me?' From where he sat against the wheel of his wagon the old man
struggled to his feet hugging the blanket around his shoulders,
'You call me coward, Leroux. You say I am afraid. ' He stopped and
struggled with his breathing, and when he went on his voice was a
croak. 'I am seventy eight years old and you are the first man to ever
call me that if God is merciful you'll be the last.' He stopped
again.
'Seventy-eight years. Seventy-eight! and you call me that!
Look, Leroux. Look well!' He let the blanket fall away and Jan Paulus
stiffened in the saddle as he saw the bloody mess of bandages that
swathed the old man's chest. 'Tomorrow morning I will be with my
sons.
I wait for them now. Write on our grave, L@roux!
Write
'Cowards' on our grave!' And through the old lips burst a froth of
pink bubbles.
Now with red eyes Jan Paulus stared up at the mountain. The lines of
fatigue and shame and defeat were etched deep beside his nostrils and
around his mouth. When the mists cleared they would see the English on
the crest and with half his men he would go back. He touched the pony
with his spurs and started him up the slope.
The sun gilded the mountain mist, it swirled golden and began to
dissipate.
Faintly on the morning wind he heard the cheering and he frowned.
The English cheer too soon, he thought. Do they think we will not come
again? He urged his pony upward, but as it scrambled over loose rock
and scree he reeled drunkenly in the saddle and was forced to cling to
the pommel.
The volume of cheering mounted, and he peered uncomprehendingly at the
crest above him. The skyline was dotted with figures who danced and
waved their hats, and suddenly there were voices all around him.
'They've gone.'
'The mountain is ours.'
'We've won! Praise God, we've won. The English have gone. ' Men
crowded about his pony, and dragged him from the saddle. He felt his
legs buckle under him, but rough hands were there to support him, and
half dragging, half carrying him, they bore him up towards the peak.
Jan Paulus sat upon a boulder and watched them harvest the rich crop of
battle. He could not sleep yet, not until this was done. He had
allowed the English stretcher-bearers to come up his mountain and they
were at work along the trench while his own burghers gleaned their dead
from along the crest.
Four of them approached Jan Paulus, each holding the domer of a gray
woollen blanket as though it were a hammock. They staggered under the
load, until they reached the neat line of corpses already laid out on
the grass.
'Who knows this man?' one of them called, but there was no reply from
the group of silent men who waited with Jan Paulus.
They lifted the body out of the blanket and laid it with the others.
One of the burghers who had carried him removed from his clutching,
