The Collected Works of P. C. Wren: Complete Beau Geste Series, Novels & Short Stories. P. C. Wren
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many, I hope," growled Lejaune, as I crept down the passage between thick mud walls, and I felt the muzzle of his revolver jabbed into the small of my back.
The blood surged to my head, and I all but sprang round. One second's space of time for a drive at the point of his jaw--and I asked no more.
But he wouldn't give me that second, and I couldn't do much for Michael with my spine shattered by a ·450 expanding bullet. Lejaune would think as much of shooting me as he would of putting his foot on a scorpion. . . . And if, by any wild chance, I succeeded, and knocked him out and secured the revolver--how should we be any the better off? Boldini and his gang, and probably Dupré too, were after the "diamond," and would kill Michael to get it. . . .
With Lejaune following, I reached the door of our barrack-room. Here the adjudant halted, his revolver raised, and whispered:
"Your brother, Maris, Cordier, St. André--quick. . . ." I crept to Michael's bed.
What would happen if he sprang up with a shout, and roused the snoring sleepers around him? Could Lejaune overawe the lot, or would they, empty-handed, have the courage to rush him? Probably they would not. Everybody waits for a lead in a case like that.
I began whispering in Michael's ear.
"Beau, old chap! . . . It's John. . . . Don't make a noise. . . . Beau, old chap! . . . It's John. . . . Hush! Don't make a noise. . . ."
He woke, and was instantly alert.
"What's up?" he whispered.
"Take your tunic and trousers and boots, get your rifle, and go out. Lejaune is relying on our party. Take your bayonet. . . ."
He saw Lejaune in the doorway, near which was the night-lamp, and got off his cot.
I crept to St. André, and woke him in the same way.
"The adjudant wants us," I whispered. "He's at the door."
"Good!" said St. André. "It is time he did something."
Maris also woke quietly, and soon grasped what was wanted of him.
By the time I had roused Cordier, Michael was creeping from the room, dressed, his rifle in his hand. I saw Lejaune give him some cartridges from his bulging side-pockets. I crept out too, taking my rifle and bayonet, and Lejaune gave me ten cartridges.
"Go outside and load," he whispered. "Quick. . . . Then shoot any man, at once, if he sets his foot on the floor, after a warning."
We charged our magazines and stood behind Lejaune in the doorway, rifles at the ready. St. André joined us and received the same orders. Lejaune shook his fist at Maris and Cordier, and beckoned to them angrily. Not one of the sleepers stirred.
When the other two joined us, Lejaune said:
"St. André and Cordier--remain here until relieved. If any man wakes, order silence, cover him with your rifle, and say you'll shoot him if he leaves his bed. Do it at once, to any man and every man, who disobeys. Fail, and I'll shoot you myself. . . . Follow me, you others," and he quietly returned to his quarters.
"Guard the door, you," he said to Maris, "and shoot anybody who approaches. Anybody, I say."
"Now you, quick," he said, entering the room and closing the door. "Give me this wretched diamond that is the cause of all this trouble."
He glared at Michael.
"You jewel-thieves have corrupted the whole of this garrison, and are a menace to discipline. I'll take charge of it now; and then I'll take charge of some of those swine who think they can plot murder and robbery and desertion in my Company, by God! . . . Out with it, you thieving gaol-bird. . . . Quick. . . . Unless you want your throat cut by those mad dogs of mutineers who've fixed your business for this morning, at parade. . . . Oh yes, I know all about it. . . . Quick, I say--the Devil blast your dirty soul . . ." and he shook his fist.
Michael stared back, as one lost in astonishment and wonder.
"'Diamond,' Monsieur l'Adjudant?" he murmured.
Lejaune's swarthy face was suffused, his eyes bulged and blazed.
"You try any tricks with me and I'll blow your filthy head off--here and now!" he roared, picking up his revolver from the table where he had laid it.
"Give me that diamond, you scurvy hound, and I'll keep it until I know whose property it is. D'you think I'm going to have the discipline of this fort spoiled by every cursed runaway jewel-thief that chooses to hide here with his swag, and tempt honest men? . . . Out with it, you gallows-cheating gaol-breaker, before I put you where you belong. . . . Quick!"
"I have no diamond, mon Adjudant," replied Michael quietly, and giving back look for look.
"As I could have told you, mon Adjudant," I put in, "my brother has never had a diamond in his life and neither have I."
Words failed Lejaune.
I thought (and hoped) that he was going to have an apoplectic fit. His red face went purple and his eyes bulged yet more. He drew back his lips, baring his cruel-looking teeth and causing his moustache to bristle.
He raised and pointed the revolver, and I was just about to bring up my rifle, but had the presence of mind to realise that he could shoot twice with the lifted revolver, before I could even bring my rifle up to cover him. Michael did not turn a hair, and I was thankful that I, too, had sufficient restraint to stand motionless at attention. A movement would have been mutiny, and probably--death.
I felt certain that Lejaune would have shot us both, then and there (and would have searched Michael's body), but for the precarious position in which he himself stood, and the fact that he needed us alive--for the present.
At any moment we might hear the rifles of St. André and Cordier, as the mutineers rushed them. Or, at any moment, for all that Lejaune knew, the mutineers might burst into the room, headed by St. André, Cordier, and Maris, to kill him. He believed that, like Michael and me, these three were faithful--but he did not know they were.
He was a brave man. Situated as he was, his life hanging by a thread, he still attended to the business in hand. He turned his heavy glare from Michael to me.
"Oh? You would talk, would you?" he said, in a quiet and most sinister tone of terrible self-repression. "Well! Well! You haven't much more time for talking. Not many more words to say. . . . Would you like to make another remark or two before I shoot you? . . . No? . . . Won't you speak again, gaol-bird? A little prayer, perhaps? . . ." and the scoundrel turned the revolver from Michael's face to mine, and back again to Michael's.
It was most unpleasant, the twitching finger of an infuriated homicidal maniac on the hair-trigger of a loaded revolver, a yard from one's face--a maniac who longed for our deaths that he might enrich himself beyond the dreams of his own avarice!
He began to swear blasphemously, horribly, foully. All that he had learnt of vileness among the vile with whom he had consorted, he poured over us. He literally and actually foamed.
We stood like statues. He put the revolver down in front of him, the better to tear his hair with both hands.
I thought of the aborigines of the Congo over whom his power had been absolute, and whose lives and deaths were in his hand and mere questions of his profit and loss . . .
And then suddenly, a thought which had been clamouring for attention for some minutes suddenly occupied my mind and brought comfort and a curious sense of security.
Of course, Lejaune would do nothing to us until the mutiny was quelled, and he was again unthreatened and supreme.
We five were his only defence, the sole support of his authority, his one chance of saving not only his life, but his reputation and career. Obviously he would not kill two-fifths nor one-fifth of his loyal troops at the moment of his greatest need. It was absurd.
And then, without thought, I did what would have been the bravest