Holla Ronald

Ronald Holla - Second Place Winner - Adults: Fiction
Cornwall Public Library 2015 Annual Writing Contest

He is Dead
"It's your fault!"
John Paul glared at Thayendiaga over the flames of their fire. The sounds of
celebration could still be heard from the nearby town, but John was not interested.
Instead his world had shrunk to the leathery face of the Mohawk sachem returning
his gaze.
"All I did was to set up the situation," Thayendiaga replied. "You were still
the person with the free will, the choice to fire or not."
"You're the one who brought me here," John replied. "Without your
intervention, I wouldn't have been on the cliff near the Samos battery waiting for the
Scottish soldiers. I wouldn't have been here at all.
"I actually fired - and killed someone. Then a lot more died because of me -
because of me."
John looked down at his hands. "All I originally wanted to do was to see
history as it actually happened. Why did I ever listen to you?"
The Mohawk looked at him with a stoic face, revealing nothing of his
innermost thoughts. "But you made the choice to get involved.
"Didn't you try to warn the commanders that this day was coming?"
"Try! You bet I did. All I got was the sobriquet, the nickname, Cassandra.
Even Montcalm didn't believe me."
The Mohawk eyed the Canadirn carefully. "So why did you warn them?"
1

John nodded slowly. "I had to do something. Look, I think those Frenchies
from France are snobs. Told me that we didn't know how to fight - me, a serving
member of the SD & G Highlanders. What they know about military strategy we
covered in the first two weeks of my first military course.
"But after I had been sent up with the militia to scout out the south shore of
the river." His voice trailed off.
"Where did les anglais get off nailing that priest to the barn door? Or burning
the entire village just because old Lapierre decided to defend his house?"
"But you knew that they were going to do those things." the Mohawk
interrupted. "You told me that you'd studied this war and specifically this
campaign."
John Paul said nothing, instead throwing another log onto the fire. The
flames flared up and a sudden shift of wind blew smoke into his face. He coughed,
but did not turn away.
"Yeah, well, I guess seeing Lapierre scalped and his body lying on the ground
all mutilated and all: I just snapped." He sensed a presence behind him and turned
to see a familiar face.
"Claude, comment ca va?"
"Bien. Why aren't you celebrating with the rest of us? Les anglais are pulling
up anchor and moving down river. And after all, aren't you the hero of the day?"
John shook his head. "Non, I was just lucky. I was in the right place at the'
right time."
Thyendiaga smiled. "There is no such thing as luck. It was meant to be."
2

Claude interrupted. "There are reports Bougainvllle's got some explaining to
do. I heard from a friend in the troupe de la marine that Vergor claimed he didn't
know about Bougainville canceling the relief convoy."
"Douglas was saying the same thing." John replied. "1 heard Vergor was
wounded pretty bad. It's not the first time he's been in a difficult spot."
Claude sat down on one of the logs around the fire. "Not the first time?"
John wished he had shut up. That was a disadvantage of knowing the history
of this war and these campaigns as well as he did. "Fort Beausejour in '55. He
surrendered it"
Claude whistled. "And you - how did you know Bougainville had cancelled
the relief convoy? Your shot alerted the Samos battery in time."
He then looked at John Paul more closely. "What were you doing there?
Capitaine Villiers said he thought he had assigned you to the Beauport shore. We
missed you there this morning."
Theyendiaga answered before John could formulate a reply.
"It was what was meant to be. The spirits wanted it that way."
Claude made the sign of the cross: a gesture he always did when presented
with something unusual. His father, old Lapierre, had looked on things differently.
But then, several years of working in Ie pays d'en haut had taught Lapierre that the
Indians had powerful "gods" or spirits as well.
"I took a walk after Villiers told me he didn't believe me," John said to move
the conversation away from the talk about spirits. He might believe in them now:
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after all, he was here in '59, but he didn't want Claude to suspect him of being a
sorcerer.
"Believe you about what?"
John felt uneasy. He had said too much: Claude would not be any more
comfortable about his "visions" than he was about Indian spirits.
"Because Villiers didn't believe me when I said the enemy would try L'Anse au
Foulon. He thought they had already given up: said that I was being Cassandra
again."
Claude laughed, but there was a hint of uncertainty in his tone. "Not your
visions again," he replied. "Tell me you didn't have them again."
"What of it?" John snapped. "Have I ever been wrong? Did I not tell
everyone that the British would make it past the Gulf? That they would land on the
Ile d'Orleans and at Levis? That they would try the Beauport shore? Each time, no
one believed me. Told me that I was just a worrier. That with Montcalm here the
British were beat?
"If I hadn't gone to the Samos battery, they would have been on the Plains
this morning - and we would have been beaten by tonight."
Theyendiaga interrupted again. "You have restored the balance. You have
answered the dream."
Claude again made the sign of the cross. "What dream? What balance?"
John was exasperated with the Mohawk. Didn't he realize that he couldn't
tell everyone else what he knew? It had taken months for John to get accepted in
4

the normally tight group of the St Nicholas militia and now this dreamer was going
to ruin it all.
Theyendiaga looked first at John, and then turned to Claude. "He came to me
saying that he had had these dreams about the future: that he was worried about the
British. I suggested action would help cure him of these dreams."
Nice save Mohawk, John thought to himself.
"So, Jean. you were worried. All of us were when we saw those ships come
down the St Lawrence. There were so many," Claude replied, putting his hand on
John's shoulder.
"But Montcalm had held les anglais off all summer: this was their last
desperate gasp."
Let Claude wallow in his ignorance, John thought further to himself. He did
not realize just how lucky the French and Canadiens were.

He recalled last night well.

** *** ** Villers was exasperated with John. "Bon homme, this is the sixth time you've
tried to tell me how to run my troops. Mon Dieu, so you've been right once or twice:
so you can read maps and guess where the next thrust is coming from.
"But there is no way les anglais are going to try anything tonight: not with
Bougainville ready to pounce should one British soldier show his face near Quebec."
What could he do to make Villiers see, he asked himself. Villiers was a good
commander: he had been out in the wilderness; had forced George Washington to

5

surrender and admit he had killed Villiers younger brother. But Villiers felt that
Montcalm had matters in hand.
"Go report to the Beauport lines and rejoin your unit," Villiers said in-a tone
of dismissal. "And no, I will not pass your request on to Boulamarque. He has
enough on his mind without another warning from our own Cassandra."
Hearing that name told John Villiers would not hear any more this night. But
what could he do? He knew they were coming: they were waiting for the right tide
and the first boats would be in the water soon.
He tried to remember the details. Two Scottish soldiers with excellent
French: Simon Fraser and one other. They were the ones who fooled the battery
soldiers and stopped the French - no, our forces - from firing in time.
It would just take one shot - one shot of warning and one shout that they
were not the relief convoy. It could be done.
As he exited Villiers' quarters, he began to think and then stopped dead in his
tracks. Who would fire the shot? He hadn't been able to convince his own
commanding officer that he knew what was going to happen: and that shot wasn't
fired, he would be on the Plains tomorrow looking across at that thin red line ...
Hell no! But he could fire the shot That should be all that would be needed.
A warning shot just as Fraser or the other French-speaking soldier were trying to
convince the Samos battery sentries that they were the relief convoy. That and a
warning shout. No one would have to be killed and history would be changed.
Sorry, Capitaine de Villiers, I won't be reporting to the Beauport shore any
time soon, he said to himself.
6

As he began to make his way through the town to the Porte St Louis and the
Foulon Road, the heavy smells of burnt buildings assaulted his nose again. The siege
had to end with a minimum of lives lost. He could change history, but with little or
no bloodshed. Surely, Howe and Wolfe would give up if their subterfuge was
discovered. Their whole plan depended on surprise.
Once past the town walls, he breathed in anew the fresh country air. He
could see the campfires along the north shore of the assembled troupes de terre,
troupes de la marine and the militia to his left: Montcalm did have the larger
number of men at his command. All they would have to do would be to hang on for
a few more days and the siege would lift if only because the British would not want
to be stuck in the ice. His strategy was the best
Nearing L'Anse au Foulon, he could hear the sounds of the Guyenne battalion
under Vergor talking into the night John thought he was being silent, but a dark
figure suddenly appeared on the Foulon road.
"Qui vivet" was the challenge.
"Vive Ie roy. Jean Paul Bonhomme de fa milice de St Nicholas," he replied.
"Where are you going?"
"Message for the Samos Battery."
John could see the sentry lower his musket even as he noticed John has not
raised his. "Quiet night?" He asked.
The sentry shook his head. "A lot of boat traffic on the water. But les anglais
have been doing that for some time now."
7

John could hear voices mixed with laughter at the campfire behind the
sentry. He detected the accents of troupes de terre mingled with the patois of
Canada.
His attention went back to the sentry. The sentry's accent told the story: this
was a French soldier from France He signed for John to come over: he obviously
wanted to chat.
"I don't know why they stuck us up here," the soldier said, spitting out a wad
of tobacco with stained, black teeth. Up close, John noticed the man's sour sweat
odor that clung to a uniform more dirt than grey in the darkness. It had been a
while since this man had taken the care to clean his uniform.
"I think les anglais will be pulling out any day now: they don't want to get
experience your Canadian winter," the soldier continued. "Not that I wouldn't mind
it here: I've met a woman."
A common story the longer the French regulars stayed in Canada. John lay
odds that should this man survive the next couple of days; there would be one less
member of the Guyenne battalion returning to France.
"My commander told me to keep an eye out to ensure that they don't come
here," John replied in an attempt to be friendly.
"To make sure they don't come up here? He's a fool! Up this path - not even
a goat could make it up here," the soldier laughed, slapping John on the back.
"Maybe les anglais will grow wings and fly up on to the Plains."
"But why are their boats moving up and down the river?" John asked.
8

"To fool us into thinking they are coming here, while they prepare an attack
somewhere else - perhaps along the Charles:' the sentry replied. "Still, you better
get down to the battery - it's getting too dark to see your way clearly. Bonne
chance,"
Leaving the sentry and the inviting campfires behind. John continued down
the road to the creek separating Verger's men from the battery.
Walking with his musket he made his way through the long evening shadows
and remembered back to that day so long ago at Ogdensburg. The feel of the air was
different, of course: he could feel the cool night coming on and knew summer was
almost over. There was no smell of cars and exhaust - just unwashed bodies and the
strong odors of a latrine nearby.
He knew there was camaraderie around the campfires along the Beauport
shore: he had been called away from one of Henri's stories of horse races around the
parish. But there was also the real knowledge that some of those around the
campfire could be dead the next day or the day after that No matter how much re-
enactors tried to capture the experience of being a soldier of another time, they
were much too clean and much too healthy.
And they knew they were going to live the next day. The threat of death
really cleared the mind - and loosened the bowels as Claude had said.
It also helped to clarify the reason he was here.
The path was narrow, but before reaching the route to the battery, he went
off into the bush along the creek It was here that he would have to wait. Now, if he
could only ensure that he would remain awake.
9

John felt that a clump of trees was as good a spot as any to set up for the
night. He wanted to be ready although he didn't know which exactly direction the
first British boats would be coming from.
The tree's bark was rough, but presented him with enough of a support for
him to sit down against it. He tried to get comfortable and left his musket half-
cocked, ready to defend himself if need be. Now, all he could do was sit and wait.
The night deepened and the tree no longer seemed so friendly as John moved
a stiff body away from a particularly evil root who seemed designed with one
purpose: to cause him back pain. He really was getting too old for this stuff, he told
himself for the thousandth time, when he heard it.
The sound of an oar in the water.
Was this it? The sound was coming closer - and now there were more
sounds. Then he heard the voice.
"Qui vive?"
It was coming from the shore. The Samos battery sentries had noticed the
boats .
"... France."
"Quel regiment?"
••... Don't make noise! These are the nineteen boats from Cap Rouge ... "
The French of who ever was speaking was very good, John decided quickly
even as he picked up his musket and aimed it in the general direction of the voices
across the water.
10

Then he fired, crying out at the same time, "Au secours! Ils sont des Anglais!
Les Anglais s'en viennent."
He heard a groan of someone on the water, followed by a voice.
"Howe's been shot! Bloody hell! They know we're here. Fire."
Flashes pierced the pre-dawn twilight John could hear the whistle of the
balls as they whipped through the air above him. He continued shouting even as he
loaded his musket.
Then the battery's guns opened up, followed by the muskets from Verger's
battalion.
Battle had been joined.

---

Claude took his silence as a request for him to once again tell the details of
the day's fighting.
"It was a good thing that you were there," he said. "Your alert allowed us to
get enough men in place to deny them the cliffs and shoot down a good 500 or so.
I heard a rumor that Wolfe had been shot, but nobody confirmed it.
"Capitaine Villiers said you were the hero of the day."
John remembered the shooting, the flashes, and the sulphur smell that
greeted the sunrise of this morning. Yes, the British had not been able to form up on
the cliffs: instead, they had been shot like fish in a barrel. By the time Bougainville
had arrived, most of the British troops that had survived the initial barrage were
back on their transport boats trying to get back to their ships.

11

The flags for parley came after that and John watched as Montcalm greeted
General Monckton to negotiate for the dead and wounded.
Among those who had fallen in the abortive landing was Lt Colonel William
Howe. There was doubt he would live.
No more commander of the British Army during the opening phase of the
American Revolution. Or would there even be a revolution at all?
All because he had fired what he had hoped would be a warning shot
It was all the Mohawk's fault.