A Tatter of Scarlet Part 28

But that night as I lay I kept awake for the pure joy of knowing myself alive. I loved the breathing of the men about me, the ordered mystery of the comings and goings, the clicking of the telegraphic machine as Jack Jaikes bent over it, even the little circle of golden light which the lamp shed, and the bristly way his moustache had of standing out beyond the wicks of his grimly humorous mouth.

I wondered if he ever slept. Certainly he lay down. He had a blanket with which he covered himself, head and all. It was not much of a blanket, being pierced in the centre so that it could be worn with the head thrust through, poncho-wise, as he stalked about. It was full of burnt holes, showing where he had thrown himself down on cinders, some of which had proved too recent.

About four there came a shrill _tirr-r-r-r_ of the small call-bell and every sleeper was instantly on his feet. How Jack Jaikes got to the ticker I do not know, but long before the men had their belts snapped, he was reading off to them the location of the alarm.

"Between posts 48 and 49, Norwell and Omand warned. Ready there, file out!"

The dark figures pa.s.sed one by one out of the faint copper glow of the forge, stood each a moment against the blue-black mystery of the night framed in the doorway, and were then lost in the obscurity.

I thought of following, but first of all I was afraid of Jack Jaikes, who had made no sign to me, and secondly and chiefly, in a yard and among defences so sown with dangers and (for all I knew) corded with live wires, I might easily do myself much harm, and the general welfare of the cause little good. So, sorely against the grain, I stayed where I was.

Presently the men came laughingly back, their humour quite vanished. Two of the town goats--for Aramon was near enough to the mountains and to Spain to possess many of these--had chosen to contest the narrow way to the factory wall, from a pure point of honour as gentlemen should, for there was no lady in the case. They had died fighting, and a bayonet's point had been requisitioned to dislodge them both. They were now brought in and handed over to the cook for preparation. Both had been hard fighters in their time, and looked as if they would furnish what Caroline in "The Heir at Law" calls "not an inviting meal."

Everybody was now fully waked up, and no one thought any more of sleep.

The night was still of the indigo dark peculiar to the South, and outside, I could see the stars sinking one by one. The glow on the forge-hearth was set blazing, tea billies were soon boiling, and there was a fragrant smell of coffee in the air. The clean, appetising hiss of frying bacon struck a joyous note. Someone set a big globe of electric light flaring, when, _whisk-whisk_, a quartette of bullets tore through the shed and knocked it to flinders.

Then in like an avenging genie entered Jack Jaikes.

"If I kenned wha that idiot was that set yon infernal thing blazing, I would knock the amazing friskiness out o' him. Have I not telled ye a score o' times that ye are no to make exhibitions o' yerselves?

Exhibitions, did I say, waur nor that, juist blank eediot targets that the Frenchmen haena sense enough to hit!"

He made a silence about him, for all knew that his angers were black and that he would stick at nothing, but, if provoked, strike with what came nearest to his hand.

But the mood pa.s.sed, the globe and carbons were renewed, and by the end of their early breakfast his good-humour also was quite restored. The men moved easily again without casting furtive eyes to see how the black dog was riding Jack Jaikes. They knew him for an incomparable fighting leader, an engineer without rival in the camp, but there was no doubt that he needed humouring when, as he would have said himself, "his birse was up." It had been remarked, even before he left the Clyde, that he was "far ower handy wi' a spanner," and that might have been the reason why he had tried Bristol and the Tyne before finding his master in Dennis Deventer of the Arms Factory of Aramon.

I broke in upon the Deventers at breakfast--a meal which in defiance of all local custom they took together as they had been used to do far away in Barrow under the c.u.mberland fells. Or rather it was Jack Jaikes himself who did the breaking. He could not deny himself that.

We heard the noise and clatter as we mounted the stairs.

"A fight," chuckled Jack Jaikes, half to himself, "but two to one on Rhoda Polly, anyway."

But he had his little effect to make. He flung the door open, grounded his rifle with a ringing clash, and announced in a stentorian voice:

"A deserter!"

The clamour ceased instantly. Every face was turned towards the door, Dennis Deventer half rose, his napkin in his hand. I could see the pale, clear-cut features of Rhoda Polly, her red lips parted, peering over her father's shoulder.

Dennis Deventer received me with a friendly push that sent me in the direction of Hugh, who "cleared" like a goal-keeper, and I fell into a chair beside Rhoda Polly.

"Come in, Jack Jaikes--what will you take? Try those kidneys--they are rather good. No, no, your chaps can't want you so soon. You are not hatching them out there, you know!"

These and other cries at last persuaded Jack Jaikes to do what he was yearning to do--sit down and eat a second breakfast with his master's family. His grin was at once triumphant and sardonic, yet he left me to answer for myself. His pleasure was not to talk much at these festivals of his soul. I think he was fearful of what he called "langwage"--such as he used occasionally in the works--escaping his control. At any rate he was a happy listener, and the few words he uttered were always destined to foment a discussion, acerbate a verbal quarrel, so that he could lay mental bets upon his admired Rhoda Polly. When she made a good hit, he felt inclined (as he confessed) to rise up and yell, "like a gallery student on an opera night"--a set of savages whom he had known during the college days of his brother, now a creditable and responsible "placed" minister in Scotland.

When I announced that I had come to stay Rhoda Polly nearly trod my foot off under the table, a vulgar disgrace to our comrades.h.i.+p for which she apologised afterwards.

"I had to do it," she said, "or I should have been blubbering on your shoulder with my arms about your neck! How would you have liked that, Angus my lad?"

I answered, that before company I should have liked it ill enough, but proffered my shoulder for the purpose since we were in private. Rhoda Polly in her turn cried shame upon me. If I could not remember our compact, she would not forget it. She also reminded me of saying of my own accord that she and I had put away childish things. In vain I represented to her that I had just returned from great danger and that if she had been so overwhelmed with joy at breakfast as to make pemmican of my foot, she must have still some remaining for which a suitable expression might be found without looking out the word in the dictionary.

But Rhoda Polly would have none of my suggestions. She was glad she had shown her feelings, however irregularly, but now if I pleased we would resume our good old talks together, at least when the incidents of the siege permitted.

Her father did not allow her to run round the yard or about the posts with the men, as she had been wont to do during the first January difficulties.

"Oh, it isn't that," she said, answering a question in my eyes which was also an accusation; "of course some of them think I'm nice and all that.

But it isn't that! I'm not Liz! Only father says that there are snipers on the towers--the cathedral, St. Servan's, St. Marthe's, and St.

Crispin's--and he doesn't want any accidents happening to his eldest daughter. But I am sure the boys miss me. I know Jack Jaikes does. He told me so when he came in to arrange mother's sewing machine, which I 'wrongulated' on purpose to hear the news."

Later I retold Dennis Deventer the story of the coming trouble in Aramon and the despair of Keller Bey. He listened without surprise, his deep-set Irish eyes almost hidden under his twitching, bushy brows.

"There's a man that is obleeged to me, Angus me lad. He runs a copper ore boat from Huelva--that's in Spain--to Ma.r.s.eilles. If we could get the owld Keller man down there, I know a boatman in the Joliette who would give him shelter till the steamer lifts her anchor. There is no need for him to be desperate about any such thing. The world is wide and Governments in this country are made of cardboard and bad paste. He will be amnestied in a year or two. Can the man not be reasonable?"

I told him that the difficulty lay there. Keller Bey considered himself bound to those who had helped him to set up the Commune in Aramon. He would make no separate peace for himself.

"Separate fiddlesticks!" shouted Dennis Deventer. "Does he mean such comfortable old soup-bags as Pere Felix, or wine-skins like Pipe-en-Bois, or alcohol gutters like the Marshal Soult? Let him set his mind at rest. They are safe. No Government while I live shall harm a hair of their heads. They will never stand behind a barricade--never fire a shot; if they will be careful not to fall downstairs after celebration suppers to the memory of Danton and Marat and the men of '48, they will all die in their beds and have their memories honoured in turn by the suppers of another and redder generation!"

There was truth in what Dennis said. These were not the men who would die fighting when the day of reckoning came. The young sullen wolf's breed of the sidelong glances and the whispered counsels--these were those who would line the last ditches of the defence of Aramon.

But, then, Keller Bey felt that he was responsible also for them. He was their chief and normal leader. He had the secrets of the Internationale and he had made proselytes, even among the young people. Could he leave them and flee? I knew very well Keller Bey's line of argument, and I put it to Dennis. He clapped his knee testily.

"Oh, for a good Scots or Ulster head on a man--even English would do because of the fine, solid underpinning and bodygear the Lord G.o.d puts into his southern-built vessels. But when a man gets this megrim of honour in his brain, there is no saying beforehand what he will or will not do--except that it will surely be eediocy."

"It's a pity, too," he added, after thought, "a man that can be talking the Arab or the Turkish with men like your father (G.o.d bless him) and old Professor Renard."

I suggested that there was one factor we were overlooking--that it was more than likely that before long the Conservative Commune of Aramon would be displaced and with it would disappear the rule of Keller.

No, I did not think they would kill him. They would probably expel the ex-Dictator and let him go where he would. Then would be the time to secure him, and send him to the captain of the Huelva cargo-boat.

Dennis patted me on the head.

"We cannot be sure of doing much," he said, "but we can always have a try. We shall probably be desperately busy ourselves if the wild rakes take the lead over the wall yonder. They will come at us, not this time in undisciplined rush, but with method and well armed--thanks to the folly of the National a.s.sembly."

Still, Dennis Deventer had a card up his sleeve. "You must wait with us and see the rubber played out."

CHAPTER x.x.x

DEVILS' TALK

The black day which was coming upon Aramon was not long in dawning.

Barres and Imbert were the leaders of the anarchist party, which had always secretly opposed the Marxian communism of Keller Bey and his adherents.

These were the men of the opposition, dark-browed cub-engineers and piece-workers, not high in their professions--being far too careless and off-hand for regular work, but with a das.h.i.+ng strain in them, and a way of putting the matter which imposed upon the younger men.

Were they hungry? There was food in the shops. Was their miserable fifteen pence a day insufficient? Yonder were the villas of the traders who had sucked and grown rich on the money they had earned, inadequate as it was. Had any man a wrong? The Government had put arms in his hands--let him go and right it!--It may be imagined what was the outcome of this kind of talk. So long as Keller Bey kept his hold there was no night plundering, and several men caught playing at "individual expropriation" were first threatened with the provost marshal and then with a firing party. Instead they were sent to the care of Calvi in the prison of Monsieur le Duc because the heart of Keller was tender.