With Haig on the Somme Part 30

How the time flew!--faster even than the week's kit leave that had brought Dennis home before--and though Bob still walked with a slight halt, his leg was getting better every day; while Dennis openly declared that it was simply absurd to have given him leave at all.

"Look here, old chap," said the Captain on Monday, "I'm going up to the War Office to-day to report myself fit and receive my orders about taking that draft over. Of course, it's delightful to be at home again, but there's no earthly reason why we should put in our full leave and feel that we're slacking."

"Right-o!" responded Dennis promptly, "I want to buy one or two things to take over, and I'll come into town with you."

Mrs. Dashwood's heart beat quicker, but she made no attempt to stand in their way, feeling secretly proud of their eagerness, and the two brothers parted outside the Strand Tube, having arranged to meet at a certain well-known restaurant at a given time. It was easier to get into the War Office than to get out of it, and Dennis, his own mission accomplished, was cooling his heels outside the appointed rendezvous when someone tapped him on the shoulder.

"I thought I couldn't be mistaken, Dashwood," cried a cheery voice.

"What, Wetherby, old chap!" And Dennis looked at the badge on the brand-new uniform of the lad who had accosted him. "Great Scott! Have they sent you to ours?" And his old schoolfellow grinned delightedly.

"Yes, I've just been getting my things. Left the O.T.C. last week--join the reserve battalion to-morrow."

"And if I've anything to say about it, you'll come out with the draft on Wednesday. Bob will work that for you. Remember Bob, of course? Look here, I'm waiting for him now. Let's go in here and have some grub. He's bound to turn up in a few minutes"; and linking his arm in that of his old schoolfellow, they pa.s.sed into the restaurant together.

"The Red Tulips" was filling up rapidly, but they secured a little table, and turned down a chair for Bob. It was a gay place, all gilt and glitter, with a string band on one side of the long hall, and at hundreds of other little tables well-dressed people were lunching, a goodly sprinkling of officers in uniform among them.

At the next table to their own was a stout Major, whom Dennis instantly identified as a "dug-out."

His face was flushed and he was talking loudly, names of battalions flowing glibly from his well-oiled tongue. His companions were an over-dressed lady and a young "nut" who ought to have been in uniform.

"There's no doubt about it," said the Major. "My battalion--the Sloggers, you know--absolutely take the biscuit. The --th are a very decent crush, and so are the --th and the --th. They make up our brigade, you know. I shall just get back in time, and as soon as I arrive we have orders to leave Barbillier to support Dashwood's Brigade, which has been awfully cut up in this last business."

"Confound that old gasbag!" muttered Dennis, leaning across the table to Wetherby. "That's the way information gets about--he's no right to be talking like that."

"Certainly not," replied Wetherby, "but I think they're going now. That waitress girl is making out the bill--a pretty long one, too--she's been writing hard for the last five minutes."

"You see, what really happened was this," continued the red-faced Major, "Dashwood's Brigade was at ----"

"You'll excuse me, sir," said a voice, "but I happen to be in Dashwood's Brigade, and we're not at all anxious that our movements should be given broadcast in a place like this."

"Eh, what!" stuttered the field officer, looking at the single star that adorned Dennis's cuff, and waxing furious. "What the d.i.c.kens is the service coming to? Do you know who I am, sir?" And he fixed his eyegla.s.s into the frown that was intended to slay this young whippersnapper who presumed to dictate to a man with a crown on his shoulder.

But Dennis made no reply, for his eyes were resting on the white-ap.r.o.ned waitress, who was busy with her pay-book, and he saw two things.

One was that it was no bill she was making out; the other, that the red hair under her coquettish little cap matched oddly with the great black eyes that were bent on her writing.

"Pardon me," he said, striding behind the Major's chair; and as his hand stretched forward for the pay-book the waitress looked up, and he knew that it was Ottilie Von Dussel!

"You here!" he exclaimed, and the perforated leaf on which she had been writing came away in his fingers as she closed the book.

She gave a little cry, and one of the musicians stepped down from the platform and came up to them.

"You must not make a disturbance here, sir," he said rudely, and the next moment he was flung back across an adjoining table with a cut lip.

Dennis swung round as people sprang to their feet, but Ottilie Von Dussel was making her way swiftly towards a neighbouring door.

"Stop that woman!" he shouted. "She is a German spy!" But everybody was talking at once, and the white cap vanished out of sight.

"I shall report you, sir," thundered Dennis to the loquacious Major, flourishing the leaf he had secured. "Every word of your conversation has been written down. There was a carbon in that book, and that she-fiend has escaped with the duplicate. Within forty-eight hours the German headquarters will receive information that may cost us a thousand lives!"

CHAPTER XXIII

"Gas!"

The hubbub in the restaurant was tremendous. Well-dressed people can jostle and clamour and crush just as selfishly as anybody else, and those of the lunchers who were not near enough stood up on their chairs to get a better view.

The musician picked himself up with a fried sole embossed on the back of his dress coat and two portions of hot soup running down his neck, to say nothing of blobs of mashed potato and the contents of overturned cruets all over him.

"I've got one of you, anyhow," said Dennis in German, as he seized him by the collar. "You'd better have sat tight among your fiddles, and allowed Madame von Dussel to play her own dirty game."

If the musician's look could have killed, there would have been another vacancy in the Reedshires.

The cause of all the tumult confronted Dennis, purple with indignation, and began to bl.u.s.ter. But another officer had wormed himself resolutely forward through the crush.

"I want to know what the deuce you mean, sir!" demanded the indignant major, but the new-comer interrupted him.

"I am the a.s.sistant Provost-Marshal," he said. "What is the meaning of this fracas?"

"The explanation is very simple, sir," replied Dennis, handing him the slip of paper. "My friend and I were astonished to hear this officer talking so unguardedly. It is charitable to suppose that he has taken too much wine, and when I expostulated with him I recognised one of the waitresses as a remarkably clever German spy."

The A.P.M. nodded.

"I gathered that," he said. "I will ask you, gentlemen, to accompany me to the manager's room." And the excited crowd fell back to let them pa.s.s.

As Dennis brought up the rear with his prisoner he met Bob coming in, and young Wetherby told him what had happened.

"By Jove! it's a thousand pities we missed that woman," said the captain. "We haven't seen the end of that vixen and her husband."

What happened in the manager's room it is not for us to reveal, but the placards of the evening papers had the startling announcement:

"DRAMATIC CAPTURE OF A GERMAN SPY AT A WELL-KNOWN WEST-END RESTAURANT!

ESCAPE OF HIS FEMALE ACCOMPLICE!

BRITISH OFFICER'S WINE DRUGGED!"

In the _Gazette_ a few days later was an announcement among the promotions: "2/12th Royal Reedshire Regiment, Captain Robert Oswald Dashwood to command the battalion with the rank of major. Second Lieutenant Dennis Dashwood to lieutenant."

Probably none of the lunchers knew what that meant; it was not their affair.

Up the muddy road swung a brown detachment to the music of mouth organs, and Harry Hawke, who was lounging at the door of a big barn, chewing a woodbine and looking fed up with life generally, lifted his snub nose in the air as the head of the detachment came round a bend in the road.

In an instant the sulky, discontented look vanished from his face, and he let off a yell.