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diff --git a/40581-0.txt b/40581-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0cd8fec --- /dev/null +++ b/40581-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5314 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40581 *** + + THE SECRET SERVICE SUBMARINE + + A STORY OF THE PRESENT WAR + + BY GUY THORNE + + + NEW YORK + SULLY & KLEINTEICH + 1915 + + + The verses used as preface appeared in the issue of _Truth_ for 4th + November 1914. They are reproduced here by special and courteous + permission of the Editor. The verses were published anonymously, but + the author has kindly allowed me to mention his name. He is Mr. + William Booth. + + + THE SONG OF THE SUBMARINE + + + This is the song of the submarine + Afloat on the waters wide. + Like a sleeping whale + In the starlight pale, + Just flush with the swirling tide. + The salt sea ripples against her plates + The salt wind is her breath, + Like the spear of fate + She lies in wait, + And her name is "Sudden Death." + + I watch the swift destroyers come, + Like greyhounds lank and lean, + And their long hulks sleek + Play hide-and-seek + With me on the waters green. + I watch them with my single eye, + I see their funnels flame, + And I sing Ho! Ho! + As I sink below, + Ho! Ho! for a glorious game! + + I roam the seas from Scapa Flow + To the Bight of Heligoland; + In the Dover Strait + I lie in wait + On the edge of Goodwin's Sand. + I am here and there and everywhere, + Like the phantom of a dream, + And I sing Ho! Ho! + Through the winds that blow, + The song of the submarine! + + WILLIAM BOOTH. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PART I + + I. REJECTED FOR SERVICE. MR. JOHN CAREY'S EXPLANATION 11 + + II. "THERE IS SOMETHING VERY WRONG ABOUT THIS HOUSE" 23 + + III. BERNARD CAREY, LIEUTENANT-COMMANDER OF SUBMARINES 37 + + IV. DORIS AND MARJORIE GIVE A SUPPER PARTY. THE ARROW + FLIES IN MORSTONE SEA-WOOD 59 + + + PART II + + V. AT MIDNIGHT ON THE MARSHES. THE SECRET OF THE OLD + HULK 77 + + VI. HOW JOHN CAREY FOUGHT WITH THE GERMAN GIANT IN THE + SALOON, AND "MR. JONES" MET UNEXPECTED THINGS IN + THE NIGHT 103 + + VII. THE MURDER OF MR. LOCKHART 122 + + VIII. THE TRUTH AT LAST, THE INCREDIBLE TRUTH! AND HOW + THEY FOUGHT FOR THE SUBMARINE 128 + + + PART III + + IX. OUT IN THE NORTH SEA. PREPARING FOR ACTION 145 + + X. THE SPEAR OF FOAM 154 + + XI. THE SUBMARINE FIGHTS FOR ENGLAND 164 + + XII. THE LAST CHAPTER--IN TWO PARTS-- + DORIS AND MARJORIE HAVE A LATE VISITOR 177 + RETURN OF THE SEVEN HEROES 184 + + + + +[ILLUSTRATION: JOHN CAREY'S MAP OF THE MARSHES] + + + + +THE SECRET SERVICE SUBMARINE + + + + +PART I + + + + +CHAPTER I + +REJECTED FOR SERVICE. MR. JOHN CAREY'S EXPLANATION + + +On thinking it over, I date the extraordinary affairs which so thrilled +England and brought me such undeserved good fortune from the day on +which I tried to enlist. + +The position was this. My father was an engineer with a small, but +apparently thriving, foundry at Derby. My mother died and my father sent +me to Oxford, my younger brother, Bernard Carey, being an officer in the +Navy. At Oxford, I was one of that perennial tribe of young asses who +play what used to be called the "Giddy Goat" in those days with the +greatest aplomb and satisfaction to themselves. I was at a good +college--Exeter--for originally we were west-country people, and all +sons of Devon and Cornwall go to Exeter. + +I was immensely strong and healthy. I did not row, but played Rugby +football, being chosen to play in the Freshmen's match, and +subsequently got my "Blue." I did no reading whatever. My father gave me +a more than sufficient allowance, and in my second year, having sprained +myself badly, I bought a motor car--an expensive Rolls-Royce--on credit, +and became a "blood." I could not play games any more, though I was +healthy enough, so I used to go constantly to London "to see my +dentist," which, of course, meant dinner at the Café Royal, too many +cocktails at the Empire, and a wild rush home in the car to get to +College before twelve o'clock at night. + +When any musical comedy company visited Oxford, I, in company with my +friends, used to invite the ladies of the chorus to tea. I did all the +silly things possible, got sent down for a term, and eventually only +just managed to scrape through a pass degree, after being ploughed +several times in this or that "Group." + +Then my father died, and it was found that he had nothing whatever to +leave us. His works were in the hands of his creditors--it seems that +things had been going wrong for years--and there was I, with a game leg, +an excellent taste in such dubious vintages as the Oxford wine merchants +provide, a somewhat exact knowledge of ties, waist-coats, and socks, a +smattering of engineering which I had picked up from my father purely +from a liking of the subject, and, when my bills were paid, exactly £14, +7_s._ 3_d._ + +Knowing nothing whatever of the slightest value to anybody, myself +included, I naturally decided to devote my attention to the education +of youth. My "Blue," short as the time was that I enjoyed it, would be +an asset, I imagined; and, for the rest, to teach urchins their Latin +grammar for a few hours a day could not be a very arduous occupation. + +Accordingly, I went to see a suave gentleman in the Strand, who received +me courteously, but without enthusiasm. This gentleman was one of the +mediums by which those who would instruct the young find a field for +their activities. I paid him a guinea, I think it was, and he then took +down my qualifications. + +When I mentioned my "Blue" with pride, he shook his head. + +"My dear sir, 'Blues' are now a drug in the market," he said. "Surely +you read the daily papers, especially the _Daily Wire_"? + +"No," I replied, "I am no bookworm." + +He coughed rather nastily and I began to get irritated with the fellow. + +"Then I must explain," he continued, "that there has been a great outcry +against over-athleticism in the public schools, in all schools, in fact, +and I fear your 'Blue' is not worth ..." + +"Quite so," I broke in; "'not worth a damn,' you were going to say." + +"I was going to say no such thing, Mr. Carey," he replied stiffly. "At +any rate, we will do our best for you. You cannot hope for more than a +private school at first, and your success in the profession you +have--er--chosen, will depend entirely upon your success in a +comparatively humble sphere." + +A week afterwards, I received two or three little forms telling me to +apply to various headmasters. + +Prospects were not cheering, and the salaries offered would about have +kept me in cigarettes at Oxford. To cut a long story short, I eventually +became third master--there were only three of us--in Morstone House +School in Norfolk, at a salary of eighty pounds a year and all +found--except washing. + +Morstone House School was a sort of discreet modern edition of Dotheboys +Hall. I do not mean to say, of course, in these enlightened days, that +the boys were starved or ill-treated. But everything was cut down to the +very margin--to the margarine, as my colleague Lockhart, who was a +cripple, and a wit--the Head got him cheap for that--would occasionally +remark. + +For two years I remained at Morstone, a miserable enough life for an +ex-blood, you will say--only there were consolations. One of them, and +to me it was a very great one indeed, was that Morstone was situated in +a remote village on the east coast, on the edge of vast saltings or sea +marshes intersected by great creeks of sullen, tidal water. It was five +miles to the nearest little town, Blankington-on-Sea, and as lonely a +place as well could be conceived. Nevertheless, these vast marshes +stretching for many miles on either side formed one of the finest +wild-fowl districts in the whole of England. I was, and always had been, +passionately fond of shooting. I had saved my guns from the wreck, and +the whole of my leisure time in winter was taken up with perhaps the +most fascinating of all sports. + +The wild geese would fly at night over the lonely mud-flats with a noise +like a pack of hounds in the sky. Duck of all sorts abounded, teal, +widgeon, mallard, and the rarer pintail and even the crested grebe. +There were plenty of snipe, stint, golden plover and shank--in short, it +was a paradise for the sportsman. I kept fit and well from the first day +of August to the last day of February. My work at the school was easy +enough, and I had an absolutely absorbing pursuit to take me out of +myself and make me forget what a very sorry part I was playing in the +battle of life--for I think it only due to myself to remark that I was a +young ass without being a fool. This is a nice distinction, but there +are those who will understand my meaning. + +The second consolation--I do not put it second because it was the lesser +of the two, but from a somewhat natural reluctance to speak of it until +the last necessary moment--was Doris. + +This brings me to that extraordinary man, my chief. I am not going to +discount the interest of this narrative by saying too much of this +gentleman at the outset. His name is familiar enough to England now. I +will merely describe him and his surroundings. + +The Headmaster of Morstone House School was Doctor Upjelly. His +qualifications for the position he held were, to say the least of it, +peculiar. He was "Doctor" by virtue of a German degree obtained during +what must have been a singularly misspent youth--they are coarse brutes +at these German universities, or I should be the last to refer to early +indiscretions!--at Heidelberg. Love of teaching he had none. Love of +money seemed to be his predominating characteristic, though he was as +keen on wild-fowling as I was myself. This was the only thing that made +me regard him as human--that is to say, at the beginning. + +What Doctor Upjelly's early life had been, nobody knew. He had travelled +much abroad, at any rate, and spoke French, German, and Italian +fluently. He had been in England for a great many years, the last six of +which he had spent at Morstone House. He had purchased the school from +the decayed clergyman who ran it before him, and seemed to be perfectly +contented with his life, though he often made visits to London and +occasionally entertained visitors at Morstone. He had married an +Englishwoman in Germany, we always understood, a lady with two daughters +by a former marriage, Doris and Marjorie Joyce. Doris was twenty-two and +Marjorie twenty-one. They lived at Morstone and kept house for their +stepfather, supervised the school accounts, and generally did work which +ought to have been done by the matron, a sinister old hag called Mrs. +Gaunt, and apparently the only person in whom Doctor Upjelly ever +confided. + +To say that Doris and Marjorie hated their stepfather would be to put +it with extreme mildness. They were both young and high-spirited girls, +and they would have left him like a shot had it not been for some +promise extorted from them by their dying mother, which they felt bound +to observe. This was Mrs. Joyce's only bequest to her daughters, and, +like most promises given to a semi-conscious person probably quite +unaware of what she is saying, about as cruel and immoral a thing as +ever bound quixotic inexperience. + +Old Upjelly was a tyrant. He did not interfere in the affairs of the +school much--that was to his daughters' and the masters' gain, to say +nothing of the wretched boys. But the girls were forced to lead a +semi-monastic life. They were not allowed to accept invitations to +tennis parties at local rectories, or even to play duets at the nasty +little schoolroom concerts which were always being got up by fussy +parsons' wives. And most of all, they were not allowed to have anything +to do with the assistant masters. + +Now, as both Doris and Marjorie, of whom I naturally saw a great deal, +confided to me, they had never wished to have anything to do with the +assistant masters until my arrival. This did not make me vain, in view +of my two other colleagues and of some who had preceded me and of whom I +had heard. + +The first master, who lived in a cottage in the village with a wife as +senile and decrepit as himself, was the Reverend Albert Pugmire. In dim +and distant days, he had held various curacies, from which he had been +politely requested to retire owing to a somewhat excessive fondness for +Old Tom Gin. I understand there had never been any actual inhibition on +the part of a justly outraged bishop, but Mr. Pugmire, at any rate, had +become chief drudge to Doctor Upjelly. + +Pugmire was about sixty-two. In appearance he was exactly like one of +those tapers with which one lights the gas, thin, white, ghostly, except +for one vivid splash of colour, a nose resembling nothing so much as a +piece of coral, which he averred was the result of indigestion. He +really was a classical scholar of remarkable attainments. He would even +teach a boy who wanted to learn, and once, when the son of a local +clergyman with a taste for the classics wormed his way into the horrid +old man's confidence, I remember with what a thunderclap of amazement it +came upon us all when this young Philips gained an open scholarship at +Magdalen. The event was so unprecedented that I saw Doctor Upjelly at a +loss for the first time in his life. He did not know what to say, and +that night old Pugmire had to be carried home. The affair, however, soon +sank into oblivion and was never mentioned. + +The second master, who taught such mathematics as each imp condescended +to learn, was poor little Lockhart, a misshapen bundle of bones, as +hollow and bitter as a dried lemon. When a baby, his nurse, during a +heated altercation with the cook, had thrown him at the latter lady, and +the poor chap had never known any happiness since. He had an income of +his own of about a hundred a year and was able enough in his way, but he +was too acid for ordinary intercourse--though, as will presently appear, +he had unsuspected qualities. + +Then I came, the ex-Blue with the game leg. + +Having said so much, it will be fairly obvious that the second +consolation I have mentioned in my life was Doris. + +The Great War broke out and, in common with every other decent +Englishman of my own age, I heard the call of the country. I am not +going to sentimentalise about this--there is no necessity--but, of +course, I was keen as mustard to go. + +I was exactly six feet high; my eyesight was far above the average--the +man who does most of his shooting at twilight, by moonlight, or in early +dawn and at long ranges, has far keener sight than most men. My teeth +were so good that I could eat Upjelly's mutton with ease, if not with +satisfaction. As far as personal strength went, I was as strong as a +bull--indeed, if the music halls had remained in their pristine +simplicity and had not been given over to the elaborate spectacle, I +could have earned a living as a weight-lifter in a leopard skin and pink +tights; but, and here was the thing that made me lie awake at night +grinding my teeth and cursing fate--not knowing what she had in store +for me--there was my leg. + +Now, I could walk and outwalk most men I knew on the marshes, the most +difficult form of progression probably known to man, as anyone who has +tramped the thick, black mud and the marrum grass well knows. No +professional wild-fowler from Stiffkey or Cockthorpe could outdo me. +Yet, when I went to Norwich and offered myself for the East Norfolk +Territorial Battalion, a fool of a doctor in goggles, with whom I +wouldn't have cleaned my ten-bore, rejected me at once, despite all I +could say or do--and, what is more, told me that I would have no +possible chance elsewhere. I told him what I thought of him, and nearly +cried. Then I went out into an adjacent pub, had some beer, and cursed +bitterly, until the recruiting sergeant whom I had first interviewed, +likewise in search of beer, happened to come into the private bar. He +was a decent sort of johnny and told me a few eye-opening things about +doctors. He said that he would be proud to have me in his company, and +he gave me an invaluable tip. Finding out that I knew something about +engineering, he suggested that I should go to London and try and get +into the Royal Naval Flying Corps. At that time, the great fleet of +armoured motor cars was being got ready. I could drive a car with any +man and I was a fairly good motor mechanic. + +My brother, Bernard, was, as I said, in the Navy. He was, by this time, +Lieutenant-Commander in the submarine section, and he was in London, +having been shot in the arm during a little scrap off Heligoland. + +I got leave from old Upjelly, who, for some queer reason or other, did +not seem to take to the idea of my enlisting--though, heaven knows, he +had never shown any appreciation of my services--and went up to town. I +found Bernard just out of hospital. He had to rest for another month, +and, as he had hardly any money beyond his pay and special allowances, +he wanted to do it on the cheap. I suggested that he should come down to +Morstone and stay in the village pub. He was as keen on shooting as I, +and he hailed the idea with joy. + +He took me to the then depôt of the R.N.F.C., at the big _Daily Mail_ +air-ship shed at Wormwood Scrubbs, and he used every possible bit of +influence he had got to get me in. + +The naval people were all awfully jolly, but regulations were strict, +and though they moved heaven and earth for me, it could not be done. + +I said good-bye to my brother, who was to come down to Morstone almost +immediately, and one dull, bitter afternoon in the middle of December, I +found myself in a third-class carriage going home--once more a hopeless +failure. + +I could see old Upjelly's mocking sneer, I could hear little Lockhart's +titter; old Pugmire would say, "A gin and soda is clearly indicated in +this crisis." And Doris--what would Doris say? + +Well, Doris, poor Doris, would weep. She would know it was not my fault, +dear little girl, but she would weep. And for many days I should read my +newspaper, which arrived in the evening, over the fire in my +sitting-room in the north wing at the end of the dormitory, and if I did +not weep too, it would be because I was a man and not a girl. Other +people would be doing glorious things. Two-thirds of the men of my own +college were already either at the front or in training. Some smug, who +could not get into the second fifteen at Exeter, would become D.S.O. or +V.C. Morstone would be full of farm lads, who had gone out louts and +come back wounded heroes. And for me, only what some priggish hymn or +other describes as "the daily round, the common task," how damnably +common, only I myself knew. + +The afternoon, as I have said, was dark and lowering, and as I changed +at Heacham for the local train, a bitter wind, which cut like a knife, +swept over the vast flats, straight from Heligoland, the Kiel Canal, and +the tossing wastes of the North Sea. + +We crawled along slowly, stopping at half a dozen stations, until, with +a groan, the train drew up in the God-forsaken little terminus of +Blankington-on-Sea. The sea was two miles away over the mud flats, and +Blankington consisted of an enormous church, five maltsters' yards, a +few fly-blown shops, and seventeen public-houses, where the townspeople +and labourers on the weekly market day defied the marsh fogs with ardent +spirits. + +Wordingham, the husband of the woman who kept the Morstone Inn, was +waiting with his dog-cart. I hoisted in my kit-bag and jumped up beside +him and we started off. It was pitch dark, and we had five miles to go +along a level road. + +On the right were huge fields of barley stubble, all in the great shoot +of the Earl of Blankington, whose yearly head of "birds," as partridges +are called in Norfolk, to say nothing of pheasants, was second only to +that of Sandringham itself, not so very far away. To the left were a few +more fields where some plovers wailed mysteriously, "it's dark and +late," or "it's late and dark," and beyond, the vast creeks and saltings +towards the ocean. Even as we got out of the little town, I heard the +great boom of a double ten-bore far away. Well, I could at least go back +to my wild-fowling, and Wordingham told me that the geese were working +backwards and forwards in skeins of at least a hundred, right over the +Morstone miels. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +"THERE IS SOMETHING VERY WRONG ABOUT THIS HOUSE" + + +We bowled along through the night, and I turned up the collar of my +thick ulster, for it was bitterly cold. + +"Well," I said, "any news, Wordingham?" + +Wordingham was a big, strong, nut-brown, silent man, who took time +before he spoke. At last he did so, but without replying to my question. + +"My missus," he said slowly, "has got the parlour behind the bar ready +for your brother, sir. It is a snug, ship-shape little place, and we +will do our best to make him comfortable. And if you and I can't show +the Captain a bit of sport, well, there's no one in this part of the +country who can." + +"Good," I said. "My brother has still got a month to get thoroughly fit +before he goes back to join the North Sea Squadron. I want him to have +as much shooting as possible." + +Wordingham nodded and flicked up his horse. He was a well-known +wild-fowler in East Norfolk and, if report spoke true, a very skilful +poacher too. The marshes were free to everyone, right up to where the +sea came on rare spring tides. Wordingham had an excellent mahogany +punt, with a long, black-powder gun, and he would often get as many as +thirty brace of duck at a single shot after hours of cautious +water-stalking. + +But, apart from the wild birds of the saltings, Morstone was in the very +heart of one of the most famous shoots in England. The villagers were +poachers to a man, and it was well known that fast motor cars often made +sudden appearances at night, whereby the poulterers of Leadenhall Market +were greatly enriched next morning. Many and many were the "old things" +that found their way into the capacious side-pockets of my friend--"old +thing" being the local name for hare, a word which is never spoken aloud +in a Norfolk village by those who find it "their delight of a moonlight +night," &c. &c. + +I thought none the worse of Sam Wordingham for that. I had no big shoot +and no expensive machinery of game-keepers and night-watchers to keep +up. I, myself, was a bit of an Ishmael, to say nothing of a lover of +sport. + +"I am sure we can do my brother very well," I said. "It is a fine +fowling year with all this cold, and there are a lot of worthy fowl +about, as many as I have ever seen. But has there been no news in the +village since I left?" + +"You will be surprised to hear as the Doctor himself dropped in to the +private bar yesterday evening." + +"Doctor Upjelly?" + +Sam nodded. "It was about nine o'clock. Mr. Pugmire was settin' by the +fire, not to say boozed, but as is usual about nine o'clock. 'Muzzy' is +how I put it. Thinks I, 'Here's the Doctor come after Mr. Pugmire,' +though I never knew such a thing in all these years before, and everyone +knows Mr. Pugmire's little failings, the Doctor included." + +"Was it that?" + +"No, it weren't," and Sam turned his big, brown face toward me. + +I knew Sam. Many and many a midnight had we spent together waiting for +flighting time. I forbore in anticipation. + +"'E sets himself down and 'e calls for a bottle of strong, old +ale--fowlers' tipple. 'E nods quite pleasant to Mr. Pugmire, what was +looking at him like a cat looks when you catch it stealin' cream. +'Pugmire,' says he, 'you will join me in a little refreshment?' But the +old gentleman, he was too scairt, and 'e mumbles something and shuffles +off 'ome--and I'll lay that's the first time Mr. Pugmire has been 'ome +partly sober this year. Then the Doctor, he makes 'imself very pleasant, +'e does. My missus comes in and he begins asking about--what do you +think 'e arst about, sir?" + +"I haven't an idea." + +"About the Captain, about your brother." + +I was startled. I hadn't told the Doctor that my brother was coming to +stay in the village--it was no business of his, and we had few +confidences on any subject. Lockhart knew and, of course, Doris and her +sister, but they were not likely to have said anything. + +"What did he want to know?" I asked. + +"Where he was sleeping, and if we were going to make the gentleman +comfortable, and if he had a taste for shooting, had I heard? Regular +lot of questions!" + +"Well, it's very kind of the Doctor to take an interest in my brother," +I replied. + +"Very, sir," Wordingham answered dryly. "Mr. Jones, he came down last +night at ten o'clock, came down from London in his motor car, 'e did. +He's at the school now, or leastways, with this tide and the moon +getting up in an hour or so, he will be out on the marshes with the +Doctor. I heard tell that they was to be out all night. Bill Jack +Pearson, from the school, 'e told me." + +Again there was silence, while I thought over this little bit of +information, for anything is news in such a stagnant hole as Morstone. +Mr. Jones was a friend of the Doctor's who often came to see him. He +was a short, sturdy, red-faced man with bright blue eyes and a very +reserved manner. We always understood that he was in business in the +city, and well-to-do. Like the Doctor, he had a passion for +wild-fowling, or that, at any rate, was supposed to be the reason for +his visits, though Doris had more than once hinted to me that she +thought Marjorie, her younger sister, was a bit of an attraction too. + +"Ever been out with Mr. Jones, sir?" Wordingham asked. + +"Not I. Why, I've only been out with the Doctor once in all the time +I've been at Morstone. He seems to prefer to be alone." + +"Aye, he's a solitary man, is the Doctor. On that time you went out with +him, did you get anything, sir?" + +"I got a couple of brent geese, but the Doctor was not in form at all +and missed his one chance when they came over." + +"Now, would you be surprised, sir, if I was to tell you that the Doctor +is one of the worst shots in the parish?" + +"I should be very surprised indeed. Why? He gets awfully good bags night +after night--whenever he goes out, in fact." + +"You know Jim Long up at Cockthorpe?"--he was mentioning a famous +professional wild-fowler who lived by supplying the markets with duck +and taking out sportsmen from London over the difficult and intricate +marshes at night. + +"Of course I do. Been out with him lots of times." + +"Well, sir, don't say as I told you, don't mention it to Jim and don't +mention it to a living soul, but I found out only last month, accidental +like, that Jim's been supplying the Doctor with teal and widgeon and +grey geese and plover and what not for goodness knows 'ow long. 'E +leaves a nice little bag in the Doctor's old hulk in Thirty Main Creek, +and the Doctor finds 'em there and brings 'em home. And, what's more, +Mr. Jones, 'e can't shoot for nuts, neither. I've see'd 'im firing off +their guns, to get 'em dirty, from the deck of the hulk!" + +At this I began to laugh, though the news was a bit of a shock to me, +for I had always regarded the Doctor and his friend as true sportsmen. I +saw no reason to disbelieve what Wordingham had said, for he was not a +man who spoke rashly, and, comic though the business was, I could not +help that sort of odd discomfort one feels when an illusion is +shattered. The only good thing I knew of Upjelly was now a thing of the +past. Of course, I had heard of the type of sportsman who buys a creel +of trout at the fishmonger's on his way home, or gets his pheasants at +the poulterer's--about the cheapest and nastiest form of vanity that +exists, I should think. But I had never heard of anything of the sort in +connection with wild-fowling; and indeed, a man who, night after night, +will go through the extraordinary discomforts, the freezing cold, the +occasional real danger, the weary hours of waiting in the dark, merely +to get a reputation as a fowler, must be king and skipper of all the +humbugs and pretenders since Mr. Pecksniff himself. + +I had little more conversation with Sam, his news occupied all my +thoughts and for a time I forgot my own troubles. I remember thinking, +in a childish sort of way, what a rag it would be to stalk old Upjelly +one night, and catch him in the very act. What a hold I should have over +him afterwards! + +We approached the village. The wind cried in the chimneys of the houses +with a strange, wailing note. The moon just peeped out behind the gaunt +church tower, amid the scud of ghostly clouds, and its light grew +brighter as we turned to the left towards the school itself. At the same +moment, the wind, smelling salt of the marshes and of the open sea a +mile beyond, and carrying particles of sand, struck me with its full +force, so that I had to bow my head. + +In three minutes we were at Morstone House School. It was a long, low +building of considerable extent, shaped like the letter L. The shorter +arm was three storeys high and was the Doctor's own quarters, together +with his cook, housemaid, and the old matron, Mrs. Gaunt. The longer +wing contained the schoolrooms on the ground floor, a bare apartment +known as the dining-hall, and two dormitories in each of which there +were about fifteen boys, the whole school consisting of some fifty boys, +thirty of whom were boarders. This part of the building was only two +storeys high, save at one end, where there was a small tower. Just +outside each dormitory was a master's sitting-room and bedroom. One of +these was mine--the top one--the other, down below, that of Lockhart. + +There were three main entrances to the school. One, the front door, in +the middle of the longer portion of the building, another, a small door +in the angle, used only by the masters, and the Doctor's private +entrance, opening out into his garden on the other side of the block. + +It was just ten o'clock as I drove through the playing fields and on to +the gravel sweep in front of the house. Bill Jack Pearson, the school +porter, opened the masters' door and took my bag. He was a pleasant, +cheery fellow, who liked me. + +"Well, Bill Jack," I said, "everything all right?" + +"Everything all right, Mr. Carey. The Doctor and Mr. Jones, who came +last night, have gone out towards Cockthorpe. The geese are working +there, and they won't be back till dawn. There's some supper in your +room, and I've lit the fire." + +Then I asked a question which the porter quite understood. + +"And Mrs. Gaunt?" + +"The old cat's gone to bed, sir," he said in a lower voice. "I've just +come from the Doctor's kitchen, and Cook told me." + +I passed through the little paved lobby which led to the long corridor +of class-rooms, and hurried up the bare, wooden stairs. There was a good +fire in my room and the lamp was lit upon the supper-table, where a jug +of beer flanked a cold wild goose--and ordinary mortals who have not +tasted that delicacy have missed a lot. + +I took off my coat, went into my bedroom and washed my hands, peeped +into the dormitory, where only a single lamp was burning dimly and all +the boys seemed asleep, and then returned. + +As I closed the door and saw my own familiar things around me, the +remembrance of what had happened came over me in a great flood. I +groaned aloud. Upon the walls, washed with terra-cotta, were my college +groups, reminding me of Oxford and happier days. There were some silver +cups upon a shelf. In a glass-fronted cupboard by the side of the +fireplace were my guns. Over the mirror on the mantelpiece was a faded +blue cap, and on the writing-table was a pile of filthy, dogs-eared, +little exercise books, in which reluctant urchins had been scribbling +attempts at Latin prose. + +I bit my lip hard and sat down to supper, which did not take more than +five or six minutes. Then I prepared myself for something that was yet +to come. + +Against the wall by the window was a bookshelf containing the few +volumes I possessed and such schoolbooks as I used in my work. I took +down Smith's classical dictionary, and Liddell and Scott's Greek ditto, +and, inserting my hand in the place this left, withdrew a pleasant +little instrument which I had bought for twenty-seven-and-six--see +advertisement in the _Strand Magazine_--from a scientific toy-shop in +Holborn. This was known as "Our Portable House Telephone," and, not to +elaborate the mystery, a little wire ran out of my window, through the +ivy, and round the angle of the building to the Doctor's block, where it +found unobtrusive entry through another window. At this end was an +instrument exactly like the one I held in my hand, but which rested in a +hole made in the plaster of the wall and was concealed by that touching +engraving, "The Soul's Awakening." I had fixed up the whole thing myself +some two months before, when the Doctor was away in London, Mrs. Gaunt +at market in Blankington-on-Sea, and the boys engaged in a paper chase. + +Doris was waiting, of course. + +"Dearest, so you've got back--I heard the trap!" + +"Yes; can you come?" + +"In a minute. The connecting door to the school is locked, but I made +Bill Jack lend me his key." + +"Right-O!"--and I waited breathlessly for Doris. + +I daresay such a proceeding as this may strike the ultra-proper with +dismay. But we loved each other, there was no harm in it, and, besides, +what the deuce were we to do? It was the only way we could meet at all, +and even then, it only happened now and again. + +The door of my sitting-room opened without a sound and Doris entered. +Doris's hair is dark red, and, when it is down, it reaches almost to +her heels. Titian red, I believe, is the right name for it, though I'm +sure I don't know why. Her eyes are dark blue, like the blue on the wing +of a freshly killed mallard--I am not good at this sort of thing, but +she is a ripper. Directly she had closed the door, which she did +noiselessly, she saw from my face what had happened. I felt a rotten +tout, I can tell you, to stand there, chucked again. + +"Well, here I am," I said, "returned empty, declined with thanks, His +Majesty having no use for my services! Same old game, Doris dear, and if +they lose the war now, they can't blame me!" I spoke bitterly, but +lightly also; yet when Doris put her arms round my neck and I held her +close, when I could feel warm tears upon my cheek, I was as near +breaking down as I have ever been in my life. + +"Never mind, Johnny darling, never mind," she whispered, "I love you +just the same--you've always got me--and it isn't your fault. You've +tried as hard as you possibly can to go." + +She could only stay a quarter of an hour; it wasn't safe longer. +Marjorie was keeping cave, for the sisters occupied the same room. I +told her everything as shortly as I could, and with a sigh, we both +agreed that we must make the best of it. She wanted me to go, she longed +for me to go, I knew that. What patriotism there was in Morstone House +School was confined to the boys and to the Doctor's stepdaughters. +Upjelly himself seemed to take very little interest in the +conflagration of the world, or, if he did, he never showed it. But I +knew as well as I knew anything that Doris would rather have had me go +to the Front and get a bullet through my head than that I should stay at +home; which, I may remark, is the right sort of girl. + +"Well," she said at length, "let us hope the Germans invade us--it will +be somewhere about here, I suppose, if they do--and then you can have a +smack at them with your single eight-bore, Johnny; that would be +something, wouldn't it?" + +She told me the news of the school, such as it was, and then, with a +final kiss, we separated and I was left alone. + +The bitterness was still in my heart, a deep sort of fire at the bottom +of everything which I can't put into words--like the gentlemen in the +boys' historical novels, who always begin: "I am but a plain, unlettered +yeoman, and more handy with the sword than with the pen"--you know what +I mean. Still, I was a man and a strong one, and an Englishman whose +brother was fighting for his King. I did not know before that life could +hurt so badly as it was hurting now. For nearly an hour, I suppose, I +walked up and down my room, until the fire grew low and the wailing of +the wind outside seemed to speak of disaster and complete the innuendo +of the time. + +And then, quite suddenly, I do not know what it was, my spirits began to +clear. It was like a thick sea-mist on the marshes, which hangs like a +dull, grey blanket for hours, with the birds calling all round, only you +cannot get a shot at them. Suddenly the sun, or a puff of wind, makes +the whole thing roll up like a curtain, and you see a herd of curlew or +a wisp of snipe quite close to you. That is how I felt. I caught sight +of my face in the glass, and I was surprised. It was positively +glowing--just as if I had been made Commander-in-Chief of the R.N.F.C. +and Admiral Jellicoe had asked me to come and have a drink. + +I am not used to analysing my feelings, which seem to me like +chemicals--the more you analyse them, the worse they smell; so I could +not account in the least for this sudden change. + +Well, I was wondering at it and thinking that I had better turn in +before I got the black dog on my shoulders again, when there was a tap +at the door, and in shuffled little Lockhart. He had a bottle of whisky +under one arm and a syphon under the other, and he looked, as usual, +like a plucked spring chicken that had not been properly fed--bones +sticking out everywhere. + +"Thought perhaps you hadn't any whisky," he said--and then, "Hallo! +pulled it off this time?" He was looking at my face. + +I started, because there was something in his voice I had not heard +before, and something in his eyes I had not seen. + +"My dear chap," he went on, banging down the whisky on the table and +holding out his hand. "I can't tell you how glad I am!" + +Well, this made it rather hard. Of course, I had to tell him that I had +got the kick out again, but I didn't feel the depression coming back, +all the same. What I did feel, though, was a sudden liking for the odd +little fellow who was my colleague. We had always got on well enough +together, never had rows or anything of that sort, but he was too +cynical for me as a rule. In five minutes, however, I found myself +sitting on one side of the fire--which we made up--with Lockhart on the +other, talking away as if we had been intimate friends for years. + +By Jove, how the little fellow came out! If his body was maimed and +crippled, he had a big soul, if ever a man had. I can recognise +beautiful English when I hear it or read it. This man seemed inspired. +His talk of England and what we were going through and of what we still +had to go through was like that wonderful passage in Richard II which I +had been trying to make my idiot boys learn for rep. He was so awfully +kind and sympathetic, too. He said all that Doris had said, though in +quite another way. It was like a wise man, who had known and done +everything, comforting one. + +When he had finished, and sat looking at the fire, I had to tell him +what I felt. + +"I'm awfully indebted to you, Lockhart," was what I said. "You've pulled +me together and made a man of me again, and I can't thank you enough. +I'm afraid we haven't been such friends as we ought to have been"--and I +held out my hand. He took it and there was a strained smile upon his +wizened little face. + +"Carey," he said, "don't you be downhearted, for you are going to have +your chance yet, unless I am very much mistaken." + +"What do you mean?" I asked, for there was obviously something behind +his words. + +For answer, he did a curious thing. He slipped out of his arm-chair, +hopped across the room like a sparrow, and as quietly, and opened the +door, looking into the passage. Then he closed it and came back into the +middle of the room. + +"In the first place, John Carey," he said, "I mean that there is +something very wrong about this house." + + + + +CHAPTER III + +BERNARD CAREY, LIEUTENANT-COMMANDER OF SUBMARINES + + +I had just finished my tub the next morning, and was about to shave, +when there was a knock at my bedroom door. The school porter came in +with a message--"the Doctor sends his compliments, sir, and will you +give him the pleasure of your company at breakfast this morning?" + +This was quite unusual on the part of my chief. He always breakfasted +alone in his own house; even his daughters did not share the meal with +him. Lockhart and myself breakfasted with the boys--that is to say, we +sat at a table at one end of the room, while old Mrs. Gaunt, the matron, +presided over the bread-and-scrape and the urn of wishy-washy tea which +was all the boarders got, unless they provided delicacies for +themselves. + +About half-past eight, I went downstairs, round the rectangular wing, +into the Doctor's garden, and knocked at his front door. I was almost +immediately shown into the breakfast-room, a comfortable place, with a +good many books and a fine view over the marshes. + +Old Upjelly was standing upon the hearthrug as I entered, and I must +describe for you a very remarkable personality indeed. + +The Doctor was six feet high and proportionately broad. He was not only +broad from shoulder to shoulder, but thick in the chest, a big, powerful +man of fifty years of age. His face was enormous, as big as a ham +almost, and it was of a uniform pallor, rather like badly-cooked tripe, +as I once heard Lockhart describe it. A parrot-like nose projected in +the centre of this fleshy expanse; small, but very bright eyes, sunk in +caverns of flesh, looked out under bushy, black brows which squirted +out--there is no other word. He was clean-shaved and his mouth was +large, firm and curiously watchful, if I may so express it. Upjelly +could make his eyes say anything he pleased, but I have always thought +that the mouth is the feature in the human face which tells more than +any other. And if Upjelly's mouth revealed anything, it was +secretiveness, while there was a curious Chinese insensitiveness about +it. Lockhart, who had rather a genius for description, used to say that +he could conceive Doctor Upjelly locking himself up in his study and +sitting down to spend a quiet and solitary afternoon torturing a cat. + +He greeted me with his soft, rather guttural voice and with something +meant for an expansive smile. + +"Ah, here we are," he said, "and tell me at once, Mr. Carey, if you have +been successful in your application." + +Of course, I was quite prepared for this question and briefly related +the facts of the case, explaining that even my brother's influence had +failed to secure my entry into the Royal Naval Flying Corps. + +"I am truly sorry," he said, with the unctuous manner he reserved for +parents, "truly sorry; but you must remember, Mr. Carey, that 'they also +serve who only stand and wait.'" And as he said it, or was it my fancy, +there came a curious gleam into those little bits of glistening black +glass he called his eyes. + +A minute or two afterwards, and just as the maid was bringing in various +hot dishes, the door opened and Mr. Jones entered. + +I had been introduced to Mr. Jones some months before, though neither he +nor Upjelly had ever invited me to shoot with them. I had only met him +for a few minutes and had never formed a very definite opinion about him +one way or the other. + +He shook hands with me kindly enough, and I noticed how extremely firm +and capable his grip was. It was not at all the sort of grip one would +expect from the ordinary city man, though, of course, nowadays everybody +plays golf or does something of the kind, even in business circles. + +Mr. Jones' face was clean-shaved, too, and rather pleasant than +otherwise, though it was somewhat heavy. His eyes were bright blue, his +hair, thinning a little at the top, a light yellowish colour. He walked +with a slight roll or, shall I say swagger?--I really hardly know how to +describe it--which somehow or other seemed reminiscent, and he spoke +almost pedantically good English. When I say good English, I mean to say +that he chose his words with more care than most Englishmen do--almost +as if he were writing it down. + +We sat down to breakfast, and I saw at once that neither Doris nor her +sister were to be there. The meal was elaborate; I had no idea Upjelly +did himself in such style, for except at Oxford or Cambridge, or in big +country houses, breakfast is not generally a very complicated affair in +an ordinary English family. The coffee was excellent--there was no +tea--and there was a succession of hot dishes. I noticed, however, that +Mr. Jones took nothing but coffee, French rolls--I suppose the Doctor's +cook knew how to make them--and a little butter. And I noticed also +that, after all, he could not be of very great importance or good +breeding, because he tucked his table-napkin into his collar round his +chin, an odd proceeding enough! + +We began about the war, of course. Upjelly asked me my impressions of +London, and was most interested when I told him of all I had seen going +on at the R.N.F.C. Depôt at Wormwood Scrubbs, especially about the great +Rolls-Royce cars and the guns they were mounting on them. I never +thought the man took such an interest in anything outside his food and +his shooting--if indeed he took an interest even in shooting, which +Wordingham's story of last night led me to doubt. + +Somehow or other, I was convinced that Upjelly did not care either way +about my failure to enlist. He said the conventional things, but I knew +he was inwardly indifferent. It was not the same with Mr. Jones, whom I +began to like. He seemed genuinely sorry. + +"I can understand, Mr. Carey," he said, "that you have been extremely +disappointed. I can sympathise with you most thoroughly. It is the duty +and the privilege of every man who is capable of bearing arms to fight +for the Fatherland which has given him birth." + +Of course, this was a bit highfalutin, but he meant well. + +"Thank you," I said, "it certainly has been pretty rotten, but perhaps I +may get something to do yet. I would give anything just to have one go +at those swines of Germans! You saw what they did yesterday at the +little village of Oostcamp, in Belgium?" + +"We must not believe all we read in the papers, Mr. Carey," Upjelly +said, wagging his head and piling his plate with ham--the beast ate +butter with his ham! + +"I know," I replied; "of course, it is not all true, but there have been +enough atrocities absolutely proved to show what utter soulless beasts +the Germans are. It is a pity that we are not at war with a nation of +gentlemen, like the French, if we have to be at war at all!" + +The Doctor flushed a little. I suppose he thought I was too outspoken. +"I have lived much in Germany in my youth," he said, "and always found +them most hospitable and kind. You must not condemn a nation for the +deeds of a few." + +"Well, you may have been in Germany," I thought, "but you can't explain +away Louvain, for instance, or lots of other places!" + +Still, it was not my place to shove my oar in too much, and I turned to +Jones. + +"What do you think, Mr. Jones?" I asked. + +He hesitated for two or three seconds, as if he was trying to make up +his mind. "No one deplores certain incidents in Belgium more than I do," +he said at length, "but we must hope that, as Doctor Upjelly says, there +is a brighter side to the picture. You must remember that even a German +probably loves his country just as much as an Englishman." + +Well, of course I knew that was all rot. I had never been in Germany, +but people who let a chap like the Kaiser rule them and who live on +sausages and beer about as interesting as ditchwater, must be thorough +blighters! However, I changed the subject. + +"Now, the Navy," I said, "from all accounts, are quite a decent lot of +chaps. What a sportsman von Müller was till we bagged the _Emden_. He +behaved like a white man all through, and we let him keep his sword, +which I think we were quite right in doing." + +Mr. Jones smiled suddenly, revealing a row of very white and even teeth. +"You," he began, "I mean we, are an arrogant people, we English!" and he +chuckled as if he were amused at what I had said. "I quite agree with +you, however," he went on, "that the German naval officer is a fine +fellow. Your brother, by the way, is in our Navy, isn't he?" + +"Yes," I said; "he was wounded in a little affair off Heligoland the +other day. But he is getting fit now. Oh, by the way, Doctor, he is +coming down here to get some shooting. He is going to stay at the +Morstone Arms." + +"So I heard," Upjelly answered--the old fox, I thought I was going to +catch him out!--"I went in there last night, a thing I don't often do, +in order to see if I could find old Mr. Pugmire, and I heard from Mrs. +Wordingham. I shall hope to have the pleasure of making his acquaintance +when I return." + +"You are going away, Doctor?" + +"Yes. That was one of the things I wanted to see you about. Mr. Jones +is very kindly going to drive me up to town in his car this morning, and +I shall be away for a couple of days. I want to leave you in charge as +my representative." + +"But Lockhart----" I began. + +"Mr. Lockhart is not quite as capable of keeping discipline in the +school as you are, Carey." + +"Thank you very much, sir," I replied; "I will do my best." + +The meal continued and we all got on very well. Upjelly seemed really +interested in my brother and, after a cigarette, when I rose to go into +school, both he and Jones shook me very cordially by the hand. + +As I was leaving the room, I noticed one curious thing. There was a +little writing-table by the door and on it I distinctly saw the Navy +List for that month, obviously fresh from London. What old Upjelly could +want with a Navy List, a book which, of course, I had upstairs, I could +not conceive, and it gave me food for thought, especially in view of +what I shall have to relate very shortly. + +At the eleven o'clock break, when the boys had come out and were punting +about a soccer ball in front of the school, I saw Mr. Jones' big green +car, with himself at the wheel and the Doctor by his side, come round +the house and start off for London. + +I felt as if a great oppression was removed. My brother would arrive +that afternoon; Upjelly was out of the way; I was in charge of the whole +place. It would be hard if I did not see more of Doris than I had been +able to do for months past. + +We went into school again. I was taking what, in a pitiful attempt at +persuading ourselves we were a public school, we called the Sixth Form, +in Virgil. My boys, there were about ten of them, were a pleasant enough +set of lads, ranging from fifteen to the two eldest boys, both of whom +were seventeen. They were twins, Dickson max. and Dickson major, the +sons of a poor clergyman near Norwich, who could not afford to send them +to a better school. They had tried for entrance scholarships at Repton +and at Denstone, but had failed, and at all that concerns books or +learning were rather duffers. Yet they were clever boys in their way, +good sportsmen and, despite a perfectly abnormal talent for mischief, +could be depended on in the main. I liked them both and I was sorry for +them. Their one hope was that the war would last long enough for them to +enlist, for their father was too poor even to pay the necessary expenses +to send them into the Public Schools Corps, where lads of such physique +and cheery manners could have been sure of a welcome. + +"_Per varios casus, per tot discrimina rerum_," droned out Dickson max., +in painful endeavour to bury a dead language in the very stiff clay of +his mind. "Through various causes ..." + +"Now how can you say 'causes,' Dickson? You know perfectly well what it +is that Aeneas is saying. He is exhorting his followers to press +towards Rome against all sorts of bad luck. '_Casus_' should have been +translated 'chances.' '_Per tot discrimina rerum_' is, of course, +'through so many changes of fortune.' Imagine Aeneas is Sir John French, +pressing onwards to Berlin." + +It was fatal; that gave the signal. + +"Sir," said Dickson major instantly, "did you see any of the Royal Naval +Flying Corps in London?" + +Dickson max. put down his Virgil. "Is it true, sir, that they have got a +hundred armoured motor cars, each one with a maxim gun on +it?"--questions from eager faces were fired at me from all parts of the +room. + +I trust I am no precisian, as the people in Stevenson's stories are +always saying, and I confess that, for the next quarter of an hour I +held forth in an animated fashion about all that I had seen and done in +London. After all, it is the duty of a schoolmaster to encourage +patriotism, isn't it? I was just describing some of the new aerial guns +that we are mounting on some of the principal London buildings for the +defence of the city against Zeppelins, when there was a most appalling +crash and howl outside in the corridor. + +There was dead silence for an instant, then I jumped down from my desk +and rushed out. An unpleasant, almost a terrifying spectacle met my +eyes. Old Mrs. Gaunt, the matron, was rolling upon the flags of the +corridor like a wounded ostrich, yelping, there is really no other word +for it, as if in agony. Her face was pale as linen and her mouth was +twisted. She was obviously in great pain. + +"Whatever has happened?" I said, trying to help her, but as I lifted the +old thing by the shoulder she shrieked loudly and I had to lay her down +again. + +"My leg's broken!" she cried, "my leg's broken! One of those filthy boys +left his ball about, and I trod on it"--and indeed I saw, a few yards +away, the white fives ball which had been the cause of her disaster. + +The porter was summoned, we improvised an ambulance somehow, and took +the poor old thing to her room in the Doctor's wing, Doris and Marjorie +attending to her, while the porter rushed off on his bicycle for the +nearest doctor. + +In about an hour the doctor came. It was perfectly true, Mrs. Gaunt had +broken her leg. It was a simple fracture and, as the Doctor told me +afterwards, the woman was as tough as an old turkey, but she would be +confined to her bed for a fortnight at least, and the injured limb was +already encased in plaster of Paris. + +It was strictly against the rules for any boy to leave a fives ball +about. An accident had nearly happened once before for the same reason. +At lunch, I conducted a stern inquisition as to the culprit's identity. +It was Dickson max., who owned up at once, and I told him to come to my +room after the meal. + +I could not very well cane a boy of seventeen who would have been at +Sandhurst if his people could have afforded. Besides, I was too +inwardly grateful to him to have the slightest wish to do anything of +the sort. I gave him a thousand Latin lines and told him to stay in that +afternoon, which was a half-holiday, and on three subsequent halves, and +I am sorry to say that he grinned in my face as I did so. It was not an +impudent grin, or I should have known how to deal with it, but it was +one of perfect comprehension, and I fear I blushed as I told the young +beggar to clear out as quickly as possible. + +Certainly the fates were working well for me, though I had, even then, +not the least idea of what an eventful day this was to prove. Nothing +came to tell me that I was already embarked upon the greatest enterprise +of my life. I was to know more before night. + +Now one of my most cherished possessions at that time was a motor +bicycle. It was of an antiquated pattern and more often in the workshop +than on the road. Fortunately, such engineering knowledge as I had +enabled me to tinker at it for myself. To-day, though it had recently +been running with a most horrid cacophony resembling the screams of a +dying elephant and a machine gun alternately, it would still get along, +and I mounted it for Blankington-on-Sea to meet my brother Bernard. + +I put it up at the hotel--I saw the yard attendant wink at the stable +boy as he housed it--ordered a trap and went to the station. The train +came in to time and my brother descended from a first-carriage. I had +seen him in London only a day before, and despite his natural annoyance +at the failure to get me into the R.N.F.C., he had been particularly +cheery. As we shook hands and the porter took his kit-bags and gun-cases +to the trap, I saw that he had something on his mind. He hardly even +smiled. I jumped to a wrong conclusion. + +"Bernard," I said, "would you like a whisky-soda before we start? You +look as if you had been enjoying yourself too much last night." + +He shook his head. "No peg for me, thanks; let us get on the road." + +We went out of the station together and as we came into the yard he said +in a low voice: "I have a deuce of a lot to tell you, but not now." + +Then we started for Morstone. + +Little more than an hour later we were seated in the parlour at the inn. +A comfortable fire glowed upon the hearth and sent red reflections round +the homely room, lighting up the stuffed pintail in its case, the +old-fashioned, muzzle-loading marsh gun over the mantelpiece, the +gleaming lustre ware upon a dresser of old oak, and an engraving of old +Colonel Hawker himself, the king of wild-fowlers and a name to conjure +with in East Anglia. Upon the table was a country tea, piping hot scones +made by good Mrs. Wordingham, a regiment of eggs, a Gargantuan dish of +blackberry jam. + +"By Jove, this is a good place!" Bernard said. "Two lumps and lots of +cream, please. Look at this egg! Upon my word, I would like to shake by +the hand the fowl that laid it!" + +We made an enormous meal and then, as he pulled out a blackened "B.B.B." +and filled it with "John Cotton," my brother began to talk. + +"We are quite safe here, I suppose?" he said; "nobody can overhear us?" + +"Safe as houses." + +"Very well, then; now look here, old chap, you noticed I seemed a bit +off colour when you met me. Well, I'm not off colour, but I've had some +very serious news and, what is more, a sort of commission in connection +with it. After I saw you off yesterday I went to the Army and Navy Club. +There I found a letter from Admiral Noyes, written at the Admiralty and +asking me to call at once. I was shipmate with Noyes when he was captain +of the old _Terrific_, and he has helped me a lot in my service career. +It was he who got me transferred into Submarines--where, you know, I +have made a bit of a hit. Well, now Noyes is Chief of the Naval +Intelligence Department. He sent for me and asked me a lot of questions, +specially about Kiel and the Frisian Islands. I was at Kiel for the +manoeuvres two years ago and I know all that coast like my hat. I +didn't quite see the drift of his questions until he told me what was +going on. It seems"--and here Bernard's voice sank very low--"it seems +that, recently, there has been a tremendous leakage of information to +the enemy--Naval information, I mean. We have our people on the +look-out, and there is no doubt whatever that, during the last two +months, over and over again the German ships have got information about +our movements." + +"I know. There is a whole lot about it in the _Daily Wire_: flash +signals from the Yorkshire coast at night, round about Whitby, and so +on." + +"Oh yes, I saw that too; but the leakage is not there, my boy. That's +newspaper talk. The Admiralty know to a dead certainty that the leakage +is going on in East Norfolk, round about here." + +I whistled. "I don't see how that can be," I said. "There is no wireless +station anywhere near. The few boats that come into Blankington-on-Sea +are only small coasters and they are very carefully scrutinised; and as +for flash signals, I am out on the marshes nearly every night, the +foreshore is patrolled by sentries, and nothing of the sort has ever +been hinted at." + +"Exactly; that is the point. But that there is a leakage and that it is +doing irreparable harm, you may take as an absolute certainty. Noyes +knew that I was coming down to Norfolk for a rest and for some shooting. +When I applied for leave, I had to state my destination and so forth. +Noyes got hold of it by chance and sent for me, knowing he could trust +me. The long and short of it is, Johnny, that I have got a roving +commission to keep my eyes very wide open indeed, to see if I can't find +something out. Don't mistake me. This is not a mere trifling matter. It +is one of the gravest things and one of the most perfectly organised +systems that has happened during the war. Why," he said, bringing his +fist down upon the table so that the cups rattled, his face set and +stern, "the safety of the whole of England may depend upon this being +discovered and stopped!" + +"But surely," I asked, "they have had people down here already?" + +Bernard nodded. "Oh yes," he said, "the coastguards are specially +warned, there have been thorough searches, quietly carried out, reports +are constantly made from every village by accredited agents--and the +Admiralty has not a single clue. Now, old chap, if you can help me, and +if we can do anything together, well, here's our chance! There won't be +any difficulty about your getting into the R.N.F.C., or any other corps +you like, if we can only throw light upon this dark spot." + +I caught fire from his words. "By Jove!" I cried, "if only there was a +chance! I would do anything! But I know every man, woman, and child in +this village and the surrounding ones. There is not one of them capable +of acting as a spy. There are no suspicious strangers. Even the +wild-fowlers who come down here are all regular and known visitors, +above suspicion." I said this in all good faith, and then, suddenly, a +light came to me like a flash of lightning, and I rose slowly from my +chair. Bernard told me afterwards that I had grown paper-white and was +trembling. + +"What is it?" he said quickly. + +"I hardly dare say," I replied. "It seems wild foolishness and yet----" + +He waited very patiently, and still I could not bring myself to speak. +Then it was his turn to take away my breath. He leant forward on the +table and pulled out a pocket-book. + +"Supposing, John," he said, "that you have been living in a fool's +paradise for months. Supposing that, by some means unknown to me and the +Admiralty, unknown to anyone, you are actually living in the centre of a +cunningly woven web of espionage, whose strands reach from Berlin to +Wilhelmshaven, from Kiel to London!" + +He took a piece of paper from his pocket-book. I saw that there were +figures upon it, not letters, but he read it as if they were print. + +"'Paul Upjelly,'" he said, "'Paul Upjelly, Ph.D.; English subject; +possessed of private means; has been for eight years headmaster of +Morstone House School; habits'--h'm--h'm--you know all about his habits, +John--'man whose past cannot be traced for more than ten years; known to +have lived in Germany in youth; no suspicion at present attaches.'" + +"What on earth does this mean?" I gasped. + +"It only means that in this pocket-book I have lists of forty or fifty +people round these coasts who might or might not be in the pay of +Germany. There is not the slightest suspicion attaching to any one of +them, but I saw you stand up suddenly and grow pale--well, I played into +your strong suit, that was all. Was I right?" + +"Last night," I said, "I had a very curious and significant talk with a +brother-master of mine, whose name is Lockhart." + +"Get him to come here and have a chat as soon as possible." + +"That isn't necessary, because Upjelly is away in London and an old +beast of a housekeeper he keeps, who tells him everything, is in bed +with a broken leg. We can go up to the school all right, and I +particularly want to introduce you to Miss Joyce, who is--er----" + +He nodded. "I know," he said. "You bored me to tears about the young +lady last time I saw you. Delighted to meet her. We will toddle up to +the school as soon as ever you like and I will hear what Mr. Lockhart +has got to say. I suppose you can trust him?" + +"I am absolutely certain of it," and, with that, things began to fall +together in my mind as the glass pieces in a kaleidoscope fall and make +a pattern. I mentioned the Navy List that I had seen at breakfast that +morning, and I told Bernard what Wordingham had told me concerning the +Doctor's knowledge of his visit. + +A gleam came into his eyes. "Ah!" he said, very softly, and that was +all. + +We got up to go, and as Bernard walked across the room to find his +overcoat, for night had fallen and it was bitter cold, I exclaimed +aloud. I knew what had puzzled me at breakfast when Mr. Jones came into +the room. He walked exactly like my brother. If you go to Chatham, +Portsmouth, or Plymouth, almost every other man in the street walks +like that. + +We went straight to the school, only a quarter of a mile away, and +entered by the masters' door. I lit the lamp in my sitting-room, put on +some coals, and rang a bell which communicated with the upper boys' +room, where they were now at preparation. In a minute, there was a knock +at the door and Dickson max. entered. + +"Dickson," I said, "I want you to find Mr. Lockhart and ask him if he +would be so very kind as to come to my room--oh and, by the way, this is +my brother, Commander Carey, Dickson." + +The boy grew pale for an instant and then flushed a deep, rosy red. He +was a cool young wretch as a rule and I had never seen him so excited +before. I loved him for it. The boys knew all about my brother. They had +read of his exploits in the Submarine E8. I was always being pestered +with questions about him. + +Bernard shook hands. "I am glad to meet you," he said. + +Dickson was tongue-tied, but he gazed with an almost painful reverence +at Bernard. + +"Oh, sir," he stammered, "oh, sir"--and then could get no further. In +desperation he turned to me. "I've done five hundred of the lines, sir," +he said. + +"Oh well, you needn't do any more," I answered. + +"And please, sir, I've taken some more snapshots which I think you might +like"--and with that the lad pulled out a little bundle of recently +developed and printed photographs--he had a small kodak--and laid them +on the table. Then he bolted and we could hear him leaping downstairs, +bursting with the great news. + +"He's got it badly," I remarked--"hero worship." + +"Jolly good thing," my brother answered. "Lord, I remember when I was a +midshipman of signals, how I worshipped the flag-lieutenant. I ran after +him like a little dog, and I thought he was God. Healthy!" + +We sat without speaking, waiting for Lockhart. My brother took up the +little bundle of snapshots and looked through them. Then we heard a +shuffling footstep in the passage and Lockhart entered. I introduced him +and we shut and locked the door. Bernard looked the little man up and +down for a minute or two, talking on indifferent subjects. And then, as +if satisfied, he plunged into business. He didn't tell my colleague all +that he had told me, but he told him enough to set Lockhart quivering +with eagerness and excitement. + +"You shall hear all I know, Commander Carey," he said. "After all, it +isn't much, though"--he hesitated for a moment and then began: + +"This man, Upjelly, our chief, is absolutely unfitted to be a +schoolmaster. He takes not the slightest interest in the school. John, +here, has found out, what I long more than suspected, that the Doctor's +wild-fowling is really a colossal pretence." + +"Does the school pay?" my brother asked. + +"Just about. There may be a small profit, but not enough to keep any man +tied down here if he has the slightest ambition or is anybody at all. +And, you haven't met the Doctor, but you may take it from me that he is +no ordinary man. There has always been an air of mystery and +secretiveness about him. He neither asks nor gives confidences. It +struck me from the very first that he was a man with an absorbing mental +interest of some sort or other. What was it?--that is what I asked +myself. + +"Three weeks ago, the Doctor had a guest. It was a Mr. Jones, who +frequently visits him, apparently for the shooting. My bedroom is on the +floor below this. As you see, I am a cripple and an invalid. I often +pass nights of pain, when I cannot sleep. On one such night, three weeks +ago, the window of my bedroom was open and I lay in the dark. About +half-past three in the morning I heard footsteps on the gravel outside, +and the Doctor's voice. The night was quite still, though pitch dark. +Then I heard another voice which I recognised as that of the man Jones. + +"The voices drew nearer until the men were almost underneath my window. +They were coming back from the marshes. I only know a few words of +German, but I recognise the language when I hear it. They were speaking +German." + +My brother nodded. + +"That Jones," I put in, "I have already told you, Bernard, was here when +I arrived last night. He left for London this morning, taking the +Doctor up with him in his car." + +"Four days ago," Lockhart continued, "I wanted some waste paper to wrap +up a pair of boots I was sending to be mended. I was in my room and I +told one of the boys of my dormitory to go downstairs and get some. It +was about nine o'clock at night. The boy brought back two or three +newspapers. One of them was the _Cologne Gazette_, very crumpled and +torn, but with the date of only five days before. I have got it locked +up in my writing-desk. + +"To-day, being a half-holiday, I thought I would go out for a walk upon +the foreshore. An overcoat rather impedes my movements, though I have to +wear one sometimes. I thought I would take a scarf instead. I went into +the hall, knowing that my scarf was in the pocket of my overcoat, and +felt for it. The hall is rather dark and I could not see very well what +I was doing. What I brought out of the pocket in which I felt was not my +scarf, but--this!" + +Lockhart quietly laid something upon the table, and we bent over to look +at it. To me, at any rate, it was an extraordinary object. It was a sort +of cross between a large watch and a compass, with a curious little +handle. There were letters or figures, for a moment I could not say +which, in a double row round the dial. + +"Can you tell me what it is?" + +My brother was shaken from his calm at last. He gave an exclamation. + +"Yes, I can!" he said. "I know very well. But first, when was this +photograph taken?" + +With dramatic suddenness, he held out one of Dickson's prints. It was a +picture of Mr. Jones' motor, with that gentleman at the wheel and the +Doctor sitting on the far side, taken that very morning as they left for +London. + +"This morning," I said. "That is the Doctor and Mr. Jones going off to +town." + +"Mr. Jones at the wheel?" my brother asked. + +"Yes, that is the fellow." + +"Let me get it quite clear. The man, you say, walks like me?" + +"Yes." + +"Ah!" said my brother again, and his eyes had the look of a bloodhound +on a leash. "And now I will proceed to explain to you the use of this +pretty thing." + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +DORIS AND MARJORIE GIVE A SUPPER PARTY. THE ARROW FLIES IN MORSTONE SEA +WOOD + + +"This," said my brother, "is what is known as Charles Wheatstone's +Cipher Instrument. It is a machine for writing in cipher. You see it has +a sort of watch-face, which has the alphabet inscribed round its outer +margin in the usual order, plus a blank space. A second alphabet is +written on a card or paper and attached to the watch-face within the +first alphabet. This has no blank space, and so there are but twenty-six +divisions as against twenty-seven in the outer ring. Two hands are +attached which travel at different speeds when the handle is turned. +Accordingly, each time the long hand is carried forward to the blank +space at the end of a word, the short hand will have moved forward one +division on the inner ring of letters. Then a word is chosen as a key, +written down in separate letters and the remaining letters of the +alphabet are written in order beneath it. I'll show you. Suppose, for +example, we choose the word 'English,' thus." He took a pencil and +scribbled for a moment upon the back of one of Dickson's photographs: + + ENGLISH + ABCDFJK + MOPQRTU + VWXYZ. + +"Now, if you read these letters downwards, you get this arrangement: + + EAMVNBOWGCPXLDQYIFRZSJTHKU. + +"This cryptographic alphabet is written on the inner card of the +instrument, beginning at a point previously agreed on. Then, when a +despatch is to be translated into cipher, the long hand is moved to that +letter in the outer alphabet, and the letter to which the short hand +points in the inner ring is written down. I need not go on, but I am +sure the principle will be clear to you. These machines are in use in +our Secret Service. But what I should like to point out to you in regard +to this example is that the alphabet here _is in German_." + +[Illustration: THE CIPHER MACHINE THAT MR. LOCKHART FOUND] + +We all looked at each other in silence. + +"That is conclusive proof," I said at length. "Of course, you will have +Doctor Upjelly arrested directly he comes back." + +"_And_ thank you!" said my brother. "So kind of you to put up your +little turn, Johnny! Will you have a cigar or a cocoanut? My dear boy, +if we had this man arrested, ten to one his tracks would be absolutely +covered and we could prove nothing. Don't you see, what we want to do is +to catch him in the act, to find out what he does and how he does it. No +such rough and ready methods!"--his voice became very grave and stern. + +"Quarter-deck!" I thought to myself. + +"This has not got to be taken lightly," he went on. "I believe that fate +has put my finger upon the very pulse of what has been puzzling the +Admiralty for weeks. I honestly believe that here, in this lonely house, +is hidden the intellect of the Master Spy of Germany. We are up against +it. We must work in silence and in the dark. The slightest slip would be +fatal. I cannot exaggerate the importance of this affair, nor," he +concluded, looking keenly at Lockhart and myself, "nor the danger." + +Little Lockhart's face positively brightened at this. "Danger!" he +cried, as if someone had made him a present. "Then I shall be able to do +something to help! We shall all be able to do something and----" + +Lockhart started and broke off. At that moment, from behind Smith's +classical dictionary and Liddell and Scott's Greek ditto there came a +faint, muffled whirr. + +"Good God, what's that?" said Lockhart. + +"Oh, it's all right," I answered, and I expect I looked about as big an +ass as I felt. "That is--er--a little contrivance of my own. By the way, +you fellows must keep it absolutely dark." + +To say that they watched me with interest is to put it mildly. I +withdrew "Our House Telephone, Not a Toy, 27_s._ 6_d._ net" from its +hiding place. Doris was speaking. She knew that my brother had come and +she was dying to meet him. Old Mrs. Gaunt was sleeping peacefully; in +fact I fear, so prone are all of us to error, that Doris had +administered just twice the amount of opiate that the doctor had +prescribed. + +Doris suggested that she and Marjorie should come at once to my room. +They also suggested that we should dine there, with the connivance of a +friendly housemaid. I told her to hold the line for a minute, and +explained. + +My brother's face lost all preoccupation. He was a naval officer, you +will remember, and, though a distinguished one, was as young gentlemen +in that Service usually are in both age and inclination. + +"Can a duck swim?" said my brother. + +"Well, I'll go," Lockhart remarked, with just a trace of his old +bitterness. + +"You sit where you are, old soul," I told him. "Bernard, both the girls +are only stepdaughters of the Doctor, who, they have told me, did not +treat their mother very well and who is a perfect tyrant to them. +They're as true as steel; I can answer for them. They will be of +tremendous help." + +"Leave it all to me," he replied. "I am skipper of this from now +onwards. You follow my lead." + +A minute or two afterwards the girls came in. Doris, as I have already +explained, was as pretty as Venus, Cleopatra, and Gertie Millar all in +one, and she only beat Marjorie by a short head. All the other girls +I've ever met were simply "also ran." + +Marjorie's hair was black. She was a brunette with olive-coloured skin +and green eyes, like very dark, clear emeralds. She was extraordinarily +lovely. Indeed, all three of us had seriously considered starting a +picture postcard firm, with the girls as models and I to manage it, so +that Doris and I could get married and have Marjorie to live with us. +Rather a good scheme, only it would have needed at least two hundred +pounds capital, which we hadn't got! Doris had on her engagement ring, +which she generally wore on a string round her neck, underneath her +blouse. I had put thirty shillings each way on "Baby Mine" for the Grand +National and it had come off--hence the ring. + +"Let me introduce you to my fiancée, Miss Joyce," I said to Bernard. + +He took her hand and bowed over it, looking out of the corner of his +eyes at Marjorie. + +Little Lockhart gasped. "Babe that I am!" he said, "blind mole! To think +that I have lived in this house with young John Carey for so long, the +house honeycombed with secret wires, and an illicit engagement in +progress under my nose, and I knew nothing of it!" + +"Well, you are not the only person, Mr. Lockhart," Marjorie said. "And +now I am going to fetch up dinner. Cook is out for the evening. Amy is +in the plot. We've got soup--only tinned, but quite nice; there's a +round of cold beef; and we will make an omelette on John's fire." + +"I'll come and help you carry the things," said my brother, and they +left the room as friendly as if they had known each other for years. + +"Well, what do you think of my brother?" I asked Doris. I'm afraid my +arm was round her waist and I had forgotten Lockhart. + +"I'm decidedly of the opinion," she said, "that Commander Carey knows +more than enough to come indoors when it rains." + +Lockhart here revealed qualities of an unsuspected nature--I had never +really appreciated Lockhart until the night before. + +"I happen to have, locked up in the cupboard of my sitting-room," he +said, "a bottle of claret wine and a bottle of sherry wine. I will go +and fetch them to grace this feast." + +"You nasty, horrid villain, so you drink in secret, do you?" I remarked. + +"Only Bovril, but please don't let it be known," was the reply, and then +Doris and I were alone. + +I have never been one of those people who kiss and tell, so I will pass +over the next minute; but after some business of no importance, she put +her hands on my shoulders and looked me straight in the face. + +"John," she said, "there is something up!" + +"What do you mean?" + +"I don't exactly know, but there is something up. I can feel it--and +something has happened, too, that I have got to tell you about. Before +the Doctor left this morning, he told Marjorie that Mr. Jones had fallen +in love with her and that she would have to marry him after the war was +over, when he has straightened out his business affairs." + +"Good Lord!" I said, "that thing? Why----" + +"What have you got against him?" she asked quickly. "He's wealthy, the +Doctor says, he has got good manners; of course, he's older than +Marjorie, but he's not an old man. I thought you said you rather liked +him?" + +"I did say so, and I liked him better than ever after meeting him this +morning. You know I had breakfast with the Doctor?" + +"I know, and there is something up. Something to do with your brother--I +am certain of it. But why do you object to Mr. Jones for Marjorie?" + +"What does Marjorie say herself?" + +"She told the Doctor"--the girls would never call the Doctor +"Father"--"that if Mr. Jones had a million a minute and was the last man +left on earth after a second flood, she would rather spend her life in +the garden eating worms than marry him!" + +"Marjorie's plenty of pluck," I answered, "and is obviously of romantic +temperament. Anyone else in the wind?" + +"Anyone else?" she said, with a bitter note in her voice, "whom do we +ever see? We live as prisoners here, as you very well know, Johnny, and +if it were not for you I should long ago have jumped into Thirty Main +Creek and ended it all." + +I held her close to me. "Dear," I said, "it will all come right, I am +certain. Somehow or other, we shall be able to be married soon, and then +you need never see Morstone or the Doctor any more." + +"I love Morstone," she replied. "I love the lonely marshes and the +bird-noises and the great red dawns and the sweet salt air, but"--she +shuddered--"that fiend who married my poor dear mother and drove her to +death, I would see burnt to-morrow without a pang of remorse. He has +been worse lately, John, far worse. Mrs. Gaunt has been put to watch us +like a spy. I can't tell whether he suspects anything about you and me. +He may or may not. At any rate, there is something going on which +frightens me. I've no doubt you will think me quite hysterical, quite +foolish, and I feel it rather than know it, but I am frightened. Only +this morning, the Doctor said things to dear Marjorie which were awful. +He caught her by the arm and twisted it when she defied him, and his +voice was so ugly and cruel, it seemed so inhuman, that I felt as if +someone had put ice to the back of my neck. Oh, take me away soon, take +Marjorie away too!" + +She clung to me in a passion of appeal, and then and there I resolved +that, come what might, we would marry and leave this ill-omened and +mysterious place. + +"What a long time they are!" Doris said after a moment or two, when I +had soothed her. "Oh, here they come!" + +But it wasn't, it was only Lockhart, who knocked at the door loudly and +waited for several seconds before coming in with his contribution to the +dinner. + +"I'll run down and hurry them up, as there is no one about," I said. + +"You'll do nothing of the sort!" she replied quickly. "Really, what a +babe you are, John!" + +I was just the least bit in the world offended, not seeing why I should +not hurry up the truants, especially as I was extremely hungry again; +but they came at last, carrying two piled trays of provisions. I had +never seen Marjorie look prettier. Her eyes were brighter than ever, and +she showed not the slightest trace of unhappiness. Obviously, she had +quite forgotten the events of the morning. + +I cannot tell you what fun the dinner was. The soup was top-hole--mock +turtle, and one of Elizabeth Lazenby's finest efforts. Lockhart was a +tremendous success as butler, and the "claret wine"--I should have +thrown it at my scout's head at Oxford--tasted like "Château la Rose" at +least. + +Bernard and Marjorie made the omelette over my fire, while the rest of +us sat waiting and Lockhart and I smoked a cigarette. Marjorie ordered +my brother about most unmercifully. Suddenly, it was nearing a critical +moment and both of them were crouching over the pan, I happened to turn +my eyes in their direction. They were not looking at the omelette at +all. They were looking at each other and their faces were almost solemn. +Then it burst upon me and I fear I was indiscreet. I said aloud: "The +very thing! Oh, my holy aunt, the very thing!" + +They whipped round. + +"What is?" Bernard asked. + +"Why, the omelette, you blighter!" I replied, and kicked Doris under the +table. She understood at once. Girls are so quick, aren't they? + +When we had eaten the omelette and the round of cold beef had "ebbed +some," as I once heard a Rhodes' Scholar say at Oxford, my brother rose, +glass in hand. + +"Mr. Vice," he said, "the King!" + +I had dined in the wardroom with Bernard when he was on board the +_Terrific_, and I knew what to do. + +"Ladies and gentlemen, the King!" I said, and we drank that loyal toast +in silence. Somehow it altered the mood of each individual. A gravity +fell upon us, not sadness or boredom, but we stopped to think, as it +were. Only two hundred miles away, over the marshes and over the sea, +the great German battleships were waiting. Nearer than Penzance is to +London, the armies of England at that moment were shivering in the +trenches round Ostend. And in Morstone House School--what was there that +hung undefined, but heavy and secret, like a miasma upon the air? + +Then Bernard said: "Miss Joyce, I have taken the liberty to bring you a +little present from London." + +"'Doris,' please," she answered. + +"Very well then, Doris. It is a bracelet, a little affair of turquoises +and pearls, to commemorate our meeting and in the hope that you will +always be a good girl and love your brother-in-law." + +"Oh, Commander Carey!" + +"'Bernard,' please!" + +"Well then, Bernard, how sweet of you!" + +Poor Doris, and Marjorie too, were not in the way of getting many +presents. Upjelly saw to that! + +My brother put his hand in his pocket, and then into another pocket, +finally into a third. He hesitated, he stammered, and looked positively +frightened. It was the first and last time I ever saw the old sport +thoroughly done in. + +"Damn!" he said, and then grew more embarrassed still. "I am the biggest +fool in the Service. I remember now I left the case on my dressing-room +table at the Morstone Arms." + +Poor little Doris's face fell. She could not help it. But I had a bright +idea. + +"Oh, that's all right," I said. "There's a certain young imp of mine +called Dickson max----" + +"Dear boy!" Marjorie murmured, and my brother looked at her quickly. + +"He's seventeen, and quite trustworthy," I went on. "He will be delighted +to run and fetch it. Anything to be out of school at night!--and as I +am headmaster of this East Anglian Eton, I can do as I like. I will ring +for him." + +Lockhart looked slightly upset, but I didn't care. + +"But I thought," my brother remarked, "that this was somewhat in the +nature of a--well, shall we say 'secure-from-observation' dinner party." + +"Oh, Billy Dickson won't breathe a word," Marjorie said emphatically. + +"Well, you command this ship," my brother said, "and it is up to you. +Certainly I should like to send for the bracelet, and if you don't keep +Whale Island discipline aboard, it's not my affair." + +I rang for Dickson max. He arrived, knocked at the door, stepped in, and +then his eyes grew very round indeed, but he said not a word. I told him +what was wanted and asked him if he would go. + +"Rather, sir," he said, "I would be only too delighted." + +I gave him the key of the masters' door. + +"It's a bitter cold night," my brother put in, "supposing you take my +coat and this shooting hat. It'll keep you as warm as toast." + +Of course Dickson max. would have scorned the idea of an overcoat under +ordinary circumstances, though Bernard didn't know that. But the +opportunity of wearing the ulster of a Wing-Commander of Submarines, who +had been wounded off Heligoland, was too much for the youthful mind. He +flushed with pleasure, and I won't swear that, as he went out into the +passage, he didn't salute. + +I went downstairs with him, helped him on with the big coat--he was the +same height as Bernard and much the same figure--and pressed the +heather-mixture shooting hat on his head. + +"Now scoot as hard as you can go," I told him, opening the door, and he +was gone like a flash into the dark night. + +When I got back there was a curious silence. Somehow or other we none of +us seemed to know what to say. I can't account for it, but there it was. +It was then that my brother came in and I found a side of him I had only +suspected but never seen before. + +Leaning forward in his chair, he began to talk very quietly, but with +great earnestness. I saw what he was up to. He was leading the +conversation very near home indeed. It was astonishing how he dominated +us all, how we hung on his words and how the sense of sinister +surroundings grew and grew as he spoke. + +It was the girls who responded. The skill with which he introduced the +subject was enormous, but they were marvellously "quick in the uptake." +It was Marjorie who leant forward, her great eyes flashing and her lips +compressed to a thin line of scarlet. + +"Commander Carey," she said, "don't think that I or my sister are +entirely ignorant that there is something very wrong about this place. +You have turned our thoughts into a new channel." + +She was wearing a blouse with loose sleeves, ending in some filmy lace. +Suddenly, with her right hand, she pulled up the left-arm sleeve. There +were three dark purple marks upon her white arm. + +"That was this morning," she said, nodding once or twice. "And now speak +out, if you have anything to tell us, about the man who killed my mother +as surely as if he did it with a gun, and who has done his best to ruin +the lives of my sister and myself. Speak without fear!" + +Then Bernard, in crisp, low sentences, told the girls and Lockhart +exactly what he believed. The wind howled outside and hissing drops of +rain fell upon the window-pane. The fire crackled on the hearth, the +smoke of our cigarettes rose in grey spirals in the pleasant, lamp-lit +room. It was a strange night, how fraught with consequences to England, +the two beautiful girls, the little cripple, the third-rate +schoolmaster, and even the young naval officer himself, did not know! + +"It has long been suspected," my brother concluded, and his voice sank +almost to a whisper, "that one master-mind has been behind all the +German espionage, both before and during the war. There is in existence, +our Intelligence Department has had indubitable evidence of it, a King +of Spies, so subtle of brain, so fertile in resource, that, even now, we +cannot find him. We do not know for certain, but it is rumoured that +this man's real name is Graf Botho von Vedal, though what name he passes +under now none can say." + +Doris's eyes clouded. She seemed as if she was making an effort of +memory. + +"Was he once 'Wirklicher Geheimrat'--Privy Councillor to the German +Emperor?" she asked. + +Bernard stared at her. "So I am told," he said. "What do you know about +him?" + +"I can't tell you," she answered with a dazed look upon her face--"some +childish memory. The name was familiar. My sister and I speak German as +well as we speak English, you know." + +"If I could put my finger upon that man," my brother continued, "then +one of the gravest perils to which England lies open at the moment would +be removed." + +"Where is he?" Lockhart asked, speaking like a man in a dream. + +We all looked at each other, and there was dawning consciousness and +horror in every eye. + +"Yes," came from my brother at length, and as he spoke he withdrew one +of Dickson's little photographs from his pocket--I hadn't seen him put +it there--"and also, what is Admiral Kiderlen-Waechter doing in +England?" + +We all knew that name. The papers had been full of it at the beginning +of the war. Kiderlen-Waechter was the chief of the German Submarine +Flotillas. It was owing to his ingenuity and resource that ship after +ship of our gallant Navy had been torpedoed, even in the Straits of +Dover themselves. + +"What do you mean?" I gasped. + +"What I say, John. For, unless I am much mistaken--of course, I may +easily be mistaken--the gentleman who drove away with Doctor Upjelly to +London this morning is that very man." + +"Mr. Jones?" Marjorie cried. "The man the Doctor swore that I must marry +when the war is over?" + +Bernard's eyes blazed. "What?" he said quickly, "I heard nothing of +that!" + +The two were looking at each other very strangely when there was a knock +at the door. It opened and Dickson max. came in. + +He went up to my brother and put down a little case of red morocco by +his side. + +"There you are, sir," he said. + +I looked up sharply. There was something unusual in the lad's voice. He +caught hold of the back of Lockhart's chair and swayed as he stood. Then +we saw that beneath the upturned collar of the overcoat one cheek was +all red and bleeding. There was a line across it like the cut from a +knife. + +"What on earth is the matter?" I cried, in great alarm. + +"Oh nothing, sir," he answered, "only as I was coming through the Sea +Wood--I took the shorter way--I thought I heard someone behind me. I +turned round, and just as I did so there was a noise like a banjo +string, and something went past my head singing like a wasp. Then I +found my cheek all cut." + +"What did you do? Who was it?" + +"I plunged into the bushes, sir, but could not find anyone. Then I +pulled out my electric torch, and, sticking in the trunk of a tree, I +found this." + +The boy unbuttoned his coat and held out a long, slim shaft. It was an +arrow, such as is used in archery competitions, but the edge had been +filed sharp. + +"Some silly blighter trying to frighten me," said Dickson max., and +then, with a little sob, he fell in a faint upon the floor. + +I bent over him and forced some wine between his lips. Bernard looked +round the room with a set, stern face. + +"They are not losing any time," he said quietly. "You see, they know +that I am here, already." + + NOTE.--For convenience sake I end the first portion of this + narrative at this point. It divides itself into three parts quite + naturally, as I think my readers will agree when they have read it + all. At any rate, on this night was formed that oddly assorted, but + famous, companionship which led to such great results. We swore no + oaths, we made no protestations. There was no need for that. + + +END OF PART I + + + + +PART II + + + + +CHAPTER V + +AT MIDNIGHT ON THE MARSHES. THE SECRET OF THE OLD HULK + + +Doctor Upjelly returned on the afternoon of the third day after he left +for London. Directly I heard his trap drive away and knew that he was in +his study, I went into his house and knocked at the door. + +"I have very grave news to tell you, Doctor," I said. + +He started. I distinctly saw him start and he flashed a quick look at +me. One might almost have thought that he was frightened, but he +swallowed something in his throat and his voice was calm and cold as +ever when he answered. + +"And what is that, Mr. Carey?" + +"I am sorry, I am very sorry, to say that Dickson max. has run away." + +There was a momentary silence. I could almost have sworn it was one of +relief on the big man's part. + +"What do you mean, Mr. Carey? Ran away from school?" + +"Yes. He got out of his window on the very night you went. We did not +discover it until the next morning. We scoured the country round, +thinking it was merely a mischievous escapade, but found no traces of +him. I then thought it my duty to acquaint his father at once, so I went +to Norwich on my bicycle during the afternoon of the day after the +discovery. To my immense surprise, I found the boy there. He had walked +to Heacham station and taken the train. He stated that he was tired of +school and it was his intention to enlist. His father seemed to concur +in the view after we had had a long talk together. Of course, I +endeavoured to get the boy back, for the sake of the school, but it was +useless. Mr. Dickson seems a weak sort of man, and he says that he is +going to do his best to get an equipment and pay what is necessary for +Dickson to join the Public Schools Corps." + +The Doctor, who was sitting down, his hand clutching a little brown +travelling-bag on the table near him, did his best to show some concern. +It was poorly done, however, and I could see that he did not care a rap +one way or the other. + +"I hope you don't blame me, sir?" I said, "but I could not have foreseen +anything of the sort. It has never happened before." + +"No, no. Not in the least, Mr. Carey. I am sure you acted most promptly +and wisely in going at once to the boy's father. And his brother?" + +"His brother is still here and steadfastly refuses to say anything about +the affair. As far as I have been able to find out, he was quite in +ignorance of his brother's intentions." + +"Well, well. Of course, I am sorry to lose the boy, but I like his +spirit," said Doctor Upjelly, without a gleam in his eyes or any warmth +in his voice. "After all, perhaps he will be better employed in +defending his country than in learning Latin grammar here--have a cigar, +Mr. Carey." + +He handed me his case, a most unusual proceeding. + +"And how is your brother?" he said. "I trust he is benefiting by our +pure air and that you have already been able to show him some sport." + +I shook my head. "There is another strange thing I have got to tell you, +Doctor," I replied, pretending to be busy with the lighting of my cigar, +though I took very good care to watch his face reflected in the mirror +over the mantelpiece. What I saw was significant. Now, indeed, the +little black eyes gleamed for an instant, and the big, cruel mouth +twitched--once. I felt, as surely as if I had been told, that Upjelly +knew something of what had happened on the night of his departure. + +"Yes," I said, "a most unfortunate affair! My brother was coming up to +see me at the school during preparation and I had previously directed +him to follow the short cut through the Sea Wood. It was quite dark, and +as he was coming along, finding his way as well as he could, a most +unprovoked attack was made upon him." + +"An attack, Mr. Carey? You surprise me! Who could attack anyone on our +marshes?" + +"That is just what I cannot understand. He says he heard a sort of +twanging noise, unlike anything he had ever heard before. Then something +struck him on the cheek, cutting it deeply. He shouted and ran about in +the dark, but could hear no sound, nor could he find anyone. He arrived +at the school with a bad cut on his face, bleeding profusely. I bandaged +it up as well as I could, gave him a little whisky-and-water, and then +accompanied him home, taking my ten-bore with me, though we went by the +road. Nothing happened, and the thing is a complete mystery. My brother +is, of course, not in a very good state of health after his wound. He is +confined to the inn, and will be so for some days, so I fear he will get +very little shooting at present. He's afraid of the cold getting into +his cheek." + +"Dear me, dear me, what an extraordinary occurrence! Confined to the +inn, you say?" + +"For at least another week, if he is wise." + +I could have sworn the great, fat face wrinkled with relief, and after +we had discussed the incident for some little time, the Doctor advancing +all sorts of ingenious theories, I turned to leave. Just as I was going, +he asked me if I were going to shoot that night. I said that I should +very much like to, as the geese were working well and there were reports +of many widgeon about. Still, I thought it my duty to be with my +brother; so that, after preparation, I was going down to the inn and +should stay there for some time. + +"Quite so, quite so," Upjelly replied. "I am sorry for both of you in +losing your sport; but certainly you ought to be with your brother." + +"I thought of staying till late, if you don't mind," I said. "He is +rather feverish." + +He swallowed the bait like a fat trout. "All night, if you wish," he +said, "all night. You will certainly not be wanted here. Yes! A good +idea! Why don't you get Mrs. Wordingham to put you up a bed?" + +"If you really think I can be spared?" + +"My dear Carey, on an occasion of this sort it is a pleasure for me to +dispense with your services--not that they will be wanted in any way, +for I don't suppose any more of my young ruffians are likely to run away +to enlist." + +"Then thank you very much; that is what I will do." + +"Yes, by all means. And, for my part, I think I shall go out and try my +luck. I must see if I can't shoot for both of you and bring back a goose +or two." + +Then I went away. + +Lockhart and I had tea with the boys as usual. There was an air of +suppressed excitement in the dining-hall. The exploit of Dickson max. +had fired the imagination of everyone, though possibly a keener observer +than was among his companions might have detected a suppressed and +unholy joy in Dickson major, which was not entirely due to his brother's +escapade. I had always thought that a weak spot in our plan. If the +Doctor had known anything at all about the characters of his pupils, he +would have realised that where Dickson max. went, Dickson major went +too. Fortunately the Doctor did not. + +At half-past eight I dressed in fowling kit, a grey sweater, a coat of +nondescript colour, grey flannel trousers, and great thigh boots for the +marsh. My headgear was an old, dun-coloured shooting hat, the lining of +which could be pulled down to make a mask for the face, with two holes +to see through; for it is essential to the wild-fowler to wear nothing +too light or too dark, to show no glimpse of a pink face, because the +wild goose, as even the greatest big-game hunters of the day allow, is +the wariest of all created things. Then I took my heavy ten-bore, with +its dulled barrels and oxydised furniture, slipped my three-inch brass +"perfects" loaded with B.B. into my pockets, and telephoned to Doris. + +It was all right. The Doctor was in his own room having supper, and +Marjorie was with him. It was impossible that he could see me leave in +fowling kit, and in a moment more I had wished my dear girl good-night +and was out in the dark. + +The wind cried in the chimneys of the old house with a strange and +wailing note. The moon was not yet up, and the far-distant sea drummed +like an army. As I turned towards the Sea Wood, some great night-bird +passed overhead with an eerie cry, like a man in pain. + +For myself, my heart was beating rapidly, my teeth were set and I felt +nothing of the cold. To-night, if ever, we were to discover the secret +of the marshes. My brother had taken the helm of the ship, and his +decks were cleared for action. His foresight and resource were +admirable. Nothing escaped him, and we were meeting the dark plot with +another which allowed nothing to chance. This is what had happened. + +We patched up Dickson max. as well as we could--the cut was not +deep--and then my brother took him into Lockhart's room. What he said to +the lad I did not know, even now I do not know, but they came back with +the boy's eyes sparkling. He walked like a man--in those ten minutes +something had transformed him from a laughing schoolboy into a different +being. We took him at once to the Morstone Arms, and there my brother +spent a long time with Sam Wordingham and his wife. They were as true as +steel, this worthy couple. They were not told everything, but it was +explained to them that this was "Government business" of the highest +importance, and that in the King's name they must aid Bernard in every +possible way. + +It did me good to see Sam's nut-brown face hardening into resolve, and +the excitement in his eyes. Dickson was put to bed in an attic of the +rambling old inn and the door was locked. + +Before it was light that morning my brother stole out, walked five miles +in the opposite direction to Blankington-on-Sea, caught the fish train +from a village in the neighbourhood of Cromer, and was in London at the +Admiralty by mid-day. He returned in a fast motor car that night. The +car was housed in the garage of the Lieutenant of Coastguards at +Cockthorpe, four miles away. It was to be ready for any emergency, and +by eleven o'clock my brother was back at the Morstone Arms. + +On the morning of that day, I indeed went to Norwich on my snorter. She +seemed to rise to the occasion, for she did the forty miles to Norwich +in two hours and without any mishap. I interviewed the Rev. Harold +Dickson and swore him to secrecy, and I never saw a parson more +delighted. His sons were true chips of the old block, and after lunch at +the "Maiden's Head" the clergyman almost cursed his age and cloth that +he was not also available for the service of his country. + +Finally, and this provision of my brother was extraordinarily wise, as +it afterwards appeared--though he could have had no idea of what we were +to discover at that moment--three of the crew of his own submarine, all +recovering from wounds, but all taught and handy men, were, even now, +upon their way from Harwich to lodge unobtrusively at the coastguard +station at Cockthorpe, where they could await Bernard's orders. + +I went through the Sea Wood, towards the inn. This was a place that had +been planted to shelter the cultivated fields behind from the keen marsh +winds. As one advanced into it from the coast side, the furze, among +which innumerable rabbits played, gave way to elders and other hardy +shrubs. It was about a quarter of a mile long and not more than two +hundred yards in breadth. The timber was all stunted and bushy, the +undergrowth was rank and thick. The trees led a life of conflict; they +were accustomed to swing there all night long in fierce winter tempests; +it was a remote and savage place, where even the pheasants of Lord +Blankington hardly ever came. + +I pressed through the narrow path until I came to a little open space, a +cup or hollow through which a sluggish stream wound its way on to the +marsh. Here, the bushes were thicker than ever and the stream widened +into a pool covered with innumerable water-hen that made cheeping noises +in the night. It was covered with them as I came up noiselessly; one +could see the little black dots upon the livid, leaden expanse. + +I sat down, looked at my watch--I had a fowlers' watch with what is +called the "radium dial" that showed the time in any darkness--and found +it was just half-past nine. Waiting till a gust of wind had died away, I +whistled the first three bars of "It's a long way to Tipperary." There +was no response and I whistled again. The last note had hardly shivered +away when I felt a hand upon my shoulder and I jumped like a shot man. + +"It's only me, sir," sounded in my ear with a triumphant chuckle; "I +stalked you pretty well, didn't I, sir?" + +"You young devil!" I replied, "you nearly frightened me out of my life!" + +"I thought I would try and see what I could do, sir," said Dickson max. + +He was in a black suit. I fear it was his Sunday-best. He wore no collar +and his face and hands were covered with burnt cork--a grimy, sooty +apparition the young imp looked, but, nevertheless, one couldn't have +seen him a yard away. + +"You've done very well," I said. "Stick to it. The Doctor isn't such a +marshman as I am, and if you come up to him like that--well, you won't +have a difficult task. You know where I and my brother will be?" + +"Yes, sir," he whispered--"in the gun-pit at the head of Garstrike." + +"Right you are. Now out along as quickly as possible and bring us news +by midnight if you can." + +"I am going to lie in the rhododendrons in the Doctor's garden," he +said. "He's sure to come out by his private door, and I'll follow him to +Heligoland if necessary." + +I gave him a pat on the back, and as I looked round he had already +melted noiselessly into the dark and I was alone. + +In the inn I found my brother. The kitchen was full of labourers +drinking their last pint before closing hour at ten. In the private bar +old Pugmire was babbling over his gin, but in the sitting-room beyond, +with curtains drawn, Bernard was all ready for the enterprise, dressed +just as I was. + +"Well?" he asked. + +"It's all serene. I've met Dickson and he is watching the Doctor now. In +about three-quarters of an hour the inn will be closed and all the men +gone home. Then we can set out." + +Mrs. Wordingham came in with two bottles of that famous strong ale +which is kept for twenty years and which is the best antidote against +the cold of the marshes known to the wild-fowler--only an amateur takes +spirits upon the saltings. + +We drank it in silence. + +"I don't know what is going to turn up to-night," said Bernard. "I trust +to your knowledge of the marshes implicitly. But remember this, old +soul, it is not a lark of any sort. We shall be in the gravest danger. I +cannot exaggerate the importance of what we are doing. The Admiralty +itself is waiting for news. I am not dramatic in any way, Heaven knows! +but I'll let myself go for a minute. I believe, John, that it may well +be that we two, and the others who are helping us, hold the destinies of +England in our hands. God grant that we shall be successful!" + +"I think we shall." + +"I believe we are on the right track. But there is one thing I want to +say. Supposing, just supposing, that one of us does not come back +to-night, and assuming it is me"--here Bernard hesitated and looked at +me rather ferociously. + +"Well?" + +"Well, just give this to Miss Marjorie Joyce, will you?" He pulled a +signet-ring from his little finger, a ring that had been our governor's. + +I told him to keep his hair on and that I would. + +At a quarter past ten we slipped out of the big door of the inn, skirted +the Sea Wood without entering it, and went down upon the foreshore. It +is necessary that I should give you some idea of the famous Morstone +marshes, and to the description I will add a rough-drawn map which will +help to make things clear.[1] + +[Footnote 1: See Frontispiece.] + +If you look at the map of England, you will see Wells marked at the top +right-hand corner of the Wash. Then comes a long, blank space till you +get to Sheringham and finally to Cromer. Blankington-on-Sea was the next +town to Wells on the west. Then five miles east of it comes Morstone. So +much for our geographical position. + +Looking north, there was nothing between us and Iceland; looking a +little north-east, we were only three hundred miles from Cuxhaven, about +three hundred and twenty miles to Heligoland, and nothing like that to +the Frisian Islands just below the mouth of the Kiel Canal. So much for +that, and now to be more local. + +From the foreshore, it was about a mile and a half over the marshes to +the sea at low tide. At ordinary high tide it was about a mile. With +spring tides and a rare off-sea wind blowing due north, the marshes were +covered right up to the foreshore. This happened about twice in the +year, and then they were only covered for a depth of about five or six +feet, if that. The foreshore, as it is called, is a somewhat misleading +term. It did not in the least resemble what one generally associates +with the word. It was simply a grassy bank covered with furze bushes and +with a grass road going right along it. The coarse grass sloped down +till the mud was met. Now this mud was a sort of turfy peat on the +surface, covered with marrum grass. One could walk on it with perfect +safety, it was as hard as an ordinary field, but it was everywhere +intersected with creeks of varying depth. Some of these were little +runnels a foot deep, some of them had steep sides of ten or twelve feet +and were crossed by narrow planks in permanent position. The sides were +of mud as black as a truffle--I have really no other simile which so +exactly fits the case--and at the bottom was two or three feet of water +covering softer and more dangerous mud. + +At high tide these deeper creeks had seven or eight feet of water in +them. Then, at various points upon the marsh, were creeks which were +really like tidal rivers, only that they ended at the foreshore, as a +railway line ends at a terminus. These were huge trenches, wider than +the widest canal, some of them seventy or eighty yards across. The walls +of mud were precipitous, twenty and even thirty feet high. The largest +of these had many feet of water in them at all states of the ebb and +flow, but when the tide was full they were almost brimming and could +have floated a fair-sized ship. + +Anything more utterly desolate and forlorn, even on a bright, sunlit +day, than these sullen, winding waterways, so far from the habitations +of man, can hardly be conceived. They were the haunt of innumerable +fowl. Herons stood on the brink and transfixed flat-fish with their +long, spear-like beaks. The wild duck gathered in the little bays and +estuaries formed by their convolutions. The red-shank and the +green-shank whistled over them at all hours. + +The two largest creeks of all were known as Garstrike and Thirty Main. +It was from the heads of these waters that the gun-punts started on +their dangerous nightly mission, following this or that creek in and +out, wherever there was water. Garstrike had always ten feet of water in +it at low tide, but Thirty Main was the largest by far. It stretched +straight away from the sea to the foreshore. There was always at least +thirty feet of water in its black, evil-looking depths. At high tide, +sixty would have been nearer the mark. It wound among the marsh, the +centre of endless smaller creeks which ran into it, the great ganglion +of the whole system of nerves. + +It was the study of months to know the marsh. Death had come to many +fowlers there who did not know its complexities and who omitted to carry +an illuminated compass for night work. Many men had been cut off on an +island of mud covered with the purple sea-thistles, the bronze-green +marrum grass, and the rank vegetation of the saltings. And some had been +waiting in a minor creek when the tide came fast and swift through all +the intricate waterways, who were unable to climb the steep sides of +slippery mud, and so met their fate. + +We crossed the foreshore in a minute and a half and came down upon the +mud. The frozen grass crackled under our boots like little rods of +glass. The shallow pools were all frozen over as we made our way round +the curving shore of Garstrike. + +We were on the right bank, and here and there we had to go along some of +the smaller creeks that flowed into it. It is no joke to walk over a +twelve-inch plank in the pitch dark with a ten-foot ditch of mud and +water below. As an old marshman, I was used to it, though I had known +many new-comers give these bridges a miss at the first start off. But +Bernard skipped over like a bird, and after a quarter of a mile or more +of slow progress, aided by my illuminated compass and a faint, ghostly +light from the rising moon, we got to the gun-pit marked upon the map. + +Immediately to our left was a low punt-house dug into the steep mud-bank +of Garstrike and entered at the shore end by a rough ladder. The pit was +five feet deep; there was a rough board for a seat and there was about a +foot of water in the bottom--rain-water, which had fallen during the +last few days. This, however, was nothing, and we scrambled in and sat +down. + +I had taken my ten-bore to the Morstone Arms, but Bernard had told me to +leave it there. He had given me a heavy Service pistol, which fired ten +shots in as many seconds, together with an extra clip of cartridges for +the magazine. He had another in the pocket of his coat. + +So we sat and waited. Bent on more pleasant business, we should have had +our guns ready in our hands, waiting for the sound of birds flighting +overhead as the moon rose, coming from the sand-banks out at sea inland +to the stubbles. But now our ears were tuned to a different music, and I +am not ashamed to say that I heard some artery within me beating like a +drum. + +It was a solemn hour and strange indeed was the business we were upon. +The whole marsh was alive with voices. There was the long, hushed roar +of the sea, the fifing of the wind, and then the countless cries of the +night-birds. A great heron flapped away somewhere over Thirty Main, with +its hoarse "frank, frank"; there was a rustling whistle far overhead as +a company of widgeon flashed by at thirty miles an hour; a paddle of +duck were quacking somewhere on the other side of the creek; and then, +faint at first, but growing nearer and nearer, came that sound which, to +the wild-fowler, is the finest in the world and which many and many a +man and woman has said to be the strangest sound in nature. + +The wild geese were coming. I can never think of that sound without a +tightening of the muscles, almost a lump in the throat. It is like a +vast pack of ghostly hounds up in the sky, which cuts into the night +like nothing else can do, and instinctively I felt for my gun. But it +was not to be that night. They passed over us not more than eighty yards +high--well within the range of a heavy gun--and the noise was deafening +in our ears as the great wedge-shaped formation sped by. + +"By Jove, that's good!" I heard Bernard whisper. + +It was the one chance of the night. No more geese worked our way, and +for an hour we sat motionless, growing colder and colder, but patient +still. + +Then, at last, there was a low whistle and a crouching figure appeared +on the edge of the pit. + +"I've followed him, sir. He came out of the school with his gun and went +straight on to the foreshore. He walked for nearly a mile towards +Cockthorpe. I crouched behind the furze bushes and he never saw me. He +was walking very fast. He passed the head of Thirty Main and then went +down on to the mud, following the bank until he came to the Hulk. The +bridge was out and he went on board. Then he pulled it up--and there he +is now. I saw a light struck and a candle lit from one of the windows in +the side. Then something was pulled over it, and I came away here as +fast as I could." + +"The Hulk!" I said. "Of course, I might have thought of that before!" + +"What is it?" Bernard asked. + +"It is the hulk of an old coaster of about eighty tons. It is +permanently moored in Thirty Main Creek. Upjelly bought it for twenty +pounds some two years ago and has had it fitted up. In the summer he +sometimes camps out there. In the winter he uses it as a base for +shooting on the marshes. There are three or four on the saltings between +Wells and Cromer." + +"Then we must go there at once. How can we approach it?" + +"It is moored some three yards from the shore--there is deep water right +up to the banks on either side of Thirty Main Creek. It's reached by a +light bridge and a handrail, which anyone on board can pull up after him +by means of a derrick on the stem of the old main-mast. If we were to +approach over the mud, we should hear nothing, but we can go by water +and get to the far side. Wordingham's punt is ready in the house close +by. It will take us half an hour poling up to Garstrike and then back +again down the long, winding creek of Morstone Miel. That brings us out +into Thirty Main Creek--which we can cross and hug the opposite side. +The Hulk lies in a little bay. When we get nearly there, we shall have +to paddle, just as we 'set to birds.' We shan't make a sound, and we +ought to hear something or see something if there is anything to be seen +or heard." + +"You'll let me come with you, sir?" Dickson asked eagerly. + +I shook my head. "It's a two-handed punt," I said, "and there's no room +for anybody else--you ought to know what a fowling punt is by this time. +It's dangerous enough for two experts. No, Dickson, you've done very +well indeed and I'm proud of you. You must cut home now as quietly as +possible and go to bed at the Morstone Arms. Whatever you do, don't show +your face at the window in the morning. I'll come and tell you +everything." + +I could see the boy was very disappointed, but a word from Bernard +comforted him. + +"You're a first-class scout, Dickson," he said; "I wish I had you on +board my ship. If you obey orders as you have been doing and anything +comes of this business, I'm not at all sure that I can't promise you a +billet." + +If Dickson flushed under his burnt cork, I did not see it, but his voice +was tremulous with joy. There was no mistake about it this time. He +saluted, and in a moment more was gone. + +"Now," I said, "come along. You don't understand punt work, do you, +Bernard?" + +"No," he said, "only shore shooting. I've been in some queer craft in my +time, but here 'you 'ave me,' as the cabman said. You must be skipper of +this cruise!" + +We hurried over the few yards separating the pit from the punt-shed. I +went down the ladder first and unlocked the door. We found ourselves in +a long, narrow shed with a little landing-stage along one side and some +lockers above it fixed to the wall. In the middle lay the punt, painted +a dull green-khaki over its mahogany, almost invisible at night. The big +gun stretched out far over the bows; everything was ship-shape and in +order, for Wordingham was a tidy man, and this punt, which with its gun +had cost a hundred and fifty pounds, had been given him by a wealthy +fowler, an officer in the Guards, who loved to come down in peace time +for a week on the waterways of East Anglia. + +"Now," I said, "be careful. You get forrard and lie down on your +stomach. Yes, that's it; brace yourself against the recoil piece of the +gun. Lie as if you were going to fire it when we come within shot of +birds on the water. That'll trim the boat. I'll punt until we get near. +Then I'll in-pole and paddle. Remember you mustn't move and you mustn't +make a sound." + +We glided out on to the black water of Garstrike Creek. The banks +sheltered us somewhat from the wind, but it was nearly high tide and +every now and again a freshet sent waves lapping against the low sides +of the punt; and occasionally a cupful of water or a lash of spray came +over. My brother told me, long afterwards, that it was one of the +strangest experiences of his life, and I suppose that the first night in +a punt must indeed be that to the tyro. To me, it was ordinary enough, +but my blood ran fast and free as I realised that we were out for bigger +game than geese or duck to-night. + +Our progress will be seen by the dotted line upon the map. We went up +Garstrike, keeping close to the right bank. Then, quite suddenly, the +smaller miel opened out. We made a sharp turn, and now the banks were +scarcely more than two yards from us on either side, while punting was +easier owing to the shallow water. At low tide, it would have been +almost impossible to go from Garstrike to Thirty Main. We followed the +sinuous turnings of the small creek for some twenty minutes, in and out +between the black walls, like people walking in some dark alley. Then +Miel Creek opened out and we shot on to the broad waters of Thirty +Main. + +Here we were on what seemed a wide river. There was an immediate sense +of space and freedom and the sea became more choppy. Punting was +impossible. I knelt down and with infinite caution stretched myself upon +my stomach, my head between my brother's legs. Then I got out the +paddles, which were small implements held in the hand, in shape +resembling nothing quite so much as a pair of large butter pats, or +shall I say a couple of ladies' hand-mirrors. With my arms over the +side, I gradually propelled the punt round the curve where, in a little +bay, the Hulk was lying. It is thus one approaches the "paddle" of duck +or geese upon the water for the last hundred and fifty yards. Progress +is by inches. The long grey punt steals noiselessly towards its quarry +until the supreme moment when the gunner pulls the lanyard, the pound +and a half of shot speeds upon its mission, and the punt rears like a +horse. + +But there was to be no roar or concussion to-night. + +The moon was now high, though it was obscured by driving clouds. There +was only a faint and phosphorescent radiance. This was all the better +for our purpose, and anyone upon the look-out could hardly have +distinguished the grey thing creeping towards the Hulk with such +infinite slowness. + +We drew nearer and nearer. Thirty yards ... twenty ... ten. Then I +stopped paddling. It was full high tide, absolutely dead; that moment +when flow and ebb alike are suspended. + +We came alongside the high walls of the old ship without a sound, our +hands fending the punt from its curved, barnacle-studded timbers. Long +swathes of green weed hung from the sternpost as we edged our way round +to the port side. + +Now I had never visited the Doctor's Hulk. When I first went to Morstone +I thought it strange that he did not ask me, but he had never done so +and the matter passed from my mind. I knew nothing, certainly, of its +internal arrangements. At the same time, I had been over a similar hulk +moored off Wells-next-to-Sea, which belonged to a wealthy maltster +there, and I knew that the same carpenter had fitted up both boats. From +what I remember, there was a cabin built out on deck with a glass roof, +while the hold below had been fitted up partly as a winter smoking-room +and dining-room, partly as berths for sportsmen who wished to sleep +after their toil. + +I was quite right. The old portholes of the boat had all been done away +with, but a large square window, some four feet above our heads, bulged +in the side of the Hulk. No light could be seen, but the top of the +window was open, and, even as we glided up, a whiff of cigar smoke came +out and we heard the murmur of voices. + +The murmur of voices! The Doctor was not alone upon the old coaster. +Something was brewing within its sea-worn timbers. We were nearing the +heart of the mystery at last! + +Instinctively, we both stood up. The punt rocked perilously, but we +steadied it by holding on to the lower part of the window. Once, it +nearly slipped away from beneath our feet and my brother crouched down +again and caught at a great clump of barnacles, motioning me to listen. + +For a moment or two I could hear nothing but a guarded rumble--it was +like voices heard by chance through a telephone. Then the wind happened +to drop and they became quite clear. + +I started with surprise, for, though I could see nothing, I was certain +that there were three people on board the Hulk. Upjelly's cool, incisive +tones struck immediately upon the drum of the ear. Then came another +voice, a hoarse, rough voice which I did not know; and finally a third +that I did. + +It was the voice of Mr. Jones, and I bent down and whispered to my +brother. + +Then, as I rose again and listened with my very soul, I shivered with +disappointment. + +The people within were speaking in a language I did not understand--save +only a very few words. They were speaking in German! + +It seemed that Upjelly was giving instructions of some sort or other. +His voice had a ring of command in it that I had never heard before. It +was like a hammer on an anvil, and unless I was much mistaken, it +vibrated with excitement. + +The answers came quickly enough. + +"_Ja, gnädiger Herr_," or, "_Gewisz, das hab' ich gleich gethan._" + +That presented no difficulties whatever. Upjelly was speaking to +someone, obviously an inferior, who replied, "Yes, sir," or, "Certainly, +I have already done it." + +Then Jones cut in, and here again I noticed an entire change in the +quality of the man's voice. It was not Jones speaking now, it was the +renowned Kiderlen-Waechter, of whom my brother had spoken three nights +ago, or I would have eaten my hat. There was no mistaking the keen, +arrogant note of command. The bland Mr. Jones never spoke like that, +though the voice was the same. Then I distinctly heard the sound of a +door either being shut or sliding in its grooves. There was the splutter +of a match, the sound of a gurgling syphon, and, to my intense relief, +Doctor Upjelly and his unseen companion began to speak in English. + +"No, it's impossible. I have, in my safe at the school, all the plans. +Our secret service on this coast has been working untiringly. For three +days at least, after to-morrow night, the plans will hold good. In them +is the station of every patrolling ship, full maps of this part of the +coast, the disposition of forces--everything necessary for the Admiral. +The tide to-morrow night will be even higher than it is now. The moon is +waning; weather conditions point to a dark, tempestuous night to-morrow. +She will come and take you away with the plans." + +"Which I shall deliver to the Admiral within twenty-four hours, for the +rendezvous is arranged, and I shall meet him in the middle of the North +Sea." + +"I shall be sorry to lose you, Admiral Kiderlen-Waechter." + +"It will only be for a time. I shall soon return--as you know." + +There was a sound of laughter, low, guttural, and strong. + +"And what will you do, von Vedal?" + +"To-morrow night I shall be with you, as you know, and see you go. Then +I shall take my stepdaughter to London, to the house you know of, where +I shall await you. The issue will not be long and you can claim your +reward. I shall leave the school, ostensibly for a day or two, but it +will never see me again, as you can understand. Fritz has put that +meddling Commander Carey _hors de combat_--the arrow was a clever idea +and no one suspects. As a matter of fact, I don't suppose for a moment +that his visit was anything but just what it appeared to be--for +purposes of rest and a little sport and to see his brother. _Gott im +Himmel_, what fools these people are! Now, take for example that brawny +young donkey, Mr. John Carey, my assistant-master. He fancies himself in +love with my elder stepdaughter, Doris." + +"And he may well be so, for she is a beautiful and charming young lady. +Would I not do anything in the world for her sister?" + +"Oh well, yes; I forgot, von Waechter. Love is not an event that has +occurred to me. But this young Carey has actually rigged up a telephone +between his room and Doris's. It is the most transparent device. I knew +all about it twenty-four hours after it was done. I shall leave Doris +behind at the school, and if this young lout cares to marry her and +become headmaster of Morstone College, I'm sure he is very welcome--that +is, provided there is any Morstone College left in three days from now." + +"I will see to that. I rather like that boy, and a detachment of our +marines shall guard the place and keep it from harm. That is all, I +think." + +"That is all." + +"What time is it?" + +"It's one o'clock--a little too early to go home. We must go upon the +marshes and fire a few shots. I have already three duck to carry home as +the result of our labours. But let us have another cigar and wait for +twenty minutes." + +Again there was the striking of a match. + +"Fritz will be all right, I suppose?" said Waechter. + +"He will be perfectly all right. Not a soul suspects that there is +anyone on board this Hulk, and he's well hidden in the fo'c'sle. A +faithful fellow that!" + +"You would say so if you had seen him as I have! He is the cleverest +engineer in the whole of our Submarine Service, cunning as one of your +own wild geese, and absolutely to be depended upon--unless ..." + +"Unless?" + +"Well, I'm a good judge of men, and we must take people as we find them. +Chief-officer Fritz Schweitzer is a perfect spy and a first-class +officer of submarines. Awash or under the surface, he knows no fear. But +a little, able-bodied seaman, six weeks ago at Kiel, gave him a +thrashing in a Bierhalle till he wept. One thing we must remember +to-morrow--everything must be said in German. I like to talk English, as +you know. It pleases me to be taken for a sedentary city gentleman, it's +my little vanity, von Vedal, but, for safety's sake, to-morrow night, +when She comes ..." + +"Quite so. Have you finished your cigar? Then let us go up on deck and +see what the night is like." + +There was a slight grating sound and an almost imperceptible swish as +the gun-punt swung away from the side of the Hulk, swept round the +miniature headland and raced for the mouth of the Miel Creek. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +HOW JOHN CAREY FOUGHT WITH THE GERMAN GIANT IN THE SALOON, AND "MR. +JONES" MET UNEXPECTED THINGS IN THE NIGHT + + +It was five o'clock, low tide in the marsh creeks, and snow was falling +lightly. + +At high tide, the Doctor's Hulk rose considerably _above_ the bank of +Thirty Main Creek. It was three yards from the solid mud of the +salting, and when the bridge was dropped one went up an incline to reach +the deck. + +Now it was low tide. The deck of the hulk was a good five feet below the +margin where I stood with my brother. It was still only three yards +away--nine feet--nothing to a very moderate athlete. + +By four o'clock the evening had come. By five it was dark as midnight. +Bernard turned behind us to where two people were waiting. + +"You quite understand?" he said in a low voice. + +I did not turn round; for certain reasons I could not. + +"Ready?" Bernard asked. + +"Yes, old cock," I answered, "and I hope you can jump it!" + +I was on my own ground. I had won a lot of pots in the long jump at +Oxford. I thought I should rather snaffle Bernard on this job, which was +wicked enough. We went back ten yards for the run. The snow was still +falling softly and thickly. There was the deep ditch between the bank +and the deck of the dim, desolate old Hulk. It looked very ugly, and as +I held up my elbows and started the run off, I heard a stifled noise +behind me. I knew what it meant, but I would not listen. This was no +tune for sentiment. + +I took off on the very edge of the yielding mud-bank, leapt downwards in +a great curve, lighted full over the bulwark of the Hulk with a thud, +slid forward on the ice-bound deck, and was brought up short against the +cabin. I wheeled round as a man does after a long slant at Murren. The +whole thing did not take more than a second or two. + +Turning, I saw Bernard in the air. He lighted as I had done, but his +foot slipped before he got his balance and he fell heavily, striking his +head against the stump of the main-mast which, with a yard shipped, was +used as a derrick to raise the bridge to the marsh. + +He fell with a noise like a sack of potatoes. I went up to him, tried to +raise him, and found that he was unconscious. Something like warm +varnish was oozing out of his head. My fingers dabbled in it. What I +thought does not matter. If he was dead, he was dead, though I was +pretty certain a tough old bird like Bernard was only stunned. But I had +my orders, and I left him where he lay. + +I stood up upon that slippery deck and pulled out my magazine pistol. I +looked round. There was nothing whatever to be seen but the softly +falling snow. I tried a low whistle to the people on the bank, but there +was no answer. + +It is a good thing to be under discipline. I had my orders, I waited, +listened, and heard nothing. Then I crept aft to where a big +glass-roofed cabin had been built out on the deck. There was no light +shining through the roof. The door was locked. I listened and there was +no sound save the soft, falling noise of the snowflakes. + +It was forrard, then, that I must go; and, treading with the greatest +caution, I crept towards the bows of the old ship. The fo'c'sle hatchway +loomed up before me. With cold, tingling fingers I felt for the door. It +opened in the middle, in the usual way, and the hinges swung back as if +they had been well oiled. Before me was the companion ladder--a dark +well. With my pistol in my hand, I went down the stairs as noiselessly +as a cat. I had only got to the bottom when a warm, stuffy smell came to +my nostrils. I was in a triangular space roofed by heavy bulkheads. It +was not quite dark, for a long rod of yellow light came from behind the +stairs, where there was a door. I went up to it and listened. Everything +was perfectly silent. + +Then I pushed open the door and entered. What I expected to see, I +cannot say, but I was prepared for almost anything. What I did see was +entirely unexpected. + +I found myself in a long saloon lit by a swivel lamp hanging from the +roof. Dark crimson curtains were drawn over windows and possible +portholes. The floor was covered with a faded Turkey carpet. Here and +there a mirror was let into the wall. I saw a case of books and an +excellent photogravure of the King, over a little grate in which glowed +a fire of smouldering coke. There were two or three basket armchairs +padded in cretonne. There was a central table, two little +smoking-tables, and a sort of buffet at the side of a further door. Upon +the buffet were glasses, syphons, and various bottles. There was a box +of cigars upon the central table and a silver cigarette-box upon one of +the smaller ones. I had come into a little, luxuriously furnished +club-room, which struck upon the senses with an irresistibly homely and +pleasant note as I looked round in wild amazement. There was even a +brass kettle on a trivet by the fire, which was singing melodiously to +itself. I stared round the place like a child, and caught sight of my +face with open eyes and dropping jaws in one of the looking-glasses. +What was I doing here? What had I tumbled into? What?... + +I came back to myself just in time. There was a loud and sudden creak, +the yawn of a partly open door. Then--Bang! + +The gilt-framed mirror in which I had been gazing at myself smashed in +the centre and starred all round, as something whizzed past my head with +a ricochet. + +Instinctively I crouched down upon the carpet, wheeling round as I did +so. + +The door at the opposite end of the saloon had been slid back. In the +rather dim light from the hanging lamp, I saw a great, bearded, +whiskered face, red, and framed in a fury of lint-coloured hair. It +seemed just like a gorilla turned white and malevolent in a sudden ray +of sunshine. + +There was another deafening explosion: One! Two! Three! and the furious +noise in the confined space of the cabin filled me with something of its +own rage. I saw red. The warm and evil silence of this comfortable place +had frightened me far more than this onslaught. Unharmed, I leapt to my +feet. + +As I did so, I saw that the man in the dark oblong beyond was feverishly +pressing a clip into his magazine pistol. He would be at me again in a +second, but I caught up one of the smoking-tables, heavy as it was, and +charged him. + +The table was iron, covered with beaten copper. I ran at the creature +like a bull, and as he advanced a yard into the room I was on him with a +frightful crash and down he went. + +I fell also on to the tripod of the table and bruised myself badly, but +I was too angry to think of that. I tore my shoulder from it and flung +it to the other side of the saloon. The man growled like a mastiff, half +rose from the floor, and then I had him by the throat. + +I am a strong man; I think I said that at the beginning of this +narrative. What I mean is that I could out almost any Sandow pup in no +time. But as I caught this hairy-faced creature by the throat and felt +his arms seeking for mine, then I knew that I was in for the time of my +life. My hands sank into the great, muscular system of his neck. My +thumbs were pressed on each side of the Adam's apple--Japanese +fashion--and my fingers were feeling upwards for the final pressure on +the jugular vein. + +But, with all my weight upon him, he was so strong from the waist up, +there was such a resilience in the massive torso, that he rose slowly, +as if pressed by some hydraulic piston. As he rose, my legs slithered +backwards. I tried to get some purchase with my toes to force him back, +but it was useless. He came up almost to a sitting posture. Great hairy +hands felt for my ears, and for a moment I thought it was all U.P. + +Then I got my right leg under his left and heaved over. + +We were upon our sides, the German uppermost, my hands still choking his +life out of him. Naturally, in that position, my grip was bound to +loosen. I could put no weight into it. But his arms were all sprawling. +One was partly under himself and partly under me, the other beating me +like a flail upon the ribs. I felt the sweat pouring from his face on to +mine, and he smelt horribly of garlic. It was just touch and go. + +Suddenly I whipped my numbed hands from the fellow's throat, slithered +my arms down the front of his body, and gripped him round the lower ribs +with a hug like a bear. + +Of course, this was my long suit. There are not many people who can +stand my affectionate embrace, especially when I am fighting for my +life! I heard one rib crack, and I laughed aloud. I tightened the vice, +and as the second went I knew it was all over. The brute made a noise +exactly like the water running out of a bath, a sort of choked, +trumpeting noise. His body grew limp. I disengaged myself and rose +unsteadily to my feet. + +Wow, but I had had it! The beastly smoking-room waltzed round me; I +staggered to the buffet like a drunken man. My hands were dark crimson. + +Old Upjelly and his confederates were accustomed to do themselves well. +I realised it as my eye fell upon the row of bottles--therein was much +balm in Gilead. There was a long-necked one with "Boulestin" upon the +label. I pulled out the cork at a venture and drank deep. It was just +what I wanted. It was cognac, and my eyes cleared and my arms stopped +trembling. + +I do not suppose the whole affair had lasted for more than three +minutes, and as I came to myself I realised the necessity for instant +action. My late adversary was lying at the other end of the saloon, his +head rocking in the open door which led to his own quarters. He was not +unconscious. He frothed at the mouth like I once saw an old pike I +caught with a spinner in the Broads. His eyes were red and glazed, and +he breathed like a suction pump gone wrong. I saw he was harmless as far +as further aggression went, but I thought it as well to make sure. I +took the bottle and poured as much as I thought right into the chap's +mouth. Then I snatched the cloth from the centre table, tore it into +strips, rolled it up, and tied Master Fritz Schweitzer round the ankles. +I pulled him to the wall and propped him up. I knew two of his ribs were +broken, and I felt for his collar-bone. That, as it happened, was not +broken. It did not matter much anyway if he died, though he was a long +way from that. Still, we wanted him; so I took the cork out of the +brandy bottle, wrapped it up in my handkerchief to make a sort of pad, +shoved it in his mouth, and tied the end of the handkerchief round the +back of his head. Then, when I had secured his hands, I felt we were +getting on very well and I took a long breath. + +I hurried up the companion-way to the deck. The keen night air, the +still falling snow, made me sway for a moment like a drunken man. I +heard a distant shout from the bank beyond, and with the shout was +mingled a high, treble note. That pulled me together more than anything +else, and I remembered what a perfect beast I had been not to let them +know. Of course, they must have heard the shots and been in an agony of +fright. + +"Cheery-O!" I shouted. "Everything is all right, and I'll let down the +bridge in a minute." + +Then I stumbled aft to find my brother. + +The fight in the cabin could not have been as long as I thought, for +Bernard was just sitting up and rubbing his head. Incidentally, he was +swearing sweet wardroom oaths to himself. + +I forbear to reproduce them; they can only be indicated here. + +"Help me up.... Have we made too much noise?... Have they heard us +below?" + +"That's all right, old soul," I said. "Feeling better now?" + +"Don't talk so loud, you fool!" he hissed. "You'll spoil everything!" + +"It's all right, old soul. I've said a few words to the crew. Now help +me to lower this gangway." + +Bernard never said a word of protest. He somehow felt it was all right, +and in a minute more we had knocked the catch out of the toothed wheel +which lowered the gangway and I let it gently down by the greased +halliards. + +Dickson max. came over first. Somebody followed him, so like Dickson +max. as makes no matter. This someone, a slim boy in appearance, put its +arms round my neck and nearly sobbed. + +"It's all right, dear," I answered; "we've won the first trick. Now you +and your knowledge of German come in. Remember you are on the King's +service." + +I do not know whether it was that or her relief at seeing me safe +again--for both Doris and Dickson max. had heard the shots and the +dulled noise of the fight below--but my girl pulled herself together in +a moment. + +Little sportswoman! she nipped down into the saloon quicker than Dickson +max., whose Sunday suit she was wearing. Bernard and I would not have +brought her into this business for anything had she not volunteered. But +she _would_ come when she knew the truth. Neither of us knew German. It +was essential that we should have someone with us who did. And in the +wild welter of those momentous three days, I am afraid our sense of +proportion was lost. We were all young. We were all out to save England +if we could. This is my apology for Doris being with us. I shall not +repeat it. The end justified the means so unforgettably, so gloriously. + +The man, Fritz Schweitzer, was still unconscious. He lay like a log, +bound and gagged, and an unpleasant sight, too. I felt rather proud of +my work as I looked at him, but Doris ran forward. + +"Poor fellow!" she said, "I must do what I can for him." + +"Not now, please," Bernard answered quickly. "The first thing to do is +to search ship. Remember that you heard nothing of Kiderlen-Waechter, +who is waiting till midnight for Upjelly. The presumption is that he was +to stay on board, yet we have seen no sign of him. Up with the +drawbridge at once, John and Dickson, and then come back to me." + +We tumbled up the companion and in a minute had raised the creaking +bridge. It was impossible for anyone lurking on the ship to have got off +in the short time we had been. + +"Now then," Bernard said, when we got back to the cabin, "get out your +pistol, John, and you and Dickson search this Hulk thoroughly. Miss +Joyce will stay here with me. I wish to speak to her. Report to me at +once." + +We went through the narrow door from which Schweitzer had fired at me, +and found ourselves in a small compartment in the bows of the boat. +There was a cooking-stove, some pots and pans, some shelves of groceries +and tinned goods, and a berth with tumbled, frowsy blankets, where the +German had obviously been sleeping. Nothing there; and again traversing +the cabin, we went up on deck. + +The deck-house, as I have said before, was locked, but my weight soon +disposed of that obstacle and, flashing my electric torch, with my +pistol ready, I entered. + +The place was simply a storeroom. There were eel spears, some leather +cartridge magazines, a couple of old "cripple-stopper" guns, and so +forth. Only one thing I noticed, and that was a new, stout rope-ladder, +with bamboo rungs and zinc hooks at the top. Finally, we prised open an +old hatchway and peered down into the musty darkness of the bottom part +of the Hulk. Dickson ran and fetched the rope-ladder and I went down +first. There was nothing whatever to be seen but the bare timbers of the +ship. Everything had been gutted and there was a most horrible smell +from a foot or two of bilge-water. It was certain that no one lurked +unsuspected on board. + +When we went down again to the cabin, I saw an extraordinary thing. My +brother had picked up what remained of the table-cloth, had twisted it +into bands, like what I had used on Schweitzer, and was tying up Doris! +Her hair was down, too, flowing in a great mass below the shooting-hat +she had worn. + +"What on earth are you doing?" I asked. + +"Shut up," he said, "you will see in a minute. Now, Miss Joyce!" + +With her arms tied closely behind her, her feet free, Doris smiled and +went out of the cabin. + +"Now for this swine," said my brother, and taking the soda-water syphon +from the table, he squirted it with great force and precision into the +wretched Schweitzer's face, till his beard looked like the fur of a +water-rat and his eyes opened slowly. + +"Take off the gag," said my brother. + +I did so. + +"Now prop him up in a sitting position--yes, get one of those +cushions--that's it." + +Then Bernard put some brandy into a tumbler and held it to the fellow's +lips. He sucked greedily and gave a great groan. + +Suddenly, as we stood there, there was a slight thud and patter of feet +upon the deck above. We all heard it distinctly, and the German's eyes +gleamed. My brother turned and dashed out of the cabin, Dickson and I +following him. There was a loud shriek, a girl's shriek, and a scuffle, +and then my brother said in an angry voice: + +"The Fräulein von Vedal--sent to warn these spies. Bring her down!" + +Then I began to understand. + +Doris fought like a cat. She was almost too realistic; but we hauled her +down into the cabin. + +"Tie her up," said my brother in a hoarse voice of command. + +We tied her up, sitting her in an arm-chair, and reefing our ropes so +that she could not stir. + +Then Bernard took off his hat and made a low, ironic bow. + +"Gute Nacht, gnädiges Fräulein!" he said--I believe it was all the +German the fellow knew--and then, with a wave of his hand, summoned us +to leave the cabin. We did so; he locked the door and ascended to the +deck. + +"Now then," he whispered, "let down the drawbridge with as much noise as +possible and then go over it. Directly we are on the other side, we must +take off our boots and creep back down to the cabin door." + +"What a ruse!" I heard Dickson max. say to himself in an ecstasy of +joy--he was given to using words from the more highly coloured adventure +books he read--"Oh, my aunt!" + +We managed it beautifully, and got into the little space at the foot of +the companion, outside the cabin door, with hardly a sound. + +Doris was sobbing bitterly and there was a low growl from the gigantic +German, which resolved itself into words at last. Then the sobs ceased +and Doris answered. We none of us could understand a word of the ensuing +conversation, but I reconstruct it here from what was told me +afterwards, and I am sure it is accurate enough. + +"Who are you, Fräulein? What have they done to you?" + +"Hush, they may hear!" + +"Who are they?" + +"They are the Police, the English Police. Everything is found out. I am +the Fräulein von Vedal. My father has been arrested, but I slipped off +in these clothes to try and warn you and Admiral Kiderlen-Waechter. He +must not be taken if it can be helped. If he escapes, my father says +there is yet a chance. He spoke to me in German until the police +silenced him. They do not understand our tongue, these dogs of English." + +"His Excellency has gone with his gun upon the marsh. He wished to pass +the time until midnight, when the Graf von Vedal was to arrive with the +papers. He will be back at seven. I was about to prepare his coffee, +which takes a long time, for His Excellency is very particular. Now what +shall we do? Have they gone?" + +"I think so. I heard them let down the bridge." + +"And so did I. But they can't be far away. Do they know that the Admiral +is here?" + +"I can't tell, but I don't think so. If only I could get free!" + +"Oh yes, Fräulein, if only you could! As for me, it matters nothing, but +His Excellency must escape. Then he can meet Her to-night and warn +Her--even though the precious papers are all lost. He could go off in +Her and escape that way. You know all about Her, Fräulein?" + +Doris shook her head. "No," she said. "Tell me." + +"If they have not told you already, Fräulein, I must not do so. I am +sworn. I thought perhaps you knew everything." + +"You won't tell me? If I can get away it would be of help for me to +know." + +"No, Fräulein; I am sworn and I must obey orders...." + +"And now I think," said my brother, unlocking the door and speaking in +his usual voice, "we've heard as much as we are likely to." + +We all trooped into the cabin and, taking out his pocket-knife, Dickson +max. cut the cloth strands which held Doris in the chair. + +The German's face grew dead white. His jaw dropped, his eyes blazed like +flames; he gave a roar of baffled fury and strained at his fastenings +with gigantic strength, the muscles at his temples standing out like +blue cords. I never before or since saw such hideous rage. + +"Stop that!" my brother said, whipping out his revolver and pointing it +straight at the fellow. + +It was of no use, however. Again that gigantic bellow swelled out into +the night. Dickson saved the situation. There must be something in these +boys' books after all, for I never saw a gag more quickly and deftly +inserted. + +"And now, tell us exactly what you have learnt, Miss Joyce," Bernard +asked. + +She did so in a very few sentences, putting up her hair at the same +time, standing before the mirror which Schweitzer's pot-shot at me had +cracked. Strange creatures girls are! + +"Half-past six," said Bernard, looking at his watch. "Now for the +Admiral. Get that drawbridge up again." + +We did so, and shortly after my brother joined us. + +"There will be some signal," he said; "one of us must personate that +brute down below. You are the biggest, John, and the broadest." + +"There's an oilskin and a sou'wester hanging in the man's bunk, sir," +said Dickson. + +"Just the thing. Cut along and fetch them." + +I rigged myself up in these clothes as well as I could, and went down +again into the cabin, from where I was to emerge at the signal. + +"We must manage it as best we can," said my brother. "Dickson and I will +go and hide behind the deck-house. When you hear the signal, whatever it +is, he will whistle or something, then come up heavily and let down the +bridge. He is sure not to speak loudly, so if he asks a question, just +growl out something so that he can't hear it till he gets on deck. +Remember he has got a gun, and grapple with him the moment you can. We +will be with you in a second." + +I sat and waited, smoking one of the Doctor's cigars and with a +brandy-and-soda in front of me--I did not see why I shouldn't. My ears +were wide open, but everything had gone so well up to the present that I +did not remember any uneasiness or fear. I was just wondering whether I +should light another cigar when I heard something so silvery sweet and +unexpected that I jumped. + +Somewhere out in the night, close by, came the silver pipe of a whistle. +I never heard anyone whistle so musically before or since. It was the +"Lorelei" that I heard, the sweet, plaintive music of the Rhine maiden. +I cannot explain it, but it gave me a lump in my throat. + +At the sound, the bound giant struggled violently, but he made little or +no noise, and what he did was drowned by my heavy footsteps as I walked +through the cabin and stumbled up the companion. + +On the shore, three yards away, was a figure in fowler's kit, which I +had no difficulty in recognising as that of my friend Mr. Jones. I heard +him say something, but there was a good deal of wind all round and I +ignored it, letting down the drawbridge slowly for him to come on board. +It had hardly bridged the chasm when he stepped briskly on to it and +came over like a flash. He had his gun on his left shoulder, and he +handed it to me, saying something in German. I took it with my left +hand, stepped aside for him to pass, and then kicked him smartly upon +the shin. It is an invaluable dodge; a West-end Bobby told me of it; and +down he went full length on his face with an oath. + +Well, the rest was not difficult. My fourteen stone was on the small of +his back in a minute. My brother, who had employed the interval of +waiting in discovering a coil of wire, had his hands whipped round +behind his back in no time, and Dickson max. sat on the wretched +Admiral's head as if he had been a horse. We left his feet free, because +we wanted to get him down into the cabin. I held him by the shoulder +while my brother pressed the barrel of his Mauser pistol--one of the few +good things that ever came out of Germany, by the way--into the nape of +his neck. He came like a lamb and we sat him down in the same arm-chair +that Doris had just occupied. The wire came in very handy indeed. We +made a cocoon of it round him until he could not stir hand or foot. + +"And now," my brother said, "our next guest will not be here for some +little time. Supper is, I think, clearly indicated. Doris, supposing you +and Dickson see what the galley has to offer--some tinned food, I think +you said, and coffee? Excellent. Meanwhile, I and John will talk to this +gentleman." + +Von Waechter--I call him this for short; people should not have such +beastly long names--von Waechter glanced slowly round the cabin, taking +in everything. He saw Schweitzer lying gagged upon the floor, the +smashed mirror, the bottle of cognac, everything, and I will do him the +justice to say he never moved a muscle of his face. + +"Well now, sir, you will understand that the game is up," said my +brother quietly. + +The man nodded in a meditative sort of way, as if he was considering +whether that was true or not. + +"Ah, my friend Mr. John Carey!" he said. + +"Yes, Mr. Jones," I answered, "and this is my brother, Commander Carey, +of His Majesty's Navy." + +Von Waechter bowed as well as he was able. "Ah," he said, "I am a +prisoner of war, I see." + +My brother shook his head. "I'm afraid not, sir," he replied; "I'm +afraid you are a captured spy." + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE MURDER OF MR. LOCKHART + + +Doctor Upjelly, or the Graf von Vedal as my readers may choose to think +of him, never came to the Hulk that night. + +If this is not the most sensational part of my narrative, it is +certainly the grimmest. It must be told quickly. It is too horrible to +linger upon. + +I was not there myself, but I put it down from the words of an +eye-witness. + +The reason that I was able to be out on the marsh at five o'clock +without suspicion was that, early in the morning after my brother and I +had overheard everything in the gun-punt, I went to the Doctor and asked +for a day off. I said I was going to London to have a final shot at +enlisting. I knew from what I had heard him say to Kiderlen-Waechter +that it did not matter twopence to him either way, whether I went or +stayed. He, himself, was making all preparations for flight. He gave me +leave quite readily. + +Before I pretended to go I told Lockhart everything. It was arranged +that he and Dickson major, whom he was to take into his confidence to a +certain extent, were to watch the Doctor with the utmost care. + +I drove to Blankington-on-Sea in Wordingham's trap, went a station or +two up the line, was met by the Admiralty motor car, made a great +circuit of country, and got back to Cockthorpe within four hours. + +Meanwhile Lockhart and Dickson major watched the Doctor. This is the +story, the horrible story. + +Doris slipped out without notice, dressed in Dickson max.'s +clothes--that has already been explained. The late afternoon went on. +The boys finished their work, played a dreary punt-about of football, +and came in to tea. Lockhart was in charge. + +After tea, 'prep.' began. Old Pugmire had shuffled off home. Old Mrs. +Gaunt was still groaning in bed. At eight-thirty the younger boys went +up to their dormitories, only four of the elder ones remaining +downstairs. Lockhart left them to their own devices--they were roasting +chestnuts, I heard--and waited in his own sitting-room. + +At nine o'clock, Marjorie Joyce came hurriedly from the Doctor's wing +and tapped at Lockhart's door. The Doctor had told Amy, the housemaid, +to light a fire in his bedroom. He said that he would have much writing +to do and that when it was finished he would go out upon the marshes to +shoot, as usual. + +I can picture the scene quite well. Pretty Marjorie, panting, with wide +eyes, in the door of Lockhart's sitting-room; the staunch little man, +keen as a ferret, wondering what this meant. He knew from me, of course, +that Upjelly was to go to the Hulk that night with his _dossier_ of +plans and betrayals. + +They sent for Dickson major from the senior boys' room. They were +closeted together for nearly ten minutes. Then Marjorie led them quietly +from the school-wing into the Doctor's house. + +The Doctor, at that moment, was having supper by himself. He would not +be upstairs for quarter of an hour. Marjorie showed Lockhart and the lad +to the big bedroom with the dancing fire upon the hearth. Dickson major +had a nickel-plated revolver, of which he was very proud. + +"If anything happens, sir," he said, "I can do him in with this." + +Then Dickson major was put under the bed, where he lay, grasping his +revolver, keen as mustard, glad to be in the mysterious business of +which he had been told so little and in which his elder twin was so +actively engaged. + +A tear comes into my eye as I think of that quiet bedroom and those two +poor conspirators waiting for von Vedal, doing their little best, such +as it was. + +There was a big, green curtain, running on rings, in an alcove of the +bedroom. Behind this, the headmaster of Morstone kept a lot of clothes +which he never wore and never even looked at. Here the ardent cripple, +Lockhart, was ensconced. + +There is something comic in the business--the schoolboy and the +ferret-faced master hidden in this fashion. I think that all sinister +tragedies have their bizarre element of comedy--comedy to change so +swiftly into horror. + +In twenty minutes the Doctor came up. He strode into the room with a +firm step, carrying a brown leather bag, which he placed upon the table +by the fire. Then he locked the door. He took off his coat, warmed his +soft, pink hands at the fire, unlocked the bag, spread a mass of +documents from it upon the table, and began to write steadily. + +There was a round clock upon the mantelpiece which ticked incessantly. +It was a quick and hurried tick that came from the clock, and sometimes +it seemed to be accentuated, to be a race with Time; at others, it was +slow as the death-watch. + +The Doctor wrote on. He covered sheet after sheet with swift, easy +writing. When each sheet was done, he blotted it and added it to the +pile on his left hand. + +He had written for three-quarters of an hour, and the hidden watchers +had made no sound whatever, when the big man suddenly jumped up from the +table. They heard his chair crush over the carpet; they heard him sigh +deeply, as if with relief. + +Then Dickson major, peeping under the valance of the bed, saw his +headmaster go to the mantelpiece, open a box of cigars, select one and +light it. It was a long, black, rank Hamburg weed, and the pungent smoke +curled round the room as the man stood with his back to the fire, +looking down upon the table. + +The smoke went round and round. It grew thick. It curled and penetrated +everywhere. It penetrated behind the green curtain where, in an agony +of rheumatism and tortured bones, little Lockhart was standing. + +Lockhart coughed. + +The boy underneath the bed was watching all this. He saw the Doctor turn +quietly and swiftly towards the alcove. He took three soft steps, pulled +the curtain aside, and drew Lockhart out. + +It was horrible. Von Vedal said nothing at all. His great hand descended +upon the shoulder of the cripple and he drew him into the middle of the +room--into the full light of the lamp--looking down at him with a still, +evil scrutiny. + +Lockhart spoke. He did not seem a bit afraid. His curious voice jarred +into the quiet, firelit room with almost a note of triumph in it. + +"You've found me, Doctor Upjelly; but you've lost everything, Graf von +Vedal!" + +Dickson said that the Doctor, bending lower, turned Lockhart's face +upwards with his disengaged hand, pulling it towards the light. The boy +was paralysed. The fingers of his right hand grew cold and dead. The +revolver lay in them like a ton weight. He could not move or cry out. He +could do nothing. + +With the greatest deliberation, von Vedal took Lockhart by the throat. +He felt in his trouser pocket and pulled out an ordinary penknife. Still +clasping his prisoner, he opened the blade with his teeth; and then, +without the slightest haste or sign of anger--I cannot go on, but there +was a thud and the gallant little cripple lay writhing on the floor. + +Von Vedal peered over the edge of the table at him for a moment, and +then pushed him gently away with his foot. Then he sat down and began to +write again. + +It was as if he had brushed away a fly. + +He wrote on, and the boy beneath the bed fainted dead away. When again +the poor lad's eyes opened, he saw the great, white face bent over its +papers, the firm hand moving steadily from left to right, heard the +resolute scratch and screech of the pen as it traversed the pages. But +he saw also that the huddled heap upon the floor was moving slowly. + +With infinite effort, though without a sound, the cripple's arm crept +down the side of his dying body. With infinite effort, and with what +agony none of us will ever know, Lockhart withdrew the pistol with which +I had provided him. He could not lift his arm, but there was movement in +his wrist. Slowly, very slowly, the hand rose from the floor. + +The flash and crash were simultaneous. Upjelly's mouth opened wide. He +tried to turn his head and could not. He coughed twice and then sank +quietly forward upon the records of his treachery. + +The shot broke the nervous bonds in which young Dickson had been held. +He scrambled up from beneath the bed. He ran round the table with +averted eyes and bent over Lockhart. There was a little hissing noise, +like a faint escape of gas. Dickson bent his ear to the mouth of the +dying man. + +"Take Miss Marjorie to Wordingham--Inn--village. Gather up--all those +papers. Put them in bag. After--Miss Marjorie--Inn--run--fast as you +can--to--Doctor's--old Hulk--Thirty Main. Give everything--Mr. Carey. +Good-bye, boy...." + +One last gasp, and the word "England!" sighed out into the bedroom. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE TRUTH AT LAST, THE INCREDIBLE TRUTH! AND HOW THEY FOUGHT FOR THE +SUBMARINE + + +Just after midnight, my brother and myself sat crouching behind the +bulwarks of the Hulk. + +It was the weirdest hour, the strangest scene, that my eyes had ever +looked upon. Snow was falling fast, and yet, somewhere above, there was +a moon. It was all white and ghostly-green, shifting, moving, unreal, as +befitted the horrors which pressed us close. Yet we were exultant; I can +testify to that. "The Judge was set, the doom begun"; in our hearts was +the fiery certainty of success. + +In the deck-house were Bernard's three men, Scarlett, Adams, and +Bosustow--all of whom had served with him in his own ship. Below, in the +saloon, Doris, old Lieutenant Murphy of the Coastguards, and the two +Dickson boys were waiting. + +Let me give the very briefest resumé of events up to the present. + +Dickson major had fulfilled his trust. He had taken Marjorie Joyce to +Mrs. Wordingham at the inn; then he had come to us with the bag of +papers. He had told us everything. All we told Doris was that her sister +had been taken to the inn and that her stepfather was arrested at the +school. We had to keep Doris with us for a time, but old Lieutenant +Murphy, who was now entirely in our confidence, would take her back to +the village when the adventure of the night was over. His car was +waiting there and Doris and Marjorie would both find refuge with Mrs. +Murphy at Cockthorpe. + +The prisoners, Kiderlen-Waechter and the German boatswain, had been +moved into the galley, where one of the lads was watching them. + +It was cold beyond thinking. The snow fell softly on us till we were +blanketed with white. Bernard was whispering. + +"You see, old John, I look at it this way. When we searched +Kiderlen-Waechter an hour ago we found the signal. Doris translated it +for us. The lamp is lit in that box they fitted up so carefully in the +bows. It can only be seen straight up the Creek. They'll make for that." + +"What do you think it is?" + +"They've spoken of it as 'She'--it's a boat, of course. I should say +either one of those wretched little coasters, or possibly even a +fishing-smack. She'll stand a mile out at sea and they'll row into the +Creek with a longboat, for the plans. There is a huge manoeuvre +on--what it is we can't tell yet, and it's touch and go to-night whether +we snooker them or whether we don't. You are ready for anything?" + +"Anything! So old Upjelly's dead, and poor little Lockhart!" + +"He died for his country, as you and I may do to-night, old John. Shed +the sentimental tear on some future occasion. What?" + +His voice rose a little. Scarlett, who was on the look-out, had crept +along the deck and touched Bernard on the shoulder. + +"Come forrard, sir, if you please," the man said in a hoarse whisper. He +could hardly get the words out, and at first I thought his teeth were +chattering with cold, but it was not so. + +We crept to the bows of the Hulk and peered over the broken, rotting +taffrail. Two feet below was the beam of the signal lamp shining up the +creek towards the sea. The snow had temporarily stopped in this part of +the marsh and the moon was bright. Thirty Main stretched away ahead as +far as we could see, two hundred yards long and a hundred wide, of +black, gleaming steel. The tide was full at flood. + +Scarlett handed my brother a pair of night-glasses. Bernard gazed +through them for twenty seconds, and then they fell softly on the deck. + +"Oh God!" he said in a low voice, "so it is _that_, and I never thought +of it before! Fool! Fool!" + +I stared out also, not daring to say a word. No man can see better at +night than I. What _was_ that? Something slowly floating down the centre +of the creek, a black, oblong patch. Was it two or three duck swimming +landwards with the tide? + +Then the black patch lifted itself from the water. It seemed to have a +long, narrow tail--the whole thing was curiously distinct in the +moonlight. In a second I realised that something was _being pushed up +from below_. I had never seen anything like it before. I experienced +that hideous sensation in the pit of the stomach that comes to people +who are face to face with the unknown and the unexpected for the first +time in their lives. All this happened in half a minute. The black, +oblong thing was now high in the air on the end of a pole which came +straight up through the middle of the creek. Something else was rising, +a black hump, which grew and grew, until a grey tower stood +there;--stood there but moved slowly towards us--or did it begin to +recede? + +I heard Bernard's voice: "Stand by the lamp!" + +"Aye, aye, sir!" + +Scarlett was bending low over the bows of the Hulk. In the middle of the +waterway something long and lean was showing. There was a soft, metallic +clang, and then, from the centre of the dark, floating object, a light +flashed quickly, three times. Immediately I heard the click of the +shutter of our own lamp and saw the occulting beam below flash and +disappear in answer. + +I knew, I think in some subconscious way, I must have known from the +very first. The whole thing, in its magnificent and unsuspected daring, +its malevolent simplicity, struck me like a blow. This was a German +submarine; this was the channel by which the Master-Spy, von Vedal, and +his agents had been sending information to the enemy! On my own quiet +marshes, in Thirty Main Creek! + +"One of their 'D' class, sir; same as our 'E.' Crew of fifteen, no +quick-firing gun, and probably wireless. Handy little craft, sir!" + +"They'll be coming aboard in a minute, Scarlett." + +"Aye, aye, sir. If you look, sir, you'll see they are getting one of +those collapsible boats up. New thing, sir, and very handy. Holds six. +Ah!" + +I could see quiet and purposeful activity round the conning-tower of the +submarine. A group of dark figures was silhouetted in the moonlight, and +presently a little boat, like a bobbing cork, lay by her side. + +Three men got into it and it pushed off. It went towards the other side +of Thirty Main. + +"Concealed moorings, sir," Scarlett whispered. "They've been here +before. It's dead water, and the ship'd drift, if ..." + +I heard no more. I watched breathlessly. The boat went to the far side +of the creek and remained there for nearly two minutes. If there was a +cable, I did not see it, but presently the boat turned and came rapidly +towards the Hulk. + +"John, take him quietly to the cabin and shove him in--it's the +Commander coming aboard," my brother added. "Scarlett, get back into the +deck-house and light that lamp. Mr. Carey is dressed like the German +boatswain, and he will show the officer straight into the deck-house. +It's ten to one the sailors won't come up. Remember to do your job +without the slightest noise--you, Adams, and Bosustow." + +"Out him, sir?" + +"I'm afraid so. There is no other way. Directly it is over, take off his +clothes and bring them down into the cabin. Mind the men in the boat +hear nothing." + +"Aye, aye, sir." + +Then my brother turned to me. The boat was now almost by the side of the +Hulk. + +"You understand, John?" he said. + +I touched his arm, afraid to speak. + +"Then go and get the rope-ladder." + +I stepped to the deck-cabin and saw the three sailors standing round it +among the litter of shooting gear. A smoky lamp hung from the ceiling. +Scarlett passed me the ladder. I took it and went to the side--my +brother had disappeared. + +There was a low hiss seven feet below. I hissed, too, fixed the ladder +hooks, and dropped the rest of it. One of the sailors caught it, while +the other steadied the boat, and a slim man of just over middle height +came up like a cat. He wore some sort of dark uniform, what it was I +could not see. The collar was turned up round his face, which appeared +to be clean-shaved. + +I saluted and stepped towards the deck-house. He followed me without a +sound. + +Then I tapped on the door, which opened immediately, and as it did so I +shot him in with a smart blow between the shoulder-blades. There was +just one little gasping sound, and that was all. The door closed gently. +The two sailors below in the boat sat quietly enough. I went down into +the saloon. + +Quick as I was, my brother was before me. He was talking earnestly to +Doris in a low voice. I stood at the door at attention, and I think I +never saw a stranger scene. + +Old Lieutenant Murphy, in uniform, was seated at the table. His nostrils +were opening and shutting in his tanned face. He was exactly like an old +dog brought to the hunt for the last time. The door into the galley was +half open. Dickson major stood there with a magazine pistol in his hand. +Dickson max. sat opposite the lieutenant, his face a mask of +determination and strength. It was wonderful. + +"You quite understand, Doris? You can be brave?" + +"I quite understand, Bernard." + +"Then we will wait a minute. Sit down, John." + +We all sat down--waiting. One minute--two minutes passed. Then came a +light tap upon the door. It opened and Scarlett entered. His face was +rather red, and he breathed heavily. On his right arm he carried a +bundle of clothes. + +My brother looked at him with a lift of the eyebrows, and Scarlett +nodded, placing the clothes on the table. + +"Go through these clothes, Lieutenant," Bernard said. Then he turned to +Scarlett and whispered. + +The man saluted and disappeared. A few seconds after, my brother +beckoned to Doris. + +"Now, then," he said, "be brave!"--and then, turning to me, "Stand out +of sight on deck, John, and be ready to help." + +We crept up on deck. To my unutterable surprise, Doris went to the side +and leant over. She spoke in German and in a very low voice. + +"She's telling them that they're to come up on board and have a drink," +my brother said. + +The two figures below rose with alacrity. The first one ascended the +ladder as Doris whipped down the hatchway into the cabin. The second +sailor followed his companion. + +I was not called upon to help, thank Heaven! Scarlett, Adams, and +Bosustow rose from nowhere. + +"That accounts for three," said my brother, but I turned my head away +not to see what was going on. + +When we were again down in the cabin I was shaking like a leaf. + +"Drink this," Bernard said sternly, "and pull yourself together. It is +War, don't you understand that, man?" + +Doris was leaning over the table by the side of Lieutenant Murphy. In +front of her was a paper. The lovely face, oddly boyish under its cap, +was wrinkled with scrutiny. + +"It is special orders," she said at length, "addressed to Admiral +Kiderlen-Waechter. The plans are to be taken on board the submarine at +once." Her voice broke for the moment, but she made a great effort at +control, and the next words came from her slowly and distinctly. To me, +I think to all of us, they were like the strokes of a tolling bell. + +"_The German battleship, Friesland, has eluded our Fleet in the North +Sea. Our Fleet has been decoyed towards the Scotch coast by a sortie of +the enemy from Kiel. The battleship is approaching this part of England. +She is attended by destroyers and submarines. She is convoying three +troop-ships, each of which contains two thousand German troops. The +rendezvous is for two o'clock to-morrow afternoon, when Captain von +Benda is to deliver my stepfather's plans to the German Admiral. The +landing of the raiding force is to be effected on these marshes some +time during to-morrow night._" + +"To-night," said my brother, looking at his watch and snapping it into +his pocket. + +Then there was a dead silence. + +Bernard sat down at the table and buried his head in his hands, +motioning us to be silent. For fully five minutes he remained thus, and +what was going on within his mind I could but faintly guess. I knew, at +any rate, and so, I think, did old Lieutenant Murphy, how enormous and +incalculable were the issues that hung upon the decision of the young +Commander, whose face was hidden from us. + +When Bernard looked up again his eyes were very bright and he was +smiling. + +"Go on deck, John," he said, "and order the men to come down." + +They came down, and Scarlett had upon his arm another bundle of clothes. + +"Attention!" said my brother. + +The three sailors stood stiffly by the door. + +"Dickson major!"--Dickson major came out of the galley. + +"Dickson max.!"--the elder brother sprang to attention also. + +"John!"--I stood as stiffly as the rest. + +"These men are under my orders, and they will go to death with me. You +three are different. There is no time to explain everything now, but +there is just a chance of saving this country from disaster. It is only +a chance, mind. It is a forlorn hope. We may fail in half an hour: we +may fail in twenty-four hours. In fact, it is almost certain that we +shall. Still, are you coming?" + +Well, of course there wasn't any palaver about that. It was settled in a +minute. Then Bernard turned to old Murphy. + +"Lieutenant," he said, "I am sorry that we are not going to have you +with us, but you've got plenty to do ashore." + +"I'm damned sorry too, sir, for, by George, I'd like to have a smack at +'em before I die!" + +"You may yet. Now, please take your instructions. You know the marsh. +Get off with Miss Joyce as quickly as possible. Take her to join her +sister at the Morstone Arms. Then call up the coastguard for miles +round. Come here to this Hulk--you won't see us in any case--and have +the prisoners secured safely. Then send these despatches." + +My brother sat down and began to write in cipher on leaves torn from his +notebook. He looked up once. + +"John," he said, "suppose you go up on deck with Doris. Make not the +slightest noise, but make your adieux." + +We stole up, and I held my girl in my arms for a minute. She did not see +the dark stains which splashed the snow upon the boards. + +"Good-bye, dear," I said. "Remember that I loved you more than anything +else in the whole world!" + +Oh, she was wonderful! "Of course, I shall always remember how you left +me to-night," she whispered. "But you are coming back. Something tells +me that. Yesterday I was a quiet girl living an ordinary life. To-night, +nothing can disturb me, nothing can frighten me. I have supped too full +of horrors, dear John, but I am glad, and proud and happy!" + +It is hardly necessary to say more. Within five minutes the old +lieutenant and my girl had passed away like ghosts from the near shore +and I was down in the cabin again. + +Bernard was taking off his clothes and putting on those of the dead +captain of the submarine. Scarlett and Adams were already dressed in the +uniform of the German sailors. Bosustow stood in his shirt and drawers, +and so did my two school-boys. + +"You see, it's like this, Johnny," Bernard said. "As far as we can +judge, there are about twelve men in that submarine. We've got to kill +them; there is no other way. We've got to take that submarine out into +the North Sea and we have got to fight her ourselves. The Germans will +be looking out for us. They will think us their despatch boat right +enough. We may be able to stop them before our own supports get out of +Harwich, for Lieutenant Murphy will be telegraphing all over the country +within two hours. It is touch and go, but we've got to do it." + +There was an odd, dual sound, instantly suppressed. I looked sternly +towards the end of the saloon. It came from Dickson max. and Dickson +major, and if it was not a chuckle of intense and supreme delight, it +was a strangled "hooray." The three sailors standing at attention moved +not an inch, but I caught Scarlett winking at his right-hand man. + +Bernard smiled grimly for an instant. I knew the signs. He was really +happy. Then he went on. + +"Now, Scarlett and Adams will row the boat to the submarine. I shall sit +in the stern impersonating the captain, who has recently been killed in +action"--and, to my surprise, Bernard saluted. "You will be in the bows, +John, and they may take you for that fellow, Schweitzer, in there. +Bosustow, and Mr. Dickson, and Mr.----" he looked inquiringly at Dickson +major. + +"Harold," was the reply. + +"Oh yes, Mr. Harold Dickson will swim in the wake of the boat. We have +eight magazine pistols. Three will be in the sternsheets. The +brevet-lieutenants and the petty officer"--you should have seen my lads' +faces as they were commissioned!--"will swim to the ladder on the +submarine's quarter and follow us down. But be careful that, in the +rough and tumble, you don't shoot any of the first attacking party. Is +all clear?" + +"Certainly, sir," said Dickson max., with a sublime and effective +impudence I could never have compassed. Already, in his magnificent +mind, Dickson max. trod the quarter-deck and wore a sword. And the +curious thing was, as we all crept up to the deck, that those tried +veterans, Scarlett, Adams, and Bosustow, accepted the situation without +a doubt. + +Then we started. My brother gripped me by the hand as I went down the +ladder, and it was the only sign of emotion that he showed. + +"Good old John!" he whispered. "I've sent Marjorie a message by Doris." + +The submarine lay in the middle of the Creek, a hundred and fifty to two +hundred yards away. As our boat drew near, the moonlight became +obscured and there was a sudden drift of snow. We shot alongside, and +there was a gleam from a lantern shining down upon us. + +It showed me a curving steel ladder, which went up over the fish-back of +the thing to a long, low deck with a light railing running round it. Two +men were standing there, and as we made fast, one of them came half-way +down the ladder and held out his hand to me. I took it, stumbled for an +instant, and found myself upon the steel platform. At my back, the +conning-tower rose eight feet high above me. Within three yards was an +oblong hatchway, from which a faint, orange light came upwards, turning +the snowflakes to dingy gold. + +Scarlett was beside me in a second. I took the man nearest and caught +him by the throat. He had no time to gasp or cry out. I pressed him back +over the rail, which held--Krupp steel, I suppose. There was a slight +"snick"--it was not that of breaking metal--and I shot the sailor over +the far side, where he sank like a log. + +Then I turned. A furious and silent fight was going on between Scarlett +and the other seaman. They swayed and rocked this way and that. They +panted just like the sound of a bellows blowing up a fire. I waited, +trying to get in a grip. Figures moved past me and disappeared down the +hatchway, but I hardly saw them. Scarlett swung his enemy towards the +conning-tower, and then I got my chance. I "collared him low"--Rugger +three-quarter style--and brought him down upon the deck. The man gave a +loud shout, but it was drowned by a furious noise below. There was no +more necessity for silence. I pulled out my pistol and there was an end +of the German. Scarlett jumped up like a gymnast, and together we heaved +the body overboard. + +"The swine's bin and bit my ear!" said Scarlett. "Now then, sir, come +on!" and he swung himself over the hatchway and dropped. + +I followed. It is impossible to describe what I saw--at any rate, my pen +is not equal to the task. For a moment, I was blinded by brilliant +light, through which a multitude of figures danced and leapt, like +people in a dream. My ear-drums were almost split by the noise. There +was a horrible, bitter smell in my nostrils, and my throat felt as if I +was swallowing a bullet of lead. + +Then, as things cleared, and I suppose it could only have been an +instant before they did so, I found myself in a gleaming tunnel, +surrounded by unfamiliar machinery. + +A man lying within three yards of me, his face like wet, red velvet, +suddenly jerked up his body like a marionette. His arms shot out, there +was a deafening explosion, and something rang behind my head like a gong +smitten without warning. I shot him in the body, and then I saw three +dripping figures growling and worrying upon the floor like wolves. They +rolled about with a crash and clank of metal until the great arm of the +Cornishman, Bosustow, rose and fell three times like a flail. + +At the far end of the tunnel, there were more reports, and then I saw my +brother walking along a sort of grating and coming towards me. + +Everything seemed to rock and dissolve. I fell back against an upright +of some sort or other and my senses nearly went. I thought I was in bed +at Morstone House School and the seven-o'clock bell was tolling. + +Once more, things cleared. Everything gradually became distinct. The +infernal noise, the wild welter of sound, was hushed. Only two yards +away from me, a man dressed as a sailor was kneeling before my brother, +who held a pistol to his head. The man's hands were held up, his face +was a white wedge of terror, and a constant stream of words bubbled from +his livid lips. + +"Yes, sir. Karl, sir. Coming, sir. Porterhouse steak, sir, what you +always used to like. No, sir--Swiss really--not a German. Oh, Captain +Carey, don't kill me, sir"--the voice rose into a shriek of agony--"_I +am Karl, sir!_"--the words came in an ecstasy of conviction. "Karl, +head-waiter at the Portsmouth Royal! Why, sir, you've tipped me half a +crown twenty times. Oh, sir ..." + +My brother's face seemed cut in granite, but he began to laugh. + +"Tie this up!" he said, and Adams ran forward--Adams was all black and +red and his clothes were torn. + +Then Bernard turned to me. + +"By God!" he said, "we've done it, John, we've done it so far!" + +Then I realised that, save for the whining creature being trussed upon +the grating, the crew of the German submarine were all dead. + +"Mr. Dickson!" + +"Sir!" + +"Instruct the boatswain to pipe all hands tidy ship." + +It was the man Adams who, fumbling in his clothes, produced a whistle +which shrilled loudly and acted as a strange tonic to us all. + +"I give you quarter of an hour," Bernard said. "Bodies to be heaved +overboard; gratings to be swabbed as well as possible in the time. Get a +hose overboard, Mr. Dickson, and have the hand-pump manned." + +Then Bernard took me by the arm and led me up the slippery ladder. We +stood upon the long, narrow deck, and the snow fell over us like a +mantle. + +"Now, old boy," he said, "pull yourself together. All has gone well, but +in half an hour we must be out in the North Sea, five fathoms deep. Feel +a bit sickish? Oh, you'll get over that in a few minutes. We have only +just begun." + + +END OF PART II + + + + +PART III + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +OUT IN THE NORTH SEA. PREPARING FOR ACTION + + +The bees were humming through the orchard with a long, droning sound as +I lay in the hammock of my old home, once more a careless boy. My eyes +were closed, but the bright sun shone upon my face, and Peters, my +father's old butler, was coming over the grass to tell me that tea was +ready. + +He touched my arm. + +It was not Peters; it was a pale, clean-shaved fellow with an obsequious +manner, who held a wooden bowl of steaming milk and coffee in his hands. +I sat up and rubbed my eyes. The deep, droning noise, which had seemed +like the bees of childhood in my dream, was the noise of engines not far +away. I had slept three hours in the hammock, as my brother had +insisted, and here was the captured German waiter bringing me coffee. I +took it, but half-awake, and watched the man go to two other hammocks +which stretched away in front of me. The Dickson boys tumbled out of +them and I became fully conscious of where I was. + +For the moment, but only for a moment, I was unmanned. The horror of all +that we had been through so recently rolled over me like a flood. The +shambles that the submarine had become, the ruthless killing of fourteen +men--the horrible little snick as I broke the back of my own victim!... + +But it passed. The coffee was excellent and invigorating, and in a +minute I tossed the empty bowl into the hammock and stood upon a steel +grating, looking about me with wide eyes. + +At that moment my brother came up, walking briskly, like a man at home. +He seemed changed in some way, and I realised what it was--the policeman +on his beat, and unbuttoned and at ease, the parson in his pulpit or +trimming roses in the rectory garden, are two very different people. + +"Where are we?" I said. "What has happened?" + +"You've had a very good sleep, John. You went off like a log directly I +had the hammock slung. It was necessary, too, or you'd never be fit for +what is coming." + +"Have we started?" + +"Started!" he grinned. "We're thirty miles away from Morstone Marshes, +abreast of Skegness, I should judge, which, as far as I can calculate, +is about sixty miles to the westward--and heading straight out into the +North Sea. We're just crossing the line of the Rotterdam boats from +Hull." + +"But there is no movement!" + +"No, my son, because we're twenty-five feet under water, that's why. +Now, you had better come and look round the boat; I shall have to +explain everything to you and show you what you will have to do later +on." He turned to the Dicksons. "You come, too," he said, "and if ever +the three of you have your wits about you, have them now. You've got to +learn in an hour or two what it takes an ordinary seaman six months to +learn--or part of it, at any rate." + +I am not going to describe everything I saw in detail. This is a story +of action, and I always skip the descriptive parts in books, myself. The +Johnnies only put them in to fill up. I expect they are paid so much a +page, if the truth were known! Still, I must try and give some picture +of the strange and unfamiliar world in which I found myself. Here I was +sailing under the sea for all the world like someone in Jules Verne, +experiencing something that only the tried men of the navies ever know. + +I was in a long, narrow tunnel, most brilliantly lit. The air was warm +and close, tainted a little with a faint suggestion of chemical fumes. +It was rather like being in a chemist's shop in winter time when a large +fire is burning. + +Immediately to my right, the German waiter was busy over a little +electric stove, in a doorless compartment not bigger than a bathing +machine, Pots and pans hung above him and there were shelves covered +with wire netting containing stores of food. We passed him, and I +judged, from the breadth from side to side, that we were standing almost +in the middle of the submarine. + +Upon white-painted gratings, my brother's sailors moved here and there +with bare feet, quiet and alert in their jumpers. The light was caught +by, and reflected again, from innumerable pieces of shining machinery, +brass and silver and dull bronze. There was a tension both of physical +atmosphere and mental excitement, strange and unnatural to me, but which +those who go beneath the waters and explore the mysterious deep always +have with them. + +We walked down a central gangway and stopped by two powerful gasolene +engines, one on each side--long, lean, polished monsters, that lay +inert, but ready to leap into action on the turn of a switch and the +pulling of a lever. + +"Those are the engines which run the boat when we are on the +surface--'awash,' we call it. We can do seventeen knots then--I am +assuming that this German boat is about equal to one of our own of its +class, though I have already come across several remarkable improvements +in her. We are running now by electric motor and doing about twelve +knots, which is first-class, but I'm pushing her along for all I know." + +We passed onwards and to where Bosustow stood beaming over three great +purring, spitting dynamos, a piece of cotton waste in one huge paw. + +"Oh, they're daisies, sir," he said, as he patted coils of insulated +wire in an ecstasy of appreciation. "They can show us something, sir, +the Germans can. The sleeve that carries the commutator is keyed to the +armature shaft on an entirely new system; it's a fair miracle of +ingenuity. But where they beat us hollow is in the accumulators. I've +not had time to inspect them thoroughly, but if we get out of this, then +the whole of our system will have to be altered." + +We all bent over a rail towards the great accumulator tanks below, and I +felt a faint, acrid odour rising up from them. + +"You're smelling electricity, sir," said Bosustow to me. Then he turned +to a big, table-like switch-board which controlled the flow of current +from below and commanded all the electrical machinery on board. He +fingered the big, vulcanite handles as if he loved them and stroked the +shining flanged rim of the volt meter as a mother strokes her child. + +"Now Mr. Carey understands something about machinery, Bosustow," said my +brother. "You can trust him to follow out your directions without making +any blunders, I think. John, your station will be by Bosustow until you +are wanted forrard, but there is no need for you to stay now. There is a +good deal more that I must say." + +All the voices were sharp and staccato, my own sounded like that in my +ears when I answered. They echoed and rang in the heavy air of the +sealed, steel tube, voices that were not quite free and natural, for +all their readiness of tone. + +We turned and went forward again, passing an open doorway and a few +steps which led upwards to the conning-tower. The gangway ran at each +side of it. + +The long, tunnel-like vista grew narrower and the roof began to slope +downward to a point. In front of us, in the extreme bows of the boat, +were two huge, circular steel doors, like the doors of a safe, clamped +and locked by an intricate mechanism. + +"These are the mouths of the torpedo expulsion tubes," said Bernard. "We +carry six torpedoes, I am glad to find--two more than I should have +expected in a boat of this size--and, by Jove, we shall want 'em! If we +throw away a single one, the game will be up, I expect. The torpedoes +are run into these tubes along steel rails. They're discharged from the +tubes by compressed air from the air tanks below. I see here the +pressure is several thousand pounds to the square inch. In some boats we +send out the tin fish by exploding a few ounces of cordite, but the air +is the better way." + +He turned to where Scarlett was busy and I saw a submarine torpedo for +the first time. I confess there was a little inward shudder as I looked +upon the deadly thing that could send the largest battleship afloat to +the bottom in a few minutes. It was like a huge fish of steel with a +large propeller at one end. + +"These are beauties," Bernard said, "and to think that we are going to +have the chance of using them against their original owners!" He +chuckled. + +"The propelling engines," he went on, "are inside--for you must remember +that a torpedo is a little ship in itself and is not a projectile at +all. There are three hundred pounds of trinitrotoluene in this +beauty--we've done away with the old-fashioned gun-cotton now--and she's +got a range of seven thousand yards--over four miles, Johnny, my boy! +Now, Mr. Dickson and Mr. Harold Dickson, you will stay here with +Scarlett. It will be your part, when we go into action, to fire these +torpedoes. There ought to be six or seven of you to do it. There are +only three, and two of you are quite untrained. Scarlett, get to work at +once and give these gentlemen a practical drill. Show them exactly what +they will have to do and explain the orders that will come from me. Miss +out anything superfluous; remember we've hardly any time. Just teach +them what is absolutely necessary." + +"Aye, aye, sir!" said Scarlett, and as we turned back I heard him at +once beginning his lecture. + +And now we came to the most interesting part of that world of marvels, +to the _brain_ of the submarine. Adams stood in the first stage of the +conning-tower, his hands upon a little leather-covered steering-wheel. +In front of him was a gyroscopic compass and a row of speaking-tubes. A +light threw a bright radiance upon a framed chart hanging on the wall, +marked everywhere with faint purple pencil lines. + +Bernard glanced at the compass and gave the man a few directions. Then +we went up a short ladder of half a dozen rungs into the highest chamber +of all. + +It was perfectly circular. There was just room for two or three people, +and the steel roof was two feet above our heads. A great tube came down +through the roof and disappeared beneath the open grating of the floor. +It was like the mast of a ship going through the cabin down to the very +gar-board strike. There was a row of brass clock-faces with trembling +needles and oddly shaped gauges, in which coloured liquid rose and fell. +The whole ganglion of nerves met here in the cerebellum of the ship, and +at a glance its commander knew exactly what she was doing, her speed, +her depth below the surface of the water, the pressure--a thousand other +things which I am not competent to name. The whimsical idea came to me +that it was like lifting up the top of a man's head and seeing the +thoughts which controlled every motion of his body. + +There were charts, also, spread upon a semi-circular shelf of mahogany, +with dividers, compasses, and a large magnifying glass. + +Fastened to the wall, just above this shelf, was something that touched +me strangely. It was a photograph in a silver frame, the photograph of a +young, light-haired girl, and upon it was written in German, "_An meinem +lieber Otto_." + +Bernard saw it too and sighed. "It's the skipper's girl," he said. +"Poor chap! he'll never see her again in this world! It was an ugly +death to die, John!" and his voice had a note of deep feeling in it. +"But it had to be, and Scarlett told me that he didn't know what hurt +him. + +"Now," he continued, "I'm going to show you something." He pulled out +his watch and then, leaning over to the wall, he snapped over something +like the stunted lever of a signal box. Then he pressed a button and a +bell rang somewhere far down below. A hoarse voice sounded in our ears +from a speaking-tube, and there was a quick, throbbing, pumping sound +from the column in the wall. + +Looking down, I saw that immediately below us was a circular white +table. I put my hand on it and it was painted canvas, dazzlingly white. + +"The periscope is going up," my brother said. "It should be light, +now--watch!" + +There was a click and the lamp in the roof went out. We were in +darkness. A slight creaking sound, a movement of my brother's arm, and +there flashed down, in clear light upon the table, a picture of the +upper seas. + +Forty feet above, the eye of the submarine surveyed the dawn, and in +that still box where we stood, we saw it also. + +Dawn upon the waters! A tossing grey expanse of waves. It was like the +film of a cinematograph, only in colour, and as Bernard turned the +wheel, picture after picture glided over the table--the most incredible +thing! + +Not a sail was in sight. The North Sea was an empty, tossing waste of +waters in the cold light of the winter's dawn. + +The dawn of--what? + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE SPEAR OF FOAM + + +"A little fresh air is clearly indicated," said my brother, "and after +that, when I've attended to another little matter, a good breakfast. +Some of us may be taking our next meal in Fiddlers' Green, which, they +say in the Navy, is nine miles to windward of hell, though I hope not." + +He switched on the light again and went to the side table, where there +was a complicated array of wheels and levers, all of which were +duplicated in the chamber immediately below and by means of which the +Commander, watching the picture of the periscope, could control every +movement of the boat with his own hands if necessary. + +He pulled a lever and a bell clanged. At once the loud purring of the +electric engines ceased. + +Bernard pulled over another and larger lever with both hands. I suddenly +felt myself slipping backwards, until I fetched up against the wall of +the conning-tower, narrowly missing the opening to the steersman's +chamber. + +"By Jove! I forgot to tell you," said Bernard. "You see, I've stopped +the electric engines and jammed over the horizontal rudders. We're +slanting up to the surface--look!" + +Immediately in front of me and a little above my head, I now saw round +portholes filled with amazingly thick, toughened glass. These had been +quite black and had escaped my notice before. Now, as I watched, they +grew a little lighter. Click! and the lamp went out. The portholes were +grey now, grey melting into green, which grew brighter and brighter +until it turned into a froth of soda-water, and then there was nothing +but white sky. There was a slight jerk and the floor seemed to right +itself. + +"We're just awash now, but we'll get above water." + +Again the ring of a bell, an order through a speaking-tube. After that +came a clang of machinery and an extraordinary bubbling, choking noise, +like a giant drinking. + +"Just blown out the water tanks, old soul. Feel her lift? Now her +whale-back is above water and we'll go and say good-morning to the sun, +which I perceive is very kindly beginning to show himself. But before +that ..." + +He shouted another order and there came a deafening din from below. +Bang! Bang! Bang! till the whole steel hull quivered. + +"That is the surface engine starting. It'll be all right in a minute," +and even as he spoke, the noise subsided into a regular throb. It was +for all the world like a motor car starting on bottom speed and then +slipping into top gear. + +Scarlett came hurrying up into the conning-tower and he and my brother +unlocked the sliding hatch. In a minute we had emerged into the keen air +of the morning. How fresh and sweet it seemed to me it is impossible to +say. The sun was rising. The bitter cold of the marshes had gone. The +small waves were flecked with gold as we stood upon the wet steel plates +and drank in the air as if it had been wine. + +"An ideal day for a submarine action!" Bernard said, rubbing his hands. +"There's just enough ripple on the surface to make us difficult to +detect, and yet it is smooth enough to give me a clear view. This boat +is beautifully trimmed, she doesn't roll a bit. I'll send those boys up +in a minute or two, but meanwhile I've got to play a bit of bluff. A lot +depends on it." + +I nodded. It was not my place to ask questions. + +"You see," he went on, "of course the German battleship expects us. I +know exactly the spot in the North Sea where we are supposed to pick her +up some time after lunch--provided, of course, that the Germans have +carried out their plans successfully and our scouts really have been +decoyed away. It is part of a huge scheme. + +"Well, assuming that their own plans are successful, they will be on the +look-out for us and they'll send us a wireless message when we're within +close range. This will be some prearranged signal, a single letter +repeated a certain number of times or something of that sort, so that +any of our ships picking it up would not know what it meant. We've got a +wireless mast on board which can be shoved up at will and there's a +complete installation in a little room down below next to the cook's +galley. Unfortunately there is not one of us who knows anything about +wireless. Bosustow is a capable electrician and could control the +machinery, but he can't understand the signals. Therefore, when we sight +the _Friesland_--and I want to get as near her as possible so as to make +no mistakes--we must signal with flags. + +"I've got their signal book and in it is a special code made for this +occasion. The flags are in the flag locker all right, but I don't +understand a word of German and none of us here do, so I'm going to put +the fear of God into our friend, Karl of the Portsmouth Royal. A lot +depends on that. + +"Just skip down, young John, and tell Scarlett to bring him up here." + +"Aye, aye, sir!" I said--it came to me quite naturally, I didn't think +about it--and I climbed down into the interior of the submarine. + +Scarlett was standing by the starboard torpedo tube, while the Dickson +brothers, with their backs turned to me, were chuckling delightedly. I +heard a fragment of the conversation. + +"... and so, sir, I ses to the gal, Molly her name was, they used to +call her the belle of South-sea pier, 'Molly,' I ses, 'you're a little +bit of all right, but ...'" + +I cut short that anecdote. My pedagogic instincts awoke and I forgot +that the Dicksons were now brevet officers of the King. + +A sharp order did it. The two lads turned away and began to be +ostentatiously busy, while Scarlett, his face did not belie his name at +that moment, pattered along the grating, caught hold of the ex-German +waiter with unnecessary roughness, and kicked him towards the ladder of +the conning-tower. + +I went up first, and when Karl emerged he stood to attention with a very +pale face, though I did not miss a quick glance round the horizon. My +brother was looking down upon a shining magazine pistol in his hand. + +Then he raised his head and his voice grated like a file. + +"Look here, you Karl, or whatever you call yourself, you're a spy!" + +There was a torrent of expostulation. "No, sir, not a spy; I never was +that. I was a reservist in our Navy. I was called out and I had to go. +I'm a prisoner of war, sir, that's what I am." + +My brother shook his head. "You can't prove that," he said, "and the +circumstances are most suspicious. I spared you last night, thinking you +might be useful, and you certainly made some very good coffee this +morning. But I've come to the conclusion ..."--he lifted the pistol. + +I had had my brother's word for it that Karl was an excellent +head-waiter. My own observations showed me that he was a coward, for he +fell on his knees and tears began to stream from his eyes. My brother +spat over the side in disgust and I kicked the fellow up to attention +again. + +"Well, I'll give you one more chance before shooting you out of hand. +You must come down with me and translate the German in the Flag Signal +Book. You must tell me all you know about the plans of your late +commander. Then, if you make us a good breakfast--I thought I saw some +tinned sausages and some marmalade in your rack--I may possibly not +shoot you, though I shall tie you up when we go into action. At any +rate, you will have the same chance as the rest of us." + +The fellow's gratitude was painful to see. He was all smiles and +obsequiousness at once, and so that little matter was concluded +satisfactorily. + +We had our breakfast, and an excellent one it was, all sharing alike. +Afterwards I went up on deck with the Dicksons. + +We saw the sails of two trawlers a mile away on the port bow, but save +for them the sea was deserted. The boys were in high spirits. Not a +thought of what was to come troubled them for a moment. "Just think, +sir," said Dickson max., "what a bit of luck to be in for a rag like +this!" But I won't recount any more of their joyous prattle. It was real +enough. They had not a trace of fear, but underlying everything there +was a deep seriousness that had made them men in a few short hours. + + * * * * * + +For two hours I worked hard with Bosustow at the engines. There was +lots to do. The gauges of the petrol tanks needed attention. There were +many details which would only interest an engineer were I to recount +them. + +At a quarter to twelve I went forward with my brother. We were still on +the surface--heading fast for our destination--and saw the port and +starboard torpedo tubes loaded. It was astonishing how the Dicksons had +picked up something of their work, and Bernard was very pleased. + +At twelve we lunched and a tot of rum was served out to the three +sailors. Everything was now ship-shape. We were all dressed in uniforms +of the dead crew. We tied up Karl and lashed him securely in his galley. +Then, Adams being at the wheel in the lower portion of the +conning-tower, my brother assembled us aft, by the clanging petrol +engines. + +"In ten minutes," he said, "I shall sound 'Prepare for action,' and from +that time onwards you will be at your posts. I believe we are going to +surprise the Germans and surprise the whole world. I believe we are +going to save England from this raid. But we've got to remember that we +may not pull it off. I am very pleased, more than pleased, with all you +have done. I never want to command a better crew. It is the best scratch +crew in naval history. We are only seven and we ought to be fifteen, but +that does not matter. We have shown it does not matter, already. Now +before we get to quarters I think we ought to remember what day this is. +It happens to be Sunday." + +I am ashamed to say we all looked up in surprise, but so it was. + +"Well," my brother continued, "by good luck, I happen to have a +prayer-book in my pocket and I am going to read a bit of the service and +the ninety-first psalm." + +Very straight and stiff, he pulled out a battered little book and began. +This is not a scene I wish to linger on, but you will understand my +reasons. + +After the last sonorous Amen, Bernard said: + +"Well, we've said our prayers and we've thought of our wives and--and of +our girls. That is all I have got to say." + +He nodded to Scarlett and a shrill whistle--the trumpet of the +Navy--rang and rattled through the tube. + +The two boys and Scarlett went forward to the torpedoes. Adams was +called down from the steering wheel to assist Bosustow at the engines. +My brother ordered me up into the conning-tower by his side. + +"You'll be of more help to me here," he said. "I shall control the ship +entirely myself, but I may want your assistance. Watch me carefully in +case I have to go below at any moment." + +At twelve-thirty precisely, the gasolene engines were stopped. Bernard +filled the tanks, slightly deflected the horizontal rudders, and we +dived into the smooth, green wall of an approaching swell and sank to +ten feet. The light was switched off, the periscope rose, and we bent +over the white table, white no longer. + +At five minutes to one the picture of the empty sea was altered. Our +range of vision was about two miles, and at that distance to the +north-east we observed a cloud of smoke upon the horizon. + +"There she is!" I said, and put my finger upon the rapidly growing +smear. + +Within twenty minutes, a large battleship raised her hull, making +directly towards us. We altered our course a little, and as we swerved I +could see she had four funnels which grew larger every moment. Of her +accompanying flotilla and of the transports we could see nothing at all. + +Then we rose to the surface. + +Our short-handedness became apparent at once. Adams had to be called +from the engines to stand at the wheel. Scarlett and my brother went on +deck as I was useless at the manipulation of flags. It was a critical +moment. + +"I am determined to take no chances," Bernard said; "that is why I am +risking signalling. We could probably get her without showing at all, +but as she expects us and will lay to for us, we can make it absolutely +certain." + +He had the signal book, over which he had pencilled translations of the +German, in his hand. + +"That flag, Scarlett--'wireless out of order,' it means." + +That flag ran up a steel halliard bent to the top of the conning-tower. + +"Ah, they see us!" + +Scarcely three-quarters of a mile away, the great battleship was moving +at a snail's pace. Her decks were crowded with men--in the clear +sunlight I could see every detail. A piece of bunting ran up her mast in +a ball and opened to the breeze. + +"I'm damned if I know what it means, but it's obviously all right. Now +then, Scarlett, the black flag with the white stripe. That means 'am +successfully bringing despatches'--got it?--good!" + +There was another signal from the battleship, to which we had now +approached within half a mile. The smoke from her funnels had almost +ceased. She was lying to and waiting. + +Slowly we forged onwards. Then came a sharp order. We jumped back into +the conning-tower and the sliding hatchway closed. Scarlett had gone +like a flash to his torpedo tubes, and we dived. We sank in just a +hundred and fifty seconds. + +"Good!" said Bernard, as the periscope panted up and the battleship lay +on the table before us. + +The hum and tick of the electric motors began again. Bernard turned his +wheel and the picture of the battleship opened out in full broadside. + +"They don't know what to make of it," he remarked, to himself, rather +than to me. "Now, I think--steady--steady ..." + +The ship grew larger every moment, higher and higher. It seemed as if +she was rising out of the water. + +"Now!"--he leant over a speaking tube. + +He had hardly given his order when a bell rang smartly, close by my +head. I heard staccato voices below in the bows of the submarine, and +then the clang and swish of the discharge. We were only three hundred +yards away. A white streak appeared shooting towards the monster, like a +spear of foam. It was so quick that I could hardly have followed it with +my finger upon the table. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE SUBMARINE FIGHTS FOR ENGLAND + + +Can you imagine a narrow belt of foam, rushing over the sea like a live +thing with irresistible and sinister suggestion of _something_ terrible +below? That is what I saw as I stared down at the toy theatre, the +little, coloured microcosm. + +Then the inevitable happened. _Der Friesland_ was struck full amidships. +A wall of white water rose up out of the sea. Above it, in an instant, +spread a huge black fan of smoke, dark as ebony against the sun. At that +moment, my brother put the helm hard down and we flew off at an angle. +Even as we did so, it seemed that the side of our ship received a +terrific blow. We lurched in the conning-tower; we were flung against +the starboard wall. There was a nerve-wracking pause, and then, with a +jerk, the submarine righted herself, simultaneously as the faintest +indication of a mighty explosion fell through the water and came through +our armoured walls. + +"Too close!" my brother gasped. "I ought to have allowed for these +German torpedoes--look, John, look!" + +The recoil from the explosion of _Der Friesland_ had nearly sent us to +the bottom, but we were righted again, and we saw upon the table, +quivering and indistinct, a piteous mass of unrecognisability, wreathed +in black fumes, from which flared out angry bursts of fire, like +Vesuvius in eruption. All this horror was sinking--sinking into the +table, it seemed. Blazing all over, broken in two, the wreck of the +monster went lower and lower in the water. + +She was done. Bernard gave a great sob, and then hoarse orders rang +through the submarine. + +Within two minutes we were upon the surface. The hatch was open. My +brother and myself stood there, gasping in the sunlight at the ruin we +had made. The sea was covered with debris and dotted with the heads of +swimming sailors. There was one boat afloat, crammed with men, under +whose weight it hesitated, trembled, and sank like a stone, as we looked +on. + +"Good God!" I cried, "can't we help them, Bernard?" + +"No can do," he answered, in Navy slang. "It can't be done, old soul. +That's that. I'm damned sorry though." + +We were rolling in a grey sea, churned by the monster's dying struggles. +It was a desolate waste, patched with horror. Far away, on the port +bow, something small and blurred was showing. It was either smoke or the +hull of a big ship. + +"The first transport!" Bernard said. "We had better be ..." + +He did not finish his sentence. Something shrieked overhead like an +invisible express train. There was a sound like a clap of thunder, and a +fountain of spray rose a hundred yards away from us. + +We wheeled round. Not quarter of a mile away, and heading straight for +us, we saw two immense, white ostrich feathers, divided as by the blade +of a knife. Each instant they grew larger. + +One of the convoying destroyers had made a grand detour and was coming +for us at the charge. + +Then, I cannot say when or how, there was a sound like two great hands +clapping together in the air above us. Instantaneously, the plates of +the deck and conning-tower rang like gongs, followed by little splashing +sounds, as if someone was throwing eggs. + +I had no idea what it was. "What the devil ..." I was beginning, when +Bernard explained. + +"Shrapnel," he said, and held out his left arm to me. It ended in what +looked like a bundle of crimson rags. + +"Damn the blighters!" he said, "they've blown off my left hand. Quick, +John, or we shall lose the trick. Your handkerchief!" + +I pulled it out mechanically. + +"Knot it round my arm--yes--there--just above the wrist. Thank God +you're strong! Now then, you've got to twist it. Got anything for a +lever?" + +The only thing I could find was a silver-mounted fountain pen, a +Christmas present from Doris the year before. I whipped it into the knot +of the handkerchief, turned it round and secured it. The whole thing did +not take more than ten seconds. I had hardly finished, when Bernard +skipped inside the conning-tower. I followed him. The hatchway slid into +its place with a clang, and as we heard another terrific explosion above +us, I wrenched the rudder lever over, Bernard signalled below to fill +the tanks, and through the portholes I saw the welcome green creep up, +the light disappear, and felt the gratings sinking beneath my feet. I +shouted down for Dickson--the first name I could think of. + +Dickson max. was up in a second. + +"Get the bottle of rum," I said, "the Captain's hurt." + +It came. I held it to my brother's lips. He took a little and gave one +deep groan. + +Dickson max. stood like a statue. He never asked a question. It was +wonderful. + +"Who fired that torpedo?" Bernard asked. + +"I did, sir. Mr. Scarlett showed me how." + +"You will be pleased to know, Mr. Dickson, that you have sunk the German +battleship, _Der Friesland_, with probably a thousand souls on board. +This will be remembered." + +"You are hurt, sir?" + +"Get down to the torpedo tubes. Load the empty one and stand by for +orders." + +Dickson vanished. + +"Are you all right?" I asked. + +"Right as rain. Now then, we've got to find those transports. I took +their bearings before we sank. Meanwhile I think we'll get a little +deeper, out of harm's way." + +He told me what to do. I pulled the necessary lever and spoke orders to +Bosustow at the engines. The needle on the manometer quivered and rose. +We went down to thirty feet. Immediately, it seemed as if the world +above, the noise of battle, everything, faded away. We were buzzing +along in the depths of the sea, just as we had been, intact, unhurt, +until I looked at Bernard's hand. He was rather pale, but as pleased in +face as if he was just tumbling into the "Sawdust Club" at Portsmouth. + +"I say," he said, "won't the daily papers spread themselves over this!" + +Somehow or other, a beastly little fly must have got into the +conning-tower. It settled on me. I put up my hand to brush it away. My +hand came back--pink, and I stared stupidly at it. + +"You silly blighter!" my brother said, "didn't you know you'd lost half +your ear?" + +I suppose we ran, deep under water, at the top speed of which the motors +were capable for at least another ten minutes. Adams was called up to +the wheel and Bernard went down. I stood where I was until the man +below shouted up. "Captain calling for you, sir!" + +I tumbled down into the centre of the submarine, looking first aft to +where the huge Cornishman, Bosustow, was quietly moving about his +engines. + +"Forrard, sir," said Bosustow, and I hastened round the gangway towards +the bows. Scarlett, the Dicksons, and Bernard were standing by the +torpedo tubes. Bernard turned to me. + +"That concussion has snookered our tubes a bit," he said. "You see we +aren't quite accustomed to this new German mechanism. Scarlett says, and +I quite agree, that it's a toss up if we can make correct aim under +water. I think we shall have to go for that transport on the surface." + +He looked at me with quick interrogation. I knew what he meant. Already +we had done more than anyone in the world would have thought possible. +It was no time for sentimentalism or heroic thoughts, and we knew that, +whatever happened, we had earned imperishable fame. We were safe now. +Should we run another risk? That was what my brother was asking me. Even +his iron nerve doubted itself for an instant. + +"The only thing I can see to do," I answered, "is to let 'em have it in +the open--out of the trenches, bayonet attack, what?" + +"My own opinion entirely, sir," said Scarlett. "Damn it, begging your +pardon, sir, we've not 'alf give 'em it yet!" + +For a moment my brother's glance rested on the two eager boys. Was he +justified in flinging them to death after they had done so much, behaved +so splendidly? + +They knew it. By some intuition, the young devils saw it at once. + +"Oh, let's have another smack at them, sir!" they said in chorus. + +Without another word, Bernard limped along the gratings and I helped him +up into the conning-tower again. We rose to the surface. + +The stars in their courses fought for Sisera! When we went out on deck, +the first transport was scarcely a mile away from us on the starboard +quarter. We had judged it to a tick. + +But she was no longer heading west. She had turned tail. She was a +Hamburg-Amerika liner converted to a transport, and thick black smoke +poured out of her four funnels as she raced back towards Heligoland and +safety. + +"She's got nearly three thousand troops on board, I'll bet you a +manhattan," Bernard said. "We _must_ get her, we simply must!" + +Turning to the west, we saw at least five destroyers rushing for us like +express trains. Whether they had seen us come up or not I cannot tell, +but they knew well enough what our manoeuvre would be, and they were +not a mile and a half away. + +"Get down. Tell Bosustow to cram it all on. Increase the spark. We've +got to do twenty knots if we scrap the whole thing." + +I was there in a moment, I told Bosustow what the skipper had said. The +big man was quietly chewing tobacco, and he spat down on the +accumulators as he made a motion to salute. He moved like a slug over +his roaring engines, but even as he did so, the angry hum, the muffled +explosions, rose into a steel symphony like Tchaikovsky's "1812"! I felt +the ship leap forward like a whippet out of leash. When I stumbled up on +deck again, the wind was whistling all round the conning-tower. It blew +my cap off into the sea. + +We gained, we gained enormously, but so did the pursuing destroyers. + +We soon knew that. There were sounds behind us like a little street-boy +whistling to a friend. They were firing their bow machine guns, taking +no careful aim, at the fearful pace they were going, but all around us +fountains of foam rose in the sea as we plunged onwards. + +"You know, John," said my brother, "it's a difficult thing for any +gunners at all to fire their bow chasers at a little bobbing thing like +a submarine. Of course, they may get us with a lucky shot, but I don't +think they will." + +They didn't. + +The great liner saw us coming and slanted off obliquely to the north. It +wasn't any use at all. We had the heels of her, though we knew that at +any moment our engines might give out, owing to the fearful strain we +were putting on them. + +It was Scarlett who fired the torpedo--"must let the old blighter have +his chance!" my brother said--and it went straight and true to the +_Princessin Amalia_, as we afterwards learned she was. + +I think that was the worst of all. We torpedoed her from six hundred +yards. There was no explosion, as there was in the case of the +battleship. We could see everything far more distinctly. She simply +broke in two and sank in three minutes, defenceless, impotent. + +"Poor chaps!" I said, as we watched. + +"Fortune of war!" Bernard answered--"Yes, poor chaps! At the same time, +remember that they're the same sort of fellows who have been crucifying +flappers in Belgium and taking out the whole male population of harmless +villages and shooting them before breakfast. They would have been doing +that all over Norfolk in thirty hours, if"--he paused--"if you hadn't +been rejected by the R.N.F.C. and also been the right hand of the late +lamented Doctor Upjelly. We must get down quickly, or else ..." + +He had turned and was holding his binoculars to his eyes. + +"Good heavens!" he said, "what's that?" + +I turned, and I saw that the five destroyers were sweeping away in a +great curve to the north. They were pursuing us no longer. + +"What is it?" I cried. + +The answer didn't come from my brother, though I heard it plainly +enough. It was like thunder many miles away--a huge, dull boom such as I +had never heard before. + +"Why, they're running!" + +"I should rather think so, old soul!" + +"Are they afraid of us? What is that noise?" + +"That, my dear young friend, unless I am very much mistaken, is +one of the twelve-inch guns of His Majesty's ship, _Vengeance_. +Cruiser-battleship, young John. I happen to know she's been lying off +Harwich for the last week, waiting orders. Our friend, Lieutenant +Murphy, has sent my wires to good purpose, and 'now we shan't be long!'" + +Again the great, menacing boom, but this time we saw something. + +From the deck of a submarine the range of vision is only two miles. The +last destroyer was almost disappearing on the horizon, when she suddenly +jumped out of the sea and fell to pieces like a pack of cards. + +"That's old Snorty Bethune-Ranger!" my brother said, wagging his head +gravely. "Best gunner commander in the fleet, and I know he's on board +the _Vengeance_. Now don't you think we'll have the boys up and let 'em +chortle a bit?" + +"I'll go and call them." + +I was just going in when I was gripped by the arm so hard that I winced. + +"Look there!" said my brother. + +I followed his pointing right arm and saw something far up in the sky, +something like a crow, which grew larger every second. + +"One of their hydroplanes, off the deck of the second transport. She's +going to try and drop bombs on us." + +"Will she do it?" + +"Can a duck bark?" Bernard answered contemptuously. "Of course, she may +be lucky, but it's never happened yet. The worst of it is that they can +see us thirty feet below the surface. Still, old sport, she can't do +much--hear her coming?" + +I did. There was a noise like a motor-bicycle in the sky, and the crow +grew to an eagle, developed into an aeroplane, such as I had seen so +often in the illustrated papers. + +"I suppose we'd better submerge, though I don't want to run from a +beastly mechanical kite, after sinking Kaiser Bill's lovin' enthusiastic +soldiers, all in the box, complete, one shilling! I say, John, would you +like a little bit of sport?" + +"What do you mean?" + +"Well, I don't suppose this fellow is going to do us any harm, and any +way, it's a toss up. Now you rather pride yourself as a wild-fowler, +don't you?" + +"If I hadn't been a wild-fowler," I said, "we shouldn't have been where +we are now." + +"Quite so. Now, there's a rack of excellent rifles down below, and +dozens of clips; see if you can't pick this Johnny off." + +He bellowed down through the hatch. + +"Bring up a magazine rifle and some ammunition. Look sharp!" + +I got the rifle in a few seconds. I think we were both perfectly +reckless. I know I was. I laughed as I tucked the gun into my shoulder. +There was a complicated arrangement of sights, but I never even snapped +up the foresight. It did not seem worth while; the mark was so big. + +The hydroplane fetched a sweep of quarter of a mile round us, and then +came head on. I could see the pilot distinctly and, a little below him, +the gentleman who was getting ready to drop his bombs. + +It was quite delightful. They were not going at a higher speed than a +flock of widgeon. To me, it was child's play. + +I plugged the bomb expert with the second shot. Then, and I really +rather pride myself on what I did next, I hit the long, sausage-like +petrol tank and ripped it up. There was a huge roar, an overhead +explosion, and as the whole beastly thing turned a somersault and fell, +I am pretty certain, too, that I put the pilot out of his pain with my +last shot. + + * * * * * + +We were surrounded by ships--they had come racing north out of Harwich +just in time. The big _Vengeance_ was still booming away, but two +snaky-like destroyers were coming up hell for leather and a big seven +thousand ton cruiser was not more than three hundred yards from us. + +Puff! puff! A white pinnace, with a shining brass funnel, swirled round +and came up on our quarter. My brother and myself, together with the +two Dickson boys, were standing by the conning-tower. + +The pinnace was full of men. It was steered by a youngish-looking, +clean-shaved officer, wearing the badges of a lieutenant. + +Adams, Scarlett, and Bosustow were over the side in a minute, a coil of +rope ran out, boat-hooks appeared from nowhere. There was a subdued hum +of chatter, as the men from the cruiser greeted the three heroes of the +submarine. + +Then I heard a sharp and rather squeaky voice. + +"Hallo, Whelk!" it said. + +Bernard leant over the rail; he was nearly done, but he found voice to +answer that hail. + +"That you, Reptile?" he muttered, "you are more like a stuffed frog than +ever!" + +Such are the greetings and amenities of the Navy. But the last thing I +remember hearing that afternoon came from the lieutenant in charge of +the pinnace. + +"I say, excuse me for mentioning it, but 'well done,' you fellows!" + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE LAST CHAPTER--IN TWO PARTS + + +PART I.--DORIS AND MARJORIE HAVE A LATE VISITOR + + NOTE.--I have certainly written this chapter--with a pen, that is. + Neither my brother's wife nor my own actually set down a word of + the following. I am not responsible, and I will say no more. You + will understand why when you have read this last chapter. If I were + the usual sort of poopstick that often lurks behind such a story, I + should say: "This is put in at the request of my friends." It is + not. It is done simply to tell you the end of our little affairs, + and rather more with my heart in my mouth than my tongue in my + cheek.--J. C. + +It was Sunday night in Lieutenant Murphy's house at Cockthorpe. The +wires had worked. By dawn there was an army of police from Norwich in a +fleet of motor cars. They invested Morstone House School. Old Mr. +Pugmire, startlingly sober for once, was placed in charge of the +boarders, who were all sent home during the course of the next day. +Another, and more dangerous reprobate, Mrs. Gaunt with the broken leg, +was interrogated by a stern-faced inspector in the presence of a doctor. +The hag had been in von Vedal's confidence for years. The police learned +much. + +By ten o'clock, others than the County Police had arrived. There were +clean-shaved, quiet-mannered officials from the Admiralty. There was a +lean, elderly gentleman in khaki, with the red band round his cap and on +his shoulders which pronounced him of the War Office Staff. + +Admiral Kiderlen-Waechter and the man, Schweitzer, were in Norwich +Castle by eleven. The whole countryside and coastline buzzed like +swarming bees. A detachment of Territorials patrolled the village. +Nobody knew anything at all of what had really happened, but everyone +was very excited. All the local people agreed that there had not been a +Sunday like this for many years! + +Doris and Marjorie Joyce were at Cockthorpe, in the Lieutenant's house. +They were being looked after by Mrs. Murphy, a jolly old Irishwoman with +all the tact and humour of her nation--a woman who knew when to foil +hysteria with a jest, to hearten a girl with a sharp word, and, when the +final interrogation was over, to invite the warm relieving flood of +tears with the instinctive motherhood of one who nightly prayed to Mary +to pray for those in distress. + +The girls were troubled very little. The Lieutenant of the Coastguards +had seen almost everything. There would not be an inquest for two or +three days. They had made their statement to a courteous person from +London. They were to be left in peace. + +After lunch the old lady came to them--came to the little sitting-room +which opened out of the bedroom she had given them. + +"Now, my dear children," she said, "ye'll just take off your stays and +pull down your hair, and I'll tuck ye in under the eiderdown, and ye'll +sleep!" + +She had two tumblers in her plump hands, upon which sparkled many +rings--the Irish carbuncles, which are so much larger and more brilliant +than mere rubies, the Ballysheen emeralds, "which you can only find at +Ballysheen, me dear, and glad the jewellers of Regent Street would be if +they could get a supply of 'em! Faith! and the doctor has given me this +for you. Bromide to calm the nerves--not that I ever had any nerves, +meself, when I was your age! But I never had a crool stepfather lying +dead in an adjacent village, nor was mixed up with spies, though in the +Sin-fein riots of '84--Marjorie, me darlint, take your shoes off. Now +then, I'll tuck ye both up and pull down the blinds to keep out the +sunlight, though it's shutters I would be putting up when I was a gurl!" + +It was like a fairy story, and Mrs. Murphy was the good Mrs. +Bedonebyasyoudid: "The children sank into a deep, dreamless sleep." + +Poor dears, how they must have wanted it after all they had been +through! I can see them lying there.... + +(Excision by censor and pencil note in the margin of the manuscript: +"John Carey, you liar, don't obtrude yourself and your sickly +sentiments.") + + * * * * * + +It was about six when Doris and Marjorie awoke. They came out of the +bedroom into the sitting-room adjoining. A bright fire burnt upon the +hearth with that clear redness which indicates a dry and frosty night. +On a little table there was an equipage of tea, and a copper kettle sang +gently. + +These two girls were essentially healthy and plucky. The semi-imprisoned +life they had led at Morstone House School had broken nothing of their +spirit. The death--the righteous execution--of the man who had hurried +their mother into her grave affected them not at all. They were too +brave and fine to affect an emotion that they did not, could not, feel. +All that had happened in the large, L-shaped house was hideous and +horrible, yet not to be overmuch remembered or deplored. + +They had another subject of discussion, these two beautiful sisters. + +"Doris, it was desperate from the first." + +"Yes, it was, Marjorie." + +"Then, do you think----?" + +"That they will come out all right, you mean?" + +"Yes, do you?" + +"My red-haired sister," Doris answered, "if you go on like this I'll be +bound to bite!" + +"Of course, Commander Carey knows all about submarines, and he's one of +the bravest officers...." + +"Yes, I rather like Bernard myself." + +"You _rather like_ him, Doris!" + +"Well, you haven't known him as long as I've known John. What price +Johnny, my sweet young sister, and what about the bold, brave Dickson +max. and Dickson major?" + +They kept it up for a minute or two very well, and then their arms went +round each other, and one sister held the other close. + +The bell from the adjacent church tolled for evensong. It was a lovely +night, cold and clear with a great, round, green moon. Mrs. Murphy +mercifully left them alone. They heard the front door close, and saw her +rolling up the path towards the church, a long, dark façade with lit +windows. + +As if in a dream, the girls heard the droning murmur of the Psalms. +Their thoughts were far away with a little band of heroes. There was a +long pause--it must have been the sermon--and then came a deep, swelling +sound. The congregation were singing the last hymn, and it was "for +those in peril on the sea." + +They clasped hands and went to the window, opening it wide to the +moonlight. The simple, familiar music flooded into the room. + + * * * * * + +Bang! Bang! Bang! The door burst open. It was midnight, and Mrs. Murphy, +in an appalling night-cap and a magenta dressing-gown, was standing by +the girls' beds. + +"Get ye up! Get ye up!--no, don't bother about your hair, it's well +enough as it is. The Saints be praised--hush, ye'll not say a word, for +I'm a good Protestant here, for Murphy's sake, and an old gazaboo the +clergyman is, to be shure!--but there's a gintleman come down in a big +automobile to see you. Wirra, phwat news!" + +While she was shouting and gesticulating, the old lady had pulled Doris +and Marjorie out of their beds, and was wrapping them up in their +dressing-gowns with shaking fingers. + +"News?" Doris gasped--"news of John?" + +"News that'll shake England, aye, and Doblin too, to its foundations." + +"Bernard?" Marjorie said unsteadily. + +"Ye'll kindly come along with me," said Mrs. Murphy, and a strange +procession went down the stairs into the hall. + +The three servants of the house were bundled into one corner, and the +less said about their attire the better. Lieutenant Murphy, in his +uniform, was trying to light candles, and his wrinkled face was brighter +than the flaring, smoking lamp which hung from the ceiling. In the +centre of the hall was a tall, clean-shaved, youngish-looking man. He +held a cocked hat in one hand and wore a uniform of dead black-blue. + +Directly the old lady rolled down the stairs, followed by the frightened +girls, this new-comer made a step forward. His manners were perfect, and +he bowed as if he were at Court. + +"Miss Joyce?--Miss Marjorie Joyce?" + +"Faith, and they're the same, the very gurrls!" said Mrs. Murphy. + +"I am sent by the First Lord, ladies, to give you some news, which I +understand will be most welcome. Lieutenant-Commander Bernard Carey, Mr. +John Carey, the two young gentlemen named Dickson, and Commander Carey's +three sailors, Scarlett, Adams and Bosustow, have covered themselves +with glory." + +Doris was splendid. + +"Ah!" she said, "we were waiting for this, my sister and myself. Are +they, are they--?" She could not go on. + +"Madam, they are all safe and sound. Commander Carey is slightly +wounded--that is all. They have engaged in action with the great German +battleship, _Der Friesland_, and sunk her. They have sunk a transport. +They have evaded a flotilla of German destroyers. In short, they have +saved England. Our flotilla came up just in time. The Admiralty have had +wireless messages during the whole of the afternoon." + +Hitherto, the officer--he looked thirty-five, was really fifty, and the +son of a duke--had spoken formally. + +"Then?" Marjorie sighed. + +"Then, it just amounts to this. No more glorious deed had ever been done +in the whole history of our Navy, from the days of Sir Francis Drake +down to this moment. I was privileged to be at the Palace a few hours +ago when the news was brought. Each member of the crew of the submarine +is to receive the Victoria Cross. It is not only by order of the First +Lord of the Admiralty, but also by express command of His Majesty that +I have motored down here to-night to bring you the news. My instructions +are to ask you if you will accompany me to-morrow to Harwich, for we +expect and hope that, during the earlier part of the afternoon...." + +"They will come back!" Marjorie shouted. + +"Precisely," said Lord William, "and, of course, you must be there to +meet them!" + +"Gurrls, I'll chaperone ye! Now, get back to bed, and sleep--if ye can. +Shure, and I'm ashamed of ye appearin' in such dishybayle!" concluded +the merry old lady, with a wink. + +She stood at the foot of the stairs and hooshed her young charges away. + +Then she turned to her guest. + +"Ye'll forgive an old woman appearin' like this," she said simply. +"Pathrick, take Lord William into the dining-room, and we'll make him +some supper in a moment. We're all friends in the Navy." + +Her voice changed and became very grave. + +"Blessings on you," she said, "that have brought the good news to this +house and to those dear gurrls this night!" + + +PART II.--RETURN OF THE SEVEN HEROES + +It was a tall man with black hair, dark eyes and a pinched face. His +black, clerical clothes were rather rusty in the bright morning +sunlight, though they were his best. + +"The young beggars!" he said, "the young beggars!" and there was a catch +in his voice. "A commission for both of them and a special allowance, +did you say, Lord William?" + +"The Admiralty could do no less, Mr. Dickson. We want a thousand lads +like yours, if we could only get them. Not that any officer of their age +in the Navy wouldn't have done the same, but their names will be for +ever glorious in the history of the service. It is a feat that England +will never willingly forget. You know that they, as well as the rest, +are to have the Victoria Cross?" + +Mr. Dickson stared, as if he saw something at a great distance. + +"No," he said, "I didn't know that--er--excuse me for a moment." + +The clergyman turned away to the window of the Admiral's office, which +overlooked Harwich Harbour, and his shoulders were shaking. "_Lord, now +lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace, according to Thy word: for +mine eyes have seen----_" + +"Shure, and they can't be long now, the Admiral says," came from Mrs. +Murphy, sitting in the Admiral's chair, at the Admiral's table, with all +sorts of confidential documents spread in front of her. + +"Pathrick is to have the rank of Captain for the part he's tuk in it, +though that was pure luck and him being on the spot. And, bedad, we'll +have that motor cyar--and I never did see why a mere Docthor's wife like +Mrs. Pestle, and him little better than a vetherinary surgeon, should +keep a cyar when an officer in His Majesty's Navy couldn't!" + +The Admiral in command at Harwich, a grizzled sailor who had been called +up from his peaceful Devon home to leave his pheasants and fat cattle, +came into the room, rubbing his hands. + +"Well, they'll have the reception of their lives, young ladies," he said +beaming; and, with a clank of his sword as he sat down, "Mrs. Murphy, if +you attempt to read any of the papers on that table, I shall regretfully +be compelled to have you shot, which will mar the festivity of the +occasion! My dears, a special train full of journalists has just come +down from town. There are thousands of people flocking to the quays in +the spaces provided, and what the papers are saying about our friends +will astonish you." + +He produced a copy of the _Daily Wire_ and opened it, while they all +crowded round to look. Modern journalism had secured a triumph. Short as +the time had been, there were columns and columns of description of the +events at Morstone of which hardly anybody had been allowed to know +anything--and the Battle in the North Sea, about which nobody knew but +the Admiralty. + +There were portraits of the two Dickson boys, each apparently about +twelve years of age and in broad Eton collars. There was a truculent, +prize-fighting individual, with distinct side-whiskers, labelled, "Mr. +John Carey, M.A., the heroic schoolmaster who slew the Master-spy, +'Doctor Upjelly,' with his own hands." A smudge on the top of a uniform +represented Lieutenant-Commander Bernard Carey--also "heroic," with +sundry other adjectives; and if those excellent Plymouth ladies, Mrs. +Bosustow, Mrs. Scarlett and Mrs. Adams, had seen the people represented +in the newspaper as their lords and masters walk into Paradise Row, +Devonport, they certainly would not have known them. + +Doris gasped. "To call that _John_!" she said; "what a wicked libel! +Couldn't the editor be arrested?" + +"An editor is one of the people whom nothing can arrest," said the +Admiral. "'_In rebus desperatis remedia desperata_,' which means 'What +the public wants, the public must have, however short the time in which +to fake it up.'" + +There was a knock at the door, and a young officer entered, saluting. + +"Destroyers sighted, Sir," he said, not without an appreciative glance +at the two pretty girls close by. He handed a piece of paper to the +Admiral, adding: "Just come in by wireless from the _Arethusa_, Sir." + +The old gentleman with the pointed beard and clanking sword read it. He +chuckled. + +"Well," he said, "the public is going to have some fun for its money, +for Commander Carey is coming into harbour on board _his own_ boat. Now, +then, suppose we all go out to the signalling station at the end of the +Mole and get the first sight of them?" + + * * * * * + +Half a dozen clouds of black smoke upon the horizon, growing larger and +larger every minute; a great murmur of the crowd; officers in dress +uniform with binoculars at their eyes; a group of journalists in hard +felt hats, making notes!... + +Now the destroyers can be seen in a half-circle, with three great ships +in the background. + +"The Transports!" the Admiral said--"from seven to eight thousand +Germans in them--what a haul! Look, Mrs. Murphy, that is the Cruiser +_Arethusa_ by the side of them. I expect they had a handful in disarming +all those chaps, and they must be pretty short-handed on board the whole +flotilla, for they'll have had to send a lot of men aboard those two +liners. Fine boats, the new light cruisers, _Captain_ Murphy?" + +The old lieutenant of Coastguards flushed with pleasure. + +"Never had a chance to go to sea in one of them, Sir," he said--"long +after my time, I am sorry to say." + +"Look!" Marjorie whispered to Doris, "they're opening out. Isn't it +wonderful? How near they're getting! It's just like a figure in the +Lancers." + +Doris did not answer for a moment. Then she said:--"What's that, right +in the middle?" + +The Admiral overheard her. + +"You've quick eyes, young lady," he answered; "that, unless I am very +much mistaken, is a certain Submarine, lately in possession of the +Kaiser, and which people are talking about a good deal just now!" + +It was so. The destroyers slowed down, and made a great lane upon the +sea. In the centre of this lane was something infinitely small, a black +speck, like a cork floating on the water. + +It grew and grew. + +Then, from somewhere not far away, there was the heavy boom of a gun. +Immediately, the air was rent with a noise like hundreds of bellowing +bulls as all the ships at anchor opened their steam-sirens until the +very stone quays trembled. + +The cheers of thousands of voices, the wild tossing of hats into the +air, the fluttering of hand-kerchiefs like sudden snow; and then, the +Submarine, its whale-back ploughing through the Harbour waters, a white +wake of foam behind it, came into full view. From the periscope +fluttered two little flags, black and white. In half a minute the +cheering, delirious crowd saw what they were. + +"The skull and cross-bones, by Jove--two of 'em!" said a young +lieutenant on the Admiral's Staff to his friend, a newly promoted +Commander. + +"So it is! How on earth did they get those on board a German submarine?" + +"Someone of resource on board has spent a happy hour or two on the +cruise home." + +The young gentleman was right, but he did not know that Dickson max.'s +shirt and the back of Dickson major's coat were the materials used by +Mr. Scarlett, who was very handy with his needle. + +"Here they come!" + +"Here they come!" "Here they come" "Hurrah!" "Hurrah!" + +Bang! went a whole salvo of guns. Upon the deck of the Submarine was a +little group of four figures, and, if the truth must be told, four +dirtier and more shame-faced human beings have rarely made a public +appearance. + +"Those must be the boys," the lieutenant shouted in his friend's ear. + +The other nodded. He was staring at the Submarine. + +"By Jove!" he cried, "there's the 'Whelk,' the good old Whelk! Look at +him! We were at Osborne together, and he always swore he liked the +beastly things--so the name stuck to him. That other chap must be his +brother, I suppose--the schoolmaster Johnny." + +"Good old Whe-e-lk!" he shouted, his hands to his mouth. + +The lieutenant had never been shipmates with Bernard Carey. Also, his +eyes were elsewhere. He twitched his friend's arm. + +"I say," he said, in an awed voice, "look at the faces of those two +girls!" + +The Commander did so. + +"Lucky old Whelk!" + + +THE END + + Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co. + Edinburgh & London + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Secret Service Submarine, by +Cyril Arthur Edward Ranger Gull and Guy Thorne + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40581 *** |