The Meeting Place (32 page)

Whetlock shook his head, the muscles in his neck cording like an aging bull. “Captain Stevenage has come upon some most disquieting news. Until now I tended not to believe him. But that comment in the face of Colonel Lewis, with us at war …”

“Might I ask what Stevenage has reported?”

“Mrs. Stevenage received word from someone in Edward that your wife has been seen consorting with the enemy.”

“Impossible, sir.” But Andrew's mind was trapped by the picture of Matty Dwyer, the drover's wife. “My wife has never in her entire life had contact with any enemy of England. I must protest in the strongest—”

Angrily Whetlock waved him to silence. “Harrow, you are hereby ordered to take your men and clear out the two French villages north of here. You will then report back here and surrender to me your resignation from His Majesty's forces.”

This time Andrew was unable to mask his horror. “Sir—”

“Your alternative is to be drummed from the corps, your good name scarred with the brand of a dishonorable discharge.” General Whetlock leaned across the desk, rage burning in his eyes and his voice. “Disobey me on this and I will see you sent back to England in irons! Is that perfectly clear?”

Chapter 27

Louise was uncertain what woke her, the shouts of neighbors or the torchlight dancing upon her bedroom window. The noise seemed to ignite with the light as it pushed her eyelids open, echoing through some gentle dream into a nightmare of awakening.

When she sat up, Henri was already slipping into his trousers. “What is it?”

He turned to her, and there upon his strong features she saw something which left her feeling that he knew. No matter that all outside was confusion and clamor, her husband
knew
.

“Get dressed and prepare whatever it is you need,” he said, his voice calm.

“But what—”

“I will go to Papa Jacques. If anyone knows the truth, he will.”

But before he reached the front room, their door slammed open. “Henri!”

“Here.”

Louise's brother Eli rushed in. “The English! The English are coming!”

“Sit. And calm yourself. We cannot know what to do until we know what is happening.” Henri's strong arm forced the younger man into a chair by the table. Louise had never heard her husband speak thusly. In the place of a man who was most comfortable with laughter, a man who preferred to duck from problems and questions that could not be answered, stood a man who
commanded
. “Now tell me.”

Eli must have heard the same strength in Henri's order, for he visibly forced himself to take a full breath. “They came to the house last night.”

“Who did?”

“English soldiers. They had a roll book. They wanted Papa, but he was not well. You know how he's been slipping—even the soldier could see he should not go. So they took me. I tried to tell him you were the elder, but no one understood—”

“So they took you.” Henri spoke more quietly now, pressing the younger man to focus upon what was important. “What then?”

“They took me to the English fort. There were dozens of us in all, five from Minas including the vicar. I recognized clans from villages all along the bay, even the other side.”

Louise looked up and saw torches and worried faces crammed into the windows and doorway of her little home. Faces which once had belonged to friends, but now were so full of woe and worry that the flickering shadows turned them into strangers.

“An officer came in, one who spoke French. He read a proclamation. It said …” Eli stopped and gulped for more than breath. “The officer said because we had not signed the oath of allegiance, we were all to be deported!”

The shock on the faces crowding their windows and doors turned into cries. One voice shouted, “They can't do that!”

“Quiet!”
It was more than Henri's order that silenced them. His voice held a force which demanded obedience. “Go on, Eli.”

“We are to be deported,” Eli repeated. “Tonight. The soldiers allowed only two of us to return to Minas. They are still holding the vicar! He and the others were kept as hostages. It was the same for all the other villages.”

“Silence, I tell you!” Again Henri's order stopped them before the crowd's clamor gathered full force. “When are they coming, Eli?”

“Soon. Hours. Tonight. We will be loaded onboard the boats before dawn. We can take only what we can carry.”

Louise could hold back no longer. “But what of Catherine? She could not—”

“I asked for Captain Harrow. I said that right, did I not? Captain Harrow.”

“You said it correctly,” Henri quietly replied, his expression telling that he already knew what was coming.

“The commandant gave me such a look of scorn, as though he had expected something and I had confirmed it. He spoke a little French. All he said was, ‘That hole has been plugged.' ”

“Then we know what we must do,” Henri said, straightening and turning to the windows. “You have heard the message. Hurry home and prepare.”

A man's voice Louise thought she recognized as belonging to Gerard Duprey shouted out, “But what about our animals?”

“Only what you can carry,” Henri replied. His face looked so grim it could have belonged to some man other than her husband.

“They are not able to do this to us!”

Another voice shrilled, “This is our homeland! Eight generations we have lived and died here! They can't—”

“No discussion!” Henri barked out the words. “Not tonight. If they are coming we must be prepared, as best we can.”

“And if all this is merely another threat?”

Henri shook his head. “They do not hold the vicar and the others hostages merely to make threats. Go and ready yourselves.”

Louise felt the shivering of her frame spread until her legs threatened to collapse. “But my
baby
! What about—”

Henri moved with lightning speed across the room, gripped her with his strong hands, and said with a voice that did not require volume to carry its force, “Yes. Go and prepare your baby, Louise.”

“But—”

“We must hurry,” he said, his eyes shouting all that his voice did not. When she knew he was certain she would not speak again, he turned back without releasing her arms and repeated, “Go and prepare the best you can.”

A woman's voice from the back of the throng cried, “Horses! I hear horses!”

“Hurry, all of you,” Henri urged.

Swiftly the people scattered, and in the distance drumming hooves were answered by a rising tide of wails and cries.

The horror which gripped Louise turned her voice to a hoarse croak. “This can't be happening.” She turned large eyes to her husband. “What will I do with Elspeth?”

“We must take her.”

The words were spoken sharply, giving Louise the sense that there was no time or room for argument.

“Take her?” she echoed weakly. “But I can't—”

“We cannot leave her,” responded her husband. “Not alone—can we? They think she is French, remember? She could end up on the point of a bayonet.”

“Oh, dear God” was all Louise could manage. No soldier could be that cruel.

“Dress her warmly. The sea air will be frigid.” And Henri moved away to whip the blankets off their bed and bundle needed supplies for the unknown journey.

But the dismay would not free her feet to move. “Henri, my baby.”

“I know, my love. I know.” Still, he was turning away, moving and reaching and cramming things into a hold-all. “Pray as you move, but move you must. And fast.”

Tell me, Lord
, Andrew prayed as he rode at the head of the force.
Tell me what I am to do. Tell me now
.

The words became a litany whirling within his mind and in time to the pounding of the horses' hooves. His troops had been doubled in number by the addition of a squad from the garrison. Their lieutenant was a sharp-eyed younger man whose gaze remained hard and fast upon Andrew. Clearly he had been warned by a superior, possibly the general himself.

But Andrew was too alarmed and confused to concern himself over the lieutenant. Should he disobey a direct order? It would mean imprisonment in chains and a swift hanging once he was shipped back to England. What would happen to Catherine and the baby?
The baby.
The baby
. The storm of emotions tossed the beacon of tragic pain up over and over within his mind. His baby—where was Elspeth now?

He slowed his horse, then stopped. Behind him the troops halted in a furious pelting of dust and loose stones. The lieutenant guided his horse up close, one hand upon his sword and the other tugging savagely upon his horse's reins.

Andrew did not speak. From the pandemonium of conflicting emotions and thoughts, one firm conviction had arisen. He could not pull innocent people from their homes. All the arguments and all the fears and all the conflicting loyalties did not stop this solid knowledge. It was the only clear direction he had received to his prayers. This and a sense of determined strength, an awareness so great that even the keening of his heart could not blind him to this truth.

Yet even as he reached the one decision he could take with any certainty on such a scarred and wounded night, still his heart shrieked with painful panic,
My Catherine. My baby
.

The lieutenant reined in next to his own mount and shouted, “Captain, we were ordered to make all haste!”

“I …” Andrew halted before the word was shaped and strained forward. “Quiet in the ranks!”

In the sudden silence he heard it more clearly, the creaking of wheels and the snorting of animals and the cries and moans.

A horseman came sweeping around the bend. “Who goes there?”

“Captain Harrow and troops from the Annapolis Royal garrison.”

“Ah. Captain Falton here. Good to see you, Harrow. What word?”

“We were ordered to round up all citizens of the two French villages north of Annapolis Royal.”

“You can turn around, then.” Falton wheeled about and shouted, “Hurry up, you lot there!”

Andrew was uncertain he had heard correctly. “What?”

“We cleared that area out on our way back. The trail led right by them, and the colonel said we might as well do so if we had time. It's left us mighty strung out along this trail, I don't mind telling you.”

Andrew's sudden relief felt ground together in his heart by the cries and calls in a language not his own, painful shouts of words that sounded like names. Captain Falton wiped his brow. “Horrid business, this.”

“I suppose you could use more troops, then.”

The officer brightened. “I should say so. You can spare some of yours?”

“You can take them all. Our only orders were to clear out villages you've already seen to.” Andrew backed his horse away from the tightening throng. “I relinquish command to you, Falton. I must fly.”

The lieutenant raised one gloved hand in protest. “But, Captain, the general—”

“Our orders are carried out!” Andrew wheeled his mount around and dug his spurs into the horse's sides. “There is a crisis with my child! I must fly!”

Chapter 28

Henri appeared beside Louise as she packed, and struggled against a rising chaos of woe and panic. “You are ready?”

“I think … Y-yes, I have—”

“All right. Hurry now, take the baby, we must go and see to Jacques and Marie.”

“But my home!” Louise wailed. “Henri, our baby, we can't leave until Catherine returns!”

Henri's grip upon her arm tightened. “Hush, you can hear the horses and the soldiers. The British are here, Louise.
They are here
.”

She saw the sorrow, the tense helplessness in his eyes. Beyond their window came the resonant sound of a trumpet, a signal both to the soldiers and to herself. “Yes.” It was all the speech she was capable of. “Yes.”

“All right.” He shouldered the massive pack. “Give me the baby. Take the food. Good. We are off.”

As they scurried up the lane toward her parents' home, there was time for one backward glance. Just one. A fleeting glimpse of all that was being torn from her life and her heart and her arms. Then a squad of five horsemen swept around the corner, the great beasts snorting and blowing and their sweat-streaked bodies cutting off her vision. She cried aloud, reaching back to what was there no longer.

Henri had no free hand. Instead he maneuvered behind her and shepherded her forward, saying simply, “We must help Papa Jacques.”

The horsemen shouted words she did not understand, but their meaning was clear enough. Torches and swords waved in the night, urging them to greater speed. The baby awoke with a start at the thundering hooves and shouting men, and added her frightened cry to the tumult.

“Jacques! Jacques! My home, my things, my life!” Her mother's voice cut through the hue and cry, the angry flow of harsh English commands, the tramping of frenzied horses. Marie's calm was gone, vanished like smoke in the rising night wind. She appeared on the porch, disheveled and screaming and waving her arms, “Henri! Henri! What am I to do? The soldiers, they are—”