A Lively Bit of the Front Part 32

What's the trouble?"

Leaning on the wall, his grey eyes twinkling with suppressed mirth, was the elder of the two men who had been sitting in the garden. At his elbow was the other, gesticulating and protesting volubly at the bull-in-a-chinashop tactics of the intruders.

"Neutral country?" repeated the astounded Peter. "What do you mean?

Where are we?"

"In Holland. To be more precise, in the town of Roermonde," was the surprising information. "You've done a bunk from Germany, I presume?

I thought so. It's all right, Mynheer van Enkhuizen," he continued in English, addressing the Dutchman; "these are some of my compatriots who have escaped from Germany."

"In that case it does matter not at all," replied the owner of the house in the slow hesitating manner of foreign-spoken English. "It is of no consequence that your friends have trampled through my dwelling and over my garden. Excuse me. I will inform the noisy crowd also that it is not of any consequence, and then I will instruct Katje to provide food for your military friends."

"Come into the house," exclaimed the Englishman. "I'll hear your story presently, although I presume you are two of the men who got away from Duren. Eight of them have crossed the frontier up to the present, and I shouldn't be surprised if others do the same in the course of the next few days. My name? Oh, just Brown--of London!

Yes, that will be all right. Von Enkhuizen, although his manner may seem a bit erratic according to British notions, is a genuinely sympathetic fellow. You've fallen on your feet, both of you."

For three days the two refugees enjoyed the Dutchman's hospitality.

Then the Carrs were furnished with money and a ticket to enable them to travel via the Hook of Holland to England; and, with many earnest expressions of grat.i.tude to their benefactors, Peter and Malcolm set out on their roundabout journey back to the firing-line in Flanders.

CHAPTER XXVII

The End of a Spy

"By gum, Peter, we'll have to make ourselves precious scarce while this trip's on." exclaimed Malcolm as he rejoined his brother in the steerage of the S.S. _Koning der Zee_ after a tour of inspection.

"Eh? What's wrong now?" enquired Peter, busily engaged in overhauling the contents of a small kit provided by his friends at Roermonde.

"Nothing wrong," said his brother. "On the contrary, it's a bit of quite all right. I've just seen a delightful old pal, Konrad What's-his-Tally, otherwise Pieter Waas of Muizenburg fame. You remember I told you about him just before we said good-bye to Duren: how he diddled Fortescue, Selwyn, and me at the Cape and was collared on board the _Pomfret Castle_, and afterwards managed to join the N. Z. Rifle Brigade."

"I remember, but I thought he went sky-high when the great mine went off at Messines," remarked the elder Carr.

"There was a doubt about it," admitted Malcolm, "but the fact remains that he's on board this vessel. Except that he has bleached his hair, he has made no attempt to disguise himself. Suppose he imagined that it wouldn't be safe to trust to a false beard, or anything like that. The landing authorities would spot it. So we must keep well out of his way until we go ash.o.r.e at Harwich."

"Why both of us?" asked Peter. "I've never met him, and he's never run across me as far as I know. I'm in mufti, and so are you. I don't suppose he'd spot you in that rig-out."

"I'm not going to give him the chance," declared Malcolm. "In spite of the fact that he's travelling first cla.s.s and we're mere dirt in the steerage, I mean to keep below, out of sight."

The _Koning der Zee_ was still berthed alongside the wharf at The Hook. "Blue Peter" was hoisted at the fore, while the Dutch national ensign floated from her ensign staff. Her sides were painted in red, white, and blue horizontal stripes, while amidships her name was displayed in letters six feet in height--in conformity with an arbitrary regulation made by an unscrupulous nation whose U-boats did not hesitate to torpedo at sight, despite the distinguishing marks of neutral craft.

The mail-boat's pa.s.senger-list was a light one. There were about a dozen repatriated Britons from Ruhleben, a score of Dutch merchants, the two New Zealanders, and the spy, Konrad von Feldoffer.

The latter, posing as a Gelderland potato-merchant, was on a highly important mission on behalf of his Imperial master in connection with the landing of United States troops in England. At first scorning the idea that Uncle Sam could render personal aid, the Huns were beginning to realize that the Americans were doing something great, and not merely "talking big". Von Feldoffer was, therefore, one of the first of a small army of spies entrusted with the risky task of sowing the seeds of discontent and enmity amongst the men from "across the Herring Pond".

The German authorities knew full well the beneficial effect to their armies once they could provoke unhealthy rivalry and bitter dissension between the American and British troops, but they forgot the force of the trite quotation of an American admiral: "Blood is thicker than water".

Konrad von Feldoffer was firmly convinced that, with a carefully prepared forged pa.s.sport in his possession, he would be able to land without difficulty. He had never previously landed at Harwich, and with the slight disguise he adopted--bleaching his hair--he stood the remotest chance of being recognized.

He had reckoned without Rifleman Malcolm Carr. The latter was watching the people on the jetty when he saw von Feldoffer, preceded by a couple of porters, elbowing his way through the crowd of onlookers to board the vessel.

The late-comer was typically Dutch as far as his clothes and appearance went, but his face was that of Malcolm's acquaintance on the Muizenburg train.

A second glance confirmed the New Zealander's suspicions. Promptly Malcolm turned and bolted down the companion, rejoining Peter in the steerage.

"Bother the fellow!" exclaimed Peter. "He's done me out of the salt sea breezes. All right, I'll keep below; but really I don't see the use of doing so. It's not likely that a first-cla.s.s pa.s.senger would invade the quarters of the steerage pa.s.sengers."

a.s.sisted by a funny but powerful little tug, the _Koning der Zee_ drew clear of the wharf, and, slipping between the piers, gained the choppy waters of the North Sea.

Beyond territorial waters danger unseen lurked. All on board realized the fact--it was Germany's version of the freedom of the seas. Serving out the life-belts was in itself a significance. Yet undeterred, the captain of the _Koning der Zee_ had sailed regularly since the memorable 4th of August, 1914, risking U-boats and floating mines to uphold the flag of Holland on waters that were hers by equal right with other nations of the world.

Less than thirty miles from the Dutch coast the _Koning der Zee_ met her doom. Travelling at twenty-two knots, her bows struck the flexible wire bridle connecting a pair of mines. Like porpoises, the deadly cylinders swung towards the ship under the strain on the span. One struck the hull just below the water-line on the starboard side, nearly abaft the foremost funnel; the second b.u.mped heavily under her port quarter. Practically simultaneously the deadly mechanical mines exploded. Calculated to blow a hole in the bottom of the most strongly constructed war-ship afloat, the mines simply pulverized the thin steel plating of the luckless Dutch vessel.

Amidst the rush of escaping steam the _Koning der Zee_ began to settle rapidly.

Well it was that the pa.s.senger list was a light one. Notwithstanding the fact that three boats had been blown to fragments by the explosions, the rest were practically intact. Promptly the undismayed crew bundled the pa.s.sengers into them and lowered away--an easy task, since the vessel was sinking on a comparatively even keel.

The captain and the wireless operator were the last to leave, the latter striving in vain to get the damaged transmitter into working order until peremptory orders from his superior obliged him to desist.

Within eight minutes the _Koning der Zee_ had disappeared beneath the element which in name she professed to rule, leaving five boats tossing upon the choppy seas.

"You've got plenty of sea breezes now, Peter," remarked his brother as they sat on the stern grating of one of the life-boats. "And salt spray thrown in. I wonder what the next move is to be?"

"I don't mind very much, provided we are not picked up by a German ship," replied Peter. "Where's your pal the spy?"

"In there," said Malcolm, indicating one of the boats lying at about a hundred yards distance. "He was mighty sharp in nipping in."

The boats closed, their officers conferring with the captain as to what course to pursue. Since the conversation was in Dutch the New Zealanders understood not a word, but from the gestures of the skipper they concluded that the boats were to attempt to row back to the cost of Holland--a thirty-mile pull dead to windward, and in the teeth of a steadily-rising wind--unless picked up by another vessel in the meantime.

"It's a bit of a game," continued Malcolm, "when the spy is mined by his own people. I wonder what he thinks about it."

As a matter of fact, von Feldoffer was thinking furiously. He had been given to understand by the German Admiralty that instructions would be issued to U-boat commanders concerned that the _Koning der Zee_ was not to be molested on the day arranged for the spy to cross the North Sea. On the strength of this a.s.surance von Feldoffer started for England; but, although the U-boats carried out instructions, the floating mines, once launched, did not conform to the mandate of the Berlin Admiralty.

"Hallo, what's up now?" enquired Peter, observing that the attention of the Dutch sailors was directed to something on the northern horizon.

He was not left long in doubt. Rapidly the "something" resolved itself into a long, lean, grey destroyer, from the mast of which two flags streamed in the breeze--and those flags were not the Black Cross of Germany, but the glorious White Ensign of Britain.

"We heard the racket, so we came up to investigate," shouted the alert Lieutenant-Commander of H.M. destroyer _Angiboo_. "Come alongside as sharp as you can."

"No, thanks!" replied the Dutch skipper in English. "I'm making for The Hook. If you'll receive some English pa.s.sengers I will be obliged."

"Think twice about it," replied the naval officer cheerfully. "The gla.s.s is tumbling down, and the Dutch coast is dead to windward.

You'll never fetch there, unless I'm greatly mistaken."

"Very well, then, I accept," decided the skipper of the lost mail-boat.

With her quick-firers manned, in case a U-boat lurked in the vicinity, the _Angiboo_ stopped until the last of the pa.s.sengers and crew of the _Koning der Zee_ gained her deck; then, quickly increasing speed to twenty-five knots, the destroyer shaped a south-westerly course to rejoin the rest of the flotilla.

Presently Malcolm made his way for'ard until he reached the foot of the ladder reaching to the destroyer's bridge.