Mr. StandfastWhen Richard Hannay, the hero of The Thirty-nine Steps, is recalled by the Head of British Intelligence from the Western Front at a critical moment in the battle for France, he has little idea that his contribution to the war effort will be much more crucial than the command of his Brigade in Flanders. In his strange odyssey to unravel the most sinister of conspiracies 'to defeat the allies in the West' he travels from an idyllic manor house in the Cotswolds to a provincial Garden City where pacifism is the order of the day, through Scotland and London under attack, and thence back to the trenches, and the greatest battle of the First World War. There, amid the devastation and the squalor, he finds both love and a horrifying glimpse of chemical warfare before the thrilling dnoument in the skies above the battlefield. |
Contents
PART ONE I The Wicket Gate | 13 |
The Village Named Morality | 27 |
The Reflections of a Cured Dyspeptic | 41 |
Andrew Amos | 51 |
Various doings in the West | 65 |
The Skirts of the Coolin | 81 |
Hear of the Wild Birds | 95 |
The Adventures of a Bagman | 105 |
The Adventure of the Picardy Château | 162 |
Mr Blenkiron Discourses on Love and War | 173 |
St Anton | 191 |
Lie on a Hard Bed | 206 |
The Col of the Swallows | 216 |
The Underground Railway | 229 |
The Cage of the Wild Birds | 238 |
The Storm Breaks in the West | 245 |
Take the Wings of a Dove | 118 |
The Advantages of an Air Raid | 129 |
The Valley of Humiliation | 137 |
PART TWO 12 I Become a Combatant Once More | 149 |
How an Exile Returned to his own People | 259 |
The Summons Comes for Mr Standfast | 277 |
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