VC - A Chronicle of Castle Barfield and of the Crimea Part 11

'You've got to listen,' said the elder, rising and shaking him by the shoulder. 'You think I have acted like a scoundrel, and you're ashamed of your old father. I dare say you're right, my lad, but it wasn't so much my fault as you might fancy. There was a leak between that mine of old General Airey's and your Uncle James's when I went into partners.h.i.+p with him, and, after all, we only helped Nature just a little bit, and there's many a man walking about this minute, holding his head high, who has done more wrong than I have.'

'For G.o.d's sake, don't!' cried Polson, breaking silence for the first time. 'It's bad enough as it is. Don't make it worse by talking about it.'

'I won't, Polly,' said Jervase. 'I'll do anything you like if you'll only shake hands and say as you forgive me. Now there's two thousand pound on this here table, and there's the letter from your agents; and you can be off to London within an hour, and have your heart's desire.

What's the good of being stupid?'

He took a great bandana handkerchief from the tail pocket of his respectable black coat, and blew his nose resoundingly, and wiped his eyes. He was very deeply moved indeed, and Polson was profoundly sorry for him; but there was a sick whirl in the lad's mind which robbed him of any clear power of thought and seemed indeed to deaden feeling itself. Only he knew that nothing could undo his shame. Nothing could ever make him respect himself again. Nothing could give back to him the old sense of honour, the knowledge that he came of honest folk.

'Look here, Polly,' Jervase broke out again, 'I haven't bred you up to be a common soldier. When I was a young and struggling man, by comparison with what I am now, I said to myself, "I'll make my lad a gentleman." I sent you to Rugby, and I sent you to Oxford, and I never stinted neither love nor money. And if I _was_ a bit over-greedy and in a hurry to be rich, I did what I did a good deal more for your sake than my own.'

'Leave bad alone, father,' said Polson, with an almost savage sternness.

'Can't you see that you make things worse with every word you speak?

Isn't it enough for me to know what I know already, but you must make me a partner in that shameful business?'

'Polly,' said Jervase, almost fawning on him, 'I've been a hard man all my life, and I've lived a hard life for years. I've been a proudish sort of chap, in my own way, and I've never stooped to ask any man's pardon twice for the same offence. But it's different between you and me, and I can't let my own flesh and blood go away from me until I've had a word of some sort. It's only a word, Polly. You can't deny me! You're a-going out to the war, Polly, and you might never come back again. And think of me--think of your poor old father sittin' at home, and sayin' to himself, "I sent my son away with a broken heart and ashamed of his own father, and he wouldn't touch my hand before he went to his own death, and he wouldn't say one forgiving word to me, and I murdered him, and I broke his heart, and I made him ashamed of his own father." You think of me, Polly, sittin' at home and thinkin' like that. Maybe for years and years. We're a long-lived lot, we Jervases, and I should make old bones in the course of nature, but I couldn't bear it, Polly, I couldn't bear it. I should have to put an end to it, and if you go away without a word, it won't be long before I do it.'

The bugles sang out the a.s.sembly in the barrack square. Polson both heard and understood, but his father did neither. Within half an hour the regiment would be on the march, and already the red-coated, bra.s.s-helmeted men, s.h.i.+ning from head to foot and glittering in the fine array war wears before the exchange of the first blows, were moving about the open.

'Now look here, Polly,' said Jervase, striving no longer to disguise the wet eyes and the breaking voice, 'it's take it or leave it. There's your father's hand. Are you a-going to touch it before he goes away?'

'Don't you think,' asked Polson, 'that you're making it pretty hard for both of us?'

'Very well,' said Jervase, 'there's no handshake. There's no good-bye betwixt we two as friends. Perhaps you may come back in a different humour, Polly. Here's your agent's letter. Are you a-going to take your commission, and fight in a gentleman's uniform for your Queen and country, or are you going out to advertise your father's shame by wearing a private's coat?'

'I shall go as I am,' said Polson.

'Very well,' said John Jervase again. 'There's the father's hand refused, and there's the commission chucked into the gutter. Now here's a cheque for a thousand pound as you can cash with c.o.x & Co. in London.

Are you a-going to take that, or are you not?'

'I'm not likely,' said Polson, 'to have any sort of use for money.'

'You're hard,' said his father. 'You're bitter hard. There's the 'and refused. There's the commission chucked, and there's the check too dirty for you to look at. Very well. Now there's fifty notes for twenty pounds a-piece. Will you take them?'

'No,' said the youngster, 'I shall have no want of money and no use for it.'

'You're hard,' said Jervase. 'You're bitter hard. Will you take one of them? It might come in useful. Take it, Polly. Just take it, even if you never spend it.' He clutched one note from the heap which lay upon the table, and held it in a shaking hand towards his son. And Polson still stood like a statue, and stared out of the window. He would fain have been more relenting had he dared, but he feared the loss of his own manhood if he once began to pardon, and perhaps he was severer to himself than to the old man who begged for his forgiveness. 'There's the 'and,' said Jervase, weeping openly. 'He won't touch that. There's the commission only waiting for him to sign, and he won't touch that.

There's a cheque for a thousand pound as would send him to the war fitted out like a gentleman, and he won't touch that. There's the ready money to the same amount as would help him to hold his head up among his comrades anywhere, and he won't touch that. And here's a note for a mere twenty pounds, and his father asks him just to take it as a sort of a memorial, and to keep it like as if it was a funeral card, and he won't touch that.'

Polson was white to the lips, but he looked straight before him still, and gave no sign. Jervase took up the agent's letter and deliberately tore it into pieces. He took up his own cheque and tore that into pieces also. He patted the pile of notes together and put them into his breast pocket, crying all the while with odd little child-like s.n.a.t.c.hes of sound which were wounding to listen to.

The bugles sang out again in the square, and the distant hoofs were clattering on the cobbled stones in front of the stables. Through the window Polson could see the glitter of the polished bra.s.s of the band, as it moved slowly across the square towards the barrack gate, and formed up in a solid cube. There was a crowd outside in the streets, and from it rose a noise of cheering. There was silence in the room except for those child-like, unrestrained sobs which shook John Jervase; and even these quieted down as if he too were listening to the growing tumult outside. There was a sudden roll of drums, and the band began to play 'The Girl I left behind me.' An imperious rap sounded at the door, and Colonel Stacey entered without waiting for a response.

'Do you take your commission, Jervase, or are you to be left here?' he asked brusquely.

'I am to be left here, sir,' Polson answered. 'But I hope that I may get my marching orders as soon as possible.'

'We embark on Friday,' said the Colonel, 'and another s.h.i.+p follows that day week. I'll see you through by then.'

'Thank you, sir,' said Polson, and the Colonel nodded and was gone.

The band was playing, and the crowd in the street was cheering, and there was silence between father and son for two or three minutes. Then rose from the barrack square a deafening roar as 'old Stayce' rode out on the bright bay with the three white stockings, and cantered to the front. The hoa.r.s.e, commanding voice pealed out the word, the band crashed into a new marching tune, and the regiment began to move forward, like a scarlet snake with glistering scales. Clank and clatter of scabbard, tramp of the ordered ranks, blare of the band, and roar on roar from the street, and then little by little a falling silence. At last dead quiet.

'You needn't think there's no clean money in my hands,' said Jervase.

'I don't owe everything to that blasted brine-pit. You can take your own rights. You can take what I offer you, and feel as you're an honest man all the same. And Polly, if you're going out as a private soldier you'll want money. It isn't as if an untravelled man was talkin' to you. I know the Black Sea Coast I spent one Febiwerry there, a man before the mast.

I'll back it again the Pole for cold. You'll miss a lot o' comforts, Polly, as a pound or two would buy for you.'

'I must go back to duty,' said Polson, 'or I shall get into hot water.'

'Take a hundred pound, Polly. It's clean money. I'll swear it on my Bible oath. Look here, Polly. Look here!'

Jervase rose and shook his son by both shoulders in a frenzy.

'Look here, Polly, look here. Listen.'

'I am listening, father.'

'Then look as if you was listening for Heaven's sake! I'm worth half a million, if I'm worth a penny. I never owned to it before, but if it isn't true G.o.d strike me dead. Outside that salt mine, I've been an honest man. You won't believe it, but I have. I saw a chance of making money elsewhere, and I wanted a start, and I turned rogue for the sake of it. Polly, Polly. I'll pay every penny with a three per cent, interest--compound, mind you--compound--and I shall be a rich man still!

'Pol, you're hard. I don't know where you get it from. But, mind you!

One of these days you might find yourself led into a temptation, and then perhaps you'll think of your old father. How many business men have gone through life, and never done but one thing as they had a call to be ashamed of? I've done one; and I've been bowled out at it! There's men that does hundreds, Polly, and are never bowled out at all! I'll tell you what. It ain't me having been dishonourable as stands between us.

It's your own pride, Polly. It's a good pride. It's what you might call a righteous pride. But if I was just what I am, without being your father--if I was just what you might call an average old sinner, you wouldn't let me beg like this, Polly. No, you wouldn't! And look here, Polly. Money's money, and here's a thousand pound----'

'd.a.m.n your thousand pounds,' cried Polson. He turned to face his father in an agony, and struck his own clenched fist upon his breast three several times. Then he turned to his original position and stared through the window across the empty square.

'Yes,' said John Jervase slowly. 'd.a.m.n the thousand pounds. d.a.m.n it, and d.a.m.n it, and d.a.m.n it over again. You think I'm trying to bribe you, Polly? No! You wait till you're a father, with your only son a-going to the wars without a penny in his pocket, and hating you too much to take what you can give him. Then you'll feel what I feel. d.a.m.n the thousand pounds! d.a.m.n all the money as was ever coined. But, Polly, there's my hand again. I'd rather you took it full--but won't you take it empty?'

The lad took the empty hand and wrung it hard, and held it long.

CHAPTER IX

The time, half-past four o'clock in the morning; the date the twentieth of September, eighteen hundred and fifty-four; the place the southern bank of the River Alma. Present, some thirty thousand stalwart British men, the vast majority of them snoring open-mouthed, and here and there in the grey of the morning a sentry pacing up and down. Facing northward, Polson Jer-vase's regiment lies far to the right, and to the right of it again, at a distance of some half a mile, the men of Bosquet's command are also sleeping. This is a day destined to be famous and terrible in history; but the dawn is cloudless and quiet. Away beyond the slope of the valley, across the grey flow of the river and half-way upon the northern slope, the pacing sentries, or such of them as are sharp-sighted, can perceive what looks like a wrinkle in the hill. It is some three or maybe four miles from the long line of sleepers, and it indicates the outlines of that great Redoubt around which the memories of Englishmen will cling for centuries to come.

Near five o'clock, and a soft warm morning wind blowing under a stainless sky. Gallopers from headquarters pa.s.s here and there with a quiet word, 'Wake your men, and make no noise.' There is no sound of any bugle call at that _reveille_, and the men silently arise, sit up and shake themselves, and mostly make their toilet by a simple process of eye-rubbing and the a.s.sumption of their headgear. Then the camp fires are lit here and there where a clump of officers gathers together over their morning tea and coffee. For thus early in the campaign all the luxuries of home are not abandoned or forgotten. Troop and company orderlies stroll down to the river, bearing buckets, and the rank and file munch their ration of s.h.i.+p's biscuit. And before the simple meal is barely over, the stealthy word pa.s.ses along the ranks, and a forward march begins, ghost-like in the dawn. Somewhat clumsily manoeuvred by their chiefs, the line, three or four miles in length, dips; down towards the river and crowds at a few chosen fording places. Then it spreads out again like an open fan, and marches up the further slope--the infantrymen dripping from the arm-pits downwards, and the handful of cavalry on the right of the British flank s.h.i.+ning in the rising sun to the horses' shoulders.

Then a pause, and a long pause. Vine yards along the hill and s.p.a.ces of field and farm, and scattered houses here and there, and on the left the village of Vourliouk, set aflame by the foe for some as yet undiscovered reason. The smoke goes circling up into the pure air, and a faint scent of burning is discernible. Still a mile and a half away on either side the great Redoubt, and in front of it there are cubes and oblongs which look like ma.s.ses of grey stone, and might pa.s.s for such except that now and again they may be seen to move. These are the infantry troops of Russia, with whom our own men are soon to be in deadly conflict. The fields of Europe have heard no sounds of any cannon fired in anger since the last loud Sabbath of Waterloo shook down the spoilers of the Continent; but, unseen at this distance, the guns which line that wrinkle of the hill above there are charged to the throat, and there are resolute men behind them.

The sun rises higher and higher, and the men of the halted army throw themselves to the ground, awaiting a further word from somebody.

Solitary gallopers go hither and thither, over the rolling hills. The staff, with waving plumes, goes cantering along the line, and the idea somehow pa.s.ses through the ranks that Lord Raglan has gone to consult with Monsieur St. Arnaud as to the disposition of the day's battle.

There are thousands of youngsters lying there among the vineyards who have never, until this moment, set eyes on their commander. Raglan goes by amidst a dropping fire of cheers, the sleeve of the right arm dangling loose beside him, his bronzed Roman face one cheerful and inspiring smile, and the cunning left hand, with which he has learned to write his despatches, held low down as he controls his charger. And on the far right of the English line, Polson Jervase is standing at his horse's head, cheering with the rest, when on a sudden he discerns a familiar figure: General Boswell is at the Chiefs side and the two are in familiar converse. The young soldier's first battle not yet begun, and Irene's father going by so near and yet so unmindful of him as a mere unit among the waiting thousands. And it is not yet, not even yet, so very certain that we are to give battle this morning, after all. For we have been bedevilled hither and thither with false marches and with false rumours of sailing and lines of route. Monsieur St. Arnaud has been for camping south of the Balkans, and giving battle to the power of Russia there, and Raglan has been all for the Crimea and the road to Sevastopol. And no man has known what to believe amongst the divided councils of the Allies. The men amongst the vineyards are plucking and sucking the grapes. The sun grows hotter and hotter, and there is so dreary a silence in these waiting hours that the angry neigh of a horse is heard for a mile along the line. Five o'clock when we began to move, and here is high noon, and impatience all on edge, and nothing done.

The staff comes cantering back, and another hour goes by in silence; and then from the Highlanders half a mile away on the left of the handful of cavalry there rises a sound of jubilation. And round the camp fires at night, when the fight is over and the English are in possession of the field, the men learn the reason of the cry. Sir Colin Campbell has sent round the word that the men are to break their cartridge packets, and lay the cartridges loose in their pouches, and this is the first word of real business. Now at one o'clock, or near it, the note pa.s.ses along the line from east to west, and the men are afoot again, and marching forward two deep against those solid ma.s.ses of grey human masonry, and that gash upon the hill-side which is by and by to burst like a volcano into flame. There goes the first boom of cannon from the Russian side, and a round shot sends the earth spluttering amidst the staff as it canters by once more, plumes waving, and epaulets, and scabbards, and gold lace, and all the fine tinsel of war, as yet unsoiled, glittering in the suns.h.i.+ne.

This is no day for a cavalryman to win honour. Here we sit on the hill-side with a downward slope before us, and an upward slope beyond, and the unmounted men are working their way onward and upward, whilst we are held inactive. And now the war begins in earnest. The tartan fellows are lounging along, half of them with the stem of a grape bunch between their teeth, loading and firing as they go, scarcely a man of them having stood fire before, and walking towards their baptism of death and blood with an astounding cheerfulness, and the long waving broken line converges as if by instinct, and, as the historians of the battle tell us, without definite order from any quarter, towards that grim gash on the hillside, until it grows to be something of a mob, so thickly cl.u.s.tered that the Russian batteries cleave lines through it. It wavers, it pauses, it rushes forward, it takes shelter beneath the forehead of the hill on which the great Redoubt stands, and then declines, a mere swarm of ants to look at from this distance, towards the belching roar and smoke and flame. And on a sudden the batteries are silent, and far and far there goes up a cheer. And then there is silence again, and a long waiting, and the grave ma.s.sive oblongs and cubes of masonry come down on this side and on that, and the watchers in the valley wait in a tense and terrible strain. Where are the reinforcements? Where is the Duke of Cambridge, with the Guards? Hidden away there in a wrinkle of the hill they are waiting for some unknown reason, and the conquerors of the great Redoubt seem doomed. But after awful minutes and minutes, which stretch to hours, the line sweeps up. Raglan's immortal two guns come into play from the knoll on the distant right, and the tide of battle is turned again. And all the while we of the cavalry division are maddened with excitement, and consumed by ennui, by turns, wearied with thirst and heat, and waiting in vain for our chance to strike a blow at the enemy. Bored and tired and athirst, the men who have stood for hours at the bridle throw themselves on the sunburned gra.s.s. No chance for us to-day, says one to the other, and the tide of battle, now grown invisible, is rolling noisily here and there, now seeming as if it would vanish altogether into the air, and now as if a flying enemy had suddenly taken heart and were back in swift return. And here is a hill to the west of us, and the hot sun, yet s.h.i.+ning clean and bright through whiffs and shreds of scattered smoke, goes down behind it, and the shadow lengthens, and creeps up the brown-green face of the hill to the left. And lo, on a sudden, a sweating galloper on the crest of the hill, with his horse one lather from haunch to bridle, is tearing down with orders. Here is old Stacey in the saddle again, and his hoa.r.s.e voice is calling. The tired and thirsty souls are alert in an instant, and away go the Heavy Dragoons at a walk until the hill is breasted. Then at a trot, a canter, a gallop, a charge. For the ma.s.ses of the enemy are all huddled in disorderly crowds away there in the pa.s.s, and it needs but one decisive blow to smite them into utter rout and scatter them like chaff. Then was an hour when the fate of a great campaign lay in the balance; and because that hour was not chosen England had to pour out her blood and her treasure in one mingled torrent for a year or two. For as the charging regiment was in amongst the lingerers of the retreat, the pursuit was called away. The keener spirits had naturally ridden furthest, and there was no man there that day who was keener than Polson Jervase. When the bugles rang out the 'Retire,' he would, had he been in command, have risked a plagiarism of Nelson, with a gla.s.s at the blind eye, and would have failed to recognise the recalling signal. But he was a unit, and a private unit at that. And he was already half emmeshed amidst the edges of the flying crowd, and actually at their mercy, if any of the fugitives had found so much as a sheep's heart to awake within him.

So he turned and galloped back, and since he had been one of the first in the advance, he was naturally one of the last to retreat. There had been a rare burst of a downhill mile or two, and his horse, unfed and unwatered within the last twelve hours, was in need of mercy. He rode the poor beast tenderly, caressing him as he went, and looking up he was aware of an officer in staff uniform, who was rounding up the stragglers. There are few things that appeal more directly from man to man than the sympathy of the sound and rooted sportsman. Polson had followed the hounds almost from the time when he could first bestride a pony; and the sight of a clean workman across bad country was like wine to him at any time. This fellow in the c.o.c.ked hat and waving plumes was splendidly mounted, to be sure, but the going was as treacherous and difficult as it well could be, and the horseman rode with an address and daring which were delightful to look at. He waved an urgent hand from three or four hundred yards away towards Polson, who responded by a gesture indicating the route he meant to take. The last straggler having been thus rounded up, the officer turned and reined in his charger for a final look at the retreating forces of the enemy; and somewhere from the black middle ma.s.s of them down in the shadow of the valley there came a flash and a volley of smoke, and almost directly afterwards an echoing boom of sound. The charger reared, drooped upon his haunches, and fell over; the rider dropped with admirable agility on one side and avoided the threatened mischief of the fall. There were scores of unmastered steeds racing about the valley and the upward slopes; Polson rode for the nearest, and, having secured it, cantered up to the place where the dead charger lay, A round shot had ploughed its way clean through the n.o.ble creature's chest, and the sight was pitiable and gruesome.