The Filibusters, Charles John Cutcliffe Hyne [best book clubs .TXT] 📗

Of the glaring discomforts of the place we thought but little on that first landing; the sleep peeled out from our eyes, and we sweated over the crumbling slopes like excursionists turned from a train to see a spectacle. The relics of the mysterious battle of overnight were spread out (as the captain said) like surprise packets. The struggle, the flight, the pursuit, had trampled over every square fathom of the Key; and where a man fell, there he was given a savage coup de grdce, and there he lay, an uncouth, twisted shape for the sand to drift mounds over. One never knew where one might meet the next.

Twenty and three bodies were found in the first unmethodical survey; and then, by quartering the ground systematically, and leaving a scrap of paper on each, we brought the number up to twenty-nine, together with one poor wretch who was not entirely dead.

It was impossible to differentiate between the parties. The bodies wore no uniform; the arms were of twenty patterns. Both sides seemed to have been composed of the most irregular of irregular troops. Even in nationality there was no cohesion, for whilst most were sallow or swarthy Spaniards, there were three unmistakable Germans amongst them, two either British or Americans, one (in yellow gaiters and deer-stalker) English beyond every doubt, and (leaving out Mulattoes) seven thoroughbred negroes.

The wounded man was a Swiss, from a place of which I now forget the name, in the Canton Valais. He was hit through the lungs; lay in no particular pain, but was very near death. He was quite aware of his state, cool over it, and intensely anxious to make the most of the little span left him. ” Have you paper, sir, and a bit of pencil?” were the first words he uttered on being found. ” If you please, sir, write very quickly,” he said, and then giving the name and address of a certain Gretchen at Saas, in Grundt, poured out the words of his last message to her at such a speed that I could hardly get them down.

Humanity clamoured that I should act as this poor wretch’s amanuensis; that I should write like a machine the love message of one in extremis to the sweetheart who had been his only thought ever since he fell; that I should let his last thoughts be of her undisturbed.

Interest for the cause commanded something very different. It was a matter of vital importance to us that we should know who these two parties were who had invaded the White Tortuga Key, and had fought there so venomously. If they had got to know some of our plans, and had endeavoured to intercept them, for us to go on as arranged would be to court shipwreck. But if, on the other hand, theirs was only a private vendetta, which seemed against the face of all likelihood, a change in our arrangements might be equally disastrous. So that either way it was imperative that we should hear from this Swiss definite news of the object which had brought him there.

The General was away at the further beach of the Key, so I could not call him to shift over the responsibility. Captain Evans, who came up to my beckoning, gave little comfort. ” If you chip in,” he muttered, as I went on scribbling, ” and spoil the fellow’s last message to his girl, you’ll feel a brute and kick yourself about once a fortnight for the next six years. But if you shirk the job I guess your General ought to shoot you out of hand for neglecting business. Anyway, you’ve got to hurry up and decide, because our friend here is pretty nearly through his shore leave. Speaking as a man who’s seen this sort of thing before,” the captain added thoughtfully, ” he’ll be wanted to toe the line upstairs in -less than two minutes now, poor devil.”

I looked at the Swiss where he lay, a mere limp huddle of clothes in a gully of the sand. I had pillowed his head on my coat, but that was all he had let me do for him; his face was growing livid; his eyes were glazing; each red cough he gave went nearer to strangling him. The captain’s estimate of his remaining life-span seemed absurdly past the mark.

In a scurry of regret at having delayed so long, I poured out my questions in a torrent. Who were the two bands of men, I asked, that had met in the Key? By whom were they sent? For what had they come? Which side had won?

He stared wide-eyed at the cobalt of the sky above, and answered, ” I do not know, sir; … and say to my darling … ‘

“Man,” I pleaded, ”you must tell one thing. Are you from Sacaronduca?”

He nodded vaguely, and murmured something, of which I could only catch these words:

“… Donna Delicia sent … so we came … others here first … so we fought.”

Then a change came over him. With a surprising effort he scrambled to his feet and thrust his arms upwards, with fingers distended. ” Oh, my love,” he cried, with a last great burst of voice, ” my love, I die without coming to you. Find me, love, and follow me where I go. Ah, darling, you hear me? Yes? Gretchen! My Gretchen!”

His hands dropped down limply, his head swayed round a small circle, he toppled over heavily on to his side. A small cloud of sand rose at the blow and settled back with a tiny pattering over the body. The man lay without stirring. He was dead before he fell.

“So you have managed to catch this poor fellow in the nick of time, Birch, and get the secret of this mysterious engagement of him, eh?”

I looked round. The General had come up noiselessly behind me over the soft sand, and stood looking at the Switzer’s body. I turned my head away from him.

“Have you,” he asked, ” let sentiment get in the way of my business, Mr. Birch?”

“In a degree,” I said, “yes. This poor wretch has been dying very hard ever since last midnight, and all his thoughts have been for a girl at home who was to have been his wife. He prayed me to be his amanuensis before I could get a word in, and commenced to dictate before I had made my stipulations. When I began to question him about what had taken place here, he was too far gone to be very coherent. Still, I noted precisely what he said.”

I repeated the scattered words, and the General listened attentively. I saw his face brighten at once. He made me go over them a second time, observing, as nearly as might be, the spaces between the words (as the Swiss had made them) so that he might guess at what was left out. Then he nodded his head and said ” Ah.”

He did not add anything else for a long time, but stood with folded arms, gazing down at the dead body of the Swiss. He was sunk deep in thought; and I do not think the matters which passed through his brain were all grave or all unpleasant, because once I saw his face light with the outlines of a smile. In the end, when he turned to me again, his preoccupation was gone, and he looked at ease and satisfied. Still, I did not get off without a reprimand.

“My dear Birch,” he said, “it is very unpleasant for me to have to remind you of your duty, but it is a thing that must be done. As it happens, in this instance there is no harm effected. I can read between the lines, and know exactly what has happened; what manner of men the two parties who landed on this Key were, and what they came to do. It is a matter still hidden to you, and I learn it only by a fluke; yet if you had acted properly you should have had the whole tale ready for me from that man’s lips.

“I know the feeling which moved you to write out this poor broken love story, and in ways it does you credit. But you have another call upon you before such matters can be attended to. You have pledged yourself to a certain service, and I who hold your word cannot accept anything less than all. If we are to win, it must be by putting every tittle we have got into the cause. With all of us, and at all times, it must be before all things Sacaronduca.”

I did not know what on earth to say in reply, so merely bowed, but after a pause, as the General said nothing, I asked who he made out the two parties had been who had come to the Key.

“Ah, that,” he said drily, ” is a matter which (as nobody else seems to know it) I shall keep to myself for the present. I will merely tell you that a gang of ruffians came here, presumably in that naphtha launch, to raid us, and that a friend of mine (whose name need not appear just yet) sent a detachment to help us in case of attack. We were a trifle late in arriving, and as the two different commands met on the shore, they had it out there without our being mixed with the matter at all.”

“Which won?” I asked. ” May one hear that?”

“Certainly. My friend’s people; the ones that went off in the three ship’s boats and were carried away back by the steamer.”

“Well, if one may judge from the few who followed in the naphtha launch, your lot must have gone on the principle of ‘ smite and spare not ‘ when they got the upper hand.”

“Oh,” said the General, ” they were little better than pirates.”

“Which lot?” I asked.

“My dear Birch,” he replied, ” it does not do to be too nice in one’s inquiries into such matters in the preliminary stages of a revolution. I suppose neither party of last night’s engagement held commissions from any openly accepted authority; and, for the matter of that, nor do we; but I take it we are acting as we consider rightly, and I would extend the same charity of opinion to them. These things are only a means to an end. Afterwards, when we become a power in Sacaronduca, we shall naturally discourage such excursions, by way of preserving the Peace of the Land. But for the present one is forced to countenance them in order that Peace may be found.”

We returned on board the Clarindella then and breakfasted; and a boat’s crew went ashore with shovels and buried the dead. Later in the day we carried off the big double-roofed tents; and the sailors set them up in one long, straight street along the hard, level beach. The camp was ready; we had to look out now across the sea, which would bring us the men to fill it.

Again Davis was transport officer. Of course the various rendezvous and the necessary vessels had been chartered and arranged for long before; but many things might arise which would require a master hand during the actual embarkment; and so, as Davis had the responsibility, he preferred to have the actual management.

The recruits had been brought near the scene of action with a good deal of secrecy. Each of the three recruiting officers had split his men into squads of five, had sworn them to silence, and had elected one as corporal, and provided him with a strict route and money for all. No five was allowed to travel with