Sir Isumbras at the Ford

by D. K. Broster

(2)

La Vireville opened his eyes. It was day again, bright sunlight. The Marie-François was bounding forward before a spanking breeze. For a second or two La Vireville could not remember why he was there—hardly, indeed, who he was. Then he looked up instinctively at the yard. It was there, unharmed, at the top of the brown, swelling sail. He himself was half lying, half sitting on the seat that ran round the gunwale, and everything was as before the helmsman at the tiller——

The helmsman!

"My God!" said La Vireville aloud. The fisherman was indeed sitting in the sternsheets, his arm over the tiller; but he was sitting in a heap, and his face was upturned to the sky. Under the tiller was a red pool shifting with the motion of the boat. The Chouan stared at him horror-struck. "My God!" he said again. "He's been hit. . . . Anne, Anne, where are you?"

Only then did he become aware of something clutching tightly one of his legs, and, looking down, saw the child clinging there, his face hidden. The émigré moved to take him in his arms, and was instantly conscious that he was very dizzy and that there was blood on the breast of his own coat. "Ciel! did they get me too?" he wondered, and putting up a hand to his head withdrew it with a reddened palm. How long ago did it all happen? There was the coast, but no guardhouse. It must be out of sight now behind the headland. The wind had taken them on, the dead hand had steered them—if indeed François were dead? He must see to him first.

"Anne—my little pigeon, my comrade, it is all right," he said, stooping to him. At the sound of his voice the child lifted his head, took one look at him, and screamed. La Vireville then realised that there must be blood down his face, and, pulling out his handkerchief, did his best to remove it. Afterwards he twisted the handkerchief hurriedly round his head, in which, so far as he knew, there might be a bullet, though he inclined to think that it was a ball ricochetting off the mast which had given him a glancing blow. Otherwise he would hardly be alive to speculate about it. Not that there was any time just then for speculation. . . . Anne-Hilarion suffered himself to be lifted on to his friend's knee, and, shuddering convulsively, hid his face once more in his breast. La Vireville comforted him as well as he could, trying hastily to dissipate the terror which seemed to have frozen him, for he could not devote much time to consolation now, when Francois might be bleeding to death. So he soon lifted the little boy off his knee, and put him down facing the bows, telling him not to look round; and Anne, sobbing now as if his heart would break, leant his head on the gunwale, and so remained.

But François was quite dead. He had fallen back and died instantly, so the Chouan judged, shot, probably, through the heart. It was for this, thought La Vireville, that he had dragged him from his wife. . . . He pulled the body with difficulty away from the tiller, laid it on the ballast, spread over it a small spare mizen, and sat down at the helm to think. But he found himself looking rather hopelessly at the mess of blood below the tiller; something must be done to it, for the sake of the little boy who had been through so much. He found a rag under the seat, and with this converted the pool into a smear, and then perceived that, still bleeding himself from the head, he was leaving wherever he moved a further series of bright splashes. "I must stop that," he thought, and took stronger measures with a piece of sailcloth hacked off the mizen.

But all the while he was aware of strange momentary gaps in consciousness, though his brain was clear enough. At any cost, he must not lose his senses again—or if he must, let it at least be on land. Only an extraordinary coincidence had saved the Marie-François from being blown on to the rocks or out to sea. Anne was still sobbing; the time to comfort him was not yet come. The pressing need was to make a decision while he yet could. Fortunately he knew his whereabouts exactly. . . . After a few moments' thought he made the decision, altered the boat's course a trifle, and, sitting there steering with the dead fisherman at his feet, began gently to talk to Anne at the other end of the boat.

And so, presently, the sun shining, the waves slapping her sides, and the lug-sail wide with the following wind, the Marie-François began to make for the cliffs, just where a spit of rock ran out at their feet and they sloped to a little cove. Here there was only a lazy swell that stirred the long seaweed, for it was half-tide.

"We are going ashore here, child," said La Vireville, letting down the sail. "You will not see this boat again." For he meant to sink her if it could be done; she was too clear an indication of their whereabouts, and here, so near his own command, he would have small difficulty in getting another boat for Jersey, and men to sail her, too, more capable of the task than he felt at present.