Voyageurs

by Margaret Elphinstone

  The army of British soldiers, traders, voyageurs and their Indian allies, would all be coming along the very track I'd followed from Michael Dousman's farm two days ago. That track came out at the back of the fort, before winding to the shore. I remembered an idle talk I'd had with Alan. I pulled my cap over my ears and began to run, away from the still-house, towards the woods.

  When I was exploring the island I'd found a little path behind our house that wound uphill through the trees, by-passing the precipice below the fort. It was quite dark in the wood, but I was used to scrambling over rock. My mind was in turmoil. I was heading towards a bloody conflict between two armies, I who utterly denied any fighting with outward weapons whatsoever. On both sides there were men in whom I'd witnessed, however briefly, a little of that of God, from the anxious young Lieutenant Hanks, whom I'd seen striding down Fort Street with an even younger officer, through to Charles Ermatinger who'd spoken kindly of Rachel. I know not to this day what I thought I could do. But one thing is certain: I could not have stayed away.

  I had to come by a long route, for the trees are all cleared away around the fort for fifty yards or more. At last I stood, breathing hard but silently, at the edge of the forest, where I could look out on the flat green field behind the fort. The grass was all covered with dew, shining in the long rays of the rising sun. A jay chattered above my head. The back wall of the fort looked even less daunting than I remembered it. A cannon could fire over it as easily as I could throw an apple over my garden wall.

  Slowly the sun rose. A little mist wreathed upwards as the dew began to melt. I shifted my position so I could see up the hill to my right. I saw a flash of light, as if the sun had struck metal. I stared and stared, and saw – or fancied I saw – movement among the trees. Soon I was sure of it. The top of the hill was bare of trees, and I could see people moving up there. The flash of metal came again, and yet again. Though I never studied military tactics in my life, it was easy to guess they were mounting a cannon there, overlooking the fort.

  Someone touched my shoulder. I could have jumped out of my skin, and indeed I gave a sort of gasp. It was an Indian warrior, dressed in a breechclout and leggings, his face painted red and black like a demon, all hung about with beads and bones and worse, with a musket over his shoulder, and a long knife in his hand. I had but two seconds for the most fervent prayer of my life, when he said, ‘You come now. This is a bad place for you.’

  What could I do but follow? The wood where I'd walked a few moments ago was suddenly filled with warriors armed with all manner of outward weapons, crouched or standing motionless beneath the trees. How I had failed to hear them I could not think. (I blamed myself the less later, when I'd learned more of the Indians’ ability to go silently in woodland.) I came sinfully close to cursing the blue jay, who I guessed was my betrayer. My captor – if that is what he was – led me back to a little glade where someone had set out beehives, a thing that seemed incongruous in that scene of silent savagery. There was a man in European dress with his back to me. His musket was propped against a tree, while he stood in close confabulation with a feathered warrior. I knew that back. Suddenly rage flared up inside me. I never came so close to striking a man, and yet refrained. All this he had brought on me! Ay, and Rachel, too. I would like to have killed him, and been scalped for it, no doubt, but I held myself in check while my guide whispered to him, and waited his pleasure.

  ‘Mark!’ Alan swung round and held me by both arms. To my astonishment he seemed moved to see me. ‘Man, don't you realise . . . The Devil! You were within ames ace of being knifed – scalped – you'd be dead by now . . . If they hadn't reported back . . . Most times they only tell you after . . . You were to go to the still-house! Didn't Dousman go to you? I asked him . . . I told him . . .’ All this in a frenzied whisper, while the savages looked on.

  ‘Ay, he came,’ I said dourly. I couldn't express my fury. There was no point complaining that he'd told me nothing, left me without a word of warning or a by your leave, been as wily in all his dealings with me as a cockatrice, and treated me from beginning to end as if I were no man at all.

  ‘But why did you come here?’ He looked at me doubtfully. ‘You'll fight with us, after all?’

  ‘No, I will not!’

  ‘Hush!’ whispered Alan, and the savages stirred disapprovingly around us. ‘No point being angry with me, brother Mark. This is a war you've strayed into. I can't help that.’

  ‘Ay, but thee didn't tell me, did thee? Thee knew war was declared, the very day I met thee, and thee said naught.’

  ‘I was sworn not to, Mark.’

  ‘I've not known thy oath to trouble thee, when not convenient!’

  He struck me across the cheek.

  There was a moment's silence. The savages had closed around us, silent as ever, watching. I heeded them not. I stepped up to him – oh, shame it is to write it! So far did I then fall! – I twisted him neatly off balance and threw him across my hip. Before he knew I'd moved he was lying sprawled at my feet.

  I heard the crash of a cannon shot from the hill behind us. For a moment everything froze. The echo rumbled across the hill. A small breeze shimmered up above; a few leaves fell. All of a sudden a frightful yelling broke out from all sides of the forest. Alan's Indians joined in, in a long-drawn-out howling that froze my blood.

  Alan scrambled to his feet. ‘By God, it's begun!’

  The savages, indiscriminately armed with guns, clubs or tomahawks, were running towards the clearing. I had to see: I followed. Alan was way ahead of me, hurrying through the trees.

  Someone touched my shoulder. I didn't jump this time, when I saw the painted face – half-black, half-red, and the glittering eyes looking directly into mine. ‘This – you want?’

  He held out a musket, the butt towards me. I looked down at it. ‘Nay, friend, I will not’ – I caught myself up, thinking of the sin that now lay upon me – ‘I will not take up any outward weapon.’

  ‘You want?’

  ‘No, friend. I do not want.’

  He shrugged, and left me. I ran after him into the sunlight. The scene had changed utterly. The green clearing was filled with men: a wild, parti-coloured army nearly all composed of painted savages, but I could see voyageurs drawn up in rough formation – two hundred and sixty militia, I learned later – and a little body of regular soldiers in a red line below the hill. We were on the far left of the line. The smoke from the cannon still hung in the morning air. I looked towards the fort; the grey wall was bare and blank. Orders were shouted along the British lines. The yelling died away, and ceased. There was a muttering among the savages, then silence. Nothing moved.

  Six men detached themselves from the centre of the line. Three were Canadian militia, and three were civilians. The militia captain carried a white flag raised high. They passed quite close to me. I'd seen the captain before, in the factory of the South West Company at the Sault. It was Toussaint Pothier. They walked right up to the gates of the fort. The gate opened a little, and the men went in.

  The long silence was tense as a drawn-out scream. The sun climbed higher than ever we see it here. I sorely missed my broad-brimmed hat, and indeed I wished at that moment I looked to be more what I was. I watched Alan, standing a few yards from me. He seemed unmoved, but I noted how his fingers drummed out a silent rhythm on the barrel of his musket – for those who possessed guns had them primed and ready to aim. The savages around me were motionless as Friends in Meeting, but, oh, how utterly different was the quality of their silence! It was like the pent moment between the lightning and the thunder, when the storm is upon one. And here I was exposed on the front line, as if I stood upon the very summit of Skiddaw waiting for the flash that would strike me down. I thought about walking away – it was not any man's place to stop me – but I had it not in me to retreat before them all. So much of a coward was I; it shames me now to tell it. I prayed fervently to God, who seest all things, and forgives all that sincerely repent, that he would
guide me. And the Lord put words into my mind, saying, the thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun. It came to me that my predicament was one that many had suffered, and yet found a way. I decided that when the charge came I would slip sideways into the wood – for we were on the far left of the line – and watch from there. For the Lord also put it into my mind that everything under the sun has a meaning, and I might yet find a way to serve his purposes, before the day was over.

  The sun rose higher yet. At last the gate opened. Toussaint Pothier came out first, still holding the flag of truce aloft. With him came two men in blue uniforms – I recognised Lieutenant Hanks by his stride – and indeed it must have been a long walk up to the hill top. The warriors fell back like the Red Sea parting to make a passage through for the truce party. We watched them climb up the winding path to the plateau where the British gun was placed. They were not gone above twenty minutes before the little group reappeared, and the American officers were escorted under the white flag all the way back to the fort. I'd thought the army would grow restless. The regular soldiers were standing at ease now. It was odd to see how the painted savages, still with their knives and tomahawks unsheathed, waited with an impassivity their more civilised allies were unable to emulate. We could hear the buzz of talk from the soldiers and the voyageurs, but Alan's band of Indians neither moved nor spoke.

  There came a thin little sound of fife and drum from inside the walls. The blue-clad soldiers came out, their muskets slung over their shoulders, marching in strict formation with young Lieutenant Hanks at their head. They were pitifully few – fifty-seven, I heard later – to set against two hundred British soldiers, and of Indian warriors twice as many again. The little force of blue uniforms turned sharp left and, still accompanied by their single fife and drum, marched away towards the shore.

  A ripple passed along the lines. I looked up at the fort. The flag with its red and white stripes, and its fifteen white stars on a blue sky, was descending the flagpole in little jerks. Our patchwork army sighed, as one man. The flagpole stood white and stark. Another flag rose slowly. It lay limp until the breeze caught it. The Union Jack flared out as the gates below swung wide open.

  The cheering, whooping and yelling that then broke out was like Bedlam multiplied a thousand times. The Indians burst into wild war whoops, and the white men threw their hats into the air, and thumped one another on the back, and cried hurrah! as if they had achieved some great thing, when they had but crept through a wood and stood in the sun for a morning. I rejoiced too, because no drop of blood was shed. The Indians would have rushed forward when the gates opened, but their own chiefs restrained them. The voyageurs broke ranks entirely, cheering and singing, carrying their officers shoulder-high as if portaging them to their canoes. Only the red line of soldiers, led by Captain Roberts, kept its ranks. A bugle sounded. The forty-odd regulars advanced, formed a column of threes, and filed into Fort Mackinac.

  So ended the only battle I was ever in. I walked away from the riotous rejoicings, over to the western shores of the island, where all was as calm as it must have lain since the beginning of the world. I sat on the shore with my back to Mackinac, looking across at the empty forests on the mainland opposite. I had every reason to give thanks to the Lord and Saviour of us all, and so I did, being moved to remember the words of the Psalm:

  As for me, I will call upon God, and the Lord shall save me.

  Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud: and he shall hear my voice.

  He hath delivered my soul in peace from the battle that was against me.

  CHAPTER 16

  I WAS BREAKFASTING NEXT MORNING ON GRILLED pickerel, rolls and coffee – the métis woman who came each day was a good cook – when to my surprise Alan emerged from the other room. ‘I smell coffee,’ he said. ‘Oh, good: Anne, you can grill me some fish too. I'm devilish hungry. Good morning, brother Mark. I trust you slept: well?’

  I eyed him warily. ‘Ay.’ I lied, for I hadn't gone to my bed till past three, and even then my mind was all of a jangle, and I couldn't sleep.

  ‘So.’ Alan took his seat opposite me. ‘Quite an exciting day, yesterday, didn't you think?’

  ‘Ay.’ I buttered a roll lavishly. ‘Ay, well, Man. Thee's had thy battle. Will thee look to our errand now, as thee agreed?’

  He smiled. ‘I like your style, brother. Ariel yes, I will. But first can we take our breakfast together like gentlemen, as brothers ought to do. Anne! Are there more of those rolls, or has he eaten the lot?’

  I looked him in the eye. ‘I'm sorry I threw thee, friend. ‘Twas ill done; I never wished thee harm.’

  ‘On the contrary, ‘tmas remarkably well done,’ said Alan irritably. ‘So much for saying you never fight. You learned that trick somewhere, or I'm a Dutchman.’

  ‘Will thee forgive me?’

  ‘Of course I forgive thee – you, I mean. Here, shake hands.’ He reached across the table and I duly shook his hand. ‘Now, can we please forget about it?’

  I said nothing more until his fish was set in front of him. Anne brought a fresh jug of coffee, and I filled our cups. ‘I was out last night,’ I told him. ‘I saw the Indians dancing.’

  ‘And what did you think of it?’

  ‘Savage,’ I said shortly. But in my heart I was very troubled by the way the Indian drums and the dancing had stirred my blood. I had seen dancing before at fairs and such-like, and heard the jingling of fiddles and whistles, but never before had I witnessed a dance that seemed to embody the spirit of war itself – not war as perpetrated by armies and generals, and written about in newspapers, but the spirit of war which sleeps within all men, inciting the unwary to depart from the paths of peace, and go forth like crouching demons to fight and kill. Long after I left the dancing, the drums went on beating, and as I lay sleepless in my bed, they seemed to echo the very rhythm of my heart, awakening a devil within my breast whose presence I had never before suspected. I said aloud, ‘Does thee think it right to use these savages in a war between powers that are far away and naught to do with them?’

  ‘Naught? Where had you that idea? This war is all to do with them! This war is fought for their trade, their lands, their existence even! And our interests too, of course. Besides, the Indians aren't children. They have their own wars, always have had. This is nothing compared to the old wars between the Ojibwa and the Sioux. And I'll tell you another thing: take away our guns, artillery, ships . . . take away all our modern armament, and I bet you anything you like who'd be the better warrior. I know what it is – you've got hold of some notion that North America was a veritable Eden, full of Noble Savages living in a state of Primal Innocence. You think that we live in a degenerate world, and we'd have a happier time altogether if we stripped off our clothes, regurgitated the apple, and emulated our red-skinned allies. I'll wager you've been reading Rousseau, or some such nonsense, haven't you?’

  ‘Nay, friend, I never heard of the fellow. I think we live in a fallen world, ‘tis true, and maybe the Indians are less removed from that Garden where the Lord God walked in the cool of the evening, than some Europeans would wish to admit.’

  Alan stared at me, his fork halfway to his mouth. ‘Mark,’ he said eventually, and I realised he was speaking to me seriously for the first time since he'd told me about Rachel, the day we'd dined at John Askin's house on St Joseph's Island. ‘Do you know why our soldiers were patrolling the streets of Mackinac all last night? Do you understand why Roberts risked all to send Dousman back and get all the village people safe into the still-house? Do you know why we can't rest until our Indian allies are dispersed and gone safe home? Have you any idea at all what would have happened if we'd fought yesterday's battle and won?’

  I caught my breath. Better to know, I thought. ‘What would have happened?’

  ‘For a start, every one of those American soldiers would have been killed and scalped.
Same with the villagers. There wouldn't be a man alive today, and the women and children would all have been taken, for the Indians need more people, they've lost so many. Every house would have been sacked and burned. You know what Charles Roberts got the chieftains to agree to? These were the terms of surrender: that the fort be handed over to the British without bloodshed, and that the garrison march out with honour. Hanks and all his men are being shipped down to Fort Detroit, on parole not to serve again unless exchanged. Private property on the island to be held sacred; no ships in the harbour to be commandeered. No American citizens to be molested, so long as they take an oath of loyalty to the king. And if they won't – they have a month to leave Mackinac, and take their property with them. That's your degenerate civilisation for you! That's your military despotism! I tell you – this land never saw such terms till now. To the savage mind such tender mercy is utterly unheard of! I saw the dancing too, last night. Impressive, wasn't it?’

  ‘In its way,’ I conceded.

  ‘A victory dance. You know how the Indians used to celebrate their victories? By torture. The correct procedure was to torture your prisoners of war to death, in the most imaginative fashion you could possibly devise. You could chop small pieces off them, to begin with – fingers, toes, privates – the women and children found that part especially amusing, I believe – and take it slowly until there was nothing left but a torso – a living torso, you understand. Or you could start by inserting slivers of wood under your victim's fingernails until they slowly peeled away. Or with the eyes . . . All this was quite logical, you understand, because it's a great humiliation to surrender and be taken prisoner. You deserve all you get. These are the rules. You go into battle knowing what the deal is, and you die as you must, or win.’