A Good Man (47 page)

Sept. 28, 1877

Fort Benton

Dear Maj. Walsh,

Calico flapping in the breeze, tins of peaches and beans scattered over the hills, black, oily smoke – there’s a picture of my mind right now. A mess and a muddle.

Have given up all pretense I can see anything clearly. Given the state of my head, I’m of no use to you or anyone else. You never wanted to be guided anyhow.

I’ve been drinking some. Maybe it shows.

Don’t know why I bother to write since Nez Perce are said to be threatening the road between here and Fort Walsh, and this is unlikely to be delivered any time soon.

Not long ago, Maj. Ilges received intelligence that Chief Joseph was about to invest the freight station at Cow Island. His command being under strength, he prevailed upon John J. Donnelly to raise a body of citizen volunteers. I joined them. War makes strange bedfellows.

Covered the 120 miles to Cow Island Landing as fast as our horses could carry us. Clerks and soldiers there had withstood seven attacks by Nez Perce during night of 23rd. Indians had raided freight depot. What they could not carry off, they destroyed. Hills were littered with calico bolts, tin goods, etc. Hundreds of sacks of bacon were burning, heavy, black smoke everywhere. The men there told Ilges that a Farmer & Cooper wagon train was scheduled to arrive soon. The Major led us into Cow Creek Canyon to escort them in. Arrived too late. Their wagons were burning, one teamster dead. The rest had hid in a thick stand of willows. Attempted to drive Indians off, but ground not in our favour. They kept us pinned down for many hours under constant fire from hills above canyon. Were lucky to have suffered only one loss of life, Edmund Bradley, coloured man. Died of a gut wound – you know what that means. Long, painful death.

Yours sincerely,

Wesley Case

TWENTY-TWO

WITH A CONVULSIVE JERK
of the legs, Case wakes in oppressive heat and silence. His first thought is,
But we are not moving. Why has the train stopped?
earches for a carriage window, hoping to see a patch of lightening sky, but finds nothing. Gazing down the length of the railway carriage, he can make out nothing – no soldiers sleeping humped on the floor, listing in the seats, nothing but blackness thick as pitch. He hears an indistinct rumble. Another train transporting militiamen coming up behind them? A scout locomotive edging ahead to ascertain if the track has been sabotaged?

While he slept someone had wrapped him in a blanket.
In this insufferable heat? What was the fool thinking?
He kicks petulantly at the smothering, clinging warmth.

Ada murmurs a protest in her sleep and he realizes where he is. Lying absolutely still until her breathing once again grows regular and even, he carefully untangles his limbs from the sheets, swings his legs out of bed, and sits waiting for the waves of anxiety to abate, for his heart to slow. Finally he rises, goes to the window, and pulls back the curtains. What he mistook for a train is a low, thick-tongued stammer of thunder accompanied by tremors of sheet lightning. The freak October storm enters the room to keep him company; light blinks intermittently on the walls, and the heavy air is saturated with electricity. Case draws up a chair to the window and sits, elbow propped on the sash, listening to the drum roll of thunder, his mind marching in cadence to it, a brutal, jerky gait that carries him back to that June night eleven years ago, the streets of Toronto echoing with bugles calling out the militia,
NCOS
hammering fists to doors.

Shortly after midnight, he stumbles down his mother’s staircase to the urgent clatter of a doorknocker and finds Sergeant Jimson on the doorstep. The Sergeant raps out his news in staccato bursts. “Reports that Fenians have crossed the border, Captain. Making for Fort Erie. Orders to muster at Front Street Drill Shed immediate. Colonel said to give you this.” He runs his eyes over the note and learns he has been appointed temporary command of the 2nd Company. Major Lewis is incapacitated due to an ulcerated leg. There is a sudden clutch to the heart, he feels himself break a light sweat standing there barelegged in his nightshirt. Doing his best to sound calm, equal to the task, he inquires if all the other officers of the 2nd have been located and have received their orders to assemble.

“Corporal Phipps couldn’t rouse Lieutenant Wilson, sir.”

“Tell him to go back. Set fire to his house if you have to. We can’t go short two officers.”

The drill shed at Front Street is a confused melee. Sergeants bellowing at rankers, officers bellowing at noncoms, much milling about as scanty equipment and arms are dispensed. No food, canteens, blankets, or bandages available. Weapons that are older than the men, antique Enfield muzzle loaders, ball and powder for them in short supply. A few Spencer repeaters are on hand, just sufficient to arm the 5th Company of the Queen’s Own, only forty cartridges to a man.

The first heat wave of the season and everyone is bundled up in winter uniforms because the commissariat has not yet authorized issue of summer kit. Tunics mapped with sweat, the drill shed hot enough to roast the Christmas goose. And into this bedlam, hours late, a nonchalant Lieutenant Pudge Wilson strolls, commandeers a chair, crosses his legs, and starts to trim his fingernails with a penknife.

But Cae overlooks this studied insouciance, this tardiness, pretends not to notice Pudge neglecting his duties as he bustles about, ensuring that the 2nd receives its share of ammunition, as he worriedly checks and rechecks the company rolls.

At six-thirty that morning the Queen’s Own Rifles, the 13th Battalion, the Caledonian and York Rifle Companies strike out for the harbour where the
City of Toronto
is waiting to transport them to Port Dalhousie. The streets are packed; astounding numbers have turned out to see them off, mothers, sisters, wives blotting tears with handkerchiefs, brothers, uncles, and fathers looking gravely proud. Politicians and newshounds who had sat up all night in newspaper offices receiving the latest reports telegraphed in have come down to the harbour to loyally applaud. Workmen on their way to jobs are pulling at sleeves and asking what the source of the trouble is, why the alarm? Soon there are patriotic outbursts, shaking of hats in the air, flapping of handkerchiefs, shouts of “Lay into them, boys!” “God Save the Queen” is sung, and like the miracle of the loaves and the fishes – where did they all come from? – a bounty of Union Jacks, tiny ones in the chubby fists of little children, big banners swaying on standards above the heads of the mob, flags the size of tablecloths draping lampposts.

Past the train station they tramp, arms swinging in unison, hobnailed boots cracking on the cobblestones, faces dripping sweat, heads steaming under shakos, the citizens of Toronto huzzahing until they’re hoarse.

They board the steamer in good order and smartly set sail. Off starboard the sun is a bonfire on the horizon; the choppy waters of Lake Ontario stab bleary eyes with reflected sunlight. The troops crowd the ship’s railings for a look at the smoke pluming Toronto, the shoreline slowly receding. A welcome breeze stirs. The sweat dries on their faces as the city dwindles, then is lost from sight. The men drift away from the bulwarks, settle down on deck, lost in thoughts of home and hunger.

No rations whatsoever had been stocked at the drill shed, so most knapsacks sag like empty socks. A lucky few have been provided by far-sighted mothers and wives with hard-boiled eggs, sardines, sandwiches, bread and cheese, which they share with comrades. A short-lived picnic breaks out on deck. The 8th and 9th Companies of the Queen’s Own, fresh-faced students of Toronto’s University and Trinity Colleges, improvise a game of cricket with a ball of twine and a barrel stave. Some throw their arms over one another’s shoulders, sway side to side singing, “Tramp, tramp, tramp, our boys are marching, / Cheer up, let the Fenians come! / For beneath the Union Jack we’ll drive the rabble back / And we’ll fight for our beloved Canadian home.”

He is scarcely twenty-three years old but these exuberant lads make him feel ancient. The rest of the Queen’s Own are not much older than the university boys, a contingent of spotty-faced clerks, fledgling greengrocers, printers’ devils, drapers’ assistants, boys who have never fired a weapon at anything more menacing than a woodchuck. Looking at them, he experiences the sobering realization that these callow youths are now
his
responsibility. They are his to lead. And to do this to the best of his ability, he will need the support of Pudge, who is now his second-in-command. Some sort of understanding must be arrived at. After a short search, he find him enthroned on a coil of hawser, belly swelling out of his unbuttoned jacket like a batch of rising bread dough.

“A word, Lieutenant Wilson,” he says, “before we arrive at Port Dalhousie.”

“I trust a cold collation has been prepared to meet us there. If it hasn’t, we must take turns spanking the quartermaster.” Pudge sniffs conspicuously. “Nothing like the smell of marine air to give a man an appetite.”

Gripping the rail, watching the spray breaking against the prow, casting tiny, shimmering rainbows, Case struggles to find the words to impress on him the gravity of the situation. “There is something that needs to be said. Troops take their lead from their officers –”

“Why then those poor dears are doomed, aren’t they, Wesley? You and I – we’re hardly made from heroic stuff.”

“Talk sensibly for a moment, can you? These boys are green as grass. You and I,
we
are green as grass. The men we will face, the most of them, are Civil War veterans, have had a whiff of the grapeshot. With Major Lewis gone it is imperative that we pull together.”

“Ah, Wesley, you talk as if we were a yoke of plodding oxen. You had a better sense of style in days past.”

“In days past, yes. But I think you need reminding that this is not an outing of the Lilies of the Field.”

“An interesting allusion – signifying what?”

“That you must not attempt to rule the roost here.”

A nasty glint appears in Pudge’s eyes. “One would think you had won a battlefield promotion – not ascended to your present heady heights simply because that old gasbag Major Lewis is out of action with a convenient sore on his leg.”

The steamer begins to loose blasts from its whistle. Port Dalhousie is coming into sight. “Let us see to forming up the company for disembarkation,” Case says. “And look to the state of your uniform, Lieutenant Wilson. Set a better example for the men.”

“I am reproved.” Deliberately, one by one, Pudge does up his buttons. The slowness with which he does it is a provocation. “There,” he says, fastening the last of them, “now that I am spruce and tidy I am sure our men will be motivated to fight like demons.”

From Port Dalhousie they move by rail to Port Colborne, where they cool their heels until midnight, awaiting orders. Then a courier arrives from Lieutenant Colonel Peacocke. Colonel Booker is to depart Port Colborne by train for Ridgeway no later than five o’clock next morning; from Ridgeway he is to march his men to Stevensville to join with Peacocke’s troops. There they will confront the Fenians with their combined force.

But the long stall in Port Colborne has unravelled their army. It has been impossible to restrain hungry men from going foraging for food. The girls and taverns of the town have proved irresistible to others. After the long, sleepless night in the drill shed, many are dead to the world, asleep in barns and stables. Bugles trumpet, noncoms ru through the streets baying like hounds. The roll is called on the train station platform. Indefatigable Sergeant Jimson has rounded up all of the 2nd; none are missing. But everywhere Case looks, he sees drunks feigning sobriety, others so exhausted they answer to their names as if they are talking in their sleep. Pudge has brandy on his breath and is in a black sulk.

They load the men on the train and wait. Hundreds of militiamen packed cheek by jowl in the stifling carriages. The men complain of thirst; he silences them, assures them they will soon be under way. One hour creeps by and then another. He feels the atmosphere curdle with resentment because he has refused them leave to fetch water. In truth, what he fears is that if they escape the carriage, there’ll be no getting them back. Someone retches out a window. Men doze fitfully in their seats.

At five o’clock the train gives a jolt and almost throws him to the floor. Sleep had overtaken him. The locomotive advances at a walking pace, a pilot engine preceding it to ensure Irish sympathizers have not done damage to the tracks. All around him, soldiers are knuckling their eyes, coughing, peering out the windows at a smoky red dawn. It takes an hour before the train wheezes and gasps its way into Ridgeway, where they stumble off the train.

Colonel Booker orders assembly to be called in the village square. He has brought a horse by private railway car and does not wish to deprive himself or the citizens of Ridgeway of a mounted review of the troops. The thermometer on the wall of the post office already shows 85 degrees; the men stand numbly in formation while Booker’s horse is saddled. Then another delay. A delegation from the village council hustles a man forward to the Colonel. He claims he has seen soldiers of the Fenian Irish Republican Army flitting through his apple orchard. Booker tells him he is mistaken; the latest intelligence received by wire puts the Fenians in an encampment near Stevensville. Or thereabouts. However, to dispel any concerns the population may have for its safety and the security of its property, Booker orders bugles to sound and the locomotive whistle to be blown to announce the arrival of Her Majesty’s forces and reassure the loyal inhabitants of the village.