THE MESSAGE.

Otago Witness, Issue 4042, 1 September 1931, Page 73

THE MESSAGE.

By

Pearkes Withers.

(Copyeight.—For the Otago Witness. ) We thought it was a policeman rapping at the back door! ‘ If it had happened earlier in the evening it might, of course, have been Barnes, or anybody, but at the unearthly hour of 10 p.m. We could think only of the policeman—our policeman —the one who always comes down the lane with his dog and his stick and his little electric torch just as we are ordinarily going to bed, and who sometimes calls to warn us, in a friendly way, that we are showing too much light under the Defence of the Realm Act and the window curtains. You see, on our hill we are so remote from street lamps, picture palaces, and other excuses for turning night into day, that early hours are the rule and nocturnal visitors the exception.

As it chanced, we were not in bed, or even preparing for bed. The Perrys had elimbed up to us from the valley early in the afternoon, and they were in themiddle of trying to decide whether they would stay to supper or go home without it to save time, when the rapping began. “Are our lights all right?” anxiously inquired my wife. “Quite all right,”.! assured her. “I expect he’s only thirsty to-night.” Then I opened the back door—and it wasn’t the policeman! 'lt was Barnes! It’s tedious having to explain'everything, but Barnes lives at the lodge which guards our little colony of rougheast cottages. He does odd jobs for all of us, while his wife stays at home to sell the sort of things we run out of most frequently, and to take telephone messages on our behalf. What we should do without Barnes andfhis wife and the lodge, I don’t know, because the nearest shop is nearly two miles away. We find the telephone at the lodge a very .useful link with life as lived elsewhere, .-and pay Barnes twopence for every message he brings to us. , “Why, it’s Barnes!” I exclaimed in astonishment. Whereupon my wife and Mr and Mrs Perry promptly surged into the kitchen because the back door opens into it. “ What’s the matter, Barnes? ” I queried. “ Everything, sir,” replied our visitor. His little eyes were bulging with suppressed excitement. “ A telephone message has come through for you from the volunteers. Will you please hold yourself in readiness!” lam a member of the V.T.C.; I have been one for the past nine months; but, as far as I can gather, I am not regarded by our officer commanding as a success. Indeed, even I am not at all satisfied with my military capacity’. What on earth could the V.T.C. want with me at 10 o’clock at night? It wasn’t even a drill night! "In readiness for what? ” I demanded, while Perry grinned at me, because he is a mernber of a London V.T.C. and is far more efficient than I shall ever be. “ That was all the message, sir,” replied Barnes. “ But I’ve just got back from the village, and the excitement down there is simply awful. They say there’s a big battle on at the Front; the German fleet is out; they’re expecting an invasion; and the zeppelins are over! ” Invasion—that was it, of course. That was the only thing they could possibly want me for; though what I personally could do with an invasion I hadn’t even the ghost of a notion. It is an awful word, “ Invasion ”; especially when you hear it from the lips of Barnes in our kitchen at ten o’clock at night. I looked at my wife, and my wife looked terrified. I looked at Barnes, and his eyes were bulging worse than ever. “ With all this happening at once,” I said, “ I expect you’d like a drop of whisky.” “ Thank you very much, sir, I should! ” he fervently agreed. I don’t drink whisky myself in the ordinary way, but Perry does, and I felt that it was not the time to be fastidious. So we men had a stiff peg each. Barnes drank his after saying, “My best respects, sir,” while Perry facetiously toasted, “To-night’s the night!” Our wives went on looking horrified; we forgot to ask them if they were thirsty. “ I expect my battalion has sent a wire to me,” said Perry. “We ought really to go home and see, Norah.” “Oh, Bert!” exclaimed his wife.

“ Why not w’ait here and see if another message comes for me,” I suggested. " Then you’ll know for certain.” “ Yes, but I’ve got to get my uniform on, you fool,” he reminded me.- “We ought to be going. Pity we didn’t go before!”

“ Well, I hope I won’t have to turn out with any other message for you tonight, sir,” remarked Barnes. “ Anyway, I’ll be getting along now.”

Perry began to discuss with me the “means that would be adopted to repel the invaders. He expressed the opinion that we should not be sent into the trenches we hail been digging in the neighbourhood for months past, but should be carried off by train to the East Coast.

“What will you do for food?” asked my wife. “ Take it with us in our haversacks, of course,” he replied. “We should be expected to take two days’ rations with us at least.”

This simple statement opened up all sorts of larder problems for our respective housewives, and while the problems were being tackled I suddenly remembered Ritchie, and decided that he ought to be warned.

Now Ritchie lives at Bay Tree Cottage, and I know he would be in bed; but as he is a soldier I felt sure the authorities ought to want him if they wanted Perry and myself, even though he is a Grade 111. man, and has had to abandon a big business of his own to become an Array clerk. So I left Perry to look after the girls and rushed round. -

The ground floor was in darkness, but .a dim light was visible in the Ritchies’ bedroom. So I groped my way on to a convenient flower-bed and yelled “Tess!” (it was of no use yelling “Frank!” because Ritchie is as deaf as a post in one ear and always buries the other one in his pillow). Mrs Ritchie came to the window and I told her, in an unaccountable breathless way, of the news Barnes had brought us. “My!” she gasped. And then: “I’m not surprised. It’s the last throw! That’s what it is—the last throw! Frank, Frank!” She returned to the window after a while to say that Ritchie was awake and was trying to find his week-end leave paper to see whether it contained any emergency instructions. “ I can’t stop,” I explained. “ I’m just going to have supper, in case I have to leave home.” “ Well, I’m catching my death here,” she said. “ Come back if anything fresh happens, won’t you ? ” When I got back Perry and his wife and my wife were all pretending to eat, so I sat down and pretended with them. “We haven’t really felt this war yet,” was Perry’s remark. “ I’ve always said that one night it might come knocking on our front door. To-night it has come and knocked.” “ In a literal sense you’re wrong,” I said. “It was Barnes who knocked, and he knocked at the back door.” Nothing fresh having happened by the time we had tired of toying with our knives and forks, Perry and I wandered round to see if Ritchie were up yet, while Mrs Perry was getting herself and the baby ready.We were hovering irresolutely without the gate when we heard footsteps descending the hill, and presently who should approach but our own policeman, with his dog and his stick and his little electric torch. “ Good evening, sergeant,” I greeted him. “ You’re very late to-night.” “ Ah, and so are you, sir,” he retorted. “ We had a bit of a scare, like, and I was late starting.” I told him all about Barnes and the message he had brought to me, and I asked him what he thought of it. “ Well,” he said with a chuckle, “ there’s been plenty of fighting on the Western Front for the last two and ahalf years, and that’s that! As for the German fleet being out, I’ve heard plenty of rumours, but I don’t know any more than you do. As to the Zepps being over, the scare we had that I mentioned was a telephone message from headquarters. ‘Take Zeppelin action!’ but that was nearly two hours ago, and within half an hour of getting it we had the ‘AH clear!’ signal, consequence o’ which I reckon it wasn’t nothing more than a seaplane at worst. If I was you, sir, I should just pop back to bed, which is where I should very much like to be myself.” At this moment a little light appeared on the crest of the hill, and we heard the sound of wheels. It was Mrs Perry with the baby in his basinette. And presently our policeman was striding off towards the valley in company with the Perry family, while I was scurrying home with a light heart. The perils of the night had passed, and I was in haste to relieve my wife’s feelings.