Читать книгу The Battle of the Strong - Gilbert Parker - Страница 11

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In the Vier Marchi the French flag was flying, French troops occupied it, French sentries guarded the five streets entering into it. Rullecour, the French adventurer, held the Lieutenant-Governor of the isle captive in the Cohue Royale; and by threats of fire and pillage thought to force capitulation. For his final argument he took the Governor to the doorway, and showed him two hundred soldiers with lighted torches ready to fire the town.

When the French soldiers first entered the Vier Marchi there was Dormy Jamais on the roof of the Cohue Royale, calmly munching his bread. When he saw Rullecour and the Governor appear, he chuckled to himself, and said, in Jersey patois: “I vaut mux alouonyi l’bras que l’co,” which is to say: It is better to stretch the arm than the neck. The Governor would have done more wisely, he thought, to believe the poor beganne, and to have risen earlier. Dormy Jamais had a poor opinion of a governor who slept. He himself was not a governor, yet was he not always awake? He had gone before dawn to the Governor’s house, had knocked, had given Ranulph Delagarde’s message, had been called a dirty buzard, and been sent away by the crusty, incredulous servant. Then he had gone to the Hospital Barracks, was there iniquitously called a lousy toad, and had been driven off with his quartern loaf, muttering through the dough the island proverb “While the mariner swigs the tide rises.”

Had the Governor remained as cool as the poor vagrant, he would not have shrunk at the sight of the incendiaries, yielded to threats, and signed the capitulation of the island. But that capitulation being signed, and notice of it sent to the British troops, with orders to surrender and bring their arms to the Cohue Royale, it was not cordially received by the officers in command.

“Je ne comprends pas le francais,” said Captain Mulcaster, at Elizabeth Castle, as he put the letter into his pocket unread.

“The English Governor will be hanged, and the French will burn the town,” responded the envoy. “Let them begin to hang and burn and be damned, for I’ll not surrender the castle or the British flag so long as I’ve a man to defend it, to please anybody!” answered Mulcaster.

“We shall return in numbers,” said the Frenchman, threateningly.

“I shall be delighted: we shall have the more to kill,” Mulcaster replied.

Then the captive Lieutenant-Governor was sent to Major Peirson at the head of his troops on the Mont es Pendus, with counsel to surrender.

“Sir,” said he, “this has been a very sudden surprise, for I was made prisoner before I was out of my bed this morning.”

“Sir,” replied Peirson, the young hero of twenty-four, who achieved death and glory between a sunrise and a noontide, “give me leave to tell you that the 78th Regiment has not yet been the least surprised.”

From Elizabeth Castle came defiance and cannonade, driving back Rullecour and his filibusters to the Cohue Royale: from Mont Orgueil, from the Hospital, from St. Peter’s came the English regiments; from the other parishes swarmed the militia, all eager to recover their beloved Vier Marchi. Two companies of light infantry, leaving the Mont es Pendus, stole round the town and placed themselves behind the invaders on the Town Hill; the rest marched direct upon the enemy. Part went by the Grande Rue, and part by the Rue d’Driere, converging to the point of attack; and as the light infantry came down from the hill by the Rue des Tres Pigeons, Peirson entered the Vier Marchi by the Route es Couochons. On one side of the square, where the Cohue Royale made a wall to fight against, were the French. Radiating from this were five streets and passages like the spokes of a wheel, and from these now poured the defenders of the isle.

A volley came from the Cohue Royale, then another, and another. The place was small: friend and foe were crowded upon each other. The fighting became at once a hand-to-hand encounter. Cannon were useless, gun-carriages overturned. Here a drummer fell wounded, but continued beating his drum to the last; there a Glasgow soldier struggled with a French officer for the flag of the invaders; yonder a handful of Malouins doggedly held the foot of La Pyramide, until every one was cut down by overpowering numbers of British and Jersiais. The British leader was conspicuous upon his horse. Shot after shot was fired at him. Suddenly he gave a cry, reeled in his saddle, and sank, mortally wounded, into the arms of a brother officer.

For a moment his men fell back.

In the midst of the deadly turmoil a youth ran forward from a group of combatants, caught the bridle of the horse from which Peirson had fallen, mounted, and, brandishing a short sword, called upon his dismayed and wavering followers to advance; which they instantly did with fury and courage. It was Midshipman Philip d’Avranche. Twenty muskets were discharged at him. One bullet cut the coat on his shoulder, another grazed the back of his hand, a third scarred the pommel of the saddle, and still another wounded his horse. Again and again the English called upon him to dismount, for he was made a target, but he refused, until at last the horse was shot under him. Then once more he joined in the hand-to-hand encounter.

Windows near the ground, such as were not shattered, were broken by bullets. Cannon-balls embedded themselves in the masonry and the heavy doorways. The upper windows were safe, however: the shots did not range so high. At one of these, over a watchmaker’s shop, a little girl was to be seen, looking down with eager interest. Presently an old man came in view and led her away. A few minutes of fierce struggle passed, and then at another window on the floor below the child appeared again. She saw a youth with a sword hurrying towards the Cohue Royale from a tangled mass of combatants. As he ran, a British soldier fell in front of him. The youth dropped the sword and grasped the dead man’s musket.

The child clapped her hands on the window.

“It’s Ro—it’s Ro!” she cried, and disappeared again.

“Ro,” with white face, hatless, coatless, pushed on through the melee. Rullecour, the now disheartened French general, stood on the steps of the Cohue Royale. With a vulgar cruelty and cowardice he was holding the Governor by the arm, hoping thereby to protect his own person from the British fire.

Here was what the lad had been trying for—the sight of this man Rullecour. There was one small clear space between the English and the French, where stood a gun-carriage. He ran to it, leaned the musket on the gun, and, regardless of the shots fired at him, took aim steadily. A French bullet struck the wooden wheel of the carriage, and a splinter gashed his cheek. He did not move, but took sight again, and fired. Rullecour fell, shot through the jaw. A cry of fury and dismay went up from the French at the loss of their leader, a shout of triumph from the British.

The Frenchmen had had enough. They broke and ran. Some rushed for doorways and threw themselves within, many scurried into the Rue des Tres Pigeons, others madly fought their way into Morier Lane.

At this moment the door of the watchmaker’s shop opened and the little girl who had been seen at the window ran into the square, calling out: “Ro! Ro!” It was Guida Landresse.

Among the French flying for refuge was the garish Turk, Rullecour’s ally. Suddenly the now frightened, crying child got into his path and tripped him up. Wild with rage he made a stroke at her, but at that instant his scimitar was struck aside by a youth covered with the smoke and grime of battle. He caught up the child to his arms, and hurried with her through the melee to the watchmaker’s doorway. There stood a terror-stricken woman—Madame Landresse, who had just made her way into the square. Placing the child, in her arms, Philip d’Avranche staggered inside the house, faint and bleeding from a wound in the shoulder. The battle of Jersey was over.

“Ah bah!” said Dormy Jamais from the roof of the Cohue Royale; “now I’ll toll the bell for that achocre of a Frenchman. Then I’ll finish my supper.”

Poising a half-loaf of bread on the ledge of the roof, he began to slowly toll the cracked bell at his hand for Rullecour the filibuster.

The bell clanged out: Chicane-chicane! Chicane-chicane!

Another bell answered from the church by the square, a deep, mournful note. It was tolling for Peirson and his dead comrades.

Against the statue in the Vier Marchi leaned Ranulph Delagarde. An officer came up and held out a hand to him. “Your shot ended the business,” said he. “You’re a brave fellow. What is your name?”

“Ranulph Delagarde, sir.”

“Delagarde—eh? Then well done, Delagardes! They say your father was the first man killed. We won’t forget that, my lad.”

Sinking down upon the base of the statue, Ranulph did not stir or reply, and the officer, thinking he was grieving for his father, left him alone.