SHADOWS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 234, 2 October 1940, Page 17

SHADOWS.

SHORT STORY

T-HE city had been "blacked-out" since A the fall of the winter dusk. The principal streets in the shopping and business centres were liffhted in subdued fashion; but the "suburbs "and quieter residential parts were in a deep otygian gloom, unrelieved except for the dim illumination afforded by the occasional cowled street lamps and the dimmed headlight* of passing motors. The windows of the houses were shaded and silence prevailed. Buses rolled ponderously along at intervals and the electric bulbs in them gave an eerie bluish light. Hurrying pedestrians, looming out of the semi-gloom, almost collided with each other; and, then wheeling ba<-k for a second. cried, Sorry," or "Pardon," went their ways and were swallowed up in the allpervading darkness.

To little Julian Greene, wendin" his ivay homewards, these "black-oute" were i veritable curse—his bete noire—the >ane of his existence. "I wish to learen wo didn't have to have these black-outs/ '■ he muttered, gripping his >ak stick harder, as if to gain confilence from the feel of the hard wood, ind placing his left hand in the region >f his right inside pocket. He picked lis steps gingerly, nervously, like a man ivalking on a tight-rope. "Blast it!" he snarled weakly, almost flipping on the wet pavement. "It's •aininjr a-s well. Can't see where you're roing." A light drizzle had begun to fall. As he walked along in the direction )f the suburbs he darted quick, nervous >lances to right and left through the •ain-dimmed lenses of Us glasses. Julian jieene was a little man; and a very :imid little man, too. He wore a long raincoat and a large wide-brimmed felt hat. The face under the hat brim was round and red; the :heeks smoothly shaven. A neat brown moustache, with ends waxed to fine points made him. look like a dandy, which, of course, he wasn't.

As the little man approached the darker streets and avenues hie fears were reflected in his thoughts. Suppose he were held up and his wallet stolen? His wages, along with that bit of overtime pay? After all, anything could ha-ppen during one of these "black-outs." And he'd heard a few tales, too. . . .

It was very quiet here—like a city of the dead. . . . Julian pulled his collar up against the insidious drizzle of rain, gripped his stick, and endeavoured to step out briskly. Suddenly, turning a corner, he was almost knocked flat by a huge Alsatian dog. which strained forward, panting hard, at the end of a short chain held by a huge, jovial fellow who, bawling "Sorry" at the -scared and breathless Julian, fluug off into the murk and the rain at,the end of his big Alsatian.

Greene let go the railing that he had gripped to save himself from falling, and, with thudding heart, continued his hazardous journey.

'"Curse him and his brute of a dog!" he gritted. His hand involuntarily found his inside pocket again. Yes; the wallet with his money was safe. He drew a long breath. Xow, if only he had negotiated the_last fejv:. streets -which* lay ••'Between him and homerefuge—sanctuary from this '"black-out" and its attendant .terrors. Well, he hadn't much further to go. And then he could sit beside Jiis snug fire with a cup of hot tea and a cigarette and finish that book of crime stories he was reading.

By JOHN M. MADDOCK

The prospect cheered him so that momentarily he forgot his fears. As he turned down an alleyway, which was a short cut to his home*, little Julian hummed a snatch of "Hang Out Your Washing on the Siegfried Line." And then his heart almost stopped beating. N God! What was that?

The darkness here in the narrow passage was but dimly pierced by the light of a cowled lamp at the end furthest from Julian. Wild bloodchilling tenor gripped the little man. He was walking down the alleyway mechanically, his legs, as if they had an independent existence of their own, were still m motion.

Julian went hot at first and then an ice-cold dullness gripped him. His heart Iwgan to pound madly again. The man's eyee were fixed staringly on something—some figure lurking in a recess in the left-hand wall of the alley. Some ruffian waiting for him to draw level so that he could jump out and strike him down and rob him of his money—maybe kill him. Julian's breath. was suddenly dry with fear. His throat became constricted. His body broke out in a cold sweat.

"If I try to run back," his thoughts raced feverishly, "he'd have me before I had pone a few eteps." This idea of turning his back on the danger that lurked ahead gave Greene a strange prickly feeling between the shoulder blades. All the time he was moving slowly towards the motionless shadow.

Then, as if suddenly reaching an important decision, the little man tightened his fingers round the knob of his stick and continued up the alley. As he neared the nameless thing waiting there in the deeper gloom of the recess his walk quickened almost imperceptibly. He appeared to stare straight ahead. Drawing level with the lurking shadow, Julian suddenly wheeled sideways towards the recess and lashed out with the stick at this thing—man or devil—which threatened him. He put all the power in his body behind the blow, fear giving him an added strength. There wae a tremendous clanging noise that awoke the echoes in the confined space of the narrow passage. The little man felt as though his wrist were broken. A sharp tingling pain went from his numbed hand up to his shoulder-socket. "What the hell?" he gasped, dropping the heavy stick. The thing in the recess had not moved or friven any sign of life after that sudden clanging shriek. After a while, gaining courage, Julian peered shortsightedly into the gloom-filled recess. A long, thick drain-pipe leaned out at an angle from the wall. There was a large crack in the pipe where the stick had made contact. After staring owlishly, his lower lip sagging, the little man stooped to retrieve his stick. A quick, furtive look round. Xo; he was apparently alone, unobserved. Julian Greene scuttled up the alleyway, muttering to himself. '"B . . . to these 'black-outs'." The querulous voice died away in the darkness and the rain.

The alley was quiet again. Lying on the wet flags, underneath the cracked drain-pipe, was a slim, leather wallet. It had slipped from the little man's inside pocket when he stooped for hie stick. The long, groping finger of a searchlight probed the blackness of the night sky.

(Ttte End.)