THROUGH THE ENEMY'S LINES
"Halt there!" cried Deventer suddenly to me. We were passing a pleasant
white and green villa with a light in one ground-floor window.
I stopped, and Deventer took me by the arm, with forceful compulsion.
"I am going to help _my_ father," he whispered. "Don't you run off
without telling yours what you mean to do. He can't prevent you, if you
have made your mind up."
"He won't try--he will only be glad to get back to his books."
"Perhaps, but at any rate tell him yourself. He will like it better than
when the hue and cry gets up to-morrow over yonder. You take my word for
it, Angus Cawdor."
I did not want to go, for at that time I did not understand nor much
like my father. But Deventer said that if I would not walk he would
carry me, a threat which at any other time would have made me smile.
However, to please him I walked carefully to the window. With his
habitual thoughtlessness about external things, the sash swung a little
open and the light air blew the curtains back. My father was sitting
like a student, with a shawl over his knees, a quite necessary fire of
olive roots smouldering on the andirons, and his head, shining and
silvery, bent over a book in which he was making notes.
I did not wish to startle him, so I spoke in English, and in as
commonplace a tone as I could muster.
"Father," I said, as if my calling hours were the most ordinary in the
world, "will you come across to the window for a moment?"
He rose instantly and came over to the open window, one half of which I
had pushed wide. The note-book was still in his hand, and the breeze
ruffled its leaves so that he shut and clasped it.
"Why, Angus, where do you come from?" he said. "Is it late? Won't you
come in? Are you on your way back to college?"
"No, father," I said; "I ought to be, but I have made up my mind to go
to the war. I have had enough of learning, and examinations disgust me
even when I come out first."
He looked at me long and quietly, and then nodded his head.
"I know--I know," he said, "it is the riot in the blood. I do not say
that you do wrong to go, but you will need some money. I have a few
hundred francs by me for which I have no use. They will not come amiss.
Let me see--six, seven, eight hundred and fifty. Does Deventer go with
you?"
"He is waiting on the road below."
"I thought as much--well, bid him good luck from me, and now good night,
and God be with you, boy! Get your wild-oat sowing done as soon as
possible and come back. You will find me waiting for you. You and I will
do something yet."
My father coughed a little in the draught through the open window,
whereupon I made haste to be gone. The movement was purely unconscious,
yet it was just such slight things that kept me such a long while from
understanding my father. He seemed to be so careful for himself in
little matters of health, that he had no care to spare for me, his only
son, and this thought, I am ashamed to say, I carried away with me, even
while my fingers caressed the eight hundred and fifty francs nestling
safely in my breeches pocket.
On the road I found Deventer waiting for me.
"Well," he said, "I see you are glad you went?"
"Yes," I answered, "eight hundred and fifty francs glad, but the old man
hurried up my going, because the open window made a draught that
irritated his cough."
Deventer did not answer directly.
"My governor thinks a lot of yours!" he said, and left the reproach to
sink in. The which it did, all the more because _I_ thought a lot of
Deventer's father, and was presently to think more and better.
We took our road between the rows of sleeping houses, alternately black
in shadow and mildly radiant under the moon. Not a light showed
anywhere, not even in the _auberge_, with the huge branch stuck over the
door in token of the excellence of the wine served out within.
A vagrant cat or two, a baying dog spasmodically darting in and out of
an alley-way, alone took note of our bygoing.
The crowning buildings of the _lycee_ on the Convent Ridge showed up
massive and almost martial among the dark pines. Then, after a sprinkle
of villas, we struck the close-packed town with the clean water from the
Gardon river prattling in the sewers at either side of every street.
Aramon was one of the towns of the Midi (now rare) where they had not
forgotten ancient Roman lessons as to the value of running water.
As we descended the flat plain the river-meadow came up to meet us. We
crossed the market-place among the splotched trunks of the plane trees,
and turned along the quay of the great canal of the Little Rhone. Barges
in long lines and solid tiers occupied it from end to end, and on each
of these was a dog. So that we passed through a chorus of yelping curs,
till the massive pillars of the great suspension bridge rose stark and
marble-white in the moonlight. On the Old Aramon side the _douanier_ was
asleep in his little creeper-covered cabin. We saw his head pillowed on
his crossed arms as he bent over the table, and a smoking tallow candle
guttered low at his elbow.
Along the wide quadruple track of the bridge, stretched like the taut
string of a bow for half a mile ahead of us, we saw nothing except the
glistening planks underfoot, and overhead the mighty webbing of chains.
But as we were stepping down the little descent which leads into the
newer town of Aramon-les-Ateliers, we found our way suddenly barred. A
couple of fellows, not much older than ourselves, suddenly sprang out of
the shadows, and set shining bayonets to our breasts, demanding at the
same time where we came from and whither we were going. It had been
arranged between us previously that in any difficulty Deventer was to
let me do the talking. Somehow he did not tell his lies with conviction,
at least not yet.
I gave our names, and said that we were runaway Seniors from the _lycee_
on the hill, on our way to enlist with the red-shirts of Garibaldi. I
think that on hearing this one of the youths would have let us go on our
way, but the younger, a cautious lad, spoke out in favour of taking us
to head-quarters.
"What! And leave the bridge unguarded!" cried his companion. "Either
shoot them out of hand, say I, or let them go on to seek their
Garibaldi. They wear the red as well as we. We have heard of his army at
Dijon, but his son is recruiting at Orange, so your tramp will be so
much the shorter."
Finally they permitted us to pass after a whispered consultation, but
the younger put several questions to us to prove whether we really came
from the college or not--what days certain meats were served, the names
of the lay brothers, the woodman, the _ramoneur_ or sweep, with personal
details of several others. These we answered promptly, and to his
apparent satisfaction. He knew much about the _lycee_, but we could not
place him. His smooth face was hidden under a great Biscayan bonnet with
red tassel, and his common speech was probably assumed.
They directed us to follow the outer boulevard which skirted the town,
and which should bring us to the Avignon gate without our needing to
enter Aramon at all. The younger drew out a small box filled with
inkpads and brass _tampons_, with which he stamped an order that would
permit us to pass the opposite gate without annoyance.
Naturally we took the road between the scant white poplars, as it had
been indicated to us, and stuck to it faithfully so long as we were in
sight of the post at the bridge-end.
Then, at a particularly dark corner where the blank gable of a workshop
loomed up to meet the overhanging flange of a fitting-shed, Deventer,
who was now on his own ground, slid suddenly aside, and was lost in a
devious track along which I had hard work to follow him. I could see his
big figure, black against the glimmer of white-washed walls. I stumbled
over anvils and heavy gearing scattered about, among which Deventer
steered his way with the crafty experience and dainty serenity of a
night-raking cat.
From this labyrinth we emerged on innumerable tiny little gardens, with
the stubs of cabbages and a few trenches of early vegetables for sole
contents. Rickety cane hedges leaning over at every angle surrounded
these, and Deventer pushed his way through them with the silent
expertness of an Indian on the trail.
Soon we came out on a wide park which was surrounded by a high wall.
Deventer made directly for this. He struck it at a spot where a tree had
thrust a sturdy limb through a fissure. The crack had been mended with
plaster, but perhaps from curiosity, perhaps owing to carelessness, the
branch of the tree had been allowed to go on growing. It was easy to
swing oneself upon it and so gain the top of the wall.
Deventer and I had made a good straight rush from cover, and flattered
ourselves that we should be able to mount unnoticed, but a patter of
bullets went buzzing like bees over our heads, while others buried
themselves with a sullen "spat" which threw up little fountains of black
leaf-mould in the ground at the foot of the wall.
None, however, came our way, and the next moment Deventer and I were
crouching among the lean spiky laurels and green-bedripped statues of
his father's garden.
"They are besieged," he whispered; "we must be careful. We are not
inside yet, and you may be sure they will shoot quite as readily as the
insurgent jacks behind there, and with better aim too. Dad kept the
English and Americans on the ranges every evening all last summer."
It was I who had the idea this time.
"Lend me your lantern and I will Morse them a message."
"The sentinel may not be able to read it off."
"No, but he will bring someone who can. At any rate let us try."
We established ourselves in an old summer-house at the edge of a pond,
with a foolishly rustic door which opened straight upon the front of the
house. Our light would be seen only by someone on the balconies, or at
the windows of the upper floors. It was entirely dark, of course, but
Deventer had no doubt that his father was there with all his faithful
forces, "keeping his end up like a good old fighting Derryman," as his
son expressed it.
"Hugh--Deventer--and--his--friend--Cawdor-are--down--here.
Answer--by--Morse--by--which--door--they--can--enter--the--house."
I had Morsed this message three times before any notice was taken from
within, and I had begun to give up hope. There must be nobody inside
Chateau Schneider, as the place was called. But Deventer was far more
hopeful.
"They have gone to waken my father," he whispered. "You see, they
daren't do anything in these parts without the old bird. He is quite a
different man from the one you saw poking about among your father's
books, or drinking in his wisdom. Here he makes people do things. Try
her again."
It was tedious work, but I flashed the whole message over again,
according to the Morse code. This time the reply came back short and
sweet.
"What--the--devil--are--you--doing--there?"
"That's Dad," said Hugh Deventer triumphantly. "Now we shall catch it."
I answered that having seen the soldiers retreat, we had come to help.
"Did--anybody--send--word--that--you--were--wanted?" twinkled the point
of fire somewhere high among the chimney-stacks on the roof. These were
a rarity in a district where one chimney for a house is counted a good
average, but after one winter's experience of the windy Rhone valley,
Dennis Deventer had refused to be done out of an open fireplace in every
room.
Now he reaped the fruit of his labours, for in summer he had sat behind
his low wall and taken the air of an evening, and now it needed little
to convert the chimney-stacks on the flat roof of his house into
reliable defences.
It was difficult to say in slow Morse alphabetage what we were doing
down in the old summer-house, but at least I managed to convey that we
had run the insurgent pickets and were in danger of being captured.
We got our reply quickly enough.
"Hugh--knows--the--door--under--the--main-outer--staircase."
"Of course," said Hugh, "I always went in that way when my feet were
dirty. Come on!"
And we hurried across the sward, keeping between a sundial and
fountain-basin railed about, into which half a dozen copper frogs sent
each a thin thrill of water, with a sound quite unexpectedly cheerful
and domestic thus heard in the darkness of the night.
This time there was no clatter of firing behind us. The sharpshooters of
the insurrectionaries had learned a lesson of caution near the house of
the manager of the Small Arms Factory. Dennis Deventer had been training
his assistants and lieutenants the whole year at movable butts. He had
rigged up a defile of six men-shaped figures which passed in front of a
firing party, or, bent forward in the attitude of men running, dashed
one by one across the men's field of vision as they lay at the firing
line.
Hugh Deventer and I took for our goal the great double flight of steps,
broad as a couple of carriage ways, which in the style of the Adams
architecture united in front of a debased Corinthian portico at the
height of the first floor windows of the Chateau.
"What, Jack Jaikes!" cried Hugh to the grinning young man who opened the
door for us.
"Aye, just Jack Jaikes same as yesterday, and eh, but the chief is going
to leather ye properly afore he sends ye back to school."
"But we are not going to school any more!"
"Maybe not--maybe not, but in this house we mostly go by what the master
says. 'Tis more comfortable like all round. Eh, but ye have come in time
to be leathered proper. If the lads of the Internationale yonder had
been brisk at the firing ye might have gotten off, but as it is the auld
man has nothing better to do than attend to ye on the spot!"
This made me a little uncomfortable as to our reception, but Deventer
did not seem greatly disturbed.
"You tell me where my sisters are, and then go and find somebody else
who will believe your lies, Jack Jaikes!"
The dark young man with the large hands grinned still more.
"Where should the three young ladies be at this time of night but in
their beds? Go and take your dose, young gentlemen. No use stopping to
think it over. In an hour, maybe, the worst of the sting will be by
with--and at any rate there are sofas in the parlour!"
"Get out, Jack Jaikes! Hannah and Liz may be in bed, but I warrant that
Rhoda Polly is somewhere on the look-out with a gun ready."
"Correct!" admitted Jaikes, with a chuckle. "I saw her at the window
just over this old stone staircase a minute before t'owd man shouted the
order for me to let you in."
"Come on then, Cawdor," Hugh cried; "let's find Rhoda Polly!" He ran
upstairs as fast as he could, anxious to find his sister before having
the first interview with his father. For though he knew that Jack Jaikes
had been lying, he could not be sure on what basis of fact so much
imagination reposed.
And then there was the message flashed from behind the chimney-pots,
"Did anyone send you word that you were to come?"
"You did not want to go and see your father," he whispered, as we stood
close together, panting in the dark of the second landing. "You came
away with well on a thousand francs in your pocket--got without asking,
too. I run a thousand dangers to see my father, and all I am likely to
get is a hiding."
The moon was lighting up one side of the landing, and showing where
mattresses and corn-sacks had been used to block the windows damaged by
rifle fire. The house was wonderfully still, astonishingly so when one
thought how many people were in it on the alert. But we must have made
more noise than we had supposed in coming up the stairs, for as we stood
here out of breath with the speed of our rush, a voice came calmly from
the shadows by the window curtains.
"Come over here, Hugh--and you, Angus Cawdor--I am Rhoda Polly."