PART II

[illustration]

Mr. Standfast

by John Buchan

TO THAT MOST GALLANT COMPANY

THE OFFICERS AND MEN

OF THE

SOUTH AFRICAN INFANTRY BRIGADE

on the Western Front

NOTE

The earlier adventures of Richard Hannay, to which occasional reference is made

in this narrative, are recounted in _The Thirty-Nine Steps_ and

_Greenmantle_.

J.B.

Contents

PART I

CHAPTER I The Wicket-Gate

CHAPTER II “The Village Named Morality”

CHAPTER III The Reflections of a Cured Dyspeptic

CHAPTER IV Andrew Amos

CHAPTER V Various Doings in the West

CHAPTER VI The Skirts of the Coolin

CHAPTER VII I Hear of the Wild Birds

CHAPTER VIII The Adventures of a Bagman

CHAPTER IX I Take the Wings of a Dove

CHAPTER X The Advantages of an Air Raid

CHAPTER XI The Valley of Humiliation

PART II

CHAPTER XII I Become a Combatant Once More

CHAPTER XIII The Adventure of the Picardy Château

CHAPTER XIV Mr Blenkiron Discourses on Love and War

CHAPTER XV St Anton

CHAPTER XVI I Lie on a Hard Bed

CHAPTER XVII The Col of the Swallows

CHAPTER XVIII The Underground Railway

CHAPTER XIX The Cage of the Wild Birds

CHAPTER XX The Storm Breaks in the West

CHAPTER XXI How an Exile Returned to His Own People

CHAPTER XXII The Summons Comes for Mr Standfast

PART I

CHAPTER I

The Wicket-Gate

I spent one-third of my journey looking out of the window of a

first-class carriage, the next in a local motor-car following the

course of a trout stream in a shallow valley, and the last tramping

over a ridge of downland through great beech-woods to my quarters for

the night. In the first part I was in an infamous temper; in the second

I was worried and mystified; but the cool twilight of the third stage

calmed and heartened me, and I reached the gates of Fosse Manor with a

mighty appetite and a quiet mind.

As we slipped up the Thames valley on the smooth Great Western line I

had reflected ruefully on the thorns in the path of duty. For more than

a year I had never been out of khaki, except the months I spent in

hospital. They gave me my battalion before the Somme, and I came out of

that weary battle after the first big September fighting with a crack

in my head and a D.S.O. I had received a C.B. for the Erzerum business,

so what with these and my Matabele and South African medals and the

Legion of Honour, I had a chest like the High Priest’s breastplate. I

rejoined in January, and got a brigade on the eve of Arras. There we

had a star turn, and took about as many prisoners as we put infantry

over the top. After that we were hauled out for a month, and

subsequently planted in a bad bit on the Scarpe with a hint that we

would soon be used for a big push. Then suddenly I was ordered home to

report to the War Office, and passed on by them to Bullivant and his

merry men. So here I was sitting in a railway carriage in a grey tweed

suit, with a neat new suitcase on the rack labelled C.B. The initials

stood for Cornelius Brand, for that was my name now. And an old boy in

the corner was asking me questions and wondering audibly why I wasn’t

fighting, while a young blood of a second lieutenant with a wound

stripe was eyeing me with scorn.

The old chap was one of the cross-examining type, and after he had

borrowed my matches he set to work to find out all about me. He was a

tremendous fire-eater, and a bit of a pessimist about our slow progress

in the west. I told him I came from South Africa and was a mining

engineer.

“Been fighting with Botha?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “I’m not the fighting kind.”

The second lieutenant screwed up his nose.

“Is there no conscription in South Africa?”

“Thank God there isn’t,” I said, and the old fellow begged permission

to tell me a lot of unpalatable things. I knew his kind and didn’t give

much for it. He was the sort who, if he had been under fifty, would

have crawled on his belly to his tribunal to get exempted, but being

over age was able to pose as a patriot. But I didn’t like the second

lieutenant’s grin, for he seemed a good class of lad. I looked steadily

out of the window for the rest of the way, and wasn’t sorry when I got

to my station.

I had had the queerest interview with Bullivant and Macgillivray. They

asked me first if I was willing to serve again in the old game, and I

said I was. I felt as bitter as sin, for I had got fixed in the

military groove, and had made good there. Here was I—a brigadier and

still under forty, and with another year of the war there was no saying

where I might end. I had started out without any ambition, only a great

wish to see the business finished. But now I had acquired a

professional interest in the thing, I had a nailing good brigade, and I

had got the hang of our new kind of war as well as any fellow from

Sandhurst and Camberley. They were asking me to scrap all I had learned

and start again in a new job. I had to agree, for discipline’s

discipline, but I could have knocked their heads together in my

vexation.

What was worse they wouldn’t, or couldn’t, tell me anything about what

they wanted me for. It was the old game of running me in blinkers. They

asked me to take it on trust and put myself unreservedly in their

hands. I would get my instructions later, they said.

I asked if it was important.

Bullivant narrowed his eyes. “If it weren’t, do you suppose we could

have wrung an active brigadier out of the War Office? As it was, it was

like drawing teeth.”

“Is it risky?” was my next question.

“In the long run—damnably,” was the answer.

“And you can’t tell me anything more?”

“Nothing as yet. You’ll get your instructions soon enough. You know

both of us, Hannay, and you know we wouldn’t waste the time of a good

man on folly. We are going to ask you for something which will make a

big call on your patriotism. It will be a difficult and arduous task,

and it may be a very grim one before you get to the end of it, but we

believe you can do it, and that no one else can.... You know us pretty

well. Will you let us judge for you?”

I looked at Bullivant’s shrewd, kind old face and Macgillivray’s steady

eyes. These men were my friends and wouldn’t play with me.

“All right,” I said. “I’m willing. What’s the first step?”

“Get out of uniform and forget you ever were a soldier. Change your

name. Your old one, Cornelis Brandt, will do, but you’d better spell it

‘Brand’ this time. Remember that you are an engineer just back from

South Africa, and that you don’t care a rush about the war. You can’t

understand what all the fools are fighting about, and you think we

might have peace at once by a little friendly business talk. You

needn’t be pro-German—if you like you can be rather severe on the Hun.

But you must be in deadly earnest about a speedy peace.”

I expect the corners of my mouth fell, for Bullivant burst out

laughing.

“Hang it all, man, it’s not so difficult. I feel sometimes inclined to

argue that way myself, when my dinner doesn’t agree with me. It’s not

so hard as to wander round the Fatherland abusing Britain, which was

your last job.”

“I’m ready,” I said. “But I want to do one errand on my own first. I

must see a fellow in my brigade who is in a shell-shock hospital in the

Cotswolds. Isham’s the name of the place.”

The two men exchanged glances. “This looks like fate,” said Bullivant.

“By all means go to Isham. The place where your work begins is only a

couple of miles off. I want you to spend next Thursday night as the

guest of two maiden ladies called Wymondham at Fosse Manor. You will go

down there as a lone South African visiting a sick friend. They are

hospitable souls and entertain many angels unawares.”

“And I get my orders there?”

“You get your orders, and you are under bond to obey them.” And

Bullivant and Macgillivray smiled at each other.

I was thinking hard about that odd conversation as the small Ford car,

which I had wired for to the inn, carried me away from the suburbs of

the county town into a land of rolling hills and green water-meadows.

It was a gorgeous afternoon and the blossom of early June was on every

tree. But I had no eyes for landscape and the summer, being engaged in

reprobating Bullivant and cursing my fantastic fate. I detested my new

part and looked forward to naked shame. It was bad enough for anyone to

have to pose as a pacifist, but for me, strong as a bull and as

sunburnt as a gipsy and not looking my forty years, it was a black

disgrace. To go into Germany as an anti-British Afrikander was a

stoutish adventure, but to lounge about at home talking rot was a very

different-sized job. My stomach rose at the thought of it, and I had

pretty well decided to wire to Bullivant and cry off. There are some

things that no one has a right to ask of any white man.

When I got to Isham and found poor old Blaikie I didn’t feel happier.

He had been a friend of mine in Rhodesia, and after the German

South-West affair was over had come home to a Fusilier battalion, which

was in my brigade at Arras. He had been buried by a big crump just

before we got our second objective, and was dug out without a scratch

on him, but as daft as a hatter. I had heard he was mending, and had

promised his family to look him up the first chance I got. I found him

sitting on a garden seat, staring steadily before him like a lookout at

sea. He knew me all right and cheered up for a second, but very soon he

was back at his staring, and every word he uttered was like the careful

speech of a drunken man. A bird flew out of a bush, and I could see him

holding himself tight to keep from screaming. The best I could do was

to put a hand on his shoulder and stroke him as one strokes a

frightened horse. The sight of the price my old friend had paid didn’t

put me in love with pacificism.

We talked of brother officers and South Africa, for I wanted to keep

his thoughts off the war, but he kept edging round to it.

“How long will the damned thing last?” he asked.

“Oh, it’s practically over,” I lied cheerfully. “No more fighting for

you and precious little for me. The Boche is done in all right.... What

you’ve got to do, my lad, is to sleep fourteen hours in the twenty-four

and spend half the rest catching trout. We’ll have a shot at the

grouse-bird together this autumn and we’ll get some of the old gang to

join us.”

Someone put a tea-tray on the table beside us, and I looked up to see

the very prettiest girl I ever set eyes on. She seemed little more than

a child, and before the war would probably have still ranked as a

flapper. She wore the neat blue dress and apron of a V.A.D. and her

white cap was set on hair like spun gold. She smiled demurely as she

arranged the tea-things, and I thought I had never seen eyes at once so

merry and so grave. I stared after her as she walked across the lawn,

and I remember noticing that she moved with the free grace of an

athletic boy.

“Who on earth’s that?” I asked Blaikie.

“That? Oh, one of the sisters,” he said listlessly. “There are squads

of them. I can’t tell one from another.”

Nothing gave me such an impression of my friend’s sickness as the fact

that he should have no interest in something so fresh and jolly as that

girl. Presently my time was up and I had to go, and as I looked back I

saw him sunk in his chair again, his eyes fixed on vacancy, and his

hands gripping his knees.

The thought of him depressed me horribly. Here was I condemned to some

rotten buffoonery in inglorious safety, while the salt of the earth

like Blaikie was paying the ghastliest price. From him my thoughts flew

to old Peter Pienaar, and I sat down on a roadside wall and read his

last letter. It nearly made me howl. Peter, you must know, had shaved

his beard and joined the Royal Flying Corps the summer before when we

got back from the Greenmantle affair. That was the only kind of reward

he wanted, and, though he was absurdly over age, the authorities

allowed it. They were wise not to stickle about rules, for Peter’s

eyesight and nerve were as good as those of any boy of twenty. I knew

he would do well, but I was not prepared for his immediately blazing

success. He got his pilot’s certificate in record time and went out to

France; and presently even we foot-sloggers, busy shifting ground

before the Somme, began to hear rumours of his doings. He developed a

perfect genius for air-fighting. There were plenty better trick-flyers,

and plenty who knew more about the science of the game, but there was

no one with quite Peter’s genius for an actual scrap. He was as full of

dodges a couple of miles up in the sky as he had been among the rocks

of the Berg. He apparently knew how to hide in the empty air as

cleverly as in the long grass of the Lebombo Flats. Amazing yarns began

to circulate among the infantry about this new airman, who could take

cover below one plane of an enemy squadron while all the rest were

looking for him. I remember talking about him with the South Africans

when we were out resting next door to them after the bloody Delville

Wood business. The day before we had seen a good battle in the clouds

when the Boche plane had crashed, and a Transvaal machine-gun officer

brought the report that the British airman had been Pienaar. “Well

done, the old _takhaar!_” he cried, and started to yarn about Peter’s

methods. It appeared that Peter had a theory that every man has a blind

spot, and that he knew just how to find that blind spot in the world of

air. The best cover, he maintained, was not in cloud or a wisp of fog,

but in the unseeing patch in the eye of your enemy. I recognised that

talk for the real thing. It was on a par with Peter’s doctrine of

“atmosphere” and “the double bluff” and all the other principles that

his queer old mind had cogitated out of his rackety life.

By the end of August that year Peter’s was about the best-known figure

in the Flying Corps. If the reports had mentioned names he would have

been a national hero, but he was only “Lieutenant Blank,” and the

newspapers, which expatiated on his deeds, had to praise the Service

and not the man. That was right enough, for half the magic of our

Flying Corps was its freedom from advertisement. But the British Army

knew all about him, and the men in the trenches used to discuss him as

if he were a crack football-player. There was a very big German airman

called Lensch, one of the Albatross heroes, who about the end of August

claimed to have destroyed thirty-two Allied machines. Peter had then

only seventeen planes to his credit, but he was rapidly increasing his

score. Lensch was a mighty man of valour and a good sportsman after his

fashion. He was amazingly quick at manœuvring his machine in the actual

fight, but Peter was supposed to be better at forcing the kind of fight

he wanted. Lensch, if you like, was the tactician and Peter the

strategist. Anyhow the two were out to get each other. There were

plenty of fellows who saw the campaign as a struggle not between Hun

and Briton, but between Lensch and Pienaar.

The 15th September came, and I got knocked out and went to hospital.

When I was fit to read the papers again and receive letters, I found to

my consternation that Peter had been downed. It happened at the end of

October when the southwest gales badly handicapped our airwork. When

our bombing or reconnaissance jobs behind the enemy lines were

completed, instead of being able to glide back into safety, we had to

fight our way home slowly against a head-wind exposed to Archies and

Hun planes. Somewhere east of Bapaume on a return journey Peter fell in

with Lensch—at least the German Press gave Lensch the credit. His

petrol tank was shot to bits and he was forced to descend in a wood

near Morchies. “The celebrated British airman, Pinner,” in the words of

the German _communiqué_, was made prisoner.

I had no letter from him till the beginning of the New Year, when I was

preparing to return to France. It was a very contented letter. He

seemed to have been fairly well treated, though he had always a low

standard of what he expected from the world in the way of comfort. I

inferred that his captors had not identified in the brilliant airman

the Dutch miscreant who a year before had broken out of a German jail.

He had discovered the pleasures of reading and had perfected himself in

an art which he had once practised indifferently. Somehow or other he

had got a _Pilgrim’s Progress_, from which he seemed to extract

enormous pleasure. And then at the end, quite casually, he mentioned

that he had been badly wounded and that his left leg would never be

much use again.

After that I got frequent letters, and I wrote to him every week and

sent him every kind of parcel I could think of. His letters used to

make me both ashamed and happy. I had always banked on old Peter, and

here he was behaving like an early Christian martyr—never a word of

complaint, and just as cheery as if it were a winter morning on the

high veld and we were off to ride down springbok. I knew what the loss

of a leg must mean to him, for bodily fitness had always been his

pride. The rest of life must have unrolled itself before him very drab

and dusty to the grave. But he wrote as if he were on the top of his

form and kept commiserating me on the discomforts of my job. The

picture of that patient, gentle old fellow, hobbling about his compound

and puzzling over his _Pilgrim’s Progress_, a cripple for life after

five months of blazing glory, would have stiffened the back of a

jellyfish.

This last letter was horribly touching, for summer had come and the

smell of the woods behind his prison reminded Peter of a place in the

Woodbush, and one could read in every sentence the ache of exile. I sat

on that stone wall and considered how trifling were the crumpled leaves

in my bed of life compared with the thorns Peter and Blaikie had to lie

on. I thought of Sandy far off in Mesopotamia, and old Blenkiron

groaning with dyspepsia somewhere in America, and I considered that

they were the kind of fellows who did their jobs without complaining.

The result was that when I got up to go on I had recovered a manlier

temper. I wasn’t going to shame my friends or pick and choose my duty.

I would trust myself to Providence, for, as Blenkiron used to say,

Providence was all right if you gave him a chance.

It was not only Peter’s letter that steadied and calmed me. Isham stood

high up in a fold of the hills away from the main valley, and the road

I was taking brought me over the ridge and back to the stream-side. I

climbed through great beechwoods, which seemed in the twilight like

some green place far below the sea, and then over a short stretch of

hill pasture to the rim of the vale. All about me were little fields

enclosed with walls of grey stone and full of dim sheep. Below were

dusky woods around what I took to be Fosse Manor, for the great Roman

Fosse Way, straight as an arrow, passed over the hills to the south and

skirted its grounds. I could see the stream slipping among its

water-meadows and could hear the plash of the weir. A tiny village

settled in a crook of the hill, and its church-tower sounded seven with

a curiously sweet chime. Otherwise there was no noise but the twitter

of small birds and the night wind in the tops of the beeches.

In that moment I had a kind of revelation. I had a vision of what I had

been fighting for, what we all were fighting for. It was peace, deep

and holy and ancient, peace older than the oldest wars, peace which

would endure when all our swords were hammered into ploughshares. It

was more; for in that hour England first took hold of me. Before my

country had been South Africa, and when I thought of home it had been

the wide sun-steeped spaces of the veld or some scented glen of the

Berg. But now I realised that I had a new home. I understood what a

precious thing this little England was, how old and kindly and

comforting, how wholly worth striving for. The freedom of an acre of

her soil was cheaply bought by the blood of the best of us. I knew what

it meant to be a poet, though for the life of me I could not have made

a line of verse. For in that hour I had a prospect as if from a hilltop

which made all the present troubles of the road seem of no account. I

saw not only victory after war, but a new and happier world after

victory, when I should inherit something of this English peace and wrap

myself in it till the end of my days.

Very humbly and quietly, like a man walking through a cathedral, I went

down the hill to the Manor lodge, and came to a door in an old

red-brick façade, smothered in magnolias which smelt like hot lemons in

the June dusk. The car from the inn had brought on my baggage, and

presently I was dressing in a room which looked out on a water-garden.

For the first time for more than a year I put on a starched shirt and a

dinner-jacket, and as I dressed I could have sung from pure

lightheartedness. I was in for some arduous job, and sometime that

evening in that place I should get my marching orders. Someone would

arrive—perhaps Bullivant—and read me the riddle. But whatever it was, I

was ready for it, for my whole being had found a new purpose. Living in

the trenches, you are apt to get your horizon narrowed down to the

front line of enemy barbed wire on one side and the nearest rest

billets on the other. But now I seemed to see beyond the fog to a happy

country.

High-pitched voices greeted my ears as I came down the broad staircase,

voices which scarcely accorded with the panelled walls and the austere

family portraits; and when I found my hostesses in the hall I thought

their looks still less in keeping with the house. Both ladies were on

the wrong side of forty, but their dress was that of young girls. Miss

Doria Wymondham was tall and thin with a mass of nondescript pale hair

confined by a black velvet fillet. Miss Claire Wymondham was shorter

and plumper and had done her best by ill-applied cosmetics to make

herself look like a foreign _demi-mondaine_. They greeted me with the

friendly casualness which I had long ago discovered was the right

English manner towards your guests; as if they had just strolled in and

billeted themselves, and you were quite glad to see them but mustn’t be

asked to trouble yourself further. The next second they were cooing

like pigeons round a picture which a young man was holding up in the

lamplight.

He was a tallish, lean fellow of round about thirty years, wearing grey

flannels and shoes dusty from the country roads. His thin face was

sallow as if from living indoors, and he had rather more hair on his

head than most of us. In the glow of the lamp his features were very

clear, and I examined them with interest, for, remember, I was

expecting a stranger to give me orders. He had a long, rather strong

chin and an obstinate mouth with peevish lines about its corners. But

the remarkable feature was his eyes. I can best describe them by saying

that they looked hot—not fierce or angry, but so restless that they

seemed to ache physically and to want sponging with cold water.

They finished their talk about the picture—which was couched in a

jargon of which I did not understand one word—and Miss Doria turned to

me and the young man.

“My cousin Launcelot Wake—Mr Brand.”

We nodded stiffly and Mr Wake’s hand went up to smooth his hair in a

self-conscious gesture.

“Has Barnard announced dinner? By the way, where is Mary?”

“She came in five minutes ago and I sent her to change,” said Miss

Claire. “I won’t have her spoiling the evening with that horrid

uniform. She may masquerade as she likes out-of-doors, but this house

is for civilised people.”

The butler appeared and mumbled something. “Come along,” cried Miss

Doria, “for I’m sure you are starving, Mr Brand. And Launcelot has

bicycled ten miles.”

The dining-room was very unlike the hall. The panelling had been

stripped off, and the walls and ceiling were covered with a dead-black

satiny paper on which hung the most monstrous pictures in large

dull-gold frames. I could only see them dimly, but they seemed to be a

mere riot of ugly colour. The young man nodded towards them. “I see you

have got the Dégousses hung at last,” he said.

“How exquisite they are!” cried Miss Claire. “How subtle and candid and

brave! Doria and I warm our souls at their flame.”

Some aromatic wood had been burned in the room, and there was a queer

sickly scent about. Everything in that place was strained and uneasy

and abnormal—the candle shades on the table, the mass of faked china

fruit in the centre dish, the gaudy hangings and the nightmarish walls.

But the food was magnificent. It was the best dinner I had eaten since

1914.

“Tell me, Mr Brand,” said Miss Doria, her long white face propped on a

much-beringed hand. “You are one of us? You are in revolt against this

crazy war?”

“Why, yes,” I said, remembering my part. “I think a little common-sense

would settle it right away.”

“With a little common-sense it would never have started,” said Mr Wake.

“Launcelot’s a C.O., you know,” said Miss Doria.

I did not know, for he did not look any kind of soldier.... I was just

about to ask him what he commanded, when I remembered that the letters

stood also for “Conscientious Objector,” and stopped in time.

At that moment someone slipped into the vacant seat on my right hand. I

turned and saw the V.A.D. girl who had brought tea to Blaikie that

afternoon at the hospital.

“He was exempted by his Department,” the lady went on, “for he’s a

Civil Servant, and so he never had a chance of testifying in court, but

no one has done better work for our cause. He is on the committee of

the L.D.A., and questions have been asked about him in Parliament.”

The man was not quite comfortable at this biography. He glanced

nervously at me and was going to begin some kind of explanation, when

Miss Doria cut him short. “Remember our rule, Launcelot. No turgid war

controversy within these walls.”

I agreed with her. The war had seemed closely knit to the summer

landscape for all its peace, and to the noble old chambers of the

Manor. But in that demented modish dining-room it was shriekingly

incongruous.

Then they spoke of other things. Mostly of pictures or common friends,

and a little of books. They paid no heed to me, which was fortunate,

for I know nothing about these matters and didn’t understand half the

language. But once Miss Doria tried to bring me in. They were talking

about some Russian novel—a name like _Leprous Souls_—and she asked me

if I had read it. By a curious chance I had. It had drifted somehow

into our dug-out on the Scarpe, and after we had all stuck in the

second chapter it had disappeared in the mud to which it naturally

belonged. The lady praised its “poignancy” and “grave beauty.” I

assented and congratulated myself on my second escape—for if the

question had been put to me I should have described it as God-forgotten

twaddle.

I turned to the girl, who welcomed me with a smile. I had thought her

pretty in her V.A.D. dress, but now, in a filmy black gown and with her

hair no longer hidden by a cap, she was the most ravishing thing you

ever saw. And I observed something else. There was more than good looks

in her young face. Her broad, low brow and her laughing eyes were

amazingly intelligent. She had an uncanny power of making her eyes go

suddenly grave and deep, like a glittering river narrowing into a pool.

“We shall never be introduced,” she said, “so let me reveal myself. I’m

Mary Lamington and these are my aunts.... Did you really like _Leprous

Souls?_”

It was easy enough to talk to her. And oddly enough her mere presence

took away the oppression I had felt in that room. For she belonged to

the out-of-doors and to the old house and to the world at large. She

belonged to the war, and to that happier world beyond it—a world which

must be won by going through the struggle and not by shirking it, like

those two silly ladies.

I could see Wake’s eyes often on the girl, while he boomed and

oraculated and the Misses Wymondham prattled. Presently the

conversation seemed to leave the flowery paths of art and to verge

perilously near forbidden topics. He began to abuse our generals in the

field. I could not choose but listen. Miss Lamington’s brows were

slightly bent, as if in disapproval, and my own temper began to rise.

He had every kind of idiotic criticism—incompetence, faint-heartedness,

corruption. Where he got the stuff I can’t imagine, for the most

grousing Tommy, with his leave stopped, never put together such

balderdash. Worst of all he asked me to agree with him.

It took all my sense of discipline. “I don’t know much about the

subject,” I said, “but out in South Africa I did hear that the British

leading was the weak point. I expect there’s a good deal in what you

say.”

It may have been fancy, but the girl at my side seemed to whisper “Well

done!”

Wake and I did not remain long behind before joining the ladies; I

purposely cut it short, for I was in mortal fear lest I should lose my

temper and spoil everything. I stood up with my back against the

mantelpiece for as long as a man may smoke a cigarette, and I let him

yarn to me, while I looked steadily at his face. By this time I was

very clear that Wake was not the fellow to give me my instructions. He

wasn’t playing a game. He was a perfectly honest crank, but not a

fanatic, for he wasn’t sure of himself. He had somehow lost his

self-respect and was trying to argue himself back into it. He had

considerable brains, for the reasons he gave for differing from most of

his countrymen were good so far as they went. I shouldn’t have cared to

take him on in public argument. If you had told me about such a fellow

a week before I should have been sick at the thought of him. But now I

didn’t dislike him. I was bored by him and I was also tremendously

sorry for him. You could see he was as restless as a hen.

When we went back to the hall he announced that he must get on the

road, and commandeered Miss Lamington to help him find his bicycle. It

appeared he was staying at an inn a dozen miles off for a couple of

days’ fishing, and the news somehow made me like him better. Presently

the ladies of the house departed to bed for their beauty sleep and I

was left to my own devices.

For some time I sat smoking in the hall wondering when the messenger

would arrive. It was getting late and there seemed to be no preparation

in the house to receive anybody. The butler came in with a tray of

drinks and I asked him if he expected another guest that night.

“I ’adn’t ’eard of it, sir,” was his answer. “There ’asn’t been a

telegram that I know of, and I ’ave received no instructions.”

I lit my pipe and sat for twenty minutes reading a weekly paper. Then I

got up and looked at the family portraits. The moon coming through the

lattice invited me out-of-doors as a cure for my anxiety. It was after

eleven o’clock, and I was still without any knowledge of my next step.

It is a maddening business to be screwed up for an unpleasant job and

to have the wheels of the confounded thing tarry.

Outside the house beyond a flagged terrace the lawn fell away, white in

the moonshine, to the edge of the stream, which here had expanded into

a miniature lake. By the water’s edge was a little formal garden with

grey stone parapets which now gleamed like dusky marble. Great wafts of

scent rose from it, for the lilacs were scarcely over and the may was

in full blossom. Out from the shade of it came suddenly a voice like a

nightingale.

It was singing the old song “Cherry Ripe”, a common enough thing which

I had chiefly known from barrel-organs. But heard in the scented

moonlight it seemed to hold all the lingering magic of an elder England

and of this hallowed countryside. I stepped inside the garden bounds

and saw the head of the girl Mary.

She was conscious of my presence, for she turned towards me.

“I was coming to look for you,” she said, “now that the house is quiet.

I have something to say to you, General Hannay.”

She knew my name and must be somehow in the business. The thought

entranced me.

“Thank God I can speak to you freely,” I cried. “Who and what are

you—living in that house in that kind of company?”

“My good aunts!” She laughed softly. “They talk a great deal about

their souls, but they really mean their nerves. Why, they are what you

call my camouflage, and a very good one too.”

“And that cadaverous young prig?”

“Poor Launcelot! Yes—camouflage too—perhaps something a little more.

You must not judge him too harshly.”

“But ... but—” I did not know how to put it, and stammered in my

eagerness. “How can I tell that you are the right person for me to

speak to? You see I am under orders, and I have got none about you.”

“I will give you proof,” she said. “Three days ago Sir Walter Bullivant

and Mr Macgillivray told you to come here tonight and to wait here for

further instructions. You met them in the little smoking-room at the

back of the Rota Club. You were bidden take the name of Cornelius

Brand, and turn yourself from a successful general into a pacifist

South African engineer. Is that correct?”

“Perfectly.”

“You have been restless all evening looking for the messenger to give

you these instructions. Set your mind at ease. No messenger is coming.

You will get your orders from me.”

“I could not take them from a more welcome source,” I said.

“Very prettily put. If you want further credentials I can tell you much

about your own doings in the past three years. I can explain to you who

don’t need the explanation, every step in the business of the Black

Stone. I think I could draw a pretty accurate map of your journey to

Erzerum. You have a letter from Peter Pienaar in your pocket—I can tell

you its contents. Are you willing to trust me?”

“With all my heart,” I said.

“Good. Then my first order will try you pretty hard. For I have no

orders to give you except to bid you go and steep yourself in a

particular kind of life. Your first duty is to get ‘atmosphere’, as

your friend Peter used to say. Oh, I will tell you where to go and how

to behave. But I can’t bid you _do_ anything, only live idly with open

eyes and ears till you have got the ‘feel’ of the situation.”

She stopped and laid a hand on my arm.

“It won’t be easy. It would madden me, and it will be a far heavier

burden for a man like you. You have got to sink down deep into the life

of the half-baked, the people whom this war hasn’t touched or has

touched in the wrong way, the people who split hairs all day and are

engrossed in what you and I would call selfish little fads. Yes. People

like my aunts and Launcelot, only for the most part in a different

social grade. You won’t live in an old manor like this, but among

gimcrack little ‘arty’ houses. You will hear everything you regard as

sacred laughed at and condemned, and every kind of nauseous folly

acclaimed, and you must hold your tongue and pretend to agree. You will

have nothing in the world to do except to let the life soak into you,

and, as I have said, keep your eyes and ears open.”

“But you must give me some clue as to what I should be looking for?”

“My orders are to give you none. Our chiefs—yours and mine—want you to

go where you are going without any kind of _parti pris_. Remember we

are still in the intelligence stage of the affair. The time hasn’t yet

come for a plan of campaign, and still less for action.”

“Tell me one thing,” I said. “Is it a really big thing we’re after?”

“A—really—big—thing,” she said slowly and very gravely. “You and I and

some hundred others are hunting the most dangerous man in all the

world. Till we succeed everything that Britain does is crippled. If we

fail or succeed too late the Allies may never win the victory which is

their right. I will tell you one thing to cheer you. It is in some sort

a race against time, so your purgatory won’t endure too long.”

I was bound to obey, and she knew it, for she took my willingness for

granted.

From a little gold satchel she selected a tiny box, and opening it

extracted a thing like a purple wafer with a white St Andrew’s Cross on

it.

“What kind of watch have you? Ah, a hunter. Paste that inside the lid.

Some day you may be called on to show it.... One other thing. Buy

tomorrow a copy of the _Pilgrim’s Progress_ and get it by heart. You

will receive letters and messages some day and the style of our friends

is apt to be reminiscent of John Bunyan.... The car will be at the door

tomorrow to catch the ten-thirty, and I will give you the address of

the rooms that have been taken for you.... Beyond that I have nothing

to say, except to beg you to play the part well and keep your temper.

You behaved very nicely at dinner.”

I asked one last question as we said good night in the hall. “Shall I

see you again?”

“Soon, and often,” was the answer. “Remember we are colleagues.”

I went upstairs feeling extraordinarily comforted. I had a perfectly

beastly time ahead of me, but now it was all glorified and coloured

with the thought of the girl who had sung “Cherry Ripe” in the garden.

I commended the wisdom of that old serpent Bullivant in the choice of

his intermediary, for I’m hanged if I would have taken such orders from

anyone else.

CHAPTER II

“The Village Named Morality”

Up on the high veld our rivers are apt to be strings of pools linked by

muddy trickles—the most stagnant kind of watercourse you would look for

in a day’s journey. But presently they reach the edge of the plateau

and are tossed down into the flats in noble ravines, and roll

thereafter in full and sounding currents to the sea. So with the story

I am telling. It began in smooth reaches, as idle as a mill-pond; yet

the day soon came when I was in the grip of a torrent, flung breathless

from rock to rock by a destiny which I could not control. But for the

present I was in a backwater, no less than the Garden City of

Biggleswick, where Mr Cornelius Brand, a South African gentleman

visiting England on holiday, lodged in a pair of rooms in the cottage

of Mr Tancred Jimson.

The house—or “home” as they preferred to name it at Biggleswick—was one

of some two hundred others which ringed a pleasant Midland common. It

was badly built and oddly furnished; the bed was too short, the windows

did not fit, the doors did not stay shut; but it was as clean as soap

and water and scrubbing could make it. The three-quarters of an acre of

garden were mainly devoted to the culture of potatoes, though under the

parlour window Mrs Jimson had a plot of sweet-smelling herbs, and lines

of lank sunflowers fringed the path that led to the front door. It was

Mrs Jimson who received me as I descended from the station fly—a large

red woman with hair bleached by constant exposure to weather, clad in a

gown which, both in shape and material, seemed to have been modelled on

a chintz curtain. She was a good kindly soul, and as proud as Punch of

her house.

“We follow the simple life here, Mr Brand,” she said. “You must take us

as you find us.”

I assured her that I asked for nothing better, and as I unpacked in my

fresh little bedroom with a west wind blowing in at the window I

considered that I had seen worse quarters.

I had bought in London a considerable number of books, for I thought

that, as I would have time on my hands, I might as well do something

about my education. They were mostly English classics, whose names I

knew but which I had never read, and they were all in a little

flat-backed series at a shilling apiece. I arranged them on top of a

chest of drawers, but I kept the _Pilgrim’s Progress_ beside my bed,

for that was one of my working tools and I had to get it by heart.

Mrs Jimson, who came in while I was unpacking to see if the room was to

my liking, approved my taste. At our midday dinner she wanted to

discuss books with me, and was so full of her own knowledge that I was

able to conceal my ignorance.

“We are all labouring to express our personalities,” she informed me.

“Have you found your medium, Mr Brand? is it to be the pen or the

pencil? Or perhaps it is music? You have the brow of an artist, the

frontal ‘bar of Michelangelo’, you remember!”

I told her that I concluded I would try literature, but before writing

anything I would read a bit more.

It was a Saturday, so Jimson came back from town in the early

afternoon. He was a managing clerk in some shipping office, but you

wouldn’t have guessed it from his appearance. His city clothes were

loose dark-grey flannels, a soft collar, an orange tie, and a soft

black hat. His wife went down the road to meet him, and they returned

hand-in-hand, swinging their arms like a couple of schoolchildren. He

had a skimpy red beard streaked with grey, and mild blue eyes behind

strong glasses. He was the most friendly creature in the world, full of

rapid questions, and eager to make me feel one of the family. Presently

he got into a tweed Norfolk jacket, and started to cultivate his

garden. I took off my coat and lent him a hand, and when he stopped to

rest from his labours—which was every five minutes, for he had no kind

of physique—he would mop his brow and rub his spectacles and declaim

about the good smell of the earth and the joy of getting close to

Nature.

Once he looked at my big brown hands and muscular arms with a kind of

wistfulness. “You are one of the _doers_, Mr Brand,” he said, “and I

could find it in my heart to envy you. You have seen Nature in wild

forms in far countries. Some day I hope you will tell us about your

life. I must be content with my little corner, but happily there are no

territorial limits for the mind. This modest dwelling is a watch-tower

from which I look over all the world.”

After that he took me for a walk. We met parties of returning

tennis-players and here and there a golfer. There seemed to be an

abundance of young men, mostly rather weedy-looking, but with one or

two well-grown ones who should have been fighting. The names of some of

them Jimson mentioned with awe. An unwholesome youth was Aronson, the

great novelist; a sturdy, bristling fellow with a fierce moustache was

Letchford, the celebrated leader-writer of the _Critic_. Several were

pointed out to me as artists who had gone one better than anybody else,

and a vast billowy creature was described as the leader of the new

Orientalism in England. I noticed that these people, according to

Jimson, were all “great”, and that they all dabbled in something “new”.

There were quantities of young women, too, most of them rather badly

dressed and inclining to untidy hair. And there were several decent

couples taking the air like house-holders of an evening all the world

over. Most of these last were Jimson’s friends, to whom he introduced

me. They were his own class—modest folk, who sought for a coloured

background to their prosaic city lives and found it in this odd

settlement.

At supper I was initiated into the peculiar merits of Biggleswick.

“It is one great laboratory of thought,” said Mrs Jimson. “It is

glorious to feel that you are living among the eager, vital people who

are at the head of all the newest movements, and that the intellectual

history of England is being made in our studies and gardens. The war to

us seems a remote and secondary affair. As someone has said, the great

fights of the world are all fought in the mind.”

A spasm of pain crossed her husband’s face. “I wish I could feel it far

away. After all, Ursula, it is the sacrifice of the young that gives

people like us leisure and peace to think. Our duty is to do the best

which is permitted to us, but that duty is a poor thing compared with

what our young soldiers are giving! I may be quite wrong about the

war.... I know I can’t argue with Letchford. But I will not pretend to

a superiority I do not feel.”

I went to bed feeling that in Jimson I had struck a pretty sound

fellow. As I lit the candles on my dressing-table I observed that the

stack of silver which I had taken out of my pockets when I washed

before supper was top-heavy. It had two big coins at the top and

sixpences and shillings beneath. Now it is one of my oddities that ever

since I was a small boy I have arranged my loose coins symmetrically,

with the smallest uppermost. That made me observant and led me to

notice a second point. The English classics on the top of the chest of

drawers were not in the order I had left them. Izaak Walton had got to

the left of Sir Thomas Browne, and the poet Burns was wedged

disconsolately between two volumes of Hazlitt. Moreover a receipted

bill which I had stuck in the _Pilgrim’s Progress_ to mark my place had

been moved. Someone had been going through my belongings.

A moment’s reflection convinced me that it couldn’t have been Mrs

Jimson. She had no servant and did the housework herself, but my things

had been untouched when I left the room before supper, for she had come

to tidy up before I had gone downstairs. Someone had been here while we

were at supper, and had examined elaborately everything I possessed.

Happily I had little luggage, and no papers save the new books and a

bill or two in the name of Cornelius Brand. The inquisitor, whoever he

was, had found nothing.... The incident gave me a good deal of comfort.

It had been hard to believe that any mystery could exist in this public

place, where people lived brazenly in the open, and wore their hearts

on their sleeves and proclaimed their opinions from the rooftops. Yet

mystery there must be, or an inoffensive stranger with a kit-bag would

not have received these strange attentions. I made a practice after

that of sleeping with my watch below my pillow, for inside the case was

Mary Lamington’s label.

Now began a period of pleasant idle receptiveness. Once a week it was

my custom to go up to London for the day to receive letters and

instructions, if any should come. I had moved from my chambers in Park

Lane, which I leased under my proper name, to a small flat in

Westminster taken in the name of Cornelius Brand. The letters addressed

to Park Lane were forwarded to Sir Walter, who sent them round under

cover to my new address. For the rest I used to spend my mornings

reading in the garden, and I discovered for the first time what a

pleasure was to be got from old books. They recalled and amplified that

vision I had seen from the Cotswold ridge, the revelation of the

priceless heritage which is England. I imbibed a mighty quantity of

history, but especially I liked the writers, like Walton, who got at

the very heart of the English countryside. Soon, too, I found the

_Pilgrim’s Progress_ not a duty but a delight. I discovered new jewels

daily in the honest old story, and my letters to Peter began to be as

full of it as Peter’s own epistles. I loved, also, the songs of the

Elizabethans, for they reminded me of the girl who had sung to me in

the June night.

In the afternoons I took my exercise in long tramps along the good

dusty English roads. The country fell away from Biggleswick into a

plain of wood and pasture-land, with low hills on the horizon. The

place was sown with villages, each with its green and pond and ancient

church. Most, too, had inns, and there I had many a draught of cool

nutty ale, for the inn at Biggleswick was a reformed place which sold

nothing but washy cider. Often, tramping home in the dusk, I was so

much in love with the land that I could have sung with the pure joy of

it. And in the evening, after a bath, there would be supper, when a

rather fagged Jimson struggled between sleep and hunger, and the lady,

with an artistic mutch on her untidy head, talked ruthlessly of

culture.

Bit by bit I edged my way into local society. The Jimsons were a great

help, for they were popular and had a nodding acquaintance with most of

the inhabitants. They regarded me as a meritorious aspirant towards a

higher life, and I was paraded before their friends with the suggestion

of a vivid, if Philistine, past. If I had any gift for writing, I would

make a book about the inhabitants of Biggleswick. About half were

respectable citizens who came there for country air and low rates, but

even these had a touch of queerness and had picked up the jargon of the

place. The younger men were mostly Government clerks or writers or

artists. There were a few widows with flocks of daughters, and on the

outskirts were several bigger houses—mostly houses which had been there

before the garden city was planted. One of them was brand-new, a

staring villa with sham-antique timbering, stuck on the top of a hill

among raw gardens. It belonged to a man called Moxon Ivery, who was a

kind of academic pacificist and a great god in the place. Another, a

quiet Georgian manor house, was owned by a London publisher, an ardent

Liberal whose particular branch of business compelled him to keep in

touch with the new movements. I used to see him hurrying to the station

swinging a little black bag and returning at night with the fish for

dinner.

I soon got to know a surprising lot of people, and they were the

rummiest birds you can imagine. For example, there were the Weekeses,

three girls who lived with their mother in a house so artistic that you

broke your head whichever way you turned in it. The son of the family

was a conscientious objector who had refused to do any sort of work

whatever, and had got quodded for his pains. They were immensely proud

of him and used to relate his sufferings in Dartmoor with a gusto which

I thought rather heartless. Art was their great subject, and I am

afraid they found me pretty heavy going. It was their fashion never to

admire anything that was obviously beautiful, like a sunset or a pretty

woman, but to find surprising loveliness in things which I thought

hideous. Also they talked a language that was beyond me. This kind of

conversation used to happen.—MISS WEEKES: “Don’t you admire Ursula

Jimson?” SELF: “Rather!” MISS W.: “She is so John-esque in her lines.”

SELF: “Exactly!” MISS W.: “And Tancred, too—he is so full of

_nuances_.” SELF: “Rather!” MISS W.: “He suggests one of Dégousse’s

countrymen.” SELF: “Exactly!”

They hadn’t much use for books, except some Russian ones, and I

acquired merit in their eyes for having read _Leprous Souls_. If you

talked to them about that divine countryside, you found they didn’t

give a rap for it and had never been a mile beyond the village. But

they admired greatly the sombre effect of a train going into Marylebone

station on a rainy day.

But it was the men who interested me most. Aronson, the novelist,

proved on acquaintance the worst kind of blighter. He considered

himself a genius whom it was the duty of the country to support, and he

sponged on his wretched relatives and anyone who would lend him money.

He was always babbling about his sins, and pretty squalid they were. I

should like to have flung him among a few good old-fashioned

full-blooded sinners of my acquaintance; they would have scared him

considerably. He told me that he sought “reality” and “life” and

“truth”, but it was hard to see how he could know much about them, for

he spent half the day in bed smoking cheap cigarettes, and the rest

sunning himself in the admiration of half-witted girls. The creature

was tuberculous in mind and body, and the only novel of his I read,

pretty well turned my stomach. Mr Aronson’s strong point was jokes

about the war. If he heard of any acquaintance who had joined up or was

even doing war work his merriment knew no bounds. My fingers used to

itch to box the little wretch’s ears.

Letchford was a different pair of shoes. He was some kind of a man, to

begin with, and had an excellent brain and the worst manners

conceivable. He contradicted everything you said, and looked out for an

argument as other people look for their dinner. He was a

double-engined, high-speed pacificist, because he was the kind of

cantankerous fellow who must always be in a minority. If Britain had

stood out of the war he would have been a raving militarist, but since

she was in it he had got to find reasons why she was wrong. And jolly

good reasons they were, too. I couldn’t have met his arguments if I had

wanted to, so I sat docilely at his feet. The world was all crooked for

Letchford, and God had created him with two left hands. But the fellow

had merits. He had a couple of jolly children whom he adored, and he

would walk miles with me on a Sunday, and spout poetry about the beauty

and greatness of England. He was forty-five; if he had been thirty and

in my battalion I could have made a soldier out of him.

There were dozens more whose names I have forgotten, but they had one

common characteristic. They were puffed up with spiritual pride, and I

used to amuse myself with finding their originals in the _Pilgrim’s

Progress_. When I tried to judge them by the standard of old Peter,

they fell woefully short. They shut out the war from their lives, some

out of funk, some out of pure levity of mind, and some because they

were really convinced that the thing was all wrong. I think I grew

rather popular in my role of the seeker after truth, the honest

colonial who was against the war by instinct and was looking for

instruction in the matter. They regarded me as a convert from an alien

world of action which they secretly dreaded, though they affected to

despise it. Anyhow they talked to me very freely, and before long I had

all the pacifist arguments by heart. I made out that there were three

schools. One objected to war altogether, and this had few adherents

except Aronson and Weekes, C.O., now languishing in Dartmoor. The

second thought that the Allies’ cause was tainted, and that Britain had

contributed as much as Germany to the catastrophe. This included all

the adherents of the L.D.A.—or League of Democrats against Aggression—a

very proud body. The third and much the largest, which embraced

everybody else, held that we had fought long enough and that the

business could now be settled by negotiation, since Germany had learned

her lesson. I was myself a modest member of the last school, but I was

gradually working my way up to the second, and I hoped with luck to

qualify for the first. My acquaintances approved my progress. Letchford

said I had a core of fanaticism in my slow nature, and that I would end

by waving the red flag.

Spiritual pride and vanity, as I have said, were at the bottom of most

of them, and, try as I might, I could find nothing very dangerous in it

all. This vexed me, for I began to wonder if the mission which I had

embarked on so solemnly were not going to be a fiasco. Sometimes they

worried me beyond endurance. When the news of Messines came nobody took

the slightest interest, while I was aching to tooth every detail of the

great fight. And when they talked on military affairs, as Letchford and

others did sometimes, it was difficult to keep from sending them all to

the devil, for their amateur cocksureness would have riled Job. One had

got to batten down the recollection of our fellows out there who were

sweating blood to keep these fools snug. Yet I found it impossible to

be angry with them for long, they were so babyishly innocent. Indeed, I

couldn’t help liking them, and finding a sort of quality in them. I had

spent three years among soldiers, and the British regular, great fellow

that he is, has his faults. His discipline makes him in a funk of

red-tape and any kind of superior authority. Now these people were

quite honest and in a perverted way courageous. Letchford was, at any

rate. I could no more have done what he did and got hunted off

platforms by the crowd and hooted at by women in the streets than I

could have written his leading articles.

All the same I was rather low about my job. Barring the episode of the

ransacking of my effects the first night, I had not a suspicion of a

clue or a hint of any mystery. The place and the people were as open

and bright as a Y.M.C.A. hut. But one day I got a solid wad of comfort.

In a corner of Letchford’s paper, the _Critic_, I found a letter which

was one of the steepest pieces of invective I had ever met with. The

writer gave tongue like a beagle pup about the prostitution, as he

called it, of American republicanism to the vices of European

aristocracies. He declared that Senator La Follette was a

much-misunderstood patriot, seeing that he alone spoke for the toiling

millions who had no other friend. He was mad with President Wilson, and

he prophesied a great awakening when Uncle Sam got up against John Bull

in Europe and found out the kind of standpatter he was. The letter was

signed “John S. Blenkiron” and dated “London, July 3rd”.

The thought that Blenkiron was in England put a new complexion on my

business. I reckoned I would see him soon, for he wasn’t the man to

stand still in his tracks. He had taken up the rôle he had played

before he left in December 1915, and very right too, for not more than

half a dozen people knew of the Erzerum affair, and to the British

public he was only the man who had been fired out of the Savoy for

talking treason. I had felt a bit lonely before, but now somewhere

within the four corners of the island the best companion God ever made

was writing nonsense with his tongue in his old cheek.

There was an institution in Biggleswick which deserves mention. On the

south of the common, near the station, stood a red-brick building

called the Moot Hall, which was a kind of church for the very undevout

population. Undevout in the ordinary sense, I mean, for I had already

counted twenty-seven varieties of religious conviction, including three

Buddhists, a Celestial Hierarch, five Latter-day Saints, and about ten

varieties of Mystic whose names I could never remember. The hall had

been the gift of the publisher I have spoken of, and twice a week it

was used for lectures and debates. The place was managed by a committee

and was surprisingly popular, for it gave all the bubbling intellects a

chance of airing their views. When you asked where somebody was and

were told he was “at Moot,” the answer was spoken in the respectful

tone in which you would mention a sacrament.

I went there regularly and got my mind broadened to cracking point. We

had all the stars of the New Movements. We had Doctor Chirk, who

lectured on “God”, which, as far as I could make out, was a new name he

had invented for himself. There was a woman, a terrible woman, who had

come back from Russia with what she called a “message of healing”. And

to my joy, one night there was a great buck nigger who had a lot to say

about “Africa for the Africans”. I had a few words with him in Sesutu

afterwards, and rather spoiled his visit. Some of the people were

extraordinarily good, especially one jolly old fellow who talked about

English folk songs and dances, and wanted us to set up a Maypole. In

the debates which generally followed I began to join, very coyly at

first, but presently with some confidence. If my time at Biggleswick

did nothing else it taught me to argue on my feet.

The first big effort I made was on a full-dress occasion, when

Launcelot Wake came down to speak. Mr Ivery was in the chair—the first

I had seen of him—a plump middle-aged man, with a colourless face and

nondescript features. I was not interested in him till he began to

talk, and then I sat bolt upright and took notice. For he was the

genuine silver-tongue, the sentences flowing from his mouth as smooth

as butter and as neatly dovetailed as a parquet floor. He had a sort of

man-of-the-world manner, treating his opponents with condescending

geniality, deprecating all passion and exaggeration and making you feel

that his urbane statement must be right, for if he had wanted he could

have put the case so much higher. I watched him, fascinated, studying

his face carefully; and the thing that struck me was that there was

nothing in it—nothing, that is to say, to lay hold on. It was simply

nondescript, so almightily commonplace that that very fact made it

rather remarkable.

Wake was speaking of the revelations of the Sukhomlinov trial in

Russia, which showed that Germany had not been responsible for the war.

He was jolly good at the job, and put as clear an argument as a

first-class lawyer. I had been sweating away at the subject and had all

the ordinary case at my fingers’ ends, so when I got a chance of

speaking I gave them a long harangue, with some good quotations I had

cribbed out of the _Vossische Zeitung_, which Letchford lent me. I felt

it was up to me to be extra violent, for I wanted to establish my

character with Wake, seeing that he was a friend of Mary and Mary would

know that I was playing the game. I got tremendously applauded, far

more than the chief speaker, and after the meeting Wake came up to me

with his hot eyes, and wrung my hand. “You’re coming on well, Brand,”

he said, and then he introduced me to Mr Ivery. “Here’s a second and a

better Smuts,” he said.

Ivery made me walk a bit of the road home with him. “I am struck by

your grip on these difficult problems, Mr Brand,” he told me. “There is

much I can tell you, and you may be of great value to our cause.” He

asked me a lot of questions about my past, which I answered with easy

mendacity. Before we parted he made me promise to come one night to

supper.

Next day I got a glimpse of Mary, and to my vexation she cut me dead.

She was walking with a flock of bare-headed girls, all chattering hard,

and though she saw me quite plainly she turned away her eyes. I had

been waiting for my cue, so I did not lift my hat, but passed on as if

we were strangers. I reckoned it was part of the game, but that

trifling thing annoyed me, and I spent a morose evening.

The following day I saw her again, this time talking sedately with Mr

Ivery, and dressed in a very pretty summer gown, and a broad-brimmed

straw hat with flowers in it. This time she stopped with a bright smile

and held out her hand. “Mr Brand, isn’t it?” she asked with a pretty

hesitation. And then, turning to her companion—“This is Mr Brand. He

stayed with us last month in Gloucestershire.”

Mr Ivery announced that he and I were already acquainted. Seen in broad

daylight he was a very personable fellow, somewhere between forty-five

and fifty, with a middle-aged figure and a curiously young face. I

noticed that there were hardly any lines on it, and it was rather that

of a very wise child than that of a man. He had a pleasant smile which

made his jaw and cheeks expand like indiarubber. “You are coming to sup

with me, Mr Brand,” he cried after me. “On Tuesday after Moot. I have

already written.” He whisked Mary away from me, and I had to content

myself with contemplating her figure till it disappeared round a bend

of the road.

Next day in London I found a letter from Peter. He had been very solemn

of late, and very reminiscent of old days now that he concluded his

active life was over. But this time he was in a different mood. “_I

think,_” he wrote, “_that you and I will meet again soon, my old

friend. Do you remember when we went after the big black-maned lion in

the Rooirand and couldn’t get on his track, and then one morning we

woke up and said we would get him today?—and we did, but he very near

got you first. I’ve had a feel these last days that we’re both going

down into the Valley to meet with Apollyon, and that the devil will

give us a bad time, but anyhow we’ll be together._”

I had the same kind of feel myself, though I didn’t see how Peter and I

were going to meet, unless I went out to the Front again and got put in

the bag and sent to the same Boche prison. But I had an instinct that

my time in Biggleswick was drawing to a close, and that presently I

would be in rougher quarters. I felt quite affectionate towards the

place, and took all my favourite walks, and drank my own health in the

brew of the village inns, with a consciousness of saying goodbye. Also

I made haste to finish my English classics, for I concluded I wouldn’t

have much time in the future for miscellaneous reading.

The Tuesday came, and in the evening I set out rather late for the Moot

Hall, for I had been getting into decent clothes after a long, hot

stride. When I reached the place it was pretty well packed, and I could

only find a seat on the back benches. There on the platform was Ivery,

and beside him sat a figure that thrilled every inch of me with

affection and a wild anticipation. “I have now the privilege,” said the

chairman, “of introducing to you the speaker whom we so warmly welcome,

our fearless and indefatigable American friend, Mr Blenkiron.”

It was the old Blenkiron, but almightily changed. His stoutness had

gone, and he was as lean as Abraham Lincoln. Instead of a puffy face,

his cheek-bones and jaw stood out hard and sharp, and in place of his

former pasty colour his complexion had the clear glow of health. I saw

now that he was a splendid figure of a man, and when he got to his feet

every movement had the suppleness of an athlete in training. In that

moment I realised that my serious business had now begun. My senses

suddenly seemed quicker, my nerves tenser, my brain more active. The

big game had started, and he and I were playing it together.

I watched him with strained attention. It was a funny speech, stuffed

with extravagance and vehemence, not very well argued and terribly

discursive. His main point was that Germany was now in a fine

democratic mood and might well be admitted into a brotherly

partnership—that indeed she had never been in any other mood, but had

been forced into violence by the plots of her enemies. Much of it, I

should have thought, was in stark defiance of the Defence of the Realm

Acts, but if any wise Scotland Yard officer had listened to it he would

probably have considered it harmless because of its contradictions. It

was full of a fierce earnestness, and it was full of humour—long-drawn

American metaphors at which that most critical audience roared with

laughter. But it was not the kind of thing that they were accustomed

to, and I could fancy what Wake would have said of it. The conviction

grew upon me that Blenkiron was deliberately trying to prove himself an

honest idiot. If so, it was a huge success. He produced on one the

impression of the type of sentimental revolutionary who ruthlessly

knifes his opponent and then weeps and prays over his tomb.

Just at the end he seemed to pull himself together and to try a little

argument. He made a great point of the Austrian socialists going to

Stockholm, going freely and with their Government’s assent, from a

country which its critics called an autocracy, while the democratic

western peoples held back. “I admit I haven’t any real water-tight

proof,” he said, “but I will bet my bottom dollar that the influence

which moved the Austrian Government to allow this embassy of freedom

was the influence of Germany herself. And that is the land from which

the Allied Pharisees draw in their skirts lest their garments be

defiled!”

He sat down amid a good deal of applause, for his audience had not been

bored, though I could see that some of them thought his praise of

Germany a bit steep. It was all right in Biggleswick to prove Britain

in the wrong, but it was a slightly different thing to extol the enemy.

I was puzzled about his last point, for it was not of a piece with the

rest of his discourse, and I was trying to guess at his purpose. The

chairman referred to it in his concluding remarks. “I am in a

position,” he said, “to bear out all that the lecturer has said. I can

go further. I can assure him on the best authority that his surmise is

correct, and that Vienna’s decision to send delegates to Stockholm was

largely dictated by representations from Berlin. I am given to

understand that the fact has in the last few days been admitted in the

Austrian Press.”

A vote of thanks was carried, and then I found myself shaking hands

with Ivery while Blenkiron stood a yard off, talking to one of the

Misses Weekes. The next moment I was being introduced.

“Mr Brand, very pleased to meet you,” said the voice I knew so well.

“Mr Ivery has been telling me about you, and I guess we’ve got

something to say to each other. We’re both from noo countries, and

we’ve got to teach the old nations a little horse-sense.”

Mr Ivery’s car—the only one left in the neighbourhood—carried us to his

villa, and presently we were seated in a brightly-lit dining-room. It

was not a pretty house, but it had the luxury of an expensive hotel,

and the supper we had was as good as any London restaurant. Gone were

the old days of fish and toast and boiled milk. Blenkiron squared his

shoulders and showed himself a noble trencherman.

“A year ago,” he told our host, “I was the meanest kind of dyspeptic. I

had the love of righteousness in my heart, but I had the devil in my

stomach. Then I heard stories about the Robson Brothers, the star

surgeons way out west in White Springs, Nebraska. They were reckoned

the neatest hands in the world at carving up a man and removing

devilments from his intestines. Now, sir, I’ve always fought pretty shy

of surgeons, for I considered that our Maker never intended His

handiwork to be reconstructed like a bankrupt Dago railway. But by that

time I was feeling so almighty wretched that I could have paid a man to

put a bullet through my head. ‘There’s no other way,’ I said to myself.

‘Either you forget your religion and your miserable cowardice and get

cut up, or it’s you for the Golden Shore.’ So I set my teeth and

journeyed to White Springs, and the Brothers had a look at my duodenum.

They saw that the darned thing wouldn’t do, so they sidetracked it and

made a noo route for my noo-trition traffic. It was the cunningest

piece of surgery since the Lord took a rib out of the side of our First

Parent. They’ve got a mighty fine way of charging, too, for they take

five per cent of a man’s income, and it’s all one to them whether he’s

a Meat King or a clerk on twenty dollars a week. I can tell you I took

some trouble to be a very rich man last year.”

All through the meal I sat in a kind of stupor. I was trying to

assimilate the new Blenkiron, and drinking in the comfort of his

heavenly drawl, and I was puzzling my head about Ivery. I had a

ridiculous notion that I had seen him before, but, delve as I might

into my memory, I couldn’t place him. He was the incarnation of the

commonplace, a comfortable middle-class sentimentalist, who patronised

pacificism out of vanity, but was very careful not to dip his hands too

far. He was always damping down Blenkiron’s volcanic utterances. “Of

course, as you know, the other side have an argument which I find

rather hard to meet....” “I can sympathise with patriotism, and even

with jingoism, in certain moods, but I always come back to this

difficulty.” “Our opponents are not ill-meaning so much as

ill-judging,”—these were the sort of sentences he kept throwing in. And

he was full of quotations from private conversations he had had with

every sort of person—including members of the Government. I remember

that he expressed great admiration for Mr Balfour.

Of all that talk, I only recalled one thing clearly, and I recalled it

because Blenkiron seemed to collect his wits and try to argue, just as

he had done at the end of his lecture. He was speaking about a story he

had heard from someone, who had heard it from someone else, that

Austria in the last week of July 1914 had accepted Russia’s proposal to

hold her hand and negotiate, and that the Kaiser had sent a message to

the Tsar saying he agreed. According to his story this telegram had

been received in Petrograd, and had been re-written, like Bismarck’s

Ems telegram, before it reached the Emperor. He expressed his disbelief

in the yarn. “I reckon if it had been true,” he said, “we’d have had

the right text out long ago. They’d have kept a copy in Berlin. All the

same I did hear a sort of rumour that some kind of message of that sort

was published in a German paper.”

Mr Ivery looked wise. “You are right,” he said. “I happen to know that

it has been published. You will find it in the _Weser Zeitung_.”

“You don’t say?” he said admiringly. “I wish I could read the old

tombstone language. But if I could they wouldn’t let me have the

papers.”

“Oh yes they would.” Mr Ivery laughed pleasantly. “England has still a

good share of freedom. Any respectable person can get a permit to

import the enemy press. I’m not considered quite respectable, for the

authorities have a narrow definition of patriotism, but happily I have

respectable friends.”

Blenkiron was staying the night, and I took my leave as the clock

struck twelve. They both came into the hall to see me off, and, as I

was helping myself to a drink, and my host was looking for my hat and

stick, I suddenly heard Blenkiron’s whisper in my ear. “London ... the

day after tomorrow,” he said. Then he took a formal farewell. “Mr

Brand, it’s been an honour for me, as an American citizen, to make your

acquaintance, sir. I will consider myself fortunate if we have an early

reunion. I am stopping at Claridge’s Ho-tel, and I hope to be

privileged to receive you there.”

CHAPTER III

The Reflections of a Cured Dyspeptic

Thirty-five hours later I found myself in my rooms in Westminster. I

thought there might be a message for me there, for I didn’t propose to

go and call openly on Blenkiron at Claridge’s till I had his

instructions. But there was no message—only a line from Peter, saying

he had hopes of being sent to Switzerland. That made me realise that he

must be pretty badly broken up.

Presently the telephone bell rang. It was Blenkiron who spoke. “Go down

and have a talk with your brokers about the War Loan. Arrive there

about twelve o’clock and don’t go upstairs till you have met a friend.

You’d better have a quick luncheon at your club, and then come to

Traill’s bookshop in the Haymarket at two. You can get back to

Biggleswick by the 5.16.”

I did as I was bid, and twenty minutes later, having travelled by

Underground, for I couldn’t raise a taxi, I approached the block of

chambers in Leadenhall Street where dwelt the respected firm who

managed my investments. It was still a few minutes before noon, and as

I slowed down a familiar figure came out of the bank next door.

Ivery beamed recognition. “Up for the day, Mr Brand?” he asked. “I have

to see my brokers,” I said, “read the South African papers in my club,

and get back by the 5.16. Any chance of your company?”

“Why, yes—that’s my train. _Au revoir_. We meet at the station.” He

bustled off, looking very smart with his neat clothes and a rose in his

button-hole.

I lunched impatiently, and at two was turning over some new books in

Traill’s shop with an eye on the street-door behind me. It seemed a

public place for an assignation. I had begun to dip into a big

illustrated book on flower-gardens when an assistant came up. “The

manager’s compliments, sir, and he thinks there are some old works of

travel upstairs that might interest you.” I followed him obediently to

an upper floor lined with every kind of volume and with tables littered

with maps and engravings. “This way, sir,” he said, and opened a door

in the wall concealed by bogus book-backs. I found myself in a little

study, and Blenkiron sitting in an armchair smoking.

He got up and seized both my hands. “Why, Dick, this is better than

good noos. I’ve heard all about your exploits since we parted a year

ago on the wharf at Liverpool. We’ve both been busy on our own jobs,

and there was no way of keeping you wise about my doings, for after I

thought I was cured I got worse than hell inside, and, as I told you,

had to get the doctor-men to dig into me. After that I was playing a

pretty dark game, and had to get down and out of decent society. But,

holy Mike! I’m a new man. I used to do my work with a sick heart and a

taste in my mouth like a graveyard, and now I can eat and drink what I

like and frolic round like a colt. I wake up every morning whistling

and thank the good God that I’m alive. It was a bad day for Kaiser when

I got on the cars for White Springs.”

“This is a rum place to meet,” I said, “and you brought me by a

roundabout road.”

He grinned and offered me a cigar.

“There were reasons. It don’t do for you and me to advertise our

acquaintance in the street. As for the shop, I’ve owned it for five

years. I’ve a taste for good reading, though you wouldn’t think it, and

it tickles me to hand it out across the counter.... First, I want to

hear about Biggleswick.”

“There isn’t a great deal to it. A lot of ignorance, a large slice of

vanity, and a pinch or two of wrong-headed honesty—these are the

ingredients of the pie. Not much real harm in it. There’s one or two

dirty literary gents who should be in a navvies’ battalion, but they’re

about as dangerous as yellow Kaffir dogs. I’ve learned a lot and got

all the arguments by heart, but you might plant a Biggleswick in every

shire and it wouldn’t help the Boche. I can see where the danger lies

all the same. These fellows talked academic anarchism, but the genuine

article is somewhere about and to find it you’ve got to look in the big

industrial districts. We had faint echoes of it in Biggleswick. I mean

that the really dangerous fellows are those who want to close up the

war at once and so get on with their blessed class war, which cuts

across nationalities. As for being spies and that sort of thing, the

Biggleswick lads are too callow.”

“Yes,” said Blenkiron reflectively. “They haven’t got as much sense as

God gave to geese. You’re sure you didn’t hit against any heavier

metal?”

“Yes. There’s a man called Launcelot Wake, who came down to speak once.

I had met him before. He has the makings of a fanatic, and he’s the

more dangerous because you can see his conscience is uneasy. I can

fancy him bombing a Prime Minister merely to quiet his own doubts.”

“So,” he said. “Nobody else?”

I reflected. “There’s Mr Ivery, but you know him better than I. I

shouldn’t put much on him, but I’m not precisely certain, for I never

had a chance of getting to know him.”

“Ivery,” said Blenkiron in surprise. “He has a hobby for half-baked

youth, just as another rich man might fancy orchids or fast trotters.

You sure can place him right enough.”

“I dare say. Only I don’t know enough to be positive.”

He sucked at his cigar for a minute or so. “I guess, Dick, if I told

you all I’ve been doing since I reached these shores you would call me

a romancer. I’ve been way down among the toilers. I did a spell as

unskilled dilooted labour in the Barrow shipyards. I was barman in a

hotel on the Portsmouth Road, and I put in a black month driving a

taxicab in the city of London. For a while I was the accredited

correspondent of the _Noo York Sentinel_ and used to go with the rest

of the bunch to the pow-wows of under-secretaries of State and War

Office generals. They censored my stuff so cruel that the paper fired

me. Then I went on a walking-tour round England and sat for a fortnight

in a little farm in Suffolk. By and by I came back to Claridge’s and

this bookshop, for I had learned most of what I wanted.

“I had learned,” he went on, turning his curious, full, ruminating eyes

on me, “that the British working-man is about the soundest piece of

humanity on God’s earth. He grumbles a bit and jibs a bit when he

thinks the Government are giving him a crooked deal, but he’s gotten

the patience of Job and the sand of a gamecock. And he’s gotten humour

too, that tickles me to death. There’s not much trouble in that quarter

for it’s he and his kind that’s beating the Hun.... But I picked up a

thing or two besides that.”

He leaned forward and tapped me on the knee. “I reverence the British

Intelligence Service. Flies don’t settle on it to any considerable

extent. It’s got a mighty fine mesh, but there’s one hole in that mesh,

and it’s our job to mend it. There’s a high-powered brain in the game

against us. I struck it a couple of years ago when I was hunting Dumba

and Albert, and I thought it was in Noo York, but it wasn’t. I struck

its working again at home last year and located its head office in

Europe. So I tried Switzerland and Holland, but only bits of it were

there. The centre of the web where the old spider sits is right here in

England, and for six months I’ve been shadowing that spider. There’s a

gang to help, a big gang, and a clever gang, and partly an innocent

gang. But there’s only one brain, and it’s to match that that the

Robson Brothers settled my duodenum.”

I was listening with a quickened pulse, for now at last I was getting

to business.

“What is he—international socialist, or anarchist, or what?” I asked.

“Pure-blooded Boche agent, but the biggest-sized brand in the

catalogue—bigger than Steinmeier or old Bismarck’s Staubier. Thank God

I’ve got him located.... I must put you wise about some things.”

He lay back in his rubbed leather armchair and yarned for twenty

minutes. He told me how at the beginning of the war Scotland Yard had

had a pretty complete register of enemy spies, and without making any

fuss had just tidied them away. After that, the covey having been

broken up, it was a question of picking off stray birds. That had taken

some doing. There had been all kinds of inflammatory stuff around, Red

Masons and international anarchists, and, worst of all, international

finance-touts, but they had mostly been ordinary cranks and rogues, the

tools of the Boche agents rather than agents themselves. However, by

the middle of 1915 most of the stragglers had been gathered in. But

there remained loose ends, and towards the close of last year somebody

was very busy combining these ends into a net. Funny cases cropped up

of the leakage of vital information. They began to be bad about October

1916, when the Hun submarines started on a special racket. The enemy

suddenly appeared possessed of a knowledge which we thought to be

shared only by half a dozen officers. Blenkiron said he was not

surprised at the leakage, for there’s always a lot of people who hear

things they oughtn’t to. What surprised him was that it got so quickly

to the enemy.

Then after last February, when the Hun submarines went in for

frightfulness on a big scale, the thing grew desperate. Leakages

occurred every week, and the business was managed by people who knew

their way about, for they avoided all the traps set for them, and when

bogus news was released on purpose, they never sent it. A convoy which

had been kept a deadly secret would be attacked at the one place where

it was helpless. A carefully prepared defensive plan would be

checkmated before it could be tried. Blenkiron said that there was no

evidence that a single brain was behind it all, for there was no

similarity in the cases, but he had a strong impression all the time

that it was the work of one man. We managed to close some of the

bolt-holes, but we couldn’t put our hands near the big ones. “By this

time,” said he, “I reckoned I was about ready to change my methods. I

had been working by what the highbrows call induction, trying to argue

up from the deeds to the doer. Now I tried a new lay, which was to

calculate down from the doer to the deeds. They call it deduction. I

opined that somewhere in this island was a gentleman whom we will call

Mr X, and that, pursuing the line of business he did, he must have

certain characteristics. I considered very carefully just what sort of

personage he must be. I had noticed that his device was apparently the

Double Bluff. That is to say, when he had two courses open to him, A

and B, he pretended he was going to take B, and so got us guessing that

he would try A. Then he took B after all. So I reckoned that his

camouflage must correspond to this little idiosyncrasy. Being a Boche

agent, he wouldn’t pretend to be a hearty patriot, an honest old

blood-and-bones Tory. That would be only the Single Bluff. I considered

that he would be a pacifist, cunning enough just to keep inside the

law, but with the eyes of the police on him. He would write books which

would not be allowed to be exported. He would get himself disliked in

the popular papers, but all the mugwumps would admire his moral

courage. I drew a mighty fine picture to myself of just the man I

expected to find. Then I started out to look for him.”

Blenkiron’s face took on the air of a disappointed child. “It was no

good. I kept barking up the wrong tree and wore myself out playing the

sleuth on white-souled innocents.”

“But you’ve found him all right,” I cried, a sudden suspicion leaping

into my brain.

“He’s found,” he said sadly, “but the credit does not belong to John S.

Blenkiron. That child merely muddied the pond. The big fish was left

for a young lady to hook.”

“I know,” I cried excitedly. “Her name is Miss Mary Lamington.”

He shook a disapproving head. “You’ve guessed right, my son, but you’ve

forgotten your manners. This is a rough business and we won’t bring in

the name of a gently reared and pure-minded young girl. If we speak to

her at all we call her by a pet name out of the _Pilgrim’s

Progress_.... Anyhow she hooked the fish, though he isn’t landed. D’you

see any light?”

“Ivery,” I gasped.

“Yes. Ivery. Nothing much to look at, you say. A common, middle-aged,

pie-faced, golf-playing high-brow, that you wouldn’t keep out of a

Sunday school. A touch of the drummer, too, to show he has no dealings

with your effete aristocracy. A languishing silver-tongue that adores

the sound of his own voice. As mild, you’d say, as curds and cream.”

Blenkiron got out of his chair and stood above me. “I tell you, Dick,

that man makes my spine cold. He hasn’t a drop of good red blood in

him. The dirtiest _apache_ is a Christian gentleman compared to Moxon

Ivery. He’s as cruel as a snake and as deep as hell. But, by God, he’s

got a brain below his hat. He’s hooked and we’re playing him, but Lord

knows if he’ll ever be landed!”

“Why on earth don’t you put him away?” I asked.

“We haven’t the proof—legal proof, I mean; though there’s buckets of

the other kind. I could put up a morally certain case, but he’d beat me

in a court of law. And half a hundred sheep would get up in Parliament

and bleat about persecution. He has a graft with every collection of

cranks in England, and with all the geese that cackle about the liberty

of the individual when the Boche is ranging about to enslave the world.

No, sir, that’s too dangerous a game! Besides, I’ve a better in hand,

Moxon Ivery is the best-accredited member of this State. His _dossier_

is the completest thing outside the Recording Angel’s little note-book.

We’ve taken up his references in every corner of the globe and they’re

all as right as Morgan’s balance sheet. From these it appears he’s been

a high-toned citizen ever since he was in short-clothes. He was raised

in Norfolk, and there are people living who remember his father. He was

educated at Melton School and his name’s in the register. He was in

business in Valparaiso, and there’s enough evidence to write three

volumes of his innocent life there. Then he came home with a modest

competence two years before the war, and has been in the public eye

ever since. He was Liberal candidate for a London constitooency and he

has decorated the board of every institootion formed for the

amelioration of mankind. He’s got enough alibis to choke a boa

constrictor, and they’re water-tight and copper-bottomed, and they’re

mostly damned lies.... But you can’t beat him at that stunt. The man’s

the superbest actor that ever walked the earth. You can see it in his

face. It isn’t a face, it’s a mask. He could make himself look like

Shakespeare or Julius Caesar or Billy Sunday or Brigadier-General

Richard Hannay if he wanted to. He hasn’t got any personality

either—he’s got fifty, and there’s no one he could call his own. I

reckon when the devil gets the handling of him at last he’ll have to

put sand on his claws to keep him from slipping through.”

Blenkiron was settled in his chair again, with one leg hoisted over the

side.

“We’ve closed a fair number of his channels in the last few months. No,

he don’t suspect me. The world knows nothing of its greatest men, and

to him I’m only a Yankee peace-crank, who gives big subscriptions to

loony societies and will travel a hundred miles to let off steam before

any kind of audience. He’s been to see me at Claridge’s and I’ve

arranged that he shall know all my record. A darned bad record it is

too, for two years ago I was violent pro-British before I found

salvation and was requested to leave England. When I was home last I

was officially anti-war, when I wasn’t stretched upon a bed of pain. Mr

Moxon Ivery don’t take any stock in John S. Blenkiron as a serious

proposition. And while I’ve been here I’ve been so low down in the

social scale and working in so many devious ways that he can’t connect

me up.... As I was saying, we’ve cut most of his wires, but the biggest

we haven’t got at. He’s still sending stuff out, and mighty

compromising stuff it is. Now listen close, Dick, for we’re coming near

your own business.”

It appeared that Blenkiron had reason to suspect that the channel still

open had something to do with the North. He couldn’t get closer than

that, till he heard from his people that a certain Abel Gresson had

turned up in Glasgow from the States. This Gresson he discovered was

the same as one Wrankester, who as a leader of the Industrial Workers

of the World had been mixed up in some ugly cases of _sabotage_ in

Colorado. He kept his news to himself, for he didn’t want the police to

interfere, but he had his own lot get into touch with Gresson and

shadow him closely. The man was very discreet but very mysterious, and

he would disappear for a week at a time, leaving no trace. For some

unknown reason—he couldn’t explain why—Blenkiron had arrived at the

conclusion that Gresson was in touch with Ivery, so he made experiments

to prove it.

“I wanted various cross-bearings to make certain, and I got them the

night before last. My visit to Biggleswick was good business.”

“I don’t know what they meant,” I said, “but I know where they came in.

One was in your speech when you spoke of the Austrian socialists, and

Ivery took you up about them. The other was after supper when he quoted

the _Weser Zeitung_.”

“You’re no fool, Dick,” he said, with his slow smile. “You’ve hit the

mark first shot. You know me and you could follow my process of thought

in those remarks. Ivery, not knowing me so well, and having his head

full of just that sort of argument, saw nothing unusual. Those bits of

noos were pumped into Gresson that he might pass them on. And he did

pass them on—to Ivery. They completed my chain.”

“But they were commonplace enough things which he might have guessed

for himself.”

“No, they weren’t. They were the nicest tit-bits of political noos

which all the cranks have been reaching after.”

“Anyhow, they were quotations from German papers. He might have had the

papers themselves earlier than you thought.”

“Wrong again. The paragraph never appeared in the _Weser Zeitung_. But

we faked up a torn bit of that noospaper, and a very pretty bit of

forgery it was, and Gresson, who’s a kind of a scholar, was allowed to

have it. He passed it on. Ivery showed it me two nights ago. Nothing

like it ever sullied the columns of Boche journalism. No, it was a

perfectly final proof.... Now, Dick, it’s up to you to get after

Gresson.”

“Right,” I said. “I’m jolly glad I’m to start work again. I’m getting

fat from lack of exercise. I suppose you want me to catch Gresson out

in some piece of blackguardism and have him and Ivery snugly put away.”

“I don’t want anything of the kind,” he said very slowly and

distinctly. “You’ve got to attend very close to your instructions, I

cherish these two beauties as if they were my own white-headed boys. I

wouldn’t for the world interfere with their comfort and liberty. I want

them to go on corresponding with their friends. I want to give them

every facility.”

He burst out laughing at my mystified face.

“See here, Dick. How do we want to treat the Boche? Why, to fill him up

with all the cunningest lies and get him to act on them. Now here is

Moxon Ivery, who has always given them good information. They trust him

absolutely, and we would be fools to spoil their confidence. Only, if

we can find out Moxon’s methods, we can arrange to use them ourselves

and send noos in his name which isn’t quite so genooine. Every word he

dispatches goes straight to the Grand High Secret General Staff, and

old Hindenburg and Ludendorff put towels round their heads and cipher

it out. We want to encourage them to go on doing it. We’ll arrange to

send true stuff that don’t matter, so as they’ll continue to trust him,

and a few selected falsehoods that’ll matter like hell. It’s a game you

can’t play for ever, but with luck I propose to play it long enough to

confuse Fritz’s little plans.”

His face became serious and wore the air that our corps commander used

to have at the big pow-wow before a push.

“I’m not going to give you instructions, for you’re man enough to make

your own. But I can give you the general hang of the situation. You

tell Ivery you’re going North to inquire into industrial disputes at

first hand. That will seem to him natural and in line with your recent

behaviour. He’ll tell his people that you’re a guileless colonial who

feels disgruntled with Britain, and may come in useful. You’ll go to a

man of mine in Glasgow, a red-hot agitator who chooses that way of

doing his bit for his country. It’s a darned hard way and darned

dangerous. Through him you’ll get in touch with Gresson, and you’ll

keep alongside that bright citizen. Find out what he is doing, and get

a chance of following him. He must never suspect you, and for that

purpose you must be very near the edge of the law yourself. You go up

there as an unabashed pacifist and you’ll live with folk that will turn

your stomach. Maybe you’ll have to break some of these two-cent rules

the British Government have invented to defend the realm, and it’s up

to you not to get caught out.... Remember, you’ll get no help from me.

You’ve got to wise up about Gresson with the whole forces of the

British State arrayed officially against you. I guess it’s a steep

proposition, but you’re man enough to make good.”

As we shook hands, he added a last word. “You must take your own time,

but it’s not a case for slouching. Every day that passes Ivery is

sending out the worst kind of poison. The Boche is blowing up for a big

campaign in the field, and a big effort to shake the nerve and confuse

the judgement of our civilians. The whole earth’s war-weary, and we’ve

about reached the danger-point. There’s pretty big stakes hang on you,

Dick, for things are getting mighty delicate.”

I purchased a new novel in the shop and reached St Pancras in time to

have a cup of tea at the buffet. Ivery was at the bookstall buying an

evening paper. When we got into the carriage he seized my _Punch_ and

kept laughing and calling my attention to the pictures. As I looked at

him, I thought that he made a perfect picture of the citizen turned

countryman, going back of an evening to his innocent home. Everything

was right—his neat tweeds, his light spats, his spotted neckcloth, and

his aquascutum.

Not that I dared look at him much. What I had learned made me eager to

search his face, but I did not dare show any increased interest. I had

always been a little off-hand with him, for I had never much liked him,

so I had to keep on the same manner. He was as merry as a grig, full of

chat and very friendly and amusing. I remember he picked up the book I

had brought off that morning to read in the train—the second volume of

Hazlitt’s _Essays_, the last of my English classics—and discoursed so

wisely about books that I wished I had spent more time in his company

at Biggleswick.

“Hazlitt was the academic Radical of his day,” he said. “He is always

lashing himself into a state of theoretical fury over abuses he has

never encountered in person. Men who are up against the real thing save

their breath for action.”

That gave me my cue to tell him about my journey to the North. I said I

had learned a lot in Biggleswick, but I wanted to see industrial life

at close quarters. “Otherwise I might become like Hazlitt,” I said.

He was very interested and encouraging. “That’s the right way to set

about it,” he said. “Where were you thinking of going?”

I told him that I had half thought of Barrow, but decided to try

Glasgow, since the Clyde seemed to be a warm corner.

“Right,” he said. “I only wish I was coming with you. It’ll take you a

little while to understand the language. You’ll find a good deal of

senseless bellicosity among the workmen, for they’ve got parrot-cries

about the war as they used to have parrot-cries about their labour

politics. But there’s plenty of shrewd brains and sound hearts too. You

must write and tell me your conclusions.”

It was a warm evening and he dozed the last part of the journey. I

looked at him and wished I could see into the mind at the back of that

mask-like face. I counted for nothing in his eyes, not even enough for

him to want to make me a tool, and I was setting out to try to make a

tool of him. It sounded a forlorn enterprise. And all the while I was

puzzled with a persistent sense of recognition. I told myself it was

idiocy, for a man with a face like that must have hints of resemblance

to a thousand people. But the idea kept nagging at me till we reached

our destination.

As we emerged from the station into the golden evening I saw Mary

Lamington again. She was with one of the Weekes girls, and after the

Biggleswick fashion was bareheaded, so that the sun glinted from her

hair. Ivery swept his hat off and made her a pretty speech, while I

faced her steady eyes with the expressionlessness of the stage

conspirator.

“A charming child,” he observed as we passed on. “Not without a touch

of seriousness, too, which may yet be touched to noble issues.”

I considered, as I made my way to my final supper with the Jimsons,

that the said child was likely to prove a sufficiently serious business

for Mr Moxon Ivery before the game was out.

CHAPTER IV

Andrew Amos

I took the train three days later from King’s Cross to Edinburgh. I

went to the Pentland Hotel in Princes Street and left there a suit-case

containing some clean linen and a change of clothes. I had been

thinking the thing out, and had come to the conclusion that I must have

a base somewhere and a fresh outfit. Then in well-worn tweeds and with

no more luggage than a small trench kit-bag, I descended upon the city

of Glasgow.

I walked from the station to the address which Blenkiron had given me.

It was a hot summer evening, and the streets were filled with

bareheaded women and weary-looking artisans. As I made my way down the

Dumbarton Road I was amazed at the number of able-bodied fellows about,

considering that you couldn’t stir a mile on any British front without

bumping up against a Glasgow battalion. Then I realised that there were

such things as munitions and ships, and I wondered no more.

A stout and dishevelled lady at a close-mouth directed me to Mr Amos’s

dwelling. “Twa stairs up. Andra will be in noo, havin’ his tea. He’s no

yin for overtime. He’s generally hame on the chap of six.” I ascended

the stairs with a sinking heart, for like all South Africans I have a

horror of dirt. The place was pretty filthy, but at each landing there

were two doors with well-polished handles and brass plates. On one I

read the name of Andrew Amos.

A man in his shirt-sleeves opened to me, a little man, without a

collar, and with an unbuttoned waistcoat. That was all I saw of him in

the dim light, but he held out a paw like a gorilla’s and drew me in.

The sitting-room, which looked over many chimneys to a pale yellow sky

against which two factory stalks stood out sharply, gave me light

enough to observe him fully. He was about five feet four,

broad-shouldered, and with a great towsy head of grizzled hair. He wore

spectacles, and his face was like some old-fashioned Scots minister’s,

for he had heavy eyebrows and whiskers which joined each other under

his jaw, while his chin and enormous upper lip were clean-shaven. His

eyes were steely grey and very solemn, but full of smouldering energy.

His voice was enormous and would have shaken the walls if he had not

had the habit of speaking with half-closed lips. He had not a sound

tooth in his head.

A saucer full of tea and a plate which had once contained ham and eggs

were on the table. He nodded towards them and asked me if I had fed.

“Ye’ll no eat onything? Well, some would offer ye a dram, but this

house is staunch teetotal. I door ye’ll have to try the nearest public

if ye’re thirsty.”

I disclaimed any bodily wants, and produced my pipe, at which he

started to fill an old clay. “Mr Brand’s your name?” he asked in his

gusty voice. “I was expectin’ ye, but Dod! man ye’re late!”

He extricated from his trousers pocket an ancient silver watch, and

regarded it with disfavour. “The dashed thing has stoppit. What do ye

make the time, Mr Brand?”

He proceeded to prise open the lid of his watch with the knife he had

used to cut his tobacco, and, as he examined the works, he turned the

back of the case towards me. On the inside I saw pasted Mary

Lamington’s purple-and-white wafer.

I held my watch so that he could see the same token. His keen eyes,

raised for a second, noted it, and he shut his own with a snap and

returned it to his pocket. His manner lost its wariness and became

almost genial.

“Ye’ve come up to see Glasgow, Mr Brand? Well, it’s a steerin’ bit, and

there’s honest folk bides in it, and some not so honest. They tell me

ye’re from South Africa. That’s a long gait away, but I ken something

aboot South Africa, for I had a cousin’s son oot there for his lungs.

He was in a shop in Main Street, Bloomfountain. They called him Peter

Dobson. Ye would maybe mind of him.”

Then he discoursed of the Clyde. He was an incomer, he told me, from

the Borders, his native place being the town of Galashiels, or, as he

called it, “Gawly”. “I began as a powerloom tuner in Stavert’s mill.

Then my father dee’d and I took up his trade of jiner. But it’s no

world nowadays for the sma’ independent business, so I cam to the Clyde

and learned a shipwright’s job. I may say I’ve become a leader in the

trade, for though I’m no an official of the Union, and not likely to

be, there’s no man’s word carries more weight than mine. And the

Goavernment kens that, for they’ve sent me on commissions up and down

the land to look at wuds and report on the nature of the timber.

Bribery, they think it is, but Andrew Amos is not to be bribit. He’ll

have his say about any Goavernment on earth, and tell them to their

face what he thinks of them. Ay, and he’ll fight the case of the

workingman against his oppressor, should it be the Goavernment or the

fatted calves they ca’ Labour Members. Ye’ll have heard tell o’ the

shop stewards, Mr Brand?”

I admitted I had, for I had been well coached by Blenkiron in the

current history of industrial disputes.

“Well, I’m a shop steward. We represent the rank and file against

office-bearers that have lost the confidence o’ the workingman. But I’m

no socialist, and I would have ye keep mind of that. I’m yin o’ the old

Border radicals, and I’m not like to change. I’m for individual liberty

and equal rights and chances for all men. I’ll no more bow down before

a Dagon of a Goavernment official than before the Baal of a feckless

Tweedside laird. I’ve to keep my views to mysel’, for thae young lads

are all drucken-daft with their wee books about Cawpital and

Collectivism and a wheen long senseless words I wouldna fyle my tongue

with. Them and their socialism! There’s more gumption in a page of John

Stuart Mill than in all that foreign trash. But, as I say, I’ve got to

keep a quiet sough, for the world is gettin’ socialism now like the

measles. It all comes of a defective eddication.”

“And what does a Border radical say about the war?” I asked.

He took off his spectacles and cocked his shaggy brows at me. “I’ll

tell ye, Mr Brand. All that was bad in all that I’ve ever wrestled with

since I cam to years o’ discretion—Tories and lairds and manufacturers

and publicans and the Auld Kirk—all that was bad, I say, for there were

orra bits of decency, ye’ll find in the Germans full measure pressed

down and running over. When the war started, I considered the subject

calmly for three days, and then I said: ‘Andra Amos, ye’ve found the

enemy at last. The ones ye fought before were in a manner o’ speakin’

just misguided friends. It’s either you or the Kaiser this time, my

man!’”

His eyes had lost their gravity and had taken on a sombre ferocity.

“Ay, and I’ve not wavered. I got a word early in the business as to the

way I could serve my country best. It’s not been an easy job, and

there’s plenty of honest folk the day will give me a bad name. They

think I’m stirrin’ up the men at home and desertin’ the cause o’ the

lads at the front. Man, I’m keepin’ them straight. If I didna fight

their battles on a sound economic isshue, they would take the dorts and

be at the mercy of the first blagyird that preached revolution. Me and

my like are safety-valves, if ye follow me. And dinna you make ony

mistake, Mr Brand. The men that are agitating for a rise in wages are

not for peace. They’re fighting for the lads overseas as much as for

themselves. There’s not yin in a thousand that wouldna sweat himself

blind to beat the Germans. The Goavernment has made mistakes, and maun

be made to pay for them. If it were not so, the men would feel like a

moose in a trap, for they would have no way to make their grievance

felt. What for should the big man double his profits and the small man

be ill set to get his ham and egg on Sabbath mornin’? That’s the

meaning o’ Labour unrest, as they call it, and it’s a good thing, says

I, for if Labour didna get its leg over the traces now and then, the

spunk o’ the land would be dead in it, and Hindenburg could squeeze it

like a rotten aipple.”

I asked if he spoke for the bulk of the men.

“For ninety per cent in ony ballot. I don’t say that there’s not plenty

of riff-raff—the pint-and-a-dram gentry and the soft-heads that are aye

reading bits of newspapers, and muddlin’ their wits with foreign

whigmaleeries. But the average man on the Clyde, like the average man

in ither places, hates just three things, and that’s the Germans, the

profiteers, as they call them, and the Irish. But he hates the Germans

first.”

“The Irish!” I exclaimed in astonishment.

“Ay, the Irish,” cried the last of the old Border radicals. “Glasgow’s

stinkin’ nowadays with two things, money and Irish. I mind the day when

I followed Mr Gladstone’s Home Rule policy, and used to threep about

the noble, generous, warm-hearted sister nation held in a foreign

bondage. My Goad! I’m not speakin’ about Ulster, which is a dour,

ill-natured den, but our own folk all the same. But the men that will

not do a hand’s turn to help the war and take the chance of our

necessities to set up a bawbee rebellion are hateful to Goad and man.

We treated them like pet lambs and that’s the thanks we get. They’re

coming over here in thousands to tak the jobs of the lads that are

doing their duty. I was speakin’ last week to a widow woman that keeps

a wee dairy down the Dalmarnock Road. She has two sons, and both in the

airmy, one in the Cameronians and one a prisoner in Germany. She was

telling me that she could not keep goin’ any more, lacking the help of

the boys, though she had worked her fingers to the bone. ‘Surely it’s a

crool job, Mr Amos,’ she says, ‘that the Goavernment should tak baith

my laddies, and I’ll maybe never see them again, and let the Irish gang

free and tak the bread frae our mouth. At the gasworks across the road

they took on a hundred Irish last week, and every yin o’ them as young

and well set up as you would ask to see. And my wee Davie, him that’s

in Germany, had aye a weak chest, and Jimmy was troubled wi’ a bowel

complaint. That’s surely no justice!’....”

He broke off and lit a match by drawing it across the seat of his

trousers. “It’s time I got the gas lichtit. There’s some men coming

here at half-ten.”

As the gas squealed and flickered in the lighting, he sketched for me

the coming guests. “There’s Macnab and Niven, two o’ my colleagues. And

there’s Gilkison of the Boiler-fitters, and a lad Wilkie—he’s got

consumption, and writes wee bits in the papers. And there’s a queer

chap o’ the name o’ Tombs—they tell me he comes frae Cambridge, and is

a kind of a professor there—anyway he’s more stuffed wi’ havers than an

egg wi’ meat. He telled me he was here to get at the heart o’ the

workingman, and I said to him that he would hae to look a bit further

than the sleeve o’ the workin’-man’s jaicket. There’s no muckle in his

head, poor soul. Then there’ll be Tam Norie, him that edits our weekly

paper—_Justice for All_. Tam’s a humorist and great on Robert Burns,

but he hasna the balance o’ a dwinin’ teetotum.... Ye’ll understand, Mr

Brand, that I keep my mouth shut in such company, and don’t express my

own views more than is absolutely necessary. I criticise whiles, and

that gives me a name of whunstane common-sense, but I never let my

tongue wag. The feck o’ the lads comin’ the night are not the real

workingman—they’re just the froth on the pot, but it’s the froth that

will be useful to you. Remember they’ve heard tell o’ ye already, and

ye’ve some sort o’ reputation to keep up.”

“Will Mr Abel Gresson be here?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “Not yet. Him and me havena yet got to the point o’

payin’ visits. But the men that come will be Gresson’s friends and

they’ll speak of ye to him. It’s the best kind of introduction ye could

seek.”

The knocker sounded, and Mr Amos hastened to admit the first comers.

These were Macnab and Wilkie: the one a decent middle-aged man with a

fresh-washed face and a celluloid collar, the other a round-shouldered

youth, with lank hair and the large eyes and luminous skin which are

the marks of phthisis. “This is Mr Brand boys, from South Africa,” was

Amos’s presentation. Presently came Niven, a bearded giant, and Mr

Norie, the editor, a fat dirty fellow smoking a rank cigar. Gilkison of

the Boiler-fitters, when he arrived, proved to be a pleasant young man

in spectacles who spoke with an educated voice and clearly belonged to

a slightly different social scale. Last came Tombs, the Cambridge

professor, a lean youth with a sour mouth and eyes that reminded me of

Launcelot Wake.

“Ye’ll no be a mawgnate, Mr Brand, though ye come from South Africa,”

said Mr Norie with a great guffaw.

“Not me. I’m a working engineer,” I said. “My father was from Scotland,

and this is my first visit to my native country, as my friend Mr Amos

was telling you.”

The consumptive looked at me suspiciously. “We’ve got two—three of the

comrades here that the cawpitalist Government expelled from the

Transvaal. If ye’re our way of thinking, ye will maybe ken them.”

I said I would be overjoyed to meet them, but that at the time of the

outrage in question I had been working on a mine a thousand miles

further north.

Then ensued an hour of extraordinary talk. Tombs in his sing-song

namby-pamby University voice was concerned to get information. He asked

endless questions, chiefly of Gilkison, who was the only one who really

understood his language. I thought I had never seen anyone quite so

fluent and so futile, and yet there was a kind of feeble violence in

him like a demented sheep. He was engaged in venting some private

academic spite against society, and I thought that in a revolution he

would be the class of lad I would personally conduct to the nearest

lamp-post. And all the while Amos and Macnab and Niven carried on their

own conversation about the affairs of their society, wholly impervious

to the tornado raging around them.

It was Mr Norie, the editor, who brought me into the discussion.

“Our South African friend is very blate,” he said in his boisterous

way. “Andra, if this place of yours wasn’t so damned teetotal and we

had a dram apiece, we might get his tongue loosened. I want to hear

what he’s got to say about the war. You told me this morning he was

sound in the faith.”

“I said no such thing,” said Mr Amos. “As ye ken well, Tam Norie, I

don’t judge soundness on that matter as you judge it. I’m for the war

myself, subject to certain conditions that I’ve often stated. I know

nothing of Mr Brand’s opinions, except that he’s a good democrat, which

is more than I can say of some o’ your friends.”

“Hear to Andra,” laughed Mr Norie. “He’s thinkin’ the inspector in the

Socialist State would be a waur kind of awristocrat then the Duke of

Buccleuch. Weel, there’s maybe something in that. But about the war

he’s wrong. Ye ken my views, boys. This war was made by the

cawpitalists, and it has been fought by the workers, and it’s the

workers that maun have the ending of it. That day’s comin’ very near.

There are those that want to spin it out till Labour is that weak it

can be pit in chains for the rest o’ time. That’s the manœuvre we’re

out to prevent. We’ve got to beat the Germans, but it’s the workers

that has the right to judge when the enemy’s beaten and not the

cawpitalists. What do you say, Mr Brand?”

Mr Norie had obviously pinned his colours to the fence, but he gave me

the chance I had been looking for. I let them have my views with a

vengeance, and these views were that for the sake of democracy the war

must be ended. I flatter myself I put my case well, for I had got up

every rotten argument and I borrowed largely from Launcelot Wake’s

armoury. But I didn’t put it too well, for I had a very exact notion of

the impression I wanted to produce. I must seem to be honest and in

earnest, just a bit of a fanatic, but principally a hard-headed

businessman who knew when the time had come to make a deal. Tombs kept

interrupting me with imbecile questions, and I had to sit on him. At

the end Mr Norie hammered with his pipe on the table.

“That’ll sort ye, Andra. Ye’re entertain’ an angel unawares. What do ye

say to that, my man?”

Mr Amos shook his head. “I’ll no deny there’s something in it, but I’m

not convinced that the Germans have got enough of a wheepin’.” Macnab

agreed with him; the others were with me. Norie was for getting me to

write an article for his paper, and the consumptive wanted me to

address a meeting.

“Wull ye say a’ that over again the morn’s night down at our hall in

Newmilns Street? We’ve got a lodge meeting o’ the I.W.B., and I’ll make

them pit ye in the programme.” He kept his luminous eyes, like a sick

dog’s, fixed on me, and I saw that I had made one ally. I told him I

had come to Glasgow to learn and not to teach, but I would miss no

chance of testifying to my faith.

“Now, boys, I’m for my bed,” said Amos, shaking the dottle from his

pipe. “Mr Tombs, I’ll conduct ye the morn over the Brigend works, but

I’ve had enough clavers for one evening. I’m a man that wants his eight

hours’ sleep.”

The old fellow saw them to the door, and came back to me with the ghost

of a grin in his face.

“A queer crowd, Mr Brand! Macnab didna like what ye said. He had a

laddie killed in Gallypoly, and he’s no lookin’ for peace this side the

grave. He’s my best friend in Glasgow. He’s an elder in the Gaelic kirk

in the Cowcaddens, and I’m what ye call a free-thinker, but we’re

wonderful agreed on the fundamentals. Ye spoke your bit verra well, I

must admit. Gresson will hear tell of ye as a promising recruit.”

“It’s a rotten job,” I said.

“Ay, it’s a rotten job. I often feel like vomiting over it mysel’. But

it’s no for us to complain. There’s waur jobs oot in France for better

men.... A word in your ear, Mr Brand. Could ye not look a bit more

sheepish? Ye stare folk ower straight in the een, like a Hieland

sergeant-major up at Maryhill Barracks.” And he winked slowly and

grotesquely with his left eye.

He marched to a cupboard and produced a black bottle and glass. “I’m

blue-ribbon myself, but ye’ll be the better of something to tak the

taste out of your mouth. There’s Loch Katrine water at the pipe

there.... As I was saying, there’s not much ill in that lot. Tombs is a

black offence, but a dominie’s a dominie all the world over. They may

crack about their Industrial Workers and the braw things they’re going

to do, but there’s a wholesome dampness about the tinder on Clydeside.

They should try Ireland.”

“Supposing,” I said, “there was a really clever man who wanted to help

the enemy. You think he could do little good by stirring up trouble in

the shops here?”

“I’m positive.”

“And if he were a shrewd fellow, he’d soon tumble to that?”

“Ay.”

“Then if he still stayed on here he would be after bigger

game—something really dangerous and damnable?”

Amos drew down his brows and looked me in the face. “I see what ye’re

ettlin’ at. Ay! That would be my conclusion. I came to it weeks syne

about the man ye’ll maybe meet the morn’s night.”

Then from below the bed he pulled a box from which he drew a handsome

flute. “Ye’ll forgive me, Mr Brand, but I aye like a tune before I go

to my bed. Macnab says his prayers, and I have a tune on the flute, and

the principle is just the same.”

So that singular evening closed with music—very sweet and true

renderings of old Border melodies like “My Peggy is a young thing”, and

“When the kye come hame”. I fell asleep with a vision of Amos, his face

all puckered up at the mouth and a wandering sentiment in his eye,

recapturing in his dingy world the emotions of a boy.

The widow-woman from next door, who acted as house-keeper, cook, and

general factotum to the establishment, brought me shaving water next

morning, but I had to go without a bath. When I entered the kitchen I

found no one there, but while I consumed the inevitable ham and egg,

Amos arrived back for breakfast. He brought with him the morning’s

paper.

“The _Herald_ says there’s been a big battle at Eepers,” he announced.

I tore open the sheet and read of the great attack of 31 July which was

spoiled by the weather. “My God!” I cried. “They’ve got St Julien and

that dirty Frezenberg ridge ... and Hooge ... and Sanctuary Wood. I

know every inch of the damned place....”

“Mr Brand,” said a warning voice, “that’ll never do. If our friends

last night heard ye talk like that ye might as well tak the train back

to London.... They’re speakin’ about ye in the yards this morning.

Ye’ll get a good turnout at your meeting the night, but they’re Sayin’

that the polis will interfere. That mightna be a bad thing, but I trust

ye to show discretion, for ye’ll not be muckle use to onybody if they

jyle ye in Duke Street. I hear Gresson will be there with a fraternal

message from his lunatics in America.... I’ve arranged that ye go down

to Tam Norie this afternoon and give him a hand with his bit paper. Tam

will tell ye the whole clash o’ the West country, and I look to ye to

keep him off the drink. He’s aye arguin’ that writin’ and drinkin’ gang

thegither, and quotin’ Robert Burns, but the creature has a wife and

five bairns dependin’ on him.”

I spent a fantastic day. For two hours I sat in Norie’s dirty den,

while he smoked and orated, and, when he remembered his business, took

down in shorthand my impressions of the Labour situation in South

Africa for his rag. They were fine breezy impressions, based on the

most whole-hearted ignorance, and if they ever reached the Rand I

wonder what my friends there made of Cornelius Brand, their author. I

stood him dinner in an indifferent eating-house in a street off the

Broomielaw, and thereafter had a drink with him in a public-house, and

was introduced to some of his less reputable friends.

About tea-time I went back to Amos’s lodgings, and spent an hour or so

writing a long letter to Mr Ivery. I described to him everybody I had

met, I gave highly coloured views of the explosive material on the

Clyde, and I deplored the lack of clearheadedness in the progressive

forces. I drew an elaborate picture of Amos, and deduced from it that

the Radicals were likely to be a bar to true progress. “They have

switched their old militancy,” I wrote, “on to another track, for with

them it is a matter of conscience to be always militant.” I finished up

with some very crude remarks on economics culled from the table-talk of

the egregious Tombs. It was the kind of letter which I hoped would

establish my character in his mind as an industrious innocent.

Seven o’clock found me in Newmilns Street, where I was seized upon by

Wilkie. He had put on a clean collar for the occasion and had partially

washed his thin face. The poor fellow had a cough that shook him like

the walls of a power-house when the dynamos are going.

He was very apologetic about Amos. “Andra belongs to a past worrld,” he

said. “He has a big reputation in his society, and he’s a fine fighter,

but he has no kind of Vision, if ye understand me. He’s an auld

Gladstonian, and that’s done and damned in Scotland. He’s not a Modern,

Mr Brand, like you and me. But tonight ye’ll meet one or two chaps

that’ll be worth your while to ken. Ye’ll maybe no go quite as far as

them, but ye’re on the same road. I’m hoping for the day when we’ll

have oor Councils of Workmen and Soldiers like the Russians all over

the land and dictate our terms to the pawrasites in Pawrliament. They

tell me, too, the boys in the trenches are comin’ round to our side.”

We entered the hall by a back door, and in a little waiting-room I was

introduced to some of the speakers. They were a scratch lot as seen in

that dingy place. The chairman was a shop-steward in one of the

Societies, a fierce little rat of a man, who spoke with a cockney

accent and addressed me as “Comrade”. But one of them roused my

liveliest interest. I heard the name of Gresson, and turned to find a

fellow of about thirty-five, rather sprucely dressed, with a flower in

his buttonhole. “Mr Brand,” he said, in a rich American voice which

recalled Blenkiron’s. “Very pleased to meet you, sir. We have come from

remote parts of the globe to be present at this gathering.” I noticed

that he had reddish hair, and small bright eyes, and a nose with a

droop like a Polish Jew’s.

As soon as we reached the platform I saw that there was going to be

trouble. The hall was packed to the door, and in all the front half

there was the kind of audience I expected to see—working-men of the

political type who before the war would have thronged to party

meetings. But not all the crowd at the back had come to listen. Some

were scallawags, some looked like better-class clerks out for a spree,

and there was a fair quantity of khaki. There were also one or two

gentlemen not strictly sober.

The chairman began by putting his foot in it. He said we were there

tonight to protest against the continuation of the war and to form a

branch of the new British Council of Workmen and Soldiers. He told them

with a fine mixture of metaphors that we had got to take the reins into

our own hands, for the men who were running the war had their own axes

to grind and were marching to oligarchy through the blood of the

workers. He added that we had no quarrel with Germany half as bad as we

had with our own capitalists. He looked forward to the day when British

soldiers would leap from their trenches and extend the hand of

friendship to their German comrades.

“No me!” said a solemn voice. “I’m not seekin’ a bullet in my wame,”—at

which there was laughter and cat-calls.

Tombs followed and made a worse hash of it. He was determined to speak,

as he would have put it, to democracy in its own language, so he said

“hell” several times, loudly but without conviction. Presently he

slipped into the manner of the lecturer, and the audience grew

restless. “I propose to ask myself a question—” he began, and from the

back of the hall came—“And a damned sully answer ye’ll get.” After that

there was no more Tombs.

I followed with extreme nervousness, and to my surprise got a fair

hearing. I felt as mean as a mangy dog on a cold morning, for I hated

to talk rot before soldiers—especially before a couple of Royal Scots

Fusiliers, who, for all I knew, might have been in my own brigade. My

line was the plain, practical, patriotic man, just come from the

colonies, who looked at things with fresh eyes, and called for a new

deal. I was very moderate, but to justify my appearance there I had to

put in a wild patch or two, and I got these by impassioned attacks on

the Ministry of Munitions. I mixed up a little mild praise of the

Germans, whom I said I had known all over the world for decent fellows.

I received little applause, but no marked dissent, and sat down with

deep thankfulness.

The next speaker put the lid on it. I believe he was a noted agitator,

who had already been deported. Towards him there was no lukewarmness,

for one half of the audience cheered wildly when he rose, and the other

half hissed and groaned. He began with whirlwind abuse of the idle

rich, then of the middle-classes (he called them the “rich man’s

flunkeys’), and finally of the Government. All that was fairly well

received, for it is the fashion of the Briton to run down every

Government and yet to be very averse to parting from it. Then he

started on the soldiers and slanged the officers (“gentry pups” was his

name for them), and the generals, whom he accused of idleness, of

cowardice, and of habitual intoxication. He told us that our own kith

and kin were sacrificed in every battle by leaders who had not the guts

to share their risks. The Scots Fusiliers looked perturbed, as if they

were in doubt of his meaning. Then he put it more plainly. “Will any

soldier deny that the men are the barrage to keep the officers’ skins

whole?”

“That’s a bloody lee,” said one of the Fusilier Jocks.

The man took no notice of the interruption, being carried away by the

torrent of his own rhetoric, but he had not allowed for the persistence

of the interrupter. The jock got slowly to his feet, and announced that

he wanted satisfaction. “If ye open your dirty gab to blagyird honest

men, I’ll come up on the platform and wring your neck.”

At that there was a fine old row, some crying out “Order”, some “Fair

play”, and some applauding. A Canadian at the back of the hall started

a song, and there was an ugly press forward. The hall seemed to be

moving up from the back, and already men were standing in all the

passages and right to the edge of the platform. I did not like the look

in the eyes of these new-comers, and among the crowd I saw several who

were obviously plain-clothes policemen.

The chairman whispered a word to the speaker, who continued when the

noise had temporarily died down. He kept off the army and returned to

the Government, and for a little sluiced out pure anarchism. But he got

his foot in it again, for he pointed to the Sinn Feiners as examples of

manly independence. At that, pandemonium broke loose, and he never had

another look in. There were several fights going on in the hall between

the public and courageous supporters of the orator.

Then Gresson advanced to the edge of the platform in a vain endeavour

to retrieve the day. I must say he did it uncommonly well. He was

clearly a practised speaker, and for a moment his appeal “Now, boys,

let’s cool down a bit and talk sense,” had an effect. But the mischief

had been done, and the crowd was surging round the lonely redoubt where

we sat. Besides, I could see that for all his clever talk the meeting

did not like the look of him. He was as mild as a turtle dove, but they

wouldn’t stand for it. A missile hurtled past my nose, and I saw a

rotten cabbage envelop the baldish head of the ex-deportee. Someone

reached out a long arm and grabbed a chair, and with it took the legs

from Gresson. Then the lights suddenly went out, and we retreated in

good order by the platform door with a yelling crowd at our heels.

It was here that the plain-clothes men came in handy. They held the

door while the ex-deportee was smuggled out by some side entrance. That

class of lad would soon cease to exist but for the protection of the

law which he would abolish. The rest of us, having less to fear, were

suffered to leak into Newmilns Street. I found myself next to Gresson,

and took his arm. There was something hard in his coat pocket.

Unfortunately there was a big lamp at the point where we emerged, and

there for our confusion were the Fusilier Jocks. Both were strung to

fighting pitch, and were determined to have someone’s blood. Of me they

took no notice, but Gresson had spoken after their ire had been roused,

and was marked out as a victim. With a howl of joy they rushed for him.

I felt his hand steal to his side-pocket. “Let that alone, you fool,” I

growled in his ear.

“Sure, mister,” he said, and the next second we were in the thick of

it.

It was like so many street fights I have seen—an immense crowd which

surged up around us, and yet left a clear ring. Gresson and I got

against the wall on the side-walk, and faced the furious soldiery. My

intention was to do as little as possible, but the first minute

convinced me that my companion had no idea how to use his fists, and I

was mortally afraid that he would get busy with the gun in his pocket.

It was that fear that brought me into the scrap. The Jocks were

sportsmen every bit of them, and only one advanced to the combat. He

hit Gresson a clip on the jaw with his left, and but for the wall would

have laid him out. I saw in the lamplight the vicious gleam in the

American’s eye and the twitch of his hand to his pocket. That decided

me to interfere and I got in front of him.

This brought the second jock into the fray. He was a broad, thickset

fellow, of the adorable bandy-legged stocky type that I had seen go

through the Railway Triangle at Arras as though it were blotting-paper.

He had some notion of fighting, too, and gave me a rough time, for I

had to keep edging the other fellow off Gresson.

“Go home, you fool,” I shouted. “Let this gentleman alone. I don’t want

to hurt you.”

The only answer was a hook-hit which I just managed to guard, followed

by a mighty drive with his right which I dodged so that he barked his

knuckles on the wall. I heard a yell of rage, and observed that Gresson

seemed to have kicked his assailant on the shin. I began to long for

the police.

Then there was that swaying of the crowd which betokens the approach of

the forces of law and order. But they were too late to prevent trouble.

In self-defence I had to take my jock seriously, and got in my blow

when he had overreached himself and lost his balance. I never hit

anyone so unwillingly in my life. He went over like a poled ox, and

measured his length on the causeway.

I found myself explaining things politely to the constables. “These men

objected to this gentleman’s speech at the meeting, and I had to

interfere to protect him. No, no! I don’t want to charge anybody. It

was all a misunderstanding.” I helped the stricken jock to rise and

offered him ten bob for consolation.

He looked at me sullenly and spat on the ground. “Keep your dirty

money,” he said. “I’ll be even with ye yet, my man—you and that

red-headed scab. I’ll mind the looks of ye the next time I see ye.”

Gresson was wiping the blood from his cheek with a silk handkerchief.

“I guess I’m in your debt, Mr Brand,” he said. “You may bet I won’t

forget it.”

I returned to an anxious Amos. He heard my story in silence and his

only comment was—“Well done the Fusiliers!”

“It might have been worse, I’ll not deny,” he went on. “Ye’ve

established some kind of a claim upon Gresson, which may come in

handy.... Speaking about Gresson, I’ve news for ye. He’s sailing on

Friday as purser in the _Tobermory_. The _Tobermory’s_ a boat that

wanders every month up the West Highlands as far as Stornoway. I’ve

arranged for ye to take a trip on that boat, Mr Brand.”

I nodded. “How did you find out that?” I asked.

“It took me some finding,” he said dryly, “but I’ve ways and means. Now

I’ll not trouble ye with advice, for ye ken your job as well as me. But

I’m going north myself the morn to look after some of the Ross-shire

wuds, and I’ll be in the way of getting telegrams at the Kyle. Ye’ll

keep that in mind. Keep in mind, too, that I’m a great reader of the

_Pilgrim’s Progress_ and that I’ve a cousin of the name of Ochterlony.”

CHAPTER V

Various Doings in the West

The _Tobermory_ was no ship for passengers. Its decks were littered

with a hundred oddments, so that a man could barely walk a step without

tacking, and my bunk was simply a shelf in the frowsty little saloon,

where the odour of ham and eggs hung like a fog. I joined her at

Greenock and took a turn on deck with the captain after tea, when he

told me the names of the big blue hills to the north. He had a fine old

copper-coloured face and side-whiskers like an archbishop, and, having

spent all his days beating up the western seas, had as many yarns in

his head as Peter himself.

“On this boat,” he announced, “we don’t ken what a day may bring forth.

I may put into Colonsay for twa hours and bide there three days. I get

a telegram at Oban and the next thing I’m awa ayont Barra. Sheep’s the

difficult business. They maun be fetched for the sales, and they’re

dooms slow to lift. So ye see it’s not what ye call a pleasure trip,

Maister Brand.”

Indeed it wasn’t, for the confounded tub wallowed like a fat sow as

soon as we rounded a headland and got the weight of the south-western

wind. When asked my purpose, I explained that I was a colonial of Scots

extraction, who was paying his first visit to his fatherland and wanted

to explore the beauties of the West Highlands. I let him gather that I

was not rich in this world’s goods.

“Ye’ll have a passport?” he asked. “They’ll no let ye go north o’ Fort

William without one.”

Amos had said nothing about passports, so I looked blank.

“I could keep ye on board for the whole voyage,” he went on, “but ye

wouldna be permitted to land. If ye’re seekin’ enjoyment, it would be a

poor job sittin’ on this deck and admirin’ the works o’ God and no

allowed to step on the pier-head. Ye should have applied to the

military gentlemen in Glesca. But ye’ve plenty o’ time to make up your

mind afore we get to Oban. We’ve a heap o’ calls to make Mull and Islay

way.”

The purser came up to inquire about my ticket, and greeted me with a

grin.

“Ye’re acquaint with Mr Gresson, then?” said the captain. “Weel, we’re

a cheery wee ship’s company, and that’s the great thing on this kind o’

job.”

I made but a poor supper, for the wind had risen to half a gale, and I

saw hours of wretchedness approaching. The trouble with me is that I

cannot be honestly sick and get it over. Queasiness and headache beset

me and there is no refuge but bed. I turned into my bunk, leaving the

captain and the mate smoking shag not six feet from my head, and fell

into a restless sleep. When I woke the place was empty, and smelt

vilely of stale tobacco and cheese. My throbbing brows made sleep

impossible, and I tried to ease them by staggering upon deck. I saw a

clear windy sky, with every star as bright as a live coal, and a

heaving waste of dark waters running to ink-black hills. Then a douche

of spray caught me and sent me down the companion to my bunk again,

where I lay for hours trying to make a plan of campaign.

I argued that if Amos had wanted me to have a passport he would have

provided one, so I needn’t bother my head about that. But it was my

business to keep alongside Gresson, and if the boat stayed a week in

some port and he went off ashore, I must follow him. Having no passport

I would have to be always dodging trouble, which would handicap my

movements and in all likelihood make me more conspicuous than I wanted.

I guessed that Amos had denied me the passport for the very reason that

he wanted Gresson to think me harmless. The area of danger would,

therefore, be the passport country, somewhere north of Fort William.

But to follow Gresson I must run risks and enter that country. His

suspicions, if he had any, would be lulled if I left the boat at Oban,

but it was up to me to follow overland to the north and hit the place

where the _Tobermory_ made a long stay. The confounded tub had no

plans; she wandered about the West Highlands looking for sheep and

things; and the captain himself could give me no time-table of her

voyage. It was incredible that Gresson should take all this trouble if

he did not know that at some place—and the right place—he would have

time to get a spell ashore. But I could scarcely ask Gresson for that

information, though I determined to cast a wary fly over him. I knew

roughly the _Tobermory’s_ course—through the Sound of Islay to

Colonsay; then up the east side of Mull to Oban; then through the Sound

of Mull to the islands with names like cocktails, Rum and Eigg and

Coll; then to Skye; and then for the Outer Hebrides. I thought the last

would be the place, and it seemed madness to leave the boat, for the

Lord knew how I should get across the Minch. This consideration upset

all my plans again, and I fell into a troubled sleep without coming to

any conclusion.

Morning found us nosing between Jura and Islay, and about midday we

touched at a little port, where we unloaded some cargo and took on a

couple of shepherds who were going to Colonsay. The mellow afternoon

and the good smell of salt and heather got rid of the dregs of my

queasiness, and I spent a profitable hour on the pier-head with a

guide-book called _Baddely’s Scotland_, and one of Bartholomew’s maps.

I was beginning to think that Amos might be able to tell me something,

for a talk with the captain had suggested that the _Tobermory_ would

not dally long in the neighbourhood of Rum and Eigg. The big droving

season was scarcely on yet, and sheep for the Oban market would be

lifted on the return journey. In that case Skye was the first place to

watch, and if I could get wind of any big cargo waiting there I would

be able to make a plan. Amos was somewhere near the Kyle, and that was

across the narrows from Skye. Looking at the map, it seemed to me that,

in spite of being passportless, I might be able somehow to make my way

up through Morvern and Arisaig to the latitude of Skye. The difficulty

would be to get across the strip of sea, but there must be boats to

beg, borrow or steal.

I was poring over Baddely when Gresson sat down beside me. He was in a

good temper, and disposed to talk, and to my surprise his talk was all

about the beauties of the countryside. There was a kind of apple-green

light over everything; the steep heather hills cut into the sky like

purple amethysts, while beyond the straits the western ocean stretched

its pale molten gold to the sunset. Gresson waxed lyrical over the

scene. “This just about puts me right inside, Mr Brand. I’ve got to get

away from that little old town pretty frequent or I begin to moult like

a canary. A man feels a man when he gets to a place that smells as good

as this. Why in hell do we ever get messed up in those stone and lime

cages? I reckon some day I’ll pull my freight for a clean location and

settle down there and make little poems. This place would about content

me. And there’s a spot out in California in the Coast ranges that I’ve

been keeping my eye on.” The odd thing was that I believe he meant it.

His ugly face was lit up with a serious delight.

He told me he had taken this voyage before, so I got out _Baddely_ and

asked for advice. “I can’t spend too much time on holidaying,” I told

him, “and I want to see all the beauty spots. But the best of them seem

to be in the area that this fool British Government won’t let you into

without a passport. I suppose I shall have to leave you at Oban.”

“Too bad,” he said sympathetically. “Well, they tell me there’s some

pretty sights round Oban.” And he thumbed the guide-book and began to

read about Glencoe.

I said that was not my purpose, and pitched him a yarn about Prince

Charlie and how my mother’s great-grandfather had played some kind of

part in that show. I told him I wanted to see the place where the

Prince landed and where he left for France. “So far as I can make out

that won’t take me into the passport country, but I’ll have to do a bit

of footslogging. Well, I’m used to padding the hoof. I must get the

captain to put me off in Morvern, and then I can foot it round the top

of Lochiel and get back to Oban through Appin. How’s that for a holiday

trek?”

He gave the scheme his approval. “But if it was me, Mr Brand, I would

have a shot at puzzling your gallant policemen. You and I don’t take

much stock in Governments and their two-cent laws, and it would be a

good game to see just how far you could get into the forbidden land. A

man like you could put up a good bluff on those hayseeds. I don’t mind

having a bet....”

“No,” I said. “I’m out for a rest, and not for sport. If there was

anything to be gained I’d undertake to bluff my way to the Orkney

Islands. But it’s a wearing job and I’ve better things to think about.”

“So? Well, enjoy yourself your own way. I’ll be sorry when you leave

us, for I owe you something for that rough-house, and beside there’s

darned little company in the old moss-back captain.”

That evening Gresson and I swopped yarns after supper to the

accompaniment of the “Ma Goad!” and “Is’t possible?” of captain and

mate. I went to bed after a glass or two of weak grog, and made up for

the last night’s vigil by falling sound asleep. I had very little kit

with me, beyond what I stood up in and could carry in my waterproof

pockets, but on Amos’s advice I had brought my little nickel-plated

revolver. This lived by day in my hip pocket, but at night I put it

behind my pillow. But when I woke next morning to find us casting

anchor in the bay below rough low hills, which I knew to be the island

of Colonsay, I could find no trace of the revolver. I searched every

inch of the bunk and only shook out feathers from the mouldy ticking. I

remembered perfectly putting the thing behind my head before I went to

sleep, and now it had vanished utterly. Of course I could not advertise

my loss, and I didn’t greatly mind it, for this was not a job where I

could do much shooting. But it made me think a good deal about Mr

Gresson. He simply could not suspect me; if he had bagged my gun, as I

was pretty certain he had, it must be because he wanted it for himself

and not that he might disarm me. Every way I argued it I reached the

same conclusion. In Gresson’s eyes I must seem as harmless as a child.

We spent the better part of a day at Colonsay, and Gresson, so far as

his duties allowed, stuck to me like a limpet. Before I went ashore I

wrote out a telegram for Amos. I devoted a hectic hour to the

_Pilgrim’s Progress_, but I could not compose any kind of intelligible

message with reference to its text. We had all the same edition—the one

in the _Golden Treasury_ series—so I could have made up a sort of

cipher by referring to lines and pages, but that would have taken up a

dozen telegraph forms and seemed to me too elaborate for the purpose.

So I sent this message:

_Ochterlony, Post Office, Kyle,

I hope to spend part of holiday near you and to see you if boat’s

programme permits. Are any good cargoes waiting in your neighbourhood?

Reply Post Office, Oban._

It was highly important that Gresson should not see this, but it was

the deuce of a business to shake him off. I went for a walk in the

afternoon along the shore and passed the telegraph office, but the

confounded fellow was with me all the time. My only chance was just

before we sailed, when he had to go on board to check some cargo. As

the telegraph office stood full in view of the ship’s deck I did not go

near it. But in the back end of the clachan I found the schoolmaster,

and got him to promise to send the wire. I also bought off him a couple

of well-worn sevenpenny novels.

The result was that I delayed our departure for ten minutes and when I

came on board faced a wrathful Gresson. “Where the hell have you been?”

he asked. “The weather’s blowing up dirty and the old man’s mad to get

off. Didn’t you get your legs stretched enough this afternoon?”

I explained humbly that I had been to the schoolmaster to get something

to read, and produced my dingy red volumes. At that his brow cleared. I

could see that his suspicions were set at rest.

We left Colonsay about six in the evening with the sky behind us

banking for a storm, and the hills of Jura to starboard an angry

purple. Colonsay was too low an island to be any kind of breakwater

against a western gale, so the weather was bad from the start. Our

course was north by east, and when we had passed the butt-end of the

island we nosed about in the trough of big seas, shipping tons of water

and rolling like a buffalo. I know as much about boats as about

Egyptian hieroglyphics, but even my landsman’s eyes could tell that we

were in for a rough night. I was determined not to get queasy again,

but when I went below the smell of tripe and onions promised to be my

undoing; so I dined off a slab of chocolate and a cabin biscuit, put on

my waterproof, and resolved to stick it out on deck.

I took up position near the bows, where I was out of reach of the oily

steamer smells. It was as fresh as the top of a mountain, but mighty

cold and wet, for a gusty drizzle had set in, and I got the spindrift

of the big waves. There I balanced myself, as we lurched into the

twilight, hanging on with one hand to a rope which descended from the

stumpy mast. I noticed that there was only an indifferent rail between

me and the edge, but that interested me and helped to keep off

sickness. I swung to the movement of the vessel, and though I was

mortally cold it was rather pleasant than otherwise. My notion was to

get the nausea whipped out of me by the weather, and, when I was

properly tired, to go down and turn in.

I stood there till the dark had fallen. By that time I was an

automaton, the way a man gets on sentry-go, and I could have easily

hung on till morning. My thoughts ranged about the earth, beginning

with the business I had set out on, and presently—by way of

recollections of Blenkiron and Peter—reaching the German forest where,

in the Christmas of 1915, I had been nearly done in by fever and old

Stumm. I remembered the bitter cold of that wild race, and the way the

snow seemed to burn like fire when I stumbled and got my face into it.

I reflected that sea-sickness was kitten’s play to a good bout of

malaria.

The weather was growing worse, and I was getting more than spindrift

from the seas. I hooked my arm round the rope, for my fingers were

numbing. Then I fell to dreaming again, principally about Fosse Manor

and Mary Lamington. This so ravished me that I was as good as asleep. I

was trying to reconstruct the picture as I had last seen her at

Biggleswick station....

A heavy body collided with me and shook my arm from the rope. I

slithered across the yard of deck, engulfed in a whirl of water. One

foot caught a stanchion of the rail, and it gave with me, so that for

an instant I was more than half overboard. But my fingers clawed wildly

and caught in the links of what must have been the anchor chain. They

held, though a ton’s weight seemed to be tugging at my feet.... Then

the old tub rolled back, the waters slipped off, and I was sprawling on

a wet deck with no breath in me and a gallon of brine in my windpipe.

I heard a voice cry out sharply, and a hand helped me to my feet. It

was Gresson, and he seemed excited.

“God, Mr Brand, that was a close call! I was coming up to find you,

when this damned ship took to lying on her side. I guess I must have

cannoned into you, and I was calling myself bad names when I saw you

rolling into the Atlantic. If I hadn’t got a grip on the rope I would

have been down beside you. Say, you’re not hurt? I reckon you’d better

come below and get a glass of rum under your belt. You’re about as wet

as mother’s dish-clouts.”

There’s one advantage about campaigning. You take your luck when it

comes and don’t worry about what might have been. I didn’t think any

more of the business, except that it had cured me of wanting to be

sea-sick. I went down to the reeking cabin without one qualm in my

stomach, and ate a good meal of welsh-rabbit and bottled Bass, with a

tot of rum to follow up with. Then I shed my wet garments, and slept in

my bunk till we anchored off a village in Mull in a clear blue morning.

It took us four days to crawl up that coast and make Oban, for we

seemed to be a floating general store for every hamlet in those parts.

Gresson made himself very pleasant, as if he wanted to atone for nearly

doing me in. We played some poker, and I read the little books I had

got in Colonsay, and then rigged up a fishing-line, and caught saithe

and lythe and an occasional big haddock. But I found the time pass

slowly, and I was glad that about noon one day we came into a bay

blocked with islands and saw a clean little town sitting on the hills

and the smoke of a railway engine.

I went ashore and purchased a better brand of hat in a tweed store.

Then I made a bee-line for the post office, and asked for telegrams.

One was given to me, and as I opened it I saw Gresson at my elbow.

It ran thus:

_Brand, Post office, Oban. Page_ 117, _paragraph_ 3. _Ochterlony._

I passed it to Gresson with a rueful face.

“There’s a piece of foolishness,” I said. “I’ve got a cousin who’s a

Presbyterian minister up in Ross-shire, and before I knew about this

passport humbug I wrote to him and offered to pay him a visit. I told

him to wire me here if it was convenient, and the old idiot has sent me

the wrong telegram. This was likely as not meant for some other brother

parson, who’s got my message instead.”

“What’s the guy’s name?” Gresson asked curiously, peering at the

signature.

“Ochterlony. David Ochterlony. He’s a great swell at writing books, but

he’s no earthly use at handling the telegraph. However, it don’t

signify, seeing I’m not going near him.” I crumpled up the pink form

and tossed it on the floor. Gresson and I walked to the _Tobermory_

together.

That afternoon, when I got a chance, I had out my _Pilgrim’s Progress_.

Page 117, paragraph 3, read:

“_Then I saw in my dream, that a little off the road, over against the

Silver-mine, stood Demas (gentlemanlike) to call to passengers to come

and see: who said to Christian and his fellow, Ho, turn aside hither

and I will show you a thing._

At tea I led the talk to my own past life. I yarned about my

experiences as a mining engineer, and said I could never get out of the

trick of looking at country with the eye of the prospector. “For

instance,” I said, “if this had been Rhodesia, I would have said there

was a good chance of copper in these little kopjes above the town.

They’re not unlike the hills round the Messina mine.” I told the

captain that after the war I was thinking of turning my attention to

the West Highlands and looking out for minerals.

“Ye’ll make nothing of it,” said the captain. “The costs are ower big,

even if ye found the minerals, for ye’d have to import a’ your labour.

The West Hielandman is no fond o’ hard work. Ye ken the psalm o’ the

crofter?

O that the peats would cut themselves,

The fish chump on the shore,

And that I in my bed might lie

Henceforth for ever more!

“Has it ever been tried?” I asked.

“Often. There’s marble and slate quarries, and there was word o’ coal

in Benbecula. And there’s the iron mines at Ranna.”

“Where’s that?” I asked.

“Up forenent Skye. We call in there, and generally bide a bit. There’s

a heap of cargo for Ranna, and we usually get a good load back. But as

I tell ye, there’s few Hielanders working there. Mostly Irish and lads

frae Fife and Falkirk way.”

I didn’t pursue the subject, for I had found Demas’s silver-mine. If

the _Tobermory_ lay at Ranna for a week, Gresson would have time to do

his own private business. Ranna would not be the spot, for the island

was bare to the world in the middle of a much-frequented channel. But

Skye was just across the way, and when I looked in my map at its big,

wandering peninsulas I concluded that my guess had been right, and that

Skye was the place to make for.

That night I sat on deck with Gresson, and in a wonderful starry

silence we watched the lights die out of the houses in the town, and

talked of a thousand things. I noticed—what I had had a hint of

before—that my companion was no common man. There were moments when he

forgot himself and talked like an educated gentleman: then he would

remember, and relapse into the lingo of Leadville, Colorado. In my

character of the ingenuous inquirer I set him posers about politics and

economics, the kind of thing I might have been supposed to pick up from

unintelligent browsing among little books. Generally he answered with

some slangy catchword, but occasionally he was interested beyond his

discretion, and treated me to a harangue like an equal. I discovered

another thing, that he had a craze for poetry, and a capacious memory

for it. I forgot how we drifted into the subject, but I remember he

quoted some queer haunting stuff which he said was Swinburne, and

verses by people I had heard of from Letchford at Biggleswick. Then he

saw by my silence that he had gone too far, and fell back into the

jargon of the West. He wanted to know about my plans, and we went down

into the cabin and had a look at the map. I explained my route, up

Morvern and round the head of Lochiel, and back to Oban by the east

side of Loch Linnhe.

“Got you,” he said. “You’ve a hell of a walk before you. That bug never

bit me, and I guess I’m not envying you any. And after that, Mr Brand?”

“Back to Glasgow to do some work for the cause,” I said lightly.

“Just so,” he said with a grin. “It’s a great life if you don’t

weaken.”

We steamed out of the bay next morning at dawn, and about nine o’clock

I got on shore at a little place called Lochaline. My kit was all on my

person, and my waterproof’s pockets were stuffed with chocolates and

biscuits I had bought in Oban. The captain was discouraging. “Ye’ll get

your bellyful o’ Hieland hills, Mr Brand, afore ye win round the loch

head. Ye’ll be wishin’ yerself back on the _Tobermory_.” But Gresson

speeded me joyfully on my way, and said he wished he were coming with

me. He even accompanied me the first hundred yards, and waved his hat

after me till I was round the turn of the road.

The first stage in that journey was pure delight. I was thankful to be

rid of the infernal boat, and the hot summer scents coming down the

glen were comforting after the cold, salt smell of the sea. The road

lay up the side of a small bay, at the top of which a big white house

stood among gardens. Presently I had left the coast and was in a glen

where a brown salmon-river swirled through acres of bog-myrtle. It had

its source in a loch, from which the mountain rose steeply—a place so

glassy in that August forenoon that every scar and wrinkle of the

hillside were faithfully reflected. After that I crossed a low pass to

the head of another sea-lock, and, following the map, struck over the

shoulder of a great hill and ate my luncheon far up on its side, with a

wonderful vista of wood and water below me.

All that morning I was very happy, not thinking about Gresson or Ivery,

but getting my mind clear in those wide spaces, and my lungs filled

with the brisk hill air. But I noticed one curious thing. On my last

visit to Scotland, when I covered more moorland miles a day than any

man since Claverhouse, I had been fascinated by the land, and had

pleased myself with plans for settling down in it. But now, after three

years of war and general rocketing, I felt less drawn to that kind of

landscape. I wanted something more green and peaceful and habitable,

and it was to the Cotswolds that my memory turned with longing.

I puzzled over this till I realised that in all my Cotswold pictures a

figure kept going and coming—a young girl with a cloud of gold hair and

the strong, slim grace of a boy, who had sung “Cherry Ripe” in a

moonlit garden. Up on that hillside I understood very clearly that I,

who had been as careless of women as any monk, had fallen wildly in

love with a child of half my age. I was loath to admit it, though for

weeks the conclusion had been forcing itself on me. Not that I didn’t

revel in my madness, but that it seemed too hopeless a business, and I

had no use for barren philandering. But, seated on a rock munching

chocolate and biscuits, I faced up to the fact and resolved to trust my

luck. After all we were comrades in a big job, and it was up to me to

be man enough to win her. The thought seemed to brace any courage that

was in me. No task seemed too hard with her approval to gain and her

companionship somewhere at the back of it. I sat for a long time in a

happy dream, remembering all the glimpses I had had of her, and humming

her song to an audience of one black-faced sheep.

On the highroad half a mile below me, I saw a figure on a bicycle

mounting the hill, and then getting off to mop its face at the summit.

I turned my Zeiss glasses on to it, and observed that it was a country

policeman. It caught sight of me, stared for a bit, tucked its machine

into the side of the road, and then very slowly began to climb the

hillside. Once it stopped, waved its hand and shouted something which I

could not hear. I sat finishing my luncheon, till the features were

revealed to me of a fat oldish man, blowing like a grampus, his cap

well on the back of a bald head, and his trousers tied about the shins

with string.

There was a spring beside me and I had out my flask to round off my

meal.

“Have a drink,” I said.

His eye brightened, and a smile overran his moist face.

“Thank you, sir. It will be very warrm coming up the brae.”

“You oughtn’t to,” I said. “You really oughtn’t, you know. Scorching up

hills and then doubling up a mountain are not good for your time of

life.”

He raised the cap of my flask in solemn salutation. “Your very good

health.” Then he smacked his lips, and had several cupfuls of water

from the spring.

“You will haf come from Achranich way, maybe?” he said in his soft

sing-song, having at last found his breath.

“Just so. Fine weather for the birds, if there was anybody to shoot

them.”

“Ah, no. There will be few shots fired today, for there are no

gentlemen left in Morvern. But I wass asking you, if you come from

Achranich, if you haf seen anybody on the road.”

From his pocket he extricated a brown envelope and a bulky telegraph

form. “Will you read it, sir, for I haf forgot my spectacles?”

It contained a description of one Brand, a South African and a

suspected character, whom the police were warned to stop and return to

Oban. The description wasn’t bad, but it lacked any one good

distinctive detail. Clearly the policeman took me for an innocent

pedestrian, probably the guest of some moorland shooting-box, with my

brown face and rough tweeds and hobnailed shoes.

I frowned and puzzled a little. “I did see a fellow about three miles

back on the hillside. There’s a public-house just where the burn comes

in, and I think he was making for it. Maybe that was your man. This

wire says ‘South African’; and now I remember the fellow had the look

of a colonial.”

The policeman sighed. “No doubt it will be the man. Perhaps he will haf

a pistol and will shoot.”

“Not him,” I laughed. “He looked a mangy sort of chap, and he’ll be

scared out of his senses at the sight of you. But take my advice and

get somebody with you before you tackle him. You’re always the better

of a witness.”

“That is so,” he said, brightening. “Ach, these are the bad times! in

old days there wass nothing to do but watch the doors at the

flower-shows and keep the yachts from poaching the sea-trout. But now

it is spies, spies, and ‘Donald, get out of your bed, and go off twenty

mile to find a German.’ I wass wishing the war wass by, and the Germans

all dead.”

“Hear, hear!” I cried, and on the strength of it gave him another dram.

I accompanied him to the road, and saw him mount his bicycle and

zig-zag like a snipe down the hill towards Achranich. Then I set off

briskly northward. It was clear that the faster I moved the better.

As I went I paid disgusted tribute to the efficiency of the Scottish

police. I wondered how on earth they had marked me down. Perhaps it was

the Glasgow meeting, or perhaps my association with Ivery at

Biggleswick. Anyhow there was somebody somewhere mighty quick at

compiling a _dossier_. Unless I wanted to be bundled back to Oban I

must make good speed to the Arisaig coast.

Presently the road fell to a gleaming sea-loch which lay like the blue

blade of a sword among the purple of the hills. At the head there was a

tiny clachan, nestled among birches and rowans, where a tawny burn

wound to the sea. When I entered the place it was about four o’clock in

the afternoon, and peace lay on it like a garment. In the wide, sunny

street there was no sign of life, and no sound except of hens clucking

and of bees busy among the roses. There was a little grey box of a

kirk, and close to the bridge a thatched cottage which bore the sign of

a post and telegraph office.

For the past hour I had been considering that I had better prepare for

mishaps. If the police of these parts had been warned they might prove

too much for me, and Gresson would be allowed to make his journey

unmatched. The only thing to do was to send a wire to Amos and leave

the matter in his hands. Whether that was possible or not depended upon

this remote postal authority.

I entered the little shop, and passed from bright sunshine to a

twilight smelling of paraffin and black-striped peppermint balls. An

old woman with a mutch sat in an arm-chair behind the counter. She

looked up at me over her spectacles and smiled, and I took to her on

the instant. She had the kind of old wise face that God loves.

Beside her I noticed a little pile of books, one of which was a Bible.

Open on her lap was a paper, the _United Free Church Monthly_. I

noticed these details greedily, for I had to make up my mind on the

part to play.

“It’s a warm day, mistress,” I said, my voice falling into the broad

Lowland speech, for I had an instinct that she was not of the

Highlands.

She laid aside her paper. “It is that, sir. It is grand weather for the

hairst, but here that’s no till the hinner end o’ September, and at the

best it’s a bit scart o’ aits.”

“Ay. It’s a different thing down Annandale way,” I said.

Her face lit up. “Are ye from Dumfries, sir?”

“Not just from Dumfries, but I know the Borders fine.”

“Ye’ll no beat them,” she cried. “Not that this is no a guid place and

I’ve muckle to be thankfu’ for since John Sanderson—that was ma

man—brought me here forty-seeven year syne come Martinmas. But the

aulder I get the mair I think o’ the bit whaur I was born. It was twae

miles from Wamphray on the Lockerbie road, but they tell me the place

is noo just a rickle o’ stanes.”

“I was wondering, mistress, if I could get a cup of tea in the

village.”

“Ye’ll hae a cup wi’ me,” she said. “It’s no often we see onybody frae

the Borders hereaways. The kettle’s just on the boil.”

She gave me tea and scones and butter, and black-currant jam, and

treacle biscuits that melted in the mouth. And as we ate we talked of

many things—chiefly of the war and of the wickedness of the world.

“There’s nae lads left here,” she said. “They a’ joined the Camerons,

and the feck o’ them fell at an awfu’ place called Lowse. John and me

never had no boys, jist the one lassie that’s married on Donald Frew,

the Strontian carrier. I used to vex mysel’ about it, but now I thank

the Lord that in His mercy He spared me sorrow. But I wad hae liked to

have had one laddie fechtin’ for his country. I whiles wish I was a

Catholic and could pit up prayers for the sodgers that are deid. It

maun be a great consolation.”

I whipped out the _Pilgrim’s Progress_ from my pocket. “That is the

grand book for a time like this.”

“Fine I ken it,” she said. “I got it for a prize in the Sabbath School

when I was a lassie.”

I turned the pages. I read out a passage or two, and then I seemed

struck with a sudden memory.

“This is a telegraph office, mistress. Could I trouble you to send a

telegram? You see I’ve a cousin that’s a minister in Ross-shire at the

Kyle, and him and me are great correspondents. He was writing about

something in the _Pilgrim’s Progress_ and I think I’ll send him a

telegram in answer.”

“A letter would be cheaper,” she said.

“Ay, but I’m on holiday and I’ve no time for writing.”

She gave me a form, and I wrote:

_Ochterlony. Post Office, Kyle.—Demas will be at his mine within the

week. Strive with him, lest I faint by the way._

“Ye’re unco lavish wi’ the words, sir,” was her only comment.

We parted with regret, and there was nearly a row when I tried to pay

for the tea. I was bidden remember her to one David Tudhole, farmer in

Nether Mirecleuch, the next time I passed by Wamphray.

The village was as quiet when I left it as when I had entered. I took

my way up the hill with an easier mind, for I had got off the telegram,

and I hoped I had covered my tracks. My friend the postmistress would,

if questioned, be unlikely to recognise any South African suspect in

the frank and homely traveller who had spoken with her of Annandale and

the _Pilgrim’s Progress_.

The soft mulberry gloaming of the west coast was beginning to fall on

the hills. I hoped to put in a dozen miles before dark to the next

village on the map, where I might find quarters. But ere I had gone far

I heard the sound of a motor behind me, and a car slipped past bearing

three men. The driver favoured me with a sharp glance, and clapped on

the brakes. I noted that the two men in the tonneau were carrying

sporting rifles.

“Hi, you, sir,” he cried. “Come here.” The two rifle-bearers—solemn

gillies—brought their weapons to attention.

“By God,” he said, “it’s the man. What’s your name? Keep him covered,

Angus.”

The gillies duly covered me, and I did not like the look of their

wavering barrels. They were obviously as surprised as myself.

I had about half a second to make my plans. I advanced with a very

stiff air, and asked him what the devil he meant. No Lowland Scots for

me now. My tone was that of an adjutant of a Guards’ battalion.

My inquisitor was a tall man in an ulster, with a green felt hat on his

small head. He had a lean, well-bred face, and very choleric blue eyes.

I set him down as a soldier, retired, Highland regiment or cavalry, old

style.

He produced a telegraph form, like the policeman.

“Middle height—strongly built—grey tweeds—brown hat—speaks with a

colonial accent—much sunburnt. What’s your name, sir?”

I did not reply in a colonial accent, but with the _hauteur_ of the

British officer when stopped by a French sentry. I asked him again what

the devil he had to do with my business. This made him angry and he

began to stammer.

“I’ll teach you what I have to do with it. I’m a deputy-lieutenant of

this county, and I have Admiralty instructions to watch the coast. Damn

it, sir, I’ve a wire here from the Chief Constable describing you.

You’re Brand, a very dangerous fellow, and we want to know what the

devil you’re doing here.”

As I looked at his wrathful eye and lean head, which could not have

held much brains, I saw that I must change my tone. If I irritated him

he would get nasty and refuse to listen and hang me up for hours. So my

voice became respectful.

“I beg your pardon, sir, but I’ve not been accustomed to be pulled up

suddenly, and asked for my credentials. My name is Blaikie, Captain

Robert Blaikie, of the Scots Fusiliers. I’m home on three weeks’ leave,

to get a little peace after Hooge. We were only hauled out five days

ago.” I hoped my old friend in the shell-shock hospital at Isham would

pardon my borrowing his identity.

The man looked puzzled. “How the devil am I to be satisfied about that?

Have you any papers to prove it?”

“Why, no. I don’t carry passports about with me on a walking tour. But

you can wire to the depot, or to my London address.”

He pulled at his yellow moustache. “I’m hanged if I know what to do. I

want to get home for dinner. I tell you what, sir, I’ll take you on

with me and put you up for the night. My boy’s at home, convalescing,

and if he says you’re _pukka_ I’ll ask your pardon and give you a

dashed good bottle of port. I’ll trust him and I warn you he’s a keen

hand.”

There was nothing to do but consent, and I got in beside him with an

uneasy conscience. Supposing the son knew the real Blaikie! I asked the

name of the boy’s battalion, and was told the 10th Seaforths. That

wasn’t pleasant hearing, for they had been brigaded with us on the

Somme. But Colonel Broadbury—for he told me his name—volunteered

another piece of news which set my mind at rest. The boy was not yet

twenty, and had only been out seven months. At Arras he had got a bit

of shrapnel in his thigh, which had played the deuce with the sciatic

nerve, and he was still on crutches.

We spun over ridges of moorland, always keeping northward, and brought

up at a pleasant white-washed house close to the sea. Colonel Broadbury

ushered me into a hall where a small fire of peats was burning, and on

a couch beside it lay a slim, pale-faced young man. He had dropped his

policeman’s manner, and behaved like a gentleman. “Ted,” he said, “I’ve

brought a friend home for the night. I went out to look for a suspect

and found a British officer. This is Captain Blaikie, of the Scots

Fusiliers.”

The boy looked at me pleasantly. “I’m very glad to meet you, sir.

You’ll excuse me not getting up, but I’ve got a game leg.” He was the

copy of his father in features, but dark and sallow where the other was

blond. He had just the same narrow head, and stubborn mouth, and

honest, quick-tempered eyes. It is the type that makes dashing

regimental officers, and earns V.C.s, and gets done in wholesale. I was

never that kind. I belonged to the school of the cunning cowards.

In the half-hour before dinner the last wisp of suspicion fled from my

host’s mind. For Ted Broadbury and I were immediately deep in “shop”. I

had met most of his senior officers, and I knew all about their doings

at Arras, for his brigade had been across the river on my left. We

fought the great fight over again, and yarned about technicalities and

slanged the Staff in the way young officers have, the father throwing

in questions that showed how mighty proud he was of his son. I had a

bath before dinner, and as he led me to the bathroom he apologised very

handsomely for his bad manners. “Your coming’s been a godsend for Ted.

He was moping a bit in this place. And, though I say it that shouldn’t,

he’s a dashed good boy.”

I had my promised bottle of port, and after dinner I took on the father

at billiards. Then we settled in the smoking-room, and I laid myself

out to entertain the pair. The result was that they would have me stay

a week, but I spoke of the shortness of my leave, and said I must get

on to the railway and then back to Fort William for my luggage.

So I spent that night between clean sheets, and ate a Christian

breakfast, and was given my host’s car to set me a bit on the road. I

dismissed it after half a dozen miles, and, following the map, struck

over the hills to the west. About midday I topped a ridge, and beheld

the Sound of Sleat shining beneath me. There were other things in the

landscape. In the valley on the right a long goods train was crawling

on the Mallaig railway. And across the strip of sea, like some fortress

of the old gods, rose the dark bastions and turrets of the hills of

Skye.

CHAPTER VI

The Skirts of the Coolin

Obviously I must keep away from the railway. If the police were after

me in Morvern, that line would be warned, for it was a barrier I must

cross if I were to go farther north. I observed from the map that it

turned up the coast, and concluded that the place for me to make for

was the shore south of that turn, where Heaven might send me some luck

in the boat line. For I was pretty certain that every porter and

station-master on that tin-pot outfit was anxious to make better

acquaintance with my humble self.

I lunched off the sandwiches the Broadburys had given me, and in the

bright afternoon made my way down the hill, crossed at the foot of a

small fresh-water lochan, and pursued the issuing stream through

midge-infested woods of hazels to its junction with the sea. It was

rough going, but very pleasant, and I fell into the same mood of idle

contentment that I had enjoyed the previous morning. I never met a

soul. Sometimes a roe deer broke out of the covert, or an old blackcock

startled me with his scolding. The place was bright with heather, still

in its first bloom, and smelt better than the myrrh of Arabia. It was a

blessed glen, and I was as happy as a king, till I began to feel the

coming of hunger, and reflected that the Lord alone knew when I might

get a meal. I had still some chocolate and biscuits, but I wanted

something substantial.

The distance was greater than I thought, and it was already twilight

when I reached the coast. The shore was open and desolate—great banks

of pebbles to which straggled alders and hazels from the hillside

scrub. But as I marched northward and turned a little point of land I

saw before me in a crook of the bay a smoking cottage. And, plodding

along by the water’s edge, was the bent figure of a man, laden with

nets and lobster pots. Also, beached on the shingle was a boat.

I quickened my pace and overtook the fisherman. He was an old man with

a ragged grey beard, and his rig was seaman’s boots and a much-darned

blue jersey. He was deaf, and did not hear me when I hailed him. When

he caught sight of me he never stopped, though he very solemnly

returned my good evening. I fell into step with him, and in his silent

company reached the cottage.

He halted before the door and unslung his burdens. The place was a

two-roomed building with a roof of thatch, and the walls all grown over

with a yellow-flowered creeper. When he had straightened his back, he

looked seaward and at the sky, as if to prospect the weather. Then he

turned on me his gentle, absorbed eyes. “It will haf been a fine day,

sir. Wass you seeking the road to anywhere?”

“I was seeking a night’s lodging,” I said. “I’ve had a long tramp on

the hills, and I’d be glad of a chance of not going farther.”

“We will haf no accommodation for a gentleman,” he said gravely.

“I can sleep on the floor, if you can give me a blanket and a bite of

supper.”

“Indeed you will not,” and he smiled slowly. “But I will ask the wife.

Mary, come here!”

An old woman appeared in answer to his call, a woman whose face was so

old that she seemed like his mother. In highland places one sex ages

quicker than the other.

“This gentleman would like to bide the night. I wass telling him that

we had a poor small house, but he says he will not be minding it.”

She looked at me with the timid politeness that you find only in

outland places.

“We can do our best, indeed, sir. The gentleman can have Colin’s bed in

the loft, but he will haf to be doing with plain food. Supper is ready

if you will come in now.”

I had a scrub with a piece of yellow soap at an adjacent pool in the

burn and then entered a kitchen blue with peat-reek. We had a meal of

boiled fish, oatcakes and skim-milk cheese, with cups of strong tea to

wash it down. The old folk had the manners of princes. They pressed

food on me, and asked me no questions, till for very decency’s sake I

had to put up a story and give some account of myself.

I found they had a son in the Argylls and a young boy in the Navy. But

they seemed disinclined to talk of them or of the war. By a mere

accident I hit on the old man’s absorbing interest. He was passionate

about the land. He had taken part in long-forgotten agitations, and had

suffered eviction in some ancient landlords’ quarrel farther north.

Presently he was pouring out to me all the woes of the crofter—woes

that seemed so antediluvian and forgotten that I listened as one would

listen to an old song. “You who come from a new country will not haf

heard of these things,” he kept telling me, but by that peat fire I

made up for my defective education. He told me of evictions in the

year. One somewhere in Sutherland, and of harsh doings in the Outer

Isles. It was far more than a political grievance. It was the lament of

the conservative for vanished days and manners. “Over in Skye wass the

fine land for black cattle, and every man had his bit herd on the

hillside. But the lairds said it wass better for sheep, and then they

said it wass not good for sheep, so they put it under deer, and now

there is no black cattle anywhere in Skye.” I tell you it was like sad

music on the bagpipes hearing that old fellow. The war and all things

modern meant nothing to him; he lived among the tragedies of his youth

and his prime.

I’m a Tory myself and a bit of a land-reformer, so we agreed well

enough. So well, that I got what I wanted without asking for it. I told

him I was going to Skye, and he offered to take me over in his boat in

the morning. “It will be no trouble. Indeed no. I will be going that

way myself to the fishing.”

I told him that after the war, every acre of British soil would have to

be used for the men that had earned the right to it. But that did not

comfort him. He was not thinking about the land itself, but about the

men who had been driven from it fifty years before. His desire was not

for reform, but for restitution, and that was past the power of any

Government. I went to bed in the loft in a sad, reflective mood,

considering how in speeding our newfangled plough we must break down a

multitude of molehills and how desirable and unreplaceable was the life

of the moles.

In brisk, shining weather, with a wind from the south-east, we put off

next morning. In front was a brown line of low hills, and behind them,

a little to the north, that black toothcomb of mountain range which I

had seen the day before from the Arisaig ridge.

“That is the Coolin,” said the fisherman. “It is a bad place where even

the deer cannot go. But all the rest of Skye wass the fine land for

black cattle.”

As we neared the coast, he pointed out many places. “Look there, Sir,

in that glen. I haf seen six cot houses smoking there, and now there is

not any left. There were three men of my own name had crofts on the

machars beyond the point, and if you go there you will only find the

marks of their bit gardens. You will know the place by the gean trees.”

When he put me ashore in a sandy bay between green ridges of bracken,

he was still harping upon the past. I got him to take a pound—for the

boat and not for the night’s hospitality, for he would have beaten me

with an oar if I had suggested that. The last I saw of him, as I turned

round at the top of the hill, he had still his sail down, and was

gazing at the lands which had once been full of human dwellings and now

were desolate.

I kept for a while along the ridge, with the Sound of Sleat on my

right, and beyond it the high hills of Knoydart and Kintail. I was

watching for the _Tobermory_, but saw no sign of her. A steamer put out

from Mallaig, and there were several drifters crawling up the channel

and once I saw the white ensign and a destroyer bustled northward,

leaving a cloud of black smoke in her wake. Then, after consulting the

map, I struck across country, still keeping the higher ground, but,

except at odd minutes, being out of sight of the sea. I concluded that

my business was to get to the latitude of Ranna without wasting time.

So soon as I changed my course I had the Coolin for company. Mountains

have always been a craze of mine, and the blackness and mystery of

those grim peaks went to my head. I forgot all about Fosse Manor and

the Cotswolds. I forgot, too, what had been my chief feeling since I

left Glasgow, a sense of the absurdity of my mission. It had all seemed

too far-fetched and whimsical. I was running apparently no great

personal risk, and I had always the unpleasing fear that Blenkiron

might have been too clever and that the whole thing might be a mare’s

nest. But that dark mountain mass changed my outlook. I began to have a

queer instinct that that was the place, that something might be

concealed there, something pretty damnable. I remember I sat on a top

for half an hour raking the hills with my glasses. I made out ugly

precipices, and glens which lost themselves in primeval blackness. When

the sun caught them—for it was a gleamy day—it brought out no colours,

only degrees of shade. No mountains I had ever seen—not the Drakensberg

or the red kopjes of Damaraland or the cold, white peaks around

Erzerum—ever looked so unearthly and uncanny.

Oddly enough, too, the sight of them set me thinking about Ivery. There

seemed no link between a smooth, sedentary being, dwelling in villas

and lecture-rooms, and that shaggy tangle of precipices. But I felt

there was, for I had begun to realise the bigness of my opponent.

Blenkiron had said that he spun his web wide. That was intelligible

enough among the half-baked youth of Biggleswick, and the pacifist

societies, or even the toughs on the Clyde. I could fit him in all

right to that picture. But that he should be playing his game among

those mysterious black crags seemed to make him bigger and more

desperate, altogether a different kind of proposition. I didn’t exactly

dislike the idea, for my objection to my past weeks had been that I was

out of my proper job, and this was more my line of country. I always

felt that I was a better bandit than a detective. But a sort of awe

mingled with my satisfaction. I began to feel about Ivery as I had felt

about the three devils of the Black Stone who had hunted me before the

war, and as I never felt about any other Hun. The men we fought at the

Front and the men I had run across in the Greenmantle business, even

old Stumm himself, had been human miscreants. They were formidable

enough, but you could gauge and calculate their capacities. But this

Ivery was like a poison gas that hung in the air and got into

unexpected crannies and that you couldn’t fight in an upstanding way.

Till then, in spite of Blenkiron’s solemnity, I had regarded him simply

as a problem. But now he seemed an intimate and omnipresent enemy,

intangible, too, as the horror of a haunted house. Up on that sunny

hillside, with the sea winds round me and the whaups calling, I got a

chill in my spine when I thought of him.

I am ashamed to confess it, but I was also horribly hungry. There was

something about the war that made me ravenous, and the less chance of

food the worse I felt. If I had been in London with twenty restaurants

open to me, I should as likely as not have gone off my feed. That was

the cussedness of my stomach. I had still a little chocolate left, and

I ate the fisherman’s buttered scones for luncheon, but long before the

evening my thoughts were dwelling on my empty interior.

I put up that night in a shepherd’s cottage miles from anywhere. The

man was called Macmorran, and he had come from Galloway when sheep were

booming. He was a very good imitation of a savage, a little fellow with

red hair and red eyes, who might have been a Pict. He lived with a

daughter who had once been in service in Glasgow, a fat young woman

with a face entirely covered with freckles and a pout of habitual

discontent. No wonder, for that cottage was a pretty mean place. It was

so thick with peat-reek that throat and eyes were always smarting. It

was badly built, and must have leaked like a sieve in a storm. The

father was a surly fellow, whose conversation was one long growl at the

world, the high prices, the difficulty of moving his sheep, the

meanness of his master, and the godforsaken character of Skye. “Here’s

me no seen baker’s bread for a month, and no company but a wheen

ignorant Hielanders that yatter Gawlic. I wish I was back in the

Glenkens. And I’d gang the morn if I could get paid what I’m awed.”

However, he gave me supper—a braxy ham and oatcake, and I bought the

remnants off him for use next day. I did not trust his blankets, so I

slept the night by the fire in the ruins of an arm-chair, and woke at

dawn with a foul taste in my mouth. A dip in the burn refreshed me, and

after a bowl of porridge I took the road again. For I was anxious to

get to some hill-top that looked over to Ranna.

Before midday I was close under the eastern side of the Coolin, on a

road which was more a rockery than a path. Presently I saw a big house

ahead of me that looked like an inn, so I gave it a miss and struck the

highway that led to it a little farther north. Then I bore off to the

east, and was just beginning to climb a hill which I judged stood

between me and the sea, when I heard wheels on the road and looked

back.

It was a farmer’s gig carrying one man. I was about half a mile off,

and something in the cut of his jib seemed familiar. I got my glasses

on him and made out a short, stout figure clad in a mackintosh, with a

woollen comforter round its throat. As I watched, it made a movement as

if to rub its nose on its sleeve. That was the pet trick of one man I

knew. Inconspicuously I slipped through the long heather so as to reach

the road ahead of the gig. When I rose like a wraith from the wayside

the horse started, but not the driver.

“So ye’re there,” said Amos’s voice. “I’ve news for ye. The _Tobermory_

will be in Ranna by now. She passed Broadford two hours syne. When I

saw her I yoked this beast and came up on the chance of foregathering

with ye.”

“How on earth did you know I would be here?” I asked in some surprise.

“Oh, I saw the way your mind was workin’ from your telegram. And says I

to mysel’—that man Brand, says I, is not the chiel to be easy stoppit.

But I was feared ye might be a day late, so I came up the road to hold

the fort. Man, I’m glad to see ye. Ye’re younger and soopler than me,

and yon Gresson’s a stirrin’ lad.”

“There’s one thing you’ve got to do for me,” I said. “I can’t go into

inns and shops, but I can’t do without food. I see from the map there’s

a town about six miles on. Go there and buy me anything that’s

tinned—biscuits and tongue and sardines, and a couple of bottles of

whisky if you can get them. This may be a long job, so buy plenty.”

“Whaur’ll I put them?” was his only question.

We fixed on a cache, a hundred yards from the highway in a place where

two ridges of hill enclosed the view so that only a short bit of road

was visible.

“I’ll get back to the Kyle,” he told me, “and a’body there kens Andra

Amos, if ye should find a way of sendin’ a message or comin’ yourself.

Oh, and I’ve got a word to ye from a lady that we ken of. She says, the

sooner ye’re back in Vawnity Fair the better she’ll be pleased, always

provided ye’ve got over the Hill Difficulty.”

A smile screwed up his old face and he waved his whip in farewell. I

interpreted Mary’s message as an incitement to speed, but I could not

make the pace. That was Gresson’s business. I think I was a little

nettled, till I cheered myself by another interpretation. She might be

anxious for my safety, she might want to see me again, anyhow the mere

sending of the message showed I was not forgotten. I was in a pleasant

muse as I breasted the hill, keeping discreetly in the cover of the

many gullies. At the top I looked down on Ranna and the sea.

There lay the _Tobermory_ busy unloading. It would be some time, no

doubt, before Gresson could leave. There was no row-boat in the channel

yet, and I might have to wait hours. I settled myself snugly between

two rocks, where I could not be seen, and where I had a clear view of

the sea and shore. But presently I found that I wanted some long

heather to make a couch, and I emerged to get some. I had not raised my

head for a second when I flopped down again. For I had a neighbour on

the hill-top.

He was about two hundred yards off, just reaching the crest, and,

unlike me, walking quite openly. His eyes were on Ranna, so he did not

notice me, but from my cover I scanned every line of him. He looked an

ordinary countryman, wearing badly cut, baggy knickerbockers of the

kind that gillies affect. He had a face like a Portuguese Jew, but I

had seen that type before among people with Highland names; they might

be Jews or not, but they could speak Gaelic. Presently he disappeared.

He had followed my example and selected a hiding-place.

It was a clear, hot day, but very pleasant in that airy place. Good

scents came up from the sea, the heather was warm and fragrant, bees

droned about, and stray seagulls swept the ridge with their wings. I

took a look now and then towards my neighbour, but he was deep in his

hidey-hole. Most of the time I kept my glasses on Ranna, and watched

the doings of the _Tobermory_. She was tied up at the jetty, but seemed

in no hurry to unload. I watched the captain disembark and walk up to a

house on the hillside. Then some idlers sauntered down towards her and

stood talking and smoking close to her side. The captain returned and

left again. A man with papers in his hand appeared, and a woman with

what looked like a telegram. The mate went ashore in his best clothes.

Then at last, after midday, Gresson appeared. He joined the captain at

the piermaster’s office, and presently emerged on the other side of the

jetty where some small boats were beached. A man from the _Tobermory_

came in answer to his call, a boat was launched, and began to make its

way into the channel. Gresson sat in the stern, placidly eating his

luncheon.

I watched every detail of that crossing with some satisfaction that my

forecast was turning out right. About half-way across, Gresson took the

oars, but soon surrendered them to the _Tobermory_ man, and lit a pipe.

He got out a pair of binoculars and raked my hillside. I tried to see

if my neighbour was making any signal, but all was quiet. Presently the

boat was hid from me by the bulge of the hill, and I caught the sound

of her scraping on the beach.

Gresson was not a hill-walker like my neighbour. It took him the best

part of an hour to get to the top, and he reached it at a point not two

yards from my hiding-place. I could hear by his labouring breath that

he was very blown. He walked straight over the crest till he was out of

sight of Ranna, and flung himself on the ground. He was now about fifty

yards from me, and I made shift to lessen the distance. There was a

grassy trench skirting the north side of the hill, deep and thickly

overgrown with heather. I wound my way along it till I was about twelve

yards from him, where I stuck, owing to the trench dying away. When I

peered out of the cover I saw that the other man had joined him and

that the idiots were engaged in embracing each other.

I dared not move an inch nearer, and as they talked in a low voice I

could hear nothing of what they said. Nothing except one phrase, which

the strange man repeated twice, very emphatically. “Tomorrow night,” he

said, and I noticed that his voice had not the Highland inflection

which I looked for. Gresson nodded and glanced at his watch, and then

the two began to move downhill towards the road I had travelled that

morning.

I followed as best I could, using a shallow dry watercourse of which

sheep had made a track, and which kept me well below the level of the

moor. It took me down the hill, but some distance from the line the

pair were taking, and I had to reconnoitre frequently to watch their

movements. They were still a quarter of a mile or so from the road,

when they stopped and stared, and I stared with them. On that lonely

highway travellers were about as rare as roadmenders, and what caught

their eye was a farmer’s gig driven by a thick-set elderly man with a

woollen comforter round his neck.

I had a bad moment, for I reckoned that if Gresson recognised Amos he

might take fright. Perhaps the driver of the gig thought the same, for

he appeared to be very drunk. He waved his whip, he jiggoted the reins,

and he made an effort to sing. He looked towards the figures on the

hillside, and cried out something. The gig narrowly missed the ditch,

and then to my relief the horse bolted. Swaying like a ship in a gale,

the whole outfit lurched out of sight round the corner of hill where

lay my cache. If Amos could stop the beast and deliver the goods there,

he had put up a masterly bit of buffoonery.

The two men laughed at the performance, and then they parted. Gresson

retraced his steps up the hill. The other man—I called him in my mind

the Portuguese Jew—started off at a great pace due west, across the

road, and over a big patch of bog towards the northern butt of the

Coolin. He had some errand, which Gresson knew about, and he was in a

hurry to perform it. It was clearly my job to get after him.

I had a rotten afternoon. The fellow covered the moorland miles like a

deer, and under the hot August sun I toiled on his trail. I had to keep

well behind, and as much as possible in cover, in case he looked back;

and that meant that when he had passed over a ridge I had to double not

to let him get too far ahead, and when we were in an open place I had

to make wide circuits to keep hidden. We struck a road which crossed a

low pass and skirted the flank of the mountains, and this we followed

till we were on the western side and within sight of the sea. It was

gorgeous weather, and out on the blue water I saw cool sails moving and

little breezes ruffling the calm, while I was glowing like a furnace.

Happily I was in fair training, and I needed it. The Portuguese Jew

must have done a steady six miles an hour over abominable country.

About five o’clock we came to a point where I dared not follow. The

road ran flat by the edge of the sea, so that several miles of it were

visible. Moreover, the man had begun to look round every few minutes.

He was getting near something and wanted to be sure that no one was in

his neighbourhood. I left the road accordingly, and took to the

hillside, which to my undoing was one long cascade of screes and

tumbled rocks. I saw him drop over a rise which seemed to mark the rim

of a little bay into which descended one of the big corries of the

mountains. It must have been a good half-hour later before I, at my

greater altitude and with far worse going, reached the same rim. I

looked into the glen and my man had disappeared.

He could not have crossed it, for the place was wider than I had

thought. A ring of black precipices came down to within half a mile of

the shore, and between them was a big stream—long, shallow pools at the

sea end and a chain of waterfalls above. He had gone to earth like a

badger somewhere, and I dared not move in case he might be watching me

from behind a boulder.

But even as I hesitated he appeared again, fording the stream, his face

set on the road we had come. Whatever his errand was he had finished

it, and was posting back to his master. For a moment I thought I should

follow him, but another instinct prevailed. He had not come to this

wild place for the scenery. Somewhere down in the glen there was

something or somebody that held the key of the mystery. It was my

business to stay there till I had unlocked it. Besides, in two hours it

would be dark, and I had had enough walking for one day.

I made my way to the stream side and had a long drink. The corrie

behind me was lit up with the westering sun, and the bald cliffs were

flushed with pink and gold. On each side of the stream was turf like a

lawn, perhaps a hundred yards wide, and then a tangle of long heather

and boulders right up to the edge of the great rocks. I had never seen

a more delectable evening, but I could not enjoy its peace because of

my anxiety about the Portuguese Jew. He had not been there more than

half an hour, just about long enough for a man to travel to the first

ridge across the burn and back. Yet he had found time to do his

business. He might have left a letter in some prearranged place—in

which case I would stay there till the man it was meant for turned up.

Or he might have met someone, though I didn’t think that possible. As I

scanned the acres of rough moor and then looked at the sea lapping

delicately on the grey sand I had the feeling that a knotty problem was

before me. It was too dark to try to track his steps. That must be left

for the morning, and I prayed that there would be no rain in the night.

I ate for supper most of the braxy ham and oatcake I had brought from

Macmorran’s cottage. It took some self-denial, for I was ferociously

hungry, to save a little for breakfast next morning. Then I pulled

heather and bracken and made myself a bed in the shelter of a rock

which stood on a knoll above the stream. My bed-chamber was well

hidden, but at the same time, if anything should appear in the early

dawn, it gave me a prospect. With my waterproof I was perfectly warm,

and, after smoking two pipes, I fell asleep.

My night’s rest was broken. First it was a fox which came and barked at

my ear and woke me to a pitch-black night, with scarcely a star

showing. The next time it was nothing but a wandering hill-wind, but as

I sat up and listened I thought I saw a spark of light near the edge of

the sea. It was only for a second, but it disquieted me. I got out and

climbed on the top of the rock, but all was still save for the gentle

lap of the tide and the croak of some night bird among the crags. The

third time I was suddenly quite wide awake, and without any reason, for

I had not been dreaming. Now I have slept hundreds of times alone

beside my horse on the veld, and I never knew any cause for such

awakenings but the one, and that was the presence near me of some human

being. A man who is accustomed to solitude gets this extra sense which

announces like an alarm-clock the approach of one of his kind.

But I could hear nothing. There was a scraping and rustling on the

moor, but that was only the wind and the little wild things of the

hills. A fox, perhaps, or a blue hare. I convinced my reason, but not

my senses, and for long I lay awake with my ears at full cock and every

nerve tense. Then I fell asleep, and woke to the first flush of dawn.

The sun was behind the Coolin and the hills were black as ink, but far

out in the western seas was a broad band of gold. I got up and went

down to the shore. The mouth of the stream was shallow, but as I moved

south I came to a place where two small capes enclosed an inlet. It

must have been a fault in the volcanic rock, for its depth was

portentous. I stripped and dived far into its cold abysses, but I did

not reach the bottom. I came to the surface rather breathless, and

struck out to sea, where I floated on my back and looked at the great

rampart of crag. I saw that the place where I had spent the night was

only a little oasis of green at the base of one of the grimmest corries

the imagination could picture. It was as desert as Damaraland. I

noticed, too, how sharply the cliffs rose from the level. There were

chimneys and gullies by which a man might have made his way to the

summit, but no one of them could have been scaled except by a

mountaineer.

I was feeling better now, with all the frowsiness washed out of me, and

I dried myself by racing up and down the heather. Then I noticed

something. There were marks of human feet at the top of the deep-water

inlet—not mine, for they were on the other side. The short sea-turf was

bruised and trampled in several places, and there were broken stems of

bracken. I thought that some fisherman had probably landed there to

stretch his legs.

But that set me thinking of the Portuguese Jew. After breakfasting on

my last morsels of food—a knuckle of braxy and a bit of oatcake—I set

about tracking him from the place where he had first entered the glen.

To get my bearings, I went back over the road I had come myself, and

after a good deal of trouble I found his spoor. It was pretty clear as

far as the stream, for he had been walking—or rather running—over

ground with many patches of gravel on it. After that it was difficult,

and I lost it entirely in the rough heather below the crags. All that I

could make out for certain was that he had crossed the stream, and that

his business, whatever it was, had been with the few acres of tumbled

wilderness below the precipices.

I spent a busy morning there, but found nothing except the skeleton of

a sheep picked clean by the ravens. It was a thankless job, and I got

very cross over it. I had an ugly feeling that I was on a false scent

and wasting my time. I wished to Heaven I had old Peter with me. He

could follow spoor like a Bushman, and would have riddled the

Portuguese Jew’s track out of any jungle on earth. That was a game I

had never learned, for in the old days I had always left it to my

natives. I chucked the attempt, and lay disconsolately on a warm patch

of grass and smoked and thought about Peter. But my chief reflections

were that I had breakfasted at five, that it was now eleven, that I was

intolerably hungry, that there was nothing here to feed a grasshopper,

and that I should starve unless I got supplies.

It was a long road to my cache, but there were no two ways of it. My

only hope was to sit tight in the glen, and it might involve a wait of

days. To wait I must have food, and, though it meant relinquishing

guard for a matter of six hours, the risk had to be taken. I set off at

a brisk pace with a very depressed mind.

From the map it seemed that a short cut lay over a pass in the range. I

resolved to take it, and that short cut, like most of its kind, was

unblessed by Heaven. I will not dwell upon the discomforts of the

journey. I found myself slithering among screes, climbing steep

chimneys, and travelling precariously along razor-backs. The shoes were

nearly rent from my feet by the infernal rocks, which were all pitted

as if by some geological small-pox. When at last I crossed the divide,

I had a horrible business getting down from one level to another in a

gruesome corrie, where each step was composed of smooth boiler-plates.

But at last I was among the bogs on the east side, and came to the

place beside the road where I had fixed my cache.

The faithful Amos had not failed me. There were the provisions—a couple

of small loaves, a dozen tins, and a bottle of whisky. I made the best

pack I could of them in my waterproof, swung it on my stick, and

started back, thinking that I must be very like the picture of

Christian on the title-page of _Pilgrim’s Progress_.

I was liker Christian before I reached my destination—Christian after

he had got up the Hill Difficulty. The morning’s walk had been bad, but

the afternoon’s was worse, for I was in a fever to get back, and,

having had enough of the hills, chose the longer route I had followed

the previous day. I was mortally afraid of being seen, for I cut a

queer figure, so I avoided every stretch of road where I had not a

clear view ahead. Many weary detours I made among moss-hags and screes

and the stony channels of burns. But I got there at last, and it was

almost with a sense of comfort that I flung my pack down beside the

stream where I had passed the night.

I ate a good meal, lit my pipe, and fell into the equable mood which

follows upon fatigue ended and hunger satisfied. The sun was westering,

and its light fell upon the rock-wall above the place where I had

abandoned my search for the spoor.

As I gazed at it idly I saw a curious thing.

It seemed to be split in two and a shaft of sunlight came through

between. There could be no doubt about it. I saw the end of the shaft

on the moor beneath, while all the rest lay in shadow. I rubbed my

eyes, and got out my glasses. Then I guessed the explanation. There was

a rock tower close against the face of the main precipice and

indistinguishable from it to anyone looking direct at the face. Only

when the sun fell on it obliquely could it be discovered. And between

the tower and the cliff there must be a substantial hollow.

The discovery brought me to my feet, and set me running towards the end

of the shaft of sunlight. I left the heather, scrambled up some yards

of screes, and had a difficult time on some very smooth slabs, where

only the friction of tweed and rough rock gave me a hold. Slowly I

worked my way towards the speck of sunlight, till I found a handhold,

and swung myself into the crack. On one side was the main wall of the

hill, on the other a tower some ninety feet high, and between them a

long crevice varying in width from three to six feet. Beyond it there

showed a small bright patch of sea.

There was more, for at the point where I entered it there was an

overhang which made a fine cavern, low at the entrance but a dozen feet

high inside, and as dry as tinder. Here, thought I, is the perfect

hiding-place. Before going farther I resolved to return for food. It

was not very easy descending, and I slipped the last twenty feet,

landing on my head in a soft patch of screes. At the burnside I filled

my flask from the whisky bottle, and put half a loaf, a tin of

sardines, a tin of tongue, and a packet of chocolate in my waterproof

pockets. Laden as I was, it took me some time to get up again, but I

managed it, and stored my belongings in a corner of the cave. Then I

set out to explore the rest of the crack.

It slanted down and then rose again to a small platform. After that it

dropped in easy steps to the moor beyond the tower. If the Portuguese

Jew had come here, that was the way by which he had reached it, for he

would not have had the time to make my ascent. I went very cautiously,

for I felt I was on the eve of a big discovery. The platform was partly

hidden from my end by a bend in the crack, and it was more or less

screened by an outlying bastion of the tower from the other side. Its

surface was covered with fine powdery dust, as were the steps beyond

it. In some excitement I knelt down and examined it.

Beyond doubt there was spoor here. I knew the Portuguese Jew’s

footmarks by this time, and I made them out clearly, especially in one

corner. But there were other footsteps, quite different. The one showed

the rackets of rough country boots, the others were from un-nailed

soles. Again I longed for Peter to make certain, though I was pretty

sure of my conclusions. The man I had followed had come here, and he

had not stayed long. Someone else had been here, probably later, for

the un-nailed shoes overlaid the rackets. The first man might have left

a message for the second. Perhaps the second was that human presence of

which I had been dimly conscious in the night-time.

I carefully removed all traces of my own footmarks, and went back to my

cave. My head was humming with my discovery. I remembered Gresson’s

word to his friend: “Tomorrow night.” As I read it, the Portuguese Jew

had taken a message from Gresson to someone, and that someone had come

from somewhere and picked it up. The message contained an assignation

for this very night. I had found a point of observation, for no one was

likely to come near my cave, which was reached from the moor by such a

toilsome climb. There I should bivouac and see what the darkness

brought forth. I remember reflecting on the amazing luck which had so

far attended me. As I looked from my refuge at the blue haze of

twilight creeping over the waters, I felt my pulses quicken with a wild

anticipation.

Then I heard a sound below me, and craned my neck round the edge of the

tower. A man was climbing up the rock by the way I had come.

CHAPTER VII

I Hear of the Wild Birds

I saw an old green felt hat, and below it lean tweed-clad shoulders.

Then I saw a knapsack with a stick slung through it, as the owner

wriggled his way on to a shelf. Presently he turned his face upward to

judge the remaining distance. It was the face of a young man, a face

sallow and angular, but now a little flushed with the day’s sun and the

work of climbing. It was a face that I had first seen at Fosse Manor.

I felt suddenly sick and heartsore. I don’t know why, but I had never

really associated the intellectuals of Biggleswick with a business like

this. None of them but Ivery, and he was different. They had been silly

and priggish, but no more—I would have taken my oath on it. Yet here

was one of them engaged in black treason against his native land.

Something began to beat in my temples when I remembered that Mary and

this man had been friends, that he had held her hand, and called her by

her Christian name. My first impulse was to wait till he got up and

then pitch him down among the boulders and let his German accomplices

puzzle over his broken neck.

With difficulty I kept down that tide of fury. I had my duty to do, and

to keep on terms with this man was part of it. I had to convince him

that I was an accomplice, and that might not be easy. I leaned over the

edge, and, as he got to his feet on the ledge above the boiler-plates,

I whistled so that he turned his face to me.

“Hullo, Wake,” I said.

He started, stared for a second, and recognised me. He did not seem

over-pleased to see me.

“Brand!” he cried. “How did you get here?”

He swung himself up beside me, straightened his back and unbuckled his

knapsack. “I thought this was my own private sanctuary, and that nobody

knew it but me. Have you spotted the cave? It’s the best bedroom in

Skye.” His tone was, as usual, rather acid.

That little hammer was beating in my head. I longed to get my hands on

his throat and choke the smug treason in him. But I kept my mind fixed

on one purpose—to persuade him that I shared his secret and was on his

side. His off-hand self-possession seemed only the clever screen of the

surprised conspirator who was hunting for a plan.

We entered the cave, and he flung his pack into a corner. “Last time I

was here,” he said, “I covered the floor with heather. We must get some

more if we would sleep soft.” In the twilight he was a dim figure, but

he seemed a new man from the one I had last seen in the Moot Hall at

Biggleswick. There was a wiry vigour in his body and a purpose in his

face. What a fool I had been to set him down as no more than a

conceited _flâneur!_

He went out to the shelf again and sniffed the fresh evening. There was

a wonderful red sky in the west, but in the crevice the shades had

fallen, and only the bright patches at either end told of the sunset.

“Wake,” I said, “you and I have to understand each other. I’m a friend

of Ivery and I know the meaning of this place. I discovered it by

accident, but I want you to know that I’m heart and soul with you. You

may trust me in tonight’s job as if I were Ivery himself.”

He swung round and looked at me sharply. His eyes were hot again, as I

remembered them at our first meeting.

“What do you mean? How much do you know?”

The hammer was going hard in my forehead, and I had to pull myself

together to answer.

“I know that at the end of this crack a message was left last night,

and that someone came out of the sea and picked it up. That someone is

coming again when darkness falls, and there will be another message.”

He had turned his head away. “You are talking nonsense. No submarine

could land on this coast.”

I could see that he was trying me.

“This morning,” I said, “I swam in the deep-water inlet below us. It is

the most perfect submarine shelter in Britain.”

He still kept his face from me, looking the way he had come. For a

moment he was silent, and then he spoke in the bitter, drawling voice

which had annoyed me at Fosse Manor.

“How do you reconcile this business with your principles, Mr Brand? You

were always a patriot, I remember, though you didn’t see eye to eye

with the Government.”

It was not quite what I expected and I was unready. I stammered in my

reply. “It’s because I am a patriot that I want peace. I think that....

I mean....”

“Therefore you are willing to help the enemy to win?”

“They have already won. I want that recognised and the end hurried on.”

I was getting my mind clearer and continued fluently.

“The longer the war lasts, the worse this country is ruined. We must

make the people realise the truth, and—”

But he swung round suddenly, his eyes blazing.

“You blackguard!” he cried, “you damnable blackguard!” And he flung

himself on me like a wild-cat.

I had got my answer. He did not believe me, he knew me for a spy, and

he was determined to do me in. We were beyond finesse now, and back at

the old barbaric game. It was his life or mine. The hammer beat

furiously in my head as we closed, and a fierce satisfaction rose in my

heart.

He never had a chance, for though he was in good trim and had the

light, wiry figure of the mountaineer, he hadn’t a quarter of my

muscular strength. Besides, he was wrongly placed, for he had the

outside station. Had he been on the inside he might have toppled me

over the edge by his sudden assault. As it was, I grappled him and

forced him to the ground, squeezing the breath out of his body in the

process. I must have hurt him considerably, but he never gave a cry.

With a good deal of trouble I lashed his hands behind his back with the

belt of my waterproof, carried him inside the cave and laid him in the

dark end of it. Then I tied his feet with the strap of his own

knapsack. I would have to gag him, but that could wait.

I had still to contrive a plan of action for the night, for I did not

know what part he had been meant to play in it. He might be the

messenger instead of the Portuguese Jew, in which case he would have

papers about his person. If he knew of the cave, others might have the

same knowledge, and I had better shift him before they came. I looked

at my wrist-watch, and the luminous dial showed that the hour was half

past nine.

Then I noticed that the bundle in the corner was sobbing. It was a

horrid sound and it worried me. I had a little pocket electric torch

and I flashed it on Wake’s face. If he was crying, it was with dry

eyes.

“What are you going to do with me?” he asked.

“That depends,” I said grimly.

“Well, I’m ready. I may be a poor creature, but I’m damned if I’m

afraid of you, or anything like you.” That was a brave thing to say,

for it was a lie; his teeth were chattering.

“I’m ready for a deal,” I said.

“You won’t get it,” was his answer. “Cut my throat if you mean to, but

for God’s sake don’t insult me.... I choke when I think about you. You

come to us and we welcome you, and receive you in our houses, and tell

you our inmost thoughts, and all the time you’re a bloody traitor. You

want to sell us to Germany. You may win now, but by God! your time will

come! That is my last word to you ... you swine!”

The hammer stopped beating in my head. I saw myself suddenly as a

blind, preposterous fool. I strode over to Wake, and he shut his eyes

as if he expected a blow. Instead I unbuckled the straps which held his

legs and arms.

“Wake, old fellow,” I said, “I’m the worst kind of idiot. I’ll eat all

the dirt you want. I’ll give you leave to knock me black and blue, and

I won’t lift a hand. But not now. Now we’ve another job on hand. Man,

we’re on the same side and I never knew it. It’s too bad a case for

apologies, but if it’s any consolation to you I feel the lowest dog in

Europe at this moment.”

He was sitting up rubbing his bruised shoulders. “What do you mean?” he

asked hoarsely.

“I mean that you and I are allies. My name’s not Brand. I’m a soldier—a

general, if you want to know. I went to Biggleswick under orders, and I

came chasing up here on the same job. Ivery’s the biggest German agent

in Britain and I’m after him. I’ve struck his communication lines, and

this very night, please God, we’ll get the last clue to the riddle. Do

you hear? We’re in this business together, and you’ve got to lend a

hand.”

I told him briefly the story of Gresson, and how I had tracked his man

here. As I talked we ate our supper, and I wish I could have watched

Wake’s face. He asked questions, for he wasn’t convinced in a hurry. I

think it was my mention of Mary Lamington that did the trick. I don’t

know why, but that seemed to satisfy him. But he wasn’t going to give

himself away.

“You may count on me,” he said, “for this is black, blackguardly

treason. But you know my politics, and I don’t change them for this.

I’m more against your accursed war than ever, now that I know what war

involves.”

“Right-o,” I said, “I’m a pacifist myself. You won’t get any heroics

about war from me. I’m all for peace, but we’ve got to down those

devils first.”

It wasn’t safe for either of us to stick in that cave, so we cleared

away the marks of our occupation, and hid our packs in a deep crevice

on the rock. Wake announced his intention of climbing the tower, while

there was still a faint afterglow of light. “It’s broad on the top, and

I can keep a watch out to sea if any light shows. I’ve been up it

before. I found the way two years ago. No, I won’t fall asleep and

tumble off. I slept most of the afternoon on the top of Sgurr

Vhiconnich, and I’m as wakeful as a bat now.”

I watched him shin up the face of the tower, and admired greatly the

speed and neatness with which he climbed. Then I followed the crevice

southward to the hollow just below the platform where I had found the

footmarks. There was a big boulder there, which partly shut off the

view of it from the direction of our cave. The place was perfect for my

purpose, for between the boulder and the wall of the tower was a narrow

gap, through which I could hear all that passed on the platform. I

found a stance where I could rest in comfort and keep an eye through

the crack on what happened beyond.

There was still a faint light on the platform, but soon that

disappeared and black darkness settled down on the hills. It was the

dark of the moon, and, as had happened the night before, a thin wrack

blew over the sky, hiding the stars. The place was very still, though

now and then would come the cry of a bird from the crags that beetled

above me, and from the shore the pipe of a tern or oyster-catcher. An

owl hooted from somewhere up on the tower. That I reckoned was Wake, so

I hooted back and was answered. I unbuckled my wrist-watch and pocketed

it, lest its luminous dial should betray me; and I noticed that the

hour was close on eleven. I had already removed my shoes, and my jacket

was buttoned at the collar so as to show no shirt. I did not think that

the coming visitor would trouble to explore the crevice beyond the

platform, but I wanted to be prepared for emergencies.

Then followed an hour of waiting. I felt wonderfully cheered and

exhilarated, for Wake had restored my confidence in human nature. In

that eerie place we were wrapped round with mystery like a fog. Some

unknown figure was coming out of the sea, the emissary of that Power we

had been at grips with for three years. It was as if the war had just

made contact with our own shores, and never, not even when I was alone

in the South German forest, had I felt so much the sport of a whimsical

fate. I only wished Peter could have been with me. And so my thoughts

fled to Peter in his prison camp, and I longed for another sight of my

old friend as a girl longs for her lover.

Then I heard the hoot of an owl, and presently the sound of careful

steps fell on my ear. I could see nothing, but I guessed it was the

Portuguese Jew, for I could hear the grinding of heavily nailed boots

on the gritty rock.

The figure was very quiet. It appeared to be sitting down, and then it

rose and fumbled with the wall of the tower just beyond the boulder

behind which I sheltered. It seemed to move a stone and to replace it.

After that came silence, and then once more the hoot of an owl. There

were steps on the rock staircase, the steps of a man who did not know

the road well and stumbled a little. Also they were the steps of one

without nails in his boots.

They reached the platform and someone spoke. It was the Portuguese Jew

and he spoke in good German.

“_Die Vögelein schweigen im Walde,_” he said.

The answer came from a clear, authoritative voice.

“_Warte nur, balde ruhest du auch._”

Clearly some kind of password, for sane men don’t talk about little

birds in that kind of situation. It sounded to me like indifferent

poetry.

Then followed a conversation in low tones, of which I only caught odd

phrases. I heard two names—_Chelius_ and what sounded like a Dutch

word, _Bommaerts_. Then to my joy I caught _Elfenbein_, and when

uttered it seemed to be followed by a laugh. I heard too a phrase

several times repeated, which seemed to me to be pure gibberish—_Die

Stubenvögel verstehn_. It was spoken by the man from the sea. And then

the word _Wildvögel_. The pair seemed demented about birds.

For a second an electric torch was flashed in the shelter of the rock,

and I could see a tanned, bearded face looking at some papers. The

light disappeared, and again the Portuguese Jew was fumbling with the

stones at the base of the tower. To my joy he was close to my crack,

and I could hear every word. “You cannot come here very often,” he

said, “and it may be hard to arrange a meeting. See, therefore, the

place I have made to put the _Vögelfutter_. When I get a chance I will

come here, and you will come also when you are able. Often there will

be nothing, but sometimes there will be much.”

My luck was clearly in, and my exultation made me careless. A stone, on

which a foot rested, slipped and though I checked myself at once, the

confounded thing rolled down into the hollow, making a great clatter. I

plastered myself in the embrasure of the rock and waited with a beating

heart. The place was pitch dark, but they had an electric torch, and if

they once flashed it on me I was gone. I heard them leave the platform

and climb down into the hollow. There they stood listening, while I

held my breath. Then I heard “_Nix, mein freund,_” and the two went

back, the naval officer’s boots slipping on the gravel.

They did not leave the platform together. The man from the sea bade a

short farewell to the Portuguese Jew, listening, I thought, impatiently

to his final message as if eager to be gone. It was a good half-hour

before the latter took himself off, and I heard the sound of his nailed

boots die away as he reached the heather of the moor.

I waited a little longer, and then crawled back to the cave. The owl

hooted, and presently Wake descended lightly beside me; he must have

known every foothold and handhold by heart to do the job in that inky

blackness. I remember that he asked no question of me, but he used

language rare on the lips of conscientious objectors about the men who

had lately been in the crevice. We, who four hours earlier had been at

death grips, now curled up on the hard floor like two tired dogs, and

fell sound asleep.

I woke to find Wake in a thundering bad temper. The thing he remembered

most about the night before was our scrap and the gross way I had

insulted him. I didn’t blame him, for if any man had taken me for a

German spy I would have been out for his blood, and it was no good

explaining that he had given me grounds for suspicion. He was as touchy

about his blessed principles as an old maid about her age. I was

feeling rather extra buckish myself and that didn’t improve matters.

His face was like a gargoyle as we went down to the beach to bathe, so

I held my tongue. He was chewing the cud of his wounded pride.

But the salt water cleared out the dregs of his distemper. You couldn’t

be peevish swimming in that jolly, shining sea. We raced each other

away beyond the inlet to the outer water, which a brisk morning breeze

was curling. Then back to a promontory of heather, where the first

beams of the sun coming over the Coolin dried our skins. He sat hunched

up staring at the mountains while I prospected the rocks at the edge.

Out in the Minch two destroyers were hurrying southward, and I wondered

where in that waste of blue was the craft which had come here in the

night watches.

I found the spoor of the man from the sea quite fresh on a patch of

gravel above the tide-mark.

“There’s our friend of the night,” I said.

“I believe the whole thing was a whimsy,” said Wake, his eyes on the

chimneys of Sgurr Dearg. “They were only two natives—poachers, perhaps,

or tinkers.”

“They don’t speak German in these parts.”

“It was Gaelic probably.”

“What do you make of this, then?” and I quoted the stuff about birds

with which they had greeted each other.

Wake looked interested. “That’s _Uber allen Gipfeln_. Have you ever

read Goethe?”

“Never a word. And what do you make of that?” I pointed to a flat rock

below tide-mark covered with a tangle of seaweed. It was of a softer

stone than the hard stuff in the hills and somebody had scraped off

half the seaweed and a slice of the side. “That wasn’t done yesterday

morning, for I had my bath here.”

Wake got up and examined the place. He nosed about in the crannies of

the rocks lining the inlet, and got into the water again to explore

better. When he joined me he was smiling. “I apologise for my

scepticism,” he said. “There’s been some petrol-driven craft here in

the night. I can smell it, for I’ve a nose like a retriever. I daresay

you’re on the right track. Anyhow, though you seem to know a bit about

German, you could scarcely invent immortal poetry.”

We took our belongings to a green crook of the burn, and made a very

good breakfast. Wake had nothing in his pack but plasmon biscuits and

raisins, for that, he said, was his mountaineering provender, but he

was not averse to sampling my tinned stuff. He was a different-sized

fellow out in the hills from the anaemic intellectual of Biggleswick.

He had forgotten his beastly self-consciousness, and spoke of his hobby

with a serious passion. It seemed he had scrambled about everywhere in

Europe, from the Caucasus to the Pyrenees. I could see he must be good

at the job, for he didn’t brag of his exploits. It was the mountains

that he loved, not wriggling his body up hard places. The Coolin, he

said, were his favourites, for on some of them you could get two

thousand feet of good rock. We got our glasses on the face of Sgurr

Alasdair, and he sketched out for me various ways of getting to its

grim summit. The Coolin and the Dolomites for him, for he had grown

tired of the Chamonix _aiguilles_. I remember he described with

tremendous gusto the joys of early dawn in Tyrol, when you ascended

through acres of flowery meadows to a tooth of clean white limestone

against a clean blue sky. He spoke, too, of the little wild hills in

the Bavarian Wettersteingebirge, and of a guide he had picked up there

and trained to the job.

“They called him Sebastian Buchwieser. He was the jolliest boy you ever

saw, and as clever on crags as a chamois. He is probably dead by now,

dead in a filthy jaeger battalion. That’s you and your accursed war.”

“Well, we’ve got to get busy and end it in the right way,” I said. “And

you’ve got to help, my lad.”

He was a good draughtsman, and with his assistance I drew a rough map

of the crevice where we had roosted for the night, giving its bearings

carefully in relation to the burn and the sea. Then I wrote down all

the details about Gresson and the Portuguese Jew, and described the

latter in minute detail. I described, too, most precisely the cache

where it had been arranged that the messages should be placed. That

finished my stock of paper, and I left the record of the oddments

overheard of the conversation for a later time. I put the thing in an

old leather cigarette-case I possessed, and handed it to Wake.

“You’ve got to go straight off to the Kyle and not waste any time on

the way. Nobody suspects you, so you can travel any road you please.

When you get there you ask for Mr Andrew Amos, who has some Government

job in the neighbourhood. Give him that paper from me. He’ll know what

to do with it all right. Tell him I’ll get somehow to the Kyle before

midday the day after tomorrow. I must cover my tracks a bit, so I can’t

come with you, and I want that thing in his hands just as fast as your

legs will take you. If anyone tries to steal it from you, for God’s

sake eat it. You can see for yourself that it’s devilish important.”

“I shall be back in England in three days,” he said. “Any message for

your other friends?”

“Forget all about me. You never saw me here. I’m still Brand, the

amiable colonial studying social movements. If you meet Ivery, say you

heard of me on the Clyde, deep in sedition. But if you see Miss

Lamington you can tell her I’m past the Hill Difficulty. I’m coming

back as soon as God will let me, and I’m going to drop right into the

Biggleswick push. Only this time I’ll be a little more advanced in my

views.... You needn’t get cross. I’m not saying anything against your

principles. The main point is that we both hate dirty treason.”

He put the case in his waistcoat pocket. “I’ll go round Garsbheinn,” he

said, “and over by Camasunary. I’ll be at the Kyle long before evening.

I meant anyhow to sleep at Broadford tonight.... Goodbye, Brand, for

I’ve forgotten your proper name. You’re not a bad fellow, but you’ve

landed me in melodrama for the first time in my sober existence. I have

a grudge against you for mixing up the Coolin with a shilling shocker.

You’ve spoiled their sanctity.”

“You’ve the wrong notion of romance,” I said. “Why, man, last night for

an hour you were in the front line—the place where the enemy forces

touch our own. You were over the top—you were in No-man’s-land.”

He laughed. “That is one way to look at it’; and then he stalked off

and I watched his lean figure till it was round the turn of the hill.

All that morning I smoked peacefully by the burn, and let my thoughts

wander over the whole business. I had got precisely what Blenkiron

wanted, a post office for the enemy. It would need careful handling,

but I could see the juiciest lies passing that way to the _Grosses

Hauptquartier_. Yet I had an ugly feeling at the back of my head that

it had been all too easy, and that Ivery was not the man to be duped in

this way for long. That set me thinking about the queer talk on the

crevice. The poetry stuff I dismissed as the ordinary password,

probably changed every time. But who were _Chelius_ and _Bommaerts_,

and what in the name of goodness were the Wild Birds and the Cage

Birds? Twice in the past three years I had had two such riddles to

solve—Scudder’s scribble in his pocket-book, and Harry Bullivant’s

three words. I remembered how it had only been by constant chewing at

them that I had got a sort of meaning, and I wondered if fate would

some day expound this puzzle also.

Meantime I had to get back to London as inconspicuously as I had come.

It might take some doing, for the police who had been active in Morvern

might be still on the track, and it was essential that I should keep

out of trouble and give no hint to Gresson and his friends that I had

been so far north. However, that was for Amos to advise me on, and

about noon I picked up my waterproof with its bursting pockets and set

off on a long detour up the coast. All that blessed day I scarcely met

a soul. I passed a distillery which seemed to have quit business, and

in the evening came to a little town on the sea where I had a bed and

supper in a superior kind of public-house.

Next day I struck southward along the coast, and had two experiences of

interest. I had a good look at Ranna, and observed that the _Tobermory_

was no longer there. Gresson had only waited to get his job finished;

he could probably twist the old captain any way he wanted. The second

was that at the door of a village smithy I saw the back of the

Portuguese Jew. He was talking Gaelic this time—good Gaelic it sounded,

and in that knot of idlers he would have passed for the ordinariest

kind of gillie.

He did not see me, and I had no desire to give him the chance, for I

had an odd feeling that the day might come when it would be good for us

to meet as strangers.

That night I put up boldly in the inn at Broadford, where they fed me

nobly on fresh sea-trout and I first tasted an excellent liqueur made

of honey and whisky. Next morning I was early afoot, and well before

midday was in sight of the narrows of the Kyle, and the two little

stone clachans which face each other across the strip of sea.

About two miles from the place at a turn of the road I came upon a

farmer’s gig, drawn up by the wayside, with the horse cropping the

moorland grass. A man sat on the bank smoking, with his left arm hooked

in the reins. He was an oldish man, with a short, square figure, and a

woollen comforter enveloped his throat.

CHAPTER VIII

The Adventures of a Bagman

“Ye’re punctual to time, Mr Brand,” said the voice of Amos. “But losh!

man, what have ye done to your breeks! And your buits? Ye’re no just

very respectable in your appearance.”

I wasn’t. The confounded rocks of the Coolin had left their mark on my

shoes, which moreover had not been cleaned for a week, and the same

hills had rent my jacket at the shoulders, and torn my trousers above

the right knee, and stained every part of my apparel with peat and

lichen.

I cast myself on the bank beside Amos and lit my pipe. “Did you get my

message?” I asked.

“Ay. It’s gone on by a sure hand to the destination we ken of. Ye’ve

managed well, Mr Brand, but I wish ye were back in London.” He sucked

at his pipe, and the shaggy brows were pulled so low as to hide the

wary eyes. Then he proceeded to think aloud.

“Ye canna go back by Mallaig. I don’t just understand why, but they’re

lookin’ for you down that line. It’s a vexatious business when your

friends, meanin’ the polis, are doing their best to upset your plans

and you no able to enlighten them. I could send word to the Chief

Constable and get ye through to London without a stop like a load of

fish from Aiberdeen, but that would be spoilin’ the fine character

ye’ve been at such pains to construct. Na, na! Ye maun take the risk

and travel by Muirtown without ony creedentials.”

“It can’t be a very big risk,” I interpolated.

“I’m no so sure. Gresson’s left the _Tobermory_. He went by here

yesterday, on the Mallaig boat, and there was a wee blackavised man

with him that got out at the Kyle. He’s there still, stoppin’ at the

hotel. They ca’ him Linklater and he travels in whisky. I don’t like

the looks of him.”

“But Gresson does not suspect me?”

“Maybe no. But ye wouldna like him to see ye hereaways. Yon gentry

don’t leave muckle to chance. Be very certain that every man in

Gresson’s lot kens all about ye, and has your description down to the

mole on your chin.”

“Then they’ve got it wrong,” I replied.

“I was speakin’ feeguratively,” said Amos. “I was considerin’ your case

the feck of yesterday, and I’ve brought the best I could do for ye in

the gig. I wish ye were more respectable clad, but a good topcoat will

hide defeecencies.”

From behind the gig’s seat he pulled out an ancient Gladstone bag and

revealed its contents. There was a bowler of a vulgar and antiquated

style; there was a ready-made overcoat of some dark cloth, of the kind

that a clerk wears on the road to the office; there was a pair of

detachable celluloid cuffs, and there was a linen collar and dickie.

Also there was a small handcase, such as bagmen carry on their rounds.

“That’s your luggage,” said Amos with pride. “That wee bag’s full of

samples. Ye’ll mind I took the precaution of measurin’ ye in Glasgow,

so the things’ll fit. Ye’ve got a new name, Mr Brand, and I’ve taken a

room for ye in the hotel on the strength of it. Ye’re Archibald

McCaskie, and ye’re travellin’ for the firm o’ Todd, Sons & Brothers,

of Edinburgh. Ye ken the folk? They publish wee releegious books, that

ye’ve bin trying to sell for Sabbath-school prizes to the Free Kirk

ministers in Skye.”

The notion amused Amos, and he relapsed into the sombre chuckle which

with him did duty for a laugh.

I put my hat and waterproof in the bag and donned the bowler and the

top-coat. They fitted fairly well. Likewise the cuffs and collar,

though here I struck a snag, for I had lost my scarf somewhere in the

Coolin, and Amos, pelican-like, had to surrender the rusty black tie

which adorned his own person. It was a queer rig, and I felt like

nothing on earth in it, but Amos was satisfied.

“Mr McCaskie, sir,” he said, “ye’re the very model of a publisher’s

traveller. Ye’d better learn a few biographical details, which ye’ve

maybe forgotten. Ye’re an Edinburgh man, but ye were some years in

London, which explains the way ye speak. Ye bide at 6, Russell Street,

off the Meadows, and ye’re an elder in the Nethergate U.F. Kirk. Have

ye ony special taste ye could lead the crack on to, if ye’re engaged in

conversation?”

I suggested the English classics.

“And very suitable. Ye can try poalitics, too. Ye’d better be a

Free-trader but convertit by Lloyd George. That’s a common case, and

ye’ll need to be by-ordinar common.... If I was you, I would daunder

about here for a bit, and no arrive at your hotel till after dark. Then

ye can have your supper and gang to bed. The Muirtown train leaves at

half-seven in the morning.... Na, ye can’t come with me. It wouldna do

for us to be seen thegither. If I meet ye in the street I’ll never let

on I know ye.”

Amos climbed into the gig and jolted off home. I went down to the shore

and sat among the rocks, finishing about tea-time the remains of my

provisions. In the mellow gloaming I strolled into the clachan and got

a boat to put me over to the inn. It proved to be a comfortable place,

with a motherly old landlady who showed me to my room and promised ham

and eggs and cold salmon for supper. After a good wash, which I needed,

and an honest attempt to make my clothes presentable, I descended to

the meal in a coffee-room lit by a single dim paraffin lamp.

The food was excellent, and, as I ate, my spirits rose. In two days I

should be back in London beside Blenkiron and somewhere within a day’s

journey of Mary. I could picture no scene now without thinking how Mary

fitted into it. For her sake I held Biggleswick delectable, because I

had seen her there. I wasn’t sure if this was love, but it was

something I had never dreamed of before, something which I now hugged

the thought of. It made the whole earth rosy and golden for me, and

life so well worth living that I felt like a miser towards the days to

come.

I had about finished supper, when I was joined by another guest. Seen

in the light of that infamous lamp, he seemed a small, alert fellow,

with a bushy, black moustache, and black hair parted in the middle. He

had fed already and appeared to be hungering for human society.

In three minutes he had told me that he had come down from Portree and

was on his way to Leith. A minute later he had whipped out a card on

which I read “J. J. Linklater”, and in the corner the name of

Hatherwick Bros. His accent betrayed that he hailed from the west.

“I’ve been up among the distilleries,” he informed me. “It’s a poor

business distillin’ in these times, wi’ the teetotallers yowlin’ about

the nation’s shame and the way to lose the war. I’m a temperate man

mysel’, but I would think shame to spile decent folks’ business. If the

Government want to stop the drink, let them buy us out. They’ve

permitted us to invest good money in the trade, and they must see that

we get it back. The other way will wreck public credit. That’s what I

say. Supposin’ some Labour Government takes the notion that soap’s bad

for the nation? Are they goin’ to shut up Port Sunlight? Or good

clothes? Or lum hats? There’s no end to their daftness if they once

start on that track. A lawfu’ trade’s a lawfu’ trade, says I, and it’s

contrary to public policy to pit it at the mercy of wheen cranks. D’ye

no agree, sir? By the way, I havena got your name?”

I told him and he rambled on.

“We’re blenders and do a very high-class business, mostly foreign. The

war’s hit us wi’ our export trade, of course, but we’re no as bad as

some. What’s your line, Mr McCaskie?”

When he heard he was keenly interested.

“D’ye say so? Ye’re from Todd’s! Man, I was in the book business

mysel’, till I changed it for something a wee bit more lucrative. I was

on the road for three years for Andrew Matheson. Ye ken the

name—Paternoster Row—I’ve forgotten the number. I had a kind of

ambition to start a book-sellin’ shop of my own and to make Linklater

o’ Paisley a big name in the trade. But I got the offer from

Hatherwick’s, and I was wantin’ to get married, so filthy lucre won the

day. And I’m no sorry I changed. If it hadna been for this war, I would

have been makin’ four figures with my salary and commissions.... My

pipe’s out. Have you one of those rare and valuable curiosities called

a spunk, Mr McCaskie?”

He was a merry little grig of a man, and he babbled on, till I

announced my intention of going to bed. If this was Amos’s bagman, who

had been seen in company with Gresson, I understood how idle may be the

suspicions of a clever man. He had probably foregathered with Gresson

on the Skye boat, and wearied that saturnine soul with his cackle.

I was up betimes, paid my bill, ate a breakfast of porridge and fresh

haddock, and walked the few hundred yards to the station. It was a

warm, thick morning, with no sun visible, and the Skye hills misty to

their base. The three coaches on the little train were nearly filled

when I had bought my ticket, and I selected a third-class smoking

carriage which held four soldiers returning from leave.

The train was already moving when a late passenger hurried along the

platform and clambered in beside me. A cheery “Mornin’, Mr McCaskie,”

revealed my fellow guest at the hotel.

We jolted away from the coast up a broad glen and then on to a wide

expanse of bog with big hills showing towards the north. It was a

drowsy day, and in that atmosphere of shag and crowded humanity I felt

my eyes closing. I had a short nap, and woke to find that Mr Linklater

had changed his seat and was now beside me.

“We’ll no get a _Scotsman_ till Muirtown,” he said. “Have ye nothing in

your samples ye could give me to read?”

I had forgotten about the samples. I opened the case and found the

oddest collection of little books, all in gay bindings. Some were

religious, with names like _Dew of Hermon_ and _Cool Siloam_; some were

innocent narratives, _How Tommy saved his Pennies_, _A Missionary Child

in China_, and _Little Susie and her Uncle_. There was a _Life of David

Livingstone_, a child’s book on sea-shells, and a richly gilt edition

of the poems of one James Montgomery. I offered the selection to Mr

Linklater, who grinned and chose the Missionary Child. “It’s not the

reading I’m accustomed to,” he said. “I like strong meat—Hall Caine and

Jack London. By the way, how d’ye square this business of yours wi’ the

booksellers? When I was in Matheson’s there would have been trouble if

we had dealt direct wi’ the public like you.”

The confounded fellow started to talk about the details of the book

trade, of which I knew nothing. He wanted to know on what terms we sold

“juveniles”, and what discount we gave the big wholesalers, and what

class of book we put out “on sale”. I didn’t understand a word of his

jargon, and I must have given myself away badly, for he asked me

questions about firms of which I had never heard, and I had to make

some kind of answer. I told myself that the donkey was harmless, and

that his opinion of me mattered nothing, but as soon as I decently

could I pretended to be absorbed in the _Pilgrim’s Progress_, a gaudy

copy of which was among the samples. It opened at the episode of

Christian and Hopeful in the Enchanted Ground, and in that stuffy

carriage I presently followed the example of Heedless and Too-Bold and

fell sound asleep. I was awakened by the train rumbling over the points

of a little moorland junction. Sunk in a pleasing lethargy, I sat with

my eyes closed, and then covertly took a glance at my companion. He had

abandoned the Missionary Child and was reading a little dun-coloured

book, and marking passages with a pencil. His face was absorbed, and it

was a new face, not the vacant, good-humoured look of the garrulous

bagman, but something shrewd, purposeful, and formidable. I remained

hunched up as if still sleeping, and tried to see what the book was.

But my eyes, good as they are, could make out nothing of the text or

title, except that I had a very strong impression that that book was

not written in the English tongue.

I woke abruptly, and leaned over to him. Quick as lightning he slid his

pencil up his sleeve and turned on me with a fatuous smile.

“What d’ye make o’ this, Mr McCaskie? It’s a wee book I picked up at a

roup along with fifty others. I paid five shillings for the lot. It

looks like Gairman, but in my young days they didna teach us foreign

languages.”

I took the thing and turned over the pages, trying to keep any sign of

intelligence out of my face. It was German right enough, a little

manual of hydrography with no publisher’s name on it. It had the look

of the kind of textbook a Government department might issue to its

officials.

I handed it back. “It’s either German or Dutch. I’m not much of a

scholar, barring a little French and the Latin I got at Heriot’s

Hospital.... This is an awful slow train, Mr Linklater.”

The soldiers were playing nap, and the bagman proposed a game of cards.

I remembered in time that I was an elder in the Nethergate U.F. Church

and refused with some asperity. After that I shut my eyes again, for I

wanted to think out this new phenomenon.

The fellow knew German—that was clear. He had also been seen in

Gresson’s company. I didn’t believe he suspected me, though I suspected

him profoundly. It was my business to keep strictly to my part and give

him no cause to doubt me. He was clearly practising his own part on me,

and I must appear to take him literally on his professions. So,

presently, I woke up and engaged him in a disputatious conversation

about the morality of selling strong liquors. He responded readily, and

put the case for alcohol with much point and vehemence. The discussion

interested the soldiers, and one of them, to show he was on Linklater’s

side, produced a flask and offered him a drink. I concluded by

observing morosely that the bagman had been a better man when he

peddled books for Alexander Matheson, and that put the closure on the

business.

That train was a record. It stopped at every station, and in the

afternoon it simply got tired and sat down in the middle of a moor and

reflected for an hour. I stuck my head out of the window now and then,

and smelt the rooty fragrance of bogs, and when we halted on a bridge I

watched the trout in the pools of the brown river. Then I slept and

smoked alternately, and began to get furiously hungry.

Once I woke to hear the soldiers discussing the war. There was an

argument between a lance-corporal in the Camerons and a sapper private

about some trivial incident on the Somme.

“I tell ye I was there,” said the Cameron. “We were relievin’ the Black

Watch, and Fritz was shelling the road, and we didna get up to the line

till one o’clock in the mornin’. Frae Frickout Circus to the south end

o’ the High Wood is every bit o’ five mile.”

“Not abune three,” said the sapper dogmatically.

“Man, I’ve trampit it.”

“Same here. I took up wire every nicht for a week.”

The Cameron looked moodily round the company. “I wish there was anither

man here that kent the place. He wad bear me out. These boys are no

good, for they didna join till later. I tell ye it’s five mile.”

“Three,” said the sapper.

Tempers were rising, for each of the disputants felt his veracity

assailed. It was too hot for a quarrel and I was so drowsy that I was

heedless.

“Shut up, you fools,” I said. “The distance is six kilometres, so

you’re both wrong.”

My tone was so familiar to the men that it stopped the wrangle, but it

was not the tone of a publisher’s traveller. Mr Linklater cocked his

ears.

“What’s a kilometre, Mr McCaskie?” he asked blandly.

“Multiply by five and divide by eight and you get the miles.”

I was on my guard now, and told a long story of a nephew who had been

killed on the Somme, and how I had corresponded with the War Office

about his case. “Besides,” I said, “I’m a great student o’ the

newspapers, and I’ve read all the books about the war. It’s a difficult

time this for us all, and if you can take a serious interest in the

campaign it helps a lot. I mean working out the places on the map and

reading Haig’s dispatches.”

“Just so,” he said dryly, and I thought he watched me with an odd look

in his eyes.

A fresh idea possessed me. This man had been in Gresson’s company, he

knew German, he was obviously something very different from what he

professed to be. What if he were in the employ of our own Secret

Service? I had appeared out of the void at the Kyle, and I had made but

a poor appearance as a bagman, showing no knowledge of my own trade. I

was in an area interdicted to the ordinary public; and he had good

reason to keep an eye on my movements. He was going south, and so was

I; clearly we must somehow part company.

“We change at Muirtown, don’t we?” I asked. “When does the train for

the south leave?”

He consulted a pocket timetable. “Ten-thirty-three. There’s generally

four hours to wait, for we’re due in at six-fifteen. But this auld

hearse will be lucky if it’s in by nine.”

His forecast was correct. We rumbled out of the hills into haughlands

and caught a glimpse of the North Sea. Then we were hung up while a

long goods train passed down the line. It was almost dark when at last

we crawled into Muirtown station and disgorged our load of hot and

weary soldiery.

I bade an ostentatious farewell to Linklater. “Very pleased to have met

you. I’ll see you later on the Edinburgh train. I’m for a walk to

stretch my legs, and a bite o’ supper.” I was very determined that the

ten-thirty for the south should leave without me.

My notion was to get a bed and a meal in some secluded inn, and walk

out next morning and pick up a slow train down the line. Linklater had

disappeared towards the guard’s van to find his luggage, and the

soldiers were sitting on their packs with that air of being utterly and

finally lost and neglected which characterises the British fighting-man

on a journey. I gave up my ticket and, since I had come off a northern

train, walked unhindered into the town.

It was market night, and the streets were crowded. Blue-jackets from

the Fleet, country-folk in to shop, and every kind of military detail

thronged the pavements. Fish-hawkers were crying their wares, and there

was a tatterdemalion piper making the night hideous at a corner. I took

a tortuous route and finally fixed on a modest-looking public-house in

a back street. When I inquired for a room I could find no one in

authority, but a slatternly girl informed me that there was one vacant

bed, and that I could have ham and eggs in the bar. So, after hitting

my head violently against a cross-beam, I stumbled down some steps and

entered a frowsty little place smelling of spilt beer and stale

tobacco.

The promised ham and eggs proved impossible—there were no eggs to be

had in Muirtown that night—but I was given cold mutton and a pint of

indifferent ale. There was nobody in the place but two farmers drinking

hot whisky and water and discussing with sombre interest the rise in

the price of feeding-stuffs. I ate my supper, and was just preparing to

find the whereabouts of my bedroom when through the street door there

entered a dozen soldiers.

In a second the quiet place became a babel. The men were strictly

sober; but they were in that temper of friendliness which demands a

libation of some kind. One was prepared to stand treat; he was the

leader of the lot, and it was to celebrate the end of his leave that he

was entertaining his pals. From where I sat I could not see him, but

his voice was dominant. “What’s your fancy, jock? Beer for you, Andra?

A pint and a dram for me. This is better than vongblong and vongrooge,

Davie. Man, when I’m sittin’ in those estamints, as they ca’ them, I

often long for a guid Scots public.”

The voice was familiar. I shifted my seat to get a view of the speaker,

and then I hastily drew back. It was the Scots Fusilier I had clipped

on the jaw in defending Gresson after the Glasgow meeting.

But by a strange fatality he had caught sight of me.

“Whae’s that i’ the corner?” he cried, leaving the bar to stare at me.

Now it is a queer thing, but if you have once fought with a man, though

only for a few seconds, you remember his face, and the scrap in Glasgow

had been under a lamp. The jock recognised me well enough.

“By God!” he cried, “if this is no a bit o’ luck! Boys, here’s the man

I feucht wi’ in Glesca. Ye mind I telled ye about it. He laid me oot,

and it’s my turn to do the same wi’ him. I had a notion I was gaun to

mak’ a nicht o’t. There’s naebody can hit Geordie Hamilton without

Geordie gettin’ his ain back some day. Get up, man, for I’m gaun to

knock the heid off ye.”

I duly got up, and with the best composure I could muster looked him in

the face.

“You’re mistaken, my friend. I never clapped eyes on you before, and I

never was in Glasgow in my life.”

“That’s a damned lee,” said the Fusilier. “Ye’re the man, and if ye’re

no, ye’re like enough him to need a hidin’!”

“Confound your nonsense!” I said. “I’ve no quarrel with you, and I’ve

better things to do than be scrapping with a stranger in a

public-house.”

“Have ye sae? Well, I’ll learn ye better. I’m gaun to hit ye, and then

ye’ll hae to fecht whether ye want it or no. Tam, haud my jacket, and

see that my drink’s no skailed.”

This was an infernal nuisance, for a row here would bring in the

police, and my dubious position would be laid bare. I thought of

putting up a fight, for I was certain I could lay out the jock a second

time, but the worst of that was that I did not know where the thing

would end. I might have to fight the lot of them, and that meant a

noble public shindy. I did my best to speak my opponent fair. I said we

were all good friends and offered to stand drinks for the party. But

the Fusilier’s blood was up and he was spoiling for a row, ably abetted

by his comrades. He had his tunic off now and was stamping in front of

me with doubled fists.

I did the best thing I could think of in the circumstances. My seat was

close to the steps which led to the other part of the inn. I grabbed my

hat, darted up them, and before they realised what I was doing had

bolted the door behind me. I could hear pandemonium break loose in the

bar.

I slipped down a dark passage to another which ran at right angles to

it, and which seemed to connect the street door of the inn itself with

the back premises. I could hear voices in the little hall, and that

stopped me short.

One of them was Linklater’s, but he was not talking as Linklater had

talked. He was speaking educated English. I heard another with a Scots

accent, which I took to be the landlord’s, and a third which sounded

like some superior sort of constable’s, very prompt and official. I

heard one phrase, too, from Linklater—“He calls himself McCaskie.” Then

they stopped, for the turmoil from the bar had reached the front door.

The Fusilier and his friends were looking for me by the other entrance.

The attention of the men in the hall was distracted, and that gave me a

chance. There was nothing for it but the back door. I slipped through

it into a courtyard and almost tumbled over a tub of water. I planted

the thing so that anyone coming that way would fall over it. A door led

me into an empty stable, and from that into a lane. It was all absurdly

easy, but as I started down the lane I heard a mighty row and the sound

of angry voices. Someone had gone into the tub and I hoped it was

Linklater. I had taken a liking to the Fusilier jock.

There was the beginning of a moon somewhere, but that lane was very

dark. I ran to the left, for on the right it looked like a

_cul-de-sac_. This brought me into a quiet road of two-storied cottages

which showed at one end the lights of a street. So I took the other

way, for I wasn’t going to have the whole population of Muirtown on the

hue-and-cry after me. I came into a country lane, and I also came into

the van of the pursuit, which must have taken a short cut. They shouted

when they saw me, but I had a small start, and legged it down that road

in the belief that I was making for open country.

That was where I was wrong. The road took me round to the other side of

the town, and just when I was beginning to think I had a fair chance I

saw before me the lights of a signal-box and a little to the left of it

the lights of the station. In half an hour’s time the Edinburgh train

would be leaving, but I had made that impossible. Behind me I could

hear the pursuers, giving tongue like hound puppies, for they had

attracted some pretty drunken gentlemen to their party. I was badly

puzzled where to turn, when I noticed outside the station a long line

of blurred lights, which could only mean a train with the carriage

blinds down. It had an engine attached and seemed to be waiting for the

addition of a couple of trucks to start. It was a wild chance, but the

only one I saw. I scrambled across a piece of waste ground, climbed an

embankment and found myself on the metals. I ducked under the couplings

and got on the far side of the train, away from the enemy.

Then simultaneously two things happened. I heard the yells of my

pursuers a dozen yards off, and the train jolted into motion. I jumped

on the footboard, and looked into an open window. The compartment was

packed with troops, six a side and two men sitting on the floor, and

the door was locked. I dived headforemost through the window and landed

on the neck of a weary warrior who had just dropped off to sleep.

While I was falling I made up my mind on my conduct. I must be

intoxicated, for I knew the infinite sympathy of the British soldier

towards those thus overtaken. They pulled me to my feet, and the man I

had descended on rubbed his skull and blasphemously demanded

explanations.

“Gen’lmen,” I hiccoughed, “I “pologise. I was late for this bl-blighted

train and I mus’ be in E’inburgh “morrow or I’ll get the sack. I

“pologise. If I’ve hurt my friend’s head, I’ll kiss it and make it

well.”

At this there was a great laugh. “Ye’d better accept, Pete,” said one.

“It’s the first time anybody ever offered to kiss your ugly heid.”

A man asked me who I was, and I appeared to be searching for a

card-case.

“Losht,” I groaned. “Losht, and so’s my wee bag and I’ve bashed my po’

hat. I’m an awful sight, gen’lmen—an awful warning to be in time for

trains. I’m John Johnstone, managing clerk to Messrs Watters, Brown &

Elph’stone, 923 Charl’tte Street, E’inburgh. I’ve been up north seein’

my mamma.”

“Ye should be in France,” said one man.

“Wish’t I was, but they wouldn’t let me. ‘Mr Johnstone,’ they said,

‘ye’re no dam good. Ye’ve varicose veins and a bad heart,’ they said.

So I says, ‘Good mornin’, gen’lmen. Don’t blame me if the country’s

ru’ned’. That’s what I said.”

I had by this time occupied the only remaining space left on the floor.

With the philosophy of their race the men had accepted my presence, and

were turning again to their own talk. The train had got up speed, and

as I judged it to be a special of some kind I looked for few stoppings.

Moreover it was not a corridor carriage, but one of the old-fashioned

kind, so I was safe for a time from the unwelcome attention of

conductors. I stretched my legs below the seat, rested my head against

the knees of a brawny gunner, and settled down to make the best of it.

My reflections were not pleasant. I had got down too far below the

surface, and had the naked feeling you get in a dream when you think

you have gone to the theatre in your nightgown. I had had three names

in two days, and as many characters. I felt as if I had no home or

position anywhere, and was only a stray dog with everybody’s hand and

foot against me. It was an ugly sensation, and it was not redeemed by

any acute fear or any knowledge of being mixed up in some desperate

drama. I knew I could easily go on to Edinburgh, and when the police

made trouble, as they would, a wire to Scotland Yard would settle

matters in a couple of hours. There wasn’t a suspicion of bodily danger

to restore my dignity. The worst that could happen would be that Ivery

would hear of my being befriended by the authorities, and the part I

had settled to play would be impossible. He would certainly hear. I had

the greatest respect for his intelligence service.

Yet that was bad enough. So far I had done well. I had put Gresson off

the scent. I had found out what Bullivant wanted to know, and I had

only to return unostentatiously to London to have won out on the game.

I told myself all that, but it didn’t cheer my spirits. I was feeling

mean and hunted and very cold about the feet.

But I have a tough knuckle of obstinacy in me which makes me unwilling

to give up a thing till I am fairly choked off it. The chances were

badly against me. The Scottish police were actively interested in my

movements and would be ready to welcome me at my journey’s end. I had

ruined my hat, and my clothes, as Amos had observed, were not

respectable. I had got rid of a four-days’ beard the night before, but

had cut myself in the process, and what with my weather-beaten face and

tangled hair looked liker a tinker than a decent bagman. I thought with

longing of my portmanteau in the Pentland Hotel, Edinburgh, and the

neat blue serge suit and the clean linen that reposed in it. It was no

case for a subtle game, for I held no cards. Still I was determined not

to chuck in my hand till I was forced to. If the train stopped anywhere

I would get out, and trust to my own wits and the standing luck of the

British Army for the rest.

The chance came just after dawn, when we halted at a little junction. I

got up yawning and tried to open the door, till I remembered it was

locked. Thereupon I stuck my legs out of the window on the side away

from the platform, and was immediately seized upon by a sleepy Seaforth

who thought I contemplated suicide.

“Let me go,” I said. “I’ll be back in a jiffy.”

“Let him gang, jock,” said another voice. “Ye ken what a man’s like

when he’s been on the bash. The cauld air’ll sober him.”

I was released, and after some gymnastics dropped on the metals and

made my way round the rear of the train. As I clambered on the platform

it began to move, and a face looked out of one of the back carriages.

It was Linklater and he recognised me. He tried to get out, but the

door was promptly slammed by an indignant porter. I heard him protest,

and he kept his head out till the train went round the curve. That

cooked my goose all right. He would wire to the police from the next

station.

Meantime in that clean, bare, chilly place there was only one

traveller. He was a slim young man, with a kit-bag and a gun-case. His

clothes were beautiful, a green Homburg hat, a smart green tweed

overcoat, and boots as brightly polished as a horse chestnut. I caught

his profile as he gave up his ticket and to my amazement I recognised

it.

The station-master looked askance at me as I presented myself,

dilapidated and dishevelled, to the official gaze. I tried to speak in

a tone of authority.

“Who is the man who has just gone out?”

“Whaur’s your ticket?”

“I had no time to get one at Muirtown, and as you see I have left my

luggage behind me. Take it out of that pound and I’ll come back for the

change. I want to know if that was Sir Archibald Roylance.”

He looked suspiciously at the note. “I think that’s the name. He’s a

captain up at the Fleein’ School. What was ye wantin’ with him?”

I charged through the booking-office and found my man about to enter a

big grey motor-car.

“Archie,” I cried and beat him on the shoulders.

He turned round sharply. “What the devil—! Who are you?” And then

recognition crept into his face and he gave a joyous shout. “My holy

aunt! The General disguised as Charlie Chaplin! Can I drive you

anywhere, sir?”

CHAPTER IX

I Take the Wings of a Dove

“Drive me somewhere to breakfast, Archie,” I said, “for I’m perishing

hungry.”

He and I got into the tonneau, and the driver swung us out of the

station road up a long incline of hill. Sir Archie had been one of my

subalterns in the old Lennox Highlanders, and had left us before the

Somme to join the Flying Corps. I had heard that he had got his wings

and had done well before Arras, and was now training pilots at home. He

had been a light-hearted youth, who had endured a good deal of

rough-tonguing from me for his sins of omission. But it was the casual

class of lad I was looking for now.

I saw him steal amused glances at my appearance.

“Been seein’ a bit of life, sir?” he inquired respectfully.

“I’m being hunted by the police,” I said.

“Dirty dogs! But don’t worry, sir; we’ll get you off all right. I’ve

been in the same fix myself. You can lie snug in my little log hut, for

that old image Gibbons won’t blab. Or, tell you what, I’ve got an aunt

who lives near here and she’s a bit of a sportsman. You can hide in her

moated grange till the bobbies get tired.”

I think it was Archie’s calm acceptance of my position as natural and

becoming that restored my good temper. He was far too well bred to ask

what crime I had committed, and I didn’t propose to enlighten him much.

But as we swung up the moorland road I let him know that I was serving

the Government, but that it was necessary that I should appear to be

unauthenticated and that therefore I must dodge the police. He whistled

his appreciation.

“Gad, that’s a deep game. Sort of camouflage? Speaking from my

experience it is easy to overdo that kind of stunt. When I was at

Misieux the French started out to camouflage the caravans where they

keep their pigeons, and they did it so damned well that the poor little

birds couldn’t hit ’em off, and spent the night out.”

We entered the white gates of a big aerodrome, skirted a forest of

tents and huts, and drew up at a shanty on the far confines of the

place. The hour was half past four, and the world was still asleep.

Archie nodded towards one of the hangars, from the mouth of which

projected the propeller end of an aeroplane.

“I’m by way of flyin’ that bus down to Farnton tomorrow,” he remarked.

“It’s the new Shark-Gladas. Got a mouth like a tree.”

An idea flashed into my mind.

“You’re going this morning,” I said.

“How did you know?” he exclaimed. “I’m due to go today, but the grouse

up in Caithness wanted shootin’ so badly that I decided to wangle

another day’s leave. They can’t expect a man to start for the south of

England when he’s just off a frowsy journey.”

“All the same you’re going to be a stout fellow and start in two hours’

time. And you’re going to take me with you.”

He stared blankly, and then burst into a roar of laughter. “You’re the

man to go tiger-shootin’ with. But what price my commandant? He’s not a

bad chap, but a trifle shaggy about the fetlocks. He won’t appreciate

the joke.”

“He needn’t know. He mustn’t know. This is an affair between you and me

till it’s finished. I promise you I’ll make it all square with the

Flying Corps. Get me down to Farnton before evening, and you’ll have

done a good piece of work for the country.”

“Right-o! Let’s have a tub and a bit of breakfast, and then I’m your

man. I’ll tell them to get the bus ready.”

In Archie’s bedroom I washed and shaved and borrowed a green tweed cap

and a brand-new aquascutum. The latter covered the deficiencies of my

raiment, and when I commandeered a pair of gloves I felt almost

respectable. Gibbons, who seemed to be a jack-of-all-trades, cooked us

some bacon and an omelette, and as he ate Archie yarned. In the

battalion his conversation had been mostly of race-meetings and the

forsaken delights of town, but now he had forgotten all that, and, like

every good airman I have ever known, wallowed enthusiastically in

“shop”. I have a deep respect for the Flying Corps, but it is apt to

change its jargon every month, and its conversation is hard for the

layman to follow. He was desperately keen about the war, which he saw

wholly from the viewpoint of the air. Arras to him was over before the

infantry crossed the top, and the tough bit of the Somme was October,

not September. He calculated that the big air-fighting had not come

along yet, and all he hoped for was to be allowed out to France to have

his share in it. Like all good airmen, too, he was very modest about

himself. “I’ve done a bit of steeple-chasin’ and huntin’ and I’ve good

hands for a horse, so I can handle a bus fairly well. It’s all a matter

of hands, you know. There ain’t half the risk of the infantry down

below you, and a million times the fun. Jolly glad I changed, sir.”

We talked of Peter, and he put him about top. Voss, he thought, was the

only Boche that could compare with him, for he hadn’t made up his mind

about Lensch. The Frenchman Guynemer he ranked high, but in a different

way. I remember he had no respect for Richthofen and his celebrated

circus.

At six sharp we were ready to go. A couple of mechanics had got out the

machine, and Archie put on his coat and gloves and climbed into the

pilot’s seat, while I squeezed in behind in the observer’s place. The

aerodrome was waking up, but I saw no officers about. We were scarcely

seated when Gibbons called our attention to a motor-car on the road,

and presently we heard a shout and saw men waving in our direction.

“Better get off, my lad,” I said. “These look like my friends.”

The engine started and the mechanics stood clear. As we taxied over the

turf I looked back and saw several figures running in our direction.

The next second we had left the bumpy earth for the smooth highroad of

the air.

I had flown several dozen times before, generally over the enemy lines

when I wanted to see for myself how the land lay. Then we had flown

low, and been nicely dusted by the Hun Archies, not to speak of an

occasional machine-gun. But never till that hour had I realised the joy

of a straight flight in a swift plane in perfect weather. Archie didn’t

lose time. Soon the hangars behind looked like a child’s toys, and the

world ran away from us till it seemed like a great golden bowl spilling

over with the quintessence of light. The air was cold and my hands

numbed, but I never felt them. As we throbbed and tore southward,

sometimes bumping in eddies, sometimes swimming evenly in a stream of

motionless ether, my head and heart grew as light as a boy’s. I forgot

all about the vexations of my job and saw only its joyful comedy. I

didn’t think that anything on earth could worry me again. Far to the

left was a wedge of silver and beside it a cluster of toy houses. That

must be Edinburgh, where reposed my portmanteau, and where a most

efficient police force was now inquiring for me. At the thought I

laughed so loud that Archie must have heard me. He turned round, saw my

grinning face, and grinned back. Then he signalled to me to strap

myself in. I obeyed, and he proceeded to practise “stunts”—the loop,

the spinning nose-dive, and others I didn’t know the names of. It was

glorious fun, and he handled his machine as a good rider coaxes a

nervous horse over a stiff hurdle. He had that extra something in his

blood that makes the great pilot.

Presently the chessboard of green and brown had changed to a deep

purple with faint silvery lines like veins in a rock. We were crossing

the Border hills, the place where I had legged it for weary days when I

was mixed up in the Black Stone business. What a marvellous element was

this air, which took one far above the fatigues of humanity! Archie had

done well to change. Peter had been the wise man. I felt a tremendous

pity for my old friend hobbling about a German prison-yard, when he had

once flown a hawk. I reflected that I had wasted my life hitherto. And

then I remembered that all this glory had only one use in war and that

was to help the muddy British infantryman to down his Hun opponent. He

was the fellow, after all, that decided battles, and the thought

comforted me.

A great exhilaration is often the precursor of disaster, and mine was

to have a sudden downfall. It was getting on for noon and we were well

into England—I guessed from the rivers we had passed that we were

somewhere in the north of Yorkshire—when the machine began to make odd

sounds, and we bumped in perfectly calm patches of air. We dived and

then climbed, but the confounded thing kept sputtering. Archie passed

back a slip of paper on which he had scribbled: “Engine conked. Must

land at Micklegill. Very sorry.” So we dropped to a lower elevation

where we could see clearly the houses and roads and the long swelling

ridges of a moorland country. I could never have found my way about,

but Archie’s practised eye knew every landmark. We were trundling along

very slowly now, and even I was soon able to pick up the hangars of a

big aerodrome.

We made Micklegill, but only by the skin of our teeth. We were so low

that the smoky chimneys of the city of Bradfield seven miles to the

east were half hidden by a ridge of down. Archie achieved a clever

descent in the lee of a belt of firs, and got out full of imprecations

against the Gladas engine. “I’ll go up to the camp and report,” he

said, “and send mechanics down to tinker this darned gramophone. You’d

better go for a walk, sir. I don’t want to answer questions about you

till we’re ready to start. I reckon it’ll be an hour’s job.”

The cheerfulness I had acquired in the upper air still filled me. I sat

down in a ditch, as merry as a sand-boy, and lit a pipe. I was

possessed by a boyish spirit of casual adventure, and waited on the

next turn of fortune’s wheel with only a pleasant amusement.

That turn was not long in coming. Archie appeared very breathless.

“Look here, sir, there’s the deuce of a row up there. They’ve been

wirin’ about you all over the country, and they know you’re with me.

They’ve got the police, and they’ll have you in five minutes if you

don’t leg it. I lied like billy-o and said I had never heard of you,

but they’re comin’ to see for themselves. For God’s sake get off....

You’d better keep in cover down that hollow and round the back of these

trees. I’ll stay here and try to brazen it out. I’ll get strafed to

blazes anyhow.... I hope you’ll get me out of the scrape, sir.”

“Don’t you worry, my lad,” I said. “I’ll make it all square when I get

back to town. I’ll make for Bradfield, for this place is a bit

conspicuous. Goodbye, Archie. You’re a good chap and I’ll see you don’t

suffer.”

I started off down the hollow of the moor, trying to make speed atone

for lack of strategy, for it was hard to know how much my pursuers

commanded from that higher ground. They must have seen me, for I heard

whistles blown and men’s cries. I struck a road, crossed it, and passed

a ridge from which I had a view of Bradfield six miles off. And as I

ran I began to reflect that this kind of chase could not last long.

They were bound to round me up in the next half-hour unless I could

puzzle them. But in that bare green place there was no cover, and it

looked as if my chances were pretty much those of a hare coursed by a

good greyhound on a naked moor.

Suddenly from just in front of me came a familiar sound. It was the

roar of guns—the slam of field-batteries and the boom of small

howitzers. I wondered if I had gone off my head. As I plodded on the

rattle of machine-guns was added, and over the ridge before me I saw

the dust and fumes of bursting shells. I concluded that I was not mad,

and that therefore the Germans must have landed. I crawled up the last

slope, quite forgetting the pursuit behind me.

And then I’m blessed if I did not look down on a veritable battle.

There were two sets of trenches with barbed wire and all the fixings,

one set filled with troops and the other empty. On these latter shells

were bursting, but there was no sign of life in them. In the other

lines there seemed the better part of two brigades, and the first

trench was stiff with bayonets. My first thought was that Home Forces

had gone dotty, for this kind of show could have no sort of training

value. And then I saw other things—cameras and camera-men on platforms

on the flanks, and men with megaphones behind them on wooden

scaffoldings. One of the megaphones was going full blast all the time.

I saw the meaning of the performance at last. Some movie-merchant had

got a graft with the Government, and troops had been turned out to make

a war film. It occurred to me that if I were mixed up in that push I

might get the cover I was looking for. I scurried down the hill to the

nearest camera-man.

As I ran, the first wave of troops went over the top. They did it

uncommon well, for they entered into the spirit of the thing, and went

over with grim faces and that slow, purposeful lope that I had seen in

my own fellows at Arras. Smoke grenades burst among them, and now and

then some resourceful mountebank would roll over. Altogether it was

about the best show I have ever seen. The cameras clicked, the guns

banged, a background of boy scouts applauded, and the dust rose in

billows to the sky.

But all the same something was wrong. I could imagine that this kind of

business took a good deal of planning from the point of view of the

movie-merchant, for his purpose was not the same as that of the officer

in command. You know how a photographer finicks about and is

dissatisfied with a pose that seems all right to his sitter. I should

have thought the spectacle enough to get any cinema audience off their

feet, but the man on the scaffolding near me judged differently. He

made his megaphone boom like the swan-song of a dying buffalo. He

wanted to change something and didn’t know how to do it. He hopped on

one leg; he took the megaphone from his mouth to curse; he waved it

like a banner and yelled at some opposite number on the other flank.

And then his patience forsook him and he skipped down the ladder,

dropping his megaphone, past the camera-men, on to the battlefield.

That was his undoing. He got in the way of the second wave and was

swallowed up like a leaf in a torrent. For a moment I saw a red face

and a loud-checked suit, and the rest was silence. He was carried on

over the hill, or rolled into an enemy trench, but anyhow he was lost

to my ken.

I bagged his megaphone and hopped up the steps to the platform. At last

I saw a chance of first-class cover, for with Archie’s coat and cap I

made a very good appearance as a movie-merchant. Two waves had gone

over the top, and the cinema-men, working like beavers, had filmed the

lot. But there was still a fair amount of troops to play with, and I

determined to tangle up that outfit so that the fellows who were after

me would have better things to think about.

My advantage was that I knew how to command men. I could see that my

opposite number with the megaphone was helpless, for the mistake which

had swept my man into a shell-hole had reduced him to impotence. The

troops seemed to be mainly in charge of N.C.O.s (I could imagine that

the officers would try to shirk this business), and an N.C.O. is the

most literal creature on earth. So with my megaphone I proceeded to

change the battle order.

I brought up the third wave to the front trenches. In about three

minutes the men had recognised the professional touch and were moving

smartly to my orders. They thought it was part of the show, and the

obedient cameras clicked at everything that came into their orbit. My

aim was to deploy the troops on too narrow a front so that they were

bound to fan outward, and I had to be quick about it, for I didn’t know

when the hapless movie-merchant might be retrieved from the

battle-field and dispute my authority.

It takes a long time to straighten a thing out, but it does not take

long to tangle it, especially when the thing is so delicate a machine

as disciplined troops. In about eight minutes I had produced chaos. The

flanks spread out, in spite of all the shepherding of the N.C.O.s, and

the fringe engulfed the photographers. The cameras on their little

platforms went down like ninepins. It was solemn to see the startled

face of a photographer, taken unawares, supplicating the purposeful

infantry, before he was swept off his feet into speechlessness.

It was no place for me to linger in, so I chucked away the megaphone

and got mixed up with the tail of the third wave. I was swept on and

came to anchor in the enemy trenches, where I found, as I expected, my

profane and breathless predecessor, the movie-merchant. I had nothing

to say to him, so I stuck to the trench till it ended against the slope

of the hill.

On that flank, delirious with excitement, stood a knot of boy scouts.

My business was to get to Bradfield as quick as my legs would take me,

and as inconspicuously as the gods would permit. Unhappily I was far

too great an object of interest to that nursery of heroes. Every boy

scout is an amateur detective and hungry for knowledge. I was followed

by several, who plied me with questions, and were told that I was off

to Bradfield to hurry up part of the cinema outfit. It sounded lame

enough, for that cinema outfit was already past praying for.

We reached the road and against a stone wall stood several bicycles. I

selected one and prepared to mount.

“That’s Mr Emmott’s machine,” said one boy sharply. “He told me to keep

an eye on it.”

“I must borrow it, sonny,” I said. “Mr Emmott’s my very good friend and

won’t object.”

From the place where we stood I overlooked the back of the battle-field

and could see an anxious congress of officers. I could see others, too,

whose appearance I did not like. They had not been there when I

operated on the megaphone. They must have come downhill from the

aerodrome and in all likelihood were the pursuers I had avoided. The

exhilaration which I had won in the air and which had carried me into

the tomfoolery of the past half-hour was ebbing. I had the hunted

feeling once more, and grew middle-aged and cautious. I had a baddish

record for the day, what with getting Archie into a scrape and busting

up an official cinema show—neither consistent with the duties of a

brigadier-general. Besides, I had still to get to London.

I had not gone two hundred yards down the road when a boy scout,

pedalling furiously, came up abreast me.

“Colonel Edgeworth wants to see you,” he panted. “You’re to come back

at once.”

“Tell him I can’t wait now,” I said. “I’ll pay my respects to him in an

hour.”

“He said you were to come at once,” said the faithful messenger. “He’s

in an awful temper with you, and he’s got bobbies with him.”

I put on pace and left the boy behind. I reckoned I had the better part

of two miles’ start and could beat anything except petrol. But my

enemies were bound to have cars, so I had better get off the road as

soon as possible. I coasted down a long hill to a bridge which spanned

a small discoloured stream that flowed in a wooded glen. There was

nobody for the moment on the hill behind me, so I slipped into the

covert, shoved the bicycle under the bridge, and hid Archie’s

aquascutum in a bramble thicket. I was now in my own disreputable

tweeds and I hoped that the shedding of my most conspicuous garment

would puzzle my pursuers if they should catch up with me.

But this I was determined they should not do. I made good going down

that stream and out into a lane which led from the downs to the

market-gardens round the city. I thanked Heaven I had got rid of the

aquascutum, for the August afternoon was warm and my pace was not

leisurely. When I was in secluded ground I ran, and when anyone was in

sight I walked smartly.

As I went I reflected that Bradfield would see the end of my

adventures. The police knew that I was there and would watch the

stations and hunt me down if I lingered in the place. I knew no one

there and had no chance of getting an effective disguise. Indeed I very

soon began to wonder if I should get even as far as the streets. For at

the moment when I had got a lift on the back of a fishmonger’s cart and

was screened by its flapping canvas, two figures passed on

motor-bicycles, and one of them was the inquisitive boy scout. The main

road from the aerodrome was probably now being patrolled by motor-cars.

It looked as if there would be a degrading arrest in one of the

suburbs.

The fish-cart, helped by half a crown to the driver, took me past the

outlying small-villadom, between long lines of workmen’s houses, to

narrow cobbled lanes and the purlieus of great factories. As soon as I

saw the streets well crowded I got out and walked. In my old clothes I

must have appeared like some second-class bookie or seedy horse-coper.

The only respectable thing I had about me was my gold watch. I looked

at the time and found it half past five.

I wanted food and was casting about for an eating-house when I heard

the purr of a motor-cycle and across the road saw the intelligent boy

scout. He saw me, too, and put on the brake with a sharpness which

caused him to skid and all but come to grief under the wheels of a

wool-wagon. That gave me time to efface myself by darting up a side

street. I had an unpleasant sense that I was about to be trapped, for

in a place I knew nothing of I had not a chance to use my wits.

I remember trying feverishly to think, and I suppose that my

preoccupation made me careless. I was now in a veritable slum, and when

I put my hand to my vest pocket I found that my watch had gone. That

put the top stone on my depression. The reaction from the wild burnout

of the forenoon had left me very cold about the feet. I was getting

into the under-world again and there was no chance of a second Archie

Roylance turning up to rescue me. I remember yet the sour smell of the

factories and the mist of smoke in the evening air. It is a smell I

have never met since without a sort of dulling of spirit.

Presently I came out into a market-place. Whistles were blowing, and

there was a great hurrying of people back from the mills. The crowd

gave me a momentary sense of security, and I was just about to inquire

my way to the railway station when someone jostled my arm.

A rough-looking fellow in mechanic’s clothes was beside me.

“Mate,” he whispered. “I’ve got summat o’ yours here.” And to my

amazement he slipped my watch into my hand.

“It was took by mistake. We’re friends o’ yours. You’re right enough if

you do what I tell you. There’s a peeler over there got his eye on you.

Follow me and I’ll get you off.”

I didn’t much like the man’s looks, but I had no choice, and anyhow he

had given me back my watch. He sidled into an alley between tall houses

and I sidled after him. Then he took to his heels, and led me a

twisting course through smelly courts into a tanyard and then by a

narrow lane to the back-quarters of a factory. Twice we doubled back,

and once we climbed a wall and followed the bank of a blue-black stream

with a filthy scum on it. Then we got into a very mean quarter of the

town, and emerged in a dingy garden, strewn with tin cans and broken

flowerpots. By a back door we entered one of the cottages and my guide

very carefully locked it behind him.

He lit the gas and drew the blinds in a small parlour and looked at me

long and quizzically. He spoke now in an educated voice.

“I ask no questions,” he said, “but it’s my business to put my services

at your disposal. You carry the passport.”

I stared at him, and he pulled out his watch and showed a

white-and-purple cross inside the lid.

“I don’t defend all the people we employ,” he said, grinning. “Men’s

morals are not always as good as their patriotism. One of them pinched

your watch, and when he saw what was inside it he reported to me. We

soon picked up your trail, and observed you were in a bit of trouble.

As I say, I ask no questions. What can we do for you?”

“I want to get to London without any questions asked. They’re looking

for me in my present rig, so I’ve got to change it.”

“That’s easy enough,” he said. “Make yourself comfortable for a little

and I’ll fix you up. The night train goes at eleven-thirty.... You’ll

find cigars in the cupboard and there’s this week’s _Critic_ on that

table. It’s got a good article on Conrad, if you care for such things.”

I helped myself to a cigar and spent a profitable half-hour reading

about the vices of the British Government. Then my host returned and

bade me ascend to his bedroom. “You’re Private Henry Tomkins of the

12th Gloucesters, and you’ll find your clothes ready for you. I’ll send

on your present togs if you give me an address.”

I did as I was bid, and presently emerged in the uniform of a British

private, complete down to the shapeless boots and the dropsical

puttees. Then my friend took me in hand and finished the

transformation. He started on my hair with scissors and arranged a lock

which, when well oiled, curled over my forehead. My hands were hard and

rough and only needed some grubbiness and hacking about the nails to

pass muster. With my cap on the side of my head, a pack on my back, a

service rifle in my hands, and my pockets bursting with penny picture

papers, I was the very model of the British soldier returning from

leave. I had also a packet of Woodbine cigarettes and a hunch of

bread-and-cheese for the journey. And I had a railway warrant made out

in my name for London.

Then my friend gave me supper—bread and cold meat and a bottle of Bass,

which I wolfed savagely, for I had had nothing since breakfast. He was

a curious fellow, as discreet as a tombstone, very ready to speak about

general subjects, but never once coming near the intimate business

which had linked him and me and Heaven knew how many others by means of

a little purple-and-white cross in a watch-case. I remember we talked

about the topics that used to be popular at Biggleswick—the big

political things that begin with capital letters. He took Amos’s view

of the soundness of the British working-man, but he said something

which made me think. He was convinced that there was a tremendous lot

of German spy work about, and that most of the practitioners were

innocent. “The ordinary Briton doesn’t run to treason, but he’s not

very bright. A clever man in that kind of game can make better use of a

fool than a rogue.”

As he saw me off he gave me a piece of advice. “Get out of these

clothes as soon as you reach London. Private Tomkins will frank you out

of Bradfield, but it mightn’t be a healthy _alias_ in the metropolis.”

At eleven-thirty I was safe in the train, talking the jargon of the

returning soldier with half a dozen of my own type in a smoky

third-class carriage. I had been lucky in my escape, for at the station

entrance and on the platform I had noticed several men with the

unmistakable look of plainclothes police. Also—though this may have

been my fancy—I thought I caught in the crowd a glimpse of the bagman

who had called himself Linklater.

CHAPTER X

The Advantages of an Air Raid

The train was abominably late. It was due at eight-twenty-seven, but it

was nearly ten when we reached St Pancras. I had resolved to go

straight to my rooms in Westminster, buying on the way a cap and

waterproof to conceal my uniform should anyone be near my door on my

arrival. Then I would ring up Blenkiron and tell him all my adventures.

I breakfasted at a coffee-stall, left my pack and rifle in the

cloak-room, and walked out into the clear sunny morning.

I was feeling very pleased with myself. Looking back on my madcap

journey, I seemed to have had an amazing run of luck and to be entitled

to a little credit too. I told myself that persistence always pays and

that nobody is beaten till he is dead. All Blenkiron’s instructions had

been faithfully carried out. I had found Ivery’s post office. I had

laid the lines of our own special communications with the enemy, and so

far as I could see I had left no clue behind me. Ivery and Gresson took

me for a well-meaning nincompoop. It was true that I had aroused

profound suspicion in the breasts of the Scottish police. But that

mattered nothing, for Cornelius Brand, the suspect, would presently

disappear, and there was nothing against that rising soldier,

Brigadier-General Richard Hannay, who would soon be on his way to

France. After all this piece of service had not been so very

unpleasant. I laughed when I remembered my grim forebodings in

Gloucestershire. Bullivant had said it would be damnably risky in the

long run, but here was the end and I had never been in danger of

anything worse than making a fool of myself.

I remember that, as I made my way through Bloomsbury, I was not

thinking so much of my triumphant report to Blenkiron as of my speedy

return to the Front. Soon I would be with my beloved brigade again. I

had missed Messines and the first part of Third Ypres, but the battle

was still going on, and I had yet a chance. I might get a division, for

there had been talk of that before I left. I knew the Army Commander

thought a lot of me. But on the whole I hoped I would be left with the

brigade. After all I was an amateur soldier, and I wasn’t certain of my

powers with a bigger command.

In Charing Cross Road I thought of Mary, and the brigade seemed

suddenly less attractive. I hoped the war wouldn’t last much longer,

though with Russia heading straight for the devil I didn’t know how it

was going to stop very soon. I was determined to see Mary before I

left, and I had a good excuse, for I had taken my orders from her. The

prospect entranced me, and I was mooning along in a happy dream, when I

collided violently with an agitated citizen.

Then I realised that something very odd was happening.

There was a dull sound like the popping of the corks of flat soda-water

bottles. There was a humming, too, from very far up in the skies.

People in the street were either staring at the heavens or running

wildly for shelter. A motor-bus in front of me emptied its contents in

a twinkling; a taxi pulled up with a jar and the driver and fare dived

into a second-hand bookshop. It took me a moment or two to realise the

meaning of it all, and I had scarcely done this when I got a very

practical proof. A hundred yards away a bomb fell on a street island,

shivering every window-pane in a wide radius, and sending splinters of

stone flying about my head. I did what I had done a hundred times

before at the Front, and dropped flat on my face.

The man who says he doesn’t mind being bombed or shelled is either a

liar or a maniac. This London air raid seemed to me a singularly

unpleasant business. I think it was the sight of the decent civilised

life around one and the orderly streets, for what was perfectly natural

in a rubble-heap like Ypres or Arras seemed an outrage here. I remember

once being in billets in a Flanders village where I had the Maire’s

house and sat in a room upholstered in cut velvet, with wax flowers on

the mantelpiece and oil paintings of three generations on the walls.

The Boche took it into his head to shell the place with a long-range

naval gun, and I simply loathed it. It was horrible to have dust and

splinters blown into that snug, homely room, whereas if I had been in a

ruined barn I wouldn’t have given the thing two thoughts. In the same

way bombs dropping in central London seemed a grotesque indecency. I

hated to see plump citizens with wild eyes, and nursemaids with scared

children, and miserable women scuttling like rabbits in a warren.

The drone grew louder, and, looking up, I could see the enemy planes

flying in a beautiful formation, very leisurely as it seemed, with all

London at their mercy. Another bomb fell to the right, and presently

bits of our own shrapnel were clattering viciously around me. I thought

it about time to take cover, and ran shamelessly for the best place I

could see, which was a Tube station. Five minutes before the street had

been crowded; now I left behind me a desert dotted with one bus and

three empty taxicabs.

I found the Tube entrance filled with excited humanity. One stout lady

had fainted, and a nurse had become hysterical, but on the whole people

were behaving well. Oddly enough they did not seem inclined to go down

the stairs to the complete security of underground; but preferred

rather to collect where they could still get a glimpse of the upper

world, as if they were torn between fear of their lives and interest in

the spectacle. That crowd gave me a good deal of respect for my

countrymen. But several were badly rattled, and one man a little way

off, whose back was turned, kept twitching his shoulders as if he had

the colic.

I watched him curiously, and a movement of the crowd brought his face

into profile. Then I gasped with amazement, for I saw that it was

Ivery.

And yet it was not Ivery. There were the familiar nondescript features,

the blandness, the plumpness, but all, so to speak, in ruins. The man

was in a blind funk. His features seemed to be dislimning before my

eyes. He was growing sharper, finer, in a way younger, a man without

grip on himself, a shapeless creature in process of transformation. He

was being reduced to his rudiments. Under the spell of panic he was

becoming a new man.

And the crazy thing was that I knew the new man better than the old.

My hands were jammed close to my sides by the crowd; I could scarcely

turn my head, and it was not the occasion for one’s neighbours to

observe one’s expression. If it had been, mine must have been a study.

My mind was far away from air raids, back in the hot summer weather of

1914. I saw a row of villas perched on a headland above the sea. In the

garden of one of them two men were playing tennis, while I was

crouching behind an adjacent bush. One of these was a plump young man

who wore a coloured scarf round his waist and babbled of golf

handicaps.... I saw him again in the villa dining-room, wearing a

dinner-jacket, and lisping a little.... I sat opposite him at bridge, I

beheld him collared by two of Macgillivray’s men, when his comrade had

rushed for the thirty-nine steps that led to the sea.... I saw, too,

the sitting-room of my old flat in Portland Place and heard little

Scudder’s quick, anxious voice talking about the three men he feared

most on earth, one of whom lisped in his speech. I had thought that all

three had long ago been laid under the turf....

He was not looking my way, and I could devour his face in safety. There

was no shadow of doubt. I had always put him down as the most amazing

actor on earth, for had he not played the part of the First Sea Lord

and deluded that officer’s daily colleagues? But he could do far more

than any human actor, for he could take on a new personality and with

it a new appearance, and live steadily in the character as if he had

been born in it.... My mind was a blank, and I could only make blind

gropings at conclusions.... How had he escaped the death of a spy and a

murderer, for I had last seen him in the hands of justice?... Of course

he had known me from the first day in Biggleswick.... I had thought to

play with him, and he had played most cunningly and damnably with me.

In that sweating sardine-tin of refugees I shivered in the bitterness

of my chagrin.

And then I found his face turned to mine, and I knew that he recognised

me. More, I knew that he knew that I had recognised him—not as Ivery,

but as that other man. There came into his eyes a curious look of

comprehension, which for a moment overcame his funk.

I had sense enough to see that that put the final lid on it. There was

still something doing if he believed that I was blind, but if he once

thought that I knew the truth he would be through our meshes and

disappear like a fog.

My first thought was to get at him and collar him and summon everybody

to help me by denouncing him for what he was. Then I saw that that was

impossible. I was a private soldier in a borrowed uniform, and he could

easily turn the story against me. I must use surer weapons. I must get

to Bullivant and Macgillivray and set their big machine to work. Above

all I must get to Blenkiron.

I started to squeeze out of that push, for air raids now seemed far too

trivial to give a thought to. Moreover the guns had stopped, but so

sheeplike is human nature that the crowd still hung together, and it

took me a good fifteen minutes to edge my way to the open air. I found

that the trouble was over, and the street had resumed its usual

appearance. Buses and taxis were running, and voluble knots of people

were recounting their experiences. I started off for Blenkiron’s

bookshop, as the nearest harbour of refuge.

But in Piccadilly Circus I was stopped by a military policeman. He

asked my name and battalion, and I gave him them, while his suspicious

eye ran over my figure. I had no pack or rifle, and the crush in the

Tube station had not improved my appearance. I explained that I was

going back to France that evening, and he asked for my warrant. I fancy

my preoccupation made me nervous and I lied badly. I said I had left it

with my kit in the house of my married sister, but I fumbled in giving

the address. I could see that the fellow did not believe a word of it.

Just then up came an A.P.M. He was a pompous dug-out, very splendid in

his red tabs and probably bucked up at having just been under fire.

Anyhow he was out to walk in the strict path of duty.

“Tomkins!” he said. “Tomkins! We’ve got some fellow of that name on our

records. Bring him along, Wilson.”

“But, sir,” I said, “I must—I simply must meet my friend. It’s urgent

business, and I assure you I’m all right. If you don’t believe me, I’ll

take a taxi and we’ll go down to Scotland Yard and I’ll stand by what

they say.”

His brow grew dark with wrath. “What infernal nonsense is this?

Scotland Yard! What the devil has Scotland Yard to do with it? You’re

an imposter. I can see it in your face. I’ll have your depot rung up,

and you’ll be in jail in a couple of hours. I know a deserter when I

see him. Bring him along, Wilson. You know what to do if he tries to

bolt.”

I had a momentary thought of breaking away, but decided that the odds

were too much against me. Fuming with impatience, I followed the A.P.M.

to his office on the first floor in a side street. The precious minutes

were slipping past; Ivery, now thoroughly warned, was making good his

escape; and I, the sole repository of a deadly secret, was tramping in

this absurd procession.

The A.P.M. issued his orders. He gave instructions that my depot should

be rung up, and he bade Wilson remove me to what he called the

guard-room. He sat down at his desk, and busied himself with a mass of

buff dockets.

In desperation I renewed my appeal. “I implore you to telephone to Mr

Macgillivray at Scotland Yard. It’s a matter of life and death, Sir.

You’re taking a very big responsibility if you don’t.”

I had hopelessly offended his brittle dignity. “Any more of your

insolence and I’ll have you put in irons. I’ll attend to you soon

enough for your comfort. Get out of this till I send for you.”

As I looked at his foolish, irritable face I realised that I was fairly

UP against it. Short of assault and battery on everybody I was bound to

submit. I saluted respectfully and was marched away.

The hours I spent in that bare anteroom are like a nightmare in my

recollection. A sergeant was busy at a desk with more buff dockets and

an orderly waited on a stool by a telephone. I looked at my watch and

observed that it was one o’clock. Soon the slamming of a door announced

that the A.P.M. had gone to lunch. I tried conversation with the fat

sergeant, but he very soon shut me up. So I sat hunched up on the

wooden form and chewed the cud of my vexation.

I thought with bitterness of the satisfaction which had filled me in

the morning. I had fancied myself the devil of a fine fellow, and I had

been no more than a mountebank. The adventures of the past days seemed

merely childish. I had been telling lies and cutting capers over half

Britain, thinking I was playing a deep game, and I had only been

behaving like a schoolboy. On such occasions a man is rarely just to

himself, and the intensity of my self-abasement would have satisfied my

worst enemy. It didn’t console me that the futility of it all was not

my blame. I was looking for excuses. It was the facts that cried out

against me, and on the facts I had been an idiotic failure.

For of course Ivery had played with me, played with me since the first

day at Biggleswick. He had applauded my speeches and flattered me, and

advised me to go to the Clyde, laughing at me all the time. Gresson,

too, had known. Now I saw it all. He had tried to drown me between

Colonsay and Mull. It was Gresson who had set the police on me in

Morvern. The bagman Linklater had been one of Gresson’s creatures. The

only meagre consolation was that the gang had thought me dangerous

enough to attempt to murder me, and that they knew nothing about my

doings in Skye. Of that I was positive. They had marked me down, but

for several days I had slipped clean out of their ken.

As I went over all the incidents, I asked if everything was yet lost. I

had failed to hoodwink Ivery, but I had found out his post office, and

if he only believed I hadn’t recognised him for the miscreant of the

Black Stone he would go on in his old ways and play into Blenkiron’s

hands. Yes, but I had seen him in undress, so to speak, and he knew

that I had so seen him. The only thing now was to collar him before he

left the country, for there was ample evidence to hang him on. The law

must stretch out its long arm and collect him and Gresson and the

Portuguese Jew, try them by court martial, and put them decently

underground.

But he had now had more than an hour’s warning, and I was entangled

with red-tape in this damned A.P.M.”s office. The thought drove me

frantic, and I got up and paced the floor. I saw the orderly with

rather a scared face making ready to press the bell, and I noticed that

the fat sergeant had gone to lunch.

“Say, mate,” I said, “don’t you feel inclined to do a poor fellow a

good turn? I know I’m for it all right, and I’ll take my medicine like

a lamb. But I want badly to put a telephone call through.”

“It ain’t allowed,” was the answer. “I’d get ’ell from the old man.”

“But he’s gone out,” I urged. “I don’t want you to do anything wrong,

mate, I leave you to do the talkin’ if you’ll only send my message. I’m

flush of money, and I don’t mind handin’ you a quid for the job.”

He was a pinched little man with a weak chin, and he obviously wavered.

“’Oo d’ye want to talk to?” he asked.

“Scotland Yard,” I said, “the home of the police. Lord bless you, there

can’t be no harm in that. Ye’ve only got to ring up Scotland Yard—I’ll

give you the number—and give the message to Mr Macgillivray. He’s the

head bummer of all the bobbies.”

“That sounds a bit of all right,” he said. “The old man ’e won’t be

back for ’alf an hour, nor the sergeant neither. Let’s see your quid

though.”

I laid a pound note on the form beside me. “It’s yours, mate, if you

get through to Scotland Yard and speak the piece I’m goin’ to give

you.”

He went over to the instrument. “What d’you want to say to the bloke

with the long name?”

“Say that Richard Hannay is detained at the A.P.M.”s office in Claxton

Street. Say he’s got important news—say urgent and secret news—and ask

Mr Macgillivray to do something about it at once.”

“But ’Annay ain’t the name you gave.”

“Lord bless you, no. Did you never hear of a man borrowin’ another

name? Anyhow that’s the one I want you to give.”

“But if this Mac man comes round ’ere, they’ll know ’e’s bin rung up,

and I’ll ’ave the old man down on me.”

It took ten minutes and a second pound note to get him past this

hurdle. By and by he screwed up courage and rang up the number. I

listened with some nervousness while he gave my message—he had to

repeat it twice—and waited eagerly on the next words.

“No, sir,” I heard him say, “’e don’t want you to come round ’ere. ’E

thinks as ’ow—I mean to say, ’e wants—”

I took a long stride and twitched the receiver from him.

“Macgillivray,” I said, “is that you? Richard Hannay! For the love of

God come round here this instant and deliver me from the clutches of a

tomfool A.P.M. I’ve got the most deadly news. There’s not a second to

waste. For God’s sake come quick!” Then I added: “Just tell your

fellows to gather Ivery in at once. You know his lairs.”

I hung up the receiver and faced a pale and indignant orderly. “It’s

all right,” I said. “I promise you that you won’t get into any trouble

on my account. And there’s your two quid.”

The door in the next room opened and shut. The A.P.M. had returned from

lunch....

Ten minutes later the door opened again. I heard Macgillivray’s voice,

and it was not pitched in dulcet tones. He had run up against minor

officialdom and was making hay with it.

I was my own master once more, so I forsook the company of the orderly.

I found a most rattled officer trying to save a few rags of his dignity

and the formidable figure of Macgillivray instructing him in manners.

“Glad to see you, Dick,” he said. “This is General Hannay, sir. It may

comfort you to know that your folly may have made just the difference

between your country’s victory and defeat. I shall have a word to say

to your superiors.”

It was hardly fair. I had to put in a word for the old fellow, whose

red tabs seemed suddenly to have grown dingy.

“It was my blame wearing this kit. We’ll call it a misunderstanding and

forget it. But I would suggest that civility is not wasted even on a

poor devil of a defaulting private soldier.”

Once in Macgillivray’s car, I poured out my tale. “Tell me it’s a

nightmare,” I cried. “Tell me that the three men we collected on the

Ruff were shot long ago.”

“Two,” he replied, “but one escaped. Heaven knows how he managed it,

but he disappeared clean out of the world.”

“The plump one who lisped in his speech?”

Macgillivray nodded.

“Well, we’re in for it this time. Have you issued instructions?”

“Yes. With luck we shall have our hands on him within an hour. We’ve

our net round all his haunts.”

“But two hours’ start! It’s a big handicap, for you’re dealing with a

genius.”

“Yet I think we can manage it. Where are you bound for?”

I told him my rooms in Westminster and then to my old flat in Park

Lane. “The day of disguises is past. In half an hour I’ll be Richard

Hannay. It’ll be a comfort to get into uniform again. Then I’ll look up

Blenkiron.”

He grinned. “I gather you’ve had a riotous time. We’ve had a good many

anxious messages from the north about a certain Mr Brand. I couldn’t

discourage our men, for I fancied it might have spoiled your game. I

heard that last night they had lost touch with you in Bradfield, so I

rather expected to see you here today. Efficient body of men the

Scottish police.”

“Especially when they have various enthusiastic amateur helpers.”

“So?” he said. “Yes, of course. They would have. But I hope presently

to congratulate you on the success of your mission.”

“I’ll bet you a pony you don’t,” I said.

“I never bet on a professional subject. Why this pessimism?”

“Only that I know our gentleman better than you. I’ve been twice up

against him. He’s the kind of wicked that don’t cease from troubling

till they’re stone-dead. And even then I’d want to see the body

cremated and take the ashes into mid-ocean and scatter them. I’ve got a

feeling that he’s the biggest thing you or I will ever tackle.”

CHAPTER XI

The Valley of Humiliation

I collected some baggage and a pile of newly arrived letters from my

rooms in Westminster and took a taxi to my Park Lane flat. Usually I

had gone back to that old place with a great feeling of comfort, like a

boy from school who ranges about his room at home and examines his

treasures. I used to like to see my hunting trophies on the wall and to

sink into my own armchairs But now I had no pleasure in the thing. I

had a bath, and changed into uniform, and that made me feel in better

fighting trim. But I suffered from a heavy conviction of abject

failure, and had no share in Macgillivray’s optimism. The awe with

which the Black Stone gang had filled me three years before had revived

a thousandfold. Personal humiliation was the least part of my trouble.

What worried me was the sense of being up against something inhumanly

formidable and wise and strong. I believed I was willing to own defeat

and chuck up the game.

Among the unopened letters was one from Peter, a very bulky one which I

sat down to read at leisure. It was a curious epistle, far the longest

he had ever written me, and its size made me understand his loneliness.

He was still at his German prison-camp, but expecting every day to go

to Switzerland. He said he could get back to England or South Africa,

if he wanted, for they were clear that he could never be a combatant

again; but he thought he had better stay in Switzerland, for he would

be unhappy in England with all his friends fighting. As usual he made

no complaints, and seemed to be very grateful for his small mercies.

There was a doctor who was kind to him, and some good fellows among the

prisoners.

But Peter’s letter was made up chiefly of reflection. He had always

been a bit of a philosopher, and now, in his isolation, he had taken to

thinking hard, and poured out the results to me on pages of thin paper

in his clumsy handwriting. I could read between the lines that he was

having a stiff fight with himself. He was trying to keep his courage

going in face of the bitterest trial he could be called on to face—a

crippled old age. He had always known a good deal about the Bible, and

that and the _Pilgrim’s Progress_ were his chief aids in reflection.

Both he took quite literally, as if they were newspaper reports of

actual recent events.

He mentioned that after much consideration he had reached the

conclusion that the three greatest men he had ever heard of or met were

Mr Valiant-for-Truth, the Apostle Paul, and a certain Billy Strang who

had been with him in Mashonaland in ’92. Billy I knew all about; he had

been Peter’s hero and leader till a lion got him in the Blaauwberg.

Peter preferred Valiant-for-Truth to Mr Greatheart, I think, because of

his superior truculence, for, being very gentle himself, he loved a

bold speaker. After that he dropped into a vein of self-examination. He

regretted that he fell far short of any of the three. He thought that

he might with luck resemble Mr Standfast, for like him he had not much

trouble in keeping wakeful, and was also as “poor as a howler”, and

didn’t care for women. He only hoped that he could imitate him in

making a good end.

Then followed some remarks of Peter’s on courage, which came to me in

that London room as if spoken by his living voice. I have never known

anyone so brave, so brave by instinct, or anyone who hated so much to

be told so. It was almost the only thing that could make him angry. All

his life he had been facing death, and to take risks seemed to him as

natural as to get up in the morning and eat his breakfast. But he had

started out to consider the very thing which before he had taken for

granted, and here is an extract from his conclusions. I paraphrase him,

for he was not grammatical.

_It’s easy enough to be brave if you’re feeling well and have food

inside you. And it’s not so difficult even if you’re short of a meal

and seedy, for that makes you inclined to gamble. I mean by being brave

playing the game by the right rules without letting it worry you that

you may very likely get knocked on the head. It’s the wisest way to

save your skin. It doesn’t do to think about death if you’re facing a

charging lion or trying to bluff a lot of savages. If you think about

it you’ll get it; if you don’t, the odds are you won’t. That kind of

courage is only good nerves and experience.... Most courage is

experience. Most people are a little scared at new things ..._

_You want a bigger heart to face danger which you go out to look for,

and which doesn’t come to you in the ordinary way of business. Still,

that’s pretty much the same thing—good nerves and good health, and a

natural liking for rows. You see, Dick, in all that game there’s a lot

of fun. There’s excitement and the fun of using your wits and skill,

and you know that the bad bits can’t last long. When Arcoll sent me to

Makapan’s kraal I didn’t altogether fancy the job, but at the worst it

was three parts sport, and I got so excited that I never thought of the

risk till it was over ..._

_But the big courage is the cold-blooded kind, the kind that never lets

go even when you’re feeling empty inside, and your blood’s thin, and

there’s no kind of fun or profit to be had, and the trouble’s not over

in an hour or two but lasts for months and years. One of the men here

was speaking about that kind, and he called it “Fortitude”. I reckon

fortitude’s the biggest thing a man can have—just to go on enduring

when there’s no guts or heart left in you. Billy had it when he trekked

solitary from Garungoze to the Limpopo with fever and a broken arm just

to show the Portugooses that he wouldn’t be downed by them. But the

head man at the job was the Apostle Paul ..._

Peter was writing for his own comfort, for fortitude was all that was

left to him now. But his words came pretty straight to me, and I read

them again and again, for I needed the lesson. Here was I losing heart

just because I had failed in the first round and my pride had taken a

knock. I felt honestly ashamed of myself, and that made me a far

happier man. There could be no question of dropping the business,

whatever its difficulties. I had a queer religious feeling that Ivery

and I had our fortunes intertwined, and that no will of mine could keep

us apart. I had faced him before the war and won; I had faced him again

and lost; the third time or the twentieth time we would reach a final

decision. The whole business had hitherto appeared to me a trifle

unreal, at any rate my own connection with it. I had been docilely

obeying orders, but my real self had been standing aside and watching

my doings with a certain aloofness. But that hour in the Tube station

had brought me into the serum, and I saw the affair not as Bullivant’s

or even Blenkiron’s, but as my own. Before I had been itching to get

back to the Front; now I wanted to get on to Ivery’s trail, though it

should take me through the nether pit. Peter was right; fortitude was

the thing a man must possess if he would save his soul.

The hours passed, and, as I expected, there came no word from

Macgillivray. I had some dinner sent up to me at seven o’clock, and

about eight I was thinking of looking up Blenkiron. Just then came a

telephone call asking me to go round to Sir Walter Bullivant’s house in

Queen Anne’s Gate.

Ten minutes later I was ringing the bell, and the door was opened to me

by the same impassive butler who had admitted me on that famous night

three years before. Nothing had changed in the pleasant green-panelled

hall; the alcove was the same as when I had watched from it the

departure of the man who now called himself Ivery; the telephone book

lay in the very place from which I had snatched it in order to ring up

the First Sea Lord. And in the back room, where that night five anxious

officials had conferred, I found Sir Walter and Blenkiron.

Both looked worried, the American feverishly so. He walked up and down

the hearthrug, sucking an unlit black cigar.

“Say, Dick,” he said, “this is a bad business. It wasn’t no fault of

yours. You did fine. It was us—me and Sir Walter and Mr Macgillivray

that were the quitters.”

“Any news?” I asked.

“So far the cover’s drawn blank,” Sir Walter replied. “It was the

devil’s own work that our friend looked your way today. You’re pretty

certain he saw that you recognised him?”

“Absolutely. As sure as that he knew I recognised him in your hall

three years ago when he was swaggering as Lord Alloa.”

“No,” said Blenkiron dolefully, “that little flicker of recognition is

just the one thing you can’t be wrong about. Land alive! I wish Mr

Macgillivray would come.”

The bell rang, and the door opened, but it was not Macgillivray. It was

a young girl in a white ball-gown, with a cluster of blue cornflowers

at her breast. The sight of her fetched Sir Walter out of his chair so

suddenly that he upset his coffee cup.

“Mary, my dear, how did you manage it? I didn’t expect you till the

late train.”

“I was in London, you see, and they telephoned on your telegram. I’m

staying with Aunt Doria, and I cut her theatre party. She thinks I’m at

the Shandwick’s dance, so I needn’t go home till morning.... Good

evening, General Hannay. You got over the Hill Difficulty.”

“The next stage is the Valley of Humiliation,” I answered.

“So it would appear,” she said gravely, and sat very quietly on the

edge of Sir Walter’s chair with her small, cool hand upon his.

I had been picturing her in my recollection as very young and

glimmering, a dancing, exquisite child. But now I revised that picture.

The crystal freshness of morning was still there, but I saw how deep

the waters were. It was the clean fineness and strength of her that

entranced me. I didn’t even think of her as pretty, any more than a man

thinks of the good looks of the friend he worships.

We waited, hardly speaking a word, till Macgillivray came. The first

sight of his face told his story.

“Gone?” asked Blenkiron sharply. The man’s lethargic calm seemed to

have wholly deserted him.

“Gone,” repeated the newcomer. “We have just tracked him down. Oh, he

managed it cleverly. Never a sign of disturbance in any of his lairs.

His dinner ordered at Biggleswick and several people invited to stay

with him for the weekend—one a member of the Government. Two meetings

at which he was to speak arranged for next week. Early this afternoon

he flew over to France as a passenger in one of the new planes. He had

been mixed up with the Air Board people for months—of course as another

man with another face. Miss Lamington discovered that just too late.

The bus went out of its course and came down in Normandy. By this time

our man’s in Paris or beyond it.”

Sir Walter took off his big tortoiseshell spectacles and laid them

carefully on the table.

“Roll up the map of Europe,” he said. “This is our Austerlitz. Mary, my

dear, I am feeling very old.”

Macgillivray had the sharpened face of a bitterly disappointed man.

Blenkiron had got very red, and I could see that he was blaspheming

violently under his breath. Mary’s eyes were quiet and solemn. She kept

on patting Sir Walter’s hand. The sense of some great impending

disaster hung heavily on me, and to break the spell I asked for

details.

“Tell me just the extent of the damage,” I asked. “Our neat plan for

deceiving the Boche has failed. That is bad. A dangerous spy has got

beyond our power. That’s worse. Tell me, is there still a worst? What’s

the limit of mischief he can do?”

Sir Walter had risen and joined Blenkiron on the hearthrug. His brows

were furrowed and his mouth hard as if he were suffering pain.

“There is no limit,” he said. “None that I can see, except the

long-suffering of God. You know the man as Ivery, and you knew him as

that other whom you believed to have been shot one summer morning and

decently buried. You feared the second—at least if you didn’t, I

did—most mortally. You realised that we feared Ivery, and you knew

enough about him to see his fiendish cleverness. Well, you have the two

men combined in one man. Ivery was the best brain Macgillivray and I

ever encountered, the most cunning and patient and long-sighted.

Combine him with the other, the chameleon who can blend himself with

his environment, and has as many personalities as there are types and

traits on the earth. What kind of enemy is that to have to fight?”

“I admit it’s a steep proposition. But after all how much ill can he

do? There are pretty strict limits to the activity of even the

cleverest spy.”

“I agree. But this man is not a spy who buys a few wretched

subordinates and steals a dozen private letters. He’s a genius who has

been living as part of our English life. There’s nothing he hasn’t

seen. He’s been on terms of intimacy with all kinds of politicians. We

know that. He did it as Ivery. They rather liked him, for he was clever

and flattered them, and they told him things. But God knows what he saw

and heard in his other personalities. For all I know he may have

breakfasted at Downing Street with letters of introduction from

President Wilson, or visited the Grand Fleet as a distinguished

neutral. Then think of the women; how they talk. We’re the leakiest

society on earth, and we safeguard ourselves by keeping dangerous

people out of it. We trust to our outer barrage. But anyone who has

really slipped inside has a million chances. And this, remember, is one

man in ten millions, a man whose brain never sleeps for a moment, who

is quick to seize the slightest hint, who can piece a plan together out

of a dozen bits of gossip. It’s like—it’s as if the Chief of the

Intelligence Department were suddenly to desert to the enemy.... The

ordinary spy knows only bits of unconnected facts. This man knows our

life and our way of thinking and everything about us.”

“Well, but a treatise on English life in time of war won’t do much good

to the Boche.”

Sir Walter shook his head. “Don’t you realise the explosive stuff that

is lying about? Ivery knows enough to make the next German peace

offensive really deadly—not the blundering thing which it has been up

to now, but something which gets our weak spots on the raw. He knows

enough to wreck our campaign in the field. And the awful thing is that

we don’t know just what he knows or what he is aiming for. This war’s a

packet of surprises. Both sides are struggling for the margin, the

little fraction of advantage, and between evenly matched enemies it’s

just the extra atom of foreknowledge that tells.”

“Then we’ve got to push off and get after him,” I said cheerfully.

“But what are you going to do?” asked Macgillivray. “If it were merely

a question of destroying an organisation it might be managed, for an

organisation presents a big front. But it’s a question of destroying

this one man, and his front is a razor edge. How are you going to find

him? It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack, and such a needle! A

needle which can become a piece of straw or a tin-tack when it

chooses!”

“All the same we’ve got to do it,” I said, remembering old Peter’s

lesson on fortitude, though I can’t say I was feeling very

stout-hearted.

Sir Walter flung himself wearily into an arm-chair. “I wish I could be

an optimist,” he said, “but it looks as if we must own defeat. I’ve

been at this work for twenty years, and, though I’ve been often beaten,

I’ve always held certain cards in the game. Now I’m hanged if I’ve any.

It looks like a knock-out, Hannay. It’s no good deluding ourselves.

We’re men enough to look facts in the face and tell ourselves the

truth. I don’t see any ray of light in the business. We’ve missed our

shot by a hairsbreadth and that’s the same as missing by miles.”

I remember he looked at Mary as if for confirmation, but she did not

smile or nod. Her face was very grave and her eyes looked steadily at

him. Then they moved and met mine, and they seemed to give me my

marching orders.

“Sir Walter,” I said, “three years ago you and I sat in this very room.

We thought we were done to the world, as we think now. We had just that

one miserable little clue to hang on to—a dozen words scribbled in a

notebook by a dead man. You thought I was mad when I asked for

Scudder’s book, but we put our backs into the job and in twenty-four

hours we had won out. Remember that then we were fighting against time.

Now we have a reasonable amount of leisure. Then we had nothing but a

sentence of gibberish. Now we have a great body of knowledge, for

Blenkiron has been brooding over Ivery like an old hen, and he knows

his ways of working and his breed of confederate. You’ve got something

to work on now. Do you mean to tell me that, when the stakes are so

big, you’re going to chuck in your hand?”

Macgillivray raised his head. “We know a good deal about Ivery, but

Ivery’s dead. We know nothing of the man who was gloriously resurrected

this evening in Normandy.”

“Oh, yes we do. There are many faces to the man, but only one mind, and

you know plenty about that mind.”

“I wonder,” said Sir Walter. “How can you know a mind which has no

characteristics except that it is wholly and supremely competent? Mere

mental powers won’t give us a clue. We want to know the character which

is behind all the personalities. Above all we want to know its foibles.

If we had only a hint of some weakness we might make a plan.”

“Well, let’s set down all we know,” I cried, for the more I argued the

keener I grew. I told them in some detail the story of the night in the

Coolin and what I had heard there.

“There’s the two names _Chelius_ and _Bommaerts_. The man spoke them in

the same breath as _Elfenbein_, so they must be associated with Ivery’s

gang. You’ve got to get the whole Secret Service of the Allies busy to

fit a meaning to these two words. Surely to goodness you’ll find

something! Remember those names don’t belong to the Ivery part, but to

the big game behind all the different disguises.... Then there’s the

talk about the Wild Birds and the Cage Birds. I haven’t a guess at what

it means. But it refers to some infernal gang, and among your piles of

records there must be some clue. You set the intelligence of two

hemispheres busy on the job. You’ve got all the machinery, and it’s my

experience that if even one solitary man keeps chewing on at a problem

he discovers something.”

My enthusiasm was beginning to strike sparks from Macgillivray. He was

looking thoughtful now, instead of despondent.

“There might be something in that,” he said, “but it’s a far-out

chance.”

“Of course it’s a far-out chance, and that’s all we’re ever going to

get from Ivery. But we’ve taken a bad chance before and won.... Then

you’ve all that you know about Ivery here. Go through his _dossier_

with a small-tooth comb and I’ll bet you find something to work on.

Blenkiron, you’re a man with a cool head. You admit we’ve a sporting

chance.”

“Sure, Dick. He’s fixed things so that the lines are across the track,

but we’ll clear somehow. So far as John S. Blenkiron is concerned he’s

got just one thing to do in this world, and that’s to follow the yellow

dog and have him neatly and cleanly tidied up. I’ve got a stack of

personal affronts to settle. I was easy fruit and he hasn’t been very

respectful. You can count me in, Dick.”

“Then we’re agreed,” I cried. “Well, gentlemen, it’s up to you to

arrange the first stage. You’ve some pretty solid staff work to put in

before you get on the trail.”

“And you?” Sir Walter asked.

“I’m going back to my brigade. I want a rest and a change. Besides, the

first stage is office work, and I’m no use for that. But I’ll be

waiting to be summoned, and I’ll come like a shot as soon as you hoick

me out. I’ve got a presentiment about this thing. I know there’ll be a

finish and that I’ll be in at it, and I think it will be a desperate,

bloody business too.”

I found Mary’s eyes fixed upon me, and in them I read the same thought.

She had not spoken a word, but had sat on the edge of a chair, swinging

a foot idly, one hand playing with an ivory fan. She had given me my

old orders and I looked to her for confirmation of the new.

“Miss Lamington, you are the wisest of the lot of us. What do you say?”

She smiled—that shy, companionable smile which I had been picturing to

myself through all the wanderings of the past month.

“I think you are right. We’ve a long way to go yet, for the Valley of

Humiliation comes only half-way in the _Pilgrim’s Progress_. The next

stage was Vanity Fair. I might be of some use there, don’t you think?”

I remember the way she laughed and flung back her head like a gallant

boy.

“The mistake we’ve all been making,” she said, “is that our methods are

too _terre-à-terre_. We’ve a poet to deal with, a great poet, and we

must fling our imaginations forward to catch up with him. His strength

is his unexpectedness, you know, and we won’t beat him by plodding

only. I believe the wildest course is the wisest, for it’s the most

likely to intersect his.... Who’s the poet among us?”

“Peter,” I said. “But he’s pinned down with a game leg in Germany. All

the same we must rope him in.”

By this time we had all cheered up, for it is wonderful what a tonic

there is in a prospect of action. The butler brought in tea, which it

was Bullivant’s habit to drink after dinner. To me it seemed fantastic

to watch a slip of a girl pouring it out for two grizzled and

distinguished servants of the State and one battered soldier—as

decorous a family party as you would ask to see—and to reflect that all

four were engaged in an enterprise where men’s lives must be reckoned

at less than thistledown.

After that we went upstairs to a noble Georgian drawing-room and Mary

played to us. I don’t care two straws for music from an

instrument—unless it be the pipes or a regimental band—but I dearly

love the human voice. But she would not sing, for singing to her, I

fancy, was something that did not come at will, but flowed only like a

bird’s note when the mood favoured. I did not want it either. I was

content to let “Cherry Ripe” be the one song linked with her in my

memory.

It was Macgillivray who brought us back to business.

“I wish to Heaven there was one habit of mind we could definitely

attach to him and to no one else.” (At this moment “He” had only one

meaning for us.)

“You can’t do nothing with his mind,” Blenkiron drawled. “You can’t

loose the bands of Orion, as the Bible says, or hold Leviathan with a

hook. I reckoned I could and made a mighty close study of his de-vices.

But the darned cuss wouldn’t stay put. I thought I had tied him down to

the double bluff, and he went and played the triple bluff on me.

There’s nothing doing that line.”

A memory of Peter recurred to me.

“What about the ‘blind spot’?” I asked, and I told them old Peter’s pet

theory. “Every man that God made has his weak spot somewhere, some flaw

in his character which leaves a dull patch in his brain. We’ve got to

find that out, and I think I’ve made a beginning.”

Macgillivray in a sharp voice asked my meaning.

“He’s in a funk ... of something. Oh, I don’t mean he’s a coward. A man

in his trade wants the nerve of a buffalo. He could give us all points

in courage. What I mean is that he’s not clean white all through. There

are yellow streaks somewhere in him.... I’ve given a good deal of

thought to this courage business, for I haven’t got a great deal of it

myself. Not like Peter, I mean. I’ve got heaps of soft places in me.

I’m afraid of being drowned for one thing, or of getting my eyes shot

out. Ivery’s afraid of bombs—at any rate he’s afraid of bombs in a big

city. I once read a book which talked about a thing called

_agoraphobia_. Perhaps it’s that.... Now if we know that weak spot it

helps us in our work. There are some places he won’t go to, and there

are some things he can’t do—not well, anyway. I reckon that’s useful.”

“Ye-es,” said Macgillivray. “Perhaps it’s not what you’d call a burning

and a shining light.”

“There’s another chink in his armour,” I went on. “There’s one person

in the world he can never practise his transformations on, and that’s

me. I shall always know him again, though he appeared as Sir Douglas

Haig. I can’t explain why, but I’ve got a feel in my bones about it. I

didn’t recognise him before, for I thought he was dead, and the nerve

in my brain which should have been looking for him wasn’t working. But

I’m on my guard now, and that nerve’s functioning at full power.

Whenever and wherever and howsoever we meet again on the face of the

earth, it will be ‘Dr Livingstone, I presume’ between him and me.”

“That is better,” said Macgillivray. “If we have any luck, Hannay, it

won’t be long till we pull you out of His Majesty’s Forces.”

Mary got up from the piano and resumed her old perch on the arm of Sir

Walter’s chair.

“There’s another blind spot which you haven’t mentioned.” It was a cool

evening, but I noticed that her cheeks had suddenly flushed.

“Last week Mr Ivery asked me to marry him,” she said.

PART II