D. Broster - A Fire of Driftwood - A Collection of Short Stories (D. K. Broster) (Literary Thoughts Edition)

A sharp and venomous discharge split the silence. The old man dropped his musket and sprang to his feet. “Seigneur Dieu! He is hit!”

The young Breton with the white scarf, suddenly carrying both hands quickly to his head, had toppled backwards, and now, slipping heavily from the summit of the bank, rolled over till he lay on his face at its foot.

The old giant had pounced on him almost before the marksmen next their leader had realised his fall.

“Ma Doué! don’t stop firing!” he shouted. “It is nothing – a spent bullet. Jean-Marie, you can come – no one else.”

And, picking up his young commander, he carried him to a little distance, and laid him down among the broom, his face a tragic mask of tenderness and anxiety.

“Hervé! Hervé! my little one . . . it is not possible. . . . Here, Jean-Marie, give me something to tie up his head.”

“It is no good,” said the other man in a horror-stricken whisper. “It is the end – he has a bullet through his brain for sure.”

“I tell you no,” responded his elder angrily, but in a breaking voice. “It is only that there is so much blood. . . .”

And hurriedly, with trembling hands, he tried to staunch the stream pouring from some disastrous source in the dark hair. Meanwhile it spoke many things for the discipline of guerrilla troops devotedly attached to their leader that not a single Chouan had left his post at the hedge to allay his anxiety. The Breton marksmen were firing furiously and revengefully; only now and again would one turn his head over his shoulder and snatch a look at the little group behind him.

“God have mercy on us!” exclaimed the old man at last. “It is impossible to tell. I must get him away. . . . Undo his sash, Jean-Marie, that will serve.”

Jean-Marie did as he was bid, and together they tied the silk tightly round the bleeding head, with a handful of moss for a pad.

“Now,” said the old man, “go back to your place, Jean-Marie, and see that no one stirs from the bank till the Blues draw off. It is only a question of time. And as for M. Hervé – ask them if they think that l’Invincible can be killed by a mere bullet?”

“You will take him – where?”

“Chez nous. Do not ask me if I can carry him, nephew!” added the old man, with a fierce gleam in his extraordinarily blue eyes. “You will come back when it is all over – or I shall meet you with the saints. Now to your place!” He waved an imperious hand at the bank, and Jean-Marie ran back.

Then Yves le Guerric, murmuring in one breath curses, prayers and little words of love, gathered up his wounded foster-son and leader like a child, and strode off through the broom. He carried in his strong old arms most of his heart, and the brilliant fighter who was the hope of the Royalist cause between Pontivy and Quimperlé – the Comte Hervé de St-Armel, called l’Invincible.

II

That evening the cottage had been full of the whirr of the spinning-wheel. A woman had as well work when she is anxious and cannot sleep, though by nine o’clock one must have the luxury of a light. So the room was lit by two smoky rushlights and also, a painter might perhaps have said, by Marie le Guerric’s golden head, bent over the embroidery of a man’s vest. Opposite to her, on the other side of the open hearth, in front of the lit clos which raised its panels to the blackened rafters, sat her grandmother with the wheel. But the wheel had stopped.

“Have you finished, grand’mère?”

“I thought I heard thy grandfather’s step,” answered the old woman a little tremulously.

Her dead son’s child laid down the vest. “I heard nothing,” she said, surprised. “How could you hear, grand’mère, with the wheel going and your deaf ear?”

The old woman smiled wisely, still listening, and made no answer.

“I thought I heard firing this afternoon in the direction of Le Daouët,” observed the girl, breaking the silence. “It is a week now since my grandfather went away with M. le Comte. Perhaps. . . . Ah! I hear something now!”

The unmistakable step outside was followed by a heavy kick at the door.

“Open, Catherine! It is I – thy husband!”

Madame le Guerric, little and active, ran and pulled the bolt. She gave a cry.

“Yves! what hast thou there?”

“M. le Comte,” said her husband succinctly. “Shut the door quickly. And thou, Marie, is the bed ready? . . . No, we cannot see there.”

He stumbled forward into the light. Marie had flown to push back the sliding panel of the lit clos, and now stood irresolute, looking at her grandfather, and the slim relaxed body in his arms, with its upturned face streaked by dry red rivulets, and its black hair falling loose from under the stained bandage.

“He is dead!” exclaimed Madame le Guerric, crossing herself. “The saints receive his soul!”

Yves took no notice, but stood as if unconscious of fatigue, with his motionless burden clasped closely to his breast, and his eyes roving round the little room.

“Put a pillow on the floor in front of the hearth, Marie,” he said at last. “I will lay him there for the present. Get some water, Catherine, and bandages – and scissors.”

The girl put her arm into the lit clos, and pulling out a pillow did as she was bid. Yves laid his foster-son tenderly down in front of the fire, and kneeling beside him settled the languid head on the pillow. Madame le Guerric knelt on the other side and held the bowl of water. Marie stood motionless by the bed. With two women there, it was the old man who tended the hurt. It was his right. He washed away the mask of blood, and with immeasurable carefulness unwound the white and crimson scarf.

“I can’t see,” he muttered. “Marie, get a candle, and hold it for me. . . . This must be cut off.” He put gently aside a lock of stiffened hair; the scissors went through it, and he bent closer. “Blessed St. Yves! The bullet has only glanced off!”

His hands suddenly shook violently. Madame le Guerric uttered praises to the Queen of Heaven, but the girl Marie, holding the candle, had eyes or thought for nothing but the alabaster face at her feet. Her grandfather bent and kissed it.

“My Hervé! My dear son! I knew it could not be. . . . The linen, Catherine!” As his wife folded and cut he sat back on his heels, gazing in a passion of love and relief at the beloved visage. Then, while Madame le Guerric raised the young man’s head, he wound the bandage gently round it, and having finished, crossed himself.

“Put back the candle, child,” said the old woman. “Go and say thy prayer, and thy grandfather and I will get Monsieur le Comte to bed.”

When Marie came back a little later, timidly, to ask if there were anything she could do, Yves and Catherine, conversing in whispers, were sitting on the settle by the fire. The old man had a bowl of soup on his knees, but every moment his eyes strayed to the lit clos. When he saw his grand-daughter he beckoned to her.

“Is it not an honour, little one, to have l’Invincible under our roof? And hast thou thanked the saints, Marie, who turned aside the bullet?”

“I have thanked Ste Anne and Ste Barbe for Monsieur le Comte’s life,” answered the young girl gravely.

The old man kissed her. “Go to bed, then, my darling. Thy grandmother and I will watch to-night.”

Marie kissed Madame le Guerric and turned to go; but as she went she stooped quickly and picked up something from the floor of beaten earth. It was a long lock of black hair. One end was stiff with dried blood, the other curled loosely over the edge of her palm, as, clutching it tightly, she went out of the room.

III

Jean-Marie came back next morning, with his uncle’s musket and the intelligence that the Blues had been forced to draw off with considerable slaughter. His comrades in arms, however, were temporarily disbanded. Never communicative, and abashed perhaps by the presence of his leader – though the latter was still insensible – he had fallen, at the end of his brief recital, to polishing his own English musket, while Yves, sitting by the side of the great bed, appeared sunk in meditation. Through the open door of the lit clos could be seen the head and shoulders of l’Invincible, lying as if asleep; only the broad strip of linen round his brow suggested a slumber not entirely natural. And Yves was gazing wistfully at the clear lineaments which bore, even in unconsciousness, something of the disdainful and implacable determination which had gained for their owner his nom de guerre.