Wandering Heath Part 4

Then, quickly re-forming them, he gave the word, "By the left!

Quick march!" and the Die-hards swung steadily up the hill towards the platform where the four nine-pounders grinned defiance to the ships of France.

As a matter of fact, this battery stood out of reach of harm, with the compensating disadvantage of being able to inflict none.

The reef below would infallibly wreck any ship that tried to approach within the point-blank range of some 270 yards, and its extreme range of ten times that distance was no protection to the haven, which lay round a sharp corner of the cliff. But the engineer's blunder was never a check upon the alacrity of the Die-hards, who cleaned, loaded, rammed home, primed, sighted, and blazed away with the precision of clockwork and the ardour of Britons, as though aware that the true strength of a nation lay not so much in the construction of her fortresses as in the spirit of her sons.

Captain Pond halted, re-formed his men upon the platform, and, drawing a key from his pocket, ordered Lieutenant Clogg to the store-hut, with Uncle Issy in attendance, to serve our the ammunition, rammers, sponges, water-buckets, etc.

"But the door's unlocked, sir," announced the lieutenant, with something like dismay.

"Unlocked!" echoed the Doctor.

The Captain blushed.

"I could have sworn, Doctor, I turned the key in the lock before leaving last Thursday. I think my head must be going. I've been sleeping badly of late--it's this worry about Fugler. However, I don't suppose anybody--"

A yell interrupted him. It came from Uncle Issy, who had entered the store-hut, and now emerged from it as if projected from a gun.

"THE FRENCH! THE FRENCH!"

For two terrible seconds the Die-hards eyed one another.

Then someone in the rear rank whispered, "An ambush!" The two ranks began to waver--to melt. Uncle Issy, with head down and shoulders arched, was already stumbling down the slope towards the town.

In another ten seconds the whole Company would be at his heels.

The Doctor saved their reputation. He was as pale as the rest; but a hasty remembrance of the cubic capacity of the store-hut told him that the number of Frenchmen in ambush there could hardly be more than half a dozen.

"Halt!" he shouted; and Captain Pond shouted "Halt!" too, adding, "There'll be heaps of time to run when we find out what's the matter."

The Die-hards hung, still wavering, upon the edge of the platform.

"For my part," the Doctor declared, "I don't believe there's anybody inside."

"But there _is_, Doctor! for I saw him myself just as Uncle Issy called out," said the second lieutenant.

"Was it only _one_ man that you saw?" demanded Captain Pond.

"That's all. You see, it was this way: Uncle Issy stepped fore, with me a couple of paces behind him thinking of nothing so little as bloodshed and danger. If you'll believe me, these things was the very last in my thoughts. Uncle Issy rolls aside the powder-cask, and what do I behold but a man ducking down behind it! 'He's firing the powder,' thinks I, 'and here endeth William George Clogg!'

So I shut my eyes, not willing to see my gay life whisked away in little portions; though I feared it must come. And then I felt Uncle Issy flee past me like the wind. But I kept my eyes tight till I heard the Doctor here saying there wasn't anybody inside. If you ask me what I think about the whole matter, I say, putting one thing with another, that 'tis most likely some poor chap taking shelter from the rain."

Captain Pond unsheathed his sword and advanced to the door of the hut. "Whoever you be," he called aloud and firmly, "you've got no business there; so come out of it, in the name of King George!"

At once there appeared in the doorway a little round-headed man in tattered and mud-soiled garments of blue cloth. His hair and beard were alike short, black, and stubbly; his eyes large and feverish, his features smeared with powder and a trifle pinched and pale.

In his left hand he carried a small bundle, wrapped in a knotted blue kerchief: his right he waved submissively towards Captain Pond.

"See now," he began, "I give up. I am taken. Look you."

"I think you must be a Frenchman," said Captain Pond.

"Right. It is war: you have taken a Frenchman. Yes?"

"A spy?" the Captain demanded more severely.

"An escaped prisoner, more like," suggested the Doctor; "broken out of Dartmoor, and hiding there for a chance to slip across."

"Monsieur le Lieutenant has guessed," the little man answered, turning affably to the Doctor. "A spy? No. It is not on purpose that I find me near your fortifications--oh, not a bit! A prisoner more like, as Monsieur says. It is three days that I was a prisoner, and now look here, a prisoner again. Alas! will Monsieur le Capitaine do me the honour to confide the name of his corps so gallant?"

"The Two Looes."

"_La Toulouse!_ But it is singular that we also have a Toulouse--"

"Hey?" broke in Second Lieutenant Clogg.

"I a.s.sure Monsieur that I say the truth."

"Well, go on; only it don't sound natural."

"Not that I have seen it"--("Ha!" commented Mr. Clogg)--"for it lies in the south, and I am from the north: Jean Alphonse Marie Trinquier, instructor of music, Rue de la Madeleine quatr '-vingt-neuf, Dieppe."

"Instructor of music?" echoed Captain Pond and the Doctor quickly and simultaneously, and their eyes met.

"And _Directeur des Fetes Periodiques_ to the Munic.i.p.ality of Dieppe.

All the Sundays, you comprehend, upon the sands--_poum poum!_ while the citizens _se promenent sur la plage_. But all is not gay in this world. Last winter a terrible misfortune befell me. I lost my wife--my adored Philomene. I was desolated, inconsolable. For two months I could not take up my _cornet-a-piston_. Always when I blew--pouf!--the tears came also. Ah, what memories! Hippolyte, my-- what you call it--my _beau-frere_, came to me and said, 'Jean Alphonse, you must forget.' I say, 'Hippolyte, you ask that which is impossible.' 'I will teach you,' says Hippolyte: 'To-morrow night I sail for Jersey, and from Jersey I cross to Dartmouth, in England, and you shall come with me.' Hippolyte made his living by what you call the Free Trade. This was far down the coast for him, but he said the business with Rye and Deal was too dangerous for a time.

Next night we sailed. It was his last voyage. With the morning the wind changed, and we drove into a fog. When we could see again, _peste!_--there was an English frigate. She sent down her cutter and took the rest of us; but not Hippolyte--poor Hippolyte was shot in the spine of his back. Him they cast into the sea, but the rest of us they take to Plymouth, and then the War Prison on the moor.

This was in May, and there I rest until three days ago. Then I break out--_je me sauve_. How? It is my affair: for I foresee, Messieurs, I shall now have to do it over again. I am _sot_. I gain the coast here at night. I am weary, _je n'en puis plus_. I find this _ca.s.sine_ here: the door is open: I enter _pour faire un pet.i.t somme_. Before day I will creep down to the sh.o.r.e. A comrade in the prison said to me, 'Go to Looe. I know a good Cornishman there--'"

"And you overslept yourself," Captain Paul briskly interrupted, alert as ever to protect the credit of his Company. He was aware that several of the Die-hards, in extra-military hours, took an occasional trip across to Guernsey: and Guernsey is a good deal more than half-way to France.

"The point is," observed the Doctor, "that you play the cornet."

"It is certain that I do so, monsieur; but how that can be the point--"

"And instruct in music?"

"Decidedly!"

"Do you know the Dead March?"

M. Trinquier was unfeignedly bewildered.

Said Captain Pond: "Listen while I explain. You are my prisoner, and it becomes my duty to send you back to Dartmoor under escort.

But you are exhausted; and notwithstanding my detestation of that infernal tyrant, your master, I am a humane man. At all events, I'm not going to expose two of my Die-hards to the risks of a tramp to Dartmoor just now--I wouldn't turn out a dog in such weather.

It remains a question what I am to do with you in the meanwhile.

I propose that you give me your parole that you will make no attempt to escape, let us say, for a month: and on receiving it I will at once escort you to my house, and see that you are suitably clothed, fed, and entertained."

"I give it willingly, M. le Capitaine. But how am I to thank you?"

"By playing the Dead March upon the _cornet-a-piston_ and teaching others to do the like."

"That seems a singular way of showing one's grat.i.tude. But why the Dead March, monsieur? And, excuse me, there is more than one Dead March. I myself, _par exemple_, composed one to the memory of my adored Philomene but a week before Hippolyte came with his so sad proposition."