Why did Amherst not come to Wolfe's aid? His enemies say because the commanding general was so sure the siege of Quebec would fail that he did not want any share of the blame. That may be unjust. Amherst was of the slow, cautious kind, who marched doggedly to victory. He may not have wished to risk a second Ticonderoga. Wolfe's position was now desperate. His only alternatives were success or ruin. "You can't cure me," he told his surgeon, "but mend me up so I can go on for a few days." What he did in those few days left his name immortal. Robert Stobo, who had been captured from Washington's battalions on the Ohio, and who knew every foot of Quebec from five years of captivity, had escaped, joined Wolfe, and drawn plans of all surroundings. From his ship above Quebec Wolfe could see there was one path just behind the city where men might ascend to the Plains of Abraham outside the rear wall, but the path was guarded, and Bougainville's troops patrolled westward as far as Cape Rouge.
LOUIS JOSEPH, MARQUIS DE MONTCALM
It was now September. From their trenches above the river the French could see the English evacuating camp at Montmorency. They were jubilant. Surely the English were giving up the siege. Night after night English transports loaded with soldiers ascended the St. Lawrence above Quebec. What did it mean? Was it a feint to draw Montcalm's men away from the east side? The French general was sleeplessly anxious. He had not passed a night in bed since the end of June. The fall rains were beginning, and another month of work in the trenches meant half the army invalided.
The most of the English fleet was working up and down with the tide between the western limits of Quebec and Cape Rouge, nine miles away. Bougainville's force was increased to three thousand men, and he was ordered to keep especial watch westward. The steepness of the precipice was guard enough near the town. Wednesday, the 12th of September, the English troops were ordered to hold themselves in readiness. They passed the day cleaning their arms, and were ordered not to speak after nightfall or permit a sound to be heard from the ranks. Admiral Saunders with the main fleet was to feign attack on the east side of the city. Admiral Holmes with Wolfe's army, now numbering not four thousand men, was to glide down with the tide from Cape Rouge above Quebec. Because the main fleet lay on the east side Montcalm felt sure the attack would come from that quarter. Deserters had brought word to Wolfe that some flatboats with provisions were coming down the river to Quebec that night.
Here, then, the position! Saunders on the east side, opposite Beauport, feigning attack; Montcalm watching him from the Beauport cliffs; Wolfe nine miles up the river west of the city; Bougainville watching him, watching too for those provisions, for Quebec was down to empty larder.
It is said that as Wolfe rested in his ship, the Sutherland, off Cape Rouge, he felt strange premonition of approaching death, and repeated the words of Gray's "Elegy,"—"The paths of glory lead but to the grave,"—but this has been denied. Certainly he had such strange consciousness of impending death that, taking a miniature of his fiancée from his breast, he asked a fellow-officer to return it to her. About midnight the tide began to ebb, and two lanterns were hung as a sign from the masthead of the Sutherland. Instantly all the ships glided silent as the great river down with the tide. The night was moonless. Near the little bridle path now known as Wolfe's Cove the ships draw ashore. Sharp as iron on stone a sentry's voice rings out, "Who goes?"
"The French," answers an officer, who speaks perfect French.
"What regiment?"