“You are not wounded, Humphrey?”

“I think not.  I have only had all the breath knocked out of me; and the guns seem to stun one.  Have they really left us in possession of the battery?  And does not Wolfe say that, when once we get a footing on the shore, we will not leave till Louisbourg is ours?”

Triumph filled the hearts alike of soldiers and sailors.  All day long they worked waist deep in the surf, getting ashore such things as were most needed, intrenching themselves behind the battery, clearing the ground, making a road up from the beach, and pitching their tents.

At. night a cheer went up from their weary throats, for they saw red tongues of flame shooting up, and soon it was known beyond a doubt that the French had fired one of their batteries, which they had felt obliged to abandon; and this showed that they had no intention of attacking the bold storming party which had established itself at the Cove.

At sea the guns roared and flashed all day and all night.  The air was full of sounds of battle.  But the wearied soldiers slept in their tents, and by day worked might and main at the task of making good their position.  They extended the line of their camp, they built redoubts and blockhouses, they routed skirmishing parties of Indians and Acadians hiding in the woods and spying upon them, and they strengthened their position day by day, till it became too strong a one for the enemy to dare to approach.

Every day the men toiled at their task, cheered by items of news from the shore.  The battery on Goat Island was silenced, after many days of hot fire from the English frigates.  A French vessel had fired in the harbour, and had been burned to the water’s edge.  The garrison had sent a frigate with dispatches pressing for aid to their governor in Canada.  The frigate and dispatches fell into the hands of the English, and much valuable information was gleaned therefrom.

And day by day the camp stretched out in a semicircle behind the town.  It was a difficult task to construct it; for a marsh lay before them, and the road could only be made at the cost of tremendous labour, and often the fire of the enemy disturbed the men at their work.

Wolfe was the life and soul of the camp all through this piece of arduous work.  If he could not handle pick and shovel like some, his quick eye always saw the best course to pursue, and his keen insight was invaluable in the direction of operations.  Ill or well, he was with and amongst his men every day and all day long, the friend of each and every one, noticing each man’s work, giving praise to industry and skill, cheering, encouraging, inspiring.  Not a soldier but felt that the young officer was his personal friend; not a man but would most willingly and gladly have borne for him some of that physical suffering which at times was written all too clearly in his wasted face.

“Nay, it is nothing,” he would say to his companions, when they strove to make him spare himself; “I am happier amongst you all.  I can always get through the day’s work somehow.  In my tent I brood and rebel against this crazy carcass of mine; but out here, in the stir and the strife, I can go nigh to forget it.”