Nuns screamed, men shouted, and the tip of the knife pierced through fabric to flesh. As Catherine twisted away from Moreau, the blade went no deeper but slashed a vertical line up her side toward her arm. Skin separated beneath her dress. Throwing herself from Moreau’s reach, she tripped on a flagstone and crashed against a stone windowsill, catching a rib on the ledge.
Behind her, she heard Dr. Simmons subduing Moreau, heard the knife clatter to the floor. Gaspard unleashed a string of furied French at his former captain. Samuel caught Catherine from behind, holding her up when she wanted to sink down. She squeezed her eyes shut against the searing pain that blazed her skin, her bone. She would cry out if she could but breathe.
Pain held her captive.
As there was no brandy to spare for civilians, Catherine had felt every plunge and pull of the needle four days ago when Dr. Simmons had stitched her skin in a six-inch line below her right arm. It was an agony she felt she deserved to suffer, for because of her, Joseph had endured this much and worse. So had hundreds upon hundreds of British and French soldiers.
She could not lie flat, for it put too much pressure on the rib the doctor suspected was cracked from her impact with the windowsill. Lying on either side or on her stomach was out of the question, so she’d spent the night in a straight back chair in the women’s wing of the hospital. The gown and underthings she’d borrowed from Eleanor were ruined, but Sister Anne-Marie had persuaded a refugee woman staying in the convent to donate a new set and then helped Catherine dress. The corset was not laced as tightly as usual but still offered a degree of support. But donning the blue muslin gown had sent flaming arrows through Catherine’s sides, and sweat had filmed her body.
Her memory scrolled back to the endurance test she had willingly done as a child, running barefoot over live coals. But she’d been able to breathe through that suffering, and the ordeal was finished in seconds. This time, drawing air made it worse, and Dr. Simmons said the pain could last weeks.
Weeks! She’d planned to stay a few days, no more. She felt stranded and woefully idle, for she couldn’t even stay on her feet very long, let alone carry water or bend over patients in need. Instead, she sat in the corridor outside the main chamber where the soldiers were nursed. Thus out of the way, she proved neither help nor nuisance. She burned with pent-up frustration.
Footsteps sounded. Slowly, Catherine turned her head toward the noise. Samuel and Gaspard marched down the corridor toward her. As they neared, Samuel took off his tricorne hat and placed it over his chest.
“What did the doctor say?” Gaspard knelt on the cool, dark stones, face clean and shining beneath its freckles, his hair tidy in its queue. He pulled his toque from his head and crushed it in one hand.
She pulled in a shallow sip of air. “He said to do nothing. Sit still and do nothing, and allow the body to heal.” Her tone betrayed her aggravation. Moreau had been moved to a different hospital, and here she sat, unmoved. “I cannot haul water. And I certainly cannot row or paddle.”
Crossing his arms, Samuel leaned his back against the wall opposite her. “How long until you recover?”
That depended on a few things, which she did not have the energy to spell out. “At least three weeks before I can paddle back to Montreal.” She ground out the words, still unable to reconcile herself to the truth of them, though her body confirmed it. “Even then, I won’t be at full strength.”
Gaspard put his head in his hands. When he looked up again, his grey eyes looked darker than she remembered. “I know there’s a fire in your belly to get home, Catherine. I can’t help but think that if I hadn’t walked into the hospital when I did, you’d be able to. It doesn’t seem right. It makes no sense that this should happen to you, when you’ve done so much to get us here.”
“Maybe it does.” She inhaled and winced at the stab to her rib. “I’ve had some time to think, and I wonder if this is part of God’s plan. For if ever an injury was designed that could keep me from traveling, I have sustained it. With stitches on one side and a cracked rib on the other, I’m forced to stay and observe the consequences of bringing the two of you to British lines when all I want is to get back to my family.” If there was a lesson to be learned while she was bound to this chair by her wounds, she prayed she could divine it quickly and be on her way.
Samuel bridged the gap between them and bent on one knee before her. “Catherine, the same God who allowed this to happen to you could have caused any number of things to delay us on our journey north. Yet we arrived just in time for our intelligence to be useful. I don’t think your injury is His judgment. If He really didn’t want Wolfe to know what we did, He could have stopped us with a thunderstorm.”
She absorbed this, but remained ill at ease.
A murmuring in the hospital chamber swelled to a commotion. Gaspard pushed himself to his feet and leaned a hip against the wall, arms crossed. “Redcoat. With a parchment. He looks ready to share some news.”
Samuel rose and stood behind him but didn’t block Catherine’s view.
“Quebec has surrendered,” the officer began, and the British patients burst into an uproar of cheers.
“No!” cried one of the French. “What of the militia in the city? Did they not take up arms and fight?”
The officer reading the announcement lowered the parchment to reply. “They did not. Against their orders, the Canadians of the garrison would not fight. They heard drumbeats and believed we were about to storm, and laid down their arms rather than die for a cause clearly lost. I do not exaggerate, sir, when I tell you this. It may have been mutiny, but it was also good sense that they did not allow themselves to be massacred in vain. The sacrifice of their lives would not have delayed the capture of the city by an hour.”
Gaspard glanced over his shoulder at Catherine, the tip of his nose pink with emotion. “They chose their families over king and colony. I would have done the same.”
Samuel nudged him with an elbow. “You did.”
Catherine looked beyond them. The Sisters remained stoic, while several women who had fled Quebec months ago displayed a mixture of defeat and relief. Their homes were rubble, but perhaps their men still lived.
The rest of the announcement followed in English, and while someone in the main chamber translated for the French soldiers, Catherine explained the terms to Gaspard.
“The garrison is to receive the honors of war,” she told him. “Canadians will remain in undisturbed possession of their property, provided they surrender their weapons.”
“What property?” one patient cried out. “Piles of brick and stone inside the city, or the smoldering farms burned along the river?”
The British officer continued without responding, and Catherine kept up the translation. “The British will not compel Canadians to leave the colony nor punish those who served in the militia. Canadians may freely practice their religion and protect the personnel and property of the Catholic church.”
Gaspard’s eyebrows arched high, his gaze flicking between Catherine and the officer. When she held a hand to her corseted middle and took a searing breath, he leaned closer to hear.
“The French will turn over Quebec’s artillery and munitions. French wounded and those who care for them will not become prisoners of war.”
His announcement complete, the British officer left. Gaspard and Samuel each took one of Catherine’s hands, and she stood, though it pained her, for this was not news to be borne sitting down. Samuel’s expression held quiet triumph. Gaspard’s was more difficult to read. She could only imagine the feeling inside the ruined city, or the triumph and celebration in camp at Point Lévis.
“Now,” she whispered. “Now it’s over.”
Samuel’s smile was subdued. “The terms are as favorable for the conquered as any could wish,” he said. “Now the British will take charge of restoring the city and feeding the people.”
Pressure began to build behind Catherine’s rib from the effort of standing. She let it.
“No more battle, no more siege, no more burning and destruction.” Spoken quietly within the convent walls, her words were as much prayer as they were prediction.
Gaspard’s eyes shone with emotion. “I’m going home. Today. Right now. Thank you.” He kissed her hand, and she eased back into her seat, thanking him for his role on the journey.
“Your parents will rejoice to see you, especially on a day like this,” she added, but sensed a shift in Gaspard.
Bowing his head, he twisted the toque in his hands. “I wish I could bring Augustin with me. He is the one they mourn.”
“You are still their miracle child, Gaspard.” Catherine smiled up at him. “And perhaps a prodigal returning home?”
He chuckled but didn’t deny it.
“I’m glad for you.” Samuel gave Gaspard’s hand a hearty shake. “I’m genuinely glad you can be with your parents again. Not all of us are so lucky.”
Gaspard hooked a thumb into his waistband. “Thank you for bringing me home. Especially considering the small matter of me lighting that barn on fire with you in it.”
“’Twas a little thing, was it?” A wry grin softening his tone, Samuel punched Gaspard’s uninjured arm. “And yet, ironically, it opened the door that got us all here.”
A smile flared across Gaspard’s face. “Voilà! Even when I’m misbehaving—on orders, mind you—it’s really for everyone’s good.” Still grinning, he settled his toque back on his head. “Au revoir, Samuel. Au revoir, Catherine.”
With a catch in her voice, she returned the farewell and watched him hurry away, knowing she’d never see him again.
“Gaspard will go home, and I must stay.” She straightened her backbone to relieve the pinch she felt. “Once I can bear to stand and walk around, I will see how Quebec fares under British control. I will see what our actions have wrought.”
“Our actions would mean nothing without Wolfe’s army,” Samuel countered, gesturing toward the field beyond the convent with his tricorne in his hand. “Remember, you heard yourself from Watkins that the battle would have happened whether we arrived in time to affect the outcome or not. Wolfe already planned to attack. The battle on the Plains lasted all of fifteen minutes before the French retreated. Had a different site been chosen, had it not been a surprise attack, the fighting would have dragged out much longer and more men would have died.”
The reminder took root in Catherine, lifting at least some of the burden she felt. “Thank you. I do need to remember that.”
He tugged his hat back on his head. “I understand you feel conflicted now, but I hope soon you’ll be proud of what we’ve done.”
“Proud?” she asked, wracked by a punishing pain. “Right now I’d much rather be at peace.”
Chapter Thirty
October 1759
It had been the longest three weeks of Catherine’s life.
After Quebec’s surrender, her rib troubled her less, so she walked some every day. Outside the convent grounds, she saw hundreds of British cattle brought from Boston now grazing the Plains of Abraham, ready to feed the conquering army. Inside the hôpital-général, when nuns scraped and swept between beds and cots, Catherine volunteered to sprinkle vinegar on the floor in their wake.
Murmurs followed her. Word traveled quickly among patients, refugees, and nuns until everyone knew at least one version of Catherine’s role in the battle. Wounded British congratulated her, and Sister Anne-Marie’s reserved manner didn’t alter, but a chill spread from the rest of them.
On September 22, the atmosphere in the convent had grown brittle with the news that the former Quebec garrison had boarded four British transports that would carry them all back to France. Pierre Moreau was among them.
Catherine expected to breathe easier, then. Instead, the pain in her rib had intensified so sharply that she could no longer leave her chair for more than fifteen minutes at a time. Her stitches pulled and itched unbearably, and yet the doctor called all of this normal.
“There are many kinds of hurt,” Dr. Simmons had told her. “What you’re describing now is the hurt of healing. When the body knits itself back together, it’s a kind of magic no surgeon can reproduce. But there is pain in the process. It will pass. Healing comes with a price, and I’m afraid the price is pain. Beyond that, however, is wholeness.”
The British doctor could not have known how often she would bring his words to mind. During breathless spells holding tight to her chair, yes, but more than that. The reports Samuel brought from Quebec every few days were disheartening. Five hundred thirty-five houses had burned down during the siege, and the rest were greatly damaged. In Lower Town, hardest hit by the batteries across the river at Point Lévis, the rubble from smashed buildings had made the streets impassable until British soldiers cleared them. Quebec residents were allowed to come home, but what was there to come home to? Houses that weren’t ruined were liable to be broken into and robbed by plundering soldiers despite severe penalties for doing so, even death.
The city was hurting, but Catherine prayed that it was on its way to healing.
Today she was visiting what was left of Quebec to see it for herself, Samuel beside her. She tugged her cape tighter about her shoulders, grateful for another layer atop her gown and for the silk hood that covered her ears. Autumn was fully upon them, and the sun, though bright, no longer held much warmth.
“I don’t know this place,” she murmured. When she’d been here last, Lower Town had swirled with commerce and life. Now, instead of merchants and shoppers going about their trade, armed redcoats patrolled the ruins against soldiers bent on looting. Shingles brightly painted and hung to advertise wares lay in splinters on the ground. Narrow streets that had been shadowed by shops and apartments were now scoured with glaring light in their absence and unprotected from the bitter wind. The town was raw and exposed, and Catherine felt the same.
“It will be rebuilt.” Samuel cocked his head toward a pair of soldiers boarding up glassless windows on a building with half a roof. “Carpenters—like myself—and masons within the ranks are working every day to restore what is broken.”
Catherine nudged a small shattered teapot with the toe of her shoe. “Restore what is broken?” Pieces of tiny saucers and cups lay scattered over soot-stained shards of mahogany. The broken face of a doll in a silk dress stared up at her with one eye. What a rude interruption some little girl had suffered during her tea party.
“Or we begin anew, of course, where necessary. But the immediate need is simply to put roofs together to shelter those of us who will stay here for the winter. Myself included.” Samuel’s face and frame had lost the gaunt edges of hunger after weeks of British provisions. But she doubted he would look so hearty and hale after a Canadian winter in this hollowed-out shell of a town.
Her gut twisted as they came to the Place-Royale. Drilling redcoats marched in formation past roofless buildings. The walls that remained were perforated by shot. Some cannonballs remained embedded in the stone.
“Watch your step.” Samuel guided her around a hole in the plaza big enough to be a horse pond. “Some shot danced around here a while before finally exploding.”
Circling the cavity, she peered at what was left of the church. Named Notre-Dame-des-Victoires for the French victories against the British in decades past, its spire had been shattered, its roof and stone walls a pile of ruins, a monument of defeat. Slowly, she swiveled to take in the jagged remnants all around her. “So much loss,” she whispered.
“You and I didn’t cause this, Catherine. We stopped it. Without the battle that prompted surrender, the battering of Quebec, especially its Lower Town, would have continued.”
Catherine slid him a grateful glance. His words were a salve to her ragged conscience. She must remember this the next time guilt threatened to entwine her. She must banish misgivings with this truth.
Two grenadiers warmed themselves at a fire in the stone courtyard, brass buttons and buckles flashing. A trio of ladies in tattered go
wns but perfect coiffures laughed at something they said.
A faint smile tipped Samuel’s lips. “Did I tell you that Brigadier General Murray issued an order forbidding any more of his soldiers from marrying Canadian women? Seems the ladies are quite willing to overlook past offenses.”
“How forgiving they are.” Catherine watched the couples for a moment before adding, “Or perhaps it’s simply that many eligible Canadian bachelors did not survive their militia service.” She climbed the pockmarked steps that led inside the church.
Samuel followed and doffed his hat. With no roof remaining to catch it, sunlight fell through the rafters and glinted on his golden hair in a way that almost resembled a halo. She saw what he once was to her with fondness, but not longing.
“How like an angel you once seemed to me,” she told him. “You were my rescuer, just as you said. And I was yours.”
Surprise flicked over his features as he regarded her. “What do you suppose we are now?”
She strolled past piles of shattered window glass glittering on the floor. “Two people trying to bring order from chaos, yet held steadfast by a God who loved us before we loved Him. When I look at you now, I see neither angel nor demon, but an old friend with whom I must part ways.”
A ridge formed between his eyes as he offered her a smile. “I see the same.”
Understanding threaded between them, both a drawing together and a purposeful sliding away. Catherine broke his gaze, a small act of the distancing that would soon be complete and entire.
A wide swath of the church floor yawned open where shells had exploded, wood planks jagged like teeth around a gaping mouth. Most of the pews had been smashed in the blast or used as firewood. Maple leaves somersaulted across her path, landing in a bronze and burgundy drift against an overturned bench. She turned it right side up and brushed it off with her hand. “Shall we sit?”
They did.
Slowly, Samuel spun his hat in his hands. “You’ll want to be going home, then.”
She pleated the folds of her cape on her lap. “As soon as possible. I don’t belong here. Is a canoe ready for me to take?” As much as she wanted to leave, she’d been steeling herself for the physical toll of the journey.
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