Chapter 14

Ben and I turned and scurried back the way we had come.  I tried to move as quietly as he did, but it was impossible.  The moon, which had provided some light to see by, went behind a bank of clouds.  The darkness didn’t seem to bother Ben.  He was at home in the woods and clearly knew the area, so I just concentrated on following his dim outline.  We had been walking for a few minutes when he suddenly stopped and I ran into him.  I started to ask what he was doing, but he clapped his hand over my mouth.

“Sshh,” he hissed in my ear.  “Someone’s comin’.”

He dropped to the ground and froze.  I did the same, straining my eyes and ears to catch some movement or sound in the darkness.  I heard the crackling of dry leaves being stepped on and turned my head in the direction that the sound had come from, but saw nothing.  The moon reappeared.  I could see the shadowy outline of two men with muskets kneeling at the edge of a small clearing, about fifteen feet in front of us.  They were talking very quietly but I could pick up snatches of their conversation.

“. . . Clarke house . . . Hancock and Adams . . . report back . . . Major Mitchell . . .”

I leaned forward, cupped my hand behind my ear so I could hear better, braced my elbow on the ground . . . and broke a twig.  SNAP!  It was the loudest sound I’d ever heard.

The two men immediately stopped talking and jumped to their feet.   “Who’s there,” one of them called out. “Come out with your hands in the air or we’ll fire on you!”  The other man lifted his musket and aimed it in our direction.  I could hear the click of the striker being pulled back.

Ben wriggled over to me and grabbed my arm.  “I’m going to throw this rock into those trees yonder,” he murmured in my ear. “When it lands, start running.”  He jerked his head to the left.  “And don’t stop.”

He lifted his arm and gave his wrist a flip.  A moment later, there was a thunk on the other side of the clearing.  The man turned and fired his musket at the sound.  KERBOOM!  The muzzle flash lit up the woods, and for the split second before I jumped up I saw both men clearly.  The one who had fired was dressed in clothing that looked much the same as the Minutemen’s.  The second man was wearing a black hat with one side turned up, a red coat with gold-colored buttons, white pants and a white belt that ran diagonally across his chest.  He held a sword in one hand and a musket in the other.

I took off, crashing through bushes and dodging trees, with Ben right behind me.  After what seemed to be forever, but was probably only a minute or two, my foot skidded on a flat rock and I tumbled down an embankment covered with leaves, finally stopping at the side of a small stream.  Ben landed almost on top of me.  We lay there, panting.  I tried to hold my breath and thought I heard faint noises that sounded like someone moving through the woods.  I didn’t know if the men were following us, but if they were, they were being very quiet about it.  The moon had gone back behind the clouds and it was very dark again.

I started to get up, but Ben held me down.  He put his mouth next to my ear.  “Don’t be in a hurry.  They could still be out there, waitin’ for us to move.”

After a while, the only sound was the rushing water gurgling near our feet.

Finally, Ben raised his head.  “That was a close one.  Wonder who they were.  Probably part of a Redcoat patrol.  They been scoutin’ around here for a while now, probably trying to find out where Sam Adams and John Hancock are stayin’ so’s the Regulars can march out and capture them.  Wish I’d got a better look at them, but as soon as that musket went off, I buried my nose right into the dirt.”

“I didn’t get my head down as fast as you did, so I saw them just for a second.”  I described the men I had seen in the muzzle flash.

“The one with the sword, the way he’s dressed,” Ben said, still whispering, “he’s a Lobsterback, an officer.  The other one might be a Lobsterback, too, ‘cept not wearing his uniform.  Sometimes they sneak around here disguised so they look like they belong here.  More’n likely, though, he’s a Tory who knows these parts and gets paid to spy on us.  Know what a Tory is?”

“I think so.  A Tory’s a colonist that’s loyal to King George and is against separating the colonies from England.  Most of the Tories in Massachusetts live in Boston, where they can be protected by the Redcoats.”

What I didn’t say, because it hadn’t happened yet, was that in 1776 the American army under George Washington surrounded Boston and the British evacuated the city, with many of the Tories going with them to Canada.  That day, March 17th, is a holiday in Boston called Evacuation Day and there’s no school, which makes me jealous because it’s just a regular school day in Lexington.  But that was all way in the future, and I had to deal with the present.

“I guess you do know what a Tory is.   I’m real bothered, though, that I didn’t get a good look at them, not so much the officer, but the other one, ‘cause if he’s from around here we want to know who he is.  Do you think you’d recognize him if you saw him again?”

“Well, I only had a quick glimpse of him, but yeah, I think so.”

Ben squeezed my shoulder.  “Well, I guess they didn’t follow us.  Didn’t think they would.  This time of night anybody who hears that shot would probably be a Minuteman comin’ to see who fired it, which is the last thing that Redcoat wants.”

“So what do we do now?” I asked.

“What Pa said we should do.  We hustle over to the tavern and tell Sergeant Munroe to send more men out to guard the Clarke house.  He won’t need no urging.  And we tell him about the Lobsterback and his spy friend.  Let’s go.”

Ben crawled back up the bank, with me at his heels, stopping at the top to listen.  The moon had not reappeared, but he started moving slowly.  I followed him closely, reaching out to touch his back to make sure he was still in front of me.  I had no idea where we were or in what direction we were traveling, but Ben moved steadily along.  Finally, we came to the edge of the trees. 
Across a large field in front of us were the lights of Buckman Tavern.

The field was Lexington Common, and as we jogged across it, I couldn’t help thinking that tomorrow there would be a battle here and Minutemen that Ben and his father knew would be killed and wounded.  I wanted to say something to Ben but knew I couldn’t.  What would happen here tomorrow would happen, and there wasn’t anything I could do about it.