“Hi! don’t run me down!” he screamed, and then, as the boat swerved to one side, he made a clutch at one of the oars. Willing hands were out-stretched to him, and in a moment more he was on board, where he sank to the bottom, panting for breath. Two others were picked up in similar fashion, and then the boat swept on to its destination.
The shooting of the St. Lawrence rapids by the army under General Amherst was never forgotten by those who participated in it. During that reckless ride over sixty boats were either totally wrecked or greatly damaged, and more than eighty soldiers lost their lives through drowning. As one boat after another shot through the swirling waters the French gathered on the upper bank of the river, fully expecting to see every one of their enemy go down to destruction.
The rapids passed, the boats, or what was left of them, sailed down Lake St. Louis, and landed at Isle Perrot, at a point about twenty miles above Montreal. Here many of the half-drowned ones were cared for, and some of the boats were temporarily repaired.
“We are well out of that,” said Dave, when on land once more. “I shall never attempt to shoot those rapids again;” and he never did.
It had taken three weeks to reach Isle Perrot, and now word came in by Indian messengers that General Murray was also advancing on Montreal from the northeastward, and that General Haviland was ready to strike whenever required.
“We now have the French as in a vise,” said General Amherst. “They cannot get away from us.” The next day, early in the morning, the army left Isle Perrot again, and landed on the north bank of the river at La Chine. Here there was some slight show of opposition, but soon the French outposts, and also a number of the inhabitants of La Chine, fled towards Montreal, leaving the English army to land its guns and stores at its leisure.
“On to Montreal!” was now the cry on all sides, and the spirits of the soldiers revived wonderfully, for all felt that a deathblow was soon to be struck to the war which had now lasted for five long years.
It was a beautiful day in early September, and had Dave not been troubled by thoughts of Henry and Barringford, he would have enjoyed the march along the river bank. A regimental band played the liveliest of military airs, and when the band did not play a Colonial drummer and a fifer kept the Royal Americans in step.
Yet it must be confessed that the soldiers were a motley collection. Even the showy uniforms of the grenadiers, and the Royal Artillery, were sadly in need of repairs, while the so-called uniforms of the Royal Americans, never very good, and of a dozen different designs, were practically in tatters. Dave’s uniform confessed to half a dozen rents, and twice as many patches, and his gun, a flint-lock dating back to the war in Scotland, was a clumsy affair that looked as if it was in danger of exploding every time he discharged it.
The next day found Amherst’s army encamped almost under the walls of Montreal, to which city the French had flocked from all directions, pleading for protection at the hands of Governor-General Vaudreuil. As Amherst drew near from one direction, Murray and his army came up from the other, while Haviland encamped on the south shore of the St. Lawrence, immediately in front of Montreal.