Chapter 42
Boston, Massachusetts
December 1774
THE ENTIRE REGIMENT, along with the 38th and 52nd regiments, was ordered to watch one hundred lashes given to the deserter.
It was bitterly cold. A few snowflakes danced in the gusts of wind. James left the barracks. He stood in line with others. Thomas had saved a place for him in the first row at the end. Corporal Tilley stood next to Thomas. All wore full military dress as directed.
General Gage arrived last. He stood at the end of the first row next to James.
James wondered if the General was going to do the lashing himself. He had said he wanted to be present to reinforce how serious desertion was.
Two privates dragged the deserter from the building entrance of the small house used as a jail.
The deserter was not a big man, maybe five foot six or seven. He was slim but muscular. In civilian life he had been a farmer. He wore pants, not regimental pants, but pants farmers would wear tilling their fields. His legs and feet were naked as well as the area between his neck and belt.
From his vantage point of about fifty feet, James thought the man looked terrified as would anyone about to be whipped one hundred times.
“There’ll be a drum beat for every lash,” Thomas, who stood to the right of James, whispered. “I don’t know if they always do that.”
It was his first time to witness a lashing. James didn’t want to watch, but everyone had been ordered to keep their eyes open. “Hearing the whip and screams will set an example,” the General had said last night at dinner. “Discourages more desertions.”
The regiment doctor stood to the left of the deserter, close enough to observe, far enough not to get hit with the whip. He could call a halt if he thought the deserter was near collapse. James wondered if that was because they worried about the man’s well-being or if they wanted to guarantee he experienced every lash with full pain.
Danny marched behind four men with his drum. Each of the four carried a whip and would be responsible for 25 blows. Danny’s drum beat reminded James of church funeral bells. The boy wore his smaller drum strapped over his shoulder and around his waist, leaving his hands free for the batons. This drum, unlike the one he used for marching practice, had no artwork. It was painted a light green, the same green as leaves when they first burst out in spring. Today’s weather was as opposite to spring as possible.
Danny’s eyes met James’ or so James imagined. He wondered what Danny must be thinking. Sometimes, the two of them would sit together at meals, but they never really talked about anything of importance: weather, regiment gossip, a ball game that the soldiers played with a bat or a popular card game. Sometimes they mentioned life back home, Danny more than James.
Neither James nor Danny would play anything where they could lose money. James didn’t know what Danny was saving his money for, but as for him, he wanted to be able to buy something at the end of his contract with the regiment. His plans changed regularly. He had ruled out a farm, but more and more thought about starting a bakery in one of the nearby villages. His bread was better than any he’d eaten in Boston, although he thought it could be the quality of the flour that made the taste vary.
He had to laugh at himself, realizing that he was thinking of recreating the life he had in Ely, with one major exception. He would be in charge, not his brother. He imagined himself with a wife, someone like Mollie Clark or Sally Brewster. In reality their fathers would be a real impediment to courting them. Courting would be a good way to serve the General as a spy, because there was no doubt that their fathers were influential members of the Sons of Liberty.
At breakfast mess two days ago, Danny said he had a letter from his mother. “She wants me to say hello to you and remind you of your promise. What promise?”
“To keep your sorry skin out of trouble,” James had said. “Pass the salt.”
James brought his attention back to the scene in front of him. He didn’t want to be there. He hadn’t known the deserter all that well. They had shared night guard duty walking the streets once. The man was not chatty, but he did reveal he that thought he had made a mistake signing up. He should be home on the family farm.
James didn’t want to see him hurt. He didn’t want to see anyone hurt, even if the person was guilty of desertion.
Danny’s beat slowed and stopped. The deserter stopped and faced the brick wall. One soldier grabbed the man’s left hand. He tied it to a metal ring. A second soldier did the same with the deserter’s right hand forcing his stomach to touch the wall. The deserter had to turn his head and rest his cheek against the brick. His hands were above his head.
The General turned to speak to the officer directly behind him. “This should be a lesson to everyone.”
Maybe the lesson was not to get caught. What if the traitor hadn’t stopped where he did near Worcester but had travelled onto Springfield or gone north to New Hampshire? What if he had taken refuge with the Indians? If he’d gone into the wilderness, if he had gone further and faster, he would not be about to suffer the whip.
The four men stood evenly spaced behind the deserter. Each held a whip of leather strips about three feet long. They had been twisted into a handle that the beaters could grip. James wasn’t sure if the strips were made of rope or leather, as if it mattered. Each stroke would hurt like hell. Stupid expression, James thought. No one knows what hell is really like.
The wind velocity increased as the snow became heavier, although not blizzard strength. It gave a veiled view to the whipping.
Chatter through the regiment said the deserter was lucky. Although whippings weren’t common, 100 was a lighter sentence. Up to 300 could be the norm. However, with the half a dozen strips coming from the handle, wouldn’t that mean 600 lashes instead of 100?
“Do you think they’ll go light on him?” Thomas whispered.
James shrugged. Did rope hurt more than leather? He didn’t want to think about the pain the man was about to undergo. Gage spoke to the doctor but what he said wasn’t heard. As the highest-ranking officer present, the General was the one to give the order to start.
Danny did a drum roll at the General’s signal.
One of the four soldiers administering the punishment stood directly behind the deserter. The other three stood to one side.
Danny picked up his batons as the man raised his arm, the whip dangling. Danny hit the drum hard, the sound echoing at the exact moment the whip seared the flesh of the deserter. The man did not scream.
Again, again, again, again.
The other soldiers were mute as if mannequins on display in some war museum.
James knew the traitor had friends in the ranks, but none of them would break formation to help. He found himself counting as the number of lashes mounted. Eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two. Then he realized that the serjeant in charge was counting aloud.
The man doing the whipping stepped back to allow a second soldier to take his place.
The drum beat continued. The serjeant’s counting continued until, “Forty-five, forty-six, forty-seven, forty-eight, forty-nine, fifty.”
Danny’s single drumbeat marked the whip cutting the deserter’s back.
The traitor’s mouth did not open. James assumed he wasn’t screaming. Or maybe the snow was blurring James’ vision. He wasn’t sure he could be as stoic. Yes, he was sure —sure that he wouldn’t be able. He had never planned to desert. Serving out his contract couldn’t come fast enough after witnessing this. Still, he would do his duty as he had sworn to do.
Red stripes crisscrossed the deserter’s back.
“Stop!” The doctor’s voice broke the rhythm of the whip and drum. He walked over to the man and examined his bloody back. He took the man’s pulse. James thought he heard him ask if the man preferred to continue now or tomorrow, although with the wind, that would have been impossible to make out what was being said. “Continue,” the doctor yelled. Everyone on the parade ground heard.
The third man took the place of the second man.
It started again: the crack of the whip whistling in the wind and the single drumbeat.
The fourth man took the place of the third after the seventy-fifth slash.
Then, “Ninety-five, ninety-six, ninety-seven, ninety-eight, ninety-nine, one hundred,” James counted aloud along with the serjeant.
“Cut him down,” the doctor yelled.
The two soldiers, who had fastened the man to the wall, undid the shackles. The deserter fell to the snow-covered ground. One soldier took the man’s feet, the other under his arms and headed back to the jail, leaving a patch of red snow.
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