There was a slight drizzle of rain in the morning when we paraded for the march out. Our transport waggons had to move out early and march to Quebec, and it was a difficult job to get them started.
I had done everything in my power to suppress gambling and swearing among the men, and on several occasions when individuals were paraded before me for using bad language, I had reprimanded them and informed them that the use of strong language was always left to the Officer Commanding. This particular morning some choice words had to be used to get the transport moving. They moved, however, to the tick of the clock and Sergeant-Major Grant, with a grin on his face, suggested that from now on there would be no more swearing in the ranks, as everybody was quite satisfied with the Commanding officer's qualifications in that regard.
Again the pipes struck up "We'll take the High Road," and after a march of about a mile and a half to a siding, we entrained in two sections for Quebec.
At Quebec we had not long to wait. The transport "Megantic," one of the finest ships on the North Atlantic, was hauled up at the pier with long planks out to take our regiment on board. The horses and waggons were to go on a separate ship, although there was plenty of room for them on board. We were all glad to get away, for it was becoming monotonous having everybody we met asking "When are you going away?"
CHAPTER VI[ToC]
THE NEW ARMADA
The St. Lawrence River at Quebec presented a busy scene. Never since the days of the Tercentennial of the discovery of the River by Jacques Cartier, when King George and the British fleet, headed by H.M.S. "The Indomitable," were present, was there so much activity, or so many ships in the harbor. As soon as each transport was loaded it pulled away from the pier and dropped anchor in the stream. When all our troops were on board the "Megantic" we cast loose, pulled up the stream off Cape Diamond, and "dropped our hook," as a landsman in the ranks was heard to remark. The hotels and boarding houses of the City were filled with friends of the men who had come on excursions to bid the soldiers good-bye. The City was full of life and activity and brilliantly lighted up and the scene at night was very beautiful. Old Cape Diamond wearing its crown and sparkling with thousands of electric lights looked its name. In its shadow on the evening before he climbed the heights at Ainse d'Fulon Cove, now dim and silent in the distance, to win the immortal battle of the Plains of Abraham, General Wolfe had recited Gray's "Elegy" and unconsciously the prophetic words "The Paths of Glory lead but to the Grave" arose in the mind. In these shadows Wolfe had brooded over those plans which on a succeeding morrow were to mature and lead to three of the greatest epochs in the history of the world—the fall of Quebec, which placed in the hands of Britannia the trident of the world's naval supremacy, destroying the foundations of the ancient regime of France, and laying the corner stone of the great American Republic.