by Mark Hodder
He paused, his eyes glistening with admiration, and stepped to the rear-end of the motor-’bus. He opened the door, and nodded with satisfaction as he glanced within.
“Well done,” he said. “Sausages, cold beer, pickles, and so forth. This will be a welcome change in rations. You had better have something to eat now,” he added. “Go into the cottage and my orderly will attend to you. I will see you again.”
With that Colonel Melton swung to the back of his horse, and rode away. And Tinker and the young officer entered the little dwelling, greatly pleased by the praise that had been bestowed upon them. They had safely reached the front, and they could count on being plunged into the thick of events, which was what they keenly desired.
“You are a jolly good sort, Rokeby,” declared Lieutenant Drake, “and I hope we shall see a lot of each other.”
THE FOURTH CHAPTER
Sexton Blake at the Front—Wounded!
ON THE FOLLOWING day, as Colonel Melton had predicted, heavy fighting began. During the morning the enemy fell back, and made a dogged stand on fresh ground; and the battle was still raging when, about the middle of the afternoon, Sexton Blake penetrated the rear of the British lines on a bicycle which he had purchased at Boulogne, and brought with him by rail.
He was going into danger, but that knowledge merely acted as a spur to his resolve, since the person for whom he had come to search must also be in peril. He was aware that Colonel Chumleigh was somewhere ahead of him, and he was determined to make every effort to find him, and that as soon as possible.
“If only I am not too late!” he reflected. “The list of casualties must have been piling up.”
Now and again, as he advanced, he gave a thought to Tinker and wondered if he were dead or alive. He had with him the unsigned will, and also the documents that Sir Francis Leeson had given to him. These he was compelled to show frequently, as he made progress towards the front; and on one of these occasions, while his credentials were being examined, he observed the German motor-’bus, and heard the story that attached to it. His informant, however, was unable to tell him the names of the two young heroes.
“I did know, sir,” he stated, “but I’ve forgotten. One was an officer and the other a private.”
The tale had interested the detective, and it occurred to him, as he mounted his bicycle, that Tinker would have done the same in similar circumstances.
“Perhaps it was the lad,” he said to himself. “He is with the Service Corps.”
Nearer and nearer, louder and louder, rang the thunder of the artillery and the bursting of shells. Once in a while there could be seen, far-off, a red flash streaking the cloud of great vapour that masked the horizon. More and more frequent grew the signs of the battle, in all their ghastly reality. Here was a field-hospital, showing glimpses of surgeons with their sleeves rolled up; there wounded men hobbling to the rear, grumbling at their ill-luck. Here Red Cross bearers carrying motionless forms, and there a group of sullen prisoners under escort. To the right and left reinforcements were pressing forward—batteries of guns, regiments of infantry, and cavalry with fluttering pennons. And yet the actual fighting was still at a distance of several miles.
Sexton Blake went on and on, stopping to make inquiries, and now halted by a sharp word of command. And at length, soon after he had passed a chateau that was the headquarters of the staff, he dismounted from his machine on a knoll of high ground, and saluted a small party of officers who had checked their steeds here, and were holding an earnest discussion. One of them was General Trench, and he stared in surprise at the detective, with whom he was acquainted. Sexton Blake smiled, and again raised his hand to his cap.
“Good afternoon, sir,” he said. “I am sorry to intrude on you at such a time.”
“My dear Blake!” exclaimed the Chief of Staff. “How did you get here?”
“I have come on a matter of private business,” the detective replied.
“And they allowed you to get so far as this? I cannot understand by what means you—”
“I have documents from Sir Francis Leeson, of the War Office.”
“Indeed?” murmured General Trench. “Your business is official, then?”
“No, not exactly” Blake answered. “I am in search of Colonel Chumleigh of the Guards.”
As he spoke he produced his papers, and while the general was looking over them he briefly and clearly explained the situation to him.
“I was told that I should have to obtain your consent,” he concluded, “before I could get to the actual front.”
“I can’t give it to you,” said General Trench, in a curt tone. “Colonel Chumleigh is close to the firing-line with his regiment. It is impossible for you to reach him, however. The risk would be too great.”
“I am not in the least afraid,” vowed the detective.
“I don’t doubt that. It is a question of my duty. You should not be where you are now. As for going farther, that is not to be thought of.”
“But the matter is urgent, sir. The more so because Colonel Chumleigh is in danger. It would be a serious thing for his child if he were to be killed before he had signed the will.”
“It won’t do, Blake. Really, it won’t. You must go back and wait for a safer opportunity.”
“I may never get one. You know that. I have been sent out here by the colonel’s wife. Have pity on her, general, and grant my request.”
“I ought not to. Your life is of more value than the will.”
“Don’t refuse, sir. You have the authority, and I am willing to take the chances.”
Blake persisted, and in the end he prevailed on the commander, who reluctantly took a notebook from his pocket. He scribbled a few words on a leaf, and tore it out.
“Here you are,” he said, with a shrug of the shoulders. “This will pass you anywhere. But I shall blame myself if you don’t come back alive.”
The detective thanked him, and leapt astride of his bicycle, and a moment later he was forgotten by General Trench, who was gazing through his glasses, and talking to his staff officers. Sexton Blake pedalled along as fast as he could. A mile slid behind him, and yet another, while the roar of the battle swelled louder in his ears. More than once he had to show the slip of paper that had been given to him, and that magic talisman sent him forward without question. He rode through a village from which the enemy had been driven that very morning, and here was evidence of desperate fighting at close quarters. Cottages were riddled with holes, and pools of blood had clotted on the grey cobblestones. Dead bodies, and helmets and weapons were scattered about in the winding street.
Just beyond the village the detective burst a tyre. He abandoned the useless machine, standing it against a hedge; and when he had walked for a short distance, and called in vain to a motor-scout who whizzed by him, he inquired for the Guards of a wounded soldier. Following the instructions that he received, he branched off to the left of the road, and traversed open ground that mounted to a belt of woods. The noise was now deafening, and the smell of powder was in his nostrils. Having entered the green cover, and gone for eight hundred yards or so, he was so near to the actual conflict that he found himself to be under fire.
“By Jove, this is getting warm!” he reflected. “But I must find Colonel Chumleigh. I may never get another opportunity. I am afraid I am too late, as it is. The Guards have probably been engaged in the course of the day.”
A purple haze, borne on the wind, had clouded the sun. The roar of the big guns had ceased, and there was an incessant rattling and spluttering of musketry. Bullets were flying overhead, whining and twanging, humming like bees. Leaves and twigs were falling, lopped off as if by a pruning-knife. A white furrow suddenly appeared on the brown trunk of a tree, and a leaden pellet hit a stone that was within a yard of Sexton Blake. He hastened on amongst the thickets, while the fire grew hotter and hotter, until at last he emerged from the woods on the edge of a plateau, and beheld so thrilling, terrifying a scene that he could
scarcely believe it to be real.
He was at the very front now, and exposed to view. Above him drifted a reek of smoke. Not far beyond him the British troops were working machine-guns from their trenches, and solid masses of German infantry, in blue-grey uniforms, who were advancing to the attack, were being mowed down by the raking hail of lead. Off to one side, sheltered by a ridge, a squadron of Lancers were riding at a trot, in a blaze of cherry and gold and green, their guides leading the way.
Blake felt as if it was all a ghastly nightmare. Bullets whistled past his ears, and spat viciously at his feet, flinging up dust. Voices shouted to him, but he heard nothing. He stopped, plunged blindly on, and stopped again.
“By heavens, what an inferno!” he muttered. “I can’t do it. To go any farther would be sheer, stark madness. I’ll have to turn back, and try to get to shelter before—”
At that instant he was hit. A burning, stabbing twinge shot through him, and his senses whirled into oblivion as he was dashed violently to the ground. And there he lay motionless, like a huddled corpse, while the spitting fire of the machine-guns slackened, and the Lancers charged like a hurricane into the decimated ranks of the enemy, and steeped their pointed weapons in a bath of crimson.
THE FIFTH CHAPTER
A Dramatic Meeting—Bad News for Blake.
THE THUNDER OF the battle had ebbed to silence, and the night had fallen when Sexton Blake recovered consciousness. He had been picked up at sunset, and carried to a field-hospital at the rear. He was weak and dizzy, and he felt as if his limbs had been pounded with hammers. He was lying on a cot, under a blanket, with a bandage across his breast. He glanced around the big tent.
“This is strange,” he thought. “I must be ill.”
His mind was almost a blank at first. He observed the other patients, and the surgeons and Red Cross nurses moving to and fro, and the deal table littered with instruments and drugs. Presently the cloud passed from his brain, and he had just remembered his plunge into the hail of bullets, and the sharp pain that had bowled him over, when his wandering eyes rested on a slim, khaki-clad youth who was approaching him. He stared incredulously for a moment.
“Tinker!” he gasped. “Tinker!”
Blake raised himself on his elbow, then dropped back with a bitter little laugh. He was under a delusion, of course.
It could not be the lad who was coming towards him. His senses swam again for an interval of a few seconds, during which he imagined that he could feel the touch of a cool hand on his brow, and listened, as one might listen in a dream, to the sound of a familiar voice. The cloud passed. He looked up with a clear intellect, and now he knew that he had not been dreaming.
“Tinker!” he murmured. “So it is really you!”
“Yes, guv’nor,” the lad replied. “I’m here right enough, in the flesh. But don’t excite yourself. You have had a bad time of it, and you mustn’t talk much.”
Sexton Blake did not want to talk yet. There would be plenty of chances afterwards. He was content now to lie still and silent, with a bronzed hand resting on his own, and gaze into the face of the boy who was so dear to him; the boy to whom his thoughts had turned constantly, by day and night, at home and abroad, since they had been wrenched apart.
“Will you forgive me?” Tinker presently asked, in a low tone.
“Forgive you?” echoed Blake. “Yes, how can I help it? But—but you treated me very cruelly.”
“I know I did, and I am sorry for it, in a way. There was a lot of misunderstanding on both sides. I was afraid you would be angry about the despatch, for one thing.”
“I should not have been, my boy. It wasn’t your fault that you were robbed.”
“Well, it can’t be helped. Here I am, serving my country, as I wished to do. It is fine, guv’nor. My word, I’ve been in some warm corners! By the way, you must be careful how you talk, and so must I, or I shall get into trouble. No one suspects who I am.”
“But I know,” said Blake, a grim smile twitching his mouth. “I shall have to call you Rokeby, I suppose, when there is anybody near.”
“That’s right,” the lad answered, flushing hotly as he spoke. “How did you tumble to the game? Have you seen Jack?”
“Yes, I met him in London, and got the truth out of him. He has enlisted in an assumed name, since he dared not use his own, and he will probably be sent to the front before long. A nice mess you have made of it.”
“I did wrong, I know. I was tempted. That is my only excuse. Don’t be angry, guv’nor. And please don’t force me to go back with you.”
“It is not likely that I could take you back if I wanted to. For the present matters must remain as they are. If the deception were to be disclosed the results might be serious for you and for your friend.”
“But you came out here to search for me, didn’t you?” asked Tinker.
“No, I did not,” Sexton Blake replied. “I came to the front on professional business, on behalf of a client. You shall hear all about it. Tell me first where I was hit. I feel as if there wasn’t much wrong with me.”
“There isn’t, guv’nor, thank goodness! A German bullet struck you in the chest, and passed clean through the silver cigar-case I gave you last Christmas, and stuck in the muscles between your ribs. It was the shock that bowled you over. One of the surgeons dug the bullet out, and you will be on your feet in a day or so, as fit as ever.”
“Did you find me, Tinker?”
“No; you were picked up by the Red Cross men. I was on duty here, and it gave me a fright when they brought you into the hospital. I believed at first that you were dead, and the thought that I might never have a chance to ask you to forgive me made me feel as if—as if—”
A lump rose in the lad’s throat, and choked his voice. He turned his face to hide the tears that had filled his eyes.
“You—you know,” he faltered.
“Yes, I know,” Blake whispered tenderly.
For a little time they were silent. Then the detective told the story of Colonel Chumleigh’s unsigned will, and when he had finished, Tinker modestly described the thrilling adventures that he had passed through since his departure from Rouen with the convoy of supplies. Sexton Blake looked at him in admiration.
“So you are one of the heroic fellows they told me about,” he said. “I saw the German motor-’bus, and heard the story of its capture.”
“It was dead easy,” the lad declared. “Lieutenant Drake had all of the risk. My word, he did pepper the Germans.”
“You are quite happy out here, I suppose,” murmured Blake, with a sigh.
“More than happy. I have been in the thick of things, and I am not a bit afraid. I should hate to chuck it and go home.”
“I could not take you back with me, much as I should like to. It would be a difficult matter to obtain your discharge.”
“Don’t try, guv’nor. It would make me look like a coward. I wish we could be together, though.”
“That is impossible, my boy. I shall have to return when I have found Mrs. Chumleigh’s husband, and got his signature to the will. I hope he is safe. He was somewhere at the front to-day.”
“I don’t know anything of him. All I can tell you is that a part of the Guards made a gallant attack on the—”
Tinker paused abruptly. He jumped up from the camp-stool on which he was sitting, and lifted his hand to his cap. General Trench had entered the big tent a few moments before, and now, after a brief conversation with a surgeon, he was coming straight to the detective’s cot.
“Ah, here you are, Blake!” he said. “I warned you, but you wouldn’t listen to me.”
“I took the risk,” Sexton Blake answered. “I insisted on going to the front, and I have only myself to blame.”
“Well, I am glad it is no worse. They tell me that you are not seriously injured. You will have to stay in bed for several days, though.”
“I sha’n’t mind that, sir, if you will be so kind as to send Colonel Chumleigh to me.”
“It is impossible. I am sorry to say that—”
“He has not been killed, I hope,” the detective interrupted.
“No, it is not so bad as that,” General Trench replied. “He is reported as missing.”
“Ah, what a pity!”
“Yes, I am very sorry. The Guards swept into the German infantry last evening, cut them to ribbons, and rode back without any losses. They left Colonel Chumleigh behind them, however. He was seen to fall from his horse. But as he was not picked up afterwards, when our troops occupied the ground, it is certain that he was carried off the field by the enemy.”
“He must be a prisoner, then!”
“I have no doubts that he is, Blake.”
“And he has probably been wounded.”
“If so it was a slight wound, else the Germans would have left him for our Red Cross men. At all events, you will have to abandon your purpose for the present.”
The general nodded, promised to call again, and passed on to another bed. Tinker stiffly saluted, and sat down.
“What are you going to do about it, guv’nor?” he enquired.
“I don’t know,” answered Blake, who was keenly disappointed by the bad tidings. “This is most unfortunate. I think I shall remain at the front for a time, on the slim chance that the colonel may contrive to escape. But there is little or no likelihood of that. I am afraid he will remain a prisoner until the end of the war.”
One of the surgeons now stepped forward, and, after taking Blake’s temperature, he forbade further conversation. He gave a sleeping-draught to the detective, and sent Tinker away to assist the ambulance-bearers who were bringing in more wounded.