HOLDING OUT.
Richard Frencham Altar had a sense of humour but never before in his
hitherto easy going life had he so earnestly needed it. A sense of
humour in a queer abstract way provides a quality of companionship--it
gives a man the power to be a pal to himself--to talk to himself
aloud--to laugh at adversity--to spot the comic side in the most
pathetic predicament. Each day provided something new in the matter of
discomfort or alarm. The calls he was obliged to make upon his
resources of humour were therefore severe and exacting. Over and over
again he had need to remind himself that there was something
classically funny in three financial giants demanding from him
information of which he was entirely ignorant and, technically
speaking, putting him on the rack in order to obtain it. The fun was
grim but it existed. No one ever thought of mentioning what it was
they wanted to find out--doubtless assuming that to do so was waste of
time. For his own satisfaction Richard would dearly have loved to ask
point blank what it was all about, but to indulge curiosity to that
extent would be to imperil the safety of the cause he represented.
To keep a record of days he made a scratch on the wall paper each
morning with his finger nail. There were seventeen scratches in all
and he was as proud of them as an old campaigner of his medals for they
stood for seventeen successful engagements. Whoever it was had charge
of arranging his persecution lacked nothing in the way of imagination.
Methods of destroying his repose and a course of rigorous fasting were
prominent features but these were varied with details of a terrifying
and sometimes abominable kind. On one occasion thirty or forty rats
were introduced into his apartment where they fought and squeaked and
scurried all night long. But Richard's experiences in France had
robbed him of any particular fear of rats. If anything he welcomed
their appearance and devoted the short periods when the light was on to
shooting at them with a catapult fashioned from the elastic of a sock
suspender and a piece of angle iron detached from the underside of a
broken armchair. For ammunition he used a few bits of anthracite coal
which he found in the sitting room grate. Altogether he accounted for
seventeen before the servants arrived and deprived him of his weapon.
The remainder of the rats were corralled and carried away rejoicing.
This little entertainment took place during the first week of his
imprisonment and served the unhappy purpose of convincing his captors
that Richard's nerves were not susceptible to frivolous attacks.
Thereafter they concentrated on sterner measures. Food was reduced to
a minimum and frequently doped with chemicals that caused him acute
internal suffering. When the pain was at its height either Van Diest,
Laurence or Hipps would pay him a visit and over and over again the
question would be asked.
Times out of number sheer desperation and want of sleep almost induced
him to give away the secret but something inside his nature--some
fourth dimensional endurance over which he appeared to have the most
astounding control--checked the impulse. Often he wondered at himself
and questioned how he contrived to face the pressure put upon him, but
the only motive he could trace beyond the stalwart desire of every
decent man to take his gruel without squealing was an ambition to be
able to meet Auriole Craven's eyes squarely when she came to see him
and say "I'm afraid your friends haven't got my strength just yet."
She would shake her head at that and reply cynically--"It's only a
matter of time, Anthony." But at the back of her eyes was a light that
seemed to read "Well done you."
He was in a sad enough plight on the morning of the seventeenth day
when the door opened and Van Diest followed by Laurence entered the
room.
Van Diest was chanting a German hymn, a habit greatly affected by him
in moments of perplexity. With thumbs tucked in his waistcoat and
fingers drumming upon the resonant rotundity of his waist line he
marched slowly up and down moaning the guttural words in a melancholy
and tuneless voice. Richard had learned to hate that song as cordially
as its performer.
"Take it down another street," he implored.
Van Diest stopped singing long enough to shake his head and Laurence
who had seated himself with crossed legs on one of the hard upright
chairs said "Barraclough" with a note of pseudo-friendly warning.
"Why not have a shot at 'Avalon,'" Richard suggested sleepily. "Suit
you, that would, and make a nice change for me." His throat was
burning and talking was painful.
"Hm! A change," said Van Diest. "I wass thinking you would want a
change very soon. It is tired you look this morning."
"That's queer, for I had a splendid night." Richard's hollow, dark
rimmed eyes gave a lie to his words.
"Hm! Laurence, they use the siren--yes?"
Laurence nodded.
"Had it going every ten minutes. Didn't give him much of a chance last
night."
"So! But to these young boys sleep comes very easily--I think--think
it wass a goot idea to take away his bed--yes."
Richard rolled his eyes threateningly toward the speaker and checked a
sudden torrent of abuse that sprang to his lips.
"It iss bad for these boys to have too much comforts--s'very bad; with
the sleep fogged brain a man loses so much the intelligence. You will
arrange--yes?"
"Of course I will if he insists," said Laurence.
"Oh, you swine," said Richard staggering to his feet. "You rotten
blasted swine. Aren't you satisfied with what you've done--isn't it
enough that you make the nights into a hell for me--a screaming hell.
Sleep? How can I sleep? How can I sleep when----"
A violent, paroxysm of coughing seized and shook him this way and that.
"Tut, tut, tut! You haf a very bad cold there," said Tan Diest
sweetly. "You must eat one of these lozenges."
Richard struck the box out of the hand that proffered it and fell
heaped up into a chair beside the table.
"No pleasure to us you stay awake, eh, Laurence, eh?"
"'Course not. Now don't look at me like that, old fellar, I was
thundering decent to you when first you arrived. Barring smoke,
literature and alcohol it was a home from home. It's your own pigeon
things have got a bit tight. Doesn't pay striking out against the
odds."
"You little rat," said Richard turning a bit in his chair. "I'd
like----" and he closed his fist.
"Silly talk, old chap, waste of time."
"I could waste a lot of time that way."
Laurence humped his shoulders.
"What are you to do with a fellar like this?"
Van Diest drew up a chair and smiled over the rims of his glasses.
"Of course we let you go to sleep if you waas sensible. Consider now
the small shareholders that look to us for their little incomes. All
these widows from the war. You speak and you wass a rich man all at
once. Very soon forget the discomforts of these three weeks. S'no
goot--no goot to make a fuss."
"I have nothing to say."
"Ach!" said Van Diest and rose. "I'm afraid, Laurence, we must take
away this bed."
But Richard raised no further protest and somewhere below stairs a gong
rumbled for lunch. It was part of the programme to emphasise the
arrival of meals and in spite of himself he could not resist starting
hungrily. Such signs and tokens were watched for. Laurence laid a
hand on his shoulder and whispered:
"There's a fourth place laid, old friend."
"Why not join us to the lunch," said Van Diest coaxingly, "just a word
spoken and--oh, it's goot the lunch."
"Thanks, but I'm rather particular who I sit with," said Richard and
moved unsteadily toward the fireplace.
"It's rather a special menu," Laurence remarked. "There's a lobster
Americaine--that was in Hipps' honour. But perhaps you don't care for
shellfish, Barraclough."
"No, no, thank you. Prefer a Spartan diet. Glass of water and a piece
of bread."
"Bread? Yes. I hope the baker remembered to call. Be awkward if----
Well, come along, Chief, no good letting things get cold."
They passed out of the room and the bolt slammed home.
With a crazy impulse Richard staggered across the floor, seized the
door handle and shook it violently. One of those violent paroxysms of
hunger suddenly possessed him which while they endure are acute agony.
The longing for food gripped at his vitals like an eagle's claw and
drove reasoned action from his head. He knew well enough that there
was no escape to be made through the shuttered windows but ignoring the
knowledge he leapt toward them and seized the iron cross-bar. As he
lifted it from its slot the alarm bell above the frame rang out a fiery
summons.
He fell back a pace beating the air impotently and whining. The door
opened and Blayney and Parker, the two men servants, entered. Parker
placed a tray on the table, then returned to stand in the open doorway.
Blayney, ignoring Richard's presence, replaced the shutter bar in its
old position and the bell stopped ringing. Then he turned and said:
"I shouldn't advise you, to try the window, sir. There's a strong
electric current passes through the catch."
"Thank you," said Richard and slouched despondently toward the table
where his glance fell upon the tray. Whatever victuals had been
provided were concealed beneath a small silver cover but there was a
napkin, a knife and fork and a cruet. On the whole it looked rather
promising. Then suddenly he noticed that the glass beside the plate
contained barely an inch of water.
"I say," he exclaimed, "look! Can't I have a jog of water? There
isn't----"
"Not today, sir," said Blayney.
The very courtesy of the man was an incentive to fury.
"Yes, but----"
"Not today, sir."
Parker in the doorway grinned.
"Don't smirk at me, blast you," said Richard.
Blayney nodded toward the bedroom and changed places with his
companion. When Parker came out he was carrying a great pile of
bedclothes.
"Here, what are you doing? Put 'em down. D'you hear me?"
"My orders were to take them away, sir."
As Laurence had said it was useless to fight against present odds.
Richard shut his teeth tight.
"Obey your orders," he said, but as the door was closing the craving
for drink mastered his pride. "For God's sake," he cried, "for God's
sake give me some more water. I'll give you twenty for a jug of
water--honest I will--twenty----"
Blayney laid a finger to his lips and went out. The gesture might have
meant anything. With trembling hand Richard seized the glass of water
and drained it at a gulp. There was miserably little--it barely cooled
the heat of his throat. Whimpering he set the glass down and lifted
the cover from the plate. Underneath was a cube of bread the size of a
lump of sugar. With a savage cry he picked it up and flung it across
the room but a moment later was on all fours gathering up the broken
bits and pieces and eating them wolfishly.
Blayney found him searching pathetically for the last crumb when he
came stealthily into the room and put a tin mug on the table.
"I'll collect that twenty later," he said and vanished.
Almost like a miser Richard took the mug in his hands and purred over
it possessively. With a sigh of absolute content he raised it to his
lips. Then a scream broke from him--harsh, strident, savage. There
were no soft spots in the walls of Hugo Van Diest's fortress. The
water was salt.