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 old man answered the young Alex sadly. “We were mostly peaceful people, and we thought we were simply lending a little piece of our vast lands to these poor devils so they wouldn’t starve. In return, they gave us diseases that killed our bodies, and laws that confused our elders. Then they kept the land and tried to grow corn in rocks. They never understood that the land decides who lives and who dies. My forefathers,” he added, “should have listened to the old woman by the river.”
In 1904, the Department of Militia and Defence purchased 22,430 acres from the settlers, saving them from starvation but as usual ignoring the Algonquin people’s claims. The army has occupied the land ever since.
Alex smiled wryly. Here he was on his own ancestral lands with a mere handful of young natives attacking a modern military base that was home to 4,400 professional soldiers.
* * *
Joan Newman peered wearily into the darkness. Nothing but a two-lane gravel road, and at the sides, nothing but the bush: rocks, trees, road, rocks, trees, road. As she scanned the way ahead, the same irritating little rhythm beat in her brain as it did so often on such nights. Stay alert. Don’t hit a deer, please don’t hit a moose – rocks, trees, road. Oh God, she thought, if I did hit a moose, would anyone care? Yeah, actually. My boss would care. The car would be totalled. All that paperwork to get rid of my corpse. He’d be really mad. Rocks, trees, road. Rocks, trees, road.
* * *
A wave of his arm sent Alex’s scouts along Crest Road towards the target, this time with Sergeant Christmas in the lead. The patrol followed a few minutes later, the individual warriors in the surrounding darkness simply marching into the footsteps before them. They were confident in their leaders, especially Gabriel and Christmas, and they each knew what they were to do. Or rather, they’d been told what to do. “Follow the rehearsed plan; do your assigned part; don’t worry about anything else. If there is a surprise, follow the drills.” These rules had been hammered into their heads in training night after night for weeks. Weeks, Alex thought, not months. Five minutes of panic is all it would take to create total chaos. He took a deep breath. Too late to worry about that now. He had to focus on his own tasks.
The protective lights surrounding the Petawawa ammunition and weapons