The Spy in Black

by J. Storer Clouston

"If I leave it all to luck, she will advise me well!" I said to myself.

I headed coastwards through a wide marshy valley with but few houses about, and in a short time saw the sea widening before me and presently struck the road I was seeking. At the junction I obeyed an impulse, and, jumping off my cycle, paused to survey the scenery. A fertile vale fell from where I stood, down to a small bay between headlands. It was filled with little farms, and all at once there came over me an extraordinary impression of peacefulness and rest. Could it actually be that this was a country at war; that naval war, indeed, was very very close at hand, and beneath those shining waters a submarine might even now be stealing or a loose mine drifting? The wide, sunshiny, placid atmosphere of the scene, with its vast expanse of clear blue sky, larks singing high up and sea-birds crying about the shore, soothed my spirits like a magician's wand. I mounted and rode on again in an amazingly pleasant frame of mind for a spy within a hair's-breadth of capture, and very probably of ignominious death.

Up a long hill my engine gently throbbed, with moorland on either side that seemed to be so desolated by the gales and sea spray that even heather could scarcely flourish. I meant to stop and rest by the wayside, but after a look at the map I thought on the whole I had better put another mile or two between me and the lady with the baleful eyes. At the top I had a very wide prospect of inland country to the left, a treeless northern-looking scene, all green and brown with many lakes reflecting the sunshine. A more hopeless land to hide in I never beheld, and I was confirmed in my reckless resolution. Chance alone must protect me.

Down a still steeper hill I rode, only now amid numberless small farms and with another bay shining ahead. The road ran nearly straight into the water and then bent suddenly and followed the rim of the bay, with nothing but empty sea-links on the landward side. The farms were left behind, a mansion-house by the shore was still a little distance ahead, and there was not a living soul in sight as I came to a small stone-walled enclosure squeezed in between the road and the beach below. I jumped off, led my cycle round this and laid it on the ground, and then seated myself with my back against the low wall of loose stones and my feet almost projecting over the edge of the steep slope of pebbles that fell down to the sand.

I was only just out of sight, but unless any one should walk along the beach, out of sight I certainly was, and it struck me forcibly that ever since I had given myself up to luck, every impulse had been an inspiration. If I were conducting the search for myself, would I ever dream of looking for the mysterious runaway behind a wall three feet high within twenty paces of a public road and absolutely exposed to a wide sweep of beach? "No," I told myself, "I certainly should not!"

There I sat for hour after hour basking in the sunshine, and yet despite my heavy clothing kept at a bearable temperature by gentle airs of cool breeze off the sea. The tide, which was pretty high when I arrived, crept slowly down the sands, but save for the cruising and running of gulls and little piping shore-birds, that was all the movement on the beach. Not a soul appeared below me all that time. The calm shining sea remained absolutely empty except once for quarter of an hour or so when a destroyer was creeping past far out. To the seaward there was not a hint of danger or the least cause for apprehension.

On the road behind me I did hear sounds several times, which I confess disturbed my equanimity much more than I meant to let them. Once a motor-car buzzed past, and not to hold my breath as the sound swelled so rapidly and formidably was more than I could achieve. The jogging of a horse and trap twice set me wondering, despite myself, whether there were a couple of men with carbines aboard. But the slow prolonged rattling and creaking of carts was perhaps the sound that worried me most. They took such an interminable time to pass! I conceived a very violent distaste for carts.

I do take some credit to myself that not once did I yield to the temptation to peep over my wall and see who it was that passed along the road. I did not even turn and try to peer through the chinks in the stones, but simply sat like a limpet till the sounds had died completely away. The only precaution I took was to extinguish my cigarette if I chanced at the moment to be smoking.

In the course of my long bask in that sun bath I ate most of my remaining sandwiches and a cake or two of chocolate, but kept the remainder against emergencies. At last as the sun wore round, gradually descending till it shone right into my eyes, and I realised that the afternoon was getting far through, hope began to rise higher and higher. It actually seemed as if I were going to be allowed to remain within twenty yards of a highroad till night fell. "And then let them look for me!" I thought.

I don't think my access of optimism caused me to make any incautious movement. I know I was not smoking, in fact it must simply have been luck determined to show me that I was not her only favourite. Anyhow, when I first heard a footstep it was on the grass within five yards of me, and the next moment a man came round the corner of the wall and stopped dead short at the sight of me.