Part 10 (1/2)
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 censors.h.i.+p; 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 s.h.i.+p 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 relations.h.i.+ps, 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 wors.h.i.+ps 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: