A Rogue by Compulsion: An Affair of the Secret Service

An Affair of the Secret Service
By VICTOR BRIDGES
With Frontispiece By JOHN H. CASSEL
1915
Drawn by John H. Cassel.]
XIV. A SUMMONS FROM DR. McMURTRIE
Most of the really important things in life—such as love and death—happen unexpectedly. I know that my escape from Dartmoor did.
We had just left the quarries—eighteen of us, all dressed in that depressing costume which King George provides for his less elusive subjects—and we were shambling sullenly back along the gloomy road which leads through the plantation to the prison. The time was about four o'clock on a dull March afternoon.
In the roadway, on either side of us, tramped an armed warder, his carbine in his hand, his eyes travelling with dull suspicion up and down the gang. Fifteen yards away, parallel with our route, the sombre figure of one of the civil guards kept pace with us through the trees. We were a cheery party!
Suddenly, without any warning, one of the warders turned faint. He dropped his carbine, and putting his hand to his head, stumbled heavily against the low wall that separated us from the wood. The clatter of his weapon, falling in the road, naturally brought all eyes round in that direction, and seeing what had happened the whole eighteen of us instinctively halted.
The gruff voice of the other warder broke out at once, above the shuffling of feet:
What are you stopping for? Get on there in front.