“You’ll have Peter for company,” he said. “Peter’s a sad man, but he has a great heart, and he’s been mighty useful to me already. They’re going to move him to England very soon. The authorities are afraid of him, for he’s apt to talk wild, his health having made him peevish about the British. But there’s a deal of red-tape in the world, and the orders for his repatriation are slow in coming.” The speaker winked very slowly and deliberately with his left eye.
I asked if I was to be with Peter, much cheered at the prospect.
“Why, yes. You and Peter are the collateral in the deal. But the big game’s not with you.”
I had a presentiment of something coming, something anxious and unpleasant.
“Is Mary in it?” I asked.
He nodded and seemed to pull himself together for an explanation.
“See here, Dick. Our main job is to get Ivery back to Allied soil where we can handle him. And there’s just the one magnet that can fetch him back. You aren’t going to deny that.”
I felt my face getting very red, and that ugly hammer began beating in my forehead. Two grave, patient eyes met my glare.
“I’m damned if I’ll allow it!” I cried. “I’ve some right to a say in the thing. I won’t have Mary made a decoy. It’s too infernally degrading.”
“It isn’t pretty, but war isn’t pretty, and nothing we do is pretty. I’d have blushed like a rose when I was young and innocent to imagine the things I’ve put my hand to in the last three years. But have you any other way, Dick? I’m not proud, and I’ll scrap the plan if you can show me another.... Night after night I’ve hammered the thing out, and I can’t hit on a better.... Heigh-ho, Dick, this isn’t like you,” and he grinned ruefully. “You’re making yourself a fine argument in favour of celibacy—in time of war, anyhow. What is it the poet sings?—