the river, lashing earth and air to darkness. It was impossible to
see five paces ahead or to aim a shot. The cliff roared down with
miniature rivulets and the slippery clay bank gave to every step of the
climbers slithering down waist-deep in mud and weeds. Powder was
soaked. As the rain ceased, Indians were seen sliding down the cliff
to scalp the wounded. Wolfe ordered a retreat. The drums rolled the
recall and the English escaped pellmell, the French hooting with
derision at the top of the banks, the English yelling back strong oaths
for the enemy to come out of its rat hole and fight like men. At the
ford the men, soaked like water rats, and a sorry rabble, got into some
sort of rank and burned the two stranded vessels as they passed back to
the east side. In less than an hour four hundred and forty-three men
had fallen, the most of them killed, many both dead and wounded, into
the hands of the Indian scalpers.

One can guess Wolfe's fearful despair that night. A month had passed.
He had accomplished worse than nothing. In another month the fleet
must leave the St. Lawrence to avoid autumn storms. Fragile at all
times, Wolfe fell ill, ill of fever and of chagrin, and those officers
over whose head he had been promoted did not spare their criticisms,
their malice. It is so easy to win battles of life and war in theory.

As for Quebec, it was felt the siege was over, the contest won. Still
bad news had come from the west. Niagara had fallen before the
English, and the forts on Lake Champlain were abandoned to Amherst.
Nothing now barred the English advance down the Richelieu to Montreal.
Montcalm dispatches Levis to Montreal with eight hundred men.

{268} Why did Amherst not come to Wolfe's aid? His enemies say because
the commanding general was so sure the siege of Quebec would fail that
he did not want any share of the blame. That may be unjust. Amherst
was of the slow, cautious kind, who marched doggedly to victory. He
may not have wished to risk a second Ticonderoga. Wolfe's position was
now desperate. His only alternatives were success or ruin. "You can't
cure me," he told his surgeon, "but mend me up so I can go on for a few
days." What he did in those few days left his name immortal. Robert
Stobo, who had been captured from Washington's battalions on the Ohio,
and who knew every foot of Quebec from five years of captivity, had
escaped, joined Wolfe, and drawn plans of all surroundings.