22 
LAiND & WATER 
October 26, 1916 
{Continued from page 20.) 
relief of it. Tue wind, too. seemed to have fallen, or perhaps 
lie was sheltered by the lee of the hill. There were a lot of 
■tJead liere also, and that he couldn't understand, for they 
svere new dead. Had the Turks attacked and been driven 
back ? W'lien he had gone about thirty yards he stoinx^d to 
take his bearings. On the right were the ruins of a large 
building set on hre by the guns. There wiis a blur of woods 
and the debris of walls round it. Away to the left another 
lull ran out fartlier to the east, and the place he war> in seemed 
to be a kind of cup between the spurs. Just before liim was 
a little mined building, with the sky seen through its rafters, 
lor the smouldering ruin on the light gave a certain li;,'lit. He 
wondered if the Russian firing-line lay there. 
Just then he heard voices — smothered voices — not a yard 
away and apparently below the ground. He instantly 
jumped to what this must mean. It was a Turkish tronch — 
a communication trench. Peter didn't know much about 
modern war, but he had read in the papers, or htard from 
me, enough to make him draw the right moral. The frosli dead 
pointed to the' same conclusion. What he had got tlirough 
were the Turkish support trenches, not their finng-line, 
That was still before him. 
He didn't despair, for the rebound from panic had made 
him extra courageous. He crawled forward, an inch at a time, 
taking no sort of risk, and presently found himself looking at 
the parados of a trench. "Then fie lay quiet to think out the 
ne.xt step. 
The shelling had stopped, and there was that queer kind 
•of peace which falls sometimes on two armies not a quarter 
ot a mile distant. Peter said he could hear nothing but the 
far-off sighing of the wind. There seemed to be no move- 
ment of any kind in the trench before him, which ran through 
the ruined building. The Hght of the burning was dying, 
.and lie could just make out the mound of earth a yard in 
front. He began to feel hungry, and got out his packet of 
food and had a swig at the brandy flask. That comforted 
him, and he felt a master of his fate again. But the next 
>itep was not so easy. He must find out what lay behind that 
mound of earth. 
Suddenly a curious sound fell on his ears. It was so faint 
that at first he doubted the evidence of his senses. Then as 
the wind fell it came louder. It was exactly like some hollow 
piece of metal being struck by a stick, musical and oddly 
resonant. 
He concluded it was the wind blowing a branch of a tree 
against an old boiler in the ruin before him. The trouble was 
that there was scarcely enough wind now for that in this 
sheltered cup. 
But as he listened he caught the note again. It was a bell, 
a fallen bell, and the place before him must have been a 
chapel. He remembered that an Armenian monastery had 
been marked on the big map, and he guessed it was the burned 
building on his right. 
The thought of a chapel and a bell gave him the motion 
•of some human agency. And then suddenly the notion was 
•confirmed. The sound was regular and concerted — dot, 
■dash, dot — dash, dot, dot. The branch of a tree and the wind 
may play strange pranks, but they do not produce the long 
and shorts of the Morse Code. 
This was where Peter's intelligence work in the Boer War 
helped him. He knew the Morse, he could read it, but he 
could make nothing of the signalling. It was either in some 
special code or in a strange language. 
He lay still and did some calm thinking. There was a man 
in front of him, a Turkish soldier, who was in the enemy's pay. 
Therefore he could fraternise with him, for they were on the 
same side. But how was he to approach him without getting 
shot in the process ? Again, how could a man send signals 
to the enemy from a firing-line without being detected ? 
. Peter found an answer in the strange configuration of the 
ground. He had not heard a sound till he was a few yards 
from the place, and they would be inaudible to men in the 
reserve trenches and even in the communication trenches. 
If somebody moving up the latter caught the noise, it would 
be easy to explain it naturally. But the wind blowing down 
the cup wouhl carry it far in the enemy's direction. 
There remained the risk of being heard by those parallel 
v/ith the bell in the firing trenches. Peter concluded that 
that trench must be very thinly held, probably only by a 
few observers, and the nearest might be a dozen yards off. 
He had read about that being the French fashion under a big 
bombardment. 
The next thing was to find out how to make himself known 
to this ally. He decided that the only way was to surprise 
him. , He might get shot, but he trusted to his strength and 
agility against a man who was almost certainly wearied. 
When he had got him safe, explanations might follow. 
Peter was now enjoying himself hugely. If only those 
infernal guns kept silent he would play out the game in the 
sober, decorous way he loved. So very delicately he began 
to wriggle forward to where the sound was. 
The night was now as black as ink round him, and very 
quiet, too, except for soughings of the dying gale. The snow 
had drifted a little in the lee of the ruined walls, and Peter's 
progress was naturally very slow. He could not afford to 
dislodge one ounce of snow. Still the tinkling went on, now 
in greater volume, and Peter was in terror lest it should cease 
before he got iiis man. 
Presently his hand clutched at empty space. He was on 
the lip of the front trench. The sound was now a yard to 
his right, and with infinite care he sliifted his position. Now 
the bell was just below him, and he felt the big rafter of the 
woodwork from which it had fallen. He felt something else 
— a stretch of wire fixed in th'e ground with a far end hanging 
in the void. That would be the spy's explanation if any one 
heard the sound and came seeking the cause. 
Somewhere in the darkness beforo and below him was the 
man, not a yard off. Peter remained very still, studying the 
situation. He could not see, but he could feel the presence, 
and he was trying to decide the relative position of man and 
bell and their exact distance from him. The thing was not 
so easy as it looked, for if he jumped for where he believed 
the figure was, he might miss it and get a bullet in the stomach. 
A man who played so risky a game was proljably handy with 
his firearms. Besides, if he should hit the bell, he would make 
a hideous row and alarm the whole front. 
Fate suddenly gave him the right chance. The unseen 
figure stood up and moved a step, till his back was against 
the parados. He actually brushed against Peter's elbow, 
who held his breath. 
There is a catch which the KafBrs have which would need 
several diagrams to explain. It is partly a neck hold, and 
partly a paralysing backward twist of the right arm, but if it 
is practised on a man from behind, it locks him as sure as if 
he were handcuffed. Peter slowly got his body raised and 
his knees drawn under him. and reached for his prey. 
He got him. A head was pulled backward over the edge 
of the trench, and he felt in the air the motion of the left 
arm pawing feebly but unable to reach behind. 
" Be still," whispered Peter in German ; " I mean you no 
harm. We are friends of the same purpose. Do you speak 
German ? " 
" Nein," said a muffled voice. 
" English ? " 
" Yes," said the voice. 
" Thank God," said Peter. " Then we can understand 
each other. I've watched your notion of signalling, and a 
very good one it is. I've got to get through to the Russian 
lines somehow before morning, and I want you to help me. 
I'm English — a kind of English, so we're on the same side. 
If I let go your neck will you be good and talk reasonably ? " 
The voice assented. Peter let go, and in the same instant 
slipped to the side. The man wheeled round and flung out 
an arm but gripped vacancy. 
" Steady, friend," said Peter ; " you mustn't play tricks 
with me or I'll be angry." 
" Who are you ? Who sent you ? " asked the puzzled 
voice. 
Peter had a happy thought. " The Companions of the 
Rosy Hours ? " he said. " 
" Then are we friends indeed," said the voice. " Come 
out of the darkness, friend, and I will do you no harm. I am 
a good Turk, and I fought beside the English in Kordofan, 
and I learned their tongue. I live only to see the ruin of 
Enver, who has beggared my family and slain my twin brother. 
Therefore I serve the Mtiscov ghiaours." 
I don't know what the Musky Jaws are, but if you mean 
the Russians I'm with you. I've got news for them which 
will make Enver green. The question is, how I'm to get to 
them, and that is where you shall help me, my friend." 
" How ? " 
" By playing that Httle tune of yours again. Tell them 
to expect within the next half hour a deserter with an im- 
portant message. Tell them, for God's sake, not to fire at 
anybody till they've made certain it isn't me." 
The man took the blunt end of his bayonet and squatted 
beside the bell. The first stroke brought out a clear, search- 
ing note which floated down the valley. He struck three 
notes at slow intervals. For all the world. Peter said, he was 
like a telegraph operator calling up a station. 
" Send the message in English," said Peter. 
" They may not understand it." said the man. 
" Then send it any way you like. I trust you, for we are 
brothers. " 
After ten minutes the man ceased and listened. From far 
away came the sound of a trench-gong, the kind of thing they 
used on the Western Front to give the gas-alarm. 
" They say they wilf be ready," he said. " I cannot take 
{Continued on page 24) 
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