Sexton Blake and the Great War

by Mark Hodder

  It was a neat trap, and it took all Blake’s self-control to preserve his air of stolid unconcern. Had he not been well prepared for such a contingency, he might have been surprised into answering. As it was, not a muscle of his face moved. He merely sucked at his big pipe, as though quite unconscious that he was being spoken to.

  The sergeant gave a grunt of disgust, and turned abruptly away.

  The next moment he and his men were cantering down the road.

  “Phew! That was a near thing, young ‘un!” said Blake, under his breath. “When he tackled you, I thought the game was up. That man is not such a fool as he looks, by any means. The sooner we are out of here the better I shall be pleased.”

  Jean evidently thought so, too, for no sooner had the last trooper clattered out of sight than he sprang to the dogs, got them on their feet, and urged them forward at the best pace they could manage, his own face wet with perspiration. Nor did any of them stop until they had left the village far behind.

  “They are bound to find the horses,” Jean panted at last. “When they come up to the wood, the beasts will neigh to the others, and then, if they hunt about, the fat will be in the fire, and we shall have the whole lot after us helter-skelter. There is blood on the saddles, too.”

  Blake nodded.

  “We’d best part company here,” he said. “By yourself, you may be fairly safe, but that sergeant more than half suspected us. We had better chance our luck, and cut across country.”

  “There is the passport made out for three,” replied Jean. “If I were to show that, they would ask me where are my companions. No; we must go on as we are. Further on there is a bridle road which we might take, and so avoid the next two or three villages. If we can do that, we may throw them off the scent, for we shall be in a wooded country then.”

  Blake nodded, and took out a handful of money.

  “What’s your cart and stock worth? Will this cover its value?”

  “Twice over, and more,” was the simple answer.

  “Then this is my plan. The next time we come to a deep pond or ditch we weight that cart with stones—anything you like—cut the dogs loose, and in it goes. You can fetch it later or not, as you please. And in the meantime you can explain that it has broken down, and that you’ve left it to be repaired on the road, if anyone asks. We can get along three times as fast without it, and we can cut across country.”

  This was accordingly done. Cart, stock, and all was run into a deep, overflowing sluice, where it sank at once, and they headed direct for the woods, the two dogs following obediently to heel.

  Jean knew the country like the back of his hand, and led them by many a cunning short cut. Twice they saw Uhlans patrolling in the distance and once they nearly blundered into a lot who were bivouacking in a small thicket; but they drew back in the nick of time, and, after all, there was nothing very suspicious about three bedraggled, mud-stained peasants tramping through the country with a couple of dogs at their heels, even if they had been seen—provided, of course, that news of them had not been sent on ahead.

  They had had to make wide detours, however, and darkness was coming on; so, reluctantly enough, they made their way to a small farm Jean knew of, where he went forward alone to buy food and wine, the idea being that they should pass the night in the hayloft of one of the outbuildings.

  He was back in no time with the provisions and an old stable lantern.

  “They have seen no Uhlans so far,” he reported. “This lies far off the regular roads. There is only a farm-track, so we can eat and rest safely.”

  They made their way into the loft, and rested luxuriously on the hay as they ate. After that Blake lit a cigarette, and Jean puffed stolidly at his pipe. They were just congratulating themselves on their quarters, when Tinker suddenly sat up and listened.

  “What was that?” he said.

  They could hear the pattering of the rain and the moan of the wind; and then, borne on a sudden gust, came the squelch and clatter of horses’ hoofs. A small party of cavalry had evidently swung up the accommodation road of the farm.

  Instantly Blake put out the lantern and extinguished his cigarette. Jean did the same to his pipe.

  “There are seven or eight of them by the sound,” whispered Blake. “Here give me a hand with these hay bales.”

  Groping in the darkness they dragged a couple of bales over the trap by which they had entered the loft; a third they took to the window of the loft, through which the hay was raised to be stored, by means of a rope and pulley, and tossed it bodily over, to break their fall in case they had to jump for it.

  They had barely finished when the troopers came clattering up. The farm people had already taken the alarm.

  The order to dismount was given, and the horses were led into the barn below their hiding-place. Blake, peering through a crack between two boards, could see them plainly, for one of the troopers had found a couple of lanterns and lighted them.

  There were, as Blake had surmised, eight in all. They were hitched by their bridles to hooks round the wall, and the men, leaving the doors open, were battering at the entrance to the farm itself, demanding food and drink.

  The farmer himself came and opened the door to them, and lights, hurriedly made, shone from the windows. Resistance on the part of the old couple would have been worse than futile; so, unwillingly enough, they set out what provisions they had got.

  From the loft window it was possible to see right into the room of the farm and watch the men lounging around the table, whilst the man and his wife waited on them.

  Blake watched for a while in silence.

  “I am going down,” he said at last. “I must try and hear what news those fellows have got. Our future movements may depend on my knowing all I can.”

  Without another word, he clambered through the opening, let himself hang by his hands, and dropped lightly on to the bale of hay beneath.

  He stepped cautiously across the yard to the window of the sitting-room, and with his knife prised it slightly open.

  The Germans were too busy eating and drinking to pay any heed. In fact, some of them were already partly fuddled, and had evidently done themselves over-well before they rode up. Nearly all of them had big flasks, mostly empty by now, in their pockets.

  “I tell you, it was two condemned Englishmen that did it,” a man at the head of the table was saying, thumping on the table with his clenched fist. “They and a dog of a Belgian! But we shall get them—we shall get them all right. They were seen in the village three miles away, and interrogated. They had a little country cart with them, and they had the effrontery to own up that they had seen our men heading towards the city.

  “A patrol was sent out, and when they came to a little patch of wood one of our horses threw up his head and whinnied. He was answered by another horse, and a search was made.

  “Three were found, and identified as belonging to our troop—they were tethered to some trees in the heart of the wood—and three hastily-dug graves were found, too. The sub-officer in charge had already questioned the men in the village, and could give a description of them. One is an ordinary beast of a Belgian; the other two, though dressed as peasants, are British spies. One is tall and thin, with a grimy face—he speaks German well; the other is smaller, and pretends to limp, walking with the aid of a stick.

  “We got onto the field-telephone to the town at once. The smaller of the two, I should tell you, can speak little or no German, and pretended to be deaf and dumb. And what do you think we found out?

  “They are British Secret Service agents carrying papers of vital importance. They were known to have been in Antwerp last night, and the whole town has been turned topsy-turvy to find them. They even searched the boats along the quayside, but they were artful enough to get away somehow. Later it was discovered that a party of three answering to their description managed to pass the barrier after five this morning. The commandant is furious, and has offered a reward of five thousand marks for them, d
ead or alive, so long as the paper they carry is found on them. They were known to have been heading this way when last heard of.”

  “We could do with five thousand marks—eh, comrades? Fritz, pass that wine. Pah! The sour stuff! Haven’t they any brandy in the place? We must be off in an hour—we’re to strike back into the main road and examine all farms to the westward.”

  Blake waited to hear no more, but stole round to the back door, where the old man and woman were hastily packing their valuables. He placed his finger to his lips warningly, and passed the woman a handful of gold.

  “Go, and go quickly, before they do you harm,” he whispered. “If they burn the house you shall be repaid in full. You have quarter of an hour clear in which to get away. Don’t be frightened. They will not catch you, for they will be on foot, and already their legs are drunk. Now hurry!”

  He darted away back to the barn, and was half-way across the yard, when suddenly the house door was flung open, and a man came reeling unsteadily out. A flood of lamplight streamed from the door across the cobbles, and for Blake to gain the shelter of the shadows was impossible.

  He simply “froze,” as the big-game shooters phrase it. In other words he stood perfectly rigid and stockstill.

  The man almost blundered up against him before he saw him.

  “Hallo!” he said thickly, with dull surprise.

  Blake said precisely nothing at all, but he struck swiftly at the side of the fellow’s heavy jaw with all his force, and the man collapsed with a grunt, and lay still.

  “Good for twenty minutes,” said Blake to himself, as he bent over him, “and he’ll be a pretty sick man then.” He picked him up as though he had been a sack of coal and carried him to the barn, where he dumped him down in a corner. Then he went round to the loft window and called softly:

  “Come on down, quick!” he said. “No time to spare. Drop on to the hay, and I’ll steady you!”

  Jean and Tinker dropped as they had seen Blake drop, and he grabbed at them each in turn.

  “The old people have gone,” he whispered. “They’ve taken your dogs with them, Jean, to a safe place nearby.”

  And he gave them a brief account of what had happened.

  “Tighten up the girths on those horses, quick!” he ordered. “We shall have to make a dash for it when the time comes.”

  “Fritz,” bellowed a voice from the house—“Fritz, confound you! Have you watered the horses and given them a feed?”

  Blake growled out an unintelligible answer in low German, and drew back into the shadow of the barn doorway.

  “Hurry,” he whispered—“sharp as you can!”

  “Fritz,” came the voice again, “why the blazes don’t you answer?”

  A second figure came lurching out into the stream of lamplight, and from inside the room came a raucous chorus.

  The new-comer was a lieutenant rather more sober than the rest, a big hulk of a man, and for some reason he seemed vaguely suspicious.

  Blake let him reach the threshold of the barn, and then he caught him a swinging below behind the ear, and the man went down like a pole-axed ox. The crash of his fall and the clatter of his sword must have been heard inside the room, for the chorus stopped suddenly, and there was a sudden angry uproar as it dawned on them that something must be amiss.

  Any attempt at further concealment was useless.

  “The horses!” cried Blake.

  Jean and Tinker dashed out, managing three apiece. Blake caught the other two.

  They swung themselves into the saddle, and made a dash for it, straight at the group, which was now racing out into the yard, Blake leading, his automatic in his spare hand. A man grabbed at the bridle of the led horse, and was ridden down. Two more sprang forward, and Blake’s automatic flashed twice. The troopers had left their carbines in the room, lances were piled in the barn, only an erratic fire from hastily-snatched weapons followed the small party of three, all high and badly aimed, and before they could fire again the three and the horses were out of sight.

  “So far so good,” said Blake. “There is no worse hand at walking than your German cavalryman, and by my reckoning it must be a good eight miles to the nearest village, through slippery mud all the way at that, too. In the darkness, and their heavy boots, it will take them nearer four hours than three. I don’t think we are likely to see or hear of them again unless they fall in with one of their own patrols.”

  The three rode quietly across a field and dropped into a lane.

  “Two miles along this,” said Jean, “we come to the main road again leading westward towards Stiltz.”

  Blake nodded in the darkness, and felt about to see what the contents of the saddle-bags might be. There were two canvas sacks slung crosswise, containing fodder. A canvas haversack containing a couple of bottles of some sort of wine, a loaf, some cheese, and a lump of what, by the smell of it, was hare. There was a carbine in the bucket, and a nondescript bundle of loot—mostly rubbish, to judge by the weight and feel of it. A long cavalry sword in its leather scabbard was strapped to the near side of the saddle.

  Waiting for a splash of moonlight, he slipped from his own saddle into the saddle of the lead horse without dismounting, and congratulated himself on the change, for as he could tell by its paces the led horse was an officer’s charger. The saddle was easier, there was no heavy sword strapped to it, and there was a regulation cavalry revolver in the holster.

  He unbuckled the holster-flap with some difficulty in the darkness, and drew the weapon out. Dropping the reins, he twirled the cylinder, and made sure that every chamber was fully loaded. Then he put it back again and left the flap open, so as to be handy in case of urgent need.

  Jean, acting as guide, went first. With his dogs and his pedlar’s cart, he had travelled every inch of the country roads and lanes in happier times, spending a day at this farm, a couple at that, and occasionally, it must be confessed, painting the nearest village a brilliant red in his moments of relaxation at the local inn.

  Blake was riding second, Tinker bringing up the rear.

  By common consent they rode in silence until they had regained the broad main road. This was wide enough for all three to ride abreast including the led horses.

  In fact, it was so broad and so important a road that Blake began to get uneasy; moreover, it was what is locally known as “Paye.” That is, paved with great blocks of stone, which were slippery in the drizzling rain, and on which the hoofs of the eight horses rang unpleasantly loudly. In fact, now that the wind had dropped, the noise must have been audible quite half a mile away to a listening ear.

  Blake said nothing for the next mile or so, but sucked at the end of a damp, unlighted cigarette.

  “I don’t like this,” he said at last to Jean, in a low voice. “We ought to leave the road and ride parallel with it through the fields. A German is an unimaginative brute when you get to the bottom of him, but he’s dead nuts on roads, and his maps are excellent. If this isn’t being guarded by patrols at short intervals, I’ll eat my hat!

  “It’s too important for them to neglect. It’s an ideal line for motor-lorries carrying supplies, shells, stores—anything you like. In my opinion we ought to take to the open.”

  Jean grunted, and flung out his left arm.

  “The country yonder, monsieur, is a network of dikes—eighteen, twenty, thirty feet broad. We should be trapped in no time if we tried to cross them in the darkness, and to reach the cattle-bridges, which are few, we might have to go five miles round for every one we gained in the right direction. We must stick to the road, monsieur, believe me, there is no other way; at any rate, till dawn comes, and we can see where we are going.”

  He broke off to light his pipe, as Blake could tell by the sound of the scraping of a match.

  “Don’t do that, you fool!” he said hastily. On a night like this the flare of a match could be seen a mile away in this flat, billiard-table of a country, and, leaning across his spare horse, he grabbed the box fr
om the man’s hand and flung it away.

  They hadn’t gone another fifty yards when a hoarse challenge in German rang out:

  “Halt! Who goes there?”

  Blake bent low in the saddle, and could just discern the loom of a line of horses drawn up across the road. Jean’s match had given the alarm.

  “We’ve got to ride for it!” whispered Blake to the others. “Do as I do. We’ll stampede the led horses straight into them first, and then try and break through in the confusion.”

  He slid the trooper’s sword out of its scabbard, gave the led horse his head, and caught it a resounding blow with the flat of the blade across the quarters. The animal plunged, squealed, and dashed on ahead. The other led horses took fright, and, as Tinker and Jean released them, galloped after their companion.

  There was a crash and a volley of oaths as the five riderless animals made a furious dash for the line of Uhlans, and everything was thrown into confusion.

  “Now!” roared Blake. “Straight at ‘em! It’s pace that will save us if anything! Come on!”

  He dug his heels into his charger’s flanks sharply and shot ahead, guiding only with his knees, having dropped the reins so as to have both hands free.

  In his right he held the trooper’s long, straight cavalry sword, in his left the revolver.

  The light was bad; everything was confusion. He fired twice at almost point-blank range, and heard the bullets hit with a dull thud. Then his horse blundered badly over some falling object, nearly unseating him; but he recovered in the nick of time, to catch a glimpse of a captain of Uhlans taking a swinging back-handed cut at him. Stooping low, he evaded it, though the blade caught his horse a nasty cut on the rump.

  The next moment his own point had found the German’s throat, and he was through the line.

  He heard Tinker yell out, and tried to swerve, but the pace was too great; and the next moment Tinker almost cannoned into him.

  “Jean is down, and my horse is done for!” he gasped.

  Blake tried to rein up and go back for Jean, and at that instant Tinker’s horse staggered and fell. It was the safety of the paper they carried—involving the lives of hundreds and the peace of a whole neutral country—against the safety of one of themselves.