登陆注册
15293100000002

第2章

The two men exchanged glances. 'This looks like fate,' said Bullivant. 'By all means go to Isham. The place where your work begins is only a couple of miles off. I want you to spend next Thursday night as the guest of two maiden ladies called Wymondham at Fosse Manor. You will go down there as a lone South African visiting a sick friend. They are hospitable souls and entertain many angels unawares.'

'And I get my orders there?'

'You get your orders, and you are under bond to obey them.'

And Bullivant and Macgillivray smiled at each other.

I was thinking hard about that odd conversation as the small Ford car, which I had wired for to the inn, carried me away from the suburbs of the county town into a land of rolling hills and green water-meadows. It was a gorgeous afternoon and the blossom of early June was on every tree. But I had no eyes for landscape and the summer, being engaged in reprobating Bullivant and cursing my fantastic fate. I detested my new part and looked forward to naked shame. It was bad enough for anyone to have to pose as a pacifist, but for me, strong as a bull and as sunburnt as a gipsy and not looking my forty years, it was a black disgrace. To go into Germany as an anti-British Afrikander was a stoutish adventure, but to lounge about at home talking rot was a very different-sized job. My stomach rose at the thought of it, and I had pretty well decided to wire to Bullivant and cry off. There are some things that no one has a right to ask of any white man.

When I got to Isham and found poor old Blaikie I didn't feel happier. He had been a friend of mine in Rhodesia, and after the German South-West affair was over had come home to a Fusilier battalion, which was in my brigade at Arras. He had been buried by a big crump just before we got our second objective, and was dug out without a scratch on him, but as daft as a hatter. I had heard he was mending, and had promised his family to look him up the first chance I got. I found him sitting on a garden seat, staring steadily before him like a lookout at sea. He knew me all right and cheered up for a second, but very soon he was back at his staring, and every word he uttered was like the careful speech of a drunken man. Abird flew out of a bush, and I could see him holding himself tight to keep from screaming. The best I could do was to put a hand on his shoulder and stroke him as one strokes a frightened horse. The sight of the price my old friend had paid didn't put me in love with pacificism.

We talked of brother officers and South Africa, for I wanted to keep his thoughts off the war, but he kept edging round to it.

'How long will the damned thing last?' he asked.

'Oh, it's practically over,' I lied cheerfully. 'No more fighting for you and precious little for me. The Boche is done in all right ... What you've got to do, my lad, is to sleep fourteen hours in the twenty-four and spend half the rest catching trout. We'll have a shot at the grouse-bird together this autumn and we'll get some of the old gang to join us.'

Someone put a tea-tray on the table beside us, and I looked up to see the very prettiest girl I ever set eyes on. She seemed little more than a child, and before the war would probably have still ranked as a flapper. She wore the neat blue dress and apron of a V.A.D.

and her white cap was set on hair like spun gold. She smiled demurely as she arranged the tea-things, and I thought I had never seen eyes at once so merry and so grave. I stared after her as she walked across the lawn, and I remember noticing that she moved with the free grace of an athletic boy.

'Who on earth's that?' I asked Blaikie.

'That? Oh, one of the sisters,' he said listlessly. 'There are squads of them. I can't tell one from another.'

Nothing gave me such an impression of my friend's sickness as the fact that he should have no interest in something so fresh and jolly as that girl. Presently my time was up and I had to go, and as Ilooked back I saw him sunk in his chair again, his eyes fixed on vacancy, and his hands gripping his knees.

The thought of him depressed me horribly. Here was I condemned to some rotten buffoonery in inglorious safety, while the salt of the earth like Blaikie was paying the ghastliest price. From him my thoughts flew to old Peter Pienaar, and I sat down on a roadside wall and read his last letter. It nearly made me howl.

Peter, you must know, had shaved his beard and joined the Royal Flying Corps the summer before when we got back from the Greenmantle affair. That was the only kind of reward he wanted, and, though he was absurdly over age, the authorities allowed it.

They were wise not to stickle about rules, for Peter's eyesight and nerve were as good as those of any boy of twenty. I knew he would do well, but I was not prepared for his immediately blazing success.

He got his pilot's certificate in record time and went out to France;and presently even we foot-sloggers, busy shifting ground before the Somme, began to hear rumours of his doings. He developed a perfect genius for air-fighting. There were plenty better trick-flyers, and plenty who knew more about the science of the game, but there was no one with quite Peter's genius for an actual scrap. He was as full of dodges a couple of miles up in the sky as he had been among the rocks of the Berg. He apparently knew how to hide in the empty air as cleverly as in the long grass of the Lebombo Flats.

Amazing yarns began to circulate among the infantry about this new airman, who could take cover below one plane of an enemy squadron while all the rest were looking for him. I remember talking about him with the South Africans when we were out resting next door to them after the bloody Delville Wood business.

同类推荐
热门推荐
  • 世界边缘

    世界边缘

    问:假如小明以光速御剑飞行一天一夜,能飞出太阳系吗?答:早飞出去了,但如果他有女朋友,一定会后悔的。问:哦?答:因为地球上已经过去了一百三十二年。
  • 往事若如初见

    往事若如初见

    往事若如初见,你我会不会在一起永不分离。当他被爱人,好友一起背叛,本就不信情的他是否还能再接受他热情如火的爱……
  • 壮志

    壮志

    鸿蒙路尽头,几人可寻觅?破除层层阻,只为不死身。大千三千界,种族何其多,功法不知几?何来修长生?我欲问苍生,苍生不知何?奈何燃我心,我一去不归,坎坎漫漫路,壮志何为愁。
  • 云烟忆

    云烟忆

    这是一个妹子带着一匹巨狼去修仙治病救命的故事_(:з」∠)_
  • 爱由心生:痴心总裁情归处

    爱由心生:痴心总裁情归处

    大白高冷,小白热血,谁才是辛笙的真命天子?顾静:“我不会让你得到白启寒!拼了命都不会!”辛笙冷笑:“是吗?可是有些人总待在我这不走算怎么回事?”顾静:“……白启寒你有没有出息,她一出现,你把千万资产都给了?她不会爱你,她家酒店倒闭,母亲去世,哪一件跟你家没有关系,难道她会爱上你?”白启寒深情凝视某人:“现在要她爱我做什么,我爱她就行了。我会缠着她一辈子,总有一天,她会爱上我的。”
  • 福妻驾到

    福妻驾到

    现代饭店彪悍老板娘魂穿古代。不分是非的极品婆婆?三年未归生死不明的丈夫?心狠手辣的阴毒亲戚?贪婪而好色的地主老财?吃上顿没下顿的贫困宭境?不怕不怕,神仙相助,一技在手,天下我有!且看现代张悦娘,如何身带福气玩转古代,开面馆、收小弟、左纳财富,右傍美男,共绘幸福生活大好蓝图!!!!快本新书《天媒地聘》已经上架开始销售,只要3.99元即可将整本书抱回家,你还等什么哪,赶紧点击下面的直通车,享受乐乐精心为您准备的美食盛宴吧!)
  • 璃月下的情奴

    璃月下的情奴

    穿越异时空的杨洛千蝶儿,为了寻找自己的亲生父亲,走遍大陆四国的精彩故事。
  • 剑王山

    剑王山

    “师傅,山下的小剑师怎么都敢欺负你,难道他不知你可来自剑王山?!”“知道,可他还知道剑王山上有个废物剑白。”“师傅,你确定那就是我师叔?怎么连你都打?!”“确定,可他早已不认我这个师兄了。”“师傅,仙剑峰的人来堵门了,你快些躲起来!”“师傅......”......“师傅...我的剑呢?!”
  • 西游记补

    西游记补

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 比蒙之牛气冲天

    比蒙之牛气冲天

    站住!打劫!呸呸,收过路费!男比蒙靠左,女比蒙靠右,不男不女的站中间!比蒙雷森很布尔的说。身为骄傲的布尔族,自然就得牛气冲天!