The Complete Works of H. C. McNeile "Sapper". Sapper
was a ghastly performance, as such ceremonies invariably are, and why Jim insisted on attending it defeated us all. But he would give no reason beyond an inscrutable smile, and when the actual opening was over, we found ourselves sitting in the second row in the village school waiting for the speeches.
Lady Hounslow specialised in little brief speeches—charming little speeches in which she said just the right thing. And if each charming little speech brought a peerage for her husband one step closer— well, surely the labourer is worthy of her hire.
And that afternoon was no exception. She listened prettily to the perspiring effort of the mayor; then, when the cheering had subsided, she rose to her feet. Just three minutes—no more, was her invariable rule. And for two minutes she rippled on, her theme being the sacred cause of devoting one's energy, one's time and one's money to the sick.
"Was it possible," she asked, "for us, who were in the full possession of our health, who were endowed, perhaps, a little more than some others with this world's goods—though in these days of this dreadful Income Tax it was only very little—was it possible to do too much for the sick and suffering?"
Her sweet, pathetic smile as she said it drew a sympathetic response from her audience, which changed suddenly to a little murmur of alarm. For with amazing suddenness the sweet smile faded from her lips, to be replaced by what was almost a look of terror. There was a hunted expression in her eyes, and her cheeks showed blotchy through her makeup. There were lines in a face grown strangely haggard, and she faltered and swayed towards her chair. And she was staring at Jim Maitland.
In an instant a doctor was beside her, and the reporter sitting below the chair heard her murmur something about the heat. Not surprising, of course; opening hospitals is tiring work for frail and delicate women. But it ended the meeting, and in the general confusion we departed. And it was as we got to the door that Jim stopped and deliberately turned round. Over the heads of the people he stared at the platform, and after a moment or two their eyes met. And in hers terror had been replaced by defiance: one could almost hear a spoken message.
Then Jim swung on his heel and we left. For a while he strode along in silence: then, as the band started again behind us, he stopped suddenly and laughed.
"Wife of a Cabinet Minister," he remarked thoughtfully. "A leader of philanthropic work in this country: probably a future peeress of the realm. And rotten—utterly rotten to the core. You don't mean to say you've forgotten her, Dick?"
Now, as she had stepped on to the platform, some vague chord of memory had stirred in my mind, but it had remained at that.
"Of course, you didn't see her as much as I did," went on Jim. "And it's some time ago. But don't you remember Mrs. Dallas in Cairo?"
"But you don't mean to say—!" I cried, and Jim grinned.
"But I do mean to say," he said. "Mrs. Dallas and Lady Hounslow are one and the same person. And with Mrs. Dallas I travelled for a month right up the White Nile. She did what she wanted, and she found what she wanted, and she proved herself to be what I said she was—a rotten woman, rotten to the core."
* * * * *
And now memory was stirring in earnest. Still on our homeward journey, we had left the Andaman at Port Said. And the first person we ran into was a dark-skinned man in European clothes who halted dead in his tracks as he saw Jim. Then without a word he turned away down a side street and Jim followed him.
"Wait for me at the hotel," he said curtly, and there was a gleam in his eyes that had not been there a moment before.
It was an hour before he rejoined me, and the gleam was more pronounced than ever. "Dick," he said, "I'm going on in the Andaman as far as Malta. Wonderful sea-bathing in Malta in August and September. I'm going to spend all day and every day bathing. Care to come? You'll probably get some polo at the Marsa."
"Somewhat sudden," I murmured mildly. "What's the game?"
"It's the game, Dick: the Great Game. The only game in the world worth playing. Sometimes I've been tempted to chuck up roving and take to it permanently. Do you know who that fellow was that I followed?"
"Some Egyptian of sorts, I suppose."
"That was Victor Head, of the Loamshires, temporarily seconded for service with the Government. He's officially A.D.C., I believe, to some General, and he's been on leave of absence for a year." Jim grinned. "That's the sort of General to have."
And suddenly it dawned on me.
"Secret service work!" I cried.
Jim lifted a deprecating hand.
"Let us call it research work amongst the native population," he murmured. "You don't suppose, do you, old man, that the British Government runs five hundred million black men here and in India by distributing tracts to 'em?"
"But why Malta?" I cried, harking back. "What about Alexandria; there's excellent bathing there. And it's a hole of an island at this time of year."
"One doesn't get that wonderful goat smell here," he remarked, and his eyes were twinkling. "I know the actual rock, Dick, where one can lie and bask in the sun. Coming?"
It was an unnecessary question, and three days later found us in Valetta. A sirocco was blowing, and of all the foul winds that blow upon this universe the sirocco in Malta during the hot months has many strong claims to be considered the most foul. But Jim was in irrepressible spirits, and departed at once to commune with a certain Staff officer. I went with him to be officially introduced, and then I faded out of the picture. For they spoke in a strange cryptic jargon, and when the staff officer had wiped the sirocco sweat from his eyes, I saw they were gleaming even as Jim's.
To one who has played the game himself the call of it is always there. But it wasn't a long interview, and it ended with the officer giving orders that a "Tent, bell, G.S., one, complete with pole," should be placed at our disposal for as long as we needed it. And an hour later we left the Union Club in a carozzi with our bell tent and drove away towards the west. We passed St. Paul's Bay, where the celebrated adventure with the viper is duly commemorated, and at last we came to the end of the island.
Below us lay a little bay with the water gleaming gold in the setting sun. We scrambled down the cliff, and we put up our tent on a patch of sand.
"There is the very spot I used last time, Dick," said Jim, pointing to a great sand-stone rock jutting out into the sea. "And let us pray to Allah that there are rather fewer mixed bathing parties for our present effort. They always come in the hottest part of the day, and I reckoned that they made me take a week longer than I anticipated to cook."
He laughed at my look of mystification.
"That's what we've come here for, old man. I've got to cook in the sun, and you can take it from me that I turn into the choicest mahogany you've ever seen. But the red blistery stage is painful, and it's dull cooking alone. So if you don't mind keeping me company, and doing the grub side of the business, I shall be eternally grateful."
They're pretty thorough—the men who play that game. When there aren't any rules, and a slip may mean a singularly unpleasant death, they have to be. And Jim was taking no chances. A stain I gathered was all right for a one or two day show, but when it came to a question of weeks there was nothing like the permanent stain of the sun. And so like a chicken on a spit did Jim rotate on that rock, only ceasing when the sound of feminine voices announced the arrival of a bathing party. Then with horrible maledictions he would retire into the tent until they departed.
It took four weeks before he was satisfied, and I certainly would never have thought such a result possible. His skin had turned the dark brown of the typical Berber, and when he walked with the superb dignity of those sons of the desert it was difficult to believe that he was an Englishman at all.
And then one day he disappeared. Mysteriously from somewhere had arrived the necessary clothes; as I have said there was a Staff officer in Valetta who had played the game himself. And to him I went for further information. But they're an uncommunicative lot—the players, and beyond a vague