HOW TWO FOUGHT IN THE DARK
When George Hamon told me the next part of the story of those early days,
his enjoyment in the recalling of certain parts of it was undisguised. He
told it with great gusto.
As he lay that night on the fern-bed in the cottage above the chasm, he
thought of Rachel Carré, and what might have been if Martel's father had
only been properly drowned on the Hanois instead of marrying the Guernsey
woman. Rachel and he might have come together, and he would have made her
as happy as the day was long. And now--his life was empty, and Rachel's was
broken,--and all because of this wretched half-Frenchman, with his knowing
ways and foreign beguilements. The girls had held him good-looking. Well,
yes, he was good-looking in a way, but it passed his understanding why any
Sercq girl should want to marry a foreigner while home lads were still to
be had. He did not think there would be much marrying outside the Island
for some time to come, but it was bitter hard that Rachel Carré should have
had to suffer in order to teach them that lesson.
Gr-r-r! but he would like to have Monsieur Martel up before him just for
ten minutes or so, with a clear field and no favour. Martel was strong and
active, it was true, but there--he was a drinker, and a Frenchman at that,
and drink doesn't run to wind, and a Frenchman doesn't run to fists. Very
well--say twenty minutes then, and if he--George Hamon--did not make
Monsieur Martel regret ever having come to Sercq, he would deserve all he
got and would take it without a murmur.
He was full of such imaginings, when at last he fell asleep, and he dreamt
that he and Martel met in a lonely place and fought. And so full of fight
was he that he rolled off the fern-bed and woke with a bump on the floor,
and regretted that it was only a dream. For he had just got Martel's head
comfortably under his left arm, and was paying him out in full for all he
had made Rachel Carré suffer, when the bump of his fall put an end to it.
The following night he fell asleep at once, tired with a long day's work in
the fields. He woke with a start about midnight, with the impression of a
sound in his ears, and lay listening doubtfully. Then he perceived that his
ears had not deceived him. There was someone in the room,--or
something,--and for a moment all the superstitions among which he had been
bred crawled in his back hair and held his breath.
Then a hand dropped out of the darkness and touched his shoulder, and he
sprang at the touch like a coiled spring.
"Diable!"
It was Martel's voice and usual exclamation, and in a moment Hamon had him
by the throat and they were whirling over the floor, upsetting the table
and scattering the chairs, and George Hamon's heart was beating like a
merry drum at feel of his enemy in the flesh.
But wrestling blindly in a dark room did not satisfy him. That which was
in him craved more. He wanted to see what he was doing and the full effects
of it.
He shook himself free.
"Come outside and fight it out like a man--if you are one," he panted. "And
we'll see if you can beat a man as you can a woman."
"Allons!" growled Martel. He was in the humour to rend and tear, and it
mattered little what. For the authorities in Guernsey, after due
deliberation, had decided that what was not good enough for Sercq was not
good enough for Guernsey, and had shipped him back with scant ceremony. He
had been flung out like a sack of rubbish onto the shingle in Havre
Gosselin, half an hour before, had scaled the rough track in the dark, with
his mouth full of curses and his heart full of rage, and George Hamon
thanked God that it was not Rachel and the boy he had found in the cottage
that night.
Hamon slipped on his shoes and tied them carefully, and they passed out and
along the narrow way between the tall hedges. The full moon was just
showing red and sleepy-looking, but she would be white and wide awake in a
few minutes. The grass was thick with dew, and there was not a sound save
the growl of the surf on the rocks below.
Through a gap in the hedge Hamon led the way towards Longue Pointe.
"Here!" he said, as they came on a level piece, and rolled up the sleeves
of his guernsey. "Put away your knife;" and Martel, with a curse at the
implication, drew it from its sheath at his back and flung it among the
bracken.
Then, without a word, they tackled one another. No gripping now, but hard
fell blows straight from the shoulder, warded when possible, or taken in
grim silence. They fought, not as men fight in battle,--for general
principles and with but dim understanding of the rights and wrongs of the
matter; but with the bitter intensity born of personal wrongs and the
desire for personal vengeance. To Hamon, Martel represented the grievous
shadow on Rachel Carré's life. To Martel, Hamon represented Sercq and all
the contumely that had been heaped upon him there.
Their faces were set like rocks. Their teeth were clenched. They breathed
hard and quick--through their noses at first, but presently, and of
necessity, in short sharp gasps from the chest.
It was a great fight, with none to see it but the placid moon, and so
strong was her light that there seemed to be four men fighting, two above
and two below. And at times they all merged into a writhing confusion of
fierce pantings and snortings as of wild beasts, but for the most part they
fought in grim silence, broken only by the whistle of the wind through
their swollen lips, the light thud of their feet on the trampled ground,
and the grisly sound of fist on flesh. And they fought for love of Rachel
Carré, which the one had not been able to win and the other had not been
able to keep.
Martel was the bigger man, but Hamon's legs and arms had springs of hate in
them which more than counterbalanced. He was a temperate man too, and in
fine condition. He played his man with discretion, let him exhaust himself
to his heart's content, took with equanimity such blows as he could not
ward or avoid, and kept the temper of his hatred free from extravagance
till his time came.
Martel lost patience and wind. Unless he could end the matter quickly his
chance would be gone. He did his best to close and finish it, but his
opponent knew better, and avoided him warily. They had both received
punishment. Hamon took it for Rachel's sake, Martel for his sins. His brain
was becoming confused with Hamon's quick turns and shrewd blows, and he
could not see as clearly as at first. At times it seemed to him that there
were two men fighting him. He must end it while he had the strength, and he
bent to the task with desperate fury. Then, as he was rushing on his foe
like a bull, with all his hatred boiling in his head, all went suddenly
dark, and he was lying unconscious with his face on the trodden grass, and
George Hamon stood over him, with his fists still clenched, all battered
and bleeding, and breathing like a spent horse, but happier than he had
been for many a day.
Martel lay so still that a fear began to grow in Hamon that he was dead. He
had caught him deftly on the temple as he came on. He had heard of men
being killed by a blow like that. He knelt and turned the other gingerly
over, and felt his heart beating. And then the black eyes opened on him and
the whites of them gleamed viciously in the moonlight, and Hamon stood up,
and, after a moment's consideration, strode away and kicked about in the
bracken till he found the other's knife. Then he picked up his jacket, and
went back to the cottage with the knife in one hand and his jacket in the
other, and went inside and bolted the door, which was not a custom in
Sercq.