By Conduct and Courage Part 32

The greater portion of the crew of the _Vengeur_ were taken off by the boats of the _Alfred_, _Culloden_, and _Rattler_, but she sank before all could be rescued, and two hundred of her crew, most of whom were wounded, were drowned. Among the survivors were Captain Renaudin and his son. Each was ignorant of the rescue of the other, and when they met by chance at Portsmouth their joy can be better imagined than described.

The _Tartar_ returned to the blockade of Toulon after the work in Corsica was done. When she had been there some time she was ordered to cruise on the coast, where there were several forts under which French coasting-vessels ran for shelter when they saw an English sail approaching, and she was, if possible, to destroy them. There was one especially, on one of the Isles d'Hyeres, which the _Tartar_ was particularly ordered to silence, as more than any other it was the resort of coasters. The _Tartar_ sailed in near enough to it to exchange shots, and so got some idea of the work they had to undertake; then, having learned all she could, she stood out to sea again. All preparations were made during the day for a landing; arms were distributed, and the men told off to the boats. After nightfall she again sailed in, and arrived off the forts about midnight. The boats had already been lowered, and the men took their places in them while the _Tartar_ was still moving through the water, and, dividing into three parties, made respectively for the three princ.i.p.al batteries.

Dimchurch was not in the boat in which Will had a place, as he rowed stroke of the first gig and Will was in the launch. Tom was also in another boat, but was in the same division. No lights were to be seen, and absolute silence reigned. Noiselessly the men landed and formed up on the beach. To reach the batteries they had to climb the cliff by a zigzag pathway, up which they were obliged to go in single file. They arrived at the summit without apparently creating a suspicion of their presence, and then advanced at a run. Suddenly three blue lights gleamed out, illuminating the whole of the ground they had to traverse, and at the same moment a tremendous volley was fired from the battery. Simultaneously fire opened from the other batteries, showing that the boats' crews had all arrived just at the same instant, and that while the French were supposed to be asleep they were awake and vigilant. Indeed, from the heaviness of the fire there was little question that the force on the island had been heavily reinforced from the mainland.

Numbers of the men fell, but nevertheless the sailors rushed forward fearlessly and reached the foot of the fort. This was too high to be climbed, so, separating, they ran round to endeavour to effect an entrance elsewhere. Suddenly they were met by a considerable body of troops. The first lieutenant, who commanded the division, whistled the order for the sailors to fall back. This was done at first slowly and in some sort of order, but the fire kept up on them was so hot that they were compelled to increase their pace to a run. A stand was made at the top of the pa.s.s, as here the men were only able to retreat in single file. At length the survivors all reached the beach and took to the boats again under a heavy fire from the top of the cliffs, which, however, was to some extent kept down by the guns of the _Tartar_. The other divisions had suffered almost as severely, and the affair altogether cost the _Tartar_ fifty killed and over seventy wounded. Will was in the front rank when the French so suddenly attacked them, and was in the rear when the retreat began.

Suddenly a shot struck him in the leg and he fell. In the confusion this was not noticed, and he lay there for upwards of an hour, when, the fire of the _Tartar_ having ceased, the French came out with lanterns to search for the wounded. Will was lifted and carried to some barracks behind the fort, where his wound was attended to. They asked whether he spoke French, and as, though he had studied the language whenever he had had time and opportunity and had acquired considerable knowledge of it, he was far from being able to speak it fluently, he replied that he did not, a French officer came to him.

"What is your name, monsieur?" he asked.

"William Gilmore."

"What is your rank?"

"Midshipman."

"Age?"

"Nearly nineteen."

"Nationality, English" was added.

"What ship was that from which you landed?"

There was no reason why the question should not be answered, and he replied: "The _Tartar_, thirty-four guns."

"Ah, you have made a bad evening's business, monsieur!" the officer said.

"When the ship was seen to sail in and sail away again, after firing a few shots, we felt sure that she would come back to-night, and five hundred men were brought across from the mainland to give you a hot reception.

And, parbleu, we did so."

"You did indeed," Will said, "a desperately hot reception. I cannot tell what our loss was, but it must have been very heavy. You took us completely by surprise, which was what we had intended to do to you. Well, it is the fortune of war, and I must not grumble."

"You will be sent to Toulon as soon as you can be moved, monsieur."

Three other wounded officers had fallen into the hands of the enemy, and these were placed in the same room as Will. One was the third lieutenant, another the master's mate, and the third was a midshipman. They were well treated and cared for and were very cheery together, with the exception of the lieutenant, whose wound was a mortal one, and who died two days after the fight.

A month after their reception into the hospital all were able to walk, and they were taken across in a boat to the mainland and sent to Toulon. They were all asked if they would give their parole, and though his two companions agreed to do so, Will refused. He was accordingly sent to a place of confinement, while the other two were allowed to take quarters in the town.

Will was privately glad of this, for, though both were pleasant fellows, he thought that if he were to make his escape it must be alone, and had the others been quartered with him he could not well have left them. His prison was a fort on a hill which ran out into the sea, and Will could see the sails of the blockading vessels as they cruised backwards and forwards. He also commanded a view over the town, with its harbour crowded with shipping, its churches, and fortifications. He longed continually for the company of his two faithful followers, Dimchurch and Tom. They had been with him in all his adventures, and he felt that if they were together again they would be able to contrive some plan of escape. At present no scheme occurred to him. The window of the room in which he was confined was twenty feet from the ground, and was protected by iron bars.

In front was a wall some twelve feet high, enclosing a courtyard in which the garrison paraded and drilled. At night sentinels were planted at short intervals, from which Will concluded that there must be many other prisoners besides himself in the fort. He was attended by an old soldier, with whom he often had long chats.

"They certainly know how to make prisons," he grumbled to himself. "If it was not that I shall never lose hope of something turning up, I would accept my parole."

After he had been there for three months he was one day led out and, with three other midshipmen, taken down to a prison in the town. He had no doubt that prisoners of more importance had arrived, and that he and the others had been moved to make way for them. A month later they were again taken out, and, having been joined by a hundred other prisoners under a strong guard, were marched out of the town. There were five officers among them, and the rest were seamen. All were glad of the change, though it was not likely to be for the better. Will was sorry, inasmuch as at Toulon he could always hope that if he escaped from prison he would be able to get hold of a boat and row out to the blockading squadron. Inland he felt that escape would be vastly more difficult. Even if he got out of prison he knew but little French, and therefore could hardly hope to make his way across country. They trudged along day after day, each according to his fancy, some sullen and morose, others making the best of matters and trying to establish some speaking acquaintance with their guards, who evidently regarded the march as a sort of holiday after the dull routine of life in a garrison town. Will, who had during his imprisonment at Toulon studied to improve his French to the best of his ability by the aid of some books he had obtained and by chatting with his jailer, worked his hardest to add to his knowledge of the language, and as the French soldiers were quite glad to beguile the time away by talking with their captives, he succeeded at the end of the journey, which lasted nearly a month, in being able to chat with a certain amount of fluency. Verdun was one of the four places in which British prisoners were confined. At that time France had fifteen thousand prisoners, England forty thousand. By an agreement between the governments these were held captive in certain prisons, so that they could, when occasion offered, be exchanged; but owing to the vastly greater number of English prisoners the operation went on very slowly. The health of the prison was bad, the large number confined in the narrow s.p.a.ce, and the lack of sanitary arrangements, causing a vast amount of fever to prevail.

When he got to Verdun, Will continued to devote himself to the study of French. He knew that, should he escape, he could have no hope of finding his way across country unless he could speak the language fluently, and accordingly he pa.s.sed the whole day in conversation with the guards and others employed about the prison. These were inclined to regard his anxiety to become proficient in the language as a national compliment.

Some of the prisoners also knew French well, so that at the end of four months he could talk with perfect fluency. He was a good deal laughed at by the English officers for the zeal he was displaying in studying French, for, as they said, he might as well try to get to the moon as out of Verdun. He accepted their chaff good-humouredly, and simply said: "Time will show, but for my part I would as soon be shot as continue to live as prisoner here."

Many of the prisoners pa.s.sed their time in manufacturing little trifles.

The sailors, for the most part, made models of ships; some of them were adepts at sewing patchwork quilts, and got their warders to purchase sc.r.a.ps of various materials for the purpose. The soldiers were also, many of them, skilled in making knick-knacks. These were sold in the town, chiefly to country people who came in to market, and so their makers were able to purchase tobacco and other little luxuries. A few of the prisoners were allowed every day to go into the town, which, being strongly walled, offered no greater facility for escape than did the prison itself. They carried with them and sold their own manufactures and those of other prisoners, and with the proceeds purchased the things they required.

Several times Will was one of those allowed out, and he set himself to work to make the acquaintance of some of the townspeople. As he was one of the few who could speak French, he had no difficulty in getting up a chatty acquaintance with several people, among them a young girl living in a house close to the wall. She had looked pitifully at him the first time he had come out with a small load of merchandise.

"Ah, my poor young fellow," she said in French, "how hard it is for you to be thus kept a prisoner far from all your friends!"

"Thank you, mademoiselle," he said, "but it is the fortune of war, and English as well as French must submit to it."

"You speak French!" she said. "Yes, yes, monsieur, I feel it as much as any. There is one who is very dear to me a prisoner in England. He is a soldier."

"Well, mademoiselle, it is a pity that they don't exchange us. We give a lot of trouble to your people, and the French prisoners give a lot of trouble to ours, so it would be much better to restore us to our friends."

"Ah! that is what I say. How happy I should be if my dear Lucien were restored to me."

So the acquaintance became closer and closer, and at last Will ventured to say: "If I were back in England, mademoiselle, I might perhaps get your Lucien out. You could give me his name and the prison in which he is confined, and it would be hard if I could not manage to aid him to escape."

"Ah, monsieur, that would be splendid!" the girl said, clasping her hands.

"If you could but get away!"

"Well, mademoiselle, I think I could manage to escape if I had but a little help. For example, from the top window of this house I think I could manage to jump upon the wall, and if you could but furnish me with a rope I could easily make my escape. Of course I should want a suit of peasant's clothes, for, you see, I should be detected at once if I tried to get away in this uniform. I speak French fairly now, and think I could pa.s.s as a native."

"You speak it very well, monsieur, but oh, I dare not help you to escape!"

"I am not asking you to, mademoiselle; I am only saying how it could be managed, and that if I could get back to England I might aid your lover."

The girl was silent.

"It could never be," she murmured.

"I am not asking it, mademoiselle; and now I must be going on."

The next time he came she said: "I have been thinking over what you said, monsieur, and I feel that it would be cowardly indeed if I were to shrink from incurring some little danger for the sake of Lucien. I know that he would give his life for me. We were to have been married in a fortnight, when they came and carried him off to the war. Now tell me exactly what you want me to do."

"I want a disguise, the dress of a travelling pedlar. I could give you two English sovereigns, which would be ample to get that. I want also a rope forty feet long. Then you must let me go up through your house to the top story. I have been looking at it from behind, and see that from the upper window I could climb up to the roof, and I am sure that from there I could easily jump across the narrow lane to the wall."

"I will do it, monsieur, partly for Lucien and partly because you are kind and gentle and," she added with a little blush and laugh, "good-looking."

"I thank you with all my heart, mademoiselle, and I swear to you that when I get to England I will spare no pains to find Lucien and aid him to escape."

"When will you be out again, monsieur?"

"This day week."

"I will have everything ready by that time," she said. "You will come as late as you can?"

"Yes, I will come the last thing before we all have to return to the prison. It will be dark half an hour later."

"But there are sentries on the walls," she said.