Bunker Hill Read online

  Like Clinton, he would have preferred that the punishment had been less severe—at least while the fleet was in the port of Boston.

  The boat touched the dock, and Sir William Howe exploded, “Goddamn it to hell, I had the company of a lady today, and I clean

  forgot it!”

  “Do you ever think of anything else?” Burgoyne asked.

  “Not when I am off duty, laddy. I’ll see you gentlemen.” Then he hurried down the street, half-running.

  “Amazing man,” said Burgoyne. “Utterly preoccupied with fucking. He literally exists for it. Here in Boston just a fortnight or so and he knows every lady available.”

  “It’s not the screwing,” Clinton said. “He wants to be loved, Johnny. We all do.”

  “Turned Christian?” Burgoyne grinned, and Gage said, why don’t they amble along to his place and have some tea and some sensible talk about what was to be done?

  “I’ll have something stronger than tea,” said Clinton.

  They walked on, a squad of Gage’s troops marching six on either side, accompanying them through the almost deserted city of Boston. Clinton wondered how many had gone and how many were left. He saw only two civilians, and they were hurriedly on their way.

  “One in three, perhaps,” said Gage. “The others have taken off. They have relatives everywhere. They’re a close-knit lot.”

  “And what’s left are loyal?”

  “You tell me.”

  “They bolt their doors and stay inside,” Burgoyne said. “I’d root them out, and damned if I wouldn’t make them declare themselves!”

  “To what end?” Gage asked tiredly. “It’s not a war and it’s not a peace, and I can’t say that I know what it is.”

  “If we’re going to talk seriously,” Clinton said, “and it’s high time that we did, we’ll want our happy lad Howe with us, won’t we? Why the devil can’t he do his fornicating at night?”

  “Because he’s screwing a lady called Amanda Blaketon whose husband spends his days plotting with the rebels and his nights at home.”

  “Why not arrest him and make it easy for Sir William?”

  “For what? For being her husband?” Clinton asked.

  “Plotting with the rebels,” Burgoyne suggested.

  “Good heavens, Johnny, where do I start, and where do I finish? You really have no idea. It’s not a simple question of loyalty or disloyalty. They regard themselves as proper Englishmen.”

  “Proper Englishmen?” Gage wondered aloud.

  “The column into Concord botched it. I know that.”

  “They shot the very hell out of us. Proper Englishmen be damned!” Gage said.

  “Then you tell me, dear fellow. Do we start a war?”

  “It is a war,” Burgoyne snapped.

  “It’s not a war,” Clinton said sourly.

  “My business is war. That’s why I was sent here,” said Burgoyne. “You deal with a war by ending it. I would have put every one of the bastards into irons.”

  “How many? A thousand? Five thousand? Ten thousand?” Gage said.

  “That wretched seaman Merton spelled it out.”

  “I don’t follow you.”

  “He died.”

  “I haven’t heard two sensible words about this whole mess since I have been here,” Clinton said. “Suppose we drop it now and have a spot of tea and put our heads together sanely. It’s quite ridiculous, you know. The best army in the world backed by the best navy in the world bottled up here in this wretched Continental village by a lot of hotheaded, disorganized farmers. We are supposed to be hardheaded, intelligent military men. Or are we?”

  Then they were at Province House, Gage’s home and executive mansion, where Mrs. Gage greeted them almost somberly. It gave Clinton the thought that already she knew about the disgusting mess of the flogging, but then he realized that that was impossible.

  They had come straight from the ship. As they entered the house, Howe joined them, mumbling something about thinking better of the whole thing and that they ought to get down to business after all. His big, shambling form took on the stance of a penitent little boy, and looking at his swarthy face, Clinton realized that he was blushing.

  “I don’t believe it,” Burgoyne said. Howe told him to shut his bloody mouth and then apologized profusely to Mrs. Gage.

  Clinton, watching Mrs. Gage, realized that she had apparently heard neither Howe’s oath nor his apology. Margaret Gage was a lovely, intelligent woman, and Clinton had fallen into the habit of flirting with her, not crudely or even noticeably but with the smallest and gentlest of gestures and courtesies. Gage himself never noticed, or if he did, shrugged it off as a matter of no importance. The truth of it was that he was so utterly entrapped and frustrated by his situation that he might hardly have noticed had Clinton and his wife embraced in front of him.

  “Is there trouble, Margaret?” Clinton asked her. He had fallen into calling her by her first name the first day they met, cozened it out of her with his easy manner, and with that her permission to use it. Sir William noticed. He envied both Clinton and Burgoyne for their easy manner with women. Arriving with them in America a few days ago, he as a Whig had expected that his reputation as a great friend of the colonies would have preceded him, and since he lived with a dream of politics as seduction, he was almost always disappointed.

  In reply to Clinton’s question, Margaret Gage told her husband that Dr. Benjamin Church had been there.

  “We’ll have tea, my dear, if it’s no trouble. With a bottle of sherry or Madeira. I think the Madeira would be better.”

  “I don’t want him in my house again!” Mrs. Gage said.

  “Really, my dear.”

  “Please understand me, Thomas. He is a disgusting man, and he disgusts me.”

  “But why suddenly? You know how useful he is to me.”

  “You want to know why? In front of these gentlemen?”

  “I have no secrets from them.”

  “Very well. He made advances.”

  “Dr. Church?” Gage exclaimed in amazement. “That fat, foolish little man! Oh, no, my dear. You must be mistaken. What advances?”

  “He fondled my tits, if you must, sir!” she cried out in a rage, then turned on her heel and left the room.

  Burgoyne stifled his grin, and they all looked at Gage, who whispered, “Well, I’ll be damned!”

  “None of our business,” Clinton said.

  “Talk for yourself, son,” said Howe. “I’m dying of curiosity, and devil take the niceties! Who is this bastard? The man wants a whipping.”

  “Dr. Benjamin Church.” Gage sighed. “Oh, no. No indeed. You don’t want to whip him, Sir William. He’s a fat little man, half your size, and he’s a sort of nasty treasure to me. I always think of him as a toad. You see, he’s a very important muckamuck among the rebels. Great patriot. Member of the Committee of Safety. Sits in on all their important meetings. Absolutely invaluable. And I bought him. Offer and purchase—fifty pounds for the dirty little swine. But I can’t treat him like a gentleman. He’s much too important to me. You can see what a wretched mess this whole thing is.” And with that, he followed his wife out of the room.

  “I’ll be damned!” said Howe.

  Burgoyne wandered around the room, studying the hand-blocked wallpaper, the paintings, the beautifully wrought Queen Anne side chairs. Good taste. It astonished him how well they managed to live here at the edge of the wilderness. Clinton watched him. Burgoyne was a playwright, a rotten one, as Clinton appraised him, but still a playwright. If I ever write anything, it’ll be better than his, Clinton thought. Books. We’re here to destroy, not to write books. Still, he

  gets his silly plays produced.

  Howe was muttering, “Fondled her tits, did he.”

  “Henry,” Burgoyne said to Clinton, “this is a damn strange place, this America of yours. How do you feel about it? I mean, how do you see yourself? One of them or one of us?”

  “That’s an odd ques
tion.”

  “You grew up in the colonies. Where? In New York?”

  The servants were setting up the tea, and Howe poured the Madeira. Gage rejoined them.

  “Terribly sorry,” Burgoyne said to him.

  “She’s in a pet. I don’t blame her,” Gage said. “She loves this place, you know. And she blames us. We’re going to make a war and destroy it.”

  “Not necessarily,” Howe said.

  The servants put the chairs to the table, and Gage motioned for them to sit down.

  “Not necessarily,” Howe said again.

  Sir William Howe had a reputation to uphold. All the Howes were friends of America, a great, powerful family, a general, an admiral, a foot in the court. They sat down with the king and talked to him face-to-face.

  We can deal with our enemies, Clinton thought. God save us from our friends. Us, he repeated to himself. Who is us and who the devil am I? He had grown up here in this place, ten years of his youth in New York City, where his father was governor. The whole thing made no damn sense whatsoever—a British army pinned down in the little town of Boston by fifteen thousand boys and grown men and old men who were filled with a senseless rage generated by a senseless act. The act was Thomas Gage’s fault and Gage’s stupidity. Gage had sent the army into their land, to the village of Concord, to take away from them the gunpowder and the shot they had so carefully stored.

  They were playing a game, a game filled with words of freedom and independence and the right to do as they damn pleased, and then Gage joined their game, and the world went mad. You don’t send generals to do a man’s job; you send the generals to kill.

  “Let’s have a toast.” John Burgoyne lifted his glass. “His Majesty, gentlemen.” He was grinning.

  The bastard was thinking of Margaret Gage’s tits. This afternoon, perhaps, they would decide the fate of the world, and Burgoyne was sitting there trying to decide whether it was worth his while to seduce Margaret Gage. Well, how far was that from his own thoughts? Howe wondered.

  The servants brought cake and hard-boiled eggs and bread and sliced ham. Gage and Howe ate hungrily. They had finished lunch an hour ago, and here they were stuffing themselves again. Burgoyne sat with his smile and his thoughts. Clinton poured himself more wine.

  “What do you mean, not necessarily?” Clinton asked Howe.

  “Do nothing. They’ll cool off and go home. They’re not soldiers. No one is paying them or feeding them. They’ll be bloody well disenchanted in a week or two, if they’re not already. Ask Thomas here,” Howe said, nodding at Gage.

  “I am offended,” said Burgoyne.

  “He’s right, you know,” Gage said. “They’re breaking up already. They’re in a much more impossible situation than we are.”

  “I said I was offended,” Burgoyne repeated.

  “Oh, Christ, Johnny,” Clinton said, “what in hell are you offended about? Why don’t you take your bleeding honor and shove it up your ass.”

  “How dare you!” Burgoyne exploded.

  “Come on, chaps,” Howe said. “We’re a lot of paunchy middle-aged men, not children. You’ve been bitching all day, Henry.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “The hell you are!” Burgoyne snapped. “Talk to me like that again, Clinton, and so help me God I’ll put you on a field of honor. So help me, I will!”

  “Oh, yes, yes, indeed,” Howe said, and Clinton reflected that he was nowhere such a fool as he appeared. “They send the three best iron-assed generals they have over here, and Henry Clinton and John Burgoyne work out the problem on a field of honor. Score one for lunacy. Eat something, Henry. I can’t tolerate a man who sneers at food.”

  “Johnny, please end this right here,” Gage said worriedly.

  Burgoyne shrugged. “Ended.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Clinton with cold formality. “That is an apology.”

  “Now about the Yankees,’’ Howe continued. “Tell us, Thomas. What does it add up to? Have they been going home? You have people like this wretched Dr. Church. What do they say?”

  “It’s a matter of hay—feed for their stock.”

  “You mean for their horses here?”

  “No, no—you know, most of them are farmers, what we call yeomen farmers back at home, but they have land. Good God, that’s the crux of this place, all the land in the world and no end to it as you move west. Well, they put pastures of it to grass, and the grass is ready for the cutting between the middle of May and the middle of June. That’s how they raise their stock—so much grass to feed so many animals. They cut the grass now, and they cut it again in six or seven weeks. It’s not fine grain, but it serves for feed. Well, today is the twelfth of June, and it’s on to the end of the time for them. If they don’t cut the grass, they will have to kill the animals.”

  “Then they’ll go home?” Clinton asked with sudden interest.

  “Come on, come on, you don’t win wars that way,” Burgoyne said.

  “Not proper wars, but damn it all, this is no proper war, Johnny. They have no army, no uniforms, no tactics. Heavens, they don’t even have a table of organization, and the men from—well, say Connecticut—they won’t even tolerate officers. They’re damn sodden with the leveler business, and when they don’t like an

  officer, they hold a meeting and vote him out.”

  “No!”

  “God’s truth. Now, according to Church, on the ninth about two hundred walked out, two hundred and fifty or so on the tenth, and yesterday almost three hundred. They just pick up and off they go, and the food is so tight that no one complains. After all, it’s a bit of a bore—no drill, no discipline, just sitting out there and chewing their nails.”

  Clinton was aware of Burgoyne’s anger before the others sensed it. “A maggot’s eating the man,” he said to himself. “He’s full of maggots.” The others didn’t know him. He was Gentleman Johnny, who would rather write plays and screw the prima donnas than be out in the field. But that was a total lie and a pose, and it was blood the man wanted. Not like the other three. Howe had a taste for success and a soft spine, and Gage had a taste for comfort. That was the worst disease for a military man, to prefer comfort.

  At this moment Clinton’s whole being ached to be away from the three of them and naked in bed with a woman, but comfort wasn’t entirely what he wanted. Then what was? Did he have a taste for glory? Or did he have a taste for nothing at all, which would be the final jest.

  Burgoyne was on his feet, pacing across the room. Suddenly he turned and thrust a finger at the three men and half-shouted, his voice high-pitched, “To let those lousy peasants walk away from here and eat shit. No, gentlemen! Give me a thousand grenadiers and this wretched rebellion will be a memory!”

  The three generals sat in silence. Howe continued to eat, his black eyes fixed on Burgoyne.

  “You let them go home, Thomas. Go ahead. You command!” he shouted at Gage. “I am an Englishman. I represent the majesty of the most splendid empire this world has known.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Clinton told himself. “I truly don’t believe it. The horse’s ass is writing himself into his own play.”

  “Ah, now, Johnny, calm down,” Howe said. “We haven’t a thought among the lot of us. Thomas spelled out some facts, and likely enough we’ll see the farmers in hell, but we’ll deal with fewer of them. Tell you what my notion is.” He turned to Gage. “Put a map on the table, Thomas, and we’ll see where we are and what’s to do.”

  “After all,” he said to Burgoyne, “we’re a trio of tyros. Nice phrase that, don’t you think, Johnny? We’re the new elegance from the homeland, and poor Thomas has been sitting on this powder keg for months. I am not one to suggest a war, not with Englishmen, don’t you know—and they are Englishmen—but a battle’s another thing. A purgative effect. They caught us by our cocks at Lexington and Concord, and it’s time we did a bit of gelding.”

  “I’ll get the map,” Gage replied gloomily, and left the table and went int
o the next room. Howe poured a glass of wine and offered it to Burgoyne. “Come drink with us, Johnny.” Burgoyne stood his distance. “Ah, Johnny, Johnny, you have a quick temper.” Gage came back into the room with a servant, who cleared the table, and then Gage spread out the map. Burgoyne, mollified, joined them.

  “This is Clifton Trowman’s work,” Gage explained, “and he’s a damn good cartographer. I’m sure you know the lay of the land, gentlemen, so I will simply orient you. Here’s the neck of Boston, here the Charles River, here the Mystic River. These are Dorchester Heights, and this is the village of Charlestown. The broken line traces the Yankee position.”

  They studied the map for a little while, and then Clinton wondered how many men they actually had out there.

  “Ten, twelve, fifteen thousand—I don’t think they really know themselves,” Gage said. “They come and they go.”

  “Who’s in command, and what’s the beggar like?” Burgoyne asked.

  “That’s hard to say,” Gage admitted, “and it’s questionable whether anyone is truly in command. There’s this old gentleman from Worcester, Artemus Ward’s his name. Pleasant enough chap—bit fanatical, but that’s the Puritan in him. He’s in command of the Massachusetts men, if you call it command. He has a bellyful of trouble.”

  “What kind of trouble?” Howe demanded.

  “He pisses in agony. Stones in the bladder or something of the sort. Drives him crazy with pain, so mostly it’s John Thomas who does his work. They both style themselves generals. Thomas has something less than half the Massachusetts men here”—Gage traced it on the map—“between Dorchester and Roxbury, covering the Boston Neck. The rest of the Massachusetts contingent is over here at Cambridge, spread out. With them, perhaps two, three, four thousand from Connecticut and Rhode Island. I get different figures every day. And some of the same lot are over at Roxbury. A good bit of shifting from day to day. And here, right at the water edge, about a thousand more from Connecticut. They’re a bad lot.”