The ice on the St Lawrence River was breaking as Kennedy led his Rangers towards Quebec. They marched in a rough formation, with scouts in front, to the rear and on both flanks. They were unshaven and ragged, with torn and patched uniforms or no uniforms at all. Most had snowshoes tied together with pieces of rags, but all carried bright and oiled weapons and walked with the assured swagger of veterans. They were soldiers who knew their worth, soldiers who had fought greater numbers of French and Canadians in their own territory and defeated them. The Rangers were men who had faced and conquered fear; neither God nor the devil, and nothing in between, could scare them now. The French might kill them, but would never defeat them.
Some of the garrison watched the Rangers return, with officers shaking their heads at their shabby appearance and the men counting the gaps in the ranks.
Hugo stood in the small crowd that watched the Rangers march in, and he waved when he saw MacKim, then dashed away.
“He’s looking for a biscuit,” Ranald MacDonald said.
MacKim nodded. “That must be it.” He limped on, ignoring the onlookers as he unconsciously scanned the garrison, seeing four sentinels where there should be six, gaunt faces with the hollow cheeks of scurvy, and an increasing pile of corpses outside the walls.
“Captain Lindsay!” an officious major snapped. “Where’s Captain Lindsay?”
“He’s dead, sir,” Kennedy said. “I’m Lieutenant Kennedy, officer commanding this unit.”
“Well, Lieutenant Kennedy,” the major snapped. “General Murray would like to see you at your earliest convenience.” The major looked Kennedy up and down. “But for God’s sake, man, get yourself cleaned up first. You can’t talk to a general looking like some tramp.”
Kennedy gave his slow smile and turned to MacKim. “Get the men fed and watered, Sergeant. I will report to General Murray immediately.” He raised his voice to ensure the major heard him. “I am sure he’s seen a fighting soldier before.”
Without washing or changing, Kennedy marched to Murray’s headquarters in Fort Louis, leaving the major incandescent with rage.
“You impudent rogue!” the major choked, as MacKim watched, hiding his amusement.
“Come on, lads,” MacKim said. “Let’s get ourselves settled back in.”
MacKim called the roll, wrote down the men present and arranged food for everybody before feeding himself. The Rangers ate hungrily as Harriette led a delegation of wives looking anxiously for their men.
“I see you, Chisholm, you ugly bugger!” Harriette pushed through the Rangers. “I thought you’d have the decency to get yourself killed so I could marry Corporal MacKim.”
“Sergeant MacKim now,” Chisholm said.
“All the more reason to marry him,” Harriette said, standing back to look at Chisholm. “God, but you’re ugly.”
“I’m glad to see you, too,” Chisholm said.
“Look at you,” Harriette said, shaking her head, “all skin and bone and only the dirt holding you together. What did you get up to out there?”
“Just fighting and marching,” Chisholm said. “The same as always.”
“I don’t like that uniform.” Harriette shook her head as she slipped her hand inside Chisholm’s. “I think a man looks more handsome in scarlet. Not you, of course. You won’t look handsome in anything except a mask.”
MacKim walked away, leaving them to their banter. He felt all the energy draining from him as soon as he stepped inside the barrack room. He only wanted to lie on his bed and sleep. When he removed his snowshoes and boots, his left foot was swollen and bruised, but not as bad as he had feared. It would mend in time. MacKim lay on the bed and allowed his weariness to overcome him.
“Well,” Harriette said, as soon as Chisholm slumped at her side. “You men missed all the fun.”
“What happened?” Chisholm asked.
“You must know that de Levis hoped to carry Quebec before the navy came, so he’s been preparing an assault.”
“We know that,” MacKim responded to Harriette’s words. He sat up, knowing he’d get no peace until the wives had passed on all their news. “That’s what we’ve been trying to prevent out there.”
Harriette settled herself beside the Rangers’ fire, lifting her skirt as was her habit, so her legs were bare below the knees.
“Mungo Campbell told me that the Frenchies spent months making tackets – that’s snowshoes to you – for all their men and building scaling ladders for mounting our walls.”
“Aye,” Chisholm said. “We burnt a load of them.”
“Did you?” Harriette was too intent on her story to pay attention to her husband. “Mungo said that the Frenchies even exercised themselves in mounting and scaling the ladders so they would be expert when they came here.”
“I wonder who told Campbell all these things,” MacKim said.
“Some whore from the streets, no doubt,” Harriette said.
“Ah.” MacKim nodded. “Evidently, she is an expert in military matters.”
“The French were to attack in the middle of February,” Harriette ignored MacKim’s words, “and although they tried to keep things secret, our spies found out and informed General Jim.”
“You people had all the excitement when we were wandering around in the snow,” MacKim said.
“We did,” Harriette said. “The French sent a company to Point Levy and made a redoubt there, then gathered all the local Canadians together. Despite General Jim’s efforts on the south shore of the St Lawrence, the French got the Canadians to reaffirm their allegiance to France.”
“Poor Canadians,” Chisholm said. “They must wonder what’s happening; one day French, then British and then French again.”
MacKim said nothing.
“The French marched companies of grenadiers to reinforce their outposts at St Augustine and Calvaire, and we all expected to hear their drums and see the French flag on the Heights of Abraham,” Harriette continued. “We knew they were gathering provisions from the Canadians, so General Murray sent over the lights and a company or so of our grenadiers and pitched the Frenchies right out of Point Levy. We only captured a dozen of the rogues, but we got all their stores.” Harriette laughed. “We should encourage them to establish posts more often, so we capture their foodstuffs. Anyway, we built a couple of redoubts, so now we’re comfortably nestled on the south side of the river, around St Joseph’s Church.”
“That’s not right,” MacRae said. “We shouldn’t use a church for military purposes.”
“It’s all right,” Harriette assured him. “It’s a Roman Catholic church, not a proper Christian one.”
“I’m Roman Catholic,” MacRae said.
“I wouldn’t shout that out,” MacKim advised. The British Army did not allow Roman Catholics to join the army, although some were in the Highlanders’ ranks.
A few days later, the situation took a more serious turn when the French returned in force to reclaim Point Levy.
MacKim and the Rangers were not included in the subsequent action as the drums summoned three British battalions to march across the still-frozen St Lawrence.
MacKim stood on the ramparts, watching the haggard soldiers heft their muskets and slide over the ice.
“Better them than us,” Chisholm said.
“Aye,” MacKim agreed, “half these lads can hardly stand, let alone fight. God help us if the French launch a major assault.”
“What’s the plan, Sergeant?”
MacKim fiddled with Tayanita’s beadwork. “I hear our lads hope to cut off the French that are besieging St Joseph’s church.”
“Maybe MacRae was right; we shouldn’t base soldiers in a church.” Chisholm touched his ravaged face. “May God go with you, boys.”
God must have been listening to Chisholm, for with the three weak British battalions advancing from the rear and the light infantry attacking from the front, the French decided their position was untenable. Rather than fight, they retreated, leaving the British in control. Having chased the French away, the British strengthened the redoubts while the French established themselves at St Michael, well downstream.
The skirmishing continued as spring set in and both sides sought an advantage. Everybody knew that de ` had to attempt to reconquer Quebec before the Royal Navy forced a passage up the St Lawrence, and small parties of men fought desperately to advance their nation’s position.
The French next attempted to attack the woodcutters at St Foy woods, and the Rangers skirmished with them, driving them away in a vicious encounter among the trees, while Murray sent the Light Infantry to fortify Cape Rouge.
“Things are getting hot,” Kennedy said, puffing at his pipe as they stood on the battlements, looking across the Plains of Abraham. “It won’t be long now before the real fighting starts.” He gave a mirthless grin. “I wonder if we’ll meet our tattooed friend again?”
MacKim gripped his musket. “I imagine so, sir,” he said. “We seem destined to cross each other’s path.”
“Good.” Kennedy nodded. “Next time we meet, I will kill him.”
MacKim said nothing. He reached inside his tunic and touched Tayanita’s beadwork.
On the 2nd March, General Murray sent Captain Cameron of Fraser’s Highlanders to take command of the British outpost at Lorette.
“You know why that is, of course,” Chisholm said.
“Yes,” MacKim replied. “The general has analysed the intelligence the Rangers brought him, and he knows the French are preparing for an attack as soon as the frost weakens further.” He looked up from checking the flints of his musket. “Captain Cameron speaks fluent French – I think he served in the French Army for a while after the ’45 Rising – so he can listen to the enemy’s conversations and interrogate any prisoners the patrols bring in.”
“Things are moving fast,” Dickert said. “The Chevalier de Levis knows General Amherst will move against him in the thaw, so he wants to get us out of the way first.”
“War is like chess.” Chisholm reverted to his favourite analogy. “Strategy and tactics, move and countermove, with the generals using regiments as pawns, while soldiers like us matter less than the dust on the board.”
On the 18th March, with a slight thaw in the offing, General Murray pre-empted any French advance with a raid on the French forward post at Calvaire. MacKim saw Captain Donald MacDonald lead five hundred of Fraser’s Highlanders, all the fit men and many who were weak and reeling with scurvy, out of Quebec and along the road. They moved purposefully and silently, without the pipes to encourage them.
“I wish I were going with them,” MacKim said.
“Aye, we feel left out when the lads go into battle without us,” Chisholm said. “Once this siege is over, I’ll transfer back to Fraser’s.”
“Don’t you like us anymore?” Ramsay asked.
“I like the Rangers fine,” Chisholm said, “but Fraser’s is my home.”
“Chisholm’s wife is in Fraser’s,” MacKim explained quietly. “Waiting for him. She visits from time to time, but she’s a Highlander at heart.”
Ramsay laughed. “I doubt she’ll be waiting for long. She’ll be playing the two-backed beast with half the Highlanders in creation!”
“You foul bastard!” Chisholm roared, leaping on Ramsay with his bayonet in his hand.
MacKim pulled Chisholm off Ramsay, prising the bayonet from Chisholm’s fist. “It’s not a good idea to kill each other,” MacKim said. “And Ramsay will apologise after he runs around Quebec’s walls twice, backwards.” He hardened his voice. “Move, Ramsay!”
At the expression in MacKim’s eyes, Ramsay fled.
Captain Donald MacDonald led his men back the next day, with a much-changed atmosphere. The Highlanders were laughing, some wearing captured French clothing and carrying French equipment. Although some of the men were bloodstained, none appeared to be injured.
“They look happy,” MacRae said.
“They should. They penetrated the French lines and brought back over sixty prisoners without the loss of a single man.” MacKim nodded. “Captain MacDonald led an elegant operation.”
Harriette nodded. “I heard the boys were ruthless, killing any Frenchmen who resisted and chasing them like deer to catch prisoners.”
MacKim said nothing as he stroked Tayanita’s beadwork. He knew that Highlanders could be as merciless as any other soldiers, yet it felt strange to think of men he knew as laughing companions hounding down the fleeing enemy. He wondered if the French viewed the Highlanders and Rangers much as the British did the Indians and Canadians – savages beyond the pale of civilised warfare.
Harriette looked into the fire. “James says war is like chess, with the generals making moves and counter-moves.”
“I’ve heard him say that,” MacKim agreed.
Harriette touched MacKim’s arm. “The generals don’t think of the effect their little games have on us, do they? They don’t think of the wives watching their men march away, wondering if they’ll ever return, or if they’ll come back without an arm or a leg.”
“I don’t suppose they do,” MacKim said.
“Well, listen here, Hugh. I’ve seen two of my men die in war, and I don’t want to see a third, ugly though he is. As soon as this war ends, I’ll take James out of the army. We’ll settle in the Americas, I think. We can get land here that we’d never get in Scotland.”
MacKim held his beadwork tightly. “James is nervous of his scarred face,” he said. “He thinks civilians wouldn’t accept him.”
“Well then,” Harriette leaned closer to MacKim, “if the civilians don’t accept my James, they’ll have me to deal with, and I don’t take prisoners.”
MacKim replaced the beadwork inside his tunic. “You’re a good woman, Harriette, and a man needs a good woman. You look after James.”
“I will,” Harriette said. “And I was sorry when you lost that woman of yours. You’ll find another, Hugh when the time is right.”
“Aye, maybe,” MacKim said. He stared into the fire. Tayanita’s face stared out at him, with her eyes dark and her mouth tight with disapproval.
I don’t want another woman. I want Tayanita.