The Xmas Reckoning

Northern Advocate, 11 August 1938, Page 5

The Xmas Reckoning

iContinued from Tuesday last). “To-day ,1 sent little Dianne home to England. She will be safer there until I can return. It is good to feel there is someone, even a liny two-year-old mite, waiting for one in England. On this day. the eve of Chirstmas. I have forgotten the bitter planning against Veree. She is a clever girl and our enemy, but she has a kind heart and has given me back my little Dianne. My one wish is that thin Christmas may bring joy to her and The writing ended there, as if the writer had paused to think, and. lost in thought, had forgotten the little brown diary. Diana closed the book gently and gazed at it in perplexity. “Dianne." she mused. “It can't be me. and yet dad always did say he thought I was more French than English. but I wonder what it means? Who is Veree? I wonder "

Long ago, it dated back twelve, thirteen years or more ago at headquarters in the picturesque French town of Lorraine. Captain Carruthcrs. tall-broad-shouldered, every inch a soldier, stood at the station with Iris superior.

“Very best luck, captain. The plans you are taking to Marseilles are more important than you think. If they should get into the enemy’s hands, you must guard against that girl—the ‘spy’ Garruthers. She is the deadly enemy we must fight. You have brains to match hers—then fight to win. and —and good luck.”

The whistle sounded. The two man shock hands. Next; minute Carruthers had commenced the long, weary trip to Marseilles.

All that night he travelled, sitting warm and comfortable in the “smoker,” and it was not until next morning at breakfast that he caught a first glimpse of the girl spy he had been warned of. He was having coffee, thinking of the important plans even then reposing in the lining of his vest

when he saw her—a slight, dark girl of not more than 20. She was seated at a table across the carriage gazing earnestly at him with her dark eyes. Carruthers felt a thrill—a vague sense of uneasiness. He knew then with a certainty that was unnatural that he was looking at the cleverest spy in the German employ—-the one person of whom ho must beware. (To be continued).