Complete Fictional Works of John Buchan (Illustrated)

by John Buchan

  “Good afternoon, Alexis,” he said in English. “I think we may now regard this interesting episode as closed. I take it that you surrender. Saskia, dear, you are coming with me on a little journey. Will you tell my men where to find your baggage?”

  The reply was in Russian. Alexis’ voice was as cool as the other’s, and it seemed to wake him to anger. He replied in a rapid torrent of words, and appealed to the men below, who shouted back. The flare was dying down, and shadows again hid most of the hall.

  Dougal crept up behind Sir Archie. “Here, I think it’s the polis. They’re whistlin’ outbye, and I hear folk cryin’ to each other — no’ the foreigners.”

  Again Alexis spoke, and then Saskia joined in. What she said rang sharp with contempt, and her fingers played with her little pistol.

  Suddenly before the young man could answer Dobson bustled toward him. The innkeeper was labouring under some strong emotion, for he seemed to be pleading and pointing urgently towards the door.

  “I tell ye it’s the polis,” whispered Dougal. “They’re nickit.”

  There was a swaying in the crowd and anxious faces. Men surged in, whispered, and went out, and a clamour arose which the leader stilled with a fierce gesture.

  “You there,” he cried, looking up, “you English. We mean you no ill, but I require you to hand over to me the lady and the Russian who is with her. I give you a minute by my watch to decide. If you refuse, my men are behind you and around you, and you go with me to be punished at my leisure.”

  “I warn you,” cried Sir Archie. “We are armed, and will shoot down any one who dares to lay a hand on us.”

  “You fool,” came the answer. “I can send you all to eternity before you touch a trigger.”

  Leon was by his side now — Leon and Spidel, imploring him to do something which he angrily refused. Outside there was a new clamour, faces showing at the door and then vanishing, and an anxious hum filled the hall ... Dobson appeared again and this time he was a figure of fury.

  “Are ye daft, man?” he cried. “I tell ye the polis are closin’ round us, and there’s no’ a moment to lose if we would get back to the boats. If ye’ll no’ think o’ your own neck, I’m thinkin’ o’ mine. The whole things a bloody misfire. Come on, lads, if ye’re no besotted on destruction.”

  Leon laid a hand on the leader’s arm and was roughly shaken off. Spidel fared no better, and the little group on the upper landing saw the two shrug their shoulders and make for the door. The hall was emptying fast and the watchers had gone from the back stairs. The young man’s voice rose to a scream; he commanded, threatened, cursed; but panic was in the air and he had lost his mastery.

  “Quick,” croaked Dougal, “now’s the time for the counter-attack.”

  But the figure on the stairs held them motionless. They could not see his face, but by instinct they knew that it was distraught with fury and defeat. The flare blazed up again as the flame caught a knot of fresh powder, and once more the place was bright with the uncanny light... The hall was empty save for the pale man who was in the act of turning.

  He looked back. “If I go now, I will return. The world is not wide enough to hide you from me, Saskia.”

  “You will never get her,” said Alexis.

  A sudden devil flamed into his eyes, the devil of some ancestral savagery, which would destroy what is desired but unattainable. He swung round, his hand went to his pocket, something clacked, and his arm shot out like a baseball pitcher’s.

  So intent was the gaze of the others on him, that they did not see a second figure ascending the stairs. Just as Alexis flung himself before the Princess, the new-comer caught the young man’s outstretched arm and wrenched something from his hand. The next second he had hurled it into a far corner where stood the great fireplace. There was a blinding sheet of flame, a dull roar, and then billow upon billow of acrid smoke. As it cleared they saw that the fine Italian chimney-piece, the pride of the builder of the House, was a mass of splinters, and that a great hole had been blown through the wall into what had been the dining-room... A figure was sitting on the bottom step feeling its bruises. The last enemy had gone.

  When Mr. John Heritage raised his eyes he saw the Princess with a very pale face in the arms of a tall man whom he had never seen before. If he was surprised at the sight, he did not show it. “Nasty little bomb that. I remember we struck the brand first in July ‘18.”

  “Are they rounded up?” Sir Archie asked.

  “They’ve bolted. Whether they’ll get away is another matter. I left half the mounted police a minute ago at the top of the West Lodge avenue. The other lot went to the Garplefoot to cut off the boats.”

  “Good Lord, man,” Sir Archie cried, “the police have been here for the last ten minutes.”

  “You’re wrong. They came with me.”

  “Then what on earth—” began the astonished baronet. He stopped short, for he suddenly got his answer. Into the hall limped a boy. Never was there seen so ruinous a child. He was dripping wet, his shirt was all but torn off his back, his bleeding nose was poorly staunched by a wisp of handkerchief, his breeches were in ribbons, and his poor bare legs looked as if they had been comprehensively kicked and scratched. Limpingly he entered, yet with a kind of pride, like some small cock-sparrow who has lost most of his plumage but has vanquished his adversary.

  With a yell Dougal went down the stairs. The boy saluted him, and they gravely shook hands. It was the meeting of Wellington and Blucher.

  The Chieftain’s voice shrilled in triumph, but there was a break in it. The glory was almost too great to be borne.

  “I kenned it,” he cried. “It was the Gorbals Die-Hards. There stands the man that done it... Ye’ll no’ fickle Thomas Yownie.”

  CHAPTER 15. THE GORBALS DIE-HARDS GO INTO ACTION

  We left Mr. McCunn, full of aches but desperately resolute in spirit, hobbling by the Auchenlochan road into the village of Dalquharter. His goal was Mrs. Morran’s hen-house, which was Thomas Yownie’s poste de commandement. The rain had come on again, and, though in other weather there would have been a slow twilight, already the shadow of night had the world in its grip. The sea even from the high ground was invisible, and all to westward and windward was a ragged screen of dark cloud. It was foul weather for foul deeds. Thomas Yownie was not in the hen-house, but in Mrs. Morran’s kitchen, and with him were the pug-faced boy know as Old Bill, and the sturdy figure of Peter Paterson. But the floor was held by the hostess. She still wore her big boots, her petticoats were still kilted, and round her venerable head in lieu of a bonnet was drawn a tartan shawl.

  “Eh, Dickson, but I’m blithe to see ye. And puir man, ye’ve been sair mishandled. This is the awfu’est Sabbath day that ever you and me pit in. I hope it’ll be forgiven us... Whaur’s the young leddy?”

  “Dougal was saying she was in the House with Sir Archibald and the men from the Mains.”

  “Wae’s me!” Mrs. Morran keened. “And what kind o’ place is yon for her? Thae laddies tell me there’s boatfu’s o’ scoondrels landit at the Garplefit. They’ll try the auld Tower, but they’ll no’ wait there when they find it toom, and they’ll be inside the Hoose in a jiffy and awa’ wi’ the puir lassie. Sirs, it maunna be. Ye’re lippenin’ to the polis, but in a’ my days I never kenned the polis in time. We maun be up and daein’ oorsels. Oh, if I could get a haud o’ that red-heided Dougal... “

  As she spoke there came on the wind the dull reverberation of an explosion.

  “Keep us, what’s that?” she cried.

  “It’s dinnymite,” said Peter Paterson.

  “That’s the end o’ the auld Tower,” observed Thomas Yownie in his quiet, even voice. “And it’s likely the end o’ the man Heritage.”

  “Lord peety us!” the old woman wailed. “And us standin’ here like stookies and no’ liftin’ a hand. Awa’ wi ye, laddies, and dae something. Awa’ you too, Dickson, or I’ll tak’ the road mysel’.”

  “I’ve got orders,”
said the Chief of Staff, “no’ to move till the sityation’s clear. Napoleon’s up at the Tower and Jaikie’s in the policies. I maun wait on their reports.”

  For a moment Mrs. Morran’s attention was distracted by Dickson, who suddenly felt very faint and sat down heavily on a kitchen chair. “Man, ye’re as white as a dish-clout,” she exclaimed with compunction. “Ye’re fair wore out, and ye’ll have had nae meat sin’ your breakfast. See, and I’ll get ye a cup o’ tea.”

  She proved to be in the right, for as soon as Dickson had swallowed some mouthfuls of her strong scalding brew the colour came back to his cheeks, and he announced that he felt better. “Ye’ll fortify it wi’ a dram,” she told him, and produced a black bottle from her cupboard. “My father aye said that guid whisky and het tea keepit the doctor’s gig oot o’ the close.”

  The back door opened and Napoleon entered, his thin shanks blue with cold. He saluted and made his report in a voice shrill with excitement.

  “The Tower has fallen. They’ve blown in the big door, and the feck o’ them’s inside.”

  “And Mr. Heritage?” was Dickson’s anxious inquiry.

  “When I last saw him he was up at a windy, shootin’. I think he’s gotten on to the roof. I wouldna wonder but the place is on fire.”

  “Here, this is awful,” Dickson groaned. “We can’t let Mr. Heritage be killed that way. What strength is the enemy?”

  “I counted twenty-seven, and there’s stragglers comin’ up from the boats.”

  “And there’s me and you five laddies here, and Dougal and the others shut up in the House.”

  He stopped in sheer despair. It was a fix from which the most enlightened business mind showed no escape. Prudence, inventiveness, were no longer in question; only some desperate course of violence.

  “We must create a diversion,” he said. “I’m for the Tower, and you laddies must come with me. We’ll maybe see a chance. Oh, but I wish I had my wee pistol.”

  “If ye’re gaun there, Dickson, I’m comin’ wi’ ye,” Mrs Morran announced.

  Her words revealed to Dickson the preposterousness of the whole situation, and for all his anxiety he laughed. “Five laddies, a middle-aged man, and an auld wife,” he cried. “Dod, it’s pretty hopeless. It’s like the thing in the Bible about the weak things of the world trying to confound the strong.”

  “The Bible’s whiles richt,” Mrs. Morran answered drily. “Come on, for there’s no time to lose.”

  The door opened again to admit the figure of Wee Jaikie. There were no tears in his eyes, and his face was very white.

  “They’re a’ round the Hoose,” he croaked. “I was up a tree forenent the verandy and seen them. The lassie ran oot and cried on them from the top o’ the brae, and they a’ turned and hunted her back. Gosh, but it was a near thing. I seen the Captain sklimmin’ the wall, and a muckle man took the lassie and flung her up the ladder. They got inside just in time and steekit the door, and now the whole pack is roarin’ round the Hoose seekin’ a road in. They’ll no’ be long over the job, neither.”

  “What about Mr. Heritage?”

  “They’re no’ heedin’ about him any more. The auld Tower’s bleezin’.”

  “Worse and worse,” said Dickson. “If the police don’t come in the next ten minutes, they’ll be away with the Princess. They’ve beaten all Dougal’s plans, and it’s a straight fight with odds of six to one. It’s not possible.”

  Mrs. Morran for the first time seemed to lose hope. “Eh, the puir lassie!” she wailed, and sinking on a chair covered her face with her shawl.

  “Laddies, can you no’ think of a plan?” asked Dickson, his voice flat with despair.

  Then Thomas Yownie spoke. So far he had been silent, but under his tangled thatch of hair his mind had been busy. Jaikie’s report seemed to bring him to a decision.

  “It’s gey dark,” he said, “and it’s gettin’ darker.”

  There was that in his voice which promised something, and Dickson listened.

  “The enemy’s mostly foreigners, but Dobson’s there and I think he’s a kind of guide to them. Dobson’s feared of the polis, and if we can terrify Dobson he’ll terrify the rest.”

  “Ay, but where are the police?”

  “They’re no’ here yet, but they’re comin’. The fear o’ them is aye in Dobson’s mind. If he thinks the polis has arrived, he’ll put the wind up the lot... WE maun be the polis.”

  Dickson could only stare while the Chief of Staff unfolded his scheme. I do not know to whom the Muse of History will give the credit of the tactics of “Infiltration,” whether to Ludendorff or von Hutier or some other proud captain of Germany, or to Foch, who revised and perfected them. But I know that the same notion was at this moment of crisis conceived by Thomas Yownie, whom no parents acknowledged, who slept usually in a coal cellar, and who had picked up his education among Gorbals closes and along the wharves of Clyde.

  “It’s gettin’ dark,” he said, “and the enemy are that busy tryin’ to break into the Hoose that they’ll no’ be thinkin’ o’ their rear. The five o’ us Die-Hards is grand at dodgin’ and keepin’ out of sight, and what hinders us to get in among them, so that they’ll hear us but never see us. We’re used to the ways o’ the polis, and can imitate them fine. Forbye we’ve all got our whistles, which are the same as a bobbie’s birl, and Old Bill and Peter are grand at copyin’ a man’s voice. Since the Captain is shut up in the Hoose, the command falls to me, and that’s my plan.”

  With a piece of chalk he drew on the kitchen floor a rough sketch of the environs of Huntingtower. Peter Paterson was to move from the shrubberies beyond the verandah, Napoleon from the stables, Old Bill from the Tower, while Wee Jaikie and Thomas himself were to advance as if from the Garplefoot, so that the enemy might fear for his communications. “As soon as one o’ ye gets into position he’s to gie the patrol cry, and when each o’ ye has heard five cries, he’s to advance. Begin birlin’ and roarin’ afore ye get among them, and keep it up till ye’re at the Hoose wall. If they’ve gotten inside, in ye go after them. I trust each Die-Hard to use his judgment, and above all to keep out o’ sight and no’ let himsel’ be grippit.”

  The plan, like all great tactics, was simple, and no sooner was it expounded than it was put into action. The Die-Hards faded out of the kitchen like fog-wreaths, and Dickson and Mrs. Morran were left looking at each other. They did not look long. The bare feet of Wee Jaikie had not crossed the threshold fifty seconds, before they were followed by Mrs. Morran’s out-of-doors boots and Dickson’s tackets. Arm in arm the two hobbled down the back path behind the village which led to the South Lodge. The gate was unlocked, for the warder was busy elsewhere, and they hastened up the avenue. Far off Dickson thought he saw shapes fleeting across the park, which he took to be the shock-troops of his own side, and he seemed to hear snatches of song. Jaikie was giving tongue, and this was what he sang:

  “Proley Tarians, arise!

  Wave the Red Flag to the skies,

  Heed no more the Fat Man’s lies,

  Stap them doun his throat!

  Nocht to lose except our chains... “

  But he tripped over a rabbit wire and thereafter conserved his breath.

  The wind was so loud that no sound reached them from the House, which, blank and immense, now loomed before them. Dickson’s ears were alert for the noise of shots or the dull crash of bombs; hearing nothing, he feared the worst, and hurried Mrs. Morran at a pace which endangered her life. He had no fear for himself, arguing that his foes were seeking higher game, and judging, too, that the main battle must be round the verandah at the other end. The two passed the shrubbery where the road forked, one path running to the back door and one to the stables. They took the latter and presently came out on the downs, with the ravine of the Garple on their left, the stables in front, and on the right the hollow of a formal garden running along the west side of the House.

  The gale was so fierce, now that they had no wind-break betwee
n them and the ocean, that Mrs. Morran could wrestle with it no longer, and found shelter in the lee of a clump of rhododendrons. Darkness had all but fallen, and the House was a black shadow against the dusky sky, while a confused greyness marked the sea. The old Tower showed a tooth of masonry; there was no glow from it, so the fire, which Jaikie had reported, must have died down. A whaup cried loudly, and very eerily: then another.

  The birds stirred up Mrs. Morran. “That’s the laddies’ patrol.” she gasped. “Count the cries, Dickson.”

  Another bird wailed, this time very near. Then there was perhaps three minutes’ silence till a fainter wheeple came from the direction of the Tower. “Four,” said Dickson, but he waited in vain on the fifth. He had not the acute hearing of the boys, and could not catch the faint echo of Peter Paterson’s signal beyond the verandah. The next he heard was a shrill whistle cutting into the wind, and then others in rapid succession from different quarters, and something which might have been the hoarse shouting of angry men.

  The Gorbals Die-Hards had gone into action.

  Dull prose is no medium to tell of that wild adventure. The sober sequence of the military historian is out of place in recording deeds that knew not sequence or sobriety. Were I a bard, I would cast this tale in excited verse, with a lilt which would catch the speed of the reality. I would sing of Napoleon, not unworthy of his great namesake, who penetrated to the very window of the ladies’ bedroom, where the framework had been driven in and men were pouring through; of how there he made such pandemonium with his whistle that men tumbled back and ran about blindly seeking for guidance; of how in the long run his pugnacity mastered him, so that he engaged in combat with an unknown figure and the two rolled into what had once been a fountain. I would hymn Peter Paterson, who across tracts of darkness engaged Old Bill in a conversation which would have done no discredit to a Gallowgate policeman. He pretended to be making reports and seeking orders. “We’ve gotten three o’ the deevils, sir. What’ll we dae wi’ them?” he shouted; and back would come the reply in a slightly more genteel voice: “Fall them to the rear. Tamson has charge of the prisoners.” Or it would be: “They’ve gotten pistols, sir. What’s the orders?” and the answer would be: “Stick to your batons. The guns are posted on the knowe, so we needn’t hurry.” And over all the din there would be a perpetual whistling and a yelling of “Hands up!”