16
PURSUIT
These things are Life's Little Difficulties. One can never tellprecisely how one will act in a sudden emergency. The right thing forMike to have done at this crisis was to have ignored the voice, carriedon up the water pipe, and through the study window, and gone to bed. Itwas extremely unlikely that anybody could have recognized him at nightagainst the dark background of the house. The position then would havebeen that somebody in Mr. Outwood's house had been seen breaking inafter lights-out; but it would have been very difficult for theauthorities to have narrowed the search down any further than that.There were thirty-four boys in Outwood's, of whom about fourteen weremuch the same size and build as Mike.
The suddenness, however, of the call caused Mike to lose his head. Hemade the strategic error of sliding rapidly down the pipe, and running.
There were two gates to Mr. Outwood's front garden. The drive ran in asemicircle, of which the house was the center. It was from theright-hand gate, nearest to Mr. Downing's house, that the voice hadcome, and, as Mike came to the ground, he saw a stout figure gallopingtoward him from that direction. He bolted like a rabbit for the othergate. As he did so, his pursuer again gave tongue.
"Oo-oo-oo yer!" was the exact remark.
Whereby Mike recognized him as the school sergeant. "Oo-oo-oo yer!" wasthat militant gentleman's habitual way of beginning a conversation.
With this knowledge, Mike felt easier in his mind. Sergeant Collard wasa man of many fine qualities (notably a talent for what he was wont tocall "spott'n," a mysterious gift which he exercised on the riflerange), but he could not run. There had been a time in his hot youthwhen he had sprinted like an untamed mustang in pursuit of volatilePathans in Indian hill wars, but Time, increasing his girth, had takenfrom him the taste for such exercise. When he moved now it was at astately walk. The fact that he ran tonight showed how the excitement ofthe chase had entered into his blood.
"Oo-oo-oo yer!" he shouted again, as Mike, passing through the gate,turned into the road that led to the school. Mike's attentive ear notedthat the bright speech was a shade more puffily delivered this time. Hebegan to feel that this was not such bad fun after all. He would haveliked to be in bed, but, if that was out of the question, this wascertainly the next-best thing.
He ran on, taking things easily, with the sergeant panting in his wake,till he reached the entrance to the school grounds. He dashed in andtook cover behind a tree.
Presently the sergeant turned the corner, going badly and evidentlycured of a good deal of the fever of the chase. Mike heard him toil onfor a few yards and then stop. A sound of panting was borne to him.
Then the sound of footsteps returning, this time at a walk. They passedthe gate and went on down the road.
The pursuer had given the thing up.
Mike waited for several minutes behind his tree. His program now wassimple. He would give Sergeant Collard about half an hour, in case thelatter took it into his head to "guard home" by waiting at the gate.Then he would trot softly back, shoot up the water pipe once more, andso to bed. It had just struck a quarter to something--twelve, hesupposed--on the school clock. He would wait till a quarter past.
Meanwhile, there was nothing to be gained from lurking behind a tree. Heleft his cover, and started to stroll in the direction of the pavilion.Having arrived there, he sat on the steps, looking out onto thecricket field.
His thoughts were miles away, at Wrykyn, when he was recalled toSedleigh by the sound of somebody running. Focusing his gaze, he saw adim figure moving rapidly across the cricket field straight for him.
His first impression, that he had been seen and followed, disappeared asthe runner, instead of making for the pavilion, turned aside, andstopped at the door of the bicycle shed. Like Mike, he was evidentlypossessed of a key, for Mike heard it grate in the lock. At this pointhe left the pavilion and hailed his fellow rambler by night in acautious undertone.
The other appeared startled.
"Who the dickens is that?" he asked. "Is that you, Jackson?"
Mike recognized Adair's voice. The last person he would have expected tomeet at midnight obviously on the point of going for a bicycle ride.
"What are you doing out here. Jackson?"
"What are you, if it comes to that?"
Adair was adjusting his front light.
"I'm going for the doctor. One of the chaps in our house is bad."
"Oh!"
"What are you doing out here?"
"Just been for a stroll."
"Hadn't you better be getting back?"
"Plenty of time."
"I suppose you think you're doing something tremendously brave anddashing?"
"Hadn't you better be going to the doctor?"
"If you want to know what I think--"
"I don't. So long."
Mike turned away, whistling between his teeth. After a moment's pause,Adair rode off. Mike saw his light pass across the field and through thegate. The school clock struck the quarter.
It seemed to Mike that Sergeant Collard, even if he had started to waitfor him at the house, would not keep up the vigil for more than half anhour. He would be safe now in trying for home again.
He walked in that direction.
Now it happened that Mr. Downing, aroused from his first sleep by thenews, conveyed to him by Adair, that MacPhee, one of the junior membersof Adair's dormitory, was groaning and exhibiting other symptoms ofacute illness, was disturbed in his mind. Most housemasters feel uneasyin the event of illness in their houses, and Mr. Downing was apt to getjumpy beyond the ordinary on such occasions. All that was wrong withMacPhee, as a matter of fact, was a very fair stomachache, the directand legitimate result of eating six buns, half a coconut, threedoughnuts, two ices, an apple, and a pound of cherries, and washing thelot down with tea. But Mr. Downing saw in his attack the beginnings ofsome deadly scourge which would sweep through and decimate the house. Hehad dispatched Adair for the doctor, and, after spending a few minutesprowling restlessly about his room, was now standing at his front gate,waiting for Adair's return.
It came about, therefore, that Mike, sprinting lightly in the directionof home and safety, had his already shaken nerves further maltreated bybeing hailed, at a range of about two yards, with a cry of "Is that you,Adair?" The next moment Mr. Downing emerged from his gate.
Mike stood not upon the order of his going. He was off like an arrow--aflying figure of Guilt. Mr. Downing, after the first surprise, seemed tograsp the situation. Ejaculating at intervals the words, "Who is that?Stop! Who is that? Stop!" he dashed after the much-enduring Wrykynian atan extremely creditable rate of speed. Mr. Downing was by way of being asprinter. He had won handicap events at College sports at Oxford, and,if Mike had not got such a good start, the race might have been over inthe first fifty yards. As it was, that victim of Fate, going well, keptahead. At the entrance to the school grounds he led by a dozen yards.The procession passed into the field, Mike heading as before forthe pavilion.
As they raced across the soft turf, an idea occurred to Mike, which hewas accustomed in after years to attribute to genius, the one flash ofit which had ever illumined his life.
It was this.
One of Mr. Downing's first acts, on starting the Fire Brigade atSedleigh, had been to institute an alarm bell. It had been rubbed intothe school officially--in speeches from the dais--by the headmaster, andunofficially--in earnest private conversations--by Mr. Downing, that atthe sound of this bell, at whatever hour of day or night, every memberof the school must leave his house in the quickest possible way, andmake for the open. The bell might mean that the school was on fire, orit might mean that one of the houses was on fire. In any case, theschool had its orders--to get out into the open at once.
Nor must it be supposed that the school was without practice at thisfeat. Every now and then a notice would be found posted up on the boardto the effect that there would be fire drill during the dinner hour thatday. Sometimes the performance was b
right and interesting, as on theoccasion when Mr. Downing, marshaling the brigade at his front gate, hadsaid, "My house is supposed to be on fire. Now let's do a record!" whichthe Brigade, headed by Stone and Robinson, obligingly did. They fastenedthe hose to the hydrant, smashed a window on the ground floor (Mr.Downing having retired for a moment to talk with the headmaster), andpoured a stream of water into the room. When Mr. Downing was at libertyto turn his attention to the matter, he found that the room selected washis private study, most of the light furniture of which was floating ina miniature lake. That episode had rather discouraged his passion forrealism, and fire drill since then had taken the form, for the mostpart, of "practicing escaping." This was done by means of canvas chutes,kept in the dormitories. At the sound of the bell the prefect of thedormitory would heave one end of the chute out of the window, the otherend being fastened to the sill. He would then go down it himself, usinghis elbows as a brake. Then the second man would follow his example, andthese two, standing below, would hold the end of the chute so that therest of the dormitory could fly rapidly down it without injury, exceptto their digestions.
After the first novelty of the thing had worn off, the school had takena rooted dislike to fire drill. It was a matter for self-congratulationamong them that Mr. Downing had never been able to induce the headmasterto allow the alarm bell to be sounded for fire drill at night. Theheadmaster, a man who had his views on the amount of sleep necessary forthe growing boy, had drawn the line at night operations. "Sufficientunto the day" had been the gist of his reply. If the alarm bell were toring at night when there was no fire, the school might mistake a genuinealarm of fire for a bogus one, and refuse to hurry themselves.
So Mr. Downing had had to be content with day drill.
The alarm bell hung in the archway, leading into the school grounds. Theend of the rope, when not in use, was fastened to a hook halfway upthe wall.
Mike, as he raced over the cricket field, made up his mind in a flashthat his only chance of getting out of this tangle was to shake hispursuer off for a space of time long enough to enable him to get to therope and tug it. Then the school would come out. He would mix with them,and in the subsequent confusion get back to bed unnoticed.
The task was easier than it would have seemed at the beginning of thechase. Mr. Downing, owing to the two facts that he was not in thestrictest training, and that it is only a Bannister who can run for anylength of time at top speed shouting "Who is that? Stop! Who is that?Stop!" was beginning to feel distressed. There were bellows to mend inthe Downing camp. Mike perceived this, and forced the pace. He roundedthe pavilion ten yards to the good. Then, heading for the gate, he putall he knew into one last sprint. Mr. Downing was not equal to theeffort. He worked gamely for a few strides, then fell behind. When Mikereached the gate, a good forty yards separated them.
As far as Mike could judge--he was not in a condition to make nicecalculations--he had about four seconds in which to get busy with thatbell rope.
Probably nobody has ever crammed more energetic work into four secondsthan he did then.
The night was as still as only an English summer night can be, and thefirst clang of the clapper sounded like a million iron girders fallingfrom a height onto a sheet of tin. He tugged away furiously, with an eyeon the now rapidly advancing and loudly shouting figure of thehousemaster.
And from the darkened house beyond there came a gradually swelling hum,as if a vast hive of bees had been disturbed.
The school was awake.