Chapter XXXIV (2)

(_The light approaches rapidly. It is rose-coloured; within it a figure is dimly visible. With a thunderous noise it rolls to within ten paces of the saint. The air shakes and for an instant the stars are obscured. This passes: the light fades, and the form of a woman is perceived, upright, robed in white, her face stern and majestic. The sleeves of her garment are very wide, reaching to the ground._)

THE WOMAN (_slightly raising her right arm_). I have need of you.

ANTHONY (_stammering_). What mean you?

THE WOMAN. I am your creator. Much study and great gifts came together for your making. They also were my children. My best blood flows in your veins. My name must mean everything to you, for you are wholly a product of my essence. I am called La France.

ANTHONY (_pales and gazes fixedly at his visitor_). I belong to God.

THE WOMAN (_sternly_). Do you deny that you are French? (_Anthony blushes and averts his gaze. He becomes sulky._) What existence have you had apart from France? Would the world still hold you, you and your temptations, apart from----

ANTHONY (_starting up and with outstretched hands_). Say not that name! Say it not! (_He places his fingers in his ears and then, observing that the woman’s lips do not move, lowers his hands._) Speak! but avoid that name. I can endure aught else.

THE WOMAN (_speaks, her arms hanging by her sides. Her head is thrown slightly back. Her words come slowly. Her voice is as the sound of a solemn sea plunging in distant caverns_). The hour of my agony is upon me. I am beset. My strength is great, my courage greater, and my pride reaches to the stars. But I have mighty foes, skilled in all cruel arts. I suffer. I dwell in the shadow of pain. My woes increase and the issue is doubtful. (_She stretches her hands towards Anthony._) Can you remain aloof?

ANTHONY (_frowning_). This touches me not.

THE WOMAN (_with irony_). Have you, then, purified your heart of all compassion? (_Anthony shrugs his shoulders with a gesture of indifference._) Are you, indeed, amongst the noblest of my offspring? My sons have sacrificed life for me: they have been content to forgo their ardent curiosities for my sake. What holds you back?

ANTHONY (_with great dignity_). I seek union with God. The Devil himself tempted me for many days. He failed. How, then, can you succeed? (_Softly._) You cannot, even if you be he.

THE WOMAN (_flinging her arms apart, and letting them drop heavily_). Shame cannot move you. But he who aids me receives great rewards. I will show you visions.

(_She waves her hand. A cloud descends, swaying slowly in the air. It unwinds in sluggish masses till it fills the horizon. It glows with pale fire. Upon it are cities and wide plains. It is a very clean, neat, and precise land. Rivers wind gently between ploughed fields, red and brown. The cloud surges nearer, and presently Anthony discerns an immense temple shining in the sun. It approaches more quickly, its crystalline walls sending innumerable shafts of light before it. Anthony and his companion are enveloped in an insupportable radiance, and the next instant they find they are within the building. Facing them is a great altar, its gold shining dully in the light of a thousand lighted candles. The flags of France droop motionless about the altar; upon it the carved figure of a soldier lies prone. The pavement of the temple is invisible under the feet of the silent crowd. Mighty columns rush upward and are lost in the sweep of the dim roof. The air begins to pulsate with the heavy notes of an organ. Anthony and The Woman are floating above the heads of the multitude. None have observed them._)

THE WOMAN (_motioning to the crowd_). Here are assembled rich and poor, wise men and fools; judges, statesmen, poets, the criminal and the peasant. All France is here, united in a common gratitude.

ANTHONY. What do they?

THE WOMAN. They honour the dead. (_She points to the prone figure on the altar._) The soldiers who saved France.

(_A trumpet note is heard and the air rustles with the inclining of a myriad heads. A sweet singing arises behind the altar. A procession slowly passes before it. The first to pass is a man beyond middle age, with a grave, bearded face, a broad white forehead and serene eyes. He kneels for an instant and passes on._)

THE WOMAN. The Philosophy of France. (_A young man, with a dark, keen face, and a very penetrating look, follows. Each figure, on arriving before the altar, kneels and passes on._) The Science of France.

(_Then follow the Literature of France, an old man, very harmoniously dressed; the Music and Painting of France, two smaller figures; the Statesmanship and Laws of France, superb men, but badly clothed. There follow priests, merchants, scribes, criminals and courtesans. Anthony and his companion begin to soar higher. The music fades; the bowed heads of the people become indistinct. There is a period of darkness, and Anthony finds himself back on his rock. Before him stands The Woman. The great cloud has utterly vanished._)

THE WOMAN. You have seen the greatness of France.

ANTHONY (_thoughtfully_). It is a land not without merit.

THE WOMAN. Many have died for it. Many more must die for it, or it will be a stricken land. Is it worth dying for?

ANTHONY (_who has grown more argumentative with the years, hesitates. Then_:) That depends! (_He faces The Woman with a stern and questioning look._) Much knowledge and beauty lie within the borders of your land, but no man should die for knowledge or beauty. A man’s life belongs to God alone. Do your great ones serve God? Do they use their wisdom more fully to understand His counsels? Do they create beauty to glorify His praise? (_The Woman does not answer._) I will die for you if my death serves God. I will not die to extend your borders, to add beauty to your palaces, to make you more skilled in wisdom. Will my death bring you nearer to God?

THE WOMAN (_regards Anthony sadly_). You ask me hard questions. Are there not many ways of serving God? I worship God in His creation. I meditate on the laws of His universe. I reveal to the world the beauty of His handiwork. Do I not therefore serve God?

ANTHONY (_drily_). Does that heresy still flourish? God is not His creation.

THE WOMAN. Is knowledge to vanish from the earth? Must none seek after beauty?

ANTHONY (_raising his right hand and speaking with deliberation_). None may seek knowledge for the sake of wisdom. None may seek beauty for the sake of happiness. These things are but the raiment of God. Your great ones count the threads in God’s garment, but do they seek God? (_He delicately shrugs his shoulders._) Does France worship clothes?

THE WOMAN (_sad and bewildered_). I do not understand.

ANTHONY (_regards her long and then speaks gently_). You will never understand, for you are La France. You cannot see without eyes, nor hear without ears. You are the cleverest and most limited of God’s children.

THE WOMAN (_stands still, her arms hanging limp, her head bowed. Suddenly she raises her head_). But I suffer!

(_The air grows dim and a cold wind rises. The stars vanish. In the valley, mysteriously visible, Anthony sees a road. It is cumbered with dead and wounded men, lying in all attitudes, some as if asleep, head resting on arm, and some contorted hideously. Anthony notes the curious attitude of one man who seems to have his legs drawn right up under him; until presently he sees that he has no legs. A dead man sits propped against a gun. The whole of his tongue is visible, hanging downwards; the lower jaw is shot away. Presently one of the black shapes starts to flounder clumsily. In the mysterious light comes the glint of steel; the black shape is trying to fix the end of a bayonet in the ground. In one of his clumsy attempts the man reveals the fact that he has but one arm. For some minutes he struggles and finally the bayonet is fixed. The man lies still. Then he raises himself awkwardly on his one arm till the bayonet point touches his chest; he flings his arm straight out and falls with his whole weight on the point. A long red finger points up from his back._

_The Woman waves her arm and the scene vanishes, to be replaced by another. A soldier, young, and with a look of bright intelligence, is saying farewell to his mother at the door of a cottage. The old woman’s face is lined; her hands tremble. Her eyes peer up anxiously at the young man, as she fondles the sleeve of his tunic. He speaks confidently and cheerfully, and after a final embrace walks briskly away. The old woman enters the cottage and sits there, in silence and alone. She picks up a book the young man had been reading and very carefully places it in a drawer._)

THE WOMAN. An only child, and she a widow.

ANTHONY (_looks very thoughtful_). What of her son?

THE WOMAN. His agony is greater. He feels all her grief and his own. She feels but her own, for his leave-taking deceived her, and she believes he has joy in battle.

ANTHONY (_as if musing_). Will men do so much to keep France?

THE WOMAN (_softly_). They do much more. They know the issue is doubtful. They sacrifice so much, knowing the sacrifice may be in vain. (_Anthony raises his head and looks very intently at The Woman; she continues, her eyes glowing._) For years you have suffered on your rock. You suffer to save yourself. Jesus, your master, suffered to save the world. (_She stretches out her arms and her voice rings with triumph._) I offer you greater suffering. He who suffers for me knows not the fruit of his suffering. I offer you the opportunity of the greatest sacrifice: the sacrifice of all, knowing that your all may be in vain.

(_The Woman pauses, her arms outspread. Anthony presses his hands to his head, and remains silent for a long time. Then, taking a step forward, he places his right hand in that of The Woman. They slowly leave the ground. As they mount in the air the few retarded rays of light utterly vanish, and blackest night confounds the jutting rock with the starless heaven._)

_THE OLD CONTEMPTIBLES: THE GOOD WORD._

BY BOYD CABLE.

It is quite inadequate to say that the troops were worn out, and indeed it is hard to find words to convey to anyone who has not experienced some days of a mixture of fighting and forced marching how utterly exhausted, how dead beat, how stupefied and numbed in mind and body the men were. For four days and nights they had fought and dug trenches and marched, and fought again, and halted to dig again, and fought again, and extricated themselves under hailing bullets and pouring shells from positions they never expected to leave alive, only to scramble together into some sort of ragged-shaped units and march again. And all this was under a fierce August sun, with irregular meals and sometimes no meals, at odd times with a scarcity or complete want of water, at all times with a burning lack and want of sleep.

This want of sleep was the worst of it all. Any sort of fighting is heavy sleep inducing; when it is prolonged for days and nights without one good full, satisfying sleep, the desire for rest becomes a craving, an all-absorbing aching passion. At first a man wants a bed or space to lie down and stretch his limbs and pillow his head and sink into dreamless oblivion; at last he would give his last possession merely to be allowed to lean against a wall, to stand upright on his feet and close his eyes. To keep awake is torture, to lift and move each foot is a desperate effort, to keep the burning eyes open and seeing an agony. It takes the most tremendous effort of will to contemplate another five minutes of wakefulness, another hundred yards to be covered; and here were hours, endless hours, of wakefulness, miles and tens of miles to be covered.

Cruelly hard as the conditions were for the whole retreating army, the rear-guard suffered the worst by a good deal. They were under the constant threat of attack, were halted every now and then under that threat or to allow the main body to keep a sufficient distance, had to make some attempt to dig in again, had to endure spasmodic shelling either in their shallow trenches or as they marched along the road.

By the fourth day the men were reduced to the condition of automatons. They marched--no, it could hardly be said any longer that they ‘marched’; they stumbled and staggered along like drunken men; their chins were sunk on their chests, their jaws hung slack, their eyes were set in a fixed and glassy stare, or blinked, and shut and opened heavily, slowly, and drowsily, their feet trailed draggingly, their knees sagged under them. When the word passed to halt, the front ranks took a minute or two to realise its meaning and obey, and the ranks behind bumped into them and raised heads and vacant staring eyes for a moment and let them drop again in a stupor of apathy. The change, the cessation of automatic motion was too much for many men; once halted they could no longer keep their feet, and dropped and sat or rolled helplessly to lie in the dust of the road. These men who fell were almost impossible to rouse. They sank into sleep that was almost a swoon, and no shaking or calling or cursing could rouse them or get them up again. The officers, knowing this, tried to keep them from sitting or lying down, moved, staggering themselves as they walked, to and fro along the line, exhorting, begging, beseeching, or scolding and swearing and ordering the men to keep up, to stand, to be ready to move on. And when the order was given again, the pathetically ridiculous order to ‘Quick march,’ the front ranks slowly roused and shuffled off, and the rear stirred slowly and with an effort heaved their rifles over their shoulders again and reeled after the leaders.

Scores of the men had abandoned packs and haversacks, all of them had cast away their overcoats. Many had taken their boots off and marched with rags or puttees wound round their blistered and swollen feet. But no matter what one or other or all had thrown away, there was no man without his rifle, his full ammunition pouches, and his bayonet. These things weighed murderously, cut deep and agonisingly into the shoulders, cramped arms and fingers to an aching numbness; but every man clung to them, had never a thought of throwing them into the ditch, although many of them had many thoughts of throwing themselves there.

Many fell out--fell out in the literal as well as the drill sense of the word; swerved to the side of the road and missed foot in the ditch and fell there, or stumbled in the ranks, tripped, lacking the brain or body quickness to recover themselves, collapsed, and rolled and lay helpless. Others, again, gasped a word or two to a comrade or an N.C.O., stumbled out of the ranks to the roadside, sank down with hanging head and rounded shoulders to a sitting position. Few or none of these men deliberately lay down. They sat till the regiment had plodded his trailing length past, tried to stagger to knees and feet, succeeded, and stood swaying a moment, and then lurched off after the rear ranks; or failed, stared stupidly after them, collapsed again slowly and completely. All these were left to lie where they fell. It was useless to urge them to move, because every officer and N.C.O. knew that no man gave up while he had an ounce of strength or energy left to carry on, that orders or entreaties had less power to keep a man moving than his own dogged pluck and will, that when these failed to keep a man going nothing else could succeed.

All were not, of course, so hopelessly done as this. There were still a number of the tougher muscled, the firmer willed, who kept their limbs moving with conscious volition, who still retained some thinking power, who even at times exchanged a few words or a mouthful of curses. These, and the officers, kept the whole together, kept them moving by force of example, set the pace for them and gave them the direction. Most of them were in the leading ranks of their own companies, merely because their greater energy had carried them there past and through the ranks of those whose minds were nearly or quite a blank, whose bodies were more completely exhausted, whose will-power was reduced to a blind and sheep-like instinct to follow a leader, move when and where the dimly seen khaki form or tramping boots in front of them moved, stop when and where they stopped.

The roads by which the army was retreating were cumbered and in places choked and blocked with fugitive peasantry fleeing from the advancing Germans, spurred into and upon their flight by the tales that reached them of ravished Belgium, by first-hand accounts of the murder of old men and women and children, of rape and violation and pillage and burning. Their slow, crawling procession checked and hindered the army transport, added to the trials of the weary troops by making necessary frequent halts and deviations off the road and back to it to clear some block in the traffic where a cart had broken down, or where worn-out women with hollow cheeks and staring eyes, and children with dusty, tear-streaked faces crowded and filled the road.

The rear-guard passed numbers of these lying utterly exhausted by the roadside, and the road for miles was strewn with the wreckage of the retreat, with men who had fallen out unable longer to march on blistered or bleeding feet or collapsed in the heedless sleep of complete exhaustion; with broken-down carts dragged clear into the roadside and spilled with their jumbled contents into the ditch; with crippled horses and footsore cattle; with quivering-lipped, grey-haired old men, and dry-eyed, cowering women, and frightened, clinging children. Some of these peasantry roused themselves as the last of the rear-guard regiments came up with them, struggled again to follow on the road, or dragged themselves clear of it and sought refuge and hiding in abandoned cottages or barns or the deep dry ditches.

At one point where the road crept up the long slope of a hill the rear-guard came under the longe-range fire of the German guns. The shells came roaring down, to burst in clouds of belching black smoke in the fields to either side of the road, or to explode with a sharp tearing cr-r-rash in the air, their splinters and bullets raining down out of the thick white woolly smoke cloud that coiled and writhed and unfolded in slow heavy oily eddies.

One battalion of the rear-guard was halted at the foot of the hill and spread out off the road and across the line of it. Again they were told not to lie down, and for the most part the men obeyed, leaning heavily with their arms folded on the muzzles of their rifles or watching the regiments crawling slowly up the road with the coal-black shell-bursts in the fields about them or the white air-bursts of the shrapnel above them.

‘Pretty bloomin’ sight--I don’t think,’ growled a gaunt and weary-eyed private. The man next him laughed shortly. ‘Pretty one for the Germs, anyway,’ he said; ‘and one they’re seein’ a sight too often for my fancy. They’ll be forgettin’ wot our faces look like if we keep on at this everlastin’ runnin’ away.’

‘Blast ’em,’ said the first speaker savagely, ‘but our turn will come presently. D’you think this yarn is right, Jacko, that we’re retirin’ this way just to draw ’em away from their base?’

‘Gawd knows,’ said Jacko; ‘but they didn’t bring us over ’ere to do nothin’ but run away, an’ you can bet on that, Peter.’

An order passed down the line, and the men began to move slowly into the road again and to shake into some sort of formation on it, and then to plod off up the hill in the wake of the rest. The shells were still plastering the hillside and crashing over the road, and several men were hit as the battalion tramped wearily up the hill. Even the shells failed to rouse most of the men from their apathy and weariness, but those it did stir it roused mainly to angry resentment or sullen oath-mumblings and curses.

‘Well, Jacko,’ said Peter bitterly, ‘I’ve knowed I had a fair chance o’ bein’ shot, but burn me if ever I thought I was goin’ to be shot in the back.’

‘It’s a long way to Tipperary,’ said Jacko, ‘an’ there’s bound to be a turnin’ in it somewheres.’

‘An’ it’s a longer way to Berlin if we keeps on marchin’ like this with our backs to it,’ grumbled Peter.

The sound of another approaching shell rose from a faint moan to a loud shriek, to a roar, to a wild torrent of yelling, whooping, rush-of-an-express-train, whirlwind noise; and then, just when it seemed to each man that the shell was about to fall directly on his own individual head, it burst with a harsh crash over them, and a storm of bullets and fragments whistled and hummed down, hitting the fields’ soft ground with deep _whutts_, clashing sharply on the harder road. A young officer jerked out a cry, stumbled blindly forward a few paces with outstretched arms, pitched, and fell heavily on his face. He was close to where Peter and Jacko marched, and the two shambled hastily together to where he lay, lifted and turned him over. Neither needed a second look. ‘Done in,’ said Peter briefly, and ‘Never knew wot hit ’im,’ agreed Jacko.

An officer ran back to them, followed slowly and heavily by another. There was no question as to what should be done with the lad’s body. He had to be left there, and the utmost they could do for him was to lift and carry him--four dog-tired men hardly able to lift their feet and carry their own bodies--to a cottage by the roadside, and bring him into an empty room with a litter of clothes and papers spilled about the floor from the tumbled drawers, and lay him on a dishevelled bed and spread a crumpled sheet over him.

‘Let’s hope they’ll bury him decently,’ said one of the officers. The other was pocketing the watch and few pitiful trinkets he had taken from the lad’s pockets. ‘Hope so,’ he said dully. ‘Not that it matters much to poor old Dicky. Come on, we must move, or I’ll never be able to catch the others up.’

They left the empty house quietly, pulling the door gently shut behind them.

‘Pore little Blinker,’ said Jacko as they trudged up the road after the battalion; ‘the best bloomin’ officer the platoon ever ’ad.’

‘The best I ever ’ad in all my seven,’ said Peter. ‘I ain’t forgettin’ the way ’e stood up for me afore the C.O. at Aldershot when I was carpeted for drunk. And ’im tryin’ to stand wi’ the right side of ’is face turned away from the light, so the C.O. wouldn’t spot the black eye I gave ’im in that same drunk!’

‘Ah, an’ that was just like ’im,’ said Jacko. ‘An’ to think ’e’s washed out with a ’ole in the back of his ’ead--the back of it, mind you.’

Peter cursed sourly.

The battalion trailed wearily on until noon, halted then, and for the greater part flung themselves down and slept on the roadside for the two hours they waited there; were roused--as many of them, that is, as would rouse, for many, having stopped the machine-like motion of marching, could not recommence it, and had to be left there--and plodded on again through the baking afternoon heat. They had marched over thirty miles that day when at last they trailed into a small town where they were told they were to be billeted for the night. Other troops, almost as worn as themselves, were to take over the duties of rear-guard next day, but although that was good enough news it was nothing to the fact that to-night, now, the battalion was to halt and lie down and take their fill--if the Huns let them--of sleep.

They were halted in the main square and waited there for what seemed to the tired men an interminable time.

‘Findin’ billets,’ said Jacko. ‘Wish they’d hurry up about it.’

‘Seems to me there’s something more than billets in the wind,’ said Peter suspiciously. ‘Wot’s all the officers confabbin’ about, an’ wot’s that _tamasha_ over there wi’ them Staff officers an’ the C.O.?’

The _tamasha_ broke up, and the C.O. tramped back to the group of his officers, and after a short parley they saluted him and walked over to the battalion.

‘Fall in,’ came the order sharply. ‘Fall in there, fall in.’

Most of the men were sitting along the curb of the pavement or in the dusty road, or standing leaning on their rifles. They rose and moved heavily and stiffly, and shuffled into line.

‘Wot is it, sergeant?’ asked Jacko suspiciously. ‘Wot’s the move?’

‘We’re goin’ back,’ said the sergeant. ‘Hurry up there, you. Fall in. We’re goin’ back, an’ there’s some word of a fight.’

The word flew round the ranks. ‘Going back ... a fight ... back....’

Across the square another regiment tramped stolidly and turned down a side street. A man in their rear ranks turned and waved a hand to the waiting battalion. ‘So long, chums,’ he called. ‘See you in Berlin.’

‘Ga’ strewth,’ said Jacko, and drew a deep breath. ‘Goin’ back; an’ a fight; an’ the ol’ Buffs on the move too. In Berlin, eh; wonder wot they’ve ’eard. Back--blimey, Peter, I believe we’re goin’ for the blinkin’ ’Uns again. I believe we’re goin’ to advance.’

That word went round even faster than the other, and where it passed it left behind it a stir of excitement, a straightening of rounded shoulders, a lifting of lolling heads. ‘Going back ... going to attack this time ... going to advance....’

Actually this was untrue, or partly so at least. They were going back, but still merely acting as rear-guard to take up a position clear of the town and hold it against the threat of too close-pressing pursuit. But the men knew nothing of that at the time. They were going back; there was word of a fight; what else did that spell but a finish to this cursed running away, an advance instead of a retreat? The rumour acted like strong wine to the men. They moved to the parade orders with something of their old drilled and disciplined appearance; they swung off in their fours with shuffling steps, it is true, but with a decent attempt to keep the step, with their heads more or less erect and their shoulders back. And when the head of the column turned off the square back into the same street they had come up into the town, a buzz of talk and calling ran through the ranks, a voice piped up shakily ‘It’s a Long Way to Tipperary’ and a dozen, a score, a hundred voices took up the chorus sturdily and defiantly. The battalion moved out with the narrow streets ringing to their steady tramp, tramp, over the _pavé_ cobbles and the sound of their singing. Once clear of the town, it is true, the singing died away and the regular tramping march tailed off into the murmuring shuffle of feet moving out of step. But the deadly apathy had lifted from the men, there was an air of new life about them; one would never have known this battalion for the one that had marched in over the same road half an hour before. Then they were no more than a broken, dispirited crowd, their minds dazed, their bodies numbed with fatigue, moving mechanically, dully, apathetically, still plodding and shuffling their feet forward merely because their conscious minds had set their limbs the task, and then the tired brains, run down, had left the machinery of their bodies still working--working jerkily and slackly perhaps, but nevertheless working as it would continue to work until the overstrained muscles refused their mechanical duty.

Now they were a battalion, a knitted and coherent body of fighting men, still worn out and fatigued almost to the point of collapse, but with working minds, with a conscious thought in their brains, with discipline locking their ranks again, with the prospect of a fight ahead, with the hope strong in them that the tide was turning, that they were done with the running away and retreating and abandoning hard-fought fields they were positive they had won; that now their turn was come, that here they were commencing and making the longed-for advance.

And as they marched they heard behind them a deep _boo-boom_, _boo-boom_, _boo-moom_ and the whistling rush of the shells over their heads. That and the low muttering rumble of guns far out on the flank brought to them a final touch of satisfaction. They were advancing, and the guns were supporting them already then--good, oh good!

And as they marched back down the road they had come they met some of their stragglers hobbling painfully on bandaged feet, or picked them up from where they still lay in a stupor of sleep on the roadside. And to all of them the one word ‘advance’ was enough. ‘We’re going back ... it’s an advance,’ turned them staggering round to limp back in the tail of the battalion, or lifted them to their feet to follow on as best they might. They picked up more than their own men, too, men of other regiments who had straggled and fallen out, but now drew fresh store of strength from the cheerful word ‘advance,’ and would not be denied their chance to be in the van of it, but tailed on in rear of the battalion and struggled to keep up with them. ‘We’re all right, sir,’ said one when an officer would have turned him and sent him back to find his own battalion. ‘We’re pretty near done in on marching; but there’s a plenty fight left in us--specially when it’s an advance.’

‘Jacko,’ said Peter, ‘I’m damn near dead; but thank the Lord I won’t ’ave to die runnin’ away.’

‘All I asks,’ said Jacko, ‘is as fair a target on ’em as we’ve ’ad before, an’ a chance to put a ’ole in the back o’ some o’ _their_ ’eads.’

‘Ah!’ said Peter. ‘Pore little Blinker. They’ve got to pay for ’im an’ a few more like ’im.’

‘They ’ave, blarst them,’ said Jacko savagely, and dropped his hand to his bayonet haft, slid the steel half out and home again. ‘Don’t fret, chum, they’ll pay--soon or late, this time or nex’, one day or another--they’ll pay.’

_THE LOST NAVAL PAPERS._

BY BENNET COPPLESTONE.

I.

BAITING THE TRAP.

This story--which contains a moral for those fearful folk who exalt everything German--was told to me by Richard Cary, the accomplished naval correspondent of a big paper in the North of England. I have known him and his enthusiasm for the White Ensign for twenty years. He springs from an old naval stock, the Carys of North Devon, and has devoted his life to the study of the Sea Service. He had for so long been accustomed to move freely among shipyards and navymen, and was trusted so completely, that the veil of secrecy which dropped in August 1914 between the Fleets and the world scarcely existed for him. Everything which he desired to know for the better understanding of the real work of the Navy came to him officially or unofficially. When, therefore, he states that the Naval Notes with which this story deals would have been of incalculable value to the enemy, I accept his word without hesitation. I have myself seen some of them and they made me tremble--for Cary’s neck. I pressed him to write this story himself, but he refused. ‘No,’ said he, ‘I have told you the yarn just as it happened; write it yourself. I am a dull dog, quite efficient at handling hard facts and making scientific deductions from them, but with no eye for the picturesque details. I give it to you.’ He rose to go--Cary had been lunching with me--but paused for an instant upon my front doorstep. ‘If you insist upon it,’ added he, smiling, ‘I don’t mind sharing in the plunder.’

* * * * *

It was in the latter part of May 1916. Cary was hard at work one morning in his rooms in the Northern City where he had established his headquarters. His study table was littered with papers--notes, diagrams, and newspaper cuttings--and he was laboriously reducing the apparent chaos into an orderly series of chapters upon the Navy’s Work which he proposed to publish after the war was over. It was not designed to be an exciting book--Cary has no dramatic instinct--but it would be full of fine sound stuff, close accurate detail, and clear analysis. Day by day for more than twenty months he had been collecting details of every phase of the Navy’s operations, here a little and there a little. He had recently returned from a confidential tour of the shipyards and naval bases, and had exercised his trained eye upon checking and amplifying what he had previously learned. While his recollection of this tour was fresh he was actively writing up his Notes and revising the rough early draft of his book. More than once it had occurred to him that his accumulations of Notes were dangerous explosives to store in a private house. They were becoming so full and so accurate that the enemy would have paid any sum or have committed any crime to secure possession of them. Cary is not nervous or imaginative--have I not said that he springs from a naval stock?--but even he now and then felt anxious. He would, I believe, have slept peacefully though knowing that a delicately primed bomb lay beneath his bed, for personal risks troubled him little, but the thought that hurt to his country might come from his well-meant labours sometimes rapped against his nerves. A few days before his patriotic conscience had been stabbed by no less a personage than Admiral Jellicoe, who, speaking to a group of naval students which included Cary, had said: ‘We have concealed nothing from you, for we trust absolutely to your discretion. Remember what you have seen, but do not make any notes.’ Yet here at this moment was Cary disregarding the orders of a Commander-in-Chief whom he worshipped. He tried to square his conscience by reflecting that no more than three people knew of the existence of his Notes or of the book which he was writing from them, and that each one of those three was as trustworthy as himself. So he went on collating, comparing, writing, and the heap upon his table grew bigger under his hands.

The clock had just struck twelve upon that morning when a servant entered and said ‘A gentleman to see you, sir, upon important business. His name is Mr. Dawson.’

Cary jumped up and went to his dining-room, where the visitor was waiting. The name had meant nothing to him, but the instant his eyes fell upon Mr. Dawson he remembered that he was the chief Scotland Yard officer who had come north to teach the local police how to keep track of the German agents who infested the shipbuilding centres. Cary had met Dawson more than once and had assisted him with his intimate local knowledge. He greeted his visitor with smiling courtesy, but Dawson did not smile. His first words, indeed, came like shots from an automatic pistol.

‘Mr. Cary,’ said he, ‘I want to see your Naval Notes.’

Cary was staggered, for the three people whom I have mentioned did not include Mr. Dawson. ‘Certainly,’ said he, ‘I will show them to you if you ask officially. But how in the world did you hear anything about them?’

‘I am afraid that a good many people know about them, most undesirable people, too. If you will show them to me--I am asking officially--I will tell you what I know.’

Cary led the way to his study. Dawson glanced round the room, at the papers heaped upon the table, at the tall windows bare of curtains--Cary, who loved light and sunshine, hated curtains--and growled. Then he locked the door, pulled down the thick blue blinds required by the East Coast lighting orders, and switched on the electric lights though it was high noon in May. ‘That’s better,’ said he. ‘You are an absolutely trustworthy man, Mr. Cary. I know all about you. But you are damned careless. That bare window is overlooked from half a dozen flats. You might as well do your work in the street.’

Dawson picked up some of the papers, and their purport was explained to him by Cary. ‘I don’t know anything of naval details,’ said he, ‘but I don’t need any evidence of the value of the stuff here. The enemy wants it, wants it badly; that is good enough for me.’

‘But,’ remonstrated Cary, ‘no one knows of these papers, or of the use to which I am putting them, except my son in the Navy, my wife (who has not read a line of them), and my publisher in London.’

‘Hum!’ commented Dawson. ‘Then how do you account for this?’

He opened his leather despatch-case and drew forth a parcel carefully wrapped up in brown paper. Within the wrapping was a large white envelope of the linen woven paper used for registered letters, and generously sealed. To Cary’s surprise, for the envelope appeared to be secure, Dawson cautiously opened it so as not to break the seal which was adhering to the flap and drew out a second smaller envelope, also sealed. This he opened in the same delicate way and took out a third; from the third he drew a fourth, and so on until eleven empty envelopes had been added to the litter piled upon Cary’s table, and the twelfth, a small one, remained in Dawson’s hands.

‘Did you ever see anything so childish?’ observed he, indicating the envelopes. ‘A big, registered, sealed Chinese puzzle like that is just crying out to be opened. We would have seen the inside of that one even if it had been addressed to the Lord Mayor, and not to--well, someone in whom we are deeply interested, though he does not know it.’

Cary, who had been fascinated by the succession of sealed envelopes, stretched out his hand towards one of them. ‘Don’t touch,’ snapped out Dawson. ‘Your clumsy hands would break the seals, and then there would be the devil to pay. Of course all these envelopes were first opened in my office. It takes a dozen years to train men to open sealed envelopes so that neither flap nor seal is broken, and both can be again secured without showing a sign of disturbance. It is a trade secret.’

Dawson’s expert fingers then opened the twelfth envelope and he produced a letter. ‘Now, Mr. Cary, if we had not known you and also known that you were absolutely honest and loyal--though dangerously simple-minded and careless in the matter of windows--this letter would have been very awkward indeed for you. It runs: “Hagan arrives 10.30 P.M. Wednesday to get Cary’s Naval Notes. Meet him. Urgent.” Had we not known you, Mr. Richard Cary might have been asked to explain how Hagan knew all about his Naval Notes and was so very confident of being able to get them.’

Cary smiled. ‘I have often felt,’ said he, ‘especially in war-time, that it was most useful to be well known to the police. You may ask me anything you like and I will do my best to answer. I confess that I am aghast at the searchlight of inquiry which has suddenly been turned upon my humble labours. My son at sea knows nothing of the Notes except what I have told him in my letters, my wife has not read a line of them, and my publisher is the last man to talk. I seem to have suddenly dropped into the middle of a detective story.’ The poor man scratched his head and smiled ruefully at the Scotland Yard officer.

‘Mr. Cary,’ said Dawson, ‘those windows of yours would account for anything. You have been watched for a long time, and I am perfectly sure that our friend Hagan and his associates here know precisely in what drawer of that desk you keep your naval papers. Your flat is easy to enter--I had a look round before coming in to-day--and on Wednesday night (that is to-morrow) there will be a scientific burglary here and your Notes will be stolen.’

‘Oh no they won’t,’ cried Cary. ‘I will take them down this afternoon to my office and lock them up in the big safe. It will put me to a lot of bother, for I shall also have to lock up there the chapters of my book.’

‘You newspaper men ought all to be locked up yourselves. You are a cursed nuisance to honest, hard-worked Scotland Yard men like me. But you mistake the object of my visit. I want this flat to be entered to-morrow night, and I want your naval papers to be stolen.’

For a moment the wild thought came to Cary that this man Dawson--the chosen of the Yard--was himself a German Secret Service agent, and must have shown in his eyes some signs of the suspicion, for Dawson laughed loudly. ‘No, Mr. Cary, I am not in the Kaiser’s pay, nor are you, though the case against you might be painted pretty black. This man Hagan is on our string in London and we want him very badly indeed. Not to arrest--at least not just yet--but to keep running round showing us his pals and all their little games. He is an Irish American, a very unbenevolent neutral, to whom we want to give a nice, easy, happy time, so that he can mix himself up thoroughly with the spy business and wrap a rope many times round his neck. We will pull on to the end when we have finished with him, but not a minute too soon. He is too precious to be frightened. Did you ever come across such an ass’--Dawson contemptuously indicated the pile of sealed envelopes--‘he must have soaked himself in American dime novels and cinema crime films. He will be of more use to us than a dozen of our best officers. I feel that I love Hagan and won’t have him disturbed. When he comes here to-morrow night he shall be seen but not heard. He shall enter this room, lift your Notes, which shall be in their usual drawer, and shall take them safely away. After that I rather fancy that we shall enjoy ourselves, and that the salt will stick very firmly upon Hagan’s little tail.’

Cary did not at all like this plan; it might offer amusement and instruction to the police, but seemed to involve himself in an excessive amount of responsibility. ‘Will it not be far too risky to let him take my Notes even if you do shadow him closely afterwards? He will get them copied and scattered amongst a score of agents, one of whom may get the information through to Germany. You know your job, of course, but the risk seems too big for me. After all, they are my Notes, and I would far sooner burn them now than that the Germans should see a line of them.’

Dawson laughed again. ‘You are a dear simple soul, Mr. Cary; it does one good to meet you. Why on earth do you suppose I came here to-day if it were not to enlist your help? Hagan is going to take all the risks; you and I are not looking for any. He is going to steal some Naval Notes, but they will not be those which lie on this table. I myself will take charge of those and of the chapters of your most reprehensible book. You shall prepare, right now, a beautiful new artistic set of notes calculated to deceive. They must be accurate where any errors would be spotted, but wickedly false wherever deception would be good for Fritz’s health. I want you to get down to a real plant. This letter shall be sealed up again in its twelve silly envelopes and go by registered post to Hagan’s correspondent. You shall have till to-morrow morning to invent all those things which we want Fritz to believe about the Navy. Make us out to be as rotten as you plausibly can. Give him some heavy losses to gloat over and to tempt him out of harbour. Don’t overdo it, but mix up your fiction with enough facts to keep it sweet and make it sound convincing. If you do your work well--and the Naval authorities here seem to think a lot of you--Hagan will believe in your Notes, and will try to get them to his German friends at any cost or risk, which will be exactly what we want of him. Then, when he has served our purpose, he will find that we--have--no--more--use--for--him.’

Dawson accompanied this slow, harmlessly sounding sentence with a grim and nasty smile. Cary, before whose eyes flashed for a moment the vision of a chill dawn, cold grey walls, and a silent firing party, shuddered. It was a dirty task to lay so subtle a trap even for a dirty Irish-American spy. His honest English soul revolted at the call upon his brains and knowledge, but common sense told him that in this way, Dawson’s way, he could do his country a very real service. For a few minutes he mused over the task set to his hand, and then spoke.

‘All right. I think that I can put up exactly what you want. The faked Notes shall be ready when you come to-morrow. I will give the whole day to them.’

In the morning the new set of Naval Papers was ready, and their purport was explained in detail to Dawson, who chuckled joyously. ‘This is exactly what Admiral ---- wants, and it shall get through to Germany by Fritz’s own channels. I have misjudged you, Mr. Cary; I thought you little better than a fool, but that story here of a collision in a fog and the list of damaged Queen Elizabeths in dock would have taken in even me. Fritz will suck it down like cream. I like that effort even better than your grave comments on damaged turbines and worn-out gun tubes. You are a genius, Mr. Cary, and I must take you to lunch with the Admiral this very day. You can explain the plant better than I can, and he is dying to hear all about it. Oh, by the way, he particularly wants a description of the failure to complete the latest batch of big shell fuses, and the shortage of lyddite. You might get that done before the evening. Now for the burglary. Do nothing, nothing at all, outside your usual routine. Come home at your usual hour, go to bed as usual, and sleep soundly if you can. Should you hear any noise in the night put your head under the bedclothes. Say nothing to Mrs. Cary unless you are obliged, and for God’s sake don’t let any woman--wife, daughter, or maidservant--disturb my pearl of a burglar while he is at work. He must have a clear run, with everything exactly as he expects to find it. Can I depend upon you?’

‘I don’t pretend to like the business,’ said Cary, ‘but you can depend upon me to the letter of my orders.’

‘Good,’ cried Dawson. ‘That is all I want.’

II.

THE TRAP CLOSES.

Cary heard no noise though he lay awake for most of the night, listening intently. The flat seemed to be more quiet even than usual. There was little traffic in the street below, and hardly a step broke the long silence of the night. Early in the morning--at six B.S.T.--Cary slipped out of bed, stole down to his study, and pulled open the deep drawer in which he had placed the bundle of faked Naval Notes. They had gone! So the Spy-Burglar had come, and, carefully shepherded by Dawson’s sleuth-hounds, had found the primrose path easy for his crime. To Cary, the simple, honest gentleman, the whole plot seemed to be utterly revolting--justified, of course, by the country’s needs in time of war, but none the less revolting. There is nothing of glamour in the Secret Service, nothing of romance, little even of excitement. It is a cold-blooded exercise of wits against wits, of spies against spies. The amateur plays a fish upon a line and gives him a fair run for his life, but the professional fisherman--to whom a salmon is a people’s food--nets him coldly and expeditiously as he comes in from the sea.

Shortly after breakfast there came a call from Dawson on the telephone. ‘All goes well. Come to my office as soon as possible.’ Cary found Dawson bubbling with professional satisfaction. ‘It was beautiful,’ cried he. ‘Hagan was met at the train, taken to a place we know of, and shadowed by us tight as wax. We now know all his associates--the swine have not even the excuse of being German. He burgled your flat himself while one of his gang watched outside. Never mind where I was; you would be surprised if I told you; but I saw everything. He has the faked papers, is busy making copies, and this afternoon is going down the river in a steamer to get a glimpse of the shipyards and docks and check your Notes as far as can be done. Will they stand all right?’

‘Quite all right,’ said Cary. ‘The obvious things were given correctly.’

‘Good. We will be in the steamer.’

Cary went that afternoon, quite unchanged in appearance by Dawson’s order. ‘If you try to disguise yourself,’ declared that expert, ‘you will be spotted at once. Leave the refinements to us.’ Dawson himself went as an elderly dug-out officer with the rank marks of a colonel, and never spoke a word to Cary upon the whole trip down and up the teeming river. Dawson’s men were scattered here and there--one a passenger of inquiring mind, another a deckhand, yet a third--a pretty girl in khaki--sold tea and cakes in the vessel’s saloon. Hagan--who, Cary heard afterwards, wore the brass-bound cap and blue kit of a mate in the American merchant service--was never out of sight for an instant of Dawson or of one of his troupe. He busied himself with a strong pair of marine glasses and now and then asked innocent questions of the ship’s deckhands. He had evidently himself once served as a sailor. One deckhand, an idle fellow to whom Hagan was very civil, told his questioner quite a lot of interesting details about the Navy ships, great and small, which could be seen upon the building slips. All these details tallied strangely with those recorded in Cary’s Notes. The trip up and down the river was a great success for Hagan and for Dawson, but for Cary it was rather a bore. He felt somehow out of the picture. In the evening Dawson called at Cary’s office and broke in upon him. ‘We had a splendid trip to-day,’ said he. ‘It exceeded my utmost hopes. Hagan thinks no end of your Notes, but he is not taking any risks. He leaves in the morning for Glasgow to do the Clyde and to check some more of your stuff. Would you like to come?’ Cary remarked that he was rather busy, and that these river excursions, though doubtless great fun for Dawson, were rather poor sport for himself. Dawson laughed joyously--he was a cheerful soul when he had a spy upon his string. ‘Come along,’ said he. ‘See the thing through. I should like you to be in at the death.’ Cary observed that he had no stomach for cold damp dawns, and firing parties.

‘I did not quite mean that,’ replied Dawson. ‘Those closing ceremonies are still strictly private. But you should see the chase through to a finish. You are a newspaper man and should be eager for new experiences.’

‘I will come,’ said Cary, rather reluctantly. ‘But I warn you that my sympathies are steadily going over to Hagan. The poor devil does not look to have a dog’s chance against you.’

‘He hasn’t,’ said Dawson with great satisfaction.