The Summons Part 30

"Bah! We may not say 'comrade' as often as the Boche, but perhaps we are it all the more. I will not come further with you towards your carriage, for I have still a few things to do."

He shook Hillyard by the hand and departed. Hillyard turned from him towards his sleeping-car, but though his chief anxiety was dispelled, his reluctance to go was not. And he looked at the long, brightly-lit train which was to carry him from this busy and high-hearted city with a desire that it would start before its time, and leave him a derelict upon the platform. He could not bend his thoughts to the work which was at his hand. The sapphire waters of the South had quite lost their sparkle and enchantment. Here, here, was the place of life! The exhilaration of his task, its importance, the glow of thankfulness when some real advantage was won, a plot foiled, a scheme carried to success--these matters were all banished from his mind. Even the war-risk of it was forgotten. He thought with envy of the men in trenches. Yet the purpose of his yacht was long since known to the Germans; the danger of the torpedo was ever present on her voyages, and the certainty that if she were sunk, and he captured, any means would be taken to force him to speak before he was shot, was altogether beyond dispute. Even at this moment he carried hidden in a match-box a little phial, which never left him, to put the sure impediment between himself and a forced confession of his aims and knowledge. But he was not aware of it. How many times had he seen the red light at Europa Point on Gibraltar's edge change to white, sometimes against the scarlet bars of dawn, sometimes in the winter against a wall of black! But on the platform of the Quai d'Orsay station, in a bustle of soldiers going on short leave to their homes, and rattling with pannikins and iron-helmets, he could remember none of these consolations.

He reached his carriage.

"Messieurs les voyageurs, en route!" cried the controller.

"What a crowd!" Hillyard grumbled. "Really, it almost disposes one to say that one will never travel again until this war is over."

He walked along the corridor to his compartment and sat down as the train started with a jerk. The door stood open, and in a few minutes the attendant came to it.

"Who is in the next compartment on the other side of the lavatory?"

Hillyard asked.

"A manufacturer of Perpignan and his wife."

"Does he snore?" Hillyard asked. "If he snores I shall not sleep. It should be an offence against your bye-laws for a traveller to snore."

He crossed one leg across his knee and unlaced his shoe.

The attendant came into the room.

"It is possible, monsieur, that I might hurry and fetch you your coffee in the morning," he said.

"It is worth five francs to you if you do," replied Hillyard.

"Then monsieur will not move from his compartment until luncheon. I will see to it. Monsieur will bolt his door, and in the morning I will knock when I bring the coffee."

"Good," returned Hillyard ungraciously.

The attendant retired, and Hillyard closed the door. But the ventilating lattice in the lower part of the door was open, and Hillyard could see the legs of the attendant. He was waiting outside--waiting for what?

Hillyard smiled to himself and took down his bag from the upper berth.

He had hardly opened it when the attendant knocked and entered.

"You will not forget, monsieur, to bolt your door. In these days it is not wise to leave it on the latch."

"I won't forget," Hillyard replied surlily, and once more the attendant retired; and again he stood outside the door. He did not move until the bolt was shot. The attendant seemed very pleased that this fool of a tourist who thought of nothing but his infirmities should safely bolt the door of the compartments numbers 11 and 12; and very pleased, too, to bring to this churlish, discontented traveller his coffee in the morning, so that he need not leave compartments numbers 11 and 12 unguarded. Hillyard chuckled as the attendant moved away.

"I am to be your watch-dog, am I? Your sentinel? Very well! Come, let me deserve your confidence, my friend."

The train thundered out of the tunnel and through the suburbs of Paris.

Hillyard drew a letter from Fairbairn out of his pocket and read it through.

"Compartments numbers 11 and 12 on the night train from the Quai d'Orsay station to Cerbere. Good!" murmured Hillyard. "Here I am in compartments numbers 11 and 12. Now we wait until the married couple from Perpignan and the attendant are comfortably asleep."

He undressed and went to bed, but he did not sleep. He lay in the berth in the darkness, listening intently as the train rushed out of Paris across the plains of France. Once or twice, as the hours pa.s.sed, he heard a stealthy footstep in the corridor outside, and once the faintest possible little click told that the latch of his door had been lifted to make sure that the bolt was still shot home in its socket. Hillyard smiled.

"You are safe, my friend," he breathed the words towards the anxious one in the corridor. "No one can get in. The door is locked. The door of the dressing-room too. Sleep in your corner in peace."

The train sped over a moonlit country, s.p.a.cious, unhurt by war. It moved with a steady, rhythmical throb, like an accompaniment to a tune or a phrase, ever repeated and repeated Hillyard found himself fitting words to the pulsation of the wheels. "Berlin ... Berne ... Paris ... Cerbere ... Barcelona ... Madrid ... Aranjuez and the world"; and back again, reversing the order: "Madrid ... Barcelona ... Cerbere ... Paris ...

Berne ... Berlin."

But the throb of the train set the interrogation at the end of the string of names. So that the sequence of them was like a question demanding confirmation....

Towards three in the morning, when there was no movement in the corridor and the lights were blue and dim, Hillyard silently folded back his bedclothes and rose. In the darkness he groped gently for the door of the lavatory between his compartment and the compartment of the manufacturer of Perpignan. He found the handle, and pressed it down slowly; without a creak or a whine of the hinges the door swung open towards him. Through the clatter he could hear that the manufacturer of Perpignan was snoring. But Hillyard did not put his trust in snores. He crept with bare feet across the washing-room, and, easing over the handle of the further door, locked the manufacturer out. Again there had been no sound. He shut the door of his own compartment lest the swing of the train should set it banging and arouse the sleepers. Towards the corridor there was a window of painted gla.s.s, and through this window a pale, dim light filtered in. Hillyard noticed, for the first time, that a small diamond-shaped piece of the coloured gla.s.s was missing, at about the level of a man's head. It was advisable that Martin Hillyard should be quick--or he might find the tables turned. With his ears more than ever alert, he set up the steps for the upper berth, in the lavatory, and whilst he worked his eyes watched that little aperture at the level of a man's head, which once a diamond-shaped piece of coloured gla.s.s had closed....

The door of the manufacturer was unlocked, the steps folded in their place, and Hillyard back again in his bed before two minutes had pa.s.sed.

And once more the throb of the train beat into a chain of towns which went backwards and forwards like a shuttle in his brain. But there was no note of interrogation now.

"Berlin ... Berne ... Paris ... Cerbere ... Barcelona ... Madrid ...

Aranjuez and the world"; and with a thump the train set a firm full stop to the sequence. Across the broad plain, meadowland and plough, flower-garden and fruit the train thundered down to the Pyrenees. Paris was far away now, and the sense of desolation at quitting it quite gone from Hillyard's breast.

"Berlin ... Berne ... Paris ... Cerbere ... Barcelona ... Madrid."

Here was one of the post-roads by which Germany reached the outer world.

Others there were beyond doubt. Sweden and Rotterdam, Mexico and South America--but here was one, and to-morrow, nay, to-day, the communication would be cut, and Germany so much the poorer.

The train steamed into Cerbere at one o'clock of the afternoon.

"Every one must descend here, monsieur, for the examination of luggage and pa.s.sports," said the attendant.

"But I am leaving France!" cried Hillyard. "I go on into Spain. Why should France, then, examine my luggage?"

"It is the war, monsieur."

Hillyard lifted up his hands in indignation too deep for words. He gathered together his bag and his coat and stick, handed them to a porter and descended. He pa.s.sed into the waiting-room, and was directed by a soldier with a fixed bayonet to take his place in the queue of pa.s.sengers. But he said quietly to the soldier:

"I would like to see M. de Ca.s.saud, the Commissaire of Police."

Hillyard was led apart; his card was taken from him; he was ushered instantly into an office where an elderly French officer sat in mufti before a table. He shook Hillyard cordially by the hand.

"You pa.s.s through? I myself hope to visit Barcelona again very soon.

Jean, wait outside with monsieur's baggage," this to the porter who had pushed in behind Hillyard. M. de Ca.s.saud rose and closed the door. He had looked at Hillyard's face and acted quickly.

"It is something more than compliments you want from me, monsieur. Well, what can I do?"

"The second sleeping-car, compartments numbers 11 and 12," said Hillyard urgently. "In the water-tank of the lavatory there is a little metal case with letters from Berlin for Barcelona and Madrid. But wait, monsieur!"

M. de Ca.s.saud was already at the door.

"It is the attendant of the sleeping-car who hides them there. If he can be called into an office quietly on some matter of routine and held there whilst your search is made, then those in Madrid and Barcelona to whom these letters are addressed may never know they have been sent at all!"

M. de Ca.s.saud nodded and went out. Hillyard waited nervously in the little whitewashed room. It was impossible that the attendant should have taken fright and bolted. Even if he bolted, it would be impossible that he should escape across the frontier. It was impossible that he should recover the metal case from the water-tank, while the carriage stood openly at the platform of Cerbere station. He would be certain to wait until it was shunted into the cleaning shed. But so many certainties had been disproved, so many possibilities had come to pa.s.s during the last two years, that Hillyard was sceptical to his finger-tips. M. de Ca.s.saud was a long time away. Yes, certainly M. de Ca.s.saud was a very long----and the door opened, and M. de Ca.s.saud appeared.

"He is giving an account of his blankets and his towels. There are two soldiers at the door. He is safe. Come!" said the Commissaire.

They crossed the platform to the carriage, whilst Hillyard described the attendant's anxiety that he should bolt his door. "No doubt he gave the same advice to the manufacturer of Perpignan," Hillyard added.

It was M. de Ca.s.saud who arranged and mounted the steps in the tiny washing-room.