Just as it was growing dark on the following evening, a powerful pale
grey car, with cabriolet body, drew out of the yard of the quaint old
Saracen's Head Hotel at Lincoln, and, passing slowly through the town,
set out on the straight, open road which led past Langworth station to
Wragby, and on to Horncastle.
The occupant of the car, muffled up as though he were an invalid, had
come in from London half an hour before, taken his tea in the
coffee-room, and had resumed his journey, together with his smart,
clean-shaven chauffeur.
Though he posed as an invalid at the Saracen's Head, yet as soon as the
car had left the town he threw off his thick muffler, opened his coat
and drew a long sigh of relief.
Truth to tell, Mr Lewin Rodwell, whose photograph appeared so
constantly in the picture-papers, was not over anxious to be seen in
Lincoln, or, indeed, in that neighbourhood at all. With Penney, his
trusted chauffeur--a man who, like himself, was a "friend of Germany"--
he had set out from Bruton Street that morning, and all day they had sat
side by side on their journey towards the Fens.
Many times, after chatting with Penney, he had lapsed into long spells
of silence, during which time he had puffed vigorously at his cigar, and
thought deeply.
Until, after about five miles, they passed Langworth station, they had
been content with their side-lights, but soon they switched on the huge
electric head-lamps, and then they "put a move on," as Rodwell was
anxious to get to his journey's end as quickly as possible.
"You'll drop me, as usual, at the three roads beyond Mumby. Then go
into Skegness and put up for the night. Meet me at the same spot
to-morrow morning at seven-thirty."
"Very well, sir," was the young man's obedient reply.
"Let's see," remarked Rodwell. "When we were up in this lonely,
forsaken part of the country a week ago, where did you put up?"
"The last time in Louth, sir. The time before in Lincoln, and the time
before that in Grimsby. I haven't been in Skegness for a full month."
"Then go there, and mind and keep your mouth shut tight!"
"I always do, sir."
"Yes, it pays you to do so--eh?" laughed Rodwell. "But I confess,
Penney, that I'm getting heartily sick of this long journey," he sighed,
"compelled, as we are, to constantly go many miles out of our way in
order to vary the route."
"The road is all right in summer, sir, but it isn't pleasant on a cold
stormy night like this--especially when you've got a two-mile walk at
the end of it."
"That's just it. I hate that walk. It's so dark and lonely, along by
that open dyke. Yet it has to be done; and, after all, the darker the
night--perhaps the safer it is." Then he lapsed again into silence,
while the car--well-driven by Penney, who was an expert driver--flew
across the broad open fenlands, in the direction of the sea.
The December night was dark, with rain driving against and blurring the
windscreen, in which was a small oblong hole in the glass, allowing
Penney to see the long, lonely road before him. Passing the station at
Horncastle, they continued through the town and then up over the hill on
the Spilsby road and over the wide gloomy stretch until, about half-past
seven o'clock, after taking a number of intricate turns up unfrequented
fen-roads, they found themselves passing through a small, lonely,
ill-lit village. Beyond this place, called Orby, they entered another
wide stretch of those low-lying marshes which border the North Sea on
the Lincolnshire coast, marshes intersected by a veritable maze of
roads, most of which were without sign-posts, and where, in the
darkness, it was a very easy matter to lose one's way.
But Penney--who had left the high road on purpose--had been over those
cross-roads on many previous occasions. Indeed, he knew them as well as
any Fenman, and without slackening speed or faltering, he at last
brought the car to a standstill a few miles beyond the village of Mumby,
at a point where three roads met about two miles from the sea.
It was still raining--not quite so heavily as before, but sufficiently
to cause Rodwell to discard his fur-lined overcoat for a mackintosh.
Then, having placed an electric flash-lamp in his pocket, together with
a large bulky cartridge envelope, a silver flask and a packet of
sandwiches, he took a stout stick from the car and alighting bade the
young man good-night, and set forth into the darkness.
"I wonder whether I'll be in time?" he muttered to himself in German,
going forward as he bent against the cold driving rain which swept in
from the sea. He usually spoke German to himself when alone. His way,
for the first mile, was beside a long straight "drain," into which, in
the darkness, it would have been very easy to slip had he not now and
then flashed on his lamp to reveal the path.
Beneath his breath, in German, he cursed the weather, for already the
bottoms of his trousers were saturated as he splashed on through the
mud, while the rain beat full in his face. Presently he came in sight
of a row of cottage-windows at a place called Langham, and then, turning
due north into the marshes, he at last, after a further mile, came to
the beach whereon the stormy waters of the North Sea were lashing
themselves into a white foam discernible in the darkness.
That six miles of low-lying coast, stretching from the little village of
Chapel St Leonards north to Sutton-on-Sea, was very sparsely
inhabited--a wide expanse of lonely fenland almost without a house.
Upon that deserted, low-lying coast were two coastguard stations, one
near Huttoft Bank and the other at Anderby Creek, and of course--it
being war-time--constant vigil was kept at sea both night and day. But
as the district was not a vulnerable one in Great Britain's defences,
nothing very serious was ever reported from there to the Admiralty.
By day a sleepy plain of brown and green marshes, by night a dark,
cavernous wilderness, where the wild sea beat monotonously upon the
shingle, it was a truly gloomy, out-of-the-world spot, far removed from
the bustle of war's alarm.
Lewin Rodwell, on gaining the beach at the end of a long straight path,
turned without hesitation to the right, and walked to the south of the
little creek of Anderby for some distance, until he suddenly ascended a
low mound close by the sea, half-way between Anderby Creek and Chapel
Point, and there before him stood a low-built fisherman's cottage,
partly constructed of wood, which by day was seen to be well-tarred and
water-tight.
Within a few yards of the beach it stood, with two boats drawn up near
and a number of nets spread out to dry; the home of honest Tom Small and
his son, typical Lincolnshire fishermen, who, father and son, had fished
the North Sea for generations.
At the Anchor, in Chapel St Leonards, old Tom Small was a weekly
visitor on Saturday nights, when, in that small, close-smelling
bar-parlour, he would hurl the most bitter anathemas at the "All Highest
of Germany," and laugh his fleet to scorn; while at Anderby Church each
Sunday morning he would appear in his best dark blue trousers, thick
blue jacket and peaked cap, a worthy hardworking British fisherman with
wrinkled, weatherbeaten face and reddish beard. He was of that hardy
type of seafarer so much admired by the town-dweller when on his summer
holiday, a man who, in his youth, had been "cox" of the Sutton lifeboat,
and who had stirring stories to tell of wild nights around the Rosse
Spit and the Sand Haile, the foundering of tramps with all hands, and
the marvellous rescues effected by his splendid crew.
It was this man, heavily-booted and deep-voiced, by whom Lewin Rodwell
was confronted when he tapped at the cottage door.
"Come, hurry up! Let me in!" cried Rodwell impatiently, after the door
was slowly unlocked. "I'm soaked! This infernal neighbourhood of yours
is absolutely the limit, Small. Phew!" and he threw down his soaked cap
and entered the stone-flagged living-room, where Small's son rose
respectfully to greet him.
"Where are my other clothes?" he asked sharply, whereupon the
weatherbeaten fisherman produced from an old chest in the corner a rough
suit of grey tweeds, which Rodwell, carried to the inner room on the
left, and quickly assumed.
"Pretty nice weather this!" he shouted cheerily to father and son, while
in the act of changing his clothes. "Is all serene? Have you tested
lately?"
"Yes, sir," replied the elder man. "I spoke at five o'clock an' told
'em you were coming. So Mr Stendel is waiting."
"Good!" was Rodwell's reply. "Anybody been looking around?"
"Not a soul to-day, sir. The weather's been bad, an' the only man we've
seen is Mr Bennett, from the coastguard station, on his patrol. He was
'ere last night and had a drop o' whisky with us."
"Good?" laughed Rodwell. "Keep well in with the coastguard. They're a
fine body, but only a year or so ago the British Admiralty reduced them.
It wasn't their fault."
"We do keep in with 'em," was old Tom Small's reply, as Rodwell
re-entered the room in dry clothes. "I generally give 'em a bit o' fish
when they wants it, and o' course I'm always on the alert looking out
for periscopes that don't appear," and the shrewd old chap gave vent to
a deep guttural laugh.
"Well now, Small, let's get to work," Rodwell said brusquely. "I've got
some important matters on hand. Is all working smoothly?"
"Splendidly, sir," answered the younger man. "Nothing could be better.
Signals are perfect to-night."
"Then come along," answered the man who was so universally believed to
be a great British patriot; and, turning the handle of the door on the
right-hand side of the living-room, he entered a small, close-smelling
bedroom, furnished cheaply, as the bedroom of a small struggling
fisherman would be. The Smalls were honest, homely folk, the domestic
department being carried on by Tom's younger daughter, Mary, who at the
moment happened to be visiting her married sister in Louth.
The son, Ted, having lit a petrol table-lamp--one of those which, filled
with spirit, give forth gas from the porous block by which the petrol is
absorbed and an intense light in consequence--Lewin Rodwell went to the
corner of the room where an old curtain of crimson damask hung before a
recess. This he drew aside, when, hanging in the recess, were shown
several coats and pairs of trousers--the wardrobe of old Tom Small;
while below was a tailor's sewing-machine on a treadle stand--a machine
protected by the usual wooden cover.
The latter he lifted; but beneath, instead of a machine for the innocent
needle-and-cotton industry, there was revealed a long electrical
tapping-key upon an ebonite base, together with several electrical
contrivances which, to the uninitiated, would present a mysterious
problem.
A small, neatly-constructed Morse printing machine, with its narrow
ribbon of green paper passing through beneath a little glass cover
protecting the "inker" from the dust; a cylindrical brass relay with its
glass cover, and a tangle of rubber-insulated wires had been hidden
beneath that square wooden cover, measuring two and a half feet by one.
Behind the sewing-machine stand, and cunningly concealed, there ran a
thick cable fully two inches in diameter, which was nothing else but the
shore-end of a submarine cable directly connecting the East Coast of
England with Wangeroog, the most northerly of the East Frisian Islands,
running thence across to Cuxhaven, at the mouth of the Elbe, and on by
the land-line, via Hamburg, to Berlin.
The history of that cable was unknown and unsuspected by the British
public, who, full of trust of the authorities, never dreamed that there
could possibly be any communication from the English shore actually
direct into Berlin. Five years before the declaration of war the German
Government had approached the General Post Office, offering to lay down
a new cable from Wangeroog to Spurn Head, in order to relieve some of
the constantly increasing traffic over the existing cables from
Lowestoft, Bacton and Mundesley. Long negotiations ensued, with the
result that one day the German cable-ship _Christoph_ passed the Chequer
shoal and, arriving off the Spurn Lighthouse, put in the shore-end,
landed several German engineers to conduct the electrical control-tests
between ship and shore, and then sailed away back to Germany, paying out
the cable as she went.
In due course, after the arranged forty days' tests from Wangeroog to
the Spurn, the cable was accepted by the General Post Office, and over
it much of the telegraphic traffic between England and Germany had, for
the past five years, been conducted.
On the declaration of war, however, telegraph engineers from York had
arrived, excavated the cable out of the beach at the Spurn, and
effectively cut the line, as all the lines connecting us with German
stations had been severed. After that, the British postal authorities
contented themselves that no further communication could possibly be
established with the enemy, and the public were satisfied with a defiant
isolation.
They were ignorant how, ten days after the cables had been cut, old Tom
Small, his son and two other men, in trawling for fish not far from the
shore, had one night suddenly grappled a long black snaky-looking line,
and, after considerable difficulties, had followed it with their
grapnels to a certain spot where, with the aid of their winch, they were
able to haul it on board in the darkness.
Slimy and covered with weeds and barnacles, that strategic cable had
been submerged and lay there, unsuspected, ready for "the Day," for,
truth to tell, the Spurn Head-Wangeroog cable had possessed a double
shore-end, one of which had been landed upon British soil, while the
other had been flung overboard from the German cable-ship four miles
from land, while old Tom Small and his son had been established on shore
in readiness to perform their part in dredging it up and landing it when
required.
So completely and carefully had Germany's plans been laid for war that
Small, once an honest British fisherman, had unsuspectingly fallen into
the hands of a certain moneylender in Hull, who had first pressed him,
and had afterwards shown him an easy way out of his financial
difficulties; that way being to secretly accept the gift of a small
trawler, on condition that, any time his services were required by a
strange gentleman who would come down from London and bring him
instructions, he would faithfully carry them out.
In the middle of the month of August 1914 the mysterious gentleman had
arrived, showed him a marked chart of the sea beyond the five-fathoms
line at the Sand Haile, and had given him certain instructions, which he
had been forced to carry out.
Not without great difficulty had the second shore-end of the cable been
brought ashore at night just opposite his cottage, and dug into the sand
at low water, the end being afterwards carried into the little bedroom
in the cottage, where, a few days before, several heavy boxes had
arrived--boxes which old Tom afterwards saw contained a quantity of
electric batteries and weird-looking apparatus.
It was then that Lewin Rodwell arrived for the first time, and, among
other accomplishments, being a trained telegraph electrician, he had set
the instruments up upon the unsuspicious-looking stand of the big old
sewing-machine.
Small, who daily realised and regretted the crafty machinations of the
enemy in entrapping him by means of the moneylender in Hull, was
inclined to go to the police, confess, and expose the whole affair.
Rodwell, with his shrewd intuition, knew this, and in consequence
treated father and son with very little consideration.
Even as he stood in the room that night fingering the secret
instruments, which he had just revealed by lifting the cover, he turned
to the weatherbeaten old man and said, in a hard, sarcastic voice:
"You see the war is lasting longer than you expected, Small--isn't it?
I suppose you've seen all that silly nonsense in the papers about
Germany being already at the end of her tether? Don't you believe it.
In a year's time we shall have only just started."
"Yes, sir," replied the old fellow, in a thick voice. "But--well, sir,
I--I tell you frankly, I'm growing a bit nervous. Mr Judd, from the
Chapel Point coastguard, came 'ere twice last week and sat with me
smokin', as if he were a-tryin' to pump me."
"Nervous, be hanged, Small. Don't be an idiot!" Rodwell replied
quickly. "What can anybody know, unless you yourself blab? And if you
did--by Gad! your own people would shoot you as a traitor at the Tower
of London--you and your boy too! So remember that--and be very careful
to keep a still tongue."
"But I never thought, when that Mr Josephs, up in London, wrote to me
sending me a receipt for the money I owed, that I was expected to do all
this!" Small protested.
"No, if you had known you would never have done it!" laughed Rodwell.
"But Germany is not like your gallant rule-of-thumb England. She leaves
nothing to chance, and, knowing the cupidity of men, she takes full
advantage of it--as in your case."
"But I can't bear the suspense, sir; I feel--I feel, Mr Rodwell--that
I'm suspected--that this house is under suspicion--that--"
"Utter bosh! It's all imagination, Small," Lewin Rodwell interrupted.
"They've cut the cable at the Spurn, and that's sufficient. Nobody in
England ever dreams that the German Admiralty prepared for this war five
years ago, and therefore spliced a second end into the cable."
"Well, I tell you, sir, I heartily wish I'd never had anything to do
with this affair," grumbled old Tom.
"And if you hadn't you'd have been in Grimsby Workhouse instead of
having six hundred and fifty-five pounds to your credit at the bank in
Skegness. You see I know the exact amount. And that amount you have
secured by assisting the enemy. I know mine is a somewhat unpalatable
remark--but that's the truth, a truth which you and your son Ted, as
well as your two brothers must hide--if you don't want to be tried by
court-martial and shot as traitors, the whole lot of you."
The old fisherman started at those words, and held his breath.
"We won't say any more, Tom, on that delicate question," Rodwell went
on, speaking in a hard, intense voice. "Just keep a dead silence, all
of you, and you'll have nothing to fear or regret. If you don't, the
punishment will fall upon you; I shall take good care to make myself
secure--depend upon that!"
"But can't we leave this cottage? Can't we get away?" implored the old
fellow who had innocently fallen into the dastardly web so cleverly spun
by the enemy.
"No; you can't. You've accepted German money for five years, and
Germany now requires your services," was Rodwell's stern, brutal
rejoinder. "Any attempt on your part to back out of your bargain will
result in betraying you to your own people. That's plain speaking! You
and your son should think it over carefully together. You know the
truth now. When Germany is at war she doesn't fight in kid-gloves--like
your idiotic pigs of English!"