ADMIRAL EARL ST. VINCENT
from a portrait by Hoppner.
Outside the city gates, the French at first took up their position on a rising ground in three divisions, having an irregular surface towards the St. Lawrence on their left, and extending across the St. Louis and Ste. Foye roads towards the St. Charles on their right. Indian and Canadian marksmen were posted among the trees and bushes which skirted the plains. Montcalm himself took command of the centre, at the head of the regiment of Languedoc, supported by the battalion of Béarn. M. de Sénézergues led the left wing, composed of the regiments of Guienne and Royal Roussillon, supported by the militia of Three Rivers. The right, under M. de Saint-Ours, consisted of the battalion of La Sarre and the militia of Quebec and Montreal.
Wolfe had first drawn up his army with its front towards the St. Louis road, and its right towards the city, but afterwards he altered his position. Confronting the French formation Brigadier Townshend, with Amherst's and the Light Infantry, and Colonel Burton, with a battalion of the Royal Americans, made up the British left, holding a position near the Ste. Foye road, to meet the advance of Bougainville from the west. The centre, under Murray, was composed of Lascelles', Anstruther's, and Fraser's Highlanders; while Monckton commanded the right, which included Bragg's, Otway's, Kennedy's, and the Louisbourg Grenadiers, at whose head, after he had passed along the line, Wolfe placed himself for the charge.
At eight o'clock the French sharpshooters opened fire upon the British left, and skirmishers were thrown out to hold them in check, or drive them from the houses where they sheltered themselves and galled Townshend's men. Three field-pieces, brought from the city, opened on the British brigades with roundshot and canister. The invaders, however, made no return, and were ordered to lie down. No restlessness, no anxiety marked those scarlet columns, whose patience and restraint had been for two months in the crucible of a waiting game. There was no man in all Wolfe's army but knew that final victory or ruin hung upon the issue of that 13th of September.
From bushes, trees, coverts, and fields of grain came a ceaseless hail of fire, and there fell upon the ranks a doggedness, a quiet anger, which settled into grisly patience. These men had seen the stars go down, the cold mottled light of dawn break over the battered city and the heights of Charlesbourg; they had watched the sun come up, and then steal away behind slow-travelling clouds and hanging mist; they had looked over the unreaped cornfields, and the dull slovenly St. Charles, knowing full well that endless leagues of country, north and south, east and west, now lay for the last time in the balance. The rocky precipice of the St. Lawrence cut off all possibility of retreat, and their only help was in themselves. Yet no one faltered.
At ten o'clock Montcalm's three columns moved forward briskly, making a wild rattle—two columns moving towards the left and one towards the right, firing obliquely and constantly as they advanced. Then came Wolfe's command to rise, and his army stood up and waited, their muskets loaded with an extra ball. Suppressed rage filled the ranks as they stood there and took that damnable fire without being able to return a shot. Minute after minute passed. Then came the sharp command to advance. Again the line was halted, and still the withering discharge of musketry fell upon the long silent palisade of red.
At last, when the French were within forty yards, Wolfe raised his sword, a command rang down the long line of battle, and with a crash as of one terrible cannon-shot, the British muskets sang out together. After the smoke had cleared a little, another volley followed with almost the same precision. A light breeze lifted the smoke and mist, and a wayward sunlight showed Montcalm's army retreating like a long white wave from a rocky shore.
Thus checked and confounded, the French army trembled and fell back in broken order. Then, with the order to charge, an exultant British cheer arose, the skirling challenge of the bagpipes and the wild slogan of the Highlanders sounding high over all. Like sickles of death, the flashing broadswords of the clansmen clove through and broke the battalions of La Sarre, and the bayonets of the Forty-Seventh scattered the soldiers of Languedoc into flying companies.
Early in the action Wolfe had been hit in the wrist by a bullet, but he concealed this wound with his handkerchief. A few minutes later, however, as he pressed forward, sword in hand, at the head of the charging Louisbourg Grenadiers, a musket ball struck him in the breast. They bore him, mortally wounded, to the rear.
"It's all over with me," he murmured. The mist of death was already gathering in his eyes.