Edge Of Reason

Chapter 2

2

“Some of the Quebecers are agents of the French,” Lieutenant Gregorson addressed a gathering of the NCOs. “They are encouraging men to desert, or soliciting intelligence from us. Warn your men not to associate with the Jesuit priests or the nuns. If you see a Quebecer walking on the city walls or near our artillery batteries, arrest them.”

MacKim nodded. He had every intention of carrying out his orders, although he remembered what it was like in a country occupied by an alien army.

“Remember, men,” Gregorson said, “if you see anything that looks suspicious, report it to me. We are holding a hostile city in the midst of a conquered country. The Canadians have no reason to like us, so trust nobody.”

The NCOs muttered their agreement as Gregorson dismissed them. Each man knew the sacrifices the British Army had endured to capture the capital of New France and had no intention of throwing their conquest away.

MacKim took his part in the routine patrols around the city, searching the Quebecers’ carts as they left the city to ensure the owners were not carrying away provisions, soap, candles or other banned objects. He helped maintain the curfew that Murray imposed and questioned any man who appeared suspicious.

At first, the Quebecers were surprised that this slim Highlander with the haunted eyes spoke French so fluently, but they soon learned to avoid him as one of the more officious of the occupying soldiers.

At night, MacKim clutched Tayanita’s beadwork and said nothing. He did not care what anybody thought of him. He did not care that most of the Highlanders walked wide of his presence. Nothing mattered except his increasing hatred of the tall, tattooed Canadian and the squat renegade with dead eyes.

They moved in a long, silent column, sliding on the frozen ground and hunch-shouldered against the cold. With their muskets held close to their shivering bodies and layers of whatever clothing they could borrow covering them, the Highlanders looked more like a straggle of poaching gypsies than British soldiers.

“If the Frenchies come tonight,” Ranald MacDonald muttered, “we’ll be too cold to fight back.”

“Maybe the enemy feels the cold as well,” Chisholm said.

“Not them.” MacDonald shook his head. “These Indians don’t feel anything. They’re impervious to cold or heat.”

As they took up their positions at the Sailor’s Battery, overlooking the River St Charles and the dark lands beyond, MacKim stamped his feet to restore his circulation. “I hope the bastards come.”

“You’re the only one, then,” Chisholm said. “The rest of us have had enough fighting and want a quiet life.”

Beyond the river, pinpricks of light gleamed through the dark.

“That’ll be the French, watching us,” MacDonald said. “Like Chisholm, I hope they stay where they are.”

“If I were the French commander,” MacKim said, remembering the weak state of the garrison, “I would take the opportunity to attack now. They still outnumber us, and they’re used to the climate. I hope our Rangers are out there, watching them.”

Chisholm grunted. “Most of the Rangers and the Louisbourg Grenadiers have returned to their posts, scattered all over North America. We’ve got less than a hundred in Quebec.”

MacKim forced a smile. “See what happens when I go into hospital? The place falls to pieces.”

Chisholm thrust a long pipe into his mouth. “It’s worse than you imagine, Hugh. Williams and most of the siege-guns, the heavy artillery, are overwintering in Boston.”

“What’s Murray thinking of?” MacKim asked. “We’re virtually asking the French to come in.” He looked over the battlements at the iced St Charles River and the vastness of Canada. “I hope we have some outposts out there.”

“Not many,” Chisholm said. “We’ve got a few small detachments, but nothing else, except General Murray is beginning to build some blockhouses on the Plains of Abraham.”

“We should have outposts to watch the French,” MacKim continued with his theme. “That’s where the Rangers should be. They’re the best soldiers we have. Without them, the French and Canadians outmatch us in forest warfare,”

Chisholm grunted. “Not now that you’re back, corporal.” His eyes were never still as he searched through the night. “It’s been quiet so far.”

“The French general, de Levis, must know how weak the garrison is. How about the Navy?”

Chisholm puffed at his pipe. “They’ve mostly gone. Admiral Saunders could not remain in the St Lawrence.” He walked along the ramparts, huddled against the cold, yet holding his Brown Bess musket like an old friend. “The ice would destroy his ships in days. He’s left HMS Racehorse and HMS Porcupine and a handful of small vessels, but they’re out of the river until the spring thaw comes.”

MacKim remembered the part the Navy had played in operations during the previous summer’s campaign. The Navy had carried the Army across the Atlantic and onto every combined operation from the capture of Louisbourg to Quebec. In MacKim’s eyes, Admiral Saunders had been just as much the victor of Quebec as General Wolfe.

“We’re cut off, then,” MacKim said.

“We are,” Chisholm agreed, “until the ice breaks in the spring.” He paced the length of their beat and stared over the parapet again. “But with Commodore Lord Colville at Halifax with the 74-gun HMS Northumberland and a pretty powerful naval squadron, the French can’t come across the Atlantic to reinforce de Levis’s army, either.”

MacKim stamped his feet again, with the sound echoing in the dark. “We’re both under siege, then, with the climate holding us prisoner.”

“It’s a straight fight between General Murray in Quebec and the Chevalier de Levis in the rest of Canada,” Chisholm grunted. “They still outnumber us. They know the terrain better than us and, as you said, without our Rangers, they are our superiors in Forest warfare.” He straightened to attention as Captain Donald MacDonald passed, huddled against the cold.

“Triumph!” Captain MacDonald gave the parole – the password – for the night.

“Victory.” MacKim gave the countersign as Chisholm hurriedly hid his pipe.

“Anything to report, Corporal?” Captain MacDonald asked.

“No, sir,” MacKim said. “We were watching the lights a cross the river and wondering if the French were there.”

“They will be.” Captain MacDonald passed a quid of tobacco onto Chisholm.

“Your pipe will go out, Chisholm,” he said, with a smile. “Keep alert, men, and notify me if anything changes. Keep your muskets handy, boys. Look after Bess, and she’ll look after you.”

“We will, sir,” agreed MacKim.

Captain MacDonald lifted a hand in salute and continued on his rounds.

“He’s a good man, Captain MacDonald,” Chisholm said. “At the forefront in battle and never lets his men down.”

As soon as Captain MacDonald strolled away, the Highlanders resumed their conversation, pretending to be casual while each man scanned the blackness. MacKim counted the pinpricks of firelight, marking their position so he would know if any moved. He listened to the wind blowing across the St Charles River, aware the ice could bear the weight of a man, allowing a French raiding party to cross. With the walls of Quebec high here, the French would have to use scaling ladders, but they might arrive, kill a sentry or two and withdraw, purely to unsettle the defenders.

“Why is the musket called a Brown Bess?” Private MacNicholl asked during a lull in the conversation. “Captain MacDonald told us to look after Bess.” He held his musket up. “Helloa, Bess.”

“Ah,” Chisholm turned against the wind to re-light his long-stemmed pipe, “I know the answer to that.”

“Tell us,” MacKim said, “but keep your voice down in case the captain returns, and keep alert, all of you.”

“It was during the War of the Spanish Succession, so sometime between 1705 and 1712. The army was marching hither and yon, and in every camp, and on every march, a group of very friendly Spanish women turned up.”

“Very friendly?” MacNicholl repeated, hoping for salacious details.

“Very friendly!” Chisholm lowered his voice. “But you’re too young, MacNicholl. A child like you should be learning his ABC, not thinking of women. The friendliest of them all was a brown-haired, buxom girl that the soldiers called Bess. When the army left Spain, they called their muskets Brown Bess in her honour.”

“Is that true?” MacNicholl asked, as MacKim scrutinised the lights across the river.

“Probably not,” Chisholm said. “The name more likely comes from us pickling the musket barrels to protect them from rust.”

“Oh,” MacNicholl said. “I prefer your story.”

“So do I,” Chisholm said.

MacKim raised his head. “Listen! Something’s stirring out there.”

“I can’t hear anything,” Chisholm said.

MacKim put a hand on Chisholm’s arm. “Keep quiet and listen. Something’s moving to the north.”

The musketry began a moment later, sporadic at first, then rising to a crescendo, and dying. The muzzle-flares were visible, like a score of bright sparks in the night, momentary, deadly and then gone, leaving deeper darkness in their wake. The scent of powder-smoke drifted in the wind, acrid and sour. A single shot sounded, followed by a hoarse challenge, hollow in the dark.

“Triumph?”

“The Frenchies are attacking one of our outposts,” MacKim said.

“Triumph?” The voice sounded again, faint with distance. MacKim thought how lonely the picket would be, out there in the hostile night.

“It sounds like our lads beat them off.” Chisholm knocked out the ashes from the bowl of his pipe and stared into the black. “They might try here next.” He checked the lock of his musket, ensured the flint was sharp and crouched lower behind the parapet.

MacKim took a deep breath. “Aye, they might.” He imagined the tattooed Canadian and the squat renegade mounting the ramparts here and fingered the long bayonet at his hip. Please, God, grant me the opportunity to avenge Tayanita. I don’t care if I die afterwards, I only want to kill her murderers.

The screaming started a few minutes later, long-drawn-out, rising and falling to an agonised, hopeless bubble.

“That will be the Indians and Canadians torturing a captive.” Chisholm gripped his musket more firmly. “I detest those bastards.”

MacKim loosened his bonnet as his scalp began to tingle and burn. He thought of the terror of a man waiting to be tortured by the Indians and spoke in a low, intense tone that held Chisholm’s attention. “Since they murdered Tayanita, I want to destroy everything French, and wipe them from the map,” he said. “I’d take an adze and draw it from the Gulf of St Lawrence to the Great Lakes and down the Mississippi to New Orleans. I’d remove anything remotely French from the entire continent.”

MacKim was aware that Chisholm was watching him as he wiped the spittle from his chin. “I’ll destroy every single man,” he whispered. “And send the women and children back to France.”

Chisholm opened his mouth to speak, and closed it quickly as the screaming began again, even higher-pitched than before, raising the small hairs on the back of MacKim’s neck.

“Jesus.” Chisholm breathed out hard. “There was nothing like this during the Fontenoy campaign. We fought each other like soldiers, not savages. There is something evil in this continent that makes men act in such a manner.”

MacKim checked the flint of his musket, aware the screaming had unsettled him. “I want to kill the French,” he said. “I want to kill the French, the Canadians and the Indians.”

“Tayanita was an Indian,” Chisholm reminded him.

MacKim’s glower should have killed Chisholm where he stood. “I know.” MacKim turned away, feeling the tears turn to ice on his cheeks. “I know.”