Wandering Heath Part 3

"Mr. Clogg," he called to his junior lieutenant, "tell Gunner Spettigew to put on his hat at once. Ask him what he means by taking his death and disgracing the company."

The junior lieutenant--a small farmer from Talland parish--touched his cap, spread his hand suddenly over his face and sneezed.

"Hullo! You've got a cold."

"No, sir. I often sneezes like that, and no reason for it whatever."

"I've never noticed it before."

"No, sir. I keeps it under so well as I can. A great deal can be done sometimes by pressing your thumb on the upper lip."

"Ah, well! So long as it's not a cold--" returned the Captain, and broke off to arrange his air-cushion over the depressed muzzle of Thundering Meg. Hereupon he took his seat, adjusted the lapels of his great-coat over his knees, and gave way to gloomy reflection.

Sergeant Fugler was at the bottom of it. Sergeant Fugler, the best marksman in the Company, was a hard drinker, with a hobnailed liver.

He lay now in bed with that hobnailed liver, and the Doctor said it was only a question of days. But why should this so extraordinarily discompose Captain Pond, who had no particular affection for Fugler, and knew, besides, that all men--and especially hard drinkers--are mortal?

The answer is that the East and West Looe Volunteer Artillery was no ordinary Company. When, on the 16th of May, 1803, King George told his faithful subjects, who had been expecting the announcement for some time, that the Treaty of Amiens was no better than waste paper, public feeling in the two Looes rose to a very painful pitch.

The inhabitants used to a.s.semble before the post-office, to hear the French bulletins read out; and though it was generally concluded that they held much falsehood, yet everybody felt misfortune in the air.

Rumours flew about that a diversion would be made by sending an army into the Duchy to draw the troops thither while the invaders directed their main strength upon London. Quiet villagers, therefore, dwelt for the while in a constant apprehension, fearing to go to bed lest they should awake at the sound of the trumpet, or in the midst of the French troops; scarcely venturing beyond sight of home lest, returning, they should find the homestead smoking and desolate.

Each man had laid down the plan he should pursue. Some were to drive off the cattle, others to fire the corn. While the men worked in the fields, their womankind--young maids and grandmothers, and all that could be spared from domestic work--encamped above the cliffs, wearing red cloaks to scare the Frenchmen, and by night kept big bonfires burning continually. Amid this painful disquietude of the public mind "the great and united Spirit of the British People armed itself for the support of their ancient Glory and Independence against the unprincipled Ambition of the French Government."

In other words, the Volunteer movement began. In the Duchy alone no less than 8,362 men enrolled themselves in thirty Companies of foot, horse, and artillery, as well out of enthusiasm as to escape the general levy that seemed probable--so mixed are all human actions.

Of these the Looe Company was neither the greatest nor the least.

It had neither the numerical strength of the Royal Stannary Artillery (1,115 men and officers) nor the numerical eccentricity of the St.

Germans Cavalry, which consisted of forty troopers, all told, and eleven officers, and hunted the fox thrice a week during the winter months under Lord Eliot, Captain and M.F.H. The Looe Volunteers, however, started well in the matter of dress, which consisted of a dark-blue coat and pantaloons, with red facings and yellow wings and ta.s.sels, and a white waistcoat. The officers' sword-hilts were adorned with prodigious red and blue ta.s.sels, and the blade of Captain Pond's, in particular, bore the inscription, "_My Life's Blood for the Two Looes!_"--a legend which we must admit to be touching, even while we reflect that the purpose of the weapon was not to draw its owner's life-blood.

As a matter of mere history, this devoted blade had drawn n.o.body's blood; since, in the six years that followed their enlistment, the Looe Die-hards had never been given an opportunity for a brush with their country's hereditary foes. How, then, did they acquire their proud t.i.tle?

It was the Doctor's discovery; and perhaps, in the beginning, professional pride may have had something to do with it; but his enthusiasm was quickly caught up by Captain Pond and communicated to the entire Company.

"Has it ever occurred to you, Pond," the Doctor began, one evening in the late summer of 1808, as the two strolled homeward from parade, "to reflect on the rate of mortality in this Company of yours?

Have you considered that in all these five years since their establishment not a single man has died?"

"Why the deuce should he?"

"But look here: I've worked it out on paper, and the mean age of your men is thirty-four years, or some five years more than the mean age of the entire population of East and West Looe. You see, on the one hand, you enlist no children, and on the other, you've enlisted several men of ripe age, because you're accustomed to them and know their ways--which is a great help in commanding a Company. But this makes the case still more remarkable. Take any collection of seventy souls the sum of whose ages, divided by seventy, shall be thirty-four, and by all the laws of probability three, at least, ought to die in the course of a year. I speak, for the moment, of civilians. In the military profession," the Doctor continued, with perfect seriousness, "especially in time of war, the death-rate will be enormously heightened. But"--with a flourish of the hand-- "I waive that. I waive even the real, if uncertainly estimated, risk of handling, twice or thrice a week and without timidity or particular caution, the combustibles and explosives supplied us by Government. And still I say that we might with equanimity have beheld our ranks thinned during these five years by the loss of fifteen men. And we have not lost a single one! It is wonderful!"

"War is a fearful thing," commented Captain Pond, whose mind moved less nimbly than the Doctor's.

"Dash it all, Pond! Can't you see that I'm putting the argument on a _peace_ footing? I tell you that in five years of _peace_ any ordinary Company of the same size would have lost at least fifteen men."

"Then all I can say is that peace is a fearful thing, too."

"But don't you see that at this moment you're commanding the most remarkable Company in the Duchy, if not in the whole of England?"

"I do," answered Captain Pond, flushing. "It's a responsibility, though. It makes a man feel proud; but, all the same, I almost wish you hadn't told me."

Indeed at first the weight of his responsibility counteracted the Captain's natural elation. It lifted, however, at the next Corporation dinner, when the Doctor made public announcement of his discovery in a glowing speech, supporting his rhetoric by extracts from a handful of statistics and calculations, and ending, "Gentlemen, we know the motto of the East and West Looe Volunteer Artillery to be '_Never Say Die!_' but seeing, after five years'

trial of them, that they never _do_ die, what man (I ask) will not rejoice to belong to such a Company? What man would not be proud _to command it_?"

After this, could Captain Pond lag behind? His health was drunk amid thunders of applause. He rose: he cast timidity to the winds: he spoke, and while he spoke, wondered at his own enthusiasm.

Scarcely had he made an end before his fellow-townsmen caught him off his feet and carried him shoulder high through the town by the light of torches. There were many aching heads in the two Looes next morning; but n.o.body died: and from that night Captain Pond's Company wore the name of "The Die-hards."

All went well at first; for the autumn closed mildly. But with November came a spell of north-easterly gales, breeding bronchial discomfort among the aged; and Black Care began to dog the Commander.

He caught himself regretting the admission of so many gunners of riper years, although the majority of these had served in His Majesty's Navy, and were by consequence the best marksmen.

They weathered the winter, however; and a slight epidemic of whooping-cough, which broke out in the early spring, affected none of the Die-hards except the small bugler, and he took it in the mildest form. The men, following the Doctor's lead, began to talk more boastfully than ever. Only the Captain shook his head, and his eyes wore a wistful look, as though he listened continually for the footsteps of Nemesis--as, indeed, he did. The strain was breaking him. And in August, when word came from headquarters that, all danger of invasion being now at an end, the Looe Volunteer Artillery would be disbanded at the close of the year, he tried in vain to grieve. A year ago he would have wept in secret over the news.

Now he went about with a solemn face and a bounding heart. A few months more and then--

And then, almost within sight of goal, Sergeant Fugler had broken down. Everyone knew that Fugler drank prodigiously; but so had his father and grandfather, and each of them had reached eighty.

The fellow had always carried his liquor well enough, too.

Captain Pond looked upon it almost as a betrayal.

"I don't know what folks' const.i.tutions are coming to in these days,"

he kept muttering, on this morning of November the 3rd, as he sat on the muzzle of Thundering Meg and dangled his legs.

And then, glancing up, he saw the Doctor coming from the town along the sh.o.r.e-wall, and read evil news at once. For many of the Die-hards stopped the Doctor to question him, and stood gloomy as he pa.s.sed on. It was popularly said in the two Looes, that "if the Doctor gave a man up, that man might as well curl up his toes then and there."

Catching sight of his Captain on the platform, the Doctor bent his steps thither, and they were slow and inelastic.

"Tell me the worst," said Captain Pond.

"The worst is that he's no better; no, the worst of all is that he knows he's no better. My friend, between ourselves, it's only a question of a day or two."

Silence followed for half a minute, the two officers avoiding each other's eyes.

"He has a curious wish," the Doctor resumed, still with his face averted and his gaze directed on the dull outline of Looe Island, a mile away. "He says he knows he's disgracing the Company: but he's anxious, all the same, to have a military funeral: says if you can promise this, he'll feel in a way that he's forgiven."

"He shall have it, of course."

"Ah, but that's not all. You remember, a couple of years back, when they had us down to Pendennis Castle for a week's drill, there was a funeral of a Sergeant-Major in the Loyal Meneage; and how the band played a sort of burial tune ahead of the body? Well, Fugler asked me if you couldn't manage this Dead March, as he calls it, as well.

He can whistle the tune if you want to know it. It seems it made a great impression on him."

"Then the man must be wandering! How the d.i.c.kens can we manage a Dead March without a band?--and we haven't even a fife and drum!"

"That's what I told him. I suppose we couldn't do anything with the church musicians."

"There's only one man in the Company who belongs to the gallery, and that's Uncle Issy Spettigew: and he plays the ba.s.s-viol. I doubt if you can play the Dead March on a ba.s.s-viol, and I'm morally certain you can't play it and walk with it too. I suppose we can't borrow a band from another Company?"

"What, and be the mock of the Duchy?--after all our pride! I fancy I see you going over to Troy and asking Browne for the loan of his band. 'Hullo!' he'd say, 'I thought you never had such a thing as a funeral over at Looe!' I can hear the fellow chuckle. But I wish something could be done, all the same. A trifle of pomp would draw folks' attention off our disappointment."

Captain Pond sighed and rose from the gun; for the bugle was sounding from the upper battery.

"Fall in, gentlemen, if you please!" he shouted. His politeness in addressing his Company might be envied even by the "Blues."

The Doctor formed them up and told them off along the sea-wall, as if for inspection. "Or-der arms!" "Fix bayonets!" "Shoul-der arms!"

Then with a glance of inquiry at his Captain, who had fallen into a brown study, "Rear rank, take open order!"

"No, no," interposed the Captain, waking up and taking a guess at the sun's alt.i.tude in the grey heavens. "We're late this morning: better march 'em up to the battery at once."