Increasing the pace of the march had posed no problem for the troops. It had been done gradually, without histrionics. The civilians, unaware of the order and the reasons behind it, had had no option but to keep up. Thanks to the full moon, the column had been able to remain on the road long after sunset, and an earlier than usual breaking of camp that morning had shortened the travel time to the lake by a significant margin. As a result, the travellers had arrived at the rendezvous just as the early morning mist was rising off the waters of Bulwagga Bay, six hours earlier than had been foreseen.

With embarkation having to be brought forward there was an unavoidable risk of scouts failing to rejoin the column in time and being left behind. At least word of the militia’s advance had filtered through to the outriders on the column’s flanks; over the course of the evening they had made their way to the rendezvous point, there to await the column’s dawn arrival.

But of Stryker’s party and the boy there had been no word.

And time had now run out.

The Provincial Marine vessels – the eighteen-gun sloop, Inflexible; an armed schooner, the Maria; and a flotilla of gunboats and batteaux – and the force of Royal Yorkers and Indians who’d been assigned to secure the site, had been ready and waiting. Under the watchful supervision of the Royal Navy boat crews, the boarding of passengers – military and civilian – had been conducted efficiently and without mishap.

The Maria, with its full complement of civilians safely on-board, had already set sail. Running before a brisk south-easterly, she had rounded Orchard Point, the northern tip of the peninsula, and was now making firm headway towards Champlain’s deeper waters. In convoy behind her, trailing like ducklings, were the batteaux – troop carriers – flanked by their escort of gunboats.

Inflexible, deployed to protect the final stages of the evacuation, remained at anchor, pending Johnson and Scott’s transfer, along with the last of the lookouts, while a single shallow-draught gunboat kept station closer to the shore. Despite the serenity of the scene, Johnson knew both crews would be growing restless.

With his back to the water, his shoulders warmed by the sun, he ran his eyes along the shoreline as it extended from the southern end of the bay, where the various sections of the column had been ferried out to the Marine vessels, to the wilder, northern promontories. Several of the more exposed stretches of foreshore were littered with driftwood; entire trees, uprooted and stranded by a succession of winter storms and spring floods, lay in disarray across the sand, some singly, some stacked like lengths of cordage, their bleached trunks as smooth as bone in the morning light.