MR STANDFAST

PART I

1. The Wicket-Gate
2. 'The Village Named Morality'
3. The Reflections of a Cured Dyspeptic
4. Andrew Amos
5. Various Doings in the West
6. The Skirts of the Coolin
7. I Hear of the Wild Birds
8. The Adventures of a Bagman
9. I Take the Wings of a Dove
10. The Advantages of an Air Raid
11. The Valley of Humiliation

PART II

12. I Become a Combatant Once More
13. The Adventure of the Picardy Chateau
14. Mr Blenkiron Discourses on Love and War
15. St Anton
16. I Lie on a Hard Bed
17. The Col of the Swallows
18. The Underground Railway
19. The Cage of the Wild Birds
20. The Storm Breaks in the West
21. How an Exile Returned to His Own People
22. The Summons Comes for Mr Standfast



NOTE

The earlier adventures of Richard Hannay, to which occasional reference
is made in this narrative, are recounted in _The Thirty-Nine Steps_ and
_Greenmantle_.

J.B.





PART I



CHAPTER ONE

The Wicket-Gate

I spent one-third of my journey looking out of the window of a
first-class carriage, the next in a local motor-car following the
course of a trout stream in a shallow valley, and the last tramping
over a ridge of downland through great beech-woods to my quarters for
the night. In the first part I was in an infamous temper; in the second
I was worried and mystified; but the cool twilight of the third stage
calmed and heartened me, and I reached the gates of Fosse Manor with a
mighty appetite and a quiet mind.

As we slipped up the Thames valley on the smooth Great Western line I
had reflected ruefully on the thorns in the path of duty. For more than
a year I had never been out of khaki, except the months I spent in
hospital. They gave me my battalion before the Somme, and I came out of
that weary battle after the first big September fighting with a crack
in my head and a D.S.O. I had received a C.B. for the Erzerum business,
so what with these and my Matabele and South African medals and the
Legion of Honour, I had a chest like the High Priest's breastplate. I
rejoined in January, and got a brigade on the eve of Arras. There we
had a star turn, and took about as many prisoners as we put infantry
over the top. After that we were hauled out for a month, and
subsequently planted in a bad bit on the Scarpe with a hint that we
would soon be used for a big push. Then suddenly I was ordered home to
report to the War Office, and passed on by them to Bullivant and his
merry men. So here I was sitting in a railway carriage in a grey tweed
suit, with a neat new suitcase on the rack labelled C.B. The initials
stood for Cornelius Brand, for that was my name now. And an old boy in
the corner was asking me questions and wondering audibly why I wasn't
fighting, while a young blood of a second lieutenant with a wound
stripe was eyeing me with scorn.

The old chap was one of the cross-examining type, and after he had
borrowed my matches he set to work to find out all about me. He was a
tremendous fire-eater, and a bit of a pessimist about our slow progress
in the west. I told him I came from South Africa and was a mining
engineer.

'Been fighting with Botha?' he asked.

'No,' I said. 'I'm not the fighting kind.'

The second lieutenant screwed up his nose.

'Is there no conscription in South Africa?'

'Thank God there isn't,' I said, and the old fellow begged permission
to tell me a lot of unpalatable things. I knew his kind and didn't give
much for it. He was the sort who, if he had been under fifty, would
have crawled on his belly to his tribunal to get exempted, but being
over age was able to pose as a patriot. But I didn't like the second
lieutenant's grin, for he seemed a good class of lad. I looked steadily
out of the window for the rest of the way, and wasn't sorry when I got
to my station.

I had had the queerest interview with Bullivant and Macgillivray. They
asked me first if I was willing to serve again in the old game, and I
said I was. I felt as bitter as sin, for I had got fixed in the
military groove, and had made good there. Here was I--a brigadier and
still under forty, and with another year of the war there was no saying
where I might end. I had started out without any ambition, only a great
wish to see the business finished. But now I had acquired a
professional interest in the thing, I had a nailing good brigade, and I
had got the hang of our new kind of war as well as any fellow from
Sandhurst and Camberley.