Mr. Standfast by John Buchan (mystery books to read .TXT) 📕

“I’m going to see you home,” I said.

“Not allowed. You’ve had quite enough of my society for one day. Andrew’s on escort duty tonight.”

Blenkiron looked after her as the door closed.

“I reckon you’ve got the best girl in the world.”

“Ivery thinks the same,” I said grimly, for my detestation of the man who had made love to Mary fairly choked me.

“You can see why. Here’s this degenerate coming out of his rotten class, all pampered and petted and satiated with the easy pleasures of life. He has seen nothing of women except the bad kind and the overfed specimens of his own country. I hate being impolite about females, but I’ve always considered the German variety uncommon like cows. He has had desperate years of intrigue and danger, and consorting with every kind of scallawag. Remember, he’s a big man and a poet, with a brain and an imagination that takes every grade without changing gears. Suddenly he meets something that is as fresh and lovely as a spring flower, and has wits too, and the steeliest courage, and yet is all youth and gaiety. It’s a new experience for him, a kind of revelation, and he’s big enough to value her as she should be valued⁠ ⁠… No, Dick, I can understand you getting cross, but I reckon it an item to the man’s credit.”

“It’s his blind spot all the same,” I said.

“His blind spot,” Blenkiron repeated solemnly, “and, please God, we’re going to remember that.”

Next morning in miserable sloppy weather Blenkiron carted me about Paris. We climbed five sets of stairs to a flat away up in Montmartre, where I was talked to by a fat man with spectacles and a slow voice and told various things that deeply concerned me. Then I went to a room in the Boulevard St. Germain, with a little cabinet opening off it, where I was shown papers and maps and some figures on a sheet of paper that made me open my eyes. We lunched in a modest café tucked away behind the Palais Royal, and our companions were two Alsatians who spoke German better than a Boche and had no names⁠—only numbers. In the afternoon I went to a low building beside the Invalides and saw many generals, including more than one whose features were familiar in two hemispheres. I told them everything about myself, and I was examined like a convict, and all particulars about my appearance and manner of speech written down in a book. That was to prepare the way for me, in case of need, among the vast army of those who work underground and know their chief but do not know each other.

The rain cleared before night, and Blenkiron and I walked back to the hotel through that lemon-coloured dusk that you get in a French winter. We passed a company of American soldiers, and Blenkiron had to stop and stare. I could see that he was stiff with pride, though he wouldn’t show it.

“What d’you think of that bunch?” he asked.

“First-rate stuff,” I said.

“The men are all right,” he drawled critically. “But some of the officer-boys are a bit puffy. They want fining down.”

“They’ll get it soon enough, honest fellows. You don’t keep your weight long in this war.”

“Say, Dick,” he said shyly, “what do you truly think of our Americans? You’ve seen a lot of them, and I’d value your views.” His tone was that of a bashful author asking for an opinion on his first book.

“I’ll tell you what I think. You’re constructing a great middle-class army, and that’s the most formidable fighting machine on earth. This kind of war doesn’t want the Berserker so much as the quiet fellow with a trained mind and a lot to fight for. The American ranks are filled with all sorts, from cowpunchers to college boys, but mostly with decent lads that have good prospects in life before them and are fighting because they feel they’re bound to, not because they like it. It was the same stock that pulled through your Civil War. We have a middle-class division, too⁠—Scottish Territorials, mostly clerks and shopmen and engineers and farmers’ sons. When I first struck them my only crab was that the officers weren’t much better than the men. It’s still true, but the men are super-excellent, and consequently so are the officers. That division gets top marks in the Boche calendar for sheer fighting devilment⁠ ⁠… And, please God, that’s what your American army’s going to be. You can wash out the old idea of a regiment of scallawags commanded by dukes. That was right enough, maybe, in the days when you hurrooshed into battle waving a banner, but it don’t do with high explosives and a couple of million men on each side and a battle front of five hundred miles. The hero of this war is the plain man out of the middle class, who wants to get back to his home and is going to use all the brains and grit he possesses to finish the job soon.”

“That sounds about right,” said Blenkiron reflectively. “It pleases me some, for you’ve maybe guessed that I respect the British Army quite a little. Which part of it do you put top?”

“All of it’s good. The French are keen judges and they give front place to the Scots and the Australians. For myself I think the backbone of the Army is the old-fashioned English county regiments that hardly ever get into the papers. Though I don’t know, if I had to pick, but I’d take the South Africans. There’s only a brigade of them, but they’re hell’s delight in a battle. But then you’ll say I’m prejudiced.”

“Well,” drawled Blenkiron, you’re a mighty Empire anyhow. I’ve sojourned up and down it and I can’t guess how the old-time highbrows in your little island came to put it together. But I’ll let you into a secret, Dick. I read this morning in a