THE GREAT SECRET
All that morning American infantry had been passing through Delle
over the Belfort road. The sun of noon saw no end to them.
The endless column of shadows, keeping pace with them, lengthened
with the afternoon along their lengthening line.
Now and then John Recklow opened the heavy wooden door in his garden
wall and watched them until duty called him to his telephone or to
his room where maps and papers littered the long table. But he
always returned to the door in the garden wall when duty permitted
and leaned at ease there, smoking his pipe, keen-eyed, impassive,
gazing on the unbroken line of young men--men of his own race,
sun-scorched, dusty, swinging along the Belfort road, their right
elbows brushing Switzerland, their high sun-reddened pillar of dust
drifting almost into Germany, and their heavy tread thundering
through that artery of France like the prophetic pulse of victory.
A rich September sunset light streamed over them; like a moving
shaft of divine fire the ruddy dust marched with them upon their
right hand; legions of avenging shadows led them forward where, for
nearly half a century beyond the barriers of purple hills, naked and
shackled, the martyr-daughters of the Motherland stood
waiting--Alsace and Lorraine.
"We are on our way!" laughed the Yankee bugles.
The Fortress of Metz growled "Nein!"
Recklow went back to his telephone. For a long while he remained
there very busy with Belfort and Verdun. When again he returned to
the green door in his garden wall, the Yankee infantry had passed;
and of their passing there remained no trace save for the
smouldering pillar of fire towering now higher than the eastern
horizon and leagthened to a wall that ran away into the north as far
as the eye could see.
His cats had come out into the garden for "the cats' hour"--that
mysterious compromise between day and evening when all things feline
awake and stretch and wander or sit motionless, alert, listening to
occult things. And in the enchantment of that lovely liaison which
links day and night--when the gold and rose soften to mauve as the
first star is born--John Recklow raised his quiet eyes and saw two
dead souls come into his garden by the little door in the wall.
"Is it you, Kay McKay?" he said at last.
But the shock of the encounter still fettered him so that he walked
very slowly to the woman who was now moving toward him across the
grass.
"Evelyn Erith," he said, taking her thin hands in his own, which
were trembling now.
"It's a year," he complained unsteadily.
"More than a year," said McKay in his dead voice.
With his left hand, then, John Recklow took McKay's gaunt hand, and
stood so, mute, looking at him and at the girl beside him.
"God!" he said blankly. Then, with no emphasis: "It's rather more
than a year!... They sent me two fire-charred skulls--the head of a
man and the head of a woman.... That was a year ago.... After your
pigeon arrived... I found the scorched skulls wrapped in a Swiss
newspaper-lying inside the garden wall--over there on the grass!...
And the swine had written your names on the skulls...."
Into Evelyn Erith's eyes there came a vague light--the spectre of a
smile. And as Recklow looked at her he remembered the living glory
she had once been; and wrath blazed wildly within him. "What have
they done to you?" he asked in an unsteady voice. But McKay laid his
hand on Recklow's arm:
"Nothing. It is what they have not done--fed her. That's all she
needs--and sleep."
Recklow gazed heavily upon her. But if the young fail rapidly, they
also respond quickly.
"Come into the house,"
Perhaps it was the hot broth with wine in it that brought a slight
colour back into her ghastly face--the face once so youthfully
lovely but now as delicate as the mask of death itself.
Candles twinkled on the little table where the girl now lay back
listlessly in the depths of an armchair, her chin sunk on her
breast.
Recklow sat opposite her, writing on a pad in shorthand. McKay,
resting his ragged elbows on the cloth, his haggard face between
both hands, went on talking in a colourless, mechanical voice which
an iron will alone flogged into speech:
"Killed two of them and took their clothes and papers," he continued
monotonously; "that was last August--near the end of the month....
The Boche had tens of thousands working there. AND EVERY ONE OF THEM
WAS INSANE."
"What!"
"Yes, that is the way they were operating--the only way they dared
operate. I think all that enormous work has been done by the insane
during the last forty years. You see, the Boche have nothing to
dread from the insane. Anyway the majority of them died in harness.
Those who became useless--intractable or crippled--were merely
returned to the asylums from which they had been drafted. And the
Hun government saw to it that nobody should have access to them.
"Besides, who would believe a crazy man or woman if they babbled
about the Great Secret?"
He covered his visage with his bony hands and rested so for a few
moments, then, forcing himself again:
"The Hun for forty years has drafted the insane from every asylum in
the Empire to do this gigantic work for him. Men, women, even
children, chained, guarded, have done the physical work.... The
Pyramids were builded so, they say.... And in this manner is being
finished that colossal engineering work which is never spoken of
among the Huns except when necessary, and which is known among them
as The Great Secret.... Recklow, it was conceived as a vast
engineering project forty-eight years ago--in 1870 during the
Franco-Prussian war. It was begun that same year.... And it is
practically finished. Except for one obstacle."
Recklow's lifted eyes stared at him over his pad.
"It is virtually finished," repeated McKay in his toneless,
unaccented voice which carried such terrible conviction to the other
man. "Forty-eight years ago the Hun planned a huge underground
highway carrying four lines of railroad tracks. It was to begin east
of the Rhine in the neighbourhood of Zell, slant into the bowels of
the earth, pass deep under the Rhine, deep under the Swiss frontier,
deep, deep under Mount Terrible and under the French frontier, and
emerge in France BEHIND Belfort, Toul, Nancy, and Verdun."
Recklow laid his pad on the table and looked intently at McKay. The
latter said in his ghost of a voice: "You are beginning to suspect
my sanity." He turned with an effort and fixed his hollow eyes on
Evelyn Erith.
"We are sane," he said. "But I don't blame you, Recklow. We have
lived among the mad for more than a year--among thousands and
thousands and thousands of them--of men and women and even children
in whose minds the light of reason had died out.... Thirty thousand
dying minds in which only a dreadful twilight reigned!... I don't
know how we endured it--and retained our reason.... Do you,
Yellow-hair?"
The girl did not reply. He spoke to her again, then fell silent. For
the girl slept, her delicate, deathly face dropped forward on her
breast.
Presently McKay turned to Recklow once more; and Recklow picked up
his pad with a slight shudder.
"Forty-eight years," repeated McKay--"and the work of the Hun is
nearly done--a wide highway under the earth's surface flanked by
four lines of rails--broad-gauge tracks--everything now working, all
rolling-stock and electric engines moving smoothly and swiftly....
Two tracks carry troops; two carry ammunition and munitions. A
highway a hundred feet wide runs between.
"Ten miles from the Rhine, under the earth, there is a Hun city,
with a garrison of sixty thousand men!... There are other cities
along the line--"
"Deep down!"
"Deep under the earth."
"There must be shafts!" said Recklow hoarsely.
"None."
"No shafts to the surface?"
"Not one."
"No pipe? No communication with the outer air?"
Then McKay's sunken eyes glittered and he stiffened up, and his
wasted features seemed to shrink until the parting of his lips
showed his teeth. It was a dreadful laughter--his manner, now, of
expressing mirth.
"Recklow," he said, "in 1914 that vast enterprise was scheduled to
be finished according to plan. With the declaration of war in August
the Hun was to have blasted his way to the surface of French soil
behind the barrier forts! He was prepared to do it in half an hour's
time.
"Do you understand? Do you see how it was planned? For forty-eight
years the Hun had been preparing to seize France and crush Europe.
"When the Hun was ready he murdered the Austrian archduke--the most
convenient solution of the problem for the Hun Kaiser, who presented
himself with the pretext for war by getting rid of the only Austrian
with whom he couldn't do business."
Again McKay laughed, silently, showing his discoloured teeth.
"So the archduke died according to plan; and there was
war--according to plan. And then, Recklow, GOD'S HAND MOVED!--very
slightly--indolently--scarcely stirring at all.... A drop of icy
water percolated the limestone on Mount Terrible; other drops
followed; linked by these drops a thin stream crept downward in the
earth along the limestone fissures, washing away glacial sands that
had lodged there since time began."... He leaned forward and his
brilliant, sunken eyes peered into Recklow's:
"Since 1914," he said, "the Staubbach has fallen into the bowels of
the earth and the Hun has been fighting it miles under the earth's
surface.
"They can't operate from the glacier on the white Shoulder of
Thusis; whenever they calk it and plug it and stop it with tons of
reinforced waterproof concrete--whenever on the surface of the world
they dam it and turn it into new channels, it evades them. And in a
new place its icy water bursts through--as though every stratum in
the Alps dipped toward their underground tunnel to carry the water
from the Glacier of Thusis into it!"
He clenched his wasted hands and struck the table without a sound:
"God blocks them, damn them!" he said in his ghost of a voice. "God
bars the Boche! They shall not pass!"
He leaned nearer, twisting his clenched fingers together: "We saw
them, Recklow. We saw the Staubbach fighting for right of way; we
saw the Hun fighting the Staubbach--Darkness battling with
Light!--the Hun against the Most High!--miles under the earth's
crust, Recklow.... Do you believe in God?"
"Yes."
"Yes.... We saw Him at work--that young girl asleep there, and
I--month after month we watched Him check and dismay the modern
Pharaoh--we watched Him countermine the Nibelungen and mock their
filthy Gott! And Recklow, we laughed, sometimes, where laughter
among clouded minds means nothing--nothing even to the Hun--nor
causes suspicion nor brings punishment other than the accustomed
kick and blow which the Hun reserves for all who are helpless."...
He bowed his head in his hands. "All who are weak and stricken," he
whispered to himself.
Recklow said: "Did they harm--HER?" And,
McKay looked up at that, baring his teeth in a swift snarl:
"No--you see her clipped hair--and the thin body.... In her blouse
she passed for a boy, unquestioned, unnoticed. There were thousands
of us, you see.... Some of the insane women were badly treated--all
of the younger ones.... But she and I were together.... And I had my
pistol in reserve--for the crisis!--always in reserve--always ready
for her." Recklow nodded. McKay went on:
"We fought the Staubbach in shifts.... And all through those months
of autumn and winter there was no chance for us to get away. It is
not cold under ground.... It was like a dark, thick dream. We tried
to realise that war was going on, over our heads, up above us
somewhere in daylight--where there was sun and where stars were....
It was like a thick dream, Recklow. The stars seemed very far...."
"You had passed as inmates of some German asylum?"
"We had killed two landwehr on the Staubbach. That was a year ago
last August--" He looked at the sleeping girl beside him: "My
little comrade and I undressed the swine and took their uniforms....
After a long while--privations had made us both light-headed I
think--we saw a camp of the insane in the woods--a fresh relay from
Mulhaus. We talked with their guards--being in Landwehr uniform it
was easy. The insane were clothed like miners. Late that night we
exchanged clothes with two poor, demented creatures who retained
sufficient reason, however, to realise that our uniforms meant
freedom.... They crept away into the forest. We remained.... And
marched at dawn--straight into the jaws of the Great Secret!"
Recklow had remained at the telephone until dawn. And now Belfort
was through with him and Verdun understood, and Paris had relayed to
Headquarters and Headquarters had instructed John Recklow.
Before Recklow went to bed he parted his curtain and looked out at
the misty dawn.
In the silvery dusk a cock-pheasant was crowing somewhere on a
wheat-field's edge. A barnyard chanticleer replied. Clear and
truculent rang out the challenge of the Gallic cock in the dawn,
warning his wild neighbour to keep to the wilds. So the French
trumpets challenge the shrill, barbaric fanfares of the Hun, warning
him back into the dull and shadowy wilderness from whence he
ventured.
Recklow was awake, dressed, and had breakfasted by eight o'clock.
McKay, in his little chamber on the right, still slept. Evelyn
Erith, in the tiny room on the left, slept deeply.
So Recklow went out into his garden, opened the wooden door in the
wall, seated himself, lighted his pipe, and watched the Belfort
road.
About ten o'clock two American electricians came buzzing up on
motor-cycles. Recklow got up and went to the door in the wall as
they dismounted. After a short, whispered consultation they guided
their machines into the garden, through a paved alley to a tiled
shed. Then they went on duty, one taking the telephone in Recklow's
private office, the other busying himself with the clutter of maps
and papers. And Recklow went back to the door in the wall. About
eleven an American motor ambulance drove up. A nurse carrying her
luggage got out, and Recklow met her.
After another whispered consultation he picked up the nurse's
luggage, led her into the house, and showed her all over it.
"I don't know," he said, "whether they are too badly done in to
travel as far as Belfort. There'll be a Yankee regimental doctor
here to-day or to-morrow. He'll know. So let 'em sleep. And you
can give them the once-over when they wake, and then get busy in the
kitchen."
The girl laughed and nodded.
"Be good to them," added Recklow. "They'll get crosses and legions
enough but they've got to be well to enjoy them. So keep them in bed
until the doctor comes. There are bathrobes and things in my room."
"I understand, sir."
"Right," said Recklow briefly. Then he went to his room, changed his
clothes to knickerbockers, his shoes for heavier ones, picked up a
rifle, a pair of field-glasses and a gas-mask, slung a satchel
containing three days' rations over his powerful shoulders, and went
out into the street.
Six Alpinists awaited him. They were peculiarly accoutred, every
soldier carrying, beside rifle, haversack and blanket, a flat tank
strapped on his back like a knapsack.
Their sergeant saluted; he and Recklow exchanged a few words in
whispers. Then Recklow strode away down the Belfort road. And the
oddly accoutred Alpinists followed him, their steel-shod soles
ringing on the pavement.
Where the Swiss wire bars the frontier no sentinels paced that noon.
This was odd. Stranger still, a gap had been cut in the wire.
And into this gap strode Recklow, and behind him trotted the nimble
blue-devils, single file; and they and their leader took the
ascending path which leads to the Calvary on Mount Terrible.
Standing that same afternoon on the rocks of that grim Calvary, with
the weatherbeaten figure of Christ towering on the black cross above
them, Recklow and his men gazed out across the tumbled mountains to
where the White Shoulder of Thusis gleamed in the sun.
Through their glasses they could sweep the glacier to its terminal
moraine. That was not very far away, and the "dust" from the
Staubbach could be distinguished drifting out of the green ravine
like a windy cloud of steam.
"Allons," said Recklow briefly.
They slept that night in their blankets so close to the Staubbach
that its wet, silvery dust powdered them, at times, like snow.
At dawn they were afield, running everywhere over the rocks,
searching hollows, probing chasms, creeping into ravines, and always
following the torrent which dashed whitely through its limestone
canon.
Perhaps the Alpine eagles saw them. But no Swiss patrol disturbed
them. Perhaps there was fear somewhere in the Alpine
Confederation--fear in high places.
Also it is possible that the bellowing bluster of the guns at Metz
may have allayed that fear in high places; and that terror of the
Hun was already becoming less deathly among the cantons of a race
which had trembled under Boche blackmail for a hundred years.
However, for whatever reason it might have been, no Swiss patrols
bothered the blue devils and Mr. Recklow.
And they continued to swarm over the Alpine landscape at their own
convenience; on the Calvary of Mount Terrible they erected a dwarf
wireless station; a hundred men came from Delle with
radio-impedimenta; six American airmen arrived; American planes circled
over the northern border, driving off the squadrilla of Count von
Dresslin.
And on the second night Recklow's men built fires and camped
carelessly beside the brilliant warmth, while "mountain mutton"
frizzled on pointed sticks and every blue-devil smacked his lips.
On the early morning of the third day Recklow discovered what he had
been looking for. And an Alpinist signalled an airplane over Mount
Terrible from the White Shoulder of Thusis. Two hours later a full
battalion of Alpinists crossed Mount Terrible by the Neck of Woods
and exchanged flag signals with Recklow's men. They had with them a
great number of cylinders, coils of wire, and other curious-looking
paraphernalia.
When they came up to the ravine where Recklow and his men were
grouped they immediately became very busy with their cylinders,
wires, hose-pipes, and other instruments.
It had been a beautiful ravine where Recklow now stood--was still as
pretty and picturesque as a dry water-course can be with the
bowlders bleaching in the sun and green things beginning to grow in
what had been the bed of a rushing stream. For, just above this
ravine, the water ended: the Staubbach poured its full, icy volume
directly downward into the bowels of the earth with a hollow,
thundering sound; the bed of the stream was bone-dry beyond. And now
the blue-devils were unreeling wire and plumbing this chasm into
which the Staubbach thundered. On the end of the wire was an
electric bulb, lighted. Recklow watched the wire unreeling, foot
after foot, rod after rod, plumbing the dark burrow of the Boche
deep down under the earth.
And, when they were ready, guided by the wire, they lowered the
curious hose-pipe, down, down, ever down, attaching reel after reel
to the lengthening tube until Recklow checked them and turned to
watch the men who stood feeding the wire into the roaring chasm.
Suddenly, as he watched, the flowing wire stopped, swayed violently
sideways, then was jerked out of the men's hands.
"The Boche bites!" they shouted. Their officer, reading the measured
wire, turned to Recklow and gave him the depth; the hose-pipe ran
out sixty yards; then Recklow checked it and put on his gasmask as
the whistle signal rang out along the mountain.
Now, everywhere, masked figures swarmed over the place; cylinders
were laid, hose attached, other batteries of cylinders were ranged
in line and connections laid ready for instant adjustment.
Recklow raised his right arm, then struck it downward violently. The
gas from the first cylinder went whistling into the hose.
At the same time an unmasked figure on the cliff above began talking
by American radiophone with three planes half a mile in the air
above him. He spoke naturally, easily, into a transmitter to which
no wires were attached.
He was still talking when Recklow arrived at his side from the
ravine below, tore off his gas-mask, and put on a peculiar helmet.
Then, taking the transmitter into his right hand: "Do you get them?"
he demanded of his companion, an American lieutenant.
"No trouble, sir. No need to raise one's voice. They hear quite
perfectly, and one hears them, sir."
Then Recklow spoke to the three airplanes circling like hawks in the
sky overhead; and one by one the observers in each machine replied
in English, their voices easily audible.
"I want Zell watched from the air," said Recklow. "The Boche have an
underground tunnel beginning near Zell, continuing under Mount
Terrible to the French frontier.
"I want the Zell end of the tunnel kept under observation.
"Send our planes in from Belfort, Toul, Nancy, and Verdun.
"And keep me informed whether railroad trains, camions, or cavalry
come out. And whether indeed any living thing emerges from the end
of the tunnel near Zell.
"Because we are gassing the tunnel from this ravine. And I think
we've got the dirty vermin wholesale!"
At sundown a plane appeared overhead and talked to Recklow:
"One railroad train came out. But it was manned by dead men, I
think, because it crashed into the rear masonry of the station and
was smashed."
"Nothing else, living or dead, came out?"
"Nothing, sir. There is wild excitement at Zell. Troops at the
tunnel's mouth wear gas-masks. We bombed them and raked them. The
Boche planes took the air but two crashed and the rest turned east."
"You saw no living creature escape from the Zell end of the tunnel?"
"Not a soul, sir."
Recklow turned to the group of officers around him:
"I guess they're done for," he said. "That fumigation cleaned out
the vermin. But keep the tunnel pumped full of gas.... Au revoir,
messieurs!"
On his way back across Mount Terrible he encountered a relay of
Alpinists bringing fresh gas. tanks; and he laughed and saluted
their officers. "This poor old world needs a de-lousing," he said.
"Foch will attend to it up here on top of the world. See that you
gentlemen, purge her interior!"
The nurse opened the door and looked into the garden. Then she
closed the door, gently, and went back into the house.
For she had seen a slim girl with short yellow hair curling all over
her head, and that head was resting on a young man's shoulder.
It seemed unnecessary, too, because there were two steamer chairs
under the rose arbor, side by side, and pillows sufficient for each.
And why a slim young girl should prefer to pillow her curly, yellow
head upon the shoulder of a rather gaunt young man--the shoulder,
presumably, being bony and uncomfortable--she alone could explain
perhaps.
The young man did not appear to be inconvenienced. He caressed her
hair while he spoke:
"From here to Belfort," he was saying in his musing, agreeable
voice, "and from Belfort to Paris; and from Paris to London, and
from London to Strathlone Head, and from Strathlone Head to Glenark
Cliffs, and from Glenark Cliffs to Isla Water, and from Isla
Water--to our home! Our home, Yellow-hair," he repeated. "What do you
think of that?"
"I think you have forgotten the parson's house on the way. You are
immoral, Kay."
"Can't a Yank sky-pilot in Paris--"
"Darling, I must have some clothing!"
"Can't you get things in Paris?"
"Yes, if you'll wait and not become impatient for Isla. And I warn
you, Kay, I simply won't marry you until I have some decent gowns
and underwear."
"You don't care for me as much as I do for you," he murmured in lazy
happiness.
"I care for you more. I've cared for you longer, too."
"How long, Yellow-hair?"
"Ever--ever since your head lay on my knees in my car a year ago
last winter! You know it, too," she added. "You are a spoiled young
man. I shall not tell you again how much I care for you!"
"Say 'love',' Yellow-hair," he coaxed.
"No!"
"Don't you?"
"Don't I what?"
"Love me?"
"Yes."
"Then won't you say it?"
She laughed contentedly. Then her warm head moved a little on his
shoulder; he looked down; lightly their lips joined.
"Kay--my dear--dear Kay," she whispered.
"There's somebody opening the garden door," she said under her
breath, and sat bolt upright.
McKay also sat up on his steamer chair.
"Oh!" he cried gaily, "hello, Recklow! Where on earth have you been
for three days?"
Recklow came into the rose arbour. The blossoms were gone from the
vines but it was a fragrant, golden place into which the September
sun filtered. He lifted Miss Erith's hand and kissed it gravely.
"How are you?" he inquired.
"Perfectly well, and ready for Paris!" she said smilingly.
Recklow shook hands with McKay.
"You'll want a furlough, too," he remarked. "I'll fix it. How do you
feel, McKay?"
"All right. Has anything come out of our report on the Great
Secret?"
Recklow seated himself and they listened in strained silence to his
careful report. Once Evelyn caught her breath and Recklow paused and
turned to look at her.
"There were thousands and thousands of insane down there under the
earth," she said pitifully.
"Yes," he nodded.
"Did--did they all die?"
"Are the insane not better dead, Miss Erith?" he asked calmly....
And continued his recital.
That evening there was a full moon over the garden. Recklow lingered
with them after dinner for a while, discussing the beginning of the
end of all things Hunnish. For Foch was striking at last; Pershing
was moving; Haig, Gouraud, Petain, all were marching toward the
field of Armageddon. They conversed for a while, the men smoking.
Then Recklow went away across the dewy grass, followed by two frisky
and factious cats.
But when McKay took Miss Erith's head into his arms the girl's eyes
were wet.
"The way they died down there--I can't help it, Kay," she faltered.
"Oh, Kay, Kay, you must love me enough to make me forget--forget--"
And she clasped his neck tightly in both her arms.