Chapter XXII: The Last Battle

Mars burned on the horizon; the six stars of Orion, the seven misty Pleiads, the eight suns of the Bear, and all the lamps of Heaven were shining steadfast. Suns spin their course, the constellations change, and all things pass, but yet eternal gleams the Milky Way spanning the night from everlasting unto everlasting--the perfect arch of God's restraining hand. We may lie down to rest in utter faith, for, with the failing glory of our day, the night reveals His visible providence. But those who cannot sleep most need His comfort, and our Lady Margaret kept vigil that last night.

From the high solitude of her tower, she watched the passing stars until the black ruins of the city loomed ragged against white dawn light. Ashen grey were the ruins of Mayfair to the north; gaunt and gigantic wrecks of Belgravia's palaces went up in white against the velvet west. The day was breaking--the last day of all. Mist lay beneath where all the Palace slept, and in the gardens the waking doves crooned softly. Far off in the south, trains rumbled at some junction of the rails; a car whirred in the Palace Road; an aerial yacht slid past in the western gloom, and London was alive.

The sun would come up presently; how few of all the thousands asleep in the Palace were destined to see him set! The trooper who stood by the parapet watching the pale light climb the eastern sky prayed with a boy's fervour that the sun might never rise. "Jehovah of the Thunders, Lord God of Battles, don't let that sun rise! Have pity; destroy the earth, hurl us away into the night, but don't let the sun rise upon Margaret's death--the end of human liberty, and all the glory of manhood that was England! Oh, stay the sun! Have mercy and stay the sun!"

The trooper knelt down, and, reaching out his arms towards the east, begged the Almighty Father to stay the sun.

Our Lady's voice broke in upon his silence. "Browne," she called, "Browne, come here to me, I need you."

He came, standing at the salute.

"Look to the west," said Margaret. "The light is growing--look to the west and tell me--are there any ships?"

He looked into the violet gloom, hung like a funeral curtain over the west, then his arm fell to his side, but he dared not answer.

"The armistice," said Margaret, "ends when the sun comes up--the three days' armistice--they would not give me more. Not just in the west, Browne," said our Lady, gently, "a little to the southward, look again. Lyonesse is a little south of west, above the copper beech tree down in the garden."

But still Browne answered nothing.

"Are you short-sighted, Browne?" asked Margaret, patiently, knowing that he was noted for long sight. "Or is the sky still dark over to westward?"

But he answered nothing.

"Or are you crying, Browne?"

The man threw himself suddenly at her feet and there lay until the dawn light found our Lady's face.

"If it were all to do again," she said; "and I knew what must come, seeing the future clearer than the past, and judging as God judges even to the end of Destiny--I wonder--should I have let my country be betrayed? Vassalage to Russia! No, I think not. Ulster betrayed me, and in that treason was the seed of all. Now we must reap where Ulster sowed the seed. I could not keep back the harvest, nor can we stop the sun from rising. It is not the rising of the sun which gives the signal to the Russian Fleet. The sun stands still in heaven--it is the earth that sets--man's world going down into this vassalage, into this Russian night.

"They wanted me to surrender, to lay down my arms, my crown, my kingdom, my religion; my Ministers and my Generals, all with one voice begged me to save my people, by surrender. They asked me to make my people subjects of Russia--they called that serving my people! I would rather they died free, and took their freedom into the life to come, going to their Master rich with honour--and not afterwards beggarly, and ashamed, whining like slaves.

"There is the Siberian Fleet," Margaret was gazing upwards at the vast line of battle in the eastern sky. "When the sun reddens their wings, they will destroy my fortresses, murder my people, make the Thames run blood. My place is with my people--I am their Queen, and still I shall labour for them, pray for them in that other world, leading my spirit people, my free people. Then I shall leave no children on this earth borne of my shame, descended from British Kings to be vassals of Russia.

"But, oh, if only my people might be saved! Stand up again! Stand up--the sun is reddening the Russian Fleet. Stand up--look to the west--there must be ships in the west--his ships from Lyonesse! No ships! Still no ships! Let us go down and take our horses out; I shall die with my Guard to-day! I shall ride with my Guard, Beyond!"

* * * * *

"Fours right! Left wheel--by y'r left, march! Carry ar-r-r-ms!"

The old avenue lay ahead of us, the Mall, and as we rode out slowly past the Victoria Monument, our Lady looked back, once, lifting her hand in farewell--perhaps to Miss Temple on some balcony. Our wounded were with us, all who could keep the saddle, and Lancaster, still very weak, carried the Guidon of the Regiment. The early sunlight, dappled through green leaves, caught gold and scarlet, silver and blazonry; our horses played like great babies because of the dewy freshness in the air; and so we broke to a trot, every man with his eyes set straight to the front, his hand gently on the curb, his thoughts--so far away!

All round the white horizon, guns of position thundered, shells burst, and spluttering rifles kept up the long monotony of battle, white dust went up, and rolling smoke, flame, and the souls of men.

A shell burst close beside us as we swung through St. James' Palace into Pall Mall, another, as we entered Waterloo Place, struck the Crimean Monument just ahead; but we breasted the hill in lower Regent Street between dead shuttered buildings all asleep, as though it were Sunday morning in times of peace.

We crossed the circus set round with familiar theatres, and hotels, their porches still bearing torn playbills on the columns, their cornices and domes just caught by the morning light.

A falling shell scattered the rear ranks and burst. Ambrose was killed, O'Hagan wounded, Joubert, the Transvaaller, was unhorsed. Drawing his sword, he saluted her Majesty, then set the point to his neck, drove the blade home, and fell. We rode on through the Quadrant, entering Regent Street.

We were a troop of cowards, ashen white and shaken, ready to run if a dog barked. The hot blood tingling in our veins, young strength, the desires of manhood, all the powers of nature cried out within us demanding life. Why should we die!

The elder empires died, and England's time was come. She should fall gloriously as became her life, still great, still mighty, before age sapped her strength, before decay rotted her honour. Nations born of her loins should pass her freedom on to distant ages, and teach their royal posterity of peoples the discipline and speech of the English race.

Our part was not in her death but in the living future--why should we die?

But Margaret led us on.

The sparrows fluttered about our horses' feet, a mist rose on the pavement, and above, the warm light glowed on the high pavilions, colonnades, and roofs crowning the cliff-like walls on either hand.

How empty the street was! Grave bronze statues looked down as we rode by, there were the sparrows fluttering, a cyclist was coming up behind, and an old woman venturing across our front, very much frightened at our trampling.

In an instant all was changed. A cluster of cars came whirling down from the north, killing the woman under their ruthless wheels, and as they passed, the occupants yelled and beckoned. The cyclist had come up abreast shouting to her Majesty some message from the Palace, but we could not listen.

A man came running out of Oxford Street, then three others and a score behind him, as a shell struck the ground in front of that first man. We saw him shrink away looking back, then fearing the shell less, try to jump clear of it. The shell burst flinging his body against a lamp-post, but the other men came on at the head of a roaring crowd blocking the thoroughfare from wall to wall. There were soldiers among them, their rifles thrown away, civilians mad with fright trampling down the weak, cars rocking from side to side as their wheels rolled over the fallen, police carried helpless in the flood. Fresh crowds poured out from byways on the right, and the main tide of panic came roaring down. We galloped into line to beat the crowd back, yelled to the police to help us with barricades, but all these men were changed to beasts in their terror, shells burst in their midst, and the great rush swept us away.

We rallied about our Lady gradually, cut through the tide and reformed in Conduit Street. On our west lay the ruins of Mayfair, on our east the ruins of Soho, and between no human power could stem that cataract of headlong maniac flight. A shell burst on a roof above our heads scattering ruins of brick-work in our midst; so, sorely reduced and driven from our shelter, we kept together as best we might through street after street on fire, and alleys blocked with men.

The smoke hung like a canopy above, and ashes fell like snow through the red gloom. Poisonous vapours spread from bursting shells, low on the ground but rising inch by inch until with taut rein we held up our horses' heads, and swaths of people, strangled by that mist, perished around us. Our way was barred by falling masonry, by sheets of flame; then we were lost in the darkness all alone, and turning a corner found ourselves in the Mall.

So Russia dealt with our defenceless crowds, murdering in cold blood from the decks of her battleships. The Grand Duke Alexander was in command, and thus he came to pay his court to the Queen.

Slowly we rode along the avenue, thirty-eight left of us out of all the Guard. And having seen so many kinds of death, we were fastidious, not caring to fight our own poor countrymen, or to be any longer jostled through the streets, or butchered by the Russians without a blow returned. Our Lady suggested that we should ride out to the southern lines, but we demurred, having an easy tolerance rather than respect for the French. Neither would she enter the Palace lest the sick and the wounded be disturbed in their beds. It was better to wait in the open. As to our horses we unsaddled the dear beasts for the last time, and because there was no need for them to die--since they had done no wrong--we turned them into the Green Park.

Our Lady sat upon the base of the Victoria Monument, and we, drawing away to a little distance, tried to be quiet lest we intrude upon her thoughts. But we could not help looking to see that she was safe, to behold her face, perhaps for the last time, or wonder if we might make her seat more comfortable. Then Lancaster whispered that she must be lonely, thinking herself deserted. So one by one with awkward pretences, we came about the balustrade where she sat, attempted to make conversation, to tell her stories, trying to win her laughter for the last time. They were such tame stories, fell so flat, and none of us could remember which she would like best. At last we made fat Branscombe sing--he had led the Palace choir.

"Abide with me, fast falls the eventide,
The darkness deepens, Lord with me abide,
When other helpers fail, and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, Lord abide with me.

"Swift to its close, ebbs out life's little day,
Earth's joys grow dim, its glories pass away----"

"Stop," cried our Lady, "I can't bear it, Branscombe!"

Then looking out through the red gloom of that unearthly day, we saw an immense crowd surging down the Mall. At first we thought the people were fugitives, but as they drew nearer, by their torches and weapons, the hags who led them and the song they screamed, "The Marseillaise," we knew them for outlaws and gaol-delivered felons.

Once more it had broken loose, that bloody and horrible beast mob of anarchy and chaos, but now with hands lifted against our Lady's life. Falling back upon the portico of the Palace, she sent a dozen men to barricade the alabaster stairs, and at all costs we must gain them time to do their work lest the Palace be sacked and thousands of our sick murdered in their beds. Her Majesty stood with her back against the fluted shaft of a column, bullets splashing all round her against the marble, while with an imperious gesture she demanded silence.

"Do you want to die?" she cried to the thieves. "The Russians are slaughtering--they are coming here--they may come at any moment. Will you die with me?"

The leaders of the mob drew back amazed, then thrust their spokesman forward, who touched his cap, asking quite respectfully for the treasure in the Palace lest it fall into the hands of the enemy.

"If there's anything left," cried Margaret, "you're welcome. My Guardsmen will bring whatever there is to you here, for I'd rather you shared it than my enemies--on one condition, that you stay here outside. I will not have my hospital disturbed."

"Who brought us to this pass!" screamed a shrill hag. "Kill her! Kill her!"

"We're the people," shouted a man behind the hag. "We'll 'ave our rights!"

"You shall have your rights," said Branscombe, running him through the body.

Then beastly words were used, the man who first had spoken implored her Majesty to escape, lead spattered against the columns, and the mob charged. Driven back step by step, we fought with clubbed carbines, covering her Majesty's retreat. The leaders were felled, the thieves behind them stumbling and pushed forward, went down under the heavy wave of that attack, which hurled us, whether we liked or no, into the Palace. We made a stand behind the main doors, a second stand behind the beginnings of a barricade; and there we opened fire for the first time. Nothing could live before that fusilade, yet the rush drove in through the open doors a writhing mass of frantic, shrieking men, hurled by the pressure of their fellows, screaming for mercy under the very muzzles of our guns. There could be no mercy.

We hardly knew what happened; supposedly some other gate was breached into the Palace, for suddenly a concentrated fire of rifles poured into us from behind. Looking up the stairs, we saw that the guardroom above us was full of rioters, firing down from the side galleries and the stairhead. To stay was to be butchered at the doors, and so we charged the stairs, cleaved our passage through the guardroom, and on the upper stairway, those who were left of us turned again to fight.

A clergyman led the next onrush of the mob, a poor, gaunt curate, unarmed, screaming like a woman.

"Rats--red rats," was his cry. "Away rats--know you not that I am Julius Caesar! Rats! red rats!"

He fell, poor madman, with so many of his fellows that the stairs ran blood, and our assailants, reeling before our fire, made barricades of the dead to fight from cover. Only when we had spent our last cartridge dared they charge again, led now by an old grey fanatic, waving a banner looted from some church, and screaming of Babylon and the Scarlet Woman. A bullet from his following gave him peace.

And then we had only our swords, our good straight swords, making a fence of steel about our Lady's life. Her life? It sounds a little inconsistent, but it was our turn first. We hoped for our Lady a nobler death, in a greater quarrel than this fight with thieves--that is, we ought to have so reasoned had there been time. It is only after the fight that one has leisure to invent all the good reasons. For the time we guarded her Majesty just because we loved her; fought for her, not with reasoning but with sheer hard steel.

The surgeons came with their long knives, and stood with us shoulder to shoulder for the defence of their wards; all sick and wounded men able to stand joined us with crutch or stick to fight for the Queen; the ladies, driven from their nursing, came to die with us, and many a Palace servant and stray civilian. So went the fight reeling along the corridor and into the rooms of state--a long, hard, desperate defence against overwhelming numbers. The horror of that battle was for the sick, thrown over in their cots, the dying trampled under, the helpless nursing sisters, and those of us who fell.

Pretty things have been said about the Guard, but the word "Heroic" is strangely misapplied to us who thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. We were having a good fight, free from all doubts and misgivings; for being to all intents and purposes already dead, we had nothing left to be alarmed about. But her Majesty, covering Trooper Browne when he was hurt, and engaging three assailants to her lone sword--that was heroic.

How that great stormy spirit rose in danger! She had never seemed to us so royal as when, wounded and bleeding, she rallied us in the throne room, looked about her laughing, and said she would not retreat another inch. She mounted the dais, sat in the chair of state, and laying the red sword across her knees, looked down at her enemies.

Tenuous wreaths of smoke hung midway up the columns, and blurred the golden vault. The mob was dispersed after pillage, save for a few maniacs still running on our swords. On every side the floor was covered with long rows of beds, the air was filled with wailing, screams and groans, and through the deep gloom one could see the stunted felons of the slums, cursing and shrieking as they fought over their plunder. Plate, robes, gems, porcelain, bronzes, the gifts of kings, and trophies of great campaigns, were fought for by the rabble, snatched from hand to hand, or shattered on the pavement. Drunk with wine from the cellars, mad with bloodshed, fighting among themselves, murdering at random, these obscene robbers forgot to attack the Guard. We were dressing each other's wounds, rescuing women from outrage, contriving a barricade to shelter our refugees; and in her throne our Lady awaited the end.

We scarcely could see the further columns now, so dense the gloom, so heavy the rolling smoke. Far on our right down the east corridor, bright flames swept nearer and nearer, lighting the hall at last with a crimson glare, and like sunset clouds rolled the red smoke above.

So the end came. We heard a bugle call, clear notes soaring above all the tumult, sweet music for us who waited--the "Advance." We left our work on the barricading about the dais, clasped hands one with another, said "Good-bye." The Russian bugles called; one, then another, and a third far off. Her Majesty cried to her surgeons and able-bodied men to withdraw with the refugees, to hoist a white flag and stand aside from death under the shelter of the colonnades. We forced a swift obedience, we of the Guard.

And coming back we heard our Lady scream! She had half risen, one knee on the seat of the throne, her eyes dilated with horror, set on the east corridor. There under the flames, it seemed from the very midst of the flames, Miss Temple came, walking slowly, as though in a dream. She reached out her arms to us--her hands had been cut off at the wrists--her grey hair streamed with blood, her gown of black brocade was torn away at the breast. As she entered the throne-room the robbers fell shrinking back on either side, opening a lane through the beds to give her passage. Death was in her face, as tenderly we led her to the Queen, and then at Margaret's feet she found rest. Her Majesty was crying.

Saluting the throne as we passed, we formed before the dais, measured each man his distance, and made ready. Lancaster, badly wounded and barely able to stand, planted the Guidon on our Lady's right, our lance-borne pennant charged with the royal arms, half seen through low-rolling flame-hued smoke, glowing with golden and scarlet blazonry.

Already the rioters in their thousands were being swept headlong as though by a whirlwind through the chambers of state, their flight converging in the throne-room, and, for one wild moment threatening to roll insensate over our last defence. Like a rock in mid torrent we split the rush in two, then free to breathe again wiped the blood from our swords and waited. Through the red gloom, we could see battalions of Russian seamen clearing a space with their bayonets on the further side of the hall. Opposite, an Admiral attended by his staff advanced midway to the throne and halted. On either side of this group of officers, the battalions, far back against the columns, halted, grounded arms with a crash, and unfixed bayonets. Their rifles clattered to the "ready," the "present," then with a deafening roar and a blaze of flame, delivered one volley. The floor was littered with the broken cots of the hospitals, with heaps of plunder, and with piles of the dead. We were alone with our enemy, and in a momentary silence heard the sharp crackle of advancing flames, felt the furnace heat, and saw the red glare deepen on drifting wreaths of smoke.

The bugles were sounding the English general salute, and as the Admiral advanced at the head of his staff, we could do no less than respond to that courtesy with our swords. We looked at the Admiral's face, and he was the man we had expelled in disgrace from the Palace, his Imperial Highness the Grand Duke Alexander.

Our Lady never moved, nor would we draw aside one inch to give him passage. Dymoke was facing him on the right, Branscombe on the left, when at last he spoke to the Queen.

"Your Majesty," he said, "I have come to renew my suit, attended by half a million of your devoted admirers."

Our Lady never stirred.

"I might," he continued, "have expected a more courteous reception for the Emperor of All the Russias. Yes, my brother, Nicholas, is with the saints, and I am Father of the Russians. My heroic adversary, I have come to offer you the Russian throne in exchange for the British."

"Sir," said Margaret, "my kingdom is all red flame, my people are the dead, and I will not leave this throne. Of you I can ask nothing for myself, but for my Guardsmen here, and for some poor fugitives yonder--if you have not already murdered them, I ask life."

"Madam," cried Branscombe, "you ask too much! I speak for the whole Corps of the Guard!"

"Death!" cried Lancaster, and Browne called "Death!" and all the rest echoed "Death!" "Death!"

"Your Majesty," said Alexander, "I will provide for the refugees. To these gallant gentlemen I offer commissions in my Imperial Guards; to you, madam, the throne of my Empire and my devoted love."

Margaret looked down straight into his eyes. "You have a strange way, sir, in revealing your love. How many thousands, and hundreds of thousands of my people have you slaughtered this day in cold blood--my helpless citizens, women, little children, the sick in their beds, the wounded, the dying! You drunken libertine, you pitiless coward, you butcher of women, I commend you to the Eternal, the Everlasting Justice. No liberal and justly governed realm was ever abandoned by Almighty God, and to Him I appeal now, to His ordeal of battle."

"At last," cried Dymoke, hoarsely, as drawing off his gauntlet, he struck the Russian Emperor in the face.

"Your Majesty!" Alexander drew back, almost choked with rage. "I shall avenge this outrage!"

"Avenge! Avenge!" cried Dymoke. "I am Hereditary Champion of England. Draw, I say, draw!"

"I do not fight with servants. Stand back, sir!"

"With servants, you cur? My ancestors were Champions of England while yours gnawed horse bones round a camp fire. Draw!"

"Harold Dymoke," said our Lady. "No man shall slight you as my Champion. I dub you knight, I give you the Duchy of Gloucester, I create you a Prince of the United Kingdom. Prince Harold of Gloucester, strike that man again!"

Several Russian officers sprang forward attempting to save their master, who had scarcely time to draw, so swift, so furious the assault. Dymoke disarmed the first, ran the second through, and before he could disengage, was like to be killed when Branscombe intervened. Now fat Branscombe was instructor to the Guard, had once been the first swordsman in Europe, but even he was scarcely safe against six blades at once, and must have fallen, but that Hylton struck in vigorously. Dymoke was with the Emperor now.

The engagement was general and greatly to our liking--twenty-four Queen's Blackguards against fifty Russians. Our middle-aged opponents knew nothing of swordcraft, their tailor's swords buckled, they were laced up in full-dress uniforms. We cut their line of retreat, flicked the swords from their plump fingers, or, point to throat, forced them to surrender. What could they hope against our youth, our perfect training, our deadly skill at fence, our shirts of mail? We knew that their massed battalions dared not fire, the Emperor was dead, the General Staff was captured.

How can one trace a sequence through that wild confusion which followed? Even while we compelled our prisoners on pain of death to retire their battalions from the Palace, we saw the Russian seamen breaking ranks. The captured officers yelled at them in vain, we could gain nothing by killing our hostages, as the seamen rushed on us brandishing their rifles, hundreds to one against our scattered groups. No reach of sword could give us a fighting chance against such bludgeons as the seamen used, nor had we time to rally round the Queen. Taken flank, front, and rear, each for himself, we measured our short blades against the sledgehammer blows, and some of us won back to the steps of the dais--and some to the ranks of the Guard beyond the Gates of Death.

Comparing one with another the memories of that last tremendous struggle for existence, some of us have recalled a series of explosions which made the pavement reel beneath our feet, and more than one of the great onyx columns crash down in ruin on the attacking force. The timbering of the golden dome was all aflame above us littering red-hot wreckage through the smoke. It was a beam of this burning timber which slew Dymoke, and we heard him calling on Sydney before he died.

Some of us also have remembrance that with noble courtesy the disarmed officers of the General Staff were attempting to save us from their men. But, for the writer of this history, one recollection only is engraved forever upon a sorely bewildered brain. It is the picture of our Lady standing before her throne. All round her upon the steps of the dais, the swords of her Guardsmen whispered and sang, red gleaming blades, thrusting or slashing, resonant against dark steel of whistling rifles. Above her the emblazoned Guidon drooped in the coiling vapours, at her feet lay Lancaster, his dead face wonderful in its perfect rest. Her hands were on the hilt of her sword, the cloak was drawn about her, ruddy gold and red streamed her hair in the fierce light. Her face was lifted in prayer, radiant with an unearthly beauty, and fearless, and at peace.

And the fight raged on as though there never could be an end.

How strange the end was! One saw a Russian seaman, his bronzed face glowing with fury, his rifle whirling for the blow--then somehow that rifle was blown to pieces in mid-air; and the bandolier across the man's shoulder changed to a bolt of lightning; and his body dismembered, disrupted, gone. Then one looked out across the hall to find it empty, save for the group of Russian officers--while the floor seemed a sea of blood. A voice cried, "Margaret! Margaret!" We saw a single man, a great, grim, bloodstained man, looming gigantic in the flame-light, come running towards the dais, his arms stretched out; and in a reeling, heaving vault of blood and flame, John Brand lifting the Queen in his arms.

Margaret was saved!