Soldiers Three Volume II Part 23

"What on earth is that?"

"The c.o.c.k-fight for pay at the gate. You give something, pay for see b.l.o.o.d.y row. Do I make its comprehension?"

"A run for their money--is that what you mean? Gad, you're sporting, Governor."

"So I say. I am loyalist, too." He smiled more easily. "Now how can anything do herself for the customs-houses; but when the Company's mens she arrives, then a c.o.c.k-fight for pay at gate that is quite correct. My army he says it will Republic and shoot me off upon walls if I have not give her blood. An army, Captain, are terrible in her angries--especialment when she are not paid. I know, too," here he laid his hand on Judson's shoulder, "I know too we are old friends. Yes!

Badajos, Almeida, Fuentes d'Onor--time ever since; and a little, little c.o.c.k-fight for pay at gate that is good for my king. More sit her tight on throne behind, you see? Now," he waved his hand round the decayed village, "I say to my armies, Fight! Fight the Company's men when she come, but fight not so very strong that you are any deads. It is all in the raporta that I send. But you understand, Captain, we are good friends all the time. Ah! Ciudad Rodrigo, you remember? No? Perhaps your father, then? So you see no one are deads, and we fight a fight, and it is all in the raporta, to please the people in our country, and my armies they do not put me against the walls. You see?"

"Yes; but the 'Guadala'. She fired on us. Was that part of your game, my joker?"

"The 'Guadala'. Ah! No, I think not. Her captain he is too big fool. But I think she have gone down the coast. Those your gunboats poke her nose and shove her oar in every place. How is 'Guadala'?"

"On a shoal. Stuck till I take her off." "There are any deads?"

"No."

The Governor drew a breath of deep relief. "There are no deads here. So you see none are deads anywhere, and nothing is done. Captain, you talk to the Company's mens. I think they are not pleased."

"Naturally."

"They have no sense. I thought to go backwards again they would. I leave her stockade alone all night to let them out, but they stay and come facewards to me, not backwards. They did not know we must conquer much in all these battles, or the king, he is kicked off her throne. Now we have won this battle--this great battle," he waved his arms abroad, "and I think you will say so that we have won, Captain. You are loyalist also. You would not disturb to the peaceful Europe? Captain, I tell you this. Your Queen she know too. She would not fight her cousins. It is a--a hand-up thing."

"What?"

"Hand-up thing. Jobe you put. How you say?"

"Put-up job?"

"Yes. Put-up job. Who is hurt? We win. You lose. All righta?"

Bai-Jove-Judson had been exploding at intervals for the last five minutes. Here he broke down completely and roared aloud.

"But look here, Governor," he said at last, "I've got to think of other things than your riots in Europe. You've fired on our flag."

"Captain, if you are me, you would have done how? And also, and also,"

he drew himself up to his full height, "we are both brave men of bravest countries. Our honour is the honour of our King," here he uncovered, "and of our Queen," here he bowed low. "Now, Captain, you shall sh.e.l.l my palace and I shall be your prisoner."

"Skittles!" said Bai-Jove-Judson. "I can't sh.e.l.l that old hencoop."

"Then come to dinner. Madeira, she are still to us, and I have of the best she manufac."

He skipped over the side beaming, and Bai-Jove-Judson went into the cabin to laugh his laugh out. When he had recovered a little he sent Mr.

Davies to the head of the Pioneers, the dusty man with the gatlings, and the troops who had abandoned the pursuit of arms watched the disgraceful spectacle of two men reeling with laughter on the quarter-deck of a gunboat.

"I'll put my men to build him a custom-house," said the head of the Pioneers, gasping. "We'll make him one decent road at least. That Governor ought to be knighted. I'm glad now that we didn't fight 'em in the open, or we'd have killed some of them. So he's won great battles, has he? Give him the compliments of the victims, and tell him I'm coming to dinner. You haven't such a thing as a dress-suit, have you? I haven't seen one for six months."

That evening there was a dinner in the village--a general and enthusiastic dinner, whose head was in the Governor's house, and whose tail threshed at large throughout all the streets. The Madeira was everything that the Governor had said, and more, and it was tested against two or three bottles of Bai-Jove-Judson's best Vanderhum, which is Cape brandy ten years in the bottle, flavoured with orange-peel and spices. Before the coffee was removed (by the lady who had made the flag of truce) the Governor had sold the whole of his governorship and its appurtenances, once to Bai-Jove-Judson for services rendered by Judson's grandfather in the Peninsular War, and once to the head of the Pioneers, in consideration of that gentleman's good friendship. After the negotiation he retreated for a while into an inner apartment, and there evolved a true and complete account of the defeat of the British arms, which he read with his c.o.c.ked hat over one eye to Judson and his companion. It was Judson who suggested the sinking of the flat-iron with all hands, and the head of the Pioneers who supplied the list of killed and wounded (not more than two hundred) in his command.

"Gentlemen," said the Governor from under his c.o.c.ked hat, "the peace of Europe are saved by this raporta. You shall all be Knights of the Golden Hide. She shall go by the 'Guadala'."

"Great Heavens!" said Bai-Jove Judson, flushed but composed, "that reminds me I've left that boat stuck on her broadside down the river.

I must go down and soothe the commandante. He'll be blue with rage.

Governor, let us go a sail on the river to cool our heads. A picnic, you understand."

"Ya--as, everything I understand. Ho! A picnica! You are all my prisoner, but I am good gaoler. We shall picnic on the river, and we shall take all the girls. Come on, my prisoners."

"I do hope," said the head of the Pioneers, staring from the verandah into the roaring village, "that my chaps won't set the town alight by accident. Hullo! Hullo! A guard of honour for His Excellency the most ill.u.s.trious Governor!"

Some thirty men answered the call, made a swaying line upon a more swaying course, and bore the Governor most swayingly of all high in the arms as they staggered down to the river. And the song that they sang bade them, "Swing, swing together their body between their knees"; and they obeyed the words of the song faithfully, except that they were anything but "steady from stroke to bow." His Excellency the Governor slept on his uneasy litter, and did not wake when the chorus dropped him on the deck of the flat-iron.

"Good-night and good-bye," said the head of the Pioneers to Judson; "I'd give you my card if I had it, but I'm so d.a.m.ned drunk I hardly know my own club. Oh, yes! It's the Travellers. If ever we meet in Town, remember me. I must stay here and look after my fellows. We're all right in the open, now. I s'pose you'll return the Governor some time. This is a political crisis. Good-night."

The flat-iron went down stream through the dark. The Governor slept on deck, and Judson took the wheel, but how he steered, and why he did not run into each bank many times, that officer does not remember. Mr.

Davies did not note anything unusual, for there are two ways of taking too much, and Judson was only ward-room, not foc's'le drunk. As the night grew colder the Governor woke up, and expressed a desire for whiskey and soda. When that came they were nearly abreast of the stranded "Guadala", and His Excellency saluted the flag that he could not see with loyal and patriotic strains.

"They do not see. They do not hear," he cried. "Ten thousand saints!

They sleep, and I have won battles! Ha!"

He started forward to the gun, which, very naturally, was loaded, pulled the lanyard, and woke the dead night with the roar of the full charge behind a common sh.e.l.l. That sh.e.l.l mercifully just missed the stern of the "Guadala", and burst on the bank. "Now you shall salute your Governor," said he, as he heard feet running in all directions within the iron skin. "Why you demand so base a quarter? I am here with all my prisoners."

In the hurly-burly and the general shriek for mercy his rea.s.surances were not heard.

"Captain," said a grave voice from the ship, "we have surrendered. Is it the custom of the English to fire on a helpless ship'?"

"Surrendered! Holy Virgin! I go to cut off all their heads. You shall be ate by wild ants--flogged and drowned. Throw me a balcony. It is I, the Governor! You shall never surrender. Judson of my soul, ascend her insides, and send me a bed, for I am sleepy; but, oh, I will multiple time kill that captain!"

"Oh!" said the voice in the darkness, "I begin to comprehend." And a rope-ladder was thrown, up which the Governor scrambled, with Judson at his heels.

"Now we will enjoy executions," said the Governor on the deck. "All these Republicans shall be shot. Little Judson, if I am not drunk, why are so sloping the boards which do not support?"

The deck, as I have said, was at a very stiff cant. His Excellency sat down, slid to leeward, and was asleep again.

The captain of the "Guadala" bit his moustache furiously, and muttered in his own tongue: "This land is the father of great villains and the stepfather of honest men. You see our material, Captain. It is so everywhere with us. You have killed some of the rats, I hope?"

"Not a rat," said Judson genially.

"That is a pity. If they were dead, our country might send us men; but our country is dead too, and I am dishonoured on a mud-bank through your English treachery."

"Well, it seems to me that firing on a little tub of our size without a word of warning, when you know that the countries were at peace, is treachery enough in a small way."

"If one of my guns had touched you, you would have gone to the bottom, all of you. I would have taken the risk with my Government. By that time it would have been--"

"A Republic? So you really did mean fighting on your own hook? You're rather a dangerous officer to cut loose in a navy like yours. Well, what are you going to do now?"

"Stay here. Go away in boats. What does it matter? That drunken cat"--he pointed to the shadow in which the Governor slept--"is here. I must take him back to his hole."

"Very good. I'll tow you off at daylight if you get steam ready."