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The Roll-Call Of The Reef
by
“My father said that about three o’clock in the morning, April fourteenth of the year ‘fourteen, he and William Tallifer were sitting here, just as you and I, sir, are sitting now. My father had put on his clothes a few minutes before, and was mending his spiller by the light of the horn lantern, meaning to set off before daylight to haul the trammel. The trumpeter hadn’t been to bed at all. Towards the last he mostly spent his nights (and his days, too) dozing in the elbow-chair where you sit at this minute. He was dozing then (my father said), with his chin dropped forward on his chest, when a knock sounded upon the door, and the door opened, and in walked an upright young man in scarlet regimentals.
“He had grown a brave bit, and his face was the colour of wood-ashes; but it was the drummer, John Christian. Only his uniform was different from the one he used to wear, and the figures ’38’ shone in brass upon his collar.
“The drummer walked past my father as if he never saw him, and stood by the elbow-chair and said:
“‘Trumpeter, trumpeter, are you one with me?’
“And the trumpeter just lifted the lids of his eyes, and answered, ‘How should I not be one with you, drummer Johnny–Johnny boy? The men are patient. ‘Till you come, I count; while you march, I mark time; until the discharge comes.’
“‘The discharge has come to-night,’ said the drummer, ‘and the word is Corunna no longer’; and stepping to the chimney-place, he unhooked the drum and trumpet, and began to twist the brass rings of the lock, spelling the word aloud, so–C-O-R-U-N-A. When he had fixed the last letter, the padlock opened in his hand.
“‘Did you know, trumpeter, that when I came to Plymouth they put me into a line regiment?’
“‘The 38th is a good regiment,’ answered the old Hussar, still in his dull voice. ‘I went back with them from Sahagun to Corunna. At Corunna they stood in General Fraser’s division, on the right. They behaved well.’
“‘But I’d fain see the Marines again,’ says the drummer, handing him the trumpet; ‘and you–you shall call once more for the Queen’s Own. Matthew,’ he says, suddenly, turning on my father–and when he turned, my father saw for the first time that his scarlet jacket had a round hole by the breast-bone, and that the blood was welling there–‘Matthew, we shall want your boat.’
“Then my father rose on his legs like a man in a dream, while they two slung on, the one his drum, and t’other his trumpet. He took the lantern, and went quaking before them down to the shore, and they breathed heavily behind him; and they stepped into his boat, and my father pushed off.
“‘Row you first for Dolor Point,’ says the drummer. So my father rowed them out past the white houses of Coverack to Dolor Point, and there, at a word, lay on his oars. And the trumpeter, William Tallifer, put his trumpet to his mouth and sounded the Revelly. The music of it was like rivers running.
“‘They will follow,’ said the drummer. ‘Matthew, pull you now for the Manacles.’
“So my father pulled for the Manacles, and came to an easy close outside Carn du. And the drummer took his sticks and beat a tattoo, there by the edge of the reef; and the music of it was like a rolling chariot.
“‘That will do,’ says he, breaking off; ‘they will follow. Pull now for the shore under Gunner’s Meadow.’
“Then my father pulled for the shore, and ran his boat in under Gunner’s Meadow. And they stepped out, all three, and walked up to the meadow. By the gate the drummer halted and began his tattoo again, looking out towards the darkness over the sea.
“And while the drum beat, and my father held his breath, there came up out of the sea and the darkness a troop of many men, horse and foot, and formed up among the graves; and others rose out of the graves and formed up–drowned Marines with bleached faces, and pale Hussars riding their horses, all lean and shadowy. There was no clatter of hoofs or accoutrements, my father said, but a soft sound all the while, like the beating of a bird’s wing, and a black shadow lying like a pool about the feet of all. The drummer stood upon a little knoll just inside the gate, and beside him the tall trumpeter, with hand on hip, watching them gather; and behind them both my father, clinging to the gate. When no more came, the drummer stopped playing, and said, ‘Call the roll.’