I often sit back in my chair pondering about those old days, and
thinking about them in a very different way to that in which I looked
upon them then. For to be quite frank, though something in me kept
tugging me on, and seeming to say to me, "Be a man; go bravely on and
support your poor lame, suffering father, who is going to risk his life
to save the poor people around!" there was something else which would
keep suggesting that I might be killed, and that I should see the bright
sunshine no more; that I was bidding farewell to everything; and I know
I felt as if I would have given the world to have heard him say, "Go
back. It is too dangerous for you."
But he only hesitated a few moments, and then, as I have said, he
grasped my shoulder as if glad of my help, and went on into the great
dark place.
On thinking over these things, I often tell myself that though my father
may not have been a hero--and I don't believe much in heroes myself--I
know they do brave deeds sometimes; but I have often found that they
have what an American friend from the North--Pennsylvania way--called a
great deal of human nature in them, and that sometimes when you come to
know them, you find that they are very much like looking-glasses. I do
not mean because they pander to your vanity and show you your own face,
but because they are all bright and shining and surrounded by gold that
is not solid, and have a side, generally kept close to the wall, which
is all rough wood, paint, and glue.
Let me see! Where have I got to? Ah, I remember. I said my father may
not have been a hero, but he had a great deal of that sterling stuff in
him which you find in really sterling people; and in addition, he
performed his brave acts in a quiet, unassuming way, so that often
enough they passed unnoticed; and when he had finished, he sank back
into his perfectly simple life, and never marched about in metaphorical
uniform with a drawn sword, and men before him beating drums, and
banging cymbals, and blowing trumpets for the people to see, and hear,
and say, "Oh, what a brave man!"
Some may think it was not the act of a brave, self-denying man to let
his young son go with him into that awful place to try and remove the
powder. I am not going to set up as his judge. He thought as a true
man thinks, as a soldier, one of the thousands of true men we have had,
who, without a word, have set their teeth fast, and marched for their
country's sake straight away to where cannons were belching forth their
terrible contents, and it has seemed as if the next step they took must
be the last.
My father no doubt thought that as he was so weak he must have help, and
that it would be better for his son to die helping him to save the lives
of hundreds, than to hang back at such a time as that, when we marched
straight into the steam and smoke of the burning block-house.
I can remember now that, although overhead the logs were burning and
splitting and hissing in the fierce fire, and I knew that almost at any
moment the burning timbers might come crashing down upon us, or the fire
reach the little magazine of spare powder, the feeling of cowardice gave
place to a strange sensation of exaltation, and I stood by my father,
supporting him as he gave his orders firmly, the men responding with a
cheer, and groping their way boldly to the corner of the building beyond
the roughly-made rooms, where the good-sized place, half cellar, half
closet, had been formed.
It was quite dark, and the men had to feel their way, while the air we
breathed was suffocating, but we had to bear it.
My father, Morgan, and I were the first to reach the place, and there
and then seized the cumbrous door which was made on a slope, like a
shutter, to slide sidewise, while just above was a small opening leading
into a rough room beyond, between the magazine and the outer wall, in
which was a sort of port-hole well closed and barred.
"Shall I get through and open that port, sir?" cried Morgan, his voice
sounding muffled and hoarse. "It will give us fresh air and light."
"Yes, and perhaps flames and sparks," cried my father. "No, no, down
with you and hand out the powder-kegs. Form a line, men, and pass them
along to the door."
"Hurrah!" came in muffled tones; and directly after, from somewhere
below, Morgan's voice cried--
"Ready there! One!"
"Ready!--right!" cried a man by me, and a quick rustling sound told that
the first powder-keg was being passed along.
"Ready!--two!" cried Morgan; and I pictured in my own mind Morgan down
in the half cellar, handing out keg after keg, the men working eagerly
in the dark, as they passed the kegs along, and a cheer from the outside
reaching our ears, as we knew that the dangerous little barrels were
being seized and borne to some place of safety. Not that in my own mind
I could realise any place of safety in an open enclosure where sparks
might be falling from the burning building, and where, if the Indians
could only guess what was going on, flaming arrows would soon come
raining down.
It was a race with death within there, as I well knew; and as I stood
fast with my father's hand clutching my shoulder, and counted the kegs
that were handed out, my position, seemed to me the most painful of all.
If I had been hard at work I should not have felt it so much, but I was
forced to be inert, and the sounds I heard as I stood breathing that
suffocating air half maddened me.
Hissing that grew fiercer and fiercer as the fire licked up the
moisture, sharp cracking explosions as the logs split, and must, I knew,
be sending off bursts of flame and spark, and above all a deep
fluttering roar that grew louder and louder till all at once there was a
crash, a low crackling, and then, not two yards away from where I stood,
a broad opening all glowing fire.
The men nearest to us uttered a yell, and there was the rush of feet,
but my father's voice rose clear above all.
"Halt!" he cried; and discipline prevailed, as through the smoke I could
now see all that was going on; Morgan still in the magazine, and
Hannibal standing ready to take the kegs he passed out, while the men,
instead of being in line, had crowded together by the entrance.
"How many more, Morgan?" said my father, calmly, as he backed a little
toward the fiery opening at the end where I could feel the fierce glow
on my back.
"Three more, sir. Shall we leave them and go?"
"Leave them? Come, my men, you can see what you are doing now.
Morgan--Hannibal--the next keg."
It looked to be madness to bring out that keg into a low,
earthen-floored room, one end of which was blazing furiously, with great
tongues of fire darting toward us. But it was done; for Morgan stooped
down and reappeared directly with a keg, which he handed to the great
black, who took it quietly as if there was no danger, but only to have
it snatched excitedly away by the next man, who passed it along the
line.
"Steady, men!" said my father. "Don't make danger by being excited and
dropping one of those barrels."
Those moments seemed to me to be hours. The heat was terrific, and the
back of my neck was scorching as the second and third kegs were handed
out.
"Last," shouted Morgan, with a wild cry of thankfulness.
"Look again," said my father. "Stand fast all."
Morgan dropped down again, and as he did so there was another crash
behind us, a shower of sparks were literally shot into the place, and
one burning ember fell right into the opening of the magazine, to be
followed as Morgan leaped out by a quick sputtering noise, and then the
smell of powder. There was a rush for the door, and we four were alone.
"Only a little loose powder lying about," said Morgan, huskily. "That
was the last. Look out, Master George--quick!"
The task was done, the place saved from hideous ruin by an explosion;
and as the last man rushed from the place, the energy my father had
brought to bear was ended, and I had just time, in response to Morgan's
warning, to save him from falling as he lurched forward.
But there was other help at hand, and we three bore him out fainting
just as a burst of flame, sparks, and burning embers filled the place
where we had stood a minute before, and we emerged weak and staggering,
bearing my father's insensible form out into the bright light shed by
the burning building.
"Bravely done! Bravely done!" we heard on all sides; and then there was
a burst of cheering.
But I hardly seemed to hear it, as I was relieved by willing hands from
my share in the burden, and I only recollected then finding myself
kneeling beside a blanket under the rough canvas of our extemporised
tent, waiting until the surgeon had ended, when I panted forth--
"Is--is he very bad?"
"Very, my lad," said the surgeon as he rose, "but not bad enough for you
to look like that. Come, cheer up; I won't let him die. We can't spare
a man like your father."