British Secret Service During the Great War Part 10

Although at times I am notoriously loquacious, I can also be a deep thinker. Sometimes when alone during those dark days in the solitude of deep forests, or perched upon some bleak promontory jutting out into northern seas and watching over the angry waters beneath me, I would sit for hours lost in meditation turning over in my mind again and again pa.s.sing events, weighing the possibilities, probabilities, alleged diplomatic mistakes and indiscretions; social upheavals, labour strikes, absurd optimism of a section of the Press; false security created by too rigid censorship; political dangers from continued vote-angling and pandering to obvious German agitation amongst workmen and miners; continued short-sighted political revenge upon English landowners for the suppression rather than encouragement of any increased user of the land towards food production; contradictions which were irreconcilable; on the one hand enormous and useless expenditures, on the other unparalleled meanness and littleness; the clinging to fatal fallacies by refusing conscription; the insistence with which old and admittedly absolutely incompetent officials were kept in office; refusals to find places--even honorary ones--for admittedly first-cla.s.s younger volunteers from our colonies; muddle upon muddle; waste upon waste; mistake upon mistake; yet the glorious gallantry and irrepressible loyalty and patriotism of Britisher units and her allies on land and sea seemed to be pulling everything through.

Having regard to the thirty years' preparation of Germany and the utter unpreparedness of England, a miracle seemed in the process of evolution.

Would the nations involved cease their strife owing to absolute exhaustion and attrition? Would the Entente eventually achieve full consummation of its hopes, so devoutly to be wished? Or was the sequel foreshadowed by the late Lord Tennyson:

"Chaos, Cosmos! Cosmos, Chaos! who can tell how all will end?

Read the wide world's annals, you, and take their wisdom for your friend; Hope the best, but hold the Present fatal daughter of the Past, Shape your heart to front the hour, but dream not that the hour will last."

CHAPTER VI

DEPOSING A RIVAL

RETREAT AND WOULD-BE REST--WINTRY WEATHER IN THE NORTH SEA--THE SECRET MESSAGE--RIVAL'S REMOVAL COMMANDED FORTHWITH--SEEMINGLY IMPOSSIBLE PROPOSITION--SEEKING ONE'S COLLEAGUES--SOLVING THE RIDDLE--PREPARING THE TRAP--THE LONELY SENTRY AND THE MYSTERIOUS BOATMAN CAPTURE, ARREST, SEARCH AND FIND--THE INCRIMINATING DOc.u.mENT--INSTANT DEPORTATION--EXULTATION--NEXT, PLEASE.

After a coup of importance has been successfully accomplished, it is sometimes advisable for a Secret Service agent to betake himself to a quiet, secluded place where his ident.i.ty and his activities are least likely to be known, or even suspected.

Towards Christmas, in the first year of the war, I found myself in such a position; my work for some weeks past had been not only exceedingly strenuous, but, it was gratifying to remember, it had also been successful. Perhaps luck had unduly favoured me. Anyway, I knew quite enough of the enemy to be only too well a.s.sured that he would stop at nothing to get, or to attempt to get, even with me if he possibly could.

I also thoroughly understood it was advisable for more reasons than one that I should take a well-earned rest, a few days breathing-s.p.a.ce until further demands were made upon my individual efforts.

Thus it was I turned my face towards a lonely, secluded little haven snugly concealed in an inner fjord of the Norwegian coast where I intended to sleep and dream and sink all traces of my existence on earth for a few brief days at least.

December, 1914, in northern seas was a month of record storms and mult.i.tudinous wrecks. The daily life of those unfortunates whose duties took them there, or compelled them to navigate, was unenviable in the extreme. Ice, which acc.u.mulated and increased in its envelopment hourly, not only made decks doubly dangerous, but, unless removed from rails, ropes, deckhouses, and other parts of a ship at periodical intervals might possibly threaten worse disaster than the wrecks and sunken rocks around.

Fogs, snowstorms, floating mines, mountainous seas, submerged hulks and treacherous shoals, coupled with the long, long winter nights, were enemies more to be feared than the cruel Hun. A few weeks of this work would try any man; it had been more than enough for me, a landsman whose soul never yearned for the life of a sailor.

The relief at hearing the cranky, ought-to-have-been-long-ago-condemned old packet, rejoicing in the high-sounding name of some forgotten heathen G.o.d, b.u.mp and sc.r.a.pe and groan against the piling of the quay at my quiet sleepy little Scandinavian seaport, was a joy not to be expressed in words. To me who had roughed it, under strenuous conditions, the coa.r.s.e fare and the still coa.r.s.er bed-linen on even a flea-smothered couch seemed Valhalla adorned.

It was rest. It was peace. It was contentment. It naturally followed that it was supreme happiness for the immediate moment.

No shack, cottage, or villa in these northern parts runs to window curtains. Darkness comes early in the afternoon. Daylight follows late in the morning, varying in time in accordance with lat.i.tude. Sleep, the greatest blessing on earth, after such fatigues and endurance would be long and profound. There was no reason to arise early. To trust to Nature's call with the sun would probably mean somewhere about 10 a.m.

or later.

It was, of course, necessary for me to convey to headquarters the information of my whereabouts, which duty performed, the luxuries and enjoyments at hand were embraced by me with limitless indulgence.

It was late next day when a frowsy-haired fishwife brought my _cafe au lait_, also news that I was wanted. I was not surprised. A Secret Service agent is never allowed to rest. Holidays, quietude, peace, or enjoyment are words not known in his vocabulary. Anyone envying those in the Service should first contemplate that its units are looked upon as mere chattels of little worth, easily to be replaced should accident or machination cause them to fall by the way or to be removed to a better land. Such patriots must sink all home-ties, business relationships, pleasures, pains, and personal thoughts for the one and only object--to achieve the seemingly impossible.

Outside it was snowing in big, ma.s.sive flakes, which added many inches in a few hours to the deep covering already settled on the solidly-frozen earth. It was biting cold, but I had to face it.

Struggling along as best I could against the unkind elements, I made three doubles and a walk back to test whether any possible observer took interest in my movements, such a precaution being always advisable after advent on fresh ground. Then, slipping up an unfrequented pathway, I gained the shelter of another fisherman's hut, where an enthusiastic welcome from numerous chubby-faced bairns awaited me.

It's a good rule in life to remember the little ones. Every decent-minded parent worships his or her children. If a home possess none, then affections are often centred on some four-footed animal. Make a fuss over these and a weakness in the hardest heart is at once touched. My annual chocolate bill averaged many pounds, whilst it has returned to me tenfold its value in the pleasure created. Not a penny of such outlay could be grudged.

A good friend was awaiting my arrival. He had a small package, which had come to hand shortly before. He was one of those open-hearted, unsuspecting innocents who led the simple life and believed ill of no man. I wished him to continue to hold his good opinions, particularly regarding myself. In murmuring my thanks for the parcel, I hazarded the supposition that it probably contained some long-sought smokes. On opening it before his eyes, so to speak, there was disclosed a tin of pipe tobacco and a bundle of cigars, which were at once sampled.

Sherlock Holmes would probably have noticed that one, and one cigar only, had had its smoking-end bitten off. Further, that that particular cigar was not selected by me, owing perhaps--perhaps not--to the possibility of its having already been tested in a stranger's mouth. Be that as it may, after an hour's small talk (one must never be at all impatient in Scandinavia), I took my departure and carried the precious tobacco away with me.

A careful dissection of the bitten cigar, in the seclusion of my own quarters, brought to light a sc.r.a.p of paper. A pocket gla.s.s helped me to decipher the mystic signs, the interpretation whereof read as follows:

"Karl Von S----, a German Artillery officer, married to a native of Scandinavia, is posing as a convalescent consumptive and has been some time in a private villa on the Island of ----. He is much too friendly with the wireless operator there, also the garrison officers. Advisable that he be removed at once. You must do it. Act promptly."

Now I was a matter of 300 miles' travel from the _locus in quo_. It was in the immediate neighbourhood of large army reserves and was also much frequented by warships and naval men. Three times I reread the message in order to memorise it, then I burnt it to ashes. "He must be removed at once. You must do it."

Now it is very easy to sit in an office and give commands, right and left, for this and for that, or for anything which strikes the fancy.

But it's altogether a different proposition to find oneself in the shoes of the commanded one. I soon began to feel worried. The thought of the seeming impossibility of the carrying out of the order was annoying. I lit cigar after cigar, as I lay on the couch with closed eyes; I smoked, and thought, and scratched for an indefinite period; until my all too lively stable companions effectually did for me what I was so vainly racking my brains to find some way of bringing about with regard to another.

Two hours' brisk walk in the open air did not solve the problem. So I despatched a message to a colleague, N. P., who was then on the Russian frontier, informing him that we must meet immediately, each coming half-way towards the other.

N. P. knew that I should never trouble him over trifles, and, good fellow that he was, he answered the call without delay. We met at a frontier town, within a day or so of the receipt of original instructions. When I explained the problem and how the more I had thought it over the further its solution seemed to fade away, N. P.

naturally wanted to know why I had summoned him to meet me.

"That is easy, my dear Nixie," I exclaimed; "you are without doubt the cleverest man in the Service. You speak many tongues. You are a garrison artillery staff officer. What better material could anyone wish for to help unravel a proposition like this? He must be removed at once. You must do it."

"Not me, my boy. That won't come off. It's your job, and I would not deprive you of the honour and glory of it for worlds."

"Ah, Nixie, my dear fellow, we may get the jobs, but all the honour and glory is appropriated by the gentlemen who remain at home. I think we both appreciate that point; but what I want to debate with you are possibilities, actualities, and probabilities. If either of us, for example, were on a small island and we received a warning that a German had had orders to shift us--what would you fear most?"

"I should fear nothing."

"I don't mean it that way. What I mean is, wherein would you be most careful, or most on your guard?"

"He would not get a dog's chance with me, anyway," snapped N. P. Then he added in a petulant tone, "I want some more whiskey and another cigar.

It helps one to think better."

"How about your line of communications?" I queried.

"No living soul would ever get hold of mine," Nixie replied.

"Of course not; but don't you see it's a danger, it's a weak spot that can be shot at."

"No, I don't," said Nixie, stretching himself at full length on the sofa until it creaked again and again.

I was lying on a bed, and the room was in darkness. One can think better in the dark. There is no counter-attraction for the sense of sight to divert any stray thought from the objective in being. The brain becomes more active and more concentrative accordingly.

"If you flatter yourself you can touch his lines of communication--after he has been established some time, as the message says, you are apt to get your fingers burnt in the trying. Won't do, Jim, my boy. Try and think of something else."

"Bide a wee. Don't you see where we are drifting to? My idea is that we don't try to touch him at all, but that _we make a line of communication in order to be able to break it_. Twiggez vous?"

A short silence ensued, which Nixie broke, in an emphasised drawling tone: "You diabolical devil! You mean you will send a note to him which you will take good care is intercepted before he gets it, and in such a manner that the local authorities will do the rest to complete the _coup de grace_."

"That's my suggestion," I exclaimed in a deliberate tone. "Also that's where you come in. You, being a garrison expert, will weave the strands and splice the knot of rope that will eventually hang him. Think it out.

Ponder over how it will work."

For a long time we both smoked in silence, and we smoked in the dark, which somehow seems entirely different from smoking when one can see the blue clouds drifting. How long the interval lasted neither of us could tell. It seemed an age. Then Nixie Pixie demanded lights up. He wanted to get on with the business. He was keenly interested. His instincts foretold success, and, what was far sweeter to both of us, we imagined one more dictatorial militarist would shortly be driven back to stew in the kultured juice of Teutonic concentrated cruelties, in the Fatherland.