‘I heard, madam,’ he replied in a low voice, ‘and I crave your pardon. But this is an army, and I am part of it. I can take orders only from General Tzerclas. I have received them, and I cannot go beyond them.’
For a moment the Countess stood glaring at him, her face on fire with wrath and indignation. She had been so long used to command, she was of a nature so frank and imperious, that she trembled on the verge of an outburst that could only have destroyed the little dignity it was still possible for her to retain. Fortunately in the nick of time her eyes met those of a group of officers who stood at a distance, watching her. She thought that she read amusement in their gaze, and a pride greater than that which had impelled her to anger came to her aid. She controlled herself by a mighty effort. The colour left her cheeks as quickly as it had flown to them. She looked at the man coldly and disdainfully.
‘True,’ she said, ‘you do well to remind me. It is not easy to remember that in war many things must give way. You may go, sir. I shall be ready.’
But as she stood and saw her horses saddled, her heart sank like lead. All the misery of her false position came home to her. She felt that now she was alone indeed, and powerless. She was leaving behind her the only chance that remained of regaining her friends. She was going back to put herself more completely, if that were possible, in the general’s hands. Yet she dared not resist! She dared not court defeat! As her only hope and reserve lay in her wits and in the prestige of her rank and beauty, to lower that prestige by an unavailing struggle, by an unwomanly display, would be to destroy at a blow half her defences.
The Countess saw this; and though her heart ached for her friends, and her eyes often turned back in unavailing hope, she mounted with a serene brow. Her horses had been brought to the top of the hill, and she rode down by a path which had been discovered. When she had gone a league on the backward road she came upon the foremost part of the captured convoy; which, was immediately halted and drawn aside, that she might pass more conveniently and escape the noise and dust it occasioned.
Among the rest were three waggons laden with wounded. Awnings had been spread to veil them from the sun, and she was spared the sight of their sufferings. But their meanings and cries, as the waggons jolted and creaked over the rough road, drove the blood from her cheeks. She passed them quickly — they were many and she was one, and she could do nothing — and rode on, little thinking who lay under the awnings, or whose eyes followed her as she went.
CHAPTER XXI.
AMONG THE WOUNDED.
When a man lies fettered at the bottom of a jolting waggon, and, unable to help himself, is made a pillow for wounded wretches, whose feverish struggles go near to stifling him; and when to these miseries are added the heat of a sultry night, thirst, and the near prospect of death, passion soon dies down. Anger gives place to pain and the chill of apprehension. The man begins to know himself again — forgets his enemies, thinks of his friends.
It was so with me. The general’s back was not turned before I ceased to cry out; and that gained me the one alleviation I had — that I was not gagged. They piled the waggon with bleeding, groaning men, — of our side, of course, for no quarter was given to the other, — and I shuddered as each mangled wretch came in. Still, I had my mouth free. If I could not move, I could breathe, and hear what passed round me. I could see the dark night sky lit up by the glare of the fires, or, later, watch the stars shining coldly and indifferently down on this scene of pain and misery.
When the waggon was full they drove us, jolting and wailing, to an appointed place, and took out some, leaving only enough to cover the floor thickly. And then, ah me! the night began. That which at first had been an inconvenience, became in time intolerable pain. The ropes cut into my flesh, the boards burned my back; we were so closely packed, and I was so tightly bound that I could not move a limb. Every moment the wounded cried for water, and those in pain wailed and lamented, while all night the wolves howled round the camp. In one corner, a man whose eyes were injured babbled unceasingly of his mother and his home. Hour by hour, for the frenzy held him all night, he rolled his head, and chattered, and laughed! In the morning he died, and we thanked God for it.
The peasant and the soldier sup the real miseries of war; the noble and the officer, whose it is to dare death in the field, but rarely, very rarely to lie wounded under the burning sun or through the freezing night, only taste them. A place of arms falls; there is quarter for my lord and a pass and courtesy for my lady, but edge and point for the common herd. To risk all and get nothing — or a penny a day, unpaid — is the lot of most.
When morning at last dawned, I was half dead. My head seemed bursting; my hands were purple with the tightness of my bonds. Deep groans broke from me. I moved my eyes — the only things I could move — in an agony. Round me I heard the sick thanking God as the light grew stronger, and muttering words of hope. But the light helped me little. Where I lay, trussed like a fowl, I could see nothing except the sky — whence the sun would soon add to my miseries — and the heads of the two men who sat propped against the waggon boards next to me.
I took one of these to be dead, for he had slipped to one side, and the arm with which he had stayed himself against the floor of the waggon stood out stiff and stark. The other man had the comfort of the corner; there was a cloak under him and a pad behind him. But his head was sunk on his breast, and for a while I thought him dead too, and had a horrible dread that he would slide over on to my face and stifle me. But he did not, and by-and-by, when the sun had risen, and I felt that I could bear it no longer, he woke up and raised his fierce, white face and groaned.
It was Ludwig. He stared at me for a minute or more in a dazed, stupid fashion. Then he moved his leg and cried out with pain. After that he looked at me more sensibly, and by-and-by spoke.
‘Donner, man!’ he said. ‘What is it? You look like a ripe mulberry.’
I tried to answer him, but my lips and throat were so parched and swollen I could only murmur. He saw my lips move, however, and guessed how it was with me.
‘They have tied you up with a vengeance!’ he said with a grim smile. ‘Here, Franz! Willibrod! Who is there? Come, some one. Do you hear, you lazy knaves?’ he continued in a hoarse croak. ‘When I am about again I will find some of you quicker heels!’
A man just risen came grumbling to the side of the waggon. Ludwig bade him climb in and loosen my bonds, and set me up against the side.
‘And take away that carrion!’ he added brutally. ‘Dead men pay no fares. That is better. Ay, give him some water. He will come round.’
I did presently, though for a time the blood flowing where it had been before restrained, caused me horrible pain, and my tongue, when I tried to thank him, seemed to be too large for my mouth. But I could now sit up, and stretch my limbs, and even raise my hands to my mouth. Hope returned. My thoughts flew back to Marie Wort. Her pale face and large eyes rose before my eyes, and filled them with tears. Then there was my lady. And the Waldgrave. Doubtless he, poor fellow, was dead. But the rest lived — lived, and would soon look to me, look to any one for help. On that I became myself again. I shook off the pain and lethargy and despair of the night, and took up the burden of life. If my wits could save us, or, failing them, some happy accident, I would not be wanting. I had still a day or two, and all the chances of a journey.
Ludwig gave me food and a drink from his flask. I thanked him again.
‘You are a man!’ he said, shrugging his shoulders. ‘It was a pity you would knot your own rope. As for these chicken-hearted tremblers,’ he continued, squinting askance at our companions, ‘a fico for them! To call themselves soldiers and pule like women! Faugh! I am sick of them!’
For my part, the sights I saw from the waggon seemed more depressing. In every direction parties were moving, burying our dead, putting wounded horses out of their misery, collecting plunder. One division was at work driving the poor lowing cattle, already over-driven, back the way they had come,
through the pass and up the river bank. Another was righting such of the waggons as had been overturned, or dragging them out of the nether part of the valley. Everywhere men were working, shouting, swearing, spurning the dead. All showed that the general did not mean to linger, but would secure his booty by a timely retreat to his camp.
They came by-and-by and horsed our waggon and turned us round, and presently we took our place in the slow, creaking procession, and began to move up the pass. I looked everywhere for my lady, but could see nothing of her. The noise was prodigious, the dust terrible, the glare intolerable. I was thankful when some kind heart brought a waggon cloth and stretched it over us. After that things were better; and between the heat and the monotony of the motion I fell asleep, and slept until the afternoon was well advanced.
Then a singular thing occurred. The waggon which followed ours was drawn by four horses abreast, whose heads as they plodded wearily along at the tail of our waggon were so close to us that we could see easily into the vehicle, which was full of wounded men, and covered with an awning. We could see easily, I say; but the steady cloud of dust through which we moved and the white glare of the sunlight gave to everything so phantom-like an appearance that it was hard to say whether we were looking on real things.
Be that as it may, the first thing I saw when I awoke and rubbed my eyes, was the Waldgrave’s face! He lay in the front part of the waggon, his head on the side-board. Thinking I dreamed, or that the dust deceived me, I rubbed my eyes again and looked. Still it was he. His eyes were closed. He was pale, where the dust did not hide all colour; his head moved with the motion of the wheels. But he seemed to be alive, for even while I looked, a man who sat by him leaned forward and moistened his forehead with water.
Trembling with excitement, I touched Ludwig on the shoulder. ‘Look!’ I said. ‘The Waldgrave!’
He looked and nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said, chuckling. ‘Now you see what you have done for yourself. And all for nothing!’
‘But who took him up?’ I persisted.
‘The general,’ he answered sententiously. ‘Who else?’
‘Why?’ I cried in a fever. ‘Why did he do it?’
Ludwig shrugged his shoulders. ‘He knows his own business,’ he said. ‘I suppose that he found he had life in him.’
‘Did he take him up at once? After I was seized?’
‘Of course. Whether he will live or no is another matter.’
The helpless way in which the dusty, bedraggled head rolled as the waggon jolted, warned me of that. Still, he was alive. He might live; and I longed to be beside him, to tend and nurse him, to make the most of the least hope. But my eyes fell on my fettered hands; and when I looked again he had disappeared. He had sunk down in the cart, and was out of sight. I was left to wonder whether he was dead, or had only changed his posture for another more comfortable. And the dust growing ever thicker, and the sun-glare less as the day advanced, I presently lost sight even of the waggon.
We lay that night in a coppice on the left bank of the river. Each waggon halted where it stood at sunset, so that there was no common camp, but all along the road a line of bivouacs. But for the cloud of anxiety which darkened my mind, and the cords which bound my hands and constantly reminded me of my troubles, I might have enjoyed the comparative quietness of that night, the evening coolness, the soft green light, the freshness of leaf and bough, which lapped us round and seemed so much the more refreshing, as we had passed the day in a fever of heat and dust. But the unexpected sight of the Waldgrave had excited me; and I confess that as we came nearer to the camp, the tremors I felt on my own account grew more violent. I recalled with a shudder the shooting-match at which I had been present, and the leather targets. I drew vivid pictures of another shooting-match in the same valley — of my lady looking on in ignorance, of minutes of suspense, of a sudden pang, a gagged scream, of hours of lingering torture.
Against such dreams the silence and beauty of the night were powerless, and the morning found me wakeful and unrefreshed, divided between reluctance to desert my lady and the instinct which bade me make an attempt at escape by the way, and while the chances of the journey were still mine. How I might have acted had a favourable opportunity presented itself, I cannot say; but as things went, I did nothing, and a little before sunset on the third day we gained the camp.
Then, I confess, I wished with all my heart that I had taken any chance, however slight. At sight of the familiar lines, the dusty, littered roads, the squalid crowds that came out to meet us, my gorge rose. The very smell of the place which I had so hated gave me qualms. I turned hot and cold as we rumbled slowly through the throng and one pointed me out to another, and I saw round me again the dark, lowering faces, the unsexed women, the horde of vile sutlers and footboys. They surged round the waggon, jeering and staring; and if I had shrunk from them when my hands were free, I loathed them still more now that I lay a prisoner and any moment might place me at their mercy.
I had seen nothing of the Waldgrave or the waggon which carried him for nearly two days, but as we passed through the gates I caught sight of the latter moving slowly on, a little way in front of us. Both waggons halted inside the camp while the wounded were taken out. I prepared to follow, but was bidden to stay. Then I began to realize my position. When the waggon bore me on alone — alone, though two or three pikemen and a rabble of gibing, grinning horse-boys marched beside me — I felt my blood run cold, and found my only consolation in the fact that the other waggon still went in front, and seemed to be bound for the same goal.
‘What are you going to do with me?’ I asked one of the ruffians who guarded me.
‘Prison,’ he answered laconically.
And a strange prison it was. On the verge of the camp, near the river, where a snug farmhouse had once stood, rose four gaunt walls, blackened with smoke. The roof was gone — burned off; but the rooftree, charred and soot-begrimed, still ran from gable to gable. A strong, high gate filled the room of the door; the windows had been bricked up. When I saw the waggon which preceded me halt before this melancholy place, I looked out between hope and fear — fearing some act of treachery, hoping to see the Waldgrave. But the blackguard crowd which surrounded the doorway was so great that it hid everything; and I had to curb my impatience until in turn my waggon stopped in the midst of them.
A mocking voice called to me to descend, and though I liked the look of the place little, and the aspect of the gang still less, I had no choice but to obey. I scrambled down, and passed as quickly as I could down the lane opened for me. A row of more villainous faces it has seldom been my fate to see, but the last on the right by the gate was so much the worst, that it caught my eye instantly. It was seamed with scars and bloated with drink, and it wore a ferocious grin. I was not surprised when the knave, a huge pikeman, dealt me, as I passed, a brutal shove with his knee, which sent me staggering into the enclosure, where I fell all at length on my face.
The blow hurt my hip cruelly, and yet the sight of that drunken, ugly giant filled me with a rush of joy and hope that effaced all other feelings. I forgot my fellow-prisoners, I forgot even the Waldgrave — who to be sure was there, sitting doubled up against the wall, and looking very white and sick. For the man with the seamed face was Drunken Steve of Heritzburg, whom we had left behind us in the castle, to be cured of his wounds. I had punished him a dozen times; almost as often my lady had threatened to drive him from the place and her service. Always he had had the name of a sullen, wilful fellow. But I had found him staunch as any tyke in time of need. For dogged fidelity and a ferocious courage, proof against the utmost danger, I knew that I could depend on him against the world; while the prompt line of conduct he had adopted at sight of me led me to hope something from wits which drink had not yet deadened.
It was well I had this spark of hope, for I found the Waldgrave so ill as to be beyond comfort or counsel, and without it I should have been in a parlous state. The place of our confinement was roofless, ill-smelling, s
trewn with refuse and filth, a mere dog-yard. A little straw alone protected us from the soil. Everything we did was watched through the open bars of the gate; and bad as this place was, we shared it with two soldiers, who lay, heavily shackled, in one corner, and sullenly eyed my movements.
I did what I could for the Waldgrave, and then, as darkness fell, I sat down with my back to the wall and thought over our position — miserably enough. Half an hour passed, and I was beginning to nod, when a slight noise as of a rat gnawing a board caught my ear. I raised my head and listened; the sound came from the gate. I stood up and crept towards it. As I expected, I found Steve on guard outside. Even in the darkness it was impossible to mistake his huge figure.
‘Hush!’ he muttered. ‘Is it you, master?’
‘Yes,’ I replied in the same tone. ‘Are you alone?’
‘For the moment,’ he answered hoarsely. ‘Not for long. So speak quickly. What is to be done?’
Alas! that was more than I could say. ‘What of my lady?’ I replied vaguely. ‘Is she here? In the camp?’
‘To be sure.’
‘And Marie Wort? The Papist girl?’
‘Yes, yes.’
‘Then you must see Marie,’ I answered. ‘She will know my lady’s mind. Until we know that, we can do nothing. Do not tell her where I am — it may hurt the girl; or of the Waldgrave, but learn how they are. If things are bad with my lady, bid them gain time. You understand?’
‘Yes, yes,’ he grunted. ‘And that is to be all, is it? You will have nothing done to-night?’
‘What, here?’
‘To be sure.’
‘No, no,’ I replied, trembling for the man’s rashness. ‘We can do nothing here until horses are got and placed for us, and the pass-word learned, and provisions gathered, and half a dozen other things.’
‘Donner! I don’t know how all that is to be done,’ he muttered despondently.
Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman Page 148