Chapter ElevenA GREAT SECRET
“Webeen long enough getting here,” said Tom Trask, as he dragged the prow of a small rowboat up the shaly beach. “Are you sure this be Charlestown Neck, Johnny?”
Tugging away at the other side of the boat, Johnny Pettengall answered him. “Charlestown, sure enough. Hold on. Give me your hand. I got my foot caught in a patch of eel grass or summ’at like.”
Tom did as he was bidden, and in a moment the two were climbing up a steep bank into the hayfield above. Just to their left loomed a low hill, sharp on its eastern side. A taller, more gently rounded hill stood up behind it, and through the thick, fragrant grass around them a rail fence wound away toward higher ground. Tom could see no lighted windows anywhere.
“You ever been here before?” he asked doubtfully.
“No,” said Johnny, “but I come by here yesterday when I was aboard our sloop that went up to the Penny Ferry to meet the supply carts from the eastward. I had it pointed out to me. This is Breed’s Hill just ahead of us, and Bunker Hill’s behind.”
“Charlestown’s said to be a village,” Tom continued to object. “I can see orchards, and what looks like a brick kiln over there, and by the smell there’s clay pits somewhere about. But I don’t see any houses at all.”
“Town’s the other side of the hill,” Johnny reassured him. “Come on. We got to get to the Bay and Beagle before Ma’am Greenleaf locks up for the night.”
Uncertain and on his guard, Tom followed his companion up the slope through the firefly-studded grass. More than a week now, he and the Newburyport lad had been sleeping at night with their feet toward the same campfire—when they did sleep—sharing the same ration of salt pork and corn meal. He had not gone back to Medford after they burned theDiana, for he and Johnny kept telling themselves that they would borrow a boat and row over to Charlestown to see the girls, but not until tonight had they been able to get away. They had not wasted their time, though. They had gone with the raiding parties that constantly scoured the islands all the way from Chelsea Neck to the deep sea. They had helped to burn Tory barns and steal Tory cattle. Tom felt he could give a good account of himself when he got back to his own company, but he was not so sure Captain Moore would consider it a good account. He was even more dubious about the attitude of the Colonel, his old friend, Johnny Stark. That they were old friends wouldn’t make any difference at all, when there was business in hand.
Yes, tonight after he’d seen Miss Kitty again and stolen a kiss or two, he thought he’d better make for Medford, with or without young Pettengall. Maybe he’d better ask now just what his companion intended to do.
At that moment they reached the crest of Breed’s Hill and paused to look down.
“Them lights over there must be Boston,” Johnny toldhim. “You ever been there, Tom? I heard it’s the greatest city in North America. The best anyway.”
“Didn’t know we had any other cities,” said Tom, grinning in the darkness.
Johnny took him seriously. “Course we have,” he hastened to protest. “There’s New York, and Philadelphia where the Great Congress meets. Some others further south, I guess, and all of ’em sending help to Boston. There’s talk they’ll even send their soldiers here.”
“Believe it when I see them,” said Tom skeptically. “But you ask me, and I say no, I never been to Boston. I live a sight of a ways off, you know, up the Merrimack.”
They stood there together a moment in the starlight and cool sea wind, the sweetness of ripe hay.
“I know,” said Johnny. “You didn’t go back there, ever—after we got news of Concord Fight, did you? Ain’t you got some folks waiting for you to come home?”
Tom shrugged. “Folks is all dead,” he told Johnny. “Won’t nobody miss me. Well—maybe a girl or two.”
Then he spoke more quickly and in a lighter tone. “But I know where I will be missed, I bet, and that’s back in Medford. My company was less than half full strength when I left, and I better be getting myself over there. How about you?”
“I ought to be in Cambridge, I guess, with Captain Little’s company.”
“Moses Little? Heard he’d been made a colonel, just like Stark.”
“I don’t know. I didn’t hear.”
They were starting down the hill now, toward a cluster of roofs and gables with a tall spire in the midst of it, toward a shadowy line of wharves along the shore.
“I know sure enough about Johnny. I was there in the tavern when we chose him by a show of hands. They say somevoted twice. I know I did. He was my neighbor up in Derryfield. I worked in his sawmill some and went hunting with his son Caleb. Caleb’s a right smart lad.”
It was harder going down Breed’s Hill than going up, for the western side was as steep as the eastern, and they had to hold back. There were stone walls to climb, and the dew-wet grass was hard to wade through, but Tom scarcely noticed that. Funny, he thought, as he heard his tongue run on, how he never had very much to say, unless it was about John Stark.
“Oh, Johnny’s the man for you,” he was saying. “Once when the Indians captured him and put him to hoeing their fields, he cut down the corn and left the weeds standing. When they made him run the gantlet, he whacked them as he went through, instead of t’other way. Kept singing while he ran that he’d kiss all their women. He never liked the British either, after he fought beside them at Quebec. ’Fore I was high as a rail fence, I heard him say we’d have to fight against them sometime. There was folks who laughed at him, but I guess they ain’t laughing now.”
“Here we be,” said Johnny as they came to the beginning of a street that led past the darkened windows of Charlestown. “I got no idea where the place is. Likely there’ll be a horse and a dog on its sign.”
But Charlestown was no very extensive metropolis, and after a little wandering through its dim lanes and uncobbled streets, they found the tavern they were seeking. The door stood open to let in the night breeze, and the two boys stepped uncertainly through.
A few candles burning in iron holders lit the dim taproom. Clean mugs and glasses stood neatly on shelves behind the bar, and the long brown braid of tobacco leaves hanging near it swayed gently in the draft from the open door. Tom thought that the braid looked like a cow’s tail. He made up aface when he remembered the pipeful of tobacco he’d had to smoke the night they burned theDiana. Here was one customer of Ma’am Greenleaf’s who wouldn’t ask her to cut off a few inches for him, that was sure. But where was Ma’am Greenleaf? Or Kitty? Or the other girl? The room was empty, so far as he could see.
Johnny, too, was looking around him. “Don’t see where they could have gone to,” he muttered, “and left the door open and the lights burning.”
Just at that moment there came an anguished wail from somewhere overhead.
“Stop it! Oh stop! You’re killing me!”
“Robbers!” gasped Johnny.
“Or them British devils!” cried Tom, looking desperately for the staircase. He finally saw it, winding up from a little alcove that led to the kitchen, and in a flash he and Johnny pounded up the narrow treads, bursting breathlessly into a long hall at the top. From a room on the side toward the river emerged another half-stifled cry.
“In here!” shouted Tom, flinging the door open.
Then he stood quite still. The sight before him was such a one as he had never seen by the falls of Derryfield. Johnny’s astonished gasp told him that his friend was as taken aback as he.
Sally Rose Townsend sat precariously on the edge of a four-poster bed, her face flushed and distorted. Granny Greenleaf stood in front of her, her hands busy about the girl’s dress—except that Sally Rose wore no dress. Her shoulders were bare and gleamed whitely in the candlelight, but her entire body below her shoulders seemed to be shut up in some sort of cage. The cage gapped apart in the middle to show an expanse of some white fabric underneath. It was gripped firmly together at a point just above the girl’s waist, and again below.
“It’s no use, Sally Rose,” Gran was muttering. “I can’t get this foolish contrivance apart, and there isn’t a locksmith left in town. I believe there’s a blacksmith, though. We’ll send Kitty to fetch the blacksmith. Mercy, where is Kitty? I never thought of her before. Where has Kitty gone?”
“Quick! Cover me up, Gran!” gasped Sally Rose frantically, her breath short, her words not quite clear.
Gran glanced backward over her shoulder. Then she turned completely round and faced the intruders.
“Johnny Pettengall! And you—” she peered closer, “the thief who made off with my son’s musket! What are you doing in the bedchamber of a decent lass?”
“We didn’t mean no harm, Ma’am Greenleaf,” explained Johnny. “We just came from camp to see the girls, and walked into the taproom like—like anybody would. Then we heard Sally Rose scream she was being killed—” He broke off and stared again at the bent golden head of his adored one. Sally Rose was beginning to weep tears of embarrassment.
“I see,” replied the old lady grimly. She stood protectingly in front of her granddaughter. After a moment she seemed to come to a decision. “Well, since you’re here, you’re here. And it’s plain some male critter will have to help us. ’Tisn’t as if the girl weren’t decently covered underneath. Can you boys get her out of that contraption?”
Johnny swallowed and made inarticulate sounds.
“We can try,” said Tom. “What is it? What’s it made of?”
“It’s a pair of stays. An outlandish pair brought from New York for some Tory hussy.”
“My mother’s stays are laced together,” said Johnny, his embarrassment lessening a little. “Won’t they come off if you unlace them?”
“I cut the laces—first thing I did when I came upstairs andheard her moaning,” snapped Gran. “But these are fastened with locks at top and bottom. Come and look at them.”
Gran motioned the boys forward and they gingerly approached Sally Rose.
Tom reached out coolly and fingered the jeweled padlock.
Sally Rose sucked in her breath and closed her eyes. Johnny looked the other way.
“I could force it apart,” said Tom thoughtfully, “but it’s too small for me to get a grip on. What we need is a file. You got one about the place somewhere?”
“Does your father keep a tool chest handy?” demanded Gran of Sally Rose.
“I think—in the barn—out the back way through the garden,” Sally Rose whispered.
“Go find it, Johnny,” ordered Tom.
Johnny dashed for the stairway, and the Derryfield lad walked to the window and stood there with his hands behind him, gazing into the summer night. Nothing could be done until Johnny came back, and he had no wish to embarrass the poor girl further by staring at her.
He looked at the gable windows of the house across the street, and then down the narrow way that led to the market place. Then he craned his neck at what he saw, and felt a little smile crooking the corners of his mouth. Miss Catherine Greenleaf was coming hot-foot home from somewhere, and he guessed he’d see she got a proper welcome. He turned back to Gran who still stood in front of Sally Rose, tapping her slippered foot on the pine floor.
“Think I’ll go help Johnny hunt for the file,” he said.
He stepped into the taproom of the Bay and Beagle just as Kitty entered from the street. He had the advantage, for he had expected the meeting. She stopped still and gave a little gasp, but he spoke calmly enough.
“You ought to stay to home when you have company, Miss Kitty,” he rebuked her mildly.
Kitty recovered herself quickly, lifted her head, and smiled.
“Perhaps I would have,” she said, “if I had known. Wherever did you come from?”
“Sit here,” he said, and drew her down beside him on the wide ledge that ran under the window. “I come from Chelsea Neck on my way back to the camp in Medford—”
“You—you’re going back to camp?” she interrupted him.
He looked at her keenly. Something was the matter with her. She was all upset like, but trying not to let him see. He’d thought to steal a few kisses, but he felt pretty sure she wasn’t in the mood for kissing. Too bad. Well, another night, maybe. He shrugged his shoulders.
“Yes, I think likely they can use me there. I been away driving cattle off the islands the last week or two. Met up with Johnny Pettengall and he told me you was here. Tonight we borrowed a boat and rowed over the Mystic. But I didn’t see you anywheres as I come across Breed’s Hill and through the town. Where you been tonight, Kitty?”
She looked at him thoughtfully. “I don’t know that—but maybe I ought—”
“Here ’tis!” cried Johnny triumphantly, rushing into the room with a small iron file in his hand. He paid no attention to Kitty. “Come on, Tom! Let’s go file Sally Rose!”
Tom waved him away with a flippant gesture. “You go file Sally Rose,” he said. “She’s your girl. I got business with Kitty.” He turned his back on the other lad.
Kitty put her hand to her mouth. “Oh, I forgot!” she gasped. “Sally Rose is still in the stays!”
“Sure enough she is,” agreed Tom. “Johnny’s got a file, and he can shave the lock away. I asked you where you’d been tonight, Kit. Walking out with some other lad, maybe.No moon, but it’s sweet-aired and warm. A good courting night.”
Kitty sat twisting her hands in her lap and did not answer. Johnny made a pitiful noise of dismay and turned reluctantly toward the staircase.
“Where’s Gran?” asked Kitty.
Tom smiled widely. “With Sally Rose,” he said. “Likely to stay there awhile, wouldn’t you think so?”
“Oh, of course. She wouldn’t leave Sally Rose like that—and with Johnny. I—I—” she stopped again.
“What’s on your mind, Kitty? Something, I can tell.”
“Yes. Yes, there is. I don’t know—maybe I should—or maybe I should wait and tell Sally Rose first. But maybe you’re the one.”
“You better tell me,” he said, trying to put strength into his voice, and a little tenderness, but not too much. He didn’t want her breaking down.
“Yes,” she said after a moment, lifting her head and looking straight into his eyes. “Yes, I think I should probably tell you, for you’ll know what to do about it. If you’re going back to camp—it ought to be made known to the officers there.”
“I aim to go tonight, not tomorrow morning,” he said. “Say what’s got to be said, Kitty.”
“Well then, I will.” She was not looking at him now. She fixed her eyes on a candle burning in a sconce across the room. “Tonight I went out to meet—a man—who was expecting Sally Rose. You can see why she couldn’t go.”
He grinned. “Yes,” he said. “Sally Rose ain’t geared right now to travel far. Who was the man? Oh—I bet I know—that redcoat she took such a notion to.”
“Yes, it was Gerry. Captain Gerald Malory of the Twenty-third. I did see him, and he warned me. He told us to get out of Charlestown, for the British are about to strike.”
Tom leaned forward. “When?” he demanded. “Where?”
“Any night now. By the end of the week, surely. Here, or in Dorchester. Gerry wasn’t sure. But if it should be Bunker Hill—”
“Bunker Hill would be a right handy site for them to hold,” muttered Tom. “We thought they was about ready to go. But before this we had no real word.”
He was silent for a moment. Then he laid his hand over hers. Then he stood up.
“Guess I better make for camp,” he said. “This is important information you got here. I’ll carry the news straight to Stark. He’ll be the man to tell. He’ll know what steps to take. You was smart, Kitty, to tell me. May make a big difference—to both sides. Don’t suppose you’ve got a horse about?”
“Indeed we have,” cried Kitty, relieved that she had told her disturbing secret and eager to be of further help, if that were possible. “There are two horses in the barn that belong to Uncle Moses Chase. Sally Rose and I brought them from Newburyport. Gran says they’re eating their heads off, but she hasn’t sent them home. But they’re only plow horses.”
“Kind I’m best used to. Like the gun, I’ll see you get it back some day.” He stroked the blunderbuss that now accompanied him everywhere. “Don’t know when I’ll see you again Kitty. Not here, likely. If the British are aiming to come this way, you folks will have to go.”
“Oh, we will. Just as soon as I can talk to Gran and Sally Rose. Back to Newburyport, perhaps. Why don’t you come to see us there?”
“Can’t tell. Looks like I’ll have some fighting to do first. Glad you took our side and told me that British fellow’s secret, instead of hiding his little plan for him.”
A startled look came over Kitty’s face. “Why—why, I did betray Gerry, didn’t I? I—I never thought of it like that.”
“’Course you betrayed him. You’re too good a Yankee to do aught else, as I can see. Good-by, Kitty.”
He strode into the kitchen on his way to the garden and the barn behind it.
The last thing he heard was a triumphant squeal from Sally Rose.
Colonel John Stark of the New Hampshire line was not in his quarters that night, but walking among the tents on the hillsides above Medford, talking with his men. After the long ride from Charlestown, Tom Trask felt weary and breathless when he finally caught up with his old neighbor.
The colonel stood in a grove of oak trees where a little brook drained down. All along the brook the crude sailcloth tents clustered very thick. Campfires were burning low now. Some of the men lay sleeping on the ground beside them. Others were playing cards, jubilant when they could fling down the ace to take the queen. Stark was talking with a couple of grizzled veterans who had fought beside him in the Indian wars, but he broke off when the younger man came panting up.
“Where you been, lad?” he asked, and clapped Tom on the shoulder. “Couldn’t believe it when Moore reported you missing. Shut up in gaol, maybe? I know you got some good reason for being away.”
Tom could not bring himself to look at the keen blue-gray eyes and sharp, viselike face.
“I been raiding the islands with some of Putnam’s men,” he muttered. “But on my way back tonight, I heard a word in Charlestown you ought to know.”
“You got no business raiding islands, nor being in Charlestown,” snapped the colonel, all the warmth and friendliness gone from his voice. “Get back to Captain Moore, and tell him where you been. He’ll deal with you.” He turned away.
Tom nerved himself to step forward and pluck the sleeve of Stark’s new blue uniform.
“Colonel Stark, sir,” he stammered. “You know what I heard in Charlestown? It come straight from a British captain, what I heard.”
The colonel turned toward him again. “What was it?” he demanded.
Tom lowered his voice. No use in alarming the men. “Oh, a very great secret it was, told in confidence to a girl. This captain said that the British mean to move out of Boston before the week’s end. They mean to seize and fortify either Dorchester Heights or Bunker Hill.” He paused expectantly.
John Stark uttered a mirthless ha-ha.
“I know,” he said. “Seems like you be about the forty-first private to come up and tell me that. The word’s spread wide, from here to Jamaica Plain.” Then he shook his head. “Too bad you done what you done. I’d ha’ liked to ha’ recommended a sergeant’s knot o’ red for your shoulder when I sent you back to Captain Moore.”