HOW WE WALKED INTO THE TIGER'S MOUTH
Cherbourg was at that time a town of mean-looking houses and narrow
streets, ill-paved, ill-lighted, a rookery for blackbirds of every breed.
It was a great centre for smuggling and privateering, the fleet brought
many hangers-on, and the building of the great digue drew thither rough
toilers who could find, or were fitted for, no other employment.
Low-class wine-shops, and their spawn of quarrellings and sudden deaths,
abounded. Crime, in fact, attracted little attention so long as it held no
menace to the public peace. Life had been so very cheap, and blood had
flowed so freely, that the public ear had dulled to its cry.
Le Marchant led the way through the dark, ill-smelling streets to a café in
the outskirts.
The Café au Diable Boiteux looked all its name and more. It was as
ill-looking a place as ever I had seen. But here it was that the
free-traders made their headquarters, and here, said Le Marchant, we might
find men from the Islands, and possibly even from Sercq itself, and so get
news from home.
The café itself opened not directly off the road, but off a large courtyard
surrounded by a wall, which tended to privacy and freedom from
observation.
It was quite dark when we turned in through a narrow slit of a door, in a
larger door which was chained and bolted with a great cross-beam. There
were doubtless other outlets known to the frequenters.
Le Marchant led the way across the dark courtyard, which was lighted only
by the red-draped windows of the café, and opened a door out of which
poured a volume of smoke and the hot reek of spirits, and a great clash of
talk and laughter.
The room was so thick with smoke that, coming in out of the darkness, I
could only blink, though there was no lack of lamps, and the walls were
lined with mirrors in gilt frames which made the room look almost as large
as the noise that filled it, and multiplied the lights and the smoke and
the people in a bewildering fashion.
Three or four men had risen in a corner and were slowly working their way
out, with back-thrown jests to those they were leaving. Following close on
Le Marchant's heels, I stepped aside to let them pass, and in doing so
bumped against the back of a burly man who was leaning over the table in
close confidential talk with one opposite him.
"Pardon!" I said, and, looking up, saw two grim eyes scowling at me,
through the smoke, out of the looking-glass in front.
I gave but one glance, and felt as if I had run my head against a wall or
had received a blow over the heart. For those fierce black eyes were full
of menace. They had leaped to mine as blade leaps to blade, touches
lightly, slides along, and holds your own with the compelling pressure that
presages assault. They were like thunderclouds charged with blasting
lightnings. They were full of understanding and dreadful intention, and all
this I saw in one single glance.
I gripped Le Marchant's jacket.
"Out quick!" I whispered, and turned and went.
"What--?" he began.
"Torode of Herm is there."
"The devil! Did he see you?"
"I think so. Yes, he looked at me through the looking-glass."
"No time to lose then!" and he sped down the yard, and through the slit of
a door, and down the dark road, and I was not a foot behind him.
"You are quite sure, Carré?" he panted, as we ran.
"Quite sure. His eyes drew mine, and I knew him as he knew me."
"Never knew him to go there before. Devil's luck he should be there
to-night."
I think it no shame to confess to a very great fear, for of a surety, now,
the earth was not large enough for this man and me. I held his life in my
hand as surely as though he were but a grasshopper, and he knew it. And he
was strong with the strength of many purposeful men behind him, every man
as heartless as himself, and Le Marchant and I were but two. My head swam
at thought of the odds between us, and hope grew sick in me.
My sole idea of escape, under the spur of that great fear, had been to get
to the boat and make for home. But Le Marchant, having less at stake,--so
far as he knew at all events,--had his wits more in hand, and used them to
better purpose. For, supposing we got away all right in the dark, Torode's
schooner could sail four feet to our one, and if he sighted us we should be
completely at his mercy, a most evil and cruel thing to trust to. Then,
too, there was La Hague, with its fierce waves, and beyond it the wild Race
of Alderney with its contrarieties and treacheries,--ill things to tackle
even in a ship of size. Le Marchant thought on these things, and before we
were into the town he panted them out, and turned off suddenly to the left
and made for the open country.
"We'll strike right through to Carteret," he jerked. "The boat must go....
He'll look for us in the town and the wind's against him for La Hague....
We must get across before he can get round."
"How far across?"
"Less than twenty miles.... There soon after midnight.... Steal a boat if
necessary."
We settled down into a steady walk and got our wind back, and my spirits
rose, and hope showed head once more. If we could get across to Sercq
before Torode could lay us by the heels, we would be safe among our own
folks, and, unless I was very much mistaken, he would no more than visit
Herm and away before I could raise Peter Port against him.
Neither of us had travelled that land before, but we knew the direction we
had to take, and the stars kept us to our course.
We pressed on without a halt, for every moment was of importance, and for
the most part we went in silence. For myself, I was already, in my
thoughts, clasping my mother and Carette in my arms once more, and then
speeding across to Peter Port to rouse them there with the news of Torode's
murderous treachery.
Le Marchant was the more practical man of the two. As we passed some
windmills, and came swinging down towards the western coast, soon after
midnight, he gave a cheerful "Hourra!" and in reply to my stare, cried,
"The wind, man! It's as dead as St. Magloire. Monsieur Torode will never
get round La Hague like this."
"It will come again with the sun, maybe," I said.
"Then the quicker we get home the better," and we hurried on.
When we came out at last on the cliffs the sea lay below us as smooth as a
clouded mirror. It would mean a toilsome passage, but toil was nothing
compared with Torode. We walked rapidly along till we came to a village,
which we learned, afterwards, was not Carteret but Surtainville. There were
boats lying on the shore, and we slipped down the cliff before we reached
the first house, and made our way towards them. One of those boats we had
to use if we had to fight for it, but we had no desire to fight, only to
get away at once without dispute and without delay.
We fixed on the one that seemed the least heavy and clumsy, though none
were much to our liking, and while Le Marchant hunted up a pair of spare
oars in case of accident, I found a piece of soft white stone and scrawled
on a board, "Boat will be returned in two days, keep this money for
hire"--and emptied all I possessed onto it. Then we ran the clumsy craft
into the water and settled down to a long seven hours' pull.
But labour was nothing when so much--everything--waited at the other end of
the course. We went to it with a will, and I do not suppose that old boat
had ever moved so rapidly since she was built.
We had been rowing hard for, we reckoned, close on three hours when the sun
rose. The gray shadows drew slowly off the face of the sea, and we stood up
and scanned the northern horizon anxiously. But there was no flaw upon the
brimming white rim. Torode had evidently not been able to get round La
Hague, and a man must have been blind indeed not to see therein the hand of
Providence; for a cap full of wind and he would have been down on us like a
wolf on two strayed lambs. But now Sercq lay straight in front of our
boat's nose, like a great gray whale nuzzling its young, and every long
pull of the oars brought it nearer.
There was time indeed for catastrophe yet, and our anxieties would not be
ended till Creux harbour was in sight. For, from Cherbourg to Sercq was but
forty miles,--but, fortunately for us, forty miles which included La Hague
and the Race,--and if Torode could pick up a fair wind he could do it in
four hours--or, with all obstacles, in five, or at most six--whereas,
strain as we might, and we were not fresh to begin with, we could not
possibly cover the distance in less than seven hours. So, given a wind, the
race might prove a tight one, and, as we rowed, our eyes were glued to the
northern sky-line, where La Hague was growing dimmer with every lurch of
the boat, and our hearts were strong with hope if not entirely free from
fear.
We toiled like galley-slaves, for though the danger was not visible as yet,
for aught we knew it might appear above the horizon at any moment, and then
our chances would be small indeed. Had any eye watched our progress it
must have deemed us demented, for we rowed across a lonely sea as though
death and destruction followed close in our wake.
For myself, I know my heart was just one dumb prayer for help in this hour
of need. We had come through so much. We had escaped so many perils; so
very much depended on our winning through to Sercq; and failure at this
last moment would be so heart-breaking. Yes, my heart boiled with unspoken
prayers and strange vows, which I fear were somewhat in the nature of
bargainings,--future conduct for present aid,--but which did not seem to me
out of place at the moment, and which, in any case, did me no harm, for a
man works better on prayers than on curses, I'll be bound.
Sercq at last grew large in front of us, and our hearts were high. When we
jerked our heads over our shoulders we could see the long green slopes of
the Eperquerie beckoning us on, and the rugged brown crests of the Grande
and Petite Moies bobbing cheerfully above the tumbling waves, and Le Tas on
the other side standing like a monument of Sercq's unconquerable
stubbornness.
And these things spoke to us, and called to us, and braced us with hope,
though our flanks clapped together with the strain of that long pull, and
our legs trembled, and our hands were cramped and blistered.
Then, of a sudden, Le Marchant jerked a cry, and I saw what he saw--the
topsail of a schooner rising white in the sun above the sky-line, and to
our hearts there was menace in the very look of it.
We looked round at Sercq, at the cracks in the headlands, and the green
slopes smiling in the sunshine, and the white tongues of the waves as they
leaped up the cliffs.
"Five miles!" gasped Le Marchant.
"She must be twelve or more. We'll do it."
"Close work!"
And we bent and rowed as we had never rowed in our lives before.
The schooner had evidently all the wind she wanted. She rose very rapidly.
To our anxious eyes she seemed to sweep along like a sun-gleam on a cloudy
day.... Both her topsails were clear to us.... We could see her jibs
swollen with venom, and past them the great sweep of her mainsails with the
booms well out over the side to take the full of the wind.... The sweat
poured down us, the veins stood out of us like cords.... Once, in the
frenzy of my thoughts, the gleaming white sails on our quarter, and the
crisp green waves alongside, and the dingy brown boat, and Le Marchant's
fiery crimson neck, all shot with red for a moment, and I loosed one hand
and drew it over my brow to see if it was blood or only sweat that trickled
there.
On and on she came, a marvel of beauty, though she meant death for us, and
showed it in every graceful venomous line, from the sharp white curl at her
forefoot to the swelling menace of her sails.
Her long black hull was clear to us now, and still we had a mile to go. The
breath whistled through our nostrils. Le Marchant's face when he glanced
across his shoulder was twisted like a crumpled mask. We swung up from our
seats and slewed half round to get every pound we could out of the
thrashing oars.
We rushed in between the Moie des Burons and the Burons themselves, and
drove straight for the harbour. For a moment the schooner was hid from us.
Then she came racing out again. The tide was running like a fury. We drove
swirling through it.
"Ach!" burst out from both of us, as a puff of white smoke whirled from the
schooner's bows and a crash behind told us that a point of rock had saved
us.... The coils of the current, which runs there like a mill-race, gripped
our rounded bottom and dragged at us like very devils.... It was life and
death and a question of seconds.... We were level with the remnant of the
old breakwater.... As we tore frantically at the oars to round it, the puff
of smoke whirled out again, ... a crash behind us and chips of granite came
showering into the smooth water inside, and a boat that lay just off the
shore in a line with the opening scattered into fragments before our
straining eyes.... We lay doubled over our oars, panting and sobbing and
laughing. We had escaped--but as by fire.
A moment for breath, and we slipped over the side, grateful for the cold
bracing of the water on our sweltering skins, struggled through the few
yards to the mouth of the tunnel, and crept through to the road. We lay
there prone till our strength came back, and one full heart, at all
events,--nay, I will believe two,--thanked God fervently for escape from
mighty peril. For no man may look death so closely in the face as that
without being stirred to the depths.
"A close thing!" breathed Le Marchant, as we got onto our feet and found
the solid earth still rolling beneath us.
"God's mercy!" I said, and we sped up the steep Creux Road, among the ferns
and flowers and overhanging trees.
My heart was leaping exultantly. For Carette and my mother and home and
everything lay up the climbing way, and I believed, poor fool, that I had
got the better of a man like Torode of Herm.
At sight of us, one came running down from Les Lâches where he had gone at
sound of the firing, and greeted us with amazement.
"Bon Gyu, Phil Carré! And we thought you dead! And Helier Le Marchant!
Where do you come from? Where have you been all the time?"
"Prisoners of war. We came across from France there. There's à boat in the
harbour, Elie, that we borrowed and promised to return. Will you see to it
for us?" and we sped on, to meet many such welcomes, and staring eyes and
gaping mouths, till we came to Beaumanoir, and walked into the kitchen.
"Oh, bon Dieu!" gasped Aunt Jeanne, and sat down suddenly on the green-bed
at sight of us, believing we were spirits bearing her warning.
But I flung my arms round her neck and kissed her heartily, and asked only,
"Carette?--and my mother?"
And she said, "But they are well, mon gars," and regarded me with somewhat
less of doubt, but no less amazement. And I kissed her again, and said,
"Helier will tell you all about it, Aunt Jeanne," and ran off across the
knoll, past Vieux Port, to Belfontaine.
I looked across at Brecqhou as I came in sight of the western waters, and
said to myself, "In an hour I will be over there to see Carette," and my
heart leaped with joy. Away up towards Rondellerie I thought I saw my
grandfather in the fields. I jumped over the green bank and came down to
the house through the orchard. The door stood wide and I went in. My
mother looked up in quick surprise at a visitor at so unusual an hour, and
in a moment she was on my neck.
"My boy! my boy!" she cried. "Now God be praised!" and sobbed and strained
me to her, and I felt all her prayers thrill through her arms into my own
heart.
It was quite a while before we could settle to reasonable talk, for, in
spite of her repeated assertions that she had never really given me up, she
could still hardly realise that I was truly alive and come back to her, and
every other minute she must fling her arms round my neck to make sure.
Then up she jumped and set food before me, in quantity equal almost to the
time I had been away, as though she feared I had eaten nothing since I left
home. And I had an appetite that almost justified her, for the night had
been a wasteful one.
And while I ate, I told her briefly where I had been, and what had kept me
so long, and touched but lightly on the matter of Torode, for I saw that
was not what she would care to hear.
"And Carette?" I asked. "I know she is well, for Aunt Jeanne told me so;"
and she looked up quickly, and I hastened to add,--"We had to pass
Beaumanoir, and I left Helier Le Marchant there. I only stopped long enough
to ask if you were all right--and Carette." If I had told her I had kissed
Aunt Jeanne before herself, I really believe she would have felt hurt,
though I had never thought of it so when I did it.
But her nature was too sweet, and her heart too full of gratitude, to allow
long harbourage to any such thoughts.
"Carette," she said with a smile, "has been much with me. But"--and her
face saddened--"you do not know what has befallen them."
"Helier feared they were wiped out."
"Almost. Monsieur Le Marchant and Martin, the eldest boy, got home sorely
wounded. They are still there on Brecqhou, and Carette is nursing them back
to life. But I think"--and there was a touch of pride in her pleasure at
it--"she has been here every time she has come across to see Jeanne Falla.
She is a good girl ...and I think she is prettier than ever." But for
myself I thought that was perhaps because she saw her with new eyes.
"And my grandfather?--and Krok?"
"Both well, only much troubled about you. I do not think they ever expected
to see you again, my boy. Your grandfather has blamed himself, I think, for
ever letting you go, and it has aged him. Krok gave you up too, I think,
but he has never ceased to keep an eye on Carette for you. I doubt if he
has missed going over to Brecqhou any single day, except when the weather
made it quite impossible."
"God bless him for that!"
And even as I spoke, the door opened and Krok came in, but a Krok that we
hardly knew.
He was in a state of most intense agitation. I thought at first that it was
on my account,--that he had heard of my arrival. But in a moment I saw that
it was some greater thing still that moved him.
At sight of me he stopped, as if doubting his senses,--or tried to stop,
for that which was in him would not let him stand still. He was bursting
with some news, and my heart told me it was ill news. His eyes rolled and
strained, his dumb mouth worked, he fairly gripped and shook himself in
his frantic striving after communication with us.
My mother was alarmed, but yet kept her wits. Truly it seemed to me that
unless he could tell us quickly what was in him something inside must give
way under the strain. She ran quickly to a drawer in her dresser, and
pulled out a sheet of paper and a piece of charcoal, and laid them before
him on the table. He jumped at them, but his hand shook so that it only
made senseless scratches on the paper. I heard his teeth grinding with
rage. He seized his right hand with his left, and held it and quieted
himself by a great effort. And slowly and jerkily he wrote, in letters that
fell about the page,--"Carette--Torode--" and then the charcoal fell out of
his hand and he rolled in a heap on the floor.
My heart gave a broken kick and fell sickly. It dropped in a moment to what
had happened. Failing to end us, Torode had swung round Le Tas and run for
Brecqhou, where Carette, alone with her two sick men, would be completely
at his mercy. He would carry her off, gather his gear on Herm, and be away
before Peter Port could lift a hand to stop him. If I held his life in my
hand, he held in his what was dearer far than life to me. And I had been
pluming myself on getting the better of him!
"See to him, mother. I must go. Carette is in danger," and I kissed her and
ran out.
I went down the zigzag at Port à la Jument in sliding leaps, tumbled into
the boat from which Krok had just landed, and once more I was pulling for
life and that which was dearer still.