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Title: Drink to Yesterday
Author: Coles, Manning [pseudonym of
   Adelaide Frances Oke Manning (1891-1959)
   and Cyril Henry Coles (1899-1965)]
Date of first publication: 1940
Edition used as base for this ebook:
   Garden City, New York: Doubleday, [1959]
   [part of omnibus "The Exploits of Tommy Hambledon"]
Date first posted: 12 March 2021
Date last updated: 12 March 2021
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #1670

This ebook was produced by Al Haines, Cindy Beyer,
Mark Akrigg & the Online Distributed Proofreading
Canada Team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net


PUBLISHER'S NOTE

Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been retained.

Italics in the original printed edition are indicated _thus_.

As part of the conversion of the book to its new digital
format, we have made certain minor adjustments in its layout.






DRINK TO YESTERDAY

by Manning Coles




    All of the characters in this book are
    fictitious, and any resemblance to actual
    persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.




    This book is dedicated to an old gentleman who
    loved his roses




CHAPTER 1


The coroner's inquest was opened at the Dragon Inn, Lime, in Hampshire,
at 2.30 p.m. on Saturday, July 19, 1924, the first witness being Mrs.
Lomas. She said that the deceased man employed her daily for domestic
work in the bungalow attached to his garage. She always got there at
about eight every morning, cleaned up the kitchen and sitting-room, and
got his breakfast. Sometimes he was astir before she arrived, but more
usually she would knock on his door at about 8.30, and he would have his
breakfast a quarter of an hour later. While he had it, she would tidy up
his bedroom and the bathroom, then do any work, such as washing, which
required doing, and go home to her cottage to do her own work and get
the children's dinners ready by noon. She always came back to the garage
soon after midday, cooked the meal which he had at one o'clock, washed
up after it, and did any domestic shopping which was necessary. After
that she had finished for the day, usually by about three o'clock, and
did not return till eight next morning. He always got his own tea and
supper.

"Yes," said the coroner. "So after about three o'clock every afternoon
he was alone in the place?"

"In a manner of speaking," said Mrs. Lomas.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean there was no one else lived there, but judging by the glasses
and sometimes plates that was to be washed up, he wasn't much alone."

"More glasses than plates, I imagine," said the Lime grocer, who was on
the jury.

"Order, please," said the coroner. "I should have expected members of
the jury to know their duties better than to cause unseemly
interruptions in these grave and important proceedings by irrelevant
interpolations. An opportunity will be given, at the end of each
witness's evidence, for members of the jury to ask any such questions as
may be proper--I said proper--to the elucidation of this unfortunate
occurrence."

"Quite," said the squire's son, who was sitting in the front row. Mrs.
Lomas smiled in a superior manner at the grocer, and somebody at the
back of the packed room laughed.

"Order," said the coroner. "Will you tell us what happened on the
morning of Thursday, July 17?"

"I got there a few minutes late," said Mrs. Lomas, "not that that made
any difference to 'im, poor thing. But I knocked on the door at 'alf
past eight as usual and didn't get no answer. So I knocked again, and
bein' as I still didn't get no answer, I thought 'e might 'ave gone out
early, so I opens the door and looks in. Well, the curtings was drawn
and the lamp on the table still alight, so I sees the bed hadn't been
slep' in, an' there was something on the floor between the windows
looked like an 'eap of clothes. So I says to myself, innocent an'
unsuspicious-like: 'Been 'avin' a night out,' I says, so I clicks off
the light an' pulls back the curtings at the first window I comes to,
but when I sees what the 'eap on the floor reely was, oh dear, oh, I
thought I should ha' dropped. Seemed an age before I could fetch my
breath, an' then I lets out a screech you could 'a' heard at the church,
I'm sure, and bolts out of the place. Mrs. James opposite, she 'ears me
and comes out, an' one or two others, and Jimmy Jackman, he runs for the
policeman, and he come, and then--"

She stopped from emotion and lack of breath, and the coroner gave her a
moment or two to recover herself.

"Then the police took over, did they?" he prompted.

"George Smith did," she said. "He is the constable, of course. He locked
all the doors and drew the curtings again an' told no one to go near,
not as anyone would want to, not anyone with decent feelings, but some
there are as are born without any, so rightly shouldn't be blamed,
seeing as they know no better," she added, allowing her glance to fall
as if by accident on the grocer in the jury.

"Quite, quite," said the coroner hastily. "Is there anything more you
can tell us which has a bearing upon this tragic occurrence?"

"The police called me in again," she said, "that would be about eleven,
I suppose. There was a lot of policemen and other men about there then.
They wanted to know if there was anything out of the way about the
place, if you know what I mean."

"Anything unusual, presumably. Was there?"

"No, sir. 'E'd fried bacon for 'is supper, an' 'ad tea with it. The cup
and plates was put out in the kitchen. Then there was two glasses on the
table, a bottle of whisky with a little left in, an' a soda siphon. The
winders was all open, bedroom likewise. He didn't generally leave the
sittin'-room winders open, but it was an 'ot night. No, nothing unusual,
bar the broken glass."

"Broken glass?"

"There was a glass he set great store by, sort of wineglass like, with
some foreign words wrote on it. It was lying at the side of the fender,
all in bits. Wine-stained it were, which I've never known him use it
before. It were kep' in a glass cabinet, like, and many's the time he's
said to me: 'Have a care of that glass, Mrs. Lomas,' he says, 'it being
a memento like,' he says."

"I expect he dropped it," said the coroner, "poor man. Well, is there
anything--"

"Which it wasn't dropped," said Mrs. Lomas firmly, "having been throwed
against the side of the fireplace as anyone could see from the splash."

"Dear me," said the coroner. "Tell me, did he seem in his usual health
and spirits lately, or did you--"

"Oh yes, sir. Very merry and bright 'e was, as the sayin' is. Why, only
Sunday 'e was telling me what 'e'd like to do to them as don't pay their
bills, made me laugh like anythink."

Mrs. Lomas's mouth quivered; she pressed her handkerchief against it and
stood silent.

"Does any member of the jury," said the coroner, "wish to ask this
witness a question?"

The butcher got up and asked if the deceased had ever been known to
threaten to commit suicide.

Mrs. Lomas shook her head. "Not but what he said if the Nursing
Association didn't buy nurse a new car soon he'd blow his brains out.
But--but I didn't th-think he meant it," she said piteously, and burst
into tears.

"Thank you," said the coroner gently. "You may go and sit down now, Mrs.
Lomas. Call Dr. Gibson."

Dr. Gibson said he had been summoned to the garage by the police at 8.45
a.m. on the morning of Thursday the 17th. He found the body of the
deceased lying in a huddled heap between the two windows in the bedroom.
In his opinion life had been extinct about six hours, so that death had
probably taken place at about two a.m. Say between one and three
o'clock. Death was due to a bullet which entered the left temple, was
slightly deflected upwards, and passed through the brain, leaving a
large exit wound. Death was instantaneous.

"Have you any further comment you wish to make?"

"None," said the doctor.

The coroner looked towards the jury, and the butcher asked if the doctor
had any idea how the deceased came to do it. The coroner said that that
was rather a matter for the police witnesses; the doctor was merely
there to certify the cause of death and to give such other medical
evidence as might be required. This brought the grocer to his feet. He
fixed his pale eyes on the doctor, and asked: "Was he, in your opinion,
sober at the time of death?"

"I could not possibly say," said the doctor shortly. He had liked the
garage proprietor.

"Did you not, then, examine the contents of the stomach?"

"Why do you ask?"

"He--he might have taken poison--"

"He was not poisoned. Nor strangled. He did not even cut his throat. He
died from the effects of a bullet through the brain," snapped the
doctor, and looked at the coroner.

The coroner stared coldly at the grocer till he sat down, then let his
eyes pass along the two rows of the jury and asked: "Any more
questions?"

"Has the doctor any idea how far away the weapon was when it was fired?"
asked a farmer whose name was Morpeth.

"That again," said Dr. Gibson, "is more a matter for an expert police
witness. There was no singeing round the entry wound, and I could not
say how far the pistol was from the head. But I have had little
experience of this sort--happily."

The police witnesses followed. Police-constable George Smith gave
evidence of having been fetched to the garage at 8.35 a.m. on Thursday,
July 17, of finding the deceased's body in the bedroom, of sending for
the doctor and telephoning to the District Superintendent at Mark.
Formal evidence merely, and he was not questioned. He was followed by
District Superintendent Harlow, who said that the deceased had met his
death by a bullet from an automatic pistol which was lying by his side.
It was fully loaded except for the one cartridge which had been fired.
There were no fingerprints on the pistol other than those of the
deceased. On a small table near the body were an electric reading-lamp
with a green shade, a tin box containing some empty clips and two boxes
of ammunition, and on the table itself some soiled cleaning rags, a
small bottle of oil, cleaning brush and rod, and two clips of
ammunition. In the opinion of the police the shot was fired about
fifteen inches from the head--perhaps a little more. Answering the
coroner's questions, he said there seemed no evidence to suggest foul
play. In fact, there was no evidence to suggest that there was anyone in
the bedroom with the deceased man that night at all, though presumably
he had had a visitor in the sitting-room, since there were two used
tumblers on the table. Yes, inquiries had been made as to the identity
of the visitor, but so far without result. He understood that deceased
was in the habit of having visitors in the evening, people who came and
went in cars and were not known, except in some cases by sight, to the
village people. It did not seem worth while making an exhaustive search
for the visitor, though doubtless he--or she--could be found, because to
his mind the case appeared to be clearly an accident. It might, of
course, be suicide, but in the absence of any evidence he saw no reason
to presume that.

The jury felt that this was all very well, but they understood that they
had been summoned to inquire into the death of their neighbour and to
decide how, in their opinion, it had come about; and they were perhaps a
little nettled at being, as it were, told what to say by a man who,
although Superintendent of Police for the whole Mark district, was yet
only a policeman, and his manner was a trifle authoritative. So the
questions began.

"Does anyone know," asked the same farmer who had put a previous
question to the doctor, "if the deceased was in the habit of handling
this sort of weapon--was he used to automatics?"

"I have no means of knowing."

"An automatic is not a usual weapon to possess in this country, is it?"

"No," said the Superintendent.

"Do the police know how long he had held a licence for this pistol?"

"No," said the Superintendent.

"Did he 'old a licence for it at all?" asked the grocer.

"No."

"Oh. Then what business had 'e with it at all?"

"In view of the fact," said the witness, "that the man is now dead and
the pistol is in the hands of the police, the question hardly arises."

There was one woman on the jury, the widow of an auctioneer in Mark, and
a kindly soul. She asked if it had not been possible to trace any of the
poor man's relations.

"No, madam. We have found no clue among his papers to the existence of
any near relatives. In fact, he had very few private letters at all, and
those only of a recent date. The writers have been communicated with and
can tell us nothing of his past."

"Then even the name he went by may not have been his own," suggested
Mrs. Carter.

"It is possible, madam."

"Isn't it possible," said the grocer, "to find out where he got this
automatic thing from?"

"Inquiries are being made," said the Superintendent.

"Is it not a fact," asked Morpeth, "that automatics are forbidden in
this country?"

"Except to certain members of His Majesty's forces."

"Was he a member of His Majesty's forces?"

"It does not appear so."

"I don't like this," said the grocer. "I feel there's something bein'
hid up."

"You have had all your questions answered, sir," said the coroner in an
Arctic voice.

"Yes, but we've had to fish for answers, as it were."

"I take it," said the butcher, "that there is definitely no question of
murder in this case?"

"In my opinion, none," said the Superintendent.

"Then it is a question of choosing between suicide and accident?"

"I shall advise the jury that that is so when I address them before they
retire," said the coroner.

"Was there any finger marks on the second tumbler as was used?" asked
the grocer.

"I take it you mean fingerprints," said the police witness. "None. Only
smears."

"Do the police," asked the butcher, "attach any importance to the broken
glass in the fireplace?"

"None."

"I can't help thinking," said Mrs. Carter, "that that should have a
meaning if only we could see it. For why should he use a glass he never
did use, and then deliberately smash it, or so it seems. Why break a
glass he valued when he was just about to die?"

"If the police are correct in supposing the death to have been
accidental, madam," said the Superintendent, "he did not know he was
about to die. As to why he broke the glass--if it was he who broke it
and not the visitor--the police have no theory to offer."

"It takes the ladies," said the grocer, "to get a real answer out of
this witness."

"I had occasion," said the coroner, with remarkable energy, "only a few
minutes ago, to express my views on the subject of irrelevant
interpolations made by a member of this jury. When these interruptions
are not only irrelevant but offensive, I assure the jury that I know my
duties and powers in such a case!"

He glared at the grocer, who merely looked straight in front of him.

"I am waiting for an apology, sir," said the coroner.

"Oh, are you?" asked the grocer in a surprised voice. "Sorry I spoke,"
he added cheerfully.

"Bumptious little beast," said the squire's son in a perfectly audible
voice which the coroner pretended not to hear.

The farmer, Morpeth, rose again. "May I ask if the police have any views
as to how he came to shoot himself in the left temple? I knew the
deceased quite well, but I never noticed that he was left-handed."

The Superintendent answered. "The police theory is that he was stooping
over the table holding the pistol in his left hand with the barrel
pointing upwards and was about to do something with his right hand--pick
up a piece of rag, for example--when something caused him to turn his
head to the right. Something slipping, perhaps, or a mouse in the wall,
or some such slight interruption. Or possibly he was merely looking
round for something. Anyway, we think that at that moment the pistol,
being oily, turned in his hand and he inadvertently pressed the
trigger."

"Thank you," said Morpeth, and sat down.

"Is it really credible, sir," said another juryman, the schoolmaster,
"that a shot could be fired in a room with open windows in the middle of
the village, and not a soul hear it?"

"Apparently, sir."

"Very strange."

The butcher asked if inquiries had been made as to whether anyone had
seen a car standing at the garage that night.

"Yes, sir, but without result," said the Superintendent. "That is, as
regards material times. There were cars in and out in the course of the
evening, but none were observed at the garage after midnight."

"What about his financial affairs?" asked the schoolmaster. "Was he
being pressed for money?"

"Apparently not, there is no sign of it. The business, though small, was
fairly prosperous, and the turnover increasing. There are some
outstanding accounts, but more money was owed to him than he owed."

"Are there any more questions?" asked the coroner, and as no one
answered, he dismissed the witness and addressed the jury.

"You are here to inquire into the untimely death of this man," he said,
"and I ask you to dismiss from your minds matters which cannot be
relevant to this inquiry. It is unfortunate that several such
irrelevancies have arisen here. It cannot, for example, concern us
whether the name by which he was known among you was his real name or
not, since there is no question of murder here. For the same reason, the
identity of his overnight visitor is not important, though, as the last
person to see the deceased alive, this visitor might have been able to
tell us something of his frame of mind that evening which would have
been of use to us in deciding whether it were a case of suicide or of
death by misadventure. For I would advise you that 'death by
misadventure' is the proper verdict to bring in in this instance if you
should decide that it is not suicide. I would further suggest, without
wishing to dictate to you, that there is absolutely no evidence to
support the latter hypothesis. His finances appear to have been in a
satisfactory condition, so far as is known he had no pressing anxieties,
nor was he at all subject to periods of mental instability. Unless,
therefore, there is any further point upon which my guidance would be of
service to you, will you retire and consider your verdict?"

"'S'truth," said the squire's son, under his breath this time, and the
jury went out of the room.

They sat round the table in another room and the foreman spoke.

"As you know, madam and gents," he said, "I am a man from Hammead and
not one of the fortunate in'abitants of your peaceful vale; consequently
I 'ad not your privilege--"

"Lumme," said the grocer, "he's caught it now."

"I was about to say I did not 'ave the honour of knowing the deceased
man personally, as most of you did; consequently I am not going to put
myself so far forward into your personal feelin's as to suggest any
discussion unless it can't be 'elped. The dead man was a friend of most
of you, and I expect you'd rather settle this up quick and decent, if I
may so express it."

"I think that is very nicely put," said Mrs. Carter.

"Thank you, ma'am. I propose therefore to start with the lady at my
right 'and 'ere, and go round the table askin' each in turn to say
'Misadventure' or 'Sooicide' accordin' each to his views. Madam?"

"Death by misadventure, poor dear," she said, and her voice trembled a
little. The foreman made a note.

"Death by misadventure," said the schoolmaster.

"The same," said the butcher.

"Death by misadventure," said the next voice.

"Misadventure," said Morpeth shortly.

"Suicide," said the grocer.

Someone started to speak, but the foreman said: "One moment, please,"
and continued his round of the table till it appeared that Mr. Brown was
the only dissentient from the general verdict.

"Now, sir," said the foreman, turning his face towards the grocer, "it
seems that we are all agreed but you. Now, if you could but bring
yourself to agree, wouldn't it be pleasanter all round, if I may say so?
The poor gentleman is dead and nothing can bring him back. He hasn't
been murdered, so there's no question of punishing anybody. What use is
there, may I ask, in making unpleasantness over a thing that don't
really make no odds to us one way or the other, and won't make no odds
to the deceased either, not till the Last Judgment, when I suppose we
shall all know the rights of it an' not before. Now, sir, won't you
change your mind?"

"No," said the grocer.

"Why not?"

"Because in my 'umble opinion he shot himself in a fit of drunken
depression and I don't 'old with all this smug hypocritical
whitewashing--"

"_De mortuis_," said the schoolmaster, "_nil nisi bonum_."

"You are, I believe, a total abstainer, aren't you, Brown?" asked
Morpeth.

"I am, and proud of it. Not a drop of alcoholic--"

"Yet I believe you 'ave an off-licence," said the butcher, and before
Brown could answer, the farmer went on:

"If you had the sense and self-control to take drink in reasonable
quantities, you'd know the effect of a little alcohol is cheering, not
depressing."

"Little alcohol, you've said it!" said the grocer. "But that drinking
repro--"

"Mr. Brown," said Mrs. Carter. Brown stopped in the middle of a word and
she leaned across the table towards him. "Mr. Brown, if we were all
perfect, which none of us are, we should still have no right to judge
our fellow men. Mr. Brown, if that poor man drank more than we thought
he should sometimes, perhaps there were reasons we know nothing of. Mr.
Brown," she went on, tapping the table, "he did more kind actions every
week than you do in a year. And finally, Mr. Brown, if you persist in
your horrible, beastly remarks about our poor friend who is dead, not
only will I never come inside your nasty poky little shop again, but
I'll make this place too hot to hold you or my name's not Maria Carter,"
and she burst into tears.

"Hear, hear," said the farmer. "There, there, ma'am."

"Will you not agree with us now?" asked the foreman.

"Suppose I can't disoblige a lady," muttered Brown.

So they returned to the coroner with a unanimous verdict, and the big
room cleared slowly as the talking people drifted away.

The coroner stood chatting to Superintendent Harlow for a few minutes,
till they noticed a slim woman come quietly in against the crowd and
look round as though for guidance.

"Can I help you, madam?" asked the Superintendent.

Slowly she turned her eyes on him and said: "Is the inquest over?"

"Yes, madam."

"And the verdict?"

"Death by misadventure."

"So. Please can I have him now," she said, "all to myself at last?"

"Who are you, madam?"

"I am his wife," she said.




CHAPTER 2


Michael was sent to Chappell's School at Weatherley in Hampshire, and
though the life undoubtedly had its brighter moments, on the whole he
loathed it like poison. For one thing, he had always been a rather
solitary boy, who liked being by himself, and here there was no privacy
and no solitude, he slept, bathed, dressed, worked, ate, and played in
the almost unbroken companionship of numerous others, most of whom he
might have liked if he had been able to seek their company voluntarily,
but it was thrust upon him at all hours, and often he just ached to be
alone and to be let alone. He discovered that languages were easy, and
that mathematics were not. The head was a believer in discipline, and
visits to his study were frequent and unpleasant; "Come to my study,
Kingston," and you went. Sometimes you deserved it and sometimes you
didn't, and very occasionally you deserved it and didn't get it, which
atoned for a lot. Michael enjoyed cricket, the clean smack of the bat,
which is unlike any other sound, and the smell of mown turf, and the
sharp definition of white flannels against green, and the sting of a
hard catch well held, and the taste of grass when you pull the stem out
carefully so that it comes up white and sappy at the end and you nibble
it, and the sun is hot on your back as you lie on the ground waiting to
go in, and the other fellows are talking and arguing and you hear
without listening in the days of thy youth when the evil days come not
nor the years draw nigh--God! let me get out of this! Stop. Don't start
that again.

The stuffy mixed smell of the lab on hot afternoons, and particularly
that afternoon when he and Chator and Minster were mooning about looking
for nothing in particular. Michael leaned negligently against the end of
a form and said: "There's a pump."

"Ass," said Chator, "it's been there simply ages."

"And there's some rubber tubing," went on Michael.

"It might be quite a good wheeze to pump something somewhere," said
Minster.

"And there's a gas-bracket," said Michael. "If you pump air into the
gas-pipe, what happens?"

"It wouldn't go in," said Chator. "The pressure of the gas would keep it
out."

"Not if the pressure of the pump was greater than the pressure of the
gas," said Minster.

"Gas will compress, won't it? Air will."

"If you get up more pressure than the pipes will hold there'll be a bang
somewhere, that's all."

"It will go back along the pipes to where it comes from at the gas
place--"

"Not if there's some sort of non-return valve--"

"Let's try," said Michael; so they connected the pump to the
gas-bracket, turned on the tap, and pumped. Whatever became of the gas,
it put up no opposition, and for two solid hours they pumped, taking it
in turns.

Later on, when they were all doing evening prep, the jets in the big
chandelier were lit and threw the usual yellow glow on the usual
dog's-eared books and inky fingers and ragged blotting-paper and
variously shaped heads bent over the long table--

"I say! It's a wash-out," whispered Chator.

"Wait," said Michael, and went on with Csar having embarked wherever
the winds should take him--

"Nothing's happening," said Minster in low tones.

"Wait," said Michael again. "Hang these ablative absolutes, they mean
too many things."

At that moment the lights quivered and sank, rose again, as it were
gibbered, and went out. At once all over the school arose sounds of
indignation and inquiry and excitement, till the gas was turned off and
candles brought and discipline supervened. Next morning the gas company
was summoned, and said there was nothing amiss but a little air in the
pipes. Michael could have told them that. No, there was no evidence as
to how the air got in the pipes.

So they got away with it that time, and later on saw fit to try again,
but with water instead of air. Again the lights quivered and sank, but
this time little fountains rose and played from each darkened gas-jet,
and fell gently upon the upturned faces beneath the great chandelier.
This time the gas company protested. Air, they said in effect, was all
very well, air in the pipes was a thing that might occasionally happen
to the best-regulated supply, but water, no. Definitely not water. They
would put it right, certainly, but they disclaimed responsibility, and
it remained a mystery.

"That was rather decent," said Chator.

"Yes, quite decent," said Michael.

Tommy Hambledon took the Scripture lesson on one occasion. It was not
really his job, because he taught modern languages, and his ideas of
doing so were not stereotyped. He taught the boys how to talk
effectively to taxi-drivers and how to ask for whatever they might
happen to want, and not to be obviously British but to adopt the
manners, customs, and modes of thought of whatever country they should
be in. He always went abroad for his holidays, most often to Germany,
and this was curious, for he was a parson's son with exiguous private
means, his pay was small, and his tastes cheerful and expensive. Yet he
could always go abroad in the holidays and one would really wonder where
he got the money from unless one had an idea that perhaps he sometimes
did something else besides teaching languages at Chappell's School. Of
course no such idea occurred to Michael at the time, but afterwards he
knew. Hambledon used to say that when he landed at Ostend he stood his
stick upright in the sand, and in that direction in which it fell he
went forward. Perhaps. Anyway, he was very good at languages, and a good
bat, too, and he encouraged young Kingston.

The portion assigned for the lesson was the eleventh chapter of the
second book of Samuel. He skated awkwardly but firmly over the highly
informal relations between David and the wife of Uriah the Hittite, but
when he came to the fighting he had both feet on familiar ground.

So Joab "assigned Uriah unto a place where he knew that valiant men
were," and when the people of besieged Rabbah made a sortie Uriah was
among the fallen, as is likely to be the case with valiant men. Others
of his party also died from arrows shot from the walls, and from "stones
and boiling water and molten lead thrown down from upper windows when it
came to street fighting," said Tommy Hambledon, getting perhaps a little
mixed in his periods, for after all it was not his subject. "Boiling oil
was another good idea, too, it does tend to discourage people. You know,
all down the ages men's ideas about war have got more and more ingenious
and beastly. Better and brighter arrows, and bigger and noisier guns,
first solid shot and then explosives. There will be another war soon,"
he went on, drawing squiggles on his blotting-paper, "quite soon, and it
will be much beastlier than any war ever was before. There will be bombs
dropped from aeroplanes, starting fires, and there will be gas. Gas to
choke you and blind you and blister you, and high-explosive shells, and
shrapnel, which is very noticeably unpleasing. Yes, there'll be war
quite soon," he went on, looking from one to another with an expression
which Michael now recognized as pity, "and you boys will be in it. You
will stand firm and take what comes," he said, "for if a country is
worth living in, it is worth fighting for. Let us return to Second
Samuel."

At the end of the lesson he came over to Michael, who was putting his
books together.

"You must work really hard at your languages, Kingston. They may be
useful."

"How, sir?"

"There are other ways of making yourself useful to your country besides
fighting, boy."

"I don't think I understand, sir."

"Never mind. I can't do anything about it, but if you asked your people
to let you give up classics and take up bookkeeping and modern
languages, it might be a help to you some day. Think it over."

Accordingly, next term Michael found himself learning German as well as
French, and sometimes sitting at a desk by himself working at languages
instead of other things he should, officially, have been doing. He took
to German as to something once loved and temporarily forgotten, and
Tommy Hambledon looked on.

Michael joined the O.T.C. and learned to shoot on the miniature range
till the day came when he was handed the regulation army long rifle,
considerably taller than himself, and told to see what he could do at
five hundred yards. Helpful seniors told him to hold the rifle well away
from his shoulder as then it didn't kick so hard; he tried it once. He
aimed at six o'clock on the target, shut his eyes, and pulled. After
that, things went better, and the five shots went down.

Somebody shouted something, and someone nearer repeated it. "He's made a
four-inch group."

"What's that?" thought Michael. "Wonder what I've done now."

But when Hambledon came up and gave him half a crown he gathered that a
four-inch group was desirable, and shooting became a hobby of his.

In July 1914 the O.T.C. went to North Camp, Aldershot, Michael being
just fifteen, and began for the first time to learn platoon drill
instead of company drill.... Hambledon was there of course; as well
as running the O.T.C. at Chappell's he was a captain of Territorials.
Rumours began to fly about, and were discussed and argued while the boys
fished in the canal or bathed in the Mytchett Lake. On one occasion the
Public Schools O.T.C. had a night attack and got lost in the darkness
and all mixed up, so they gathered into groups of schools and yelled for
the others. "E-eton, E-eton! Win-chester! Harrow, Harrow! Chappell's!
Oundle!" till they sorted themselves out and marched in at one in the
morning, to drink hot cocoa and munch biscuits and roll into bed feeling
like men.

On another day some of them wandered into the artillery lines and
watched men loading up ammunition wagons with live shell and thereafter
departing for an unspecified destination. That was on Wednesday, July
29, and every day the tension increased.

One night they had a sing-song, and shouted the choruses of "Roamin' in
the Gloamin'" and "The moon shines bright on pretty Redwing," and
"Anybody here seen Kelly?" and a tall captain sang "Just a wee
deoch-an-doris," which somehow gave one small boy a lump in his throat.
Or perhaps Michael only imagined the small boy felt like that, for the
man was killed a fortnight later. And every hour the tension increased.

There was a _Daily Mail_ newspaper kiosk--just a wooden shed--at North
Camp in those days, and on Sunday the 2nd of August it did not open, so
no news was available. The angry troops turned it over, for every moment
the tension increased.

On Monday, August the 3rd, quite early in the morning, the boys were
paraded and told they had two hours in which to break camp, proceed to
the station, and take themselves home. They were going home, of course,
because it was holiday time, and they had to take themselves home
because the O.T.C. officers, including Hambledon, had urgent business to
attend to elsewhere. With one accord these men vanished from the places
where they had been known, and most of them had done with the schools in
which they had taught.

                 *        *        *        *        *

After a fruitless attempt to join, as a bugler-boy, an army filled to
capacity with bugler-boys, Michael went back to school, but nothing was
the same. Tommy Hambledon had apparently disappeared completely; no one
seemed to know where he was or what he was doing. Seniors left untimely,
and sometimes their names reappeared on a list which the head himself
wrote out and himself pinned up on the notice board. Junior masters also
left, and their places were taken by queer old gentlemen, some of whose
names were a legend at Chappell's; it seemed impossible that old Quest,
who gave Minster's father such a memorable tanning for blowing the big
window bodily out of the lab when making gunpowder, could still be
alive. The time went on, the war was not over by Christmas, and Michael
was getting more restless every day.

Sometimes he worked furiously, and sometimes he did not work at all, and
his marks varied in all subjects from V.G. to definitely Bad or even
"X," which meant you had not done your prep, so you got a tanning. When
the black moods were on him, music was the only thing that comforted
him, and on these occasions there could be heard the sound of a piano
played with many wrong notes, but with a real sense of rhythm and
phrasing, by a small boy with a scowl on his face and an ache in his
heart. On such a day Michael was trying to read something new to him,
and tapping the time with his foot on the floor. In due course the door
opened, and there entered a tall skinny boy, with untidy brown hair and
the dreamer's absent look.

"For a kid," said he, pushing his hands into his trouser pockets and
leaning against the doorpost, "you don't play too badly."

Michael blushed, and knocked the music off the stand with embarrassed
pleasure, for even in his school-days Dixon Ogilvie was, at music,
definitely a swell.

"In fact, not to exaggerate, you are about the only kid in the place
whose hideous attempts are not a torture to listen to. I heard you
tapping on the floor--my room's just below--what's the matter, can't you
get the hang of something?"

"I think I know how it ought to go," said Michael, "but when I try it
doesn't seem to work."

"Perhaps I could show you," said Ogilvie, and played the piano
transcription of "Softly awakes my heart." "You see, this bit is nearly
syncopation."

"I thought syncopation meant rag-time."

"Not necessarily; there are syncopated bits in some of Beethoven's
overtures. You know, nobody ought to try to play this thing on the
piano. It's meant for voice, or violin. Though it's wonderful what you
can make a piano do," said Ogilvie, and abandoned Delilah for other
music Michael did not know. "You can make water drip and trickle"--he
played on, passing from one thing to another and talking at
intervals--"or the dawn break, and the stars fade and the sun come
up--or the wind blow through the trees. Hear it? That's a thing called
_Frhlingsrauschen_. I'll see if I can find you some things you might
like to play," he said, and left the room as unexpectedly as he had
entered it.

Next day he bought Michael a cake. Life at school never looked quite so
black again that term, for whenever Michael got depressed, there was
Dixon Ogilvie and the piano. There was a certain disturbance on one
occasion, because Simpson said that Ogilvie was a bit dotty.

"He's not!" flared Michael. "He's--oh--"

"He moons about, leaving things behind," said Simpson.

"He's just thinking about something else."

"He strums the piano all day--"

"Strums--"

"And his hair looks scruffy."

Michael hit him in the eye, Simpson landed one on Michael's nose, and
thereafter the battle became, as Hambledon had said, increasingly
beastly, till a door opened and old Mr. Quest put his head in.

"Simpson!"

"Sir?"

"You will go to Dr. Williams's study. Kingston!"

"Sir?"

"You also."

And that was that.

Dixon Ogilvie left school at Easter 1915 to study at the Royal College
of Music, and Michael missed him horribly. But in the summer holidays
that year he arrived, with a motorcycle and sidecar containing a small
tent and other camping equipment, at Weatherley Parva, and suggested
that Michael might like to come camping with him for a few days.
Michael's heart swelled with pride till it nearly choked him, but he
managed to reply in a tone of assumed calm that it might be rather
decent, and they went.

During those holidays Dr. Williams, headmaster of Chappell's, had an
onset of militant patriotism. He composed a recruiting message, had a
number of copies printed on postcards, and, returning to school, sent a
copy to each of his old boys whom he did not definitely know to be
serving in the forces. It ran something as follows:

    "Now is the time for all good men to serve the State."

    I cannot believe that any of you whom I have known will shirk
    your plain duty at a time when your Country's need of your
    services is so great.

    What are YOU doing?

    "_Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori._"

Dixon Ogilvie received his copy at Weatherley Parva one afternoon when
they had come into the village for bacon and sausages, and took it back
with him to their camp by the beechwood on War Down. After supper he
picked it up and read it aloud.

"But I think war is just beastly, Kingston. To go out and kill people
you don't even mildly dislike is just madness. I suppose you'll think me
a freak for saying so."

Michael could not have thought Ogilvie a freak under any circumstances,
but he said: "No," slowly, as though considering the point, and went on:
"No, I don't think that. But if anybody attacks us--"

"Yes. I don't mean that I think England was wrong to get into this war,
but that it never ought to have been started by anybody. I don't want to
go to war at all, I want to stay in peace and make music. If I were
killed and couldn't write music any more, what good would I be to the
country? Suppose I lost my hands--"

Michael wriggled, and said: "Oh, I dare say you'd come through all
right. Lots of chaps will."

"Possibly I'm just cowardly, but I don't really think it's that. I just
feel it isn't my job. But--perhaps old Williams is right. 'Your
Country's need of your services is so great.' Your Country," he
repeated, and looked at the dreaming land below them, miles and miles of
the most typical of all English scenery, the wide valleys among the
South Downs. "O Peaceful England," he quoted.

"I don't see that it really matters much," said the practical Michael,
"what we really think about war, does it? I mean, once you're in it.
Still, I see what you mean. I don't think everybody is cut out to be a
soldier."

"I should probably lose my rifle," said Dixon Ogilvie.

"Then you'd be crimed."

They talked far into the night till the moon rose high, a full moon,
making all things visible but unreal. "_Che sar, sar_," said Ogilvie.
"What will be, will be. I suppose I must go for a soldier. Let's go and
pick blackberries, I want to make jam."

So they picked blackberries and thereafter made jam on an oil stove, and
it was not a great success because they had not quite enough sugar. It
was runny but edible.

The holiday ended next day and Ogilvie returned to London, while
Michael, left behind in Weatherley Parva, attacked his uncle on the
subject of returning to school.

"It's so useless, Uncle John, to go on there sitting at a desk and
plugging up math and history and chem when there's all this going on.
It's driving me dotty."

"You're too young to join the army, Michael."

"I know, but I might get in. Besides, I've got my Certificate A from the
O.T.C."

"What's that for, rifle-shooting?"

"Oh, heaps of things. Lots of chaps have got in the army at sixteen who
don't know half as much about the job as I do."

"Besides, Michael, you are all your aunt has--"

"Lots of men are all somebody's got, and they've gone. Sorry," he added,
feeling he had been a little callous, "but if anybody asked me why I
didn't join up and I said I was all Aunt Dora had got--"

"No one will ask you why you don't join up when you are two whole years
under age," said John Andrews testily. Michael did not appreciate that
it was his uncle and not himself who had to put up with Aunt Dora's
lamentations.

"But I look older," said Michael, which was a delusion, for in point of
fact he looked absurdly young and innocent, particularly when he had
been in mischief.

"I venture to differ," said his uncle, considerably amused. "But I do
sympathize with what you feel," he went on. "Even an old crock like
myself feels it. In fact, I have joined the Special Constables."

"Oh--splendid," said Michael awkwardly. "What do you do?"

"Put on an armlet and carry a truncheon--there it is--and spend three
nights a week guarding the viaduct beyond Drake's Farm."

"Oh, good. Rather decent."

"But what precisely is supposed to happen to the viaduct if I don't
guard it is not really clear to me. I gather somebody might possibly try
to blow it up; after all, it is on the main line to Portsmouth."

"And if anybody tries it, you biff them with this, I suppose," said
Michael, aiming blows at an imaginary Hun with the loaded stick.

"Presumably. Though I think if I ran as much like an antelope as is
compatible with my figure and yelled blue murder, it would do more
good."

"You should creep up on the chap from behind, leap on him, lay him out
with your thingummy here, tie him up with your braces, and drag him off
to the nearest lock-up."

"Suppose I leaped on the explosives? Then the heavens would fall and
justice would not be done," said Andrews, who belonged to a generation
which liked to show that it had a classical education. "Besides, how do
I keep my trousers up?"

"Oh, that's easy. You hold them up with your teeth. Or just let 'em go.
Anything _pro patria_ is decorum, isn't it?"

"That's a good one, Michael! I shall remember that and work it off as my
own--on the vicar. But, seriously, if the cowardly brutes try anything
like that, I shall do my best to--to--"

"Up and smite them. I suppose it was your mentioning the vicar made me
think of that. But cowardly? I don't know so much, Uncle John. I don't
think a man is much of a coward to go and live in an enemy country and
do what he can for his own side, all by himself, and if he's caught
he'll be shot at dawn, I suppose. I think that would need quite a lot of
pluck."

"Spying is a cowardly business, Michael."

"Is it?" said Michael. "I wonder," and suddenly he thought of Tommy
Hambledon, who had said there were other ways of being useful to your
country besides fighting for it. Work hard at your languages, Kingston.
I don't understand, sir....

"No, I don't think it's cowardly," said young Kingston.

"Well, we won't argue the point. Finish this term at school anyway, and
I will see what can be done. This is the half-term; there's barely six
weeks to go. I will think it over, I promise you that."

When Michael came home at the end of term he found he had been
apprenticed to a famous shipbuilding firm and was to start work in three
days' time. But if his uncle expected gratitude he was disappointed, for
Michael howled his rage and grief to high heaven.

"But I shan't be able to get out!" he wailed. "I shall be stuck there in
a soft job till the end of the war while all the other fellows--oh!"

"You will be serving your country, Michael."

"I want to go in the army."

"You can't, you're not old enough."

Michael stuck his lower lip out and did not answer.

"Besides, if you try hard and turn out good work, you will be just as
useful there as in the army."

"Nice safe job," grumbled Michael. "Nice soft bed every night. And
there's Dixon Ogilvie, he's in the K.O.S.B.'s--"

"Michael, stop it at once. Your aunt and I have made considerable
sacrifices to pay your premium, you might have the common courtesy to
appear grateful. Besides, the war won't last for ever and this will be a
career for you."

Three days later he was walking through big open gates at six on a
horribly cold morning, for this was Christmas 1915, in company with
hundreds of other men and boys who looked at him entirely without
interest, or did not even look. On his left as he entered was a wooden
building with red crosses on it, and even as he walked forward two men
came down the road from the works bearing a stretcher which was
occupied, and the stretcher had red patches on it. Michael felt cold in
the middle.

"I will not faint," he said to himself, for the thing of which he was
most ashamed was his tendency to faint at the sight of blood, and he
used to lie awake at night and worry about what would happen if he did
that when he went to France. But he pulled himself together and went on,
and presently found himself in a great workshop, with a driving-shaft
running the whole length of it twenty feet up under the roof girders.
The shaft had pulleys on it, and belting from these came down and turned
lathes and grinding machines and milling machines and many others of
whose uses he had no notion. When the machinery was started up there was
a hum which grew to a drone and increased to a roar so that he could not
hear himself speak, and when men started working on the lathes and
grinding tools and filing, the noise increased tenfold till he felt that
if he stayed here another two hours he would be deaf for life. Yet in
three days' time he had got so accustomed to it that he could hear a
whisper.

Michael's letters home from his Southampton lodgings afforded a sketchy
running commentary upon affairs. He noticed with satisfaction that the
Zeppelin L.15 was brought down in the Thames estuary, but that she broke
up while being towed in, that he got thirty-eight miles an hour out of
the two-stroke, which was pretty decent, but that he was always having
trouble with his rear light blowing out, and that gasoline had gone up
again. April 26 was an eventful day--this was still 1916--for the
Germans shelled Lowestoft from the sea, he heard of the surrender of
Kut, and went to see Charlie Chaplin in an Essanay two-part comedy
_Dough and Dynamite_. On the next day Casement was captured running arms
into Ireland, street fighting was going on in Dublin, and martial law
was proclaimed all over Ireland. It was easy that time to write his
weekly letter home, no padding necessary at all. There was the Friday
night when the buzz went round the yard that there had been a great
battle in the North Sea; he remembered that it was a week or more before
he knew that it was called the Battle of Jutland.




CHAPTER 3


In August 1916 Michael saw a name which he knew in the casualty lists:
"Ogilvie, Dixon, Pte., K.O.S.B., missing, believed killed."

He thought this over for two days, then got up one morning and dressed
in his blue overalls as usual, but instead of going to the works he
walked off in the direction of London. Walked, because he did not want
to run the risk of being seen at the station by anyone who knew him. On
the road he had the luck to get a lift on a Foden steam wagon which took
him as far as Guildford; from there he went by train to London and
walked into a recruiting office off Conduit Street.

There he waited in a queue and stared at the little posters of German
atrocities on the walls. One was a picture of some British fishermen
captured by Germans and taken to Hamburg; the Germans had shaved half
their faces vertically--they were hairy men--and they were being led
through the streets of Hamburg to be jeered at by the crowds.

"That isn't an atrocity," thought Michael, "that's just a bad joke. I
doubt if it's true."

Presently his turn came, and he passed into an inner room and stood
before a desk at which were seated a sergeant, who asked questions, and
a couple of orderlies, who took notes.

"Name?"

"William Saunders," said Michael, who did not intend to be turned down
this time.

"Age?"

"Eighteen."

The sergeant looked at his boyish face and round blue eyes, but did not
query this.

"Address?"

"Weatherley Parva, Hampshire. P-A-R-V-A."

"Religion?"

"Church of England--why?"

"We puts it on your identification disk."

"What for?"

"Think it over. Nearest relatives?"

Michael told him. After all, his uncle and aunt would have to know some
time, and he did not suppose the army authorities would communicate with
them unless something happened to him and then it wouldn't matter.

"Medical examination, through that door. Next, please."

Michael, telling himself that he was no longer Michael but William
Saunders and must get used to answering to the name of Bill, passed the
doctor without difficulty and was sent to Kingston Barracks. There he,
together with a number of other equally new recruits, were given
uniforms and also a sheet of brown paper and a piece of string in which
to pack up their civilian clothes if they wished to send them home. They
changed, were marched out on the barrack square, lined up, and looked
over.

Then the sergeant in charge of their destinies divided the line into
approximate thirds with a chopping gesture of his hand and said:
"You--for Ireland. You--for the North of England. And you--" to the
group which included Michael, "to Gosport, for the Hampshires."

The new Bill Saunders gasped. This was awful, this was impossible. To
get clean away, enlist in London, and then get sent back to Gosport of
all places, which was on the doorstep of home--horrors, no. He stepped
back, slipped quietly along behind the line, and touched a man on the
arm.

"Hey, you for Ireland--change places with me for Hampshire?"

"Righto," said the lad, but instead of passing behind the line he
strolled along in front and was, of course, immediately spotted.

"Hey, you! What you doin'? Get back there. You there! Come back 'ere."

So the attempt failed, and Michael travelled again the familiar line to
Gosport.

New Barracks, Gosport, are of a rather curious design. Once upon a time,
many years ago, the War Office commanded designs for two barracks to be
submitted to them, one to be built in India and the other in England.
Someone presumably put the designs in the wrong envelopes, for the
Indian barracks were built in England and the English barracks in India.
If anybody noticed there was something a little wrong, it was nobody's
business to make a fuss. Theirs not to reason why. So Gosport Barracks
have wide verandas, large and frequent windows, and fine airy rooms,
just bearable to a fresh-air fiend in a hot August but Dante's Cold
Circle all the rest of the year; while its Indian opposite number has
nice small windows, careful admission of the maximum amount of sunlight,
and fireplaces nearly everywhere. And nobody has done anything about it
to this day.

So to this tribute to a far-flung Empire came Bill Saunders on a
summer's evening, and the first thing he saw was an unconscious man
being carted like a sack of potatoes out of a doorway and placed in the
fresh air to recover. Bill and his fellow recruits stopped to observe
this portent, and behold, in a few minutes another fainting man was
carried out, and yet another, and they were all laid out in a row.

"God lumme," said one of the recruits in a tone of unmitigated horror,
"what ever can be a-goin' on in there?"

"'Sall right," said a man standing by. "'Sonly inoculations. When they
sees the needle bein' stuck in the other chaps, an' knows their turn's
comin', some of 'em just rolls over like rabbits. They're all right."

Bill Saunders was reminded of the morning when Michael Kingston first
arrived at the engineering works. There always seemed to be some little
tableau arranged specially for his encouragement. But he discovered that
evening how lovely it was to be able to lie in bed and smoke; he had
never smoked in bed before. If only the blankets didn't smell quite so
frowsty....

Towards the end of his two months' training Bill Saunders got ten days'
draft leave. He had, of course, made his peace with his uncle and aunt
long before, and they, seeing that it was useless to try to keep him out
of the army, had unwillingly agreed. He spent his leave at Weatherley
Parva, walking the hills in the early October days or pottering about
the garden with his uncle, singularly content to do nothing in
particular till one day he received an invitation to tea at the
vicarage.

"Oh Lord!" said Michael. He was Michael again here; Bill Saunders
seemed--and was--a very different person.

"My dear," said his aunt.

"Better go, boy," said John Andrews.

"But what do I do if they talk about what was his name who was killed?"

"Antony? Oh, they never say much. Just make a few sympathetic noises,"
said his uncle. "Perhaps they won't mention him."

"I hope they won't. I'm sorry and all that, of course, but that sort of
thing makes me feel all feet--large ones, in hobnailed boots."

"I know. Never mind, you can't very well refuse, but you needn't stay
long."

So Michael went, and met the vicar in the garden, busy cutting down dead
sunflowers. He greeted the soldier cheerfully and talked of this and
that, and how he was ploughing up the lawn and paddock to plant potatoes
in the spring.

"Come in and have some tea," he said. "By the way, I have a niece
staying with me--Diane Causton. A pleasant child."

"Oh gosh," thought Michael. "A pigtail with a huge black bow on the end,
and a doll, I suppose. Or a windmill--"

Tea was laid on a table in the hall, and as they entered, a tall slim
girl came down the stairs. She had plaits of hair, but they were wound
over her ears, she had long, slender hands and fine ankles, and the
darkest blue eyes Michael had ever seen. Her hair was dark and curling,
she had curved eyebrows and long lashes, and poor Michael, who had been
rehearsing sentences like "Do you go to school?" and "Do you like
pantomimes?" took one look at her and metaphorically fell down flat.

"Diane, my dear, Mr. Kingston. My niece."

Michael had no recollection of moving, but he must have done so, because
the next moment they were shaking hands at the foot of the stairs and
all he could think of was what hideous knobby wrists he had and that his
tunic sleeves were far too short.

"I am going to wash my hands," said the vicar. "Ring for tea, will you?"

He went out, and Diane rang the bell and stood before the fire with
Michael beside her.

"My uncle tells me you are going to France," she said.

"Yes, on Thursday," said Michael, and found to his surprise that his
voice was not quite steady.

"And today's Saturday," she said, and looked into the fire.

"Yes, today's Saturday, but I don't leave here till Tuesday afternoon.
So we've got Sunday, Monday, and half Tuesday."

"We?"

"How is it," said Michael, "that I've never seen you before?"

"I only came yesterday, and I haven't often been here before. We almost
always went abroad for the holidays," she said, "and I was at school in
Switzerland for a whole year."

"I suppose you've left school now."

"Oh, ages ago. Last year, in fact; I'm nineteen now."

"That's odd, so did I, though I was only seventeen in June," said Bill,
feeling years and years older than Diane by reason of eight months in a
shipyard.

"Oh--but I thought they wouldn't have you in the army till you're
eighteen. My brother only got in early this year."

"Oh, these things can be arranged," said he airily, and at that moment
the maid came in with the teapot, followed by the vicar and his wife.
Michael never remembered anything about that meal, but after it Diane
said she would take the letters to the post, and Michael naturally went
with her and escorted her back to the vicarage gate.

"When shall I see you again?"

"After church tomorrow?"

"Right," he said. "Do you like walking? Splendid. We might go for a
stroll in the afternoon if you'd care to."

So they walked together all Sunday afternoon, and at evening church
Michael sat two pews behind her and noticed how two little curls lay
close to the nape of her neck.

On Monday morning he drove her to Weatherley for shopping in his uncle's
pony-trap.

On Monday afternoon he took Diane up the downs to a point from which you
could see the Solent and the Isle of Wight and, with field-glasses (for
the day was clear), ships going in and out from Portsmouth harbour. The
sun shone and the larks sang and the air was filled with the scent of
wild thyme where their feet had trodden it. She was just about to ask
whether he would sail from Southampton, but checked the question.
Already they had reached the point where a parting is to be endured if
needs must, but not mentioned sooner than one can help. But he answered
the unspoken question. "I don't know where we sail from," he said.

"Hush," she answered, and put her hand in his.

He took her home to tea at his uncle's house and later went to supper at
the vicarage, after which they all played "Sevens" till ten thirty, when
the vicar's wife rose.

"I hate to break up a happy party," she said, "but we are an early
household and I expect yours is too."

So he had to go and there was absolutely no opportunity to kiss her good
night although he lingered in the garden till midnight hoping she would
slip out, and watching a window which he took to be hers, though in
point of fact it was the cook's, but as he didn't know that, it served
just as well. He wished then that he had kissed her during the day, but
somehow the right moment never seemed to arrive, or if it did there were
people about, so he had told himself he would wait till they said good
night, and pictured them together under the great cedar. And now this--

He went up next morning to say good-bye, and was treated with the most
excruciating kindness by the vicar and his wife, who seemed to have no
idea whatever how beautiful they would look walking away, though it is
possible they had a very clear idea indeed. However, just when Michael
was on the point of suggesting wildly that he and Diane should go and
look for owls or something, providence intervened in the persons of Sir
Egbert and Lady Somers, who came upon parish business.

Michael rose, took a polite but rapid farewell, and fled the room, and
somehow Diane came too. They drifted into the garden, across the doomed
lawn into the rosery, with a few late blooms still to be seen, where the
gardener and the cook saw them coming hand in hand like children.

Cook cast one look at their faces, said: "Poor lambs!" and dragged the
gardener away.

Diane said: "Look, I've got something for you." She tried to unclasp
with one hand, the other being occupied, a fine gold chain she wore
round her neck, but could not manage it, so Michael had to help with his
spare hand and at last they undid it.

"I want you to have this," she said; it was a tiny crucifix. "Perhaps it
will keep you safe. I hope it will," she said quite steadily, and the
next second burst into tears.

"Please," said Michael chokily. "Please don't. I don't want ever to make
you cry. Oh, Diane--"

She turned in his arms and looked up at him with the tears running down
her face. "I love you," she said, "please come back, Michael, please. I
love you--love you."




CHAPTER 4


Dover to Boulogne and thence to Rouen.

They left Rouen in an immensely long train with the last cars filled
with Chinese labourers going to taples, and no sooner had they entered
the tunnel on the long hill up from the station than the engine broke
down and they had to wait there till another came out from Rouen and
pushed them on. They leaned out of the car windows and saw, in the rear
of the train, dozens of Chinamen, each holding a two-inch stump of
lighted candle, inspecting with solemn faces the slimy tunnel walls.
After that they spent days travelling round France, passing, for some
mysterious reason, Calais, then taples, where the station notices were
also written in Chinese because there was a Chinese labour camp there,
Saint-Omer, and Proven. Here they detrained and proceeded by lorry and
on foot to Ypres, to join the 29th Division.

They spent a night behind the town here before going up the line into
the salient, and in the evening Bill Saunders strolled off across a
couple of fields to watch ammunition wagons going up the road. There was
the continual sound of gunfire in the distance, but just where he was it
was quiet, and in the evening light the scene was wonderfully peaceful.

There was a sound as of several express trains coming through the air
straight at him at an incredible speed, all blowing whistles, and terror
seized him. He fell flat on his face and immediately rolled up like a
hedgehog; he became smaller and more compact till he felt he could have
been tucked comfortably into a bucket; he pressed himself hard against
the ground. The shell registered a direct hit on one of the ammunition
wagons, which blew up in a shower of fragments. They were a hundred
yards away, the shell was nowhere near him. The Germans were shelling
the road, out here he was quite safe.

He got up feeling perfectly thankful that there was no one to see him
making such a pitiable exhibition of himself, and walked back to the
bivouac. Nothing in the way of shelling ever frightened him quite so
much again.

When he got back he found that blankets had been issued during his
absence and consequently there wasn't one for Bill Saunders, and for the
first time in his life he was going to spend the night in the open. It
was cold, and getting colder. He wandered dismally about in the
half-dark, tripping over people and feeling very small and superfluous
and very far from home. At last he kicked against two men who were
sleeping together, sharing blankets, and one of them looked up.

"What's the matter with you? Ain't you got a blanket?"

"No," said Bill. "I wasn't here when they were given out."

The man considered this for a moment and then dug his elbow into the
other man's ribs.

"Nobby," said he, "the pore little something 'asn't got a blanket."

Nobby roused himself. "Let 'im come in along of us."

"Look," said Blacker, the Good Samaritan, "you come in 'ere between us,
you'll be nice and warm."

Bill hardly liked this; they were total strangers and probably
inadequately washed according to his views, but there was nowhere else
to go, so he thanked them and crawled in. They all settled down, and the
two men promptly went to sleep. Not so Bill, for the night was full of
unpleasant noises; everything was strange, and, what was worse, the men
not only snored but scratched in their sleep, and he had a horrid
conviction that they had good reason for scratching. Presently he heard
three blasts on a whistle. Bill wondered if it was something of which
they ought to take notice, so he dug Nobby in the ribs.

"What was that?"

"What was what?"

"Three whistles."

"Oh, that's nothing. Only Jerry up. Go to sleep."

"Jerry up? What's that?"

"Aeroplanes. It's all right. Go to sleep."

Nobby settled down again and some more time passed. Presently there came
a series of resounding bangs, getting nearer and nearer till the last
was only twenty yards off. Bill sat up with a jerk, dragging the
bedclothes with him.

"Good Lord, what was that?"

"Only bombs. It's all right, go to sleep."

"B-bombs?"

"Yes. I told you, it's Jerry up. He's bombing us. It's all right, you
ain't hit. Go to sleep, for 'evin's sake."

And these incredible men actually snuggled down and were sound asleep
again at once. Bill thought this simply impossible, but a few days later
he was sleeping peacefully through an artillery barrage.

The next night they went up the line into the salient. The troops they
relieved passed down with their dead and wounded on stretchers leading
the way, and the stretcher-bearers were pleased to ask the new hands if
they would like a ride.

Bill Saunders found that the most trying aspect of trench warfare was
not the nervous strain, nor even the intense discomfort, but the boredom
of hanging about with nothing to do except wait for something to happen;
even fourteen hours of it was too much. In the evening of their first
day in a front-line trench he found himself volunteering to go out
wire-cutting--anything sooner than just go on sitting there.

So they climbed over the parapet and came out on the expanse of stained
slimy obscene mud which stretched for miles round beleaguered Ypres. Not
a house, nor a tree, nor even a blade of grass, not even a bird, could
live there, where the shell-holes met and merged and overlapped,
continually filling with mud and water and continually renewed. Yes, one
thing lived there and thrived, the rats, enormous rats.

All the other members of the party had been out in no-man's-land before
and knew how to move and work quietly, but the ground was strewn with
half-buried debris, particularly loose wire. Bill tripped and stumbled
and seemed to himself to make enough clatter to awaken the whole sector,
and repeated injunctions to make less noise were no help at all. He had
no wish at all to make noises, they just happened. Nobody had told him
to cut the wire close to a post and ease away the loose end, he cut it
wherever he met it and the wire twanged like harp-strings, sprang back
and enmeshed him. He stepped back, tripped over something, staggered
into a tangled snarl of wire, and was brought up literally all standing.
At that moment someone in the German trenches heard something, sent up a
Very light, and opened fire with a machine-gun.

Immediately the whole party went flat on the ground with the exception
of Bill, who very unwillingly remained standing like Horatius defending
the bridge.

"Lie down, you silly little blighter," said a hoarse voice behind him,
"they're shooting at _you_."

Bill replied with the very first string of curses he had ever uttered,
that he'd simply love to, were it not for circumstances over which he
had no control, or words to that effect. He was surprised to find how
fluent he was.

After a while the excitement died down, and by some miracle he was not
hit. He disentangled himself and the party went on with its job, and
when that was done Bill was sent out on listening-post with Blacker, as
they could both speak German. Bill soon acquired the knack of moving
quietly, since it is wonderful how quickly you can learn when your life
depends on it. They lay in a shell-hole close to the German front-line
trench and listened to the men in it talking. One of them had recently
returned from leave and was telling the others about a revue called _The
Pineapple_.

"There's some good numbers in that," he said, and hummed a tune.

"Any pretty girls?"

"Oh yes, lots of pretty girls."

"I don't want to see pretty girls when I go back," said an older voice,
"I just want to go home. I have a new son, so I hear today. I should
like to go and have a look at him, I should."

"Congratulations, Reinhardt."

"Thanks. I am not sure, though, that the little one is to be
congratulated. It's not a nice world for babies to come to, just now."

"That's so, with everything so short and milk so hard to get--"

"Everything's hard to get. My aunt, who keeps a cake-shop in Freiburg,
says it's just terrible. The flour is bad and there's no butter, and
eggs are short--"

"Yes, there's lots of business going _kaput_ now--"

Blacker touched Bill, and they retired without advertisement.

"That's all right," said Blacker. "They're Saxons."

"What's _kaput_?" asked Bill. "That's a new word to me."

"Never heard it before. Well, the wire's cut and the Saxons are there,
so tomorrow's little show shouldn't be too bad."

But at zero hour next morning, when the frontal attack began, they found
to their disgust that the wire had been replaced and so had the
Saxons--by the Prussian Guards.

It was to be a surprise attack--that is, there was no preliminary
barrage--and they went over the top in a low morning mist which masked
them from the German trenches. For some time there was no sound except
the splosh-suck of boots in the mud and the hard breathing of men
running. But at the appointed moment there came a shattering roar from
the British guns behind them, and with a blinding flare that seemed to
split the heavens and a deafening crash that shook the earth, the
barrage fell on the German trenches ahead.

The next moment the men came up to the wire and began to cut and force
their way through. Away to Bill's left an officer had found a gap and
was swinging a gas-rattle violently and yelling above the din: "Come on,
come on, me lucky lads! Walk up! Walk up! This way, come on!" The German
artillery came into action and the shells began to fall among them; also
they heard the steady tut-tut-tut-tut of the machine-guns from the
trenches ahead, and the casualties began.

Bill's first thought was how very like the war pictures the scene before
him was: bursting shells, earth flying up, and men falling. Then he saw
a man go down whom he knew well, and another, and another, and some of
them screamed, and the cry was passed back: "Stret-cher-bear-rer!
Stret-cher-bear-rer!" on one monotonous note. Immediately the scene
ceased to be a picture and became dreadful reality, and he knew that he
was afraid. "I mustn't look round," he thought, "or I shall run back,"
so he kept his eyes on the ground and saw that it was alive with frogs,
of all things, frogs hopping everywhere. The din increased as they went
forward, and seemed to stun his mind. His tin of bully-beef fell out of
his pack and he turned his head and watched it falling very deliberately
like a slow-motion picture, to hit the ground and rise again, slowly
turning in the air to fall to rest at last. He ran on, with a phrase
from a song in _Maid of the Mountains_ going round and round in his
head: "When he fancies he is past love it is then he meets his last love
when he fancies he is past love it is then he meets his last love when
he fancies he is--"

So they reached the German trenches at last, and the Prussian Guards
fought like fiends.

When they came out of the line, Bill Saunders was employed in
interrogating prisoners. This was mainly a matter of getting men from as
many different German regiments as possible and asking them how long
they had been in the place where they were captured and where they came
from before that. This provided data for the study of German troop
movements, but any information on almost any subject was thankfully
received. The great thing was to induce a man to talk.

This went on for some time, varied by spells in the unpleasanter parts
of the line, for the 29th Division were emphatically what their
opponents have since called "storm troops" and always used as such.
Presently Bill found himself dressed as a German private, not only as
regards uniform but right down to the skin, and sent into the
cages--prisoners' camps--to study dialects, complete with papers proving
that he really was Hans Hommellhof of Duisberg, and even some nice
letters from home to show his fellow prisoners. He was sometimes in the
room when other prisoners were being interrogated; it seemed to
encourage them to talk if they saw an unhappy-looking little German
private shivering in a corner.

In March 1917 Bill Saunders was told to proceed to London to interview
someone at the War Office. He went through the usual performance of
filling out a short form under the critical eye of the commissionnaire
and accompanying a small girl in a brown uniform up in a lift and along
endless passages. At last he was admitted to a room where there were
three officers sitting at desks. One of them summoned him, and Bill came
smartly to attention and saluted.

"You are Private William Saunders of the Hampshire Regiment?"

"Yes, sir."

"Wait here a moment."

The officer left the room. Bill commanded himself to stand at ease and
waited. Presently the officer returned and took Bill to another room
which was merely down one flight of stairs and along two passages. Here
in a room was one officer alone.

"You are Private William Saunders of the Hampshire Regiment?"

"Yes, sir."

"You have a note to hand in, I think."

He was perfectly right. Bill handed it over.

"Wait here a moment."

This officer also left the room, and Bill waited again. In a very short
time he returned.

"Come with me."

This time he was taken to a room which was merely five doors away, and
again found one officer alone, a big man with a heavy face and a nose
that jutted out from his forehead.

"You are Private William Saunders of the Hampshire Regiment?"

"Yes, sir."

The man looked at Bill for a moment and then smiled unexpectedly.

"Sit down, Saunders. Not to beat about the bush, I have brought you here
to ask you whether you would be prepared to leave the regiment for a
time and engage in another sort of activity."

"Sir?"

"You are aware that it is imperative that we should have as much
information as possible about the enemy; not only troop movements, but
about conditions in Germany. Whether they are short of copper, for
example, and food--we know they are short, but we must know how
short--and, if they are getting supplies, where these supplies come
from. All these things are of vital importance."

"Yes, sir."

"No doubt you know that there are men who make it their business to pass
into Germany and bring us this--and other--information. Some of them
live there permanently and pass their news to us through various
channels."

"Yes, sir."

"I have to ask you if you will be one of these men. Not to beat about
the bush, the work is delicate, very trying to the nerves--in short,
it's extremely dangerous. You will work in touch with others, of course,
but you must stand on your own feet. If you fail and are caught, no one
can do anything to help you. In fact, you will probably be shot."

"Yes, sir," said Bill again.

"But there is this about it, that it is work of such value and
importance as I cannot find words to describe. Compared with that, your
job as an infantryman in France is about as important as pushing a
perambulator round Regent's Park. Without Intelligence, the work of the
General Staff is a fumbling in the dark. Without Intelligence, we are
not likely to win the war. Why, damn it, man, with a little luck you
might change the course of history!"

"I suppose so, sir."

"You understand, I cannot oblige you to take this job on, I have no wish
to. I am merely here to tell you that those who have seen the manner in
which you have carried out the duties assigned to you in connection with
the German prison camps are of opinion that you might be useful."

"I see, sir."

"If you say that you do not wish to do this, but would rather return to
the regiment, you are perfectly free to do so, and no one will ever hold
your refusal against you. On the other hand, if you will accept you will
be--er--not to beat about the bush, sir, you will be serving your
country as few men can."

"Yes, sir."

"Would you like a few days to think it over? You have four days' leave,
I understand."

"No, thank you, sir."

"What d'you mean?"

"I'll take it on, sir, please."

The officer smiled again, and said: "Splendid. I'm glad. I wish you
luck." He gave Bill a cigarette, shook hands with him and told him to go
into the next room and see a man in there. So Bill went in, and it was
Tommy Hambledon, very smart in the uniform of a major of horse
artillery.

"Congratulations, sir," said Bill, greeting him with delight. "I didn't
know you'd got your majority."

"I haven't," said Hambledon frankly. "I just like the cut of these
breeches."




CHAPTER 5


They sat over coffee in a private room at the Flying Lobster, and Tommy
Hambledon talked.

"Officially," he said, "you are still with your regiment. You write to
your people--how often?"

"About twice a week," said Bill Saunders.

"You will probably be away about six weeks this time. If you will write
twelve letters in advance, I will tell you where to send 'em and they
will be posted in France on the right dates. How right and wise was the
imposition of a rigid censorship, which makes all our letters
insufferably anmic anyway, even to our terms of endearment! 'Hoping
this strikes you in the pink, as it leaves me,' you know. Got any use
for terms of endearment, Bill?"

Bill blushed violently.

"Oh, lor'. Well, it doesn't matter so long as you don't tell her
anything. You do understand, Kingston, that it is completely imperative
that you keep your mouth shut."

"Of course, sir."

"You are two people now and you must keep them separate at all costs; in
fact--you aren't doing badly at your age--you are already three. You are
Michael Kingston at home, Bill Saunders in the army, and Karl goodness
knows what on the job."

"I've almost forgotten what Michael Kingston feels like."

"You mustn't merely play a part, you must actually be the man you
appear. You must not only act as he would, but think as he would. All
this about spies making up their faces and wearing wigs is all
poppycock. We can do things to your eyebrows which will make you look
different, but mainly you look different because you _are_ different.
Consider the boy, the simple unsophisticated boy--if there is such a
thing. Consider him proceeding to the pastry-shop with form erect, chest
thrown out, a gleam in his eye and sixpence in his pocket. Consider him
proceeding to the head's study. His face is longer and narrower, his
form shrinks--especially behind--and his whole appearance is marked by a
strong conviction of the inevitable distastefulness of the immediate
future. He is a different boy. Remember also that people only see what
they expect to see. If your best friend, knowing beyond a shadow of
doubt that you were immovably fixed in Saffron Walden, were to meet you
face to face in the High Street of Nizhnii Novgorod, would he believe
it? No. He would say to himself: 'If that's what vodka does to you, I'm
signing off.' That's all. Pass the port."

"But we're drinking coffee," objected Bill, but he passed the port all
the same.

"Perhaps you're right. A little more of this port and I shall deliver my
celebrated lecture on Jezebel. She was a great lady, and much maligned.
Jezebel, your health, and I hope I meet you in the hereafter. Let's go
somewhere else."

"But," said Bill, "where are we going and what for?"

"I suggest the Clinging Codfish. Isn't that its name? The taxi-driver
will know."

"No, no. I mean when we go abroad."

"We are going to Germany, my pippin, to ascertain the whereabouts of one
Peter Collins, who seems to have gone away leaving no address."

"But who is he?"

"He is one of our men," said Tommy Hambledon, suddenly and completely
sober. "He is a good man, too--a very good man. It was he, in fact, who
pulled off that stunt about the Kaiser's dispatch to Germans in America,
and he has apparently disappeared. And I am going to find him if I have
to pull down the Wilhelmstrasse stone by stone and throw the bits at von
Hindenburg." He stared across the room, and Bill did not venture to
speak.

"So a-hunting we will go," went on Hambledon, returning from his
mysterious distance, "and what shall the harvest be? Selah, which is
Hebrew for 'wait and see.' Tomorrow I will take you to a man who will
tidy up your face, and to another man about some clothes, and as I
already have the tickets and what's-its, we needn't go and see a man
about that too, which is pleasant, isn't it? In the evening we might
take your young woman out somewhere. Does she correspond with your
people? No? How wise you are, how forth-looking beyond your natural
years! Anything else you want to know you can ask me tomorrow, for now
we are going to the Cheerful Conger. I don't like this place, I hate the
shape of the chairs. Come on."

Three days later they crossed from Harwich to the Hook of Holland, and
thence to Rotterdam. Here they entered the shop of a dealer in antiques,
an old man and fat, with a cast in his eyes. They strolled about,
examining this and that, till the old man asked if they would be pleased
to see the things in his showroom upstairs, so they went up, and argued
about the price of a copper bowl till a lady, who was the only other
customer, went away. Hambledon touched Bill's arm and led the way
through a door into the private part of the house and into what was
plainly an unoccupied spare room.

"Here we become Dirk and Hendrik Brandt," he said. "You are Dirk Brandt,
my sister's son from South Africa, which naturally accounts for your
ignorance of Europe and your well-intentioned but uncouth manners--have
you ever kissed a lady's hand, Dirk? I thought not. But your sympathies,
since you are of Boer descent, naturally tend towards the German side.
At least, we can make it appear natural. I made it appear natural to be
found asleep on a roof one cold night, I said I was Father Christmas and
I couldn't identify the lady's chimney, so I was waiting for daylight."

"Do I really have to wear these boots?"

"You do. Pass my trousers, will you? The checked ones. I am your Onkel
Hendrik, a Dutchman born in Utrecht but at present resident in Cologne,
where I am a merchant connected with the import trade."

"I thought Germany was blockaded, so there wouldn't be any import trade,
Onkel Hendrik."

"You'd be surprised," said Tommy Hambledon.

"I wish I knew a bit more about South Africa," said Bill thoughtfully.

"You've read _Allan Quartermain_, haven't you? And possibly _The Story
of an African Farm_? Well, what more do you want?"

"My father was a transport-rider," began Bill, "and an explorer. He went
with Jameson and Rhodes through what was afterwards Rhodesia--"

"No, he didn't, you Imperialistic owl, you're on the wrong side. He was
a Boer farmer, and it was he who had the bright idea of feeding the
captured Jameson Raiders in horsetroughs on the racecourse in Jo'burg,
to amuse the crowd. No, that was your grandfather, of course. Your
father was out on a raid with Christiaan De Wet. Are you ready?
_Vorwrts._"

They went to Amsterdam first, to do a little business, thence to
Utrecht, "to see my ageing parents," which they did; at least they saw
somebody's; and from there by train to Cologne, as it was a simple
matter for that obliging trader Hendrik Brandt to cross the frontier
into Germany.

"You are being pampered on your first trip," said Tommy Hambledon, "it
is not always so easy as this. But it is a lot easier than the spy books
make out. There you either crawl for miles on your belly through wet
turnips and under electrified barbed wire, or climb mountains
inaccessible to the boldest mountaineer and come down on an avalanche.
In actual fact, you'll probably take a street-car. Here's the frontier,
my innocent tourist."

So Hendrik Brandt passed the customs and passport officials with the
uninterested manner of the habitual traveller, while Dirk Brandt from
Lichtenburg stared about him with round eyes and had to be nudged and
told to come on and not be a moon-calf. They returned to the train and
went on into Germany; Bill thought privately that it was far too simple
and not nearly romantic enough.

They reached Cologne rather late in the evening, and Dirk discovered
that his uncle lived in the Dom Hotel, and not only that, but that he
had an office in the Hhestrasse near the Caf Palant. For he really was
an importer, and, what is more, Dirk spent several very strenuous days
learning the business. He had a small desk in the corner of his uncle's
room and heard Hendrik Brandt interviewing customers; it was interesting
but rather dull. The evenings, however, were better; they went to
theatres and cabaret shows, and Dirk made many acquaintances. The men,
of course, being mostly officers on leave, came and went and he never
got to know them well, but the womenfolk remained and were very
friendly. He was flattered by this at first, then puzzled, and finally
horrified when he realized that he was mainly popular because Onkel
Hendrik sometimes brought food into the country, and these people, nice
people, people who at home might have been his aunts and sisters, were
nearly starving.

Tommy Hambledon asked him one day if he knew a man named Max von
Bodenheim.

"Yes," said Bill. "I've met him several times. He goes about in a
wheelchair--his legs are paralysed since '15--but he goes everywhere.
He's by way of being rather hot stuff, you know, or he would be if he
weren't crippled. He sees everything with those flaming dark eyes of
his, and he doesn't seem to like any of it. He doesn't believe in
anything and he hates the English like poison."

"I think it would be a good idea if you got to know him better," said
Hambledon. "He has certain connections in Berlin--he might be useful."

"Very well, I will."

Late that night Dirk was watching the cabaret at the Rosenhof and
strolling about between the acts with a glass in his hand when he came
across von Bodenheim. It may be said that Dirk was not entirely
surprised at this, he had reason to think the man would be there. Dirk
stopped and said: "Good evening."

"I am glad you find it so," said von Bodenheim.

"Oh, I don't think it's too bad," said Dirk, with his usual ingenuous
look. "Good show, isn't it?"

"If you admire the antics of a dozen half-clad sailors' delights
posturing before a crowd of semi-imbeciles, it is an excellent show."

"I do think," said the boy from Lichtenburg earnestly, "that they might
have rather more clothes on."

"I agree," said von Bodenheim. "If they had so many clothes on that one
couldn't even see their faces, it would be much better. If they were all
enclosed in oblong boxes with the lids screwed down, it would be better
still. Waiter! Bring me some more Berncasteler."

"People seem to like them," said Dirk, as the applause died down, but as
he got no reply he changed the subject. "Is there any news--" he began,
but broke off as von Bodenheim spun his chair round and looked at him
attentively.

"How old are you, Brandt?"

"Seventeen."

"And you come from--?"

"Lichtenburg, in the Transvaal," answered Dirk, dropping his voice in
deference to the next item on the program. Max von Bodenheim, however,
paid it no attention. "Good life out there?"

"Oh, it's grand. My father had an ostrich farm," said Dirk, hoping that
the Transvaal was one of the places where ostriches grew. "That is, it
was my father's. My brothers have got it now. We have horses to ride,
and plenty of shooting and all that. But there are such a lot of us, and
one doesn't make much money, so when Onkel Hendrik Brandt wrote and
suggested one of us going into his business, Mother sent me."

"Think you're going to like it?"

At this point several people said: "Sh-sh-sh," and von Bodenheim swung
his chair round, stuck an eyeglass in his eye, and stared at them.

"What's the matter with the people?"

"There's a lady singing," said Dirk in an apologetic manner.

"Is there? I don't think I see a lady and I'm damn sure I don't hear
singing."

If Dirk really felt as uncomfortable as he looked, it must have been a
painful moment.

"I'm sick of this farmyard anyway, let's go somewhere else," said von
Bodenheim, and wheeled his chair out of the room with Dirk following.

"Would you care to come to my house?" asked the German.

"I should be honoured," said Dirk, with a formal bow. His manners were
improving daily.

A manservant with a wooden leg was waiting outside to push the chair,
and Dirk walked beside it till they reached a house with a garden round
it, in the Blumenthalstrasse.

"Come in," said von Bodenheim, as the servant opened the door, and he
led the way into a room at the back with french windows presumably
leading to the garden.

"Do you drink whisky?" he asked, to Dirk's surprise, as the servant put
decanters and glasses on the table. "The one good thing that comes out
of the British Isles--this is Haig and Haig."

"Thanks," said Dirk. "There's one other good thing comes out of
England--beer. English ale."

"Perhaps you're right, though personally I don't like the stuff. Have
you ever been in England?"

"For three days on my way from Africa. We landed at Plymouth. I had a
couple of days in London, and then sailed from Harwich for Hook of
Holland."

"Of course," said Max von Bodenheim slowly, "you are a British subject."

"Yes, but I'm taking out Dutch naturalization papers as soon as my uncle
definitely decides to keep me."

"Oh yes. Did you like England?"

"No, not at all. Officials came on board at Plymouth, demanded endless
papers, and asked endless questions. They also went through every scrap
of baggage I had and repacked it so atrociously I had to pack it all
over again. Not content with that, we had the same performance all over
again when I arrived in London, and much the same again when I left
Harwich. Besides, there's a rationing system in force there, you have to
have tickets for meat and butter and sugar, and something went wrong so
I didn't get any. So I lived for three days on bread and jam and
savouries, and no sugar in my tea. And there was an east wind all the
time, and bits of paper and dust blew about the streets. And when the
sun did shine, it wasn't even warm. No, I don't like England."

Von Bodenheim was considerably amused by this tale of misery.

"Didn't you know anyone?"

"My brother Jan wrote to our importers and asked them to do something
for me, and the old man's son met me and took me about a bit in the
evenings. He was busy all day. We saw one jolly good show," went on
Dirk, visibly brightening, "at a theatre called Daly's. It was _Maid of
the Mountains_, it had some dashed good tunes in it. Everyone was
whistling them."

"And the English, did they seem fairly cheerful, or depressed, or
grumbling?"

"Oh, they grumbled a lot, I thought, but Frank Micklam--that's the man
who took me about--said the English always do that, and that, as a
matter of fact, there was less grumbling than there generally is in
peace-time. But I wasn't very interested in the English," said Dirk,
with rather a sneer. "The fellow who met me was very nice and all that,
but so dashed condescending. 'You colonials, what?' he said. You know,
not--well, not like one of us at all."

"So you weren't impressed?"

"Why should I be? What are they to me? They conquered my country, but
that doesn't make me English. I am half Boer and half Dutch, even if I
am a British subject--subject!" said he with a snort.

Von Bodenheim laughed aloud.

"You are positively refreshing," he said. "I thought all the English
colonials regarded themselves as the Lion's cubs, so to say."

"You'd be surprised," said Dirk mysteriously.

"So you think you'd be more at home as a Dutchman, do you?"

"Well, yes, you see it's my mother's country, and I do think blood
tells, don't you? But what I'd really like--no. You'll think I'm
posing."

"Believe me, I shall not. I know fast enough when anyone's posing with
me. Tell me."

"Well, what I'd really like--I know you'll think this awful cheek--I'd
like to become a German and fight in the German army." Dirk sat back and
looked at von Bodenheim like a child expecting to be snubbed.

"Oh, would you? Well, really, I don't see why you shouldn't--"

"Oh, could I? Where do I join up? Do I have to be naturalized first? How
old do I have to be? How long training do I get? Can I choose what
regiment I join? I'd like--"

"Heavens, boy," said the German, laughing, "one at a time! Age,
eighteen. About the naturalization, I don't know, but I'll find out. But
I think you'd have to get your uncle's consent. If you joined up without
it he could haul you out again, as you are not a German subject, and I
think you'll want his consent to be naturalized too, as you're under
age."

Dirk's face fell noticeably.

"Tell me, why do you want to fight for Germany?"

Dirk stared into the fire.

"When I was quite a little boy, somebody gave me a picture-book about
Germany. At least, they were German legends, all about Siegfried and
Wotan, and Valkyries riding down the wind, and shining swords, and
dwarfs in the--the Harz Mountains, I think--" He hesitated. "I've
forgotten, rather. They made armour for the heroes, didn't they? Anyway,
it was all wonderful and--and sort of shining, do you know? There were
pictures of great castles, and dark forests. Then, when I was older,
some German officers came and stayed at our place. They were on a
shooting expedition"--von Bodenheim smiled--"one of them used to talk to
me and tell me about the German Army, and I remember I used to ask him
strings of questions. I expect I was an awful worry, really. He belonged
to the Death's Head--Hussars, are they?"

Von Bodenheim nodded.

"So I made up my mind then that some day I'd go to Germany and join the
Death's Head Hussars, and I've always stuck to that. And now I'm in
Germany at last"--his voice rose--"and--well, you see now, don't you?"
he ended lamely.

"Yes, I see," said Max von Bodenheim, in a voice so gentle that few of
his acquaintances would have recognized it. "Well, we'll see what we can
do. Even if you can't join the army--"

Dirk looked disappointed.

"Don't look so dismal. There are other things you might do."

"What other things?"

"There are other ways of serving a country besides fighting for it, boy.
Even I, crock as I am--" he stopped.

"I don't understand, sir."

"Never mind. We'll talk about it some other time, perhaps."

Dirk glanced at the clock and sprang to his feet.

"Heavens, sir, it's nearly two! What must you think of me?"

"Quite a lot that's pleasant, believe me. I am very glad you came
tonight--I had the blue devils and you have chased them away. I shall
sleep tonight."

"I hope you will, sir."

"One last toast before you go."

Max von Bodenheim pushed the rug off his knees and sat very upright.
Dirk, following some instinct, stood erect.

"_Hoch dem Kaiser! Hoch!_"

Dirk drank.

"Good night, Brandt, come again soon. Don't lose yourself on your way
home and wander into the Kammachgasse."

"What's that?" asked Dirk, genuinely puzzled.

"Never mind," said von Bodenheim, laughing. "I don't think you'd like
it."

When Bill Saunders got back to his room at the Dom he found Tommy
Hambledon there, smoking a long cigar, waiting for him.

"Well?" said he.

"You were quite right, sir. He is in German Intelligence, and I think
he's going to offer me a job in it too."

"Well done, boy."

"I told him the tale," said Bill Saunders, yawning, "about my hopes and
aspirations for Germany from my youth up till on my honour I began to
believe it myself."

"When you quite believe it," said Tommy Hambledon, "you'll be a real
agent, my son."




CHAPTER 6


When Bill had been in Cologne about a fortnight, Hambledon told him one
morning that there was a little job on hand that night.

"There is a courier leaving Mainz Station at eight fifteen tonight for
here," he said. "He has some papers in his little brown bag, and we are
going to get them."

"How?"

"Goodness knows, it all depends on circumstances. I don't know anything
about him, whether he's a big man or a little one, whether he'll have an
escort or not--they don't as a rule, but these papers seem to be
something special--whether he'll travel in a car with other people or in
a first-class in lonely majesty, or, as they say, what."

"Then you haven't got any plan?"

"Of course not, how could I have? Do get out of your head these ideas
about elaborate plans which are so popular in fiction. You know: At
eight forty-four and one half precisely you will walk past the automatic
weighing-machine on the down platform, and a man in a pale-blue Homburg
hat will pass you and murmur either 'Catfish,' 'Plaice' or 'Cod,' or
'Salmon.' 'Catfish' means the courier is a large savage man armed to the
teeth who never sleeps, with an escort of eight of the Prussian Guard so
alert that they take it in turns to breathe. That's to let you know it's
going to be a little difficult. 'Plaice' means that he will have a girl
friend with him, so look out for squalls. That's rather a good one, pass
the beer. 'Cod' means that, though he travels alone, he is a dangerous
homicidal maniac who is quite sane till anybody touches his luggage,
when a violent complex is suddenly released and he is possessed with a
passion for peritoneotomy--"

"What's that?"

"What Jack the Ripper did. 'Salmon' means that he is a weak little man
suffering from incipient sleeping-sickness. Salmon is never served up on
our job. Even if you could remember all that, he wouldn't; your watch
would be fast--his slow, so you'd never meet; and his pale-blue Homburg
would be blown off his head at a corner and run over by a street-car and
the only other one he could buy would be a dark green one. Then we
should naturally conclude that X 27 has been snootered and that this one
was a counterfeit, whereupon it would be the stern duty of one of us to
follow him out of the station and assassinate him without sound or trace
in a town you don't know, if possible without leaving so much as a body
to mark the spot. The best way, of course, would be to push him under a
street-car at the exact spot where his blue Homburg was run over,
leaving it to be inferred that grief at his loss had driven him to
suicide. Pass the beer."

"But haven't you any ideas?" asked Bill.

"Oh yes, lots. We could merely hit him on the head with a blunt
instrument, take his bag, and just walk away with such ineffable dignity
that anyone who saw us do it wouldn't believe their eyes. Or we could
crawl along the footboard in the middle of the night somewhere between
Coblenz and Bonn, open a car door, which is sure to be locked, by
pushing down a window, which is certain to be securely shut, and once
more produce the blunt instrument. After all, an automatic is a blunt
instrument, isn't it? We may find ourselves doing that, it's quite
possible. On the whole I think the best thing would be for you to sing
to him, and perhaps he would give you the bag to go away."

Friedrich Lunden was a Schleswig-Holsteiner on leave from the western
front. He did not go home to the farm in Schleswig, he went to Mainz to
see his Katje, who was in service there, good service in a big house,
where she would learn how to do things in style, though, of course,
economically, till the happy day should come when he would make her Frau
Lunden. Then Father would retire from farm work to sit in the sun, smoke
his big pipe, and tell everybody how much better the farm was run in his
day. Friedrich and Katje would keep cows and pigs and poultry, and she
would stand again in a blue apron under the flowering apple trees, with
the blue sky above her and the blue waters of the Kattegat behind. No
doubt in due course there would be little Friedrichs in peaked caps, and
little Katjes with flaxen plaits, and the world would be a wonderful
place when the war was over and they could go home together. There would
be expenses, of course, but he had saved out of his pay so they could
have a fine wedding and she should wear the silver crown....

He went round to the back door and rang the bell. It was answered by a
sullen-looking wench who was the kitchenmaid, so he saluted politely and
asked for his Katje.

"Oh!" said the girl, and gaped at him. "Aren't you the soldier she was
engaged to?"

"Was engaged? She still is. Can I speak to her?"

"She's gone away."

"Gone away! When? Why? Where to?"

"To Berentzhausen in Bavaria. Because she got married. Last week," said
the girl.

He just stared at her in silence.

"Oh, she's all right. It's a nice place, I come from there."

Still Friedrich did not speak.

"In fact, she married my cousin. He used to come here to see me, and
then Katje saw him, and then--then she married him--the cat! And they've
gone home together, and I wish--I'd like to claw her eyes out--oh dear!"

The girl burst out crying and leaned her head against the doorpost.
Friedrich felt dimly that he ought to say something appropriate, but as
nothing presented itself to his mind, he turned on his heels and walked
away. The girl lifted her face and stared after him, but he never looked
back, and very soon his dejected little figure passed out of sight under
the leafless lime trees.

He walked aimlessly on and on till his feet ached with the hard
pavements, and then drifted into a beer-house for a drink. He had
several and began to get angry. That Katje should do this to him for the
sake of a lousy Bavarian, and she a Dane. He remembered that he was a
Dane, too, though he lived in the Stolen Provinces; damn all Germans,
first they stole his country and then his girl. So now there would be no
happy home-coming and no Katje under the apple trees, and it didn't
matter whether the war ever came to an end or not, and it would be much
nicer if he went back and got killed, because he was very ill-used and
horribly unhappy. He put his head on the table and wept.

The tavern-keeper was a good-hearted fellow with boys of his own at the
front, so he went over, patted Friedrich on the shoulder, and asked what
was amiss. Friedrich, forgetting that he hated all Germans, told him all
about it between sobs and gulps of beer, and suddenly fell asleep in the
middle of a sentence, so the innkeeper laid him on the bench and covered
him up with an old coat.

Some time in the afternoon he woke up again and remembered all about it,
and the innkeeper, who had been watching for this moment, stood him a
drink and advised him to go home to his people. Friedrich thanked him,
said that perhaps he would, and walked out.

Shortly before eight he arrived at Mainz Station very much the worse for
drink, tearful, quarrelsome, and sleepy. The train for Cologne was
standing at the platform, so he decided to get in, but all the cars were
full of the sort of Germans who had stolen his girl and he wanted to lie
down somewhere comfortable and go to sleep. He wandered up and down the
train, twice passing two shabbily-dressed men, also walking up and down
and waiting for providence to do something. Friedrich did not notice
them. There was also a dapper little man, very important-looking, and
holding a dispatch-case in his hand, who was talking to the
station-master. Friedrich did not notice him either. He mooned on till
he came to an empty compartment, quite empty, brightly lit and warm. It
had a long stuffed seat in it, one of those mattress-looking seats, all
soft bulges with buttons between. He got in, lay down, and went to
sleep.

Five minutes later he was aroused by someone shaking his shoulder. He
stirred, groaned, and said: "Go 'way."

"Get up, my man, get up."

Friedrich looked up and saw a little man with a dispatch-case.

"Go 'way, I tell you," said the soldier. "I want go sleep." He snuggled
down again, and two shabbily-dressed men glanced in as they strolled by.

"You can't sleep in here, I tell you," said the courier. "This
compartment is reserved for me. Get out _at once_."

Friedrich rose slowly to his feet, opened his eyes, and saw a face just
in front of them--a pink face with a cross expression. It annoyed him,
so he raised his right hand quite slowly and pushed the face--hard. It
disappeared backwards out of the car door, and Friedrich, with a sigh of
relief, sank again on the padded seat.

The courier picked himself up boiling with rage, re-entered the carriage
with more haste than wisdom, put his bag down on the seat in order to
have both hands free, and hurled himself on the soldier. He seized him
by the collar and shook him violently.

This time Lunden woke up in earnest. Another blasted German; they had
stolen his country and his girl, and now they wouldn't even let him have
a bed. He rose in his wrath and attacked the courier with joyful
abandon. The car filled with battle and presently overflowed, as the two
men rolled out of it onto the platform, and again the two shabby men
passed by....

Railway officials and sentries rushed to the scene of battle. Railway
officials picked up the courier and dusted him, while sentries picked up
the soldier and shook him. And just at this moment a shabbily-dressed
man registered a suitcase through to Cologne.

The courier resumed his dignity and straightened his tie. Then he
indicated Friedrich.

"The disgusting fellow is simply beastly drunk," he said.

The fire of battle died down in Friedrich, who drooped like a fading
lily in the arms of his captors.

"I'm not," he protested, "I only wanna go sleep."

At this moment the guard was bestowing the suitcase in the baggage car
for Cologne. He locked the doors.

The courier turned to the car and looked on the seat for his bag. It was
not there.

This was just plain impossible, it must be there. He looked on the floor
and then on the seat again, but the bag had not returned. He let out an
agonized howl which brought officials running.

"My bag! It is gone. I put it on this seat."

"It cannot have gone, Herr Kurier," said the agitated station-master.
"It must have slipped down."

But it had not.

"That man," said the courier, pointing at Lunden, "has taken it."

Friedrich, who had gone to sleep in a leaning position, took no notice,
but the sentries examined him.

"It is not here, Herr Bahnhofvorsteher," they said truthfully. "Wake up,
pig of a Schleswiger, and tell us what you've done with the gentleman's
bag."

"I never touched it," wailed Friedrich, who had reverted to the tearful
stage. "I never saw it. I want beer. I want Katje. Ooh, don't hit me! I
want to go to sleep."

"You look like getting put to sleep for good over this," said one of his
guards, and Friedrich wept bitterly.

They held up the Cologne express for nearly two hours while they
searched every compartment and questioned every passenger. They saw a
rather silly-looking boy in the fourth class eating a horrid meal of
blood-sausage and onions, but no one would suppose for a moment that he
had had anything to do with it. They did not even see the older of the
two shabby men, for he thought it wiser to travel on the wide shelf in
front of the engine, among the jacks and breakdown tools. The only place
where they did not look was through the registered baggage, which was in
a sealed car; the thing couldn't possibly be in there.

"You see," said Tommy Hambledon later, piously pointing the moral, "how
Heaven helps those who help themselves."

"I trust Heaven is helping the courier, too," said Bill Saunders grimly.
"I think he'll need it."

                 *        *        *        *        *

Dirk Brandt saw a good deal of Max von Bodenheim in the ensuing weeks,
and sometimes he strolled beside the chair along the quays in the
morning sunlight; it was a favourite resort of the German's. After a
time von Bodenheim would dismiss the servant, Dirk would lean on the
push-bar at the back of the chair and ask endless questions merely to
evoke von Bodenheim's caustic comments. One morning they went as far as
the New Bridge, which was being built at that time by British prisoners
of war to replace the old Bridge of Boats.

"There are some of your cousins," said von Bodenheim.

"They are not my cousins," said Dirk in an obstinate tone.

"They are an arrogant race of bandits," said von Bodenheim, "and one day
soon we will smash them. They cannot be allowed to dominate practically
every part of the world which is worth having. But they are our cousins,
all the same; perhaps that's why we dislike them so much. It takes a
relative to arouse that soul-searing hate one feels for one's
aunts--have you an aunt?"

"No," said Dirk, who felt too much at peace with the world this lovely
morning to harass his brains by inventing Dutch aunts.

"You are spared something. When we are young they harrow our finer
feelings by telling us we have not washed behind the ears. When we grow
a little older they abash us by telling in company indelicate stories of
our infancy. When we grow up they dissect the lady of our choice into
her component vices, and, disregarding any few shreds of virtue she may
still possess, they force the revolting spectacle upon our attention,
usually before breakfast. I was never at my best before breakfast."

"You don't seem to have been lucky in your female relatives," said Dirk.
"Why didn't you tell them where to go?"

"Because in Germany one is brought up in a rigid code of outward respect
for one's elders. One kissed their arthritic knuckles, spoke when one
was spoken to, and never answered back."

"I think that is a very accurate description of how England expects to
be treated," said Dirk.

"That is true. All the same, it is a mistake to underrate them. I have
no patience with the fools who call them stupid; one hears it rather
often. It is not true."

"My people used to call them that," said Dirk.

"Yes, and were defeated. The English don't mind appearing stupid, but it
is a pose. They are financially astute--they owe that to the high
proportion of Jews in the country--they are politically clever, and they
know how to wait. Also their Intelligence service is second to none."

This was so unexpected that Dirk was glad he was behind the chair and
not in view of von Bodenheim's observant eyes.

"Really, you surprise me," he said as casually as he could. "One never
hears much about it."

"Of course not. But I imagine that even you in South Africa must have
heard of the Kaiser's dispatch to the German population in the United
States."

"I don't think so," said Dirk, feeling his palms grow hot. "We didn't
get papers very regularly on the farm. What happened?"

"The Kaiser wrote instructions to the Germans resident in America
regarding their activities in the event of the United States coming into
the War. It was drafted in His Majesty's private study, kept in the safe
there, and never left the room till it was entrusted to four men to take
to America. On the journey one of them was always on guard. But on the
very day they landed in New York the full text of the dispatch was
published in every newspaper in America. It is no secret, you see."

"But," gasped Dirk, "the thing's impossible."

"Nevertheless," said von Bodenheim, "it was done."

"But how? Was--could one of the four men have been a British spy?"

"No, no, you are too romantic, my dear Brandt. It was copied before it
left Berlin."

"But how?"

"Don't ask me. I doubt if anybody knows except the man who did it, and
he'll never tell."

"I suppose he wouldn't dare to."

"He can't. He is dead."

"Oh, really?"

"Yes. He was indiscreet--he got careless, I suppose. One night he went
to see a lady in the Elizabethenstrasse in Wiesbaden. We waited for him
outside, and when he came out we got him."

"But--but how did you know he'd done it?"

"We knew. I told you, he got careless. I regretted the necessity, he was
a brave man."

"Clever, too," said Dirk.

"Yes. They have no one so able now."

Dirk felt like a germ under a microscope.

"I thought you hated the English."

"I do, but I don't despise them. It will be interesting to see if they
get hold of the next little surprise we have got for them."

Dirk made interested noises, and von Bodenheim went on:

"About the Hindenburg Line. Our new line of immensely strong fortified
trenches to the east of the Somme. It runs from the Vimy Ridge to the
Chemin des Dames, before Cambrai and by Saint-Quentin and La Fre to
rejoin the old line near Reims."

"But--what about it?"

"We are evacuating the whole Somme area."

"Great heavens!"

"Wouldn't the British love to know that? You see how I trust you,
Brandt."

"You may," said Dirk proudly. ("I don't believe a word of it," he said
to himself.)

"All the same, if it got out I would attend to your affairs myself,"
said von Bodenheim grimly.

"It looks as though it's going to be a little hard on me if some British
spy does get hold of it," said Dirk with a laugh.

"They won't. Only Collins could, and he's dead."

Dirk found nothing to say to this, and von Bodenheim changed the
subject.

"Are you going to see that Ibsen play at the Schauspielhaus next week?"

"_Gespenster?_ I am not sure. It is possible my uncle will want me to go
into Holland for him next week. About wheat, I believe."

"We cannot have too much wheat," said von Bodenheim gravely.

"The food is getting very bad."

"It has got bad. The bread is appalling stuff, all hard crust on the
outside and a soggy mess in the middle."

"There is a scandal about the so-called veal loaf," said Dirk, "have you
heard it? That provision shop at the corner of the Hhestrasse and the
Brckenstrasse was selling a veal loaf which was very cheap, quite
palatable, and really nourishing. So naturally everybody rushed out and
bought as much as they could. Now the rumour has gone round that the
manufacturer puts anything into it that he can find in his factory--even
the rats. But the poor devils who have bought it must eat it, they can't
afford to waste it. I heard about it from the Bluehms, you know?"

"It is the British blockade," said von Bodenheim. "They starve women and
children to unman the front-line soldier. That is modern war."

"I should like to do the same to them," said Dirk.

"Our submarines will worry them a little yet. Already, you tell me,
their beefsteaks are rationed."

"Mine was rationed out of existence," laughed Dirk.

"Tell me," said von Bodenheim. "If you wished to return to England, you
could, eh?"

"Oh, I suppose so, but I don't want to."

"You would, perhaps, go if there were a good enough reason?"

Dirk thought this over, and said: "You mean, if I could in any way serve
Germany?"

"Precisely."

"I'd--I'd do anything! But what use should I be?"

"We'll see. I shall see you again tomorrow?"

"I'm going to the Metropol tonight, there's a new show on there."

"Perhaps I shall see you then. _Auf wiedersehen_, Brandt."

Bill Saunders strolled back to the Dom Hotel and unfolded his tale to
Tommy Hambledon.

"So that's what happened to Peter Collins," said Hambledon. "God rest
his soul. At least they shot him outright and did not try to make him
talk--ugh! I wonder where he slipped up. We all do it, you know, sooner
or later, if we keep on long enough. I shall, one day. I've lasted
longer than most of 'em."

"Shur-rup," said Bill, quoting one Robey. He went on to repeat what von
Bodenheim had said about the retirement from the Somme to the Hindenburg
Line.

"It's a trap," said Hambledon decidedly. "I'm sure it's a trap. We pass
on the news, and it's you and me for the high jump. Does it sound
likely?"

"No," said Bill. "I didn't believe it myself."

"'In vain is the net spread in sight of any bird,'" said the British
agent. "We'll leave it at that."

"Talking about birds," said Bill, who was getting more sophisticated
every day, "I'm going to see the new show at the Metropol tonight, and
von Bodenheim is probably going too. If he wants me to go to England for
German Intelligence--"

"Take it on. Has it occurred to you that you are a subject of interest
to German Intelligence already? You could not easily return to England
now unless they send you. You will be tailed wherever you go in Holland.
They would know if you crossed to England."

A queer little thrill ran through Bill Saunders and his eyes brightened.
This was Life. Tommy Hambledon watched him ruefully.

"Yes, it's got you now, and it will never let you go. When once the job
has taken hold you'll find that nothing else in life has any kick in it,
and apart from the job you're dead. Neither the fields of home nor the
arts of peace nor the love of women will suffice."




CHAPTER 7


In the Cathedral Square in Cologne there is a garden which is bisected
diagonally by a footpath, as well as having roads all round it, and in
this transverse path an old match-seller was usually to be seen. He was
obviously very poor, as his clothes were colourless and ragged, but
perhaps he had a family to keep, because any observant person could see
that he did a fairly good trade. He used to advertise his goods by a
monotonous cry of "_Striken! Striken! Striken!_" on one melancholy note.
He did not always stand in the same place. Sometimes he was at the
south-west end, near the Erzbischofliches Museum, and sometimes at the
Cathedral end, on the corner, whence he could be seen from some of the
windows of the Dom Hotel. Hendrik Brandt looked out of his window on the
second floor and saw the old man there.

"I think we are running short of matches, Dirk."

Dirk nodded, picked up his hat, and went out.

He turned right on leaving the hotel and walked up on the north side of
the Cathedral, across the west end, and into the Hhestrasse, where he
bought a paper and a tie. He returned through the Sporergasse into the
Cathedral Square, naturally crossed the gardens by the transverse path,
and passed the match-seller.

"_Striken! Striken!_"

"Two boxes, please," said Dirk, and gave him a mark.

"_Danke schn_," said the match-seller.

"_Bitte schn_," answered Dirk, and strolled nonchalantly back to the
Dom Hotel.

Tommy Hambledon turned the contents of the match-boxes out on the table.
One of them had a strip of thin paper underneath the matches, and on it
was written: "Apples unobtainable, am sending onions."

"Leave cancelled, am sending instructions," read Hambledon.

"I thought we didn't use codes."

"We don't, if you mean the kind you sit up at night with a wet towel
round your head to decipher with the help of columns of figures. We have
experts who do that, if it's necessary, but we do occasionally replace
one simple word by another. 'Leave' is 'apples' because you hope
there'll be an Eve or two about, and 'instructions' are 'onions' because
we hope they'll be more unpleasant to other people than to the
recipient. 'Best quality fertile eggs for setting' would of course mean
'a supply of bombs is being forwarded per passenger train.' If I
assassinated the Kaiser I should write: 'Send no more umbrellas,' and
they would know at once that the reign was over."

"Are you serious?" asked poor Bill.

"Seldom. Anyway, this means you, my lad. No journey to Holland to buy
potatoes or whatever it was--at least, not on Wednesday."

"Wheat," said Bill. "At least, that's what I told von Bodenheim."

"Seriously, I don't think it would do any harm for you to become a
little better known in Cologne. You are the favourite nephew of a rich
uncle, you have money to burn for the first time in your life, and it
goes to your head. You are young, impulsive, and silly. You have attacks
of paralytic shyness followed by shattering exhibitions of misdirected
energy. You are fairly easily affected by drink at present--you can
become hardened to it by degrees if convenient--it may take the form of
beaming upon everyone, retiring to some quiet spot and going to sleep.
That's always a good idea, for if people think you are wrapped in a
drunken slumber, they won't worry about you. Let no man, and especially
no woman, think you have a single idea beyond having a good time. When
in doubt, put on that boiled-codfish expression which seems to come so
naturally to you, and in moments of embarrassment think of cold pickled
pork."

"Why?"

"It takes your mind off," said the man of experience.

About nine that night young Dirk Brandt drifted into the Metropol. There
was a cabaret show in progress and the place was well filled with
apparently cheerful people making a good deal of noise; officers on
leave mostly, and ladies who, generally speaking, were not their
sisters. The air was hazy with smoke and the conversation with drink,
there were many bright lights reflected in numerous mirrors, and much
sumptuous gilding; in fact, the whole effect seemed to overpower the boy
who came in and stood blinking inside the door, looking like a rather
cross rabbit. After a moment an acquaintance called across to him:

"Hullo, Brandt! Come and talk to us."

The boy cheered up visibly and went to the table where a man and two
dazzling blondes were sitting.

"Leutnant Bluehm! I'm so glad to see you again."

"May I present Herr Dirk Brandt--Frulein Elsa Schwiss, Frulein Hedwige
Schwiss."

Dirk bowed from the hips and kissed their hands in the prescribed
manner.

"They are the Bavarian Nightingales you see on the posters," continued
Bluehm. "They sing, I believe. You do sing, don't you?"

"We try to, Herr Leutnant," they said more or less together, and
giggled.

"Do you do anything else besides sing?"

"Oh, Herr Leutnant!"

"I mean, do you dance too?"

"Sometimes, Herr Leutnant."

"Charming, charming. Do you do anything else?"

"We play duets on the piano, Herr Leutnant, when we are quite alone,"
said Frulein Elsa, and the girls held hands and giggled again.

"I shouldn't think that often happens, does it?"

They evidently considered this the height of wit, for they leaned their
heads together and pealed with laughter.

"Not very often, Herr Leutnant," said Frulein Hedwige when she had
recovered enough to speak.

"Sit down, Brandt, and have a drink--will you join us?"

"Thank you," said Dirk, and sat down. "Tell me, Fruleins, are you
really sisters?"

"Of course, Herr Brandt," said Elsa.

"Can't you see the likeness, Herr Brandt?" asked Hedwige, and again they
leaned their heads together and looked coyly at him.

"You make me wish I were a photographer," said Dirk, "when you sit
together like that."

"We had our photograph taken like this once," said Elsa. "It was much
admired."

"Somehow," said Bluehm indulgently, "I was beginning to think you had."

This struck Dirk as funny, and he laughed uproariously. The Bavarian
Nightingales, for once, did not.

"I've got a horrid 'ickle feeling he's laughing at poor 'ickle us," said
Elsa to Hedwige.

"So have I," agreed Hedwige, and they nodded at each other and then
looked reproachfully at Bluehm.

"Have another drink," said he.

There was a burst of laughter and babble from a party at a near-by
table, and they all looked round to see what was happening.

"You can't expect me to believe that!" said a girl.

"It's true, upon my honour," said a dark saturnine officer in Flying
Corps uniform, who had evidently been telling a story.

"So what did he do then?"

"He sort of looked round, don't you know, for something to brain her
with," said the flying man, in a tired drawl, "and he saw one of those
poker-work outfits on the table ladies play with, don't you know?
Pictures of Ehrenbreitstein on milking-stools. So he got it going and
drew the Hussars' skull-and-crossbones on her. It was his old regiment,
you know."

"Where?" asked another man at the table.

"At Minden on the Weser," said the flying man solemnly, and drained his
glass.

"Minden," thought Dirk, and the Hampshires wear red roses in their caps
every first of August for Minden, when they and the Hanoverians beat the
French. And he was a man of the Hampshires here among this rowdy crew,
if only they knew it, and a man must speak of Minden....

"What are you thinking of, Brandt?"

Bill Saunders returned with a jerk.

"Only wondering if it hurt," said he, with his most innocent look.

("You're not Bill Saunders of the Hampshires, you're Dirk Brandt from
Lichtenburg," he said fiercely to himself. "Never do that again.")

"I'm afraid it must have done," said Frulein Elsa with a graceful
shudder.

"The lady was past noticing a little thing like that," said Bluehm.

"How do you know, Bluehm?"

"Oh, I've heard it before. Knirim always tells that story when he gets
tight."

"Tell Herr Brandt about it," urged Hedwige, "it's simply screamingly
funny."

"No," said Bluehm slowly. "I don't think I will, it isn't a very nice
story." And, oddly enough, he looked, not at the two girls, but at Dirk
Brandt's wide blue eyes.

"Have another drink," said Bluehm.

"What's the time?" asked Elsa. "Oh, we must go, Herr Leutnant, we're on
in five minutes. We shall see you afterwards, shan't we?" she said, and
got up.

"Maybe," said Bluehm, "we'll see."

"Oh, do let's," said the lovely Hedwige, leaning across the table, "we
shall be so disappointed if we don't!"

"Frulein, the disappointment will be all mine," said Bluehm, bowing
over her hand, "and it will be almost more than I can bear. But it is
the last night of my leave," he went on in a lower tone while Dirk
pretended not to hear, "and my mother and my sisters are at home--"

"I understand," she said, but looked at him wistfully.

"I will come if I can," he said hastily. "You know that," and she
smiled, pressed his hand, and hurried away.

"Rather nice girls, those two," said Bluehm carelessly. "Unlike most of
these cabaret singers we have here, who are just out for what they can
get. Daughters of the horseleech, most of 'em," he went on Biblically.
"Children of Erebus. Vestals of Aphrodite."

"Rather hot stuff, in short," said Dirk cheerfully.

"You let 'em alone, young feller," said his senior by nearly four years,
"or you'll regret it."

He emptied his glass; Dirk said: "Have one with me now," and ordered it.

"I expect you think," said Bluehm, whose speech was becoming a little
careful, "that I am not old enough to advise you. It is true that in
years I am only just twenty-one, but I have had nearly three years of
war, and in experience and--er--wear and tear, as it were, I am
middle-aged. It's sad, isn't it? A whole generation, and all
middle-aged." He stared gloomily across the room at the Bavarian
Nightingales, who tripped prettily onto the stage and began to sing.

Flying Officer Knirim came from the other table to sit at theirs, and
said: "Hullo, Vi'let, still here?"

"Till tomorrow," said Bluehm. "May I present Herr Dirk Brandt? Nephew of
our benefactor, Hendrik Brandt, to whom we owe most of what food is
really edible in Cologne."

"Welcome, nephew of our uncle," said Knirim. "Been here before?"

"Never," said Dirk shyly.

"And what do you think of Cologne? Have you visited the Cathedral? And
the Wallraf-Rickarts Museum?"

"No," said Bluehm, coming to the rescue, "but he is much impressed by
our Kammachgasse."

Dirk laughed, and Knirim said: "I beg your pardon. I have had too much
to drink and I am always rude when I am drunk. I hope you will be very
happy here."

"Thank you," said Dirk, and blushed becomingly. "Have a drink?"

"What is it? Goldwasser? Heavens, yes. Far better than what we've been
having. Thank you."

"How's things, Knirim?"

"Oh, not going too badly. We should finish the job by next Thursday."

"So soon? When I was there about a week ago it looked as though they'd
never get all that stuff back. The transport was everlastingly getting
bogged."

"Oh, you were on the Somme so lately, were you? Well, you'll be more
comfortable when you go back."

"I hope so," said Bluehm.

"You'll be able to flower in comfort, my Vi'let."

Knirim saw Dirk's look of surprise and deigned to explain.

"You see, his name sounds rather like 'bloom,' so we call him Violet
because he shrinks. Do you still shrink, Vi'let?"

"Habitually," said Bluehm. "In fact, I shrink from the row that's going
on here; you can't hear a note of the songs. Let's go somewhere else."

Max von Bodenheim came from the other end of the room on his way to the
door and paused at their table.

"Good evening," he said. "Enjoying yourselves?"

"Not particularly," said Knirim. "In fact, we were thinking of trying
our luck elsewhere."

"Let's go to the Palant," said Bluehm.

"Have a drink, sir?" said Dirk.

Von Bodenheim glanced at the bottle and said: "Please. Who told you to
order that?"

"My uncle recommended it," said Dirk modestly.

"Your uncle has damn good taste," said Knirim. "Let's finish the bottle
before we go on. Here's to--to a lucky move, eh, Bluehm?"

"Let's go to the Palant," said Bluehm.

"And that's better still," said Knirim. "Heard the news, von Bodenheim?"

"Probably," he said, turning a repressive stare on Knirim, but the
flying man was past noticing details.

"About the new line," he said. "We move back on Thurs--"

"You blasted fool," said von Bodenheim in a tone of biting scorn. "How
many times have you blabbed that about tonight?"

"Not at all," said Knirim indignantly. "What's wrong? We're all friends
here."

"How long have you known Brandt?"

Knirim glanced at the clock and said casually: "Oh--about half an hour."

"It's lucky for you I can answer for Brandt," said von Bodenheim. "Do
you see that notice on the wall?"

Knirim read it aloud. "'Guard your tongue, the ears of the enemy are
open.' Oh, they stick that up wherever one goes."

"Yes, and it's meant for fools like you."

"Let's go to the Palant," said Bluehm.

"Will you come too, sir?" said Dirk to von Bodenheim.

He recovered his temper with an effort, and said: "Yes, let's go.
Coming, Knirim?"

"No, I think I'll stay on for a while," said Knirim sulkily, and
strolled off.

"Just a moment," said von Bodenheim. He wheeled his chair across the
room and signalled to an officer sitting at a table in the corner. The
latter got up and exchanged a few quiet words with von Bodenheim, who
returned to Bluehm and Brandt and said: "Well, shall we go?"

They walked past the Neumarkt and down the Schildergasse, with Bluehm
and Dirk on either side of the chair which the one-legged soldier was
pushing. Just at the corner of the Herzogstrasse a car overtook them,
and the light of a street lamp fell on the faces of its occupants.

"Why," said Bluehm, "there's Knirim."

"Yes," said von Bodenheim.

"It's a staff car, too," said Bluehm.

"Yes," said von Bodenheim again.

Dirk glanced at Bluehm and saw that his face was white. They went on
without speaking to the next corner, where Bluehm stopped and said: "I
think, if you will excuse me, I should really go home. It is, after all,
the last night of my leave, and there are my mother and my sisters. It
was thoughtless of me to stay out so long."

Max von Bodenheim shook hands with him and said: "Of course, as you
wish. Good luck, Bluehm."

"Good luck, Bluehm," said Dirk. "_Auf wiedersehen._"

Bluehm saluted and marched off perfectly steadily down a side turning,
and von Bodenheim watched him till he was out of sight.

"Wonderfully sobering effect the night air has," he said.

"Yes," said Dirk.

Von Bodenheim looked up at him and laughed.

"Have you got the wind up too?"

Dirk had and, what was more, thought it politic to show it.

"What will they do to him?" he asked nervously.

"What do you think? Shoot him?"

At that moment they heard rapid steps coming towards them, and Bluehm
came up to the chair again.

"You know," he said, "I don't think Knirim talked to anyone but us. He
wasn't so bad till he got to our table--it was Brandt's Goldwasser that
finished him off."

"Thank you, Bluehm," said von Bodenheim. "Good night."

"Er--good night," said Bluehm. He hung hesitantly upon one foot for a
moment, then turned on his heel and went.

"No, they won't shoot him," said von Bodenheim. "They won't waste a good
man like that. He will wake up tomorrow to find himself a private in a
line regiment on his way to the front, that's all. He won't like it, of
course, after the Hussars and the Flying Corps."

"I see," said Dirk dubiously. "So that's all."

"Well, shall we go on to the Caf Palant in spite of having lost our
Violet?"

"Yes, if you would care to. By the way, I wanted to tell you--my trip is
put off for a few days after all. The wheat ship I was after is at the
bottom of the North Sea; one of our U-boats made a little mistake,
apparently."

"Oh, that's too bad," said von Bodenheim with a laugh. "These accidents
will happen. I told you there would be some fun with them soon. After
all, they could not label her 'For the Fatherland--do not touch!'"

They entered the Caf Palant, the soldier servant stood back at the
door, and Max von Bodenheim led the way to a table in an angle between
the wall and the foot of the stairs.

"I generally sit here," he said, wheeling himself into the angle as the
waiter cleared chairs out of his path. "One is less likely to be in the
way."

"One is less likely to be overheard, too," thought Dirk as he sat down
with his back to the wall and picked up the menu. "Believe it or not,
I'm hungry," he added aloud.

"So you won't be going away just yet," said von Bodenheim, when they had
given their order.

"I suppose not," said Dirk. "I shouldn't, unless there were anything to
go for. There's plenty to do in the business here."

"I expect there is." Von Bodenheim leaned forward across the table as
though he were trying to look round the square pillar in the middle of
the room at the orchestra opposite. "Unless we asked you to go?"

"But my uncle?"

"He would raise no objection."

"Oh, wouldn't he? I should have thought he would."

Von Bodenheim laughed. "In the first place, I don't think he'd want to.
We have a--a little influence over him."

Dirk raised incredulous eyes to the German. "What, you mean--er, your
people--" he said, in awed tones.

"The department, yes. You see, he did a little job for us in England
once."

"You do surprise me," said Dirk truthfully.

"Yes. He didn't want to, and he got badly frightened. In fact, I believe
he was nearly caught. He left England in considerable haste, and refuses
flatly ever to go back again."

Dirk laughed, he had to.

"It sounds so comic," he said. "He's so--so dignified and all that,
isn't he? I can't imagine him hareing towards the docks with the police
hot on his trail--"

"You idiot," said von Bodenheim, laughing. "I didn't mean he actually
ran in the physical sense--"

"With an attach-case bearing his initials in one hand and an umbrella
in the other, covering the ground like a startled antelope--"

"Here's your Wiener schnitzel," said his amused companion. "What are you
drinking?"

"Lager," said Dirk. When the waiter had gone, he said: "I had no idea of
anything like that."

"You'd better not remind him, it might be tactless."

"I didn't know you knew him."

"I don't; as it happens, all this happened before I came to Cologne. If
I met him now, it would be as an ordinary acquaintance."

"Of course," said Dirk submissively.

"But, naturally, things would be much easier for you. You are a British
subject and have a perfect right to be there."

Dirk made a little grimace, as though the reminder were distasteful, and
said: "Yes, but what good could I do? I don't know anything about guns
or fortifications or aeroplanes."

"Lots of good. You can talk to soldiers everywhere and find out all you
can about troop movements, how training is going on, are they short of
equipment, and so on. You can find out what effect the air raids had on
the civilian population. Are they short of food? Is there much shipping
laid up round the coasts? What do they think of the submarine campaign
and--if you have the luck, which I doubt--what are they doing to combat
it? You'd better go to Chatham and Portsmouth and talk to sailors in
taverns. You see, we are so short of news from England that almost
anything is of value."

"I see. Well, sir, I'll do what I can."

"Good lad."

"What about my uncle? Do I--"

"Do nothing. Wait, and you'll find things will arrange themselves."

"Talk of the devil," exclaimed Dirk, "there he is! Not the devil, far
from it. I mean my uncle. Gay old bird, who'd expect to find him here?
That man who has just stood up, in the far corner. May I present him,
sir?"

"Please," said von Bodenheim, and Dirk crossed the room to meet Hendrik
Brandt.

"The news we heard about the Kluges is true," said Dirk, without
attempting to lower his voice as they edged their way between the
tables. "They go on Thursday."

"Really," said Hendrik Brandt calmly. "Frau Kluge will be pleased, it's
much pleasanter in the Siebengebirge."

"Much," said Dirk. "Von Bodenheim is over there by the stairs. He says
he always gets that table."

"Epitaph for a great man," murmured Brandt. "'He always got a table.'"

Dirk presented his uncle to Max von Bodenheim, who said: "I cannot think
why we have never met before."

"I do not go out a great deal," said the importer mildly. "Socially, I
mean; indeed, I came here tonight to meet a business acquaintance--my
business occupies most of my time and all my energies. Things are very
difficult. Difficult and disappointing. There is this little matter of a
cargo of wheat--"

"Your nephew told me," said the German gravely. "It is a serious
matter."

"It is indeed. Not only the financial loss, which is serious, but the
thought of all that good food being wasted when it is so sorely needed.
But I must not talk business here at this hour, it is most out of place.
Dirk, my boy, what are you drinking?"

"Lager, Onkel Hendrik."

"That's right, lad. Lager is quite enough for you at your age."

Von Bodenheim, who had noticed on various occasions that Dirk could
manage quite a quantity of assorted drinks without becoming more than
amiably sleepy, smiled and said: "Quite right."

"I am glad you agree with me, Herr Kapitan. It is a responsibility,
believe me, to be in charge of a young relative for whom one is
answerable to one's sister, especially in a city like Cologne in times
like these."

"It must be," said von Bodenheim, fidgeting slightly.

"In fact, were it not for the confidence I feel in his mother's strong
moral influence and sound upbringing, I should hesitate to expose so
young and inexperienced a lad to the temptations inevitable to such a
situation as his."

"Quite," said von Bodenheim, and yawned irrepressibly. "I beg your
pardon."

"I weary you," said Herr Brandt unerringly. "Come, Dirk. If the Herr
Kapitan von Bodenheim will excuse us--"

"It has been a pleasure," said von Bodenheim.

"It has been an honour," said Hendrik Brandt.




CHAPTER 8


They walked the short distance to the Dom Hotel talking of indifferent
matters and enjoying the cool night air in the empty streets. They went
into Hendrik Brandt's room and Bill said: "What do you think of von
Bodenheim?"

"Hot stuff, very. So much so that I hope he'll never want to see me
again. I do not desire that he should cultivate my acquaintance. He is
too intelligent."

"You took care he shouldn't think that of you."

"Great care."

"I only hope he didn't see that your business acquaintance had wonderful
golden hair."

"He wasn't standing up," said Tommy Hambledon, "you were. Now, what's
all this?"

"It's true about the retirement to the Hindenburg Line," said Bill.
"They hope to move back on Thursday." He repeated Knirim's
indiscretions.

"Slogan for teetotallers," said Hambledon. "'Beware of drink, it is a
friend to the enemy.' Today's Monday. No, it's now Tuesday morning.
Heavens, the time is short. Old Reck is our only hope and I fear he'll
be too late."

"Old wreck?"

"R-e-c-k. He's not so very old, either. He is the science master at that
big school at Mlheim--the one with the tower."

"What does he do?"

"Spark wireless. He transmits messages in Morse. In code, of course;
that's a case where code is absolutely necessary."

"A transmitting wireless station--at Mlheim?"

"Certainly. Why not? There was one in Berlin at one time, close to the
Wilhelmstrasse, a building with a copper dome. The dome served as an
aerial, I believe; I am a child in these matters."

"It's incredible!"

"It's true. What's more, it was months before the Germans found it,
though it was so loud it drowned nearly every wireless station in
Prussia."

"And what's-his-name runs one at Mlheim?"

"Reck. Yes. It's too late to do anything now, he only transmits at
night, of course. I'll send him a message to meet us at the Germania
tomorrow. Old 'Striken' will take it. We will draft a message and Reck
will code it and send it off. With luck, they'll have twenty-four hours'
notice. We can't do any more."

"Can't I go out to Mlheim tonight?"

"No good. It'll take him some time to code it, and by the time you've
got there and he's done that, morning will have gilded the skies and all
his dear scholars will be buzzing round and hanging with reverent awe
upon every word that falls from his lips--I don't think. He keeps
silkworms."

"Why?"

"A useful and paying hobby. He corresponds with fellow enthusiasts in
neutral countries--no doubt they exchange pedigree sires and things.
Besides, it's always nice to have a few boxes nobody wants to look into.
Besides again, it makes a pleasant outing on a summer's day to hop on
your bike and buzz off somewhere to collect mulberry leaves. One meets
quite interesting people sometimes, collecting mulberry leaves. Strange,
isn't it, to think of Intelligence keeping a list of all the addresses
of all the mulberry trees within a thirty-mile radius of Mlheim?"

"Sounds like a popular song," said Dirk. "'Meet me by the mulberry tree,
For I would have a word with thee.'" He yawned suddenly. "I beg your
pardon. By the way, I was most interested to hear that you had done a
little job for German Intelligence and made England too hot to hold
you."

"Von Bodenheim tell you that? Good. I started that little story myself,"
said Hambledon. "Glad it's got round."

They left the office in the Hhestrasse in the middle of the afternoon
for coffee and cakes at the Germania. The place was fairly full, and
they found themselves obliged to share a table with a nondescript little
man who was sitting alone and reading a technical magazine.

"May we sit here?" asked Hendrik Brandt. "I am so sorry, but the place
seems crowded today."

"Oh, please do," said the man, and removed his literature from the
sugar-basin.

"I am distressed to interrupt your reading," said Brandt.

"It is of no consequence," said the man politely. "I had finished the
article in which I was interested." He shut the magazine and put it on
the corner of the table. The waitress took their order and retired
again. There was a longish pause.

"The weather is lovely for the time of year," said Herr Brandt.

"It is, indeed, beautiful," agreed the man.

"It is pleasant to find the days drawing out."

"Spring is, in fact, here."

"That is true. One hopes the winter is now over, for the sake of our
poor boys at the front."

"Yes, indeed."

"One fears their hardships must have been terrible."

"As to that," said the man, "I have no information."

"I am no better informed than the next man myself," admitted Brandt.
"But one hears stories from soldiers on leave--"

"Sir," said the stranger, "I am convinced you mean no harm, but there is
a notice on the wall to which, I am sure, we ought all to pay
attention." He pointed it out; like the one at the Metropol it ran:
"Guard your tongue, the ears of the enemy are open."

"Sir," said Brandt admiringly, "how right you are! If only everyone were
as careful--"

"It is only our duty," said the man, and at that moment the waitress
returned with a loaded tray. Hendrik Brandt, always thoughtful, hastened
to help her by moving some of the things on the table, and in so doing
knocked down the magazine. Apologizing for his stupidity, he handed it
to the stranger, who said it was of no consequence, and tossed it
carelessly on the spare chair. Uncle and nephew confined their interest
and comments to the cakes, the room began to clear, the stranger picked
up his magazine, bowed, and went.

                 *        *        *        *        *

"Won't he know if he's successful?" asked Bill.

"No. He can't receive, he only transmits. Must be a queer life, sitting
up at night popping out disconnected letters into the blue, with one ear
cocked for a stealthy step on the stairs, and never an answering sound
from the outer darkness to cheer his shuddering soul."

"You are making my flesh creep," said Bill.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Late that night the inconspicuous man crept from his bedroom to the
closet off the physics laboratory where he kept his silkworms, opened a
box, pushed his arm under a branch of mulberry covered with sleeping
innocents--presumably even a silkworm sleeps sometimes--and drew out an
electrical coil which once formed part of the works of a car. He took it
into the laboratory and fitted it into its appropriate place in a
polished wooden box such as usually contains a laboratory balance. He
shut the box up and rattled the catch a few times to see if it was in
working order. The catch looked ordinary enough, but it was not. It was,
in fact, a tapping key.

He carried the box across the room and put it on a work-bench close to a
window which was a few inches open. He put his hand out, felt about in
the ivy outside, and drew in a wire which he connected to the box.

The other end of the wire would have interested anyone in the school who
was afraid of thunderstorms, for it was connected to the
lightning-conductor which came down the tower, and the conductor had
been cut at that point and carefully insulated. It had become, in fact,
a wireless aerial.

The man pulled a stool up to the bench, sat on it, drew the box towards
him, and began tapping out dash--dot dot dot dot--dash, pause, dash--dot
dot dot dot--dash, pause, TLT, pause, TLT, to those whom it might
concern, the call-sign of Reck of Mlheim. There followed a string of
apparently meaningless letters....

The wireless operator on the destroyer pushed up his ear-phones for a
few minutes' rest as the sub-lieutenant came in with a message from the
bridge.

"Yes, I'll send it," he said, "but I'll eat my aunt's galoshes if anyone
gets it. The atmospherics tonight are simply deafening."

"The old man wants to know if you've heard anything from the flagship
yet."

"Nothing, and I'm not likely to till this electrical storm eases up. If
the whole German fleet was out tonight talking all round us I shouldn't
know it." He pulled his ear-phones on again.

"TLT," said the Morse, "TLT. BXAN--" The rest was lost in bangs and
crackles.

"TLT," said the operator. "I've got that half a dozen times in quiet
moments, but the dear knows what the poor old buffer is trying to say."

"Who is he?" asked the sub.

"Some chap in the Fatherland with a spark transmitter."

"Wonder if it's anything important."

"He wouldn't wake up half Germany to tell us baby'd cut a tooth, you
know. Tell the old man it's hopeless at present, but may improve later."

                 *        *        *        *        *

On Saturday in that week Bill Saunders walked out of Liverpool Street
Station and was confronted with a row of screaming posters.

"Great British Advance," they said. "Germans retreat on 100-mile front.
Australians capture Bapaume. Great Allied Victory." He bought a paper
and read hastily down the leaded paragraphs, evidently the affair was a
complete surprise.

"So it failed after all," he said. "Damn."

He went to an inconspicuous restaurant with a markedly Eastern
atmosphere up two flights of stairs from Piccadilly Circus, to meet a
friend from the War Office. They had an excellent lunch without being
asked for meat coupons, which was the singular achievement of this
establishment, and over strong black coffee poured from a brass pot by
an impassive Oriental, Bill Saunders unfolded his tale.

"I came over," he said, "principally because Hambledon wanted to know if
you heard anything over here about a new valve of some kind in the
envelopes of the latest Zepps. Our information is of the sketchiest, but
apparently this new device enables them to climb at a much steeper angle
than the previous ones could, and to reach a much greater altitude."

"We knew," said the man from the War Office, "that if they climbed too
steeply or went too high they had trouble with the hydrogen expanding. I
believe they had some bursts."

"I don't know any details. The fellow who talked was in the boastful
stage of drink. He merely said that now the Zepps could come in at a
height where none of our planes could reach 'em even if they knew they
were there. Then they could come down, lay their eggs, and off up again
like a rocketing pheasant. He said their new valve would teach the
_verdammt_ English something, and then one of the other men dug him in
the ribs and he dried up finally."

"And where were you while all this was going on?"

"Oh, only washing up glasses behind the bar. It's a foul little pub on
the outskirts of Ahlhorn; the mechanics go in there for their
half-pints. I was supposed to be walking from Osnabruck to Wilhelmshaven
to join the navy."

"What's put you on to this?"

"Something von Bodenheim said about recently increased efficiency, so I
dropped in there on the way home, as it were, and had a chat with
Hambledon over the phone about it. We talked about a new kind of
self-raising flour, and Hambledon said I had better speak to our
importers about it."

"We haven't heard anything here, but I will have inquiries made.
Anything else?"

Bill Saunders went on to give the rest of his news, adding: "Von
Bodenheim seems to be quite important."

"We have heard of von Bodenheim from Berlin," said his hearer. "He is
definitely important. You have done well to get into touch with him, and
to have been asked to work for German Intelligence should prove useful.
Very useful. Not to beat about the bush, I consider you have done well."

Bill Saunders made suitably deprecatory noises.

"It was unfortunate that the news about the German retirement did not
reach us, but the electrical storm which covered a large part of
south-eastern Germany and the North Sea that night paralysed wireless
communication over a wide area."

"So that's what happened. I wondered if the poor chap had come to
grief."

"His call-sign, TLT, was picked up by a destroyer off the Scheldt that
night, but the rest of the message was lost. Unfortunate."

"About von Bodenheim--"

"You shall be provided with useful information to give him--information
which he can check and find correct--that is, if he has anybody to check
it. He would be pleased if you could arrange an agent or two for him in
England, I think."

"He'd be delighted, but how can I do it? I am not supposed to know
anybody in England."

"You met a German woman in Holland--where did you go? Utrecht? Of
course. In Utrecht--whose husband is an Irishman named, let me see,
Butler is a name of no particular nationality, but common in Ireland.
She lay doggo here when she found all her fellow countrymen being
gathered in, and remained undiscovered. She went across to Holland--what
for?"

"To see her aged aunt?" suggested Bill.

"Would anybody cross the North Sea at a time of unrestricted submarine
warfare to see an aunt? She went about money. Her father, who was a
prosperous market-gardener in Westphalia--I'll give you his name and
address later on--died recently, and she went to see a friend in Holland
about the expected legacy. Butler works as a porter at Euston, he is
over military age. What more natural than that you should go and see
him? He does not like the English. I think that is good enough even for
von Bodenheim, especially if he looks up the recently lamented and finds
he has a married daughter in England. Yes. Armed with that and some
information which I will give you later, you should be a godsend to von
Bodenheim."

"What do I do at the moment?"

"Keep quiet. You realize that you aren't supposed to be in England at
all? Privates of the line don't get leave at the end of only six months.
I'm sorry, but you mustn't be seen by anybody who knows you, nor must
you go back too soon or von Bodenheim won't believe you've seen all you
say. Let me see, do you fish?"

"Yes, sir," said Bill, remembering Itchen and Test.

"Good. Go to a quiet hotel for tonight and come and see me at ten thirty
tomorrow morning. I think I can fix up something for you. There are lots
of hotels in Bloomsbury; any one will do."

"Where's Bloomsbury?" asked the British agent from Cologne.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Ten days later he returned to the Dom Hotel and rang up von Bodenheim's
house. The German was at home.

"I should like to see you," he said. "Can you come here now?"

"I'll see if my uncle can spare me," said the dutiful Dirk Brandt. "I'll
come at once if he can; if not, I'll ring again."

He put the receiver down and said: "He's there. Shall I go at once?"

"I think the enthusiastic young Intelligence agent would leap on the
first tram," said Tommy Hambledon. "You know what to say to him."

"Yes, that's all right," said Bill Saunders. He crossed to the cupboard,
took out a decanter and a glass, and poured himself out a drink.

"Have you come to that already?" asked Hambledon in a flat voice.

"What do you mean? I've practically been on the water-cart in England."

Hambledon said nothing.

"Besides, one wants to be on one's toes with the Herr Kapitan Max von
Bodenheim."

"Quite," said Hambledon.

"Well, here's luck," said the boy. He emptied the glass, picked up his
hat, and walked out of the room with a slight swagger. Hambledon watched
him go, sighed faintly, and went on checking invoices.

Von Bodenheim greeted Dirk with obvious pleasure. "I am very glad to see
you again," he said. "What will you drink? There is still some whisky.
How did you get on? Do you like England any better?"

"I did my best," said Dirk modestly, "but I'm afraid I haven't got much
for you. It's difficult to make soldiers and sailors talk, now one can't
stand them a drink--there's what they call a no-treating order in
force."

"Perhaps that's why they introduced it," said von Bodenheim.

"I went down and had a look at Southampton Water, nobody seemed to mind.
They've had so many ships damaged by torpedoes lately that the shipyards
can't cope with the rush, so they beach them on the mud to wait their
turn. There are lots of 'em on the Beaulieu shore--I saw the _Gloucester
Castle_ with a hole in her side you could have driven a tram through."

"So," said the German. "It seems that they by no means invariably sink."

"Oh, quite a lot of them do," said Dirk cheerfully. "I couldn't find out
what they were doing about it, though. I did notice, by the way, that
they were restringing the overhead wires of the Southampton trams with
real copper wire."

"No shortage of that."

"No, but they're terribly short of sugar and meat. You see long queues
waiting for the shops that are open, but quite often the butchers put a
notice up: 'No meat today,' and just shut."

"So. You say the shipyards are busy?"

"Yes, on these repairs, and building new ships. One man told me that
even some of the smaller shipyards are turning out one destroyer a
month."

"Let me refill your glass," said von Bodenheim. "It seems to me you have
used your eyes to extraordinary good purpose. Please go on."

"What else? I think you asked if they were short of arms and equipment.
I couldn't find out what was happening in any of the factories, except
that they are working day and night."

"The devil they are!"

"There are a tremendous lot of Americans coming over now."

"And the English, how are they taking it? Are they weary of the war?"

"There are some--what do they call 'em?--conscientious objectors," said
Dirk. "Men who feel that war in any cause is wicked, so they won't take
any part in it. They are sent to prison."

"Are there many of them, and what do the public think of them?"

"The public jeer at them and call them cowards. There must be a pretty
good system over there now; I was told they could turn a ploughboy into
a soldier in three months, including ten days' draft leave."

"They must have some first-class non-commissioned officers, then," said
von Bodenheim appreciatively.

"I can't think of anything else except that they are desperately short
of matches; I couldn't buy a box. Everyone is using those tinder
lighters for cigarettes--I brought you one, sir, as a memento, here it
is--they are useful in the open air, as wind only makes them glow all
the better. Look. You pull the tinder wick up to the level of the flint
and then spin the wheel on the palm of your hand; that's got it, do you
see?"

"Very ingenious," said the German, playing with the lighter. "Very
clever. Thank you, Brandt, I shall value this, from you."

Dirk coloured up and said: "It's nothing--I'm glad you like it. There
was one other thing I did. I don't know whether you'll approve; if not,
we needn't go on with it." He unfolded his story of Butler, the Euston
porter, and his German wife. "I thought he might come in useful, sir;
you said we were terribly short of people over there. They seemed
genuine to me, but you can verify the woman's father at Soest, Muller
was his name. I've got his full address somewhere," he went on, looking
through his wallet. "She wrote it down for me. Here it is." He pulled
out a piece of thin bluish paper with unmistakably German writing on it
and handed it over. As he did so a small piece of paper fell out and he
picked it up. "What's this? Oh, Southampton tram ticket, that's all." He
twisted it up and threw it in the ash-tray.

"My dear boy," said von Bodenheim, "you have done extraordinarily well,
especially considering that you did not know anyone and had no contacts.
I am very pleased. You must have a natural gift for this kind of
thing--I am glad you're not working for British Intelligence." He
laughed easily, but his eyes never left Dirk's face.

But the boy never turned a hair. "You flatter me, sir," he said
earnestly. "I was lucky, that's all."

Von Bodenheim lifted his glass. "Luck comes to those who deserve her,"
he said. "Your health, and may this be the forerunner of many more
successes."

"Here's to you, sir," said Dirk, "who showed me the way."

"I must report all this," said the German. "I will have inquiries made
about this Butler woman."

"I should go back," said Dirk, rising. "I had only seen my uncle for ten
minutes before ringing you up. I have to report to him on some business
I did in Holland."

Dirk had gone about fifty yards down the road when he remembered he had
left his hat in von Bodenheim's room, so he went back for it, and then
returned to the office in the Hhestrasse.

"Well, that went off all right, so far," said he. "He was particularly
pleased about Butler."

"He would be," said Tommy Hambledon. "They are so short of agents in
Great Britain that a semi-imbecile deaf-mute would be welcome. But what
did you mean by 'so far' in that doubtful tone?"

"I dropped a Southampton tram ticket," said Bill, "so I screwed it up
and threw it in the ash-tray. Then after I'd left I went back for my
hat--"

"Which you'd forgotten on purpose?"

"_Nturlich_," grinned the boy. "And the ticket was screwed up
differently. He does not quite trust me."

"When you've been on the job for as long as von Bodenheim, you'll find
you don't trust anybody. You'll find you can't trust anybody, not even
when you want to. That's the hell of it. For the rest of your life
you'll find yourself laying little traps for the people you most care
for, to see if they fall--" Hambledon's voice tailed off.

"Don't you trust me?" asked Bill Saunders, thoroughly taken aback.

"At present," said Hambledon sternly, "I merely expect to be able to
trust you. Understand?"

"Yes, sir," said Michael Kingston from Chappell's School.




CHAPTER 9


Some months passed during which nothing happened of any particular
moment, and Dirk Brandt became gradually absorbed into the daily life of
Cologne. They observed troop movements and ration restrictions, and
passed harmless but interesting news to von Bodenheim from the helpful
Butler. It was all quite easy but rather dull, and Bill Saunders was
rash enough to say so one day.

Tommy Hambledon looked at him with marked distaste. "I suppose you had
to choose this morning to make an ill-omened remark like that," he said.
"I have just heard that a horrid rumour has reached the ears of
authority to the effect that Germany proposes to bring Great Britain to
her knees by strafing the civil population. The idea, apparently, is to
drop cholera germs in the various reservoirs round London and leave
nature to do the rest."

"How increasingly beastly!" said Bill Saunders. "How is it going to be
worked, and where do they get the bugs from?"

"They are going to be dropped from aeroplanes, and it's the question of
where the bugs come from that concerns us. Our informant only says that
he gathers there was a technical difficulty about dropping cholera bugs
a couple of thousand feet, or they would have done it long ago. Now, it
appears, some ancient retired professor has solved the problem, and it
is up to us to find and discourage him. When I say 'us' I don't mean
only you and me. Every British agent in Germany is going through all the
retired professors on his visiting-list with a fine-tooth comb, all
other activities being laid aside for the moment. It is as serious as
that."

"So," said Bill, who had picked up the expression from von Bodenheim and
used it even in English. "Have we any professors in stock?"

"Quite a lot, not in Cologne, but around. This is rather a favourite
district for retiring to. Let me turn them up. There's Paffrath at
Dren. He's a--one moment. Research into Industrial Diseases. Possible,
though I shouldn't call cholera an industrial disease; in fact, you
don't get it if you are industrious--at keeping the sanitary system in
order. There's Rtlander of Bonn. Professor of Tropical Diseases. That's
more likely, we will investigate the Herr Professor Rtlander of Bonn.
There's the Herr Doktor Bauer of Siegburg. He isn't a professor but he
has a great reputation in medicine. I don't know any of these people
personally."

"I say," said Bill Saunders, "I hate to be so optimistic, but couldn't
it be almost any doctor?"

"No, thank God," said Hambledon, and meant it. "It's a little more
limited than that. Our man is positive that it's some quite old
gentleman of considerable reputation, but long retired, who has been
persuaded to come out of his shell. Finally, there's old Professor
Amtenbrink of Remscheid, but I should hardly think it's he. I know him
quite well; I don't believe he'd lend himself to a scheme like this,
even for the Fatherland. He grows roses, and I get him all sorts of
weird chemical manures from Holland. I don't know why I bother, unless
it's because I like him."

"Have I seen him?"

"No. Now you mention it, he hasn't been in lately, and that's odd,
because he used to come here rather a lot. He did write to me for some
gelatine. Gelatine. I wish I had a larger store of general knowledge. I
took it for granted he wanted to catch greenfly with it. Would one? I
don't know, I never thought about it."

"If he wanted it officially," said Bill, "wouldn't he get a supply from
a government chemical factory?"

"Very true," said Hambledon, cheering up. "Of course he would. So it
probably isn't he, I'd hate to think it was. We will start on Rtlander
of Bonn."

But Professor Rtlander would do nothing but sit on the sofa beside Dirk
and recite over and over again the "_Benedicite omnia opera_," which is
in English the canticle beginning: "O all ye works of the Lord," while
Hendrik Brandt talked to the Frau Professor about flour and butter.

"After the needs of the fighting services have been met," said he,
"there follows on the list for preferential treatment in the matter of
supplies the names of those who have deserved well of their Fatherland.
Your husband's name is high upon that list."

"That is as it should be," said the lady.

"Undoubtedly."

"He wore out his great brain in the service of humanity, Herr Brandt,
and it is a comfort to me to be assured that now he is not forgotten.
For he is like a child now, Herr Brandt, and can no longer help anybody,
and sometimes he cries because I have to stint him of butter."

"You shall have some, if I go short myself," said Hendrik Brandt, and
kept his word.

Professor Paffrath of Dren died, and the two importers were so
unfortunate as to choose the day of his funeral to call upon him.

"If he's the bloke," said Bill Saunders as they walked back to the
station, "the practice will cease forthwith."

"Unless he's left explicit directions on several sheets of foolscap,"
said Hambledon. "We will put his case back for further consideration if
we draw blank elsewhere. Dr. Bauer of Siegburg."

Dr. Bauer proved to be a fat little man with a strong Bavarian accent,
and very ready to talk. He soon made it clear that he regarded war
between nations as an abominable exhibition of mass insanity, when there
remained the so greater and so more enthusiasm-inspiring battle against
disease.

"In this my war, in which I have fought all my life," he cried, "there
are no nations nor frontiers except that between Man and Bacillus, and
from every civilized countrymen of skill and intellect stand shoulder to
shoulder against the foul invader!"

"How right you are!" said Hendrik Brandt, while his nephew remained in
the background in an attitude of respectful admiration.

"We can mark him off," said Hambledon. "The true internationalist. There
remains Professor Amtenbrink; I don't believe it, but we'll go tomorrow.
In the meantime, I think it is time we knew a little more about the
subject. Let us see if the Public Library will help us?"

The Public Library proved to be short on medical works, apart from
nursing manuals, good advice to mothers, and handbooks on the
identification and treatment of the commoner diseases.

"If I wanted to know," said Tommy Hambledon, "whether what my orphan
child had got was mumps or whooping-cough, these works would be
invaluable. If, as is highly improbable, I ever become a mother--"

"Here's something," said Bill, and indicated an encyclopedia in a dozen
volumes. They turned up cholera and read a vivid account of its horrible
symptoms. Bill turned green, and even Hambledon ceased to jest.

"So they infect the drinking-water, do they," he said, "and women and
children, and men on leave, and soldiers training, and men at home
working their hearts out to keep the country going, will scream for
hours with cramp till they can't scream any more? Then they shrivel up
from the effects of humiliating and indecent paroxysms, turn a greenish
clay colour, and get colder and colder until they die. Mortality, seldom
less than twenty-five per cent and usually much more. My God, if the
fellow doing this were my own brother, I'd shoot him in the stomach and
laugh at him while he died!"

He lit a cigarette, forced a laugh, and said: "Sorry to be so dramatic.
I was getting all worked up."

At once an attendant arrived from nowhere in particular, and silently
indicated a notice saying: "_Rauchen verboten_."

"Your pardon, gracious sir," said Hambledon earnestly, and stubbed the
cigarette out.

"Here's a cross-reference," said Bill, pointing to a footnote on "Koch's
'comma bacillus,' _see_ 'Bacteria.'"

They turned up "Bacteria" and found that this was a term applied to the
lowest division of that form of vegetable life known as fungi. That
"bacillus" means a "little rod," and that Koch called his discovery the
"comma bacillus" because it was a curved rod. That bacteria multiply by
division. That they contain no chlorophyll, and therefore cannot obtain
carbon from carbonic-acid gas, but must be parasites, feeding upon
organic matter and in some cases attacking living organisms. That it is
in this manner that certain bacteria cause certain diseases.

"This is where the demon king pops up," said Tommy Hambledon. "Enter the
villain in a graceful spiral, provided with a whip-like flagellum."

They turned over a page and came upon a paragraph headed: "Cultivation
of Bacteria."

"The study of bacteria," it said, "has been greatly facilitated in
recent years by the discovery of suitable methods of germ-culture. The
use of aniline dyes in staining bacteria permits of their
characteristics being readily observed. The customary culture media is a
sterilized mixture of gelatine and broth--"

"Gelatine," repeated Hambledon. "Gelatine. Thank you, Bill, that will
do. Will you put the book back?" He sat and looked straight before him
for some moments.

"Tomorrow," he said in a cold voice, "we will go and call upon the Herr
Professor Amtenbrink."

They went by train through Opladen and Ohligs to Remscheid and found the
professor among his roses. He had bush roses in round beds, and standard
roses in crescent-shaped beds cut in a wide lawn, which had screens of
ramblers on three sides of it. The fourth side was the white wall of the
old gentleman's house, with climbing roses on a wooden trellis.
Professor Amtenbrink was walking slowly round his beloved roses looking
for the folded leaf which indicates a caterpillar. When he found one he
squeezed it firmly between finger and thumb, removed it carefully, and
dropped the debris into a small basket on his left arm, since there are
few more futile ways of wasting one's time than by squashing again and
again an already flat caterpillar. He greeted Hendrik Brandt with
evident pleasure and received Dirk very kindly.

"I had to visit Ohligs on business," said the importer, "and it is so
long since I last saw you that I could not resist the temptation to find
out if, perhaps, you were ill. I am delighted to see you looking so
well."

"Never resist the temptation to come and see me, my dear Brandt, I
cannot tell you what pleasure it gives me. I have not been ill,
only--well--much occupied of late."

"Roses been behaving badly? They look well enough."

"No--no, though indeed I have had much trouble with mildew. It has been
a wet summer, and among our woods the damp hangs in the atmosphere.
Mildew is, of course, our most persistent trouble, and now it is so
difficult to get the necessary chemicals. Crepuscule, on the wall
yonder, is covered with it."

Dirk looked at the masses of copper and yellow which reached to the
upper windows, and said: "I think it looks wonderful. Can there really
be much the matter with it?"

"You will see when you get closer," said Amtenbrink grimly. "Are you a
gardener? No? Nor was I at your age. Gustav Grunerwald here is nearly as
bad."

"What do you have to do to it?" asked Dirk, examining the velvety grey
film. "It seems to stick so tight."

"You mix a weak solution of sulphate of potassium in a bowl, carry it
round in your hand, and dip the affected branches into it. If you are
not careful, they break off, especially in wet weather."

"I'll get you the potassium sulphate if you want it," said Brandt. "I
cannot have the peace of this garden disturbed by unsatisfied longings."

"You are always kind," said Amtenbrink. "I was, indeed, thinking of
asking you to get me some. But I am at the moment attacking the problem
from another angle. You are probably aware that mildew, being a fungus,
is allied to the bacteria, which are also fungi. It's odd, isn't it, to
think of the germs of tuberculosis, of smallpox and of cholera as being
vegetables? But they are."

"This is interesting me beyond words," said Brandt with perfect truth.
"Please go on."

"It had occurred to me to wonder whether it were possible in any way to
inoculate rose trees against the onset of mildew. Perhaps you'll think
it an old man's foolish hobby, but I have approached the subject in the
usual manner of research workers, with a gelatine culture in my
laboratory--God bless my soul, my dear Brandt. You are ill, take my arm.
My boy, you will find some chairs on the veranda; go and fetch one."

"It is nothing," said Brandt. "A momentary giddiness, that's all. The
sun is hot--"

"And I have kept you here while I chatter. Let us walk slowly to the
house and sit in the cool. You will drink a glass of wine with me; it
will restore you."

"Thank you," said Brandt with a queer little smile. "I shall be pleased
to."

They sat in long wicker chairs while the old gentleman brought glasses
and a decanter from a cupboard. The glasses had tall stems with a knob
near the bowl; the bowls were delicately curved in towards the rim and a
line of Gothic characters ran round each.

"These glasses were given me by the students of a university where I
once taught," said the professor. "It seems that in those days I had the
bad habit of interlarding my discourses with hackneyed Latin tags.
Vanity, my dear friends, sheer vanity, for in point of fact my Latin was
never good. So these irreverent boys had some of my favourites engraved
on these glasses. Believe me, it cured me of the horrid practice, I
never do it now. Here is '_Principia, non homines_,' 'principles not
individuals.' This one is '_Fiat justicia, ruat coelum_,' 'let justice
be done though the heavens fall.' What have you got on yours, my boy?"

"_Salus_," said Dirk, stumbling over the Gothic lettering, which was
always a difficulty to him. "_Salus--populi--suprema lex._"

"The welfare of the people is the supreme law," said Amtenbrink. "Yes,
but which people? Oh, this appalling war!"

"We shall win," said Hendrik Brandt, with conviction in his tones.

"God willing," said the professor with a sigh. "But, dear God, what a
frightful waste of the best lives in the country! I see these fine young
men going to the war, and I ask myself, my dear Brandt, why they should
be sacrificed while the old and crippled and diseased and mentally
deficient are carefully preserved. It is contrary to the law of nature,
which says that only the strong shall survive. What sort of race shall
we see after the war, if only the unfit are left to breed from?"

"It is a point which must have occurred to every thinking man," said
Hendrik Brandt.

"But how could you send all the old crocks into the front line?" asked
Dirk. "Unless the other fellow did the same, they'd be beaten in
twenty-four hours."

"You could not. But you can take the front line back to the old crocks,
as you call them. What else are we doing with our air raids on England?
For, as you must know, they serve practically no military purpose apart
from keeping a few men and guns at home for anti-aircraft defence. We
are carrying the firing-line back to the civilian population."

"In plain words, we are attacking their morale in the hope that their
resistance will collapse from the rear," said the Dutchman.

"That the country behind the army will throw up the sponge. Yes. When we
ceased to attack purely military objectives and turned our aim upon the
civilians at home, we inaugurated a new era in warfare."

"Women and children," said Dirk. "Personally I'd rather fight in the
front line."

"You speak with the generous chivalry natural at your age, my dear boy.
You speak as I spoke myself until it was put to me--until I
reconsidered, I mean, that logically that attitude was wasteful and
unsound. Would you have me destroy my finest roses and keep the
weaklings? No. If there must be this fearful pruning which men call war,
let us at least destroy the rubbish and not cut off the flower of our
land in its pride and beauty."

"You certainly make out a good case for aerial warfare," said Hendrik
Brandt, with the air of a man already half convinced. "If we admit
high-explosive and incendiary bombs, why not poison gas? Why not, to
continue the thought to its logical conclusion, why not disease?"

"Logically," said Amtenbrink, "why not? Let me refill your glass. When
for once I have the pleasure of the society of men of intellect and
originality, I become so carried away that I forget my manners. I must
admit, however, that the thought of using disease as a weapon is, at
first, revolting to all one's ingrained ideas of what is decent and
right. It shocks one, it does indeed."

"One should, however, distinguish between what really shocks one's
conscience and what only shocks one's prejudices," argued Brandt. "Is it
really any more cruel to infect a man with smallpox or cholera than to
tear his limbs from his body with explosives and leave him half alive,
perhaps, to lie for days in no-man's-land till merciful death releases
him?"

"No," said Amtenbrink, "but it is a lot more cruel than shooting him
dead. You mentioned cholera; have you ever seen a case? No? Well, I
have." He made a grimace. "When I was a young man, I travelled, and in
India I encountered a cholera epidemic in the Ganges Valley. I was so
much impressed by what I saw--I will not sadden our young friend here by
going into details--that I took up the study of cholera in the hope of
finding an antidote. I may say, though it does not become me to boast,
that Koch's discovery in 1884 of the so-called 'comma bacillus'--it is
not a bacillus at all, it is actually a spirillum--only forestalled mine
by a matter of a few weeks. Ah, well, when I was young I thought I was a
great man and one of mankind's benefactors, and now I am old I know I am
only a grain of dust in the sunshine, and I spend my days trying to find
an antidote to the mildew on my rose trees. _Sic transit gloria mundi._
Dear me, there I go again, and with one of these glasses still in my
hand. '_Sic transit_' is in the cupboard." He laughed gently. "Let me
refill yours."

"Thank you, not again," said Brandt, getting up. "We must go. You never
know, professor, there may be some great deed yet that you can do for
the Fatherland."

"Are you sure you are quite recovered?" asked his old friend anxiously.
"You looked quite white as you spoke."

"I am perfectly restored, thanks to your kindness, and now I must be
about my business. I have enjoyed our talk immensely--it was most
illuminating," said Hendrik Brandt.

"He's the bloke," said Hambledon, as they walked away from the house.

"You are quite sure," said Bill, "that he is not really growing mildew
on his gelatine?"

"Don't be a fool," said Hambledon irritably. "Why should he grow it on
gelatine when his whole garden is blue with it? As soon as he said that,
I knew he was lying."

"You didn't believe it before, did you?"

"No, I didn't. Even now, you know, he doesn't really approve. He has
been talked into it. Did you notice that he said once 'it has been put
to me'? A damned clever specious argument, too. I did not point out the
flaw in it: namely, that the children he proposes to murder would be in
their turn the flower of the land. No. He's a nice old man really, but
he's been got at."

"What are you going to do about it?"

"Tonight," said Hambledon grimly, "we shall deal with him. By the way,
doubtless that laboratory of his is full of quart bottles brimming with
sudden death--we shall have to deal with that too."

"Burn it?"

"Yes, burn it. That's easy; he uses oil lamps, did you notice?"

"Be a bit rough on those climbing roses," said Dirk.

"Yes, it'll be good-bye to the roses. There is a bridle road turning off
here somewhere, which goes to Wermelskirchen. I want to make sure of
it--there it is--we will go that way tonight."

They went a mile into the woods, waited for night to fall, and returned
to the professor's garden.

"A quarter past ten," said Hambledon, peering at his watch. "By the time
we're ready the household will be abed, I hope. All except our
professor, probably. I expect he sits up late; I never knew a professor
who didn't. I wish I'd asked him where they kept the paraffin."

"In an outhouse, I expect," said Bill Saunders. "Is that the lab, that
annex on the left? My hat, if we burn that, the whole house will go."

"Let it," said Hambledon. "Cheers, there's a light upstairs and the
kitchen quarters are dark. Now, where's your outhouse?"

They found the paraffin and carried a four-gallon can of it round to the
laboratory, which had a door to the garden. This Hambledon opened, and
by the light of Bill's electric torch they poured oil over the floor and
the tables, paying particular attention to a work-bench which had rows
of test-tubes in racks above it.

"Doesn't look much," said Bill. "Is that all he's got?"

"The main store will be in that cupboard, I expect. No, I wouldn't open
it; pour some oil over it. Throw some up the walls. What a beastly mess!
That will do; now let's go and pay our little call. Stop. Light that
lamp first and turn it low."

They walked round the house, quietly, on the grass, and found a lighted
room on the ground floor with french windows ajar to the warm night.
Hambledon put his hand in his coat-pocket, pushed the window open, and
walked in, followed by Bill. Professor Amtenbrink started from his
chair.

"Who--oh, it's you, Brandt," he said. "This is an unexpected pleasure."

"I am afraid," said Hambledon quietly, "that you will not find this
visit a pleasure. We have come to see you about those cholera germs you
are hatching out for British women and children."

"Cholera germs--I am not. I have some cultures of mildew--"

"Tell that to St. Peter," said Hambledon, with a mirthless grin.

"But, Brandt--"

"My name is not Brandt. It is Hambledon, and this man with me is William
Saunders. We are British Intelligence agents."

Amtenbrink dropped back into his chair and merely stared. After a moment
he recovered himself.

"I realize," he said, with notable dignity, "that you would not tell me
this if I were going to continue to live."

"You are right. I am very sorry--I mean that, for I always liked you.
But you realize that I have no choice between your life and that of
hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of my own people."

"If I were to give you my word that I am not doing what you think?"

Hambledon hesitated--or appeared to. "I cannot risk it," he said. "I
dare not. You might consider it your duty to lie for your country. God
knows I have told enough lies for mine."

"I understand, my friend," said Amtenbrink gently.

Hambledon turned perfectly white, but spoke in a calm voice. "You would
like a glass of wine and a cigarette before we go. Bill, you saw where
the glasses were kept. Go and fetch three, and the wine."

When he came back the two men were sitting in armchairs talking quietly.
Bill poured the wine and handed a glass to Amtenbrink.

"Which one have you given me, my boy? _Salus populi_--that's right."

"Sir--" said Bill, and stopped.

"What?"

"May I have the--it's awful cheek--would you mind if I kept your glass?"

"Certainly, take it. But why?"

"Next time I find myself afraid to die, I should like to look at it."

Amtenbrink smiled.

"We are becoming too dramatic," he said. "Death is not, after all, so
very important. _Mors janua vit_, it is the gate of life. There, I have
offended for the last time." He rose to his feet and Hambledon did the
same.

"_Hoch dem Kaiser! Hoch!_"

He emptied his glass and handed it to Bill.

"Well, shall we go?" he said.

                 *        *        *        *        *

They looked over their shoulders as they hurried away in the moonlight,
for behind them tongues of flame were leaping between the trees.

"Come on," said Hambledon. "We'll sleep at Wermelskirchen tonight."

"I wonder," said Bill Saunders, "if he was really guilty."

"You are not really convinced, are you? Look at it like this. He answers
the description we were given of the sort of man who was doing it. He
had the means to do it. He had the knowledge and skill to do it.
Finally, he buys from me the materials for it, and covers up his
purchase by a cock-and-bull story about mildew. That should be enough.
But, apart from that, you must preserve a sense of proportion. You liked
him, and you are allowing personality to interfere with duty. Consider
this, that it would be better that every retired professor in Germany
should die tonight rather than that one of them should succeed in this.
I tell you, I hated killing Amtenbrink. But I would kill him again
tomorrow and again the next day and again every day for a fortnight
before there is one little cholera outbreak in one little street in
London."

"I expect you're right," said Bill.

"I know I am," said Tommy Hambledon. "But there are moments when I wish
I'd joined the Household Cavalry, or Harry Tate's Navy, or the Church
Lads' Brigade."

They crossed the river Esch, which runs through the valley between
Remscheid and Wermelskirchen, and on the bridge Hambledon said: "Wait a
moment, I want to get rid of this. Curse it, it's jammed tight."

He tugged at something and pulled a stout steel knitting-needle out of
its handle. The knitting-needle had been ground till it was flattish
towards one tip, and the point was extremely sharp; the handle was an
ordinary rubber pedal block from a bicycle. Hambledon threw the pedal
block into a clump of bushes and dropped the steel into the river below.

"Lie there and rot," he said.




CHAPTER 10


Early in December 1917 Dirk Brandt strolled up the Hhestrasse in
Cologne to meet Max von Bodenheim at the Germania and found him more
than usually pleased with life.

"Somebody's done a good job," he said.

"Oh, good," said Dirk. "What is it?"

Von Bodenheim unfolded an English paper and handed it over. "You will
find this easier to read than I," he said. "My English is rusty."

Dirk read, with suitable signs of delight, the account of a ship, loaded
with high explosives, blown up at Halifax, Nova Scotia. How a Belgian
steamer lying near by had caught fire, and how the explosion had raised
a huge tidal wave that rushed up the beaches and tore down houses,
wrecked trains and street-cars and tore up the roads. How an American
warship fifty miles out at sea saw the flash and, long after, heard the
roar, and rushed at top speed to the rescue, thinking it was a ship at
sea that had gone down; and how the disaster was followed by a fearful
blizzard which swept down on the unhappy city.

"This is good work," he said. "Who did that?"

"You must not ask that."

"Of course not," said Dirk, colouring. "I spoke without thinking."

"Between ourselves," said von Bodenheim, "that would not matter. But you
must learn to guard your tongue at all times, so that it becomes
instinctive."

"I was only wondering," stammered Dirk, "whether one could not help
him--that is, if he came to England."

"If you can in any way help that brave and resourceful man, be sure you
will be told."

"I am sorry," said Dirk, turning innocent blue eyes upon the German. "I
did not mean to be presumptuous."

"I am sure you did not," said von Bodenheim, relenting a little. "But if
you are to serve the Reich, you must learn to obey blindly and not ask
questions."

"Yes, sir, of course," said Dirk, and went on sipping his wine. "This is
good," he thought, "he thinks he's got me where he wants me. He's just
showing me I'm not the only gun in the battery, but I bet I get put in
touch with Heroic Horace one of these days."

"Butler, now, might be of use to him, if he came over."

"Oh, yes?" said Dirk, without lifting his eyes.

"My boy, there is no need for you to be jealous," said von Bodenheim
kindly. "Butler is all very well to run errands, but you will be as good
as Heilemann one of these days if you are careful."

Dirk ventured to cheer up a little.

"In the words of the great Queen Victoria, 'I will be good,'" he
remarked, and shot an obvious glance at von Bodenheim to see how he took
it. The German smiled, and said: "You cannot be solemn for long. That is
good, for you will not take things to heart so heavily as a more
serious-minded man would; therefore you will not wear yourself out so
quickly. Some of our best men have been _kaput_ at the end of a couple
of years; they cannot forget easily, then they will not sleep at night
for fear they dream, then it is the bottle and finally the asylum, or,
more mercifully, the little accident with the gun, and all because,
perhaps, they cannot forget the look of astonishment in a man's eyes as
you kill him when he did not know he was going to die."

"I have never seen anyone die, not even my father," said Dirk Brandt
deliberately, and there rose in his mind a memory of Amtenbrink lying on
the floor of the laboratory with his eyes wide open, a pool of blood
spreading beneath his left shoulder, and a sudden roar of flame which
curtained the picture. No, there was no surprise in that tranquil
look....

He shivered slightly, and von Bodenheim's expression softened. "You are
very young," he said. "Do not be afraid. One dead man is very like
another, and they have this principally in common--that they no longer
talk. You laugh at most things; remember Death is the final jest."

Dirk thought the subject a trifle sombre, and said so. "Unless, of
course, you want me to mop somebody up this evening?"

Max von Bodenheim leaned back in his chair, and his face settled again
into its familiar lines of cynical amusement.

"There are several," he said decidedly. "One is that woman in the green
hat near the window. She will never die."

"Are you sure?" said Dirk. "She looks mortal--shall I try her with a
hock bottle?"

"No. You will only precipitate the catastrophe. When she passes through
the change we call death, she will become a vampire; she cannot avoid
it, she is one already. Do you know what vampires are?"

"Things that crawl out of graves?"

"Go and brain her with a bottle. I assure you her family will not bear
you any malice--they may even club together and present you with a
gold-plated fire-shovel--emblematic of where they think she's going. But
I wander from the point. If you kill her that will mystically attach her
to you--"

"I will forbear," murmured Dirk, studying the lady's incisive profile.

"...and one night you will dream you are being kissed. Wonderful
kisses, that thrill your very soul. Next morning you wake up feeling a
trifle tired."

"I shouldn't wonder."

"When you put your collar on you will find a tender spot--"

"Over my heart?" suggested Dirk.

"No. I said collar, not belt."

"Please continue."

"A tender spot on the right side of your neck, over your jugular vein.
You take a hand-glass and after performing the idiotic contortions
customary with people who can't work out angles of refraction in their
heads, you find you have two little punctured wounds like the bite of a
snake, only farther apart."

"Snakes cannot be too far apart, for me," Dirk said gravely.

"You have no pity for the love-life of the reptilia. To return, it will
be she."

"What will? The snakes' raptures?"

"The maker of the punctured wounds. She sucks your blood."

"At the same moment as she kisses me? Her mouth will have to stretch a
bit, won't it? One of those elastic grins you read about, doubtless.
Does she pop when she disconnects?"

"You are incorrigible," said von Bodenheim, with one of his rare laughs.
"You even make me dislike her less. I shall smile when I see her in
future and that will terrify her as nothing else can."

"Why?"

"She will think I am going to punish her for her sins. I had a little
cousin once," said von Bodenheim, ceasing to be amused, "a nice child,
if a little stupid. The sort of girl intended by nature to be perfectly
happy, surrounded by an ever growing circle of babies, in a thoroughly
respectable household on the outskirts of some provincial town. You
know. She was suitably betrothed to the son of a Prussian officer of
high rank."

"It sounds delightful."

"She thought it was, anyway. She was ridiculously happy. Unfortunately
the woman in the green hat had a daughter."

"So she detached the fianc?"

"Worse than that, she arranged a pretty little scandal. It is absurdly
easy to arrange scandals in Prussian society, Dirk. Something to do with
a handsome groom who was admitted to my cousin's bedroom to do something
to the window. Then it appeared there was nothing wrong with the window.
I don't know how she worked it."

"And the upshot?"

"There was one of those awful family scenes which have to be heard to be
believed, and my cousin was thoroughly disgraced. Already half drowned
in tears, she went and finished off the job in the baronial millstream,
and my lady yonder is now the proud mother-in-law of the Herr
Uberleutnant von So-and-so. I can't do anything, as really he's not a
bad fellow, and terribly cut up over my cousin."

"Hell-cat," said Dirk, referring to the lady.

"Yes. She kills people--not violently, I don't mean that. They just die.
Her husband, her parents, her sister, and one of her brothers, they just
faded off. She sucked their vitality, I think, that's why I said she was
a vampire. Let's have another bottle."

"By all means," said Dirk, who was beginning to think that von Bodenheim
had been celebrating the Halifax explosions to some purpose. Heilemann,
mustn't forget Heilemann, must get away and find Tommy Hambledon
somewhere and tell him. No violent hurry, of course he might as well
come here as anywhere else, it might be advisable to wait a little
longer, and in the meantime it was excellent wine on the second floor of
the Germania, and he'd got the name, Heilemann.

"But I don't think I'll start my homicidal career with the green hat,"
added Dirk. "Not even to oblige you will I have that lady's spook
attaching itself to me with expanding suckers. Show me something
simpler."

"There is a large choice," said his sardonic friend. "There is the
dashing girl with the come-hither look in ultra-fashionable clothes by
the door."

"What's the matter with her? She looks what you might call really easy
to talk to."

"That's it. She looks like that, and if you address her in the manner
she seems to expect, she yells for mother. She is really very proper and
rather dull; in short, she has what they call a thoroughly nice mind,"
said von Bodenheim viciously, "and if you know of anything more damning
to say about a woman than that, tell me and I'll probably say it."

"Then why does she go about looking like that?"

"Heaven knows--presumably. See the lad in the tweed suit who has just
come in? His father has a boot-factory, so he's exempted from war
service on work of national importance."

"Yes, he looks like that."

"He is, and he stinks of money. He thinks he's a lady-killer, he does.
Look, is he going to sit with our Trudi? No, by Jove, he's sheered off.
He is going to sit at the table of those two girls and pick
acquaintance. He'll start with the weather and gradually lead up to a
few doubtful jokes and see what happens. If they snub him, he'll sneer.
If they giggle, they're lost."

"I shouldn't think they would," said Dirk. "They look like nice girls."

"They do," said von Bodenheim grimly. "In fact, they are, I know them
slightly. But they may be hungry."

"Good God," said Dirk. "You don't mean--"

"I do," said von Bodenheim, pushing his chair back. "I shall go, I
think. I am fairly hardened, but this sort of thing is more than my
stomach will stand. Are you coming?"

"As far as the office, if you're going that way."

But when Bill Saunders got back to the importer's office, Tommy
Hambledon had gone. This was not unexpected, but Bill had to get rid of
von Bodenheim somehow and find Hambledon at the earliest possible moment
to tell him about--what was the name? Heilemann. Mustn't forget
Heilemann. Tommy might be at the Caf Palant, so Bill strolled across
there and had a drink or two with friends, but no Hambledon showed up.
Bill wandered into the Automatische bar and noticed that they had again
cut down the allowance of beer one got for one's twenty pfennigs.
Heilemann, the man who caused the big bang and escaped with his life.

He walked purposefully out of the Automatische and made a round of
sundry houses of refreshment in the neighbouring streets, but drew blank
at all of them--blank, that is, as regards Tommy Hambledon, but not
blank in other respects. One cannot enter a pub, look round, and walk
out again without making the usual contribution towards the prosperity
of the house. By the time Bill arrived back in the Hhestrasse, the
world was a rosy place full of charming friends and he was becoming
really carefree, but still he did not forget Heilemann.

He inquired at the door of the Dom Hotel whether Herr Brandt was within,
and got a negative reply, so he wandered off again and found himself
near the railway station. Here was a street-car, a nice clean
comfortable-looking street-car, and his legs were tired, they bent
unexpectedly. Good idea, let's go in a street-car.

So he got in and sat next to a soldier on leave, who had been
celebrating his safe return.

"And now I'm going home to my old mother," said the soldier. "Nice old
mother, she'll be so pleased. I'll knock at the door--no, not knock at
the door. Just walk in and say: 'Nice old mother, I've come home.'"

"Where's your mother live?" asked Bill.

"Thielenbruck."

"Thielenbruck. Is that where this car goes to?"

"Course it does," said the soldier. "Look, it's got it up." He pointed
to the sign. "If it doesn't go to Thielenbruck when it says
Thielenbruck, there'll be trouble, won't there?"

"Yes," said Bill. He thought it over for a few minutes, and then said:
"Unless it goes to another place with the same name."

The soldier disregarded this wild and beautiful picture of a new Germany
covered with strange villages all named Thielenbruck, and said: "I've
got a girl there."

"Nice for you," said Bill. "Is she nice?"

"Yes. She's got nice house, too. It's got four steps up to it, and a
hat-stand. Very genteel, have hat-stand."

"You've got Iron Cross," said Bill.

"Yes. Third Class. When I go to see my girl, she'll say: 'Brave Karl,
get Iron Cross,' and then I'll--I'll hang it on hat-stand."

"Thielenbruck," said the conductor.

"Come on," said Karl.

They alighted and, of course, found somewhere to have one or two more,
after which they started off towards the soldier's home.

"Have you," said Bill, "ever been in big bang? Really big bang?"

They both stood still while Karl considered this. At last "All bangs are
big," said he, "when you're in them."

"And a great big flash and it's good-bye to the roses."

"Why? Here's where my girl lives," said the soldier. "Nice house. But
I'm not going there now. Going home first, see old mother."

Shortly after that Bill mislaid the soldier and strolled about by
himself looking for the street-car, because he had got to find Tommy
Hambledon and tell him about Heilemann. Presently he found himself
before a house he recognized, so he walked up four steps and rang the
bell. A very large girl opened the door. Bill took his hat off and said:
"Good evening."

"Good evening," said the girl in a tone of inquiry.

"Good evening. You have eyes like gazom-gazelles, only bluer. Your hair
is just the colour of ripe corn. Do you grow roses in your garden as
well as in your cheeks?"

"No," said the girl, laughing.

"No? You have a mouth like--oh, there's hat-stand. Good evening,
hat-stand," and Bill took his hat off to it. "It's nice hat-stand, isn't
it?"

"What do you want?"

"Are you a good cook? Yes? Then tell me the way to the street-car."

"Down the steps, for a start," said the girl, and pushed him.

He picked himself up at the bottom, replaced his hat, and strolled off.
Later on he found himself in a garden leaning over to smell some
flowers, when there came a pattering rush from behind and he was shot
into a clump of azaleas. He smelt a strong and curious smell and opened
his eyes to look straight into the face of an elderly goat. The goat had
a chain trailing behind it, so Bill picked up the loose end and started
off again with his new friend. But still he remembered Heilemann.

He discovered almost at once that it was better to lead the goat on a
short chain because if it had a long one it retired to the limit and
came back to butt him. Presently they came to a lamp-post, the goat went
one side and Bill the other, and both walked round it in opposite
directions till they were brought up short face to face.

"There is a curious dreamlike quality about this evening out," said
Bill, very distinctly, and he unwound the goat again. It was a long
street, the lamps stretched in an endless vista for miles and miles, and
Bill felt that if only he extended his arms and let himself go, he would
just float, which would be less trouble than walking, but unfortunately
every time he did this he fell down, slowly but inevitably.

Much farther down the road they met an elderly man carrying a bag and
became entangled with him, so both men sat down on the edge of the
pavement to sort themselves out while the goat stood off and blew
bubbles.

"Who are you," said Bill, "and what do you do?"

"I am a cutler," said the man with dignity.

"Not a mason?"

"No."

"Pity. I've got a goat."

"Why?" said the cutler.

Bill felt this was rather beyond him, so he let it go at that, and the
cutler felt about in his bag.

"Have a drink," said he.

For some reason the bottle had not broken when the owner fell down; it
contained gin, and they shared it amicably.

"I want a street-car," said Bill in a contented voice.

"Whaffor?" asked the cutler.

Bill considered this. Why did one want a street-car? It was very
pleasant here, although there was something a little wrong. Of course,
it was the pavement, which was hard.

"To go sleep in," he said. "This pavement's hard."

The cutler prodded it with his fingers. "Perfectly right," he said, "it
is. Very hard. Very unkind." He wept a little, but the goat came and
breathed at him and he cheered up.

"I got a home," he said triumphantly.

"Where?"

"Down next street. Come on, let's go home."

So, helping themselves up with the goat, they proceeded in a
south-westerly direction till they came to a small semi-detached house
and the cutler led the way to the back door. Outside the door he paused
and produced the gin-bottle again.

"Finish this," he said. "My wife don't like drink. No bottle, she won't
know, will she?"

"Give her goat," suggested Bill. "Nice present."

For some reason the cutler was loudly amused at this; then they emptied
the bottle and he threw it away where it hit something that clanged.

"Hush," he said. "Mustn't wake wife."

He staggered slightly on the brick path, threw out his arm, and brought
down a galvanized iron tub which was hanging on a nail. After which he
opened the back door, switched on the light, and they entered--all three
of them. Bill stood blinking painfully in the light and looked pathetic.

"Wha's marrer?" asked the cutler.

"Want to leggo goat," Bill said plaintively, and indicated the chain
which was wound in a complicated manner round his left arm. His right
arm was not, apparently, long enough to reach it, though he made several
attempts, and the cutler kindly unwound him and between them they tied
the goat to the kitchen table-leg.

"I like you," said the cutler frankly. "Sit down."

Bill looked round, but the only chair seemed too far away to be real, so
he sat on the floor, and at that moment the inner door opened and a
large fierce woman put her head in.

"You miserable idiotic drunken worm!" she said, addressing her husband,
who took no notice whatever and sat down on the hearthrug to remove his
boots.

"Who is that horrible repulsive-looking tramp you've brought home?" she
asked, indicating Bill, who was so horrified that his eyes ceased to
focus and the lady appeared to him to have two angry faces which slid
apart and approached again but never quite coalesced.

Her husband took off one boot, poised it in his hand, and hurled it--not
at his wife but at the electric light bulb, which exploded with a loud
bang, and thereafter all was darkness and peace.

The last thing Bill thought of as he fell asleep was
Heilemann--Heilemann and Halifax--

The next morning Bill Saunders was walking down the road to catch the
car to Cologne, with a gnawing headache and a mouth so unpleasant that
he could not bear to think what it reminded him of, when he met a column
of English prisoners of war being marched to work in the fields. He
stepped off the pavement onto the muddy little path alongside, and stood
to watch them go by, thinking mainly of what he would give for several
cups of strong hot coffee, when a face in the line of marching men
attracted his attention. He recognized it; though much changed, it was
yet familiar; it was Dixon Ogilvie's.

Dixon Ogilvie was bent at the shoulders, his hair was more unkempt than
ever and he was not recently shaved. Moreover, his walk, which, though
athletic, was never soldierly, was now almost shambling.

Bill Saunders almost forgot about his headache and the foul taste in his
mouth as he sat in the car for Cologne.




CHAPTER 11


"Heilemann," said Tommy Hambledon, "I think you'd better go to London
and tell them about this; it's either a trap or very important. I smell
a trap, I can't see von Bodenheim letting out a thing like that
accidentally, and yet--and yet--to lecture somebody about being careless
and immediately do something damn silly yourself is exactly the kind of
thing that happens. If you'd ever been a schoolmaster you'd know.
Besides, I thought the Hindenburg Line story was a trap and it wasn't;
we missed that and it was my fault. If Reck had sent it out the night
before it might have got through. However, it's no good crying over
unspilt beans."

"When shall I go," asked Bill, "tomorrow? I must see von Bodenheim
before I start."

Hambledon took a turn or two up and down the office.

"No," he said at last, "not too precipitately, I think. I should think
Heilemann would rest on his laurels for a bit after practically
destroying the port of Halifax, and if you rush off at once, von
Bodenheim may ask himself why, and himself may answer with a sudden
recollection of having mentioned the name of Heilemann, after which he
might lose his boyish faith in you, and that would be fatal--especially
for you."

"I think he was fairly well stewed at the time," said Bill.

"But not so stewed as you became afterwards, eh? Take some aspirin."

"Thanks, my head is better now. By the way, I believe I saw Dixon
Ogilvie in a batch of English prisoners this morning at Thielenbruck."

"Oh, really? Then he wasn't killed after all. I'm glad--very glad. How
did he look?"

"Not very well. A lot older and very tired."

"Poor lad. Still, he's lucky to be alive."

"Couldn't we do anything for him?"

"Get him out, do you mean? Don't be a fool," said Hambledon
energetically. "Will you realize that what we're doing is ten thousand
times more important than the life of any man, including our own? You
cannot risk your position here by meddling with a prisoner, not even if
he were your twin brother. Get the idea right out of your head. It can't
be done. I'm sorry."

"You're right, of course."

"Today is Friday. I think you might go on Tuesday, and, what is more, I
think that I, Hendrik Brandt, will send you to England to arrange for
some gasoline to reach Holland. Tell von Bodenheim that. What is still
more, you are due for leave, Private Saunders of the Hampshire Regiment,
and don't forget you have been in the trenches all this time."

"Leave?" cried Bill. "Real leave? Ten days' leave all at once, and can I
go home? Why, that will take me over Christmas. Do you know," he added
wonderingly, "I had somehow forgotten about Christmas."

"This is a hell of a life," said Tommy Hambledon, and patted the boy's
shoulder. "And when you're back in Weatherley Parva among the downs,
where you know personally every single soul you meet, and people are
packing up mysterious parcels, and the village children sing carols on
your doorstep, and the Christmas bells are ringing for the Prince of
Peace, remember that every little household in Germany will be keeping
Christmas too. Blast you," said Hambledon, blowing his nose irritably,
"why did you start that? Go and enter up the ledger, and if I find you
adding up on your fingers, Heaven help you."

Bill put in a couple of hours at office work and then wrote two letters
which would be taken to Holland that night and thence to France, to be
posted in the British Expeditionary Force in the usual manner, as all
his previous letters had been. One letter was to his uncle announcing
his return on leave, and the other was to Diane Causton. He had been
writing regularly to her ever since he came abroad, stilted boyish
letters beginning: "Dear Diane," rendered all the more stilted because
he always had to write about life in the trenches when he had almost
forgotten what it was like, and describe events of which he had only
heard. Now for once he could leave these lies and write from his heart.

    2nd Batt. The Hampshire Rgt.    Fri., Dec. 14, 1917
    Somewhere in France
    Darling,

    Leave, leave at last, I'm coming home for ten whole days. Isn't
    it spiffing? And I'll be there for Christmas too.

    We'll see _Maid of the Mountains_ and _Dear Brutus_ and--well,
    I've lots of other plans.

    Can you get away from your Picks and Scots, sorry, shovels, and
    come down to W.P. for a week at least, if not for ten days? Do
    try. My papers will be through orderly room in two days, in
    another three I'll be home. Five days today and I'll be able to
    have a bath just when I want one.

    Are you sure you won't mind being seen about with an infantry
    private? Because I believe there is an order out now that we
    must not wear civilian clothes, but we'll see.

    Have been lucky and scored a green envelope, so this won't be
    censored by my C.O.

    So I can say:

    I love you, love you like hell, Diane. Will you marry me when I
    get to Blighty?

    All my love, all my kisses,
    All yours,
    Bill

Bill Saunders arrived at Victoria Station on the evening of Wednesday,
December 19, 1917, in the uniform of a private in the Hampshire
Regiment, suitably muddy. As he walked up the platform he could see,
beyond the barriers, a crowd of women waiting, with eager hungry eyes
scanning the faces of the men as they streamed out, and one by one
coming forward to greet her share of the Great War, but some there were
who went home again alone. It was curious to notice, as he had learned
to notice things, that many of them forgot completely how public a place
this was, and there would be ecstatic cries of "Oh, darling," or little
inarticulate murmurs, though some in the true English tradition shook
hands formally, with: "Hullo, George! How well you're looking!" as
though George had just returned from a week in the country. Not
expecting to be met, he walked slowly along with the stream, when
someone touched his arm with a breathless: "Oh, Bill--"

"Diane!" he said, and seized her hands. They stood looking incredulously
at each other and impeding the passage of others while for Bill the dead
face of Amtenbrink, von Bodenheim's eagle look, the roar and terror of a
frontal attack, fell together into oblivion--for a time.

"C-come on," he said, stammering a little, "let's get a taxi," and they
walked out into the icy air and gathering, drifting fog. But there were
no taxis to be had--at least, not for a muddy infantry private--and
Diane said: "Are you tired? No? Let's walk on, perhaps we'll pick one
up."

So they went along Victoria Street, hand in hand, and looked in the
windows of a furniture-shop.

"I like that chair, don't you?" said Diane.

"No," said Bill, "it isn't big enough for two. How did you know which
train I was coming by?"

"I didn't. I met them all until you came."

"Darling!" in a tone of voice which drew the sympathetic attention of
two typists, an office charwoman, and an elderly postman, but Bill did
not care. "Wasn't that pretty beastly for you?"

"No. It would have been if you hadn't come. Here's the Army and Navy,
where are we going?"

"Does it matter?"

"No, unless you're hungry. When did you last have something to eat?"

"Oh, I don't know. Why?"

"Because there's the restaurant where I lunch every day just opposite;
the girl who runs it is a friend of mine."

"In that basement? All right, let's go. Will there be many people
there?" asked Bill.

This being their night, it was Kismet that the place should be empty, so
they sank into a soft blue settee in a far corner, and the tall
golden-haired proprietress nobly concealed the fact that she had been
hoping to get away early, and made them welcome. Omelets, yes, and
grilled kidneys, and something sweet, and cheese. Can do. Something to
drink? Wine, possibly? She could send out for it. Can do, no, no
trouble. She smiled and tactfully disappeared.

"She's a darling," said Diane.

"This is where I kiss you," said Bill, disregarding this childish
irrelevance.

Presently Diane's friend returned, singing lightheartedly before yet she
came in sight, and put out spoons and forks. So Diane said: "I've got
ten days' leave, too."

"Splendid," said Bill. "How did you manage it?"

"Oh, urgent private affairs. Of course I forfeit my pay."

"Am I an urgent private affair?"

"Aren't you?"

They were alone for a moment, so Bill said: "I'm going to be your very
public affair soon; do you realize that in three days--today's
Wednesday, that's Saturday--we shall be married?"

The omelets arrived, but Diane was so busy gaping speechlessly at Bill
that she did not even notice them.

"Come on," said the incredible young man, "this looks good," but Diane
had a mind above omelets.

"But I can't marry you on Saturday," she began.

"Why not? I asked you to in my letter, didn't I?"

"But I didn't think you meant it."

"And then you met me at Victoria; that shows we're engaged. Only engaged
people meet leave-trains, besides wives of course. Next time you'll be a
wife."

"But--"

"Eat your omelet, then you'll feel stronger. There's a good girl,
nothing like starting as you mean to go on. Love, honour, and obey--"

"But I've nothing to wear," said poor Diane, with her mouth full of
obligatory omelet.

"That thing you've got on looks very nice," he said, critically
regarding the fur cap and high collar which 1917 considered Russian.

"Oh, this old thing," said she who was wearing it for the second time.

"To return to this marriage business, I travelled over with a padre and
got the dope from him. You can get a special licence, which costs
twenty-five pounds or so, but it isn't easy to get; apparently you have
to apply to the Archbishop of Canterbury in person, entering the
Presence on hands and knees--I may have got it wrong, but that's the
impression received--and give your reasons for urgency in triplicate."

"But there aren't any."

"Yes, there are."

"What are they? We've got plenty of time."

"Oh, have we?" he said, and stared into her eyes till she shrank back
into the corner.

"Please don't," she faltered. "Why do you look like that?"

"Like what?"

"I don't know. I saw something horrible behind your eyes."

"You poor little kid. I am so sorry--I have seen some rather awful
things, but don't draw back like that, please. Please don't, it hurts
me."

"Oh, Bill darling," she said, and laid her hands on his.

"Please don't be afraid of me, I can't bear it. There's nothing for you
to be afraid of."

"I am not. I was startled for the moment, that's all. I'll never be
afraid again."

"I hope not," he said doubtfully.

"Never again. Look, I'll prove it. When do you want to marry me? On
Saturday? All right, I'll marry you on Saturday. It's mad, I know, but
I'll do it," said Diane, and she laughed and kissed him.

"'If I were the only girl in the world,'" sang the proprietress
cheerfully, "'and you were the only boy--' Grilled kidneys we said,
didn't we?"

"'And the morning stars sang together,'" said Bill wildly. "Good
evening, morning star. What does that remind me of? I know, a hat-stand.
Have you a hat-stand?"

"Yes," said the lady swiftly, "also the umbrella of the gardener's aunt;
it has a white china knob on the end of each spoke."

"I know, angel," said Bill, "she sits and sucks them alternately during
the sermon."

"Why 'alternately'?" asked Diane, holding her head.

"Alternately with the sexton's nephew, sweetheart," explained Bill
kindly.

"Why so ecclesiastical, if it is not tactless to inquire?"

"Because we're going to be married on Saturday," said Bill and Diane,
precisely together.

"Heaven bless you, may you always be so unanimous," said Diane's friend
with enthusiasm.

"Have a pinch of salt," said Bill sardonically.

"Darling, have some wine," said Diane.

"I didn't know you were even engaged," said the lady of the restaurant.

"I wasn't," said Diane, dimpling.

"Then how are you going to manage it so quickly?"

"The lecture will now be resumed," said Bill. "I have already addressed
the class on the subject of special licences; let us now turn our
attention to the ordinary licence. This is obtainable from any surrogate
upon payment of a fee of two pun' ten or thereabouts, and takes only
three days to mature, as opposed to marriage by banns, which is cheaper
still but takes three weeks and is therefore out of the question in our
case. Tonight we are going to Weatherley Parva, and tomorrow morning
early I am going out to find the nearest surrogate."

"A very popular form of sport for men on leave, I understand," said the
golden-haired lady, "hunting the surrogate."

"I dare say," said Bill. "How does one begin? Ask a policeman?"

"Or the local vicar, perhaps?"

"He's my uncle," said Diane. "Oh! I hadn't thought. What will my people
say?"

"I'm very much afraid," said Bill, "that we shan't have time to listen
just now. How old are you, Diane?"

"Nearly twenty-one."

"From the mere fact of being in the army, I am of age--at least, so I
understand," said Bill, who was eighteen, "but just in case of trouble I
think we had both better be quite twenty-one; do you mind, my bird of
paradise?"

"No, my prize Pekingese," said Diane in a tone of affected submission.

"Do you mean to say," said Diane's friend with real concern, "that you
are going to rush off and get married without either of you telling your
people? If Diane's under age, I doubt if it will be legal."

"It will be legal all right unless her people make a fuss, and I don't
believe they will," said Bill. "I mean, perhaps if they took it to all
sorts of courts they might get the marriage annulled, but why should
they? Are you a great heiress, Diane, or anything awful like that?"

"No," said Diane decidedly. "I come into about two hundred a year in
March when I'm twenty-one; that's all I shall ever have."

"Splendid," said Bill heartily. "You'll be able to buy me presents
without asking me for the money."

"But do Colonel and Mrs. Causton like you?"

"They haven't had a chance yet."

"Do you mean--?"

"They've never seen Bill yet, but they're sure to like him," said Diane
confidently.

"It's your own affair, of course, but I do think you're a little mad,"
said the business woman of the party.

"If the rest of the world is sane," said Bill grimly, "I think we are
better mad. If it's mad to want a little happiness between long
stretches of hell, I am. If it's mad to want love instead of hatred--"
he paused, and the bitterness died out of his face to be replaced by
wistfulness--"I want someone I can come back to out of all the
beastliness of life, as a man comes home; I want someone I can trust and
who will trust me, someone who'll never lie to me and who'll believe me
when no one else does, someone who'll show me how to live when I have
only learned to die, Diane, my garden enclosed--"

"God helping me," said Diane solemnly, "I will not fail you."

                 *        *        *        *        *

Bill woke up early the next morning in his uncle's house at Weatherley
Parva. He had that frightful stab of conscience that comes when a
forgotten duty recalls itself suddenly to mind. Diane had met him at
Victoria, and he had completely forgotten to go anywhere near the War
Office. He must go at once, by the first available train; he would
dress, shave, get some breakfast, borrow somebody's bicycle, and ride to
Weatherley.

He woke up rather more thoroughly and calmed down somewhat. There was
not this frenzied haste, he had no appointment at the War Office,
probably they did not even know which day he was arriving, it would do
perfectly well if he went up in the afternoon, or even the next day, for
today he was going to find a surrogate. He turned over and tried to
think of Diane and go to sleep again.

Heilemann, who blew up a ship loaded with munitions and, with it, much
of the port of Halifax. The death roll must have been heavy. He must
have been pleased with himself when he pulled that off, any man would
be; probably he was well away somewhere in the hills behind the town, if
there are hills behind Halifax, with a watch in his hand waiting. And
presently there would be a flash in the sky, a series of flashes, and
after that a loud bang and the roar of subsequent explosions. "Well,
that went off all right," he would say to himself. "Now I'll just run
over and see if I can't worry Montreal."

Bill sat up in bed, struck a match, and looked at his watch. It was half
past six and a bitterly cold morning. He thumped his pillow and cuddled
down again. Diane. Today was Thursday, tomorrow Friday, and on Saturday
Diane would be his wife, dear lovely Diane, and he would never be all
alone in the world any more with her to return to after his journeys.
When a man lives the uneasy life of an Intelligence agent he must have
some peace to retire to now and then, or his nerves would never stand
it. Even if one were continually as successful as Heilemann, one would
want peace. He wondered if there were a Mrs. Heilemann, and if so how
much he told her. Nothing at all, probably. He would say: "I've just got
to run over to Montreal, my dear, to see a man about a dog," and she
would believe it--would she? She'd have to. He couldn't say: "I shall be
away about a week, my dear; get your mother to stay with you. No,
nothing interesting, I'm only going to blow up Montreal."

Bill sat up, drank some water, and huddled under the bedclothes again.
Diane with the little curls on her white neck, and those awful solemn
promises in the marriage service--the marriage service, he must read it
up. Who was it said that it began with "Dearly beloved" and ended with
"amazement"? Diane was dearly beloved all right, and they would leave
the amazement to the people of Halifax, and perhaps Montreal
too--Montreal, or possibly Quebec. It stood to reason a man wouldn't be
content with one success like that; he would try to pull off another,
naturally; somebody ought to stop him before he had time to do anything
more. Probably he was planning something now, and it might take some
time to trace him--already it might be too late.

Bill groaned dismally and rolled out of bed into the cold as the landing
clock struck seven. He dressed and went downstairs to find the kitchen
fire alight and the kettle already singing, so he persuaded the cook to
give him tea and bread and butter, and wrote a note to Diane while he
was waiting for it.

    Darling, frightfully sorry to leave you alone all day. Must run
    up to town. See you tonight, darling.

    All my love,
    Bill

He left a message for his aunt and called at the gardener's cottage to
borrow a bicycle for the run to Weatherley Station, and to get the man
to deliver the note at the vicarage. He would not take it there himself,
though he passed the gate, for fear Diane would see him and want to
argue or still worse, come with him, since it was imperative that she
should not know he was going to the War Office. Her father was a
colonel; she must know that ordinary privates do not pay calls at the
War Office even in war-time, and if she started asking questions there
was no telling where it would end.

He saw the same man at the War Office whom he had always seen before,
and poured out his tale about Heilemann. "It may be a trap," he
concluded. "Hambledon thinks so, but he didn't hear the natural way it
slipped out. Even if it is, we thought--"

"Even if it is," said his attentive listener, "we must prove that it is
before we disregard it. I will have Mr. Heilemann looked up at
once--today, in fact. It is now--" he looked at his watch--"about seven
a.m. in Halifax; they will have all day to look for him and I hope they
find him. You are on leave, are you not? When do you return?"

"On the 29th; privates of infantry only get ten days," said Bill with a
grin.

"Quite, quite; something might be done about that, but I shall want to
see you before you go back. There may be some news from Halifax by then,
and in any case there is a man named Denton whom I want you to meet.
Where are you staying?"

Bill told him, but added: "I don't propose to stay there all the time. I
was thinking of picking up a car somewhere and touring in the West
Country with a friend, but I understand petrol is a difficulty."

"The labourer is worthy of his hire," said the man. "I will see that you
have a petrol ration card for an adequate quantity, it shall reach you
tomorrow, and I hope you'll have a pleasant trip. I suppose you are not
staying at any one definite place? No? Then I should be glad if you
would telephone the department at least every other evening between
seven and nine. I trust there will be no occasion, but one is never sure
and I want to make an appointment for you to meet Denton here. Is there
anything else I can do for you?"

"Thank you, I don't think so," said Bill, turning down the idea of
asking the way to the nearest surrogate. "They must be pleased with me,"
he thought as he walked along the now familiar passages. "'Anything else
I can do for you?' Wow!"

He found a surrogate by the simple process of asking advice at the first
church he came to, and arranged for the marriage of Michael Kingston and
Diane Mary Causton at ten thirty a.m. on Saturday.

Next morning at ten he waited for Diane in the Green Lane, which was a
disused road of prehistoric antiquity, sunk ten feet below the level of
the adjoining fields and completely overarched by trees. It was as
private as anyone could wish since no one ever passed that way but
labourers going to work.

Presently she came in a sudden gleam of winter sunshine, walking
gracefully and smoothly even along the treacherous concealed ruts of the
track, and he went to meet her. All was well while he poured out his
story: "I just walked into St. Martin's and said: 'What about it?'" and
the marriage at her parish church in London on Saturday morning, and the
car and the driving licence and the gasoline ration book--"a man I know
is going to wangle it for me, it'll probably come by the second post, so
we'll pick up the car in town and just clear off somewhere, just us two
alone, Diane."

She was loving and appreciative and her words were all that could be
desired, but there was a faint chill in her manner which did not escape
his notice.

"Anything the matter, sweetheart?"

"No," she said hesitantly.

"There is. Have I annoyed you in any way? Tell me."

She put her hands on his shoulders and said: "Why did you go off all by
yourself yesterday and leave me here? I would have loved to go with you
and see the parson and find the car; I was upset when I got your note."

"Sorry, darling. I'm afraid I'm rather like that; you see, I'm used to
going about by myself."

"In the army, darling?"

"Well, not on duty, naturally, but when you're resting and you get any
time off, you like to get away. You see, when the company is not very
congenial, it's nice to be alone when you can. I always liked being
alone a good deal," he added truthfully.

"It seemed such a waste of a whole day."

"Sorry, darling. You see, I woke up early and thought about things, and
it seemed a much better idea to hare up to town and see the parson chap
there than to start making inquiries locally. You know what villages
are. So I hopped out of bed, got some tea from cook, and caught the
eight fifteen."

"I see."

"Not quite satisfied yet, angel?"

"Yes, dear, of course. But--don't leave me any more than you can help,
will you?"

                 *        *        *        *        *

Bill never remembered very much about the wedding, there was a sort of
emotional haze over the whole proceedings from the time he kept Diane
waiting while he changed into civilian clothes at Waterloo till the
moment when, after sending brief but startling telegrams to their
respective relations, he found himself driving down Hammersmith
Broadway.

Towards evening, when it was getting dark, they neared Devizes. Bill
said it was nearly time they made up their minds where they were going
to stay the night, and Diane agreed.

Bill said he had never been to this place before and Diane said that
that, too, was the case with her.

Bill said that though it seemed almost sacrilegious to refer to such a
mundane matter upon a day so sublime as one's wedding-day, he,
personally, was hungry, and Diane admitted that in spite of an excellent
lunch and a passable tea she also was human.

"We do agree nicely together, don't we?" said Bill.

"Just made for each other," she said.

They drew near the Bear at Devizes, pulled up the car and looked at it.

"Passable pub," said Bill.

"It's a lovely old place," said Diane, and there was a pause till Bill
said, "Well, what about it?"

"What, dear?" asked Diane innocently.

"Do you think it'll do?"

"It looks comfortable."

"Wonder if they've got any rooms vacant," he said in a detached manner.

"One might ask," suggested his wife.

"You go and ask them," urged Bill, with the paralytic shyness
characteristic of a man on his honeymoon.

"No, you go."

"No, you go, then you can see if you like it."

"I'd rather you went."

"Woman, did I hear you promise to obey me this morning?"

"You didn't look as though you did."

"Oh, didn't I?" said Bill, very interested. "What did I look like?"

"You looked as though you were thinking of something else."

"Come to think of it, I was."

"What were you thinking of, my sweet?"

"Cold pickled pork," said her sweet with a burst of fearful frankness.

"Heavens! Why?"

"It takes your mind off," explained Bill, quoting Hambledon.

"Did it want taking off?"

"My girl," he said grimly, "if you knew what an awful ordeal marriage
is--"

"But I do."

"I suppose you do," he said, regarding her with an air of surprise.

"Goose, darling."

"Gander, surely?"

"Both. Are we going to sit here all night?"

"I shouldn't mind," he said, laying an arm along the back of her seat.
"I'm very comfortable."

"It might get a little chilly towards morning, don't you think?" she
said. "Look at the icicles down that water-pipe."

"So annoying if the police kept moving us on, too. Right. You hop in and
get a room while I take the bus round to the garage and get the luggage
out."

"All right," she said, and went up the steps.

Bill drove into the yard and found there a retired ostler with legs of
the characteristic curve, who opened for him the doors of a vast
coach-house at present occupied by a trap leaning on its shafts and a
model-T Ford with brass fittings. Bill put the car away and got out
their two suitcases, which had been the subject of much careful strategy
at their respective homes that morning, and the ostler took them from
him and preceded him across the yard; but at the sight of the entrance
door waiting to receive him into a new life of theoretical bliss, Bill
shied like a startled deer. Inside that door somewhere was Diane, his
wife, so he would never be really alone any more, and he suddenly
remembered that he liked being alone. Besides, people would look at them
and say within themselves: "Ha! Newly married!" Barmen and waiters would
smile covertly, housemaids would titter in passages, and it would all be
too dreadful for words. He went suddenly sideways across the yard
towards the gate and came to a dead stop when he realized that he was
almost bolting. Got to go through with it now, all his own fault, would
get married and now he was trapped--

"Forgotten something, sir?" said the ostler, pausing.

"Oh, ah, no--yes, that is, shouldn't we shut the garage doors?"

"I'll see to that, sir," said the man, and moved on.

Bill realized that there was nothing to be gained by continuing to stand
on one embarrassed leg in the middle of a cobbled stableyard in the
frosty air, so he put down the other foot, which did not appear to
belong to him, clenched his hands, and stumbled after the ostler.

They entered the door, went down a passage, and entered the hall, where
Diane was waiting for him. Nearer him was a lady sitting in a basket
chair and reading a paper; on her lap was a Pekingese. Bill tripped over
nothing in particular, probably his own feet, flung out his hand, and
hit the gong, which responded, and the dog got up and barked.

"Quiet, Ferdinand," said the lady.

Diane turned gracefully to meet him and observed his flushed face and
shortened breath. "Darling," she said kindly, "have you been running?"

After which things became a merciful blank to him till he found himself
with Diane in a large bedroom, presumably upstairs, with the porter
carrying in their luggage.

"Shall I draw the blinds, sir?"

"Please," said Bill, remaining near the door.

"See this, sir?"

"What's that?" asked Bill, without moving, but Diane went to the window
to see what the man was showing them.

"It's something scratched on the glass," she said. "It's difficult to
see by this light. I can read it, it says: 'John Blome merchant
Carmarthen on his way from London to Bath and Bristol for execution
February 23rd, 1766.' Come and look, Bill."

"I'll see it by daylight," he said. "Cheer up, he'd have been dead by
now anyway. Draw the blinds, will you?" he added to the porter. "And
send me up a double Haig and Haig, will you?"

"Certainly, sir," said the man, but Diane said: "Will you have it in
here, dear?"

"Of course not," he said. "What am I thinking of? We'll go down. Come
on."

Diane paused, looked at him uncertainly, and said: "I'll just tidy my
hair."

"Right. I'll meet you in the lounge. Is there a lounge?"

"Certainly, sir, down the stairs and across the hall to the right."

"Good," said Bill, and turned to go, but Diane called him, and the
porter went out, shutting the door after him.

"Don't you like this room, darling?"

"Of course I do," he said, looking round. "It's a very nice room."

"You seemed as though you didn't want to come into it."

"I don't like lighted windows without blinds."

"How funny of you! Why?"

"Oh, I don't know. I just don't."

Diane came across the room to him, still standing near the door, took
his hand and said: "Shall we change the room, darling, if you don't like
it?"

"No, it's all right. I don't like the wallpaper, but that's not really
important."

"Oh, don't you? I think it's rather pretty, all roses. Why did you
shiver?"

"Grey goose, old thing, that's all, and we can easily abolish the
wallpaper--thus." He switched out the light, opened the door, and said:
"The time has come."

"What for?"

"Sherry, my angel, come on downstairs." As they entered the lounge, he
said: "By the way, did I buy you a wedding ring?"

"Of course you did, Bill darling, this morning."

"Odd, I can't remember doing so. Sherry for you," but she noticed that
his was whisky.

"Happy days," he said, and smiled at her over the rim of the glass, his
blue eyes on hers, and suddenly it did not matter any more if he drove
recklessly and was moody one minute and laughing the next, and left her
without warning or apology, so long as he remained just Bill and went on
wanting her.

"Bill--"

"What is it?"

"You do belong to me, don't you?"

"Do I?" His face changed and hardened and became suddenly years older.
"I don't think anybody belongs to anybody else," he said slowly.

"Bill darling, don't look like that."

"Like what?"

"So like a stranger."

"Do I?"

Diane's eyes filled with tears and he noticed it. He sat beside her and
took her hand.

"Listen, darling. You're such a kid, I don't know how to explain, but
we're supposed to be about the same age, aren't we? Well, we're not.
I've been at the war--what--fifteen months now; that means I'm fifteen
years older than you. I've seen things and done things I'll never tell
you about, and perhaps you'll come across things you don't understand
about me which I shan't be able to explain, and to that extent I am a
stranger. It isn't my fault. Try just to love me and trust me, Diane,
won't you? I'll try my best to make you happy, but I can't belong to
anybody or anything, Diane, except perhaps--" he stopped, and suddenly
the memory came back of Dixon Ogilvie on the downs one moonlight night,
talking of the things a man is bound to.

"What, darling?"

"'O peaceful England,'" he quoted beneath his breath, and to that she
found no answer.




CHAPTER 12


They stayed on at the Bear, since, contrary to Bill's fears, the people
were not unbearably sympathetic and, indeed, did not seem in the least
interested in how long they had been married, which may have been either
preoccupation or the height of tact. They walked, made excursions in the
car, kept Christmas together, made friends with people, and were
absurdly happy considering it was war-time and Bill had ten days'
leave--a fragile happiness like fine glass which might break at any
moment and cut to the bone the hands which held it.

The days went on to Thursday, the 28th, and Bill did not say a word
about returning, till in the evening Diane, very white about the
nostrils but with chin well up, said: "Is this our last day, darling?"

"What?" asked Bill from the depths of an armchair.

Diane repeated her question.

"Oh, I shouldn't think so," he said, remembering certain telephone
conversations with the War Office of which he had not told Diane. "I'll
ring up the army and ask for a few days extra."

The daughter of Colonel Causton was horrified.

"But, darling, an escort will come and you'll be arrested."

Bill laughed.

"It's no laughing matter, Bill, overstaying your leave. Heaven knows I
wish it could last for ever, but I know, perhaps better than you do,
what happens."

"I know, 'when I was at Cawnpore in '88--'"

"Bill dear, really-"

At that moment a waiter came in and said: "You are wanted on the
telephone, sir; the War Office."

"What?" gasped Diane, but Bill, uttering words that sounded curiously
like "Blasted idiots," had already left the room. When he came back he
said casually: "That's all right, precious. We have to go to town
tomorrow if you don't mind, and I'll go and see a man and try to wangle
a few days' extra leave."

"But why did the War Office ring you up?"

"To tell me to report tomorrow, old thing."

"But how did they know you were here?"

"Because I rang them up the evening we arrived. You see," said Bill,
improvising brilliantly, "war-time isn't like peace-time, we never know
from day to day what may happen. So every soldier who goes on leave has
to let the authorities know where he can be found all the time, in case
they want to recall him."

"I see," she said. "You didn't tell me that before."

"Would you have been happy if you'd known I might be called back at any
moment?"

"No," she said. "It was sweet of you not to tell me."

"It is your husband's duty to protect you," he said solemnly.

He left Diane at a hotel in Kensington the following afternoon and went
to the familiar room at the War Office.

"I did not wish to disturb your leave with business," said the officer
in charge, "but in point of fact we gathered in Heilemann the same day
that you told us about him."

"Good work."

"Oh, there was no difficulty about it; apparently he is a well-known and
respected tradesman of Halifax whose family have lived there for three
generations and who, although he has a German name, was never suspected
of German sympathies."

"Are they sure he's the right man?"

"I think so. You see," he added significantly, "he was a gunsmith."

"With access to explosives!"

"Quite. There is no other proof of his having done it, so of course
nothing much will happen to him; we shall only intern him with, perhaps,
a little extra care and attention. There is another little matter which
I wanted to discuss with you. You remember on a previous occasion asking
me if I had heard anything about some new hydrogen pressure valves for
the Zepps? I made inquiries, and you were right. The Zepp's climbing
performance and ceiling is now something quite remarkable, and they have
got four of the newest Zepps fitted with this device in the sheds at
Ahlhorn. There is also a Schutte-Lanz there."

"It almost seems," said Bill thoughtfully, "as though something ought to
be done about it."

"If something effective were done about it, it would be--not to beat
about the bush--it would be one of the finest deeds of the war, and one
of the most useful."

"Hydrogen is highly inflammable, if I remember my chem lessons
correctly," said Bill, with a slow smile spreading over his face.

"Have you heard of the Pomeroy bullet?" asked the War Office man.
"Phosphorus and fish-hooks, roughly speaking. Perhaps you also recall
the chemical properties of phosphorus?"

A messenger came in and laid a buff slip on the desk and the officer
looked at it. "Bring him up, please." Bill got up from his chair and
began to walk about the room.

"I should like to brood over this for a while," he said. "If Hambledon
and I brood together, we might hatch out something."

"Carry on, I leave it to you. This fellow who is coming up now is the
man Denton of whom I spoke. He is going back to Germany shortly and I
want you to meet him, as you might find it convenient to work with him
some day. He is a queer bird, but has done one or two quite useful
things; he may turn out to be quite good. He is going to Mainz."

The door opened and there entered a tall young man with an air of
fatigue, a very smart uniform, wonderful boots, and a hat with a crown
of the utmost floppiness such as was firmly discouraged in army orders.
Nevertheless he wore it, even at the War Office, nor did anyone reproach
him, for that was the sort of man he was. He greeted the man at the
desk, sank into Bill's chair, and said: "Really, your passages get
longer and harder every time I toil along them. If we win the war, will
you have cork linoleum laid down?"

"I doubt it," said the War Office man. "Denton, this is Saunders from
Cologne."

Denton uncoiled himself, greeted Bill, and said: "Have I pinched your
chair?"

"No," said Bill with more politeness than truth. "I was walking about,
thinking."

"When I think," said Denton, "I have to lie down and close my eyes."

"Well," said their senior, "how did you get on on your last trip? Don't
go, Saunders."

Denton gave an account of various routine activities in the Lbeck
district. "Very boring, all that office work," he added. "I wouldn't
have believed how soon the thrill of being a dangerous enemy alien with
death waiting for you behind every door, so to speak, wears off. The
only excitement was tracking down the cholera fiend."

"Eh?" said Bill, who had only been half listening, with the other half
of his mind engaged with the Zeppelin sheds at Ahlhorn. "What was that
you said?"

"Feller who got the brain-wave about dropping cholera germs into
London's drinking-water. It seems that if you just chuck the bugs in
loose, as it were, they float on the surface, catch pneumonia, and die.
They want to get away down to the bottom where there's no draught and a
nice lot of green slime and what-not. So this feller thought up a scheme
for growing germs on small squares of linen, weighting 'em with a few
split shot, and enclosing 'em in a soluble container. Drop container in
reservoir, it dissolves, little linen square reaches bottom, and bugs
resume active family life. So simple."

"Who was this?" asked Bill, who had gone very white.

"Funny old boy called Rdesheim at Lbeck. So we disposed of him and
burned his lab. Quite a number of eminent professors snuffed it about
then--five, to be exact. He had a list of his coadjutors in crime, so
they were mopped up. Here's the list, I souvenired it."

He threw it down on the table and Bill picked it up. One of the entries
ran: "Amtenbrink, refuses."

"Amtenbrink, refuses," read Bill in a harsh voice. "My God, and we
killed him."

The other two men looked at him.

"He said he was growing cultures of mildew to cure his roses, and
Hambledon didn't believe him, so he died."

"If he'd been a few years younger," said Denton, "he'd probably have
died much sooner and far less comfortably."

"There is this to be remembered," said the War Office man in quiet
tones. "He knew all about it, he had been approached--"

"Yes," said Bill, "he said so himself."

"Quite. So when all the others died off, authority would have put the
screw on him to take on the job whether he liked it or not, so it is
even possible he is grateful to you, since there are some things a
decent man will rather die than do."

There was a brief silence, after which Bill said: "Thank you. I will
remember that."

"You would like a few days' extra leave, of course. You can have--"

"Thank you," interrupted Bill, "I would rather not, I think. I will go
back tonight--no, tomorrow, if I may. About Hambledon's petrol?"

"That has been arranged. Just a moment." The officer rang a bell and
gave a serial number to the clerk who answered it. The man went away and
returned with a file in a stout paper cover with brass tags dangling
from it. The officer extracted a couple of letters and gave them to
Bill, who stowed them away in his wallet, and the clerk, who had waited
for the file, took it away again. "We don't leave things lying about,
you notice," said the officer. "Of all the government departments, we
are the tidiest."

"Keep it up," said Denton with a yawn, "and we may all live to be
grandfathers yet."

Bill arrived back in Cologne two and a half days later, and found Tommy
Hambledon in his office, smoking a thin black cigar and talking on the
telephone about gasoline to someone whom he called "Excellenz." Bill
realized the moment's need and handed him in silence the two letters he
had brought from the War Office. Hambledon continued: "I was this moment
telling Your Excellency that I expected news of the ship today. The news
has this moment reached me. The tanker will arrive--" and so on. Bill
strolled across to the window and looked idly out upon the people
passing up and down the busy Hhestrasse. Frau and the elder Frulein
Bluehm, with shopping-bags, not very full. Jacob, the head waiter at the
Caf Palant, emerging from its doors on his way home for the afternoon's
rest before the long evening began. Reck, the science master at Mlheim
school, with his mackintosh pockets bulging with papers. Soldiers on
leave, strolling along and staring in the shop windows. A boy on a
bicycle who caught one of his front-wheel rim-springs in a badly fitting
manhole cover and came a terrific purler accompanied by a bottle of milk
and a small bag of potatoes, which shot all over the road; he had
springs round the rim of his front wheel to take the place of the
unobtainable tire. A little girl eating an apple.

Hambledon put the receiver down and said: "I'm glad to see you back.
Have a good leave, and how's Weatherley Parva?"

"Quite good, thanks. Beastly cold, of course, but no worse than it is
here. Weatherley Parva is much the same as usual. I had lunch at the
vicarage, and all that. I went to the War Office the day before I came
back. They have got Heilemann, he's a gunsmith in Halifax. The really
important thing is about the Zepps." Bill repeated what had been said,
and added: "It seems simple enough if only one could get in there.
Phosphorus bursts into flame when it is exposed to the atmosphere,
doesn't it? Reck will know."

"Yes, Reck will help us, but you must have some sort of official
sanction to get to Ahlhorn."

"We shall have to think up a scheme for obtaining official sanction,
then."

"If you could get some sort of job there," said Hambledon, "the thing's
as good as done. But you can bet your last halfpenny that every man
engaged there is as well-authenticated as Kaiser Bill. Have a drink,
there's some rather good sherry in the cupboard."

"Thanks, I will," said Bill, and got it out. "But I am not any sort of
an expert on any branch of Zepp construction, and this isn't a case
where bluff would have a snowflake's chance in Hades."

"No. It will have to be something you can do. What could a little
importer do to help the Graf von Zeppelin?"

"Sell him some winter underwear?"

"Less promising schemes have succeeded," said Hambledon. "Some
brain-wave may flood our minds presently. Anything else?"

"I met a long lad named Denton who is coming to Mainz. Authority thought
it might be useful if we knew each other. He has been in Germany quite
recently, at Lbeck, I believe."

"What's the matter?" asked Hambledon, watching Bill's face.

"Oh, nothing. Only he, or his little lot, found the real professor of
the cholera scheme--if life were more like the books we should call it
the C. Plan, shouldn't we?"

"Please go on," said Hambledon, and Bill told him. Hambledon listened
without interruption, then "Amtenbrink, God rest his soul," he said,
lifted his glass, made a little sign with it, and drank.

"Another mistake on my part," he went on. "It seems to be time I went
home and took up breeding white mice."

Bill repeated the War Office man's words of consolation, and Hambledon
said: "That may be true, I hope it is. But I still think that on the
evidence--however, it's no good harping on it, let it go. Now, about
these Zeppelins--"

Much later that evening Bill rang up von Bodenheim to announce his
return with something to report, and was asked to go to the house in the
Blumenthalstrasse forthwith, so he went there and was very cordially
received.

"What I really wanted to tell you," said Dirk Brandt of the German
Intelligence, after various items of news had been told, "was about an
odd thing which happened on my last night in London. This English
officer whom I made friends with at the Southampton hotel I was telling
you about arranged to meet me for an evening together, and we had quite
a good time, dinner, show--the Coliseum to be exact, there was a girl
singing rather a good song called 'Not Yet'--drinks at the bar, and
finally a club he belonged to, which had an odd name, the Clinging
Codfish, of all things. It was a cheerful place."

"You seem to have enjoyed your trip," said von Bodenheim. "Though I can
think of pleasanter things than codfish to have clinging to one. But I
dare say the ultimate result would be much the same--you'd wish you
hadn't."

"I dare say," said Dirk, laughing. "Can't say I've got that far yet.
Anyway, this fellow got pretty stewed as the evening went on, and he
talked. Oh, how he talked! I had his life history as time went on, but
that's not the point. There was another man in the club who rather
impressed me; he was drinking hard and quite reckless. He had a girl
with him, and just to impress her, I suppose, he ordered a half-dozen
new-laid eggs and shied them into the electric fan. The results came
back all over the adjacent diners, so, although they are fairly tolerant
towards the amusements of soldiers in London now, he wasn't popular, and
they persuaded him to go away. Striking man to look at, too, fine face,
rather like a hawk. I said something to the effect that it was a pity to
see a splendid-looking chap like that make such an exhibition of
himself, and my friend said that perhaps I'd let myself go a bit if I
had his job in prospect."

"Did you hear what it was?"

"Yes, he was going to burn the Zeppelins at Ahlhorn."

"_What?_" cried von Bodenheim, in a tone of voice that brought his
soldier servant hurrying out of the back premises. "What was his name?
(It is all right, Hans, I do not require anything.) What regiment did he
belong to?"

"I did my best to find out his name and regiment, but my man was not so
drunk as all that, so all I could do was to memorize his face; I should
know him again anywhere. I didn't recognize his badges."

"Can you describe him?"

"I don't know that I'm much good at describing people," said Dirk, with
a frown of concentration. "He had fair hair, a hooked nose, and a
prominent chin. Rather a red face, but that may have been due to the
evening. Tallish--no, not very tall, but considerably taller than I am,
for example; five foot eight or ten. The most outstanding thing about
his appearance was his air of being somebody, if you know what I mean.
You couldn't help noticing him."

"Even if he wasn't throwing new-laid eggs into an electric fan, I
suppose," said von Bodenheim sarcastically. "You mean he had
personality, an attribute which he could shed in a moment. Otherwise he
was tallish, with fair hair and prominent features. It is a description
of about a quarter of the British and German armies."

"I'm sorry," said Dirk, quite crestfallen. "I can't think of anything--"

"It is I who should apologize. You come to me with a most remarkable
piece of intelligence, and all I do is to snub you because you cannot
give a detailed description of him. My dear boy, please forgive me, it
was unpardonable. My only excuse is that the news is so desperately
important--more so than you have any idea."

"Indeed, sir?"

"You have done extraordinarily well and rendered a great service to
my--our--country."

"Thank you," said Dirk in a tone of some emotion.

"There is only one thing to be done and you are the only man to do it."

"And that is?"

"You must go to Ahlhorn and keep a look-out for the man yourself."

                 *        *        *        *        *

Hendrik Brandt demurred as strongly as he dared to having his nephew
taken away from him when he had only just returned to the office, but
was imperiously overridden by von Bodenheim in person. So young Dirk
Brandt was provided with a special pass which enabled him to go anywhere
and do almost anything, and orders had been sent in advance to the
commanding officer of the troops guarding the airship sheds to supply
Dirk with whatever comfort and assistance he might need; in fact,
broadly speaking, to do what the boy told him. Bill was shown the
orders.

"Oh, it's almost too good to be true," said Hambledon. "Either there's a
catch in it somewhere or you're too lucky to be human, and if I were you
I would sacrifice something to the gods. Throw the youngest Miss Bluehm
into the Rhine."

"Why Marie Bluehm?"

"I thought you were rather fond of her."

"She's a nice girl, that's all; she plays the piano rather well. I'm not
smitten."

"Glad to hear it; on our job we can't afford these distractions. By the
way, wasn't there a girl at home?"

"There was," said Bill, who had such a rooted disinclination to bring
Diane into even the remotest contact with the job that he would not
mention her to Hambledon if he could help it; at least, not here in
Cologne. "But why mustn't we talk to girls occasionally?"

"Oh, talk to 'em occasionally, by all means, but don't for pity's sake
marry any of 'em."

"Why not?"

"Consider the life of an Intelligence man's wife. Either he tells her
what his job is, or else he doesn't. If he does, she will never know
another peaceful moment as long as she lives, because there's no end to
our war--that is, if she cares for him. If she doesn't, she may talk,
and then he'd have to shoot her. Suppose he doesn't tell her. He says
instead that he is an insurance agent, or a traveller in pig food, or an
inspector of nuisances, which last is nearer the truth than most of us
get in this life. He tells her he's going to Bristol to see a man about
a drain, but you can bet your boots that some dear school-friend of hers
will write and tell her that he was seen last Wednesday strolling along
the promenade at Felixstowe with a dazzling blonde, after which he will
spend the next twenty years of his life giving lucid and convincing
explanations, and she won't believe any of 'em. No, we don't marry on
our job, Bill. Pass the beer, lecturing is dry work. That's what's the
matter with schoolmastering, too many lectures and not enough beer."

"Talking about schoolmasters, I've got to see Reck tonight."

"To collect the needful, of course. It's convenient having a chemist
who'll get the stuff for you. When do you start?"

"At eight tomorrow morning."

Bill packed his shabby suitcase and departed for Ahlhorn in state and a
staff car with a soldier driver, which had been placed at his disposal.
It was only a hundred and fifty miles, but the tires were bad and the
roads worse, and it was not till late in the evening that they arrived.
The Landsturm officer commanding the small garrison was a portly
Bavarian major of mature years, who was puzzled and pained at having to
take orders from an insignificant civilian, and a Dutchman at that, and
inclined to think it all too ridiculous for words.

"The country is going to the dogs," he said. "In my young days we'd have
thrown a cordon of sentries round the place with instructions to shoot
at sight anything approaching, from a rabbit upwards. All this stopping
people and asking 'em questions, a lot of damned nonsense in my opinion,
how d'you know they're speaking the truth? All this rubbish about
English spies! In my opinion if the English spies are as clever as some
people make out, they'll know better than to take on such a wild-goose
chase. What? A total stranger to walk in here, set fire to the
Zeppelins, and then quietly walk out again? Damned nonsense! I don't
believe in your English spy, how do I know you aren't going to fire the
balloons yourself? I don't know you, do I?"

This was nearly too much for even Bill's command of countenance, but he
managed to assume an expression of pained surprise and to convey how
unexpected it was to find an old and trusted officer in the army of His
Imperial Majesty flouting the commands of authority.

"I don't flout them, sir; who says I flout 'em? I receive orders and
those orders are obeyed, but that doesn't mean I'm going to sing a psalm
about them. Well, it's your responsibility now, young man, not mine. If
the Zeppelins are burned now, I wouldn't be in your shoes. Damned
nonsense."

Dirk Brandt stayed at a hotel in Ahlhorn and drove the car the three or
four miles to the airship station every day. At the times when the
shifts went in, and at all times when anyone was admitted through the
guarded gates, he was there to see that the sentries performed
thoroughly their task of checking the passes carried by anyone, however
unimportant, who sought to enter that sacred enclosure. He became
intensely irksome to the management and the workmen because his
inspection of passes and search for matches and other forbidden articles
was so thorough as to delay considerably the entry of the shifts to
their work. On three occasions he found splendid-looking men with fair
hair and aquiline features and had them hauled into the guard-room for
examination, but each time they proved to be perfectly honest Germans on
their lawful occasions. As he explained to a sizzling works manager, it
was not that he had forgotten what the man looked like--on the contrary,
that ill-omened face was indelibly carved on the most retentive tablets
of his memory--but that there would be a lot of difference in the
appearance of a British company officer at a smart night club and a
possibly grubby and inadequately shaved workman in blue overalls, and
one must make sure. He, unworthy though he was of so great an honour,
was personally responsible to the All-Highest in this matter, and he
would fulfil his duties at whatever inconvenience to himself and others.

Von Bodenheim would have been pleased if he could have heard him, but
even Dirk's magic pass barely saved him from personal violence upon one
occasion when he detached a high-born and appropriately dignified
Austrian officer from a party which was making a personally conducted
tour of the sheds. Dirk kept him locked up all through the lunch hour
and finally had him stripped to the skin to see if his pronounced figure
was real, and examined his hair with a magnifying-glass to see if it had
been bleached. The officer was, of course, released with profuse
apologies, but Dirk hoped the Austrian would remember that curious and
undignified things happened to haughty men who stuck monocles in their
eyes, glared at unoffending strangers, and asked audibly: "Who is that
funny snub-nosed little squirt?"

At times when there were no entrants to detain Dirk at the gates, he
would wander about the vast echoing sheds, huge as cathedrals, where if
a man dropped a spanner on the concrete floors the sound rang like the
last trump. He formed the habit of making a final tour of the buildings
the last thing every night, walking through every passage and every
compartment in each of the airships and even climbing the ladders to the
platforms at the top. He noticed with an interest he did not display
that there was no protection provided against attacks from above and
that even the guns could only be trained on a level and downwards;
evidently the stories of the exceptional climbing capabilities and high
ceiling of these new Zeppelins were true. They saw no reason to expect
attack from above.

He moved about on these tours at a rapid pace, alert, purposeful, and
determined, and the perspiring elderly Landsturm privates who were
detailed by their distrustful commander to follow him everywhere soon
became content to wait downstairs, as it were, till he returned from his
too athletic excursions. And every day the Zeppelins were more nearly
completed.

One day he took the commandant aside and told him that he had been
officially informed that a man had been detected passing the Dutch
frontier near Rhede. Though fired on by the frontier guards, he had
evaded them, and was now somewhere in Arenburg, doubtless making his way
towards Ahlhorn. He was described as a tall man with fair hair.

"God bless my soul," said the agitated commandant, "you don't mean to
tell me this ridiculous story is true?"

"Of course it's true," said Dirk Brandt, justly indignant. "What do you
suppose I walk miles every night climbing all over these infernal flying
cathedrals of yours for? To keep my figure down?"

"I don't see what more we can do," said the major, disregarding in his
distress this delicate but unkind allusion to his own form.

"We will have every single soul who is not absolutely indispensable out
of these sheds as early as possible every night. The few who remain will
be all men who are known to us and to each other personally. Your men
will form a close cordon at a distance from the sheds so as to obviate
the danger of someone dodging past them into cover, and they will shoot
at sight."

"Good. That is sense at last."

"I myself will make an extra careful inspection every night, and after I
leave, no one is to be admitted under any pretext whatever."

"It shall be done."

"We will foil him yet, Herr Commandant."

"Has he wings?" asked the commandant, becoming almost lyrical with
excitement. "Can he change himself into a bird or a rabbit? No. He
cannot enter."

"Splendid," said Dirk approvingly.

The Zeppelin crews had arrived and taken over, and only a few workmen
remained making last-minute adjustments. The envelope compartments were
fully inflated with hydrogen, which, in spite of all precautions, leaked
out slowly but continuously and accumulated in the wide barrel roofs, so
the enormous ventilators placed in the roofs for the purpose were
frequently opened to allow the gas to escape, but it always accumulated
again. Now the huge tanks were being filled with gasoline and the racks
with bombs; soon everything would be ready.

Dirk Brandt gave the commandant, whom he had encountered buying socks in
Ahlhorn, a lift back to the airship station.

"It is not long to wait now," said the major. "Another two or three days
and your spy will be too late; the airships will go out when this moon
is full."

"I am glad," said young Brandt simply. "The responsibility is great and
I am too young for it. I wish they would catch the man."

"It is true you are very young," said the German kindly, "but no one can
say you are not conscientious. _Himmel_, you brood over those airships
like an old hen."

"I want them to grow up big strong birds and lay nice eggs," said
Dirk--a remark which amused the simple soul of the commandant.

"I have known eggs to burst with a loud report and scatter their
contents abroad," he said, shaking with laughter like a well-moulded
jelly, "but I would not call them nice eggs. No, not nice at all."

They looked ahead of them across the treeless fields to where the great
sheds stood up like slag-heaps against the sky.

"But what a blaze if they should go!" continued the German. "In this
flat country the fire would be seen for fifty miles. Do be careful!"

"I am sorry," said Dirk, who was driving. "The tires are smooth and this
pavement is greasy. That ditch seems to draw the car like a magnet."

"She is tired, poor thing, and wishes to rest perhaps," said the Herr
Commandant with a yawn. "I shall sleep sounder myself when the airships
have gone to wake up England."

Brandt went his rounds that night with particular thoroughness, leaving
unobtrusive little packets here and there, since his Landsturm companion
made no attempt to follow him along narrow passages and up steep spidery
ladders inside the envelopes of the Zeppelins and right out on to the
top. Dirk's orders had been obeyed; the great hangars were silent under
the glare of the huge lamps which were kept burning all night, and only
a faint whispering echo running up the walls now and then told of the
movements of a belated workman busy on some final urgency.

He left the place, taking care that the commandant saw him go, and had
returned to his hotel, eaten his supper, and was preparing for bed in
the dark with his eyes on the uncurtained window when a brilliant tongue
of flame shot into the sky, to be followed by another, and another. Dirk
rushed downstairs, convincingly half-clad, to be met by the landlord.

"I should not go out, Herr Brandt," he said. "It is the accursed English
aeroplanes, they have bombed the sheds. My son assures me that he saw
them distinctly."

"I must go," said Dirk distractedly. "It is my duty."

"At least resume your trousers before you go out, gracious sir," urged
the proprietor, and Brandt, with a look of horror at his own attire,
uttered a strangled cry and rushed upstairs again. Here, strangely
enough, he seemed in no particular hurry about clothing himself once
more in the garments of decorum. He opened the window to listen to the
roar of the fire just in time to see the first roof fall in and the
flames shoot up hundreds of feet into the sky.

"'Phosphorus and fish-hooks,'" quoted Bill Saunders. "My giddy, sainted
aunt, _what_ a bonfire!"

He dressed himself and went out to get the car, expecting to find the
streets full of staring people, but to his surprise there was no one
about, though lighted windows and moving shadows on blinds showed that
the town was wakeful and uneasy. He drove as fast as possible along the
slippery road till at a point about a mile from the sheds he was stopped
by a sentry, to whom Dirk showed his pass.

"I beg pardon, I did not recognize you," said the man. "Nevertheless, it
will not be safe to take the car any nearer, for who knows that the
whole countryside may not burn with such a start? Thank Heaven there is
snow on the ground."

"Help me to back the car into this gateway," said Dirk, "and I will go
on foot. Heaven help us, it looks as though even the sky was in flames.
I suppose there will be fire-engines along soon, I must not block the
roads."

"I expect there will," said the sentry, helping him to turn his front
wheels, "though I think it would be just as useful if everyone gathered
round and spat at it. Still, it is always a relief to one's feelings to
feel one is at least trying to do something."

"How true!" said Dirk, and sprinted up the road.

The heat increased as he went on till before he reached the entrance
gates it became unbearable, so he pulled up and joined one of many
groups of men who, with arms flung up to shield their faces, were
watching in grim silence the destruction of months of their devoted
labour. The noise of the fire was so loud that no man could hear himself
speak. Every few moments there was an additional roar as more of the
great bombs exploded, and the circle of men backed away as the flame of
the blazing hydrogen became more than their eyes could bear. The whole
scene appeared to be dissolving in unquenchable fire, and even Bill
Saunders's natural exultation of spirit was overawed by such an
appalling success.

"Good God," he muttered, "this is really awful." He approached a
Landsturm private who was standing near, touched his arm to attract his
attention, and yelled in his ear: "Where's the commandant?"

The man pointed away to the left where a number of soldiers were running
about like ants and apparently trying to make something work. Dirk
Brandt went to the spot and found the commandant supervising the
employment of a primitive kind of pump which might have been effective
in putting out a burning cottage, but was mere waste of energy in the
face of such a disaster. When Dirk came up to him he threw up his hands
in a gesture of despair and signed to the men to abandon the attempt.
Dirk took his arm and drew him away behind one of the numerous temporary
buildings which surrounded the actual sheds, and which afforded some
shelter from the intolerable heat and glare.

"It cannot be true," shouted the commandant. "He cannot have got
through. It is impossible. Not a ghost can have passed through my line
of sentries, and yet--"

"It is coincidence," yelled Dirk in an attempt to be consoling. "It is
an accident; some spark caused by a dropped tool, some workman stupid
enough to try and smoke."

"If one did, it was the last thing he ever did."

"Did any of the men who were inside escape?"

"Some from the farther sheds, yes, I saw them running like hares. Not
from the end where the fire started."

Dirk shivered, and the old soldier, who had eventually come to like him,
saw it and patted his arm.

"It is not your fault," he said, "you must not blame yourself. You could
not have done more, could you?"

Dirk looked upwards where the incredible flames, high in the air, seemed
to be licking the stars.

"No, I don't think I could," he said slowly.




CHAPTER 13


Bill Saunders arrived in Cologne early in the evening and set out to see
Hambledon, whom he expected to find at the office in the Hhestrasse. He
noticed, however, that the old match-seller was crying his "_Striken!
Striken!_" at the Cathedral side of the Dom Hof garden, so he crossed
over the road and bought a box of matches, which contained also a small
piece of paper with the words: "Metropol, haste," in Hambledon's
writing. "Wonder what's up," he thought, and jumped on a street-car
which took him up the Breitestrasse.

He walked into the Metropol to find the place nearly empty and Hambledon
sitting at a table entertaining two ladies, the Bavarian Nightingales,
Hedwige and Elsa Schwiss. The entertainment did not seem to have been
any too successful, for Hambledon looked uncomfortable and apologetic,
Elsa was unashamedly crying, and Hedwige was patting her shoulder and
uttering consoling phrases. Dirk went up and greeted the party, but
Elsa, instead of languishing at him as usual, looked at him with tragic
eyes and said: "Is it true he is dead?"

"Who?" asked Dirk. "I hadn't heard of anyone in particular."

"Flug-Leutnant Knirim," said Hambledon in a low tone. "He was killed in
the trenches two days ago, and I happened to mention it to these ladies,
not knowing."

"We loved each other," said Elsa with unexpected dignity. "One night
here--of course, you were here too, I forgot. He said something he
shouldn't, and that devil von Bodenheim--" Her voice failed, and Hedwige
put an arm round her and said: "_Liebchen, mein Liebchen._"

"Von Bodenheim had him arrested," said Dirk.

"And sent into the trenches like a common soldier," cried Elsa with
flashing eyes, "and now he's dead--dead, and it's his fault. Oh, Anton,
Anton! I want him," she wailed.

Dirk bit his lip; the girl's genuine grief was very touching even to one
who thought himself so hardened. "I--am very sorry, Frulein," he
stammered.

"I've got his pistol," said Elsa. "He was in my dressing-room when they
arrested him, you know. He had taken it off and dropped it on the table,
and something had covered it up, I found it after he had gone. He used
to come in every night," she said dreamily. "Of course he was drunk that
night or he wouldn't have talked, but flying men always drink. He used
to come in and throw his cap down anywhere. I'd come in and see it lying
on one of my dresses--I liked that, it was the right place for it--I
always saw that first, and then I knew I'd find him in the chair behind
the door waiting for me. Sometimes he'd be asleep, that was when he'd
been drinking, and he looked such a baby with his eyes shut--they are
shut now--Anton--"

"Frulein, for God's sake," said Dirk, and Hambledon said to her sister:
"Can't you get her to go home?"

"Let her talk if it eases her," said Hedwige. "There's no one here, and
if there were, tears are not such a strange sight these days."

"That's a good idea," said Elsa. "I've got his pistol, I'll shoot myself
and then we'll be together again. We shall, shan't we? Nobody could be
cruel enough to keep us apart then."

"Oh, you wouldn't leave me all alone," said Hedwige, weeping.

"You have your Kaspar, you will not be all alone," said Elsa wearily. "I
must go to Anton, he will be so bored without me, and when he is bored
he always does something stupid, he will vex _den lieben Gott_."

Hambledon looked significantly at Hedwige Schwiss, who nodded in reply.
"Come home, darling," she said, rising from her chair, "dear little
sister."

Elsa got up mechanically and the two men bowed over her hand and called
her "_gndige Frulein_." She looked at them as though she did not see
them, and said slowly: "But as for that devil von Bodenheim, a frightful
thing will happen to him and he will burn in hell," and she turned and
walked steadily out of the place, with Hedwige following after.

Tommy Hambledon stood until they were out of sight and then sank into
his chair and mopped his forehead. "Heavens above, Bill, what a scene!
Never, never, never again will I tell any woman that any man whatever
has died in any manner at all so long as I continue to live. Order some
brandy, will you? I need it. Incidentally, who exactly is Kaspar?"

"Bluehm, I believe," said Bill, and gave the order. "Do you think she
will do as she says?"

"No, Hedwige will see to that. For one thing, if she did, it would break
up the act."

"It is always as well to be practical."

"There is no need to be sarcastic. When you are older you'll realize
that lovers come and go, but the necessity for bread and butter remains
with us till death--that is, if you ever live to become older, which at
the moment seems to me improbable."

"Why this pessimism?"

"Because von Bodenheim has sent for me. Think that over. Sent for me,
not you. He rang up on the telephone and asked if I was in, and
following my usual custom--thank goodness--I impersonated our
non-existent office-boy and replied that I was down at the wharves and
could I give me a message? He did not ask when you were expected back,
though all Germany is ringing with the story of
Ahlhorn--congratulations--he said he would be glad if I could call at
his house any time after seven tonight on urgent business. I said I was
not sure whether I had any engagements tonight and he said that I was to
tell me that it would be most unfortunate if I had, and I didn't like
his tone at all. He-who-must-be-obeyed in person. I have a horrid
feeling that if I don't go I shall be fetched, and the idea simply
revolts me. So I fled the office, left old Striken a note for you, and
floated up here for a little peace and quiet. And did I get it? Oh dear,
oh. Kbes! The same again."

"But what has happened?"

"I don't know, but the gaff has been stridently blown somehow. Does a
gaff produce a strident note? Describe a gaff, with notes on at least
three different methods of blowing it, and to think I used to get bored
with life at Chappell's. You see the point, don't you? Why send for me,
whom he has only met once and in whom he shouldn't have the faintest
interest? The only possible answer is that he has discovered what we are
and didn't expect you to return from Ahlhorn; he thought you'd skip over
the nearest frontier. So as David was out of his reach, he proposed to
concentrate on Jonathan. He must know that if you're in it, I am too. It
is more than possible that every policeman, Intelligence agent, and
other arresting body in Germany is hunting for us while we sit here and
drink brandy. I don't know where the balloon has gone up, but it
certainly has. Talking of balloons, I congratulate you, I do indeed, I
take my hat right off and lay it reverently upon the floor. It must have
been an imposing sight."

"Exactly like hell," said Bill absently. "You know, I am not convinced
that you are right, it is quite possible he only wanted you to get him
something urgently, and if you'd been yourself on the phone you'd have
been told what it was. Haig and Haig, for a guess. Probably the faithful
Hans said: 'Last bottle, master,' and if you'd seen him at it as I have
you'd know one bottle is merely an annoying reminder of lost delight."

"You didn't hear that incisive voice."

"He is always incisive, and particularly on the phone. I think I'll just
go along and see him."

"I think you are quite mad," said Tommy Hambledon. "Have you still got
the staff car at your disposal, and that almighty pass of yours? I think
we'd better leave at once."

"Think how silly we shall look running like blazes with nobody running
after us. 'The wicked flee when no man pursueth, but the righteous is as
bold as a lion.' Besides, wouldn't it be as well to make sure whether he
suspects us or not? I propose to find out."

"I will agree on two conditions: one, that we arrange our get-away
first, and the other, that I come with you to see von Bodenheim. After
all, he asked to see me; it will look natural enough."

"No. If you're right, there's no sense in both of us walking into the
trap," said Bill. "Would you come in support, instead? The front door
opens by merely turning a handle, and I will draw you a plan of the
ground floor. Then you can enter with the appropriate stealth, bewaring
of Hans, and back me up with an automatic. Yes, I still have the pass
and the car is in the garage of the Dom Hotel."

"Good. It is obviously no use our attempting to get out by the Dutch
frontier, because that is the way they will expect us to go. I have been
thinking it out. There's always some place where whoever wants you will
never think of looking for you--if you ever commit a real civilian
murder, get yourself six months for robbery on the way home and stop in
jail till the hue-and-cry dies down. Where will they not look for us?
Driving down towards the front line of course. I have the uniform of a
German major in a Westphalian infantry regiment complete with cloak--I
kept it for a rainy day--and private's uniform to match. I am Major Dirk
Brandt on very important business, hence my special pass, and you are my
orderly. We will drive the staff car through Aachen, Maestricht,
Malines, Ghent, and Bruges to Ostend, because I'm certain no one would
think us fools enough to drive straight into the lion's mouth--praying
for a prolonged yawn."

"What happens at Ostend?"

"We shall find a boat waiting for us, a row-boat, my pippin. Are you an
oarsman? Neither am I, but we shall find we are when the time comes,
believe me. We shall row out into the cold North Sea for two or three
miles and rendezvous with the M.L. boat sent there by a not ungrateful
country. It's been done before."

"Has it?" said Bill, entirely without enthusiasm. "Not by the same man
twice, I'll bet. However, if we must row out into the North Sea in a
small boat which probably won't be there when we want it, to pick up
without lights or compass a rendezvous with an M.L. which won't be able
to see us if we do meet, by all means let's. But I shall have to be very
heartily on the run before I find any real fun in it."

"You'll be on the run all right after you've seen von Bodenheim," said
Tommy Hambledon grimly. "That is, if you are still capable of movement."

"I love your moods of unquenchable optimism. How do we get in touch with
the Royal Navy?"

"Reck and his wireless. We must warn him before we do anything else."

"Unless Heaven sends another electric storm such as we had over the
Hindenburg Line message."

"You getting scared now?" asked Hambledon. "I hope so, there's no
loneliness like that of the only man in a party who's panicky. I am. I
think you're cracked to go and see von B., but if you insist I suppose
you must."

"We must make sure. It would be too absurd to throw up the game, drive
three hundred miles through most of the German army, and inconvenience
the British navy on its lawful occasions all because one crippled German
wants half a dozen cases of whisky."

"You're doing it too," said Hambledon shrewdly.

"Doing what?"

"Sitting here talking because you don't like to go out into the street.
I'm going to ring up the school and find out where Reck is. I hope he's
somewhere in Cologne--I can telephone from here."

"Do you know what?" said Bill.

"What?"

"We are perfectly safe so long as we look like keeping your appointment
in the Blumenthalstrasse. Von Bodenheim wants us all to himself--if
you're right. If we tried to bolt first, they'd drop on us."

Hambledon cheered up noticeably.

"You are probably right," he said. "I am going to telephone Reck. What's
today, Thursday? Four days to drive to Ostend. Remember we can't drive
after dark in the battle areas, and the days are short; that brings us
to Monday. M.L. off Ostend on Monday night."

He returned and said: "Thank Heaven, Reck's at the Germania; he
generally is when he comes to Cologne. If I go there and meet him, will
you fill the car up with oil and petrol and wait for me at the Dom
Hotel? Pack two small suitcases; who ever heard of a major without
luggage?"

All these things having been accomplished, Tommy Hambledon in their
sitting-room at the hotel said: "One last drink? I think so; it's a pity
to leave this whisky to the waiter; it might give him ideas above his
station. Well--cheerio."

"_Prosit!_" said Bill.

"We will take the car along and leave it in the Reichenperger Platz.
After which I think you had better precede me and I will follow just
behind like the celebrated lamb I so much resemble. Well, are you ready?
Forward, and St. George for merry England!"

Dirk Brandt rang the bell at von Bodenheim's house and was admitted as
usual by Hans and shown into the sitting-room at the back, where a fire
was blazing in the fireplace opposite the door, and the long french
windows were curtained against the January night.

"Come in," said von Bodenheim in his usual friendly manner. "I am very
glad to see you again. Hans, put the whisky on the table, and then you
can go. Hans has a disabled ex-service-men's club he likes to attend on
Thursdays," he went on when the man had left the room. "I usually try to
arrange for him to go if possible; it is not much of a life for him,
waiting on me."

"It is considerate of you," said Dirk Brandt, picking up his glass and
walking over to the fire. "I hope you will be equally kind to me, for I
have come home with my tail between my legs. Though upon my honour I do
not believe the Englishman got through; I think the fire was an
accident. There were quite a number of men working there all night, but
not enough to make it easy to oversee them all; one of them might have
thought it safe to have a smoke. They will do it, especially now when
most of them are continually hungry--the food is very bad up there, and
short, too."

Outside the room a door banged somewhere. "Hans going out," thought
Bill, and a pulse began perceptibly to beat in the base of his throat;
now for it, one way or the other. "They had one practice which is not
officially allowed," he went on in a perfectly calm voice while von
Bodenheim sat completely motionless and watched him intently. "They
turned one of the empty hangars into a workshop. They are supposed to
keep the workshops a certain specified distance away from the sheds for
fear that a spark from an emery-wheel or from some such cause might set
off the escaped hydrogen; it always leaks out, you know. But there
wasn't a convenient shed, and there was the hangar empty." He turned
away from his host for a second to toss his cigarette-end into the fire.
"In my opinion it is--"

He turned round again and looked straight down the barrel of von
Bodenheim's automatic.

"What is this--?" he began, but the German cut him short.

"That will do. You are very clever, you English agent, I congratulate
you, you even fooled me, von Bodenheim, with your boyish look and simple
manner. So I send you off to Ahlhorn, I myself, and you thank me so very
much, don't you, and off you go and burn the four Zeppelins that might
have won the war for us, and at least thirty-seven honest men died in
the flames with them. So now it is your turn to die."

"Listen," began Bill, but it was of no avail.

"I will not," said von Bodenheim. "I have listened to you too much. You
are a wizard when you talk, it seems impossible that you can be lying,
but now I know, I tell you, I _know_. Sit down," he went on in a less
acid tone, "finish your drink, and have a last cigarette with me. No,
hands up! Do not put them near your pockets. If you will just hold them
up while I light a cigarette for you, you may put them down again
afterwards. There are several things I want to say to you, and one is
that I always liked you and now I respect you as well. Here is the
lighter you gave me, we will use that, and I shall keep it as a memento.
Is that all right?"

"Yes, thank you," said Bill. (Hambledon, why doesn't Hambledon come?)

"You may put your hands down, but keep them on your knees. Tell me, did
you kill Amtenbrink?"

"Yes. I understood that he was arranging a little cholera outbreak in
London."

"He was not."

"So I heard later," said Bill, with a little grimace.

"You did not enjoy doing that, eh? No--some of the things we have to do
are utterly vile, are they not? Or they would be in any other cause.
Tell me, Butler, he was not real, of course?"

"Of course he was," said Bill with a laugh. "If you had inquired at
Euston you would have found a porter named Butler--we don't leave
anything to chance." (Where the devil is Hambledon, can he have mistaken
the house? It will be too late soon.) "I'd like to say, before it's too
late, that--well, when I showed pleasure in your company, there was no
sham in that. That was real enough."

"Thank you. I am sorry this had to happen, though I know perfectly well
that if our places were reversed you would put a bullet through my head
with as little hesitation as I shall have in putting one through yours
in a few minutes. Finish your glass and have another, will you? I don't
want to prolong the agony, if you find it so, but I should like to talk
with you a little longer if you do not mind."

"The longer the better," said Bill, and laughed to think how
particularly true that was.

"I expect so," said von Bodenheim, also amused: "Tell me--"

"No," broke in Bill. "Tell me something instead. Tell me where I slipped
up."

"Heilemann," answered the German without hesitation. "You see, it was
like this. Just before the war I went on a shooting trip in Canada, and
I stayed first with some friends in Halifax. Heilemann was a gunsmith of
some repute. I got some of my tackle from him. When I heard of the
Halifax explosion, I began thinking about the place and remembered this.
Then you asked who had done it, do you remember? I did not really
distrust you, but some little spurt of caution made me throw out the
name of Heilemann, just to see if anything happened, and today I hear
that he has been arrested. He has nothing whatever to do with us,
believe me, and only you could have told. So I knew then what you were,
and when immediately upon that came the news of the Ahlhorn
disaster--well--"

The door behind von Bodenheim opened without a sound. Tommy Hambledon
slid into the room, took in the situation at a glance, and levelled his
automatic at the German's head. Bill hastily averted his eyes; von
Bodenheim must not notice that he had something interesting to look at.
What was he saying?

"--very good idea of yours not to send the news through, as when it
became obvious that the English were completely taken by surprise, of
course I thought you were all right--"

What's all this about and why doesn't Hambledon fire? Bill risked
another glance and saw he had lowered the automatic again. (What the
devil's the matter?--my God, I'm right in the line of fire.)

"--though of course it would have been awkward if we had been attacked
just then--"

The Hindenburg Line of retreat, of course. Bill pulled himself together.

"The fact is," he said, "I didn't believe it. I thought it was a trap,
and it seemed a pity to spoil a good career at the outset by falling
into it." He picked up his glass from the floor and drank.

"Which reminds me," said von Bodenheim, "I shall have to deal with that
alleged uncle of yours. I think there is no doubt that he is in it."

"Up to the neck," said Bill cheerfully. "Believe it or not, he was one
of the masters at my school."

He emptied the glass and reached out to put it back on the table. He was
a little too far off, so he slid his chair back and stretched out his
arm.

"He must be a good man," said von Bodenheim, "he has been here for--"

_Crack!_

As von Bodenheim slumped forward in his chair, the automatic in his hand
discharged, fired by the nervous jerk of his finger, but the bullet
passed over Bill's head and buried itself in the wall, and he sprang up
and caught the German as he was falling.

"Lay him back in his chair," said Hambledon. "Nice tidy affair. It's
only the back of his head, he looks quite normal in front. That will do.
I had another idea while I was following you down the street just now, I
am going to leave a little note."

He pulled a letter out of his pocket, tore off the blank half-sheet, and
scribbled:

"I saw the man but missed him again, so be careful, he was heading your
way. Have warned Brandt." He folded it up and put it in one of von
Bodenheim's pockets.

"Person or persons unknown," he said. "That ought to confuse the issue a
bit. What's the matter?"

"Put the lights out, I can't stand his eyes. He was a friend of mine."

"Better not."

"I'll put the reading-lamp on," said Bill, and arranged it so that a
shadow fell across the German's head. "Turn out the others now. That's
better, he might almost be only asleep. _Auf wiedersehen_, von
Bodenheim." He picked up von Bodenheim's automatic and pocketed it.

"Another _memento mori_? Come on, for Heaven's sake, or we shall meet
the servant and have to deal with him too."

"It's all right," said Bill; "he's got the evening off, luckily for
him."

"Yes," said Hambledon, "otherwise we'd have had to send him to attend
his master among the shades."

They walked without hurry up the Blumenthalstrasse towards the turning
into the Reichenperger Platz, where they had left the car. "I didn't
quite get the idea of the note," said Bill. "What did you put in it?"

"Merely an informer's note telling him there was somebody after him. I
wanted to suggest a subsequent caller because Hans knew you were there
when he left. I think there's just a chance von Bodenheim did not tell
anybody about us, you see; he really blundered frightfully over you, and
he may have wanted to clear up the mess himself before reporting it to
the authorities."

"Yes," said Bill thoughtfully, "that's a sound idea. It would be like
him to want to deal with the matter himself, without assistance from
anybody, even Hans. So it's quite possible we are now perfectly safe."

"Possible, but not likely. We should have gone through his safe, but
there wasn't time--where was it, do you know?"

"No idea," said Bill.

"He may have written out an account of the whole affair, for all we
know. In any case, I think a brief spell of absence won't do us any
harm--whenever I think of the Ahlhorn affair I get an unpleasant feeling
as though people I can't see are staring at me from behind, and on top
of that we go and abolish one of their star performers on his own
hearthrug. No, we go, I think, without undue delay. Every trade has its
hall-mark, you know." He went on talking to steady Bill's nerves. "The
potter's thumb, the seaman's balanced walk, do you know the Intelligence
man's?"

"No, what is it?"

"A tendency to sit with his back to walls and even, in advanced cases,
in corners, and never in front of windows or doors. This sensation from
which I suffer tonight is practically an industrial disease. There is
usually coupled with it a morbid dislike of being asked questions even
by your best girl, let alone your seniors."

"I know," said Bill. "I've got that already."

"Yes, I expect so. Here's the car, will you drive? We will go first to
the high-level freight station. I can telephone Reck from there, and,
what is more, we can change into uniform in one of the freight sheds and
nobody be any the wiser at this hour in the evening."

A major of Westphalian infantry, driven by his orderly, passed in a car
along the Hohenzollern Ring and turned right at the Opera House into the
long road to Aachen and the Belgian coast.




CHAPTER 14


She opened the front door and walked straight in with a step as assured
as though the house were her own, passed down the hall and into the
sitting-room at the back. She knew the way, because the owner of the
house used to give parties sometimes, and she had sung there. The owner
of the house was sitting in his usual chair by the table and did not
look up when she came in, so she paused by the door and began to talk to
him.

"You should at least look up when a lady enters," she said in a low but
steady voice, "even if it is only someone like me; a great gentleman
like you should have better manners, I think. Are you asleep?"

The only light in the room was a reading-lamp with a dark green shade,
standing on the table. The man's head was in shadow, but the light fell
full upon his long slender hands, which were folded on his knees and
curiously still. From where she stood she could only see him in profile,
so she walked round towards the fire in order to see him full-face, and
as she did so the logs in the fireplace, which had only been glowing,
fell together and burst into flames, which threw a flickering light over
his quiet face and bitter, sensitive mouth. His eyes were half-open and
shone in the firelight, and she thought he was not asleep but only
disdainful.

"I see," she said. "You do not think I am worth speaking to, you know
all about me, of course, you who know everything, while I am only a
cabaret singer and the mistress of a common soldier who died the other
day. You thought him a drunken fool and probably you did not think of me
at all, just two nobodies, and you killed him. But I'll tell you
something, Herr von Bodenheim, you who think yourself so clever and so
great, we knew something you'll never know, and that was love."

She paused, and the wavering shadows on his face cast by the leaping
firelight made it appear as though his expression changed.

"You need not sneer," she said, "for Anton is out of your reach now, you
can't hurt him any more, and soon I shall be with him and beyond your
power too, and our love will go on and on without end where you can
never break it again. I have brought you a present," she said, pulling
something out of her coat-pocket, "a present for each of us, four for
you and one for me. Look grateful, you sneering devil, even if you
aren't; a gentleman always says 'Thank you' for presents, four for you
and one for me."

The outer door opened. She heard the sound and knew she must be quick.
"Say a prayer, hurry," she said, lifting her hand, "four for you and one
for me--"

Hans, locking the front door, heard four shots, which he recognized as
coming from an automatic, and after a momentary pause, a fifth. He
stumped along on his artificial leg and burst into the room to find his
master with his head shot to pieces, and a dying woman on the floor with
an automatic in her hand.

"Anton!" she called. "Where are you? I am coming."

Hans heard nothing of this except a murmur instantly stilled, but it is
possible that Anton answered.

                 *        *        *        *        *

The Westphalian major and his orderly made good time to Ostend, in spite
of occasional difficulty in obtaining gasoline and still more difficulty
in getting lubricating oil, since of all the shortages from which
Germany suffered, the lack of oils and fats of all kinds was perhaps the
most serious. On the run between Malines and Ghent the oil level in the
sump became so low that they had to stop repeatedly to let the engine
cool, and it was with great relief that they came at last upon a dump at
the roadside from which it might be possible to obtain some oil. The
dump was in the charge of a harassed-looking non-commissioned officer
wearing the gilded badge stamped with a steel helmet and crossed swords
which was the German equivalent of the British wound stripes; with him
were two or three other German soldiers, obviously convalescents, and a
squad of British prisoners of war stacking cases and carrying oil-drums
and gasoline-cans about.

Tommy Hambledon got out of the car with the air of command appropriate
to a German field-officer, and his depressed-looking driver also
alighted and opened the hood.

"Five gallons of gasoline and a gallon of oil," said the Westphalian
major, and the British prisoners left off working at once and leaned on
things.

"I am sorry, sir," said the sergeant. "I can let you have two gallons of
gas, but I am regrettably forbidden to issue any oil."

"I like the way our 'Orace says 'is little piece," said one of the
prisoners to another in English. "'Umble but unyieldin'."

"There must be oil," said Hambledon peremptorily.

"Hear the tone o' command," said another prisoner. "Wad ye ever think
the likes o' a wee fat man like that un cud be sae lorrdly?"

"I am sorry, sir," said the sergeant again, "but there is very little
oil here and I am ordered to keep it for a convoy which is coming
through tonight."

"I'll bet he's a corker to work for," said a prisoner with a scar down
his cheek. "Look at his driver, poor downtrodden little worm; looks as
though he hardly dared to breathe."

Which was true, for Bill was afraid of laughing.

"Damn the convoy," said Hambledon. "I said five gallons of gasoline and
one of oil."

"Look 'ow 'is ears stick out," said the cockney of the party. "Coo, an'
ain't they red?"

"Ye wad almost think the creature cud understand us. See him blushin'."

"Garn, the pore old Fritzy can't _sprechen Anglais_. Not 'less 'e was a
waiter before the war."

The sergeant turned on them. "You--work!" he shouted, in two of his
twelve words of English. "Baumer, get three gallons of gas."

"I said five!" roared Hambledon. "And the oil I ordered!"

"'Children, you should never let,'" quoted the scarred prisoner, "'your
angry passions rise. Your little hands were never made--'"

"_Sprechen verboten!_ Work!" shouted the sergeant, and the prisoners
went through the motions of men beginning to lift things and desisted
the moment he turned his head. "_Herr Gott_, these prisoners will be the
death of me. Sir, I will issue five gallons of gas, if you insist, but
the oil--"

"Look at this, you insubordinate hound," said Hambledon, and showed him
the pass.

"Sir," said the man with natural dignity, "if you had shown me this
before, I would have served you at once, but it is my duty to obey
orders. Baumer, get a gallon of oil."

"Lumme, 'e's goin' to get it," said the cockney. "Must be a cousin o'
Kaiser Bill's."

"Bit of a nut, ain't 'e? Look at 'is cap, all o' one side to give the
girls a treat."

"B'lieve you're right," said the scarred prisoner thoughtfully, "the
driver can understand English. He's turning purple."

Happily at that moment Baumer returned with the oil and Bill was able to
busy himself.

"Do those fellows give you much trouble?" he asked in a low tone.

"Yes, but they're not bad fellows, really," answered Baumer. "One
wouldn't mind if one wasn't always so tired."

The car drove on again and Hambledon said: "I don't want to use this
pass more than I can help. I have a nasty feeling they may be looking
for two men carrying it."

"It's worked all right so far," said Bill.

They drove into Ostend as dusk was falling, left the car in a side
turning and walked down the Avenue de la Reine towards the sea.

"Somewhere down here," said Hambledon, "there is a cross-road with a
well-known tobacconist's shop at the corner, called _Die Bronzen
Paard_."

"The Bronze Leopard?"

"No, 'Horse.' Our friend who will tell us the rendezvous and obtain us a
boat lives at the opposite corner to the tobacconist. It should be just
here somewhere, he keeps a-- Good Lord!"

The house for which they were looking was represented by some tottering
rootless walls, a large hole in the ground, and heaps of rubble with
broken glass sticking out of it.

"He doesn't seem to have kept it very well," remarked Bill. "I trust he
is not still at home?"

"You are completely heartless," said Hambledon indignantly. "You have no
sympathy for poor folk in misfortune. Do you realize that if he is, we
may not be able to get a boat?"

The tobacco shop was scarred from the effects of the explosion, and the
shattered windows were boarded up, but the door was open and business
evidently proceeding. The travellers entered and inquired about the
welfare of M. Jules Braem, who had until recently lived opposite.

The tobacconist said that M. Braem still lived, but not, as the
travellers would observe, opposite; he had gone to stay with his married
sister down near the harbour. The elder traveller said that he had
indeed noticed the results of some disturbance, such as would cause a
peace-loving man to change his residence, and could the owner of the
Bronze Horse provide him with the new address?

The tobacconist shook his head, but his wife, who was also in the shop,
said that they did not themselves know, but that possibly the wife of
the greengrocer yonder might be able to supply it, and as for
disturbance, it was a mystery to her how even those so fortunate as to
escape bodily injury succeeded in remaining mentally intact. The elder
traveller then bought some cigarettes, and they passed on to the
greengrocer's.

Here once again they found husband and wife in the shop, which was
unfortunate, because at the mention of M. Braem the lady glanced
nervously at her husband and retired modestly behind strings of onions,
while the greengrocer said that Providence in its mysterious wisdom had
seen fit to preserve the life of M. Braem owing to his having been
elsewhere at the time the bomb fell.

The major said that it had occurred to him that something of the sort
must have happened, but the point of immediate interest was where M.
Braem was now. The greengrocer only regretted his inability to be of
more practical assistance and suggested, sourly, the gendarmerie. The
major thanked him for his very helpful suggestion, which they would at
once proceed to put into action, and went on talking about the said bomb
outrage in a sympathetic manner, interjecting instructions to his
orderly to buy some apples. Now, no one breaks off a conversation with a
major to serve a private, so Bill drifted across the shop to speak with
Madame, received his bag of apples, and they left.

"Where is he?" asked Tommy Hambledon.

"At the Caf of the African Lion, down by the harbour."

They took the turning opposite the Bronze Horse and walked through
streets becoming progressively narrower and older towards the harbour.
"This town," said Bill, "seems to be mainly populated by elderly
artillery men."

"Yes. There's a German gun about every seventy-five yards all down this
coast, and these men are the guns' crews. They are here in case the
British try to land, but as the British are not, so far as I have noted,
afflicted with mass dementia, they're not likely to attempt it. So these
worthy gentlemen lead useful but not exciting lives, for after all if
they weren't here the British probably would be, but in the meantime I
imagine most of 'em have never fired off their field-piece."

"They must be bored stiff."

"Yes. I hope we don't afford 'em any comic relief tonight. Where's your
African Lion?"

"Somewhere along the quays here."

They walked along in the dark, stumbling at times over unseen obstacles,
for there were, of course, no lights showing, till in a ray of light
from a door momentarily opened they saw a man and a girl emerge and two
men enter.

"Wonder if that's it," said Hambledon, and when they reached the house
he shone for a moment the light of a pocket electric torch upon a
signboard dimly seen above the door. It bore a spirited but blistered
painting of a lion with an alarming black mane and a singularly sweet
smile. Hambledon pushed the door open and stalked in, respectfully
followed by Bill.

There were quite a lot of soldiers there, a few seamen of the German
submarine fleet, and one or two women, and the air was thick with the
smell of tobacco, drinks, and onions. The clients lifted their heads and
stared coldly at the Westphalian major, who looked them over with
distaste and strode slowly down the centre gangway and through a door at
the back, and the private went too. They were followed by some
unappreciative comment, because the staff officer was never popular with
the front-line soldier in any army, and by the beginning of 1918 the
German troops were becoming mutinous. Madame, however, rising swiftly
from her desk near the door, hushed these remarks with a few well-chosen
words, hitched her grey cloth shawl up round her shoulders, and pattered
after the invaders who were waiting for her just inside the kitchen.

"_Bo' soir, messieurs_," she began.

"Is Monsieur Jules Braem here?"

"Upstairs, messieurs."

"I should like to speak to him, please."

The woman looked scared, but asked no questions and led them upstairs to
a stuffy little sitting-room too full of furniture, where they waited
till Jules Braem came in, a thin man with a long nose and sharp black
eyes.

"Good evening," said Hambledon. "You were expecting us, I think."

The man's face brightened. "Yes, messieurs--you will excuse me--my
sister did not know you and one always wonders who one's visitors may
be."

"You have a message for us, I think."

"Yes," said Braem, hauling up his jersey to get at the waistcoat pockets
underneath and producing a scrap of paper. "Yes, here it is." He handed
it over. Hambledon took it and read it aloud.

"'51 degrees 16 minutes 20 seconds north, 2 degrees 51 minutes 30
seconds east from 11 p.m. till 4 a.m.' Yes, well, I hope we find it. I
wish these navy people weren't so infernally technical; if only they'd
say two miles out in a straight line from the third automatic machine
counting from the pier, it would be so much simpler."

Braem laughed. "If the gentlemen will row north-west for two hours when
they are clear of the harbour, they will be about there," he said. "It
is only the difficulty of keeping a straight course in the dark--it is
overcast tonight, there are no stars to steer by. Have you a compass?"

"No," said Tommy Hambledon, and Bill shook his head. "You had better
have this," said the Belgian, and gave them a brass pocket compass about
an inch in diameter. "It is not much good, but it will keep you from
rowing in circles, provided you keep it away from the rowlocks, that is,
and you will find the waves are a help; once you get your course, you
will keep them at much the same angle. It is past nine o'clock; it will
take you an hour to get clear of the harbour since you will have to be
much more quiet than the little mouse, eh? Just paddle with the oars,
you know? Like the ladies rowing on the fine summer day, very soft and
gentle."

"I wish I were sure the sea was going to be perfectly ladylike, too."

"Oh, it is not too bad tonight, just the little lop, you know. And it is
fine exercise, rowing--no standing about getting cold, eh?"

"I wonder if you'd be so enthusiastic if you were going," said
Hambledon.

"I would not mind if I were going to England, where nobody arrests you
so long as you are good," said Braem wistfully. "It is not so pleasant,
always, to stay here with all the neighbours knowing you too well--_mon
Dieu_, those neighbours!"

"We met some of them," said Bill with a laugh.

"So? You may laugh, m'sieur, you have not to live with them. Well, will
you have something to eat before you go, or a litre of wine perhaps?"

"Thanks," said Hambledon, "but I'll wait till I get aboard, I think.
You, Bill?"

"I agree with you," said Bill. "Business first."

"Will you follow me, then, gentlemen? We will go out the back way, I
think."

They went out by the back door of the caf and stumbled among empty
boxes and full dustbins down an alley and out on the quayside again. The
place was curiously deserted. Bill would have expected more sentries and
said so, but Braem explained that there was no particular object in
placing guards about the outer harbour where they were; in the inner
harbour, where the submarines were moored, it was a different matter,
there were always men about there, inquisitive men who wanted to know
one's business. They went on in the darkness, splashing into shallow
puddles and shivering in the bitter wind which swept in from the North
Sea and left a taste of salt upon their lips. Braem led them to a place
where an iron ladder descended the face of the harbour wall to the water
below.

"I have the dinghy tied here," he said, "I will go first and pull her up
to the foot of the ladder. Will you follow?"

He swung himself over the edge, a black shadow against a background only
less black, and disappeared jerkily downwards, and the two men left
behind waited a few moments before following him.

"Only the most deep-rooted instincts of self-preservation," said Tommy
Hambledon, "would induce me to carry on with this singularly
unattractive expedition." He, too, vanished from sight and Bill
followed. They found Braem in the dinghy holding her up to the foot of
the ladder.

"I have bound the oars with cloth," he said, "to muffle the bump against
the rowlocks. If you could manage it, it would be better not to row till
you are clear of the quay wall. There is a sentry just at the end there,
and he may make a fuss if he hears anything. We do not want any fusses,
eh?"

"Absolutely no fuss," agreed Hambledon, "but how do we propel the boat
if we don't row? Put our heads under water astern and blow?"

Muffled sounds of amusement came from Braem, who said: "You pull
yourselves along by the face of the wall, m'sieurs; the tide is going
out, that will help you."

"Oh, splendid. When clear of the harbour we find north-west on the
compass and row like blazes for two hours. Is that all?"

"Also be careful not to run upon a mine."

"Mine?"

"The sea is heavily mined off the harbour mouth, m'sieur. There is a
channel left for the submarines; it would be as well if you could find
it."

"If we don't?"

"You should be able to avoid the mines in a dinghy. You will hear the
little slaps the waves give them even if you cannot see, and it will be
lighter outside."

"At the slightest sign of any slap-and-tickle we will modestly retire,"
said Tommy. "_Au 'voir_, Monsieur Braem. Heaven will certainly reward
you, and I trust the British government will follow suit."

"So do I," said Braem, and wrung their hands in his horny palm. "Heaven
defend and guide you, m'sieurs. Bon voyage!"

He stepped upon the ladder again, untied the painter, and threw it in
the bows of the dinghy, which immediately sidled away. "Bon voyage," he
whispered again, climbed up the ladder, and at once disappeared from
sight.

"_Allons, mon brave_," said Hambledon. "We approach ourselves to the
harbour wall and propel ourselves along it, but our boat doesn't seem to
want to approach it. One moment while I ship an oar and shove up a
little. You've been very quiet lately; what's the matter?"

"Nothing," said Bill. "Should one talk here? I say, this is all very
well, but there's nothing whatever to take hold of and this wall is
deuced slippery, it's coated with slime. I can't get on at all."

"I think if I could ship this oar aft and just waggle it we should get
on better. Can I--yes, I can. That's quiet enough, I can't hear anything
myself. You are right, we'd better not speak. I wonder where exactly the
sentry is."

They proceeded, slowly indeed but in complete silence, keeping close to
the wall, till suddenly the quiet was broken by a step on the quayside
above their heads and a clink on the stonework as a rifle was grounded.
At once Hambledon froze into immobility and the dinghy just floated
along on the tide. "Keep your head down," he whispered, "he might see
your face."

The sentry high above their heads picked up a pebble and dropped it into
the water merely for the pleasure of hearing the splash, then another
and another. "If one of those hits the boat," thought Bill, "there won't
be a splash, there'll be a thud, and he'll look over to see why."

But luck was with them and they passed in safety, cleared the harbour
walls at last, and headed for the open sea. They shipped a pair of oars
each and pulled steadily if unskilfully for a quarter of an hour, till
Hambledon said: "Stop now, and let's look at the compass." He laid it on
the floorboards of the boat and, sheltering the beam of the torch with
his hand, directed a glimmer of light on the compass face.

"Due west, apparently, is where we're going at the moment," said Bill.
"I should think that would be about right for Dover. We want to turn
half-right, don't we?"

"Swing her half-right," said Tommy Hambledon. "I don't really want to
row to Dover tonight. That's it, hold her. I'll leave the compass there
and take a look at it now and then. Carry on."

Some time passed in strenuous exercise, till Bill said: "Could we stop?
I want to take this coat off."

They shed their uniform greatcoats and went on again. After a time
Hambledon said: "Isn't this sea awkward? Either it isn't there when you
dig for it or else it's all there at once. Let's try with one oar each."

They were unshipping the spare oars when Bill suddenly said: "Listen!"
and, twisting round on the thwart, stared over the bows, and Hambledon
heard it too. Slap-whoosh. Wheesh.

"Back off, for God's sake! Can you see it?"

"Yes," said Bill, backing furiously. "Right under the bows. Come up, you
cow!"

They got away from the mine at last and skirted carefully round it at a
respectful distance till they were clear.

Bill said: "I've got a flask in my pocket."

"Even at school," said Tommy Hambledon, "you showed rudimentary symptoms
of intelligence. Pass it over."

Things went better with them after that, one oar was much more
manageable than two in the irregular lop of the sea on that shelving
shore for men whose little experience had been gained on peaceful
rivers, and though they stopped frequently to listen and look, they
encountered no more mines.

"We are keeping our course fairly well," said Hambledon, taking one of
his frequent peeps at the compass and another at his wristwatch. "Two
hours now since we left the African Lion, another hour should see us
through. I should think we've passed the mine-field now. Any more in
that flask?"

Midnight came and passed, the overcast sky cleared and showed a few
stars, and the sea became dimly visible for quite a distance round them.
"We might be able to see her now if she does turn up," said Bill.

"Who? Oh, the navy, not Aphrodite? Yes. When we see her we show my
pocket torch, and a lot of good that'll be I expect, but it seems the
right thing to do, and yell like hyenas. She should be hereabouts soon."

One o'clock, and Bill said: "Do you think we've gone too far?"

"I think this joke has. Let's ease off and listen," but they heard and
saw nothing. "Have a cigarette?"

Bill shivered suddenly, but said: "Good idea. I think we've done enough
work for the moment." They smoked in silence for a few minutes, and Bill
remarked: "Wonder what they thought when they found von Bodenheim."

"I expect they thought he was dead," said Tommy practically, "and then
they had another look and found they were right. You know, you should
have left his gun; then they might have thought he'd committed suicide."

"What, by shooting himself in the back of the head?"

"'Strange,' they would say, 'but then he always was an original chap.
That bullet in the wall was a first attempt, he aimed too high and
missed himself.'"

"With only one bullet discharged?"

"Your criticisms are captious. By the way, why is nothing ever captious
except a criticism? He reloaded, of course."

"Those prisoners at that dump near Ghent were nearly too much for me,"
said Bill, after another interval for intensive listening. "It's got a
lot darker again, hasn't it?"

"Yes, getting overcast, the stars have gone. Yes, those fellows seemed
fairly happy, considering; that non-com was a good man. By the way, did
you notice anything on the run?"

"What was that?"

"The Sunlight Soap advertisements, those enamelled iron things nailed up
to walls? I saw them here and there all the way down. You'd think
they'd--"

"Listen!" broke in Bill, and "Look out!" he yelled at the top of his
voice. "She's on us! _Hi!_"

There was a yell from Hambledon and a grinding crash as the M.L.'s bows
emerged from the darkness and ran them down. The next instant they were
both struggling in the water. There followed shouts from the M.L.'s
deck. "Thank God they've seen us," thought Bill, and the next moment one
of the ex-yachtsman crew, remembering his "man-overboard" drill, rushed
aft and pressed a button, and a calcium float flopped into the water and
burst at once into dazzling flame.

The result of this surpassed imagination, and it seemed to Bill,
swimming round and trying to avoid the propeller, that the German
gunners of the coastal defence must have been sitting with their hands
on their levers or whatever it was that gunners held, and pulled, for in
twenty seconds there was a succession of mighty bangs from the shore as
every German gun for miles trained on the calcium flare and fired.

Bill rose as high as he could in the water and continued to shout "Hi!"
wondering as he did so whether that was why hyenas were so called; he
could hear Hambledon not far off producing a healthy selection of
zoo-like noises, and the M.L. swung round and came back slowly. As she
passed, a man flung a rope and Bill plunged at it, caught it and wound
his arms and legs round it as immediately the launch increased speed,
for significant splashes were occurring unpleasantly near. He was
dragged through the water revolving like a patent log, gasping with
cold, spluttering and choking, and eventually hauled on board more dead
than alive, but still clinging to the rope, and arrived on the
encumbered deck dripping, shaking in every limb, and barely conscious.
The boat appeared to be travelling faster every moment judging by the
vibration and the fact that the calcium flare seemed to be miles behind,
and everything else was in total darkness.

"Drink this," said someone invisible but tangible, and offered him what
felt like a tin mug. He drank obediently, but found it was gin, which he
detested.

"My soul, look at that," said another voice, obviously referring to the
Belgian coast, sparkling with flashes from gunfire as far either way as
they could see, and roaring like a volcanic eruption.

"Please," said Bill with chattering teeth, "I'd rather have a whisky,
may I?"

"Sorry," someone answered. "Only got gin."

"Do you know you were miles away from where you should have been?" asked
a stern voice.

"No," said Bill mutinously, "and we damn near didn't even get there."

"Take him below where it's warm, for pity's sake," said the voice which
had offered him gin.

"Where's Hambledon?" asked Bill.

"Who's Hambledon?"

"The man who was with me."

There was a momentary pause before the stern voice answered him.

"Was there a man with you?"




CHAPTER 15


Bill Saunders reached London the following afternoon, had a bath and a
shave, changed into civilian clothes out of the naval uniform which had
been lent to him, and went to the War Office to report.

He found, however, that there was little he could tell which was news to
those in authority except the innocence of Heilemann and the death of
von Bodenheim, and, as has been seen, there was a sequel to that story
which was not known to Bill himself at the time. He explained that there
was just a chance due to Hambledon's note that he might not be connected
with it, or, if von Bodenheim had not reported, with the fire at Ahlhorn
either, but it was rather a remote chance, so they had thought it best
to clear out. He reported also that they had noticed signs of activity
behind the German lines. "It looks as though they are getting ready for
a big push somewhere."

The big man behind the desk sat still and said "Yes" and "Yes" and "I
understand," and noticed the dark rings under Bill's eyes and a certain
difficulty he had in keeping his hands quiet.

"You did perfectly right to come home," said the War Office man.
"Heilemann, of course, will have to be released with profuse apologies.
I am having this business of a new German push looked into, yours is not
the only report I have received; it looks like being something big. I
will try to find out if you are accused of the death of von Bodenheim
and whether he did report or not. It would be in accordance with his
reputation to deal with you first and report afterwards, and as for
writing an account of it, there wasn't much time, was there? He said
himself that he only heard of Heilemann's arrest on the day you returned
from Ahlhorn. Do you know how soon the news of the fire reached
Cologne?"

"Some time in the morning," said Bill.

"One wonders whether he sent word to Ahlhorn to have you arrested."

"I shouldn't think so. He must have known that, whether guilty or not, I
shouldn't hang about there. There was nothing to stay for."

"Exactly. What I was getting at was this: that even after he had got his
facts, it would take him some little time to convince himself that there
was no flaw in the reasoning, and that, incredible though it seemed, you
were a British agent. I should imagine he might still be wondering if it
could possibly be true when you arrived at his house. No, I don't see
him writing a long detailed account to his department that evening. If
you are not accused of his murder, I should think it quite likely you
have got away with the Ahlhorn affair, in which case there's no reason
why you shouldn't return to Cologne later, if you will."

"I shouldn't mind."

"I am glad; the importer's office is too good a cover to be wasted. You
fled, of course, because Hambledon's unknown informer warned you,
Hambledon himself presumably just went off on business to Holland and
met with some accidental death there."

"Yes," said Bill, and his fingers twitched.

"I am very sorry about Hambledon, I need not tell you that, I'm sure,
very sorry."

"I didn't know he wasn't on board," said Bill loudly and rapidly, with a
suddenly flushed face. "You see, it was pitch-dark, you couldn't even
see the men who spoke to you, they were all just voices, and I was
pretty well done in when they hauled me up, I couldn't think properly,
it never occurred to me they hadn't got him too, and we were miles away
by the time I said: 'Where's Hambledon?' and somebody said: 'Who's
Hambledon?' and I said--"

"Yes, yes, I know," said the quiet voice of the man who had heard so
many stories of sudden death. "It was frightfully unfortunate, but it
was nobody's fault, least of all yours." He went across to a cupboard by
the fireplace and took out a whisky-bottle and two glasses. "Here, drink
this. You have had a difficult time and a hideous shock on top of it.
It's all right, it will pass. What do you think of this stuff?" he went
on in a lighter tone. "Denton does me the honour to say that one must
come here to get the best whisky in London."

"He's right," said Bill, speaking with effort. "It is--quite excellent."

"Splendid. Drink that and have another."

Bill obeyed, the lines of strain in his face eased, and he leaned back
in the chair. "Thank you, sir," he said. "I'm sorry--making a scene like
that." He laughed unsteadily. "Wonderful stuff, this."

"You had better have some leave, I think. Take fifteen days and then
come and see me again. Don't report in the meantime, take it easy and
don't worry about things. I may say that you have done extraordinarily
well," and he went on to add words of praise which would have sent out
the Bill of two months earlier walking on air down Whitehall, but which
seemed to this one rather distant and beside the point. Hambledon--

He became aware that he was being kindly but firmly told to go away and
play, so he drifted out, looking at his watch and finding it a little
after seven. Dinner somewhere, presumably, and later on a train to
Weatherley Parva--he stopped in the middle of Whitehall so suddenly that
a taxi missed him by inches and a woman screamed, but Bill took no
notice. Diane, of course. Incredible, impossible, idiotic but true, he
had completely forgotten Diane. He stood still outside the Admiralty and
tried to remember when he had last thought of Diane, somewhere ages
ago--yes, at Ahlhorn. He had noticed the moon one night as he walked
back from the sheds to the car, Diane the moon-goddess, so far away, and
so is my Diane; that was the night before the great fire six days ago,
and ever since then time had passed in one rush of excitement, danger,
terror, grief--Hambledon. He had never told Hambledon about her and now
he never would.

Well, it was a pity but couldn't be helped, and it was all over now
anyway and there was nothing to be gained by fretting over it, so he
thrust the thought to the back of his mind, signalled a taxi, and gave
the Kensington address. Diane, dear Diane.

He arrived just as the family were going in to a truncated war-time
dinner, to be greeted with a rush of emotion by Diane, a rather stately
courtesy by her mother, and the most surprising and unexpected warmth of
cordiality by her father. Bill and Diane were both so taken aback by
this that they left off clinging to each other and merely stood hand in
hand and gaped at him.

"Come in, come in, my dear fellow. What about a glass of sherry before
dinner, eh? My dear boy, I am thankful to see you back. You look tired,
though, very tired. Diane, don't stand there staring as though you'd
seen a ghost. Go and tell the maids to lay another place at table. There
aren't any maids, only one and she's out? Well, go and lay it yourself,
then. Come in my study, Bill; not much in the cellar now I'm afraid, but
there's still a bottle or two of Amontillado left, I'll go and get it."

Mrs. Causton murmured something about the soup getting cold, but was
merely swept away.

"I suppose it'll warm up again, won't it? Don't stand there making
difficulties, Eliza."

Bill conquered with a heroic effort an attack of giggles which came
suddenly upon him, and said: "I'm giving you the most frightful trouble,
sir."

"Not at all, not at all. Unless you'd as soon have whisky?"

"I'd rather, sir, if it's not a frightful admission."

"Of course not, all the better, I've got some in here. Dammit, the
fire's nearly out."

"I'll get some firewood," said Diane, awaking as from a trance, and ran
to fetch it.

"Here's a peg for you," said the colonel, pouring out one that would
have startled Noah.

"Oh, steady, sir," said Bill. "I've had one or two already."

"Nonsense, do you good. Water or soda?"

"Just show it the siphon, sir, will you? Here," to Diane, who was
dropping sticks into the grate, "let me do that."

He took them from her and stood them up on their ends, building up an
erection like the skeleton of a wigwam with some paper underneath and a
few small pieces of coal on the top.

"Do you know, you can light a fire with green sticks if you prop them up
like this, especially if you notch them with a knife and have the
notches pointing downwards," said the demonstrator, applying a match.
The flame took hold and almost at once the wood began to crackle.

"You are an expert fire-lighter, aren't you?" said Diane admiringly.

There came a sound between a cough and a roar from the colonel, whose
whisky had taken the wrong turning. He choked and spluttered, and Bill
banged him between the shoulders.

"Thank you, my boy, thank you," said the colonel as soon as he could
speak.

"What ever made you do that, Father?"

"Oh, nothing. Have you laid the table?"

"Not yet."

"Well, for goodness' sake, go and do it. Expert fire-lighter," he went
on, as Diane left the room, "oh dear!" Their eyes met, and both men
burst out laughing.

"Who told you, sir?"

"Oh--I have ways of acquiring information. I will admit frankly that
when I realized I had an unknown son-in-law, I made inquiries about
him."

"Naturally, sir, don't blame you at all."

"But make no mistake," said Colonel Causton, becoming serious, "I shall
never ask you anything, I shall never expect to be told anything. It is
not my business, I know as much as I wish to, and I am satisfied."

"You are very good."

"But you should have seen the face of that feller at the War Office! I
went in as innocent as a baby and asked if they knew anything about a
Private William Saunders of the 2nd Hampshires--Lord bless my soul! Come
in to dinner."

Bill and Diane sat in the study before the resuscitated fire, both in
one armchair and rejoicing to be together again, he feeling that for
once the thing he had hoped for was really coming true. Here was someone
apart from the agonies and stress of life, with whom he could be at
peace; peace, and not to be continually on his guard, not always
mistrustful and anxious. Diane seemed to guess that he did not want to
think about the war; she talked instead of what they would do when it
was all over. He said he thought it would be great fun to run a garage
in a country village.

"I shall go back to my own name again and you will be Mrs. Michael
Kingston."

"But, Bill darling, why do you want to drop the name of Saunders when
you've done so well in it?"

"Who said I had done well?"

"Nobody, darling, but haven't you got a decoration or something?"

"Not to my knowledge. What put that idea into your head?"

"Only the way Father has come round, darling. You know, he hasn't been a
bit nice about you all the time till--when was it? Last Saturday. He
came in looking awfully pleased with himself and asked me if I'd heard
from you lately, and if you'd said anything about leave."

"Oh, yes?"

"I said I didn't suppose you'd get leave yet, privates didn't get leave
very often, and he said: 'Oh, really?' and I thought it was silly of him
because, being a colonel, he must know that. Darling, how did you manage
it? Father was funny about you."

"When?"

"After you'd gone back. He kept on staring at me and muttering: 'But I
don't _know_ anything about the fellow. I don't know anything _about_
the fellow,' till Mother and I got fed up with it. Then when I told him
I'd met you at Weatherley Parva, he said: 'Oh, ah,' and wrote to Uncle
James."

"The vicar, yes."

"I don't think he got much out of him, because he didn't seem any
better, so he wrote to your uncle."

"He did, did he?" said Bill, considerably amused. "Did he get any
satisfaction out of that?"

"I don't think so, except that they are annoyed with us, too. So then he
wrote to your school."

"He's a persevering old bean, isn't he?"

"And that wasn't any good either, and I don't know what he did after
that except that he came home all pleased about it on Saturday. Darling,
are you sure you haven't done something wonderful?"

"Quite," said Bill shortly.

                 *        *        *        *        *

About the middle of March, Bill was in France again, but not with his
regiment although in the same sector; in point of fact, he was once more
Private Hans Hommellhof from Duisberg, German down to the skin, in one
of the "cages" together with a number of German non-commissioned
officers and men. He sat usually in a corner near the gate, a depressed
little private shivering in a threadbare uniform, to whom everybody
talked, but who was chiefly interested in swopping buttons, badges, and
German picture-postcards for cigarettes with the sentry. The sentries,
who had no idea that he was other than what he appeared to be, called
him "that funny little Jerry in the corner" and were carelessly kind,
and the German soldiers considered that his only claim to distinction
was that he had managed to retain his watch when he was captured.

He was there to try to find out as much as possible about the Big Push.
A good deal was already known about it at headquarters, and it was
generally believed to have been fixed for the end of March, the 27th or
thereabouts, but further information was eagerly desired. So he mooned
about, or sat rereading old letters from home and showed to everyone who
would look at them photographs of his mother, sisters--one married, with
baby--and best girl, and talked. The German soldiers would have been
surprised if they had realized quite how much they told him in return,
and all went well till the morning of March the 21st, which began with a
terrific German barrage.

No news, of course, filtered into the cage, but Bill was at first
curious, and then painfully interested, to see long columns of men,
transport, guns, field-kitchens, staff cars, officers on horseback and
on foot, and all the various details that went to make an army in 1918,
streaming back towards the rear on a road that ran within view of the
camp. The other prisoners were equally interested, but less painfully.

"It looks like a retreat," said one.

"It is a retreat," said a sergeant authoritatively. "The English are
being driven back."

"Has it come?" they asked in effect, "has it come, and are we seeing the
onset of Victory?" But still the sentries marched up and down and the
Germans did not dare to cheer.

About ten o'clock came an officer who knew Bill for what he was, and
said to the sentry: "Get me out that miserable little blighter in the
corner, I want to talk to him," and accordingly Bill was pulled out
without ceremony and marched off. When they got out of sight the officer
said: "You'd better run like blazes. Jerry has broken through on
practically the whole battlefront from what I hear, and God knows we've
got nothing to stop him. I must go. Best of luck," and he went about his
business.

Bill thought this such excellent advice that he broke into a trot at
once. Here was he, not only in the uniform of the German army, but
German in every detail to the recesses of his raiment and the bottoms of
his pockets, and if he was captured by the Germans he would be given
"escaper's leave" and sent back to the bosom of the Hommellhof family at
Duisberg. There they would gather to greet him, that alarmingly adequate
mother, the pretty married sister complete with baby, the two plain
sisters, one with a long nose and the other with a snub-nose, and the
chubby fiance with a turned-up nose, and they would all stand round and
look at him, and with one accord they would say: "This ain't our Hans,"
and then--Bill broke into a cold perspiration, the trot became a run,
and he went through a couple of hedges without really noticing them.

He toiled up a long slope and came upon a large body of infantry which
was also retiring in a more orderly but scarcely less rapid manner than
his own, for the German shell-fire was becoming increasingly intense.
Bill thought that the height of irony would be reached if they shot him
for being German, whereas the Germans would certainly shoot him for
being English, but he need not have worried; the retiring troops had
their own troubles to contend with and were much too full of them to
bother about him. One panting cockney did just indicate Bill to his
neighbour. "Look at Jerry--'oppin' it our wiy--don't seem ter 'anker for
'is--Fatherland, does 'e?" but that was all, for the neighbour was too
busy trying to cover the ground like a cross-country runner, while in
full battle order, to answer.

Just over the crest of the ridge they came upon a line of guns, with
their crews staring in amazement, but cries of "Nothin' in front of
yer!" woke them to a frenzied activity of shouted orders, men running
about and working feverishly, and plunging, startled horses, as the
gunners limbered up and got away while there was yet time.

Much later Bill found himself plodding down a road where he passed a
body of men resting. One of them looked across and called to him: "Run,
Jerry, run!" and the others laughed. A painful moment.

As the retreat reached what had been peaceful areas behind the lines,
the existing confusion was aggravated by a general exodus of the entire
civilian population, who, with astonishing singleness of purpose, simply
fled. They came out of their houses with children and bundles and
grandparents and birds in cages and babies and clocks and dogs and goats
and squawking fowls tied by the legs and unspecified impedimenta of all
kinds, and left in a southerly direction with quite incredible
speed--that is, except those wealthy enough to have a cart to drive, for
these had to keep to the roads and crawl with the rest of the crawling
traffic, and the German gunfire followed them up.

Some time during the retreat Bill passed through a village from which
the civilian population had already departed, but which was full of
troops waiting to be sent somewhere, or possibly merely waiting for
Jerry to reach them. Anyway, they were waiting, and one man had taken a
phonograph out of a deserted shop, and a pile of records, and was
sitting at the roadside with them. As soon as he had played a record, he
took it off the turntable and smashed it in the gutter, for why should
Jerry have it?

Bill found some food in a shop where there was no one to take the money,
and walked on, munching. It seemed necessary to go on and on, for the
German advance continued night and day, and if weary men lay down to
sleep, soon there would be a cry of "Jerry up!" and they would stagger
to their feet and march on again. Bill got seriously annoyed about all
this, for in another day he would have been out of the cage and in
British uniform again instead of scouring the country in a dress which
made both sides equally dangerous, and all because the wretched Germans
had attacked six days before they were expected.

The whole battlefront was in a state of indescribable confusion, units
parted from their companies, companies which had become separated from
their battalions and mixed up with details from other regiments with
whom they had no business to associate, and battalions which had lost
their brigades. Headquarters staffs were being captured, and hospital
trains and field-kitchens; and little bunches of men, led by a corporal
or merely by the private with the longest service, fought savage little
rear-guard actions, and retreated and fought again. The German advance
eddied forward like the flowing tide in unexpected little salients, so
that you would go back from an area of comparative peace and run into a
battle, and the front line was no longer a line at all except as the
cotton from a spool may still be called a line when the kitten has
finished playing with it; and always the guns thundered, the great
shells burst, and the little gas-shells went phh--plop! and you jammed
that beastly gas-mask on again.

They fell back upon Hazebrouck and turned at bay, and there the German
advance went no farther, though in some parts of the line it continued
for fifteen days. When the army was at last sorted out, Bill managed to
get into touch with someone who knew what his job really was, and was
sent back to London with instructions to report at the War Office and
keep out of the way of anybody who knew him, because it was barely eight
weeks since he had been on leave before, and the most unsuspicious
relative would know that a real private should not be back again so
soon. So he was not to see Diane and he ought to have been grieved, but
was surprised to find within himself a sense of relief of which he was
horribly ashamed. Dear, sweet Diane, loving and beautiful, but if she
asked even three questions one after another, he knew he would throw
something at her, and she was quite capable of asking a dozen straight
off the reel.

So he spent one night at a hotel in Bloomsbury at which he had stayed
the first time he came home from Cologne, and in the morning took a bus
for the War Office, and even as he stepped off it in Trafalgar Square,
for this bus went down the Strand, he came face to face with Diane, who
was attempting to board it.

"Bill!" she cried, and came to him with hands outstretched. "How lovely!
How did you manage it? Whatever are you doing here?"

At that any hesitation he might have had vanished. More questions. He
stood still, removed his hat--for he was wearing civilian clothes bought
in Paris--held it in his hand, looked at her with precisely the
may-I-come-on look the average man gives to the pretty stranger, and
said with a slight but perceptible American accent that though the
pleasure sure was his, he guessed the advantage was hers; and he looked
her up and down with plain appreciation.

Diane hesitated. The face was the face of darling Bill, but the speech
and manner and look and clothes were all different, and one had heard
that everyone has his double.

"Are you not--" she stammered, "you are so like my--Bill Saunders, I
mean. I'm sorry, I can't believe--"

"I'm sorry too, lady, believe me. I wish I was this lucky fellow, what's
his name?"

"Bill Saunders," said Diane, still staring.

"Won't I do instead of Bill Saunders, lady? I've nothin' much on this
forenoon."

"Oh no, no, thank you," said Diane, backing away. "You are very kind,
but I must go--" and she fled, stopping to glance back once or twice,
and Bill stared after her till she was out of sight. Then he mopped his
brow, replaced the somewhat broad-brimmed hat, and went on his way.

At the War Office he heard, to his intense surprise, that Max von
Bodenheim had been murdered by some woman who had thereupon shot
herself. Denton did not know who she was, but there was no doubt about
the story.

"Impossible," said Bill. "They are cooking the story up to make me think
I'm safe. Then, when I return, they will have a reception committee
waiting for me."

"No," said the War Office man, "I don't agree, I think something
extraordinary has happened, for these people aren't fools. If you shot
him, you must know you've shot him and wouldn't be taken in; they
wouldn't put up a feeble story like that. Besides, Denton talked to
Hans, who found them. I sent Denton up from Mainz to make inquiries."

"Hans wouldn't lie, he wouldn't be able to think of one, though of
course somebody might have told him to say that."

"Denton met him drowning his sorrows at the local pub. He told the story
with a wealth of gruesome detail."

"Then it must be true. Hans might repeat a statement, but not a wealth
of detail. I give it up."

"Furthermore, no inquiries are being made for you by the German
authorities, which shows not only that von Bodenheim did not report, but
also that they swallowed Hambledon's note. They are not surprised you
have disappeared, so it looks as though it would be safe for you to go
back."

"I will go back and carry on with the importer's office. I shall have to
get a clerk of some kind, there is really quite a lot of genuine
business, if only in telling people their butter's marge this week."

"I am giving you Denton. You will be senior to him, of course. He is a
German-Swiss officially, anything to keep him from being called to the
colours. He is a good chap, it's amazing the amount of energy that weary
manner conceals."

Bill returned to Cologne in May of 1918 and found a Germany going from
bad to worse. The food was of poor quality and hopelessly insufficient,
there was very little money, and prices were rising. The tone of public
opinion was changing; now that the great advance had been held and
turned, defeatism took the place of defiance; the last great effort had
been made and failed, and the army was becoming mutinous. The navy was
in worse case still; the great battleships rusted in harbour, fast
cruisers and destroyers went out on raids and were chased home again,
the submarine service was becoming a suicide club, and the personnel was
openly Communistic. Bill found that there was not really much of
outstanding importance to do but observe and report. Denton helped him
not to feel the loss of Hambledon too keenly, but there was nobody on
the German side to take the place of von Bodenheim, and Bill missed him
intensely. Von Bodenheim's death appeared to have been more or less
hushed up; there was no doubt that a woman had been concerned in it, but
nobody wanted to talk about it and Bill was hardly in a position to
inquire. As a friend of the house, he did try to find Hans, but the
servant seemed to have disappeared. Probably he had gone back to the
village where he belonged, and Bill had never heard where that was.

He received instructions from German Intelligence for forwarding the
ghostly Butler's reports, but as the months passed and the situation in
Germany grew steadily more desperate, the connection became pointless,
and at last Bill was empowered to report that British Intelligence had
dropped on Butler and gathered him in. Formal regret was officially
expressed, but nobody seemed to mind very much, for, after all, what was
a Butler in the general cataclysm?

Dirk Brandt, heir to his uncle Hendrik Brandt, who was accidentally
drowned in Holland while paying a business visit there at the end of
January, and his new assistant, the German-Swiss Ludwig Wolff, found
themselves extraordinarily welcome in Cologne society, for if young
Brandt had been worth cultivating a year earlier for the good things his
uncle was able to procure, how much more was it the case now that
conditions were so much worse and the young man was his own master!
Ludwig Wolff, besides his connection with the horn of plenty, was
welcome for his own sake, as he was friendly, cheerful, and always
good-tempered, and his sleepy manner was in welcome contrast to the
feverish harassed ways of most of the Cologne people in those hard
times. Dirk Brandt took him everywhere and introduced him, and one night
in August at the Caf Palant they met Kaspar Bluehm, home on leave.

"Bluehm, I'm awfully glad to see you," said Dirk sincerely. "I see your
people occasionally and hear news of you, but it's an age since we met."

Bluehm glanced up wearily. He looked years older and the life seemed to
have been drained out of him. "Brandt, well met," he said. "Yes, I've
been lucky so far. How are you?"

Dirk introduced Wolff, "my new partner," and Bluehm said: "I was sorry
to hear about your uncle, though I never knew him. He will be missed in
Cologne. Did you say you saw my people sometimes?"

"Yes," said Dirk. "I saw Frau Bluehm the other day, she wanted something
for your sister Greta, who has not been very well."

"She is nearly starved, that's what's the matter with her," said Bluehm
bluntly. "I know, you got them flour and butter, it was good of you. But
my sister Marie, have you seen Marie?"

"I have seen her out with people once or twice," said Dirk guardedly;
"she has not been at home when I have called."

"No," said Bluehm. "No, I dare say not. Are you a stranger to Cologne,
Herr Wolff?"

"Not now," said Ludwig Wolff, "I've been here about four months,
weighing out beans and helping Brandt to count the shekels, you know."

"I hope it amuses you."

"Frightfully thrilling at first, never seen so much money before. We
aren't rich in my country, you know, especially since the tourists have
all gone shooting instead of skiing."

"I thought you had rather a lot of visitors in Switzerland just now,"
said Bluehm, rather entertained by the tall young man's nonchalant
manner.

"Oh yes, lots and lots of visitors, but not the kind who spend money.
Fact is, we're always afraid about eighty per cent of 'em will become
chargeable to the parish, and then up go the taxes, eh? Wonderful place
to learn languages just now, my country. Reminds me of Noah's Ark."

"The Tower of Babel, possibly?"

"No, no, Noah's Ark," insisted Wolff, "all the different kinds of
animals, you know. And they go in two by two as a general rule," he
added, with his lazy smile.

Bluehm laughed rather perfunctorily, and there was a short pause during
which he glanced at Dirk Brandt once or twice, and Wolff, realizing that
he was not wanted, said: "Excuse me, please, some people over there I
ought to say a kind word to," and went. Even then Bluehm did not seem to
have much to say, and Dirk, to make conversation, remarked that the
prevailing depression did not seem to have much effect on the spirits of
the Caf Palant's clientele, and he looked round the room at several
noisy parties of young officers and rather too decorative ladies.
Bluehm's glance followed his with an expression of distaste.

"Rotten, all rotten," said Bluehm. "Here's the country on the edge of
starvation, defeat, disintegration, and damnation, and all they think of
is getting drunk and having a good time."

"Perhaps that's all they dare think of," suggested Dirk, and Bluehm
looked at him keenly.

"Yes, you've got older, too, since last we met, haven't you?" he said,
and Dirk shrugged his shoulders. "I should like to ask you something,"
Bluehm went on hesitantly, "but I hardly know how--a favour--it is not
fair to--"

"Please go on," said Dirk, looking straight into the German's honest,
puzzled blue eyes. "You should know I will do anything I can--we have
known each other for some time now."

"It is this," said Bluehm and paused. "By the way, have you seen or
heard of anything of Hedwige Schwiss lately?"

"One of the Bavarian Nightingales. No, not for ages, not since--let me
see. It was the day after the Ahlhorn disaster. I remember we were
talking about it, my uncle was there too, it was at the Metropol."

"The day after the Ahlhorn disaster," repeated Bluehm slowly. "I
see--yes, well, that was not what I was going to ask. Tell me--forgive
me, I do not wish to be intrusive--I thought at one time that you liked
my sister Marie, did you not?"

"I like her very much," said Dirk with complete truth. "She used to play
the piano for me. She was always kind and she plays beautifully, but it
is a long time since I have seen her to talk to. I see her about with
people sometimes; it is a change for her, she used to be so quiet."

"That is so, she is changed. Brandt, my mother and I are terribly
worried about her. I came out this evening thinking I might meet her,
she would not stay at home, she had engagements, she said--Brandt, what
can I do? I have only four days' leave. My mother is tied at home with
my sister Greta, who becomes weaker every day--she is in a decline, I
think--and Marie goes about alone; it is not done by young girls in our
class as you know. She says she goes with friends, but they are not our
friends," went on Bluehm, who, once the ice had been broken, poured out
his story as though he would never stop; "we do not hear good accounts
of these people, rich profiteers and suchlike, patronizing Marie Bluehm.
I don't want you to think I am hard on her, believe me, I understand. It
is miserable at home now--no maids, no money, not enough to eat, Greta
always ill, and my mother, dear kind soul as she is, always lamenting
the good old days--it is not cheerful. I think it is breaking Marie's
heart and she runs about to distract her mind."

"Nobody could possibly blame her or be hard on her," said Dirk gravely,
thinking of Marie's clear blue eyes and smooth fair hair shining in a
beam of sunlight as she sat at an old-fashioned upright piano in the
Bluehm apartment playing Chopin for him, "she looks so young."

"She is young--barely eighteen. She was the baby sister always, for
Greta is older than I am. Brandt! She will come to harm as sure as I sit
here, and what can I do? Brandt, for God's sake, have you any influence
over her?"

"I don't know, Bluehm, on my word I have no idea. Why should I have?"

"Brandt! You know how things are. You are the only man in Cologne whom I
would call a friend who is always in Cologne, my own school-friends and
brother officers are either dead or crippled or always away like myself.
You know the sort of degenerate money-making swine who have somehow
managed to evade service and remain at home, you've seen for yourself
the set she has got into. Brandt," hammering the table with his fist,
"you are the only one who can do anything. It is a frightful lot to ask,
but we look on you as one of us now--will you do what you can?"

Dirk hesitated, as well he might, but it was impossible to refuse this
good fellow, and besides, there was Marie. He shivered slightly.

"I will do whatever I can," he said solemnly, and they shook hands. "Of
course," he went on in a lighter tone, "she may tell me to run away and
chase myself."




CHAPTER 16


A few days later Dirk Brandt saw Marie Bluehm at the Rosenhof dancing
with a young man of unprepossessing appearance and too much jewellery.
His manner was patronizing and her merriment was a little too obvious to
be quite genuine, so Dirk leaned one shoulder against the wall and
watched them. Moreover, it seemed to him that he had seen the man before
somewhere, and presently there returned to him a recollection of an
evening at the Germania with Max von Bodenheim in an expansive mood
pointing out his various bte-noires, and among them the flashy young
man going to sit at a table where were two girls unaccompanied. "This,"
said Max acidly, "is more than my stomach will stand, let's go," and Max
von Bodenheim was gone indeed while slimy little beasts such as this
remained to take out girls like Marie Bluehm. When at the end of the
dance he left her without too much ceremony, Dirk went up and greeted
her.

"It is an age since we met, Frulein. I hope you are well."

"Very well, thank you. No, we haven't met for a long time," she said,
and looked at him doubtfully like a child who expects to be scolded.

"I had hoped you might play to me again some day, Frulein."

"I'm out of practice with Chopin and Schubert and all that stuff, I'm
afraid. I like this dance music now, don't you? It's so gay, and I like
to be gay."

"It is natural, Frulein Marie. It is a change to see you going about
dancing at parties, you, who used to be so quiet."

"Have you been talking to Kaspar?" she asked at once, with a look
between defiance and appeal. "Are you trying to lecture me, too?"

"I was trying to summon enough courage to ask if you would dine with me,
Frulein, if your friends would permit."

"Oh, they won't mind," she said carelessly. "I'd love to--shall we stay
here?"

"What about the Metropol?" he said, for he wanted to get her away from
the party. "The food isn't too bad there sometimes."

"I'd love that. Just a moment while I speak to Lottchen and get my
cloak."

At the Metropol he noticed her thin hands and almost transparent skin,
and ordered a meal which should be as nourishing as possible, and after
the Rhine trout cooked in white wine and Wiener schnitzel had
disappeared, he had the pleasure of seeing a more natural colour come
into her face, and her eyes grow less unnaturally large and bright. She
leaned her elbows on the table, cupped her chin in her hands, and
regarded him with the old friendliness instead of the veiled distrust
with which she had greeted him.

"You know," she said, "my friends are awfully kind and generous and
there's always plenty of drink going, but it never seems to occur to
them that a poor girl wants a square meal occasionally."

"I remember when I was your age," said Dirk who was a whole year older,
"that I seemed to want square meals all day long. After all," he added
to himself, feeling quite fatherly, "I expect the kid's still growing."

"Have you got such a thing as a cigarette?"

"Yes," he said with a very slight hesitation, "will you have it now?"

"Why not?" she flashed, up in arms instantly. "Are you trying to say it
is not proper for a _hochgeboren Mdchen_ to smoke in public? You are as
bad as Greta!"

"I wasn't thinking of that," said Dirk with his most disarming smile,
"though perhaps I ought to have done so. No, I only thought it would
spoil your appetite to smoke between courses."

"Of course it does, that's why we do it, so that we shan't want any more
to eat."

"But why not have some more to eat?"

She stared incredulously and said slowly: "What--more steak?"

"If you wish. Or what about _Krostcher wrm_?"

She laughed and clapped her hands. "Ooh! Lovely and vulgar! Do you know,
it's"--she counted on her fingers--"seven and a half weeks since I had
meat? Real meat I mean, not sausage stuff."

"You poor kid," muttered Dirk, "it's a damned shame," and he beckoned
the waiter and gave the order, but the man demurred.

"Second meat course? Naturally it's a second meat course," said Herr
Brandt, importer. "Not allowed to serve? Send me the manager."

But the manager only looked to see from whom the order came, and the
second meat course arrived instead.

"I say," said Marie, gaping, "how do you do it? Why, even Jakob doesn't
have managers jumping to it like that."

"Doesn't he?" said Dirk, leaning back and sipping his wine while Marie
attacked the stew, "and who's Jakob?"

"Goertz. The man I was dancing with. His father makes boots or
something."

"Oh, ah, yes. Do you like him?"

"What a queer tone! You don't, evidently."

"I asked if you did."

"Not like him, no. I find him useful."

"Useful! What for?"

"Oh, he always has plenty of money and gives lovely parties. He's giving
one at his house one night soon," babbled Marie between mouthfuls, "and
he's sure to ask me."

"Will you accept?"

"Of course. All the girls in Cologne are wild to be asked to his place,
he gives such lovely presents."

"What for?"

"What do you mean?" asked Marie, lifting limpid blue eyes to the darker
blue ones watching her intently.

"Never mind--if you don't know," he said, and Marie bit her lip. "Don't
go, Marie," he said, dropping his voice nearly to a whisper, "don't go
there. Little Mariechen, to please me, don't go, will you?"

"I--" she began, but a shadow fell across the table and she looked up.
"'Lo, Marie," said Goertz.

"Good evening again, Jakob. Herr Jakob Goertz--Herr Brandt."

Dirk rose slowly to his feet and the man said: "Good evening. Just
going?"

"No," said Dirk, and continued to stand, looking him up and down while
Goertz stared back for a long moment and then turned and bent over
Marie.

"I am giving a little party at my house on Thursday," he said. "You'll
come, won't you? Eight thirty."

"Er--" began Marie, and quite involuntarily her eyes met Dirk's, which
annoyed her because she had no intention of taking orders from him
however imploring he might look, "thank you--"

Dirk broke in. "The gracious Frulein regrets," he said in a hard voice,
"but she has an engagement with me that evening."

Goertz straightened up and looked at him. "Surely the gracious Frulein
can speak for herself, can't she?"

Marie glanced up, caught sight of Goertz, and looked hastily away again;
it was as though she saw him for the first time. "I am sorry--I have an
engagement--"

"You hear," said Dirk, "the lady confirms it."

"Oh, la la! Then I find someone else, eh?"

Dirk leaned forward over the back of his chair to speak more clearly.
"Find the devil and his wife, but if I ever catch you pestering the
Frulein Marie Bluehm again I'll break your rotten neck, put you through
the mincing-machine, and feed you to pigs!"

By some miracle, possibly prearranged, Ludwig Wolff's lanky form
materialized at Goertz's elbow. "Better buzz off," he murmured, "he did
that once. And the pigs died. Dreadful feller."

"There is no need to be uncivil," said Goertz rather too hastily. "If
the gracious lady does not desire my company--"

He backed away, followed by Dirk's cold glance and Wolff's amused grin,
but Marie was too busy staring in a puzzled manner at Dirk to notice
Goertz's departure.

"Why did I let you do that? I didn't mean to."

Dirk's expression softened at once. He sat down again and said: "It was
sweet of you to let me, I must make up to you for that. I'll see you
don't regret it."

"This is a great life," said Ludwig Wolff to himself as he strolled
away. "I pop up, say my little piece, and tactfully fade out. I shall go
and rescue somebody for myself who will spend the rest of her life
saying: 'Darling, _please_ don't go.' Oh Christmas, what a frightful
prospect!"

Negotiations for an armistice began on November 6th, on the 9th the
Kaiser abdicated, two days later the Armistice was signed, and in London
and Paris the bells rang and the people laughed and cried and danced in
the streets because the war was over, but many a German town saw
fighting for the first time when the rest of the world was at peace. In
the first days of November mutiny broke out in the German navy at Kiel
and spread to Hamburg and Bremen, revolution flared up in Berlin when
the government fell, and sporadic fighting broke out in the streets of
all these places and spread by degrees to other towns all over Germany,
getting worse as the angry dispirited soldiers drifted home, bringing
their arms and ammunition with them.

Dirk and Marie stood by the roadside close to the Hohenzollern Bridge
and watched the Kaiser's armies come home, long, intermittent lines of
weary men in all stages of shabbiness and disrepair, hardly one with his
equipment complete and some without even their rifles, tramping along
three or four abreast and not even keeping step, the very picture of
defeat.

Dirk stood with his shoulders slightly hunched and his hands deep in his
pockets, Marie, as had become her custom, a little behind his shoulder
with an arm through his and an occasional glance at his profile to guess
from his expression what his thoughts were. This time he was even more
inscrutable than usual, with his lower lip pushed out in a way his uncle
would have recognized and a suppressed gleam in his eyes, the fact being
that half of him was crying: "Victory! We've done it at last!" and the
other half saying: "So this is defeat. My God, how awful!" Presently
Mane shook his arm slightly to attract his attention and said:
"_Liebchen_?"

"What is it?"

"Where are all the officers?"

"Oh, gone home by train, I expect. Come on, let's go back to the office,
shall we? This is a dismal sight. Besides, I want to see Ludwig."

They found Ludwig Wolff waiting for them, sitting on the corner of a
table and singing to himself in a melancholy voice:

     _"Ich hatt' einen Kamaraden_
     _Einen bessern findst du nicht,_
     _Der Drommel schlug zum Streite_
     _Er ging an meiner seite,_
     _In gleichem Schritt und Tritt--"_

"'I had a comrade,'" repeated Dirk. "Why the funeral dirge?"

"Because I feel I have been attending a funeral on the grand scale,"
said Wolff. "Didn't you see the army coming back?"

"But, dear Ludwig," said Marie, "must you sing it quite so dreadfully
flat?"

"I do it on purpose," he explained, "it sounds more doleful like that.
There is going to be trouble here before we're much older."

"Why?"

"Because the sailors from the Grand Fleet are coming down to convert us
all to Bolshevism. Marie, little treasure, I've got a button loose on
this coat."

"Give it to me now," she said, hunting in a drawer for needle and
thread, while Dirk said: "The army won't stand for that; there'll be a
row, to say nothing of what the townsfolk will think."

"If you get several thousand starving angry people all armed to the
teeth and holding diverse opinions, what happens?"

"Most uncivil disturbance, I expect," said Dirk. "Marie, my dear, at the
first sign of any trouble when you're out, you will dive into the
nearest building and hurl yourself flat on the floor, do you hear? What
are you putting in that drawer?"

"_Ja, lieb'_ Dirk," she answered to his good advice, and "Only sewing
things," to his question. "There's your coat, Ludwig."

"Thank you very much," said Ludwig. "I am an awful bother to you, am I
not?"

"Not half such a bother as this one," she said, stroking Dirk's sleeve
with her finger till he took her hand and kissed it. "He is always
coming undone somewhere, aren't you, my rabbit? Let my hand go, sir, I
want to dust the office, it's simply disgraceful."

"We are getting terribly tidy, aren't we?" said Dirk. "I don't see that
there's much wrong with it."

"I must have some outlet for my domestic instincts somewhere, grubby
one," she said. "You wait till we find our flat we're looking for, I'll
show you how a place should be kept."

"I did hear of a small flat to let up near the Neumarkt," said Ludwig,
resuming his coat. "Where's the clothesbrush, Marie? The widow Kraus is
going back home to Bingen."

"We might go and look at it," said Marie, "though I don't believe it's
big enough. We must have a room for Ludwig, mustn't we, my angel?"

"Yes, dear," said Dirk absently. "Where are those consignment details
from Rotterdam, Ludwig, do you know? Half an hour, Marie, and we'll go
to lunch. I don't trust you to eat enough when you're by yourself."

For Dirk had discovered in the last few months that in doing what he
could for Kaspar's sister he had acquired a responsibility, a delight,
and a slave, who would not trouble to be warmly clad unless he insisted,
who would rather see him eat than be fed herself, and to whom he alone
was sunlight and air and life itself, and in the early days he hardly
knew whether to laugh or weep at the situation into which kindness and a
sort of indulgent affection had carried him. As the weeks went by and he
became more deeply absorbed into the agonizing daily life of a stricken
Germany, his separate identities drifted farther apart till it seemed
only a dream that Dirk Brandt should be also an Englishman named Michael
Kingston, who married a colonel's daughter whom he scarcely knew. The
dream was just real enough to keep him from marrying Marie, and she
never mentioned the subject though she did occasionally look at him as
though there were something she expected him to say and was puzzled
because he did not. Puzzled, but not hurt, for whatever _lieb'_ Dirk did
was right, and as time went by, her flaxen hair took on a smoother
gloss, her blue eyes deepened with a happy peace, and her flower-like
face blossomed into greater beauty.

Later on, the trouble Ludwig had foretold began in earnest when the
seamen arrived from Hamburg to preach Communism and came into collision
with the army, preaching Socialism, and the town authorities preaching
law and order. The soldiers, as they reached home, just demobilized
themselves without waiting for formalities, by the simple process of
cutting off their various badges and replacing their uniform buttons
with plain ones; but they retained their arms, particularly a pet
machine-gun or so, and when the rioting began they brought them out and
used them in the streets.

Early in December Marie came to the office in the Hhestrasse and said
that there was some cretonne in a shop window higher up the street,
which was quite attractive and very reasonable in price, it was a
pattern of pink carnations with grey-green foliage on a cream
background, and if the _lieb'_ Dirk liked the idea it would make very
nice curtains for the flat. Dirk smiled at her eager face, told her it
sounded delightful, and gave her some money to go and buy it.

"I think twelve yards will do the three windows quite well," said Marie
earnestly, "though of course fifteen yards will make more imposing
curtains."

"Let the curtains be as imposing as possible, my dear. Will fifteen
yards be enough?"

"Quite enough, more would be a waste. Thank you, darling. Will you be in
to lunch?"

"Not today, angel, and Ludwig won't be back till evening."

"In that case I think I'll take the cretonne home. Are you sure you like
carnations? There's another one with roses on it, but I don't like it so
well."

"I'm sure I shouldn't, either; let's have the carnations. Unless you can
find one with lettuces on it, and then we can chew them if we really get
hungry."

"_Du bist ein Esel, liebling._ Then I might go home and see Mother and
Greta; there may be news of Kaspar."

"Yes, dear, do. Oh, look here, would it be out of your way to pass here
when you go home?"

"Hardly at all. Is there anything you want?"

"I left a notebook on the piano--a small red one. Would you mind--"

"Of course not, I'll bring it. Is there anything else?"

"No, nothing, thanks. Oh, Marie--"

"What is it?"

"Be quick and careful, won't you? I don't quite like the look of things.
Too many men lounging about."

"I'll run so fast nobody will be able to see me."

Dirk settled down to work after she had gone, and an hour or so had
passed when he heard some stray shots farther along the street, followed
by a shout outside, the sound of running feet, and a burst of
machine-gun fire so close that Dirk threw himself on the floor just as a
windowpane shattered near the chair in which he had been sitting. The
gunner in the street outside fired off a few more shots and was silent,
while the noise of battle died away in the distance. Dirk got up and
shook off some stray bits of broken glass which had fallen upon him.

"Curse these street riots," he muttered. "Another pane gone. Hope they
haven't frightened Marie."

He went to the window and looked out, but could see nothing but some
town police removing the body of the gunner, who had had the best of
reasons for suddenly falling silent. The next moment Wolff passed the
window hurriedly and burst into the room.

"Ludwig! You're back early. Did they get you on the run?"

But Ludwig merely stared at him and did not answer.

"What the devil's the matter?"

His partner swallowed with an effort, and said, in English: "You'd
better come outside, old man, there's something there that--belongs to
you."

Outside, Dirk stopped to pick up something from the pavement where it
lay beside the quiet body of Marie Bluehm.

"I told her," he said stupidly, "I told her to bring me a red notebook."




CHAPTER 17


Dirk Brandt and his partner, Ludwig Wolff, stood on the steps of the
west door of Cologne Cathedral to see the British Army of Occupation
march in on the 13th of December 1918. By three in the afternoon there
were thirty-two thousand British troops billeted in Cologne.

Brandt and Wolff, suffering from that curious unsettled feeling which
persists throughout the day for those who have seen something exciting
in the morning, closed the office and wandered about the town, watching
British sentries being posted and the military police putting up notices
which applied to the troops and the civilian population too, since
Cologne was under martial law. Some time in the afternoon they strolled
into the railway station to see if anything was happening there, and
noticed a group of British prisoners of war waiting for a train. They
looked under-fed and ill-clad, but happy, and one of their number stood
a little apart by a pile of packing-cases and solemnly performed
five-finger exercises, first with each hand separately and then with
both together.

"Look at that poor chap," said Ludwig. "Do you think he's gone a little
cracked?"

"No," said Dirk, "he's only a musician in the act of realizing that life
is beginning again. I know, because I was at school with him--his name
is Dixon Ogilvie."

During the evening the streets filled with cheerful soldiers walking
about, staring in the shop windows, and mildly surprised to find the
town so brightly lit. They went into the shops for cigarettes and
picture-postcards, and into the cafs for beer, which did not meet with
their approval, and were friendly and unembarrassed, and immediately the
ice between victors and losers showed signs of cracking, as both sides
were equally ready to fraternize.

The firm of Brandt and Wolff went into a restaurant for supper and found
a table next to two English officers, major and captain, who were being
waited upon by a German ex-service-man. At least, he started by waiting
upon them but presently forgot he was a waiter as he and his clients
laid out a sector of the front line with forks and spoons on the
tablecloth. "You were here, and here," said the German waiter, "and we
were attacking from this angle."

"The war is over indeed," said Ludwig, observing this.

"Yes," said Dirk, "and the world isn't such a bad place after all. Have
some more _schnapps_."

The days passed into weeks, the novelty of seeing British uniforms and
hearing English speech in the streets gradually wore off, and the
English agents found to their pained disgust that the blockade still
continued, so that they had to go on giving themselves indigestion with
the soggy, almost uneatable bread, to starve for lack of oils and fats,
and to drink coffee brewed from burnt wheat with no Marie there to make
it so like the real thing as to be almost delicious.

It must be remembered that Dirk Brandt, importer, had a very
considerable position among the Germans in Cologne prior to the
occupation, but, for obvious reasons, he received no consideration
whatever from the British authorities. He became just one of the German
population and simply hated it. In fact, there was only one advantage to
him in the British occupation: one could obtain, and be seen smoking,
English cigarettes.

One evening he and Wolff encountered Reck at the Germania sitting at the
same table where on a memorable day Dirk had sat with Max von Bodenheim
more than a year before. Reck, always insignificant, now looked older
and shabbier, and it is to be regretted that he had been drinking.

"Hullo, Reck," said Brandt, "how's things?"

"Rotten."

"And how are the silkworms?" inquired Wolff. "All nice and warm and
maternal, what?"

"No," said Reck.

"Oh, I say! I thought they laid thousands of eggs continually."

"Not in January," said the expert, and ordered another bottle.

"What do they do, then, spin?" Wolff got no answer to this, so he went
on: "What do you feed 'em on? Flannel trousers?"

"No," said Reck, and shot him a malevolent glance.

"Shut up, you ass," said Dirk in an undertone.

"Oh, please don't stop him," said Reck bitterly, "I like it. I live on
it. I get it all day long."

"Get what?"

"An unending succession of blithering idiots asking inane questions. My
God, the British Tommy!"

"Oh yes," said Dirk, "I heard you had some billeted on you."

"'Let the bright seraphim,'" said Reck unexpectedly.

"Eh? By all means, but what?"

"I don't know. Probably I shall never know."

Dirk and Ludwig exchanged glances, and Reck saw it.

"You think I'm drunk, don't you? Well, I am, but I can't get drunk
enough to forget the bright seraphim."

"They sound nice things to remember," said Ludwig helpfully. "A
steadying and purifying influence, what?"

"There is a lance-corporal--" began Reck, shuddered visibly, and poured
himself out another glass.

"Yes?"

"He comes into my laboratory and asks me to show him something funny."

"Did you tell him to look in the glass?" suggested Dirk.

"Yes. Then I wished I hadn't."

"Why? What did he do?"

"They. There were several of them, all smelling things in bottles."

"What did they do?"

"They partially undressed me," said Reck modestly.

Dirk spluttered over his Braunberger, but Ludwig let out a howl of
laughter that made most of the other clients look round.

"But what has that to do with the bright seraphim?"

"He comes in and asks me if there are any amusing experiments he can
make. I gave him two bottles one day and told him to mix them, as
probably the result might amuse him, I personally was going for a walk,
but he looked at the labels and decided against it."

"What were they?"

"Nitric acid and glycerine, but he seemed to have heard of that one,"
said Reck mournfully. "They catch cockroaches and race them. It's
curious to see how really fast a cockroach can run with a drop of
alcohol on his tail."

"Cheer up," said Ludwig encouragingly, "perhaps the war will break out
again," but Reck only made growling noises, so Wolff continued: "In the
meantime there are the silkworms, aren't there?"

"There are a number of cocoons containing insects in a state of
suspended animation, if you regard them as intelligent companions for an
educated man."

"There are the British troops."

"Who look on me as a comic German professor. Thank you, I prefer the
silkworms. They at least do not play practical jokes."

"Well, there are the bright seraphim, wherever they come in."

"He sings it."

"Who sings what?" asked Dirk.

"The lance-corporal. 'Let the bright seraphim,'" sang Reck in a cracked
tenor.

"But what comes next?"

"I don't know. Presumably he doesn't know. That's all."

"But do you mean to say," said Wolff, "that he merely sings those four
words over and over again?"

"Exactly."

"And then stops?"

"He does not stop. He goes on."

"Isn't it a Handel oratorio, or something?" suggested Dirk.

"It is very probable, I am no musician."

"Evidently the poor chap's got it on the brain," said Ludwig.

"That," said Reck acidly, "is quite impossible."

Dirk glanced round the room, which was nearly empty. "Tell me," he said,
to change the subject, "what was that odd story about von Bodenheim
being shot by a woman?"

"I never inquired into it," answered Reck. "That was the official
explanation and that's enough for me. I am only a stupid old fool of a
schoolmaster, but I'm not idiot enough to poke my nose into a wasps'
nest. If they said he was shot by the Emperor of Japan in mistake for
the Prince of Wales I shouldn't argue. I might say 'Dear me,' but no
more."

"You are very wise," said Dirk.

"Wise enough to go home before curfew hour," said Reck, emptying his
glass and getting to his feet. "I have no intention of subscribing
towards the cost of the British occupation by getting myself fined for
being out late. Curse the curfew. Good night."

He struggled into his coat with the help of a waiter and tacked between
the tables to the door, while Dirk and Ludwig watched him.

"Poor old bean," said Ludwig.

"He is going to pieces," said Dirk, "and really one can't wonder; it
isn't much of a life. I wish he wouldn't drink. One of these days he
might begin to talk."

"He wouldn't dare, surely?"

"Not about himself, probably. About others."

"'Thou art in the midst of foes,'" hummed Wolff. "'Watch and pray.'"

"That's just it, he doesn't feel he's in the midst of foes, he's at home
here. I've never heard him speaking English, but I'll bet it's
infernally rusty, and England's a foreign country to him now. If
anything happens to make his life here impossible, he'll break up, poor
old geezer."

                 *        *        *        *        *

Greta Bluehm died in January 1919 and Frau Bluehm gave up her apartment
and went to live with a widowed sister near Munich. Dirk never saw them
again after the day of Marie's funeral. Kaspar Bluehm remained in what
was left of the army and had only two days' leave before his mother left
Cologne. He came to the office to see Dirk, who had unfortunately gone
to Holland on perfectly genuine business, so the two friends missed each
other for that time. He was reported to have been asking for news of
Hedwige Schwiss.

In March, Bill Saunders returned to England, accompanied by Denton, and
the importer's office in the Hhestrasse at Cologne was closed for good.
They went through Holland from habit rather than necessity, and when the
cross-Channel steamer drew away from the quayside at the Hook they
leaned on the rail to watch the shores of Holland sink into the sea
astern.

"You know," said Denton wearily, "I suppose we ought to be saying:
'Hooray, hooray, the war's over, we're going home,' but somehow it isn't
noticeably like the last day of term, is it? Well, the sun is over the
yardarm, what about it? We'll drink to tomorrow, shall we?"

"Better drink to yesterday, I think. There were some good spots in that,
anyway."

"You've got the blue devils all right! Come on."

Bill Saunders went to the War Office and was there received in a manner
calculated to exorcize most blue devils, but which only made his worse,
because it displayed his uninviting future in even sharper contrast, and
from there he went straight home to Weatherley Parva, to be kindly
received by his uncle and aunt, who were unfeignedly glad to "have the
boy back again." What they did not realize and never quite understood
was that the boy who went had _not_ come back. That boy had died, died
by degrees with the guiltless Amtenbrink, with his friend Hambledon and
his adversary von Bodenheim, and finally and conclusively with the
gentle Marie, but his people knew nothing of that and he could not tell
them. In the boy's place was a stranger in his image, tired, nervous,
irritable, and unhappy, with a mind too full of memories to find peace,
and a heart too full of yesterday to care about tomorrow. On the night
of his home-coming he wrote to his wife:

    Diane:

    I'm in England again. I was going to say, home in England again,
    but I can't, somehow. Things are so difficult, the whole world
    has gone wrong. What are we going to do? It looks as though I
    must finish my apprenticeship, and you know what that means,
    don't you? Anyhow, I'll talk to Uncle and see the firm, and let
    you know, and God help us both.

    Yours,
    Bill

The first evening at home passed pleasantly enough. It was rather nice
to sit in his usual chair and look at the same old furniture standing in
the same places and hear the familiar voices talking of village
matters--how well the vicar had spoken in his sermon at the thanksgiving
service for peace, about forgiving your enemies and letting bygones be
bygones, so typically British one hoped it would not be mistaken in
Germany for weakness, and how we must all turn to and build a new world
out of the ruins of the old.

Bill sat and drowsed by the fire and listened, thought of something else
for a while and listened again, and said, "Yes," and "No," and "Very
nice," in the right places, till gradually the voices died away in the
distance and the next moment his uncle was shaking him by the shoulder
and saying that bed was the right place for tired soldiers. "But I'm not
a soldier now," he protested, and stumbled wearily upstairs to lie awake
and listen for the chimes of Cologne Cathedral and want Marie. Marie,
where are you?

                 *        *        *        *        *

At breakfast his aunt asked him if he had seen Diane the day before.

"No," said Bill, "she was out of town," for he did not choose to start
an argument by admitting he had not attempted to see her. "I wrote to
her last night and told her I was at home."

"She will wish to come here, no doubt," said his uncle kindly.

"Thank you, but that won't be any good, as I must go to Southampton and
see if the shipyard will have me back. I haven't finished my
apprenticeship, you know."

At the end of a few months the firm, who were extremely good to him,
gave him his indentures a whole year before he was entitled to receive
them, and found him work in the drawing office.

Diane came from London on Sundays to see him sometimes, and they would
take a bus to the Forest and walk, or if the motorcycle was in a good
mood he would take her for rides on the pillion seat. One such Sunday
they found an inn where the beer and cheese were good, so they lunched
there and afterwards sat on a rickety seat in the inn garden.

"Have a cigarette?" he asked.

"Thank you. Listen, darling. I've got a message from Daddy, he does so
want to help us."

"He is very kind," said Bill woodenly.

"Oh, he is really, dear. He makes awful fusses, but they don't mean
anything."

"Oh, no. Are you sure you aren't getting cold out here?"

"No, darling, of course not. He does so want us all to live together."

"Does he? Where?"

"In town, of course. You don't sound very interested, darling."

"I can't have your father keeping me, Diane. You must see that."

"He wasn't going to, dear. He says he is sure he could get you a nicer
job than this."

"That's nice of him, but engineering is my job."

"But there are other things you could do, dear. You see, Daddy is
chairman of lots of companies, or director, or whatever it is, and he
says he is sure he could fit you in where it would be much more suitable
for you than working like this. He says we could have the top floor of
the house all to ourselves, with a little kitchen and bathroom all
fitted up, and not see them at all unless we liked. Wouldn't that be
fun, darling?"

"But I'm an engineer, not an office clerk."

"Daddy said he thought you'd be quite useful in an office, darling; and
then he laughed. What did he mean, Bill?"

"No idea," said Bill shortly. ("Damn the man, why can't he hold his
tongue?" he added to himself.)

"Besides, it would be so useful your being an engineer when little
things went wrong with our flat."

Bill's thoughts flew back to a flat in Cologne, with a defective tap
over the kitchen sink which Marie said simply devoured washers, because
it was worn inside and there were no new taps obtainable. Marie used to
put in new washers herself till she discovered that Bill liked doing
things for her, after which she seemed to lose the knack of it. He
caught his breath suddenly.

"What's the matter, darling?"

"Nothing. What you want is a plumber, not an engineer."

"But I didn't marry a plumber, darling."

"You didn't, did you? Shall we push off now?"

"But about Daddy's offer?"

"It is very kind of him, but I think we're better off as we are."

"I'm very disappointed, Bill darling. I don't think you're being a bit
nice."

"I'm afraid I'm a disappointing person, Diane."

"Oh, Bill darling, couldn't you be just a little bit different? We might
be so happy if only you were."

"I'm sorry, Diane. I am, really. I never ought to have married you. But
then, you see--"

"What?"

"I never expected to live through the war. To tell you the brutal truth,
I didn't want to, and I was sure I shouldn't. So one might as well do
whatever one wanted to, as there weren't going to be any consequences.
Do you understand? I'm sorry now, because it's unfair to you."

"Have you always done whatever you wanted to, darling?"

"Except for one thing, yes."

"What was that?"

"I didn't die."

"I understand one thing," said Diane with tears in her eyes. "You never
really loved me."

"I'm sorry, Diane. I thought I did, till--"

"Till you met someone else, I suppose?"

He did not answer, and she stamped her foot. "I hate her, I hate her! I
wish she was dead, I suppose you're keeping her somewhere."

"She is already dead, Diane."

"I'm glad to hear it!"

"If you don't come along now we shall lose your train."

It was a very long time before Diane came to see him again, but Bill
felt that he had escaped out of a net that was being tangled round him.

The short post-war boom came to an end and the slump set in, paralysing
the shipyard in which Bill worked as it did every other industry all
over the country. Men were discharged to draw the dole and stand in
miserable little groups at the street corners while the busy workshops
grew silent and dust settled on the lathes and benches. Bill, who had
been promoted to having a little room of his own, sat there for eight
hours a day with nothing much to do, and read novels and kicked his
heels and designed gadgets which would probably never be made.

"I can't stand this much longer," he said to the works manager, who
wandered in one morning to sit on the table, smoke, and pass away an
insufferably idle hour. "It's giving me the jim-jams, sitting here doing
nothing all day."

"It's worse for me than it is for you," said the manager. "You can at
least sit here out of sight, while I have to walk about and show myself
looking cheerful."

"I tell you frankly," said Bill, putting his feet on the edge of his
table and tilting his chair back, "if I could find anything else to do
I'd do it.

"Hang on, lad. This slump must end some time, and when it does you won't
be sorry you stayed here, believe me."

He went out, leaving Bill grateful but slightly mystified. Lest anyone
should think that to be treated in this manner by works managers is the
ordinary lot of industrious apprentices, let it be said that it isn't.
Bill was an excellent draughtsman and as a designer had bright ideas,
but the fact was that the manager knew more about his career than Bill
himself had any notion, and his unusually rapid rise in his profession
was, though well earned, the work of a grateful country.

But month after month the stagnation continued, and the monotony became
more than Bill could bear. He began to think again over the idea which
he and Diane had once discussed, of starting a garage in some country
village and settling down among quiet neighbours who knew nothing of
Bill Saunders or Michael Kingston either, to repair cars and reapers and
ploughs and milking-machines, and sell gasoline and mend punctures, but
not with Diane, no, never with Diane, who meant well but never
understood. Marie, now-- However, starting a garage needed capital, and
he had none so long as his uncle and aunt lived, dear old Uncle John,
who did not understand much more than anyone else how the war had left a
man--how should he, not knowing what one had been doing?--but he always
took one on trust ("Let the boy alone, Dora!")--bless his heart. Perhaps
he would lend Bill the capital. Five hundred pounds would be heaps--a
lot less would do. No harm in asking, anyway....

                 *        *        *        *        *

Michael Kingston, garage proprietor, had only been settled in the
village of Lime in Hampshire for a few months when his uncle died, and
as though life without John were too wearisome to be worth living, his
aunt died also a short time later and left Michael some three hundred a
year which he promptly made over to Diane. For the first time since his
childhood, life seemed to be ordered and secure and very much as he had
described it to Diane. People came in with jobs for him to do and waited
while he did them, and other men with an idle half-hour drifted in and
leaned against doorposts or sat on upturned boxes, smoked cigarettes,
and talked. By degrees, as the village learned to trust him because he
did not repeat what he was told, he heard various things which the
squire and the parson and even the police would have been most
interested to hear, such as who set the gypsy encampment afire and why,
the reason for young Mrs. Marlow's marriage to old Mr. Marlow, what the
retired Commander R.N. said to the vicar about foreign missions, why the
vicar's wife disapproved of the governess that the doctor's wife
imported to teach her four daughters, the real reason why the
bellringers went on strike, and a host of other matters of equal
importance.

For the first year or so Michael was rather amused by all this. He was
working long hours and gaining experience, his nerves improved and he
was sleeping better, when trouble began in Germany, the French occupied
the Ruhr, and Bill Saunders reawoke. All this going on, and he out of
it, buried alive in this funny little village among these funny little
people whose insignificant affairs were so much more important than the
state of Europe. He felt he must get out of the place sometimes, so he
took to going to Portsmouth in the evenings, roaming about there making
friends with a variety of people, and driving home at a high rate of
speed in the small hours.




CHAPTER 18


Morpeth, who was probably the most important farmer in Lime, brought his
car in one evening saying that the carburettor wanted adjustment and he
would call back for it about midday tomorrow. He then leaned wearily
against the side of the car, lit a cigarette, and said he had been
haymaking ever since six that morning, that Heaven forbid he should
grumble when dry weather was such a blessing, but that really the heat
in the open fields at midday had to be felt to be believed. Michael said
that he had spent the afternoon, or most of it, changing a tire on one
of the new split-rim wheels from an American car, that in his opinion
split rims were invented by Satan in person, and that even in the shade
of the open workshop the heat had been enough to make you sick. Morpeth
looked about him at the garage yard, with three or four lock-up sheds,
the workshop with benches along one wall, and tools in racks above them,
and the little bungalow behind, and said: "Nice place you've got here."

"Not too bad," said Michael.

"Bit lonely here of an evening?"

"Not enough to worry about."

"You want a dog," said Morpeth decidedly.

"Would be company," admitted Kingston.

"Tell you what. I've got a litter of bull-terrier pups comin' along any
day now. You shall 'ave one for ten bob."

"Bull-terrier," repeated Michael thoughtfully.

"Thoroughbred, too. Well, as near as no matter."

"I'll see them when they come along."

"Do that," said Morpeth heartily. "Ten bob I said--well, we won't
quarrel about the price."

He went off and Michael put the car away and went indoors to get his
supper. Bull-terrier, good idea. Sleep on the foot of the bed. A man
could sleep sounder with a bull-terrier about the place. Heaven help
anybody who crept in with a beast like that loose in the house. It would
be nice not to have to do all one's listening in the night for oneself.

He went into his tiny kitchen and lit the oil stove to fry some bacon
rashers which Mrs. Lomas had left ready for him, and put a kettle on to
boil because he was thirsty and tea seemed a good idea. He carried the
tray into his sitting-room and read, while he was eating, a book the
doctor had lent him called _Bulldog Drummond_. How delightfully easy the
career of an Intelligence agent would be if only life were a little more
like that! One went about upon entirely unlawful occasions armed with
automatics and never, never met a policeman at the wrong moment.

He took the tray out again and stacked up the plates, thinking as he did
so of the bull-terrier pup Morpeth had promised him. It would be company
to have a dog pattering about the place and waiting for him when he came
home late. Michael sometimes wondered when he was driving home from
Portsmouth whether there would be someone waiting to receive him,
someone whom he did not wish to meet. Perhaps it would be as well to try
out the automatic, it was some time since he had given it any attention.

He took the pistol into the garage, and fired one shot at the wall. The
gun failed to eject the empty case and jammed. Michael said: "Dear me,"
mildly, and took the gun into his bedroom, where he got out the tin box
in which he kept spare ammunition, cleaning-rod and brush, an oilcan,
and some bits of soft rag. He laid out these necessaries on a small
table near the window and turned his attention to the automatic. At the
second attempt the sliding breech threw out the case, which dropped on
the floor, and the next cartridge rose into its place ready to be fired.

Someone hooted outside. Michael looked through the window, for it was
not yet ten o'clock and still daylight, and recognized a travelling
salesman in motor oils and grease desiring to see him, so he put the gun
down and went out, shutting the bedroom door behind him.

"Hullo, Ellis," he said. "I was thinking only yesterday that it was
about time you came round."

"I must apologize," began Ellis, "for coming so late. May I have four
gallons of Shell, please? I ought to have been here hours ago, but I've
had a string of calamities."

"I expect you deserved them, if one only knew," said Michael unkindly.
"In the tank, or in cans?"

"In the tank, please. I particularly wanted to get round to you tonight,
as, if I hadn't, I shouldn't have been this way again for four months.
How are you off for our distinguished products?"

"I want some, I think. Let's dip the tanks and see."

Kingston gave Ellis an order, and then said: "Come in and have a drink,
will you? I want one and I hate drinking alone."

"I could bear it," said Ellis. "I've had a trying day."

"Come into the house. Have you got much more to do tonight?"

"No, only drive home. I'm going to rejoice my loving family with the
sight of me for the first time for a fortnight. Yes, lots of soda,
please, I'm thirsty. Tomorrow morning I go off again for three weeks or
so. Thanks awfully. Well, here's luck. I don't get much money but I do
see life."

"Must be rather amusing," said Michael.

"Yes, but you get tired of never being two nights running in the same
place; you lose touch with things somehow. Why, some days I hardly see
the paper. You do meet some odd people, though," and he entered upon
anecdote.

When he had gone, Michael remembered that he had several orders to make
out for his wholesalers and settled down to them, running through
catalogues for prices and reference numbers. Spare burners for carbide
lamps, cat. no. 25/1.1721a/402 in boxes of 1 doz., 6s. Carriers for
bicycles. Bicycle bells, tires for bicycles, tires for cars, inner
tubes.

The time slipped on to midnight as he pushed the papers back with the
task completed, and a cool wind blew in at the open windows, moving the
curtains and bringing a scent of stocks into the room. He leaned back
and was wearily stretching his arms over his head when there was the
sound of a step outside. Even as the thought: "I forgot to lock it,"
flashed through his mind, the door was flung open and a man appeared in
the doorway holding a levelled automatic in his hand.

"Good evening," he said. "Will you keep your hands up, please?"

Michael obeyed, staring in amazement. "Good God!" he said slowly. "It's
Kaspar Bluehm."

"Yes, it's Kaspar Bluehm. I have had a long hunt for you, but at last I
find you."

"But--but why on earth should you be looking for me with a gun?"

"Have you not done enough for any German to search for you, and me in
particular?"

Michael's brain began to race. "What a fool I have been!" he thought.
"Kaspar Bluehm was in German Intelligence and I never guessed it."

Bluehm came forward. "Will you push your chair back till you are clear
of the table? Thank you."

He pulled up with his left hand a chair for himself and sat in it. "On
your honour, are you armed?"

"I am not."

"You may put your hands down, but do not move. I want to talk to you--to
ask you something."

"May I have the usual glass of wine?"

"The usual glass?" repeated Bluehm in a tone of surprise. "Where is
it--and the wine?"

"In that cabinet," said Kingston with a jerk of his head towards it.
"There's a decanter in there, too."

"If you will move quite slowly, you may pour yourself a glass, but I
warn you that at the first sign of a hasty movement I will shoot."

Michael rose to his feet, walked slowly across to the cabinet, took out
a decanter of port and a glass, and deliberately filled it to the brim.
The glass had a tall stem with a knob near the bowl, which was
delicately curved in towards the rim and had a line of Gothic characters
engraved round it. He lifted the glass with a steady hand, carried it
back to his chair and sat down again.

"You wanted to ask me something, I believe?"

"Yes. It was about my sister--my sister Marie."

Michael looked at him steadily but did not speak, and Bluehm went on:

"I asked you to look after her and keep her from harm. I must have been
a fool! But, you see, I trusted you."

Michael turned perfectly white, but still made no answer.

"I asked you to look after her, but I didn't expect you to--to--my God,
man, why could you not marry her? Wasn't she good enough for you? Of
course, you are one of the stars of British Intelligence, and she was
only one of the conquered enemy; it would have been too condescending--"

"Stop!" shouted Michael. "Listen," he went on in a quieter tone, "and
please believe me. I would have given all I have and all my hopes of
Heaven to have made Marie my wife. If she had lived we should never have
parted again. I--I cared for her very much." His voice shook and he
stopped abruptly.

"Then why on earth--"

"Because I was already married."

Bluehm drew a long breath, and the bitter anger in his face eased a
little. "I see," he said. "Perhaps it would have been possible for you
to have married her some day."

"I intended to."

"I believe you."

"I wanted to tell you this," said Michael, "after Marie--when you came
back; but I missed you, and one cannot write these things."

"No," said Bluehm. "I came to the office, but you were away."

Michael nodded and relapsed into thought. ("If that's all he's got
against me, he's satisfied. No, he knows I'm British Intelligence, so he
probably knows about Reck and certainly about Denton. He may have
connected us up with the fellows in Berlin and Essen and Wilhelmshaven
and Hamburg, the gaff is blown on the whole lot of us, stridently blown,
as Hambledon said, describe gaffs and at least three ways of blowing
them, with musical illustrations. Stop that drivelling at once and
think. If he knows all this he has got to die, not me, I must find some
way out.")

"There's another thing," said Bluehm. "If you must murder von Bodenheim,
why did you leave that poor girl to take the blame?"

"Von Bodenheim? Am I to hear the truth about von Bodenheim at last? I
killed him--or, rather, Hambledon killed him, because he was trying to
kill me and damn nearly succeeded. He had got me at the wrong end of an
automatic when Hambledon came in and shot him."

"Since this seems to be the time appointed for explanations," said
Bluehm, "who was Hambledon?"

"Onkel Hendrik Brandt, don't you remember? Oh no, of course, you said
you'd never met him. He is dead also, he really was drowned. But who was
the 'poor girl' and what did she do?"

"Do you mean to tell me you don't know?"

"No idea. I heard that a woman was supposed to have shot him and
committed suicide, but as we'd shot him ourselves, I naturally didn't
believe a word of it. In fact, I thought it was a trap of some kind."

Bluehm's grim face relaxed again. "Of course, it must have seemed
absurd; in fact, I don't understand it now. Elsa Schwiss entered his
house some time--it must have been after you left--shot his head to
pieces with an automatic, and killed herself with the last shot."

"Oh, did she? On account of Knirim, I suppose. She heard the news that
day, I remember; in fact, Hambledon told her, not knowing she was
particularly interested. She might have saved herself the trouble, he
was quite dead already. I propped him up in his chair myself."

"Propped him up--so he may not have looked dead?"

"No, he only looked asleep, he was not--disfigured. I suppose she just
walked in, said: 'Take that,' and carried on."

Michael laughed, but Bluehm was not amused.

"That seems comic to you, does it not? You do not know what happened
afterwards. Hedwige Schwiss--you remember Hedwige Schwiss?"

"She was the other sister, wasn't she? What did they call themselves,
now--I have it, the Bavarian Nightingales."

"Yes. You remember with difficulty, but I remember very well, every day
and all day and all night too," said Bluehm, his voice rising and his
face a mask of pain and disgust. "You see, we cared for each other, too,
and when Elsa died, it broke up the act and Hedwige did not get on well.
I received one letter from her saying she had written repeatedly, and as
I evidently did not care any more she would not write again. She was
singing in cheap music halls then. I made inquiries for her whenever I
was on leave, but after the war, when I was eventually demobilized, I
did look for her thoroughly. I did not find her, however, till last
year. I met her in the street in St. Pauli."

"St. Pauli?"

"Hamburg. You wouldn't know it, it is the low-down part of the town
where the sailors go. She belongs there now."

"Good heavens, Bluehm!"

"I had a little talk with her and then we parted and I haven't seen her
since. I was third steward on a liner then. I'm getting on now, second
steward in the lounge. Lots of tips, I'm getting quite well off, but I
don't go ashore at Hamburg."

"Bluehm, I wish I'd known, I might have done something--"

"I think you have done enough. Don't you? You disgraced my sister Marie.
She is dead and that is your fault too, I think; if she hadn't been
running about after you she probably wouldn't have been killed. You
deserve to die for that alone, but that is not all. If it hadn't been
for you and your damned free drinks, Knirim would not have talked, of
course. That's what you did it for, to make us talk. Well, you succeeded
and he was disgraced and killed, so Elsa died also, and Hedwige--it's a
pity she isn't dead, too. I expect she will be, soon, and that's your
fault also. You would deserve to die for that anyway, wouldn't you?"

Bluehm tipped some whisky into one of the glasses on the table, put a
splash of soda into it, and drank it, and a little colour came back into
his white face.

"I don't suppose you meant any of it," he said, a little more kindly.
"But wherever you go, evil things happen. You are a messenger of death,
so I will give you death yourself."

"May I have a cigarette?" asked Michael calmly. He felt quite sure now
that Bluehm was a little mad. If only he could get the man off his guard
for a moment something might be done. Something had got to be done to
safeguard Denton and Reck and the others....

"I suppose you may," said Bluehm rather grudgingly. "Here's one of mine,
and the matches. Move slowly."

"Thanks," said Michael mechanically. "It's the custom, isn't it?"

"Is it? Whose custom?"

"Of course it's the custom, you know that. The usual glass of wine and
cigarette, we always do it. Von Bodenheim gave me one, I remember."

"Do you mean among people in Intelligence? But I've nothing to do with
that."

"What?" said Michael, sitting up so suddenly that Bluehm levelled again
the automatic which he had rested on his knee while they were talking.
"How the devil did you come to know that I was, then?"

"Reck," said Bluehm. "He talked. He drank, you know, till his brain went
silly and he had to be put away. He got a little better after that
because they cut off his supplies. I went to see him."

"Why?"

"Because after I'd found Hedwige I used to think things over, and it
became clear to me that you were to blame for the ruin of my life--Marie
first and then Hedwige. I've explained that. So I made up my mind to
kill you. I went back to Cologne and talked to everybody I could find
who had known you, and waiters at the Palant and other places, and a
waitress at the Germania remembered you talking to Reck and told me what
had become of him. So I went to see him--with a bottle of schnapps--and
he talked. Oh, he talked all right."

"I see," said Kingston thoughtfully. "Yes, I remember saying to--to
somebody once that he was the sort who might talk. He was beginning to
drink then."

"You ought to have shot him," said Bluehm acidly. "He was more dangerous
than Amtenbrink, wasn't he?"

Michael shivered, as he always did at the mention of Amtenbrink, and it
seemed that in that moment the old man stood there in the room and
looked kindly at him.

"This was his glass," he said. "He was greater than either of us,
Bluehm."

"That is true," said Bluehm shortly.

Michael thought of the loaded automatic on the table behind the closed
door of his bedroom. He must get at it somehow; this fellow had got to
die for the sake of Denton and the others, though for himself he had
almost ceased to care. If Bluehm had carried his story to German
Intelligence it was already too late, but if he had not, there was still
a chance, one must find out.

"Your own Intelligence told you about Amtenbrink, of course," said
Michael. "Reck didn't know."

"Oh yes, he did. He told me all about that, and the Ahlhorn affair, and
hinted darkly at other much more important things even than that which
you had done, but I could not find out what they were. I had a feeling
he did not really know much about them himself, he was just boasting, in
my opinion. He said you had altered the course of history."

"I doubt if you found your Intelligence much more helpful," said
Michael, with a laugh which sounded almost natural.

"Do you suppose I would run howling to German Intelligence with news of
you? You don't know me, Brandt. They would have thanked me kindly and I
should never have heard any more about it; no doubt they would have
dealt with you themselves, but I pay my own bills, Brandt. How could I
tell them about my sister, and Hedwige? I should be ashamed. When you
are dead I will go back and tell them, and they can clear up the rest of
your foul spider's webs of espionage and hunt down your associates. But
you--I deal with you myself."

"That's it, then," thought Michael, "he is alone in this and if I can
manage him I've won again. I must clear my brain and think deliberately
and a plan will present itself. O God, send me a plan, just one little
idea, I don't want You to do a miracle, I'll do all the work if only
You'll give me an idea."

Kingston awoke from what seemed like an endless reverie to find the
cigarette burning his fingers and Bluehm still talking, so he threw the
stub away and listened.

"...failed, and that was your doing, and there was all the foul
propaganda that broke the civilian morale, and that was your doing, too.
Oh, not you personally, perhaps, but your lot. Then the army
mutinied--mutinied! The German army! And they tore my badges off and we
all trailed home with the damned Belgians jeering at us and the children
throwing mud and stones. Your fault, all your doing. Our army was never
defeated."

Michael said: "Don't you think we have had enough of this? I am a little
tired of being scolded at the point of an automatic for doing what I
regarded as my duty."

Bluehm looked at him intently for a moment, and said: "I beg your
pardon, I forgot myself. I have suffered so much that I forgot my
manners. You are a better man than I, Brandt, for all your sins."

"Oh, rubbish. There's no need to be so dramatic, is there? You've won
this time, anyway. I have one favour to ask, if you choose to grant it."

"What is it?"

"Shall we--er--perform the ceremony in my bedroom instead of in here? It
is only through that door, and I always had a fancy to die in bed. It
sounds more respectable, but I never thought I should manage it. It's
only an idle fancy, and you can refuse if you like, but it can't make
any odds to you. There's another point, too. I have a good motherly old
soul who comes in to look after me. I'd hate her to walk in, all bright
and breezy, at eight o'clock tomorrow and the first thing she sees is me
making a mess of the carpet, whereas if she can't get an answer when she
knocks, she may get an idea there's something wrong. I don't expect you
to care what an old English charwoman feels, but I do, and I should take
it as a personal--"

"Stop, stop for Heaven's sake," said Bluehm, almost laughing. "One sees
that you are the same Brandt as of old, always talking. We will go in
the other room if you wish."

"Thanks awfully," said Michael casually, as though it were of no
particular importance. He rose to his feet, held his glass up for a
moment and then drained and hurled it crashing into the fireplace.
"Well, shall we go?" he said.

He turned his back on Bluehm and walked steadily to the bedroom door
with the German following. As Michael laid his hand on the door-handle
he felt the automatic cold against the back of his neck. "No trouble,
now," warned Bluehm.

"Of course not," said Michael with dignity. "What chance have I?" He
opened the door and switched the light on, took two slow steps into the
room, and then leaped for the table, snatched up the automatic and was
in the act of turning--

                 *        *        *        *        *

The coroner's inquest was opened at the Dragon Inn, Lime, in Hampshire,
at two thirty p.m. on Saturday, July the 19th, 1924, the first witness
being Mrs. Lomas. She said that the deceased man employed her daily for
domestic work....






[End of Drink to Yesterday, by Manning Coles]
