THE FLEET ARRIVES
In August the preparation of Punta Delgada as a base for the entire
fleet was completed, and the fleet arrived. In supreme command was
Admiral Johnson, a distinguished figure, a man of commanding
personality, well trained in his profession, and conspicuous for his
faculty of maintaining the morale of the fleet at its best.
The change at Punta Delgada was impressive. Hitherto the informality
of the destroyer had characterized the life there; now all the pomp
and ceremony of the battleship pervaded the place. Where once the most
typical sight had been officers and men, in old and paint-smooched
uniforms or in dungarees, working among the torpedo tubes and engine
hatches on the cramped deck of a lean destroyer, now the eye turned to
the mighty dreadnaught with her vast expanse of quarter-deck,
immaculately clean, on which paced to and fro officers in faultless
uniform. The sea was dotted with these great ships and with scouts and
armored cruisers and a host of auxiliary craft. Liberty parties came
and went, and the picturesque old town swarmed with American
blue-jackets, interspersed with the sailors of the British and French
navies.
It is the pride of radio officers and radio chiefs in the fleet to be
able to deal with their own problems when away from the home Navy
Yard—to be independent of outside help. So it was with the fleet at
Punta Delgada. Problems they had, but it would not occur to the radio
personnel of a battleship to look for help in their solution to the
mother-ship of a destroyer flotilla. Yet it wasn’t long before the
radio chiefs on the battleships discovered that the radio test shop
where Evans worked was a place worth visiting. Interesting things were
to be seen there, and ideas and hints could be informally picked up
which somehow helped them make their apparatus work when they got back
to their own ships. Thus the little laboratory came more and more to
be sought as an oracle. As a consequence of this, Evans soon came to
be welcome in the radio rooms of the various battleships and cruisers
where problems existed.
Lieutenant Larabee, under whom Evans was technically supposed to
perform his duties, naturally felt that his handy gunner belonged to
the flotilla, and he was prone to demur a bit at his digressions into
the battle fleet. But he had come to feel that Evans’s activities were
somewhat difficult to control, and that after all it was just as well
not to try to control them too rigidly. Besides, Larabee had sense
enough to see that, if Evans’s services could be really useful to the
fleet, the fleet had better have them.
Evans found the radio equipment in too many of the ships in a
disappointing condition, the more modern apparatus was badly installed
and very poorly understood by the personnel. The new British
vacuum-tube transmitter on very few ships was giving the efficient
service and satisfaction of which it was capable. He soon discovered
to his dismay that just where perfection of apparatus was of most
vital importance to the entire fleet—where it ought to count for as
much as in all the other ships put together—in Admiral Johnson’s
flagship—there all the best efforts of the Bureau of Engineering to
make the nerve center of the fleet perfect had been slighted. His
first visit to the flagship made his heart sink. Because of her
supreme importance in directing the whole fleet, her radio room had
been enlarged and equipped with apparatus more highly developed than
had ever been seen aboard ship. Special methods had been devised to
expedite the handling of the great and complex volume of dispatches to
all branches of the fleet which in a great naval action must go on
without interference or confusion. The initial installation had been
made, but the space needed for using it properly had been encroached
upon for miscellaneous storage purposes, and the most valuable
features of the installation had been neglected and abused till it was
woefully crippled. The plan of fleet control so carefully worked out
in the Bureau was frustrated at its central point, in the flagship.
Evans began looking for the cause of the trouble. The radio chief was
listless and discontented. But it was not his fault. The fleet radio
officer seemed discouraged and disgruntled. At first he was rather
uncommunicative as to the general plan of coördinating the fleet’s
activities, but before long the sympathetic interest which Evans
showed in the problem of making the most of the situation, drew him
out and revealed the fact that the trouble lay in the Admiral’s chief
of staff.
This officer, Captain Brigham, was one of the senior four-stripers in
the navy. A man of impressive bearing and iron will, he was a
conspicuous exponent of the conservative point of view in all naval
matters. He was insistent on decorum and etiquette to the last detail,
and he guarded his authority and prestige with a jealous diligence. He
was one of those officers who insist on keeping their fingers on every
activity that comes under their jurisdiction, if only to throttle it.
All the officers on his staff excelled in “officer-like bearing.”
Nowhere in the fleet were salutes executed in more perfect form.
Behind this cloak of faultless formality there was nothing which made
for efficiency in the coördination of the fleet. Captain Brigham had
Commander White, the fleet radio officer, completely under his thumb.
White had ideas as to the proper organization of communications, but
they were snubbed before they even found expression. Captain Brigham
had himself been a radio officer for two or three months just after
the close of the war with Germany, and he flattered himself that his
knowledge of radio was all that could be desired.
The new methods which had been developed by the Bureau of Engineering,
to meet the vast demands of the modern fleet with the best that
science could offer, differed so much from those which he recalled as
standard in the days of his youth, that they were not to his liking.
He had abused his authority by having the more modern parts of the
apparatus dismantled, and the specially trained operators who
understood their use sent away from the ship. The remaining radio
force was quite inadequate for the proper handling of the flagship’s
communications in the event of battle.
These facts were not posted in so many words on any bulletin board,
but Evans read them almost as clearly in many signs and symptoms and
in the stray remarks of those with whom he talked. With the fleet
radio officer he talked quite frankly, discussing the appalling
prospect of a great naval action in which the vast fleet of the enemy
would operate with perfect coördination between its battlecruisers,
scouts, and destroyers, directed by its flagship, as much a unit as a
battleship operated from the bridge, while the Allied fleet, its
directing nerve center semi-paralyzed, would be doomed to confusion,
and almost certain disaster.
“Do you realize what it means?” he said. “It would be like a man, with
half his brain gone to pot, competing at fencing or wrestling with a
champion in perfect trim.”
Commander White shrugged his shoulders. “Between you and me,” he said,
“the radio on this ship isn’t what it ought to be; but what can you do
about it?”
Evans was on his mettle.
“I’ll talk with Captain Brigham, and if I don’t make him understand
the need of that apparatus, it won’t be because I haven’t tried.”
“You’ve got your nerve with you,” said White. “Take my advice and keep
away from him, if you value your hide.”
“There are more important things in the service than my hide,” said
Evans. “I was sent here by the Bureau of Engineering to see that the
newer and less familiar parts of the radio equipment in the fleet are
in proper working order and are understood by the personnel. If I fail
to point out to those concerned what I find amiss, I shall not be
doing my job.”
“That’s a fine spirit, but if you get away with it you’ll be a
wonder,” said White. “I’m afraid, though, you’ll be out of luck.”
It was not long before Evans found the chance he wanted, when the
chief of staff came into the radio room for an inspection. Evans
approached and, ignoring his terrible frown, with a calmness of voice
which Captain Brigham had never heard in a subordinate since attaining
his present rank, explained his mission, and said in conclusion—“I’m
afraid the apparatus in its present condition won’t give you the
service it is meant to.”
The tirade from Captain Brigham which this remark called forth would
have done credit to a ward politician on the stump. The floodgates of
his wrath were opened. The apparatus was as he wanted it and was not
to be changed; he was sick and tired of the Bureau of Engineering with
its meddlesome nonsense. Evans listened patiently till he had
finished, then put to him some searching and practical questions about
the proposed handling of communications. He sketched certain tactical
situations which might well occur and asked how the complex task of
communicating simultaneously with all parts of the fleet would be
handled without the apparatus designed for this purpose. This display
in a warrant officer of that function which Captain Brigham had never
exercised—imagination in picturing the tactical situations he might
have to meet and preparing his mind for them—touched him on a
sensitive spot; his wrath knew no bounds. Yet his pride forbade his
dismissing the offender at once from his presence, and compelled him
instead to talk more volubly than ever, completely evading the issue,
and taking refuge in a magnificent invective against modern methods.
“You radio fans and cranks are cluttering up the ships with
new-fangled gadgets and good-for-nothing specialists to play with
them; soon there won’t be room for the deck force. The ships are on
their way to becoming scientific toy shops, and it’s got to be
stopped; the ships are meant for fighting. In the days when all the
signaling was done from the bridge we had the quartermasters under our
eyes where we could watch ’em and keep them up to the mark. Now your
big radio force of specialized men can hide behind all this mess of
stuff down here, and lounge around doing nothing, and if you try to
keep them on the job there’s always some alibi about something no one
else knows how to do. In the old days, before we had any radio or
listening gear or other playthings, every man on the ship had to be a
sailor and a fighting man, and every one of them was worth ten of your
damned specialists.”
“I don’t just see, though, how this apparatus is going to cope with
the fleet requirements in action,” said Evans quietly when Brigham had
finished.
“It will cope with my requirements,” said Captain Brigham savagely,
“and you’ll cope with my requirements if you leave it alone.” And with
that he left the radio room in high dudgeon.
Commander White had entered during the conversation and heard most of
the Captain’s tirade.
“Why doesn’t he chuck all the radio gear overboard, while he is about
it?” said Evans, half to himself and half to Commander White. “He
might rig the ship with sails and smoothbore guns, and then engage the
enemy at close range with the valor of our fathers. That would breed
fine sailors while they lasted.”
“Well,” said White, “I should say you’d done your duty by the Bureau;
and you drew a good salvo doing it. I didn’t expect you’d make much
progress with the old man.”
When next Captain Brigham saw Commander White, they were alone
together.
“It wouldn’t do to speak of it to that gunner,” said the chief of
staff, “but I may as well tell you that before I left Washington I had
a talk with Commander Rich who handles the radio business in the
Bureau of Engineering. He’s a man of sound judgment and good
old-fashioned horse sense, who understands the point of view of a
well-balanced, all-round naval officer, and he doesn’t at all believe
in having the fighting efficiency of the ships sacrificed to the
caprice of scientific specialists. He told me a great deal of the
radio junk furnished this ship was authorized against his better
judgment, and he believed I’d do well to let the equipment be reduced
in practice to the simple, standard gear we are all used to.”
For some time White kept this information to himself. Evans returned
to the mother-ship of the destroyer flotilla, and, slipping on
dungarees, plunged into a bit of experimental engineering on which he
had recently embarked. He worked at it the rest of the day and late
into the night, all alone in the radio test shop.
“If only we had Fraser for chief of staff,” he said to himself, “we’d
have a fleet that could stand up to the enemy with little fear of the
outcome; but with this dummy—God help us! The old Admiral’s all right,
but he’s got to have a good chief of staff to swing this fleet.”
With feverish energy he wielded pliers and solder-iron till after
midnight. Then he put down his things and said, “Well, I’ve got to
sleep on this thing if I can,” and turned in.
His sleep was restless and full of stress and worry. He dreamt that he
saw a miniature admiral in a cocked hat, standing on the deck of a
frigate of the olden days, brandishing his sword. The ship was no
bigger than a toy, but the little admiral, puffing with pride,
strutted up and down. He looked like Captain Brigham. As the dream
progressed, the ship grew smaller and smaller, and the admiral shrank
proportionately; but the more he shrank, the more pompous became the
bravado with which he brandished his sword. A giant dreadnaught came
over the horizon and bore down on the little admiral, her great turret
guns trained on him. Nearer she came, her guns growing to monstrous
size, till the admiral seemed but a speck in front of the yawning
muzzle of a gigantic gun. A projectile, bigger than any the world has
ever seen, slid out of the great muzzle, and knocked off the admiral’s
head which fell into the sea with the splash of a tiny pebble.
Evans awoke with an oath, turned over and slept again. When next he
dreamed he found himself sailing in his own little ketch, the
_Petrel_, gliding through tranquil waters by an enchanted shore where
great trees hung out far over the water, casting a deep, cool shadow
beneath them—trees now resembling the great tree-ferns and other
tropical forms of the Borge garden, now the familiar oaks and pines of
the New England shore.
In the morning he returned to his engineering task in the radio test
shop. The electricians at work there noticed that he was not himself
this morning. Most of the time he was silent and abstracted, with a
far-off look in his face, or frowning gloomily. Now and then he would
show exasperation, wielding his tools as if bent on annihilating the
apparatus with which he worked. Now and then he would come out of his
trance, crack a joke, and restore the usual good-humor of the test
shop.
By the middle of the afternoon he finished his task, put down his
tools, and went ashore. With the usual handful of breadcrumbs he
sought the Borge garden, wandering through the tree-fern grottoes, and
came at last to the ancient watch-tower under the old cedar tree. Here
he sat down and gave himself over to luring his little friends, the
birds, down from the trees with a tempting array of crumbs. Soon he
was surrounded with his feathered coterie, presenting a scene of busy
festivity. Then he gazed off over the blue expanse of the sea, dotted
with the great ships of the Allied fleet riding easily at their
moorings, a panorama of strength and majesty which could scarcely fail
to thrill the beholder. But to-day the thrill for Evans was swamped by
other emotions.
“Scrap iron and paint, with that poison adrift in the fleet!” he
muttered to himself.
He threw some more crumbs on the ground. “What would you do with him,
little bird?” he said as one of them hopped up close to his hand.
“Throw him overboard? Throw him overboard damn quick, if you’ve got
the sense I give you credit for.”
He sat silent a few minutes more, deep in thought. Then, suddenly
exclaiming, “There’s only one way out, and it’s time to act,” he
jumped to his feet with a start which sent the birds scattering and
scurrying to the nearest cover.
“Good-bye, little birds,” he called, throwing the last of his crumbs
on the ground. Then he hastened to Communication Headquarters.
That night a dispatch went out to Washington requesting the Bureau of
Engineering to send a shipment of vacuum tubes and sundry other
supplies to Punta Delgada.
Evans turned in early in a tranquil frame of mind now, for the die was
cast, and slept the sleep of healthy childhood.
The next day a message came from Washington ordering a certain
destroyer to proceed at once to Hampton Roads. This particular
destroyer had just had a complete refit and her engines were in the
best of running order, although these details were not known in
Washington. Her skipper was a very good sailorman characterized by a
faculty for reaching his destination promptly, even if things didn’t
go just as he wished; he knew how fast he could safely drive his ship
against head seas, and when the need arose he drove her. And yet the
schedule for patrol and escort duty was such that—for reasons also
unknown in Washington—this ship could be more easily spared at Punta
Delgada during the next two weeks than most of the other destroyers.
In spite of this fact, Captain Brigham expressed an abundance of
resentment at the importunity of the Navy Department for taking away
one of his best destroyers just when he would like to have her on
hand.
Two hours after this dispatch a series of others arrived, including
one directing Evans to proceed by the first available ship to
Washington and report for duty at the Bureau of Engineering.
The destroyer was ready for sea the following morning, and Evans was
directed to take passage on her. An hour later she had slipped out of
the harbor and headed westward, her officers speculating wildly as to
what their sudden mission to home waters could mean. In all there were
twice as many hypotheses advanced as there were officers on board,
Evans contributing his share, but in the end their conjecturing left
them just where they started.
When he arrived in Washington, Evans went to a hotel and took a room.
From there he telephoned to Secretary Mortimer and told him of his
arrival.
“When can you come and see me?” said Mortimer.
“Any time,” answered Evans. “Only wouldn’t it be just as well for me
not to go too directly from the destroyer to your office? Even in
civilian clothes, some one might recognize me and link me up with the
ship. Why don’t you come here? I’m pretty keen to see you.”
“All right; I’ll come right over,” was the answer. In a few minutes
more they were chatting away in the privacy of Evans’s room.
Evans described the general condition of the base at Punta Delgada,
the destroyer flotilla and the fleet as a whole, and in less than an
hour he presented a more effective survey than Mortimer could have got
from a month’s intensive study of official reports. The fleet was
revealed as an organization in its true perspective. When Evans came
to the chief of staff, he waxed truly eloquent. Mortimer had listened
to the ablest lawyers and political orators, he had heard the most
famous after-dinner speakers, but never had he heard so many artistic
combinations of derogatory terms as Evans assembled to convey his
impressions of Captain Brigham.
“Sounds as if you had a grudge against the poor fellow,” said
Mortimer.
“I’ve got a grudge, all right,” answered Evans. “Whether I’m biased by
it is another question. I worried myself sick over it for a day and a
half, and every angle I could view it from I came to the same
conclusion. He’s getting the coördination of the fleet so undermined
that in action it would hardly be worth the powder to blow it off the
map, and that would be forthcoming damn quick from the enemy. It is
all right on parade, but in action we should be up against the enemy’s
team-work, which is marvelous; the best organized business in the
world isn’t in it compared with them. We should be like a man with
half a brain. The coördinating mechanism is so crippled, we shouldn’t
stand the chance of the proverbial celluloid dog chasing the asbestos
cat through hell. The radio business is enough to damn him, but in
addition I found evidence that he’s doing his best to get the gunnery
back to where it was in the pre-Sims days—fine on paper, rotten in
practice. He’s a first-class stuffed shirt, and the quicker you can
scrap him the better.”
“What about the Admiral?” asked Mortimer. “Isn’t he a pretty good
sort? And how does he stand his offending chief of staff?”
“The Admiral is a good man,” said Evans. “He is well-trained, standing
high in his profession, has fine qualities of leadership, maintains
good discipline, and is universally liked and respected. It is a great
thing for the morale of the fleet to have such a man at the head. He
has a good military personality, but he is a bit old-fashioned, and is
rather short on imagination. He doesn’t adapt himself readily to new
conditions, but, of course, that’s hard for any man of his age. He
will do the obvious very well; but I wish he had a little keener
perception. Now this stuffed club, Brigham, is the finest ever at
keeping up good military form and appearances; the flagship is a very
‘smart ship’ to look at.
“The Admiral has a touch of the old-fashioned weakness for that sort
of thing, and he doesn’t know quite enough about the detail of modern
methods to see how rotten things are below the surface. You see, he
was trained in the days before those things which modern developments
have forced us to rely on had become vital. Consequently, he doesn’t
quite know how to probe his organization and make sure the details are
well attended to. He relies on his chief of staff, and it’s pretty
hard for him to do otherwise. He ought to have a keen, alert,
adaptable chief of staff with a real head; then he’d be all right.”
Evans then told of Fraser and his experience with him on the submarine
hunt. He told how he had searched through the destroyer flotilla and
later through the fleet looking for men of real brains and capacity
for generalship, and how Fraser had seemed to him to stand head and
shoulders above the rest.
“There’s the ideal man for chief of staff,” he said. “With his tact
and personality he would quickly win the Admiral’s confidence, and
with Fraser at his right hand all the Admiral’s good qualities of
leadership would stand out at their best. They’d make a splendid
combination; Fraser would be the brains, Admiral Johnson the
embodiment of authority and formal leadership which would carry weight
with the personnel at large, and give the necessary moral support to
make Fraser’s skill effective.”
They continued thrashing out the question and discussing it from every
possible angle till Mortimer was as firmly convinced as Evans that the
salvation of the fleet lay in replacing Brigham with Fraser.
Then their talk turned on the more detailed problem of the personnel
directly concerned with radio engineering and other communication
duties. Commander Rich, it seemed, was as firmly entrenched as ever in
the esteem of both Mortimer and Admiral Bishop, the Bureau Chief.
Evans, having nothing tangible to support his feeling of uneasiness,
did not dwell on that subject.
“I believe, Sam,” said Evans, “it would be a very good thing to send
Elkins out to be fleet radio officer. He’s just the man for the job;
and, coming from the Bureau of Engineering, he would have the latest
developments fresh in his mind. He’d appreciate the chance to get into
the game, and he deserves it. White, who has that job now, is a good
man, but he hasn’t the brains or the force that Elkins has. I think it
would be a good move just to have them swap places. White, coming
fresh from the fleet, would be of great value to the Bureau; it always
helps to have some one there who is thoroughly familiar with
conditions afloat. White has been afloat a good while and might not
mind the change, and, anyway, if emphasis is given to the fact that
his point of view is needed in the Bureau, rather than that the best
brains are now needed in the fleet, he needn’t feel that he’s being
put on the shelf.”
“I’ll have to find some billet for Brigham where he’ll be
comparatively harmless;—perhaps commandant of the Great Lakes District
or of the Naval Prison,” said Mortimer.
“Yes,” said Evans. “Or put him in command of the old _Constitution_
tied up in her tomb at the Boston Navy Yard, where they show off the
relics and hoist the flag every morning at eight-bells to set the pace
for the Yard. He’d make them get the flag up on time, all right. Put
him in charge of a bunch of incompetents who’ll be no good, anyway,
and let him teach them an officer-like bearing.
“As to White, I wouldn’t transfer him at the same time as Brigham, it
would draw too much attention to the sweeping change; besides, it
would be too tough on White to bracket him with that old dummy. Get
Brigham out first; then in a week or so you could let Elkins go out to
relieve White.”
The next day Mortimer set the machinery in motion to promote Fraser
from commander to captain in order that he should have the necessary
rank, and then to make him chief of staff in place of Brigham.
When the news of this change reached the fleet, it caused a
considerable commotion. Speculation as to the occasion of it
constituted the burden of the wardroom gossip for several days. Some
few officers tried to connect it in some way with the sudden and
mysterious departure of the destroyer for Hampton Roads, but their
ingenuity failed them, and the idea was dismissed as quite impossible.
On the journey home in the destroyer a somewhat new problem had
engaged Evans’s attention. It is a recognized principle that secret
codes must be changed frequently. Enemy experts are constantly at work
studying the radio messages which their operators have intercepted,
and it is granted that in time they will gather sufficient data to
work out any code. It has been said that ten days is as long as it is
safe to use one code. Evans had time to spare on this destroyer trip,
and he found a fascinating occupation in trying to devise a new system
of codes more baffling to the enemy. He finally hit on a scheme which
would render the codes so difficult to unravel that he felt sure they
could be trusted for fully twice as long as those then in use.
When in Washington, after his conference with Mortimer, he sought
Commander Barton, of the Intelligence Bureau, with whom he had worked
in London over the establishment of communication with Heringham, and
laid his scheme before him. Barton was well pleased with the plan and
requested Evans to work out the details of his system. For the next
fortnight, Evans was busily engaged in this task, first devising and
planning the system and then arranging for the printing of the
necessary code books. Not content with one system, he devised another
so different that even should the enemy become thoroughly acquainted
with the first, it would give them no clue at all to the second. In
fact, his productivity in this line reached such a point that a less
enthusiastic and enterprising man than Barton would have begged him to
give o’er.
During these days Evans also gave a large share of his time to the
Bureau of Engineering where he got his finger once more in the pie of
radio engineering progress. His experience with the fleet had given
him a somewhat new point of view which led to a number of practical
suggestions. Many bright ideas which had developed in the planning
rooms had to be snubbed because utterly unsuited to conditions afloat.
As before, he found himself acting informally as liaison officer
between the Bureau of Engineering and the office of the Director of
Naval Communications. He found loose ends in the way of fitting the
more highly specialized apparatus to the intricate uses for which it
was required, and the problem thus raised brought him closely in touch
with the radio men in Communication Headquarters.
There was one man attached to the office of the Director of Naval
Communications who especially attracted his interest and attention.
This was Lieutenant Wellman, a lean man with dark, mobile eyes and an
almost uncanny look of penetration. He had recently been attached to
this office, and had a reputation of great knowledge of telephone and
telegraph systems and all manner of communication problems. Just as
Evans spent much of his time at the D.N.C. office, so Wellman spent
much of his at the Bureau of Engineering, where he was on friendly
terms with the officers in the Radio Division from Commander Rich
down. Evans found him alert and ready with an intellectual grasp of
the problems before them, and eager for technical knowledge,
especially of the newer radio methods. These Evans discussed with him
at some length, but his own gift for inquiry was such that in their
talk Evans did most of the questioning and Wellman most of the
telling.
Evans also spent more than one evening in conference with Mortimer.
With mutual profit they viewed the war in its larger perspective, and
unearthed its salient features from amidst the jumble of apparently
unrelated facts.
The situation, boiled down to its essentials, was much as it had been
at the time of their earlier talks before Evans went to the fleet. The
increased destruction of enemy submarines had facilitated the shipping
of supplies to Northern Europe, but in this respect the situation was
still critical. Every submarine that could be destroyed would help to
turn the balance.
“The soldiers we are sending over help the morale of the Allies and
aid them materially in holding the line,” said Evans, “but do you
think they’ll ever push it back enough to win the war that way?”
Mortimer shook his head. “It doesn’t look like it.”
“I fear all the man power of Northern Europe and North America
combined would be expended in pushing through to a decision on land,”
said Evans, frowning.
“They depend on their sea power to such an extent that if we could
strike hard at that, we could paralyze them,” said Mortimer. “Don’t
you think so?”
“Yes,” said Evans, “and they know it and are guarding their fleet
mighty carefully. Conversely, if they could smash our fleet, they’d
finish us. And if they saw what looked like a good chance, they’d try
it. It would be the most colossal sea battle in history, if those two
fleets met in the open sea. With Fraser on the job and a slight
advantage of visibility or other weather conditions on our side, such
as we might get if we could choose our time with Jeremy’s help, I
believe we could be reasonably sure of doing them in; at least enough
to justify seeking an engagement.”
“Can’t you think of any scheme for baiting them to action at such a
time?” said Mortimer.
Evans pondered awhile. “I have a wild scheme in my head,” he said.
“It’s one of those notions of which I’m the victim now and then.”
“Let’s have it,” said Mortimer.
Evans then propounded a series of imaginary situations and their
strategical and tactical developments, which aroused in Mortimer a
strange alternation of enthusiasm and doubt. At the end he felt enough
conviction that there was merit in the scheme to satisfy him that it
should in some way be followed up.
“Don’t you think I had better take this up with the General Staff, and
send some suggestion to the Admiral?” he asked.
“No,” answered Evans. “Admirals don’t like their strategy and tactics
fed to them by civilian secretaries much better than by gunners.
Besides, it’s probably full of weak points, as I’ve outlined it. I’m
not a trained admiral, you know. Anyway, give them a chance to work it
out themselves, and they’ll probably improve on it in doing so. If the
premises are sufficiently suggestive to the Staff at Punta Delgada,
they may easily hit on the main ideas, or something better. Fraser’s a
wizard at that sort of thing.”
“So, you fancy the premises can be made sufficiently suggestive?” said
Mortimer.
“I shouldn’t wonder a bit,” answered Evans with a smile.
“See here!” said Mortimer. “It’s damn silly for you to be going on as
a warrant officer. You ought to be taking the responsibilities you
know how to handle, and taking them squarely. I could work the
regulations now so as to have you promoted to commander very quickly,
and it wouldn’t be long before you’d be a captain. Then you could fit
into the fleet more nearly where you belong.”
“Oh, come,” said Evans. “I wouldn’t know what to do with all that
rank, and I should be looked on with suspicion and jealousy. I’d
always be having to buck the resulting hostility. No, no, Sam, I can
carry on much better as I am, doing things in my own way. For one
thing, I find it an enormous advantage to be able to get right into
the game as I’ve done on the destroyers, particularly on that sub
hunt, and see how things really are. The more gold braid you have on,
the less things look as they really are when you go to look at them.”
“I’d give my eye teeth to get into the fleet and really see how things
are going,” said Mortimer.
“That’s just it,” said Evans. “You don’t suppose you could go aboard
the ships as Mr. Secretary and see things as they really are, do you?
Every one would be in his best uniform, full dress, at attention, the
band playing and nothing doing; no war going on at all.”
“That’s so,” said Mortimer; “but I’m afraid your fondness for
tinkering with apparatus will lead you to do too much of that, and
distract you from the bigger problems you ought to be thinking about.”
“I know that’s my vice,” answered Evans, “but the appeal of the game
as a whole will draw my thoughts in that direction to the extent of
daydreams quite bold enough for all practical purposes—bold enough to
make the gold braid snub me good and plenty if they knew what I was
thinking about. I need some manual work to keep me normal, to occupy
my hands and lower nerve centers while I’m thinking about some of the
knotty problems that come up. Some tangible part of the machinery in
my hands and before my eyes will help the whole plan of its use to
take shape in my mind.”
For some time they argued the pros and cons, and at last Mortimer
somewhat reluctantly yielded and consented to let Evans return to the
fleet as a radio gunner.
It was also decided that in the near future Commander Barton should
proceed to Punta Delgada to direct the work of the Bureau of Naval
Intelligence there, since it had now definitely become the
storm-center of naval activity.
During the days that remained before Evans was to return to the fleet,
he was kept busy completing the new systems of secret codes for
Commander Barton, and conferring with various officials in the Bureau
of Engineering and in the office of the Director of Naval
Communications. In the latter office he had many conversations with
Lieutenant Wellman, and with each conversation he became more
interested in the man, seeing in him great possibilities in connection
with the coördinated machinery of communications and Naval
Intelligence. It transpired that Wellman had traveled extensively, was
an accomplished linguist, and possessed considerable knowledge of
enemy country. It was, therefore, suggested that he should confer with
Commander Barton to see how far his qualifications might render him
useful to the Bureau of Naval Intelligence.
On the particular morning when Lieutenant Wellman was awaiting this
conference, Evans came to Barton’s office with some copies of one of
his new secret codes, fresh from the printer. Leading to the inner
office was an anteroom at the outer door of which stood a sentry whose
duty it was to see that none but officers and others with proper
credentials entered. Evans came with the bundle of code books under
his arm, and muttered a password to the sentry, who pressed a button
just inside the door, at which Commander Barton rose from his desk in
the inner office and came to the door between it and the anteroom.
Seeing Evans at the outer door, he called to him to come in. In the
anteroom sat Lieutenant Wellman waiting till it should suit Commander
Barton’s convenience to confer with him; as he sat there his dark,
penetrating eyes traveled restlessly about the room observing and
noting everything that human observation could encompass. Evans,
seeing Wellman alone there, exchanged greetings with him, and passed
on into the inner office. He opened the bundle and handed the six
books it contained to Barton.
Wellman, following Evans with his eye, silently shifted his seat so
that he could watch the proceedings through the half-open door.
Barton took the books and thanked Evans, who then left the room.
Barton opened one of the books and glanced through it rather hastily,
postponing a more careful examination till he should have more time.
Then he unlocked a drawer in his desk and put the six books into it.
He was just closing the drawer when a yeoman entered from a side door
rather hurriedly, saying:
“There’s a long-distance call from San Francisco; your desk phone is
being repaired, so I’ve had the call plugged into the sound-proof
booth.”
Commander Barton jumped up and, followed by the yeoman, hurried out
through the side door to answer the telephone. It was only for a few
seconds that the room was deserted, but in those seconds Wellman
slipped in, took one copy of the new secret code from the drawer, and
slipped out again, tucking it under his coat as he went. Leaving the
anteroom as one who has transacted his business, he returned the
salute of the sentry, and walked briskly away down the corridor,
passing Evans, who was walking slowly, so absorbed in his thoughts
that it seemed a pity to disturb him—yes, better not interrupt his
reverie. In an hour he had left Washington; in five weeks more he
arrived in Constantinople, no longer in the uniform of a United States
naval officer, carrying in his satchel the treasured code book. He was
no longer Lieutenant Wellman, but now in his true colors, Commander
Bela, of the Turkish Naval Intelligence Service.
Great was the rejoicing at Naval Headquarters when Bela arrived with
his prize. Some facts of interest he had obtained while in Washington,
but his stay had been cut short by the rare opportunity which had put
him in possession of the code book; and this he deemed to be worth so
much more than the information he might have obtained by staying
longer that he had taken the responsibility of making all possible
speed with the book to Headquarters. His prompt decision in so doing
was warmly commended by his chief, who was even more pleased than Bela
himself with the unexpected outcome of his mission.
In the code book was a key explaining how it was to be changed monthly
to prevent breaking; moreover, the dates were given on which each
arrangement was to go into effect. Thus it was evidently good for the
decoding of Allied naval messages for several months to come.
In Washington conditions had been especially favorable for Lieutenant
Wellman to effect his disappearance unnoticed. His duties had been
such as involved extensive traveling, and he had been given an
unusually free hand in the arrangement of his own time. Moreover, when
it became finally known that he had really disappeared, a variety of
rumors explaining the fact passed into circulation in ways that were
not generally understood and seemed impossible to trace. No one had
seen him take the code book, and it was so long afterwards that his
disappearance became known to the officers at Communication
Headquarters, that, even had they been disposed to suspect him, it
could hardly be expected that his disappearance would in any way lead
to a checking-up of the number of copies in Barton’s desk.
By the time Bela arrived in Constantinople, Heringham was well
established in a post of high authority in the Coalition Government.
The men who directed the affairs of this great conspiracy against the
liberties of the world included besides Turks those of an
extraordinary array of nationalities—Russians, Italians, Bulgars,
Jews, Egyptians, and Arabs. Therefore a well-disguised Englishman with
Heringham’s rare gift of impersonation might well fit into the
organization without exciting suspicion. Yet Bela, on finding a
stranger to him in such an important position, was strongly inclined
to distrust him. He made guarded inquiries. Nothing of a compromising
nature was known about him. On every hand Bela was assured that this
official, with his extensive knowledge of the nations allied against
the coalition, had rendered most valuable services to the cause. Still
Bela suspected. Finally he contrived to have an interview with
Heringham alone, and sought to probe the case. After feeling his way
for some time with guarded questions, he asked Heringham rather
suddenly if he had not lived for some time in England. Heringham,
still in the Turkish language and with phrasing and intonation
perfectly reproducing the diction of a thoroughbred Turk, replied
casually, “Indeed I have. I know the little sea-girt island well.”
Then in a jocular vein he added in the English language, aping the
English manner of speech in a mocking tone, yet betraying an
unmistakable Turkish accent, “Have you been in Piccadilly? I say, it’s
a topping place, you know!”
The easy and confiding smile with which he cast this bit of ridicule
on the Briton was altogether disarming; and when he added in Turkish,
“What fools those British are!” Bela could hardly conceive that any
but a true Turk could have spoken so.
But now it was Heringham’s turn to take the initiative. He questioned
Bela about his recent trip to America, and listened with admiration
and wonder to the tale of his exploits in finding his way into the
confidence of high officers in the Navy Department. With warm praise
Heringham drew forth more and more of the story, and as his frank
appreciation dispelled the last of Bela’s doubts, this cautious Turk
ended by giving him a full recital of the information he had gained of
radio affairs in the Allied Navy. One thing, however, Bela did not
divulge; he said nothing to Heringham of the stolen code book.
A few days after Wellman’s uncanny disappearance, Evans received his
orders to return to Punta Delgada and report for radio duty on board
the flagship. It was now early in November, and the autumn colors were
fading on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay as the cruiser on which
both Elkins and Evans took passage left the Virginia Capes and stood
out to sea. In a few days they sighted the greener shores of the
Azores, where in the outer harbor of Punta Delgada the new battleship
_Delaware_, the flagship, lay majestically at anchor, queen of the
Allied Navy.