"FIFTY FATHOMS DEEP"
(1)
"We shall never make Jersey with this wind," said the young fisherman.
"We _must_!" replied La Vireville firmly. "We could run for Gorey
if St. Helier is impossible."
The Norman shrugged his shoulders under his faded guernsey. "Much
more likely to be blown into St. Malo! She makes a great deal
of leeway."
The subject of their conversation lay before them at that moment
on the beach, an open sixteen-foot fisherman's boat, broad in the
beam, ballasted with stones, and lug-rigged. The unlucky north-east
wind, strong and steady, whipped La Vireville's cloak about him,
and caused him to put a hasty hand to his hat. It was about nine of
the spring evening and very dusk. The lights of the upper town of
Granville showed about three miles to the left, along the crest
of the high rock that jutted out into the sea, and a scrap of an
undesired moon served to emphasise the rate at which the clouds
were driving over the sky.
"At any rate we must put to sea," said the émigré, determined to
waste no more words. "Get the boat ready, and I will fetch the
child, and then help you down with her. Wherever the wind may drive
us to, we cannot remain here."
He spoke no less than the truth. There had been a very unpleasant
little scene on leaving Vire that morning, from which the Chouan
had managed to extricate Anne and himself only by the liberal
distribution of bribes. He had been driven to employ the same
unsatisfactory method with regard also to their postilion, dismissing
him in unusual and suspicious fashion outside Granville. Although
the youth (plied in addition by his fare with much strong drink)
had promised not to take the empty postchaise into the town, but
to return with sealed lips on the road whence he had come, and
though his start on that road had actually been witnessed, it
was more than probable that he was, at the very moment, back in
Granville, if not laying information against his late passengers,
at least babbling about them over his cups. Hasty departure was
therefore imperative, but the situation of St. Valéry-sur-Somme
seemed to be reproduced, with a difference. This time fate (or,
in this particular, La Vireville's knowledge) had brought the
travellers to a maison de confiance--one of the chain of secret
Royalist refuges which stretched along the roads from the coast--had
given them a well-disposed fisherman, its master, and a convenient
boat, but had denied the wind necessary to the thirty miles that
lay between them and Jersey.
François, the fisherman in question, shrugged his shoulders again.
"Very well, if you insist. You know the risks you are running.
If we weather Chausey, we may be blown on to the Minquiers."
"My friend," retorted La Vireville, "they are nothing to the risks
we run by remaining. I prefer the hospitality of the plateau des
Minquiers to that of Granville prison. Shall I give you a hand
with the boat?"
* * * * *
In the little cottage on the shore the fisherman's young wife
was sitting with Anne-Hilarion, very drowsy, on her knee.
"Monsieur," she said, as her husband and the émigré came in, "it
is wicked to take this baby to sea on such a night!"
"For that, Madame," replied La Vireville, "you must blame the
women who sent him over to France."
The young woman kissed the sleepy little boy and rose with him
in her arms.
"I will carry him down to the boat," she said. "You will have
your hands full. There is the water-keg, François, and a basket
of provisions. If you get within sight of Jersey this time to-morrow
you will be lucky. You have the compass--and the nets?"
"Nets!" exclaimed La Vireville. "Ah, I understand." It was as
well to have some ostensible reason for being at sea.
They went down the beach, all laden in their way, for even Anne,
half asleep though he was, clutched in one hand the foreign shell
which the master of the _Trois Frères_ had given him. In spite of
the strong wind there were no breakers of sufficient force to make
launching difficult. The fisherman's wife deposited her burden and
helped to run the boat down. Then she went back, picked up the
child, and gave him into the arms of La Vireville, where he stood
knee-deep in the swirling water, with François holding on to the
boat on the other side.
"Madame, I thank you for lending me your husband," said the Chouan,
as he took the boy from her.
"It is only because of _this_," she answered, indicating the child.
"I know that, but I do not thank you any the less." He put Anne-Hilarion
over the side and scrambled on board himself. François followed his
example, and began to push off.
"Take the tiller, Monsieur," he said, "and I will hoist the sail.
Au revoir, la femme!"
The wind carried away his wife's farewell. Rocking violently at
first on the swell, the boat gradually steadied and gathered way
as the lug-sail shot up, and at last, close-hauled, she was making
her way out of the bay, and La Vireville and his charge were really
leaving their native shores.
"Enfin!" exclaimed the former, and as François was now at liberty
to steer, he relinquished the tiller and took Anne-Hilarion in
his arms.
Once out of the lee of the land the full force of the wind was
apparent. The _Marie-François_--in such manner did the fishing-boat
combine the names of her owner and his wife--lay over to it; in
the gloom the water rushed white past the gunwale (there was no
coaming), and La Vireville had some ado to keep himself and the
child in place on the weather side.
"You see!" shouted François, and he eased her a point or two.
He was laying the usual course for Jersey, to the northward of
Granville, by the Passage de la Déroute. But the wind was strongly
against them, and on their lee, to the left, as they both knew, lay
the miles and miles of shoals and broken, half-submerged rocks and
islets of the Iles Chausey and the Minquiers, so treacherous a
network of reefs that for thirty miles out from the French coast in
their direction there was no water more than ten fathoms deep, and
few channels that were safe. It was true that this was not the
direction which the voyagers wished to take, but it was, unfortunately,
the direction of the steadily-increasing wind.
From time to time La Vireville struck a light, looked at the compass
and reported, and François would take measures accordingly. On
the other tack, however, the _Marie-François_ did not sail so well.
After some couple of hours spent in these unprofitable manœuvres,
during which they had only progressed a very few miles, La Vireville
permitted himself to remark on this fact, and to say resignedly that
he supposed they must make up their minds between being driven on to
the rocks of Chausey or revisiting the Norman mainland. For himself
he preferred Chausey.
"I told you that she made much leeway," replied the owner of the
_Marie-François_ rather sulkily. "If she were a bigger boat we
might change our course and ride out under the Iles Chausey till
morning, when the wind will probably abate, but she is too small
for that. Or, if the tide were making, we could find our way inside
to the natural harbour that there is by the Grande Ile (always
supposing there were no vessels of the Blues doing the same). But
the ebb has already begun, and if we got in there we could not
get out again, for the channels would be dry."
La Vireville, with Anne huddled up in his arms, reflected. He had
sailed too often in just such a small craft between Brittany and
Jersey not to know its limitations.
"Then I am afraid we must give up the idea of making Jersey and
run for the coast of Brittany," he said at last. "I know it very
well between Cap Fréhel and St. Brieuc. In fact"--he hesitated
a moment--"I have a command thereabouts. With this wind we could
make that part of the coast easily--provided that we are not sighted
in the morning by the Blues, either at sea or ashore."
"Very well," agreed the Norman. "Our best plan will be to go between
Chausey and the Minquiers. It is dangerous."
"It is better than returning," insisted Fortuné. "I suppose you
know the channels well? And we should get some shelter from the
lee of the islands of Chausey."
So they went about, and presently the little boat was engaged, in
the darkness and the high wind, among that archipelago of dreary
and dangerous reefs, of which some rose like needles out of the
sea, and some, more deadly still, were only visible at low water.
Of such were the most perilous of all, Les Ardentes, which lay in
wait at the entry of the passage. And the moon would put aside the
flying clouds for a moment, to show them the surf boiling white
round some evil splinter of rock standing up in the channel like
a warning finger, or the water sucking greedily over an unseen
slab of granite. Only François' consummate steering, his steady
nerves, and, perhaps, the luck which sometimes attends those who
challenge risks, got them safely through. La Vireville kept Anne's
eyes covered the whole time.
Even when they were through conditions were not agreeable. When
François had set the course fairly for the coast of Brittany they
felt the full violence of the wind again, this time, it was true,
no longer in their teeth. The sorely-buffeted _Marie-François_,
obliged unceasingly to tack to avoid being driven on to the
St. Malo coast, shipped every few minutes a little water, flung
half-contemptuously into her by a snarling wave. About two in the
morning it became bitingly cold. La Vireville had long ago taken off
his cloak to wrap round Anne, and finally he made a kind of bundle
of him and put him right in the bows, where, in spite of the
lobster-pots and the smell of fish and tarred rope, he thought the
child would get more shelter than in the stern. Frightened and
sea-sick, the little boy did, however, fall now and again into
slumber of a sort, when La Vireville could turn an undivided
attention to the management of the sails or to baling.
Thus the night wore on, and at last, as the dawn brightened on
the grey, heaving waters, the coast of Brittany was visible on
their left. The wind, now considerably abated, had gone round several
points towards the north, and had St. Malo been their objective
instead of the spot they particularly wished to avoid, they could
have run before it for that harbour. As it was, they must make
farther along the coast for the little bay which La Vireville had
in view. It was true that, owing to the change in the wind, they
would have difficulty in reaching this point before sunrise, and
a man with a price on his head, like La Vireville, does not of
preference select full daylight to land on a guarded coast, in
precisely that region of it where he may with most probability
be expected to land; but there was no help for it. There was always
the bare possibility of falling in with one of the Jersey luggers
before they got there, and thus making their landing unnecessary.
Moreover, a sort of informal armistice was supposed to be in existence
at the moment, on account of negotiations for a settlement then
going forward between Republicans and Royalists in the west, though
La Vireville pinned very little trust to the truce in question.
The unwished-for sun was already rising when Anne-Hilarion, rather
wan, was fetched from his place of retirement and persuaded to try
to eat something. He displayed small interest and no disappointment
on learning that he was being taken to Brittany instead of to Jersey.
When this information was being imparted to him the fishing-boat
was already edging in towards the coast--a coast of cliffs and bays
equally asleep in the early sunshine, whence, so her crew hoped,
her small size and her inconspicuous brown sail would save her
from observation. After the night of cold and peril the change of
atmosphere was not unwelcome. In another half-hour, with luck, they
would reach the little bay La Vireville had in mind.
The émigré was just coaxing Anne to finish a slice of bread at
which he was languidly nibbling when François bent forward from
the tiller and said a couple of words:
"The Blues!"
La Vireville followed his pointing finger. On the low cliff a little
ahead of them, which they would shortly pass to port, was a small
wooden building, and, pacing up and down in front of it, a man in
uniform with a musket over his shoulder.
The Chouan and the fisherman looked at one another. They could
not hope, at so short a distance, to escape notice, unless the
sentry were blind; the question was whether, in view of the truce,
he would or would not consider their craft suspicious. On their
present course every moment brought them nearer to the headland,
and consequently within better range, while if they tacked and
stood out to sea they ran the chance both of attracting more
attention and of giving evidence of an uneasy conscience.
"We had better continue as we are, eh?" remarked La Vireville.
Francois nodded.
"I am going to put you back in the bows, Anne," said the émigré.
"It is warmer there." And, catching him up, he went forward with
him over the uneven stone ballast and deposited him as low as
possible among the lobster-pots and nets. The coast was hidden
from his own view by the lug-sail, and he could not see what was
passing there. The _Marie-François_ held on at a good speed.
"He has seen us," observed François after a moment. A sort of smile
flickered over his face, and he pulled the mainsheet a little
tighter round the thwart.
La Vireville came back and stood by the mast. They were now abreast
of the guardhouse. "He has roused the others," said François grimly.
"He was not blind, that parishioner, worse luck!"
And with the words came the sound of a shout from the cliff, then of
a shot. A bullet splashed into their wake a yard or so behind them.
Fortuné de la Vireville shrugged his shoulders. They were very
obviously not out of range. But neither he nor the Norman had any
impulse to bring to, which was evidently the course intimated
by the bullet.
"So much for the truce!" he said aloud, and as the words left his
mouth came a second and more menacing crackle from the cliff. At
the same moment La Vireville was conscious of a violent blow on the
side of the head--so violent, indeed, that it threw him off his
balance. He had a lightning impression, compound of resentment and
surprise, that the yard had been hit and had fallen on him. And
then, suddenly, in the midst of the sunshine, it was night. . . .
(2)
La Vireville opened his eyes. It was day again, bright sunlight.
The _Marie-François_ was bounding forward before a spanking breeze.
For a second or two La Vireville could not remember why he was
there--hardly, indeed, who he was. Then he looked up instinctively
at the yard. It was there, unharmed, at the top of the brown,
swelling sail. He himself was half lying, half sitting on the
seat that ran round the gunwale, and everything was as before
the helmsman at the tiller----
The helmsman!
"My God!" said La Vireville aloud. The fisherman was indeed sitting
in the sternsheets, his arm over the tiller; but he was sitting
in a heap, and his face was upturned to the sky. Under the tiller
was a red pool shifting with the motion of the boat. The Chouan
stared at him horror-struck. "My God!" he said again. "He's been
hit. . . . Anne, Anne, where are you?"
Only then did he become aware of something clutching tightly one
of his legs, and, looking down, saw the child clinging there, his
face hidden. The émigré moved to take him in his arms, and was
instantly conscious that he was very dizzy and that there was
blood on the breast of his own coat. "Ciel! did they get me too?"
he wondered, and putting up a hand to his head withdrew it with a
reddened palm. How long ago did it all happen? There was the coast,
but no guardhouse. It must be out of sight now behind the headland.
The wind had taken them on, the dead hand had steered them--if
indeed François were dead? He must see to him first.
"Anne--my little pigeon, my comrade, it is all right," he said,
stooping to him. At the sound of his voice the child lifted his head,
took one look at him, and screamed. La Vireville then realised that
there must be blood down his face, and, pulling out his handkerchief,
did his best to remove it. Afterwards he twisted the handkerchief
hurriedly round his head, in which, so far as he knew, there might be
a bullet, though he inclined to think that it was a ball ricochetting
off the mast which had given him a glancing blow. Otherwise he would
hardly be alive to speculate about it. Not that there was any time
just then for speculation. . . . Anne-Hilarion suffered himself to be
lifted on to his friend's knee, and, shuddering convulsively, hid his
face once more in his breast. La Vireville comforted him as well as
he could, trying hastily to dissipate the terror which seemed to have
frozen him, for he could not devote much time to consolation now,
when Francois might be bleeding to death. So he soon lifted the
little boy off his knee, and put him down facing the bows, telling
him not to look round; and Anne, sobbing now as if his heart would
break, leant his head on the gunwale, and so remained.
But François was quite dead. He had fallen back and died instantly,
so the Chouan judged, shot, probably, through the heart. It was for
this, thought La Vireville, that he had dragged him from his
wife. . . . He pulled the body with difficulty away from the tiller,
laid it on the ballast, spread over it a small spare mizen, and
sat down at the helm to think. But he found himself looking rather
hopelessly at the mess of blood below the tiller; something must be
done to it, for the sake of the little boy who had been through so
much. He found a rag under the seat, and with this converted the pool
into a smear, and then perceived that, still bleeding himself from
the head, he was leaving wherever he moved a further series of bright
splashes. "I must stop that," he thought, and took stronger measures
with a piece of sailcloth hacked off the mizen.
But all the while he was aware of strange momentary gaps in
consciousness, though his brain was clear enough. At any cost, he
must not lose his senses again--or if he must, let it at least be on
land. Only an extraordinary coincidence had saved the _Marie-François_
from being blown on to the rocks or out to sea. Anne was still
sobbing; the time to comfort him was not yet come. The pressing need
was to make a decision while he yet could. Fortunately he knew his
whereabouts exactly. . . . After a few moments' thought he made the
decision, altered the boat's course a trifle, and, sitting there
steering with the dead fisherman at his feet, began gently to talk
to Anne at the other end of the boat.
And so, presently, the sun shining, the waves slapping her sides,
and the lug-sail wide with the following wind, the _Marie-François_
began to make for the cliffs, just where a spit of rock ran out at
their feet and they sloped to a little cove. Here there was only
a lazy swell that stirred the long seaweed, for it was half-tide.
"We are going ashore here, child," said La Vireville, letting
down the sail. "You will not see this boat again." For he meant
to sink her if it could be done; she was too clear an indication
of their whereabouts, and here, so near his own command, he would
have small difficulty in getting another boat for Jersey, and
men to sail her, too, more capable of the task than he felt at
present.
White, dishevelled, and tear-stained, the little boy got off the
seat. "Are we to get out now?" he asked uncertainly, as the sail
came down with a run.
"Yes, little one, and be careful that you do not slip," said the
émigré, putting him over the side on to the rock, and scrambling
after him. Once there he spread his cloak on the seaweed. "Now sit
quiet for a moment," he went on, in a business-like tone, "and take
care of these things for me." He put the water-keg, the compass, and
what remained of the provisions beside him, and armed himself
with an oar.
"I am not going to leave you, Anne," he said. "I am only going
to the end of this rock; but I want you to look at the compass
carefully while I am away, so that when I come back in a minute
or two you will be able to tell me which is the north. Will you?"
"Yes, M. le Chevalier," responded Anne, and averted his eyes not
unwillingly from La Vireville's bandaged head to the still-swinging
compass-card.
With the oar La Vireville manœuvred the boat farther out along the
spit of rock, where she would catch a better wind for his purpose.
Then he clambered on board again, and, lifting the sail, looked
regretfully at the young, sunburnt face beneath. Thinking of the
dead fisherman's wife, he turned out his pockets; there was nothing
there but a claspknife and a twist of tobacco, but round his neck
was a medal, and on his finger a silver ring, and these he took.
Then with a rope he lashed the body to the thwarts and made fast
the tiller. The last thing was done with an auger from the locker.
Hastily he then hoisted the sail, scrambled back on to the rock,
and pushed the boat off with the oar.
Slowly at first, then faster as the breeze caught her, the
_Marie-François_ moved away. Her executioner had bored only small
holes, so that she should be well out in the bay before her doom
came upon her; but she was settling little by little as she went.
She began at last to lie over to the wind, and that hastened the
end; the water without and the water within met over the gunwale;
she heeled suddenly over, struggled to right herself, heeled over
again . . . and was gone. The brown sail lay a second or two on
the water, then it followed the rest, and the _Marie-François_
and her master went down to the bottom of the bay.
An oar, a loose spar, some indeterminate objects, and a couple of
lobster-pots bobbed on the surface of the waves as La Vireville,
dizzy with pain and regret, made his way back over the seaweed to
the forlorn, frightened child for whom these two lives had just
been thrown away.