Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 17: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE FOURTH CHUM, smuggled out of garrison in a cartload of laundry, and “ flogged” with a secondhand clothing merchant on the London road. There was a good civilian market for those box-toed iron-shod boots among paviors and plate layers. And the game was good for a lifetime, provided it was not worked with too great regularity, for the adjustment on the sol- dier’s pay book would not come for a year later, and what Tommy, with three thou- sand or more miles of ocean between him and Woolwich, could bring the matter home either to Scutt or to the lance corporal in the Q. M.? The only drawback was that there were too many fingers in it, so that in the end the batman who, through the medium of Bill, the pub keeper, attended to the selling end, got only a couple of bob for each pair, “It’s better than blankets,” went on the stranger with his big eyes still on the miser- able batman, “ or flogging stuff out of the cook house. God, the time you guys (“’E’s a Namerican,” thought the batman) will spend in working up some tiny graft - like that and think it’s big. But I can tell you there’s bigger game afoot, if you’re man enough to tackle it. “ Bill says you’re square with your pals and that you can keep your trap shut. But first I want you to understand two things— one is that I’m in earnest. Here’s that that says I am,” With a flash of his hand he produced a bank note, concealed from the string of Pay Corps soldiers at the bar, and held it for a moment so that the batman could see the ornamental figures on it. Then he slipped it under the flap of the soldier’s pocket. ; “Two hundred and fifty dollars,” said the stranger. “‘ Fifty pounds in your money. That’s for you. It ain’t a fake either. The second thing you’ve got to get through your head is that you’re to play square with me. I have enough on you to send you to college for a stretch, and these military prisons are hell, That’s clear now, ain’t it?”’ The batman swallowed hard. There had been a burst of the cold flame within him at the implied threat in the stranger’s voice, but when he thought of the fifty quid tucked away in his pocket the flame died down. | “There’s a thousand more where that came from,” said the stranger, “ if this thing goes through. There’s no danger in it for you, or for any of us, if it’s handled rights Are you one” Again the batman swallowed hard ar said: “I’d_ go to hell for the ’alf of it.” ‘“‘ Good,” answered the other, and drank again. When he set his glass down and wiped his lips with a spotted silk handker- chief, his face was earnest. The batman had a glimpse of the steel behind the brass, of the wolf behind the fox mask. “How long have you been in the sers vice?” “Since April, 1918.” | ““{ know. You were picked up on one of the last drafts. And you didn’t go to France for the reason that you paid the ser- geant major a quid to keep you off the draft. And you’ve stuck here ever since the war shining Angelsey’s boots. It’s an easy job. You just might have heard of a soldier named Richard Pearsl Have you? He died in garrison in Tina, 1918.” The batman dropped his eyes ann thought. “No. I-cawn’t say that I ’ave.” “It ain’t likely you would. He was in. Cambridge Barracks most of the time—he was a signaller. He’d been in the army since he was a kid, and I guess he was the first man in France in 1914. And Thomas Crill must have been the second. You re- member Crill, don’t you?” “ Crill,” mused the batman. ‘“ There’s somethink about that nyme. ae Ow, aye! ’E was drowned!” | “Yes. Swimming horses in some stink- ing pond over by the magazines. He and Pearsley were chums—had been ever since they went to the home for soldiers’ orphans. More like man and wife than two men, After Crill died Pearsley began to act queer —up to that time he’d been a model soldier, but all of a sudden he went plumb to hell, sassed the sergeant; overstayed his leave every time he got to London. “Finally they took him up one night after he’d come back a week overdue and put him in the clink. He never came out Gomrlehbooks.€o 643