Seven Stones to Stand or Fall (Outlander)

The rush of water and the easy movement of the boat began to make him sleepy, tension notwithstanding, and he shook his head, yawning exaggeratedly to throw it off.

“Quel est ce bateau?” What boat is that? The shout from the shore seemed anticlimactic when it came, barely more remarkable than a night bird’s call. But the next instant Simon Fraser’s hand crushed his, grinding the bones together, as Fraser gulped air and shouted, “Celui de la Reine!!”

Grey clenched his teeth, not to let any blasphemous response escape. If the sentry demanded a password, he’d likely be crippled for life, he thought. An instant later, though, the sentry shouted, “Passez!” and Fraser’s death grip relaxed. Simon was breathing like a bellows but nudged him and whispered, “Pardon,” again.

“De fucking rien,” he muttered, rubbing his hand and tenderly flexing the fingers.

They were getting close. Men were shifting to and fro in anticipation, even more than Grey—checking their weapons, straightening coats, coughing, spitting over the side, readying themselves. Still, it was a nerve-wracking quarter-hour more before they began to swing toward shore—and another sentry called from the dark.

Grey’s heart squeezed like a fist, and he nearly gasped with the twinge of pain from his old wounds.

“Qui etes-vous? Que sont ces bateaux?” a French voice demanded suspiciously. Who are you? What boats are those?

This time, he was ready and seized Fraser’s hand himself. Simon held on and, leaning out toward the shore, called hoarsely, “Des bateaux de provisions! Tasiez-vous—les anglais sont proches!” Provision boats! Be quiet—the British are nearby! Grey felt an insane urge to laugh but didn’t. In fact, the Sutherland was nearby, lurking out of cannon shot downstream, and doubtless the frogs knew it. In any case, the guard called, more quietly, “Passez!” and the train of boats slid smoothly past and round the final bend.

The bottom of the boat grated on sand, and half the men were over at once, tugging it farther up. Wolfe half-leapt, half-fell over the side in eagerness, all trace of somberness gone. They’d come aground on a small sandbar just offshore, and the other boats were beaching now, a swarm of black figures gathering like ants.

Twenty-four of the Highlanders were meant to try the ascent first, finding—and, insofar as possible, clearing, for the cliff was defended not only by its steepness but by abatis, nests of sharpened logs—a trail for the rest. Simon’s bulky form faded into the dark, his French accent changing at once into the sibilant Gaelic as he hissed the men into position. Grey rather missed his presence.

He was not sure whether Wolfe had chosen the Highlanders for their skill at climbing or because he preferred to risk them rather than his other troops. The latter, he thought. Wolfe regarded the Highlanders with distrust and a certain contempt, as did most English officers. Those officers, at least, who’d never fought with them—or against them.

From his spot at the foot of the cliff, Grey couldn’t see them, but he could hear them: the scuffle of feet, now and then a wild scrabble and a clatter of falling small stones, loud grunts of effort, and what he recognized as Gaelic invocations of God, his mother, and assorted saints. One man near him pulled a string of beads from the neck of his shirt, kissed the tiny cross attached to it, and tucked it back; then, seizing a small sapling that grew out of the rock face, he leapt upward, kilt swinging, broadsword swaying from his belt in brief silhouette, before the darkness took him. Grey touched his dagger’s hilt again, his own talisman against evil.

It was a long wait in the darkness; to some extent he envied the Highlanders, who, whatever else they might be encountering—and the scrabbling noises and half-strangled whoops as a foot slipped and a comrade grabbed a hand or arm suggested that the climb was just as impossible as it seemed—were not dealing with boredom.

A sudden rumble and crashing came from above, and the shore party scattered in panic as several sharpened logs plunged out of the dark, dislodged from an abatis. One of them had struck point-down no more than six feet from Grey and stood quivering in the sand. With no discussion, the shore party retreated to the sandbar.

The scrabblings and gruntings grew fainter and abruptly ceased. Wolfe, who had been sitting on a boulder, stood up, straining his eyes upward.

“They’ve made it,” he whispered, and his fists curled in an excitement that Grey shared. “God, they’ve made it!”

Well enough, and the men at the foot of the cliff held their breaths; there was a guard post at the top of the cliff. Silence, bar the everlasting noise of tree and river. And then a shot.

Just one. The men below shifted, touching their weapons, ready, not knowing for what.

Were there sounds above? Grey could not tell and, out of sheer nervousness, turned aside to urinate against the side of the cliff. He was fastening his flies when he heard Simon Fraser’s voice above.

“Got ’em, by God!” he said. “Come on, lads—the night’s not long enough!”

The next few hours passed in a blur of the most arduous endeavor Grey had seen since he’d crossed the Scottish Highlands with his brother’s regiment, bringing cannon to General Cope. No, actually, he thought, as he stood in darkness, one leg wedged between a tree and the rock face, thirty feet of invisible space below him and rope burning through his palms with an unseen deadweight of two hundred pounds or so on the end, this was worse.

The Highlanders had surprised the guard, shot their fleeing captain in the heel, and made all of them prisoner. That was the easy part. The next thing was for the rest of the landing party to ascend to the cliff top, now that the trail—if there was such a thing—had been cleared. There they would make preparations to raise not only the rest of the troops now coming down the river aboard the transports but also seventeen battering cannon, twelve howitzers, three mortars, and all of the necessary encumbrances in terms of shell, powder, planks, and limbers necessary to make this artillery effective. At least, Grey reflected, by the time they were done, the vertical trail up the cliffside would likely have been trampled into a simple cow path.

As the sky lightened, Grey looked up for a moment from his spot at the top of the cliff, where he was now overseeing the last of the artillery as it was heaved over the edge, and saw the bateaux coming down again like a flock of swallows, they having crossed the river to collect an additional 1,200 troops that Wolfe had directed to march to Levi on the opposite shore, there to lie hidden in the woods until the Highlanders’ expedient should have been proved.

A head, cursing freely, surged up over the edge of the cliff. Its attendant body lunged into view, tripped, and sprawled at Grey’s feet.