Through Russian Snows (16 page)

"Well, what do you think?" he asked when they were alone.

"I should think that he will do splendidly, sir, and his being a
gentleman will make it very pleasant for me. But I should not like to
offer him as little as thirty shillings a week."

"I have no doubt that he would be delighted with it, Frank, but as he
will have to pay his lodgings out of it and furnish his wardrobe, we
might say two pounds, if you can afford it."

"I can afford it very well, sir. My aunt gave me a hundred pounds when I
came away from home, and that will pay for it for one year. I am sure I
shall like him."

"He impresses me very favourably too," Sir Robert said, "and perhaps I
may find a post for him here if we go out, though we need not think of
that at present. Well, let us go in to him again. I have no doubt that
the poor fellow is on thorns."

"I have talked it over with Mr. Wyatt," he went on when they had
returned to the sitting-room; "he will probably require your services
for a year, though possibly he may have to join his regiment sooner than
that. He is willing to pay two pounds a week for your services as his
instructor. Will that suit you?"

"It is more than sufficient," the Pole said in a broken voice. "For half
of that I could keep myself."

"Yes, but there will be your lodgings to pay, and other matters; and if
you are willing to accept two pounds, which appears to us a fair rate of
remuneration, we will consider that as settled. It is a cold night, Mr.
Strelinski. You had better take a glass of wine and a biscuit before you
venture out."

He fetched a decanter of port and a tin of biscuits from the sideboard,
and placed them in front of him; then he made a sign to Frank to leave
the room. In a few minutes he called him back again. Frank found the
Pole standing with his hat in his hand ready to leave. There was a look
of brightness and hope in his face, which was a strong contrast to his
expression on entering. He bowed deeply to Sir Robert, and took the hand
that Frank held out to him.

"You have saved me," he said, and then, without another word, turned and
left the room.

"I have insisted upon his taking ten pounds on account of his salary, as
I told him that he must have warm clothes and make a decent figure in
Canterbury. You are to deduct ten shillings a week from his pay till it
is made up. The poor fellow fairly broke down when I offered it to him.
There is no doubt that he is almost starved, and is as weak as a rat. He
is to come to-morrow at twelve o'clock. I have business that will take
me out all day, so you can have a quiet chat with him and break the
ice."

A FRENCH PRISON

Julian Wyatt had expected that there would be some formalities on his
arrival at Nantes—that he should probably be taken before a court of
some sort,—and he determined to make a protest, and to declare that he
had been forcibly brought over from England. At the same time he felt
that to do so would make little difference in his position. When Holland
was overrun with the French, all English residents were thrown into
prison, and the same thing had happened after the short peace; still he
determined to make the effort, for he thought that as a civilian he
might not be placed in a military prison, and might, therefore, have a
better chance of making his escape. He had, however, no opportunity for
protest or remonstrance. The captain of the lugger and two of his men
went ashore as soon as the craft was moored alongside the quay.

A quarter of an hour later they returned with a sergeant and two
soldiers. The captain pointed him out to the sergeant. The latter
crossed the plank on to the deck, put his hand on Julian's shoulder, and
motioned to him to follow him ashore.

"Good-bye, young fellow!" Markham said, as, feeling the uselessness of
protest or resistance, Julian moved towards the plank. "I am very sorry
for you, but there is nothing else to do, and you will be as well there
as anywhere, for you couldn't show your face in Weymouth. I will keep my
promise, never fear; and some day or other everyone shall know that you
had nothing to do with giving that fellow the end he deserved."

Julian was marched along the quay for some distance, and then through
the streets till they came to a large building. The sergeant rang the
bell at the gate. When it was opened he entered with Julian, leaving the
two soldiers without. A sub-officer of the prison came up, and the
sergeant handed to him a paper, which was an order signed by the mayor
for the governor of the prison to receive an English sailor, name
unknown, age twenty-one, who had been picked up at sea by the master of
the French lugger
Lucille
. The official gave a receipt to the sergeant
for the prisoner, and a warder then led Julian away to a vaulted hall,
where some forty or fifty men were either lying on some straw or were
walking up and down in the endeavour to warm themselves. Julian saw at
once that they were English sailors, although their clothes were for the
most part ragged and torn.

"Hulloa, mate!" one of them said as the door closed behind him. "Have
you come all alone? For the most part we arrive in batches. Where do you
hail from, and what was your ship?"

"I hail from Weymouth," Julian replied cheerfully, his habit of making
the best of things at once asserting itself. "I don't know that I can be
said to belong to any ship, but I made the passage across in a French
smuggling lugger, the
Lucille
. I suppose I ought to feel indebted to
them, for they brought me across without asking for any passage-money;
but they have played me a dirty trick here, for they have handed me over
to the authorities, as far as I can understand the matter, as a
man-of-war sailor they have picked up."

"What were you doing on board?" another sailor asked. "Did you have to
leave England in a hurry?"

"I left in a hurry because I could not help it. Going across the hills I
came quite accidentally upon one of the smugglers' hiding-places, and
was seized before I had time to say a word. There was a little
discussion among themselves as to what they would do with me, and I
should have had my throat cut if an Englishman among them had not known
that I was friends with most of the fishermen there, and had been
present once or twice when a cargo was run. So they finally made up
their minds to bring me over here, and as they feared I might, if I
returned, peach as to their hiding-place, they trumped up this story
about me, and handed me over to the French to take care of."

"Well, that story will do just as well as another," one of the sailors
laughed. "As to their taking care of you, beyond looking sharp that you
don't get away, the care they give you ain't worth speaking of. We are
pretty nigh starved, and pretty nigh frozen. Well, there is one thing,
we shall get out of it in two or three days, for we hear that we are all
to be marched off somewhere. A batch generally goes off once a
fortnight."

"Are you mostly men-of-war's men?"

"None of us, at least not when we were taken, though I reckon most of us
have had a spell at it one time or other. No; we all belong to two ships
that were captured by a couple of their confounded privateers. The one I
belonged to was bound for Sicily with stores for some of the troops
stationed there; the other lot were on their way to the Tagus. They
caught us off Finisterre within a couple of days of each other. We both
made a fight of it, and if we had been together when they came up, we
might have beaten them off; but we had not any chance single-handed
against two of them, for they both carried much heavier metal than we
did. I don't think we should have resisted if we had not thought that
the noise of the guns might have brought one of our cruisers up. But we
had no such luck, and so here we are."

"I suppose, lad, you haven't got anything to pay your footing with? They
did not leave us a
sou
in our pockets, and I don't suppose the
smugglers were much more generous to you."

"Yes, they were," Julian said. "I have a guinea and some odd silver. I
will keep the odd silver for the present, for it may come in handy later
on; but here is the guinea, and if there are any means of getting
anything with it, order what you like."

There was a shout of satisfaction, followed by an animated debate as to
how the money should be spent. Julian learnt that there was no
difficulty in obtaining liquor in the prison, as one of the warders had
permission to sell it in quantities not exceeding one glass, for which
the charge was four
sous
, and also that prisoners with money could
send out for food. After much discussion, it was finally settled that
forty-five pints of soup and the same number of rations of rum should be
obtained. The soup was but three
sous
a pint, which would leave them
enough for a tot of grog all round next day. One of them, who had been
first mate on board—for Julian found that only the masters had separate
treatment as officers—went across to the man who supplied liquor. The
warder soon returned with him, carrying four bottles, a large stone jar
of water, and two or three small tin cups. The mate, who spoke French
pretty fluently, had a sharp argument with him as to the amount in
French money that he should receive as change out of the guinea; and as
he had learnt from one of the last batch that had been sent away, the
proper rate of exchange in the town, he finally got the best of it, and
the work of serving out the liquor then began.

A few of the sailors tossed off their allowance without water, but most
of them took it half and half, so as to make it go further. Undoubtedly
if the warder would have sold more than one allowance to each man the
whole of the guinea would at once have been laid out, but he was firm on
this point. Soon afterwards the prisoners' dinner was brought in. It
consisted of a slice of black bread to each man and a basin of very thin
broth, and Julian was not surprised at the hungry look that he had
noticed on the men's faces.

"Pretty poor fare, isn't it, mate?" one of them said as he observed the
air of disfavour with which Julian regarded his rations. "It has been a
matter of deep calculation with these French fellows as to how little
would do just to keep a man alive, and I reckon they have got it to a
nicety. This is what we have three times a day, and I don't know whether
one is most hungry when one turns in at night, or when one turns out in
the morning. However, we shall be better off to-night. We get our supper
at six, and at eight we shall get in that stuff you paid for. It is a
precious deal better than this, I can tell you; for one of our chums
managed to hide two or three shillings when they searched us, and got
some in, and it was good, and no mistake; and they give half a slice of
bread with each pint. It is better bread than this black stuff they give
us in prison. Though an English dog would turn up his nose at it, still
it helps to fill up."

The second supper was voted a great success, and after it was eaten, the
men, cheered by its warmth, and freed for a time from the annoying
feeling of hunger they generally experienced, became quite merry.
Several songs were sung, but at the conclusion of a grand chorus an
armed warder came in and ordered them to be silent.

"If the governor hears you making that row," he said, "you will have one
of your meals cut off to-morrow."

The threat was effectual, and the men lay down in the straw as close as
they could get to each other for warmth, as by this means the thin rug
each had served out to him sufficed to spread over two bodies, and their
covering was thus doubled. Julian had really another guinea besides the
silver in his pocket, but he had thought it better to make no mention of
this, as in case of his ever being able to make his escape, it would be
of vital service to him. The following day there was another council
over the ten francs still remaining. A few would have spent it in
another allowance of rum all round, but finally, by an almost unanimous
vote, it was determined that fifteen clay pipes should be obtained, and
the rest laid out in tobacco. The forty-five were solemnly divided into
three watches. Each member of a watch was to have a pipe, which was to
be filled with tobacco. This he could smoke fast or slow as he chose,
or, if he liked, could use the tobacco for chewing. At the end of half
an hour the pipes were to be handed over to the next watch, and so on in
regular order until evening.

This plan was carried out, and afforded unbounded satisfaction, and many
loudly regretted that it had not been thought of at first, as the money
spent on grog would have largely extended the time the tobacco would
hold out. So jealous did the men become of their store of tobacco that
the mate was requested to fill all the pipes, as some of the men in
helping themselves rammed their pipes so closely that they held double
the proper allowance of tobacco. This treat at once established Julian
as a popular character, and upon his lamenting, when talking to the
mate, his inability to speak French, the latter offered to teach him as
much as he could. Directly he began three or four of the younger sailors
asked to be allowed to listen, a school was established in one corner of
the room, and for several hours a day work went on, both master and
pupils finding that it greatly shortened the long weary hours of
idleness.

Three weeks passed without change. Then they were told that next morning
they would be marched away to make room for another batch of prisoners
that had been brought into the fort that afternoon. All were glad of the
change, first, because it was a change, and next, because they all
agreed they could not be worse off anywhere than they were at Nantes.
They were mustered at daybreak, formed up in fours, and with a guard of
twenty soldiers with loaded muskets marched out from the prison gates.
The first day's journey was a long one. Keeping along the north bank of
the Loire, they marched to Angers, which they did not reach until night
was falling. Many of the men, wholly unaccustomed to walking, were
completely worn out before they reached their destination, but as a
whole, with the exception of being somewhat footsore, they arrived in
fair condition. Julian marched by the side of the first mate, and the
lesson in French was a long one, and whiled away the hours on the road.