Kitabı oku: «The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood», sayfa 11
CHAPTER XVIII.
A NOVEMBER GALE
"Will you not come down into the cabin?" said Mrs. Wilders, civilly; "the lunch is still on the table, and I daresay you will be glad of something to eat."
"I have not touched food all day, Mrs. Wilders."
"You must have been very busy, then?"
"Surely you have heard what has happened this morning?"
Mrs. Wilders looked at him amazed.
"A desperate battle has been fought."
"Another!" She thought of what Mr. Hobson had told her. "How has it ended? In whose favour? Are we safe here?"
"There is no cause for alarm. The Russians have been handsomely beaten again; but we have suffered considerable loss," he said, hesitating a little, fearing to be too brusque with his bad news.
"Is that why the general could not come?"
"Exactly. He has had a great deal to do."
"Nothing should have prevented him from coming here."
It never seemed to have occurred to her that he had been in any danger; nor, as McKay noticed, had she asked whether he was safe and well.
"It was quite impossible for him to come. He—he—"
"Pray go on! You are very tantalising."
"The general has been badly wounded," McKay now blurted out abruptly.
"Dear! dear!" she said, rather coolly. "I am very sorry to hear it. When and how did it occur?"
McKay explained.
"Poor dear!" This was the first word of sympathy she had spoken, and even now she made no offer to go to him.
"The doctors think there is no great danger if—"
"Danger!" This seemed to rouse her. "I trust not."
"No danger," went on McKay, "if only he can be properly nursed. They were glad to hear of the arrival of the yacht, and think he ought to be moved on board."
"Oh, of course this will be the best place for him. When can he be brought? I suppose I ought to go to him. Will it be possible to get a conveyance to the front?"
"Nothing but an ambulance, I fear. And you know there is no road."
"Upon my word I hardly know what to say."
"We could manage a saddle-horse for you, I daresay."
"I'm a very poor horsewoman: you see I'm half a foreigner. No; the best plan will be to stay on board and get everything ready for the poor dear man. When may we expect him?"
"The doctors seem to wish the removal might not be delayed. You may see us in the morning."
"So, then, I am to have the pleasure of meeting you again, Mr. McKay?"
"I should be sorry to leave the general while I can be of any use. He has been a kind friend to me."
"And you are a relation. Of course it is very natural you should wish to be at his side. I am sure I shall be delighted to have your assistance in nursing him," said Mrs. Wilders, very graciously; and soon afterwards McKay took his leave.
"So that is the last stumbling-block in my son's way: a sturdy, self-reliant sort of gentleman, likely to be able to take care of himself. I should like to get him into my power: but how, I wonder, how?"
Next day they moved the wounded general to Balaclava, and got him safely on board the Arcadia. He was accompanied by a doctor and McKay.
Mrs. Wilders received her husband with the tenderest solicitude.
"How truly fortunate I came here!" she said, with the tears in her eyes.
"Lydstone made no objection, then? Has he remained at Constantinople?" the general asked, feebly.
"Lydstone? Don't you know? He—" But why should she tell him? It would only distress him greatly, and, in his present precarious condition, he should be spared all kind of emotion. With this idea she had begged Captain Trejago to say nothing as yet of the sad end of his noble owner.
"Will it not be best to get the general down to Scutari?" she asked the doctor.
"In a day or two, yes. When he has recovered the shaking of the move on board."
"The captain wanted to know. He has no wish to go inside the harbour, as it is so crowded; but he would not like to remain long off this coast. It might be dangerous, he says."
"A lee-shore, you know," added Captain Trejago, for himself. "Look at those straight cliffs; fancy our grinding on to them, with a southerly, or rather a south-westerly, gale!"
"Is there any immediate prospect of bad weather?" asked McKay. He and the sailing-master were by this time pretty good friends.
"I don't much like the look of the glass. It's rather jumpy; if anything, inclined to go back."
"What should you do if it came on dirty?" the skipper was asked.
"Up stick, and run out to get an offing. It would be our only chance, with this coast to leeward."
Three or four days later the skipper came with a long face to the doctor.
"I like the look of it less and less. The glass has dropped suddenly: such a drop as I've never seen out of the tropics. Is there anything against our putting to sea this afternoon?"
It so happened that General Wilders was not quite so well.
"I'd rather you waited a day or two," replied the surgeon. "It might make all the difference to the patient."
"Well, if it must be," replied the captain, very discontentedly.
"It's his life that's in question."
"Against all of ours. But let it be so. We'll try and weather the storm."
Next morning, about dawn, it burst upon them—the memorable hurricane of the 14th November, which did such appalling damage on shore and at sea. Not a tent remained standing on the plateau. The tornado swept the whole surface clean.
At sea the sight as daylight grew stronger was enough to make the stoutest heart, ignorant landsman's or practised seaman's, quail. A whole fleet—great line-of-battle ships, a crowd of transports under sail and steam—lay at the mercy of the gale, which increased every moment in force and fury. The waves rose with the wind, and the white foam of "stupendous" breakers angrily lashed the rock-bound shore.
"Will you ride it out?" asked McKay of the captain, as the two stood with the doctor crouched under the gunwale of the yacht and holding on to the shrouds.
"Why shouldn't we?" replied Trejago, shortly, as though the question was an insult to himself and his ship.
"That's more than some can say!" cried the doctor, pointing to one great ship, the ill-fated Prince, which had evidently dragged her anchors and was drifting perilously towards the cliffs.
"Our tackle is sound and the holding is good," said Trejago, hopefully. "But we ought not to speak so loud. It may alarm Mrs. Wilders."
"Does she not know our danger? Some one ought to tell her. You had better go, McKay."
The aide-de-camp made rather a wry face. He was not fond of Mrs. Wilders, whose manner, sometimes oily, sometimes supercilious, was too changeable to please him, and he felt that the woman was not true.
However, he went down to the cabin, where he found Mrs. Wilders, with a white, scared face, cowering in a corner as she listened to the howling of the storm.
"Is there anything the matter?" she cried, springing up as he appeared. "Is there any danger?"
"I trust not; still, it is well to be prepared."
"For what? Do you mean that we may be lost, drowned—here, in sight of port—all of us—my dear general and myself? It is too dreadful! Why does not the captain run inside the harbour and put us on dry ground?"
"I fear it would be too great a risk to try and make the mouth of the harbour in this gale."
"Then why don't you seek help from some of the other ships—the men-of-war? There are plenty of them all around."
"Every ship outside Balaclava is in the same stress as ourselves. They could spare us no help, even if we asked for it."
"What, then, are we to do?—in Heaven's name!"
"Trust in Providence and hope for the best! But I think—if I might suggest—it would be as well to keep the general in ignorance of our condition, which is not so very desperate after all."
"How do you mean?"
"'Our cables are stout,' Captain Trejago says, and we ought to be able to ride out the storm."
And the Arcadia did so gallantly all that day, in the teeth of the hurricane, which blew with unabated fury for many more hours, and in spite of the tempest-torn sea, which now ran mountains high.
All through that anxious day Trejago kept the deck, watching the sky and the storm. It was late in the afternoon when he said, with a sigh of relief—
"The wind is hauling round to the westward; I expect the gale will abate before long."
He was right, although to eyes less keen there was small comfort yet in the signs of the weather.
It was an awful scene—ships everywhere in distress: some on the point of foundering, others being dashed to pieces on the rocks. The great waves, as they raged past in fearful haste, bore upon their foaming crests great masses of wreck, the dread vestiges of terrible disasters. Amongst the floating timbers and spars, encumbered with tangles of cordage, floated great bundles of hay, the lost cargo of heavily-laden transports that had gone down.
Still, as Trejago said, there was hope at last. The gale had spent its chief force and was no longer directly on shore. The more pressing and immediate danger was over.
"It won't do to stop here, though," he went on, "not one second longer than we can help. Now that there is a slant in the wind we can run south under a close-reefed trysail and storm-jib. What say you, doctor?"
"I'll step down and see the general."
"Don't lose any time. I should like to slip my cable this next half-hour. I shan't be happy till we've got sea-room."
McKay went below with the doctor, and, while the latter sat with his patient, the aide-de-camp had a short talk with Mrs. Wilders.
"The captain wants to put to sea."
"Never! not in this storm!"
"It is abating fast. Besides, he says it will be far safer to be running snug under storm-canvas than remaining here on this wild coast."
"I hope he will do no such thing. It will be madness. I must speak to him at once."
She seized a shawl, and, throwing it over her head, ran up on deck.
McKay followed her and was by her side before she had left the companion-ladder.
"Take care, pray. There is a heavy sea on still and the deck is very slippery. I will call Captain Trejago if you will wait here."
"One moment; do not leave me, Mr. McKay. What an exciting, extraordinary scene! But how terrible!"
The yacht rode the waves gallantly: now on their crest, now in the trough between two giant rollers, and always wet with spray. Fragments of wreck still came racing by, borne swiftly by the waters and adding greatly to the horrors of the dread story they told.
"There must have been immense loss among the shipping," said McKay. "It is a mercy and a marvel how we escaped."
"The poor things! To be lost—cast away on this cruel, inhospitable land. How very, very sad!"
"It is safer, you see, to leave this dangerous anchorage. Do you still want the captain? He is busy there forward."
For the moment everyone was forward: they were all intent on the straining cables and the muddle of gear that would have to be cleared or cut away when they got up sail.
So Mrs. Wilders and McKay stood at the cabin companion alone—absolutely alone—with the raging elements, the whistling wind still three parts of a gale, and the cruel, driving sea.
"Shall I fetch the captain?" McKay repeated.
"No, no! Don't disturb him; no doubt he is right. I will go below again. This is no place for me." She took one long, last survey of the really terrifying scene, but then, quite suddenly, there burst from her an exclamation of horror.
"There! there! Mr. McKay, look: on that piece of timber—a figure, surely—some poor shipwrecked soul! Don't you see?"
McKay, shading his eyes, gazed intently.
"No. I can make nothing out," he said at length, shaking his head.
"How strange! I can distinguish the figure quite plainly. But never mind, Mr. McKay; only do something. Give him some help. Try to save him. Throw him a rope."
McKay obediently seized a coil of rope, and, approaching the gunwale, said, quickly—
"Only you must show me where to throw."
"There, towards that mast; it's coming close alongside."
In her eagerness she had followed him, and was close behind as he gathered up the rope in a coil to cast it.
Once, twice, thrice, he whirled it round his head, then threw it with so vigorous an action that his body bent over and his balance was lost.
He might have regained it, but at this supreme moment a distinct and unmistakeable push in the back from his companion completed his discomfiture.
He clutched wildly at the shrouds with one hand—the other still held the rope; but fruitlessly, and in an instant he fell down—far down into the vortex of the seething, swirling sea.
"Ah, traitress!" he cried, as he sank, fully conscious, as it seemed, of the foul part she had played.
Had she really wished to drown him? Her conduct after he had disappeared bore out this conclusion.
One hasty glance around satisfied her that McKay's fall had been unobserved. If she gave the alarm at once he might still be saved.
"Not yet!" she hissed between her teeth. "In five minutes it will be too late to help him. The waters have closed over him—let him go down, to the very bottom of the sea."
But she was wise in her fiendish wickedness, and knew that as they had been seen last together she must account for McKay's disappearance. At the end of an interval long enough to make rescue impossible she startled the whole yacht with her screams.
"Help! Help! Mr. McKay! He has fallen overboard!"
They came rushing aft to where she stood once more holding on to the top of the companion, and plied her with questions.
"There! there! make haste!" she cried—"for Heaven's sake make haste!"
"A boat could hardly live in this sea," said Captain Trejago, gravely. "Still, we must make the attempt. Who will go with me?" he asked, and volunteers soon sprang to his side.
It was a service of immense danger, but the boat was lowered, and for more than half-an-hour made such diligent search as was possible in the weather and in the sea.
After that time the boat was brought back to the yacht by its brave but disappointed crew.
"No chance for the poor chap," said Captain Trejago, shaking his head despondingly in reply to Mrs. Wilders's mute but eager appeal.
Soon afterwards they got up the anchor, and the yacht sped southward under a few rags of sail.
CHAPTER XIX.
UNCLE AND NEPHEW
It will be well to relieve at once the anxiety which the reader must feel—unless I have altogether failed to interest him—in the fate of my hero, Stanislas McKay.
He was not drowned when, through the fiendish intervention of Mrs. Wilders, he fell from the deck of the Arcadia, and was, as it seemed, swallowed up in the all-devouring sea.
He went under, it is true, but only for a moment, and, coming once more to the surface, by a few strong strokes swam to a drifting spar. To this he clung desperately, hoping against hope that he might yet be picked up from the yacht. Unhappily for him, the waves ran so high that the boat under Trejago's guidance failed to catch sight of him, and, as we know, returned presently to the Arcadia, after a fruitless errand, as was thought.
Very shortly the yacht and the half-submerged man parted company. The former was steered for the open sea; the latter drifted and tossed helplessly to and fro, growing hourly weaker and more and more benumbed, but always hanging on with convulsive tenacity to the friendly timber that buoyed him up, and was his last frail chance of life.
All night long he was in the water, and when day dawned it seemed all over with him, so overpowering was his despair. Consciousness had quite abandoned him, and he was almost at the last gasp when he was seen and picked up by a passing steamship, the Burlington Castle.
"Where am I?" he asked, faintly, on coming to himself. He was in a snug cot, in a small but cosy cabin.
"Where you'd never have been but for the smartness of our look-out man," said a steward at his bedside. "Cast away, I suppose, in the gale?"
"No: washed overboard," replied McKay, "last evening."
"Thunder! and in the water all those hours! But what was your craft? Who and what are you?"
"I was on board the yacht Arcadia. My name is Stanislas McKay. I am an officer of the Royal Picts—aide-de-camp to General Wilders. Where am I?" he repeated.
"You'll learn that fast enough; with friends, anyhow. Doctor said you weren't to talk. But just drink this, while I tell the captain you've come to. He hasn't had sight of you yet; we hauled you aboard while it was his watch below."
Five minutes more and the captain, a jolly English tar, red in face and round in figure, came down, with a loud voice and cheering manner, to welcome his treasure-trove.
"Well, my hearty, so this is how I find you, eh? Soused in brine. Why, I hear they had to hang you up by the heels to let the water run out of your mouth. Come, Stanny, my boy, this won't do."
"Uncle Barto!"
"The same: master of the steamship Burlington Castle, deep in deals—timbers for huts—and other sundries, now lying in Balaclava, waiting to be discharged. But, my dearest lad, you've had a narrow squeak. Tell me, how did it happen, and when?"
"I fell overboard, and I've been all night in the water: that's all."
He did not choose as yet to make public his suspicions as to the real origin of his nearly fatal accident.
"I always said you had nine lives, Stanny, only don't go using them up like this. There's not a tom-cat could stand it."
"Were you out in the gale, uncle?"
"Ay; and weathered it. At dawn, after the first puff, I knew we'd have a twister, so I got up steam and regularly worked against it. Made a good offing that way, and when the storm abated came back here. We were close in when we picked you up on a log."
"It was a providential escape," said Stanislas, thankfully. "I thought it was all over with me."
"We'll set you up in no time, never fear. But tell more about yourself. Jove! you are a fine chap, Stanny. Why, you'll die a general yet, if the Russians'll let you off a little longer, and you're not wanted for the House of Peers."
"What do you mean, uncle?"
"Why, of course, you haven't heard. There's trouble among your fine relations. Lord Essendine has lost all his sons."
"All?"
"Yes; all. Hugo was killed, as you know; Anastasius died at Scutari; and Lord Lydstone, two days later, was found dead in the streets of Stamboul."
"Dead? How? What did he die of, uncle?"
"A stab in the heart. He was murdered."
"And I—"
He understood now the cause of the foul blow struck at him, and the base attempt to get him also out of the way.
"You are now next heir to the peerage, in spite of all they may say. But you'll find my lord civil enough soon. He'll be wanting you to go straight home."
"And leave the army? Not while there's fighting to be done, Uncle Barto. I may not be much good as I am, but I'll do all I can, trust me. I ought to be getting on shore and back to the front."
"My doctor will have a word to say to that. He won't let you be moved till you're well and strong."
But on the second day McKay, thanks to kindly care and plenty of nourishment, was able to leave his cot, and on the third morning he was determined to return to his duty.
"I won't baulk you, Stanny," said his uncle; "good soldiers, like good sailors, never turn their backs on their work. But mind, this ship is your home whenever and wherever you like to come on board; and if you want anything you have only to ask for it, d'ye hear?"
McKay promised readily to draw upon his uncle when needful, and then, his horse being still at Balaclava, he once more got into the saddle and rode up to camp.
The journey prepared him a little for what he found. All the way from Balaclava his horse struggled knee-deep in mud: a very quagmire of black, sticky slush. Yet this was the great highway—the only road between the base of supply and an army engaged eight miles distant in an arduous siege. Along it the whole of the food, ammunition, and material had to be carried on pony-back, or in a few ponderous carts drawn by gaunt, over-worked teams, which too often left their wheels fast-caught in the mire.
At the front—it had been raining in torrents for hours—the mud was thicker, blacker, and more tenacious. Tents stood in pools of water; their occupants, harassed by trench duty, lay shivering within, half-starved and wet.
McKay made his way at once to the colonel and reported his return.
"Oh! so you've thought fit to come back," said Colonel Blythe, rather grumpily. Since war and sickness had decimated his battalion he looked upon every absentee, from whatever cause, right or wrong, as a recreant deserter.
"I was with my general, sir," expostulated Stanislas.
"The general has no need of an aide-de-camp now. We want every man that can stand upright in his boots. I have given up the command of the brigade myself so as to look the better after my men."
McKay accepted the reproof without a murmur, and only said—
"Well, sir, I am here now, and ready to do whatever I may be called upon. I feel my first duty is to my own colonel and my own corps."
"Do you mean that, young fellow?" said the colonel, thawing a little.
"Certainly, sir."
"Because they want to inveigle you away—on the staff. Lord Raglan has sent to inquire for you."
"I have no desire to go, sir," said McKay, simply; although his face flushed red at the compliment implied by the Commander-in-Chief's message.
"It seems he was pleased with the way you rallied those Frenchmen, and he has heard you are a good linguist, and he wants to put you on the staff."
"I had much rather stay with the regiment, sir," said McKay.
"Are you quite sure? You must not stand in your own light. This is a fine chance for you to get on in the service." The colonel's voice had become very friendly.
"I know where my true duty lies, sir; I owe everything to you and to the regiment. I should not hesitate to refuse an appointment on the general staff if it were offered me now." McKay did not add that his future prospects were now materially changed, and that it was no longer of supreme importance to him to rise in his profession.
"Give me your hand, my boy," said Colonel Blythe, visibly touched at McKay's disinterestedness. "You are proving your gratitude in a way I shall never forget. But let us talk business. You know I want you as adjutant."
"I shall be only too proud to act, sir."
"I must have a good staff about me. We are in great straits; the regiment will go from bad to worse. There are barely 200 'duty' men now, and it will soon be a mere skeleton, unless we can take good care of the rest."
"Yes, sir," said McKay, feeling constrained to say something.
"They are suffering—we all are, but the men most of all—from exposure, cold, want of proper clothing, and, above all, from want of proper food. This is what I wish to remedy. They are dying of dysentery, fever, cholera—I don't know what."
"The doctor, sir?"
"Can do nothing. He has few drugs; but, as he says, that would hardly matter if the men could have warmth and nourishment."
"Something might be done, sir, with system; the quartermaster—"
"You are right. Let us consult him. Hyde is still acting, and he has already proved himself a shrewd, hard-headed old soldier."
Quartermaster-sergeant Hyde—for he had accepted the grade, although unwillingly—came and stood "at attention" before his superiors.
"As to food, sir," he said, "the men might be provided with hot coffee, and, I think, hot soup, on coming off duty. I am only doubtful as to the sufficiency of fuel."
"There is any quantity of drift-wood just now—wreckage—floating in Balaclava Harbour," suggested McKay.
"We must have it sir, somehow," said Hyde, eagerly. "But can we get it up to the front?"
"We'll lay an embargo on all the baggage-animals in camp. Take the whole lot down to Balaclava, and lay hands on every scrap of timber."
"As to clothing, sir, an uncle of mine has come up with a heavily-laden ship—hutting-timbers mostly, but he may have some spare blankets, sailors' pea-jackets, jerseys, and so forth."
"And boots, long boots or short—all kinds will be acceptable. Get anything and everything that is warm. I'll pay out of my own pocket sooner than not have them. When can you start, Hyde?"
"Now, sir, if that will suit Mr. McKay, and I can have the horses."
The matter was speedily arranged, and in the early afternoon our hero and Hyde were jogging back to Balaclava, at the head of a string of animals led and ridden by a small selected fatigue-party of regimental batmen and grooms.
It was the first occasion on which the two friends had conversed freely together for months.
McKay had most to tell. He spoke first of the offer to go on the headquarter-staff which he had refused. Then of the strange accidents by which he had become heir presumptive to the earldom of Essendine. Last of all, of the narrow escape he had of his life.
Hyde pressed him on this point.
"You fell overboard—lost your balance, eh? Entirely your own doing? Mrs. Wilders did not help you at all?"
"How on earth, Hyde, did you guess that? I never hinted at such a thing."
"I know her—do not look surprised—I know her, and have done so intimately for years. There is nothing she would stick at if she saw her advantage therefrom. You were in her way; she sought to remove you, as, no doubt, she, or some one acting for her, had removed Lord Lydstone, and—and—for all I know, ever so many more."
"Can she be such a fiendish wretch?"
"She is a demon, Stanislas McKay. Beware how you cross her path. But let her also take heed how she tries to injure you again. She will have to do with me then."
"Why, Hyde! what extraordinary language is this? What do you know of Mrs. Wilders? What can you mean?"
"Some day you shall hear everything, but not now. It is too long a story. Besides, here we are at Balaclava. Do you know where your uncle's ship lies?"
