Fighting—they were fighting in Aramon! Deventer's father would be in the thick of it. We looked and longed, but the way was closed. What could it be?
Deventer knew that there were continually troubles between the operatives and the "masters," or rather the representatives of the masters of whom his father was the chief.
The great Compagnie d'Armes de Guerre Aramoise was not distinguished for generosity. The men were well lodged but poorly paid. In these war times they had been over-driven. So many hundreds of rifles to turn out daily—field artillery, too, and a new department to be set up for the manufacture of mitrailleuses.
Outside, Dennis Deventer said little about the politics of the works, nothing at all to his son Hugh.
We of the lycée knew that France was already fairly evenly divided between true Republicans and those others who looked upon Gambetta's republic as a step to a monarchy or even the restoration of the Napoleons. The sons of functionaries mostly held the latter opinion. The scions of the aristocratic families of the neighbourhood, the old Whites of the Midi, prayed for the Bourbon flag and the coming of Henry V to his own again.
So when we heard the ripple of musketry fire and the sullen boom of the artillery, Deventer and I supposed that a mutiny of sorts had broken out at the works, or that news had come from Paris of some sudden change of government.
We were not far from the mark. There had been news from Paris and a mutiny had broken out. At any rate, they were fighting over in Aramon, and we must find out what it was all about.
For the moment this was impossible for us. The cliff was too sheer on the side of our recreation ground. There were over many eyes upon us. We must wait for the night, and in the meantime Deventer could only sniff the battle from afar, and hold in the desire to set off and help his father.
"The Dad doesn't want me," he said. "Of course, I know that. He would most likely tan me well for breaking bounds, but I can't bear being cooped up here doing silly mathematics when over yonder——But listen to them!"
A patter of what might have been heavy rain on a tin roof came faintly to our ears. A little white cloud hung over the statue in the market square, and presently flung down devilish fingers earthward. We did not then know the signs of the explosion of shrapnel.