Honour and the Sword (37 page)

He went back. The stupid little bugger, he went back. There were three, now four of them breaking through, but still he went back.

My bloody gun was empty, we were all reloading like mad, there were ramrods waving all about me like a forest. Only Bernard was ready, and he loosed a bolt into one of the bastards, but there were three still up. The boy was pulling out of the first, but they were too close, he was having to jump back, he was off balance. One of them lunged down, the boy was twisting away, helpless, his left arm coming up uselessly to ward off the blades, I think I was sobbing as I tried to load, and the bloody, bloody ball slipped out of my hand and rolled into the grass.

Pepin had a musket ready, but it would take seconds to pass it on, he levelled and fired it himself. He’d never been in action before, but it was a great shot, it took the nearest man clean, and gave André the seconds he needed to get himself upright, then step forward to engage the next man. Another was coming through now, but the boy was back in control, and behind him Stefan started heaving himself on to his hands and knees. I felt my breathing subsiding as I retrieved my ball.

Marcel seemed to have got a grip of himself. ‘Marksmen only!’ he was shouting. ‘Everyone else, load. Pass your guns to Mercier, Leroux or Margot as they’re charged. Marksmen only, make every shot count!’

André was keeping both his swordsmen in play, working them in front of him like a screen, so their comrades couldn’t touch him. Behind him, Stefan knelt himself upright and mopped the blood from his face.

I finished loading and passed my gun to Margot, starting to feel more confident. Then a bullet whined and pinged into a tree behind my head, and a second later Bernard gave a yelp and dropped in a huddle over his crossbow. Cover or not, we’d got two dozen Spaniards shooting in our direction and couldn’t keep it up for ever.

‘Come on, Stefan!’ shouted Marcel. ‘For God’s sake, man, move!’

Stefan Ravel

Oh don’t ask me, Abbé, I was out of it. I’d had a fucking musket ball graze my skull and my brain wasn’t quite working as it should.

The first I knew was lifting my head with a mouthful of earth and seeing a pair of feet leaping about in front of me. It took me a second to realize it was André, and he seemed to be fighting the entire Spanish army a foot away from my nose. I hauled myself up on to my knees.

‘Take your time,’ said André, fencing furiously and stepping neatly to one side to avoid a lunge.

I shoved my hair out of my eyes and squinted up at him. ‘Fuck you,’ I said.

He laughed. ‘Just get the bloody rope.’

I was already reaching for it. I stood slowly, gave it a couple of good turns round my waist, and wedged the anchor under my arm.

‘Ready when you are,’ I said.

He leapt forward at once and thrust the nearest swordsman right in the guts. He’d probably have had the other too, but I was nearer so I simply whacked him down with the anchor. There was no one behind him. Gunfire was cracking merrily all round us, but for the moment the clearing was free.

I adjusted my grip on the rope and reached out towards André, but he spun round to me so suddenly the force knocked me back towards the edge, so I just grabbed him up in my left arm and launched us both into space.

The sudden pull startled me. He wasn’t carrying himself at all, I was taking his full weight. I grappled him closer, but a glance showed me his head flopping loosely back to expose his throat, while his eyes were fast closed in a face that was suddenly white. As my feet touched the ground on the other side, I felt a warm wetness soaking my arm, and it was only then I understood.

Jean-Marie Mercier

I don’t think any of us knew. As Stefan landed safely, men all about me started to cheer. I thought I could hear a cheer from the other side as well, but it didn’t make sense, and I ignored it. Marcel was shouting at us all to pull back, pull back, retreat to the horses, then he was darting out of cover to haul in the remnants of the rope so the Spaniards couldn’t reel it back to the other side. Stefan headed straight for the trees, but André’s feet were dragging as Stefan supported him, and I remember thinking ‘Why, he’s hurt, he must be hurt.’

We struggled back through the trees to the horses. Pinhead and Giles were propping up Bettremieu, who incredibly seemed to be still alive, while Pepin and Margot were helping Bernard, and I was thinking ‘It’s only one, we’ve only lost Philippe, honestly it’s a miracle.’

Then I saw Stefan wasn’t supporting André any more, he was carrying him in his arms, and Colin was making the great warhorse bend his knees so Stefan could lift André on with him. Jacques came skidding up to them, anxiety distorting his face, he was stretching out his hands insistently towards André and saying something I couldn’t catch, he was almost babbling. Marcel came and put an arm round him, and I heard him say gently ‘Let Stefan take him, Jacques, it’s best if Stefan takes him now.’

Jacques stared at him in terrified comprehension, and said ‘No.’ Marcel only looked sadly at him, and Stefan started to mount the horse, laying André carefully over his lap. Jacques looked wildly round at us, and I became aware the sounds of gunfire had stopped. There was nothing but silence, and Jacques looking desperately from face to face as if appealing a terrible decision. Giles was gazing at him in a kind of dreadful pity, and I felt the tears starting in my eyes.

Suddenly, shockingly, Jacques screamed at us all ‘No!’

And in the silence I heard it again: a distant cheer from the far bank, and the derisive sound of men’s laughter.

Sixteen

Anne du Pré

Extract from her diary, dated 17 October 1638

I can’t remember André’s face. I try so hard, but it keeps slipping away, and all I remember is how I felt when he found that stupid snake and looked properly at me for the first time. I wish I could see him still. I am very lucky to have known someone who has been such a great hero, even if we were only children at the time.

I know I disgraced myself at the banquet, but I really could not help it. I knew something was wrong from the first, when Don Francisco arrived so late and then all those soldiers kept coming in to whisper reports, but I could not guess what the final horror would be. The smell of partridge will always bring it back to me now, the sickly sound of the guitars playing ‘
Triste España
’, the sentimental tears on the face of Don Francisco, then the dreadful outburst of clapping and cheering at the news they had murdered a fifteen-year-old boy.

Colette managed much better than I, she behaved as if it were nothing to her at all, and continued to giggle with that good-looking enseigne with the boyish smile, the one she now calls Pablo. Even Florian covered his feelings better than I did, although I noticed he drank a great quantity of wine, which he is suffering for now. It was only I who was weak enough to beg to leave the table. Don Miguel was very kind, and told Don Francisco it was understandable I should be upset since I had known André personally, but he only peered at me as if I were a doll and said ‘She is, d’Estrada, she really is, look, she’s crying.’

Don Miguel offered to have me escorted back to our room, but I did not like the idea of being alone with the Slug, so he had Carlos take me to sit in a quiet corner by myself and fetch me a glass of water. I was not really unwell, I only wished to be alone, but Carlos stayed by me to make sure I was not molested, and I did not like to ask him to go away. I could only sit pretending to be quite composed, and listening while he spoke with that enseigne with the shiny hair who brought the news.

It was an extraordinary conversation, and I think they would not have held it so near me if they knew I spoke Spanish. The more I think about it, the stranger it seems, but I did not concentrate very well at the time so perhaps I misunderstood.

Carlos said ‘You’ll feel better now, I warrant, Señor de Castilla?’ He always seems so jolly when he is with Don Miguel, but I thought today he sounded rather sly. He said ‘If they’d taken him alive, who knows what he might have said?’

The enseigne said something that sounded like swearing. He said ‘If he recognized me, he’d have known you too.’

‘Not me, Señor,’ said Carlos. ‘I’d my helmet on, remember? It was only you in your pretty hat.’

The enseigne said bluntly ‘Drop it, Corvacho. He’s dead, now forget it.’

‘Ah,’ said Carlos, ‘but you haven’t got the body, have you?’

I felt a sudden fierce hope springing up inside me, but the enseigne only laughed and said ‘We don’t need it, man. He took a ball in the spine, he won’t walk away from that.’

‘Are you sure?’ said Carlos, and there really was something most insidious about the way he spoke. ‘Did you see it yourself?’

‘See it?’ said the enseigne. Perhaps it is because his complexion is so swarthy, but I thought his teeth looked very white. He said ‘I pulled the trigger myself.’

My last little quiver of hope died then, and I could not listen any more.

And now I think I really have to be honest with myself. This is my diary and I can speak the truth. My feelings are more selfish than I have ever dared admit, because I have always nurtured this secret hope that one day André would come and rescue us. I have this foolish dream when he appears at our door looking handsome and splendid and holding out his hand to me, saying ‘Mademoiselle, I have come to take you home.’ It was stupid,
stupid
, and I know I have to grow up as Colette says.

Only I do so wish I could remember his face.

Colin Lefebvre

News had gone ahead with the signal team, men rushing out all over when we got back, eager to see who’d made it and who hadn’t. They fell back smart enough when they saw the look on Jacques’ face, then Ravel coming up slowly at the rear with our Seigneur in his arms. Knew what was up then all right, and the silence we rode into was thick as fog. Men took off their hats in respect.

That set old Jacques off again straightaway. ‘He’s not dead,’ he said, ‘he’s only wounded, isn’t he, Stefan?’ True enough in its way, Seigneur was stirring as they lifted him down, but Ravel said ‘He’s shot in the back, what do you think I can do?’ Then Jacques shouted. ‘I don’t know,’ he was shouting. ‘Whatever it is, just bloody do it.’

Poor old Jacques. I tried to explain to people they’d got to make allowances, right, it was the whole of his future he was looking at losing, his whole life wrapped up in that bundle Ravel was carrying into the Hermitage, small wonder he was upset. Leroux gave me a nasty look at that, but then he’d no sensitivity, Leroux. Man’s got to defend his friends, and me and Jacques went back a long way.

Other things on people’s minds too, and as evening drew on a few of us took cider into the outhouse to talk things through. Fact is, look at it how you like, the dons were lying in wait. They knew we were coming, and what we wanted to know was how. Seemed to me we’d got a traitor somewhere, and not far to look for him neither, not with young Pepin out on his first ever action, not to mention him being dark and swarthy as he was, might be gypsy, might be Spaniard for all we knew, and no one with the smallest idea where he’d sprung from.

Leroux flushed right up at that. Said there was no way the kid informed, he saved the lot of them, not to mention being in danger himself throughout. Said if we’d got a traitor at all it was more likely someone safe on the other side of the road, maybe someone doing business with the dons on their own account. Now I wasn’t having that, not taking that from anyone, and things were looking to get nasty when suddenly there’s a shadow at the door, and Ravel himself standing watching us. Didn’t say a word, just stood in silence and took out his smelly old pipe. Made everyone very tense.

‘Well?’ said Leroux.

Ravel fumbled out his tinder box. ‘Libert’s all right. Two balls I’ve taken out of him, and he’s sitting up drinking soup, man’s not human. Rouet’s fine, chipped ribs, that’s all.’

‘And André?’ said Leroux bluntly. ‘Is he dead?’

‘Not yet,’ said Ravel bitterly. He lit his box, sending a great shower of sparks flying off into the dark. ‘Not yet.’

We all felt more subdued after that. Leroux said wearily ‘There is no traitor, Lefebvre, not a man among us would risk André. If there were, they could have blabbed on the Hermitage and scooped the reward long since. There’s no traitor, only a bunch of careless bloody fools, any one of whom might have opened his mouth in the wrong alehouse.’

Not sure that would have convinced everyone, but then Simon Moreau spoke up, him whose dad ran the Corbeaux, he said there was this big Spaniard used to come in of an evening, sit by himself in Hell Corner drinking cider, Moreau was certain sure he was listening in to people’s conversations. Dressed like a regular chap, not a soldier at all, but Moreau was pretty sure he was a Spaniard, guessed it by the accent.

‘All very well telling us now,’ I said. ‘Might have warned us a bit sooner.’

Couldn’t take criticism, Moreau, touchy sort of chap. Said ‘How was I to know people were going to come blabbing military secrets in the middle of the alehouse, eh? Can’t go blaming me if someone’s been stupid.’

No call for that, and I’d have maybe took him up on it, only it didn’t seem respectful, brawling over nothing with the Seigneur dying next door. Leroux felt the same. He told Moreau to leave it, said it was done now, and all of us taught a lesson for the future. Turned to Ravel and said ‘Anything we can do? Drugs need fetching, anything like that?’

Ravel shook his head. ‘All done. We need all the clean linen we can get, but that’s all. Or you could pray, if you believe in that sort of thing.’

Leroux paused in the doorway and looked in his face. ‘I’ll see about that linen,’ he said, and walked out.

Jacques Gilbert

There was nothing to be done but wait.

Stefan took out the ball, and that was awful, André woke up while it was still happening. We had to give him poppy medicine to ease the pain, but we couldn’t wait for it to take effect, his back was already cut open and Stefan hacking about inside. Jean-Marie brought him his tennis ball to squeeze, and afterwards I found his fingers had dug right through the outer skin and the cloth inside had started to unravel.