‘Drive me somewhere to breakfast, Archie,’ I said, ‘for I’m perishing
hungry.’
He and I got into the tonneau, and the driver swung us out of the
station road up a long incline of hill. Sir Archie had been one of my
subalterns in the old Lennox Highlanders, and had left us before the
Somme to join the Flying Corps. I had heard that he had got his wings
and had done well before Arras, and was now training pilots at home.
He had been a light-hearted youth, who had endured a good deal of
rough-tonguing from me for his sins of omission. But it was the casual
class of lad I was looking for now.
I saw him steal amused glances at my appearance.
‘Been seein’ a bit of life, sir?’ he inquired respectfully.
‘I’m being hunted by the police,’ I said.
‘Dirty dogs! But don’t worry, sir; we’ll get you off all right. I’ve
been in the same fix myself. You can lie snug in my little log hut,
for that old image Gibbons won’t blab. Or, tell you what, I’ve got an
aunt who lives near here and she’s a bit of a sportsman. You can hide
in her moated grange till the bobbies get tired.’
I think it was Archie’s calm acceptance of my position as natural and
becoming that restored my good temper. He was far too well bred to ask
what crime I had committed, and I didn’t propose to enlighten him
much. But as we swung up the moorland road I let him know that I was
serving the Government, but that it was necessary that I should appear
to be unauthenticated and that therefore I must dodge the police. He
whistled his appreciation.
‘Gad, that’s a deep game. Sort of camouflage? Speaking from my
experience it is easy to overdo that kind of stunt. When I was at
Misieux the French started out to camouflage the caravans where they
keep their pigeons, and they did it so damned well that the poor
little birds couldn’t hit ’em off, and spent the night out.’
We entered the white gates of a big aerodrome, skirted a forest of
tents and huts, and drew up at a shanty on the far confines of the
place. The hour was half past four, and the world was still asleep.
Archie nodded towards one of the hangars, from the mouth of which
projected the propeller end of an aeroplane.
‘I’m by way of flyin’ that bus down to Farnton tomorrow,’ he remarked.
‘It’s the new Shark-Gladas. Got a mouth like a tree.’
An idea flashed into my mind.
‘You’re going this morning,’ I said.
‘How did you know?’ he exclaimed. ‘I’m due to go today, but the grouse
up in Caithness wanted shootin’ so badly that I decided to wangle
another day’s leave. They can’t expect a man to start for the south of
England when he’s just off a frowsy journey.’
‘All the same you’re going to be a stout fellow and start in two
hours’ time. And you’re going to take me with you.’
He stared blankly, and then burst into a roar of laughter. ‘You’re the
man to go tiger-shootin’ with. But what price my commandant? He’s not
a bad chap, but a trifle shaggy about the fetlocks. He won’t
appreciate the joke.’
‘He needn’t know. He mustn’t know. This is an affair between you and
me till it’s finished. I promise you I’ll make it all square with the
Flying Corps. Get me down to Farnton before evening, and you’ll have
done a good piece of work for the country.’
‘Right-o! Let’s have a tub and a bit of breakfast, and then I’m your
man. I’ll tell them to get the bus ready.’
In Archie’s bedroom I washed and shaved and borrowed a green tweed cap
and a brand-new Aquascutum. The latter covered the deficiencies of my
raiment, and when I commandeered a pair of gloves I felt almost
respectable. Gibbons, who seemed to be a jack-of-all-trades, cooked us
some bacon and an omelette, and as he ate Archie yarned. In the
battalion his conversation had been mostly of race-meetings and the
forsaken delights of town, but now he had forgotten all that, and,
like every good airman I have ever known, wallowed enthusiastically in
‘shop’. I have a deep respect for the Flying Corps, but it is apt to
change its jargon every month, and its conversation is hard for the
layman to follow. He was desperately keen about the war, which he saw
wholly from the viewpoint of the air. Arras to him was over before the
infantry crossed the top, and the tough bit of the Somme was October,
not September. He calculated that the big air-fighting had not come
along yet, and all he hoped for was to be allowed out to France to
have his share in it. Like all good airmen, too, he was very modest
about himself.
‘I’ve done a bit of steeple-chasin’ and huntin’ and I’ve good hands for a horse, so I can handle a bus fairly well. It’s all a matter of hands, you know. There ain’t half the risk of the infantry down below you, and a million times the fun. Jolly glad I changed, sir.’
We talked of Peter, and he put him about top. Voss, he thought, was
the only Boche that could compare with him, for he hadn’t made up his
mind about Lensch. The Frenchman Guynemer he ranked high, but in a
different way. I remember he had no respect for Richthofen and his
celebrated circus.
At six sharp we were ready to go. A couple of mechanics had got out
the machine, and Archie put on his coat and gloves and climbed into
the pilot’s seat, while I squeezed in behind in the observer’s place.
The aerodrome was waking up, but I saw no officers about. We were
scarcely seated when Gibbons called our attention to a motor-car on
the road, and presently we heard a shout and saw men waving in our
direction.
‘Better get off, my lad,’ I said. ‘These look like my friends.’
The engine started and the mechanics stood clear. As we taxied over
the turf I looked back and saw several figures running in our
direction. The next second we had left the bumpy earth for the smooth
highroad of the air.
I had flown several dozen times before, generally over the enemy lines
when I wanted to see for myself how the land lay. Then we had flown
low, and been nicely dusted by the Hun Archies, not to speak of an
occasional machine-gun. But never till that hour had I realized the
joy of a straight flight in a swift plane in perfect weather. Archie
didn’t lose time. Soon the hangars behind looked like a child’s toys,
and the world ran away from us till it seemed like a great golden bowl
spilling over with the quintessence of light. The air was cold and my
hands numbed, but I never felt them. As we throbbed and tore
southward, sometimes bumping in eddies, sometimes swimming evenly in a
stream of motionless ether, my head and heart grew as light as a
boy’s. I forgot all about the vexations of my job and saw only its
joyful comedy. I didn’t think that anything on earth could worry me
again. Far to the left was a wedge of silver and beside it a cluster
of toy houses. That must be Edinburgh, where reposed my portmanteau,
and where a most efficient police force was now inquiring for me. At
the thought I laughed so loud that Archie must have heard me. He
turned round, saw my grinning face, and grinned back. Then he
signalled to me to strap myself in. I obeyed, and he proceeded to
practise ‘stunts’—the loop, the spinning nose-dive, and others I
didn’t know the names of. It was glorious fun, and he handled his
machine as a good rider coaxes a nervous horse over a stiff hurdle. He
had that extra something in his blood that makes the great pilot.
Presently the chessboard of green and brown had changed to a deep
purple with faint silvery lines like veins in a rock. We were crossing
the Border hills, the place where I had legged it for weary days when
I was mixed up in the Black Stone business. What a marvellous element
was this air, which took one far above the fatigues of humanity!
Archie had done well to change. Peter had been the wise man. I felt a
tremendous pity for my old friend hobbling about a German prison-yard,
when he had once flown a hawk. I reflected that I had wasted my life
hitherto. And then I remembered that all this glory had only one use
in war and that was to help the muddy British infantryman to down his
Hun opponent. He was the fellow, after all, that decided battles, and
the thought comforted me.
A great exhilaration is often the precursor of disaster, and mine was
to have a sudden downfall. It was getting on for noon and we were well
into England—I guessed from the rivers we had passed that we were
somewhere in the north of Yorkshire—when the machine began to make
odd sounds, and we bumped in perfectly calm patches of air. We dived
and then climbed, but the confounded thing kept sputtering. Archie
passed back a slip of paper on which he had scribbled: ‘Engine conked.
Must land at Micklegill. Very sorry.’ So we dropped to a lower
elevation where we could see clearly the houses and roads and the long
swelling ridges of a moorland country. I could never have found my way
about, but Archie’s practised eye knew every landmark. We were
trundling along very slowly now, and even I was soon able to pick up
the hangars of a big aerodrome.
We made Micklegill, but only by the skin of our teeth. We were so low
that the smoky chimneys of the city of Bradfield seven miles to the
east were half hidden by a ridge of down. Archie achieved a clever
descent in the lee of a belt of firs, and got out full of imprecations
against the Gladas engine. ‘I’ll go up to the camp and report,’ he
said, ‘and send mechanics down to tinker this darned gramophone. You’d
better go for a walk, sir. I don’t want to answer questions about you
till we’re ready to start. I reckon it’ll be an hour’s job.’
The cheerfulness I had acquired in the upper air still filled me. I
sat down in a ditch, as merry as a sand-boy, and lit a pipe. I was
possessed by a boyish spirit of casual adventure, and waited on the
next turn of fortune’s wheel with only a pleasant amusement.
That turn was not long in coming. Archie appeared very breathless.
‘Look here, sir, there’s the deuce of a row up there. They’ve been
wirin’ about you all over the country, and they know you’re with me.
They’ve got the police, and they’ll have you in five minutes if you
don’t leg it. I lied like billy-o and said I had never heard of you,
but they’re comin’ to see for themselves. For God’s sake get off . . .
You’d better keep in cover down that hollow and round the back of
these trees. I’ll stay here and try to brazen it out. I’ll get strafed
to blazes anyhow . . . I hope you’ll get me out of the scrape, sir.’
‘Don’t you worry, my lad,’ I said. ‘I’ll make it all square when I get
back to town. I’ll make for Bradfield, for this place is a bit
conspicuous. Goodbye, Archie. You’re a good chap and I’ll see you
don’t suffer.’
I started off down the hollow of the moor, trying to make speed atone
for lack of strategy, for it was hard to know how much my pursuers
commanded from that higher ground. They must have seen me, for I heard
whistles blown and men’s cries. I struck a road, crossed it, and
passed a ridge from which I had a view of Bradfield six miles off. And
as I ran I began to reflect that this kind of chase could not last
long. They were bound to round me up in the next half-hour unless I
could puzzle them. But in that bare green place there was no cover,
and it looked as if my chances were pretty much those of a hare
coursed by a good greyhound on a naked moor.
Suddenly from just in front of me came a familiar sound. It was the
roar of guns—the slam of field-batteries and the boom of small
howitzers. I wondered if I had gone off my head. As I plodded on the
rattle of machine-guns was added, and over the ridge before me I saw
the dust and fumes of bursting shells. I concluded that I was not mad,
and that therefore the Germans must have landed. I crawled up the last
slope, quite forgetting the pursuit behind me.
And then I’m blessed if I did not look down on a veritable battle.
There were two sets of trenches with barbed wire and all the fixings,
one set filled with troops and the other empty. On these latter shells
were bursting, but there was no sign of life in them. In the other
lines there seemed the better part of two brigades, and the first
trench was stiff with bayonets. My first thought was that Home Forces
had gone dotty, for this kind of show could have no sort of training
value. And then I saw other things—cameras and camera-men on
platforms on the flanks, and men with megaphones behind them on wooden
scaffoldings. One of the megaphones was going full blast all the time.
I saw the meaning of the performance at last. Some movie-merchant had
got a graft with the Government, and troops had been turned out to
make a war film. It occurred to me that if I were mixed up in that
push I might get the cover I was looking for. I scurried down the hill
to the nearest camera-man.
As I ran, the first wave of troops went over the top. They did it
uncommon well, for they entered into the spirit of the thing, and went
over with grim faces and that slow, purposeful lope that I had seen in
my own fellows at Arras. Smoke grenades burst among them, and now and
then some resourceful mountebank would roll over. Altogether it was
about the best show I have ever seen. The cameras clicked, the guns
banged, a background of boy scouts applauded, and the dust rose in
billows to the sky.
But all the same something was wrong. I could imagine that this kind
of business took a good deal of planning from the point of view of the
movie-merchant, for his purpose was not the same as that of the
officer in command. You know how a photographer finicks about and is
dissatisfied with a pose that seems all right to his sitter. I should
have thought the spectacle enough to get any cinema audience off their
feet, but the man on the scaffolding near me judged differently. He
made his megaphone boom like the swan-song of a dying buffalo. He
wanted to change something and didn’t know how to do it. He hopped on
one leg; he took the megaphone from his mouth to curse; he waved it
like a banner and yelled at some opposite number on the other flank.
And then his patience forsook him and he skipped down the ladder,
dropping his megaphone, past the camera-men, on to the battlefield.
That was his undoing. He got in the way of the second wave and was
swallowed up like a leaf in a torrent. For a moment I saw a red face
and a loud-checked suit, and the rest was silence. He was carried on
over the hill, or rolled into an enemy trench, but anyhow he was lost
to my ken.
I bagged his megaphone and hopped up the steps to the platform. At
last I saw a chance of first-class cover, for with Archie’s coat and
cap I made a very good appearance as a movie-merchant. Two waves had
gone over the top, and the cinema-men, working like beavers, had
filmed the lot. But there was still a fair amount of troops to play
with, and I determined to tangle up that outfit so that the fellows
who were after me would have better things to think about.
My advantage was that I knew how to command men. I could see that my
opposite number with the megaphone was helpless, for the mistake which
had swept my man into a shell-hole had reduced him to impotence. The
troops seemed to be mainly in charge of N.C.O.s (I could imagine that
the officers would try to shirk this business), and an N.C.O. is the
most literal creature on earth. So with my megaphone I proceeded to
change the battle order.
I brought up the third wave to the front trenches. In about three
minutes the men had recognized the professional touch and were moving
smartly to my orders. They thought it was part of the show, and the
obedient cameras clicked at everything that came into their orbit. My
aim was to deploy the troops on too narrow a front so that they were
bound to fan outward, and I had to be quick about it, for I didn’t
know when the hapless movie-merchant might be retrieved from the
battle-field and dispute my authority.
It takes a long time to straighten a thing out, but it does not take
long to tangle it, especially when the thing is so delicate a machine
as disciplined troops. In about eight minutes I had produced chaos.
The flanks spread out, in spite of all the shepherding of the N.C.O.s,
and the fringe engulfed the photographers. The cameras on their little
platforms went down like ninepins. It was solemn to see the startled
face of a photographer, taken unawares, supplicating the purposeful
infantry, before he was swept off his feet into speechlessness.
It was no place for me to linger in, so I chucked away the megaphone
and got mixed up with the tail of the third wave. I was swept on and
came to anchor in the enemy trenches, where I found, as I expected, my
profane and breathless predecessor, the movie-merchant. I had nothing
to say to him, so I stuck to the trench till it ended against the
slope of the hill.
On that flank, delirious with excitement, stood a knot of boy scouts.
My business was to get to Bradfield as quick as my legs would take me,
and as inconspicuously as the gods would permit. Unhappily I was far
too great an object of interest to that nursery of heroes. Every boy
scout is an amateur detective and hungry for knowledge. I was followed
by several, who plied me with questions, and were told that I was off
to Bradfield to hurry up part of the cinema outfit. It sounded lame
enough, for that cinema outfit was already past praying for.
We reached the road and against a stone wall stood several bicycles. I
selected one and prepared to mount.
‘That’s Mr Emmott’s machine,’ said one boy sharply. ‘He told me to
keep an eye on it.’
‘I must borrow it, sonny,’ I said. ‘Mr Emmott’s my very good friend
and won’t object.’
From the place where we stood I overlooked the back of the
battle-field and could see an anxious congress of officers. I could
see others, too, whose appearance I did not like. They had not been
there when I operated on the megaphone. They must have come downhill
from the aerodrome and in all likelihood were the pursuers I had
avoided. The exhilaration which I had won in the air and which had
carried me into the tomfoolery of the past half-hour was ebbing. I had
the hunted feeling once more, and grew middle-aged and cautious. I had
a baddish record for the day, what with getting Archie into a scrape
and busting up an official cinema show—neither consistent with the
duties of a brigadier-general. Besides, I had still to get to London.
I had not gone two hundred yards down the road when a boy scout,
pedalling furiously, came up abreast me.
‘Colonel Edgeworth wants to see you,’ he panted. ‘You’re to come back
at once.’
‘Tell him I can’t wait now,’ I said. ‘I’ll pay my respects to him in
an hour.’
‘He said you were to come at once,’ said the faithful messenger. ‘He’s
in an awful temper with you, and he’s got bobbies with him.’
I put on pace and left the boy behind. I reckoned I had the better
part of two miles’ start and could beat anything except petrol. But my
enemies were bound to have cars, so I had better get off the road as
soon as possible. I coasted down a long hill to a bridge which spanned
a small discoloured stream that flowed in a wooded glen. There was
nobody for the moment on the hill behind me, so I slipped into the
covert, shoved the bicycle under the bridge, and hid Archie’s
aquascutum in a bramble thicket. I was now in my own disreputable
tweeds and I hoped that the shedding of my most conspicuous garment
would puzzle my pursuers if they should catch up with me.
But this I was determined they should not do. I made good going down
that stream and out into a lane which led from the downs to the
market-gardens round the city. I thanked Heaven I had got rid of the
aquascutum, for the August afternoon was warm and my pace was not
leisurely. When I was in secluded ground I ran, and when anyone was in
sight I walked smartly.
As I went I reflected that Bradfield would see the end of my
adventures. The police knew that I was there and would watch the
stations and hunt me down if I lingered in the place. I knew no one
there and had no chance of getting an effective disguise. Indeed I
very soon began to wonder if I should get even as far as the streets.
For at the moment when I had got a lift on the back of a fishmonger’s
cart and was screened by its flapping canvas, two figures passed on
motor-bicycles, and one of them was the inquisitive boy scout. The
main road from the aerodrome was probably now being patrolled by
motor-cars. It looked as if there would be a degrading arrest in one
of the suburbs.
The fish-cart, helped by half a crown to the driver, took me past the
outlying small-villadom, between long lines of workmen’s houses, to
narrow cobbled lanes and the purlieus of great factories. As soon as I
saw the streets well crowded I got out and walked. In my old clothes I
must have appeared like some second-class bookie or seedy horse-coper.
The only respectable thing I had about me was my gold watch. I looked
at the time and found it half past five.
I wanted food and was casting about for an eating-house when I heard
the purr of a motor-cycle and across the road saw the intelligent boy
scout. He saw me, too, and put on the brake with a sharpness which
caused him to skid and all but come to grief under the wheels of a
wool-wagon. That gave me time to efface myself by darting up a side
street. I had an unpleasant sense that I was about to be trapped, for
in a place I knew nothing of I had not a chance to use my wits.
I remember trying feverishly to think, and I suppose that my
preoccupation made me careless. I was now in a veritable slum, and
when I put my hand to my vest pocket I found that my watch had gone.
That put the top stone on my depression. The reaction from the wild
burnout of the forenoon had left me very cold about the feet. I was
getting into the under-world again and there was no chance of a second
Archie Roylance turning up to rescue me. I remember yet the sour smell
of the factories and the mist of smoke in the evening air. It is a
smell I have never met since without a sort of dulling of spirit.
Presently I came out into a market-place. Whistles were blowing, and
there was a great hurrying of people back from the mills. The crowd
gave me a momentary sense of security, and I was just about to inquire
my way to the railway station when someone jostled my arm.
A rough-looking fellow in mechanic’s clothes was beside me.
‘Mate,’ he whispered. ‘I’ve got summat o’ yours here.’ And to my
amazement he slipped my watch into my hand.
‘It was took by mistake. We’re friends o’ yours. You’re right enough
if you do what I tell you. There’s a peeler over there got his eye on
you. Follow me and I’ll get you off.’
I didn’t much like the man’s looks, but I had no choice, and anyhow he
had given me back my watch. He sidled into an alley between tall
houses and I sidled after him. Then he took to his heels, and led me a
twisting course through smelly courts into a tanyard and then by a
narrow lane to the back-quarters of a factory. Twice we doubled back,
and once we climbed a wall and followed the bank of a blue-black
stream with a filthy scum on it. Then we got into a very mean quarter
of the town, and emerged in a dingy garden, strewn with tin cans and
broken flowerpots. By a back door we entered one of the cottages and
my guide very carefully locked it behind him.
He lit the gas and drew the blinds in a small parlour and looked at me
long and quizzically. He spoke now in an educated voice.
‘I ask no questions,’ he said, ‘but it’s my business to put my
services at your disposal. You carry the passport.’
I stared at him, and he pulled out his watch and showed a white-
and-purple cross inside the lid.
‘I don’t defend all the people we employ,’ he said, grinning. ‘Men’s
morals are not always as good as their patriotism. One of them pinched
your watch, and when he saw what was inside it he reported to me. We
soon picked up your trail, and observed you were in a bit of trouble.
As I say, I ask no questions. What can we do for you?’
‘I want to get to London without any questions asked. They’re looking
for me in my present rig, so I’ve got to change it.’
‘That’s easy enough,’ he said. ‘Make yourself comfortable for a little
and I’ll fix you up. The night train goes at eleven-thirty. . . . You’ll
find cigars in the cupboard and there’s this week’s Critic on that
table. It’s got a good article on Conrad, if you care for such
things.’
I helped myself to a cigar and spent a profitable half-hour reading
about the vices of the British Government. Then my host returned and
bade me ascend to his bedroom. ‘You’re Private Henry Tomkins of the
12th Gloucesters, and you’ll find your clothes ready for you. I’ll
send on your present togs if you give me an address.’
I did as I was bid, and presently emerged in the uniform of a British
private, complete down to the shapeless boots and the dropsical
puttees. Then my friend took me in hand and finished the
transformation. He started on my hair with scissors and arranged a
lock which, when well oiled, curled over my forehead. My hands were
hard and rough and only needed some grubbiness and hacking about the
nails to pass muster. With my cap on the side of my head, a pack on my
back, a service rifle in my hands, and my pockets bursting with penny
picture papers, I was the very model of the British soldier returning
from leave. I had also a packet of Woodbine cigarettes and a hunch of
bread-and-cheese for the journey. And I had a railway warrant made out
in my name for London.
Then my friend gave me supper—bread and cold meat and a bottle of
Bass, which I wolfed savagely, for I had had nothing since breakfast.
He was a curious fellow, as discreet as a tombstone, very ready to
speak about general subjects, but never once coming near the intimate
business which had linked him and me and Heaven knew how many others
by means of a little purple-and-white cross in a watch-case. I
remember we talked about the topics that used to be popular at
Biggleswick—the big political things that begin with capital letters.
He took Amos’s view of the soundness of the British working-man, but
he said something which made me think. He was convinced that there was
a tremendous lot of German spy work about, and that most of the
practitioners were innocent. ‘The ordinary Briton doesn’t run to
treason, but he’s not very bright. A clever man in that kind of game
can make better use of a fool than a rogue.’
As he saw me off he gave me a piece of advice. ‘Get out of these
clothes as soon as you reach London. Private Tomkins will frank you
out of Bradfield, but it mightn’t be a healthy alias in the
metropolis.’
At eleven-thirty I was safe in the train, talking the jargon of the
returning soldier with half a dozen of my own type in a smoky
third-class carriage. I had been lucky in my escape, for at the
station entrance and on the platform I had noticed several men with
the unmistakable look of plain-clothes police. Also—though this may
have been my fancy—I thought I caught in the crowd a glimpse of the
bagman who had called himself Linklater.
Nguồn: Wikisource English — Mr Standfast/Chapter 9. Văn bản được nhập và định dạng lại; CC BY-SA 4.0, có thể áp dụng điều khoản bổ sung của tác phẩm.