Mr. Standfast

J >> John Buchan >> Mr. Standfast

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It was market night, and the streets were crowded. Blue-jackets
from the Fleet, country-folk in to shop, and every kind of military
detail thronged the pavements. Fish-hawkers were crying their
wares, and there was a tatterdemalion piper making the night
hideous at a corner. I took a tortuous route and finally fixed on a
modest-looking public-house in a back street. When I inquired for a
room I could find no one in authority, but a slatternly girl informed
me that there was one vacant bed, and that I could have ham and
eggs in the bar. So, after hitting my head violently against a cross-
beam, I stumbled down some steps and entered a frowsty little
place smelling of spilt beer and stale tobacco.

The promised ham and eggs proved impossible - there were no
eggs to be had in Muirtown that night - but I was given cold
mutton and a pint of indifferent ale. There was nobody in the place
but two farmers drinking hot whisky and water and discussing
with sombre interest the rise in the price of feeding-stuffs. I ate
my supper, and was just preparing to find the whereabouts of
my bedroom when through the street door there entered a dozen soldiers.

In a second the quiet place became a babel. The men were strictly
sober; but they were in that temper of friendliness which demands a
libation of some kind. One was prepared to stand treat; he was the
leader of the lot, and it was to celebrate the end of his leave that he
was entertaining his pals. From where I sat I could not see him, but
his voice was dominant. 'What's your fancy, jock? Beer for you,
Andra? A pint and a dram for me. This is better than vongblong
and vongrooge, Davie. Man, when I'm sittin' in those estamints, as
they ca' them, I often long for a guid Scots public.'

The voice was familiar. I shifted my seat to get a view of
the speaker, and then I hastily drew back. It was the Scots Fusilier
I had clipped on the jaw in defending Gresson after the Glasgow meeting.

But by a strange fatality he had caught sight of me.

'Whae's that i' the corner?' he cried, leaving the bar to stare at me.
Now it is a queer thing, but if you have once fought with a man, though
only for a few seconds, you remember his face, and the scrap in
Glasgow had been under a lamp. The jock recognized me well enough.

'By God!' he cried, 'if this is no a bit o' luck! Boys, here's the
man I feucht wi' in Glesca. Ye mind I telled ye about it. He laid me
oot, and it's my turn to do the same wi' him. I had a notion I was
gaun to mak' a nicht o't. There's naebody can hit Geordie Hamilton
without Geordie gettin' his ain back some day. Get up, man, for
I'm gaun to knock the heid off ye.'

I duly got up, and with the best composure I could muster
looked him in the face.

'You're mistaken, my friend. I never clapped eyes on you before,
and I never was in Glasgow in my life.'

'That's a damned lee,' said the Fusilier. 'Ye're the man, and if
ye're no, ye're like enough him to need a hidin'!'

'Confound your nonsense!' I said. 'I've no quarrel with you, and
I've better things to do than be scrapping with a stranger
in a public-house.'

'Have ye sae? Well, I'll learn ye better. I'm gaun to hit ye, and
then ye'll hae to fecht whether ye want it or no. Tam, haud my
jacket, and see that my drink's no skailed.'

This was an infernal nuisance, for a row here would bring in the
police, and my dubious position would be laid bare. I thought of
putting up a fight, for I was certain I could lay out the jock a
second time, but the worst of that was that I did not know where
the thing would end. I might have to fight the lot of them, and that
meant a noble public shindy. I did my best to speak my opponent
fair. I said we were all good friends and offered to stand drinks for
the party. But the Fusilier's blood was up and he was spoiling for a
row, ably abetted by his comrades. He had his tunic off now and
was stamping in front of me with doubled fists.
I did the best thing I could think of in the circumstances. My
seat was close to the steps which led to the other part of the inn. I
grabbed my hat, darted up them, and before they realized what I
was doing had bolted the door behind me. I could hear
pandemonium break loose in the bar.

I slipped down a dark passage to another which ran at right
angles to it, and which seemed to connect the street door of the inn
itself with the back premises. I could hear voices in the little hall,
and that stopped me short.
One of them was Linklater's, but he was not talking as Linklater
had talked. He was speaking educated English. I heard another
with a Scots accent, which I took to be the landlord's, and a third
which sounded like some superior sort of constable's, very prompt
and official. I heard one phrase, too, from Linklater - 'He calls
himself McCaskie.' Then they stopped, for the turmoil from the bar
had reached the front door. The Fusilier and his friends were
looking for me by the other entrance.

The attention of the men in the hall was distracted, and that gave
me a chance. There was nothing for it but the back door. I slipped
through it into a courtyard and almost tumbled over a tub of water.
I planted the thing so that anyone coming that way would fall over
it. A door led me into an empty stable, and from that into a lane. It
was all absurdly easy, but as I started down the lane I heard a
mighty row and the sound of angry voices. Someone had gone into
the tub and I hoped it was Linklater. I had taken a liking to the
Fusilier jock.

There was the beginning of a moon somewhere, but that lane
was very dark. I ran to the left, for on the right it looked like a
cul-de-sac. This brought me into a quiet road of two-storied cottages
which showed at one end the lights of a street. So I took the other
way, for I wasn't going to have the whole population of Muirtown
on the hue-and-cry after me. I came into a country lane, and I also
came into the van of the pursuit, which must have taken a short
cut. They shouted when they saw me, but I had a small start, and legged
it down that road in the belief that I was making for open country.

That was where I was wrong. The road took me round to the
other side of the town, and just when I was beginning to think I
had a fair chance I saw before me the lights of a signal-box and a
little to the left of it the lights of the station. In half an hour's time
the Edinburgh train would be leaving, but I had made that impossible.
Behind me I could hear the pursuers, giving tongue like hound puppies,
for they had attracted some pretty drunken gentlemen to their party.
I was badly puzzled where to turn, when I noticed outside the
station a long line of blurred lights, which could only mean a train
with the carriage blinds down. It had an engine attached and seemed
to be waiting for the addition of a couple of trucks to start. It was a
wild chance, but the only one I saw. I scrambled across a piece of
waste ground, climbed an embankment and found myself on the
metals. I ducked under the couplings and got on the far side of the
train, away from the enemy.

Then simultaneously two things happened. I heard the yells of
my pursuers a dozen yards off, and the train jolted into motion. I
jumped on the footboard, and looked into an open window. The
compartment was packed with troops, six a side and two men
sitting on the floor, and the door was locked. I dived headforemost
through the window and landed on the neck of a weary warrior
who had just dropped off to sleep.

While I was falling I made up my mind on my conduct. I must
be intoxicated, for I knew the infinite sympathy of the British
soldier towards those thus overtaken. They pulled me to my feet,
and the man I had descended on rubbed his skull and blasphemously
demanded explanations.

'Gen'lmen,' I hiccoughed, 'I 'pologize. I was late for this bl-blighted train and
I mus' be in E'inburgh 'morrow or I'll get the
sack. I 'pologize. If I've hurt my friend's head, I'll kiss it and make
it well.'

At this there was a great laugh. 'Ye'd better accept, Pete,' said
one. 'It's the first time anybody ever offered to kiss your ugly heid.'

A man asked me who I was, and I appeared to be searching for
a card-case.

'Losht,' I groaned. 'Losht, and so's my wee bag and I've bashed
my po' hat. I'm an awful sight, gen'lmen - an awful warning to be
in time for trains. I'm John Johnstone, managing clerk to Messrs
Watters, Brown & Elph'stone, 923 Charl'tte Street, E'inburgh. I've
been up north seein' my mamma.'

'Ye should be in France,' said one man.

'Wish't I was, but they wouldn't let me. "Mr Johnstone," they
said, "ye're no dam good. Ye've varicose veins and a bad heart,"
they said. So I says, "Good mornin', gen'lmen. Don't blame me if
the country's ru'ned". That's what I said.'

I had by this time occupied the only remaining space left on the
floor. With the philosophy of their race the men had accepted my
presence, and were turning again to their own talk. The train had
got up speed, and as I judged it to be a special of some kind I
looked for few stoppings. Moreover it was not a corridor carriage,
but one of the old-fashioned kind, so I was safe for a time from the
unwelcome attention of conductors. I stretched my legs below the
seat, rested my head against the knees of a brawny gunner, and
settled down to make the best of it.

My reflections were not pleasant. I had got down too far below
the surface, and had the naked feeling you get in a dream when you
think you have gone to the theatre in your nightgown. I had had
three names in two days, and as many characters. I felt as if I had
no home or position anywhere, and was only a stray dog with
everybody's hand and foot against me. It was an ugly sensation,
and it was not redeemed by any acute fear or any knowledge of
being mixed up in some desperate drama. I knew I could easily go
on to Edinburgh, and when the police made trouble, as they would,
a wire to Scotland Yard would settle matters in a couple of hours.
There wasn't a suspicion of bodily danger to restore my dignity.
The worst that could happen would be that Ivery would hear of my
being befriended by the authorities, and the part I had settled to
play would be impossible. He would certainly hear. I had the
greatest respect for his intelligence service.

Yet that was bad enough. So far I had done well. I had put
Gresson off the scent. I had found out what Bullivant wanted to
know, and I had only to return unostentatiously to London to have
won out on the game. I told myself all that, but it didn't cheer my
spirits. I was feeling mean and hunted and very cold about the feet.

But I have a tough knuckle of obstinacy in me which makes me
unwilling to give up a thing till I am fairly choked off it. The
chances were badly against me. The Scottish police were actively
interested in my movements and would be ready to welcome me at
my journey's end. I had ruined my hat, and my clothes, as Amos
had observed, were not respectable. I had got rid of a four-days'
beard the night before, but had cut myself in the process, and what
with my weather-beaten face and tangled hair looked liker a tinker
than a decent bagman. I thought with longing of my portmanteau
in the Pentland Hotel, Edinburgh, and the neat blue serge suit and
the clean linen that reposed in it. It was no case for a subtle game,
for I held no cards. Still I was determined not to chuck in my hand
till I was forced to. If the train stopped anywhere I would get out,
and trust to my own wits and the standing luck of the British Army
for the rest.

The chance came just after dawn, when we halted at a little
junction. I got up yawning and tried to open the door, till I
remembered it was locked. Thereupon I stuck my legs out of the
window on the side away from the platform, and was immediately
seized upon by a sleepy Seaforth who thought I contemplated suicide.

'Let me go,' I said. 'I'll be back in a jiffy.'

'Let him gang, jock,' said another voice. 'Ye ken what a man's
like when he's been on the bash. The cauld air'll sober him.'

I was released, and after some gymnastics dropped on the metals
and made my way round the rear of the train. As I clambered on
the platform it began to move, and a face looked out of one of
the back carriages. It was Linklater and he recognized me. He tried
to get out, but the door was promptly slammed by an indignant
porter. I heard him protest, and he kept his head out till the train
went round the curve. That cooked my goose all right. He would
wire to the police from the next station.
Meantime in that clean, bare, chilly place there was only one
traveller. He was a slim young man, with a kit-bag and a gun-case.
His clothes were beautiful, a green Homburg hat, a smart green
tweed overcoat, and boots as brightly polished as a horse chestnut.
I caught his profile as he gave up his ticket and to my amazement I
recognized it.

The station-master looked askance at me as I presented myself,
dilapidated and dishevelled, to the official gaze. I tried to speak in a
tone of authority.

'Who is the man who has just gone out?'

'Whaur's your ticket?'

'I had no time to get one at Muirtown, and as you see I have left
my luggage behind me. Take it out of that pound and I'll come
back for the change. I want to know if that was Sir Archibald Roylance.'

He looked suspiciously at the note. 'I think that's the name. He's
a captain up at the Fleein' School. What was ye wantin' with him?'

I charged through the booking-office and found my man about
to enter a big grey motor-car.

'Archie,' I cried and beat him on the shoulders.

He turned round sharply. 'What the devil -! Who are you?'
And then recognition crept into his face and he gave a joyous
shout. 'My holy aunt! The General disguised as Charlie Chaplin! Can
I drive you anywhere, sir?'

CHAPTER NINE
I Take the Wings of a Dove

'Drive me somewhere to breakfast, Archie,' I said, 'for I'm perishing
hungry.'

He and I got into the tonneau, and the driver swung us out of
the station road up a long incline of hill. Sir Archie had been one of
my subalterns in the old Lennox Highlanders, and had left us
before the Somme to join the Flying Corps. I had heard that he had
got his wings and had done well before Arras, and was now
training pilots at home. He had been a light-hearted youth, who
had endured a good deal of rough-tonguing from me for his sins of
omission. But it was the casual class of lad I was looking for now.

I saw him steal amused glances at my appearance.

'Been seein' a bit of life, sir?' he inquired respectfully.

'I'm being hunted by the police,' I said.

'Dirty dogs! But don't worry, sir; we'll get you off all right. I've
been in the same fix myself. You can lie snug in my little log hut,
for that old image Gibbons won't blab. Or, tell you what, I've got
an aunt who lives near here and she's a bit of a sportsman. You can
hide in her moated grange till the bobbies get tired.'

I think it was Archie's calm acceptance of my position as natural
and becoming that restored my good temper. He was far too well
bred to ask what crime I had committed, and I didn't propose to
enlighten him much. But as we swung up the moorland road I let
him know that I was serving the Government, but that it was
necessary that I should appear to be unauthenticated and that therefore
I must dodge the police. He whistled his appreciation.

'Gad, that's a deep game. Sort of camouflage? Speaking from my
experience it is easy to overdo that kind of stunt. When I was at
Misieux the French started out to camouflage the caravans where
they keep their pigeons, and they did it so damned well that the
poor little birds couldn't hit 'em off, and spent the night out.'

We entered the white gates of a big aerodrome, skirted a forest
of tents and huts, and drew up at a shanty on the far confines of the
place. The hour was half past four, and the world was still asleep.
Archie nodded towards one of the hangars, from the mouth of
which projected the propeller end of an aeroplane.

'I'm by way of flyin' that bus down to Farnton tomorrow,' he
remarked. 'It's the new Shark-Gladas. Got a mouth like a tree.'

An idea flashed into my mind.

'You're going this morning,' I said.

'How did you know?' he exclaimed. 'I'm due to go today, but
the grouse up in Caithness wanted shootin' so badly that I decided
to wangle another day's leave. They can't expect a man to start for
the south of England when he's just off a frowsy journey.'

'All the same you're going to be a stout fellow and start in two
hours' time. And you're going to take me with you.'

He stared blankly, and then burst into a roar of laughter. 'You're
the man to go tiger-shootin' with. But what price my commandant?
He's not a bad chap, but a trifle shaggy about the fetlocks. He
won't appreciate the joke.'

'He needn't know. He mustn't know. This is an affair between
you and me till it's finished. I promise you I'll make it all square
with the Flying Corps. Get me down to Farnton before evening,
and you'll have done a good piece of work for the country.'

'Right-o! Let's have a tub and a bit of breakfast, and then I'm
your man. I'll tell them to get the bus ready.'

In Archie's bedroom I washed and shaved and borrowed a green
tweed cap and a brand-new Aquascutum. The latter covered the
deficiencies of my raiment, and when I commandeered a pair of
gloves I felt almost respectable. Gibbons, who seemed to be a
jack-of-all-trades, cooked us some bacon and an omelette, and as he ate
Archie yarned. In the battalion his conversation had been mostly of
race-meetings and the forsaken delights of town, but now he had
forgotten all that, and, like every good airman I have ever known,
wallowed enthusiastically in 'shop'. I have a deep respect for the
Flying Corps, but it is apt to change its jargon every month, and its
conversation is hard for the layman to follow. He was desperately
keen about the war, which he saw wholly from the viewpoint of
the air. Arras to him was over before the infantry crossed the top,
and the tough bit of the Somme was October, not September. He
calculated that the big air-fighting had not come along yet, and all
he hoped for was to be allowed out to France to have his share in
it. Like all good airmen, too, he was very modest about himself.
'I've done a bit of steeple-chasin' and huntin' and I've good
hands for a horse, so I can handle a bus fairly well. It's all a matter
of hands, you know. There ain't half the risk of the infantry down
below you, and a million times the fun. jolly glad I changed, sir.'

We talked of Peter, and he put him about top. Voss, he thought,
was the only Boche that could compare with him, for he hadn't
made up his mind about Lensch. The Frenchman Guynemer he
ranked high, but in a different way. I remember he had no respect
for Richthofen and his celebrated circus.

At six sharp we were ready to go. A couple of mechanics had got
out the machine, and Archie put on his coat and gloves and climbed
into the pilot's seat, while I squeezed in behind in the observer's
place. The aerodrome was waking up, but I saw no officers about.
We were scarcely seated when Gibbons called our attention to a
motor-car on the road, and presently we heard a shout and saw men
waving in our direction.

'Better get off, my lad,' I said. 'These look like my friends.'

The engine started and the mechanics stood clear. As we taxied
over the turf I looked back and saw several figures running in our
direction. The next second we had left the bumpy earth for the
smooth highroad of the air.

I had flown several dozen times before, generally over the enemy
lines when I wanted to see for myself how the land lay. Then we
had flown low, and been nicely dusted by the Hun Archies, not to
speak of an occasional machine-gun. But never till that hour had I
realized the joy of a straight flight in a swift plane in perfect
weather. Archie didn't lose time. Soon the hangars behind looked
like a child's toys, and the world ran away from us till it seemed
like a great golden bowl spilling over with the quintessence of
light. The air was cold and my hands numbed, but I never felt
them. As we throbbed and tore southward, sometimes bumping in
eddies, sometimes swimming evenly in a stream of motionless ether,
my head and heart grew as light as a boy's. I forgot all about the
vexations of my job and saw only its joyful comedy. I didn't think
that anything on earth could worry me again. Far to the left was a
wedge of silver and beside it a cluster of toy houses. That must be
Edinburgh, where reposed my portmanteau, and where a most
efficient police force was now inquiring for me. At the thought I
laughed so loud that Archie must have heard me. He turned round,
saw my grinning face, and grinned back. Then he signalled to me
to strap myself in. I obeyed, and he proceeded to practise 'stunts' -
the loop, the spinning nose-dive, and others I didn't know the
names of. It was glorious fun, and he handled his machine as a
good rider coaxes a nervous horse over a stiff hurdle. He had that
extra something in his blood that makes the great pilot.

Presently the chessboard of green and brown had changed to a
deep purple with faint silvery lines like veins in a rock. We were
crossing the Border hills, the place where I had legged it for weary
days when I was mixed up in the Black Stone business. What a
marvellous element was this air, which took one far above the
fatigues of humanity! Archie had done well to change. Peter had
been the wise man. I felt a tremendous pity for my old friend
hobbling about a German prison-yard, when he had once flown a
hawk. I reflected that I had wasted my life hitherto. And then I
remembered that all this glory had only one use in war and that was
to help the muddy British infantryman to down his Hun opponent.
He was the fellow, after all, that decided battles, and the thought
comforted me.

A great exhilaration is often the precursor of disaster, and mine
was to have a sudden downfall. It was getting on for noon and we
were well into England - I guessed from the rivers we had passed
that we were somewhere in the north of Yorkshire - when the
machine began to make odd sounds, and we bumped in perfectly
calm patches of air. We dived and then climbed, but the confounded
thing kept sputtering. Archie passed back a slip of paper on which
he had scribbled: 'Engine conked. Must land at Micklegill. Very
sorry.' So we dropped to a lower elevation where we could see
clearly the houses and roads and the long swelling ridges of a
moorland country. I could never have found my way about, but
Archie's practised eye knew every landmark. We were trundling
along very slowly now, and even I was soon able to pick up the
hangars of a big aerodrome.

We made Micklegill, but only by the skin of our teeth. We were
so low that the smoky chimneys of the city of Bradfield seven miles
to the east were half hidden by a ridge of down. Archie achieved a
clever descent in the lee of a belt of firs, and got out full of
imprecations against the Gladas engine. 'I'll go up to the camp and
report,' he said, 'and send mechanics down to tinker this darned
gramophone. You'd better go for a walk, sir. I don't want to
answer questions about you till we're ready to start. I reckon it'll be
an hour's job.'
The cheerfulness I had acquired in the upper air still filled me. I
sat down in a ditch, as merry as a sand-boy, and lit a pipe. I was
possessed by a boyish spirit of casual adventure, and waited on the
next turn of fortune's wheel with only a pleasant amusement.

That turn was not long in coming. Archie appeared very breathless.

'Look here, sir, there's the deuce of a row up there. They've
been wirin' about you all over the country, and they know you're
with me. They've got the police, and they'll have you in five
minutes if you don't leg it. I lied like billy-o and said I had never
heard of you, but they're comin' to see for themselves. For God's
sake get off ... You'd better keep in cover down that hollow and
round the back of these trees. I'll stay here and try to brazen it out.
I'll get strafed to blazes anyhow ... I hope you'll get me out of the
scrape, sir.'

'Don't you worry, my lad,' I said. 'I'll make it all square when I
get back to town. I'll make for Bradfield, for this place is a bit
conspicuous. Goodbye, Archie. You're a good chap and I'll see you
don't suffer.'

I started off down the hollow of the moor, trying to make speed
atone for lack of strategy, for it was hard to know how much my
pursuers commanded from that higher ground. They must have
seen me, for I heard whistles blown and men's cries. I struck a
road, crossed it, and passed a ridge from which I had a view of
Bradfield six miles off. And as I ran I began to reflect that this kind
of chase could not last long. They were bound to round me up in
the next half-hour unless I could puzzle them. But in that bare
green place there was no cover, and it looked as if my chances were
pretty much those of a hare coursed by a good greyhound on a
naked moor.

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