rejoined Mr. Croucher. "Look what the enemy have done already with their
mines! Catchpole, here, can tell you about the loss of the _Atreus_.
And now one of their submarines has sunk another cruiser--the
_Pathfinder_. Didn't you read about it in the paper? They've got their
spies everywhere, too. They know what we're doing as well as we know it
ourselves! Spies, Challis? Why----" He lowered his voice as he glanced
along the cliff to the turrets and gables of Sunnydene. "I've been
watching that house," he went on, mysteriously. "It's supposed to be
empty. No postman goes there, no trade-carts stop at the gate, no
gardener looks after the grounds. And yet, only yesterday there was
smoke from one of the chimneys--puffs of white smoke, long and short.
What was the meaning of it? Signals, Challis, signals!"
"Was there any ship passing, to take up the message, sir?" questioned
Darby Catchpole.
Mr. Croucher looked at the boy severely.
"Do you think they'd make signals to seagulls?" he asked. "Of course,
there were ships--plenty of them--tramps, coasting schooners, fishing
boats. Any one of them might take a message over to Heligoland, telling
secrets about the movements of our warships. The house is a perfect
nest of spies, in the pay of the enemy. It's all very well for them to
pretend to have gone away to Germany. But they haven't. Depend upon it
they're living in some subterranean chamber, where they've stored arms
and munitions of war, lying low there to join the enemy troops when they
come over to murder us all. I tell you, we're doomed, Challis--doomed!"
"Strictly between ourselves," said Constable Challis, when the old man
had gone beyond hearing, "I'm not so sure he isn't right about
Sunnydene. Mrs. Daplin-Gennery declares she's seen Herr Hilliger
prowlin' around at night, likewise his son, Max, who's supposed to be
drowned. And young Mark Redisham, who's a Sea Scout like yourself, has
found out a thing or two in the pigeon-loft. Strictly between ourselves,
I may tell you that we made a raid on the place a few nights ago.
Somebody had been there in front of us, however, and cleared everything
suspicious away. You may take it from me, as that somebody was either
Herr Hilliger or his son."
Darby could have said something concerning his own suspicions of a
message sent by pigeon post; but he knew that Constable Challis was a
gossip, and he held his own counsel. Nevertheless, he thought it in
some way his duty as a Sea Scout to keep an eye upon Sunnydene, and he
seldom passed the house without glancing up at the windows and the
chimneys to see if there were any sign of habitation.
He was beginning to be assured in his belief that there was no real
foundation for further suspicion, when, returning one moonlight night
along the cliff from the Alderwick Coastguard Station, he saw something
which renewed all his doubts.
During his absence, several tramps and coasters had anchored for the
night in the roads; for the coastwise navigation lights were not now
lighted to guide ships on their way, and general traffic on the sea
ceased after dusk.
Amongst other vessels lying in the fairway inside of Alderwick Knoll,
one in particular attracted his notice. It was a foreign-looking ketch.
The moon was not high, and he could see the vessel plainly outlined
against the track of light across the waves.
At night time, one ketch-rigged boat is very much like another; but
there was something in the angle of her bowsprit, in the rake of her two
masts, as well as in the clumsy lines of her hull which made him almost
certain that she was the _Thor_--the same Dutchman in which Max Hilliger
had sailed for Germany hardly more than a fortnight ago. Furthermore,
she was anchored in precisely the same spot as on the earlier occasion,
directly opposite Sunnydene, and visible from any one of the many front
windows. Her riding-light was hung low on her foremast, and there was a
second light abaft her mizzen.
Having no pressing need to get home to his supper, Darby lingered,
anxious to make certain of the identity of the ketch. He could get into
the town as easily by walking along the beach as going by the cliff path
or the main road.
For some minutes he stood by the side of a tall gorse bush. Nothing
happened. But at length as he watched, the vessel's stern light went
out, then reappeared and continued to go in and out with curious
regularity.
A person ignorant of the Morse code might have believed that a message
was being flashed; but Darby Catchpole knew that it was only that one of
the crew was pacing the deck and passing to and fro in front of the
lantern.
While he waited in the silence, however, he heard the unmistakable sound
of a boat's keel crunching on the shingle. He turned and glanced back
at Sunnydene. Only the roof and towers could be seen over the edge of
the cliff; but from a small window in the east gable there came a quick
flash of light. Was it a signal?
Darby crept upwards a few feet and watched for a repetition of the
flash. How long he waited he did not know; but when he stepped back
three or four paces he again saw the light and almost laughed aloud when
he discovered that it was no more than a reflection of the moon in the
glass. Yet it had seemed to move. He was not sure even now that it was
not a signal to the ketch.
Wondering if the casement were swinging loose on its hinges, he mounted
to the top of the cliff and crossed the road to get the window between
him and the light of the moon. An owl flew silently over the tops of
the intervening fir trees. The house seemed indeed to be deserted. The
idea that there still were alien enemies living in it was, after all,
ridiculous, and it was only a waste of time to hang around the place any
longer.
Beyond the long front garden wall was a pathway leading amongst the
gorse and bracken to the main road. Darby determined to take this way
back to the town.
He turned into the dark shadows of the path; but stopped abruptly,
hearing the click of a gate latch. Some one was coming out by the side
gate of Sunnydene. Quick footsteps were approaching, rustling in the
dry bracken. He drew back and looked out from his ambush to see a
cloaked figure dart past him in the clear light of the moon.
"Max!"
Darby leapt forward, clutching at a wing of the cloak. But it was
wrenched violently away, and the hand beneath it was flung out, striking
him a blow in the face that sent him reeling to the ground, while Max
Hilliger, with a tin case full of maps and charts under his arm, stole
downward to the beach.
*CHAPTER XI.*
*THE ESCAPE.*
Max Hilliger had not waited to ascertain who it was that had leapt out
upon him from the shadows.
Against the light of the moon he had caught a glimpse of a Sea Scout's
flat-topped cap, and the young voice that had uttered his name was no
doubt the voice of one of his former companions of the Lion Patrol, who
had been lurking in ambush to detain him, and perhaps bring about his
arrest.
Max could only believe that his assailant was Mark Redisham, who lived
near, and who had already shown inconvenient vigilance against him.
Mark Redisham had by some means intercepted the pigeon with the message
which he, Max, had sent to his father from on board the _Minna von
Barnhelm_. He had dared also to enter the pigeon-loft at Sunnydene, and
perhaps to examine these special maps and charts that were now going
over to Germany.
"Yes," Max ruminated as he made his way down the slopes of the cliff
towards the beach, "it could only have been Mark Redisham. But whoever
it was, I have given him a stinging knockdown blow that he won't forget
in a hurry!"
By paths well known to him, he reached the foot of the cliff, and
started off across the grassy denes, taking cover in the hollows and in
the shadows of the gorse bushes, tightly gripping the tin case of charts
under his arm and the small bag which he carried in his left hand. His
right hand went to his belt, where there was a loaded revolver.
"If he'd shown fight," he reflected, fingering the weapon, "I might have
used this. But it's a good thing I didn't. The noise would have
alarmed the whole neighbourhood, and the Tommies on sentry-go along the
beach would have nabbed me."
He knew that there were armed sentries on the beach. Since the
beginning of the war, the whole of the east coast of Great Britain had
been patrolled and watched at night by men in khaki with loaded rifles
and fixed bayonets.
He was running the risk even now of being seen and made to give an
account of himself. It was for this reason that he was so careful to
take cover and to make no betraying sound as he went at Scouts' pace
towards the sea.
For himself he had no fear, excepting that, if caught, he would be
compelled to explain the compromising contents of his bag and the tin
canister. It was the men in the waiting boat about whom he was anxious.
They were Germans, and although one of them, Hermann Koerner, could
speak excellent English, yet the others might easily betray themselves
as foreigners and enemies.
When he reached the higher ridges of sand that intervened as a natural
barrier between the beach and the level grass land, he went down on his
elbows and knees and crept over the loose sand until he could look down
upon the foreshore. He had come out, as he had intended to do, directly
opposite one of the groins of black timber that reared their protecting
walls across the beach. The deep-driven piles at the near end were
covered with sand; at the far end they were washed by the tide. Many a
time had Max dived into the deep water from the end of this same groin.
As he looked at it searchingly now, he distinguished the dark shape of
the boat against the blackness. It was about fifty yards away from him,
with only an open slope of sea sand and shingle between. In a few
moments he might be seated in the boat, when the rowers would push off.
But on that stretch of moonlit beach two figures had suddenly appeared.
They were striding quickly towards the boat. He could see the moonshine
glinting on their bayonets, and hear their heavy tread on the sand. One
of them lowered his rifle, with a hand on the lever, as he called out a
loud challenge to the boat:
"Who comes there?"
Max Hilliger's plan was working just as he had hoped. A tall man stood
up from the boat and strode towards the two sentries.
"Friends!" he answered. And Max recognised the voice of Hermann
Koerner. "It's all right, boys."
The patrol saw only indistinctly that he wore the uniform of a naval
officer. Never doubting that he was British, they drew to a halt in
front of him.
"We've got strict orders not to let anybody come ashore," one of them
said.
"Yes, well," was the ready response, "you do your duty. But I have my
duty also. I come ashore from ze revenue schooner out there. I report
something. Listen!" He had seen their regimental badges in the
moonlight, and noticed that one wore a corporal's stripe. "You are not
local men," he went on; "you are probably strangers on the coast." He
pointed to the cliff. "What sort of peoples live in the third house?"
he questioned. It was Major Redisham's house which he indicated. "You
don't know? Well, I recommend you keep a watch on it. Half an hour ago
there was signals flashed from one of ze upper windows. It is well you
go up and make inquiry into the matter."
The two men in khaki were now standing with their backs to the groin,
beyond which Max Hilliger was crawling stealthily to the boat.
"Do you say they're alien spies, signallin' to some ship out at sea?"
the corporal asked.
The stranger shrugged his shoulders in a way which to any one suspicious
must at once have betrayed that he was a foreigner.
"Such is my impression, corporal," he answered, watching Max Hilliger
step into the boat. "And knowing that there was a military patrol here,
naturally I come ashore to warn you. Good night."
They waited until he had returned to his companions and pushed off.
Then they crossed the denes together, and climbed the cliff path to the
suspected house.
Pushing open the gate, they entered the drive, where they were
confronted by Mark Redisham and Darby Catchpole. Mark's greatcoat
covered his naval clothes. Darby wore his Sea Scout's uniform, and he
was dabbing his swollen nose with a blood-stained handkerchief.
"Signal lights have been seen flashing from the windows of this house,"
began the corporal.
"Who said so?" demanded Mark. "I'm sure no light of any sort has been
seen. All the windows are thickly curtained. You're making a mistake."
"Oh, no, we're not!" insisted the corporal. "A naval officer from the
revenue ship out there came ashore to tell us about it." He indicated
the _Thor_.
"There's no revenue boat out there," declared Darby Catchpole. "That
ship's not even British. You've been hoodwinked." He turned to Mark.
"Do you see how the trick has been played?" he cried. "It's quite
plain. While one of the boat's crew, speaking English, came ashore and
kept the patrol off the scent, Max Hilliger slipped into the boat
unseen! What's to be done?"
"If Max has gone aboard the ketch, we can't do much more than we've done
already," declared Mark. "I've telephoned to the naval base, telling
them to send out and capture the ketch while she's still at anchor. But
are you certain sure that it was Max Hilliger you saw?"
Darby dabbed his handkerchief to his nose, which was still bleeding.
"What's the good of asking such a question?" he objected warmly. "I saw
him as clearly as I see you now. He rounded on me when I called his
name, and then fetched me a blow in the face that sent me sprawling. I
saw what he carried, too--a long sort of tin box under his left arm and
a bag in his left hand."
"The charts!" Mark Redisham ejaculated. "The charts!" Then to the
corporal he added: "It's clear you've been had. The men in that boat
were Germans, and a young German has escaped with them, taking a lot of
charts and maps that will be no end of help to the enemy if they should
attempt to land an invading army on this coast. That chap who kidded
you about signal lights only wanted to draw your attention off the boat
for a minute. You wouldn't have committed a crime if you had put a
bullet into him. Haven't you been ordered not to let any boat come
ashore?"
"Yes, of course," admitted the corporal. "But he was in uniform. He
looked and talked like a British naval officer."
"Anyhow, you'll have to report the matter to your colonel," rejoined
Mark.
The corporal seemed to have a sudden inspiration.
"How am I to know what you're tellin' me is true?" he demanded. "Who
are you? What are you doin', spyin' round out here at this time of
night?"
"I am the son of Major Redisham, who is now with his regiment in
France," Mark answered. "I am, myself, in the Royal Naval Reserve,
serving the King. My chum, here, is a Sea Scout. If that isn't enough,
you can go up to the house and see my mother."
"Listen!" cried Darby Catchpole excitedly. "The ketch is lifting her
anchor! She's making sail! Come along--quick! Don't stand jawing
here."
The patrol shouldered their rifles and followed the two boys down to the
beach. There came to them a curious, spluttering sound, like that of a
motor-car being started. Mark Redisham stood still, listening and
watching. The _Thor's_ sails were up, but there was very little wind to
fill them. Nevertheless, she was moving. There was a commotion of
water under her stern.
"She's got petrol engines!" Mark declared. "Look! Look, she's off!"
The corporal, realising the gravity of his former omission, now
attempted to repair it. He threw himself forward on a knoll of sand,
and levelling his rifle, took aim and fired at the escaping ketch.
*CHAPTER XII.*
*A FLEET IN HIDING.*
Standing at the vessel's stern beside the steersman, Max Hilliger saw
the flash and heard the sharp report. He laughed. There was a second
shot. A bullet whistled over his head and tore through the canvas of
the mizzen sail.
"Hard a-starboard!" he ordered; and when she turned with her bow to the
north-east, he added: "Steady!"
He glanced astern, taking his bearings by the familiar landmarks.
"Be careful, my friend," said Lieutenant Koerner, at his side. "There
is the sandbank."
"That is why I am careful," returned Max. "We're going to cross it.
It's our only safe way. If you keep to the channel, you must either risk
a shot from the naval gun on Haddisport pier, or else run up against the
destroyer anchored off Buremouth. I'm going to take her across the
shoal, through a gap that's used only by the lifeboatmen. Leave it to
me, Hermann."
It was a feat in seamanship which no local fisherman, familiar with the
dangers of the Alderwick shoal, would have believed possible. But Max
Hilliger knew every fathom over the sunken bank, and he brought the boat
through so skilfully that no one on board even guessed how narrow was
their escape from disaster.
When at length she was safe beyond the reef, her course was set and she
sped along, driven by her powerful motor.
The sea was clear of all traffic during the night, and there were no
ships in sight to notice her unusual speed or to question her business.
And if there were mine-fields to fear, those on the British side of the
North Sea were known to Max Hilliger, while Lieutenant Koerner knew
equally well how to avoid those sown by the Germans in their own waters.
So they went on in safety.
On the following morning, when they were off the Dogger Bank, heavy rain
was falling. A fleet of fishing craft at work loomed dimly through the
mist. As a precaution against suspicion, Koerner stopped the petrol
engine, depending upon the sails. The rain mist was still thick at
mid-day, when, as from behind a curtain, a squadron of British battle
cruisers and light cruisers appeared, accompanied by a patrol flotilla
of destroyers and submarines. They passed within a mile of the _Thor_,
and challenged her by signal. The Dutch colours were run up to her
masthead and she was allowed to go on unmolested.
During the short time the warships were in sight, Max Hilliger was busy
taking notes concerning them. With the help of an English book of
reference, he was able to identify each one of them and to discover all
particulars as to her speed, tonnage, and armament. He noted with
particular interest that one of the destroyers was the _Lupin_, by which
he had himself been rescued when the _Atreus_ was mined, and that
another was the _Levity_, upon which, as he had lately learned, Rodney
Redisham was serving as a midshipman.
"Ah!" he regretted, gazing at the formidable bulk of the nearest
battleship, "if this tub were only your submarine, Hermann, how you
could distribute your torpedoes and send every one of them to the
bottom! Look at their great guns--as great even as some of our own! We
shall not easily beat them in a pitched battle. And they outnumber our
High Sea Fleet. It must be by our submarines that we conquer them.
Hermann, I want you to get me on board your submarine. Then we can get
about the seas, sinking every English warship that we can find!"
"Very well, my friend," returned Lieutenant Koerner. "For you it will
not be difficult. It needs only that you mention the ambition to your
uncle, Admiral von Hilliger, and the thing is settled. Is it not so?"
It was to Admiral von Hilliger's flagship, the armoured cruiser
_Schiller_, that Max was now bound. She was known to be lying behind the
island of Heligoland, protected by the fortress and by the mine-fields
of the Bight.
Lieutenant Koerner made a course by secret passages through the mines
and under the lee of the Frisian Islands, and it was just before sunset
that the _Thor_ entered the estuary of the Elbe and came into the midst
of the Kaiser's High Sea Fleet.
Max Hilliger had constantly heard and read of the huge navy, the
construction of which had played so prominent a part in Germany's plan
of world-dominion; but his dreams had never presented anything to
compare with the vast number and might of the warships now arrayed
before his wondering eyes.
They stretched in an almost unbroken line across from Cuxhaven to
Brunsbuttel--battleships which appeared to him far more powerful than
any of the British Dreadnoughts that he had seen passing in the distance
from the cliffs of Haddisport; armoured cruisers that looked like
impregnable floating fortresses; light cruisers built for speed; and a
vast multitude of destroyers, submarines, mine-layers, troopships, and
armed liners.
His heart seemed to swell within him in patriotic pride. This was the
fleet designed for the conquest of Britain, and he could not imagine how
its purpose could fail.
Believing that the sea power of Great Britain was doomed to be broken,
and that the future of the Fatherland was fated to be one of shining
glory and greatness, he was thankful that he was a German; thankful that
it was now to be his privilege to fight for her in the conquest of her
worst enemy.
Lieutenant Koerner steered the ketch to her anchorage beside his
submarine at the rear of the main fleet; and, in the deepening dusk of a
rainy evening, Max was conveyed in a motor-launch to Admiral von
Hilliger's flagship.
The admiral was at dinner and could not be interrupted even to receive
his nephew from England, but Max found friends amongst the junior
officers, and at length he was admitted.
*CHAPTER XIII.*
*THE GERMAN ADMIRAL.*
In the admiral's state-room, Max quickly won his uncle's favour by
producing his collection of special maps and charts--the same collection
which Mark Redisham had discovered in the pigeon-loft at Sunnydene.
On the charts of the North Sea were clearly shown not only the depths in
fathoms and the positions of newly-placed buoys and lightships for the
guidance of pilots, but also the areas which the British Admiralty had
sown with defensive mines.
Admiral von Hilliger examined them with keen scrutiny, stroking his
long, fair beard with satisfaction as he observed particular features
which were new to him.
"_Ja_," he nodded, making a mark with his pencil. "We shall use this
channel when we go to bombard their fortified coast towns. It is just
here that our invading troops can make a landing. You have two and a
quarter fathoms of water close up to the beach at low tide--a lonely
piece of exposed coast, within easy reach of a railway junction, and
three cathedral cities. There are no fortifications to oppose us; and
the little English Army is already in France! But first, my dear Max, we
shall annihilate their miserable North Sea Fleet. Once we have got rid
of their boasted Dreadnoughts and secured command of the seas, the rest
will be as simple as eating your breakfast."
"If there is going to be a sea battle, uncle," Max ventured boldly, "I
should not like to miss seeing it, and perhaps taking a small part in
it."
The admiral shrugged his decorated shoulders and took up the chart of
Alderwick Knoll.
"As a holiday entertainment it would be interesting," he responded.
"And certainly there are ways in which your knowledge of the enemy may
be useful."
"Also my knowledge of submarines," Max added.
"So?" returned his uncle, studying the chart. "And you have the wish to
fight under the sea, eh? Well, my dear child, that is perhaps possible!
We have many under-sea boats in commission, and many more building, for
which we shall require crews. I will arrange it. In the meantime, you
will be provided with a midshipman's uniform and remain on board the
_Schiller_. But what is this so carefully prepared chart?"
"It is a reef off the English coast, sir," Max explained, "a place
convenient for our submarines to lie safely hidden, to pounce out upon
enemy ships and sink them. Also, there is a secret store of petrol
buried in the sand dunes quite near. My father has not been idle."
"Good!" said the admiral. "Yes, we shall sink their ships--merchant
ships as well as vessels of war. We shall blockade their coasts, and
so, stopping their food supplies, starve the contemptible English. But
that will be when we have destroyed their battle fleets, as we shall do
as soon as they choose to come out from their fortified harbours, where
at present they remain in close hiding."
Max Hilliger very well knew that Sir John Jellicoe's Grand Fleet was not
in hiding; but he did not wish just now to contradict his uncle. He
simply said:
"Some of their cruiser squadrons are nevertheless venturing nearer to
our mine-fields than is good for them, sir. To-day, for example, we
passed a squadron hardly a score of miles from the south-west of
Heligoland."
"Ha!" cried the admiral, growing excited. "So near? Why did you not
inform me at once, instead of wasting my time and our opportunity?
Already we might have sent out a flotilla of our faithful submarines to
torpedo them! A squadron, you say? Of what strength?"
Max produced the notes that he had taken.