HOW I FACED DEATHS AND LIVED
On the sixteenth day of my imprisonment I had stood against my bars till the last faint glow of the sunset faded off a white cloud in the east, and all outside had become gray and dim, and my room was quite dark. I had had my second meal, and looked as usual for no further diversion till breakfast next morning. But of a sudden I heard heavy feet outside my door, and Torode came in with a lantern, followed by two of his men.
"You are still of that mind?" he asked, as though we had discussed the matter but five minutes before.
"Yes."
"Then your time is up;" and at a word from him the men bound my hands and feet as before, tied a cloth over my eyes, and carried me off along the rocky way—to my death I doubted not.
To the schooner first in any case, though why they could not kill a man on shore as easily as at sea surprised me. Though, to be sure, a man's body is more easily and cleanly disposed of at sea than on shore, and leaves no mark behind it.
I was placed in the same bunk as before, and fell asleep wondering how soon the end of this strange business would come, but sure that it would not be long.
I was wakened in the morning by the crash of the big guns, and surmised that we had run across something. I heard answering guns and more discharges of our own, then the lowering of a boat, and presently my porthole was obscured as the schooner ground against another vessel.
Then the unexpected happened, in a furious fusillade of small arms from the other ship. Treachery had evidently met treachery, and Death had his hands full.
From the shouting aboard the other ship I felt sure they were Frenchmen, and glad as I was at thought of these ruffians getting paid in their own coin, and fit as it might be to meet cunning with cunning, I was yet glad that the payment was French and not English.
Of the first issue, however, I had small doubts in view of Torode's long guns and merciless methods, and though I could see nothing, with our own experiences red in my mind, I could still follow what happened.
The schooner sheared off, and presently the long guns got to work with their barbarous shot, and pounded away venomously, till I could well imagine what the state of that other ship must be.
When we ranged alongside again, no word greeted us. There was traffic between the two ships, and when we cast off I heard the crackling of flames.
Then there was much sluicing of water above my head, as our decks were washed down, and presently there came a rattling of boards which puzzled me much, until the end of one dipped suddenly across my porthole, and my straining wits suggested that Torode was changing his stripes and becoming a Frenchman once more.
The next day passed without any happening, and I lay racking my brain for reasons why one spot of sea should not be as good as another for dropping a man's body into.
But on the day after that, Torode came suddenly in on me in the afternoon, and looking down on me as I lay, he said roughly—
"Listen, you, Carré! By every reason possible you should die, but—well, I am going to give you chance of life. It is only a chance, but your death will not lie at my door, as it would do here. Now here is my last word. You know more than is good for me. If ever you disclose what you know, whether you come back or not, I will blot out all you hold dear in Sercq from top to bottom, though I have to bring the Frenchmen down to do it. You understand?"
"I understand."
"Be advised, then, and keep a close mouth."
I was blindfolded and carried out and laid in a waiting boat, which crossed to another vessel, and I was passed up the side, and down a gangway, amid the murmur of many voices.
When my eyes and bonds were loosed I found myself among a rough crowd of men in the 'tween decks of a large ship. The air was dim and close. From the row of heavy guns and great ports, several of which were open, I knew her to be a battleship and of large size. From the gabble of talk all round me I knew she was French.
After the first minute or two no one paid me any attention. All were intent on their own concerns. I sat down on the carriage of the nearest gun and looked about me.
The company was such as one would have looked for on a ship of the Republic—coarse and free in its manners, and loud of talk. They were probably most of them pressed men, not more than one day out, and looked on me only as a belated one of themselves. There was—for the moment at all events—little show of discipline. They all talked at once, and wrangled and argued, and seemed constantly on the point of blows; but it all went off in words, and no harm was done. But to me, who had barely heard a spoken word for close on twenty days, the effect was stunning, and I could only sit and watch dazedly, while my head spun round with the uproar.
Food was served out presently—well-cooked meat and sweet coarse bread, and a mug of wine to every man, myself among the rest. There was no lessening of the noise while they ate and drank, and I ate with the rest, and by degrees found my thoughts working reasonably.
I was at all events alive, and it is better to be alive than dead.
I was on a French ship of war, and that, from all points of view, save one, was better than being on a King's ship.
The one impossible point in the matter was that I was an Englishman on a ship whose mission in life must be to fight Englishmen. And that I never would do, happen what might, and it seemed to me that the sooner this matter was settled the better.
Discipline on a ship under the Republican flag was, I knew, very different from that on our own ships. The principles of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, if getting somewhat frayed and threadbare, still tempered the treatment of the masses, and so long as men reasonably obeyed orders, and fought when the time came, little more was expected of them, and they were left very much to themselves.
That was no doubt the reason why I had not so far, since I recovered my wits, come across anyone in authority, which I was now exceedingly anxious to do.
It was almost dark, outside the ship as well as inside, when I spied one who seemed, from his dress and bearing, something above the rest, and I made my way to him.
"Will you be so good as to tell me where I sleep, monsieur?" I asked.
"Same place as you slept last night, my son."
"I would be quite willing—"
"Ah tiens! you are the latest bird."
"At your service, monsieur."
"Come with me, and I'll get you a hammock and show you where to sling it."
And as he was getting it for me, I asked him the name of the ship and where she was going.
"The Joséphine, 40-gun frigate, bound for the West Indies."
Then I proffered my request—
"Can you procure me an interview with the captain, monsieur?"
"What for?"
"I have some information to give him—information of importance."
"You can give it to me."
"No—to the captain himself, or to no one."
He looked at me critically and said curtly, "B'en, mon gars, we will see!" which might mean anything—threat or promise. But my thoughts during the night only confirmed me in my way.
Next morning after breakfast the same man came seeking me.
"Come then," he said, "and say your say," and he led me along to the quarterdeck, where the captain stood with some of his officers. He was a tall, good-looking man, very handsomely dressed. I came to know him later as Captain Charles Duchâtel.
"This is the man, M. le capitaine," said my guide, pushing me to the front.
"Well, my man," said the captain, pleasantly enough, "what is the important information you have to give me?"
"M. le capitaine will perhaps permit me to explain, in the first place, that I am an Englishman," said I, with a bow.
"Truly you speak like one, mon gars," he laughed.
"That is because I am of the Norman Isles, monsieur. I am from Sercq, by Guernsey."
"Well!" he nodded.
"And therefore monsieur will see that it is not possible for me to fight against my own country." And I went on quickly, in spite of the frown I saw gathering on his face. "I will do any duty put upon me to the best of my power, but fight against my country I cannot."
He looked at me curiously, and said sharply, "A sailor on board ship obeys orders. Is it not so?"
"Surely, monsieur. But I am a prisoner. And as an Englishman I cannot fight against my country. Could monsieur do so in like case?"
"This is rank mutiny, you know."
"I do not mean it so, monsieur, I assure you."
"And was this the important information you had to give me?"
"No, monsieur, it was this. The man who brought me prisoner on board here,—monsieur knows him?"
"Undoubtedly! He has made himself known."
"Better perhaps than you imagine, monsieur. The merchants of Havre and Cherbourg will thank you for this that I tell you now. Torode to the English, Main Rouge to the French—he lives on Herm, the next isle to Sercq, where I myself live. He is the most successful privateer in all these waters. And why? I will tell you, monsieur. It is because he robs French ships as an English privateer, and English ships as a French privateer. He changes his skin as he goes and plunders under both flags."
"Really! That is a fine fairy tale. On my word it is worthy almost of La Fontaine himself. And what proof do you offer of all this, my man?"
"Truly none, monsieur, except myself—that I am here for knowing it."
"And Main Rouge knew that you knew it?"
"That is why I am here, monsieur."
"And alive! Main Rouge is no old woman, my man."
"It is a surprise to me that I still live, monsieur, and I cannot explain it. He has had me in confinement for three weeks, expecting to die each day, since he sank our schooner and shot our men in the water as they swam for their lives. Why, of all our crew, I live, I do not know."
"It is the strongest proof we have that what you tell me is untrue."
"And yet I tell it at risk of more than my life, monsieur. Torode's last words to me were that if I opened my mouth he would smite my kin in Sercq till not one was left."
"And he told me you were such an inveterate liar and troublesome fellow that he had had enough of you, and only did not kill you because of your people, whom he knows," he said, with a knowing smile.
Torode's forethought staggered me somewhat, but I looked the captain squarely in the face and said, "I am no liar, monsieur, and I have had no dealings with the man save as his prisoner." But I could not tell whether he believed me or not.
"And your mind is made up not to obey orders?" he asked, after a moment's thought.
"I cannot lift a hand against my country, monsieur."
"Place him under arrest," he said quietly, to the man who had brought me there. "I will see to him later;" and I had but exchanged one imprisonment for another.
That was as dismal a night as ever I spent, with no ray of hope to lighten my darkness, and only the feeling that I could have done no other, to keep me from breaking down entirely.
What the result would be I could not tell, but from the captain's point of view I thought he would be justified in shooting me, and would probably do so as a warning to the rest. He evidently did not believe a word I said, and I could not greatly blame him.
I thought of them all at home, but mostly of my mother and of Carette. I had little expectation of ever seeing them again, but I was sure they would not have had me act otherwise. It was what my grandfather would have done, placed as I was, and no man could do better than that. Most insistently my thoughts were of Carette and those bright early days on Sercq, and black as all else was, those remembrances shone like jewels in my mind. And when at times I thought of Torode and his stupendous treachery, my heart was like to burst with helpless rage. I scarcely closed my eyes, and in the morning felt old and weary.
About midday they came for me, and I was content that the end had come. They led me to the waist of the ship, where the whole company was assembled, and there they stripped me to the waist and bound my wrists to a gun carriage.
It was little relief to me to know that I was to be flogged, for the lash degrades, and breaks a man's spirit even more than his body. Even if undeserved, the brand remains, and can never be forgotten. It seemed to me then that I would as lief be shot and have done with it.
The captain eyed me keenly.
"Well," he asked, "you are still of the same mind? You still will not fight?"
"Not against my own country—not though you flog me to ribbons, monsieur."
The cat rested lightly on my back as the man who held it waited for the word.
Then, as I braced myself for the first stroke, which would be the hardest to bear, the captain said quietly to the officer next to him, "Perhaps as well end it at once. Send a file of marines—" and they walked a few steps beyond my hearing, for the blood belled in my ears and blurred my eyes so that my last sight of earth was like to be a dim one.
"Cast him loose and bandage his eyes," said the captain, and they set me standing against the side of the ship and tied a white cloth over my eyes.
I heard clearly enough now and with a quickened sense. I heard them range the men opposite to me—I hard the tiny clicking of the rings on the muskets as the men handled them—the breathing of those who looked on—the soft wash of the sea behind. But as far as was in me I faced them without flinching, for in truth I had given myself up and was thinking only of Carette and my mother and my grandfather, and was sending them farewell and a last prayer for their good.
"Are you ready?" asked the captain. "You will fire when I drop the handkerchief. You—prisoner—for the last time—yes or no?"
I shook my head, for I feared lest my voice should betray me. Let none but him who has faced this coldest of deaths cast a stone at me.
"Present! Fire!"—the last words I expected to hear on earth. The muskets rang out—but I stood untouched.
The captain walked across to me, whipped off the bandage, and clapped me soundly on the bare shoulder. "You are a brave boy, and I take as truth every word you have told me. If we come to fighting with your countrymen you shall tend our wounded. As to Red Hand—when we return home we will attend to him. Now, mon gars, to your duty!" and to my amazement I was alive, unflogged, and believed.
Perhaps it was a harsh test and an over cruel jest. But the man had no means of coming at the truth, and if he had shot me none could have said a word against it.
For me, I said simply, "I thank you, monsieur," and went to my duty.
My shipmates were for making much of me, in their rough and excited way, but I begged them to leave me to myself for a time, till I was quite sure I was still alive. And they did so at last, and I heard them debating among themselves how it could be that an Englishman could speak French as freely as they did themselves.
I had no cause to complain of my treatment on board the Joséphine after that. The life was far less rigorous than on our own ships, and the living far more ample. If only I could have sent word of my welfare to those at home, who must by this time, I knew, be full of fears for me, I could have been fairly content. The future, indeed, was full of uncertainty, but it is that at best, and my heart was set on escape the moment the chance offered.
I went about my work with the rest, and took a certain pride in showing them how a British seaman could do his duty. Our curious introduction had given Captain Duchâtel an interest in me. I often caught his eye upon me, and now and again he dropped me a word which was generally a cheerful challenge as to my resolution, and I always replied in kind. Recollections of those days crowd my mind as I look back on them, but they are not what I set out to tell, and greater matters lay just ahead.
With wonderful luck, and perhaps by taking a very outside course, we escaped the British cruisers, and arrived safely in Martinique, and there we lay for close on four months, with little to do but be in readiness for attacks which never came.
The living was good. Fresh meat and fruit were abundant, and we were allowed ashore in batches. And so the time passed pleasantly enough, but for the fact that one was an exile, and that those at home must be in sorrow and suspense, and had probably long since given up all hope of seeing their wanderer again. For this time was not as the last. They would expect news of us within a few weeks of our sailing, and the utter disappearance of the Swallow could hardly leave them ground for hope.
CHAPTER XXII
HOW THE JOSÉPHINE CAME HOME
I had ample time to look my prospects in the face while we kept watch and ward on Martinique, and no amount of looking improved them.
My greatest hope was to return to French and English waters in the Joséphine. I could perhaps have slipped away into the island, but that would in no way have furthered my getting home, rather would it have fettered me with new and tighter bonds. For in the end I must have boarded some English ship and been promptly pressed into the service, and that was by no means what I wanted. It was my own Island of Sercq I longed for, and all that it held and meant for me.
I saw clearly that if at any time we came to a fight with a British warship, and were captured, I must become either prisoner of war as a Frenchman, or pressed man as an Englishman. Neither position held out hope of a speedy return home, but, of the two, I favoured the first as offering perhaps the greater chances.
As the weeks passed into months, all of the same dull pattern, I lost heart at times, thinking of all that might be happening at home.
Sometimes it seemed to me hardly possible that Torode would dare to go on living at Herm and playing that desperate game of the double flags, while somewhere one man lived who might turn up at any time and blow him to the winds. And in pondering the matter, the fact that he had spared that man's life became a greater puzzle to me than ever. Depressing, too, the thought that if he did so stop on, it was because he considered the measures he had taken for his own safety as effective as death itself, and he was undoubtedly a shrewd and far-thinking man. That meant that my chances of ever turning up again in Sercq were small indeed. And, on the other hand, if a wholesome discretion drove him to the point of flitting, I had reason enough to fear for Carette. He had vowed his son should have her, and both father and son were men who would stick at nothing to gain their ends.
So my thoughts were black enough. I grew homesick, and heart-sick, and there were many more in the same condition, and maybe, to themselves, with equal cause.
Just four months we had been there, when one morning an old-fashioned 20-gun corvette came wallowing in, and an hour later we knew that she had come to relieve us and we were to sail for home as soon as we were provisioned. Work went with a will, for every man on board was sick of the place in spite of the easy living and good faring, and we were at sea within forty-eight hours. The word between-decks, too, was that Bonaparte was about to conquer England, and we were hurrying back to take part in the great invasion. The spirits and the talk ran to excess at times. I neither took part in it nor resented it. My alien standing was almost forgotten through the constant companionship of common tasks, and I saw no profit in flaunting it, though my determination not to lift a hand against my country was as strong as ever.
We had a prosperous voyage of thirty-five days, and were within two days' sail of Cherbourg, when we sighted a ship of war which had apparently had longer or quicker eyes than our own. She was coming straight for us when we became aware of her, and she never swerved from her course till her great guns began to play on us under British colours.
True to those colours, as soon as her standing was fixed, I made my way to Captain Duchâtel to claim performance of his promise.
I had no need to put it into words. The moment I saluted, he said, "Ah, yes. So you stick to it?"
I saluted again, without speaking.
"Bien! Go to the surgeon and tell him you are to help him. There will be work for you all before long."
And there was. The story of a fight, from the cock-pit point of view, would be very horrible telling, and that is all I saw. I heard the thunder of our own guns, and the shouts of our men, and the splintering crash of the heavy shot that came aboard of us. But before long, when the streams of wounded began to come our way, I heard nothing but gasps and groans, and saw nothing but horrors which I would fain blot out of my memory, but cannot, even now.
I had seen wounded men before. I had been wounded myself. But seeing men fall, torn and mangled in the heat of fight, with the red fury blazing in one's own veins, and the smoke and smell of battle pricking in one's nostrils, and death in the very air—that is one thing. But tending those broken remnants of men in cold blood—handling them, and the pitiful parts of them, rent torn and out of the very semblance of humanity by the senseless shot—ah!—that was a very different thing. May I never see it again!
If my face showed anything of what I felt I must have looked a very sick man. But the surgeon's face was as white as paper and as grim as death, and when he jerked out a word it was through his set teeth, as though he feared more might come if he opened his mouth.
We worked like giants down there, but could not keep pace with Giant Death above. Before long all the passages were filled with shattered men; and with no distinct thought of it, because there was time to think of nothing but what was under one's hand, it seemed to me that the fight must be going against us, for surely, if things went on so much longer, there would be none of our men left.
Then with a grinding crash, and a recoil that sent our broken men in tumbled heaps, the two ships grappled, and above our gasps and groans we heard the yells and cheers of the boarding parties and their repellers, and presently from among the broken men brought down to us, a rough voice, which still sounded homely to my ears, groaned—
"Oh,—you— —— Johnnies! One more swig o' rum an' I'd go easy," and he groaned dolorously.
I mixed a pannikin of rum and water and placed it to his lips. He drank greedily, looked up at me with wide-staring eyes, gasped, "Well ——! my God!"—and died.
Captain Duchâtel, as I heard afterwards, and as we ourselves might then judge by the results that came down to us, made a gallant fight of it. And that is no less than I would have looked for from him. He was a brave man, and his treatment of myself might have been very much worse than it had been. But he was overmatched, and suffered too, when the time of crisis came, from the lack of that severe discipline which made our English ships of war less comfortable to live in but more effective when the time for fighting came. I had often wondered how all the miscellaneous gear which crowded our 'tween decks would be got rid of in case of a fight, or, if not got rid of, how they could possibly handle their guns properly. I have since been told that what I saw on the Joséphine was common elsewhere in the French ships of war, and often told sorely against them in a fight.
But in such matters Captain Duchâtel only did as others did, and the fault lay with the system rather than with the man. For myself I hold his name in highest gratitude and reverence, for he crowned his good treatment of me by one most kindly and thoughtful act at the supremest moment of his life.
I was soaked in other men's blood from head to foot, and looked and felt like a man in a slaughterhouse. I was drawing into a corner, as decently as I could, the mangled remnants of a man who had died as they laid him down. I straightened my stiff back for a second and stood with my hands on my hips, and at that moment Captain Duchâtel came running down the stairway, with a face like stone and a pistol in his hand.
He glanced at me. I saluted. He knew me through my stains.
"Sauvez-vous, mon brave! C'est fini!" he said quietly through his teeth.
A great thing to do!—a most gracious and noble thing! In his own final extremity to think of another's life as not rightly forfeit to necessity or country.
I understood in a flash, and sped up the decks—with not one second to spare. The upper deck was a shambles. I scrambled up the bulwark straight in front and sprang out as far as I could. Before I struck the water I heard the roar of a mighty explosion behind, and dived to avoid the after effects. When I came up, the sea all round was thrashing under a hail of falling timbers and fragments, but mostly beyond me because I was so close in to the ship. I took one big breath and sank again, and then a mighty swirling grip, which felt like death itself, laid hold on me and dragged me down and down till I looked to come up no more.
It let me go at last, and I fought my way up through fathomless heights of rushing green waters, with the very last ounce that was in me, and lay spent on my back with bursting head and breaking heart, staring straight up into a great cloud of smoke which uncoiled itself slowly like a mighty plume and let the blue sky show through in patches.
After the thunder of the guns, and that awful final crash, everything seemed strangely still. The water lapped in my ears, but I felt it rather than heard. Without lifting my head I could see, not far away, the ship we had fought, gaunt, stark, the ruins of the masterful craft that had raced so boldly for us two hours before. Her rigging was a vast tangle of loose ropes and broken spars, and some of her drooping sails were smouldering. Her trim black-and-white sides were shattered and scorched and blackened. It looked as though she had sheered off just a moment before the explosion, and so had missed the full force of it, but still had suffered terribly. Some of her lower sails still stood, and her crew were busily at work cutting loose the raffle and beating out the flames. But damaged as their own ship was, they still had thought for possible survivors of their enemy, and two boats dropped into the water as I looked, and came picking their way through the floating wreckage, with kneeling men in the bows examining everything they saw.
They promptly lifted me in, and from their lips I saw that they spoke to me. But I was encased in silence and could not hear a sound.
I had long since made up my mind that if we were captured I would take my chance as prisoner of war rather than risk being shot as a renegade or pressed into the King's service. For it seemed to me that the chances of being shot were considerable, since none would credit my story that I had been five months aboard a French warship except of my own free will. And as to the King's forced service, it was hated by all, and my own needs claimed my first endeavours.
So I answered them in French, in a voice that thundered in my head, that the explosion had deafened me and I could not hear a word they said. They understood and nodded cheerfully, and went on with their search.
Out of our whole ship's company six only were saved, and not one of them officers.
In the first moments of safety the lack of hearing had seemed to me of small account, compared with the fact that I was still alive. But, as we turned and made for the ship, the strange sensation of hearing only through the feelings of the body grew upon me; the thought of perpetual silence began to appal me. I could feel the sound of the oars in the rowlocks, and the dash of the waves against the boat, but though I could see men's lips moving it was all no more to me than dumb show.
They were busily cleaning the ship when we came aboard, but I could see what a great fight the Joséphine had made of it. A long row of dead lay waiting decent burial, and every second man one saw was damaged in one way or another.
My companions were all more or less dazed, and probably deafened like myself. An officer questioned them, but apparently with small success. He turned to me, and I told him I could hear nothing because of the explosion, but I gave him all particulars as to the Joséphine,—captain's name, number of men and guns, and whence we came, and that was what he wanted.
In the official report the saving of six out of a crew of over three hundred was, I suppose, not considered worth mentioning. The Joséphine, was reported sunk with all on board, and that, as it turned out, was not without its concern for me.