Part 16
The anchor was weighed, the invisible propellers began to eddy the water round the stern, hoists of flags shot from the lockers to the yardarm, said their say, and descended in whirls of colour; yet everywhere was the same scrupulous economy of word and gesture. Officers and men were performing a task--that of getting under weigh--so familiar as to be almost mechanical; yet, conscious that they were carrying it out together for the last time, gave, as it were, a little exhibition of supreme competency, each for his own soul's private satisfaction.
The Captain, looking down on it all from the altitude of the bridge, saw that it was good. It was so good that it gave him a sort of lump in the throat. He knew the Chief Yeoman was watching him, awaiting the word that would send their last signal to the anchored remnant of the fleet ahead. Yet now it came to the moment, he hated the words those gaily coloured flags would spell.
"Odd numbered ships and even numbered ships"--thus you address a fleet--"Good-bye."
He glanced aft and saw the paying-off pendant take the wind of their passage, unfold its sinuous length, and float out into the breeze with the gilded bladder dancing lightly in the smoke above their wake--glanced ahead at their grey "comrades of the mist," lying patiently at anchor awaiting the summons that would bid them also "return in peace to enjoy the blessings of the land"--glanced finally at the Chief Yeoman....
They passed a Battleship at a cable's length, a towering mammoth whose superstructures were alive with men. From somewhere forward a man's voice reached them across the water: "Stand by to give three cheers.... Hip! Hip! Hip!" and a great roar of sound breaking like rollers against the hills of the South Shore, those misty wooded hills whose sameness they had cursed so often through four years of war.
Ship after ship cheered them as they passed. The rows of motionless figures standing stiffly at attention warmed to those cheers. They attributed their obvious gusto to the proud patches on funnels and side, the little Cruiser's battle scars. They were conscious of a clean record in the canteen ashore and on the upland playing-fields, for these things weigh in the quick reckoning of men's hearts at parting. But they were being cheered above all for the paying-off pendant they flew. All the world loves a lover, grateful to this ebullition of nature for reminder and promise alike. To the sailor, however, there is no fairer sight than a ship with 600 feet of white bunting floating astern. It may not be his ship, but it reminds him that his turn will come.
A semaphore waved a parting message from a brother Captain: a cryptic jest that wrinkled the corners of the recipient's eyes; a great man stepped out on to the spacious grandeur of his quarter-deck, and raised his cap with a dignified, half-affectionate gesture of farewell.... And then they were sliding under the towering girders of the Forth Bridge.
Southward ho! With the threat of a north-easterly gale on the quarter to speed their heels: south and west for a night and a day, pricking off the familiar names of light vessels amid the steep yellow waves off the east coast; overtaking Channel traffic creeping out to seas where once more no fear was; red ensigns and white dipping in salute and acknowledgment; with the land like a grey shadow on the starboard hand; with war a grey shadow on the memory, fading fast....
Then, at daybreak, chequered forts ahead: cranes and sheerlegs rising out of the mist about the dockyard, distant spires catching the first of the sun. Home!
The Light Cruiser came slowly up harbour in tow of her attendant tugs, like a victor being escorted to his dressing-room by seconds. On all sides syrens hooted vociferously, ships in harbour manned and cheered, and all about the old weather-beaten brick houses by the water's edge was the flutter of flags and handkerchiefs: the welcoming cries of women came faintly across the stream.
By the afternoon the ship was in dock, and neither in the Wardroom nor on the mess deck did men stand upon the order of their going. "Leave!" was in the air: it was echoed in hammer blows on packing-cases, in the bumping of portmanteaux as they were dragged from store-rooms: epitomised perhaps by the Engineer Commander, who danced mid plaudits, solemnly and without grace, on the Wardroom hearthrug.
Entered the Lieutenant, Royal Naval Reserve, and laid his suit case, rug, and gloves upon the settee.
"Weel," he observed, "I'm awa'." The revolving figure stopped in the midst of a gyration; the onlookers stared: smiles somehow evaporated.
"Going, Jock?" said one blankly. "Going!" echoed the rest. It sounded absurd. The Mess without Jock! The Navy without Jock!
"Aye." The speaker shook hands gravely with the First Lieutenant. "The war's over.... Ye'll no' want the R.N.R. any longer...." His smile was a forced one, and a chorus of protests and farewells drowned his next words. They crowded round him, wringing his hand, buffeting his shoulders, recalling in allusions and catchwords the familiar intimacy of all these years of war. By comparison the emotions of yesterday's farewells in the North seemed superficial. They would all meet again, somewhere under the White Ensign.... But Jock was going; their Jock: dour, tough seaman: incomparable messmate. This was the parting of the ways.
"Back to the Mer-r-chant Service--coals an' bananas.... Maybe we'll meet again, though." He made for the door, and there turned as if to survey the mess for the last time. "Eh! But I've had a guid time!" He appeared to search his vocabulary for adequate emphasis.
"A bluidy guid time," he said, and was gone.
XI
UNTO THE HILLS
(1913)
For two hours the train from Nice had crossed and recrossed the River Var, as if uncertain which bank it should pursue. The journey had been punctuated by stoppages at innumerable small stations, apparently to enable the engine-driver to discuss politics with the proprietors of adjacent sawmills. The guard took no part in these discussions, but remained aloof--albeit within earshot--until his _confrère_ on the engine had scored his point. Then he blew a discordant blast on his horn, the driver climbed triumphantly back on to his engine, and we jolted on to the next political tourney-place.
Where the valley widens the line appeared to make up its mind and to decide definitely for the right bank. The sawmills and patches of Indian corn gave place to orchards and pretty farms; the mountains on either flank of the valley towered to more majestic altitudes. For perhaps the tenth time the brakes screeched, and we came to a standstill beside a deserted platform.
"Touet de Beuil!" said the guard gruffly, coming round to the carriage window. He was a man of few words, who appeared content to rely on the trumpet for any expression of his views or feelings.
"_Oui, oui!_" he confirmed irritably as I climbed out, slightly incredulous. "_C'est ça_--Touet de Beuil--_V'là_!" He jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the mountains which frowned above us; the horn blared forth a shrill note of defiance, and he swung himself on to the departing train.
I looked up to where he had indicated, and there, sure enough, perched crazily among pinnacles and buttresses of rock, was what appeared to be the stronghold of some medieval outlaw. I detected the brown roofs and quaint gables of a hamlet, apparently accessible to none but the eagles, yet boasting in this land of equality and fraternity a railway station of its own.
Footsteps approached me as I stood adjusting the straps of my knapsack, and one of the inhabitants hurried down the lane on to the platform. Childish though it may seem, I was frankly disappointed. The new arrival was a meek-looking little man dressed in black, wearing a bowler hat. In one hand he carried a gingham umbrella, and under his arm a buff-coloured hen of singular imperturbability. Now a brigand may wear a bowler hat; moreover, he may carry a chicken under his arm, and yet preserve an air of outlawry. But to descend from a mountain fastness that belonged by rights to the sixteenth century and brandish an umbrella at a departing train was carrying the incongruous a shade too far.
True, he swore roundly, as every good brigand should, at having missed the train. But I could not forgive him his gingham gamp.
A narrow gorge struck off into the mountains, and the path, skirting the torrent that thundered below, wound its way upwards. Limestone cliffs with ferns clinging to precarious footholds rose precipitously on either side, and high up, a thousand feet or more, the tops of trees showed up stark against the blue sky. To the brawling accompaniment of the stream I walked for an hour, when the gorge widened into a rock-strewn valley and I came in sight of an inn. In a rubbish-littered courtyard the proprietress was ministering to a stricken pony that lay buried beneath straw in the shelter of an outhouse: she turned at my approach.
I could lunch there--assuredly. She would prepare an omelette forthwith, and François could wait. François had broken his back somehow, and was, as far as I could gather from the lady's patois and the patient's appearance, in a baddish way.
The sound of our voices brought a travelling bag-man to the door. My arrival had evidently interrupted his _déjeûner_, and he courteously postponed its completion to stay in the sun and gossip while mine was being got ready. He was an Italian, and had come from somewhere across the frontier--I forget where--on foot. It was a long way, I remember.
He glanced at my discarded knapsack: "And monsieur is also on the road?" I explained that it was for pleasure, and his eye lit. "Just so--_che comprende_. And so a man may walk many a long mile, with the sun in his eyes and the wind on his cheek and the noise of running water at his side for company--is it not?" Something of a poet--or at all events a kindred soul, for all he ate garlic "to" his _déjeûner_ and his visit to a barber was sadly over-due.
"And monsieur goes to Beuil? It is but fourteen kilometres: I have myself descended from there this morning. To climb Mounier? A brave adventure"--he flourished his wooden toothpick--"when one is strong, and young. Yes, the snow lies _au sommet_ and the nights are cold _là haut_."
We parted after lunch and I resumed my journey along the slope of the valley. Half an hour later the road forsook the more cultivated ground, and, turning sharp to the left, commenced a series of zigzags up the steep side of the cliff. Here the limestone ceased suddenly, and the red rock proper of the Gorge du Cians commenced. It was a dull, deep red, the shade of Egyptian porphyry, and the line of demarcation between it and the limestone of the valley curiously distinct. At the final turn of the path I entered the gorge, and there, where an ancient Roman watch-tower still stood, I turned for a last look down the valley. The sun was gilding the russet autumn foliage, and the poplars along the river-bed stood up like slender golden spires. The fig and cypress still held to their brave, hard green, but elsewhere the vegetation rioted through every shade of brown and yellow. The white road wound away like a thread to the southward, and far off among the trees a curl of smoke showed the inn where I had lunched. It was the second stage of the journey accomplished, and already I had experienced the regrets of a parting, for the Italian bagman with his vile French and muddy gaiters, the companion of a moment, was one who understood the call of
"A shadowy highway cool and brown, Alluring up and enticing down."
The Gorge du Cians is a great cleft in the rock, with precipitous sides. The road is cut out of the rock itself and climbs bravely, with the river thundering along three or four hundred feet below it, and the cliffs towering a thousand feet above. It is a versatile road, too: no two hundred yards are straight, and occasionally it goes to earth and tunnels beneath an outflung buttress. In places the gorge is so steep that no vegetation but moss and lichen can cling to its sides. At others it leans back to make a lap, as children say, for a wilderness of trees and some copper-coloured shrub like a Canadian maple. Once it narrowed overhead to a few feet, a mere crevice in the mountains.
Tiny streams trickled down to join the parent stream below, and presently I came to a spot where a veritable cascade poured on to the road from an overhanging ledge. I ran the gauntlet of this crystal shower, and sat awhile to listen to the voices of the gorge. The scent of damp earth and wet greenery, the murmur of the stream below, and a thousand tricklings and plashings, played their part in the sylvan melody. Somewhere surely along this path I should turn a corner and encounter Pan, or view him afar off among the tree-boles where the sunbeams wheeled to mark the passing hours! But I only met, as the afternoon wore on, an old man driving a donkey laden with faggots; though once (I admit with a momentary quickening of the heart) I did see a goat, horned and venerable of aspect, silhouetted against the pale sky.
The afternoon shadows crept higher up the wooded slopes; the air got cooler as I progressed, and when I emerged from the gorge a chilly wind sprang up. The sun dipped out of sight and the broad valley took on a more sombre tint. Here for the first time I encountered the pines, and in place of the red rock of the gorge, sad-coloured limestone appeared between the foliage. Then it was I realised that the wine-red earth and rock had all the while been reminding me of my own Devon, and felt suddenly homesick.
An occasional woodcutter's hut appeared in a clearing among the trees, and once or twice I overtook workers returning to the village; but it was not until an hour later that I turned a shoulder of the mountains and saw my destination. It was the quaintest jumble of brown roofs and gables, clinging for all the world like a colony of swallows' nests to the end of a sort of promontory that projected into the valley. No two lines about ii were parallel, and behind, where the ground rose steeply towards the encircling mountains, towered Mount Mounier, snow-capped and ghostly in the twilight. The road wound round to the base of the promontory and entered the village at the farther end. But by following a rocky path I scaled the steeper side, and reached the main street through a labyrinth of steps and alleys as the vesper-bell of the little church stopped ringing. An inn, a wineshop, the church, and a general dealer's were the outstanding features of the hamlet. The rest of the buildings (to the number of perhaps a couple of score) were grouped haphazard around them. Few lights were showing, and I only saw one person, a woman, who was singing some plaintive lullaby at her doorstep.
An old man at the inn showed me to my room, and while he prepared dinner I strolled out towards a knoll of ground behind the village where a crucifix stood. The woman who had been singing had gone indoors, leaving the night curiously silent. The wind had dropped: a full moon struggled above the fringe of firs, and the shadow of the crucifix took a more definite outline across the tint, where the hoar-frost was already glimmering. In the utter stillness I heard one sound, the tinkle of a sheep bell far off across the valley, and holding my breath to listen better, was aware of the ticking of the watch upon my wrist.
Here it was the village priest joined me. He had concluded vespers, and was taking his evening stroll.
"And monsieur has come all this way to climb Mounier? If the question is permitted, whom has he selected as a guide?"
I explained that I proposed going alone, and he shrugged his shoulders, nodding his head a little. Presently he lit the cigarette I had proffered, and in the flare of the match considered me with grave brown eyes.
"You are young, my son, and when one is young one must needs climb alone, _n'est ce pas_? One seeks the adventure--the brave adventure...." He sighed. "Then the heart of monsieur must be sound and his sinews strong. But once there, I am told the view is superb, and there is a hunter living near the top who will give you a meal at a moderate charge. The path is not difficult--when one is young and the heart sound...."
* * * * *
"_Cinq heures du matin, monsieur!_" The old man, who combined the duties of cook, waiter, chambermaid, and _maître-d'hôtel_, hammered at my door, and I awoke. A thin coating of ice had spread over the water in my jug, and through the open window the stars still shone with frosty brilliance. By the time I had finished a bowl of chocolate and stood outside in football "shorts," nailed boots, and sweater, the first hint of dawn was creeping over the edge of the hills.
Early as it was, a sleepy teamster was yoking up his horses outside and stamping on the road to warm his feet. I could see the summit of Mount Mounier, 9,000 feet above the level of the sea I had left but the day before. But there remained another 5,000 feet to climb, and 9,000 to descend ere I earned my bed that night. So with a "Good morning!" to the carter (who regarded it out of place and superfluous) I set forth.
The going was easy enough, and I simply steered for the snow-cap. For the first hour or so I crossed cultivated ground, which gave place to turf, cropped like an English lawn by sheep and goats, and finally to rough shale and boulders. The sun rose before I was high enough to see more than the sudden flush on a few isolated snow-capped peaks, but as I climbed steadily the whole panorama unfolded, and the rounded foothills, with their fir-clad slopes and glens, the village of Beuil, the valley up which I had come the day before, all dropped back into insignificance. By eight o'clock I had reached the snow, and could detect far above me a tiny speck where the huntsman's dwelling was. An hour later, and I heard the unmistakable bark of a dog.
A few wearisome zigzag paths, a struggle up some steps cut in the frozen snow, and I was greeted by a gaunt deer-hound, who sniffed round me and slobbered at my hands. A man came out of a two-roomed shanty of pine-logs and turf. He was cleaning a muzzle-loading gun, and put it down to meet me with extended hand.
"_Tu as bien grimpé, m'n ami!_" As we shook hands he placed his disengaged one over my heart with the air of a Harley Street specialist and nodded, smiling. "_Je t'ai vu, depuis sept heures.... Oui, tu as bien grimpé. C'est un cœur fort._" He was a wiry little man of about fifty, with a wrinkled face, burnt madder-brown by exposure to the sun and wind, a pair of hawk-like eyes, and an aquiline nose. In fact, altogether he looked very like a hawk.
"_Mais il faut monter juste au sommet, et après cela le déjeûner, n'est ce pas?_" I had not in fact reached the top. A saddle of rock stretched away up another 300 feet to the actual peak, and after a drink of ice-cold water I commenced the final ascent.
A cairn of stones marks the summit of Mount Mounier--a feature not uncommon to the tops of mountains. I sat there, as it were, on a pinnacle, in a stupendous amphitheatre of mountains. The horizon was mountains, the foreground mountains, range upon range, peak after snow-clad peak, stabbing the cloudless sky. The valleys were full of shadows, violet in the depths, claret-coloured--the very tint of lees of wine--as they neared the sunlight. And as the sun rose higher a distant peak would flush rose-pink and pale again. A little wind came from over the edge of the world, the scented messenger of far-distant pine-trees, and passed whispering to another peak ten miles away.
I sat for quite a while musing, as might the gods upon Olympus, over the littleness of man and his affairs; and in truth, with my chin on a level with this majestic array of Nature's grandeur, some aloofness of spirit was pardonable. In the middle of my Jove-like meditations, however, I saw the figure of my host, 300 feet below, gesticulating.
"But, the omelette..." he protested, when I descended. As I ate and drank he bustled about the hut, voluble in a queer clipped patois; a gossip, removed by choice or destiny 5,000 feet above his fellows, to live in company with his dog in this hut. I looked round it for some clue to his pursuits: a couple of ice-axes and some coils of rope behind the door; a pair of skis in a corner; a shelf for crockery, with a powder-flask and a rosary hanging from a nail. A bed, a table and chair, a charcoal stove, and a few cooking implements: that was all.
After I had finished eating he led me outside, and, pointing with a gnarled forefinger, named one by one the peaks in view. He spoke of them familiarly--as one who refers to constant and intimate companions, but once or twice I had to shake my head in despair. There might have been a wedge-shaped opal-tinted shadow on the far-off haze, but I could not confess to more. The little hawk-eyed man chuckled indulgently.
"_Peut-être bien, peut-être bien. Mais j'ai l'habitude, moi._" Generously put, but I felt that I had failed in this supreme test, and it was significant that he no longer _tutoyait_ as at his first rapturous greeting.
An hour and a half later, as I was nearing the expanse of turf on my downward journey, I encountered an ancient of days leading a charcoal-laden donkey: to be more exact, the donkey appeared to be leading him. The three of us halted to exchange amenities, and I proffered the old man a cigar which remained in the bottom of my wallet. The ancient took it readily enough, then looked searchingly round as if we were a pair of conspirators in a drama. I was about to inquire the reason for these precautions when he laid a forefinger to his nose, and half-closing one rheumy eye, whispered huskily:
"_Vous êtes contrebandier--oui?_"
Twenty-four hours earlier I should have repudiated the suggestion. But after my communing with mountains, and the great solitude of the snows, one man's occupation seemed as good as another's. After all, it is not easy to give pleasure to one's fellows, and if it added flavour to the tobacco to suggest it had been smuggled from over the frontier, then a smuggler I would be.
I nodded darkly, and we shook hands. With very little encouragement I think he would have embraced me. "An adventurous life!" wheezed the hoary sinner as we parted; "ah, but one of brave adventure!"