One of the things which make life on this planet more or lessagreeable is the speed with which alarums, excursions, excitement, androws generally, blow over. A nine-days' wonder has to be a bigbusiness to last out its full time nowadays. As a rule the third daysees the end of it, and the public rushes whooping after some otherhare that has been started for its benefit. The guard-tent row, as faras the bulk of camp was concerned, lasted exactly two days; at the endof which period it was generally agreed that all that could be said onthe subject had been said, and that it was now a back number. Nobody,except possibly the authorities, wanted to find out the authors of theraid, and even Private Jones had ceased to talk about it--this owingto the unsympathetic attitude of his tent.
"Jones," the corporal had observed, as the ex-sentry's narrative ofhis misfortunes reached a finish for the third time since_reveille_ that morning, "if you can't manage to switch off thatinfernal chestnut of yours, I'll make you wash up all day and sit onyour head all night."So Jones had withdrawn his yarn from circulation. Kennedy's interest indetective work waned after his interview with Walton. He was quite surethat Walton had been one of the band, but it was not his business tofind out; even had he found out, he would have done nothing. It wasmore for his own private satisfaction than for the furtherance ofjustice that he wished to track the offenders down. But he did notlook on the affair, as Jimmy Silver did, as rather sporting; he hada tender feeling for the good name of the school, and he felt thatit was not likely to make Eckleton popular with the other schoolsthat went to camp if they got the reputation of practical jokers.
Practical jokers are seldom popular until they have been dead ahundred years or so.
As for Walton and his colleagues, to complete the list of those whowere interested in this matter of the midnight raid, they layremarkably low after their successful foray. They imagined thatKennedy was spying on their every movement. In which they were quitewrong, for Kennedy was doing nothing of the kind. Camp does not allowa great deal of leisure for the minding of other people's businesses.
But this reflection did not occur to Walton, and he regarded Kennedy,whenever chance or his duties brought him into the neighbourhood ofthat worthy's tent, with a suspicion which increased whenever thelatter looked at him.
On the night before camp broke up, a second incident of a sensationalkind occurred, which, but for the fact that they never heard of it,would have given the schools a good deal to talk about. It happenedthat Kennedy was on sentry-go that night. The manner of sentry-go isthus. At seven in the evening the guard falls in, and patrols thefringe of the camp in relays till seven in the morning. A guardconsists of a sergeant, a corporal, and ten men. They are on duty fortwo hours at a time, with intervals of four hours between each spell,in which intervals they sleep the sleep of tired men in theguard-tent, unless, as happened on the occasion previously described,some miscreant takes it upon himself to loose the ropes. The ground tobe patrolled by the sentries is divided into three parts, each ofwhich is entrusted to one man.
Kennedy was one of the ten privates, and his first spell of sentry-gobegan at eleven o'clock.
On this night there was no moon. It was as black as pitch. It isalways unpleasant to be on sentry-go on such a night. The mindwanders, in spite of all effort to check it, through a long series ofall the ghastly stories one has ever read. There is one in particularof Conan Doyle's about a mummy that came to life and chased people onlonely roads--but enough! However courageous one may be, it isdifficult not to speculate on the possible horrors which may springout on one from the darkness. That feeling that there is somebody--orsomething--just behind one can only be experienced in all its force bya sentry on an inky night at camp. And the thought that, of all thehundreds there, he and two others are the only ones awake, puts a sortof finishing touch to the unpleasantness of the situation.
Kennedy was not a particularly imaginative youth, but he lookedforward with no little eagerness to the time when he should berelieved. It would be a relief in two senses of the word. His beatincluded that side of the camp which faces the road to Aldershot.
Between camp and this road is a ditch and a wood. After he had been onduty for an hour this wood began to suggest a variety ofpossibilities, all grim. The ditch, too, was not without associations.
It was into this that Private Jones had been hurled on a certainmemorable occasion. Such a thing was not likely to happen again in thesame week, and, even if it did, Kennedy flattered himself that hewould have more to say in the matter than Private Jones had had; butnevertheless he kept a careful eye in that direction whenever his beattook him along the ditch.
It was about half-past twelve, and he had entered upon the lastsection of his two hours, when Kennedy distinctly heard footsteps inthe wood. He had heard so many mysterious sounds since his patrolbegan at eleven o'clock that at first he was inclined to attributethis to imagination. But a crackle of dead branches and the sound ofsoft breathing convinced him that this was the real thing for once,and that, as a sentry of the Public Schools' Camp on duty, it behovedhim to challenge the unknown.
He stopped and waited, peering into the darkness in a futile endeavourto catch a glimpse of his man. But the night was too black for thekeenest eye to penetrate it. A slight thud put him on the right track.
It showed him two things; first, that the unknown had dropped into theditch, and, secondly, that he was a camp man returning to his tentafter an illegal prowl about the town at lights-out. Nobody save onebelonging to the camp would have cause to cross the ditch.
Besides, the man walked warily, as one not ignorant of the danger ofsentries. The unknown had crawled out of the ditch now. As luck wouldhave it he had chosen a spot immediately opposite to where Kennedystood. Now that he was nearer Kennedy could see the vague outline ofhim.
"Who goes there?" he said.
From an instinctive regard for the other's feelings he did not shoutthe question in the regulation manner. He knew how he would feelhimself if he were out of camp at half-past twelve, and the voice ofthe sentry were to rip suddenly through the silence _fortissimo_.
As it was, his question was quite loud enough to electrify the personto whom it was addressed. The unknown started so violently that henearly leapt into the air. Kennedy was barely two yards from him whenhe spoke.
The next moment this fact was brought home to him in a very practicalmanner. The unknown, sighting the sentry, perhaps more clearly againstthe dim whiteness of the tents than Kennedy could sight him againstthe dark wood, dashed in with a rapidity which showed that he knewsomething of the art of boxing. Kennedy dropped his rifle and flung uphis arm. He was altogether too late. A sudden blaze of light, and hewas on the ground, sick and dizzy, a feeling he had often experiencedbefore in a slighter degree, when sparring in the Eckleton gymnasiumwith the boxing instructor.
The immediate effect of a flush hit in the regions about the jaw is tomake the victim lose for the moment all interest in life. Kennedy laywhere he had fallen for nearly half a minute before he fully realisedwhat it was that had happened to him. When he did realise thesituation, he leapt to his feet, feeling sick and shaky, and staggeredabout in all directions in a manner which suggested that he fanciedhis assailant would be waiting politely until he had recovered. As wasonly natural, that wily person had vanished, and was by this timedoing a quick change into garments of the night. Kennedy had thesatisfaction of knowing--for what it was worth--that his adversary wasin one of those tents, but to place him with any greater accuracy wasimpossible.
So he gave up the search, found his rifle, and resumed his patrol. Andat one o'clock his successor relieved him.
On the following day camp broke up.
* * * * *Kennedy always enjoyed going home, but, as he travelled back toEckleton on the last day of these summer holidays, he could not helpfeeling that there was a great deal to be said for term. He feltparticularly cheerful. He had the carriage to himself, and he had alsoplenty to read and eat. The train was travelling at forty miles anhour. And there were all the pleasures of a first night after theholidays to look forward to, when you dashed from one friend's studyto another's, comparing notes, and explaining--five or six of you at atime--what a good time you had had in the holidays. This was always apleasant ceremony at Blackburn's, where all the prefects were intimatefriends, and all good sorts, without that liberal admixture of weeds,worms, and outsiders which marred the list of prefects in most of theother houses. Such as Kay's! Kennedy could not restrain a momentarygloating as he contrasted the state of affairs in Blackburn's withwhat existed at Kay's. Then this feeling was merged in one of pity forFenn's hard case. How he must hate the beginning of term, thoughtKennedy.
All the well-known stations were flashing by now. In a few minutes hewould be at the junction, and in another half-hour back atBlackburn's. He began to collect his baggage from the rack.
Nobody he knew was at the junction. This was the late train that hehad come down by. Most of the school had returned earlier in theafternoon.
He reached Blackburn's at eight o'clock, and went up to his study tounpack. This was always his first act on coming back to school. Heliked to start the term with all his books in their shelves, and allhis pictures and photographs in their proper places on the first day.
Some of the studies looked like lumber-rooms till near the end of thefirst week.
He had filled the shelves, and was arranging the artistic decorations,when Jimmy Silver came in. Kennedy had been surprised that he had notmet him downstairs, but the matron had answered his inquiry with thestatement that he was talking to Mr Blackburn in the other part of thehouse.
"When did you arrive?" asked Silver, after the conclusion of the firstoutbreak of holiday talk.
"I've only just come.""Seen Blackburn yet?""No. I was thinking of going up after I had got this place doneproperly."Jimmy Silver ran his eye over the room.
"I haven't started mine yet," he said. "You're such an energetic man.
Now, are all those books in their proper places?""Yes," said Kennedy.
"Sure?""Yes.""How about the pictures? Got them up?""All but this lot here. Shan't be a second. There you are. How's thatfor effect?""Not bad. Got all your photographs in their places?""Yes.""Then," said Jimmy Silver, calmly, "you'd better start now to packthem all up again. And why, my son? Because you are no longer aBlackburnite. That's what."Kennedy stared.
"I've just had the whole yarn from Blackburn," continued Jimmy Silver.
"Our dear old pal, Mr Kay, wanting somebody in his house capable ofkeeping order, by way of a change, has gone to the Old Man andborrowed you. So _you're_ head of Kay's now. There's an honourfor you."
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