Part 3

“That’s business, my boy,” pealed the Colonel’s hearty voice, as he came in with a telegram in his hand. “I saw you turn in and I’d already been invited to drink a cup of tea with you. Alma can’t get off,”--he said, in a matter-of-fact way, showing the telegram.

“Oh?--did you expect her, sir?” with an assumption of surprise to cover his disappointment.

“I did, my boy, when I heard from your mother that she thought you might come to-day. Did you?”

“Medicals and nurses are not their own masters,” said Con non-committally. “Do you really think we’ll be into it, sir?”

“I do, Con. I don’t see how we can possibly keep out. It’s a most da--yes, damnably inevitable sequence, it seems to me. Austria goes for Servia. Russia won’t stand it. In that case Germany is bound to help Austria. France will help Russia. Exactly how we stand pledged to help France and Russia no one knows, I imagine, except the Foreign Secretary. But everyone knows that the German war-plan contemplates getting at France through Belgium. And if they try that, the fat’s in the fire and we’ve got to stop them or go under.”

“That’s exactly how they’re looking at it at our place, and all the R.A.M.C. men are getting their things together in readiness for the call.”

“It’ll be a tough business,” said the Colonel weightily, but with the light of battle in his eye. “But we’ve got to go through with it ... right to the bitter end.”

“Have you any doubts about the end, sir?”

“None, my lad. But the end is a mighty long way off and it’ll be a hot red road that leads to it, unless I’m very much mistaken. They’ve been preparing for this for years, you see. It had to come, and some of us saw it. Da-asht pity we didn’t all see it! We’d have been readier for it than we are. Lord Roberts was right. Every man in Great Britain and Ireland ought to have been in training for it.”

“Conscription again, Colonel!” said Mrs Dare. “And you still think England would stand it?”

“Not conscription, my dear madam,--Universal Service,--a very different thing and not liable to the defects of conscription. France broke down through her faulty conscription in 1870. Germany won on her universal service. And, da-ash it! we ought to have had it here ever since. But you others thought we were all screaming Jingoes and mad on military matters because that was our profession. Now, maybe, it’s too late.”

“Still, you say you don’t believe they can beat us, sir?” said Con earnestly.

“Not in the long run. No, I don’t, my boy. But can you begin to imagine what a long run will mean in these times? I’ve seen war and I know what it meant up to twenty years ago. But--if I know anything about it--that was child’s-play to what this will be. Those--da-asht Germans are so infernally clever--and you must remember they’ve been working for this and nothing but this for the last twenty years, while we’ve been playing football and cricket, and squabbling over the House of Lords and Home Rule. Da-ash it! If our side had kept in I believe we’d have been readier.”

“I doubt it, sir,” said Con, with the laugh in the corners of his eyes. “You’d have been fighting for your lives all the time, whereas we at all events have done something--Old Age Pensions, and National Insurance, and so on,” at which the Colonel snorted like a war-horse scenting battle.

“And how is the work going, Con?” asked Mrs Dare, as a lead to less bellicose subjects.

“Oh, all right. About same as usual. We got a new old chap in the other day and he’s taken a curious fancy to my grin. He stops me every time we meet, and says, ‘Doctor, do smile for me!’ and he’s such an old comic that I just roar, and then he roars too, and we’re as happy as can be.”

“He’s no fool,” said the Colonel. For Con’s grin was very contagious. The corners of his eyes had a way of wrinkling up when the humorous aspect of things appealed to him, his eyes almost disappeared, and then his face creased up all over and the laugh broke out. And as a rule it made one laugh just to watch him.

“But we had two rather nasty things, last week,” he said, sobering up. “Two of the old chaps were set to clean up an out-house, and one of them came out after a bit and sat down in the sun with his back against the wall, humming the ‘Old Hundredth,’ they say. One of the attendants asked him what he was doing there, and he said old Jim was tired and was lying down inside. And when they went in they found old Jim lying down with his head beaten in and as dead as a door-nail.”

“Good Lord!” said the Colonel. “And what did you do to the other?”

“What could we do? He was quite unconscious of having done anything wrong. He’ll be kept under observation of course. But the other matter was worse still, in one way. A table-knife disappeared one day from the scullery and couldn’t be found anywhere. And for a week we all went with our heads over both shoulders at once, and the feel of that knife slicing in between our shoulder-blades at any moment. I tell you, that was jolly uncomfortable.”

“And did you find it?” asked Mrs Dare anxiously.

“Yes, we hunted and hunted till we discovered it inside the back of a picture frame, and we were mighty glad to get it, I can tell you.”

“Gad!” said the Colonel, with extreme energy. “I’d sooner be at the front any day. It’s a safer job than yours, my boy.”

“I suppose there are possibilities of getting hurt even there, sir,” and Con’s creases wrinkled up.

“Oh, you can get hurt all right enough, but it’s not knives between your shoulder-blades.”

“Assegais,” suggested Mrs Dare, who knew his record.

“Assegais are deucedly uncomfortable, but that was fair fighting----”

Then Mr Dare walked in, very much later than usual for a Saturday. And, though he greeted them cheerfully, his face was very grave, to his wife’s anxious eyes.

“I waited a bit to see if any further news came along,” he said quietly.

“And how are they feeling about things?” asked the Colonel.

“Nervous. In fact, gloomy. Everybody admits that it seems incredible, but there’s a general fear that we may be drawn in, in spite of all Sir Edward Grey’s efforts.”

“We shall,” said the Colonel emphatically. “I feel it in my bones. Germany is very wide awake. She’s been crouching for a spring any time this several years, and here are England, France, and Russia tied up with internal troubles. It’s her day without a doubt. Take my advice and make your preparations, my friend. When it comes it’ll come all in a heap. I only wish we were readier for it, and I wish to God they’d have the common-sense to put Kitchener in charge of the Army. He’s the man for the job, and what earthly use is he in Egypt when Germany may be at our throats any day? Asquith can’t be expected to understand all the ins and outs of the machine.”

“Yes, it’s too much to expect of him. And as to Kitchener, I quite agree. He’s the right man for the job.”

“Exchange upset? Money tight?”

“Slump all round. Consols down one and a half. Bank rate three still, but expected to jump any day. In fact things are about as sick as they can be.”

“We’re in for a very bad time, I’m afraid,” said the Colonel gravely. And the shadow of the future lay upon them all.

When, presently, the Colonel got up to go, Mrs Dare and Con went with him to the front door, and Con went on down the path with him.

“May I speak to you about Alma, Colonel?” Con began, before they reached the gate.

“Yes, my boy, you may. But I know what you want to say.”

“You’ve seen it, sir? You know how we feel then. And you don’t object?”

“On the contrary, my boy. I’m very glad you have both chosen so wisely.”

“That’s mighty good of you, sir. I would have spoken to you before but I wanted to see my way a little more clearly. And now I can. Sir James Jamieson of Harley Street,--he’s the biggest man we have in mental diseases, you know,--well, he saw some scraps of mine in the ‘Lancet’ and asked me to call on him. He’s a fine man, and he wants me to go to him as soon as my courses are finished,--Munich and Paris and the rest. He’s getting on in years, you see, and he was good enough to say that, from what he had heard of me, he believed I was the man to carry on his work when his time came to go. It’s immense, you know.”

“Capital! I always knew you’d go far, Con. My only fear was lest the--er--atmosphere of your special line should in time affect your own mind and spirits. But so far it seems to have had no ill effect. Your spirits are above par, and I’ve just had an excellent proof of your judgment,”--at which Con laughed joyously.

“When you’re really keen on a thing it doesn’t upset you, no matter how unpleasant it may be. And this work is anything but unpleasant to me. It’s packed with interest. There’s so much we don’t know yet. And there’s heaps of quaint humour in it, if you look out for it.”

“Well, keep yourself fit, my boy, and I don’t think your brain will suffer. _Mens sana_, you know.”

“I see to that. I get a couple of hours on the links every day and I never play with a medical,--get quite outside it all, you know. Then I may speak to Alma, Colonel? She knows, of course, but we’ve never said very much.”

“Yes, my lad,--whenever you can catch her. She’s an elusive creature these days.”

“I’ll catch her all right,” said Con, all abeam.

The other young people had just returned from their tournament and were discussing points over the tea-cups.

“Hello! Here’s old Con,” shouted Noel, and they all jumped up and gave him merry welcome. Vic inquired earnestly after the state of his brain; and satisfied on that head, they poured out their own latest news.

“Vic and I won,” chortled Honor. “6-5, 6-4, against No and Gregor McLean.”

“Oh well,” explained Noel. “If you’d been round the links in the morning you wouldn’t have been half so nimble on your pins.”

“Bit heavy, I suppose?” said the Colonel.

“Heavy wasn’t the word for it, sir, and a beastly gusty wind that upset all one’s calculations. However, I licked old Greg into a cocked hat and he’s no end of a nib with the sticks; so that’s one to me. Pick up any lunch scores as you came along, Con?”

“Sorry, old man! I didn’t. I was thinking of other things,” and the Colonel nodded weightily, and said,

“In a week from now we’ll all have other things to think about, I’m afraid.”

V

Ray Luard’s quest was one in which the soul of any man might well rejoice. He was flying, like a knight of old,--though as to ways and means in very much better case,--to the rescue of his lady-love from possibilities of trouble. More than that he did not look for, and possible difficulties and delays weighed little with him.

He reached Flushing about seven in the evening after a gusty passage which did not trouble him, and was at Cologne in the early hours of the morning. But after that his progress was slow and subject to constant, exasperating, and inexplicable delays.

He had secured a berth in the sleeper and took fullest advantage of it. But all night long, as he slept the troubled sleep of the sleeping-car, he was dully conscious of long intervals when the metronomic nimble of the wheels died away, and the unusual silence was broken only by the creaking complaints of the carriage-fittings and the long-drawn snores and sharper snorts and grunts of his companions in travel.

The train was crowded and every bunk was occupied. The occupant of the one above him was so violently stertorous that Ray feared he was in for a fit, and did his best to save him from it by energetic thumps from below. But the only result was a momentary pause of surprise in the strangling solo up above and the immediate resumption of it with renewed vigour, and Ray gave it up, and drew the bed clothes over his ears, and left him to his fate.

In the morning the noisy one turned out to be an immensely fat German who rolled about the car as if it and the world outside belonged to him,--the repulsively over-bearing kind of person whose very look seemed to intimate that no one but himself and his like had any right to cumber the earth. And just the kind of person that Ray Luard loathed and abominated beyond words.

Ray’s disgust of him, and all his kind and all their doings, showed unmistakably in his face, and the fat one became aware of it and took offence. He dropped ponderously into the seat alongside Ray so that he filled three-quarters of it, and proceeded to stare at him in most offensive fashion. His little yellow pig-like eyes, almost lost in the greasy fat rolls of his face, travelled suspiciously over his neighbour from head to foot as though searching for something to settle on.

Ray knew the look and its meaning. Had he been back at Heidelberg he would forthwith have demanded of the starer when and where it was his pleasure they should meet to fight it out. But this mountain of fat was long past his Mensur days, and Ray was doubtful how to tackle him.

He did perhaps the best thing under the circumstances,--turned his back on him and looked out of the window.

But the fat one was not satisfied to let matters rest so. He loosed a wheezy laugh and said, “Ach, zo! Ein Engländer!” with another wheezy little laugh of extremest scorn.

“And what of that, Fat-Pig?” rapped out Ray, in German equal to his own, and the shot took the fat one in the wind.

“Fat-Pig! Fat-Pig! Gott im Himmel, you call me Fat-Pig?”

He rose, bellowing with fury, and was about to drop himself bodily on Ray, when others who had watched the proceedings--a Bavarian whose foot he had trampled on without apology ten minutes before, and a Saxon upon whose newspapers he had also plumped down and pulped into illegibility--jumped up and laid hands on him and dragged him back.

“So you are! So you are!” they shouted. “The Englishman has doubtless paid his fare and is entitled to the whole of a seat without insult or annoyance.”

“They ought to charge you double and then carry you in the baggage-van,” said the Saxon.

“You should try to remember you’re not yet in Prussia--you!” growled the Bavarian, jerking the mountainous one down into an empty seat.

“Ja!--Mein Gott, if I had you all in Prussia I’d show you who’s who,” and he wagged his dewlaps at them with menacing malevolence.

“A damned English spy, if I have any eyes,” he wheezed.

“No more a spy than you’re a gentleman,” retorted Ray.

“Enough! Enough, mein Herr! Let him be! He’s just a Prussian and they’re all like that,--blown out with their own conceit till they’ve no decent manners left,” said the Bavarian.

“That is so,” said the Saxon, and they removed themselves with Ray out of sight and sound of the swollen one.

The other two were quite friendly, and through their smoke endeavoured to arrive at an understanding of Ray,--how he came to speak German so well,--what his business in life was,--where he was going, and why? And, as he had nothing to conceal and felt resentful still of the fat man’s insinuations, he told them frankly what he was there for.

Their reserve and soberness over the political outlook impressed him greatly. He felt more than justified in the decision he had taken as to Lois.

He did his best, without being too intrusive, to get at their view of the future, and they at his. But it was all too pregnant with awful possibilities, and too obscure and critically in the balance, for very free speech. From their manner, however, he gathered that, while they personally desired no interruption of the present prosperous state of affairs, they doubted if the dispute between Austria and Servia could be localised, and feared that if Russia supported Servia the fat would be in the fire.

“For me, I do not like Prussia and her insolent ways,” said the Bavarian. “Yon stout one is typical of her. But if she goes, we have to follow--unfortunately, whether we approve or not. We are all bound up together, you see, and there you are.”

And all their discursive chats throughout the day went very little deeper than that.

It was a very wearisome journey. Time after time they were shunted into sidings while long and heavy trains rolled past. And when Ray commented on it with a surprised,

“Well!--for a quick through train this is about as poor a specimen as I’ve ever tumbled on,”--their only comment, as they gazed gloomily out of the window, was, “The traffic is disorganised for the moment.”

The stations they passed through were packed with people, and the military element seemed more in evidence even than usual.

It was close on five o’clock in the afternoon before they arrived in Leipsic. The Bavarian had left them at Cassel. The Saxon, as he bade Ray adieu, said quietly,

“You may find things more difficult still if you try to return this way, Herr. If you take my advice you will strike down South into Tirol and Switzerland, and meanwhile say as little as possible to anyone,” and with a meaning nod he was gone.

Ray went along to the Hauffe, secured a room, had a much-needed bath and dinner, and then set off at once for Frau Helse’s house in Sebastian Bach Strasse.

The plump Saxon maid informed him that Fräulein Dare was out, that Frau Helse was out, that Fräulein Luise was out;--they were in fact all at a concert at the Conservatorium; and the Herr Lieutenant, he was with his regiment. So Ray left his card with the name of his hotel scribbled on it, and Mrs Dare’s letter, and promised to return in the morning.

Then, after a stroll about the unusually thronged streets, he returned to his hotel and looked up trains for Switzerland.

VI

Knowing how anxious Lois would be for a fuller understanding of his coming, Ray set off for Frau Helse’s house the moment he had finished breakfast next morning.

Lois had obviously been on tenterhooks till he came. He was hardly ushered into the stiff, sombre drawing-room, when the door flew open and she came hastily in.

“Oh, Ray!”--and he caught her in his arms and kissed her.

“There is nothing wrong at home?--Mother?--Father?--” she asked quickly, her anxiety accepting the unusual warmth of his greeting as somehow appropriate to the circumstances. “Is it only what Mother says, or----”

“Just exactly what Mother says, my child, and quite enough too. Everybody is perfectly well. Our only anxiety is on your account.”

“And you really think there is going to be trouble?”

“Uncle Tony is certain we’re in for a general European war,--in fact for Armageddon foretold of the prophets. And the mere chance of it is more than enough to make us want you home.”

She could still hardly quite take it all in. She stood gazing at him in amazement.

“And you?--you really think it, Ray?”

“Nothing’s impossible in these times, and I’m not going to run any risks where you’re concerned. How soon can you be ready?”

“I’ll finish my packing at once. I started early this morning, though I was not at all sure what it all meant.”

“One moment, Lois,” he said meaningly. “You can trust these people, I suppose?”

“Frau Helse? Oh yes. They’re as nice as can be.”

“Very well then. Pack just your choicest possessions into a small bag that I can carry, and everything else into your trunk. We’ll leave the trunk in Frau Helse’s care and take the other with us.”

“But why not take the trunk also?” she asked in surprise.

“If matters are as I think, from what I’ve seen, they’re mobilising here for all they are worth, and the lighter we travel the better. Our train could hardly get through coming. Going back will be worse. Indeed I’ve already had it hinted to me that our safest way will be to strike right down south into Switzerland.”

“Into Switzerland?”

“Yes, if things develop rapidly, as they probably will, all the traffic here will go to pieces--all in the hands of the military, you know. And you know enough of Germany to know what that means.”

She nodded thoughtfully, and said, “There’s been something going on below-ground for some time past. I was sure of it. They said it was manœuvres, but it looks as if it was a good deal more. I can be all ready in an hour. Will you see Frau Helse?”

“Perhaps I’d better, so that she may see I’m at all events respectable to look at. Then I’ll go to the station and see if the trains are running all right. You’ve told her, I suppose.”

“Yes, I showed her Mother’s letter. But she was decidedly shocked at the idea of my going off alone with any man who wasn’t at least a cousin.”

“Oh--cousin! She’ll be more shocked before she sees the end of it all, maybe.”

So Lois went away and brought in Frau Helse and Luise, and introduced Ray to them. They had been mightily surprised at Fräulein Lois’s news, and Frau Helse--when the two girls had gone off to finish the packing--let it be seen that she was distinctly doubtful as to the perfect propriety of allowing her to go off with this good-looking young Engländer, who was not in any way related to her. However, in the face of Mrs Dare’s letter she could scarcely raise any objection, and Ray got away as soon as he could, promising to be back in an hour.

He had decided to take the friendly Saxon’s advice and make for Switzerland. He reasoned the matter out thus,--Austria and Servia were practically at war. Though no formal declaration had yet been made, the Austrian Legation had left Belgrade. Russia would almost certainly help Servia. Germany would help Austria. France would help Russia. Without doubt Germany would endeavour to strike at France quickly and heavily. She could only do that down south. So all the railway lines leading thither would be taken over by the military, and ordinary travellers--and still more especially foreigners--would meet with less consideration even than usual.

So he enquired for trains for Munich, intending to get from there into Tirol, and so into neutral Switzerland. Since the first clash of arms would undoubtedly come far away to the south on the Servian frontier, it was reasonable to expect that this remote corner of Austria would still be comparatively free and open to traffic.

There was a train at ten o’clock and another at half-past twelve. He decided on the earlier one, paid his bill at the hotel, and drove off to Frau Helse’s to secure his prize.

Lois was waiting for him, all dressed for the journey, and the slightness of her travelling equipment evoked his surprised eulogiums.

As they were making for the station, with just comfortable time to get their tickets, they passed on the sidewalk a man of unforgettable proportions.

There was no possibility of mistaking him, but Ray had no desire for his further acquaintance and permitted no sign of recognition to escape him. The stout one, however, turned ponderously and looked after them, and then said a word or two to a policeman.

Ray had got their tickets, and had despatched a telegram--which never reached him--to Uncle Tony, saying they were just starting for home via Munich and Switzerland; and they were waiting impatiently for the doors of the Wartesaal to be opened to let them through to their train, when a couple of police-officers came pushing through the throng to Ray and abruptly requested him to follow them.

He was taken aback, but knew his Germany and its unpleasant little ways too well to make trouble.

“Follow you? Certainly! But why?”

But they were not there to answer questions, only to carry out orders.

“Come!” they gruffly insisted, and Ray gave his arm to Lois and went.

They were put into a carriage and driven away to Police Head-Quarters, and after a long wait were ushered into the presence of a high official, who looked worried and overworked.

“Who and what are you? And what are you doing here?” he asked brusquely.

Ray supplied him with the desired information.

“Your passport?”

“I have none, Herr Head-of-Police,”--he had no idea what his questioner’s standing might be, but knew that in addressing officials in Germany you can hardly aim too high. “I left London at almost a moment’s notice on Saturday morning, to bring this lady home to her mother. I did not know a passport was necessary.”

“We have definite information that you are a spy.”