slag heap in the dark, taking with us a bundle of rockets. My idea was
at last going to be tested--what do you think it was, Sir?"
I discreetly pretended my utter inability to guess.
"Why, nothing more or less than to hoist these German blokes with their
own petard, so to speak. We were going to fool them by giving them
signals in their own code. Well, after stumbling and groping about for
half an hour," McNab continued, "we arrived at the spot near where we
had overlooked the spy.
"'I think this is the ledge from which I fell,' Tommy whispered as we
crawled on. The next instant the Colonel disappeared, and the little
procession came to an abrupt standstill. A crashing noise was heard as
the old man with a quarter of a ton of slag went tobogganing down the
stone-shod slope.
"'This _is_ the spot,' Tommy said tersely. And up to us came hoarse
whispered curses as our ole man tongue-lashed us for a full minute in
gross and detail.
"'Lie quite still, Colonel,' I whispered, 'the Hun swine-dogs may send
up a flare if they hear us.'
"But no flare flared, and no sniper sniped.
"'This game gives me the blooming creeps,' old Tommy muttered
shudderingly, thinking of Huns and guns three miles deep all round.
After that the Colonel struggled clear of the 'alf ton of slag atop o'
him. Tommy and I wandered a little more until we got down to the old
man. Here we halted. 'Here's the place where we left the dead spy,' said
Tommy, his eyes peering into the darkness of the V-shaped cutting. 'I
can still see Fritz lying in the corner. We had better get right over
_this_ side. Come on!'
"'I see,' said the Colonel. 'This is the key of the position. It
overlooks the German trenches and when the spy was using his flash lamp
he could not be observed by the men in our lines.'
"'Good thing we short-circuited his little game,' reflected Tommy
hugging an arm full of rockets.
"'Ah!' says he, fingering the electric torch. 'How this game of war
makes one think. My 'orizon has indeed broadened. Just to think that a
few flashes from this little chap will mean more than all those
glittering stars above to the German fellows in the trenches over there.
It's simply ridiculous to waste our little concert on a few Huns in the
trenches to-night. We must socialise the whole blooming show. We must
get the head up of all the Huns for miles around. Let us consult the
code book,' he said, and then opening it he read out some of the rocket
codes. They all seemed simple enough. But he had some difficulty in
finding the one he wanted, having first of all of course to translate
them into English; but presently he seized upon the one he wanted, he
repeated it over with delight:
"'_Two green rockets in rapid succession mean: "Enemy making active
preparations for offensive movement" and when followed after a suitable
interval by a single red rocket, mean: "Enemy will attack without
delay."_'
"'Touch off two green rockets, McNab, if you please,' said the Colonel
with a tremor in his voice.
"I touched off two three-pounders which rose several thousand yards, and
burst into bunches of gorgeous stars. A faint clattering noise came to
us from the Hun trenches, and we all hugged the earth fairly closely as
a rapid fusillade broke out from all quarters. Rifles cracked all around
us to the extent of thousands, and with that a most impressive humming
noise, which I had never had the pleasure of hearing before, because
being a soldier I had always formed a part of it--the noise of whole
armies turning out to meet an attack.
"'Colonel,' I says, 'it may have escaped you that the angry and 'ighly
intelligent Boche on our front will soon be sending up _their_ rockets
to confuse our own men. Might I recommend a red rocket before they open
their part of the ball, and bend the lights! That will spell to 'em:
Enemy will attack without delay, and it will also expedite their
artillery just a leetle.'
"The Colonel laid his hand on my shoulder.
"'McNab,' says he, 'there's worse blokes than you sitting on thrones.
They shall 'ave that red rocket. None the less,' he remarked, 'the
situation is undeniably getting a bit feverish. Trot out Red Rufus!'
"I rightly took the command to read:
"'Send up a red rocket.' Rufus soared up into the sky and burst into a
red glare that simply shouted: 'Here they come after you' to the Huns.
"'Oh-h-h-h-h!' exclaimed old Tommy as the twirly-whirly red stars fell
through the sky.
"'Silence!' said the old man. 'This is the sanguinary British
Expeditionary Force, not a (decorated) Brock's Benefit at the Crystal
Palace. What in Hong-Kong are you jumping about like a richly decorated
organ-grinder's monkey for?'
"The Huns grasped the meaning of their dead spy's signal as soon as it
showed in the heavens, so to speak. We lay belly-flat and held our
breaths for a moment or so in silence, but we were about the only silent
things for a hundred miles. Flares went up by the thousand and
searchlights cut up the sky in every direction. All kinds of mysterious
guns got into action and all the batteries for a hundred miles must have
let drive as well. From then on, for at least two hours, the shells
poured excruciating-wise into our deserted trenches without
cessation,--shrapnel, high explosive, six inch, twelve inch--thousands
of pounds the Huns wasted that night.
"I wish you could have seen Tommy bowing to right and left of the German
trenches acknowledging the applause which the Huns would have given him
if they'd known the facts. On the other hand, as the Colonel observed,
they might 'ave killed him.
"'They'll have to pull up their socks at Krupp's to replace the shells
they have blazed away in this little pantomime,' said Tommy pressing his
hands to his sides. 'Star programme--heap big star programme! Phew! Oh,
I wish I could stop laughing, I ain't 'ad such a laugh for years!'
"'And in this little code book here,' said the old man, a hand on each
of our shoulders, 'there are hundreds of little love messages we can be
getting ready to surprise 'em with. Presently we'll begin to send 'em
instructions to concentrate their fire on empty houses--tell 'em they
are chock-full of British troops. Then they'll fairly let loose the
bow-yows of war. Damme, how their gunners will gun! Oblige me by
thinking of four hundred guns, pumping val-u-able shells into an empty
house.'
"The exquisite humour of it brought us down screaming with laughter in a
tangle on the slag-heap. A searchlight broke out from the back of the
Hun trenches and began searching our lines.
"'They're looking for our attacking party, or the Angels of Mons,'
panted the old man, his knees in a shell hole and his face in the grass.
'Well, let's get our things packed and hurry back. I think they have
sent back for a fresh supply of shells. The sooner we get out of it the
better. Sufficient unto the day--or night, perhaps one should say.'
"Well, it's dry work talking," said McNab, wistfully surveying the
interior of his empty mug.
I took measures--pint measures--to allay his thirst.
"Let me see now," he said; "let me see."
"And did you do any signalling with the flash lamp the next night?" I
timidly hinted, "I believe you mentioned that it was your intention."
"Yes, we did have some fun, I can tell you, and 'twas better still next
night. Once more we returned, to the slag-heap, then," McNab swept on,
"we started to flash a few messages over to the German lines. They soon
picked up our signals and after a brief interrogation they replied. Then
they started to ask questions. 'At which part of the British line would
it be wise to launch an attack?' they flashed.
"And our old man flashed back a trench that was fairly bristly with
machine guns. Then they asked other questions, but we did not reply. We
laid low and said nothing, for you can take it from me, mister, that a
real spy is a man of few words, and playing with a flashlight in enemy
lines is not exactly a healthy game.
"Had we have signalled too freely the Huns would have soon become
suspicious, for, mark you, the flares that we had popped off at 'em the
night before had left 'em with an uncomfortable feeling that their spy
was taking quite unreasonable risks. It is of course most unusual for a
spy to make use of rocket signals. Do I make myself comprehensible?"
"Perfectly. Did the Huns attack?" I asked.
McNab nodded. "They attacked us three days afterwards at five o'clock in
the morning. It was like a nightmare. The Germans came on, evidently
thinking they were on a soft job, and you can realize what a wonderful
target they made for the gunners who had been waiting for 'em. Such a
target that gunners dream about but never see. We had some
eighteen-and-a-'arf-pounders not five hundred yards away, and they let
go right into the thick of 'em. And each case shot with its four hundred
bullets swept and tore their ranks. With a mighty gasp and something
like a groan the Huns staggered, recovered, and with wild yells came
charging on to a hundred machine guns. And all the time the shells came
over at them and tore wide swathes in their closely-packed ranks. Then
our boys got into 'em and swept the remaining Huns into eternity!"
"Unless this story had come from such a highly-reliable fountain-head,
McNab," I murmured, after a moment or so, "I would never have believed
that the whole thing was not a fabrication."
McNab removed his pot of beer on one side, and leaned across the table.
I moved my chair back quickly, just missing another vigorous stab from
his huge index-finger.
"The history of this war," he observed impressively, "will be interwoven
with extraordinary things like this 'ere tale I have been telling you.
And you may lay to it, mister, that the most extraordinary things of all
will never see the light of day in the printed page."
"I can _quite_ understand that," I said pointedly; "for, although a
student of military history of this war myself, I cannot recall a single
reference to any of the remarkable events which occurred in the trenches
during the eight months you were with your regiment over there!"
McNab regarded me for a full minute with rapidly-rising choler. Then he
shifted his stare from me to an old gentleman who was warming his toes
at the fire.
"The yarn I have told you is as true as the drill book, though you need
not believe it if you have conscientious objections. I have been
recounting real slices of history. Leastways, when I say history I may
be wrong, because they will never appear in history. But they
_'appened_, Mister--'appened as surely as I am sitting here with an
empty pot in front o' me. An'--an'----" McNab stammered in his
excitement--"if any bloke says they didn't, be jabers, I'll--I'll drink
his beer!"
But neither the old gentleman nor any member of the company wished to
disagree with him, and he rose up from the chair with a mug to order his
final half-pint. He returned (a trifle unsteadily, perhaps) with his
beer and a particularly vile cigar in his mouth. Whether it was the
effect of the heat or the--er--beer I cannot say, but he blundered over
my legs, causing me a sharp twinge of pain.
"What an awkward beggar you are that you can't see to walk straight," I
said.
McNab looked down at my legs after giving them another stirring up with
his foot. "Why, Go' bless my soul," he said, "it's quite true, I am an
awkward devil. I certainly should have seen _those_ feet. However did
you get 'em into the bar?"
V
THROUGH THE FURNACE
Give us our rest, O Father, in thine own appointed time and of thy
gracious olden fashion. Lay thy annulling seal upon the o'erlabored
heart: drop thy healing nepenthe into the weary brain. Teach us not
to fear that which brings us nearer to Thee. Suffer us to go to
sleep with no more consciousness than the flowers that take no care
for their awakening. Give us this last and best of all thy
gifts--Parva domus, magna quies!
Hilaire O'Hagan sat in the September sunshine on the grass that skirted
the roadside. For some time he had been examining with a stare of
melancholy interest the worn toes of his boots. On his head was a dingy
straw hat; to his form and limbs there hung a faded and creased coat and
a pair of shiny black trousers;--he held in his hand five shillings
which had been thrust into his hand when the prison gates had opened to
him that morning. He had taken the money and swaggered out with a
parting gibe at the constable who closed the doors behind him.
O'Hagan was an incorrigible rascal. Some years before, when he stood in
the Assize Court, a venerable judge had told him so. "O'Hagan," said
the judge grimly, "you are what I should term an incorrigible rogue, and
I shall send you to prison for two years with hard labour. You have run
across my path many times before. When you gain your liberty it will be
very much to your advantage if you keep out of my way for good and all."
O'Hagan had received the sentence with the same impertinent smirk on his
face as he had received many similar sentences.
Now he was a free man. He was powerful, full of health, and--lazy. He
reflected aloud, with evident enjoyment (and in the speech of a lettered
gentleman), "This is indeed one of those days when it is good to be
alive!"
"O'Hagan!" came a sudden voice, harsh and authoritative, from behind
him: He rose to his feet and faced about. In the roadway appeared the
constable to whom he had addressed some not over polite remarks on his
way out of prison.
"Well?" said O'Hagan.
The constable snorted. "Didn't you hear me tell you to move on? We don't
want any habitual criminals hanging about here."
O'Hagan dived his hands deep into the pockets of his shiny trousers and
slouched along towards the next village. About a mile ahead was an inn
he knew of where he might enjoy a great refreshment, and drink the
waters of Lethe. He jingled the silver in his pocket and reflected that
for one night at least he could eat strongly, and drink largely, and
sleep deeply.
* * * * *
Outside a house screened by a mysterious ten foot wall full of the plain
dignity of unpretending age, a long grey motor car was standing. O'Hagan
turned and surveyed it, and his quick eye rested upon a leather hand
case on a rug beneath the seat. It did not take him a moment to snatch
it and hide it swiftly beneath his coat. For a second or so he stood
back against the wall. At that moment a girl came out of the house, in
company with an elderly gentleman, and walked towards the car. O'Hagan
looked at the girl swiftly. At the same time she glanced at him, and
their eyes met. Things looked unhealthy for O'Hagan. But fate was
altogether with him, and the motor moved off and left him standing there
with the case under his coat. No glorious figure, this man, but one of
those whom specialists now place amongst the doomed as cursed with the
criminal instinct, with the vices that require lavish means to feed
them--a man who only feels a thrill in life when he is preying on his
fellows, or eluding the hand of justice.
* * * * *
O'Hagan walked down the road a little way with his hand resting
lovingly on the leather case. He turned a corner, cut through the hedge,
and took a track across a field. In the shelter of a clump of bushes he
sat leisurely on the grass and went over the contents. Among the various
odds and ends was a leather purse. He opened it with trembling fingers.
There was a sovereign, five one pound notes folded up, eight shillings
in silver, and a small silver cross hanging on a black silk riband. He
dropped the silver with a sigh of satisfaction into his trousers pocket,
and the notes he stored in the lining of his hat. He took up the little
cross and was about to thrust it into the thick grass, when he paused
for a moment, and was aware of an oppressive feeling.
On a sudden, in the midst of men and day,
And while he sat and looked around,
He seemed to be in a bygone age,
And feel himself the shadow of a dream.
O'Hagan felt that his body was decreasing, sinking under the green turf,
falling down, down, down, and yet "He" was still above, gazing,
wondering, open-eyed, open-mouthed, as it were. Gradually, but none the
less surely, he was being crowded round by many moving "?'s" which never
seemed to grow distinct. He seemed to know at once he was back in the
days long past. He shut his eyes against a burning that felt like tears.
When he opened them again he was looking at his own name, fairly carved
in on the silver cross in quaint old English letters:
Hilaire O'Hagan
The clump of bushes before him was now obscured by a thin white cloud.
As he watched he was aware of a figure that stood out distinctly before
him. He was a man of his own height, thick-set, serious-looking, in a
monk's mantle and hood. O'Hagan gave a hurried glance, and as hurriedly
turned his head away again. The face of the man exactly resembled his
own. But it was an honest face, without the look of dissipation, and the
secret furtive air, which he knew marred his own features. He also
thought he could see a faint nimbus round his head--but this may have
been illusion. O'Hagan moved away as if he had no wish to see him; but
the stranger was not to be put off by any such trick. He touched
O'Hagan's arm, and brought him to a standstill.
"Brother!" he said in a gentle voice.
O'Hagan pulled himself up sharply. For a moment it seemed as if he would
have refused to stay, but the next he realized that it would be of no
use.
"What do you want with me?" he began. "I know I'm a thief and a
drunkard. Do you want to hand me a Sunday School tract? If so get it
over."
The stranger's hand tightened on his arm, and he began to speak in a
calm but strangely thrilling voice. "It is written there: '_men do not
despise a thief, if he steal to satisfy his soul when he is hungry._'"
"Well?" said O'Hagan, trying to hold a countenance of little concern.
"Well?" said the stranger, "for why did you steal?"
O'Hagan coughed and held down his head.
"A man without scruple and without heart," the stranger remarked to
himself.
O'Hagan looked up with a start. "Look here," he began. "You've no right
to----"
Then of a sudden the mist began to rise from the clump of bushes and the
stranger vanished. O'Hagan was back in the flesh. He stood there dazed
for the moment, with the little cross clutched in his hand. He sat down
again and _tried_ to force his spirit back to the other scene, but in
vain. He felt that he had been thrilled through and through. The
oppression, however, unlike the stern-faced monk, did not vanish, it
deepened. A throbbing headache came on, which refused to be shaken off,
and eventually sent O'Hagan to the "Bell Inn" to drink still deeper of
the waters of oblivion.
The day was already falling when he walked, jingling his silver, into
the sanded bar of the "Bell Inn," and an hour or so later, when it began
to fill with drovers and country folk, O'Hagan had looked much on the
good brown ale. He was in fact becoming very noisy. Seated in a corner,
he sang "Nell and Roger at the Wake" in a hoarse voice. The country folk
grinned and looked at him curiously.
"Shut your gab, old sport," said a rough-looking drover at last, "that
song is not fit for decent folk to hear."
O'Hagan swore like any trooper, and reached his hand out to a large
spirit bottle at his elbow, and for a moment the drover thought he would
get it thrown at his head. However, O'Hagan rose to his feet, made a bow
to the company, and made an apology to the drover. He stood there, a
blackguard on the face of him, but a gentleman in spite of that
undefinable and vaguely repulsive smirk which played about his straight
and refined mouth. He slunk away into the night.
As O'Hagan walked the night deepened in throbs of gathering darkness.
The sense of uneasiness that had been with him ever since the priest in
the cassock had appeared to him was not to be easily thrown off. He set
himself to argue down the uneasiness for which there was no more
foundation than a bad attack of "nerves" after the gloomy life in
prison. He told himself, till he believed it, that a man--just a human
man--had been crossing the fields, and that being smitten with religious
fervour he had quoted the Scripture aloud, as he had often heard such
people do. He told himself it was mere fancy that was the cause of the
belief that something was _shining_ around the man's head. As he argued
these things away, and banished the face of his visitor, a certain sort
of reason usurped his place. But he did not feel comfortable, however,
he fell short of any form of fear.
It was O'Hagan's whole business to find desolate corners, where he could
sleep without the fear of interruption by the police; and hence being in
a part of the country that he knew well, he bethought himself suddenly
of the great barn next to the mansion house at Tilney St. Lawrence. It
was always full of good hay, as large as a barrack and no thoroughfare
passed within a quarter of a mile of it. In such a place, and with the
scent of the hay to lull him, O'Hagan threw his tired body down, and
soon lost all the cares of the world in complete repose.
All his life O'Hagan had been a habitual dreamer; the nights were few,
that is to say, when on awakening he did not find that some mental
traffics and discoveries had been his, and at times, the whole night
through he would meet with most dazzling adventures. In prison his
dreams had been a great solace to him, and each night he had settled
down to devote the dark hours to the cultivation of joyous dreams. He
was one of those men who went to sleep fair and square, and looked for
dreams. But as O'Hagan stretched in the hay, things were revealed to him
that were beyond all dreams, and of course he could not keep the
strange priest out of the vision. It opened with finding himself in
front of the doors of an old church, where, he understood, he was going
to hide from someone who wanted to kill him. He knocked on the door and
the man who opened the door was the very priest he had seen in the
afternoon. He asked him to step in and instantly turned round and walked
up the dimly lit aisle, and O'Hagan understood that he had to follow. In
silence they passed through a small arch in the chancel and mounted a
narrow oak staircase with many corners and tortuous turns and arrived at
a small landing with a studded door set in it. Quite inexplicably
O'Hagan's heart sank at the sight of it. However, the priest unlocked
and opened it, and held it open for him to enter, and without coming in
himself, closed it. It was a small oak room with a stone floor, and a
curious smell at once attracted his notice. It was there--there, close
to him--under his very nose--the strong, acrid odour of decay--the
nauseating smell of the grave. Looking about he saw the floor was paved
with grave stones. In one corner stood a fine seventeenth century lead
coffin. A curious greyish light shone from it. O'Hagan's conjecture had
been right: there was something awful in the room, and with the terror
of nightmare seizing him swiftly by the throat and throttling him, he
awoke in a spasm of terror. O'Hagan was sitting bolt upright with the
impression that someone had flashed a lantern in his face, though the
barn was absolutely pitch dark. "I've had a most diabolical nightmare.
It was the drink," he said to himself, and decided to go to sleep again.
But the excessive heat of the barn would let him rest no longer. The
atmosphere seemed to be hot and pungent, and he groped about and opened
the door to let in some air. Almost at the same moment someone cried
"Fire!" and shapes of things began to define in a soft grey
glimmering;--and the gloom was broken up by a red and angry spurt of
flame from a wing of the old manor house. Again cries of "Fire!" came to
his ears, and grew and multiplied. O'Hagan was fully awake in an
instant, and running at top speed towards the old mansion. When he
reached it the whole sky about was illuminated by a red and angry light.
Almost at the moment of his arrival a tower of smoke arose in front of
the porch window, and with a tingling report, a pane fell outwards at
his feet. A crowd of cowed and white-faced country folk drew back when
he rushed up. Then he looked up at the porch window and saw what it was
that made the people go. He saw a girl's terrified face at the window.
"The girl I lifted the bag from," he said aloud. "She'll be burnt to
death."