The False Faces | Page 4

the chair thus
vacated, the officer ran an eye over the papers, issued several orders
inspired by them, then turned attention to the prisoner.
"You may return to your post, corporal."
The corporal executed a smart about-face and clumped up the steps. In
answer to the officer's steadfast gaze the prisoner stepped forward and
confronted him across the table.
"Who are you?"
"My name," said the prisoner, after looking around to make sure that
none of the other tenants of the cellar was within earshot, "is
Lanyard--Michael Lanyard."
"The Lone Wolf!"
Involuntarily the officer jumped up, almost overturning his chair.

"That same," the prisoner affirmed, adding with a grimace of
besmirched and emaciated features that was meant for a
smile--"General Wertheimer."
"Wertheimer is not my name."
"I am aware of that. I uttered it merely to confirm my identity to you; it
is the only name I ever knew you by in the old days, when you were in
the British Secret Service and I a famous thief with a price upon my
head, when you and I played hide and seek across half Europe and back
again--in the days of Troyon's and 'the Pack,' the days of De Morbihan
and Popinot and...."
"Ekstrom," the officer supplied as the prisoner hesitated oddly.
"And Ekstrom," the other agreed.
There was a little silence between the two; then the officer mused aloud:
"All dead!"
"All ... but one."
The officer looked up sharply. "Which--?"
"The last-named."
"Ekstrom? But we saw him die! You yourself fired the shot that--"
"It was not Ekstrom. Trust that one not to imperil his precious carcase
when he could find an underling to run the risk for him! I tell you I
have seen Ekstrom within this last month, alive and serving the
Fatherland as the genius of that system of espionage which keeps the
enemy advised of your every move, down to the least
considerable--that system which makes it possible for the Boche to
greet every regiment by name when it moves up to serve its time in
your advanced trenches."
"You amaze me!"
"I shall convince you; I bring intelligence which will enable you to tear
apart this web of treason within your own lines and...."
Lanyard's voice broke. The officer remarked that he was
trembling--trembling so violently that to support himself he must grip
the edge of the table with both hands.
"You are wounded?"
"No--but cold to my very marrow, and faint with hunger. Even the
German soldiers are on starvation rations, now; the civilians are worse
off; and I--I have been over there for years, a spy, a hunted thing,
subsisting as casually as a sparrow!"

"Sit down. Orderly!"
And there was no more talk between these two for a time. Not only did
the officer refuse to hear another word before Lanyard had gorged his
fill of food and drink, but an exigent communication from the front,
transmitted through the trench telephone system, diverted his attention
temporarily.
Gnawing ravenously at bread and meat, Lanyard watched curiously the
scenes in the cellar, following, as best he might, the tides of combat;
gathering that German resentment of a British bombing enterprise
(doubtless the work of that same squad which had stolen past him in
the gloom of No Man's Land) had developed into a violent attempt to
storm the forward trenches. In these a desperate struggle was taking
place. Reinforcements were imperatively wanted.
Activities at the signallers' table became feverish; the commanding
officer stood over it, reading incoming messages as they were jotted
down and taking such action thereupon as his judgment dictated.
Orderlies, dragged half asleep from their nests of straw, were shaken
awake and despatched to rouse and rush to the front the troops Lanyard
had seen sleeping in the open field. Other orderlies limped or reeled
down the cellar steps, delivered their despatches, and, staggered out
through a breach in the wall to have their injuries attended to in the
field dressing-station in the adjoining cellar, or else threw themselves
down on the straw to fall instantly asleep despite the deafening din.
The Boche artillery, seeking blindly to silence the field batteries whose
fire was galling their offensive, had begun to bombard the village.
Shells fled shrieking overhead, to break in thunderous bellows. Walls
toppled with appalling crashes, now near at hand, now far. The ebb and
flow of rifle-fire at the front contributed a background of sound not
unlike the roaring of an angry surf. Machine-guns gibbered like
maniacs. Heavier artillery was brought into play behind the British
lines, apparently at no great distance from the village; the very
flag-stones of the cellar floor quaked to the concussions of big-calibre
guns.
Through the breach in the wall echoed the screams and groans of
wounded. The foul air became saturated with a