# Myths and Legends Beyond Our Borders/The Headless Deserters

Layout 2
THE HEADLESS DESERTERS
TWO soldiers of the British garrison on Drummond Island, of the Manitoulin group, were homesick. They had been stationed at this lonesome post for several years, after the war of 1812 was over, and, having neither the excitements of battle, the pleasures of frontier life, nor the comforts of home, they chafed at their restraints and their remoteness from such of their kind as they most valued. They resolved to desert. Lake Huron, between the island and the shores of Georgian Bay, was frozen. They would cross to the mainland, follow a trail to Toronto, gain United States territory, and take ship for England. On the first clear night after coming to this decision they escaped. The commander of the post was a martinet whose severity was in large measure responsible for the discontent among his men, and he determined to use sharp remedies to prevent this homesickness from becoming contagious. Notice was posted at the barracks that twenty dollars apiece would be paid for the return of each run-away, dead or alive. Some black looks were bent on the commander, and some mutinous talk was heard in barracks, but what of that? Soldiers were cheap, and of little more account than cattle, in his opinion.
A camp of Indians neighbored the military settlement, and the savages often visited the garrison ​to sell game or pick up scraps of bread. It was not long before they knew of the reward, and two stalwart hunters fitted on their snow-shoes and hurried off on the trail, while it was still to be descried, though dimly, along the wind-swept ice floor. With blood they could buy that more precious liquor, rum. The tracks showed more clearly on Great Manitoulin Island, where the red pursuers shortly found them. They skulked along the shore while the short day lasted, making better time in the bright midwinter moonlight. Presently they slackened their eager pace and went forward with fresh caution, for they saw, just around a wooded point, a glow in the air. The half-perished fugitives had set fire to some drift-wood and were seated on a log facing the flames. So attent and unsuspecting were the soldiers, and so loud was the crackle of the burning wood, that the approach of the murderers was unheard. The Indians were at their backs, their tomahawks in hand. In another moment the heads of the deserters had been smitten from their shoulders. With these ghastly relics tied at their belts the Indians regained the barracks, delivered the proofs of their industry, and received their forty dollars, a sum sufficient for a long and lurid debauch. So suddenly did the axe-blows fall that the bodies of the soldiers were not jarred from their seats, and did not topple, but remained with hands extended to the blaze. And there they sit on winter nights. Their fire burns blue now ​instead of red, and shines on uniforms that are mildewed and faded. When the fisherman or hunter puts in at this point, hoping for shelter, he gives one glance at the headless soldiers; then, as fast as his legs will carry him or his arms can pull at the oars, he leaves the gruesome spot. When he passes by daylight no figures are there,—nothing but charred branches.