The Essen Barges
I lay for four days like a log in that garret bed. The storm died down,
the thaw set in, and the snow melted. The children played about the
doors and told stories at night round the fire. Stumm’s myrmidons no
doubt beset every road and troubled the lives of innocent wayfarers.
But no one came near the cottage, and the fever worked itself out while
I lay in peace.
It was a bad bout, but on the fifth day it left me, and I lay, as weak
as a kitten, staring at the rafters and the little skylight. It was a
leaky, draughty old place, but the woman of the cottage had heaped
deerskins and blankets on my bed and kept me warm. She came in now and
then, and once she brought me a brew of some bitter herbs which greatly
refreshed me. A little thin porridge was all the food I could eat, and
some chocolate made from the slabs in my rucksack.
I lay and dozed through the day, hearing the faint chatter of children
below, and getting stronger hourly. Malaria passes as quickly as it
comes and leaves a man little the worse, though this was one of the
sharpest turns I ever had. As I lay I thought, and my thoughts followed
curious lines. One queer thing was that Stumm and his doings seemed to
have been shot back into a lumber-room of my brain and the door locked.
He didn’t seem to be a creature of the living present, but a distant
memory on which I could look calmly. I thought a good deal about my
battalion and the comedy of my present position. You see I was getting
better, for I called it comedy now, not tragedy.
But chiefly I thought of my mission. All that wild day in the snow it
had seemed the merest farce. The three words Harry Bullivant had
scribbled had danced through my head in a crazy fandango. They were
present to me now, but coolly and sanely in all their meagreness.
I remember that I took each one separately and chewed on it for hours.
_Kasredin_—there was nothing to be got out of that. _Cancer_—there were
too many meanings, all blind. _v. I._—that was the worst gibberish of
all.
Before this I had always taken the I as the letter of the alphabet. I
had thought the v. must stand for von, and I had considered the German
names beginning with I—Ingolstadt, Ingeburg, Ingenohl, and all the rest
of them. I had made a list of about seventy at the British Museum
before I left London.
Now I suddenly found myself taking the I as the numeral One. Idly, not
thinking what I was doing, I put it into German.
Then I nearly fell out of the bed. _Von Einem_—the name I had heard at
Gaudian’s house, the name Stumm had spoken behind his hand, the name to
which Hilda was probably the prefix. It was a tremendous discovery—the
first real bit of light I had found. Harry Bullivant knew that some man
or woman called von Einem was at the heart of the mystery. Stumm had
spoken of the same personage with respect and in connection with the
work I proposed to do in raising the Moslem Africans. If I found von
Einem I would be getting very warm. What was the word that Stumm had
whispered to Gaudian and scared that worthy? It had sounded like
_Ühnmantl_. If I could only get that clear, I would solve the riddle.
I think that discovery completed my cure. At any rate on the evening of
the fifth day—it was Wednesday, the 29th of December—I was well enough
to get up. When the dark had fallen and it was too late to fear a
visitor, I came downstairs and, wrapped in my green cape, took a seat
by the fire.
As we sat there in the firelight, with the three white-headed children
staring at me with saucer eyes, and smiling when I looked their way,
the woman talked. Her man had gone to the wars on the Eastern front,
and the last she had heard from him he was in a Polish bog and longing
for his dry native woodlands. The struggle meant little to her. It was
an act of God, a thunderbolt out of the sky, which had taken a husband
from her, and might soon make her a widow and her children fatherless.
She knew nothing of its causes and purposes, and thought of the
Russians as a gigantic nation of savages, heathens who had never been
converted, and who would eat up German homes if the good Lord and the
brave German soldiers did not stop them. I tried hard to find out if
she had any notion of affairs in the West, but she hadn’t, beyond the
fact that there was trouble with the French. I doubt if she knew of
England’s share in it. She was a decent soul, with no bitterness
against anybody, not even the Russians if they would spare her man.
That night I realized the crazy folly of war. When I saw the splintered
shell of Ypres and heard hideous tales of German doings, I used to want
to see the whole land of the Boche given up to fire and sword. I
thought we could never end the war properly without giving the Huns
some of their own medicine. But that woodcutter’s cottage cured me of
such nightmares. I was for punishing the guilty but letting the
innocent go free. It was our business to thank God and keep our hands
clean from the ugly blunders to which Germany’s madness had driven her.
What good would it do Christian folk to burn poor little huts like this
and leave children’s bodies by the wayside? To be able to laugh and to
be merciful are the only things that make man better than the beasts.
The place, as I have said, was desperately poor. The woman’s face had
the skin stretched tight over the bones and that transparency which
means under-feeding; I fancied she did not have the liberal allowance
that soldiers’ wives get in England. The children looked better
nourished, but it was by their mother’s sacrifice. I did my best to
cheer them up. I told them long yarns about Africa and lions and
tigers, and I got some pieces of wood and whittled them into toys. I am
fairly good with a knife, and I carved very presentable likenesses of a
monkey, a springbok, and a rhinoceros. The children went to bed hugging
the first toys, I expect, they ever possessed.
It was clear to me that I must leave as soon as possible. I had to get
on with my business, and besides, it was not fair to the woman. Any
moment I might be found here, and she would get into trouble for
harbouring me. I asked her if she knew where the Danube was, and her
answer surprised me. “You will reach it in an hour’s walk,” she said.
“The track through the wood runs straight to the ferry.”
Next morning after breakfast I took my departure. It was drizzling
weather, and I was feeling very lean. Before going I presented my
hostess and the children with two sovereigns apiece. “It is English
gold,” I said, “for I have to travel among our enemies and use our
enemies’ money. But the gold is good, and if you go to any town they
will change it for you. But I advise you to put it in your
stocking-foot and use it only if all else fails. You must keep your
home going, for some day there will be peace and your man will come
back from the wars.”
I kissed the children, shook the woman’s hand, and went off down the
clearing. They had cried “Auf wiedersehen,” but it wasn’t likely I
would ever see them again.
The snow had all gone, except in patches in the deep hollows. The
ground was like a full sponge, and a cold rain drifted in my eyes.
After half an hour’s steady trudge the trees thinned, and presently I
came out on a knuckle of open ground cloaked in dwarf junipers. And
there before me lay the plain, and a mile off a broad brimming river.
I sat down and looked dismally at the prospect. The exhilaration of my
discovery the day before had gone. I had stumbled on a worthless piece
of knowledge, for I could not use it. Hilda von Einem, if such a person
existed and possessed the great secret, was probably living in some big
house in Berlin, and I was about as likely to get anything out of her
as to be asked to dine with the Kaiser. Blenkiron might do something,
but where on earth was Blenkiron? I dared say Sir Walter would value
the information, but I could not get to Sir Walter. I was to go on to
Constantinople, running away from the people who really pulled the
ropes. But if I stayed I could do nothing, and I could not stay. I must
go on and I didn’t see how I could go on. Every course seemed shut to
me, and I was in as pretty a tangle as any man ever stumbled into.
For I was morally certain that Stumm would not let the thing drop. I
knew too much, and besides I had outraged his pride. He would beat the
countryside till he got me, and he undoubtedly would get me if I waited
much longer. But how was I to get over the border? My passport would be
no good, for the number of that pass would long ere this have been
wired to every police-station in Germany, and to produce it would be to
ask for trouble. Without it I could not cross the borders by any
railway. My studies of the Tourists’ Guide had suggested that once I
was in Austria I might find things slacker and move about easier. I
thought of having a try at the Tyrol and I also thought of Bohemia. But
these places were a long way off, and there were several thousand
chances each day that I would be caught on the road.
This was Thursday, the 30th of December, the second last day of the
year. I was due in Constantinople on the 17th of January.
Constantinople! I had thought myself a long way from it in Berlin, but
now it seemed as distant as the moon.
But that big sullen river in front of me led to it. And as I looked my
attention was caught by a curious sight. On the far eastern horizon,
where the water slipped round a corner of hill, there was a long trail
of smoke. The streamers thinned out, and seemed to come from some boat
well round the corner, but I could see at least two boats in view.
Therefore there must be a long train of barges, with a tug in tow.
I looked to the west and saw another such procession coming into sight.
First went a big river steamer—it can’t have been much less than 1,000
tons—and after came a string of barges. I counted no less than six
besides the tug. They were heavily loaded and their draught must have
been considerable, but there was plenty of depth in the flooded river.
A moment’s reflection told me what I was looking at. Once Sandy, in one
of the discussions you have in hospital, had told us just how the
Germans munitioned their Balkan campaign. They were pretty certain of
dishing Serbia at the first go, and it was up to them to get through
guns and shells to the old Turk, who was running pretty short in his
first supply. Sandy said that they wanted the railway, but they wanted
still more the river, and they could make certain of that in a week. He
told us how endless strings of barges, loaded up at the big factories
of Westphalia, were moving through the canals from the Rhine or the
Elbe to the Danube. Once the first reached Turkey, there would be
regular delivery, you see—as quick as the Turks could handle the stuff.
And they didn’t return empty, Sandy said, but came back full of Turkish
cotton and Bulgarian beef and Rumanian corn. I don’t know where Sandy
got the knowledge, but there was the proof of it before my eyes.
It was a wonderful sight, and I could have gnashed my teeth to see
those loads of munitions going snugly off to the enemy. I calculated
they would give our poor chaps hell in Gallipoli. And then, as I
looked, an idea came into my head and with it an eighth part of a hope.
There was only one way for me to get out of Germany, and that was to
leave in such good company that I would be asked no questions. That was
plain enough. If I travelled to Turkey, for instance, in the Kaiser’s
suite, I would be as safe as the mail; but if I went on my own I was
done. I had, so to speak, to get my passport inside Germany, to join
some caravan which had free marching powers. And there was the kind of
caravan before me—the Essen barges.
It sounded lunacy, for I guessed that munitions of war would be as
jealously guarded as old Hindenburg’s health. All the safer, I replied
to myself, once I get there. If you are looking for a deserter you
don’t seek him at the favourite regimental public-house. If you’re
after a thief, among the places you’d be apt to leave unsearched would
be Scotland Yard.
It was sound reasoning, but how was I to get on board? Probably the
beastly things did not stop once in a hundred miles, and Stumm would
get me long before I struck a halting-place. And even if I did get a
chance like that, how was I to get permission to travel?
One step was clearly indicated—to get down to the river bank at once.
So I set off at a sharp walk across squelchy fields, till I struck a
road where the ditches had overflowed so as almost to meet in the
middle. The place was so bad that I hoped travellers might be few. And
as I trudged, my thoughts were busy with my prospects as a stowaway. If
I bought food, I might get a chance to lie snug on one of the barges.
They would not break bulk till they got to their journey’s end.
Suddenly I noticed that the steamer, which was now abreast me, began to
move towards the shore, and as I came over a low rise, I saw on my left
a straggling village with a church, and a small landing-stage. The
houses stood about a quarter of a mile from the stream, and between
them was a straight, poplar-fringed road.
Soon there could be no doubt about it. The procession was coming to a
standstill. The big tug nosed her way in and lay up alongside the pier,
where in that season of flood there was enough depth of water. She
signalled to the barges and they also started to drop anchors, which
showed that there must be at least two men aboard each. Some of them
dragged a bit and it was rather a cock-eyed train that lay in
mid-stream. The tug got out a gangway, and from where I lay I saw half
a dozen men leave it, carrying something on their shoulders.
It could be only one thing—a dead body. Someone of the crew must have
died, and this halt was to bury him. I watched the procession move
towards the village and I reckoned they would take some time there,
though they might have wired ahead for a grave to be dug. Anyhow, they
would be long enough to give me a chance.
For I had decided upon the brazen course. Blenkiron had said you
couldn’t cheat the Boche, but you could bluff him. I was going to put
up the most monstrous bluff. If the whole countryside was hunting for
Richard Hannay, Richard Hannay would walk through as a pal of the
hunters. For I remembered the pass Stumm had given me. If that was
worth a tinker’s curse it should be good enough to impress a ship’s
captain.
Of course there were a thousand risks. They might have heard of me in
the village and told the ship’s party the story. For that reason I
resolved not to go there but to meet the sailors when they were
returning to the boat. Or the captain might have been warned and got
the number of my pass, in which case Stumm would have his hands on me
pretty soon. Or the captain might be an ignorant fellow who had never
seen a Secret Service pass and did not know what it meant, and would
refuse me transport by the letter of his instructions. In that case I
might wait on another convoy.
I had shaved and made myself a fairly respectable figure before I left
the cottage. It was my cue to wait for the men when they left the
church, wait on that quarter-mile of straight highway. I judged the
captain must be in the party. The village, I was glad to observe,
seemed very empty. I have my own notions about the Bavarians as
fighting men, but I am bound to say that, judging by my observations,
very few of them stayed at home.
That funeral took hours. They must have had to dig the grave, for I
waited near the road in a clump of cherry-trees, with my feet in two
inches of mud and water, till I felt chilled to the bone. I prayed to
God it would not bring back my fever, for I was only one day out of
bed. I had very little tobacco left in my pouch, but I stood myself one
pipe, and I ate one of the three cakes of chocolate I still carried.
At last, well after midday, I could see the ship’s party returning.
They marched two by two and I was thankful to see that they had no
villagers with them. I walked to the road, turned up it, and met the
vanguard, carrying my head as high as I knew how.
“Where’s your captain?” I asked, and a man jerked his thumb over his
shoulder. The others wore thick jerseys and knitted caps, but there was
one man at the rear in uniform.
He was a short, broad man with a weather-beaten face and an anxious
eye.
“May I have a word with you, Herr Captain?” I said, with what I hoped
was a judicious blend of authority and conciliation.
He nodded to his companion, who walked on.
“Yes?” he asked rather impatiently.
I proffered him my pass. Thank Heaven he had seen the kind of thing
before, for his face at once took on that curious look which one person
in authority always wears when he is confronted with another. He
studied it closely and then raised his eyes.
“Well, Sir?” he said. “I observe your credentials. What can I do for
you?”
“I take it you are bound for Constantinople?” I asked.
“The boats go as far as Rustchuk,” he replied. “There the stuff is
transferred to the railway.”
“And you reach Rustchuk when?”
“In ten days, bar accidents. Let us say twelve to be safe.”
“I want to accompany you,” I said. “In my profession, Herr Captain, it
is necessary sometimes to make journeys by other than the common route.
That is now my desire. I have the right to call upon some other branch
of our country’s service to help me. Hence my request.”
Very plainly he did not like it.
“I must telegraph about it. My instructions are to let no one aboard,
not even a man like you. I am sorry, Sir, but I must get authority
first before I can fall in with your desire. Besides, my boat is
ill-found. You had better wait for the next batch and ask Dreyser to
take you. I lost Walter today. He was ill when he came aboard—a disease
of the heart—but he would not be persuaded. And last night he died.”
“Was that him you have been burying?” I asked.
“Even so. He was a good man and my wife’s cousin, and now I have no
engineer. Only a fool of a boy from Hamburg. I have just come from
wiring to my owners for a fresh man, but even if he comes by the
quickest train he will scarcely overtake us before Vienna or even
Buda.”
I saw light at last.
“We will go together,” I said, “and cancel that wire. For behold, Herr
Captain, I am an engineer, and will gladly keep an eye on your boilers
till we get to Rustchuk.”
He looked at me doubtfully.
“I am speaking truth,” I said. “Before the war I was an engineer in
Damaraland. Mining was my branch, but I had a good general training,
and I know enough to run a river-boat. Have no fear. I promise you I
will earn my passage.”
His face cleared, and he looked what he was, an honest, good-humoured
North German seaman.
“Come then in God’s name,” he cried, “and we will make a bargain. I
will let the telegraph sleep. I require authority from the Government
to take a passenger, but I need none to engage a new engineer.”
He sent one of the hands back to the village to cancel his wire. In ten
minutes I found myself on board, and ten minutes later we were out in
mid-stream and our tows were lumbering into line. Coffee was being made
ready in the cabin, and while I waited for it I picked up the captain’s
binoculars and scanned the place I had left.
I saw some curious things. On the first road I had struck on leaving
the cottage there were men on bicycles moving rapidly. They seemed to
wear uniform. On the next parallel road, the one that ran through the
village, I could see others. I noticed, too, that several figures
appeared to be beating the intervening fields.
Stumm’s cordon had got busy at last, and I thanked my stars that not
one of the villagers had seen me. I had not got away much too soon, for
in another half-hour he would have had me.