The place was now flooded with a yellow radiance, and as it fell full on Amias’s beaked nose and flaming hair, the trooper holding the lantern gave a yelp. ‘Beg pardon, sir, but that’s the man as blowed up the powder store; I’d know him anywhere!’
And Simon saw with a sinking heart that it was Trooper Pennithorn.
‘Is it,’ said Cornet Wainwright, obviously enjoying himself. ‘General Fairfax will be interested to know that.’ Then his voice changed and sharpened. ‘Get up and dress, you.’
Dr Hannaford said, ‘I am a surgeon; I have just removed several metal fragments from this lad’s shoulder, and I assure you that he is in no fit state to move.’
‘I am sorry, sir,’ Denzil told him, courteously enough. ‘I am not particularly interested in the welfare of Royalists and I must do my duty.’
‘A fine thing is duty, when it don’t look uncommon like spite,’ said Pentecost, backed into the corner beside the little Destiny, and looking on with a shade more mockery than usual in his strange face. But no one paid any heed to him.
‘Simon’—Amias’s nose was in the air, and his voice at its most drawling—‘give me a hand with my clothes,’ and he began painfully to slip his arm out of the sling. Suddenly he gave a little broken laugh. ‘Some vixen will have a fine nest-lining for her cubs, in the spring! I daresay she’ll not mind a few stains on it.’
Dr Hannaford had stepped forward as though to help him, and then drawn back and left it to Simon. In grim silence, under the levelled pistols of the trooper, Simon helped his friend to drag on his still wet clothes. No one spoke again, until he picked up the stained and tattered doublet, and as he did so, something fell out of the inner pocket. He stooped for it, but one of the troopers was before him, and catching it up, gave it to Cornet Wainwright, with a meaning look.
It was a kinked and tangled length of oiled bed-cord; the usual makeshift for slow-match or fuse when the real thing was not to be had.
Every eye in the cabin was fixed on the deadly piece of evidence, as Denzil took and examined it, with raised brows. ‘This also will interest the General,’ he said softly, and slipped it into the breast of his buff coat.
‘Then be sure to give it him,’ drawled Amias. ‘Hand over my doublet, Simon.’
Simon helped him settle his arm back in its sling, and pull the wreck of his doublet over it. But when he reached for the dead pikeman’s coat, Amias shook his head. ‘Nothing doing. I’m through with borrowed plumage,’ he said, and then, with a very set mouth, ‘Help me up.’ When Simon had done so, he staggered clear of his supporting arm, and took up Balin, which was propped in the corner.
Cornet Wainwright moved forward to take it, but Amias rounded on him with blazing eyes and his most insulting sniff. ‘I may be your prisoner,’ he said, ‘but I’ll be hanged before I give up my sword to anyone save your commander. Belt it on for me, Simon.’
Denzil shrugged. ‘As you will. It makes no difference.’
So Simon belted the old sword on for him, while he stood glaring at his captor, with his sound hand against the wall to steady himself.
‘It seems that we are ready,’ Amias said, when the buckle was secure. He looked at Simon, with a small crooked smile. ‘This is once too often you’ve tried to pull me out of a scrape, old lad.’
‘Snuff!’ said Simon, and put a steadying arm round him as he lurched towards the door. ‘Put your good arm round my neck. That’s better.’
‘I am allowed to go with you?’ demanded Dr Hannaford.
‘As you please, sir,’ Wainwright told him formally. ‘As a surgeon you have, of course, the usual immunity. I have no orders concerning you.’
‘Thank you.’ The Doctor picked up his cloak and swung it round his shoulders.
Simon looked round at his brother officer, addressing him directly for the first time. ‘No, nor have you any orders concerning me, my dear Denzil; you merely thought how pleasant it would be to see me disgraced.’
‘My dear Hodge, how intelligent you have grown in these last few weeks,’ said Denzil Wainwright. ‘I said I’d square the account with you, for that night in Mess, didn’t I?’ And he drew back from the door to let them through.
So the grim little company passed out into the wild February night, leaving Pentecost Fiddler still standing against the wall of his deserted hovel. A few minutes later they set out for Torrington, Amias drooping on Scarlet’s back, and Simon following with his hands bound behind him.
‘I can’t bear the thought that I might lose you in the dark,’ Denzil had said, when his bonds were being tied, and Simon had choked on his furious retort. One of the troopers walked beside Amias to steady him in the saddle, and Dr Hannaford, who had been refused leave to walk with the prisoners, tramped grimly in the rear.
And as they went, there rose suddenly behind them the wailing notes of a fiddle, playing, not a tune, but simply an accompaniment to the wind in the trees.
To Simon, stumbling down, pinioned, through the storm-lashed woods, that march was a nightmare. The lantern jigging ahead like some hateful will-o’-the-wisp, the troopers all around him—several of them men of his own Regiment—Amias slumped on the back of a weary horse, and at the end of the march? But it did not do to look so far ahead.
They passed the picket on Rotherne Bridge, and straggled up the hill to the town. The Square was emptier now, but still the lanterns shone on wet cobbles and gilded the mizzle as it drove by them; and still the sentry marched up and down before the door of the Black Horse. He called over his shoulder to a comrade, as they halted. Amias half slid, half tumbled from the saddle into the arms of the nearest trooper, who steadied him with rough kindness, saying, ‘Hold up, lad; thee’s as groggy as an hour-old calf.’
Simon was already being urged into the taproom, but he contrived to call back to the troopers remaining outside, ‘Will one of you see to my horse? He’s not had his evening feed yet, and he’s just about foundered.’
The huge begrimed face of Mother Trimble appeared round the door of an inner room as they entered, and crumpled into relief at sight of Dr Hannaford. ‘Oh, Doctor, thanks be you’ve come! Surgeon Morrison do be away somewheres, and there’s a poor lamb just brought in as is beyond my skill!’
For an instant, the Doctor did not answer; and his eyes were on Amias. Then he said, ‘I’ll come at once,’ and disappeared after her, without a backward glance.
Simon and Amias were hustled into the far end of the taproom, where they were kept under guard of Trooper Pennithorn and an orderly, while Cornet Wainwright spoke aside with one of the General’s staff. After a few moments he returned to them, and perched himself sideways on a barrel, swinging one foot and examining his nails, while the Galloper went tramping upstairs. Simon had been unbound by now, and stood rubbing the crimson weals on his wrists, where the bonds had cut into the flesh, and feeling rather sick. He watched Denzil; watched his guards; watched Amias standing propped against the panelling, and noticed anxiously a small bright stain that was beginning to spread through the shoulder of his sling. Behind the door through which Dr Hannaford had disappeared, a man cried out suddenly and sharply, in pain.
After what seemed a very long time, a door opened somewhere above stairs; voices sounded, and several officers came down, still talking together.
‘You can go up now,’ said the Galloper, who had followed them, and Simon found himself stumbling upstairs with Amias behind him. Another sentry stood aside from an open door, and the two of them were thrust into the upper room where Simon had handed over his dispatch only that morning, into the presence of the very weary man who stood with his arm along the mantel; staring down into the sea-coal fire.
‘Cornet Wainwright, sir,’ said the Galloper.
Fairfax turned slowly. ‘Thank you, Peter,’ he said. ‘Is John Rushworth on hand?’
‘Below stairs, sir. You wish him here?’
‘No. Tell him, my compliments to Colonel Walley, and will he favour me as soon as may be with the list of casual
ties in his Regiment? If I need you again tonight, I’ll send for you.’
‘Sir,’ said Peter, and departed.
‘Yes, Cornet Wainwright?’
Cornet Wainwright drew himself up, doffing his steel cap in salute. ‘I would not have troubled you but that Major Disbrow is wounded. Sir, I have to report the capture of a Royalist officer, suspected of being responsible for the explosion in the church; also of Cornet Carey, taken in the act of harbouring the same.’
Fairfax seated himself without a word at the paper-scattered table, and looked long and searchingly at the three before him. There was a suggestion of triumph in Denzil Wainwright’s bearing that did not seem altogether to please him, and he turned his attention to the prisoners. They were a disreputable pair, haggard with exhaustion, both wet through and mired to the eyebrows, their clothes torn and stained; one with his arm in a sling and the sleeve of his doublet hanging empty, the other with dried blood clotted on his temple. But they stood before him with their heads up, and met his gaze eye to eye, as though they felt no need to be ashamed of themselves. The General was a good judge of men.
Then Amias, who had been fiddling with his sword-belt while they waited below stairs, slipped the buckle free. ‘I regret that owing to my right arm being out of action, I am unable to proffer you my sword in the correct manner,’ he said, and bowing with a gesture as proud as that with which his old hero, Sir Walter Raleigh, might have yielded up his sword to a captor, laid Balin on the table before General Fairfax.
The General put out a hand and touched the hilt in token of acceptance. There was an instant of silence, while still he scanned the faces of the three before him. Then, with a quiet courtesy and not at all as though he were speaking to a prisoner, he asked of Amias his name, rank and regiment.
‘Amias Hannaford, Ensign of Major General Molesworth’s Regiment of Foot.’
‘Thank you, Ensign Hannaford. Are you responsible for setting off the powder stored in the church yonder?’
‘No, sir.’
Fairfax turned to Denzil Wainwright. ‘What grounds are there for making this charge against the prisoner?’
A great weariness was growing on Simon. As in a dream, he saw Denzil produce Trooper Pennithorn like a fairground conjuror producing a rabbit out of a hat. As in a dream, he heard the trooper’s story again. ‘Smelled sort of singed, he did; of burned powder like, and I thought ’twas a bit queer.’
The General glanced an instant at Amias, at the rent and blackened cloth of his doublet, on the side on which the sleeve hung empty. ‘If you thought it was so queer, why did you let him go?’
‘He had the watchword, sir.’
‘Seeing it had been used for a battle-cry, probably half the Royalist Army had it by that time,’ said the General drily. ‘Very good, you may go now,’ and as the crestfallen trooper drew back, he turned again to Denzil. ‘Have you anything to add to that?’
Denzil produced from the breast of his buff coat the length of oiled bed-cord, and laid it before the General. ‘This, sir. It was in the inner pocket of the prisoner’s doublet when I found him. It could be fuse, sir.’
‘It could scarcely be the fuse that blew up the church.’
‘No, sir, but it could have been the piece from which the fuse was cut, if you see what I mean, sir.’
‘I see what you mean. Personally I would rather use a powder trail than anything as slow as this would be.’ Fairfax laid down the cord, and addressed himself to Amias. ‘I do not need to ask you what you were doing when you encountered Trooper Pennithorn.’
‘No, sir. Getting away.’
‘What did you mean by your very peculiar remarks to him?’
‘I did not mean anything in particular. I’d heard the explosion, and guessed it was our magazine going up. I didn’t know about our men being prisoned there—and I was glad that at least there was something of our war supplies that wouldn’t fall into the hands of the King’s enemies.’
‘Good,’ nodded Fairfax. ‘How did you come to have these obvious marks of an explosion on you?’
‘Somebody’s musket blew up,’ Amias said, and his voice was bitter. ‘It must have been a very old musket, ill-cared for, I suppose. The King’s Army, you doubtless know, has been running very short of such things for a long while past.’
General Fairfax leaned forward to touch the length of cord, his bright dark eyes fixed on the other’s face. ‘This is bed-cord, oiled to serve as emergency slow-match. But you are not a musketeer, and so you had no need of slow-match. How did you come to have this in your pocket?’
A small twisted smile curved Amias’s mouth. ‘I used it to mend the cords of my Company’s Colours. They were shot through during the assault. That cord was the first thing that came to hand to mend them, when there was a lull. Later on, when I cut the Colours from their pike for—bringing away, I suppose I stuffed the cord into my pocket without thinking.’
‘You had the Colours with you, then, when you encountered the trooper yonder?’
‘Naturally, sir. I should scarcely be leaving without them.’
‘No,’ said Fairfax, consideringly. ‘No, I imagine not. What did you do with them afterwards?’
‘I hid them.’
‘Where?’
‘I regret, sir, I have forgotten.’
Fairfax nodded. ‘You realize that you have given me no proof of all this? If you could remember where you had hidden the Colours, and they proved to have the cords shot through, it would at least bear out part of your story.’
‘I regret, sir, I think it—most unlikely that I shall remember.’
‘So do I,’ agreed General Fairfax. Then he raised his voice quickly. ‘Orderly, a chair for the prisoner.’
For Amias had suddenly begun to sway on his feet, and his eyes looked blind in the candlelight. A chair was brought, and he crumpled slowly into it, and sat there with drooping head. ‘I beg your—excuse, sir—a little weak,’ he mumbled.
The General left him to recover himself, and turned his attention to Simon’s share in the business. ‘Cornet Wainwright, I should like now to hear your grounds for the charge you have made against Cornet Carey, and also, as a matter of general interest, how you came to hunt him down.’
Still in his dreamy state, Simon heard Denzil’s voice, a little flurried now. ‘Well, sir, when we first heard Trooper Pennithorn’s story, Carey looked—odd—as though he guessed who the man was. Then at about seven o’clock this evening, as I was passing through the Square, I saw him clearly in the light of a lantern, talking very urgently to the local doctor, who has been helping tend the wounded.’
Simon heard the story in snatches, with foggy blanks between. ‘Thought he looked as if he was up to something, so I followed him . . . doubled back while he was in the Doctor’s house, and got a few men together . . . We picked up his trail when he left the garden with the Doctor . . . lost him twice in the woods, but . . .’
Presently he found that the recital was over, and Fairfax had turned on him a very bleak face. ‘Cornet Carey, there is no point in my asking you whether or not you are guilty of the charge, since you have been taken in the act.’
Simon struggled desperately to clear his foggy wits. ‘No, sir.’
‘You know the Articles of War.’
‘“No man shall harbour the enemy, under penalty of death”,’ said Simon, steadily.
‘Have you anything to say to me in your own defence?’
‘No, sir,’ said Simon again.
Amias suddenly raised his head. ‘He always got me out of scrapes in the old days, and it became a habit.’
‘A dangerous habit, seemingly,’ said Fairfax; but all at once there was the hint of a smile in his eyes. ‘I take it that you two are friends of long standing?’
‘Yes, sir,’ said both together.
General Fairfax made an abrupt movement in his chair, and reached for the embroidered bell-pull beside the hearth. ‘This matter of the magazine will of course have to be gone into in th
e normal way. Personally, Ensign Hannaford, I am inclined to accept your story; but it is for the Court of Inquiry to decide, and in the meantime you will understand that I must give orders for your close confinement. As for you, Cornet Carey—’
But the sentence was never finished, for at that moment the door opened to let in an orderly sergeant with an urgent message.
‘Beg your pardon, sir,’ said the orderly sergeant, saluting.
‘Yes, Sergeant?’
‘One of the wounded as was dug out of the church last night has come to hisself, sir. Says he knows how it come to be blowed up, sir.’
‘Does he?’ said General Fairfax. ‘Very good, Sergeant; I’ll be along shortly.’
‘Beg pardon, sir, the Doctor says he can’t last many minutes.’
XX
The Call Home Comes for Ishmael
FAIRFAX GOT UP, reaching for his sword, which hung from the chair back. ‘It seems that this may alter the complexion of certain matters we have been discussing,’ he said, as he belted it on. ‘Cornet Carey, you had better come with me, since your friend, whom it chiefly concerns, is in no state to do so,’ and he turned to the door, asking of the sergeant as he passed out to the stairhead, ‘Where is the man?’
‘Only in the long parlour, below stairs, sir.’
Close behind the General, and with the strange dreaminess coming between him and his own feet, so that he had to walk carefully, Simon went downstairs and turned into the long inner room, where the furniture had been pushed aside, and wounded men were bedded down in duffle blankets all over the sanded floor. A horn lantern hung from the rafters and under it, his Bible held so that the light fell on the pages, stood Chaplain Joshua Sprigg, his black gown and Geneva bands sadly rumpled, for he had been working among the wounded since the previous night. He was reading aloud as they entered, his voice filling the crowded room.
‘“I have smitten you with blasting and mildew. I have sent among you the pestilence after the manner of Egypt. Your young men have I slain with the sword, and have taken away your horses, and I have made the stink of your camp to come up unto your nostrils. Yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord.”’