The Adventures of Hiram Holliday Read Online Free PDF Page A

heads...
    He quoted the talk in restaurant and pub and hotel, the gallant talk of the people who could not get away: 'A direct hit, and of course you're gone.... Madrid has been bombed for two years ... and look at Barcelona.... The shops are all out of gas-proofing material.... Thank God my wife and children got away to the country ... have you any idea of what a 500-pound demolition bomb can do ? They won't use gas.... It's the incendiary bombs ... little ones no bigger than your head.... They'll fire a square block. Sand doesn't do any good.... What have they done about the British Museum ?
    T he stuffin there is priceless. And he told simple stories of service and gallantry.
    He wrote as though he would burst if he did not. He drew the groaning city and its doom-ridden people through the mill of his machine and splashed the grindings in hot and brilliant colours on his paper.
    When he had finished he threw the sheets on the Bureau Manager's desk, and said: 'File that! Or spike it. I don't care. I've done it.' He put on his hat and coat and went out. The Bureau Manager and Jonas looked at one another and Jonas made the wheel motion around his temple. The Bureau Manager glanced at the sheets out of curiosity, and then said suddenly to his assistant: 'Hey ... c'mere....'
    How Hiram Holliday Met a Girl Named Heidi and Became an Adventurer
    At nine o'clock that evening, Hiram Holliday went into Green Park opposite Piccadilly. It was threatening to rain, and he wore a mackintosh and carried his umbrella rolled and crooked over his arm. He was sensitive to wettings and colds.
    There were others there, too, to watch the workmen reaming the wonderful old turf with their spades and mattocks, and throwing up the earth from their hurried entrenchment. They were working by the light of smoking yellow flares that gleamed from the shovels that were raised in a sort of slow rhythm from the gash in the ground. Hard by were piles of timber and scantlings. The flares were planted close by the trench work, and beyond were the deep shadows of the park. London was already experimenting with the protection of darkness.
    The people stood quietly in huddled groups and Holliday could hear them murmuring to one another: 'Lot o' good that'll do ... think that's big enough for you to get into, Bert ? ... I 'ere they've blocked up the tube, the part that runs under the river. What misses the 'ouses of Parliament will likely land in the river and smash the tubes.... Gord 'elp them that lives in Lambeth. That's too near the Government 'ouses....'
    The long, thin fingers of many searchlights were stroking the under side of the coppery roof of the sky. Tomorrow was to be the deadline for the troops to march. Holliday looked about him at the groups of people and the individuals. Were there to be dead amongst these ? He found himself like the others craning his neck into the sky. But when he heard a sudden movement near him he turned in that direction to see a girl standing a few feet away. In the darkness he could note no more than that her hair was pale. She was hatless, and when the damp wind threw a flare-flame in her direction, it shimmered. She wore a cape that fell from her shoulders to her ankles and was thrown back at the throat. And as he watched her he saw her slowly raise both her fists and shake them at the sky, and heard her say so clearly and deeply and thrillingly that it was almost like an actress speaking her lines:
    'I am not afraid. I am not afraid of all of you.'
    It moved something in Hiram Holliday so that he heard himself cry: 'Bravo! Bravo! Bluff and blackmail. Bravo ?'
    The girl turned a startled face to him, and she was lovely. But she saw only a stoutish, round-faced man not far from middle age wearing steel-rimmed spectacles, the collar of his mackintosh turned up and a rolled up umbrella over his arm, and so she smiled a little, shyly.
    'Forgive me,' said Hiram Holliday'I ... I am afraid I
    was carried away by the one brave