Mr. Standfast

icket

ey, and the last tramping over a ridge of downland through great beech-woods to my quarters for the night. In the first part I was in an infamous temper; in the second I w

Matabele and South African medals and the Legion of Honour, I had a chest like the High Priest's breastplate. I rejoined in January, and got a brigade on the eve of Arras. There we had a star turn, and took about as many prisoners as we put infantry over the top. After that we were hauled out for a month, and subsequently planted in a bad bit on the Scarpe with a hint that we would soon be used for a big push. Then suddenly I was ordered home to

to work to find out all about me. He was a tremendous fire-eater, and a bit of a pessimist abo

ng with Both

'I'm not the f

utenant screwe

onscription in

rt who, if he had been under fifty, would have crawled on his belly to his tribunal to get exempted, but being over age was able to pose as a patriot. But I didn't like

till under forty, and with another year of the war there was no saying where I might end. I had started out without any ambition, only a great wish to see the business finished. But now I had acquired a professional interest in the thing, I had a nailing good brigade, and I

or. It was the old game of running me in blinkers. They asked me to take it on trust an

f it was

uppose we could have wrung an active brigadier out of

?' was my ne

un-damnably,'

't tell me a

We are going to ask you for something which will make a big call on your patriotism. It will be a difficult and arduous task, and it may be a very grim

ce and Macgillivray's steady eyes. These me

. 'I'm willing. Wha

e an engineer just back from South Africa, and that you don't care a rush about the war. You can't understand what all the fools are fighting about, and you think we might have pe

my mouth fell, for Bulli

e that way myself, when my dinner doesn't agree with me. It's not so hard a

irst. I must see a fellow in my brigade who is in a shell-sho

only a couple of miles off. I want you to spend next Thursday night as the guest of two maiden ladies called Wymondham at Fosse Manor.

t my orde

er bond to obey them.' And Bullivant

e and the summer, being engaged in reprobating Bullivant and cursing my fantastic fate. I detested my new part and looked forward to naked shame. It was bad enough for anyone to have to pose as a pacifist, but for me, strong as a bull and as sunburnt as a gipsy and not looking my forty years, it was a black disgrace.

scratch on him, but as daft as a hatter. I had heard he was mending, and had promised his family to look him up the first chance I got. I found him sitting on a garden seat, staring steadily before him like a lookout at sea. He knew me all right and cheered up for a second, but very soon he was back at his staring, and every word he

rica, for I wanted to keep his thoughts of

he damned thing

in all right ... What you've got to do, my lad, is to sleep fourteen hours in the twenty-four and spend half the rest

e still ranked as a flapper. She wore the neat blue dress and apron of a V.A.D. and her white cap was set on hair like spun gold. She smiled demurely as she arranged the tea-things, and I

's that?' I a

aid listlessly. 'There are squads of

in something so fresh and jolly as that girl. Presently my time was up and I had to go, and as I look

ecord time and went out to France; and presently even we foot-sloggers, busy shifting ground before the Somme, began to hear rumours of his doings. He developed a perfect genius for air-fighting. There were plenty better trick-flyers, and plenty who knew more about the science of the game, but there was no one with quite Peter's genius for an actual scrap. He was as full of dodges a couple of miles up in the sky as he had been among the rocks of the Berg. He apparently knew how to hide in the empty air as cleverly as in the long grass of the Lebombo Flats. Amazing yarns began to circulate among the infantry about this new airman, who could take cover below one plane of an enemy squadron while all the rest were looking for him. I remember talking about him with the South Africans when we were out

rmy knew all about him, and the men in the trenches used to discuss him as if he were a crack football-player. There was a very big German airman called Lensch, one of the Albatross heroes, who about the end of August claimed to have destroyed thirty-two Allied machines. Peter had then only seventeen planes to his credit, but he was rapidly increasing his score. Lensch was a mighty man of valour and a goo

airwork. When our bombing or reconnaissance jobs behind the enemy lines were completed, instead of being able to glide back into safety, we had to fight our way home slowly against a head-wind exposed to Archies and Hun planes. Somewhere east of Bapaume on a return j

way of comfort. I inferred that his captors had not identified in the brilliant airman the Dutch miscreant who a year before had broken out of a German jail. He had discovered the pleasures of reading and had perfected himself in an art which he had once pr

heery as if it were a winter morning on the high veld and we were off to ride down springbok. I knew what the loss of a leg must mean to him, for bodily fitness had always been his pride. The rest of life must have unrolled itself before him very drab and dusty to the grave. But he wrote as if he w

led leaves in my bed of life compared with the thorns Peter and Blaikie had to lie on. I thought of Sandy far off in Mesopotamia, and old Blenkiron groaning with dyspepsia somewhere in America, and I considered that they were the kind of fellows who did their jobs withou

then over a short stretch of hill pasture to the rim of the vale. All about me were little fields enclosed with walls of grey stone and full of dim sheep. Below were dusky woods around what I took to be Fosse Manor, for the great Roman Fosse Way, straight as an arrow, passed over the hills to the south and skirted its

when I thought of home it had been the wide sun-steeped spaces of the veld or some scented glen of the Berg. But now I realized that I had a new home. I understood what a precious thing this little England was, how old and kindly and comforting, how wholly worth striving for. The freedom of an acre of her soil was cheaply bought by the blood of the best of us. I knew what it mea

ut on a water-garden. For the first time for more than a year I put on a starched shirt and a dinner-jacket, and as I dressed I could have sung from pure lightheartedness. I was in for some arduous job, and sometime that evening in that place I should get my marching orders. Someone would arrive-perhaps Bullivant-and read

that of young girls. Miss Doria Wymondham was tall and thin with a mass of nondescript pale hair confined by a black velvet fillet. Miss Claire Wymondham was shorter and plumper and had done her best by ill-applied cosmetics to make herself look like a foreign demi-mondaine. They greeted me with the friendly casualness which I

s. In the glow of the lamp his features were very clear, and I examined them with interest, for, remember, I was expecting a stranger to give me orders. He had a long, rather strong chin and an obstinate mouth with peevish line

couched in a jargon of which I did not understand o

auncelot Wak

s hand went up to smooth his h

ced dinner? By the

'I won't have her spoiling the evening with that horrid uniform. She may ma

ong,' cried Miss Doria, 'for I'm sure you are starv

-black satiny paper on which hung the most monstrous pictures in large dull-gold frames. I could only see them dimly, but they se

ire. 'How subtle and candid and brave! D

strained and uneasy and abnormal-the candle shades on the table, the mass of faked china fruit in the centre dish, th

e face propped on a much-beringed hand. 'You are on

y part. 'I think a little common-

ense it would never hav

.O., you know,'

ust about to ask him what he commanded, when I remembered that the

my right hand. I turned and saw the V.A.D. girl who had

never had a chance of testifying in court, but no one has done better work for our cause.

and was going to begin some kind of explanation, when Miss Doria cut him short

scape for all its peace, and to the noble old chambers of the Manor.

g me in. They were talking about some Russian novel-a name like Leprous Souls-and she asked me if I had read it. By a curious chance I had. It had drifted somehow into our dug-out on the Scarpe, and after we had all stuck in the second chapter it had di

by a cap, she was the most ravishing thing you ever saw. And I observed something else. There was more than good looks in her young face. Her broad, low brow and

me reveal myself. I'm Mary Lamington and these a

she belonged to the out-of-doors and to the old house and to the world at large. She belonged to the war, and to that happie

ion seemed to leave the flowery paths of art and to verge perilously near forbidden topics. He began to abuse our generals in the fi

here he got the stuff I can't imagine, for the most grousing Tommy, with his leave st

ct,' I said, 'but out in South Africa I did hear that the British lead

t the girl at my side seem

s very clear that Wake was not the fellow to give me my instructions. He wasn't playing a game. He was a perfectly honest crank, but not a fanatic, for he wasn't sure of himself. He had somehow lost his self-respect and was trying to argue himself back into it. He had considerable brains, for the reasons he gave for differing from most o

s bicycle. It appeared he was staying at an inn a dozen miles off for a couple of days' fishing, and the news somehow made m

getting late and there seemed to be no preparation in the house to receive anybody. The bu

r. 'There 'asn't been a telegram that I kn

ough the lattice invited me out-of-doors as a cure for my anxiety. It was after eleven o'clock, and I was still without any knowledge

iniature lake. By the water's edge was a little formal garden with grey stone parapets which now gleamed like dusky marble. Great wafts of scent r

organs. But heard in the scented moonlight it seemed to hold all the lingering magic of an elder Englan

my presence, for sh

, 'now that the house is quiet. I have s

be somehow in the business

I cried. 'Who and what are you-living

about their souls, but they really mean their nerves. Why, th

adaverous y

-perhaps something a little more. Y

agerness. 'How can I tell that you are the right person for me to

wait here for further instructions. You met them in the little smoking-room at the back of the Rota Club. You were bidden take

fect

ger to give you these instructions. Set your mind at ease.

hem from a more wel

to you who don't need the explanation, every step in the business of the Black Stone. I think I could draw a pretty accurate map of y

my heart

rticular kind of life. Your first duty is to get "atmosphere", as your friend Peter used to say. Oh, I will tell you where to go and

and laid a h

d are engrossed in what you and I would call selfish little fads. Yes. People like my aunts and Launcelot, only for the most part in a different social grade. You won't live in an old manor like this, but among gimcrack little "arty" houses. You will hear everything yo

some clue as to what I

going without any kind of parti pris. Remember we are still in the intelligence stage of

said. 'Is it a really

world. Till we succeed everything that Britain does is crippled. If we fail or succeed too late the Allies may never win the victory whic

he knew it, for she took m

box, and opening it extracted a thing like a pu

t. You will receive letters and messages some day and the style of our friends is apt to be reminiscent of John Bunyan ... The car will be at the door tomorrow to catch the ten-thirty, and I will g

we said good night in the h

s the answer. 'Rememb

ied and coloured with the thought of the girl who had sung 'Cherry Ripe' in the garden. I commended the wisdom of that o