THE £100,000 KIT
It was a clear, crisp morning with a sparkle of frost on jetty and
breakwater. The English Channel stretched flashing like a living sheet
of glass to the filmy line marking the coast of France, as serene and
beautiful in its calm as it is savage and cruel in its anger. It was
high tide; but only a gentle murmur came from the little waves that
idly beat upon the shore in front of the bungalow.
A girl lay in a deck chair on the verandah, well wrapped up against the
eager air. But the fresh breeze would not be denied and, foiled by the
nurse’s vigilance of its intents against the patient, it revenged
itself by blowing havoc among the soft brown curls which peeped out
from under the girl’s hat.
She turned to the man at her side.
“Look!” she said, and pointed seawards with her finger.
A convoy of vessels was standing out to sea framed in the smoke-blurs
of the escorting destroyers. Ugly, weatherbeaten craft were the
steamers with trails of smoke blown out in the breeze behind them. They
rode the sea’s highway with confidence, putting their trust in the
unseen power that swept the road clear for them.
“Transports, aren’t they?” asked the man.
But he scarcely looked at the transports. He was watching the gleam of
the sun on the girl’s brown hair and contrasting the deep gray of her
eyes with the ever-changing hues of the sea.
“Yes,” replied the girl. “It’s the third day they’ve gone across! By
this time next week there’ll be ten fresh divisions in France. How
_secure_ they look steaming along! And to think they owe it all to
you!”
The man laughed and flushed up.
“From the strictly professional standpoint the less said about me the
better,” he said.
“What nonsense you talk!” cried the girl. “When the Chief was down to
see me yesterday, he spoke of nothing but you. ‘They beat him, but he
won out!’ he said, ‘they shook him off but he went back and found ’em!’
He told me it was a case of grit versus violence—and grit won. In all
the time I’ve known the Chief, I’ve never heard him talk so much about
one man before. Do you know,” Barbara went on, looking up at Desmond,
“I think you’ve made the Chief feel a little bit ashamed of himself.
And that I may tell you is a most extraordinary achievement!”
“Do you think you’re strong enough to hear some news?” asked Desmond
after a pause.
“Of course,” replied the girl. “But I think I can guess it. It’s about
Strangwise, isn’t it?”
Desmond nodded.
“He was shot yesterday morning,” he replied. “I’m glad they did it in
France. I was terrified lest they should want me to go to it.”
“Why?” asked the girl with a suspicion of indignation in her voice, “he
deserved no mercy.”
“No,” replied Desmond slowly, “he was a bad fellow—a Prussian through
and through. He murdered your poor father, he shot Rass, he instigated
the killing of the maid, Marie, he was prepared to sacrifice his own
wife even, to this Prussian God of militarism which takes the very soul
out of a man’s body and puts it into the hands of his superior officer.
And yet, and yet, when one has soldiered with a man, Barbara, and
roughed it with him and been shelled and shot at with him, there seems
to be a bond of sympathy between you and him for ever after. And he was
a brave man, Barbara, cruel and unscrupulous, I admit, but there was no
fear in him, and I can’t help admiring courage. I seem to think of him
as two men—the man I soldiered with and the heartless brute who watched
while that beast Bellward...”
He broke off as a spasm of pain crossed the girl’s face. “I shall
remember the one and forget the other,” he concluded simply.
“Tell me,” said the girl suddenly, “who _was_ Strangwise?”
“After he was arrested and just before they were going to take him
off,” Desmond said, “he asked to be allowed to say a word privately to
the Chief. We were all sent away and he told the Chief his real name.
He thought he was going to be hanged, you see, and while he never
shrank from any crime in the fulfilment of his mission, he was
terrified of a shameful death. He begged the Chief to see that his real
name was not revealed for the disgrace that his execution would bring
upon his family. Curiously Prussian attitude of mind, isn’t it?”
“And what did the Chief say?”
“I don’t know; but he was mighty short with him, I expect.”
“And what was Strangwise’s real name?”
“When he told us that Nur-el-Din was his wife, I knew at once who he
was. His name is Hans von Schornbeek. He was in the Prussian Foot
Guards, was turned out for some reason or other and went to America
where, after a pretty rough time, he was taken on by the German secret
service organization. He was working for them when he met Nur-el-Din.
They were married out there and, realizing the possibilities of using
her as a decoy in the secret service, he sent her to Brussels where the
Huns were very busy getting ready for war. He treated her abominably;
but the girl was fond of him in her way and even when she was in fear
of her life from this man she never revealed to me the fact that he was
Hans von Schornbeek and her husband.”
Barbara sat musing for a while, her eyes on the restless sea.
“How strange it is,” she said, “to think that they are all dispersed
now... and the transports are sailing securely to France. Two were
killed at the Mill House, Behrend committed suicide in prison, Bellward
died in hospital, Mrs. Malplaquet has disappeared, and now Strangwise
has gone. There only remains...”
She cast a quick glance at Desmond but he was gazing seaward at the
smoke of the transports smudging the horizon.
“What are they going to do with Nur-el-Din?” she asked rather abruptly.
“Didn’t the Chief tell you?” said Desmond.
“He only asked me what I had to say in the matter as I had had to
suffer at her hands. But I told him I left the matter entirely to him.
I said I took your point of view that Nur-el-Din was the victim of her
husband...”
“That was generous of you, Barbara,” Desmond said gently.
She sighed.
“Daddy knew her as a little girl,” she answered, “and he was so pleased
to see her again that night. She never had a chance. I hope she’ll get
one now!”
“They’re going to intern her, I believe,” said Desmond, “until the end
of the war; they could do nothing else, you know. But she will be well
looked after, and I think she will be safer in our charge than if she
were allowed to remain at liberty. The German Secret Service has had a
bad knock, you know. Somebody has got to pay for it!”
“I know,” the girl whispered, “and it frightens me.”
“You poor child!” said Desmond, “you’ve had a rough time. But it’s all
over now. And that reminds me, Barney is coming up for sentence to-day;
they charged him with murder originally; but Marigold kept on getting
him remanded until they were able to alter the charge to one of
burglary. He’ll probably get two years’ hard labor, Marigold says.”
“Poor Barney!” said Barbara, “I wish they would let him go free. All
these weeks the mystery of poor Daddy’s death has so weighed upon my
mind that now it has been cleared up I feel as though one day I might
be happy again. And I want everybody to be happy, too!”
“Barbara,” said Desmond and took her hand.
Barbara calmly withdrew it from his grasp and brushed an imaginary curl
out of her eye.
“Any news of your hundred thousand pound kit?” she asked, by way of
turning the conversation.
“By Jove,” said Desmond, “there was a letter from Cox’s at the club
this morning but I was so rushed to catch my train that I shoved it in
my pocket and forgot all about it. I wrote and asked them weeks ago to
get my kit back from France. Here we are!”
He pulled a letter out of his pocket, slit open the envelope and took
out a printed form. Barbara, propping herself up with one hand on his
shoulder, leaned over him to read the communication. This is what she
read.
“We are advised,” the form ran, “that a Wolseley valise forwarded to
you on the 16th inst. from France has been lost by enemy action. We are
enclosing a compensation form which...”
But neither troubled to read further.
“Gone to the bottom, by Jove!” cried Desmond. “But isn’t it strange,”
he went on, “to think of the Star of Poland lying out there on the bed
of the Channel? Well, I’m not so sure that it isn’t the best place for
it. It won’t create any further trouble in this world at least!”
“Poor Nur-el-Din!” sighed the girl.
They sat awhile in silence together and watched the gulls circling
unceasingly above the receding tide.
“You’re leaving here to-morrow then?” said Desmond presently.
Barbara nodded
“And going back to your work with the Chief?”
Barbara nodded again.
“It’s not good enough,” cried Desmond. “This is no job for a girl like
you, Barbara. The strain is too much; the risks are too great. Besides,
there’s something I wanted to say...”
Barbara stopped him.
“Don’t say it!” she bade him.
“But you don’t know what I was going to say!” he protested.
Barbara smiled a little happy smile.
“Barbara...” Desmond began.
Her hand still rested on his shoulder and he put his hand over hers.
For a brief moment she let him have his way.
Then she withdrew her hand.
“Desmond,” she said, looking at him with kindly eyes, “we both have
work to do...”
“We have,” replied the man somberly, “and mine’s at the front!”
The girl shook her head.
“No!” she said. “Henceforward it’s where the Chief sends you!”
Desmond set his jaw obstinately.
“I may have been a Secret Service agent by accident,” he answered, “but
I’m a soldier by trade. My place is in the fighting-line!”
“The Secret Service has its fighting-line, too,” Barbara replied,
“though the war correspondents don’t write about it. It never gets a
mention in despatches, and Victoria Crosses don’t come its way. The
newspapers don’t publish its casualty list, though you and I know that
it’s a long one. A man slips quietly away and never comes back, and
after a certain lapse of time we just mark him off the books and
there’s an end of it. But it’s a great service; and you’ve made your
mark in it. The Chief wants men like you. You’ll have to stay!”
Desmond was about to speak; but the girl stopped him. “What do you and
I matter,” she asked, “when the whole future of England is at stake! If
you are to give of your best to this silent game of ours, you must be
free with no responsibilities and no ties, with nothing that will ever
make you hesitate to take a supreme risk. And I never met a man that
dared more freely than you!”
“Oh, please...” said Desmond and got up.
He stood gazing seawards for a while.
Then he glanced at his watch.
“I must be going back to London,” he said. “I have to see the Chief at
four this afternoon. And you know why!”
The girl nodded.
“What will you tell him?” she asked. “Will you accept his offer to
remain on in the Secret Service?”
Desmond looked at her ruefully.
“You’re so eloquent about it,” he said slowly, “that I think I must!”
Smiling, she gave him her hand. Desmond held it for an instant in his.
Then, without another word, he turned and strode off towards the
winding white road that led to the station.
Barbara watched him until a turn in the road hid him from her sight.
Then she pulled out her handkerchief.
“Good Heavens, girl!” she said to herself, “I believe you’re crying!”