observed Mark Redisham. "Her gardener has enlisted, however, so we
Scouts are going to do a good turn by digging it. Indeed, we are now on
our way down to the beach to have a bit of practice and plan out the
thing."
"Ah!" said Mr. Croucher, "I expect you'll do it so well that you'll have
all the neighbourhood asking you to dig trenches in their gardens.
Well, it's for the good of the community. If the War Office and the
Admiralty together won't look after us, we must look after ourselves."
Mark got three spades from his own tool shed and borrowed another from
Mrs. Daplin-Gennery's chauffeur. Armed with these implements, he and
his companions went down to the foot of the cliff.
It was useless to think of digging even an experimental trench in the
loose sand of the beach, so they selected a piece of more solid ground
between the foreshore and the grass land. They chose the spot almost at
random. Even Darby Catchpole did not realise at first how near they
were to the groin from which Max Hilliger had escaped into the boat with
his case of charts.
Mark Redisham staked out the ground and they began to dig, piling the
soil on the side nearest the sea. It was decided that when the trench
was deep enough, it should be roofed in with cross planks and brushwood,
upon which the soil should be heaped to resist the impact of bombs from
the air or shells from the sea; but at present the work was only
undertaken as practice in excavation. The cross planks, the sap trench,
and the means of entrance and exit would be properly applied when the
dug-out came to be made in Mrs. Daplin-Gennery's garden.
They had been digging for about half an hour, when Seth Newruck's spade
chipped against something that was neither soil nor stone. He looked
down at the thing in wonder, then grabbed at it.
"Darby! Mark!" he cried. "See what I've found! A cigarette case!
It's silver!"
His companions all crowded up to him to look at it over his shoulder.
Certainly it was a silver cigarette-case, and a very handsome one.
There was a monogram engraved in the centre of its chased surface.
"It isn't even tarnished," declared Mark Redisham. in surprise. "It's
almost new. It can't have been buried very long. How deep did you find
it?"
"Just here," Seth explained, pointing out the spot about two feet down.
"That's queer!" resumed Mark. "I can't understand--unless some one has
been digging here before us, quite lately, and dropped it by accident.
Some of the Territorials, perhaps."
"Now that I come to think of it," said Darby Catchpole, "the ground did
look as if it had been disturbed. There was no grass growing on top."
Mark Redisham had opened the case. It contained three cigarettes, held
in place by a band of blue elastic. He took one of them out and
examined it.
"I've seen a cigarette like this before," he averred. "They're Egyptian,
see! 'Vafiadi, Cairo.' Who was it that I saw smoking one? Not
Lieutenant Ingoldsby: not Captain Damant." He looked again at the
monogram, and gave a long, low whistle of astonishment. "Oh, I know, I
know now! Keep on digging, you chaps," he ordered. "Here you are,
Seth. Findings are keepings."
He seized his spade and continued digging until his back ached and the
perspiration rolled down his sunburnt cheeks. He moved from place to
place in the trench, keeping it at a uniform depth. They had got below
the dark soil to the soft sea sand.
"You're making it too wide, Mark," Darby objected.
Mark went down on his knees and began to sniff about.
"Don't you smell something?" he questioned, scratching at the sand with
his hands. Then he pulled and tugged at something heavy. "Eureka!" he
shouted. "Look here, Darby! Petrol! a tin of petrol! two tins--a whole
lot of them!"
Darby leant over from the side of the trench and saw the exposed tops of
a number of square red canisters.
"Enough to keep a motor-car going for a year," he declared.
"Yes," added Mark, "or a German submarine for a month."
"Why German?" Darby asked.
Mark laughed.
"Because," he answered, "I don't suppose Herr Hilliger would have been
so considerate as to keep a secret store of petrol for the accommodation
of his enemies. Yes, you may stare. But even if the letters 'H.H.' on
that silver case didn't stand for Heinrich Hilliger, I should still have
known that the cigarettes were of the same brand as the remains of one
that I found on the floor of his pigeon-loft."
He vaulted out of the trench.
"Newruck and Quester will keep watch here," he said to Darby. "I want
you to come along with me to the naval base."
*CHAPTER XVI.*
*THE BOMB-PROOF SHELTER.*
Nothing was said in Haddisport concerning the discovery and removal of
the secret store of petrol buried in the sand on Alderwick Denes. The
reason for the silence was that no one unconnected with the naval base
knew anything about the matter.
Any day during the herring season carts may be seen on the denes
carrying to and fro the fleets of nets that are spread out to dry on the
grass; and if two heavily-laden carts in particular were noticed being
drawn along the lower road towards the town, no one was any the wiser as
to their contents, since the red-painted tins of petrol which they
carried were successfully hidden under cover of herring nets. Mark
Redisham and his fellow scouts knew too well the importance of their
discovery to say anything about it, even in their homes.
One thing which the members of the Lion Patrol had especially laid to
heart from the beginning of the war was the necessity of keeping silence
when in the performance of their duties they chanced to come into
possession of a naval or a military secret.
They had shown that they could be trusted with information which never
came to the knowledge of the ordinary reader of newspapers or of local
gossips such as Constable Challis and old Mr. Croucher. Amongst
themselves they might indeed talk and compare notes; but only within
limits. Mark Redisham, for example, knew many things which he never
mentioned to Darby Catchpole, while Darby was similarly silent towards
Mark.
"Strictly between ourselves, sir," said Constable Challis, meeting Mr.
Croucher on the esplanade, "I believe young Mark Redisham knows exactly
where Sir John Jellicoe's Grand Fleet is at this moment, and what our
submarines are doin' across there under the very noses of the enemy's
forts. He knows a lot, sir. But you can take it from me, you might as
well try to get blood out of a stone as information out of him."
"It's the same with young Catchpole," nodded Mr. Croucher significantly.
"Time after time I've asked that boy to tell me in confidence things
which I'm certain he knows--things about our ships and their mysterious
movements, things about our awful disasters at sea which are being
systematically hidden from us; but it's useless, Challis--useless, and
we are kept in the dark; always kept in the dark."
"Talking about bein' in the dark, sir," resumed the constable, "have you
seen the trench as the Scouts have been makin' in Mrs. Daplin-Gennery's
kitchen-garden? You ought to. It's a room that you could live in, with
four feet of sand piled on the roof as a refuge from bombs and shells.
It's so comfortable and safe, sir, that Mrs. Daplin-Gennery threatens to
invite her friends to take afternoon tea with her in it. And there's
what they calls a sap trench--a tunnel leadin' from it right up to the
kitchen door, so that the household can escape into it on the first
alarm, and be as safe as a rabbit in its burrow."
"Indeed?" said Mr. Croucher. "But mightn't it fall in, as mine did?"
"Not a bit of it, sir," declared Chain's. "You could mount a 6-inch gun
on top of it. Those Sea Scouts knew what they was doin' when they
planned and built it. It's not an ordinary dug-out, sir, like yours and
the vicar's. First of all they quarried a deep pit and shifted the
bicycle shed into it. They packed the shed round with sandbags, roofed
it with cross planks, covered it with brushwood, and then piled a mound
of sea sand on top. Even supposin' a Zeppelin bomb was to drop on it,
there'd be no explosion. If a shell from an enemy ship was to smash the
house, the people in the underground shed would be safe, bein' too far
off for the chimneys and bricks and things to fall on them. Of course,
it can never be really needed. The Germans'll never come here."
"Don't be too sure about that, Challis," Mr. Croucher retorted warmly.
"Mrs. Daplin-Gennery and her household may have to go into their refuge
any day, any night. As I have argued all along, if the enemy's
battleships break through, we are doomed. We can't resist them, either
on sea or land, let alone the air. We are in constant danger. Look at
what they're doing on the Continent! They've already occupied Brussels,
you know. Antwerp has fallen, too. They will take the Channel ports
next--Ostend, Calais, and Boulogne--and then, Challis, it will be the
invasion of England, and they will serve us just as they have served the
poor Belgians--perhaps worse."
Constable Challis shook his head and smiled compassionately upon the
timid, old gentleman.
"You may take it from me, sir," he averred, "the Germans will never get
to Calais. The Allies won't let 'em. And try how they will, they'll
always be brought up against the British Navy. Not but what Mrs.
Daplin-Gennery is quite right to have that trench made. It comforts her
and her servants to know that it's there."
"They may have need for it much sooner than you think, Constable,"
declared Mr. Croucher, turning in at Mrs. Daplin-Gennery's gateway.
In the garden he encountered Seth Newruck.
"Is Redisham in the trench?" he inquired. "I have come to have a look at
it."
"There is nobody there now, sir," Seth answered. "Mark Redisham is out
at sea with the mine-sweepers. I've just been making things a bit tidy.
I'm sorry I haven't time to stay, sir; but I've got to go down to the
naval base to see our Scoutmaster. Mrs. Daplin-Gennery has gone into the
town in her motor-car; but I daresay if you ask the cook she will show
you into the trench, or," he reflected that Mr. Croucher was lame, "you
could get into it yourself easily enough if you're careful about how you
go down the ladder."
Mr. Croucher looked somewhat disappointed. He had resolved to ask Mark
Redisham to dig a similar refuge in his garden at Rose Cottage.
"Gone out mine-sweeping, has he?" he ruminated. "When will he be back?"
"I don't know, sir. Perhaps in a week; perhaps in a day or two."
"That reminds me," pursued Mr. Croucher, detaining Seth with a grip on
the boy's shoulder. "Is it true that Redisham has invented a new
contrivance for picking up German mines, and that the Admiralty have
adopted it?"
"They're always making improvements of one sort or another," Seth
answered evasively.
"Yes, I suppose so. But I understand that this invention of Redisham's
is not only an improvement, but an entirely new idea, on the principle
of a torpedo net, and that it's the means of saving dozens of valuable
lives. I have noticed some of the mine-sweeping boats going out with
curious gear at their prows. How is it worked?"
Seth Newruck was not quite sure whether or not he was expected to regard
the matter as a naval secret.
"How is it worked, eh?" repeated Mr. Croucher. "I am sure you know."
"I'm afraid it would take too long to explain, sir," Seth answered
guardedly. "You should go down to the harbour and get one of the naval
officers to show you. But there's the cook at the kitchen door, sir. I
must be off. Good-morning, sir."
Mr. Croucher's puffy eyes followed the boy as he ran off.
"Just the same as the rest of them," he complained. "There's no worming
information out of any of them. One would think that they were all
bound down by an oath of secrecy."
Seth Newruck had spoken quite truthfully when he said that he had no
time to spare. He was glad to have such a valid excuse to escape from
the inquisitive questioning of the old gossip. He was due to report
himself for duty at the naval base at eleven o'clock, when Mr.
Bilverstone would probably send him on some errand to the coastguards or
to the police-station, or give him some piece of clerical work to
perform. It was already half-past ten, and he had a long walk through
the town.
As he went at scout's pace along the esplanade, he glanced eastward
across the sea to a grey-painted gunboat which he quickly recognised as
H.M.S. _Rapid_. She was steaming northward, followed by a flotilla of
mine-sweepers. He wished that he might be on board of her, little
dreaming that she was destined never again to return to her moorings in
Haddisport harbour. He heard a whirring in the air and looked back for
a moment to watch a seaplane flying overhead. Very soon the seaplane
passed above him, and by something in its colour and structure he knew
it to be the machine of which Lieutenant Aldiss was the
pilot--Lieutenant Aldiss who had lately done such wonderful, daring
things in the aerial raid over Duesseldorf. The aeroplane presently
circled round and seemed to hover above some dark-sailed boats outside
of Haddisport, as if the pilot were inspecting them with suspicion.
Seth Newruck looked at the boats curiously as he ran, but they were soon
hidden from view beyond the trees of the park. He walked through the
park and down the long High Street. At the top of each of the narrow
scores leading downward to the beach, there was a group of people,
eagerly looking out to sea. Beyond the Town Hall, Seth paused and
mingled with a group at the top of Fisherman's Score.
"What are they looking at?" he questioned of a man in khaki. "Is it a
wreck?"
"Nobody seems to know," the soldier answered. "It's something about
those boats out there."
The boats were certainly curious enough to excite interest. Seth
Newruck had never seen any exactly like them before, although he prided
himself on his knowledge of sailing craft and the varieties of rig. The
nearest resemblance to them that he knew were galliots in a Dutch
picture at home. They were clumsy, untidy-looking vessels, with bluff
bows and weather boards, tall masts, and patched, ill-fitting sails. He
counted thirty at the least.
He thought for an instant of Mr. Croucher's often-repeated statement
about the flat-bottomed boats in which the Germans were expected to
bring over their invading troops. Could these be raiding Germans? he
wondered. Then, as one of the sloops turned shoreward, he saw a flag at
the peak of her mast. It was black, yellow, and red.
"They're Belgian!" he cried, and ran off down the town.
While he ran he recollected something which he had read in the newspaper
that morning. Antwerp had fallen and was occupied by the Germans. The
Belgian Army and British troops had retired. The Belgian people, driven
from their homes, had fled to the coast, and now the enemy had reached
Ostend.
A glimmer of the truth was revealed to him. These boats which he had
seen making for Haddisport were surely Flemish fishing smacks bringing
the hard-pressed, homeless Belgians across to the friendly refuge of
England.
*CHAPTER XVII.*
*TOLD THROUGH THE TELEPHONE.*
Seth Newruck's belief was confirmed when he reached the harbour and met
his Scoutmaster and Darby Catchpole.
"Give whatever help you can, Newruck," said Mr. Bilverstone. "These
boats coming in are from Ostend, with Belgian refugees, who will want
food. Many of them will be ill, some wounded. The boats will be brought
up alongside the _Kingfisher_, first of all. Then the people will be
taken to the public hall."
The jetties and quays were crowded with townsfolk, watching the trawlers
drift slowly in to the outer harbour. As the first boat came alongside
the quay there was an audible gasp of pity for the forlorn victims of
war. The little craft was thronged with women and children, looking
miserably ill and hungry, and still showing in their grim faces the
lingering horror of all they had gone through, mingled with doubt as to
the manner in which they would be received in a foreign land.
Then caps were raised in silent salute, handkerchiefs were waved in
welcome, and the townsfolk pressed forward eagerly to throw down tins of
biscuits, bags of buns, bananas, and chocolate, and to pass cans of hot
coffee and milk.
Among the most eager was Mrs. Daplin-Gennery, who had loaded her
motor-car with food from a neighbouring confectioner's and got Darby
Catchpole to help her to distribute it as each boat was warped in. All
the time, tears of sympathy and sorrow were running down her cheeks, and
she spoke to the Belgians in French, which some of them understood.
Once, when a particular boat was passing, crowded with women, all of
whom seemed to be ill, she took off her rich coat and threw it down to
one of them and then returned to her car to buy yet more food.
There were over fifty boats in all, bringing considerably more than a
thousand of the poorest refugees from all parts of Belgium, with such
little treasures as they had been able to snatch from their desolated
homes. Many of them had brought their dogs, their cats, and their
canaries. Many were wounded, and had to be taken to the hospitals. Some
were taken to houses in the town, but most of them were driven in cars
to the public hall, where they were well cared for.
Mr. Arnold Bilverstone, taking temporary leave from his duties at the
naval base, had mustered all the Scouts in the town to give help in
attending to the distressed refugees. He was busy in the public hall,
making a list of the Belgians' names, when Seth Newruck went hurriedly
up to him and plucked at his sleeve.
"Mr. Bilverstone, I've got something to tell you, sir," began Seth.
Mr. Bilverstone laid aside his fountain pen and prepared to listen.
"Yes," he smiled, "what is it? Some more families got accidentally
mixed up? Children separated from their mothers and sent to the wrong
billets?"
"No, sir, it's not that," Seth went on haltingly, as if fearing that
after all his communication was of no importance. "It's something I've
seen. I don't know if you noticed one of the Belgian boats, a small,
yawl-rigged vessel, called _La Belle Pucelle_, of Blankenberghe? She
was one of the last that came in, and about the most untidy of the lot.
She was like a floating rag-bag."
"I didn't see her to my knowledge," returned Mr. Bilverstone, turning
back a page of his list, "but I wrote her name within the last
half-hour. Here it is, _La Belle Pucelle_, with the names of the
thirty-nine refugees who crossed in her--twenty-two women, five
children, four infants in arm's, three men, apart from a crew of four
men and a boy, and two dogs of doubtful breed. That's the lot."
Seth Newruck was looking at the list over the Scoutmaster's shoulder.
"That is eight men, including the boy," he said. "But as a matter of
fact, sir, there were nine, and you haven't got the ninth man's name,
because he didn't get registered. He didn't come ashore in the same way
as the rest of them. I watched him, sir. The reason why I took
particular notice of him was that he looked of a different class from
the others, and was about the only refugee of military age, apart from
the fishermen who did the seamen's work."
"Well?" urged Mr. Bilverstone.
"He wore a very shabby overcoat," Seth continued, "but beneath it he had
a good tweed suit. Just as the boat came alongside the quay he slipped
behind the mainsail; and when he appeared again, he had taken off the
overcoat, changed his cloth cap for a bowler, and was carrying a brown
leather handbag. While the other refugees were pressing forward to
receive the food that was handed down to them, he got round to the
stern, stepped on the quarter rail, and from that on to the quay, where
he quickly disappeared in the crowd."
"I expect he was an Englishman who had missed the passenger steamers and
come over by the only way possible," suggested Mr. Bilverstone.
"No, sir," insisted Newruck, "he wasn't an Englishman, nor yet a
Belgian. He wasn't even a genuine refugee. I'm rather good at
remembering faces, sir, and I knew I'd seen his face before, somewhere;
though it wasn't until he'd gone that I realised who he was. I'm
certain, now, however, I know that he was an alien enemy, a German, and
a spy. I know that he was Fritz Seligmann--Herr Hilliger's secretary."
Mr. Bilverstone looked up sharply.
"Indeed?" he cried. "You are sure?"
"Certain." Seth Newruck nodded emphatically. "I believe he has smuggled
himself over here to do some spying work."
The Scoutmaster was silent for some moments. He took up his pen, but did
not use it.
"Look here, Seth," he said presently. "There may be more in this than
appears on the surface. That man has come over here for no good. He
ought to be tracked. Unfortunately, I can't leave this work just now.
But you can be spared, I think. Suppose you go up to Sunnydene. That's
where he'll make for. Go up and have a look at the house. If you see
anything to show that some one has entered--any smoke from the chimneys,
if the gate has been left open, if there are any new footprints on the
garden path--let me know at once. Mrs. Daplin-Gennery will let you use
her telephone. I expect I shall be at the naval base until about
midnight. If I don't hear from you before then, I shall understand that
nothing has happened, or that you have made a mistake in supposing that
the man was Hilliger's secretary."
Mrs. Daplin-Gennery had taken into her home a family of the Belgian
refugees. They were people of good class, from Bruges; and after all
the misery they had endured in their flight to Ostend, and the hardships
of their crossing the North Sea in a crowded, open boat, she was
unwilling to allow them to undergo the further discomfort of being, as
she said, "herded" in the public hall. So she had brought them, a
mother and two daughters, to Green Croft, providing them with new
clothes, giving up to them two of her best bedrooms, and entertaining
them with the most dainty dinner that her cook could serve.
During the meal they had told her so many thrilling and shocking stories
of the German invasion and occupation of Belgium that she was worked up
into a condition of extreme nervousness and began to dread more than
ever the possibility of the enemy extending their march of ruthless
conquest and destruction by coming over to England.
When her three guests had retired for the night, and she was left alone,
her nervousness increased; she started at every little sound that broke
the silence of the house, and when at length there came a violent ring
at an electric bell, she clutched the arms of her chair, trembling.
The ring was repeated. Some one was at the front door. She tried to
master her fears. Rising unsteadily from her chair, she crept silently
out into the unlighted hall and stood listening.
Again came a ring. She strode across to the hall table, opened its
drawer and took out the loaded revolver which she had kept there since
the beginning of the war in case of emergency. Gripping the weapon
tightly, she approached the door and drew the bolt.
"Who's there?" she demanded. "What do you want at this time of night?"
"It's Seth Newruck," came the answer. "I want to know if you will allow
me to use your telephone, ma'am, to speak to the naval base?"
With all her courage coming back to her, Mrs. Daplin-Gennery flung open
the door.
"Goodness gracious, boy!" she cried, hardly able to see him in the pitch
darkness. "Whatever are you doing out alone at such an hour? Come
inside, quick! Yes, of course you can use the telephone."
She led him into the morning-room, where she lighted a candle, bright
lights being prohibited. There she left him with the telephone receiver
at his ear.
He was not long in getting into communication with Mr. Bilverstone.
"I've been watching Sunnydene since dusk, sir," he reported. "One of
the window blinds had been moved. I knew there was some one in the
house. But nothing happened for hours, until, at last, just as I was
thinking of going home to bed, I saw a man come out of the grounds by
the side gate with a spade over his shoulder. He went down the cliff to
the denes. I took cover and followed him. He was making straight for
the place where we discovered the petrol, but stopped half way. There
was a patrol of Territorials on the beach. He'd seen or heard them, and
he had to turn back. As he passed the bush where I was hiding, I saw
him more distinctly; but it's fearfully dark, and I could only judge by
his figure and walk that he was Fritz Seligmann."