_ CHAPTER XIV. "HERE DIED WOLFE VICTORIOUS"
In spite of her strong position, Quebec did not await the arrival of the enemy with folded hands. Since 1720 walls and bastions of grey stone had completely girded the city, but within that time no invasion had tested its strength. Even now, in the midst of the most desperate war the New World had ever known, Vaudreuil loudly proclaimed that the fortress was impregnable; and his letters, promising annihilation to his foolhardy foes, are painful gasconade. Yet with all this show of assurance, he was careful to send through the parishes, calling out to service every available man, and in some cases boys of thirteen and fourteen years of age; while the women and children, hiding the household valuables, withdrew from the river to places of safety.
A council of war had in the meantime decided to place the city under cover of an intrenched camp, which Montcalm was at first in favour of locating on the Plains of Abraham; but in view of the fact that the bastions of the citadel and the batteries erected on the quays of Lower Town were already in full command of the river, another site was finally selected. Assuming that the enemy could never force his way up the river past the city batteries, he concluded that the enemy must land by way of the lowlands below the town; and Wolfe himself had a like opinion until long after the investment had begun.
Since spring, when the proclamation of Vaudreuil had been read at the doors of the country churches, a constant stream of men and boys had been flowing towards Quebec; and by the middle of June Montcalm found himself in command of more than sixteen thousand men, including regulars, militia, and Indians. The mouth of the St. Charles had been closed with a heavy boom of logs, in front of which was moored a floating battery mounting five cannon; and behind it two stranded hulks, armed with heavy ordnance, were able to sweep the Bay. From this point to the height where, seven miles away, the Montmorency leaped foaming over its dizzy precipice, the lowlands of Beauport had been strongly fortified and intrenched. Redoubts had been erected at all possible landing-places; and behind these vast earthworks which followed the curving shore, the Canadian forces lay securely encamped. The right wing, composed of the militia regiments of Quebec and Three Rivers, under M. de Saint-Ours and M. de Bonne, took up its position facing the city on the flats known as La Canardiere; the centre, stretching from the St. Charles to the Beauport river, consisted of two thousand regulars under Brigadier Senezergues; and the left, including the Montreal militia, held the road from the Beauport to the Montmorency. Montcalm established his headquarters in the centre, wisely entrusting the left wing to the capable De Levis, the right being assigned to Bougainville.
Within the walls, the Chevalier de Ramezay commanded a garrison of above a thousand men. Every gate but one had been closed and barricaded, the Porte du Palais being left open to afford communication between the city and the camp by way of a bridge of boats across the St. Charles. Vaudreuil transferred the seat of government to Beauport, taking up his quarters at the centre with Montcalm; and those of the citizens who were not required to man the ramparts removed themselves and their valuables for safety to the country. Quebec was armed to the teeth. Three hundred feet above the river rose the battery of the citadel; on a lower level the Castle Battery frowned over towards Point Levi, the Grand Battery commanding the harbour; while, on the wharves of Lower Town, the Queen's, Dauphin's, and Royal batteries were able to sweep the narrows. Even though the English fleet might run this gauntlet of heavy ordnance, the high cliffs for miles above the city remained practically inaccessible, and at almost any point a hundred resolute men would suffice to beat back an army. In the face of these preparations, it seemed an act of madness to attempt the reduction of Quebec. But within defences so secure the ardent spirits of the Canadian troops were chafing at enforced inaction; for although diligently exercised by their commanders, they still had leisure to think of the homes they loved, where the corn would never be garnered.
On the English side Captain Cook, as his biographer relates, "was employed to procure accurate soundings of the channel between the Island of Orleans and the shore of Beauport--a service of great danger, which could only be performed in the night-time. He had scarcely finished when he was discovered, and a number of Indians in canoes started to cut him off. The pursuit was so close that they jumped in at the boat's stern as Cook leaped out to gain the protection of the English sentinel. The boat was carried off by the Indians. Cook, however, furnished the admiral with as correct a draft of the channel and soundings as could afterwards have been made when the English were in peaceable possession of Quebec."
At length, towards the end of June, the invading ships sailed up the channel south of the Isle of Orleans; twenty ships of the line, twenty frigates, and a swarm of transports, bearing in all about nine thousand men. But Quebec, so often threatened in the past, and ever fortunate in resistance, gazed complacently down upon this imposing fleet. Montcalm feared but one contingency, the co-operation of Amherst with Wolfe from the west; and this, as we have seen, was a needless anxiety. Disembarking, Wolfe pitched his camp at the western end of the Isle of Orleans, four miles from Quebec. Before him rose the portentous batteries of the city, and, on his right, the long battle-line of Montcalm flaunted a desperate challenge. Remembering, however, that defences stronger still had been carried at Louisbourg, the English General confidently drew up his plans.
The only vantage-ground left unoccupied by the French was the Heights of Levi, opposite the city, Montcalm having thought it unwise to isolate there any portion of his force. Thither, accordingly, Monckton's brigade was now despatched; and English batteries, rising darkly on the high cliffs, were soon directing across the narrow channel of the river that hail of shot which, within a month, had left the Lower Town a heap of ashes, and dropped destruction upon the crowded summit of the citadel. So galling grew this fire, that at last a force was sent to destroy the English camp; and on the night of July the 12th, fifteen hundred soldiers and Indians stole silently from Sillery across the river. But as they picked their way through the dark woods, trembling with the excitement of a dangerous adventure, a sudden panic seized them, and in the confusion, the students of the Seminary, who formed part of the column, opened fire upon their own men. Discipline and order were at once discarded, and the whole party rushed back in terror to the boats. At dawn they returned from this unhappy and futile expedition, bringing new terrors to their fellow-citizens, who nicknamed this bloodless effort the "Scholars' Battle"; and Quebec again endured the misery of ceaseless bombardment.
With strange fatuity the French employed another device to destroy the fleet of the invaders and carry terror into their ranks. A flotilla of fire-ships was loaded to the gunwale with pitch, tar, powder bombs, grenades, and scrap-iron; and towards midnight these floating hell-boats slipped their moorings and drifted with the tide towards the English fleet riding at the Point of Orleans. Tide and stream bore them swiftly through the gloom; and at a given signal, fuses were ignited and the crews escaped in boats. Sharp tongues of flame ran along the bulwarks, and the loose powder sputtered and hissed. Then, suddenly, the night was rent by explosion after explosion, reverberating through the canons of the distant Laurentides, and echoing along the river walls beyond Cap Tourmente. A lurid glare lit up the broad harbour, the towers and minarets of the beleaguered city, revealing in red light the full tents of the French army along the Beauport lowlands.
To the English it was "the grandest fireworks that can possibly be conceived"; but the French were in no mood to enjoy its harmless effulgence. The fuses had been lighted half an hour too soon, and before the tide of the north channel carried them to the English fleet, the magnificent flotilla, upon which Quebec had squandered a million _livres_, had become a squadron of blazing hulks which the British sailors grappled and towed to shore. All night long their impotent fires lit up the Bay, and by sunrise another hope of New France had turned to ashes.
Although the unquenchable batteries of Point Levi continued to pour destruction upon Quebec, Wolfe saw that the defeat of Montcalm must precede the capture of the city; and to this end he now directed his attention. Beyond the rocky gorge of the Montmorency, a high open land seemed to offer a possible avenue of attack upon the French camp across the river, and thither the English General resolved to transfer his main camp. On the night of the 8th of July he embarked with three thousand men--the brigades of Townshend and Murray, a body of grenadiers, light infantry, and the Sixtieth Regiment, or Royal Americans. Before dawn they made a landing at the village of L'Ange Gardien, and gained the heights after a slight skirmish with an irregular body of native militia. Earthworks were hastily thrown up, fascine batteries were erected, and Montcalm's reveille next morning was a heavy cannonade from this new quarter.
Wolfe had now divided his army into three camps, each so far removed from the other that little or no help could be expected in case of separate attack. Yet it was in vain that he tempted Montcalm to battle. For weeks his guns roared challenge across the Montmorency; but the cautious French General only shrugged his shoulders and remarked: "Let him amuse himself where he is. If we drive him off he may go to some place where he can do us harm." To discover this vulnerable spot Wolfe would have risked much, as appears from his daring instructions of the 18th of July. On this day the _Sutherland_ and several small frigates ran the gauntlet of the city batteries, and racing through the hail of lead and iron falling from a hundred guns upon the ramparts, they reached Cap Rouge above Quebec.
To the French the impossible had happened. Montcalm, therefore, hastily detailed a small force to defend the cliffs; and the right wing of the army under Bougainville was charged with the protection of the city upon its flank, or landward side. To Wolfe, however, who himself made the hazardous voyage in the _Sutherland_, the result of the reconnaissance was not cheering. No point upon those rugged cliffs seemed to offer a favourable landing; and he came back to his camp on the Montmorency more than ever convinced that Montcalm's army could be defeated only by a direct assault upon its strong intrenchments. This desperate enterprise he essayed on the last day of July.
When the tide runs out past the Isle of Orleans, it leaves a wide sandy beach at the foot of the cliffs between Beauport and Montmorency, the mouth of the latter river also being hardly more than knee-deep at ebb-tide. Aware of these conditions, the French had erected a strong redoubt at the edge of the strand, and posted a large force of musketeers in the intrenchments capping the heights above it. This was the point which Wolfe selected for attack.
In the morning at high tide the _Centurion_, of sixty-four guns, took up a position near the Montmorency ford and opened fire upon the French redoubt. During this movement two armed transports detailed to second her cannonade, running too close upon the shore, were stranded with the receding tide. At the same time, the batteries of Wolfe's camp across the river were pounding the enemy's flank. Towards noon five thousand British soldiers pressed towards the point of attack; some in boats from Point Levi and Orleans, some crossing the ford from Townshend's camp. The first to reach the spot were thirteen companies of grenadiers and a detachment of Royal Americans, who having landed from the boats, instead of waiting for Monckton's brigade which was close behind, dashed boldly forward across the strand. The French gave way before their impetuous rush, and abandoned the redoubt at the foot of the hill. Then, suddenly, the crest of the ridge above them blazed with musketry, and the cross-fire from the trenches poured a hail of death upon their panting ranks. Up the terrible _glacis_ they still strove to climb in the face of a splashing downpour of bullets. At that moment the sky became overcast, and from the pall of cloud hanging over Beauport a wild storm of rain broke over the battlefield. It was impossible to scale the slippery rocks, the powder was drenched and useless. Seeing the madness of further attack, Wolfe now sounded a retreat. A force of less than a thousand men had attempted to storm a bristling cliff whose double line of defence consisted of the muskets of Canadian sharpshooters and the bayonets of Bearn, Guienne, and Royal Roussillon; and before the order to retire was given, nearly half their number had fallen in this bootless conflict on the Beauport Flats.
It was now August, and the hopes of Quebec rose higher with the advancing season. So far the English had scored no perceptible success; and although the batteries of Point Levi had laid the Lower Town in ruins, and were still pounding at the high ramparts, the defences of the city remained practically as strong as ever. The steady bombardment, however, was causing much suffering and anxiety to those inhabitants who had been unable to flee from the city; and for two full days the Lower Town was in flames, the large company of sappers and miners, detailed as a fire brigade, being powerless against the conflagration. The walls of Notre Dame des Victoires kept guard upon the poor wreck of its venerated altars, while in the Upper Town the Cathedral tower had been shot away, and the Basilica itself was half a ruin. Some of the rampart batteries were buried beneath the _debris_ of demolished houses, and bursting shells ploughed up the streets; moreover, the wooden palisade, hastily erected in the Quartier du Palais to provide against a possible assault by way of the St. Charles, had been destroyed by fire. At last forsaking the dangerous walls of their exposed convents, the Ursulines and the nuns of Hotel-Dieu sought shelter further afield. The Hospital General, established by Bishop St. Vallier, Laval's successor, on a bend of the St. Charles, being beyond the range of the English artillery, the homeless poor flocked thither for refuge, until the convent and all its _dependances_ were filled to overflowing with miserable refugees. The chapel was pressed into service as a ward for the wounded; and holy Masses were said by special permission in the _choeur_. During this time of trial Bishop Pontbriand remained in the city, exhorting its defenders to be of good courage and cheering the wounded by his ministrations; while, as if to counteract his influence for good, the more heartless spirits were tempted to robbery and pillage--a shameless addition to the general suffering promptly checked by a gallows in the Place d'Armes.
Provisions had been plentiful enough up to midsummer; but as the siege was prolonged beyond harvest time, and as Wolfe's soldiers were laying the country waste in every direction as far as eye could see, it was no wonder that Montcalm felt some anxiety for the feeding of fifteen thousand troops. Moreover, an unexpected consequence of Wolfe's repulse at Beauport now brought a new anxiety to the French; for British operations were presently begun at a point above the city, to the great peril of its food-supply. Admiral Holmes's division had forced a passage up the river, soon to be joined by twelve hundred men under Brigadier Murray, who had instructions to menace the city upon its flank. Up and down the river this composite squadron cruised, making feints now here, now there, exhausting the energies of Bougainville and his column of fifteen hundred men, who were thus forced to cover an exposed shore for a distance of fifty miles. Murray attempted a landing at Pointe-aux-Trembles, but was beaten back; at La Muletiere he was also unsuccessful; but at Deschambault, forty-one miles above the city, he was able to destroy a large quantity of French stores without the loss of a man. Up to this time the French had conveyed their supplies from Batiscan to St. Augustin by water, and thence overland to Quebec, a distance of thirteen miles. But the presence of Admiral Holmes's squadron rendered this method of transport precarious, and an attempt was made to drive supplies overland from Batiscan; but as this place was sixty-seven miles distant from Quebec, famine laid its hand upon the city before they could arrive. French transports were therefore compelled to run the perilous blockade of the vigilant English fleet.
Meanwhile, upon the report of the slow but successful advance of Amherst in the Richelieu Valley, news had come of the fall of Fort Niagara. New France now retained no vestige of her Western empire. Except for Bourlamaque at Isle-aux-Noix, Montreal had no defence against British attack; and thither, on the ninth of August, Montcalm despatched Levis with eight hundred men. Even though Wolfe had failed to carry the city by assault, the garrison were now thoroughly alarmed at the protracted siege, and prayed for an early winter which must drive the English out of the river. The militia of Montcalm's army were deserting by hundreds, their fortitude breaking down as they saw the sky reddened with the flames of the river parishes, and languished under the strain of short rations.
Montcalm himself felt the pinch of a failing commissariat, but with good-humour he made the best of the position. An example of his whimsical mood and gay fortitude may be found in a menu he presents in a letter to Levis--
"Petits pates de cheval, a l'Espagnole.
Cheval a la mode.
Escalopes de cheval.
Filet de cheval a la brochu avec une poivarde bien liee.
Semelles de cheval au gratin."
On the other hand, the English army had its own discouragements. Night after night, Canadian irregulars and Indians crept up to Wolfe's lines to murder and scalp the outposts and sentries. Fever invaded the camp, and, more than all else, the serious illness of the General himself depressed the spirits of his men. Ceaseless anxiety over a hitherto ineffective campaign had played sad havoc with the nervous, high-strung temperament of the English commander; and the grey, inaccessible city still rose grimly to mock his schemes. Only the most invincible spirit could have borne so frail a body through those weeks of hope deferred. A vague melancholy marked the line of his tall ungainly figure; but resolution, courage, endurance, deep design, clear vision, dogged will, and heroism shone forth from those searching eyes, making of no account the incongruities of the sallow features. Straight red hair, a nose thrust out like a wedge, and a chin falling back from an affectionate sort of mouth, made, by an antic of nature, the almost grotesque setting of those twin furnaces of daring resolve, which, in the end, fulfilled the yearning hopes of England.
August had nearly gone, and the gallant General, only thirty-two years of age and already touched by the finger of death, lay sick in a farmhouse at Montmorency. Success seemed even further away than it had been in the early summer. Yet, in consultation with his three brigadiers--Monckton, Townshend, and Murray--Wolfe had decided upon a new and desperate plan.
"I know perfectly well you cannot cure me," he said to the surgeon; "but pray make me up so that I may be without pain for a few days, and able to do my duty; that is all I want," To Pitt he wrote--and this was his last despatch: "The obstacles we have met with in the operations of the campaign are much greater than we had reason to expect, or could foresee; not so much from the number of the enemy (though superior to us), as from the natural strength of the country, which the Marquis de Montcalm seems wisely to depend upon. When I learned that succours of all kinds had been thrown into Quebec--that five battalions of regular troops, completed from the best inhabitants of the country, some of the troops of the colony, and every Canadian that was able to bear arms, besides several nations of savages, had taken the field in a very advantageous situation,--I could not flatter myself that I should be able to reduce the place. I sought, however, an occasion to attack their army, knowing well that with these troops I was able to fight, and hoping that a victory might disperse them....I found myself so ill, and am still so weak, that I begged the general officers to consult together for the general utility. They are all of opinion that, as more ships and provisions are now got above the town, they should try, by conveying up a corps of four or five thousand men (which is nearly the whole strength of the army after the Points of Levi and Orleans are left in a proper state of defence), to draw the enemy from their present situation and bring them to an action. I have acquiesced in the proposal, and we are preparing to put it into execution." Carrying out this new plan, Wolfe first abandoned his camp at Montmorency, and for the moment concentrated his strength at Levi and Orleans. Then Admiral Holmes's division in the river above the city was strengthened, and on the night of the 4th of September ships and transports, carrying five months' provisions, silently and successfully ran the blockade of the citadel's guns and anchored off Cap Rouge. On the 5th, Murray, Monckton, and Townshend marched seven battalions overland from Point Levi to the mouth of the river Etechemin opposite Sillery Cove; and on the 6th, Wolfe found himself cruising above the town with twenty-two ships and thirty-six hundred men.
Meanwhile, Montcalm and Vaudreuil were greatly perplexed and all unconscious of the new designs and movements of the enemy. The position at the Point of Orleans still seemed to be strongly occupied, for every day Colonel Carleton paraded his men up and down in full view of the camp at Beauport; the batteries at Point Levi thundered with their accustomed vehemence, and Admiral Saunders's division still lay threateningly in the basin below the city. Thus the weakening of these camps by twelve hundred men, who marched up the south shore to join Wolfe, was not perceived by Montcalm. Above Quebec, Bourlamaque was not less perplexed by the mysterious movements of Holmes's squadron and the army transports. Up and down the river they sailed, now threatening to land at Pointe-aux-Trembles, now at Sillery, and greatly confusing the right wing of the French army by their complex movements.
At last the great night came, starlit and serene. The camp-fires of two armies spotted the shores of the wide river, and the ships lay like wild-fowl in coveys above the town. At Beauport, an untiring General of France, who, booted and spurred, through a hundred days had snatched but a broken sleep, in the ebb of a losing game, now longed for his adored Candiac, grieved for a beloved daughter's death, sent cheerful messages to his aged mother and to his wife, and by the deeper protests of his love, foreshadowed his own doom. At Cap Rouge, a dying soldier of England, unperturbed and valiant, reached out a finger to trace the last movement in the desperate campaign of a life that had opened in Flanders at the age of sixteen, now closing as he took from his bosom the portrait of his affianced wife, and said to his old schoolfellow, "Give this to her, Jervis, for we shall meet no more." Then, passing from the deck, silent and steady, no signs of pain upon his face--so had the calm come to him as to nature, and to this beleaguered city, before the whirlwind--he viewed the clustered groups of boats filled with the flower of his army, settled down into a menacing tranquillity. There lay the Light Infantry, Bragg's, Kennedy's, Lascelles', Anstruther's Regiments, Fraser's Highlanders, and the much-loved, much-blamed Louisbourg Grenadiers. Steady, indomitable, silent as cats, precise as mathematicians, he could trust them, as they loved his awkward, pain-twisted body and ugly red hair. "Damme, Jack, didst ever take hell in tow before?" said a sailor to his comrades as the marines, some days before, had grappled with a second flotilla of French fire-ships. "Nay, but I've been in tow of Jimmy Wolfe's red head; that's hell-fire, lad!" was the reply.
From boat to boat the General's eye passed, then shifted to the ships--the _Squirrel_, the _Leostaff_, the _Seahorse_, and the rest--and lastly, to the spot where lay the army of Bougainville. Now an officer came towards him, who said, quietly, "The tide has turned, sir." For reply, he made a swift motion towards the _Sutherland's_ maintop shrouds, and almost instantly lanterns showed in them. In response, the crowded boats began to cast away. Immediately descending the General passed into his boat, drew to the front, and drifted in the current ahead of his gallant forces.
It was two hours after midnight when the boats began to move, and slowly they ranged down the stream, silently steered and carried by the ebbing tide. No paddle, no creaking oarlock broke the stillness; but ever and anon the booming of a thirty-two pounder from the Point Levi battery echoed up the river walls.
To a young midshipman beside him, the General turned and said, "How old are you, sir?"
"Seventeen, sir," was the reply.
"It is the most lasting passion," he said, musing. Then, after a few moments' silence, he repeated aloud these verses from Gray's _Elegy_--
"The curfew tolls the knell of parting day;
The lowing herds wind slowly o'er the lea;
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.
* * * * *
"The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Await alike the inevitable hour--
The paths of glory lead but to the grave."
"Gentlemen," he said, "I would rather have written those lines than take Quebec."
Meanwhile, the tide had swept the foremost boats round the headland above the _Anse du Foulon_,[30] a tiny bay where Wolfe had determined to land. Suddenly, down from the dark heights there came a challenge: "_Qui vive?_"
"_La France_," answered an officer of Fraser's Highlanders, who had learned French in Flanders.
"_A quel Regiment?_"
"_De la Reine_," responded the Highlander; and to disarm suspicion he added, "_Ne faites pas de bruit, ce sont les vivres._" From a deserter, the English had learned that a convoy of provisions was expected down the river that night; and the officer's response deceived the sentry.
[Note 30: Now known as Wolfe's Cove.] The boats of the Light Infantry swung in to the shore. The twenty-four volunteers, who had been given the hazardous task of scaling the cliff and overpowering Vergor's guard at the top of the path, now commenced the ascent. On the strand below, the van of Wolfe's army breathlessly waited the signal to dash up the cliff to support their daring scouts. Presently quick ringing shots told the anxious General that his men had begun their work, and in a few moments a thin British cheer claimed possession of the rocky pathway up which Wolfe's battalions now swarmed in the misty grey of early morning.
While this army climbed up the steep way to the Heights of Abraham, Admiral Saunders was bombarding Montcalm's intrenchments, and boats filled with marines and soldiers made a feint of landing on the Beauport flats, while shots, bombs, shells, and carcasses burst from Point Levi upon the town. At last, however, the French General grew suspicious of the naval manoeuvres, and in great agitation he rode towards the city. It was six in the morning as he galloped up the slope of the St. Charles, and in utter amazement gazed upon the scarlet ranks of Britain spread across the plain between himself and Bougainville, and nearer to him, on the crest, the white-coated battalion of Guienne which, the day before, he had ordered to occupy the very heights where Wolfe now stood.
Montcalm summoned his army from the trenches at Beauport. In hot haste they crossed the St. Charles, passed under the northern rampart of the city, and in another hour the gates of St. Jean and St. Louis had emptied out upon the battlefield a flood of defenders. It was a gallant sight. The white uniforms of the brave regiments of the line--Royal Roussillon, La Sarre, Guienne, Languedoc, Bearn--mixed with the dark, excitable militia, the sturdy burghers of the town, a band of _coureurs de bois_ in their picturesque hunters' costume, and whooping Indians, painted and raging for battle. Bougainville had not yet arrived from Cap Rouge, and for some mysterious reason Vaudreuil lagged behind at Beauport. Nevertheless, Montcalm determined to attack the English before they had time to intrench themselves. As for Wolfe, he desired nothing better, for while the two forces were numerically not unequal, yet every man among the invaders could be depended upon, while even Montcalm had yet to test fully the undisciplined valour of his Canadian militia.
Outside the city gates, the French at first took up their position on a rising ground in three divisions, having an irregular surface towards the St. Lawrence on their left, and extending across the St. Louis and Ste. Foye roads towards the St. Charles on their right. Indian and Canadian marksmen were posted among the trees and bushes which skirted the plains. Montcalm himself took command of the centre, at the head of the regiment of Languedoc, supported by the battalion of Bearn. M. de Senezergues led the left wing, composed of the regiments of Guienne and Royal Roussillon, supported by the militia of Three Rivers. The right, under M. de Saint-Ours, consisted of the battalion of La Sarre and the militia of Quebec and Montreal.
Wolfe had first drawn up his army with its front towards the St. Louis road, and its right towards the city, but afterwards he altered his position. Confronting the French formation Brigadier Townshend, with Amherst's and the Light Infantry, and Colonel Burton, with a battalion of the Royal Americans, made up the British left, holding a position near the Ste. Foye road, to meet the advance of Bougainville from the west. The centre, under Murray, was composed of Lascelles', Anstruther's, and Fraser's Highlanders; while Monckton commanded the right, which included Bragg's, Otway's, Kennedy's, and the Louisbourg Grenadiers, at whose head, after he had passed along the line, Wolfe placed himself for the charge.
At eight o'clock the French sharpshooters opened fire upon the British left, and skirmishers were thrown out to hold them in check, or drive them from the houses where they sheltered themselves and galled Townshend's men. Three field-pieces, brought from the city, opened on the British brigades with roundshot and canister. The invaders, however, made no return, and were ordered to lie down. No restlessness, no anxiety marked those scarlet columns, whose patience and restraint had been for two months in the crucible of a waiting game. There was no man in all Wolfe's army but knew that final victory or ruin hung upon the issue of that 13th of September.
From bushes, trees, coverts, and fields of grain came a ceaseless hail of fire, and there fell upon the ranks a doggedness, a quiet anger, which settled into grisly patience. These men had seen the stars go down, the cold mottled light of dawn break over the battered city and the heights of Charlesbourg; they had watched the sun come up, and then steal away behind slow-travelling clouds and hanging mist; they had looked over the unreaped cornfields, and the dull slovenly St. Charles, knowing full well that endless leagues of country, north and south, east and west, now lay for the last time in the balance. The rocky precipice of the St. Lawrence cut off all possibility of retreat, and their only help was in themselves. Yet no one faltered.
At ten o'clock Montcalm's three columns moved forward briskly, making a wild rattle--two columns moving towards the left and one towards the right, firing obliquely and constantly as they advanced. Then came Wolfe's command to rise, and his army stood up and waited, their muskets loaded with an extra ball. Suppressed rage filled the ranks as they stood there and took that damnable fire without being able to return a shot. Minute after minute passed. Then came the sharp command to advance. Again the line was halted, and still the withering discharge of musketry fell upon the long silent palisade of red.
At last, when the French were within forty yards, Wolfe raised his sword, a command rang down the long line of battle, and with a crash as of one terrible cannon-shot, the British muskets sang out together. After the smoke had cleared a little, another volley followed with almost the same precision. A light breeze lifted the smoke and mist, and a wayward sunlight showed Montcalm's army retreating like a long white wave from a rocky shore.
Thus checked and confounded, the French army trembled and fell back in broken order. Then, with the order to charge, an exultant British cheer arose, the skirling challenge of the bagpipes and the wild slogan of the Highlanders sounding high over all. Like sickles of death, the flashing broadswords of the clansmen clove through and broke the battalions of La Sarre, and the bayonets of the Forty-Seventh scattered the soldiers of Languedoc into flying companies.
Early in the action Wolfe had been hit in the wrist by a bullet, but he concealed this wound with his handkerchief. A few minutes later, however, as he pressed forward, sword in hand, at the head of the charging Louisbourg Grenadiers, a musket ball struck him in the breast. They bore him, mortally wounded, to the rear.
"It's all over with me," he murmured. The mist of death was already gathering in his eyes.
"They run; see how they run!" exclaimed Lieutenant Brown of the Grenadiers, who supported him. "Who run?" demanded the General like one roused from sleep. "The enemy, sir," responded the subaltern. "Go, one of you, to Colonel Burton," returned Wolfe, with an earnestness that detained the spirit in his almost lifeless body; "tell him to march Webb's regiment down to the St. Charles to cut off their retreat from the bridge."
Then, overcome at last, he turned on his side and whispered, "Now, God be praised, I will die in peace!" _