TAPPING THE CABLE
The first thing that Danny noticed was something that had not been
there before when he had explored the passage. It was something that
had happened since the German had gone away with the light.
It was a great crack in the stone wall!
A huge stone--the very one he had been pushing and rubbing against to
cut his bonds--had shifted its position. Here, surely, was the opening
to a secret way out of the passage! Pushing the stone gently Danny
found that it swung round on a pivot, just allowing room for a man to
pass.
Stepping through, he flashed his light about him. He was in a great,
arched vault.
Hanging on a pillar just in front of him was a lantern, containing a
candle end, and a box of matches. Thankfully Danny took this down from
its hook, for already the light was getting faint--the battery was
giving out. Lighting the lantern he held it aloft. As its yellow light
flickered in the dark corners, and between the massive pillars, a sight
met his eyes that sent a thrill of horror and excitement through his
heart.
Standing in the narrow aperture of the secret door, Danny gazed in
fascinated horror at the scene.
Before him a great, low hall stretched away into the darkness, so that
he could not see the end of it. Massive pillars supported the vaulted
roof, which was not more than eight feet high. And amid the dust, and
the sense of old days long gone by, of a dead, forgotten past, he had
come all unexpectedly on war and its most deadly instruments lurking,
hiding, and, somehow, terribly alive and modern.
[Illustration: There, row upon row, shining, perfect, ready for use,
lay a vast store of machine guns.]
For there, row upon row, shining, perfect, ready for use, lay a vast
store of machine guns. In the yellow light of the guttering candle
they seemed to fix a hundred black and hollow eyes upon the boy, like
so many traitors startled in their hiding-place. Belts of ammunition
lay like piles of coiled snakes; cases, boxes, rose in pyramids to the
roof. Rifles were stacked against the wall.
A kind of helpless horror filled Danny. It was all so tremendous,
so prepared, so very, very unexpected. His knees knocked together,
his heart seemed to thump against his ribs. A great lump rose in his
throat. And then, as he gazed with a kind of numb horror, the truth
crept into his mind that this great army of death-dealing implements
was not alive; was, in fact, weak, useless, powerless. That _he_
was _alive_! That he, in his small self, had more power than all
these guns, for he had life, will, a human brain, and courage. These
traitorous slaves of Germany must cower before him; he had found them
out; and surely he had found them out _in time_!
The detective instinct in him tempted him to explore the vault. But the
voice of duty had become the loudest in Danny’s ears at last. Curiosity
and ambition must have no say. He had been trusted with a momentous
secret. Over England hung the possibility of a great catastrophe. Here
was his duty--to get out of this place without a single moment’s delay,
to make his report as clearly as possible to those who could take
action. With his life he would guard this secret; and if the carrying
of it, the delivering of it, cost him his life, he would not be afraid
to offer it. He had not taken his chance when it was easy. Now that it
was hard, nothing would hold him back. But caution as well as courage
was necessary. Turning round, he entered the passage once more and
began to walk quickly and as silently as possible in the wake of the
German spy.
A mile of passage lay before him. At the end of it the steps descended,
as he knew, into the chill waters of the pool. He would have to
descend these steps. Gradually the water would creep up to his knees,
his waist, his neck. A big breath, a duck, four, five, six strong
strokes, and his head would be above the surface, he would be breathing
the pure air of the upper world; he would be free!
And yet, what lay between him and this freedom? He knew not at all.
He dared not try to imagine. But bracing up his spirit with a brave
determination to forget self and put duty first, he pressed on. If
his heart quailed, it was at the thought of entering the black water.
What if he met an enemy down there? So intent was his mind upon this
possible horror that he was startled and taken aback at the strange
sight and sound that reached him simultaneously as he rounded a sharp
bend in the passage.
“Buzz, buzz, buzz-buzz, buzz!” broke on his ears. And there, some
twenty yards away, stood the German who had captured him an hour ago.
He was standing half-turned away, wholly intent upon an apparatus fixed
on the wall. From this the buzzing sound proceeded. Several wires
rose from it, up the wall, disappearing through the round hole that
Danny had discovered before as the drain pipe by which the spies talked
together through the speaking-tube.
Now he realised at once that something far worse was on foot than a
mere conversation with a fellow-spy in a ditch. The man was using a
telegraph apparatus. He was doing that which the police had feared
might happen, and which the Scouts had been called out to prevent,
namely, tapping the cables--listening here in his safe hiding-place to
the secret communications of England’s statesmen; substituting in their
place false messages.
A kind of impetuous rage filled Danny. He clenched his fists, and his
whole body quivered with a desire to throw himself, tooth and nail upon
this spy, eavesdropping, sucking in England’s secrets. But what was he,
a little boy, against this man--armed, as he knew, with a revolver?
Yes, there lay the sinister little weapon on the shelf that held the
candle.
Danny’s first impulse on seeing the enemy had been to drop to the
ground, at the same time extinguishing his candle. Now he squatted
hidden by the darkness, his eyes fixed in fascinated horror on the
scene. Following up the wires with his eyes to where they disappeared
through the pipe, he asked himself how they could be connected with the
cable. Then, like a flash, he remembered the telegraph-pole that rose
from out a mass of nettles quite close to the drain. Before him rose
the picture of the artist-spy, on that sunny morning at 5 A.M., coming
along the road with a piece torn off his coat, and the finding of the
piece hooked on the nail in the post a few minutes later. That was the
day before war was declared.
Clue was fitting into clue like the pieces of a jig-saw puzzle. The
detective’s heart beat fast with excitement. Then, like a cold hand
crushing the hope out of him, came the realisation that the man with
the buzzer stood full in his path, preventing him from reaching the end
of the passage with the steps and the water that led to freedom. He was
balked!
Never before in his life had Danny so longed to be a man, to be big
and strong and a match for this spy. Then he would have crept up the
passage and, springing on the man, grappled with him, flinging him to
the ground there to leave him, bound and helpless while he made his
escape, and bore his secret safe with him.
But what chance would a boy have against this enemy? Danny did not lack
courage for the attempt, but he well knew that it would be a throwing
away of all possible chance of escape. To sacrifice himself thus would
do no good whatever. The spy would be free to go on with his terrible
enterprise. The secret Danny alone knew, would die with him. It would
be much wiser to retire, and seek for some other way of exit from the
passage.
Sometimes action, with its element of excitement, with the
invigorating spirit of sacrifice that accompanies it, is much easier
than a safer, wiser course. It was hard for Danny to turn his back on
this dangerous enemy of his country, to leave him unmolested at his
eavesdropping, and to creep back along half a mile of passage. Yet,
to seek for every possible chance of getting out and making known the
facts to the military was his clear duty. He had not yet explored the
vault; there might possibly be a way of escape through this.
Pushing the heavy stone of the secret entrance to the vault, Danny
crept once more into the mysterious place, holding aloft his lantern.
On every hand guns, rifles, cases of ammunition surrounded him. All
was so silent and horrible, and yet so sinister and alive. Suddenly he
started, a gasp of horror rising in his throat.
There, in the yellow light of his candle, he saw a prostrate figure,
lying motionless, upon what looked like a low, stone bench. It was
clothed in a long, crimson robe; gold glittered here and there upon it.
Drawing nearer, and struggling with his fear, he saw, to his relief,
that it was but an image--a carving of some saintly bishop long dead,
his white hands folded peacefully upon his breast, his mitre on his
head.
This, then, was the crypt of the Abbey Church. Danny drew near, and
looked reverently at the carving of the peaceful holy old face. Here,
too, lay a prince, in blue and ermine and a crown. There, behind a
pillar, was the effigy of a white-robed father--a pile of rifles had
been propped against his tomb. Further on was a little chapel, the
altar still standing.
Somehow it all comforted Danny, making him feel less alone, giving him
a sense of unseen protection. Filled with a new courage and confidence
he stepped forward.
How strange in this holy place to find a store of German weapons! Five
hundred years it had laid hidden, to be discovered at last by the
enemy and used as a storehouse of munitions of war. Quietly Danny began
his search for a way out, and before long he was rewarded.
A wooden door, in the corner of the crypt, stood ajar. Passing through
this, Danny found himself in a small room.
From it led what once must have been the staircase up into the church.
But this was now broken, and completely choked with stones and pieces
of fallen masonry. On the opposite side of the room the wall was
cracked and broken. In one place a crevice yawned, wide enough to let
a man creep through into the darkness beyond. Leaning through this,
Danny strained his eyes to try and pierce the gloom. There was nothing
to see, but against his hot face he felt a cool wind blowing. It was
altogether different from the heavy, suffocating atmosphere of the
passage and crypt. Instead of the mouldy smell that had reached his
nostrils, Danny was conscious of the pungent, salty odour that is borne
on a sea breeze!
It filled his heart with hope. Holding aloft his lantern, he climbed
through the opening, and stepped forward over the rough and stony
floor.