Sexton Blake and the Great War

by Mark Hodder

  “That’s great!” he said. “We’ve been trying to lay those fellows by the heels for months, I don’t mind telling you in confidence.

  “Look here, Mr. Blake, there’s still that C.B. at my disposal, if you feel like changing your mind.”

  “I’ll accept it on one condition,” said Blake, smiling.

  “And that is?”

  “That you allow me to request you pass it on to your nephew, because without him we should never have got here by now.”

  “My nephew?”

  “Yes. He ran us across in his destroyer.”

  “Good Lor’! The young rascal! Well, if you really wish it, Mr. Blake, I’ll see what can be done. It is more than generous of you to suggest it. In any case, I personally shall send him a good fat cheque. The young rascal is an extravagant young dog, and always hard up.”

  “Thank you!” said Blake. “He deserves it; for without him we certainly couldn’t have been here in the nick of time. Good-night! I feel that I could do with about forty-eight hours’ solid sleep.

  “I suppose,” he added, smiling, “we needn’t leave by the coal-cellar, or whatever it was, this time?”

  Sir James pressed a bell.

  “My car shall take you home, and, I trust, deliver you safely in the nick of time. Good-night and good luck!”

  THE END

  Notes

  3. Originally “pig-eating German,” which indicates how petty the language could be in war-time. It’s extraordinary how much focus was placed in these war stories on the fact that Germans ate sausages, as if by doing so they somehow demonstrated a level of barbaric inferiority.

  4. “—those pig-swine” excised.

  5. Uhlans were German lance-carrying cavalry units. They were already outdated at the start of the war and were disbanded by the end of it.

  6. One further instance of “the swine” and two instances of “the pigs” have been excised from the innkeeper’s discourse. While it’s understandable that the author, Cecil Hayter, disliked Germans during the Great War, his contempt appears to have run away from him while writing this scene, making it rather distasteful to modern sensibilities.

  7. A sentence that manages to insult both Belgians and Jews has been excised.

  PRIVATE TINKER—A.S.C.

  A SUSTAINED BARRAGE of thunder rumbled and crashed, marking the acme of the storm. Sexton Blake looked across the room but his eyes were focused beyond the window and into an unfathomable distance.

  In that thunder, I wondered, is he hearing the artillery, has his mind gone back to that terrible conflict, to those hideous years of relentless carnage?

  “For Tinker,” I said, “it was a different story. He joined the Army.”

  Blake blinked and turned his attention back to the binder on his lap. He flipped the plastic sleeve to see which issue the next one contained.

  “He did,” he confirmed. “Though under false pretences. He was young. Boys of his age were chomping at the bit to join the fray. They had no conception of the wholesale slaughter occurring at the Front. No one understood that the Great War wasn’t simply a clash of nations, it was also a collision of two very different time periods. You had pennant-carrying cavalrymen galloping with lances straight into machine-gun fire; sword-waving infantrymen charging at tanks; it was a bloodbath.”

  “Well-reflected in this account,” I said. “Tinker killed a lot of Germans. Or was the writer, William Murray Graydon, exaggerating?”

  “Tinker did his duty.” Blake paused, then continued. “It changed him. I don’t know how well that’s reflected in the published stories, but Tinker went to war a boy and came back a man.” He gave a slight shrug. “Mind you, it altered everything. Do you notice how, before the conflict, I had a great many cases involving cheated heirs, stolen heirlooms, missing aristocrats, and so forth—how so many of my clients came from the gentry—but how all that began to dwindle after the war, and even more so after the second one? There were colossal shifts in British society and they are all right here—” he held up the binder, “in these stories. That is why they are important. Yet all these years after their publication, they are still regarded by the intelligentsia as cheap throwaway fiction, unworthy of study. It’s a missed opportunity. They are ‘Ground Zero’ history. They were written in the midst of it by—and for—ordinary people. There’s no academic distance here. Also, somewhere in these so-called ‘adventure yarns,’ there’s an explanation for what happened next; for what was unleashed in Britain after the Great War ended, and as a consequence of it.”

  I asked, “To what are you referring?”

  He didn’t respond.

  PRIVATE TINKER—A.S.C.

  by William Murray Graydon

  UNION JACK issue 589 (1915)

  PART ONE

  THE FIRST CHAPTER

  Tinker’s Bad Luck

  AT THE SOUND of footsteps on the stairs Pedro raised his massive head from the rug, and vigorously thumped the floor with his tail; and Tinker, who was curled in the depths of a lounge-chair, sat up by a languid effort, and tossed aside the newspaper he had been reading. The door was opened, and Sexton Blake entered the big, cheerful sitting-room which could have told many thrilling tales and betrayed many a weighty secret, had walls but ears and tongues.

  There was on the detective’s clean-cut features a strained, harassed look which had of late become almost a fixture. For days past, in this time of national peril from the horde of Germans who were within London’s gates, he had been zealously assisting the shrewd brains of Scotland Yard, working on behalf of his country, and neglecting his individual interests. Having nodded to the lad, and spoken a kindly word to the bloodhound, he pulled a bell-cord that communicated with the basement, and then dropped heavily into a chair.

  “I didn’t expect you before to-night,” said Tinker. “Have you had any luck?”

  “Yes, good luck and bad,” Blake replied. “The clue that I mentioned this morning led us to a house on Highgate Hill, where we discovered the two unregistered aliens. One succeeded in making his escape, most unfortunately; but we caught the other, and found carrier-pigeons and a wireless apparatus on the premises. So there can be no doubt of the man’s guilt.”

  “What will be done with him, guv’nor?”

  “I don’t know. He ought to be quietly shot at daybreak by a file of soldiers, and in all probability he will be. That is the proper way to deal with spies in time of war.”

  “They have shot some of them, I have heard. I wish they could all be caught.”

  “That is a big task, Tinker. But I must stick to it. There is a fresh trail to be followed to-morrow, and I may have need of you and Pedro.”

  “Right you are,” assented Tinker.

  Mrs. Bardell, the portly landlady, came into the room with a laden tray, and put the tea things on the table. She was in a bad temper because the milkman’s assistant, whom she adored, had been persuaded to take the King’s shilling. And when she had complained of that, and grumbled at the increased price of provisions, she shook her fist at an inoffensive bust of the immortal Vidocq which graced a pedestal.[8]

  “I wish that was the Kaiser, alive and in the flesh,” she declared. “Wouldn’t I pinch ‘is nose for ‘im! Oh, these wicked Germans, and the Alleys, and the whole blessed lot of ‘em! A setting at it, and blowing one another to bits with bombs and shells and suchlike, as if they was the Kilkenny cats and dogs![9] What I can’t understand about it, as I was saying to my friend Jemima Primp, which is cook at the next ‘ouse but one, is why the Powers don’t intervene and stop the war.”

  Blake laughed, and the lad could not repress a smile, moody though he was.

  “Why don’t they?” fairly shrieked Mrs. Bardell. “Why don’t they do what the papers were always saying they were likely to do, now they’ve got the chance? It’s disgraceful their looking coolly on while millions of soldiers are rushing into arms, and falling in ‘eaps on the gory field of massage!”

  With that the landlady depa
rted, viciously slamming the door behind her.

  “A queer woman, Tinker!” murmured Sexton Blake.

  Tinker nodded, and gazed absently at the bloodhound, who was squatted by the tea-table. The slanting rays of the September sun were shining into the room. Down in Baker Street the flags of various nations, British and French, Russian and Belgian, were fluttering in the breeze. On taxi-cabs and motor-’buses, and displayed in shops, were posters printed in red letters, calling on the people to take up arms for their King and country, and join Kitchener’s force. The tap of a drum rose above the throbbing of the traffic, and it sent the lad hurrying to the window.

  It was a Scottish regiment approaching. It marched past, and was followed shortly afterwards by a long train of the Royal Field Artillery. A score of guns rumbled by, with mounted offices here and there, and khaki-clad soldiers riding stiffly on the draught-horses, and others perched on the carriages with their arms folded across their chests. Tinker cheered with the spectators on the pavement, and when he returned to the table his cheeks were flushed and his eyes were bright.

  A FEW DAYS had elapsed, and Sexton Blake and Tinker were sitting in a taxi-cab that was progressing by fits and starts through the sloppy, crowded thoroughfares of the City. It had been raining all of the morning, and the afternoon was damp and dismal. The weather mattered nothing to Blake and the lad, however. They were going down to Essex to make inquiries concerning a man who was suspected of being an unregistered alien of a dangerous type, as they were keen on their quest. It was a consolation to both to feel that they were serving their country as well, in a way, as if they had been under arms at the front.

  “I wonder if the fellow really is Wertheim?” said Tinker.

  “I have no doubt, Tinker, since the description fits,” the detective replied. “I knew that he had been in hiding, and I believe he has been run to earth.”

  Having arrived at Liverpool Street, and bought their tickets, they plunged into a mass of humanity that seemed to be moving in all directions; and as they were jostling through, towards the gates, Sexton Blake saw a familiar face approaching him.

  “Hallo, Grant!” he said, accosting a young naval officer who had his arm in a sling. “What are you doing here?”

  “I have just come from Harwich,” replied Captain Grant, of the cruiser Centipede, with a smile that lighted up his thin and haggard face.

  “You have been in hospital there, I suppose?”

  “No, I haven’t been so bad as that. I was put ashore from my ship this morning, on special service.”

  “I was sorry to hear that you had been wounded. That was a fine set-to you had with the enemy the other day.”

  “It was a costly one for them, Blake, and a bitter pill to swallow after all their bragging. We shall be at them again before long, I hope. I am going back as soon as—as I have—”

  The officer’s voice faltered. An ashen pallor was mounting to his cheeks, and he suddenly swayed against Blake.

  “What’s wrong?” Blake explained.

  “It is nothing much,” gasped Captain Grant. “I am not as strong as I thought I was. My arm hasn’t entirely healed yet, and there is a splinter from a shell in my body.”

  “You are ill! I shall have to look after you.”

  “No, no, Blake, don’t let me detain you. Never mind about me. I’ll be all right in a moment.”

  “I don’t think you will be.”

  The naval officer’s remonstrances were unheeded. Sexton Blake and Tinker led him, almost a limp weight in their grasp, to a waiting-room that was deserted, and put him on a couch. The detective hastened to the bar, and returned with a small glass of brandy, and when Captain Grant had swallowed this a tinge of colour ebbed back into his face, and he was able to sit up.

  “Thanks!” he murmured. “I am better now.”

  “You don’t look it,” Blake answered. “You need rest, and I will send you home at once. Your wife lives at the same address in South Kensington, I believe?”

  “Yes, that’s right. But I can’t go home until I have transacted my business.”

  “You will have to go at once, Grant. You are not fit for anything.”

  “I am afraid I am not,” the young officer assented, as he sank back on the couch. “This is most annoying. Perhaps you will do me a kindness. I have a despatch of some importance, from the commander of the fleet, which must be promptly delivered at the Admiralty. Will you take it there, and tell them that I am ill?”

  “I am sorry,” the detective replied, “but I am going down to Essex on an urgent matter, and I have only ten minutes in which to catch the train. I can help you out of your difficulty, however. Tinker will take the despatch for you.”

  “Can I trust it to him, Blake?”

  “Yes, as readily as to me. He will deliver it safely at the Admiralty, you may be sure.”

  “Very well. Here it is.”

  Captain Grant drew from his breast pocket a sealed envelope, and gave it to Sexton Blake, who handed it to the lad.

  “Take the best care of this,” he said earnestly. “Remember that you are on Government service. When you have delivered the despatch you can go home. I shall probably return in the morning, or possibly late to-night.”

  It was a disappointment to Tinker that he was not to accompany his master, but he concealed his feelings.

  “Right you are, guv’nor,” he said. “You can rely on me.”

  He slipped the envelope into his pocket and hurried off. As he made his way towards the station exit he was followed by a man who had been peering furtively through the waiting-room window, and had seen the despatch change hands. But there was not the slightest suspicion of evil in the lad’s mind. It had not occurred to him, or to Blake either, that German spies might have been prowling about at Liverpool Street on the chance of learning something of advantage. Tinker stepped into a taxi-cab, and gave the address to the chauffeur; and as he was driven away the individual who had been shadowing him entered a motor-car that had been waiting for him, and whispered a few words of instruction to a comrade who was at the wheel.

  The dull, grey day was drawing to a close, and it was already so dark, though the time was only six o’clock, that lamps were beginning to twinkle here and there. The lad leaned back in the seat, and gazed moodily from the window at the hurrying crowds of people.

  “I had rather be going down to Essex,” he reflected. “I shall miss the fun if the guv’nor arrests that fellow Wertheim. But it can’t be helped.”

  Owing to the heavy traffic in the main thoroughfares at this hour, the chauffeur avoided Fleet Street and the Strand, holding a course by Queen Victoria Street to Blackfriars Bridge, and thence along the Embankment, where a thin mist from the river hung in the air. The pursuing motor-car, which had its hood up, was not far behind. The driver of it waited until half of the stretch of the Temple Gardens had been passed, and the road was comparatively free of traffic; and then, by a twist of the wheel, he sent his vehicle against the rear of the taxi-cab with just sufficient force to cause it to swerve, and collide with one of the street-refuges. The cab was checked with a jerk, pitching the chauffeur onto the tram-line, and hurling Tinker violently from his seat.

  “Confound it!” he muttered. “Some clumsy fool has run into us!”

  The motor-car had not sustained any damage. It had pulled up a couple of yards ahead, and a lean, clean-shaved man had jumped out of it. He darted to the taxi-cab, and as the lad opened the door and was about to emerge, a staggering blow was dealt him. He reeled back, and the next instant his assailant was inside and on top of him, busy with both hands.

  “Help! Help!” Tinker called hoarsely.

  Another blow half dazed him, and his struggles relaxed. He did not lose consciousness. As he offered a feeble resistance he felt his coat being ripped open, and the sealed envelope being wrenched from his pocket. The daring man had achieved his object. He sprang from the cab and dashed back and into the motor-car, which started at once. And it was glidi
ng swiftly away, melting into the murky gloom, when the bruised and dishevelled lad scrambled out of the damaged vehicle, and gazed about him in bewilderment.

  “Stop them!” he shouted, as he realised what had happened. “Stop that car! I have been robbed!”

  It was a futile appeal. Nobody had even observed the number of the motor-car, which had now vanished in the mist. The whole affair had occurred in almost less time than it takes to tell. The lad swayed against a lamp-post, pressing his hand to his throbbing head. A clamour was ringing and swelling in his ears. Constables hastened from here and there to the scene of the accident. The chauffeur was dragged unconscious from under the wheels of a tramcar, and from other cars, which had stopped by the refuge, swarmed men, women and children. They gathered around Tinker, and annoyed him with absurd questions. One of the policemen sent for an ambulance, and another, having pushed his way into the crowd, glanced at the lad, and recognised him.

  “Hello, youngster!” he exclaimed. “You’re Mr. Sexton Blake’s assistant, aren’t you?”

  “That’s right!” Tinker dully assented.

  “And what’s the trouble? Didn’t I hear you shouting that you had been robbed?”

  “Yes, I have been. The guv’nor sent me with a paper to be delivered in Whitehall, and I must have been followed by some scoundrel in a motor-car. He ran into my cab, and attacked me before I could get out, and stole the paper from me!”

  “Would you know him if you were to see him again, my boy?”

  “No; I didn’t get a glimpse of his face.”

  “Was the paper of any great value?”

  “My word, I should think so! I was taking it to the—”