Bunker Hill by Howard Fast Page B

twelve mounted men in striking, if outlandish,
uniforms of yellow and green and pink. He hailed them to ask directions.
The leader of the group was a bright-faced young man of nineteen or so who
hastened to inform Feversham that they were the Independent and Loyal Third
Company of Mounted Artillery out of New Haven, Connecticut, that they had been
assigned to duty in Dorchester, whence they were bound—and while they did not
have any cannon at the moment, they had been promised two of the guns that were
captured at Fort Ticonderoga—and that he himself was Capt. Emil Williams.
Through it all he grinned with pride, for what could be more fun than riding
through the countryside on a delightful June day in their wonderful uniforms?
    Feversham
informed him that he himself was from Ridgefield, in Connecticut.
    “By golly,
isn’t that a fine thing,” Captain Williams said.
    Feversham
said that he was looking for Dr. Warren, who was staying at the Hunt house in
Watertown.
    “That’s
Watertown,” the boy said, pointing, “ and the Hunt
place is the big house on your right as you ride in.”
    With that,
he saluted and trotted away, his grinning fellow artillerymen trotting after
him, and such was their pride and pleasure in what they were and how they
looked that Feversham found himself smiling in response. Certainly they were
the envy of the army, twelve uniforms in twelve thousand.
    He rode on
into Watertown, and there was a crowd of more than a hundred men, women, and
children milling in front of the big house on the right, waving their hats and
cheering. Obviously, he decided, the Hunt house, and
obviously an occasion of importance. He dismounted and led his horse to the
edge of the crowd.
    They were
applauding a man who stood at the front door of the house, looking hesitant and
uncomfortable as he shook hands with one person after another. He was a man in
his mid-thirties, tall, well built, with bright blue eyes and a great head of
sand-colored hair—a very handsome man whose uneasy and embarrassed smile was
most winning. He wore a loose white comfort shirt, black trousers, and white
stockings. Feversham suspected that this was Joseph Warren. After watching him
for a minute or two, he decided that he liked him—and felt that most people
did. There was something totally outgoing and ingenuous about the man.
Feversham had no notion as to why they were congratulating him, but he appeared
to accept their praise with such boyish gratitude that his manner was most
winning.
    Bit by
bit, the crowd drifted away. Feversham remained, his
arm through the reins of his horse. Still engaged with two men at the front of
the house, the tall blond man noticed Feversham and nodded at him. A few words
more, and then he walked over to Feversham and looked at him inquiringly. “I’m
Dr. Warren,” he said. “And you, sir?”
    “Dr.
Feversham. Evan Feversham.”
    “Oh, of course, of course. I knew you would be coming by. General Putnam told me. What a pleasure. Indeed,
what a pleasure.”
    He shook
hands with Feversham, and now the two men who had been speaking with Warren
joined them. “You must forgive all this fuss and bother,” Warren went on. “You
see, they’ve just made me a major general, that is, the Congress did, and the
news is just arrived. Incredible, isn’t it? A bit ridiculous, too. It boggles
my mind, and you must forgive me if I make no sense whatsoever. I simply say it
in the way of explanation.”
    “Not
ridiculous at all,” said a short, stocky, middle-aged man, bespectacled, his
shirt and hands ink stained.
    “This is
Benjamin Edes, who prints the Boston Gazette . He’s in exile here, like
the rest of us, chased out of Boston and making the lives of the poor folk in
Watertown utterly wretched, and this”— indicating the second man, stocky,
wide-faced—“is Paul Revere, who’s printing money for us, although heaven knows
what we can buy for it.” And to them: “And this is Dr. Feversham, who