Hello! Hello! who's your lady friend?Who's the little girlie by your side?I've seen you with a girl or two,Oh, oh, oh, IAMsurprised at you!Hello! Hello! what's your little game?Don't you think it's time your ways to mend?That's not the gal I saw you with at Brighton,Oh, oh, oh, who's your lady friend?
"If it is not a rude question," I ventured, after another few moments, "did you ever see the capture of a German spy over in France, Mr. McNab?"
"Who are you getting at ... trying to pull my leg?" he demanded, with increased suspicion.
"Come, come," I laughed, "let us agree to differ about our—er—inferior spy system."
"Superior," he insisted.
I surrendered before the gleam of his eye. Fool that I had been, ever to have imagined that I could conquer McNab's steely glance!
"Superior then, if you prefer it."
McNab's eyes, which had glared with indignation, lost their fire and assumed their normal expression of calm and relentless despotism, and the red flag of agitated displeasure disappeared from his tanned face. He seized with alacrity the olive branch (also another tankard of beer) which I held out to him.
"The history of the British Army," he observed as he blew at his ale "'minds me of a married soldier's letter to his wife. The most interesting parts are all left out ... do you get me?"
McNab tilted his hat at a perilous angle on one side of his head, and thrust his hands deep into his pockets.
"Touching upon some of those unwritten exploits of the Army," I darkly hinted: "I'll bet I can find a brilliant historiographer not a hundred miles away from the 'Three Nuns' who could dictate a few of 'em that would fairly make theDaily Mailturn green with envy—eh, McNab?"
"I know the brilliant bloke you mean," my friend conceded modestly, "though calling me 'orrible names like that would brand you as a swanker or a gentleman wot had left his manners in the hall in any barrack room from here to Hindustan. When we were resting at Quality Street near Loos, for example"—he paused a moment, and with a playful dig from his banana-like thumb nearly knocked me on the floor—"why, name of a dog! There you have a case in point!"
"A case of a swanker?"
"A case of one of those spies. We caught the perisher. Begad, we did!"
McNab put the red-hot end of a cigarette into his mouth, stammered with wrath in a medley of international profanity at the unexpected warmth, and would not be comfortedtill his favourite barmaid had placed a slice of cooling lemon on his tongue.
"My first introduction to the entertaining sport of spy tracking," he mumbled, "was at Loos, where I was sent with several hundred other chaps to help push the Huns out of the Hohenzollern Redoubt. At the present moment, as you know (or ought to by this time), I am a military genius 'ighly thought of at the War Office, a strategist Kitchener has his eye on, and a model soldier quoted every day by my colonel as a shining light to the regiment. But of course you must remember that a few months ago I was practically a yob at the game, and now of the fame (and the extreme shyness that seems to come with it) of my later avatar.
"We took over some temporary billets at a shady little spot not far behind the British trenches which was then known as 'Quality Street,'" he continued, "and, as I not unreasonably supposed that the smartest and most intelligent bloke in the regiment would be sent to 'elp the colonel, I requested the Dog's Leg (Anglice—lance-corporal) to point out his abode to me.
"'Ask the Quarter Bloke over along in the end cottage, old sport,' he said with a grin, 'he'll be most 'appy, I've no doubt to personally conduct to the old pot-an-pan, and while you're there just ask him to let you have that jug of defaulters' extra milk for me.' It was a 'wheeze' among the boys tosend a poor innocent bloke off for this milk. The point of the 'wheeze' is in the fact that as defaulters are chaps doing jankers (Anglice—punishment) they are hardly likely to get any extra milk dished out to them. I did not see the joke at first; but on application to that autocratic beggar—Quartermaster King was his tally—he fully explained things to me in that witheringly sarcastic manner peculiar to sergeant-majors and quarter-blokes.
"'Defaulter's milk?' echoed he. 'Why, you lop-eared leper, you've got corpuscular fool wrote as plain as a motor lorry number all over your ugly face. If I wasn't sure that you was not more of a born idiot than a ruddy knave, etc., etc., etc., I would have you slick in mush before your feet could touch the ground!'
"Much crest-fallen, and terribly mortified, I returned to the cottage which had been selected to shelter me noble self, only to be met there with a volley of derisive laughter, repeated demands for the jug of Defaulter's milk, and questions about the quarter bloke's health.
"'A cat may look at aKing,' said the Dog's Leg, and fell backwards out of the open window at his own joke, breaking 'is collar bone. One should never forget, at every time, as the Scriptures say, that pride allus goes before a fall, and that all the King's 'orses and all the King's men can't not even pick 'im up again!"
My murmured compliments on his amazing aptness in the knowledge of Holy Writ were checked by a sudden discovery that my best silver cigarette case had vanished from the table.
"Which of you civilians has stole the gentleman's silver case?"
This question, uttered not in the friendliest possible terms, was addressed to a young gentleman with a very pimply face, and kaleidoscopic coloured socks, of the genus Slacker, who had suddenly found the painting of Sergeant Broughton an object of absorbing interest.
This inquiry meeting with no response from the Slimy Slacker, (to use McNab's expressive name for him), he gave utterance to a sigh of resignation.
"I believe, sir," suggested an old gentleman who was warming his toes at the fire, "that you deposited the gentleman's cigarette case—er—inadvertently in your own pocket!"
"Why, strike me crimson!" cried McNab, diving his beef-steakish hands into his tunic pockets. "Why, so I did! I'm the biggest giddy fool at that kind of wheeze that ever lived. It's a knock-out, ain't it? Never mind—'honi soit qui mal yeighteen pence,' as the French poet bloke said!
"It so happened that on the very next day our old man's servant went sick, and in spite of my extreme youth and innocence, I was selected from the crowd to fill thevacant billet. And then it was that the Colonel realised that fate had dropped a heaven-sent blessing on his knees in the shape of a—well, in the shape of an ingenious bloke like me. He lifted up his voice in thanksgiving for that the British Army held warriors so wise, and then looked up his whiskey and cigars.
"At one end of Quality Street there stood a Y.M.C.A. hut. On the next day when I pushed the door of this Bun-Wallah's paradise open, the first person I saw was old Tommy—Tommy wot had fought up and down the Godforsaken veldt with me for three years on end, Tommy who had always the knack of droppin' out of the blue from nowhere.
"'Well, 'ere's a go!' he cried dropping half a cup of boiling coffee down another chap's neck, as 'is smile broadened, 'it's a 'ell of a time since I struck you.'
"I saw the dawn of recognition on his ugly mug; and I could have guessed to a word the joyful expressions of welcome that were springing to his lips."
McNab paused.
"Quite so," I prompted, seeing the change that took place in my friend's face.
"I am afraid I should have guessed dead wrong," continued McNab with his eyes downcast. "However, what he did spit out was: 'strike me up a gum-tree if it ain't the bloke what borrowed 'alf a crown off me when I was quartered at the "Shot" in '98.'
"I was pretty well worked up at this remark; but I said to him with quiet dignity: 'I believe, Tommy, that I sent it back by post.'
"'You sent me back a threepenny bit,' he says, with a very naughty word, 'and told me it was my 'alf crown worn down.'
"'Come, come, old chum!' I laughed, 'let us forget all about that, such a thing is really only "very small beer" indeed.'
"'Humph!' grunted Tommy. 'It was a blighted small 'alf crown, too.'
"'Sit down,' he continued, clutching me by the wrist and dragging me into a vacant chair. It was not in champagne, of course, that we drank each other's health. But you can always trust old Tommy to have a little pig's ear hidden somewhere. 'What's the matter with a bottle of Bass?' says he to me. ''Tis against ole Kitchener's wishes,' says I. 'Of course it is,' says Tommy; 'and wot is more, it's the ruin of dear ole England—God bless it!' 'Rot yar innards—let's go and 'ave some,' I says bein' always one to reason out matters to a logical conclusion.
"There is a large slag heap in the neighbourhood of Quality Street where the French and Germans met early in the war. They wanted each other's company exclusive on this here heap. Well, they met, and fell to arguin' whether the French should 'ave it as a mounting for a few machine-guns or the Germans should keep it for sniping purposes.Hence the air was soon clouded with shells, shrapnel, and all other deadly diseases. Seeing the children had got over their shyness in this little fright and had really played quite a good game, this particular slag heap was bearing abundant fruit in the way of trophies. Furthermore, Tommy suggested that it would be indeed nice if we could make our way there one evening and collect a few German helmets, bayonets, and other curiosities for the old people at home.
"As a result of our confabulation we found ourselves about ten that night crawling up a hedge towards the slag heap in question. When we did get there we went and lost our blighted selves. How long we were crawling and twisting about that Gawd-forsaken heap or which way our lines lay I'd no means of knowing. But poor old Tommy rolled down a bank with an armful of German helmets and other trophies, making a noise like a fire engine galloping up the Mile End Road. Then suddenly one of those German flares fell on the ground about a hundred yards away, and all things, including Tommy and I, shone out in their naked splendour. Then you can take it from me wedidsee where we were.
"I thought Tommy was having a bad attack of epileptic fits for a moment, till it transpired that he had flumped down on a dead Boche in endeavouring to escape the searching glare of the flare. After the thinghad burnt its giddy self out Tommy crawled crab-fashion over into the providential cutting in which I had taken shelter. He was wiping his forehead with the back of his hand, and he looked very solemn and rather frightened. 'Did you spot that chap crouching in that V-shaped cutting down there?' he said. 'I thought he was one of our old crowd at first, but what with that cursed light and the excitement I could not be certain.'
"'I saw nothing.'
"'Just before the flare went up I noticed a flash lamp; one of those things used to give signals with. I got an awful turn then.'
"'Rot,' I said: 'I don't believe a word of it.'
"'Do you mind coming over this way then?' said Tommy.
"In the pitch-black darkness, guided by Tommy, I stumbled up a path which I'll swear was all of a one in three gradient. We came out upon a little ledge overlooking what we now knew to be the German lines. Tommy motioned me to keep my eye on the V-shaped cutting in the slag below us.
"'I think the beggar is down in the extreme angle of the V,' he whispered as he crawled beside me.
"Then I overbalanced, fell over the ridge, and dropped clean on to something soft and yielding below. Red specks dotted the blackness before my eyes for a few moments as I bounced on the hard stones. I jumped upwith a jerk and spun round to find, blocking my path, a menacing figure regarding me over the barrel of a Browning pistol. In the other hand he held an electric torch.
"'Don't move,' he said in good English.
"His tone was quiet and crisp, an' his face showed me that 'e was out for blood.
"'I have it in my mind almost to be sorry for you, British Tommy,' he said calmly, 'You know too much. I am going to decide on the best way to dis——'
"He got as far as 'dis'—when something leaped out of the shadows and he was hurled back with a sudden rush. It was Tommy, and he swung his heavy Boche rifle and stove the man down with terrific force. There was a dreadful half-choked, whimper and then silence.
"Tommy stood regarding the still form with a bleached face. He then bent over him, but without touching, looked up at me.
"'Saved a firing party the trouble,' he said. 'He's dead all right.'
"He straightened himself up.
"'What the devil shall we do with it, McNab?'
"''Tis a spy he was,' I answered, 'and it's ten to one that he has a code or some kind of papers tucked away on him. Just run through his pockets before we leave him.'
"'No, no,' Tommy said, 'I can't touch him he'll haunt me, sure.'
"The man was quite dead when I rolledhim over. I took from his pockets a leather bound code book, English, French and German bank notes, and a gold stop watch.
"'No good stayin' here,' said Tommy, 'I vote we crawl back and talk it over. This is a crummy old place.'
"When we got back to billets and examined our loot, it was a sure enough German spy's code book, and it contained a rough sketch of all our trenches and what not, quite sufficient to use in conjunction with the squared map he carried. The book was printed in German.
"'You know,' said Tommy, 'we must report this to the Colonel as soon as we can.'
"'An' be collared for being out at night without a pass first thing? Not much,' said I.
"'We must hide this loot. They may search us when they find him out there,' said Tommy, looking to the future.
"'Hide away, then,' I said, but my mind was elsewhere, for all of a sudden, I had been hit in the eye with a brilliant inspiration.
"The following morning, when I took our ole man his early tea, I found 'im sitting up in bed sucking a fat cigar and bewilderin' himself with the brigade orders.
"'I beg your pardon, sir!' I says, 'but may I have a word with you?'
"'You know, McNab,' he says, screwing his eye-glass into his eye with a smile—'you know that I am at any hour of the day ornight glad to have a talk to a man of understanding like yourself.'
"'That's good of you, Colonel,' I says, 'to meet me with such kindness. But I think, as you say, that I have just a little more than the usual share of intellec' under my hat, but what I have come to lay before your notice is this: I have discovered why the Boche guns always register on our artillery positions the moment they are taken up, and the source of the leakage of information.'
"'Oh, you have, have you?' says he.
"''Tis a spy, sir,' says I, 'and it's signalling to the Huns he was when I caught him.'
"'Another blessed spy legend,' he yawned, 'I really thought that you, McNab, would be the last man to become afflicted with the spy craze. I have arrested half a dozen so-called spies this week already only to find they were harmless rustics—'
"'I beg your pardon, Colonel,' I returns, with that chilling dignity which has at times even made generals falter, 'but there is no legend about Private McNab's spy.'
"'Then trot out your spy,' he says, 'and I'll come and look 'im over.'
"'I not only caught him red-handed at his nefarious trafficking (them was the very words I used) ... I not only caught the blighter, but I put his light out.'
"'What?' he shouts, clutching my arm, 'you killed the poor brute.'
"'Wedid—me and Tommy, and we found this here code in his fob,' said I.
"With that I threw the little code book on the bed, and the old man, after looking through it carefully (he could read German, our old man), got out of bed and started dressing in a businesslike way.
"'Shut that door, McNab,' says he, 'and let me have the benefit of your invaluable advice.'
"All of a sudden I was struck with a brilliant inspiration, and I let the old Colonel have it for what it was worth.
"As it happened the old man thought a mighty lot of it—such a lot, in fact, that by one o'clock that day he started to imagine the inspiration had come from his own fertile brain. He liked to think that it was his, and, Lord bless 'im, I don't grudge him the glory.
"After laying our heads together, the Colonel went back to the artillery lines and spent three hours talking to the Battery Major, and I looted a dozen three-pounder rockets of var-i-ous colours out of the stores. In the afternoon the Colonel called all his officers together, and kept the blighted motorcycle dispatch riders busy buzzing up and down the line with messages, till late in the evening.
"'I have called you gentlemen together,' he says to his officer, 'in order to ask you to corporate with me. I shall fire some rocketsfrom the slag heap to-night about ten o'clock. On the first of these signals the Germans will open a very heavy cannonade on our trenches. I'll trouble you to have your men all in the dug-outs, and under cover at a quarter to ten!'
"That night, soon after the Colonel, Tommy and I started off for the slag heap in the dark, taking with us a bundle of rockets. My idea was at last going to be tested—what do you think it was, Sir?"
I discreetly pretended my utter inability to guess.
"Why, nothing more or less than to hoist these German blokes with their own petard, so to speak. We were going to fool them by giving them signals in their own code. Well, after stumbling and groping about for half an hour," McNab continued, "we arrived at the spot near where we had overlooked the spy.
"'I think this is the ledge from which I fell,' Tommy whispered as we crawled on. The next instant the Colonel disappeared, and the little procession came to an abrupt standstill. A crashing noise was heard as the old man with a quarter of a ton of slag went tobogganing down the stone-shod slope.
"'Thisisthe spot,' Tommy said tersely. And up to us came hoarse whispered curses as our ole man tongue-lashed us for a full minute in gross and detail.
"'Lie quite still, Colonel,' I whispered,'the Hun swine-dogs may send up a flare if they hear us.'
"But no flare flared, and no sniper sniped.
"'This game gives me the blooming creeps,' old Tommy muttered shudderingly, thinking of Huns and guns three miles deep all round. After that the Colonel struggled clear of the 'alf ton of slag atop o' him. Tommy and I wandered a little more until we got down to the old man. Here we halted. 'Here's the place where we left the dead spy,' said Tommy, his eyes peering into the darkness of the V-shaped cutting. 'I can still see Fritz lying in the corner. We had better get right overthisside. Come on!'
"'I see,' said the Colonel. 'This is the key of the position. It overlooks the German trenches and when the spy was using his flash lamp he could not be observed by the men in our lines.'
"'Good thing we short-circuited his little game,' reflected Tommy hugging an arm full of rockets.
"'Ah!' says he, fingering the electric torch. 'How this game of war makes one think. My 'orizon has indeed broadened. Just to think that a few flashes from this little chap will mean more than all those glittering stars above to the German fellows in the trenches over there. It's simply ridiculous to waste our little concert on a few Huns in the trenches to-night. We must socialise the whole blooming show.We must get the head up of all the Huns for miles around. Let us consult the code book,' he said, and then opening it he read out some of the rocket codes. They all seemed simple enough. But he had some difficulty in finding the one he wanted, having first of all of course to translate them into English; but presently he seized upon the one he wanted, he repeated it over with delight:
"'Two green rockets in rapid succession mean: "Enemy making active preparations for offensive movement" and when followed after a suitable interval by a single red rocket, mean: "Enemy will attack without delay."'
"'Touch off two green rockets, McNab, if you please,' said the Colonel with a tremor in his voice.
"I touched off two three-pounders which rose several thousand yards, and burst into bunches of gorgeous stars. A faint clattering noise came to us from the Hun trenches, and we all hugged the earth fairly closely as a rapid fusillade broke out from all quarters. Rifles cracked all around us to the extent of thousands, and with that a most impressive humming noise, which I had never had the pleasure of hearing before, because being a soldier I had always formed a part of it—the noise of whole armies turning out to meet an attack.
"'Colonel,' I says, 'it may have escaped you that the angry and 'ighly intelligent Boche on our front will soon be sending uptheirrockets to confuse our own men. Might I recommend a red rocket before they open their part of the ball, and bend the lights! That will spell to 'em: Enemy will attack without delay, and it will also expedite their artillery just a leetle.'
"The Colonel laid his hand on my shoulder.
"'McNab,' says he, 'there's worse blokes than you sitting on thrones. They shall 'ave that red rocket. None the less,' he remarked, 'the situation is undeniably getting a bit feverish. Trot out Red Rufus!'
"I rightly took the command to read:
"'Send up a red rocket.' Rufus soared up into the sky and burst into a red glare that simply shouted: 'Here they come after you' to the Huns.
"'Oh-h-h-h-h!' exclaimed old Tommy as the twirly-whirly red stars fell through the sky.
"'Silence!' said the old man. 'This is the sanguinary British Expeditionary Force, not a (decorated) Brock's Benefit at the Crystal Palace. What in Hong-Kong are you jumping about like a richly decorated organ-grinder's monkey for?'
"The Huns grasped the meaning of their dead spy's signal as soon as it showed in the heavens, so to speak. We lay belly-flat and held our breaths for a moment or so in silence, but we were about the only silent things for a hundred miles. Flares went up by the thousand and searchlights cut up the sky inevery direction. All kinds of mysterious guns got into action and all the batteries for a hundred miles must have let drive as well. From then on, for at least two hours, the shells poured excruciating-wise into our deserted trenches without cessation,—shrapnel, high explosive, six inch, twelve inch—thousands of pounds the Huns wasted that night.
"I wish you could have seen Tommy bowing to right and left of the German trenches acknowledging the applause which the Huns would have given him if they'd known the facts. On the other hand, as the Colonel observed, they might 'ave killed him.
"'They'll have to pull up their socks at Krupp's to replace the shells they have blazed away in this little pantomime,' said Tommy pressing his hands to his sides. 'Star programme—heap big star programme! Phew! Oh, I wish I could stop laughing, I ain't 'ad such a laugh for years!'
"'And in this little code book here,' said the old man, a hand on each of our shoulders, 'there are hundreds of little love messages we can be getting ready to surprise 'em with. Presently we'll begin to send 'em instructions to concentrate their fire on empty houses—tell 'em they are chock-full of British troops. Then they'll fairly let loose the bow-yows of war. Damme, how their gunners will gun! Oblige me by thinking of four hundred guns, pumping val-u-able shells into an empty house.'
"The exquisite humour of it brought us down screaming with laughter in a tangle on the slag-heap. A searchlight broke out from the back of the Hun trenches and began searching our lines.
"'They're looking for our attacking party, or the Angels of Mons,' panted the old man, his knees in a shell hole and his face in the grass. 'Well, let's get our things packed and hurry back. I think they have sent back for a fresh supply of shells. The sooner we get out of it the better. Sufficient unto the day—or night, perhaps one should say.'
"Well, it's dry work talking," said McNab, wistfully surveying the interior of his empty mug.
I took measures—pint measures—to allay his thirst.
"Let me see now," he said; "let me see."
"And did you do any signalling with the flash lamp the next night?" I timidly hinted, "I believe you mentioned that it was your intention."
"Yes, we did have some fun, I can tell you, and 'twas better still next night. Once more we returned, to the slag-heap, then," McNab swept on, "we started to flash a few messages over to the German lines. They soon picked up our signals and after a brief interrogation they replied. Then they started to ask questions. 'At which part of the British line would it be wise to launch an attack?' they flashed.
"And our old man flashed back a trench that was fairly bristly with machine guns. Then they asked other questions, but we did not reply. We laid low and said nothing, for you can take it from me, mister, that a real spy is a man of few words, and playing with a flashlight in enemy lines is not exactly a healthy game.
"Had we have signalled too freely the Huns would have soon become suspicious, for, mark you, the flares that we had popped off at 'em the night before had left 'em with an uncomfortable feeling that their spy was taking quite unreasonable risks. It is of course most unusual for a spy to make use of rocket signals. Do I make myself comprehensible?"
"Perfectly. Did the Huns attack?" I asked.
McNab nodded. "They attacked us three days afterwards at five o'clock in the morning. It was like a nightmare. The Germans came on, evidently thinking they were on a soft job, and you can realize what a wonderful target they made for the gunners who had been waiting for 'em. Such a target that gunners dream about but never see. We had some eighteen-and-a-'arf-pounders not five hundred yards away, and they let go right into the thick of 'em. And each case shot with its four hundred bullets swept and tore their ranks. With a mighty gasp and something like a groan the Huns staggered, recovered, and with wild yells came chargingon to a hundred machine guns. And all the time the shells came over at them and tore wide swathes in their closely-packed ranks. Then our boys got into 'em and swept the remaining Huns into eternity!"
"Unless this story had come from such a highly-reliable fountain-head, McNab," I murmured, after a moment or so, "I would never have believed that the whole thing was not a fabrication."
McNab removed his pot of beer on one side, and leaned across the table. I moved my chair back quickly, just missing another vigorous stab from his huge index-finger.
"The history of this war," he observed impressively, "will be interwoven with extraordinary things like this 'ere tale I have been telling you. And you may lay to it, mister, that the most extraordinary things of all will never see the light of day in the printed page."
"I canquiteunderstand that," I said pointedly; "for, although a student of military history of this war myself, I cannot recall a single reference to any of the remarkable events which occurred in the trenches during the eight months you were with your regiment over there!"
McNab regarded me for a full minute with rapidly-rising choler. Then he shifted his stare from me to an old gentleman who was warming his toes at the fire.
"The yarn I have told you is as true asthe drill book, though you need not believe it if you have conscientious objections. I have been recounting real slices of history. Leastways, when I say history I may be wrong, because they will never appear in history. But they'appened, Mister—'appened as surely as I am sitting here with an empty pot in front o' me. An'—an'——" McNab stammered in his excitement—"if any bloke says they didn't, be jabers, I'll—I'll drink his beer!"
But neither the old gentleman nor any member of the company wished to disagree with him, and he rose up from the chair with a mug to order his final half-pint. He returned (a trifle unsteadily, perhaps) with his beer and a particularly vile cigar in his mouth. Whether it was the effect of the heat or the—er—beer I cannot say, but he blundered over my legs, causing me a sharp twinge of pain.
"What an awkward beggar you are that you can't see to walk straight," I said.
McNab looked down at my legs after giving them another stirring up with his foot. "Why, Go' bless my soul," he said, "it's quite true, I am an awkward devil. I certainly should have seenthosefeet. However did you get 'em into the bar?"
Give us our rest, O Father, in thine own appointed time and of thy gracious olden fashion. Lay thy annulling seal upon the o'erlabored heart: drop thy healing nepenthe into the weary brain. Teach us not to fear that which brings us nearer to Thee. Suffer us to go to sleep with no more consciousness than the flowers that take no care for their awakening. Give us this last and best of all thy gifts—Parva domus, magna quies!
Give us our rest, O Father, in thine own appointed time and of thy gracious olden fashion. Lay thy annulling seal upon the o'erlabored heart: drop thy healing nepenthe into the weary brain. Teach us not to fear that which brings us nearer to Thee. Suffer us to go to sleep with no more consciousness than the flowers that take no care for their awakening. Give us this last and best of all thy gifts—Parva domus, magna quies!
Hilaire O'Hagansat in the September sunshine on the grass that skirted the roadside. For some time he had been examining with a stare of melancholy interest the worn toes of his boots. On his head was a dingy straw hat; to his form and limbs there hung a faded and creased coat and a pair of shiny black trousers;—he held in his hand five shillings which had been thrust into his hand when the prison gates had opened to him that morning. He had taken the money and swaggered out with a parting gibe at the constable who closed the doors behind him.
O'Hagan was an incorrigible rascal. Some years before, when he stood in the Assize Court, a venerable judge had told him so."O'Hagan," said the judge grimly, "you are what I should term an incorrigible rogue, and I shall send you to prison for two years with hard labour. You have run across my path many times before. When you gain your liberty it will be very much to your advantage if you keep out of my way for good and all."
O'Hagan had received the sentence with the same impertinent smirk on his face as he had received many similar sentences.
Now he was a free man. He was powerful, full of health, and—lazy. He reflected aloud, with evident enjoyment (and in the speech of a lettered gentleman), "This is indeed one of those days when it is good to be alive!"
"O'Hagan!" came a sudden voice, harsh and authoritative, from behind him: He rose to his feet and faced about. In the roadway appeared the constable to whom he had addressed some not over polite remarks on his way out of prison.
"Well?" said O'Hagan.
The constable snorted. "Didn't you hear me tell you to move on? We don't want any habitual criminals hanging about here."
O'Hagan dived his hands deep into the pockets of his shiny trousers and slouched along towards the next village. About a mile ahead was an inn he knew of where he might enjoy a great refreshment, and drink the waters of Lethe. He jingled the silverin his pocket and reflected that for one night at least he could eat strongly, and drink largely, and sleep deeply.
Outside a house screened by a mysterious ten foot wall full of the plain dignity of unpretending age, a long grey motor car was standing. O'Hagan turned and surveyed it, and his quick eye rested upon a leather hand case on a rug beneath the seat. It did not take him a moment to snatch it and hide it swiftly beneath his coat. For a second or so he stood back against the wall. At that moment a girl came out of the house, in company with an elderly gentleman, and walked towards the car. O'Hagan looked at the girl swiftly. At the same time she glanced at him, and their eyes met. Things looked unhealthy for O'Hagan. But fate was altogether with him, and the motor moved off and left him standing there with the case under his coat. No glorious figure, this man, but one of those whom specialists now place amongst the doomed as cursed with the criminal instinct, with the vices that require lavish means to feed them—a man who only feels a thrill in life when he is preying on his fellows, or eluding the hand of justice.
O'Hagan walked down the road a littleway with his hand resting lovingly on the leather case. He turned a corner, cut through the hedge, and took a track across a field. In the shelter of a clump of bushes he sat leisurely on the grass and went over the contents. Among the various odds and ends was a leather purse. He opened it with trembling fingers. There was a sovereign, five one pound notes folded up, eight shillings in silver, and a small silver cross hanging on a black silk riband. He dropped the silver with a sigh of satisfaction into his trousers pocket, and the notes he stored in the lining of his hat. He took up the little cross and was about to thrust it into the thick grass, when he paused for a moment, and was aware of an oppressive feeling.
On a sudden, in the midst of men and day,And while he sat and looked around,He seemed to be in a bygone age,And feel himself the shadow of a dream.
O'Hagan felt that his body was decreasing, sinking under the green turf, falling down, down, down, and yet "He" was still above, gazing, wondering, open-eyed, open-mouthed, as it were. Gradually, but none the less surely, he was being crowded round by many moving "?'s" which never seemed to grow distinct. He seemed to know at once he was back in the days long past. He shut his eyes against a burning that felt like tears. When he opened them again he was looking at hisown name, fairly carved in on the silver cross in quaint old English letters:
Hilaire O'Hagan
The clump of bushes before him was now obscured by a thin white cloud. As he watched he was aware of a figure that stood out distinctly before him. He was a man of his own height, thick-set, serious-looking, in a monk's mantle and hood. O'Hagan gave a hurried glance, and as hurriedly turned his head away again. The face of the man exactly resembled his own. But it was an honest face, without the look of dissipation, and the secret furtive air, which he knew marred his own features. He also thought he could see a faint nimbus round his head—but this may have been illusion. O'Hagan moved away as if he had no wish to see him; but the stranger was not to be put off by any such trick. He touched O'Hagan's arm, and brought him to a standstill.
"Brother!" he said in a gentle voice.
O'Hagan pulled himself up sharply. For a moment it seemed as if he would have refused to stay, but the next he realized that it would be of no use.
"What do you want with me?" he began. "I know I'm a thief and a drunkard. Do you want to hand me a Sunday School tract? If so get it over."
The stranger's hand tightened on his arm,and he began to speak in a calm but strangely thrilling voice. "It is written there: 'men do not despise a thief, if he steal to satisfy his soul when he is hungry.'"
"Well?" said O'Hagan, trying to hold a countenance of little concern.
"Well?" said the stranger, "for why did you steal?"
O'Hagan coughed and held down his head.
"A man without scruple and without heart," the stranger remarked to himself.
O'Hagan looked up with a start. "Look here," he began. "You've no right to——"
Then of a sudden the mist began to rise from the clump of bushes and the stranger vanished. O'Hagan was back in the flesh. He stood there dazed for the moment, with the little cross clutched in his hand. He sat down again andtriedto force his spirit back to the other scene, but in vain. He felt that he had been thrilled through and through. The oppression, however, unlike the stern-faced monk, did not vanish, it deepened. A throbbing headache came on, which refused to be shaken off, and eventually sent O'Hagan to the "Bell Inn" to drink still deeper of the waters of oblivion.
The day was already falling when he walked, jingling his silver, into the sanded bar of the "Bell Inn," and an hour or so later, when it began to fill with drovers and country folk, O'Hagan had looked much on the good brown ale. He was in fact becoming very noisy.Seated in a corner, he sang "Nell and Roger at the Wake" in a hoarse voice. The country folk grinned and looked at him curiously.
"Shut your gab, old sport," said a rough-looking drover at last, "that song is not fit for decent folk to hear."
O'Hagan swore like any trooper, and reached his hand out to a large spirit bottle at his elbow, and for a moment the drover thought he would get it thrown at his head. However, O'Hagan rose to his feet, made a bow to the company, and made an apology to the drover. He stood there, a blackguard on the face of him, but a gentleman in spite of that undefinable and vaguely repulsive smirk which played about his straight and refined mouth. He slunk away into the night.
As O'Hagan walked the night deepened in throbs of gathering darkness. The sense of uneasiness that had been with him ever since the priest in the cassock had appeared to him was not to be easily thrown off. He set himself to argue down the uneasiness for which there was no more foundation than a bad attack of "nerves" after the gloomy life in prison. He told himself, till he believed it, that a man—just a human man—had been crossing the fields, and that being smitten with religious fervour he had quoted the Scripture aloud, as he had often heard such people do. He told himself it was mere fancy that was the cause of the belief thatsomething wasshiningaround the man's head. As he argued these things away, and banished the face of his visitor, a certain sort of reason usurped his place. But he did not feel comfortable, however, he fell short of any form of fear.
It was O'Hagan's whole business to find desolate corners, where he could sleep without the fear of interruption by the police; and hence being in a part of the country that he knew well, he bethought himself suddenly of the great barn next to the mansion house at Tilney St. Lawrence. It was always full of good hay, as large as a barrack and no thoroughfare passed within a quarter of a mile of it. In such a place, and with the scent of the hay to lull him, O'Hagan threw his tired body down, and soon lost all the cares of the world in complete repose.
All his life O'Hagan had been a habitual dreamer; the nights were few, that is to say, when on awakening he did not find that some mental traffics and discoveries had been his, and at times, the whole night through he would meet with most dazzling adventures. In prison his dreams had been a great solace to him, and each night he had settled down to devote the dark hours to the cultivation of joyous dreams. He was one of those men who went to sleep fair and square, and looked for dreams. But as O'Hagan stretched in the hay, things were revealed to him that were beyond all dreams, and of course hecould not keep the strange priest out of the vision. It opened with finding himself in front of the doors of an old church, where, he understood, he was going to hide from someone who wanted to kill him. He knocked on the door and the man who opened the door was the very priest he had seen in the afternoon. He asked him to step in and instantly turned round and walked up the dimly lit aisle, and O'Hagan understood that he had to follow. In silence they passed through a small arch in the chancel and mounted a narrow oak staircase with many corners and tortuous turns and arrived at a small landing with a studded door set in it. Quite inexplicably O'Hagan's heart sank at the sight of it. However, the priest unlocked and opened it, and held it open for him to enter, and without coming in himself, closed it. It was a small oak room with a stone floor, and a curious smell at once attracted his notice. It was there—there, close to him—under his very nose—the strong, acrid odour of decay—the nauseating smell of the grave. Looking about he saw the floor was paved with grave stones. In one corner stood a fine seventeenth century lead coffin. A curious greyish light shone from it. O'Hagan's conjecture had been right: there was something awful in the room, and with the terror of nightmare seizing him swiftly by the throat and throttling him, he awoke in a spasm of terror. O'Hagan was sitting bolt upright with the impression thatsomeone had flashed a lantern in his face, though the barn was absolutely pitch dark. "I've had a most diabolical nightmare. It was the drink," he said to himself, and decided to go to sleep again. But the excessive heat of the barn would let him rest no longer. The atmosphere seemed to be hot and pungent, and he groped about and opened the door to let in some air. Almost at the same moment someone cried "Fire!" and shapes of things began to define in a soft grey glimmering;—and the gloom was broken up by a red and angry spurt of flame from a wing of the old manor house. Again cries of "Fire!" came to his ears, and grew and multiplied. O'Hagan was fully awake in an instant, and running at top speed towards the old mansion. When he reached it the whole sky about was illuminated by a red and angry light. Almost at the moment of his arrival a tower of smoke arose in front of the porch window, and with a tingling report, a pane fell outwards at his feet. A crowd of cowed and white-faced country folk drew back when he rushed up. Then he looked up at the porch window and saw what it was that made the people go. He saw a girl's terrified face at the window. "The girl I lifted the bag from," he said aloud. "She'll be burnt to death."
The heavy hall doors were surrounded by the inmates of the house who had escaped and O'Hagan pushed through them, and sprang up the broad stairway mid choking volumesof smoke. When reached the room above the porch the heat was fierce, and the roaring of the fire filled his ears, and he had scarce carried the terrified girl out of the room when a side door fell in, and a branch of flame shot brandishing through the aperture, and the head of the stairs became lit up with a dreadful and fluctuating glare. He carried her swiftly down the stairs, he feared every moment that they would crumple and fall in. But he fought his way grimly, and his jerky swear words were lost in the roaring of the fire. Another moment and they were in the open. Firelight and moonlight illuminating the country around with confused and violent lustre, and banked against the stars and the sky they could see a glowing track of smoke.
"That was a near thing, Miss."
"I thought my end had come!" she said, the colour returning slowly to her face. "There would have been no chance at all if you had not come up for me, as I was then almost suffocated. It was a very brave act!" She did not thank him—she couldn't have spoken plain words of thanks to save her life—but O'Hagan knew what she thought—"Don't say any more about it, Miss, I am really a coward at heart."
"I'm sure I owe my life to you," she said earnestly. "I know there are some things for which thanks are an insult, but you will not mind if I offer you a little token of gratitude?"
O'Hagan's hand was resting on a small silver cross in his pocket, and in another moment he solemnly handed the girl the money and notes he had stolen. "Why, whatever is this?" asked the girl, staring at O'Hagan in bewildered amazement.
"That's yours," he said by way of assistance.
"But I don't understand!" she cried, greatly puzzled.
"Well, Miss, I suppose it does require some elucidation," O'Hagan replied somewhat nervously. "You see, it's only a return of stolen goods. You remember visiting a house in the big grey motor car yesterday, Miss?"
"Yes."
"Well, I stole your bag from under the seat. I have given you back again all that I have left. But I will take this little cross as a token." He dangled the little silver charm before her face, and before she had time to take in the situation O'Hagan had disappeared.
The long plains of Northern Europe stretched before the gaze of a regiment of British infantry—great undulations of sodden earth left by the winter rains and thaws. There, in the piercing cold that froze the feet, they waited the signal to advance. Stray bullets whined and pinged as they struckthe wire and sand bags on the top of the trenches; occasionally a man fell on his face; and the ghastly change in the faces of the troops bore testimony to the effects. Hilaire O'Hagan lay stretched upon his face, occasionally looking towards his officer. His heart beat like the pulsing of a motor car. His throat felt dry, his cheeks were burning. At times a cold shiver passed right through his frame. He fidgeted and lolled from one side, to the other. It seemed to him that he had waited hours for the signal to get over the trenches. He tried to strike a match for his pipe; his hand was trembling furiously. It occurred to him that after having passed through the gory awfulness of six months' incessant fighting, he was beginning to lose his nerve. He was no longer master of himself. He was afraid. Every man has the instinct that prompts fear, for upon that instinct the whole foundation of life-preservation is founded. But over and above this instinct, common to all of us, O'Hagan had imagination—the graphic, vivid imagination that always lurks in Irish blood. Is not the entire history of the Celt a rejection of the things of this world for the Shadow and the dream? Upon this basis of fear and imagination O'Hagan started to build, building and building until he had created a grand structure of blind terror which yielded a most exquisite torture to his mind.
A whistle sounded and a shudder traversedthe men all down the trench. The officer called to his men. He mounted the parapet and jumped over. There was a sound like the rushing of a river as the regiment poured itself over the trench. The men advanced slowly and dazedly. Now any acute observer would note that the men were bewildered and had little heart in the fight. Their faces worked; and they struggled to walk on, but it seemed useless. The bullets were pattering all around and taking heavy toll. Then a few yards in front a shrapnel shell kicked up the mud. The German guns had found the range. Someone shouted out the fatal words "Lie down." The regiment was soon hugging the earth, which was about the best thing they could have done. Great showers of shrapnel burst over them, and the bullets struck down on them in a continuous shower. Some men rose to their feet, and the shrapnel withered them. Suddenly one shell burst over O'Hagan, blotting out all around him in smoke and dust, and brutally jerking his mind to fullest tension. This shell fire was hell! With the crash imagination and fear began to work together in his overworked brain—both at once in the queerest jumbling manner. In a few moments O'Hagan was on his feet running away—racing as if not merely for his life, but his soul.
When O'Hagan's brain cooled and his sight cleared he found himself in the doorway of a little wrecked church. The Germanshells had gashed and ripped the sides and roof, so that birds flew in and out at will. Hundreds of sparrows chirped in the oak beams above. The shells had pitted, starred and jerked up the blue flagstones in the porch on which O'Hagan stood. Parts of the old church had been shelled nearly level; little twisted fragments of beautiful leaded windows had been swept up in a pile outside with other wreckage. As O'Hagan walked up the aisle a feeling came over him that he knew much of the old place. A quintessence and distillation of peace and comradeship seemed to inhabit the soft gloam of its chancel. He found himself drifting back to past days and seeing dimly in a thin white cloud faces that seemed familiar and yet were unnameable. Then one face stood out distinctly, and O'Hagan watched it with breathless wonder and fascination. He moved closer up to it; he would have given much not to have done so, but he could not help himself—he looked closer, and it was—the face of the monk who had appeared to him once before. When the cloud had cleared a little, the outline of the monk wearing a hood and cowl became visible. Then was there a voice that he identified at once despite the lapse of two years since he had last heard it. "I have been wanting to speak to you, brother, for many hours, butsomethingI cannot explain to mortal man has prevented me." The priest instantly turned round and O'Haganunderstood that he meant him to follow. His heart sank at once, and he experienced a sense of dreadful oppression and foreboding, and with a sudden thrill, partly of fear, and partly of curiosity he followed. They passed up the aisle and a perfectly familiar staircase. Then he opened a door, and went in, and at the same moment, sheer unreasoning terror seized him. He was afraid, but did not know why: he was simply afraid. Then like a sudden recollection, when one remembers some trivial adventure of childhood, O'Hagan looked for the old lead coffin. He cast his eyes about with a certain air of proprietorship, and compared the room with the room of his dreams. Nothing had changed. And then, with a sudden start of unexplained dread, he saw that the coffin was in the corner—the same leaden coffin that he knew so well with the same curious greyish light coming from it. There was lettering on the lid.
"What's written there? What's there? Who's there?" he called. He called and continued to call; then another terror, the terror of the sound of his own voice seized him; he did not dare to call again; he whispered. There was something written on the coffin that his mind reeled to entertain. Without quite knowing how he came to be there, O'Hagan found himself bending over the coffin. He read the lettering, and it was: