The Battle Of The Strong: Chapter 1

Chapter 1

The Invasion

In all the world there is no coast like the coast of Jersey; so
treacherous, so snarling; serrated with rocks seen and unseen, tortured
by currents maliciously whimsical, encircled by tides that sweep up from
the Antarctic world with the devouring force of a monstrous serpent
projecting itself towards its prey. The captain of these tides,
travelling up through the Atlantic at a thousand miles an hour, enters
the English Channel, and drives on to the Thames. Presently retreating,
it meets another pursuing Antarctic wave, which, thus opposed in its
straightforward course, recoils into St. Michael's Bay, then plunges, as
it were, upon a terrible foe. They twine and strive in mystic conflict,
and, in rage of equal power, neither vanquished nor conquering, circle,
mad and desperate, round the Channel Isles. Impeded, impounded as they
riot through the flumes of sea, they turn furiously, and smite the cliffs
and rocks and walls of their prison-house. With the frenzied winds
helping them, the island coasts and Norman shores are battered by their
hopeless onset: and in that channel between Alderney and Cap de la Hague
man or ship must well beware, for the Race of Alderney is one of the
death-shoots of the tides. Before they find their way to the main again,
these harridans of nature bring forth a brood of currents which
ceaselessly fret the boundaries of the isles.

Always, always the white foam beats the rocks, and always must man go
warily along these coasts. The swimmer plunges into a quiet pool, the
snowy froth that masks the reefs seeming only the pretty fringe of
sentient life to a sleeping sea; but presently an invisible hand reaches
up and grasps him, an unseen power drags him exultingly out to the
main--and he returns no more. Many a Jersey boatman, many a fisherman who
has lived his whole life in sight of the Paternosters on the north, the
Ecrehos on the east, the Dog's Nest on the south, or the Corbiere on the
west, has in some helpless moment been caught by the unsleeping currents
which harry his peaceful borders, or the rocks that have eluded the
hunters of the sea, and has yielded up his life within sight of his own
doorway, an involuntary sacrifice to the navigator's knowledge and to the
calm perfection of an admiralty chart.

Yet within the circle of danger bounding this green isle the love of home
and country is stubbornly, almost pathetically, strong. Isolation, pride
of lineage, independence of government, antiquity of law and custom, and
jealousy of imperial influence or action have combined to make a race
self-reliant even to perverseness, proud and maybe vain, sincere almost
to commonplaceness, unimaginative and reserved, with the melancholy born
of monotony--for the life of the little country has coiled in upon
itself, and the people have drooped to see but just their own selves
reflected in all the dwellers of the land, whichever way they turn. A
hundred years ago, however, there was a greater and more general
lightness of heart and vivacity of spirit than now. Then the song of the
harvester and the fisherman, the boat-builder and the stocking-knitter,
was heard on a summer afternoon, or from the veille of a winter night
when the dim crasset hung from the roof and the seaweed burned in the
chimney. Then the gathering of the vraic was a fete, and the lads and
lasses footed it on the green or on the hard sand, to the chance
flageolets of sportive seamen home from the war. This simple gaiety was
heartiest at Christmastide, when the yearly reunion of families took
place; and because nearly everybody in Jersey was "couzain" to his
neighbour these gatherings were as patriarchal as they were festive.

..........................

The new year of seventeen hundred and eighty-one had been ushered in by
the last impulse of such festivities. The English cruisers lately in port
had vanished up the Channel; and at Elizabeth Castle, Mont Orgueil, the
Blue Barracks and the Hospital, three British regiments had taken up the
dull round of duty again; so that by the fourth day a general lethargy,
akin to content, had settled on the whole island.

On the morning of the fifth day a little snow was lying upon the ground,
but the sun rose strong and unclouded, the whiteness vanished, and there
remained only a pleasant dampness which made sod and sand firm yet
springy to the foot. As the day wore on, the air became more amiable
still, and a delicate haze settled over the water and over the land,
making softer to the eye house and hill and rock and sea.

There was little life in the town of St. Heliers, there were few people
upon the beach; though now and then some one who had been praying beside
a grave in the parish churchyard came to the railings and looked out upon
the calm sea almost washing its foundations, and over the dark range of
rocks, which, when the tide was out, showed like a vast gridiron
blackened by fires. Near by, some loitering sailors watched the
yawl-rigged fishing craft from Holland, and the codfish-smelling
cul-de-poule schooners of the great fishing company which exploited the
far-off fields of Gaspe in Canada.

St. Heliers lay in St. Aubin's Bay, which, shaped like a horseshoe, had
Noirmont Point for one end of the segment and the lofty Town Hill for
another. At the foot of this hill, hugging it close, straggled the town.
From the bare green promontory above might be seen two-thirds of the
south coast of the island--to the right St. Aubin's Bay, to the left
Greve d'Azette, with its fields of volcanic-looking rocks, and St.
Clement's Bay beyond. Than this no better place for a watchtower could be
found; a perfect spot for the reflective idler and for the sailorman who,
on land, must still be within smell and sound of the sea, and loves that
place best which gives him widest prospect.

This day a solitary figure was pacing backwards and forwards upon the
cliff edge, stopping now to turn a telescope upon the water and now upon
the town. It was a lad of not more than sixteen years, erect,
well-poised, having an air of self-reliance, even of command. Yet it was
a boyish figure too, and the face was very young, save for the eyes;
these were frank but still sophisticated.

The first time he looked towards the town he laughed outright, freely,
spontaneously; threw his head back with merriment, and then glued his eye
to the glass again. What he had seen was a girl of about five years of
age with a man, in La Rue d'Egypte, near the old prison, even then called
the Vier Prison. Stooping, the man had kissed the child, and she,
indignant, snatching the cap from his head, had thrown it into the stream
running through the street. Small wonder that the lad on the hill
grinned, for the man who ran to rescue his hat from the stream was none
other than the Bailly of the island, next in importance to the
Lieutenant-Governor.

The lad could almost see the face of the child, its humorous anger, its
wilful triumph, and also the enraged look of the Bailly as he raked the
stream with his long stick, tied with a sort of tassel of office.
Presently he saw the child turn at the call of a woman in the Place du
Vier Prison, who appeared to apologise to the Bailly, busy now drying his
recovered hat by whipping it through the air. The lad on the hill
recognised the woman as the child's mother.

This little episode over, he turned once more towards the sea, watching
the sun of late afternoon fall upon the towers of Elizabeth Castle and
the great rock out of which St. Helier the hermit once chiselled his
lofty home. He breathed deep and strong, and the carriage of his body was
light, for he had a healthy enjoyment of all physical sensations and all
the obvious drolleries of life. A broad sort of humour was written upon
every feature; in the full, quizzical eye, in the width of cheek-bone, in
the broad mouth, and in the depth of the laugh, which, however, often
ended in a sort of chuckle not entirely pleasant. It suggested a selfish
enjoyment of the odd or the melodramatic side of other people's
difficulties.

At last the youth encased his telescope, and turned to descend the hill
to the town. As he did so, a bell began to ring. From where he was he
could look down into the Vier Marchi, or market-place, where stood the
Cohue Royale and house of legislature. In the belfry of this court-house,
the bell was ringing to call the Jurats together for a meeting of the
States. A monstrous tin pan would have yielded as much assonance. Walking
down towards the Vier Marchi the lad gleefully recalled the humour of a
wag who, some days before, had imitated the sound of the bell with the
words:

"Chicane--chicane! Chicane--chicane!"

The native had, as he thought, suffered somewhat at the hands of the
twelve Jurats of the Royal Court, whom his vote had helped to elect, and
this was his revenge--so successful that, for generations, when the bell
called the States or the Royal Court together, it said in the ears of the
Jersey people--thus insistent is apt metaphor:

"Chicane--chicane! Chicane--chicane!"

As the lad came down to the town, trades-people whom he met touched their
hats to him, and sailors and soldiers saluted respectfully. In this
regard the Bailly himself could not have fared better. It was not due to
the fact that the youth came of an old Jersey family, nor by reason that
he was genial and handsome, but because he was a midshipman of the King's
navy home on leave; and these were the days when England's sailors were
more popular than her soldiers.

He came out of the Vier Marchi into La Grande Rue, along the stream
called the Fauxbie flowing through it, till he passed under the archway
of the Vier Prison, making towards the place where the child had snatched
the hat from the head of the Bailly.

Presently the door of a cottage opened, and the child came out, followed
by her mother.

The young gentleman touched his cap politely, for though the woman was
not fashionably dressed, she was distinguished in appearance, with an air
of remoteness which gave her a kind of agreeable mystery.

"Madame Landresse--" said the young gentleman with deference.

"Monsieur d'Avranche--" responded the lady softly, pausing.

"Did the Bailly make a stir? I saw the affair from the hill, through my
telescope," said young d'Avranche, smiling.

"My little daughter must have better manners," responded the lady,
looking down at her child reprovingly yet lovingly.

"Or the Bailly must--eh, Madame?" replied d'Avranche, and, stooping, he
offered his hand to the child. Glancing up inquiringly at her mother, she
took it. He held hers in a clasp of good nature. The child was so demure,
one could scarcely think her capable of tossing the Bailly's hat into the
stream; yet looking closely, there might be seen in her eyes a slumberous
sort of fire, a touch of mystery. They were neither blue nor grey, but a
mingling of both, growing to the most tender, greyish sort of violet.
Down through generations of Huguenot refugees had passed sorrow and
fighting and piety and love and occasional joy, until in the eyes of this
child they all met, delicately vague, and with the wistfulness of the
early morning of life.

"What is your name, little lady?" asked d'Avranche of the child.

"Guida, sir," she answered simply.

"Mine is Philip. Won't you call me Philip?"

She flashed a look at her mother, regarded him again, and then answered:

"Yes, Philip--sir."

D'Avranche wanted to laugh, but the face of the child was sensitive and
serious, and he only smiled. "Say 'Yes, Philip', won't you?" he asked.

"Yes, Philip," came the reply obediently.

After a moment of speech with Madame Landresse, Philip stooped to say
good-bye to the child. "Good-bye, Guida."

A queer, mischievous little smile flitted over her face--a second, and it
was gone.

"Good-bye, sir--Philip," she said, and they parted. Her last words kept
ringing in his ears as he made his way homeward. "Good-bye,
sir--Philip"--the child's arrangement of words was odd and amusing, and
at the same time suggested something more. "Good-bye, Sir Philip," had a
different meaning, though the words were the same.

"Sir Philip--eh?" he said to himself, with a jerk of the head--"I'll be
more than that some day."

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