Kitabı oku: «The Dust of Conflict», sayfa 22

“The Señor Palliser will march with us?” he said.

“Of course!” said Tony lightly, but Appleby, who felt a little shiver run through him, said nothing at all.

Twenty minutes later the Sin Verguenza went stumbling down the tram-line file by file, and when they swung out into the carretera Tony Palliser marched with the leading four at the head of one company. The night was still and dark and the tramp of feet alone rang through the silence of the dusky cane, for the Sin Verguenza knew there was grim work before them, and marched with portentous quietness. Their time had come, but they realized with an unpleasant distinctness that if they failed very few of them would escape the vengeance of Morales.

XXX – MORALES PRESERVES HIS FAME

THERE was a pale shining in the eastern sky when the Sin Verguenza came into sight of Santa Marta. The town lay, a smear of deeper shadow, upon the dusky levels in front of them, but the transition from darkness to light is swift in that country, and here and there a flat roof higher than those it stood among grew out of the obscurity into definite form. Save for the rhythmic beat of marching feet, there was stillness among the cane, and nothing moved on all the dim levels but the long black column that crawled down the shadowy road.

Then the distant peaks stood out in sharper contour against the paling blueness of the western sky, and Tony, marching outside man of one four, glanced over his shoulder. He could dimly see the lines of men behind him plodding through the dust, and their sloped rifles led his gaze aloft. The sky was now shining with a pearly lustre like the inside of a shell, and low down upon a cane the flush of crimson blazed into brilliancy. The rifles of the rearguard cut against it as they rose and fell, and the faces of the men behind him became suddenly distinguishable. He could also make out Appleby swinging along a few paces away an his right hand. Then he glanced in front of him, and saw that the great peaks were now flushed with a warm pink, until the dust rolled thicker and blotted out everything. It thinned as they swung through a white aldea, and the light which had swept down the hillsides touched Santa Marta when they came out again, so that the city shone immaculately white upon a setting of luminescent green.

He gazed at it in wonder, for the long night march through a silent land, the thrill of excitement, and the unwonted bracing of his nerves to face a physical peril had not been without their effect on him. Tony was usually somewhat materialistic but just then the bodily part of him was under the domination of the spirit, and he was sensible of a curious exaltation Turning his head he glanced at Appleby with a little laugh.

“It is beautiful!” he said. “It came upon one so suddenly out of the night that one could almost fancy it a vision – of the everlasting city.”

“The one upon the Tiber?” said Appleby.

“The one seen in Patmos nearly two thousand years ago.”

Appleby laughed curiously. “I’m afraid Santa Marta will be much more like the other place before the day is through, and it is not a very appropriate simile, Tony. One cannot storm those gates of precious stones.”

“Well,” said Tony reflectively, “it’s not a subject either of us know very much about, but Nettie Harding seemed to think one could. We were lounging on the lawn at Low Wood that afternoon, and she was so sure about it that she almost convinced me. She said the gates were made of gold and ivory, and she got the fancy from the song you have heard Hester sing – but no doubt it means the same thing!”

Appleby glanced at him sharply, for the light was clearer now, and saw a look in Tony’s face which was new to him. It was curiously quiet in spite of his little smile. Still, he made no answer, and there was silence, until from beyond the dust cloud rose the strident crackle of riflery.

“The advance guard are driving in the pickets. We’ll be in the thick of it directly,” he said, and a murmur passed along the company, while the rhythmic tread swelled in a sharp staccato.

It was evident to the Sin Verguenza that they had difficult work before them, while a direct attack in daylight was not a manoeuvre they had any great liking for. In this case, however, there was no evading it, for while they knew adherents would flock in from every aldea once they held Santa Marta, it was equally clear that should Candotto’s Peninsulares join hands with Morales they could never seize the town. Haste was also advisable since he would know that an attack was imminent now, and when Maccario’s voice rang out of the dust the pace grew faster while the column drew out in length.

Twice a half-company swung clear and vanished amidst the scattered gardens, and at last the rest flung themselves into the little enclosures between the aloe hedges close outside Santa Marta. Then there was a flashing of pale flame from the crest of every white wall, and Tony stared in astonishment when he saw none of the Sin Verguenza beyond the little handful of men about him in a garden. They were crouching beneath a low wall apparently made of blocks of sun-baked soil, while Appleby lay behind a clump of aloes close in front of him.

Beyond the aloes, the white walls rose glaringly bright with smears of bluish vapor drifting from every opening, though the smoke was thickest about one wide gap between them. As he watched it, oblivious of the rifle in his hand, there was a thin whirling of flame in the midst of the vapor, and a sound that resembled a rapid hammering came sharply through the din. Then a strip of the mud wall crumbled into dust, which made a haze about the garden, and a spurt of flung-up soil struck him in the face. A man behind him screamed, and while there was a pattering among the bananas close on his right Appleby crawled past him.

“A quick-firer! Morales has two of them, and he has found our range. We’ll get on,” he said.

Tony said nothing, but he could still see the portentous flashing amidst the smoke, and next moment felt the jar of his rifle upon his shoulder. He did not remember pressing the trigger but he could shoot well, and his fingers seemed to move without any prompting from him, for he saw the empty shell flung out and heard the snap of the lever as another cartridge slid into the chamber. Then while he pressed his cheek down on the stock and stiffened his left hand on the barrel he heard Appleby’s voice raised in Castilian, and saw that his comrades were flitting forward. The rifle muzzle tilted upwards, and in another moment he was on his feet, and clambering over a low wall, ran past several small houses, and then dropped behind an aloe screen again.

Appleby, who knelt on one knee close beside him with a pair of glasses which had once belonged to an officer of cazadores in his hand, was still speaking sharply in Castilian, and Tony fancied that the men about them were all gazing towards the gap in the high walls where the carretera entered Santa Marta. Then there was a blast of riflery that set the aloes quivering and rolled away to the right of him, while, when a minute or two later nothing followed the click of the striker, he found the magazine was empty and the rifle barrel hot in his hand It was an American Marlin, and while he dropped fresh cartridges in through the slide Appleby rose to his feet and the Sin Verguenza were once more scrambling through enclosures nearer to the town.

The cluster Tony was attached to stopped among tall shrubs with crimson flowers of a heavy scent, with nothing between them and the white houses but a bare strip of dusty soil, and it became evident that they were waiting for something, for the firing slackened. Then further away to the right men sprang out into the open, straggling by twos and threes as they ran towards the town. The smoke grew thicker along the white walls, and some went down, while the dust they fell in splashed and spurted as a still pool would do under a driving hail. Still, more came on behind them, and Tony was struggling with an impulse to shout aloud when, from the whole front of the Sin Verguenza, there broke out a crash of riflery. He gasped as the smoke rolled down, for his desire to see had become almost overwhelming, and then as the firing slackened again it became evident that the little white forms were running still.

There were, however, not many of them now, and Tony grasped their purpose when they swept in close beneath the dazzling wall, while Appleby, who stood upright, with the glasses at his eyes, said something hoarsely in evident approbation. Once more there was a crackle of firing, and the smoke grew thick, while when it cleared the dusty strip was empty save for the white objects which lay still here and there. Tony surmised that the others had found entrance into the town by a narrow lane, or through the house of a friendly citizen.

A minute or two later this became evident, for the crash of firing grew furious on the roofs above the gap, and Appleby, who thrust his glasses into their case, was shouting hoarsely. Rising by twos and threes the men sprang out from among the flowering shrubs, and Tony saw the low walls and clumps of aloes become alive with scurrying forms. They seemed to move independently and without formation, though Appleby, with hand swung up, was shouting in Castilian, and Maccario went by pointing with a Spanish infantry officer’s sword. The gleam of it in the intense sunlight dazzled Tony’s eyes, and he stood still, uncertain what was going on, and gasping with excitement, when Appleby’s hand fell on his shoulder.

“I can’t tell you to hold off now we’re going in,” he said. “Still, it’s devilishly risky. You’ll not be unnecessarily rash, Tony.”

He sprang forward with three or four more at his heels, and Tony found himself running a few yards behind him. He could see that the Sin Verguenza were following, but save that they ran with wide spaces between them they seemed to keep no order, and to have only one purpose, to cross the perilous bare space as rapidly as they could.

The time that cost them appeared interminable, but it became evident that a few at least of those who had gained an entry into the town were firing on the cazadores who held the mouth of the carretera, and in another minute or two they swept up to it and stopped again, gasping in the smoke, with high white walls above them, and a mound of soil and torn-up pavement meshed with wires close in front of them. Tony remembered he had heard that in these days of magazine rifles and hopper-fed guns an attack of the kind was foredoomed to fail, but it seemed that the Sin Verguenza meant to try it, for already Maccario was half-way up the slope, with Appleby, pistol in hand, close behind him, and while a savage cry went up a wave of scrambling men seemed to toss together and roll on. It swept up to the crest of the barrier, and plunged into the smoke, and the cazadores wavered, turned, and fled. They were outnumbered, and, as it transpired later, had been galled by a fire from the roofs above, while Appleby eventually discovered a cartridge partly torn to pieces stuck immovably in the chamber of their quick-firing gun.

In the meanwhile Appleby was grimed with perspiration, smoke, and dust, while his hand was blackened by the fouling from the pistol. Strung to a tension that was too great for nervous excitement, he moved, as it were, with an automatic precision and collectedness, grasping the import of each turn of the struggle with a dispassionate perspicacity, which in less eventful moments he would have been incapable of. The faculty of swift deduction and decision may have been born in him, but it was, at least, evident to the Sin Verguenza, for even then in the stress of desperate effort they seemed to comprehend and obey him. Now and then Maccario had shouted hoarse questions to him, and though the answers apparently came without reflection the leader of the Sin Verguenza concurred when he grasped their purport.

It was by his order the shattered leading company flung itself into the houses when the Sin Verguenza were met by an enfilading volley as they reeled into the calle. The street might have proved a death-trap while the cazadores held the windows, but one could pass along the roofs, and the troops came out headlong when the Sin Verguenza descended upon them from above. Then they in turn found the calle too hot to hold them when they faced the fire of the second company which had taken shelter in the doorways. It was strewn with huddled objects lying upon the hot stones when they fled out of it, and a few minutes later Appleby stopped close by where Tony stood in the larger plaza. Tony’s face was set and white, though there was a curious gleam in his eyes, and he seemed to shiver a little as he glanced back up the glaring street. It was very still now, a narrow gap between the white walls that were ridged with shattered green lattices, but filmy wisps of vapor still drifted out of the doorways.

“We have got in, but it has cost you a good deal,” he said.

Appleby said nothing, but Maccario, who came up, and following Tony’s gaze glanced at the huddled figures on the stones, made a little comprehensive gesture.

“There is a price to everything, but in this case it would have been heavier had not your countryman been quick to copy Morales’ plan,” he said. “Still, I think by the firing our friends who went on in front are also in, and as they will close the way out Morales will be waiting us in the cuartel.”

“It stands alone,” said Appleby. “One cannot get in by the roofs.”

He pointed to a ridge of flat roof that, rising above the others, cut the blue of the sky. A streak of gold and crimson flaunted above it from a towering staff.

“We have perhaps four hours,” said Maccario; “but if that flag is flying when the Peninsulares march in it may never come down again.”

“I think one will be enough,” said Appleby quietly. “We will wait two or three minutes until the rest come up.”

The stragglers were formed into their companies in the plaza, and Maccario, impressing a citizen whom he dragged out of his dwelling, sent him on with a scribbled summons to Morales to deliver up the cuartel. The message was terse and laconic, and Maccario smiled dryly when the man departed very much against his wishes bearing a white handkerchief on a cane.

“One complies with civilized customs; it is required of him. And a rest of a few minutes will not hurt my men,” he said. “Still, it is a waste of courtesy when it is known beforehand what Morales’ answer will be.”

While they waited there was a little derisive laughter as, with Harper on the flank of the first four, another band of the Sin Verguenza tramped into the plaza. They had, he explained disgustedly, found a feebly defended entrance by a narrow alley, and had lost their way during the pursuit of the handful of cazadores who had attempted to hold it. He had already left the ranks, and grinned at Maccario suggestively as he laid a bottle of red wine in Tony’s hands.

“The boys struck a place where they sell it, and you’re not an officer, anyway,” he said. “It might come in handy, and if the others are stuck on discipline they needn’t have any.”

The men had refilled the magazines by this time, and were growing impatient when the citizen came back again. He carried a strip of paper torn across the middle, and made a little deprecatory gesture as he passed it to Maccario.

“That is the only answer the Colonel Morales sends,” he said.

Appleby smiled dryly, but a faint flush crept into Maccario’s face.

“It is what one would have expected – and it is evident he understands,” he said. “There is no room in Cuba for him and the Sin Verguenza.”

Then he spoke sharply, there was a passing of orders, and the Sin Verguenza swung forward down the broad highway that led to the cuartel. The street was silent and empty under the scorching sun, with green lattices closed, and doors shut, but the men could see the square mass of the building towering white and grim, with the crimson and gold of Spain flaunting over it on the faint hot breeze. They marched in due formation now, but behind them came a rabble long held down by terror, men with bitter wrongs who carried rifles torn from the fallen cazadores, machetes, and iron bars. They had also a long score against Morales, and their time had come.

They were close on the cuartel, and still the white building was silent, when the Sin Verguenza stopped a moment or two and men with iron bars beat down the door of a house Maccario pointed to. Then the most part of one company vanished within it, and it was not until they poured out on the flat roof the rest went on. It seemed to Appleby that save for the tramp of feet the street was curiously still, though he noticed that now a green lattice was open every here and there.

Then the silence was suddenly broken by a crash of riflery, and the front of the houses was smeared by drifting smoke! Morales, it was evident, did not mean to hold his hand until they reached the cuartel. Here and there a man staggered and reeled from the ranks, there was a sharp snapping upon the stones, but Maccario’s voice rang through the din, and the Sin Verguenza went on at a furious run. They were met by the flash of a volley when they swept into the open space in front of the cuartel, shrank back, and reeled into the sliding smoke again, while the rifles of their comrades swept the windows from the houses opposite. Twice they beat the great door in the archway almost down, but those who swung the hammers and machetes melted away under the rifle flame, and then Harper went shouting at the door with a great iron bar. There were, however, men with grim faces from the alleys of Santa Marta behind him now, striking with torn-up railings, pounding with paving stones, while from roof and windows the rifles crashed.

Then the door bent inwards, and with a shout of triumph and execration the Sin Verguenza poured in across the barricade of stones and soil in cases. The din had grown bewildering, and the men seemed oblivious of sight and sound in their passion, while Appleby, who shouldered his way through the press, noticed only the closed inner door of the patio, and the ruins of the torn-up veranda stairway. Again it cost the Sin Verguenza a heavy price to break that door down, but nothing would have stopped them or those who followed them now, and they fought their way up the wide stairway, driving the cazadores back until they poured out on to the higher veranda where Morales stood with a bright sword in his hand at the foot of the big flagstaff. There was a little cluster of cazadores about him, but Appleby did not know where the rest had gone, for the struggle had become general, and scattered handfuls of men were fighting independently all over the building. He, however, fancied by the shouts and the confused din that most of them and the Sin Verguenza had swept on up the higher stairway to the roof above, for he and Maccario and Tony were almost alone.

Maccario stopped suddenly and swung off his hat.

“The cuartel is ours how, and it would serve no purpose to waste more men. Your sword, señor,” he said.

Morales made him a little punctilious salutation, and glanced at the bright blade in his hand. Then he turned to the men about him, and smiled grimly, as though in answer to the murmur that rose from them.

“Never while I live. It belongs to Spain,” he said.

The little drama scarcely lasted a minute, but it forced itself into Appleby’s memory, and he could long afterwards picture Morales standing very straight with set lips and a gleam in his dark eyes, the handful of men with rifles behind him, and the grim face of the slim young officer Harper had spared at the hacienda. Tony was gasping close at his side, and the flag of Spain streamed, a strip of gold and crimson, above them all.

Then more men grimed with dust and smoke poured into the veranda, and Maccario, who made a little deprecatory gesture, raised his sword.

“Then, with excuses, señor! Comrades, we must have that flag,” he said.

A man beside Morales whose head was bound with a crusted bandage flung up his rifle, there was a flash, and one of the Sin Verguenza reeled and plunged down from the shattered stairway into the patio. Then there was a shout, a crash, and a whirling haze of smoke, and as Appleby sprang towards the flagstaff a cazador lunged at him with his bayonet. His finger closed on the pistol trigger, but there was no answering flash, and another shadowy figure seemed to slip in between him and the soldier. The latter went down with a man upon him, while Appleby pressed on through the acrid haze. A man whom he recognized as Harper seemed to reach the staff simultaneously with himself, a knife flashed, and a hoarse voice cried in English as a rope was thrust into his hand.

“Haul!” it said. “Down she comes.”

A moment or two later the limp folds of red and gold fell into Appleby’s hands, and it was evident that other men on the roofs and in the patio had seen the flag come down, for a shout of exultation rolled across the town. Then Appleby who flung the flag from him, turned and glanced along the veranda with a little shiver.

Save for two or three who lay still in the glaring sunlight the cazadores had melted away, and he fancied they had been driven through the gap in the torn-up balustrade or had flung themselves into the patio. The slim young lieutenant held himself up by a railing, with his face horribly awry, while Maccario stood still looking down on the olive-faced officer who lay close in front of him. His kepi had fallen off, but his brown fingers were still clenched upon his sword, and he stared back at the leader of the Sin Verguenza with sightless eyes. Maccario, who apparently saw Appleby, stooped, and pointed to a little blue mark on the side of the officer’s head.

“It is what one would have expected. A brave soldier!” he said.

Appleby said nothing, but looked round for Tony, and felt suddenly chilly when he did not see him. Then with horrible misgivings he turned towards a man who lay partly upon a fallen cazador with a rifle beside him. Just then the man lifted his head, and it was with a gasp he recognized the drawn, white face as Tony Palliser’s.

“Tony, you’re not hurt?” he said, with hoarse anxiety.

Tony smiled wryly. “I think I am,” he said. “This fellow got his bayonet into me, and I have a notion that I’m bleeding internally. I suppose there is a doctor in Santa Marta.”

Appleby turned and seized Maccario by the shoulder. The latter, leaning over the balustrade, called out sharply, and in a moment or two three or four of the Sin Verguenza came up and lifted Tony. As they moved away with him Maccario stooped and laid Morales’ kepi over his face. Then he touched Appleby gently.

“I have seen a good many wounds, and I think the Señor Palliser will not fight again,” he said.