The Pawns Count

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The Pawns Count

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Title: The Pawns Count
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THE PAWNS COUNT
BY
E. PHILLIPS OPPENHEIM
1918
FOREWORD
"I am for England and England only," John Lutchester, the Englishman,
asserted.
"I am for Japan and Japan only," Nikasti, the Jap, insisted.
"I am for Germany first and America afterwards," Oscar Fischer, the
German-American pronounced.
"I am for America first, America only, America always," Pamela Van
Teyl, the American girl, declared.

They were all right except the German-American.
CHAPTER I
Mefiez-Vous!
Taisez-Vous!
Les Oreilles Ennemies Vous Ecoutent!
The usual little crowd was waiting in the lobby of a fashionable
London restaurant a few minutes before the popular luncheon hour.
Pamela Van Teyl, a very beautiful American girl, dressed in the
extreme of fashion, which she seemed somehow to justify, directed the
attention of her companions to the notice affixed to the wall facing
them.
"Except," she declared, "for you poor dears who have been hurt, that is
the first thing I have seen in England which makes me realise that you
are at war."
The younger of her two escorts, Captain Richard Holderness, who wore
the uniform of a well-known cavalry regiment, glanced at the notice a
little impatiently.
"What rot it seems!" he exclaimed. "We get fed up with that sort of
thing in France. It's always the same at every little railway station and
every little inn. 'Mefiez-vous! Taisez-vous!' They might spare us over
here."
John Lutchester, a tall, clean-shaven man, dressed in civilian clothes,
raised his eyeglass and read out the notice languidly.
"Well, I don't know," he observed. "Some of you Service fellows--not
the Regulars, of course--do gas a good deal when you come back. I
don't suppose you any of you know anything, so it doesn't really
matter," he added, glancing at his watch.

"Army's full of Johnnies, who come from God knows where
nowadays," Holderness assented gloomily. "No wonder they can't keep
their mouths shut."
"Seems to me you need them all," Miss Pamela Van Teyl remarked
with a smile.
"Of course we do," Holderness assented, "and Heaven forbid that any
of us Regulars should say a word against them. Jolly good stuff in them,
too, as the Germans found out last month."
"All the same," Lutchester continued, still studying the notice, "news
does run over London like quicksilver. If you step down to the
American bar here, for instance, you'll find that Charles is one of the
best-informed men about the war in London. He has patrons in the
Army, in the Navy, and in the Flying Corps, and it's astonishing how
communicative they seem to become after the second or third cocktail."
"Cocktail, mark you, Miss Van Teyl," Holderness pointed out. "We
poor Englishmen could keep our tongues from wagging before we
acquired some of your American habits."
"The habits are all right," Pamela retorted. "It's your heads that are
wrong."
"The most valued product of your country," Lutchester murmured, "is
more dangerous to our hearts than to our heads."
She made a little grimace and turned away, holding out her hand to a
new arrival--a tall, broad-shouldered man, with a strong, cold face and
keen, grey eyes, aggressive even behind his gold-rimmed spectacles.
There was a queer change in his face as his eyes met Pamela's. He
seemed suddenly to become more human. His pleasure at seeing her
was certainly more than the usual transatlantic politeness.
"Mr. Fischer," she exclaimed, "they are saying hard things about our