The Three Musketeers retrieve Rocheforte

1. La Rochelle 2012the 4th
Musketeer tale from Bayko Baron

2. • Dawn in the Huguenot fortress. Atop the watchtowers the sentries search in
vain for the promised English fleet, while below them the fishing boats slide
back into harbour.

3. • Four men hurry ashore – clearly they have caught nothing this
night

4. • They hasten towards The Laughing Sandbag where cognac and croissant are
already being served to the early risers and late staggerers.

5. • Behind the tavern they meet with a cowled figure – Milady
D’Lateautumn the Cardinal’s spy. Her news is dire, they are not a
moment too soon – Rochefort is to be shot, today, at sunrise!

6. • Meanwhile Rochefort himself has been brought from his cell to visit the last Catholic
padre in the town – even a Cardinalist spy has the right to be collected by his own god.

7. • In the Place Boucheron the drummers begin the death roll, summoning the
citizenry to the show

8. • While the firing squad load and prime their pieces

9. • Rochefort is led in to hear the charges read and death sentence confirmed

10. • While in the yard of the Red Dovecote the four strangers don their true colours and
brace themselves - they are, of course – Alice D’Artagnan and his comrades, Bathos,
Pathos and Chanel

11. • Rocheforte faces his fate and doffs his chapeau – shame to ruin a
good hat with bullet holes

12. • As trigger fingers tense the fearless quartet burst in upon the scene
with cries of ‘Voici l’escargot’ and ‘ Ou est le plume de ma tante?’

13. • Amidst the confusion the four bundle Rochefort towards the ramparts

14. • Seizing a convenient Huguenot sentry as battering ram Bathos
and Chanel break open the door into the winch-room of the gate-
tower while their comrades hold the enemy at bay!

15. • Cutting every cable in sight the musketeers race to the wall-walk above
and drop a rope to the bridge below, pausing only to scoff at their impotent
pursuers beyond the portcullis

16. • As bullets begin to whine and hum about their ears a troop of
royal dragoons race forward to distract the enemy, each fugitive
swinging gratefully up on a proffered cantle to gallop out of
range

17. Safe in the Royal Lines Rochefort is delivered to his master, while the
musketeers receive a proud nod of approval from theirs and the
salutes of their fellow gentlemen

18. That evening a cowled figure slips un-noticed aboard
one of the fishing boats about to stand out