Part 7 (1/2)
So much for my state of mind; now, for my course of action.
I had decided to keep a watch on her, and, if I could get hold of the slightest incriminating evidence, expose her secretly, but mercilessly, to the Secret Service. If I could not--and if I realised there was danger brewing--to inform the Secret Service of what I had heard, and, sacrificing Ginger's friends.h.i.+p if necessary, and my own reputation for chivalry, swear away her honour, or anything, provided only her capacity for obtaining information temporarily ceased. Once that was done, then face the music, and be accused, if needs be, of false swearing, unrequited love, jealousy, what you will. But to destroy her capacity for harm to my country was my bounden duty, whatever the social or personal results to me.
And there was one other thing--and on this one thing the whole course of the matter was destined to hang: _I alone could do it, for I alone knew the truth._ Let that sink in, old son; grasp it, realise it, and read my future actions by the light of that one simple fact.
I can see you sit back in your chair, and look into the fire with the light of comprehension dawning in your eyes; it does put the matter in a different complexion, doesn't it, my friend? You begin to appreciate the motives that impelled me to sacrifice a woman's life; so far so good.
You are even magnanimous: what is one woman compared to the danger of a nation?
Dear old boy, I drink a silent toast to you. Have you no suspicions?
What if the woman I sacrificed was the Comtesse herself? Does it surprise you; wasn't it the G.o.d-sent solution to everything?
Just as a freak of fate had acquainted me with her secret; so did a freak of fate throw me in her path at the end....
We hit an iceberg, as you may remember, in the middle of the night, and the s.h.i.+p foundered in under twenty minutes.
You can imagine the scene of chaos after we struck, or rather you can't. Men were running wildly about shouting, women were screaming, and the roar of the siren bellowing forth into the night drove people to a perfect frenzy. Then all the lights went out, and darkness settled down like a pall on the s.h.i.+p. I struggled up on deck, which was already tilting up at a perilous angle, and there--in the ma.s.s of scurrying figures--I came face to face with the Comtesse. In the panic of the moment I had forgotten all about her. She was quite calm, and smiled at me, for of course our relations were still as before.
Suddenly there came the shout from close at hand, ”Room for one more only.” What happened then, happened in a couple of seconds; it will take me longer to describe.
There flashed into my mind what would occur if I were drowned and the Comtesse was saved. There would be no one to combat her activities in England; she would have a free hand. My plans were null and void if I died; I must get back to England--or England would be in peril. I must pa.s.s on my information to someone--for I alone knew.
”Hurry up! one more.” Another shout from near by, and looking round I saw that we were alone. It was she or I.
She moved towards the boat, and as she did so I saw the only possible solution--I saw what I then thought to be my duty; what I still consider--and, G.o.d knows, that scene is never long out of my mind--what I still consider to have been my duty. I took her by the arm and twisted her facing me.
”As Ginger's wife, yes,” I muttered; ”as the cursed spy I know you to be, no--a thousand times no.”
”My G.o.d!” she whispered. ”My G.o.d!”
Without further thought I pushed by her and stepped into the boat, which was actually being lowered into the water. Two minutes later the _Astoria_ sank, and she went down with her....
That is what occurred that night in mid-Atlantic. I make no excuses, I offer no palliation; I merely state facts.
Only had I not heard what I did hear in that alcove she would have been just--Ginger's wife. Would the Expeditionary Force have crossed so successfully, I wonder?
As I say, I did what I still consider to have been my duty. If both could have been saved, well and good; but if it was only one, it _had_ to be me, or neither. That's the rub; should it have been neither?
Many times since then, old friend, has the white twitching face of that woman haunted me in my dreams and in my waking hours. Many times since then have I thought that--spy or no spy--I had no right to save my life at her expense; I should have gone down with her. Quixotical, perhaps, seeing she was what she was; but she was a woman. One thing and one thing only I can say. When you read these lines, I shall be dead; they will come to you as a voice from the dead. And, as a man who faces his Maker, I tell you, with a calm certainty that I am not deceiving myself, that that night there was no trace of cowardice in my mind. It was not a desire to save my own life that actuated me; it was the fear of danger to England. An error of judgment possibly; an act of cowardice--no. That much I state, and that much I demand that you believe.
And now we come to the last chapter--the chapter that you know. I'd been back about two months when I first realised that there were stories going round about me. There were whispers in the club; men avoided me; women cut me. Then came the dreadful night when a man--half drunk--in the club accused me of cowardice point-blank, and sneeringly contrasted my previous reputation with my conduct on the _Astoria_. And I realised that someone must have seen. I knocked that swine in the club down; but the whispers grew. I knew it. Someone had seen, and it would be sheer hypocrisy on my part to pretend that such a thing didn't matter. It mattered everything: it ended me. The world--our world--judges deeds, not motives; and even had I published at the time this doc.u.ment I am sending to you, our world would have found me guilty. They would have said what you would have said had you spoken the thoughts I saw in your eyes that night I came to you. They would have said that a sudden wave of cowardice had overwhelmed me, and that brought face to face with death I had saved my own life at the expense of a woman's. Many would have gone still further, and said that my black cowardice was rendered blacker still by my hypocrisy in inventing such a story; that first to kill the woman, and then to blacken her reputation as an excuse, showed me as a thing unfit to live. I know the world.
Moreover, as far as I knew then--I am sure of it now--whoever it was who saw my action, did not see who the woman was, and therefore the publication of this doc.u.ment at that time would have involved Ginger, for it would have been futile to publish it without names. Feeling as I did that perhaps I should have sunk with her; feeling as I did that, for good or evil, I had blasted Ginger's life, I simply couldn't do it. You didn't believe in me, old chap; at the bottom of their hearts all my old pals thought I'd shown the yellow streak; and I couldn't stick it. So I went to the Colonel, and told him I was handing in my papers. He was in his quarters, I remember, and started filling his pipe as I was speaking.
”Why, Spud?” he asked, when I told him my intention.
And then I told him something of what I have written to you. I said it to him in confidence, and when I'd finished he sat very silent.