aim at it. You see, it belongs to a German, the brother of one of the
Kaiser's admirals, and of course they had instructions to do it no harm.
I don't know what amount of truth there may be in it, but it's whispered
in the town that German spies were busy along here on the night before
the raid."
"Indeed?" The stranger had taken out his cigarette-case and opened it.
He took one for himself and politely held the case in invitation towards
Mr. Croucher.
"Thank you, but I don't smoke," said Mr. Croucher, watching the other
strike a light.
Just for an instant, as the man turned to shield the flaming match from
the wind, it occurred to Mr. Croucher that there was something not
altogether unfamiliar in his face and figure. And surely it was not the
first time that he had seen that same fat hand with its diamond ring,
holding a flaming match and lighting a cigarette in that same way! But
he dismissed the idea as impossible. No, this was a perfect stranger.
"Spies? But you amaze me!" the other exclaimed, dropping the dead
match. "Have not all alien enemies been interned--as certainly they
should be? Or are some of our own beople vorking for Germany?"
This expression of concern for the Empire's safety gave Mr. Croucher
confidence.
"No," he declared warmly. "They have not by any means all been
interned. That very house along there--Sunnydene--has been a nest of
plotting spies all along. Hilliger and that secretary of his--a fellow
named Seligmann--had caused no end of mischief before Seligmann was
arrested."
A look of eager interest leapt into the stranger's face, which, however,
he contrived to conceal from Mr. Croucher.
"So?" he said, controlling his excitement. "They arrested him, did they?
Ven vos dat?"
"Two or three nights ago," Mr. Croucher innocently answered. "The night
before the bombardment, it was. In the ordinary course of things, I
suppose he would have been tried and hanged as a spy. He was imprisoned
in Haddisport gaol; but the next morning, when the German battleships
were bombarding the town, one of their shells struck the police-station,
burying him in the ruins, and he was taken out dead."
"Dear me!" exclaimed the stranger; and with surprising abruptness he
saluted and went off, walking very quickly towards the end of the cliff,
where he turned inland and disappeared among the bushes beyond
Sunnydene.
He had been gone only a few moments when Mark Redisham and Seth Newruck
came along, with telescopes under their arms. They were on
coast-watching duty.
"I wish you two Scouts had been here five minutes ago," said Mr.
Croucher, as they drew near him. "There was a stranger in conversation
with me very much interested in the bombardment. You might have been
able to tell him more about it than I could--especially about the arrest
of Seligmann."
"I don't see what a stranger could want to know about Seligmann," said
Mark. "What was he like? Was he English?"
"English? I suppose so; either English or Scotch. He spoke with a sort
of accent. He was tall, fair, rather stout, and wore spectacles."
"Are you sure he wasn't German?" questioned Seth. "Perhaps he was a
spy--a friend of Seligmann's wanting to know what had become of him."
"Nonsense," objected Mr. Croucher.
"He lighted a cigarette, didn't he?" said Mark, observing a dead match
on the pavement.
"How do you know it wasn't a pipe or a cigar?" asked Mr. Croucher
sharply. He was always being tripped up by these Sea Scouts, who seemed
to know things by an extraordinary instinct.
"Because there's the fag end of a cigarette lying at your feet, with
some ash beside it that the wind hasn't yet blown away," Mark Redisham
quietly answered.
He had the curiosity to pick up and examine the fragment before handing
it to his companion.
"What do you make of it, Seth?" he inquired meaningly.
"Crumbs!" cried Seth. "Why, it's the same brand as those we found in
the silver cigarette-case--marked 'Vafiadi, Cairo'! I wonder if the
stranger was Herr Hilliger?"
"That's just what I was wondering, too," nodded Mark. "It's possible."
Mr. Croucher stared at the two Scouts indignantly.
"Do you suppose I shouldn't have known him?" he demanded. "Herr
Hilliger wears a beard and has long hair. This man was clean-shaven,
and his hair was quite short. Besides----"
"It wouldn't be impossible to shave off a beard and get a short crop,"
declared Mark. "Which way did he go?"
Mr. Croucher indicated the direction. The two Scouts went off
hurriedly. Mark led the way across the warren to the Alderwick road and
the little cross lane.
"It was just here that we captured Seligmann," he explained.
They searched the ground and discovered in the soft mud the newly
impressed marks of the tyres of a motor-car and of a man's boots.
It was useless, of course, for them to attempt to track the car. Had
they been able to do so, the trail would have led them many miles away,
through village after village and town after town, northward along the
coast. They might have run the car to earth at last on a desolate
stretch of moorland where it had halted. Thence they might have
followed Heinrich Hilliger's tracks to a pile of ruins--the ruins of an
old-world castle--on the edge of a steep precipice overlooking the sea.
At the foot of the precipice was a tiny bay of deep, clear water,
fringed with rocks. Between two of the rocks a small boat was drawn up
on the shingle--a curious, collapsible boat made of water-tight canvas
stretched on a steel frame. A pair of sculls lay across the thwarts.
Nobody was in charge of it.
Heinrich Hilliger looked down into the depths and saw the boat as he
passed along the edge of the cliff and made his way through the heather
to the ruin. He gave a long, low whistle and a whistle came back to him
in response.
"You have managed it, then!" cried a young voice; and from beyond a
corner of the grey stone wall his son Max ran out, dressed in the
uniform of a German naval officer.
The father and son embraced. Then Max laughed, looking at his father in
amusement.
"It's as well you gave me the signal," he said, speaking in German. "I
should hardly have known you without your beard. Well, you have been to
Haddisport? What news of Fritz?"
"The worst news," answered Herr Hilliger. "He was caught. He was taken
to prison. More than that, when we bombarded the town, one of our
shells struck the prison-house and poor Fritz was killed! It seems like
fate."
"Killed! By our own guns! Father, are you sure?"
"Absolutely. It is in the newspapers, and I have had confirmation of it
from Old Croucher, whom I met outside Sunnydene. He did not recognise
me; but he saved me the risk of showing myself in the town."
Max clenched and unclenched his hands.
"This is what comes of the silly, useless notion of bombarding open
towns!" he declared. "What good has it done, to knock a few shops and
hotels to pieces, to smash the windows of a few seaside villas, and to
take the lives of a lot of innocent women and children? There was no
military advantage in it! You have not even frightened the English
people. They are only laughing at us for using our battleships to fire
their shells into unfortified places instead of going out boldly to face
the enemy in a fair and open fight!"
"You forget, my son," returned Herr Hilliger, "we sank a British
submarine; we sowed many hundreds of explosive mines. There was some
good in that, eh?"
"Not that I see," retorted Max. "The commander of that submarine was
once my friend. He has dined at your own table. And from what I
understand, the English mine-sweepers exploded all the mines before the
day was out. I don't agree with sowing explosive mines on the high
seas. It's not playing the game."
"Bah! Don't talk to me about playing the game, my dear Max. It is not
a game; it is war. If we mean to beat the English we must not be
hampered by any childish ideas of fair play. As for the killing of
Fritz, it is of course unfortunate; but it could not have been foreseen.
We must get some one to take his place, yourself, perhaps."
"No." Max shook his head resolutely. "I am not a spy. I shall do
nothing underhand. Let us fight fairly and openly, not hit below the
belt. I have my duties on the submarine, and I don't want to set foot
in England until the war is over. I should not be here now, but that I
have come to take you away--to give you a passage back to Wilhelmshaven.
Are you ready? The submarine is lying submerged in the next bay,
waiting for my signal."
"My dear Max," returned Hilliger, "I cannot go back with you. My place
is here, in England, where I have been stationed. Since Fritz is dead,
it is all the more important that I remain on this side. Our Zeppelins
are preparing to come over, only waiting until I shall send a message to
say that the wind and weather are suitable. When the time is favourable
I must be on the spot with a car to guide them by its light to the
places where they shall drop their bombs."
Max curled his lip contemptuously.
"And you call that war, I suppose," he sneered--"dropping fire-bombs on
farmhouses and in kitchen-gardens! I could see some sense in it if we
aimed at their aeroplane sheds, their dockyards, or their ammunition
factories, or if we sank some of their Dreadnoughts and troopships.
Why, if every house and inhabitant of Haddisport were destroyed, it
wouldn't make a pin's difference in the progress of the war."
Herr Hilliger shrugged his shoulders and turned the subject by saying:
"I see, my dear Max, that you are wearing the Iron Cross. I
congratulate you. I am proud. No doubt it is a reward for sinking
those three British cruisers?"
Max nodded. "We shall sink others, too," he averred. "I shall not be
satisfied until we have put a torpedo into one of their great
battleships--one of their boasted Dreadnoughts."
He strode to the edge of the cliff and looked down into the water. The
submarine was emptying her ballast tanks and was already in the awash
condition. He moved his arms, signalling by semaphore to Lieutenant
Koerner standing on the conning-tower platform. Then, again embracing
his father, he climbed down the difficult slope of the cliff to the
collapsible boat, stepped into it, and pulled out to the submarine.
*CHAPTER XXV.*
*MAX HILLIGER'S SATISFACTION.*
Max Hilliger's declaration that he would not be satisfied until
Lieutenant Hermann Koerner and he had put a torpedo into a British
battleship was not long in being fulfilled.
How they discovered that such a ship was to be found in a particular
position on the North Sea at a particular time is a matter which cannot
be explained. It is certain that the Germans succeeded in discovering
many of the movements and intended movements of the British Fleet which
were believed to be secret, and of which even many highly-placed British
naval officers were profoundly ignorant. Doubtless their spy system and
their methods of communication were perfectly well organised and
established long before the outbreak of war.
By whatsoever means he received his information, Lieutenant Koerner
expected the squadron to pass southward, and he prepared to carry out
his instructions by bringing his submarine within striking distance at
the anticipated moment.
It was a wild, dark winter's night, bitterly cold, with a fierce wind
blowing from the north-east. Submarines are not commonly supposed to be
of great use in the darkness; their periscopes are then blind. But
Koerner boldly kept the U50 on the surface, trusting to the high waves
to hide her betraying conning-tower from watchful eyes and from the
beams of searchlights.
But as an additional measure of protection and deception he had hoisted
a pair of brown lugsails on her two temporary masts, so that from a
distance she might have the appearance of an innocent fishing boat.
This ruse was a development and improvement of Max Hilliger's idea of
concealing a submarine within the body of a larger boat.
Hour after weary hour went by; but no light, no steamer's smoke; could
be seen through the inky darkness. Still he waited, while the submarine
rocked and tossed and rolled on the giant waves, and the wind shrieked
angrily.
Towards midnight a tiny masthead light blinked fitfully through the
curtain of driving sleet.
"They come!" said Koerner from his post in the conning-tower. He had
seen a green starboard light gleam wanly against an approaching vessel's
black hull.
"It is only a fishing trawler making for home," Max Hilliger declared
with a shiver. "Let us submerge and get out of the cold and wet."
"Not yet, not yet," returned Koerner. "They will surely come. We are
in their track. They cannot have turned back. Our own battleships
could weather a worse storm than this, and so could they. Whatever else
the cowardly English are afraid of, they are not afraid of the sea. I
believe the blood in their veins is made of salt water. If you are
cold, my friend, go below and warm yourself. Already it is a long time
since you had supper."
Max crept below like a dog into its kennel and took some food and a
drink of hot coffee in the warmth of the engine-room. The warmth made
him sleepy, and he did not return to the conning-tower until he was
called.
Koerner and the quarter-master were at their posts. From their point of
observation they had seen the black shapes of an advancing squadron of
battleships, light cruisers, and torpedo-boat destroyers. They could be
British only, since no German warship larger than a destroyer was
permitted to put to sea. No lights were displayed, but a reflected glow
from the furnaces mingled with the smoke rising from the blackness of
the funnels, and the wash of spray as the vessels cut through the water
showed whiter than the whiteness of the breaking waves.
The German seamen were at their quarters, the officers at the control
stations, the engineers at work with the petrol motors, the gunners at
the air-compressors for charging the torpedo tubes. All was quiet but
for the ceaseless rattle of cranks and pistons and the whining of
well-oiled wheels. The submarine was manoeuvred round as if to cross
the bows of the British ships.
A couple of the destroyers went past, then a light cruiser. Next came
the towering bulk of a Dreadnought, looming out of the darkness. Sparks
of fire floated amid the thick volume of coal smoke from her foremost
funnel; a shaft of light came through an open doorway on her high
bridge.
"I believe it's the _Triumphant_!" said Max Hilliger, at the
lieutenant's elbow.
It was at a point forward of the bridge, on the starboard side, that the
torpedo was aimed. There was no possibility of its missing so huge a
target. But to make certain of hitting a vital part well below the
armoured belt a second torpedo was to be fired, and then the submarine
would submerge and make good her escape.
On board the _Triumphant_ the larger number of her officers and crew of
nearly eight hundred men were below asleep when the fearful crash came.
Hammocks and bunks were jerked up by the shock. The torpedo had missed
the magazine by a few feet, but it burst through the stout plates,
entering the dynamo-room, and all electricity, both for lighting and for
wireless instruments, was shut off. The great ship at once listed over,
and the order was given: "All hands on the upper deck."
Two minutes after the first alarm, word was sent up from the engine-room
to the captain on the bridge that flooding had begun in the boiler-room,
and that no more steam could be got up. There could be no hope of
running her towards land and beaching her. It was seen from the first
that she could not be saved.
The engines were stopped and the engineers and stokers were ordered up
on deck. They were scrambling up the ladders when the second torpedo
struck her. Distress signals were fired, but her consorts were advised
to stand off at a safe distance in case of a further attack.
For want of steam to work the hoists the boats had to be got clear by
reeving a big rope round the deck and hauling upon it. With perfect
discipline the men performed this difficult operation in total darkness
while the sinking ship was being washed by mountainous waves.
All woodwork that could be seized upon and everything that would float
was brought on deck for the men to cling to. They waited, hoping that
the watertight compartments would keep her afloat until daylight; but at
length the captain sang out:
"Into the water with you; she's going!"
Then it was a matter of every man for himself. Some reached the boats
before the ship went down, some were drawn under by the suction; many
were picked up by one of the cruisers; but of all the ship's company not
more than two hundred came to land in safety, and even these, scantily
clothed, had suffered terribly from exposure in the open boats.
*CHAPTER XXVI.*
*THE GUIDING LIGHT.*
The municipal authorities in Haddisport had for a long time past
displayed great vigilance in keeping the town dark at night. The street
lamps were not lighted; shopkeepers incurred penalties if they failed to
keep their premises so dimly lighted that you could not distinguish the
difference between butter and cheese; the tramway cars were muffled in
thick curtains; on the sea-front you were liable to reprimand if you
struck a match to light your pipe.
Most of the houses were lighted by electricity, and it was recognised
that in the event of an imminent raid upon the town by German airships
the electricity should be turned off at the power-house, where a
screeching hooter would be sounded to warn the inhabitants to take cover
in their basements or their garden trenches.
Many of the occupants of houses facing the sea abandoned their front
rooms after sunset. Even the thickest of curtains and blinds and the
most cunning lamp-shades were not always proof against some chink or
slit revealing the light within, and then there was sure to be an
alarming visit from the sentries patrolling the beach or the policeman
on his beat, or Sea Scouts on watch duty.
"I should say the Germans had something else to do than cross the North
Sea in their Zeppelins to drop bombs on a harmless town like
Haddisport," remarked Vera Redisham, one night at supper.
"They might do it for the sake of spreading panic," observed her mother.
"Or by way of preliminary experiment before making an air raid in force
upon London," added Mark. "That's what they're planning, of course.
They'd consider it as good as a naval victory if they could set London
on fire. Hullo! what's wrong with the electric light? I put new bulbs
on only yesterday!"
The light flickered for a moment or two and then went out, plunging the
room in darkness.
"The hooter's sounding!" cried Vera. "Listen!"
"We'd better all get down into the basement," recommended Mrs. Redisham.
"You mustn't go outside, Mark."
She had hardly spoken when the whole house shook, the windows rattled,
and the air was split by a resounding explosion.
"Ah!" shouted Mark. "Zeppelins! Zeppelins!"
Mrs. Redisham made her way down the stairs to the basement to get the
servants into a place of safety.
A second bomb sounded, and then there came the firing of an
anti-aircraft gun.
Mark ran up the staircase to the half landing where there was a window
above the hall door, from which he could look out in the direction of
the town. His sister Vera followed him.
"We're as safe here as anywhere else," she said in excuse for her
presence. "Can you see anything?"
"I saw a flash just now," Mark answered. "I believe it was the
Zeppelin's searchlight. Oo! did you hear that! It must have struck
some building. What's that glow of light over there? They've set some
place on fire!"
He afterwards learnt that an incendiary bomb, aimed at the naval signal
station, had fallen in a timber yard and set the stacks of wood in
flames.
Vera counted ten explosions in all. Then the bomb-dropping ceased.
"They haven't stopped long," she sighed in relief. "I do hope nobody has
been hurt. What are you looking at? Can you see the airship?"
"Yes. It's like a big sausage high up in the air, just over St.
Nicholas' Church. Have a look!"
Mark moved aside to make room for Vera.
"I see it! I see it!" she cried. "And, oh, Mark, it's chasing a
motor-car!"
Mark peered out into the darkness and saw the brilliantly-lighted lamp
of a motor flashing along the Buremouth road. The beam of the light was
shed upward. The car was travelling at a tremendous pace.
"Chasing it?" said Mark. "I don't think it's a chase. That car is
acting as a pilot--showing the airship which way to go, and where to
drop its bombs! I shouldn't wonder in the least if the man driving it
were Heinrich Hilliger!"
*CHAPTER XXVII.*
*SURVIVORS.*
As the motor-car, with its flaring headlight, went out of sight beyond
the projection of the window from which they had watched it, Mark and
Vera Redisham ran farther up the staircase and along the passage to
Rodney's room, on the north side of the house.
Mark crossed to the large door-window and flung it open. It led out to
a roofed balcony overlooking the garden. Rodney had used this balcony
as a study, from which he could watch the ships, pretending that it was
an admiral's gallery at the stern of a line-of-battle ship. On summer
nights he had had a hammock slung across from side to side and had slept
in the open air.
Mark caught at the balcony rail now, and bent forward, looking up into
the night sky, searching for the Zeppelin by the purring of its
machinery.
"There it is! There it is!" he cried. And taking hold of Vera's arm he
drew her to him and pointed.
Even though it was very high, the airship looked large. It was not
travelling quickly; it seemed for a time to be hovering like a hawk.
Against the blue darkness of the sky the two cars could be distinguished
beneath the cigar-shaped structure. The rattling noise of the engines
and the hum of the propellers could be clearly heard.
"It's queer to think that there are Germans in it," said Vera, "and that
they're there with the intention of killing people! I suppose they're
going to Buremouth now, after dropping their horrid fire-bombs on
Haddisport."
"Look!" exclaimed Mark. "There's that motor-car again! I'm almost
certain it's acting as a pilot. See how the headlight is turned upward
into the sky, so that the airmen can see it! I ought to go downstairs
and telephone to the Buremouth police. Hullo!"
He had seen and heard a second motor-car, dashing along the nearer
Alderwick road, followed by a couple of motor-bicycles. Presently there
was an upward spurt of fire from the car and the crackle of a
machine-gun.
"They're firing up at the Zeppelin!" cried Vera. "Oh, I hope they'll hit
it!"
A thin streak of brilliant light flashed downward from the airship.
Something seemed to fall with a thud, a dull explosion, and immediately
there was a blaze of fire in the midst of the withered gorse and
brambles about a mile in front of the armoured motor-car.
"They've dropped an incendiary bomb," Mark explained, "but nowhere near
the road. The car can get past."
The firing from the anti-aircraft gun continued; but soon the Zeppelin
steered round and went westward over the land, and the armoured car
dropped out of range. More bombs were launched; but they fell
harmlessly in ploughed fields where there were no houses. The pilot car
by this time had disappeared.
The military car was returning, led by the motor cyclists. Just as the
latter emerged from the woodland on the near side of Alderwick village,
the Zeppelin again turned towards the sea and sailed outward immediately
above the machine-gun, which again opened fire with a prolonged stream
of bullets.
"I believe our men have hit it!" Mark declared. "Look at that long jet
of smoke! And the whole thing is wobbling like a winged pheasant."
Whether the airship was struck or not, neither Mark nor the men in the
armoured car could tell with certainty. They watched the ponderous
vessel flying out to sea until it faded from sight, mingling with the
blackness of a heavy cloud in the far east. Going downstairs again, Mark
telephoned to the naval base and got into communication with Mr.
Bilverstone, from whom he learnt that the worst material damage done by
the bombs was at a timberyard near the harbour. Some big stacks of
timber had been set on fire, and a company of Territorials were helping
the seamen of H.M.S. _Kingfisher_ in the work of subduing the flames.