By Conduct and Courage: A Story of the Days of Nelson

After being for some three hours entangled, the two ships separated, the Vengeur tearing away the Brunswick’s anchor. As they drifted apart, some well-aimed shots from the Brunswicksmashed her enemy’s rudder-post and knocked a large hole in the counter. At this moment the Ramillies, sailing up, opened fire at forty yards’ distance at this particular hole. In a few minutes she reduced the Vengeur to a sinking condition, and then proceeded to chase the Achille. The Vengeur now surrendered. The Brunswick, however, could render no assistance, all her boats being damaged, but, hoisting what sail she could, headed northward with the intention of making for port. During the fight the Brunswick lost her mizzen, and had her other masts badly damaged, her rigging and sails cut to pieces, and twenty-three guns dismounted. She lost three officers and forty-one men killed; her captain, second lieutenant, one midshipman, and one hundred and ten men wounded. Captain Harvey only survived his wounds a few months.

The greater portion of the crew of the Vengeur were taken off by the boats of the Alfred, Culloden, and Rattler, but she sank before all could be rescued, and two hundred of her crew, most of whom were wounded, were drowned. Among the survivors were Captain Renaudin and his son. Each was ignorant of the rescue of the other, and when they met by chance at Portsmouth their joy can be better imagined than described.

The Tartar returned to the blockade of Toulon after the work in Corsica was done. When she had been there some time she was ordered to cruise on the coast, where there were several forts under which French coasting-vessels ran for shelter when they saw an English sail approaching, and she was, if possible, to destroy them. There was one especially, on one of the Isles d’Hyères, which the Tartar was particularly ordered to silence, as more than any other it was the resort of coasters. The Tartar sailed in near enough to it to exchange shots, and so got some idea of the work they had to undertake; then, having learned all she could, she stood out to sea again. All preparations were made during the day for a landing; arms were distributed, and the men told off to the boats. After nightfall she again sailed in, and arrived off the forts about midnight. The boats had already been lowered, and the men took their places in them while the Tartar was still moving through the water, and, dividing into three parties, made respectively for the three principal batteries.

Dimchurch was not in the boat in which Will had a place, as he rowed stroke of the first gig and Will was in the launch. Tom was also in another boat, but was in the same division. No lights were to be seen, and absolute silence reigned. Noiselessly the men landed and formed up on the beach. To reach the batteries they had to climb the cliff by a zigzag pathway, up which they were obliged to go in single file. They arrived at the summit without apparently creating a suspicion of their presence, and then advanced at a run. Suddenly three blue lights gleamed out, illuminating the whole of the ground they had to traverse, and at the same moment a tremendous volley was fired from the battery. Simultaneously fire opened from the other batteries, showing that the boats’ crews had all arrived just at the same instant, and that while the French were supposed to be asleep they were awake and vigilant. Indeed, from the heaviness of the fire there was little question that the force on the island had been heavily reinforced from the mainland.

Numbers of the men fell, but nevertheless the sailors rushed forward fearlessly and reached the foot of the fort. This was too high to be climbed, so, separating, they ran round to endeavour to effect an entrance elsewhere. Suddenly they were met by a considerable body of troops. The first lieutenant, who commanded the division, whistled the order for the sailors to fall back. This was done at first slowly and in some sort of order, but the fire kept up on them was so hot that they were compelled to increase their pace to a run. A stand was made at the top of the pass, as here the men were only able to retreat in single file. At length the survivors all reached the beach and took to the boats again under a heavy fire from the top of the cliffs, which, however, was to some extent kept down by the guns of the Tartar. The other divisions had suffered almost as severely, and the affair altogether cost the Tartar fifty killed and over seventy wounded. Will was in the front rank when the French so suddenly attacked them, and was in the rear when the retreat began. Suddenly a shot struck him in the leg and he fell. In the confusion this was not noticed, and he lay there for upwards of an hour, when, the fire of the Tartar having ceased, the French came out with lanterns to search for the wounded. Will was lifted and carried to some barracks behind the fort, where his wound was attended to. They asked whether he spoke French, and as, though he had studied the language whenever he had had time and opportunity and had acquired considerable knowledge of it, he was far from being able to speak it fluently, he replied that he did not, a French officer came to him.

“What is your name, monsieur?” he asked.

“William Gilmore.”

“What is your rank?”

“Midshipman.”

“Age?”

“Nearly nineteen.”

“Nationality, English” was added.

“What ship was that from which you landed?”

There was no reason why the question should not be answered, and he replied: “The Tartar, thirty-four guns.”

“Ah, you have made a bad evening’s business, monsieur!”the officer said. “When the ship was seen to sail in and sail away again, after firing a few shots, we felt sure that she would come back to-night, and five hundred men were brought across from the mainland to give you a hot reception. And, parbleu, we did so.”

“You did indeed,” Will said, “a desperately hot reception. I cannot tell what our loss was, but it must have been very heavy. You took us completely by surprise, which was what we had intended to do to you. Well, it is the fortune of war, and I must not grumble.”

“You will be sent to Toulon as soon as you can be moved, monsieur.”

Three other wounded officers had fallen into the hands of the enemy, and these were placed in the same room as Will. One was the third lieutenant, another the master’s mate, and the third was a midshipman. They were well treated and cared for and were very cheery together, with the exception of the lieutenant, whose wound was a mortal one, and who died two days after the fight.

A month after their reception into the hospital all were able to walk, and they were taken across in a boat to the mainland and sent to Toulon. They were all asked if they would give their parole, and though his two companions agreed to do so, Will refused. He was accordingly sent to a place of confinement, while the other two were allowed to take quarters in the town.

Will was privately glad of this, for, though both were pleasant fellows, he thought that if he were to make his escape it must be alone, and had the others been quartered with him he could not well have left them. His prison was a fort on a hill which ran out into the sea, and Will could see the sails of the blockading vessels as they cruised backwards and forwards. He also commanded a view over the town, with its harbour crowded with shipping, its churches, and fortifications. He longed continually for the company of his two faithful followers, Dimchurch and Tom. They had been with him in all his adventures, and he felt that if they were together again they would be able to contrive some plan of escape. At present no scheme occurred to him. The window of the room in which he was confined was twenty feet from the ground, and was protected by iron bars. In front was a wall some twelve feet high, enclosing a courtyard in which the garrison paraded and drilled. At night sentinels were planted at short intervals, from which Will concluded that there must be many other prisoners besides himself in the fort. He was attended by an old soldier, with whom he often had long chats.

“They certainly know how to make prisons,” he grumbled to himself. “If it was not that I shall never lose hope of something turning up, I would accept my parole.”

After he had been there for three months he was one day led out and, with three other midshipmen, taken down to a prison in the town. He had no doubt that prisoners of more importance had arrived, and that he and the others had been moved to make way for them. A month later they were again taken out, and, having been joined by a hundred other prisoners under a strong guard, were marched out of the town. There were five officers among them, and the rest were seamen. All were glad of the change, though it was not likely to be for the better. Will was sorry, inasmuch as at Toulon he could always hope that if he escaped from prison he would be able to get hold of a boat and row out to the blockading squadron. Inland he felt that escape would be vastly more difficult. Even if he got out of prison he knew but little French, and therefore could hardly hope to make his way across country. They trudged along day after day, each according to his fancy, some sullen and morose, others making the best of matters and trying to establish some speaking acquaintance with their guards, who evidently regarded the march as a sort of holiday after the dull routine of life in a garrison town. Will, who had during his imprisonment at Toulon studied to improve his French to the best of his ability by the aid of some books he had obtained and by chatting with his jailer, worked his hardest to add to his knowledge of the language, and as the French soldiers were quite glad to beguile the time away by talking with their captives, he succeeded at the end of the journey, which lasted nearly a month, in being able to chat with a certain amount of fluency. Verdun was one of the four places in which British prisoners were confined. At that time France had fifteen thousand prisoners, England forty thousand. By an agreement between the governments these were held captive in certain prisons, so that they could, when occasion offered, be exchanged; but owing to the vastly greater number of English prisoners the operation went on very slowly. The health of the prison was bad, the large number confined in the narrow space, and the lack of sanitary arrangements, causing a vast amount of fever to prevail.

When he got to Verdun, Will continued to devote himself to the study of French. He knew that, should he escape, he could have no hope of finding his way across country unless he could speak the language fluently, and accordingly he passed the whole day in conversation with the guards and others employed about the prison. These were inclined to regard his anxiety to become proficient in the language as a national compliment. Some of the prisoners also knew French well, so that at the end of four months he could talk with perfect fluency. He was a good deal laughed at by the English officers for the zeal he was displaying in studying French, for, as they said, he might as well try to get to the moon as out of Verdun. He accepted their chaff good-humouredly, and simply said: “Time will show, but for my part I would as soon be shot as continue to live as prisoner here.”

Many of the prisoners passed their time in manufacturing little trifles. The sailors, for the most part, made models of ships; some of them were adepts at sewing patchwork quilts, and got their warders to purchase scraps of various materials for the purpose. The soldiers were also, many of them, skilled in making knick-knacks. These were sold in the town, chiefly to country people who came in to market, and so their makers were able to purchase tobacco and other little luxuries. A few of the prisoners were allowed every day to go into the town, which, being strongly walled, offered no greater facility for escape than did the prison itself. They carried with them and sold their own manufactures and those of other prisoners, and with the proceeds purchased the things they required.

Several times Will was one of those allowed out, and he set himself to work to make the acquaintance of some of the townspeople. As he was one of the few who could speak French, he had no difficulty in getting up a chatty acquaintance with several people, among them a young girl living in a house close to the wall. She had looked pitifully at him the first time he had come out with a small load of merchandise.

“Ah, my poor young fellow,” she said in French, “how hard it is for you to be thus kept a prisoner far from all your friends!”

“Thank you, mademoiselle,” he said, “but it is the fortune of war, and English as well as French must submit to it.”

“You speak French!” she said. “Yes, yes, monsieur, I feel it as much as any. There is one who is very dear to me a prisoner in England. He is a soldier.”

“Well, mademoiselle, it is a pity that they don’t exchange us. We give a lot of trouble to your people, and the French prisoners give a lot of trouble to ours, so it would be much better to restore us to our friends.”

“Ah! that is what I say. How happy I should be if my dear Lucien were restored to me.”

So the acquaintance became closer and closer, and at last Will ventured to say: “If I were back in England, mademoiselle, I might perhaps get your Lucien out. You could give me his name and the prison in which he is confined, and it would be hard if I could not manage to aid him to escape.”

“Ah, monsieur, that would be splendid!” the girl said, clasping her hands. “If you could but get away!”

“Well, mademoiselle, I think I could manage to escape if I had but a little help. For example, from the top window of this house I think I could manage to jump upon the wall, and if you could but furnish me with a rope I could easily make my escape. Of course I should want a suit of peasant’s clothes, for, you see, I should be detected at once if I tried to get away in this uniform. I speak French fairly now, and think I could pass as a native.”

“You speak it very well, monsieur, but oh, I dare not help you to escape!”

“I am not asking you to, mademoiselle; I am only saying how it could be managed, and that if I could get back to England I might aid your lover.”

The girl was silent.

“It could never be,” she murmured.

“I am not asking it, mademoiselle; and now I must be going on.”

The next time he came she said: “I have been thinking over what you said, monsieur, and I feel that it would be cowardly indeed if I were to shrink from incurring some little danger for the sake of Lucien. I know that he would give his life for me. We were to have been married in a fortnight, when they came and carried him off to the war. Now tell me exactly what you want me to do.”

“I want a disguise, the dress of a travelling pedlar. I could give you two English sovereigns, which would be ample to get that. I want also a rope forty feet long. Then you must let me go up through your house to the top story. I have been looking at it from behind, and see that from the upper window I could climb up to the roof, and I am sure that from there I could easily jump across the narrow lane to the wall.”

“I will do it, monsieur, partly for Lucien and partly because you are kind and gentle and,” she added with a little blush and laugh, “good-looking.”

“I thank you with all my heart, mademoiselle, and I swear to you that when I get to England I will spare no pains to find Lucien and aid him to escape.”

“When will you be out again, monsieur?”

“This day week.”

“I will have everything ready by that time,” she said.“You will come as late as you can?”

“Yes, I will come the last thing before we all have to return to the prison. It will be dark half an hour later.”

“But there are sentries on the walls,” she said.

“Yes, but not a large number. The prison is strongly guarded at night, but not the outer walls; I have often watched. There is one other thing which I shall want, and that is a sack in which to put this long box. I carry it, as you see, full of goods, but to-day I have intentionally abstained from selling any of them. I will leave the things with you if you have any place in which to hide them.”

“I will put them under my bed,” the girl said. “My grand’mère never goes into my room. Besides, she is generally away at the time you will arrive, and if she is not she will not hear you go upstairs, as she is very deaf. My father is one of the warders of the prison, and only comes home once a week.”

Will then returned to the prison. When the appointed day arrived he put only a few small articles into his box. For these he paid cash. Then he said good-bye to four or five of the officers with whom he was most friendly.

“You are mad to try to escape,” one of them said, “there is no getting over the walls.”

“I am going to try at any rate. I am utterly sick of this life.”

“But you may be exchanged before long.”

“It is most improbable,” he said. “Only a few are exchanged at a time, and as I have not a shadow of influence my name would not be included in the list.”

“But how are you going to attempt it?”

“Now that I must keep to myself. A plan may succeed once, but may fail if it is tried again. I really think I have a chance of getting through, but of course I may be caught. However, I am going to take the risk.”

“Well, I wish you luck, but I can hardly even hope that you will succeed.”

After going about the town as usual, without making any serious effort to sell his goods, Will made his way, towards the end of the day, to the house in the lane. Marie was standing at the door. As he approached she looked anxiously up and down the street, to be certain that there was no one there, and then beckoned to him to enter quickly. He obeyed at once, and she closed the door behind him. “Are you sure no one saw you enter, monsieur?” she said.

“Yes,” he said, “I am quite certain.”

“Now,” said Marie, “you must go at once up to the attic in case my grand’mère should come in. I have everything ready for you there. It will be dark in half an hour. I hear the prison bell ringing for the return of the prisoners who are out, but the roll-call is not made until all have returned to their cells and are locked up for the night, which will not be for an hour and a half, so you have plenty of time.”

“I thank you with all my heart, mademoiselle.”

He went up with her to the attic and looked out at the wall. The lane was only some twelve feet across, and he was convinced that he could leap it without difficulty. He emptied his box and repacked it, selecting chiefly articles which would take up the smallest amount of room. He made quite sure how he could best climb from the window to the roof above it, then he waited with what patience he could until it was absolutely dark. When he was ready to start he fastened the rope firmly round the box and said good-bye to Marie.

His last words were: “I will do my very best for Lucien, and when the war is over I will send you a gold watch to wear at your wedding.”

Then he got upon the window-sill, with the end of the rope tied round his waist, and with some little difficulty climbed to the roof of the house, and when he had got his breath began to pull at the rope and hoisted up the box. He had, before starting, put on the disguise Marie had bought for him, and handed her the remains of his uniform, telling her to burn it at once, and to hide away the buttons for the present, and throw them away the first time she left the town. “There will be a strict search,” he said, “for any signs of me, and those buttons would certainly betray you if they were found.”

When he got the box up he listened attentively for a little, and as, to his great joy, he could not hear the footsteps of a sentinel, he threw it on to the wall and jumped after it. He landed on his feet, and, picking up the box, ran along the wall till he came to a gun. He tied the end of the rope round this and slipped down. Then without a moment’s delay he slung the box over his shoulder and walked away. He had two or three outworks to pass, but luckily there were no guards, so he made his way through them without difficulty. All night he tramped on, and by morning was forty miles away from Verdun. He did not want to begin to ply his assumed trade till he was still farther away, so he lay down to sleep in a large wood. He had saved from his rations during the week a certain amount of bread, and he had bought a couple of loaves while wandering with his wares through the town. He slept for the best part of the day, and started again at night. Beyond making sure that he was going west he paid but little attention to the roads he followed, but, keeping steadily in that direction, he put another forty miles between him and Verdun by the following morning. Then after a few hours’ sleep he boldly went into a village and entered an inn.

“You are a pedlar,” the landlord said, “are you not?”

“Yes,” he said, “I am selling wares manufactured by the prisoners at Verdun.”

The news spread and the villagers flocked in to look at these curiosities.

“I bought them at a low price, and will sell at the same. They could not be made by ordinary labour at ten times the price I charge for them.”

The bait took, and soon a good many small articles were sold. Two hours later he again started on his way.

CHAPTER XV

ESCAPED

So he travelled across France, avoiding all large towns. Once or twice he got into trouble with a pompous village official on account of his not holding a pedlar’s permit; but the feeling of the people was strong in favour of a man who was selling goods for the benefit of poor prisoners, and, of course, he always had some plausible story ready to account for its absence. At last he came to Dunkirk. He had saved money as he went, and on his arrival there had eight louis in his pocket. He took up a lodging at a little cabaret, and, leaving his box, which was now almost empty, strolled down to the harbour. Fishing-boats were coming in and going out. Observing that they were not very well manned, probably because many of the men had been drafted into the navy, he selected one which had but four men, a number barely sufficient to raise the heavy lug-sail, and when she made fast alongside the quay he went on board.

“Do you want a hand?” he said, “I am not accustomed to the sea, but I have no doubt I could haul on a rope as well as others.”

“Where do you come from,” one asked, “and how is it that you have escaped the conscription?”

“I am exempt,” he said, “as the only son of my mother. I come from Champagne.”

“But why have you left?”

“I came away because the girl I was engaged to jilted me for a richer suitor, and I could not stop there to see her married; I should have cut his throat or my own. So I have tramped down here to see if I can find some work for a time.”

“You are a fool for your pains,” the skipper said. “No girl is worth it.”

“Ah, you never could have been jilted! If you had been you wouldn’t think so lightly of it.”

“Well, mates, what do you say? Shall we take this young fellow? He looks strong and active, and I dare say will suit us.”

“At any rate we can give him a trial for a voyage or two.”

“Well, you may begin by helping us up into the town with our fish. We have had a heavy catch to-day.”

Will at once shouldered a basket and went up with them to the market-place.

“We are going to get a drink,” the fisherman said. “Let us see how well you can sell for us. You must get a franc a kilogramme. Here are scales.”

For a couple of hours Will sold fish, attracting, by his pleasant face, buyers who might otherwise have passed him; and when the fishermen returned they were pleased to find that he had almost sold out their stock, and accounted for his take to the last sou.

“I have been watching you all the time,” the captain said,“though you did not know. I wanted to see if you were honest, and, now that I have a proof of it, will take you willingly. The pay is twelve francs a week and a tenth share in the sales. The boat takes a third, I take two, and the sailors take one apiece, and you will have half a share besides your pay till you know your business. Do you agree to that?”