On the evening of the 12th July 1759, the British completed their artillery batteries at Pointe-aux-Pères, directly opposite the city of Quebec.
“Watch how these boys work,” Chisholm said. “This is the future, MacKim, long-range warfare.”
MacKim grunted. “They’ll always need us.” All the same, he watched as artillerymen in blue uniforms checked their guns, looked over the earth-packed gabions and defences of sloping damp soil, measured the range to their target, spat on their hands, took a deep breath and prepared to fire. In Chisholm’s chess-moves of siege and marching that was the warfare of the mid-eighteenth century, the guns were the queens. They provided the firepower to smash defences and capture the fortresses that guarded frontiers and marked borders.
“We’re mere pawns compared
