side. "The same one that we saw taking in petrol from that stolen
trawler. She's in sight even now, Harry. I can see her plainly,
waiting, I suppose, to have a shot at the light cruiser--if she's got
any more torpedoes left. I can make out her number. It's the U50.
There's a group of Germans on her conning-tower platform. I believe
they're gloating over what they've done. One of them's a middy, with his
arm in a sling. Ah! They're going below now! They're going to
submerge."
He did not guess--he did not dream of the possibility--but had he taken
his binoculars, he might have distinguished the features of the "middy"
to whom he referred, and recognised them as the features of Max
Hilliger.
*CHAPTER XX.*
*PUT TO THE TEST.*
"It's astonishing how much more interesting the North Sea has become
since the beginning of the war," remarked Vera Redisham, standing at the
dining-room window, busily knitting a khaki muffler for some unknown
soldier at the Front. "There's a steamer passing now, a neutral, and
I'm simply dying to know where she comes from and where she's going, and
if she has been in danger from German torpedoes."
Her brother Mark, home on shore leave, was seated at the fireside,
making up arrears in his reading of the newspapers. He was dressed in
mufti, and looked very different from the rough-clothed signal boy who
for weeks past had been battling with autumn storms and the perils of
floating mines on the wave-swept decks of the _Dainty_.
"What flag's she flying?" he questioned, turning in his comfortable
chair.
"I can't make out," his sister answered. "It's blue, with a white
cross. And the same colours are painted on her side. And, oh, Mark,
isn't it sweet of her? She's saluting the _Kingfisher_!"
"So she ought to," declared Mark, dropping his paper and rising to his
feet. "All neutrals ought to salute the White Ensign, seeing what our
Navy is doing by keeping the seas clear of the enemy. A Danish ship
saluted our squad of mine-sweepers the other day. Blue with a white
cross? She must be Greek. I expect she's carrying a cargo of currants.
Isn't her name painted on her side?"
He went to the window and looked out upon the sea.
"Yes, she's Greek," he decided. "She's from Pireus. That's the harbour
outside Athens, isn't it? Who's this coming in at the gate? A
policeman delivering handbills!"
The parlourmaid presently brought in a sheet of typewritten paper,
saying that it had been left at the door by a police sergeant. Mark
Redisham took it from her and glanced at it. It was an order, issued by
the Chief Constable of the county, under the Defence of the Realm Act.
"This ought to keep silly people along the front from showing lights
from their windows," he announced. "Listen!"
"All lights visible from seaward shall be effectually obscured.
No person shall show a light on the shore or on the land
adjoining thereto, or visible from seaward.
"The public are hereby warned that non-compliance with this
regulation will render them liable to instant arrest, and that
patrols have been instructed to fire at sight and without
further warning on any person found signalling."
"That's what should have been done weeks ago."
"Bright lights on motor-cars ought to be prohibited, too," pursued Vera.
"Yes," agreed Mark, "and all Germans ought to be shut up. If innocent
Belgian refugees are not allowed to stay in Haddisport, why should we
let Germans live in houses overlooking the coast? They ought to be
cleared out instead of being given the chance of sending messages over
to Germany. It's certain there are spies all along the East Coast.
Otherwise, how could the enemy know so well about the movements of our
warships?"
He picked up the ball of khaki wool which Vera had dropped.
"I believe they're only waiting their chance to slip across and do a bit
of raiding," he went on. "The Admiralty seem to think it possible,
anyhow. That's why they have altered the positions of the lightships and
buoys. I expect they'll continue to shift them about, so that the enemy
may be confused."
"Of course, motor-cars and bicycles, however brightly lighted, can't
send messages across the North Sea," Vera reflected.
Mark shrugged his shoulders.
"What's to hinder a motor-car being fitted with secret aerials?" he
asked. "The Germans are not children. They're up to all sorts of
cunning tricks. Why, only last week one of our Haddisport drifters went
out to the herring fishing with a splash of red paint on her starboard
bow. Nobody knew who put it there, the crew least of all; they didn't
even see it. But when the boats were drifting to their nets on the
fishing ground, a German submarine came nosing round, spotted the red
splash of paint, and then went off in a bee-line for Heligoland."
"Well?" questioned Vera, not understanding. "What did it mean?"
"Well?" repeated Mark. "I don't know what it meant. But the men on the
submarine did. It was a pre-arranged sign--a message. It's an old
Scout trick. Darby Catchpole wanted to communicate with me once, by a
way we'd fixed upon. I watched for the postman, and when he came past
this gate I saw some flour dust on his left arm. That meant 'No.' If
the flour dust had been on his right arm, it would have meant 'Yes.' In
the same way a German spy could put a secret mark on a railway carriage
or a motor-car, going to a known destination, and give information to
hundreds of other spies along the route."
"Dear me!" exclaimed Vera. "Perhaps it was a spy who tied the
mysterious piece of ribbon to the handle-bar of my bicycle yesterday!"
"Likely enough," surmised Mark. "Perhaps the same one who daubed the
paint on that fishing-boat. There's no doubt there are spies around
here. And there's a green motor-car that goes dashing about between here
and Buremouth with lamps shining like searchlights. The police and the
military patrols have had instructions to capture it. Constable Challis
has been put on night duty now. Challis is rather too fond of talking,
but he's an uncommonly smart policeman."
Mark Redisham's estimate of Constable Challis was justified sooner than
he expected.
On the very next night, indeed, Challis was on his beat patrolling the
rabbit warren and the dark lanes to the north of the town, when his
smartness was put to the test.
Formerly he would have been watching for tramps, suspicious loiterers,
and possible burglars; but, since the outbreak of war, crime had
diminished, even gipsies were fewer, and he could do nothing so useful
as to watch the road for unauthorised vehicles and for spies flashing
signals across the sea.
Before ten o'clock he had visited five different houses to alarm the
occupants by informing them that lights were visible from their windows.
In three cases it was discovered that the lights were to be seen through
the chinks of imperfectly drawn curtains or ill-fitting blinds; in one
case a nurse had left the gas burning by mistake, and in the other,
where the light came through an open stable door, a groom was attending
to a sick horse and had not known of the new regulations. By midnight,
however, the whole neighbourhood was in darkness.
Yet, still there were belated cyclists carrying lighted lamps. The
worst offenders were the motor-cyclists, and these were mostly military
men who, as Challis reflected, ought to have known better. Once a large
motor-car dashed along the road at high speed with acetylene lamps which
shone for many yards in advance of the wheels, illuminating the trees
and hedges on either side of the road.
Much to Challis's surprise, when he stood and held out a warning arm and
called to the driver to stop, he was obeyed. Even more to his surprise,
he discovered the driver to be Mrs. Daplin-Gennery, and that her
companion was her nephew, Lieutenant Ingoldsby.
"Very sorry, ma'am," said Challis apologetically, "but I've got strict
orders to stop all cars with high lights. I'm afraid I must ask you to
lower yours, or else screen them."
"Quite right, constable," laughed Lieutenant Ingoldsby, jumping out.
"I'm glad you stopped us without opening fire upon us."
Challis gathered that Lieutenant Ingoldsby was on the way to Buremouth
to visit a friend who had been sent home wounded. When the car had gone
on, with greatly reduced lights, he returned towards Haddisport along
the edge of the cliff, then made inland to the Alderwick road.
As he approached the road through the intricate maze of bramble and
gorse, he became aware of the sound of an approaching car. Could it
possibly be Mrs. Daplin-Gennery returning so soon?
Instead of going into the road, he concealed himself within the shadow
of a hawthorn-tree and watched. The car was coming slowly--so slowly
that it made very little sound; and its lights were exceedingly dim. He
waited, feeling instinctively that something was about to happen. It
occurred to him that the dimness of the lights and the quiet slowness
with which the car was moving were due to the extreme caution on the
part of the driver, who evidently wished to escape observation.
In the darkness Challis could hardly see the vehicle itself, only the
two tiny lights which were like the glimmer of candles. Suddenly, just
opposite to him, it stopped, then backed and curved towards the farther
side of the road.
Only at that moment did the watcher realise that just at that point was
a narrow lane leading to Alderwick Hall. It was into this lane that the
car was backing, obviously for the purpose of concealment. When its
whole length was within the lane, hidden under the overhanging trees, it
stopped.
The driver got out, stood for some moments as if listening, then went
softly to the front of the car to extinguish the lamps. As he bent down
to the first of them, the light shone in his face.
Challis hitched his cuffs back from his wrists. His eyesight was very
keen. He had seen the man's face and recognised it. It was the face of
Fritz Seligmann, the German spy!
With the stealthy softness of a cat stalking its prey, the policeman
crept forward, and, just as Seligmann had raised his hand to turn out
the second light, leapt upon him, gripping him from behind by the two
arms.
There was a heavy gasp from the astonished German as he went down on his
knees, the policeman's weight on top of him. He writhed and struggled
to free himself, and succeeded in getting his right hand to his hip
pocket, from which, with an effort, he drew his loaded revolver.
Challis guessed rather than knew what was in the man's hand. In an
instant he had seized the German's wrist, twisted the hand under it, and
secured the weapon from the helpless fingers.
"Now," he said, speaking for the first time, "I think I've got you. If
you move I'm goin' to use this here pistol. You're an enemy, and you
may take it from me I don't care if I shoot you dead here and now no
more than if I killed you on the field of battle."
Seligmann was lying with his face to the grass, panting, writhing,
heaving under the weight of the constable's knee planted in the small of
his back, while the cold ring of the revolver muzzle was pressed against
the bone behind his ear and the policeman's forefinger was twitching at
the trigger.
Thus they remained for some minutes, the one utterly helpless, the other
resolute, alert, and astonishingly strong.
In those tense minutes Challis wondered what he was going to do. He did
not want to use the revolver as anything else than a menace, and yet he
knew that if he should move there would be a struggle, during which, by
some trick or dexterity, his captive might escape.
In the back pocket of his overcoat was a pair of handcuffs. But how
could he get hold of them without dropping the revolver? How could he
hope to fix them on the German's wrists?
But if he could not get at the handcuffs, at least he could summon help.
There were houses within call. The nearest was Sunnydene, for which
Seligmann had no doubt been shaping; the next was Green Croft, then
Major Redisham's. He managed to draw out his whistle, while his captive
straggled more desperately than ever to get free. Just as he raised the
whistle to his lips, he heard the quick patter of feet along the road.
He blew a long, shrill blast.
Seligmann heaved himself upward with a mighty effort; but the revolver
muzzle was pressed yet more forcefully against his skull, and the
constable's knees were almost breaking his back.
The footsteps approached swiftly, and at length the flash of an electric
torch shed its slanting ray upon the desperately struggling pair.
"What's up? Hullo, Challis, I've been searching for you."
It was the voice of Mark Redisham. He had received a telephone message
from the police-station, bidding him find Constable Challis and help him
to waylay this same suspected motor-car, coming from Buremouth.
"Quick! Feel in my back pocket for the handcuffs," Challis ordered,
dropping the revolver and seizing his prisoner's two wrists. "Right.
Now hold his head while I put 'em on. Then you can drive him and me to
the police-station."
There was a sharp clip as the steel rings were locked upon the German's
wrists. Mark went to the car, turned up the lights, and got ready.
They bundled the prisoner into the body of the car, where Challis sat
with him, covering him with the revolver. Mark drove off through the
town, and soon brought up at his destination. In the car they
discovered a complete wireless outfit, a signalling lamp, and a handbag
containing certain compromising documents.
"Yes," said the Superintendent, when Seligmann was safely locked in a
cell. "He has been busy with that wireless apparatus to-night. Some of
his messages were jammed, but not all of them. Not all."
*CHAPTER XXI.*
*THE RAIDERS.*
Whether Seligmann's wireless messages had anything to do with the matter
or not can only be conjectured. But it is true that at earliest dawn on
that same misty, November morning the fishermen of the Haddisport
herring fleet, at work with their drift nets south of the Dogger Bank,
were surprised by the sudden appearance in their midst of a squadron of
eight grey-hulled Dreadnoughts and cruisers, bearing due westward at
breakneck speed.
Looming out of the mist, they tore onward through the nets, regardless
of the damage they caused. They showed no lights, even from their cabin
portholes; they flew no flags.
One of the skippers, watching them, was so sure that they were British
battleships that he waved his morning teapot at them in greeting; but
some of the Englishmen shook their heads in doubt. There were
peculiarities in the structure of the ships which were not familiar.
They passed so close to the _Mignonette_ that Sam Quester, perched on
the roof of the cuddy scuttle, saw the faces of the officers on bridge
and quarterdeck, and was able afterwards to assert that he was almost
sure one of the officers on the leading Dreadnought was Max Hilliger's
father.
By the time they had passed out of sight into the mist the fishermen had
come to the correct conclusion that the squadron was a part of the
German High Sea Fleet. But what was their purpose? Where were they
going at such a headlong rate? And where in the meantime was the
British Fleet?
Twenty miles farther to the westward the Germans were again seen, flying
the White Ensign, this time by a patrol of English mine-sweepers, which
immediately sent out a wireless message of warning. The enemy flagship
tried to jam the message. Nevertheless it was picked up by His Majesty's
torpedo gunboat _Kingfisher_, lying at anchor in Buremouth Roads. The
_Kingfisher_ sent the warning onward, to be repeated and repeated north
and south about the sea.
How did it happen that the Germans knew so well that on this particular
morning they were in no danger of being intercepted by British cruisers?
Had this been the secret of Fritz Seligmann's activity that night?
The wireless message from the _Kingfisher_ reached the naval bases of
Buremouth and Haddisport. Off Buremouth two destroyers were at anchor.
They at once got up steam and pushed out in the wake of the gunboat. At
Haddisport there was a submarine--the H29. She was ordered to follow.
But where was her commander, Lieutenant Ingoldsby?
By the merest chance, Mark Redisham heard the question asked. He had
come to the naval base to report the arrest of Fritz Seligmann, using
Seligmann's car, which he had left at the pier-head. Constable Challis
had told him that Lieutenant Ingoldsby had gone with Mrs. Daplin-Gennery
to Floxley Hall, outside Buremouth.
Mark gave the information to Mr. Bilverstone, who telephoned to Green
Croft and got a prompt answer. Mrs. Daplin-Gennery had just returned;
but had left her nephew at the bedside of his wounded friend.
"All right, sir," said Mark, "I'll go and fetch him."
It was a journey of nineteen miles there and back, but Seligmann's car
was a powerful one, well supplied with petrol, and Mark Redisham was an
expert and cautious driver. He posted off to Floxley Hall at top speed.
Meanwhile, the enemy Dreadnoughts and cruisers were still being watched
from the decks of the patrolling trawlers. They were racing towards the
English coast, their tall funnels belching black clouds of smoke, their
officers and men all at their fighting quarters, their heavy guns
loaded, their torpedo-tubes charged.
"They look as if they was skelterin' away from an enemy," observed one
of the English skippers. "But hold hard! They'll go slap into our
mine-field, sure's a gun, the course they're makin'. Taren't possible
they can hit the open lane."
A field of defensive contact mines had been laid for the protection of
the coast, with secret gaps or passages which were supposed to be known
only to naval men and responsible pilots. It was clear, however, that
the Germans were well aware, not only of the exact locality of the mined
area, but also of the open lanes through which they might pass in
safety, for without slackening speed the ships rushed through in an
unbroken procession, never swerving until they came within sight of the
Alderwick lightship.
Here they separated into two divisions, the one steering direct for
Buremouth, the other for Haddisport.
The _Kingfisher_, steaming out to inquire into the truth of the wireless
message she had received, made her presence known by flashing her
searchlight through the gloom of the early morning mist. The enemy
flagship, bearing west-by-south, instead of answering the signal, opened
fire upon the British gunboat, at the same time showing the German flag
in place of the White Ensign.
Confronted by so formidable an antagonist, the little _Kingfisher_, with
her smaller four-inch guns, could not attempt to engage. She fired
seven shots, which all dropped short, while shells were falling all
round her. One struck her foremast and smashed her aerials, another
exploded under her bridge, fatally injuring a seaman at her
steering-wheel and cutting the compass in half.
The two destroyers raced up to her help, making as much smoke as
possible to hide her. All three, hopelessly outranged, could only steam
about in a zig-zag course at their fullest speed and at length take
refuge in the mist.
The battleships did not follow in pursuit. It was not their intention
to enter into a sea fight, if one could be avoided. Theirs was the
sinister purpose of bombarding defenceless towns and spreading
"frightfulness" amongst unoffending civilians.
While one division of the squadron branched off to pour their
devastating shells into the houses of Buremouth, the other steamed
abreast of Alderwick Shoal, and from the security of the deep water sent
salvo after salvo into the buildings of Haddisport.
From the bridge of the flagship Heinrich Hilliger bent his binoculars
upon his own house to seek for a signal which he failed to discover, or,
rather, which was never displayed, his faithful secretary being at the
time securely confined within the narrow walls of a prisoner's cell in
Haddisport police-station.
Not finding the expected signal, Herr Hilliger transferred his attention
to the business in hand, indicating the particular houses and buildings
at which he desired the gunlayers to take especial aim: first, Green
Croft, associated in his mind with the mischievous submarine commander,
Lieutenant Ingoldsby, whose torpedoes had robbed the Kaiser's High Sea
Fleet of at least two important ships; and then in turn the lighthouse,
the parish church, the town hall, the chief hotels, the harbour, and
finally the naval base, with its wireless station and battery of guns.
Mark Redisham and Lieutenant Ingoldsby, tearing in their motor-car along
the deserted highroad, had heard the booming of heavy guns out at sea.
The alarming sounds drew nearer and nearer, from two directions.
"They're bombarding Buremouth as well as Haddisport, sir," Mark
declared, leaning forward to increase his speed.
"Faster! faster!" cried Ingoldsby. "Give her all she can do. Let her
rip. But keep your head--keep cool--keep a sharp look-out!"
Mark had no need to be urged or cautioned. He had perfect control of
the machine; he knew every turn and curve, every dip and rise of the
road. The telegraph poles flashed by as if they had been park railings
set side by side, and there was no traffic to interfere with his onward,
headlong pace.
As they left Alderwick village behind, and dashed along the open highway
across the moorland, the first shell from the German battleships
shrieked over their heads; a second crashed into one of the houses on
the esplanade; another laid the lighthouse in ruins.
In the town shells were falling thick and fast, exploding with deafening
noise. In the market-place a big hotel was on fire, and the car was
checked by a crowd of excited people; but Mark made his way through,
sounding his hooter, and arrived without hurt at the harbour, where the
submarine was waiting ready for her commander to jump aboard.
The bombardment lasted some thirty minutes. The ships, dimly visible
through the mist and smoke, steamed southward abreast of the town,
firing their eleven-inch shells from starboard. Then they returned and
repeated the manoeuvre, firing from their port sides and ending where
they had begun. It was not safe for them to continue any longer, since
every moment added to the danger of their retreat being cut off by a
squadron of British Dreadnoughts racing towards them in response to
urgent wireless messages.
Favoured by the fog, they took to flight, the battleships leading in
order to give the smaller cruisers in the rear the opportunity of
dropping some hundreds of explosive mines in their wake.
Already submarine H29, with Lieutenant Ingoldsby at his post in the
conning-tower, had entered into pursuit, making for the gap in the
British mine-field through which alone the enemy ships could pass. But
he had not counted on their hasty retreat or calculated the speed of
their flight.
As they crossed in advance of him, not seeing his periscope, he fired
his two bow torpedoes, and missed. He got astern of them and fired two
more. But just as the missiles left their tubes there was an ominous
crash and a fierce explosion.
The submarine had run up against one of the Germans' floating mines,
which broke her like an egg, and the H29 and all who were in her sank to
their last resting-place at the bottom of the North Sea.
*CHAPTER XXII.*
*CUT AND RUN.*
Seth Newruck, who lived at the north end of the town, had been to
Alderwick Hall to take certain reports and accounts to the Scout
Commissioner, and was returning across the fields when he heard the
firing of naval guns from somewhere out at sea.
He had previously seen the gunboat leave her anchorage, and he believed
at first that her gunners were practising, or that perhaps some of the
patrolling trawlers were exploding floating mines. He was not alarmed.
But very soon the loud, insistent booming convinced him that the guns
were heavier than those of the _Kingfisher_, and that some sort of naval
engagement was going on out there beyond the curtain of sea mist.
He began to run. Coming out upon the highway, he crossed the warren to
the edge of the cliff and stood looking out to sea. He could see the
flashes of the guns, flickering through the fog like summer lightning.
If ships were firing upon the _Kingfisher_, then assuredly they were
enemies--a squadron of the German Fleet! Perhaps they were even engaged
with a division of our British Dreadnoughts! The thought thrilled him in
all his nerves.