Brothers in Arms: The Siege of Louisbourg, Sébastien deL'Espérance, New France, 1758

by Don Aker

  His face a twisted mask of rage, he loomed over a young man cowering before him. Clearly a servant, the young man glanced repeatedly around him, as if unwilling to call attention to himself. A disturbance in the street, especially now, would not be tolerated by the town guard.

  I made my way toward them. Édouard’s face was flushed from the rum he had drunk, and his body swayed unsteadily above the cobblestones.

  “You miserable spawn of a weasel,” he hissed. “By God, you shall tell me the truth or I will —”

  “Édouard,” I said as I reached the pair, “quel est le problème?”

  He whirled toward me, his red eyes narrowing to slits before he recognized me. “Sébastien,” he said, then belched, the sound abrupt and harsh in the evening air. “This rogue serves in Drucour’s apartments.”

  “Surely that can’t be such an offence,” I said lightly, trying to defuse his anger.

  He blinked as he considered my comment. “No,” he snorted. “I overheard him talking inside,” he said, nodding at the door of the Hôtel de la Marine. He prodded the youth in the chest. “Tell my comrade here what you said.”

  The youth’s brow furrowed in apology. “I was wrong to speak of Gouvernour Drucour’s business,” he told Édouard. “Forgive me.”

  “You will forgive my knuckles against your teeth,” snarled Édouard, “if you keep me waiting a moment longer.”

  The youth’s eyes widened as he turned to me. “I serve Gouverneur and Madame Drucour,” he said quickly. “I helped prepare a basket for Madame today.”

  None of this was of interest to me, and I wanted nothing more than to continue on my way to Marie-Claire. But before I could say as much, Édouard spoke again. “Tell him the contents of that basket,” he ordered.

  The young man checked up and down the street before he spoke. “Fifty bottles of Burgundy wine,” he said, his voice barely audible.

  “And just who was this wine for?” demanded Édouard.

  A pained expression flickered across the young man’s face. “Major General Amherst.”

  My jaw dropped. “The British commander?”

  “Oui,” he confirmed, his voice little more than a whisper.

  Édouard turned from the young man to me. “Apparently,” he snarled, “Madame Drucour serves the enemy now. She caters to the man leading the attack against us, the very man responsible for the deaths of Renard and Guillaume and —”

  “The wine,” the youth ventured to explain. “It was in response to the gift the major general sent her yesterday.”

  “Gift?” Édouard and I asked in unison.

  “Oui,” the young man replied. “The British commander sent her two pineapples.”

  Édouard’s eyes widened, as mine must have. Neither of us had ever seen a pineapple, much less held one, but I had heard stories of their exotic flavour. Commoners like Édouard and myself would live our entire lives without once tasting such a delicacy, yet the governor and his wife had received two from the very man bent on destroying us all. Guillaume surely would have had something scathing to say about that.

  “The pineapples arrived following a communication Drucour sent to Amherst,” said the youth.

  “Communication?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Drucour was inquiring about the health of our men who were taken prisoner the day the British made landfall.”

  “And what was the British dog’s response?” growled Édouard.

  “Assurance that they were being cared for. Afterwards, he sent the pineapples to Madame Drucour.” The young man shrugged. “That is all I know.”

  Scowling, Édouard gestured roughly for him to leave. The young man immediately obliged and, watching him scurry away, Édouard muttered, “Pineapples!” Belching again, he turned once more toward the inn and disappeared inside.

  * * *

  “Perhaps the gift of the pineapples was an act of courtesy,” said Marie-Claire after I told her what had taken place in front of the inn. “Leaders can still be gentlemen during wartime. Even the British.” Her shining eyes reflected something I’d not seen since I had asked for her hand in marriage seventeen days earlier — an openness, an expectation that the future was unfolding as it should.

  I had not intended to share the story with her, but since Guillaume’s death, she’d grown more anxious for my safety, fearful that I, too, might fall victim to enemy fire. Because my delay had worried her, I’d told her of seeing Édouard outside the Hôtel de la Marine, exaggerating — as I knew Guillaume would have — lighter aspects of the servant’s story. My purpose was merely to make Marie-Claire smile, but my account evoked a very different response. She drew from it a reason to hope.

  “Surely,” she said now, “those pineapples demonstrate the enemy’s compassion and goodwill. If their numbers are as great as everyone claims them to be, they could have overpowered Louisbourg long before this. Perhaps, Sébastien, that is no longer their intention.”

  I understood her desire to believe that our situation was not as grim as I knew it to be. I understood her need to have hope in the face of what I knew was certain doom. For this reason, I did not share my own interpretation of the enemy’s gift to the Drucours — that it was less an act of courtesy than a reminder of the severe threat we faced. While French ships carrying much-needed supplies were blockaded from Louisbourg’s harbour, the British had unlimited access to whatever they wished, even goods as exotic as pineapples. The enemy was strangling us before inflicting the final blow.

  Chapter 11

  June 19, 1758

  “Press on, men!” shouted Captain Boudier as more British cannon fire tore the air.

  Although the weather was no warmer than the day before, sweat rivered down my face. I worked as fast as I could alongside my comrades, once more arming the cannons at the Pointe à Rochefort battery. All of us knew that, with each new shot they fired, the British were finding their range. Their last one had reached the farthermost end of the spit of land where we now stood, the explosion sending dirt and debris high into the air and making the ground quiver beneath our feet.

  Plunging the lambskin rammer into the barrel of the cannon, I once more looked toward Pointe à la Phare half a league across the harbour. Even in the waning daylight, we could see the results of the enemy’s continued efforts there because the cursed fog had finally lifted. Pointe à la Phare was now a British battery whose cannons and howitzers were trained on the island battery, the town and our ships.

  Our leaders’ worst fears had been realized. Having constructed their own battery on the north side of the harbour, the British could now bombard the seaward side of Louisbourg without having to put their ships in danger of our guns. Now it was our own ships at anchor in the harbour that were in jeopardy. More than once during the past hour, a shot aimed at them had nearly hit its mark, falling just short and sending sheets of water cascading over the decks. Our naval officers had returned fire, but it was only a matter of time before one or more of those ships fell victim to British artillery.

  I heard a low whistle beside me. “That one was close,” said Sergeant Fournier as Christophe hoisted another cannonball and dropped it into the barrel. After grabbing the rammer and driving the ball and gunpowder into the breech, I looked where he was nodding — a ship, its spars now dripping from the deluge.

  “The Entreprenant,” Fournier remarked as he rechecked the cannon’s aim and elevation before lighting the fuse. “What a loss that would have been.”

  Christophe grunted. “Mark my words,” he muttered, then paused as we waited for the fuse to ignite the powder. When the explosion had echoed into the distance, he continued. “If those ships aren’t moved farther out of range, it’s only a matter of time before they are all lost.”

  Christophe sounded as if defeat were inevitable. And now in the face of what the enemy had achieved at Pointe à la Phare, how could any of us think otherwise? But I shrugged off that thought, swallowed the feeling that threatened to choke me. No soldier worth his
salt could afford to give in to pessimism. I turned toward the ocean, knowing I would see the British blockade, yet hoping the horizon that stretched before me might offer fresh hope.

  What I saw made my heart leap.

  “Capitaine Boudier!” I shouted.

  Speaking to my comrades at another cannon, he turned to me, scowling at my interruption.

  “Excusez-moi, capitaine,” I said as I hurried toward him, “but isn’t that Echo approaching?” I pointed eastward, my heart racing. It had been ten days since Echo had slipped from the harbour under cover of darkness with Comète and Bizarre. The ship could not have reached France in that time, let alone make the return journey, but perhaps its captain had found reinforcements elsewhere.

  “Look!” I exclaimed to my comrades as Boudier raised his telescope. “Echo returns!”

  The soldiers standing with me in the battery froze, their eyes now trained with mine on the horizon. One of them raised a cheer, which was soon taken up as others recognized the ship in the distance, its bow pointed in our direction as it rode the waves toward Louisbourg. Like me, they scanned the horizon for the ships Echo was surely leading, wondering when her guns would engage the square-riggers blocking the harbour.

  “De l’Espérance!”

  I turned toward Boudier and my own cheer died on my lips. His face was flat. Before I could ask what was wrong, he handed me the eyepiece.

  Peering through it, I saw what he had seen.

  Echo now flew the flag of King George.

  She had been captured.

  Chapter 12

  June 25, 1758

  Standing on the rampart watching Echo sail across the mouth of the harbour yet again, I thought of the enemy sailors aboard her and imagined their smug satisfaction at flying the flag of Britain above a French vessel. Their purpose was clear. They were flaunting their prize in our faces.

  And their action was achieving its desired result. Morale had suffered a staggering blow. Christophe was no longer alone in talking about the hopelessness of our situation. Muttering could often be heard among soldiers in every company as they debated our chances of repelling the British once they mounted an all-out assault on the town.

  The promised reinforcements led by Charles Deschamps de Boishébert had not arrived, and Drucour’s letters to the Minister of the Marine requesting additional support from France could not possibly bring us the help we needed in time. And despite our valiant attempts to destroy the British battery at Pointe à la Phare, we had failed. In fact, the very opposite was true. Continuing to fire from there, the British had managed to silence most of our island battery’s guns. Although those remaining on the ruined island still launched the occasional mortar, they had little effect on our enemies.

  Under constant bombardment, those on the island battery could make no repairs, and our ability to keep the British from sailing into the harbour had been greatly weakened. Making matters worse, our warships — as Christophe had predicted — had changed position. To escape the barrage from Pointe à la Phare, they had raised anchor four days ago and moved as far inside the harbour as the water’s depth permitted, which limited their effectiveness in defending the harbour entrance.

  There had been talk that the ships’ commanders had once again approached Governor Drucour requesting permission to leave Louisbourg, and Édouard had taken it upon himself to get to the bottom of this rumour. Once again spotting the governor’s servant in the Hôtel de la Marine, Édouard had waited for the youth to leave and then followed him into the street. It took little of Édouard’s persuasive ability to force the young man to tell what he knew — the Marquis des Gouttes had, indeed, gone to the governor’s apartments early on June 22 and told Drucour that, with enemy artillery now firing from Pointe à la Phare, our ships were sure to be lost. With this a certainty, des Gouttes passionately argued that the governor allow some of the warships to sail away that night. He also recommended that, following the warships’ departure, other French ships be sunk in the narrow channel at the harbour entrance so that their masts and spars would effectively block the British vessels from entering. Only such a move could prevent them from bombarding the town from within the harbour.

  The governor’s servant had been reluctant to say more but, given that the young man was well-fortified with rum, Édouard had managed to ferret out even more information from him. The servant had been within earshot when the governor called a special meeting of the war council later that day. After much discussion, the council’s members had decided to allow two warships to sail for France, and des Gouttes had chosen Entreprenant and Célèbre to leave that evening under cover of darkness. Once they were gone, six ships would be sunk to block the channel, three of them warships and three large merchant ships.

  I had only to look now toward the innermost part of the harbour to see that none of this had taken place — all of our ships were still at anchor. Édouard shared with me the servant’s suspicion that the governor had changed his mind and rescinded the order, but I wondered if the weather had played a greater part in this turn of events — the night this was to happen, the fog had returned and the wind had dropped, making it impossible for the ships to leave.

  “Attention!”

  I turned to see Corporal Grimaud salute Captain Boudier, who was approaching the company on the wall. Boudier’s brow was furrowed.

  “Mes amis,” Boudier began, and I was surprised by his familiarity. He had never before addressed us as friends. I stifled a groan, certain that our situation had worsened even more.

  “Now that the island battery has been silenced,” said Boudier, “there is nothing to stop the British from advancing and establishing other batteries around the harbour.”

  No one said anything. After all, the captain had merely stated the obvious. But there was a finality and resignation in Boudier’s words that we had not heard before. He suddenly looked far older than his years, but he squared his shoulders before he resumed speaking. “Our immediate concern is that hill.” He pointed in its direction. “Perhaps an impossible task, but we cannot permit the British to entrench themselves there.”

  My eyes traced the hill that overlooked the town. It was less than a quarter league from the Bastion Dauphin and the Porte Dauphine. Should the British establish a battery within such close range, they could inflict major damage. Not only that, artillery there could easily offer protection for British soldiers building batteries even closer to the town.

  “A scout has just returned with news of intense activity near the hill,” Boudier continued. “Our leaders suspect that the British plan to send a large force there — possibly as early as tomorrow. We must do everything in our power to drive them back.” He scanned the company. I wondered if he was seeing the faces before him or the absences of the men he had already lost. “Two other companies have already been assigned to hold the hill. They will head out before first light tomorrow. I have volunteered to lead the sortie.”

  A murmur rippled through the men, and while I could not make out their spoken words, I suspected that the thoughts of my comrades were the same as my own. We could not stand by as our captain undertook such a perilous mission. Just as he had never asked of us anything he would not do himself, neither would we allow him to attempt such a task without us by his side.

  “Capitaine!” came Édouard’s voice. “We, too, will drive those British dogs back!”

  Other voices joined his, my own included. If I was to die, I had no wish to wait on this wall for the British to pummel us with cannon fire. I would strike now and avenge Guillaume’s death. I would kill as many of the enemy as I could before they cut me down.

  I looked around me as the shouts mounted. Even Christophe, who had long been forecasting our defeat, bellowed with the rest. Our voices echoed along the ramparts and out over the harbour, where occasional artillery fire continued. For a moment I imagined Guillaume’s voice raised with our own. His shouts would have been loudest of all.

  I watched as Captain Bou
dier’s eyes travelled over the group, the corners of his mouth betraying the hint of a smile. After a moment, he raised his right hand and our cheers evaporated as we stood waiting for him to speak. Finally he said, “No greater reward can an officer desire than the loyalty of his men. Regardless of what happens tomorrow, I am honoured that you will be at my side.” He saluted us, then turned and left the rampart.

  Watching him go, I immediately thought of Marie-Claire. More than anything, I wanted to see her, wanted to tell her yet again how much I loved her. Because I was certain I would never have the opportunity to do so again.

  But it was for this very reason I could not go to her. Even if I chose not to speak of tomorrow’s mission, she might see on my face its futility. I could not burden her with the certainty of my death.

  I would not.

  Chapter 13

  June 26, 1758

  We left the town through thinning fog, the air heavy with the acrid stink of gunpowder and scorched timbers. Creeping through the semidarkness, my comrades and I were alert for the slightest sound or movement that might betray the enemy’s presence. So far we had seen no evidence of the troops predicted to be advancing toward the hill to the southwest of us, but we were also prepared for whatever British soldiers were already in the area. It was likely that those who had killed Guillaume and Renard and so many others were camped somewhere nearby, and we had no desire to stumble upon them. The scouts had not yet returned and, despite having heard no weapon fire, we couldn’t be certain they hadn’t been captured. Or killed.

  As we approached the hilltop, I tried to keep my mind on the moment, tried not to recall the countless times Guillaume and I had walked this same slope as we hunted for game. But, of course, images of his grinning face and echoes of his laughter filled my head. I struggled to keep them at bay, forcing myself to focus on the mission at hand. Suddenly the brush to my right exploded with movement and I spun toward it, my finger nearly squeezing the trigger of my musket before I saw there was no danger. We had surprised a partridge, which whirled into the air and then fell to earth, running erratically through the grass and dragging one wing in an attempt to lead us away from her nest. I wondered whether I and my comrades might have to use a similar tactic this day. But I quickly shook that thought aside. Regardless of the size of the enemy force, there could be no energy wasted on anything other than attack. Regardless of the odds stacked against us, we had to strike a decisive blow against the British. We could not let them take this hill, no matter who might be killed in the process.