by John Buchan
April passed into May, and ere the month was out came glorious tidings. Ludendorff had reached the Marne, and was within range of Paris. About this time his closest disciples marked a change in Dr Lartius. He seemed to retire into himself, and to be struggling with some vast revelation. His language was less intelligible, but far more impressive. Ulrici came up from Berne to see him, for he had stopped for some months his visits to Switzerland. There were those who said his health was breaking, others that he was now, in very truth, looking inside the veil. This latter was the general view, and the fame of the young man became a superstition.
‘You tell us little now about our enemies,’ Ulrici complained.
‘Mystica catena rupta est,’ Dr Lartius quoted sadly. ‘My friends are your enemies, and they are suffering. Their hearts and nerves are breaking. Therefore the link is thin and I cannot feel their thoughts. That is why I am so sad, for against my will the sorrow of my friends clouds me.’
Ulrici laughed in his gross way. ‘Then the best omen for us is that you fall into melancholia? When you cut your throat we shall know that we have won.’
Yet Ulrici was not quite happy. The young prophet was in danger of becoming a Frankenstein’s monster, which he could not control. For his popular fame was now a thing to marvel at. It had gone abroad through Germany, and to all the fighting fronts, and the phrase linked to it was that of’Peace before winter’. Peace had become a conviction, an obsession. Ulrici and his friends would have preferred the word to be ‘Victory’.
In the early days of July a distinguished visitor came from Berlin to the Garmischstrasse. He was an Erster Generalstabsoffizier, high in the confidence of the Supreme Command. He sat in the shaded room and asked an urgent question.
‘I am not a Delphian oracle,’ said Dr Lartius, ‘and I do not prophesy. But this much I can tell you. The hearts of your enemies have become like water, and they have few reserves left. I am not a soldier, so you can judge better than I. You say you are ready to strike with a crushing force. If you leave your enemies leisure they will increase and their hearts may recover.’
‘That is my view,’ said the soldier. ‘You have done much for the German people in the past, sir. Have you no word now to encourage them?’
‘There will be peace before winter. This much I can tell, but how I know I cannot tell.’
‘But on what terms?’
‘That depends upon your armies,’ was the oracular reply.
The staff officer had been gazing intently at the speaker. Now he rose and switched on the electric light.
‘Will you oblige me by taking off your glasses, sir?’ he asked, and there was the sharpness of command in his voice.
Dr Lartius removed his spectacles, and for some seconds the two men looked at each other.
‘I thank you,’ said the soldier at last. ‘For a moment I thought we had met before. You reminded me of a man I knew long ago. I was mistaken.’
After that it was noted by all that the melancholy of Dr Lartius increased. His voice was saddened, and dejection wrapped him like a cloud. Those of the inner circle affected to see in this a good omen. ‘He is en rapport with his English friends,’ they said. ‘He cannot help himself, and their despair is revealed in him. The poor Lartius! He is suffering for the sins of our enemies.’ But the great public saw only the depression, and as August matured, and bad news filtered through the land, it gave their spirits an extra push downhill.
In those weeks only one word came from the Garmischstrasse. It was ‘Peace — peace before winter.’ The phrase became the universal formula whispered wherever people spoke their minds. It ran like lightning through the camps and along the fronts, and in every workshop and tavern. It became a passion, a battle-cry. The Wise Doctor of Munich had said it. Peace before winter — Peace at all costs — only Peace.
In September Ulrici was in communication with a certain bureau in Berlin. ‘The man is honest enough, but he is mad. He has served his purpose. It is time to suppress him.’ Berlin agreed, and one morning Ulrici departed from Berne.
But when he reached the Garmischstrasse he found the flamboyant plate unscrewed from the door and the pleasant rooms deserted.
For a day or two before Dr Lartius had been behaving oddly. He gave out that he was ill, and could not receive; but he was very busy indoors with his papers. Then late one evening, after a conversation on the telephone with the railway people, he left his rooms, with no luggage but a small dressing-case, and took the night train for Innsbruck. His admirable passport franked him anywhere. From Innsbruck he travelled to the Swiss frontier, and when he crossed it, in the darkness of the September evening and in an empty carriage, he made a toilet which included the shaving of his silky black beard. He was whistling softly and seemed to have recovered his spirits. At Berne he did not seek his usual hotel, but went to an unfrequented place in a back street, where, apparently, he was well known. There he met during the course of the day various people, and their conversation was not in the German tongue.
That night he again took train, but it was westward to Lausanne and the French border.
IV
In the early days of November, when the Allies were approaching Maubeuge and Sedan, and the German plenipotentiaries were trying to dodge the barrage and get speech with Foch, two British officers were sitting in a little room at Versailles. One was the General we have already met, the quondam friend of Lady Samplar. The other was a slim young man who wore the badges of a lieutenant-colonel and the gorget patches of the staff. He had a pale face shaven clean, black hair cut very short, and curious, bright, protuberant hazel eyes. He must have seen some service, for he had two rows of medal ribbons on his breast.
‘Unarm, Eros,’ quoted the General, looking at the last slip on a pile of telegrams. ‘“The long day’s task is done.” It has been a grim business, and, Tommy, my lad, I think you had the most difficult patch of the lot to hoe... It was largely due to you that the Boche made his blunder on 15 th July, and stretched his neck far enough to let Foch hit him.’
The young man grinned. ‘I wouldn’t like to go through it again, sir. But it didn’t seem so bad when I was at it, though it is horrible to look back on. The worst part was the loneliness.’
‘You must have often had bad moments.’
‘Not so many. I only remember two as particularly gruesome. One was when I heard you slanging me to Lady Samplar, and I suddenly felt hopelessly cut off from my kind... The other was in July, when von Mudra came down from Berlin to see me. He dashed nearly spotted me, for he was at the Embassy when I was in Constantinople.’ The General lifted a flamboyant plate whereon the name of Dr S. Lartius was inscribed in letters of oxidised silver. ‘You’ve brought away your souvenir all right. I suppose you’ll have it framed as a trophy for your ancestral hall. By the way, what did the letter S stand for?’
‘When I was asked,’ said the young man, ‘I said “Sigismund”. But I really meant it for “Spurius” — the chap, you remember, who held the bridge with Horatius.’
The Magic Walking Stick
Windsor Magazine, 1932
WHEN BILL CAME back for long-leave that autumn half he had before him a complex programme of entertainment. Thomas, the Keeper, whom he revered more than anyone else in the world, was to take him in the afternoon to try for a duck in the big marsh called Alemoor. In the evening Hallowe’en would be celebrated in the nursery with his small brother Peter, and he would be permitted to sit up after dinner till ten o’clock. Next day, which was Sunday, would be devoted to wandering about with Peter, hearing from him all the appetising home news, and pouring into his greedy ears the gossip of the foreign world of school. On Monday morning, after a walk with the dogs, he was to motor to London, lunch with Aunt Alice, go to a conjuring show, and then, after a noble tea, return to school in time for lock-up.
It seemed to Bill all that could be desired in the way of excitement. But he did not know just how exciting that long leave was destined to be.
&nbs
p; The first shadow of a cloud appeared after luncheon, when he had changed into knickerbockers, and Peter and the dogs were waiting at the gun-room door. Bill could not find his own proper stick. It was a long hazel staff, given him by the second stalker in a Scotch deer-forest the year before - a staff rather taller than Bill, of glossy hazel, with a shapely polished crook, and without a ferrule, like all stalking sticks.
He hunted for it high and low, but it could not be found. Without it in his hand Bill felt that an expedition lacked something vital, and he was not prepared to take instead one of his father’s shooting sticks, as Groves, the butler, recommended. Nor would he accept a knubbly cane proffered by Peter. Feeling a little aggrieved and imperfectly equipped, he rushed out to join Thomas. He would cut himself an ashplant in the first hedge.
But as the two ambled down the lane which led to Alemoor, they came on an old man sitting under a hornbeam. He was a funny little wizened old man, in a shabby long green overcoat, which had once been black, and he wore on his head the oldest and tallest and greenest bowler hat that ever graced a human head. Thomas walked on as if he did not see him, and Gyp, the spaniel, and Shawn, the Irish setter, at the sight of him dropped their tails between their legs, and remembered an engagement a long way off. But Bill stopped, for he saw that the old man had a bundle under his arm, a bundle of ancient umbrellas and queer ragged sticks.
The old man smiled at him, and he had very bright eyes. He seemed to know what was wanted, for he at once took from his bundle a stick. You would not have said that it was the kind of stick Bill was looking for. It was short, and heavy, and made of some dark foreign wood, and instead of a crook it had a handle shaped like a crescent, cut out of some white substance which was neither bone nor ivory. Yet Bill, as soon as he saw it, felt that it was the one stick in the world for him.
‘How much?’ he asked.
‘One farthing,’ said the old man, and his voice squeaked like a winter wind in a chimney.
Now a farthing is not a common coin, but Bill happened to have one — a gift from Peter on his arrival that day, along with a brass cannon, five empty cartridges, a broken microscope, and a badly-printed, brightly-illustrated narrative called ‘Two Villains Foiled’. But a farthing sounded too little, so Bill proffered one of his scanty shillings.
‘I said one farthing,’ said the old man rather snappily.
The small coin changed hands, and the little old wizened face seemed to light up with an elfish glee. “Tis a fine stick, young sir,’ he squeaked, ‘a noble stick, when you gets used to the ways of it.’
Bill had to run to catch up Thomas, who was plodding along with the dogs, now returned from their engagement.
‘That’s a queer chap — the old stick-man, I mean,’ he said.
‘I ain’t seen no old man, Maaster Bill,’ said Thomas. ‘What be ‘ee talkin’ about?’
‘The fellow back there. I bought this stick of him.’
Thomas cast a puzzled glance at the stick. ‘That be a craafty stick, Maaster Bill—’ but he said no more, for Bill had shaken it playfully at the dogs. As soon as they saw it they set off to keep another engagement — this time, apparently, with a hare — and Thomas was yelling and whistling for ten minutes before he brought them to heel.
It was a soft grey afternoon, and Bill was stationed beside one of the deep dykes in the moor, well in cover of a thorn bush, while Thomas and the dogs went off on a long circuit to show themselves beyond the big mere, so that the duck might move in Bill’s direction. It was rather cold, and very wet underfoot, for a lot of rain had fallen in the past week, and the mere, which was usually only a sedgy pond, had now grown to a great expanse of shallow flood-water. Bill began his vigil in high excitement. He drove his new stick into the ground, and used the handle as a seat, while he rested his gun in the orthodox way in the crook of his arm. It was a double-barrelled, sixteen bore, and Bill knew that he would be lucky if he got a duck with it; but a duck was to him a bird of mystery, true wild game, and he preferred the chance of one to the certainty of many rabbits.
The minutes passed, the grey afternoon sky darkened towards twilight, but no duck came. Bill saw a wedge of geese high up in the sky and longed to salute them; also he heard snipe, but could not locate them in the dim weather. Far away he thought he detected the purring noise which Thomas made to stir the duck, but no overhead beat of wings followed. Soon the mood of eager anticipation died away, and he grew bored and rather despondent. He scrambled up the bank of the dyke and strained his eyes over the moor between the bare boughs of the thorn. He thought he saw duck moving — yes, he was certain of it - they were coming from the direction of Thomas and the dogs. It was perfectly clear what was happening. There was far too much water on the moor, and the birds, instead of flighting across the mere to the boundary slopes, were simply settling on the flood. From the misty grey water came the rumour of many wildfowl.
Bill came back to his wet stand grievously disappointed. He did not dare to leave it in case a flight did appear, but he had lost all hope. He tried to warm his feet by moving them up and down in the squelchy turf. His gun was now under his arm, and he was fiddling idly with the handle of the stick which was still embedded in earth. He made it revolve, and as it turned he said aloud: ‘I wish I was in the middle of the big flood.’
Then a remarkable thing happened. Bill was not conscious of any movement, but suddenly his surroundings were completely changed. He had still his gun under his left arm and the stick in his right hand, but instead of standing on wet turf he was up to the waist in water... And all around him were duck - shovellers, pintail, mallard, teal, widgeon, pochard, tufted - and bigger things that might be geese - swimming or diving or just alighting from the air. In a second Bill realised that his wish had been granted. He was in the very middle of the flood-water.
He got a right and left at mallards, missing with his first barrel. Then the birds rose in alarm, and he shoved in fresh cartridges and fired wildly into the brown. His next two shots were at longer range, but he was certain that he had hit something. And then the duck vanished in the brume, and he was left alone with the grey waters running out to the dimness.
He lifted up his voice and shouted wildly for Thomas and the dogs, and looked about him to retrieve what he had shot. He had got two anyhow — a mallard drake and a young teal, and he collected them. Presently he heard whistling and splashing, and Gyp the spaniel appeared half swimming, half wading. Gyp picked up a second mallard, and Bill left it at that. He thought he knew roughly where the deeper mere lay so as to avoid it, and with his three duck he started for where he believed Thomas to be. The water was often up to his armpits and once he was soused over his head, and it was a very wet, breathless and excited boy that presently confronted the astounded keeper.
‘Where in goodness ha’ ye been, Maaster Bill? Them ducks was tigglin’ out to the deep water and I was feared ye wouldn’t get a shot. Three on ‘em, no less! My word, ye ‘ave poonished ‘em.’
‘I was in the deep water,’ said Bill, but he explained no more, for it had just occurred to him that he couldn’t. It was a boy not less puzzled than triumphant that returned to show his bag to his family, and at dinner he was so abstracted that his mother thought he was ill and sent him early to bed. Bill made no complaint, for he wanted to be alone to think things out.
It was plain that a miracle had happened, and it must be connected with the stick. He had wished himself in the middle of the flood-water — he remembered that clearly — and at the time he had been doing something to the stick. What was it? It had been stuck in the ground, and he had been playing with the handle. Yes, he had it. He had been turning it round when he uttered the wish. Bill’s mind was better stored with fairy tales than with Latin and Greek, and he remembered many precedents. The stick was in the rack in the hall, and he had half a mind to slip downstairs and see if he could repeat the performance. But he reflected that he might be observed, and that this was a business demanding profound secrecy. So he
resolutely composed himself to sleep. He had been allowed for a treat to have his old bed in the night-nursery, next to Peter, and he realised that he must be up bright and early to frustrate that alert young inquirer.
He woke before dawn, and at once put on socks and fives-shoes and a dressing-gown, and tiptoed downstairs. He heard a housemaid moving in the direction of the dining-room, and Groves opening the library shutters, but the hall was deserted. He groped in the rack and found the stick, struggled with the key of the garden door, and emerged into the foggy winter half-light. It was very cold, as he padded down the lawn to a retired half-moon of shrubbery beside the pond, and his shoes were soon soaked with hoar-frost. He shivered and drew his dressing-gown around him, but he had decided what to do. In this kind of weather he wished to be warm. He planted his stick in the turf.
‘I want to be on the beach in the Solomon Islands,’ said Bill, and three times twisted the handle.
In a second his eyes seemed to dazzle with excess of light and something beat on his body like a blast from on open furnace... He was standing on an expanse of blinding white sand at which a lazy blue sea was licking. Behind him at a distance of perhaps two hundred yards was a belt of high green forest, out of which stuck a tall crest of palms. A hot wind was blowing and tossing the tree-tops, but it only crisped the sea.
Bill gasped with joy to find his dream realised. He was in the far Pacific where he had always longed to be... But he was very hot, and could not endure the weight of winter pyjamas and winter dressing-gown. Also he longed to bathe in those inviting waters. So he shed everything and hopped gaily down to the tide’s edge, leaving the stick still upright in the sand.
