It was dusk when the intrepid band of twenty, under the command of Sheriff Jarvis, turned north off King Street onto Yonge. They were a motley crew of policemen, bailiffs, deputies, and half a dozen ordinary citizens co-opted or “volunteered.” Each had been handed a British rifled musket, scavenged earlier by Lieutenant Spooner from Fort York, and two bullets in paper cartridges. Jarvis and his men were to establish a picket on Yonge Street just above College Avenue. A force of five hundred militia, who knew how to load and fire a musket, were on their way by steamer from Hamilton, and were expected to arrive around midnight. Jarvis’s orders were to stall the rebels’ advance, if possible, and otherwise watch their movements and send back reports to Government House.
Much had happened since midafternoon, but Cobb had learned only bits and pieces from a variety of unreliable sources. Members of Cobb’s class were not routinely briefed by officialdom, after all. What was known for sure was that Sir Francis had placed his wife and family and that of Chief Justice Robinson aboard a steamer on Queen’s Wharf with instructions to flee to Kingston should the capital fall and the fast-forming lake ice permit. The first truce up at Gallow’s Hill had lasted for two hours, with Mackenzie demanding a constitutional convention and the governor offering only amnesty.
The rebels then moved farther down Yonge Street, past Bloor. A second truce and parley-with the governor refusing to put his amnesty offer in writing-broke up in disarray. Now it seemed that if the rebels could somehow be tricked into further delay, the militia would arrive to save the day and do honour to the Queen.
Jarvis had ordered his pickets to remain silent as they trudged over the snowy, rutted roadway through the chill of a December twilight. There was a bright half-moon about to ascend in the East, but scudding clouds made its illumination uncertain. Cobb wasn’t sure whether it was safer to see where he was going or to be obscured in total darkness. With fellow constables Wilkie and young Rossiter on either side of him, Cobb fingered his musket nervously. It had been twelve years at least since he had fired a gun at his father’s side, hunting rabbits or grouse. And he had certainly never used one of these new-fangled paper cartridges. Besides that, there was the question of killing someone anonymously. There was every chance that one of the rebels up ahead was his nephew, Jimmy Madden, clutching his father’s stolen gun. What could have driven the boy to such a pass? To jettison his family, his new-found love, his own future? Something had gone terribly wrong, that was all Cobb knew. And good men, young and old, were about to die because of it.
It was pitch black when Sheriff Jarvis called a halt and ordered the men to set up their picket behind a snake-fence a few yards above College Avenue. But even with the moon blocked by thick cloud, the snow on the ground conspired to make their hunched silhouettes alarmingly visible. Cobb set his rifle down and tried to thaw his fingertips under his armpits. Stretched out on either side of him, his colleagues-in-arms stamped their feet incessantly, in a vain attempt to keep the blood circulating or ward off a numbing terror. There was little else to do but wait.
Just after six o’clock the white ribbon that was Yonge Street began to disappear into a tumble of shadows and to echo hollowly with the tramp of several hundred boots.
“They haven’t seen us yet,” Jarvis whispered. “When I raise my sword, I want everybody to fire at once. Take aim at a single figure. Do not shoot blindly. If we kill a dozen of them with one volley, we may stall the advance. God be with you.”
Which was precisely the prayer going round the rebel side, too, Cobb thought with a grimace. Soundlessly, those next to him laid the barrels of their rifles on top of the log-fence and began sighting a target. They had the advantage of being partially hidden and of being able to fire effectively without having to stand. Just then the moon made an untimely appearance. The front rank of the rebels, armed with rifles, had spotted them and dropped to one knee in preparation for a killing volley. The two groups were now no more than thirty yards apart. A wild susurration rose up from the rebels. Sheriff Jarvis raised his sword in defiance.
As the air was shattered by the roar of nineteen muskets exploding around him, Horatio Cobb, loyal officer of the Crown, levered his rifle aloft, took dead aim at the alabaster belly of the half-moon, and pulled the trigger.
SEVEN
With considerable difficulty Marc forced his eyes open, then snapped them shut. Someone was shining a bright light directly into them: they throbbed with the pain of it. He felt another throb in his left thigh, and remembered the gunshot and the indignity as the bullet struck. He listened for the sound of footsteps; surely Sergeant Ogletree had heard the explosions? He could discern only a low murmur of voices and someone groaning through his teeth.
Marc tried to get a sense of where he had fallen. He was definitely on his back, even though he recalled pitching forward as he lost consciousness. He had no memory of hitting the floor. His thought now was that he ought to roll onto his side and try to get up. He didn’t want Ogletree and the men bursting in here and blazing away at civilians. But he couldn’t move. It wasn’t only his injured leg; it was the other one, too, and both his arms. He just seemed too weary to move, even lifting his eyelids had been an effort. What had happened to him? Mustering as much courage as strength, he opened his eyes again. Blinking away the intrusive light, he kept them open. He had been staring into a thin sunbeam angling into a shadowy, dank room of some sort through a crack in the siding.
“Nurse, come quickly! He’s awake!”
The voice, off to his right, was excited, and very Scottish. He didn’t recognize it. Then came the pounding of several feet on a wooden floor. The groaning, farther off, continued, muted but piteous. A sequence of odours struck his nostrils: privy-stink, animal gore, a dankness of rot and mouldy decay, his own fetid sweat. Two shadows suddenly blocked the sunbeam. He opened his eyes wide but found he could not raise his head to see who was now hovering over him. He tried moving his lips; the ghost of a voice emerged, but no words. A woman’s moon-face swam across his vision. A stubby finger brushed his upper lip and came to rest under his nose.
“You’re right, MacKay. He’s awake and breathing. I wouldn’t’ve given a farthing for his chances.”
“I’ll fetch the doctor and the major.”
“Don’t go bothering Dr. Wilder. Major Jenkin will do.”
“He’s tryin’ to tell us somethin’.”
Marc heard a voice somewhat like his own say, “I’m co-ode.”
“It’s okay, Lieutenant. I’ll fetch ye another blanket.”
“You’ll do no such thing, Mr. MacKay. Do you want all these other wretches crying out for one?”
The next time Marc opened his eyes, Owen Jenkin, quartermaster of the 24th and his loyal friend, was seated beside him and smiling as if he could do nothing else. Marc felt tears hot upon his cold cheeks. The major reached over and pulled a fresh-smelling blanket up to his chin.
“Don’t expend your energy trying to talk, lad. You’re going to need it all for putting some flesh and muscle back on your bones-now that you’ve decided to live.”
Marc shaped a question with his lips, cracked and dry though they were.
“Well, you may think you’re in one of Hell’s vestibules when you get a chance to look around you,” Jenkin said, “but this is what passes for a military hospital in Montreal these days. We’ve been practically suffering a siege for two weeks, but things’ve quieted down now.”