THE GOVERNOR'S PROMISE
Peter Gross had just concluded an account of his administration in
Bulungan to Governor-General Van Schouten at the latter's _paleis_ in
Batavia. The governor-general was frowning.
"So! _mynheer_," he exclaimed gruffly. "This is not a very happy report
you have brought me."
Peter Gross bent his head.
"No census, not a cent of taxes paid, piracy, murders, my
_controlleurs_--God knows where they are, the whole province in revolt.
This is a nice kettle of fish."
Sachsen glanced sympathetically at Peter Gross. The lad he loved so well
sat with bowed head and clenched hands, lines of suffering marked his
face, he had grown older, oh, so much older, during those few sorry
months since he had so confidently declared his policies for the
regeneration of the residency in this very room. The governor was
speaking again.
"You said you would find Mynheer de Jonge's murderer for me," Van
Schouten rasped. "Have you done that?"
"Yes, your excellency. It was Kapitein Van Slyck who planned the deed,
and Cho Seng who committed the act, pricked him with a upas thorn while
he slept, as I told your excellency. Here are my proofs. A statement
made by Mynheer Muller to Captain Carver and Lieutenant Banning before
he died, and a statement made by Koyala to me." He gave the governor the
documents. The latter scanned them briefly and laid them aside.
"How did Muller come to his death?" he demanded.
"Like a true servant of the state, fighting in defense of the fort,"
Peter Gross replied. "A splinter of a shell struck him in the body."
"H-m!" the governor grunted. "I thought he was one of these traitors,
too."
"He expiated his crimes two weeks ago at Fort Wilhelmina, your
excellency."
"And Cho Seng?" the governor demanded. "Is he still alive?"
"He fell on his own dagger." Peter Gross described the incident. "It was
not the dagger thrust that killed him," he explained. "That made only a
flesh wound. But the dagger point had been dipped in a cobra's venom."
Softly he added: "He always feared that he would die from a snake's
poison."
"It is the judgment of God," Van Schouten pronounced solemnly. He looked
at Peter Gross sharply.
"Now this Koyala," he asked, "where is she?"
"I do not know. In the hills, among her own people, I think. She will
not trouble you again."
The governor stared at his resident. Gradually the stern lines of his
face relaxed and a quaintly humorous glint came into his eyes.
"So, Mynheer Gross, the woman deceived you?" he asked sharply.
Peter Gross made no reply. The governor's eyes twinkled. He suddenly
brought down his fist on the table with a resounding bang.
"_Donder en bliksem!_" he exclaimed, "I cannot find fault with you for
that. The fault is mine. I should have known better. Why, when I was
your age, a pretty woman could strip the very buttons from my dress
coat--dammit, Mynheer Gross, you must have had a heart of ice to
withstand her so long."
He flourished a highly colored silk handkerchief and blew his nose
lustily.
"So you are forgiven on that count, Mynheer Gross. Now for the other. It
appears that by your work you have created a much more favorable feeling
toward us among many of the natives. The hill Dyaks did not rise against
us as they have always done before, and some of the coast Dyak tribes
were loyal. That buzzard, Lkath, stayed in his lair. Furthermore, you
have solved the mysteries that have puzzled us for years and the
criminals have been muzzled. Lastly, you were the honey that attracted
all these piratical pests into Bulungan harbor where Kapitein Enckel was
able to administer them a blow that will sweep those seas clear of this
vermin for years to come, I believe. You have not done so badly after
all, Mynheer Gross. Of course, you and your twenty-five men might have
come to grief had not Sachsen, here, heard reports that caused me to
send the _Prins Lodewyk_ post-haste to Bulungan, but we will overlook
your too great confidence on the score of your youth." He chuckled. "Now
as to the future."
He paused and looked smilingly into the eyes that looked so gratefully
into his.
"What say you to two more years at Bulungan, _mynheer_, to straighten
out affairs there, work out your policies, and finish what you have so
ably begun?"
"Your excellency is too good," Peter Gross murmured brokenly.
"Good!" Van Schouten snapped. "_Donder en bliksem, mynheer_, it is only
that I know a man when I see him. Can you go back next week?"
"Yes, your excellency."
"Then see that you do. And see to it that those devils send me some rice
this year when the tax falls due or I will hang them all in the good,
old-fashioned way."
THE END
[Illustration: The Big Fight]
[Illustration: Capt. David Fallon M.C.]
Few soldiers in this great war have been through adventures more
thrilling, dramatic and perilous than fell to the lot of Captain David
Fallon.
He is a young Irishman whose first fighting was against the hillmen in
their uprisings in India. He received the Indian Field Medal.
The opening of the war found him physical instructor and bayonet drill
master at the Royal Military College, Duntroon, New South Wales. He went
through the entire, terrible Gallipoli campaign.
He was in scores of fierce trench battles.
He commanded a tank in an amazing war adventure.
He has served as an aerial observer, spotted enemy positions and fought
enemy aeroplanes.
On the road to Thiepval with a shoulder smashed by shrapnel he remained
in command of his men behind barricades made of the dead and for
twenty-two hours held off the Germans until reinforcements arrived.
On scout duty he frequently penetrated German trenches and gun positions
in the night.
A bomb duel with a German patrol when he was detected in their trenches
brought him irreparable injury.
He lay for three days in the mud of a shellhole in the enemy country
with his right arm blasted, his upper jaw broken, his face and shoulders
burned, but survived and managed to escape.
He was awarded the Military Cross for daring and valuable service to his
King.
You will probably hear Captain Fallon lecture, but his book is something
you will wish to keep. It is historical and every word rings true.
THE WAR BOOK WITH A THRILL
SPECIMEN CHAPTER
CHAPTER XII
"RAZZLE DAZZLE"
It was at Beaumont-Hamel, about September 16th, that I got my chance to
command a "tank."
The dear girl was named "Razzle Dazzle." She was very young, having been
in service only three months, but rather portly. Matter of fact, she
weighed something over thirty tons. And in no way could you call the
dear little woman pretty. She was a pallid gray and mud-splashed when I
got her and there was no grace in the bulging curves of her steel shape.
Or of her conical top. Or her ponderous wheels.
The fact is that she showed every aspect of being a bad, scrappy old
dearie. The minute I saw her in her lovely ugliness I knew she would
like trouble and lots of it. Her metabolism was a marvel. She carried a
six-hundred-horse-power motor. And out of her gray steel hoods
protruded eight guns. An infernal old girl, you can bet she was. All
ready to make battle in large quantities.
When I boarded "Razzle Dazzle" she was full of dents. She had rocked
around among several trench charges. But the reason for my assignment to
her was prosaic. Her captain had not been killed. He was just sick--some
stomach complaint. I was drafted on an hour's notice to the job, this,
because of long training in handling rapid-fire guns.
It was all new to me, but highly interesting. My crew consisted of seven
men--five of them well experienced. And a black cat. Although she was a
lady-cat she had been named "Joffre" and I can't tell you why because I
never received any explanation on this point myself. But "Joffre" was
very friendly and insisted on sitting either on my knee or shoulder from
the moment I sealed myself and my men in the tank. We had our outlook
from several periscopes above the turret and from spy holes in the
turret itself.
The order had come to me about one in the morning, and it was nearly
three when we started lumbering out toward the enemy trenches. We had
about six hundred yards to cover. I knew little or nothing of her motor
power or speed. My concern was with the efficiency of the guns. She
pumped and swayed "across No Man's Land" at about four miles an hour.
She groaned and tossed a great deal. And in fact, made such poor
progress that my regiment, the Oxfords and Bucks, beat the old dearie to
the enemy lines. Our men were among the barbed wire of the first line,
fighting it, cutting it, knocking it down before the old "Razzle Dazzle"
got into action.
But she "carried on" just the same. And when she smote the barbed-wire
obstacles, she murdered them. She crushed those barriers to what looked
like messes of steel spaghetti.
Instead of sinking into trenches as I feared she would, she crushed them
and continued to move forward. Of course, we were letting go everything
we had, and from my observation hole, I could see the Germans didn't
like it.
They had put up something of a stand against the infantry. But against
the tank they were quick to make their farewells. It was a still black
night, but under the star-shells we could see them scurrying out of our
way.
This was very sensible of them because we were certainly making a clean
sweep of everything in sight and had the earth ahead throwing up
chocolate showers of spray as if the ground we rode was an angry sea of
mud.
Every man in the tank was shouting and yelling with the excitement of
the thing and we were tossed up against each other like loosened peas in
a pod. Only Joffre remained perfectly cool. Somehow she maintained a
firm seat on my swaying shoulder and as I glanced around to peer at her
she was calmly licking a paw and then daintily wiped her face.
Suddenly out of a very clever camouflage of tree branches and shrubbery
a German machine-gun emplacement was revealed. The bullets stormed and
rattled upon the tank. But they did themselves a bad turn by revealing
their whereabouts, for we made straight for the camouflage and went
over that battery of machine guns, crunching its concrete foundation as
if it were chalk.
[Illustration: "British blood is calling British blood"]
Then we turned about and from our new position put the Germans under an
enfilade fire that we kept up until every evidence was at hand that the
Oxfords and Bucks and supporting battalions were holding the trenches.
But this was only preliminary work cut out for the tank to do. I had
special instructions and a main objective. This was a sugar refinery. It
was a one-storied building of brick and wood with a tiled roof. It had
been established as a sugar refinery by the Germans before the war and
when this occasion arose blossomed as a fortress with a gun aimed out of
every window.
To allow it to remain standing in hostile hands would mean that the
trenches we had won could be constantly battered. Its removal was most
desirable. To send infantry against it would have involved huge losses
in life. The tank was deemed the right weapon.
It was.
[Illustration: Cleaning Mills bombs]
And largely because "Razzle Dazzle" took matters into her own hands. The
truth is she ran away.
We rocked and plowed out of the trenches and went swaying toward the
refinery. I ordered the round-top sealed. And we beat the refinery to
the attack with our guns. But they had seen us coming and every window
facing our way developed a working gun. There were about sixteen such
windows. They all blazed at us.
My notion had been to circle the "sugar mill", with "Razzle Dazzle" and
shoot it up from all sides. We were getting frightfully rapped by the
enemy fire, but there was apparently nothing heavy enough to split the
skin of the wild, old girl. Our own fire was effective. We knocked out
all the windows and the red-tiled roof was sagging. As I say, my notion
was to circle the "mill" and I gave orders accordingly. But the "Razzle
Dazzle's" chauffeur looked at me in distress.
"The steering gear's off, sir," said he.
"Stop her then and we'll let them have it from here," I ordered.
He made several frantic motions with the mechanism and said:
"I can't stop her, either."
And the "Razzle Dazzle" carried out her own idea of attack. She banged
head-on into the "mill." She went right through a wide doorway, making
splinters of the door, she knocked against concrete pillars, supports
and walls, smashing everything in her way and bowled out of the other
side just as the roof crashed in and apparently crushed and smothered
all the artillery men beneath it.
On the way through, the big, powerful old girl bucked and rocked and
reared until we men and the black cat inside her were thrown again and
again into a jumble, the cat scratching us like a devil in her frenzy of
fear.
Closed up in the tank as we were, we could hear the roar and crash of
the falling "mill," and from my observation port-hole I could observe
that it was most complete. The place had been reduced to a mere heap.
Not a shot came out of it at us.
But still the "Razzle Dazzle" was having her own way. Her motorist was
signaling me that he had no control of her. This was cheerful
intelligence because right ahead was a huge shell crater. She might
slide into it and climb up the other side and out. I hoped so. But she
didn't. She hit the bottom of the pit, tried to push her way up and out,
fell back, panted, pushed up again, fell back and then just stuck at the
bottom of the well, throbbing and moaning and maybe penitent for her
recklessness.
Penitence wasn't to do her any good. It wasn't five minutes later when
the Germans had the range of her and began smashing us with big shells.
I ordered my men to abandon her and led them in a rush out of the crater
and into small shell holes until the storm of fire was past.
When it was, "Razzle Dazzle" was a wreck. She was cracked, distorted and
shapeless. But the runaway engine was still plainly to be heard
throbbing. Finally a last big shell sailed into the doughty tank and
there was a loud bang and a flare. Her oil reservoir shot up in an
enormous blaze.
"Razzle Dazzle" was no more. But she had accounted for the "refinery."
And our infantry had done the rest. The German position was ours.
I was all enthusiasm for fighting "tanks." But my superiors squelched
it. For when I asked for command of a sister of "Razzle Dazzle" next
day, a cold-eyed aide said to me:
"One tank, worth ten thousand pounds, is as much as any bally young
officer may expect to be given to destroy during his lifetime. Good
afternoon."
He never gave me a chance to explain that it was "Razzle Dazzle's" own
fault, how she had taken things into her own willful control. But he did
try to give me credit for what "Razzle Dazzle" had herself accomplished.
He said the destruction of the "sugar mill" had been "fine work."
I wonder what "Joffre" thought of it all. I don't remember seeing her
when we fled from the "tank," except as something incredibly swift and
black flashed past my eyes as we thrust up the lid. I sincerely hope she
is alive and well "somewhere in France."
"THE BIG FIGHT" is over 300 pages long and is the most
interesting of war books. Some books are made to read and
forget; others to read and to keep. "THE BIG FIGHT" belongs to
the latter class.
Why not order a copy to-day?
[Illustration: In the supports, waiting to advance]
[Illustration: The Military Cross]
End of Project Gutenberg's The Argus Pheasant, by John Charles Beecham