by J. R. Trtek
“Here, man,” the constable said in a friendly tone. “If it’s going to take several heaves, we should all have a chance for a go, eh?”
Light-heartedly, the innkeeper raised his hands. “Why not?” he said. “Tis only fair. We’ll take turns then?”
“We’ll rotate positions, lads,” suggested Sir Harry.
The policeman approached the aeroplane and reached for the blade as Bullivant’s godson grasped his belt from behind and the innkeeper now held the tail. A third pull proved to not be the charm, either, though the propeller made almost two rotations before stopping.
“My turn now, chaps,” said Sir Harry Christey. “Here, let’s trade off again.”
Ewan Clark appeared reluctant to take hold of the squire’s belt, but Sir Harry coaxed the innkeeper to do so.
“It’s all in good fun, lads, eh?” Sir Harry reminded us. “I’d rather you pulled me back than leave me to be sliced up by that blade.”
This next attempt also was unsuccessful, leading to three more, with each man succeeding the other in giving the propeller a turn. By now, the trio were approaching the task as a frolic, and laughter erupted after each disappointing try.
“I wish our mechanics had half as much fun as this bunch,” said Captain Harper cheerily from behind my back.
The rotation had come round once more to Ewan Clark, who took hold of the blade and began to chuckle again. Then, calming himself, he said with a smile, “This time for St. Andrew,” and gave the propeller a mighty pull.
As Charlie Taylor hoisted him away, the engine finally caught hold. Loud coughing and staccato bursts erupted in front of me, and I felt once more the machine-made gale press against my face as I caught the aroma of burning oil. The constable and innkeeper danced for joy, and I waved for them to carefully remove the stones from the front of the wheels as Sir Harry let go the tailskid.
All three of our companions ran quickly back toward the road to join the assembly of onlookers, which had grown to perhaps a dozen other men and women, as well as a quartet of children. Then I felt myself in motion and stared ahead as our aeroplane rolled down the expanse of field, its course initially parallel to the Abbey Road.
Glancing to the side, I saw some of the roadside audience—all of them men and children—running in the same direction. The craft began to veer to the left, as had been its habit each time we had taken to the air previously. Wheels hit ruts and bumps in the grassy field, and then the aeroplane lifted from earth, and once more the captain and I were airborne.
As the engine stuttered, we rose above the trees, circled round and then, while passing over the waving crowd, Cecil Harper dipped our right wing in salute before turning south toward England.
We followed the Nith once more, this time downstream to its mouth, crossed the Solway Firth a second time, and then, as we approached the coastline, I suddenly became conscious of my weariness. I had been awake continuously for more than a day, and now that I was sitting, albeit in the midst of noise and slipstream, I could not shake off drowsiness.
After what seemed like mere seconds, I felt myself being jabbed.
I lifted my head with a jerk and looked down from the cockpit, thinking with disbelief that I espied the profile of Birmingham again. Understanding after another moment that my eyes did not betray me, I realised that I had fallen asleep.65 I received another poke in my back and, turning round as best I could, saw that Captain Harper was motioning that we were going to land just outside the city, as we had during our journey north.
We touched down in what I thought to be the same field where we had stopped previously, a conjecture that became all the more likely when I saw in the distance the familiar figure of Captain Edward Ashley Tate standing beside a motor-lorry with the same two mechanics as before. I immediately recalled Ashley Tate’s pledge that he and his men would be awaiting us every day should we return, and I greeted the three of them heartily, as did Captain Harper. Our craft was refuelled and then, assisted by the mechanics and Captain Ashley Tate, we once more took to the air.
We flew on and on, for the most part following in reverse the path we had taken from Hulton. As we once more passed over Oxford, however, Captain Harper steered us due south rather than to the southeast, so that we were now headed not for our point of origin but rather Aldermaston, which lay some twenty miles beyond. Shortly, we espied what I knew must be the River Kennet, with the village just beyond. An open field lay in the distance, and I pointed in its direction. Captain Harper responded with an upward gesture of his gloved thumb, and we began our descent.
The landing was far rougher than those we had experienced before, but our plane came to rest undamaged with the pair of us unharmed. As the propeller stopped spinning, I pulled the goggles from my eyes and took a deep breath, three names burning in my mind as I clawed myself out of the cockpit: Hannay and Holmes uppermost, with that of the threatened Greek premier, Karolides, following right behind.
I doffed my flying clothes and prepared to set out along the banks of the Kennet, where I knew Sir Walter Bullivant’s cottage to be. From his godson’s directions and my estimation of our landing point, I reasoned that my course should be west along the stream.
“I do not wish to be encumbered by my valise,” I told Cecil Harper. “I trust you will guard it?”
“Of course,” said the pilot. “As I will guard the plane.” He looked around. “I reckon that a small band of locals will eventually gather here as at Dumfries, so once more I urge you to not worry yourself on my account. I’ll stand here prepared to assist as I am called to, Dr. Watson.”
I nodded humbly. “I do hope, Captain Harper, that—”
“Cecil, sir,” he insisted. “As you’re no longer in the service yourself.”
I smiled. “Very well. Cecil it is. And I confess it is more satisfying to have you know me by my true name. But, to get on with the job at hand, I will go in search of Sir Walter’s residence. Once I locate his cottage, I shall return and retrieve my baggage, and perhaps you as well, should some of the inhabitants pledge to watch over your plane.”
“What will be will be, Doctor.”
And so I bade the officer a temporary farewell and set out along the water’s edge, proceeding upstream. After perhaps a quarter hour, I found myself approaching a road that, for a short distance at least, paralleled the bank, and so I took to tramping along its gravelly length for my own convenience. Several minutes after gaining the thoroughfare, I heard a motorcar at my back and stepped onto the grass. The automobile passed me, throwing up a whirling cloud of dust, and then stopped about fifty yards beyond where I stood.
As I walked toward the vehicle, I saw the passenger get out. He was clad in standard attire: a long coat, driving cap, gloves, and goggles. The fellow stood by the motor, still manned by a chauffeur, and gazed intently in my direction before waving one hand.
“Halloa, Doctor!” he shouted, and I trod toward the motorcar more briskly than before, recognising the voice and, a moment later, the face of Sir Walter Bullivant.
“And what is your reaction to Holmes’s silence?” asked Sir Walter as he lit a cigar in his study.
I began stuffing my pipe with Arcadia mix, waiting for the svelte butler to clear away our coffee cups. My companion understood the reason for my hesitation in answering and smiled gently as I waited for his servant to leave the room.
Then, finally alone with the spymaster, I leaned back, holding my match in abeyance. “My reaction, as I suppose it always has been with him, Sir Walter, is to wait and accept what transpires. I rarely heard from Holmes during the past two years, while he was on assignment for you, and given the nature of our present endeavour, it does not surprise that our friend has failed to appear. I assume him to be intent upon the chase.”
I stopped, noticing an odd smile on Bullivant’s lips.
“You term him our friend,” the man said, studying his cigar. “I am not certain that Holmes views me as such.”
“He has voiced great
respect for you.”
“Respect and friendship are not one and the same.” He shrugged. “I perhaps have demanded too much of him.”
“It is he who demands too much of himself. And yet,” I said, “he never fails to disappoint others. He will not disappoint in this instance, either. He will appear—” I said, recalling the words of the young innkeeper. “He will appear in glory.”
Just then we heard a knock upon the study door.
“Enter,” said Sir Walter.
It was Cecil Harper. “I do hope I’m not disturbing you, sirs.”
“Of course not, Captain,” said Sir Walter over his shoulder. “The meal was to your satisfaction, I hope?”
“The best I’ve had in several months,” the officer replied, stepping closer. “I appreciate your kindness.”
“Nothing’s too good for the likes of you, Captain,” the spymaster declared. “It was an honour to send my man to fetch you in the motor.”
“And it’s an honour for me to be your guest, Sir Walter. I’m wondering, however, if I should return to my aircraft and fly her back to Hulton. Enough fuel remains for that jaunt, and I get the impression that Dr. Watson will be under your wing from now on.”
Bullivant looked at me, and I returned a questioning expression.
“Yes,” said Sir Walter. “In point of fact, the doctor and I will be taking up positions here for the duration, until Mr. Hannay or Mr. Holmes—or both—cross this threshold. You might as well return to your squadron. Shall I call my man to ferry you back to the aeroplane?”
“That would be appreciated, sir, along with another you might spare, so as to assist with starting the engine.”
“That can be done,” replied Sir Walter, who rose from his chair. I immediately followed his lead. “Excuse me, please, while I fetch my chauffeur.”
Cigar in hand, Bullivant strolled from the room, leaving me with my still unlit pipe and Captain Harper, to whom I extended a hand. “I cannot adequately express my gratitude to you, Cecil. Without you, I should have been nowhere.”
“All in the line of duty, Doctor,” the young pilot said, grasping my hand. “As I’ve said before, sir, it will be a pleasure to see you once more.”
“I’m certain that we will meet again, though perhaps in less pressing circumstances.”
Sir Walter returned with his chauffeur, who took Captain Harper from the house and drove him back to the aeroplane in the company of the gardener—each man, I supposed, destined to do his part when the craft was started up for the flight back to Hulton.
Sir Walter and I passed the rest of the afternoon in the study, discussing at first fly fishing before the subject shifted once more to the matter of Richard Hannay and German spy rings.
“The business has certainly grown in depth, breadth, and complexity,” Bullivant said. “When Mycroft suggested recruiting his brother two years ago, I could not foresee what would emerge: Von Bork, Scudder, Hannay, and this Black Stone business.”
“Not to speak of Cerberus, which may end by encompassing all that you have just mentioned,” I added.
“And perhaps even more beyond that,” my host replied.
“Yes,” I reflected. “Perhaps we have only plumbed the shallowest end, Sir Walter.”
“Bullivant,” he said.
“What?”
“Call me Bullivant,” the spymaster said genially. “That’s what my friends call me, rather than Sir Walter.”
We spent a moment looking at one another, and then I said, “Yes, as you wish.” Then, after a moment, I added, “And I may be Watson to you, if you should desire.”
He smiled, but then his face assumed a troubled look.
“There is something I must confess to you,” he said.
I watched as he struggled to find the words, or perhaps the courage, to speak his full mind. At last, he began.
“During those first days, after you had discovered that Hannay was mixed up in all this, you attempted to find Mycroft at the Diogenes Club.”
“Yes,” I said, recalling how I had related that fact to those assembled at Safety House. “I sought him in vain.”
“You also asked for me at the club that day,” Sir Walter declared. “You did not mention that fact, however, when we met to plan our response to Hannay’s flight from London.”
“No, I supposed it was not relevant.”
“But you saw me at the club, did you not?”
Once more we stared at one another. Then, nodding, I said quietly, “Yes. You were—”
“In an armchair, reading,” Bullivant said. “Through the glass, from the corner of my eye, I in turn saw you enter the Stranger’s Room. Immediately, I left through another door and stood there, beyond its frame, until the attendant entered. I waved the man over and asked him—by means of a written note, of course—what or whom you were seeking. His reply was that you wished to see either Mycroft or myself.”
“And you did not respond,” I said evenly, before taking a deep breath. “I knew that I had seen you, however. I could only surmise that you chose not to present yourself because—”
“Because at that time, I had no faith in you. I thought your attention would be an annoyance and nothing more.”
“I can understand,” I said. “I am but a layman, and perhaps an awkward one at that, in your world of espionage, Sir Walter.”
“Again: Bullivant, if you please.”
I nodded. “Bullivant.”
“There is something more I must tell you, however,” the man said. “The next day, you travelled to Safety House to deliver the note that finally alerted us to Hannay’s importance.”
“Yes,” I said. “That is also common knowledge.”
“What is not common knowledge is that I happened to be there alone, in the house, at the time,” confessed Sir Walter. “While going over several recent despatches, I heard a patterned ring. Going to the door to look through the peephole, I saw you standing there. I could have opened the door, but I chose not to do so. And so you slipped a note through the letterbox.”
I put down my now empty glass.
“I picked up your message from the carpet,” Bullivant said. “I saw that it was addressed both to me and to Mycroft, and I should have read it then and there, but I did not, for I could not imagine you having written anything of value upon that sheet of paper, John. With incredible stupidity, I dropped it, unopened, into Mycroft’s box and left minutes later. Had I only possessed the confidence in you then that I have now, I’d have read that note and—”
“Such errors occur.”
“This one should not have happened,” he said mournfully. “It was the third time I ignored you, to the detriment of us all, and our country.”
“Let us not dwell on that now, Bullivant,” I said with forced cheer. “Instead, we should gather as much hope as we can. You have already alerted Mycroft to the assassination plot against Karolides—that threat is forestalled. We now have only to await the safe return of Holmes and Hannay, and Scudder’s notebook with them.”
“Yes, you are right” he said, casting a thoughtful gaze in my direction. “As I have learnt at great cost, you are a man whose words should be heeded, Watson. We shall wait.”
We found the execution of that advice far harder than its suggestion, however.
A day passed, and neither Hannay nor Holmes appeared. There followed a second and a third day, and then I found myself completing a week’s stay at Bullivant’s cottage with no word from either man.
Long before we reached that anxious milestone, Sir Walter and I had agreed to submerge our concerns in daily trampings to the River Kennet in search of trout. Our success was such that we dined on fish every night, though Bullivant’s cook was resourceful, dishing up a different culinary variation on genus Salmo for each successive catch.
We were now, however, within days of entering the month of July, and it was difficult not to believe that the signs pointed to us never seeing Richard Hannay again, though I could not allow my t
houghts to include Sherlock Holmes in that grim augury. My only hope lay, paradoxically, in the continuing absence of my friend, for I could not help but believe that while the detective remained elsewhere, he was exerting himself in a cause not yet lost.
Thus it was that I set out with Sir Walter for yet another fishing excursion, this time on a Sunday evening. The midsummer air was heavy, yet sweet with the aroma of lime and chestnut, and lilacs were bursting with blossoms. We started at a point where the beds of water buttercups were especially dense and then slowly worked our way toward a bridge, nearly reaching it as dusk began to filter into the sky. Breathing deeply, I realised the scented evening was bringing me no joy. It was then that I heard whistling.
“Listen!” said Bullivant at once. He quickly lifted his delicate ten-foot rod and grasped my arm with his free hand. “Do you hear that?”
“‘Annie Laurie,’ is it not?” I said.
“It is,” said Sir Walter, his voice now urgent. “Indeed, it is! Come, Watson!”
Grasping my own split-cane rod, I followed him up the bank toward one end of the bridge, where I now espied the silhouette of the whistler who had attracted our attention.
In his untidy flannels, a canvas bag slung onto his shoulder, Sir Walter began to whistle as well, joining the newcomer in ‘Annie Laurie.’
I gripped the wide brim of my hat, twin to Bullivant’s, and followed my friend up the last portion of the slope and onto a pathway leading to the bridge. By the time I had reached the top, I saw that the stranger had paused to watch our ascent from the stream.
Sir Walter nodded to the man. In the gathering darkness, I could not see the stranger’s face clearly, but it was evident to me that he was bearded and rather dishevelled, in boots caked with mud and a shirt lacking any collar. The dim figure I saw before me now resembled nothing like the man I had encountered at Portland Place or seen on that platform in Brattleburn.
Bullivant leaned his rod against the bridge. “The water’s very clear here, is it not?” he said, addressing the newcomer in an odd tone, almost one of familiarity. “I back our Kennet here any day against the Test.”66
