Gilles looked at him in surprise.
'I thought your father was sending you to school to become a lawyer? They say he has saved up for it all his life—'
'I know. Well – he can keep his money. I don't want it. All I want is to go to sea. All my life I've seen him building great, lovely ships and never knowing the places they would sail to. Well, I'm going to see them. To hell with being a lawyer!'
And Jean-Pierre spat like an angry cat to show his contempt for the whole profession. Gilles said nothing for a moment. He was studying his schoolfellow's freckled countenance, the washed-out blue eyes under jutting brows, the short but stocky figure, and he could not help smiling. Jean-Pierre was as much fitted by nature for sitting in a comfortable office drawing up legal documents as he himself was to say mass and hear old ladies' confessions. And he felt all at once very close to the lad with whom, until that moment, he had been on the most distant terms. The invisible link which had been forged so suddenly between them was made by the sea, that familiar yet unknown sea which had figured like a tumultuous paradise in his dreams from babyhood, the forbidden sea his mother would never permit him to embark upon. But looking at this ship which carried with her all the fierce aroma of distant horizons, he thrust the thought of Marie-Jeanne away from him, as if her mere image was an insult to the voyager from afar with her glorious scars.
'And I,' he said at last, as though the words were dragged from him by some unknown force. 'I, too, shall go to sea some day.'
Jean-Pierre gave him a crooked grin and jerked his shoulders with a hint of scorn.
'You? You're even worse off than I am. You're going to be a priest.'
His grin broadened but at the cold rage in Gilles' glance it faded and he turned dull red.
'A priest?' young Goëlo said, with dangerous softness. 'That, let me tell you, I shall never be. And I won't have anyone say it to my face again. You understand?'
'All right,' the other conceded. 'Only – what are you going to do? They said your mother had decided—'
'So she has, yes. But I don't want to – not any longer. And I'm going to write to her tonight.'
'But what if she refuses to listen to you? Suppose she insists on sending you to the seminary? She'd be within her rights, you know, to have the constable take you there by force.'
'Then I should run away.'
There was silence as the two boys scrambled down from their bollard. All the seamen had come ashore by now and the crowd had dispersed to seek the warmth of home or tavern. For a moment, Gilles and Jean-Pierre stood face to face, looking at one another as though meeting for the first time. They felt suddenly shy, as embarrassed as though the years of indifference stood in the way of their friendship.
They were rescued from speechlessness by the clock of a nearby church striking the half. Jean-Pierre smiled awkwardly.
'I suppose we ought to go,' he said. 'We're shockingly late already. I dare say we'll get a spell in the "Barbin",' he added, with a comical grin.
Gilles returned his smile readily. 'That's for sure! But don't you think it was worth it?'
The two of them began to run back up the steep street, more to warm themselves than out of any real fear of the beatings in store for them. Both were too familiar with those to attach overmuch importance to them.
But when they came in sight of the great, two hundred-year-old gateway of St Yves, Jean-Pierre, who had not spoken all the way, suddenly stopped.
'Tell me,' he said, 'did you mean it just now when you said you wanted to go to sea?'
'Of course I meant it. Why?'
'Listen, then. Meet me this evening after the cathedral bell strikes nine at the corner of the Rue des Halles, by Vannes and his wife. Ask no questions,' he added quickly, seeing Gilles start to speak. 'I'm going to take you somewhere that will interest you. Now, let's go and take our punishment. See you tonight!'
'Tonight! I'll be there.'
Gilles received a double punishment, for having missed confession on so febble an excuse as illness. He was also commanded to go straight to the chapel on being released from the 'Barbin' and present himself to the officiating priest, and to say two rosaries in addition to whatever penance was imposed on him. He bore it all without protest, sustained by the new vistas which Jean-Pierre's words had opened up to him. He made deliberate omissions in his confession and in so doing broke with the conscientious scruples he felt he had outgrown and which no longer applied to the man he was becoming. And on the last stroke of nine o'clock, with a back still smarting but a heart full of hope, he was pacing the greasy cobbles of the little square, dark and deserted at this late hour, brooded over by the two small tutelary figures of the city. For the first time since his plunge into the Blavet, the thought of Judith had loosened its vicelike grip on the young man's mind. It was of a future misty with the blue haze of adventure that Gilles was dreaming as he paced up and down in the cold, dark night.
Jean-Pierre popped up out of the darkness like a jack in the box, making no more noise than a cat.
'Come on,' he said simply.
As they had done in the morning, the two lads made their way towards the harbour, the only part of the town that still showed signs of life, for Vannes was a good and pious city where life was regulated by the bells of the cathedral and religious houses.
'Where are you taking me?' Gilles asked, as the two of them emerged from the Porte St Vincent.
Jean-Pierre's only answer was to indicate an ancient building by the quay, its upper storey jutting like heavy brows over the two small windows blinking redly into the darkness.
'There.'
Gilles made a face. He had never entered any of the harbour taverns but he knew enough to be aware that the Hermine Rouge was one of the most disreputable.
The landlord, Yann Maodan, was not particular in his choice of customers, the more so since he had himself spent three of the best years of his wild youth at the oar of a galley, the only effect of which had been to give an added hardness to his already cunning and slippery fingers. The smuggler seeking new recruits, the jealous husband in search of a spy, even the thieves' captain desirous of reforming a gang broken up by the law, could all be fairly sure of finding what they wanted in his house. But it was naturally not a haunt much frequented by the pupils of St Yves. So that when Gilles saw his companion descend the steps that led to the low doorway with the ease of long familiarity, he could not help clutching at his arm.
'You've been to this house before?' he said accusingly. Jean-Pierre shrugged and would not meet his eyes, but there was a note of defiance in his voice as he answered.
'Of course. If you want to get aboard a ship without anyone's knowing, you can't afford to be choosy. There's a man here who can help us—'
'You know the Hermine Rouge has an evil reputation! But have you even thought what would happen if your father, or the Head, learned you had been seen here?'
'Don't worry. I've thought. But you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs. Now, if you're afraid of what people might think, you are quite free to turn back. Only I'm beginning to wonder if you had not better stick to being a priest—'
'When I need your advice about my future, I'll ask for it!' Gilles retorted curtly. 'And now, lead on – since you seem to know what you are doing.'
He took a deep breath and entered the tavern on his friend's heels. He had expected to walk into a hell of noise and anger, full of quarrelling, shouting and drunken singing. But the noise was less than in many a classroom at St Yves.
From the threshold, he got a glimpse through a blue haze of pipe smoke of variously coloured backs and heads of varying degrees of hairiness, all bent over tables on which elbows and beakers of rum jostled for room. All these men were talking quietly among themselves, discussing in low voices business which, however shady, was none the less of paramount importance to them. And not even the presence of two serving wenches in bodices cut almost indecently low moving to and fro between the tables carrying heavy trays co
uld give the place anything approaching a festive air.
Yann Maodan himself was leaning, both elbows on his grimy walnut wood counter and surveying the assembled company with an imperious eye that missed nothing. The eye took in the two boys, creased into an expression which might conceivably have passed for a smile and swivelled across the room, coming to rest at a table in the far corner where a man sat alone.
'Hey! Nantais!' he called. 'Someone for you!'
The man addressed pinned a smile to his face, which suited it like a rose in the teeth of a crocodile, and removing from his square-shaped head a splendid, gold-braided tricorne which had certainly never been made for it, waved it graciously in the direction of the two boys threading their way towards him among the tables.
'There you are then, lad!' he cried thickly, revealing three astonishingly white teeth in a mouth full of dark brown stumps. 'Come to tell me that you've thought it over?'
'Yes, sir. And I've made up my mind.'
An amicable flourish of the cocked hat.
'Good! And who's this?'
'A friend. We're in the same class. And he has made up his mind also—'
'Just a minute,' Gilles said. 'I'd still like to know what I'm suppose to have made up my mind about.'
He did not care for the Nantais. His steel-blue eyes narrowed swiftly and searched the man's face coldly, as though striving to fathom his secret thoughts. The face below the square skull was a fleshy face that smiled too broadly, a long nose with widely flaring nostrils and small black eyes as bright as beads of jet. The face was clean and well-shaven and would have been not unpleasant but for a certain elusive shiftiness about the eyes and the Nantais' disturbing habit of licking his lips with his tongue all the time, like a cat after meat.
A flash of anger gleamed in the shifty eyes, but only for an instant, then it was gone, like a candle snuffed out by the wind. The man shrugged and gave a shout of laughter.
'Made up your mind to go to sea, by heaven! Like this bold lad here who's burning to win fame and fortune on the high seas and feast his eyes on all the wonders of the world.'
'And you have it in your power to give us all that?' Gilles said coolly.
An expression of deep grief came over the Nantais' face and he turned to Jean-Pierre reproachfully.
'What's this, boy? Have you not told him?'
'No, sir! I thought it better you should! Besides, you urged me to be discreet.'
'True, son, very true! Discretion is a great thing. My poor mother always used to say that in great matters it was better to confide in God and His saints! Well, sit down, lads! And listen to me. Hey there! Manon! Two beakers for these young gentlemen!'
One of the serving girls came up. Lifting his eyes automatically, Gilles saw that she was blonde and pretty and surely not much older than himself, also she was looking at him. Silently, but without taking her eyes off him, she set two pewter tankards on the table and departed with a sigh, as though unwillingly, while the Nantais took up the big black bottle that stood in front of him. The aroma of old West Indian rum filled the boys' nostrils like a subtle reminder of those distant lands the Nantais had spoken of. At the same time the man embarked upon a kind of grandiloquent speech wholly designed to persuade his youthful listeners that he alone had power to offer them a brilliant future.
But his introduction was too long for Jean-Pierre, despite his evident respect for the man.
'We are both only too grateful to you, sir,' he broke in. 'But tell us, if you please, about America – and the Rebels!'
Gilles, who had been beginning to find the Nantais not merely antipathetic but tedious, felt his interest reawaken. News of the outside world was rarely discussed in the classrooms at St Yves, or in the main streets of Vannes, where people had small interest in the affairs of a parcel of savages on the other side of the Atlantic except, of course, when commercial interests were at stake. The war with England taking place in home waters was of much more pressing concern to a city which had not yet forgotten that it was once the seat of the Breton parliament. Even so, the younger dwellers in the Rue Latine and the Rue St Gwenael had not failed to glean some adventurous rumours percolating from the house of Monsieur de Limur, the Lieutenant-General of the Navy, or from the barracks of Walsh's regiment.
For some months past, and especially since the outbreak of the war with England, the talk had been full of sympathy for the revolt of the thirteen English colonies in America which, since 1776, had flared into open war. The unrest had been simmering for years, ever since England, exhausted by the Seven Years War and endeavouring to wipe out a national debt amounting to a hundred and forty million pounds, had attempted to shift the greater part of it on to her American colonies. The representatives of all the colonies, meeting in New York, had declared their rejection of a tax they had not voted for. English reaction had been prompt. And so the unrest, going from bad to worse, had turned into open rebellion and had driven the colonists to demand independence and declare war on the mother country.
These determined men led, it seemed, by a soldier of genius named General Washington, were known in Europe as the Rebels and they had long been petitioning the King of France for aid. Three years previously the people of Vannes had actually seen the Rebel ambassador put up one December night at the inn of the Dauphin Couronné. He was a stout, good-natured old gentleman, neat and bespectacled, with long white hair surrounding a bald crown on which he wore a curious kind of fur hat. He had his two young grandsons with him and announced himself as Benjamin Franklin on his way to Paris. He was said, moreover, to be a great scholar, known the world over and to have power over the lightning, so that the Bretons had decided he must be some kind of wizard. The ancient forest of Broceliande was close at hand and the memory of the enchanter Merlin ever-present to men's minds.
People said, with a kind of exasperated indulgence, that a young officer from the Auvergne in attendance at court, who was as hotheaded as he was highborn, had freighted a vessel in spite of the King, at that time by no means determined on a breach with England, and had gone to fight for freedom in America, and that he had returned, broken in health but with enough strength left to implore Louis XVI to send aid to the Rebels. And now of late the rumours running round the barracks whispered that the King might be going to reward the hopes of the American Congress by sending the men and money it so sorely needed.
All these rumours inflamed the young hotheads of St Yves. Especially such new and uplifting words as liberty and independence. To Gilles, in particular, coming back to Vannes with a heart full of bitterness, they were like a cool shower after a day of blistering heat. La Fayette's exploits haunted his dreams and, except for Judith, there was no one in the world he longed more eagerly to be with.
Therefore as soon as Jean-Pierre uttered the magic words America and the Rebels, he became passionately interested.
'Lord, what a hurry you young men are in!' the Nantais sighed, draining his tankard at a draught. 'I was coming to it. But first, you, the new lad, what do you call yourself?'
'Gilles Goëlo.'
'Well, my boy, I'm telling you that there are those in Nantes who believe America should be free and are willing to do all they can to help her. The biggest of them is a very wealthy gentleman, a great shipowner in Nantes, the owner of a royal chateau, a personal friend of Mr Franklin, who lives in his house when he is in Paris – and my master!' This last was uttered with such pride as to suggest that, among that list of impressive titles, it was by far the greatest. 'This gentleman, who has devoted much of his wealth to helping the Rebels, is at this moment fitting out his largest vessel in the port of Nantes, ready to sail to Boston. All those young men at court who wish to serve a noble cause and at the same time seek adventure and their fortunes may sail in her. And it is my especial task to select those in these parts who seem to me most worthy of so high a destiny – Will you be one?'
'I ask nothing better,' Gilles answered. 'But what are you doing here, in this tavern where, betwe
en ourselves, there can't be many such? One would say you were hiding from something! Why don't you go to the Chapeau Rouge or the Dauphin Couronné and have the town criers proclaim your master's offer? What is his name, by the by? I don't recall that you told it to us.'
'Precisely, because it is not to be spoken in such a place as this,' the Nantais answered sternly. 'As to your other questions, my young friend, they prove that you are both observant and quick-witted but unused to the ways of politics. Have you yet seen our worthy King sending troops to aid the Rebels? I do not mean Monsieur de La Fayette, who went of his own accord, but proper troops, with generals and guns?'
'No. But it may be—'
'That is where the shoe pinches. It may be – but it cannot be yet! And my master is risking the King's displeasure by determining to send his own aid to those good folk. He is risking his reputation and a host of other things which compel him to secrecy. Do you understand?'
Gilles nodded. 'I think so, yes. All the same, I should like to know what this wonderful man is called, even if it is sacrilege to utter his name here.'
The Nantais sighed like one resigned. Then, placing an arm round each of the boys' necks to draw them close, he cast a conspiratorial glance around him, as though expecting police spies to pop up everywhere, and finally whispered: 'His name is Monsieur Donatien Leray de Chaumont! Does that satisfy you? But forget it at once and so wipe out my shameful indiscretion. And now that we are agreed, let us come to the arrangements. You go aboard at high tide tomorrow night—'
Gilles started and drew back.
'Tomorrow? But that's impossible!'
'And why impossible?'
'Because – well, it's much too soon! Jean-Pierre, tell him! We don't mean to sneak away from Vannes like criminals. At least give us time to see whether our families won't change their minds and let us abandon our studies.'
'For my part, it's already done,' Jean-Pierre said grimly. 'If I refuse to be a lawyer, my father means to disinherit me. And if I don't take ship at once, he'll set the law on me. I'm off tomorrow!'
Falcon 1 - The Lure of the Falcon Page 4