Christiane placed a hand on his cheek. “They’re just friends. And it’s not the same.” She sighed. “Uncle Fritz has been away for so long.”
“He could be dead. That’s what Dieter said.”
“We don’t know about Uncle Fritz,” she said, “but we know about your papa.” She tried to smile. “He’s only been away for three months, and we know exactly where he is.”
“He’s fighting the French.”
“Yes.”
“And he’s coming home when he’s done.”
“Yes. He’s coming home when he’s done.”
The boy’s eyelids started to droop. His lips drew together. “Mama?”
“Yes.”
“I miss Freya.”
“I do too, little lamb.”
Christiane knitted for a while in the dark, her fingers, like always, knowing how long each row should be. Franklin cried out. She held her breath, but he settled again. The others slept. Franklin cried out again. Hanna sat up and looked around, but Christiane got her back to sleep.
She blew out the candle and lay down with them. Her thoughts raced up to Louisbourg, through the forests where Frenchmen and Indians lay in ambush. She thought of her hungry, unruly, frightened children. Wasn’t she just as hungry and unruly and frightened?
She should pray, she thought. She rose, being careful not to brush Franklin. She knelt beside the bed and rubbed her face with her hands. Feelings swirled through her. She prayed every night for Johann to be spared, for the children to be spared, and for the souls of her lost children. But tonight she should pray for more. Tonight she would pray for God to let her love again.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
†
Johann liked the spot McDonnell had picked, about five hundred paces past the small bridge over the shallow barachois. It was well past where most of the British ambushes had been staged and far enough from the fortress that Frenchmen on patrol would be thinking about their target—the guns northeast of the harbor—not about ambush. For weeks, British mortars and cannon had pounded Louisbourg, dropping deadly shells and cannonballs on the people huddled inside the walls. The guns still were too distant to smash the walls. They had to be closer. Men were digging new positions in front of the tidal flats, but still the guns on the heights thundered day and night, each blast shattering the air.
For this action, only fourteen Broad Bay men would fight. Three were down with the bloody flux, the soldier’s companion, and two more had passed out that afternoon while digging gun positions near the Hill of Justice. Poor Wilhelm Koch, of course, was gone. Three British mortars boomed in quick succession to Johann’s left. A French gun answered from the Dauphin redoubt. The blasts made it hard to listen for troops sallying out from the fort.
The Broad Bay men flanked the path from the bridge, half on either side. Johann’s contingent was on the high side. If the French stayed on the path, Johann would strike after they had moved past. Then McDonnell’s group would rise from the marsh side while the Royal Rifles swept in from the front.
The moon was still down, leaving the country dark. Fog shrouded the marsh fitfully, creeping onto the land, then slipping back to sea. Johann worried that the damp would soak into the rangers’ powder. They might have to turn to the bayonet early.
He heard something. Men. Men trying to be quiet. The French had left the path and were working through the high ground, coming directly at him. They must have some Indians or Canadians with them. Johann gave the warning, the call of the cardinal. Each ranger should be burrowed down into a shallow pit he had dug for himself. Johann prayed that no enemy would stumble over a concealed ranger and trigger the engagement in a scattershot way. That would turn McDonnell’s plan into shambles.
Figures loomed before him. Indians in buckskins led a column of French. The column was narrow enough that they shouldn’t walk over any rangers, but they were many, at least a hundred. Those Royal Rifles better arrive fast or the rangers would be overwhelmed. Johann realized he was holding his breath. He exhaled.
The end of the column was almost even with him. Johann hoped for a cannon roar to mask the attack, confusing the French, but he couldn’t wait very long for it. After the last Frenchman passed him, he counted to ten. He counted to ten again. No cannon. Giving the cardinal call, he rose to one knee and aimed at the sergeant trailing the column. He fired.
More musket shots followed. Johann saw muzzle flashes on his right. McDonnell’s men must have seen the column and stolen up the hill to join Johann’s group.
“Form up,” he shouted as he reloaded, then repeated it in German. McDonnell’s tall form topped the rise where the rangers were lining up, four feet apart, facing the French. “Fire,” Johann shouted. The volley rang out. “Advance!”
They moved at a quick step, bayonets fixed, with McDonnell and Johann one step behind. A swale slowed them. A ranger tripped and fell. McDonnell, cursing, lifted the fallen man and shoved him forward.
They risked losing the shock of the attack. Voices came from the French column. They were forming their line to get a volley off. This moment would test every ranger. The enemy would fire at them. Each ranger could only hope they missed. “Rangers, spread,” he called, adding space between the men. This wasn’t a maneuver that the Landgraf’s soldiers used, but Johann had introduced it for the rangers.
He ground his teeth. Why didn’t they fire? Their officers were shouting. They might be waiting to maximize the volley’s impact. Maybe they were falling into chaos, the ones in front not knowing what was happening behind, the ones behind in panic. The rangers advanced.
“Now!” he screamed. The men began to jog up a gentle incline. McDonnell moved to the front and picked up the cry. “Run, you bastards!” he shouted, his rifle over his head. Ragged shots came from the French lines, not a full volley. McDonnell staggered, switched his rifle to his other hand, and resumed the advance. Johann bellowed a war cry. No bullet had hit him.
Now in front, Johann singled out a tall grenadier in a light-colored jacket. He feinted high with his blade, then dropped it low and ducked under the man’s thrust. Rising, he drove the blade under the grenadier’s ribs. The impact drove the Frenchman back onto the ground. Johann turned the musket in his hands to tear up the man’s insides, then put his foot on the man’s chest to pull out.
McDonnell, next to him, warded off a blow from a clubbed musket. Johann thrust his bayonet into the side of that Frenchman, ripping the blade out his front. McDonnell had dropped his rifle and pulled out his tomahawk. He set on another Frenchman.
A musket volley exploded in front of them. The Royal Rifles. French voices shouted orders. They were forming on the path, sorting themselves into a double line.
“Down!” Johann shouted, hoping the other rangers could see the danger. He dropped to the ground, where he found McDonnell already prone. The powder flashes from the French volley showed that his friend was hurt. He crawled to him.
“Where?”
“My arm.” He shouted. “Those bloody bastards shot me! Goddamn them to hell!”
By feel, Johann found the wound, above the elbow. McDonnell’s sleeve was slick. He grunted in pain. Johann thought the arm was probably smashed. He tore a strip from his shirt and tied it off above the wound. He twisted his ramrod through the knot to tighten it.
“Jesus, you bloody German butcher,” McDonnell muttered. “Don’t need you trying to kill me too.”
Johann called Josef Wagner over. He told the man to hold the ramrod tight, then headed toward the path. The French were retreating to the fortress. The Royal Rifles had reached as far as the rangers but stopped there. They weren’t pursuing the way they should have. They could inflict the greatest damage in pursuit, but only the Rifles had the numbers to do it. The rangers were too few.
Johann called for his men to form before him. Counting McDonnell and Wagner, they were only thirteen. Someone was missing. Keller. Johann told the men to find him, then returned to McDonnell.
A crescent
moon had risen to the horizon, offering dim illumination. McDonnell looked to be at the door of the next world. “Josef,” he said to Wagner, “see if the Rifles have a stretcher.” Johann took over the tourniquet. If McDonnell was lucky, the arm was all he would lose.
A horseman rode up. “A fine fight, Captain.”
Johann looked up. It was Wolfe.
“Thank you, sir,” Johann said, “I’m sorry, I can’t release this wound.”
“Yes, yes. There’s a wagon coming with other wounded. I’ll send it up here.” The general nodded. “A fine fight.”
* * * * * *
“Jesus, man, you look worse than me.” McDonnell’s words were brave, but his voice was weak. He’d been in the hospital tent for two fever-ridden weeks after a surgeon sawed off his right arm below the shoulder. He huddled under three blankets. Thirty men filled the tent to bursting. Artillery rumbled in the distance. Louisbourg’s walls had begun to crack. For days now, the British guns had never been silent.
“Trenches still must be dug, and also,” Johann touched his stomach and shrugged.
“Ah, Captain Quickstep has made a visit.” McDonnell smiled and closed his eyes. He opened them again. “How long have you been here?”
Johann shrugged. “A wee bit.”
“Don’t even try, laddie. No one’s ever going to think you’re a Scot. You’re too small.”
“How does it go?”
“It goes. I guess I’m getting better. Thinking about how to be a one-armed carpenter. And the wrong damned arm, to boot.”
“You’ll do it. Make Alec and the others do the lifting.”
“I’ve been thinking that way. Three inches to the side, and that ball would have barely singed my sleeve.”
“Three inches the other way, and we’d have buried you.”
McDonnell shrugged with his eyebrows and looked over at Keller, who was asleep in the next bed. In Broad Bay, he was a fisherman with four children. “Better off than that poor bugger. Took his leg clean off, they did.” McDonnell wagged a finger at Johann. “Don’t sit here too long or those sons of bitches with the saws’ll cut something off.”
“They didn’t get that, too, did they?”
McDonnell smiled. “By God, Captain, that may be the first smutty remark I’ve ever heard from your proper lips.” McDonnell shifted. Johann pushed a folded cloth behind the man’s head, propping it up. “I’ve told Keller that we should go into business together. I’ll lend him a leg if he’ll lend me an arm.” McDonnell had made the same joke during Johann’s last three visits. He squinted out the tent opening. “What time of day is it? It’s always grey in here. I can never tell.”
“Afternoon. After two.”
“Since when do ranger captains get afternoons off? Is this a Sunday?”
“General Wolfe can’t think of any holes we need to dig right now, so we’re at liberty.”
A tremendous explosion sounded, making the ground shudder. Cheers came from all parts of the camp. The patients in the tent—those who could—began to stir. “Go on,” McDonnell said. “Find out what it is.”
Only a few steps from the tent, Johann saw the fortress and harbor. Orange flames were swallowing a French warship whole, turning it into a floating torch. After watching for a few moments, Johann hurried back inside.
“They’ve set afire one of the French ships of the line,” he reported to McDonnell. “It’s a sight to warm the soul!”
McDonnell started to roll onto his side, using his good arm to pull the blankets off.
“Here, here,” Johann said, restraining him, shocked by how McDonnell’s bulk had dwindled. “I don’t think the doctors want you out in the damp.”
“Bugger the doctors,” McDonnell said. “I’m going to watch those bastards burn.” He pushed his right shoulder forward to emphasize the absent arm. “I’ll see them pay for this.”
Johann put his friend’s moccasins on and draped blankets over him. He crouched by McDonnell’s side to lever him upright. McDonnell swayed when he stood, then steadied. He nodded. With his free hand, Johann grabbed the stool he had sat on. The two men slowly sidled between the patient cots and out onto the slope. Johann positioned McDonnell on the stool.
The spectacle in the harbor was hypnotic. Flames, fed by the pitch and tar in the ship’s planking, soared hundreds of feet high. The British guns fell silent for the first time in days as the French sailors hurried to contain the inferno. Small boats circled the burning hulk to retrieve survivors, but the fierce heat kept them at a distance. A groan rose from the crowd on the slope when the blaze detonated the French ship’s guns, sending ball and shot into the boats of the rescuers, capsizing several.
“Jesus,” McDonnell said in a low voice. “It’s awful, ain’t it?”
The burning hulk drifted toward another giant ship. The flames leapt across the water, seeking new fuel. A violent explosion blew out the quarterdeck of the second ship as its sailors fled in lowered boats. The wind brought the sharp smell of woodsmoke and the sulphuric odor of black powder. No rain came to slow the flames, which ran up rigging, gleefully spreading across furled oilcloth sails.
Johann and McDonnell stayed out on the slope until late afternoon, though Johann made several visits to the latrine. When a third ship of the line ignited, McDonnell shook his head. “Bastards’ll have to quit now,” he said. “They can’t have any more stomach for this.”
Johann, seated on the ground, agreed. The fortress walls were falling down. The fires on the massive ships were destroying nearly two hundred French cannon. And the people in Louisbourg, blockaded for six weeks, had to be starving. “They’d better surrender,” Johann said. “If they keep resisting, we’ll give no quarter. They’ll be massacred.”
McDonnell made a face. “Why would we do that?”
“Rules of war. A town under siege that doesn’t surrender—you give no quarter. Kill everything that moves.”
One side of the Scot’s mouth curled up in disbelief. “Bloody rules of war. Only English bastards could think up a rule like that.” He shook his head. “I’m worn out.”
Back inside, Johann held a bowl of soup while McDonnell, sitting on the side of his cot, spooned with his left hand. He ate with appetite, putting away a half-loaf of bread. He gestured with his crust. “That means we’ll be going home,” he said. “I’m going to see Maggie, find out what she thinks of a one-armed man. You can find out if that skinny woman hasn’t done better for herself while we’ve been gone.”
Explosions from the third ship punctuated his statement. Johann held out the soup for McDonnell to sop up with his bread. He felt a spring inside his stomach begin to unwind.
McDonnell fell asleep a few minutes after eating. Johann pulled the blankets up snug. He stopped with Keller for a moment. Sweat beaded on the man’s forehead. His eyes were unfocused, but then he looked at Johann.
“Captain,” Keller said.
“How goes it?” Johann took the man’s hand. Keller didn’t answer, lost again in his fever. Johann helped him drink some water, then left.
Johann lingered on the slope, watching the last French ship burn to the water line. He had thought so often of Broad Bay, the children and Christiane, Mayflower Hof, but he’d never allowed himself to think about going home, not until this moment. Maybe soon.
He and the other rangers, they had done their part. No one had asked them if they wanted a war with France, a war that threatened their homes, homes they had gambled everything for, homes they had to abandon for miserable stockades. He had come to America so he would no more be a slave to the whims of princes, yet here he stood at this cold, boggy outpost of two empires, having killed again, having risked his life again.
He was here, he told himself, to make his home safe. The French would lose Louisbourg, then Quebec. Then peace with the Indians would come.
He ached for home.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
†
The harvest was thin again. Many potatoes had white mold spots. At
least half were so blighted that Christiane threw them aside to dump in the forest. Ursula and Sigrid were building similar piles where they worked. Farms needed daily attention, not two-hour spasms every few days. Yet Christiane was grateful for the bright day, how the piercing blue sky and cool sun and fresh breezes acted as a solvent to dissolve her fears. The children chased each other near the river. Franklin poked the ground with a stick, mimicking the women’s work, but then an animal turd attracted his attention. Christiane swooped over to dispose of it. She spat on his hand and wiped it, then brought him closer to her.
“Have you thought,” she called to Ursula, “how we’ve crossed the ocean, built homes in the wilderness, yet we live as our mothers and grandmothers lived?”
Ursula looked up from her row of straggling plants and brushed a forearm across her brow. “My mother would take one look at our stockade and get on the next ship to Germany.”
Christiane smiled. She straightened to check on Franklin and run her eyes over the other children. She turned back to her work. “I think about this. Here we live in a village, and we never leave it. We dig for potatoes. We have babies. We care for each other and for the sick and for those who die. Our men go to war. We pray and we hope.” She shrugged.
“We have the lives of women,” Ursula said. “But think what we’ve seen and done. They are wonders. We saw the great city of Amsterdam. We crossed the ocean. Did our mothers and grandmothers do that? We have seen and lived in a wild place, where the animals and Indians roam. And we have land. Our children will have land.” She hacked her hoe into the ground. Both women were thinking of Fritz.
A boom echoed up the river, a much bigger boom than any musket.
“Armstrong,” Ursula said. “He may have news.”
Christiane kept digging, a cold chill seizing her.
“Christiane,” Ursula said, standing, “it may be about Louisbourg.” She called the children to get ready to leave, then told Sigrid to put away the tools. The guards arrived and lifted the buckets of potatoes. Christiane still knelt on the ground. “Christiane, we must go.”
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