French and English: a Story of the Struggle in America
Copyright© 2025 by Evelyn Everett-Green
Chapter 3: Mariners Of The Deep.
“I must go! I must go!” shouted Colin, bursting into the house, mad with excitement and impetuosity.
“My uncle, you will let me go! I must see this great and mighty fleet for myself. They say it is coming up the mighty river’s mouth. Some say it will be wrecked ere it reach the Isle of Orleans! Let me go and see it, I pray, and I will return and tell you all.”
The whole city was in a ferment. For long weeks had the English fleet been watched and waited for--for so long, indeed, that provisions were already becoming a little scarce within the town, in spite of the convoy which had arrived earlier in the year. So many mouths were there to feed that the question of supply was causing anxiety already. Still with care there was enough to last for a considerable time. Only the delay of the English vessels had upset the calculations of the men in charge of the commissariat department, and the people had to be put upon rations, lest there should be a too quick consumption of the stores.
This had caused a little murmuring and discontent, and the long waiting had tried the citizens more than active work would have done. It had given Montcalm time to fortify his camp very strongly, and make his position all that he desired; but it had been a wearisome time to many, and the Canadian troops were already discontented, and wearying to get away from the life of the camp, back to their own homes and fields and farms.
But now hot midsummer had come, and with it the. English foe. A fast-sailing sloop had brought word that the junction of the squadrons was taking place just off Cape Tourmente, and Colin was wild to take boat and go to see the great ships.
“They are saying that they must all be wrecked in trying to navigate the Traverse,” cried the boy; “but Peter and Paul and Arthur laugh to scorn the notion, and say that we do not know what sort of men the English mariners are. Some say that Admiral Durell has already captured the pilots who live there, ready to take the French ships up and down. Let me go and learn what is happening. Let me take a boat, and take Peter and Paul and Arthur with me. They know how to manage one as well as any sailor in the town. Let us go, my uncle, and bring you word again.”
The boy was set on it; he could not be withheld. Moreover, the Abbe and Madame Drucour were keenly anxious for news.
“Be careful, my boy, be cautious,” he said; “run not into danger. But I think thou art safe upon the river with those lads. You will take care of one another, and bring us word again what is happening.”
“Oh, I will come back safe and sound, never fear for me!” answered the boy, in great delight. “We will bring you news, never fear! We will see all that is to be seen. Oh, I am glad the day of waiting is over, and that the day for fighting has come!”
“Would that I were a boy like you, Colin!” cried Corinne, with sparkling eyes. “It is hard to be cooped up in the city when there are such stirring things going on outside. But I will up to the heights and watch for the sight of sails; and you will come back soon, Colin, and tell us all the news.”
Nevertheless it was a hard task for the eager girl to remain behind when her brother and their three merry friends went forth in search of news.
By this time the English midshipmen were quite at home in their new home, and the blithest of companions for the brother and sister there. They did much to foster the sympathies of Colin and Corinne for the English cause. The boys told of England and the life there, and were so full of enthusiasm for their country that it was almost impossible not to catch something of the contagion of their mood. Both Colin and his sister had seen much to disgust and displease them amongst the French; whilst round their foes there seemed to be a sort of halo of romance and chivalry which appealed to the imaginative strain in both brother and sister.
Their British blood could not fail to be stirred within them. They saw and heard of corruption, chicanery, and petty jealousy all round them here. It was hardly to be wondered at that they inclined to the other side. England and Scotland were uniting together for the conquest of this Western world. Their mother’s countrymen were fighting the battle. They had the right to wish them success.
Corinne rehearsed all this to herself as she stood upon the lofty heights behind the town that afternoon with her uncle and aunt. They were looking with anxiety and grave misgivings at the clustering sails dimly seen in the distance upon the shining water of that vast estuary. Montcalm himself had come up to see, and stood with his telescope at his eye, watchful and grave.
“We have made a mistake,” he said to the Abbe in a low voice. “I did speak to the Governor once; but he was against the measure, and we permitted it to drop. But I can see now it was a mistake. We should have planted a battery--a strong one--upon Cape Tourmente, and bombarded the ships as they passed by. We trusted to the dangerous navigation of the Traverse, but we made a mistake: English sailors can go anywhere!”
The Abbe made a sign of assent. He remembered now how the General had made this suggestion to the Governor, and pressed it with some ardour, but had been met with opposition at every point. Vaudreuil had declared that it would weaken the town to bring out such a force to a distant point; that they must concentrate all their strength around the city; that they would give the enemy the chance of cutting their army in two. Montcalm had yielded the point. There was so much friction between him and the Governor that he had to give way where he could. Vaudreuil was always full of grand, swelling words, and boasts of his great deeds and devotion; but men were beginning to note that when face to face with real peril he lost his nerve and self confidence, and had to depend upon others. It was thus that he opposed Montcalm (of whose superior genius and popularity he was bitterly jealous) at every turn when danger was still distant, but turned to him in a fluster of dismay when the hour of immediate peril had come, and had been made more perilous by his own lack of perception and forethought whilst things were less imminent.
“Yet look at our lines of defence!” he exclaimed, after he had finished all the survey he could make of the distant sails crowded about the Isle of Orleans. “Where could any army hope to land along this northern shore? Let them fire as they like from their ships; that will not hurt us. And we can answer back in a fashion that must soon silence them. The heights are ours; the town is safely guarded. The summer is half spent already. Let us but keep them at bay for two months, and the storms of the equinox will do the rest. When September comes, then come the gales--and indeed they may help us at any time in these treacherous waters. You mariners of England, you are full of confidence and skill--I am the last to deny it--but the elements have proved stronger than you before this, and may do so again.”
Corinne listened to all this with a beating heart, and asked of her aunt:
“What think you that they will first do--the English, I mean?”
“Probably land and make a camp upon the Isle of Orleans, which has been evacuated. A camp of some sort they must have, and can make it there without damage to us. It will make a sort of basis of operations for them; but I think they will be sorely puzzled what to do next. They cannot get near the city without exposing themselves to a deadly fire which they cannot return--for guns fired low from ships will not even touch our walls or ramparts--and any attempt along the shore by Beauport will be repulsed with heavy loss.”
“Yet they will do something, I am sure,” spoke the girl, beneath her breath; and she was more sure still of this when upon the morrow Colin returned, all aglow with excitement and admiration, whilst the three midshipmen had much ado to restrain their whoops of joy and triumph.
“I never saw such a thing!” cried Colin, his face full of delight and enthusiasm, as he and the midshipmen got Corinne to themselves, and could talk unrestrainedly together; “I feel as though I could never take sides against the English again! If they are all such men as that old sailing master Killick, methinks the French have little chance against them.”
“Hurrah for old Killick! hurrah for England’s sailors!” cried the midshipmen, as wildly excited as Colin himself; and Corinne pressed her hands together, and looked from one to the other, crying:
“Oh tell me! what did he do?”
“I’ll tell you!” cried Colin. “You have heard them speak of the Traverse, and what a difficult place it is to navigate?”
“Yes: Monsieur de Montcalm was saying that no vessel ever ventured up or down without a pilot; but he said that a rumour had reached him that some pilots had been taken prisoners, and that the English ships would get up with their help.”
“With or without!” cried Peter, tossing his cap into the air. “As though English sailors could not move without Frenchmen to help them!”
“Some of them took pilots aboard; indeed they were sent to them, and had no choice. But I must not get confused, and confuse you, Corinne. I’ll just tell you what we did ourselves.
“We heard a great talk going on on board one of the transport boats called the Goodwill, which was almost in the van of the fleet, I suppose because the old sailing master, Killick, was so good a seaman; and so they had sent a pilot out to her, and he was jabbering away at a great rate--”
“Just like all the Frenchies!” cut in Paul; “calling out that he would never have acted pilot to an English ship except under compulsion, and declaring that it was a dismal tale the survivors would take to their own country--that Canada should be the grave of the whole army, and the St. Lawrence should bury beneath its waves nine-tenths of the British ships, and that the walls of Quebec should be lined with English scalps!”
“The wretch!” cried Corinne. “I wonder the sailors did not throw him overboard to find his own grave!”
“I verily believe they would have done so, had it not been for strict orders from the Admiral that the pilots were to be well treated,” answered Arthur. “Our English Admirals and officers are all like that: they will never have any advantage taken of helpless prisoners.”
“I know, I know!” answered Corinne quickly; “that is where they teach the French such a lesson. But go on--tell me more. What about old Killick? and where were you all the while?”
“Holding on to the side of the transport, where we could see and hear everything, and telling the sailors who were near about Quebec and what was going on there. But soon we were too much interested in what was going on aboard to think of anything else.
“Old Killick roared out after a bit, ‘Has that confounded French pilot done bragging yet?’ And when somebody said he was ready to show them the passage of the Traverse, he bawled out:
“‘What! d’ye think I’m going to take orders from a dog of a Frenchman, and aboard my own vessel, too? Get you to the helm, Jim, and mind you take no orders from anybody but me. If that Frenchman tries to speak, just rap him on the head with a rope’s end to keep him quiet!’
“And with that he rolled to the forecastle with his trumpet in his hand, and got the ship under way, bawling out his instructions to his mate at the wheel, just as though he had been through the place all his life!”
“Had he ever been there before?” asked Corinne breathlessly.
“No, never. I heard the commanding officer and some of the gentlemen on board asking him, and remonstrating; but it was no use.
“‘Been through before! no, never,’ he cried; ‘but I’m going through now.’
“Then they told him that not even a French vessel with an experienced sailing master ever dared take the passage without a pilot, even though he might know it well. Whereupon old Killick patted the officer upon the back, and said, ‘Ay, ay, my dear, that’s right enough for them; but hang me if I don’t show you all that an Englishman shall go at ease where a Frenchman daren’t show his nose! Come along with me, my dear, and I’ll show you this dangerous passage.’
“And he led him forward to the best place, giving his orders as cool and unconcerned as though he had been in the Thames itself. The vessel that followed, hearing what was going on, and being afraid of falling into some peril herself, called out to know who the rash sailing master was. ‘I am old Killick!” roared back the bold old fellow himself, hearing the question, ‘and that should be enough for you!’
“And he turned his back, and went on laughing and joking with the officer, and bawling out his orders with all the confidence of an experienced pilot.”
“O Colin! And did he make no mistake? And what did the pilot say?”
“Oh, he rolled up his eyes, and kept asking if they were sure the old fellow had never been there before; and when we had got through the great zigzag with never so much as the ghost of a misadventure, and the signalling boats pointed to the deeper water beyond, the old fellow only laughed, and said, ‘Ay, ay, my dear, a terrible dangerous navigation! Chalk it down, a terrible dangerous navigation! If you don’t make a sputter about it, you’ll get no credit in England!’
“Then lounging away to his mate at the helm, he bid him give it to somebody else; and walking off with him, he said, ‘Hang me if there are not a thousand places in the Thames fifty times worse than that. I’m ashamed that Englishmen should make such a rout about it!’ And when his words were translated to the pilot, he raised his hands to heaven in mute protest, and evidently regarded old Killick as something not quite human.”
“Hurrah for the old sea dog! That’s the kind of mariner we have, Mademoiselle Corinne; that’s the way we rule the waves! Hurrah for brave old Killick! We’ll make as little of getting into Quebec as he did of navigating the Traverse!”
The story of the old captain’s prowess ran through Quebec like lightning, and produced there a sensation of wonder not unmixed with awe. If this was the spirit which animated the English fleet, what might not be the next move?
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