The Battle Of The Strong, Complete - Gilbert Parker
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At the moment when these ambitious plans had reached the highest point of
imagination, the upper half of the door beside him opened suddenly, and
he heard men's voices. He was about to rise and disappear, but the words
of the men arrested him, and he cowered down beside the stone. One of the
men was leaning on the half-door, speaking in French.
"I tell you it can't go wrong. The pilot knows every crack in the coast.
I left Granville at three; Rulle cour left Chaussey at nine. If he lands
safe, and the English troops ain't roused, he'll take the town and hold
the island easy enough."
"But the pilot, is he certain safe?" asked another voice. Ranulph
recognised it as that of the baker Carcaud, who owned the shop. "Olivier
Delagarde isn't so sure of him."
Olivier Delagarde! The lad started. That was his father's name. He shrank
as from a blow--his father was betraying Jersey to the French!
"Of course, the pilot, he's all right," the Frenchman answered the baker.
"He was to have been hung here for murder. He got away, and now he's
having his turn by fetching Rullecour's wolves to eat up your
green-bellies. By to-morrow at seven Jersey 'll belong to King Louis."
"I've done my promise," rejoined Carcaud the baker; "I've been to three
of the guard-houses on St. Clement's and Grouville. In two the men are
drunk as donkeys; in another they sleep like squids. Rullecour he can
march straight to the town and seize it--if he land safe. But will he
stand by 's word to we? You know the saying: 'Cadet Roussel has two sons;
one's a thief, t'other's a rogue.' There's two Rullecours--Rullecour
before the catch and Rullecour after!"
"He'll be honest to us, man, or he'll be dead inside a week, that's all."
"I'm to be Connetable of St. Heliers, and you're to be
harbour-master--eh?"
"Naught else: you don't catch flies with vinegar. Give us your hand--why,
man, it's doggish cold."
"Cold hand, healthy heart. How many men will Rullecour bring?"
"Two thousand; mostly conscripts and devil's beauties from Granville and
St. Malo gaols."
"Any signals yet?"
"Two--from Chaussey at five o'clock. Rullecour 'll try to land at Gorey.
Come, let's be off. Delagarde's there now."
The boy stiffened with horror--his father was a traitor! The thought
pierced his brain like a hot iron. He must prevent this crime, and warn
the Governor. He prepared to steal away. Fortunately the back of the
man's head was towards him.
Carcaud laughed a low, malicious laugh as he replied to the Frenchman.
"Trust the quiet Delagarde! There's nothing worse nor still waters. He'll
do his trick, and he'll have his share if the rest suck their thumbs. He
doesn't wait for roasted larks to drop into his mouth--what's that!" It
was Ranulph stealing away.
In an instant the two men were on him, and a hand was clapped to his
mouth. In another minute he was bound, thrown onto the stone floor of the
bakehouse, his head striking, and he lost consciousness.
When he came to himself, there was absolute silence round him-deathly,
oppressive silence. At first he was dazed, but at length all that had
happened came back to him.
Where was he now? His feet were free; he began to move them about. He
remembered that he had been flung on the stone floor of the bakeroom.
This place sounded hollow underneath--it certainly was not the bakeroom.
He rolled over and over. Presently he touched a wall--it was stone. He
drew himself up to a sitting posture, but his head struck a curved stone
ceiling. Then he swung round and moved his foot along the wall--it
touched iron. He felt farther with his foot-something clicked. Now he
understood; he was in the oven of the bakehouse, with his hands bound. He
began to think of means of escape. The iron door had no inside latch.
There was a small damper covering a barred hole, through which perhaps he
might be able to get a hand, if only it were free. He turned round so
that his fingers might feel the grated opening. The edge of the little
bars was sharp. He placed the strap binding his wrists against these
sharp edges, and drew his arms up and down, a difficult and painful
business. The iron cut his hands and wrists at first, so awkward was the
movement. But, steeling himself, he kept on steadily.
At last the straps fell apart, and his hands were free. With difficulty
he thrust one through the bars. His fingers could just lift the latch.
Now the door creaked on its hinges, and in a moment he was out on the
stone flags of the bakeroom. Hurrying through an unlocked passage into
the shop, he felt his way to the street door, but it was securely
fastened. The windows? He tried them both, one on either side, but while
he could free the stout wooden shutters on the inside, a heavy iron bar
secured them without, and it was impossible to open them.
Feverish with anxiety, he sat down on the low counter, with his hands
between his knees, and tried to think what to do. In the numb
hopelessness of the moment he became very quiet. His mind was confused,
but his senses were alert; he was in a kind of dream, yet he was acutely
conscious of the smell of new-made bread. It pervaded the air of the
place; it somehow crept into his brain and his being, so that, as long as
he might live, the smell of new-made bread would fetch back upon him the
nervous shiver and numbness of this hour of danger.
As he waited, he heard a noise outside, a clac-clac! clac-clac! which
seemed to be echoed back from the wood and stone of the houses in the
street, and then to be lifted up and carried away over the roofs and out
to sea---clac-clac! clac-clac! It was not the tap of a blind man's
staff--at first he thought it might be; it was not a donkey's foot on the
cobbles; it was not the broom-sticks of the witches of St. Clement's Bay,
for the rattle was below in the street, and the broom-stick rattle is
heard only on the roofs as the witches fly across country from Rocbert to
Bonne Nuit Bay.
This clac-clac came from the sabots of some nightfarer. Should he make a
noise and attract the attention of the passer-by? No, that would not do.
It might be some one who would wish to know whys and wherefores. He must,
of course, do his duty to his country, but he must save his father too.
Bad as the man was, he must save him, though, no matter what happened, he
must give the alarm. His reflections tortured him. Why had he not stopped
the nightfarer?
Even as these thoughts passed through the lad's mind, the clac-clac had
faded away into the murmur of the stream flowing by the Rue d'Egypte to
the sea, and almost beneath his feet. There flashed on him at that
instant what little Guida Landresse had said a few days before as she lay
down beside this very stream, and watched the water wimpling by. Trailing
her fingers through it dreamily, the child had said to him:
"Ro, won't it never come back?" She always called him "Ro," because when
beginning to talk she could not say Ranulph.
Ro, won't it never come back? But while yet he recalled the words,
another sound mingled again with the stream-clac-clac! clac-clac!
Suddenly it came to him who was the wearer of the sabots making this
peculiar clatter in the night. It was Dormy Jamais, the man who never
slept. For two years the clac-clac of Dormy Jamais's sabots had not been
heard in the streets of St. Heliers--he had been wandering in France, a
daft pilgrim. Ranulph remembered how these sabots used to pass and repass
the doorway of his own home. It was said that while Dormy Jamais paced
the streets there was no need of guard or watchman. Many a time had
Ranulph shared his supper with the poor beganne whose origin no one knew,
whose real name had long since dropped into oblivion.
The rattle of the sabots came nearer, the footsteps were now in front of
the window. Even as Ranulph was about to knock and call the poor
vagrant's name, the clac-clac stopped, and then there came a sniffing at
the shutters as a dog sniffs at the door of a larder. Following the
sniffing came a guttural noise of emptiness and desire. Now there was no
mistake; it was the half-witted fellow beyond all doubt, and he could
help him--Dormy Jamais should help him: he should go and warn the
Governor and the soldiers at the Hospital, while he himself would speed
to Gorey in search of his father. He would alarm the regiment there at
the same time.
He knocked and shouted. Dormy Jamais, frightened, jumped back into the
street. Ranulph called again, and yet again, and now at last Dormy
recognised the voice.
With a growl of mingled reassurance and hunger, he lifted down the iron
bar from the shutters. In a moment Ranulph was outside with two loaves of
bread, which he put into Dormy Jamais's arms. The daft one whinnied with
delight.
"What's o'clock, bread-man?" he asked with a chuckle.
Ranulph gripped his shoulders. "See, Dormy Jamais, I want you to go to
the Governor's house at La Motte, and tell them that the French are
coming, that they're landing at Gorey now. Then to the Hospital and tell
the sentry there. Go, Dormy--allez kedainne!"
Dormy Jamais tore at a loaf with his teeth, and crammed a huge crust into
his mouth.
"Come, tell me, will you go, Dormy?" the lad asked impatiently.
Dormy Jamais nodded his head, grunted, and, turning on his heel with
Ranulph, clattered up the street. The lad sprang ahead of him, and ran
swiftly up the Rue d'Egypte, into the Vier Marchi, and on over the Town
Hill along the road to Grouville.
CHAPTER III
Since the days of Henry III of England the hawk of war that broods in
France has hovered along that narrow strip of sea dividing the island of
Jersey from the duchy of Normandy. Eight times has it descended, and
eight times has it hurried back with broken pinion. Among these truculent
invasions two stand out boldly: the spirited and gallant attack by
Bertrand du Guesclin, Constable of France; and the freebooting adventure
of Rullecour, with his motley following of gentlemen and criminals.
Rullecour it was, soldier of fortune, gambler, ruffian, and embezzler, to
whom the King of France had secretly given the mission to conquer the
unconquerable little island.
From the Chaussey Isles the filibuster saw the signal light which the
traitor Olivier Delagarde had set upon the heights of Le Couperon, where,
ages ago, Caesar built fires to summon from Gaul his devouring legions.
All was propitious for the attack. There was no moon--only a meagre
starlight when they set forth from Chaussey. The journey was made in
little more than an hour, and Rullecour himself was among the first to
see the shores of Jersey loom darkly in front. Beside him stood the
murderous pilot who was leading in the expedition, the colleague of
Olivier Delagarde.
Presently the pilot gave an exclamation of surprise and anxiety--the
tides and currents were bearing them away from the intended
landing-place. It was now almost low water, and instead of an immediate
shore, there lay before them a vast field of scarred rocks, dimly seen.
He gave the signal to lay-to, and himself took the bearings. The tide was
going out rapidly, disclosing reefs on either hand. He drew in carefully
to the right of the rock known as L'Echiquelez, up through a passage
scarce wide enough for canoes, and to Roque Platte, the south-eastern
projection of the island.
You may range the seas from the Yugon Strait to the Erebus volcano, and
you will find no such landing-place for imps or men as that field of
rocks on the southeast corner of Jersey called, with a malicious irony,
the Bane des Violets. The great rocks La Coniere, La Longy, Le Gros Etac,
Le Teton, and the Petite Sambiere, rise up like volcanic monuments from a
floor of lava and trailing vraic, which at half-tide makes the sea a
tender mauve and violet. The passages of safety between these ranges of
reef are but narrow at high tide; at half-tide, when the currents are
changing most, the violet field becomes the floor of a vast mortuary
chapel for unknowing mariners.
A battery of four guns defended the post on the landward side of this
bank of the heavenly name. Its guards were asleep or in their cups. They
yielded, without resistance, to the foremost of the invaders. But here
Rullecour and his pilot, looking back upon the way they had come, saw the
currents driving the transport boats hither and thither in confusion.
Jersey was not to be conquered without opposition--no army of defence was
abroad, but the elements roused themselves and furiously attacked the
fleet. Battalions unable to land drifted back with the tides to
Granville, whence they had come. Boats containing the heavy ammunition
and a regiment of conscripts were battered upon the rocks, and hundreds
of the invaders found an unquiet grave upon the Banc des Violets.
Presently the traitor Delagarde arrived and was welcomed warmly by
Rullecour. The night wore on, and at last the remaining legions were
landed. A force was left behind to guard La Roque Platte, and then the
journey across country to the sleeping town began.
With silent, drowsing batteries in front and on either side of them, the
French troops advanced, the marshes of Samares and the sea on their left,
churches and manor houses on their right, all silent. Not yet had a blow
been struck for the honour of this land and of the Kingdom.
But a blind injustice was, in its own way, doing the work of justice. On
the march, Delagarde, suspecting treachery to himself, not without
reason, required of Rullecour guarantee for the fulfilment of his pledge
to make him Vicomte of the Island when victory should be theirs.
Rullecour, however, had also promised the post to a reckless young
officer, the Comte de Tournay, of the House of Vaufontaine, who, under
the assumed name of Yves Savary dit Detricand, marched with him.
Rullecour answered Delagarde churlishly, and would say nothing till the
town was taken--the ecrivain must wait. But Delagarde had been drinking,
he was in a mood to be reckless; he would not wait, he demanded an
immediate pledge.
"By and by, my doubting Thomas," said Rullecour. "No, now, by the blood
of Peter!" answered Delagarde, laying a hand upon his sword.
The French leader called a sergeant to arrest him. Delagarde instantly
drew his sword and attacked Rullecour, but was cut down from behind by
the scimitar of a swaggering Turk, who had joined the expedition as
aide-de-camp to the filibustering general, tempted thereto by promises of
a harem of the choicest Jersey ladies, well worthy of this cousin of the
Emperor of Morocco.
The invaders left Delagarde lying where he fell. What followed this
oblique retribution could satisfy no ordinary logic, nor did it meet the
demands of poetic justice. For, as a company of soldiers from Grouville,
alarmed out of sleep by a distracted youth, hurried towards St. Heliers,
they found Delagarde lying by the roadside, and they misunderstood what
had happened. Stooping over him an officer said pityingly:
"See--he got this wound fighting the French!" With the soldiers was the
youth who had warned them. He ran forward with a cry, and knelt beside
the wounded man. He had no tears, he had no sorrow. He was only sick and
dumb, and he trembled with misery as he lifted up his father's head. The
eyes of Olivier Delagarde opened.
"Ranulph--they've killed--me," gasped the stricken man feebly, and his
head fell back.
An officer touched the youth's arm. "He is gone," said he. "Don't fret,
lad, he died fighting for his country."
The lad made no reply, and the soldiers hurried on towards the town.
He died fighting for his country! So that was to be the legend, Ranulph
meditated: his father was to have a glorious memory, while he himself
knew how vile the man was. One thing however: he was glad that Olivier
Delagarde was dead. How strangely had things happened! He had come to
stay a traitor in his crime, and here he found a martyr. But was not he
himself likewise a traitor? Ought not he to have alarmed the town first
before he tried to find his father? Had Dormy Jamais warned the Governor?
Clearly not, or the town bells would be ringing and the islanders giving
battle. What would the world think of him!
Well, what was the use of fretting here? He would go on to the town, help
to fight the French, and die that would be the best thing. He knelt, and
unclasped his father's fingers from the handle of the sword. The steel
was cold, it made him shiver. He had no farewell to make. He looked out
to sea. The tide would come and carry his father's body out, perhaps-far
out, and sink it in the deepest depths. If not that, then the people
would bury Olivier Delagarde as a patriot. He determined that he himself
would not live to see such mockery.
As he sped along towards the town he asked himself why nobody suspected
the traitor. One reason for it occurred to him: his father, as the whole
island knew, had a fishing-hut at Gorey. They would imagine him on the
way to it when he met the French, for he often spent the night there. He
himself had told his tale to the soldiers: how he had heard the baker and
the Frenchman talking at the shop in the Rue d'Egypte. Yes, but suppose
the French were driven out, and the baker taken prisoner and should
reveal his father's complicity! And suppose people asked why he himself
did not go at once to the Hospital Barracks in the town and to the
Governor, and afterwards to Gorey?
These were direful imaginings. He felt that it was no use; that the lie
could not go on concerning his father. The world would know; the one
thing left for him was to die. He was only a boy, but he could fight. Had
not young Philip d'Avranche; the midshipman, been in deadly action many
times? He was nearly as old as Philip d'Avranche--yes, he would fight,
and, fighting, he would die. To live as the son of such a father was too
pitiless a shame.
He ran forward, but a weakness was on him; he was very hungry and
thirsty-and the sword was heavy. Presently, as he went, he saw a stone
well near a cottage by the roadside. On a ledge of the well stood a
bucket of water. He tilted the bucket and drank. He would have liked to
ask for bread at the cottage-door, but he said to himself, Why should he
eat, for was he not going to die? Yet why should he not eat, even if he
were going to die? He turned his head wistfully, he was so faint with
hunger. The force driving him on, however, was greater than hunger--he
ran harder. . . . But undoubtedly the sword was heavy!
CHAPTER IV
In the Vier Marchi the French flag was flying, French troops occupied it,
French sentries guarded the five streets entering into it. Rullecour, the
French adventurer, held the Lieutenant-Governor of the isle captive in
the Cohue Royale; and by threats of fire and pillage thought to force
capitulation. For his final argument he took the Governor to the doorway,
and showed him two hundred soldiers with lighted torches ready to fire
the town.
When the French soldiers first entered the Vier Marchi there was Dormy
Jamais on the roof of the Cohue Royale, calmly munching his bread. When
he saw Rullecour and the Governor appear, he chuckled to himself, and
said, in Jersey patois: "I vaut mux alouonyi l'bras que l'co," which is
to say: It is better to stretch the arm than the neck. The Governor would
have done more wisely, he thought, to believe the poor beganne, and to
have risen earlier. Dormy Jamais had a poor opinion of a governor who
slept. He himself was not a governor, yet was he not always awake? He had
gone before dawn to the Governor's house, had knocked, had given Ranulph
Delagarde's message, had been called a dirty buzard, and been sent away
by the crusty, incredulous servant. Then he had gone to the Hospital
Barracks, was there iniquitously called a lousy toad, and had been driven
off with his quartern loaf, muttering through the dough the island
proverb "While the mariner swigs the tide rises."
Had the Governor remained as cool as the poor vagrant, he would not have
shrunk at the sight of the incendiaries, yielded to threats, and signed
the capitulation of the island. But that capitulation being signed, and
notice of it sent to the British troops, with orders to surrender and
bring their arms to the Cohue Royale, it was not cordially received by
the officers in command.
"Je ne comprends pas le francais," said Captain Mulcaster, at Elizabeth
Castle, as he put the letter into his pocket unread.
"The English Governor will be hanged, and the French will burn the town,"
responded the envoy. "Let them begin to hang and burn and be damned, for
I'll not surrender the castle or the British flag so long as I've a man
to defend it, to please anybody!" answered Mulcaster.
"We shall return in numbers," said the Frenchman, threateningly.
"I shall be delighted: we shall have the more to kill," Mulcaster
replied.
Then the captive Lieutenant-Governor was sent to Major Peirson at the
head of his troops on the Mont es Pendus, with counsel to surrender.
"Sir," said he, "this has been a very sudden surprise, for I was made
prisoner before I was out of my bed this morning."
"Sir," replied Peirson, the young hero of twenty-four, who achieved death
and glory between a sunrise and a noontide, "give me leave to tell you
that the 78th Regiment has not yet been the least surprised."
From Elizabeth Castle came defiance and cannonade, driving back Rullecour
and his filibusters to the Cohue Royale: from Mont Orgueil, from the
Hospital, from St. Peter's came the English regiments; from the other
parishes swarmed the militia, all eager to recover their beloved Vier
Marchi. Two companies of light infantry, leaving the Mont es Pendus,
stole round the town and placed themselves behind the invaders on the
Town Hill; the rest marched direct upon the enemy. Part went by the
Grande Rue, and part by the Rue d'Driere, converging to the point of
attack; and as the light infantry came down from the hill by the Rue des
Tres Pigeons, Peirson entered the Vier Marchi by the Route es Couochons.
On one side of the square, where the Cohue Royale made a wall to fight
against, were the French. Radiating from this were five streets and
passages like the spokes of a wheel, and from these now poured the
defenders of the isle.
A volley came from the Cohue Royale, then another, and another. The place
was small: friend and foe were crowded upon each other. The fighting
became at once a hand-to-hand encounter. Cannon were useless,
gun-carriages overturned. Here a drummer fell wounded, but continued
beating his drum to the last; there a Glasgow soldier struggled with a
French officer for the flag of the invaders; yonder a handful of Malouins
doggedly held the foot of La Pyramide, until every one was cut down by
overpowering numbers of British and Jersiais. The British leader was
conspicuous upon his horse. Shot after shot was fired at him. Suddenly he
gave a cry, reeled in his saddle, and sank, mortally wounded, into the
arms of a brother officer.
For a moment his men fell back.
In the midst of the deadly turmoil a youth ran forward from a group of
combatants, caught the bridle of the horse from which Peirson had fallen,
mounted, and, brandishing a short sword, called upon his dismayed and
wavering followers to advance; which they instantly did with fury and
courage. It was Midshipman Philip d'Avranche. Twenty muskets were
discharged at him. One bullet cut the coat on his shoulder, another
grazed the back of his hand, a third scarred the pommel of the saddle,
and still another wounded his horse. Again and again the English called
upon him to dismount, for he was made a target, but he refused, until at
last the horse was shot under him. Then once more he joined in the
hand-to-hand encounter.
Windows near the ground, such as were not shattered, were broken by
bullets. Cannon-balls embedded themselves in the masonry and the heavy
doorways. The upper windows were safe, however: the shots did not range
so high. At one of these, over a watchmaker's shop, a little girl was to
be seen, looking down with eager interest. Presently an old man came in
view and led her away. A few minutes of fierce struggle passed, and then
at another window on the floor below the child appeared again. She saw a
youth with a sword hurrying towards the Cohue Royale from a tangled mass
of combatants. As he ran, a British soldier fell in front of him. The
youth dropped the sword and grasped the dead man's musket.
The child clapped her hands on the window.
"It's Ro--it's Ro!" she cried, and disappeared again.
"Ro," with white face, hatless, coatless, pushed on through the melee.
Rullecour, the now disheartened French general, stood on the steps of the
Cohue Royale. With a vulgar cruelty and cowardice he was holding the
Governor by the arm, hoping thereby to protect his own person from the
British fire.
Here was what the lad had been trying for--the sight of this man
Rullecour. There was one small clear space between the English and the
French, where stood a gun-carriage. He ran to it, leaned the musket on
the gun, and, regardless of the shots fired at him, took aim steadily. A
French bullet struck the wooden wheel of the carriage, and a splinter
gashed his cheek. He did not move, but took sight again, and fired.
Rullecour fell, shot through the jaw. A cry of fury and dismay went up
from the French at the loss of their leader, a shout of triumph from the
British.