This was a pretty kettle of fish. I was to be packed off to Cairo by sea, which would take weeks, and God knows how I would get from Egypt to Constantinople. I saw all my plans falling to pieces about my ears, and just when I thought they were shaping nicely.
Stumm must have interpreted the look on my face as fear.
‘You have no cause to be afraid,’ he said. ‘We have passed the word to the English police to look out for a suspicious South African named Brandt, one of Maritz’s rebels. It is not difficult to have that kind of a hint conveyed to the proper quarter. But the description will not be yours. Your name will be Van der Linden, a respectable Java merchant going home to his plantations after a visit to his native shores. You had better get your _dossier by heart, but I guarantee you will be asked no questions. We manage these things well in Germany.’
I kept my eyes on the fire, while I did some savage thinking. I knew they would not let me out of their sight till they saw me in Holland, and, once there, there would be no possibility of getting back. When I left this house I would have no chance of giving them the slip. And yet I was well on my way to the East, the Danube could not be fifty miles off, and that way ran the road to Constantinople. It was a fairly desperate position. If I tried to get away Stumm would prevent me, and the odds were that I would go to join Peter in some infernal prison-camp.
Those moments were some of the worst I ever spent. I was absolutely and utterly baffled, like a rat in a trap. There seemed nothing for it but to go back to London and tell Sir Walter the game was up. And that was about as bitter as death.
He saw my face and laughed. ‘Does your heart fail you, my little Dutchman? You funk the English? I will tell you one thing for your comfort. There is nothing in the world to be feared except me. Fail, and you have cause to shiver. Play me false and you had far better never have been born.’
His ugly sneering face was close above mine. Then he put out his hands and gripped my shoulders as he had done the first afternoon.
I forget if I mentioned that part of the damage I got at Loos was a shrapnel bullet low down at the back of my neck. The wound had healed well enough, but I had pains there on a cold day. His fingers found the place and it hurt like hell.
There is a very narrow line between despair and black rage. I had about given up the game, but the sudden ache of my shoulders gave me purpose again. He must have seen the rage in my eyes, for his own became cruel.
‘The weasel would like to bite,’ he cried. ‘But the poor weasel has found its master. Stand still, vermin. Smile, look pleasant, or I will make pulp of you. Do you dare to frown at me?’
I shut my teeth and said never a word. I was choking in my throat and could not have uttered a syllable if I had tried.
Then he let me go, grinning like an ape.
I stepped back a pace and gave him my left between the eyes.
For a second he did not realize what had happened, for I don’t suppose anyone had dared to lift a hand to him since he was a child. He blinked at me mildly. Then his face grew as red as fire.
‘God in heaven,’ he said quietly. ‘I am going to kill you,’ and he flung himself on me like a mountain.
I was expecting him and dodged the attack. I was quite calm now, but pretty helpless. The man had a gorilla’s reach and could give me at least a couple of stone. He wasn’t soft either, but looked as hard as granite. I was only just from hospital and absurdly out of training. He would certainly kill me if he could, and I saw nothing to prevent him.
My only chance was to keep him from getting to grips, for he could have squeezed in my ribs in two seconds. I fancied I was lighter on my legs than him, and I had a good eye. Black Monty at Kimberley had taught me to fight a bit, but there is no art on earth which can prevent a big man in a narrow space from sooner or later cornering a lesser one. That was the danger.
Backwards and forwards we padded on the soft carpet. He had no notion of guarding himself, and I got in a good few blows.
Then I saw a queer thing. Every time I hit him he blinked and seemed to pause. I guessed the reason for that. He had gone through life keeping the crown of the causeway, and nobody had ever stood up to him. He wasn’t a coward by a long chalk, but he was a bully, and had never been struck in his life. He was getting struck now in real earnest, and he didn’t like it. He had lost his bearings and was growing as mad as a hatter.
I kept half an eye on the clock. I was hopeful now, and was looking for the right kind of chance. The risk was that I might tire sooner than him and be at his mercy.
Then I learned a truth I have never forgotten. If you are fighting a man who means to kill you, he will be apt to down you unless you mean to kill him too. Stumm did not know any rules to this game, and I forgot to allow for that. Suddenly, when I was watching his eyes, he launched a mighty kick at my stomach. If he had got me, this yarn would have had an abrupt ending. But by the mercy of God I was moving sideways when he let out, and his heavy boot just grazed my left thigh.
It was the place where most of the shrapnel had lodged, and for a second I was sick with pain and stumbled. Then I was on my feet again but with a new feeling in my blood. I had to smash Stumm or never sleep in my bed again.
I got a wonderful power from this new cold rage of mine. I felt I couldn’t tire, and I danced round and dotted his face till it was streaming with blood. His bulky padded chest was no good to me, so I couldn’t try for the mark.
He began to snort now and his breath came heavily. ‘You infernal cad,’ I said in good round English, ‘I’m going to knock the stuffing out of you,’ but he didn’t know what I was saying.
Then at last he gave me my chance. He half tripped over a little table and his face stuck forward. I got him on the point of the chin, and put every ounce of weight I possessed behind the blow. He crumpled up in a heap and rolled over, upsetting a lamp and knocking a big china jar in two. His head, I remember, lay under the escritoire from which he had taken my passport.
I picked up the key and unlocked the door. In one of the gilded mirrors I smoothed my hair and tidied up my clothes. My anger had completely gone and I had no particular ill-will left against Stumm. He was a man of remarkable qualities, which would have brought him to the highest distinction in the Stone Age. But for all that he and his kind were back numbers.
I stepped out of the room, locked the door behind me, and started out on the second stage of my travels.
CHAPTER SEVEN Christmastide
Everything depended on whether the servant was in the hall. I had put Stumm to sleep for a bit, but I couldn’t flatter myself he would long be quiet, and when he came to he would kick the locked door to matchwood. I must get out of the house without a minute’s delay, and if the door was shut and the old man gone to bed I was done.
I met him at the foot of the stairs, carrying a candle.
‘Your master wants me to send off an important telegram. Where is the nearest office? There’s one in the village, isn’t there?’ I spoke in my best German, the first time I had used the tongue since I crossed the frontier.
‘The village is five minutes off at the foot of the avenue,’ he said. ‘Will you be long, sir?’
‘I’ll be back in a quarter of an hour,’ I said. ‘Don’t lock up till I get in.’
I put on my ulster and walked out into a clear starry night. My bag I left lying on a settle in the hall. There was nothing in it to compromise me, but I wished I could have got a toothbrush and some tobacco out of it.
So began one of the craziest escapades you can well imagine. I couldn’t stop to think of the future yet, but must take one step at a time. I ran down the avenue, my feet cracking on the hard snow, planning hard my programme for the next hour.