The Condition by Jennifer Haigh

Author:Jennifer Haigh [Haigh, Jennifer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-10-09T04:39:17+00:00

c h a p t e r 5

Halfway through a wet April, Massachusetts went to war.

The morning had been cool and foggy. A damp rain soaked the town green. Down the road, in Lexington, eight militiamen had fallen beneath a cloud of musket smoke.Then the murderous column of British regulars had arrived in Concord, looking for weapons.The local militia had stockpiled cannon and muskets, which the regulars had been ordered to destroy.

In Concord the colonists were ready. Had been readying for months, in fact, gathering supplies—a dozen cords of wood, six hundred bales of straw; a hundred and forty portable toilets, discreetly placed in strategic locations around Minuteman National Park.Troops had been mobilized and bivouacked—at the Best Western on Route 2A, the Comfort Inn in Woburn. By hand and machine, uniforms had been sewn.

Properly outfitted, the soldiers massed around North Bridge.

The minutemen were stationed on the far side, over the Concord River; three companies of his majesty’s troops held the low ground.

The regulars had uncovered, and burned, small stockpiles of weapons.

The British had come to set fire to the town! The order was given, the muskets loaded. As it did every wet April, the American Revolution began.

Paulette stood in her assigned spot, shivering despite the two wool petticoats she wore beneath her cloak. She hadn’t missed a Battle Road in years; it was her third time as a costumed interpreter, and still as the first 210

J E N N I F E R H A I G H

shot rang out, a thrill ran through her. Long ago, back when schoolchil-dren still memorized poetry, young Paulette Drew had learned the words to Emerson’s “Concord Hymn.” They returned to her like a prayer: Here once the embattled farmers stood /

And fired the shot heard round the world.

She waited for her cue to speak. Some of the other interpreters gave the same address year after year, but Paulette was not complacent.

Every year she made an effort to add something new. It wasn’t easy to do.The battle at North Bridge had lasted only a few minutes. Just one colonist and one British soldier had been killed. Only later, when colonists from the bridge met up with another group of minutemen at Meriam’s Corner, did the real fighting begin.

A bit nervously, she deliverered her remarks. Later, after she’d finished, she was approached by a man in leather breeches. You’re Paulette.

I’ve been working next door for Barbara Marsh. She says you need help with your kitchen floor.

Now, ten months later, she remembered everything about that moment: the blond man handsome in his uniform, his serious gaze, the surprising gravity of his voice. She recalled it as she sat drinking weak coffee in the town library, waiting for the rest of the committee to arrive.Waiting, if she were to be honest, for Gil Pyle, who must surely be back from Florida. She kept her eyes on the door, waiting.

Then, just as the meeting started, she felt a hand on her shoulder

“Hi there,” Pyle whispered. “Do you have a minute afterward? I need to talk to you.

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