Woolford shook his head. “Ridiculous. Cameron is more English than I am. Amherst trusts him implicitly. They say he was assigned to Calder’s staff to keep Calder in line. Amherst values him so highly he brought him back to help plan the battle.”
“Brought him back?”
“A fast escort of provosts riding with extra mounts brought him from Calder’s column yesterday. He’s the ranking officer of the Highland regiments.”
“What exactly did he do for Calder?”
“His adjutant, responsible for administration. Same as for Amherst, at least for the rest of the campaign. Overseeing the quartermaster, the infirmaries, deployment schedules.”
“Including the paymaster?”
Woolford hesitated before nodding. “And the paymaster.”
“Who would have been responsible for the report on the payroll robbery?”
“He would have been.”
“Get it.”
“Impossible.”
“You run an intelligence network for Calder. You have ways.”
“I don’t spy within the army, Duncan. Stealing such a report would be a hanging offense.”
“You can only hang once.”
“You are the one who accumulates capital offenses, not me.”
“I am thinking more of how you are going to help me ransom the Council’s children.”
An army won battles on the strength of musket and sword. It won wars on the strength of oxen and wagons. General Amherst was famed not for his ability in a battle line but for his prowess at moving huge amounts of men and supplies to where they would do the enemy the most damage. Duncan could not help but admire the temporary city that Amherst was building. Hundreds of men worked at erecting tents, digging latrines, cutting and hauling wood for scores of fires, even raising high poles for regimental colors.
Woolford nervously watched Duncan as they paced along the neat rows of freshly excavated earthen bunkers where kegs of gunpowder were being stored.
Duncan paused to watch one of the blue-coated artillery officers step into a pit and begin marking kegs with a piece of chalk. “Why does he do that?”
“An artillery officer’s world revolves around chalk marks. Marks to show when a batch of powder was tested last, marks to distinguish the coarse powder for the big guns from the fine, which is saved for small arms. Marks to show the age of the powder. Marks to show whether the powder came from the Birmingham works or the Durham works, since each has its own characteristics. In the field, kegs have to be marked for delivery to specific batteries. They all have their own codes. And that is just the powder. There is also the shot. The munitions will go to half a dozen batteries being built along the southern bank. Those expecting to face troops will receive grape shot, those planning to face ships will get chain shot.”
“There’s almost no roads on this side. So they must be carried by porters. The kind of menial job Amherst would expect the tribes to do.”
Woolford nodded. “He has lots of Mohawks already here.”
“Under whose supervision?”
“The quartermaster.”
“Who would be accountable to the adjutant. Colonel Cameron.”
Woolford turned to study Duncan. “One moment you are the most zealous of Highlanders. The next you speak of them in tones of suspicion. Who are you?”
Duncan had no answer. He walked as close to the bunkers as he could, inconspicuously trying to see the markings. A pair of artillerymen in Fraser plaid passed by, then two more wearing the Montgomery tartan. It would take experienced hands to pack so many coins in the powder kegs, hands that knew the normal weight of a full keg, knew how to repack a keg without signs of tampering, hands with enough authority to control where the kegs went and with a way to guard them without raising too much suspicion. He tried to calculate how many kegs it would take. Ten or fifteen at least, more like twenty. “The westernmost battery,” he said, “the one closest to the half-king. What is its mark? Who is manning it?”
Woolford frowned again then silently surveyed the magazines. His gaze came to rest on a cluster of officers around a field desk. “Wait here,” he instructed.
Five minutes later the ranger led Duncan to the last row of earthen bunkers. The last pit in the last of the row had been dug at the edge of an encampment of Fraser Highlanders. The soldiers had dug one of their cook fire pits not thirty yards away and surrounded it with logs for seating. It was a place where men could linger, night and day, without being conspicuous.
He did not tarry as he walked by the bunker, but he quickly studied the kegs in sight. He could see at least four with the mark of the Jacobites.
He waited to speak until he was on a knoll overlooking the magazines. “Do you have paper and lead?” he asked.
Woolford reached into the light day pack he carried, and a moment later Duncan was on one knee, drawing a map. He marked each pit with a circle, then the one by the Frasers with an X inside the circle. “Tatamy said he would camp in a grove of birches a mile north of Montreal. One of your Mohawks must get this to him,” he told Woolford. “Today.”
“Why today?”
“Because tomorrow we are going to rescue the children and stop the half-king with a piece of chalk.”
It was nearly sundown when Woolford returned to the camp. The ranger captain motioned Duncan to the half-tent he had raised by tying a sailcloth between two trees. He had found some driftwood planks and arranged them on logs for a makeshift table, and he now tossed a leather dispatch case onto it.
“I copied the clerk’s copy, word for word, saying it was needed for General Calder.” He shook his head as he gazed at the case. “I don’t know how to react,” he said in a forlorn tone. “I admire the Highlanders and regret their suffering. I despise traitors.”
Duncan pulled out the single sheet of paper rolled inside. It was a report sent by Colonel Cameron to the Ministry in London the week before. Cameron had conducted a thorough investigation of the robbery, he reported. The raiders had bribed the Iroquois carpenters at Bethel Church, who had secret knowledge of the locking mechanisms in the paywagon, then had offloaded the payroll while the escort had taken a meal in one of the houses. They had waited for the wagon to leave, then killed all the Iroquois to eradicate all witnesses. Using canoes on Lake Champlain, they had expected a fast transport back to the French lines. Witnesses confirmed seeing a half dozen canoes speeding north the afternoon of the theft, all riding low in the water, indicating heavy loads. Unfortunately, that night there had been a strong storm over the central part of the lake. Reliable witnesses reported seeing the canoes floundering half a mile offshore. The overladen canoes had been lost. The raiders had been punished by the hand of God, though unfortunately the king’s treasure now lay in the depths of the lake.
“No names for the sources of his information,” Duncan observed. “Only reliable witnesses. No way to verify their words.”
“A friend of mine helped me get this,” Woolford explained. “He and his rangers do what I do, but for Amherst. After the general read Cameron’s report, he sent some of his own rangers to Lake Champlain, to Crown Point and Ticonderoga.”
“And?”
Woolford seemed reluctant to continue. He rolled the paper up, but instead of returning it to the case he stepped to the smoldering fire and lit it. He held it in his hand, watching it burn as Duncan stepped to his side.
“And?” Duncan pressed.
“There was another report, one that Amherst burned after reading. The rangers found their own reliable witnesses, officers of the garrison guard, supported by the daily logs of the guard. There were no storms that day or the next, and sightings of unexplained canoes would have been recorded. There were no such reports.”