This condition on their release gave rise to animated discussions among the prisoners. Eventually, the senior officer present raised his voice, responding for all. “We agree to your terms. We men of the
Shannon
will tell General Amherst we were released on the condition that we not come back to fight you.”
As they were leaving, Frank told Hector, “I made sure their senior officer knew about my relationship to Brigadier Lawrence.”
Ten days later guards observed what they had hoped they would never see again. On the horizon more than five hundred British troops in bright crimson were advancing on the settlement. Frank responded by raising one of their Union Jacks coupled with a green parley flag below it. At these signals the column of troops stopped. They were still one hundred and fifty yards from the embankment. After twenty minutes of no further movement, the
Rameurs
noticed one of the soldiers waving a green flag.
“They're accepting our parley!” Frank cried. “Hector, round up a guard of twenty armed men. Nola, I want you to come with me. We're going in front of the guard to a point halfway between us and that army.”
The
Rameur
parley group, in passable military formation but makeshift attire, walked to the midpoint. A similar British group, crisply uniformed in fine crimson, soon broke from their ranks and marched in tight formation to the meeting point.
Recognizing his uncle, Frank initiated the negotiations. “Welcome to Westmount, Brigadier Lawrence.”
The brigadier responded magnanimously. “I see you've raised the Union Jack, Frank. We finally have those scalawags under British authority. Well done, young man!”
Frank almost gasped at his uncle's callousness, but his voice remained calm. “We accept your authority in all our external relationships, but we reserve the right to set the rules for our own community. And as for calling these people scalawags, I'd like to introduce you to my wife, Nola.”
Nola stepped forward, curtsied, and said in pleasantly accented English, “That's a formidable army you have, Brigadier Lawrence. Congratulations. But please understand that I am
not
a scalawag. I can read and write in two languages, and I can draw and paint. And I don't appreciate being called by that name.” She stepped back.
Lawrence turned to look coldly at his nephew. “I see. May I ask what Anglican minister performed your marriage to this person, Frank?”
“Nola isn't an Anglican. She was brought up in the Catholic faith. In the absence of a regular priest, we were married by Chief Toomy, who is the properly constituted religious authority of the Mi'kmaq people.”
“Ah, good, then in the eyes of the law you aren't married at all. You can still redeem yourself, young man. Come back to your people. Your father's been worried about you.”
Furious but controlling his temper, Frank returned doggedly to the main issue. “We pledge to give no support to Britain's enemies. There should be no problem in allowing us to manage our own affairs.”
“That isn't our standard arrangement with our colonies, young man. Why should yours be a special case?”
“We're ready as British subjects to contribute to the larger society. We produce valuable goods and are competent to run our settlement. We'll even sign a loyalty oath.”
Not hiding his disdain, Lawrence pursed his lips. “You'll either surrender or you'll be wiped out. There can be no halfway status in such basic matters.”
Frank continued resolutely. “We're ready and willing to be proper British subjects, but our property rights must be respected. We won't stand by idly and be ill treated as happened at Grand Pré.”
Visibly angry, the brigadier signalled his guard that the meeting was over. “You may think you were clever with that little skirmish you had with the
Shannon
, but now you'll be dealing with the British Army. Your father would be very disappointed with you, Frank. Goodbye.”
Frank bristled. “On the contrary, sir, I believe my father would be disappointed with your narrow and pig-headed attitude. Your actions aren't a credit to Britain.”
Upset but unwavering in the rightness of their cause, Frank began the return to their defensive lines. On the way he said in a flat voice, “It's a real pity, but we a have a fight on our hands. Hector, move our catapults at the beach to the embankment facing the soldiers. There's no one attacking the beach. We must prove to them we know how to defend ourselves.”
As they reached the embankment, Nola tugged on his sleeve. “We escaped their clutches at Grand Pré. We stopped the
Shannon
. We can stop them again.”
Lawrence's assault started with hideously real cannonballs slamming into the entrenchments. They struck in so deeply that the whole structure shook. This fusillade was followed by a formation of highly disciplined soldiers advancing purposefully and firing their muskets at every tenth step.
Huddled behind their protective embankment and trenches, the
Rameurs
readied a dozen catapults and ten fire pumps. Frank waited until the first line of soldiers reached the seventy-five-yard mark. Then he gave the order: “Launch all catapults and reload immediately!”
Twelve bleach bombs arced across the sky and burst in mighty blasts right at the seventy-five-yard line, sending the confident formation into jagged disarray. The noise from these blasts had barely died down when the second line stepped over those stricken by the first salvo. These men were hit with another volley of bombs that detonated with the same deadly effect. Relentless in their attack, a third line of troops stepped into the breach.
“Reload, men, but hold your fire,” Frank ordered. “Let's see what they do. I hope our salvoes have shaken their confidence.”
It wasn't to be, though. The third line marched toward the embankments, less numerous but as determined as the first two.
“They aren't letting our punishment stop them,” Frank said. “They're tough, but so are we!”
At the fifteen-yard mark Frank ordered their fire pumps into action, supported by a full volley of catapult bombs. This brutal pounding pummelled the British troops so viciously that the advance hobbled to a stop. Those that could began a helter-skelter retreat.
Hector observed the battlefield with sadness. “They've suffered a high number of casualties. There must be over fifty men writhing on the ground out there.”
“They'll pick them up,” Frank said. “That's a sad ritual of war.”
Over the next hour the
Rameurs
watched as the British picked up their wounded and dead. Then, by late afternoon, they saw the troops slowly move back toward Louisbourg.
“It's not over yet,” Frank said ruefully. “My uncle's nothing if not tenacious. I'm sure they'll be back. And next time they'll have even more soldiers and cannons. We must work all out to be ready.”
After all the carnage of battle, the
Rameurs
were numb with a mixture of relief and grief. Several cabins had been destroyed, and many defenders had suffered injury, though most were comparatively minor. All regarded the wounds as badges of honour.
The precious distillation tower and evaporation works were only slightly damaged, so Frank immediately ordered an intense effort to rebuild their stock of bleach bombs. “I don't know how much time before the next assault, but we have to make the best use of any lull we have.”
That evening he confided to Nola. “I understand more about Britain now that I've fought against their army. My uncle's an obstinate man focused only on conquest. He has a vicious streak that seems to prevent him from ruling intelligently. He's mistrustful of anyone who doesn't fit his narrow view of things. My father isn't like that. I'm sure he would favour our stand here.”
“You hate seeing the strong oppress the weak, Frank.” Giving him a peck on the cheek, Nola added, “That's one of the many reasons I married you.”
Preparation for the coming assault meant, Frank decided, more catapults had to be constructed. “We need at least twenty-five to defend all our embankments, plus another ten fire pumps. And we have to cut some trees and throw them into the trenches to make it more of an obstacle course.”
Everyone started work with an eagerness that gladdened Frank's heart. He made sure this work was well underway before turning his attention to the bleach supply. Frank decided they could stretch supplies by using ordinary coal oil barrels to make up for shortfalls. “We can spike them with lime and charcoal,” he said. “That will extend our supplies yet still make a fair weapon. There won't be an explosion, but a good amount of raw fire will confuse the attackers.”
Some of the younger boys and girls approached Frank, curious about the many explosions they had seen. “Could you tell us what makes those blasts?” Remy asked.
“I'm glad to see such curiosity, young man. That's the way I learn myself. I'm interested in what things are made of, so I do a set of tests to find out. For example, did you know when you burn lime it has a red colour and that when you burn sea salt it burns with a blue flame?”
“No,” Adele said, “I didn't know that.”
“Well, it does. Then some materials contain more hidden energy than others. You can think of it as a ladder of heat with some materials, like our yellow grains, containing more internal heat than others like, say, gypsum. When we combine two high-heat energy compounds, we can make a third material that's even more powerful. It has more hidden energy than the original materials. That's the process, a sort of heat ladder, by which bleach bombs are made.”
“You make it sound easy,” Remy said. “Those bombs are really scary, though.”
“You know that thermometer I just got from the Basques? I use it to separate liquids according to their rate of evaporation. Those that evaporate more easily come off first. These high-volatile liquids burn faster than heavier liquids, and we use them in the fire barrels we're preparing.”
He sent the youngsters back to work with the comment: “Even when an experiment doesn't work out as expected, that doesn't mean it was a failure. It can point you to something else. Bit by bit, you build up your knowledge, and if you're persistent, keep careful notes, and think about what you're doing, then eventually you'll succeed.”
Only twelve days after Brigadier Lawrence's army had withdrawn, a second assault group came over the horizon, just as Frank had predicted. Hector viewed the advancing columns with great sorrow. “There must be fifteen hundred of them out there and lots of cannons.”
“That's a truly dreadful sight,” Frank agreed. “They mean to wipe us out. To my uncle anybody who doesn't submit must die. He's brutal.”
“Perhaps so,” Nola said. “But let's not forget that your uncle isn't invincible.”
“That's true,” Frank said. “This time, however, I'm sure we're going to have a fight to the death. It's already late in the afternoon, so they might delay the attack until morning.”
To Frank's surprise, Lawrence didn't wait. As soon as his troops pulled into range, a fierce cannonade hit the
Rameurs
. It was so blistering that within fifteen minutes nothing was left of Westmount's cabins but rubble. Frank's precious distillation tower, along with every other built-up structure, had been smashed to bits.
The dust from this barrage was still in the air when they saw the first line of soldiers form. It was a full one hundred yards across. “That line is twice as wide as the first attack,” Frank said. “It's a good thing we built those extra catapults and fire pumps. We'll let them advance to the seventy-five-yard mark before launching our bombs.”
When the first troops reached the mark set by Frank, all twenty-five catapults launched their deadly loads. These exploded with tremendous blasts. Hector noticed that Lawrence had equipped each soldier with a fire-dowsing cape designed to provide protection. However, the capes did little to stop the flames. “I'm sure the brigadier's very disappointed that his new capes didn't help much,” Hector mused.
Rigorous discipline â developed over long months of training â impelled the second line to step past those stricken by the first
Rameur
volley. The catapults fired again. The attackers faltered once more, and fewer soldiers managed to pick themselves up to press on toward the embankments. Despite the fierce pummelling, the third line filled breaches in the ranks and steadfastly continued on to the forty-yard mark still in fair formation. Then a combined bleach bomb/fire volley â everything in the
Rameur
arsenal â slammed into the British.
Frank shouted orders for the catapults to reload immediately and for the fire pumps to again spray their lethal loads. These assaults punched huge holes in the attacking phalanx. Yet after much wobbling, more than two hundred troops, their faces grimly determined, charged onward, bellowing fierce battle cries as they did so.
The
Rameur
back defences flung fire grenades at these two hundred as they attempted to straddle the tree-strewn trenches. They managed to stop all except for twenty. These fierce few bounded through the explosions seemingly unscathed and climbed over the embankment. A vicious musket/bayonet onslaught began to batter at the
Rameur
main defence corps
.
Observing this melee from less than thirty feet away, Jocelyne realized she had no choice. She and her team threw several grapefruit-sized bleach bombs directly into the centre of the killing frenzy. The explosions knocked down all the combatants in the blast area. These staunched the breach, allowing the defenders to rally and seal the gap in the
Rameur
line.
Wounded soldiers started to retreat from this wall of fire. His jaw clenched, Frank ordered a further volley of barrels. “We don't want them to dally.”
The battlefield left by the attackers was strewn with bodies and pitiful moaning. In the distance, Frank observed three British commanders scanning the field with their spyglasses. “I hope this carnage will give them pause before they launch another assault,” he muttered to himself. “We've all suffered enough.”