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Suddenly, when the first advancing particles of dust reached him, almost making him sneeze, Tom caught sight of the rider. He was a man of middle age, and he was clinging to the handle-bars of the machine. The motor was going at full speed. Tom quickly turned to one side, to avoid the worst of the dust. The motor-cyclist glanced at the youth, but this act nearly proved disastrous for him.
The roadway was thronged with red-faced men and women; and flocks of sheep, herds of cattle and pigs, provided the motor-cyclist with a severe probation to the nerves. With much risk to myself, and not a little to other people, I emerged from this place of danger and joyfully swept over the bridge into the broad highway beyond the town.
Voles was in such a desperate hurry that he did not pay heed to his steering, and nearly ran over a motor-cyclist coming in hot haste to East Orange. The rider, a young man, pulled up and used language. He heard Polly, panting and shrieking, running toward him. "Good gracious, Miss Barnard, what's the matter?" he cried, for Polly was pretty enough to hold many an eye. "Is that you, Mr. Petch?
"Tea" placards nestling among the roses and ivy on the cottage walls also testify its attractions to holiday wayfarers, though the way to Litlington, even for the motor-cyclist, is too strenuous for the village to become overcrowded or vulgar.
He took his eyes from the road ahead for just a moment, and he did not see a large stone directly in his path. His front wheel hit it, and the heavy machine, which he could not control very well, skidded over toward the lad on the bicycle. The motor-cyclist bounced up in the air from the saddle, and nearly lost his hold on the handle-bars. "Look out!" cried Tom. "You'll smash into me!"
"They expect us to move up to-night, sir," I told the colonel, handing him the order brought by a motor-cyclist despatch-bearer about eight o'clock. "Oh!" said the colonel and the "Oh!" was a chef-d'oeuvre of irony. Then he wrote a masterly little note, perfect in its correctness, and yet instinct with the power and knowledge of a commander who had a mind of his own.
The racing motor-cyclist and I were passed one after another, and, receiving warrants, we travelled down to Fulham. Our names, addresses, and qualifications were written down. To my overwhelming joy I was marked as "very suitable." I went to Great Portland Street, arranged to buy a motor-cycle, and returned home. That evening I received a telegram from Oxford advising me to go down to Chatham.
For there is order in everything, and particularly in German gunnery. Lastly, he does not race along with nose on handle-bar. That is a trick practised only by despatch riders who are rarely under fire, who have come to a strange and alarming country from Corps or Army Headquarters. The experienced motor-cyclist sits up and takes notice the whole time.
Immediately the little man heard the voice of command he halted, stood almost to attention, and choked out, "But they're shelling us" then, without another word he turned off across the fields and safely reached cover. In the ditch we were comfortable if confined, and I was frightened when the order came down, "Pass the word for the motor-cyclist."
So I went in and settled to take one of the artillery motor-cycles and deliver the rest of my quite unimportant despatches. It would not start. We worked for twenty minutes in the rain vainly, then a motor-cyclist turned up from the nearest brigade to see what had become of me, the progress of the post is checked over the wire.
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