Dodger of the Revolution by James Benmore

Author:James Benmore [Benmore, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Top Sawyer Books
Published: 2024-03-22T00:00:00+00:00

DEATH TO THE REPUBLIC!

Wherein my true nature is tested and revealed

The next casualty of this vicious class war was that satirical sniper leaning out of his window. He’d been firing off as many bullets as anti-republican jibes when there was no real infantry in view, but had now received a return shot straight through the head, before he even had a chance to squeeze his trigger. I looked up from my crouched position where I was still holding hands with poor, suffering Adele and saw the red-sprayed wall beside his window, as he dropped his rifle and his body collapsed onto the sill. Many of his fellow riflemen posted in other windows continued firing back at the cavalry, while others pulled the shutters closed in sudden cowardice. The dead man’s rifle dropped to the ground next to me, but I did not hear its clatter because of the deafening sound of gunfire from every direction. The drumming had stopped and the only sound now was from the bullets ricocheting off the stone and ironwork all around and the cries of the already wounded. I couldn’t even hear Babette’s anguished weeping as she rolled herself up into a tighter ball on the ground beside me. I did not need to hear her though, as the agonised expression upon her face communicated enough. Her bleeding continued and her eyes pleaded for me to stop lying there and to do something.

‘I’ll fetch a doctor!’ I promised her, although she couldn’t have heard me over the bullet-storm, even if she could have understood. ‘Or a nurse! We’ll get the shot out of your belly and fix you up Babette, I swear. Both you and Adele here’ll be good in no time.’

But I could already tell from the way Adele’s grip was loosening in mine, how her body had ceased shaking, that it was too late for her. I turned to her just in time to see her die.

I heard Hugo DeFarge yelling from somewhere and I turned about to search for where he was, certain that a man like him would know what could be done for Babette. But I saw that he was preoccupied, leaning over the top of the barricade with dozens of other revolutionaries and firing back at the infantry. I shouted up at him that we needed help down here, that the women – his friends - had been shot, but of course he couldn’t hear me and, in truth, I do not know if he could have done anything.

Up on that barricade, to the left of him, another rifleman took a hit to the head and tumbled down. DeFarge kept on firing regardless.

Babette’s pained and desperate voice was calling to me and I crawled from Adele’s corpse towards her. She was sobbing as I brought my face close to hers and then began choking. Her hand gripped mine and she squeezed out her sentences.

‘Don’t get agitated, Babette,’ I tried to shush her. ‘Calm yourself and–’

Another bullet interrupted me. This one whizzed by my left ear, struck her in her forehead and released her from further misery.

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