The Red Cross Girl Part 10

Mr. Hallowell received these Congratulations as gracefully as he was able, and in secret raged at Chancellor Black. Each day his rage increased. It seemed as though there would never be an end to Doctor Gilman. The stone he had rejected had become the corner-stone of Stillwater. Whenever he opened a newspaper he felt like exclaiming: "Will no one rid me of this pestilent fellow?" For the "Rise and Fall,"

in an edition deluxe limited to two hundred copies, was being bought up by all his book-collecting millionaire friends; a popular edition was on view in the windows of every book-shop; It was offered as a prize to subscribers to all the more sedate magazines, and the name and features of the distinguished author had become famous and familiar. Not a day pa.s.sed but that some new honor, at least so the newspapers stated, was thrust upon him. Paragraphs announced that he was to be the next exchange professor to Berlin; that in May he was to lecture at the Sorbonne; that in June he was to receive a degree from Oxford.

A fresh-water college on one of the Great Lakes leaped to the front by offering him the chair of history at that seat of learning at a salary of five thousand dollars a year. Some of the honors that had been thrust upon Doctor Gilman existed only in the imagination of Peter and Stetson, but this offer happened to be genuine.

"Doctor Gilman rejected it without consideration. He read the letter from the trustees to his wife and shook his head.

"We could not be happy away from Stillwater," he said. "We have only a month more in the cottage, but after that we still can walk past it; we can look into the garden and see the flowers she planted. We can visit the place where she lies. But if we went away we should be lonely and miserable for her, and she would be lonely for us."

Mr. Hallowell could not know why Doctor Gilman had refused to leave Stillwater; but when he read that the small Eastern college at which Doctor Gilman had graduated had offered to make him its president, his jealousy knew no bounds.

He telegraphed to Black: "Reinstate Gilman at once; offer him six thousand--offer him whatever he wants, but make him promise for no consideration to leave Stillwater he is only member faculty ever brought any credit to the college if we lose him I'll hold you responsible."

The next morning, hat in hand, smiling ingratiatingly, the Chancellor called upon Doctor Gilman and ate so much humble pie that for a week he suffered acute mental indigestion. But little did Hallowell senior care for that. He had got what he wanted. Doctor Gilman, the distinguished, was back in the faculty, and had made only one condition--that he might live until he died in the ivy-covered cottage.

Two weeks later, when Peter arrived at Stillwater to take the history examination, which, should he pa.s.s it, would give him his degree, he found on every side evidences of the "worldwide fame" he himself had created. The newsstand at the depot, the book-stores, the drugstores, the picture-shops, all spoke of Doctor Gilman; and postcards showing the ivy-covered cottage, photographs and enlargements of Doctor Gilman, advertis.e.m.e.nts of the different editions of "the" history proclaimed his fame. Peter, fascinated by the success of his own handiwork, approached the ivy-covered cottage in a spirit almost of awe. But Mrs.

Gilman welcomed him with the same kindly, sympathetic smile with which she always gave courage to the unhappy ones coming up for examinations, and Doctor Gilman's high honors in no way had spoiled his gentle courtesy.

The examination was in writing, and when Peter had handed in his papers Doctor Gilman asked him if he would prefer at once to know the result.

"I should indeed!" Peter a.s.sured him.

"Then I regret to tell you, Hallowell," said the professor, "that you have not pa.s.sed. I cannot possibly give you a mark higher than five." In real sympathy the sage of Stillwater raised his eyes, but to his great astonishment he found that Peter, so far from being cast down or taking offense, was smiling delightedly, much as a fond parent might smile upon the precocious act of a beloved child.

"I am afraid," said Doctor Gilman gently, "that this summer you did not work very hard for your degree!"

Peter Laughed and picked up his hat.

"To tell you the truth, Professor," he said, "you're right I got working for something worth while--and I forgot about the degree."

Chapter 3. THE INVASION OF ENGLAND

This is the true inside story of the invasion of England in 1911 by the Germans, and why it failed. I got my data from Baron von Gottlieb, at the time military attache of the German Government with the Russian army in the second Russian-j.a.panese War, when Russia drove j.a.pan out of Manchuria, and reduced her to a third-rate power. He told me of his part in the invasion as we sat, after the bombardment of Tokio, on the ramparts of the Emperor's palace, watching the walls of the paper houses below us glowing and smoking like the ashes of a prairie fire.

Two years before, at the time of the invasion, von Gottlieb had been Carl Schultz, the head-waiter at the East Cliff Hotel at Cromer, and a spy.

The other end of the story came to me through Lester Ford, the London correspondent of the New York Republic. They gave me permission to tell it in any fashion I pleased, and it is here set down for the first time.

In telling the story, my conscience is not in the least disturbed, for I have yet to find any one who will believe it.

What led directly to the invasion was that some week-end guest of the East Cliff Hotel left a copy of "The Riddle of the Sands" in the coffee-room, where von Gottlieb found it; and the fact that Ford attended the Shakespeare Ball. Had neither of these events taken place, the German flag might now be flying over Buckingham Palace. And, then again, it might not.

As every German knows, "The Riddle of the Sands" is a novel written by a very clever Englishman in which is disclosed a plan for the invasion of his country. According to this plan an army of infantry was to be embarked in lighters, towed by shallow-draft, sea-going tugs, and despatched simultaneously from the seven rivers that form the Frisian Isles. From there they were to be convoyed by battle-ships two hundred and forty miles through the North Sea, and thrown upon the coast of Norfolk somewhere between the Wash and Mundesley. The fact that this coast is low-lying and bordered by sand flats which at low water are dry, that England maintains no North Sea squadron, and that her nearest naval base is at Chatham, seem to point to it as the spot best adapted for such a raid.

What von Gottlieb thought was evidenced by the fact that as soon as he read the book he mailed it to the German Amba.s.sador in London, and under separate cover sent him a letter. In this he said: "I suggest your Excellency bring this book to the notice of a certain royal personage, and of the Strategy Board. General Bolivar said, 'When you want arms, take them from the enemy.' Does not this also follow when you want ideas?"

What the Strategy Board thought of the plan is a matter of history. This was in 1910. A year later, during the coronation week, Lester Ford went to Clarkson's to rent a monk's robe in which to appear at the Shakespeare Ball, and while the a.s.sistant departed in search of the robe, Ford was left alone in a small room hung with full-length mirrors and shelves, and packed with the uniforms that Clarkson rents for Covent Garden b.a.l.l.s and amateur theatricals. While waiting, Ford gratified a long, secretly cherished desire to behold himself as a military man, by trying on all the uniforms on the lower shelves; and as a result, when the a.s.sistant returned, instead of finding a young American in English clothes and a high hat, he was confronted by a German officer in a spiked helmet fighting a duel with himself in the mirror. The a.s.sistant retreated precipitately, and Ford, conscious that he appeared ridiculous, tried to turn the tables by saying, "Does a German uniform always affect a Territorial like that?"

The a.s.sistant laughed good-naturedly.

"It did give me quite a turn," he said. "It's this talk of invasion, I fancy. But for a fact, sir, if I was a Coast Guard, and you came along the beach dressed like that, I'd take a shot at you, just on the chance, anyway."

"And, quite right, too!" said Ford.

He was wondering when the invasion did come whether he would stick at his post in London and dutifully forward the news to his paper, or play truant and as a war correspondent watch the news in the making. So the words of Mr. Clarkson's a.s.sistant did not sink in. But a few weeks later young Major Bellew recalled them. Bellew was giving a dinner on the terrace of the Savoy Restaurant. His guests were his nephew, young Herbert, who was only five years younger than his uncle, and Herbert's friend Birrell, an Irishman, both in their third term at the university.

After five years' service in India, Bellew had spent the last "Eights"

week at Oxford, and was complaining bitterly that since his day the undergraduate had deteriorated. He had found him serious, given to study, far too well behaved. Instead of Jorrocks, he read Galsworthy; instead of "wines" he found pleasure in debating clubs where he discussed socialism. Ragging, practical jokes, ingenious hoaxes, that once were wont to set England in a roar, were a lost art. His undergraduate guests combated these charges fiercely. His criticisms they declared unjust and without intelligence.

"You're talking rot!" said his dutiful nephew. "Take Phil here, for example. I've roomed with him three years and I can testify that he has never opened a book. He never heard of Galsworthy until you spoke of him. And you can see for yourself his table manners are quite as bad as yours!"

"Worse!" a.s.sented Birrell loyally.

"And as for ragging! What rags, in your day, were as good as ours; as the Carrie Nation rag, for instance, when five hundred people sat through a temperance lecture and never guessed they were listening to a man from Balliol?"

"And the Abyssinian Amba.s.sador rag!" cried Herbert. "What price that?

When the DREADNOUGHT manned the yards for him and gave him seventeen guns. That was an Oxford rag, and carried through by Oxford men. The country hasn't stopped laughing yet. You give us a rag!" challenged Herbert. "Make it as hard as you like; something risky, something that will make the country sit up, something that will send us all to jail, and Phil and I will put it through whether it takes one man or a dozen.

Go on," he persisted, "And I bet we can get fifty volunteers right here in town and all of them undergraduates."

"Give you the idea, yes!" mocked Bellew, trying to gain time. "That's just what I say. You boys to-day are so dull. You lack initiative. It's the idea that counts. Anybody can do the acting. That's just amateur theatricals!"

"Is it!" snorted Herbert. "If you want to know what stage fright is, just go on board a British battle-ship with your face covered with burnt cork and insist on being treated like an amba.s.sador. You'll find it's a little different from a first night with the Simla Thespians!"

Ford had no part in the debate. He had been smoking comfortably and with well-timed nods, impartially encouraging each disputant. But now he suddenly laid his cigar upon his plate, and, after glancing quickly about him, leaned eagerly forward. They were at the corner table of the terrace, and, as it was now past nine o'clock, the other diners had departed to the theatres and they were quite alone. Below them, outside the open windows, were the trees of the embankment, and beyond, the Thames, blocked to the west by the great shadows of the Houses of Parliament, lit only by the flame in the tower that showed the Lower House was still sitting.

"I'LL give you an idea for a rag," whispered Ford. "One that is risky, that will make the country sit up, that ought to land you in Jail? Have you read 'The Riddle of the Sands'?"

Bellew and Herbert nodded; Birrell made no sign.

"Don't mind him," exclaimed Herbert impatiently. "HE never reads anything! Go on!"

"It's the book most talked about," explained Ford. "And what else is most talked about?" He answered his own question. "The landing of the Germans in Morocco and the chance of war. Now, I ask you, with that book in everybody's mind, and the war scare in everybody's mind, what would happen if German soldiers appeared to-night on the Norfolk coast just where the book says they will appear? Not one soldier, but dozens of soldiers; not in one place, but in twenty places?"

"What would happen?" roared Major Bellew loyally. "The Boy Scouts would fall out of bed and kick them into the sea!"

"Shut up!" snapped his nephew irreverently. He shook Ford by the arm.

"How?" he demanded breathlessly. "How are we to do it? It would take hundreds of men."

"Two men," corrected Ford, "And a third man to drive the car. I thought it out one day at Clarkson's when I came across a lot of German uniforms. I thought of it as a newspaper story, as a trick to find out how prepared you people are to meet invasion. And when you said just now that you wanted a chance to go to jail--"

"What's your plan?" interrupted Birrell.

"We would start just before dawn--" began Ford.

"We?" demanded Herbert. "Are you in this?"

"Am I in it?" cried Ford indignantly. "It's my own private invasion! I'm letting you boys in on the ground floor. If I don't go, there won t be any invasion!"

The two pink-cheeked youths glanced at each other inquiringly and then nodded.