The Messenger

The crossing had been particularly vile, the journey to Paris, if anything, worse, and Alan Clinton, as he stepped from the crowded carriage at the Gare du Nord and stretched his cramped limbs in an ecstasy of abandon, swore with corresponding gusto.

"To hell with this bloody war!" he cried, glaring about him.

"I quite agree with you, Clinton," said a voice behind his left shoulder.

Who the devil — ? He turned quickly. Then he reassured himself with a forced smile. He had never particularly cared for Brian Fordinghame, especially since Fordinghame had apparently run to cover and got himself a safe and cushy job in the Home Branch of Military Intelligence. "M.I." — it was to laugh: if these gentry who were so cursedly careful of their own skins had served with him in the trenches for the past three years and a half, they'd know a lot more about Military Intelligence than they did at present!

A man of about thirty, lean and fit-looking, with keen, quizzical grey eyes, stood regarding him with a slight smile. Thinking of what he himself was about to do, Clinton felt that those same grey eyes were boring into him; they seemed to have the faculty of looking right through his body into his very soul. It was disconcerting.

The man wearing the green tabs of an Intelligence staff captain now nodded.

"How are you, Clinton?" he asked.

It was perhaps because the sight of green tabs had, during the past twelve months at least, invariably irritated him that the other's reply was brusque.

"Oh, not so bad. And in any case" — ill temper coming swiftly to the surface, "it's a lot you know about the war, Fordinghame."

The other, disregarding the insult, refused to be ruffled. Instead, he smiled once again. It was an attractive smile — attractive in spite of its icy quality.

"Had a good crossing?" he asked.

"Lousy."

"Where are you going now?" "My hotel. I want some sleep."

Fordinghame seemed determined to be friendly — and hospitable.

"I heard you were on this train, and I thought I would come along to the station and ask you to have a bite of food with me."

"Why?"

"Oh, no reason in particular," was the non-committal answer; "I just thought I'd like to have your company for an hour."

The words did something to soften the other's mood. Clinton's voice, as he spoke, contained an element of regret.

"Sorry, Fordinghame. I'd like to — but, honestly, I'm dog-tired. I must get some sleep."

"Where are you staying?"

"Oh —" he paused. "A little place I know. Cheap — that's a consideration, these days."

"Yes, indeed," agreed the staff captain. "Well, another time, perhaps. I shall be in Paris for a few days. When do you go up the line?"

"To-morrow, curse it!"

"Well, good-bye — and good luck!"

The man who had crossed to Paris with important dispatches raised his right hand in a corresponding salute and then walked quickly away to find some sort of a conveyance. In August, 1918, one was lucky to find a decent taxi-cab.

He wasn't lucky — and this increased his ill temper. The aged driver, who glared at him out of hideous, red-lidded eyes, was almost as much a derelict as the vehicle which — after a considerable argument, conducted with asperity on both sides — commenced to wheeze its way out of the crowded station.

Clinton flung himself back against the malodorous upholstery. The interior of the taxi smelt abominably, and, fresh from home, his nostrils had not yet become accustomed again to the vile stench of war. The fact was, he was thoroughly fed-up — if it hadn't been for Marie he didn't know but what. ... But that, of course, was madness; and, especially now that he had his present job to do, the idea must not be seriously entertained. This did not prevent him, however, from wishing that a million miles separated him from everything connected with this cursed war. It was a hopeless ambition, for the end seemed as far off as ever. Even in London the never-ending horror had thrust itself upon him at every conceivable turn. In the theatres and music-halls one could not escape it; at the Service clubs the talk was of nothing else; even if one went out to a private dinner party one was pestered with questions about the trenches. The newspapers, the posters on the walls, the hoardings, even the shop-windows — God! How everything reeked of the beastliness!

And now, here he was back in the very centre of things — and within twenty-four hours he would be reporting himself. ... That reminded him. With a swift clutch at the heart, his hand closed on the dispatch-case by his side. A wave of relief passed through him. He must be careful. Yes, he must be a damned sight more careful than he would be if he were actually in the trenches, for — if what that Major-General fellow at the W.O. had hinted at was correct — thousands of lives, instead of merely his own, depended on the contents of that case being handed over safely.

The reflection sobered him. And it brought the somewhat consoling knowledge that, if he were fed up himself, millions of other human beings were in the same boat. He must carry on; the job was not yet finished. And, in any case, there was Marie. ...

Twenty minutes later, the disreputable taxi drew up before a small but comfortable-looking hotel in a side street off the Boulevard des Capucines. Clinton had stayed at the Lion d'Or before; he had discovered this cosy hostelry some months previously, and he had a particular reason for choosing it now. So far as he had been able to ascertain, it was not frequented very much by Allied officers — a recommendation in itself.

The thought came, as he paid off the gargoyle of a driver, that Fordinghame might possibly have followed him to the place. Of course, the idea on the surface was ridiculous — but he took a keen look around all the same. These espionage fellows took themselves damned seriously, and one couldn't be too careful. Not that he had anything to bother about — if every Allied officer who slept with a French girl now and then was to be cross-examined ... ! Yet, all the same, he couldn't very well get those searching eyes of the Intelligence officer out of his mind. Funny, that Fordinghame should have been at the station at the...