Invasion by Invasion (retail) (epub)

Author:Invasion (retail) (epub)
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781788633062
Publisher: Canelo
Published: 2019-10-11T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

They found more powder corns on the floor, spilled perhaps from a barrel being moved in haste. The four of them looked at each other. ‘Well, Moses?’ said Carson. ‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’

‘I sure am.’ Crabbe studied the wall again. ‘Like I said, shoddy work. What do you reckon, Billy? Can we break it down?’

‘One good heave ought to do it,’ said Carson.

‘Perhaps the weakness of the wall is deliberate,’ said Josephine. ‘It was built to conceal what lies behind it, but also to allow easy access when needed.’

‘I reckon so, madame,’ said Carson. He and Crabbe laid their muskets aside and approached the wall. Carson still had a bandage on his arm from the wound he had taken at Twenty Mile Pond, and he winced when he pushed against the wall. Ignoring the pain, he began to exert his enormous strength, muscles straining and a vein standing out in his forehead. ‘Come on,’ he gasped to Crabbe beside him. ‘Put your back into it, shrimp. Push!’

‘I am pushing, you big ox.’

Straining, heaving and gasping, the two men threw their full weight against the wall. Nothing happened at first, but after a few seconds, cracks began to appear. ‘Look out!’ Charlotte cried, and suddenly the wall collapsed, bricks and mortar tumbling down into a pile of rubble. A cloud of dust rose, making them all cough. Then the dust cleared, and they stood and stared at the sight before them.

Behind the ruined wall, wooden barrels lay piled on top of each other in a pyramid reaching almost to the ceiling of the tunnel. ‘Oh, my goodness,’ said Charlotte, and her voice was a little tremulous. ‘We’ve certainly found our gunpowder. That’s the mark of the Halifax arsenal on the barrels.’

‘You recognise it?’ Josephine asked.

Charlotte nodded. ‘Hector always insisted on buying Halifax powder for his regiment. It was the best and strongest powder in Canada, he said.’

‘Made in Halifax and brought by ship to Montreal,’ Josephine said. ‘Then brought upriver to Kingston, and over the lake to Burlington. The question is, what is it doing here? Why steal it and then hide it right under our noses?’

‘This isn’t all of the powder, madame,’ Crabbe said. ‘You mentioned there were two hundred barrels missing. There’s only about fifty here.’

‘Raise your hands in the air,’ said a voice behind them. ‘Turn around slowly. Real careful, now.’

They turned around. Two men confronted them. One was a civilian in a ragged coat and breeches and battered hat. He held a brace of long-barrelled pistols, one in each hand. The other, holding a musket at the ready, was the grenadier of the 49th who had taken the letter from Josephine.

The man with the pistols gestured at Carson. ‘That’s him. The one that was askin’ all them questions. Then that bloody fool sutler started talkin’ about the tunnels.’

‘And I sure recognise this little pullet,’ said the grenadier, glaring at Josephine.

Josephine and Charlotte had pistols in their pockets, but they would be shot before they could draw them.

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