Citizen Tom Paine by Howard Fast Page A

events he was narrating.
    That night of the eighteenth, few of the Lexington villagers slept. Most of those who were dragged home by their wives dressed themselves and slipped away, taking gun, powderhorn, and bullet pouch with them, to join the group at the tavern. The devil walked tonight, but angels were behind him; there was never such a night before, and there wouldn’t be one again. The men at the tavern talked in whispers, although they could have shouted and not found a sleeping body to be wakened, and they fingered their guns nervously, counted their bullets, and wondered whether to shoot a man was any different from shooting squirrels and rabbits. Captain Parker, their commander, who had seen guns go off during the French War, was none too easy himself, and found it difficult to answer all the questions flung at him.
    A while before dawn, out of a need to do something, Parker sent Zeke Sudberry over to the church to set the bells ringing. Zeke rang until everyone in the village was thoroughly awake, the women with their heads out the windows crying, “Shame, shame that a lot of grown men don’t know any better!”
    Parker told his men to fall in, which they did rather self-consciously, grinning at each other, whispering back and forth:
    â€œFine soldier you are, Isaac.”
    â€œClick your heels, Jed. Act like you got a real fancy waistcoat on.”
    And to fourteen-year-old Jerry Hicks, “Now, Jerry, why don’t you go home and study your lessons.”
    â€œForward march!” Parker shouted, and they stamped over to the lawn in front of the Congregational Church. Once there, Parker scratched his head, seemingly unable to think of a further movement. The pastor, a light fowling piece in his hand, came out and said, “Bless my soul, and it isn’t Sunday.”
    It was nice having him there, and everyone became easier and began to talk a great deal. The gray of the dawn was now changing to pastel pink and peach and taupe, and across the fields the crows screamed angrily, “Caw, caw, caw!” Joshua Lang’s dog, who was a fool for any sort of bird noise, ran toward the crows, barking at the top of his lungs.
    Then the talk stopped; they stiffened; they looked at one another. There was another sound in the world. Faintly, thinly at first, and then more clearly, and then sharp and hard came the beating of drums, the shrilling of pipes, a mocking swinging cadence, an invitation to glory, death—and God only knows what else.
    No one had to say who it was; they knew, and no one spoke. Leaning on their guns in that cheerful April morning, tense, frightened most of them, knowing for the first time in their lives an overpowering desire to run away, men, boys, old gaffers, children, the simple folk of a simple New England farming community, they kept their appointment with destiny.
    At the City Tavern in Philadelphia, the rider had his fourth glass of beer and said, “They stood, by God!”
    â€œA fight?” someone asked.
    â€œHell, man! I said they stood. Boy and man, they faced up and goddamned the redcoats all to hell.”
    â€œAnd then?”
    â€œYou never saw a bloody lobster turn his back on a gun,” the messenger snorted.
    The redcoat troops marched to within a dozen yards of the villagers before their officer commanded them to halt, and then they stood in their precise files, in their precise and colorful uniforms, in their great shakos, in their white wigs and white belting, men of London, of Suffolk and Norfolk, of Devon and Wales and Scotland and Ireland, staring so curiously at the gawky farmers, who, having come from the same places that bred them, were now outlanders, incredible rustics. For long moments the two groups faced one another; it was a moment the redcoats were trained for, but the farmers’ hands were wet on their guns.
    Then Major Pitcairn, commanding the British, made up his mind, spurred to the front and roared,