LA HOGUE.
The sun was setting brilliantly behind the peninsula that juts out
into the English Channel and forms the department of La Manche; its
last rays as it fell away behind Cherbourg lit up a strange scene. On
land, looking east, were thirty thousand so-called French troops; they
were, indeed, mostly Irish rapparees whom Louis had thought suitable
for an invasion of England under James and his own marshal,
Bellefonds; among them and in command were Bellefonds, Melfort, and
James himself--now a heartbroken man. Also there stood by his side one
who knew that not only his heart but his life was broken
too--Tourville, who had now come ashore.
What they gazed on in the bay was enough to break the hearts of any.
There, gathered together, the flames leaping from the decks to enfold
and set on fire the furled sails, the magazines exploding, the great
guns turned toward the land that owned them and their projectiles
mowing down all on that land, were the best ships of that French fleet
which had put out to sea to crush the English. Among them were Le
Merveilleux, L'Ambitieux, Le Foudriant, Le Magnifique, Le St. Philip,
L'Etonnant, Le Terrible, Le Fier, Le Gaillard, Le Bourbon, Le
Glorieux, Le Fort, and Louis. And all were doomed to destruction, for
the English fleet had blockaded them into the shallow water of La
Hogue; there was no escape possible.
* * * * *
Three hours ere that sun set, Rooke had sent for St. Georges and bade
the latter follow him.
"I transfer my flag at once," he said, "to the Eagle, so as better to
direct a flotilla of fireships and boats. Come with me," and stepping
into his barge he was quickly rowed to that vessel with St. Georges
alongside him in the stern sheets.
Reaching the Eagle, Rooke, who had now the command of the attacking
party, rapidly made his dispositions for despatching the flotilla--the
officering of the various fireships being at his disposition.
"My Lord Danby," he said to that gallant captain, who had refused to
remain doing nothing in his own ship, "you will attack with the Half
Moon and thirty boats; you, Lieutenant Paul, with the Lightning and
thirty more. Mr. St. Georges, who has done well for us to-day, and has
a trifling grudge against our friends, will take the Owner's Love."
And so he apportioned out the various commands, until, in all, two
hundred fireships and attenders were ready to go into the doomed
fleet.
At first things were not favourable. The Half Moon ran ashore, blown
thereto by the breeze from off the sea, but in an instant Lord Danby's
plans were formed. He and his crew destroyed her, so that she could
not be used against their own fleet, then swiftly put off in their
boats and rejoined the others. Meanwhile those others were rapidly
creeping in toward the French.
Already two fireships had set Le Foudriant and L'Etonnant on fire, the
boats were getting under the bows of all the others, the boarders were
swarming up the sides, cutlasses in hand and _mouths_, and hurling
grenades on to the French decks.
"Follow!" called St. Georges, as, his foot upon a quarter-gallery
breast rail, his hand grasping the chain, he leaped into the huge
square port of Le Terrible. "Follow, follow!" and as he cried out, the
sailors jumped in behind him.
Yet, when they had entered the great French ship, there was no
resistance offered. She was deserted! As they had come up the
starboard side, her crew, officers and men, had fled over the
larboard--as hard as they could swim or wade they were making for the
shore. Yet her guns on the lower tier forward were firing slowly, one
by one as the boats reached them. A grenade had been hurled in as St.
Georges's party passed under her bows and had set the ship alight
forward, and the flames were spreading rapidly.
"Quick!" St. Georges exclaimed, "ignite her more in the waist and here
in the stern. Cut up some chips, set this after cabin on fire. As it
burns, the flames will fall and explode the magazine. Some men also to
the guns, draw the charges of those giving on us; leave charged those
pointing toward the shore."
All worked with a will--if they could not get at the Frenchmen
themselves, they had, at least, the ships to vent their passions
upon--some tore up fittings, some chopped wood, some ignited tow and
oakum; soon the stern of the Terrible was in flames. Meanwhile, from
Le Fier hard by--so near, indeed, that her bows almost touched the
rudder of the ship they were in--there came an awful explosion. Her
magazine was gone, and as it blew up it hurled half the vessel into
the air, while great burning beams fell on to the deck of the Terrible
and helped to set her more alight.
"To the boats!" ordered St. Georges, "to the boats! There is more work
yet, more to be destroyed." And again, followed by his men, they
descended to their attenders and barges.
But now the tide was retreating, they could do no more that night.
They must wait until the morrow when the tide would come back. Then
there would be, indeed, more work to do. There were still some
transports unharmed; they, too, must be annihilated!
* * * * *
They called the roll that night in the British fleet. There were many
men wounded, but _not one_ killed. So, amid the noise of powder rooms
and magazines exploding, and under a glare from the burning French
ships which made the night as clear as day they lay down and rested.
And in the morning they began again.
"The work," the admiral said, "is not done yet. It is now to be
completed."
Back went, therefore, the fireships and attenders--this time it was
the turn of the transports.
"Hotter this than yesterday," called out Lord Danby to St. Georges
from one boat to the other, as, propelled by hundreds of oars, all
swept in toward the transports. His lordship's face was raw and
bleeding now, for on the previous day he had burned and nearly blinded
himself by blowing up tow and oakum to set on fire a vessel which he
and his men were engaged in destroying. "Hotter now. See, there are
some soldiers in the transport, and the forts on shore are firing on
us. On, on, my men!" and he directed those under his charge to one
transport, while St. Georges did the same as he selected another.
There were more than a dozen of those transports, and against them
went the two hundred boats, Rooke in chief command. As they neared the
great vessels, however, on that bright May morning, they found that
the work of last night had only to be repeated. They poured into the
ships from the starboard side, the French poured out on the larboard;
those who could not escape were slaughtered where they stood. And if
to St. Georges any further impetus was needed--though none was, for
his blood was up now to boiling heat and France was the most hated
word he knew--it was given him as he approached the vessel he meant to
board; for, from it, out of a stern port, there glared a pair of eyes
in a ghastly face--a face that looked as though transfixed with
horror!--the eyes and face of De Roquemaure! With a cry that made the
rowers before him think he had been struck by a bullet, so harsh and
bitter it was, he steered the barge alongside the vessel; in a moment
he had clambered on the deck, followed by man after man; had cut down
a French soldier who opposed him, and was seeking his way toward the
cabin where the other was.
"There is an officer below," he muttered hoarsely to those who
followed him. "He is mine--remember, mine--none others. My hand alone
must have his life, my sword alone take it. Remember!"
As his followers scattered--some to slay the few remaining on board
who had not escaped, some to rush forward and ignite the fore part of
the transport, others to fire the great guns laid toward the shore,
and still others to find and burst open the powder room--he rushed
down to where that cabin was, his sword in hand, his brain on fire at
the revenge before him.
"Now! now! now!" he murmured. "At last!"
Under the poop he went, down the aftermost companion ladder, through a
large cabin--the officers' living room--and then to a smaller one
beyond, opening out of the other on the starboard side--the cabin
from which he had seen the livid, horror-stricken face of his enemy.
But it was closed tight and would not give to his hand.
"Open," he called; "open, you hound, open! You cannot escape me now.
Open, I say!"
There came no word in answer. All was silent within, though, above,
the roars and callings of the sailors made a terrible din.
"You hear?" again cried St. Georges, "you hear those men? Open, I say,
and meet your death like a man! Otherwise you die like a dog! One way
you must die. They are setting fire to the magazine. Cur, open!"
The bolt grated from within as he spoke, and the door was thrown
aside. De Roquemaure stood before him.
Yet his appearance caused St. Georges to almost stagger back, alarmed.
Was this the man he had dreamed so long of meeting once again, this
creature before him! De Roquemaure was without coat, vest, or shirt;
his body was bare; through his right shoulder a terrible wound, around
which the blood was caked and nearly dry. His face, too, was as white
as when he had first seen it from the boat, his eyes as staring.
"So," he said, "it is you, _alive_! Well, you have come too late. I
have got my death. What think you I care for the sailors or the powder
room? I was struck yesterday by some of the Englishmen who passed here
as the tide turned, who fired into this ship ere the tide--the
tide--the----"
"Yet will I make that death sure!" St. Georges cried, springing at
him. "Wounds do not always kill. You may recover this--from my thrust
you shall never recover!"--and he shortened his sword to thrust it
through his bare body.
"I am unarmed," the other wailed. "Mercy! I cannot live!"
"Ay, the mercy you showed me! The attempted murder of my child--the
theft of her, the murder perhaps done by now--the galleys! Quick, your
last prayer!"
Yet even as he spoke he knew that he was thwarted again. He could not
strike, not slay, the thing before him. The villain was so weakened by
his wound that he could scarce stand, even though grasping a bulkhead
with his two hands; was--must be--dying. Why take his death,
therefore, upon his soul when Fate itself was claiming him? It would
be murder now, not righteous execution!
Moreover, he had another task to execute ere it was too late.
"Wretch," he exclaimed, "die as you are--find hell at last without my
intervention! Yet, if you value a few more minutes of existence, gain
them thus. Tell me, ere you go, where you have hidden my child--what
done with----"
Before he could finish there came another roar from an exploding
transport, the sound of beams and spars falling in the water round; a
darkness over the cabin produced by the volumes of smoke; the screams
of wounded and burnt Frenchmen hurled into the sea; the loud huzzas
and yells of the British sailors. Then, as that roar and shock died
away, there rose in the air another sound--a paean of triumph that must
have reached the ears of those on shore as it also reached the ears of
those two men face to face in that cabin. From hundreds of throats it
pealed forth, rising over all else--crackling wood, guns firing, the
swish of oars, orders bawled, and shrieks of dead and dying.
It was the English sailors singing Henry Carey's song, almost new
then, now known over all the world:
"God save our gracious king!
Long live our noble king!
God save the king!"
"Answer," St. Georges cried, "ere your master, the devil, gets you!
ere I send you to him before even he requires you!"
The man had sunk down upon a locker outside the bunk, his two hands
flattened out upon the lid, his face turned up in agony. From either
side of his mouth there trickled down a small streak of blood looking
like the horns of the new moon; the lips were drawn back from the
teeth, as though in agony unspeakable. And did he grin mockingly in
this his hour--or was it the pangs of approaching death that caused
the grin?
Then he gasped forth:
"You are deceived. The woman who stole--your child--was Aurelie----"
"What!" from St. Georges.
"Aided by--servant--Gaston. Her--servant--not mine----"
"My God!" In that moment there came back to him a memory. The lad,
Gaston, had his arm in a sling the morning he learned the child was
missing; the woman, who lived in the hut and saw the child taken from
Pierre, had said, "His arm hung straight by his side, as though stiff
with pain."
Had he found the truth at last?
"Go on," he said.
"The bishop's man--had--got it safe. Aurelie and Gaston--caught--slew
him--took the child. She--knew--your birth--and--hated you--and would
gain--as much as--as I. Seek her--if you--would-know----"
He fell prone on the lid and spoke no more.
And St. Georges, reeling back against the opposite bulkhead, stared
down at him, forgetting all that was taking place around the burning
transport in his misery at that revelation.
"Aurelie," he whispered, "Aurelie! Hated me, too, and hated her. O
God, pity me!"
And again above all else there rose the triumphant shout:
"Send him victorious,
Happy and glorious,
God save the king!"
NOTE.--The description of the battle of La Hogue is taken from many
sources, but principally from the narrative of the chaplain on board
the Centurion. It is the most full and complete, especially as regards
the ships engaged, which I know of. The worthy divine was a Fellow of
Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and this seems to have been his first
cruise. He returned "home" afterward, viz., to Oxford, and has left
very fervent expressions of gratitude at having been able to do so.