He enlisted successfully until he reached the medical examination. The doctor thrust a shoe-horn into Bertram's mouth. "Count up to 99," he said. "Ug—koog—hee—haw—," Bertram began.
"That'll do," remarked the doctor, closing the jaws with a snap. "Any constitutional ailment?"
Bertram blushed heavily. "Only chronic dyspepsia," he admitted at length. The doctor gave a long whistle. Mistaking the sound a taxicab drew up.
"You'd better jump in," he said kindly, taking Bertram's hand and putting it inadvertently into his own pocket. "I regret to say I cannot pass you for the Army."
"Ploughed!" exclaimed our hero. "But if I cannot go as a soldier I will go as a spy. Drive me to Wigson's," he called to the taxi-driver as he leapt on to a passing bus.
Half-an-hour later Bertram, disguised in the uniform of a spy, turned up the Strand and his coat-collar simultaneously and walked rapidly to Charing Cross station. He just managed to scramble into the 2.19 as it steamed from the platform at 3.7.
II.
That same evening (or the next) Bertram got out of the train at Kartoffelnberg, hired a tandem and drove to the German lines. He went straight to the General. "I shall be obliged if you will kindly tell me the number and disposition of your forces, and how and when you propose to advance."
He spoke in English, but the General—formerly Military Attaché at Appenrodt's—happily understood him.
"Certainly," he replied. "Perhaps you would care to examine this map and plan of campaign?"