The Man Without a Memory by Arthur W. Marchmont (good summer reads txt) 📖

been thinking about, if these other tyres burst. I haven't had much chance of talking to you yet, you know."

"We had one interview," she reminded me, her eye dancing.

"We'll try to do a bit better this time. The best thing will be old von Gratzen's scheme, if it comes off."

"We should have to be together a long time, if it does."

"Rather rotten, eh? But I could bear it, I think, if you could."

"I should have to, naturally."

"We could discuss our old grievances, at the worst."

"And at the best?" she said demurely, trying not to laugh.

"Find fresh ones to jingle-jangle about. But you'll have to behave yourself; for I shall be a German for the first part of the trip, remember."

"And if you don't behave yourself, I can tell people you're not one. You'll have to remember that, mind."

"Behave myself? Meaning?"

"That you're not to talk nonsense then or now; so go on to the spare wheels, please."

"All right. The next best will be for you to use Rosa's ticket and so on, and travel with her Oscar."

"But Rosa said you wouldn't hear of that, and you don't imagine I'm going to let the man run that risk for me. Any more wheels?"

"One. That if the worst comes to the worst, we just disappear and chance the weather;" and I described my idea—to go in disguise as a couple of mechanics.

"They're using a lot of women, but not as mechanics yet," she said.

I laughed. "But you'd go as a boy, Nessa."

"As a what?" she cried in amazement.

"I said boy. B-o-y. Easy word."

She stared at me for a moment or two as if I was mad, and then her eyes lit up and she burst out laughing. "Do you know why I'm laughing?"

"At me, probably."

"Not a bit of it. Because it's exactly the idea I had. I have the clothes ready for it and a set of overalls; and often and often I've locked myself in my room, dressed up, and rehearsed everything. You know how I've played a boy's part in the theatricals at home; I can shove my hands in my pockets and swagger along just like one. I make rather a good boy."

"Good?"

"Good enough for a boy, anyhow," she replied, laughing again.

"Show me."

She rose, pushed hands down as if into her trouser pockets, and walked up and down the room with a free stride. "Give us a fag, mate," she said when she reached me. "That all right?" she asked, relapsing into herself and sitting down again.

"Rather! Ripping! Why, you managed somehow to alter the very expression." She had. The change was wonderful. "With a touch or two of make-up not a soul would spot you. But you were always a bit of a boy, you know. Perhaps that accounts for it."

"That meant for a compliment?"

"Just as you take it. You were a self-willed little beggar, anyhow. Do you remember how shocked your mother was that night at the Grahams, when you came on their little stage as a boy?"

"I do, indeed. Poor mother! She must have been awfully worried by all this; and is still, of course. But Rosa has written to a friend in Switzerland and asked her to wire that I'm all right; and perhaps by this time she's had the message. It's horribly wicked, I suppose, but I declare I feel so vindictive that I could almost kill that woman Gretchen and von Erstein too, when I think of what they've made poor mother suffer by stopping my letters."

"He's a low-down swine; and if I get half a chance, I'll even things up with him before we leave. But we don't want to talk about him now. If your mother's got that wire, she'll feel heaps better. Now, tell me what you think of my third wheel?"

"Shall I tell you the truth?"

"Of course."

She paused and the colour crept slowly into her face, robbing it of the worried anxiety which had so distressed me and making her as bewitchingly pretty as ever in my eyes. "If you will have the truth I'd—I'd like the third wheel better than either of the others."

"Same here; but it wouldn't be so safe. We'll have the props with us, however, in case of mishaps. What say you?"

"Carried unanimously," she cried enthusiastically. "It would be lovely!"

"You haven't changed much, then, even with all this."

"Do you mean in looks?"

"Not much there, even; but I meant in the tomboy business."

"Ah, you don't know. I have changed. I've grown up, suddenly. It couldn't be otherwise," she answered very seriously. "At one time it looked a certainty that I should be sent to gaol, and the suspense was—well, almost unbearable. No one can tell what it meant to have to appear indifferent and confident, when I knew that any moment might be my last in freedom. That danger seemed to pass away, but only to give way to worse."

"You mean this——"

"Yes," she broke in with a quick nod. "I can't bear even to hear his name mentioned. I soon knew what his real object was; he has a friend, a man like himself, who is in command of one of the concentration camps: the one at Krustadt: and—but you can guess. There was only one thing for me to do, and I prepared for it. I have the poison upstairs."

"Nessa!"

"No woman can go through such an ordeal and come out unchanged. I should have made a fight for it, of course. I told Rosa, and, although she was horrified at first, she saw it afterwards, and then she got Herr Feldmann to get me an identification card as Hans Bulich, and helped me get the disguise. I should have gone by now, if you hadn't come. Oh yes, I'm changed; no one knows how much except myself."

The drawn intentness of her expression at the moment showed this so plainly that I was too much moved to find any words to reply. But she rallied quickly and laughed.

"And then when you came I was mad enough to believe you were a spy! I can't think why I was such a fool. There was no excuse; not the slightest; and I don't expect you ever to forgive me really."

"I don't blame you. I don't, on my honour."

"Well, I shall never forgive myself then. But—even now I can't help staring at you."

"Stare away. I like it. But why?"

"You're so—so utterly different."

"How?"

"In every way possible."

"Think so. Every way?" Our eyes met and she looked down.

"I wonder," she murmured under her breath; and then quickly in a louder tone: "Of course it's your new life. Tell me about it."

We both understood; but that wasn't the time to tell her she need not "wonder"; so I spoke about things at the Front.

"But I want your own experiences, Jack," she protested.

"I'm Herr Lassen, the man without a memory."

"You're just as provoking as ever. You know that I'm dying to hear everything, and you won't utter a word."

"Well, I'll tell you one thing. It was all your doing."

She crinkled her forehead in a way I knew so well. "How?"

"Do you remember one day at Hendon—we were engaged then, by the by—how you ragged me about not having the pluck to go up and about cricket being so much safer a sport, and how I flung away in a huff and marched off and got a ticket at once and went up. That was the start."

"And I remember, too, what a fright it gave me when I saw you go. I watched the aeroplane with my heart in my mouth all the time in a sort of fascinated panic lest something should go wrong."

"And when I came to look for you I found you'd gone up too."

"You don't suppose I meant you to crow over me, do you? And was that really the beginning?"

"Of course. I went up lots of times afterwards and got to like it; and when the trouble came, naturally I saw it was my job."

"Be a pal, and tell me all about what you did," she coaxed.

"All in good time, but not now. We've been alone together quite long enough to set tongues wagging as it is. I'd better be off;" and I rose.

"I suppose you're right; but it's been lovely. Like old times."

"Which old times?"

"Never mind. Don't be inquisitive."

"All right. Well, look here. Go on with that boy part of yours. Get into the skin of it, and have the names of things pat on your tongue. One never knows what may happen. And if you could persuade Rosa to persuade Feldmann to do for me what he did for you, do so."

"Sounds a bit mixed, doesn't it?" and she laughed with such genuine merriment that it did one good to hear her.

"You must sort it out. So long. We'll pull it off somehow or other."

"I think that's the oddest thing about you. You manage somehow to make me feel absolutely confident that you'll manage it. It's like a miracle. Only a day or two ago I was right down in the depths, and here I am laughing as if it were just one of our old kiddish pranks."

CHAPTER XIII IN THE THIERGARTEN

The confidence of success which Nessa had so frankly expressed, she had certainly imparted to me. The fact that she had already hit on the idea of playing a boy's part in the attempt to escape, had obtained everything necessary for it, and had actually spent some time in rehearsing it, was a stroke of such luck, that I was more than half inclined to throw the other plans over and adopt that one at once.

If by any means the necessary identification card could be got, the hope of success was strong and full of promise. Nessa could speak German quite as well as I could, and her accent, when she had put that question to me about the fag and her wonderful change of expression, had been done to the life.

She had always been a clever character actress, and there was no doubt that she could keep it up in any sort of emergency. That she liked the idea, there was no question; and as for myself—the thought of such a companionship with her in such a venture pulled like a 200 h.p. engine.

Her instinct was right, too, in chiming with her inclination. It was our best chance—failing old von Gratzen's, of course. Ever so much better than risking any trouble for Rosa by using her passport. Feldmann must be made to see that, for it might induce him to get the card for me.

That night I went most carefully into all the details of the plan, trying to foresee all that might happen; and then I remembered the story which Gunter, my pal in the flying corps, had told me of his escape when engine trouble had brought him down inside the German lines.

"It's only a matter of bluff, Jack," he said, "when one can jabber the lingo as we can, and a few simple precautions. Here's one of 'em. I never go up without it."

"What the dickens is it?" I asked as he handed me what looked like a red flannel pad for his tummy.

"Looks innocent, doesn't it? My 'tummy pad,' I call it. Just a protection against chills, eh? That's what they thought when they searched me. But inside the flannel there's a coil of silk cord long enough and strong enough to tie up a man's arms, and his legs too at need. It's my own notion; and since my little trip, I've added something more. Sewn up in the flannel there's enough put-you-to-by-by stuff to keep a man or two quiet for as long as necessary. If I'd had that, I shouldn't have had to risk knocking my guard on the head and choking the breath out of him."

"Tell me, Dick."

"Well, my chance came almost as soon as they'd got me. Of course I burnt the old bus and shoved my hands up, and after they'd made sure