CHAPTER XXVI

STE. BARBE--AND AFTERWARDS

(1)

Just as on the day when he had first entered the cottage in Clouarnet village to look for his friend, and had met his deadly foe, so now Fortuné de la Vireville stood hesitating on the same threshold, because he feared to find, already in possession, a Foe more deadly still. As on that day, too, it seemed dark within, coming from the brilliant sunshine outside. Was that why he put his hand for a moment over his eyes?

On the floor by the wall, at the left of the door, under a cloak, could be dimly seen the figure of an officer, lying very still. Another sat by the empty hearth with his head between his hands. Fortuné straightened himself, went in, and touched the man by the hearth on the shoulder.

And René de Flavigny lifted the face of one who has come from a great distance, across centuries of time, and saw him standing there, powder-grimed, with sand on his clothes and in his hair, and carrying his left hand thrust into his short blue embroidered Breton vest. The sleeve of his coat bore, high up, a dark red stain.

"I was afraid for you," said La Vireville abruptly and rather hoarsely. "I knew that your regiment. . . I went to Fort Penthièvre. I had to step over the wounded, they are lying so thick there. . . . Well, thank God you are safe!"

"Yes, I am safe," responded de Flavigny, in a dull voice.

"You are not touched at all?"

The Marquis shook his head. "What of you?" he asked.

La Vireville gave a sort of laugh. "Oh, as for us Chouans," he said, replying in general terms, though he must have known that the inquiry was particular, "those of us who did not run shared the fate of Hector, and you know what that fate was. . . . We had to go back with them under the range of the guns. God alone--if He--knows what possessed d'Hervilly to give that order. He is dying, they say----"

"Your arm!" exclaimed his friend, pointing to it. He seemed incapable of prolonged speech.

"Only a flesh wound," replied La Vireville, glancing down at it indifferently. "A splinter of shell, I think; I was knocked down by one." He went and looked down at the dead officer by the wall, and came back without saying anything. "I must get back to what is left of my men. Poor Le Goffic is badly wounded. I only came to make sure of your safety, René."

The Marquis was on his feet now. "But for one thing," said he, suddenly finding speech, and pointing to the quiet figure under the cloak, "I would rather be in his place."

"I can guess what that thing is," returned La Vireville, making to go; "but though I have no son, like you, to live for, and the man I have hated so long is dead--I think he saved my life--yet I want to live . . . for to-morrow."

"_Will there be a to-morrow?_" asked the Marquis de Flavigny, with sombre emphasis.

La Vireville, who was already half-way to the door, stopped dead, and turned to face that question.

"No, René, perhaps not," said he very gravely, and there was a silence.

"There is now only the fort between us and Hoche's advance," went on the Marquis. "If that goes, we shall be swept into the sea."

"I know," replied the Chouan. He seemed to be waiting still for something else to be said.

De Flavigny came up to him and took his hand. "Fortuné, I have a great favour to ask of you, and I must ask you now, for I have a presentiment that I shall never have another chance to make the request."

"Ask," said his friend.

"I do not think that I shall ever see England again," went on the Marquis. "If I do not, and you escape, I want you to promise me to look after Anne. Don't refuse me, Fortuné! Mr. Elphinstone is an old man, and when he dies there will be nobody of my blood--nobody of our nationality even--about the boy, and he is French, and I should wish him to remain French, although in exile. By my will he inherits all I have, and nearly all his grandfather's property will eventually come to him, so he will be well provided for. There is no one in the world, after his grandfather, to whom I would rather commit him than you. He is very fond of you--and, Fortuné, he has a kind of claim on you already, since you did that for him which can never be forgotten, though you will not allow me even to thank you for it!"

La Vireville had heard him silently to the end, looking down at the beaten earth of the cottage floor. "But if we come to final disaster, which, God knows, seems probable enough," he said quietly, "it is not likely that I shall see England again either. Not that I have any special presentiments about my own fate--one soon gets rid of those en chouannant--but because I think, with you, that we are in a desperate strait. Unless Puisaye, now that d'Hervilly is dying . . . though I do not believe that Puisaye is the man to save us. Yet we _may_ beat them off."

"Will you promise me, then, to do your utmost, if the worst happens, to save yourself, for Anne's sake, if not for your own? Will you promise me that, Fortuné?"

La Vireville looked him in the eyes and gripped the hand he held. "Yes, I promise you that, René. So it be not inconsistent with honour, I will do my best to save myself--and if you are killed, and I live to return, Anne shall be my . . . son."

* * * * *

But how far off, how incongruous, in the midst of this welter of blood and catastrophe, was the thought of that little boy, with his confiding ways! Outside his own quarters at St. Pierre, Fortuné met the surgeon who was attending to the Chouan wounded, and, going in with him, displaced Grain d'Orge, who, looking like a necromancer, was giving attentions of very doubtful value to the moaning Le Goffic on his heap of seaweed.

"Monsieur Augustin," whispered the self-constituted leech, while the surgeon examined the young Breton, "this is not a good place, this Quiberon!"

"Your remark is very just, mon vieux!" returned La Vireville, half sadly, half humorously. "You are not the first to make it, either. Do you want to go back to the Côtes-du-Nord? There is the devil of a deal of fighting before you if you wish to do that."

"Ma Doué, I am sure of it!" said Grain d'Orge with a chuckle. He rubbed off some blood, presumably Le Goffic's, from his hands on to his baggy breeches. "You and I, Monsieur Augustin, have seen much of that--and of this too," he added, laying a grimy finger on La Vireville's wounded arm. "And I know that _I_ shall see my parish again, because the wise woman told me so before I left. But not many of the others, perhaps."

A sudden compunction invaded La Vireville. It was his influence which had led these children of Northern Brittany away from their homes to perish in what was, to them, almost a foreign land.

"Listen to me, mon gars," he said. "If ever I give the word for a sauve qui peut, for disbandment, in short, remember it is because I am convinced that each man, separately, has a better chance for his life than with the rest. If you gained the mainland, it would be difficult to distinguish any of you from the inhabitants there, to prove, indeed, that you had ever been in Quiberon at all."

Grain d'Orge's little eyes twinkled. "That is very true, Monsieur Augustin. I will remember."

And La Vireville, as he bent down to hear what the surgeon thought of Le Goffic, had a conviction that the wise woman had not been wrong about Grain d'Orge, who, of incorruptible fidelity though he was, had too much innate cunning not to succeed in saving his own skin.

"I think he will do," said the surgeon, and gave directions. "The rest--ah, but what have you there yourself, Monsieur? We will have your coat off at once, if you please!"

"I am not made of porcelain," protested La Vireville. "I know what it is--a flesh wound merely. I want my men all seen to first."

But to this the surgeon only responded by starting to slit up the stained sleeve himself.

(2)

Shortly afterwards, when his wound had been probed and dressed, and he found himself set, by the surgeon's orders, to sit a little beside Le Goffic, La Vireville had time to think--or rather, the scenes and sensations with which his brain was spinning began to unroll themselves before him again.

And first, he was marching with his men over the sand and coarse grass up towards Ste. Barbe. It was one o'clock in the morning, and very dark. Six hundred Chouans they were altogether, with the other bodies of the same composition, and, as d'Hervilly had told him it would be, they were on the extreme right of the émigré regiments. The régiment d'Hector--the régiment de la Marine--was next them, on their left.

The sand, fine and white, muffled their footfalls, light, in any case, as became those of intermittent poachers. Just behind La Vireville was St. Four, who never spoke, in his British uniform. But La Vireville had not thought of him; his brain had been busy with what they were doing, or hoping to do.

And hope, indeed, had obstacles to surmount. Where, for instance, were the large bodies of Chouans under Tinténiac and another, who had been despatched several days ago into the interior for the purpose of attacking Ste. Barbe simultaneously from the rear? To anyone who knew Tinténiac as La Vireville did, their non-appearance was very strange. They might yet come up in time. If they did not, then d'Hervilly's refusal to postpone the attack for twenty-four hours in order to allow of the landing of Sombreuil's division--still out there in their transports in the bay--was deprived of its only justification.

They marched on. Far away the fires of the Republican bivouacs were visible through the darkness, at the foot of the rising ground of Ste. Barbe. . . .

* * * * *

The scene shifted. It was dawn now. They were still advancing, having passed the Republican outposts with scarcely a struggle, for the enemy, acting no doubt on instructions, had abandoned them and had fallen back on the strong entrenched camp. In that uncompromising light of dawn La Vireville could see how strong they were--a long line of entrenchments with two redoubts and several batteries, bristling with four-pounders, and well provided with heavy guns and mortars. And he knew instinctively that his Chouans were casting sidelong glances at those sinister black mouths. It was not the kind of thing that they liked or were accustomed to.

But he also perceived, with a leap of the heart, that there was a much better thing to be done than attacking these in front. The tide was out, and for that reason they had only to go on as they were going, and they could turn the batteries and take them in the rear. If only d'Hervilly would send orders to that end! For d'Hervilly was away on the left with his own regiment, while Puisaye, strangely enough, was with the rearguard.

He was just thinking of communicating his hopes to St. Four when orders to halt came down from the head of the combined column, where the officer in command, a grand seigneur, the Duc de Lévis, could be seen on his horse. They halted.

La Vireville turned with a frown to St. Four, and read his own uneasiness in his enemy's eyes. He nodded, and the officer of Hector, saluting, disappeared.

"Are we going to attack now, Monsieur Augustin?" whispered Grain d'Orge, coming up, carrying his musket in a fashion peculiar to himself. "The sooner the better."

La Vireville knew that as well as he. He was quite aware that you must keep the Chouan on the move, or watching from behind a hedge--but not in the open, doing nothing, where his thoughts get too much for him.

"I expect so," he returned. "Go back to your place."

Minutes passed. The dawn grew brighter in a pale, clear, tender sky. The men began to fidget. Then--a relief--the order came to march on. The column moved on a little, then stopped again.

Le Goffic came up--he who lay, looking like death, beside him now. "Monsieur Augustin, the men are getting impatient--that is to say----"

"Tell them," interrupted La Vireville brutally, "that I have given you orders to shoot instantly anyone who either stirs now, or who refuses to stir when he is told to!"

For he knew what Le Goffic's euphemism meant.

And then at last St. Four came hurrying back, the sweat on his face and tears of wrath in his eyes.

"D'Hervilly is mad--mad!" he gasped. "He is going to attack away there on the left front by himself--with the left wing only. He says Hector can 'come on afterwards!' Hector will be wiped out if they go back now under the fire of the batteries to rejoin the left wing . . . and so shall we be! But go back they will--there is nothing else to do. My God, what insanity!"

If Hector went back, so must the Chouans, or be left in the air. It was the death-knell of the little irregular force. Both men knew it, and their faces were very grim as they stared at one another for a moment. Then La Vireville turned away to give his orders. So much for the sound, the obvious, plan of attacking the batteries in the rear!

Before he had finished, the drums of the régiment d'Hector, on their left, were beating the charge. . . .

* * * * *

Le Goffic groaned. His leader got up, and, as well as he could with one arm in a sling, gave him a drink.

"Merci, maman!" said the young man, without opening his eyes.

* * * * *

There was a depression in the dunes, a sort of corridor between two little eminences. Every clod of it, every blade of grass against the young sky, La Vireville could see now if he shut his eyes. For it was into that little sandy hollow of death, dominated as it was by three batteries at half-cannon shot, that he and his men had been obliged to follow the régiment d'Hector.

For a moment its image, as it rested with him, was blotted out by the picture of a whirlwind, the flying Chouan column, broken at the first thunder of the Republican guns. Fortuné saw again the Duc de Lévis on his horse in the midst of the torrent, trying vainly to rally the distracted peasants, and literally unable to keep up with them at the gallop, so fast did they flee. How La Vireville himself had succeeded in keeping his contingent together he scarcely knew--yet they _had_ followed him. . . . There was cover of a sort here, in the ravine, and cover they knew instinctively how to utilise. But the fire was murderous.

"Courage, mes gars, this will soon be over, and then we can advance again!" he had shouted, believing anything but what he had said. It was worse, far worse, than the cannonade at Auray, but this time his men could not run. They fell instead, and, raging inwardly, he had watched one after another go down. . . . At last he saw Le Goffic throw out his arms and stagger. Hastily he threw down his empty musket (for he was firing like the rest) to go to him, and as he did so, heard a cry behind him:

"Look out, La Vireville, look out!" The voice was St. Four's. Concurrently there came the whistle of a shell, and Fortuné was sent reeling a couple of yards forward--the result, as he instantly realised, of a very rough push from his aide-de-camp. The next moment there was a violent explosion, and, amid showers of sand, he was hurled on to his back.

Half buried in sand and rubbish he struggled as quickly as he could to his feet, and, rather dazed, looked round. Several of his men began to run towards him, but his own gaze was fixed on the figure of St. Four in his red uniform, lying motionless a few yards away. La Vireville hurried to him. But there was no need of haste, nor possibility of aid. The back of his head was blown away.

Whether St. Four had actually saved his life or no, his intention of doing so seemed clear then to La Vireville, remembering how his enemy had thrown himself against him when he had heard the shell coming. He stood a second or two looking down at the man whom he could not forgive. The brain that had planned and carried out his betrayal now lay spilt on the sand at his feet. "But that does not undo what he did?" Who was it had said that? . . . He stooped and covered the terrible evidence of mortality with his handkerchief, a red trickle coursing down his own wrist the while. . . .

* * * * *

Le Goffic in his unconsciousness was moaning and muttering again. This time it was something about "Yvonne."

"Mon pauvre gars!" murmured La Vireville, bending over him. "I am afraid you have your marching orders, whatever the surgeon may say."

* * * * *

How had Le Goffic been got here--how had any of them come alive out of that place, where the sand was pitted with grapeshot like dust after a thunderstorm? He could hardly tell even now. Long after the order to retire should have come, the régiment d'Hector and the little Chouan contingent, both fearfully reduced, had gone on stoically firing and falling. . . . La Vireville had heard since that d'Hervilly, the author of the disaster, had given the word for retirement earlier, but that aide-de-camp after aide-de-camp to whom it was entrusted had been shot down, and then d'Hervilly himself received his own mortal wound. And when at last the order reached them, the régiment d'Hector, whose losses had already been so great, was obliged to sacrifice its company of cadets, boys of fifteen and sixteen, before the manœuvre could be carried out.

Well, somehow they had got out of the slaughter. And, afterwards, the cost of failure was counted--du Dresnay (René's regiment) fearfully cut up, its lieutenant-colonel in command killed; Hector--so valuable a corps by reason of the experienced naval officers which it contained--reduced to half its effectives; and in Loyal-Emigrant, out of a hundred and twenty veteran chevaliers de St. Louis, only forty-five returned from the attack. Other regiments had been less exposed--but all had suffered. . . .

La Vireville, still kneeling by Le Goffic, passed his hand over his eyes as though to wipe away a vision. Seasoned as he was, the past twelve hours had provided him with rather more in the way of sensation than he could stomach. St. Four was dead. He himself had promised, in certain circumstances, to be responsible for Anne-Hilarion. Lastly, irretrievable disaster was moving swiftly upon them. There was only Fort Penthièvre, as René had said, between them and Hoche's advance.

And, suddenly, a couple of snatches of Anne-Hilarion's favourite ballad floated up to Fortuné's brain from the region where, all unconsciously, he must have stored them that afternoon when he had heard it from the child's lips in the cave by Kerdronan. The first related to some man, whose name did not revisit him, lying drowned, fifty fathoms down, 'with the Scots lords at his feet.' The second brought with it the same picture which it had conjured up for him then--of the fisherman's young wife waiting in vain, in her cottage on the shore, for the husband who had been sacrificed, really, on the same altar as to-day's victims--and to-morrow's.

"O lang, lang may the maidens sit Wi' their gowd kames in their hair, A-waiting for their ain dear loves! For them they'll see nae mair."

He cast a last look at Le Goffic, and, going to the door of the shed, went forth into the sunshine and the suffering outside.