Deeds that Won the Empire | Page 8

is described
as being 100 fathoms in length, and its appearance, as it came drifting
on the current, a mass of roaring fire, discharging every instant a
shower of missiles, was terrifying. But the British sailors dashed down
upon it, broke the huge raft into fragments, and towed them easily
ashore. "Hang it, Jack," one sailor was heard to say to his mate as he
tugged at the oar, "didst thee ever take hell in tow before?"
Time was on Montcalm's side, and unless Wolfe could draw him from
his impregnable entrenchments and compel him to fight, the game was
lost. When the tide fell, a stretch of shoal a few score yards wide was
left bare on the French side of the Montmorenci. The slope that covered
this was steep, slippery with grass, crowned by a great battery, and
swept by the cross-fire of entrenchments on either flank. Montcalm, too,
holding the interior lines, could bring to the defence of this point twice
the force with which Wolfe could attack it. Yet to Wolfe's keen eyes
this seemed the one vulnerable point in Montcalm's front, and on July
31 he made a desperate leap upon it.
The attack was planned with great art. The British batteries thundered
across the Montmorenci, and a feint was made of fording that river
higher up, so as to distract the attention of the French, whilst the boats
of the fleet threatened a landing near Quebec itself. At half-past five the
tide was at its lowest, and the boat-flotilla, swinging round at a signal,
pulled at speed for the patch of muddy foreshore already selected. The

Grenadiers and Royal Americans leaped ashore in the mud,
and--waiting neither for orders, nor leaders, nor supports--dashed up
the hill to storm the redoubt. They reached the first redoubt, tumbled
over it and through it, only to find themselves breathless in a
semi-circle of fire. The men fell fast, but yet struggled fiercely upwards.
A furious storm of rain broke over the combatants at that moment, and
made the steep grass-covered slope as slippery as mere glass. "We
could not see half-way down the hill," writes the French officer in
command of the battery on the summit. But through the smoke and the
driving rain they could still see the Grenadiers and Royal Americans in
ragged clusters, scarce able to stand, yet striving desperately to climb
upwards. The reckless ardour of the Grenadiers had spoiled Wolfe's
attack, the sudden storm helped to save the French, and Wolfe
withdrew his broken but furious battalions, having lost some 500 of his
best men and officers.
The exultant French regarded the siege as practically over; but Wolfe
was a man of heroic and quenchless tenacity, and never so dangerous as
when he seemed to be in the last straits. He held doggedly on, in spite
of cold and tempest and disease. His own frail body broke down, and
for the first time the shadow of depression fell on the British camps
when they no longer saw the red head and lean and scraggy body of
their general moving amongst them. For a week, between August 22
and August 29, he lay apparently a dying man, his face, with its curious
angles, white with pain and haggard with disease. But he struggled out
again, and framed yet new plans of attack. On September 10 the
captains of the men-of-war held a council on board the flagship, and
resolved that the approach of winter required the fleet to leave Quebec
without delay. By this time, too, Wolfe's scanty force was diminished
one-seventh by disease or losses in battle. Wolfe, however had now
formed the plan which ultimately gave him success, though at the cost
of his own life.
From a tiny little cove, now known as Wolfe's Cove, five miles to the
west of Quebec, a path, scarcely accessible to a goat, climbs up the face
of the great cliff, nearly 250 feet high. The place was so inaccessible
that only a post of 100 men kept guard over it. Up that track, in the

blackness of the night, Wolfe resolved to lead his army to the attack on
Quebec! It needed the most exquisite combinations to bring the
attacking force to that point from three separate quarters, in the gloom
of night, at a given moment, and without a sound that could alarm the
enemy. Wolfe withdrew his force from the Montmorenci, embarked
them on board his ships, and made every sign of departure. Montcalm
mistrusted these signs, and suspected Wolfe would make at least one
more leap on Quebec before withdrawing. Yet he did not in the least
suspect Wolfe's real designs. He discussed, in fact, the very plan Wolfe
adopted, but dismissed it by saying, "We need not suppose that the
enemy