Fandor had smiled, saluted, marched off to bed—but not to sleep.
"A day's leave! The devil's in it! Who signed for me? What is the next move to be?" he thought.
This very morning, at ten o'clock delivery, the post sergeant had handed him a card. It bore the Paris postmark: on it was drawn the route from Verdun to the frontier. That was all.
He remembered what Vinson had said to him in the flat:
"What is so terrifying about this spying business is that one never knows whom one is obeying, whose orders one ought to follow, who is your friend, who is your chief: one fine day you learn that you have had leave granted you: you then receive, in some way or another, directions to go to some place or another.... You go there ... you meet people you do not know, who ask you questions, sometimes seemingly trivial, sometimes obviously of the gravest importance.... It is up to you to find out whether you are face to face with your spy chiefs, or if, on the contrary, you have not fallen into a trap set by the police to catch spies.... You cannot go to a rendezvous with a quiet mind: how do you know that you will not be returned between two gendarmes!... It is impossible to ask for information: equally impossible to ask for help, should you be in imminent danger.... Spies do not know one another: they are disowned by whoever employs them: they are humble wheels hidden in an immense mechanism.... It matters little if they are broken to pieces, they can so easily be replaced!"
Fandor's recollection of these statements did not tend to make him cheerful. He summed up the situation, and came to a decision.
"I have been given leave I did not ask for: somebody must have asked it for me. This 'someone' is the chief spy, already in touch with Vinson, or the chief spy at Verdun, who has been warned of Vinson's arrival: the post card I received from an unknown individual has nothing on it but the indications of a route already known to me, that from Verdun to the frontier. I shall follow that route as a pedestrian, and I look forward to meeting some interesting persons on the way."
Surrounded by the noisy disorder of the barrack room, amidst men rising hastily that they might not be reported missing at the morning muster, which would shortly take place in the courtyard, Fandor-Vinson dressed quickly. He put on his sword-belt, ascertained that his servant had sufficiently polished the brass buttons on his tunic, his sabre, and other trappings. The adjutant for the week entered.
"You are off at once, Vinson?"
"Yes, sir."