Monck set a quick pace. One might almost say he wouldn’t really be certain he was back in England until he’d reached the few houses of sailors and fishermen scattered around the little quay of this humble harbor.
Suddenly d’Artagnan shouted, “Look! God love me, there’s a house afire!”
Monck looked up. There was indeed a house beginning to be devoured by fire. It had begun at a little shack attached to its side, and flames were beginning to lick at the roof. The cool evening breeze was feeding it. The two travelers quickened their pace, hearing shouts and seeing, as they approached, a troop of soldiers waving their arms and surrounding the burning house. This was no doubt what had kept them from noticing the approach of the fishing boat.
Monck stopped short for a moment, and for the first time expressed his thoughts in words. “Hmm!” he said. “What if they’re not my soldiers, but Lambert’s?”
These words contained both concern and a reproach that d’Artagnan understood perfectly. In fact, during the general’s absence, Lambert might have brought to battle, defeated, and dispersed the parliamentary troops, occupying the terrain once held by Monck’s army, bereft of their greatest asset. To this possibility, passing from Monck’s thoughts to his own, d’Artagnan reasoned, There are two ways this could go: if Monck is right and only Lambert’s men are left in this area, I should be well received, since it’s to me they owe their victory; or nothing has changed and Monck, delighted to find his army still camped in the same place, will go easy on me.
While thinking this through, the two travelers continued their advance and soon found themselves in a small crowd of sailors, who watched the burning of the house with dismay but dared not say anything, intimidated as they were by the soldiers. Monck addressed one of these sailors, asking, “What’s going on?”
“Sir,” the man replied, not recognizing Monck as a senior officer under the thick cloak that enveloped him, “this house is inhabited by a foreigner, and the soldiers became suspicious of him. They wanted to enter his house under the pretext of escorting him to the camp, but he, despite their numbers, threatened any man who crossed his threshold with death, and the first man who risked it, the Frenchman laid out with a pistol shot.”
“Ah, so he’s a Frenchman?” said d’Artagnan, rubbing his hands. “Good!”
“What do you mean, good?” asked the fisherman.
“No, I meant he should… not, or something. Gah, this language!”
“He shouldn’t have, all right. It made the other soldiers as angry as lions, and they fired at least a hundred musket shots at the house, but the Frenchman was safe behind the wall, and anyone who approached the door was shot by his lackey, and can he shoot! Those who tried the window met the pistol of his master. Now seven men are down—count them!”
“Ah, my brave compatriot!” muttered d’Artagnan. “Just wait till I join you, and together we’ll deal with this rabble!”
“A moment, Monsieur,” said Monck. “Wait.”
“For long?”
“No, just long enough for me to ask a question.” Then, turning back to the sailor, “My friend,” he asked, with an emotion that despite himself he couldn’t quite suppress, “tell me whose soldiers these are, if you would?”
“And whose soldiers would they be but those of that madman Monck?”
“So, there hasn’t been a battle yet?”
“Why would there be? What’s the point? Lambert’s army is melting away like snow in April. Most are coming over to Monck, both officers and soldiers. In another week Lambert won’t have more than fifty men.”
The fisherman was interrupted by a fresh volley of shots aimed at the house, and by a pistol fired in reply, which felled the most reckless of the attackers. The fury of the soldiers was at its height. The flames were still rising, and a plume of fire and smoke swirled above the house top.
D’Artagnan could no longer contain himself. “Mordioux!” he said and looked accusingly at Monck. “You call yourself a general, but you let your soldiers burn down houses and assassinate people while you watch happily, warming your hands at the fire! What kind of a man are you?”
“Patience, Monsieur, patience,” said Monck, smiling.
“Patience! Until this brave gentleman is roasted, is that it?” And d’Artagnan leapt forward.
“Stay here, Monsieur,” said Monck imperiously. And he himself advanced toward the house.
An officer stepped up and called out to the besieged, “The house is on fire, you’ll be ashes inside an hour! Here, there’s still time—tell us what you did with General Monck, and we’ll let you come out safely. Answer me, or by Saint Patrick…!”
The besieged didn’t answer; no doubt he was reloading his pistol.
“We sent for reinforcements,” the officer continued. “In a quarter of an hour there will be a hundred men around this house.”
“I’ll answer you when everyone has withdrawn,” said the Frenchman. “I will come out freely and go to the camp myself, or I’ll die right here!”
“A thousand thunders!” cried d’Artagnan. “That’s Athos’s voice! Ah, you rabble!”
And d’Artagnan’s sword flashed from its scabbard. Monck paused and gestured to him to stop. Then he said, in a resounding voice, “Halt! What are you doing here? Digby, what’s this fire? Why all this commotion?”
“The general!” Digby gasped, his sword dropping.
“The general!” repeated the soldiers.
“Well? Is that so amazing?” said Monck in a calm voice. Then, into the resulting silence, he said, “Come, who set this fire?”
The soldiers lowered their heads.
“What! I ask and am not answered?” said Monck. “What! I find fault, and no one repairs it? That fire is still burning, I think.”
Immediately twenty men rushed forward, gathering buckets, jars, and pails, extinguishing the fire with the same ardor they’d shown in setting it.
But ahead of them, first and foremost, d’Artagnan ran up to the house with a ladder, shouting, “Athos! It’s me, d’Artagnan! Don’t kill me, old friend.”
And moments later he was holding the count in his arms.
Grimaud, meanwhile, dismantled the ground floor fortifications while maintaining his air of calm. He started once upon hearing d’Artagnan’s voice, but otherwise, having opened the door, he stood serenely on the threshold, arms crossed.
When the fire was out, the soldiers were unsure what to do next, Digby most of all. “Forgive us, General,” he said. “What we did was out of love for Your Honor, whom we thought lost.”
“You’re mad, Gentlemen. Lost! Does a man like me get lost? Can I not leave when necessary at will, even without warning? Do you take me for some minor town burgess? Is a gentleman who’s my friend and guest to be besieged, threatened, and burned on suspicion? What does this word mean, suspicion? God damn me, I should shoot everyone this brave gentleman left alive myself!”
“General,” said Digby piteously, “we were twenty-eight, and now eight of us are fallen.”
“I authorize the Comte de La Fère to send the remaining twenty to join those eight,” said Monck, extending a hand toward Athos. “Oh, just send them back to camp,” said Monck, with a gesture of dismissal. “Mister Digby, place yourself under arrest for one month.”
“But, General…”
“That will teach you, Sir, to act on your own without my orders.”
“I was acting at the orders of the lieutenant commander.”
“The lieutenant commander had no authority to give such an order, and he’ll stand to arrest in your place if I find he ordered that this gentleman be burned.”
“He didn’t order that, General, he ordered us to bring him to camp, but the count wouldn’t go with us.”
“I didn’t want anyone to plunder my house,” said Athos, with a significant look at Monck.
“And quite right too. The rest of you, to camp, I say!”
The soldiers marched off with their heads down.
&
nbsp; “Now that we’re alone,” said Monck to Athos, “Tell me, Monsieur, why you persisted in staying here, when you have a sloop…”
“I was waiting for you, General,” said Athos. “Didn’t Your Honor ask me to wait a week for another audience?”
An agonized look from d’Artagnan made it clear to Monck that these two men, so brave and honest, hadn’t connived at his abduction. This just confirmed what he already knew. “Monsieur,” he said to d’Artagnan, “you were entirely right. Just give me a moment to chat with the Comte de La Fère.”
D’Artagnan took advantage of the respite to go and greet Grimaud.
Monck asked Athos to lead him to his living chamber. The room was still full of smoke and debris. More than fifty musket balls had passed through the window and peppered the walls. Monck found a table, an inkwell, and writing materials; he took pen and paper, wrote a single line, signed it, folded the sheet, sealed it with the signet on his ring, and handed the letter to Athos, saying, “Monsieur, if you would, take this letter to King Charles II, going at once if there’s nothing to keep you here.”
“And the barrels?” said Athos.
“The fishermen who brought me will help you get them aboard. Be gone, if possible, within the hour.”
“Yes, General,” said Athos.
“Monsieur d’Artagnan!” called Monck out the window. D’Artagnan rushed in. “Embrace your friend and say farewell, Monsieur, for he’s returning to Holland.”
“To Holland!” said d’Artagnan. “And I?”
“You’re at liberty to go with him, Monsieur, but I’d prefer you to stay,” said Monck. “Will you refuse me?”
“Oh, no, General! I’m at your service.” D’Artagnan embraced Athos and said a brief goodbye.
Monck watched them both closely. Then he personally oversaw the preparations for departure, the loading of the barrels, the embarkation of Athos, and finally, taking the bemused d’Artagnan by the arm, led him toward Newcastle. Following Monck, d’Artagnan said to himself, “Well, well—it seems to me that shares in the firm of Planchet and Company are on the rise.”
XXXI Monck Reveals Himself
D’Artagnan, though he flattered himself that things were going well, didn’t really have a firm grasp of the situation. He had a lot to think about: Athos’s association with the king, his friend’s journey to England, and the unexpected results of the collision of his own plot with the mission of the Comte de La Fère.
Best just to set it aside. He’d committed an indiscretion, and though he’d done what he set out to do, d’Artagnan found himself with none of the rewards of success. At least, with everything lost, there was nothing more to risk.
D’Artagnan followed Monck through the camp to headquarters. The general’s return had produced a remarkable effect, for everyone had thought him lost. But Monck, with his austere expression and upright bearing, seemed to question why his eager lieutenants and delighted soldiers should be so happy.
To the lieutenant commander who hurried to meet him, and explained how anxious his sudden departure made them, he said, “Why is that? Am I obliged to report to you?”
“But, Your Honor, the sheep without the shepherd will tremble.”
“Tremble!” replied Monck in his calm and resonant voice. “What a word! God damn me, Sir! If my sheep don’t have teeth and claws, I give up being their shepherd. You trembled, Sir?”
“For you, General.”
“Mind your own concerns and not mine. I may not have the wits that God gave Oliver Cromwell, but I have what He gave to me, and I’m satisfied with them, few as they may be.”
The officer had no reply, and thus Monck silenced all his people, who were convinced that he’d been on an important mission or had been testing them—which showed how little they understood this patient and scrupulous genius. Monck, if he still had the faith of his allies the Puritans, must have given thanks to his patron saint for getting him out of d’Artagnan’s box.
Meanwhile, our musketeer was telling himself, “Mon Dieu! Monsieur Monck must have less pride than I have, for I declare, if someone had locked me in a trunk with a grate across its mouth and carried me like a boxed-in veal-calf across the sea, I would hold such a grudge for my time in the trunk, and such animosity for the one who locked me in, that if I saw as much as the shadow of a smile cross the face that man, or thought I saw him mocking my posture while in the box, mordioux! I’m afraid I’d carve my dagger across his throat in memory of the grate, and put him into a real coffin in memory of the fake casket he’d kept me in for two days.”
And d’Artagnan was honest in saying this, for our Gascon did have a rather thin skin.
Fortunately, Monck was thinking about other things. He didn’t say a word about the past to his former conqueror, instead inviting him to be a close observer of his work. Monck took him along when he went on reconnaissance to achieve one of his goals, the rehabilitation of d’Artagnan’s spirit. The latter behaved like the most flattering courtier, admiring Monck’s troop dispositions and the organization of his camp, and joking about the ramparts ringing Lambert’s camp, saying that he’d built a camp large enough to house twenty thousand men when in the end an acre would be enough for the corporal and fifty guards who would be left loyal to him.
Monck, as soon as he’d arrived, had accepted the proposal for a parley that Lambert had made the day before, which Monck’s lieutenants had refused on the pretext that Monck was unwell. This parley was neither long nor interesting: Lambert demanded the fealty of his rival, and Monck declared he owed fealty to no one but the majority party.
Lambert then asked if it wouldn’t be easier to end the quarrel by an alliance rather than a battle. Monck asked for a week in which to consider. Lambert could scarcely refuse, even though he’d come north with the stated intent of devouring Monck’s army. After this interview Lambert’s people grew impatient, as nothing had been decided upon, neither a treaty nor a battle. The rebel army began, as d’Artagnan had foreseen, to prefer the good cause over the bad, and the Parliament, “rump” though it was, over the empty pomposities of General Lambert.
They began to recall the good food they’d had in London, the profusion of ale and sherry that the burghers of the City had lavished on their friends, the soldiers; they bit with disgust into the black bread of war, and tasted the brackish water of the Tweed, too salty for the glass, too bland for the pot, and they said to themselves, “Wouldn’t we be better off on the other side? Aren’t they preparing roasts in London for Monck?” From then on, the only news from Lambert’s army was of desertion. The soldiers found that this war conflicted with their principles, which, like discipline, is the motivation that gives a force its purpose. Monck defended the Parliament, and Lambert attacked it. Monck had no more respect for the Parliament than Lambert did, but its name was embroidered on his flags, leaving nothing for the opposition to write on theirs but Rebellion, which sounded bad in the ears of the Puritans. They went from Lambert to Monck like humble sinners from Baal to God.
Monck figured that at a thousand desertions a day, Lambert could hold out for twenty days. But like a snowball gathering speed and mass as it rolls downhill, the desertion accelerated, so that a hundred left the first day, three hundred the second, and a thousand the third, at which point Monck thought they’d reached the anticipated rate. But a thousand desertions soon became two thousand, and then four thousand. By the end of the week, Lambert, feeling like he no longer had the means to accept a battle if it was offered, made the wise decision to escape in the night to return to London, hoping to head off Monck and arrive where he could consolidate his power with the remnants of the military party.
But Monck, unconcerned and showing no haste, marched toward London as a conqueror, increasing his army by absorbing lesser parties as he passed. He went into camp at Barnet, about four leagues from the city, praised by the Parliament, who thought they saw in him a protector, and watched by the people, who waited to see him commit himself before they judged him. D
’Artagnan himself couldn’t tell from his tactics what to think. He watched, and he admired.
Monck couldn’t enter London before committing himself without getting embroiled in a prolongation of the civil war. He bided his time for some weeks.
Suddenly, when no one expected it, Monck struck, driving the remnants of the military party out of London, installing himself in the City among the burghers by order of the Parliament; and then, when the burghers began to cry out against Monck, just when even the soldiers began to question their commander, Monck, sensing that the majority was ready for it, declared that the Rump Parliament must resign, step aside, and yield its place to a government that was more than just a joke. Monck made this declaration backed by fifty thousand swords, joined by the end of the day by five hundred thousand citizens of London, who acclaimed the move with shouts of joy.
And then, just when the people, after their triumphal celebrations and parties in the street, were looking for a leader they could pledge to follow, word went out that a vessel had left The Hague bearing Charles II and his fortune. “Gentlemen,” said Monck to his officers, “I go to welcome the legitimate king. Whoever loves me will follow me!”
A roar of acclamation followed these words, which d’Artagnan couldn’t hear without a shiver of pleasure. “Mordioux!” he said to Monck. “You are bold, Sir.”
“You’ll go with me, won’t you?” said Monck.
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