Chapter 1

* A Distributed Proofreaders Canada eBook *

This eBook is made available at no cost and with very few restrictions.
These restrictions apply only if (1) you make a change in the eBook
(other than alteration for different display devices), or (2) you are
making commercial use of the eBook. If either of these conditions
applies, please contact an FP administrator before proceeding.

This work is in the Canadian public domain, but may be under copyright
in some countries. If you live outside Canada, check your country’s
copyright laws. IF THE BOOK IS UNDER COPYRIGHT IN YOUR COUNTRY, DO NOT
DOWNLOAD OR REDISTRIBUTE THIS FILE.

Title: Jim Maitland
Date of first publication: 1924
Author: Herman Cyril McNeile (“Sapper”) (1888-1937)
Date first posted: August 3, 2012
Date last updated: March 24, 2014
Faded Page eBook #20120801

This ebook was produced by: David T. Jones, Paul Ereaut, Al Haines & the
online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net

BOOKS BY “SAPPER”

(H. C. McNeile)

JIM MAITLAND
THE DINNER CLUB
THE BLACK GANG
BULL-DOG DRUMMOND
THE MAN IN RATCATCHER
MUFTI
THE HUMAN TOUCH
NO MAN’S LAND
MEN, WOMEN, AND GUNS
SERGEANT MICHAEL CASSIDY
THE LIEUTENANT AND OTHERS

HODDER & STOUGHTON LTD.
PUBLISHERS LONDON

* * * * *

JIM MAITLAND

BY
“SAPPER”
(H. C. McNEILE)

HODDER AND STOUGHTON LTD.

TORONTO LONDON NEW YORK

_Made and Printed in Great Britain._
_Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury._

Table of Contents

I. Raymond Blair–Drunkard
II. The Killing of Baron Stockmar
III. A Game of Bluff
IV. Colette
V. The Fight at Bull Mine Creek
VI. Pete Cornish’s Revenge
VII. The Madman at Corn Reef Lighthouse
VIII. The Seven Missionaries
IX. The Rottenness of Lady Hounslow
X. The Pool of the Sacred Crocodile
XI. An Experiment in Electricity
XII. Molly’s Aunt at Angmering

Foreword

The first time I heard Jim Maitland’s name mentioned was in the bar of a
P. and O. We were two days out of Colombo, going East, and when I
confessed my complete ignorance of the man a sort of stupefied silence
settled on the company.

“You don’t know Jim?” murmured an Assam tea-planter. “I thought everyone
knew Jim.”

“Anyway, if you stay in these parts long you soon will,” put in someone
else. “And once known–never forgotten.”

They fell into reminiscences of old times, and I was well content to
listen. Ever and anon Maitland’s name was mentioned, and gradually my
curiosity was aroused. And when one by one they went off to turn in,
leaving me alone with the tea-planter, I asked him point-blank for
further details.

He smiled thoughtfully, and took a sip of his whisky and soda.

“Ever been in a brawl, Leyton, with ten men up against you, and only the
couch keeping a fellow with a knife in the background from sticking it
into your ribs? Well, that’s Jim’s heaven, though he’d prefer it to be
twenty. Ever seen a man shoot the pip out of the ace of diamonds at ten
paces? Jim cuts it out by shooting round it at twenty. He’s long and
thin, and he wears an eyeglass, and rumour has it that once some man
laughed at that eyeglass.” The tea-planter grinned. “Take my advice and
don’t–if you meet him. It’s not safe. He’s got his own peculiar code of
morals, and they wouldn’t wash with an Anglican bishop. He never
forgives and he never forgets–but he’d sell the shirt off his back to
help a pal. Who he is and what he is I can’t tell you; whether it’s his
right name even I don’t know. And I’ve never asked; Jim doesn’t
encourage curiosity.”

“Yes–but what’s he _do_?” I asked as he finished.

“Do?” echoed the tea-planter. “Why, man, he lives. He lives: he doesn’t
vegetate like nine out of ten of us have to.”

With a short laugh he rose and finished his drink.

“Well–I’m turning in. That’s what he does, Leyton–he lives.”

The door closed behind him and for a while I sat on thinking. “He lives:
he doesn’t vegetate.” The words were running in my head, though the man
to whom they had been applied was only a name to me. Nine out of ten!
Ninety-nine out of a hundred would have been nearer the mark.

And since the doings of the one may be of passing interest to the ninety
and nine, I have ventured to put on record these random recollections.
For Fate decreed that I was to meet Jim Maitland, and eat with him, and
drink with him, and fight with him. Fate decreed that the man who was
only a name to me should become my greatest friend.

But for those who may read I have one word of warning. By the very
nature of things, when a man is a wanderer on the face of the earth, the
people he meets are here to-day and gone to-morrow. Maybe paths may
touch again: more likely it is that they do not. The bunch with whom one
drank at Shanghai and found good fellows one and all, disappear and are
no more seen–just lives that crossed for an instant never to touch
again. And so it must be in these pages. Across them will flit men and
women–only to disappear as suddenly as they came. To-day, as I write,
they may be alive; they may be dead–I know not. MacAndrew, the Scotch
trader at Tampico: Count von Tarnim of the Prussian Guard: Colette of
the dancing hall in Valparaiso–where are they? How has life dealt with
them? Has Captain James Kelly got his poultry farm in Dorset? No: by
Jove! an U-boat got him in the war, and he went down with his flag
flying having pot-shots with a rifle at the submarine commander who had
shown himself on the conning-tower too soon. And does Jock Macgregor
still wander in strange seas cursing the Government for his inadequate
pay? As I said before, I know not. Which is why those who may read will
not know either.

I. _Raymond Blair–Drunkard_

You probably do not know the Island of Tampico. I will go further and
say you have probably never even heard of the Island of Tampico. And in
many ways you are to be pitied. If ever there was a flawless jewel set
in a sapphire sea Tampico is that jewel. And because flawless jewels are
few and far between the loss is yours.