So thought Polson Jervase, and so thought hundreds of valiant men who were ready to lay down their lives in a quarrel which the years have proved unprofitable.
But a voice awoke the recruity from his reverie—a voice of authority which asked with a most unnecessary emphasis what the blank, blank he meant by skulking there, when he knew conventionally well that he had been conventionally well ordered to the quartermaster’s stores to get his conventional kit. The recruit was not accustomed to hear himself addressed in this manner, and his earliest impulse was to hit the pug nose of the person who accosted him, but he remembered himself in time, and bethinking him of the wise man’s saying, that a soft answer turneth away wrath, he asked meekly where he should go. Then the Sergeant, who was so straitly trousered and jacketted that he pranced in his going, ordered him to follow his nose, adding that if he conventionally well supposed that because a conventional General in a conventional carriage came to see him off, he was entitled to shirk his conventional duties, he was conventionally well in error.
‘I say, Sergeant,’ said Polson, turning to face his conductor, ‘that’s a filthy bad habit. If you want to be respected, drop it.’
The Sergeant went as scarlet as his stable-jacket, and said that any conventional recruit had conventionally well got to respect him any conventional how.
‘My dear sir, no,’ said Polson. ‘It’s quite impossible to respect a man who talks like a foul-mouthed parrot.’
The Sergeant walked like a man astounded and said no more, and Polson likewise held his peace. They were both quietly businesslike whilst Polson got his kit served out to him, and by the time this work was over, the dinner hour had arrived. He was told off to a mess in a long barrack-room, in which his brother recruits were quartered, under the charge of an old soldier. Some of these new comrades were fresh from the plough, and some were the rowdy refuse of the town; one wore a miner’s flannels, and another was a weedy youth from a shop-counter, who had a higher opinion of himself than others were likely to form.
The speech of every man jack of them was like the exhalation of a cesspool, and the newest of Her Majesty’s hired servants sat in a grim wrath and loathing, seeing that he had chosen these for his life companions. The meal was plentiful, and not bad of its kind, but it was dirtily served, and asked for long custom or an appetite of more than average keenness. Our recruit had neither the one nor the other, but he remembered his promise to Irene. He had undertaken to meet his fate cheerfully, and the fare was part of his fate. He would have no re-pinings. The food was honest and wholesome, and he would probably learn to be eager for worse before the war was over. So he, as it were, squared his shoulders at his trencher, and was just ready to fall to, when one of the plough-tail gentry sitting just opposite let fall a speech which would have turned the stomach of a decent hog, if he had happened to understand it. Polson’s heart maddened within him, and he smote his fist upon the unclothed table so that the plates of chipped enamel iron danced from end to end on it.
‘You filthy clodpole!’ he said, rising from his place and thrusting a prognathous jaw and blazing eyes half-way across the table. ‘Speak like that again in my hearing, and I’ll give you such a hiding as you never had since you were born.’
‘And sarve him right, begorra,’ said the man at the head of the table. ‘It’s sick I am of all the dirty stuff I’ve to listen to—An’ dese boys is ‘listed for de war, and dere’s not wan of ‘em knows he mayn’t be stiff on de field in tree or four monts’ time. An’ be way of makin’ ready for a soldier’s end an’ a sudden meetin’ wid his God, dey’re chewin’ blasphaymious conversation from reveille to lights out, so dey are.’
‘Thank you,’ said Polson, and so sat down and tried to go on with his dinner.
The meal was finished in silence. The scene had its effect, and it had all the more surely for two or three things which happened later on. Example. The whole rough squad was turned into the riding school that afternoon dressed as they might happen to be. The accustomed old drill-horses, saddled and bridled, were ranged on the tan at the wall, with stirrups crossed over the shoulders, and when the word ‘Mount’ was given, Polson was the only one of the newly recruited crowd who did not make a painful climb in trying to obey the order. He was in the saddle in a flash, and sat there like a centaur.
‘We’ve got one man amongst us, seemin’ly,’ said the old rough-riding Sergeant.
‘You’ve seen a horse before to-day, my lad.’
‘One or two,’ said Polson.
‘Come out,’ said the red-nosed drill.
‘Let’s see what you’re good for. Put her at that.’
‘That’ was a furze-covered revolving pole mounted on swivelled trestles, and about three feet high. It was a leap for a child, and Polson went over it, turned and came nimbly back again. The instructor approached him and took him by the foot and ankle.
‘That’s the shape for the cavalry leg,’ he said. ‘Keep that and don’t lose it. Now put her at it again.’
As the recruit turned to obey the order, the Sergeant mischievously slashed the mare across the quarters, and the venerable she-trooper skipped; but this was hardly a thing to scare the best cross-country man of his shire, and Polson nipped over the bar and back again. At that moment entered Captain Volnay, to whom the drill, saluting, said:
‘It’s no use wasting this man’s time here, sir. Colonel’s orders are to get ‘em through as fast as possible. He’d be better engaged at foot drill.’
‘Very good,’ said Volnay. ‘You can dismount, my man. Come with me.’
On the far side of the square a squad was at work at the sword exercise, and the instructor’s voice was bawling: ‘Thrust, return, thrust—return. Carry—so! Slope—so! Shun! Stand at ease!’
‘Well,’ said Volnay. ‘How do you like it?’
‘I shall like it well enough, I dare say. I haven’t shaken into the saddle yet.’
‘I’m going to hand you over to this lot,’ said Volnay, indicating the squad with a motion of the hand. ‘D’you know anything about it?’
‘A bit,’ the recruit answered. ‘You see, it’s been the dream of my life to join, and I’ve been taking lessons.’
‘Good old enthusiast!’ said Volnay. ‘I saw you meeting old Stayce. He’s a grand old sort. No finer soldier in the army. Regiment adores him. And he has an eye for a man who does his duty. A nod’s as good as a wink to a blind horse, old Pol, eh?’
‘I’ll try,’ said Polson.
‘You’ll try right enough. You’re a good old pebble. I’ve got to be professional, you understand. No end of a devil of a lot of unpleasantness if these chaps suspected favouritism.’
‘Oh,’ said Polson, ‘I’m at work. No playing en amateur.’
‘That’s the style. There are some of our fellows saying there’ll be no fighting. That’s rubbish. There’s glory in front of some of us, Polly.’
They went on in silence until they reached the guard.
‘Shun!’ roared the Sergeant, and the men clicked their heels together and straightened their backs and tucked their chins in and assumed that ramrod posture which the authorised drill-book of the day described as ‘the free and unconstrained attitude of a soldier.’
‘Sergeant,’ said Volnay, ‘this man has just joined, but Sergeant Gill finds that he can ride and has dismissed him from the riding school. He tells me that he’s been taking lessons in sabre practice. Just put him through his paces, will you?’
So the Sergeant set his squad to stand at ease again, and Polson, being provided with a belt and sabre, was stuck up in front of it, feeling absurdly like a trick ape on show.
‘Draw—so! Slope—so! Prep—air! Prove distance!’ and so on.
‘Pursuin’ practice. One. Cut—thrust—parry. Two. Cut—thrust—parry. Shunt Now from the word of command, right through. Sword exercise. Prep—air! Prove distance—go! Shun! Pursuin’ practice I Prep—air! Go! Shun! That’s all right, sir. Ever been in the service before, young feller?’
‘No,’ said Polson. ‘I always meant to join, and I thought I’d get ready as far as I could.’
‘Now look here, my lad,’ said the Sergeant. ‘You’ve been through the mill before, you have. You’re a deserter, you know, that’s what you are.’
Polson laughed. He had thought never to laugh again, but the accusation tickled him.
‘I beg your pardon, Captain Volnay,’ he said, saluting in officer’s fashion—the only way he had been taught; ‘but perhaps you will speak up for me.’
‘Deserter?’ said Volnay. ‘Rubbish! Known the man for years. Always keen on the service, and got ready for it. Jervase.’ ‘Yes, sir.’
‘You’re a pretty good shot, I gather?’ ‘Thank you, sir.’
‘Any instruction in musketry?’ ‘Pretty fair, sir.’
‘Put him through his facings, Sergeant, in the riding school at four o’clock this afternoon. I’ll be there. You hear, Jervase?’
‘Yes, sir.’
At this juncture the Sergeant surprised a wink from Volnay, which that young gentleman supposed to have been unseen, and he fell a-thinking. The result of his cogitation was rapid and conclusive. The young man who knew the minutiae of his trade of soldier, and had an officer’s trick of salute, and was on winking terms with the wealthiest man in the regiment, was a person to be made up to, and to be made up to in the least transparent way.
‘We’re awfully short-handed, sir,’ said the Sergeant, touching his forage cap to Volnay. ‘We might utilise this man as a drill, sir, if you’ll permit me to suggest such a thing. I could get on twice as fast, sir, if I’d half the squad to deal with.’
‘Very well,’ said Volnay. ‘I’ll see the adjutant about that.’
And the raw recruit was drilling his barrack-room comrades before he or they had fitted on a uniform, and his ringing ‘Carry—so!’ or ‘Ground—oh!’ sounded through the square as imperiously as any in those first busy days.
‘You’re a (conventional) wonder, you are,’ said the drill instructor at the close of the second day. ‘You’ve got the powers that be behind you, and you’ll be one of us in a month or two. Promotion’s quick when the word comes for blood and rust and mud and oil.’
If Polson had not to be taught how to ride, how to handle a sabre or a gun, or how to balance himself in the goose-step—matters which he had taken the pains to master long ago—there were still certain things to learn, and the button stick, and the flat and chain burnish, and the pots of chrome yellow, and blacking, and pipeclay, were just as strange to him as they would have been to any other raw recruit; so that he was teaching his business at one end and learning it at the other for a matter of some four or five days.
There was a poor exile of Erin in the shape of an impecunious Irish nobleman, who enlisted on the same day with Polson and whose uniform was tried on in the same hour.
They were in the tailor’s shop together with a hurried Sergeant standing over them.
The aristocratic Paddy pulled on his trousers with a heavy sigh.
‘The livery,’ said he, ‘of me degradation.’
‘It is the Queen’s uniform,’ said Polson, ‘and you have a right to be proud to wear it.’
The child of Erin buttoned his stable jacket and went out to drill, and Polson gave him a purposed double dose of labour. He had given orders to an individual man here and there, but until he became a dragoon he had never commanded a crowd, and there is something in that which makes either a man or a sweep of the commander. Polson was all alert, eager to teach what he knew to the slow and loutish squad before him; but on that first morning of his wearing the Queen’s cloth, keen as he was upon his own business, he could not help recognising a certain pair of flea-bitten greys which swept through the barrack gate whilst he was at work some fifty yards away. They came from the Bar-field Arms, and he had helped the man who now drove them in their breaking, four or five years ago.
There was a cry of ‘Guard, tarn out!’ and a clash of salute as the carriage rolled through the gates without a challenge, and the man who sat at the back, disdaining the cushions, and with a lustrous silk hat cocked over one eyebrow, was his father. John Jervase came into barracks, as he had gone everywhere throughout his life, with a magnificent impudence, and he distributed salutes to all and sundry from a majestic forefinger; whilst his only son watched him with a sardonic eye as he bowled up to the officers’ quarters.
The card of Mr. John Jervase was carried to Colonel Stacey, and Colonel Stacey was ready to receive Mr. Jervase in a flash.
‘I am told, sir,’ said Mr. Jervase, in that bluff, John-Bull way of his, which had brought a hundred people to his net, ‘that the regiment has its marching orders, and I can quite believe that you’ve got something better to do than to listen to anything I have to say.’
‘I’m pressed for time, sir,’ said the Colonel. ‘The regiment marches in an hour.’
‘Here’s a lad of mine, sir,’ said Jervase, ‘has enlisted. And here is a letter from Kirby & Sons, the well-known Army agents, telling me they’ve got my cheque for his commission. It’s been the hope of my heart to see the lad in the army, and it’s been his hope also. We’ve had a quarrel, sir, and I don’t mind confessing that it is my fault. The lad’s a good lad.’ His voice began to tremble. ‘But he’s throwing his life away for a freak. I’ve bowt his commission, and here’s the letter from the London agents to say that the whole thing is complete. I know he’s here, for I heard him as I crossed the barrack square. I’d like you to help me to bring him back to reason.’
The Colonel took a whip from the table and struck a blow upon the door, which was one of his substitutes for bell-ringing.
‘Private Jervase,’ he said, ‘is drilling a squad in front of the Cupola. Send him here.’ He waved his visitor to a chair, and plunged into the examination of a heap of papers which lay before him. Jervase nursed his silk hat in both hands and waited, listening to the scattered noises of the barrack square and catching amongst them his son’s voice with a sort of fatal sound of command in it.
‘Is he going to talk to me like that?’ asked the father of himself; and the minutes went slowly by until Colonel Stacey’s batman tapped respectfully at the door, and announced ‘Private Jervase.’
‘I’ll leave you,’ said the Colonel, gathering his papers in his hand, and darting towards the doorway.
‘I beg you won’t, sir,’ cried Jervase the elder, ‘I shall be more than obliged to you, sir, if you will help me to bring my boy to reason. There,’ he cried, casting a letter upon the table, ‘is a notice from the London agents that his commission is bought and paid for. There’s my cheque for a thousand pounds, and if that isn’t good enough for him, there’s fifty twenty-pound notes of the Bank of England, and he can have both of ‘em with as good a heart on my side as if he took the one and left the other.’
The Colonel looked from the son to the father, and back from the father to the son.
‘Really, Mr. Jervase,’ he said, ‘I don’t see that this is much of an affair of mine. I will leave you to fight it out between you.’
The Colonel walked to the door, and father and son were left together. John Jervase, banker, capitalist, driver of men, was not in the least like himself that morning, and his hands trembled so that he was fain to clutch one with another, and to hold both tight between his knees as he sat.
‘Look here, Polly,’ he began, but Polson gazed sternly straight before him, and gave no sign of sympathy or forgiveness. ‘Look here, Polly, I’ve had about a week of it, and I can’t stand it any longer. You and me’s got to be friends, or else I’ve got to put an end to things in a way as you won’t fancy.’
He waited, but there was no response from the stolid figure in front of him. Pol-son stared out of the window and stood silent and immobile as a statue.
‘I left you to yourself,’ said Jervase, ‘until I’d got everything right and comfortable. Major de Blaequaire has gone off to Southampton, and I believe he’s on his way to Varna, somewhere in the Black Sea. I’ve made a deposit with Stubbs, his lawyer, of no less than fifty thousand pounds, my lad. That’s been a shake, I tell you. I’ve had a good deal o’ trouble to raise that sum in a hurry, but I’ve done it, and there’s to be no action and no scandal of any sort until De Blaequaire comes back again. That gives your Uncle James and me time to turn round.’
He waited again, and still Polson stood like a statue and made no answer.
‘I’ve done more than that,’ Jervase went on. ‘I’ve banked twelve thousand pounds to General Boswell’s credit, so that come what may he isn’t likely to suffer. If De Blaequaire carries the case on when he comes back to England, James and me can pay him every penny of his rightful claim, and we’ll do it.’
He paused again, for his voice had once more half escaped from his control. The boy stood before him, cold and inflexible as doom. To the father’s eye he had never looked so manly and handsome as he did at this moment, and what with fatherly pride and self pity and a sense of the magnanimity of his own purposes, the emotions of John Jervase were strangely mixed.
‘There’ll be no trouble at all, Polly,’ he said, after a pause. ‘I’ve put everything straight for you. You’ve only got to run up to London to sign your papers, to have your commission, and go out like a gentleman. I’ve brought a portmanteau with me in the carriage, with everything you’ll actually need in it for a week or two, and there’s the money for you to order anything else you want. I packed the portmanteau with my own hands, Polly.’
He paused again, for in his own way he was genuinely moved: but the boy still stood there, staring out of the window, and answered never a word.
‘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 partnership 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 God’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 assembly 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, brass-helmeted men, shining 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 Cox & 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 snatches 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 brass 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 ship 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 hoarse, 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 God 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——’
‘Damn 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. ‘Damn the thousand pounds. Damn it, and damn it, and damn 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. Damn the thousand pounds! Damn 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.
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 pass 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 assumption 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 ship’s biscuit. And before the simple meal is barely over, the stealthy word passes 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 shining in the rising sun to the horses’ shoulders.
Then a pause, and a long pause. Vine yards along the hill and spaces 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 masses of grey stone, and might pass 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 passes 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 passes along the line from east to west, and the men are afoot again, and marching forward two deep against those solid masses 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 sunshine.
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 clustered 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 massive 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 grass. 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 shining 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 hoarse 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 masses of the enemy are all huddled in disorderly crowds away there in the pass, 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 glass 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 cocked 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 mass 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 noble creature’s chest, and the sight was pitiable and gruesome.
‘Here is a mount, sir,’ said the young dragoon. ‘Not as good as your own, but it will carry you back to camp, anyhow.’
As he spoke, the epauletted cocked-hatted owner of the slaughtered charger was leaning downward, detaching something from a holster, and when he looked up he displayed the features of Major de Blacquaire.
Until that instant neither could have recognised the other, but at the first glance there was a challenge in the eyes of either.
‘Thanks, my man,’ said De Blacquaire, laying a hand upon the rein which Polson held out towards him.
Nothing could have been more savagely incisive than the tone, nothing more purposed to wound.
‘You caught this horse rather cleverly,’ said De Blacquaire, ‘and I’m very much obliged to you. Of course, you understand that a man doesn’t go into action with a lot of money about him; but if you’ll ask for me at headquarters this evening, Major de Blacquaire, you’ll find half-a-sovereign waiting for you. You can ask my man for it.’
The Major stood drawling there, with purposed insult in word and tone and smile, and Polson, leaning downward, drew his dragoon’s gauntlet from the left hand, and struck him across the face with it.
‘I suppose,’ he said, ‘that’s flat mutiny, and whilst I am about it, here’s another sample of the same.’
The Major retreated behind his horse, and stood there, almost speechless with indignation.
‘I threatened you with a hiding once before,’ said Polson. ‘And you were cur enough to run away. I told you on the day I joined that if we ever met again and by word or look or gesture you insulted me, I would spoil that handsome face of yours. You can report against me, if you like, and I dare say that if you do it may go pretty hard with me. But I will let you off for the moment with what you have taken, and for the present I will say good evening to you.’
He drew on his gauntlet as he spoke, and turned his horse’s head.
‘Wait there,’ said De Blacquaire. ‘I have just one word to say to you. You know that I could have you triced to the triangle and flogged?’ Polson nodded, but said nothing. His eyes spoke for him. ‘You know I could have you court-martialled and shot?’
‘Like enough,’ said Polson. Major de Blacquaire swung into the saddle. ‘I don’t care to take revenge that way,’ he said. ‘I have known you always for an impudent and underbred young cub; but you go by way of pretending to be a gentleman, and I have my punishment in store for you. I learned something of you from your friend, Captain Volnay, and amongst other things I find you are playing Quixote. When the campaign is over you’ll be going back to the old thief’s thousands. I will give you a gaol-bird to go back to. I have at quarters what amounts to a confession. It’s an offer of restitution from Mr. Jervase; and I am not disposed to accept it. The case must slumber until this little business is over; but when I get back I will make a criminal prosecution of it, and you may make up your mind for whatever it may be worth that the work of this last five minutes has made a felon of that blackguard of a father.’
‘And that,’ said Polson, ‘is an English officer’s answer to a blow!’
‘Yes,’ said De Blacquaire, ‘that is the English officer’s answer.’ And so saying, he put in spurs and rode away.