The Death of My Country Page 7

  We did not have to wait long. Soldiers appeared, some carrying unconscious men, others helping those who could just manage to walk on their own, and some bearing dead companions. The screams of those in pain were terrible. We followed to Hôtel-Dieu, and all the while I searched the faces of the wounded, praying I would not see Étienne or Chegual.

  Some of the sisters were weeping over brothers or fathers who were dead or near death. Père Resche prayed with one man, then another. The smell of battle, of smoke and blood and sweat were everywhere.

  Mère Esther touched my arm. I should begin with those I might be able to save, she said quietly.

  Save? I could do nothing here! What could I do for men whose limbs and bodies were so torn and shattered?

  “Do what you can, Geneviève,” she whispered. “It is all any of us will do this day.”

  I tended the wounded as well as I could. Now and again M. Laparre would call to me to assist him. I hardened myself to the screams of men whose legs or arms he was amputating, although it was sickening and pitiful. The men I nursed were faceless to me.

  All the while there were only two faces for which I watched, and with each passing hour I thanked le bon Dieu that I saw neither.

  Très tard

  I returned to the house and took off my moccasins and the rest of my Abenaki clothing. It is now in my chest. I know that it is only clothing, as are the familiar garments I once again wear, but somehow it is as though I have put a piece of myself away with them. I must not think or write of such foolishness.

  Word has spread through the town that Montcalm is wounded. Who will lead the army? How will the town be defended without him?

  Le 14 septembre 1759

  Quelques heures avant l’aurore

  One of the sisters shook me awake this night and gave me a basket, saying that M. Laparre wanted me to go to the house of M. Arnoux, the apothecary, and bring back all the camphor, yarrow and poppy that I could find.

  I stepped over sleeping men and walked past dying men, saying a prayer for the safety of Étienne and my brother. The low moans of those in pain rose up in the darkness. Outside, the sky was sparkling with stars and the air was fresh and sweet, just as though nothing at all had happened, just as though Québec was still safe. I entered the apothecary’s house and saw that it was filled with French officers. One of them raised a finger to his lips. Someone must be in the bedroom beyond.

  Quietly, so as not to cause a disturbance, I found what M. Laparre had asked for and filled the basket. It was then I saw that many of the officers were openly weeping. From the room came voices, one of which was M. Arnoux’s.

  “You are dying, monsieur. You have only hours.”

  “So much the better,” came the weak reply. “I am happy I shall not live to see the surrender of Québec.”

  I respectfully asked one of the officers who it was that lay within, that I might say a prayer for him.

  “Ah, mademoiselle,” he said, his tears running freely. “It is Général Montcalm. He was wounded this morning on the field of battle, and although with help he was able to ride his horse back into the town …” He shook his head.

  I crept from the house and brought M. Laparre the medicines. I have prayed for Chegual and for Étienne. And for Général Montcalm. There is nothing to do but wait and fight the despair that tries to rise up in my heart.

  Le matin

  We have been abandoned to the enemy. The army is gone and with it Vaudreuil. Sacré cowards!

  Général Montcalm has died.

  Pendant la nuit

  It was done so quickly, with none of the tributes that should have been paid a great officer. A coffin was hastily constructed by one of the Ursulines’ old servants, a man called Bonhomme Michel. Général Montcalm’s body was placed inside it. It was decided that the safest place for his remains would be right inside the Ursuline monastery, where an exploding shell had created a deep hole in the chapel floor.

  At nine o’clock this night the coffin was carried slowly through the street followed by Commandant de Ramezay and a military escort. With the others I went to the chapel and stood with my head bowed as Père Resche said the prayers by torchlight. Libera me, Dominum. Then we left the général’s coffin alone in the chapel with the soldiers who would cover it with earth.

  Now, late this night, I cannot help but think of Montcalm, whose body had to be buried in secret. What sort of men are these British, if it was necessary to hide Montcalm away? What might they have done to his remains? And what will they do to us if they take the town?

  Le 15 septembre 1759

  The remaining militia are deserting the town, they say, and many of our Abenaki allies are gone. People are calling for Commandant de Ramezay to surrender. I hope that Chegual and Étienne, they who would never desert, will come soon.

  Le 18 septembre 1759

  Québec has surrendered to the British. I no longer believe in miracles.

  Plus tard

  The British army has entered the town. Their flag now flies over us. I have taken knives and hidden one in each of my pockets. If my brother were here, he would defend us, and the helpless wounded for whom we care, as would Étienne.

  Where can they be?

  Le 19 septembre 1759

  When the wind blows off the battlefield where still so many bodies lie, all I can smell is death.

  Le 21 septembre 1759

  The Ursuline sisters have returned to their monastery at last. Mme Claire and I went with them to be of help. It should have given them great joy. It should have been a time for prayer and thanksgiving, but instead the convent is to be occupied by the British! Their Général Wolfe is dead and an officer called Général James Murray now commands the army. He has ordered all this.

  I am ill with worry.

  Le 22 septembre 1759

  The only happiness I can write of is that a couple — a certain Marie-Louise Pepin and Jean-Pierre Massal — have been wed in the Ursuline chapel.

  As for other matters, Mme Claire has made the decision to help the sisters at the monastery hospital that will be set up. I have considered feigning illness, weakness and even madness rather than give help to the enemy. For they are my enemies, these barbares.

  If I do not soon hear word of my brother and Étienne, I fear I will go mad.

  Le 23 septembre 1759

  We are expected to swear loyalty to the British king. If we do so, we will be given soldiers’ provisions. I will never do that. I will starve first.

  Le 26 septembre 1759

  No word. I have no heart to write.

  Le 30 septembre 1759

  Can we be more betrayed than this? The British soldiers have taken all manner of fine goods from the intendant’s storehouse. Hosiery, firearms, clothing, gold and silver laces, clocks — clocks! — all these things the cochon Bigot was hoarding for himself while the people of this town have done with so little all this time.

  No word of Étienne or my brother.

  Octobre 1759

  Le 1er octobre 1759

  No word.

  Le 2 octobre 1759

  The British held what they called Divine Service in the Ursuline Chapel today. This they will do on Wednesdays and Sundays from now on, Mère Esther has told us. Some of the merchants, men I scarcely know, were in attendance. Huguenots! Have they been practising their Protestant religion here all along?

  It is all inconceivable.

  Le 5 octobre 1759

  What has happened can scarcely be believed. The entire world has turned upside down. The Ursuline monastery is filled with the vile Scots in their stupide skirts! The bottom floor will be used as a military hospital for the men. Général Murray will have his headquarters in the parlour and the sisters will be accorded their privacy on the upper floor. How generous of him.

  Mère Esther has said that all will be treated with equal kindness, with the same tenderness with which we would treat our own people. All are the same in God’s eyes.

  Not in my ey
es.

  Pendant la nuit

  I will not nurse the enemy, the Scots animals whose presence defiles the monastery. I will ignore the requests of the British Doctor Russell whom we have been told will be in charge. There. I have written it down and nothing can make me change my mind. None of them will receive a kind touch from me.

  I have shut the door upon my conscience today and turned from any task that involves the enemy. That foul work I leave to the others who have the stomach for it. I will do nothing to ease their suffering.

  Le 6 octobre 1759

  I thank le bon Dieu with every fibre of my being. Only now, after fearful hours of work and worry may I write this. Chegual, although badly wounded, is here with me at the monastery hospital at last. Two Abenaki warriors, men who would not normally be in the town, brought him to the monastery. He wanted to come here to die in the presence of his sister, said one of the men as they left.

  I screamed for someone to help me, for anyone to help me. One of the surgeons shook his head and said that I should make Chegual as comfortable as I could. With that injury there was little hope.

  His skin was grey from loss of blood. He had taken a terrible wound in his thigh, and the muscle was slashed to the bone. But someone, perhaps one of the warriors, had tied a tourniquet around his leg and now the bleeding had diminished to a slow ooze.

  I stared at my brother and was filled with such rage that surely everyone in the room must see it blazing in me. I will not lose you! I hissed at him. Then, alone — for clearly they thought it was time wasted — I cleansed the wound and stitched it, and bound it with herbs. He had other wounds, smaller ones, and those I cleansed as well. I wrapped a blanket around him and said a prayer to St. Jude. There was nothing more I could do. All day I stayed at Chegual’s side to make certain there was no bleeding or fever, at least not yet.

  Étienne is still outside the town walls, but so are many other men, I have been told. That gives me hope.

  Tard

  I dare not leave Chegual, in spite of both Mère Esther’s and Mme Claire’s protests. If I were to be asleep at the house and —

  No. Nothing will happen to him. Not if I am here.

  Le 7 octobre 1759

  Chegual is sleeping now. He awoke and spoke to me and was able to take a bit of bread and broth.

  He made light of his wound, saying, “It is only a scratch, Geneviève. How can I not heal when it is your hands that have seen to it?” Then he raised himself up on one elbow and stared at the wounded men — the enemy — that surrounded him.

  “What of Étienne?” I asked him in Abenaki. “Did you see him?”

  “He is well,” Chegual assured me, and said that it would take more than a man dressed like a woman to stop Étienne. One of the sisters called to me then, and so I stood, but not before I kissed Chegual’s forehead and whispered that he would get well and his leg would be whole again.

  Then I put my hands together, closed my eyes and prayed harder than I have ever prayed in my life that Chegual would heal quickly and that Étienne was safe. When I opened my eyes, I noticed that one of the Scots was watching me. His left hand was wrapped in a filthy, blood-soaked cloth. I turned away from him, fighting the anger that was rising in me. How dare that sauvage with hair the colour of a carrot stare while I prayed!

  Now I sit on the floor, a blanket over my shoulders, trying to compose myself for what sleep I may be able to get. I have felt Chegual’s forehead. It is not overly warm and he is resting peacefully. Again the skirted sauvage observed what I did with no care for our privacy. He continues to stare as I write this.

  I suppose he knows no better and is to be pitied.

  Le 9 octobre 1759

  I have examined Chegual’s wound and although sadly there is no pus — pus naturally being a sign that the ill humours are draining — the flesh is cool and not swollen. My mind now is filled with worrisome thoughts of Étienne, but I cannot give up hope.

  Le 10 octobre 1759

  I roll bandages. I clean and cook. I will not touch the scum by whom I am surrounded. Chegual was feverish and so I gave him yarrow tea to help him sweat.

  Le 12 octobre 1759

  Étienne is dead.

  Le 14 octobre 1759

  I write of Étienne’s death only because he must not be forgotten.

  They brought in his body two days ago, saying that he had been wounded in a skirmish only the night before. I wept until were no more tears within me. I hate the British. We buried Étienne in Hôtel-Dieu’s cemetery.

  At first Mme Claire would not let me see him. She felt that it would be best to remember him as he was. “I must see him one last time,” I said, and so I went to the room where our dead lay.

  He was so still and white.

  I washed his hands and face and combed his hair, trying not to look at the wound that had killed him. Such a small wound, such a small thing to have taken him from us. For a long while I sat with him, thinking of the things we had done and what we would now never do. When men came to take him and the rest of the dead for burial, I can recall thinking that he should have better than a muddy hole in the ground. He should have had his life.

  At least there was a casket. Mme Claire had Bonhomme Michel quickly build it out of the big armoire in her bedroom. I laid a pillow and then a soft, clean blanket inside the casket. When they placed him in it, I wrapped the blanket around Étienne, forcing myself to look at his face so that I would never forget this moment. Then we followed as the men carried his casket and other bodies to the cemetery. I did not listen as Père Segard said the prayers over him. I did not watch as they lowered the casket into the ground.

  My cross, that I gave him for luck, for the love of le bon Dieu, is there with him.

  Pendant la nuit

  I did not want to tell Chegual of Étienne’s death, but I did. My brother said nothing at first, and then I saw pain — a pain greater than what his wound causes him — twist his face. I thought I had no more tears, but I was wrong. I wept again for our loss, for our Étienne. Chegual reached out and took my hand.

  “Dry your tears, my sister,” he said. “He died a warrior’s death. That is a good thing.”

  I was sobbing now, and a few of the older sisters who do not give way to such weakness and emotion were casting looks my way. I did not care.

  “But I miss him so,” I said to Chegual, and he squeezed my hand, holding it until I was able to control myself. I wiped my eyes with my apron and straightened my back. It was then that I saw — yet again! — the rude Scot watching us. I wanted to scream at him, to slap his face, and it was only Chegual holding onto my hand very tightly, knowing my feelings, that stopped me.

  I can scarcely believe what happened next. The Scot nodded his head to me, his face serious, and said something. I have no idea what it was or even if he was speaking to me or to himself, for he spoke a horrible language that made no sense at all.

  It was probably some foul, cruel remark. I have put it from my mind.

  Le 19 octobre 1759

  Most of the British ships are gone, having sailed yesterday. I could hear them firing their cannons twenty-one times. Only a few vessels remain, they say, among them the small ships Porcupine and Racehorse.

  How confident the British must be.

  Le 21 octobre 1759

  Today was the feast of Ste. Ursula and a special Mass was said. There is a statue here of Ste. Ursula with an arrow in her hand. How often I have looked upon that statue. She died a martyr, the arrow being a symbol of her holy death.

  I would never compare myself to a saint, and yet with the death of Étienne, I too am pierced with loneliness.

  Le 24 octobre 1759

  It takes all my will to even write one word today. How I miss him. You were a hero to me, Étienne.

  Le 25 octobre 1759

  I went to the chapel tonight and stood by the grave of Général Montcalm. “They are here,” I whispered. “You died and so did not have to see it, but we will see them every
day until we too are gone. Québec is no longer French. It is British.”

  I am not certain what I expected to happen. Nothing, I suppose.

  Étienne.

  Le 26 octobre 1759

  Word has come of a horrible, sickening thing. Rangers have attacked and burned the St. Francis mission in an act of revenge. They killed our people and took others prisoner, their fate being so hideous that I cannot bring myself to write it. I did not know these Abenaki, these men, women and children, but still I wept.

  Chegual’s rage was unspeakable.

  Avant l’aurore

  “What if I had taken you there?” Chegual whispered to me last night in the darkness.

  “But you did not,” I answered him.

  “We could be dead now. The Rangers might have taken you and —”

  I put my fingers over his lips. “But it did not happen. It was not our time to die. Now sleep,” I told him.

  I know the Scot was listening to us as he always does. I could see his eyes glittering. Did it please him that innocent people were made to suffer in such a way?

  Le 27 octobre 1759

  Today began much the same as the others, with floors to be washed with vinegar and food to be cooked. Then, as I carried an armful of bandages to where M. Laparre was working, I heard him speak.

  “It must come off.”

  He was addressing an officer, one who spoke French, who was standing next to the Scot who stares so. Their Doctor Russell seemed to be in agreement. When M. Laparre picked up his screw tourniquet, the Scot shook his head and said something to the officer. He spoke in their barbaric, incomprehensible language which sounds even worse than English. But the meaning was clear. He was refusing to have his hand amputated.

  The officer answered him and again the meaning was clear, for he spoke as one very used to commanding. I set down the bandages and turned away. What did I care for any of this?