HOW WE RAN AGAINST THE LAW FOR THE SAKE OF A WOMAN
When I recovered sufficiently to take notice of things, I was sitting in
the tunnel with my back against the wall, a big fire of broken wood was
burning brightly, and men were carrying in others from the harbour. The
carried men were bound, and the others were strangers to me.
A flask was put to my mouth, and I took a pull at it, and turned to find
Krok smiling his content at my recovery.
"Was it you, Krok?" and I shook both his hands heartily, while he held the
flask between his knees.
"And my grandfather?" I asked. "Is he hurt?" And Krok nodded and then shook
his head.
"Hurt, but not badly?" and he nodded quickly.
"And these are Guernsey men?"
He nodded again, and one of them came up and asked, "Feeling better? You
had a tough job here all alone. We came ashore on the other side, and were
hurrying towards the firing lower down there when we heard the gun begin,
and your friend here brought us down this road on the jump. He doesn't
speak much, but he's got mighty good ears and sense."
"You were just in time. I was about done."
"Just in time is all right, but in fact it wouldn't have done to be much
later."
"Can you tell me anything of my grandfather, Philip Carré?"
"Oh, you're young Phil Carré, who started all this business, are you?"
"I'm Phil Carré. What about my grandfather?"
"We had some warm work over there, and he got a shot through the leg. Not
serious, I think. But we got the schooner and a lot of the rascals, and
when we found the rest had come this way we came after them. But Torode
himself got away. Maybe we'll find him here somewhere."
I had not given the man in George Hamon's cave a thought for hours past,
but this sudden reminder brought my mind round to him, and me to my feet,
with a jerk.
He was my father--I could not doubt it, though belief was horrible. He was
a scoundrel beyond most. He lay there stricken by my hand. His life was
sought by the law, and would certainly be forfeited if he was found. I must
find George Hamon at once.
"Are they fighting still at Dixcart?" I asked the Guernsey man.
"There was firing over yonder as we came along," he said, pointing to the
south-west. "But it is finished now."
"That was their chief attack. The Sénéchal was shot at Eperquerie. George
Hamon is in charge at Dixcart. We had better see how they have fared."
"Allons! I know Hamon."
He left four of his comrades to guard the prisoners, and the rest of us set
off by the way I had already passed twice that night, and came down over
Hog's Back into Dixcart.
They heard us coming, and George Hamon's quick order to his men to stand by
told me all was well, and a shout from myself set his mind at rest.
"Mon Dieu! Phil, my boy, but I'm glad to see you safe and sound. You've
been on my mind since ever you left. Who are--Why--Krok--and Henri Tourtel?
Nom d'Gyu! Where do you come from?"
"From Herm last. We came across after those black devils. Old Carré said
they would take a bite at you as they passed. We landed on the other side,
and scrambled up a deuce of a cliff, and got to the tunnel there just in
the nick of time. Young Carré here was fighting a dozen of them and a
carronade single-handed."
"Bon Gyu, Phil! We're well through with it. I oughtn't to have let you go
alone, but you were gone before I knew, and we had all we could manage
here. There are ten of them dead, and the rest are in our hands--about
twenty, I think--and every man of them damaged. They fought like devils."
"Many of ours hurt?" I asked.
"We've not come out whole, but there's no one killed. Where's your
grandfather?"
"Wounded on Herm, but not seriously, M. Tourtel says."
"Seen anything of Torode himself, Hamon?" asked Tourtel.
"Haven't you got him? Better look if he's among our lot. You would know him
better than we would. They're all down yonder. I must go and see after
Amice Le Couteur. We left him bleeding at Eperquerie. Get anything you want
from our people, Tourtel. Krok, you come along with us;" and we set off
over the hill past La Jaspellerie to get to La Vauroque.
"Phil, my son," he said in my ear, "your work is cut out for you this
night. Are you good for it?"
"Yes."
"For her sake, and your grandfather's and your own, we must get him away at
once--now. Tomorrow will be too late. We don't want him swinging in chains
at Peter Port and all the old story raked up. I wish to God you had killed
him!--Mon Dieu! I forgot--you're you and he's your father. All the same, it
would have saved much trouble."
"What's to be done with him?"
"He may be dead--Mon Dieu! I keep forgetting. If he's alive you will take
him away in my boat--"
"Where to?"
"You want him to live?"
"I don't want to have killed him."
"Then you must get him to a doctor. You can't go to Guernsey, so that means
Jersey--And afterwards--I don't know--you'll have to see what is best. Wait
a moment,"--as we came to his house at La Vauroque. "You'll need money, and
take what you can find to eat. I've got a bottle or two of wine somewhere.
Before daylight you must be out of sight of Sercq."
"Where will you say I've gone?"
"Bidemme! I don't know ... You can trust old Krok?"
"Absolutely."
"Then, as soon as you have had the other patched up and settled somewhere
in safety, you'd better leave him in Krok's care and get back here. And the
sooner the better. The people in Guernsey will want your story from your
own lips in this matter."
"How soon can we get into the cave?"
"Nom-de-Dieu, yes!... Voyons donc!--About two o'clock with a wet shirt.
This wind will pile the water up, and the Race will be against us in the
Gouliot. The sooner we're off the better."
He handed me a sum of money, packed into a basket all the eatables he could
find and two bottles of wine, and lit a lantern, and we set off through the
gusty night, past the deserted houses, past Beaumanoir all dark and dead,
and so down into Havre Gosselin, where the waves were roaring white.
We drew in Uncle George's small boat by its ropes and got aboard his larger
one, and tied the smaller to drag astern.
The west wind was still blowing strong, but it had slackened somewhat with
the turn of the tide. But when we tried to breast the Gouliot passage with
that heavy boat, we found it impossible. Three times we nosed inch by inch
into the swirling black waters, which leaped and spat and bit at us with
fierce white fangs, and three times we were swept away down past Pierre au
Norman, drooping over our oars like broken men.
"Guyabble! This is no good!" gasped Uncle George, as we came whirling back
the third time. "We must go round." So we drew in the oars, and hoisted a
bit of our lug, and ran straight out past Les Dents, whose black heads were
sheets of flying foam, to make a long tack round Brecqhou. Then, with the
wind full on our port quarter, we made a quick, straight run for the
Boutiques, and found ourselves not very far astray. Dropping the sail, and
leaving Krok in charge, Uncle George and I pulled in the small boat to the
channel into which his cave opened. It was still awash, but we could not
wait. We dragged the boat up onto the shingle just showing at the head of
the chasm, then wading out up to our shoulders to the leaning slab, we
pulled down the rock screen and crawled into the tunnel.
The wounded man lay just as we had left him, breathing slowly and
regularly, but showing no other sign of life. We dropped a little cognac
into him, and took him by the shoulders and feet and carried him into the
tunnel. How we got him through I cannot tell--inch by inch, shoving and
hauling, till the sweat poured down us in that narrow place.
But we got him to the opening at last, and hauled the boat down and hoisted
him in, soaked to the skin each one of us. Uncle George carefully closed
his door, and we pulled out to Krok, waiting in the lugger.
"Mon Dieu! I have had enough of him," said Uncle George, worn out, I
suppose, with all the night's doings. "If he dies, I shall not care much.
He is better dead."
We laid him in the bottom of the boat and covered him with the mizzen sail.
"Keep well out round Bec du Nez," said Uncle George, "and run so for half
an hour. Then run due east for two hours, and then make for Jersey. God
keep you, my boy! It's a bitter duty, but you're doing the right thing."
He wrung my hand, and pushed off and disappeared in the darkness, and we
ran up the lug and went thrashing out into Great Russel.
We turned and ran before the west wind straight for the French coast, till
the sun rose and the cliffs of Sercq, about twelve miles away, gleamed as
though they had but just been made--or had newly risen out of the sea. Then
we turned to the south-west and made for Jersey.
As soon as it was light I saw Krok's eyes dwelling on our passenger with a
very natural curiosity. Torode was unknown to him as to most of us, but
there was a whole world of enquiry in his face as he sat looking down on
the unconscious face below--studying it, pondering it, catching, I thought,
at times half glimpses of the past in it.
I saw that I must tell him a part of the truth, at all events, for I should
need much help from him. My mind had been running ahead of the boat, and
trying the ways in front, and it seemed to me that Jersey was no safe
refuge for a forfeited life.
Torode of Herm was a name known in all those coasts. The news of his
treacheries and uprooting was bound to get there before long. Some
long-headed busybody might stumble on our secret and undo us. My mind had
been seeking a more solitary place, and, ranging to and fro, had lighted on
the Ecréhou rocks, which I had visited once with my grandfather and Krok
and had never forgotten.
"Do you know who this is, Krok?" I asked, and he raised his puzzled face
and fixed his deep-set eyes on mine.
He shook his head, and sat, with his chin in his hands and his elbows on
his knees, gazing down into the face below, and I sat watching him what
time I could spare from my steering.
And at last he knelt down suddenly and did exactly as Uncle George had
done--lifted the black moustache from off the unconscious man's mouth, and
threw back his own head to study the result. Then I saw a wave of hot
blood rush into his face and neck, and when it went it left his face gray.
He looked at me with eyes full of wonder and pain, and then nodded his big
head heavily.
"Who, then?" and he looked round in dumb impatience for something to write
with, and quivered with excitement. But the ballast was bars of iron
rescued from the sea, and there was nothing that would serve.
Then of a sudden he whipped out his knife, and with the point of it jerkily
traced on the thwart where I sat, the word "FATHER," and pointed his knife
at me.
"Yes," I nodded. "It is my father come back, when we all thought him dead.
He comes in disgrace, and his life would be forfeited if they found him, so
you and I are going to hide him for a time--till he is himself, and can go
away again."
Krok nodded, and he was probably thinking of my mother, for his fist
clenched and he shook it bitterly at the unconscious man.
Then he knelt again, and looked at his wound, and shook his head.
"It was I shot him, not knowing who he was. And so I must save his life, or
have his blood on my hands."
From Krok's grim face I judged that the latter would have been most to his
mind.
"I thought of trying the Ecréhous. We could build a shelter with some of
the old stones, and he will be safer there than in Jersey. But I must get a
doctor to him, or he'll slip through our hands."
Krok pondered all this, and then, pointing ahead to the bristle of rocks in
front and to himself, and then to me and the wounded man and to Jersey, I
understood that he would land on the Ecréhous and build the shelter, while
I took the wounded man on to Jersey to find a doctor. And that chimed well
with my ideas.
The sun had been up about three hours when we ran past the Dirouilles, with
sharp eyes and a wide berth for outlying fragments, and edged cautiously in
towards the Ecréhous. The sea was set so thick with rocks, some above and
some below water, that we dropped our sail and felt our way in with the
oars, and so came slowly past the Nipple to the islet, where once a chapel
stood.
It was as lonely and likely a shelter for a shipwrecked soul as could be
found, at once a hiding-place and a sanctuary. Sparse grass grew among the
rocks, but no tree or shrub of any kind at that time. The ruins of the holy
place alone spoke of man and his handiwork.
All around was the free breath of life,--which, at times, indeed, might
sound more akin to rushing death,--and the sea and the voice of it; and the
stark rocks sticking up through it like the fragments of a broken world.
And above was the great dome of the sky--peaceful, pitiless, according to
that which was within a man.
Krok scrambled ashore, and I handed him all that was left of our
provisioning, then with a wave of the hand I turned and pulled clear of the
traps and ran for Rozel Bay.
There was a little inn at the head of the bay, which had seen many a
stranger sight than a wounded man. I had no difficulty in securing
accommodation there, and the display of my money ensured me fullest
service, such as it was. I told them plainly that the unconscious man was
related to me, and that he had received his wound at my hands. I let them
believe it was an accident, and that we came from the coast of France. They
were full of rough sympathy, and when I had seen him put into a comfortable
bed, and had dropped some more cognac into him, I started at once for St.
Heliers to find a doctor.
There was no difficulty in that. I went to the first I was told of, and
fell fortunately. I described the nature of the wound, so far as I knew it,
and told him the bullet was still there. He got the necessary instruments
and we drove back to Rozel in his two-wheeled gig. Dr. Le Gros wore a great
blue cloak, and his manner was brusque, but cloak and manner covered a very
kind heart. Moreover, he had had a very large experience in gun-shot
wounds, and he was a man of much discretion.
As soon as he set eyes on the wound he rated me soundly for not having it
seen to before, and I bore it meekly. His patient was his only concern. He
did not ask a single question as to how it was caused, or where we came
from. It seemed, however, to puzzle or annoy him. He pinched his lips and
shook his head over it, and said angrily, "'Cré nom-de-Dieu! It should have
been seen to before!"
"But, monsieur," I said, "we have no doctor, else I would not have brought
him here."
"But, nom-de-Dieu! that bullet should have been got out at once. It is
pressing on the brain. It may have set up inflammation, and what _that_ may
lead to the good God alone knows!"
"Pray get it out at once, monsieur."
"Ay, ay, that's all very well, but the damage may be done, and now, 'cré
nom-de-Dieu, you expect me to undo it."
"I am sorry."
"Sorry won't set this right,"--with a shake of the head like an angry
bull,--"No--'cré nom-de-Dieu!"
He was a rather violent old man, but skillful with his terrible little
tools, and he worked away with them till I left him hurriedly.
He came out after a time with the bullet in his hand, "Le v'là," he said
tersely. "And if that was all--bien! But--!" and he shook his head
ominously, and talked of matters connected with the brain which were quite
beyond me, but still caused me much discomfort.
He told me what to do and promised to return next day.
Torode--I never could bring myself to think of him as my father--came to
himself during the night, for in the morning his eyes were open and they
followed me with a puzzled lack of understanding. He evidently did not know
where he was or how he got there. But he lay quietly and asked no questions
except with his eyes.
When the doctor came he asked, "Has he spoken yet?"
"Not yet;" and he nodded.
"How long must he stop here, Monsieur le Docteur?"
"It depends," he said, looking at me thoughtfully. "Another week at all
events. You want to take him home?"
"He is better at home."
"I must keep him for a week at all events."
So that day I took over some provisionings for Krok, and found him well
advanced with his building. He had got the walls of a small cabin about
half-way up, and had collected drift timber enough to roof it and to spare.
I told him how things stood, put in a few hours' work with him on the
house, and got back to Rozel.
"Has he spoken?" was the doctor's first question next day.
"Not a word."
"Ah!" with a weighty nod, and he lifted Torode's left hand, and when he let
it go it fell limply.
And again, each day, his first question was, "Has he spoken?" And my reply
was always the same. For, whether through lack of power or strength of will
I could not tell, but certain it was that no word of any kind had so far
passed between us.
One time, coming upon him unawares, I saw his lips moving as though he were
attempting speech to himself, but as soon as he saw me he set himself once
more to his grim silence, and the look in his eyes reminded me somehow of
Krok.
On the seventh day, when the doctor asked his usual question, and I as
usual replied, he said gravely, "'Cré nom-de-Dieu, I doubt if he will ever
speak again. You see--" and he went off into a very full and deep
explanation about certain parts of the brain, of which I understood nothing
except that they were on the left side and controlled the powers of speech,
and he feared the bullet and the inflammation it had caused had damaged
them beyond repair. And when I turned to look at Torode the dumb misery in
his eyes assured me in my own mind that it was so, for I had seen just that
look in Krok's eyes many a time.
Another whole week I waited, visiting Krok three times in all, and the
last time finding him living quite contentedly in the finished house. And
then, Torode having spoken no word, and the doctor saying he could do no
more for him, I had him carried down to the boat and took him across to the
Ecréhous.
He had been gaining strength daily, and, except for a certain
disinclination to exertion of any kind, and his lack of speech, looked
almost himself again. Later on, when he walked and worked, I noticed a
weakness in his left arm, and his left leg dragged a little.
At Krok's suggestion I had bargained for a small boat, and I took him also
a further supply of provisions, and flour, and fishing-lines. And before I
left them I thought it right to explain to Torode just what had happened.
He listened in a cold black fury, but fell soon into a slough of despond.
His life was over, but he was not dead. For him, as for the rest of us,
death would, I think, have been more merciful--and yet, I would not have
had him die at my hands.
And so I left the two dumb men on the Ecréhous and returned to Sercq, and
of my welcome there I need not tell.
My mother and Aunt Jeanne were full of questionings which taxed my wits to
breaking point to evade, especially Aunt Jeanne's. She tried to trap me in
a hundred ways, leading up from the most distant and innocent points to
that which had kept me away so long. And since truth consists as much in
not withholding as in telling, I was brought within measurable distance of
lying by Aunt Jeanne's pertinacity, for which I think the blame should
fairly rest with her.
I told them simply that I had been on matters connected with Torode, and
would still be engaged on them for some time to come, and left it there.
Carette, of course, understood, and approved all I had done. She saw with
me the necessity of keeping the matter from my mother, lest her peace of
mind should suffer shipwreck again, and to no purpose. Her loving
tenderness and thought for my mother at this time were a very great delight
to me, and commended her still more to my mother herself.
My grandfather was still in Guernsey. His leg had taken longer to heal than
it might have done, and, failing my information against the Herm men, his
was of use to the authorities in preparing the charge against them.
There were near forty prisoners brought over from Sercq, some of them so
sorely wounded that it was doubtful if they would live until their trial.
The rest had been killed, except some few who were said to have got across
to France. To my great relief neither young Torode nor his mother was among
the dead or the captives.
Krok was supposed in Sercq to be with my grandfather in Guernsey, and his
absence excited no remark. For myself, in Sercq my absence was accounted
for by the necessity for my being in Guernsey,--while in Guernsey an
exaggerated account of the wound I had received on the Coupée offered
excuse for my retirement; and so the matter passed without undue comment.
George Hamon had informed my grandfather of his recognition of Torode, and
he told me afterwards that for a very long time the old man flatly refused
to believe it.
My news of Torode's recovery was not, I think, over-welcome to Uncle
George. He would have preferred him dead, and the old trouble buried for
ever, forgetting always that his death must have left something of a cloud
on my life, though he always argued strongly against that view of the case.
"I find it hard to swallow, mon gars, in spite of George Hamon's
assurance," said my grandfather when we spoke of it.
"I found it hard to believe. But Uncle George had no doubts about it. Krok,
too, recognised him."
"Krok did? Ah--then--" and he nodded slow acceptance of the unwelcome fact.
Before I was through with the telling of my story, and signing it, and
swearing to it before various authorities, I was heartily sick of the whole
matter, and wished, as indeed I had good reason, that I had never sailed
with John Ozanne in the _Swallow_.
But--"pas de rue sans but"--and at last all that unpleasing business was
over--except a little after-clap of which you will hear presently.
After many delays and formalities, all the prisoners were condemned to
death, and I was free to go home and be my own man again.
Twice while in Guernsey I had taken advantage of the slow course of the law
to run across to Jersey and so to the Ecréhous, and found Torode settled
down in dumb bitterness to the narrow life that was left to him.
He was quite recovered in every way save that of speech, but that great
loss broke his power and cut him off from his kind.
I had never told him that his wound came from my hand, but he associated me
with it in some way, and showed so strong a distaste for my company that I
thought well to go no more.
He had taken a dislike to old Krok too. Their common loss had in it the
elements of mockery, and on my second visit Krok expressed a desire to
return to Sercq. Torode could maintain himself by fishing, as they had done
together, and could barter his surplus at Rozel or Gorey for anything he
required.
And so we left him to his solitude, and he seemed content to have us go.
George Hamon, however, ran across now and again in his lugger to see how he
was getting on, and to make sure that he was still there, and perhaps with
the hope that sooner or later that which was in himself still, as strong as
it had been any time this twenty years, might find its reward.