"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 Charlestown, and across the narrow river the larger town of Boston, with its heights and house-tops already crowded by non-combatants, viewing the field that was prepared for the slaughter. It was all in bright and warm weather, under a cloudless sky. Since the world began, there had been few battle-fields so spectacularly laid out. At last the bustle in Boston's streets produced results. From the wharves pushed out into the placid water the boats of the fleet, loaded to the gunwales with soldiers in full equipment. As they neared the Charlestown shore, the fire upon the redoubt was doubled, and under its cover the troops landed upon Moulton's Point. There Howe at first deployed them, but after inspecting the ground sent back for reinforcements. For the men in the redoubt there were two more hours of waiting.