Shadowbrook (87 page)

The sentry waited for a reply. None came. The God-cursed damp of the endless rain had all but closed his throat. He cleared it and tried again, louder this time.
“Qui vive?”

Wolfe was in the lead boat. He nodded to the young captain with the Seventy-eighth Highlanders, who spoke perfect French.
“La France et vive le roi!”
he shouted. Wolfe was pleased with his forethought. He’d identified enough French speakers among his troops to scatter them throughout the longboats. But if a password was demanded … Quentin Hale was in Wolfe’s boat, and the American had his long gun to his shoulder trying to sight the French soldier so far overhead.

The sentry on the heights did not trouble himself about passwords, he only thought about how empty his belly was and how long it had been so. He felt a surge of relief.
Merci, mon Dieu.
For days now they had been promised a convoy of supplies from Montréal. He sprinted along the clifftop to the next post.
“Ce sont nos gens avec les provisions. Laissez-les passer.”
His voice reached the British on the water as the faintest of echoes. It was enough. They rowed on.

Moments later Wolfe’s longboat and three others had landed at l’Anse au Foulon. Four others missed the landing and were carried farther down, but there was no time to worry about them now. “Mr. Hale”—a whisper so faint Quent had to strain to hear it though he was standing right beside the general—“where is your friend’s route?”

Some of the men had already started to clear a ravine that had been filled with scree and tree trunks. Corm had been very clear. That wasn’t the footpath. “The ravine’s a feint, meant to shift attention from the real thing. Seven long strides farther on. Easy to miss, and as steep as the way up Big Two, but it’ll take you to the top.”

Quent hadn’t come with Corm to see the place for fear they’d be spotted and the alarm raised about interest in the Foulon cove. The only difficult part was convincing Wolfe that Corm was absolutely to be trusted; in the end he convinced himself. Quent figured it was the Englishman’s desperation that made him accept Corm’s assurance of a way up the cliffs. Time was running short, winter was coming, and Admiral Saunders would insist the fleet leave. Besides, whether or not he took Québec wasn’t as important to the chinless general as that he got the quick and glorious death he craved. Sick as he was as often as he was, maybe it was understandable.

Quent paced off the distance and studied the portion of the cliff he faced. It was exactly as Corm had described, a narrow declivity that you could think of as a footpath if you used your imagination. Climbed almost straight up. That’s what had made Corm think of the way they used to take up Big Two when they were boys. Impossibly steep, but if you were surefooted, you could do it. Except at Shadowbrook there were no enemy soldiers lying in wait when you got to the top.

The first team had already been chosen, sixteen of the most nimble redcoats led by a Colonel Howe from the Fifty-eighth Light Infantry. Howe was almost as big as Quent himself, and equally as agile. He and his men appeared at Quent’s side. A faint drizzle had started but there was no point in waiting. If the heavy rain returned, they hadn’t a chance. Howe nodded. His lead men fixed their bayonets and the climb began.

There were no enemy soldiers at the top of the Foulon path, only a small detachment housed in a few tents. They had posted no lookout, or if they had, he had deserted his post. The fight was over quickly. When it was done Quent saw one of the redcoats use the tip of his bloody bayonet to take a scalp. Apparently he’d developed a taste for it. Howe came over, cleaning his musket, not even breathing hard. “Well done, Mr. Hale.”

“Well done yourself, Colonel Howe. But one of the French soldiers got away, I saw him running toward the town.” Quent touched his long gun. “He was out of sight before I could get off a shot. Do you want me to go after him?”

“I think not, Mr. Hale. The whole point of the thing is to get them out here, isn’t it? Now, time to invite the others.”

The colonel walked to the edge of the cliff. He struck a flint and flashed a signal to the general and the men on the beach.

By the time Wolfe and two hundred more soldiers stood on the heights it was four o’clock and a false dawn lightened the sky. The only resistance was a battery of French guns shooting ineffectually from some distance away. Wolfe sent Howe and his men to silence it. In the cove below, the longboats kept landing, and wave after wave of soldiers were sent clambering up the path.

There were more showers, but so far not the downpour they all feared. Meanwhile
Wolfe had reconnoitered and chosen a place to await the enemy. He gave the signal. The men formed up with more confusion than usual, finding their places according to the familiar companions either side. Finally, as silently as it was possible for such a large body to move, Wolfe’s army marched on Québec.

By the time the sun rose, seven British battalions were drawn up in battle order across the open ground facing the Rue St. Louis, two leagues from the town’s western wall. Five more battalions were on the river or in the cove, taking their turn to scurry two by two up the path to the heights. A twenty-man guard protected the open ground at the top of the climb, but farther on toward the town sharpshooters harried them from the surrounding woods. They were mostly Indians, Quent figured, and possibly a few Canadians, but as yet there was no sign of Montcalm’s army. Maybe the soldier Quent had seen run from the encampment atop the Foulon cove, hadn’t made it to the town. Never mind. The British would announce their presence soon enough. A pair of stalwart sailors had managed to manhandle a couple of brass six-pounders up to the heights. Quent saw the cannon in place and knew he couldn’t wait any longer. “The hospital, General.”

“Ah, yes. As we discussed. Take ten men and go, Mr. Hale. Please give my compliments to the Mother Superior. You may tell her the nuns and their patients can count on my protection.”

The August night when the Poor Clares had at last consented to leave their monastery, Père Antoine had murmured a decree of exclaustration over each nun as she passed beyond what had been the cloister walls. “By the power vested in me by the Minister General in Rome, I dispense you from your vow of endosure, for as long as it proves necessary.” Consequently, while in the Hôpital Général, Nicole did not cover her face with her veil, nor did any of her sisters. They all took part in the work of caring for the ill and the wounded and the dispossessed and desperate who, since the bombardment began, had crowded into the spacious hospital founded to care for a better class of sick than were served by the Hôtel-Dieu. By the grace of God, the Hôpital Général was beyond the range of the British guns.

Big as the place was, it wasn’t big enough. How could it be? The first refugees to arrive were the nuns’ families. They were lodged in the sheds on the extensive grounds. When more
habitants
came, the barns were emptied and turned into dormitories for mothers with young children. When the Ursulines could no longer remain in their ruined monastery, they too sought shelter with the Augustines Hospitalières. They were given the rooms of the resident nuns, who themselves now slept together in shifts in a small vestibule near the front door. Soon there were six hundred
étrangers within the hospital walls. It was only because the Augustinian Superior, Mère
St. Claude, was extremely well connected—her
father had been governor of Trois Rivières and her brother carried the title King’s Lieutenant of Québec—that Bigot had given them sufficient food for so many. When Poor Clares arrived and were housed in the tiny icehouse near the largest well, they were six hundred and six. With such a huge burden it was imperative that everyone help. Mère Marie Rose said she and her nuns would take on the task of filling the large tin jugs with water from the well and carrying them to the hospital kitchen. This morning, immediately after the chanting of Lauds, it was Nicole’s turn.

She filled two of the large metal canisters—each held the equivalent of ten ordinary bottles of wine—and hefted one in either hand. The icehouse was separated from the main hospital building by a copse of trees divided by a cobbled path that led directly to the kitchen door. Nicole walked as quickly as she could, struggling with her heavy burden and thinking of the small pleasure that waited at the end of the journey. At this hour the Hospitalières would be stirring a few handfuls of barley into the vegetable cooking water of the previous day to make a broth that would serve as breakfast for the sickest patients. She would be glad of the few moments she could spend near the warmth of the stove. Summer was definitely past Already she could see her breath in the air.

She saw a flash of movement out of the corner of one eye in the scarlet-leaved maples to her left. Nicole turned her head. Nothing. She must have imagined it. She was perhaps getting dizzy. It was foolish to think she was strong enough to carry two jugs of water on one trip. Better to have brought one and then gone back for the other.

Quent saw her look in his direction and caught his breath. Should he approach her here? Sweet Christ, he wanted to. He couldn’t believe his luck. This was a perfect chance to see her alone. The others were waiting for him to scout the area before they took up their positions, but maybe there was just enough time for a word or two. Père Antoine’s beads were in his pocket; he’d use the fact that he had something to give her to extract a promise she’d talk with him later. He needed to speak with her almost as much as he needed to breathe.

The dirk was in his hand. Quent slipped it into the familiar place at the small of his back, pleased with how right it felt. A lot of things would go back to how they’d been, when this damnable war was over. No, they’d be better than before. He stepped out of the cover of the stand of trees.

The sound of a musket exploded in the early morning stillness. Nicole fell.

Quent hurled himself forward, then dropped to his knees across her body, shielding it with his own. The sniper who had shot from the trees on the other side of the icehouse had to have been aiming at him. Now the bastard was reloading to finish the job. Quent’s long gun was already loaded, and up on his shoulder. But he could see nothing to shoot.

The redcoats came running, summoned by the sound of the musket. Quent heard their booted feet tramping through the stand of maples behind him. As soon as they appeared on the path he shouted, “Sniper. Over in those woods across the way. Cover me while I get her out of here.”

Three redcoats stood shoulder to shoulder, making themselves into a human wall between the far trees and Quent and the fallen nun. The others ran off to either side to give pursuit from behind the cover of the trees. A few months ago they wouldn’t have known to do that. Behind the protective backs of the stationary soldiers Quent gathered Nicole into his arms. She was breathing. Thank Christ Jesus, she was alive. But her face was ghostly white and he could see the tiny blue veins that marked the lids of her closed eyes. The rough gray gown she wore was sodden. One of the tin jugs had shattered, the other had overturned and spilled when she dropped it. He felt something dripping over his arm as he lifted her, and saw blood splashing on the cobbles. He sprinted toward the hospital.

Three nuns had gathered in the doorway, all staring wide-eyed at him and the red-coated soldiers in his wake. Another older sister approached behind them. “Back to your work, mes Soeurs. At once.
Pas vous, Soeur St. Louis.
Go and tell the abbess of the Poor Clares that one of her nuns has need of her.
S’il vous plaît, monsieur,
you will follow me.”

Quent hesitated, watching the one called Soeur St. Louis hurry toward the kitchen door. “Out there, madame.” He jerked his head toward the copse and the cobbled path. “I can’t be sure the soldiers have yet made it secure.”

“That’s as may be,” the nun said. “A Poor Clare should not die without the comfort of her abbess.”

The marquis de Montcalm surveyed the enemy from horseback, his green and gold uniform shimmering in the soft rain of early morning. When the news of an English landing had first reached him he hadn’t entirely believed it. He was exhausted; he’d been up all night supervising the defenses of the Beauport shore where the English attack was expected. He had taken the time to finish his tea and change his clothes before going to consult with Vaudreuil.
Eh bien,
who could blame him? The man who brought him the word from the cuffs above l’Anse au Foulon was almost incoherent, hysterical. Clearly he believed in his own news. But an English landing on the heights west of the town … He and the governorg-eneral agreed it was, if not impossible, most unlikely. Unfortunately, according to the evidence of his own eyes, it had happened.