My hurt proved more serious than I had looked for, and the day after my
escape I was in a high fever. General Wolfe himself, having heard of my
return, sent to inquire after me. He also was ill, and our forces were
depressed in consequence; for he had a power to inspire them not given
to any other of our accomplished and admirable generals. He forbore to
question me concerning the state of the town and what I had seen; for
which I was glad. My adventure had been of a private nature, and such I
wished it to remain. The general desired me to come to him as soon as I
was able, that I might proceed with him above the town to reconnoitre.
But for many a day this was impossible, for my wound gave me much pain
and I was confined to my bed.
Yet we on the Terror of France served our good general, too; for one
dark night, when the wind was fair, we piloted the remaining ships
of Admiral Holmes’s division above the town. This move was made on my
constant assertion that there was a way by which Quebec might be taken
from above; and when General Wolfe made known my representations to his
general officers, they accepted it as a last resort; for otherwise what
hope had they? At Montmorenci our troops had been repulsed, the mud
flats of the Beauport shore and the St. Charles River were as good as
an army against us; the Upper Town and citadel were practically
impregnable; and for eight miles west of the town to the cove and river
at Cap Rouge there was one long precipice, broken in but one spot; but
just there, I was sure, men could come up with stiff climbing as I had
done. Bougainville came to Cap Rouge now with three thousand men, for
he thought that this was to be our point of attack. Along the shore from
Cap Rouge to Cape Diamond small batteries were posted, such as that of
Lancy’s at Anse du Foulon; but they were careless, for no conjectures
might seem so wild as that of bringing an army up where I had climbed.
“Tut, tut,” said General Murray, when he came to me on the Terror of
France, after having, at my suggestion, gone to the south shore opposite
Anse du Foulon, and scanned the faint line that marked the narrow cleft
on the cliff side--“tut, tut, man,” said he, “‘tis the dream of a cat or
a damned mathematician.”
Once, after all was done, he said to me that cats and mathematicians
were the only generals.
With a belligerent pride Clark showed the way up the river one evening,
the batteries of the town giving us plunging shots as we went, and ours
at Point Levis answering gallantly. To me it was a good if most anxious
time: good, in that I was having some sort of compensation for my own
sufferings in the town; anxious, because no single word came to me of
Alixe or her father, and all the time we were pouring death into the
place.
But this we knew from deserters, that Vaudreuil was Governor and Bigot
Intendant still; by which it would seem that, on the momentous
night when Doltaire was wounded by Madame Cournal, he gave back the
governorship to Vaudreuil and reinstated Bigot. Presently, from an
officer who had been captured as he was setting free a fire-raft upon
the river to run among the boats of our fleet, I heard that Doltaire had
been confined in the Intendance from a wound given by a stupid sentry.
Thus the true story had been kept from the public. From him, too,
I learned that nothing was known of the Seigneur Duvarney and his
daughter; that they had suddenly disappeared from the Intendance, as if
the earth had swallowed them; and that even Juste Duvarney knew nothing
of them, and was, in consequence, much distressed.
This officer also said that now, when it might seem as if both the
Seigneur and his daughter were dead, opinion had turned in Alixe’s
favour, and the feeling had crept about, first among the common folk
and afterwards among the people of the garrison, that she had been used
harshly. This was due largely, he thought, to the constant advocacy
of the Chevalier de la Darante, whose nephew had married Mademoiselle
Georgette Duvarney. This piece of news, in spite of the uncertainty of
Alixe’s fate, touched me, for the Chevalier had indeed kept his word to
me.
At last all of Admiral Holmes’s division was got above the town, with
very little damage, and I never saw a man so elated, so profoundly
elated as Clark over his share in the business. He was a daredevil,
too; for the day that the last of the division was taken up the river,
without my permission or the permission of the admiral or any one else,
he took the Terror of France almost up to Bougainville’s earthworks in
the cove at Cap Rouge and insolently emptied his six swivels into them,
and then came out and stood down the river. When I asked what he was
doing--for I was now well enough to come on deck--he said he was going
to see how monkeys could throw nuts; when I pressed him, he said he had
a will to hear the cats in the eaves; and when I became severe, he added
that he would bring the Terror of France up past the batteries of the
town in broad daylight, swearing that they could no more hit him than
a woman could a bird on a flagstaff. I did not relish this foolish
bravado, and I forbade it; but presently I consented, on condition that
he take me to General Wolfe’s camp at Montmorenci first; for now I felt
strong enough to be again on active service.
Clark took the Terror of France up the river in midday, running
perilously close to the batteries; and though they pounded at him
petulantly, foolishly angry at his contemptuous defiance, he ran the
gauntlet safely, and coming to the flagship, the Sutherland, saluted
with his six swivels, to the laughter of the whole fleet and his own
profane joy.
“Mr. Moray,” said General Wolfe, when I saw him, racked with pain,
studying a chart of the river and town which his chief engineer had just
brought him, “show me here this passage in the hillside.”
I did so, tracing the plains of Maitre Abraham, which I assured him
would be good ground for a pitched battle. He nodded; then rose, and
walked up and down for a time, thinking. Suddenly he stopped, and fixed
his eyes upon me.
“Mr. Moray,” said he, “it would seem that you, angering La Pompadour,
brought down this war upon us.” He paused, smiling in a dry way, as if
the thought amused him, as if indeed he doubted it; but for that I cared
not, it was an honour I could easily live without.