Читать книгу Beau Geste - Percival Christopher Wren - Страница 20

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I do not remember the precise crime that had led to my trial and sentence, but I recollect the incident clearly enough, for two reasons.

One was that, on this very day of my fall from grace, I achieved the permanent and inalienable title and status of Stout Fella, when, inverting the usual order of precedence, Pride came after the Fall. The other reason was that, on that evening, we had the exciting privilege of seeing and handling the “Blue Water,” as it is called, the great sapphire which Uncle Hector had given to Aunt Patricia as a wedding gift. I believe his great-grandfather, “Wicked Brandon,” had “acquired” it when soldiering against Dupleix in India.

It is about the loveliest and most fascinating thing I have ever seen, and it always affected me strangely. I could look at it for hours, and it always gave me a curious longing to put it in my mouth, or crush it to my breast, to hold it to my nose like a flower, or to rub it against my ear.

To look at it was, at one and the same time, most satisfying and most tantalising, for one always longed to do more than merely look—and, moreover, more than merely touch, as well. So wonderful and beautiful an object seemed to demand the exercise of all five senses, instead of one or two, for the full appreciation of all the joy it could offer.

When I first heard the charitable remark, “Sir Hector Brandon bought Patricia Rivers with the ‘Blue Water’ and now owns the pair,” I felt that both statements were true.

For what other reason could a woman like Aunt Patricia have married Uncle Hector, and did not he still own the “Blue Water”—and so retain his sole claim to distinction?

Certainly his wife did not own it, for she could not wear it, nor do anything else with it. She could merely look at it occasionally, like anybody else. That was something anyhow, if it affected her as it did me....

My degree of S.F. (Stout Fella) I earned in this wise. One of Michael’s favourite and most thrilling pastimes was “Naval Engagements.” When this delightful pursuit was in being, two stately ships, with sails set and rudders fixed, were simultaneously shoved forth from the concrete edge of the lily-pond, by the Captain and the Lieutenant respectively.

They were crowded with lead soldiers, bore each a battery of three brass cannon, and were, at the outset, about a yard apart. But to each loaded brass cannon was attached a fuse, and, at the Captain’s word, the fuses were lighted as the ships were launched from their harbours.

The Captain presided over the destinies of the ship that flew the White Ensign and Union Jack, and the Lieutenant over those of the one that carried the Tri-couleur of France.

There was a glorious uncertainty of result. Each ship might receive a broadside from the other, one alone might suffer, or both might blaze ineffectually into the blue, by reason of a deviation of their courses. After the broadsides had been exchanged, we all sat and gloated upon the attractive scene, as the ships glided on, wreathed in battle-smoke, perhaps with riddled sails and splintered hulls (on one memorable and delightful occasion with the French ship dismasted and the Tri-couleur trailing in the water).

I was then privileged to wade, like Gulliver at Lilliput, into the deep, and bring the ships to harbour where their guns were reloaded by Michael and Digby, and the voyage repeated. ...

On this great day, the first combat was ideal. The ships converged, the guns of both fired almost simultaneously, splinters flew, soldiers fell or were sent flying overboard, the ships rocked to the explosions and concussion of the shot, and then drifted together and remained locked in a death-grapple to the shouts of “Boarders ready” and “Prepare to receive boarders,” from the Captain and Lieutenant.

“Fetch ’em in, Feeble Geste,” said Michael, imagination sated, and tucking up my trousers, I waded in, reversed the ships, and sent them to port.

The next round was more one-sided, for only one of the French ship’s guns fired, and that, the feeblest. Neither the big gun amidships, that carried either a buckshot or half a dozen number-sixes, nor the stern-chaser swivel-gun was properly fused.

I waded in again, turned the French ship, and, with a mighty bang, her big gun went off, and I took the charge in my leg. Luckily for me it was a single buckshot. I nearly sat down.

“I’m shot,” I yelped.

“Hanging would be more appropriate,” said the Captain. “Come here.”

Blood oozed from a neat blue hole, and Faithful Hound uttered a dog-like howl of woe and horror.

Claudia asked to be informed exactly how it felt.

“Just like being shot,” I replied, and added: “I am going to be sick.”

“Do it in the pond then,” requested the Captain, producing his pocket-knife and a box of matches.

“Going to cauterise the wound and prevent its turning sceptic?” enquired the Lieutenant, as the Captain struck a match, and held the point of the small blade in the flame.

“No,” replied the Captain. “Naval surgery without æsthetics.... Cut out the cannon-ball.”

“Now,” continued he, turning to me as I sat wondering whether I should shortly have a wooden leg, “will you be gagged or chew on a bullet? I don’t want to be disturbed by your beastly yells.”

“I shall not yell, Captain,” I replied with dignity, and a faint hope that I spoke the truth.

“Sit on his head, Dig,” said Michael to the Lieutenant; but waving Digby away, I turned on my side, shut my eyes, and offered up my limb.

“Hold his hoof then,” ordered the Captain....

It was painful beyond words; but I contrived to hold my peace, by biting the clenched knuckle of my forefinger, and to refrain from kicking by realising that it was impossible, with Digby sitting on my leg and Claudia standing on my foot.

After what seemed a much longer time than it was, I heard Michael say, apparently from a long way off: “Here it comes,” and then, a cheer from the Band and a dispersal of my torturers, announced the recovery of the buckshot.

“Shove it back in the gun, Dig,” said the Captain; “and you, Isobel, sneak up to the cupboard outside our bathroom and bring me the scratch-muck.”

The Faithful Hound, mopping her tear-bedewed face, sped away and soon returned with the scratch-muck (the bottle of antiseptic lotion, packet of boric lint, and roll of bandage, which figured as the sequelœ to all our minor casualties).

I believe Michael made a really excellent job of digging out the bullet and dressing the wound. Of course, the ball had not penetrated very deeply, or a penknife would hardly have been the appropriate surgical tool; but, as things were, a doctor could not have been very much quicker, nor the healing of the wound more clean and rapid.

And when the bandage was fastened, the Captain, in the presence of the whole Band and some temporary members, visitors, raised me to the seventh heaven of joy and pride by solemnly conferring upon me in perpetuity, the rank and title of Stout Fella, in that I had shed no tear and uttered no sound during a major operation of “naval surgery without æsthetics.”

Further, he awarded me the signal and high honour of a full-dress “Viking’s funeral.”

Now a Viking’s funeral cannot be solemnised every day in the week, for it involves, among other things, the destruction of a long-ship.

The dead Viking is laid upon a funeral pyre in the centre of his ship, his spear and shield are laid beside him, his horse and hound are slaughtered and their bodies placed in attendance, the pyre is lighted, and the ship sent out to sea with all sail set.

On this occasion, the offending French ship was dedicated to these ocean obsequies.

A specially selected lead soldier was solemnly endowed with the name and attributes of The Viking Eorl, John Geste, laid upon a matchbox filled with explosives, a pyre of matches built round him on the deck of the ship (the ship drenched with paraffin), his horse laid at the head of his pyre, and a small (china) dog at his feet.

All being ready, we bared our heads, Michael, with raised hand, solemnly uttered the beautiful words, “Ashes to ashes and dust to dust, if God won’t have you the devil must,” and, applying a match to the pyre, shoved the long-ship (late French battleship) well out into the middle of the lily-pond.

Here it burned gloriously, the leaping flames consuming the mast and sail so that the charred wreckage went by the board, and we stood silent, envisaging the horrors of a burning ship at sea.

As the vessel burned down to the water’s edge, and then disappeared with hissings and smoking, Michael broke the ensuing silence with words that I was to remember many years later in a very different place. (Apparently Digby remembered them too.)

“That’s what I call a funeral!” said Michael. “Compare that with being stuck ten feet down in the mud and clay of a beastly cemetery for worms to eat and maggots to wriggle about in you.... Cripes! I’d give something to have one like that when my turn comes.... Good idea! I’ll write it down in my will, and none of you dirty little dogs will get anything from me, unless you see it properly done.”

“Righto, Beau,” said Digby. “I’ll give you one, old chap, whenever you like.”

“So will I you, Dig, if you die first,” replied Michael to his twin, and they solemnly shook hands upon it....

My gratification for these honours was the greater in that nothing had been further from my thoughts than such promotion and reward. Frequently had I striven in the past to win one of the Band’s recognised Orders of Merit—Faithful Hound, Good Egg, Stout Fella, or even Order of Michael (For Valour)—but had never hitherto won any decoration or recognition beyond some such cryptic remark from the Captain as, “We shall have to make John, Chaplain to the Band, if he does many more of these Good Deeds....”

That evening when we were variously employed in the schoolroom, old Burdon, the butler, came and told us that we could go into the drawing-room.

Claudia and Isobel were there, the former talking in a very self-possessed and grown-up way to a jolly-looking foreign person, to whom we were presented. He turned out to be a French cavalry officer, and we were thrilled to discover that he was on leave from Morocco where he had been fighting.

“Bags I we get him up to the schoolroom to-morrow,” whispered Michael, as we gathered round a glass dome, like a clock-cover, inverted over a white velvet cushion on which lay the “Blue Water” sapphire.

We looked at it in silence, and, to me, it seemed to grow bigger and bigger until I felt as though I could plunge head first into it.

Young as I was, I distinctly had the feeling that it would not be a good thing to stare too long at that wonderful concentration of living colour. It seemed alive and, though inexpressibly beautiful, a little sinister.

“May we handle it, Aunt Patricia?” asked Claudia, and, as usual, she got her way.

Aunt Patricia lifted off the glass cover and handed the jewel to the Frenchman, who quickly gave it to Claudia.

“That has caused we know not what of strife and sorrow and bloodshed,” he said. “What a tale it could tell!”

“Can you tell tales of strife and bloodshed, please?” asked Michael, and as Claudia said, “Why, of course! He leads charges of Arab cavalry like Under Two Flags,” as though she had known him for years, we all begged him to tell us about his fighting, and he ranked second only to the “Blue Water” as a centre of attraction.

On the following afternoon, the Captain deputed Claudia to get the Frenchman to tell us some tales.

“Decoy yon handsome stranger to our lair,” quoth he. “I would wring his secrets from him.”

Nothing loth, Claudia exercised her fascinations upon him after lunch, and brought him to our camp in the Bower, a clearing in the woods near the house.

Here he sat on a log and absolutely thrilled us to the marrow of our bones by tales, most graphically and realistically told, of the Spahis, the French Foreign Legion, the Chasseurs d’Afrique, Zouaves, Turcos, and other romantically named regiments.

He told us of desert warfare, of Arab cruelties and chivalries, of hand-to-hand combats wherein swordsman met swordsman on horseback as in days of old, of brave deeds, of veiled Touaregs, veiled women, secret Moorish cities, oases, mirages, sand-storms, and the wonders of Africa.

Then he showed us fencing-tricks and feats of swordsmanship, until, when he left us, after shaking our hands and kissing Claudia, we were his, body and soul....

“I’m going to join the French Foreign Legion when I leave Eton,” announced Michael suddenly. “Get a commission and then join his regiment.”

“So am I,” said Digby, of course.

“And I,” I agreed.

Augustus Brandon looked thoughtful.

“Could I be a vivandière and come too?” asked Isobel.

“You shall all visit me in your officers’ uniforms,” promised Claudia. “French officers always wear them in France. Very nice too.” ...

Next day we went back to our preparatory school at Slough.