Band of Acadians (10 page)

“Yes, I can see that. If the piston were attached to a lever, you could get a fair amount of pressure in the pipe.”

Frank clapped Hector on the back. “That's right. And if you light the coal oil as it leaves the pipe, you get a stream of fire to spray at the enemy. It's called Greek fire. I learned about it at school.”

“Sounds like a brutal weapon. I guess that was why you wanted all that gypsum rock, but why didn't you tell us about your plan?”

“I had to make the distillation of coal oil work first, and I wasn't sure that would succeed. Making new things is always an uncertain process. It involves a lot of trial and error.”

On September 10 the
Rameurs
marked the first anniversary of their escape from Grand Pré with a solemn ceremony. There being no priest available, Grandpa led the residents of Westmount in prayer:

“Let us now bow our heads and join hands to remember our kin who suffer in faraway lands.

O God, thou art a strong tower of defence to all that flee unto thee. Please save our kin from the violence of the enemy.

O Lord, help our loved ones out of misery.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost.

As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.”

The refugees' problems with the governor began shortly after their Louisbourg visit. French soldiers were attracted, no doubt, by the young ladies of Westmount as well as by the mead at Jocelyne's canteen, so they began to visit the little settlement. It was, after all, only thirty miles by land from Louisbourg. That by itself posed no difficulty. They became alarmed only when several men refused to go back to the fortress.

When the
Rameurs
asked the soldiers why they wouldn't return, the answer was shocking. Apparently, soldiers in the lower ranks were often exploited by their officers. Some became so fed up that they were ready to desert their posts. A particularly outrageous example was the case of Private Jodocus. The private's commanding officer forced him to work on his farm, taking care of his animals, growing hay, and clearing away firewood, all for absolutely no compensation. This involuntary “assistance” didn't improve the private's morale or his military skills.

Frank was outraged when he heard this. “No wonder they want to desert. That's no way to treat subordinates. If I were in their position, I'd do the same thing. We have the same problem in England, but only by a few rogue officers. And when those men are caught, they're severely punished.”

One late-winter afternoon Hector and Frank stared, with growing disbelief, as a battalion of soldiers advanced on Westmount. Hector pulled out his spyglass and announced, “I was afraid it would come to this. Drucour has launched an expedition to bring back those deserters. That battalion looks fearsome. This is a serious business, Frank.”

“Yes, but we have a good defensive position. I think we can handle them. I'm pleased to report that our pumps are ready. Our biggest pump can squeeze a gusher of fire more than thirty feet. When they get within range, we can let them have a taste of it.”

Drucour's soldiers advanced, grimly purposeful, with muskets cocked.

“People are going to get killed,” Nola said with foreboding.

On Hector's signal the primed pumps spurted a torrent of flames — dazzling bright and brutally hot — directly in front of the attackers. This torrent disrupted their advance, but only for a moment. They rallied and responded with a ferocious volley of musket fire that battered the row of fence posts hiding the fire machines. Peeking over the posts, Hector shouted, “That's just a taste of what we've got! You see we can defend ourselves. Let's sort this out like civilized people. Let's talk.”

After a short hesitation, Drucour raised a green parley flag.

Hector opened the negotiations with a brutal accusation. “The way you allow your officers to exploit your men is disgraceful. That's a stupid way to run an army.”

“Watch who you're calling stupid, young man, or I'll call this parley off right now.”

“You're right, Governor. I apologize. Let's review each man's grievance one by one to see if we can arrive at a just solution.”

“I'm ready to discuss, with proper decorum, any instances where my officers might have overstepped their authority,” Drucour said. “But understand this. The British are blockading our ships as we speak. I can't allow any dereliction of duty. Now let us start with the Private Jodocus case.”

Case by case was painstakingly reviewed, and where accommodations could be made that was done. After many hours of negotiations, Hector had to accept that thirty-five of the fifty deserters would have to return to Louisbourg. Private Jodocus was one of the few who won the right to stay. And Hector had to agree to return any future deserters immediately.

With that arrangement an amicable, if tense, resolution to the crisis was achieved. Drucour prepared to leave. As the line of soldiers faded into the distance, Nola approached Frank. “I'm glad that's over. Soldiers, French or English, aren't my favourite people. By the way, how did you get those pumps to squirt the coal oil so far?”

“It's all a matter of leverage, Nola. A ten-foot-long pole attached to a piston multiplies the force placed on it by a factor of ten. This generates enough pressure and can send a terrifying gusher of fire at the enemy. This principle was established long ago by a wise old Greek called Archimedes.”

“You're so lucky to have gone to school and learned all those things. I'm very angry with my own people for not having the foresight to build schools in Acadia. None of us even knew how to write until you came. That wasn't smart on our part. Let me tell you, if I ever have children, they're going to be properly educated!”

7
Amazing Excitement

T
he addition of fifteen adult males to the social mix at Westmount changed its dynamic. Although Hector kept the new men busy digging for coal, running the distillation tower and, on two occasions, sending them off to the little quarry on the Bras d'Ors to get more gypsum, it was apparent there was competition for female company.

Jocelyne, chief beekeeper, principal person responsible for the production of mead, and hostess of the canteen, bore the brunt of this challenge. She confided to Nola. “I don't know if it's just my mead, but those new men seem to hang around me a lot these days. Most of the time I rather like it. The attention is nice as long as they don't get drunk.”

“You're a good-looking young woman,” Nola said. “It's not surprising that young men pay attention to you.”

Hector, thinking about the need to store more coal oil, decided to build a large potter's wheel that would make it easier to create barrel-sized containers. Placing a slurry of gypsum-lime on this wheel enabled him to make excellent thin-walled containers.

“It's a lot easier to make big containers that way than by hand,” he told Frank, “and it's much better than using pottery mud. There's no need to build a large kiln to bake the mud.”

By mid-June, when the Basque fishermen returned, Hector had made many of these barrels. The Basques had brought bolts of wool cloth, orange marmalade, wheat, cloves, pepper, and most exciting for many of the newly literate among the
Rameurs
, twenty books on a variety of topics.

Looking over the books, Frank said, “These are splendid. We're going to make good use of them, particularly those encyclopedia volumes.”

The arrival of the Basques prompted Frank to remember their vulnerability to attack from the sea. “Hector, we should build embankments along the shore of Westmount. It would hide our fire pumps.”

“Frank's right,” Grandpa said. “We need to be better prepared. We
Rameurs
come from a people who know a thing or two about building embankments. I can help the men place logs, mud, and rocks so they'll make a solid barrier against both water and anyone who might attack us.”

“We're lucky to have you, Grandpa,” Hector said. “It's a big job, but you're the best person to help us do it right. Go ahead and start. I'm going to build a catapult using a design I saw in one of those encyclopedias.”

As this work progressed, everyone was optimistic except Frank. He realized their fire pumps weren't powerful enough to stop a determined attack. “It's certain that Drucour would have defeated us had he pressed his attack,” he told Hector. “We haven't tried to do anything with that red rock yet. I'd like to look into that.”

“Well, I must admit you were right with that coal tinkering. And the fire pump you made is impressive. Go ahead, Frank. If the red rock can be used to make something useful, we'd better find out. Just don't take too many people to do your tests. There are lots of other chores to be done around here.”

Frank was excited to begin. He thought carefully about the scope of his project, then chose ten boys to use picks and shovels to pry pieces of the red stone from the surrounding bedrock. He banged some of this freed stone with a hammer and found it was harder than limestone but not so hard that he couldn't pound it into fine powder. “It's a lot softer than quartz,” he told his workers. That done he got the boys to round up some coal and heated the powder. “It worked with the gypsum and limestone.”

To his astonishment this resulted in a glossy black powder. “Actually, I shouldn't be surprised that something turns black when it's heated.” He found the black substance had a strong taste, was quite a bit heavier than most rocks, and proved handy as a dye. Other than that he could see little use for it. He decided more heat might produce something more useful. Frank believed that the heaviness of the black powder was evidence there might be a metal hiding in the stone, and he knew liberating metals from rock took a lot of heat. Nola and the boys helped him to build a brick box around the powder, to add charcoal, and to fan the fire by blowing on it with a small bellows made from deer leather. When the powder turned white-hot, they saw something materialize that was truly remarkable.

“Hey, Hector, come over here!” Frank cried. “Have a look at this. See that metal in the bottom of the pot? It's iron. I'm very happy to say our red rock is made of iron!”

“Iron, huh?” Hector said. “We certainly could use more of that metal around here. We need axes, saws, hammers, shafts for wheels, all sorts of things.”

“Yes, iron's useful for that, but it isn't something that we can use to defend ourselves. I'm going to continue my experiments.”

Excited with this first success, Frank wondered what other things he could do with the black powder. “I'll try adding sea salt and heat that mixture to see what will happen,” he said to Nola.

It seemed a simple matter to evaporate a few batches of sea water, but getting everything set up took more time than Frank expected. It was almost a full week before he had a small pile of dry salt.

The first heating of this new combination was a disappointment — nothing happened. “I'd better start keeping notes, or I'm going to lose my way,” he mumbled to himself.

Nola overheard this mumbling and jumped in. “I can do that.”

Frank knew he would probably have to do some spell-checking of her work, but was thankful and accepted her offer. Also, he mused, she was pleasant company. He decided to cover the ingredients with sand so that air couldn't affect the reaction. And he tried again. Slowly, this test batch got hotter and hotter, but still there was nothing promising. Frustrated, he decided to remove the sand cover, add charcoal, and try once more. No sooner had this batch reached an orange colour than he saw red smoke rise. Delighted, he got his crew to help him build a condenser. “We've got to capture that red smoke!”

When the condenser was ready and had done its work, Frank realized they had actually made two new substances: The red powder distilled from the smoke easily dissolved in water, so he called it “red salt.” There was also a new white powder. It was obviously different from the original sea salt, because when he added water it crackled and fizzled. The white powder had a sharp smell and felt slippery to the touch.

After a few tests, Frank recognized the new white substance as caustic soda. “It's lye, all right,” he said. “It burns your mouth if you taste it and turns wood chips dazzling white. It's the same stuff you get when you leach water through wood ashes. We made soap by mixing this kind of soda with seal fat on the rafts.”

“Yes,” Nola said, “I remember doing that. We made a pretty good soap.”

For several days Frank experimented with this red salt and lye mixture. He tried burning them with coal oil. He tried heating a combination of red salt with caustic soda, but it all produced nothing. Nola kept careful notes of every procedure.

“I love trying different things to see what works and what doesn't,” Frank said to anyone who dropped by. “But it can be tough when you end up with nothing new. Still, I'd rather be reaching dead ends than not be trying at all.”

Using several coal oil lamps to brighten his workspace, Frank often worked alone long into the night. But after two weeks he still had nothing — the red salt–lye combination only produced more ordinary salt. Irritated but not discouraged, he realized they were going in the wrong direction and asked to see Nola's notes.

Looking over them herself, Nola suggested he retrace his steps to the point where they had produced the white powder. “I see you didn't do anything with it except add water.”

“You're right,” he agreed.

Together they made a new batch of this dry white material, placed it in a pot, and put the pot on the fire. They were surprised to see pale yellow grains form. Frank found these grains puckered his nose when he smelled them and wrinkled the skin on his finger when he touched them. Then he found the substance absorbed water from the air so easily that he decided to keep it in a closed jar.