setting a course that would carry his little fleet north and clear of the rocky island upriver from Indian Point on the west shore. He swung west into the open river, calm on this windless night, and, guided by the intermittent flash of the base airfield’s revolving beacon, headed towards “the officers’ beach.”
Petawawa, lit up against the dark southwestern sky, wasn’t hard to find. It was as quiet as one would expect in the very first hours of a Monday morning in late August. Alex and the Central Committee that had planned and authorized the raid knew that most of the base was in “stand-down” mode for a special weekend leave at the end of the militia training season. Duty units were on half strength. Best of all, the front-line 1st Battalion of the Royal Canadian Regiment, the top-notch regular infantry unit there, was far away, chasing terrorists in Zimbabwe as part of a Commonwealth “stabilization force” deployed in the wake of the chaos that had followed the January assassination of Robert Mugabe. As a result, the only combat troops in the region were the 390 paratroopers in the three “commandos” of the Special Service Regiment at CFB Trenton, four hours drive away.
Natives still in the army and stationed at Petawawa had assured the Central Committee, through the special network that had been set up, that no unit would be in the training area that weekend – a fact confirmed by others who were members of various militia regiments. At best, there would be half a dozen military police on routine patrol, rattling doors and breaking up fights outside the canteens. The base defence force, a gaggle of office and supply clerks – donkey-wallopers and jam-stealers, as the infantry called them – was a standing joke and would take hours to organize itself. By then, Alex was determined to be long gone, back across the river. Nevertheless, he prayed that surprise would work, for he knew that if even a half platoon of airborne infantry were waiting for them, his band of warriors would be mowed down before they could even cock their rifles.
* * *
Following the procedure Alex’s flotilla had practised night after night over the last few weeks, the crew chiefs manoeuvred their boats quickly into an “echeloned” line to his right rear, each boat keeping station just outside the wake of the one in front. They raced forward to cover the few kilometres from the island to the beach quickly. Alex hoped the noise, if anyone even heard it and wondered, would be taken for keen fishermen heading up the river seeking sturgeon and pickerel near the narrows at Point Mackey.
He watched nervously as the boats tossed over the bow waves of those in advance and fell in and out of line. Cold water splashed his warriors’ faces as they gripped the sides and seats or grabbed for equipment they hadn’t secured well enough. The crews watched the dark shore approach, more excited than anxious, too young and inexperienced to be afraid – unlike their chief.
Alex checked his watch again, timing the run he had made on several reconnaissance visits in the weeks before. He and Sergeant Steve Christmas, a native from the Oka band near Montreal, and another airborne deserter, had landed alone at night two weeks earlier and recced the ground to the target. As regular soldiers stationed at Petawawa, both had marched and run through the area countless times. But things change and, besides, both had learned well the maxim, “time spent in recce is seldom wasted.” Both also knew that plans never work as well on the ground as they do on paper. For one thing, distances are difficult to judge in the dark, and sooner than he expected, Alex’s boat bumped over the first sandbar just off the gently sloped, sandy beach.
Alex flashed a quick red light in warning to the others – too late: the boats criss-crossed each other’s wakes, their motors whining in high revs as they bounced over the shallow approach to the beach before being shut down indiscriminately while oars and paddles clattered against the boats as the crews pushed and paddled to the shore. So much for the rehearsals, he thought, but at least they weren’t shouting and hitting out at each other as they had on their first training run in another location upriver six weeks ago.
The crews lurched noisily up the sloping shoreline. Steve Christmas, the disciplinarian, directed a few well-aimed curses at particular stumblers then settled into his quiet, assured manner, restoring silence and order.
As they had rehearsed time and again, whispered words from Alex sent his two scouts sprinting a hundred metres ahead of the patrol into the edge of the tall grass fringing the beach. The carriers unloaded the boats, everyone, Alex hoped, remembering the particular items for which they were responsible. The boats were then quickly pushed out into deeper water where, under Annie’s command, they would head back out into the river and hold about a kilometre offshore waiting for the recovery call from Alex.
As the scouts moved quietly and quickly forward, Alex waved the lead section of ten warriors off in single-file formation towards the road. He followed a couple of dozen metres behind with his radioman. The remaining fifteen warriors, divided into two sections, each forming a well-spaced though ragged, single-file line on opposite sides of the road, followed Alex. Steve Christmas brought up the rear. The patrol moved off the beach onto the bush-covered grassy field, crossed Passchendaele Road, then passed the empty tent grounds, angling west towards Brindle Road, always keeping careful watch for any lights on the horizon that might betray a vehicle approaching from the base.
Alex had drilled into his team the necessity of maintaining a high degree of alertness while on the march, with the prime directive to avoid detection and contacts on the way in and back out. He was pleased to see Helen Pendergast and the other two young section commanders, all selected by their peers, enforcing the order for quiet, vigilance, and proper spacing. After ten minutes, the patrol reached the end of the open fields and moved up onto Brindle Road, still heading southwest. As they hit the road, the sections closed up their open formation but held to their alternating pattern – one section on one side, the next on the opposite side. The scouts hurried forward to the top of the low escarpment to guard the Crest Road intersection two kilometres ahead. There they watched for oncoming vehicles or other signs of trouble as the patrol made its way up the hill. Once the lead section arrived, the scouts waited for Alex’s signal to move forward.
The scrubby, pine-filled bush along the roads was deep and silent. The only noise was the crunch, crunch of boots on gravel and the soft grunt of people adjusting their loads and weapons as they began the climb up and out of the Petawawa plain. Alex checked his watch: on time so far. Up the Brindle Road hill to Crest Road: three kilometres to the target. All easier than the pace in their training exercises. Training ought to be harder than the real thing, and over the past few weeks Alex and Steve had made sure that it was.
When the patrol reached the junction of Brindle and Crest roads, Helen Pendergast raised her arm, silently signalling a halt. As the signal was passed down the line, Alex came up beside her and checked his map and watch again. The sections were resting in formation, some resting on a knee, others taking a drink of water or a nervous pee. A light northerly wind kicked up, rustling the spirits of the forest. Encouragement, he thought … or perhaps a warning.
* * *
Canadian Forces Base Petawawa is, of course, native land. At least it was until the white settlers occupied the region without any thought of compensation for the inhabitants. Some people say its name is from an Algonquin word, petwewe, meaning “Where one hears noise like this,” referring to the fast water flowing over the rocks of the Petawawa River. But as a child, Alex preferred his grandfather’s explanation that the area was named after his distant ancestor, an Algonquin woman who lived alone on the banks until the age of 115 years. She would have lived forever because she was married to the spirit of the river. But she died the moment she reached out to steady the first canoe of the first French explorers who touched the river bank at her feet.
Many years later, German immigrants built a settlement on native land near the same spot and tried hard to farm the harsh, rocky ground. Alex’s people protested to the government, but in vain. “Why,” he had once asked his grandfather, “did we not fight the settlers for the land long ago?”
The
