by Frieda Watt
“That’s one reason why I’m here. Trying to prove that I care about this place and the people. I’m not trying to destroy it.”
Marie put a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Does everyone here know you’re from Boston?”
“Everyone except the patients.”
“And they’re fine with it?”
Sara shrugged. “Not all of them. I’ve overheard things when they think I’m not listening. But they tolerate me.”
“Then you’re safe here,” Marie said, firmly hoping she could meet some of these nasty people so she could put them in their place. “We’ll just make sure you don’t speak in front of the patients.” Sara raised a skeptical eyebrow. “I’m serious,” Marie went on. “You and I will work together. I know you’re supposed to be monitoring me, but I’ll talk to the patients and we’ll both treat them.”
Sara still looked dubious. “I don’t know,” she said uncertainly.
“It’s only the first day,” Marie pointed out, “and look what happened. We possibly have weeks of this ahead of us. Last time, the fortress lasted six weeks, but there wasn’t any gunpowder. This time, they’ve been stockpiling it for years in case the British came back. So the battle might last longer this time.”
Sara nodded reluctantly. “You’d be willing to stick with me for the rest of this?”
“Yes, but only if you lay off me about the cleaning.”
Sara began to splutter indignantly.
“I’ll do my best,” Marie said hastily, “but if I forget, don’t murder me.”
Sara thought for a moment, then laughed nervously.
***
Marie retired to her room that night, exhausted both emotionally and physically. Hot and sticky, she stripped out of her clothes and stood by the window, embracing what little breeze there was.
It had worked, she thought ruefully. She was so busy she never stopped to think of anything other than what was in the present. But now, the thought of Pierre pierced her heart. She looked out at the darkness, breathing in air choked by gunpowder and smoke, and wiped the tears that slowly tracked down her cheeks.
Surely, he wasn’t dead, she thought. He hadn’t shown up at the hospital. Then she remembered that the dead never made it to the hospital. Would anyone tell her? Maybe no one would, since she wasn’t officially his wife. She might be forced to search for his body or to find out what happened to him during the upheaval when everything was over.
She pulled the small silver band out of the pocket in her smock and slipped it onto her right hand, closing her hand into a fist so the ring wouldn’t slip off. She held it close to her heart as she lay in bed, wishing with all her might that she could will Pierre to safety.
***
It was June 25th, six days into the siege, and the hospital population was swelling at an alarming rate. Soldiers, civilians, and sailors filled the beds and spilled onto pallets on the floors. During the previous siege, the enemy had seemed content to wait while the situation inside the fortress grew ever more desperate, at least at first. This time, the goal seemed to be utter destruction.
Sara and Marie had worked out a partnership even though it was an unusual one. Marie spoke to the patients, calming and soothing them and finding out information while Sara silently worked. No one ever questioned why there were two healers treating them. After a few days, they found that they could communicate without words: a look here, a nod there and soon both were tending to the wounded while Marie spoke for both.
As frustrated as Marie found the cleaning techniques that Sara still enforced with manic energy, she found that she herself was starting to use them without thinking. She began washing her hands after treating every patient. People laughed at her, but Marie found the exercise a much-needed respite between the madness of caring for one injured person and then another—a moment where she could catch her breath and compose herself before carrying on.
Marie sat in the kitchen, eating her sparse midday meal and enjoying the silence that came with a break in the bombardment. Every day, for hours at a time, the cannons and guns from both the British army and the British navy fired over the fortress. It was becoming so commonplace that the silence, when it came, was deafening. The idea was to break the spirit of the inhabitants, and that was an effective battle tactic. The forces that kept raining destruction down from above made it difficult to carry out daily routines. As the dust from each bombardment settled, the French engineers would rush in to try to repair the damage as much as possible. The buildings closest to the ramparts were the hardest hit. Those that were still standing and not made of stone were being dismantled for building supplies.
The hospital kitchen was filled with people eating and with cooks preparing the meagre rations for the patients. No one paid Marie much attention, and she appreciated the break. Her back ached from bending over all morning, and her hands were chapped from the continuous washing. An exhaustion that Marie had never felt before had settled into her bones, and she knew it probably wouldn’t leave until this war was over.
Father Laval, a tall, extremely thin priest who spoke little but was an excellent physician, entered the room. He dealt with the most difficult cases, those with little hope of recovery. Marie paid him no mind until he stood in front of her, looking down his hook nose at her.
“Can you follow me, Madame Lévesque?” The lines of his face deepened with concern, his voice quiet.
Marie felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. She bent to pick up her dishes, but the priest motioned for one of the kitchen staff to take care of them.
He said nothing as Marie followed him, her heart in her throat, to a crowded room packed with those who had just arrived. The floor was covered with blood and bile, making navigation difficult. Father Laval made his way through the maze of bodies with the ease of a man who had seen such carnage before.
That morning, a British ship had hit a warehouse where several sailors had taken shelter. The fire was still burning, and men were being brought in with varying degrees of burns. There was little to be done for most of them. It was a waiting game: either they would recover or they wouldn’t.
Marie followed the priest, and they exited the mayhem into a narrow corridor which was almost as full as the room they had just left. Sailors carried men in and out, soldiers were conferencing in small groups while they waited. The confused jumble of bodies and limbs was overwhelming, but the scene was frighteningly quiet.
Marie spotted Father Maneau walking slowly down the hall, pausing at every man propped up against the wall or lying on a pile of blankets. With a sob, she realized he was administering last rites. Breathing as deeply as she could, she tried to steady herself, absolutely terrified of who was waiting at the end of the corridor. Father Laval pointed him out, but that wasn’t necessary. She would have recognized his face anywhere.
Two soldiers stood around him, but Marie didn’t recognize them. He was wrapped in a blanket soaked with blood, and he seemed smaller now than he ever had in life. She bent down and stroked the midnight crown, matted now with blood and filth. She had seen bodies that looked as if they were merely sleeping, but Nic’s was not one of them. His face was contorted with pain and caked with blood.
One of the soldiers spoke, but she wasn’t paying attention. The information washed over her and made little difference. A grape shot had hit him in the chest, tearing his torso apart. Miraculously—or cruelly—depending on how you looked at it, the hit hadn’t killed him. There was no help for such injuries on the battlefield, so the soldiers had brought him to the hospital, but the damage was too great and he had died on his way.
Marie’s hands felt numb. An old woman on the streets of Quebec had once told her mother that Marie and Nic shared a connection, an awareness that others did not. Marie’s mother had hurried them away as quickly as possible, muttering about witches. The woman’s words, however, hadn’t proven true. As children, they were almost indifferent to each other until their parents’ death. However, staring
at his corpse, she felt as if a part of her was trapped with him, gone forever, where she couldn’t reach it.
Suddenly, she didn’t want to look at him any longer. The idea of being near his body revolted her. Her hands were sticky with congealing blood. Disgusted, she pushed the corpse away, fleeing outside, heedless of the voices calling after her.
She leaned against the outside wall, her strength finally crumbling, and wept. Wept for her brother; for the countless wounded and dead she had tried to save; for Pierre, who might still be alive but for how much longer; for every sorry soul trapped inside this hellhole.
She wept until there was nothing left. She hadn’t seen Nic in over a month. He’d been furious about her decisions, and she’d been annoyed at his interference. Their differences hadn’t bothered her at the time, but now they seemed monumental. After everything he had done to fight for his country, to try to protect her, he had bled out, surrounded by strangers.
The distant rumble of cannon fire brought Marie back to the present. Standing up, she swallowed large gulps of air, trying to calm herself. Nic was gone, but he had died trying to defend them all and there were still hundreds who needed her help. She wiped her face with her apron and walked back into the hospital, wringing her hands, trying to rid herself of her brother’s blood.
Father Laval was standing inside the door, not wanting to intrude on her grief. Marie looked up warily.
“I’m very sorry, my dear.” Marie simply nodded. She wasn’t in the mood for empty words. They meant nothing and could heal nothing.
“Your brother was married?” Marie’s head snapped up. She hadn’t thought of Elise. “She needs to know what’s happened.” Marie nodded numbly. She felt both an overwhelming need to see Elise and dread that she would have to be the one to break the news. “I can go and tell her myself,” Father Laval continued, “but I was wondering if you would like to accompany me?”
Marie nodded. She felt that her voice had forgotten how to work. “Elise … I need to talk to her … She’ll be all alone.”
Father Laval nodded as if he understood what Marie was going through. “When you are ready, we will go and tell her.”
***
It was late afternoon when Marie and Father Laval finally extricated themselves from their duties and made their way to the small stone house that had once been the home of Captain Lévesque. Usually, Marie would have welcomed the break from the carnage, but each step filled her with dread. She half-hoped that Elise wouldn’t be home, so she wouldn’t have to be the one to shatter her world. As soon as she thought that, though, she hated herself for being a coward.
Elise was home. At the sight of her sister-in-law and a priest on the doorstep, she sank to the floor in a faint. No words needed to be said. Father Laval stayed long enough to make sure that Elise understood the news and was in no immediate medical danger, but then he headed back to the hospital, leaving the two women alone in their grief.
Elise didn’t say anything for a long time. She just sat huddled on the sofa, wrapped in a quilt that Marie had placed around her shoulders. Marie sat opposite her, completely silent, lost in her own thoughts as the sun sank beneath the horizon and darkness engulfed them. Two women tied by a grief that was beyond words. Marie waited because she knew that Elise would need to talk eventually, though she couldn’t force her. Eventually, Marie roused herself long enough to light some candles. She began puttering around the kitchen, made some tea, and then sat down across from Elise again.
“He told me not to worry,” Elise whispered as Marie placed a teacup in her hands. Elise was so quiet that Marie had to lean closer to hear her. “Of course, I always did, but he never wanted me to know how bad it was.”
Marie nodded. Nic was stubborn like that. He would carry the weight of the world on his shoulders before he would let her see how bad the politics were in this place. He never wrote home in hopes that no news would be considered good news. It was something that had always bothered her. Although, looking back, she had done the same to Nic—not telling him about Claude beating her after Nic had enlisted and left the manor.
“He didn’t want you to know how bad it was because he loves you.”
“Loved me.”
Marie winced. “I’m sure that, wherever he is now, he still loves you very much.”
Elise threw a nasty look at her friend, and silence fell between them again. Despite the warm temperature of the night, Marie felt chilled and bent to light the fire. It felt good to have something to do with her hands.
“What am I going to do now?” Elise finally asked. Her face was snow white, and the panic in her voice was clear.
“I don’t know,” Marie replied. “You’ll receive some kind of compensation, although I don’t know what.” She said the words delicately, but she knew that wasn’t what her friend meant.
“My mother is going to be furious. It was partly for this reason that she didn’t want me to marry him.”
Marie had to agree. Elise’s mother had been vocal about her opposition to the marriage. So she didn’t blame Elise for not wanting to see her now. “What about Diane? Surely you can stay there until the siege is over.” After that, was anyone’s guess.
“Diane’s pregnant again,” Elise muttered, avoiding Marie’s eye.
Eight years of marriage had produced no children for the Lévesques. Elise had always tried to make the best of it, but Marie knew how much the situation hurt her. She wouldn’t go anywhere near her cousin, not when she was with child.
“I was angry with him right before he left,” Elise suddenly shouted, tears continuing to course down her cheeks.
“It’s a stressful time for us all,” Marie said, trying to calm her down.
“I knew what could happen, but I was still angry with him. I can’t even remember why.”
That sounded about on par with what Marie knew of the last few years of their relationship. “We all do things we wish we could take back. But he knew you loved him, and he loved you very much.” A fresh wave of tears greeted this announcement.
Marie wrapped a comforting arm around Elise’s shivering shoulders. She wanted to confide in Elise that Nic had been upset with her too, about the guilt that was piling up in her as well, but her friend was in no shape to reciprocate with support. Marie also knew that Elise shouldn’t be left alone.
“I’ll stay tonight, but I have to go back to the hospital tomorrow morning.”
“It’s bad, isn’t it?” Elise asked thickly, her usually porcelain face swollen and blotchy from tears.
“Yes,” Marie sighed. “But you don’t need to worry about that now.”
Marie made a light meal of salted cod and stale turnip, encouraging Elise to eat, even though she only picked at the food herself. She tidied up while Elise roamed the house, unsure of what to do with herself.
Marie tucked Elise into her large feather bed and crawled in beside her. She held her sister-in-law while she wept, unable to think of anything to say. A small part of Marie had assumed Nic would walk away from this battle the way he always had.
Her thoughts turned to Pierre, who was still on the battlefield, still in the line of fire. While hopefully alive, she knew she could be in Elise’s position at any moment. Even worse, she wouldn’t officially be a widow, so the church wouldn’t recognize her as next of kin. She would be a ruined woman, alone in the world.
She watched the moon rise while she stroked Elise’s copper hair, thinking of Pierre lying under the same orb. It was oddly comforting to know they were both under the same sky. Elise finally fell into an uneasy sleep as the moon sank closer to the horizon. Marie slipped out of bed and silently took one last look around the house.
It looked as it always had: neat, clean, and sparsely furnished but now unaware that its master no longer lived. There was nothing of their parents in this house because nothing had been removed from the wreckage after the fire, so this was all that remained of Marie’s family.
She lovingly picked up Nic’s snuff
box from the desk. Just like its owner, it put function over appearance, but it was attractive in its own way, with a hand-carved wooden lid depicting the voyageurs travelling over rapids. Nic had traded a beaver pelt for it when he was ten, the fur being from the first animal he had ever killed. Though he’d never tried snuff, he’d eagerly given the pelt to a fur trader just back from Europe in exchange for the box. He’d been so proud of it. He’d tried snuff shortly afterwards and hated it. Marie laughed at the memory and wiped a tear from her eye.
Whatever happened to them when the fortress fell, the snuff box, like Nic’s body and those of so many other poor souls who had lost their lives here, would stay behind. And the lives of those who had lived and loved in Louisbourg would be forgotten in the echoes of history. Marie now understood why Sara’s mother didn’t want to leave the graves of her children. She placed the snuff box gently back on the desk, curled up on the couch, and slept till the first rays of the morning sun filtered into the room.
Chapter 14
AFTER NIC’S DEATH, daily life became even more difficult. The bombardment still rained fiery hell from the sky, and the wounded, dying, and starving were coming in faster than the hospital could handle. The bombs were falling more frequently, the accuracy of the targets ever improving. Supplies were running low and people were bringing in loved ones who simply couldn’t take the bombardment anymore. Morale was low, even though everyone was fighting to keep the wheels of daily life moving.
Unable to leave the hospital, Marie had tried to write to Elise every day, but there had been no response, so she had no idea what her sister-in-law was doing. Father Laval had gone to check on her one night and reported that the house was empty. Nic’s body had been laid to rest in the cemetery outside the walls, but Marie had been informed that Elise hadn’t gone to the burial. Marie’s anxiety about her just kept growing. Why was she being so absent and silent?
Marie awoke four days after Nic’s death to the room spinning. After giving herself a few minutes, she felt a bit better, but she had to lie down again after she got dressed. She didn’t feel feverish, but her stomach was writhing. Was it possible that she’d contracted an illness while working with the sick people at the hospital? She carefully made her way down the hallway, all too aware of cannon fire roaring through the air.
