“Any one been here this morning at all, Jarvis?” he inquired.
“A man for the laundry, sir, and a person to test the electric light.”
“Left alone in the room at all?”
“The electric light man was here for a few minutes, sir.”
The master and servant exchanged quick glances. The latter was looking pale and nervous.
“Is anything missing, sir?” he asked.
“Yes!” Granet replied. “Did you notice the gentleman who called last evening—Surgeon-Major Thomson?”
“Yes, sir!”
“You haven’t seen him since? He hasn’t been here?”
“No, sir!”
Granet stood, for a moment, thinking. The servant remained motionless. The silence in the room was ominous; so, also, was the strange look of disquietude in the two men’s faces.
“Jarvis,” his master said at last, “remember this. I am not finding fault. I know you are always careful. But from tonight be more vigilant than ever. There is a new hand in the game. He may not suspect us yet but he will. You understand, Jarvis?”
“Perfectly, sir.”
The man withdrew noiselessly. Once more Granet walked to the window. He looked down for a few minutes at the passers-by but he saw nothing. Grave thoughts were gathering together in his mind. He was travelling along the road of horrors and at the further end of it a man stood waiting. He saw himself draw nearer and nearer to the meeting his name almost frame itself upon his lips, the name of the man whom he had grown to hate.
CHAPTER IX
Table of Contents
Considering the crowded state of the waiting-room and the number of highly important people who were there for the same purpose, Surgeon-Major Thomson seemed to have remarkably little difficulty in procuring the interview he desired. He was conducted by a boy scout into a room on the second floor of the War Office, within a few minutes of his arrival. A tall, grey-haired man in the uniform of a general looked up and nodded with an air of intimacy as soon as the door had been closed.
“Sit down, Thomson. We’ve been expecting you. Any news?”
“I have come to you for that, sir,” the other replied.
The General sighed.
“I am afraid you will be disappointed,” he said. “I received your report and I went to a certain official myself—saw him in his own house before breakfast this morning. I had reports of three other men occupying responsible positions in the city, Thomson, against whom there was really tangible and serious evidence. Our friend had the effrontery almost to laugh at me.”
There was a little glitter in Thomson’s eyes.
“These damned civilians!” he murmured softly. “They’ve done their best to ruin Great Britain by crabbing every sort of national service during the last ten years. They feed and pamper the vermin who are eating away the foundations of the country, and, damn it all, when we put a clear case to them, when we show them men whom we know to be dangerous, they laugh at us and tell us that it isn’t our department! They look upon us as amateurs and speak of Scotland Yard with bated breath. My God! If I had a free hand for ten minutes, there’d be two Cabinet Ministers eating bread and water instead of their dinners to-night.”
The General raised his eyebrows. He knew Thomson well enough to be aware how unusual such an ebullition of feeling on his part was.
“Got you a bit worked up, Major,” he remarked.
“Isn’t it enough to make any man’s blood boil?” the other replied. “The country to-day looks to its army and its navy to save it from the humiliation these black-coated parasites have encouraged, and yet even now we haven’t a free hand. You and I, who control the secret service of the army, denounce certain men, upon no slight evidence, either, as spies, and we are laughed at! One of those very blatant idiots whose blundering is costing the country millions of money and thousands of brave men, has still enough authority to treat our reports as so much waste paper.”
“I am bound to say I agree with you, Thomson,” the General declared, a little hopelessly. “It’s the weakest spot of our whole organisation, this depending on the civil powers. Two of my cases were absolutely flagrant. As regards yours, Thomson, I am not at all sure that we shouldn’t be well-advised to get just a little more evidence before we press the matter.”
“And meanwhile,” Thomson retorted bitterly, “leave him a free hand to do what mischief he can. But for the merest accident in the world, the night before last he would have learnt our new scheme for keeping the Channel communication free from submarines.”
The General frowned.
“Who’s been talking?” he demanded.
“No one who is to be blamed,” Thomson replied. “Can’t you realise the position? Here’s a fellow Service man, a soldier, a D. S. O., who has been specially mentioned for bravery and who very nearly got the Victoria Cross, comes here with the halo of a brilliant escape from the Germans, wounded, a young man of good family and connections, and apparently as keen as mustard to get back again in the fighting line. Good Heavens! The most careful sailor in the world might just drop a hint to that sort of man. What nearly happened last night may happen a dozen times within the next week. Even our great secret, General,” Thomson continued, dropping his voice a little, “even that might come to his ears.”
The General was undoubtedly disturbed. He searched amongst the papers on his desk and brought out at last a flimsy half-sheet of notepaper which he studied carefully.
“Just read this, Thomson.”
Thomson rose and looked over his shoulder. The letter was an autograph one of a few lines only, and dated from a village in the North of France—
My dear Brice,
This is a special request to you. Arrange it any way you please but don’t send me Captain Granet out again in any capacity. Keep him at home. Mind, I am not saying word against him as a soldier. He has done some splendid work on more than one occasion, but notwithstanding this I do not wish to see him again with any of the forces under my command.
Ever yours,
F.
“Did you show this to our friend?” Thomson inquired.
“I gave him a digest of its contents,” the General replied. “He smiled in a supercilious manner and said I had better do as I was asked.”
Thomson said nothing for a moment. His face was very set and he had the air of a man desperately but quietly angry.
“As a matter of fact,” General Brice continued, glancing at the clock on his desk, “Granet is in my anteroom at the present moment, I expect. He asked for an interview this afternoon.”
“Have him in, if you don’t mind,” the other suggested. “I can sit at the empty desk over there. I can be making some calculations with reference to the number of hospital beds for each transport. I want to hear him talk to you.”
The General nodded and touched a bell.
“You can show Captain Granet in,” he told the boy scout who answered it.
Thomson took his place in the far corner of the room and bent over a sheaf of papers. Presently Granet was ushered in. He was leaning a little less heavily upon his stick and he had taken his arm from the sling for a moment. He saluted the General respectfully and glanced across the room towards where Thomson was at work. If he recognised him, however, he made no sign.
“Well, Granet,” the General inquired, “how are you getting on?”
“Wonderfully, sir,” was the brisk reply. “I have seen my own doctor this morning and he thinks I might come up before the Board on Saturday.”
“And what does that mean?”
“I want to get back again, sir,” Granet replied eagerly.
The General stroked his grey moustache and looked searchingly at the young officer. He was standing full in the light of a ray of sunshine which came streaming through the high, uncurtained windows. Although he was still a little haggard, his eyes were bright, his lips were parted in an anticipatory smile, his whole expression was engaging. General Brice, studying him closely, felt compelle
d to admit the improbability of his vague suspicions.
“That’s all very well, you know,” he reminded him quietly, “but you won’t be fit enough for active service for some time to come.”
The young man’s face fell.
“I am sure they must be wanting me back, sir,” he said naively.
The General shook his head.
“I don’t want to disappoint you, young fellow,” he continued, “but I heard from your Brigadier only yesterday. He has been obliged to fill up your place and I don’t think he has room for any one on his staff.”
Granet looked a little hurt.
“I thought he might have made a temporary appointment,” he said gloomily.
“This is no time to consider individuals,” the General pointed out. “What about finding you a billet at home for a time, eh? You’ve seen a bit of the rough side of the war, you know.”
“I’d sooner go out and dig trenches!”
Thomson had risen slowly from his place and, with a sheet of foolscap in his hand, closely covered with writing, crossed the room.
“You might get taken prisoner again, Captain Granet,” he remarked drily.
There was a moment’s rather tense silence. The young man’s lips had come together, his eyes flashed.
“I did not recognise you, Major Thomson,” he said calmly. “Have you found a new billet?”
“My old one is sufficiently absorbing just at present,” the other replied laying his calculations on the General’s desk. “Forgive my interrupting you, sir, but you told me to let you have this as soon as I had finished. That is my estimate of the number of beds we could stow away in the cubic feet you offer us.”
The General glanced at the paper and nodded.
“Don’t go, Thomson,” he said. “I’ll talk to you about this later on. Well, Captain Granet,” he added, “you’d better leave things in my hands. I’ll do the best I can for you.”
“I shall be very disappointed if I don’t get out to the Front again soon, sir,” the young man declared simply.
“I’ll do the best I can,” the General repeated, touching his bell.
Granet was shown out and the door was closed. General Brice turned towards his companion.
“Thomson,” he said, “frankly, I can’t believe it. However, we’ll find him a billet where he can’t possibly do any mischief.”
“If you found him a billet where I should like to see him,” Surgeon-Major Thomson observed bitterly, “he would never do any more mischief in this world! Any dispatches from the Front, sir?”
General Brice raised his eyebrows.
“Are you off again?” he asked.
“I am going to see that young man’s General,” Thomson replied. “I shall cross over to-day and be back to-morrow night or Saturday morning.”
General Brice nodded thoughtfully.
“Perhaps you are right,” he assented. “Yes, I shall have a few reports. You’d better let them know at the Admiralty, and what time you want to go over.”
Surgeon-Major Thomson shook hands with the General and turned towards the door.
“When I come back,” he said, “I hope I’ll be able to convince even you, sir.”
CHAPTER X
Table of Contents
Surgeon-Major Thomson awoke about twelve hours later with a start. He had been sleeping so heavily that he was at first unable to remember his whereabouts. His mind moved sluggishly across the brief panorama of his hurried journey—the special train from Victoria to Folkestone; the destroyer which had brought him and a few other soldiers across the Channel, black with darkness, at a pace which made even the promenade deck impossible; the landing at Boulogne, a hive of industry notwithstanding the darkness; the clanking of waggons, the shrieking of locomotives, the jostling of crowds, the occasional flashing of an electric torch. And then the ride in the great automobile through the misty night. He rubbed his eyes and looked around him. A grey morning was breaking. The car had come to a standstill before a white gate, in front of which was stationed a British soldier, with drawn bayonet. Surgeon-Major Thomson pulled himself together and answered the challenge.
“A friend,” he answered,—“Surgeon-Major Thomson, on his Majesty’s service.”
He leaned from the car for a moment and held out something in the hollow of his hand. The man saluted and drew back. The car went along a rough road which led across a great stretch of pastureland. On the ridge of the hills on his right, little groups of men were at work unlimbering guns. Once or twice, with a queer, screeching sound, a shell, like a little puff of white smoke, passed high over the car and fell somewhere in the grey valley below. In the distance he could see the movements of a body of troops through the trees, soldiers on the way to relieve their comrades in the trenches. As the morning broke, the trenches themselves came into view—long, zig-zag lines, silent, and with no sign of the men who crawled about inside like ants. He passed a great brewery transformed into a canteen, from which a line of waggons, going and returning, were passing all the time backwards and forwards into the valley. Every now and then through the stillness came the sharp crack of a rifle from the snipers lying hidden in the little stretches of woodland and marshland away on the right. A motor-omnibus, with its advertisement signs still displayed but a great red cross floating above it, came rocking down the road on its way to the field hospital in the distance. As yet, however, the business of fighting seemed scarcely to have commenced.
They passed several small houses and farms, in front of each of which was stationed a sentry. Once, from the hills behind, a great white-winged aeroplane glided over his head on its way to make a reconnaissance. Queerest sight of all, here and there were peasants at work in the fields. One old man leaned upon his spade and watched as the car passed. Not a dozen yards from him was a great hole in the ground where a shell had burst, and a little further away a barn in ruins. The car was forced to stop here to let a cavalcade of ammunition waggons pass by. Surgeon-Major Thomson leaned from his seat and spoke to the old man.
“You are not afraid of the German shells, then?” he asked.
“Monsieur,” the old man answered, “one must live or die—it does not matter which. For the rest, if one is to live, one must eat. Therefore I work. Four sons I have and a nephew away yonder,” he added, waving his hand southwards. “That is why I dig alone. Why do you not send us more soldiers, Monsieur l’Anglais?”
“Wait but a little time longer,” Thomson answered cheerfully.
The old man looked sadly at his ruined barn.
“It is always ‘wait,’” he muttered, “and one grows old and tired. Bonjour, monsieur!”
The car passed on again and suddenly dropped into a little protected valley. They came to a standstill before a tiny chateau, in front of which stretched what might once have been an ornamental garden, but which was now torn to pieces by gun carriages, convoy waggons, and every description of vehicle. From the top of the house stretched many wires. A sentry stood at the iron gates and passed Major Thomson after a perfunctory challenge. An office with mud-stained boots and wind-tossed hair, who looked as though he had been out all night, stood on the steps of the house and welcomed Thomson.
“Hullo, Major,” he called out, “just across, eh?”
“This moment,” Thomson assented. “Anything fresh?”
“Nothing to speak of,” the other replied. “We’ve just had a message in that the French have been giving them a knock. We’ve had a quiet time the last two days. They’re bringing up some more Bavarians, we think.”
“Do you think I could have a few words with the General?” Major Thomson asked.
“Come in and have some coffee. Yes, he’ll see you, of course. He is in his own room with two of the flying men, just for the moment. I’ll let you know when you can go in.”
They passed into an apartment which had once been the dining-room of the chateau, and in which a long table was laid. One or two staff officers greeted Thomson, and the man who had br
ought him in attended to his wants.
“The General had his breakfast an hour ago,” the latter observed. “We’re pretty well forward here and we have to keep on the qui vive. We got some shells yesterday dropped within a quarter of a mile of us. I think we’re going to try and give them a push back on the left flank. I’ll go in and see about you, Thomson.”
“Good fellow! You might tell them to give my chauffeur something. The destroyer that brought me over is waiting at Boulogne, and I want to be in London to-night.”
One of the officers from the other side of the table, smiled queerly.
“London! My God!” he muttered. “There is still a London, I suppose? Savoy and Carlton going still? Pall Mall where it was?”
“And very much as it was,” Thomson assured him. “London’s wonderfully unchanged. You been out long?”
“September the second,” was the cheerful reply. “I keep on getting promised a week but I can’t bring it off.”
“He’s such a nut with the telephones,” the man by his side explained, helping himself to marmalade. “The General positively can’t spare him.”
“Oh, chuck it!” the other exclaimed in disgust. “What about you?—the only man with an eye to a Heaven-ordained gun position, as old Wattles declared one day. We’re all living wonders, Major,” he went on, turning to Thomson, “but if I don’t get a Sole Colbert and a grill at the Savoy, and a front seat at the Alhambra, before many weeks have passed, I shall get stale—that’s what’ll happen to me.”
“Hope you’ll have your hair cut before you go back,” a man from the other end of the table remarked. “Your own mother wouldn’t know you like that—much less your sweetheart.”
The young man fingered his locks reflectively.
“Chap who was going to cut it for me got shot yesterday,” he grumbled. “Anything doing as you came over the ridge, Major?”
Thomson shook his head.
“One aeroplane and a few shells.”
“That would be Johnny Oates going out in his Bleriot,” some one remarked. “He’ll be back here before long with a report.”
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