Alfred Ollivant

“ The Parson was away, the Gentleman after him with sleuth-hound strides.
The bunch of Grenadiers stormed on for the cottage.
Kit shot the bolts.
He was banging the door of life on that maimed old man, and he would as soon have slammed the gate of heaven in his mother's face.
"Good-bye, dear old Piper!" he whispered.
"Good-bye, sir," cheerily. "And if I might make so bold my sarvice to
Lard Nelson—Ralph Piper, old Agamemnon."
There was silence: then the patter of feet and deep breathing of men racing to kill. ”

“ A path of stepping-stones led across the green towards the house; each stepping-stone a dead man sprawling face down in a swirl of green.
Kit saw it all as he had seen it then: the tail of Grenadiers, the pursuing Parson, the hounding Gentleman.
Then it had possessed him; now he only wanted to get away. Home, mother, Gwen, and an apple in the loft; soft cheeks, kind eyes, the voices of women loving him, chaffing him—these he longed for. He was tired of being a man for the time being: he wanted to be a little boy again, to be cuddled, to be loved. ”

“ II The Parson ran down into the cellar.
Blob's lantern glimmered on the floor, but there was no Blob.
He felt the door, cold to his hands as a corpse. It was shut fast as death. The catch had snapped; but the bolts were not home.
His first impulse was to open; his second to refrain. A man with a musket anywhere in the drain could not miss him. And he once down, the door open, all was over!—the cottage stormed, the despatches taken, old man Piper slain, and Nelson lost. ”

“ Kit, panting behind, admired him as he had never admired even Uncle Jacko. The man seemed to know no fear, striding rapidly on, his enemy behind him.
True, the boy's dirk still flashed in the other's hand; but the lad had his jack-knife; and his eyes dwelt on the place where he could plant it home and home in that black back—there by the seam, where it was a little worn.
And the man had the scent-bottle!
Surely a fellow would be justified....
"Now's your chance, Little Chap!" came the gay voice.
Kit, betrayed to his own soul, sniggered and put the dark thought away with shuddering disgust. ”

“ The boy began to hand her over the seas, as a man hands his lady down a ball-room. She was so swift so strong: throbbing-full of life. He loved her, and began to live again.
Blob was sitting cocked up in the bows, pink as ever and as impassive.
At the sight of the boy Kit felt a certain resentment, and, with the swift self-knowledge peculiar to him, was glad to feel it, for it told him he was coming round. He wished the boy to collapse alongside the Parson. Why didn't he, the silly little land-lubber? Kit, the one sailor aboard, here on his own element, wished to lord it out alone. ”

“ Knapp crawled back, delighted.
"You're the sort," he chuckled, patting the lad on the back. "Quite the little man o war."
"Get to heel," snarled Kit. "Hold your tongue. Keep your paws to yourself. And address me respectfully and properly."
The drain ran away before them, a long black tunnel, focussing in a remote jewel of light. It was like the Alley of Life, cramped and dark, and at the far end of it a little door opening on heaven. And across the door the boy seemed to see written the one word
Nelson. ”

“ Knapp, running with his head as well as with his heels, was making straight for the creek.
On the flat, among the boulders, he, naked-nimble, would be on better terms with the booted Gentleman.
But—he would never get there. Kit saw it at a glance.
Down the hill he came with pounding fists, and great knees going. His head was flung back, his face screwed tight.
He had the lion's heart, this naughty little man. Death, swift and terrible, cast the shadow of its wings over him. He could not see it, but he could feel it overhead, swooping, swooping. He would not look back. ”

“ A great bottle stood on the table before him, and beside it a scratch- wig and guttering candle. On the table a pistol pinned down a chart, and under the sleeper's head was a sheet of paper and a pen.
Piggy had fallen asleep writing.
Flung into a corner was a cocked hat. Beside it lay a much-mounted sword, and on a chair a blue frock-coat, with tawdry epaulettes.
The boy lifted his eyes. An obscene print decorated the bulk-head. It smote him in the face like a handful of filth. He snatched his eyes away. They fell upon a tarpaulin-bag hung on the door. ”

“ The Gentleman, holding them hard, was singing to them as they came.
"Mean mischief, sir," called Piper from below.
"Jove, they do!" muttered the Parson, chin forward, and eyes flaming as he watched. "Like a Horse Artillery battery coming into action."
The wain leapt and swung and bounced along like a live thing.
"Ah, I thought so.... Pace too good.... He's dropping his load....
Ah!—there goes another!"
A Grenadier was seen to fall with flapping tails, and another, and another; till the track of the thundering wain was strewn with men, who picked themselves up and pursued. ”

“ The end must come, and it must come soon.
Anxiously the boy peeped over the side. The tide seemed to mock them. With what a swoop it rushed to their rescue, and with what a scream of derision it withdrew again! Kit compared it unconsciously to the to and fro of the emotions in his heart, now surging him heaven-high, now leaving him stranded.
Then he spied a greased bat for launching lying on the slope. In a trice he was overboard, had seized it, and racing down the streaming shingle as a wave withdrew, thrust the bat beneath the keel. ”

“ Kit heard his voice as in a dream.
The boy was sitting quite still, the smell of the sea in his nostrils, the wind in his hair, the hiss and flop of the waters in his ears.
The life of the body was coming back to him. The good salt breeze flushed his veins. The tiller began to pull at his hand. The lugger swung and curtseyed, graceful as a dancing girl. She was alive. She was careering over the swells, snatching for her head. She knew her mission, and revelled in it.
Nelson, Nelson, Nelson! she whispered, hissed, and sang the word. ”

“ A roar of triumph from the Coquette, clearing now on the port-bow and a fainter shout from the frigate to starboard, told their own tale.
The mizzen, struck twenty foot above the deck, came down with a crash. With it fell the red-cross flag, and the faces of the crew.
"Hand me that striped petticut!" roared the Gunner, pointing to the tricolour lying entangled in the ruins of the privateer's main-top on the deck of the sloop. "I want to blow me nose."
He leaped on to the bulwark, flag in hand; and staying himself by the shroud, blew his nose boisterously on the enemy's colours. ”

“ Once round it, if he had understood the old man aright, the cliffs fell away. There he would climb them; and he hoped to be on the top of the Downs before the mist rolled away and the frigate, were she still lying off the wreck, could send boats to search the beach.
He was very hungry; but his heart soared. Youth, the great healer, had done its work. Already the terrors of that fierce yesterday, the tendernesses of that solemn night, were far away.
He laboured on as rapidly as the backward drag of the shingle would permit; at every stride clutching the scent-bottle to make sure of it. ”

“ Fat George took to his heels. Furiously he splashed along, yellow locks flopping. Kit could hear him snorting as he ran. All his life the fat man had been running away from God, the Great Enemy; and still He was there. Some day He would catch him—Fat George never doubted that ... some day ... but not while he had legs.
How should he know that as he ran, God ran with him?
The others huddled together like thunder-frightened cattle. Bandy Dick cocked a scared snook, while Red Beard was man enough to loose his musket at the zenith. ”

“ No one spoke but the Parson and he in whispers, lecturing Knapp, undressing in the corner.
The gravity of the enterprise, its certain perils, the issues at stake, oppressed the room. Death was there already; as yet indeed only a ghost at each man's elbow, in a few moments maybe to become incarnate.
Kit felt it and sickened.
Perched upon the table, his back to the boarded window, he whetted his dirk upon his shoe, and wondered if those others, those men, Knapp most of all, felt as he did. ”

“ Kit, fretted almost to tears, watched him with angry admiration. The crisis had come, and this curly grey-head sat, calm as a village Solomon in his door of summer evenings, and talked baby to his sword.
"I don't see that helps much," sneered the boy—"cleaning the plate!"
"Nor does fussing for that matter," retorted the other tranquilly. "In war, as in the world, you must do as you're done by. That mayn't be parson's truth; but it is soldier's. And I'm a soldier for the time being. The cards lie with the Gentleman. We shall have to follow suit —or trump. ”

“ Beside it the Parson laid his dead.
Knapp, bloody-bandaged, crept through the curtain and joined them, Blob at his heels.
So they gathered in the half-light: the garrison who had held the Fort, and the man who had stormed it.
It was but the kitchen of a cottage; yet no soul there but felt that he was standing upon hallowed ground.
Kit bent above the dead.
Beautiful as he had been in life, the Gentleman was yet lovelier in death.
Reverently Kit crossed the dead man's hands and laid his sword beside him.
As he raised his head, one standing at the foot of the dresser bent. It was Blob. ”

“ His back was against the light. He wore no hat; and here and there a hair caught the sun and flashed like the sword of a fairy.
The dead girl must be lying with her head in his lap.
Unaware of anybody by, the young man poured out his heart: the dead woman was his little one, his darling of the chestnut hair, his petite pit-a-pat.
There was something so desolate about the grief of man, perched up there between sea and sky, nobody near but a floating sea-gull, that Kit almost wept to hear him.
But he had his own affairs to think about.
The man was a Frenchman: therefore an enemy. ”

“ II Kit slid down the companion ladder.
The lower deck was half awash, and foul with smoke. There was a stink of dead men, bilge, and powder.
But what a change from when he was last here!
Then sights so ghastly that he dared not recall them: screams of torn men, rending of torn planks; howling terrors on every side, shattering his head, bursting his heart, dissipating his mind.
Now silence everywhere, beautiful silence, the silence of Death. ”

“ The French skipper was lying abaft the binnacle, a yard across his lower body.
There was no make-believe about him now, no mockery. He was naked man, stripped of his tinsel, and laid bare to the soul by the inexorable Master, Pain. Across his chin, as though to mock him, lay his false moustachios.
"Tuez-moi!" he whimpered hoarsely. "Tuez-moi!"
"I can't!" gasped Kit—"not in cold blood!"
The lad was face to face with one of the most appalling of God's mysteries, and was unhinged by it. Gwen with the toothache had been nothing to this. ”

“ The boy heard him grunt as he fell. That grunt angered him.
"I'm coming, sir!" he cried, and ran wrathfully with bloody dirk. "Beast!" he yelled. "Leave him alone!"
There was no need for him to cry.
The old man had done his own work from underneath with the jack-knife. Out poked his badger-grey head from under his man, much as the boy had often seen a ferret from beneath the body of a disembowelled rabbit.
"So fur so good," grunted the old man, crawling out on hands and knees, the scent-bottle between his teeth. "How's things forrad?"
Forward the deck was all but clear. ”

“ All men cry—only we don't let the ladies know it."
"We won't tell the midshipmen," murmured Nelson at the other ear. "I'm safe—I weep myself sometimes in confidence. You must just think of me as of a father."
"Paws off, if you please, my lord," replied the Parson. "I'm his adopted father and mother and all; aren't I, Kit?—old friends first, you know."
"Well," gasped Kit between sobs and laughter, "you see I've got a mother, thank you."
"Have you?" cried Nelson, rising from his knees. "Is she like mine, I wonder? If so, I love her already. But there! I love her for her son's sake. ”

“ There only the old foretop-man was to be seen, patient at his post of watch.
"Where's Knapp, Piper?"
"Why, sir, in the cellar. Wanted to be alone with his trouble, I reck'n. Tarrabul down-earted, the poor lad be."
"I'll cheer him up," cried the Parson, and disappeared through an open trap-door into the night beneath. "Nipper Knapp! Nipper Knapp, my boy!"
In two minutes he was back.
Knapp was at his heel, sparring playfully at the back of the other's head.
True, for the broken heart there is no such cure as action or the hope of it. ”

“ His chin dropped, his arms folded, those glimmering eyes of his never lifted from his feet.
"I don't account for it, my lord," came the deep voice. "I can't account for myself—much less for my lies."
Far down in those strange eyes Kit caught a gleam. Was it humour?—was it anguish?—what was it? He did not know. The man baffled him. He was groping in the dark and finding—darkness. He was at war with this man, war to the death; and yet, yet, yet, he felt they had something in common. What was it?—a kindred soul?—who should say?
For a long minute Nelson gazed gravely at the other. ”

“ The blue eyes were touched to steel; and nose and jowl thrust forth with ominous grimness. It was the face of the determined fighter, hard-set and terrible.
He leaned out into the morning, whistling quietly, as fair a mark as any sharp-shooter on the knoll might wish, so Kit suddenly recalled, and plucked at him.
The other's arm was iron against him. The Parson made no move, seeming neither to feel, nor understand. A man of marble, he dwelt in the mind; brooding on that glimmer of pearls in the east. ”

“ Slowly he came towards the cottage.
"To return to the point. Nelson is lost. No power on earth can save him now."
"I do not look to any power on earth for help," replied the Parson solemnly.
"Let us talk as men," answered the other as solemn. "You have nothing to gain by holding out, and everything to lose. All that an honourable soldier could do you have done. Is it not now the part of true courage to accept the inevitable? For the last time, will you surrender?"
The great veins started on the Parson's forehead. ”

“ The Parson went towards him.
"I never thought to see you alive again, Knapp."
"I'm a little alive," said the man wearily. "They done me—all but."
The Cockney snap was out of his voice. His words came like a drunkard's: he was slurring them, running them together, skipping hard consonants.
"I'll never be a man no more, I won't," he added with a dry sob.
The Parson gripped his hand.
A look of beastly rage darted into the other's eyes.
"Blast ye!" he screamed, and struck at the Parson's face with his elbow. ”