Hillyard smiled with contentment. He could understand a German going to any lengths for Germany. He was prepared to do the same himself for his country. But when a neutral under the cloak of his neutrality meddles in this stupendous conflict for cash, for his thirty miserable pieces of silver, he could feel no inclination of mercy.
"Let the neutrals keep out!" he murmured. "This is not their affair. Let them hold their tongues and go about their own business!"
He received Fairbairn"s letter in the beginning of the year 1916. He was still no nearer at that date to the discovery of B.45; nor were they any better informed in London. Hillyard could only wait upon Chance to slip a clue into his hand.
CHAPTER XV
IN A SLEEPING-CAR
The night express from Paris to Narbonne and the Spanish frontier was due to leave the Quai d"Orsay station at ten. But three-quarters of an hour before that time the platform was already crowded, and many of the seats occupied. Hillyard walked down the steps a little before half-past nine with the latest of the evening papers in his hand.
"You have engaged your seat, monsieur," the porter asked, who was carrying Hillyard"s kit-bag.
"Yes," said Martin absently. He was thinking that on the boulevards the newsboys might now be crying a later edition of the papers than that which he held, an edition with still more details. He saw them surrounded in the darkened street by quiet, anxious groups.
"Will you give me your ticket, monsieur?" the porter continued, and as Hillyard looked at him vacantly, "the ticket for your seat."
Hillyard roused himself.
"I beg your pardon. I have a compartment in the sleeping-car, numbers eleven and twelve."
Amongst many old principles of which Martin Hillyard had first learned the wisdom during these last years, none had sunk deeper than this--that the head of an organisation cannot do the work of any of its members and hope that the machine will run smoothly. His was the task of supervision and ultimate direction. He held himself at the beck and call of those who worked under him. He responded to their summons. And it was in response to a very urgent summons from Fairbairn that he had hurried the completion of certain arrangements with the French authorities in Paris and was now returning to the south! But he was going very reluctantly.
It was July, 1916. The first battle of the Somme, launched some days past, was at its very climacteric. The casualties had been and were terrible. Even at this moment of night the fury of the attack was not relaxed. All through the day reports, exasperating in their brevity, had been streaming into Paris, and rumour, as of old, circled swift-winged above the city, making good or ill the deficiencies of the telegrams.
One fact, however, had leaped to light, una.s.sailably true. The Clayfords, stationed on the north of the line at Thiepval, had redeemed their name and added a new l.u.s.tre to their erstwhile shining record. The devotion of the officers, the discipline of the men, had borne their fruits. At a most critical moment the Clayfords had been forced to change front against a flank attack, under a galling fire and in the very press of battle, and the long extended line had swung to its new position with the steadiness of veterans, and, having reached it, had stood fast. Hillyard rejoiced with a sincerity as deep as if he himself held his commission in that regiment. But the losses had been terrible; and Martin Hillyard was troubled to the roots of his heart by doubts whether Harry Luttrell were at this moment knowing the deep contentment that the fixed aim of his boyhood and youth had been fulfilled; or whether he was lying out on the dark ground beneath the stars unaware of it and indifferent. Hillyard nursed a hope that some blunder had been made, and that he would find his compartment occupied.
The controller, in his brown uniform with the bra.s.s b.u.t.tons and his peaked cap, stood at the steps of the car with the attendant.
"Eleven and twelve," said Hillyard, handing to him his ticket.
The attendant, a middle-aged, stout man with a black moustache and a greasy face, shot one keen glance from under the peak of his cap at the occupant of numbers 11 and 12, and then led the way along the corridor.
The compartment was empty. Hillyard looked around it with a grudging eye.
"I am near the middle of the coach here, I think," he said.
"Yes, monsieur, quite in the middle."
"That is well," answered Hillyard. "I am an invalid, and cannot sleep when there is much motion."
He spoke irritably, with that tone of grievance peculiar to the man who thinks his health is much worse than it is.
"Can I get coffee in the morning?" he asked.
"At half-past six, monsieur. But you must get out of the train for it."
Hillyard uttered an exclamation of disgust, and shrugged his shoulders.
"What a country!" the gesture said as plainly as speech.
"But it is the war, monsieur!" the attendant expostulated with indignation.
"Oh, yes, I know! The war!" Hillyard retorted with ill-humour. "Do I want a bath? I cannot have it. It is the war. If a waiter is rude to me, it is the war. If my steak is over-cooked it is the war. The war! It is the excuse for everything."
He told the porter to place his bag upon the upper berth, and, still grumbling, gave him some money. He turned sharply on the attendant, who was smiling in the doorway.
"Ah, it seems to you funny that an invalid should be irritable, eh?" he cried. "I suppose it must be--d.a.m.nably funny."
"Monsieur, there are very many men who would like to-night to be invalids with a sleeping compartment to themselves," returned the attendant severely.
"Well, I don"t want to talk about it any more," said Hillyard roughly, and he shouldered his way out again on to the platform.
The attendant followed him. The smile upon his face was sleeker than ever. He was very amused and contented with his pa.s.senger in the compartment numbers 11 and 12. He took the cap off his head and wiped the perspiration from his forehead.
"Ouf! It is hot to-night." He looked after Hillyard with a chuckle, and remarked to the controller, "This is a customer who does not like his little comforts to be disarranged!"
The controller nodded contemptuously.
"They must travel--the English! The tourism--that is sacred, even if all Europe burns."
Hillyard strolled towards the stairs, and as he drew near to them his eyes brightened. A man about six years older than himself, tall, broad-shouldered, slim of waist, with a short, fair moustache, was descending towards him.
The war has killed many foolish legends, but none more foolish than the legend of the typical Frenchman, conceived as a short, rotund, explosive person, with a square, brown beard of curly baby-hair and a shiny silk hat with a flat brim. There have been too many young athletes of clean build on view whose nationality, language and the uniforms of powder-blue and khaki could alone decide. The more curious might, perhaps, if the youth were in mufti, cast a downward glance at the boots; but even boots were ceasing to be the sure tell-tale they once used to be. This man descending the stairs with a limp was the Commandant Marnier, of the 193rd Regiment, wounded in 1915, and now attached to the General Staff. He was in plain clothes; he was looking for Martin Hillyard, and no stranger but would have set him and the man for whom he was looking in the same category of races.
The Commandant Marnier saw Martin Hillyard clearly enough long before he reached the foot of the stairs. But nevertheless he greeted him with an appearance of surprise.
"But what luck!" he said aloud. "You leave by this train?"
"Yes. It may be that I shall find health."
"Yes, yes. So your friends will pray," returned the Commandant, falling into Hillyard"s pace.
"The telegram we sent for you----" Marnier began.
"Yes!"
"There is an answer already. Your friend is unhurt. I have brought you a copy. I thought that perhaps I might catch you before your train started."
He gave the slip of typewritten message into Hillyard"s hand.
"That was most kind of you," said Hillyard. "You have removed a great anxiety. It would have been many days before I should have received this good news if you had not gone out of your way to hurry with it here."
Hillyard was moved, partly by the message, partly by the consideration of Marnier, who now waved his thanks aside.