Their breeches were in shreds, held together by strips cut from the edges of blankets, or not held together at all. Stockings had vanished, and their legs were scarred beyond belief by the roots and brambles through which they had stumbled.
I have built many a scarecrow since that day, to keep the crows from our young corn in Arundel; and I have never done so without thinking how much more warmly and genteelly my scarecrows have been dressed than were the men who marched in review in sight of proud Quebec, white-cloaked and scornful in the distance.
It was on the thirteenth that the wind went down for the first time. I have little patience with those who fear the thirteenth day of any month as one that will bring disaster; but I would have been better pleased if we had crossed on some day other than the thirteenth; and so, too, would Colonel Arnold; for he had gnawed his fingers since our arrival at Levis on the eighth, fretting to get across and at the city’s throat.
We had thirty-five canoes; four passengers to a canoe was all we could carry; for there were two British frigates in mid-stream, eager to blow us out of water, and so stationed that we must pass between them. Thus we had to go swiftly and silently; for with the discovery of one canoe, the entire flotilla, strung out on that mile-wide river, would be in danger.
At dark we brought the canoes out of hiding at Caldwell’s mill, a stone building on the shore of the St. Lawrence where a little stream flows in. There the ragged army waited. The night was bitter cold, and dark as pine woods at midnight. We stood and shivered in this blackness when Arnold came among us and spoke to us. There was a rasping quality to his voice, always: irritating when he was in a rage; but one that moved his hearers to excitement when there were stirring things afoot. I think we shivered as much from the sound of his voice as from the cold.
“Now,” he said, “don’t spoil this by shouting or shooting. Be very quiet. Patrol boats pass between the frigates each hour. When one of us is discovered, we’re all discovered. If we’re not discovered, we can take Quebec this night. I hope by the grace of God we can do it; but if we can’t, then we’ll cut off its provisions and take it later. If ever any men earned the glory of taking this city, it’s you! I believe no other men in the world could have endured what you have, and come as far as this, ready and willing to fight.”
He went into the canoe with Lieutenant Church, Lieutenant Steele, Daniel Morgan, and a Mr. Halsted, who had come out from Quebec through friendship for Colonel Arnold and was now confident of leading us to a landing place at Wolfe’s Cove, whence we could mount to the Plains of Abraham. Riflemen and musketmen packed themselves into the canoes, helter-skelter, until there were four in each besides the paddlers.
We slipped off after Arnold. I, paddling bow, could just see the glimmer of white at Steele’s left shoulder, where his shirt had been torn so his skin showed through. There was no sound, only the sucking of the current at the canoe and the lapping of ripples against the sides; little to see save a fleck of light here and there on the far shore.
I so closely watched Steele’s shoulder that my heart jumped into my throat when he sheered suddenly downstream, and there loomed on my left the blacker bulk of one of the British frigates, so near that a sailor, standing at her bulwarks, might have spat on us.
All in all, the crossing would have been peaceful, with nothing to distract me from thinking of Mary Mallinson and from framing the words I should say to her when we had at last entered Quebec—nothing except schools of villainous white porpoises, which Natanis said cruised perpetually in that tremendous stretch of waters.
These porpoises didn’t roll languidly, as they roll on summer days near Arundel, but whizzed through the water in every direction in twos and fives and twenties, as if desperate to get somewhere.
There was a pale streak above each fish, like foam with moonlight glinting on it, a streak of cold, wavering, bluish-white fire. I have heard since that the antics of these white porpoises are admired by travelers, but when they darted between Steele’s canoe and our own, I wished them all in hell.
Somehow the porpoises, and the cussedness of them, set me to thinking of Phoebe. I knew I must do something about her, lest she be left on the wrong side of the river and have to go to living in one of those whitewashed farms with a lot of long-tailed Frenchmen, so that she would turn all shriveled and leathery from their stinking pipes.
We came into smooth water where there were no more porpoises. I could feel, rather than see, a high bulk of land hanging over us. Canoe-bottoms grated on pebbles, and men splashed in shallows.
When we slid in beside Steele he whispered hoarsely: “Wolfe’s Covel” and there came to my mind that distant day when my father had drunk to red-headed James Wolfe for scaling the cliff from this very cove and taking Quebec.
I remember thinking to myself it ought to seem a mighty strange business, coming to this spot in the dead of night, following in the footsteps of James Wolfe; but it didn’t seem strange at all: only a commonplace occurrence, like sculling down a guzzle at Swan Island to kill geese.
We could hear canoes coming in, upstream and downstream from us. Since we had three trips to make, we pushed off at once, and went back faster for being unloaded. Cap Huff was waiting patiently, watching over Phoebe and Jacataqua. I told him to have them ready for the third trip, and to say, in case of questioning, that both of them had been ordered to report to Arnold’s headquarters at once.
Cap asked whether I had seen the frigates. When I said I had, he asked hoarsely whether it would be possible for a few of us to board one of them. I sniffed, thinking he must have stolen a keg of Spanish wine and drunk it all himself, and so become inflamed in the head. But it has occurred to me since that if he had known of a cash customer for a frigate, he might have found some way to acquire one that night.
It was after midnight when we set down our second load in Wolfe’s Cove. There was a moaning of the wind in the tree branches above us: signs of breaking in the clouds that covered the moon—two portents I misliked, for I had no wish to be spilled into this bottomless river, nor any desire to be shot by a frigate’s crew. Therefore we made haste on our third trip, knowing it would be our last.
Cap and his charges were waiting for us, and we took them aboard. Phoebe came close up behind me for warmth, and when she put her arms around my waist I could feel she was wearing her leather-bound shot on her wrist. When I asked her whether she had used it she said nothing, only put her head against the small of my back and shivered. I heard Jacataqua’s yellow-faced dog climb in while she and Ivory and Noah were settling themselves, and then Burr’s voice declaring he might as well go with us.
Having an overloaded canoe as it was, I told him to keep away lest I slap him with the paddle, calling to Natanis at the same time to push off. There were some things about Burr that were beginning to set ill on me, particularly when I was cold and hungry.
The wrack of clouds, whipped by a rising wind from the northwest, was thinner, so there began to be light from the hidden moon—a light that let us see other canoes faintly; and there was a wicked chop that slapped and slapped at our canoe, slapping water into our faces. I clung close to Steele, knowing he had a knack of coming through troublous times without taking hurt.
It’s said we only remember pleasant things, but I’ve never forgotten that last crossing and there was nothing pleasant about it. Each of us had taken in more than was safe, knowing we couldn’t get back that night. I could hear Natanis grunting with each stroke of his paddle, forcing the canoe against the bitter wind.
We slipped safely between the frigates; and it seemed to me the worst was past, when a school of white porpoises came suddenly on us, groaning and blowing spray as if contemptuous of our puny strivings, cutting through the water like mad things and lighting themselves on their way with streaks of pale blue fire.
While I cursed and struck at them with my paddle there came a half-strangled shout from Steele’s canoe. I saw the two ends fly into the air. There was a sound of rattling
and scrambling from it; and in an instant every man was in the water. The canoe, broken in the middle by a blow from one of those damnable, nonsensical fishes, wallowed half sunk and useless.
We were among the men at once. Jacataqua leaned over and took one of them by the neck—a tall Virginia rifleman, George Merchant by name, a reckless devil from Morgan’s company.
The others caught the thwarts of canoes, or were held by men in them. We still followed Steele’s torn shirt when we went on; for he had passed his arms over the stern of a canoe, and the paddler sat on them, so that when he was numbed by the icy water he couldn’t lose his hold.
These men could not be taken into canoes in midstream and so we dragged them.
We were little more than halfway across; and our best speed, with the rising wind and the added weight, was poor enough. Phoebe sat far to the left, hanging over the water, so that Jacataqua could hold to her Virginian on the other side without swamping us; and hang to him she did, refusing to let Noah or Jethro come to her help. It may have been for the best. I could hear Jacataqua talking to this rifleman, and I could hear him answer, low and reckless. Once, hearing Phoebe sniff, I looked around, and it seemed to me Jacataqua’s lips were closer to his than necessary; but it may be she made the blood run more rapidly in his veins than would have been the case if Noah or Jethro had held him, and that he was saved from a quinsy or from the sad fate of poor McClellan.
When we came ashore at last these poor men could not move their legs. Arnold, seeing what had happened, gave orders for the kindling of a fire in an empty house that stood near by, though he had forbidden fires to all others lest we be discovered. When this had been done and the castaways held before it, they soon thawed out.
We had crossed with no time to spare; for even as we made ready to mount the path to the Plains of Abraham there came, from the river, the sound of oars grinding between thole-pins. It drew nearer and nearer, and proved to be a patrol from a frigate, coming to see what had made our fire. One of our men shouted to the boat to come in, at which the rowing stopped. In the light of the pale moon we could dimly see the small craft drifting downstream. After a little it started to move out again, whereupon the rifles of the Virginians spat fire, and a crying and groaning arose from the boat, which continued to move outward, nevertheless.
We scrambled up a steep path, Colonel Arnold leading us, and came breathless to the top of the cliff to find ourselves on a snow-covered plain. Ahead of us, throngs of vague specters milled and muttered. They were forming into companies. I said to myself that we had done what we started to do, almost: we had reached Quebec, and now there was nothing left to do but take it. There was no excitement in the thought. After the cold and hunger and weariness we had endured, there was, it seemed to me, no excitement in anything.
A company of riflemen, headed by Captain Smith, came out of the gloom at our right, where there was a mass of houses or walls too distant to be distinguished, and I heard him report to Morgan that he had been the length of the walls, and that there was no suspicion of our presence. He added, too, that all the gates were tight shut, with no sentries in sight. Even while I listened I heard the cry of the watch in Quebec, shouting: “Five o’clock and all’s well!”
Now I served in the army for some few years, at Quebec and later at Saratoga, where Arnold, with his wild courage and the help of Daniel Morgan and this same Henry Dearborn whose black dog was taken away by Asa Hutchins to be eaten, gave Burgoyne the drubbing that took America from the British forever. In that time I heard strange tales, most of them false; for few persons know so little concerning what they are doing, or what is going on about them, as soldiers, unless it be sailors or hairdressers, both of whom brim with misinformation. Among these tales is one that went abroad among us within a day or so of the time when we set foot on the Plains of Abraham, when deserters and spies had come out to us from the city: the tale that St. John’s Gate in the city walls had stood open all that first night, so that we might have walked in and made ourselves masters of Quebec.
It is God’s truth that if we could have brought our scaling ladders across on our canoes—the scaling ladders our carpenters and blacksmiths had made in the five days we lay at Point Levis, waiting for the wind to die down—we would have scaled the walls that night; and as sure as we had scaled them the city would have fallen; for if ever men were desperate, our men were. So, too, were Colonel Arnold and Daniel Morgan; and I care not what any man may say of those two soldiers; or how he may point to what he may think they have been at this time or at another, or to what they may have done under one circumstance or the other circumstance. I knew them both, and I say this: neither among the Americans nor among the British during all our long war was there any leader after Washington who approached them in daring or recklessness, or exceeded them in bravery, ever.
And though I am sick of “ifs,” and weary of listening to folk who tell what they would have done had they been twenty years younger or had events fallen out differently, I cannot help but set down what is the truth. Could we have finished our march a few days earlier we would have walked into the city and taken it, for it had neither defenders nor leaders worth the mentioning until the fifth of November, when a frigate and one hundred and fifty men came to Quebec from Newfoundland, followed on the twelfth by Colonel Allen McLean, who came down the St. Lawrence and into the city with another one hundred and sixty men, all of them recruits.
Yet these things are beside the mark. What I am getting at is this: Matthew Smith led his riflemen the length of the walls in the blackness of that bitter November morning, and he returned with the news that the gates were fast shut. I have no love for Matthew Smith, because of what he did at Conestoga and at Lancaster Gaol. None the less he was a fighter, reckless of the odds against him. So, too, were his riflemen, all of them willing to engage a regiment of men or devils, and all certain of success because of the deadly accuracy of their rifles. Therefore I say there was no gate open into Quebec that night; for if there had been Matthew Smith would have found it and gone in, for that was the sort of man Smith was.
While I was hunting Goodrich’s company in the dark, Burr came up to me, grumpy and sour.
“Here,” he said, “I want you to do something about this!”
“About what?”
“Why, it’s a shame and disgrace the way this red wench of yours has taken up with a common soldier—one of those damned Virginians, too! When I go to talk to her she treats me like the dirt under her feet and clings to that damned clod-hopping Virginian as if he were a gentleman!”
“I know nothing about it,” I said. “She’s no wench of mine, and I won’t stick my nose into what doesn’t concern me. I’ve seen too much of that in Arundel.”
“Well,” he said, “you take an interest in what she does, don’t you?”
“Yes,” I said, “I take an interest, but I won’t try to regulate her. The law of the Abenakis says an Abenaki woman does as she pleases. If she wishes to marry a man, she goes to his bed and there’s an end of it. If she wishes to divorce him, she leaves his bed and there’s an end of that. That’s one reason why our white poeple can never live in friendship with Indians. They can live with no one they can’t regulate.”
“Well, it’s a shame and disgrace,” Burr insisted. “If you wished, you could persuade her to go to headquarters with your friend Phoebe to help with the cooking.”
“It seems to me no more shameful or disgraceful,” I said, “than if she should travel to Quebec with you.”
“Pah!” said Burr. “That’s entirely different! What can this common soldier do for her?”
To this there were many answers in my mind, but it seemed wiser to withhold them. I growled a little, as Maine folk do when not wishful of answering, and set off again to look for Goodrich’s company.
Phoebe had attached herself to Noah Cluff. “Look here,” I told her, “go straight to the kitchen of whatever house Arnold takes as headquarters, and take Jacataqua with you.”
“And have this little pickerel Burr darting around our feet day and night? I won’t do it, Steven!”
“Now here!” I said. “I want none of this foolishness! You can do as you like about Jacataqua, of course; but I want you to waste no time getting to the kitchen.”
“No,” she said, “I’m not going to do it! Noah says he’ll die if I leave him, so I’ll stay with him. Then you won’t worry about having me on your hands.”
“Oh, for God’s sake!” I said. “This is the most damnable thing I ever heard!”
“No,” she said, “I don’t choose you should have me on your hands.”
“You won’t be on my hands! Not as much as though you stayed with Noah. Noah indeed, the damned old fool!”
“Was you speaking about me?” asked Noah, yawning.
“Well, I won’t be on your hands, and that’s all there is to it,” Phoebe said. “That’s what you were afraid of when we left. Anyway, you’ve got another woman to think of now.”
“Who?” I asked, thick-witted from the cold.
“Why,” said Phoebe, speaking so mealy-mouthed as to sicken me, “why, somewhere I’ve had the thought there was someone in Quebec you had to save from a dreadful, dreadful fate!”
I looked at her sternly, but she returned my glance with such a steady long look of mockery that all I could do, it seemed, was turn from her disgustedly and go my ways.
A little before dawn Arnold and Morgan, followed by the riflemen and the rest of us, set off across the Plains of Abraham; and in the gray of the early morning we came up to a large manor house with workmen’s cottages and barns and sheds, all forming a pile five times the size of our garrison house at Arundel, and all belonging, the officers said, to Major Henry Caldwell, commanding the British militia in Quebec.
When we surrounded the buildings and moved in on them, we found eight or ten servants loading food and furniture and pictures and rugs into teams, everything ready to hand. Yet we couldn’t make free with these belongings, since Colonel Arnold ordered them to be taken into the house again. We dispersed in search of quarters, and I found myself with a part of Captain Goodrich’s company in a small building beside the manor house, most of the rooms in the manor house having been seized by Morgan’s riflemen.
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