Marmaduke Part 35

So through the early dawn the pickets, outwearied, wet through, beguiled the time. And though the dawn brought light, the mist lay thicker than ever. Thick and grey the colour of a Russian's coat.

"Dods, mon!" cried the Aberdeenshire man suddenly, "what's yon?"

Yon was indeed a Russian coat, not one but many, emerging out of the fog not ten yards away.

A sharp volley of musketry followed on the instant. The pickets may have been sodden, but they were no cowards. They fought desperately, retreating inch by inch, the alarm of their rifles telling that sixty thousand Russians were on them surging through the newly awakened camp of eight thousand. It was everyone to the rescue. Not one regiment or two, but every available man. Then followed eight long hours of such desperate fighting as, till then, had never been seen. It was not a battle--it was a hundred battles in one; for every little ravine had its opposing armies, cut off from the rest by the enveloping mist.

Again and again the grey line would advance a yard or two, covered by its superior fire; again and again a ringing British cheer and the point of the bayonet would drive it back a yard or two. Sometimes the fight became a _melee_ in which the British officers, dealing havoc with their revolvers or swords, cut their way through the dense ma.s.ses of the enemy. No generalship was possible, each man fought for himself, his Queen, his country, and wrote on the page of history a record of undying pluck and almost incredible personal courage. But the battle of Inkerman is, truly, beyond description. It was a day of countless deeds of daring, of despairing rallies and desperate a.s.saults in the glens, the brushwood glades, the torrent beds of the valley of the Tchernaya river. None knew how the balance swayed and shifted. But a few were aware of the aid given in the nick of time by the six thousand French troops who arrived at the double. None knew whose was the victory till from the Russian ranks came the bugles of retreat. And then, as the mist lifted, the whole hillside showed strewn with corpses. But the eight thousand had kept at bay the sixty thousand. Round Sandbag battery, from which the Guards were driven, and which they retook four separate times, lay fifteen thousand Russian dead, mute evidence of the hand to hand, back to back, relentless tenacity with which the Household Brigade eventually fought their way out of the surrounding ma.s.ses of the foe. A little further, where a single regiment held at bay over nine thousand Russians, the broken stocks of the rifles showed how, when ammunition was gone, the fight still continued.

"Will anyone be kind enough to lift me off my horse?" said old General Strangways, when riding to an exposed position in the hope of being able to see something of what his men were doing, a sh.e.l.l literally blew off his leg. And someone lifted him down doubtless; but there were eight generals to be seen to, and close on a hundred and fifty officers.

As the official despatches read--

"It does not do to dwell upon the aspect of the battlefield." True, indeed, when out of the eight thousand some two thousand six hundred lay dead or wounded among the fourteen thousand Russians for whom they had accounted.

Even Doctor Forsyth's pale, composed face grew paler, less composed, and Marrion acting as his _aide_ could scarcely get through the awful days. She could not work as she wished to work, but neither could she rest. Her whole being seemed to go out in one vast pity for the world, a vast desire to protect, to recreate.

"I am sorry my hand shook," she said, almost pitifully to the doctor, when she held she had failed to give him all the help she should have done over a young lad who had been brought in badly hurt. "But he seemed so very young. It made me think of the time when all these poor boys were babies in their mothers' arms, warm, secure, sheltered."

He looked at her gravely.

"You did very well," he said. "Not quite so well as usual, perhaps; but better than others. For all that, I am going to send you for a rest--only a week or two," he added hastily, seeing her face set in denial. "And it's as useful as anything else. You know there are quite a lot of soldiers' wives down in the town. There ought not to be, of course, but there are---- Why, there is one, at least, in the camp! And one, an Irishwoman, has just died with her third baby--shock--husband killed. And there is no one to see to them and others. You'd better go--you--you like children."

To tell the truth Marrion felt a strange gladness at the thought of them, and the very idea of holding the newborn sc.r.a.p of humanity in her arms was enthralling.

"For a week," she demurred. "You see I haven't been sleeping well."

So down by the sea in a house built on the very rocks of the harbour she went back to woman's normal life and rested for a while.

For the first time she had leisure to notice the beauties of the cliff-set coast, of which the bay was a mere shallow curve. The vessels lying at the roads bobbed and swayed when the wind ruffled the water, almost as if they had been at sea. But it was fine to see them there; ships of the line, merchantmen, gun-boats, mail-steamers, all coming and going. When the two elder children were asleep, Marrion would wrap the infant in a blanket and go and sit on the rocks in the sunshine, watching the boats go backwards and forwards to the sh.o.r.e, and thinking of the far-off Aberdeenshire days when she could pull an oar with any man. The harbour itself, a mere inlet, was crammed with vessels of all descriptions; you could scarcely distinguish one from the other, but the thirty outside showed bravely.

"They say the anchorage is very treacherous," remarked Doctor Forsyth, when he came to see how she was getting on, one evening. "I hear that a captain of one of the transports has reported it dangerous; and has been reprimanded for his trouble. He may have a chance of proving himself right, for the barometer is going down steadily, I'm told; and there is an uncanny feel in the air."

That was about six o'clock in the evening. But the night was calm, warm for the time of the year. It was in the small hours of the 14th that someone relieving watch on one of the ships looked again at the barometer.

"My G.o.d!" he exclaimed, "it has fallen two inches in the watch."

Something was astir and the something came with appalling suddenness, almost before the light spars could be shipped and things made taut.

And then? What was it? No storm ever seen equalled this boiling cauldron of a sea, this furious blast of bitter wind that lashed the waves of foam and sent them in driving clouds far over the heights.

The hawsers, the anchor chains, the cables strained and wrenched and strained, while brave men, looking at the wicked rocks seen dimly by the breaking dawn, knew that their only chance of life lay in the holding of their anchors. An American ship was the first to go. She drifted swiftly to the cliffs and disappeared, timbers and crew. The next to follow was the ship whose captain had given the warning. It made a brief fight for life. The port anchor held--masts, rigging, were cut away. To no purpose. The cable parted, she drifted broadside to the cliff, crashed against it once, twice. A few men were carried by the breakers up the rocks, bruised, mangled. The captain himself was crushed between the rocks and the ship, as he hung from a life-line thrown by those on sh.o.r.e. Another and another and another ship followed in quick succession. The roar of the tempest, the crashing of timbers, the howling of the wind, the noise of the engines straining full speed ahead to hold their anchorage against the storm, drowned all outcry; the terror, the dismay, the despair of it pa.s.sed as it were in silence. Within the inlet harbour one vessel crashed against the next and so, huddled in heaps, they drifted to pile themselves in shivered hulks upon the sh.o.r.e. Helpless to help, powerless to save, the spectators clinging like limpets to stone walls and stanchions looked on while one after another the brave ships which but the day before had seemed to spurn the waves in their pride were beaten, buffeted, engulfed, submerged in the seething cauldron of surf and spray and mad, infuriated billows, answering to the challenge of the wind. The _Prince_, the finest vessel in the bay, new built, powerfully engined, held out the longest. There were hopes for her, but the sea willed otherwise. Slowly, slowly the anchor dragged, and five minutes after she struck not a vestige of the good ship remained.

Meanwhile on sh.o.r.e the hurricane had brought disaster untold. Houses were roofless, tents swept bodily into the deep ravines with their occupants. It was noon ere the wind abated somewhat, allowing stock to be taken of the damage. Far out at sea could be seen the hulls of the vessels that had weathered the storm, mostly disabled, mastless; but it was known that five-and-twenty vessels had gone down with practically all on board.

As the tempest subsided the bodies of the drowned were dashed by the breakers against the rocks or cast up in tiny creeks upon the beach.

Marrion had taken her charges to a place of safety, the house she was in being too exposed; and then, thinking she might help, went down to the harbour. The waves still ran dangerously high, and over on the farther side Englishmen were busy with lifeboats, rescuing some of the crews of the smaller ships which, having held their anchors so far, were still in imminent danger of going down. As she pa.s.sed a knot of local fishermen on her way to where apparently help might be required, her eyes followed theirs and she realised to her horror that they were calmly looking at a man--a mere boy--who about sixty yards from the sh.o.r.e was clinging to a stationary spar, part doubtless of some submerged craft. His face was clearly visible, the agonised appeal vitalising its exhaustion, its pallor. Only for a few minutes more could that grip hold! She was alert in an instant.

"Go!" she cried vehemently in Russian. "Quick! A boat is there!

Quick--save--for Christ's sake, save!"

Urged more by her actions than her words, the men fell in with them.

Ready hands, besides her practised ones, ran down the boat.

But then, no one stirred! It was not an impossible task, it was only dangerous. That, however, was enough. Why should they risk their lives to save an unknown lad--a mere boy? But it was that very youth which appealed to the woman, who stood for an instant with bitter anger at her heart.

"Curse you for cowards!" she cried as she sprang in and seized the oars. The boat, already afloat, shot out from the sh.o.r.e by her weight.

The next instant she had the oars in and was fighting for her life--and his. For his--yes, fighting, fighting, fighting for life to something unknown. She set her teeth and dreamed with the appalling swiftness of dreams of the far Northern sea. Yes, she was afloat on it with Duke--no! it was Duke she had to save. It was Duke, or someone belonging to Duke, who clung to that spar now so close, so close----

On sh.o.r.e, a man pa.s.sing along a quay hard by saw her, and ran down with an oath.

Almost there--almost! She glanced behind her, saw the young face; but only for a second. The hold of the clenched hands relaxed, the head fell back, the body slid into the water. Too late!

No, not too late! Without one instant's hesitation Marrion was over the side, keeping the oar in her left hand as she leapt.

Now she had gripped something floating for a second and was on the surface again, rising within arm's grip of the oar.

In her ears a thousand voices seemed whispering--Safe, safe, safe! You are the saviour, the creator, the protectress.--She struck out boldly.

Then a huge breaker took her to its breast and held her fast.

When she came to herself she was lying on a bed and looking round she realised that she was in the very room of the cavalry hospital where her father had died. It had been the nearest place, she supposed. The sunlight was streaming in. She was quite alone. Doubtless everyone was busy--they always were.

Then on a table within reach she saw a cup of milk and a gla.s.s. A paper lay beside them. Scrawled on it, very large, was this advice--

"Take these and go to sleep again!"

It was Doctor Forsyth's writing and with a sense of safety she obeyed.

When she roused again it was evening; the room was almost dark, but a figure stood at the window. In an instant remembrance came back to her and raised a curiosity which had doubtless been lying dormant, as she had been, for nigh six-and-thirty-hours.

"Did I save the boy?" she asked suddenly in a loud strong voice.

Doctor Forsyth, for it was he, smiled as he walked up to the bed.

"I really cannot say, my dear lady, whether you saved him or not. You did your best, anyhow, and the same wave washed you both ash.o.r.e." He had been feeling her pulse as he spoke. "All right," he continued, "I fancy you can get up if you choose. And you will be a bit busy, for the mail steamer goes to-morrow and you should take the first opportunity of getting home."

She stared at him.

"Home!" she echoed. "I am not going home. I want to work--and I should like to die out here. What is there for me to do at home?"

Doctor Forsyth hesitated a moment. He was ciphering out conclusions.

The reason he had to give her was one which must, despite its joy, give pain. Better therefore to speak out while her mind was still too confused to grasp the immensity of either.

"My dear lady," he said, and his voice was gentleness itself, "I must deny all your statements. You are going home. You do not want to die out here, and you will have plenty to do at home looking after"--he paused--"the colonel's child."

He turned and left her voiceless, but athrill to her finger-tips, wondering why she had not guessed it before.

Then with a rush came remembrance. "People who play Providence----"

She gave a moan and turned her face to the wall.