Brief Candles , livre ebook

First published in 1954.
This edition published by Rare Treasures.
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BRIEF CANDLES

by

MANNING COLES

To E.M.S. who detests spy-thrillers

CHAPTER I: 1870
“In my day,” said the old waiter, tottering round the room, “in my day, Irepeat, the Armies of France were not defeated. They conquered, theyswept all before them. I do not understand what ill fate has befallen theArmies of France.” He threw a contemptuous look at three French soldierssitting together at a table in the corner with their rifles and equipmentupon a long bench beside them. They were eating hungrily, buttheir heads turned at every sound coming from the road which passedthe inn; it was one of the main roads to Paris. “It must be the men,” saidthe waiter. “In my day, we had men in the Armies of France.”
“And a man to lead them,” said one of the soldiers, angrily jerkinground in his chair and then turning back to his meal again.
“And, as you say, a man to lead them.”
There were two men sitting at a table in the window, eating theirmeal and looking down at the traffic below, which was all going one way,towards Paris. Guns and their limbers, wagons full of wounded lying onstraw, infantry steadily plodding with no spring in their step, cavalrywith their once gay uniforms masked with dust. Dust over everythingand hanging in a heavy cloud in the air; it came in at the open first-floorwindow at which the men were sitting and fell upon the tables, the food,their hair, their clothes, and their skin, until everything they touchedwas soiled and gritty. The men were civilians and gentlemen by theirdress; their valises lay on the floor beside them. The elder, a man in hislate thirties, was the stouter of the two; the younger was very tall andthin with lank dark hair, hatchet-nosed and impulsive in movement. Onthe back of his chair there sat a small Capuchin monkey dressed in alittle red jacket and a round cap. The monkey was eating a peach, andthe juice ran down his chin and dripped upon his jacket.
“That animal of yours,” said the older traveler, speaking in English,“is making himself a horrid sloven with that peach.”
The younger glanced over his shoulder. “My fault. I forgot to givehim a napkin.” He changed to French, perfectly fluent but with an accentunfamiliar to the old waiter. “Be so good as to bring me anothernapkin. My friend here is in difficulties with his peach.”
The waiter awoke with a start from his plainly dismal thoughts andhurried forward with a napkin upon a salver. The monkey saw him coming,dropped the remains of his peach upon the floor, and snatched offhis little cap with a polite bow. The waiter shuddered but stood hisground; the younger traveler took the napkin with a word of thanks andproceeded to tie it round the monkey’s neck.
“Tell me,” said the elder traveler in fair French with a strong Englishaccent, “the battle, it has taken place? It is already over?”
“It is already over,” said the waiter, shaking his head, and with thathis hands began to shake also and his arms and his whole body, so thathe laid hold upon the back of a chair to steady himself.
“And where did they fight?”
“Monsieur, at a place called Sedan.”
“And France—”
“Has been defeated, monsieur. Never was there such a defeat. Theysay our armies are surrounded and these whom you see passing by aremerely the stragglers.”
“Take heart,” said the English traveler. “News is never so bad as thefirst rumors make it.”
One of the soldiers rose from table and came to the window to lookout over their shoulders. “The gentlemen,” he said in a tired, angryvoice, “are interested in the battle?”
The younger man, having finished the monkey’s toilette, gave himanother peach and turned round. “Of course we are,” he said in his odddrawling French, “seeing that we have come out from Paris in order toview it.”
“To view it? To view a battle? Does the gentleman know what he issaying?”
“Of course I know,” said the traveler calmly. “In my country, if agentleman desires to observe the course of a battle he is freely at libertyto do so. Why not?”
The soldier called upon his Maker and went back to his table, butthe waiter asked politely what country had the felicity to number Monsieuramong its citizens.
“America,” said the monkey’s owner. “Waiter, bring another bottle.No, not another bottle of claret—brandy this time. Have you a passablebrandy? You will drink with us, your morale appears to me to need restoring.”
The waiter went to get it and the Englishman spoke in a low tone. “Ishould not give him too much, Charles. I think he has been restoringhis morale considerably already.”
“What he wants,” said the American, “is to get drunk and sleep itoff. The defeat will not seem so serious when he wakes up. That is whatI did when I heard that Grant had taken Richmond. It does help, CousinJames, it does help.”
“I dare say that you are in the right,” said his English cousin with asympathetic sigh, though indeed his own reaction to the news of the fallof Richmond had been of thankfulness that the wretched war was nowover and there would once more be American cotton to supply his empty,silent mills.
The waiter came back with fresh glasses and a dusty bottle of brandy.There was a heavy rumble of passing guns and the glasses shook on thetable.
“The patron’s grandfather laid this down in the year when the Emperor—myEmperor—broke the Austrians at Wagram. We may as welldrink it, gentlemen, or the brutal Prussians will.” He spat a curse uponthe Prussians and withdrew the cork.
“The patron,” said the Englishman idly, “he is not here?”
“He has gone to Paris for safety. Madame insisted. One understands.They have five daughters.” He began to pour out the brandy, but hishand shook so much that the spirit ran out upon the table.
“Give it to me,” said the American. “ ‘Waste not, want not,’ is a goodsaying.” He filled three glasses and gave the old waiter one. “Down withit. That’ll warm your courage for you. Cousin James, your health. Sir,this is very fine brandy indeed.”
“It is in truth,” said the Englishman. “Cousin Charles, your very goodhealth.”
The old waiter bowed to them both and sipped his brandy. It appearedto do him good; a little color crept into his face and his handssteadied.
“Are you, then, alone in this place?” asked the man called James.
“Oh no,” said the waiter. “There is my grandson in the kitchen. Hecooks. There are also women who wash and clean and make beds, buttoday they have all run off to their homes. My grandson had the impertinenceto tell me he also proposed to desert me, but I persuaded himto remain. With the spit. At present he is more afraid of me whom heknows than of the Germans whom he does not know—yet. He is greenwith terror, his hair stands on end and his knees shake, but he cookedthe dinner. It was passable, yes?”
“Excellent,” said the Englishman. “My compliments to him on that ragôut .”
The waiter bowed.
“It needed a little more pepper,” said the American.
“My fault, monsieur. His hand shook so much that I took the potfrom him.”
The monkey chattered angrily and his master looked round.
“He is thirsty,” he said. “Waiter, a little wine and water for my friend.”
“In a basin?” said the waiter, tottering away to the sideboard.
“Basin? No, why? In a glass, like a Christian. Do you think he has nomanners?”
The waiter muttered something inaudible and brought back winemixed with water in a thick glass.
“Thank the gentleman, Ulysses,” said the American.
The monkey stood up on the back of the chair, took off his little capwith one paw, placed the other over his heart, and bowed deeply.
“Ulysses?” said the waiter. “That is, then, the little creature’s name,Ulysses?”
“That is so. I named him after a certain general whom I had reasonto dislike.”
The Englishman laughed shortly and poured out three more glasseswhile the American handed the monkey his wine. “Careful, Ulysses. Donot spill it.”
The monkey sat down again on his haunches, received the glassslowly in two careful paws, and began to sip it, rounding his great darkeyes at the waiter.
“He is indeed like a Christian! He enjoys his wine!”
“Surely he does, why not? Here’s your glass, waiter, drink up andbecome young once more.”
“I thank Monsieur. May I, then, propose a toast this time? France!France! ” He drained the glass at one draught and the travelers raisedtheir eyebrows.
“France,” murmured the Englishman diffidently.
“The fair land of France!” cried the American in ringing tones. “Mayall her enemies perish!”
The monkey, imitative in this as in all else, raised his glass also andreturned it to his mouth. One of the soldiers in the corner said:“ Dieu-de-dieu-de-dieu ,” under his breath and looked hastily away.
“Not so much traffic going by now,” said James, the Englishman,and it was true. The rumbling and the tramping had ceased and thedust began to fall again upon the road from which it had risen.
“The Army has gone past,” said the waiter somberly. “That miserableline of stragglers, of which you have just seen the last, is the remnantof the Armies of France. Oh, when I was young, we did not runfrom our enemies like this! We fought, we died in heaps, but we conquered!”He seized the brandy bottle and refilled his own glass, entirelyforgetting the others. “Invincible, unconquerable, always victorious—”
This was a little too much even f