CHAPTER XXXV
A CAPTAIN OF BRIGANDS
The beaten wolves had slunk back to their lairs, but the fierceness oftheir hate may be guessed from the fact that they would neither burytheir dead nor permit us to do it. Thrice was a burying party firedupon, and it was only in the dead of night that Jack Jaikes and Brownsucceeded in cleaning the wide square in front of the main gate of thefactory.
Dennis Deventer had the iron gate new clamped and strengthened. On thesecond night it was swung into place by the aid of an improvised crane,which Dennis made, if not like the Creator "out of nothing," yet out ofthe first things which came handy.
Our messes were now rather smaller. Between the Orchard and the MainGate attacks we had lost so many that the posts had to be strung outwider to cover the long mileage of wall which had to be guarded.
The elated feeling of the earlier siege had departed. But in its placewe were conscious of a kind of proven and almost apathetic courage. Wemight be called upon by any peril, and we knew now that we could do whatshould be required of us.
I lived altogether with the gang now, only occasionally (by Jack Jaikes'permission) running in to take a meal with the Deventers and to sunmyself in the approval of Rhoda Polly. Of course, I saw her often. Shehad taken strongly to Allerdyce's gang, and, I think, cherished a hopethat Jack Jaikes might one day allow her to command it.
But, fond of Rhoda Polly as he was, Jack Jaikes had no idea of theequality of the sexes when it came to a battery of machine guns. So hegave the captaincy to Penman, a tall, thoughtful fellow of a dusky skin,from the south, a good mechanician and a man dependable on alloccasions.
Rhoda Polly sulked a little and confided in me.
I pointed out to her that nothing more delicate than a mitrailleuse hadyet been invented. They jammed. They jibbed. They refused to fire whenthey ought, but let go a shot or two without the least excuse, when theymight place those who served them in the greatest danger. What couldshe, Rhoda Polly, do to remedy these ills? Nothing--whereas Penman hadbeen reared in the factory where they were made, and had long been aforeman "assembler."
"Yes, but," she said, "I could tell him to do all that, and I am surethat I could direct the fighting better. I have been a lot with myfather and I have kept my eyes open."
I told her to take her complaints to Jack Jaikes, but she knew betterthan that. This is how she explained the apparent contempt of the secondin command.
"He has seen us sitting sleeping on the roof, hand in hand, when thesunlight was two hours old, and you will see that neither you nor I willever get farther than we are at present under the consulship of JackJaikes. He considers us in the light of a good joke, all because of thatunhappy rencontre!"
I was not ambitious like Rhoda Polly, and my position as confidentiallieutenant to Jack Jaikes suited me exactly. I do not mean that he everconsulted me, or asked for my opinion on matters of business. But heliked a listener and he loved to thresh out every question immediatelyand to put down the contradictor. I must have been an immense comfort tohim, for I contradicted regularly, with or without conviction, and asregularly allowed myself to be beaten down. That was what I was there_for_!
Dennis Deventer had placed Jack Jaikes over the whole of the Works, asdistinct from the defences of the Chateau--which, as the less defensibleand the more likely to be attacked, he kept in his own hand. Hestrengthened the wall of the orchard with palisades, and establishedposts at either end with a machine gun to sweep its length. In spite ofall, the Old Orchard remained the weak spot in our defences, and thesight of it with the enemy's posts so near put an idea into my head.
I went directly to Dennis Deventer. He was sitting placidly watching the"assembling" of a new machine gun, the parts of which had been all readybefore the stoppage of the Works. He looked on critically, but withoutneeding to put in a word. Penman, Brown, and the rest were far too goodengineers to need even a suggestion. All the same they doubtless knewthemselves to be under the eye of the master.
"Chief," said I, "we took Keller Bey and Alida across the water forsafety, and I saw them into my father's care at Gobelet, where Hughremains as a guard. Now the real weakness of our position here is thepresence in our midst of Mrs. Deventer and your two daughters!"
"Two daughters--I have three!" said he, but I thought somewhatquizzically and as if comprehending very well.
"Oh, I do not include Rhoda Polly," I answered, "she is as good asoldier as any of us, and could be trusted in all circumstances, even ifshe were rushed----"
"Rushed?" he said sharply. "How that? How trusted?" I spoke and I sawhim wince. Then, in a moment, he answered me, "You are quite right--tentimes right. And you mean that the others--could not!"
"I am speaking of what I pray God may never happen, but yet--the oddsagainst us are great. If it were as I suggested--with the other threewomen--that would be your duty!"
He drew in his breath, hissing, between his teeth, like one who feelsthe first sharp incision of the knife. His hands clenched and somethinglike a groan came from the strong man. I pursued my advantage.
"You might not be there, Mr. Deventer--you might be lying as I sawAllerdyce along the top of your gun. So might I--so might anyone youdared delegate."
"God forgive you--you put water into my veins. How could any man'delegate' such a thing!"
"No," said I, "I feel as you do, and for that reason I beg of you to letme escort your wife and daughters to the care of my father."
"And suppose," he said, "that our friends the enemy, finding us a hardnut to crack and probably with little kernel when cracked, should takeit into their heads to cross the bridge and plunder the houses on thehill of St. Andre?"
"I think not, sir," I answered steadily. "There are Government troops inAramon le Vieux. The National Guard there is all against therevolutionists. In the old town the tricolour has never been in theleast danger. The whole department would move upon them if theyattempted such a thing."
"Well argued, my Cicero," said he, "you are your father's son. But theseblack-a-vised rogues of ours defy reasoning. They may do the very thingall wisdom shows that they ought not to do. And a visit to Gobelet onthe hill is one of these temptations which may prove too much for thegaol birds who shelter themselves under the black flag of anarchy. I donot see that the danger would be much lessened, considering the devil'screw with whom we have to deal. A raid across the water, made by night,would be an exploit worthy of them."
So my proposition was for the time rejected, but I did not despair. ForI knew, or thought I knew, that the absence of the women would relieveus who were fighting the lines of the Chateau and Factory from an almostintolerable fear. In this respect I now think I was wrong. For the ideaof the girls and their mother being entrusted to them to defend, madeevery man behind the defences hate the enemy with a deep steady hatred.Each became in his own eyes charged with the care of Liz or Hannah, ofRhoda Polly or their mother, according to where, or in what relation oflife--sweetheart, sister, or mother--their hearts were tenderest.
Outside the situation changed but slowly. The Committee of Public Safetyhad taken possession of the Mairie after Keller Bey had been abandonedby his colleagues--and when with Alida he had come forth to make a lasteffort at conciliation. Except the desperate Chanot, none of the leadersof the Revolt-against-the-Revolt had taken any part in the fighting.Barres, Chardon, even Bonnot had sat and directed operations from thesafe shelter of the Hotel de Ville.
It was not cowardice, the scoundrels were brave enough, as they showedafterwards--but they had reached what seemed a haven of peace, and theshare of the plunder which had been claimed by the "administration"assured them of good restaurant meals and such joyous company as was tobe found in Aramon.
Speaking to Chardon, his lieutenant Chanot treated the whole businesslightly.
"Why should we not take the best of life we can? It may not be forlong," he said, referring to this period. "You people of the Chateau hadtaken toll of our numbers. Well, I do not complain. There was the
moreleft for the rest. We had appropriated, and who had a better right tospend? There was no more cant of liberty and individualism among us, andeach man being a law and a religion to himself, we stole from oneanother when we could. That is, if we found a friend's cash-box in aplace where a hand might grasp it, we thought how much good it would dohim to drink of his own brewing. So we 'individually expropriated' him.That is why Lasalle of St. Gilles was killed by Auroy. Auroy found himmixed up with a roll of bank-notes he had hidden in his mattress. Therehad been a new election for the Quartier St. Marthe, and as nobodythought of voting, we nominated Eusebe le Plan who had lost an arm inthe fighting and would be a long time in hospital. This made the plumsgo still farther round."
"The old 'reds'? Oh, they were in the town mostly, hidden in garrets,passing their time like Troppman in reading 'The Picturesque Magazine'"(here he laughed), "and listening for our footsteps and the grounding ofour rifle-butts before their doors. They thought we wanted them. What inthe devil's name should we want with such feeble, broken, bellowingcattle? They had brought nothing to the office. They had been contentwith their fifteen pence a day. Not one of them had a sou to rub againstanother, and their wives hardly knew where the next day's soup was tocome from. Oh, yes, I know now, that which had I known then, some bloodwould have splashed the garden walls--that Dennis Deventer had his ownfolk among them who distributed money and food. They were his bestworkmen and it was an agreed thing that when all this had blown over andwhen we who had turned them out were all shot or beheaded, he shouldenlist them again, and they would go back in the 'shops' to speak withdeference and sobriety as becomes an inferior to his superior!"
* * * * *
I do not mean that there was any regular truce--rather a kind ofinaction and exhaustion. The first ardours of the political brigands hadbeen cooled by machine gun practice--Napoleon's old prescription of "thewhiff of grapeshot." A good many of this miscellaneous collection ofrascals, especially those who had done well in the earlier work ofincendiarism among the villas along the riverside, tailed off withoutcrying a warning. They made their way, some to Marseilles, where thetroops were just putting down the rule of Gaston Cremieux, some toNarbonne, which was still in the wildest revolt, while others scatteredover the country, committing crimes in lonely places, hiding in theforests by day and tramping by night, till for the most part theymanaged to get themselves out of the country into Germany, Switzerland,or Spain--wherever, indeed, they were least known.
But those who were left behind at Aramon waxed all the more deadly anddesperate because of these desertions. If only they had guessed howsevere our losses had been, they would have attacked with more vigourthan they did, but I think they judged that the "scourging" inflictedupon them by Jack Jaikes had been almost without loss to ourselves.Alas, besides the mound in the Orchard, the double row of graves in thebeaten earth of the courtyard told another tale! I do not think anyoneever passed the spot without lifting his hat to Allerdyce and his troopof gallant men, to whom the noble May days and the starry nights of thelast days of our siege mattered so little.
A Tatter of Scarlet: Adventurous Episodes of the Commune in the Midi 1871 Page 36