Mr. Standfast

J >> John Buchan >> Mr. Standfast

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I spent a busy morning there, but found nothing except the
skeleton of a sheep picked clean by the ravens. It was a thankless
job, and I got very cross over it. I had an ugly feeling that I was on
a false scent and wasting my time. I wished to Heaven I had old
Peter with me. He could follow spoor like a Bushman, and would
have riddled the Portuguese jew's track out of any jungle on earth.
That was a game I had never learned, for in the old days I had always
left it to my natives. I chucked the attempt, and lay disconsolately
on a warm patch of grass and smoked and thought about Peter. But my
chief reflections were that I had breakfasted at five, that it was now
eleven, that I was intolerably hungry, that there was nothing here to
feed a grasshopper, and that I should starve unless I got supplies.

It was a long road to my cache, but there were no two ways of it.
My only hope was to sit tight in the glen, and it might involve a
wait of days. To wait I must have food, and, though it meant
relinquishing guard for a matter of six hours, the risk had to be
taken. I set off at a brisk pace with a very depressed mind.

From the map it seemed that a short cut lay over a pass in the
range. I resolved to take it, and that short cut, like most of its kind,
was unblessed by Heaven. I will not dwell upon the discomforts of
the journey. I found myself slithering among screes, climbing steep
chimneys, and travelling precariously along razor-backs. The shoes
were nearly rent from my feet by the infernal rocks,which were all
pitted as if by some geological small-pox. When at last I crossed the
divide, I had a horrible business getting down from one level to
another in a gruesome corrie, where each step was composed of
smooth boiler-plates. But at last I was among the bogs on the east
side, and came to the place beside the road where I had fixed my cache.

The faithful Amos had not failed me. There were the provisions -
a couple of small loaves, a dozen tins, and a bottle of whisky. I
made the best pack I could of them in my waterproof, swung it on
my stick, and started back, thinking that I must be very like the
picture of Christian on the title-page of_Pilgrim's _Progress.

I was liker Christian before I reached my destination - Christian
after he had got up the Hill Difficulty. The morning's walk
had been bad, but the afternoon's was worse, for I was in a fever
to get back, and, having had enough of the hills, chose the longer
route I had followed the previous day. I was mortally afraid of
being seen, for I cut a queer figure, so I avoided every stretch of
road where I had not a clear view ahead. Many weary detours I
made among moss-hags and screes and the stony channels of
burns. But I got there at last, and it was almost with a sense of
comfort that I flung my pack down beside the stream where I
had passed the night.

I ate a good meal, lit my pipe, and fell into the equable mood
which follows upon fatigue ended and hunger satisfied. The sun
was westering, and its light fell upon the rock-wall above the place
where I had abandoned my search for the spoor.

As I gazed at it idly I saw a curious thing.

It seemed to be split in two and a shaft of sunlight came through
between. There could be no doubt about it. I saw the end of the
shaft on the moor beneath, while all the rest lay in shadow. I rubbed
my eyes, and got out my glasses. Then I guessed the explanation.
There was a rock tower close against the face of the main precipice
and indistinguishable from it to anyone looking direct at the face.
Only when the sun fell on it obliquely could it be discovered. And
between the tower and the cliff there must be a substantial hollow.

The discovery brought me to my feet, and set me running
towards the end of the shaft of sunlight. I left the heather, scrambled
up some yards of screes, and had a difficult time on some very
smooth slabs, where only the friction of tweed and rough rock
gave me a hold. Slowly I worked my way towards the speck of
sunlight, till I found a handhold, and swung myself into the crack.
On one side was the main wall of the hill, on the other a tower
some ninety feet high, and between them a long crevice varying in
width from three to six feet. Beyond it there showed a small bright
patch of sea.

There was more, for at the point where I entered it there was an
overhang which made a fine cavern, low at the entrance but a
dozen feet high inside, and as dry as tinder. Here, thought I, is the
perfect hiding-place. Before going farther I resolved to return for
food. It was not very easy descending, and I slipped the last twenty
feet, landing on my head in a soft patch of screes. At the burnside I
filled my flask from the whisky bottle, and put half a loaf, a tin of
sardines, a tin of tongue, and a packet of chocolate in my waterproof
pockets. Laden as I was, it took me some time to get up again, but
I managed it, and stored my belongings in a corner of the cave.
Then I set out to explore the rest of the crack.

It slanted down and then rose again to a small platform. After
that it dropped in easy steps to the moor beyond the tower. If the
Portuguese Jew had come here, that was the way by which he had
reached it, for he would not have had the time to make my ascent. I
went very cautiously, for I felt I was on the eve of a big discovery.
The platform was partly hidden from my end by a bend in the
crack, and it was more or less screened by an outlying bastion of
the tower from the other side. Its surface was covered with fine
powdery dust, as were the steps beyond it. In some excitement I
knelt down and examined it.

Beyond doubt there was spoor here. I knew the Portuguese
jew's footmarks by this time, and I made them out clearly, especially
in one corner. But there were other footsteps, quite different. The
one showed the rackets of rough country boots, the others were
from un-nailed soles. Again I longed for Peter to make certain,
though I was pretty sure of my conclusions. The man I had followed
had come here, and he had not stayed long. Someone else had been
here, probably later, for the un-nailed shoes overlaid the rackets.
The first man might have left a message for the second. Perhaps the
second was that human presence of which I had been dimly
conscious in the night-time.

I carefully removed all traces of my own footmarks, and went
back to my cave. My head was humming with my discovery. I
remembered Gresson's word to his friend: 'Tomorrow night.' As I
read it, the Portuguese Jew had taken a message from Gresson to
someone, and that someone had come from somewhere and picked
it up. The message contained an assignation for this very night. I
had found a point of observation, for no one was likely to come
near my cave, which was reached from the moor by such a toilsome
climb. There I should bivouac and see what the darkness brought
forth. I remember reflecting on the amazing luck which had so far
attended me. As I looked from my refuge at the blue haze of
twilight creeping over the waters, I felt my pulses quicken with a
wild anticipation.

Then I heard a sound below me, and craned my neck round the
edge of the tower. A man was climbing up the rock by the way I
had come.

CHAPTER SEVEN
I Hear of the Wild Birds

I saw an old green felt hat, and below it lean tweed-clad shoulders.
Then I saw a knapsack with a stick slung through it, as the owner
wriggled his way on to a shelf. Presently he turned his face upward
to judge the remaining distance. It was the face of a young man, a
face sallow and angular, but now a little flushed with the day's sun
and the work of climbing. It was a face that I had first seen at
Fosse Manor.

I felt suddenly sick and heartsore. I don't know why, but I had
never really associated the intellectuals of Biggleswick with a business
like this. None of them but Ivery, and he was different. They
had been silly and priggish, but no more - I would have taken my
oath on it. Yet here was one of them engaged in black treason
against his native land. Something began to beat in my temples
when I remembered that Mary and this man had been friends, that
he had held her hand, and called her by her Christian name. My
first impulse was to wait till he got up and then pitch him down
among the boulders and let his German accomplices puzzle over his
broken neck.

With difficulty I kept down that tide of fury. I had my duty to
do, and to keep on terms with this man was part of it. I had to
convince him that I was an accomplice, and that might not be easy.
I leaned over the edge, and, as he got to his feet on the ledge above
the boiler-plates, I whistled so that he turned his face to me.
'Hullo, Wake,'I said.

He started, stared for a second, and recognized me. He did not
seem over-pleased to see me.

'Brand!' he cried. 'How did you get here?'

He swung himself up beside me, straightened his back and
unbuckled his knapsack. 'I thought this was my own private sanctuary,
and that nobody knew it but me. Have you spotted the cave?
It's the best bedroom in Skye.' His tone was, as usual, rather acid.

That little hammer was beating in my head. I longed to get my
hands on his throat and choke the smug treason in him. But I kept
my mind fixed on one purpose - to persuade him that I shared his
secret and was on his side. His off-hand self-possession seemed only
the clever screen of the surprised conspirator who was hunting for
a plan.

We entered the cave, and he flung his pack into a corner. 'Last
time I was here,' he said, 'I covered the floor with heather. We
must get some more if we would sleep soft.' In the twilight he was
a dim figure, but he seemed a new man from the one I had last seen
in the Moot Hall at Biggleswick. There was a wiry vigour in his
body and a purpose in his face. What a fool I had been to set him
down as no more than a conceited fidneur!

He went out to the shelf again and sniffed the fresh evening.
There was a wonderful red sky in the west, but in the crevice the
shades had fallen, and only the bright patches at either end told of
the sunset.
'Wake,' I said, 'you and I have to understand each other. I'm a
friend of Ivery and I know the meaning of this place. I discovered
it by accident, but I want you to know that I'm heart and soul with
you. You may trust me in tonight's job as if I were Ivery himself.'

He swung round and looked at me sharply. His eyes were hot
again, as I remembered them at our first meeting.

'What do you mean? How much do you know?'

The hammer was going hard in my forehead, and I had to pull
myself together to answer.

'I know that at the end of this crack a message was left last night,
and that someone came out of the sea and picked it up. That
someone is coming again when darkness falls, and there will be
another message.'

He had turned his head away. 'You are talking nonsense. No
submarine could land on this coast.'

I could see that he was trying me.
'This morning,' I said, 'I swam in the deep-water inlet below us.
It is the most perfect submarine shelter in Britain.'

He still kept his face from me, looking the way he had come. For
a moment he was silent, and then he spoke in the bitter, drawling
voice which had annoyed me at Fosse Manor.

'How do you reconcile this business with your principles, Mr
Brand? You were always a patriot, I remember, though you didn't
see eye to eye with the Government.'

It was not quite what I expected and I was unready. I stammered
in my reply. 'It's because I am a patriot that I want peace. I think
that ... I mean ...'

'Therefore you are willing to help the enemy to win?'

'They have already won. I want that recognized and the end
hurried on.' I was getting my mind clearer and continued fluently.
'The longer the war lasts, the worse this country is ruined. We
must make the people realize the truth, and -'

But he swung round suddenly, his eyes blazing.

'You blackguard!' he cried, 'you damnable blackguard!' And he
flung himself on me like a wild-cat.

I had got my answer. He did not believe me, he knew me for a
spy, and he was determined to do me in. We were beyond finesse
now, and back at the old barbaric game. It was his life or mine.
The hammer beat furiously in my head as we closed, and a fierce
satisfaction rose in my heart.
He never had a chance, for though he was in good trim and had
the light, wiry figure of the mountaineer, he hadn't a quarter of my
muscular strength. Besides, he was wrongly placed, for he had the
outside station. Had he been on the inside he might have toppled
me over the edge by his sudden assault. As it was, I grappled him
and forced him to the ground, squeezing the breath out of his body
in the process. I must have hurt him considerably, but he never
gave a cry. With a good deal of trouble I lashed his hands behind
his back with the belt of my waterproof, carried him inside the cave
and laid him in the dark end of it. Then I tied his feet with the
strap of his own knapsack. I would have to gag him, but that could wait.

I had still to contrive a plan of action for the night, for I did not
know what part he had been meant to play in it. He might be the
messenger instead of the Portuguese Jew, in which case he would
have papers about his person. If he knew of the cave, others might
have the same knowledge, and I had better shift him before they
came. I looked at my wrist-watch, and the luminous dial showed
that the hour was half past nine.

Then I noticed that the bundle in the corner was sobbing.
It was a horrid sound and it worried me. I had a little pocket
electric torch and I flashed it on Wake's face. If he was crying, it
was with dry eyes.

'What are you going to do with me?' he asked.

'That depends,' I said grimly.

'Well, I'm ready. I may be a poor creature, but I'm damned if
I'm afraid of you, or anything like you.' That was a brave thing to
say, for it was a lie; his teeth were chattering.

'I'm ready for a deal,' I said.

'You won't get it,' was his answer. 'Cut my throat if you mean to,
but for God's sake don't insult me ... I choke when I think about you.
You come to us and we welcome you, and receive you in our houses,
and tell you our inmost thoughts, and all the time you're a bloody
traitor. You want to sell us to Germany. You may win now, but by
God! your time will come! That is my last word to you ... you swine!'

The hammer stopped beating in my head. I saw myself suddenly
as a blind, preposterous fool. I strode over to Wake, and he shut
his eyes as if he expected a blow. Instead I unbuckled the straps
which held his legs and arms.

'Wake, old fellow,' I said, 'I'm the worst kind of idiot. I'll eat all
the dirt you want. I'll give you leave to knock me black and blue,
and I won't lift a hand. But not now. Now we've another job on
hand. Man, we're on the same side and I never knew it. It's too bad
a case for apologies, but if it's any consolation to you I feel the
lowest dog in Europe at this moment.'

He was sitting up rubbing his bruised shoulders. 'What do you
mean?' he asked hoarsely.

'I mean that you and I are allies. My name's not Brand. I'm a
soldier - a general, if you want to know. I went to Biggleswick
under orders, and I came chasing up here on the same job. Ivery's
the biggest German agent in Britain and I'm after him. I've struck
his communication lines, and this very night, please God, we'll get
the last clue to the riddle. Do you hear? We're in this business
together, and you've got to lend a hand.'

I told him briefly the story of Gresson, and how I had tracked
his man here. As I talked we ate our supper, and I wish I could
have watched Wake's face. He asked questions, for he wasn't convinced
in a hurry. I think it was my mention of Mary Lamington
that did the trick. I don't know why, but that seemed to satisfy
him. But he wasn't going to give himself away.

'You may count on me,' he said, 'for this is black, blackguardly
treason. But you know my politics, and I don't change them for
this. I'm more against your accursed war than ever, now that I
know what war involves.'

'Right-o,' I said, 'I'm a pacifist myself. You won't get any
heroics about war from me. I'm all for peace, but we've got to
down those devils first.'

It wasn't safe for either of us to stick in that cave, so we cleared
away the marks of our occupation, and hid our packs in a deep
crevice on the rock. Wake announced his intention of climbing the
tower, while there was still a faint afterglow of light. 'It's broad on
the top, and I can keep a watch out to sea if any light shows. I've
been up it before. I found the way two years ago. No, I won't fall
asleep and tumble off. I slept most of the afternoon on the top of
Sgurr Vhiconnich, and I'm as wakeful as a bat now.'

I watched him shin up the face of the tower, and admired greatly
the speed and neatness with which he climbed. Then I followed the
crevice southward to the hollow just below the platform where I
had found the footmarks. There was a big boulder there, which
partly shut off the view of it from the direction of our cave. The
place was perfect for my purpose, for between the boulder and the
wall of the tower was a narrow gap, through which I could hear all
that passed on the platform. I found a stance where I could rest in
comfort and keep an eye through the crack on what happened beyond.

There was still a faint light on the platform, but soon that
disappeared and black darkness settled down on the hills. It was the
dark of the moon, and, as had happened the night before, a thin
wrack blew over the sky, hiding the stars. The place was very still,
though now and then would come the cry of a bird from the crags
that beetled above me, and from the shore the pipe of a tern or
oyster-catcher. An owl hooted from somewhere up on the tower.
That I reckoned was Wake, so I hooted back and was answered.
I unbuckled my wrist-watch and pocketed it, lest its luminous
dial should betray me; and I noticed that the hour was close on
eleven. I had already removed my shoes, and my jacket was
buttoned at the collar so as to show no shirt. I did not think that
the coming visitor would trouble to explore the crevice beyond the
platform, but I wanted to be prepared for emergencies.

Then followed an hour of waiting. I felt wonderfully cheered
and exhilarated, for Wake had restored my confidence in human
nature. In that eerie place we were wrapped round with mystery
like a fog. Some unknown figure was coming out of the sea, the
emissary of that Power we had been at grips with for three years. It
was as if the war had just made contact with our own shores, and
never, not even when I was alone in the South German forest, had
I felt so much the sport of a whimsical fate. I only wished Peter
could have been with me. And so my thoughts fled to Peter in his
prison camp, and I longed for another sight of my old friend as a
girl longs for her lover.

Then I heard the hoot of an owl, and presently the sound of
careful steps fell on my ear. I could see nothing, but I guessed it
was the Portuguese Jew, for I could hear the grinding of heavily
nailed boots on the gritty rock.

The figure was very quiet. It appeared to be sitting down, and
then it rose and fumbled with the wall of the tower just beyond the
boulder behind which I sheltered. It seemed to move a stone and to
replace it. After that came silence, and then once more the hoot of
an owl. There were steps on the rock staircase, the steps of a man
who did not know the road well and stumbled a little. Also they
were the steps of one without nails in his boots.

They reached the platform and someone spoke. It was the Portuguese
Jew and he spoke in good German.

'__Die vogelein schweigen im _Walde,' he said.

The answer came from a clear, authoritative voice.

'__Warte nur, balde ruhest du _auch.'

Clearly some kind of password, for sane men don't talk about
little birds in that kind of situation. It sounded to me like indifferent
poetry.

Then followed a conversation in low tones, of which I only
caught odd phrases. I heard two names - Chelius and what sounded
like a Dutch word, Bommaerts. Then to my joy I caught _Effenbein,
and when uttered it seemed to be followed by a laugh. I heard too a
phrase several times repeated, which seemed to me to be pure gibberish -
__Die Stubenvogel _verstehn. It was spoken by the man from the
sea. And then the word _Wildvogel. The pair seemed demented about birds.

For a second an electric torch was flashed in the shelter of the
rock, and I could see a tanned, bearded face looking at some
papers. The light disappeared, and again the Portuguese Jew was
fumbling with the stones at the base of the tower. To my joy he
was close to my crack, and I could hear every word. 'You cannot
come here very often,' he said, 'and it may be hard to arrange a
meeting. See, therefore, the place I have made to put the _Viageffutter.
When I get a chance I will come here, and you will come also when
you are able. Often there will be nothing, but sometimes there will
be much.'

My luck was clearly in, and my exultation made me careless. A
stone, on which a foot rested, slipped and though I checked myself
at once, the confounded thing rolled down into the hollow, making
a great clatter. I plastered myself in the embrasure of the rock and
waited with a beating heart. The place was pitch dark, but they had
an electric torch, and if they once flashed it on me I was gone. I
heard them leave the platform and climb down into the hollow.
There they stood listening, while I held my breath. Then I heard
'_Nix, _mein _freund,' and the two went back, the naval officer's boots
slipping on the gravel.
They did not leave the platform together. The man from the sea
bade a short farewell to the Portuguese Jew, listening, I thought,
impatiently to his final message as if eager to be gone. It was a
good half-hour before the latter took himself off, and I heard the
sound of his nailed boots die away as he reached the heather of the moor.

I waited a little longer, and then crawled back to the cave. The
owl hooted, and presently Wake descended lightly beside me; he
must have known every foothold and handhold by heart to do the
job in that inky blackness. I remember that he asked no question of
me, but he used language rare on the lips of conscientious objectors
about the men who had lately been in the crevice. We, who four
hours earlier had been at death grips, now curled up on the hard
floor like two tired dogs, and fell sound asleep.

I woke to find Wake in a thundering bad temper. The thing he
remembered most about the night before was our scrap and the
gross way I had insulted him. I didn't blame him, for if any man
had taken me for a German spy I would have been out for his
blood, and it was no good explaining that he had given me grounds
for suspicion. He was as touchy about his blessed principles as an
old maid about her age. I was feeling rather extra buckish myself
and that didn't improve matters. His face was like a gargoyle as we
went down to the beach to bathe, so I held my tongue. He was
chewing the cud of his wounded pride.

But the salt water cleared out the dregs of his distemper. You
couldn't be peevish swimming in that jolly, shining sea. We raced
each other away beyond the inlet to the outer water, which a brisk
morning breeze was curling. Then back to a promontory of heather,
where the first beams of the sun coming over the Coolin dried our
skins. He sat hunched up staring at the mountains while I prospected
the rocks at the edge. Out in the Minch two destroyers were
hurrying southward, and I wondered where in that waste of blue
was the craft which had come here in the night watches.

I found the spoor of the man from the sea quite fresh on a patch
of gravel above the tide-mark.

'There's our friend of the night,' I said.

'I believe the whole thing was a whimsy,' said Wake, his eyes on
the chimneys of Sgurr Dearg. 'They were only two natives - poachers,
perhaps, or tinkers.'

'They don't speak German in these parts.'
'It was Gaelic probably.'

'What do you make of this, then?' and I quoted the stuff about
birds with which they had greeted each other.

Wake looked interested. 'That's _Uber _allen _Gipfeln. Have you ever
read Goethe?'
'Never a word. And what do you make of that?' I pointed to a
flat rock below tide-mark covered with a tangle of seaweed. It was
of a softer stone than the hard stuff in the hills and somebody had
scraped off half the seaweed and a slice of the side. 'That wasn't
done yesterday morning, for I had my bath here.'

Wake got up and examined the place. He nosed about in the
crannies of the rocks lining the inlet, and got into the water again
to explore better. When he joined me he was smiling. 'I apologize
for my scepticism,' he said. 'There's been some petrol-driven craft
here in the night. I can smell it, for I've a nose like a retriever. I
daresay you're on the right track. Anyhow, though you seem to
know a bit about German, you could scarcely invent immortal poetry.'

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