CHAPTER XVI. THE LANDING
Inside the town, there was great confusion.Riotous men were
foraging, that is, plundering from private houses, pretending
that they did so at the Duke's orders. The streets were full of
people, nearly all of them men, the green boughs in their hats.
On the beach two long lines of men with green scarves on their
arms were being drilled by an officer. Horses were picketed in a
long line up the main street; they were mostly very poor
cart-stock, ill-provided, as I learned afterwards, with harness.
Men were bringing hay to them from whatever haystack was nearest.
From time to time, there came a loud booming of guns, above the
ringing of the church bells. Three ships in the bay, one of them
La Reina, were firing salutes as they hoisted their colours. It
was all like a very noisy fair or coronation day. It had little
appearance of an armed invasion. We found the Duke busy with Mr.
Jermyn enlisting men in a field above the town.
"That's not Mr. Jermyn. That's Lord Grey," Mr. Blick said, on
hearing me exclaim. "Mr. Jermyn's only the name he goes by. He's
my Lord now, you must remember."
Just then the Duke caught sight of us riding up. He took us for
local gentry, coming in to volunteer. He came smiling to welcome
us. It must have been a shrewd disappointment to him to find that
we were not what he thought. All his hopes were in the gentry,
poor man. By the time we were on our feet with our hats off he
had turned his back upon us as though to speak to Lord Grey, but
really, I believe, to hide his chagrin. When he turned to us
again both of them welcomed us, saying that there was work enough
for all, in enlisting men, making out billets, etc. So without
more ado we gave our horses to the ostlers at an inn. Mr. Blick
at once began to blarney the standers-by into joining, while I,
sitting at a little table, in the open air, wrote out copies of a
letter addressed to the local gentry. My copies were carried from
Lyme by messengers that afternoon but, alas for my master, they
did not bring many gentry to us.
Now while I was writing at the table, under the great flapping
standard, with the Duke, in his purple coat, walking about in
front of me, I had a pretty full view of the crowd which ringed
us in. We were circled about by a crowd of gaping admirers; from
whom, every minute, Mr. Blick, or the Duke, or Lord Grey, would
select a sheepish grinning man to serve under our colours. Among
the crowd I noticed a little old lame man with a long white
beard. He was a puppet-man, who was making the people laugh by
dancing his puppets almost under the Duke's nose. As he jerked
the puppet-strings, he played continually on his pan-pipes the
ribald tune of "Hey, boys, up go we," then very popular. The Duke
spoke to him once; but he did not answer, only bowed very low,
with his hat off, which made the people think him an idiot or a
jester. They laughed heartily at him. After a bit, it occurred.
to me that this old puppet-shaker always crept into the ring
(with his hat off to receive alms) whenever the Duke spoke aside
to Lord Grey, or to some other officer. I watched him narrowly to
make sure, because something in his manner made me suspect that
he was trying to catch what our leaders said to each other. I
tried to recall where I had seen the old man; for I had seen him
before. He had been at Exeter on the day we set out for Sidmouth,
so much I remembered clearly; but looking at him carefully, with
my head full of memories of faces, it seemed to me that he had
been at Dorchester also. Surely an old man, lame in the left leg
like this man, had gone down a narrow lane in front of me in
Dorchester. I had not thought of it in Dorchester; but I thought
of it now, with a feeling that it was strange to meet again thus
in Lyme. I took good stock of the man, wondering if he were a
spy. He was a dirty old man enough. His dirty fingers poked
through ragged mittens. His cheeks were all swathed up in a
woollen comforter. I made the mistake of looking at him so hard
that I made him look at me. Seeing that I was staring at him,
with a face full of suspicion, he walked boldly up to me, holding
out his hat for my charity. We stared at each other, while he
blew a blast on his pan-pipes, at which everybody laughed.
"Come, come, boy," said Lord Grey to me, "we want those letters
done. Never mind about the puppets. Here, old man" (giving him a
penny), "you take yourself off now. Or are you going to enlist?"
The people laughed again at this, while the old man, after a
flourish of his hat to me, piped up lively quickstep, called
"Jockeys to the Fair."
He disappeared after this. I did not see him again until our
troubles began, later in the morning. I was finishing off the
last of my letters, when some of our scouts rode in to make a
grave report to the Duke. They had ridden in pretty hard, their
horses were lathered all over. They themselves were in an
internal lather; for they had just had their first sight of war.
They had come into touch (so they declared) with the whole of
Albemarle's militia, marching out to attack them. On being
questioned, it turned out that they had heard this from an
excited labourer who had run to them with the news, as they stood
guard in a roadside field a few miles out of Lyme. They
themselves had seen nothing, but the news seemed so probable that
the Duke acted on it. He sent me off at once with a message to a
clever, handsome gentleman who was in charge of the cavalry in
the street. It was in giving the message that I saw the old man
again. He was them limping up the street on the. Sidmouth road,
going fast, in spite of his lameness. I gave my message to the
captain, who commanded his trumpeter to call to arms. The
trumpeter blew nobly; but the sight of the confusion afterwards
showed me how little raw troops can be trusted. There was a hasty
scramble for horses rather than a setting forth. Some men
quarreled over weapons; others wrestled with harness; others ran
about wildly, asking what was happening, was it to be a battle,
what did blowing .on the trumpet mean? Some few, thinking the
worst, got wisdom in those few moments. They took horses from the
ranks, but instead of forming up with the regiments, they
galloped off home, having had enough of soldiering at the first
order. The foot behaved rather better, knowing, perhaps, that if
they fought they would be behind hedges, in some sort of shelter.
Even so, they seemed a raw lot of clumsy bumpkins as they marched
up. Many of them were in ploughmen's smock-frocks; hardly any of
them had any sense of handling their guns. They had drums with
them, which beat up a quickstep, giving each man of them a high
sense of his importance, especially if he had been drinking.
People in the roadway cheered them, until they heard that there
was to be a battle. Those who were coming in to join us found it
a reason for hesitation.
After a lot of confusion, the army drew out of Lyme along the
Sidmouth road, followed by a host of sightseers. Some of the best
mounted rode on ahead at a trot, under the handsome man, Mr.
Fletcher, who was their captain. I followed on with the
foot-soldiers, who marched extremely slowly. They halted at their
own discretion; nor did they seem to understand that orders given
were to be obeyed. What they liked, poor fellows, was to see the
women admiring them. The march up the hill out of Lyme was a long
exhibition of vanity, the women waving their handkerchiefs, the
men putting on all sorts of airs, jetting like gamecocks. When we
got up to the top of the hill, I saw the old lame puppet-man,
sitting on the edge of the wild, unenclosed, gorse-covered
common-land which stretches away towards the town of Axminster.
He was watching us with deep interest. Our men were spreading out
into line upon this common. The horse was ranging on, bobbing
about, far ahead. The foot were looking about eagerly as they got
out of the ranks in which they had marched; but they could see no
trace of any enemy. I caught sight of the Duke four hundred yards
away, a little figure sitting alone on his horse, in front of
half a dozen others. They were all scanning the country, all the
way round. Presently I called out that I saw the enemy. Half a
dozen cavalry were riding up a combe far off. But they were our
own men, not the militia. They were some of our scouts riding off
as "feelers" to spy out Albemarle's position. All the time that
we were up there on the hill, the little old man portered about
among the men, now listening to what they had to say, now asking
the soldiers to look at his pretty puppets. When the returning
scouts brought word that no troops were near us, so that we were
free to march back again, he was still there, packing up his
puppets in tarred canvas, as though about to march off to the
next market-town. We marched past him, as he sat in the heather.
I passed quite close to him, staring at him hard, for to tell the
truth he was on my mind. I was suspicious of him. He took off his
hat to me, with a smile; but he did not speak. Then my troops
swung round, down the hill, leaving him alone there, watching the
men pass.
Other things put him out of my mind during the afternoon. I was
kept busy writing orders to scouts; for we were sending out
scouts in every direction, partly to protect us from surprise,
partly to direct new recruits to our headquarters. Mr. Blick, who
knew the ground dictated the letters, helped by Mr. Fletcher, who
studied a big map with great attention; I was writing all that
afternoon. Lyme grew noisier during the day, as the recruits
became more drunk. Many steady men turned away from us when they
saw our disorder. I myself had been brought up to abhor
drunkenness. I found the state of drunken uproar very terrible. I
feared that such an army would never achieve any great deed. I
thought that such sin would be punished. Our soldiers were not
behaving like knights sworn to a good cause; but like boors at a
fair. That day we lost our only good officer, Mr. Fletcher.
I have spoken of this gentleman. He was in command of the horse
under Lord Grey. He was a much better soldier than my Lord; a
better officer, too; a better man. Now in the day's confusion,
with everything topsy turvy, the Duke's messenger, "Old Dare,"
rode into Lyme from Taunton, where he had galloped the day before
to spread the news of our arrival. This Dare was a
quick-tempered, not very clever, popular man with a great deal of
influence in the countryside. On his way back to us from Taunton,
someone lent, or gave, him a very fine horse. It may have been
meant as a gift to the Duke; I do not know. Anyhow Old Dare rode
in on this horse with letters from Taunton, which he handed to
Mr. Fletcher to give to the Duke. Fletcher, our cavalry
commander, had as yet no horse; so seeing the splendid charger on
which Old Dare rode, he ordered Old Dare to give it up to him. He
was the real commander of the army, with a military right, if no
real right, to take what horse he liked from any subordinate
officer. But Old Dare, like so many of our men, had no knowledge
of what soldier's discipline meant. He saw, in Fletcher, a
gentleman with whom he had lived as an equal for the last
fortnight. He was not going to give up his horse like that; not
he. Fletcher (speaking sharply) told him to obey without further
words, at which Dare in a sudden flush of temper struck him with
his riding switch. Fletcher was not a patient man. He could not
let an act of gross mutiny pass unpunished, nor would he suffer
an insult. He shot Dare dead upon the spot, in full view of some
hundreds of us. It was all done in an instant. There was Dare
lying dead, never to stir again. There was Fletcher, our only
soldier, with a smoking pistol in his hand, thinking that he had
taught the army a lesson in obedience. There was the army all
about him, flocking round in a swarm, not looking at it as a
military punishment but as a savage murder, for which he deserved
to be hanged. Then the Duke hastened up to make things quiet,
before the army avenged their friend. He drew Fletcher aside,
though the people murmured at him for speaking to a murderer. He
was unnerved by Fletcher's act. He had no great vitality. Sudden
crises such as this unnerved him, by using up his forces. A
crisis of this kind (a small thing in a great rebellion) was
often enough to keep his brain from considering other, more
important, more burning questions concerning the entire army. The
end of this business was as unhappy as its beginning. Fletcher,
our only soldier, was sent aboard the frigate in which the Duke
had sailed from Holland. When the tide served, she set sail with
him for Corunna in Spain. With him she carried all our hopes of
success, together with a quantity of stores which would have been
of use later in the expedition. As I left the Cobb, or pier,
which makes Lyme harbour, I saw the little lame puppet-man
turning away from the beach with a company of men who wore our
green boughs. For a few steps I hurried towards him, so that I
might overhear what he was saying; I made so sure that he was a
spy. Mr. Blick, to whom I told my fears, bade me not to worry
myself. "Why, boy," he said, "there are five hundred spies in
Lyme; but they can't hurt us. Before they can get off to tell our
enemies all about us there won't be any enemies left. We shall be
marching at once. We shall drive everything before us." He spoke
with such confidence that I believed him; yet the old man
troubled me, for all that. When you see a face continually, at a
time when you are excited, you connect the face with your
excitement; it troubles your nerves.
The day wore by with all the unreality of a day of confusion. I
was kept at work until the light was gone; then served at the
Duke's table while he supped, then snatched a hurried supper
while he talked with his officers. After supper, I had to go from
billet to billet, looking for people whom the officers wished to
see. Something very important was in the air. The discussion in
the inn's great room was the first serious council of the war.
About eleven o'clock, Lord Grey came out of the room, telling me
to follow him. We went out into the street, where presently our
men began to fall in, four or five abreast, about a hundred ranks
of them. A few cavalry came, too, but not enough, I heard Lord
Grey say, not enough to do any good with. In spite of all the
efforts of those who loved us (by efforts I mean the robbing of
farm-stables) we were very short of horses. Those which we had
were not good; they were cart, not saddle-horses, unused to the
noise of guns. Still, such as they were, they formed up in the
street ahead of the foot. The force took a long time to form; for
the men kept saying that they had forgotten something, their
powder-horn, their cartridges, their guns, even. Then they had to
run back to their billets to fetch whatever it was, while those
who remained behind, puzzled at the movement so late at night,
when they wished to sleep, began to get nervous. They began to
ask where it was that we were going, was it to Axminster, or to
Bridport
