Between Two Shores

by Jocelyn Green

  “Hello?” A woman scurried toward her. The brown calico gown beneath her apron matched her chestnut hair. “You must be Catherine, Eleanor’s new roommate. I’m Josephine. We wondered when you’d finally wake.”

  “Finally?” It could not have been more than four hours since Catherine had gone to sleep.

  Josephine tucked a loose tendril of hair into her cap. “You slept an entire day away. We were afraid you might have fallen ill. But now that you’re here, we could use your help. Do you mind?”

  Understanding dawned. She’d had so little sleep since leaving Montreal, rowing at night as they had been, and so little food to fuel the journey, that her body had finally surrendered to the toll. Today was September thirteenth. Either the French or the British had sailed downstream last night, and she had slept right through it. Quickly she regained her bearings as Josephine awaited her response. “Of course I’ll help.”

  “Very good. Most of the patients who were here yesterday have been moved to a tent in the rear of camp to make room for more. This church will overflow with soldiers before the day is out.” She beckoned for Catherine to follow her to the front of the church. Near the altar, she gave Catherine a basket of rags and a bucket of water. “The officers will be treated by naval surgeons on the ships, but the rest—and prisoners—will come here. At least those who can be moved.”

  “What do I do?”

  “Bind what is torn. Give water to those who thirst. Our work is simple but requires an even disposition, which I have no doubt you possess.” Josephine bent to scoop up her own supplies. “Should you have any questions, any of these women will answer them if they can. We all have the same aim.” Thunder rattled. “Eleanor has gone off with the Royal Artillery, so we shall say a special prayer for her.”

  Rain sprayed in where windows had shattered in their casings. “Gone where?” But Catherine’s question was swallowed in a cry for water.

  A tug on her skirt turned her head toward the voice. An outstretched hand rose from a soldier sitting near her feet. Kneeling, she filled a gourd dipper with water from the bucket and brought it to his lips. As he drank, a fresh bandage about his arm caught her attention.

  “Have you just come in this morning?” she asked.

  “I have.” He licked the moisture from his lips. “If that lady Eleanor has gone with the Royal Artillery, it means she’s gone to the Plains of Abraham. The heights to the west of Quebec.”

  Catherine gave him another drink. “The heights! Is that where the battle is?”

  “Aye, ’tis where it will be.” He leaned back his head. “What you hear out there is mere skirmishing. The true ball has yet to open. And I’ve already been taken out of it, just when the fight was about to begin.” He muttered a curse.

  Excitement kindled inside her, for wasn’t this the very idea Samuel had brought just in time? “Please, tell me how it was accomplished.”

  A crooked smile split his angular face. “Either careful planning or a generous dose of luck. Or Providence, if you’d rather. We who were waiting at Saint-Nicolas for days finally got orders to drop down in boats last night after dark and slip past the French lookouts. Turns out there was to be a convoy of bateaux carrying grain down the river last night, a whole slew of them. The French had told the outposts and lookouts to let them by without challenge. For some reason, the order for provisions was canceled, but the order to let vessels pass unmolested was not. And it was us who took their place!”

  Catherine stared at him, almost afraid to believe it. “You’re certain?”

  “Would I jest of such a thing with the Holy Virgin looking down on me?” He pointed to a statue of Mary. “Never.”

  Samuel had done it. He had delivered the intelligence he meant to, and General Wolfe had seen the value of it. Now all that remained was the battle for Quebec.

  Astounded, she shuffled to the next soldier and let him drink. “Were you there, too?”

  “I was.” Water dribbled from the corner of his mouth. “We landed at Anse-au-Foulon half an hour before daybreak and scaled the cliffs. Found a rugged road for the artillery, and even the sailors lent a hand. The French are laying down fire on us as we get into place. That’s what you hear. The battle has yet to begin in earnest.”

  And that was where Eleanor had gone. How brave she was, or how foolish. The thought struck Catherine that the same might be said of her.

  Standing, she moved to another soldier, and then the next. All were thirsty, but only a few had not already been bandaged by the other women so expertly tending their needs. There were hundreds of such women in this camp, ready to take their shifts.

  And only one on the heights.

  Catherine drifted toward the open door and stood on the church steps, peering through silver stripes of rain. Gunsmoke added to the clouds west of the city, while ships moved in and out of Point Lévis. Her heart drummed a reveille against her ribs.

  Josephine was soon beside her, empty bucket in hand. “It doesn’t seem fitting, does it? All of us here, and all the men who most need us beyond our reach. What do you think, Catherine?”

  “I think your friend Eleanor had the right idea. And I think I’ll follow suit.”

  Josephine’s eyes shone. She stood a few inches shorter than Catherine, and her figure was slightly rounder, but what she lacked in stature was clearly more than compensated for with spirit. “I was thinking the very same. The other ladies have the church well in hand, and they won’t miss the two of us. Let’s go where we might do the most good.” She pointed to a flatboat full of soldiers, readying to leave for battle. “There’s our ride.”

  How brave they were, or how foolish.

  Catherine’s determination had not wavered as she and Josephine rode across the river in the landing craft. Nor did it flag when the wheels of her wooden cart full of nursing supplies kept sinking in the muddy Foulon road.

  The rain tapered to a mist as she and Josephine rolled their cargo through tall, thin grass and white clover to the eastern fringe of Sillery Woods. It was west of the Plains and out of the way until they could be of some use. Eleanor was already there, fists on her hips, when they arrived. Her face and hands were rosy, no doubt from a summer spent without the bother of a parasol.

  “What, no wounded yet?” Josephine asked.

  “No fresh injuries, at least.” Eleanor smoothed her apron over a blue-and-tan plaid dress. A ruffled cap topped her blond hair, which was streaked with auburn. “Those wounded earlier were already sent off to Point Lévis. Once the battle is over, men will carry the wounded down the hill and onto the ships. Surgeons will see to those they can. Our job is simply to stop the bleeding and revive those who need it with spirits.” Jugs of alcohol stood in the carts, ready to be wheeled out onto the field.

  The redcoats had formed six tidy blocks across the field, the line stretching a thousand yards, or near it, as far as Catherine could tell. Their muskets were silent, their ranks still. She could not see the French lines from where she stood but could hear their musket fire, could taste the saltpeter in the damp air. A group of sailors emerged from the Foulon road and pushed cannons into place behind the British lines, struggling in and out of furrows more than a foot deep. From the woods alongside the battlefield, militia and native warriors waited, ready to attack from places unseen. Their war cries and whoops raised the hair on Catherine’s neck.

  As if no chills rolled over her, Eleanor sent Catherine an appraising glance. “Are you certain this is where you want to be?”

  “I aim to help where I can, no matter the cut or color of the soldiers’ cloth.” Before she realized she was doing it, she looked for Samuel on the field. He was a provincial, not a redcoat, but he was certainly near the battle. Could he fight? Would he?

  “Her French will be valuable to us, Eleanor, should we come across wounded from the other side.” Josephine retied her apron strings behind her waist.

  “Indeed. I’m afraid my French lessons never quite took.” Eleanor’s gaze riveted on t
he sailors, who, rather than returning to their ships, were brandishing cutlasses and sticks, or nothing at all, eager to join the soldiers for the fight. “We’re glad to have you, Catherine, whatever draws you to our side.”

  Catherine thanked her, ready for the attention to shift elsewhere.

  The sky cleared. French drummers beat out their staccato call to charge, and each note tapped hard on Catherine’s chest. But she was blind back here at the rear, or might as well be, and the suspense was unbearable.

  Gathering her skirts in one hand, she climbed the maple tree behind her.

  Eleanor cheered her on. “That dress will be ruined by day’s end, anyhow. Tell us, what do you see?”

  Bark pressed into Catherine’s palm as she watched the action unfold, amazed. “The French are charging, running down the western slopes of the buttes just outside Quebec’s Upper Town.” Their white uniforms spilled downhill like a wave of rushing water. But the ground was uneven, with heavy bush and tall wheat in the way. “Their lines are breaking apart.”

  “Already?” Josephine asked.

  Cries of “Vive le roi!” carried on the wind, along with the near-constant clamor of their native allies. Catherine waited a moment to see if the ranks would close up. Instead, they seperated further. “They are in three groups now, moving in different directions over the terrain, and at different speeds.”

  In the distance, the battery at Point Lévis bombarded Lower Town, and batteries in the city shot back.

  “How many are there?” Josephine called up. “Can you estimate?”

  The booming cannons rattled the leaves in her tree. Catherine squinted, counting a group of men, then multiplying the number as necessary. “One group is roughly five hundred soldiers, and the other is slightly less. The third is about the size of the first two put together, so nearly two thousand all told. Montcalm has lost control of his men. They are in a mad dash as individuals, not at all like a unit under command.” Meanwhile, the English watched and waited. “At the right end of a line of British grenadiers, atop a small hill, there is a redcoat with a spyglass, standing alone with two men.”

  “That’ll be General Wolfe,” Eleanor supplied. “Dressed like an average officer, I’d wager, but he’s the man in charge of it all. What else is happening?”

  The French rushed up to within a hundred and thirty yards of the English line, halted, and opened fire without a command to do so—or at least without a command Catherine had heard. All across the promontory, sparks flew and powder exploded. Thousands of .69-caliber balls streaked out of silver muzzles and across the empty space—and fell to the ground before traveling halfway to the enemy.

  Eleanor remained staunch and unmoved. Josephine covered her ears at first, then spun to face Catherine, questions in her eyes.

  Catherine leaned forward, studying the lines. “The French are firing from too far away! The balls drop before they hit the British!” But now they were moving forward until they were only thirty to forty yards away. “Here it comes—”

  Her sentence was cut off by the first real volley to do any damage. Balls hit their marks in British chests, arms, and throats. At the north flank, Canadian militia and native warriors used muskets and tomahawks and terror.

  The British, at last, fired back. The noise was horrendous, a rattling roar Catherine felt through her entire body. Pain throbbed inside her skull with the force of a hammer blow. She peered through it, saw French soldiers and militia felled by English enemy. One man clutched at the crimson stream arcing from his thigh just before his thumb was blown from his hand. Another soldier’s knee gave way, and then his white coat bloomed red over his stomach. Six-pound cannons launched round shot at the French. When a soldier’s arm was torn away, Catherine could watch no more.

  Neither could she leave her perch and wait blindly for what came next. If the British fell back, the women would need to move. Between the light infantry and the grenadiers, a pond of standing rainwater winked at Catherine, and there she fixed her gaze. The water shook and rippled. An Englishman was slain by a warrior and fell into it. Soon the water turned red.

  Minutes passed like this. Josephine and Eleanor stuffed their apron pockets with bandages and tied long-handled dippers at their waists. Jugs of spirits sat at their feet, ready to be poured into those who needed them most. But beyond this, they could only wait.

  The French line approached, and the British gunners switched from round shot to grapeshot, spraying masses of oversized musket balls at their advance. The French absorbed three or four more volleys into their ranks. Black-powder smoke swirled in boiling clouds above the fray.

  “What do you see?” Josephine balled a wrinkled handkerchief in her hand.

  “The smoke grows too thick to see much of anything,” Catherine replied. “The hill is empty,” she added. “Your general is gone—I see bayonets poking up through the smoke.”

  “He’s leading a charge,” Eleanor guessed.

  The smoke began to clear, revealing the incredible sight of the main body of the French turning back. It could not have been more than twenty minutes of gunfire, and they were running away, back to Quebec. Some of their wounded were left on the field.

  Out of nowhere, it seemed, men in kilts and bonnets rushed forward, shrieking in Gaelic, pursuing the fugitive French.

  Even Eleanor cringed. “That’ll be the Scots. The Highlanders are fearsome creatures with those claymores.”

  Claymores, Catherine guessed, were the yard-long, basket-hilted broadswords they brandished as they chased like fire across the field. With a fury that sounded born of hell, they struck men down, dividing limb and head from body, as they swept up the buttes and toward the walls of Quebec.

  All was mayhem. Militia and native warriors mingled with the Scots, and gunners left their artillery to charge with bayonets. Grass turned to jelly beneath their feet, and the clover, once white, was stained red. The line of battle was at low tide, leaving hundreds of wounded behind.

  Stomach reeling from the violence she’d just witnessed, Catherine slid back down the tree and looked from Eleanor to Josephine. They had not seen what she had from her vantage point in the tree. Their minds were not yet filled with gore. With a pang of sympathy for the shock they would soon encounter, she told them what they were eager to hear.

  “It’s time to do what we can.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Naïvely, Catherine had hoped the worst was over when the fighting moved away, toward the city walls. But this was worse than the battle by far. Above the Plains of Abraham, smoke thinned in air that still tasted of gunpowder. War cries and huzzahs and vive le rois faded, replaced by the moans of men laid waste. One of them had been the British General Wolfe, whose body had been carried away not one hour after the battle began.

  Eleanor blanched at the sight, and Josephine gasped, but both women had rallied, redoubling their efforts on the field. The loss of their leader seemed to light a fire behind Eleanor’s eyes, while Josephine worked through a veil of tears.

  Catherine did not cry, though her gut rebelled at the brokenness she bent to touch. She supposed that later, these recollections would fill her nightmares and she’d come near to drowning in this misery. But for now, she set her jaw and worked.

  As the only woman on the field who spoke French, she made the soldiers in white her priority, along with Canadian militia, focusing on one man, one wound, at a time. No matter where they were injured or how, they all had a gaunt quality in common. Cheekbones jutted beneath eyes too large, and teeth were too prominent for the face. Collarbones made shelves beneath jackets too big for their frames.

  These were the men for whom she had harvested the grain around Montreal. The wheat convoy had been for them. The convoy that was canceled, that allowed the British to pass undetected. It struck Catherine as incredibly cruel that they’d had to face an army with hollow stomachs. Though she had wanted to help Samuel end the war, she had never wanted men to starve.

  Neither had she want
ed this, a carpet of human suffering. And she had played a part in rolling it out. This was the cost of helping Samuel. But she had no time to feel anything but the gravel in her stomach. She certainly had no time to wonder where Samuel was.

  Kneeling in blood-soaked grass, Catherine looked first at a soldier’s face. “Bonjour, my name is Catherine,” she always began, “and I’m here to help you.”

  Some faces broke with relief at her very presence, while some stared right through her or groaned through gritted teeth, the tendons of their neck tight. What were strips of linen against torn flesh and tissue? What were words of comfort when a man’s lifeblood poured from a severed limb, or brandy for a spirit already collapsed?

  And yet Catherine refused to stop tending them, even if all she could offer was dignity.

  “It was a rout!” one cried, bleeding from his side and thigh. “All is lost. We shall lose Quebec. After all the hunger, all the bombing, we shall still lose her. We ran from the fight.”

  “Not you.” Catherine threaded a bandage beneath his leg, then wrapped and bound it. “You didn’t run, did you? I see it took more than one ball to bring you down, and neither is in your back. You fought brave and true.”

  “You are Canadian?” he rasped, eyelids fluttering. His color was fading quickly.

  “From Montreal, or near it.” She pressed a folded cloth to his side and watched the white give way to red.

  “Then I’m sorry we have not done better for you. Please . . . forgive us.” He exhaled a rattling breath. His last.

  Catherine corked her emotion, for uncounted numbers awaited. She moved to the next and the next, with bandages, brandy, and absolution. The hem of her russet gown grew heavy and glistened with blood. Her apron was smeared with it, her hands freckled. Strands of hair fell from their pins, and she pushed them back with the inside of her wrist.

  The sound of heaving caught her attention. Twenty yards away, Josephine bent at the waist, hands on her knees, and retched into the sodden grass. At her feet was a body in scarlet uniform which no longer possessed a head.