Mr. Standfast
won’t object.”
From the place where we stood I overlooked the back of the battle-field
and could see an anxious congress of officers. I could see others, too,
whose appearance I did not like. They had not been there when I
operated on the megaphone. They must have come downhill from the
aerodrome and in all likelihood were the pursuers I had avoided. The
exhilaration which I had won in the air and which had carried me into
the tomfoolery of the past half-hour was ebbing. I had the hunted
feeling once more, and grew middle-aged and cautious. I had a baddish
record for the day, what with getting Archie into a scrape and busting
up an official cinema show—neither consistent with the duties of a
brigadier-general. Besides, I had still to get to London.
I had not gone two hundred yards down the road when a boy scout,
pedalling furiously, came up abreast me.
“Colonel Edgeworth wants to see you,” he panted. “You’re to come back
at once.”
“Tell him I can’t wait now,” I said. “I’ll pay my respects to him in an
hour.”
“He said you were to come at once,” said the faithful messenger. “He’s
in an awful temper with you, and he’s got bobbies with him.”
I put on pace and left the boy behind. I reckoned I had the better part
of two miles’ start and could beat anything except petrol. But my
enemies were bound to have cars, so I had better get off the road as
soon as possible. I coasted down a long hill to a bridge which spanned
a small discoloured stream that flowed in a wooded glen. There was
nobody for the moment on the hill behind me, so I slipped into the
covert, shoved the bicycle under the bridge, and hid Archie’s
aquascutum in a bramble thicket. I was now in my own disreputable
tweeds and I hoped that the shedding of my most conspicuous garment
would puzzle my pursuers if they should catch up with me.
But this I was determined they should not do. I made good going down
that stream and out into a lane which led from the downs to the
market-gardens round the city. I thanked Heaven I had got rid of the
aquascutum, for the August afternoon was warm and my pace was not
leisurely. When I was in secluded ground I ran, and when anyone was in
sight I walked smartly.
As I went I reflected that Bradfield would see the end of my
adventures. The police knew that I was there and would watch the
stations and hunt me down if I lingered in the place. I knew no one
there and had no chance of getting an effective disguise. Indeed I very
soon began to wonder if I should get even as far as the streets. For at
the moment when I had got a lift on the back of a fishmonger’s cart and
was screened by its flapping canvas, two figures passed on
motor-bicycles, and one of them was the inquisitive boy scout. The main
road from the aerodrome was probably now being patrolled by motor-cars.
It looked as if there would be a degrading arrest in one of the
suburbs.
The fish-cart, helped by half a crown to the driver, took me past the
outlying small-villadom, between long lines of workmen’s houses, to
narrow cobbled lanes and the purlieus of great factories. As soon as I
saw the streets well crowded I got out and walked. In my old clothes I
must have appeared like some second-class bookie or seedy horse-coper.
The only respectable thing I had about me was my gold watch. I looked
at the time and found it half past five.
I wanted food and was casting about for an eating-house when I heard
the purr of a motor-cycle and across the road saw the intelligent boy
scout. He saw me, too, and put on the brake with a sharpness which
caused him to skid and all but come to grief under the wheels of a
wool-wagon. That gave me time to efface myself by darting up a side
street. I had an unpleasant sense that I was about to be trapped, for
in a place I knew nothing of I had not a chance to use my wits.
I remember trying feverishly to think, and I suppose that my
preoccupation made me careless. I was now in a veritable slum, and when
I put my hand to my vest pocket I found that my watch had gone. That
put the top stone on my depression. The reaction from the wild burnout
of the forenoon had left me very cold about the feet. I was getting
into the under-world again and there was no chance of a second Archie
Roylance turning up to rescue me. I remember yet the sour smell of the
factories and the mist of smoke in the evening air. It is a smell I
have never met since without a sort of dulling of spirit.
Presently I came out into a market-place. Whistles were blowing, and
there was a great hurrying of people back from the mills. The crowd
gave me a momentary sense of security, and I was just about to inquire
my way to the railway station when someone jostled my arm.
A rough-looking fellow in mechanic’s clothes was beside me.
“Mate,” he whispered. “I’ve got summat o’ yours here.” And to my
amazement he slipped my watch into my hand.
“It was took by mistake. We’re friends o’ yours. You’re right enough if
you do what I tell you. There’s a peeler over there got his eye on you.
Follow me and I’ll get you off.”
I didn’t much like the man’s looks, but I had no choice, and anyhow he
had given me back my watch. He sidled into an alley between tall houses
and I sidled after him. Then he took to his heels, and led me a
twisting course through smelly courts into a tanyard and then by a
narrow lane to the back-quarters of a factory. Twice we doubled back,
and once we climbed a wall and followed the bank of a blue-black stream
with a filthy scum on it. Then we got into a very mean quarter of the
town, and emerged in a dingy garden, strewn with tin cans and broken
flowerpots. By a back door we entered one of the cottages and my guide
very carefully locked it behind him.
He lit the gas and drew the blinds in a small parlour and looked at me
long and quizzically. He spoke now in an educated voice.
“I ask no questions,” he said, “but it’s my business to put my services
at your disposal. You carry the passport.”
I stared at him, and he pulled out his watch and showed a
white-and-purple cross inside the lid.
“I don’t defend all the people we employ,” he said, grinning. “Men’s
morals are not always as good as their patriotism. One of them pinched
your watch, and when he saw what was inside it he reported to me. We
soon picked up your trail, and observed you were in a bit of trouble.
As I say, I ask no questions. What can we do for you?”
“I want to get to London without any questions asked. They’re looking
for me in my present rig, so I’ve got to change it.”
“That’s easy enough,” he said. “Make yourself comfortable for a little
and I’ll fix you up. The night train goes at eleven-thirty.... You’ll
find cigars in the cupboard and there’s this week’s _Critic_ on that
table. It’s got a good article on Conrad, if you care for such things.”
I helped myself to a cigar and spent a profitable half-hour reading
about the vices of the British Government. Then my host returned and
bade me ascend to his bedroom. “You’re Private Henry Tomkins of the
12th Gloucesters, and you’ll find your clothes ready for you. I’ll send
on your present togs if you give me an address.”
I did as I was bid, and presently emerged in the uniform of a British
private, complete down to the shapeless boots and the dropsical
puttees. Then my friend took me in hand and finished the
transformation. He started on my hair with scissors and arranged a lock
which, when well oiled, curled over my forehead. My hands were hard and
rough and only needed some grubbiness and hacking about the nails to
pass muster. With my cap on the side of my head, a pack on my back, a
service rifle in my hands, and my pockets bursting with penny picture
papers, I was the very model of the British soldier returning from
leave. I had also a packet of Woodbine cigarettes and a hunch of
bread-and-cheese for the journey. And I had a railway warrant made out
in my name for London.
Then my friend gave me supper—bread and cold meat and a bottle of Bass,
which I wolfed savagely, for I had had nothing since breakfast. He was
a curious fellow, as discreet as a tombstone, very ready to speak about
general subjects, but never once coming near the intimate business
which had linked him and me and Heaven knew how many others by means of
a little purple-and-white cross in a watch-case. I remember we talked
about the topics that used to be popular at Biggleswick—the big
political things that begin with capital letters. He took Amos’s view
of the soundness of the British working-man, but he said something
which made me think. He was convinced that there was a tremendous lot
of German spy work about, and that most of the practitioners were
innocent. “The ordinary Briton doesn’t run to treason, but he’s not
very bright. A clever man in that kind of game can make better use of a
fool than a rogue.”
As he saw me off he gave me a piece of advice. “Get out of these
clothes as soon as you reach London. Private Tomkins will frank you out
of Bradfield, but it mightn’t be a healthy _alias_ in the metropolis.”
At eleven-thirty I was safe in the train, talking the jargon of the
returning soldier with half a dozen of my own type in a smoky
third-class carriage. I had been lucky in my escape, for at the station
entrance and on the platform I had noticed several men with the
unmistakable look of plainclothes police. Also—though this may have
been my fancy—I thought I caught in the crowd a glimpse of the bagman
who had called himself Linklater.
CHAPTER X
The Advantages of an Air Raid
The train was abominably late. It was due at eight-twenty-seven, but it
was nearly ten when we reached St Pancras. I had resolved to go
straight to my rooms in Westminster, buying on the way a cap and
waterproof to conceal my uniform should anyone be near my door on my
arrival. Then I would ring up Blenkiron and tell him all my adventures.
I breakfasted at a coffee-stall, left my pack and rifle in the
cloak-room, and walked out into the clear sunny morning.
I was feeling very pleased with myself. Looking back on my madcap
journey, I seemed to have had an amazing run of luck and to be entitled
to a little credit too. I told myself that persistence always pays and
that nobody is beaten till he is dead. All Blenkiron’s instructions had
been faithfully carried out. I had found Ivery’s post office. I had
laid the lines of our own special communications with the enemy, and so
far as I could see I had left no clue behind me. Ivery and Gresson took
me for a well-meaning nincompoop. It was true that I had aroused
profound suspicion in the breasts of the Scottish police. But that
mattered nothing, for Cornelius Brand, the suspect, would presently
disappear, and there was nothing against that rising soldier,
Brigadier-General Richard Hannay, who would soon be on his way to
France. After all this piece of service had not been so very
unpleasant. I laughed when I remembered my grim forebodings in
Gloucestershire. Bullivant had said it would be damnably risky in the
long run, but here was the end and I had never been in danger of
anything worse than making a fool of myself.
I remember that, as I made my way through Bloomsbury, I was not
thinking so much of my triumphant report to Blenkiron as of my speedy
return to the Front. Soon I would be with my beloved brigade again. I
had missed Messines and the first part of Third Ypres, but the battle
was still going on, and I had yet a chance. I might get a division, for
there had been talk of that before I left. I knew the Army Commander
thought a lot of me. But on the whole I hoped I would be left with the
brigade. After all I was an amateur soldier, and I wasn’t certain of my
powers with a bigger command.
In Charing Cross Road I thought of Mary, and the brigade seemed