by John Buchan
Then his wooing became rougher. The satyr awoke in his passionate eyes. ‘Nay, you are mine, whether you will it or not. I and my folk will carry you off when the trouble begins. Take your choice, my girl, whether you will go with a good grace, or trussed up behind a servant. We have rough ways in the hills with ungracious wenches.’
‘I am going away,’ she whispered, ‘but not with you!’
The man laughed. ‘Have you fetched down friend Michael and his angels to help you? By Saint John the Hunter, I would I had a rival. I would carve him prettily for the sake of your sweet flesh.’
Vernon kicked aside the screen. ‘You will have your chance,’ he said. ‘I am ready.’
Vlastos stepped back with his hand at his belt. ‘Who in the devil’s name are you?’ he asked.
‘One who would dispute the lady with you,’ said Vernon.
The man had recovered his confidence. ‘I know nothing of you or whence you come, but to-night I am merciful. I give you ten seconds to disappear. If not, I will spit you, my fine cock, and you will roast in this oven.’
‘Nevertheless the lady goes with me,’ said Vernon, smiling.
Vlastos plucked a whistle from his belt, but before it reached his mouth he was looking into the barrel of Vernon’s revolver. ‘Pitch that thing on the floor,’ came the command. ‘Not there! Behind me! Off with that belt and give it to the lady. Quick, my friend.’
The dancing grey eyes dominated the sombre black ones. Vlastos flung down the whistle, and slowly removed the belt with its silver-mounted pistols and its brace of knives.
‘Put up your weapon,’ he muttered, ‘and fight me for her, as a man should.’
‘I ask nothing better,’ said Vernon, and he laid his revolver in the girl’s lap.
He had expected a fight with fists, and was not prepared for what followed. Vlastos sprang at him like a wild beast and clasped him round the waist. He was swung off his feet in a grip that seemed more than human. For a second or two he swayed to and fro, recovered himself, and by a back-heel stroke forced his assailant to relax a little. Then, locked together in the middle of the room, the struggle began. Dimly out of a corner of his eye he saw the girl pick up the silver lamp and stand by the door holding it high.
Vernon had learned the rudiments of wrestling among the dalesmen of the North, but now he was dealing with one who followed no ordinary methods. It was a contest of sheer physical power. Vlastos was a stone or two heavier, and had an uncommon length of arm; but he was clumsily made, and flabby from gross living. Vernon was spare and hard and clean, but he lacked one advantage — he had never striven with a man save in friendly games, and the other was bred to kill. For a minute or two they swayed and stumbled, while Vernon strove for the old Westmorland ‘inside click’. Every second brought him nearer to it, while the other’s face was pressed close to his shoulder.
Suddenly he felt a sharp pain. Teeth met in his flesh, and there was the jar and shiver of a torn muscle. The thing sickened him, and his grip slackened. In a moment Vlastos had swung him over in a strangle-hold, and had his neck bent almost to breaking.
On the sickness followed a revulsion of fierce anger. He was contending not with a man, but with some shaggy beast from the thicket.
The passion brought out the extra power which is dormant in us all against the last extremity. Two years before he had been mauled by a leopard on the Congo, and had clutched its throat with his hand and torn the life out. Such and no other was his antagonist. He was fighting with one who knew no code, and would gouge his eyes if he got the chance. The fear which had sickened him was driven out by fury. This wolf should go the way of other wolves who dared to strive with man.
By a mighty effort he got his right arm free, and though his own neck was in torture, he forced Vlastos’ chin upward. It was a struggle of sheer endurance, till with a snarl the other slackened his pressure. Vernon slipped from his grasp, gave back a step, and then leaped for the under-grip. He seemed possessed with unholy strength, for the barrel of the man gave in his embrace. A rib cracked, and as they swayed to the breast-stroke, he felt the breath of his opponent coming in harsh gasps. It was the end, for with a twist which unlocked his arms he swung him high, and hurled him towards the fireplace. The head crashed on the stone hearth, and the man lay stunned among the blue jets of wood-smoke.
Vernon turned dizzily to the girl. She stood, statue-like, with the lamp in her hand, and beside her huddled Mitri and Elise.
‘Bring ropes,’ he cried to the servants. ‘We will truss up this beast. The other wolves will find him and learn a lesson.’ He bound his legs and arms and laid him on a divan.
The fire of battle was still in his eyes, but it faded when they fell upon the pale girl. A great pity and tenderness filled him. She swayed to his arms, and her head dropped on his shoulder. He picked her up like a child, and followed the servants to the sea-stair.
But first he found Vlastos’ whistle, and blew it shrilly. The answer was a furious hammering at the castle door...
Far out at sea, in the small hours, the yacht sped eastward with a favouring wind. Behind in the vault of night at a great distance shone a point of brightness, which flickered and fell as if from some mighty fire.
The two sat in the stern in that first rapture of comradeship which has no words to fit it. Her head lay in the crook of his arm, and she sighed happily, like one awakened to a summer’s dawn from a night of ill dreams. At last he spoke.
‘Do you know that I have been looking for you for twenty years?’ She nestled closer to him.
‘And I,’ she said, ‘have been waiting on you from the beginning of the world.’
The King of Ypres
Allied News, 1930
PRIVATE PETER GALBRAITH, of the 3rd Lennox Highlanders, awoke with a splitting headache and the consciousness of an intolerable din. At first he thought it was the whistle from the forge, which a year ago had pulled him from his bed when he was a puddler in Motherwell. He scrambled to his feet, and nearly cracked his skull against a low roof. That, and a sound which suggested that the heavens were made of canvas which a giant hand was rending, cleared his wits and recalled him to the disagreeable present. He lit the dottle in his pipe, and began to piece out his whereabouts.
Late the night before, the remnants of his battalion had been brought in from the Gheluvelt trenches to billets in Ypres. That last week he had gone clean off his sleep. He had not been dry for a fortnight, his puttees had rotted away, his greatcoat had disappeared in a mud-hole, and he had had no stomach for what food could be got. He had seen half his battalion die before his eyes, and day and night the shells had burst round him till the place looked like the ironworks at Motherwell on a foggy night. The worst of it was that he had never come to grips with the Boches, which he had long decided was the one pleasure left to him in life. He had got far beyond cursing, though he had once had a talent that way. His mind was as sodden as his body, and his thoughts had been focussed on the penetrating power of a bayonet when directed against a plump Teutonic chest. There had been a German barber in Motherwell called Schultz, and he imagined the enemy as a million Schultzes - large, round men who talked with the back of their throat.
In billets he had scraped off the worst part of the mud, and drunk half a bottle of wine which a woman had given him. It tasted like red ink, but anything liquid was better than food. Sleep was what he longed for, but he could not get it. The Boches were shelling the town, and the room he shared with six others seemed as noisy as the Gallowgate on a Saturday night. He wanted to get deep down into the earth where there was no sound; so, while the others snored, he started out to look for a cellar. In the black darkness, while the house rocked to the shell reverberations, he had groped his way down the stairs, found a door which led to another flight, and, slipping and stumbling, had come to a narrow, stuffy chamber which smelt of potatoes. There he had lain down on some sacks and fallen into a frowsty slumber.
His head was spinning, but the hours of sleep
had done him good. He felt a slight appetite for breakfast, as well as an intolerable thirst. He groped his way up the stairs, and came out in a dilapidated hall lit by a dim November morning.
There was no sign of the packs which had been stacked there the night before. He looked for a Boche’s helmet which he had brought in as a souvenir, but that was gone. Then he found the room where he had been billeted. It was empty, and only the stale smell of tobacco told of its occupants.
Lonely, disconsolate, and oppressed with thoughts of future punishment, he moved towards the street door. Suddenly the door of a side room opened and a man came out, a furtive figure, with a large, pasty face. His pockets bulged, and in one hand was a silver candlestick. At the sight of Galbraith he jumped back and held up a pistol.
‘Pit it down, man, and tell’s what’s come ower this place?’ said the soldier. For answer, a bullet sang past his ear and shivered a plaster Venus.
Galbraith gave his enemy the butt of his rifle and laid him out. From his pockets he shook out a mixed collection of loot. He took possession of his pistol, and kicked him with some vehemence into a cupboard.
‘That yin’s a thief,’ was his spoken reflection. ‘There’s something michty wrong wi’ Wipers the day.’
His head was clearing, and he was getting very wroth. His battalion had gone off and left him in a cellar, and miscreants were abroad. It was time for a respectable man to be up and doing. Besides, he wanted his breakfast. He fixed his bayonet, put the pistol in his pocket, and emerged into the November drizzle.
The streets suddenly were curiously still. The occasional shell-fire came to his ears as if through layers of cotton-wool. He put this down to dizziness from lack of food, and made his way to what looked like an estaminet. The place was full of riotous people who were helping themselves to drinks, while a distracted landlord wrung his hands. He flew to Galbraith, the tears running down his cheeks, and implored him in broken words.
‘Vere ze Engleesh?’ he cried. ‘Ze méchants rob me. Zere is une émeute. Vere ze officers?’
‘That’s what I’m wantin’ to ken mysel’,’ said Galbraith.
‘Zey are gone,’ wailed the innkeeper. ‘Zere is no gendarme or anyzing, and I am rob.’
‘Where’s the polis? Get the Provost, man. D’ye tell me there’s no polis left?’
‘I am rob,’ the wail continued. ‘Ze méchants rob ze magasins and ve vill be assassinés.’
Light was dawning upon Private Galbraith. The British troops had left Ypres for some reason which he could not fathom, and there was no law or order in the little city. At other times he had hated the law as much as any man, and his relations with the police had often been strained. Now he realised that he had done them an injustice. Disorder suddenly seemed to him the one thing intolerable. Here had he been undergoing a stiff discipline for weeks, and if that was his fate no civilian should be allowed on the loose. He was a British soldier — marooned here by no fault of his own — and it was his business to keep up the end of the British Army and impose the King’s peace upon the unruly. His temper was getting hot, but he was curiously happy. He marched into the estaminet. ‘Oot o’ here, ye scum!’ he bellowed. ‘Sortez, ye cochons!’
The revellers were silent before the apparition. Then one, drunker than the rest, flung a bottle which grazed his right ear. That put the finishing touch to his temper. Roaring like a bull, he was among them, prodding their hinder parts with his bayonet, and now and then reversing his rifle to crack a head. He had not played centre-forward in the old days at Celtic Park for nothing. The place emptied in a twinkling — all but one man whose legs could not support him. Him Private Galbraith seized by the scruff and the slack of his trousers, and tossed into the street.
‘Now I’ll hae my breakfast,’ he said to the trembling landlord.
Private Galbraith, much the better for his exercise, made a hearty meal of bread and cold ham, and quenched his thirst with two bottles of Hazebrouck beer. He had also a little brandy, and pocketed the flask, for which the landlord refused all payment. Then, feeling a giant refreshed, he sallied into the street.
‘I’m off to look for your Provost,’ he said. ‘If ye have ony mair trouble, ye’ll find me at the Toun Hall.’
A shell had plumped into the middle of the causeway, and the place was empty. Private Galbraith, despising shells, swaggered up the open, his disreputable kilt swinging about his putteeless legs, the remnant of a bonnet set well on the side of his shaggy red head, and the light of battle in his eyes. For once he was arrayed on the side of the angels, and the thought encouraged him mightily. The brandy had fired his imagination.
Adventure faced him at the next corner. A woman was struggling with two men — a slim pale girl with dark hair. No sound came from her lips, but her eyes were bright with terror. Galbraith started to run, shouting sound British oaths. The men let the woman go, and turned to face him. One had a pistol, and for the second time that day a bullet just missed its mark. An instant later a clean bayonet thrust had ended the mortal career of the marksman, and the other had taken to his heels.
‘I’ll learn thae lads to be sae free wi’ their popguns,’ said the irate soldier. ‘Haud up, Mem. It’s a’ by wi’ noo. Losh! The wumman’s fentit!’
Private Galbraith was as shy of women as of his Commanding Officer, and he had not bargained for this duty. She was clearly a lady from her dress and appearance, and this did not make it easier. He supported her manfully, addressing to her the kind of encouragements which a groom gives to a horse. ‘Canny now, Mem. Haud up! Ye’ve no cause to be feared.’
Then he remembered the brandy in his pocket, and with much awkwardness managed to force some drops between her lips. To his vast relief she began to come to. Her eyes opened and stared uncomprehendingly at her preserver. Then she found her voice.
‘Thank God, the British have come back!’ she said in excellent English.
‘No, Mem; not yet. It’s just me, Private Galbraith, “C” Company, 3rd Battalion, Lennox Highlanders. Ye keep some bad lots in this toun.’
‘Alas! what can we do? The place is full of spies, and they will stir up the dregs of the people and make Ypres a hell. Oh, why did the British go? Our good men are all with the army, and there are only old folk and wastrels left.’
‘Rely upon me, Mem,’ said Galbraith stoutly. ‘I was just settin’ off to find your Provost.’
She puzzled at the word, and then understood.
‘He has gone!’ she cried. ‘The Maire went to Dunkirk a week ago, and there is no authority in Ypres.’
‘Then we’ll make yin. Here’s the minister. We’ll speir at him.’
An old priest, with a lean, grave face, had come up.
‘Ah, Mam’selle Omèrine,’ he cried, ‘the devil in our city is unchained. Who is this soldier?’
The two talked in French, while Galbraith whistled and looked at the sky. A shrapnel shell was bursting behind the cathedral, making a splash of colour in the November fog. Then the priest spoke in careful and constrained English.
‘There is yet a chance for a strong man. But he must be very strong. Mam’selle will summon her father, Monsieur le Procureur, and we will meet at the Mairie. I will guide you there, mon brave’
The Grande Place was deserted, and in the middle there was a new gaping shell-hole. At the door of a great building, which Galbraith assumed to be the Town Hall, a feeble old porter was struggling with a man. Galbraith scragged the latter and pitched him into the shell-hole. There was a riot going on in a café on the far side which he itched to have a hand in, but he postponed that pleasure to a more convenient season.
Twenty minutes later, in a noble room with frescoed and tapestried walls, there was a strange conference. The priest was there, and Galbraith, and Mam’selle Omèrine, and her father, M. St Marais.
There was a doctor too, and three elderly citizens, and an old warrior who had left an arm on the Yser. Galbraith took charge, with Mam’selle as his interpreter, and in half an h
our had constituted a Committee of Public Safety. He had nervous folk to deal with.
‘The Germans may enter at any moment, and then we will all be hanged,’ said one.
‘Nae doot,’ said Galbraith; ‘but ye needna get your throats cut afore they come.’
‘The city is full of the ill-disposed,’ said another. ‘The Boches have their spies in every alley. We who are so few cannot control them.’
‘If it’s spies,’ said Galbraith firmly, ‘I’ll take on the job my lone. D’ye think a terrier dowg’s feared of a wheen rottens?’
In the end he had his way, with Mam’selle’s help, and had put some confidence into civic breasts. It took him the best part of the afternoon to collect his posse. He got every wounded Belgian that had the use of his legs, some well-grown boys, one or two ancients, and several dozen robust women. There was no lack of weapons, and he armed the lot with a strange collection of French and English rifles, giving pistols to the section leaders. With the help of the Procureur, he divided the city into beats and gave his followers instructions. They were drastic orders, for the situation craved for violence.
He spent the evening of his life. So far as he remembered afterwards, he was in seventeen different scraps. Strayed revellers were leniently dealt with — the canal was a cooling experience. Looters were rounded up, and, if they showed fight, summarily disposed of. One band of bullies made a stout resistance, killed two of his guards, and lost half-a-dozen dead. He got a black eye, a pistol-bullet through his sleeve, a wipe on the cheek from a carving-knife, and he lost the remnants of his bonnet. Fifty-two prisoners spent the night in the cellars of the Mairie.
About midnight he found himself in the tapestried chamber. ‘We’ll hae to get a Proclamation,’ he had announced; ‘a gude strong yin, for we maun conduct this job according to the rules.’ So the Procureur had a document drawn up bidding all inhabitants of Ypres keep indoors except between the hours of 10 A.M. and noon, and 3 and 5 P.M.; forbidding the sale of alcohol in all forms; and making theft and violence and the carrying of arms punishable by death. There was a host of other provisions which Galbraith imperfectly understood, but when the thing was translated to him he approved its spirit. He signed the document in his large sprawling hand—’Peter Galbraith, 1473, Pte., 3rd Lennox Highlanders, Acting Provost of Wipers.’