announced that the lieutenant had fired five shots inside sixty seconds. Most men could manage three shots a minute with a clean musket, a few could shoot four rounds, but the doctor’s son, friend of a duke, could fire five. Moore had been trained in musketry by a Prussian, and as a boy he had practiced and practiced, perfecting the essential soldier’s skill, and so certain was he of his ability that, as he loaded the last two shots, he did not even bother to look at his borrowed weapon, but instead smiled wryly at Sergeant McClure. “Five!” Moore announced, his ears ringing with the explosions. “Did any man defeat me, Sergeant?”
“No, sir. Private Neill managed three shots, sir, the rest did two.”
“Then my guinea is safe,” Moore said, scooping it up.
“But are we?” McClure muttered.
“You spoke, Sergeant?”
McClure stared down the bluff. The smoke was clearing and he could see that the canted tree, just thirty paces away, was unscarred by any musket-ball. “There’s precious few of us, sir,” he said, “and we’re all alone here and there’s a lot of rebels.”
“All the more to kill,” Moore said. “We shall take post here till the fog lifts, Sergeant, then look for a better vantage point.”
“Aye, sir.”
The picquet was posted; their task to watch for the coming of an enemy. That enemy, the brigadier had assured his officers, would come. Of that McLean was sure. So he cut down trees and plotted where the fort must be.
To defend the king’s land from the king’s enemies.
Excerpt of letter from the Massachusetts Council, to the Continental Navy Board in Boston, June 30th, 1779:
Excerpts from the Warrant of Impressment issued to Masschusetts sheriffs, July 3rd, 1779:
Excerpt from a letter sent by Brigadier-General Charles Cushing to the Council of the State of Massachusetts, June 19th, 1779:
Chapter Two
Lieutenant-Colonel Paul Revere stood square in the Boston Armory yard. He wore a light blue uniform coat faced in brown, white deerskin breeches, knee boots, and had a naval cutlass hanging from a thick brown belt. His wide-brimmed hat was made of felt, and it shadowed a broad, stubborn face that was creased in thought. “You making that list, boy?” he demanded brusquely.
“Yes, sir,” the boy answered. He was twelve, the son of Josiah Flint who ruled the armory from his high- backed, well-padded chair that had been dragged from the office and set beside the trestle table where the boy made his list. Flint liked to sit in the yard when the weather allowed so he could keep an eye on the comings and goings in his domain.
“Drag chains,” Revere said, “sponges, searchers, relievers, am I going too fast?”
“Relievers,” the boy muttered, dipping his pen into the inkwell.
“Hot today,” Josiah Flint grumbled from the depths of his chair.
“It’s summer,” Revere said, “and it should be hot. Rammers, boy, and wad hooks. Spikes, tompions, linstocks, vent-covers. What have I forgotten, Mister Flint?”
“Priming wires, Colonel.”
“Priming wires, boy.”
“Priming wires,” the boy said, finishing the list.
“And there’s something else in the back of my mind,” Flint said, frowning, then thought for a moment before shaking his head. “Maybe nothing,” he said.
“You hunt through your pa’s supplies, boy,” Revere said, “and you make piles of all those things. We need to know how many we’ve got. You note down how many and then you tell me. Off you go.”
“And buckets,” Josiah Flint added hurriedly.
“And buckets!” Revere called after the boy. “And not leaking buckets either!” He took the boy’s vacated chair and watched as Josiah Flint bit into a chicken leg. Flint was an enormous man, his belly spilling over his belt, and he seemed intent on becoming even fatter because whenever Revere visited the arsenal he found his friend eating. He had a plate of cornbread, radishes, and chicken that he vaguely gestured towards, as if inviting Colonel Revere to share the dish.
“You haven’t been given orders yet, Colonel?” Flint asked. His nose had been shattered by a bullet at Saratoga just minutes before a cannon ball took away his right leg. He could no longer breathe through his nose and so his breath had to be drawn past the half-masticated food filling his mouth. It made a snuffling sound. “They should have given you orders, Colonel.”
“They don’t know whether they’re pissing or puking, Mister Flint,” Revere said, “but I can’t wait while they make up their minds. The guns have to be ready!”
“No man better than you, Colonel,” Josiah Flint said, picking a shred of radish from his front teeth.
“But I didn’t go to Harvard, did I?” Revere asked with a forced laugh. “If I spoke Latin, Mister Flint, I’d be a general by now.”
“
“I expect so,” Revere said. He pulled a folded copy of the
“Not for long, Colonel.”
“I hope not,” Revere said. The Massachusetts government, learning that the British had landed men at Majabigwaduce, had determined to send an expedition to the Penobscot River, to which end a fleet was being gathered, orders being sent to the militia, and officers being appointed. “Well, well,” Revere said, peering at the newspaper. “It seems the Spanish have declared war on the British now!”
“Spain as well as France,” Flint said. “The bloodybacks can’t last long now.”
“Let’s pray they last long enough to give us a chance to fight them at Maja.” Revere paused, “Majabigwaduce,” he said. “I wonder what that name means?”
“Just some Indian nonsense,” Flint said. “Place Where the Muskrat Pissed Down Its Legs, probably.”
“Probably,” Revere said distantly. He took off his glasses and stared at a pair of sheer-legs that waited to lift