Blood Brothers in Louisbourg (8 page)

Chapter Fourteen

W
et mud was difficult to dig and carry, but the summer had dried the ground beneath the swamp grass enough that it could be dug out with strong branches, scooped into baskets and poured into the channels. Spring runoff had sharpened the edges of the narrow trenches and it wasn't hard to find places to conceal a tunnel opening. Each tunnel was not long, about twenty feet at the most, but digging a series of them was an enormous amount of work. Two-feathers worked very hard indeed. He did not need to be rebuked by a spirit twice. By the end of summer he could cross one small corner of the swamp without ever showing his head above ground. The muskrat spirit was satisfied.

The scent of autumn was in the air. There were apples in the woods and rich tubers in the ground. Now was a busy time of gathering and storing food for the winter. Two-feathers spent many hours fashioning baskets out of reeds. With these baskets he collected berries, chestnuts, acorns, flowers, seeds, apples, tubers and anything else that was edible. He placed the baskets inside the burrows of his tunnel system and protected them with birch bark and spruce boughs. He began to collect wood from the beach and stockpile it. He planned to winter in the swamp, where he knew the winter would be particularly cruel. Survival was all about preparation.

But there was one task for which he would have to leave the swamp and travel inland for several days, far from the fires, smells and sounds of the bluecoats' great village. He would walk until he reached the hills where he would find bears. There he would pray to the spirit of the bear to let him kill one and take its coat for a winter blanket. He did not like to kill such a noble beast but he could not survive the winter in the swamp without a thick fur covering. He would kill an old bear, one who would not be too sad to leave this world for the next.

Before leaving, Two-feathers wanted to visit the girl of the rainbow and try to explain to her that he would be gone for a while but would come back. He wanted to give her something so that she would remember him and know he would return.

He decided the easiest way inside the leader's house was through the front door, where the guards stood with fire-weapons at the ready. All the windows he could reach were shut. He watched the guards for a long time before choosing this way. They stood at the door continuously but were replaced during the night by fresh soldiers. There was a brief moment, when the old guards left to meet the new, when there was just enough time to slip inside, if he were close enough and waiting. That was the hard part, getting close enough without being seen by the light coming through the windows. Two-feathers used an old trick. He gathered a large clump of grass, lay down on the ground behind it like a snake behind a stone and pushed it forward in front of him. Very slowly he inched his way closer. To the guards it appeared as if the grass wasn't moving at all. He crawled as closely as he dared and waited. When he heard the new guards coming, he got ready to spring. As the old guards turned to meet them, joking and laughing
,
Two-feathers
lunged forward and disappeared inside.

The leader's house was different from the other houses. The rooms were much bigger and the ceilings higher. There was more furniture. Everything was clean and shiny, even in the dim light of candles burning here and there. But though there were many rooms of great size, they seemed empty because there were so few people. Two-feathers came upon only a handful of sleeping persons: servants, who slept close to the cooking areas.

Upstairs he found the leader, who slept in an enormous room all by himself. Two-feathers had seen the leader in the daytime, when he was dressed up like a strutting partridge. He was surprised to see him wrapped up in sleep in an ordinary white shirt just like everyone else.

He found another man and a few more servants. Finally, in the last room he found the girl of the rainbow. He knew it was her room because he recognized her smell, like a clearing in the woods where summer flowers were in bloom. But he was not prepared for the sight of her. She was so very beautiful in sleep, so very beautiful, yet there was something about her that moved him even more. He stood and stared for the longest time trying to figure out what it was. Finally, it came to him. His mind went back to the bones of his mother in the tree. She had lain in the very same position in her death sleep. It was identical. Flashes of her brown hair resting upon white bones now startled him. The girl on the bed had white skin almost the colour of bone. And yet, she was breathing. Her body rose and fell beneath the covers. She was very much alive.

Two-feathers did not want to wake her, though he hated to leave without telling her he would be back. That she might think he had abandoned her bothered him immensely. Why did people abandon the ones they loved? He couldn't understand that. He only knew that he could not be that way.

He wished he could have looked her in the eye when he gave her his gift but couldn't bring himself to wake her. She looked so peaceful in sleep, just as his mother had looked in death. Perhaps, he thought, he could just leave it on the bed and she would find it when she woke and she would know he had been there and that he was looking out for her. Then she would know that he would come back.

He lifted the blue stone over his head. She winced in her sleep, made a face as if she were having a bad dream, then settled again. He waited. If her eyes opened she would be frightened, he thought, but only for a moment. He laid the stone on the pillow beside her head. Her hair was spread out like a golden river. Her forehead was furrowed. She was troubled in her sleep. Two-feathers took a few strands of her hair between his fingers. It was so fine. He felt a desire to place a kiss upon her cheek. But he couldn't. She had not given him permission. He took one final gaze at her young face, peaceful one moment, troubled the next, as if she were battling an enemy in sleep. He would come back, he promised her. Then he left.

Getting out of the leader's house was just as difficult as getting in. He stood close to the guards, just inside the door, and waited. When they turned in one direction, wrapped up in animated conversation, he slipped past without a sound and was gone.

He returned to the swamp full of energy and purpose. There were many things to do before he would return. Halfway to his tunnel system, he heard the sharp bark of a leader of the bluecoats. The sun was not up yet but the sky over the sea was turning blue. The barking voice had come from the water. Two-feathers scurried to the edge of the swamp where it bordered on the beach. Standing tall on the grass and raising his head he saw the silhouette of a ship. It was leaving the bluecoats' village and was filled with soldiers. A warring party! The bluecoats were off to fight their enemy the redcoats again. His father
must
be on that ship. No wonder he had been so difficult to find, he was always fighting the enemy, as any noble warrior would be. Two-feathers felt pleased at the thought. He burned the sight of the ship into his memory. He would watch for it to return when he came back. He was confident he would find his father then.

Chapter Fifteen

A
nnapolis Royal used to belong to us, the French. It had been a French settlement from the start but was given to the English in a treaty from a previous war. Now it was a strong English garrison. Most of the settlers in the area, however, were still French, or rather, Acadian, which really meant French people who had no intention of returning to France. There were also the Natives, who were more or less allied to the French and the Acadians. I was told that this was because the French treated them better than the English did. If we killed them with disease and stole their land one could only wonder what the English did.

We gathered in the middle of the night, boarded our little ship and sailed out of the harbour before the sun was up. Dreading seasickness like the plague I was astonished to discover I felt none. Half of the regiment was throwing up, but only because they were still drunk when they marched on board. My father, immensely proud of the undertaking, was not very impressed that half of his soldiers were bent over the sides of the ship, emptying their stomachs into the sea. In a show of discipline he barked out orders for the men to stand to attention and forced us to stand for an hour or so until two of the men fainted. It was then I began to realize I was not the only object of my father's disappointment. None of the soldiers in the regiment appeared to live up to his expectations and I quickly fell into sympathy with them.

It was a very curious phenomenon to me the difference between the language the soldiers used when they were sitting around discussing strategy and the language they used when they were actually holding weapons in their hands. In the first case they used words like surround, capture, surrender and imprison. In the second they used words like shoot, kill, maim and slaughter. I became convinced that you really did change a man the moment you put a musket in his hands.

We were just three days on the sea and always within sight of land. The largest portion of our journey would be overland where we expected our numbers to swell with all the Acadians and Natives who wanted to force the English out of their land. All we had to do, my father said, was announce to everyone we met along the way that we were heading to Annapolis Royal to attack and destroy it. Our allies would come out of the woods and leave the fields to join us. Once again I questioned a certain contradiction in our strategy. Why would we travel across the countryside telling everyone of our intention to sneak up on and attack a fortified garrison? I was the last person to possess a military mind, but wasn't anyone worried about losing the element of surprise?

Once we reached our destination, ships from Louisbourg would arrive with additional soldiers and we would storm the garrison. I remembered what M. Anglaise had said about making a display of manliness to impress my father. I tried to imagine it. I imagined myself running into the chaos of the smoke-filled garrison, yelling my head off and waving my musket around. I also imagined getting shot in the head and bleeding to death on the ground. How impressed would my father be with that?

By the time we disembarked from the ship I had befriended a few of the soldiers, to my father's displeasure. Louis, from the south of France, had come to Louisbourg by the strangest set of circumstances. On a voyage to Paris, he had been mistaken for a thief and had been given the choice of spending the rest of his life in prison or joining the King's army. He chose the latter. He was immediately shipped off to Louisbourg to serve his time. Having left home merely to see the city of Paris, he got a lot more than he expected. Louis was big and strong and had come from a farm. He was surprisingly accepting of his fate.

Charles was half the size of Louis. He wore the smallest size of uniform, but it still looked too big. He always moved quickly, and even when his body wasn't moving, his eyes were. They were shiny and bursting with life, though they occasionally clouded over with the thought that he might never see France again. Strangely enough, his story was the same as Louis's. He had been mistaken for a criminal and sent to Louisbourg. Both men strongly professed their innocence and I believed them. It was the same with many of the soldiers, as if they had picked up the same story somehow when they put on their uniforms. But we all had one thing in common: none of us had come by choice.

Then there was Pierre, who actually looked like a thief. He hated wearing the uniform even more than I did. But he said he preferred the New World to France and would never go back. As we walked through the woods he kept looking in every direction as if waiting for a good chance to escape. In fact, I was surprised to learn that, like me, none of the foot soldiers had any particular quarrel with the English, which made us all unlikely candidates for killing them. I think my father could sense this and didn't approve of my camaraderie with them. He couldn't prevent it, though, once we got into the woods and the heavy foliage separated us to some extent. This was the one part of the expedition that I actually enjoyed – talking with Louis, Charles and Pierre as we walked through the woods on our way to kill the English.

“So, tell us there now, young Jacques,” said Charles, with a quick turn of his head, “what's the Governor's friend's daughter like, hey?”

The question took me by surprise. But one of the things I liked about their conversation was how direct they were. They weren't afraid to say anything.

“Um … well, I guess she's like anyone else.”

I knew that wasn't true but didn't know what else to say.

“She can't be. Come on, now, a beautiful thing like that. What's it like to talk with her? What do you say to her?”

“The same thing I say to anybody else, I guess, except maybe …”

“Yah?”

“Except maybe more gently.”

“Well, of course.”

“And what's it like talking to the Governor then?” said Louis. “Now, he must be an angry sort of man to talk to. Make you shake in your boots?”

“Oh, no, not at all. He's as easygoing as can be. He's pretty sick, though.”

“Oh, come on now, it's the Governor. Isn't he yelling at you?”

“No, he's actually pretty friendly.”

“Friendly?” said Charles.

“Yes.”

“The Governor's friendly?”

“Well, he is with me. Actually, he doesn't talk much.”

“Are we talking about the same Governor there, Jacques?”

“There's only one Governor, Charles,” said Pierre.

“I know there's only one Governor, stupid,” said Charles. “I was only saying that for emphasis.”

“What's
emphasis
?”

“It's … never mind. But what do you do, Jacques? You teach her to play the fiddle, do yah?”

“You play the fiddle, Jacques?” said Louis.

“Actually I play the violoncello.”

“I play the fiddle,” said Pierre, as if he hadn't heard my answer. “Now that's the way for a man to spend his days, playing the fiddle in the company of pretty women. What do you say, Jacques, eh?”

“I guess so.”

The three of them laughed.

“I'll tell you what,” said Pierre, and his eyes pierced the woods to the right and left of us as if seeking escape. “As soon as we get done with killing all these English down here, we'll sit down and drink a gallon of rum and play the fiddle all night. What do you say to that, Jacques?”

“I guess so.”

They laughed again. But I was curious about something.

“Umm … Charles?”

“Yes, my son?”

“If you don't mind my asking, could you … would you … tell me … how many men you have killed?”

“Lord Almighty! You want to know how many men I have
killed
?”

“Yes. I don't mean to be rude.”

“Good Lord Almighty! Well, that's not the sort of thing you ask a man, Jacques, how many men he has killed in his life. It's kind of a personal question. But I suppose, since we're here on our way to kill all these English, and, since we're brothers in arms and all, I suppose I could share that intensely private information with you.”

I noticed that Louis and Pierre were listening closely too.

“Well, let's see now. I can't count that young fellah who fell off the pier next to me because it wasn't my fault I couldn't swim. And Fredric, now, he died of internal bleeding after a nasty fight. But that wasn't my fault either, 'cause I didn't start it. Let me see … if I consider that … and that … and him … and, well … I suppose all in all total, I guess I've never actually killed anybody per se.”

“You haven't killed anybody?”

“Come to think of it, I guess not.”

He looked surprised at his own answer.

“And you, Louis,” I asked. “How many have you killed?”

Louis looked embarrassed. “Ahhhh … none.”

“You haven't killed anybody either?”

“Nope. Not a single one.”

“And you, Pierre?”

He pulled out a cross from around his neck and kissed it. “No, thanks be to the Lord, I haven't killed nobody.”

We walked along in silence.

“But we sure are going to kill those English!” burst out Louis after a while.

“Don't you know it,” said Charles. “We're going to blast them to Kingdom Come.”