You may also have heard how all American soldiers speak despisingly of England and boast that they have come in to finish the war. Some of these stories were more widely spread than others, but all of them fulfilled one excellent purpose—they brought annoyance to that ridiculous person, Major Haynes—the so-called Intelligence Officer, under whose nose the despised Heine worked so brazenly!
I do not pretend to know intimately the mentality of such men as Major Haynes. I confess it is difficult for a plain-thinking German, blunt and honest, to understand deceit for deceit sake (I justly absolve myself of all acts of deception performed on behalf of the Fatherland), or to lower his moral vision to the gutter wherein much slimy kultur flows.
To me, it is abhorrent that men should be so frivolous that they should engage themselves in despicable undertakings for wholly despicable reasons.
That such a stigma applies to Major, or Mister, Haynes, I can prove by his own words.
Some time after my last encounter with him, we met in a café in Fleet Street. I had gone in to drink a cup of coffee and smoke a cigar when the swing doors opened and I saw the somewhat drab and insignificant figure of Haynes enter. He walked in furtively, almost apologetically. How different, thought I, would have been the bearing of one of our German officers! He would have flung the door open with a crash and have stood erect with flashing eyes and haughty mien surveying the room ere he strode forward, his sword clanking with every movement of his big earth-trembling German feet.
Major Haynes came in timorously and seeing me came toward me. My throat went dry with hate, my hands shook with righteous anger and I felt myself go pale at the thought of his perfidy.
But there was nothing to be afraid of as his first words assured me.
“Good evening, Heine,” he said, “may I sit down with you?”
Here again, what a contrast to a major of the Highest German Staff! He would have ordered me to rise and go to the devil, and probably honoured me with a good German cuff of the ear!
“Certainly, Major Haynes,” I said, “this is indeed a pleasure I did not anticipate. May I order you some coffee?”
He nodded and I summoned the waiter.
“It is such a long time since we met,” I went on, “that I have almost despaired of seeing you again. I began to fear that you had been sent to the front.”
“I am afraid that must have given you some sleepless nights,” he said foolishly.
Why should this conceited hound imagine that his departure for the front would disturb my rest? Such arrogance!
“You may think I exaggerate,” I said earnestly, “but believe me, I have been much impressed by your personality——”
“It is curious you should have said that,” said Major Haynes, “for I was just on the point of remarking how much I had been impressed by your personality. You see, Heine,” he went on, noting, I trust, my modest surprise, “I have been watching you pretty closely (my blood ran cold) and I realize how utterly trustworthy you are and how different from other of the South American neutrals one meets. I always had an admiration for the Latin races and it is such a joy to meet a thorough-going South American with a German name, and especially one so whole-heartedly in favour of the Allies as yourself.”
“Major Haynes,” I said solemnly, “I have no interests but the interests of the Allies. If I could shoulder a musket to-morrow——”
“You would look very silly,” said Major Haynes crudely, ignorant of the fact that I was speaking in a figurative sense, because muskets are no longer carried even by the German-trained native troops of West Africa.
“Yes, I am sure you would fight, Heine, and I am certain it is only the fact that you have a wife and family, that you are the sole support of your ancient mother, and that you suffer from a weak heart, which prevent your flinging yourself joyously into the battle.”
I inclined my head with a certain quiet dignity.
“You are pleased to jest, Major Haynes, for being an Englishman you will have your joke, but I assure you in all seriousness that if ever I could render a service to the Allies you have but to command me.”
Major Haynes looked at me for a long time. It would be true to say that he stared very rudely before he spoke, but when he did speak his words shocked me.
“That is exactly what I want you to do,” he said slowly.
I was all attention, curious, and at the same time apprehensive. If he dared ask me to commit any action which would have injured my beloved land I should have first smacked his face and then shot myself, if I still lived.
“Command me,” I said coldly.
Major Haynes looked round, then he lowered his voice.
“The matter I am going to discuss,” he said, “is a delicate one. I want you to upset one of the cleverest gangs of spies we have had in this country, headed by a man who is without doubt the biggest genius in the German Intelligence Department.”
If I blush with gratification, even though those words of praise were from an enemy, can you blame me? If my pleasure overcame my fears, can you wonder?
“There is a man in England,” Major Haynes went on, “who is directing the real work of espionage. I am not referring to the hacks that Germany employs to send her weather news and reports on the effect of air-raids and movements of troops, but to the big gang, the men who work in the dark, who go after the big coups.”
I nodded again, not I trust with any evidence of self-complacence, but certainly in a spirit of pride, for I seemed to realize more of my importance to the state when I heard my work recounted in the cold and passionless language of a man whom I regarded at that moment as one of the most intelligent Englishmen I had ever met.
“They are the people we are anxious to get,” said Major Haynes, “and, I might add,” he said, “to shoot.”
I shivered, but hid my shiver in a laugh.
“Go on, dear Major Haynes,” I said, “you interest me.”
“I know the man I am after,” said Haynes. (I clutched at the table-cloth.) “But I have not been able to catch him. He has a dozen aliases, but his real name is Professor Zollernborn.”
“Zollernborn?” I said in astonishment.
I think it was at that moment that my quick German brain grasped the situation. Professor Zollernborn was in Berlin. The clever Major Haynes did not know that only that morning I had received instructions from the Herr Professor. I saw the trap plainly, but from my impassive face Major Haynes would never have known the rapid, lightning-like thoughts which were flashing and crackling in my brain.
It was a trap for Heine! Beware and walk warily, thou faithful servant of government! Match thy wits against this dull Englishman and put him in the soup!
“Indeed,” I said.
“I have reason to believe,” this so-called Intelligence Officer went on, “that a document of a very important character, which in some mysterious way recently disappeared for twenty-four hours from the papers of the Director-General of Recruiting, will be transmitted to Berlin—or rather a copy of that document which is in such a code that it cannot be forwarded by wireless.”
“In what way can I help you?” I asked, playing my part in the farce with admirable sang-froid.
Major Haynes leant back and thrust his hands in an ungentlemanly manner in his trousers’ pockets.
“I am going to put all my cards on the table, Heine, all except the ace,” he said. “It cannot have escaped your notice that you have been associated with people who have been very naturally the objects of suspicion. Two or three gentlemen with whom you have had dealings—in a perfectly innocent manner, I am sure—have paid the penalty for espionage. I know what you are going to say,” he said, checking my indignant protest with a shake of his head, “that you know nothing about their nefarious work? Quite right, I can believe it. But for some reason or other, Heine, they think, these enemies of the government, that you are favourably disposed to help them.”
“Then they make a very great mistake,” I said firmly, “and if they ask me to assist them I shall be extremely annoyed.”
He nodded.
“So I think. And yet they will ask you to assist them. The document in question will pass from hand to hand. Sooner or later it will fall into your possession and on the envelope will be the address of another agent to whom you will deliver it. It will probably be thrust into your pocket while you are walking along the street and somebody will whisper in your ear ‘Frieburg,’ which means, ‘you have something which must be passed on without delay.’ ”
As he proceeded the perspiration was pouring from me—indeed that night when I came to change my undervest (it being Friday) I found it quite damp. “Frieburg” was the password which we used in the sense that Major Haynes had stated. What traitor betrayed his Fatherland and placed this stupid officer in possession of our code will perhaps one day be known and his name will be execrated from one end of Germany to the other.
“But,” I said, calming myself, “how should I know what ‘Frieburg’ meant if you had not told me?”
“You would probably be notified by letter,” said the Major suavely, “at any rate, you will know.”
“What am I to do?” I asked.
The scheme was now to me as plain as daylight. I was suspect, and this was a trap for me. How was the trap to be sprung?
“The moment you find yourself in possession of that letter you will bring it to me,” said Major Haynes. “Of course, I could have you watched all the time but I could not be searching you every five minutes, and I could never know, unless you assisted me, when you were in possession of this interesting document. I could even have you arrested now,” he shrugged his shoulders cold-bloodedly, “but that would not help, because another agent would be found.”
“You want me to bring you the letter as soon as I receive it?” I said.
“That is all I ask,” said Major Haynes.
I offered him my hand and smiled.
“On the word of a sportsman and a gentleman,” I said, “I will bring it to you.”
I walked down Fleet Street whistling a tune. Even in that moment of danger Heine’s well-balanced mind was not seriously perturbed.
“I shall know no danger until I am blind,” said Schiller, and so might I say, for with my eyes open to the plot which was being laid against me half the danger vanished.
The cleverness of it, the cunning underhandedness of it! I was suspect. They had no evidence against me and they wanted to secure proof that I was a dirty-devil of a German. A police agent would hand me the envelope. I should probably find the name of a comrade inscribed. I would be watched all the time and if I attempted to escape with the spurious document I should be arrested.
I have a much better plan, dear Mister, or Major, Haynes! Into thy blood-guilty hands will I deliver this fake, or dud, document, and shall stand with quiet, smiling contempt, watching thy confusion, when thou discoverest that Heine, with bland innocence, has carried out thy wishes!
Two days later I was called up on the telephone and a strange voice speaking with a German accent said:
“Be prepared for ‘Frieburg’ to-day,” and immediately rang off.
I chuckled my amusement. So this was the day for the plot to materialize. I went about my work in the usual manner. I lunched at a fashionable restaurant in the Strand, returned to my office, finished up my work at 5.30, and strolled, as was my wont, westward.
It was whilst making the purchase of a paper at the bookstall at Piccadilly Tube Station, that the thing happened. Somebody pressed close to me. I heard the word “Frieburg” whispered in my ear, and when I had disengaged myself from the crowd and carelessly put my hand in my pocket, I found a somewhat bulky envelope, which as I felt with my fingers was heavily sealed.
I walked down Piccadilly and turned into the park, and presently found my way to a quiet spot. Making sure that I was free from observation, I pulled the envelope from my pocket, pretending to take out a handkerchief which I had previously pocketed, and examined the letter.
It was enclosed in a big grey envelope and was addressed in English:
“Deliver without delay to our agent at Southampton.”
I put the envelope and handkerchief back. The solution of Major Haynes’s plot became ridiculously simplified. It was not only a test for me, but it was an attempt to discover who was the agent of the government at Southampton. Could you not imagine me driving off to Waterloo followed by Secret Service men, and shadowed until I met and betrayed the brave fellow who overlooked the interests of Deutschland in Southampton?
Five minutes later I was out of the park, hailing a taxicab.
“Drive me to the War Office,” I said in a loud voice, for the benefit of a skulking loafer who was near by, and who was probably a detective in disguise.
Immediately on my arrival, I sent up my card and was ushered in to Major Haynes’s office. He jumped up as I entered.
“Have you got it?” he said eagerly.
For answer I handed him the grey envelope, and he seized it.
“Sit down, Heine. Excuse my agitation,” he said, “but I had a feeling that they would try you.”
I looked at him in wonder for, for the first time in his life, the major was agitated. He pressed a bell and a soldier came in.
“Will you ask General Brackenhurst if he can come,” he said.
If Major Haynes’s excitement was astonishing, what shall I say of a staid and veteran staff-general, who tore the wrappings from the envelope, eagerly scanned the unfolded pages and gave a loud and vulgar cry of joy.
“It is the original, Haynes!” he said. “Thank God we’ve got it!”
“They haven’t taken a copy, you think?”
“It was the copy they sent back,” said the general, wiping his forehead, “it is impossible to make a copy of this. That is how we detected the theft. This is the original. In this code a pin-point’s difference in the position of the letters would have made all the difference. That is why they are trying to send it to Germany, because they couldn’t translate it here.”
He turned and looked at me.
“Is this the gentleman who assisted us?” he asked, and shook me warmly by the hand. “We owe you a great debt of gratitude, sir,” he said. “As Major Haynes has told you, this document, if it fell into the hands of the enemy, would have been of inestimable value to the Germans.”
If it was acting it was good acting. My German instinct told me that it was not acting at all. I knew by the trembling of my knees that I had misjudged the position, and I left the War Office like a man in a dream.
Only one thing remained to be done. I left that evening for Southampton, and was fortunate enough to see our agent in the vestibule of a theatre.
I whispered “Frieburg” in his ear, and put my hand in his pocket, but I did not leave any letter.
Let him explain it if he can!
CHAPTER XI.
THE MURDERERS
In the latter days of March, 1915, I had received a communication from Headquarters which was contained in a box of Dutch cigars forwarded to me from Rotterdam. It was written to me on the usual grey paper and was neatly sandwiched between the two thin pieces of wood which formed the bottom of the box. You would never think of splitting the bottom of a cigar-box into two shavings in order to discover a message from the Political Intelligence Department, would you? Such was German ingenuity.
The communication may be given in full:
Kriegsministerium,
Berlin.
March 12, 1915.By order of Section 10, Politik, Great General Staff.
There go to England, on March 16, two men
(1) Carl Jan Kattz
(2) Rudolph Kister
convicts from the Imperial Prison at Dresden under sentence for (1) Murder and robbery, (2) Dangerous wounding and burglary. These two men speak English and are acquainted with English life and conditions. They are released on condition that they place themselves at the disposal of the Chief of the Intelligence Bureau in London. These men may be depended upon to perform the most desperate acts. They will be placed on the pay-list of the C. of I., London, at 20 marks each per diem and 10 marks each per diem for normal expenses. The C. of I., London, will not hesitate to shoot either man in the event of his failure to carry out orders.
Here is an instance of the common spirit of sacrifice which runs through our dear Deutschland! All for the Fatherland! Noble born, well born, burglich, peasant—even the convict in his sad and gloomy cell pleaded to serve the Empress of Nations, the new Byzantium of Kultur! Yea, from the very dungeon rose the cry of the patriot; into the deeps of misery had the clarion call reached, and roused from the slimes of decadence the pure flame-soul of Germanism!
I confess that my first care was to keep this precious pair of rascals as far away from me as possible. I could not have such hang-dog cut-throats haunting my office, and I sent Wilhelm Peters to meet them and instal them in lodgings in Coventry—which was one of the towns I was not likely to visit.
Wilhelm informed me that they preferred to go to Wednesbury, as they were both acquainted with glass-working and there were two or three glass factories in that town at which they could work. I made arrangements for them to receive their weekly stipends, registered their addresses, and sent them the card code (which was ingeniously got up in the form of a time-table) and dismissed them from my thoughts with the earnest hope that it would never be necessary to utilize their services.
For we Germans abhor deeds of darkness and violence. Who has looked through the spectacles of a serious German boy and has seen his clear and honest blue eyes shining thoughtfully, could ever question either the gentleness of his disposition or the transparency of his motives. We hate deceit and cruelty, we shrink from the infliction of needless pain and exalt the fulfilment of the law to a worship.
So I shuddered and passed from my mind all thought of Carl Jan Kattz and Rudolph Kister. And yet, despite this innate tenderness of ours, we Germans are all granite and iron. When we set ourselves to the accomplishment of a task we are not to be arrested by parsnip-buttering words or even the allurement of the most indecorous siren, as you shall see. I have referred to the assistance I offered to our gallant Zeppelins by the triangle of lights.
One of these light stations was arranged in the stable-yard of a good Polish friend named Jabowski. The yard was a small one shut in on three sides by very high walls, and on the fourth by the stable (Jabowski was a tailor in a large way of business and employed two carts for the collection and distribution of goods.) He hated the English, who had treated him very scurvily and had prosecuted him for some small breaches of the Factory Act, and he was, in consequence of his tyranny-hatred, and for a very handsome sum I paid him, willing to show the light—a motor head-lamp coloured green.
One night after a raid was expected Jabowski came to see me. I had just got back from an over-night trip to Bristol and I was eager for news. He seemed puzzled and troubled.
“Was there a raid?” I asked.
“Well, Herr Heine,” he said, “there was—but it was the most curious raid we have had. I came to tell you about it.”
“Proceed, Jabowski,” said I graciously, although he was a man of the lowest social order.
“At eleven o’clock last night my son and I were standing in the yard, watching the lamp and listening for the footfall of a policeman outside, when we heard distinctly the noise of an airship. It grew nearer and nearer until the sound was terrific and I could hear the people in the street scurrying away to their houses. I looked up, as did my son, but I could see nothing. Whatever it was passed overhead and when immediately over something fell with a thud—right in the centre of the yard!”
“A bomb?”
“No, gracious Herr—it was a big paper bag which was evidently filled with a sort of yellow vere. Thinking it was a new kind of poison or some diabolical——”
“Ingenious is the word, Jabowski,” I interrupted.
“Exactly, gracious sir, some ingenious form of explosive, I did not attempt to remove it until this morning. I gathered most of it up but it was impossible to remove the stain from the stones.”
“There were no bombs?”
“None,” replied Jabowski with emphasis, “the raider was heard by many people and, according to a policeman who came to see me this morning, these yellow bags have been dropped all over the neighbourhood.”
I was thoughtful.
What did these bags portend? Obviously there was a message of some kind, thought I, intended for me. That green light showed the raider that there was a friend in the neighbourhood and yet——
Whilst I was talking, there was a knock at the hall-door of my flat, and my servant (an excellent Swiss youth who had the good fortune to be born in Breslau, of German parents) announced that the two Mr. Geisslers wished to see me. I was amazed at the coincidence, for these two brothers were in charge of the other two lamps which completed the triangle.
“Show them into my bedroom, and I will come and see them, Adolph,” said I.
The Messrs. Geissler were bakers, and good friends of their Fatherland. One had a shop near Albany Park, and the other a bakehouse south of the Thames.
“Victor came over to see me this morning, Herr Heine,” explained Kurt Geissler, the elder of the two, “and as he has had the same curious experience that I had in last night’s raid, I thought we had better come along and see you.”
Briefly his narrative was on all four-legs with the story which Jabowski had told. They had heard the whirr of airship engines, and a bag of yellow dust had fallen, in Victor’s case upon the roof of the bakehouse, and in Kurt’s case on a chicken house in his back garden.
“The police say that these bags have fallen all over the South of London,” said Kurt.
“They’ve been dropped on north-west London too,” said Victor, and produced an envelope full of the stuff.
I looked at it without touching the powder. It was as fine as flour.
“You must leave me to think this matter out,” I said at last, and sent them on their way.
I was engaged in intensive cogitation half an hour later, when Major Haynes, of the British Intelligence Department, called. While I at first had resented his calling, I had now overcome my repugnance to meeting one who was engaged in such underhanded and sneaking work as the Military Intelligence Department condescend to do. We Germans have a delicate gorge, I tell you, and there were times when, remembering that his sly cunning had probably sent many, and had certainly sent two brave Germans to their death, I could scarcely bring myself to flatter him.
“Good morning, Mr. Major,” said I with a ready-adopted smile, “you are looking inside the pink this morning.”
“Good morning, Heine,” he said. He had called me “Heine” many times lately, and somehow I had never had the nerve to correct him. “Were you in the raid last night?”
“The raid?” I said in innocence—amazed. “I saw nothing about it in the papers—was there a raid?”
He laughed.
“So some people think,” he said, and then turning suddenly from the subject he asked, “What size gloves do you take?”
It was an extraordinary question. All my wits were working at top pressure. I was at my alertest, my mind reviewing all the circumstances which had attended my doings of the past week.
Had I left a finger-print in my visit to the Chetwell Munition Works, or dropped a glove on my recent conference with the executive of the Workers for World Peace?
“I take an eight or nine size,” I said deliberately.
“That would be much too large—show me your hands.”
I extended my hands.
Why did a cold and sickly feeling come to a certain digestive organ? Why did the beads of perspiration stand out on my brow? Why, in spite of a mental effort of the strongest, did my face blanch and my hand tremble?
Did I expect to hear the click of steel, and feel chill bands about my wrists, and hear the jangle of the link that holds the handcuffs together? Yet none of these things happened.
Mr., or Major, Haynes just took my hands in his and turned them over with the same delicacy of touch that I have observed in the German haus-frau when she is buying fish, and turns over the soles on the stall to find the biggest.
“Yes—a seven,” said the major, and I thought there was a note of disappointment in his tone.
We chatted about the war for awhile and then he said good-bye and left me with two puzzles to solve instead of one.
Fortunately the rest of the day was so fully occupied with sheer routine work that I had not time to speculate upon the mystery of the Yellow Raid, as I called it.
I had started two new societies. The Brotherhood of Humanity and the Thinkers of Britain League, and these entailed an enormous amount of correspondence. The former society had as its motive the elimination of all wars; the latter was intended to bring together under one ægis that considerable body of students and tractarians who regarded frontier lines as artificial limitations set up to divide the many for the benefit of the few. They were promising plants, and though I hoped that Germany would never need to seek a peace but would so triumph in the field that she would be able to dictate her terms to greedy England, bare-legged Scotland, libertine France, and barbarian Russia, yet we Germans are habitually cautious.
That night I learnt from the usual quarter that the weather was propitious for a Zeppelin raid, and warned the “leaders” (the car drivers whose powerful head-lamps guided the Zeppelins to their destinations) and my signal friends before I left town by the 8.30 train for Bath. I got on the ’phone to London that night and discovered that no raid had occurred, and returned by the early morning train which reaches Paddington at 8.30. My new assistant, Mr. Wilhelm Peters, was waiting for me at the flat.
“Bad news, Herr Heine,” he said.
“Tell me,” I replied.
“Jabowski and the two Geisslers were arrested last night in the act of signalling.”
That was bad news indeed. I learnt that they had been raided practically at the same hour by three parties of police, and had been taken to Scotland Yard.
“I have been all night at work making inquiries,” said Peters, “and I have discovered how they were detected.”
“Betrayed, of course,” said I, but to my surprise Wilhelm shook his head.
“They betrayed themselves,” he said, “the raid of the previous night was not a raid at all. The noise they heard was that of an English dirigible balloon flying at a very low altitude. It was up looking for signal lights, and detected Jabowski’s light first. It flew over the yard and dropped a bag of yellow ochre as near the light as possible, and the following morning the police went round the neighbourhood with a story of a mysterious airship which had been throwing such things. When they said that the airship had dropped many they lied. There were only three bags dropped—on Jabowski and the two Geisslers. Once the stain of the ochre was discovered, the police had only to wait a favourable opportunity. The rumour of a coming raid was circulated all over London for the purpose of deceiving us.”
I saw the thing clearly now. So that was why Mr., or Major Haynes had come to my office. He thought that some of the yellow stuff would be brought to me for my inspection, and that I would handle it! So you are interested in the size of my gloves, my officer! So you would inspect my hands, thou artful man of low cunning!
But Heine had been too clever—too wide-awakened! I could not deny myself so much exhilaration of feeling, yet the position was a serious one. The Geisslers I could trust. But Jabowski! Here was a man without a country—a cringer, a born traitor, one who under pressure to save his own miserable skin, would not hesitate to betray me and the sacred cause for which I worked. Whatever doubts I had about the loyalty of Jabowski were removed when his son came to see me that afternoon.
This young Jabowski was about twenty-five years of age, very dark, with a curly head of hair and a long yellow face. He was dressed fashionably (and a little above his class) in a check suit and a yellow tie, and wore the diamond ring and scarf-pin that one would rather have expected on a German gentleman than on a Polish tailor! I was annoyed to see him.
“Why do you come here?” I asked, when he was shown into my room. “How dare you come to my apartments?”
“It’s all right, Heine, I wasn’t watched,” he said. “I came by Tube and what’s more, I waited till it was dark. I suppose you know that the old man’s pinched?”
“The old man pinched?” I said in astonishment-simulation. “What old man—and what pinch?”
“Oh, come off it,” he said coarsely, “you know what I’m talking about—my father, Mr. Jabowski.”
“For Mr. Jabowski I have the highest respect,” I said, “and I have had many dealings with him, strictly in the way of business. Do I understand he has been arrested? Dear, dear—I trust he has not been doing anything very naughty?”
The young man scowled at me.
“Look here!” he said with violence, “you know why he was pinched—for giving Zepp signals at your instructions.”
I sprang up.
“Shameless, lying Jew!” I cried in a great voice, “traducer of innocent truly-neutrals! How dare you—how dare you make so infamous an accusation? By heavens! I’ve a mind to grip you by the neck and your coat-tails, and hurl you from the window!”
I saw a look of fear creep into his eyes, but he did not budge from his contention.
“Have sense, Heine,” he pleaded, “can I allow my old man to be shot? It’s a terrible position for me, and I was getting married to a widow-lady with money too. The disgrace will kill me!”
“Your father can prove nothing against me,” I said, and the miserable fellow smiled.
“That’s where you’re wrong,” he said, “the old man was too wide for you. ‘Jacob,’ says he to me, ‘this Prussian is so careful that he won’t put anything in writing. If I get into trouble, he’ll pretend he doesn’t know me, so when he comes this afternoon to talk things over in the stable yard, get your camera and take a snap of us together,’ and,” said the despicable young man in unmistakable tones of pleasure, “I’ve got that photograph to show the police unless you do something to get my father out of trouble.”
“Have you the photograph with you, my dear young man?” I asked with mildness.
“Am I nutty?” replied Jabowski, junior.
I promised to give him an answer that night. What could I do? To whom could I turn to secure the release of this misguided and fearfully threatening Pole? That he would betray me, I did not doubt, and the horror of the thought stunned me. But I had escaped graver perils. I had incurred the suspicions of the highest authorities and had yet won through. It was because I had tricked them with the bluff of the experienced player that I had escaped detection. Even Major Haynes believed that I was no more than a dupish fool—but would he believe as much on such an accusation supported by visible evidence of hob-nobbing with the dubious alien of Polish origin?
So they would trap me—me, Heine, who would not tread on a turning worm, unless it turned against the Fatherland. My gentle nature is notorious amongst my friends. The song of the skylark rising to the dawn, the mist of bluebells in the shadowy aisles of woods have made me cry like a child, and this dirty dog of a Jabowski would send such a man as Heine to the execution chair.
I sent a telegram to friends Kister and Kattz, at Wednesbury, telling them to report to me in my apartments, by the first train. If there were any burnt offerings required, it were better for the Fatherland that the sacrifices should be Polish.
Let me describe Kattz and Kister as I saw them when they came walking into my sitting-room.
Kattz was a thin man of about thirty-five. He was slightly bald, and he wore a pair of steel-rimmed pince-nez. His face was thin and studious, with deep furrows and wrinkles. He reminded me of a bust I once saw of Dante.
He was quietly and respectably dressed, and his attitude and manner were subdued and respectful. His companion, Kister, was of stouter build, and he bore a facial resemblance to the English King Henry VIII. He was broad-featured, had a small moustache and trim beard, and a rosy complexion. Like his companion, he was quiet in speech and deportment.
“Sit down, gentlemen,” said I, greatly relieved by the uncriminal appearance of my agents. “I will open a bottle of good wine—in the meantime, help yourselves to the cigars.”
They seated themselves, and when they had been made comfortable, I briefly outlined the nature of my difficulty.
“So you see, gentlemen, my position,” I concluded, “these two men have the fate of our service in their hands.”
“They must be put out of the way,” said the jovial-faced Kister, “you agree, my dear Kattz?”
Mr. Kattz nodded.
“We can settle the younger man very easily,” he said, “you have his address, of course?” I inclined my head.
“You will probably find that he has the photograph in his pocket, in spite of his protest,” he went on. “I can get on to him to-night.”
He felt in his pocket and drew out a short length of cord, to the ends of which were fastened two small wooden handles. He unrolled the cord which was wound about the sticks and re-rolling it, returned the instrument to his pocket.
The jovial Mr. Kister frowned and shook his head.
“You know, my dear Kattz, I would not hurt your feelings, but I feel compelled to demur at that method of yours. I believe in this.”
With a dexterity which hardly seemed possible, he slipped a long-bladed knife from the inside of his waistcoat. I pushed my chair back a little.
“The knife or nothing, I say,” said he, “it is noiseless, it is instantly effective, it can be used in a crowd, and the victim will not utter a sound. Why?” he said, looking at me, “I once killed a friend of mine in the Wintergarten, in Berlin, surrounded by policemen, and they thought he had fainted!”
“A friend?” I said.
“When I say a friend,” said Mr. Kister apologetically, “I mean one who had been a friend. We fell out over a lady—you remember, Kattz.”
“A tight-rope walker,” said Kattz.
“Exactly. She was not worthy of the quarrel. I have often regretted my haste in the matter, for poor Joseph was a good fellow, and played skat like a master.”
“I don’t think you should speak against the cord, Rudolph,” said Kattz, “you have probably only seen it used by a bungler. There are three men—there are two now, for Frederich Mullenheim laid down his life for the Fatherland at the Battle of Roye—who can use it. It is as silent as the knife, and I remember——”
My blood went cold as I listened to the exchanges of experience which went on between the two, and when Kister was using my waistcoat to illustrate what he called “the complete-silence stroke,” and Kattz was showing on my neck the exact spot where the carotid artery nearest approaches the cervical vertebræ, I thought matters had gone far enough.
“Make your own arrangements about young Jabowski,” I said hastily, “but how are you going to deal with the old man—he is safely in prison?”
“That I think is simple,” said Kattz, “we have been studying the prison system of England—naturally that interests us more than anything else, and we know the procedure. A prisoner on remand is allowed to have his meals sent in. I think there will be no difficulty in sending our friend something more than he will digest.”
“I will leave the matter entirely in your hands,” I said.
I gave them £10 and bade them report to me by telephone when their dread task was accomplished. I confess I spent a wretched night. How frail a thing is life! The snap of a thread and the veil is rent—a puff of wind and the serene flame goes out—a crack of a rifle and the accumulated genius and experience of forty years, a million memories and a million hopes, are dissipated to nothingness. How dreadful is that Visitation, I shuddered. I did not want to die. As for these two traitors, death would rid the world of much corporate infamy. The day came slowly, and I was up long before my servant.
There was nothing in the morning newspaper to tell of any happening such as I expected, but I could hardly expect to have news so soon.
I resolved to stay in my apartment till the afternoon, and it was ten o’clock that I heard a ring at the bell, and went hot and cold. I heard my servant go along the passage and open the door and presently came a knock.
“Come in,” I said, and to my surprise in walked young Jabowski.
His face was pale, his eyes were wild, and as for myself, I could frame no question.
“Oh, Mr. Heine, Mr. Heine,” he said imploringly, and I thought he was going to kneel at my feet, “give me another chance, give me another chance! Here is the photograph.”
His trembling hands searched for a pocket-book, which presently he produced. The book shook in his palsied fingers, but presently he mastered himself sufficiently to extract a small photograph which he handed to me. It was the photograph of myself and the ill-fated Jabowski.
“There, there is the evidence,” he gasped, “now do be a good friend and save me!”
“I hardly know what you mean,” I said coldly, “all that I know is that you came here yesterday and accused me of a crime from which my very soul revolts, disloyalty to the British Government, for the members of which I have the highest respect.”
“The old man will take his punishment without bleating,” he said, eagerly ignoring my reference to his wild conduct. “The lawyers say he will only get about twelve months’ imprisonment, and if he opens his mouth about you, he will probably get more. But if they convicted me—why, I’d get five years.”
I was silent. This talk still held a mystery for me, and I waited for him to reveal that which, even in my curiosity, I did not dare to ask.
“I ought to have known, Mr. Heine,” he said, mopping his forehead with an ungentlemanly handkerchief of many colours, “I ought to have known that with all the spies you’ve got, you would be wise about me.”
“I am indeed wise about you,” I said very severely.
“Don’t think,” he said eagerly, “that I am a regular burglar, because I’m not. The old man never allowed me more than eighteen shillings a week, and a man can’t live in a gentlemanly way on that, can he? I got in bad with a crooked lot of people, and one job led to another, and that is how it happened.”
“I know exactly how it happened,” I said coldly.
“When I got home last night,” the young man went on, “it struck me that you might know that I was in the Regent Street burglary, and it gave me the shivers, but I wasn’t sure until I found myself being shadowed by the two detectives you put on to follow me.”
I could have laughed out loud. Kattz and Kister—detectives!
“How did you know I had put them on to you?”
“I gave them the slip,” said young Jabowski, “and presently I spotted them getting into a cab. It was about one o’clock in the morning, and I got another cab and followed them and they came back here.”
“Came back here?”
This was indeed news for me.
“Well, they didn’t come up,” said Jabowski, “they stood outside the flat talking, and one of them pointed up to your window, and then I knew that you had put them on to me.”
I readily supplied an explanation. My friends Kister and Kattz had come back to tell me of some difficulty they had met with, and I am rather glad they took this step. What Jabowski told me greatly relieved me. If the old man would remain silent and take his punishment, with the photograph in my possession, and burnt, and Jabowski in terror of my betraying him, a load was removed from my mind. There was no need for any drastic measures, and I could only hope that my two friends, with characteristic thoroughness, had not already despatched a deadly draught to the man in the cells.
I was anxious to get rid of Jabowski before they turned up or telephoned, as I had asked them to, and after lecturing him on his evil life and on the necessity for dealing honestly by his fellow creatures and abandoning his course of wickedness, I allowed him to depart with the promise that I should take no further action against him.
“Honesty and straight dealing with your fellow creatures is the surest road to happiness and success,” I said. “How beautiful is the life of the virtuous man who can look the whole world in the face, as the poet says, and owe not any man!”
He thanked me very humbly and went his way. Neither Kister nor Kattz put in an appearance, and I began to worry whether they had got into some trouble, or whether, in some spirit of friendly rivalry, they had gone outside my instructions and in good-hearted competition had been practising their science upon some unfortunate pig-headed Englishman or Englishmen.
When they had not turned up by the afternoon I am afraid I became very angry. Was I to be kept waiting in my flat all day by two despicable jail-birds? However, a diversion arrived in the shape of my assistant, Mr. Wilhelm Peters, that amiable young man arriving after lunch with my letters.
“I am sorry I am so late, Herr Heine,” he said, “but I had no idea that you were not at the office.”
“Of course, of course,” I said genially, “you have been out of London. Now tell me your news.”
He chatted away about various matters. He gave me a memorandum of the amount of T.N.T. which was being made at ——, the big new English factory, and told me of the trouble that had arisen because Woolwich had rejected so many flawed shell-cases which were made in a certain factory in the North of England. He also placed in my hand the memorandum, compiled by our agent in Liverpool, of the cotton shipments, and furnished me with particulars of certain petroleum boats which were due to arrive in the Mersey.
“I saw Herr von Friedlander at Birmingham,” he said. “He has not been able to find an agent in the small-arm factory, but he hopes——”
“He hopes!” I said irritably, “that infernal man may live on hopes, but I can’t! I shall pack him straight back to America. Does he imagine because he is well born that I must endure these harrowing disappointments? I cannot find excuses for him any longer. You have done very well, my dear Wilhelm Peters, and I shall report in terms of favour.”
“I thank you for your gracious words, Herr Heine,” he said, going red under my approbation. “I also took the liberty of calling at Wednesbury to see how our convicts were progressing.”
I smiled.
“And how were they?” I asked innocently.
“They are behaving themselves,” said Wilhelm Peters, “and seem to like the life. The red-headed one, Kattz, is quite amusing.”
“Red-headed one?” I said.
“Yes, the little one who has red hair. Don’t you remember I described them after I had met them on the steamer, Herr Heine?”
“And what is the other man like—Kister?” I asked.
“He is a man with a long black beard and rather consumptive looking,” said Wilhelm.
“Are you sure?” my hair almost stood on end.
“Quite sure. The only thing that worried them was a visit which was paid them by two secret service officers last week—at least I gathered they were officers of the English secret service by the questions they asked.”
“Do you know what they looked like, the secret service officers?” I said, endeavouring to control my voice.
Wilhelm Peters smiled like a fool.
“Don’t grin, stupid owl,” I said angrily.
“Pardon, Herr Heine,” said Wilhelm Peters, “but I was smiling because I asked them that very question. One was a thin-faced man with lines in his cheeks and the other was rather a stoutish man with a rosy face and a little beard.”
“Secret service officers!” I breathed.
“Do you know them?” asked Wilhelm Peters.
“I have met them,” I said, and somehow at that moment I knew my stay in England was nearly up.
CHAPTER XII.
THE PASSING OF HEINE
The British people, in their boastful, arrogant, and frivolous way, have a saying that the British do not know when they are beaten. This betrays their folly, their short-sightedness, and their inability to grasp the obvious. We Germans, on the contrary, recognize facts. We have no illusions, knowing that by reason of our superior kultur, our educational system, our national discipline, our readiness for sacrifice, we are necessarily the highest expression of man’s development. We also are prepared to recognize our own shortcomings, such as they are. From the largeness of our eyrie-view, comprehending as it does the vast surface of known facts, we can distinguish the failings of those less favoured nations which enjoy, because of their lower attainments, a more circumscribed view. Because of this circumscription we have the folly embodied in the British maxim which I have quoted.
I had enjoyed a great innings. I had done useful work. I had served the Fatherland with a loyalty and unselfishness which I trust will be held as a shining example to the unborn generations of secret service officers who will follow in my steps.
To continue in England would be folly. There were many reasons why I should determine my residence. It was growing more and more difficult to get into communication with the Fatherland. Trading steamers, ostensibly engaged in peaceable commerce, but in reality maintained to keep the communications open between England and Germany, were constantly disappearing in the most ominous fashion. The wireless stations which we had established with so much thought were being eliminated and, worst of all, since the conviction was forced upon me against my will, I had to confess to myself that there really existed in Britain a secret service of a peculiarly deceitful kind.
I had been constantly coming into contact with its members, constantly foiled by its machinations. Its officers were to be found in all ranks and departments of public life; they included Members of Parliament, and little shopkeepers, newspaper reporters and doctors, railway officials of all grades, ships’ stewards and parsons. It was unbelievable, and it took me nearly two years to be convinced.
And now I had the feeling that a well-prepared net had been stretched and was gradually encircling me. I had a sense that I was being played with as a mouse is pawed by a cat. I notified Headquarters that I was retiring, gracefully, and one night I sat down and worked out the details of my escape.
I had four passports, and my first move was to obtain the endorsement of all these. That in itself was a difficult business, but the original owners of the passports were well chosen. It was an American, a Swede, a Chilian, and a Canadian, and had you seen the four photographs attached to those four documents, you would have observed that there was not a great dissimilarity in appearance between any of the four.
I was due to leave England on May 15th, 1916. I actually left on May 14th. On the morning of that day, I took one of those bold steps which the most daring spirits invariably find profitable.
I called at the War Office and asked to see Major Haynes, of the Intelligence Department. I sent in my name, that is to say, my Chilian name, and in a very short time I was ushered into a very large, bare office, where the gallant major sat at a table which was covered with documents of all kinds.
He rose and greeted me heartily.
“How are you, Heine,” he said, pulling a chair up for me to sit upon, “and how are our friends Kattz and Kister?”
“Kattz and Kister?” I repeated, my face a blank.
“The scientific murderers,” said the major with a cheerful laugh, “the bow-string expert and the stiletto specialist.”
In such a manner did this frivolous man speak. I know you will not believe it is possible, and many to whom I have retailed this conversation have doubted my word. I do not blame them. Flippancy and sports-language would never pass the lips of a German officer in these iron times.
“I do not understand you, dear major,” I said.
“I didn’t think you would,” said he, and pulling out a drawer removed a box.
“Have a poisoned cigar,” he said, “one of our Kattz-Kister Perfectos.”
He simply roared with laughter. Such vulgarity!
“I certainly remember the two names now you mention them. They called upon me with a hoity-toity plan which I was much too busy to discuss with them. As a matter of fact, they had not been there long,” said I with a cunning smile, “before I realized that they were members of the great (I emphasized the word “great” with a little sneer) English secret service, and I had an amusing evening pulling their several legs.”
Major Haynes winked (he was not well born).
“What I like about you, Heine,” he said (again that objectionable word, which I passed in silence), “is that you have a sense of humour. So few of your fellow countrymen possess that sense.”
I laughed politely because I felt that it was what he expected me to do.
“Why have you come now?” he asked.
I shrugged my shoulders.
“Mister Haynes,” I began.
“Major,” said he, “but go on.”
“Major Haynes,” I said, “it seems to me that my most innocent actions are misconstrued, and as I am going to-morrow to Brighton to spend a week-end, I thought it advisable to notify you, so that you may know where you can find me.”
“So you are going to Brighton, are you?” he said after a pause. “What an eccentric fellow you are!”
“Eccentric, Major Haynes!” I repeated.
“To go to Brighton, an hour’s journey from London to an ordinary man, by such a roundabout route.”
“Which way do you think I am going!” I smiled.
“I am not sure,” he said, “but, judging from the fact that most of your boxes went up yesterday to Liverpool under the name of ‘Heigl,’ I gathered that you were making a round trip of it. Still,” he said, rising and offering his hand, “I will wish you bon voyage. You have entertained me vastly. Keep clear of the mine-fields and ’ware submarines. They are dangerous little devils.”
Oh! Had he seen my mind? Had he known the embittered thoughts that flocked through my brain like a flight of wild geese? Could he have detected the harsh and cynical expressions which trembled on my tongue, I do not think this fatheaded Englishman would have seen me to the door with such awkward grace.
I saw his idea. For his own purpose he desired to keep me in England until the moment came to strike, but my friend, thought I, as I walked along Whitehall, in Heine there are four people and Liverpool is not the only gate to the “dark sea flood.”
Another man might have taken a long time to consider his plans. Mine were already made. He expected me to go back to my office, or to my flat perhaps, under the supervision of his detectives. I walked to Westminster Bridge Underground station, took a train to Charing Cross, descended the moving escalator to the Tube, and rode as far as Oxford Circus, where I changed for a city train which carried me to the Bank. Here I changed again and rode to Waterloo, came up to the surface in an elevator and caught a train on the elevated electric to Clapham Junction.
From Clapham Junction I journeyed to Willesden, from Willesden by a slow train to Rugby. Here I changed, leaving the North-Western station and joining the Central line, found myself at half-past ten at night at Sheffield.
I walked across to the station hotel, taking a packed trunk which was waiting for me at the cloak-room, registered myself, filling up the necessary form, and was conducted to Room 43.
I was no sooner in the room and was unbuckling the straps of my trunk, when there was a knock at the door. Thinking it was the chambermaid, I said “Come in,” and the door opened—and admitted Major Haynes in civilian dress.
“What time would you like your breakfast in the morning, Heine?” he asked with such savoir-faire, that you might have thought he had accompanied me and had only parted from me a few minutes before he came into the room.
Not to be outdone in coolness, I replied:
“At nine o’clock.”
“You look tired,” he said, “I think the rest at Brighton is going to do you a lot of good. When they told me you had got out at Clapham Junction I really thought and hoped that you had decided upon taking the short route. I expect it is the underground journeys that make you look so weary. Have you a headache?”
“The only thing that gives me a headache, Major Haynes, is boorish and unkultured conversation.”
I felt it was the moment to assert myself, even though it cost me my life.
“Then avoid soliloquies,” he said, and with a nod he shut the door.
There was nothing to do the next morning but to go back to London, which I did, taking my suitcase with me.
Major Haynes was on the same train, nearer the engine than I. I saw him step into a motor-car that was waiting and drive off, and I went into the buffet and had some breakfast.
My difficulty was going to be to arrive at the port of embarkation rather than the actual getting on board the steamer, and I knew that I should have to abandon both the Liverpool and the Fishguard routes and go by way of Glasgow and Greenock.
The thing was to shake off the men who by this time were watching me, and Fortune favoured me to an extraordinary extent. That night there descended on London one of those thick white mists which sometimes occur in the late spring. I packed a grip with a special kind of disguise, put the necessary documents in my pocket, and sent for a cab.
I came to the door of the front entrance of the flats, walked out bareheaded to the driver and told him that I should want him to take me to St. Pancras station to catch the 10.30 Scottish mail. I asked him how long it would take me to get to the depôt, then I walked back into the vestibule, picked up my hat, coat, and portmanteau, that were waiting in a dark corner, slipped through the back door, across the yard by which the tradesmen enter to deliver their goods, through a mews, and in a few minutes I was swallowed up in the darkness. I stood at the end of the mews and listened. There was no sound of footfall. Rapidly threading the narrow streets which lay at the back of the apartment house in which I lived, I gained a second road, hailed a taxi and instructed the man to drive me to Langley, which is a wayside station fifteen miles out of London, and lies between Slough and West Drayton. He promptly refused the fare, but I slipped a couple of notes into his hand and his views on the shortage of his petrol underwent a remarkable change. So much for the veracity and honesty of English cabmen!
On the way down I changed my mind. My appearance at so insignificant a station might excite comment, and as we cleared the patch of mist, the cabman offered no objection to taking me on to Reading. At this station a slow train from London to Plymouth leaves shortly after midnight. I reached Bristol at 3.30 in the morning, and by 5 o’clock I was on my way northward, journeying by workman’s train part of the way, until I changed on to a main line train at Worcester.
Had you stood that same afternoon on Carlisle station, you would have seen a clean-shaven clergyman with a white collar and a black soft felt hat, immaculate black garments, and the various other insignia of his holy office. You would have observed that he was drinking tea, and that under his arm was a large and serious book, and that his gold-mounted spectacles would occasionally be turned benevolently left and right, looking for Major Haynes.
In this guise I reached Glasgow, a comfortable English parson. I passed the inspection of the alien officer, my passport was stamped officially and I crossed the gangway of the ship with a feeling of malicious joy.
“Here,” thought I, “is an object-lesson which Major Haynes himself might take to heart as an example of German objectivity.”
We Germans never falter in our purpose. We set our minds upon a goal and to that goal we attain. I stepped down the crowded gangway to the purser’s office to present my ticket.
The purser looked at it and nodded.
“Take this gentleman to State Room 64,” he said to a steward, and the man gathered up my trunk and my coat, led the way to the state room I had booked, opened the door and I walked in—and there was Major Haynes sitting on the settee smoking a cigar and looking bored.
“Close the door, Heine,” he said, and shook his head, reprovingly.
“I have not had the opportunity of telling you before,” he said gravely, “but I think it is only right that you should know that a clergyman of the Church of England does not wear gaiters, unless he is a bishop, and I feel sure, Heine, that whatever you are, you are not a bishop.”
I felt I could not bandy words with him. I sat heavily down upon the settee.
“You have been getting your ideas of the clergyman,” he said, “from Simplicissimus. For example, that apron you are wearing, and which I have no doubt was supplied to you by a theatrical costumier who thought you were cast for the good clergyman in ‘The Silver King,’ is the apron that rural deans dream about, and country vicars regard as being half-way to a halo. I wonder you didn’t bring a shepherd’s crook,” he said bitterly.
“Do I understand that I am forbidden to travel on this boat?” I asked.
“Certainly. It would be no less than a scandal to allow you to misrepresent the Church of England to our good friends in America,” said Major Haynes. “Now get into some sensible clothes like a good fellow.”
“Very well,” I said.
I took up my trunk, watery at heart, walked up the companion-way and crossed the gangway on the wharf.
Oh, that journey back to London, how long, how dreary, how full of conflicting emotions! With what soul weariness did I recall every incident of the northward journey! With what respect had I been greeted in my Episcopalian character by the common people!
Major Haynes was not on the train, I am happy to say. I was too depressed to make any other attempt to escape, too weary even to formulate some alternative plan. I did not even have the energy to speculate upon the reason I was being detained, for I had not been charged, as I might have been charged, with using false passports, nor was I charged, with any of the other offences which might have been alleged against me. I was just simply let loose and given another chance of escape.
I made no pretence of going back to my flat, but drove to an hotel where I knew I should be constantly under observation. I was eating my dinner in an unhappy fashion, when I heard my name breathed, and, looking up, I recognized in the waiter a man who had given us a great deal of information, and was a worker for The Day. While he was bending over me with the menu in his hand, and apparently taking my orders, he was speaking rapidly.
“You are watched, Herr Heine,” he said under his breath.
“I know,” I replied in the same tone. “I am trying to get away from London.”
He said no more, but when he came back with the soup he whispered:
“I think I can help you.”
When the fish arrived, he added a little more information.
“When you get back to your room to-night,” he said, “ring for the sommelier. I will come up.”
I told him briefly that I had made two attempts and failed, and he nodded.
I waited till fairly late before I rang the bell, and my friend—his name deserves mention in these records, it was Gustav Stheil, a worthy fellow who, I understand, has since fallen into the hands of our hateful enemy—responded very quickly.
“In half an hour,” he said, “come out of your room and go down the service stairs. You will find them on the left. At three o’clock to-morrow morning the chimney-sweeps are coming to clean the kitchen flues. I will get an old suit of clothes for you and with a bag of soot and your face blacked you can get out of the hotel without anybody being the wiser.”
“And after that,” I said.
“I think I can get you a horse and cart. Drive to this address. It is my brother-in-law’s—he is in the country—and lay low there for a day or two and I will come and see you.”
He gave me a key and the address. It was in a place called Palmer’s Green.
The plan worked admirably. I descended without interruption or observation, made a change of clothes, and so covered my face with soot that no person would have recognized me. Gustav let me out through the service entrance and I found a light cart and a horse waiting, with a boy sitting in the seat.
“He is my son. You can trust him. Good luck, Herr Heine.”
I took a £5 note, it was somewhat dirty, I am afraid, for I had to rub it to make sure there were not two, a mistake which I had once made—and slipping it into the honest fellow’s hands, I drove off.
Picton Street, Palmer’s Green, is a street of small houses, and that house to which I went was poorly furnished but was good enough for my purpose. I washed the disguising soot from my face and lay down on the bed to finish my sleep.
It was not a comfortable day by any means, because there was no food in the house, and I was ravenously hungry that night when Gustav came bringing me provisions and busying himself at the kitchen fire preparing me coffee.
“There is a cattle-ship leaving Avonmouth in two days’ time,” he said. “A friend of mine will smuggle you on board and look after you on the voyage over.”
“How am I to get to Avonmouth?” I demanded.
“By train,” said he, but I shook my head.
“All the trains will be watched. Can you get me a motor-bicycle?”
He promised to do his best and, late as the hour was, he went out to inquire. He came back with a push-bicycle and told me I should have to do the best I could with that for one stage of the journey, and that he would arrange to have me met on the Reading-Newbury road by a good patriot with a motor-car, but that it would be necessary for me to lie in the bottom of the car and allow myself to be covered by rugs.
I will not describe the frights and apprehensions of that journey. I cycled through the night and just before daybreak I reached the Reading-Newbury road and came within sight of the tail lights of a motor-car drawn up at the roadside.
The journey was not an uncomfortable one. I descended from the car on the outskirts of Bristol and made my way to the place where friend Gustav told me I should meet the sailor. It was a little bar and from the description which Gustav had given me I was able to recognize my friend, a stalwart patriot of Finland, who despised the British even as he hated the barbarous and tyrannical Russian.
To recall even that night’s adventures and to place on record all the events which occurred between my leaving my friend’s lodgings and my arrival in the hold of the soon-leaving ship would occupy a volume. How I climbed two walls, how I concealed myself in a railway truck which was slowly shunted to the side of the ship with most uncomfortable bumpings, how I stole up the slippery side of a coal shute and lay for two hours amongst the pots and pans of the cook’s galley, how I eventually swarmed down an interminable ladder into the depths of the ship, an adequate account of these happenings might be written by a Zola, but my poor pen can neither describe the agonies of mind and body which marked my reaching the ship, nor the miseries of soul which followed when the vessel drew clear from the wharf and began to sway and heave, to jump and sink in the open seas.
I was hungry until I went on board ship, but the moment the vessel started on its voyage I felt I would never eat again. I almost wished I had not left England. For a day and a night, it seemed like two months, or even two years, I endured the agonies of sea-sickness beyond description. At the end of the second night my friend made his way to the hold and brought me up to the galley, for I should explain that he was the ship’s cook. Here I was able to wash myself in a pail and to take the little nourishment which he gave me. Just before daybreak and when I was preparing to return to my submarine dungeon, the thud of the screw ceased.
“Are we stopping?” I asked my friend, the cook.
He went out on to the deck and presently returned.
“Yes,” he said, “you had better stay here. There is an English patrol coming alongside.”
I could hear nothing but the whine of the wind and the ceaseless roar of the sea, and the first thing I heard was the sound of voices on the deck just outside the galley.
It was an English naval officer speaking.
“You have a stowaway on board, a German agent,” said the voice; “oh, yes, I know you are not aware of the fact, but he is here. You can either search the ship and bring him up or we will save you the trouble.”