The March Of The White Guard - Gilbert Parker
THE MARCH OF THE WHITE GUARD
By Gilbert Parker
"Ask Mr. Hume to come here for a moment, Gosse," said Field, the chief
factor, as he turned from the frosty window of his office at Fort
Providence, one of the Hudson's Bay Company's posts. The servant, or more
properly, Orderly-Sergeant Gosse, late of the Scots Guards, departed on
his errand, glancing curiously at his master's face as he did so. The
chief factor, as he turned round, unclasped his hands from behind him,
took a few steps forward, then standing still in the centre of the room,
read carefully through a letter which he had held in the fingers of his
right hand for the last ten minutes as he scanned the wastes of snow
stretching away beyond Great Slave Lake to the arctic circle. He
meditated a moment, went back to the window, looked out again, shook his
head negatively, and with a sigh, walked over to the huge fireplace. He
stood thoughtfully considering the floor until the door opened and
sub-factor Jaspar Hume entered.
The factor looked up and said: "Hume, I've something here that's been
worrying me a bit. This letter came in the monthly batch this morning. It
is from a woman. The company sends another commending the cause of the
woman and urging us to do all that is possible to meet her wishes. It
seems that her husband is a civil engineer of considerable fame. He had a
commission to explore the Coppermine region and a portion of the Barren
Grounds. He was to be gone six months. He has been gone a year. He left
Fort Good Hope, skirted Great Bear Lake, and reached the Coppermine
River. Then he sent back all of the Indians who accompanied him but two,
they bearing the message that he would make the Great Fish River and come
down by Great Slave Lake to Fort Providence. That was nine months ago. He
has not come here, nor to any other of the forts, so far as is known, nor
has any word been received from him. His wife, backed by the H.B.C.,
urges that a relief party be sent to look for him. They and she forget
that this is the arctic region, and that the task is a well-nigh hopeless
one. He ought to have been here six months ago. Now how can we do
anything? Our fort is small, and there is always danger of trouble with
the Indians. We can't force men to join a relief party like this, and who
will volunteer? Who would lead such a party and who will make up the
party to be led?"
The brown face of Jaspar Hume was not mobile. It changed in expression
but seldom; it preserved a steady and satisfying character of
intelligence and force. The eyes, however, were of an inquiring, debating
kind, that moved from one thing to another as if to get a sense of
balance before opinion or judgment was expressed. The face had remained
impassive, but the eyes had kindled a little as the factor talked. To the
factor's despairing question there was not an immediate reply. The eyes
were debating. But they suddenly steadied and Jaspar Hume said
sententiously: "A relief party should go."
"Yes, yes, but who is to lead them?"
Again the eyes debated.
"Read her letter," said the factor, handing it over. Jaspar Hume took it
and mechanically scanned it. The factor had moved towards the table for
his pipe or he would have seen the other start, and his nostrils slightly
quiver, as his eyes grew conscious of what they were seeing. Turning
quickly, Hume walked towards the window as though for more light, and
with his back to the factor he read the letter. Then he turned and said:
"I think this thing should be done."
The factor shrugged his shoulders slightly. "Well, as to that, I think so
too, but thinking and doing are two different things, Hume."
"Will you leave the matter in my hands until the morning?"
"Yes, of course, and glad to do so. You are the only man who can arrange
the affair, if it is to be done at all. But I tell you, as you know, that
everything will depend upon a leader, even if you secure the men.... So
you had better keep the letter for to-night. It may help you to get the
men together. A woman's handwriting will do more than a man's word any
time."
Jaspar Hume's eyes had been looking at the factor, but they were studying
something else. His face seemed not quite so fresh as it was a few
minutes before.
"I will see you at ten o'clock to-morrow morning, Mr. Field," he said
quietly. "Will you let Gosse come to me in an hour?"
"Certainly. Good-night."
Jaspar Hume let himself out. He walked across a small square to a log
house and opened a door which creaked and shrieked with the frost. A dog
sprang upon him as he did so, and rubbed its head against his breast. He
touched the head as if it had been that of a child, and said: "Lie down,
Bouche."
It did so, but it watched him as he doffed his dogskin cap and buffalo
coat. He looked round the room slowly once as though he wished to fix it
clearly and deeply in his mind. Then he sat down and held near the
firelight the letter the factor had given him. His features grew stern
and set as he read it. Once he paused in the reading and looked into the
fire, drawing his breath sharply between his teeth. Then he read it to
the end without a sign. A pause, and he said aloud: "So this is how the
lines meet again, Varre Lepage!" He read the last sentence of the letter
aloud:
In the hope that you may soon give me good news of my husband,
I am, with all respect,
Faithfully yours,
ROSE LEPAGE.
Again he repeated: "With all respect, faithfully yours, Rose Lepage."
The dog Bouche looked up. Perhaps it detected something unusual in the
voice. It rose, came over, and laid its head on its master's knee. Hume's
hand fell gently on the head, and he said to the fire: "Ah, Rose Lepage,
you can write to Factor Field what you dare not write to your husband if
you knew. You might say to him then, 'With all love,' but not 'With all
respect.'"
He folded the letter and put it in his pocket. Then he took the dog's
head between his hands and said: "Listen, Bouche, and I will tell you a
story." The dog blinked, and pushed its nose against his arm.
"Ten years ago two young men who had studied and graduated together at
the same college were struggling together in their profession as civil
engineers. One was Clive Lepage and the other was Jaspar Hume. The one
was brilliant and persuasive, the other, persistent and studious. Lepage
could have succeeded in any profession; Hume had only heart and mind for
one.
"Only for one, Bouche, you understand. He lived in it, he loved it, he
saw great things to be achieved in it. He had got an idea. He worked at
it night and day, he thought it out, he developed it, he perfected it, he
was ready to give it to the world. But he was seized with illness, became
blind, and was ordered to a warm climate for a year. He left his idea,
his invention, behind him--his complete idea. While he was gone his bosom
friend stole his perfected idea--yes, stole it, and sold it for twenty
thousand dollars. He was called a genius, a great inventor. And then he
married her. You don't know her, Bouche. You never saw beautiful Rose
Varcoe, who, liking two men, chose the one who was handsome and
brilliant, and whom the world called a genius. Why didn't Jaspar Hume
expose him, Bouche? Proof is not always easy, and then he had to think of
her. One has to think of a woman in such a case, Bouche. Even a dog can
see that."
He was silent for a moment, and then he said: "Come, Bouche. You will
keep secret what I show you."
He went to a large box in the corner, unlocked it, and took out a model
made of brass and copper and smooth but unpolished wood.
"After ten years of banishment, Bouche, Hume has worked out another idea,
you see. It should be worth ten times the other, and the world called the
other the work of a genius, dog."
Then he became silent, the animal watching him the while. It had seen him
working at this model for many a day, but had never heard him talk so
much at a time as he had done this last ten minutes. He was generally a
silent man--decisive even to severity, careless carriers and shirking
under-officers thought. Yet none could complain that he was unjust. He
was simply straight-forward, and he had no sympathy with those who had
not the same quality. He had carried a drunken Indian on his back for
miles, and from a certain death by frost. He had, for want of a more
convenient punishment, promptly knocked down Jeff Hyde, the sometime
bully of the fort, for appropriating a bundle of furs belonging to a
French half-breed, Gaspe Toujours. But he nursed Jeff Hyde through an
attack of pneumonia, insisting at the same time that Gaspe Toujours
should help him. The result of it all was that Jeff Hyde and Gaspe
Toujours became constant allies. They both formulated their oaths by
Jaspar Hume. The Indian, Cloud-in-the-Sky, though by word never thanking
his rescuer, could not be induced to leave the fort, except on some
mission with which Jaspar Hume was connected. He preferred living an
undignified, un-Indian life, and earning food and shelter by coarsely
labouring with his hands. He came at least twice a week to Hume's log
house, and, sitting down silent and cross-legged before the fire, watched
the sub-factor working at his drawings and calculations. Sitting so for
perhaps an hour or more, and smoking all the time, he would rise, and
with a grunt, which was answered by a kindly nod, would pass out as
silently as he came.
And now as Jaspar Hume stood looking at his "Idea," Cloud-in-the-Sky
entered, let his blanket fall by the hearthstone and sat down upon it. If
Hume saw him or heard him, he at least gave no sign at first. But he said
at last in a low tone to the dog: "It is finished, Bouche; it is ready
for the world."
Then he put it back, locked the box, and turned towards Cloud-in-the-Sky
and the fireplace. The Indian grunted; the other nodded with the debating
look again dominant in his eyes. The Indian met the look with
satisfaction. There was something in Jaspar Hume's habitual reticence and
decisiveness in action which appealed more to Cloud-in-the-Sky than any
freedom of speech could possibly have done.
Hume sat down, handed the Indian a pipe and tobacco, and, with arms
folded, watched the fire. For half an hour they sat so, white man,
Indian, and dog. Then Hume rose, went to a cupboard, took out some
sealing wax and matches, and in a moment melted wax was dropping upon the
lock of the box containing his Idea. He had just finished this as
Sergeant Gosse knocked at the door, and immediately afterwards entered
the room.
"Gosse," said the sub-factor, "find Jeff Hyde, Gaspe Toujours, and Late
Carscallen, and bring them here." Sergeant Gosse immediately departed
upon this errand. Hume then turned to the Indian, and said
"Cloud-in-the-Sky, I want you to go a long journey hereaway to the Barren
Grounds. Have twelve dogs ready by nine to-morrow morning."
Cloud-in-the-Sky shook his head thoughtfully, and then after a pause
said: "Strong-back go too?" Strongback was his name for the sub-factor.
But the other either did not or would not hear. The Indian, however,
appeared satisfied, for he smoked harder afterwards, and grunted to
himself many times. A few moments passed, and then Sergeant Gosse
entered, followed by Jeff Hyde, Gaspe Toujours, and Late Carscallen. Late
Carscallen had got his name "Late" from having been called "The Late Mr.
Carscallen" by the chief factor because of his slowness. Slow as he was,
however, the stout Scotsman had more than once proved himself a man of
rare merit according to Hume's ideas. He was, of course, the last to
enter.
The men grouped themselves about the fire, Late Carscallen getting the
coldest corner. Each man drew his tobacco from his pocket, and, cutting
it, waited for Hume to speak. His eyes were debating as they rested on
the four. Then he took out Mrs. Lepage's letter, and, with the group
looking at him, he read it aloud. When it was finished, Cloud-in-the-Sky
gave a guttural assent, and Gaspe Toujours, looking at Jeff Hyde, said:
"It is cold in the Barren Grounds. We shall need much tabac." These men
could read without difficulty Hume's reason for summoning them. To Gaspe
Toujours' remark Jeff Hyde nodded affirmatively, and then all looked at
Late Carscallen. He opened his heavy jaws once or twice with an
animal-like sound, and then he said, in a general kind of way:
"To the Barren Grounds. But who leads?"
Hume was writing on a slip of paper, and he did not reply. The faces of
three of them showed just a shade of anxiety. They guessed who it would
be, but they were not sure. Cloud-in-the-Sky, however, grunted at them,
and raised the bowl of his pipe towards the subfactor. The anxiety then
seemed to disappear.
For ten minutes more they sat so, all silent. Then Hume rose, handed the
slip of paper to Sergeant Gosse, and said: "Attend to that at once,
Gosse. Examine the food and blankets closely."
The five were left alone.
Then Hume spoke: "Jeff Hyde, Gaspe Toujours, Late Carscallen, and
Cloud-in-the-Sky, this man, alive or dead, is between here and the Barren
Grounds. He must be found--for his wife's sake."
He handed Jeff Hyde her letter. Jeff rubbed his fingers before he touched
the delicate and perfumed missive. Its delicacy seemed to bewilder him.
He said: in a rough but kindly way: "Hope to die if I don't," and passed
it on to Gaspe Toujours, who did not find it necessary to speak. His
comrade had answered for him. Late Carscallen held it inquisitively for a
moment, and then his jaws opened and shut as if he were about to speak.
But before he did so Hume said: "It is a long journey and a hard one.
Those who go may never come back. But this man was working for his
country, and he has got a wife--a good wife." He held up the letter.
"Late Carscallen wants to know who will lead you. Can't you trust me? I
will give you a leader that you will follow to the Barren Grounds.
To-morrow you will know who he is. Are you satisfied? Will you do it?"
The four rose, and Cloud-in-the-Sky nodded approvingly many times. Hume
held out his hand. Each man shook it, Jeff Hyde first. Then he said:
"Close up ranks for the H.B.C.!" (H.B.C. meaning, of course, Hudson's Bay
Company.)
With a good man to lead them, these four would have stormed, alone, the
Heights of Balaklava.
Once more Hume spoke. "Go to Gosse and get your outfits at nine to-morrow
morning. Cloud-in-the-Sky, have your sleds at the store at eight o'clock,
to be loaded. Then all meet me at 10.15 at the office of the chief
factor. Good night."
As they passed out into the semi-arctic night, Late Carscallen with an
unreal obstinacy said: "Slow march to the Barren Grounds--but who leads?"
Left alone Hume sat down to the pine table at one end of the room and
after a short hesitation began to write. For hours he sat there, rising
only to put wood on the fire. The result was three letters: the largest
addressed to a famous society in London, one to a solicitor in Montreal,
and one to Mr. Field, the chief factor. They were all sealed carefully.
Then he rose, took out his knife, and went over to the box as if to break
the red seal. He paused, however, sighed, and put the knife back again.
As he did so he felt something touch his leg. It was the dog.
Hume drew in a sharp breath and said: "It was all ready, Bouche; and in
another six months I should have been in London with it. But it will go
whether I go or not--whether I go or not, Bouche."
The dog sprang up and put his head against his master's breast.
"Good dog, good dog, it's all right, Bouche; however it goes, it's all
right," said Hume.
Then the dog lay down and watched his master until he drew the blankets
to his chin, and sleep drew oblivion over a fighting soul.
II
At ten o'clock next morning Jaspar Hume presented himself at the chief
factor's office. He bore with him the letters he had written the night
before.
The factor said: "Well, Hume, I am glad to see you. That woman's letter
was on my mind all night. Have you anything to propose? I suppose not,"
he added despairingly, as he looked closely into the face of the other.
"Yes, Mr. Field, I propose that the expedition start at noon to-day."
"Start-at noon-to-day?"
"In two hours."
"Who are the party?"
"Jeff Hyde, Gaspe Toujours, Late Carscallen, and Cloud-in-the-Sky."
"Who leads them, Hume? Who leads?"
"With your permission, I do."
"You? But, man, consider the danger and--your invention!"
"I have considered all. Here are three letters. If we do not come back in
three months, you will please send this one, with the box in my room, to
the address on the envelope. This is for a solicitor in Montreal, which
you will also forward as soon as possible; and this last one is for
yourself; but you will not open it until the three months have passed.
Have I your permission to lead these men? They would not go without me."
"I know that, I know that, Hume. I can't say no. Go, and good luck go
with you."
Here the manly old factor turned away his head. He knew that Hume had
done right. He knew the possible sacrifice this man was making of all his
hopes, of his very life; and his sound Scotch heart appreciated the act
to the full. But he did not know all. He did not know that Jaspar Hume
was starting to search for the man who had robbed him of youth and hope
and genius and home.
"Here is a letter that the wife has written to her husband on the chance
of his getting it. You will take it with you, Hume. And the other she
wrote to me--shall I keep it?" He held out his hand.
"No, sir, I will keep it, if you will allow me. It is my commission, you
know." The shadow of a smile hovered about Hume's lips.
The factor smiled kindly as he replied: "Ah, yes, your
commission--Captain Jaspar Hume of--of what?" Just then the door opened
and there entered the four men who had sat before the sub-factor's fire
the night before. They were dressed in white blanket costumes from head
to foot, white woollen capotes covering the grey fur caps they wore.
Jaspar Hume ran his eye over them and then answered the factor's
question: "Of the White Guard, sir."
"Good," was the reply. "Men, you are going on a relief expedition. There
will be danger. You need a good leader. You have one in Captain Hume."
Jeff Hyde shook his head at the others with a pleased I-told-you-so
expression; Cloud-in-the-Sky grunted his deep approval; and Late
Carscallen smacked his lips in a satisfied manner and rubbed his leg with
a schoolboy sense of enjoyment. The factor continued: "In the name of the
Hudson's Bay Company I will say that if you come back, having done your
duty faithfully, you shall be well rewarded. And I believe you will come
back, if it is in human power to do so."
Here Jeff Hyde said: "It isn't for reward we're doin' it, Mr. Field, but
because Mr. Hume wished it, because we believed he'd lead us; and for the
lost fellow's wife. We wouldn't have said we'd do it, if it wasn't for
him that's just called us the White Guard."
Under the bronze of the sub-factor's face there spread a glow more red
than brown, and he said simply: "Thank you, men"--for they had all nodded
assent to Jeff Hyde's words--"come with me to the store. We will start at
noon."
At noon the White Guard stood in front of the store on which the British
flag was hoisted with another beneath it bearing the magic letters,
H.B.C.: magic, because they opened to the world regions that seemed
destined never to know the touch of civilisation. The few inhabitants of
the fort were gathered at the store; the dogs and loaded sleds were at
the door. It wanted but two minutes to twelve when Hume came from his
house, dressed also in the white blanket costume, and followed by his
dog, Bouche. In a moment more he had placed Bouche at the head of the
first team of dogs. They were to have their leader too. Punctually at
noon, Hume shook hands with the factor, said a quick good-bye to the
rest, called out a friendly "How!" to the Indians standing near, and to
the sound of a hearty cheer, heartier perhaps because none had a
confident hope that the five would come back, the march of the White
Guard began.
III
It was eighteen days after. In the shadow of a little island of pines,
that lies in a shivering waste of ice and snow, the White Guard were
camped. They were able to do this night what they had not done for
days--dig a great grave of snow, and building a fire of pine wood at each
end of this strange house, get protection and something like comfort.
They sat silent close to the fires. Jaspar Hume was writing with numbed
fingers. The extract that follows is taken from his diary. It tells that
day's life, and so gives an idea of harder, sterner days that they had
spent and must yet spend, on this weary journey.
December 25th.--This is Christmas Day and Camp twenty-seven. We
have marched only five miles to-day. We are eighty miles from Great
Fish River, and the worst yet to do. We have discovered no signs.
Jeff Hyde has had a bad two days with his frozen foot. Gaspe
Toujours helps him nobly. One of the dogs died this morning.
Bouche is a great leader. This night's shelter is a god-send.
Cloud-in-the-Sky has a plan whereby some of us will sleep well. We
are in latitude 63deg 47' and longitude 112deg 32' 14". Have worked
out lunar observations. Have marked a tree JH/27 and raised cairn
No. 3.
We are able to celebrate Christmas Day with a good basin of tea and
our stand-by of beans cooked in fat. I was right about them: they
have great sustaining power. To-morrow we will start at ten
o'clock.
The writing done, Jaspar Hume put his book away and turned towards the
rest. Cloud-in-the-Sky and Late Carscallen were smoking. Little could be
seen of their faces; they were snuffled to the eyes. Gaspe Toujours was
drinking a basin of tea, and Jeff Hyde was fitfully dozing by the fire.
The dogs were above in the tent--all but Bouche, who was permitted to be
near his master. Presently the sub-factor rose, took from a knapsack a
small tin pail, and put it near the fire. Then he took five little cups
that fitted snugly into each other, separated them, and put them also
near the fire. None of the party spoke. A change seemed to pass over the
faces of all except Cloud-in-the-Sky. He smoked on unmoved. At length
Hume spoke cheerily: "Now, men, before we turn in we'll do something in
honour of the day. Liquor we none of us have touched since we started;
but back there in the fort, and maybe in other places too, they will be
thinking of us; so we'll drink a health to them, though it's but a
spoonful, and to the day when we see them again!"
The cups were passed round. The sub-factor measured out a very small
portion to each. They were not men of uncommon sentiment; their lives
were rigid and isolated and severe. Fireside comforts under fortunate
conditions they saw but seldom, and they were not given to expressing
their feelings demonstratively. But each man then, save Cloud-in-the-Sky,
had some memory worth a resurrection.
Jaspar Hume raised his cup; the rest followed his example. "To absent
friends and the day when we see them again!" he said; and they all drank.
Gaspe Toujours drank solemnly, and, as though no one was near, made the
sign of the cross; for his memory was with a dark-eyed, soft-cheeked
habitant girl of the parish of Saint Gabrielle, whom he had left behind
seven years before, and had never seen since. Word had come from the
parish priest that she was dying, and though he wrote back in his homely
patois of his grief, and begged that the good father would write again,
no word had ever come. He thought of her now as one for whom the candles
had been lighted and masses had been said.
But Jeff Hyde's eyes were bright, and suffering as he was, the heart in
him was brave and hopeful. He was thinking of a glorious Christmas Day
upon the Madawaska River three years agone; of Adam Henry, the blind
fiddler; of bright, warm-hearted Pattie Chown, the belle of the ball, and
the long drive home in the frosty night.
Late Carscallen was thinking of a brother whom he had heard preach his
first sermon in Edinburgh twenty years before. And Late Carscallen, slow
of speech and thought, had been full of pride and love of that brilliant
brother. In the natural course of things, they had drifted apart, the
slow and uncouth one to make his home at last in the Far North, and to be
this night on his way to the Barren Grounds. But as he stood with the cup
to his lips he recalled the words of a newspaper paragraph of a few
months before. It stated that "the Reverend James Carscallen, D.D.,
preached before Her Majesty on Whitsunday, and had the honour of lunching
with Her Majesty afterwards." Remembering that, Late Carscallen rubbed
his left hand joyfully against his blanketed leg and drank.
Cloud-in-the-Sky's thoughts were with the present, and his "Ugh!" of
approval was one of the senses purely. Instead of drinking to absent
friends he looked at the sub-factor and said: "How!" He drank to the
subfactor.