November 28, 1918 
LAND &? WATER 
17 
pour men through oil the right, but the position for miles 
back is commanded from here.' And Boy ton put his finger 
on a small redoubt marked on Alderson's map in the third 
line of the enemy position on their right flank. 
" 'That's what I want to explain to you, my dear fellow ; 
you gunner fellows have got to do this show for us.' 
Guns, not bayonets ! ' Alderson's phrase, such obvious 
nonsense on the face of it, came back to me. 
"'And when are we to fire?' Boyton asked. He was 
getting interested, I could see. 
"'Oh, that'll be in your orders, I suppose,' Alderson 
asked ; 'what I'm getting at is just to show you the general 
idea of the attack, as your batteries have only been in the 
line a day or two, and I . . . damn it all, I do know just a 
little about the old Hun and his way.' 
" 'Quite so, quite so,' Boyton answered, 'but what I can't 
get out of the C.R.A. is a copy of the infantry orders ; I 
want to get an idea of the scheme. You know, unless the 
different arms co-operate intelligently, understand each other's 
intentions besides just carrying out their own orders . . .' 
"'But our intentions are as I explained,' Alderson 
answered. 'We put up a barrage in depth over the whole 
of the front line system from here to here,' he pointed out 
the position on the map, the centre third of the frontage 
were attacking, in fact . . . and th.en ' 
"'Yes, what then?' Boyton asked, eagerly. 
"'Enthusiastic fellow, aren't you?' Alderson laughed. 
'Well, we just keep it there. . . . Smother the main gar- 
. rison, . . . five hours of it you've got to give them. . . . 
" Then we should be all round them, . . .' and he traced with 
his pencil on the map the projected lines of the infantry ad- 
vance on either flank. 
"'By Gad,' Boyton remarked, 'that's clever.' 
"He meant to express his admiration, I suppose. But I 
caught a look of triumph passing over his face. 
"'A great show,' he went on. 'When does it come off ? ' 
"'Oh, I forget,' Alderson remarked, casually; he had 
caught that passing expression on Boyton's face, and meant 
to drive his advantage home. 
" ' I never can remember the damned dates,' he added, 
with a foolish laugh ; and that laugh cost Alderson his life. 
"'You must be a very forgetful man, Colonel Alderson,' 
was all that Boyton said in reply ; but I could detect the 
grudging admiration in his voice, . . . and that note of 
admiration in Boyton's voice cost the Germans a good many 
thousand lives. 
"You see, the psychology of the thing was amazingly 
subtle ; all the remarks impressed themselves on my memory 
indelibly, but the significance of all the things only came 
to me later. You see, Alderson had explained a plan of 
attack, which was — and that was Alderson's master card — 
a really more brilliant conception than the one actually 
intended ; and he had done so with a lucidity which pre- 
vented any suspicion in Boyton's mind that it was an impro- 
visation. Alderson was able to convince Boyton because he had 
convinced himself. His plan, as a matter of fact, was sound. 
"Boyton believed every word of it, but he believed it so 
implicitly that when Alderson said he'd forgotten the date 
fixed for the attack, he thought he was merely being played 
with. He never dreamt that he was meant to leave that 
town alive. And he told Alderson, as plainly as a borri 
actor can ever say anything, that he gave up the game. 
"Alderson didn't reply to Boyton's challenge; he was 
playing for higher stakes. He had meant to insist on Boyton's 
belief ; he now meant to give Boyton the cards, and let 
him play the hand and win it. For he had one card up his 
sleeve which Bojiion might not guess. He might have 
forgotten that an actor of Alderson's calibre would never 
play to an empty house. 
" During the pause Alderson helped himself to another 
whisky-and-soda, and Boyton got up and moved towards 
the door. Alderson watched him disappearing. Boyton had 
got up in the most leisurely manner, put on his coat with an 
amazing deliberation, and Alderson had to sit there toying 
with his glass, unable to say a word. He didn't dare as 
much as suggest by a look that Boyton should go ; the 
move had to come from Boyton. . . sure enough it did. 
His manoeuvre was simple, but I must say exquisitely carried 
out. His coat and hat had been on a chair in the corner of 
the room, and instead of going into the corner, taking them 
off the chair and bringing them over to the light, he brought 
the chair and all, and planted them between the table and 
the end wall of the dug-out." 
"Why on earth . . ." the stranger asked. And as he 
asked the question, seemed to lose all interest in the story, 
and got up yawning. He began to light his pipe. 
" Why ? " Rivers repeated ; " well, just stay where you 
are, and I'll show you." 
Rivers got up, and walked past me behind my back ; 
I followed the glance of his eye. On a chair at the end of 
the room were his coat and hat, and very deliberately he 
illustrated his story. He brought the chair over in the most 
casual manner, and put it between the end of the table and 
the wall. 
Rivers looked at the stranger triumphantly. "You see," 
he went on, "how Alderson was cornered. He could shoot, 
bf course, but before he'd have had time to pull the trigger 
Boylon would have been round the corner, just as I should 
be out of the door. Once up the steps, he was lost in the 
maze of trenches in a second." 
"I fancy Boyton was a cleverer man than you suggest," 
the stranger interpolated. "Let me rearrange the chairs 
a little." 
" My memory is not at fault, believe me," Rivers said, 
sharply ; "the chairs are exactly as they were then, . . . 
and you, sir," he said to the stranger, with a stern, almost 
judicial tone, "are to-night in exactly the position in which 
Alderson was. It lends interests to my story, I assure 
you." 
"I agree," the stranger said, quite pleasantly, but with 
an effort of will, "your story has a certain fascination ; it 
has such a dramatic end, I can see." 
Of course, I understood by then ; and, frankly, -I was 
lost in admiration. It was superb . . . nothing affected 
about it, no exaggeration of gesture . . . just scorn — the 
scorn of the man playing the more dangerous game. . . . 
"The end is very close — unfortui^ately," Rivers went on. 
"You see, Alderson was giving the tricks away. And at 
the point he suddenly discovered the infantry orders. 'By 
God,' he cried, and I shall never forget his wonderful assump- 
tion of hearty stupidity, . . . for all the world, he might 
have been a certified lunatic ... or a man of the world. 
'By God, . . . here are the orders, . . . got them in my 
pocket the whole time — like to have a look at them ? ' and 
he tossed them across the table. 
"As luck would have it, they fell on the floor, . . . and 
Boyton was brave enough, . . . oh, yes, I'll say that, . . . 
he was brave enough to stoop down, five yards away from 
the man who knew he was a spy, and had every motive 
— as he thought — for shooting him dead, and to pick up 
the orders. 
"Alderson moved with a certain step towards the door, 
and went up the stairs ahead of Boyton. 'Come and have 
a look at the line,' he said cheerily, as he went up. Boyton 
followed. 
"I heard Alderson telling Boyton that he could keep the 
copy of the orders he had given him, and then their voices 
died away in the distance. . . . And the next thing I heard 
was that Alderson was found lying at the head of a disused 
sap with a bullet through his heart." 
"And the artillery colonel had gone with the orders?" 
the stranger asked as a matter of form, of course, "just the 
convention of the drawing surviving rather grotesquely." 
"The artillery colonel, on the contrary, had gone off 
without the orders. The orders were found in Alderson's 
pocket." 
" What was Boyton like ? " the stranger asked. 
"I really can't remember," Rivers answered, to my amaze- 
ment, "and I don't much wish to remember," he added. 
"I rather fancy I needn't trouble to remember." 
" 'Colonel Alderson and you are very clever men,' Boyton 
remarked; "you won't need your revolvers. ... I shall 
trouble you another five minutes, that's all." 
And he fell forward, breathing heavily. Rivers and I 
sat looking at one another. Alderson had taken his revenge ; 
that remarkable personality had triumphed over his enemy 
from beyond the grave. Alderson had come back into 
Boyton's life for one evening of absorbing interest. His 
memory had fascinated Boyton, that was clear, and he 
couldn't rest till he found the key to Alderson's inexplicable 
negligence in going up that sap alone with the man whom he 
knew to be a spy, and allowing him to blot out that fatal 
interview from the list of recorded things. 
He knew that Alderson suspected him. That was clear 
from his attempt to get out of that dug-out before he'd got 
the information which he came for. That Alderson could 
have gone up that sap with the intention of redeeming that 
fatal error of allowing his suspicion to be suspected by the 
only means possible of allowing his suspicion to be killed 
had not occurred to Boyton, brave man though he was. 
The problem had haunted him. But the soul of the 
artist that was in him died satisfied. ''Alderson,' he grasped, 
in a voice from another world,' was a braver man than . . . 
I could have . . . believed possible. ... I should like to 
meet him again. . . .' " 
"And he followed him." 
