Acts of Courage (13 page)

She turned back to the danger at hand. She would have no way of defending herself and her husband from a band of celebrating soldiers. Only God could protect them now. Otherwise, they were completely at the mercy of the enemy.

She looked down at James again. For now, he was her greatest concern. His pain was as bad as ever. Glancing at the washstand, she noticed that the water was low in the pitcher. She took it up and ran downstairs for more water. She went by the clock in the hall. It was five o’clock in the afternoon. It seemed much later.

Out at the well beside the house, she rolled down the bucket and looked up toward the Heights as she worked. Near the bottom of the slope, not far from the edge of the yard, she could see men coming toward her. They were Queenston men. She recognized their dull red coats.

“We’ve gained the Heights,” they shouted as they came nearer. “We’ve held it for two hours now. It’s ours!”

“We’ve taken more than nine hundred American prisoners. They’ll be marching them through the town.”

Laura saw the blue-coated captives not far behind. Even the ones with blood-soaked wounds were forced to limp along. She stood riveted to the spot, looking at the haggard faces of the defeated soldiers. Suddenly, she was aware of the suffering of the enemy. Then she saw a familiar face. It was Captain Wool. Blood trickled from a shallow wound on the side of his face and his eyes looked glassy. The soldiers had stopped the prisoners to assemble them into lines, Captain Wool in front.

Laura grabbed her pail of water and the big dipper that hung on a nail by the side of the well and ran to the side of the road. She handed the dipper of water to Captain Wool, who gulped the water down, then handed the dipper back to her. As the soldiers refilled the dipper from the pail and drank, the pain in their faces lightened a little.

Captain Wool had not realized who she was. Then, as he looked up to say, “Thank you,” a glimmer of recognition crossed his face.

A Queenston soldier handed her the empty pail and she turned to refill it, but by the time it was full, the men had started marching down the road again.

Laura raced back to the house, where Elijah was still lying on the couch in the hallway. “We’ve won,” she said, handing him a cup of water. He sighed and smiled.

At that moment, Laura heard someone at the door. Before she could rush to open it, James’s brother, David, came in. “We’ve taken the Heights, Laura,” he said. “Where’s James? They told me you got him.”

Laura led him up the stairs to the girls’ room where James lay. James did not recognize his wife or his brother.

“The fever is high,” she said. “I’m trying to keep it down with the cold water.”

“Be careful, Laura. You don’t want him going into pneumonia.”

Laura remembered General Brock’s body in their other bedroom. “David,” she asked, “will they be coming for General Brock now?”

“I thought you knew,” he said, surprised. “They came for his body early this morning. He was here very briefly. They took him to a safer house, farther from the American line.”

“I didn’t know,” she said. “We could have taken James to his own room. Still, he was better on this side of the house, farther from the noise of the battle. He needs stronger medicine, David. Will you try to find the doctor and get something more?”

“I’ll try, but he’s very busy. Goodbye, Laura.” He turned then and hurried down the stairs and out the door.

Laura shook a little as she went back in the bedroom. Her hands trembled as she squeezed the excess moisture from her cloth and bathed her husband’s brow. His eyelids opened, but he looked beyond her. His deep blue eyes were clouded and heavily bloodshot.

“Laura, Laura,” he whispered, still not looking at her.

“I’m here, James.”

He moved his hand and she took it. His strengthening grip told her he realized she was caring for him.

“Who’s…winning?” He could barely say the words.

“We won, James. We’ve taken the Heights. It’s a definite victory.”

He relaxed his hold and slipped back into semi-consciousness. This time, he seemed more peaceful, and Laura felt he was resting.

Long past dark, Laura was still sitting at his bedside in the light of the flickering candles. Hearing footsteps on the stairs, she went out into the hallway and saw David Secord coming up the steps. His face was lined and smudged with dirt. Obviously he had not rested since the battle. Laura looked at him expectantly, hoping that he had brought more medication.

“How is he?”

“A little better, I think. He’s resting more comfortably, and he recognized me a short time ago, but he still feels very hot. And he’s in a lot of pain.”

David looked down at his younger brother. “The doctor’s too busy to come now,” he sighed, “and he’s run short of supplies, but we’re expecting more from the fort.”

“Is it really over?” she asked, looking for reassurance, though she herself had seen the enemy prisoners led through the town.

“Yes, for now.”

“Was it a long battle on the Heights?”

“Not at the last. We had them surrounded and pushed them to the edge. Then Sheaffe gave the order that if they surrendered, their lives would be spared.”

“What happened then?”

“They couldn’t hear him in all the confusion. They were jumping off the cliff to their deaths to avoid the British bayonets or the Indian scalping knives.”

“But those prisoners who went by…”

“Yes, we took some prisoners. I ran into their lines and shouted Sheaffe’s promise. Then they listened.”

“How did they know they could trust you?”

“My wife’s father and brother were among them, and they reassured the others. They were just ready to jump, too, when they saw me and stopped.”

“Thank God! But how brutal war is when men must fight their own kin! Were many of our men killed?”

“Fourteen, we think—far fewer than we expected—but two of those were Brock and Macdonell. The price for the Heights was high. There never has been a general like Brock and never will be again.”

“I know. James loved him, too, as we all did.”

“There’s great mourning now, and it will spread all across Canada this week as the news gets out. He gave his life to hold the line till reinforcements came. If he had waited, they’d have taken Queenston.” Then, breaking off abruptly, he turned toward the stairs again. “I must go now. Come down with me so you can latch the door.”

“Why?”

“We think we have them all, but a few American deserters may be roaming about.”

“Oh, I didn’t realize we were still in danger,” she said, following her brother-in-law.

“I wish I could stay to help.”

“We’ll manage. Your men need you.” Laura knew that David Secord was a major.

“Good night, Laura.”

“Good night.”

Laura dropped the latch across the door and turned back into the kitchen. She picked up clean cloths and a kettle of hot water, and hurried back up the stairs to her husband. She knew it would be a long night.

SEVENTEEN

When the autumn sun rose on the morning of October 14, Laura was still sitting beside her husband’s bed. Tired beyond measure, she had attended him all night as the wounds in his knee and shoulder became more and more inflamed. Not long after sunrise, James came fully awake for the first time since Laura had rescued him. Drops of perspiration fell from his forehead as he wrestled with his pain. Laura almost wished that he would slip back into unconsciousness. Finally, he fell into a fitful sleep.

Laura sat by the bedside. She had not slept since the day before yesterday. As she leaned over onto the bed, exhausted, she prayed for strength and for James. The doctor’s grim prediction was still in her mind.

If there were more battles, James would not be going, she thought with some satisfaction. Then she wondered what James would think about that. He had so wanted to defend his land. Unlike so many of the settlers, he had not been indifferent to the American attack. He was convinced that the invaders had to be defeated. How would he feel if he could not continue as sergeant of his militia regiment?

***

Laura awakened to the sound of James calling her name. She did not know how long she had been sleeping. As she raised her head, she saw that he was tossing with fever again and moaning in pain.

She ran down to the kitchen, selected some herbs and ground them together in a wooden cup. Hooking a kettle over the fire, she waited for what seemed like hours before it boiled. The tea would soothe the pain, even if it didn’t take it away.

Back in the girls’ room, she held some of the tea to James’s lips and put cold compresses on his wounds to cool the inflammation. His knee now looked worse than his shoulder.

The fever was rising again. Laura poured more water into the jug. Using linen cloths, she continued to bathe his body. She managed to comb out some of his blood-caked hair. Then his increasing groans told her she would have to stop, and he lapsed back into sleep.

Laura stood up to stretch, still keeping her eyes on her husband. She remembered again the doctor’s warning about James’s leg. Oh, dear God, please don’t let it happen. Please, don’t let James lose his leg. The thought of it made her feel sick in the stomach. Would they have to come in and hold him down while the doctor sawed off his leg above the knee? She almost fainted at the picture that flashed before her eyes.

She turned and held the back of her chair to get control of herself again, but the room seemed to be going black. She sat down and rested her head on her arms.

The feeling finally passed, and she got up to go downstairs to prepare food for herself and James. As she reached the foot of the stairs, she heard someone at the back door. She rushed out of kitchen into the hall and lifted the latch.

Her brother, Charles, stood there in his uniform. She reached up and wrapped both arms around him. “Charles, you’re safe. Are you all right?”

“Yes, I’m fine,” he answered almost lightly.

“I guess you weren’t in the battles yesterday.”

“I was in the second one, on the Heights. My first battle, Laura.”

“Charles, how awful for you.”

“I thought it would be, but it wasn’t. I was with Major Thomas Merritt’s Niagara Light Dragoons. His son, William Hamilton Merritt, and I were together through it all. I can tell you, we were dreading it after the events of the morning. We were too late for the first battle. We had come galloping into Queenston from Fort George only to find out the terrible news that Brock had fallen and the Yanks had taken the Heights. We were told to wait for Major General Sheaffe.”

“The waiting must have been hard.”

“I’ll admit, Laura, I was fearful. We all were. It was as though the impossible had just happened. We thought that about two-thirds of the Canadian and British forces would be cut down, even if we did win the battle. Sheaffe led our troops the long way around from Fort George and out through the country. Then we crossed back again to attack from the west. It was the most tense ride of my life.”

“Did you attack from the west?”

“The infantry, the 41st Regiment, and the local militia went up the Heights from the west, along with a battery of guns drawn by farm horses. We rode on the right flank.”

“Expecting the worst?”

“Yes, but it was all over in ten minutes. We lost only fourteen men, and we’d expected to be slaughtered. We could hardly believe it when they surrendered. It was all over so fast, and we were still alive.”

“Thank God.”

“Well—the Mohawks on the right flank were ahead of us, along with Captain Runchey’s Company of black soldiers. Those two companies surprised the Americans from the southwest and kept interrupting them with skirmishes while they were trying to build fortifications. So, by the time we got there, the enemy was vulnerable to our attack. Thank God for the Mohawks and the black soldiers!”

“I only hope the Americans stay home now.”

“I doubt they will, but we’ve driven them out for now, and probably for the winter. Their casualties were high. We took over nine hundred prisoners, and they had over two hundred and fifty dead and several wounded. How is James?”

“Come and see. I can’t leave him for long.”

Charles followed her up the stairs.

James’s eyes were open now, and he brightened a bit at the sight of Charles in uniform. James mumbled, “Are we holding the Heights?”

“We sure are. I doubt they’ll ever try that again.”

“But…General Brock…”

“I know,” said Charles.

James grimaced with the pain, though he tried not to show it, and Laura nodded to Charles as she held the door. “I’ll be right back, James,” said Laura, going out behind Charles.

She followed Charles down the stairs. “Please try to get the doctor to come and see James again or at least get some pain medicine. He had so little before.”

“I’ll try.”

Laura prepared more herbal tea, then returned to her husband. She kept on bathing him and, as night approached, she cleaned his wounds again.

When she was finished, James looked up at her and said in a whisper, “Laura, try to rest. I’ll call if I need you.”

She looked across at Harriet’s bed.

“Go ahead, Laura.”

Fully dressed, she crawled onto the bed and did not even stretch out before her eyes closed. James’s face convulsed with pain, but he breathed deeply and did not cry out as he looked at his wife asleep across the room.

***

The sound of cannon going off nearby shook the air. “It’s the gun salute…for General Brock,” James murmured to Laura. Then they heard a salute from across the river.

“That sound came from Lewiston,” said Laura. “Even his enemy salutes General Brock.”

“He would have ordered the same for an enemy general.”

Laura did not answer. Instead she said, “I’ll go for more fresh water to clean your wounds, James.”

“Laura, the pain has eased a little now. Can’t we just leave them alone?”

“I suppose, but I’ll need water anyway to be ready for later.”

Laura left him then. She knew he was thinking about the funeral and the other wounded men in his company who would be absent, too.

The doctor finally called and said that James was out of immediate danger. He gave her special instructions for the knee wound.

As Laura went out the back door, heading for the well, a brisk wind blew the leaves along the ground. The wind had blown away the leaves and left the trees looking bleak and lonely in the cold morning. Perhaps even the Heights mourned General Brock.

Still, Upper Canada had remained under British control, and James was alive. She bowed her head for a moment and whispered thanks.

Laura knew that most people were thinking the war would soon be over. No one had really wanted it in the first place, since many, like her, had close friends and relatives across the line. It was a political war that had been forced on the Americans and their government by the war hawks. Surely the American forces had been beaten so decisively at Queenston Heights that they would be called home. It would all be over before Christmas. She was thankful that neither she nor Mira had sons old enough to go to war. And Josh was so busy on his farm, she doubted he would ever be called into active duty, though she knew he had been called upon to train in a reserve force in case the States was invaded.

As she pulled her bucket up over the low stone wall around the opening of the well, she heard children’s voices. Charlotte came running around the corner of the house and Harriet followed. Bob and Fan were behind with Charles.

Laura put down her bucket and held out her arms, a wide smile spreading across her face. She hardly remembered what it felt like to smile. Charles threw his arms around her neck.

“Mama, mama,” he cried as he hugged her.

“We heard Papa was wounded,” Charlotte said. “How serious is it?”

“He’s improving. He’s still very weak but not as feverish.”

“They made us bring them back, Ma’am,” said Fan. “They just wouldn’t believe your brother Charles. He told us you and Mister James was all right.”

“I’m so glad to be home.” Harriet twirled around with joy. “I’m glad this war is over. We thought it would never end!”

“Yes, dear, it’s over—but you all need to be very quiet, for your father was badly wounded. He’s in your room and too weak to go back to his own yet. You girls may sleep in our room. Charlotte, you can watch Charles in the cradle. I must stay near your father; he still needs me. Now, come quietly and you may see him, but only for a minute.”