Saint Joan Part 13

DUNOIS. You must: I have business for you there.

JOAN. What business?

DUNOIS. To pray for a west wind. I have prayed; and I have given two silver candlesticks; but my prayers are not answered. Yours may be: you are young and innocent.

JOAN. Oh yes: you are right. I will pray: I will tell St Catherine: she will make G.o.d give me a west wind. Quick: shew me the way to the church.

THE PAGE [sneezes violently] At-cha!!!

JOAN. G.o.d bless you, child! Coom, b.a.s.t.a.r.d.

They go out. The page rises to follow. He picks up the shield, and is taking the spear as well when he notices the pennon, which is now streaming eastward.

THE PAGE [dropping the shield and calling excitedly after them]

Seigneur! Seigneur! Mademoiselle!

DUNOIS [running back] What is it? The kingfisher? [He looks eagerly for it up the river].

JOAN [joining them] Oh, a kingfisher! Where?

THE PAGE. No: the wind, the wind, the wind [pointing to the pennon]: that is what made me sneeze.

DUNOIS [looking at the pennon] The wind has changed. [He crosses himself] G.o.d has spoken. [Kneeling and handing his baton to Joan]

You command the king's army. I am your soldier.

THE PAGE [looking down the river] The boats have put off. They are ripping upstream like anything.

DUNOIS [rising] Now for the forts. You dared me to follow. Dare you lead?

JOAN [bursting into tears and flinging her arms round Dunois, kissing him on both cheeks] Dunois, dear comrade in arms, help me.

My eyes are blinded with tears. Set my foot on the ladder, and say 'Up, Joan.'

DUNOIS [dragging her out] Never mind the tears: make for the flash of the guns.

JOAN [in a blaze of courage] Ah!

DUNOIS [dragging her along with him] For G.o.d and Saint Dennis!

THE PAGE [shrilly] The Maid! The Maid! G.o.d and The Maid!

Hurray-ay-ay! [He s.n.a.t.c.hes up the shield and lance, and capers out after them, mad with excitement].

SCENE IV.

A tent in the English camp. A bullnecked English chaplain of 50 is sitting on a stool at a table, hard at work writing. At the other side of the table an imposing n.o.bleman, aged 46, is seated in a handsome chair turning over the leaves of an illuminated Book of Hours. The n.o.bleman is enjoying himself: the chaplain is struggling with suppressed wrath. There is an unoccupied leather stool on the n.o.bleman's left. The table is on his right.

THE n.o.bLEMAN. Now this is what I call workmanship. There is nothing on earth more exquisite than a bonny book, with well-placed columns of rich black writing in beautiful borders, and illuminated pictures cunningly inset. But nowadays, instead of looking at books, people read them. A book might as well be one of those orders for bacon and bran that you are scribbling.

THE CHAPLAIN. I must say, my lord, you take our situation very coolly. Very coolly indeed.

THE n.o.bLEMAN [supercilious] What is the matter?

THE CHAPLAIN. The matter, my lord, is that we English have been defeated.

THE n.o.bLEMAN. That happens, you know. It is only in history books and ballads that the enemy is always defeated.

THE CHAPLAIN. But we are being defeated over and over again.

First, Orleans--

THE n.o.bLEMAN [poohpoohing] Oh, Orleans!

THE CHAPLAIN. I know what you are going to say, my lord: that was a clear case of witchcraft and sorcery. But we are still being defeated. Jargeau, Meung, Beaugency, just like Orleans. And now we have been butchered at Patay, and Sir John Talbot taken prisoner. [He throws down his pen, almost in tears] I feel it, my lord: I feel it very deeply. I cannot bear to see my countrymen defeated by a parcel of foreigners.

THE n.o.bLEMAN. Oh! you are an Englishman, are you?

THE CHAPLAIN. Certainly not, my lord: I am a gentleman. Still, like your lordship, I was born in England; and it makes a difference.

THE n.o.bLEMAN. You are attached to the soil, eh?

THE CHAPLAIN. It pleases your lordship to be satirical at my expense: your greatness privileges you to be so with impunity. But your lordship knows very well that I am not attached to the soil in a vulgar manner, like a serf. Still, I have a feeling about it; [with growing agitation] and I am not ashamed of it; and [rising wildly] by G.o.d, if this goes on any longer I will fling my ca.s.sock to the devil, and take arms myself, and strangle the accursed witch with my own hands.

THE n.o.bLEMAN [laughing at him goodnaturedly] So you shall, chaplain: so you shall, if we can do nothing better. But not yet, not quite yet.

The Chaplain resumes his seat very sulkily.

THE n.o.bLEMAN [airily] I should not care very much about the witch-- you see, I have made my pilgrimage to the Holy Land; and the Heavenly Powers, for their own credit, can hardly allow me to be worsted by a village sorceress--but the b.a.s.t.a.r.d of Orleans is a harder nut to crack; and as he has been to the Holy Land too, honors are easy between us as far as that goes.

THE CHAPLAIN. He is only a Frenchman, my lord.

THE n.o.bLEMAN. A Frenchman! Where did you pick up that expression?

Are these Burgundians and Bretons and Picards and Gascons beginning to call themselves Frenchmen, just as our fellows are beginning to call themselves Englishmen? They actually talk of France and England as their countries. Theirs, if you please! What is to become of me and you if that way of thinking comes into fashion?

THE CHAPLAIN. Why, my lord? Can it hurt us?

THE n.o.bLEMAN. Men cannot serve two masters. If this cant of serving their country once takes hold of them, goodbye to the authority of their feudal lords, and goodbye to the authority of the Church. That is, goodbye to you and me.

THE CHAPLAIN. I hope I am a faithful servant of the Church; and there are only six cousins between me and the barony of Stogumber, which was created by the Conqueror. But is that any reason why I should stand by and see Englishmen beaten by a French b.a.s.t.a.r.d and a witch from Lousy Champagne?

THE n.o.bLEMAN. Easy, man, easy: we shall burn the witch and beat the b.a.s.t.a.r.d all in good time. Indeed I am waiting at present for the Bishop of Beauvais, to arrange the burning with him. He has been turned out of his diocese by her faction.

THE CHAPLAIN. You have first to catch her, my lord.

THE n.o.bLEMAN. Or buy her. I will offer a king's ransom.

THE CHAPLAIN. A king's ransom! For that s.l.u.t!