by Mark Hodder
As for Sexton Blake and the lad, their position was more than critical, and they knew it. As they had escaped from the enemy, and attempted to frustrate their bloodthirsty designs, they could not doubt that death would be their fate if they should be recaptured. They glanced at each other, their faces betraying the apprehensions that they felt.
“It will go hard with us,” said Tinker, “if they find us here.”
“You had better both take to flight, since you have incurred the anger of the Germans,” urged Colonel Chumleigh. “It is your duty to do so, Mr. Blake. You owe it to me. Remember that you have my will, and that it is of the greatest importance. If you were to be robbed of it I might never have an opportunity of signing another one.”
This was a logical argument, and it put the detective in a quandary. During the brief conversation the Uhlans had been drawing nearer, and when they had got to within less than three hundred yards, and Sexton Blake was still trying to make up his mind what to do, a most unexpected and welcome diversion occurred. Out from the woods, by a cross-roads, galloped a little column of British Lancers. And in a trice they had wheeled half round, and were charging at the enemy, who were slightly inferior to them in numbers.
“Hurrah!” exclaimed Tinker. “By Jove, that’s done it!”
It was, indeed, a most fortunate interposition. In the presence of all of the passengers, who watched eagerly, there was a short and desperate fight. For a few moments Lancers and Uhlans were mixed together in a seething, shouting mass, while hoofs clashed, and lance was shivered against lance, and pistol-shots rang in rapid succession. Saddles were emptied, and riderless steeds dashed to and fro.
“They’re off!” cried Blake. “There they go!”
“Yes, our gallant fellows have the best of it,” declared the colonel. “That was fine work.”
The struggle was at an end. The enemy were in flight, retreating as they had come, and leaving a third of their number dead on the ground. The Lancers had also suffered losses, but not nearly so many. The greater part of them gave chase to the panic-stricken Uhlans, and the remainder, to the number of half a dozen, spurred in the opposite direction. They rode on to the railway-line, and dismounted from their horses by the train. They were greeted with hearty cheers, and when the applause had died away one of the troopers stepped towards Tinker, and said loudly:
“Hallo, Rokeby! I didn’t know you had been wounded.”
“I’m not,” the lad replied, supposing that the speaker knew him.
“I didn’t mean you,” was the answer. “I was talking to somebody else.”
Tinker looked in surprise at the Lancer, and then, as he turned round, the situation flashed upon him. Close behind him, with his arm in a sling, stood the real Jack Rokeby. He had been amongst the wounded on the train, and it was to him that the words had been addressed by an acquaintance. That he had not been observed by Blake or his young assistant was because he had been careful to avoid them. The youths flushed, and tried in vain to hide their confusion.
“Yes, old chap, the game is up,” Jack Rokeby assented. “We’ll have to face the music.”
“I don’t think I have made a mistake,” said the Lancer. “You chaps needn’t look so queer, even if you are both named Rokeby. What’s the matter with you?”
Double exposure was inevitable, and the detective, who, to some extent, had a guilty conscience, dreaded it more than did the culprits.
There was a puzzled expression on Colonel Chumleigh’s features. He could see that there was something wrong, and his interest and curiosity had been roused.
“What does it all mean, Mr. Blake?” he said. “I believe you can tell me. I have known this plucky soldier as Private Rokeby, of the Transport Service? Is not that his name?”
“No, it is not,” Blake replied. “He is my boy Tinker.”
“Your boy?”
“Yes, that’s right. The young rascal got into the army by a daring stratagem, and the other youth, with whom I am acquainted, has also been masquerading under a false name.”
“They have both been guilty of deception? This is a serious business.”
“I will admit that it is, colonel. But there is something to be said in favour of each of them.”
A ray of light had dawned on the detective’s perplexity. Being aware that Colonel Chumleigh had a great deal of influence, and that he was a personal friend of the commander-in-chief, he felt that he might be able to persuade him to straighten out the tangle in such a way that there would not be any unpleasant consequences or public exposure. So he briefly told the whole story, making clear the circumstances under which Tinker had got into the army and Jack Rokeby had enlisted in a false name.
“I should regard it as a great favour,” he concluded, “if you would use your efforts on behalf of these young soldiers.”
The narrative had stirred the colonel’s sympathies. He tried to assume a stern expression, but he could not. There was a kindly look in his eyes, and a smile on his lips.
“You are right,” he said. “There are mitigating facts.”
“I hoped you would think so,” Sexton Blake replied.
“Will you accept my judgement?”
“Yes, with pleasure.”
“Very well. There will be no difficulty. When the real Rokeby has recovered I will see that he goes into the Transport Corps, where he belongs in the place of this other youth who has stolen his name. As for your boy, I authorise you to take him home and keep him there. He is too young, and too reckless, to throw his life away out here at the front.”
“But—but I don’t want to—” Tinker began to protest.
“There is no but about it,” Blake cut in. “You are going to shed your uniform, and come home with me.”
He spoke in a cold, curt tone, and the lad had to submit, knowing that appeal would be futile.
A TELEGRAPH MESSAGE sent from the village of Malmon brought another train that night, and the passengers of the wrecked train were carried on to Rouen, where the wounded soldiers were transferred to a hospital. Several days later, when Colonel Chumleigh was quite out of danger, Sexton Blake and Tinker returned to London; and the detective took the first opportunity of calling on Mrs. Chumleigh, and relieving her anxiety by giving her the signed will.
Blake was very glad to have the lad at home again, but Tinker, though he felt that he had got out of an ugly scrape more lightly than he deserved, would have preferred to be back in the thick of the fighting, amidst the hissing bullets and the bursting shells.
THE END
BAKER STREET, LONDON
OUTSIDE, THE STORM was passing and occasional glimmers of sunlight came and went, making the droplets on the window glint like diamonds.
Sexton Blake had finished reading and was gazing through the mesh of the fireguard at the flames behind it, seemingly lost in a plethora of memories. I took the opportunity to scrutinise his face and hands and was intrigued by their lack of scars. Recently, I’d read five stories in a row in which he’d been shot in the shoulder. No normal human being could take that amount of punishment and still have full use of his arms. So either the accounts were highly fictionalised or Sexton Blake was not a normal human being. His very presence in the chair opposite me made the latter the most probable truth.
I quietly repeated the question I’d asked earlier. “To what were you referring? What was unleashed by the First World War?”
He drew in a sharp breath, adjusted his posture, clicked open his silver case, and took another cigarette from it.
Yes, there was that, too: a man who’d smoked his way through countless physically gruelling adventures yet who appeared to function perfectly well without assistance from an oxygen tank.
I thought, One day, Sexton Blake, I shall have the truth of you.
He lit his cigarette, drew on it, expelled a cloud, and said, “From out of the Great War came the master crooks: Zenith the Albino, Waldo the Wonder Man, Count Ivor Carlac, Professor Kew, the Council of Eleven, many othe
rs.”
Suddenly, unexpectedly, he stood.
I scrambled to my feet.
He handed me the binder.
“But of them,” he said. “We shall speak tomorrow.”
Abruptly, the first interview had ended.
SEXTON BLAKE IN THE FIGHT OF HIS LIFE WITH HIS MOST FIENDISH FOES
As brilliant as he is courageous, Sexton Blake truly gives his best when confronted with his equals: fiends of cunning and guile, extraordinary violence and keen intellect. Master crooks like Zenith the Albino, Leon Kestrel and Rupert ‘the Wonder Man’ Waldo.
From impersonations to diamond heists, sword duels to daring escapes, by car, train and biplane, Blake is put to the test by three of his fiercest enemies.
Join him as he embarks on the most dangerous hunt of all…
‘The greatest detective of them all!’
The Daily Mail
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A HERO IS ONLY AS GREAT AS THOSE WHO STAND BY HIM – EVEN SEXTON BLAKE!
No man is an island, and Sexton Blake is no exception. Since the very first days, he has had much-needed help on his cases: not just from the stalwart Tinker and Pedro, but from a long, distinguished list of reporters, adventurers, private detectives and men of Scotland Yard.
From the Orient Express to a river full of crocodiles, enduring poisoning, kidnapping, revolution and spectral motor-lorries, join Sexton, James ‘Granite’ Grant, Ruff ‘Stuff’ Hanson, Derek ‘Splash’ Page, Sir Richard Losely, Lobangu and many more in his adventures across the globe…
‘The Sexton Blake saga is the nearest approach to a national folklore’
Dorothy L. Sayers
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