Part 24 (1/2)
”Let me tell you,” he said earnestly, ”I won't make any difference to you whatever happens. Barrin' a dhow or two Tajurrah-way, prizes are scarce in the Navy. Hence we never abandon 'em.”
There was a long silence. Pyecroft broke it suddenly.
”Robert,” he said, ”have you a mother?”
”Yes.”
”Have you a big brother?”
”Yes.”
”An' a little sister?”
”Yes.”
”Robert. Does your mamma keep a dog?”
”Yes. Why?”
”All right, Robert. I won't forget it.”
I looked for an explanation.
”I saw his cabinet photograph in full uniform on the mantelpiece o' that cottage before faithful Fido turned up,” Pyecroft whispered. ”Ain't you glad it's all in the family somehow?”
We filled with water at a cottage on the edge of St. Leonard's Forest, and, despite our increasing leakage, made s.h.i.+ft to climb the ridge above Instead Wick. Knowing the car as I did, I felt sure that final collapse would not be long delayed. My sole concern was to run our guest well into the wilderness before that came.
On the roof of the world--a naked plateau clothed with young heather--she retired from active life in floods of tears. Her feed-water-heater (Hinchcliffe blessed it and its maker for three minutes) was leaking beyond hope of repair; she had s.h.i.+fted most of her packing, and her water- pump would not lift.
”If I had a bit of piping I could disconnect this tin cartridge-case an'
feed direct into the boiler. It 'ud knock down her speed, but we could get on,” said he, and looked hopelessly at the long dun ridges that hove us above the panorama of Suss.e.x. Northward we could see the London haze.
Southward, between gaps of the whale-backed Downs, lay the Channel's zinc- blue. But all our available population in that vast survey was one cow and a kestrel.
”It's down hill to Instead Wick. We can run her there by gravity,” I said at last.
”Then he'll only have to walk to the station to get home. Unless we take off 'is boots first,” Pyecroft replied.
”That,” said our guest earnestly, ”would be theft atop of a.s.sault and very serious.”
”Oh, let's hang him an' be done,” Hinchcliffe grunted. ”It's evidently what he's sufferin' for.”
Somehow murder did not appeal to us that warm noon. We sat down to smoke in the heather, and presently out of the valley below came the thick beat of a petrol-motor ascending. I paid little attention to it till I heard the roar of a horn that has no duplicate in all the Home Counties.
”That's the man I was going to lunch with!” I cried. ”Hold on!” and I ran down the road.
It was a big, black, black-dashed, tonneaued twenty-four horse Octopod; and it bore not only Kysh my friend, and Salmon his engineer, but my own man, who for the first time in our acquaintance smiled.
”Did they get you? What did you get? I was coming into Linghurst as witness to character--your man told me what happened--but I was stopped near Instead Wick myself,” cried Kysh.
”What for?”