The Veteran's Legacy

7. Louisbourg, July 1758-1

“Our artillerymen will set up guns here,” Chisholm said, as they stood on recently captured Lighthouse Point. “It’s an excellent spot to batter the French.”

“It’s a strange angle to hit the town,” MacKim said.

“We won’t target the town. See the artillery battery on that island down there?” Chisholm pointed to the wind-ruffled blue of the harbour. “Their guns defend the harbour. From up here, our guns can silence the French battery, and that will allow our ships to move closer, maybe cut out the French vessels. A siege is like chess, each move calculated to cancel out the enemy’s pieces and move closer to capturing his king.”

“It’s very cold-blooded,” MacKim said.

“War is cold-blooded. Move and counter move, with careful planning as important as courage.” Chisholm sighed. “The old days of a crazed charge with swords are gone, MacKim. We learned that on Culloden Moor. Now we have to fight by manoeuvre. Disciplined bravery and firepower win battles, not a few moments’ recklessness. Courage counts for nothing before massed musketry.”

On June 19th, with all the guns in position, the batteries on Lighthouse Point opened fire on the island.

“How many guns have we?” MacKim asked.

“Seventy,” Chisholm knew all the answers, “including cannons and mortars. Not all on Lighthouse Point, of course.”

After a few moments, the powder smoke hid everything from view, and the constant thunder of the guns prevented any conversation. Only when the guns fell silent and an offshore wind blew away the smoke, did MacKim see that the guns had marginally damaged Louisbourg’s wall and holed the roofs of some of the more visible buildings. It seemed little result for such a great effort.

“What happens next?”

“We have to make a breach in the walls,” Chisholm explained. “When we’ve done that, we’ll ask the French to surrender. If the French commander thinks he can’t hold off an attack, he will surrender, and we’ll take possession.”

“And if he thinks he can hold out?”

“Then he’ll refuse to surrender, and we’ll capture Louisbourg by assault.” Chisholm sucked on an empty pipe. “That’s a horrible, b****y business. Once we’re in, if we carry the breach, the French might fight street by street. If we take the town, the lads will run wild. There will be pillage and rapine on a scale you can’t imagine, Hugh. Men you know as quiet and orderly, will become drunken brutes.”

“Why?”

“You will understand if you experience the battle for a breach. Once you’ve seen your friends burned alive, spitted on swords, shredded by artillery and left as screaming wrecks on the ground, you will understand why men go berserk after they capture a town. Pray that the French surrender and spare everybody such horrors.”

“We’re pushing them back to their walls,” MacKim said. “They must surrender soon.”

“Never underestimate Johnny Frenchman,” Chisholm said. “The French will retaliate, they’re too good soldiers just to sit back and leave us in peace.”

Chisholm was correct. Night after night, small parties of Frenchmen slipped from Louisbourg to harass the British entrenchments. The British doubled their piquets and sent patrols to roam in front of their lines, so the ground around Louisbourg became the scene of skirmishes as units of French, Canadians and British clashed.

* * *

“MacKim,” Dingwall kicked MacKim awake an hour before reveille, “you haven’t been on a scouting piquet yet.”

MacKim blinked up at him, his mind dazed from sleep. “No, Sergeant.”

“It’s time you advanced your military education then. Ugly, Cattanach, Urquhart, Cumming, you come too.”

“Where are we going, Sergeant?”

“Out towards the French. Keep silent and do as I tell you,” Dingwall said. “If I say stop, you stop. If I say fire, you fire. If I say run, you take to your heels and run as if Old Hornie was prodding his tail into your lazy arse!”

“Yes, Sergeant.” MacKim reached for the fragment of bread he had saved from last night. He seemed to be permanently hungry out here.

“Keep your head down, Hugh,” Chisholm murmured. “You’re not here for glory.”

“Keep quiet,” Dingwall whispered. “The French will also have piquets out.”

Gripping his musket so tightly that his knuckles were white, MacKim followed Dingwall into the night-dark bush. With his kilt swishing against his bare knees and the air cool on his face, he tested each step for twigs, loose pebbles or anything else that could alert a wary Frenchman.

They moved forward slowly, hearing the rumble of artillery and the query of a nervous sentry. Once a bird called, the sound melancholic in the dark, and the distant hush of the sea was a reminder of where they were.

“Stop.” Dingwall put a hand on MacKim’s shoulder. “Somebody’s ahead.”

The Highlanders halted. MacKim wondered if they all felt as nervous as he did. Urquhart’s laboured breathing suggested that he was not as confident as he looked, while Cumming was muttering under his breath. Nodding, MacKim met Chisholm’s eye and winked. Chisholm responded with a grin.

“Ugly, MacKim, come with me, I hear Frenchies. Corporal Gunn, look after the rest until I return.”

Gunn was a keen man in his thirties with a long face and a bitter tongue. “Yes, Sergeant!’

MacKim moved forward again, even slower than before, l*****g dry lips as the voices came to him, soft on the breeze and speaking French. The smell was next, tobacco and rum.

“Follow in my footsteps,” Dingwall murmured. He eased them over a ridge and stopped, with his left hand held high.

“Dear God.” MacKim felt the breath stop in his throat.

The French waited in three seemingly endless rows. A shift of wind allowed moonlight to filter through the clouds, shining on white uniforms and a plethora of faces. MacKim thought they looked even younger than the 78th, youths with pinched faces and immature moustaches, carrying muskets that seemed too long for them. Despite their proximity to the British lines, some were openly talking, and one man sipped at a bottle.

Is this the enemy of which we are so nervous? They don’t look as ferocious as I thought

Is this the enemy of which we are so nervous? They don’t look as ferocious as I thoughtWordless, Dingwall motioned for MacKim and Chisholm to withdraw. Only when they were back with the rest of the piquet did Dingwall speak.

“I estimate about four hundred men,” he said quietly.

“I’d guess double that,” Chisholm said. “How about you, MacKim? You’re an educated man.”

“I didn’t count them,” MacKim admitted. “I’ve never seen so many Frenchmen together before.”

“Never lose an opportunity,” Dingwall said. “Learn all you can about the enemy before you fight them. Intelligence is half the battle. Now, we have to report this to the colonel. Follow me, lads.”

* * *

Colonel Fraser listened to Dingwall’s report, nodding. “Between four hundred and a thousand Frenchmen, you say?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What were they doing, Sergeant?”

“I’d say they were preparing a major raid on our positions, sir.”

“How long before they come?”

“Not long, sir. They seemed nearly ready to advance.”

Colonel Fraser nodded again. “No time to alert General Wolfe, then. We will have to move without the support of other regiments.”

MacKim guessed that Colonel Fraser welcomed the 78th acting alone. Ever since the Jacobite Risings of 1715 and 1745, the other people of Great Britain had viewed Highlanders with great suspicion. Colonel Fraser’s father had been the Lord Lovat who the government had beheaded for his part in the Forty-five, so the colonel was eager to prove his loyalty to the Hanoverian crown.

The 78th marched out within ten minutes, each man with his Brown Bess at his shoulder, his powder and ball in their pouches and his broadsword at his waist.

Chisholm touched MacKim’s arm. “This could end in a real battle, Hugh. Look to your front and do your duty.”

MacKim tried to analyse his feelings; he was undoubtedly nervous, but he also felt some excitement, even exhilaration. He had joined the army to become a soldier, and here was his first real test. Once I am trained and experienced, I’ll be able to match Hayes, even although he is a Grenadier.

Once I am trained and experienced, I’ll be able to match Hayes, even although he is a Grenadier.“Load your flintlocks,” Colonel Fraser ordered. MacKim worked with the routine precision that had been drilled into him, ramming powder and shot down the long barrel of his musket.

“March,” Colonel Fraser ordered. “Sergeant Dingwall, you saw this French battalion. Join me in front.”

At one time, MacKim had envisioned marching to battle behind the scream of the battle-pipes, with great silk banners above and all the glory and panoply of war. Instead, he was engaged in this almost furtive advance in the half-darkness with whispered orders and no clear idea of what they might face.

“How far are they now?” Colonel Fraser asked as they advanced into the darkness.

“About three hundred yards, sir,” Dingwall reported.

“Make ready your muskets,” Fraser commanded, with junior officers and NCOs passing the orders down the ranks. Remaining in column, the 78th halted, and then continued, moving closer to the enemy. The French had not moved. They stood in their lines, awaiting orders from their officers, or waiting to ambush any unwary British force.

The wind had risen, passing fitful clouds over the moon so one moment the French were visible, the next they were in darkness.

The 78th took up positions as they had been trained, forming a long line in as much silence as they could, two hundred yards from the enemy. Still in line, they moved forward, step by step. MacKim felt the ground rough under his feet, heard the rustle of kilts and the scrape of boots on loose stones and wondered how the French could not detect them.

Is this some elaborate ruse? Are the French leading us into a trap so that a thousand Canadians will open fire on us? I feel sick.

Is this some elaborate ruse? Are the French leading us into a trap so that a thousand Canadians will open fire on us? I feel sick.A hundred yards, fifty; the French were now in killing range, two lines of unsuspecting soldiers, young men from the back streets of Paris who had come to Canada in the hopes of a better life, soon to feel the weight of a British infantry volley.

“Present.”

Hundreds of muskets rose to hundreds of scarlet-clad shoulders.

“Fire,” Colonel Fraser ordered, so softly that MacKim hardly heard him.

There was no point in aiming. The Brown Bess was notoriously inaccurate, and British soldiers were trained to fire at the mass of the enemy. The 78th fired by company, vast blasts of sound as white smoke jetted out and bright muzzle flares split the night. MacKim followed orders, barely aware of the men on either side as he lifted his musket and pressed the trigger.

Taken by surprise, the French lines staggered as hundreds of musket balls crashed into them.

“Now, 78th! Out claymores and charge! Charge!”

ChargeIt was an order that MacKim had never expected to hear. The last time the Frasers had charged with swords had been at Culloden. Here, Colonel Fraser’s tactics had followed the example used by the Marquis of Montrose a century and more before, during his year of victories over the Covenanting armies. After their musketry had unsettled the enemy, the 78th launched a screaming charge with n***d swords.