Honour and the Sword (49 page)

He smiled and said ‘Oh, I think I can manage you, Mademoiselle.’

I stood to face him and he lifted me easily. His hands were warm and firm through my chemise, and it was quite different from what Luiz or Pablo had done. I grasped his belt behind his back so he wouldn’t need to keep his arm across me while he climbed, and he said ‘That’s good, stay like that,’ then turned sideways to the sill to hoist himself up.

There were footsteps on the little gallery staircase, and the sound of voices and laughter. I twisted behind André’s back to see two soldiers walking cheerfully round the bend of the stairs.

Jean-Marie Mercier

Jacques was wonderfully calm. As soon as his patrollers had killed the wall guards he came strolling round to the south side, showed Edouard where to put the ladders, signalled Dom to start bringing up the horses, then called Bettremieu over and showed him a window directly facing us where he said the hostages would come down. Marcel was much better by this time and insisted on going back over to help.

We all stared intently up at the window. I was still telling myself it would be a long time yet, when suddenly it opened and there was Stefan leaning out and throwing down the rope to Bettremieu. Jacques turned to the patroller going past and signalled him to be ready to break and run when Dom gave the call. Colin nodded and walked on. A moment later Roger came round, and again Jacques signalled.

Margot reached out from her tree to nudge me, and said ‘Look!’

A nudge from Margot was rather like a punch from anyone else, but I recovered enough to see Stefan starting down the rope with a girl in a nightdress over his shoulder.

‘I wouldn’t mind Bettremieu’s view of that,’ said Marin, which I thought was rather coarse.

‘Closest you’ve ever come, is it, Marin?’ asked Margot, with interest.

Marin reddened and went on setting up his crossbow.

A minute or two later a young man followed. He seemed to be in difficulties, but Stefan climbed underneath to take his weight, and brought him safely to the ground.

‘Where’s André?’ said Margot. ‘What’s happened to André?’

Anne du Pré

André released me immediately and drew his sword.

The soldiers dropped the platters they were carrying and ran straight for us, shouting an alarm. The clatter of the pewter as it bounced down the stairs was even louder than the shout, and I heard voices responding below.

‘Climb down,’ said André, stepping in front to shield me.

I was reluctant to leave him, but he turned and repeated ‘Climb down!’ so sharply that I swung myself on to the sill at once. I could not see how to back down on to the rope, but the one called Stefan was coming up again below me, and he said ‘Just let yourself go now,’ and pulled me backwards into the air. He must be immensely strong. He simply clapped me one-handed over his shoulder, winding me completely, and started back down. I heard the clash of swords above us and more shouting, and knew André must be overwhelmed.

Stefan struggled down another two steps, then let me drop into the crook of his arm so he could lower me. A voice with a Flemish accent said ‘Is all right, I have you,’ and there was an even larger man taking my weight from behind, and bringing me safely to the ground. I straightened up to find myself looking directly into the face of a third man, illuminated in the glow of the flambeau. He had bright-blue eyes and very black hair, and I’m sure I’d never seen him before, but he looked familiar in a way I can’t explain.

Everything seemed very unreal. The stones of the terrace were cold under my feet, and there were weeds growing through them that felt like rough grass. The smell of the flambeau was overpowering, and its light shimmered and made rippling shadows over all of us. Florian looked lost and confused as the glare of the flames made dark caverns of his eyes. Across the lawn I saw the white of Colette’s chemise as she was helped over the wall, while a man with a bandage on his head walked quickly towards us, coming nearer the light and suddenly turning into Marcel Dubois, our Caporal Dubois, who I thought was killed the night the Château was taken. There was a Spanish soldier actually walking past, but even he only smiled vaguely at us and kept walking, as if we were no more than figures in a dream.

Stefan was already on his way back up the rope, and the blue-eyed man hard after him. I didn’t want to leave until I knew André was safe, but the huge Flamand said ‘I’m sorry, Mademoiselle,’ lifted me in his arms as if I weighed no more than a kitten, and began to run towards the wall. Florian came pattering quickly after us. As we went, I heard the insistent hooting of an owl, and became aware of other men running across the grass to join us. They seemed to be Spaniards too, but made no attempt to hinder us, and only ran just as we did. I thought I really must be dreaming, and tonight was still to come.

Stefan Ravel

He had his back to the window and was close enough to touch, but I didn’t think he ought to be distracted just then, Abbé was fighting three of them all by himself.

He couldn’t keep it up much longer. He was parrying well, but couldn’t reduce the odds; if he stuck one, the others would have him while his sword was engaged. He was weakening too, his movements jerkier, they’d get in a lucky thrust any second. I took my weight on the stanchion, drew my pistol, and fired the thing one-handed into the throng.

It stopped them dead for a moment, and one quite permanently. It stopped André too, which gave me the second I needed to drop the pistol out of the window then grab him from behind. I’d no hand free to climb with, I could only drag him over the sill and lower him, but Jacques was close behind me and reached out to take André’s weight while he jumped the last feet to the ground.

Then we slid down the rope ourselves, and only just in time, because some bastard had set about cutting it at the top, and it fell in a heap just as I hit the ground. We were out, we were down, and time to get the fucking hell out.

Jean-Marie Mercier

It was extraordinary to see the hostages being helped over the wall. We had talked and thought about them so long, it felt honestly unreal for them to be actually among us. All three were pale as linen, which made them look unearthly and strange in our midst. The ladies were barefoot and in their nightclothes, while the young lord was dressed in elegant but old-fashioned hunting dress.

A ripple of murmuring ran all along our line, the men were saying ‘André’, ‘André’s out.’ The last hostage, the younger lady, turned back quickly as if she could see through the wall, and her face seemed to glow in the moonlight. I looked over myself, and saw Pinhead running round from the east wall, and Bruno almost at the ladders, with Roger just behind him. André, Stefan and Jacques all seemed to be safe at the bottom of the rope, and were starting back towards us with Colin and Marcel, but to my left I saw soldiers beginning to pour out of the courtyard gate, and knew our turn had come at last.

I fired. While I passed my gun down to Georges, I heard Margot fire, then Simon, then the next, one after the other as we’d planned it. We’d never been able to keep up such a disciplined line of fire, and the effect on the soldiers was dramatic. The one in front was always being shot, so they began to fan out, but now they were nearly in the middle of the wall, so Giles’ and Jacob’s teams could bring their pieces to bear as well. Caught from both sides, the Spaniards simply broke and ran. Perhaps it was because they had no senior officers, but the fact is they
ran.
There were others starting down the drive from the west gate and one or two loosed off shots at us, but Georges had passed me my second musket, and I took the first, Margot the second, our men kept firing all along the line, and they turned and ran like the others.

I’d never, never seen anything like that before. This was the enemy, and they were frightened of
us.
I wanted to keep firing and firing even when they were all back inside.

Anne du Pré

There were men all about us, the trees above our heads were alive with them. I think I’d expected André’s men to be something like a group of bandits, but this felt like a whole army. The gunfire seemed to crash out over and over again as if it would never stop. There were horses near us, and we took care to keep clear because the firing disturbed them, and they stamped and reared in the dark so the men could hardly hold them. We clung together and waited for the shooting to stop.

A man came limping towards us from the fields, and said ‘Don’t you worry, ladies, we’ll have you out of this in a second. We’re just waiting for the captains, then we’ll get you up.’ It was Giles, dear Giles Leroux, who used to be our gamekeeper. He beamed at us, and I saw his face was scratched and bleeding while his clothes were desperately ragged and torn, and I was afraid he must have been living hard all this long while. But he only laughed kindly and said he’d been playing a little game of hide-and-seek with the soldiers, otherwise he’d have presented a more respectable appearance.

There was a stirring near the wall, and here came our own rescuers safely out of the grounds. Men were crowding round and clapping them on the back, and there seemed a great deal of talk and laughter. Giles stood beside us to keep us safe in the press, he kept saying ‘Mind yourselves there, keep those bloody horses back!’ and the familiarity made me want to laugh and cry at the same time. Then a man helped Florian on to a horse with Stefan, the large Flemish one passed Colette up to Marcel, then Giles said ‘By your leave, Mademoiselle,’ and lifted me so André could take me in his arms and rest me on the horse in front of him. I would perhaps have been more secure if I had straddled the animal, but André slid me right across its back so I was safe in the crook of his arm, then wrapped the other round to hold me firmly into his body.

‘Comfortable?’ he said. Our heads were now so close together his eyes seemed almost to blur into one.

I said ‘Yes,’ but nothing else, because I felt a little embarrassed, although I was well wrapped in his cloak and was quite decent.

He said ‘Good,’ and began to turn the horse to ride us away. As we went round, I saw the man with the blue eyes standing on the ground looking after him. There was still something haunting about his face.

We came clear of the crowd, I saw the others riding ahead of us, and beyond them lay the open fields. There was still occasional firing, but it seemed far away and nothing to do with us, because we were still in my dream. The fields simply fell away beside us as we picked up speed. My hair was working loose in the wind, but my only fear was it might blow in André’s face and distract him while he was riding. Then the sound of the hooves changed from a thump to a clatter as we galloped across the Kingsway, and our pace slowed as the horse carried us on into the darkness of the forest. It was colder in there and quieter, and the stillness of it seemed to clear my head.

I was riding through the woods in the middle of the night with André de Roland’s arm about my waist, and my head against his shoulder.

Jacques Gilbert

We got the marksmen peeled off the trees in the end, and the ground started to clear. Jean-Marie was riding with me, and he bounced with excitement all the way back. He couldn’t get over what we’d done, and the fact we hadn’t lost a single man doing it. He kept saying ‘Not a single man, Jacques, isn’t that wonderful?’ He was starting to get on my nerves. Nobody seemed to realize just how close we’d come to losing the boy, how easily he could have been killed. I knew Stefan had got him out, but if it had been me I’d never have left him in the first place, never.

I dropped Jean-Marie just south of the Hermitage, telling him casually I’d promised to see my Mother about something, then belted down to Ancre as quickly as I could. It was a bit of a nuisance really, but in another way I was looking forward to it. The news of the raid was going to be all over the Saillie tomorrow, it was like the biggest thing ever, and I was going to tell my family I’d really been part of it.

Anne du Pré

I might have been cold in the forest, but André’s arm was warm around me and I was sheltered by his body. I felt very safe.

The trees became gradually denser, and the horses needed to slow almost to a walk. I missed the exhilaration of the speed, and became much more aware of the silence between us. At last I gathered my courage to ask where we were going, but to my surprise he did not answer. I wondered if perhaps he didn’t like to be distracted by conversation while he was riding, but a moment later he turned his head round to me and said ‘Are you still all right there?’

I said yes, then added a little timidly that I was wondering where we were going.

He answered without hesitation, and I realized he simply could not have heard me the first time. He explained we would have to ride almost as far as Artois to get past the Wall, but I need not worry, we would not be going near any Spanish-occupied roads or villages. He said there was a single-track road which enabled us to cross the gorge and come out in the woods of France.

I said ‘Do you mean the
gabelle
road?’

He smiled. ‘Yes, Mademoiselle, I mean the
gabelle
road.’

He stayed looking at me, which concerned me a little, although the horse seemed to be following Stefan’s quite happily without any help from its riders. I started to say ‘Thank you,’ but noticed his eyes went at once to my lips as I spoke. That made me feel strangely self-conscious, but suddenly I remembered how Papa’s mother used to look at us when we were talking, and then of course I understood. I should have guessed it before, when André failed to hear Luiz coming up behind him, but perhaps it is only in the one ear, for there had been no other sign until now.

He said ‘Something is troubling you.’

I said quickly ‘No indeed, Monsieur, I am very happy.’

He was silent a moment. I thought he was going to say something, but when I looked back at him, he was frowning fiercely at the horse’s neck. At length he cleared his throat, and this time he did speak, but he was still looking at the horse.