บท 76: In God's Hands
Thank you Donut_Halo, George_Bush_2910, ThisguyAEl, Mium and TheHumble_Dogge for the support!
Here is a new chapter! Enjoy!
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Adam, already out of breath, inhaled and exhaled steadily under the strain, though all he had done was run toward the fort and then climb it.
Once he reached the top of the palisade, he realized the fort wasn't that impressive. Behind the large tree trunks forming the outer walls, there was just a thick earthen rampart and a few buildings organized around a small rectangular parade ground.
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
Gunfire echoed through the night, enveloping the fort in a thick gray fog laced with the familiar smell of burnt powder. The French and their Indian allies were targeting the English below, who were trying to organize an effective defense.
Several officers were barely distinguishable in the darkness. Orders were shouted in English, which Adam vaguely understood amidst the chaos.
Their general is dead?! Then we've nearly won! he thought, drawing his pistol.
Nervously, he cocked it and aimed at a tall man leading several redcoats trying to chase them off the fort's walkway.
That must be an officer! His uniform is different, and he's got a sword!
They were advancing quickly toward him and his comrades, all busy firing or reloading their muskets.
"Watch out! On the right!"
Tjenopitoqsit, who had just reloaded an older musket, took aim at a redcoat and fired without hesitation. The man, who looked to be in his twenties, took the bullet in his chest and fell backward as if he had slipped on ice, not getting up again.
The officer, clearly already wounded, raised his pistol to fire when he caught sight of a bare-chested Indian charging at him, a large tomahawk decorated with colorful feathers raised overhead.
The man sprinted along the walkway at breakneck speed and leaped toward the lieutenant colonel.
At the last second, the officer changed targets and shot the Indian in the face, killing him instantly.
The force of the shot sent him tumbling out of the fort.
Adam watched as the officer dropped his spent pistol and grimaced in pain. He decided to try something.
"Surrender! There's no hope!" (in English)
Adam's English was simple, his accent thick, but perfectly understandable.
"Never! We'd rather die than let you have this fort!"
Adam pointed his pistol directly at the officer's forehead, who had stopped, as did the men behind him, seemingly caught in a wild momentum. If he didn't break this momentum, they would all likely die here.
"I insist. Surrender! Your death won't change anything."
Lieutenant Colonel Bradstreet bit his lower lip hard. From the corner of his eye, he saw that this young officer, apparently just a lieutenant, had managed to sow doubt among his men. Worse still, he had made him doubt.
He had only one life, and though he was ready to give it for the glory of Great Britain, that didn't mean he would sacrifice it in vain.
Adam silently watched the officer hesitate. From his eyes and barely perceptible movements, he could see how tormented he was. He was clearly weighing the pros and cons, but a shot rang out somewhere, and the undeclared truce shattered.
Both sides opened fire, and Adam ducked as fast as his body would allow. His finger squeezed the trigger without aiming at anyone in particular, and the bullet flew straight at the British officer, who had no time to react.
In a second, over fifteen men fell in a thick cloud of smoke.
The young lieutenant, fortunately still alive, charged the enemy, sword in hand, before they could get into position. With a swift movement, he deflected a bayonet from his face and punched a soldier taller than him square in the face before running his sword through the man's body.
Tjenopitoqsit, on his right, struck another Englishman in the throat with a knife that had a short, but wide and solid blade.
Together, they took down another soldier, paralyzed with fear, unable to defend himself. Quickly, he collapsed under their attack, joining the other bodies, including Bradstreet's, whose left lung had been hit. Blood trickled from his mouth as his lifeless eyes seemed to gaze up at the moon and stars.
***
At the same time, in another part of the fort, Louis, Jean, Jules, P'tit Pol, and Charles finally stepped inside Fort Edward.
The comrades who had stormed the fort before them had managed to open the northern gate.
With each passing second, more and more French soldiers flooded into the fort, but there wasn't enough space for a traditional battle.
There was so little room it felt more like a fight in the heart of a town.
From inside the buildings, the central square, and the bastions, shots were fired at anyone wearing a white uniform. In turn, targets were plentiful, and bodies began to pile up on the ground.
"Fire!" commanded Colonel de Bréhant, not far from the third rank, which was slowly forming at the fort's entrance.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
A long series of shots shook the air, and many more men in red fell.
Though the forces seemed relatively even, it wouldn't take much to turn the tide in favor of one side or the other. The British had lost several officers, including the deeply unpopular General Abercrombie, and now the Union Jack, representing the union of England and Scotland, was being lowered.
This detail didn't escape the redcoats, and soon the first surrenders began.
Laying down their weapons and raising their hands to the sky, more and more of them ceased fighting what seemed a lost cause.
Yet, in a few places, the fighting still raged on. This was the case in one of the buildings, fiercely defended by a sizable group of Englishmen. They held the doors and windows, preventing anyone from approaching.
"Jules, Jean! Over here!" Charles shouted while reloading his musket, sheltered behind a low wall.
"We're here!"
"There are several inside!"
Bang!
"Do we know how many there are?" Jules asked, raising his voice to cover the infernal noise of gunfire ringing like a military drum.
"No idea, but there are enough to keep us from lifting our heads! Watch out! Stay covered!"
Bullets whistled around them like angry hornets. Those who had tried to get closer now lay in puddles of blood on the dusty ground.
The building where a strong group of British soldiers had taken refuge resembled a haunted house. It seemed wrapped in a thick, opaque mist that refused to dissipate. It was reinforced every time a shot was fired from one of those windows.
No enemy was in sight. It was barely possible to see the muzzles of the muskets in the gloom and suffocating smoke.
"What if we set it on fire?" asked a soldier with a drooping nose.
"No! The orders are to take this fort intact, or as much as possible! Everything here is wooden! Imagine if the fire reaches the powder store!"
Immediately, Louis froze in horror at the thought of the gigantic explosion that would surely occur if that were to happen. They would be scooping up their remains for days!
Diable! What to do?!
"Louis!"
"An… Um, Pierre! You're here! Are you okay?!"
Anne-Sophie, alias Pierre, smiled at seeing this young man worry so much for her. A warm feeling grew in her heart, and she nodded gently.
Louis let out a small sigh of relief, as he didn't want anything to happen to her, especially since they had begun to grow intimate. No one, except Jean who firmly believed they were homosexuals, suspected that they had feelings for each other.
"Louis, we can't stay like this."
"We can wait until they run out of ammunition, can't we?"
But the young woman in disguise shook her head.
"I doubt it. I think this is their arms and ammunition depot."
"W-wait, what?!"
"The other buildings seem to be housing and common quarters, so…"
"Damn!"
Louis peeked out but saw nothing unusual on the façade of the long wooden building riddled with bullets.
Good grief! Is there a chance that the building could explode from our shots?! And… What if they decided to blow themselves up when they ran out of options?
"We need to assault it, Louis. There will be casualties, but the building will be under our control before they do something stupid."
The young soldier with wheat-blonde hair, which had become a bit shinier since their arrival in the New World, bit the inside of his cheek. Then he suggested the idea to his comrades. Even though it was risky, it was impossible to kill them all. If they died, it would be a matter of luck or misfortune.
"Let's go!"
Louis, Anne-Sophie, and the others emerged together from their hiding places like devils out of a box and charged like enraged bulls at the wooden building.
Several gunshots rang out at the same time, and several white-clad men collapsed. Louis stepped over one of them and rushed after Jean, who roughly matched the size of the door. They found a dozen terrified redcoats that they quickly massacred.
It was a horrific sight, an act of rare violence that no words could ever describe.
The means used to neutralize these few soldiers far exceeded their danger, as they had all discharged their weapons on the French while they were running toward them.
They had shot at them, struck them, and stabbed them repeatedly. The wooden floor was covered in blood, red as their uniforms, slick and gradually becoming sticky.
Behind them, they left only bodies and countless red footprints.
As Louis cast one last glance at the building's door, his gaze vacant, almost dead despite his thoughts being disturbed by what he had just seen and done, he was surprised to see Anne-Sophie sitting in a corner, holding her side.
Immediately, his body froze, and a cold shiver ran through him like lightning.
Oh no!
"Anne-Sophie!"
Everyone heard his cry and turned to see Louis rushing toward an injured soldier. They all wondered why he had called her that, but the sharper ones began to understand when they saw how this young man was acting.
"H-hang on! It's going to be alright!"
"L-Louis…"
"Y-yes! Tell me!"
"Y-you're too loud."
Anne-Sophie was terribly pale and bleeding profusely.
With his hands smeared in warm blood, the blood of the one he loved, Louis was desperately trying to stop the hemorrhage. It felt like her warmth was slipping away. His whole body trembled, and his emotions were more chaotic than a battlefield.
"Hang on! Hold on! You're going to make it! Jean! I need your help!"
"M-me?"
"Help me carry her to the field hospital! Jules, clear the way! Quick!"
"Louis…" Anne-Sophie groaned near his ear as Jean easily lifted her.
"D-don't talk! You… need to save your strength, okay?"
She smiled gently at him and squeezed his hand. Her hand felt colder than snow.
Quickly, the group left the fort, crossed the open ground, passed a watchtower, and reached the first trees. There, a series of tents had been set up in anticipation of the battle and a swift influx of casualties. Several people were already lying down, moaning and calling for their mothers.
An old man with a hollow face approached, a gray apron stained with blood cinched around his waist. He knelt down as a young assistant brought over a lantern, for it was still very dark.
Without any embarrassment or hesitation, he opened Anne-Sophie's coat and vest and tore her shirt, now red where she had been shot. Quickly, fair skin, a slim waist, and a chest compressed by fabric bandages appeared.
The surgeon looked up and met Anne-Sophie's exhausted gaze. The man, sporting a few days' worth of gray beard as gray as his apron, sighed deeply and opened his bag filled with all his tools.
He had worked for the army for decades. He had removed bullets, amputated, and stitched up wounds in all conditions, even the most surprising.
To do it under these circumstances, so close to a besieged fort on the verge of being captured, was just another dash in what he had done throughout his life. That the wounded was a woman changed nothing about his mission.
"Bring the lantern closer, Gabriel. I can't see anything. Hmm, the bullet hasn't gone through. The wound is clean. I'll need to remove it, mademoiselle. It's going to hurt. A lot," he said in a low tone meant to be reassuring.
"Is she going to make it?"
"Maybe."
The surgeon began by roughly cleaning the wound, then took a specialized pair of tweezers designed to extract bullets and inserted it into the wound. Anne-Sophie gasped and opened her eyes wide, but was unable to scream. Her fingers clenched violently around Louis's arm, so hard that it felt like it was about to break.
Yet he didn't tremble and didn't make a sound, not even a grunt.
He endured in silence and held the young woman's arm against him, as if he feared they would take her away. Meanwhile, Jules, Jean, Charles, and P'tit Pol stood still around the victim as if they had been hypnotized.
Finally, the surgeon removed his instrument and dropped a small lead ball into a metal dish.
"You were lucky, mademoiselle," the old surgeon whispered softly. "The bullet didn't fragment. And it didn't hit any vital organs either. However, you've lost a lot of blood."
Despite the many wounded around them, the man did not rush his work. He carried it out to the end, deploying all his knowledge and skills before moving on to the next soldier. He finished by giving a generous dose of alcohol to help the young woman endure the pain.
Whether she survived or not was no longer his concern; it was now the will of God. But even if she pulled through, she would have to face serious consequences, for now everyone here understood her true identity.
Even Jean, though it took the surgeon calling her "mademoiselle" twice for it to sink in.
Gradually, the number of gunshots decreased until only the sound of cannon fire remained. They were bombarding Rogers Island and the bridge connecting it to the west bank, where the fort known as Royal Blockhouse stood.
Above this fort, the French flag was already flying.
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Alas, at dawn, it became clear that somehow a large number of rangers who had found themselves isolated on Rogers Island had managed to escape.
The marshal showed no emotion and completed the capture of the fort and all its resources. The prisoners were kept outside the fort for the rest of the night, closely watched by regular soldiers and even more by the Indians, who seemed to be waiting for just one good reason to scalp them before being taken at first light to Fort Carillon.
Among the prisoners was Colonel Haviland. He had fought with honor and bravery to defend their flag but had ultimately surrendered after hours of fighting when it became clear that there was no hope of victory.
As for the light cavalry sent from Fort Miller to see what was happening, they were all chased off by cannon fire.
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