Mr. Standfast
“Gen’lmen,” I hiccoughed, “I “pologise. I was late for this bl-blighted
train and I mus’ be in E’inburgh “morrow or I’ll get the sack. I
“pologise. If I’ve hurt my friend’s head, I’ll kiss it and make it
well.”
At this there was a great laugh. “Ye’d better accept, Pete,” said one.
“It’s the first time anybody ever offered to kiss your ugly heid.”
A man asked me who I was, and I appeared to be searching for a
card-case.
“Losht,” I groaned. “Losht, and so’s my wee bag and I’ve bashed my po’
hat. I’m an awful sight, gen’lmen—an awful warning to be in time for
trains. I’m John Johnstone, managing clerk to Messrs Watters, Brown &
Elph’stone, 923 Charl’tte Street, E’inburgh. I’ve been up north seein’
my mamma.”
“Ye should be in France,” said one man.
“Wish’t I was, but they wouldn’t let me. ‘Mr Johnstone,’ they said,
‘ye’re no dam good. Ye’ve varicose veins and a bad heart,’ they said.
So I says, ‘Good mornin’, gen’lmen. Don’t blame me if the country’s
ru’ned’. That’s what I said.”
I had by this time occupied the only remaining space left on the floor.
With the philosophy of their race the men had accepted my presence, and
were turning again to their own talk. The train had got up speed, and
as I judged it to be a special of some kind I looked for few stoppings.
Moreover it was not a corridor carriage, but one of the old-fashioned
kind, so I was safe for a time from the unwelcome attention of
conductors. I stretched my legs below the seat, rested my head against
the knees of a brawny gunner, and settled down to make the best of it.
My reflections were not pleasant. I had got down too far below the
surface, and had the naked feeling you get in a dream when you think
you have gone to the theatre in your nightgown. I had had three names
in two days, and as many characters. I felt as if I had no home or
position anywhere, and was only a stray dog with everybody’s hand and
foot against me. It was an ugly sensation, and it was not redeemed by
any acute fear or any knowledge of being mixed up in some desperate
drama. I knew I could easily go on to Edinburgh, and when the police
made trouble, as they would, a wire to Scotland Yard would settle
matters in a couple of hours. There wasn’t a suspicion of bodily danger
to restore my dignity. The worst that could happen would be that Ivery
would hear of my being befriended by the authorities, and the part I
had settled to play would be impossible. He would certainly hear. I had
the greatest respect for his intelligence service.
Yet that was bad enough. So far I had done well. I had put Gresson off
the scent. I had found out what Bullivant wanted to know, and I had
only to return unostentatiously to London to have won out on the game.
I told myself all that, but it didn’t cheer my spirits. I was feeling
mean and hunted and very cold about the feet.
But I have a tough knuckle of obstinacy in me which makes me unwilling
to give up a thing till I am fairly choked off it. The chances were
badly against me. The Scottish police were actively interested in my
movements and would be ready to welcome me at my journey’s end. I had
ruined my hat, and my clothes, as Amos had observed, were not
respectable. I had got rid of a four-days’ beard the night before, but
had cut myself in the process, and what with my weather-beaten face and
tangled hair looked liker a tinker than a decent bagman. I thought with
longing of my portmanteau in the Pentland Hotel, Edinburgh, and the
neat blue serge suit and the clean linen that reposed in it. It was no
case for a subtle game, for I held no cards. Still I was determined not
to chuck in my hand till I was forced to. If the train stopped anywhere
I would get out, and trust to my own wits and the standing luck of the
British Army for the rest.
The chance came just after dawn, when we halted at a little junction. I
got up yawning and tried to open the door, till I remembered it was
locked. Thereupon I stuck my legs out of the window on the side away
from the platform, and was immediately seized upon by a sleepy Seaforth
who thought I contemplated suicide.
“Let me go,” I said. “I’ll be back in a jiffy.”
“Let him gang, jock,” said another voice. “Ye ken what a man’s like
when he’s been on the bash. The cauld air’ll sober him.”
I was released, and after some gymnastics dropped on the metals and
made my way round the rear of the train. As I clambered on the platform
it began to move, and a face looked out of one of the back carriages.
It was Linklater and he recognised me. He tried to get out, but the
door was promptly slammed by an indignant porter. I heard him protest,
and he kept his head out till the train went round the curve. That
cooked my goose all right. He would wire to the police from the next
station.
Meantime in that clean, bare, chilly place there was only one
traveller. He was a slim young man, with a kit-bag and a gun-case. His
clothes were beautiful, a green Homburg hat, a smart green tweed
overcoat, and boots as brightly polished as a horse chestnut. I caught
his profile as he gave up his ticket and to my amazement I recognised
it.
The station-master looked askance at me as I presented myself,
dilapidated and dishevelled, to the official gaze. I tried to speak in
a tone of authority.
“Who is the man who has just gone out?”
“Whaur’s your ticket?”
“I had no time to get one at Muirtown, and as you see I have left my
luggage behind me. Take it out of that pound and I’ll come back for the
change. I want to know if that was Sir Archibald Roylance.”
He looked suspiciously at the note. “I think that’s the name. He’s a
captain up at the Fleein’ School. What was ye wantin’ with him?”
I charged through the booking-office and found my man about to enter a
big grey motor-car.
“Archie,” I cried and beat him on the shoulders.
He turned round sharply. “What the devil—! Who are you?” And then
recognition crept into his face and he gave a joyous shout. “My holy
aunt! The General disguised as Charlie Chaplin! Can I drive you
anywhere, sir?”
CHAPTER IX
I Take the Wings of a Dove
“Drive me somewhere to breakfast, Archie,” I said, “for I’m perishing
hungry.”
He and I got into the tonneau, and the driver swung us out of the
station road up a long incline of hill. Sir Archie had been one of my
subalterns in the old Lennox Highlanders, and had left us before the
Somme to join the Flying Corps. I had heard that he had got his wings
and had done well before Arras, and was now training pilots at home. He
had been a light-hearted youth, who had endured a good deal of
rough-tonguing from me for his sins of omission. But it was the casual
class of lad I was looking for now.
I saw him steal amused glances at my appearance.
“Been seein’ a bit of life, sir?” he inquired respectfully.
“I’m being hunted by the police,” I said.
“Dirty dogs! But don’t worry, sir; we’ll get you off all right. I’ve
been in the same fix myself. You can lie snug in my little log hut, for
that old image Gibbons won’t blab. Or, tell you what, I’ve got an aunt
who lives near here and she’s a bit of a sportsman. You can hide in her
moated grange till the bobbies get tired.”
I think it was Archie’s calm acceptance of my position as natural and
becoming that restored my good temper. He was far too well bred to ask
what crime I had committed, and I didn’t propose to enlighten him much.
But as we swung up the moorland road I let him know that I was serving
the Government, but that it was necessary that I should appear to be
unauthenticated and that therefore I must dodge the police. He whistled
his appreciation.
“Gad, that’s a deep game. Sort of camouflage? Speaking from my
experience it is easy to overdo that kind of stunt. When I was at
Misieux the French started out to camouflage the caravans where they
keep their pigeons, and they did it so damned well that the poor little
birds couldn’t hit ’em off, and spent the night out.”
We entered the white gates of a big aerodrome, skirted a forest of
tents and huts, and drew up at a shanty on the far confines of the
place. The hour was half past four, and the world was still asleep.
Archie nodded towards one of the hangars, from the mouth of which
projected the propeller end of an aeroplane.
“I’m by way of flyin’ that bus down to Farnton tomorrow,” he remarked.
“It’s the new Shark-Gladas. Got a mouth like a tree.”
An idea flashed into my mind.
“You’re going this morning,” I said.
“How did you know?” he exclaimed. “I’m due to go today, but the grouse
up in Caithness wanted shootin’ so badly that I decided to wangle
another day’s leave. They can’t expect a man to start for the south of
England when he’s just off a frowsy journey.”
“All the same you’re going to be a stout fellow and start in two hours’
time. And you’re going to take me with you.”
He stared blankly, and then burst into a roar of laughter. “You’re the
man to go tiger-shootin’ with. But what price my commandant? He’s not a
bad chap, but a trifle shaggy about the fetlocks. He won’t appreciate
the joke.”
“He needn’t know. He mustn’t know. This is an affair between you and me
till it’s finished. I promise you I’ll make it all square with the
Flying Corps. Get me down to Farnton before evening, and you’ll have
done a good piece of work for the country.”
“Right-o! Let’s have a tub and a bit of breakfast, and then I’m your
man. I’ll tell them to get the bus ready.”
In Archie’s bedroom I washed and shaved and borrowed a green tweed cap
and a brand-new aquascutum. The latter covered the deficiencies of my
raiment, and when I commandeered a pair of gloves I felt almost
respectable. Gibbons, who seemed to be a jack-of-all-trades, cooked us
some bacon and an omelette, and as he ate Archie yarned. In the
battalion his conversation had been mostly of race-meetings and the
forsaken delights of town, but now he had forgotten all that, and, like
every good airman I have ever known, wallowed enthusiastically in
“shop”. I have a deep respect for the Flying Corps, but it is apt to
change its jargon every month, and its conversation is hard for the
layman to follow. He was desperately keen about the war, which he saw
wholly from the viewpoint of the air. Arras to him was over before the
infantry crossed the top, and the tough bit of the Somme was October,
not September. He calculated that the big air-fighting had not come
along yet, and all he hoped for was to be allowed out to France to have
his share in it. Like all good airmen, too, he was very modest about
himself. “I’ve done a bit of steeple-chasin’ and huntin’ and I’ve good
hands for a horse, so I can handle a bus fairly well. It’s all a matter
of hands, you know. There ain’t half the risk of the infantry down
below you, and a million times the fun. Jolly glad I changed, sir.”
We talked of Peter, and he put him about top. Voss, he thought, was the
only Boche that could compare with him, for he hadn’t made up his mind
about Lensch. The Frenchman Guynemer he ranked high, but in a different
way. I remember he had no respect for Richthofen and his celebrated
circus.
At six sharp we were ready to go. A couple of mechanics had got out the
machine, and Archie put on his coat and gloves and climbed into the
pilot’s seat, while I squeezed in behind in the observer’s place. The
aerodrome was waking up, but I saw no officers about. We were scarcely
seated when Gibbons called our attention to a motor-car on the road,
and presently we heard a shout and saw men waving in our direction.
“Better get off, my lad,” I said. “These look like my friends.”
The engine started and the mechanics stood clear. As we taxied over the
turf I looked back and saw several figures running in our direction.
The next second we had left the bumpy earth for the smooth highroad of