Tam O' The Scoots, Edgar Wallace [highly recommended books TXT] 📗

Blackie told me--"

Suddenly, she stepped back and gazed at him wide-eyed. "Why! You're Tam!"

Tam went red.

"Of course you're Tam--you never wear your medal ribbons, do you? You're called--"

"Mistress," said Tam as he saluted awkwardly and started to push his machine, "they ca' me 'sairgeant,' an' it's no' such a bad rank."

He left her standing with heightened color blaming herself bitterly for her _gaucherie_.

So it made that difference, too!

For some reason he did not feel hurt or unhappy. He was in his most philosophical mood when he reached his aerodrome. He had a cause for gratification in that she knew his name. Evidently, it was something to be a sergeant if by so being you stand out from the ruck of men. As to her name he had neither thought it opportune nor proper to advance inquiries.

He smiled as he changed into his working clothes and wondered why.

* * * * *

A dozen girl drivers were waiting on the broad road before the 131st General Hospital the next morning, exchanging views on the big things which were happening in their little world, when one spied an airplane.

"Gracious--isn't it high! I wonder if it's a German--they're bombing hospitals--it's British, silly--no, it's a German, I saw one just like that over Poperinghe--it's coming right over."

"Stand by your cars, ladies, please."

The tall "chief's" sharp voice scattered the groups.

"He's dropping something--it's a bomb--no, it's a message bag. Look at the streamers!"

A bag it was and when they raced to the field in which it fell they discovered that it was improvised, roughly sewn and weighted with sand.

The superintendent read the label and frowned.

"'To the Driver of Ambulance B. T. 9743, 131st General Hospital'--this is evidently for you, Miss Laramore."

"For me, Mrs. Crane?"

Vera Laramore came forward, a picture of astonishment and took the bag.

"Oh, what fun--who is it, Vera? Open it quickly."

The girl pulled open the bag and took out a letter. It bore the same address as that which had been written on the label.

Slowly she tore off the end of the envelope.

There was a single sheet of paper written in a boyish hand. Without any preliminary it ran:

"A sairgeant-pilot, feelin' sair,
A spitefu' thing may do,
An' so I come to you once mair
That I may say--an' true--
As you looked doon on me ane day,
Now I look doon on you!

"You, fra your height of pride an' clan
Heard your high spirit ca',
An' so you scorned the common man--
I saw yeer sweet face fa';
But, losh! I'm just that mighty high
I can't see you at a'!"

It was signed "T" and the girl's eyes danced with joy. She shaded her eyes and looked up. The tiny airplane was turning and she waved her handkerchief frantically.

"A friend of yours?" asked the superintendent with ominous politeness.

"Ye-es--it's Tam, Mrs. Crane--I ran into him--he ran into me yesterday--"

"Tam?" even the severe superintendent was interested, "that remarkable man--I should like to see him. Everybody is talking about him just now. Was it a private letter or an official message from the aerodrome?"

"It was private," said the girl, very pink and a note of defiance in her voice, and the superintendent very wisely dropped the subject.

"I really don't know how to send him an appropriate answer," said Vera to her confidante and room-mate that evening. "I can't write poetry and I can't fly."

"I shouldn't answer it," said her sensible friend briskly. "After all, my dear, you don't want to start a flirtation with a sergeant--I mean, it's hardly the thing, is it?"

The little pajama'd figure sitting on the edge of the bed favored her friend with a cold stare.

"I certainly am not thinking of a flirtation," she said icily, "but if I were, I should as certainly be unaffected by the rank of my victim. In America we aren't quite so strong for pedigrees and families as you English people--"

"Irish," said the other gently.

Vera laughed as she curled up in the bed and drew her sheet up to her chin.

"It's queer how people hate being called English--even Tam--"

"Look here, Vera," said her companion hotly, "just leave that young man alone. And please get all those silly, romantic ideas out of your head."

A silence--then,

"I'm going to write to him, to-morrow," said a sleepy voice, and the rapid fire of her friend's protest was answered with a well-simulated snore.

Tam received the letter by messenger.

"Dear Mr. Tam (it ran):

"I know that is your Christian name, but I really do not know your
other, so will you please excuse me? I am going into Amiens next
Friday and if you have quite forgiven me, will you please meet me
for lunch at the Cafe St. Pierre? And thank you so much for your
very clever verse."

"'Vera Laramore,'" repeated Tam. "A've no doot she's Scottish."

He trod air that week, literally and figuratively, for the work was heavy. The high winds which had kept the British squadrons to the ground, petered out to gentle breezes, and the air was alive with craft. Bombing raid, photographic reconnaissance and long-distance scouting kept the airmen busy. New squadrons appeared which had never been seen before on this front. The Franco-American unit came up from X, and did some very audible fraternizing with what was locally known as "Blackie's lot," a circumstance which ordinarily would have caused Tam's heart to rejoice.

But Tam was keeping clear of the mess-room just now, and he either sent an orderly with his messages or waited religiously on the mat. As for the officers, he avoided them unless (as was often the case) they sought him out.

Brandspeth brought one of the new men over to his bunk the night the American contingent arrived.

"I want you to meet an American officer, Tam," he yelled. "Don't be an ass--open the door."

He was on one side of the locked door and Tam was on the other.

Tam turned the key reluctantly and admitted the visitors.

"A'm no' wishin' to be unceevil, Mr. Brandspeth, but Captain Blackie will strafe ye if he finds ye here."

"Rubbish! I want you to meet Mr. Laramore."

Tam looked at the keen-faced young athlete and slowly extended his hand.

"I think you know my sister," said the smiling youth, "and certainly we all know you."

He gave the pilot a grip which would have crushed a hand of ordinary muscularity.

"A've run up against the young lady in ma travels," said Tam solemnly.

Laramore laughed. "I saw her for a moment to-day and she asked me to remind you of your appointment."

"An appointment--with a lady? Oh, Tam!" said the shocked Brandspeth, producing from his overcoat pocket a siphon of soda, a large flask of amber-brown liquid and a bundle of cigars, and setting them upon the table. "Really, Tam is always making the strangest acquaintances."

"He never met anybody stranger than Vera--or better," said Laramore, with a little laugh. "Vera, I suppose, is worth a million dollars. She is a citizen of a neutral country. She can have the bulliest time any girl could desire, and yet she elects to come to France, drive a car over abominable roads which are more often than not under shell-fire, and sleep in a leaky old shack for forty cents a day."

Brandspeth was filling the glasses.

"You're a neutral, too--say when--I suppose you're not exactly a pauper and yet you risk breaking your neck for ten francs per. Help yourself to a cigar, Tam--I said a cigar."

"Try one o' mine, sir-r," said Tam coolly, and produced a box of Perfectos from under his bed; "ye may take one apiece and it's fair to tell ye A've coonted them."

They spent a moderate but joyous evening, but Tam, standing in the doorway of his "bunk," watched the figures of his guests receding into the darkness with a sense of depression. He had no social ambitions, he had no desire to be anything other than the man he was. If he looked forward to his return to civil life at the war's end, he did so with equanimity, though that return meant a life in soiled overalls amid the hum and clang of a factory shop.

He had none of that divine discontent which is half the equipment of Scottish youth. Rather did he possess ambition's surest antidote in a mild and kindly cynicism which stripped endeavor of its illusions.

It was on the Wednesday night after he had written a polite little note to the One Hundred and Thirty-first General Hospital accepting the invitation to lunch and had received one of Blackie's tentative permits to take a day's leave (Tam called them "D. V. Passes") that the blow fell.

"Angus," said Tam to his batman, "while A'm bravin' the terrors of the foorth dimension in the morn--"

"Is that the new scoutin' machine, Sergeant?" demanded the interested batman.

"The foorth dimension, ma puir frien', is a tairm applied by philosophers of the Royal Flyin' Coop to the space between France an' heaven."

"Oh, you mean the hair!" said the disappointed servant.

"A' mean the hair," replied Tam gravely, "not the hair that stands up when yeer petrol tank goes dry nor the hare yeer poachin' ancestors stole from the laird o' the manor, but the hair ye breathe when ye're no' smokin'. An' while A'm away in the morn A' want ye to go to Mr. Brandspeth's servant an' get ma new tunic. A'm going to a pairty at Amiens on Friday, an' A'm no' anxious to be walkin' doon the palm court of the Cafe St. Pierre in ma auld tunic."

"Anyway," said the batman, busily brushing that same "auld" tunic, "you wouldn't be walkin' into the Cafe St. Pierre."

"And why not?"

"Because," said the batman triumphantly, "that's one of the cafes reserved for officers only."

There was a silence, then: "Are ye sure o' that, Angus?"

"Sure, Sergeant--I was in Amiens for three months."

Tam said nothing and presently began whistling softly.

He walked to his book-shelf, took down a thin, paper-covered volume and sank back on the bed.

"That will do, Angus," he said presently; "ca' me at five."

The barriers were up all around--they had been erected in the course of a short week. They penned him to his class, confined him to certain narrow roads from whence he might see all that was desirable but forbidden.

* *