Mr. Standfast

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I, too, was about at the end of my endurance. I felt dimly that the
room had emptied except for Blenkiron and Amos, and that the
former was trying to make me drink brandy from the cup of a
flask. I struggled to my feet with the intention of going to Mary,
but my legs would not carry me ... I heard as in a dream Amos
giving thanks to an Omnipotence in whom he officially disbelieved.
'What's that the auld man in the Bible said? Now let thou thy
servant depart in peace. That's the way I'm feelin' mysel'.' And
then slumber came on me like an armed man, and in the chair by
the dying wood-ash I slept off the ache of my limbs, the tension of
my nerves, and the confusion of my brain.

CHAPTER TWENTY
The Storm Breaks in the West

The following evening - it was the 20th day of March - I started
for France after the dark fell. I drove Ivery's big closed car, and
within sat its owner, bound and gagged, as others had sat before
him on the same errand. Geordie Hamilton and Amos were his
companions. From what Blenkiron had himself discovered and from
the papers seized in the Pink Chalet I had full details of the road
and its mysterious stages. It was like the journey of a mad dream.
In a back street of a little town I would exchange passwords with a
nameless figure and be given instructions. At a wayside inn at an
appointed hour a voice speaking a thick German would advise that
this bridge or that railway crossing had been cleared. At a hamlet
among pine woods an unknown man would clamber up beside me
and take me past a sentry-post. Smooth as clockwork was the
machine, till in the dawn of a spring morning I found myself
dropping into a broad valley through little orchards just beginning
to blossom, and I knew that I was in France. After that, Blenkiron's
own arrangements began, and soon I was drinking coffee with a
young lieutenant of Chasseurs, and had taken the gag from Ivery's
mouth. The bluecoats looked curiously at the man in the green
ulster whose face was the colour of clay and who lit cigarette from
cigarette with a shaky hand.

The lieutenant rang up a General of Division who knew all
about us. At his headquarters I explained my purpose, and he
telegraphed to an Army Headquarters for a permission which was
granted. It was not for nothing that in January I had seen certain
great personages in Paris, and that Blenkiron had wired ahead of
me to prepare the way. Here I handed over Ivery and his guard, for
I wanted them to proceed to Amiens under French supervision,
well knowing that the men of that great army are not used to let
slip what they once hold.

It was a morning of clear spring sunlight when we breakfasted in
that little red-roofed town among vineyards with a shining river
looping at our feet. The General of Division was an Algerian
veteran with a brush of grizzled hair, whose eye kept wandering to a
map on the wall where pins and stretched thread made a spider's web.

'Any news from the north?' I asked.

'Not yet,' he said. 'But the attack comes soon. It will be against
our army in Champagne.' With a lean finger he pointed out the
enemy dispositions.

'Why not against the British?' I asked. With a knife and fork I
made a right angle and put a salt dish in the centre. 'That is the
German concentration. They can so mass that we do not know
which side of the angle they will strike till the blow falls.'

'It is true,' he replied. 'But consider. For the enemy to attack
towards the Somme would be to fight over many miles of an old
battle-ground where all is still desert and every yard of which you
British know. In Champagne at a bound he might enter unbroken
country. It is a long and difficult road to Amiens, but not so long
to Chilons. Such is the view of Petain. Does it convince you?'

'The reasoning is good. Nevertheless he will strike at Amiens,
and I think he will begin today.'

He laughed and shrugged his shoulders. '_Nous _verrons. You are
obstinate, my general, like all your excellent countrymen.'

But as I left his headquarters an aide-de-camp handed him a
message on a pink slip. He read it, and turned to me with a grave face.

'You have a flair, my friend. I am glad we did not wager. This
morning at dawn there is great fighting around St Quentin. Be
comforted, for they will not pass. Your _Marechal will hold them.'

That was the first news I had of the battle.

At Dijon according to plan I met the others. I only just caught
the Paris train, and Blenkiron's great wrists lugged me into the
carriage when it was well in motion. There sat Peter, a docile figure
in a carefully patched old R.F.C. uniform. Wake was reading a pile
of French papers, and in a corner Mary, with her feet up on the
seat, was sound asleep.

We did not talk much, for the life of the past days had been so
hectic that we had no wish to recall it. Blenkiron's face wore an air
of satisfaction, and as he looked out at the sunny spring landscape
he hummed his only tune. Even Wake had lost his restlessness. He
had on a pair of big tortoiseshell reading glasses, and when he
looked up from his newspaper and caught my eye he smiled. Mary
slept like a child, delicately flushed, her breath scarcely stirring the
collar of the greatcoat which was folded across her throat. I
remember looking with a kind of awe at the curve of her young face
and the long lashes that lay so softly on her cheek, and wondering
how I had borne the anxiety of the last months. Wake raised his
head from his reading, glanced at Mary and then at me, and his eyes
were kind, almost affectionate. He seemed to have won peace of
mind among the hills.

Only Peter was out of the picture. He was a strange, disconsolate
figure, as he shifted about to ease his leg, or gazed incuriously from
the window. He had shaved his beard again, but it did not make
him younger, for his face was too lined and his eyes too old to
change. When I spoke to him he looked towards Mary and held up
a warning finger.

'I go back to England,' he whispered. 'Your little _mysie is going
to take care of me till I am settled. We spoke of it yesterday at my
cottage. I will find a lodging and be patient till the war is over.
And you, Dick?'

'Oh, I rejoin my division. Thank God, this job is over. I have an
easy _trund now and can turn my attention to straight-forward soldiering.
I don't mind telling you that I'll be glad to think that you and
Mary and Blenkiron are safe at home. What about you, Wake?'

'I go back to my Labour battalion,' he said cheerfully. 'Like you,
I have an easier mind.'

I shook my head. 'We'll see about that. I don't like such sinful waste.
We've had a bit of campaigning together and I know your quality.'

'The battalion's quite good enough for me,' and he relapsed into
a day-old _Temps.

Mary had suddenly woke, and was sitting upright with her fists
in her eyes like a small child. Her hand flew to her hair, and her
eyes ran over us as if to see that we were all there. As she counted
the four of us she seemed relieved.

'I reckon you feel refreshed, Miss Mary,' said Blenkiron. 'It's
good to think that now we can sleep in peace, all of us. Pretty soon
you'll be in England and spring will be beginning, and please God
it'll be the start of a better world. Our work's over, anyhow.'

'I wonder,' said the girl gravely. 'I don't think there's any discharge
in this war. Dick, have you news of the battle? This was the day.'

'It's begun,' I said, and told them the little I had learned from
the French General. 'I've made a reputation as a prophet, for he
thought the attack was coming in Champagne. It's St Quentin
right enough, but I don't know what has happened. We'll hear in Paris.'

Mary had woke with a startled air as if she remembered her old
instinct that our work would not be finished without a sacrifice,
and that sacrifice the best of us. The notion kept recurring to me
with an uneasy insistence. But soon she appeared to forget her
anxiety. That afternoon as we journeyed through the pleasant land
of France she was in holiday mood, and she forced all our spirits up
to her level. It was calm, bright weather, the long curves of ploughland
were beginning to quicken into green, the catkins made a blue
mist on the willows by the watercourses, and in the orchards by the
red-roofed hamlets the blossom was breaking. In such a scene it
was hard to keep the mind sober and grey, and the pall of war slid
from us. Mary cosseted and fussed over Peter like an elder sister
over a delicate little boy. She made him stretch his bad leg full
length on the seat, and when she made tea for the party of us it was
a protesting Peter who had the last sugar biscuit. Indeed, we were
almost a merry company, for Blenkiron told stories of old hunting
and engineering days in the West, and Peter and I were driven to
cap them, and Mary asked provocative questions, and Wake listened
with amused interest. It was well that we had the carriage to
ourselves, for no queerer rigs were ever assembled. Mary, as always,
was neat and workmanlike in her dress; Blenkiron was magnificent
in a suit of russet tweed with a pale-blue shirt and collar, and well-
polished brown shoes; but Peter and Wake were in uniforms which
had seen far better days, and I wore still the boots and the shapeless
and ragged clothes of Joseph Zimmer, the porter from Arosa.

We appeared to forget the war, but we didn't, for it was in the
background of all our minds. Somewhere in the north there was
raging a desperate fight, and its issue was the true test of our
success or failure. Mary showed it by bidding me ask for news at
every stopping-place. I asked gendarmes and _Permissionnaires, but I
learned nothing. Nobody had ever heard of the battle. The upshot
was that for the last hour we all fell silent, and when we reached
Paris about seven o'clock my first errand was to the bookstall.

I bought a batch of evening papers, which we tried to read in the
taxis that carried us to our hotel. Sure enough there was the
announcement in big headlines. The enemy had attacked in great
strength from south of Arras to the Oise; but everywhere he had
been repulsed and held in our battle-zone. The leading articles were
confident, the notes by the various military critics were almost
braggart. At last the German had been driven to an offensive, and
the Allies would have the opportunity they had longed for of
proving their superior fighting strength. It was, said one and all,
the opening of the last phase of the war.

I confess that as I read my heart sank. If the civilians were so
over-confident, might not the generals have fallen into the same
trap? Blenkiron alone was unperturbed. Mary said nothing, but she
sat with her chin in her hands, which with her was a sure sign of
deep preoccupation.

Next morning the papers could tell us little more. The main
attack had been on both sides of St Quentin, and though the British
had given ground it was only the outposts line that had gone. The
mist had favoured the enemy, and his bombardment had been
terrific, especially the gas shells. Every journal added the old old
comment - that he had paid heavily for his temerity, with losses far
exceeding those of the defence.

Wake appeared at breakfast in his private's uniform. He wanted
to get his railway warrant and be off at once, but when I heard that
Amiens was his destination I ordered him to stay and travel with
me in the afternoon. I was in uniform myself now and had taken
charge of the outfit. I arranged that Blenkiron, Mary, and Peter
should go on to Boulogne and sleep the night there, while Wake
and I would be dropped at Amiens to await instructions.

I spent a busy morning. Once again I visited with Blenkiron the
little cabinet in the Boulevard St Germain, and told in every detail
our work of the past two months. Once again I sat in the low
building beside the Invalides and talked to staff officers. But some
of the men I had seen on the first visit were not there. The chiefs of
the French Army had gone north.

We arranged for the handling of the Wild Birds, now safely in
France, and sanction was given to the course I had proposed to
adopt with Ivery. He and his guard were on their way to Amiens,
and I would meet them there on the morrow. The great men were
very complimentary to us, so complimentary that my knowledge of
grammatical French ebbed away and I could only stutter in reply.
That telegram sent by Blenkiron on the night of the 18th, from the
information given me in the Pink Chalet, had done wonders in
clearing up the situation.

But when I asked them about the battle they could tell me little.
It was a very serious attack in tremendous force, but the British line
was strong and the reserves were believed to be sufficient. Petain
and Foch had gone north to consult with Haig. The situation in
Champagne was still obscure, but some French reserves were already
moving thence to the Somme sector. One thing they did show me,
the British dispositions. As I looked at the plan I saw that my old
division was in the thick of the fighting.

'Where do you go now?' I was asked.

'To Amiens, and then, please God, to the battle front,' I said.

'Good fortune to you. You do not give body or mind much rest,
my general.'

After that I went to the _Mission _Anglaise, but they had nothing
beyond Haig's communique and a telephone message from G.H.Q.
that the critical sector was likely to be that between St Quentin and
the Oise. The northern pillar of our defence, south of Arras, which
they had been nervous about, had stood like a rock. That pleased
me, for my old battalion of the Lennox Highlanders was there.

Crossing the Place de la Concorde, we fell in with a British staff
officer of my acquaintance, who was just starting to motor back to
G.H.Q. from Paris leave. He had a longer face than the people at
the Invalides.

'I don't like it, I tell you,' he said. 'It's this mist that worries me. I
went down the whole line from Arras to the Oise ten days ago. It was
beautifully sited, the cleverest thing you ever saw. The outpost line was
mostly a chain of blobs - redoubts, you know, with machine-guns - so
arranged as to bring flanking fire to bear on the advancing enemy. But
mist would play the devil with that scheme, for the enemy would be
past the place for flanking fire before we knew it... Oh, I know we had
good warning, and had the battle-zone manned in time, but the outpost
line was meant to hold out long enough to get everything behind in
apple-pie order, and I can't see but how big chunks of it must have gone
in the first rush. ... Mind you, we've banked everything on that battle-
zone. It's damned good, but if it's gone -'He flung up his hands.

'Have we good reserves?' I asked.

He shrugged his shoulders.

'Have we positions prepared behind the battle-zone?'

'i didn't notice any,' he said dryly, and was off before I could get
more out of him.

'You look rattled, Dick,' said Blenkiron as we walked to the hotel.

'I seem to have got the needle. It's silly, but I feel worse about
this show than I've ever felt since the war started. Look at this city
here. The papers take it easily, and the people are walking about as
if nothing was happening. Even the soldiers aren't worried. You
may call me a fool to take it so hard, but I've a sense in my bones
that we're in for the bloodiest and darkest fight of our lives, and
that soon Paris will be hearing the Boche guns as she did in 1914.'

'You're a cheerful old Jeremiah. Well, I'm glad Miss Mary's
going to be in England soon. Seems to me she's right and that this
game of ours isn't quite played out yet. I'm envying you some, for
there's a place waiting for you in the fighting line.'

'You've got to get home and keep people's heads straight there.
That's the weak link in our chain and there's a mighty lot of work
before you.'

'Maybe,' he said abstractedly, with his eye on the top of the
Vendome column.

The train that afternoon was packed with officers recalled from
leave, and it took all the combined purchase of Blenkiron and myself
to get a carriage reserved for our little party. At the last moment I
opened the door to admit a warm and agitated captain of the R.F.C.
in whom I recognized my friend and benefactor, Archie Roylance.

'Just when I was gettin' nice and clean and comfy a wire comes
tellin' me to bundle back, all along of a new battle. It's a cruel war,
Sir.' The afflicted young man mopped his forehead, grinned cheerfully
at Blenkiron, glanced critically at Peter, then caught sight of
Mary and grew at once acutely conscious of his appearance. He
smoothed his hair, adjusted his tie and became desperately sedate.

I introduced him to Peter and he promptly forgot Mary's existence.
If Peter had had any vanity in him it would have been
flattered by the frank interest and admiration in the boy's eyes.
'I'm tremendously glad to see you safe back, sir. I've always
hoped I might have a chance of meeting you. We want you badly
now on the front. Lensch is gettin' a bit uppish.'

Then his eye fell on Peter's withered leg and he saw that he had
blundered. He blushed scarlet and looked his apologies. But they
weren't needed, for it cheered Peter to meet someone who talked of
the possibility of his fighting again. Soon the two were deep in
technicalities, the appalling technicalities of the airman. It was no
good listening to their talk, for you could make nothing of it, but it
was bracing up Peter like wine. Archie gave him a minute description
of Lensch's latest doings and his new methods. He, too, had
heard the rumour that Peter had mentioned to me at St Anton, of a
new Boche plane, with mighty engines and stumpy wings cunningly
cambered, which was a devil to climb; but no specimens had yet
appeared over the line. They talked of Bali, and Rhys Davids, and
Bishop, and McCudden, and all the heroes who had won their
spurs since the Somme, and of the new British makes, most of
which Peter had never seen and had to have explained to him.

Outside a haze had drawn over the meadows with the twilight. I
pointed it out to Blenkiron.

'There's the fog that's doing us. This March weather is just like
October, mist morning and evening. I wish to Heaven we could
have some good old drenching spring rain.'

Archie was discoursing of the Shark-Gladas machine.

'I've always stuck to it, for it's a marvel in its way, but it has my
heart fairly broke. The General here knows its little tricks. Don't
you, sir? Whenever things get really excitin', the engine's apt to
quit work and take a rest.'

'The whole make should be publicly burned,' I said, with
gloomy recollections.

'I wouldn't go so far, sir. The old Gladas has surprisin' merits.
On her day there's nothing like her for pace and climbing-power,
and she steers as sweet as a racin' cutter. The trouble about her is
she's too complicated. She's like some breeds of car - you want to
be a mechanical genius to understand her ... If they'd only get her
a little simpler and safer, there wouldn't be her match in the field.
I'm about the only man that has patience with her and knows her
merits, but she's often been nearly the death of me. All the same, if
I were in for a big fight against some fellow like Lensch, where it
was neck or nothing, I'm hanged if I wouldn't pick the Gladas.'

Archie laughed apologetically. 'The subject is banned for me in
our mess. I'm the old thing's only champion, and she's like a mare I
used to hunt that loved me so much she was always tryin' to chew
the arm off me. But I wish I could get her a fair trial from one of
the big pilots. I'm only in the second class myself after all.'

We were running north of St just when above the rattle of the
train rose a curious dull sound. It came from the east, and was like
the low growl of a veld thunderstorm, or a steady roll of muffled drums.

'Hark to the guns!' cried Archie. 'My aunt, there's a tidy bombardment
goin' on somewhere.'

I had been listening on and off to guns for three years. I had
been present at the big preparations before Loos and the Somme
and Arras, and I had come to accept the racket of artillery as
something natural and inevitable like rain or sunshine. But this
sound chilled me with its eeriness, I don't know why. Perhaps it
was its unexpectedness, for I was sure that the guns had not been
heard in this area since before the Marne. The noise must be
travelling down the Oise valley, and I judged there was big fighting
somewhere about Chauny or La Fere. That meant that the enemy
was pressing hard on a huge front, for here was clearly a great
effort on his extreme left wing. Unless it was our counter-attack.
But somehow I didn't think so.

I let down the window and stuck my head into the night. The
fog had crept to the edge of the track, a gossamer mist through
which houses and trees and cattle could be seen dim in the moonlight.
The noise continued - not a mutter, but a steady rumbling
flow as solid as the blare of a trumpet. Presently, as we drew nearer
Amiens, we left it behind us, for in all the Somme valley there is
some curious configuration which blankets sound. The countryfolk
call it the 'Silent Land', and during the first phase of the
Somme battle a man in Amiens could not hear the guns twenty
miles off at Albert.

As I sat down again I found that the company had fallen silent,
even the garrulous Archie. Mary's eyes met mine, and in the indifferent
light of the French railway-carriage I could see excitement in
them - I knew it was excitement, not fear. She had never heard the
noise of a great barrage before. Blenkiron was restless, and Peter
was sunk in his own thoughts. I was growing very depressed, for
in a little I would have to part from my best friends and the girl I
loved. But with the depression was mixed an odd expectation,
which was almost pleasant. The guns had brought back my
profession to me, I was moving towards their thunder, and God only
knew the end of it. The happy dream I had dreamed of the Cotswolds
and a home with Mary beside me seemed suddenly to have
fallen away to an infinite distance. I felt once again that I was on
the razor-edge of life.

The last part of the journey I was casting back to rake up my
knowledge of the countryside. I saw again the stricken belt from
Serre to Combles where we had fought in the summer Of '17. I had
not been present in the advance of the following spring, but I had
been at Cambrai and I knew all the down country from Lagnicourt
to St Quentin. I shut my eyes and tried to picture it, and to see the
roads running up to the line, and wondered just at what points the
big pressure had come. They had told me in Paris that the British
were as far south as the Oise, so the bombardment we had heard
must be directed to our address. With Passchendaele and Cambrai
in my mind, and some notion of the difficulties we had always had
in getting drafts, I was puzzled to think where we could have
found the troops to man the new front. We must be unholily thin
on that long line. And against that awesome bombardment! And the
masses and the new tactics that Ivery had bragged of!

When we ran into the dingy cavern which is Amiens station I
seemed to note a new excitement. I felt it in the air rather than
deduced it from any special incident, except that the platform was
very crowded with civilians, most of them with an extra amount of
baggage. I wondered if the place had been bombed the night before.

'We won't say goodbye yet,' I told the others. 'The train doesn't
leave for half an hour. I'm off to try and get news.'
Accompanied by Archie, I hunted out an R.T.O. of my acquaintance.
To my questions he responded cheerfully.

'Oh, we're doing famously, sir. I heard this afternoon from a
man in Operations that G.H.Q. was perfectly satisfied. We've killed
a lot of Huns and only lost a few kilometres of ground ... You're
going to your division? Well, it's up Peronne way, or was last
night. Cheyne and Dunthorpe came back from leave and tried to
steal a car to get up to it ... Oh, I'm having the deuce of a time.
These blighted civilians have got the wind up, and a lot are trying
to clear out. The idiots say the Huns will be in Amiens in a week.
What's the phrase? "__Pourvu que les civils _tiennent." 'Fraid I must
push on, Sir.'

I sent Archie back with these scraps of news and was about to
make a rush for the house of one of the Press officers, who would,
I thought, be in the way of knowing things, when at the station
entrance I ran across Laidlaw. He had been B.G.G.S. in the corps
to which my old brigade belonged, and was now on the staff of
some army. He was striding towards a car when I grabbed his arm,
and he turned on me a very sick face.

'Good Lord, Hannay! Where did you spring from? The news,
you say?' He sank his voice, and drew me into a quiet corner. 'The
news is hellish.'

'They told me we were holding,' I observed.

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