Picking up the Pilot
"Sorry, sir," said Fordyce. "I didn't attach any particular
importance to the fellow's request at the time. I boomed him off,
absolutely. Refused point-blank to touch his blessed diamonds."
"I am glad to hear that," said the Hon. Derek. "At the same time, it
is a regrettable matter that you did not report the affair to a
competent naval or military authority. I'll briefly outline the facts
concerning these so-called diamonds. The stuff is actually a
super-powerful explosive, a secret compound of which one ingredient
is known to be obtainable only in a few isolated districts in
Cornwall. Our Munitions Department has been attending to the matter
for months past. The analysts have discovered that the stuff--they
call it nitro-talcite--is capable of being detonated only at a
temperature below -5° C. And the strange part of it is that
nobody in the department has yet been able to compound the explosive.
All the data has been based upon the examination of a small quantity
that was seized on a vessel bound for Archangel--so Sir Josiah
Sticklewood, the Admiralty explosive expert, tells me. Who the makers
of the stuff are and how they get it out of the country has been a
mystery."
"It's fortunate that in England the temperature rarely falls to much
below freezing-point," remarked Fordyce.
"Yes, and that accounts principally for the fact that the explosive
has not been used against us at home," continued the
Lieutenant-Commander. "Russia, on the other hand, offers plenty of
opportunities in that direction. The disaster at Archangel and the
terrific explosion at Petrograd can be well attributed to the work of
Extremists or German Secret Service agents--practically the same
thing. What does surprise me is that Mindiggle went so far as to
attempt to coerce you; only, of course, he hadn't the faintest idea
that we know as much concerning nitro-talcite as we do."
"Is it too late to lay him by the heels?" asked the Sub.
"I am doubtful whether it would be advisable until we make sure of
our ground," replied the Hon. Derek. "Do you happen to remember the
address on the packet?"
"Rather!" said Fordyce emphatically. "And I jotted it down in my
pocket-book."
"Good man! Now this is what I propose doing: to make up a dummy
packet of broken glass--from all accounts broken glass is a common
object in Petrograd just at present--and deliver it at Vladimir
Klostivitch's house in the Bobbinsky Prospekt. We'll have to do the
business entirely off our own bat. It's not the faintest use taking
the Russian Government officials into our confidence at the present
juncture, for the simple reason that they don't know where they are
and we don't either. If Klostivitch is merely an agent, we don't get
much forrarder, unless he is injudiciously communicative. If he is a
principal, then we'll do our level best to lay him by the heels. It's
not the first time I've done police duty ashore."
And the Hon. Derek smiled reminiscently as he recalled a certain
incident in his naval career, when, with a mere handful of
bluejackets, he had nipped in the bud a revolution in an obscure
little republic.
Then he rose from his chair and patted the Sub on the back.
"Fordyce," he exclaimed, "I have it! You'll have to assume the
character of a red-hot revolutionist, and to introduce me to this
rascal Klostivitch as Comrade So-and-so, a sympathetic Englishman,
who, although unable to speak a word of Russian, has made his way to
Petrograd for the express purpose of congratulating Klostivitch and
his friends upon their arduous work in the interests of liberty and
equality."
"Isn't it a bit risky, sir?" asked Fordyce.
The Lieutenant-Commander raised his eyebrows in mild surprise.
"From a diplomatic point of view," continued the Sub.
"Not if we go to work in the right way," replied the Hon. Derek.
"After we've settled with Comrade Klostivitch, I'll report the
circumstances to the British Embassy--but not before. For the present
we'll let the matter drop. It is yet too early to go into details."
In due course R19 arrived off the Gulf of Riga. During the run across
the Baltic she had studiously avoided craft of every description,
although she had several chances of successfully attacking small
German vessels. Stockdale let them "carry on", not from choice but of
necessity. A tremendous lot depended upon the secret arrival of a
British submarine to help the Russian navy against that of the Huns.
He acted upon the principle that a hunter stalking a lion will not
waste a shot upon a jackal, and thus prematurely alarm the main
object of his efforts.
Just before midnight R19 rose to the surface and lay motionless upon
the tranquil water. She was now within sight and sound of the guns,
for the German land force had thrown the Russians out of the
important town of Riga, while their auxiliary vessels were busily
engaged in sweeping the mine-field across the mouth of the gulf, to
enable the High Seas Fleet to find a secure anchorage before
attempting to discover and overwhelm the New Republic's Baltic Fleet.
Away to the south-eastward, and faintly discernible against the
continuous flashes of the guns, could be seen the German
mine-sweepers and their covering vessels--light cruisers and
torpedo-boats. As yet the battleships and armoured cruisers had not
left Kiel.
For an hour R19 remained motionless; then the order was given to dive
and rest on the sea bed. The reason no one on board knew except the
Hon. Derek and Lieutenant Macquare. The men could not form any
satisfactory opinion of the submarine's apparent inactivity. They
could not understand why they did not go for everything afloat that
was German, instead of "sounding" time after time.
For three successive nights R19 popped up for the space of sixty
minutes. Each time the officers carefully fixed the submarine's
position by means of cross bearings and the use of position-finders.
At midnight on the fourth consecutive night of inaction Fordyce and
the Lieutenant-Commander were on deck when they heard the subdued hum
of an aerial propeller. It lacked the well-known sound of a British
machine, nor did it make a noise like a Gotha. The two men exchanged
glances.
"That's it!" exclaimed the Hon. Derek. "Pass the word for the Very's
light."
It seemed a risky thing to do--to send up a couple of rockets from a
British craft that was lying four or five miles only from the line of
German patrol-boats--but there was no option.
A red and a green rocket blazed overhead. From the hovering sea-plane
came an answering flash. Her motors were then switched off, and, with
a swift volplane, she alighted upon the surface at less than fifty
yards from the submarine.
Then "taxi-ing" cautiously, the sea-plane approached the lee'ard side
of R19, until one of the occupants dexterously caught a rope hurled
from the submarine's deck.
A greatcoated, muffled figure made its way along one of the
projecting floats of the sea-plane and clambered up the bulging side
of R19.
"Welcome, gentlemen!" he exclaimed in Russian.
The officer deputed by the Russian Government to pilot the British
submarine through the mine-fields guarding the approaches to
Cronstadt had arrived at a most opportune moment.