Under Wellington's Command Part 11

"Don't you believe him, monsieur. Jules has a good heart, though he likes pretending that he is a bear.

"Now, monsieur, I have some coffee ready for you."

"I need not say, madam," Terence said, "how truly thankful we both are for your and your husband's kindness, shown to us strangers; and I sincerely hope that you will have no cause to regret it. You may be sure of one thing: that if we are recaptured, we shall never say how our escape was effected, nor where we were sheltered afterwards; and if, after the war is over, we can find an opportunity of showing how grateful we are for your kindness, we shall not miss the chance."

"We are but paying the service you rendered to Jacques, monsieur. He tells me that, if it had not been for the aid the British prisoners gave them, that probably those Spanish bandits would have captured the church during the night; and we know that they never show mercy to prisoners."

The coffee was placed on the table and, after drinking it, the fisherman led them to a low shed in the yard.

"We could have done better for you," he said apologetically, "but it is likely that they may begin a search for you, early in the morning. This yard can be seen from many houses round about, so that, were you to sleep upstairs, you might be noticed entering here in the morning; and it is better to run no risks. We have piled the nets on the top of other things. You will find two blankets for covering yourselves there. In the morning I will come in and shift things, so as to hide you up snugly."

"We shall do just as well on the nets as if we were in bed," Terence laughed. "We are pretty well accustomed to sleep on the hard ground."

"I think we are going to have some bad weather," the man remarked, as they settled themselves on the nets. "I hope it will be so, for then none of the boats will put out; and there will be no comments on my staying at home, instead of going out as usual.

"And now, good night, and good sleep to you!"

"He is an honest-looking fellow," Terence said, when he had gone out, "and I have no doubt what his wife says of him is true; but it is not surprising that he held back at first. It is not everyone that is prepared to run the risk of heavy punishment for the sake of his wife's relations.

"This is not by any means bad; these nets make a very comfortable bed."

The next morning, at daybreak, the fisherman came in with a can containing hot coffee, two great slices of bread, and tin cups.

"Now, messieurs, when you have drank that I will stow you away. We shifted most of the things yesterday, so as to make as comfortable a bed for you as may be."

The nets were pulled off; and a ma.s.s of sails, ropes, and other gear appeared underneath. One of the sails in the corner was pulled away, and showed a vacant s.p.a.ce, some six feet long and four feet wide, extending down to the ground, which was covered by old nets.

"Now, messieurs, if you will get down there, I shall pile a couple of sacks over and throw the nets on the top, and there is no fear of your being disturbed. I will bring your meals in to you, and let you know what is doing in the town; but I shall not come in oftener than I can help. I shall leave the doors open, as usual."

They took their places in the hole, and the fisherman piled sails and nets over the opening. There was no occasion to leave any apertures for air, for the shed was roughly built, and there were plenty of openings between the planks of which it was constructed. They had, before he came in, divested themselves of their uniforms; and these the fisherman put into a kit bag and carried indoors; where his wife at once proceeded to cut them up, and thrust the pieces into the fire.

"It is a pity," she said regretfully, "but it would never do to leave them about. Think what a waistcoat I could have made for you, Jules, out of this scarlet cloth. With the gold b.u.t.tons it would have been superb, and it would have been the envy of the quarter; but it would never do."

"I should think not, Marie. Burn the clothes up, and give me the b.u.t.tons and gold lace. I will put them in a bag with some stones, and drop them into the river. The sooner we get rid of them, the better."

As soon as the things were put into a bag, he went out with with them. The wind was blowing strongly and, as he had predicted the night before, the clouds were flying fast, and there were many signs of dirty weather. He returned a couple of hours later.

"There is quite an excitement in the town, Marie," he said. "Everyone is talking about it. Two rascally English prisoners have escaped, and the soldiers say that they must be somewhere in the town, for that they could never have pa.s.sed through the lines. Some gendarmes have been along the quays, inquiring if a boat has been missed during the night; but they all seem to be safe. Written notices have been stuck up warning everyone, on pain of the severest punishment, not to give shelter to two young men, in whatever guise they may present themselves. The gendarmes say that the military authorities are convinced that they must have received a.s.sistance from without."

For the next three days, indeed, an active search was kept up. Every house was visited by the gendarmes but, as there was no reason for suspecting one person more than another, there was no absolute search made of the houses; which indeed, in so large a town as Bayonne, would have been almost impossible to carry out effectually.

The fisherman reported each day what was going on.

"The soldiers are giving it up," he said, at the end of the third day. "I saw Jacques today for the first time. He tells me there was a tremendous row when your escape was discovered. The warder, and every soldier who had been on duty that night, were arrested and questioned. The warder was the one first suspected, on the ground that you must have had a.s.sistance from without. He said that if you had, he knew nothing about it; and that, as you knew all the soldiers of the prison guard, and as he had heard many of them say it was very hard, after fighting as you did on their behalf, that you should be kept prisoner, any of them might have furnished you with tools for cutting the door and filing the bars. This was so clear that he was released at once. The soldiers were kept for two days under arrest. This morning the governor himself came down to the prison, and the men under arrest were drawn up. He spoke to them very sharply, to begin with.

"'One or more of you is a.s.suredly concerned in this matter. A breach of trust of this kind is punishable with death.'

"Then he stopped, and looked fiercely up and down the line, and went on in a different tone:

"'At the same time, I admit that some allowance is to be made for the crime, and I can understand that as soldiers you felt sympathy with soldiers who, although prisoners at the time, did not hesitate to cast in their lot with you, and to fight side by side with you. Still, a soldier should never allow private sentiments to interfere with his duty. I myself should have been glad, when you arrived here and I heard of what had happened, to have been able to place these British officers and soldiers in a ship, and to have sent them back to their own country; but that would have been a breach of my duty, and I was forced to detain them here as prisoners. Of course, if I could find out which among you have been concerned in this affair, it would be my duty to punish them--for there must have been more than one--severely. However, although I have done my best to discover this, I am not sorry, men, that I have been unable to do so; for although these men may have failed in their duties as soldiers, they have shown themselves true-hearted fellows to run that risk--not, I am sure, from any thought of reward, but to help those who had helped them.

"'You can all return to your duty, and I hope that you will, in future, remember that duty is the first thing with a soldier, and that he should allow no other feeling to interfere with it.'

"Jacques and his comrades are all satisfied that, although the general felt it was his duty to reprimand them, he was at heart by no means sorry that you had got off.

"The gendarmes are still making inquiries, but of course they have learned nothing. n.o.body was about on the wharves at that time of night, and I don't think that they will trouble themselves much longer about it. They will come to believe that you must, somehow, have managed to get through the line of fortifications, and that you will be caught trying to make your way across the country.

"In another three or four days it will be quite safe for you to go down the river. For the first two days every boat that went down was stopped and examined, and some of the vessels were searched by a gunboat, and the hatches taken off; but I hear that no boats have been stopped today, so I fancy you will soon be able to go down without fear."

Although at night Terence and Ryan were able to emerge from their place of concealment, and walk up and down the little yard for two or three hours, they were heartily glad when, a week after their confinement, Jules told them that he thought they might start at daybreak, the next morning.

"Now, messieurs, if you will tell me what you want, I will buy the things for you."

They had already made out a list. It consisted of a nine-gallon breaker for water, a dozen bottles of cheap wine, thirty pounds of biscuits, and fifteen pounds of salt meat, which Jules's wife was to cook. They calculated that this would be sufficient to last them, easily, until they had pa.s.sed along the Spanish coast to a point well beyond the towns garrisoned by the French, if not to Corunna itself.

"But how about the boat?" Terence asked, after all the other arrangements had been decided upon. "As I told you, we don't wish to take a boat belonging to anyone who would feel its loss; and therefore it must be a ship's boat, and not one of the fishermen's. If we had money to pay for it, it would be another matter; but we have scarcely enough now to maintain us on our way through Spain, and there are no means of sending money here when we rejoin our army."

"I understand that, monsieur; and I have been along the quay this morning taking a look at the boats. There are at least a dozen we could choose from; I mean ships' boats. Of course, many of the craft keep their boats hauled up at the davits or on deck, but most of them keep one in the water, so that they can row off to another ship or to the stairs. Some simply leave them in the water, because they are too lazy to hoist them up. That is the case, I think, with one boat that belongs to a vessel that came in, four days since, from the West Indies. It's a good-sized ship's dinghy, such as is used for running out warps, or putting a sailor ash.o.r.e to bring off anything required. The other boats are better suited for a voyage, but they are for the most part too large and heavy to be rowed by two oars and, moreover, they have not a mast and sail on board, as this has. Therefore that is the one that I fixed my eye on.

"The ship is lying alongside, and there is not another craft outside her. The boat is fastened to her bowsprit, and I can take off my boots and get on board and drop into her, without difficulty; and push her along to the foot of some stairs which are but ten yards away. Of course, we will have the water and food and that bundle of old nets ready, at the top of the stairs, and we can be out into the stream five minutes after I have cut her loose. We must start just before daylight is breaking, so as to be off before the fishermen put out for, if any of these were about, they would at once notice that I have not got my own boat. At the same time I don't want to be far ahead of them, or to pa.s.s the gunboats at the mouth of the river in the dark, for that would look suspicious."

"And now, Jules, about yourself. Of course, I know well that no money could repay you for the kindness you have shown us, and your risking so much for strangers; and you know that we have not with us the means of making any return, whatever, for your services."

"I don't want any return, monsieur," the fisherman said. "I went into the matter a good deal against my will, because my wife had set her mind upon it; but since you came here I have got to have just as much interest in the matter as she has. I would not take a sou from you, now; but if, some day, when these wars are over, you will send a letter to Marie with some little present to her, just to show her that you have not forgotten us, it would be a great pleasure to us."

"That I will certainly do, Jules. It may be some time before there will be an opportunity of doing it, but you may be sure that we shall not forget you and your wife, or cease to be grateful for your kindnesses; and that, directly peace is made, or there is a chance in any other way of sending a letter to you, we will do so."

That evening Jacques paid a visit to his sister. He had abstained from doing so before, because he thought that the soldiers who were suspected of being concerned in the escape might all be watched; and that if any of them were seen to enter a house, a visit might be paid to it by the gendarmes. He did not come until it was quite dark, and made a long detour in the town before venturing to approach it. Before he entered the lane he took good care that no one was in sight.

When, after chatting for an hour, he rose to leave, Terence told him that when he wrote to his sister he should inclose a letter to him; as it would be impossible to write to him direct, for there would be no saying where he might be stationed. He begged him to convey the heartiest thanks of himself and Ryan to his comrades for the share they had taken in the matter.

On saying good night, Terence insisted on Marie accepting, as a parting gift, his watch and chain. These were handsome ones, and of French manufacture, Terence having bought them from a soldier who had taken them from the body of a French officer, killed during Soult's retreat from Portugal. They could, therefore, be shown by her to her friends without exciting any suspicion that they had been obtained from an English source. Marie accepted them very unwillingly, and only after Terence declaring that he should feel very grieved if she would not take the one present he was capable of making.

"Besides," he added, "no one can tell what fortune may bring about. Your husband might lose his boat, or have a long illness; and it is well to have something that you can part with, without discomfort, in such a time of need."

Jules, although desiring no pay for his services and risks, was very much gratified at the present.

"I for my part do not say no, monsieur," he said. "What you say is right. We are careful people, and I have laid by a little money; but as you say, one cannot tell what may happen. And if the weather were bad and there was a risk of never getting back home again, it would be a consolation to me to know that, in addition to the few hundred francs we have laid by since we were married, two years ago, there is something that would bring Marie, I should say, seven or eight hundred francs more, at least. That would enable her to set up a shop or laundry, and to earn her own living. I thank you from my heart, monsieur, for her and for myself."

Terence and Ryan slept as soundly as usual until aroused by Jules. Then they put on their sea boots again, loaded themselves with the nets and the bags with the provisions and wine, while Jules took the water barrel and after saying goodbye to Marie, started. There was not a soul on the wharf and, putting the stores down at the top of the steps, they watched Jules who, after taking off his boots, went across a plank to the ship, made his way noiselessly out on to the bow, swinging himself down into the boat, loosening the head rope before he did so. A push with the oar against the ship's bow sent the boat alongside the quay, and he then worked her along, with his hands against the wall, until he reached the steps.

The stores were at once transferred to the boat, and they pushed it out into the stream. The tide had but just turned to run out and, for half a mile, they allowed her to drift down the river. By this time the light was broadening out in the sky. Jules stepped the mast and hoisted the sail, and then seated himself in the stern and put an oar out in the hole cut for it to steer with. Terence watched the operation carefully. The wind was nearly due aft, and the boat ran rapidly through the water.

"We are just right as to time," Jules said, as he looked back where the river made a bend. "There are two others coming down half a mile behind us, so that we shall only seem to be rather earlier birds than the rest."

Near the mouth of the river two gunboats were anch.o.r.ed. They pa.s.sed within a short distance of one of these, and a solitary sailor, keeping anchor watch on deck, remarked:

"You are going to have a fine day for your fishing, comrade."