HISTORICAL FICTION — SPECULATIVE FICTION

Finding Snowshoes In The Forest

Chapter Twenty-Eight — A vital gift from Laurent

The three friends struggled with the extra flags while carrying the rifles and ammunition they had been issued as a scouting party. Not everyone in the army had a rifle with ammunition, a number only had bayonets on their rifles for close contact combat. A third of the way through, the load became lighter with a good portion of the flags having been set for the following army to use as guideposts.

With lighter loads, the pace picked up a bit until it began to snow heavily making the trail more difficult to navigate. If it hadn’t been for the fact they had marched the trail many times, they would have lost the trail in the fresh snow.

They three young men had almost reached the halfway point when Guillaume noticed tracks leading away from the trail. He recognised the location as being the same place he had seen the native who looked like Laurent.

Curious, he motioned to Bernard and François to hold up while he carefully slipped off the main trail to investigate. All three had dropped the flags and held their rifles at the ready in case of the presence of an enemy. About fifty metres off the main trail, the tracks disappeared completely.

“What the …” spoke Bernard puzzled by the sudden disappearance of what was obviously a very recent track. “They can’t just disappear into thin air.”

“Maybe it’s just one person,” Guillaume suggested remembering the man he had seen at this same spot before.

It was with surprise when François gave a whoop of cheer. “Hey guys, come see this. Whoever made these tracks left a cache of sorts. Look at these” he uttered in surprise. Snowshoes and moccasins. Three sets of them.”

Guillaume instantly knew it was the stranger who had just left the snowshoes and moccasins. They were left for him and his two friends.

“Let’s put them on,” Guillaume told his friends. “We’ll be able to travel faster with the flags and create a better walking path for the guys following us. Someone must be looking out for us.”

They arrived back at the fortified camp with their task completed a good hour and a half before the main body of the regiment marched in. Nicholas hadn’t arrived at the camp before them which had the three lads explaining why Nicholas wasn’t with them.

“He just threw down his flags and took off,” Bernard explained. “He was supposed to be here long before us.”

“Maybe he got lost when the snow covered the trail,” offered François.

While the interrogation of the three young soldiers continued, Nicholas arrived. The Lieutenant stood the young soldier in front of his troop mates and berated him for a sold fifteen minutes before having him confined to brig until the officers arrived at a suitable punishment.

What he had done could be construed as abandonment of his duties, or even worse, desertion which carried a death sentence. Hearing the options Nicholas faced shocked the whole regiment. It was only at this time they realised they were in a theatre of war, not on some difficult training exercise in a foreign country.

After the soldiers had been dismissed, the Lieutenant had the three remain behind. “So, where did you get the snowshoes?”

Guillaume spoke first. “Well, I saw a track heading away from the main trail which was getting harder to follow because of the snow. It surprised me that I could see the track. We thought there might be an enemy just setting up and ambush for the regiment, so we investigated.”

“Sir,” added Bernard. “We followed our training and had our rifles ready to engage the enemy.”

“Quick thinking and absolutely by the book,” the officer said with evident approval. “However, that doesn’t explain the snowshoes, does it?”

“I found a cache, a very recent cache as it wasn’t covered with much snow, Sir.” François replied with satisfaction. “Three pairs of snowshoes and moccasins were all that was in the cache, Sir.”

“Hmm, it sounds suspicious, doesn’t it?” the Lieutenant mused aloud. “Three of you and three sets of snowshoes. How can you explain that?”

“Um, Sir,” Guillaume spoke with hesitation.

“Yes, Lepetit?”

“I think they were deliberately left for us by a friendly native. It’d been just the three of us for some time, something anyone following us would have known. Maybe they, or he, knew we were in store for a snowstorm and decided we needed the snowshoes.”

“Hmm. Curious. Regardless, the packed snow made it easier for us to finish the trek. I’m going to recommend the three of you keep your snowshoes and become scouts for our campaign.”

Previously

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Carrie, Author, D. Denise Dianaty, Brian Lageose, Mariana Busarova, Rena Aliston, Julia A. Keirns, Michael Cappelli, Daniel Shaw, and Luis Ruiz, Robert, Arzuman Mamishov, Adda Maria, Love, and Mariana Busarova