To ease his aching arms, Roger risked a blow from the cane to pause for a breather. As he did so, the Sergeant snapped, ‘Keep at it, damn yer, or we’ll all freeze to death afore yer done.’ Then he added as an afterthought, ‘What wouldn’t I give for a good tot of schnapps to warm me up!’
Instead of going on with his digging, Roger stared at him for a moment. He had just remembered that after taking a few gulps from his brandy flask while in the sea he had managed to get it back into his pocket. To the N.C.O. he said, ‘The Coastguards didn’t rob me of my flask and it’s still three-quarters full of cognac. You’ll find it in the left-hand skirt pocket of my travelling coat.’
The Sergeant’s eyes widened eagerly and he exclaimed, ‘Mort de Dieu! Yer may be a pig of an Englishman, but I’ll see to it yer gets a quick, clean death for that.’ Then he turned about and began swiftly to rummage in the coat that Roger had thrown behind him.
The guard holding his musket at the ready was standing a yard away on Roger’s other side. He, too, was feeling the cold and as time had gone on he had ceased to give his whole attention to the prisoner.
Suddenly Roger lifted the spade and slashed sideways at him with it. The edge of the spade caught the man on his right hand, severing two of his fingers. With a scream of agony he dropped his musket. The Sergeant had just found the pocket in Roger’s coat and, bent right over, was pulling the flask out of it. The guard’s scream had hardly rent the air before Roger had turned on his heel, swung the spade high and brought its blade down with all his force on the back of the Sergeant’s neck. The blow almost severed it. From the terrible wound his blood spurted out in a jet over the sand, and he collapsed without uttering a sound.
Without losing an instant, Roger threw aside the spade that had served him so well as a weapon and made a dash for the slope furthest from the other five men. With the sand slithering beneath his boots he scrambled up it. Jumping to their feet, the men ran to their stacked muskets, shouting imprecations and calling on him to halt. In their haste two of them collided, fell and rolled into the trench. The other three grabbed up their firearms and levelled them.
From the moment Roger had thought of his brandy flask and realised that it could be used as a snare by which he might possibly save his life, his wits had come back to him. It had been the apparent hopelessness of his situation that had so clouded his mind from the moment General Desmarets had ordered his execution. The germ of a plan had scarcely formed before he had a clear-cut picture of exactly how he must act. His perfect sense of timing had done the rest and it did not now desert him.
At a glance he had measured the slope and judged that by the time he reached the crest the men would have their weapons in their hands and be ready to fire at him. Up there, against the skyline, and only some twelve yards distant, he would provide a perfect target that they could not fail to hit. Without pausing to look behind him to see if he had judged aright, he flung himself flat.
Three muskets banged in quick succession. Bullets whistled through the air a good three feet above him. He knew that there should be two more, but dared not wait where he lay for more than another few seconds. Picking himself up, he ran on, the hair now prickling on his scalp from the horrid expectation that at any moment one of those other two bullets would smack into his back.
He plunged into a dip, then breasted another slope. A furious shouting broke out behind him, but no bullets either hit him or whined past. From that he could only conclude that the muskets of the two men who had not yet fired could not have been loaded. On reaching the second crest he risked a glance over his shoulder. Three of the soldiers were leaping down the slope twenty yards behind him, the other two were ten yards in the rear, had reached the top of the first mound and were taking aim at him.
Again he flung himself flat. Again the bullets hummed through the air above him. Again he scrambled to his feet and dashed headlong down the slope ahead. But throwing himself down, although for only thirty seconds, had cost him a good part of his lead. The three nearest men had come up to within fifteen feet of him.
Yet as he pounded on he was far from giving up hope. None of the five could reload his musket as he ran. If they halted to do so, by the time they had rammed home the charges and the bullets and primed their weapons they would have to be good marksmen to hit him. As they must know that themselves, he thought it certain that they would put their trust in running him down. But unless there were trained runners among them he felt confident that he could out-distance them; because he had shed his topcoat, whereas they were wearing theirs, and, in addition, they were weighed down by their heavy equipment.
In that he proved right. By the time he had covered a quarter of a mile he had gained a fifty-yard lead on his pursuers. But he had had no choice in the direction he should take and saw that he was heading almost directly for the sea. To continue on his course was to risk that when he reached the beach they would spread out and hem him in against the water. With his previous night’s experience still fresh in mind, he would have thought twice before seeking refuge in the sea even had it been fully dark. As it was still daylight, it would have been completely futile to do so.
His only alternative was to alter direction slightly until, by making a wide curve, he would be running parallel with the shore. That, he feared, might cost him much of his lead, but after covering another two hundred yards another swift look over his shoulder filled him with elation. His pursuers were obviously tiring. Two of them had dropped out and the others, staggering now as they ran, were still a good hundred yards behind him.
By then he had come to the end of the dunes, where they sloped down to a wide stretch of foreshore. The sand was firmer there so he took to it and, although he was tiring, it enabled him to increase his pace slightly. Some distance ahead of him, a little way inland, he could now see a farmhouse among a group of stunted trees. The sight of them lent him new strength and determination. If only he could reach them well ahead of his pursuers he might find a place to hide there until darkness had fallen.
For some time past the soldiers had ceased their shouting, but now it suddenly broke out again. Looking back to see the reason, Roger gave a gasp of dismay. A quarter of a mile off, trotting along the shore behind him, were three horsemen, and they were in uniform. The men in pursuit of him were pointing at him and yelling to them:
‘A spy! An English spy! He has escaped from us! He killed our Sergeant and got away! After him! After him! Ride him down!’
Even as Roger grasped this new peril that had come upon him like a bolt from the blue, the three riders put spurs to their horses and urged them into a gallop. The only thing he could do was to turn away from the shore and head up into the sand-dunes, in the wild hope that the loose sand and sudden dips there would make it more difficult for the horsemen to come up with him.
By this time he had run over a mile and most of it had been across soft sand that made the going very heavy. His face was dripping with sweat, his leg muscles were aching abominably and he was catching his breath in sobbing gasps.
To be captured and dragged back to death when he had escaped it four times within the past twenty-four hours, and only a moment since had been in a fair way to regain his freedom, seemed so utterly unjust a fate that he rebelled against it. There was nowhere he could hide, he knew that he had no possible hope of out-distancing the horsemen; yet he staggered on, bent almost double as he charged the upward slopes and slithering wildly as he careered down into the valleys beyond them.
The chase lasted barely four minutes. The murmur of the horses’ hooves behind him increased to a loud thudding. His foot caught in a tuft of coarse sand-grass. He stumbled and fell. As he rolled over and picked himself up he found himself facing the three horsemen. Their leader was an infantry officer wearing a shako, the two others were Hussars, with straps wound round their tall busbies. All three had drawn their swords and were waving them on high. It was evident that they meant to give no quarter to an English spy who had just ki
lled a Sergeant and escaped.
In spite of the inescapable destruction with which Roger was now confronted, the instinct to cheat death until the very last moment was still strong in him. To turn and run further was utterly useless. Before he had taken another dozen paces they would cut him down from behind. But he could fling himself flat between two of the onrushing horses in the slender chance that he would escape both their hooves and the swords of their riders. At the pace they were going, if they overshot him that would give him a few more minutes before they could wheel and come at him again. What he would do then, or what could possibly occur to save him during those few fleeting minutes, he had not, as yet, the faintest idea.
Then, as the living torrent of snorting horses and yelling men came rushing upon him, he realised that his idea of possibly escaping them by throwing himself to the ground had been no better than a pipe-dream. Into his mind there flashed a memory of a military gymkhana which he had once attended. It had been on a sunny afternoon with officers in colourful uniforms and pretty women in sprigged muslin crowding the enclosure. On the programme one contest had been for mounted men to ride full tilt at a row of turnips stuck on low pegs. Leaning low from their saddles, they had picked the turnips up, one after another, on the points of their swords. If he did throw himself flat it would only be to have a sword thrust through his back.
The three horsemen were now within ten feet of him, the officer in the centre and leading by half a length. With distended eyes, Roger stared at him. He was a small man, neat and elegant, but with a fierce expression compressing his lips and thrusting out his determined jaw. Suddenly, Roger’s mouth opened and he yelled:
‘Lannes! Lannes! Do you not know me? I am Rojé Breuc!’
From frowning slits, due to concentration, the officer’s eyes sprang wide open. His sword was already descending to cleave Roger’s skull. With a flick of the wrist, of which only an expert swordsman could have been capable, he diverted the stroke, so that the blade curved away into a horizontal position and became extended at a right-angle to his body. Thus it not only passed a good six inches above Roger’s head but prevented the Hussar on his other side from getting a clear cut at him.
The three horses thundered by. Roger, almost hysterical with relief, remained where he stood, still choking for breath. In the next valley the horsemen checked their foam-flecked mounts, brought them round in a wide semi-circle and came cantering back to him.
‘Lannes!’ Roger croaked, lurching forward and grasping the bridle of the officer’s horse to support himself. ‘Lannes, by all that’s holy! Never … never was the arrival of any friend more opportune.’
‘Ten thousand devils!’ exclaimed the officer. ‘When you shouted I could scarce believe it. But you are … you are Colonel Breuc.’
Roger gave an unsteady laugh. ‘Indeed I am; but I’ve been within an ace of losing my life because till now I could not prove it.’
‘Sang Dieu! What luck then that I chanced to be riding by. Those infantrymen who were giving chase to you yelled to me that you were an English spy and had just got away after killing their Sergeant. It sounds like Beelzebub’s own mess that you’ve been in.’
‘It was; and I did kill the brute. Had I not I’d be dead myself by now. As for my being an Englishman, a pack of fools jumped to the conclusion that I was one simply because I was caught last night landing clandestinely on the coast below Boulogne. But I’ll give you full details later of the ghastly time I have been through.’
At that moment, still puffing from their exertions, three soldiers of the firing squad appeared over a nearby ridge. With bayonets levelled and shouts of triumph at the sight of Roger, they ran down the slope to surround him.
‘Halt!’ snapped out Lannes. ‘Put up your weapons. Ground arms!’
As Lannes was a Brigadier-General, they pulled up and stood to attention after only a moment of surprised hesitation. Then one of them panted out:
‘Thanks, Citizen Brigadier, for … for ’elpin’ us recapture our prisoner. Us is a firing party an’ we was on the point of shootin’ ’im, but ’e got away.’
‘I know it, and it is as well for your Commander that he did.’
‘But … but …’ stammered the man, ‘ ’e’s an English spy, an’ ’e’s just killed our Sergeant.’
‘He is nothing of the kind. He is a Colonel in the French Army and well known to me. You will return to camp and tell the officer who gave you your orders of the absurd mistake that has been made. Meanwhile, I will be responsible for Colonel Breuc.’
An older, truculent-looking man put in, ‘We can’t do that. ’E’s our prisoner, an’ ’oever you says ’e is, ’e killed our Sergeant. Near sliced ‘is ’ead off wiv the bloody spade.’
‘Silence!’ roared Lannes, who was an impatient man. ‘Another word from you and I’ll have you given a month’s pack-drill for having allowed your prisoner to escape.’
Roger was standing within two feet of his rescuer. Looking up at him, he said in a low voice, ‘These men were acting under orders. Would it not be best if we all went to the camp and got the business straightened out properly?’
The Brigadier-General pulled a big turnip watch from his fob pocket, glanced at it and said, ‘I must not be late in getting back to Calais to make my report, but I can spare about twenty minutes. Very well, then. We’ll do as you suggest.’
Turning to one of the Hussars, he ordered the man to dismount so that Roger could have his horse, then told him to march back with the others. Roger was hardly in the saddle before Lannes set off at a canter, and ten minutes later they entered the cantonment.
As the sentry on the gate presented arms, he stared with astonishment at Roger, now riding at ease beside a Brigadier-General, and when they trotted on toward the headquarters building several other men who had seen him marched off to execution imagined for a moment that they were seeing a ghost. When they pulled up, the young Major was just coming out of the main door with some papers in his hand. His mouth fell open, then he exclaimed:
‘Shades of Robespierre! If it’s not the English spy!’
Springing from his horse, Lannes said, ‘I am told by Colonel Breuc that General Desmarets commands here.’
‘Then this man is … is who he said he———’ stammered the Major.
‘He is,’ Lannes cut him short. ‘But I have no time to waste Take me at once to your General.’
Pulling himself together, the Major gave a stiff salute, turned on his heel and led them through to the General’s office. Desmarets was sitting at his desk, smoking a clay pipe. At the sight of Roger he gave an angry frown and cried, ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ I gave orders———’
Without waiting for him to finish, Lannes, having snapped to attention and saluted him as his superior, said, ‘General, I had the good fortune to prevent a most culpable miscarriage of justice. This gentleman is Colonel Breuc and a personal friend of mine. I understand that you ordered his execution. Being an officer of courage and resource he killed the Sergeant in charge of the firing party and got away. He was being pursued by the remainder of the squad when I chanced to be riding by and was able to identify him. I have come here only to report what has taken place, and to inform you that Colonel Breuc will be accompanying me to Calais.’
The General came slowly to his feet. ‘He … he killed the Sergeant, do you say?’
‘It was his life or mine,’ Roger put in.
‘So you confess to it! Then, whoever you may be, it was murder; and you will have to answer for it.’
‘No man who has not deserved death could be expected to allow himself to be shot without putting up a fight,’ said Lannes quickly. ‘That the Sergeant should have lost his life in this affair is most regrettable; but if anyone will be called on to answer for that it will be yourself.’
‘What the devil do you mean?’ demanded Desmarets angrily.
‘Why, for having ordered Colonel Breuc’s execution without first satisfying yourself that he was gu
ilty of the crime imputed to him.’
‘He was tried by the magistrates in Boulogne, and their opinion was unanimous. He was sent to me only because it is usual for spies to be executed by the Military.’
‘And you, a General, accepted the verdict of a bunch of civilians when the prisoner sent to you claimed to be an officer of the French Army!’ Lannes cried indignantly. ‘I consider your conduct to have been disgraceful.’
Desmarets’s dark brows drew together. With an oath he roared, ‘How dare you use such language to your superior! I intend to hold the man for further inquiry. Even if you are right about his identity it is a moot point whether any man is justified in killing a member of his escort in order to escape. Now you may go.’
‘Start any judicial proceedings you like,’ Lannes retorted, ‘I will make myself responsible for Colonel Breuc’s appearance at them when required. But I’ll not leave without him.’
‘Then you have asked for trouble and you shall have it. I’ll arrest you for insubordination and you shall kick your heels in confinement with him until I see fit to consider further measures.’
As the interview had proceeded, Roger had grown more and more apprehensive. He knew at least that his life was now safe, but what view would a court martial take of his having killed the Sergeant? With luck, they would take Lannes’s view that his act had been justifiable homicide. But if there were a straw-splitter among his judges it might be held that to injure an escort during an attempt to escape was one thing, and to kill him another. That could mean a verdict of manslaughter and a severe prison sentence. It was, too, unpleasantly clear that, in order to distract attention from the negligent way in which he had handled matters to start with, Desmarets would do all he could to make the case against his prisoner as black as possible. Roger’s one hope lay in Lannes, and glancing anxiously at his friend he sought to comfort himself by recalling what he knew of him.
Jean Lannes was a Gascon, and a year or so younger than Roger. He had had little education and as a boy had been apprenticed to a dyer. Espousing with fervour the cause of the Revolution, he had joined the Army and during the war with Spain reached the rank of Chef de Brigade, although he was then only twenty-five. The Thermidorian reaction had led to him being dismissed from the Service, owing to his political views, but he had re-enlisted as a volunteer in the Army of Italy and had again fought his way up to Brigadier.
The Sultan's Daughter Page 9