Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 27: what you’re looking at

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

, THE FOURTH CHUM. cover vu. it he would try for an escape over the wall. He lay down, for his head was ham- mering, and he felt that his eyes were bloodshot. He tried to lie still, but his body would shake, and red, dripping visions would swim across the blank wall. He had heard that in China condemned men were put to death by slicing. God help the major if he ever had him chained. Then it would be the Yank, and then Cap- tain Angelsey, and then the dining hall bombardier. If he had got to France, he would have put one of those cocky subalterns where he belonged; many a man had done it. There was another man in the garrison whom he had met at a canteen; he, too, had a drop of dark blood in him, and there had been a current of understanding between them at first sight. This chap had done it. He had told him in whispers of how he had got a sergeant major in the back just as they went over the top. He knew of another, too, who had been pushed under a railway train. The batman had sat still, listening, while something within him awoke at the whis- pered retailing of horrors. ‘“‘ Gawd!” he said to himself as he rolled on his face to shut out the dim, bloody shapes that drifted between him and the wall. “Tl show them, if I get the chawnce!” He lay quiet until he heard the trum- peter bringing in the tea buckets; then he got up and waited for the opening of his door. With his bowl and slices of bread in his hand, he went out into the empty ex- ercise yard, and his first glance was at the coal pile. Some one had been across and had heaved over more contraband chunks, and the pile was higher. Still it would take more agility than he had ever shown before to make the run and the leap that would take him over. He drank his tea and watched the light darken as the mist thickened with the com- ing of the night. Gas tips began to flare in the main barrack building. He waited until it was near time for him to return to his cell, then arose, took a “short run across the yard, mounted the pile 653 and leaped for the coping. It was the su- preme physical effort of his life; his fingers caught, and he hung for a moment, then he sung one of his legs up and got an arm over. After that it was easy. He lay along the top and looked down into the gloomy cavern of the coal yard. It was empty, but the big red gate was shut, and not only barred but locked. Through a barred win- dow, dim with coal dust, flared a tiny gas tip, and the glow of a fire reddened the bars. That was a tiny office where the old soldier in charge of the coal lived and pad- ded out his eighteen bob a week by the income from an _ illicit distribution of fuel. It was well known that he was open to a bribe, but there were queer turns in the characters of these old ones. Sometimes they would take a shilling for a share in some other man’s coal, and at other times ‘they would curse and damn as if they were recording angels. The batman let himself down onto the coal pile and gained the ground as quietly as he could. In spite of his catlike move- ments a small avalanche of fuel poured down behind him, and he quickly picked up one or the half dozen wicker baskets lying at the foot of the coal pile and filled it. Then he walked through the low door into the soldier’s bunk. The old man dozed by the grate. On the hob was a pot of tea and a herring bubbling in a shallow pan of water. He waked up as the batman entered, | and the latter cursed himself for making as much noise as he had; otherwise he might have tiptoed by the old man without waking him. The soldier sat up straight ‘and stared at the escaped prisoner out of a popping blue eye. He arose. “Ow did you get in ’ere?” - “ Through the big door.” The old man peered out into the gloom. “It’s closed.” “IT know, old chum. I closed it.” The batman felt the flame rising in him. He placed a shilling on the table, and said: “This is for R Battery office. The big ‘door was open a crack. It’s a good job I Eomichbooks.c¢ com