Taylor said they had four legs and were most likely caribou. Richmond scoffed. “You’re as blind as a goddamn sea urchin, Tom Taylor, and you haven’t got half the sense,” he said. “Those are two-legged creatures and if they’re not Red Indians, then I’m a Papist.”
Cull thought Richmond was most likely right and suggested they get a closer look but keep to the trees to avoid being detected. They removed their packs and scrambled through the bush as quickly as the scrabble of alders and spruce and underbrush allowed. After half an hour they seemed not much nearer the moving figures and Buchan was about to call a halt when Corporal Bouthland pointed out across the ice. “Is that last one hauling something, Lieutenant?”
The men shielded their eyes and peered against the last of the sunlight. “A sledge,” Cull said. “Of some sort.”
Several other men nodded their agreement. “That settles it then,” Buchan said and he turned the party about to head back to the river. “The camp won’t be much beyond this point if those two are out this near to dark. We’ll come back this way at first light and try to catch them unawares while they sleep.”
They crossed the point of land that hid the lake and set up camp, and as they guessed the Indian settlement would be more than two miles distant, Buchan allowed a small cooking fire to be lit. While they ate he advised the men on the level of conduct he expected from them the following day and especially so in the company of women. Then he announced that the party’s rifles would be left with their packs in the morning.
Richmond stood up out of the spot where he’d been sitting and threw the scraps of food from his plate into the fire. “No,” he said. “No goddamn way.”
“Mr. Richmond,” Buchan said calmly.
“John Peyton?” Richmond said, turning to the young man in appeal.
“We are here on a mission of peace on behalf of the governor of Newfoundland and His Majesty the King,” the Lieutenant continued.
“The governor can kiss me arse, and the King besides,” Richmond shouted.
“Mr. Richmond!” Buchan stood and motioned for the marines to stand as well. Everyone in the company came to their feet then and there was a moment of wild shouting, with Richmond backed by Taylor stabbing his finger in Buchan’s direction and Reilly and Peyton standing between them and the marines. Peyton said, “There’ll be no mission at all if you don’t all shut up,” and he repeated this until everyone had calmed down enough to take a step backwards.
Buchan told Richmond that it was only the extraordinary circumstances that prevented him from having the marines strip and flog him senseless and he insisted on an apology to the King and the governor before consenting to speak or listen to another word. Peyton prodded him gently in the back. Richmond looked off into the dark and offered his apologies in as insolent a manner as he was sure he could get away with. “But I will not go up the lake tomorrow without my firearm,” he said.
“Then you will not go,” Buchan told him.
“Me neither then,” Taylor said and he sat by the fire, and Hughster with obvious reluctance added his name to the list.
“Lieutenant, sir,” Cull said, “we got no notion of how many of them Indians we will come upon in the morning. There could be two hundred or more.”
“We have little hope of inspiring them to trust us with rifles in our hands.”
“That may be so,” Cull acknowledged. “But we’ll be a damn sight nearer to trusting them.”
Buchan suppressed a sigh of exasperation. He turned to Peyton. There was a twist in the younger man’s face, as if he had swallowed something sour. “Mr. Peyton?” he said.
Peyton was thinking of sitting across from Cassie at the table while she repeated John Senior’s words to him. It was galling to see him proved right. “I have some sympathy for your sentiments, Lieutenant, but I’m sorry to say I’m more in line with Mr. Cull’s assessment.”
“Very well then.” Buchan took his place near the fire and those still standing took this as an invitation to sit. “The marines will leave their rifles and carry their pistols only. The rest of you may carry whatever firearms you wish. But there will be no action of any sort without my express order. Am I understood?”
There was a general round of nods. A light snow started to fall and as they blew through the light of the fire the stray flakes flared and went out like sparks struck off a flint.