7 Chapter 7 (Christmastide)

Everything depended on whether the servant was in the hall. I had put

Stumm to sleep for a bit, but I couldn't flatter myself he would long

be quiet, and when he came to he would kick the locked door to

matchwood. I must get out of the house without a minute's delay, and if

the door was shut and the old man gone to bed I was done.

I met him at the foot of the stairs, carrying a candle.

"Your master wants me to send off an important telegram. Where is the

nearest office? There's one in the village, isn't there?" I spoke in my

best German, the first time I had used the tongue since I crossed the

frontier.

"The village is five minutes off at the foot of the avenue," he said.

"Will you be long, sir?"

"I'll be back in a quarter of an hour," I said. "Don't lock up till I

get in."

I put on my ulster and walked out into a clear starry night. My bag I

left lying on a settle in the hall. There was nothing in it to

compromise me, but I wished I could have got a toothbrush and some

tobacco out of it.

So began one of the craziest escapades you can well imagine. I couldn't

stop to think of the future yet, but must take one step at a time. I

ran down the avenue, my feet cracking on the hard snow, planning hard

my programme for the next hour.

I found the village—half a dozen houses with one biggish place that

looked like an inn. The moon was rising, and as I approached I saw that

there was some kind of a store. A funny little two-seated car was

purring before the door, and I guessed this was also the telegraph

office.

I marched in and told my story to a stout woman with spectacles on her

nose who was talking to a young man.

"It is too late," she shook her head. "The Herr Burgrave knows that

well. There is no connection from here after eight o'clock. If the

matter is urgent you must go to Schwandorf."

"How far is that?" I asked, looking for some excuse to get decently out

of the shop.

"Seven miles," she said, "but here is Franz and the post-wagon. Franz,

you will be glad to give the gentleman a seat beside you."

The sheepish-looking youth muttered something which I took to be

assent, and finished off a glass of beer. From his eyes and manner he

looked as if he were half drunk.

I thanked the woman, and went out to the car, for I was in a fever to

take advantage of this unexpected bit of luck. I could hear the

post-mistress enjoining Franz not to keep the gentleman waiting, and

presently he came out and flopped into the driver's seat. We started in

a series of voluptuous curves, till his eyes got accustomed to the

darkness.

At first we made good going along the straight, broad highway lined

with woods on one side and on the other snowy fields melting into haze.

Then he began to talk, and, as he talked, he slowed down. This by no

means suited my book, and I seriously wondered whether I should pitch

him out and take charge of the thing. He was obviously a weakling, left

behind in the conscription, and I could have done it with one hand. But

by a fortunate chance I left him alone.

"That is a fine hat of yours, mein Herr," he said. He took off his own

blue peaked cap, the uniform, I suppose, of the driver of the

post-wagon, and laid it on his knee. The night air ruffled a shock of

tow-coloured hair.

Then he calmly took my hat and clapped it on his head.

"With this thing I should be a gentleman," he said.

I said nothing, but put on his cap and waited.

"That is a noble overcoat, mein Herr," he went on. "It goes well with

the hat. It is the kind of garment I have always desired to own. In two

days it will be the holy Christmas, when gifts are given. Would that

the good God sent me such a coat as yours!"

"You can try it on to see how it looks," I said good-humouredly.

He stopped the car with a jerk, and pulled off his blue coat. The

exchange was soon effected. He was about my height, and my ulster

fitted not so badly. I put on his overcoat, which had a big collar that

buttoned round the neck.

The idiot preened himself like a girl. Drink and vanity had primed him

for any folly. He drove so carelessly for a bit that he nearly put us

into a ditch. We passed several cottages and at the last he slowed

down.

"A friend of mine lives here," he announced. "Gertrud would like to see

me in the fine clothes which the most amiable Herr has given me. Wait

for me, I will not be long." And he scrambled out of the car and

lurched into the little garden.

I took his place and moved very slowly forward. I heard the door open

and the sound of laughing and loud voices. Then it shut, and looking

back I saw that my idiot had been absorbed into the dwelling of his

Gertrud. I waited no longer, but sent the car forward at its best

speed.

Five minutes later the infernal thing began to give trouble—a nut loose

in the antiquated steering-gear. I unhooked a lamp, examined it, and

put the mischief right, but I was a quarter of an hour doing it. The

highway ran now in a thick forest and I noticed branches going off now

and then to the right. I was just thinking of turning up one of them,

for I had no anxiety to visit Schwandorf, when I heard behind me the

sound of a great car driven furiously.

I drew in to the right side—thank goodness I remembered the rule of the

road—and proceeded decorously, wondering what was going to happen. I

could hear the brakes being clamped on and the car slowing down.

Suddenly a big grey bonnet slipped past me and as I turned my head I

heard a familiar voice.

It was Stumm, looking like something that has been run over. He had his

jaw in a sling, so that I wondered if I had broken it, and his eyes

were beautifully bunged up. It was that that saved me, that and his

raging temper. The collar of the postman's coat was round my chin,

hiding my beard, and I had his cap pulled well down on my brow. I

remembered what Blenkiron had said—that the only way to deal with the

Germans was naked bluff. Mine was naked enough, for it was all that was

left to me.

"Where is the man you brought from Andersbach?" he roared, as well as

his jaw would allow him.

I pretended to be mortally scared, and spoke in the best imitation I

could manage of the postman's high cracked voice.

"He got out a mile back, Herr Burgrave," I quavered. "He was a rude

fellow who wanted to go to Schwandorf, and then changed his mind."

"Where, you fool? Say exactly where he got down or I will wring your

neck."

"In the wood this side of Gertrud's cottage ... on the left hand. I

left him running among the trees." I put all the terror I knew into my

pipe, and it wasn't all acting.

"He means the Henrichs' cottage, Herr Colonel," said the chauffeur.

"This man is courting the daughter."

Stumm gave an order and the great car backed, and, as I looked round, I

saw it turning. Then as it gathered speed it shot forward, and

presently was lost in the shadows. I had got over the first hurdle.

But there was no time to be lost. Stumm would meet the postman and

would be tearing after me any minute. I took the first turning, and

bucketed along a narrow woodland road. The hard ground would show very

few tracks, I thought, and I hoped the pursuit would think I had gone

on to Schwandorf. But it wouldn't do to risk it, and I was determined

very soon to get the car off the road, leave it, and take to the

forest. I took out my watch and calculated I could give myself ten

minutes.

I was very nearly caught. Presently I came on a bit of rough heath,

with a slope away from the road and here and there a patch of black

which I took to be a sandpit. Opposite one of these I slewed the car to

the edge, got out, started it again and saw it pitch head-foremost into

the darkness. There was a splash of water and then silence. Craning

over I could see nothing but murk, and the marks at the lip where the

wheels had passed. They would find my tracks in daylight but scarcely

at this time of night.

Then I ran across the road to the forest. I was only just in time, for

the echoes of the splash had hardly died away when I heard the sound of

another car. I lay flat in a hollow below a tangle of snow-laden

brambles and looked between the pine-trees at the moonlit road. It was

Stumm's car again and to my consternation it stopped just a little

short of the sandpit.

I saw an electric torch flashed, and Stumm himself got out and examined

the tracks on the highway. Thank God, they would be still there for him

to find, but had he tried half a dozen yards on he would have seen them

turn towards the sandpit. If that had happened he would have beaten the

adjacent woods and most certainly found me. There was a third man in

the car, with my hat and coat on him. That poor devil of a postman had

paid dear for his vanity.

They took a long time before they started again, and I was jolly well

relieved when they went scouring down the road. I ran deeper into the

woods till I found a track which—as I judged from the sky which I saw

in a clearing—took me nearly due west. That wasn't the direction I

wanted, so I bore off at right angles, and presently struck another

road which I crossed in a hurry. After that I got entangled in some

confounded kind of enclosure and had to climb paling after paling of

rough stakes plaited with osiers. Then came a rise in the ground and I

was on a low hill of pines which seemed to last for miles. All the time

I was going at a good pace, and before I stopped to rest I calculated I

had put six miles between me and the sandpit.

My mind was getting a little more active now; for the first part of the

journey I had simply staggered from impulse to impulse. These impulses

had been uncommon lucky, but I couldn't go on like that for ever. _Ek

sal "n plan maak_, says the old Boer when he gets into trouble, and it

was up to me now to make a plan.

As soon as I began to think I saw the desperate business I was in for.

Here was I, with nothing except what I stood up in—including a coat and

cap that weren't mine—alone in mid-winter in the heart of South

Germany. There was a man behind me looking for my blood, and soon there

would be a hue-and-cry for me up and down the land. I had heard that

the German police were pretty efficient, and I couldn't see that I

stood the slimmest chance. If they caught me they would shoot me beyond

doubt. I asked myself on what charge, and answered, "For knocking about

a German officer." They couldn't have me up for espionage, for as far

as I knew they had no evidence. I was simply a Dutchman that had got

riled and had run amok. But if they cut down a cobbler for laughing at

a second lieutenant—which is what happened at Zabern—I calculated that

hanging would be too good for a man that had broken a colonel's jaw.

To make things worse my job was not to escape—though that would have

been hard enough—but to get to Constantinople, more than a thousand

miles off, and I reckoned I couldn't get there as a tramp. I had to be

sent there, and now I had flung away my chance. If I had been a

Catholic I would have said a prayer to St Teresa, for she would have

understood my troubles.

My mother used to say that when you felt down on your luck it was a

good cure to count your mercies. So I set about counting mine. The

first was that I was well started on my journey, for I couldn't be

above two score miles from the Danube. The second was that I had

Stumm's pass. I didn't see how I could use it, but there it was. Lastly

I had plenty of money—fifty-three English sovereigns and the equivalent

of three pounds in German paper which I had changed at the hotel. Also

I had squared accounts with old Stumm. That was the biggest mercy of

all.

I thought I'd better get some sleep, so I found a dryish hole below an

oak root and squeezed myself into it. The snow lay deep in these woods

and I was sopping wet up to the knees. All the same I managed to sleep

for some hours, and got up and shook myself just as the winter's dawn

was breaking through the tree tops. Breakfast was the next thing, and I

must find some sort of dwelling.

Almost at once I struck a road, a big highway running north and south.

I trotted along in the bitter morning to get my circulation started,

and presently I began to feel a little better. In a little I saw a

church spire, which meant a village. Stumm wouldn't be likely to have

got on my tracks yet, I calculated, but there was always the chance

that he had warned all the villages round by telephone and that they

might be on the look-out for me. But that risk had to be taken, for I

must have food.

It was the day before Christmas, I remembered, and people would be

holidaying. The village was quite a big place, but at this hour—just

after eight o'clock—there was nobody in the street except a wandering

dog. I chose the most unassuming shop I could find, where a little boy

was taking down the shutters—one of those general stores where they

sell everything. The boy fetched a very old woman, who hobbled in from

the back, fitting on her spectacles.

"Gruss Gott," she said in a friendly voice, and I took off my cap. I

saw from my reflection in a saucepan that I looked moderately

respectable in spite of my night in the woods.

I told her the story of how I was walking from Schwandorf to see my

mother at an imaginary place called Judenfeld, banking on the ignorance

of villagers about any place five miles from their homes. I said my

luggage had gone astray, and I hadn't time to wait for it, since my

leave was short. The old lady was sympathetic and unsuspecting. She

sold me a pound of chocolate, a box of biscuits, the better part of a

ham, two tins of sardines and a rucksack to carry them. I also bought

some soap, a comb and a cheap razor, and a small Tourists' Guide,

published by a Leipzig firm. As I was leaving I saw what seemed like

garments hanging up in the back shop, and turned to have a look at

them. They were the kind of thing that Germans wear on their summer

walking tours—long shooting capes made of a green stuff they call

_loden_. I bought one, and a green felt hat and an alpenstock to keep

it company. Then wishing the old woman and her belongings a merry

Christmas, I departed and took the shortest cut out of the village.

There were one or two people about now, but they did not seem to notice

me.

I went into the woods again and walked for two miles till I halted for

breakfast. I was not feeling quite so fit now, and I did not make much

of my provisions, beyond eating a biscuit and some chocolate. I felt

very thirsty and longed for hot tea. In an icy pool I washed and with

infinite agony shaved my beard. That razor was the worst of its

species, and my eyes were running all the time with the pain of the

operation. Then I took off the postman's coat and cap, and buried them

below some bushes. I was now a clean-shaven German pedestrian with a

green cape and hat, and an absurd walking-stick with an iron-shod

end—the sort of person who roams in thousands over the Fatherland in

summer, but is a rarish bird in mid-winter.

The Tourists' Guide was a fortunate purchase, for it contained a big

map of Bavaria which gave me my bearings. I was certainly not forty

miles from the Danube—more like thirty. The road through the village I

had left would have taken me to it. I had only to walk due south and I

would reach it before night. So far as I could make out there were long

tongues of forest running down to the river, and I resolved to keep to

the woodlands. At the worst I would meet a forester or two, and I had a

good enough story for them. On the highroad there might be awkward

questions.

When I started out again I felt very stiff and the cold seemed to be

growing intense. This puzzled me, for I had not minded it much up to

now, and, being warm-blooded by nature, it never used to worry me. A

sharp winter night on the high-veld was a long sight chillier than

anything I had struck so far in Europe. But now my teeth were

chattering and the marrow seemed to be freezing in my bones.

The day had started bright and clear, but a wrack of grey clouds soon

covered the sky, and a wind from the east began to whistle. As I

stumbled along through the snowy undergrowth I kept longing for bright

warm places. I thought of those long days on the veld when the earth

was like a great yellow bowl, with white roads running to the horizon

and a tiny white farm basking in the heart of it, with its blue dam and

patches of bright green lucerne. I thought of those baking days on the

east coast, when the sea was like mother-of-pearl and the sky one

burning turquoise. But most of all I thought of warm scented noons on

trek, when one dozed in the shadow of the wagon and sniffed the

wood-smoke from the fire where the boys were cooking dinner.

From these pleasant pictures I returned to the beastly present—the

thick snowy woods, the lowering sky, wet clothes, a hunted present, and

a dismal future. I felt miserably depressed, and I couldn't think of

any mercies to count. It struck me that I might be falling sick.

About midday I awoke with a start to the belief that I was being

pursued. I cannot explain how or why the feeling came, except that it

is a kind of instinct that men get who have lived much in wild

countries. My senses, which had been numbed, suddenly grew keen, and my

brain began to work double quick.

I asked myself what I would do if I were Stumm, with hatred in my

heart, a broken jaw to avenge, and pretty well limitless powers. He

must have found the car in the sandpit and seen my tracks in the wood

opposite. I didn't know how good he and his men might be at following a

spoor, but I knew that any ordinary Kaffir could have nosed it out

easily. But he didn't need to do that. This was a civilized country

full of roads and railways. I must some time and somewhere come out of

the woods. He could have all the roads watched, and the telephone would

set everyone on my track within a radius of fifty miles. Besides, he

would soon pick up my trail in the village I had visited that morning.

From the map I learned that it was called Greif, and it was likely to

live up to that name with me.

Presently I came to a rocky knoll which rose out of the forest. Keeping

well in shelter I climbed to the top and cautiously looked around me.

Away to the east I saw the vale of a river with broad fields and

church-spires. West and south the forest rolled unbroken in a

wilderness of snowy tree-tops. There was no sign of life anywhere, not

even a bird, but I knew very well that behind me in the woods were men

moving swiftly on my track, and that it was pretty well impossible for

me to get away.

There was nothing for it but to go on till I dropped or was taken. I

shaped my course south with a shade of west in it, for the map showed

me that in that direction I would soonest strike the Danube. What I was

going to do when I got there I didn't trouble to think. I had fixed the

river as my immediate goal and the future must take care of itself.

I was now certain that I had fever on me. It was still in my bones, as

a legacy from Africa, and had come out once or twice when I was with

the battalion in Hampshire. The bouts had been short for I had known of

their coming and dosed myself. But now I had no quinine, and it looked

as if I were in for a heavy go. It made me feel desperately wretched

and stupid, and I all but blundered into capture.

For suddenly I came on a road and was going to cross it blindly, when a

man rode slowly past on a bicycle. Luckily I was in the shade of a

clump of hollies and he was not looking my way, though he was not three

yards off. I crawled forward to reconnoitre. I saw about half a mile of

road running straight through the forest and every two hundred yards

was a bicyclist. They wore uniform and appeared to be acting as

sentries.

This could only have one meaning. Stumm had picketed all the roads and

cut me off in an angle of the woods. There was no chance of getting

across unobserved. As I lay there with my heart sinking, I had the

horrible feeling that the pursuit might be following me from behind,

and that at any moment I would be enclosed between two fires.

For more than an hour I stayed there with my chin in the snow. I didn't

see any way out, and I was feeling so ill that I didn't seem to care.

Then my chance came suddenly out of the skies.

The wind rose, and a great gust of snow blew from the east. In five

minutes it was so thick that I couldn't see across the road. At first I

thought it a new addition to my troubles, and then very slowly I saw

the opportunity. I slipped down the bank and made ready to cross.

I almost blundered into one of the bicyclists. He cried out and fell

off his machine, but I didn't wait to investigate. A sudden access of

strength came to me and I darted into the woods on the farther side. I

knew I would be soon swallowed from sight in the drift, and I knew that

the falling snow would hide my tracks. So I put my best foot forward.

I must have run miles before the hot fit passed, and I stopped from

sheer bodily weakness. There was no sound except the crush of falling

snow, the wind seemed to have gone, and the place was very solemn and

quiet. But Heavens! how the snow fell! It was partly screened by the

branches, but all the same it was piling itself up deep everywhere. My

legs seemed made of lead, my head burned, and there were fiery pains

over all my body. I stumbled on blindly, without a notion of any

direction, determined only to keep going to the last. For I knew that

if I once lay down I would never rise again.

When I was a boy I was fond of fairy tales, and most of the stories I

remembered had been about great German forests and snow and charcoal

burners and woodmen's huts. Once I had longed to see these things, and

now I was fairly in the thick of them. There had been wolves, too, and

I wondered idly if I should fall in with a pack. I felt myself getting

light-headed. I fell repeatedly and laughed sillily every time. Once I

dropped into a hole and lay for some time at the bottom giggling. If

anyone had found me then he would have taken me for a madman.

The twilight of the forest grew dimmer, but I scarcely noticed it.

Evening was falling, and soon it would be night, a night without

morning for me. My body was going on without the direction of my brain,

for my mind was filled with craziness. I was like a drunk man who keeps

running, for he knows that if he stops he will fall, and I had a sort

of bet with myself not to lie down—not at any rate just yet. If I lay

down I should feel the pain in my head worse. Once I had ridden for

five days down country with fever on me and the flat bush trees had

seemed to melt into one big mirage and dance quadrilles before my eyes.

But then I had more or less kept my wits. Now I was fairly daft, and

every minute growing dafter.

Then the trees seemed to stop and I was walking on flat ground. It was

a clearing, and before me twinkled a little light. The change restored

me to consciousness, and suddenly I felt with horrid intensity the fire

in my head and bones and the weakness of my limbs. I longed to sleep,

and I had a notion that a place to sleep was before me. I moved towards

the light and presently saw through a screen of snow the outline of a

cottage.

I had no fear, only an intolerable longing to lie down. Very slowly I

made my way to the door and knocked. My weakness was so great that I

could hardly lift my hand.

There were voices within, and a corner of the curtain was lifted from

the window. Then the door opened and a woman stood before me, a woman

with a thin, kindly face.

"Gruss Gott," she said, while children peeped from behind her skirts.

"Gruss Gott," I replied. I leaned against the door-post, and speech

forsook me.

She saw my condition. "Come in, sir," she said. "You are sick and it is

no weather for a sick man."

I stumbled after her and stood dripping in the centre of the little

kitchen, while three wondering children stared at me. It was a poor

place, scantily furnished, but a good log-fire burned on the hearth.

The shock of warmth gave me one of those minutes of self-possession

which comes sometimes in the middle of a fever.

"I am sick, mother, and I have walked far in the storm and lost my way.

I am from Africa, where the climate is hot, and your cold brings me

fever. It will pass in a day or two if you can give me a bed."

"You are welcome," she said; "but first I will make you coffee."

I took off my dripping cloak, and crouched close to the hearth. She

gave me coffee—poor washy stuff, but blessedly hot. Poverty was spelled

large in everything I saw. I felt the tides of fever beginning to

overflow my brain again, and I made a great attempt to set my affairs

straight before I was overtaken. With difficulty I took out Stumm's

pass from my pocket-book.

"That is my warrant," I said. "I am a member of the Imperial Secret

Service and for the sake of my work I must move in the dark. If you

will permit it, mother, I will sleep till I am better, but no one must

know that I am here. If anyone comes, you must deny my presence."

She looked at the big seal as if it were a talisman.

"Yes, yes," she said, "you will have the bed in the garret and be left

in peace till you are well. We have no neighbours near, and the storm

will shut the roads. I will be silent, I and the little ones."

My head was beginning to swim, but I made one more effort.

"There is food in my rucksack—biscuits and ham and chocolate. Pray take

it for your use. And here is some money to buy Christmas fare for the

little ones." And I gave her some of the German notes.

After that my recollection becomes dim. She helped me up a ladder to

the garret, undressed me, and gave me a thick coarse nightgown. I seem

to remember that she kissed my hand, and that she was crying. "The good

Lord has sent you," she said. "Now the little ones will have their

prayers answered and the Christkind will not pass by our door."