I
IN THE CLOUDS
"My God," said Rutherford, "the cable has broken!"
In an instant I was craning over the side of the basket. Five hundred
feet, 700 feet, 1000 feet, 2000 feet below us, the cruiser that had been
our only link with the world of man was diminishing so swiftly that, as
far as I remember, she had shrunk to the smallness of a tug and then
vanished into the haze before I even answered him.
"Anything to be done?" I asked.
"Nothing," said he.
It had been growing steadily more misty even down near the water, and now
as the released balloon shot up into an altitude of five, ten, and
presently twelve thousand feet, everything in Heaven and earth
disappeared except that white and clammy fog. By a simultaneous impulse
he lit a cigarette and I a pipe, and I remember very plainly wondering
whether he felt any touch of that self-conscious defiance of fate and
deliberate intention to do the coolest thing possible, which I am free to
confess I felt myself. Probably not; Rutherford was the real Navy and I
but a zig-zag ringed R.N.V.R. amateur. Still, the spirit of the Navy is
infectious and I made a fair attempt to keep his stout heart company.
"What _ought_ to happen to a thing like this?" I enquired.
"If this wind holds we might conceivably make a landing somewhere--with
extraordinary luck."
"On the other side?"
He nodded and I reflected.
It was towards the end of August, 1914. We were somewhere about the
middle of the North Sea when the observation balloon was sent up, and I
had persuaded Rutherford to take me up with him in the basket. Five
minutes ago I had been telling myself I was the luckiest R.N.V.R.
Sub-Lieutenant in the Navy; and then suddenly the appalling thing
happened. I may not give away any naval secrets, but everybody knows, I
presume, that towed balloons are sometimes used at sea, and it is pretty
obvious that certain accidents are liable to happen to them. In this case
the most obvious of all accidents happened; the cable snapped, and there
we were heading, as far as I could judge, for the stars that twinkle over
the German coast. At least, our aneroid showed that we were going upwards
faster than any bird could rise, and the west wind was blowing straight
for the mouth of the Elbe when we last felt it--for, of course, in a free
balloon one ceases to feel wind altogether.
Neither of us spoke for some time, and then a thought struck me suddenly
and I asked:--
"Did you notice what o'clock it was when we broke loose?"
Rutherford nodded.
"I'm taking the time," said he, "and assuming the twenty knot breeze
holds, we might risk a drop about six o'clock."
"A drop" meant jumping into space and trusting one's parachute to do its
business properly. I felt a sudden tightening inside me as I thought of
that dive into the void, but I asked calmly enough:
"And assuming the breeze doesn't hold?"
"Oh, it will hold all right; it will rise if anything," said he.
We had only been shipmates for a week (that being the extent of my
nautical experience), but I had learned enough about Rutherford in that
time to know that he was one of the most positive and self-confident men
breathing. One had to make allowance for this; still, that is the kind of
company one wants in an involuntary balloon expedition across the North
Sea through a dense fog.
"And where are we likely to come down?" I enquired.
"We might make the German coast as far south as Borkum or one of the
other islands, or we might land somewhere as far north as Holstein."
"Not Holland or Denmark?"
He shook his head positively, "No such luck."
Though this was a trifle depressing, it was comforting to feel that one
was with a man who knew his way about the air so thoroughly. I looked at
our map, judged the wind, and decided that he was probably right. The
chances of fetching a neutral country seemed very slender. Curiously
enough the chances of never reaching any country at all had passed out of
my calculations for the moment. Rutherford was so perfectly assured.
"And what's the programme when we do land?" I asked.
"Well, we've got to get out of the place as quickly as possible. That's
pretty evident."
"How?"
"You know the lingo, don't you?"
"Pretty well."
"Well enough not to be spotted as a foreigner?"
"I almost think so."
"First thing I ever heard to the credit of the diplomatic service!" he
laughed. "Well, you'll have to pitch a yarn of some kind if we fall in
with any of the natives. Of course we'll try and avoid 'em if we can, and
work across country either for Denmark or Holland by compass."
"Have you got a compass?" I asked.
"Damn!" he exclaimed, and for a few moments a frown settled on his bull
dog face. Then it cleared again and he said, "After all we'll have to
move about by night and the stars will do just as well."
He was never much of a talker and after this he fell absolutely silent
and I was left to my thoughts. Though I had fortunately put on plenty of
extra clothes for the ascent, I began to feel chilly up at that altitude
enshrouded in that cold white mist, and I don't mind admitting that my
thoughts gradually became a little more serious than (to be quite honest)
they usually are. I hardly think Rutherford, with all his virtues, had
much imagination. I have a good deal--a little too much at times--and
several other possible endings to our voyage besides a safe landing and
triumphant escape began to present themselves. Two especially I had to
steel my thoughts against continually--a descent with a parachute that
declined to open, whether on to German or any other soil, or else a
splash and then a brief struggle in the cold North Sea. I am no great
swimmer and it would be soon over.
And so the hours slowly passed; always the same mist and generally the
same silence. Occasionally we talked a little, and then for a long space
our voices would cease and there would be utter and absolute quiet,--not
the smallest sound of any sort or kind. We had been silent for a long,
long time and I had done quite as much thinking as was good for my
nerves, when Rutherford suddenly exclaimed,
"We are over land!"
He was looking over the edge of the basket, and instantly I was staring
into space on my side. There was certainly nothing to see but mist.
"I can smell land," said he, "and I heard something just now."
"At this height!" I exclaimed.
"We are down to well under six thousand feet," said he.
I wanted to be convinced, but this was more than I could believe.
"The smell must be devilish strong," I observed. "And I'm afraid I must
have a cold in my head. Besides, it's only five-thirty."
As I have said, poor Rutherford was the most positive fellow in the
world. He stuck to it that we were over land, but I managed to persuade
him to wait a little longer to make sure. He waited half an hour and
when he spoke then I could see that his mind was made up.
"We are falling pretty rapidly," said he, "and personally I'd sooner take
my chance in a parachute than stick in this basket till we bump. If one
is going to try a drop, the great thing is to see that it's a long drop.
Parachutes don't always open as quick as they're intended to. At any
moment we may begin to fall suddenly, so I'm going overboard now."
My own career has hitherto failed to convince my friends that prudence is
my besetting virtue, but whether it was the sobering effect of those long
hours of chilly thinking, or whether my good angel came to my rescue, I
know not; anyhow I shook my head as firmly as he nodded his.
"We have only been going the minimum time you allowed for making land," I
argued, "and quite possibly the breeze may have dropped a bit. Honestly I
haven't heard a sound or smelt a smell that faintly suggested land
underneath, and we can still drop a lot more and have room to take to the
parachutes. Let's wait till we get down to one thousand feet."
"You do as you please," said he. "I'm going over."
"And I'm not going yet," said I.
We looked at one another in silence for a moment, and then he held
out his hand.
"Well, good-bye and good luck!" said he.
"Wait a little bit longer!" I implored him.
"My dear Merton," he said, "I feel it in my bones that we've been going a
lot faster than we calculated. In fact I _know_ we have! One gets an
instinct for that sort of thing, and also one gets a sort of general idea
when to cut the basket and jump. I tell you we've been over land for the
last half hour. Come on, old chap, I honestly advise you to jump too."
I almost yielded, but some instinct seemed to hold me back. The thought
that he might think I was deserting him, the suspicion that he
suspected I was a little afraid of the drop, nearly drove me over the
edge of the basket with him. I felt a brute for hanging back, but in my
heart I felt just as certain he was jumping too soon as he felt that I
was waiting too long. So I shook his hand, and over he went; I had one
glimpse of something dark below me, and then the mist swallowed him up.
Rutherford was gone, and I may as well say now that not a sign of him
was ever seen again.
If you want to know what loneliness--real horrifying loneliness--is like,
I know no better recipe than drifting through a fog in a balloon, with
your only companion gone, and not the faintest belief in your heart that
you are within a hundred miles of any square inch of earth. I almost
think the fact that the balloon was steadily sinking and that sooner or
later I should have to leap from it too was the one thing that kept my
spirits anyways up to the mark. The prospect of even the most desperate
action was better than interminably facing that clammy void.
Though the chance of making land seemed to me infinitesimally remote by
this time, yet in case I had such almost inconceivable luck, it was well
to make some preparations for having a run for my money in an enemy
country. I took off my uniform coat, transferring everything I wanted to
keep from its pockets to those of my oilskin. I then put this on and
buttoned it up, and of course I took off my cap.
And then I smoked another pipe and watched the aneroid and tried not to
think at all, till with a start I realised we were considerably less than
a thousand feet above--the land or the sea? Heaven knew which, but we
were falling fast and there was no more time to lose. I hitched the
parachute on to my leg, got on the edge of the basket, and then--well, I
all but funked it. I remember my last thought was a horrible simile of a
man jumping off a tree with a rope round his neck, and then somehow or
other I forced myself to let go.
Concerning the next few seconds I can give no statistics, whether as to
height or pace. I only know that when I first became conscious of
anything, I was drifting like a snow flake down through the mist, and
that I could fill several pages with my thoughts in the course of that
drift. It seemed to me that there was hardly an incident in my life
which didn't fly through my brain like a cinema being worked at lightning
speed. Some of the most vivid incidents were the last three balls of the
over in which I topped the century in the 'Varsity match, my interview
with my poor dear uncle when I broke the news that I had to face the
official receiver and chuck the diplomatic service, and the first night
of "Bill's All Right" when I made my début on the stage. A brilliant
career! And very swiftly reviewed, for just as I had reached the
theatrical episodes, there was an extraordinary change in the light, and
my thoughts very abruptly shifted from my past misdemeanours.
It had been evening when I dropped from the clouds, but the mist kept the
light very white though rather dim. Now a sudden blackness seemed to rise
up underneath my descending feet, and at the same moment the mist thinned
out till I could see for a space all round below me. This space was green
and almost before I realised what the greenness meant I was sitting in a
field of clover.
II
THE MAN ON THE SHORE
The breeze that had been driving the balloon along high overhead was
evidently an upper current only, for it was almost quite still in that
clover field. What between the falling of evening and the thin mist, my
vision was limited to a radius of about a quarter of a mile or so, but I
can assure you I studied that visible space more intently than I have
ever studied anything in my life. It seemed to be an almost flat country
I had landed in, all cultivated but very bare. I was within fifty yards
or so of a low rough stone wall, and on the further side of that lay a
field of corn. On every other side other fields faded into the evening
and the mist, and that was all there was to be seen. I saw no sign of a
house, or of a tree, or of a hedgerow, and I heard not a sound but the
cry of a distant sea bird.
In the gay days when I was attaché at Berlin I had acquired a fair
general acquaintance with Germany, and I instantly put down the place I
had landed in as some part of the flat wind-swept country not far from
the North Sea coast. In fact the crying seagull suggested that the shore
was fairly close at hand. This so exactly fitted in with our calculations
that I made up my mind definitely and at once to start with it as a
working hypothesis and behave accordingly.
But how precisely was one to behave accordingly? In which direction
should I turn? What should I aim at? Should I look for a house or a
native and trust to my German still being up to its old high water mark,
or should I lie low for the night? I simply stood and wondered for some
minutes, and then I decided on one prompt and immediate deed. The
parachute must be hidden, so far as that countryside was capable of
hiding anything.
I packed it up as neatly as I could, and then started for the low wall.
My first steps on the firm ground with its soft mat of clover and grasses
gave me an extraordinary sensation of pleasure. Merely to be alive and on
the earth again seemed to leave nothing to wish for. Close to the wall a
peewee rose suddenly from my feet and flapped off into the dusk with one
melancholy cry after another. "Peewee! Peewee!" I shall never hear that
sound without thinking of that lonesome misty field. I stopped and looked
round me anxiously, but not a living thing besides had been disturbed,
and presently I was stowing the parachute away in a bed of high rank
grass and docken just under the wall.
Then I stood still and listened again. Once more a distant sea bird
cried and I decided to make for the sound on the chance of finding the
coast line and getting at least one bearing. I followed the line of the
wall, crossed another low wall and another field of thin rough grass, and
then I realised that I was almost on the brink of the sea. The wash of
the swell on rocks met my ear and the dull misty green of the land faded
into the misty grey of wide waters.
I stepped over yet another of those low tumbledown walls and now I was on
the crisp short grass that fringes coasts, with rocks before me and the
sea quite visible about thirty feet below. So I had just made land and no
more! Poor Rutherford; I guessed his fate at once.
A little aimlessly I set out to the left. Somehow or other I had got it
into my head that I was nearer the Dutch than the Danish border and my
idea was to head for a neutral country. The coast line swung inland round
a cove and at the same time dipped sharply, and hardly had I turned to
follow it when a figure seemed to spring up out of the dip.
Whether the man had been squatting down, or whether it was the slope of
the ground that suddenly revealed him, I know not, but there he was not
ten paces away. I could see that he wore an oilskin and sou'wester and
judged him at once as a fisherman.
"Good evening!" I cried genially in my best German. "It's a fine night!"
"Good evening!" said he, also in German and quite involuntarily it
seemed, for the next instant he spoke again in a very different key, and
_in English_.
"My God! Are you insane?" he said in a low intense voice and with a
distinct trace of guttural accent. "Don't speak German here! Have you no
other language? Don't you speak English?"
I don't know whether you could have literally knocked me down with a
feather, but a stout feather would certainly have come pretty near doing
it. I simply gaped at him.
Again he spoke; this time in German, but almost in a whisper.
"Do not speak German here so loudly! Do you not know any English?"
A dim perception of the almost incredible truth began to dawn on me
and I did my best to grapple with the situation. I had to account
for my astonished stare; that was the first thought that flashed
through my head.
"Of course I speak English," I said, and by the favour of Heaven I found
myself instinctively saying those words in the very accents of the German
waiter in "Bill's All Right" (my first offence on the professional
stage), "but I thought you were Hans Eckstein. I could hardly believe my
own eyes!"
"Hans Eckstein? Who is he?" demanded my new acquaintance, and I was
pleased to observe no suspicion in his voice, merely a little
astonishment.
"A friend," I answered glibly, "one of us."
He looked at me for a moment, very narrowly, and in those seconds of
silence I began to realise more exactly what must have happened. The
upper current of air had been blowing _westwards_--not eastwards as the
wind blew on the surface. The good land under my feet was assuredly not
Germany; almost certainly it must be part of my own blessed native
island, or why this insistence on my speaking English, rather than, say,
Dutch or Danish? And then the man I was speaking to, what must he
obviously be? There was only one answer possible.
I may add that I had the presence of mind not to stare blankly at him
while I thought these thoughts. I let him do the staring while I fished
my pipe out of my oilskin pocket and began to fill it.
"So!" he murmured, and I thought he seemed satisfied enough, especially
as he asked with manifest curiosity but without any apparent suspicion in
his voice, "And how did you get here?"
Yet when I looked up from my pipe-filling to answer him I could almost
swear that he had done something to make his features less
visible--pulled his sou'wester further down and sunk his chin into the
high collar of his oilskin, it certainly seemed to me. As I had gathered
a very insufficient impression of him before, this was a little
provoking. Still, I told myself that our acquaintance was only beginning.
How to ripen it--that was the problem. I tried the effect of merely
winking and saying with a cool, knowing air:
"The usual way. Do you have to ask?"
He looked sharply up and down the rocks and out to sea and I saw
instantly what was in his mind.
"Impossible! There was no signal. I have been looking out all the
time," said he.
I merely laughed.
"How else do you think I could have come?"
"So!" he murmured again, and then he asked a curious question.
"Do you know if there are many sheep on this island?"
So I had landed on an island! That was the first and chief deduction
I drew from this enquiry. The second was that the man's English must
be a little weak. Obviously he meant something rather different from
what he said.
"Sheep?" I said with a laugh. "No, my friend, I have something else to do
than count sheep."
Again he looked at me for a moment, his face now almost completely
hidden by the peak of his sou'wester. If by any chance he were still
doubting me the best thing seemed to be a touch of candour and an appeal
he could scarcely resist.
"See here," I said, lowering my voice, "I want to stop in this island
to-night. In fact those are my orders. Now where can you find me a
safe place?"
He lowered his voice too. In fact he seemed to reciprocate my confidence
very satisfactorily.
"We must be very careful. I must see that the coast is clear first. Just
you sit and wait here for ten minutes. I will be back."
He nodded at me to enforce his injunctions and added as he turned away,
"Keep sitting down. Mind that!"
I sat down, finished filling my pipe, lit it, and waited. And as I waited
I frankly confess I fairly hugged myself. Never before was there such a
bit of luck, thought I. That that vagabond balloon should actually bring
its passenger back to his native land instead of dropping him in the sea
or landing him in Germany was fortunate almost beyond belief, but that he
should then stumble on a German spy and actually convince the man that he
was a confederate and lead him straight into the net already spreading
for him, surely showed that after a considerable run of ill luck (and, I
must confess, ill guidance), the passenger had suddenly become Fortune's
prime favourite. Several very eligible and commodious castles were
constructed in the night air by that lonely shore as I sat and smoked.
And then I heard a cautious but distinct whistle, and up I jumped and
looked all round me. There was no one to be seen, but the sound came from
the right--the way I had come, and I set off through the thickening dusk
in that direction. But the odd thing was that I walked considerably
further than the sound of the whistle could have carried and never a sign
of human being or of house did I see--nothing but that desolate grassy
sea-board and the faintly gleaming waters.
I stopped and began to wonder, and then I heard the whistle again. It was
still ahead of me, so on I walked and once more the same thing occurred.
This time I paused for at least another ten minutes, but nobody appeared
and nothing whatever happened. There I was, utterly alone once more, with
the land growing black and the sea dim and not a sound now even from the
sea gulls.
III
ALONE AGAIN
"The man has suspected me!" I said to myself.
It was an unpleasant conclusion, but the more carefully I thought over
every little circumstance the more certain I felt it was the true one. To
begin with, there was the way in which he kept his face concealed after
the first few sentences we exchanged. Then there was that curious
question about the sheep. It must have been a password--I saw that now,
and I could have kicked myself for not seeing it sooner. Of course I had
no idea of the proper answer, but I might at least have replied with some
equally cryptic sentence and tried to bluff him into thinking I was using
a different code. As it was, I had made it perfectly obvious that I had
missed the point absolutely.
Finally there was his conduct in slipping away and leaving me stranded
like this. Surely it was the very last trick to play on an accomplice. In
fact it settled the matter. But why then did he whistle--and, moreover,
whistle twice?
For a few minutes I was utterly puzzled, and then an explanation flashed
upon me. He wished to lead me in this particular direction! And why?
Evidently because he himself was living or hiding in the other. I tried
to put myself in his shoes and think what I would do myself, and if I had
had the wit to think of it, that would obviously be the soundest thing.
So obvious did it seem to me that I decided to set to work on that
assumption.
First of all I walked a little further to see if I could test this
theory, and in a minute or two I saw dimly ahead of me houses near the
beach. I stopped and thought again. Could it possibly be that this was
the refuge he was providing and that he did not suspect me after all?
"In that case," I said to myself, "would any man in his senses use such
a vague and misleading method of conducting a friend, especially when a
mistake might be--and probably would be--fatal to his schemes?
Obviously not!"
On the other hand, these houses fitted excellently into the theory that
he wanted me to take shelter there simply because they were well removed
from his own lair.
"And then what's the fellow doing himself all this time?" I thought.
"Evidently scuttling back in the opposite direction!"
So back I turned and set out on a very cheerless and solitary walk. There
was no sense of immediate action ahead now, no anticipation of any
further excitement this night, and, the more I came to think of it, not
one chance in a thousand of stumbling upon the man again even though I
were really heading towards him.
As I walked along that dark shore, I tried to think out all the
possibilities of the situation.
"Is the man living on this island?" (assuming it is an island, and as the
sheep weren't real sheep it may not be a real island) I asked myself. "Or
has he simply landed from a submarine or some other enemy craft, and by
this time is hurrying off again?"
I recalled our conversation, especially his words when I said I had
arrived in "the usual way." "Impossible! There was no signal. I have been
looking out all the time," he had answered. Surely that implied he was
living here on shore, and indeed his very presence alone by himself and
his whole attitude and behaviour were consistent only with that theory.
"What conclusions has he come to about me?" was my next question, and as
I debated this problem my spirits began to rise a little.
"Hang it, he must be puzzled!" I said to myself confidently, and I do
think justly. "For supposing I were on his job in Germany and an entire
stranger suddenly sprang up out of nowhere, hailed me in excellent
English, and then (even if he didn't know the particular riddle I used
as pass-word) conducted himself like a confederate, made no attempt to
arrest me or interfere with me, and spoke German with a distinct English
accent, what would I think?"
I debated the answer for some minutes and then it came to me
involuntarily and inevitably.
"I'd be dashed if I'd know what to think! And that's just exactly the
hole this fellow must be in. I may be a fellow Hun and I may be an enemy,
and he has got to make up his mind which. So far I'm quite certain he
hasn't enough evidence either way."
The obvious corollary to this was that he must be presented with evidence
which would make him think me a fellow Hun. Of course this assumed that
he would have some means of getting news of my doings and my movements
and forming conclusions from what he heard. But I thought it a pretty
safe assumption to make. Confederates the man must have, and he would
certainly tell them of the mysterious stranger, and the whole gang as
certainly would make it their business to learn everything about me.
"What would a fellow Hun do in my place?" I said to myself. "Knowing the
breed as I do, he would certainly overdo the patriotic John Bull
business, he would be a little too polite to everybody, and he would eat
like a hog."
This then should be my role, and I may as well confess honestly that the
last item appealed to me particularly. I kept on smoking till my head
reeled in the hope of forgetting my hunger, but between pipes I felt
ready to chew my oilskin. Of course I should also keep up a touch of the
German waiter accent, and if this programme failed to lead either to my
arrest or to my friend coming to my rescue, I felt that my reputation
both as an ex-diplomatist and a rising young actor would be seriously
tarnished.
And then all at once a light seemed to be extinguished in my brain. I
ceased to be able to think any longer and my knees felt shaky as I
walked. It was the reaction after what had really been a pretty long
strain of one kind and another. Looking back, it seems now inevitable
enough, but at the time I felt desperately ashamed of myself. Perhaps I
might have been able to pull myself together had I chanced to fall in
with that oilskinned figure again, but I thought at the moment I had
become utterly useless and I felt inclined to throw myself down on the
grass and go to sleep and forget everything. In fact I very soon should
have, when I saw at last some farm buildings close ahead. They stood on
the edge of a small cove and the ground dipped down to them so that they
were not against the sky line, and I had nearly walked straight into the
wall of an out-house before I saw a sign of them.
And then I remember rather hazily knocking at a door and presently
finding myself in a low kitchen with a peat fire burning on an open
hearth and what seemed to be dozens of people sitting round it. I
probably counted each of them three or four times over.
They gave me a huge bowl of milk and a pile of oat cakes and cheese, and
the one item of my programme I carried out faithfully was to eat like a
famished animal. I believe I put some sort of an accent into the few
words I murmured, but most of the time my mouth was too full for much
conversation. I know that I never attempted any explanation of how I got
there, and that night nobody asked me, and I certainly postponed the
patriotic John Bull business.
When I finished my supper I felt better, but still a little dazed. There
now seemed to be fewer in the family, but my eyes must still have been
multiplying them for I thought there were three or four rather pretty
girls, presumably daughters, with high pink cheeks, when there actually
turned out next morning to be only two; and two poor idiots, presumably
sons, with unpleasant stares and stubbly beards and open mouths, when
daylight revealed only one. In fact the father of the household and his
wife were the only people I counted accurately.
And then I remember being led to the barn, and seeing a vast pile of soft
hay and throwing myself into the midst of it; and there my recollections
of that day end. I actually had not even enquired into what part of the
world I had dropped.
IV
THE SUSPICIOUS STRANGER
There seem to be two distinct kinds of dreamers; to judge at least from
their confessions next morning. There is the superior kind which dreams a
condensed novel and remembers it distinctly to retail at breakfast, and
there is the inferior kind which only carries away a vague impression of
having vaguely striven to stride out and escape from some nebulous
horror, or of trying to purchase a pound of golf balls at a counter which
would persist in turning into a couple of parallel bars or a roll-top
writing desk. Personally I belong to the inferior species, and I cannot
even swear that I really had a dream at all that night. I only know that
when I woke up at last I found that my oilskin was unbuttoned and thrown
back, whereas I thought I had gone to sleep with it buttoned up; and that
when I noticed this, I then began to have a confused memory of a dream
wherein I was seized by some one or something and struggled violently to
free myself.
I sat up in my bed of straw and looked round me. The sunshine was
streaming through a small window and under the door, but the door was
closed, the bar was very still and quite empty save for my own presence,
and the crowing of a cock and the clucking of hens were at first the only
sounds that reached me from outside. Then I became conscious of a soft
and regular "swish," rising and falling constantly and perpetually, and I
remembered the sea close at hand, and a shiver of gratitude ran through
me to think how narrowly I had escaped having that heaving surface
fathoms over my head.
I have often wished since that I had lain there for a little while and
tried to remember the dream, and whether I had actually gone to sleep
with my oilskin buttoned, while the circumstances, such as they were,
were fresh in my memory. When I thought of them afterwards I could swear
to nothing and finally concluded the whole thing was probably fancy.
But if by any chance it were not, then evidently _some one_ had tried to
search me in the night, and who would it be likely to be but my vanished
acquaintance on the shore, or his confederates? And in that case one of
them must have been lurking very close at hand. However, when I tried to
piece my recollections together afterwards it was too late to make
anything of them at all.
I only know for certain that I missed nothing from my pockets, and that
as a matter of fact I had actually carried nothing in them that would
have given me away--so far at least as I could judge.
These, as I say, were my subsequent reflections. What I did at the time
was not to think about the matter any further, but jump up, open the barn
door and walk out into the sunshine. It was now about ten o'clock on a
flawless August morning, and not easily shall I forget the picture of
that blue sea gently heaving far out to a bright horizon, and the
semi-circle of white sand fringing the little cove, and the glimpse of
green and smiling inland country, and the group of low grey farm
buildings just out of reach of the wash of the waves. Whatever part of
the world it might be, I felt entirely satisfied with it.
I stood for a few minutes gazing absently out to sea, and rehearsing in
my mind my plan of campaign. My voice, manners and conduct must be such
that if by some stroke of luck I actually fell in with my friend of last
night or one of his confederates they would assume I was a friend and at
least give me a nod, wink, password, or something to test me--and I vowed
I would overlook nothing suspicious this time.
If, however, as was unfortunately far more likely, I met mere honest
folk, they would quickly spread the news that a suspicious stranger was
in the neighbourhood, and surely the report would reach at least one of
the gang (for I confidently assumed a gang), and they would make it
their business to seek me out. Finally I decided I had no time to waste,
for several reasons. Through the clucking hens I strolled across to the
dwelling house and there in the kitchen I found the mother, one of the
pink-cheeked daughters, and the idiot son. They set about getting me some
breakfast, and a few minutes later in came the father and another son, a
strapping fellow not in the least resembling the idiot, and shortly
afterwards appeared the other daughter.
I gave them my proper name, Roger Merton, since it was just the sort of
ultra English name which a disguised Hun would adopt, and I learned
that theirs was Scollay:--Peter Scollay, the father, Mrs. Scollay,
Peter, the younger, Maggie, and Jane; besides Jock, the idiot. I was
excessively affable, and they were not openly cool, but I noticed with
satisfaction that they were far from demonstrative, with the marked
exception of Jock who burst into several very loud and friendly laughs
on extremely small provocation. He was horrid to look at, but I could
not help feeling rather friendly towards the only member of the
household who exhibited a glimpse of geniality, even though I was doing
my level best to chill them.
As for the others, Peter Scollay the senior was a big tawny-bearded
fellow, undeniably handsome despite one small defect. His eyes were a
trifle too hard and cautious, and in one of them was a distinct cast.
Curiously enough, his wife also had a slight cast, and so it was not
surprising to see a trace of this in Peter junior and his red-cheeked
sisters. Jock, however, seemed to have been endowed with imbecility
instead of a cast. Apart from him, they were all good-looking, despite
the family defect; and they were all very reticent this morning. I seemed
indeed to trace the father's wariness as well as the cast in each pair of
eyes that furtively studied me.
"And your very beautiful island," I enquired, in guttural accents that
would have made me flee for the police instantly, had I been in their
shoes, "so pleasantly situated in the sea--what is its name?"
They looked a little astonished, as well they might, and then in dry
accents the father replied, "Ransay."
"Ransay?" I repeated, and then all at once I realised where I was.
Ransay was one of the northern isles of that not unknown archipelago
which at the present moment it is safer to leave unnamed. Or perhaps for
purposes of reference one may call it The Windy Isles. Somewhere in the
same archipelago, twenty or thirty miles to the south'ard, was a
particularly important naval base and I began to realise what I had
stumbled up against.
In those early days of the war one heard a great many tales of spies and
spying, but many of them were so palpably absurd and there was as yet
such a total lack of evidence to support any one of them, that I--like a
good many other people--felt sceptical of the whole thing. The
distinguished General in German pay, the well known member of the Cabinet
in hourly communication with the Kaiser, the group of German strategists
working in the cellars of a West End London mansion, and all the rest of
the early legends had made even the very moderately sensible extremely
chary of believing anything we heard. But I thought very hard and
seriously now. A real spy--seen and heard--actually living in the Isle of
Ransay, in the back premises, so to speak, of that all important base,
with Heaven only knew what means of the information concerning matters to
the south'ard, and in immediate touch with any marauders who might tap
gently at the back door on a dark night; here was something to sober even
a bankrupt ex-light-comedian.
I kept my mouth very full while I thought these thoughts and
conscientiously made the typical German chewing noise, and by the time my
lips were cleared for action again a beaming smile enwreathed them.
"Do you have many ships which pass this way?" I enquired.
The question was a great success. Jock laughed with vacant glee and the
rest of the family exchanged glances.
"No' very many," said Mr. Scollay warily.
Now I decided to give them the John Bull turn.
"No German ships I am sure!" I cried through a mouthful of porridge.
"They are cowards! They will not venture _here_--no fears! They fear our
brave sailors too much! Aha! We know that, eh?"
They agreed as coldly as I could wish. Evidently I was producing a
thoroughly bad impression. At the same time nobody broke into whispered
German, or made any comment that could conceivably be taken for a
pass-word. I thought I would try giving them one myself.
"Are there many sheep in this island?" I asked.
Jock emitted another blast of genial laughter and Mr. Scollay as
cautiously as ever replied,
"A good few."
But there was no sign of any secret understanding of my words, and
reluctantly I began to come to the conclusion that neither my friend of
last night nor any of his confederates were here. It is true that the
position of the house fitted my theory, and that its lonely situation on
the very edge of the sea was ideal, and quite possibly these people might
know more than they ought, they might in fact be abettors of treason and
concealers of traitors, but that they were not the principals seemed
evident enough.
Still, in any event it seemed to me of prime importance to disseminate a
report of a suspicious stranger as widely and quickly as possible, so I
selected the middle of another mouthful as the moment of enquiring.
"This pretty farm, my friend, does it belong to you?"
"No," said my host, "the island a' belongs to Mr. Rendall."
"So!" said I. "And this Mr. Rendall, where does he live--in London?"
"Not him!" said Mr. Scollay, "he bides in Ransay."
I pricked up my ears at this, and my spy-hunt seemed suddenly a much more
promising venture. Some of the difficulties of playing a lone hand had
already become apparent. But with some one I could confide in, some one
who would know everybody in the island and a good deal about them, and
who could advise and abet me, it seemed heavy odds against my vanished
friend evading me for long.
"I think perhaps I ought to pay my respects to Mr. Rendall," I said in a
doubtful ruminating way, as though I were debating whether it were quite
a safe move.
"You'll find him at home," was all the comment my host made.
But now that there was a prospect of losing their suspicious visitor,
the family all at once set about extracting some information regarding
the manner of his arrival in their midst.
"You'll no have been long in Ransay?" began my hostess.
"Oh no, just a short time," I beamed.
"You'll not have come by the boat," pronounced my host.
"Not _the_ boat, but surely I must have come by _a_ boat!" I smiled. "I
cannot swim from Aberdeen!"
I don't know exactly why I mentioned Aberdeen, but it seemed to have a
distinctly sedative effect.
"You'll not be a dealer?" enquired my host.
Here was a simple solution thrust into my hand. For a moment I
thought of confessing I actually was a dealer and had got too drunk
last night to remember how I arrived. But then I feared the tale
might sound too credible and the reports of a suspicious stranger be
stifled at their birth.
"Well," I said, "I do deal in some things."
I could see that suspicion had revived and I thought it better to leave
it at that, and be off. With a little difficulty I made my hosts take
payment for my night's lodging, and then asked for directions to the
laird's mansion.
"You'll no can miss it," said Mr. Scollay.
"It's the big house. Just keep along the road and you'll see it
afore you."
So off I set through this unknown isle, still hatless and buttoned
up in my oilskin, but smoking a peculiarly soothing pipe and
thoroughly enjoying my adventure. The prospect of an ally ahead was
delightfully cheering.
"Provided Mr. Rendall isn't an utter ass, we ought to have these fellows
sitting!" I said to myself.
V
THE DOCTOR'S HOUSE
The rough road from the shore kept gently mounting and I soon stood high
enough to get a very good general idea of the island of Ransay. It was a
green, low-lying, undulating fragment of the world, set that morning in
a sea of sapphire blue, open to the horizon on the one hand and strewn
with sister isles on the other. The Scollay's house stood near the
northwest end, and beyond it there seemed to be little save sea-turf and
rocks, but in the direction I was walking one small green farm followed
another for what I guessed to be four or five miles, and from side to
side perhaps a couple of miles or less. There was only one rise in the
land that could be called a hill, and that only by courtesy; elsewhere
nothing but green undulations with a small reedy loch or two tucked away
in their gentle folds.
Far to the southward, on other isles, higher hills, brown and blue, broke
the horizon, but apart from these one saw nothing but a green and blue
plain lying beneath an immensity of white and blue sky. With sea birds
hovering and crying and larks mounting and singing over this, and the sun
shining, and a northwest breeze that tasted like dry champagne, and
myriads of wild flowers, yellow, blue, white, red, pink, and purple,
underfoot, I felt almost too light-hearted. In fact I actually started
singing, and only stopped when I bethought me that it was a trifle
inconsistent with the character of a man slinking about in fear of his
life, looking for a fellow miscreant to befriend him.
But it was quite impossible not to feel elated. Now that I realised the
limited size of the place and its open surface, it was obvious that no
man could lurk there unknown to the inhabitants. He must live in a house
and pass for one of themselves. It seemed then impossible to believe
(especially with an ally in prospect) that a spy whom I had actually seen
and talked with (and knew moreover to have a foreign accent) could escape
my clutches. And, apart from patriotic motives, of what a lift that would
give to my tarnished character!
"Let me recall the fellow carefully," said I to myself, "and get his face
and voice well into my head against our next meeting."
I tried to reconstruct our first meeting exactly as it had happened, to
see again that dark figure rise in my path, and look into the face
beneath the sou'wester. I shall not say precisely that this endeavour
shook my confidence, but it certainly made me realise that I should have
to set to work very warily to trap the man, for the harder I tried to see
in my mind's eye that face distinctly, the less distinct it grew. I could
certainly swear to a moustache, and I felt pretty sure there was a beard
as well, but not absolutely certain. He was of middle height, say between
5 feet 6, and 5 feet 10; but that was a fairly wide margin. In fact all I
could positively swear to was that he was neither an obviously tall nor
an obviously short man.
As to his build, he seemed thick-set and sturdy, but then who does not in
an oilskin coat? It would take a very slight figure indeed to look
slender in an oilskin. So here again I could only say that he was neither
a remarkably stout man nor a remarkably thin man. And this was really all
I could swear to in the matter of his outward appearance; though I told
myself confidently enough that if I actually fell in with him again I
should recognise him fast enough.
"He can't disguise his voice anyhow," I said to myself.
And then here again I began to realise a small difficulty; though
nothing, it seemed to me very serious. After his first involuntary reply
to me in German, the man had spoken in low, half-whispered tones. In
ordinary conversation, especially if he were on his guard, he would speak
quite differently. But could he eradicate his distinct touch of foreign
accent? No; I thought decidedly that was beyond him.
I was so immersed in my thoughts that I had become quite oblivious to
everything outside them. Beyond the fact that I had struck a hard
macadamed road and was striding down it, I realised nothing else, till of
a sudden I looked up and noticed a large house close before me, and at
that I stopped dead and awoke from my reverie.
That it was Mr. Rendall's mansion I never doubted. I saw now that it was
not a really big house, but it was large compared with the small farm
houses, and its utterly bare situation and the way in which it was set on
a slight rise in the ground made it seem obviously the "big hoose" I was
looking for. But somehow or other at the sight of it my spirits were
instantly damped. Indeed I never saw a chillier, less inviting looking
habitation, or one that seemed to repel confidence in it more subtly.
The road ran straight at it and then curved round the low wall that
bounded the domains. And these domains consisted of absolutely nothing
more than a rough grass paddock with a short straight drive leading from
an open and dilapidated iron gate in the wall just where the curve began.
There was no ivy, or any sort of creeper on the walls, but, instead, a
sort of grey-green damp hue, broken only by a very few staring windows.
I passed through that dilapidated gate with no temptation at all to sing.
The drive was covered with an infamous species of large pebble, so
uncomfortable to walk on that I chose the grass at the side and I only
stepped on to this apology for gravel when I was quite close to the
house; approaching the front of it, I may say, at an angle. My footsteps
made a noise like a cart and horse, and instantly down went the blind of
the nearest window of the ground floor.
I stopped dead instinctively and looked at this bleak mansion narrowly.
At the angle from which I had approached the front, I could see the blind
go down quite plainly, but it was impossible to get even a glimpse into
the room behind it.
"What the devil!" I murmured.
And then I told myself that I was really getting too suspicious. It
must be a lady's bed-room obviously. The ground floor near the front
door seemed an odd place for such an apartment. Still, one never knows
what a lady's fancy may be. In any case there was nothing to be
achieved by standing there staring, so I resumed my resounding progress
across the pebbles.
I was at the front door and just going to ring, when round the corner of
the house, right ahead of me, appeared a gentleman, and my spirits fell
still further. I can't exactly say that his was a face I disliked, but
it was decidedly not one I took to. He had eyes set somewhat close
together, a well trimmed short black beard, and an expression in which I
seemed to read impudence and certainly read suspicion. He stopped at the
sight of me and looked me up and down at least as curiously as I studied
him. Only I trust I conducted my inspection less obviously.
"Mr. Rendall?" I enquired, and though I had come here meaning to confide
in him, I found myself instinctively putting in a touch of accent; not
with a wet brush as I did for the Scollays' benefit, still I threw in a
little, and, as I say, quite without intending it.
Curiously enough I saw his face clear the moment I spoke.
"Oh," said he, with an air of relief, "it's the doctor you're wanting, is
it? Well, he's at home. Come in."
So the laird was a doctor? Of which sort, I wondered; medical,
theological, or what?
"I'm Mr. O'Brien," added my new acquaintance as he opened the front door
for me. "You're quite sure it's not me you're wanting?"
I had noticed more than a trace of accent in his own voice when he spoke,
and there was no doubt now what it was; a very palpable Irish brogue. As
he asked this question he looked at me with a curious mixture of humour
and defiance. It seemed to me that the humour was assumed and the
defiance genuine, but that may have been simply because the man impressed
me unfavourably.
"No," I replied with a continental bow, "I am not so fortunate."
And then suddenly a thought flashed across me. Ought I to have answered
in a very different key? But we were in the hall now and the next moment
another gentleman appeared.
"Here's Dr. Rendall," said Mr. O'Brien, and I bowed again.
"My name is Mr. Roger Merton," I explained. "I have taken the liberty of
calling upon you."
"Come into my study, Mr. Merton," said Dr. Rendall.
He spoke in a friendly enough voice, but if there was not a trace of
suspicion in his eye too, I am greatly mistaken. And in both cases it
seemed to me that it was suspicion tinged with apprehension, rather than
the suspicion I was so deliberately cultivating. Indeed, I had not
intended to cultivate any suspicion at all in this house, but fortunately
(I think) I simply acted automatically.
Taking him altogether, Dr. Rendall was a decidedly more prepossessing
looking man than O'Brien. In fact he was rather good-looking, with grey
hair and moustache, face of a deep bronze-red hue and very blue eyes. He
was well set up, and quite well dressed too in rough tweeds, and the
only thing against him was that look in his eye as we exchanged our first
sentences.
My wits were very wide awake by this time; I carried a picture of the
outside of the house distinctly in my head as we turned out of the hall,
and when we entered the study I knew it for the room where the blind had
shut down.
"Is Mrs. Rendall at home?" I enquired.
O'Brien laughed.
"There are no ladies in this house, but just the doctor and me!" said he.
So no modest matron or maid had pulled the blind down. It had been Dr.
Rendall's study blind, whipped down obviously by the doctor himself the
instant he heard a strange footstep, and now raised again. Why had it
been dropped? What had it hidden? In the look of the room itself there
was not a suggestion of an answer to either question. It was just an
ordinary man's study, a cross between a smoking room and a library, a
much more comfortable room than the outside of that house promised. Yet
people do not suddenly pull down blinds in the middle of the forenoon for
no reason at all.
For a moment I thought of a passage at arms with a pretty housemaid as a
solution. But it would obviously have been much quicker and simpler for
any other party to flee the room than to make for the window and lower
the blind. No; something had to be done which took a few minutes to do.
I thought instantly of one possibility--the folding up or putting away of
maps or plans. No doubt there were several other possibilities, but there
seemed the best of reasons for not giving these worthy gentlemen my
confidence. In fact quite a different course of action suggested itself.
Transfixing the doctor suddenly with a significant eye, I demanded in
rather a low voice, "Are there many sheep in this island?" I still think
it was a shot well worth risking, but to be quite candid it failed to
come off. At least it did not come off entirely. Both the gentlemen
certainly looked a little startled, but all Dr. Rendall did was to stare
at me very hard, while O'Brien exclaimed.
"Faith, he's a dealer!"
But again I refused the proffered explanation, even though it was quite
evidently the easiest way of accounting for myself.
"No," said I, "but I am very greatly interested in your beautiful island,
Dr. Rendall. What a convenient spot to own!"
I still threw a touch of significance into my remark--especially on the
word "convenient"--but this time I got a wholly unexpected answer.
"But I am sorry to say I don't own it," said the doctor. "I am afraid you
must be mistaking me for my cousin, Philip Rendall. He's the laird; I'm
only the doctor."
"The damned doctor," added Mr. O'Brien with a grin.
I began to apologise, but O'Brien who was by this time in capital
spirits, interrupted me with,
"Faith, you needn't apologise, Mr. Merton. As long as you're not one of
my damned relations I'm delighted to see you, and the doctor here is
always pining for a fresh face. He's getting sick of mine!"
This remark seemed to have a spice of malice behind it, and the doctor
certainly frowned, but I was so anxious to seize this opportunity of
putting a question or two that I did not stop to wonder what was implied;
not, at least, till afterwards.
"I suppose you have little society in this charming island?" I suggested.
O'Brien was certainly ready enough to give me exactly the information I
was after.
"There are just four civilised houses in the whole place, counting this,"
said he. "There's the laird's--and saving the dear doctor's presence I
must say his cousin is a damned queer fish, besides being as poor as he's
cranky, and there are the two ministers, only one's away and the other's
as dry as my own throat's getting. What do you say to a drink, doctor?"
He grinned at Dr. Rendall with a malicious significance I could make
nothing of. I could see that it perturbed the doctor, who answered in
evident embarrassment,
"If Mr. Merton would care for a glass of lemonade"
A hoot of laughter interrupted him. It reminded me of Jock, except that
Mr. O'Brien's laugh had such a flavour of ill-nature. The man might or
might not be what I suspected, but he was indubitably objectionable.
"No, thank you," I answered him. "I set out to call on Mr. Rendall and
the time is passing."
"Damned pleasantly in our society, eh?" put in O'Brien with the same
sardonic laugh.
They both saw me to the door, and we said good-bye, without enthusiasm on
the doctor's part, with a grin on Mr. O'Brien's, and with very mixed
emotions on my own.
VI
A PETTICOAT
I was very thankful to get out of that depressing house and away from Mr.
O'Brien's laugh, and yet hardly was I on the high road again before I was
blaming myself for not having lingered longer and pursued my
investigations there a little further.
The other "Civilised" households in the island apparently numbered only
three. Now, if my spy were working single handed he might conceivably be
some better educated farmer who had lived abroad and turned traitor, but
it seemed to me most unlikely that he should have no confederates, and it
was scarcely possible for two or three men of that particular type to be
gathered in so small a community. Brains and education seemed implied in
every step of the dangerous game they were playing. Therefore it was only
common sense to suspect one at least of these "civilised" houses, unless
they could all manifestly clear their characters. Anyhow it were
foolishness to neglect this consideration.
And what had I discovered already? A couple of men living by themselves
in a criminal looking mansion, who hurriedly pulled down blinds, looked
both suspicious and apprehensive at the sight of a stranger, and made odd
innuendoes and allusions in their conversation. Why hadn't I stayed on
and pursued my investigations? Well, because the moment I discovered I
was in the wrong house, my insistent idea was to push on to Mr. Rendall's
and consult with him about the whole situation. But now I began to
reconsider this decision very seriously.
I was out of sight by this time in a secluded part of the road, where it
ran through a dip in the ground, with the head of one of those little
reedy lochs only a yard or two away, and a bright glimpse of the sea
beyond. The marshy shores were a perfect blaze of yellow wild flowers and
it looked so jolly that I sat down on the water's edge and began to think
things over.
First I thought Mr. O'Brien over. Middle height, a beard, and an Irish
brogue. Could the German accent have been put on to conceal the brogue?
Looking to what I was doing myself, why not? Then I thought Dr. Rendall
over. Also middle height, a moustache, and no particular accent. But then
again, if I put on an accent, why not he? Then I thought over what I had
learned of the laird. A cousin of the doctor's, a "damned queer fish,"
almost the only associate of this couple, and hard up. Ought I to go
straight off and confide in him?
"Not to begin with anyhow!" I said to myself, and up I jumped and
continued my walk.
About a hundred yards further on I rounded a corner and came upon a very
miserable figure. He was an old, old man with tinted spectacles and a
long white beard, and the raggedest overcoat I ever saw, and he was
sitting on the grass with his feet in the ditch apparently doing nothing
but simply sitting still. As I approached he peered at me as though he
were more than half blind and then in an extraordinary thin, high, piping
voice he said,
"A fine day, mister!"
This time I did the Teutonic bully. It went horribly against the grain to
strafe such a miserable object, but with no one looking on I thought that
the kind of Hun I was supposed to be would probably treat a worm like
this to a touch of the All-Highest.
"Be dashed and damned to you!" I growled.
The old boy started perceptibly, and in rather an eager voice he asked,
"Have you got a wax match, mister?"
"Wax match? No, and be confounded!" said I.
For the next quarter of a mile or so I felt too ashamed of myself and too
contrite to think much about what the old fellow had said, and then
suddenly it began to strike me that a _wax_ match was rather a curious
thing to ask for. A match was natural enough, but why need it be wax?
And then I stopped, wheeled round, and walked back. I told myself that I
was growing absurd and getting passwords on the brain. Still, there
seemed no harm in exchanging a few more remarks with the old man.
But when I reached the same spot on the road he was gone. There were one
or two small houses not far away and it was quite possible he had
reached them by now, especially if he wanted his match badly; though it
would mean moving a little faster than I had given him credit for. Or he
might be lying down out of sight having a nap, and as the day was warm
and he had apparently nothing better to do, that seemed a very possible
solution. Anyhow, there was no sign of him, and if there had been, I
told myself he would probably have proved to be merely the island
patriarch with a senile fancy for wax vestas, so I resumed my journey to
the "big house."
As I topped another rise I got the best view I had yet seen of the lie of
the island. A group of larger buildings on another hillock, still well
over a mile ahead, was evidently the mansion at last. Behind me I saw the
doctor's house and noted with a nod unto myself that it stood distinctly
in the northwest district of the island. It was no long walk from that
bleak habitation to the Scollays' on the shore.
And now I addressed myself to a delicate question. If I were going to
keep up the part of suspicious stranger at the Rendall's, at all events
to begin with, what account of my arrival should I give? It must be a
tale plausible enough to keep them in doubt, for unless the laird himself
were actually up to his neck in treason (and though I was prepared for
anything by this time, there were limits to the assumptions I ventured to
make), he would certainly wire either to the police or the naval
authorities and I should immediately become a mere spectator. In fact, I
would probably not be allowed even to stay and look on.
And this was not mere selfish desire for glory and excitement. I was
quite capable of seeing that my tale might not convince older and wiser
people as thoroughly as it convinced myself. In fact I felt a strong
presentiment that I should merely be put down as a brilliant liar and the
spy hunt would come to an end--_with the spy still in the island_. That
was where I still do think I was justified in playing the hand myself.
But what tale could I tell? The truth--that I had dropped out of a
balloon? Who would believe it for an instant unless I produced the hidden
parachute? And if I unearthed the parachute the whole island would know
in a couple of hours and the people I was after would also be convinced.
And it would not be a conviction that I was a fellow Hun.
And then I chanced to turn my head and I had an inspiration. About five
miles out to sea I saw a ship, quite distinctly enough to spot her as a
cruiser of much the same type as the ship I had soared out of yesterday.
I filled in the details of the inspiration as I walked and when at last I
saw her head away into the far distance the final touch was given.
When I drew near the house the road showed a tendency to meander, and as
I was getting pretty hungry and counted on luncheon with the laird, be he
patriot or traitor, I left the highway and followed a path across a
clover field. Though the house and its farm were so near, and I could see
half a dozen other homesteads not far away, yet there was not a living
soul in sight, or any sound save from the peewees and the gulls. I don't
know how to convey the impression of out-of-the-worldness and
back-of-beyondness produced by this sense of silence and space, and by
the look of the house and its whole surroundings. The path sloped up to
it through a grass paddock, rather like the approach to the doctor's
house, only this grass was short and well-tended and there were one or
two flower beds before the door and ivy on one of the walls (where the
wind was least destructive); and though the mansion was weather-beaten
and plain and grey, it had nothing of the bleak and chilly aspect of the
other house. It simply looked as though it had lived a long and stormy
life and had now gone to sleep.
At one side stretched a high-walled garden with the tops of a few stunted
trees just showing their heads, and close at the back of the place one
could see a collection of farm buildings, very like the mansion
architecturally, only greyer and more weathered. A fairly steep roof,
crow-stepped gables, rough-cast walls, and rather small windows seemed to
my untutored eye to be the chief features of the whole stone gathering.
"Somebody very primitive obviously lives here," I said to myself as I
pulled the bell.
Out it came bodily in my hand, so I carefully pushed it back, and tried a
large brass knocker instead, a massive affair that looked as though it
had once been part of a shipwreck. I knocked once, I knocked twice, I
knocked thrice, and then the door opened and I enjoyed a fresh sensation.
Instead of the prehistoric being I had expected, a girl stood in the open
door looking at me out of a quite remarkably bright pair of
eyes--disconcertingly bright in fact. She was dressed in the very
smartest and most-up-to-date country kit; short tweed skirt of a pleasing
greenish hue, stockings to match, brown brogued shoes, and a blouse that
might have come from Paris. Her hair was dressed as fashionably as the
rest of her, and her face was of precisely the kind I had least expected
to see, rather thin with neatly chiselled features and delicate
eye-brows, and an entirely sophisticated expression. There was no doubt
she was decidedly pretty, and quite delightfully fresh and trim looking.
But her eyes were her best feature. As I looked straight into them for an
instant I could scarcely bring myself to play the part I had arranged.
They seemed as though they would be a little difficult to deceive.
However, thank Heaven I have lived down most of the virtues that
embarrass the young. I had lied before, been found out, and lived through
it; so I clicked my heels together, bowed, and enquired,
"Is Master Rindall in?"
(My accent wasn't really quite as bad as that, but I should have to
invent fresh vowels to illustrate what it actually sounded like.)
I had expected some slight symptoms of alarm, but she answered with
perfect composure and in a voice that matched the hair and blouse,
"Yes, he is. Will you come in?"
I bowed again and entered the mansion of Mr. Rendall.
VII
AT THE MANSION HOUSE
As I followed the girl through the hall, a man's voice asked,
"Is that O'Brien?"
"No," she said, "it's some one to see you, father."
She showed me into a room and closed the door, and in the course of the
next few minutes I came to one or two pretty obvious conclusions. She was
clearly Mr. Rendall's daughter, and they were equally clearly in the
habit of receiving visits at odd times from Mr. O'Brien; in fact they
evidently concluded it was he, or Miss Rendall herself would scarcely
have opened the door to me. Also, her reply might be taken as implying
that if Mr. O'Brien had been the visitor, it would not have been her
father he had come to see. But whether or no this were the true
interpretation, I so thoroughly disliked and suspected O'Brien that any
suggestion of intimacy was alone enough to make me glad I had started on
the defensive.
"Otherwise," said I to myself, "what a charming girl to find in
such a place!"
However, I reminded myself that I had not come here to be charmed, and
proceeded next to take stock of the room.
It was not large, but pleasantly proportioned, low in the ceiling, and
pervaded with a delicate yet distinct flavour of the past, I found myself
instinctively wondering how one could reproduce this particular flavour
on the stage; no armour or tapestry or any of the usual antique
paraphernalia to be allowed, for beyond the thick walls and rather small
windows, it was so difficult to lay one's finger on any one specific
thing that palpably suggested age. Finally I decided that it was
impossible to re-create such an atmosphere. It was compounded of
stillness within and the glimpses of primeval quiet without, of a touch
of comfortable shabbiness, of plenty of elderly books, and of a faint
odour of the dampness of centuries mingled with the scent of honeysuckle.
My suspicions were suddenly lulled, and with that prompt decision which
has landed me in and pulled me out of so many holes, I decided to drop my
German accent. That the charming Miss Rendall might miss it, and wonder
what had become of it, was (I must confess) a reflection which did not
occur to me till afterwards.
Just as I had come to this decision, in walked the laird, and in two
minutes I had come to another decision, which was to adhere to the plan
of campaign I had thought of as I walked, in so far as keeping my
business to myself was concerned. My first impression of Mr. Rendall was
of height, and a certain quiet, formidable quality. He was grey-haired,
with a close-clipped grizzled moustache, loose clothes as though he had
shrunk a little in girth, and the unmistakable air of a man who had seen
considerably more of the world than the island of Ransay. He received me
quite politely and hospitably, but with every moment that passed I grew
more acutely conscious of something deterrent behind his courtesy. A
sense of a strong personality in the background, not actually hostile as
yet, but ironic and critical, set me instinctively and instantly on
guard. Not that I actually suspected the man; but to take him straightway
into my confidence was simply impossible. A man of another temperament
might have done so--and quite possibly have been right; but his effect on
me was like tapping a limpet.
I gave him my name and then I said in a quiet confidential way,
"Forgive this intrusion, Mr. Rendall, but the fact is my ship has
evidently been called away."
I glanced towards the window, and following my look he could see the
smoke of the cruiser just visible on the horizon. He gave a little nod
but said nothing.
"I was landed last night on a certain piece of business," I went on,
"and it is no part of that business to make myself conspicuous, and so I
have taken the liberty of coming to your house."
"You wish to wait here till your ship returns?" he enquired.
"I thought perhaps you might know of some lodging where I might
remain quietly."
He smiled slightly.
"You had better stay here. There is no other lodging."
I began to thank him, but he cut me short.
"It is Hobson's choice," said he, "and my house is not overcrowded at
present. Have you lunched?"
"I am afraid I haven't."
"Come and join us. My daughter and I had just sat down."
He moved towards the door.
"I have no luggage," I said.
"I can lend you what you want."
I thanked him again, and said brazenly,
"May I ask for the loan of a coat. I am anxious not to exhibit my uniform
coat in the island if I can help it."
I thought he looked a trifle surprised (it must be remembered that all
this time I was in a buttoned-up oilskin), but he merely nodded again and
led me upstairs to a pleasant bed-room with a low ceiling and some heavy
old-fashioned mahogany furniture. There he left me and in a moment
returned with a brush and comb and a tweed coat.
I had noticed that in one of the drawers there was a key, and as I took
the coat I said,
"I hope you won't think me unduly cautious if I lock my uniform coat up
in one of these drawers. There are certain papers in the pockets which I
am bound to be careful of."
Again I fancied I caught a brief look of surprise, but it must have been
very brief, for his face was as inscrutable as ever as he answered,
"Do exactly as you like."
A maid came with a jug of hot water and then I was alone.
"I wonder if the man believes me?" I said to himself. "Things are going a
little too dashed smoothly!"
However, there was nothing for it now but playing the game out. I first
took the precaution of suddenly and quietly opening the door. There was
nobody at the key hole, so I took off my oilskin and put on the tweed
coat, and then locked up the top drawer and put the key in my pocket.
Hardly necessary to say that drawer remained as empty as the others.
"I call that either a very neat dodge, or a devilish silly one," I said
to myself. "And which it is depends entirely on the results."
As I brushed my hair I thanked my stars I was fair, for a shave was now
long overdue.
"What a pirate I'd look if I were a brunette!" I thought, and as it was,
the recollection of dainty Miss Rendall made me determined to borrow a
razor forthwith.
I foresaw that lunch would be a function demanding considerable tact.
Seeing that I had decided, rightly or wrongly (and the Lord knew which!),
not to trust these people, they had to be kept in a nice equilibrium
betwixt doubt and confidence. To persuade them too thoroughly that they
were entertaining a genuine British naval officer would be fatal if they
were treasonably inclined, and a serious mistake if they were not, for
then they might reassure the other islanders and my gang would go to
earth, not to be dug up again in a hurry. On the other hand, to have them
too suspicious would be all right if they were treasonable, but would
probably end my adventure if they were honest.
The line I selected was a blend of mystery regarding my business, breezy
chat on non-committal topics, and an occasional oddity of conduct, such
as might have been caused by a guilty conscience or a harmless strain of
eccentricity (and I left them to make their choice).
Here are a few choice excerpts from our conversation, which I happen to
remember more or less verbatim.
_Myself (chattily):_ "Delightful air you have in your island!
Like champagne--or perhaps in these parts I ought to say like
whisky and soda."
_Mr. Rendall (somewhat drily_): "We do happen to be acquainted with
champagne."
_Miss Rendall (smiling pleasantly as she ate_): "We probably don't look
as though we were, father. Mr. Merton's metaphor was safer."
_Myself (feeling rather an ass, but outwardly gay):_ "I meant no
reflection on your cellar, Miss Rendall. I was merely aiming at
local colour."
At this point I fell abruptly silent, the laugh, as it were, frozen on my
lips. I gazed at my plate and then glanced furtively at my host (I was
giving them their choice). The next fragment of conversation which I
remember ran somewhat thus:--
_Myself (leading up deliberately to the test question):_ "There's one
thing I envy the natives of this happy island. What a wonderful show of
wild flowers they have! Do they make good grazing?"
_Mr. Rendall (again drily_): "If one happens to have ruminant tastes, I
believe they are edible."
_Miss Rendall (brightly, but evidently unkindly):_ "Mr. Merton was
probably thinking chiefly of the ruminant natives."
_Myself (keeping sternly to the point):_ "I was thinking chiefly of
sheep." _(With a direct and steady look at the laird.)_ "Are there many
sheep on this island?"
_Mr. Rendall (quite calmly):_ "A good many. Are you anxious for
statistics?"
_Myself (concealing my disappointment under a brave smile):_ "Oh no.
Please don't mistake me for an intelligent enquirer."
I turned the brave smile on to Miss Rendall. She smiled back very
slightly. In her face I seemed to read a trace of scepticism; as if
she did not quite agree with my modest estimate of myself, but at the
same time thought none the better of me. I would have given a good
deal to know exactly what was in her mind. Did she suspect something?
And if so, what?
I had one more shot. It was an inspiration which came to me at the end of
lunch when my host offered me a cigar.
"Matches?" he observed, pushing a box towards me.
Again I looked at him hard and asked,
"Have you such a thing as a _wax_ match?"
His eyebrows rose slightly.
"If you prefer to light a cigar with a wax match I daresay I can
find one."
"If Mr. Merton doesn't mind waiting for half an hour perhaps I might
discover a box in the store room," said Miss Rendall, and she added
demurely, "beside the champagne."
My only consolation was that I was making an idiot of myself in a
good cause.
VIII
SUNDAY