To Serve a Queen

by Josephine Bell

  The order came to retreat to the ships in the bay and re-embark. Rumour went round they were to seek a greater prize than Cadiz, the Spanish treasure fleet, sailing home from the new lands at the end of their summer voyage.

  To Francis, five miles from the city they were sent to capture or destroy, the order came as a bitter humiliation. The sufferings of the voyage were wasted. The long weeks of waiting beforehand an utter loss. He lay down with his men in the open that night, after the messenger had galloped off to find others of the many dissipated groups of that ill-constituted army. He vowed to the brilliant stars that he would go now to Holland, discover his uncle and join a war worth fighting.

  In the morning Francis found himself alone, his sword and pistol gone: quite alone, unarmed, and knowing himself a hated intruder in the land.

  Chapter Eight

  The sun had not yet risen, a light mist hid the far distance, but it was not difficult to decide from the rapidly changing light where the warm beams would soon strike through. That and the unnatural stillness of a place that had made sleep difficult in the early hours of the night on account of troops moving, men cursing, shouting, even singing in the retreat along the bay, brought Francis to his feet in anger and some fear.

  He and his troop had been ordered to wait until dawn in case of any rear action developing from the fortress of Cadiz. None had come, but sleep had betrayed him. His men had not waited. Robbers and vagabonds, they had stolen his arms without waking him. He blamed his youth bitterly and with shame. Had the men pitied him, that they spared his life, or had they deliberately left him to find a crueller death at the hands of the Spaniards? A weapon, any weapon, was his first thought and his chief need.

  A brief search discovered the tracks of many feet, not well marked in the dry soil, many naked from their curved shape, the toes all pointing in one direction. Francis followed them, noting also various discarded rags and tatters of clothing, ends of rope, wheel-marks where guns mounted on carts had been hauled along. He was moving in the right direction.

  When the mist cleared completely he made for a group of trees clothing a little hill that the marching troops had avoided. Keeping hidden, he gained enough height to look about him for houses, farms, people concerned with them. All was deserted, not a soul to be seen, not an animal moving anywhere. Only in the far distance a glittering line that he took to be water, with hills beyond.

  That was his goal and there was no time to lose before he reached it. For he had no means of telling when the ships would sail. Already the Spanish could have organised some form of counter-action by sea which the English warships could probably withstand. But would the cowardly merchant-men stay and fight? He suspected they would not. In any case he had been told by many, including his uncle, that stragglers could not look for help from any quarter. To his infinite shame and indignation he must count himself one of these. Revenge for the spilt wine? Very likely. Again he gave bitter thanks to God they had not slit his throat before they crept away. If only he had joined the early retreat. But he had tried to go forward until it became impossible. His early reluctance to follow the mob had been his undoing. From the silence about him on his shaded hill-top, no gunfire, no smoke of burning houses, no cries of battle, he guessed rightly that the retreat had been as swift as the attack had been laggardly.

  Still he hesitated, fearing the heat of the sun, fearing he would be seen moving, had already been seen and might even now have hidden men closing in upon him.

  He was startled as his thoughts went this way and that by the flat, discordant note of sheep bells or rather goat bells, he saw, as the leader of a small herd came round the corner of a stone against which he was sitting among the stunted trees. Others followed and all stopped, turned their heads and bleated their uncertainty. They did not run as sheep might have done on an impulse or driven by a guardian dog. But they were not wandering, Francis decided at once. Dog or no dog, they were being driven. He rose silently to his feet, turning as his head came above the stone to see who or what this might be.

  No dog. A girl with tangled black hair hanging about a dark brown face, so dark, with aquiline features and black eyes, the Moorish blood was evident.

  She started when she saw Francis rise in front of her, but she did not cry out or run. Just stood there staring at him, sweeping about her with a long switch she carried, more intent upon her animals, it seemed, than upon the stranger.

  Francis spoke to her in the very few words of Spanish he had picked up since he landed. She made no response whatever, but when he began to mime his plight, pointing to his mouth for food, for drink, pointing to the distant bay and indicating that was where he must go, she came forward a few steps and unslung a bag she carried over her shoulder. She had a small skin of wine, some bread, some olives: all her day’s provisions. Which she now offered, humbly, freely, without a smile, but still staring at him from her deep-set black eyes.

  Francis took the little sack cautiously, helped himself to a small piece of the loaf, some olives and a fragment of goat’s-milk cheese he found in the bottom of the bag. He drank from the wine-skin, but carefully to leave the girl a full share. Then he handed back the sack.

  When he sat down to eat, controlling his hunger with an effort, taking small fragments and chewing slowly, the girl moved to sit beside him, while the goats went slowly away beyond the trees and down the other side of the hill. She had still not spoken a word, even when he found an expression for thanks and repeated it several times as he ate. But when he had finished she gave him a slow smile that changed her face altogether, so that he felt suddenly he had made a friend even in this unlikely, dangerous spot.

  Daring, because he was still afraid but unwilling to acknowledge it, Francis put an arm round the girl’s waist and when she made no move to repulse him, bent his head to her mouth. Even then she did not move away, but he felt her breathe faster and her body lift to him. If her response was more immediate than that of the girls in Kilessie and St Andrews, where his first conquests had been made, he did not regard it as surprising. He had been brought up to consider peasant girls and the like as fair game for gentlemen. In that belief and because he had been lonely and deprived of any kind of love for so long, he took her ardently and was filled with ecstatic delight that his instant passion met with such instant wild acceptance. Only as he withdrew he felt a long hard object against him and when he put a hand to it found the girl’s hand darting to forestall him.

  He snatched away the knife that had lain strapped to the nether side of her thigh, scrambled to his feet and leaped away as both her hands reached for his eyes.

  Flinging the knife behind him he fought with his bare hands, tore a strip from her disordered skirt to bind her hands and when she screamed in a high, harsh voice tore another strip to push into her mouth and bind about her head.

  She lay still then, yielding as he tied her ankles. He lifted her and put her down farther in among the trees, fetched her provisions and laid them beside her. Then he took up the knife, stowed it away at his own waist and, making her a solemn formal bow, moved off down the hill until he was out of her sight, then ran to the nearest rocks for shelter and when he had breath to make another dash, ran on again.

  It was of necessity a blind course he took, for he had no idea what lay between him and that distant line of blue water, mostly hidden now as he moved. But he had no choice. At night he would be hidden, but he would be even more blind as to direction. Also he would certainly miss the ships, now most likely embarking the men.

  But his immediate peril seemed to be over. Probably the girl’s single shriek had not been heard. Only when the goats, grazing without restraint, wandered towards home or when the girl failed to appear there, would a search be made. He comforted himself with the thought that he had not tied her up very firmly, not savagely at all, considering what he now knew of her intention, her wicked intention.

  And then he laughed to himself for this softness, so unsoldierly. She would have killed him w
ith that precious knife he now held. All her behaviour was explained: to lull him into confidence, perhaps sleep and then despatch him. Later he was to learn from his fellow-officers that fear must have had a part in her behavioiur. He was so tall and strong she had not realised his youth and inexperience. Nor that he was unarmed. She must have feared he would kill her outright, worse still, place her bound in the sun, eyelids cut off, to die of exposure, as the Moors of North Africa treated their captive enemies.

  He had no need of compunction: the courtesy he had shown her in his farewell gesture was a mode of thanks for her favours, the bread and the wine. Bread and wine and a symbol, or rather a mockery, of love.

  Waiting to make his next move towards the bay, he did not repent of this blasphemy, for he knew his present recovery of strength and spirits was the girl’s doing, however much she planned the opposite. So he got up again and sprang forward and in spite of his fear of wandering in the wrong direction, he made good progress during the night and in the morning again picked up the tracks of the retreating army.

  Again there was a light mist before dawn, but with his direction drawn before him in the dust at his feet he felt no need for overmuch caution. He strode forward, listening all the time for voices speaking in a tongue he understood or else for flapping sails and creaking yards.

  Voices came, suddenly, without warning; harsh Spanish voices and a barking dog, appearing at full tilt from the mist. Francis had the knife out ready for it, but at the last second it swerved aside, disappeared and in another second a shrill squeal proved the dog’s attack was aimed at a familiar quarry and successfully.

  Francis swerved too, praying the human members of the rat hunt would follow the dog’s bark. He saw a blackish building rear out of the mist with a darker hole in the side into which he plunged. The air inside was warm, dank and foetid. But there was a softness under his feet, straw, he thought. He dropped on to it to crawl forward.

  A hand struck his shoulder and a voice whispered unmistakable London English, ‘Not a word, young master, or you’re a dead man!’

  Under the pressure of the hand, Francis crawled further into the covering straw which seemed to be piled up in front of him against the wall of the barn. He stopped when the pressure eased, turned-over and as his eyes became accustomed to the gloom, saw that his companion was a large man, young but certainly older than himself, with a rough black beard that half-covered his face. His breeches were still serviceable; his boots hung together, but with holes at the toe; the upper part of his body was bare. He had a knife at his belt, but, like Francis, no other weapon.

  For a long time the two of them lay side by side under the straw, without speaking or moving. Francis, who had walked all night, dozed most of the time. In brief waking moments he tried to rouse himself to action, because he dreamed the ships were all sailing away having abandoned him and he wanted to run to Fort Puntal and join the English garrison that was in charge there still.

  When he awoke finally he saw that the door of the barn was a deep blue oblong in which the silhouette of a half-naked man was leaning forward and looking about him. As quietly as he could, Francis disentangled himself from the straw and crept out also.

  ‘Gone?’ he whispered, meaning the man he had avoided in the mist that morning.

  ‘And others. Time we was gone, too.’

  ‘Which way? Where make ye for?’

  ‘Home,’ the man breathed with a grunt that was half a laugh. ‘Where else?’

  They looked at each other then, for the first time.

  ‘I am Francis Leslie,’ the boy said. ‘Ensign in the Duke of Buckingham’s force, from Plymouth in a merchantman, Forager, Master, Captain Trodd.’

  ‘A Scot, I think, sir, if you’ll pardon me. I’m William Stubble of Cheapside, London, that ran away from my apprenticeship to join the King’s army some six year back.’

  ‘From which we be now parted, but must make haste to rejoin.’

  ‘Aye, we must so or leave our bones in this heathen land.’

  ‘Which way?’

  ‘Not that,’ William said, pointing to the left. ‘’Tis a village and I nearly walked into it, not an hour before your honour followed.’

  ‘So you were only just ahead of me. I guess there may be many of us, all groping in the same direction. So we’ll go right, But warily. And give notice who we are if we meet our fellows. They must not take us for the enemy.’

  ‘We’ll take ’em first, eh?’ Stubble gave his grunting laugh again and so they set forth, each more comfortable than before for the other’s presence.

  Seeing there were now two of them and both armed after a fashion, Francis decided to leave the well-marked track of the retreating army for a path a mile or so away but parallel.

  ‘For you see, Will,’ he explained, ‘we now have our destination clear before us, though the shore be still five miles away. Our main want is less a compass than a meal. Food and drink we must find and how do you suppose we may find it in the wake of this locust swarm, cur fellow-troops?’

  ‘You have the truth of it there, sir,’ Will answered. ‘Would you I go and search?’

  ‘No, I would not. But we will move seaward. I think the natives will lie hid till they judge our army has passed, so that again many help us.’

  ‘Pray Heaven you may be right, master.’

  Will Stubble had misgivings. He was sharp enough to understand the advantages Francis had suggested, but a childhood spent in the narrow crowded alleys of the City of London had bred in him a healthy cynicism. He had already survived great danger without hurt. He meant to continue in the same way until he was back in England, though he foresaw, having broken the articles of his apprenticeship, even so long ago, his future could not lie in the old ways. He knew he would have to wait upon events. He thought he had found in Francis, though a beardless boy, perhaps five years younger than himself, a leader worth a trial.

  There was very soon a liberal reward for the pair. They saw a small homestead with an orchard standing a little way back on a slope warmed by the full sun. They approached it very warily, until they saw that the door of the low whitewashed house was open and a bundle lay on the threshold. The bundle was made up of two bodies, a man’s and a woman’s, both cold and stiff, many hours dead.

  ‘Slain in the night,’ Francis said, in disgust, pointing to the night clothes both wore.

  He stepped in over the corpses, Will Stubble following. The rooms within had been ransacked, but there was little deliberate destruction.

  ‘They that did it sought food and clothing,’ Will said, turning from a large empty chest. ‘We shall find naught to eat in this accursed place.’

  ‘But look up the hillside,’ Francis answered. ‘We may not have meat but we need not perish of thirst.’

  They gathered their fill of ripe oranges, biting into the first they picked, devouring skin, pith and pips while the juice ran down their chins and up their arms. They pushed the fruit into their breeches’ pockets and Francis into his jacket. They turned to go.

  A child stood ten paces off, looking at them with innocent black eyes. He might have been four years old. He was quite naked, his little body the same warm brown colour as his face. When he saw the two men turn he lifted his arms towards the trees and made an unmistakable request for an orange for himself.

  ‘Holy Christ!’ Francis whispered. ‘His father and mother slain!’

  Will reached to the tree, plucked another fruit and handed it to the child.

  ‘On our way,’ Francis ordered.

  ‘We should not take him with us? He will not die here, alone?’

  ‘I think he came out on orders. Here! In behind this tree. Watch. We can do nothing.’

  They did not have to wait long. The little boy moved off at once, pausing to look round from time to time, but moving always in the same direction. When he went out of sight behind a low stone wall at the edge of the orchard he burst into a high joyful account of his adventure. An answering childish voice h
ushed him. For a moment they saw a girl’s head above the low wall, thrust up and instantly withdrawn.

  ‘We can do naught for them,’ Francis repeated as they went on their way.

  It was evening when they came to the sea, exhausted with walking, hiding, dodging the whole day long in the burning sun under the cloudless white sky. But there were still ships drawn up near the shore, still crowds of small boats plying back and forth to carry men on board. Better still, Francis recognised the broad sturdy hull of Forager and broke into a run to meet a pair of seamen he recognised too, and who recognised him.

  At first they were dubious about taking Stubble out to their ship.

  ‘He is my man,’ Francis said. ‘He has done me great service. Captain Trodd will understand.’

  Seeing that Will had already installed himself among those in the boat and was reserving a seat for his master, the sailors judged it prudent not to attempt to dislodge him. So when they had a full complement on board they rowed off to Forager and Francis found himself welcomed back by the captain with unexpected warmth.

  ‘And Lieutenant Felton?’ Francis asked eagerly. ‘He hath arrived?’

  ‘He is here,’ Captain Trodd said, with a grim note in his voice. ‘You will find him in the officers’ quarters, with the other survivors.’

  ‘I should present Corporal Stubble to him,’ Francis said. ‘You accept him aboard, I take it?’

  ‘Oh aye,’ the captain answered. ‘Tis none of my business how they disentangle their troops.’ He turned away but looked back over his shoulder to say, ‘We sail with the tide, God willing.’

  ‘Corporal’ Stubble, laughing inwardly at his promotion, followed Francis to an interview with Lieutenant Felton and gave an account of himself that was rather more than half true, the lieutenant judged. He was taken into service in the officers’ cabins for the voyage home.