The Long Trick

Towards eight o'clock the fog that had hung threateningly over the City all the afternoon descended like a pall.

It was a mild evening in February, and inside the huge echoing vault of King's Cross station the shaded arc lamps threw little pools of light along the departure platform where the Highland Express stood. The blinds of the carriage windows were already drawn, but here and there a circle of subdued light strayed out and was engulfed almost at once by the murky darkness. Sounds out of the unseen reached the ear muffled and confused: a motor horn hooted near the entrance, and quite close at hand a horse's hoofs clattered and rang on the cobbled paving-stones. The persistent hiss of escaping steam at the far end of the station seemed to fill the air until it was presently drowned by the ear-piercing screech of an engine: high up in the darkness ahead one of a bright cluster of red lights holding their own against the fog, changed to green. The whistle stopped abruptly, and the voice of a boy, passing along the crowded platform, claimed all Sound for its own.

"Chor-or-or-clicks!" he cried in a not unmusical jodelling treble, "Chorclicks!-Cigarettes!"

The platform was thronged by bluejackets and marines, for on this particular evening the period of leave, granted by some battleship in the North, had expired. They streamed out of refreshment rooms and entrance halls, their faces lit for a moment as they passed under successive arc lights, crowding round the carriage doors where their friends and relations gathered in leave-taking. Most of them carried little bundles tied up in black silk handkerchiefs and paper parcels whose elusive contents usually appeared to take a leguminous form, and something of the traditional romance of their calling came with them out of the blackness of that February night. It was reflected in the upturned admiring faces of their women-folk, and acknowledged by some of the younger men themselves, with the adoption of an air of studied recklessness.

Some wore the head-gear of enraptured civilian acquaintances and sang in undertones of unrequited love. Others stopped in one of the friendly circles of light to pass round bottled beer, until an elderly female, bearing tracts, scattered them into the shadows. They left her standing, slightly bewildered, with the empty bottle in her hands. She had the air, for all the world, of a member of the audience suddenly abandoned on a conjurer's stage.

In the shelter of one of the great pillars that rose up into the darkness a bearded light o' love stopped and emptied his pockets of their silver and coppers into the hands of the human derelict that had been his companion through the past week. "'Ere you are, Sally," he said, "take what's left. You ain't 'arf been a bad ole sort, mate," and kissed her and turned away as she slipped back into the night where she belonged.

Farther along in the crowd an Ordinary Seaman, tall and debonair and sleek of hair, bade osculatory farewell to a mother, an aunt, a fiancée and two sisters.

"'Ere," finally interrupted his chum, "'ere, Alf, where do I come in?"

"You carry on an' kiss Auntie," replied his friend, and applied himself to his fiancée's pretty upturned mouth. This the chum promptly did, following up the coup, amid hysterical laughter and face-slapping, by swiftly embracing the mother and sisters.

"You sailors!" said the friend's mother delightedly, straightening her hat.

"Don Jewans, all of 'em," confirmed the aunt, recovering the power of speech of which a temporary displacement of false teeth had robbed her. "Glad there wasn't no sailors down our way when I was a girl, or I shouldn't be 'ere now." A sally greeted by renewed merriment.

Indifferent to the laughter and horse-play near them a grave-faced Petty Officer stood by the door of his carriage saying good-bye to his wife and children before returning to another nine months' exile. A little boy in a sailor-suit clung to the woman's skirt and gazed admiringly into the face of the man he had been taught to call "Daddie"-the jovial visitor who came to stay with them for a week once a year or so, after whose departure his mother always cried so bitterly, writer of the letters she pressed against her cheek and locked away in the yellow tin box under the bed....

She held another child in her arms-a wide-eyed mite that stared up into the murk overhead with preternatural solemnity. Their talk, of an inarticulate simplicity, is no concern of ours. The little group has been recorded because of the woman. Mechanically rocking the child in her arms, with her neat clothes and brave little bits of finery, with, above all, her anxious, pathetic smile as she looked up into the face of her man, she stood there for a symbol of all that the warring Navy demands of its women-folk.

Beyond them, where the first-class carriages and sleeping saloons began, the platform became quieter and less crowded. Several Naval and one or two Military officers walked to and fro, or stood at the doors of their compartments superintending the stowage of their luggage; a little way back from the light thrown from the carriage windows, two figures, a man and a girl, stood talking in low voices.

Presently the man stepped under one of the overhanging lamps and consulted his wristwatch. The light of the arc-lamp, falling on the shoulder-straps of his uniform great-coat, indicated his rank, which was that of Lieutenant-Commander.

"We've got five minutes more," he said.

The girl nodded.

"I know. I've been ticking off the minutes for the last week-in my head, I mean." She smiled, a rather wan little smile. Her companion slipped his arm inside hers, and together they walked towards the train.

"Come and look at my cabin, Betty, and-let's see everything's there."

He helped her into the corridor, and, following, encountered the uniformed attendant. The man held a notebook in his hand.

"Are you Mr. Standish, sir?" he inquired, consulting his notebook.

"That's my name as a rule," was the reply. "At the moment though, it's

Mud-spelt M-U-D. Which is my abode?"

"This way, sir." The attendant led the way along the corridor and pushed open the door of the narrow sleeping compartment. "Here you are, sir." He eyed the officer's companion with a professionally reassuring air, as much as to say, "He'll be all right in there, don't you worry." It certainly looked very snug and comfortable with the shaded light above the neat bunk and dark upholstery.

"Ah," said the traveller, "we just wanted to-er-see everything was all right."

"Quite so, sir. Plenty of time-lady not travelling, I presume? I'll come along when we're due to start and let you know." He closed the door with unobtrusive tact.

The lady in question surveyed the apartment with the tender scrutiny of a mother about to relinquish her offspring to the rough usage of an unfamiliar world.

"Bunje, darling," she said, and bent and brushed the pillow with her lips. "That's so that you'll sleep tight and not let the bogies bite." She smiled into her husband's eyes rather tremulously. "And take care of yourself as hard as ever you can. Remember your leg and your poor old head." His cap lay on the bunk, and she raised a slender forefinger to trace the outline of the shiny scar above his temple. "I've mended you so nicely."

"I'll take care of myself all right, and you won't cry, will you, Betty, when I've gone? Promise-say: 'Sure-as-I'm-standing-here-I-won't-cry,' or I'll call the guard!"

"I-I can't promise not to cry a tiny bit," faltered Betty, "but I promise to try not to cry much. And you will write and let me know when I can come North and be near you, won't you?" A sudden thought struck her. "Bunje, will they censor your letters? How awful! And mine too? Because I don't think I could bear it if anybody but you read my letters."

"No, they won't read 'em," reassured her husband. "At least, not yours. And if mine have to be read, the fellow who reads 'em just skims through 'em and doesn't really take in anything. I've had to do it, an' I know."

"Still, I'll hate it," said Betty woefully, and started at a light tap at the door. "Passengers are taking their seats, sir," said the warning voice outside.

Doors were banging and farewells sounding down the length of the train when Betty stepped out on to the platform. A curly-headed subaltern of a Highland regiment who had been in possession of the door surrendered it, and, catching a glimpse of Betty's face, returned to his compartment thanking all his Gods that he was a bachelor. A whistle sounded out of the gloom at the far end of the long train, and a green light waved above the heads of the leave-takers. A faltering cheer broke out, gathered volume, and, as the couplings tautened with a jerk, came an answering roar from the closely packed carriages.

Standish bent down. "Good-bye, Bet--" and for a moment lips and fingers met and clung. The train was moving slowly.

"God bless you!" she said with a queer little gasp, and stepped back into one of the circles of subdued light.

For a few seconds he saw her thus, a slim, girlish, fur-clad figure standing with her hands at her side like a schoolgirl in class, her face rather white and her lips compressed: then a bend hid her and the tumult of cheering and farewell died.

"Good on you, little girl," he muttered, and withdrew his head and shoulders to fumble fiercely for his pipe. Courage in the woman he loves will move a man as never will her tears. There is also gratitude in his heart.

He retraced his steps to his sleeping-compartment and was aware of the faint fragrance of violets still lingering in the air. She had been wearing some that he had bought her late that afternoon....

He sat down on the bunk and fervently pressed the tobacco into the bowl of his pipe with his thumb. "Oh, damn-a-horse!" he said. For a moment he sat thus sucking his unlit pipe and staring hard at the carpet, and not until it sounded a second time did a knock at the door of the compartment cause him to raise his head and say, "Come in!"

The door opened, and a clean-shaven, smiling countenance, followed by a pair of broad shoulders, appeared cautiously in the opening. Standish stared at the apparition, and then rose with a grin of welcome.

"Why!" he said, "Podgie, of all people! Come in, you old blighter!"

The visitor entered. "How goes it, Bunje?" he said. "I saw you with your missus just now, so I hid-I'm in the next cabin." He indicated the adjoining compartment with a nod.

"Sit down, old lad. What are you doing here? I thought--" The speaker broke off abruptly, and his glance strayed involuntarily to the ground. The new-comer nodded, and, sitting down on the bunk, pushed his cap back from his forehead.

"That's right." He extended his left leg. "Cork foot. What d'you go on it, Bunje, eh?" They contemplated the acquisition in silence for a moment. "I was in a destroyer, you know," pursued the speaker, "and one of Fritz's shore batteries on the Belgian coast got our range by mistake one day at dawn. Dusted us down properly." He extended his leg again. "Hence the milk in the coco-nut, as you might say. However, we had a makee-learn doctor on board-Surgeon-Probationer, straight out of the egg, and no end of a smart lad: he dished me up in fine style. I went to hospital for a bit, and they gave me six months' full-pay sick leave-not a bad old firm, the Admiralty."

"What then," asked the other, "invalided?"

The visitor nodded. "But about a month ago I fell-in and said I couldn't kick my heels any longer. Hadn't two to kick, in point of fact!" He laughed softly at the grim jest. "So they lushed me up to this outfit, and gave me a job as King's Messenger. I'm carrying despatches between the Admiralty and the Fleet Flagship. Better'n doing nothing," he added half-apologetically.

"Quite," agreed Standish gravely: none knew better than he how beloved had been the career thus abruptly terminated. He wondered, as he met the speaker's smiling eyes with a sympathetic grin, whether he himself could have carried it off like this. "But it was rotten luck-I'm--"

The King's Messenger rose. "I've got a drop of whisky somewhere in my bag," he interrupted. "Come along in there: I can't leave my despatches-we'll have a yarn."

He limped through the doorway, steadying himself with his hands against the rocking of the train. Standish followed. Never again, he reflected, would he follow those broad shoulders in a U.S. "Forward rush" to the familiar slogan of "Feet-forwards-feet!"

"You were wounded, too, last spring, weren't you?" queried the King's Messenger, burrowing in his suit case for his flask. "Squat down at the end there-got your glass?" He measured out two portions of whisky and from the rack produced a bottle of soda. "Say when..."

Standish nodded. "Thanks-whoa! Yes, I got a couple of 'cushy' wounds and three months' leave."

The other turned, helping himself to soda-water. "Lor', yes, and you got spliced, too, Bunje!" He contemplated the Benedict over the rim of his tumbler with the whimsical faint curiosity with which the bachelor Naval Officer regards one of his brethren who has passed beyond the Veil.

"Yes." For a moment Standish assumed a thoughtful expression. Then he looked up, smiling. "What about you, Podgie? Isn't it about time you toed the line?"

The King's Messenger shook his head. "No. It doesn't come my way." His eyes rested contemplatively on his outstretched leg. "Not very likely to either.... How d'you like the idea of joining up with the 'Great Silent' again after the flesh-pots and whatnot?"

For the second time he had changed the conversation almost abruptly.

Standish lit his pipe. "What's it like up there now?" He jerked his head in the direction in which they were travelling. "How are they sticking it? Have you been up lately? I haven't been in the Grand Fleet yet."

"Yes, I was up-let's see, last week. Oh, they're all right. A bit bored, of course, but full of ginger. They go out and try to coax Fritz to come out and play from time to time. Fritz says 'Not in these trousers, I don't think,' and then they go home again, dodging 'tin fish'[1] and raking up Fritz's 'warts'[2] out of the Swept Channels. Talking of 'warts' reminds me of a yarn going round last time I was up-it's a chestnut now, but you may not have heard it. One of the mine-layers nipped down in a fog and laid a mine-field off the mouth of the Ems. It was a tricky bit of work, and it seems to have touched up the Padre's nerves a bit, because on the way back next morning, when he was reading prayers-you know the bit about 'encompassed the waters with bounds'?-he said, 'Encompassed the bounders with warts,' which was just what they had done, pretty effectively!"

The door to the corridor was half-open, and a tall figure in Naval uniform who was passing at that moment glanced in, hesitated, and filled the doorway with his bulk. A slow smile spread over his face and showed his white, even teeth. It was a very infectious grin.

"How goes it, Podgie?" he said quietly.

The King's Messenger looked up. "Hallo!" he retorted. Then came recognition. "Thorogood, surely! Come in, old lad. What are you doing aboard the lugger- D'you know Standish?"

The new-comer nodded a greeting, acknowledging the introduction.

"Station-mates in the East Indies, weren't we?" said Standish.

"That's right," replied the other. "I remember you: we were both in camp together-way back in the 'Naughty Naughts.' We used to call you the India-rubber Man-Bunje for short."

Standish laughed. "They do still," he said, "mine own familiar friends."

"Have a drop of whisky," interrupted the King's Messenger. "'Fraid I haven't got a glass--"

The visitor hesitated. "Well, I've got old Mouldy Jakes in my compartment. Can I bring him along: the old thing may get lonely. He was in your term in the Britannia, wasn't he?"

"He was. Fetch him along," said the King's Messenger. "Standish wants to know all about life in the Grand Fleet. You two ought to be able to enlighten him a bit between you."

Thorogood contemplated the India-rubber Man thoughtfully.

"Just joining up? Mouldy and I have been there since January, '15-I'll fetch him."

The speaker vanished and returned a moment later with a companion who wore a Lieutenant's uniform, and carried a tooth-glass in his hand. His lean, rather sallow face relaxed for an instant into a smile during the process of introduction, and then resumed a mask-like gravity. He up-ended a suit-case, sat down and silently eyed the others in turn.

"What have you two been doing?" asked the King's Messenger. "Been on leave?"

"Yes," replied Thorogood. "I met Mouldy this morning, and we had a day in town together."

"Brave man! I should be sorry to have had such a responsibility. What did you do?"

"Well, we lunched with my Uncle Bill at his club--"

"That was nice for Uncle Bill-what then?"

"Uncle Bill had to go to the Admiralty, so I took Mouldy for a walk in

St. James's Park"-the speaker contemplated his friend sorrowfully-"and

I lost him."

The King's Messenger laughed. "What happened to you, Mouldy?"

The officer addressed put his empty glass between his knees and proceeded to fill a cherrywood pipe of villainous aspect from a Korean oiled-silk tobacco pouch.

"Took a flapper to the movies," was the grave and somewhat unexpected reply.

Thorogood, lounging in any easy attitude against the door, took up the tale of gallantry. "Apparently the star film of the afternoon was 'Britain's Sea-Dogs, or Jack-Tars at War,' and that appears to have been too much for our little Lord Fauntleroy. He slipped out unbeknownst to the fairy, and I found him at the club an hour later playing billiards with the marker."

The cavalier relaxed not a muscle of his sphinx-like gravity. "Never know what to do with myself on leave," he observed in sepulchral tones. "Always glad to get back. Like the fellow in the Bastille-what?" He raised his empty tumbler and scanned the light through it with sombre interest. "Long ship, this, James."

The phrase is an old Navy one, and signifies much the same thing as the

Governor of North Carolina said to the Governor of South Carolina.

"Sorry," apologised the host. "There isn't any more soda, I'm afraid, but--"

"Don't mind water," said his guest, diluting his tot from the water-bottle. He turned to the India-rubber Man.

"What ship're you going to?" he asked.

Standish named the ship to which he had been appointed. The other took a sip of his whisky and water and nodded with the air of one whose worst misgivings had been confirmed.

"I remember now: I saw your appointment. James and I belong to her. We're going to be shipmates, then." He blew a cloud of smoke ceilingwards. "It's all right in one of those new ships: no scuttles: tinned air and electric light between decks: wake up every morning feeling's if you'd been gassed. An' the turrets--" He plunged gloomily into technicalities that conveyed the impression that the interior of a turret of the latest design was the short cut to a lunatic asylum. "I'm the Assistant Gunnery Lieutenant in our hooker, and I tell you it's a dirty business."

"What d'you do for exercise?" queried the India-rubber Man when the

Assistant Gunnery Lieutenant lapsed again into gloomy silence.

"Plenty of that," said Thorogood. "Deck-hockey and medicine-ball-you mark out a tennis-court on the quarter deck, you know, and heave a 9-lb. ball over a 5 ft. net-foursomes. Fine exercise." He spoke with the grave enthusiasm of the athlete, to whom the attainment of bodily fitness is very near to godliness indeed. "You can get a game of rugger when the weather is good enough to allow landing, and there's quite a decent little 9-hole golf course. Oh, you can keep fit enough."

"How about the sailors-are they keeping cheery?"

Thorogood laughed. "They're amazing. Of course, we've got a real white man for a Skipper-and the Commander, too: that goes a long way. And they're away from drink and-other things that ain't good for 'em. Everybody has more leisure to devote to them than in peace-time: their amusements and recreations generally. Cinema shows and regattas, boxing championships, and all the rest of it. There's fifty per cent. less sickness and fewer punishments than we ever had in peacetime. Of course, it's an exile for the married men-it's rough on them, but on the whole there's jolly little grumbling."

"Yes," said the India-rubber Man. "It must be rough on the married men." He felt suddenly as if an immense period of time had passed since he said good-bye to Betty: and the next moment he felt that he had had enough of the others. He wanted to get along to his own compartment where the scent of violets had lingered.

He rose, stretching himself, and slipped his pipe into his pocket.

"Well," he said, "'Sufficient unto the day.' I'm turning in now."

There was a little pause after his departure, and Thorogood prodded the bowl of his pipe reflectively.

"I wonder what's happened to the India-rubber Man?" he said. "It's some time since I saw him last, but he's altered somehow. Not mouldy exactly, either...."

"He's married," said the King's Messenger, staring at the shaded electric light overhead, as he sprawled with one elbow on the pillow.

Mouldy Jakes gave a little grunt. "Thought as much. They get like that." He spoke as if referring to the victims of an incomprehensible and ravaging disease. "An' it's always the good ones that get nabbed." He eyed the King's Messenger with an expression of melancholy omniscience. "Not so suspicious, you know."

"Well," said Thorogood, "that is as may be: but I'm off to bed. Come along, Mouldy."

The misogamist suffered himself to be led to the double-berthed compartment he shared with Thorogood.

The King's Messenger locked the door after their departure and got into pyjamas. For a long time he sat cross-legged on his bunk, nursing his maimed limb and staring into vacancy as the express roared on through the night. Finally, as if he had arrived at some conclusion, he shook his head rather sadly, turned in, and switched out the light.

"Good lad, Podgie," observed Thorogood reflectively to his companion, as he proceeded to undress.

Mouldy Jakes, energetically brushing his teeth over the tiny washing-basin, grunted assent.

"Ever met my cousin Cecily?" pursued Thorogood. "No, I don't think you did: she was at school when we stayed with Uncle Bill before the war."

"Shouldn't remember her if I had," mumbled the gallant.

"She's Uncle Bill's ward, and by way of being rather fond of Podgie, I fancy-at least, she used to be, I know. But the silly old ass won't go near her since he lost his foot."

Mouldy Jakes dried his tooth-brush, and, fumbling in his trouser pocket, produced a penny.

"Heads or tails?" he queried.

"Tails-why?"

"It's a head. Bags I the lower berth."

The India-rubber Man, in his compartment, had got into pyjamas and was sitting up in his bunk writing with a pencil and pad on his knees. When he had finished he stamped and addressed an envelope, rang for the attendant, and gave it to him to be posted at the next stopping-place. It bore an address in Queen's Gate, London, where at the moment the addressee, curled up in the centre of a very large bed, was doing her best in the darkness to keep a promise.

[1] Torpedoes.

[2] Mines.