As the Captain’s heavy cavalry stride shakes Nixey’s roof, the upright, lightly-built soldierly figure in khaki turns and comes towards him, giving the binoculars in charge to the Sergeant-Major of Irregulars, who is his orderly of the day.

“I want a word with you, Wrynche.  Rawlings will take the glasses.  Come in here under cover.”

He leads the way.  The cover is a canvas shelter, perhaps a protection from the blazing sun, but none at all from shell and bullets.  There are a couple of wooden chairs under its flimsy spread and a little table.  The Chief sits down astride on one of the chairs, accepts a cigar from Captain Bingo’s enormous crocodile-leather case, and says, as the first ring of blue smoke goes wavering upwards: 

“You’ll be glad to know that Monboia’s Barala runner has got through with good news for you.”  The last two words are rather strongly emphasised.  “Just before dawn and after Beauvayse relieved you at Staff Bombproof South.”

Captain Bingo swallows violently, runs a thick finger round inside his collar, and his big face goes through several changes of complexion, ranging from boiled suet-dumpling paleness to beetroot red.  He looks away and blinks before he says in a voice that wobbles: 

“Then my wife’s all right?”

“Lady Hannah and her German attendant, as far back as the day before yesterday, when Monboia’s man saw them, were in the enjoyment of excellent health.”

“Poof!” Captain Bingo blows a genuine sigh of relief, and the latent lugubriousness departs from him.  “Good hearing.  I’ve had call it hippopotamus on the chest this two months, and you’ll about hit the mark.  Uncertainty and suspense get on a man’s nerves, in the long-run.  Bound to.  And never a word the deuce a line all these  Poof!” He blows again, and beams.  The Colonel, watching him out of the corner of one keen eye, says, with a twitching muscle in the cheek that is turned away from him: 

“My good news being told, I have a slice of bad for you.  But first let me make an admission.  Since Nixey’s pony pulled Nixey’s spider out of Gueldersdorp with Lady Hannah and her maid in it, I have had three communications from your wife.”

“You’re pullin’ my leg, sir, ain’t you?” queries Bingo doubtfully.

“Not a bit of it.”

In confirmation of the statement he takes out a shabby pocket-book, fat with official documents, and, unstrapping it, selects three, and hands them to Bingo.  They are flimsy sheets of tissue-paper covered with spidery characters in violet ink, and Bingo, taking them, recognises the handwriting, and is, as he states without hesitation, confoundedly flabbergasted.

“For they are in my wife’s wild scrawl,” he splutters at last.  “How on earth did they reach you, sir?”

“The first was brought in by a native boy who said he belonged to the kraals at Tweipans, says the Chief.  Boiled small and stuffed into a quill stuck through his ear in the usual way.  He trumped up a glib story about his cow having been killed and his new wife beaten by Brounckers men, and his desire to be revenged, and oblige the English lady whod been kind to him

“Umph!  Native gratitude don’t run to being skinned alive with sjamboks not much!” the other comments.  “Chap must have been lyin’, or a kind of nigger Phoenix.”

“Exactly.  So I couldn’t find it in my heart to part with him.  He’s on the coloured side of the gaol now, with two others, who subsequently landed in with the documents you have in hand there.”

“Am I to read ’em?” Bingo queries.

His commanding officer nods, with the muscle in his lean cheek twitching.

“Certainly.  Aloud, if you’ll be so good.”

Bingo reads, with haltings on the way, for the tissue sheets stick to his large fingers, which are damp with suppressed agitation: 

  “HAARGROND PLAATS,
  “NEAR TWEIPANS,
  “October 30th.

  “To the Colonel Commanding Her Majesty’s Forces in
  Gueldersdorp.

“SIR, I beg to report myself arrived at the above address, twelve miles distant from the head laager of the Boer Commandant, General Brounckers.  I have to inform you that an attack will be made on Maxim Kopje South by a large force of the enemy with guns in the beginning of November.

  “I have the honour to be,
  “On Secret Service,
  “Yours most obediently,
  “H.  WRYNCHE.”

Bingo stares blankly at his Chief, the sheets of crumpled tissue wavering between his thick, agitated fingers.

“I got that letter exactly a week after the attack had been made and successfully resisted,” says the Colonel’s dry, quiet voice.  “Read the four lines in a different hand and ink, that are underlined at the bottom, and tell me what you think of ’em.”

Bingo obeyed, and read: 

    “Lady’s information perfectly correct.  We hope this
    intelligence will reach you in time to be useful.

“I have the honour to be, “P.  BLINDERS, “Acting-Secretary to General “Brounckers.”

“By the Living Tinker!” exploded Bingo.

“Don’t be prodigal of emotion,” the Colonel’s quiet voice warns the excited husband.  “There are two more letters following.  Read ’em in the proper sequence.  That one with the inky design at the top, that might be the pattern for a pair of fancy pyjamas that’s the next.”

Bingo reads as follows: 

  “KINK’S HOTEL,
  “TWEIPANS,
  “November 28th.

  "To the Colonel Commanding H. M. Forces in Gueldersdorp.

“SIR, I beg to report myself arrived at Tweipans.  I have the honour to enclose herewith a sketch-plan of the village and the disposition of General Brounckers’ laager.  Trusting you may find it useful,

  “I have the honour to be,
  “On Secret Service,
  “Yours most obediently,
  “H.  WRYNCHE.”

The sarcastic P. Blinders had appended an italicised comment: 

“His Honour considers the above sketch-plan remarkably faithful.  The building next the Gerevormed Kerk, indicated by an X, is the gaol.  Comfortable cells at your disposal, which we are keeping vacant.

  “P.  BLINDERS.”

D-a-a

The Chief does not happen to be looking Bingo’s way as the infuriated husband menaces with a large clenched fist an imaginary countenance attached to the conjectural personality of the sportive P. Blinders.

“Swear it will bring the blood down from your head,” advises the dry, quiet voice.  “But don’t tear up the papers! they’re too amusing to lose.”

“Amusin’!” growls Bingo, with smarting eyes, and a lumpy throat, and a tingling in his large muscles which P. Blinders, being out of reach, can afford to provoke.  “You wouldn’t think it amusin’, sir, if it were your wife, making herself a a figure of fun for those Dutch bounders to shy at.”

This is the third letter: 

  “December 23rd.

  “To the Colonel Commanding, Gueldersdorp.

“SIR, I have to report that the sortie you have planned to take place on the morning of the 26th, for the capture of the enemy’s big gun, is known to General Brounckers, and that the menaced position will be strengthened and manned to resist you.

  “Obediently,
  “H.  WRYNCHE.”

Underneath is the sarcastic comment: 

  “December 27th.

    “Nice if you had got this in time, eh?  And we wanted those
    boots and badges.

  “P.  B.”

“She got hold of a nugget that once, anyway,” says Captain Bingo, blowing his nose emphatically; “and by the Living Tinker! if it had reached us in time, we’d have saved a loss of twenty-one killed and stripped, and twenty-two wounded, and the stingin’ shame of a whippin’ into the bargain.”

“Perhaps,” says the Colonel, with a careworn shadow on the keen, sagacious face, and both men are silent, remembering an assault the desperate, reckless valour of which deserves to be bracketed in memory with the Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava, “If Defeat is ever shame, perhaps, Wrynche.  But if you could put the question to each of that handful of brave men sleeping side by side over there” he nods in the direction of the Cemetery, where the aftermath of Death’s red harvest has sprung up in orderly rows of little white crosses “they would tell you it can be more glorious than victory.”

“Of course, you’re right, sir.  I gather now what your bad news is,” says Bingo, who has been dejectedly rubbing his finger along the bristly edges of his sandy moustache, for a minute past.  “Judgin’ by the marginal annotations of this man Blinders brute I’d kick to Cape Town with pleasure my wife’s a prisoner in Brounckers’ hands?”

“An unconscious prisoner yes.  Give ’em their due, Wrynche.  I shouldn’t have credited ’em with the sense of humour they have displayed in their dealings with her.”

If it were possible for Bingo to grow redder in the face, one would say that he has done so, as he bursts out, in a violent perspiration, striding up and down over Nixey’s sheet-leaded roof.

“Confound their humour!  It’s the humour of tom-cats playin’ with a a dashed little silly dicky-bird.  It’s the humour of aasvogels watchin’ a shot rock-rabbit kick.  It’s the humour of the battledore and the shuttlecock.  And I’m the dicky-bird’s mate and the bunny’s better-half, and the other shuttlecock of the pair, and may I be blessed if I can take it smilin’!” He mops his scarlet and dripping face, and puffs and blows like a large military walrus on dry land.

“Perhaps you’ll manage a smile when you’ve read this?”

Bingo stops in his stride, wheels, and receives an official document on blue paper.  Under the date of the previous day, it runs as follows: 

  “HEAD LAAGER,
  “TWEIPANS,
  “January  th.

  “To the Colonel Commanding the British Forces in
  Gueldersdorp.

“SIR, In reply to your communication I am instructed by General Brounckers to inform you that our prisoner, the Englishwoman who came here in the character of a German drummer’s refugee-widow to act as your spy, will be exchanged for a free Boer of the Transvaal Republic, by name, Myjnheer W. Slabberts, who is at present confined under the Yellow Flag in Gueldersdorp gaol.  The exchange will be effected by parties under the White Flag at a given point North-East between the lines of investment and defence one hour before Kerk-time to-morrow, being the Sabbath.

  “I have the honour to be yours truly,

  “P.  BLINDERS,
  “Acting-Secretary to General
  “Brounckers.”

    P.S. The young lady of German extraction who accompanied
    the Englishwoman has entered into an engagement to remain
    here.

  “P.  B.”

“P.SS. The engagement is with yours truly, the young lady having conformed to the faith of the Gerevormed Kerk.  We are to be married next Sunday.  Would you like us to send you some wedding-cake?

  “P.  B.”

Blinders has certainly had the last dig, but his principal victim fails this time to wince or bellow under the point of his humour.  With his big face changing from red to white, and from white to crimson half a dozen times in as many seconds, Captain Bingo says, refolding the paper and returning it with a shaky hand: 

“Then she she

A lump in his throat slides down and sticks.

“Gerevormed Kerk-time is eleven o’clock.”  The Colonel looks at his shabby Waterbury, as the brisk clatter of cantering horse-hoofs breaks up the Sabbath stillness of the Market Square, and an orderly, leading an officer’s charger, halts before Nixey’s door.  “The B.S.A. escort, with their man, are due to leave the gaol in ten minutes’ time.  Here’s your orderly with your mount, and you’ve eight minutes to change in.”

“One minute, sir,” Captain Bingo utters with an effort.  “This man this Slabberts is a well-known spy a trump card in Brounckers’ hand, or he wouldn’t be so anxious to get hold of him.  And therefore by this exchange and a woman’s dashed ambitious folly you may lose heavily in the end....”

“I don’t deny it.”  The haggard shadow is again upon the Colonel’s face, or is it that Bingo’s radiance dulls neighbouring surfaces by comparison?  “But don’t let the thought of it spoil your good hour.”  The smile in the eyes that have so many lines about them is kind, if the mouth under the red-brown moustache is stern and sorrowful.  “We don’t have many of ’em.  Off with you and meet her!”

Captain Bingo tries to say something more, but makes a hash of it; and with eyes that fairly run over, can only grip the kindly hand again and again, assuring its owner, with numerous references to the Living Tinker, that he is the most thundering brick on earth.  Then, overthrowing the small table and one of the chairs, he plunges down the narrow iron stairway to get into what he calls his kit.  Six minutes later, correct to a buckle and a puttee-fold, he salutes his commanding officer, nodding pleasantly to him from Nixey’s roof, and buckets down the street at a tremendous gallop, the happiest man in Gueldersdorp, with this shout following him: 

“My regards to Lady Hannah.  And tell her that the Staff dine on gee-gee at six o’clock sharp, and I shall be charmed if she’ll join us.”