EN OBSERVATION
The incredible rumour that German airmen were in Brittany first came from
Plouharnel in Morbihan; then from Bannalec, where an old Icelander had
notified the Brigadier of the local Gendarmerie. But the Icelander was
very drunk. A thimble of cognac did it.
Again came an unconfirmed report that a shepherd lad while alternately
playing on his Biniou and fishing for eels at the confluence of the Elle
and Isole, had seen a werewolf in Laïs Woods. The Loup Garou walked on two
legs and had assumed the shape of a man with no features except two
enormous eyes.
The following week a coast guard near Flouranges telephoned to the Aulnes
Lighthouse; the keeper of the light telephoned to Lorient the story of
Wayland, and was instructed to extinguish the great flash again and to
keep watch from the lantern until an investigation could be made.
That an enemy airman had done murder in Finistère was now certain; but
that a Boche submarine had come into the Bay of Biscay seemed very
improbable, considering the measures which had been taken in the Channel,
at Trieste, and at Gibraltar.
That a fleet of many sea-planes was soaring somewhere between the Isle des
Chouettes and Finistère, and landing men, seemed to be practically an
impossibility. Yet, there were the rumours. And murder had been done.
But an enemy undersea boat required a base. Had such a base been
established somewhere along those lonely and desolate wastes of bog and
rock and moor and gorse-set cliff haunted only by curlew and wild duck,
and bounded inland by a silent barrier of forest through which the wild
boar roamed and rooted unmolested?
And where in Finistère was an enemy seaplane to come from, when, save for
the few remaining submarines still skulking near British waters, the
enemy’s flag had vanished from the seas?
Nevertheless the coast lights at Aulnes and on the Isle des Chouettes went
out; the Commandant at Lorient and the General in command of the British
expeditionary troops in the harbour consulted; and the fleet of
troop-laden transports did not sail as scheduled, but a swarm of French
and British cruisers, trawlers, mine-sweepers, destroyers, and submarines
put out from the great warport to comb the boisterous seas of Biscay for
any possible aërial or amphibious Hun who might venture to haunt the
coasts.
Inland, too, officers were sent hither and thither to investigate various
rumours and doubtful reports at their several sources.
And it happened in that way that Captain Neeland of the 6th Battalion,
Athabasca Regiment, Canadian Overseas Contingent, found himself in the
Forest of Aulnes, with instructions to stay there long enough to verify or
discredit a disturbing report which had just arrived by mail.
The report was so strange and the investigation required so much secrecy
and caution that Captain Neeland changed his uniform for knickerbockers
and shooting coat, borrowed a fowling piece and a sack of cartridges
loaded with No. 4 shot, tucked his gun under his arm, and sauntered out of
Lorient town before dawn, like any other duck-hunting enthusiast.
Several reasons influenced his superiors in sending Neeland to investigate
this latest and oddest report: for one thing, although he had become
temporarily a Canadian for military purposes only, in reality he was an
American artist who, like scores and scores of his artistic fellow
Yankees, had spent many years industriously painting those sentimental
Breton scenes which obsess our painters, if not their critics. He was a
very bad painter, but he did not know it; he had already become a
promising soldier, but he did not realize that either. As a sportsman,
however, Neeland was rather pleased with himself.
He was sent because he knew the sombre and lovely land of Finistère pretty
well, because he was more or less of a naturalist and a sportsman, and
because the plan which he had immediately proposed appeared to be
reasonable as well as original.
It had been a stiff walk across country--fifteen miles, as against thirty
odd around by road--but neither cart nor motor was to enter into the
affair. If anybody should watch him, he was only a duckhunter afield,
crossing the marshes, skirting _étangs_, a solitary figure in the waste,
easily reconcilable with his wide and melancholy surroundings.