Flash! Fiction by Peter McMillan - HTML preview

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Professor Lewis generously devotes a full four paragraphs on pages 45 and 47 to recount his revised history, weaving this new colourful thread into the traditional tale of Mrs. Secord.

On the evening of June 21, 1813, three American officers arrived at Laura's house and demanded dinner, so she served them. During the evening, she overheard Lieutenant Colonel Charles Boerstler's plans, and before daybreak, she set out alone to warn the British. Just a few hours after she had left, her uncle came by to pay a visit to his niece and her husband, James, who had been wounded and left flat on his back since the Battle of Queenston Heights. Upon learning that Laura had gone to deliver information that could upset the planned attack on DeCew House, her uncle upbraided James, reminding him that the American sentries posted all around Queenston and the Indians and British guerrillas in the wilderness beyond were all of them capable of much violence, especially to a woman travelling alone. Of course he could not have told James the real reason for his concern. But in his confession, he reveals that he believed an American victory would virtually assure the American annexation of the Niagara Peninsula and richly reward any Loyalist who had switched sides.

It was late afternoon on June 22nd and he had been following his niece for 12 miles, and now, through the worn soles of his boots, he could feel Black Swamp oozing between his toes. He knew that Laura would be coming this way and avoiding the high ground of the escarpment. It was dangerous country, filled with sharp rocks and rattle-snakes, and unless one was an Indian or a scout, one moved slowly and fearfully. She could not have been too far ahead. In a clearing, he stopped, hearing a familiar whirring. As he reached for his musket, an arrow went through his right shoulder and the gun dropped to the 39

ground at his feet. It was an old trick. The Indian scouting party surrounded him. Unable to make himself understood, he was treated like an enemy prisoner, robbed of his possessions, and stripped of his clothes.

At the Indian camp, he most likely did not know who his captors were, since he was not knowledgeable beyond the towns and outlying farms. Based on historical evidence from the period and place, he was likely questioned then tortured to find out what a townsperson like himself was doing in the wilderness all alone. An analysis of his handwriting appears to confirm that he was tortured. There is a jerkiness and intensity in his penmanship that has been noted in other torture cases. The torture was successful, as we now know from the confession. Once he had given up the American plan and his own effort to stop Laura from delivering the warning, an Indian messenger rode off to warn the British. Late in the evening, FitzGibbon received the warning and prepared an ambush for Boerstler and the Americans in a densely wooded area on the Niagara Escarpment.

The following morning, the day of the planned attack, Laura was captured by Indian scouts, but her insistence on speaking directly with FitzGibbon persuaded them to take her to him without harm. FitzGibbon listened to Laura and thanked her, but he did not say that he already knew about the surprise attack. Later that day, on June 23rd, the Americans were routed at Beaverdams by Mohawk warri-ors flanking the trail on the ridge of the Niagara Escarpment. The ambush was planned so well that FitzGibbon's guerrillas reportedly never had to fire a shot.

They had only to guarantee the Americans that if they surrendered they would not be scalped.

In Canada, Mrs. Secord has long been recognised as a heroine of the resistance during the War of 1812, but until now her uncle's 40

treason had never been known. His body was never recovered.

His name does not appear in any previous accounts of the battles around this time, and only now has it surfaced in this particular episode of the war. Professor Lewis speculates that the confession may have been suppressed in order to keep a traitor hidden and to protect a heroine’s feat—“an inexcusable act of biased scholarship”

as the American historian has put it.

First published in The Copperfield Review, Volume 9, Number 2, Spring 2010.