Huntingtower Part 26

CHAPTER XIV

THE SECOND BATTLE OF THE CRUIVES

The military historian must often make s.h.i.+ft to write of battles with slender data, but he can pad out his deficiencies by learned parallels.

If his were the talented pen describing this, the latest action fought on British soil against a foreign foe, he would no doubt be crippled by the absence of written orders and war diaries. But how eloquently he would discant on the resemblance between Dougal and Gouraud--how the plan of leaving the enemy to waste his strength upon a deserted position was that which on the 15th of July, 1918, the French general had used with decisive effect in Champagne! But Dougal had never heard of Gouraud, and I cannot claim that, like the Happy Warrior, he

"through the heat of conflict kept the law In calmness made, and saw what he foresaw."

I have had the benefit of discussing the affair with him and his colleagues, but I should offend against historic truth if I represented the main action as anything but a scrimmage--a "soldiers' battle," the historian would say, a Malplaquet, an Albuera.

Just after half-past three that afternoon the Commander-in-Chief was revealed in a very bad temper. He had intercepted Sir Archie's car, and, since Leon was known to be fully occupied, had brought it in by the West Lodge, and hidden it behind a clump of laurels. There he had held a hoa.r.s.e council of war. He had cast an appraising eye over Sime the butler, Carfrae the chauffeur, and McGuffog the gamekeeper, and his brows had lightened when he beheld Sir Archie with an armful of guns and two big cartridge-magazines. But they had darkened again at the first words of the leader of the reinforcements.

"Now for the Tower," Sir Archie had observed cheerfully. "We should be a match for the three watchers, my lad, and it's time that poor devil What's-his-name was relieved."

"A bonny-like plan that would be," said Dougal. "Man, ye would be walkin' into the very trap they want. In an hour, or maybe two, the rest will turn up from the sea and they'd have ye tight by the neck. Na, na!

It's time we're wantin', and the longer they think we're a' in the auld Tower the better for us. What news o' the polis?"

He listened to Sir Archie's report with a gloomy face.

"Not afore the darkenin'? They'll be ower late--the polis are aye ower late. It looks as if we had the job to do oursels. What's _your_ notion?"

"G.o.d knows," said the baronet whose eyes were on Saskia. "What's yours?"

The deference conciliated Dougal. "There's just the one plan that's worth a docken. There's five o' us here, and there's plenty weapons.

Besides there's five Die-Hards somewhere about, and though they've never tried it afore they can be trusted to loose off a gun. My advice is to hide at the Garplefoot and stop the boats landin'. We'd have the tinklers on our flank, no doubt, but I'm not muckle feared o' them. It wouldn't be easy for the boats to get in wi' this tearin' wind and us firin' volleys from the sh.o.r.e."

Sir Archie stared at him with admiration. "You're a hearty young fire-eater. But Great Scott! we can't go pottin' at strangers before we find out their business. This is a law-abidin' country, and we're not ent.i.tled to start shootin' except in self-defence. You can wash that plan out, for it ain't feasible."

Dougal spat cynically. "For all that it's the right strawtegy. Man, we might sink the lot, and then turn and settle wi' Dobson, and all afore the first polisman showed his neb. It would be a grand performance. But I was feared ye wouldn't be for it.... Well, there's just the one other thing to do. We must get inside the Hoose and put it in a state of defence. Heritage has McCunn's pistol, and he'll keep them busy for a bit. When they've finished wi' him and find the place is empty, they'll try the Hoose and we'll give them a warm reception. That should keep us goin' till the polis arrive, unless they're comin' wi' the blind carrier."

Sir Archie nodded. "But why put ourselves in their power at all? They're at present barking up the wrong tree. Let them bark up another wrong 'un. Why shouldn't the House remain empty? I take it we're here to protect the Princess. Well, we'll have done that if they go off empty-handed."

Dougal looked up to the heavens. "I wish McCunn was here," he sighed.

"Ay, we've got to protect the Princess, and there's just the one way to do it, and that's to put an end to this crowd o' blagyirds. If they gang empty-handed, they'll come again another day, either here or somewhere else, and it won't be long afore they get the la.s.sie. But if we finish with them now she can sit down wi' an easy mind. That's why we've got to hang on to them till the polis comes. There's no way out o' this business but a battle."

He found an ally. "Dougal is right," said Saskia. "If I am to have peace, by some way or other the fangs of my enemies must be drawn for ever."

He swung round and addressed her formally. "Mem, I'm askin' ye for the last time. Will ye keep out of this business? Will ye gang back and sit doun aside Mrs. Morran's fire and have your tea and wait till we come for ye? Ye can do no good, and ye're puttin' yourself terrible in the enemy's power. If we're beat and ye're no' there, they get very little satisfaction, but if they get _you_ they get what they've come seekin'.

I tell ye straight--ye're an enc.u.mbrance."

She laughed mischievously. "I can shoot better than you," she said.

He ignored the taunt. "Will ye listen to sense and fall to the rear?"

"I will not," she said.

"Then gang your own gait. I'm ower wise to argy-bargy wi' women. The Hoose be it!"

It was a journey which sorely tried Dougal's temper. The only way in was by the verandah, but the door at the west end had been locked, and the ladder had disappeared. Now of his party three were lame, one lacked an arm, and one was a girl; besides, there were the guns and cartridges to transport. Moreover, at more than one point before the verandah was reached the route was commanded by a point on the ridge near the old Tower, and that had been Spidel's position when Dougal made his last reconnaissance. It behoved to pa.s.s these points swiftly and un.o.btrusively, and his company was neither swift nor un.o.btrusive.

McGuffog had a genius for tripping over obstacles, and Sir Archie was for ever proffering his aid to Saskia, who was in a position to give rather than to receive, being far the most active of the party. Once Dougal had to take the gamekeeper's head and force it down, a performance which would have led to an immediate a.s.sault but for Sir Archie's presence. Nor did the latter escape. "Will ye stop heedin' the la.s.sie, and attend to your own job," the Chieftain growled. "Ye're makin' as much noise as a road-roller."

Arrived at the foot of the verandah wall there remained the problem of the escalade. Dougal clambered up like a squirrel by the help of cracks in the stones, and he could be heard trying the handle of the door into the House. He was absent for about five minutes and then his head peeped over the edge accompanied by the hooks of an iron ladder. "From the boiler-house," he informed them as they stood clear for the thing to drop. It proved to be little more than half the height of the wall.

Saskia ascended first, and had no difficulty in pulling herself over the parapet. Then came the guns and ammunition, and then the one-armed Sime, who turned out to be an athlete. But it was no easy matter getting up the last three. Sir Archie anathematised his frailties. "Nice old crock to go tiger-shootin' with," he told the Princess. "But set me to something where my confounded leg don't get in the way, and I'm still pretty useful!" Dougal, mopping his brow with the rag he called his handkerchief, observed sourly that he objected to going scouting with a herd of elephants.

Once indoors his spirits rose. The party from the Mains had brought several electric torches and the one lamp was presently found and lit.

"We can't count on the polis," Dougal announced, "and when the foreigners is finished wi' the Tower they'll come on here. If no', we must make them. What is it the sodgers call it? Forcin' a battle? Now see here! There's the two roads into this place, the back door and the verandy, leavin' out the front door which is chained and lockit. They'll try those two roads first and we must get them well barricaded in time.

But mind, if there's a good few o' them, it'll be an easy job to batter in the front door or the windies, so we maun be ready for that."

He told off a fatigue party--the Princess, Sir Archie and McGuffog--to help in moving furniture to the several doors. Sime and Carfrae attended to the kitchen entrance, while he himself made a tour of the ground-floor windows. For half an hour the empty house was loud with strange sounds. McGuffog, who was a giant in strength, filled the pa.s.sage at the verandah end with an a.s.sortment of furniture ranging from a grand piano to a vast mahogany sofa, while Saskia and Sir Archie pillaged the bedrooms and packed up the interstices with mattresses in lieu of sandbags. Dougal on his return saw fit to approve their work.

"That'll fickle the blagyirds. Down at the kitchen door we've got a mangle, five wash-tubs and the best part of a ton o' coal. It's the windies I'm anxious about, for they're ower big to fill up. But I've gotten tubs o' water below them and a lot o' wire-nettin' I fund in the cellar."

Sir Archie morosely wiped his brow. "I can't say I ever hated a job more," he told Saskia. "It seems pretty cool to march into somebody else's house and make free with his furniture. I hope to goodness our friends from the sea do turn up, or we'll look pretty foolish. Loudon will have a score against me he won't forget."

"Ye're no' weakenin'?" asked Dougal fiercely.

"Not a bit. Only hopin' somebody hasn't made a mighty big mistake."

"Ye needn't be feared for that. Now you listen to your instructions.

We're terrible few for such a big place, but we maun make up for shortness o' numbers by extra mobility. The gemkeeper will keep the windy that looks on the verandy, and fell any man that gets through.

You'll hold the verandy door, and the ither lame man--is't Carfrae ye call him?--will keep the back door. I've telled the one-armed man, who has some kind of a head on him, that he maun keep on the move, watchin'

to see if they try the front door or any o' the other windies. If they do, he takes his station there. D'ye follow?"

Sir Archie nodded gloomily. "What is my post?" Saskia asked.

"I've appointed ye my Chief of Staff," was the answer. "Ye see we've no reserves. If this door's the dangerous bit, it maun be reinforced from elsewhere; and that'll want savage thinkin'. Ye'll have to be ay on the move, Mem, and keep me informed. If they break in at two bits, we're beat, and there'll be nothin' for it but to retire to our last position.

Ye ken the room ayont the hall where they keep the coats. That's our last trench, and at the worst we fall back there and stick it out. It has a strong door and a wee windy, so they'll no' be able to get in on our rear. We should be able to put up a good defence there, unless they fire the place over our heads.... Now, we'd better give out the guns."

"We don't want any shootin' if we can avoid it," said Sir Archie, who found his distaste for Dougal growing, though he was under the spell of the one being there who knew precisely his own mind.

"Just what I was goin' to say. My instructions is, reserve your fire, and don't loose off till you have a man up against the end o' your barrel."

"Good Lord, we'll get into a horrible row. The whole thing may be a mistake, and we'll be had up for wholesale homicide. No man shall fire unless I give the word."

The Commander-in-Chief looked at him darkly. Some bitter retort was on his tongue, but he restrained himself.

"It appears," he said, "that ye think I'm doin' all this for fun. I'll no 'argy wi' ye. There can be just the one general in a battle, but I'll give ye permission to say the word when to fire.... Macgreegor!" he muttered, a strange expletive only used in moments of deep emotion.

"I'll wager ye'll be for sayin' the word afore I'd say it mysel'."

He turned to the Princess. "I hand over to you, till I am back, for I maun be off and see to the Die-Hards. I wish I could bring them in here, but I daren't lose my communications. I'll likely get in by the boiler-house skylight when I come back, but it might be as well to keep a road open here unless ye're actually attacked."

Dougal clambered over the mattresses and the grand piano; a flicker of waning daylight appeared for a second as he squeezed through the door, and Sir Archie was left staring at the wrathful countenance of McGuffog.

He laughed ruefully.