Kitabı oku: «The Argus Pheasant», sayfa 15

"I have a better work for you, juffrouw," he said.

Her eyes lifted slowly to meet his. There was mute interrogation in the glance.

"To help me make Bulungan peaceful and prosperous," he said.

Koyala shook herself free and walked toward the door. Peter Gross did not molest her. She stood on the threshold, one hesitating foot on the jungle path that led to the grove of big banyans. For some minutes she remained there. Then she slowly turned and reëntered the hut.

"Mynheer Gross," she said, in a choking voice, "before I met you I believed that all the orang blanda were vile. I hated the white blood that was in me, many times I yearned to take it from me, drop by drop, many times I stood on the edge of precipices undecided whether to let it nourish my body longer or no. Only one thing kept me from death, the thought that I might avenge the wrongs of my unhappy country and my unhappy mother."

A stifled sob shook her. After a moment or two she resumed:

"Then you came. I prayed the Hanu Token to send a young man, a young man who would desire me, after the manner of white men. When I saw you I knew you as the man of the Abbas, the man who had laughed, and I thought the Hanu Token had answered my prayer. I saved you from Wobanguli, I saved you from Ah Sing, that you might be mine, mine only to torture." Her voice broke again.

"But you disappointed me. You were just, you were kind, righteous in all your dealings, considerate of me. You did not seek to take me in your arms, even when I came to you in your own dwelling. You did not taunt me with my mother like that pig, Van Slyck – "

"He is dead," Peter Gross interrupted gently.

"I have no sorrow for him. Sangjang has waited over-long for him. Now you come to me, after all that has happened, and say: 'Koyala, will you forget and help me make Bulungan happy?' What shall I answer, mynheer?"

She looked at him humbly, entreatingly. Peter Gross smiled, his familiar, confident, warming smile.

"What your conscience dictates, Koyala."

She breathed rapidly. At last came her answer, a low whisper. "If you wish it, I will help you, mynheer."

Peter Gross reached out his hand and caught hers. "Then we're pards again," he cried.

CHAPTER XXX
The Governor's Promise

Peter Gross had just concluded an account of his administration in Bulungan to Governor-General Van Schouten at the latter's paleis in Batavia. The governor-general was frowning.

"So! mynheer," he exclaimed gruffly. "This is not a very happy report you have brought me."

Peter Gross bent his head.

"No census, not a cent of taxes paid, piracy, murders, my controlleurs– God knows where they are, the whole province in revolt. This is a nice kettle of fish."

Sachsen glanced sympathetically at Peter Gross. The lad he loved so well sat with bowed head and clenched hands, lines of suffering marked his face, he had grown older, oh, so much older, during those few sorry months since he had so confidently declared his policies for the regeneration of the residency in this very room. The governor was speaking again.

"You said you would find Mynheer de Jonge's murderer for me," Van Schouten rasped. "Have you done that?"

"Yes, your excellency. It was Kapitein Van Slyck who planned the deed, and Cho Seng who committed the act, pricked him with a upas thorn while he slept, as I told your excellency. Here are my proofs. A statement made by Mynheer Muller to Captain Carver and Lieutenant Banning before he died, and a statement made by Koyala to me." He gave the governor the documents. The latter scanned them briefly and laid them aside.

"How did Muller come to his death?" he demanded.

"Like a true servant of the state, fighting in defense of the fort," Peter Gross replied. "A splinter of a shell struck him in the body."

"H-m!" the governor grunted. "I thought he was one of these traitors, too."

"He expiated his crimes two weeks ago at Fort Wilhelmina, your excellency."

"And Cho Seng?" the governor demanded. "Is he still alive?"

"He fell on his own dagger." Peter Gross described the incident. "It was not the dagger thrust that killed him," he explained. "That made only a flesh wound. But the dagger point had been dipped in a cobra's venom." Softly he added: "He always feared that he would die from a snake's poison."

"It is the judgment of God," Van Schouten pronounced solemnly. He looked at Peter Gross sharply.

"Now this Koyala," he asked, "where is she?"

"I do not know. In the hills, among her own people, I think. She will not trouble you again."

The governor stared at his resident. Gradually the stern lines of his face relaxed and a quaintly humorous glint came into his eyes.

"So, Mynheer Gross, the woman deceived you?" he asked sharply.

Peter Gross made no reply. The governor's eyes twinkled. He suddenly brought down his fist on the table with a resounding bang.

"Donder en bliksem!" he exclaimed, "I cannot find fault with you for that. The fault is mine. I should have known better. Why, when I was your age, a pretty woman could strip the very buttons from my dress coat – dammit, Mynheer Gross, you must have had a heart of ice to withstand her so long."

He flourished a highly colored silk handkerchief and blew his nose lustily.

"So you are forgiven on that count, Mynheer Gross. Now for the other. It appears that by your work you have created a much more favorable feeling toward us among many of the natives. The hill Dyaks did not rise against us as they have always done before, and some of the coast Dyak tribes were loyal. That buzzard, Lkath, stayed in his lair. Furthermore, you have solved the mysteries that have puzzled us for years and the criminals have been muzzled. Lastly, you were the honey that attracted all these piratical pests into Bulungan harbor where Kapitein Enckel was able to administer them a blow that will sweep those seas clear of this vermin for years to come, I believe. You have not done so badly after all, Mynheer Gross. Of course, you and your twenty-five men might have come to grief had not Sachsen, here, heard reports that caused me to send the Prins Lodewyk post-haste to Bulungan, but we will overlook your too great confidence on the score of your youth." He chuckled. "Now as to the future."

He paused and looked smilingly into the eyes that looked so gratefully into his.

"What say you to two more years at Bulungan, mynheer, to straighten out affairs there, work out your policies, and finish what you have so ably begun?"

"Your excellency is too good," Peter Gross murmured brokenly.

"Good!" Van Schouten snapped. "Donder en bliksem, mynheer, it is only that I know a man when I see him. Can you go back next week?"

"Yes, your excellency."

"Then see that you do. And see to it that those devils send me some rice this year when the tax falls due or I will hang them all in the good, old-fashioned way."

The End

Few soldiers in this great war have been through adventures more thrilling, dramatic and perilous than fell to the lot of Captain David Fallon.

He is a young Irishman whose first fighting was against the hillmen in their uprisings in India. He received the Indian Field Medal.

The opening of the war found him physical instructor and bayonet drill master at the Royal Military College, Duntroon, New South Wales. He went through the entire, terrible Gallipoli campaign.

He was in scores of fierce trench battles.

He commanded a tank in an amazing war adventure.

He has served as an aërial observer, spotted enemy positions and fought enemy aeroplanes.

On the road to Thiepval with a shoulder smashed by shrapnel he remained in command of his men behind barricades made of the dead and for twenty-two hours held off the Germans until reinforcements arrived.

On scout duty he frequently penetrated German trenches and gun positions in the night.

A bomb duel with a German patrol when he was detected in their trenches brought him irreparable injury.

He lay for three days in the mud of a shellhole in the enemy country with his right arm blasted, his upper jaw broken, his face and shoulders burned, but survived and managed to escape.

He was awarded the Military Cross for daring and valuable service to his King.

You will probably hear Captain Fallon lecture, but his book is something you will wish to keep. It is historical and every word rings true.

THE WAR BOOK WITH A THRILL SPECIMEN CHAPTER

CHAPTER XII

"Razzle Dazzle"

It was at Beaumont-Hamel, about September 16th, that I got my chance to command a "tank."

The dear girl was named "Razzle Dazzle." She was very young, having been in service only three months, but rather portly. Matter of fact, she weighed something over thirty tons. And in no way could you call the dear little woman pretty. She was a pallid gray and mud-splashed when I got her and there was no grace in the bulging curves of her steel shape. Or of her conical top. Or her ponderous wheels.

The fact is that she showed every aspect of being a bad, scrappy old dearie. The minute I saw her in her lovely ugliness I knew she would like trouble and lots of it. Her metabolism was a marvel. She carried a six-hundred-horse-power motor. And out of her gray steel hoods protruded eight guns. An infernal old girl, you can bet she was. All ready to make battle in large quantities.

When I boarded "Razzle Dazzle" she was full of dents. She had rocked around among several trench charges. But the reason for my assignment to her was prosaic. Her captain had not been killed. He was just sick – some stomach complaint. I was drafted on an hour's notice to the job, this, because of long training in handling rapid-fire guns.

It was all new to me, but highly interesting. My crew consisted of seven men – five of them well experienced. And a black cat. Although she was a lady-cat she had been named "Joffre" and I can't tell you why because I never received any explanation on this point myself. But "Joffre" was very friendly and insisted on sitting either on my knee or shoulder from the moment I sealed myself and my men in the tank. We had our outlook from several periscopes above the turret and from spy holes in the turret itself.

The order had come to me about one in the morning, and it was nearly three when we started lumbering out toward the enemy trenches. We had about six hundred yards to cover. I knew little or nothing of her motor power or speed. My concern was with the efficiency of the guns. She pumped and swayed "across No Man's Land" at about four miles an hour. She groaned and tossed a great deal. And in fact, made such poor progress that my regiment, the Oxfords and Bucks, beat the old dearie to the enemy lines. Our men were among the barbed wire of the first line, fighting it, cutting it, knocking it down before the old "Razzle Dazzle" got into action.

But she "carried on" just the same. And when she smote the barbed-wire obstacles, she murdered them. She crushed those barriers to what looked like messes of steel spaghetti.

Instead of sinking into trenches as I feared she would, she crushed them and continued to move forward. Of course, we were letting go everything we had, and from my observation hole, I could see the Germans didn't like it.

They had put up something of a stand against the infantry. But against the tank they were quick to make their farewells. It was a still black night, but under the star-shells we could see them scurrying out of our way.

This was very sensible of them because we were certainly making a clean sweep of everything in sight and had the earth ahead throwing up chocolate showers of spray as if the ground we rode was an angry sea of mud.

Every man in the tank was shouting and yelling with the excitement of the thing and we were tossed up against each other like loosened peas in a pod. Only Joffre remained perfectly cool. Somehow she maintained a firm seat on my swaying shoulder and as I glanced around to peer at her she was calmly licking a paw and then daintily wiped her face.

Suddenly out of a very clever camouflage of tree branches and shrubbery a German machine-gun emplacement was revealed. The bullets stormed and rattled upon the tank. But they did themselves a bad turn by revealing their whereabouts, for we made straight for the camouflage and went over that battery of machine guns, crunching its concrete foundation as if it were chalk.

Then we turned about and from our new position put the Germans under an enfilade fire that we kept up until every evidence was at hand that the Oxfords and Bucks and supporting battalions were holding the trenches.

But this was only preliminary work cut out for the tank to do. I had special instructions and a main objective. This was a sugar refinery. It was a one-storied building of brick and wood with a tiled roof. It had been established as a sugar refinery by the Germans before the war and when this occasion arose blossomed as a fortress with a gun aimed out of every window.

To allow it to remain standing in hostile hands would mean that the trenches we had won could be constantly battered. Its removal was most desirable. To send infantry against it would have involved huge losses in life. The tank was deemed the right weapon.

It was.

And largely because "Razzle Dazzle" took matters into her own hands. The truth is she ran away.

We rocked and plowed out of the trenches and went swaying toward the refinery. I ordered the round-top sealed. And we beat the refinery to the attack with our guns. But they had seen us coming and every window facing our way developed a working gun. There were about sixteen such windows. They all blazed at us.

My notion had been to circle the "sugar mill", with "Razzle Dazzle" and shoot it up from all sides. We were getting frightfully rapped by the enemy fire, but there was apparently nothing heavy enough to split the skin of the wild, old girl. Our own fire was effective. We knocked out all the windows and the red-tiled roof was sagging. As I say, my notion was to circle the "mill" and I gave orders accordingly. But the "Razzle Dazzle's" chauffeur looked at me in distress.

"The steering gear's off, sir," said he.

"Stop her then and we'll let them have it from here," I ordered.

He made several frantic motions with the mechanism and said:

"I can't stop her, either."

And the "Razzle Dazzle" carried out her own idea of attack. She banged head-on into the "mill." She went right through a wide doorway, making splinters of the door, she knocked against concrete pillars, supports and walls, smashing everything in her way and bowled out of the other side just as the roof crashed in and apparently crushed and smothered all the artillery men beneath it.

On the way through, the big, powerful old girl bucked and rocked and reared until we men and the black cat inside her were thrown again and again into a jumble, the cat scratching us like a devil in her frenzy of fear.

Closed up in the tank as we were, we could hear the roar and crash of the falling "mill," and from my observation port-hole I could observe that it was most complete. The place had been reduced to a mere heap. Not a shot came out of it at us.

But still the "Razzle Dazzle" was having her own way. Her motorist was signaling me that he had no control of her. This was cheerful intelligence because right ahead was a huge shell crater. She might slide into it and climb up the other side and out. I hoped so. But she didn't. She hit the bottom of the pit, tried to push her way up and out, fell back, panted, pushed up again, fell back and then just stuck at the bottom of the well, throbbing and moaning and maybe penitent for her recklessness.

Penitence wasn't to do her any good. It wasn't five minutes later when the Germans had the range of her and began smashing us with big shells. I ordered my men to abandon her and led them in a rush out of the crater and into small shell holes until the storm of fire was past.

When it was, "Razzle Dazzle" was a wreck. She was cracked, distorted and shapeless. But the runaway engine was still plainly to be heard throbbing. Finally a last big shell sailed into the doughty tank and there was a loud bang and a flare. Her oil reservoir shot up in an enormous blaze.

"Razzle Dazzle" was no more. But she had accounted for the "refinery." And our infantry had done the rest. The German position was ours.

I was all enthusiasm for fighting "tanks." But my superiors squelched it. For when I asked for command of a sister of "Razzle Dazzle" next day, a cold-eyed aide said to me:

"One tank, worth ten thousand pounds, is as much as any bally young officer may expect to be given to destroy during his lifetime. Good afternoon."

He never gave me a chance to explain that it was "Razzle Dazzle's" own fault, how she had taken things into her own willful control. But he did try to give me credit for what "Razzle Dazzle" had herself accomplished. He said the destruction of the "sugar mill" had been "fine work."

I wonder what "Joffre" thought of it all. I don't remember seeing her when we fled from the "tank," except as something incredibly swift and black flashed past my eyes as we thrust up the lid. I sincerely hope she is alive and well "somewhere in France."