Chapter XII: Ordered to Verdun

"MOTHER!" cried Roy, bursting into the sitting-room at Fontainebleau, one wintry day. "Ma'am—what do you think?"

Roy by this time was quite recovered from his illness, though his face carried traces of it in the shape of several small red pits, which had not yet had time to lose their prominence. He was still small and childish for his years,—a good-looking lad, but for those disfiguring marks. His eyes sparkled with excitement. Ivor, who happened to be in the background, made a silencing gesture, but Roy was too eager to notice it.

"Only think! All of us are ordered off to Verdun! Why, that is where Mademoiselle de St. Roques lives. We shall see her again. I shall like that, but 'tis horrid having to go further away from home. Everybody says what a beastly shame it is. It's a fortified town, and we prisoners are to be in stricter keeping."

Roy liked to speak of himself as a prisoner, even while he chafed furiously against the restraints of imprisonment. He objected to the indignity of being counted so young as not to be worth detention. "I am quite as old as lots of middies," he would declare. "And only two or three years younger than General Moore when he began to be a soldier." This assertion generally brought laughter, for nobody ever guessed Roy at thirteen to be more than ten or eleven.

"You should not startle your mother, Roy," the Colonel said gravely, as Mrs. Baron's eyes grew wide and terrified. "You should have waited until I spoke."

Roy began to see, too late, the nature of his blunder.

"I'm sorry, sir. But shall we go by diligence or poste, or will you have a carriage?"

"A carriage, probably, for your mother and Den and myself."

The words were said deliberately. Colonel Baron had made up his mind in that moment to take the bull by the horns. Delay now would be useless.

"And me, sir?"

Colonel Baron's silence spoke more plainly to his wife than to Roy. She stood up, and with her graceful step moved across, to lay one slender hand on either of her boy's shoulders. Colonel Baron knew that in her mind, as in his, was the promise she had given months before, that, if they should have to go to a greater distance from England, she would then consent to Roy's return.

Her husband knew that she would not try to draw back from her word; but neither would she hide what the keeping of it would cost her. The détenus had pretty well given up hopes of any speedy release; and she could not but know that a parting from her boy might mean long separation. It was hard to be away from Molly, but in that respect Colonel Baron was the greater sufferer, since he had always doted especially on his little girl. To part with Roy would be to Mrs. Baron simply heart-breaking. But she had promised; and Colonel Baron would not let her off her promise.

"Why, ma'am, you don't mind it so much as that! I wouldn't cry for old Boney," remonstrated Roy, as her tears fell heavily.

Colonel Baron came close, and she turned from Roy to lean against him, breaking into bitter sobs.

"My dear heart, we must think of the boy—not of ourselves," urged the Colonel. "Think how much better for him to be at school in England. But for Den, this life would be ruination for him."

"Am I to go home?" asked Roy, as a few more words from his father revealed the state of the case. "Will Napoleon let me?"

The gentlemen exchanged glances. "You are not a détenu," replied Colonel Baron, though his mind misgave him, for he had heard lately of more than one instance in which an attempt to get a passport had proved a failure. "There ought to be no difficulty. I must apply for a passport at once."

Roy stood thinking. "And I shall see Molly again," he remarked. "It does seem an awful long while since I left her. Shall I go to school? And shall I spend my holidays in Bath till you and my mother come home?"

Mrs. Baron hid her face.

"Yes, of course,—I see—I ought to go," pursued Roy. "It wouldn't do for me to stop on here. In two or three years I've got to be a soldier, and then Napoleon would want to keep me altogether. I'd much better be off. How soon can I start? It will be jolly to see Molly again."

Roy was making matters worse, and Ivor stood up, throwing aside his book. "Come!" he said shortly, with an imperative sign, and Roy followed. Outside the house Ivor remarked, "You must be more careful. You have to think of your mother's feelings."

Roy looked up in surprise. "Did I say something wrong?"

"Could you not see? She is breaking her heart at the thought of losing you. Just imagine what it will be to her not to have her boy any longer. Don't let her think you are glad to go."

"But I'm not glad to leave her. Of course I'm not. I'm only glad to go to England, and to see Molly, and to be free to fight as soon as I'm old enough. I should think she'd understand."

A curious expression crossed the other's face. "You can hardly expect her to want you to fight. That's not the way with mothers. The last thing she would wish would be for you to hold back, but she will be unhappy. You can't possibly know what the parting will be to her, but still you can be kind. Really brave men are always kind as well as brave, you know."

Roy showed signs of being impressed. He knew Denham to be so gallant a soldier that words of this sort coming from him had especial weight. Neither spoke again directly. Roy walked fast, doing his best to match Ivor's long stride, though compelled now and then to make a droll little extra step, if he would not be left behind.

"Yes, of course," he said at length. "I suppose that's what we men have to do. I mean, we have to try not to make women unhappy. When I get back I don't mean ever to make Molly cry again."

The application for Roy's passport was duly made, and a formal reply promised attention. There the matter stood still. Colonel Baron deferred the journey to Verdun as long as possible, hoping to receive the passport; but it failed to arrive.

Some discussion took place as to the possibility of leaving Roy in Fontainebleau; but this, in the then state of France, was felt to be too great a risk. Once parted, they might be unable to come together again. And though a good deal of kindness had been shown to English prisoners by French residents, yet there was no one with whom they could be content to place Roy for an indefinite time. Not Colonel Baron only, but his wife too, by this time greatly regretted not having sent Roy home at the first, when leave had been more readily granted.

Roy rebelled angrily. He had liked to talk of himself grandly as a "prisoner of war," feeling that he was free. It was another matter to find himself really a prisoner, and he was unhappy and furious by turns.

"It's too beastly disgusting," he declared to his chief confidant. "That old wretch of a Boney. I wish I could shoot him."

"You must be more careful, Roy. Walls have ears in France."

"He hasn't any right to keep me. I've a right to go home."

"I'm afraid the First Consul cares little for any man's rights, except his own."

"Den, don't you want to go home?"

Did he not want it? The handsome bronzed face, which had of late grown thinner than its wont, looked at Roy with a concentrated stillness. "Yes; more than you can understand, perhaps. When I think of all that is going on elsewhere—"

"You'd like to be fighting under Sir John Moore, wouldn't you? And it makes one so mad to be penned up here for nothing."

Roy's words found too sharp an echo in Denham's mind to be met lightly. He said after a slight pause: "If you feel so, can't you see what it must be to me?"

Roy was conscious of something unusual in the quiet features.

"Den, I say—"

"Of course the state of things can't but be a trouble—a great trouble. But sometimes one has to be brave in captivity as well as in fighting. And Napoleon will not be allowed to go on always unchecked. I believe that in time England will make headway against him."

"And if England did do it—and you and I were to be all the while here—not able to help—"

Another distinct break.

"Won't do for us to think about that, Roy."

Roy instinctively changed the subject.

"I don't think mother is sorry that I'm going to Verdun."

"She is not sorry for our sake—any more than I am. I have been wondering what in the world I should do without my friend Roy."

"Den, am I your friend truly?" Roy clutched the young Guardsman's arm. "Would you be sorry if I went?" He read a plain answer in the other's look. "O then I don't mind,—then I'll be glad. I don't care, if you like to have me. I thought I was just a bother. I'd rather be your friend than anybody's." And in the same breath, "I say, when shall we see Mademoiselle de St. Roques?"

"What do you think of lodging in her home? The old people with whom she lives would be glad to let their upstairs floors. Yes, I think we shall do it."

One day later, the passport being still withheld, Roy started, in company with his parents and Denham, on the cold and dismal journey to Verdun. Happily Colonel Baron could afford to travel with some degree of comfort. Many of the unfortunate British détenus were in a far worse case. Having no means of their own to pay for chaise or diligence, they had to go on foot, under the charge of gendarmes, sleeping at night in common jails, with filthy and vermin-invested straw for their beds. Whereas the Colonel managed to secure a large roomy old coach or chariot, which had once belonged to some well-to-do person, probably a nobleman since decapitated. With relays of horses, even though the horses in question were sorry beasts, they made fairly quick advance.