azed, and on the death of a comrade
were ready to stop work. But Prescott, coolly insisting--against the
protest of a horrified chaplain--that the body be immediately buried,
took his stand upon the parapet, and from there directed the finishing
of the redoubt.

In this position he was seen from Boston. Gage, handing his
field-glasses to a Tory who stood near him, asked if he recognized the
rebel. The Tory was Willard of Lancaster, a mandamus councillor, who
well knew Prescott's declared intention never to be taken alive.

"He is my brother-in-law," he replied.

"Will he fight?" asked Gage.

"I cannot answer for his men," said Willard; "but Prescott will fight
you to the gates of hell!"[93]

At the redoubt one of Prescott's aids followed his example, and walking
back and forth on the parapet the two gave courage to their men. These
fell to and completed the work. The rampart was raised to a considerable
height, platforms of earth or wood were made inside for the defenders,
and at about eleven o'clock the men stacked their tools and were ready.

The redoubt, when thus finished, was roughly square, about "eight rods
on the longest side," which had a single angle projecting toward the
south. Running northwards from the northeast corner Prescott had made a
breastwork of perhaps two hundred feet,[94] to prevent flanking. It
stretched toward the Mystic River, but fell short by more than a hundred
yards.

Cooped up in this little fort, inadequately protected against flanking,
with shot continually striking on the sides of the redoubt, Prescott's
men waited. They had worked all night and most of the morning, had
little food and water, saw as yet nothing of the relief that had been
promised them, and could tell by the fever of activity visible in
Boston's streets that the red coats soon would come against them. There
is no wonder that when Putnam rode up and asked for the entrenching
tools (proposing, with the best of military good sense, to make a
supporting redoubt on Bunker Hill), many of Prescott's men were glad of
the excuse to remove themselves from so dangerous a neighborhood. Of
those who carried back the tools, few returned.

But Prescott's remainder was stanch. The men were already veterans,
having endured the work and the cannonade. Waiting in the fort, some of
them could appreciate the marvel of the scene: a great stretch of
intermingled land and water, the shipping spread below, close at hand
the town of C