Nicky-Nan, Reservist | Page 9

o' the week?"
"It's me, right enough," said Varco; "an' no one but Peter Hosken left
with me, to take turn an' turn about. They've called the others up to
Plymouth."
"But why?" Nicky-Nan had asked: and the coastguardsman had
responded:
"You can put two an' two together, neighbour. Add 'em up as you
please."
The scene and the words, repeated through his dream, came back now

very clearly to him.
"But when a man's in pain and nervous," he told himself, "the least
little thing bulks big in his mind." War? They couldn't really mean
it. . . . That scare had come and had passed, almost a score of times. . . .
Well, suppose it was War? . . . that again might be the saving of him.
Folks mightn't be able to serve Ejectment Orders in time of War. . . .
Besides, now he came to think of it, back in the week there had been
some panic in the banks, and some talk of a law having been passed by
which debts couldn't be recovered in a hurry. And, anyway, Mr
Pamphlett had forgotten about Bank Holiday. There was no hurry
before Tuesday . . .
Nicky-Nan dropped off again into a sleep punctuated by twinges of
pain.
Towards dawn, as the pain eased, his slumber grew deeper and
undisturbed. He was awakened by--What?
At first it seemed to be the same sound of sobbing to which he had
listened early in the night. Then, with a start, he knew it to be
something quite different--an impatient knocking at the foot of his
bed-chamber stairs.
Nicky-Nan shuffled out of bed, opened his door, and peered down the
stairway.
"Who's there?" he challenged. "And what's your business? Hullo!"--
catching sight of Bill Varco, coastguardsman, on the flat below--"the
house afire? Or what brings you?"
"The Reserves are called out," answered up Bill Varco. "You'll get your
paper later. But the Chief Officer's here from Troy with a little fellow
from the Customs there, and I be sent round with first news. I've two
dozen yet to warn . . . In the King's name! An' there'll be a brake
waiting by the bridge-end at ten-thirty. If War isn't declared, it mighty
soon will be. Take notice!"

Bill Varco disappeared, sharp on the word. Nicky-Nan paused a
moment, hobbled back to bed and sat on the edge of it, steadying
himself, yet half-awake.
"It's some trick of Pamphlett's to get me out," he decided, and went
downstairs cautiously.
CHAPTER III.
HOW THE MEN WENT.
In the passage he found Mrs Penhaligon standing, alone, rigid as a
statue. By her attitude she seemed to be listening. Yet she had either
missed to hear or, hearing, had missed to understand Varco's call up the
stairs. At Nicky-Nan's footstep she turned, with a face white and set.
"Sam's got to go," she said. Her lips twitched.
"Nonsense, woman! Some person's playin' a trick 'pon the town."
"They start from the bridge at ten-thirty. There's no trick about it. Go
an' see for yourself." She motioned with her hand.
Nicky-Nan limped to the porch and peeked out (as they say at Polpier).
Up the street the women stood clacking the news just as though it were
a week-day and the boats had brought in a famous haul. Feminine
gossip in Polpier is not conducted in groups, as the men conduct theirs
on the Quay. By tradition each housewife takes post on her own
threshold-slate, and knits while she talks with her neighbours to right
and left and across the road; thus a bit of news, with comment and
embellishment zigzags from door to door through the town like a postal
delivery. To-day being Sunday, the women had no knitting; but it was
observable that while Mrs Trebilcock, two doors away, led the chorus
as usual, her hands moved as though plying imaginary needles: and so
did the hands of Sarah Jane Johns over the way.
Down by the bridge-end two men in uniform sat side by side on the low
parapet, sorting out a small pile of blue papers. They were Mr Irons, the

chief officer of Coastguard at Troy, and a young custom-house
officer--a stranger to Nicky-Nan. The morning sunlight played on their
brass buttons and cap-rims.
Nicky-Nan withdrew his head hastily.
"Where's Sam?" he asked.
"Gone down to Billy Bosistow's to fetch his sea-boots."
"I don't follow 'ee." Nicky-Nan rubbed his unshaven jaw with two
fingers. "Is the world come to its end, then, that Billy Bosistow keeps
open shop on a Sunday mornin'?"
"'Tisn' like that at all. . . . You see, Sam's a far-seein' man, or I've tried
to make him so. I reckon there's no man in Polpier'll turn out in a kit
smellin' stronger of camphor,