to the east side of the swelling Gaspereau River, one of the smaller boys — only twelve years old — slipped and fell into the water. Struggling for air, he dropped the axe he was carrying.
Hector leaped into the river and easily pulled him to safety. “I hope you didn’t swallow too much water back there, young man.”
“Thanks, Hector. I’ll be all right. Sorry about the axe.”
“You’re more important than the axe, my friend.”
Eager to reach the shallops, the ragtag group skittered hurriedly along the shore. The lashing wind and rain limited talk to brief whispers. They all realized, though, that if the soldiers heard or saw them, they would be brutally hauled back and locked up. So few chose to say anything at all.
Only Nola knew exactly where the British had stowed their shallops, so she took the lead as they approached the storage area. Studying the site carefully, Nola recognized the shape of overturned boats emerging out of the darkness. She nudged Hector and pointed to them.
“I see them,” he said, and sprinted over to them. As he ran, Jocelyne and the girls spotted him and left their hiding spot, waving and smiling with relief.
“Great to see you,” Jocelyne whispered. “We hid the food and blankets in the bushes. The British patrol this area regularly. Unfortunately, they took all the oars and sails away.”
“Hello, girls. Good work with the food and things. The missing oars and sails are a problem, though.”
“I think I know what to do about that,” Nola said. “I saw several British whaleboats riding at anchor earlier today — about a hundred yards back, I think. They might have oars and sails.”
“Good idea,” Hector said. “It’s worth a try.”
As the others helped to push the little sloops to the shore and load them, Hector, two other boys, and Nola pulled an empty shallop along the beach to the spot where Nola thought the whaleboats were anchored. They shoved off into the inky blackness, paddling hard with their hands and placing their fate entirely in Nola’s recollection. Soon, just as Nola had hoped, silhouettes of whaleboats became visible. Pulling up to one, they all broke into broad smiles when they found it held not only oars and sails but a mast, as well.
Hector grabbed these and then untied the anchor line. “It’ll drift off. No need to make it easy for our pursuers to get these back. They certainly aren’t giving us any breaks.”
They moved off to check the contents of another whaleboat. In less than half an hour they were rowing back to shore with a shallop full of equipment.
“We have all we need to set sail now,” Hector told everybody. “The tide’s ebbing and the wind’s heading straight out of the bay — perfect conditions for us. Let’s go.”
They all hopped onto a boat helter-skelter, filling eighteen shallops with five or six persons per vessel. Most had a mixed crew. Hector, Jocelyne, Nola, and Nola’s grandfather were in the same shallop.
Hector pulled up sail and pointed the tiller to head out of the basin. The southeast wind moved them along at a brisk speed. “At this rate by first light we’ll be well out of here and deep into Chignecto Bay,” he told them.
Ten minutes into the sail Nola pointed to several large sailing ships riding at anchor. “Those are the transport ships that are going to take our parents away to a very bleak future.”
“I’m going to head away from them,” Hector said. “We don’t want any sentinels onboard to spot us. Signal the others to follow our lead.”
All turned except for the helmsmen of two shallops. Seeing this reckless behaviour, Nola felt a shiver of fear. Instinctively, she reached into a food sack, grabbed a turnip, and heaved it with all her might at the irresponsible sailors. But her missile fell several feet short of its target.
Hector immediately scooped up another turnip, stood straight, and threw it as hard as he could. The vegetable struck the closest helmsman right in the chest. Both errant shallops began to turn away.
“Thank God that got their attention,” Hector said. “Those fools would’ve ruined everything before we even got out of the harbour.”
Pulling farther away from the huge ships, Hector managed a thin smile. “I cut more than fifteen of those whaleboats adrift. But the best part is that I found a spyglass in one of them. It’s a beautiful piece of work. I just love it. The British are going to be mighty angry when they see what we’ve done. We’d better be far away when that happens.”
“Nicely done, Hector,” Nola said. She turned to her grandfather. “I’m so glad you could make it, Grandpa. Let me put this blanket around you. You look cold.”
“Thanks, Nola, that does feel better. You youngsters are doing well so far, but you can be sure the soldiers will keep after us. When they notice the missing shallops and the whaleboats, it won’t take them long to figure out what happened. They’ll surely guess where we’ve gone. By sunrise, I think we should go ashore and hide the shallops.”
Hector nodded. “Yes, we can’t risk sailing during the day, but I think we can go until a couple of hours after dawn. I doubt the British will get far down the bay until later this morning. And the farther we can get from Grand Pré, the more difficult it will be for them to catch us.”
As day dawned, a warm breeze propelled them along at a good pace, but a thick fog still limited visibility to a few yards. Nola was curled up under a seat, sleeping. Then she stirred, half awake, and grinned as she reflected on their new situation. They were much better off today than they had been last night. “Jocelyne” she whispered, “I need to go ashore. Do you?”
“Badly.”
“Hector, Jocelyne and I need to go ashore. Could you pull in for a bit?”
“We’ll go in for a quick break.” He signalled with an oar to the other boats to head to shore. This time, to no one’s surprise, there were no errant helmsmen.
Once on land, the girls managed a bit of privacy as they hurriedly completed their morning ablutions. Then Jocelyne broke out some cooked but cold bannock. Everyone ate the little snack with gusto; there were no complaints about the food being cold.
During the rest stop, Hector scolded the boys who had ignored his instructions. “We’ve got to stick together, or we’ll all be captured. Next time pay attention. You could get us killed.”
As their fellow escapees voiced agreement, the faces of the disobedient sailors reddened with shame.
Half an hour later, as they headed back out onto the water, Nola said to her grandfather, “You’ve been on the big bay before. How long do you think it will take for us to get to the isthmus?”
“It’s almost seventy miles from Grand Pré across the Bay of Fundy to the head of Chignecto Bay. We’ll have to be very careful when we get there. I heard the British have built a fort on the Chignecto Bay. They call it Fort Lawrence, I think. It’s sure to be chock full of soldiers.”
“Seventy miles,” Hector repeated. “At our current speed, if we sail until about two hours after daybreak and then start sailing again three hours after dusk, we should get to the head of Chignecto Bay before dawn tomorrow. That
