BRITISH SECRET SERVICE DURING THE GREAT WAR
BY
NICHOLAS EVERITT
AUTHOR OF
"ROUND THE WORLD IN STRANGE COMPANY," ETC., ETC.
Not Heaven itself upon the past has power;
But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour.
DRYDEN.
_THIRD EDITION_
_LONDON: HUTCHINSON & CO.
PATERNOSTER ROW_
THIS BOOK
IS DEDICATED TO
VISCOUNT NORTHCLIFFE
WHO
DURING THE THROES OF OUR NATIONAL
CRISIS PROVED HIMSELF THE GREATEST
OF ALL LIVING ENGLISHMEN
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
WAR AND THE INTRODUCING OF JIM
PAGE
THE PROSPERITY OF 1914--AN OMINOUS CALM--MULTITUDE OF GERMAN
SPIES--HOW ENGLAND WAS UNDERMINED--SHORTSIGHTEDNESS
OF OUR LIBERAL GOVERNMENT--SECRET KNOWLEDGE OF PROMINENT
MEN--SIR EDWARD GOSCHEN'S HISTORICAL DESPATCH--RUSH
TO THE COLOURS--OUR UNPREPAREDNESS--INTRODUCING
JIM--PATRIOTS FROM AFAR--F. C. SELOUS' ROUGHRIDERS--INITIATION
INTO THE FOREIGN SECRET SERVICE--ADVISORY
TESTAMENTARY DISPOSITIONS 27
CHAPTER II
SECRET SERVICE ORGANISATIONS, COMPARISONS
AND INCIDENTALS
ESPIONAGE IN PAST AGES--MODERN BRITISH SECRET SERVICE FOUNDED,
1910--POSSIBLE IMPROVEMENTS--COMPARISONS--JEALOUSIES OF
BIG DEPARTMENTS--EXAMPLES OF RECKLESS EXTRAVAGANCE--BUSINESS
MEN WANTED--ECONOMIES IN THE SECRET SERVICE--BUNGLING
INCOMPETENCE--IMPASSIVENESS OF THE FOREIGN
OFFICE--GERMAN WAR METHODS--FRENCH AND DUTCH SECRET
SERVICE--MILITARY INTELLIGENCE, B.C.--RISE AND DEVELOPMENT
OF GERMAN SECRET SERVICE--THE EFFICIENCY OF SCOTLAND
YARD--DETAILS OF GERMAN FOREIGN PROPAGANDA AND
EXPENDITURE--BRITISH SECRET SERVICE: ITS COST AND
FRUGALITIES--MAJOR HENRI LE CARON--NATHAN HALE--SIMILITUDE
OF THE LIFE OF A SECRET SERVICE AGENT 44
CHAPTER III
INITIATION TO ACTIVE WORK
CROSSING THE NORTH SEA--A MEMORABLE MEETING--INSTRUCTIONS--ON
A CARGO BOAT--SNOW-STORMS--FALSE ALARM--DANISH
PROFITEERS--ENGLISH CONSUL PROFITEERING IN FOOD TO
GERMANY--HORSE-SMUGGLING--MEETING MY C.O.--BLOODED 74
CHAPTER IV
INTER-COMMUNICATING WITH TEMPORARY CODES
AND INCIDENTS
GRAMMATICAL CODE--A TÊTE-À-TÊTE--CONFIDENCES--MISCONSTRUED
MESSAGE LEADS TO DOMESTIC TRAGEDY--LOCAL CODES--AN
ALTERED MESSAGE--AN IMPORTANT MISSION--SHADOWED--ATTEMPTED
THEFTS OF PAPERS--A CONTRETEMPS--LEAKAGE OF
NEWS FROM ENGLAND--WATCHING A SUSPECT--FALSE MESSAGE
DISCLOSES AN OPEN CODE--GEOMETRICAL CODES--THE KNOT
CODE--A FASCINATING ACTRESS, A CONFIDING ATTACHÉ, AND A
MYSTERIOUS CHESS PROBLEM--CLEVERNESS OF FRENCH SECRET SERVICE 82
CHAPTER V
LOCATING GERMAN MINE-LAYERS
COAST-HUNTING--A FIND--SPIES OF MANY NATIONS--OBLITERATING
TRAILS--TRACKING DOWN THE "BERLIN"--MARVELLOUS NAVIGATION
BY GERMANS--INTERNED--GERMAN ARSON--AN IMPUDENT
INVITATION--A RUSSIAN SUGAR-QUEEN'S YACHT--QUEER COMPANY--SAPPING
HUN INTELLIGENCE--PLAYING ON WEAKNESSES--SUCCESS--LOSS
OF H.M.S. "AUDACIOUS"--SOLILOQUISING 97
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 DOCUMENT--INSTANT
DEPORTATION--EXULTATION--NEXT, PLEASE 107
CHAPTER VII
FIGHTING GERMAN AGENTS WITH FAKED WEAPONS
DANGER WARNING--DISGUISED TEUTONS--HAIR-TESTS--OBSERVATION
FROM WITHOUT--CLEVER FEMALE GUARD--DEPORTED HUN AGENTS--TOO
MANY WRECKS--BOOT CHANGE TRICK--FLIGHT--PATIENCE
UNREWARDED--NIGHT WORK AT THE DOCKS--A SUDDEN ATTACK--ODDS
OF THREE TO ONE--PIPE-FAKING FOR MAKE-BELIEVE REVOLVER--A
STERN CHASE--AMERICAN RUSE BAFFLES PURSUERS--THE
SANCTUARY OF CONVIVIALITY 118
CHAPTER VIII
ESCAPING FROM THE CLUTCHES OF A VERY
CLEVER LADY
DISGUISES--IMPORTANCE OF HANDS--SERVICE ON A BALTIC
TRADER--"IDLE, DIRTY, GOOD-FOR-NOTHING SCAMP"--A TENDER-HEARTED
LADY--A FASHIONABLE GATHERING--THE ENGLISH DUDE--THEIR SECOND
MEETING--SUSPECTED--CLEVER FENCING--WHALES WITH IRON
SKINS--ALLIANCE OFFERED--A WOMAN SCORNED--MEDITATION--FLIGHT 128
CHAPTER IX
WILD-FOWLING EXTRAORDINARY AND TRAWLING
FOR SUBMARINES IN NEUTRAL WATERS
GERMANY'S WESTERN COAST--SHOOTING WILD-FOWL AND BEING SHOT
AT--AN INTREPID SPORTSMAN--COLLAPSED ZEPPELIN--ESCAPING
WAR PRISONERS--CARELESS LANDSTURMERS--A SUPPOSED-TO-BE
NORWEGIAN SKIPPER--NATIVE CURIOSITY--DARE-DEVIL CHRISTIAN--A
MYSTERIOUS SHIP--GOOSE-STALKING OVER A LAND MINE--TOO
NEAR DEATH TO BE PLEASANT--THE NOCTURNAL SUBMARINE
RAIDER--NIGHT TRAWLING FOR STRANGE FISH--ENEMY'S
SECRET RECONNOITRING EXPOSED AND THWARTED 137
CHAPTER X
THE MYSTERIOUS HARBOUR
FRONTIER PROWLING--STARTLING RUMOURS--TERRIBLE WEATHER--EVADING
SENTRIES--MAPPING THE WORKS--REFUGE WITH
SMUGGLER--CONFIDENCES ON SUPER-SUBMARINES AND ZEPPELINS--A
COUNTRY INN--PREPARING DESPATCHES--FORCIBLE INTRUSION--ARRESTED
FOR A GERMAN SPY--SEARCH AND INTERROGATION--SUMMARY
TRIAL--TRICKING THE SEARCHERS--COMMITTED FOR TRIAL--ESCAPE 148
CHAPTER XI
MAD GAMBLING AND A BIG BRIBE
KALEIDOSCOPE CHANGES IN SECRET SERVICE AGENT'S LIFE--CALLED
TO NORWEGIAN CAPITAL FOR ORDERS--ENFORCED IDLENESS--A
WAR GAMBLER--HUGE CREDITS--TWISTING THE TAIL OF THE
BRITISH LION--AVERTING POSSIBLE WAR--FRENZIED FINANCE--A
COLOSSAL BRIBE--TOP-HEAVY ARGUMENT--NEWSPAPER INFLUENCE--A
GOOD BARGAIN FOR ENGLAND--MILLIONAIRE IN THREE DAYS 161
CHAPTER XII
SHADOWED BY POLICE
POSING AS A JOURNALIST--CREDENTIALS--SUBTLE
SUGGESTIONS--SUSPICIONS--A FALLEN STAR--SOLD TO THE
POLICE--INSTINCTIVE WARNINGS--TEMPTATION--INTERCEPTED
ADULATIONS--A SERIOUS BLOW--TESTS--DANGER
SIGNALS--FLIGHT--HERR SCHMIDT--DOUBLE TRACKING--ARREST
WARRANT POSTPONED 170
CHAPTER XIII
DODGING FRONTIER GUARDS AND SEARCHING FOR
ONE'S SELF
FRONTIER GUARDS--SMUGGLERS--RIGOROUS SEARCHES--UNEARTHING
VALUABLE GERMAN SECRETS REGARDING SUPER-ZEPPELINS,
SUBMARINES AND THE PARIS BIG CANNON--A LOQUACIOUS
WAITER--HEAD-MONEY FOR MY CAPTURE--25,000 MARKS, DEAD OR
ALIVE--LOOKING FOR ONESELF--A CAPTURE--CROSSING THE SCHLESWIG
FRONTIER--A FRIEND IN NEED--DANGEROUS ENTERPRISE--KIEL
HARBOUR--SAFE RETURN 180
CHAPTER XIV
AVOIDING COLD MURDER
SWARMS OF BAGMEN--JESUITICAL METHODS--MYSTERIOUS
DISAPPEARANCES--UNACCOUNTABLE ACCIDENTS--AVOIDING A
DUEL--FASCINATED BY A HUNGARIAN--A LUDICROUS TRAVELLER--FRACAS
AT A THEATRE--INSULT, ASSAULT AND CHALLENGE--CHOOSING
WEAPONS--DIFFICULTIES OVERCOME--FIXING DETAILS--EARLY
TRAVELLING--DÉNOUEMENT--"AM TAG" 190
CHAPTER XV
ESCAPING FROM A SUBMARINE
A SHIP OF ILL-OMEN--ATTACKED--HELL LET LOOSE--PANIC--FIGHT
FOR THE BOATS--COWARDLY CONDUCT--POWERLESS TO ACT--SHRAPNEL
AT SEA--SURRENDER--TAKING CHARGE OF SHIP AND CARRYING
ON--VALUE OF SMOKE BOXES--TERRIBLE ANTICIPATIONS--LAND
AT LAST--REMINISCENCES UNTOLD 200
CHAPTER XVI
THE CASEMENT AFFAIR
GRAVE IMPUTATIONS--NORWEGIAN CHARACTERISTICS--CASEMENT'S
LETTER TO SIR EDWARD GREY--IRISH INTERESTS--SURREPTITIOUS
VISITS TO THE EMBASSY--ENVOYÉ EXTRAORDINAIRE--£10,000
FOR CASEMENT'S SERVANT--CASEMENT'S EXPLANATIONS, COMMENTS,
KIDNAPPING AND MURDER ALLEGATIONS--SIR F. E.
SMITH ON CASEMENT'S LIFE AND ACTIONS--A BAD MISTAKE 211
CHAPTER XVII
PERTAINING TO MYSTERY SHIPS
"YOU BRITISH WILL ALWAYS BE FOOLS AND WE GERMANS SHALL NEVER
BE GENTLEMEN"--SILHOUETTE LIFEBOAT FOR GUN-COVERING--A SECRET
OF THE WAR EXPLAINED AND ILLUSTRATED--MORE IDEASFOR MYSTERY
SHIPS DESCRIBED--SECRET THANKS--SUCCESSFUL RESULTS FROM
CAMOUFLAGE AT SEA--THE GRATITUDE OF THE ADMIRALTY 225
CHAPTER XVIII
THE SINKING OF THE "LUSITANIA" BY GERMAN
TREACHERY
HOW THE DASTARDLY DEED WAS PLANNED--COMMEMORATION MEDAL
PREMATURELY DATED--SINKING ANNOUNCED IN BERLIN BEFORE
THE VESSEL WAS ATTACKED--GERMAN JOY AT THE OUTRAGE--BRITISH
SECRET CODE STOLEN--VIOLATIONS OF AMERICAN NEUTRALITY--FALSE
MESSAGES--AUTHORITY FOR THE FACTS 235
CHAPTER XIX
MINISTERIAL, DIPLOMATIC, AND CONSULAR
FAILINGS
MINISTERS SELECTED BY INFLUENCE, NOT MERIT--GERMAN EMBASSIES
HEADQUARTERS OF ESPIONAGE--HOW ENGLISH EMBASSIES HAMPERED
SECRET SERVICE WORK--BERNHARDI ON THE BLOCKADE--ENGLAND'S
OPEN DOORS--A MINISTER'S FAILINGS--BRITISH
VICE-CONSUL'S SCANDALOUS REMUNERATION--ALIEN CONSULS--HOW
ITALY WAS BROUGHT INTO THE WAR--HOW THE SYMPATHIES
OF TURKEY AND GREECE WERE LOST--THE FAILURE OF SIR
EDWARD GREY--ASQUITH'S PROCRASTINATION 239
CHAPTER XX
THE SHAM BLOCKADE
SECRET SERVICE PROTEST AGAINST THE OPEN DOOR TO
GERMANY--ACTIVITY OF OUR NAVAL ARM NULLIFIED--LORD
NORTHCLIFFE'S PATRIOTISM--BLOCKADE BUNKUM--POSITION OF
DENMARK--HUGE CONSIGNMENTS FOR GERMANY--THE DECLARATION
FIASCO--BRITISH MINISTER'S GULLIBILITY IN COPENHAGEN--GERMAN
BANK GUARANTEEING THE BRITISH AGAINST GOODS GOING TO
GERMANY--BRITISH NAVY PARALYSED BY DIPLOMATIC AND
POLITICAL FOLLY--STATISTICS EXTRAORDINARY--FLOUTING THE
DECLARATION OF LONDON--SIR EDWARD GREY'S DILATORINESS
AND PUERILE APOLOGIA--LORD HALDANE PUSHED OUT--LORD
FISHER'S EFFICIENCY UNRECOGNISED--LORD DEVONPORT'S AMAZING
FIGURES ON GERMAN IMPORTS--FURTHER STARTLING STATISTICS--BRITISH
THE GREATEST MUDDLERS ON EARTH--NOBLE SERVICE
BY AUSTRALIAN PREMIER, W. H. HUGHES--HOLLOW SHAM OF
THE DANISH AGREEMENT AND THE NETHERLANDS OVERSEAS TRUST--BLOCKADE
MINISTER, LORD ROBERT CECIL, AND HIS FEEBLE,
FUTILE EFFORTS--MORE STATISTICS--THE TRIUMVIRATE--ASQUITH
THE UNREADY, SIR EDWARD GREY THE IRRESOLUTE,
AND LORD HALDANE THE FRIEND OF THE KAISER--DAVID LLOYD
GEORGE THE SAVIOUR OF THE SITUATION--HOW HE PROVED HIMSELF
A MAN--A NEGLECTED OPPORTUNITY 264
L'ENVOI 317
FOREWORD
There is something so mysterious and thrilling about Secret Service that
the subject must inevitably appeal to the public, and especially to the
more imaginative section of it. Secret Service is the theme of Mr.
Nicholas Everitt's book, in which he describes the exciting adventures
that he met with whilst in quest of information of use to his country
during the Great War.
In carrying out his task he proved himself to be a keen observer and a
man of resource. His experience gives point to the old saying that a
man's ability is shewn less in never getting into a scrape, for _humanum
est errare_, than in knowing how to get out of one! There is perhaps no
vocation in which it is easier to get into a tight corner and more
difficult to get out again than in the Secret Service, where the sword
of Damocles often hangs over one's head.
Besides giving an account of his adventures, Mr. Everitt devotes no
small part of his work to criticism of the Foreign Office and its
overseas branches--the Diplomatic and Consular Services. He draws
attention to what he conceives to be their defects and suggests how they
might be remedied.
While not concurring with everything said by the Author in regard to
politics and politicians, I am sufficiently in agreement with the main
features of his book to recommend it to the British Public, because I
believe that publicity is the most potent instrument of Reform.
NORTHCLIFFE.
_February, 1920._
INTRODUCTION
This book is not published with the sole idea of increment to its
builder; it presumes to venture beyond.
When old machinery is continued in use year after year with no thought
for wear and tear, no effort to repair defective parts, and no attempt
to modernise or keep pace with the times, a smash usually follows.
The British Consular Service is a concrete example of such short-sighted
folly. It is so glaringly defective in its all-British efficiency that a
thorough and complete overhaul, with drastic reforms, should be put in
hand without further delay.
The British Diplomatic Service is little better. Its highest positions
are filled by men appointed (in many instances) by influence and not by
merit.
The exaggerated dignity, arrogance, and egotistical self-importance of
some ministers abroad is such that the mere mention of trade sets their
teeth on edge, the name of money is too vulgar for their personal
contemplation; while if any matter arises in which their authority or
actions are questioned they tender their resignations like sulky,
petulant children spoilt beyond measure by misguided parents.
Attached to each Chancellery abroad should be a business or commercial
expert, paid a fair and reasonable salary, who should make a study of
British trade interests and who should control the whole consular
service in the country to which he is attached. He should make it his
special business to see that every consul is a born Englishman and that
each is paid a salary commensurate with his position and duties.
Secret Service (if it is to be continued) should be a fully authorised
and recognised department having a real business minister at its head
with absolute control of its organisation, work, and finances. Service
men would naturally be appointed for each separate service department,
whilst civilians should be utilised in useful spheres. Such a
reorganisation would do much to stop the friction which arises when
military, naval, air-service, and other interests overlap, clash, or are
required to work in double harness. The pitiable jealousies with which
Whitehall is saturated have to be seen to be believed. Among the rank
and file this canker-worm has no existence. The affection of one arm of
the service for another is overwhelming, but the higher one investigates
upward in rank and officialdom, the more deep-seated are the roots of
the pernicious evil found to be.
At home our politicians have ever been much too interfering. Our
Government has for all too long been overridden by a multitude of
lawyers who have pushed aside the more efficient business man, while
they interfere with, and attempt to control, colossal matters which they
do not and could not properly be expected to understand, and which ought
to have been left entirely to experts whose lives had been devoted to
the attainment of efficiency therein.
That the Navy should have been deliberately prevented from making our
so-called blockade really effective throughout the war is as
unjustifiable as it has been exasperating to the British Public, whilst
it has been detrimental to the interests of the Empire. More than half
the nation believe that had this matter been treated with a firm,
courageous hand, the war would have been over in eighteen months at
least. Almost the entire nation believed that the war would continue to
drag its disastrous weary course until the Blockade was made really
effective.
Part of this book is devoted to this most important issue.
The public of the whole world believe we have a thoroughly active and
efficient Home Secret Service Organisation, working as a separate
independent unit. That is just what we ought to have had and for which
there has ever been an urgent want. This omission is a defect in our
armour which has been directly responsible for the undoubted loss of
valuable lives and the destruction of vast property.
Much too much is left in the hands of the police. It is true our British
Police Force is the best, the most efficient, and the least corrupt in
the whole world. But it is not fair to place upon it more than it can
properly attend to; whilst in any event its powers should be enlarged
and a more elastic discretion extended. In comparison with the police of
other nations, words quite fail the author with which to express his
admiration for our noble and exemplary police administration. Yet its
work could be made more effective if we had a separate and properly
organised Home Secret Service branch, working conjointly with the
police, which could at a moment's notice send down its agents, drawn
from any station in society, with full powers to act and to commandeer
all and every assistance that occasion might require.
Take a simple example in order that the matter may be the better
understood. It is admitted that for many years our East Coast had been
overrun with spies. There are places where two or more counties meet. A
member of the police force for one county has no power, authority, or
discretion enabling him to enter into and to act in another. Thus he
cannot follow a suspect over the county border. In 1916 a certain
female, whose cleverness was only equalled by her personal charms and
powers of fascination, started a tour of our great camps along the
Eastern seaboard. Her movements were reported by non-authorised
observers. Such a case was obviously one requiring delicate
investigation. Owing to lack of the necessary department under notice,
the case automatically devolved into the hands of the police. Our lady
fair is watched and followed. It matters not to her; she can gaily slip
over the county-border by automobile. Long reports have to be made out
and passed through slow and devious channels before the police in the
next county can act. By the time this becomes operative, the elusive one
has returned to the county she left, or she has entered another one--an
evolution which could happen several times in a very short period and
much mischief be done under the nose of authorities absolutely powerless
to act--until too late. It is not difficult to imagine how a home Secret
Service agent, with a private motor-car, would handle such a case; more
particularly when working in conjunction and perfect harmony with the
police generally.
Take another case.
On April 13th, 1916, the author wrote to Whitehall as follows:
"In a certain Naval Base of considerable importance on the East
Coast in the autumn of 1914, a complete plant of wireless
installation was discovered in the private house of an English
merchant who was known to have business connections abroad, which
plant was forthwith removed.
Some months after, a second visit was paid to the same premises and
further parts of wireless telegraphy were found and taken away, and
an assurance was given that everything in any way connected with
wireless had been handed over.
In the month of March, 1916, the premises were once more visited
and another complete plant was found to have been installed, which
was immediately removed.
In April, 1916, a fourth surprise visit was made upon the same
premises, when a very ingenious and complete portable wireless
plant was discovered.
My information records that the latter of these respective plants
controlled a radius of only about twenty miles, that they were in
perfect order and that they had been repeatedly used.
The man and the occupiers of this house are said to be still at
large! These facts have given me much food for reflection.
"Yours, etc."
The Powers-that-be took a _whole week to consider_ this report, the
result of private enterprise; then they suggested a meeting with the
author at any convenient time, for which they added there need be _no
hurry whatsoever_.
Meanwhile on Monday, April 24th, 1916, the manipulator of these terribly
dangerous and unlawful instruments arrived at another naval
base--Lowestoft--_on the eve of its bombardment_ by the German Fleet,
_actually staying at the Royal Hotel, which overlooks the whole
sea-front_ and which was occupied by most of the officers in command of
the base.
Private agitation alone seemed to account for this gentleman's eventual
removal from the East Coast; but it took an unpardonably long time in
its successful accomplishment.
Another ridiculous muddle, which was undoubtedly dangerous to the
welfare of the nation, was the Petrol Fiasco.
Such people as rag-and-bone merchants of possible alien extraction were
permitted petrol in such quantities that they could dispose of it at
good profit, whereas the police, even those in control of big and
important areas, with enormous added responsibilities piled upon their
too willing shoulders, were actually cut down to unworkable limits (one
tin per week, equal to about forty miles)--not enough to cover a journey
of consequence. Furthermore the author was informed by the Head of our
then Secret Service that "he himself was quite unable to move in the
matter." His supply appeared to have been insanely limited.
No one ever doubted but that we should successfully pull through the
war, or that our heroic, unconquerable and magnificent Active Service
man would prove victorious in spite of all the mistakes, the clogs on
the wheels, and the disastrous blundering of interfering
politicians--those Grand Old Muddlers who so persistently blocked their
ears to the motto, "It is never too late to mend," and who so
obstinately declined to "get a move on" until positively spurred into
seemingly reluctant action by the patriotic Northcliffe Press voicing
the fierce indignation of the long suffering British nation.
I venture to predict that Lord Northcliffe will go down in history as
the one man amongst men who has done most towards the winning of the war
and the safeguarding of the future welfare of our beloved British
Empire.
Regarding the chapters in this book which recount actual experiences of
Secret Service work, I can assure my readers that nothing has been
divulged which touches even the fringe of the important secrets that
every Secret Service agent would proudly guard with his life. Those
things are sacred and would never be intentionally divulged. On the
other hand the records of adventure are not mere efforts at fiction.
They are actual experiences, faintly tinted, maybe, in _couleur de rose_
to raise bald facts into readable narrative. They are also scenes which
are enacted every day on the stage of Life's Theatre, often much nearer
to the circle in which the reader moves than he or she may realise,
imagine, or dream about. They are given in order the better to excite
interest, to exemplify the work which has to be done, and which in the
future may still require attention.
Needless to add that a book of this description has not been permitted
to go to press without difficulties. Much more has been left unsaid than
is said. Much has of necessity been omitted, not only for the sake of
the maintenance of the glory of one's own beloved land, but also for the
sake of the personal future safety and well-being of others besides
oneself.
Some of the readers of the MS., through whose hands it had to pass
before publication, have commented upon the political amalgam which has
been introduced into the book as not being strictly within the scope of
its title. If any apology is due under this head the author can only
plead justification by reason of his deep and earnest desire for reform
both abroad and at home. In his humble opinion the evils that he exposes
or hints at could not have been brought home to his readers had he
confined himself entirely to the perhaps more interesting narrative of
individual adventure.
So far as the statistics given regarding the blockade leakages are
concerned, he feels they are important enough to carry historical
interest, and should therefore be collated and put on permanent record.
Secret Service agents devoted much time and attention to these details,
and our then Government was or should have been fully alive to the fact
that the so-called blockade was only a ridiculous sham, long before the
_Daily Mail_ campaign opened. Why our Government made no effort to
checkmate, stop, or divert these extraordinary supplies going direct
into the enemy country, is left to the judgment of my readers.
Twice, between Christmas 1914, and Midsummer 1915, I entered German
territory from Denmark and from the sea. After my second visit I was
warned that a head-hunter was looking diligently for me in the hope of
securing a reward which the Germans had secretly offered. This
enterprising individual I sought out, and for a day and a half helped
him with another in the hunt for myself, arguing in my own mind that it
was my safest occupation at that particular time and in that particular
locality. During this short partnership a quarrel ensued regarding the
division of the spoils before they were secured, when I learned that the
sum at first offered had been 10,000 marks but it had then recently been
increased to 25,000. Some compensation remains to me in being able to
look back at this attention on the part of the Hun as a compliment of
some value to my personal activities.
In the spring of 1916, during our military operations in Belgium, a deep
and crafty Alsatian of violent disposition, and of German descent, was
captured by our Tommies, and to save his own skin admitted he had been
employed in the German Foreign Secret Service since the outbreak of war.
Much valuable information was thus obtained; by way of test evidence he
stated that _inter alia_ he had been ordered to endeavour to hold my
trail (I was known to him) during my Baltic wanderings in the late
autumn of 1914; and that although he had persisted in various disguises
he had been led a terrible dance and had been compelled to abandon the
task as hopeless. I was able to corroborate this.
Anyone who has lived a strenuous life of many ups and downs must at
times have rubbed shoulders with celebrities. In later years these
personal reminiscences invariably provide reflections of more than
passing interest.
The author has, from his teens upwards, been swayed with an insatiable
lust for travelling in foreign lands. During these peregrinations his
experiences have been somewhat unique, his adventures many. An
instinctive inquisitiveness has more than once caused his arrest for
trespassing in private places of national importance; whilst
cosmopolitan habits, imbibed from bohemian associations, may have tended
to mould a character adapted for the special work now under
consideration.
Owing to a fortunate, or unfortunate, lapse of good manners he was on
one occasion--a good many years ago--given ample opportunity to survey
at close quarters the Kaiser, his Empress the Kaiserin, little Willie,
and the then entire German royal family, from the confines of a
guard-room in the grounds of their Imperial Schloss at Potsdam.
The same year Lord Roberts, with General Wood of the U.S.A. Army,
personally escorted him round the most interesting sights of Dresden.
The very next day he was arrested in Bohemia for want of a passport.
In 1895 he accompanied Dr. Leyds, then head of the South African Secret
Service, when he was on his way to Berlin to interview the Kaiser on a
mission of most serious menace to Great Britain on behalf of his master
Oom Paul Kruger; although the author was unaware at the time of the
importance of that mission. Cecil Rhodes he knew as a visitor to his
father's house. Dr. Jamieson he has sported with; Dr. Fridjof Nansen is
no stranger to him; whilst he crossed the North Sea when the submarine
season was in full swing with Ronald Amundsen, that most interesting
discoverer of the South Pole. He was within a stone's-throw of Dr. Sun
Yat Sen, in the province of Kiang So, when the northern Chinese Army of
Yuan Shi Kai surrounded and so nearly captured him during the rebellion
of 1918, on the eve of his escape to Japan. Under the Great Wall of
China on the southern limits of the Gobi desert he was within an ace of
being captured by the notorious renegade "White Wolf"; whilst part of
the band of another equally celebrated bandit, Raisuli, gave him cold
shudders down the spine in 1896, despite the scorching heats of the
Sahara. He has been an unwilling listener to treason from the lips of
one or other of the much-wanted Hardyal or Gardit Singh, who, on the
western foothills of the Rocky Mountains prophesied that Germany would
declare war in the autumn of 1914; whilst in direct contrast to these
unenviable experiences he has been the recipient of hospitality and of
sport as the guest of Royalty; although the enforced formalities
attendant upon such experiences tend to destroy the charm which may be
believed to surround the honour.
Variety has been provided by being brought in contact with Nihilists in
Russia and Siberia; with anarchists in France and Spain; as a trembling
defendant in a stump-head court-martial by backwoodsmen in Western
America, where justice is administered with lightning-like rapidity, and
fatal mistakes often result through misidentification, as was so nearly
the case in his own particularly uncomfortable experience as the unlucky
chief actor in a "hold up" on the trail in British Columbia; and more
than once he has been lost in the untrodden wilds of vast forests. But
these experiences of the ups and downs of life pale and sink into
insignificance when compared with the vortex of the rapid, rushing,
kaleidoscopic changes, the hair-breadth escapes, the blood-curdling
thrills, the risks, the dangers and excitements, which at times are part
and parcel of the life of a Secret Service agent.
Secret Service, Intelligence, Reconnaissance, Investigation Strategical
or Military Agent--use any name you will--the work of each merely
resolves itself for the time being into "the antennæ, or the senses of
fighting units"; the seeing, the hearing, the smelling, or the touching
of a fleet or an army; of what is before, behind, surrounding, or in its
midst. Without its aid few battles could be won and no ultimate victory
anticipated.
Military and naval officers endowed with sufficient intelligence,
brains, and philological ability are, as a rule, very keen to devote
some part of their career to foreign Secret Service. It is believed,
with some certitude, to be the surest step to early promotion; to pave
the way to future advancement. Amongst those who have risen from such a
foundation and who have proved their worth to the British Empire may be
mentioned the late Lord Kitchener, who in Egypt, under various
disguises, penetrated far into the interior. Colonel Burnaby, Lord
Roberts, Sir Richard Burton and hundreds of other distinguished and
prominent men may be included in the category; whilst Lt.-General Sir R.
Baden-Powell eulogises this branch of the service in a book entitled "My
Adventures as a Spy." He writes: "It is an undisputable fact that our
Secret Service has at all times been recruited from men of unblemished
personal honour who would not descend to any act which in their view was
tainted with meanness."
No sane, thinking man would condemn Secret Service agents as following a
dishonourable calling. If it were so, then it would be equally--if not
more--dishonourable to employ, to guide, and to direct them. Yet all
commanders of all nations employ them and have done so from time
immemorial; and if any nation failed to do so it might as well--as Lord
Wolseley said--"sheath its sword for ever."
To quote a few well-known names at random, Catinat investigated in the
disguise of a coalheaver; Montlue as a cook; Ashby visited the Federal
line in the American Civil War as a horse-doctor; whilst General
Nathaniel Lyon visited the Confederate camp at St. Louis in disguise
before he attacked and captured it. In 1821, George III. granted a
pension to the mother of Major André, who, whilst acting as aide-de-camp
to General Clinton, was condemned as an English Secret Service agent; he
further gave a baronetcy to his brother; whilst the remains of the hero
were exhumed, brought from America to England, and buried in
Westminster Abbey.
The Japanese, one of the proudest nations in the world, whose code of
honour is stricter even than our own, accord the highest honours to
military or naval intelligence officers, whose bravery and understanding
they fully recognise; although they never fail to shoot one whenever and
wherever he may be caught acting against them.
It is sometimes puzzling to understand what is the real motive which
prompts our military and naval officers to seek so persistently to
become enrolled in the Secret Service Department. Is it solely the
desire to further their chances of advancement, or is it the bold
adventuresome activity of the service, the innate longing to take all
risks and to bring back personally the information so essential to the
successful conduct of war; or is it the feeling and knowledge that only
a brave man is ready to go out alone, unobserved and unapplauded, to
risk his life for his country's sake? For let it not be forgotten that
to accept an appointment under the Foreign Secret Service in war time is
no feather-bed occupation. The smallest slip, the slightest
indiscretion, and one's doom is sealed. Only a man to whom life was as
nothing if risking it would help his country, would dare to undertake
such perilous work. It is indeed the finest and most thrilling
recuperative tonic in the world for anyone weary of life's monotonies.
It commands the highest courage, the clearest understanding, the
greatest ability and cleverness, never-flagging persistence, and an
ever-prevailing optimism. Yet such men and women as these who have
striven, laboured, fought alone, and won through against inconceivable
difficulties and immense odds, possibly to the permanent ruin of their
health or financial status, are, although it seems inconceivable to
believe, more often than not overlooked and passed aside by the nation;
unobservantly pushed into the cold burial vaults of ungrateful
forgetfulness!--the fate, alas! of many an active Secret Service agent,
no matter how patriotically loyal, how brave, or how successful he may
have been. Such men neither seek nor expect to be bedecked with
baubles, or awarded shekels, so coveted by those who stay at home. They
know the hollowness which quickly fades or is lost in the vortex of
political upheaval or changing dynasty. They rest content in the
knowledge that they have well and truly served their country, that they
have lived in the full realism of existence; whilst they are happy in
their memories.
One crowded hour of glorious life
Is worth an age without a name.
NICHOLAS EVERITT.
British Secret Service during the Great War
CHAPTER I
WAR AND THE INTRODUCING OF JIM
THE PROSPERITY OF 1914--AN OMINOUS CALM--MULTITUDE OF GERMAN
SPIES--HOW ENGLAND WAS UNDERMINED--SHORTSIGHTEDNESS OF OUR LIBERAL
GOVERNMENT--SECRET KNOWLEDGE OF PROMINENT MEN--SIR EDWARD GOSCHEN'S
HISTORICAL DESPATCH--RUSH TO THE COLOURS--OUR
UNPREPAREDNESS--INTRODUCING JIM--PATRIOTS FROM AFAR--F. C. SELOUS'
ROUGHRIDERS--INITIATION INTO THE FOREIGN SECRET SERVICE--ADVISORY
TESTAMENTARY DISPOSITIONS.
The year 1914 opened auspiciously. Future prospects looked brilliant. In
the past there had been depression owing to political extravagances, but
everything pointed to a change in the minds of the people; to an
awakening, to future betterment. Money was plentiful and cheap. Labour
was an active market with plenty of it. Good business seemed to be in
the air. All around there appeared to be a general cheerfulness. Then
came the lull before the storm. An ominous calm, a dull, dead,
mysterious cloud of invisible, inexplicable, unintelligible danger
threatened. No one could penetrate it; no one could fathom what it was;
but everyone felt instinctively that something great and terrible was
going to happen.
The stock markets sagged and fell away in a most extraordinary fashion,
no matter how the Bulls or surrounding circumstances supported them.
Buyers of properties suddenly stayed their hands. Speculators by natural
impulse held aloof. Rumours began to circulate, strange stories passed
from mouth to mouth which none believed, but which left an impression of
gloom and impending disaster behind them.
The man in the street, the one and only true barometer of England's
real feelings, showed an uneasy restlessness which could not be
interpreted.
The multitude of German spies, who swarmed like locusts throughout the
British Isles, assured themselves that the seditious seeds they had been
sowing so energetically during the past years in the receptive and
nourishing soil of Radicalism and Socialism, plenteously manured by
liberal administrations from the vast financial resources at their
disposal, were at last bearing a rich harvest of rare and refreshing
fruit. They assured themselves that revolution would devastate Ireland,
perhaps part of England, Wales, and Scotland as well. The Unions of the
working classes they knew had been nurtured by their fond attentions
until they had grown to mighty proportions. Working men of German blood
or of strong Teutonic tendencies had agitated amongst the masses again
and yet again, for "less time, more pay, and greater and more extended
privileges." German Secret Service money had provided the sinews of an
underground labour war. Countless thousands of honest, hard-working
British labourers neither knew of, nor recognised, nor even suspected,
the traitorous hand which so gently stroked them down the back whilst
their ears were being tickled with persuasive suggestions and
argumentative reasoning, prompting a greater dissatisfaction the more
they were pandered to, and petted, and spoilt, and bribed by the Liberal
Government who were the men in power over them. It must not be forgotten
that for some years previous to 1914 prominent members of the Government
of the day had been roundly rated in the Press for encouraging and
expressing pro-German sentiments and inclinations; whilst the Government
itself had been accused of shattering the Constitution of the United
Kingdom, of muzzling the House of Lords, of trampling on the rights of
Democracy, of humiliating the Crown, and of robbing the Church of
England.
Whether there was truth in these accusations the historian will record,
but that civil war was a seriously threatened danger there can be no
doubt; whilst the proverbial slackness of our phlegmatic British nature
is such that Englishmen permitted much to transpire which no other
nation in the world would have tolerated. Mr. W. M. Hughes, the
Australian Prime Minister, speaking in the London Stock Exchange on
March 20th, 1916, more eloquently describes us: "A people slow to anger,
unsuspicious of guile in others, foolishly generous in throwing open
their land to the world, offering sanctuary to all, even to those who
proposed first to exploit and then betray them, before we as a nation
awoke to the peril."
It was only too well known to certain members of Scotland Yard, probably
others as well, that German Secret Service agents had reported to their
respective headquarters, that "the English Radical Government would
never dare to intervene in a war waged by Germany." They knew, or rather
thought they knew, that England was utterly unprepared for a war of any
magnitude; that for years military and naval estimates had been cut down
rather than added to, which was substantiated by a collection of
innumerable press cuttings showing the violent public agitation in
consequence; that the Government did not believe a great European war
could be possible within the next fifty years; that the United Kingdom
was on the verge of revolution over Ulster's dissent from Home Rule;
that the Labour Unions had grown so vast, so all-embracing and so
powerful that they could and would paralyse the Government's action if
by any possible chance it did decide on intervening; that Egypt, India,
and South Africa were ripe for revolt and only too anxious for an
opportunity to shake off British rule; that Australia, New Zealand, and
Canada were anxious to declare their respective independence; in fact
that the whole British Empire beyond the seas was itching for
disintegration, if only "The Day" would dawn giving half a chance of
striking a blow for freedom and exemption from control of the hated
British yoke; and that the welding together of all these
(believed-to-be) irreconcilable nations and peoples in a common battle
cause was an unthinkable impossibility.
It was common knowledge to the Secret Service agents of all nations
that the Liberal-Radical Government of the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland was tottering to a fall. Its popularity with the
masses had waned; its hypocrisy with the middle classes had become a
byword; its disloyalty to the Empire with the upper classes had become
revolting; its days had become numbered. The German War party saw this
and realised the fact better than the English. It knew that it was of
vital importance to its world-power dream to make war only when a
Liberal, Radical, and Socialist party was in office in England; it would
be courting disaster to do so if a Unionist Government were in power.
Yea, verily, the Kaiser believed that the harvest of his sowing was
ready for the garnering.
All these things were reported in gloating glee by the army of Teutonic
spies in our midst to their respective headquarters, thence conveyed to
their Central Office at Berlin with an openness that might have seemed
an insult to the intelligence of Scotland Yard and those who direct and
control that very effective and efficient department; only our astute
police service happened to be much more wide awake than it appeared to
be.
The man in power, the one and only being who really knew the truth of
what was actually happening over and beyond the horizon of our ken,
maintained an impassive silence. His motto throughout was and had been
"Wait and See."
The ruler of the waves, the noble and illustrious British Bull-dog, Lord
Fisher, knew and had known. He had never failed his countrymen. He
pushed along all and every preparation for the evil day, which a weak
and Peace-at-any-price Government had permitted.
The illustrious martial Warrior of previous wars, whose life and loved
ones had been sacrificed upon the altar of patriotism and loyalty, knew.
He had never failed to lift his voice in warning, both inside and
outside Parliament, since he returned from the South African War,
imploring support, reformation, and more attention to the Army; pleading
conscription amongst the youthful masses; working so unselfishly, so
energetically and so devotedly, and in feverish anxiety for the
protection and welfare of the Motherland and our Empire, right up to the
day of his glorious death within sound of the German guns. A fitting
dirge for so beloved and valiant a Hero.
The man of Foreign Affairs, the man who gained for himself the utmost
honour, respect, esteem, and gratitude from all the world, by reason of
his unflagging and unceasing efforts to keep and maintain the peace of
Europe, he also knew. To the very last hour, yea, even far beyond it, he
worked on, hoping against hope that such a terrible calamity as
threatened to paralyse the nations of the earth for centuries to come
might yet be averted. Noble man, working for a noble cause! History will
record your efforts, but no pen can adequately record your meritorious
deserts. Oh! the pity of it that you, a true genius in the arts of peace
and of peaceful diplomacies, did not retire at the outbreak of war in
favour of some more martial, bellicose, and iron-fisted statesman,
instead of clinging to office during the awful years that followed, when
our enemy not only torpedoed all the laws of nations, but outraged every
decent feeling of humanity. Your honourable and gentlemanly nature made
it impossible for you to realise, to understand, or to compete with
these barbaric and inhuman practices.
The man in opposition, whose duty it is to criticise and restrain the
hotheadedness of Governmental action, although he is not admitted to
share the secrets of the Cabinet, he knew. His instinct told him what
was looming behind the electrically charged atmosphere, and he at once
showed that he was a true-born Britisher first and foremost before he
was a politician.
The man of marvellous organisation abilities, who had been more than
once conveniently removed far afield from English politics in order to
straighten out our tangled skeins in the East, because such efficient
capables as himself, Lord Fisher, Lord Roberts and others did not suit
the party system of our modern Democratic Government, also knew. But
that man of action without words had to sit and look on, whilst the
late friend of the Kaiser was kept in office until the unmistakable
voice of the people arose in ugly anger to demand the change. Alas, that
your precious life should have been sacrificed by treachery which ought
to have been checkmated.
The man of mystery, who, although not admitted as a member of the ship
of state, clung limpet-like to its bottom and maintained an existence
thereon, he knew; perhaps first of all. His knowledge was but a
materialisation of reports foreshadowing such an event which had floated
to him in crescendo numbers. His office was one of semi-independence. He
could act with promptness and decision. He did, so far as he was
permitted to go.
War was in the air. This seemed to be conceived but not to be realised.
The very idea was too terrible to be true. A portentous omen had been
uttered by a great Silesian nobleman, Count von Oppersdorff, only a few
hours before it was publicly known that England would declare war
against Germany if the neutrality of Belgium was violated.
He had inquired from Mr. F. W. Wile, an Anglo-American journalist in
Berlin, if such a contingency could be possible. On being answered in
the affirmative, he muttered with great seriousness, "There will be many
surprises."
The real and concise reason which forced England to join in the war is
recorded in the now famous despatch of Sir Edward Goschen, the British
Ambassador at Berlin, to Sir Edward Grey, the British Minister for
Foreign Affairs. It runs as follows:
August 4, 1914: "I found the Chancellor very agitated. His
Excellency at once began an harangue which lasted for twenty
minutes. He said that the step taken by His Majesty's Government
(the ultimatum of war) was terrible to a degree; just for a
word--'Neutrality,' a word which in war time had so often been
disregarded--just for a _scrap of paper_ Great Britain was going to
make war on a kindred nation. I said that, in the same way as he
and Herr von Jagow (the German Secretary of State) wished me to
understand that for strategical reasons it was a matter of life and
death to Germany to advance through Belgium and violate the
latter's neutrality, so I would wish him to understand that it was,
so to speak, a matter of 'life and death' for the honour of Great
Britain that she should keep her solemn engagement to do her utmost
to defend Belgium's neutrality if attacked."
It was on the 5th of August, 1914, that the British nation was called to
arms. It awoke, suddenly, startled as from some horrible nightmare. It
was shaken and stirred in a manner unprecedented in its history from the
day it had thrown off allegiance to Rome. Without hesitation or delay
every patriotic Britisher having no binding ties to hold him, in company
with many tens of thousands who had, rushed to seek out recruiting
officers or sergeants in order that their services might be proffered in
the service of their country. So great and clamorous were the crowds in
the big cities that the police had much ado to preserve and maintain
order.
The Government was not prepared for anything like it. It had made no
provision in equipment or supplies to cope with the stream of men so
eager to join the colours. Long before arrangements could be made to
enrol the first batches of recruits, men from all parts of our empire
beyond the seas began to arrive in the Mother Country, all keen,
enthusiastic and eager for the fray.
The authorities had their hands more than full and were compelled to
refuse thousands, including in some instances, it is said, fully
equipped companies of Colonial recruits. Yet posters and stimulating
advertisements, appealing for volunteers, continued to be spread
broadcast throughout the land, and, as the men rolled up in increasing
numbers, confusion became worse confounded. Many went to France in order
to join up there; others returned to their homes disgusted and sick at
heart by the manner in which they had been treated.
Was the Government to blame for this? It had expressed blind faith in
Germany and the peaceful sentiments she was alleged to have expressed.
Had not Lord Haldane hobnobbed with the Kaiser, and had he not related
to Parliament what a good fellow the German Emperor really was, and how
friendly he meant to be to England? Labour members of Parliament had
been to Germany, where they also had been hoodwinked and deceived. Had
not the Cabinet argued so strenuously that a European war was
unthinkable and impossible for the next century at least, until it
seemed to believe it was actually true? _Hence no preparations for such
a disastrous calamity had been anticipated, thought out, or provided
for._
"The Day" had dawned.
War with Germany had been declared. Every Britisher, worthy of the name,
was individually asking himself, in his heart of hearts or in public,
how he best could be of service to his country, to the Empire, and to
his King.
In the days to come, when children and children's children will seek by
interrogation enlightenment from their forebears as to the part or parts
they respectively took in the greatest war the world has ever known,
what terrible shame and misgivings will assail the craven, palsied soul
of the shirker!
To England's everlasting glory such have been very, very few, and very
far between.
* * * * *
I apologise for the necessity of having to introduce myself, because, as
the author, I must also figure prominently in these pages. I am a
Bohemian by nature, a Sportsman by instinct, and a Lawyer by training.
Hail, fellow, well met! I believe in the old Scotch proverb, "Better a
fremit freend than a freend fremit."
Acquaintances and correspondents I have endeavoured to cultivate in
every country I have been in, whilst as a traveller, an author, and a
sportsman I believe I am widely known.
At the same time I must confess to being a man of moods, and like most
other light-hearted, happy-go-lucky individuals, who seem to be bubbling
over with an exuberance of animal spirits, there are times when
depression holds down my soul in a hell of its own making. That I never
understood myself may explain why so few really ever properly understand
me. I am said to be resourceful, ingenious, and so optimistic that I
extricate myself from difficulties under which many other people might
have capitulated as too overwhelmingly crushing to attempt to resist. My
great trouble has been that my restless, rolling-stone disposition makes
it intensely distasteful and difficult for me to anchor down for any
length of time in any one particular place. Ever and anon there comes to
me a call from the wild, a mysterious and irresistible whisper which a
true son of nature cannot hope to fight against; an imperative summons
from the vastnesses of unknown seas, from deep and pathless forests,
from the virgin snows of mountain peaks. Wanderlust has saturated my
system, yea, to the very marrow in my bones. It has lured me on, and in
obedience to periodical promptings I have travelled the world around and
experienced adventure, sport, and fighting in many a foreign land.
Early in 1913-14 I volunteered in the threatened Irish upheavals, with
countless thousands of others of my countrymen who felt so strongly the
injustice of that matter. When a better and more meritorious chance of
"scrapping" presented itself, I was one of the first to offer my
services, which were promptly declined, solely because I was over the
age limit. Not satisfied with one effort, I made others in various
quarters and in various capacities, but all in vain.
It was no consolation to learn later that someone else, an expert
engineer, had travelled 7,000 miles, from Hyderabad in India,[1] to help
in munition-making, only to be refused a job on arrival in this country;
nor that a Tasmanian,[2] with seventeen years' service in the Department
of Agriculture in Tasmania, carrying the highest credentials and having
obtained six months' leave in order to travel 13,000 miles to the Mother
Country to volunteer his gratuitous expert services to our Board of
Agriculture, had likewise butted his head against vain hopes of helping
to forward encouragement of more home-growing food for the nation.
In the early stages there was a vast army of rejected would-be helpers
turned down ignominiously and left to kick their heels in fretful
idleness. What a wicked waste of time and good material!
I begin to believe that my American associations have made me a bit of a
hustler. Anyway, I approached the celebrated Shikar of many trails, the
famed big game hunter, the late Mr. F. C. Selous.[3] I wrote to him
suggesting that a corps of Big Game Hunters should be mustered, to
consist only of men who had had at least three years' experience of that
exciting and dangerous sport; that each man should provide and
personally pay for the whole of his individual equipment, including
horse, rifle, uniform, and appendages; that Mr. Selous should take
command and then offer the services of the corps to the War Office.
Mr. Selous grasped the idea and agreed that a body of quite 500 could
probably be raised. He communicated his willingness to take the whole
work of raising the troop, but the War Office was neither encouraging to
the proposal, nor willing to accept the services of such a body of men
when ready to serve. Sorrowful was the tone of the letter from Mr.
Selous conveying this news to me, its very much disappointed recipient.
He added in the P.S. that he had a friend in command of an infantry
regiment who expected soon to be ordered to France, and he had extracted
a promise from him to take him along in some capacity or another, in
spite of the fact that he was over sixty years of age; and he advised me
to look out for a similar loophole through which I might hope to crawl
into the catacombs of Yprès and the Meuse, with or without the knowledge
or sanction of the Red Tape artists at Whitehall.
About this period many amateur spy hunters were actively on the
war-path, and it was suggested to me by friends of high standing in the
sporting world that my connection with Northern Europe and my varied
experience at home and abroad might be acceptable to the Secret Service;
furthermore it was pretty plainly hinted to me that if I wrote a
personal letter to Sir Edward Grey it would not be ignored.
Not a moment was allowed to elapse after this. On October 16th, 1914, I
wrote, setting out my believed qualifications in concise terms, adding
that my age had unfortunately precluded my eagerly proffered services
from acceptance in other spheres; that I was keen and eager to be of
service to my country; and that I was eating my heart out through
inactivity. If there was a chance of my being any use, I prayed that my
services might be commanded.
I had been cautioned with impressive seriousness that if my services
were accepted it might be only for enrolment in the "Forlorn Hope
Brigade" and that my chances of survival might be very remote indeed.
Rather than damping my ardour, this warning merely added fuel to the
flames of my desires. In early life I had been most bitterly
disappointed. A somewhat sensitive nature had received a shock from
which it never properly recovered. With the fatuity of early youth I had
placed a whole family upon an idealistic pedestal--including a mere
child of thirteen years of age. When that theoristic fabric fell,
shattered to a million invisible fragments, at my feet, I could not
understand, but I felt for years afterwards that life for me held
nothing of worth.
Time heals wounds, and I survived in bodily health. In 1912 I lost a
man's best friend on earth--my mother. At Christmas, 1913, my father, my
dearest pal, followed her to the grave. I was unmarried. My brother and
my sisters had homes of their own, far away. What mattered it to anyone,
least of all to myself, if I crossed the Great Divide before my allotted
time? I was at best a mere worthless atom of humanity dependent upon no
one, with no one dependent upon me.
Here at least was a chance of doing something worth the while. 'Twas a
far, far better thing to do than I had ever done.
Yea, indeed. I was ready, and willing, and eager, for the service,
whatsoever that service might be, and withersoever it might take me,
even to the jaws of death itself.
Having regard to all the circumstances, I do not believe I shall be
accused of presumptuousness or of egotism if I say that I fully believed
myself to be a fit and qualified person for the service for which I then
had volunteered.
On October 17th, 1914, I received a letter from the Under Permanent
Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Sir Arthur Nicholson--now Lord
Carnock), acknowledging my letter of the previous day's date and saying
Sir Edward Grey appreciated my offer, although he regretted there were
no such appointments at the disposal of his department; but he added
that my name had been noted in case my services might be utilised in any
capacity at some further date.
On October 19th, I received a letter on War Office paper referring to my
letter to Sir Edward Grey of the 16th, saying: "I should be very glad if
you would arrange to come and see me here one morning. If you will let
me know when I may expect you I shall arrange to be free." This letter
was signed "P. W. Kenny, Captain"[4] and on its left-hand top corner
specified a certain room number. I subsequently ascertained that this
gentleman (and a real gentleman in every sense of that embracive word I
found him) was the "Acting Buffer" between the Secret Service
departments for both the War Office and the Admiralty to anyone who
might attempt to approach either of these departments. It will be
remembered that his name figured in the public Press as acting in that
capacity when Admiral W. R. Hall, C.B., brilliantly defeated and
frustrated the clever schemes so carefully yet vainly laid by the then
notorious ex.-M.P. Trebitsch Lincoln, whose apparent intention and
purpose was to work the double cross against the British Empire.
I promptly answered this communication by a special journey to London,
of which I gave due notice as requested.
After passing the Police Guards at the entrance to the War Office, I
traversed a long corridor to the inquiry room, where a number of
attendants were busily engaged issuing forms to be filled up by
applicants for interviews. Of course it was impossible to escape the
inevitable form, on which I inserted the name of Captain P. W. Kenny,
his room number, my name, address, and the nature of my
business--private and confidential. It was a bit of a staggerer to hear
from the attendant that he did not know Captain Kenny, nor of him, nor
did he believe there was any officer of that name in the building.
Inquiries, however, from others of his class elicited the information
that someone had heard a name somewhat like it and if I went up to the
floor on which the room was numbered as before-mentioned, and applied to
the porter or commissionaire at the lodge up there, he might be able to
locate him for me.
After a wait of some minutes in an ante-room where were collecting a
large number of officers and others on errands of various natures, I was
sent away in charge of a boy-scout, with about ten other form-fillers,
whom he dropped at various floor lodges on the way. The system was for
each boy-scout to conduct a whole bunch of followers, who carried their
forms in their hands until the desired floors were reached, when the
boy-scout guide handed one or more of his followers to the
commissionaire in charge of the lodge on each floor sought, who in turn
sent them off again in charge of another attendant to the desired room.
I was the last one to depart from our diminutive guide. But when I got
to the lodge on the floor on which the room I was seeking was numbered,
the commissionaire in charge said he knew nothing of the officer named
on my form. After arguing the matter discreetly with him I persuaded him
to take me to the room specified on my form, which we found unoccupied,
although there were a table and chairs there, as I saw them through the
half-open door.
As the bona fides of my quest seemed to be doubted I produced the letter
I had received, when he politely escorted me to two other lodges on the
other floors; but only one of the men in charge could help me at all,
and in that he was very vague. He believed there had been an officer,
whose name he did not know, using the room so numbered or another room a
day or so ago, and he was not certain which it was; he had since changed
his room, but where he could not say. Anyway, as he expressed himself,
he was a mysterious kind of person, and what he did, or what functions
he performed, no one seemed to know. I must confess I was at a loss to
understand the position. Suddenly, however, the thought struck me that
it might be a possible stunt to test one's capabilities for a research
or investigation; so I listened with interest to the conversations of
the various commissionaires and gleaned that the gentleman I sought, if
such an individual had any business in the War Office at all, was tall,
thin, and aristocratic. The one man who described him thought he knew
whom I meant--"A horficer as spent his time a-dodging back'ards and
forrards betwixt the War Hoffice and the Hadmiralty, who never said
nothink to nobody, so one didn't know which he did belong to; one who
'ardly ever was in 'is room and one who 'ad some queer blokes come to
see 'im."
I thanked the commissionaires politely and said I would try another
floor on my own account, as once inside the building with a form in
one's hand it seemed one could wander anywhere at will and without
question.
Accordingly I at once made up my mind what to do. I went to the floor
below, to the lodge there, and I asked for Lord Kitchener. There was no
hesitation in answering that inquiry; within a few minutes I had reached
the desired portion of the building, where I asked to see his Lordship's
principal secretary. I have forgotten his name, but I was not kept
waiting for a moment. I was accorded an opportunity to explain my
mission. I showed him the letter I had summoning me to the War Office,
and told him the difficulties I had met with in attempting to locate the
elusive "Go-Between." This officer received me very graciously; he
smiled at the short description I gave him of my wanderings, and said:
"I think I can put you on the right track straight away; please follow
me," and getting up he took me to another room at the far end of the
corridor we were then in, where we interviewed another officer who also
laughed and told us that Captain Kenny had just changed his room and
would now be found in room number ---- which was on the floor above.
Having thanked these officers for their kindly services I ascended once
more, and within ten minutes from abandoning my false scent I ran my
quarry to earth and was tapping on his oak.
I explained the difficulty I had been placed in to Captain Kenny, who
expressed some surprise. Whether he really felt it or not I do not know,
but when I showed him the room number given at the top of his letter he
admitted the recent change and made apologetic amends for the
inadvertence, adding that the attendants in charge of the inquiry bureau
below should certainly have known both his name and room number.
_Quien sabe_, thought I to myself. Anyway, I held my peace and we
proceeded to business.
For about an hour Captain Kenny questioned me regarding my knowledge of
Northern latitudes, their peoples and my linguistic capabilities. Then
he suggested in the most charming and persuasive manner that I should
remain awhile in London, like Wilkins Micawber of old, "in the hope of
something turning up."
I did so. During this period I called at the War Office at various
appointed times and on each occasion was put to further interrogation.
Captain Kenny rather reminded me of Dr. Leyds. He seemed to possess that
same pleasing persuasiveness which made one feel that one was under deep
obligation to him personally for being permitted to relieve him of the
smallest matter in hand--indeed, a valuable asset to the person
possessing such skill. Within a week of my advent in London a letter
came to me from Captain Kenny in which he wrote: "For the moment there
are no vacancies in the Intelligence Service, but if you will exercise a
little patience I really believe I shall be able to do something for
you. I shall see that your name and special qualifications are kept well
in view and I trust that we shall be able to make use of your
exceptional abilities."
This was followed about the day after by another short note from his
private address, asking me to call at the war office next day, adding:
"The delay arose through a temporary interruption of certain foreign
communications, but he was almost sure he would be able to do
something."
I lost no time in answering this letter in person and within half an
hour I was fixed for the Foreign Secret Service under the Admiralty in
the north of Europe. My remuneration, I was informed, would be rated on
the scale appertaining to a naval captain in full commission; in
addition to which I should be allowed £1 per day to cover my personal
expenses, with a further allowance up to £1 per day to cover travelling
expenses; but if I exceeded this amount I must bear the extra payments
myself. I was delighted beyond measure: I would gladly have accepted any
offer, on almost any terms, I was so keen to "do my bit" to help my
country in whatever capacity I could be thought of any use. I
subsequently found, however, that these allowances by no means covered
one's travelling expenses abroad at that time, which daily mounted
higher and higher until they assumed alarming dimensions. True it is,
there were times, when one was obscuring oneself from too observant and
inquiring persons, that one's expenses could be kept well below these
amounts, but at other times, when speed in travelling was of vital
importance, expenditure had to be a secondary consideration, and the
average daily balances vanished beyond recognition.
At this, last but one, interview with Captain Kenny he produced a large
map of Northern Germany and the Baltic. Pointing with his finger to
various parts of it he kept asking me whether I could and would go to
the places indicated, which included the outskirts of Kiel harbour.
So in order to free his mind from any doubts he may have had as to my
venturesomeness, I clinched matters by saying "If you assure me it will
in any way benefit my country, I am ready and prepared to go to Hell
itself. So why waste breath on these pleasure resorts?"
"Ah!" replied this most exceedingly polite interviewer. "That, my dear
sir, is the very answer I have been told, by a certain sporting
nobleman who recommended you, I should receive if I pressed you on this.
From what he said, and from what I have ascertained about you, I can
quite believe it. How long do you require to put your affairs in order?"
"I am ready to start at once," was the reply. I had come to London
prepared for such an emergency.
"Good! On Monday at 11 a.m. call upon me again. I shall give you a
sealed despatch to deliver at a time and place to be named, and enough
money to enable you to reach a certain town. There you will meet a
certain gentleman who will give you further instructions. You can now
apply for a passport, and I wish you every luck."
"Excuse me, sir. But you do not give me any idea of what my duties will
consist--to whom I am to report, or how? I really don't quite follow
you; unless, of course, the despatch contains more enlightenment."
"Naturally the despatch will give full instructions to the gentleman you
are to meet. He will seek you under the name of Mr. Jim. You will reply
by mentioning two other names or words which you must now commit to
memory, but not to paper. So far as your duties are concerned, _you have
the fullest discretion; remember to use discretion_. You will work
entirely on your own initiative. Henceforth you will be known to the
Service as 'Jim.' And in saying good-bye, I may as well add, if you have
not already done so, it might be advisable to seriously consider such
testamentary dispositions as you are minded to complete."
FOOTNOTES:
[1] _John Bull,_ January 29th, 1916.
[2] _Ibid._, February 12th, 1916.
[3] This gentleman subsequently died a glorious death in the service of
his country. He was shot when on active service in South Africa.
[4] The author would not have felt at liberty to mention this gentleman
by name except for the fact that his connection with the Secret Service
was made public in the Press on the Trebitsch Lincoln affair.