Lesbia Newman (1889)/Chapter 31
CHAPTER XXXI.
The 13th of October 189—.
As Lesbia, lame herself and driving her unsteady machine along at top speed, rushed again into Stratton, she heard the handbells and voices of criers, and saw groups of people gathered in the main street. Already in the near distance she had caught the words ‘battle’ and ‘Ireland,’ and now heard all clearly, as she dismounted with a backward spring amid the crowd. ‘Great Battle by Land and Sea near Queenstown, Ireland! General Redhill and Admiral St George both engaged! The Invaders attacked in front and flank! Terrible fighting! Latest Dublin despatch! Great Battle in progress since nine O'clock this morning!’
The noise of the criers, the excited talking at the doors of public-houses and elsewhere, prevented anything being heard here of the ominous sound which the westerly breeze was bringing from afar across the still water, but after hurrying to the post office and wiring to Dulham as we have seen, Lesbia, who was too excited to keep quiet anywhere, mounted her bicycle again, and in a minute or two was in the country on her way back to Bude, the deadly boom filling her ears all the while, as before. On arriving, she found every house had its occupants standing in front, listening with sombre faces. Mrs Whyte met her on the road some three hundred yards from the villa, and Lesbia dismounted that they might walk back together.
‘It is that, Lesbia, eh?’
‘Certainly it is, the battle of Roche’s Tower. You will hardly believe me, Mrs Whyte, when I tell you that my mother had a weird day-dream about it more than two years ago, and that I went over the very ground myself this time last year.’
‘How strange! Well, I would almost rather it had been an earthquake as we thought it was, than this; we might have escaped for the fright. A battle is worse. Think of the desolation left in so many homes, and the sufferings of the wounded!’
‘Yes, it’s very sad, Mrs Whyte,’ answered the young girl, her luminous eyes moistening. ‘Listen! the firing is getting heavier; it must be an awful battle.’
‘What madness can have inspired our Ministry to embark in such a war, or our Legislature to sanction it?’ said Mrs Whyte.
‘For my part,’ remarked her husband, who had just joined them, ‘I believe they’ll have a lesson, these people. I shouldn’t be at all surprised if Redhill were to get a thrashing, and then Ireland will go. We ought to have let her go when we might with a good grace, then she would have stood by us. Now there'll be the devil to pay. But no doubt there are parties at home and abroad whom this game suits.’
‘A pretty game indeed!’ said Lesbia bitterly, as the roar of the artillery, some two hundred miles distant, swelled louder again.
‘Yes, war’s a dreadful thing,’ said Mrs Whyte, with a sigh, ‘and I do not see how any circumstances can ever justify it.’
‘I don’t know, Mrs Whyte,’ said Lesbia; ‘I think the cause of liberty justifies it, horrible as it is. But let us hope this battle may be the finish for ever, so far as England is concerned.’
‘I shall not be at all surprised if it proves to be the finish so far as England is concerned,’ said Mr Whyte dryly. ‘However, I don’t think we shall let our authorities carry their fun quite so far as the sack of London. A new Ministry and Parliament will simply have to make peace by reversing and disowning the acts of the present Government. It'll be a valuable but dear experience; the country will fare sumptuously on humble pie.’
‘Please ’m’, said Mrs Whyte’s parlour-maid, in a tremulous voice, but encouraged by the word ‘pie,’ which had caught her ear as she came forward, ‘I was to ask what you’d have for luncheon. Cook hasn’t got anything hot ready; this dreadful thing has put us all out. ‘There’s the cold beef and—
‘All right, anything ‘ll do, Susan; I don’t think any of us will take much luncheon to-day.’
‘No, indeed,’ Lesbia assented; ‘and it’s getting worse! See, the windows rattle now, don’t they, Mr Whyte?’
But if windows were rattling slightly on the Cornish coast, they were shivered into fragments at Queenstown itself. By this time very few panes of glass were left in the pretty hillside town overlooking the basin of Cork Cove, now shrouded in the battle smoke. The terrific cannonade on the water and on the hills beyond had worked almost as much havoc by its vibration as if it had been throwing shells into the town, which, as a matter of fact, was not hit once. The commotion of the falling glass scared the inhabitants out of their homes, and there was a general stampede to the hill top, whence the view of the great fight extended furthest. Cork, though out of sight of the battle, was but little less disturbed than Queenstown. Crowds, frantic with ardour, waving green flags, shouting national songs, cheering the various demagogues who harangued them from platforms, improvised on the tops of vehicles, bands playing, and processions forming, surging along the thoroughfares toward the Queenstown road and railway, and swaying against the pedestal of the placid statue of Father Mathew near the bridge—all this hubbub, which at another time would have been an uproar in itself, was now overwhelmed by a far mightier sound; for all day long the crackling thunder pealed, and tore, and shook the earth, from the awful scene of carnage only a few miles away.
To return to our friends at Bude.
‘They’re engaged by sea and land, you say,’ observed Mr Whyte. ‘I shouldn’t have thought any landing could be effected until our fleet had first been beaten off.’
‘Or surprised,’ answered Lesbia. ‘The enemy has forced entrance to Cork Harbour, and the two fleets are pounding away at each other inside the great basin, which no doubt makes a tremendous echo to heavy ordnance; while the armies are engaged in the valley between the long hills which extend northward from the ocean coast to the southern shore of the basin. I know all about it—I’ve been over the ground; and my mother had a dream or vision of this battle long ago.’
‘Gracious! have I been harbouring a witch all this time?’ said Mr Whyte, with a very forced laugh.
‘Witch or not, you’ll see the accounts will confirm what I say,’ answered Lesbia positively. ‘And now, dear friends,’ she added, ‘with your consent, I must run once more into Stratton to get the earliest news of the result—thanks, no, I couldn’t eat or drink now, I couldn’t fancy it, while death and wounds are sounding in my ears.’
‘Won't you be over fatigued, dear?’ said Mrs Whyte, in faint remonstrance.
‘Fatigued! what are they over there?’ replied Lesbia solemnly, pointing with one hand to the ocean horizon, whence the sullen roar boomed on, while she laid the other on the head of her bicycle and led it out again. She was very stiff and lame, and was made more so by a mismount, catching in her saddle and tipping down on the bruised side; but she picked up and went at it again with a will, and after a wobble or two across the road, was bowling along at the same risky pace as before.
‘I believe that girl wishes she were in the battle herself,’ said Mrs Whyte, looking after her. ‘She might almost as well be.’
Arrived a third time in Stratton—it was now half-past two in the afternoon—she found that a further despatch was in the mouths of the criers. ‘Gallant Attack along the whole line! The Enemy repulsed from left of his position with Heavy Loss! The Battle continues!”
This raised the spirits of the very young people, and they gave vent to cheers. But to others the sobering reflection occurred that nothing could be counted upon so early in the day, and it was known that the British had to deal with a superior force.
Four o’clock. Another despatch cried. ‘Terrible Fighting and Severe Loss! Lord Redhill still maintains his position! The Reserve called up! The Battle continues!’
This looked very bad, Lesbia thought. Still maintains his position! Is that the fruit of the gallant attack along the whole line, and the partial victory on the right wing? Why call up the reserve? And never a word about Admiral St George and the fleet, although it was known that he had been engaged from the first! Bad! bad! Still these telegrams might be garbled by speculators. And giving two-pence to a boy to take charge of her bicycle, she moved restlessly about, talking with various groups, who, of course, knew no more than she did, perhaps less. The sun was beginning to get low and to throw long shadows; the breeze sank too.
Five o’clock. Another despatch cried, ‘Great Slaughter! All the Reserve engaged! Admiral St George making splendid Defence! The Battle continues!’
This was a damper for the most sanguine. Everyone felt the uselessness of trying to put a good face on the matter; there could be no doubt that the day was going against the brave but inadequate British force, which now for eight hours had been striving stubbornly against tremendous odds. Lesbia was seized with an impulse to ride back to Bude, but she had to get assistance to mount. Out once more in the quiet of the country again, she slackened speed to listen. The deep thunder from the west, after one awful peal, was sensibly decreasing, until, by the time she reached the villa just before dusk, she heard it no more. Somehow her spirits rose, and leaning her bicycle against the wall, she limped to the party still on the terrace, saying,—
‘It’s over—God knows with what result, I fear a disastrous one. But I'll have something to eat now, if I may; I’ve fasted long enough, and I can do them no good, poor fellows!’
‘Dinner ’ll be ready in two or three minutes,’ said Mrs Whyte; ‘you'll barely have time to house your bike, and wash your hands. I ordered it rather early, because none of us could eat any lunch.’
‘Oh, very well; and, Mrs Whyte, I hope you won’t scold me because I have wired home to say that I start to-morrow, as originally planned. I’ve enjoyed a long visit to you now, and I know my mother will be wanting me.’
‘I’m so glad you’ve enjoyed your visit, and I hope it won’t be your last, dear,’ she replied. ‘Well, I can quite understand your wish to get home and away from these terrible associations. We'll send you, bag and baggage, to the morning train.’
On retiring that night, Lesbia found that her morning’s cropper had hurt her more than she had supposed during the excitement of the eventful day. Her right wrist was badly sprained, her right hip bruised and stiff, and she required the assistance of Mrs Whyte’s maid to pack her portmanteau. Her first sleep was passed in a weird dream. She found herself on a line of high downs under a cloudy midnight, lit up by blood-red flames leaping from a brick-kiln. In that lurid glare she could discern the forms of men and horses lying about on the ground, and of hooded female figures moving about and stooping down among them. She woke up with a scared sensation, but turning on her other side, fell into a heavy and dreamless sleep until Susan knocked at the door with hot water at a quarter to eight in the morning.
After breakfast, Mr Whyte drove her to the station at Stratton, carrying the bicycle on the luggage in the back of the pony-carriage, for its owner was in no condition to ride it. ‘The rumours of a great reverse had already reached Bude before they started, and the morning papers, just come down to Stratton, confirmed the news.
‘Gracious!’ exclaimed Lesbia, holding out the Daily Twaddler at arm’s-length, ‘twenty-seven thousand hors de combat on our side; number of prisoners not mentioned; General Lord Gurth Redhill killed at the head of the cavalry, which was annihilated; the remnant of the disbanded army flying pell-mell toward Dublin; Admiral St George surrendered, with all of his ships that were not sunk—this is indeed worse than we had any idea of; there has not been such a disaster since Senlac!’
‘The proof of the Bungler pudding is in the national eating, my dear,’ said Mr Whyte quietly, thrusting his hands into his pockets. ‘Perhaps this will satisfy the public appetite for some little time—say, until we can have the pleasure of a Battle of Queenstown fought in England itself. Meanwhile, we must see about your ticket. London, of course; where shall you stop?’
‘At the Great Western Hotel. I have been there before. I shall call on the Hawknorbuzzards to-morrow, and hear all about it, and what is to be done; then I can go home by an afternoon train—but where are Solicitude and Perdition?’
‘Solicitude and Perdition!’
‘My portmanteau and umbrella. Oh, all right, in that corner. I call the portmanteau Solicitude, because I am always in a fidget to see it is not left behind, and the umbrella Perdition, because it is always getting lost. Here comes the train.’
Mr Whyte laughed.
‘What trifles amuse us mortals at great crises!’
‘Yes, indeed, Mr Whyte, you may well say so; it is not with me that solicitude and perdition have most concern at this terrible time. I suppose there will be a vast subscription to do what money can do for the sufferers. I will send you a line by first post on getting home. Good-bye, and many thanks.’
Three days afterwards a post-card announced her safe arrival at Dulham.