CHAPTER XXXIV
THE PASSING OF KELLER BEY
We were hard put to it before we got the madman in, and then it was worse than ever. For he, our master, the bravest man that I ever saw or think to see, sat down beside his friend and wept like a child. He did not even look at us when we took up Allerdyce and buried him in a long trench with the others who had fallen—five in all, a heavy loss for us who were so few.
"I never want to see Greenock again!" wailed Jack Jaikes, "we were that pack, Allerdyce and me——"
"Go and fetch your father, Rhoda Polly," said I, "this will never do. It would be no use to telegraph. He would never believe the like of Jack Jaikes."
"May God grant he can come!" said Rhoda Polly, and darted off. I went into the outhouse where Keller Bey lay. Harold Wilson was bending over him, a steel probe in his hand. He stood up as I came in, looking narrowly at the point.
"I think we shall pull him through, but so long as we have that young lady"—he pointed at Alida, who was exhausting herself in a long outburst of Oriental sorrow—"I fear we can do nothing radical."
"Wait till Rhoda Polly comes back," I said, "she will get her friend away."
"I do not think so," he said, "she has been trying for some time."
"Could he be moved?"
"Far?" queried the doctor.
"Well, across the river in a boat, and up the hill to my father's house."
Wilson winced. "That is rather a responsibility," he said dubiously; "still, the man is unconscious and will probably remain so for many hours. It certainly would be a good thing if we could be rid of him and of that young woman—though in ordinary circumstances we should not be in such a hurry to send her off."
He grinned pleasantly, and asked how I proposed to set about the business. I told him it would be easy to get Keller Bey down to the nursery gardens by the waterside. Here I would rout out my friend the patron Arcadius, who would do as much for three or four of his gardeners—Italians all, and not touched with local politics. My boat was there, and the gardener lads would carry the stretcher up the hill. They did harder tasks every day of their lives.
"Well, but you see I can't leave all these—where's your doctor?"
I told him I could bring down the resident from the college hospital.
"Oh, I know him, Vallier, a very decent fellow for an interne. He'll do. Well, off with you. I will give you a note for him."
"We must wait till we get this stopped." I pointed to Jack Jaikes. "You can't do anything I suppose?"
He shook his head. "No, it needs moral authority for that. He would care as little for me as for you—less perhaps. But here comes Mr. Deventer!"
"Thank God!" I gasped.
"Jaikes," commanded Dennis Deventer, "bring the guns forward."
Jack Jaikes staggered to his feet and looked irresolutely about him. Was he going to obey? Did he even understand? For a moment it seemed doubtful. But whether his mind grasped the situation or not he answered the voice of Dennis Deventer.
"What guns, sir?"
"Allerdyce's, Brown's, and your own!" said Dennis firmly. "Take command. Forward with them into the breach," and the machine guns moved forward, the remnant of their crews being reinforced by men from other posts.
"Hold yourself ready there, Jack Jaikes," said Dennis, "this is your business. So far you have done well. We had to fight hard all along our wall, but you have beaten us!"
"But you scourged them too?" demanded Jack Jaikes, lowering and truculent.
Dennis drew a sigh of relief. His lieutenant was himself again.
"Yes, Jack Jaikes, we scourged them!"
For answer Jack Jaikes swept his index finger round the half-circle of the Cours of Aramon, dotted with black bodies lying still.
"It's a pity ye can't see them all," he said, "they are lying in heaps up in the corner yonder, where we cut the scaling ladders from beneath them!"
* * * * *
Though our gallant little Dr. Wilson permitted the removal of Keller Bey, the task before me was one to tax me to the utmost. I think I should have given it up and let Keller Bey lie, but for Rhoda Polly. She came out from a long consultation with Alida, and at once took charge of the situation, much as her father might have done.
I don't know in the least what the girls said to one another, or what reason Alida gave Rhoda Polly for her presence in Aramon or for her dislike of me, but whatever these might have been, they must at least have been sufficient.
As I say, Rhoda Polly took hold. She commandeered an improvised carrying stretcher, which had been prepared at the orchard end of the Château policies. She prevailed on her father to lend her a carrying party as far as the river.
The thought of letting any fraction of his few defenders go outside even for such a purpose made Dennis Deventer frown.
"It will not take ten poor minutes," pleaded Rhoda Polly. "I will see that they get safe back. Let me, Dennis!"
It was not often that she called him by his Christian name save in the heat of wordy strife, and perhaps the very unexpectedness of it touched him.
"Have it your own way then, but be quick—don't forget I am risking the whole defence. I do not see in the least why Wilson could not have attended to him here."
She stepped up and whispered in his ear. He looked first doubtful, then incredulous, and a smile flickered a moment on his face.
"Ah, so!" he exclaimed, "I did not know you were so fanciful, my lady."
But he made no further objection, and we lifted up Keller Bey and put him in the stretcher, where he lay without speech or knowledge. Wilson tried his pulse and listened to his respiration.
"Get him away," he commanded, "the quicker the better!"
Rhoda Polly, Hugh and I helped the men over the wall with him, and held the brancard in place till they could get over to our assistance. We did not try to go straight to the landing place through the bull ring, but instead cast a wide circuit about the town, and finally came out upon the little house of gardener Arcadius buried among its trees.
Him I awakened with care, first a hail of pebbles on his window panes, followed the scratching teeth of a garden rake to indicate a friend, and lastly my own voice calling softly his name. He looked sleepily out, for he cared nothing about the town and its ongoings, if the early blossoms were not frosted and his young trees were not eaten by predatory goats.
He made me a sign that he would be down immediately, and he was buckling an equatorial waistbelt even as he opened the door.
He started back at the sight of the brancard. "What! A dead man?"
I explained the desperate need of Keller Bey and his daughter—how they must cross the river and how we counted on him to give us porters. For the boat Rhoda Polly and I would be sufficient, but for the carrying of the stretcher up the hill we had need of four stout fellows.
"I have my Italians," he said, "that is, if none of them have decamped; I locked them in, but the lads from the Peninsula are very handy with a crooked nail."
As we went, Arcadius, lurching in front like a huge sea-lion doing tricks, waved a lantern and spoke of the prospects of his garden. The hard winter had done no harm. It had broken the clods and killed the grubs. The war, the Commune, the black terror of Aramon did not exist for Arcadius. Barrès would not come to expropriate his cauliflowers and early potatoes. He asked no questions about Keller Bey and genially cut short any offer of explanation. His business was the soil, the fruit trees, planting and transplanting, and the sale of young vegetables. Beyond these he desired to know nothing.
His four Italians were there, big, good-looking lads from the north, who found gardening more to their taste than making roads or piling up railway embankments. Arcadius addressed them in a kind of lingua franca which included much gesticulation and even foot-stamping.
The men appeared to understand, and I put in a few words as to remuneration in their own tongue. For the son of the historian of Italian Art had, of course, been bred to the language. They started and turned upon me eager eyes, and then broke into a torrent of Tuscan which took me instantly to the scented bean-fields and beautiful hills about Siena. Of course they would be proud to carry my friend up the hill. I was the son of the Wise Man of the Many Books. I had been with Garibaldi. Ah, then, that said all. One had a brother who had died following the Little Father. Another had even been told to get out of the way by hasty Menotti. He laughed at the oath which accompanied the command. Of course they were all ready. They could find the boat. It was quite safe. They knew where. They had emptied it once when a squall had overturned it, so that it lay on its side facing the rain.
So with Hugh, Rhoda Polly, one of the Tuscans and myself at the oars we were soon letting ourselves slip away from the shore on which stood Arcadius and his lantern, urging us to bring the lads safe back, because there was a big job with the sweet peas on the morrow.
We went slantingly, not fighting the current too hard, but gliding easily, and avoiding the shallows where we could hear the current roar over the sand and pebbles.
Presently we grounded in the shadow of woods. I knew the place well. The path led almost directly up past Rameau's hut to the little door of the Lycée St. André. We could not have fallen better. We would escape the town altogether, and along a clairière or open vista of cleared forest land we could easily gain the garden gate of Gobelet.
Keller Bey lay still, the wound on his head keeping him in a state of unconsciousness, which was very helpful to our project. The bullet had glanced from the bone and was now imbedded in the muscles of the neck.
During the transit Alida clove to Rhoda Polly when she could, and when she could not (because of that young person's surprising activity), she fell back on Hugh Deventer. Not once did she look at me, and if I approached she would slip away to the other side.
The four Italians lifted the stretcher and began the ascent. Morn was just beginning to break, so there was not much time. The Tuscans marched to a kind of grunting chorus, as if they were counting numbers slowly. They arranged their own work and rested when they had enough. Once the cleared alley-way of the forest was reached the work became easy. Now the march was on the level. We found the garden gate locked on the inside, but Hugh gave me a hoist up, and in a moment I had it open.
My father, ever a light sleeper, was easily awakened, indeed his student's lamp still burned in his room, and he took it up when he went to warn Linn. She came out sternly composed, listened silently to my report of what Dr. Wilson had said, and what still remained to be done. Then she nodded, still without words, and with a decided air she moved towards their bedroom.
At first sight of Linn, Alida had sprung forward and caught her foster-mother in her arms. Linn gently kissed her, but immediately released herself, that she might be able to give all her attention to her husband.
The leave-takings were of the scantiest. The Italians were on fire to be off before the morning broke. I repeated the directions about the interne Vallier up at the hospital to my father. Then we struck riverward through the pines, racing the sun. Rhoda Polly arrived far in front, and in a few minutes we were on the water again.
It was not till we landed on the little greensward above the backwater where I hid the boat that we asked one another, "Where is Hugh?"
As we did so the sun rose and lighted up the world and all its problems with the terrible clarity of morn, and by it we saw clearly that Hugh Deventer had stayed behind.
Rhoda Polly and I looked at one another till we could look no longer, and then, in spite of the danger, we burst into a peal of the gayest laughter.