PART THREE—THE GRAY METEOR
I
Tells of certain perplexities which confronted me; also of how I journeyed into Switzerland and of how I first chanced to see the Gray Meteor.
The foregoing chapters which embody the story of Slade’s career, were, as I have said before, intended for the perusal of Roy Blakeley alone. They form, as you will have seen, a sort of story within a story. What went before, and what I am now about to write, would never have been written (much less published) save for the startling discoveries which I have recently made. As I feel now, I should like not only Roy Blakeley, but the whole world, to know the full truth of this strange business.
You will have noticed, no doubt, that in my somewhat rambling story of Slade’s career I refrained from mentioning the shocking revelations that were contained in the papers which I found in the Scuppers. To me (who did not know him), the death of the brave airman was not so much of a shock, but that he should have sold himself and his undoubted talents to the enemy while all the while keeping up the appearance of loyal service to the United States, was appalling—almost unbelievable. When and how, in those latter days of his brave career, he had played into their blood-guilty hands, I could not conjecture. But that is the wily genius of spies and traitors.
I tried to make allowance for him on the supposition that his mind had been polluted, his vision knocked askew, away back home by the disloyal German by whom he had been employed. I told myself that though he was brave, he was yet ignorant and weak, perhaps.
They had sent him into the enemy country partly because he had, in some measure, the German type of countenance and spoke German passably. Was there some obscure vein of German running in him, I asked myself. That might explain, though it would not excuse. He had spoken in blunt praise of his German captors and had come near to being court-martialled for it. Was that just common fairness to certain Germans in a particular instance? Or did it show the bent of his mind? It almost made me sick to think about it. And I felt guilty to be perpetuating his reckless courage for the benefit of the boy who had believed in him and still revered his memory.
It is enough for me to say now that I shall write the balance of this story with a clearer conscience.
Perhaps you will say that I should have come to believe in him when I learned of his brave, heroic acts. But I beg you to remember the watch, with T. S. engraved on the back of it, and the wallet packed full of treason which was connected with it by a heavy lock-link chain. You remember that? You remember that the watch was made in America? You remember that in that wallet was the photograph of a Bridgeboro girl? Bridgeboro, only a small place too, where he had lived and where I lived, and where Roy lived. You remember the part of that girl’s letter on the back of which was written a traitorous memorandum? Here it is now—I copy it:
... looked about it seemed as if everyone in Bridgeboro was there. And of course the Boy Scouts and that excruciating imp of a Blakeley boy were on hand—Ruth’s brother, you know. Oh, by the way, who do you suppose is in the old place on Terrace Ave? Guess. The Red Cross ladies, and I’m working with
Heaven knows how many times in my mind I afterward tried to wrench that chain asunder and separate that name from the mementoes of treachery and crime, just as I had actually tried in my amazement and bewilderment as I sat in that little dank cave away up in the Scuppers where he had fallen.
But in the end of it this was the sad conclusion that I reached—that brave and heroic exploits may be colored and exaggerated by those who tell them, but that records kept in secret do not lie. And if I did not picture the adventurous young American as a patriot in those gathered reminiscences of his career, it was because I could not, for the haunting thought of some unknown, dark activities of his were always in my mind, a stalking spectre. Yet not a hint did I give to Archer even, much less to Roy, of what I had found out.
But there were one or two things which often puzzled me in the writing of those chapters for Roy and I will mention these now. One was that Archer told me Slade had no use for girls and never received letters from them. Yet here was a very friendly, companionable letter, or part of one, at least. Perhaps that is of no importance.
But this Bridgeboro girl had said in her letter that that extraordinary imp of a Blakeley boy was on hand—Ruth’s brother. Did not Tom Slade know that Roy was Ruth Blakeley’s brother, without her saying that? Could she have supposed that he did not know who Roy was?
I thought about it a good deal and I did not cease to think of it until a certain trouble of my own intervened and put all thoughts of Tom Slade out of my mind for the time. This was the very troublesome cough I had contracted as a result of being gassed. I could not seem to get the gas out of my lungs, and it was becoming a matter of concern to me. I have seen young fellows, recovered from the immediate, acute effects of gassing, go to the wall with consumption. So when the doctors in Paris told me that a change of air would be my best physician I lost no time in seeking the mountains of Switzerland. I may mention, if you care to know it, that I am now quite recovered and that with returning strength there came to me a great light which brought me happiness and peace of mind.
Of this I must now tell you.
The little hamlet of St. Craix is about thirty miles south of Basel in a jumble of mountains which anywhere else but in Switzerland would require a couple of hundred square miles to stand in. Solothurn is the nearest place of any size but not exactly near enough to be neighborly, and the great Ramieux Mountain rears its mighty bulk to the north. Some twenty odd miles to the west is France, but I should say it would be a couple of hundred million miles, more or less, if you went over the mountains. From Ramieux Mountain I think you could slide down to Vetroz, get lunch, and then slide on down and catch the train at Delemont.
My host, Hans Twann, had his little hostelry on the side of Meiden Mountain, a mere hubble of a couple of thousand feet or so, and his orchard tilted up like a picture on an easel. With the apples that grew in this orchard he made cider, and he also made Kirschwasser, a very agreeable beverage notwithstanding its formidable name.
He accommodated tourists on the side, in more ways than one, since his land was all up and down, and from a distance his quaint little place must have looked as if it were fixed like a postage stamp against the rising wall of the mountain. What kept it there I cannot for the life of me tell you. I always felt safer in back of it for then, if the worst happened, I should fall down against it and stop. There was a little odd patch of level land here, too, and he utilized it for an arbor where I used to sit.
Here Herr Twann would often join me and I would banter him about the insignificant size of his country. “Ach,” he would say, “dat iss becauss it iss all crunched up—what? Like a piece of trash paper. Spread it out flat and it iss bigger dan your United States.” There was some force to this argument.
Herr Twann and his little household talked German among themselves, like most of the inhabitants of northern Switzerland, though they all spoke a sort of English which they had picked up from the many tourists who resorted to the funny little place before the war.
His two children, Egbert and Emmie, were my particular friends and many were the Alpine rambles that we had together. They were about ten and eleven respectively, I think, the girl being the younger. Often we would go down into St. Craix, the oddest little community you would wish to see, with its little spired chapel just like a church in a toy village.
It was upon the Sunday of my first attendance at this church that something happened which greatly distressed me. It all grew out of the mischievous banter of those children. When the service was over they showed me the relics (of the sort that any church in Switzerland has), hallowed mementoes of saints and martyrs, and I hope I showed a seemly reverence for them. As we left the hamlet they led me to a window of the little schoolhouse and showed me within a skull which they said had been found in a glacier.
“Now,” said I, “if you will show me the apple that William Tell shot from his son’s head, I shall have seen all the sights.”
“We will show you the gray meteor,” they said. “You know what dat meteor iss?”
“A big rock,” I told them, and I added sagely that we were not so stupid in America.
They laughed and said I should see what kind of a rock this “gray meteor” was.
After we had walked some distance they began looking eagerly across a certain field at the farther side of which a mountain arose. Right at the base of this mountain was a kind of grove. Their laughing voices echoed back from the rugged height as we entered the field, and sounded clear and musical in the quiet calm of that Alpine Sabbath morn.
“Come,” they urged.
As we neared the foot of the mountain the irregular contour of the base developed into little rocks and caves, and then I saw emerging from one of these a living figure which paused irresolutely, watching us.
“See—now you are fooled!” little Emmie cried. “You are so sure it iss a rock!”
“You mean that is the meteor?” I asked.
“So—you are fooled!” she answered gleefully.
As we approached closer, I could see the figure clearly, and a more forlorn and pitiable spectacle I have never gazed upon. Seeing me, he started to run, but thinking better of it, paused and waited for us with an aspect of indescribable terror. I wore the regulation khaki uniform of correspondents at the front, and this he seemed to scrutinize with a kind of bewildered agitation.
“Hello,” I said, as we reached what I suppose I must call his lair. “How are you this bright Sunday morning?”
He made no answer, but watched me furtively and once or twice seemed on the point of making off. It was evident that he either lived or spent much time in a little cave formed by the rocks for near this were the charred remnants of a fire. He was a young fellow of perhaps twenty, with blond, disordered hair, and blue eyes, which latter feature disconcerted me greatly for they bespoke a kind of breathing suspense, entirely unwarranted by our innocent intrusion. His cheekbones were very noticeable, he looked thin and ill-nourished, and the end of his mouth twitched distressingly.
As to his apparel, it was in the last stages of shabbiness. His trousers were, I dare say, of khaki, but they hung loose and looked ridiculous in the absence of accompanying puttees. He wore the coat of a German officer (of what rank or branch of service I could not say) and to complete his grotesque appearance, he had a compass hung on a cord around his neck which dangled upon his chest like a lady’s ornament.
“Well, how do you find yourself?” I repeated at a venture, for I did not know whether or not he spoke English. He looked at me for a few seconds, picked up a stick and then began to cry.
Seeing that no exchange of communication was possible between us, and feeling that my intrusion was chiefly responsible for his agitation, I told my little friends that we had better go. They seemed delighted to have exhibited this creature to me.
“I think we should not laugh at him,” I said, as we resumed our homeward way. “His brain is evidently not right and he is sick. Why do you call him the gray meteor?”
“Is he not gray—his coat?” piped up young Egbert.
“Yes, but—meteor.”
“Ach, he come nobody know where—like out of the sky.”
As I looked back I could see the poor creature kneeling over his charred fire rubbing one stick across another so that it looked as if he were playing a violin.
II
Tells of my visit with the Gray Meteor and of how I entertained him and of his call upon me.
You will believe that I lost no time in quizzing my host about this mysterious “gray meteor.”
“Ach,” said he, “some deserter. Geneva and Locle are full uff them.”
“Geneva and Locle are near the border,” I said, “and all they have to do is to take a hop, skip and a jump to get there. There are some from over the Rhine, too,” I added, for I did not relish his implication that all deserters were from France.
“Well, diss one is American, anyway,” he said.
“And how about his German coat?” I asked; “how do you know he is American?”
“He iss crazy, dat is why,” he laughed. “He must be alwavss camping out. Don’t you worry about him.”
“He is not crazy,” I retorted, a bit nettled, “but I will tell you what is the matter with him——”
“Sure, he iss lazy.”
“He is suffering from shell shock or something of that sort,” I said, ignoring his remark. “And what I should like to know is, how did he find his way up here in such a state. Besides,” I added, “he should have care and companionship. He is in no condition to be living in that hole of a cave. Do you know anything about him?”
“He come apout a mont’ ago—nobody knows how. I ask him een, put he will haff nudding. The childrens, dey call him de gray meteor. Maybe he come from Mars—what?”
I soon found that if this poor, strayed soul had ever been a sensation he had long since ceased to be one. The children still found him a source of entertainment, made fun of him, and I am afraid, annoyed him. Otherwise he lived in his cave, shunned the village and all other haunts of men. I understood that he lived chiefly on fish which he caught, but sometimes the children left food near his solitary retreat.
As to his being a deserter, that may very well have been the case, I thought, but deserter or not, he was suffering from shell shock if I knew anything about the manifestations of that dreadful thing.
How he had penetrated so far to this obscure retreat I could not conjecture, for though not far distant in miles from the border, the spot was unfrequented and almost inaccessible. Nor was such remoteness necessary. In Basel, or any of the places along the western frontier, he would have been as safe from molestation as at the North Pole. First and last, his presence there puzzled and interested me, and his condition aroused my sympathy.
All the next day my thoughts dwelt upon his gaunt appearance and frightened look and on that vacillating timidity and uncertainty of action which bespoke a crippled power of will. There was no mistaking those signs; I had seen them before.
The morning following I dug into my grip and picking out several of the bully old pals which I had brought with me, sallied forth to the retreat of the “gray meteor.” From what Herr Twann had said I surmised that he spoke English and finding him kneeling by the ashes of his fire, in about the same position as when I had left him the day before, I said cheerily:
“Good morning—fine Alpine weather.”
The look he gave me pierced me to the heart. I felt that he would either run away or crawl to me like a guilty dog in grovelling shame. He breathed heavily and his eyes were lit with an anguish of terror. He started to rise but apparently had not the strength of will to lift himself and as he crouched there a twig broke under his feet and he started as if a cannon had been shot off close by.
“I think you’ve been trying to get a fire,” said I pleasantly, “by rubbing those two sticks together. Am I right?”
He only looked at me and smiled uncertainly. “That’s a pretty hard stunt,” I continued. “Suppose we start it with a match this time and tomorrow I’ll hunt this business up. I’ve a book that tells about those things. You and I will run through it together.”
I lighted the little parcel of twigs which he had gathered and after watching the flame a few moments he said, “More?” and seemed irresolute whether to bring more twigs or not.
“A few more, then a couple of big pieces, and we’ll be all hunk,” I said.
The fire well started, we sat down beside it.
“It’s hot, isn’t it?” he asked nervously.
“Quite hot,” said I.
Then he gulped as if it had been an effort for him to say that much.
“You were right the first time,” I added, which seemed to afford him a kind of childish pleasure.
“Now,” said I, “if you think I’m a soldier because I have on this khaki suit, you’re mistaken. I’m a fellow that writes stories and things, and I like to camp just as you do. I think you and I are very much alike. Will you tell me your name?”
He shook his head, smiling weakly. It seemed to me that he had no objection to telling me, but that he just lacked the stamina to do it. I therefore began to speak of something else and after a moment he said:
“Tasso.”
“Is that your name?”
He nodded as if he had done a great thing in telling me. Then a slight movement of my arm startled him and he jumped and trembled.
“Are you Italian?” I said; “is that your first name or your last name?”
“Both,” he said.
“Well,” said I, “you and I are going to be friends, anyway. And I’ve brought along another friend, too. He’s in a book named Kidnapped. He went on a long hike and lived in caves just like you. He made a long trip through mountains with a companion and at last got to Edinburgh.”
He looked at me for a moment in a puzzled way and then asked hesitatingly, “Did he get there in the night?”
“Indeed, I don’t remember,” I said, “but we shall find out.”
Suddenly he began to cry like a baby and it was pitiful to see him. While he was crying I began to read those wonderful adventures of David Balfour and he soon seemed to listen. But with every stir he would start like a frightened animal and he had a way of twisting and pulling the cord around his neck which was heartrending to see, so weak and aimless was it. But he was attentive and evidently interested.
Thus began my acquaintance with that forlorn derelict of the great war, and my simple program for helping him seemed to have begun auspiciously. Each day I visited him and read to him and though he said little, and that to no purpose, he seemed interested and would listen silently hour after hour, starting at the merest sound or movement, and twirling and twisting the cord on which hung his rusty, broken compass.
On the evening of the fourth or fifth day I saw him coming up the mountain path toward the little inn. He paused trembling at the edge of our little arbor and breathed as if he were very weary. I rose slowly, being particular to make no noise or sudden movement, and greeted him as if he had been coming each day. He stood uncertainly, intertwining his fingers, and seemed on the point of retreating. But he had come, and that was a great step in advance.
“I think it is my front name,” he said, as if that were the purpose of his call.
“Oh, yes,” said I. “Tasso. So now I’ll call you Tasso.”
“If it thunders will you come and stay with me?” he asked.
“Indeed I will,” said I, “but it’s not going to thunder and tomorrow you and I are going to take a hike together.”
III
Tells of my ramble with the Gray Meteor and of his singular conduct, and of a discovery which I made.
I have seen soldiers suffering from shell shock led across the boulevard in Paris, held by the hand like children. I have seen one, a great, strapping fellow, guided to his seat in a restaurant. I have seen one stand upon the street wringing his hands and sobbing because he did not know which way to go. And no one of these unfortunates that I have ever seen would have ventured out alone upon the most trifling errand. Panic fear of themselves is their most distressing and conspicuous symptom.
Yet here was one of them whose last vestige of stamina seemed to have forsaken him, but who had yet penetrated into these rugged mountain heights. It was not so much the distance from France, as the endless up-and-down distances and winding ways of those Alpine fastnesses which made the thing seem impossible. Apparently he had a half forgotten smattering of some of the primitive outdoor arts and I had won his confidence and aroused some hope and interest in him by promising him a “hike.” But he was no more able to reach this sequestered spot unaided than a baby in arms.
Who, then, had aided him?
Try as I would, I could not persuade him to remain over night at my little inn, the fear of any noise seeming constantly with him, and I let him go, realizing with regret that perhaps he was as well off in his solitude with only the softer voices of nature about him.
But in the morning I was early at his retreat, with high hopes of the little excursion which awaited us. For I had thought that a quiet ramble in those unfrequented places would be a balm and solace to his poor nerves and wavering mind. Little did I dream what that ramble would reveal.
Our path took us through a forest thick with pines of such magnificence as I had never before seen, one as much like another as the pillars of a collonade, and for which this Jura range is famous. I have it from my host that after rainy weather the pungent odor from these pines is actually intoxicating and that wayfarers have been known to slumber under its fragrant influence for several days. I think I shall never again smell the spirit-rousing pungence of a Christmas tree without recalling our memorable ramble in that dim cathedral of the Jura Mountains.
I noticed that the sounds of nature had no such distressing effect upon my companion as did the ruder clamor of human clap-trap, and that he was more at ease in these majestic scenes. Perhaps kind nature, that great physician who asks no fee, had pointed out his solitary cave to him, after the thunderous tumult of the war—I do not know. But in any event he seemed more at ease than I had yet seen him. And I perceived clearly enough then that he was not insane—only that he had lost his grip.
He seemed to take an interest in everything about us and surprised me with the knowledge which he showed of nature and her little oddities. Once he picked up a twig saying that it had grown on the north side of a tree, and again a scrap of rock which he said was sandstone. “They’re all sandstone, these mountains,” he said, or rather asked, as if he were not quite sure of himself and afraid that I would contradict him.
“Yes,” I said. “I guess they’re mostly sandstone,” though, to tell you the truth, they might have been soapstone for all I knew.
Not once did he speak of the war and when I cautiously mentioned it in a casual way he paid no attention. It seemed that he had forgotten all about it—blessed lapse of memory, I thought.
Well, after a while we came upon rough country, like a miniature chain of mountains up there amid those mighty peaks. Here were rocky hollows and no end of little caves and glens—such picturesqueness as I had never seen. They say these caves are filled with the bones of extinct animals and one bleached relic I picked up. But my companion told me that it was only wood. “See,” he said smiling, “it has a grain.”
I think it was the first instance of a genuine smile that I had seen upon his wan countenance.
Presently he kneeled down and examined some mossy earth, and straightway, to my regret, he became greatly excited. We were in a sort of little canon which extended some hundred yards or so and petered out in an area of fairly level forest land where the trees grew sparsely in a rocky soil.
“What is it?” I asked, a bit anxiously.
“See?” he said, standing and placing his heel in the moss. “See?”
“You mean it’s a footprint?” I asked.
“See?” he asked nervously, almost in suspense, as if dreading my reply.
“Surely,” said I; “I dare say others have passed here. We are not so far from the village.”
“It’s mine,” he said. “See?” And ignoring me, he crept along, for all the world as if he had lost something, examining the earth with great concern and increasing satisfaction.
I had never before seen him so interested, and my own interest was aroused, for if he had indeed passed here himself it might afford a clue to something or other—though I did not know what.
“It is only moss,” I said, “and——”
“It’s wax-moss,” he interrupted me with the first sign of assurance he had ever shown. “They stay in wax-moss—See?”
He was now so engrossed with his quest that I could but watch and follow him.
“Have you been here before?” I queried. He gave no heed, but hurried along through the gully until, having gone a hundred feet or more, his will power seemed to collapse and he waited for me, wringing his hands distressingly.
“What is it?” I said.
“It’s over there,” he answered, clutching me in evident terror.
“Well, we’ll go and see it,” I answered cheerily, and we moved along, he still clutching me as if afraid that I would desert him.
It was curious to see how the one or two footprints he had found aroused him to a flight of energy which petered out as quickly and left him helpless and agitated. I could not for the life of me imagine why those footprints should have interested him so and sent him loping along the gully. He found no others, but apparently the sight of those two or three produced a glimmer of memory in him. Evidently he had been here before, and was wishful to retrace his former path but lacked the will and courage to do so.
“I know where it is,” he said, wringing his hands. “I know now. Will you go with me?”
His look was so imploring and his voice so full of a kind of panic fear that I was persuaded there was something he wished to show me but dared not. His will seemed to tipple like a seesaw between resolution and irresolution, and he fell into the old habit of starting and clutching me at every sound.
“Come,” I said, “I’ll go with you.”
I cannot describe the eager terror in his eyes, the trembling of his hands as he clutched my arm, and the irresolute pauses which he made as he passed along through the gully. Finally he seemed about to clamber out of the rocky depression, hesitated, and broke down utterly, sobbing like a child.
“Look—there—,” he at last managed to gasp “You—go—and see.” And he gulped and tightened his grasp in panic fright.
I looked across a mass of piled up rock and saw, some distance away, a large object which seemed to stir as I watched it.
“That’s it,” he said.
“All right,” said I. “You stay here, sit down on that stone and I’ll go and see.”
He sat down, twirling the cord around his neck and watching me eagerly. As I clambered up the low embankment, he started at the slight noise I made.
Picking my way among the boulders I approached the object, until, a few feet from it, I paused and looked at it aghast. It was the wreck of a German observation balloon. The gas was entirely gone from its great bag which lay plastered down upon the rocks, and its formerly glass-enclosed car was in complete ruin. I think it must have blown across those rocks for some distance to have been so shattered.
But all the details of its wreck and dilapidation were as nothing to me when I saw certain markings on the broken side of its car. There were two black crosses side by side, with the German Imperial coat of arms between them.
The balloon with the two black crosses was known far and wide upon the west front. It was the little palace, the lofty headquarters of an arch demon of aerial frightfulness, who was the peering eye and minion of his murderous superiors. I had talked with those who knew and catered to this sneaking beast, and cowered before his swaggering arrogance—a poor little French girl and her crippled father. He it was who had come from America to help the Fatherland; who “knew about ze ships, when zey will go”; whose two black crosses were a mark of special honor and distinction!
Well, by the grace of Heaven, he was a mystery no longer. Poor, dribbling, guilt-haunted wretch—he had brought me face to face with the wrecked instrument of his crimes.
I make no excuse for what I did—I am only human. I strode back to where the stricken creature sat, twirling and twisting the cord about his neck. I was trembling and my words came short and spasmodic, but whether from amazement or rage I do not know now. I only know that he cowered before me like a reed blown in the blast—it stings me to the heart as I think of it now.
“So you have got your reward,” I said. “Be sure that God knows how to punish such as you! I have seen your evil eye put out and there, there it lies, over among those rocks. You must come back to it, eh? Like a murderer to its victim!”
His breath came in great, panting gulps, he wrung and twisted his hands, and his look—oh, it will haunt me forever.
“I know who you are now! You will tell a little French girl that Americans are murderers and hang their people to lamp-posts! America, where you lived yourself and made your living—— Now you’ve got your reward! I have seen the house that you defiled with your presence—the little cottage of a French peasant! I don’t know how many ships lie at the bottom of the ocean on account of you, you sneaking, lying blackguard! But you’ve got your reward. Those innocent women and babies at the bottom of the sea are better off than you—with your peering eye put out and your senses drivelling. No wonder you’re afraid! Probably the thunder of some Yankee cannon knocked your brain endways. The most bestial German is a saint compared with you—Monsieur le Capitaine!” I sneered. “No, keep away from me!” For he held his hands toward me with a pitiful gesture. “I’ll not interfere with the decree of God. You can wander in these mountains like a lost soul for all I care—drivelling about poor murdered Indians in America. If you’ve forgotten your name, I’ll tell it to you. It’s Toby! I know of one other almost as bad as you are—Slade his name is—who would sell his country. Over there at that balloon is a piece of broken cable—go and hang yourself with it—if you’ve got the nerve!”
And with that I marched away. Scarcely had I gone ten paces when his voice rose in a scream to wake the Heavens. Again and again he screeched in an anguish of despair and his piercing cries echoed from those lonely mountains until they died away in pitiable sobs.
But I never so much as turned to look at him.
IV
Tells how I went forth into the night, and of my quest, and of my singular state of mind.
“So that is the infamous Captain Toby,” I thought, as I started back to the inn, all agog over this discovery. “Monsieur le Capitaine, the sky spy, accessory to a thousand murders! Another of Dennheimer’s recruits. Well, he has his reward.” He would have fared worse, I consoled myself, if he had fallen within the allied lines.
But already (though I would not acknowledge it) I had begun to feel the first pangs of regret, not because I had denounced him, but because I had not at least brought him back and left him in his cave where I had found him. For if, indeed, I wished to leave his punishment to Providence, it would have seemed only fair to return him to the spot where Providence had placed him when I intervened.
I began to wonder how he had drifted so far and what were the circumstances of his tragic flight. The broken cable told much, but what was the experience which had left him with a tottering, broken will—the victim of hideous fear and haunting guilt? He had evidently a hazy recollection of landing in the darkness, for he had asked me, in his eager, furtive way, if David Balfour had reached his destination at night.
I believed that his condition had been worse—was perhaps getting better when I first saw him. And I pictured his being carried through the darkness, a crazed victim locked in his little car, storm-tossed perhaps, borne over those majestic peaks, beating against his glass enclosure in crying fright, and at last dragged across rough canons and over rocks and crawling out of the wreckage in the blackness of night in this unknown country. I pictured him wandering aimlessly among the hills and glens, in storm and tempest perhaps, and finally finding refuge in his lone cave.
Before I had reached the inn I turned and retraced my steps to the scene of our parting, but he was gone. I was siezed with remorse. The night was coming on, and the thought of the poor wretch stricken anew by the shock of my tirade, roaming aimlessly among those caverns, went to my heart.
This, I thought, was not the way Uncle Sam treated his enemy prisoners. I went back to his cave hoping that I might find him there, but there was no sign of him, and I turned back toward the inn remorsefully.
And now I did not spare myself. I recalled my effort to find excuse, or at least a plausible explanation, for Tom Slade’s truckling to the enemy, because he was my young friend’s pal and lived in my own home town. I recalled my agreeable pastime of recounting the episodes of his loyal service, and of how I had put into the background that dark secret of the Scuppers. But for this poor, half demented creature, who was punished already, I had had nothing but heartless contempt and loathing. I would have thought shame to dishonor that grave in Pevy. Yet here was I dishonoring the dead—for was not this wretched thing dead in a way?
I cannot tell you of the pangs I suffered as the night drew on. Herr Twann, who had shown little sympathy or interest in our unhappy neighbor, seemed like a saint now compared to myself. A fine bungle I had made of my kind intent! I have seen wounded soldiers handled pretty roughly, but never one with genuine shell shock.
To my host and his good wife I said nothing of what I had learned—much less of what I had done, but all through the evening I nursed my remorse in silence.
As luck would have it, the night blew up cold and stormy. There is a keenness to the slightest breeze in these parts and I have wondered whether it is because of the narrow valleys it passes through, causing, as one might say, a perpetual draft. The rain comes in gusts.
Well, on this memorable night there was not so much as a star to be seen—only the tiny light away up on Ollon peak, which I always thought must be a star. Some hermit monks lived there, I understood, and lonely enough it must have been for them. Down in St. Craix we could see the lights, dimmed by the misty thickness of the blown rain, disappear one after another as the good peasant people went to their beds, and as I watched them from our tap-room window, I felt that no human being should be abroad in those mountains on such a night. Once there came a tap upon our door and I thought it might be that poor distracted soul, but it was only Laff Turtman, the herdsman, for a warming draught of kirschwasser. He was on his way down to Craix with his sheep, and I could see them out in the path, making a kind of community of warmth by crowding together. The blazing fire in our tap-room was cheerful that night and we all sat about it.
At last I could stand it no longer and taking my host’s oilskin cape and hat from their peg, I announced that I was going to see if the Gray Meteor was all right, that being the name they always called him by. It pleased me to assume that he would be in his cave, and I would not entertain the thought that he was not there. But he was nowhere about the place. Outside were the two smooth sticks that he was wont to rub together with such childish confidence of getting a spark from them, and it went to my heart to see them lying there. The rain was streaming down the cliff above his cave and pouring over the opening like a waterfall.
I was thoroughly alarmed now, but what to do I did not know. I cannot say I had any sympathy for him more than any Christian would have for the lowest wretch cast adrift on such a night. I was in two minds whether to go all the way down into the village, but what could I do there? Awaken the good people out of their slumbers?
It was intolerable to do nothing, and I ended by doing the only other thing I could think of, and that was to pick my way through all that drenching rain and darkness to the wreck of his balloon. Now that he had seen it again, I suspected it would have a kind of fascination for him.
But he was not there and I was at my wits’ end. The wreck looked tragic and uncanny enough in the night, the hollow, wrinkled bag moving to and fro, and simulating the stirrings of some crouching thing among the rocks. I groped about among the wreckage of the car and found a dented, rusted spyglass, which had doubtless stolen many a secret from behind our lines, and a jack-knife, so rusted that I could not open it. This I took—I do not know why.
Suddenly through the rain I heard a sound near me and peering about I saw a goggled head bobbing close by.
“Who is it—speak,” I demanded, and I am afraid my voice was not quite steady.
But there was no answer and approaching I found it to be only an airman’s helmet hanging from a hook in the broken moulding. Even as I felt of it I started at a rustling sound beneath me, but I supposed it was only some small creature of the mountains who had made the forlorn ruin its home.
I had no wish to linger there and started homeward, drenched and utterly miserable. Nor will I deny that this weird spectacle in those rugged, dark-enshrouded mountains, had made me the prey of shadowy forebodings and uncanny fancies. I, too, must start at every little sound and shudder with a sort of vague apprehension. I cannot describe it any better than to say that I felt as if something dreadful were going to happen. I thought how the war had pushed its long, bloody tentacles out to the farthest corner of the world—causing murder in some tropic village, suicide in the ice-bound north—horror and destruction everywhere. And it was here upon these neutral Alpine hills, this war, stalking in the form of one distraught and guilty soul, who had been cast up here with all his crimes upon his head. “One cannot get away from it,” I said.
I felt it, I knew it—that something, I knew not what, but something, was going to happen.
V
Tells of my experience in the night, and brings my formal narrative to a close.
The household was gone to bed when I reached the little inn, but the fire had been left burning for me, and I hung my dripping garments before it and sank down on the massive settle. The candle was burning out but the blaze in the big fireplace diffused its grateful warmth and gave out a dim, fitful brightness. I remember how it checkered up the rough wainscot and low-raftered ceiling so that my eye was ever and again caught by moving figures which were nothing but the reflection of the dancing blaze. Outside the blown rain beat against the little windows in intermittent splashes, which seemed to heighten the sense of comfort and security within.
But I took small comfort in the dim warmth, for I was sick at heart—sick with horror and disgust at the renewed memory of that creature’s deeds—treason—cowardly murder—but most of all at myself. I tried to console myself with the reflection that it was better so, that after all I had been giving aid and comfort to the enemy. We do not get much consolation from the mental comforts which we manufacture for ourselves, and the result of all this idle thinking was just to take me back home to Bridgeboro and to conjure up thoughts of my young friend, Roy Blakeley. Do a good turn daily, he had said. I could see him as he said it! Two on Sundays and holidays. Get a turning lathe and turn out good turns. Keep turning. I smiled at the recollection of all his nonsense.... A fine kind of a good turn I had done!
So I fell to thinking, or rather my mind wandered aimlessly back to that day when Roy and I had stood outside the Bridgeboro station, reading the account of Tom Slade’s last exploit. I recalled the little catch in his voice when he asked me if I was “sure it was really true,” and of how he looked across the street at the window of Temple Camp office, where hung the service flag with its single star. Then I thought of the grave in Pevy with its little wooden cross marked with rough lettering—absurdly German. I thought of how, even to the last moment of our parting, when he handed up my grips to the car platform, he clung staunchly to the hope that somehow his pal was yet living.
“Well, at least,” I reflected cynically, “Tom Slade had the decency to leave a few untainted memorials of loyal service behind him—enough to make a story.” And I thanked my stars that no hint of other things had escaped from my pen, in that tale which I had written for Roy. That did not trouble my conscience at all now. Might it not go down as a good turn? And the girl, whoever she was, she must never know either. Where ignorance was bliss, ’twas folly to be wise. Why should I disgrace my own home town and bring shame upon this noble “good turner” and scout?
Then in my drowsy reverie (for the dying fire had cast its spell on me) I thought of something Slade had said to Jeanne Grigou—that you cannot disgrace yourself alone. Queer he had not thought of that when he had fallen into the web of the unspeakable Dennheimer. Why had he not thought of Bridgeboro then—little Bridgeboro which was first over the top with its loan quota. Had not the Schmitt affair been quite enough for little Bridgeboro which had had its name sprawled all over the New York papers on account of it?
Well, in any event, there should be no more of this business....
Roy—Roy—he would get over the shock of death, I mused. Nature provides for that. But the shock of disgrace.... That was a pretty good story, too—stopping just short of.... Yes, it was a pretty good story. And I would give it to Roy and say, “Here’s a good turn I have turned out for you.” And then....
Whew! How the rain beat against the window! The rattling of the loose frame interrupted my reverie so that I got up and stretched myself and went over and forced a folded scrap of paper between it and the jamb.
“I’ll be thankful,” I half yawned as I resumed my seat before the fire, “if this thing is over soon.” I don’t know whether I was thinking of the storm or the war.
But the rattling did not cease. Oh, it was the door and not the window. So I got up again—then stood stark still, feeling a tremor all over me. Not an inch could I move, only stand there, every nerve on edge, listening. If I had been certain of a tapping on that door I would have experienced no suspense, for suspense is tense uncertainty, and I knew not whether it was a tapping or not.
I thought it was not, and to make sure I went over, unbarred the heavy door and threw it open.
Never while I live shall I forget that sight. He stood there, dripping, trembling; and if there had ever been a touch of the ridiculous in his appearance in that tattered, ill-fitting German coat, there was nothing but pathos in it now; his clothes hung in shining wetness to his form so that I saw with horror how gaunt and emaciated he was. He wore no hat and his blonde hair was streaking down over his face and he gazed out from between those drooping strands with such a pitiful look of appeal as I had never seen before.