As the other educator wrote, Percy's brigade is compared to a dragon as it marches toward Concord from Boston. This metaphor calls out several elements. First of all, it evokes the image of a long train on the move. Percy's brigade is made up of over seven hundred infantry soldiers, and it would have stretched on for quite some distance. Dragons are also a symbol of the English. Therefore, it is a fitting metaphor. Dragons represent the strength of Great Britain. The English army was a highly disciplined fighting machine. In order to be effective, each individual soldier was trained to act as just one small part of a larger fighting unit. By comparing Percy's soldiers to one singular beast, Esther Forbes is highlighting the discipline and unified fighting strength of the British soldiers.
After the battle had begun between the rebels and British forces, Percy's brigade marches to Lexington and Concord from Boston. The author writes, "the heavy dragon marched on its thousands of feet," and, later, she describes the brigade as "this great scarlet dragon" (page 224). She uses the metaphor of a dragon to describe Percy's brigade. Johnny Tremain notes the force and perfection of the brigade as they pass--the way in which every button is sewed onto their uniforms properly and every buckle is in the right place. Every box of cartridges holds just the right number of cartridges, and every musket also has a bayonet. Every horse has four shoes. The army, clad in scarlet, looks so powerful and perfect that Johnny is afraid about what they will do to the "untrained, half-armed farmers" (page 224) who are defending Lexington and Concord.
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