The Fight at Grand Pre
On the 23d day of January, 1747, we set out from Chignecto, four
hundred tried bush fighters, white and red,--some three score of our
men being Indians. We went on snow-shoes, for the world was buried in
drifts. There was much snow that winter, with steady cold and no
January thaw. On the marsh the snow lay in mighty windrows; but in the
woods it was deep, deep, and smotheringly soft. The branches of fir
and spruce and hemlock bent to the earth beneath the white burden of
it, forming solemn aisles and noiseless fanes within. We marched in
column. The leaders, who had the laborious task of tramping the
unbroken snow, would keep their place for an hour, then fall to the
rear, and enjoy the grateful ease of marching in the footsteps of their
fellows. Sometimes, as our column wound along like a huge dark snake,
some great branch, awakened by our laughter, would let slip its burden
upon us in a sudden avalanche. Sometimes, in crossing a hidden
watercourse, the leading files would disappear, to be dragged forth
drenched and cursing and derided.
But there were as yet no enemies to beware of; so we marched merrily,
and cheered our nights with unstinted blaze of camp fires.
On our fourth evening out from Chignecto, when we had halted about an
hour, there came visitors to the camp. My ear was caught by the
sentry's challenge. I went indifferently to see what the stir was all
about.
"Monsieur, we are come!" cried a glad voice which I keenly remembered;
and Xavier, his face aglow in the firelight, sprang forward to grasp my
hand. Behind him, standing in moveless dignity, was Big Etienne, and
at his feet a light sledge, with a bundle wrapped in furs.
My heart gave a great bound of thankful joy; and I stepped forward to
seize the tall warrior's hand in both of mine.
"He is well! He sleeps!" said Big Etienne, gravely. In dealing with
men, I pride myself on knowing what to say and how to say it. But at
this moment I was filled with so many emotions that words were not at
my command. Some sort of thanks I stammered to express,--but the
Indian understood and interrupted me.
"You thank me moons ago, brother," he said, in an earnest voice. "You
give me my boy. Now I give you yours. And we will not forget. That's
all."
"We will never forget, indeed, my brother," said I, fervently, and
again I clasped hands with him, thus pledging a comradeship which in
many a strait since then has stood me in good stead.
During the rest of that long mid-winter march, Philip remained in the
care of young Xavier, to whom, as well as to Big Etienne, he was
altogether devoted; and I saw a new side of the red man's character in
the tenderness of the stern chief toward the child. For my own part I
lost no time in bidding for my share in Philip's affections. My love
went out to the brave-eyed little fellow as if he had been the child of
my own flesh. And moreover I was fain to win an ally who would help me
to besiege his mother's heart.
Big Etienne had spoken within the mark in saying the child was well.
His cheeks were dark with smoke and with forgetfulness of soap and
water; but the red blood tinged them wholesomely. His long yellow hair
was tangled, but it had the burnished resilience of health. His mouth,
a bow of strength and sweetness,--his mother's mouth,--wore the scarlet
of clean veins; and the great sea-green eyes with which he stirred my
soul were unclouded by fear or sickness. Before our march brought us
to the hills of Gaspereau, Philip had admitted me to his favour,
ranking me, I think, almost as he did Xavier and Big Etienne. More
than that I could not have dared to hope.
At sundown of the ninth of February, the seventeenth day of our march
from Chignecto, we halted in a fir wood only three miles from the
Gaspereau mouth. We lit no camp fires now, but supped cold, though
heartily. We had been met the day before by messengers from Grand Pre,
who told de Villiers the disposition of the English troops. With
incredible carelessness they were scattered throughout the settlement.
About one hundred and fifty, under Colonel Noble himself, were
quartered along a narrow lane, which, running at right angles to the
main street, climbed the hillside at the extreme west of the village.
For my own part, though de Villiers' senior in military rank, I was but
a volunteer in this expedition, and served the chief as a kind of
informal aide-de-camp and counsellor.
Together we formed the plan of attack. It was resolved that one half
our company, under de Villiers himself, should fall upon the isolated
party in the lane and cut them to pieces. That left us but two hundred
men with whom to engage the remaining three hundred and fifty of the
New Englanders,--a daring venture, but I undertook to lead it. I
undertook by no means to defeat them, however. I knew the fine mettle
of these vinegar-faced New Englanders, but I swore (and kept my oath)
that I would occupy them pleasantly till de Villiers, making an end of
the other detachment, should come to my aid and clinch the victory.
The plan of attack thus settled, I turned my attention to Philip. Nigh
at hand was a cottage where I was known,--where I believed the folk to
be very kindly and honest. I told Big Etienne that we would put the
child there to sleep, and after the battle take him to his mother at
Canard.
"And, my brother," said I, laying my hand on his arm, and looking into
his eyes with meaning, "let Xavier stay with him, for he will be afraid
among strangers."
"Xavier must fight," replied the tall warrior. But his eyes shifted
from mine, and there was indecision in his voice.
"Xavier is but a boy yet, my brother," I insisted. "And this is a
night attack. It is no place for an untried boy. No glory, but great
peril, for one who has not experience! For my sake bid Xavier stay
with the child."
"You are right, brother. He shall stay," said the Indian.
And Xavier was not consulted. He stayed. But his was a face of sore
disappointment when we left him with Philip at the cottage,--"to guard
with your life, if need be!" said I, in going. And thus gave him a
sense of responsibility and peril to cheer his bitter inaction.
It had been snowing all day, but lightly. After nightfall there blew
up a fitful wind, now fierce, now breathless. At one moment the air
would be thick with drift, and the great blasts would buffet us in the
teeth. At another, there would seem to be in all the dim-glimmering
world no movement and no breathing but our own. It was far past
midnight when we came upon the hill-slope overlooking Grand Pre
village; and the village was asleep. Not a light was visible save in
one long row of cottages at the extreme east end, close by the water
side. Thither, at our orders, the villagers had quietly withdrawn
before midnight. The rash New England men lay sleeping, with
apparently no guards set. If there were sentries, then the storm had
driven them indoors.
The great gusts swirled and roared past their windows, piling the drift
more deeply about their thresholds. If any woke, they turned perchance
luxuriously in their beds and listened to the blasts, and praised God
that the Acadian peasants builded their houses warm. They had no
thought of the ruin that drew near through the drifts and the whirling
darkness. I have never heard that one of them was kept awake with
strange terrors, or had any prevision, or made special searching of his
soul before sleep.
It would seem as if Heaven must have forgotten them for a little. Or
perhaps the saints remembered that the English were not a people to
take advice kindly, or to change their plans for any sort of warning
that might seem to them irregular. But among us French, that night,
there was one at least who was granted some prevision.
Just before the two columns separated, Tamin came to me and wrung my
hand. He was with de Villiers' detachment. There was a certain awe, a
something of farewell, in his manner, and it moved my heart mightily.
But I clapped him on the back. "No forebodings, now, my friend," said
I; "keep a good heart and your eyes wide open."
"The snow is deep to-night, Monsieur!" said he gravely, as he turned
away.
"True," I answered; "but the apple trees are at the other end of the
village; and who ever heard that the Black Abbe was a prophet?"
Even as I spoke my heart smote me, and I would have given much to wring
the loyal fellow's hand once more. But I feared to add to his
depression.
My men all knew their parts before I led them from the camp. Once in
the village, only a few whispered orders were necessary. Squad by
squad, dim forms like phantoms in the drift, filed off stealthily to
their places.
I, with two dozen others, Big Etienne at my elbow, took post about the
centre of the village, where three large houses, joined together,
seemed to promise a rough bout. Then we waited. Saints, how long we
waited, as it seemed! The snow invaded us. But the apple trees were
many, and we leaned against them, gnawing our fingers, and protecting
our primings with the long flaps of our coats. At last there came a
musket-shot from the far-off lane, and straightway thereupon a crashing
volley, followed by a dreadful outcry--shouts and screams, and the
yelling of the Indians.
Our waiting was done. We sprang forward to dash in the nearest
windows, to batter down the nearest doors. Lights gleamed. Then came
crashes of musketry from the points where I had placed my several
parties, and I knew they had found their posts. The fight once begun,
there was little room for generalship in that driven and shrieking
dark. I could see but what was before me. In those three houses there
were brave men, that I knew. Springing from sleep in their shirts,
they seemed to wake full armed, and were already firing upon us as we
tried to force our way in through the windows. The main door of the
biggest house we strove to carry with a rush, but that, too, belched
lead and fire in our faces, and we came upon a barrier of household
stuff just inside. By the light of a musket flash, I saw a huge,
sour-faced fellow in his shirt, standing on the barrier, with his
gun-stock swung back. I made at him nimbly with my sword. I reached
him, and the uplifted weapon fell somewhere harmless in the dark. The
next moment I felt a sword point, thrusting blindly, furrow across my
temple, tearing as if it were both hot and dull, and at the same
instant I was dragged out again into the snow. Three of us, however,
as I learned afterwards, stayed on the floor within.
It was Big Etienne who had saved me. I was dizzy for a moment with my
wound, the blood throbbing down in a flood; but I ordered all to fall
back under the shelter of the apple trees, and keep up a steady firing
upon the doors and windows. The order was passed along, and in a few
minutes the firing was steady. Then winding my kerchief tightly about
my temples, I bade Big Etienne knot it for me, and for the time I
thought no more of that sword-scratch.
Though my men were heavily outnumbered, the enemy could not guess how
few we were. Moreover, we had the shelter of the trees, and our fire
had their windows to converge upon. We held them, therefore, with no
great loss, except for those that fell in the first onslaught, which
was bloody for both sides. Presently a tongue of flame shot up, and I
knew that they had set fire to one of the houses on the lane. The
shouting there, and the yelling, died away, but a scattering crackle of
musketry continued. Then another building burst into flame. The night
grew all one red, wavering glare. As the smoke clouds blew this way
and that, the shadows rose and fell. The squalls of drift blurred
everything; but in the lulls men stood out suddenly as simple targets,
and were shot with great precision. Yet we had shelter enough, too;
for every house, every barn and shed, cast a block of thick darkness on
its northern side. Then men began to gather in upon the centre. Here
a squad of my own fellows--yelling and cheering with triumph, if they
were Indians, quietly exultant if they were veterans--would come from
the conquest of a cottage. There a knot of half-clad English, fleeing
reluctantly and firing over their shoulders as they fled, would arrive,
beat at the doors before us, and be let in hastily under our fire,
leaving always some of their number on the threshold. It was like no
other fight I had ever fought, for the strange confusion of it; or
perhaps my wound confused me yet a little. At length a louder yelling,
a sharper firing, a wilder and mightier clamour, arose in the direction
of the lane. Our own firing slackened. All eyes turned to watch a
little band which, fighting furiously, was forcing its way hither
through a swarm of assailants. "The vinegar-faces can fight!" I cried,
"but we must stop them. Come on, lads!" And with a score at my back I
rushed to meet the new-comers. Rushed, did I say? But I should have
said struggled and floundered. For, the moment we were clear of the
trampled area, and found ourselves in the open fields, the snow went
nearly to our middles. Yet we met the gallant little band, which
having shaken off its assailants, now fell upon us with a welcome of
most earnest curses. Men speak of the bloody ferocity of a duel in a
dark room. It is nothing to the blind, blundering, reckless, snarling
rage of that struggle in the deep snow, and under that swimming
delusive light. Having emptied my musket and my pistols, I threw them
all away, and fell to playing nimbly with my sword. Big Etienne I saw
close beside me, swinging his musket by the barrel. Suddenly its
deadly sweep missed its object. The tall warrior fell headforemost,
carried off his uneasy balance by the force of the blow. Ere he could
flounder up again a foeman was upon him with uplifted sword. But with
a mighty lunge, hurling myself forward from the drift that held my
feet, I reached the man's neck with my own point, and fell at his feet.
He came down in a heap on top of me. His knee, as I suppose it was,
struck me violently on the head. Perhaps I was already weakened by
that cut upon the temple. The noise all died suddenly away. I
remember thinking how warm the snow felt against my face. And the rest
of the fight was no concern of mine.