silence for some minutes, the frigate rocking gently and the reflection of the sunlit sea shimmering on the deck- head. Two and a half months, thought Stephen: that almost exactly coincided with the first of the letters that had made Laura so uneasy, the first of the forged letters. 'But as for the hardships,' said Fielding at length, 'yes, it was a trying journey. Rarely anything to eat but what we could poach or steal, and not even that in the high mountains. And then the wet and the cold . . . Wilson died when we had a two-days' snowstorm in the Trentino, and Corby's foot was so frostbitten that he could only hobble after that. I was lucky, I suppose.'
'If it is not disagreeable to you, I should very much like to hear even the shortest account of your escape,' said Stephen.
'Very well,' said Fielding. He had been in the penal fortresss of Bitche, he said, a place reserved for unruly prisoners-of-war or those who had tried to escape from Verdun, and most of the time he had been in solitary confinement, because during his attempt he had killed a gendarme. But a fire in part of the castle and the subsequent repairs had brought him into the same cell as Wilson and Corby, and since this was a time of considerable disorganization - the commander of the fortress had just been replaced - they decided to try again. In their earlier attempts they had all three separately tried to reach the Channel or the North Sea ports, and now they meant to go the other way, eastwards for Austria and so to the Adriatic. It had to be done quickly, while the workmen and their materials were still in the castle, and Corby, who was the most senior, a natural leader and a man fluent in German, abandoned the usual caution and told many of the other officers that the three of them were going to escape. Some were very helpful indeed, providing sketch-maps, a pocket spy-glass, a fairly accurate compass, a little money, and above all pieces of cloth or line to add to their own. While the other prisoners created a disturbance in the inner bailey late one dark and threatening evening the three went over the outer wall, and once they were clear their friends pulled the rope up and hid it. They had a whole night's start and they made for the Rhine as fast as they could go, aiming for the bridge of boats that carried the road over to Rastatt. They did not reach it until nearly noon, far later than they had hoped; but there they had an extraordinary stroke of luck. While they lay in a little wood, watching the bridge-end to see how the sentries behaved, they saw a religious procession pass along the lane below them, a procession formed of separate groups several hundred strong, carrying green branches and singing. The banners in front began to cross the bridge, and the sailors, cutting themselves some greenery, slipped down the bank into the lane and joined the throng, singing as well as they could and looking fervent. Few people took any notice of them - it was a gathering of several villages - and if anyone spoke Corby answered while the others sang. They crossed the bridge with still another troop chanting behind them, and Corby went on into the town, where he bought pumpernickel and dried beef. At this time they looked quite respectable, with their good blue coats stripped of all distinguishing marks; but coming back Corby was questioned, fortunately by a very simple, easily-impressed, easily-deluded young conscript, from whom he learnt that three English officers were being pursued. They therefore kept strictly hidden in the woods for the next week or so, never moving until it was dark; and by the end of that time, what with foul weather, hard lying, and slipping and falling in the mud of a hundred streams, they looked like thoroughly suspicious vagrants. They had a razor, and they kept fairly clean; but it was no good - all dogs barked at them, and if by chance they passed any countrymen Corby's greeting would meet with a startled, uneasy stare. They dared not approach any village. And so the long, slow march south and east went on, far slower than they had expected; and they lived on what they could find - raw turnips from the fields, potatoes, green corn, a very little game - week after week, until they became very feeble, particularly as they had rain almost all the time. They were sometimes hunted, one or twice by gamekeepers but nearly always because they had raided farmyards or because patrols had heard of their presence, and Fielding spoke of their perpetual fear, the fierce, hunted expressions that soon became habitual, almost fixed, and their savage hatred not only for their pursuers but for anyone who might possibly betray them: once they were very near killing a couple of children who stumbled on their hiding-place. He said that this hatred overflowed into their relations with_one another, making their disagreements very dangerous and, if possible, increasing the utter joylessness of the last weeks of their journey; and he spoke with feeling that Stephen would never have expected from his lowering, apparently insensitive face.
'I wonder you could stand it,' he observed, when Fielding reached the point where they found that they had lost their way, and that after two days of toiling over bare mountain with no food at all they looked down into a valley and saw not the Austrian post they had expected but the tricolour flying in French-occupied Italy: a narrow treeless valley with a fort on a rise in the middle and no village, no isolated farms, no herdsman's summer chalets, and no possibility of retreat.
'As far as I was concerned,' said Fielding, 'I was buoyed up by - by a particular sentiment, and I should have walked twice as far, if my feet had held out. I believe the same applied to the others, and when I think of all the hardships they bore in vain, upon my honour, I see no justice in the world. It is not to be believed that both their wives were whores.'
'What happened to Mr Corby?'
'He was killed - murdered. We were chased by a cavalry patrol only three days before the end, when we were on the sea-coast, in sight of ships. He could not run, and the troopers fairly hacked him to pieces, though he was unarmed. I got into a marsh, into deep reeds and water up to here.' He paused, and then in a flat voice he said 'I was the only one left. I brought them no luck. Except from the professional point of view perhaps it would have been better if I had stayed in Bitche; and even from that point of view... in any event, I shall not hurry back to Malta for a ship.' At this point Fielding was talking almost wholly for himself, yet even so Stephen felt that some response was necessary. He said, 'I had the honour of being introduced to Mrs Fielding, and she was so very kind as to invite me to her musical evenings.'
'Oh yes,' said Fielding. 'She is a great musician. Perhaps that was the trouble. I cannot make out God save the King on a penny whistle.'
Captain Aubrey and Captain Cotton of the Nymphe had been midshipmen together, and not even midshipmen but youngsters, entered on the old Resolution's books as captain's servants- squeakers, of no use to man or beast. They had used little ceremony at the age of twelve, nor had they grown much more formal with one another as they rose in rank; and now Jack, having led his friend below, was surprised to see a constrained, furtive, awkward, hangdog expression on his face. 'Why, Harry,' he said, 'what ails thee? Art sick? Art vexed?'
'Oh no,' said Captain Cotton with an artificial simper. 'Not at all.'
'What is it then? You look as if you have been found out keeping a false muster, or comforting the King's enemies.'
'Well, to tell the truth, Jack - to tell you the honest truth, the fact of the matter is, I have some damned unpleasant news for you. Charles Fielding, that was a prison at Verdun and then at Bitche - Charles Fielding, that was at one time third of the Nymphe and then second of the Volage, has escaped. We picked him up off Cape Promontore some days ago, and he is aboards us at this moment.'
'Escaped, has he?' cried Jack. 'Upon my word, I honour him for it! Escaped from Bitche! Bless me, what a stroke. I am most heartily glad of it. But tell me, what is your bad news?'
'Why,' said Cotton, turning red and looking more embarrassed still, 'I thought - everybody said - it was generally supposed that you and Mrs...'
'Oh, because of that damned dog?' said Jack, laughing. 'No, no. There was nothing in it - all nonsense, alas - mere silly Valletta gossip. No, no, on the contrary: I should be very happy to take him back to her. We turn round
