CHAPTER IX
Three years of neglect had left their mark upon the Pine Croft bungalow. The stables, the corral, the paddock for the thoroughbred riding horses were in woeful disrepair. The garden was riotous with a tangled mass of weeds and flowers. The water main from the little lake in the hills above, an engineering triumph of Gaspard and the joy of his wife, was broken and the water running in a flood over the lawn.
“What a shame! What a ghastly shame! And the whole place used to be so wonderful! So perfect! It is a cruel shame!” The Colonel’s wife was quite petulant over it. “And so unnecessary! Why didn’t he pull himself together and play the man?”
“Why? Don’t you know? I wonder if you can understand?” The little Colonel’s voice was slightly wistful.
“What do you mean?” his wife asked impatiently.
“Oh, dash it all, Augusta! Don’t you see? Can’t you see? The man’s life was broken off short. Why should he—how could he care to carry on?”
His wife glanced curiously at her husband. She felt at times that there was in this loyal, gallant little man something more than the commonplace and quietly controlled gentleman he appeared to be, something she had failed to explore. “He had the place, and——”
“The place!” snorted the Colonel. “Pardon me, my dear. I mean, to one of Gaspard’s temperament, you know—well——” The Colonel’s voice trailed off into silence.
“But there was the boy,” said his wife, covertly watching his face.
“Yes! Yes! Of course, there was the boy,” the Colonel hurried to acquiesce. “Certainly, there was the boy. He ought to have got himself in hand. A shame it was, an inexcusable weakness.” His quick laugh puzzled his wife.
“Well, I do wish he would return,” continued the Colonel, in a quick change of voice. “The boy needs him, and will need him more and more.”
“At least, the boy is not suffering,” said his wife sharply.
“Of course, the little chap’s quite all right. He has everything he needs. I don’t mean he hasn’t,” replied the Colonel quickly. “Don’t imagine anything, Augusta. He’s a lucky beggar to tumble into such a home as he has got. But there’s his future. He has parts, you know—brilliant parts. And not much chance for development here.”
“He is a tremendous responsibility,” sighed his wife. “I frankly confess he puzzles me more than a little.”
They were on the upper trail, a favourite ride of theirs. On the left hand the wide valley in rich, varied, colourful beauty stretched far across the gleaming river to the purple mountains at the horizon. On the grassy levels could be seen the herds of Saddle-back Holsteins and “bunches” of Percheron horses, mares with their colts at their sides, with here and there a splendid stallion running wild where he had no right to be. The trail climbed up over rough ledges sparsely timbered with pines, then led down into thick brushwood of spruce, cedar and birch, with here and there clumps of sumachs which later would splash the landscape with vivid crimson. Slowly they picked their way in single file along the winding trail, turning down from the high land to the lower road. In the thick of the underbrush Augusta’s horse suddenly threw its head into the air, snorted and stood still.
“What’s up?” asked the Colonel, drawing level with her.
“Some one coming. I hear horses, and a man’s voice,” replied his wife, urging her horse forward through the brush into the clearing beyond.
“Good Heavens, Edgar! Come, look!” She sat, pointing with her riding crop at a little cavalcade approaching, a man, a small boy and a woman with a child in her arms.
“My word! It’s Gaspard! Gaspard back again!”
On the leading horse the man rode, his face covered with a heavy beard tinged with grey, hollow-eyed, gaunt, his huge frame falling in, and clothed in the ragged, coarse garb of a trapper. It was indeed Gaspard, but how dreadfully changed from the Gaspard of three years ago! Behind him, on an Indian pony, a boy, upright, handsome, with shy yet fearless eyes, his son Peter. And last of all the Indian woman, with a baby in her arms, Onawata, her face as calmly beautiful as ever, yet with lines of suffering deep cut upon it.
“Hello, Gaspard,” shouted the Colonel heartily, when he had recovered his breath. “Back again?”
“How do you do, Colonel?” replied the man. “How do you do, Mrs. Pelham?” He bowed low over his horse, removing his slouch hat. “Yes, back again. ‘A bad penny,’ eh?” His laugh had in it an ugly note. He spoke a few words to the Indian woman, who passed on before with her children, receiving from Augusta as they passed a keen and appraising look.
“Where have you been all this time?” inquired the Colonel.
“Oh,” replied Gaspard, with an attempt at nonchalant bravado, “up in the North country, up through the Athabasca, pottering about with the Chippewayans, doing some sketching, hunting a bit, trapping, and the like.” He set his hat on the back of his head and looked the Colonel fair in the face, a challenging look, daring him to think and say his worst.
“And—and—how are you feeling now?” The Colonel found it hard to get on, and his wife, sitting her horse straight and stiff behind him, gave him no assistance at all. “You don’t look any too well.”
“No, I’m not what you would say in the pink. Caught a bit of a cold, got into my bronchial tubes—exposure, you know, hard living, and that sort of thing. I do feel knocked up a bit, I must confess. I thought perhaps a change to the old place might set me up again.” In spite of his attempted bravado his eyes were hungry and wistful.
“Why, it certainly will,” said the Colonel heartily, turning to his wife for support. “A few months here in the old place with some one to—that is, with good food and—that sort of thing, you know, will set you up. What do you say, Augusta? He needs to be fed up, that is all.”
“Yes, indeed he does,” said his wife. “I am sure that Mr. Gaspard will soon recover his strength in these surroundings.”
“Well,” said the Colonel, “I’m fearfully glad to see you, old man. And you’ll come along and put up with us until we get your bungalow in order. Things are a bit run down there and in no shape to receive you. We have plenty of room, and Paul—yes, Paul will be overjoyed to see you. Eh, Augusta?”
“Yes, certainly, Mr. Gaspard. We shall be delighted to have you spend a few days with us.” Augusta’s tone rather belied her words. “And I am quite sure Paul will be delighted.”
“Paul?” replied Gaspard in a low voice, his face contracting as with a sudden pain. “How is the boy?”
“How is he?” shouted the Colonel. “Fit! Splendidly fit! A splendid chap! You will be proud of him. And he will be tremendously glad to see you. He has longed for you.”
“Longed for me?” Gaspard repeated the words to himself. “My God!” He sat with his eyes averted from the Colonel’s face, looking far across the valley, between the mountains. “I say, Colonel, Mrs. Pelham,” he said, with an obvious effort controlling his voice, “could you, would you mind keeping him for a few days, a little while longer, until I get things straightened away?”
“Surely! Surely!” said Augusta heartily. “We shall be more than glad to keep him as long as you can spare him, as long indeed as he cares to stay.”
“But come along with us now. You will dine with us and spend the night,” urged the Colonel.
“Thank you,” said Gaspard, searching his face with his gaunt and wistful gaze. “Thank you all the same, I know you mean it, but I shall camp tonight”—he paused a moment or two as if gathering strength to continue—“at the bungalow. You see,” he continued, hurrying over the words, “I am a bit tired, I have a lot of things to do, I am in no shape to appear anywhere, I must get cleaned up. I’m a perfect savage, Mrs. Pelham. I have been living among savages, I have become dehumanised. I must be alone tonight.” He raised his hat, bowed with his old grace, and disappeared into the bush.
“God in Heaven!” breathed the Colonel. “What a wreck! Poor devil! Poor devil! What a wreck!”
“Horrible!” echoed his wife. “Ghastly! Horrible! Disgusting!”
The Colonel caught her up quickly. “Disgusting? Well, that’s rather hard, isn’t it, Augusta? Horrible, yes. Ghastly, too. Poor soul! My heart aches for him.”
“You are really most trying, Edgar,” burst out his wife. “Have you no eyes? Can you see nothing? Disgusting is the only word.”
“Why, my dear!” began the Colonel in astonishment.
“Oh, I have no patience with you,” replied his wife. “Can’t you see? That—that woman! Those children! And to flaunt that all in our faces here, who knew his wife! Horrible! Disgusting! And yet you asked him to our house! You remember the rumours of three years ago? You were keen then that we should give him the benefit of the doubt. Well, there is doubt no longer.” Her laugh was hard and scornful.
“But, my dear Augusta, why imagine the worst? Why not give the man a chance? It may be—there may be some satisfactory explanation.”
“Oh, you are quite impossible! Surely one look at that—that—menageis enough to sicken anybody.”
“What?” said the Colonel in a shocked voice. “Do you think that the woman is not his wife?”
“Oh, Edgar, you are indeed impossible. Let us go home. I am quite ill. Let us go home. Oh, why did he come back? How could he bear to come back to this place, to his old friends, to his son? Why should he curse that boy with his presence, and with all this ghastly shame of his?”
“My God! What will Paul do, Augusta?”
“Paul!” exclaimed his wife. “Good heavens, Edgar! Paul? What can he do?”
“He is only a boy,” replied the Colonel.
“A boy? He is twelve years old, nearly thirteen, and in many ways with a man’s mind and a man’s heart. What will happen, the Lord only knows! The whole thing is terrible beyond words. Edgar, we must think and think quickly about this. And whatever happens one thing is quite certain, that we must keep out of this mess. That is quite clear. No more of Pine Croft for us!” His wife’s lips had assumed that thin line that the Colonel had come to recognise as indicative of the ultimate and final thing in decision.
“But, Augusta, we have got to be decent to the poor devil,” said her husband.
“Edgar, in this you must allow me to judge. I am quite decided that there shall be no nonsense about it. There must be no comings and goings with the Pine Croft bungalow. Think of the horrid creature, with that woman and his half-breed children! No! That is all over and done with. Of course, he may come to the house; indeed, he must come once, and we shall have him to dinner. And of course you need not cut him——”
“Cut him?” exclaimed the little Colonel, sitting very straight on his horse. “Cut him? Not if I know myself! That sort of thing isn’t done, Augusta, among decent men. We must know the facts at any rate. Besides, he won’t trouble any one long. He is about done in. He’ll blow out before long.”
“The sooner the better! It’s about the most decent thing he could do, under the circumstances. Oh, you may look at me! I can’t, I simply can’t work up any compassion for that man.”
For some time they rode on in silence, the Colonel’s wife setting a rattling pace and refusing all conversation. As they drew near home, however, she slowed down to a walk.
“Edgar, I want to speak to you quite seriously.” Her tone prepared the Colonel for the fixed and inevitable. “We shall say nothing to Paul tonight. I must have—we must have time to think. You may have thought me harsh just now, but the thing is really most perplexing and demands the most careful consideration. You can see that, Edgar?”
“Certainly, my dear. Most obvious, I am sure,” replied her husband, fully convinced of impending evil.
“And you will have to make clear to that—to Mr. Gaspard that all interchange of social amenities must of course cease.”
“But, my dear, I don’t——”
“He will at once see the propriety of the suggestion.”
“He would,” muttered the Colonel.
“For, after all, he is—he was a gentleman.”
“Ah, that is something,” said the Colonel bitterly.
“And you will have no difficulty in making clear to him that since he has deliberately chosen to outrage all the decencies of civilised society he cannot expect his friends to ignore the fact.”
“Exactly,” murmured the Colonel, deeply disturbed at the prospect before him.
“As for Paul——”
“Yes, Paul! You can’t think——”
“Please don’t catch me up that way, Edgar. As I was saying, Paul must just make his choice. He is quite old enough to understand—make his choice between his father and—and the rest of us.”
“You can’t mean, Augusta, that the boy——”
“Allow me to finish. Youdointerrupt so.”
“Beg pardon, I’m sure.”
“I am quite prepared to receive Paul as one of our family. He is a very nice boy and will easily fit in. But there must be no coming and going——”
“But, great Heaven! Augusta, you can’t mean that the boy must repudiate his father——”
“Or us. I exactly do.” His wife’s voice carried the inexorable calm of fate.
“It would kill him to leave his father and——”
“Pooh! Let us not indulge ourselves in heroics.”
“But the boy is not to blame. It is not his fault that——”
“No. It is his misfortune. But in that misfortune I do not propose that our family is to be involved. Edgar, do listen to reason. If the boy chooses Pine Croft and his father and—that—that wholemenage, as I have said, let him choose, but that must end all intercourse with us.”
“But why, Augusta? In the name of all that’s reasonable and sane, why? A boy like that—I can’t see——”
“Oh, Edgar, you can be so tiresome. You can’t see? Can’t you see that the boy is thirteen—and Peg nearly eleven, and adores him, and——”
The Colonel drew his horse to a standstill. “Peg!” he gasped. “Peggy! Good Lord! Peggy! That infant! Is it that you have been driving at? Well, I’m——” The Colonel’s laugh rang out long and loud. His wife, whose horse was now facing his, gazed at him, with flushed face and glistening eyes.
“My dear, you must forgive me,” said the Colonel hurriedly. “I apologise most humbly. But, really, you know, the thing is so—so grotesque. Please forgive me. I can’t see it otherwise, really, Augusta.”
“No, I hardly expected you to see it.”
“But those children, Augusta! I do hope you will forgive me.”
“Those children? Yes, those children!” His wife’s voice was vibrant with emotion. “In two years the boy will be fifteen and the girl thirteen. In this country a girl at thirteen is like a girl at fifteen or seventeen at home. Look at that Pincher girl, married at sixteen! Edgar, I know about this—I know!” Her voice broke suddenly. “No, let me speak,” she demanded, recovering herself with a desperate struggle. “Let those children grow up together for two, three years—till they are sixteen and fourteen—and the thing will be past our handling. Edgar, you must give me my way in this. Let the boy come to us. He will be happy—he likes—us—he adores you. Or let him go from us. There is no middle way. Oh, I know—” her voice rose in a cry, “I know, God knows I know!” She turned her horse quickly and put him to a gallop, the Colonel following in a maze of wonder, indignation and confused indecision. The mental processes by which his wife had arrived at her present attitude of mind were quite hidden from him. Her sudden display of emotion, so unusual with her, paralysed all consecutive thinking for him. What had come to her? What unknown, secret spring within her had swamped that cool, clear head of hers?
He could not know that in one swift backward leap her mind had cleared the intervening years, and that in vivid clarity there stood before her a girl of fifteen, in pigtail and short dresses, wild, impulsive and mad with a child’s passion for a youth, a young subaltern of the Guards, glorious in his first uniform, who bullied her, teased her, kissed her and went away, leaving in her soul a vision of entrancing splendour. Returning two years later, a handsome, dashing wastrel, already deep in the harvesting of his wild oats, he found it wise to accept a hint from headquarters and resign his commission. But even so she was wild to go with him to the world’s end. Instead, her mother, ignoring passionate and tearful protestations, carried her off on the Grand Tour till the youth had disappeared from his kind, and her world knew him no more. The wound had healed, but the scar remained and in odd moments and in certain weathers still ached. Yes, she knew. And her knowledge steeled her resolve that her child should be spared a like experience, at what cost so ever.
With face pale and set she rode, without further word, straight to her door. As her husband assisted her to alight, she said quietly, “We shall say nothing to Paul tonight.”
One glance at her face was enough for him. “No, no, my love. It shall be as you say,” was his reply.
“And tomorrow you shall arrange matters with Mr. Gaspard.”
The little Colonel looked at her in piteous dismay, but his mind was not working with sufficient celerity to furnish words for an answer.
No peaceful slumber visited the Colonel that night. The prospect of the task laid upon him by his wife, of “arranging” matters with Gaspard, did not invite reposeful emotions. He had sought more exact instructions from his wife as to what proposals should be made to their neighbour and in what terms. He received little aid and less sympathy. It was surely a simple matter, after all. Gaspard had created a social situation for himself which would outrage the whole community. They were still a primitive country in many ways, but they had some regard for the foundations of the social order. The old days when men’s passions and desires determined their conduct, with utter disregard of the opinion of decent society, had gone. None knew this better than Gaspard. And all that would be necessary would be to suggest that he must accept the social consequences. “You won’t need to rub it in.”
“Oh, not in the least. He will probably kick me out of the house,” observed the Colonel cheerfully. “And I shall deserve it,” he added.
“Oh, nonsense!” replied his wife scornfully. “He is no fool. Of course, I don’t mean you men can’t meet, and all that. You will do that sort of thing anyway. And you can lay the blame, as you will, doubtless, upon the inexplicable eccentricities of the women. It will only be another burden laid upon our shoulders.”
“I wish you would undertake the job,” her husband pleaded, “since it seems so simple to you.”
“Certainly, I shall if you feel like funking it. Have no doubt about that. And I shall do it thoroughly,” said his wife promptly.
“Oh, Lord!” groaned the Colonel, as he swiftly visualised the interview. “The poor devil has hell enough now.”
“Thank you, Edgar. It is a dainty compliment. But I would rather give him hell, as you so delicately suggest——”
“Augusta!” protested the Colonel.
“Than allow him to bring hell to my house and family. But that’s my last word. I’m going to sleep.” So saying she gave her back to her husband, snuggled down under the covers and, with a little sigh of content as with a good day’s work well done, settled herself to enjoy the slumber of the just.
“And who will tell Paul?” The Colonel’s pitiful appeal broke the long silence.
“Well! I must say, Edgar, you are most annoying, breaking in upon one’s sleep that way! Who will tell Paul? I will. Now, go to sleep.”
“God help the boy!” muttered the Colonel to his pillow. Then, after a few moments, he said sharply, “I’ll do it myself.”
“What?” asked his wife sleepily. Then, quite crossly, “Oh, go ahead and do it, whatever it is.”
The Colonel’s monosyllabic reply was indistinct, but rich in emphasis.
But as is so frequently the case, the Colonel need not have lost his sleep over the prospect of his unpleasant task, for the job fell into other hands than his. For two days he postponed his visit to Pine Croft, keeping Paul close with him under various pretexts. The third afternoon, reading the weather signs in his wife’s face, he girded his loins and addressed himself to the business assigned him. With a heart full of compassion for the wretched creature he had last seen humped upon the shaggy Indian pony making his hopeless way through the brushwood in the train of what his wife described as “that horriblemenage,” he rode up to the bungalow in his best military style and whistling a cheerful ditty. So he had ridden upon a Boer entrenchment, at the head of his men, and with a like sensation at the point of junction between stomach and abdomen. He was greeted with a shout from the studio window.
“Hello, Pelham, old boy! Right welcome art thou, most gallant knight! Wilt alight and quaff a posset?” There were not lacking signs that the speaker had been indulging himself in several possets during the afternoon.
“Ah, Gaspard, you are looking very fit, much better than you were when I saw you last.”
“My dear fellow, new worlds are born every day. Richard is himself again. Come in and have something. I feel as a snake must feel when he sloughs off the old and emerges in his brand new skin.”
And in very truth, the change in the man was nothing other than a transformation. Clean shaven, well groomed, garbed in hunting tweeds and immaculate linen, and with his gun over his arm, he was once more the Gaspard of the old days, handsome, cheery, insouciant, with today a touch of patronising insolence. For Gaspard was now in his studio and among his pictures. He was the artist once more, after three years of exile, and with the divine frenzy stirring in his blood he was lord of his world and of the men and things therein. Certainly no object of compassion, and as certainly no man to approach with a proposal of social ostracism. Small wonder that the little Colonel fidgeted nervously with his glass and wondered within himself how the deuce he could lead up to the matter in hand.
“Have another drink, Pelham,” said Gaspard, helping himself and passing the decanter. “Jove, this stuff has mellowed and ripened these three years. Three years? Three and a half years now. A millennium of hell!” He shuddered visibly as he tossed off his glass. “But it’s over, thank God! Over! Jove, it was often a near touch with me. There were days when I dared not trust myself alone with my gun in the woods. Ah-h-h, God!” Again he shuddered. “But it’s over. I’m going to paint again—and as I never painted. I have great pictures here,”—he struck his breast violently, “angels, devils, waiting release. Devils? Yes, I can paint devils now. God knows I have reason to know them!” He turned swiftly upon the Colonel, pouring himself another glass.
“Pelham, do you believe in the devil?”
The Colonel was frankly startled. “Well, of course, I——”
“Ah-h-h, I see, you know nothing about him. Yours is a sickly abstraction. Well, thank God you don’t. But that is all done with. Here I am back where a man can get a bath and sleep in a bed and see the face of a white man. Pelham, I love to look at you, old sport. I’m not saying you’re a beauty, but you are white. You’re my kind. Have another, eh? No? Hear me, Pelham, it is good to be back home. Thought I’d never have the nerve to return. But—man! Man! to die in a far land with never a kent face to look upon as you go out—I just cudna thole it, as old Jinny would say. By the way, how is old Jinny?”
“Oh, very well. Very useful and fairly happy, I think. You see she has Paul.”
“Paul!” His voice lost its harsh, feverish note of bravado. “The boy, you say, is well and happy, eh? Happy? What?” His voice was eager, his look keenly inquiring.
“Yes, Paul is fine and fit and happy. Yes, I’m sure he is happy. Of course, you know, he is awfully keen about you and has wanted to hear from you and all that——”
“Come, let’s go about a bit,” said Gaspard abruptly, leading the way out of doors. “Can’t understand how that main burst. Frost, I fancy. Must put that right. Things are in an awful mess.”
“Couldn’t help being in a mess very well,” said the Colonel stiffly.
“Oh, I didn’t mean any criticism, Pelham. I’ll have a deuce of a time straightening things out with you. Awfully grateful. Old Tom has told me some and I’ve seen some too. And then there’s Paul.” He paused, looking steadfastly at the Colonel.
“Don’t say a word about Paul. He has more than repaid any care we have given him. He is one of us, and very dear to us. Indeed, we would be only too glad to keep him with us,” said the Colonel, seeing an opening, as he thought. “We—my wife and I——”
“He hasn’t been over,” said Gaspard. “Does he know I am home?”
“No, he doesn’t know. Augusta thought—we thought till you had got things straightened out a bit we would not let him bother you.”
“Ah—I see. Very considerate of you both. I appreciate it. It was better, of course. Must do something with that boy. He is what friend Barrie would call a ‘lad o’ pairts.’ But we’ll think of that again. A lot of things to do. My affairs are in a frightful mess. Have had a talk with Sleeman. Shrewd chap, Sleeman—devilish shrewd! Must see my banker. Oh, I hardly know where to begin. The old place has run a bit to seed. But I shall soon get it into shape. Some things I want to consult you about, old man—some developments that I have been planning.” So he rattled on, giving the Colonel no opportunity of speech, but rushing with feverish speed from one subject to another. They wandered about the stables, noting the decay on every hand, till as they passed beyond the paddock toward the hill Gaspard suddenly sat down upon a fallen tree.
“Let’s—sit—a little,” he said, his breath coming quick. The Colonel, glancing at him, was shocked and startled at his appearance. His face was a ghastly, pallid yellow, his forehead heavily beaded with perspiration, his hands trembling.
“You’re ill, Gaspard. What’s wrong? Feel faint? Let me get you something.” He set off toward the bungalow.
“No, no—don’t go,” said Gaspard impatiently. “In—a moment—I shall be—all right. Don’t go—a little too much—excitement. Heart rotten—I think. Soon—be—fit.” He sat huddled forward on the tree trunk, his hands upon his knees, his eyes staring, fighting for breath.
“Don’t worry,” he said, striving to smile. “I am often like this. Last—two days—like hell—again. Nerves all—shot to pieces. Sorry you—saw me—like this.”
After some minutes’ rest, the spasm passed, the colour came back to his face, his breath came more evenly, his hands grew steady. He slid off the tree and lay quietly upon the ground.
“I’m all right now,” he said, looking up at the Colonel. “It was this that drove me home from the North Country. One hates to be ill, helpless, to pass out among those heathen, you know. And then there was—Paul.” His bravado was all gone. His tone was low and wistful like that of a child wanting its mother. The Colonel was smitten to the heart with pity for him. The thought of the mission which had brought him there was repugnant to him. Come what might, it would not be his hand that would deal him a blow that might well be his death.
Slowly they returned to the bungalow. Gaspard poured himself a stiff glass of spirits. “Ah, that’s better,” he said, after he had finished the glass. “You see, I can’t stand much of a strain, especially emotional strain. Seeing you again, and all that, got to my vitals. I must go softly for a bit.”
“You ought to have a doctor see you right away,” said the Colonel with decision. “Better let me send you McGillivray, what?”
“No, no. Thanks all the same. I mean to ride down to the Post and see him one of these days. Today and tomorrow I am going to lie up.” Then after a pause he added, “The day following I hope to accept Mrs. Pelham’s kind invitation to lunch. Then I shall see Paul.”
The Colonel’s report to his wife was given in a forlorn-hope-now-do-your-worst sort of manner.
“Did you see that Indian woman?” she asked.
“I did not. Would you have had me ask for her?” replied the Colonel, with the air of a man who has dared the ultimate.
“No, dear, you did perfectly right. And it’s my opinion that everybody else will follow your example.” His wife knew better than to goad a man gone wholly desperate.
The third day at lunch she had her opportunity with Gaspard, but, as the Colonel said, shamelessly crowing over her, nothing was said about the conventions. The Colonel’s report of Gaspard’s grave heart seizure had driven in her front line. Augusta, however, was merely biding her time. She was still on guard, and waiting a favourable moment to make the counter-attack.