28 On the Plains of Abraham

Time began to lag again. The country was ravaged in an ever-widening circle, of which Quebec was the center. There was a skirmish somewhere nearly every day, and our batteries which threatened the great rock were seldom silent. But all these things were mere smoke and noise. The real issue was Quebec, and we seemed to get no nearer a favorable result. Sickness devastated our camps, and it was reported two or three times that the general in chief was dying. Then came the news from below that we had taken Ticonderoga and Crown Point, that Niagara had fallen, and that Amherst with a powerful army was about to advance on Montreal. This was wine to us, and we pressed the siege with much vigor.

One night I saw our batteries on Point Levis set the lower town on fire. It was not the first time, but this night the blaze became a conflagration, and the flames rose far above the houses they were devouring. In their light Quebec and its rock became a great cone of red, pink on the outer edges, while above the area of light a black smoke cloud gathered.

The glow of the flames fell in long red bars across the river, and the rigging of an English ship in the stream seemed touched with fire. It appeared to us from the violence of the fire and its duration that the whole lower town was burning, but the flames sank after awhile, died out at last, and left river and city to their customary half darkness. We heard the next day that nearly two hundred houses had been burned. The unfortunate population of Quebec, and not the French army, had been the chief sufferers.

Our burst of enthusiasm at the report of Amherst’s progress was soon dispelled by news that he was calmly enjoying his triumphs and was not advancing on Montreal, leaving us to carry on the war in Canada alone. We fell back into our old despondency, and it was increased by the reports that the illness of our general was gaining upon him. I had occasion once to carry dispatches to him, and I proved for myself the truth of these reports.

The general’s headquarters were in an old French farmhouse in our camp at Montmorency. He lay in his bed in a room on the second floor, and his face was so pale, so thin, so drawn that he looked to me like a man dying, only his eye was strong and bright. Yet the fires of a hero still burned in him, and with eagerness and wonderful pertinency he drew from me, as he did from all others who came before him, every scrap of information that I had to give.

Zeb made another successful trip into Quebec. He seemed to have established a sort of underground system of communication with Father Michel, and brought me news that the seigneur was exultant, more confident than ever that the English would be sent scuttling out of Canada, but that mademoiselle his daughter was not so sure.

“She has a better opinion of the English, or some of ’em,” said Zeb with a familiarity which I tolerated on that occasion.

August passed, September came, and not much had happened, save that more of our ships had run the French batteries, and quite a brave fleet was anchored above the town. I was in the camp at Montmorency, and a lot of us were gathered in the shade of some tents. Culverhouse was there, and Spencer, now my very good friend, Graham, and others. We were discussing the campaign listlessly when the shadow of Martin Groot fell over us.

“Any fresh profits. Mynheer Groot?” I asked. He was well known to the others, too, as a patriot whose profits grew larger the longer the campaign lasted.

Martin took the gibe calmly. He looked at us a few moments with a pitying expression, then rejoined:

“None at present, but there are to be fresh blows for you, gentlemen; you might as well get ready for them.”

They rallied him, and wanted to know when and where the blows were to be given, but they got nothing more from him, and he went away, leaving them in a state of unbelief. I had known him a long time, however, and, as I was aware of his shrewdness and his possession of good sources of information, I was confident that some great operation was afoot.

My prevision was correct, for we broke up camp the next day at Montmorency and took ship for Point Levis and the Point of Orleans. The French came down in strong force behind us to give us a scorching by way of a parting souvenir, but thought better of it when we turned to meet them.

Then followed a short period of great doubt to many of us, but soon we were gathered above the town for a decisive blow. Everybody seemed to feel that the end was coming—the end of the French power in Quebec or the end of our attempt to destroy it. Many of our heaviest batteries had been taken from their former resting places. The bombardment sank to nothing, and the silence of the great guns, the anxiety on the faces of all seemed certain portents of a great attempt. The waning summer, the browning of the leaves, the increasing chill of the night air, too, told us it was time to do what we intended to do or we would soon have a Quebec winter as well as the French to fight.

I shall not forget the many hours, the days even, we passed in the transports, so chock-full of red-coated soldiers that the air became heat to the lungs and a disgust to the nostrils. Down we drifted and back we sailed, and then down and back again, until we began to feel as if it was our duty to go forever back and forth like the pendulum of a clock. The only humor in it to me was the sight of the French rushing up and down the rough cliffs that they might meet us wherever we would attempt to land. I have no doubt that we were responsible for many a bruised French foot and ankle and many an abused French oath. I saw one fat fellow—a sergeant, I think—in his eagerness to keep abreast of our ship tumble into a gully, and it took two of his comrades to drag him out. But it was an anxious time for me nevertheless. Not alone was I concerned with the fate of the campaign—even a private will feel such an interest as that—but there were those in Quebec who were much in my mind too, and it hurts a man’s nerves to be beset on either side by anxieties.

The night of the 12th of September came, and we were gathered in a fleet in the river, but we had a bigger fleet down below. We above the town knew that a decisive hour was at hand. When the dark came on a cannon from the fleet below thundered. It was followed by another and then another, and then the crash of whole broadsides, and river and shore echoed with the roar of the fleet’s great guns.

But above the town we who were to do the real work lay in darkness and silence, while the mock combat below thundered and blazed and Montcalm hurried his troops to the Beauport shore to meet the attack he expected there. While the sailors were expending the King’s powder and ball at a tremendous rate, we waited till turn of tide, and at two o’clock in the morning I saw two lanterns go up to the maintop of the flagship. Then we climbed into our boats and embarked on our perilous venture. Down the broad river we went, a silent procession. The stars were out, but the shores were in gloom.

The great river flowed on like the tide of the sea, the stillness broken only by the lap of its waters and the splashing of our oars. As the man next to me lifted his oar the water fell off it in huge scales of molten silver.

“Surely the French spies are abroad and are watching our movements,” I said to Zeb, who sat in our boat.

“Guess they are,” he replied, “but they don’t know what kind of a fox chase we are on. They’ll have to keep on watchin’.”

We swung steadily on. My mind went back to Ticonderoga. But our advance was very different now. Then it was in broad daylight amid the crash of bands, and with the sunlight gleaming on sword and bayonet; now it was in the darkness and silence of the night. In which would we fare better?

We came presently to mighty cliffs which flung their black shadows far over us.

“Qui Vive?” called a French sentry. He was invisible, but his voice, sharp and clear, cut through the darkness.

“France,” answered a Highland officer in the boat just ahead of us.

“A quel regiment?” called the sentry.

“De la Reine,” called back the Highlander.

The Frenchman believing us friends, and worn perhaps with long watching, asked no more, and we passed on. He had been a voice only and not a form to us. Doubtless nobody will ever know who he was. The steady splash of our oars continued in the darkness. Looking back, I could trace the long line of boats for a distance, and then the end of it was lost in the dusk.

Again we were challenged by a French sentry, and again with ready answer we passed as Frenchmen. It was a kindly darkness that night, hiding our scarlet coats.

We rounded a headland and disembarked upon a strip of sand with as little noise as many men can make. Above us lowered the black cliffs, steep, but not too steep for agile men to climb, though the French never thought of an army coming up there, nor the English either until the last hour.

A call was made for volunteers, active men to lead the way up the cliffs into the blackness beyond. Zeb and I pressed forward, and a smart bunch of us, a score or more, began the steep and rough ascent. It was a task of honor, but not of ease. Bruises were plentiful, and we swore under our breath. We grasped at anything that could give support—bushes, briers, stones—and pulled ourselves up with slowness and pain. Above us we could see nothing but the cliff head, and we did not know what was waiting for us on the summit. The French might be there, ready to blow us with a storm of bullets back to the bottom, but that was one of the risks we had to take, though I will admit that it gave large and unpleasant liberties to the imagination.

Thus the night scramble proceeded. I looked back and saw the uniforms of the men behind me showing through the darkness like a huge red smudge. There was a thump, and somebody cried, “The French!” But it was only a stone that an incautious soldier had set rolling. It continued to roll until it passed out of hearing, and for aught I know rolled on until it found the bottom of the river.

“If a little stone stirs us up like that, what would the whole French army do?” said Zeb.

“Let’s not discuss what we don’t wish to see just yet,” I replied.

“I think I see the top of this pesky cliff,” rejoined Zeb, “an’ darned glad I’ll be when we get there.”

I expected momentarily to hear shots from above, but there was none. Only the exclamations and the scraping noises made by climbing men came to us. At last I seized a projecting stone and drew myself up the last foot of the steep. Zeb and I and two or three others stood together upon the summit of the cliff.

“I guess we’re first up,” said the lad; “but here are the boys comin’ huddlin’ after us.”

Up they came, and the cliff soon had a red fringe where the little vanguard gathered.

In the faint light we saw a cluster of tents but a short distance away. We made a rush for them, and three or four scattering shots were fired at us. We saw some men springing out of the tents looking in the gloom like gigantic jumping jacks. Somebody fired at one of the leaping figures and put a bullet through his heel and an end to his flight at the same time. He lay upon the ground groaning as much with fright as with pain, and when we came up to him we found it was Vergor, the commander of the post, who had been sleeping calmly in his tent when he should have been watching for us. We took some of his men, but the others fled so fast that we could not have caught them unless we had been winged.

Our shots were the happy signal to those below that the summit was ours, and directly the big red smudge of the red-breasted army climbing after us appeared on the edge of the cliff. I saw General Wolfe himself, and was near enough to mark the eager and joyful flush on his worn face. Presently we heard the boom of the cannon off Samos way. The French had found at last that the boats passing down the river in the darkness did not contain friends, and they opened fire upon the rear of the long file. But it was too late; the men from the other end of that file were on the heights, and despite cannon fire and the precautions of the awakened French they were surely drawing the others up the heights after them. Some of our men were detailed to seize the nearest batteries, but I had no part in such expeditions. I remained with the steadily increasing army gathering in line of battle on the heights. Zeb had gone prowling off toward Quebec, and I had to do only that waiting which is so large a part of a soldier’s work.

It was not yet day, and we who stood on the heights knew very little of what was passing. We could hear the distant cannon shots and the whispered words of each other, but neither told us anything. We could tell by the deepening hum and murmur that the numbers of our army on the heights were increasing, but what the French were preparing for us we could not say. We had performed one great feat and were exultant over it, but I confess that I was not sanguine even yet as to the chief event. I had seen two brave armies beaten by rashness and ill-judged attacks, and only by waiting could I know whether I was to see a third meet the same fate.

I strained my eyes in the direction of Quebec, but could see nothing. I tried to draw some sign from the distant cannon shots, but remained in the same ignorance. A ghostly figure seemed to rise out of the ground at my feet, and Zeb Crane stood beside me.

“What have you learned, what do you know, Zeb?” I asked eagerly.

“Nothin’ except what’s good,” he replied. “A peasant told me that Montcalm was still looking for us on the other side of the town.”

Then he was gone to make his report to a colonel, and we continued to wait for the lazy day which to most of us seemed to linger as if it would never come. But come it did at last, though it was gray with clouds, gloomy, and threatening.

We were chill from the night and the damp of a cloudy morning, and the cheerless sight of a gray plain struck into the bone. The rising dawn revealed no enemies, but presently a body of Canadians came out of the town and moved along the strand to our landing place. They were soon driven back, but the spatter of the musketry and the shouts cleared our brains and stirred our blood until we felt like good men again.

Presently we marched in files to the Plains of Abraham, formed in line of battle there with our faces to Quebec, and waited for M. Montcalm to come and drive us off his doorstep if he could.

At Ticonderoga and Montmorency it was we who made the rush and the French who waited for us; here it was we who waited.

Quebec was but a mile away, but still we could not see it. A third of that distance from us a broken ridge cut the line of vision and like a defiant wall shut off Quebec from us. I think most of us spent our time staring at the ugly ridge and cursing it for getting in the way. I saw an old fellow dressed like a Canadian peasant appear on a hillock and gaze at us for a minute as if we were some huge and curious beast. Then he scuttled away to escape our skirmishers, and we did not see him again. The next moment, and before the other divisions could come up, we saw many white uniforms on the ridge, and I was certain then that the French army was coming at last to take breakfast with us. Nor was I wrong, for soon Montcalm came in tumult, in haste, and in disorder as if surprised, as in truth he and his men were.

In our rear we heard the fire of the skirmishers, but in front we made no movement, content to hold for the present the ground we occupied and see what M. le Marquis intended to do about it. But we did not remain quiet. While the French were gathering on the ridge and making their preparations, the Highlanders were waving their tartans and playing their strange, fearful music on the bagpipes. I do not think there is much music in it, but it goes well with the firing of guns and is suited to the expression of defiance. Certainly it inspired us, and our confidence grew.

Presently we had more than noise and the sight of white French uniforms. The bullets began to knock up dust, and then to smash through redcoats and draw redder blood. One man fell and then another and another, and thus the roll continued, but we had to stand there, a huge red target for the sharpshooters, and no man knew that he would not be next. The fierce spatter of the rifle fire seemed to ring us around. White puffs of smoke rose from a field of yellow corn where the Canadian and Indian sharpshooters lay. I fell to counting those puffs, but soon they grew too numerous for me and I gave it up. Then three cannon opened on us and made a great noise, though their sting was not any worse than that of the rifles. The sharpshooters in the cornfield were re-enforced by others, and they lay behind every bush or hillock or stone that would give a man’s body shelter. The army was bleeding fast, and it was no wonder it writhed about a little and wanted to bite back.

This lasted a long time—very long it must have seemed to some—and we had no choice but to endure it while we waited for M. Montcalm to give us open battle. Sometimes light showers of rain fell, but they were welcome to us, cooling our faces and settling the dust kicked up by many men. Two hours before noon the French came down in full force to attack us.¹ They outnumbered us, but when I saw their tumultuous array I knew enough of war to feel sure that we would win. Order beats disorder. The French and Canadian veterans of many victories were there, but they were not fighting behind felled trees and earthworks now.

We went forward a little as if to welcome them, and they stopped quite still. The French came on with a gay air, shouting for France, their King, and their general, as is their wont. I saw a man in brilliant uniform on a black horse encouraging them, and I recognized Montcalm. But my eyes passed on to dwell longer on another figure as resplendently clad, but larger and more striking. It was the Seigneur de St. Maur. He, too, was on horseback leading on the Frenchmen. I had wished that he would not be there, but I knew that he would be.

The fire, still chiefly from the French, had grown very heavy, and the blaze of exploding gunpowder ran in streaks across the plain. But on our side it was only our skirmishers who were busy. In the solid red ranks the men, musket in hand, were waiting for the word of command. It did not come until the French were forty paces away, and then our line fired, all so close together that I heard but one explosion. It was a volley that scorched the Frenchman’s whiskers and took most of the gayety out of him. The whole French army staggered, the men behind us gave it another volley, and those who could reload followed it up with a fire as destructive as it was rapid. The smoke grew so dense that the French army was hid, and as if by preconcerted action our men stopped firing for a minute. The cloud of smoke rose up from the earth and left there a mass of dead and wounded men and horses and guns and sabers, dropped from the hands of their owners. The French army, thrown back, hesitated and lost cohesion. The officers were shouting and cursing and trying to bring the men up to the charge. The seigneur himself on foot, his horse slain, gesticulated with his bare sword.

Every man in our army who had eyes must have seen the opportunity, for by a common impulse we rushed upon the French in their disorder, the Highlanders drawing their swords and yelling in a manner only less fearful than the shriek of their bagpipes, the rest of us cheering, some firing, and others presenting the bayonet.

We struck the French and in their disorder they were not fit to withstand such a red avalanche. Their ill-formed lines were smashed in, and on we went, over the wounded and the dead, sweeping everything in a wild rout before us. Montcalm, still on horseback, was carried in the blood-stained mob. I saw the seigneur brandishing his sword as if he had no other business in life, and tears were running down his face. Then I lost sight of him.

We pressed on after this army, turned rabble, though the sharpshooters in the cornfield and the bushes still scorched our flanks. I heard a cry that the general was killed, and I saw two officers carrying him away in their arms. At another time it might have stopped us, but not then; the men saw their fleeing enemy, and we were in the flush of triumph. We rushed on, an invincible line, driving the French before us.

My head was clearer than ever before in battle. I looked again for the seigneur, but did not see him. I remembered to look also for my good friend Devizac, who I was sure would be there, but I missed him too. I saw Montcalm on his horse still trying to rally his army, but when the French mass, from which came many shouts and a straggling fire, was pressed back against the St. Louis gate, he reeled in his saddle. Two soldiers rushed forward, supported him on either side, and thus, a melancholy procession, they passed through the gate.

We were recalled to encamp upon the field of our victory and mourn the gallant men who had fallen, and who, alas! with our general in chief at their head, were too numerous. Scattered fighting still went on, but the bulk of us were busy with the spade making good our hold upon the ground we had won.

Oppressed as I was with anxiety for my friends in Quebec, I was worn too with work, the battle, and long waiting, and when night came I fell asleep at the first opportunity, and never slept more soundly in my life. In the chilly dawn Culverhouse pulled me out of the trench which was my bed and shook me violently.

“Wake up!” he said. “You can’t sleep forever. A friend of yours and mine, too, that wild boy, is here to see you.”

I opened my sleepy eyes and saw Zeb Crane. He had been in and out of Quebec again, and he said that the trip was easy in the confusion prevailing after the battle.

“Will they come out and fight us again?” I asked, for I knew the French were yet more numerous than the army that we had gathered on the Plains of Abraham.

“Hardly,” said Zeb scornfully. “The French are stampeded like a herd of deer with the wolves after ’em. Nearly all their army has left Quebec an’ is runnin’ full tilt for Montreal, with the governor himself leadin’ ’em.”

This was great news, and to my mind insured the fall of Quebec, which, in truth, turned out to be a fact.

“Has the Seigneur de St. Maur gone too,” I asked, “or did he fall in the battle?”

“Neither,” replied Zeb. “He wasn’t hurt, and he’s stayed with a few French to help hold the town against us if they can.”

Then he added that Montcalm was dying of his wound, and the news came to us soon that he was dead. It is now an old tale to all the world how the two great commanders fell in this decisive battle, the one in victory and the other in defeat.

I mourned them both.

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