Mr. Standfast
“This morning,” I said, “I swam in the deep-water inlet below us. It is
the most perfect submarine shelter in Britain.”
He still kept his face from me, looking the way he had come. For a
moment he was silent, and then he spoke in the bitter, drawling voice
which had annoyed me at Fosse Manor.
“How do you reconcile this business with your principles, Mr Brand? You
were always a patriot, I remember, though you didn’t see eye to eye
with the Government.”
It was not quite what I expected and I was unready. I stammered in my
reply. “It’s because I am a patriot that I want peace. I think that....
I mean....”
“Therefore you are willing to help the enemy to win?”
“They have already won. I want that recognised and the end hurried on.”
I was getting my mind clearer and continued fluently.
“The longer the war lasts, the worse this country is ruined. We must
make the people realise the truth, and—”
But he swung round suddenly, his eyes blazing.
“You blackguard!” he cried, “you damnable blackguard!” And he flung
himself on me like a wild-cat.
I had got my answer. He did not believe me, he knew me for a spy, and
he was determined to do me in. We were beyond finesse now, and back at
the old barbaric game. It was his life or mine. The hammer beat
furiously in my head as we closed, and a fierce satisfaction rose in my
heart.
He never had a chance, for though he was in good trim and had the
light, wiry figure of the mountaineer, he hadn’t a quarter of my
muscular strength. Besides, he was wrongly placed, for he had the
outside station. Had he been on the inside he might have toppled me
over the edge by his sudden assault. As it was, I grappled him and
forced him to the ground, squeezing the breath out of his body in the
process. I must have hurt him considerably, but he never gave a cry.
With a good deal of trouble I lashed his hands behind his back with the
belt of my waterproof, carried him inside the cave and laid him in the
dark end of it. Then I tied his feet with the strap of his own
knapsack. I would have to gag him, but that could wait.
I had still to contrive a plan of action for the night, for I did not
know what part he had been meant to play in it. He might be the
messenger instead of the Portuguese Jew, in which case he would have
papers about his person. If he knew of the cave, others might have the
same knowledge, and I had better shift him before they came. I looked
at my wrist-watch, and the luminous dial showed that the hour was half
past nine.
Then I noticed that the bundle in the corner was sobbing. It was a
horrid sound and it worried me. I had a little pocket electric torch
and I flashed it on Wake’s face. If he was crying, it was with dry
eyes.
“What are you going to do with me?” he asked.
“That depends,” I said grimly.
“Well, I’m ready. I may be a poor creature, but I’m damned if I’m
afraid of you, or anything like you.” That was a brave thing to say,
for it was a lie; his teeth were chattering.
“I’m ready for a deal,” I said.
“You won’t get it,” was his answer. “Cut my throat if you mean to, but
for God’s sake don’t insult me.... I choke when I think about you. You
come to us and we welcome you, and receive you in our houses, and tell
you our inmost thoughts, and all the time you’re a bloody traitor. You
want to sell us to Germany. You may win now, but by God! your time will
come! That is my last word to you ... you swine!”
The hammer stopped beating in my head. I saw myself suddenly as a
blind, preposterous fool. I strode over to Wake, and he shut his eyes
as if he expected a blow. Instead I unbuckled the straps which held his
legs and arms.
“Wake, old fellow,” I said, “I’m the worst kind of idiot. I’ll eat all
the dirt you want. I’ll give you leave to knock me black and blue, and
I won’t lift a hand. But not now. Now we’ve another job on hand. Man,
we’re on the same side and I never knew it. It’s too bad a case for
apologies, but if it’s any consolation to you I feel the lowest dog in
Europe at this moment.”
He was sitting up rubbing his bruised shoulders. “What do you mean?” he
asked hoarsely.
“I mean that you and I are allies. My name’s not Brand. I’m a soldier—a
general, if you want to know. I went to Biggleswick under orders, and I
came chasing up here on the same job. Ivery’s the biggest German agent
in Britain and I’m after him. I’ve struck his communication lines, and
this very night, please God, we’ll get the last clue to the riddle. Do
you hear? We’re in this business together, and you’ve got to lend a
hand.”
I told him briefly the story of Gresson, and how I had tracked his man
here. As I talked we ate our supper, and I wish I could have watched
Wake’s face. He asked questions, for he wasn’t convinced in a hurry. I
think it was my mention of Mary Lamington that did the trick. I don’t
know why, but that seemed to satisfy him. But he wasn’t going to give
himself away.
“You may count on me,” he said, “for this is black, blackguardly
treason. But you know my politics, and I don’t change them for this.
I’m more against your accursed war than ever, now that I know what war
involves.”
“Right-o,” I said, “I’m a pacifist myself. You won’t get any heroics
about war from me. I’m all for peace, but we’ve got to down those
devils first.”
It wasn’t safe for either of us to stick in that cave, so we cleared
away the marks of our occupation, and hid our packs in a deep crevice
on the rock. Wake announced his intention of climbing the tower, while
there was still a faint afterglow of light. “It’s broad on the top, and
I can keep a watch out to sea if any light shows. I’ve been up it
before. I found the way two years ago. No, I won’t fall asleep and
tumble off. I slept most of the afternoon on the top of Sgurr
Vhiconnich, and I’m as wakeful as a bat now.”
I watched him shin up the face of the tower, and admired greatly the
speed and neatness with which he climbed. Then I followed the crevice
southward to the hollow just below the platform where I had found the
footmarks. There was a big boulder there, which partly shut off the
view of it from the direction of our cave. The place was perfect for my
purpose, for between the boulder and the wall of the tower was a narrow
gap, through which I could hear all that passed on the platform. I
found a stance where I could rest in comfort and keep an eye through
the crack on what happened beyond.
There was still a faint light on the platform, but soon that
disappeared and black darkness settled down on the hills. It was the
dark of the moon, and, as had happened the night before, a thin wrack
blew over the sky, hiding the stars. The place was very still, though
now and then would come the cry of a bird from the crags that beetled
above me, and from the shore the pipe of a tern or oyster-catcher. An
owl hooted from somewhere up on the tower. That I reckoned was Wake, so
I hooted back and was answered. I unbuckled my wrist-watch and pocketed
it, lest its luminous dial should betray me; and I noticed that the
hour was close on eleven. I had already removed my shoes, and my jacket
was buttoned at the collar so as to show no shirt. I did not think that
the coming visitor would trouble to explore the crevice beyond the
platform, but I wanted to be prepared for emergencies.
Then followed an hour of waiting. I felt wonderfully cheered and
exhilarated, for Wake had restored my confidence in human nature. In
that eerie place we were wrapped round with mystery like a fog. Some
unknown figure was coming out of the sea, the emissary of that Power we
had been at grips with for three years. It was as if the war had just
made contact with our own shores, and never, not even when I was alone
in the South German forest, had I felt so much the sport of a whimsical
fate. I only wished Peter could have been with me. And so my thoughts
fled to Peter in his prison camp, and I longed for another sight of my
old friend as a girl longs for her lover.
Then I heard the hoot of an owl, and presently the sound of careful
steps fell on my ear. I could see nothing, but I guessed it was the
Portuguese Jew, for I could hear the grinding of heavily nailed boots
on the gritty rock.
The figure was very quiet. It appeared to be sitting down, and then it
rose and fumbled with the wall of the tower just beyond the boulder
behind which I sheltered. It seemed to move a stone and to replace it.
After that came silence, and then once more the hoot of an owl. There
were steps on the rock staircase, the steps of a man who did not know
the road well and stumbled a little. Also they were the steps of one
without nails in his boots.
They reached the platform and someone spoke. It was the Portuguese Jew
and he spoke in good German.
“_Die Vögelein schweigen im Walde,_” he said.
The answer came from a clear, authoritative voice.
“_Warte nur, balde ruhest du auch._”
Clearly some kind of password, for sane men don’t talk about little
birds in that kind of situation. It sounded to me like indifferent
poetry.
Then followed a conversation in low tones, of which I only caught odd
phrases. I heard two names—_Chelius_ and what sounded like a Dutch
word, _Bommaerts_. Then to my joy I caught _Elfenbein_, and when
uttered it seemed to be followed by a laugh. I heard too a phrase
several times repeated, which seemed to me to be pure gibberish—_Die
Stubenvögel verstehn_. It was spoken by the man from the sea. And then
the word _Wildvögel_. The pair seemed demented about birds.
For a second an electric torch was flashed in the shelter of the rock,
and I could see a tanned, bearded face looking at some papers. The
light disappeared, and again the Portuguese Jew was fumbling with the
stones at the base of the tower. To my joy he was close to my crack,
and I could hear every word. “You cannot come here very often,” he
said, “and it may be hard to arrange a meeting. See, therefore, the
place I have made to put the _Vögelfutter_. When I get a chance I will
come here, and you will come also when you are able. Often there will
be nothing, but sometimes there will be much.”
My luck was clearly in, and my exultation made me careless. A stone, on
which a foot rested, slipped and though I checked myself at once, the
confounded thing rolled down into the hollow, making a great clatter. I
plastered myself in the embrasure of the rock and waited with a beating
heart. The place was pitch dark, but they had an electric torch, and if
they once flashed it on me I was gone. I heard them leave the platform
and climb down into the hollow. There they stood listening, while I
held my breath. Then I heard “_Nix, mein freund,_” and the two went
back, the naval officer’s boots slipping on the gravel.
They did not leave the platform together. The man from the sea bade a
short farewell to the Portuguese Jew, listening, I thought, impatiently
to his final message as if eager to be gone. It was a good half-hour
before the latter took himself off, and I heard the sound of his nailed
boots die away as he reached the heather of the moor.
I waited a little longer, and then crawled back to the cave. The owl
hooted, and presently Wake descended lightly beside me; he must have
known every foothold and handhold by heart to do the job in that inky
blackness. I remember that he asked no question of me, but he used
language rare on the lips of conscientious objectors about the men who
had lately been in the crevice. We, who four hours earlier had been at
death grips, now curled up on the hard floor like two tired dogs, and
fell sound asleep.
I woke to find Wake in a thundering bad temper. The thing he remembered
most about the night before was our scrap and the gross way I had
insulted him. I didn’t blame him, for if any man had taken me for a