground, among the grass, his body shivering with shock and despair.

The dreaming ends, the world speeds up again and you are aware of the desperate gasping for breath, your hands on the stock of your gun slippery with other men’s blood. Someone is standing beside you. Their eyes are as black and burning as your own.

“We’re done here, Thornleigh. They have taken the redoubt. Christ, man! Your face!”

You spit on the ground. There are bodies all around you. Some in the local linen, some in the blood red of your own coat. You turn back toward the beach without replying. There is a groan on your right-hand side. You crouch down, recognize one of your own. Get his arm around your neck, yours around his waist, pull him back toward the beach. By the time you reach the boats, you are carrying a corpse.

The streets were full of men, bloody and broken, dragged in carts toward the hospitals, or staggering behind them. Some nodded as he passed. Thornleigh paused only long enough at the docks to deliver his report before he started to make his way to the hospital he had visited with Hawkshaw only a few weeks before. He wanted to see if any of his company were there, and if so, what could be done for them. Of the thirty men in his command, only four were capable of walking unaided from the fight. He had seen the bodies of ten. Now he came in search of the rest. The windows of the respectable houses in Boston were mostly shuttered. Here and there civilians, old men mostly in wigs and tight-fitting jackets, dithered at the tops of their steps, jaws hanging slack, all amazement and confusion as they watched the slow, bloody parade. When Hugh turned into the wide gates of the old warehouse, he found a butcher’s yard.

The forecourt was full of injured men, groaning and bleeding, waiting their turn with the surgeon. Some of the women of the town moved among them, offering water, the fringes of their long skirts reddening. One girl had turned away into a patch of shadow, her handkerchief at her mouth; even in the dark he could see the whiteness around her lips, one hand pressed against the stone wall. When she moved away it left a rust stain of some man’s blood behind her. He wondered whose last minutes she had watched over.

He fetched water from the drinking butt and distributed it; the calls for water came from every side. Some asked after his company, others put a black and red hand on his sleeve and tried to stop him long enough to tell their own stories of the slaughter they had seen around them on the hill. Howe’s entire staff dead or wounded, half the companies of grenadiers down to single figures like his own. A victory, but a disastrous one.

If they had grown less sanguine about their powers on the retreat from Lexington, they were as sober as hell now. A marine was curled up next to the wall, sobbing, and trying to stop his tears with a fist in his mouth. Another young woman tried to approach Hugh, make some move toward his wound; she carried a cloth and basin already pink and dirty. Hugh pushed her away, saying nothing, then heard his own name called, and looked up. A young man from Hawkshaw’s company lay propped up against the white wall. Thornleigh walked toward him. The lad’s face was gray and waxy. Thornleigh let his eye scan down his body. It was a stomach wound. There was nothing the surgeons could do for this one. Without speaking, Thornleigh crouched beside him and drew out a hip flask from under his jacket, still half-full of his father’s celebratory brandy. He put it to the man’s lips. The latter drank and grimaced as the heat of it reached down his throat.