Part 19

"In the pitch-black darkness, guided by Tommy, I stumbled up a path which I'll swear was all of a one in three gradient. We came out upon a little ledge overlooking what we now knew to be the German lines. Tommy motioned me to keep my eye on the V-shaped cutting in the slag below us.

"'I think the beggar is down in the extreme angle of the V,' he whispered as he crawled beside me.

"Then I overbalanced, fell over the ridge, and dropped clean on to something soft and yielding below. Red specks dotted the blackness before my eyes for a few moments as I bounced on the hard stones. I jumped up with a jerk and spun round to find, blocking my path, a menacing figure regarding me over the barrel of a Browning pistol. In the other hand he held an electric torch.

"'Don't move,' he said in good English.

"His tone was quiet and crisp, an' his face showed me that 'e was out for blood.

"'I have it in my mind almost to be sorry for you, British Tommy,' he said calmly, 'You know too much. I am going to decide on the best way to dis----'

"He got as far as 'dis'--when something leaped out of the shadows and he was hurled back with a sudden rush. It was Tommy, and he swung his heavy Boche rifle and stove the man down with terrific force. There was a dreadful half-choked, whimper and then silence.

"Tommy stood regarding the still form with a bleached face. He then bent over him, but without touching, looked up at me.

"'Saved a firing party the trouble,' he said. 'He's dead all right.'

"He straightened himself up.

"'What the devil shall we do with it, McNab?'

"''Tis a spy he was,' I answered, 'and it's ten to one that he has a code or some kind of papers tucked away on him. Just run through his pockets before we leave him.'

"'No, no,' Tommy said, 'I can't touch him he'll haunt me, sure.'

"The man was quite dead when I rolled him over. I took from his pockets a leather bound code book, English, French and German bank notes, and a gold stop watch.

"'No good stayin' here,' said Tommy, 'I vote we crawl back and talk it over. This is a crummy old place.'

"When we got back to billets and examined our loot, it was a sure enough German spy's code book, and it contained a rough sketch of all our trenches and what not, quite sufficient to use in conjunction with the squared map he carried. The book was printed in German.

"'You know,' said Tommy, 'we must report this to the Colonel as soon as we can.'

"'An' be collared for being out at night without a pass first thing? Not much,' said I.

"'We must hide this loot. They may search us when they find him out there,' said Tommy, looking to the future.

"'Hide away, then,' I said, but my mind was elsewhere, for all of a sudden, I had been hit in the eye with a brilliant inspiration.

"The following morning, when I took our ole man his early tea, I found 'im sitting up in bed sucking a fat cigar and bewilderin' himself with the brigade orders.

"'I beg your pardon, sir!' I says, 'but may I have a word with you?'

"'You know, McNab,' he says, screwing his eye-glass into his eye with a smile--'you know that I am at any hour of the day or night glad to have a talk to a man of understanding like yourself.'

"'That's good of you, Colonel,' I says, 'to meet me with such kindness. But I think, as you say, that I have just a little more than the usual share of intellec' under my hat, but what I have come to lay before your notice is this: I have discovered why the Boche guns always register on our artillery positions the moment they are taken up, and the source of the leakage of information.'

"'Oh, you have, have you?' says he.

"''Tis a spy, sir,' says I, 'and it's signalling to the Huns he was when I caught him.'

"'Another blessed spy legend,' he yawned, 'I really thought that you, McNab, would be the last man to become afflicted with the spy craze. I have arrested half a dozen so-called spies this week already only to find they were harmless rustics--'

"'I beg your pardon, Colonel,' I returns, with that chilling dignity which has at times even made generals falter, 'but there is no legend about Private McNab's spy.'