Complete Works of Ford Madox Ford, page 646
“He will appear again!” To which the other would reply:
“Yes, Corporal Violet!”
“I presume,” the young man said to the milor beside him in a narrow descending street after one of those remarks had passed, “if I had replied: ‘Yes, the Corporal Violet will reappear,’ I should not be now in this affair.”
“Why no,” his interlocutor answered dryly. “If you had said that you would have been in it even deeper!”
“It is plainly,” the boy said, “a code of the Bonapartists and heralds the re-conquest of France.”
Mr. Smith placed a finger on his lips and whispered: “H’sh!” He added that some of the soldiers might understand English; if they did, that was no safe thing to say.
They came down to the edge of the enclosed harbour. Bonaparte’s sole frigate rose above the quay, for that tideless and glassy water was almost level with the coping stones. Men with baggage mounted a steep gangway and returned empty-handed. They said to one another they must soon give over for the dawn was almost there. They laughed and shouted: “Hurry! Hurry!”
It was a long affair, the preliminaries of this duel — for the decks of the Inconstant were littered with the baggage the soldiers had left. And, in the stillness of the coming dawn, the young man felt little emotion, it was so unreal. Assheton Smith told him that, should he fall, he himself would convey the news to his father, Squire Feilding, in Shropshire — and that gave the young man satisfaction. But who would tell his Hélène? Her husband, no doubt! He wished the duel could have been with Frèjus. Him, he — George Feilding — could no doubt kill.... But then, if he killed the husband, could he marry the widow? It had been done but was not favourably regarded....
Apart from the clamour made by Gatti di Vivario and Frèjus in getting the deck of the ship cleared by a soldier or two and some ragged seamen, it grew stiller and stiller. Fishing boats with sterns as pointed as their bows barely muzzled at the quay; when a yard swung it was as if with a sigh in its sleep. There became gradually visible two, then three, larger vessels, one felucca-rigged, one schooner and a vessel hardly more than a brigantine. The Inconstant herself — though Corsican grandiloquence must call her a frigate — the Inconstant herself was no more than a small brig, too. Was it thinkable that Napoleon could contemplate the re-conquest of the world with a tartane, a schooner and two small brigs? It was unthinkable. Assheton Smith’s beautiful white yacht that now showed plain, moored to a buoy in the middle of the still harbour, could have taken all that squadron aboard, like boats on her decks.
A man — Captain la Sinse of the Inconstant, Feilding knew him well — was now making a terrific caterwauling on the deck. He came to the side and with extravagant gestures addressed George Feilding in his lingua franca. Feilding understood that he objected to such doings aboard his frigate. He had been awakened by the trampling over his head. He was in his shirt and trousers, the shirt open to the waist. He disappeared.
The young man grumbled to Assheton Smith that it grew cold. With this delay his muscles would become stiff whilst his opponent, hauling baggage about the deck, kept himself warm. Assheton Smith proposed that they walk to the end of the quay and back. On the deck of the brigantine were two field-guns. They were tarpaulined, like muffled animals, but there was no mistaking the line of their barrels, their upturned muzzles and their wheels. At the sight of them Assheton Smith took snuff ironically, but the young man asked hotly how they were to know that the guns were not coming rather than returning?
Assheton Smith said that if the King of Elba in truth meditated the conquest of Europe he, Assheton Smith, would give no little to make the journey with the King — in order to know how he acted and fared. Unfortunately he had engagements in the Mediterranean that would preclude his so doing. The boy said that he too would fain be of such an expedition; but he feared, from long conversations with the King, that there would be none and he asked his companion to observe the stillness of the town.
There was no doubt about the stillness of Porto Ferrajo. The high façades of the housefronts that now began to appear as the dawn-mists lifted, white-painted mostly but with here and there a lowest story painted blue or scarlet or orange — the high façades were completely destitute of humanity. Here and there a cat sat in a porch; a lean dog gnawed at garbage in a runnel. Assheton Smith said:
“Ah, but you shall see the activity into which it shall spring once Sir Neil is aboard my yacht and out there in the offing.” They were beginning to stir aboard the yacht. A man in white ducks with a scarlet stocking-cap emptied a bucket of ashes over the side. In an hour she was to sail away carrying the Demi-God and the British Resident towards Genoa.... In an hour he himself might be stretched on the deck of the Inconstant. But he did not believe it. His Hélène would be too inconsolable. Besides he believed in British coolness. These Corsicans were too excitable.
They had, indeed, an exhibition of Corsican excitability to fortify him the more, immediately afterwards. For, when they came to the plank that led down from the opening in the bulwarks to the dock, they were all but knocked down by the captain of the Inconstant who, in a voluminous boat-cloak — for he could not have had time to dress himself — and an immense cocked hat of black felt with a cockade in the yellow-and-blue colours of the Island, descended the plank at a gallop, vociferating that he did not intend to be hanged as an accessory to this duel, and ran away, stumbling, like a great bat, over the cobbles of the quay. Those on the boat had by now so barricaded the near bulwarks of the ship with soldiers’ sacks that you could no longer see the deck from the quayside; but, from the deck, the barricade was only neck-high for a tall man and the Baron de Frèjus, coming to the side, shouted to the retreating captain: Where should they fight if not on the deck of a ship since it was forbidden under pain of the gallows to fight on terra firma? So at least the young Feilding interpreted his Corsico-Italian.
“Well, we had better fight or we shall be interrupted,” Assheton Smith said, “That fellow will surely arouse the whole town and the provost marshal with them.”
“I do not want to be interrupted,” the boy exclaimed. “You cannot easily kill with the sabre except by a direct blow over the head and I think I can at least guard mine. And Madame de Frèjus may nurse me if I be flesh-wounded enough to keep my bed!”
“Then let us go aboard,” Mr. Smith replied. “I hope they will lend me a boat-cloak for it grows woundily cold.”
They duly provided him with that and a second’s sabre. He wore a high, fawn-coloured beaver, all the others having large black tricornes. There was a military surgeon with a case of instruments beneath his arm — a paunchy, red-nosed fellow. He carried a lanthorn and there were two other lanthorns for the seconds — the Baron and Mr. Smith. There was hardly need for lanthorns: it was growing very light. Still their pink horn sides were agreeable in the chilly dawn.
The Baron grumbled that there was not much room. The seconds might be pinked by the sabres if the duellists moved freely. He announced himself no hero, but a financier — a high-cheekboned man, with dark-chestnut, curling hair and a bulldog jowl — of fifty-three or so. The dawn made him look older; still, he was upright in his carriage and heavy.
The Colonel-Count was stripping himself of his dolman; George Feilding was also undoing his many-buttoned tunic: the cold smote him on the chest-bone. Gatti di Vivario sneered that as he had no intention of moving his feet the Baron would be in no danger from his sabre, and that annoyed George Feilding. But they were indeed in a very small cock-pit, cleared between the main and the mizzenmast and walled in by the bales of sacking that the soldiers had very neatly dressed. The young man had never seen a duel though he had frequently speculated on how they were conducted. Certainly he had expected more parade, the seconds walking at a distance, talking gravely, removing their hats from time to time to each other. But this was a queer affair. He could not get away from a sense of unreality. The slight metallic, wheezing sound that the sabres made, when, having measured them the one on the other, the Baron and Mr. Assheton Smith drew them again apart, was the most real thing about it — and the feel of the heavy hilt in his hand. But that was familiar enough. You had in the cavalry to have some acquaintance with the sabre if only that you might not cut off your horse’s ear. He had done that once and afterwards had been so ashamed that he had at least taken trouble with his sword drill.
The Colonel-Count had a singularly dirty shirt to have emerged from his gorgeous jacket but he saluted with a much greater sweep of the sabre. Then Mr. Smith or the other — for he was too intently watching Gatti di Vivario to know who spoke — a voice then said peremptorily: “Laissez aller!” and he to himself: “By Jove, I’m in for it!”
The feel of the other’s blade on his affected him as if it had been the watching of a cat — a questioning, peering contact. He affected a little pressure with his own blade. The fellow had a wrist of steel. Pressing his blade was like pressing the side of the ship. From a glint in the eyes opposite he knew another sort of question was coming. His own wrist automatically swung round and down; steel clanged. His opponent had flicked at about his own kneecap, perhaps no more than a feint....
Two dirty Frenchmen and a Portugee —
One jolly Briton can lick them all three!
George Feilding tried a cut at the other’s shoulder; his wrist came round well — but the other’s metal duly stopped his blade. It would, of course. He would have no chance with a fencing master. Still
A raw recruit might chance to shoot
Great General Bonaparte....
They were back where they started. The fellow’s eyes were like black tarns fringed with black rushes. They were immense and intent, but there was a curve round the corners of his lips. You must not look at his lips, you must look at the eyes! What the devil’s right had the fellow to snigger when he was fighting with an Englishman? It was true that he did not move his feet — keeping them like the matador in the bull-ring George had seen in San Juan de Luz where Wellington had had his hounds....
Perhaps he, George Feilding, would never ride to hounds again!... But the fellow should be made to move. He should be made... to... move! George was slogging away between each intake of the breath. The fellow’s blade was always there: then it whickered above George’s head, shimmering in the lanthorn-light. Well, he too was there!
He wanted to ride to hounds again. He wanted to give his Hélène a lead in the Six Mile Bottom country. She had ridden to hounds in England in her young years. On his father’s mounts, of course.... Blows the delivery of which took the breath clean out of his lungs the fellow patted back as if you were throwing peas at him.... He presumably, too, loved George’s Hélène. But could such a blackamoor love? There was however no other conceivable reason for their being there....
He began to pride himself on doing well. If he had not touched the fellow at any rate the fellow had not touched him. Ha!... The fellow’s moustache had jumped.... An immense weight on the wrist! An insupportable weight! A clang; a reiterated clanging and thumping. His sabre lay beside the other fellow’s foot, the brass adornments of the hilt gleaming dully in the dawn. Assheton Smith was coolly between them, his second’s sabre extended. The Baron de Frèjus and the doctor were slipping down from the bales on which they had taken refuge.... Jove, how his fingers on the inner side were grazed with the hilt’s tearing itself from his grasp! Assheton Smith was offering him a handkerchief. His brows streamed and his eyes began to smart with the sweat in them.... The other fellow at least had too to wipe his forehead with a handkerchief of the Baron’s. He leant on his blade. He was grumbling to the Baron.... Grumbling! Bad-temperedly! Then he was annoyed... at his, George’s, prowess!
Assheton Smith said nothing to George, but when he had examined both the combatants’ weapons again he said with all the calm in the world to the Baron: “They had better start again before they grow cold!”
George now was raging. He had caught a grin and a wave of the hand from his opponent to the Baron and the doctor. He was despised by this braggadocious, ragged beggar. No doubt with similar terms and gestures he would subsequently describe the encounter to Hélène.... He, George, was fighting for her.... You can but risk all!
He risked all. Even a cavalry subaltern, though no duellist, knows that you should not expose to a former maître d’armes of a French regiment-of-the-line’s sabre your whole knee, hip, thigh, side, chest and head itself whilst you hack with a really too heavy and ill-balanced sabre, even with all the passion of your body to back it. But he did it. And at that very moment the dark eyes looked aside. There was shouting from the quayside. Imperious shouting!
Of course a maître d’armes can afford to look aside whilst a novice hacks at his head, but apparently he cannot afford to be distracted by shouting. His wrist slackened in the slightest and as the young man rose to his fullest height, chopping ponderously down, the Corsican’s blade did not altogether withstand the impact and with the grunt of his effort the young man rejoiced sharply and in wonder at the arrest of his sword-blade not only by metal but by a softer body. He had borne down his opponent’s guard and the flat of his own blade had struck, like a blunt ax on the Colonel-Count’s bare shoulder. He dropped his point uncertainly; he was elated rather than proud and he was uncertain what to do. The Corsican, his face full of amazement or incredulity, or maybe of pain, was staggering, though he still held his sabre before him. He had undoubtedly moved his feet. The doctor was slipping down from the bales.
The young man was as puzzled as elated. From the fact that neither his patron nor the Baron came forward to strike up their swords he could not imagine that either the duel or the bout was ended; therefore he must keep his eyes upon his opponent’s blade, but at the same time he could not bring himself to use his sabre on an opponent in that condition. But caution could not hold and he glanced over his shoulder for advice.
There came round the piled bales on the inner side of the ship the tall, lean, dry form of Count Bertrand whom he very well knew — in an undress blue uniform and with a dry expression on his thin, enthusiast’s face. He bent upon the boy, to whom he was usually cordial and indulgent, an expression of the deepest reproach, exclaiming: “Laissez tomber vos épées.... Let fall your swords. You are my prisoners.”
There came behind the Count two subalterns, one his galloper, and the captain of the Inconstant whose dark and hairy face expressed joy and malignity. He exclaimed unceasingly: “Aha! See you! Aha! See you!”
Well, the Count Gatti di Vivario was to go to his quarters under arrest, and he went, bending not very hostile glances on the young man. He said:
“You may thank God and St. Remigerius that you are alive! You are the first man that has touched me in twenty years. Since I was a recruit. And you know very well to what distraction it was owed. If Count Bertrand had not a voice like twelve peahens calling from the quay you never had done it!”
He was swinging his dolman around him jauntily enough but he could not get into his tunic which one of the subalterns held for him.
George Feilding called to him as he went away:
“Well, you will tell Madame de Frèjus how I pinked you!” And then he wished he had not been so high-spirited, for after all the Count was his rival and one should be galant-homme. The Count paused, looking back over the bales through which a passage led to the gangplank.
“I will tell her,” he said, “that you delivered to me a kick with the strength and the address of a prize ox!” But he came quickly back with a hand extended from under his dolman and said:
“There, let the scarlet of mortification die from your cheeks. I will tell her that you behaved with great gallantry before the finest swordsman in the French Empire and that in danger she might well rely on your good arm. For how were you to know that before her tears I swore that not a stitch of your clothing should be disturbed by my blade!”
Then he went, followed by the subaltern.
There was much too much for that young man to think of and no one was more aware of it than that young man himself. In spite of the grave face of Count Bertrand he could not imagine that this was a very grave affair. He did not suppose, for instance, that they would hang him. Still he was aware that military discipline was a strict thing and there he was undoubtedly under arrest. The Count Bertrand stood regarding him whilst he buttoned up the innumerable buttons of his tunic; the Count’s galloper, a boy called Gonart — Jobart — some such name, held his, George Feilding’s, dress sword which he had removed from his pipe-clayed belt.
He desired to consult with Assheton Smith — but both Assheton Smith and the Baron had vanished. That was natural: seconds are as implicated as principals where prohibited affairs of honour are concerned. He could figure his patron and the Baron tiptoeing away round one bastion of bales whilst Count Bertrand and his forces entered round the other. Assheton Smith would not want to be detained upon the Island over a tiresome affair — though he could hardly imagine even its one Demi-God, the King of Elba, laying hands upon the glorious other. But where was Assheton Smith gone to? Into the fore-part of the brig? Below? Over the side? Ah...
Hooking up his stock collar he proceeded gingerly to the side, no one hindering him. There, barely moving on the water, fended off by the knuckles of its white-dressed, scarlet stocking-nightcapped rowers, was his patron’s white galley, from whose stern where they reclined on gold-corded, black satin cushions, looked up the milor and the Baron de Frèjus. He congratulated them on having got so nicely off.
“You would not expect to find me in an earth with both holes stopped!” Mr. Assheton Smith said coolly. “It would appear that my insatiable curiosity has got you into a scrape indeed.” The boy said that, No, he was very content and interested. “Why,” said Mr. Smith, “Tua res agitur: volenti non fit injuria!... but if you repent it, jump for this boat. I warrant they will not take you.”
