Mr. Standfast | Page 9

instructions. Set your mind at ease. No messenger is coming.
You will get your orders from me.'
'I could not take them from a more welcome source,' I said.
'Very prettily put. If you want further credentials I can tell you much
about your own doings in the past three years. I can explain to you who

don't need the explanation, every step in the business of the Black
Stone. I think I could draw a pretty accurate map of your journey to
Erzerum. You have a letter from Peter Pienaar in your pocket--I can tell
you its contents. Are you willing to trust me?'
'With all my heart,' I said.
'Good. Then my first order will try you pretty hard. For I have no
orders to give you except to bid you go and steep yourself in a
particular kind of life. Your first duty is to get "atmosphere", as your
friend Peter used to say. Oh, I will tell you where to go and how to
behave. But I can't bid you do anything, only live idly with open eyes
and ears till you have got the "feel" of the situation.'
She stopped and laid a hand on my arm.
'It won't be easy. It would madden me, and it will be a far heavier
burden for a man like you. You have got to sink down deep into the life
of the half-baked, the people whom this war hasn't touched or has
touched in the wrong way, the people who split hairs all day and are
engrossed in what you and I would call selfish little fads. Yes. People
like my aunts and Launcelot, only for the most part in a different social
grade. You won't live in an old manor like this, but among gimcrack
little "arty" houses. You will hear everything you regard as sacred
laughed at and condemned, and every kind of nauseous folly acclaimed,
and you must hold your tongue and pretend to agree. You will have
nothing in the world to do except to let the life soak into you, and, as I
have said, keep your eyes and ears open.'
'But you must give me some clue as to what I should be looking for?'
'My orders are to give you none. Our chiefs--yours and mine--want you
to go where you are going without any kind of parti pris. Remember
we are still in the intelligence stage of the affair. The time hasn't yet
come for a plan of campaign, and still less for action.'
'Tell me one thing,' I said. 'Is it a really big thing we're after?'

'A--really--big--thing,' she said slowly and very gravely. 'You and I and
some hundred others are hunting the most dangerous man in all the
world. Till we succeed everything that Britain does is crippled. If we
fail or succeed too late the Allies may never win the victory which is
their right. I will tell you one thing to cheer you. It is in some sort a
race against time, so your purgatory won't endure too long.'
I was bound to obey, and she knew it, for she took my willingness for
granted.
From a little gold satchel she selected a tiny box, and opening it
extracted a thing like a purple wafer with a white St Andrew's Cross on
it.
'What kind of watch have you? Ah, a hunter. Paste that inside the lid.
Some day you may be called on to show it... One other thing. Buy
tomorrow a copy of the Pilgrim's Progress and get it by heart. You will
receive letters and messages some day and the style of our friends is apt
to be reminiscent of John Bunyan... The car will be at the door
tomorrow to catch the ten-thirty, and I will give you the address of the
rooms that have been taken for you... Beyond that I have nothing to say,
except to beg you to play the part well and keep your temper. You
behaved very nicely at dinner.'
I asked one last question as we said good night in the hall. 'Shall I see
you again?'
'Soon, and often,' was the answer. 'Remember we are colleagues.'
I went upstairs feeling extraordinarily comforted. I had a perfectly
beastly time ahead of me, but now it was all glorified and coloured with
the thought of the girl who had sung 'Cherry Ripe' in the garden. I
commended the wisdom of that old serpent Bullivant in the choice of
his intermediary, for I'm hanged if I would have taken such orders from
anyone else.
CHAPTER TWO

'The Village Named Morality'
UP on the high veld our rivers are apt to be strings of pools linked by
muddy trickles--the most stagnant kind of watercourse you would look
for in a day's