United States or Eswatini ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Possibly he may have fluked upon the remedy by removing O'Brien, and if the island of Ransay gives no more trouble for the rest of this war, it will certainly look as though he had. But in that case he will have been uncommon lucky, because he seems to me to have overlooked or dismissed practically everything significant. Take, for instance, the actual words used by my oilskinned friend.
Then I heard him cough, as he always did, when the cigarette was lighted and the first inhalation of smoke flushed his lungs. At twelve-fifteen, in the midst of Conrad's delightful chapter, "The Weight of the Burden," I heard Mr. Pike come along the hall. Stealing a glance over the top of my book, I saw him go by, sea-booted, oilskinned, sou'westered.
Had I sat down behind that trellis-like wall as I intended, I shivered a little to think of my fate. I should have been shot at twelve inches range, and that would have been the end of my spy hunt. I began to realise that it was much longer odds on my being dead within the next forty-eight hours than on my getting on the traces of that oilskinned man.
We were a biscuit-toss away, and he sprang upon the rail at the jigger-shrouds and danced a war-dance and waved his free arm, and yelled his scorn and joy at their discomfiture to the several oilskinned figures on the stranger vessel's poop. Through the pitch-black night we continued to drive.
As an ally Jock did not impress me with a feeling of great confidence, while his failure to recognise my description of the oil-skinned man depressed me unreasonably. I told myself that the opinion of the parish idiot on the subject of strangers was of small value. Besides, quite likely the oilskinned man would not be a stranger to the people in the neighbourhood.
"Here, 'Morse, give us that new song of yours," said "Steve," as another oilskinned figure joined the group. "Morse" and "Steve" were our chief song writers. Each sat on a quarter six-pounder, one on the starboard, the other on the port. "I will, if you chaps will join in the chorus," answered "Morse." "No, thank you," he added, as some one handed him an imaginary glass.
There was enough light in the open door to silhouette a figure as it entered, and a moment later I saw for an instant quite distinctly the outline of that oilskinned man once more. And then for perhaps three long seconds he was lost in the gloom within and we only knew of his approach by the sound of his footsteps. Abruptly they stopped.
So I plunged straight into the tale of my first landing on Ransay and my adventure with the oilskinned man on the shore, and may I always have as attentive an audience when I tell a story. "So there is actually a German who dares to live on Ransay!" she exclaimed, her cheeks flushing a little. "A man whom I certainly took to be a German a man who talks German fluently."
Perhaps I might have been able to pull myself together had I chanced to fall in with that oilskinned figure again, but I thought at the moment I had become utterly useless and I felt inclined to throw myself down on the grass and go to sleep and forget everything. In fact I very soon should have, when I saw at last some farm buildings close ahead.
Even "Bill" was able to find voice enough to shout "Good!" and give "Morse" a resounding slap on his wet oilskinned shoulder. The song voiced our sentiments exactly, and cheered us a lot. None of us believed that "Our patrolling cruise would soon be o'er," however, and hardly a man would have taken his discharge had it been offered to him that moment.
Word Of The Day