A Sacrifice of Pawns

Chapter 1

1

ST LAWRENCE RIVER, CANADA

November 1761

“We’re iced in!” Lundey, the mate, swore. “We should have left Quebec a week ago. Now the ice will hold us until the spring thaw.”

Captain Stringer looked forward, where the St Lawrence River eased away into the cold distance. “Get the hands forward with poles,” he ordered, “and use these damned Rangers as well. It’s time they earned their keep.”

“Come on, men!” Lieutenant Kennedy hurried forward, with Sergeant Hugh MacKim and the other Rangers only a few steps behind.

The Boston-registered brig, Martha, had left Quebec only the previous day, hoping to reach the open sea before the river completely froze over. Now, as the ice closed in, Lundey was not alone in believing they had lingered too long in the British-garrisoned city.

“Can we break through?” Private Dickert asked as he viewed the barrier of ice that stretched from bank to bank of the river.

“We’ll give it a bloody good try,” Lundey replied.

“Smash the ice with the poles, you men!” Stringer ordered. “It’s not too thick yet.”

As Dickert lifted his pole, Private Duncan MacRae joined him in the bow of the ship. Both hammered the ends of their staffs onto the ice. A few chips flew upward, and then a tiny crack appeared a foot from Martha’s bow.

“Break, you bastard!” Dickert said, lifting his pole above his head and smashing the end down on the crack.

“We’re winning!” MacRae said as the crack widened and water bubbled through to the surface of the ice.

“Less talk! More sweat!” Lundey shouted. “Get working, you men!”

Martha inched forward, with her weight, the current, and a fortuitous wind combining to ease her slowly downstream.

“We are winning,” Private Parnell agreed. “We’re moving one tree at a time.” He indicated the thick forest on the bank, where rank after rank of trees marched into the limitless interior. “Another six months, and we’ll nearly be halfway to the sea.”

“We’re making poor progress,” Captain Stringer said. “Can’t you work harder, Rangers? The frost is early this year.”

Lieutenant Kennedy nodded. “We’ll do what we can.” He changed the men in the bow, giving them half-hour shifts at ice-breaking to ensure nobody was overtired.

“At this rate,” Private Oxford fretted, “we’ll never join with the fleet at New York.” He looked around at the snow-covered forests. “We might walk there quicker, sir.”

“It’s hundreds of miles of bad territory.” Kennedy looked over his Rangers, the twenty-five green-clad forest fighters, mostly veterans of the campaigns around Quebec. Only two of them, Privates Oxford and Danskin, were untried replacements.

MacKim read Kennedy’s thoughts. “You two,” he indicated the new men. “Go forward and help smash the ice.”

“Sergeant?” Oxford looked up with a quizzical expression on his face.

“Go and help smash the ice!”

While Danskin hurried forward, Oxford hesitated before moving. MacKim frowned; there was no room for shirkers in Kennedy’s Rangers.

“Keep at it, Danskin,” MacKim called. “Think how proud your sweetheart will be when you relate your adventures.”

Danskin gave a weak smile as he leaned forward with his pole.

“We’ll have to watch Oxford, sir,” MacKim warned Kennedy as Oxford poked reluctantly at the ice.

“I’ll keep my eye on him,” Kennedy promised.

MacKim glanced upwards, where the white-tinged sky threatened further snow. “Come on, Oxford, or we’ll be stuck on this blasted river until the thaw.”

Parnell spat into the wind. “If we are, sergeant, we’ll avoid the fighting.”

“Aye, and we don’t want that, do we?” MacKim said. “We can’t let others think we’re scared.”

“They can think what they like,” Parnell retorted. “We’ll be alive, and they’ll be dead.”

“Here!” MacKim tossed over a long pole. “Save your energy for the ice!” He lifted one for himself. “Watch me and learn.”

Leaning forward on the sharp prow of Martha, thrusting at the ice, MacKim soon found he was sweating, despite the sub-zero temperatures.

“We’re slowing down,” Kennedy said, half an hour later.

“Rock the ship!” Lundey ordered. “I sailed on the whaling ships. Run from side to side!” Within a few moments, he had all the Rangers and crew not otherwise occupied, racing from port to starboard and back. The motion cracked the ice around Martha, so she eased forward another few feet.

“This is the strangest voyage I’ve ever been on,” Dickert said as he ran across the ship. “Join the Army, and play children’s games.”

“It’s working,” MacKim pointed out. “We’re moving.”

“Do we have to rock the boat for the next thousand miles?”

“If we have to,” Kennedy replied. “King George needs us.”

Parnell grunted. “He should come here then. He can balance his crown on his arse and run around the boat all day long.”

“All we need is for the French to fire on us while we’re stuck here,” Dickert said.

“They’ve surrendered,” MacKim reminded. “Canada is ours now.”

“Until the Frenchies change their minds,” Parnell said cynically.

Martha continued downstream, sometimes sailing in nearly clear water and occasional spells of ice. On one occasion, when the ice proved particularly stubborn, the captain had the ship’s boat brought forward and dropped over the bows. The resulting shock cracked the ice sufficiently for Martha to ease through.

“Every delay is costing us time,” Kennedy fretted.

“We can’t help the climate, sir.” MacKim tried to be philosophical, although he thought of Claudette, left behind in Quebec.

“I’m well aware of that, sergeant!” Kennedy’s snapped retort proved his tension.

“Yes, sir.” MacKim retired to the rail, leaving Kennedy to his worrying. Canada closed on all sides, vast and winter-cloaked in white. MacKim felt inside his coat and pulled out the letter Claudette had placed there when he left Quebec. She had written in French, so MacKim automatically translated the words as he read.

“My dear Hugh,

I have enjoyed our companionship together these last few months, with all your strange Scottish ways and expressions. I sometimes hoped that our friendship might develop into something more. However, it seemed that you were satisfied only with what we have.

Notwithstanding our religious differences, with me a Roman Catholic and you a Presbyterian, and our emotional contradictions, I felt that we formed a bond. My son Hugo also enjoyed your company, and, Hugh, now you have left, I can say this in safety; Hugo often expressed a wish that you would stay, either as a friend or as something more.

I know that I could never follow the drum, as the saying is, and I would never presume to persuade you to leave your military calling, so I allowed our friendship to continue without depth.

I wish it had been otherwise.

Now that you are leaving on another campaign, probably never to return to Canada again, I will say that you take a piece of my heart with you that can never be replaced.

Take care of yourself, dear Hugh, and never forget your friend here in Quebec.

I am always your

Claudette.”

MacKim reread the letter, poring over every word before folding it neatly and returning it inside his coat. Why didn’t you say, you distant woman? Why did you hide your feelings from me?

Martha sailed down the St Lawrence, with every tree they passed taking MacKim further from Claudette and closer to the French and the war.

“The fleet’s sailed.”

The news travelled around Martha in seconds as men stared at the vast anchorage and the neat little city of New York.

“They’ve sailed without us.”

“That damned ice slowed us down!”

MacKim saw Kennedy’s mouth tighten as he heard the news.

Captain Stringer swore. “Damn the bloody Army,” he said. “I have a cargo to deliver to the fleet.” He raised his voice to a bellow. “Rangers! You’ll be with us a good bit longer.”

“I thought we were joining a transport in New York!” Oxford was not yet tested in battle, so he tried to prove his masculinity by tough talk and an eagerness for action.

“That was the idea, Oxford,” MacKim explained patiently. “But the fleet’s sailed without us.”

“So, what do we do now, sergeant?” Oxford asked.

“Now we follow the fleet and hope to catch them before we reach the Caribbean,” Captain Stringer joined in.

“Where about in the Caribbean?” Kennedy asked. “My orders said to join Admiral Rodney’s fleet at New York. I know nothing beyond that.”

Stringer gave a small smile. “The Army keeps you in ignorance. Well, Lieutenant Kennedy, the fleet has sailed for Barbados, and so must we.”

“Barbados? That’s far south.” Kennedy sounded worried. “The Rangers are forest soldiers. We fight wearing snowshoes.”

“Not anymore.” Stringer pointed south. “You’re headed for warmer climes, Lieutenant. There will be no need for snowshoes in the Caribbean.”

“I thought we had beat the French,” Dickert said disconsolately. “I thought we were going to New York to get disbanded and go home.”

“The French are not beat yet,” MacKim said. “We defeated them in Canada, but they’re still fighting in Europe, the Caribbean, and India.”

“India?” Danskin fastened on the word. “I’m not going to bloody India!”

“No, Danskin. We’re not going to India,” MacKim said. “The captain told us we’re headed to Barbados.”

“Why Barbados?” Oxford did not appear the most intelligent of men.

“To join the rest of the fleet,” MacKim explained as patiently as he could.

“Are we attacking Barbados then?” Oxford asked.

“No,” MacKim said. “We already own Barbados. We are probably using it as a rendezvous and base to attack one of the French-owned islands in the Caribbean.”

They spent two days bringing on fresh water and food in New York, with the Rangers sampling the pleasures of the city. MacKim reread the letter from Claudette, scribbled a brief reply, and prepared to send it. But before he ran ashore, he heard Stringer give the order to cast off.

“Ready aft?”

“Ready aft, Captain!”

“Ready forward?”

“Ready forward, Captain!”

“Let fall! Sheet home!”

Martha eased away from New York, and MacKim knew he had delayed too long. Pushing Claudette to the back of his mind, he concentrated on keeping the Rangers fit by regular drills, for sea voyages tended to make men slack.

Rather than sail direct for Barbados, Captain Stringer headed out to the Atlantic before beating south.

“I want a man aloft as a lookout at all times, Lundey,” Stringer said, “and change him every two hours.”

“Yes, Captain.” Lundey did not hide his confusion.

“The French privateers are deadly, even in winter,” Stringer explained. “They send out ships from Martinico all across the Caribbean and as far north as Nova Scotia. Bloody pirates!” He spat into the wind.

MacKim and Kennedy exchanged glances.

“Martinico?” Kennedy said. “That would be a logical target for the fleet. I think it’s the only sizeable French possession in the Windward Islands.”

“We’d better hope it’s a quick campaign,” MacKim said. The Caribbean islands had a terrible history for previous British military endeavours. As well as the actual fighting against the redoubtable French, the islands had a long-standing reputation for being riddled with disease. Yellow fever and malaria could reduce a regiment of eight-hundred men to a couple of hundred within a few months. To many soldiers, being posted to the West Indies was a death sentence without the possibility of military glory.

The Rangers’ morale slumped as they headed south, despite every mile bringing them closer to better weather, so it was a surprise when something disturbed MacKim’s sleep.

“Somebody is singing.” MacKim struggled out of his tiny cot. Martha was a small brig, not designed to carry passengers, and the Rangers crowded into anywhere they could. MacKim and Kennedy shared the tween decks with the carpenter, cook, and sailmaker.

MacKim looked around as the singing increased in volume. “Somebody is drunk.”

“It’s not one of our men,” Kennedy said. “Leave it to the captain.”

“I’ll look anyway.”

It had been a few years since MacKim crossed the Atlantic as a Johnny Raw with the 78th Highlanders. Looking back, it seemed incredible that he had ever been so naïve. Now, with three years of bitter war and three savage campaigns behind him, he was a seasoned veteran, carrying mental and physical scars. MacKim touched the bald patch on the top of his head, where an Abenaki had taken his scalp, grunted, and moved on.

Martha plunged and kicked as she fought her way down the Atlantic towards the Caribbean. MacKim had forgotten how lively a ship could be at sea and how the wind howled fiercely through the rigging. He emerged on deck, staggered as a gust of wind battered Martha to starboard, ignored the scornful laugh of the helmsman and listened for the singing.

A seaman emerged from below, grinning vacantly at MacKim and slurring something incomprehensible before he collapsed on the deck.

“Bloody i***t,” MacKim muttered and dragged the man to the fo’c’sle. He opened the door and pitched the drunkard into the stinking dark. “Here! Take care of this man before he falls overboard.”

Two of the crew looked at their shipmate. “He’s been tapping the spirits,” one said.

“Does the captain not keep it secure?” MacKim asked testily.

“It’s in the cargo hold,” the seaman said. “If you want a free drink, lobster, just stick a straw into one of the kegs and suck.” He gave a crooked smile.

“What’s the cargo?”

“Brandy, rum, and spruce beer for the Army.” The seaman laughed. “We’re carrying rum to the Caribbean, where they invented the damned stuff.”

MacKim shook his head. Even after years in uniform, the ways of the Army were strange to him. “I’ll leave this fellow with you,” he said.

“Join us, sergeant,” the seaman said. “We’ve always plenty rum in this ship.”

“Thank you,” MacKim said. “I must decline. I have to show a good example to my men.” He heard the crew singing as he returned to his bed, with the night wind keen on deck and Martha surging south with the wind now on their quarter—a soldier’s wind, as the crew called it.

Claudette. Her image filled MacKim’s mind as he lay still. Will you forget me when I am on the islands of the far south? He sighed. He was not lucky with women, and despite her letter, he had no reason to believe that Claudette would be any different.

He had met her, a French-Canadian native of Quebec, during the winter of 1759, when the British occupation of the city was raw. Their initial tentative friendship had deepened, yet never extended to romance. They were friends only.

So why am I thinking of you when I am alone?

Because you are something to hold onto, MacKim answered himself. You are a reality that there is sanity outside the madness of continual war. That’s the only reason. I don’t expect anything else, whatever you claim.

MacKim sighed. Danger, drink, and women were the three constants in a soldier’s life.