Chapter XXI: Marked Down

About four o'clock on the following afternoon, an old French peasant was walking along a road some fifteen miles to the west of the village in and around which the Rutlands were billeted. His lean form was bent, wisps of white hair straggled from beneath his broad soft hat, his legs dragged themselves along. There was no one else upon the road, which was remote from the main highways that had been for nine months streams of traffic; but the old man glanced continually right and left, before and behind, as if searching for something with his shrewd bright eyes.

He came to a wood abutting on the road, and, after another look round, disappeared among the trees. A few minutes later he halted, then took a few slow careful steps forward, and stopped again, looking down with a curious eagerness. There, stretched on the fresh springing grass of a glade spangled with bright spots of sunlight, lay a man asleep. He was clad in the uniform of a British soldier, without a belt. His cap had fallen off, his arms were thrown out, his face was half turned to the ground. Perhaps the Frenchman noticed that the regimental badge was missing from his cap, the regimental letters from his shoulders.

After standing for a few moments contemplating the prostrate form, he bent down and touched the man's shoulder. The soldier started up instantly; the expression of his eyes might have betokened anxiety or fear; but it changed when he saw that his disturber was just a simple old Frenchman, with mildness written all over his brown ruddy face, withered like an apple long laid by.

"Bon soir, monsieur," said the Frenchman. "It is a hot sun, to be sure, but monsieur l'Anglais will catch a chill if he remains here asleep."

"Ah yes, I must be going," said the soldier, in French surprisingly good for an English private. "I have lost my regiment. I fell lame and dropped behind. Can you get me anything to eat?"

"Why yes, if you will be content with simple fare. These are hard times, monsieur. But who would not suffer for France? Come to my cottage hard by; I can at least give you a crust and a mouthful of wine. We French and you English are comrades, to be sure."

"Is your cottage far?"

"A few steps only; it is quite by itself. You would get better food in the village, but that is two miles away."

"I'll get a good meal when I rejoin my regiment. All I want now is a little to help me on my way."

"Yes, yes, I understand. Come then; it is only a few steps."

He set off through the wood, the soldier limping by his side, crossed the road, and came within a few minutes to a little timber cabin. There the soldier, sitting on a low stool, ate ravenously the bread and strong cheese given him, and drank deep draughts of the thin red wine. The old man watched him benignantly, thinking perhaps that he ate as though seeing no near prospect of a full meal.

"You haven't seen my regiment, I suppose?" said the soldier.

"How can I tell?" replied the Frenchman, lifting his hands. "I have seen many regiments; whether yours was among them I do not know."

The soldier noticed a glance towards his shoulders.

"I gave my badges away to the French girls," he said lightly. "They clamoured for souvenirs.... There's no chance of my running into the Germans?"

"God forbid!" said the old man. "They are a little nearer, it is said; they are using poisonous gas against our brave men. But we do not lose heart. They will never beat us, never. When I look at the mists on yonder hills every evening----"

"Mists, are there?"

"Why yes: they creep over the hills at sunset; one can hardly see a dozen metres ahead. They say the Germans crept up a night or two ago in the mist, and took an English trench."

"Ah! well now, my regiment was marching to Violaines; you can put me in the way? I must find them before night."

"To be sure."

He went with him to the door, and pointed out the direction. The soldier offered to pay for his food, but the old man, with many gestures, refused to accept a sou. He bade his guest good-bye, returned to his cabin and shut the door. In his eyes was a look of satisfaction mingled with a strange eagerness. He hurried to the little window facing the road, and looked out from behind the curtain. The soldier was limping along in the direction his host had indicated. But presently he stopped and threw a furtive glance backward towards the cabin, another up and down the road, then walked on again. His lameness had been suddenly cured; his gait was even and agile. And instead of continuing in the way shown him, he turned off abruptly and re-entered the wood. Beyond it lay those hills which night clothed with mist.

The old man waited a little, then issued from his cabin, trotted to the road, and, he also, re-entered the wood. In a few minutes he was back again, and set off at the best speed of his aged legs for the village two miles away. Arriving there, he went straight to the mairie, and peered through the wire frame on the door, within which a notice in large handwriting was posted. It was headed in big letters,

SOLDAT ANGLAIS,

and beneath was a methodical description, in numbered sentences, of the deserter for whose discovery a reward was offered. The old man ticked off the details one by one; then, his bright little eyes gleaming, he knocked at the door.

It was a small and unimportant village. The maire was of scarcely higher social standing than his visitor. He had no gendarmes at his disposal: all the able-bodied men were in the ranks.

"He is a big man, Jacquou?" he said.

"He! Big, brawny, a regular beef-eater."

"Then we will telegraph. The English must arrest him. For us it would be dangerous. But what if they delay, and he escapes? There would go that fine reward, Jacquou, like the maid's chickens."

"Ah! Trust me for that, monsieur le maire, trust me for that," said the old man as he hobbled away.

Something less than two hours later the soldier emerged from his hiding-place in the wood, at a point at some little distance from the road. He came out slowly, nervously, glancing around and behind him. There was in his eyes that look of anxiety and fear which had appeared in them at the moment of his being roused by the old man. It was like the look of a hunted animal. He gazed towards the hills. Their ridges were sharp and clear against the sky. He looked up, and behind. Shafts of sunlight were still piercing the foliage. He glanced at the watch on his wrist, appeared to make a mental comparison between the time indicated and the position of the sun, made restless movements, then went a few steps back among the trees. From his pocket he took a map, and spreading it on a trunk, in a sunbeam, he studied it anxiously.

Just as he was folding it up, he heard a low throbbing hum far away to the south. Hurriedly replacing the map in his pocket, he went to the edge of the wood, and peered into the southern sky. The sound was faint; no speck dotted the cloudless blue. But the hum was drawing nearer. He dropped his eyes, and scanned as much of the road as he could see. Nothing was in sight. His mouth worked; a furrow between his eyes deepened; he rubbed his hand across his brow, and shuddered to see how damp it was. Again he looked along the road. That humming made him impatient: was it really growing louder, or were his nerves redoubling the sound in his ears?

At length, with the suddenness of one tired of waiting, he turned his back on the sound, and plunged into the depths of the wood northward. He had gone but a hundred yards when he stopped with a start, chilled to the marrow. Somebody was there, close by. He stared; his breath came and went in pants; but after a moment he went on with a smothered laugh that was like a groan. It was only a peasant boy whittling a stick. The boy looked up as he passed, idly, vacantly. The solitary British soldier apparently did not interest him. He dropped his eyes again, fell again to his whittling, and softly hummed the air of "Au clair de la lune."

The soldier went on among the trees. He was not startled when he caught sight of another boy collecting twigs blown down by the gales of early spring. He had even so far recovered as to throw a pleasant "Bon soir!" to the boy as he passed. The boy looked up; he gave no response, not so much as a smile. Were the boys hereabouts deaf, or silly, or what? The man looked back; the boy, on one knee, an arm stretched out as with arrested movement, was watching him.

On again. Insensibly his pace was quickening. At the sight of a third boy away to his left, apparently doing nothing, he felt unreasonably angry. Was the wood full of boys? Why had he not seen them before? Why were they so quiet? Himmel! Was he being watched? He would soon stop that. He turned about, glowering, to scare away these disturbers of his peace of mind. They had vanished. Relieved, almost amused at his nervousness, he strode on, glancing up at the waning sunlight through the trees to make sure of his direction.

Suddenly, a little ahead on his right, he saw the flicker of a boy's white blouse amid the undergrowth. With a muttered execration he slanted towards it, but was checked by a slight rustle on his left. Swinging round, he caught a glimpse of a small figure flitting among the trees. He stopped. His limbs were shaking; streams of perspiration trickled down his face. Now at last he knew the meaning of these stealthy movements, this sinister silence. The boys had been set to dog him. The certainty appeared to paralyse him. He stood swaying on his feet, glancing around for a means of escape from the toils that he felt closing about him. Mechanically he raised his hand and dashed from his face the rolling beads.

The spell was broken by the sound of a motor cycle and shouts behind. As though galvanised, he made a sudden break at full speed ahead, in a line between the two boys he had last seen. Looking neither to right nor to left he pounded on until he was breathless. Then he paused to listen. Had he shaken off the trackers? The whirr had ceased, the shouts were fainter; he was beginning to think that he had gained a few minutes when a small figure scurried through the undergrowth in front of him. He started again, bearing to the left. A glint of white amid the green intensified his terror. He lost command of himself. No longer did he take the dying sunlight as his guide. Blindly, desperately he struggled on, every moment changing his course. The sounds had ceased; there was not even a rustle to warn him.

Presently he stopped, aghast. Before him was the patch of grass which his weight had flattened. He had been moving in a circle. Then a gleam of hope lit the darkness of his despair. He was now near the road; perhaps his pursuers had penetrated far into the wood. He pushed on, staggering, came to a sunken track, and, supporting himself against a tree trunk, looked fearfully around. There, to the left, at the side of the track, were two motor bicycles. The old Frenchman was keeping guard. No one else was in sight. Gathering his strength, he rushed headlong towards his last hope.

The old man heard his footsteps, looked up, and raised his feeble voice in a quavering shout. There was no time for a second. The soldier hurled himself upon the aged peasant, felled him with one blow, sprang to one of the bicycles, started the engine, ran the machine a few yards and leapt into the saddle. With every jolt as the bicycle gained speed on the rough track his heart grew more elate. Whither the track led he neither knew nor cared; his whole soul was in the present.

Right and left of him were the trees. He had ridden perhaps thirty yards when, from the right, a khaki-clad figure dashed into the track just ahead. The fugitive increased his speed and rode straight on. If the man stood in his way, so much the worse for him. Then, in a moment, Atropos cut the thread. As the bicycle was whizzing by, the man flung himself bodily upon it. There was a crash, a thud, then silence.

A few minutes later, Kenneth and Harry came hurrying to the scene.

"Is he killed?" asked the latter, as Kenneth stooped over the body lying on the machine.

"No, he's alive," replied Kenneth, after thrusting his hand into the man's tunic.

He unscrewed the stopper of his flask, and poured weak spirit into the unconscious man's mouth. Not until Ginger had recovered consciousness did they turn their attention to the other man, whose case, indeed, they had recognised at the first glance as hopeless. When he was hurled from the machine, his head had struck a tree trunk on the opposite side of the track. Stoneway was dead.

Yet he had survived his partners. Perhaps half-an-hour before, Obernai and the rest of the gang, after a drumhead court-martial, had paid the last penalty. Spying, at the best, is ignoble work; and when it is accompanied, as in Obernai's case, with the treacherous abuse of hospitality and the betrayal of trusting folk, the spy's doom awakens no sympathy.