A CHANCE SHOT
"WHAT are you going to do with yourself, old man?" inquired Eric
Greenwood, late assistant-paymaster of H.M.S. "Tantalus," after the
court-martial had sat upon the survivors of the lost cruiser and,
following its finding, the officers and men of the sunk vessel had
been given fourteen days' leave.
"Hardly know yet," replied Farrar. "Run up to town, I expect--may
get a bit of excitement there; or else look up some of my people's
friends at Lymbury, although it's five years or more since we--that
is, my parents--left the place. The governor's got a Staff job out
in New Zealand."
"Look here," exclaimed the A.P. impetuously. "Come and sling your
hammock at my people's place. My governor has just taken a house at
Penkestle, close to where Tressidar's family hang out. The skipper
of the 'Antipas' is my revered brother-in-law. I suppose you know
that?"
Farrar shook his head.
"Well," continued Greenwood, "that's neither here nor there as far
as present circumstances stand. I have an open invite for any of my
pals, so how about it? Fishing, shooting, and all that sort of
thing, but I'm afraid motoring's dead off."
"Thanks, I'm on," accepted Farrar promptly. Truth to tell he had not
been looking forward to his leave with pleasurable anticipations.
"Knocking around" without any definite plan of action was
distasteful to him, but the A.P.'s invitation put a totally
different aspect upon things.
"But I say," he added dubiously, "what about Bruno?"
"Bruno, of course, stands in," declared Greenwood. "My people are
very keen on dogs--large ones especially. I'll wire off at once, and
we'll catch the 4.45 from Trecurnow. We'll have to change at St.
Penibar."
"Where is Penkestle?" asked the sub.
"About four miles from Trebalda: you know where that place is?"
"Heard of it," admitted Farrar. "Holcombe mentioned that the kapitan
of U 254 was supposed to have landed there in mufti. Right-o; I'll
have my gear together by lunch-time. Hear that, Bruno? We're off to
a country-house. A change for you, old boy, after a crowded
mess-deck."
The St. Bernard blinked solemnly, as if to imply that he didn't care
a brass farthing whether he was on dry land or on the heaving deck
of a ship as long as he was in his master's company.
Although only a distance of fifty miles it was seven o'clock before
the two young officers arrived at Trebalda Station.
"There's the governor!" exclaimed Eric. "Come along, old man. Pater,
let me introduce you to my pal Slogger, otherwise Nigel Farrar, one
of the homeless waifs from the old 'Tantalus.' And Bruno, of the
same reliable firm."
Mr. Greenwood greeted the sub warmly, although he eyed the huge St.
Bernard with misgivings.
"Er--Bruno's almost as big as a donkey," he observed, "but we can't
put him out to grass. Still, we'll do our best for him in the
commissariat department."
"All ready, pater?" inquired Eric, lifting his portmanteau from the
platform.
"Far from it, my boy," replied his parent. "Put that thing on a seat
and have a smoke. I'm killing two birds with one stone--hence the
ponderous conveyance."
And he indicated a five-seater car waiting outside the station
gates.
"What's the move, then?" inquired the A.P.
"More visitors," replied Mr. Greenwood. "Fortunately the house is
large. An old friend of mine--one I haven't seen for over twenty
years--is arriving by the down train. Barcroft's his name--Peter
Barcroft. You've heard me mention him?"
"By Jove, that's strange!" remarked Farrar. "The Blimp johnny who
strafed our pal U 254 is a Barcroft. Any relation, I wonder?"
"Yes, his son," replied Mr. Greenwood. "Peter mentioned that his son
Billy was in the Naval Air Service. Good, the signal's down. The
train seems pretty punctual."
"Come here, Bruno," ordered the sub, noticing that the animal was
rubbing his muzzle against the hand of a dark-featured man who was
standing by the ticket-gate.
"I don't mind," exclaimed the man, patting the St. Bernard's head.
"Used to animals, you know. Fine brute."
With a casual movement he glanced at the dog's collar--a
silver-plated one inscribed "Bruno--Sub-Lieutenant N. Farrar,
R.N.V.R., H.M.S. 'Tantalus.'"
"H'm!" he muttered. "Quite a coincidence. ...Here! Good dog, go to
your master."
Just then the train ran into the station. Amidst the loud noise of
doors opening and shutting about a dozen passengers boarded the
train, while nearly three times that number alighted. Amongst them
was a well-set-up, clean-shaven man in a Norfolk suit.
"Hullo, Greenwood!" he exclaimed briskly.
"Pleased to meet you again after all this long time. By Jove, I
recognise you, you see. Looking jolly fit, too."
"I feel fit," admitted his friend. "Work on the land, drilling with
the Gorgeous Wrecks, making myself generally useful, and all that
sort of thing, don't you know. And war rations suit me, too. Feel
twenty years younger than I did before the war, and, by Jove, I'm my
own carpenter, bricklayer, plumber, and a dozen other trades rolled
into one. If I had known as much ten years ago as I do now, I would
have saved hundreds of pounds in wages. But I'm forgetting: my son,
Eric; his friend, Mr. Farrar--Mr. Farrar knows your boy, I believe."
"Only by name," corrected the sub. "As a matter of fact he was in
command of the Blimp that strafed the U-boat that did us in. We're
late of the 'Tantalus.'"
"Oh, was he?" remarked Peter Barcroft drily. "First I've heard of
it. Precious little news I get from Billy about his doings."
"True to the traditions of the Great Silent Navy," observed the A.P.
"Of course we don't like advertising, but there are times when
various little incidents will out."
"Look here," interrupted Mr. Greenwood, beaming affably. "If you are
about to start a debate on the subject of the Royal Navy, I'll order
the car to return in three hours' time. I say, Barcroft----"
But Peter Barcroft had broken away from the group. Nigel Farrar
caught sight of him shaking the hand of the individual who had been
fondling his dog.
"Bless my soul, Entwistle!" exclaimed Peter. "What on earth are you
doing down here--shadowing me?"
"Hope I shan't have to do that again," replied Philip Entwistle,
Secret Service Agent. "I'm on the track of a fellow who dined at an
hotel here with the captain of a German submarine. Keep the
information to yourself, although before long I may have to enlist
the aid of these naval officers. That St. Bernard gave me a clue.
Oh, by the by, how are your dogs, Ponto and Nan?"
"Fit as ever, short commons notwithstanding," replied Peter. "I
didn't bring them down with me, to their great discontent. Well, I
mustn't keep my old friend Greenwood any longer. I'll be bound to
run across you in a day or so."
"Who's that fellow, Peter?" asked Mr. Greenwood as the four men and
Bruno boarded the waiting car.
"An old friend of mine, a veterinary surgeon," explained Mr.
Barcroft. "He lives but a few miles from me. The world is small. I
hardly expected to find him here."
A quarter of an hour later the car pulled up at "The Old Croft," at
Penkestle, a long, two-storied stone building like many another to
be found in Cornwall.
"Show Farrar his room, Eric," said Mr. Greenwood after the guests
had been introduced to Mrs. Greenwood and her two daughters: Doris,
now Mrs. Ronald Tressidar, and Winifred, a lively girl of seventeen
or eighteen. "I'll take Peter to his temporary quarters. Dinner is
when, my dear?"
"At eight, for this night only," replied Mrs. Greenwood. "Now,
girls, set to. We've each our allotted tasks now, owing to the
shortage of servants," she explained. "Eric, you've come home at a
very opportune moment."
"How's that, mater?" asked the A.P.
"There's no meat for to-morrow, so you can organise a
rabbit-shooting party. You'll like to take a gun, Mr. Farrar?"
"Rather," replied the sub with alacrity.
"And Mr. Barcroft?" inquired the A.P.
Peter was in the act of following his host upstairs. He stopped and
shook his head.
"Thanks," he replied. "I'm not taking any just at present," he
observed. "Used to do a lot of shooting on the moors. Saw a man...
an--er--acquaintance, or, rather, a neighbour, messed about pretty
badly through his gun bursting.... He died soon after. It put me off
absolutely."
"I'll come, Eric," said Winifred. "That is, if you want me. And you
can lend me your small gun. Those twelve-bores kick so."
"Delighted, Freddy, I'm sure," exclaimed her brother with genuine
pleasure. "Farrar, old bird, you'll have to look to your laurels.
Freddy is a regular terror when she's after bunnies."
Soon after breakfast the following morning the three guns set out,
accompanied by a pair of silky-haired spaniels, greatly to Bruno's
resentment, for to the St. Bernard things didn't seem at all right
that his master should take a couple of insignificant and strange
dogs for a stroll, while he was condemned to spend the morning
locked up in a shed.
"By Jove, this air is great!" remarked the sub, as they crossed a
stile and gained the open moor. "Your governor couldn't have chosen
more desolate surroundings, Greenwood. Not a sign of a human being
or a habitation for miles ahead. Look here, Miss Greenwood, allow me
to carry your gun."
The A.P. laughed as his sister shook her head resolutely.
"Freddy likes to be independent," he observed. "I say, Farrar,
you've just told a terminological inexactitude; where are your eyes?
There's some one coming this way."
"Yes, you're right," admitted Farrar. "And, strange enough, it's the
fellow we saw on Trebalda Station platform: the one who spoke to Mr.
Barcroft, you remember?"
"Good morning," exclaimed Entwistle, raising his cap as he
approached. "Can you direct me to 'The Croft'?"
"You are going to see your friend, Mr. Barcroft, I presume?" asked
the A.P. after giving the required direction. "You are Mr.
Entwistle, I think?"
"I am," admitted the Secret Service man, wondering how much Peter
had said about him. "And how is your St. Bernard, Mr. Farrar?"
It was the sub's turn to be surprised, only, unlike Entwistle, he
expressed it openly.
"I saw your name on the dog's collar," explained Entwistle. "Well,
don't let me detain you. I wish you good sport."
"We are bound to see you at lunch," said Eric. "The governor will
insist upon your staying."
"You are very hospitable," remarked Entwistle.
"Not at all," protested the A.P. "Simply my governor's deputy, don't
you know. The fact that you are a friend of Mr. Barcroft is
sufficient guarantee for me to ask you."
The Secret Service man, still in the dark as to how much the young
naval officer knew of his affairs, raised his cap to Winifred and
hastened in the direction of "The Old Croft," while the trio resumed
their way.
"Time to load," remarked Eric as they found themselves confronted by
a rounded hill, the face of which was studded with gorse and
heather. "We'll be bound to have some sport before we get to the top
of Plas Tor. Keep fifty yards apart, and go dead in the eye of the
wind: that's the move."
Before Farrar had cautiously covered a distance of a hundred yards,
the while ascending the somewhat broken ground, a rabbit, surprised
in the open, bolted from almost under his feet. He raised his gun,
pulled both triggers--and missed. Somewhat to his mortification a
shot rang out on his left and down dropped bunny like a stone.
"Simply had to do it," said Winifred, extracting the still smoking
cartridge from her gun. "You let off too soon, Mr. Farrar: before
the shots had time to spread."
"A clinking shot that of yours, any way," exclaimed the sub
enthusiastically. "Eighty yards."
"Say sixty," corrected the girl, taking the rabbit from one of the
spaniels. "Better luck next time, Mr. Farrar."
The sub reloaded, conscious at the same time of a numbing pain in
his right shoulder. Letting off both barrels of a twelve-bore
simultaneously, he reflected, causes the gun to recoil considerably
more than the comparatively slight kick of a .303 Service rifle.
Without the chance of another shot the three "sportsmen" gained the
summit of the tor, the A.P. looking considerably dejected at his
failure as a prophet.
"Last time I was on leave I bagged seven on this hill," he declared
in substantiation of his shattered claim. "Wonder what's up with the
little beasts to-day?"
"I see by the papers that rabbits are included in meat rations,"
observed Winifred. "Consequently, as in other cases, there is an
immediate shortage. If only the Controller would place U-boats on
the list of controlled articles, they, too, would doubtless
disappear."
"Hard lines on submarine hunters, then," added the A.P. "My worthy
brother-in-law would be hard up for a job; and as for young
Barcroft----"
"Allow me to remind you," interrupted the sub, "that discussing
U-boat strafers won't find the ingredients for a rabbit pie. Which
way now, old bird?"
Eric Greenwood shaded his eyes and gazed down into the valley, that
literally simmered in the blazing sunshine. Everywhere wisps of mist
were rising as the sun's rays beat upon the dew-sodden grass.
"We'll try in the direction of Bold Tor," he replied. "It's a good
three miles, but we can have something to eat when we get to the top
and still get back well in time for lunch."
For the best part of an hour the three guns proceeded at varying
distances apart, but ill-luck attended them. Not another rabbit was
to be seen, despite the fact that the girl and her two companions
moved with deliberate stealth, with the well-trained dogs following
silently at Winifred's heels.
"Slow sport," soliloquised the sub. "Well, thank goodness, we're
nearly to the top of Broad Tor; then we can ease our jaw-tackle.
Hanged if I like being as silent as a Trappist monk."
Suddenly, two swift, brownish objects darted from the cover of a
gorse-bush. Farrar had a momentary glimpse of two white tails as the
animals changed course and bolted for a place of refuge--a
honey-combed bank overhung with low bushes.
Mindful of Winifred's warning, he fired at forty yards. Down dropped
one rabbit, kicking frantically, while the other, partly crippled,
struggled towards the nearmost hole. With his gun still at the
shoulder the sub fired the second barrel.
"Hurrah!" he shouted involuntarily, as the second rabbit dropped;
but as he started to run to secure his prizes, he caught a brief
glance of a man's head and shoulders above the bushes, one side of
his face streaming with blood, ere he dropped to the ground.
"Well done!" exclaimed the A.P., who on hearing the shots was
hastening towards the sub.
"Far from it," said Farrar in a low voice. "I say, keep Miss
Greenwood back out of it; I've plugged some poor bounder."
"Rot!" exclaimed the A.P. incredulously.
"Fact," protested the luckless sportsman. "Be quick, man! Take her
away out of it."
Leaving Greenwood to attempt the futile task the sub forced his way
through the undergrowth till he came to the spot where his victim
dropped. Lying face downwards on a small plot of grass was a tall,
well-built man, unconscious, but breathing stertorously. A cloth cap
was hung up in the bushes, having evidently been blown there by a
portion of the charge of No. 6 shot. The cap had to a certain extent
protected its wearer, for beyond a few slight scratches the top of
his head was untouched; but from the right temple downwards to the
neck the hard-hitting pellets had done their work only too well.
While Farrar was attempting to render first-aid the A.P. and his
sister arrived upon the scene, Winifred insisting on giving her
assistance as a member of the V.A.D.
"It looks a worse case than it actually is," she declared in her
best professional manner. "And there's no water to be had nearer
than the village. The best thing we can do is to get him to the
house."
"But how?" asked her brother. "It is almost impossible to get a cart
of any description over this rough ground."
"We'll have to carry him," replied Winifred. "Get a couple of those
young trees," and she pointed to a clump of ash saplings, the only
trees to be found for miles, though fortunately close at hand.
Quickly Eric felled two of the young trees by the simple expedient
of firing a charge of shot into each at close range. A knife soon
cleared off the shoots, and a pair of serviceable poles, ten or
twelve feet in length, were at the disposal of the amateur ambulance
party.
The two men's coats--they were in mufti--were then pressed into
service to complete the rough-and-ready stretcher, and with Winifred
walking by the patient's side to steady any unwonted jolt to the
conveyance, the sub and the A.P. carried their unconscious burden,
one of the dogs being left to guard the guns until they could be
sent for.
It was a back-aching task. The man was heavy, the way rough, and the
heat terrific, yet gamely the two naval officers "carried on,"
resolutely declining to allow Miss Greenwood to bear a hand with the
stretcher. Not until they were within a mile of "The Croft" did they
fall in with a sturdy Cornish countryman, who willingly relieved
Eric of his share. A little farther on another villager was able to
perform a like service to the fairly "baked" Farrar, and by the time
the party drew within sight of the house nearly a score of curious
country folk tailed on. An intelligent youth volunteered to ride on
his cycle into Trebalda to fetch a doctor, while the rest of the
crowd of spectators hung about the gates as the stretcher was borne
through the grounds to the house.