Chapter Twenty-Two. The Summons Comes for Mr Standfast, Mr. Standfast by John Buchan -- eText at LiteratureClassics.com

I slept for one and three-quarter hours that night, and when I
awoke I seemed to emerge from deeps of slumber which had lasted for
days. That happens sometimes after heavy fatigue and great mental
strain. Even a short sleep sets up a barrier between past and
present which has to be elaborately broken down before you can link
on with what has happened before. As my wits groped at the job some
drops of rain splashed on my face through the broken roof. That
hurried me out-of-doors. It was just after dawn and the sky was
piled with thick clouds, while a wet wind blew up from the southwest.
The long-prayed-for break in the weather seemed to have come at last.
A deluge of rain was what I wanted, something to soak the earth and
turn the roads into water-courses and clog the enemy transport,
something above all to blind the enemy's eyes ... For I remembered
what a preposterous bluff it all had been, and what a piteous broken
handful stood between the Germans and their goal. If they knew, if
they only knew, they would brush us aside like flies.

As I shaved I looked back on the events of yesterday as on
something that had happened long ago. I seemed to judge them
impersonally, and I concluded that it had been a pretty good fight. A
scratch force, half of it dog-tired and half of it untrained, had
held up at least a couple of fresh divisions ... But we couldn't do
it again, and there were still some hours before us of desperate
peril. When had the Corps said that the French would arrive? ... I
was on the point of shouting for Hamilton to get Wake to ring up
Corps Headquarters, when I remembered that Wake was dead. I had
liked him and greatly admired him, but the recollection gave me
scarcely a pang. We were all dying, and he had only gone on a stage
ahead.

There was no morning strafe, such as had been our usual fortune
in the past week. I went out-of-doors and found a noiseless world
under the lowering sky. The rain had stopped falling, the wind of
dawn had lessened, and I feared that the storm would be delayed. I
wanted it at once to help us through the next hours of tension. Was
it in six hours that the French were coming? No, it must be four. It
couldn't be more than four, unless somebody had made an infernal
muddle. I wondered why everything was so quiet. It would be
breakfast time on both sides, but there seemed no stir of man's
presence in that ugly strip half a mile off. Only far back in the
German hinterland I seemed to hear the rumour of traffic.

An unslept and unshaven figure stood beside me which revealed
itself as Archie Roylance.

'Been up all night,' he said cheerfully, lighting a cigarette.
'No, I haven't had breakfast. The skipper thought we'd better get
another anti-aircraft battery up this way, and I was superintendin'
the job. He's afraid of the Hun gettin' over your lines and spying
out the nakedness of the land. For, you know, we're uncommon naked,
sir. Also,' and Archie's face became grave, 'the Hun's pourin'
divisions down on this sector. As I judge, he's blowin' up for a
thunderin' big drive on both sides of the river. Our lads yesterday
said all the country back of Peronne was lousy with new troops. And
he's gettin' his big guns forward, too. You haven't been troubled
with them yet, but he has got the roads mended and the devil of a lot
of new light railways, and any moment we'll have the five-point-nines
sayin' Good-mornin' ... Pray Heaven you get relieved in time, sir. I
take it there's not much risk of another push this mornin'?'

'I don't think so. The Boche took a nasty knock yesterday, and
he must fancy we're pretty strong after that counter-attack. I don't
think he'll strike till he can work both sides of the river, and
that'll take time to prepare. That's what his fresh divisions are
for ... But remember, he can attack now, if he likes. If he knew
how weak we were he's strong enough to send us all to glory in the
next three hours. It's just that knowledge that you fellows have got
to prevent his getting. If a single Hun plane crosses our lines and
returns, we're wholly and utterly done. You've given us splendid
help since the show began, Archie. For God's sake keep it up to the
finish and put every machine you can spare in this sector.'

'We're doin' our best,' he said. 'We got some more fightin'
scouts down from the north, and we're keepin' our eyes skinned. But
you know as well as I do, sir, that it's never an ab-so-lute
certainty. If the Hun sent over a squadron we might beat 'em all
down but one, and that one might do the trick. It's a matter of
luck. The Hun's got the wind up all right in the air just now and I
don't blame the poor devil. I'm inclined to think we haven't had the
pick of his push here. Jennings says he's doin' good work in
Flanders, and they reckon there's the deuce of a thrust comin' there
pretty soon. I think we can manage the kind of footler he's been
sendin' over here lately, but if Lensch or some lad like that were to
choose to turn up I wouldn't say what might happen. The air's a big
lottery,' and Archie turned a dirty face skyward where two of our
planes were moving very high towards the east.

The mention of Lensch brought Peter to mind, and I asked if he
had gone back.

'He won't go,' said Archie, 'and we haven't the heart to make
him. He's very happy, and plays about with the Gladas single-
seater. He's always speakin' about you, sir, and it'd break his
heart if we shifted him.'

I asked about his health, and was told that he didn't seem to
have much pain.

'But he's a bit queer,' and Archie shook a sage head. 'One of
the reasons why he won't budge is because he says God has some work
for him to do. He's quite serious about it, and ever since he got
the notion he has perked up amazin'. He's always askin' about
Lensch, too - not vindictive like, you understand, but quite
friendly. Seems to take a sort of proprietary interest in him. I
told him Lensch had had a far longer spell of first-class fightin'
than anybody else and was bound by the law of averages to be downed
soon, and he was quite sad about it.'

I had no time to worry about Peter. Archie and I swallowed
breakfast and I had a pow-wow with my brigadiers. By this time I had
got through to Corps H.Q. and got news of the French. It was worse
than I expected. General Peguy would arrive about ten o'clock, but
his men couldn't take over till well after midday. The Corps gave me
their whereabouts and I found it on the map. They had a long way to
cover yet, and then there would be the slow business of relieving. I
looked at my watch. There were still six hours before us when the
Boche might knock us to blazes, six hours of maddening anxiety ...
Lefroy announced that all was quiet on the front, and that the new
wiring at the Bois de la Bruyere had been completed. Patrols had
reported that during the night a fresh German division seemed to have
relieved that which we had punished so stoutly yesterday. I asked
him if he could stick it out against another attack. 'No,' he said
without hesitation. 'We're too few and too shaky on our pins to stand
any more. I've only a man to every three yards.' That impressed me,
for Lefroy was usually the most devil-may-care optimist.

'Curse it, there's the sun,' I heard Archie cry. It was true,
for the clouds were rolling back and the centre of the heavens was a
patch of blue. The storm was coming - I could smell it in the air -
but probably it wouldn't break till the evening. Where, I wondered,
would we be by that time?

it was now nine o'clock, and I was keeping tight hold on myself,
for I saw that I was going to have hell for the next hours. I am a
pretty stolid fellow in some ways, but I have always found patience
and standing still the most difficult job to tackle, and my nerves
were all tattered from the long strain of the retreat. I went up to
the line and saw the battalion commanders. Everything was
unwholesomely quiet there. Then I came back to my headquarters to
study the reports that were coming in from the air patrols. They all
said the same thing - abnormal activity in the German back areas.
Things seemed shaping for a new 21st of March, and, if our luck were
out, my poor little remnant would have to take the shock. I
telephoned to the Corps and found them as nervous as me. I gave them
the details of my strength and heard an agonized whistle at the other
end of the line. I was rather glad I had companions in the same
purgatory.

I found I couldn't sit still. If there had been any work to do
I would have buried myself in it, but there was none. Only this
fearsome job of waiting. I hardly ever feel cold, but now my blood
seemed to be getting thin, and I astonished my staff by putting on a
British warm and buttoning up the collar. Round that derelict farm I
ranged like a hungry wolf, cold at the feet, queasy in the stomach,
and mortally edgy in the mind.

Then suddenly the cloud lifted from me, and the blood seemed to
run naturally in my veins. I experienced the change of mood which a
man feels sometimes when his whole being is fined down and clarified
by long endurance. The fight of yesterday revealed itself as
something rather splendid. What risks we had run and how gallantly
we had met them! My heart warmed as I thought of that old division of
mine, those ragged veterans that were never beaten as long as breath
was left them. And the Americans and the boys from the machine-gun
school and all the oddments we had commandeered! And old Blenkiron
raging like a good-tempered lion! It was against reason that such
fortitude shouldn't win out. We had snarled round and bitten the
Boche so badly that he wanted no more for a little. He would come
again, but presently we should be relieved and the gallant
blue-coats, fresh as paint and burning for revenge, would be there to
worry him.

I had no new facts on which to base my optimism, only a changed
point of view. And with it came a recollection of other things.
Wake's death had left me numb before, but now the thought of it gave
me a sharp pang. He was the first of our little confederacy to go.
But what an ending he had made, and how happy he had been in that mad
time when he had come down from his pedestal and become one of the
crowd! He had found himself at the last, and who could grudge him
such happiness? If the best were to be taken, he would be chosen
first, for he was a big man, before whom I uncovered my head. The
thought of him made me very humble. I had never had his troubles to
face, but he had come clean through them, and reached a courage which
was for ever beyond me. He was the Faithful among us pilgrims, who
had finished his journey before the rest. Mary had foreseen it.
'There is a price to be paid,' she had said -'the best of us.'

And at the thought of Mary a flight of warm and happy hopes
seemed to settle on my mind. I was looking again beyond the war to
that peace which she and I would some day inherit. I had a vision of
a green English landscape, with its far-flung scents of wood and
meadow and garden ... And that face of all my dreams, with the eyes
so childlike and brave and honest, as if they, too, saw beyond the
dark to a radiant country. A line of an old song, which had been a
favourite of my father's, sang itself in my ears:

There's an eye that ever weeps and a fair face will be
fain When I ride through Annan Water wi' my bonny bands again!
We were standing by the crumbling rails of what had once been the
farm sheepfold. I looked at Archie and he smiled back at me, for he
saw that my face had changed. Then he turned his eyes to the
billowing clouds.

I felt my arm clutched.

'Look there!' said a fierce voice, and his glasses were turned
upward.

I looked, and far up in the sky saw a thing like a wedge of wild
geese flying towards us from the enemy's country. I made out the
small dots which composed it, and my glass told me they were planes.
But only Archie's practised eye knew that they were enemy.

'Boche?' I asked.

'Boche,' he said. 'My God, we're for it now.' My heart had sunk
like a stone, but I was fairly cool. I looked at my watch and saw
that it was ten minutes to eleven.

'How many?'

'Five,' said Archie. 'Or there may be six - not more.'

'Listen!' I said. 'Get on to your headquarters. Tell them that
it's all up with us if a single plane gets back. Let them get well
over the line, the deeper in the better, and tell them to send up
every machine they possess and down them all. Tell them it's life or
death. Not one single plane goes back. Quick!'

Archie disappeared, and as he went our anti-aircraft guns broke
out. The formation above opened and zigzagged, but they were too
high to be in much danger. But they were not too high to see that
which we must keep hidden or perish.

The roar of our batteries died down as the invaders passed
westward. As I watched their progress they seemed to be dropping
lower. Then they rose again and a bank of cloud concealed them.

I had a horrid certainty that they must beat us, that some at
any rate would get back. They had seen thin lines and the roads
behind us empty of supports. They would see, as they advanced, the
blue columns of the French coming up from the south-west, and they
would return and tell the enemy that a blow now would open the road
to Amiens and the sea. He had plenty of strength for it, and
presently he would have overwhelming strength. It only needed a
spear-point to burst the jerry-built dam and let the flood through
... They would return in twenty minutes, and by noon we would be
broken. Unless - unless the miracle of miracles happened, and they
never returned.

Archie reported that his skipper would do his damnedest and that
our machines were now going up. 'We've a chance, sir,' he said, 'a
good sportin' chance.' It was a new Archie, with a hard voice, a
lean face, and very old eyes.

Behind the jagged walls of the farm buildings was a knoll which
had once formed part of the high-road. I went up there alone, for I
didn't want anybody near me. I wanted a viewpoint, and I wanted
quiet, for I had a grim time before me. From that knoll I had a big
prospect of country. I looked east to our lines on which an
occasional shell was falling, and where I could hear the chatter of
machine-guns. West there was peace for the woods closed down on the
landscape. Up to the north, I remember, there was a big glare as
from a burning dump, and heavy guns seemed to be at work in the Ancre
valley. Down in the south there was the dull murmur of a great
battle. But just around me, in the gap, the deadliest place of all,
there was an odd quiet. I could pick out clearly the different
sounds. Somebody down at the farm had made a joke and there was a
short burst of laughter. I envied the humorist his composure. There
was a clatter and jingle from a battery changing position. On the
road a tractor was jolting along - I could hear its driver shout and
the screech of its unoiled axle.

My eyes were glued to my glasses, but they shook in my hands so
that I could scarcely see. I bit my lip to steady myself, but they
still wavered. From time to time I glanced at my watch. Eight
minutes gone - ten - seventeen. If only the planes would come into
sight! Even the certainty of failure would be better than this
harrowing doubt. They should be back by now unless they had swung
north across the salient, or unless the miracle of miracles -

Then came the distant yapping of an anti-aircraft gun, caught up
the next second by others, while smoke patches studded the distant
blue sky. The clouds were banking in mid-heaven, but to the west
there was a big clear space now woolly with shrapnel bursts. I
counted them mechanically - one - three - five - nine - with despair
beginning to take the place of my anxiety. My hands were steady now,
and through the glasses I saw the enemy.

Five attenuated shapes rode high above the bombardment, now
sharp against the blue, now lost in a film of vapour. They were
coming back, serenely, contemptuously, having seen all they
wanted.

The quiet was gone now and the din was monstrous. Anti-aircraft
guns, singly and in groups, were firing from every side. As I
watched it seemed a futile waste of ammunition. The enemy didn't
give a tinker's curse for it ... But surely there was one down. I
could only count four now. No, there was the fifth coming out of a
cloud. In ten minutes they would be all over the line. I fairly
stamped in my vexation. Those guns were no more use than a sick
headache. Oh, where in God's name were our own planes?

At that moment they came, streaking down into sight, four
fighting-scouts with the sun glinting on their wings and burnishing
their metal cowls. I saw clearly the rings of red, white, and blue.
Before their downward drive the enemy instantly spread out.

I was watching with bare eyes now, and I wanted companionship,
for the time of waiting was over. Automatically I must have run down
the knoll, for the next I knew I was staring at the heavens with
Archie by my side. The combatants seemed to couple instinctively.
Diving, wheeling, climbing, a pair would drop out of the melee or
disappear behind a cloud. Even at that height I could hear the
methodical rat-tat-tat of the machine-guns. Then there was a sudden
flare and wisp of smoke. A plane sank, turning and twisting, to
earth.

'Hun!' said Archie, who had his glasses on it.

Almost immediately another followed. This time the pilot
recovered himself, while still a thousand feet from the ground, and
started gliding for the enemy lines. Then he wavered, plunged
sickeningly, and fell headlong into the wood behind La Bruyere.

Farther east, almost over the front trenches, a two-seater
Albatross and a British pilot were having a desperate tussle. The
bombardment had stopped, and from where we stood every movement
could be followed. First one, then another, climbed uppermost and
dived back, swooped out and wheeled in again, so that the two planes
seemed to clear each other only by inches. Then it looked as if they
closed and interlocked. I expected to see both go crashing, when
suddenly the wings of one seemed to shrivel up, and the machine
dropped like a stone.

'Hun,' said Archie. 'That makes three. Oh, good lads! Good
lads!'

Then I saw something which took away my breath. Sloping down in
wide circles came a German machine, and, following, a little behind
and a little above, a British. It was the first surrender in mid-air
I had seen. In my amazement I watched the couple right down to the
ground, till the enemy landed in a big meadow across the high-road
and our own man in a field nearer the river.

When I looked back into the sky, it was bare. North, south,
east, and west, there was not a sign of aircraft, British or
German.

A violent trembling took me. Archie was sweeping the heavens
with his glasses and muttering to himself. Where was the fifth man?
He must have fought his way through, and it was too late.

But was it? From the toe of a great rolling cloud-bank a flame
shot earthwards, followed by a V-shaped trail of smoke. British or
Boche? British or Boche? I didn't wait long for an answer. For,
riding over the far end of the cloud, came two of our fighting
scouts.

I tried to be cool, and snapped my glasses into their case,
though the reaction made me want to shout. Archie turned to me with
a nervous smile and a quivering mouth. 'I think we have won on the
post,' he said.

He reached out a hand for mine, his eyes still on the sky, and I
was grasping it when it was torn away. He was staring upwards with a
white face.

We were looking at the sixth enemy plane.

It had been behind the others and much lower, and was making
straight at a great speed for the east. The glasses showed me a
different type of machine - a big machine with short wings, which
looked menacing as a hawk in a covey of grouse. It was under the
cloud-bank, and above, satisfied, easing down after their fight, and
unwitting of this enemy, rode the two British craft.

A neighbouring anti-aircraft gun broke out into a sudden burst,
and I thanked Heaven for its inspiration. Curious as to this new
development, the two British turned, caught sight of the Boche, and
dived for him.

What happened in the next minutes I cannot tell. The three
seemed to be mixed up in a dog fight, so that I could not distinguish
friend from foe. My hands no longer trembled; I was too desperate.
The patter of machine-guns came down to us, and then one of the three
broke clear and began to climb. The others strained to follow, but
in a second he had risen beyond their fire, for he had easily the
pace of them. Was it the Hun?

Archie's dry lips were talking.

'It's Lensch,' he said.

'How d'you know?' I gasped angrily.

'Can't mistake him. Look at the way he slipped out as he
banked. That's his patent trick.'

In that agonizing moment hope died in me. I was perfectly calm
now, for the time for anxiety had gone. Farther and farther drifted
the British pilots behind, while Lensch in the completeness of his
triumph looped more than once as if to cry an insulting farewell. In
less than three minutes he would be safe inside his own lines, and he
carried the knowledge which for us was death.

Someone was bawling in my ear, and pointing upward. It was
Archie and his face was wild. I looked and gasped - seized my
glasses and looked again.

A second before Lensch had been alone; now there were two
machines.

I heard Archie's voice. 'My God, it's the Gladas - the little
Gladas.' His fingers were digging into my arm and his face was
against my shoulder. And then his excitement sobered into an awe
which choked his speech, as he stammered -'It's old -'

But I did not need him to tell me the name, for I had divined it
when I first saw the new plane drop from the clouds. I had that
queer sense that comes sometimes to a man that a friend is present
when he cannot see him. Somewhere up in the void two heroes were
fighting their last battle - and one of them had a crippled leg.

I had never any doubt about the result, though Archie told me
later that he went crazy with suspense. Lensch was not aware of his
opponent till he was almost upon him, and I wonder if by any freak of
instinct he recognized his greatest antagonist. He never fired a
shot, nor did Peter ... I saw the German twist and side-slip as if
to baffle the fate descending upon him. I saw Peter veer over
vertically and I knew that the end had come. He was there to make
certain of victory and he took the only way. The machines closed,
there was a crash which I felt though I could not hear it, and next
second both were hurtling down, over and over, to the earth.

They fell in the river just short of the enemy lines, but I did
not see them, for my eyes were blinded and I was on my knees.

After that it was all a dream. I found myself being embraced by
a French General of Division, and saw the first companies of the
cheerful bluecoats whom I had longed for. With them came the rain ,
and it was under a weeping April sky that early in the night I
marched what was left of my division away from the battle-field. The
enemy guns were starting to speak behind us, but I did not heed them.
I knew that now there were warders at the gate, and I believed that
by the grace of God that gate was barred for ever.

They took Peter from the wreckage with scarcely a scar except
his twisted leg. Death had smoothed out some of the age in him, and
left his face much as I remembered it long ago in the Mashonaland
hills. In his pocket was his old battered Pilgrim's Progress. It
lies before me as I write, and beside it - for I was his only legatee
- the little case which came to him weeks later, containing the
highest honour that can be bestowed upon a soldier of Britain. It was
from the Pilgrim's Progress that I read next morning, when in the lee
of an apple-orchard Mary and Blenkiron and I stood in the soft spring
rain beside his grave. And what I read was the tale in the end not
of Mr Standfast, whom he had singled out for his counterpart, but of
Mr Valiant-for-Truth whom he had not hoped to emulate. I set down
the words as a salute and a farewell: