Peter the Renegade
by S. R. Crockett
Genre: Drama
Swearwords: None.
Description: EPISODE TWO – Peter Cleans the Slate.
Swearwords: None.
Description: EPISODE TWO – Peter Cleans the Slate.
Peter Blake, Scottish adventurer, late of the East India Company’s service, later still Scout Master of His Majesty’s 4th Dragoons, has lost dispatches, and almost wrecked an army by one ill-advised drinking bout. Sir John Moore is hurrying back to the sea, the French, under Soult, following in overwhelming numbers.
Having only the gallows to expect, Peter steps out between the armies, and by address and readiness he finds a new life as a captain of Spanish guerrilla fighters.
Froyla, the old chief’s daughter, thinking that she can use him for her purposes, assists him with advice and companionship.
A voice came to Peter’s ear out of the darkness of the cave.
‘Lie still, Pedro the stranger – I am Froyla. I have come to speak of the enlisting of the band. Nay, do not assure yourself that I speak the truth. Keep your hands within the sack. This is Brother Stiletto, who in case of need is as ready as ever to speak for me.’
Peter waked slowly to the sound of the low whispered words. For a moment he failed to understand. He had been through so much the day before. Was he still dreaming vinously after Bembibre? Would the rattle of the kettle-drums and the clear far-carrying clarion presently wake him? He turned about in his covering of sacks.
‘Still – keep still!’ warned the voice. ‘You are in the Camp of the Peak. I am Froyla, the chief Cardoños’ daughter. I did this!’
And she touched the stiletto thrust in the thick of his arm with her finger.
‘Auff!’ said Peter.
‘That is to teach you to be still,’ the voice went on. ‘Turn your head – so. You see the camp-fire and the shining of a stove. Now you remember where you are. You can do many things with men and some women – those with foolish heads and light heels. But of such is not Froyla. No; do not answer till you know what is the will of Froyla.’
Peter kept still enough from motives of policy. But he chuckled within himself. When the time came he, Peter Blake, would take this girl up between his finger and thumb. In the meantime - well - let it pass. It will be seen that Peter Blake did not suffer from any lack of self-esteem. In this also he was a Galloway shore-side man. Inland bred men are different.
‘Unless I choose, not a man will follow you.’ The voice spoke steadily in his ear. ‘Now a band we must have and you shall train the men for me. Ah! If only I had been a boy, how I would have trained them – led them – fought them. But you shall do this for me, and it is our secret between us.’
‘It is our secret,’ said Peter, as much to humour her as anything. He came of a race which scouts the modern idea of women’s equality, still less her possible superiority. But there were women whom it was wise to humour.
A shadow moved between them and the camp-fire without, and instantly Froyla withdrew from his side. She went as she had come, without a sound. A heavy double-armful of wood was flung on the embers. The red half-burned roots were raked together, the brushwood blazed up, and the Campo del Pico was as light as day. Through the doorway of the cave Peter could see something which turned and glittered. It was the bayonet of Don Severo’s sentinel outside the palisade.
Peter recognised that he had good material to work upon. The fire-tender was no other than Don Severo himself. Peter was on foot in a moment, and soon deep in conversation with the family chieftain.
His mind was prepared. Froyla had sown her seed already.
‘Yes,’ he agreed, ‘it would be an excellent thing.’ Rich in lands, they were poor in goods. There was much to gain. Still more, till the Cardoños were known for guerrillas they were considered as fitting prey for the other bands. These would plunder their provisions, live upon them at free quarters, and recruit their best young men.
The stars in their courses worked for Peter, and with the overt sympathy of Don Severo and the equally efficacious hidden influence of Froyla, the new band Cardoños-Blake took shape and being before the late sunrise of winter in Spain.
While the sun was still an orange-red targe scarce risen over the snow-clad Sierras of Ludo, two and twenty men, all armed, were marching and drilling on the little green campo. The elders regarded them with a kind of austere envy. In their time they had done as much and more. Old wounds began to ache and slow pulses to quicken. They were brave days for plunder, those of their youth, when Bourbon and Hapsburg fought for Spain.
Froyla made coffee and reprimanded the foolish young women who would persist in standing agape at the fierceness of Peter’s voice of command, the energy of his gestures, his startling manner of stamping the foot, the military erectness of his figure, his broad shoulders and general air of command.
These things annoyed Froyla extremely. Not that she looked – not she. But somehow she was conscious of the atmosphere of admiration which was growing up about the image she had set up. A vague fear, too, that she had raised a spirit too strong for her to lay mingled with her admiration of Peter’s powers of vituperation in the Spanish tongue. It was however, evident to all that the Gallegan mother of whom Peter boasted must have been a lady of remarkably free conversation.
Froyla, as she listened to the changeful tread and rattle of arms, felt that something was slipping from her. She was her father’s daughter, and the only woman of education in the village. Ever since she came from the convent of the Good Shepherd at Compostella she had had her place at the village council. She had spoken after her father. She had been crowned Queen on Lady Day, and carried the lantern to the graveyard for the midnight mass of All Saints’ Eve.
And now quite suddenly she saw herself superseded; the eyes that had followed her wherever she went were fixed upon another. He was giving them that strange foreign thing – discipline. He was teaching them to obey, to think of the band first and themselves afterwards.
Froyla raged internally. Something she had not counted on was growing out of all this. She had put this man in the saddle; but once there he would ride where he would. She could do nothing more.
And so, unable to restrain her tears, she left the encampment and went to fling herself in a fit of angry weeping high up among the red cinnabar rocks of the hillside. When she came down again Captain Peter was still commanding and gesticulating, praising and blaming. Suddenly he dismissed his men and came towards her with a smile of good-humoured welcome.
‘Well, what do you think of them now? In another week you will have news of us!’
She turned away without speaking. Neither he nor they had even noticed her absence. It was a bitter moment for Froyla Cardoños.
A week later Peter leaped from his bed at the sound of angry voices. Then came a shot, which brought the men pouring out, each making for his post. The sentinel posted without on the spur had fired, and doubtless, as his orders were, escaped into the dense brushwood which escaladed the cliff from beneath on either side of the pathway. It was not yet day, only that uncertain watershed of night at which the cocks begin to crow and shepherds and fisher-folk instinctively awake.
Someone was hammering on the gate and pouring forth out of a full sack all the treasure of Spanish blasphemy.
‘Hijos de Putaña! Sangre de mi madre!’
‘Open the gate or we will smoke you out, rats of Giralda!’
Peter had slept heavily. Warmth and a week’s good feeding made slumber easy. Nevertheless, from mere force of habit he found himself in his place with musket and sword before he had rubbed the sleep out of his eyes.
Had the twenty-two men been as ready? He dared hardly hope it. He looked over the little breastwork, and with a painful throb of the heart saw the campo filled with an armed company. Two hundred of them at least he counted, all wearing the white boinas (or flat Kilmarnock bonnets) which were supposed to indicate the devotion of the wearers to the cause of the Spanish Bourbons.
While Peter was making up his mind whether to fight or fraternise, a musket barrel clicked against the embrasure close to his, and the voice of Froyla warned him to be careful.
‘Molinos,’ she whispered – ‘Molinos, our unfrocked priest from the Giralda. He is here with all his gang!’
‘Do they come as friends or enemies?’
‘That’s as may be,’ she answered, still in his ear; ‘they are always dangerous, Molinos especially so when he wants an excuse.’
‘An excuse for what?’
‘For taking our goods and for marrying me by force.’
‘But he is a priest?’
‘He was a priest. The archbishop unfrocked him, and for that he sacked the palace and carried off the cardinal’s hat, which he dragged through the streets of Compostella tied to a donkey’s tail. He was excommunicated for that. Yet every Sunday he hears mass.’
‘How so?’ said Peter as the colour was creeping back into the landscape with the flush of dawn.
‘He catches a priest – one has not far to go in Spain for such wildfowl – and if he will not say mass, why Molinos cuts his throat! And to think I have seen him in our village, playing pelote, black soutane and all, the champion of the North.
Severo had come out to parley. He stood by the embers of the fire, now grey under the growing light. A few old women, following the motion of his hand, were hastily hobbling up with backloads of branches and kindling wood.
In front of him stood a huge man, towering up five or six inches above the six-foot. There was no need to name the Abbé Molinos.
‘He asked me in marriage from my father. He caught the Bishop of Corunna and compelled him to release him from his vows. I fled up the mountain when he came. It was berry-time last year, and I lived upon them three days!’
‘What good wind has blown my brother so high among the mountains?’
It was Severino Cardoños who spoke – he, the ancient village chief humbling himself to his vicar.
‘These accursed armies which pollute our land and render good food scarce,’ cried the huge man, beating his palms together in the frosty air. ‘We came for a meal, Don Severo – for a little dole out of your superfluity of provisions, for a horse or two out of your well-stocked stables, and lastly for the damsel you promised me, your daughter Froyla!’
‘Liar!’ spoke out a clear voice at Peter’s elbow; ‘he would not give me to a priest, one married to God and our Lady. I would slay myself first.’
The bandit slapped his thighs as at a good jest till the circle of pistol butts, all silver and mother-o’-pearl, clashed together.
He half turned to his men, speaking like a man who takes a jest good-humouredly.
‘She speaks well, the little one. She will make me a worthy mate. But I see how it is – she has handfasted herself to some gallant of the village, promised herself to him. It is a pity, but it will make no difference. I am an honest man Don Severo, and I will fight that youth for his lady, which of us is to have and to hold (and so forth) till death us do part.’
Instantly Peter, the ex-scout master, stepped forward from his shelter.
‘I am your man,’ he said, calmly; ‘I will fight for the girl.’
Molinos eyed him murkily from under his shaggy brows.
‘And who the devil may you be,’ he shouted, ‘coming upon honest men like a gnome out of the earth?’
‘I am the Cavalier Don Pedro Blake, cousin of General Blake and friend of Castaños. I take your challenge, Señor Capitaño. I have my men posted behind, a score as good marksmen as you will find in the seven Spains. They will see fair play, and when our little game is played the man who wins shall lead both bands. Do you agree, or are you afraid?’
‘Is what this fellow says true?’ queried the priest, ignoring Peter and speaking aside to Don Severo.
The chief bowed.
‘Well he is either a fool or a very bold fellow,’ quoth Molinos with a certain relishing admiration. ‘Let me look at him!’
He stepped back a pace and scrutinised Peter with an affectation of scorn.
‘A foreigner,’ he exclaimed, ‘in the red rags of the English! How comes it, friend, that I find you in my country, pretending to lead a loyal Spanish band?’
‘I lead because I am a soldier and the best man in it, or in yours either. If any doubt it, let him step out and have at me with his own weapon – that is to say, if you are afraid to risk your own skin!’
The priest cast off his plundered French coat, from which the gold lace of a colonel of dragoons had not been removed. The very chevrons and the number of the regiment – the 13th – were plain to the eye.
Thus disencumbered, Molinos appeared in a plain white unstarched shirt of finest linen, probably plundered along with the coat. He snatched up sword and dagger, and, wrapping his cape carefully about his arm, he dared Peter to come on.
‘Come on?’ said Peter, who had not even troubled to take off his coat.
‘That will I, and firm. Let us settle the little business out of hand. But, remember, no treachery – or a score of you shall die before you come within sight of my men.’
The full day had come, though the shadows were still long when the champions faced each other on the short grass of the campo. About the cave entrances all round the women clustered in terrified bands, anxious to see the fighting, but uncertain what might happen to them afterwards. Peter’s twenty-two lay hidden, but he knew that the muzzles of their muskets could sweep the field. Behind their chief the Molinos gang were huddled, some sitting on the ground, but more leaning on their guns and smoking cigarettes with the habitual nonchalance of the Spaniard, whether the danger be his own or another’s.
But Peter knew that the death of their chief would probably bring the whole command about his ears. And as twenty-two could not possibly fight two hundred, he must be careful. A partial disablement, such as would give him command of the large band for a month or two, was all that was needful.
The giant, who had never yet met his match either at sword-play or the pelote, attacked fiercely, parrying with his capo wrapped about his left arm in the Spanish manner.
Peter, without cloak or dagger, his hand behind his back, his sword-point following every turn of his opponent’s weapon, yet in so small a circle that no opening was ever presented, fenced as at a salle-d’armes.
After the first trial of skill the priest divined himself overmatched and launched himself forward, hoping by speed and fury to grapple his adversary, and so use his dagger when the longer weapon became unserviceable.
He was disappointed. Peter, light of foot as a cat, stepped aside, and ducking under the extended arm, calmly waited for his adversary to come about. In five seconds more Molinos was disarmed, the blade flying high over the heads of his own men. But almost immediately after the resumption of the fight Peter, using all his science, ran the giant neatly through the shoulder, close to the lung, a wound which, he knew, would certainly disable Molinos for a long time. The priest, though bleeding profusely (as Peter was delighted to observe), was eager to continue the fight. But his lieutenant, Lissagarray, a bullet-headed little Basque, ordered men to take him up and carry him into the caves, where the women would tend him.
‘If he dies we will kill you,’ said the little Basque.
‘And whether he dies or no I am captain of your company,’ retorted Peter. ‘Does any man among you desire to dispute the position? If he does, my sword is at his service. Come forward, lads, and show yourselves!’
The last words were for his hidden twenty-two. Peter’s victory had given them confidence, and they ranged themselves behind him with a certain relief, for the fear of Molinos had lain heavy upon the land.
‘Speak to them – quick!’ murmured Froyla at his elbow. She stood there, eyes downcast, meek as a dove, and prompted him with the most outrageous taunts known to the Spanish language.
Peter used them all with such variations, emendations and provocations as occurred to him.
In vain; not a man stirred. It was clear that they would not fight singly, while an attack on these twenty-two well-armed, well-ordered men, even if successful, would certainly prove expensive.
‘Then if ye will not fight ye shall obey,’ cried Peter so loud that he could be heard all over the campo. ‘Follow or fight – so it was agreed. Speak out! Choose your leader. There is no time to be lost and much to be done.’
‘We choose El Capitano Blake,’ said the little Basque lieutenant. ‘It is his due. He has beaten Molinos.’
‘El Capitano Blake!’ chorused the commando.
‘I shall teach you many things besides sword practice – how to march, how to shoot straight. How to take cover you already know as well as I.’
‘I shall come with you,’ affirmed Froyla. ‘I will not stay at home and nurse the priest with the bad eyes. Besides, two of my brothers are in the troop.’
‘And your father?’ said Peter – ‘what will he say?’
‘Say,’ she answered with an astonished countenance – ‘why, what should my father say? However, I shall go and ask him.’
The band Molinos-Blake did well under Peter the Renegade. First of all they picked up and added to their numbers half-a-score of footsore warriors belonging to various English regiments, some of whom had known Peter as Scout Master to General Baird’s division. They cut up a French convoy and grew rich. They entertained themselves royally at Vigo and waxed poor.
Their best captures, however, had been made along the line of the English retreat. Everything which could hamper the speed of the men had been left behind – waggons of ammunition, cases of new Brown Bess muskets, worth their weight in silver in Estramadura and Leon.
It was a chill morning, crisp and crackling with frost, when at last from the edge of the wide-set circle of hills Peter and his command looked down on the harbour of Corunna, glittering in the low winter sun. It was empty of ships; but there were plenty of soldiers. His eye took in the lines of blue smoke daintily pricked along the hills. The sound of musketry came to his ears from the western sea to the banks of the Mero – patter – patter – very dainty and far away.
Peter understood. The English were hard pressed. Every hour added to the solidity of these big battalions of Soult. From their mountain vantage the Blake-Molinos men looked down on the battle as from a box at an opera.
Peter’s heart beat for joy, or at least so he thought. Yonder were the officers who, before lying down to sleep, thought nothing of ordering a dozen men to be shot at dawn. He had seen them calmly eating breakfast while poor devils were being tortured at the triangles.
Ah, Soult would teach them! Good luck to Soult! He had them at his mercy – the boastful generals, the cruel colonels, the brutal captains. All of them, said Peter in his strong Northern phrase, were going to get their kail through the reek.
Why should he not go down there? Who had more scores to pay off than he? There was the linesman, whose scarred back Peter had never been able to get out of his mind, and how merry O’Hanlon’s face suddenly blanched at the sight of his captors coming at him through the mist. ‘Come lads,’ he cried, ‘they are beaten. They have no ships. They will be driven into the sea, and their waggons are bogged in the swamps. They cannot muster a score of cannon. I see rich spoil for us; while the French are fighting we shall cut out the treasure-waggons from under their noses!’
The guerrillas always answered to the appeal of loot. Of patriotism they knew nothing, though at Cadiz and Seville the Cortez talked a great deal about it.
Peter led his men well to the west of the English, where from a wilderness of gorse and boulder the guerrillas, couched at their ease, could look down on the tragedy of Corunna working itself out.
The end could not be long delayed. So soon as the French batteries could crown El Crupione – the hill thrust like a clenched fist into the centre of their defences – the English must surrender or be swept out of existence.
Peter’s keen eyes marked the positions of his ancient comrades. Baird, struggling desperately to bring up the ammunition, the provisions, and what was still left of the treasure, swore at large. Peter could not hear the words, but he divined them from the gestures of that angry arm.
He laughed softly to himself and pointed out to Froyla the exact place where he meant to fall upon the waggons. He must wait till the swarthy kilts of the Black Watch were out of the way, with the decimated 52nd and the Border Regiment – when there were only his own dragoons, against every officer of which, except the pot-bellied Major, he had a grudge. And General Baird, wrathful veteran, he would stand and fight it out till the last wheel had passed the last ditch, before he would turn the tail of his old grey mare and ride after his convoy. Oh, there would be plenty of choice fighting; but two hundred and thirty guns at short range would empty many saddles.
‘Now camerados, follow the line of the wall. We shall wait for them at the bottom.’
Baird’s rearguard had been forgotten, bogged by the valley swamps, commanded by heights on every side, and presently, doubtless, to be swept by the batteries Soult was bringing into position on Rump Hill.
‘Keep still, men!’ said the Renegade, and leaning forward he listened to the babble of familiar voices. That was McLean of the 42nd, a Duart man who owed him three shillings.
Well, McLean should pay principal and interest before he was a day older.
Leaving the wall, the command crossed at the double an open space where there had been fighting. Bearskins and cavalry helmets surmounted with the imperial eagle showed how the French had suffered. Dead men lay about in strangely contorted attitudes, like marionettes dropped from a peg or dolls flung from the hand of an angry child.
‘Hallo, Blake,’ where are you going with all that rabble?’ cried a young voice, and the careless English smote on Peter’s ear like the trump of doom. ‘We thought you were lost, man! Go on and give the men a hand. Never mind me. My passage is taken and the ship is coming for me right enough!’
Peter, with every particle of colour gone from his face, turned and saw Wellwood Maxwell, a young Ensign whom he had taught to ride. He was shot through the body, but in spite of his wound his eye was bright and his smile irresistible.
But as he panted a little with the exertion of raising himself on an elbow, he pointed to the batteries on El Crupione, over the edge of which Soult’s big twelve-pounders were poking their black snouts.
‘That’s what’s wrong with us, Blake, and nobody seems to notice. Get a few men and have a try for it. I would, but I’m used up, Blake, and that’s the God’s truth. Bend down, Blake. There – give that to Elsie Ferguson of Craigdarroch. Don’t forget. No, never mind me. I’m all right, and my love to them all at home. A drink of water? Well, that’s good anyway. Now off with you. Tell Baird I sent you. I may as well be mentioned in dispatches as not. It will please the dad – and – it’s my last chance. Good-bye, Blake; hold them till the ships come!’
Saying which the boy laid his head down on a tuft of grass, and the soul of the Renegade was shaken within him.
Clean of soul himself, Wellwood Maxwell had never dreamed any possible treachery. How could Peter now deliver that love token? How could he ever go back to Galloway with such a tale to tell?
‘Double back, men!’ he commanded; ‘the enemy is behind us. They are closing us in. Quick, get up the hill!’
Peter kept his own twenty-two close about him. He was not yet sure of the others. But the Molinos men, seeing no chance of plunder so close to the line of battle, followed up the hill willingly enough.
Peter’s tenth legion, the twenty-two La Giraldans, with Froyla acting as their lieutenant, kept close behind. But there was no treachery to fear. For a dash-and-be-done-with-it no troops could have fought better than the band of Molinos.
They broke like a wave from the Atlantic on the French gunners, occupied with the alignment of their pieces.
‘One volley and at them with the bayonet!’ had been Peter’s orders as he saw that the artillery-men were without infantry supports. To show a good example Peter fired, flung down his musket and charged, shouting at the head of his Giraldans. Molinos’ men hung a moment as if judging the risk, but when their volley came it rang out strong and united, and Peter, already almost upon the guns, waved them on. The Frenchmen had hardly time to draw a pistol. They fought with ramrods and spanners, while the wiser turned and ran in the direction of their own line of battle.
No time was to be lost. The French would certainly strike back in overwhelming force, but meantime Peter and his free-lances would at least do what harm they could.
The lighter guns followed each other over the precipice, crashing and jangling from point to point of rock. The crags rang with the clangour of their passage, till they exploded like fire-crackers in a shower of iron hail. The larger were merely spiked, and run to the edge of the steep gravel slope, down which they plunged into the river, or, sticking at the bottom, thrust their black noses into the mud and turned heavily over.
The badgered and hard-beset army of Moore, fighting hard to hold the advancing French, could make nothing of these strange happenings upon El Crupione. But they had a respite, which was grateful enough. From the precipices of Rump Hill they saw the French guns come tumbling, crashing and exploding. But none knew the cause, nor even guessed it, till blackened with powder and bleeding from a wound on the head, ex Scout-Master Peter Blake strode through the ruck of bewildered outposts.
He marched straight up to where General Baird stood directing the retreat in the midst of his staff.
‘What the devil, sir?’ roared the veteran. ‘What’s this? Who are you? Where did you get those breeches?’
Peter saluted gravely in the exact regulation attitude, a dignified figure, keen and hardbitten in spite of the rags of dragoon’s uniform in which he was clad.
Holding himself like a lance under the questioning gaze of his sometime General, Peter delivered himself as calmly as if he were about to give the report on the states of men and horses in the ordinary course of duty.
‘I have come to report, Sir David, that by the instructions of Ensign Maxwell, I have taken and destroyed the French artillery upon Rump Hill – twenty three-pounders and a dozen long twelves – ships’ guns those – and how they got them up there is more than I can guess.’
‘Humph!’ snorted the General angrily. ‘Taken Rump Hill! Destroyed the guns! Well, I call it a damn liberty! You’re a rascally renegade, sir, and I order you out of my sight, or by God, sir, I’ll have you shot for insolence to your superior officer!’
‘Thank you, Sir David!’ said Peter calmly. And saluting with the utmost correctness, he strode back to his command, which had stood all the time with their muskets at the ready.
But already the topsails of the English squadron were rounding the point of Ferrol. The French had been held in check, and General Moore could say, ‘Now I hope that the people of England will be satisfied.’
Peter found Froyla waiting for him, a proud light in her eyes of dusky emerald.
‘What said he, the great man on the horse? He did not embrace and kiss you on both cheeks?’
‘No,’ said Peter, ‘it is not the English custom.’
‘Then what did he say? He must have rejoiced.’
‘He gave me titles of nobility,’ said Peter calmly.
‘What were they? Is there a pension attached?’
‘He promoted me marquis and general,’ asserted Peter. ‘He promised me a great reward from the King of England -’
‘Then,’ cried Froyla, ‘you will leave us – you will go back to the King of England to receive your rewards we have won for you. You will think no more of Cardoños and Félicé – no more of Don Severo!’
‘I renounce them all,’ said Peter nobly, ‘for the sake of one who is dearer to me than money or titles. I say pecunia tua tecum sit – which means ‘Keep your money and give me only Froyla, the daughter of Severo of La Giralda.’’
Froyla clasped Peter’s hand in both of hers.
‘Oh,’ she cried impetuously, ‘I never dreamed that any man could be so noble.’
‘Nor I,’ said Peter, patting the girl’s heaving shoulders. ‘But what would you have? I cannot help it. I was made like that.’
And from the soul of Peter radiated the peace of a good action, while Froyla’s eyes were moist and soft with the thought of so great a renunciation.
Having only the gallows to expect, Peter steps out between the armies, and by address and readiness he finds a new life as a captain of Spanish guerrilla fighters.
Froyla, the old chief’s daughter, thinking that she can use him for her purposes, assists him with advice and companionship.
A voice came to Peter’s ear out of the darkness of the cave.
‘Lie still, Pedro the stranger – I am Froyla. I have come to speak of the enlisting of the band. Nay, do not assure yourself that I speak the truth. Keep your hands within the sack. This is Brother Stiletto, who in case of need is as ready as ever to speak for me.’
Peter waked slowly to the sound of the low whispered words. For a moment he failed to understand. He had been through so much the day before. Was he still dreaming vinously after Bembibre? Would the rattle of the kettle-drums and the clear far-carrying clarion presently wake him? He turned about in his covering of sacks.
‘Still – keep still!’ warned the voice. ‘You are in the Camp of the Peak. I am Froyla, the chief Cardoños’ daughter. I did this!’
And she touched the stiletto thrust in the thick of his arm with her finger.
‘Auff!’ said Peter.
‘That is to teach you to be still,’ the voice went on. ‘Turn your head – so. You see the camp-fire and the shining of a stove. Now you remember where you are. You can do many things with men and some women – those with foolish heads and light heels. But of such is not Froyla. No; do not answer till you know what is the will of Froyla.’
Peter kept still enough from motives of policy. But he chuckled within himself. When the time came he, Peter Blake, would take this girl up between his finger and thumb. In the meantime - well - let it pass. It will be seen that Peter Blake did not suffer from any lack of self-esteem. In this also he was a Galloway shore-side man. Inland bred men are different.
‘Unless I choose, not a man will follow you.’ The voice spoke steadily in his ear. ‘Now a band we must have and you shall train the men for me. Ah! If only I had been a boy, how I would have trained them – led them – fought them. But you shall do this for me, and it is our secret between us.’
‘It is our secret,’ said Peter, as much to humour her as anything. He came of a race which scouts the modern idea of women’s equality, still less her possible superiority. But there were women whom it was wise to humour.
A shadow moved between them and the camp-fire without, and instantly Froyla withdrew from his side. She went as she had come, without a sound. A heavy double-armful of wood was flung on the embers. The red half-burned roots were raked together, the brushwood blazed up, and the Campo del Pico was as light as day. Through the doorway of the cave Peter could see something which turned and glittered. It was the bayonet of Don Severo’s sentinel outside the palisade.
Peter recognised that he had good material to work upon. The fire-tender was no other than Don Severo himself. Peter was on foot in a moment, and soon deep in conversation with the family chieftain.
His mind was prepared. Froyla had sown her seed already.
‘Yes,’ he agreed, ‘it would be an excellent thing.’ Rich in lands, they were poor in goods. There was much to gain. Still more, till the Cardoños were known for guerrillas they were considered as fitting prey for the other bands. These would plunder their provisions, live upon them at free quarters, and recruit their best young men.
The stars in their courses worked for Peter, and with the overt sympathy of Don Severo and the equally efficacious hidden influence of Froyla, the new band Cardoños-Blake took shape and being before the late sunrise of winter in Spain.
While the sun was still an orange-red targe scarce risen over the snow-clad Sierras of Ludo, two and twenty men, all armed, were marching and drilling on the little green campo. The elders regarded them with a kind of austere envy. In their time they had done as much and more. Old wounds began to ache and slow pulses to quicken. They were brave days for plunder, those of their youth, when Bourbon and Hapsburg fought for Spain.
Froyla made coffee and reprimanded the foolish young women who would persist in standing agape at the fierceness of Peter’s voice of command, the energy of his gestures, his startling manner of stamping the foot, the military erectness of his figure, his broad shoulders and general air of command.
These things annoyed Froyla extremely. Not that she looked – not she. But somehow she was conscious of the atmosphere of admiration which was growing up about the image she had set up. A vague fear, too, that she had raised a spirit too strong for her to lay mingled with her admiration of Peter’s powers of vituperation in the Spanish tongue. It was however, evident to all that the Gallegan mother of whom Peter boasted must have been a lady of remarkably free conversation.
Froyla, as she listened to the changeful tread and rattle of arms, felt that something was slipping from her. She was her father’s daughter, and the only woman of education in the village. Ever since she came from the convent of the Good Shepherd at Compostella she had had her place at the village council. She had spoken after her father. She had been crowned Queen on Lady Day, and carried the lantern to the graveyard for the midnight mass of All Saints’ Eve.
And now quite suddenly she saw herself superseded; the eyes that had followed her wherever she went were fixed upon another. He was giving them that strange foreign thing – discipline. He was teaching them to obey, to think of the band first and themselves afterwards.
Froyla raged internally. Something she had not counted on was growing out of all this. She had put this man in the saddle; but once there he would ride where he would. She could do nothing more.
And so, unable to restrain her tears, she left the encampment and went to fling herself in a fit of angry weeping high up among the red cinnabar rocks of the hillside. When she came down again Captain Peter was still commanding and gesticulating, praising and blaming. Suddenly he dismissed his men and came towards her with a smile of good-humoured welcome.
‘Well, what do you think of them now? In another week you will have news of us!’
She turned away without speaking. Neither he nor they had even noticed her absence. It was a bitter moment for Froyla Cardoños.
A week later Peter leaped from his bed at the sound of angry voices. Then came a shot, which brought the men pouring out, each making for his post. The sentinel posted without on the spur had fired, and doubtless, as his orders were, escaped into the dense brushwood which escaladed the cliff from beneath on either side of the pathway. It was not yet day, only that uncertain watershed of night at which the cocks begin to crow and shepherds and fisher-folk instinctively awake.
Someone was hammering on the gate and pouring forth out of a full sack all the treasure of Spanish blasphemy.
‘Hijos de Putaña! Sangre de mi madre!’
‘Open the gate or we will smoke you out, rats of Giralda!’
Peter had slept heavily. Warmth and a week’s good feeding made slumber easy. Nevertheless, from mere force of habit he found himself in his place with musket and sword before he had rubbed the sleep out of his eyes.
Had the twenty-two men been as ready? He dared hardly hope it. He looked over the little breastwork, and with a painful throb of the heart saw the campo filled with an armed company. Two hundred of them at least he counted, all wearing the white boinas (or flat Kilmarnock bonnets) which were supposed to indicate the devotion of the wearers to the cause of the Spanish Bourbons.
While Peter was making up his mind whether to fight or fraternise, a musket barrel clicked against the embrasure close to his, and the voice of Froyla warned him to be careful.
‘Molinos,’ she whispered – ‘Molinos, our unfrocked priest from the Giralda. He is here with all his gang!’
‘Do they come as friends or enemies?’
‘That’s as may be,’ she answered, still in his ear; ‘they are always dangerous, Molinos especially so when he wants an excuse.’
‘An excuse for what?’
‘For taking our goods and for marrying me by force.’
‘But he is a priest?’
‘He was a priest. The archbishop unfrocked him, and for that he sacked the palace and carried off the cardinal’s hat, which he dragged through the streets of Compostella tied to a donkey’s tail. He was excommunicated for that. Yet every Sunday he hears mass.’
‘How so?’ said Peter as the colour was creeping back into the landscape with the flush of dawn.
‘He catches a priest – one has not far to go in Spain for such wildfowl – and if he will not say mass, why Molinos cuts his throat! And to think I have seen him in our village, playing pelote, black soutane and all, the champion of the North.
Severo had come out to parley. He stood by the embers of the fire, now grey under the growing light. A few old women, following the motion of his hand, were hastily hobbling up with backloads of branches and kindling wood.
In front of him stood a huge man, towering up five or six inches above the six-foot. There was no need to name the Abbé Molinos.
‘He asked me in marriage from my father. He caught the Bishop of Corunna and compelled him to release him from his vows. I fled up the mountain when he came. It was berry-time last year, and I lived upon them three days!’
‘What good wind has blown my brother so high among the mountains?’
It was Severino Cardoños who spoke – he, the ancient village chief humbling himself to his vicar.
‘These accursed armies which pollute our land and render good food scarce,’ cried the huge man, beating his palms together in the frosty air. ‘We came for a meal, Don Severo – for a little dole out of your superfluity of provisions, for a horse or two out of your well-stocked stables, and lastly for the damsel you promised me, your daughter Froyla!’
‘Liar!’ spoke out a clear voice at Peter’s elbow; ‘he would not give me to a priest, one married to God and our Lady. I would slay myself first.’
The bandit slapped his thighs as at a good jest till the circle of pistol butts, all silver and mother-o’-pearl, clashed together.
He half turned to his men, speaking like a man who takes a jest good-humouredly.
‘She speaks well, the little one. She will make me a worthy mate. But I see how it is – she has handfasted herself to some gallant of the village, promised herself to him. It is a pity, but it will make no difference. I am an honest man Don Severo, and I will fight that youth for his lady, which of us is to have and to hold (and so forth) till death us do part.’
Instantly Peter, the ex-scout master, stepped forward from his shelter.
‘I am your man,’ he said, calmly; ‘I will fight for the girl.’
Molinos eyed him murkily from under his shaggy brows.
‘And who the devil may you be,’ he shouted, ‘coming upon honest men like a gnome out of the earth?’
‘I am the Cavalier Don Pedro Blake, cousin of General Blake and friend of Castaños. I take your challenge, Señor Capitaño. I have my men posted behind, a score as good marksmen as you will find in the seven Spains. They will see fair play, and when our little game is played the man who wins shall lead both bands. Do you agree, or are you afraid?’
‘Is what this fellow says true?’ queried the priest, ignoring Peter and speaking aside to Don Severo.
The chief bowed.
‘Well he is either a fool or a very bold fellow,’ quoth Molinos with a certain relishing admiration. ‘Let me look at him!’
He stepped back a pace and scrutinised Peter with an affectation of scorn.
‘A foreigner,’ he exclaimed, ‘in the red rags of the English! How comes it, friend, that I find you in my country, pretending to lead a loyal Spanish band?’
‘I lead because I am a soldier and the best man in it, or in yours either. If any doubt it, let him step out and have at me with his own weapon – that is to say, if you are afraid to risk your own skin!’
The priest cast off his plundered French coat, from which the gold lace of a colonel of dragoons had not been removed. The very chevrons and the number of the regiment – the 13th – were plain to the eye.
Thus disencumbered, Molinos appeared in a plain white unstarched shirt of finest linen, probably plundered along with the coat. He snatched up sword and dagger, and, wrapping his cape carefully about his arm, he dared Peter to come on.
‘Come on?’ said Peter, who had not even troubled to take off his coat.
‘That will I, and firm. Let us settle the little business out of hand. But, remember, no treachery – or a score of you shall die before you come within sight of my men.’
The full day had come, though the shadows were still long when the champions faced each other on the short grass of the campo. About the cave entrances all round the women clustered in terrified bands, anxious to see the fighting, but uncertain what might happen to them afterwards. Peter’s twenty-two lay hidden, but he knew that the muzzles of their muskets could sweep the field. Behind their chief the Molinos gang were huddled, some sitting on the ground, but more leaning on their guns and smoking cigarettes with the habitual nonchalance of the Spaniard, whether the danger be his own or another’s.
But Peter knew that the death of their chief would probably bring the whole command about his ears. And as twenty-two could not possibly fight two hundred, he must be careful. A partial disablement, such as would give him command of the large band for a month or two, was all that was needful.
The giant, who had never yet met his match either at sword-play or the pelote, attacked fiercely, parrying with his capo wrapped about his left arm in the Spanish manner.
Peter, without cloak or dagger, his hand behind his back, his sword-point following every turn of his opponent’s weapon, yet in so small a circle that no opening was ever presented, fenced as at a salle-d’armes.
After the first trial of skill the priest divined himself overmatched and launched himself forward, hoping by speed and fury to grapple his adversary, and so use his dagger when the longer weapon became unserviceable.
He was disappointed. Peter, light of foot as a cat, stepped aside, and ducking under the extended arm, calmly waited for his adversary to come about. In five seconds more Molinos was disarmed, the blade flying high over the heads of his own men. But almost immediately after the resumption of the fight Peter, using all his science, ran the giant neatly through the shoulder, close to the lung, a wound which, he knew, would certainly disable Molinos for a long time. The priest, though bleeding profusely (as Peter was delighted to observe), was eager to continue the fight. But his lieutenant, Lissagarray, a bullet-headed little Basque, ordered men to take him up and carry him into the caves, where the women would tend him.
‘If he dies we will kill you,’ said the little Basque.
‘And whether he dies or no I am captain of your company,’ retorted Peter. ‘Does any man among you desire to dispute the position? If he does, my sword is at his service. Come forward, lads, and show yourselves!’
The last words were for his hidden twenty-two. Peter’s victory had given them confidence, and they ranged themselves behind him with a certain relief, for the fear of Molinos had lain heavy upon the land.
‘Speak to them – quick!’ murmured Froyla at his elbow. She stood there, eyes downcast, meek as a dove, and prompted him with the most outrageous taunts known to the Spanish language.
Peter used them all with such variations, emendations and provocations as occurred to him.
In vain; not a man stirred. It was clear that they would not fight singly, while an attack on these twenty-two well-armed, well-ordered men, even if successful, would certainly prove expensive.
‘Then if ye will not fight ye shall obey,’ cried Peter so loud that he could be heard all over the campo. ‘Follow or fight – so it was agreed. Speak out! Choose your leader. There is no time to be lost and much to be done.’
‘We choose El Capitano Blake,’ said the little Basque lieutenant. ‘It is his due. He has beaten Molinos.’
‘El Capitano Blake!’ chorused the commando.
‘I shall teach you many things besides sword practice – how to march, how to shoot straight. How to take cover you already know as well as I.’
‘I shall come with you,’ affirmed Froyla. ‘I will not stay at home and nurse the priest with the bad eyes. Besides, two of my brothers are in the troop.’
‘And your father?’ said Peter – ‘what will he say?’
‘Say,’ she answered with an astonished countenance – ‘why, what should my father say? However, I shall go and ask him.’
The band Molinos-Blake did well under Peter the Renegade. First of all they picked up and added to their numbers half-a-score of footsore warriors belonging to various English regiments, some of whom had known Peter as Scout Master to General Baird’s division. They cut up a French convoy and grew rich. They entertained themselves royally at Vigo and waxed poor.
Their best captures, however, had been made along the line of the English retreat. Everything which could hamper the speed of the men had been left behind – waggons of ammunition, cases of new Brown Bess muskets, worth their weight in silver in Estramadura and Leon.
It was a chill morning, crisp and crackling with frost, when at last from the edge of the wide-set circle of hills Peter and his command looked down on the harbour of Corunna, glittering in the low winter sun. It was empty of ships; but there were plenty of soldiers. His eye took in the lines of blue smoke daintily pricked along the hills. The sound of musketry came to his ears from the western sea to the banks of the Mero – patter – patter – very dainty and far away.
Peter understood. The English were hard pressed. Every hour added to the solidity of these big battalions of Soult. From their mountain vantage the Blake-Molinos men looked down on the battle as from a box at an opera.
Peter’s heart beat for joy, or at least so he thought. Yonder were the officers who, before lying down to sleep, thought nothing of ordering a dozen men to be shot at dawn. He had seen them calmly eating breakfast while poor devils were being tortured at the triangles.
Ah, Soult would teach them! Good luck to Soult! He had them at his mercy – the boastful generals, the cruel colonels, the brutal captains. All of them, said Peter in his strong Northern phrase, were going to get their kail through the reek.
Why should he not go down there? Who had more scores to pay off than he? There was the linesman, whose scarred back Peter had never been able to get out of his mind, and how merry O’Hanlon’s face suddenly blanched at the sight of his captors coming at him through the mist. ‘Come lads,’ he cried, ‘they are beaten. They have no ships. They will be driven into the sea, and their waggons are bogged in the swamps. They cannot muster a score of cannon. I see rich spoil for us; while the French are fighting we shall cut out the treasure-waggons from under their noses!’
The guerrillas always answered to the appeal of loot. Of patriotism they knew nothing, though at Cadiz and Seville the Cortez talked a great deal about it.
Peter led his men well to the west of the English, where from a wilderness of gorse and boulder the guerrillas, couched at their ease, could look down on the tragedy of Corunna working itself out.
The end could not be long delayed. So soon as the French batteries could crown El Crupione – the hill thrust like a clenched fist into the centre of their defences – the English must surrender or be swept out of existence.
Peter’s keen eyes marked the positions of his ancient comrades. Baird, struggling desperately to bring up the ammunition, the provisions, and what was still left of the treasure, swore at large. Peter could not hear the words, but he divined them from the gestures of that angry arm.
He laughed softly to himself and pointed out to Froyla the exact place where he meant to fall upon the waggons. He must wait till the swarthy kilts of the Black Watch were out of the way, with the decimated 52nd and the Border Regiment – when there were only his own dragoons, against every officer of which, except the pot-bellied Major, he had a grudge. And General Baird, wrathful veteran, he would stand and fight it out till the last wheel had passed the last ditch, before he would turn the tail of his old grey mare and ride after his convoy. Oh, there would be plenty of choice fighting; but two hundred and thirty guns at short range would empty many saddles.
‘Now camerados, follow the line of the wall. We shall wait for them at the bottom.’
Baird’s rearguard had been forgotten, bogged by the valley swamps, commanded by heights on every side, and presently, doubtless, to be swept by the batteries Soult was bringing into position on Rump Hill.
‘Keep still, men!’ said the Renegade, and leaning forward he listened to the babble of familiar voices. That was McLean of the 42nd, a Duart man who owed him three shillings.
Well, McLean should pay principal and interest before he was a day older.
Leaving the wall, the command crossed at the double an open space where there had been fighting. Bearskins and cavalry helmets surmounted with the imperial eagle showed how the French had suffered. Dead men lay about in strangely contorted attitudes, like marionettes dropped from a peg or dolls flung from the hand of an angry child.
‘Hallo, Blake,’ where are you going with all that rabble?’ cried a young voice, and the careless English smote on Peter’s ear like the trump of doom. ‘We thought you were lost, man! Go on and give the men a hand. Never mind me. My passage is taken and the ship is coming for me right enough!’
Peter, with every particle of colour gone from his face, turned and saw Wellwood Maxwell, a young Ensign whom he had taught to ride. He was shot through the body, but in spite of his wound his eye was bright and his smile irresistible.
But as he panted a little with the exertion of raising himself on an elbow, he pointed to the batteries on El Crupione, over the edge of which Soult’s big twelve-pounders were poking their black snouts.
‘That’s what’s wrong with us, Blake, and nobody seems to notice. Get a few men and have a try for it. I would, but I’m used up, Blake, and that’s the God’s truth. Bend down, Blake. There – give that to Elsie Ferguson of Craigdarroch. Don’t forget. No, never mind me. I’m all right, and my love to them all at home. A drink of water? Well, that’s good anyway. Now off with you. Tell Baird I sent you. I may as well be mentioned in dispatches as not. It will please the dad – and – it’s my last chance. Good-bye, Blake; hold them till the ships come!’
Saying which the boy laid his head down on a tuft of grass, and the soul of the Renegade was shaken within him.
Clean of soul himself, Wellwood Maxwell had never dreamed any possible treachery. How could Peter now deliver that love token? How could he ever go back to Galloway with such a tale to tell?
‘Double back, men!’ he commanded; ‘the enemy is behind us. They are closing us in. Quick, get up the hill!’
Peter kept his own twenty-two close about him. He was not yet sure of the others. But the Molinos men, seeing no chance of plunder so close to the line of battle, followed up the hill willingly enough.
Peter’s tenth legion, the twenty-two La Giraldans, with Froyla acting as their lieutenant, kept close behind. But there was no treachery to fear. For a dash-and-be-done-with-it no troops could have fought better than the band of Molinos.
They broke like a wave from the Atlantic on the French gunners, occupied with the alignment of their pieces.
‘One volley and at them with the bayonet!’ had been Peter’s orders as he saw that the artillery-men were without infantry supports. To show a good example Peter fired, flung down his musket and charged, shouting at the head of his Giraldans. Molinos’ men hung a moment as if judging the risk, but when their volley came it rang out strong and united, and Peter, already almost upon the guns, waved them on. The Frenchmen had hardly time to draw a pistol. They fought with ramrods and spanners, while the wiser turned and ran in the direction of their own line of battle.
No time was to be lost. The French would certainly strike back in overwhelming force, but meantime Peter and his free-lances would at least do what harm they could.
The lighter guns followed each other over the precipice, crashing and jangling from point to point of rock. The crags rang with the clangour of their passage, till they exploded like fire-crackers in a shower of iron hail. The larger were merely spiked, and run to the edge of the steep gravel slope, down which they plunged into the river, or, sticking at the bottom, thrust their black noses into the mud and turned heavily over.
The badgered and hard-beset army of Moore, fighting hard to hold the advancing French, could make nothing of these strange happenings upon El Crupione. But they had a respite, which was grateful enough. From the precipices of Rump Hill they saw the French guns come tumbling, crashing and exploding. But none knew the cause, nor even guessed it, till blackened with powder and bleeding from a wound on the head, ex Scout-Master Peter Blake strode through the ruck of bewildered outposts.
He marched straight up to where General Baird stood directing the retreat in the midst of his staff.
‘What the devil, sir?’ roared the veteran. ‘What’s this? Who are you? Where did you get those breeches?’
Peter saluted gravely in the exact regulation attitude, a dignified figure, keen and hardbitten in spite of the rags of dragoon’s uniform in which he was clad.
Holding himself like a lance under the questioning gaze of his sometime General, Peter delivered himself as calmly as if he were about to give the report on the states of men and horses in the ordinary course of duty.
‘I have come to report, Sir David, that by the instructions of Ensign Maxwell, I have taken and destroyed the French artillery upon Rump Hill – twenty three-pounders and a dozen long twelves – ships’ guns those – and how they got them up there is more than I can guess.’
‘Humph!’ snorted the General angrily. ‘Taken Rump Hill! Destroyed the guns! Well, I call it a damn liberty! You’re a rascally renegade, sir, and I order you out of my sight, or by God, sir, I’ll have you shot for insolence to your superior officer!’
‘Thank you, Sir David!’ said Peter calmly. And saluting with the utmost correctness, he strode back to his command, which had stood all the time with their muskets at the ready.
But already the topsails of the English squadron were rounding the point of Ferrol. The French had been held in check, and General Moore could say, ‘Now I hope that the people of England will be satisfied.’
Peter found Froyla waiting for him, a proud light in her eyes of dusky emerald.
‘What said he, the great man on the horse? He did not embrace and kiss you on both cheeks?’
‘No,’ said Peter, ‘it is not the English custom.’
‘Then what did he say? He must have rejoiced.’
‘He gave me titles of nobility,’ said Peter calmly.
‘What were they? Is there a pension attached?’
‘He promoted me marquis and general,’ asserted Peter. ‘He promised me a great reward from the King of England -’
‘Then,’ cried Froyla, ‘you will leave us – you will go back to the King of England to receive your rewards we have won for you. You will think no more of Cardoños and Félicé – no more of Don Severo!’
‘I renounce them all,’ said Peter nobly, ‘for the sake of one who is dearer to me than money or titles. I say pecunia tua tecum sit – which means ‘Keep your money and give me only Froyla, the daughter of Severo of La Giralda.’’
Froyla clasped Peter’s hand in both of hers.
‘Oh,’ she cried impetuously, ‘I never dreamed that any man could be so noble.’
‘Nor I,’ said Peter, patting the girl’s heaving shoulders. ‘But what would you have? I cannot help it. I was made like that.’
And from the soul of Peter radiated the peace of a good action, while Froyla’s eyes were moist and soft with the thought of so great a renunciation.
About the Author
S. R. Crockett was born in Balmaghie, Galloway, in 1859 and died in France on April 16th, 1914. During his life, he had over 60 novels published (many of them serialised) and hundreds of short stories/sketches appeared in the popular magazines. He was one of Scotland’s bestselling and best known authors in his day, but now is barely known of. To commemorate the 100th anniversary of his death, The Galloway Raiders has been set up and a major collection of 32 of his Galloway-based fictional works has been republished by Ayton Publishing Limited.
To find out more about S. R. Crockett, you can join The Galloway Raiders for FREE at www.gallowayraiders.co.uk
To find out more about S. R. Crockett, you can join The Galloway Raiders for FREE at www.gallowayraiders.co.uk