Held Fast For England Part 44

"Well, I have not settled, yet; but there can't be any difficulty about getting out. I might go down to the Old Mole, and swim from there to the head of the bay; or I might get some of the fishermen to go round the point, and land me to the east, well beyond the Spanish lines."

"You couldn't do that, Bob; there is too sharp a lookout kept on the batteries. No craft is allowed to go any distance from the Rock, as they are afraid of the Spaniards learning the state to which we are reduced, by illness. If you did swim to the head of the bay, as you talk about, you would be certain to be captured at once, by the Spaniards; and in that case you would, as likely as not, be shot as a spy."

"Still, deserters do get out, you know, doctor. There is scarcely a week that two or three don't manage to get away. I mean to try, anyhow. If you like to help me, of course it will make it easier; if not, I shall try by myself."

"Gerald and your sister would never forgive me, if anything happened to you, Bob."

"There is no occasion for them to know anything about it. Anyhow, I shall say nothing to them. I shall leave a note behind me, saying that I am going to make an attempt to get out, and bring back a boat full of oranges and lemons. I am past seventeen, now; and am old enough to act for myself. I don't think, if the thing is managed properly, there is any particular risk about it. I will think it over, by tomorrow, and tell you what plan I have fixed on."

On the following day, Bob told the doctor that there were two plans.

"The first is to be lowered by a rope, down at the back of the Rock. That is ever so much the simplest. Of course, there is no difficulty about it if the rope is long enough. Some of the deserters have failed because the rope has been too short, but I should take care to get one long enough. The only fear is the sentries; I know that there are lots of them posted about there, on purpose to prevent desertion."

"Quite so, Bob; and no one is allowed to go along the paths after dark, except on duty."

"Yes.

"Well, the other plan is to go out with the party that furnishes the sentries, down on the neutral ground; choose some dark night, manage to get separated from them, as they march out, and then make for the sh.o.r.e and take to the water. Of course, if one could arrange to have the officer with the party in the secret, it would make it easy enough."

"It might be done, that way," the doctor said, thoughtfully. "Have you quite made up your mind to do this thing, Bob?"

"I have quite made up my mind to try, anyhow."

"Well, if you mean to try, Bob, it is just as well that you shouldn't get shot, at the start. I have just been round to the orderly room. Our regiment furnishes the pickets on the neutral ground, tonight. Captain Antrobus commands the party. He is a good fellow and, as he is a married man, and all four of his children are bad with scurvy, he would feel an interest in your attempt.

"You know him as well as I do. If you like, I will go with you to his quarters, and see what we can do with him."

They at once set out.

"Look here, Antrobus," the doctor said, after asking that officer to come out for a chat with him, "if we don't get some lemon juice, I am afraid it will go very hard with a lot of the children."

"Yes, we have known that for some time, doctor."

"Well, Repton here has made up his mind to try to get out of the place, and make his way to Malaga, and get a boatload of fruit and try to bring it in. Of course he will go dressed as a native, and he speaks Spanish well enough to pa.s.s anywhere, without suspicion.

So, once beyond the lines, I don't see much difficulty in his making his way to Malaga. Whether he will get back again is another matter, altogether. That is his business. He has plenty of money to purchase the fruit, when he arrives there; and to buy a boat, and all that sort of thing.

"The difficulty is in getting out. Now, n.o.body is going to know how he does this, except our three selves."

"But why do you come to me, Burke?"

"Because you command the guard, tonight, on the neutral ground.

What he proposes is that he should put on a soldier's greatcoat and cap, and take a firelock and, in the dark, fall in with your party.

When you get well out on the neutral ground, he could either slip away and take his chance or, what would be better still, he might be in the party you take forward to post as sentries, and you could take him along with you, so that he would go with you as far as the sh.o.r.e; and could then slip away, come back a bit, so as to be out of sight of the farthest sentry, and then take to the water.

"He can swim like a fish, and what current there is will be with him; so that, before it began to be light, he could land two or three miles beyond the Spanish lines. He is going to leave a note behind, for O'Halloran, saying he has left; but no one will know whether he got down at the back of the Rock, or swam across the bay, or how he has gone.

"I have tried to dissuade him; but he has made up his mind to try it and, seeing that--if he succeeds--it may save the lives of scores of children, I really cannot refuse to help him."

"Well, I don't know," Captain Antrobus said. "There certainly does not seem much risk in his going out, as you say. I should get a tremendous wigging, no doubt, if he is discovered, and it was known that I had a hand in it; but I would not mind risking that, for the sake of the children.

"But don't take a firelock, Repton. The sergeants would be sure to notice that there was an extra man. You had better join us, just as we set out. I will say a word or two to you, then do you follow on, in the dark. The men will suppose you are one of the drummers I am taking with me, to serve as a messenger, or something of that sort.

That way you can follow close behind me, while I am posting the sentries after leaving the main body at the guardhouse. After posting the last man at the seash.o.r.e, I can turn off with you for a few yards, as if giving you an order.

"Then I will go back and stay for a time with the last sentry, who will naturally think that the drummer has been sent back to the guardhouse. I will recommend him to be vigilant, and keep by him for some time, till I am pretty sure you have taken to the water and swam past; so that if the sentry should hear a splash, or anything, I can say it can only be a fish; and that, at any rate, it would not do to give an alarm, as it cannot be anything of consequence.

"You see, you don't belong to the garrison, and it is no question of a.s.sisting a deserter to escape. Anyhow, I will do it."

Thanking Captain Antrobus greatly, for his promise of a.s.sistance, Bob went off into the town; where he bought a suit of Spanish clothes, such as would be appropriate for a small farmer or trader.

He then presented his letter of credit at the merchant's, and drew a hundred pounds, which he obtained in Spanish gold. This money and the clothes he put in an oilskin bag, of which the mouth was securely closed. This he left at the doctor's.

As soon as it became dark he went down again. The doctor had a greatcoat and hat in readiness for him--there being plenty of effects of men who had died in the hospital--and as soon as Bob had put them on, walked across--with Bob following him--to the spot where Captain Antrobus' company were falling in. Just as they were about to march, the doctor went up to the captain; who after a word or two with him said to Bob, in a voice loud enough to be heard by the noncommissioned officer, close to him:

"Well, you will keep by me."

The night was a dark one, and the party made their way down to the gate, where the pa.s.swords were exchanged; and the company then moved along by the narrow pathway between the artificial inundation and the foot of the Rock. They continued their way until they arrived at the building that served as the main guard of the outlying pickets. Here two-thirds of the company were left; and the captain led the others out, an officer belonging to the regiment whose men he was relieving accompanying him. As the sentries were posted the men relieved fell in, under the orders of their officer and, as soon as the last had been relieved, they marched back to the guardhouse.

A minute later, Captain Antrobus turned to Bob.

"You need not wait," he said. "Go back to the guardhouse. Mind how you go."

Bob saluted and turned off, leaving the officer standing by the sentry. He went some distance back, then walked down the sand to the water's edge, and waded noiselessly into the water. The oilskin bag was, he knew, buoyant enough to give him ample support in the water.

When he was breast deep, he let his uniform cloak slip off his shoulders; allowed his shoes to sink to the bottom, and his three-cornered hat to float away. The doctor had advised him to do this.

"If you leave the things at the edge of the water, Bob, it will be thought that somebody has deserted; and then there will be a lot of questions, and inquiries. You had better take them well out into the sea with you, and then let them go. They will sink, and drift along under water and, if they are ever thrown up, it will be far beyond our lines. In that way, as the whole of the guard will answer to their names, when the roll is called tomorrow, no one will ever give a thought to the drummer who fell in at the last moment; or, if one of them does think of it, he will suppose that the captain sent him into the town, with a report."

The bag would have been a great enc.u.mbrance, had Bob wanted to swim fast. As it was, he simply placed his hands upon it, and struck out with his feet, making straight out from the sh.o.r.e. This he did for some ten minutes; and then, being certain that he was far beyond the sight of anyone on sh.o.r.e, he turned and, as nearly as he could, followed the line of the coast. The voices of the sentries calling to each other came across the sea, and he could make out a light or two in the great fort at the water's edge.

It was easy work. The water was, as nearly as possible, the temperature of his body; and he felt that he could remain for any time in it, without inconvenience. The lights in the fort served as a mark by which he could note his progress; and an hour after starting he was well abreast of them, and knew that the current must be helping him more than he had expected it would do.

Another hour, and he began to swim sh.o.r.ewards; as the current might, for aught he knew, be drifting him somewhat out into the bay. When he was able to make out the dark line ahead of him, he again resumed his former course. It was just eight o'clock when the guard had pa.s.sed through the gate. He had started half an hour later. He swam what seemed to him a very long time, but he had no means of telling how the time pa.s.sed.

When he thought it must be somewhere about twelve o'clock, he made for the sh.o.r.e. He was sure that, by this time, he must be at least three miles beyond the fort; and as the Spanish camps lay princ.i.p.ally near San Roque, at the head of the bay, and there were no tents anywhere by the seash.o.r.e, he felt sure that he could land, now, without the slightest danger.

Here, then, he waded ash.o.r.e, stripped, tied his clothes in a bundle, waded a short distance back again, and dropped them in the sea. Then he returned, took up the bag, and carried it up the sandy beach. Opening it, he dressed himself in the complete set of clothes he had brought with him, put on the Spanish shoes and round turned-up hat, placed his money in his pocket; sc.r.a.ped a shallow hole in the sand, put the bag in it and covered it, and then started walking briskly along on the flat ground beyond the sand hills He kept on until he saw the first faint light in the sky; then he sat down among some bushes, until it was light enough for him to distinguish the features of the country.

Inland, the ground rose rapidly into hills--in many places covered with wood--and half an hour's walking took him to one of these.

Looking back, he could see the Rock rising, as he judged, from twelve to fourteen miles away. He soon found a place with some thick undergrowth and, entering this, lay down and was soon sound asleep.

When he woke it was already late in the afternoon. He had brought with him, in the bag, some biscuits and hardboiled eggs; and of a portion of these he made a hearty meal. Then he pushed up over the hill until, after an hour's walking, he saw a road before him. This was all he wanted, and he sat down and waited until it became dark.

A battalion of infantry pa.s.sed along as he sat there, marching towards Gibraltar. Two or three long lines of laden carts pa.s.sed by, in the same direction.

He had consulted a map before starting, and knew that the distance to Malaga was more than twenty leagues; and that the first place of any importance was Estepona, about eight leagues from Gibraltar, and that before the siege a large proportion of the supplies of fruit and vegetables were brought to Gibraltar from this town.

Starting as soon as it became dark, he pa.s.sed through Estepona at about ten o'clock; looked in at a wine shop, and sat down to a pint of wine and some bread; and then continued his journey until, taking it quietly, he was in sight of Marbella.

He slept in a grove of trees until daylight, and then entered the town, which was charmingly situated among orange groves. Going into a fonda--or tavern--he called for breakfast. When he had eaten this, he leisurely strolled down to the port and, taking his seat on a block of stone, on the pier, watched the boats. As, while walking down from the fonda, he had pa.s.sed several shops with oranges and lemons, it seemed to him that it would in some respects be better for him to get the fruit here, instead of going on to Malaga.

In the first place, the distance to return was but half that from Malaga; and in the second it would probably be easier to get out, from a quiet little port like this, than from a large town like Malaga. The question which puzzled him was how was he to get his oranges on board. Where could he reasonably be going to take them?