French and English: A Story of the Struggle in America

"We have to deal with an honourable foe, gentlemen," said the veteran, looking at those about him, "as you will know when I read to you his words. 'I owe it to humanity,' so writes M. de Montcalm, 'to summon you to surrender. At present I can restrain the savages, and make them observe the terms of a capitulation, as I might not have power to do under other circumstances; and the most obstinate defence on your part can only retard the capture of the place a few days, and endanger an unfortunate garrison which cannot be relieved, in consequence of the dispositions I have made. I demand a decisive answer within an hour.' That, gentlemen, is the message brought to us. What answer shall we return to our high-minded adversary?"

There was only one word in the mouths of all.

"No surrender! no surrender!" they called aloud, waving their swords in the air; and the cry was taken up by those without, and reached the soldiers upon the ramparts, and the welkin rang with the enthusiastic shout:

"No surrender! no surrender!"

By this time the Indians were swarming about close outside the ramparts, and hearing this cry and knowing its meaning, they looked up and gesticulated fiercely.

"You won't surrender, eh?" bawled in broken French an old Indian chief. "Fire away then and fight your best; for if we catch you after this, you shall get no quarter!"

The response to this threat was the heavy boom of the cannon as Fort William Henry discharged its first round of artillery.

For a moment it produced immense effect amongst the swarms of painted savages, who scuttled away yelling with fear; for though well used to the sound of musketry, and having considerable skill with firearms themselves, they had never heard the roar of big guns before, and the screaming of the shells as they whistled overhead filled them with terror and amaze.

They were intensely eager for the French guns to be got into position, and were a perfect nuisance to the regular soldiers, as they worked with intrepid industry at their trenches and mounds. But before long even the Indians were satisfied with the prolonged roar of artillery, which lasted day after day, day after day; whilst within their walls the brave but diminished garrison looked vainly for succour, and examined with a sinking heart their diminished store of ammunition and their cracked and overheated guns.

"It cannot go on long like this," the officers said one to the other. "What is the General doing over yonder? He must hear by the heavy firing what straits we are in. He knows the condition of the fort. He should risk and dare everything to come to our aid. If this fort is lost, then our western frontier has lost its only point of defence against the inroads of Indians and the encroachments of France."

A few days later and a cry went up from the walls, "A white flag! a white flag!" and for a moment a wild hope surged up in the hearts of the soldiers that the enemy had grown tired of the game of war, and had some proposal to make.

The messenger brought a letter. It was not from the French commander himself, though it was delivered with a courteous message from him. It had been found upon the body of a white man slain by the Indians a few days before, and brought to the French camp. The Marquis de Montcalm had read it, and sent it now to the person for whom it was intended.

"Give my thanks," said Monro, "to the Marquis for his courtesy, and tell him that it is a joy to me to have to do with so generous a foe."

But the letter thus received was one of evil omen to the hapless garrison. It came from General Webb, and repeated that, until reinforced from the provinces, he could do nothing for the garrison of Fort William Henry; and advised Colonel Monro to make the best terms that he could with the enemy, who were plainly too strong for him to withstand.

It was time indeed for the gallant little garrison to think of surrender. Men and officers stood in knots together gloomily surveying the scene.

"We have done what men can do," said Captain Pringle to his friends Fritz and Roche; "but where are we now? A third of our men are sick and wounded. Almost all our big guns are burst. The enemy's trenches are being pushed nearer and nearer, and there are still more of their guns to be brought to bear. Our wall is breached; I marvel they have not already made an assault. There is nothing for it but surrender, if we can obtain honourable terms of capitulation."

"Nay, rather let us die sword in hand and face to foe!" cried Roche, with a sudden burst of enthusiasm. "Let us make a last desperate sortie, and see if we cannot drive the enemy from their position. Anything is better than dying here like rats in a hole! A forlorn hope is better than none. Why should we not at least cut our way out to the free forest, if we cannot rout the enemy and drive them back whence they came?"

"The life of the free forest would mean death to those raw lads who have come out from England or from the provinces," said Fritz gravely. "It would be hardly more than a choice of deaths; and yet I would sooner die sword in hand, hewing my way to freedom, than cooped up between walls where every shot begins to tell, and where the dead can scarce be buried for the peril to the living."

And indeed the position of affairs was so deplorable that a council was held by Monro; and it was agreed that if any desired to make this last sortie, either for life and liberty for themselves, or in the last forlorn hope of driving the enemy from their position, it might be attempted; but if it failed, there was nothing for it but capitulation, if honourable terms could be had, or if not to die at their posts, fighting to the very last.

A cheer went up from the men when they heard these words. If they had well nigh lost hope, their courage was not quenched, and a large band volunteered for the sortie. Fritz and Roche were amongst these, but Pringle remained behind in the fort.

"I will stand by the Colonel and the sinking ship," he said. "It is but a choice of evils. I doubt if any of us will see the light of many more days. I prefer the chances of war to the unknown horrors of the forest filled with savages."

He laid a hand upon Roche's arm and looked affectionately into the boyish brave young face. Then he turned to Fritz.

"If you should get through, take care of the lad. You are a Ranger; you know the forest well. If any can escape safely thither, it will be you and such as you. But don't forsake the boy-don't let him fall alive into the hands of the Indians; kill him yourself sooner. And now fare well, and God bless you both: for I think that on this earth we shall meet no more."

"Nay, why think that?" cried Roche eagerly; "stranger things have happened before now than that we should all live to tell the tale of these days."

Pringle shook his head; whilst Fritz wrung his hand and said:

"At least remember this: if you should wish to have news of us, ask it of Rogers' Rangers, who are always to be heard of in these parts. If we escape, it is to Rogers we shall find our way. He will be glad enough to welcome us, and from any of his Rangers you will hear news of us if we ever reach his ranks."

There was no sleep for the fort that night. Indeed the hot summer nights were all too short for any enterprise to be undertaken then. The glow in the western sky had scarcely paled before there might have been seen creeping forth through the battered gateway file after file of soldiers, as well equipped as their circumstances allowed-silent, stealthy, eager for the signal which should launch them against the intrenched foe so close at hand.

But alas for them, they had foes wily, watchful, lynx-eyed, ever on the watch for some such movement. Hardly had they got clear of their protecting walls and ditches, when, with a horrid yell, hundreds and thousands of dusky Indians leaped up from the ground and rushed frantically towards them. The next moment the boom of guns overhead told that the French camp had been alarmed. The regular soldiers would be upon them in a few minutes, driving them back to the fort, killing and wounding, and leaving the Indians to butcher and scalp at their leisure. The fearful war whoop was ringing in their ears. The line wavered-broke; the men made a frantic rush backwards towards their lines.

"Don't fly!" cried Roche suddenly to Fritz, at whose side he marched; "let us cut our way through, or die doing it. It is death whichever way we turn. Let us die like men, with our faces and not our backs to the foe!"

"Come then!" cried Fritz, upon whom had fallen one of those strange bursts of desperate fury which give a man whilst it lasts the strength of ten.

With a wild bound he sprang forward, bursting through the ranks of Indians like the track of a whirlwind, scattering them right and left, hewing, hacking, cutting! Roche was just behind or at his side; the two seemed invulnerable, irresistible, possessed of some supernatural strength. The Indians in amaze gave way right and left, and turned their attention to the flying men, who were easier to deal with than this strange couple.

A shout went up that the devil was abroad, and the Indian, ever superstitious, shrank away from these stalwart figures, believing them to be denizens from some other world; whilst the French soldiers, who might have felt very differently, had not yet so far equipped themselves as to be ready to come out from their lines.

Fritz had marked his line with care. Only upon one small section between lake and forest was there any possible passage without peril from the French lines, and that was by skirting the head of the lake just where their own intrenched camp, now almost in ruins, gave them shelter.

The woodsman's and the Ranger's instinct kept true within him even in the confusion and darkness. He never deflected from his line.

"This way! this way!" he called to Roche in smothered tones, as they heard the sound of the fight growing fainter behind them. He took the lad's hand, and plunged into the marshy hollow. He knew that none would follow them there; the ground was too treacherous. But there was a path known to himself which he could find blindfold by day or night.

He pulled his comrade along with a fierce, wild haste, till at a certain point he paused. There was a little cavernous shelter in the midst of the morass, and here the pair sank down breathless and exhausted.

"We are saved!" gasped Roche, clasping his comrade by the hand.

"For the moment-yes," answered Fritz; "but what of afterwards?"

Chapter 2: Escape

Young Roche lay face downwards upon the rocky floor of the little cavern, great sobs breaking from him which he was unable to restrain. Fritz, with a stern, set face, sat beside another prostrate figure-that of a man who looked more dead than alive, and whose head and arm were wrapped in linen bandages soaked through and through with blood.

It was Captain Pringle, their friend and comrade in Fort William Henry, who had elected to remain with the garrison when the other two took part in a sortie and cut themselves a path to the forest. Had he remained with them, he might have fared better; he would at least have been spared the horrors of a scene which would now be branded forever upon his memory in characters of fire.

What had happened to that ill-fated fort Fritz and Roche knew little as yet. They had heard the tremendous firing which had followed whilst they remained in hiding during the day the dawn of which had seen the last desperate sortie. They had at night seen flames which spoke of Indian campfires all round the place, and from the complete cessation of firing after two they concluded that terms of surrender had been made. They had meant to wander deeper and deeper into the forest, out of reach of possible peril from prowling Indians; but they had been unable to tear themselves away without learning more of the fate of the hapless fort and its garrison.

At daybreak-or rather with the, first grey of dawn- they had crept through the brushwood as stealthily as Indians themselves, only to be made aware shortly that something horrible and terrible was going on. Yells and war whoops and the screech of Indian voices rose and clamoured through the silence of the forest, mingled with the shrieks of victims brutally massacred, and the shouts and entreaties of the French officers, who ran hither and thither seeking to restrain the brutal and savage treachery of their unworthy allies.

Roche had lost his head, and would have rushed madly upon the scene of bloodshed and confusion; and Fritz must needs have followed, for he was not one to let a comrade go to his death alone: but before they had proceeded far, they met their comrade Pringle dashing through the forest, covered with wounds, and pursued by half a dozen screeching Indians, and in a moment they had sprung to his rescue.

With a yell as fierce in its way as that of the Indians themselves they sprang upon the painted savages, and taking them unawares, they killed every one before the dusky and drunken sons of the forest had recovered from their surprise at being thus met and opposed.

But plainly there was no time to lose. The forest was ringing with the awful war whoop. Their comrade was in no state for further fighting; he was almost too far gone even for flight.

They seized him one by each arm; they dashed along through the tangled forest by an unfrequented track known to Fritz, half leading, half carrying him the while. The din and the horrid clamour grew fainter in their ears. No pursuing footsteps gave them cause to pause to defend themselves. The centre of excitement round the fort drew the human wolves, as carrion draws vultures. The forest was dim and silent and deserted as the fugitives pursued their way through it.

From time to time the wounded man dropped some words full of horror and despair. Young Roche, new to these fearful border wars, was almost overcome by this broken narrative, realizing the fearful fate which had overtaken so many of his brave comrades of the past weeks.

When at last they reached the little cave for which Fritz was heading, and where they felt that for the moment at least they were safe, he could only throw himself along the ground in an agony of grief and physical exhaustion: whilst the hardier Fritz bathed the wounds of their unfortunate comrade, binding them up with no small skill, and refreshing him with draughts of water from the pool hard by, which was all the sick man desired at this moment.

All three comrades were exhausted to the uttermost, and for a long while nothing broke the silence of the dim place save the long-drawn, gasping sobs of the lad. Gradually these died away into silence, and Fritz saw that both his companions slept-the fitful sleep of overwrought nature. Yet he was thankful even for that. Moving softly about he lighted a fire, and having captured one of the wild turkeys which were plentiful in the forest at that season, he proceeded to prepare a meal for them when they should awake.