He whispered accordingly some brief instructions to his men; he sent a message to the ten on the Servigny road, and when the Prussians marched on after their second halt, Lieutenant Fevrier and two Frenchmen fell in behind them. The same procedure was followed at the next halt and at the next; so that when the Prussians reached the Frenchward end of Vaudère there were twenty-three Prussians and ten Frenchmen in the file. To Fevrier’s thinking it was sufficiently comic. There was something artistic about it too.
Fevrier was pleased, but he had not counted on the quick Prussian step to which his soldiers were unaccustomed. At the fourth halt, the officer moved unsuspiciously first on one side of the street, then on the other, but gave no order to his men to fall out. It seemed that he had forgotten, until he came suddenly running down the file and flashed his lantern into Fevrier’s face. He had been secretly counting his men.
“The French,” he cried. “Load!”
The one word quite compensated Fevrier for the detection. The Germans had come down into Vaudère with their rifles unloaded, lest an accidental discharge should betray their neighbourhood to the French.
“Load!” cried the German. And slipping back he tugged at the revolver in his belt. But before he could draw it out, Fevrier dashed his bayonet through the lantern and hung it on the officer’s heart. He whistled, and his other ten men came running down the street.
“Vorwarts,” shouted Fevrier, derisively. “Immer Vorwarts.”
The Prussians surprised, and ignorant how many they had to face, fell back in disorder against a house-wall. The French soldiers dashed at them in the darkness, engaging them so that not a man had the chance to load.
That little fight in the dark street between the white-ruined cottages made Fevrier’s blood dance.
“Courage!” he cried. “The paraffin!”
The combatants were well matched, and it was hand-to-hand and bayonet-to-bayonet. Fevrier loved his enemies at that moment. It even occurred to him that it was worth while to have deserted. After the sense of disgrace, the prospect of imprisonment and dishonour, it was all wonderful to him — the feel of the thick coat yielding to the bayonet point, the fatigue of the beaten opponent, the vigour of the new one, the feeling of injury and unfairness when a Prussian he had wounded dropped in falling the butt of a rifle upon his toes.
Once he cried, “Voila pour la patrie!” but for the rest he fought in silence, as did the others, having other uses for their breath. All that could be heard was a loud and laborious panting, as of wrestlers in a match, the clang of rifle crossing rifle, the rattle of bayonet guarding bayonet, and now and then a groan and a heavy fall. One Prussian escaped and ran; but the ten who had been stationed on the Servigny road were now guarding the entrance from Noisseville. Fevrier had no fears of him. He pressed upon a new man, drove him against the wall, and the man shouted in despair:
“A moi!”
“You, Philippe?” exclaimed Fevrier.
“That was a timely cry,” and he sprang back. There were six men standing, and the six saluted Fevrier; they were all Frenchmen. Fevrier mopped his forehead.
“But that was fine,” said he, “though what’s to come will be still better. Oh, but we will make this night memorable to our friends. They shall talk of us by their firesides when they are grown old and France has had many years of peace — we shall not hear, but they will talk of us, the deserters from Metz.”
Lieutenant Fevrier in a word was exalted, and had lost his sense of proportion. He did not, however, relax his activity. He sent off the six to gather the rest of his contingent. He made an examination of the Prussians, and found that sixteen had been killed outright, and eight were lying wounded. He removed their rifles and ammunition out of reach, and from dead and wounded alike took the coats and caps. To the wounded he gave instead French uniforms; and then, bidding twenty-three of his soldiers don the Prussian caps and coats, he snatched a moment wherein to run to the curé.
“It is over,” said he. “The Prussians will not burn Vaudère to-night.” And he jumped down the stairs again without waiting for any response. In the street he put on the cap and coat of the Prussian officer, buckled the sword about his waist, and thrust the revolver into his belt. He had now twenty-three men who at night might pass for Prussians, and thirteen others.
To these thirteen he gave general instructions. They were to spread out on the right and left, and make their way singly up through the vines, and past the field-watch if they could without risk of detection. They were to join him high up on the slope, and opposite to the bonfire which would be burning at the répli. His twenty-three he led boldly, following as nearly as possible the track by which the Prussians had descended. The party trampled down the vine-poles, brushed through the leaves, and in a little while were challenged.
“Sadowa,” said Fevrier, in his best imitation of the German accent.
“Pass Sadowa,” returned the sentry.
Fevrier and his men filed upwards. He halted some two hundred yards farther on, and went down upon his knees. The soldiers behind him copied his example. They crept slowly and cautiously forward until the flames of the bonfire were visible through the screen of leaves, until the faces of the officers about the bonfire could be read.
Then Fevrier stopped and whispered to the soldier next to him. That soldier passed the whisper on, and from a file the Frenchmen crept into line. Fevrier had now nothing to do but to wait; and he waited without trepidation or excitement. The night from first to last had gone very well with him. He could even think of Mareschal Bazaine without anger.
He waited for perhaps an hour, watching the faces round the fire increase in number and grow troubled with anxiety. The German officers talked in low tones staring through their night-glasses down the hill, to catch the first leaping flame from the roofs of Vaudère, pushing forward their heads to listen for any alarm. Fevrier watched them with the amusement of a spectator in a play house. He was fully aware that he was shortly to step upon the stage himself. He was aware too that the play was to have a tragic ending. Meanwhile, however, here was very good comedy! He had a Frenchman’s appreciation of the picturesque. The dark night, the glowing fire on the one broad level of grass, the French soldiers hidden in the vines, within a stone’s throw of the Germans, the Germans looking unconsciously on over their heads for the return of those comrades who never would return. Lieutenant Fevrier was the dramatist who had created this striking and artistic situation. Lieutenant Fevrier could not but be pleased. Moreover there were better effects to follow. One occurred to him at this very moment, an admirable one. He fumbled in his breast and took out the flag. A minute later he saw the Colonel of the forepost join the group, hack nervously with his naked sword at a burning log, and dispatch a subaltern down the hill to the field-watch.
The subaltern came crashing back through the vines. Fevrier did not need to hear his words in order to guess at his report. It could only be that the Prussian party had given the password and come safely back an hour since. Besides, the Colonel’s act was significant.
He sent four men at once in different directions, and the rest of his soldiers he withdrew into the darkness behind the bonfire. He did not follow them himself until he had picked up and tossed a fusee into the fire. The fusee flared and spat and spurted, and immediately it seemed to Fevrier — so short an interval of time was there — that the country-side was alive with the hum of a stirring camp, and the rattle of harness-chains, as horses were yoked to guns.
For a third time that evening Fevrier laughed softly. The deserters had roused the Prussian army round Metz to the expectation of an attack in force. He touched his neighbour on the shoulder.
“One volley when I give the word. Then charge. Pass the order on!” and the word went along the line like a ripple across a pond.
He had hardly given it, the fusee had barely ceased to sputter, before a company doubled out on the open space behind the bonfire. That company had barely formed up, before another arrived to su
pport it.
“Load!”
As the Prussian command was uttered, Fevrier was aware of a movement at his side. The soldier next to him was taking aim. Fevrier reached out his hand and stopped the man. Fevrier was going to die in five minutes, and meant to die chivalrously like a gentleman. He waited until the German companies had loaded, until they were ordered to advance, and then he shouted,
“Fire!”
The little flames shot out and crackled among the vines. He saw gaps in the Prussian ranks, he saw the men waver, surprised at the proximity of the attack.
“Charge,” he shouted, and crashing through the few yards of shelter, they burst out upon the répli, and across the open space to the Prussian bayonets. But not one of the number reached the bayonets.
“Fire!” shouted the Prussian officer, in his turn.
The volley flashed out, the smoke cleared away, and showed a little heap of men silent between the bonfire and the Prussian ranks.
The Prussians loaded again and stood ready, waiting for the main attack. The morning was just breaking. They stood silent and motionless till the sky was flooded with light and the hills one after another came into view, and the files of poplars were seen marching on the plains. Then the Colonel approached the little heap. A rifle caught his eye, and he picked it up.
“They are all mad,” said he. Forced to the point of the bayonet was a gaudy little linen tri-colour flag.
THE CROSSED GLOVES.
“ALTHOUGH YOU HAVE not been near Ronda for five years,” said the Spanish Commandant severely to Dennis Shere, “the face of the country has not changed. You are certainly the most suitable officer I can select, since I am told you are well acquainted with the neighbourhood. You will ride therefore to-day to Olvera and deliver this sealed letter to the officer commanding the temporary garrison there. But it is not necessary that it should reach him before eleven at night, so that you will still have an hour or two before you start in which you can renew your acquaintanceships, as I can very well understand you are anxious to do.”
Dennis Shere’s reluctance, however, was now changed into alacrity. For the road to Olvera ran past the gates of that white-walled, straggling residencía where he had planned to spend this first evening that he was stationed at Ronda. On his way back from his colonel’s quarters he even avoided those squares and streets where he would be likely to meet with old acquaintances, foreseeing their questions as to why he was now a Spanish subject and wore the uniform of a captain of Spanish cavalry and by seven o’clock he was already riding through the Plaza de Toros upon his mission. There, however, a familiar voice hailed him, and turning about in his saddle he saw an old padre who had once gained a small prize for logic at the University of Barcelona, and who had since made his inferences and deductions an excuse for a great deal of inquisitiveness. Shere had no option but to stop. He broke in, however, at once on the inevitable questions as to his uniform with the statement that he must be at Olvera by eleven.
“Fifteen miles,” said the padre. “Does it need four hours and a fresh horse to journey fifteen miles?”
“But I have friends to visit on the way,” and to give convincing details to an excuse which was plainly disbelieved, Shere added, “Just this side of Setenil I have friends.”
The padre was still dissatisfied. “There is only one house just this side of Setenil, and Esteban Silvela I saw with my own eyes to-day in Ronda.”
“He may well be home by now, and it is not Esteban whom I go to see.”
“Not Esteban,” exclaimed the padre. “Then it will be—”
“His sister, the Señora Christina,” said Shere with a laugh at his companion’s persistency. “Since the brother and sister live alone, and it is not the brother, why it will be the sister. You argue still very closely, padre.”
The padre stood back a little from Shere and stared. Then he said slyly, and with the air of one who quotes:
“All women are born tricksters.”
“Those were rank words,” said Shere composedly.
“Yet they were often spoken when you grew vines in the Ronda Valley.”
“Then a crowd of men must know me for a fool. A young man may make a mistake, padre, and exaggerate a disappointment. Besides, I had not then seen the señora. Esteban I knew, but she was a child, and known to me only by name.” And then, warmed by the pleasure in his old friend’s face, he said, “I will tell you about it.”
They walked on slowly side by side, while Shere, who now that he had begun to confide was quite swept away, bent over his saddle and told how after inheriting a modest fortune, after wandering for three years from city to city, he had at last come to Paris, and there, at a Carlist conversazione, had heard the familiar name called from a doorway, and had seen the unfamiliar face appear. Shere described Christina. She walked with the grace of a deer, as though the floor beneath her foot had the spring of turf. The blood was bright in her face; her brown hair shone; she was sweet with youth; the suppleness of her body showed it and the steadiness of her great clear eyes.
“She passed me,” he went on, “and the arrogance of what I used to think and say came sharp home to me like a pain. I suppose that I stared — it was an accident, of course — perhaps my face showed something of my trouble; but just as she was opposite me her fan slipped through her fingers and clattered on the floor.”
The padre was at a loss to understand Shere’s embarrassment in relating so small a matter.
“Well,” said he, “you picked up the fan and so—”
“No,” interrupted Shere. His embarrassment increased, and he stammered out awkwardly, “Just for the moment, you see, I began to wonder whether after all I had not been right before; whether after all any woman would or could baulk herself of a fraction of any man’s admiration, supposing that it would only cost a trick to extort it. And while I was wondering she herself stooped, picked up the fan, and good-humouredly dropped me a curtsey for my lack of manners. Esteban presented me to her that evening. There followed two magical months in Paris and a June in London.”
“But, Esteban?” said the padre, doubtfully. “I do not understand. I know something of Esteban Silvela. A lean man of plots and devices. My friend, do you know that Esteban has not a groat? The Silvela fortunes and estate came from the mother and went to the daughter. Esteban is the Señora Christina’s steward, and her marriage would alter his position at the least. Did he not spoil the magic of the months in Paris?”
Shere laughed aloud in assured confidence.
“No, indeed,” said he. “I did not know Esteban was dependent on his sister, but what difference would her marriage make? Esteban is my best friend. For instance, you questioned me about my uniform. It is by Esteban’s advice and help that I wear it.”
“Indeed!” said the padre, quickly. “Tell me.”
“That June, in London, two years ago — it was by the way the last time I saw the señora — we three dined at the same house. As the ladies rose from the table I said to Christina quietly, ‘I want to speak to you to-night,’ and she answered very simply and quietly, ‘With all my heart.’ She was not so quiet, however, but that Esteban overheard her. He hitched his chair up to mine; I asked him what my chances were, and whether he would second them? He was most cordial, but he thought with his Spaniard’s pride that I ought — I use my words, not his — in some way to repair my insufficiency in station and the rest; and he pointed out this way of the uniform. I could not resist his argument; I did not speak that night. I took out my papers and became a Spaniard; with Esteban’s help I secured a commission. That was two years ago. I have not seen her since, nor have I written, but I ride to her to-night with my two years’ silence and my two years’ service to prove the truth of what I say. So you see I have reason to thank Esteban.” And since they were now come to the edge of the town they parted company. Shere rode smartly down the slope of the hill, the padre stood and watched him with a feeling of melancholy.
It was not merely that he d
istrusted Esteban, but he knew Shere, the cadet of an impoverished family, who had come out from England to a small estate in the Ronda valley, which had belonged to his house since the days of the Duke of Wellington in Spain. He knew him for a man of tempests and extremes, and as he thought of his ardent words and tones, of his ready acceptance of Esteban’s good faith, of his description of Christina, he fell to wondering whether so sudden and violent a conversion from passionate cynic to passionate believer would not lack permanence. There was that little instructive accident of the dropped fan. Even in the moment of conversion so small a thing had almost sufficed to dissuade Shere.
Shere, however, was quite untroubled — so untroubled, indeed, that he even rode slowly that he might not waste the luxury of anticipating the welcome which his unexpected appearance would surely provoke. He rode into the groves of almond and walnut trees and out again into a wild and stony country. It was just growing dusk when he saw ahead of him the square white walls of the enclosure, and the cluster of buildings within, glimmering at the foot of a rugged hill. The lights began to move in the windows as he approached, and then a man suddenly appeared at his side on the roadway and whistled twice loudly as though he were calling his dog. Shere rode past the man and through the open gates into the courtyard. There were three men lounging there, and they came forward almost as if they had expected Shere. He gave his horse into their charge and impetuously mounted the flight of stone steps to the house. A servant in readiness came forward at once and preceded Shere along a gallery towards a door. Shere’s impetuosity led him to outstep the servant, he opened the door, and so entered the room unannounced.
It was a long, low room with a wainscot of dark walnut, and a single lamp upon the table gave it shadows rather than light. He had just time to notice that a girl and a man were bending over the table in the lamplight, to recognise with a throb of the heart the play of the light upon the girl’s brown hair, to understand that she was explaining something which she held in her hands, and then Esteban came quickly to him with a certain air of perplexity and a glance of inquiry towards the servant. Then he said: —
Complete Works of a E W Mason Page 763