RUNNING THE PLANK
The Admiralty launch made the Harbour of Calais about a quarter-past
eight. There was a train for Paris waiting at the Gare Maritime, but
learning that it did not arrive until 4.15, the Bucklands decided to
stick to their plan of riding through the night. The production of
George’s card of membership of the Automobile Club, and a short and
pleasant interview between the naval lieutenant and the Custom House
officer, sufficed to frank the gyro-car without the payment of import
duty. Having enjoyed a meal on board the launch, the brothers were
ready to start at once, and with cordial good-wishes from the officer,
and amid many “Hé’s” and “Ah’s” and other exclamations from the
onlookers, they set off on their journey.
The distance from Calais to Paris is a hundred and eighty odd miles.
George had cycled over the route in the previous spring, and knew its
general features. It would be easy, he thought, to maintain an average
speed of at least twenty-five miles on a highway kept in such admirable
repair as are all the French main roads, even allowing for slowing
down when passing through villages and towns. The sky was clear, and
illuminated by a half-moon, and the powerful acetylene lamp which he
carried at the front of the car shed its rays many yards ahead. The
interior of the car was lit by two small electric lamps, one on each
side.
“There’s no chance of their catching us, is there?” said George, as the
car spun merrily along.
“I think not,” replied Maurice. “They will have to wait for the train,
which doesn’t get to Paris until 5:50. We ought to be there before
four, so that at the worst we shall have an hour and a half before they
can arrive.”
Before they had been two hours on the road, they were glad to think
that they had so much margin. George was not accustomed to steering the
car at a rapid pace by night, and Maurice’s experience was even less
than his brother’s, so that they found it by no means easy to maintain
the speed that George had mentioned. Until they reached Béthune they
had a clear run, but thenceforward they had to slow down more often
than they wished. There were _octroi_ barriers, where they were halted
and examined, much to George’s disgust. He found also that the places
through which they passed had quite a different aspect at night from
what he remembered of them by day, and more than once he had to stop
to allow Maurice to ask the way of a gendarme or an innkeeper. At such
times the curiosity excited by the unusual appearance of the car found
expression in questions which had to be evaded rather than answered.
It was growing light by the time they reached the Porte Maillot. Here
they had to submit to an interrogatory by the officer of the gate,
and George smiled discreetly as he witnessed for the first time his
brother’s diplomatic manner.
“I never knew you could be so polite,” he said, as they ran down the
Avenue de la Grande Armée. “Perhaps it sounds politer in French than it
really is. But it’s rotten to have to pay a tax on the petrol we carry.”
A few yards from the gate they saw a taxi-cab standing at the side of
the road. The driver was in his seat, and two men were entering the cab
as the gyro-car sped by.
“Early birds--or late,” said Maurice.
The street cleaners paused in the work to wonder and admire, and when
the car came to the Place de l’Etoile Maurice turned about to glance
back at an old fellow whose comical expression of face amused him. He
noticed the taxi-cab coming at a good pace behind them; but the road
was so broad, and so clear of traffic, that George drove the gyro-car
through the Champs Elysées at a much higher speed than he would have
dared in Hyde Park, and moment by moment it increased. He turned left
into the Rue Royale, then to right into the Rue St. Honoré, and ran the
car into the garage of the Hotel St. James where he and Maurice had
both stayed during previous visits to the city. Having arranged for the
replenishment of the petrol tanks and the cleaning of the car, they
went into the hotel to get a wash and brush up, which they much needed
after their long journey over dusty roads. It was half-past four.
Few of the hotel staff had as yet risen, and the travellers might
perhaps have been received with less consideration had not their former
visits, and their generous tips, been remembered. But a few minutes
after they descended to the _salle à manger_ an appetizing little
breakfast was put before them.
“What a difference from England!” said George. “I say, Maurice, I’ll
just run into the garage to see that things are going all right. The
fellow looked rather sleepy. Pour out my coffee, will you? I shan’t be
a minute.”
While he was in the garage, he heard the clatter of a horse’s hoofs and
the hum of a motor-car in the street; the sounds struck his ear all the
more forcibly because of the peacefulness of the neighbourhood. In mere
unreflecting curiosity, he stepped to the door and glanced out. Next
moment he started back, pushed the door outwards until he felt that he
could not be seen, and peeped out through the narrow opening just as
the motor-car passed. There were three vehicles. The first was a large
racing motor, not unlike that with which he had become so familiar at
home, but its colour was a bright green. In it were seated--and the
sight sent a strange thrill through him--Count Slavianski and Major
Rostopchin, his secretary. Behind it came a taxi-cab, and a few yards
in the rear of this a _fiacre_, the driver of which was gee-hoing and
whipping up his horse to its best pace, with the evident intention of
keeping up with the motors in front. Within this two men were seated.
One of them George recognised as a servant of the Count’s; the other’s
head was at the moment turned away.
George was thunderstruck. By what means had these persistent foreigners
arrived in advance of the mail?
“Tell me,” he said in his best French to the man who was rubbing the
car down, “is there a train from London at this hour?”
“Ah non, monsieur,” replied the man, “but there is a train from Calais.
It arrives at the Gare du Nord at 4:15, an hour and a half before the
London mail.”
“A slow train?”
“Certainly, monsieur, a very slow train.”
“It must be the train we saw at Calais,” said George to himself. “Those
fellows must have caught it: but how on earth did they cross the
Channel so soon?”
He had the presence of mind to show no sign of his consternation and
anxiety, but strolled out of the garage and then dashed into the _salle
à manger_.
“I say, Maurice”--he began, but then remembering that the garçon had a
thorough command of English, he checked his impetuous tongue, and sat
down beside his brother, who had already started upon his breakfast.
“Send him to fetch something,” he said in a low tone.
“Bring me an _omelette aux fines herbes_,” said Maurice to the waiter.
“Certainly, sir, in five minutes.”
“What is it?” asked Maurice, when the man had gone.
“Those fellows are on our track,” said George breathlessly. “The whole
gang by the look of it. I have just seen a large green motor, a taxi,
and a _fiacre_ go down the street. The Count and his secretary were in
the first.”
“They went by?” said Maurice in amazement.
“Yes.”
“Then they don’t know our whereabouts, yet,” said Maurice, heaving a
sigh of relief. “But it won’t be long before they do. The place is
full of German spies, and if this so-called Russian is a German, as I
suspect, he’ll soon learn from one of his agents about the appearance
of an odd-looking thing like the gyro-car. Indeed, I shouldn’t be
surprised if those fellows I saw get into a taxi just this side of the
Porte Maillot were his men.”
“But how did they get here in the time?”
“They must have had a swift vessel with steam up waiting at Dover.
There’s no end to their resources when anything big is at stake. We’re
in for a race, George.”
“You take it pretty coolly,” said George, who was quivering with
excitement.
“That’s the first lesson I learnt from my chief. ‘Never get flustered,’
he dinned into me. We shall have to trust to the speed of your car.
They don’t know where we are, nor which way we are going, which is one
to us. Get on with your breakfast; I’ll think it out.”
He ate his omelet with an air of abstraction. After a few minutes he
called the waiter.
“Have you got a road-guide?” he asked.
“Yes, sir: I will fetch it.”
He soon returned with a copy of the Guide Taride. Maurice glanced
at the title page: “Les Routes de France, à l’usage des conducteurs
d’automobiles et cyclistes.”
“The very thing. I will buy this, waiter; the proprietor can easily
replace it. It gives everything we want, George.”
He turned over the pages until he came to the section dealing with the
roads out of Paris.
“They’ll watch the bridges, as they did in London,” he said, “but they
can’t watch all the gates, unless they have a much larger number of
men than is likely. We mustn’t cross the river, so we can’t take any
of the three roads to Marseilles; they all go by the Porte de Choisy,
and that’s on the other side of the Seine. Here we are: Paris to Melun,
forty kilometres. They don’t recommend the first route, by the Porte
Daumesnil and the Bois de Vincennes, so we’ll choose that. We shall
join the direct road at Villeneuve-Saint-Georges, thirteen kilometres
distant. And the sooner we start the better. Go and set your gyroscopes
working, while I pay the bill.”
It took several minutes to set the gyroscopes running at full speed.
Maurice was anxious to start before this, but George pointed out that
they had better not appear in the street until the car was thoroughly
ready, in case any of the Slavianski scouts were on the watch.
A few minutes after 5 o’clock they set off, running back through the
Rue Royale thence into the Rue de Rivoli, until, having crossed the
Place de la Bastille, they struck into the Avenue Daumesnil. There was
little traffic as yet in that broad thoroughfare, except for the wagons
of tradesmen and market gardeners coming into the city from the suburbs.
“We mustn’t go too fast while we’re within the walls,” said George,
“but as soon as we’re outside I’ll let her rip, old man. Keep your eye
on the map and tell me how to steer.”
Maurice had opened the map of Paris and spread it on his knees.
Directed by him, George turned into the Rue de Charenton, left the
city at the Charenton gate, after exchanging a pleasant word with the
officer, and then set the car spinning along until they came to the
bridge over the Canal de Marne. Being now beyond the probable risk of
interference, George increased the speed to thirty-five miles an hour,
which he maintained for forty minutes, until they reached the outskirts
of Melun. There the road made a sharp descent.
“Slow down here,” said Maurice anxiously. “This hill is dangerous,
according to the Guide, and the _pavé_ is rather slippery with dew. A
sideslip here would break us up.”
Reducing speed to fifteen miles an hour, they ran down the hill. Before
they had reached the foot of it they saw, on turning a bend, that
the road about two hundred yards ahead was broken for mending on the
right-hand side--the side on which they were travelling, according to
the rule of the road in France. A thin rope was stretched half-way
across the road, supported on a light iron rod, from which hung a
lantern, that had, no doubt, been lit during the night. It was not yet
6 o’clock, and no labourers were on the spot; but on the left-hand
side of the road, where there was a space between the excavation and
a wall just wide enough for the passage of an ordinary market cart,
a small motor-car was approaching the gap in the same direction as
the gyro-car at a low speed. There was plenty of time for it to pass
through the narrowed portion of the roadway before the gyro-car
overtook it, so George did not reduce his speed any further, but
sounded his hooter as a measure of precaution.
The motor-car crawled on towards the gap, the chauffeur throwing a
glance over his shoulder, as if to see whether he had time to win
through before the vehicle behind overtook him. Moment by moment the
space between the two cars diminished. The gyro-car was within a few
yards of the narrow portion of the road, when suddenly the motor
stopped dead, completely blocking the passage, and the chauffeur sprang
from his seat towards the wall bordering the road on the near side.
George involuntarily let out a cry. There was no time to consult with
Maurice, nor even to hesitate between two courses. The momentum of
the gyro-car was so great that it could not be checked before dashing
into the stationary vehicle. To the left was the wall, to the right an
excavation several feet deep. Across it lay a narrow plank, used, no
doubt, by the workmen in wheeling their barrows from one side of the
hole to the other.
[Illustration: A DESPERATE EXPEDIENT]
It was supported on the nearer side upon some loose earth that had been
thrown up from below. What the support on the further side was George
could not pause to determine. His brother had waxed satirical about
his unpunctuality, but in this critical moment, when there was only an
instant of time for decision, the boy showed a surprising quickness.
There was one desperate chance of avoiding a collision, which, even if
it did not result in personal injury, might at least cripple the car.
He steered straight for the plank.
There was a jolt, a sudden dip, and the sixteen-foot plank sagged
under the weight of the car. A moment of suspense; then there was a
more serious jolt as the front wheel apparently left the plank and
struck the bank of earth on the further side, just high enough to
make a passage for itself through the loose soil at the edge. The two
front wheels were through. Alter an almost imperceptible interval the
third wheel dropped from the end of the plank on to the earth, and
immediately afterwards the fourth wheel. The gyro-car was safely across.
Almost before either George or his brother could fully realise the
narrow escape they had had, the car was forty or fifty yards down the
road.
“Shall we stop?” asked George, panting with relief. “I’d like a word
with that ass.”
“No, go on,” said Maurice quietly. He was looking back towards the gap.
“They are there!”
“The Count?”
“I don’t see him, but there are others. You were too busy to notice
them, but just as we came to the gap I saw several men jump up from
behind the wall and help to hoist the chauffeur over. The whole thing
was planned.”
“Great Scott! How in the world did they get there in time?”
“I expect they wired or ’phoned from Calais last night. They knew we
must take this road if making for Italy, and their agents must have
left Paris early to find a convenient place for waylaying us. They
couldn’t have chosen a better one, though, of course, the opening in
the road was purely accidental You’re a wonder, George. I should never
have had the nerve to do it.”
“My dear chap, you would run the car across Niagara on a tight-rope if
you knew it as well as I do. But hang it all!--I hope it isn’t damaged.
Don’t you think we might pull up for a minute to have a look?”
“We had better go on. The Count will be here before long to see how his
trap had succeeded, and the sooner we are beyond his lordship’s reach
the better. We are not out of the wood yet.”
“Can’t we stop at Melun and put the authorities up to collaring the
fellows as German spies?”
“We’ve no proof that they are, and it would never do for me, in my
position, to set France and Germany by the ears. It would mean delay,
too. No: our job is to get to Brindisi as soon as we can. Run a few
miles farther; then we’ll halt to examine the car; but it goes so
easily that I don’t think much damage is done.”
“All right. Are they after us?”
“There’s no sign of them. We win the trick.”