As they were walking home Mark reproached Bevis with his folly in letting Ted, who was so tall himself, choose almost all the big soldiers.
“It’s no use to hit you, or pinch you, or frown at you, or anything,” grumbled Mark; “you don’t take any more notice than a tree. Now Pompey will beat us hollow.”
“If you say any more,” said Bevis, “I will hit you; and it is you who are the donk. I did not want the big ones. I like lightning-quick people, and I’ve got Cecil, who is as quick as anything—”
“What’s the use of dreaming like a tree when you ought to have your eyes open; and if you’re like that in the battle—”
“I tell you the knights were not the biggest; they very often fought huge people and monsters. And don’t you remember how Ulysses served the giant with one eye?”
“I should like to bore a hole through Ted like that,” said Mark. “He’s a brute, and Phil’s as cunning as ever he can be, and you’ve been and lost the battle.”
“I tell you I’ve got Cecil, who is as quick as lightning, and all the sharp ones, and if you say any more I won’t speak to you again, and I’ll have some one else for lieutenant.”
Mark nodded his head, and growled to himself, but he did not dare go farther. They worked all the afternoon in the bench-room, cutting off the swords to the same length, and fastening on the cross-pieces. They did not talk, Mark was sulky, and Bevis on his dignity. In the evening Phil came with the ribbons.
Next morning, while they were making two more eagles for Pompey, Val Crassus came to say he thought they ought to have telescopes, as officers had field-glasses; but Bevis said they were not invented in the time of their war. The day was very warm, still, and cloudless, and, after they had fixed the three brass rings on each long rod for standards, Bevis brought the old grey book of ballads out of the parlour into the orchard. Though he had used it so often he could not find his favourite place quickly, because the pages were not only frayed but some were broader than others, and would not run through the fingers, but adhered together.
When he had found “Kyng Estmere,” he and Mark lay down on the grass under the shadow of a damson-tree, and chanted the verses, reading them first, and then singing them. Presently they came to where:—
“Kyng Estmere threwe the harpe asyde,
And swith he drew his brand;
And Estmere he, and Adler yonge,
Right stiffe in stour can stand.
“And ay their swords soe sore can byte,
Through help of gramaryè,
That soone they have slayne the Kempery men,
Or forst them forth to flee.”
These they repeated twenty times, for their minds were full of battle; and Bevis said after they had done the war they would study gramaryè or magic. Just afterwards Cecil came to ask if they ought not to have bugles, as the Romans had trumpets, and Bevis had a bugle somewhere. Bevis thought it was proper, but it was of no use, for nobody could blow the bugle but the old Bailiff, and he could only get one long note from it, so dreadful that you had to put your hands to your ears if you stood near. Cecil also said that in his garden at home there was a bay-tree, and ought they not to have wreaths for the victors? Bevis said that was capital, and Cecil went home with orders from Caesar to get his sisters to make some wreaths of bay for their triumph when they had won the battle.
Soon after sunset that evening the Bailiff looked in, and said there was some sheet lightning in the north, and he was going to call back some of the men to put tarpaulins over two or three loaded waggons, as he thought, after so much dry, hot weather, there would be a great storm. The lightning increased very much, and after it grew dusk the flashes lit up the sky. Before sunset the sky had seemed quite cloudless, but now every flash showed innumerable narrow bands of clouds, very thin, behind which the electricity played to and fro.
While Bevis and Mark were watching it, Bevis’s governor came out, and looking up said it would not rain and there was no danger; it was a sky-storm, and the lightning was at least a mile high. But the lightning became very fierce and almost incessant, sometimes crooked like a scimitar of flame, some times jagged, sometimes zigzag; and now and then vast acres of violet light, which flooded the ground and showed every tree and leaf and flower, all still and motionless; and after which, though lesser flashes were going on, it seemed for a moment quite dark, so much was the eye overpowered.
Bevis and Mark went up into the bench-room, where it was very close and sultry, and sat by the open window with the swords for Pompey bound up in two bundles and the standards, but they were half afraid no one would come for them. Their shadows were perpetually cast upon the white wall opposite as the flashes came and went. The crossbow and lance, the boomerang and knobbed clubs were visible, and all the tools on the bench. Now and then, when the violet flashes came, the lightning seemed to linger in the room, to fill it with a blaze and stop there a moment. In the darkness that followed one of these they heard a voice call “Bevis” underneath the window, and saw Phil and Val Crassus, who had come for the swords. Mark lowered the bundles out of window by a cord, but when they had got them they still stood there.
“Why don’t you go?” said Mark.
“Lightning,” said Val. “It’s awful.” It really was very powerful. The pears on the wall, and everything however minute stood out more distinctly defined than in daytime.
“It’s a mile high,” said Bevis. “It won’t hurt you.”
“Ted wouldn’t come,” said Phil. “He’s gone to bed, and covered his head. You don’t know how it looks out in the fields, all by yourself; it’s all very well for you indoors.”
“I’ll come with you,” said Bevis directly; up he jumped and went down to them, followed by Mark.
“Why wouldn’t Ted come?” said Mark.
“He’s afraid,” said Phil, “and so was I till Val said he would come with me. Will lightning come to brass?” The flashes were reflected from the brass rings on the standards.
“I tell you it won’t hurt,” said Bevis, quite sure, because his governor had said so. But when they had walked up the field and were quite away from the house and the trees which partly obstructed the view, he was amazed at the spectacle, for all the meadow was lit up; and in the sky the streamers of flame rose in and out and over each other, till you could not tell which flash was which in the confusion of lightning. Bevis became silent and fell into one of his dream states, when, as Mark said, he was like a tree. He was lost—something seemed to take him out of himself. He walked on, and they went with him, till he came to the gate opening on the shore of the New Sea.
“O, look!” they all said at once.
All the broad, still water, smooth as glass, shone and gleamed, reflecting back the bright light above; and far away they saw the wood (where Bevis and Mark once wandered) as plain as at noontide.
“I can’t go home to-night,” said Phil. Val Crassus said he could sleep at his house, which was much nearer; but he, too, hesitated to start.
“It is awful,” said Mark.
“It’s nothing,” said Bevis. “I like it.” The continuous crackling of the thunder just then deepened, and a boom came rolling down the level water from the wooded hill. Bevis frowned, and held his lips tight together. He was startled, but he would not show it.
“I’ll go with you,” he said; and though Mark pointed out that they would have to come back by themselves, he insisted. They went with Pompey’s lieutenants till Val’s house, lit up by lightning, was in sight; then they returned. As they came into the garden, Bevis said the battle ought to be that night, because it would read so well in the history afterwards. The lightning continued far into the night, and still flashed when sleep overcame them.
Next morning Bevis sprang up and ran to the window, afraid it might be wet; but the sun was shining and the wind was blowing tremendously, so that all the willows by the brook looked grey as their leaves were turned, and the great elms by the orchard bowed to the gusts.
“It’s dry,” shouted Bevis, dancing.
“Hurrah!” said Mark, and they sang,—
“Kyng Estmere threwe his harpe asyde,
And swith he drew his brand.”
This was the day of the great battle, and they were impatient for the evening.
There was a letter on the breakfast-table from Bevis’s grandpa, enclosing a P.O.O., a present of a sovereign for him. He asked the governor to advance him the money in two half-sovereigns. The governor did so, and Bevis immediately handed one of them to Mark.
About dinner-time there came a special messenger from Pompey with a letter, which was in Pompey’s name, but Phil’s handwriting. “Ted Pompey to Caesar Bevis. Please tell me who you are going to send to be with me in my camp, and let him come to the stile in Barn Copse at half-past five, and I will send Tim to be with you till the white handkerchiefs are up. And tell me if the lieutenants are to carry the eagles, or some one else.”
Bevis wrote back:—“Caesar to Pompey greeting,”—this style he copied from his books,—“Caesar will send Charlie to be with you, as he can ran quick, though he is little. The lieutenants are not to carry the eagles, but a soldier for them. And Caesar wishes you health.”
Then in the afternoon Mark had to go and tell Cecil and others, who were to send on the message to the rest of their party, to meet Bevis at the gate by the New Sea at half-past five, and to mind and not be one moment later. While Mark was gone, Bevis roamed about the garden and orchard, and back again to the stable and sheds, and then into the rick-yard, which was strewn with twigs and branches torn off from the elms that creaked as the gale struck them; then indoors, and from room to room. He could not rest anywhere, he was so impatient.
At last he picked up the little book of the Odyssey, with its broken binding and frayed margin, from the chair where he had last loft it; and taking it up into the bench-room, opened it at the twenty-second book, where his favourite hero wreaked his vengeance on the suitors. With his own bow in his right hand, and the book in his left, Bevis read, marching up and down the room, stamping and shouting aloud as he came to the passages he liked best:—
“Swift as the word, the parting arrow sings,
And bears thy fate, Antinous, on its wings!
* * * *
“For fate who fear’d amidst a feastful band?
And fate to numbers by a single hand?
* * * *
“Two hundred oxen every prince shall pay;
The waste of years refunded in a day.
Till then thy wrath is just,—Ulysses burn’d
With high disdain, and sternly thus return’d.
* * * *
“Soon as his store of flying fates was spent,
Against the wall he set the bow unbent;
And now his shoulders bear the massy shield,
And now his hands two beamy javelins wield.”
Bevis had dropped his bow and seized one of Mark’s spears, not hearing, as he stamped and shouted, Mark coming up the stairs. Mark snatched up one of the swords, and as Bevis turned they rattled their weapons together, and shouted in their fierce joy. When satisfied they stopped, and Mark said he had come by the New Sea, and the waves were the biggest he had ever seen there, the wind was so furious.
They had their tea, or rather they sat at table, and rushed off as soon as possible; who cared for eating when war was about to begin! Seizing an opportunity, as the coast was clear, Mark ran up the field with the eagles, which, having long handles, were difficult to hide. Cecil and Bill took the greatcoat, and a railway-rug, which Bevis meant to represent his general’s cloak. He followed with the basket of provisions on his shoulder, and was just thinking how lucky they were to get off without any inquiries, when he found they had forgotten the matches to light the camp-fire. He came back, took a box, and was going out again when he met Polly the dairymaid.
“What are you doing now?” said she. “Don’t spoil that basket with your tricks—we use it. What’s in it?” putting her hand on the lid.
“Only bread-and-butter and ham, and summer apples. It’s a picnic.”
“A picnic. What’s that ribbon for?” Bevis wore the blue ribbon round his arm.
“O! that’s nothing.”
“I’ve half a mind to tell—I don’t believe you’re up to anything good.”
“Pooh! don’t be a donk,” said Bevis. “I’ll give you a long piece of this ribbon when I come back.”
Off he went, having bribed Scylla, but he met Charybdis in the gateway, where he came plump on the Bailiff.
“What’s up now?” he gruffly inquired.
“Picnic.”
“Mind you don’t go bathing; the waves be as big as cows.”
“Bathing,” said Bevis, with intense contempt. “We don’t bathe in the evening. Here, you—” donk, he was going to say, but forebore; he gave the Bailiff a summer apple, and went on. The Bailiff bit the apple, muttered to himself about “mischief,” and walked towards the rick-yard. In a minute Mark came to meet Bevis.
“You did him?” he said.
“Yes,” said Bevis, “and Polly too.”
“Hurrah!” shouted Mark. “They’re all there but one, and he’s coming in five minutes.”
Bevis found his army assembled by the gate leading to the New Sea. Each soldier wore a blue ribbon round the left arm for distinction; Tim, who had been sent by Pompey to be with them till all was ready, wore a red one.
“Two and two,” said Caesar Bevis, taking his sword and instantly assuming a general’s authoritative tone. He marshalled them in double file, one eagle in front, one halfway down, where his second lieutenant, Scipio Cecil, stood; the basket carried in the rear as baggage. Caesar and Mark Antony stood in front side by side.
“March,” said Bevis, starting, and they followed him.
The route was beside the shore, and so soon as they left the shelter of the trees the wind seemed to hit them a furious blow, which pushed them out of order for a moment. The farther they went the harder the wind blow, and flecks of brown foam, like yeast, came up and caught against them. Rolling in the same direction as they were marching, the waves at each undulation increased in size, and when they came to the bluff Bevis walked slowly a minute, to look at the dark hollows and the ridges from whose crests the foam was driven.
But here leaving the shore he led the army, with their brazen eagles gleaming in the sun, up the slope of the meadow where the solitary oak stood, and so beside the hedge-row till they reached the higher ground. The Plain, the chosen battle-field, was on the other side of the hedge, and it had been arranged that the camps should be pitched just without the actual campaigning-ground. On this elevated place the gale came along with even greater fury; and Mark Antony said that they would never be able to light a camp-fire that side, they must get through and into shelter.
“I shall do as I said,” shouted Bevis, scarcely audible, for the wind blew the words down his throat. But he kept on till he found a hawthorn bush, with brambles about the base, a detached thicket two or three yards from the hedge, and near which there was a gap. He stopped, and ordered the standard-bearer behind him to pitch the eagle there. The army halted, the eagles were pitched by thrusting the other end of the rods into the sward, the cloaks, coats, and rug thrown together in a heap, and the soldiers set to work to gather sticks for the fire. Of these they found plenty in the hedge, and piled them up in the shelter of the detached thicket.
Bevis, Mark Antony, and Scipio Cecil went through the gap to reconnoitre the enemy. They immediately saw the smoke of his camp-fire rising on the other side of the Plain, close to a gateway. The smoke only rose a little above the hedge there—the fire was on the other side—and was then blown away by the wind. None of Pompey’s forces were visible.
“Ted, I mean Pompey, was here first,” said Mark Antony. “He’ll be ready before us.”
“Be quick with the fire,” shouted Caesar.
“Look,” said Scipio Cecil. “There’s the punt.”
Behind the stony promontory at the quarry they could see the punt from the high ground where they stood; it was partly drawn ashore just inside Fir-Tree Gulf, so that the projecting point protected it like a breakwater. The old man (the watcher) had started for the quarry to get a load of sand as usual, never thinking, as how should he think? that the gale was so furious. But he found himself driven along anyhow, and unable to row back; all he could do was to steer and struggle into the gulf, and so behind the Point, where he beached his unwieldy vessel. Too much shaken to dig sand that day, and knowing that he could not row back, he hid his spade and the oars, and made for home on foot. But the journey by land was more dangerous than that by sea, for he insensibly wandered into the high road, and came to an anchor in the first inn, where, relating his adventures on the deep with the assistance of ardent liquor, he remained.
Bevis, who had gone to light the fire with the matches in his pocket, now returned through the gap, and asked if anything had been seen of Pompey’s men. As he spoke a Pompeian appeared, and mounting the spars of the distant gate displayed a standard, to which was attached a white handkerchief, which fluttered in the breeze.
“They’re ready,” said Mark Antony. “Come on. Which way shall we march? Which way are you going?”
The smoke of Caesar’s fire rose over the hedge, and swept down by the gale trailed along the ground towards Pompey’s. Bevis hastened back to the camp, and tied his handkerchief to the top of an eagle, Mark followed. “Which way are you going?” he repeated. “Where shall we meet them? What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know,” said Caesar, angrily pushing him. “Get away.”
“There,” growled Mark Antony to Scipio, “he doesn’t know what he’s going to do, and Phil is as cunning as—”
The standard-bearer sent by Caesar pushed by him, got through the gap, and held up the white flag, waving it to attract more attention. In half a minute, Pompey’s flag was hauled down, and directly afterwards some one climbed over the gate and set out running towards them. It was Charlie. “Run, Tim,” said Caesar Bevis; “we’re ready.” Tim dashed through the gap, and set off with all his might.
“Two and two,” shouted Caesar. “Stand still, will you?” as they moved towards the opening. “Take down that flag.”
The eagle-bearer resumed his place behind him. Caesar signing to the legions to remain where they were, went forward and stood on the mound. He watched the runners and saw them pass each other nearly about the middle of the great field, for though little, Charlie was swift of foot, and full of the energy which is more effective than size.
“Let’s go.”
“Now then.”
“Start.”
The legions were impatient and stamped their feet, but Caesar would not move. In a minute or two Charlie reached him, red and panting with running.
“Now,” shouted Bevis, “march!” and he leaped into the field; Charlie came next for he would not wait to take his place in the ranks. The legions rushed through anyhow, eager to begin the fray.
“Two and two,” shouted Caesar, who would have no disorder.
“Two and two,” repeated his first lieutenant, Mark Antony.
“Two and two,” said Scipio Cecil, punching his men into place.
On they went, with Caesar leading, straight across the wind-swept plain for Pompey’s camp. The black swifts flew about them, but just clearing the grass, and passing so close as to seem almost under foot. There were hundreds of them, they come down from the upper air, and congregate in a great gale; they glided over the field in endless turns and windings. Steadily marching, the army had now advanced a third part of the way across the field.
“Where’s Pompey?” said Scipio Cecil.
“Where shall we meet and fight?” said Mark Antony.
“Silence,” shouted Bevis, “or I’ll degrade you from your rank, and you shan’t be officers.”
They were silent, but every one was looking for Pompey and thinking just the same. There was the gate in full view now, and the smoke of Pompey’s camp, but none of the enemy were visible. Bevis was thinking and trying to make out whether Pompey was waiting by his camp, or whether he had gone round behind the hedge, and if so, which way, to the right towards the quarry, or to the left towards the copse, but he could not decide, having nothing to guide him.
But though uncertain in his own mind, he was general enough not to let the army suppose him in doubt. He strode on in silence, but keeping the sharpest watch, till they came to the waggon track, crossing the field from left to right. It had worn a gully or hollow way leading down to the right to the hazel hedge, where there was a gate. They came to the edge of the hollow way, where there were three thick hawthorn bushes and two small ash-trees.
“Halt!” said Caesar Bevis, as the bushes partly concealed them from view. “Stay here. Let no one move.”
Bevis himself went round the trees and looked again, but he could see nothing: Pompey and his army were nowhere in sight. He could not tell what to do, and returned slowly, thinking, when looking down the hollow way an idea struck him.
“Scipio, take your men,”—(“Cohort,” said Antony)—“take your cohort, jump into the road, and go down to the gate there. Keep out of sight—stoop: slip through the gate, and go up inside the hedge, dart round the corner and seize Ted’s camp. Quick! And mind, if they’re all there, of course you’re not to fight, but come back. Now—quick.”
Scipio Cecil jumped into the hollow way followed by his five soldiers, and stooping so as to be hidden by the bank, ran towards the gate in the hazel hedge. They watched him till the cohort had got through the gate.
“Now what shall we do?” said Mark Antony.
“How can I tell what to do when Pompey isn’t anywhere?” said Bevis, in a rage.
“Put me up a tree,” said Charlie, “perhaps I could see.”
“You’ve no business to speak,” said Bevis; but he used the idea, and told two of them to “bunt” (shove) Charlie up one of the ash-trees till he could grasp a branch. Then Charlie, agile as a squirrel, was up in a minute.
“There’s no one in their camp,” he shouted down. “Cecil’s rushing on it. Pompey, O! I can see him.”
“Where?”
“There by the copse,” pointing to the left and partly behind them.
“Which way is he going?” asked Bevis.
“That way,”—to the left.
“Our camp,” said Mark.
“That’s it,” said Bevis. “Come down, quick. Turn to the left,” (to the army). “No, stop. Charlie, how many are there with Pompey?”
“Six, ten—oh, I can’t count: I believe it’s all. I can’t see any anywhere else.”
“Quick!” shouted Bevis, turning his legions to the left. “Quick march! Run!”