what a pretty rabble they sent
us here!”
“I’m from
Connecticut,” Feversham said.
“Well, no. Only in a manner of speaking.”
Feversham
could endure it no longer. “Dr. Church, I asked you to bring me to Dr. Warren,
and now I am bloody damn sorry that I ever did. Ride with me if you wish, but
keep your mouth shut. I cannot tolerate your conversation.”
“Well,
now—” He rode on a few paces more, took a deep breath, and exploded, “You are
an arrogant son of a bitch. Just who in hell do you think you are? How dare you
speak to me like that. I am Dr. Benjamin Church,
member of the Committee of Safety. Do you know what that means? How the devil
would you know? You, a damned Englishman. Or a spy. Would you be a spy, sir? I find you intolerable,
sir. To hell with you and be damned.”
He reined
his horse aside, and Feversham rode on, regretting his own outburst. The little
man had done nothing so terrible. It was his own malaise operating here, his
doubts and loneliness, his sense of disorder and chaos, riding for hours
through the disorganized rabble that called itself an army, and then turning it
against the wretched little man. It was arrogant of him, and he felt sick at
the thing that was eating his craw and tying him up in knots. Well, it was
done, and if he wanted to see Warren, he would have to do so
on his own. Certainly he would have no trouble finding his way to
Watertown, since the little village was now the functioning capital of
Massachusetts, and for all of his guilt, it was a relief to be traveling alone.
Asking the
way, he was told to follow the path along the river and that it would bring him
to Watertown in no more than an hour. In any case, he could hardly desire a
lovelier day to be traveling. The river path was shaded by great elms, maples,
and oaks, and the countryside was as pretty as anything he had ever seen. As he
made his journey away from Boston, he left the tents and shacks of the
militiamen behind him—and this with a sense of relief. It was beyond his
comprehension that an army of several thousand British regulars should consider
themselves besieged in Boston. Why didn’t they simply cut their way through, or
was the memory of how they were decimated on their march back from Concord too
much for them? Or were they simply unwilling to make war?
He found
the latter thought comforting, at least to some degree. He had insisted to his
wife that there would be no war, and then her question was inevitable: “Then
why must you go there?” His action was not connected with anything he could put
to words.
Yet now,
as he pondered it, he realized that he had fled her and the responsibilities
that went with her, and his home and his practice, for
war was the ultimate male liberation, especially the war that was no war but
only an eloquent excuse for the children to escape from the schoolroom. Men
were a race of children, he thought, more sadly than bitterly, and war was a
child’s game until death and horror brought maturity. And then the young were
old, and there was no interval to mark the passage of time.
So it had
been with him. He once had a childhood, but no youth, and now, past forty, he
comforted himself with the thought that he was a healer, not a destroyer. But
even such small comfort was fraught with deceit, for he had shed all
responsibility except the bundle of surgical instruments in his saddlebags.
Even the label of patriot was no rationale, for the sense of himself as a Roman
Catholic in this rocky bed of Protestantism never left him, nor did he truly
know whether his taste for New England was so much deeper than his distaste for
old England, whether he was a man of principle or a turncoat. As always, such
musings always led Feversham to accept the fact that he knew himself very
little.
His period
of introspection had carried him some miles on his way, and now, ahead of him,
he saw a cluster of buildings that might well be Watertown. And
coming toward him, a group of
us here!”
“I’m from
Connecticut,” Feversham said.
“Well, no. Only in a manner of speaking.”
Feversham
could endure it no longer. “Dr. Church, I asked you to bring me to Dr. Warren,
and now I am bloody damn sorry that I ever did. Ride with me if you wish, but
keep your mouth shut. I cannot tolerate your conversation.”
“Well,
now—” He rode on a few paces more, took a deep breath, and exploded, “You are
an arrogant son of a bitch. Just who in hell do you think you are? How dare you
speak to me like that. I am Dr. Benjamin Church,
member of the Committee of Safety. Do you know what that means? How the devil
would you know? You, a damned Englishman. Or a spy. Would you be a spy, sir? I find you intolerable,
sir. To hell with you and be damned.”
He reined
his horse aside, and Feversham rode on, regretting his own outburst. The little
man had done nothing so terrible. It was his own malaise operating here, his
doubts and loneliness, his sense of disorder and chaos, riding for hours
through the disorganized rabble that called itself an army, and then turning it
against the wretched little man. It was arrogant of him, and he felt sick at
the thing that was eating his craw and tying him up in knots. Well, it was
done, and if he wanted to see Warren, he would have to do so
on his own. Certainly he would have no trouble finding his way to
Watertown, since the little village was now the functioning capital of
Massachusetts, and for all of his guilt, it was a relief to be traveling alone.
Asking the
way, he was told to follow the path along the river and that it would bring him
to Watertown in no more than an hour. In any case, he could hardly desire a
lovelier day to be traveling. The river path was shaded by great elms, maples,
and oaks, and the countryside was as pretty as anything he had ever seen. As he
made his journey away from Boston, he left the tents and shacks of the
militiamen behind him—and this with a sense of relief. It was beyond his
comprehension that an army of several thousand British regulars should consider
themselves besieged in Boston. Why didn’t they simply cut their way through, or
was the memory of how they were decimated on their march back from Concord too
much for them? Or were they simply unwilling to make war?
He found
the latter thought comforting, at least to some degree. He had insisted to his
wife that there would be no war, and then her question was inevitable: “Then
why must you go there?” His action was not connected with anything he could put
to words.
Yet now,
as he pondered it, he realized that he had fled her and the responsibilities
that went with her, and his home and his practice, for
war was the ultimate male liberation, especially the war that was no war but
only an eloquent excuse for the children to escape from the schoolroom. Men
were a race of children, he thought, more sadly than bitterly, and war was a
child’s game until death and horror brought maturity. And then the young were
old, and there was no interval to mark the passage of time.
So it had
been with him. He once had a childhood, but no youth, and now, past forty, he
comforted himself with the thought that he was a healer, not a destroyer. But
even such small comfort was fraught with deceit, for he had shed all
responsibility except the bundle of surgical instruments in his saddlebags.
Even the label of patriot was no rationale, for the sense of himself as a Roman
Catholic in this rocky bed of Protestantism never left him, nor did he truly
know whether his taste for New England was so much deeper than his distaste for
old England, whether he was a man of principle or a turncoat. As always, such
musings always led Feversham to accept the fact that he knew himself very
little.
His period
of introspection had carried him some miles on his way, and now, ahead of him,
he saw a cluster of buildings that might well be Watertown. And
coming toward him, a group of
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