The Wounded Name

by D. K. Broster

(1)

On Monday, the first of May, 1815, a fresh, cloudless afternoon, a young man in the Vendean uniform, holding by the bridle a sorrel horse, stood at the fork of a road not far from Locmélar in Brittany, and peered up at a rough and almost illegible signpost. The young man was Laurent de Courtomer, who, until about half an hour ago, had been in possession of a happiness as unclouded as this May sunshine—and who was still enjoying himself.

The misunderstandings and delays in Vendée, the fiasco of the Duc de Bourbon's short sojourn in the west, his precipitate departure, first from Angers and then from Beaupréau, because some of the leaders, M. d'Autichamp himself chief among them, thought the time not ripe for a rising, and were nervous for the safety of the old man's princely person—all this had very much irked M. d'Autichamp's aide-de-camp, Comte Laurent de Courtomer. And towards the end of April that aide-de-camp became so restive that his general had to find him some employment. He gave him, therefore, a despatch to carry to North Brittany, to M. de Pontbriand and the rest of the Chouan leaders there, not disguising his doubt whether Laurent would ever succeed in reaching them, nor his conviction that he would fail to return across the Loire. The young man was authorized, in that case, to join one of the Breton chiefs if he pleased; "not," added M. d'Autichamp, "but that I should prefer to have you back again with me, in the event of our moving later on."

Laurent went off in high feather. Moreover, he succeeded in reaching his destination, delivered his despatches, which did no more than set forth a general desire on the part of the Vendean chiefs for such cooperation as was possible with their comrades on the right bank of the Loire, and was complimented on the address he had displayed. Elated by his good fortune, and seeing that nothing but the merest skirmishes had as yet taken place between the Royalists and the Imperialists, and that he was now unencumbered with despatches, he determined to return by a different and rather less secure route—through the Penescouët district in fact, though he was warned against it. For that was L'Oiseleur's country, and it might so well be that he should come up against him somehow—the figure out of a fairy tale, with the hawk and the mistletoe—in his real surroundings. If he got only a glimpse of him it was well worth the risk . . . if there were extra risk, which he did not believe when he set out.

However, he thought rather differently about that now, and quite differently about his chance of meeting L'Oiseleur. For, having ridden all morning happily and expectantly through the deep Breton lanes, he came at noon to a solitary little inn which had been recommended to him. It was kept by a very lame young man. His face had clouded over at Laurent's enquiry as to L'Oiseleur's possible whereabouts.

"You have not heard, then, Monsieur? Alas, L'Oiseleur met with a great disaster last week at the Pont-aux-Rochers, over Plumauden way. Three days ago it was—last Friday morning. His men were ambushed by the Blues, and nearly all captured or killed. It is terrible . . . he who had so often entrapped them."

"Good God!" said Laurent, staring at him. It was the very last piece of news for which he had been prepared.

"And L'Oiseleur himself?" he asked, his heart beating fast.

"Escaped, Monsieur, it is believed. He has the jartier, you know. But he can have few men left now, and it is not known where he is. I wish I could join him; I should have done so long ago but for this." He pointed to his shrunken leg.

It was all the news he could give. Laurent rode very soberly away. He had only been thinking of success for his friend—for sometimes he ventured privately so to call him. And this—at the very outset of the campaign! Still, if La Rocheterie himself had escaped, as was rumoured, that was chiefly what he cared about. If he could only be sure of that; for that he should meet him now was a thousand times more unlikely than before. He must be in hiding—pursued perhaps. . . And the desire to meet him, to share his danger, grew with every second that Laurent frowned at the signpost.

As it was impossible to read it he stooped at last to do what he had in reality dismounted for, take a stone out of the sorrel's shoe. He had just dislodged the obstacle when he heard a sound that made him raise himself sharply. Yes, not more than two hundred yards away, trotting up the sloping road on his left towards the signpost, was a patrol of Bonapartist cavalry—red and green hussars. And here he was, dismounted, in uniform, full in their view!

He did not long remain so, at least—he was in the saddle and dashing along the road in front of him as hard as he could go; and as he went he thought, "This has solved the problem of the choice of road, anyhow! What a fool I was . . . but it is rather good fun, all the same!" He could not see the hussars yet over his shoulder, but from the sounds and shouts they were certainly after him. However, he had a good horse, and though there was nothing to take from him now save his liberty, he was not going to make them a present of that if he could help it. And what if he were to make across country? The bank here was no more than an English hedgerow. He set the sorrel at it.

Laurent was staring up into the blue sky, and everything was going round. The sensation having been his once before he knew of course what had happened—a fall out hunting.

But why was someone kneeling on his chest and pinning his arms down? It was a curious way of succouring an accident in the hunting-field; he could not breathe.

"Damn you, get off me!" he said angrily and indistinctly in English.

"Tiens, c'est un Anglais!" exclaimed a surprised voice.

But Laurent was soon able to explain the falsity of this deduction. The hussars helped him up, disarmed and searched him, finding little. The officer said courteously, "You have a deep scratch on your forehead, Monsieur, taken, no doubt, from the hedge when your horse fell with you.—One of you tie it up, and then we must be getting on."

It appeared that no shot had been fired, no blade unsheathed. His horse had fallen at the leap, and then they had come and sat on him; thus ingloriously was Laurent de Courtomer made a prisoner. Even the blood which was now trickling rather copiously down his cheek had been drawn by nothing more lethal than a broken bough. He was a little savage, but there was no profit in ill-temper. His captors were quite pleasant; one of them tied up his forehead with his handkerchief, and then they mounted, fastened his bridle to one of theirs and trotted back the way they had come. It seemed that they were out scouting from a considerable distance, and knew little of happenings in this neighbourhood, beyond the bare fact that there had been a Royalist defeat there a few days ago. And so, said Laurent to himself, ends my dream of meeting with La Rocheterie. Seeing what it had brought about, he almost regretted having indulged it.

As evening drew on, they entered a village to water the horses. The officer went into the inn. M. de Courtomer was by now beginning to revolve the chances of escape, but his captors were pretty wary. It was best at least to appear resigned, so he sat most meekly on his slightly lamed steed between his guards at the village trough, speculating as to what the village was, and where, for he had lost his sense of direction. And, thus engaged, he found himself all at once observing the slow approach of a farm cart along the one street of the place—an ordinary and rather small cart drawn by an old white horse, but driven, oddly enough, by a soldier, and having another, with fixed bayonet, seated sideways on the edge. That there was something unusual about this conveyance was shown by the fact that everyone whom it passed in its progress over the cobbles was straight away smitten with immobility and remained staring after it. Laurent himself became curious to see what was in it.

As the cart came within range, the hussars at the horse-trough began to call out pleasantries to the grenadier driver: what was he taking to market; it was true he looked better suited to a farm than the army, and so on.

"You look like a performing circus!" retorted the grenadier. "We have a prisoner in here; that's what we've got." Yet he had his musket idly between his knees and a straw in his mouth.

"We've got one, too!" replied the hussars. Then the cart came abreast. On its tailboard, let down nearly level at the back, was visible an inert head and shoulders. And the sun of the Mayday evening shone on hair that Laurent knew, hair that fell back from a face like death—like tragic death . . . Aymar de la Rocheterie's.

Laurent gave a sharp exclamation, and the sorrel responded to the half-automatic pressure of his knees. A hussar at once seized his arm, and a pistol was pressed into his ear, with an enquiry as to whether he wished to join "that one" in the cart with a bullet in his head? He did not answer; he was too stunned. But he made no further movement.

The cart rumbled slowly past with its burden. L'Oiseleur was plainly quite unconscious, if not dead; his head rolled slightly with the comfortless motion of the conveyance. On the mortal pallor of his face there showed up a faint smear or two of blood, and the white dust of the country road had drifted into his loosened hair, together with some bits of the straw on which he had been laid. A dark green uniform coat similar to that in which Laurent had last seen him was flung over him, but his shirt had obviously been removed, and one shoulder at least was swathed round with a bloody wrapping. And the sunlight showed how deeply stained was the coat also.

Before Laurent had recovered from his stupefaction the cart had passed. All the hussars turned in their saddles and looked after it, oddly silent, except one irrepressible spirit who shouted out an enquiry as to why they were going like a funeral.

"To avoid one, son of an idiot!" called back the man with the musket. "We happen to want this parishioner alive. It's a damned nuisance, going at this pace, but if we hurry—" He made an expressive gesture.

"Where are you taking him to?"

But either the soldier did not hear, or did not answer, because the hussar officer came at that moment out of the inn shouting an order. And hastily, with much jingling of accoutrements, the patrol began to move off up the sunny street in the opposite direction, Laurent in the midst.

He was feeling very dismal. Rumour was incorrect, and L'Oiseleur had paid in person for his defeat—and paid heavily. He had fallen with his men after all . . . no, hardly, because the affair at the bridge was three days old, and the blood on him was fresh. He must have been tracked down afterwards . . . horrible! But how strange that there was no escort with the cart—for though L'Oiseleur himself was only too obviously in no condition to escape from it, there must always be the risk of a rescue so long as any of those devoted followers of his were at large. Or did the absence of an adequate guard signify that the whole of his remaining force had since been wiped out—and was that the meaning of the look, almost of horror, which had persisted even in unconsciousness? Laurent could not get that look out of his head, nor the way the cart had jolted. Surely, if they wanted him kept alive, that soldier might have held him in his arms; surely——

The young man gave an exclamation. Slow-witted dolt that he was! "I must speak to your officer at once!" he said to the hussar who had command of his reins.

But it took time, in that quickly trotting advance, before his demand could be complied with, and already when he proffered his suggestion it seemed absurd, seeing that by then the cart with its burden and he, who was not a free agent, were a mile or more apart. So the officer not unnaturally replied that it was out of the question to send him back now to bear the other prisoner company.