Part 9

"'I have called you gentlemen together,' he says to his officer, 'in order to ask you to corporate with me. I shall fire some rockets from the slag heap to-night about ten o'clock. On the first of these signals the Germans will open a very heavy cannonade on our trenches. I'll trouble you to have your men all in the dug-outs, and under cover at a quarter to ten!'

"That night, soon after the Colonel, Tommy and I started off for the slag heap in the dark, taking with us a bundle of rockets. My idea was at last going to be tested--what do you think it was, Sir?"

I discreetly pretended my utter inability to guess.

"Why, nothing more or less than to hoist these German blokes with their own petard, so to speak. We were going to fool them by giving them signals in their own code. Well, after stumbling and groping about for half an hour," McNab continued, "we arrived at the spot near where we had overlooked the spy.

"'I think this is the ledge from which I fell,' Tommy whispered as we crawled on. The next instant the Colonel disappeared, and the little procession came to an abrupt standstill. A crashing noise was heard as the old man with a quarter of a ton of slag went tobogganing down the stone-shod slope.

"'This _is_ the spot,' Tommy said tersely. And up to us came hoarse whispered curses as our ole man tongue-lashed us for a full minute in gross and detail.

"'Lie quite still, Colonel,' I whispered, 'the Hun swine-dogs may send up a flare if they hear us.'

"But no flare flared, and no sniper sniped.

"'This game gives me the blooming creeps,' old Tommy muttered shudderingly, thinking of Huns and guns three miles deep all round. After that the Colonel struggled clear of the 'alf ton of slag atop o' him. Tommy and I wandered a little more until we got down to the old man. Here we halted. 'Here's the place where we left the dead spy,' said Tommy, his eyes peering into the darkness of the V-shaped cutting. 'I can still see Fritz lying in the corner. We had better get right over _this_ side. Come on!'

"'I see,' said the Colonel. 'This is the key of the position. It overlooks the German trenches and when the spy was using his flash lamp he could not be observed by the men in our lines.'

"'Good thing we short-circuited his little game,' reflected Tommy hugging an arm full of rockets.

"'Ah!' says he, fingering the electric torch. 'How this game of war makes one think. My 'orizon has indeed broadened. Just to think that a few flashes from this little chap will mean more than all those glittering stars above to the German fellows in the trenches over there. It's simply ridiculous to waste our little concert on a few Huns in the trenches to-night. We must socialise the whole blooming show. We must get the head up of all the Huns for miles around. Let us consult the code book,' he said, and then opening it he read out some of the rocket codes. They all seemed simple enough. But he had some difficulty in finding the one he wanted, having first of all of course to translate them into English; but presently he seized upon the one he wanted, he repeated it over with delight:

"'_Two green rockets in rapid succession mean: "Enemy making active preparations for offensive movement" and when followed after a suitable interval by a single red rocket, mean: "Enemy will attack without delay."_'

"'Touch off two green rockets, McNab, if you please,' said the Colonel with a tremor in his voice.

"I touched off two three-pounders which rose several thousand yards, and burst into bunches of gorgeous stars. A faint clattering noise came to us from the Hun trenches, and we all hugged the earth fairly closely as a rapid fusillade broke out from all quarters. Rifles cracked all around us to the extent of thousands, and with that a most impressive humming noise, which I had never had the pleasure of hearing before, because being a soldier I had always formed a part of it--the noise of whole armies turning out to meet an attack.

"'Colonel,' I says, 'it may have escaped you that the angry and 'ighly intelligent Boche on our front will soon be sending up _their_ rockets to confuse our own men. Might I recommend a red rocket before they open their part of the ball, and bend the lights! That will spell to 'em: Enemy will attack without delay, and it will also expedite their artillery just a leetle.'

"The Colonel laid his hand on my shoulder.

"'McNab,' says he, 'there's worse blokes than you sitting on thrones. They shall 'ave that red rocket. None the less,' he remarked, 'the situation is undeniably getting a bit feverish. Trot out Red Rufus!'

"I rightly took the command to read:

"'Send up a red rocket.' Rufus soared up into the sky and burst into a red glare that simply shouted: 'Here they come after you' to the Huns.

"'Oh-h-h-h-h!' exclaimed old Tommy as the twirly-whirly red stars fell through the sky.

"'Silence!' said the old man. 'This is the sanguinary British Expeditionary Force, not a (decorated) Brock's Benefit at the Crystal Palace. What in Hong-Kong are you jumping about like a richly decorated organ-grinder's monkey for?'

"The Huns grasped the meaning of their dead spy's signal as soon as it showed in the heavens, so to speak. We lay belly-flat and held our breaths for a moment or so in silence, but we were about the only silent things for a hundred miles. Flares went up by the thousand and searchlights cut up the sky in every direction. All kinds of mysterious guns got into action and all the batteries for a hundred miles must have let drive as well. From then on, for at least two hours, the shells poured excruciating-wise into our deserted trenches without cessation,--shrapnel, high explosive, six inch, twelve inch--thousands of pounds the Huns wasted that night.

"I wish you could have seen Tommy bowing to right and left of the German trenches acknowledging the applause which the Huns would have given him if they'd known the facts. On the other hand, as the Colonel observed, they might 'ave killed him.

"'They'll have to pull up their socks at Krupp's to replace the shells they have blazed away in this little pantomime,' said Tommy pressing his hands to his sides. 'Star programme--heap big star programme! Phew! Oh, I wish I could stop laughing, I ain't 'ad such a laugh for years!'

"'And in this little code book here,' said the old man, a hand on each of our shoulders, 'there are hundreds of little love messages we can be getting ready to surprise 'em with. Presently we'll begin to send 'em instructions to concentrate their fire on empty houses--tell 'em they are chock-full of British troops. Then they'll fairly let loose the bow-yows of war. Damme, how their gunners will gun! Oblige me by thinking of four hundred guns, pumping val-u-able shells into an empty house.'

"The exquisite humour of it brought us down screaming with laughter in a tangle on the slag-heap. A searchlight broke out from the back of the Hun trenches and began searching our lines.

"'They're looking for our attacking party, or the Angels of Mons,' panted the old man, his knees in a shell hole and his face in the grass. 'Well, let's get our things packed and hurry back. I think they have sent back for a fresh supply of shells. The sooner we get out of it the better. Sufficient unto the day--or night, perhaps one should say.'

"Well, it's dry work talking," said McNab, wistfully surveying the interior of his empty mug.

I took measures--pint measures--to allay his thirst.

"Let me see now," he said; "let me see."

"And did you do any signalling with the flash lamp the next night?" I timidly hinted, "I believe you mentioned that it was your intention."

"Yes, we did have some fun, I can tell you, and 'twas better still next night. Once more we returned, to the slag-heap, then," McNab swept on, "we started to flash a few messages over to the German lines. They soon picked up our signals and after a brief interrogation they replied. Then they started to ask questions. 'At which part of the British line would it be wise to launch an attack?' they flashed.

"And our old man flashed back a trench that was fairly bristly with machine guns. Then they asked other questions, but we did not reply. We laid low and said nothing, for you can take it from me, mister, that a real spy is a man of few words, and playing with a flashlight in enemy lines is not exactly a healthy game.

"Had we have signalled too freely the Huns would have soon become suspicious, for, mark you, the flares that we had popped off at 'em the night before had left 'em with an uncomfortable feeling that their spy was taking quite unreasonable risks. It is of course most unusual for a spy to make use of rocket signals. Do I make myself comprehensible?"

"Perfectly. Did the Huns attack?" I asked.

McNab nodded. "They attacked us three days afterwards at five o'clock in the morning. It was like a nightmare. The Germans came on, evidently thinking they were on a soft job, and you can realize what a wonderful target they made for the gunners who had been waiting for 'em. Such a target that gunners dream about but never see. We had some eighteen-and-a-'arf-pounders not five hundred yards away, and they let go right into the thick of 'em. And each case shot with its four hundred bullets swept and tore their ranks. With a mighty gasp and something like a groan the Huns staggered, recovered, and with wild yells came charging on to a hundred machine guns. And all the time the shells came over at them and tore wide swathes in their closely-packed ranks. Then our boys got into 'em and swept the remaining Huns into eternity!"

"Unless this story had come from such a highly-reliable fountain-head, McNab," I murmured, after a moment or so, "I would never have believed that the whole thing was not a fabrication."

McNab removed his pot of beer on one side, and leaned across the table. I moved my chair back quickly, just missing another vigorous stab from his huge index-finger.

"The history of this war," he observed impressively, "will be interwoven with extraordinary things like this 'ere tale I have been telling you. And you may lay to it, mister, that the most extraordinary things of all will never see the light of day in the printed page."

"I can _quite_ understand that," I said pointedly; "for, although a student of military history of this war myself, I cannot recall a single reference to any of the remarkable events which occurred in the trenches during the eight months you were with your regiment over there!"

McNab regarded me for a full minute with rapidly-rising choler. Then he shifted his stare from me to an old gentleman who was warming his toes at the fire.

"The yarn I have told you is as true as the drill book, though you need not believe it if you have conscientious objections. I have been recounting real slices of history. Leastways, when I say history I may be wrong, because they will never appear in history. But they _'appened_, Mister--'appened as surely as I am sitting here with an empty pot in front o' me. An'--an'----" McNab stammered in his excitement--"if any bloke says they didn't, be jabers, I'll--I'll drink his beer!"

But neither the old gentleman nor any member of the company wished to disagree with him, and he rose up from the chair with a mug to order his final half-pint. He returned (a trifle unsteadily, perhaps) with his beer and a particularly vile cigar in his mouth. Whether it was the effect of the heat or the--er--beer I cannot say, but he blundered over my legs, causing me a sharp twinge of pain.

"What an awkward beggar you are that you can't see to walk straight," I said.

McNab looked down at my legs after giving them another stirring up with his foot. "Why, Go' bless my soul," he said, "it's quite true, I am an awkward devil. I certainly should have seen _those_ feet. However did you get 'em into the bar?"

V

THROUGH THE FURNACE

Give us our rest, O Father, in thine own appointed time and of thy gracious olden fashion. Lay thy annulling seal upon the o'erlabored heart: drop thy healing nepenthe into the weary brain. Teach us not to fear that which brings us nearer to Thee. Suffer us to go to sleep with no more consciousness than the flowers that take no care for their awakening. Give us this last and best of all thy gifts--Parva domus, magna quies!

Hilaire O'Hagan sat in the September sunshine on the grass that skirted the roadside. For some time he had been examining with a stare of melancholy interest the worn toes of his boots. On his head was a dingy straw hat; to his form and limbs there hung a faded and creased coat and a pair of shiny black trousers;--he held in his hand five shillings which had been thrust into his hand when the prison gates had opened to him that morning. He had taken the money and swaggered out with a

## parting gibe at the constable who closed the doors behind him.

O'Hagan was an incorrigible rascal. Some years before, when he stood in the Assize Court, a venerable judge had told him so. "O'Hagan," said the judge grimly, "you are what I should term an incorrigible rogue, and I shall send you to prison for two years with hard labour. You have run across my path many times before. When you gain your liberty it will be very much to your advantage if you keep out of my way for good and all."

O'Hagan had received the sentence with the same impertinent smirk on his face as he had received many similar sentences.

Now he was a free man. He was powerful, full of health, and--lazy. He reflected aloud, with evident enjoyment (and in the speech of a lettered gentleman), "This is indeed one of those days when it is good to be alive!"

"O'Hagan!" came a sudden voice, harsh and authoritative, from behind him: He rose to his feet and faced about. In the roadway appeared the constable to whom he had addressed some not over polite remarks on his way out of prison.

"Well?" said O'Hagan.

The constable snorted. "Didn't you hear me tell you to move on? We don't want any habitual criminals hanging about here."

O'Hagan dived his hands deep into the pockets of his shiny trousers and slouched along towards the next village. About a mile ahead was an inn he knew of where he might enjoy a great refreshment, and drink the waters of Lethe. He jingled the silver in his pocket and reflected that for one night at least he could eat strongly, and drink largely, and sleep deeply.

* * * * *

Outside a house screened by a mysterious ten foot wall full of the plain dignity of unpretending age, a long grey motor car was standing. O'Hagan turned and surveyed it, and his quick eye rested upon a leather hand case on a rug beneath the seat. It did not take him a moment to snatch it and hide it swiftly beneath his coat. For a second or so he stood back against the wall. At that moment a girl came out of the house, in company with an elderly gentleman, and walked towards the car. O'Hagan looked at the girl swiftly. At the same time she glanced at him, and their eyes met. Things looked unhealthy for O'Hagan. But fate was altogether with him, and the motor moved off and left him standing there with the case under his coat. No glorious figure, this man, but one of those whom specialists now place amongst the doomed as cursed with the criminal instinct, with the vices that require lavish means to feed them--a man who only feels a thrill in life when he is preying on his fellows, or eluding the hand of justice.

* * * * *

O'Hagan walked down the road a little way with his hand resting lovingly on the leather case. He turned a corner, cut through the hedge, and took a track across a field. In the shelter of a clump of bushes he sat leisurely on the grass and went over the contents. Among the various odds and ends was a leather purse. He opened it with trembling fingers. There was a sovereign, five one pound notes folded up, eight shillings in silver, and a small silver cross hanging on a black silk riband. He dropped the silver with a sigh of satisfaction into his trousers pocket, and the notes he stored in the lining of his hat. He took up the little cross and was about to thrust it into the thick grass, when he paused for a moment, and was aware of an oppressive feeling.

On a sudden, in the midst of men and day, And while he sat and looked around, He seemed to be in a bygone age, And feel himself the shadow of a dream.

O'Hagan felt that his body was decreasing, sinking under the green turf, falling down, down, down, and yet "He" was still above, gazing, wondering, open-eyed, open-mouthed, as it were. Gradually, but none the less surely, he was being crowded round by many moving "?'s" which never seemed to grow distinct. He seemed to know at once he was back in the days long past. He shut his eyes against a burning that felt like tears. When he opened them again he was looking at his own name, fairly carved in on the silver cross in quaint old English letters:

Hilaire O'Hagan

The clump of bushes before him was now obscured by a thin white cloud. As he watched he was aware of a figure that stood out distinctly before him. He was a man of his own height, thick-set, serious-looking, in a monk's mantle and hood. O'Hagan gave a hurried glance, and as hurriedly turned his head away again. The face of the man exactly resembled his own. But it was an honest face, without the look of dissipation, and the secret furtive air, which he knew marred his own features. He also thought he could see a faint nimbus round his head--but this may have been illusion. O'Hagan moved away as if he had no wish to see him; but the stranger was not to be put off by any such trick. He touched O'Hagan's arm, and brought him to a standstill.

"Brother!" he said in a gentle voice.

O'Hagan pulled himself up sharply. For a moment it seemed as if he would have refused to stay, but the next he realized that it would be of no use.

"What do you want with me?" he began. "I know I'm a thief and a drunkard. Do you want to hand me a Sunday School tract? If so get it over."

The stranger's hand tightened on his arm, and he began to speak in a calm but strangely thrilling voice. "It is written there: '_men do not despise a thief, if he steal to satisfy his soul when he is hungry._'"

"Well?" said O'Hagan, trying to hold a countenance of little concern.

"Well?" said the stranger, "for why did you steal?"

O'Hagan coughed and held down his head.

"A man without scruple and without heart," the stranger remarked to himself.

O'Hagan looked up with a start. "Look here," he began. "You've no right to----"

Then of a sudden the mist began to rise from the clump of bushes and the stranger vanished. O'Hagan was back in the flesh. He stood there dazed for the moment, with the little cross clutched in his hand. He sat down again and _tried_ to force his spirit back to the other scene, but in vain. He felt that he had been thrilled through and through. The oppression, however, unlike the stern-faced monk, did not vanish, it deepened. A throbbing headache came on, which refused to be shaken off, and eventually sent O'Hagan to the "Bell Inn" to drink still deeper of the waters of oblivion.

The day was already falling when he walked, jingling his silver, into the sanded bar of the "Bell Inn," and an hour or so later, when it began to fill with drovers and country folk, O'Hagan had looked much on the good brown ale. He was in fact becoming very noisy. Seated in a corner, he sang "Nell and Roger at the Wake" in a hoarse voice. The country folk grinned and looked at him curiously.

"Shut your gab, old sport," said a rough-looking drover at last, "that song is not fit for decent folk to hear."

O'Hagan swore like any trooper, and reached his hand out to a large spirit bottle at his elbow, and for a moment the drover thought he would get it thrown at his head. However, O'Hagan rose to his feet, made a bow to the company, and made an apology to the drover. He stood there, a blackguard on the face of him, but a gentleman in spite of that undefinable and vaguely repulsive smirk which played about his straight and refined mouth. He slunk away into the night.

As O'Hagan walked the night deepened in throbs of gathering darkness. The sense of uneasiness that had been with him ever since the priest in the cassock had appeared to him was not to be easily thrown off. He set himself to argue down the uneasiness for which there was no more foundation than a bad attack of "nerves" after the gloomy life in prison. He told himself, till he believed it, that a man--just a human man--had been crossing the fields, and that being smitten with religious fervour he had quoted the Scripture aloud, as he had often heard such people do. He told himself it was mere fancy that was the cause of the belief that something was _shining_ around the man's head. As he argued these things away, and banished the face of his visitor, a certain sort of reason usurped his place. But he did not feel comfortable, however, he fell short of any form of fear.

It was O'Hagan's whole business to find desolate corners, where he could sleep without the fear of interruption by the police; and hence being in a part of the country that he knew well, he bethought himself suddenly of the great barn next to the mansion house at Tilney St. Lawrence. It was always full of good hay, as large as a barrack and no thoroughfare passed within a quarter of a mile of it. In such a place, and with the scent of the hay to lull him, O'Hagan threw his tired body down, and soon lost all the cares of the world in complete repose.