The young Canadian Private scrambled for cover behind the blown wall of the historic city.  Dusk was settling in.

“Damn it” he screamed under his breath, barely hearing himself over the pounding of his racing heart.

A road side bomb had destroyed the APV he had been riding in.  He scanned the area, remembering the training he received just a week before.  “Watch out for snipers!  They like to use snipers to pick off any who survive”. 

He checked himself out.  Nothing broken, a small amount of blood dripped from his nose. It was the damn ringing in his ears that was driving him crazy.  And just above the ring he could hear the moans of a fellow soldier.  Looking back at the mangled hunk of steel he had just been riding in he could see an arm, but just the arm, nothing else.  The moaning soldier lay 3 meters from the wreckage, covered in blood, but alive.  Smoke and flames rose from the APV.

“Stay down!” the young soldier yelled.  “Keep quiet while I check the perimeter”.  His eyes surveyed the terrain. 

It was so familiar.  His family had visited “The Plains of Abraham” when he was a teenager.  His father told him all the history that created his country.  Hell, he had even played hockey in this city not two years before.  Now here he was, fighting for his life in what remained of “Old Quebec City”. 

The Plains of Abraham were in front of him, the old Citadel lay in ruins behind him.  It was bombed out the previous week as his unit rooted out the rebels.  “Freedom Fighters” they called themselves.  Heroes to many in Quebec, reviled by the Canadian Government, ignored by many in the rest of the country.  “How the hell did we get into this mess?”  His father’s question reverberated in the young soldier’s mind.  Politicians spending too much talking about issues and not enough solving the problems.  Allowing an undercurrent of discontent to grow and totally ignoring a growing anger and resentment of a society isolated by history, with feelings of absolute hatred towards an “occupier” who subverted and systematically destroyed their culture.  At least that was the rhetoric of the young militants who had rallied enough support to begin a revolution.

None of that mattered.  Right now he had to find a way to survive. 

The sound of movement startled him.  The turret of the personnel carrier slowly opened and smoke poured out.  His Corporal began to climb out.  “What is he doing?” thought the Private.  But the Corporal was disoriented, blood streamed down his face and the prospect of burning to death drove him to ignore training. 

“Get your head back into the Lynx….”  The bullet beat his words to the Corporal.

The body of the man jerked violently as the whistling sound of a bullet passed over the young Private’s head.  “SHIT!”.  The body went limp, draped face down on the APV.  Flames engulfed it.

“Where is that son of a bitch!?”  The young Private’s head snapped in the opposite direction and captured a shadow moving in the distance.  “How fitting, the bastard is using the Wolfe Monument as cover!”.

Training took over.  Fear was no where to be found.  He moved quickly and quietly as he manoeuvred into position.  The enemy was out there, he just had to find him.  Using the brush as cover, he approached the enemy’s position.  Looking back he could see the burning APV.  It seemed so far away and he had covered a lot of ground in a short time. 

Just ahead was the Wolfe Monument.  The young Canadian Private raised his weapon and peered through the sight.  There he was, standing behind the monument, his sniper rifle still pointed at the APV.  The crosshairs of the Privates weapon focused just behind the sniper’s left ear.  “He has no clue I’m here or that his life is about to end”  The Private squeezed the trigger and a bullet exploded from the weapon. 

The young private moved cautiously towards his fallen prey.  “Would there be others around here?” The sound of Canadian troops and armoured vehicles swarming the area made that unlikely.  The body lay face down in a growing pool of blood.  He moved to stand over it.  He gasped for air as he turned the body over.  “Rene! Oh Shit”.  It was his defence partner.  They had played together on the same Junior A hockey team that visited Quebec City just two years earlier. 

The Young Canadian Private stood frozen.  His shoulders drooped, the butt of his gun touched the ground.  In a haze he began to walk away, his gun dragging behind him.  “How the hell did we get into this mess?”