Kitabı oku: «Number 70, Berlin: A Story of Britain's Peril», sayfa 5
“Nervous, be hanged, Small. Don’t be an idiot!” Rodwell replied quickly. “What can anybody know, unless you yourself blab? And if you did – by Gad! your own people would shoot you as a traitor at the Tower of London – you and your boy too! So remember that – and be very careful to keep a still tongue.”
“But I never thought, when that Mr Josephs, up in London, wrote to me sending me a receipt for the money I owed, that I was expected to do all this!” Small protested.
“No, if you had known you would never have done it!” laughed Rodwell. “But Germany is not like your gallant rule-of-thumb England. She leaves nothing to chance, and, knowing the cupidity of men, she takes full advantage of it – as in your case.”
“But I can’t bear the suspense, sir; I feel – I feel, Mr Rodwell – that I’m suspected – that this house is under suspicion – that – ”
“Utter bosh! It’s all imagination, Small,” Lewin Rodwell interrupted. “They’ve cut the cable at the Spurn, and that’s sufficient. Nobody in England ever dreams that the German Admiralty prepared for this war five years ago, and therefore spliced a second end into the cable.”
“Well, I tell you, sir, I heartily wish I’d never had anything to do with this affair,” grumbled old Tom.
“And if you hadn’t you’d have been in Grimsby Workhouse instead of having six hundred and fifty-five pounds to your credit at the bank in Skegness. You see I know the exact amount. And that amount you have secured by assisting the enemy. I know mine is a somewhat unpalatable remark – but that’s the truth, a truth which you and your son Ted, as well as your two brothers must hide – if you don’t want to be tried by court-martial and shot as traitors, the whole lot of you.”
The old fisherman started at those words, and held his breath.
“We won’t say any more, Tom, on that delicate question,” Rodwell went on, speaking in a hard, intense voice. “Just keep a dead silence, all of you, and you’ll have nothing to fear or regret. If you don’t, the punishment will fall upon you; I shall take good care to make myself secure – depend upon that!”
“But can’t we leave this cottage? Can’t we get away?” implored the old fellow who had innocently fallen into the dastardly web so cleverly spun by the enemy.
“No; you can’t. You’ve accepted German money for five years, and Germany now requires your services,” was Rodwell’s stern, brutal rejoinder. “Any attempt on your part to back out of your bargain will result in betraying you to your own people. That’s plain speaking! You and your son should think it over carefully together. You know the truth now. When Germany is at war she doesn’t fight in kid-gloves – like your idiotic pigs of English!”
Chapter Nine.
To “Number 70 Berlin.”
Lewin Rodwell, as a powerful and well-informed secret agent, was no amateur.
After the old fisherman had left the close atmosphere of that little room, Rodwell seated himself on a rickety rush-bottomed chair before the sewing-machine stand, beside the bed, and by the bright light of the petrol table-lamp, carefully and with expert touch adjusted the tangle of wires and the polished brass instruments before him.
The manner in which he manipulated them showed him to be perfectly well acquainted with the due importance of their adjustment. With infinite care he examined the end of the cable, unscrewing it from its place, carefully scraping with his clasp-knife the exposed copper wires protruding from the sheath of gutta percha and steel wire, and placing them each beneath the solid brass binding-screws upon the mahogany base.
“The silly old owl now knows that we won’t stand any more nonsense from him,” he muttered to himself, in German, as he did this. “It’s an unsavoury thought that the old fool, in his silly patriotism, might blab to the police or the coastguard. Phew! If he did, things would become awkward – devilish awkward.”
Then, settling himself before the instruments, he took from his inner pocket the long, bulky envelope, out of which he drew a sheet of closely-written paper which he spread out upon the little table before him. Afterwards, with methodical exactness, he took out a pencil and a memorandum-block from his side-pocket, arranging them before him.
Again he examined the connections running into the big, heavy tapping-key, and then, grasping the ebonite knob of the latter, he ticked out dots and dashes in a manner which showed him to be an expert telegraphist.
“M.X.Q.Q.” were the code-letters he sent. “M.X.Q.Q.” he clicked out, once – twice – thrice. The call, in the German cable war-code, meant: “Are you ready to receive message?”
He waited for a reply. But there was none. The cable that ran for three hundred miles, or so, beneath the black, storm-tossed waters of the North Sea was silent.
“Curious!” he muttered to himself. “Stendel is generally on the alert. Why doesn’t he answer?”
“M.X.Q.Q.” he repeated with a quick, impatient touch. “M.X.Q.Q.”
Then he waited, but in vain.
“Surely the cable, after the great cost to the Empire, has not broken down just at the very moment when we want it!” he exclaimed, speaking in German, as was his habit when excited.
Again he sent the urgent call beneath the waters by the only direct means of communication between Britain’s soil and that of her bitter enemy.
But in Tom Small’s stuffy little bedroom was a silence that seemed ominous. Outside could be heard the dull roar of the sea, the salt spray coming up almost to the door. But there was no answering click upon the instruments.
The electric current from the rows of batteries hidden in the cellar was sufficient, for he had tested it before he had touched the key.
“Tom,” he shouted, summoning the old fisherman whom he had only a few moments before dismissed.
“Yes, sir,” replied the old fellow gruffly, as he stalked forward again, in his long, heavy sea-boots.
“The cable’s broken down, I believe! What monkey-tricks have you been playing – eh?” he cried angrily.
“None, sir. None, I assure you. Ted tested at five o’clock this evening, as usual, and got an acknowledgment. The line was quite all right then.”
“Well, it isn’t now,” was Rodwell’s rough answer, for he detected in the old man’s face a secret gleaming satisfaction that no enemy message could be transmitted.
“I believe you’re playing us false, Small!” cried Rodwell, his eyes flashing angrily. “By Gad! if you have dared to do so you’ll pay dearly for it – I warn you both! Now confess!”
“I assure you, sir, that I haven’t. I was in here when Ted tested, as he does each evening. All was working well then.”
The younger man, a tall, big-limbed, fair-haired toiler of the sea, in a fisherman’s blouse of tanned canvas like his father, overhearing the conversation, entered the little room.
“It was all right at five, sir. I made a call, and got the answer.”
“Are you sure it was answered – quite sure?” queried the man from London.
“Positive, sir.”
“Then why in the name of your dear goddess Britannia, who thinks she rules the waves, can’t I get a reply now?” demanded Rodwell furiously.
“How can I tell, sir? I got signals – good strong signals.”
“Very well. I’ll try again. But remember that you and your father are bound up to us. And if you’ve played us false I shall see that you’re both shot as spies. Remember you won’t be the first. There’s Shrimpton, up at Gateshead, Paulett at Glasgow, and half a dozen more in prison paying the penalty of all traitors to their country. The British public haven’t yet heard of them. But they will before long – depend upon it. The thing was so simple. Germany, before the war, held out the bait for your good King-and-country English to swallow. That you English – or rather a section of you – will always swallow the money-bait we have known ever so long ago.”
“Mr Rodwell, you needn’t tell us more than we know,” protested the old fisherman. “You and your people ’ave got the better of us. We know that, to our cost, so don’t rub it in.”
“Ah! as long as you know it, that’s all right,” laughed Rodwell. “When the invasion comes, as it undoubtedly will, very soon, then you will be looked after all right. Don’t you or your son worry at all. Just sit tight, as this house is marked as the house of friends. Germany never betrays a friend – never!”
“Then they do intend to come over here?” exclaimed the old fisherman eagerly, his eyes wide-open in wonderment.
“Why, of course. All has been arranged long ago,” declared the man whom the British public knew as a great patriot. “The big expeditionary force, fully fit and equipped, has been waiting in Hamburg, at Cuxhaven and Bremerhaven, ever since the war began – waiting for the signal to start when the way is left open across the North Sea.”
“That will never be,” declared the younger man decisively.
“Perhaps not, if you have dared to tamper with the cable,” was Rodwell’s hard reply.
“I haven’t, I assure you,” the young man declared. “I haven’t touched it.”
“Well, I don’t trust either of you,” was Rodwell’s reply. “You’ve had lots of money from us, yet your confounded patriotism towards your effete old country has, I believe, caused you to try and defeat us. You’ve broken down the cable – perhaps cut the insulation under the water. How do I know?”
“I protest, Mr Rodwell, that you should insinuate this!” cried old Tom. “Through all this time we’ve worked for you, and – ”
“Because you’ve been jolly well paid for it,” interrupted the other. “What would you have earned by your paltry bit of fish sent into Skegness for cheap holiday-makers to eat? – why, nothing! You’ve been paid handsomely, so you needn’t grumble. If you do, then I have means of at once cutting your supplies off and informing the Intelligence Department at Whitehall. Where would you both be then, I wonder?”
“We could give you away also!” growled Ted Small.
“You might make charges. But who would believe you if you – a fisherman – declared that Lewin Rodwell was a spy – eh? Try the game if you like – and see!”
For a few moments silence fell.
“Well, sir,” exclaimed Ted’s father. “Why not call up again? Perhaps Mr Stendel may be there now.”
Again Rodwell placed his expert hand upon the tapping-key, and once more tapped out the call in the dot-and-dash of the Morse Code.
For a full minute all three men waited, holding their breath and watching the receiver.
Suddenly there was a sharp click on the recorder. “Click – click, click, click!”
The answering signals were coming up from beneath the sea.
“B.S.Q.” was heard on the “sounder,” while the pale green tape slowly unwound, recording the acknowledgment.
Stendel was there, in the cable-station far away on the long, low-lying island of Wangeroog – alert at last, and ready to receive any message from the secret agents of the All Highest of Germany.
“B.S.Q. – B.S.Q.” – came up rapidly from beneath the sea. “I am here. Who are you?” answered the wire rapidly, in German.
Lewin Rodwell’s heart beat quickly when he heard the belated reply to his impatient summons. He had fully believed that a breakdown had occurred. And if so, it certainly could never be repaired.
But a thrill of pleasure stirred him anew when he saw that his harsh and premature denunciation of the Smalls had been unwarranted, and the cable connection – so cunningly contrived five years before, was working as usual from shore to shore.
Cable-telegraphy differs, in many respects, from ordinary land-telegraphy, especially in the instruments used. Those spread out before Rodwell were, indeed, a strange and complicated collection, with their tangled and twisted wires, each of which Rodwell traced without hesitation.
In a few seconds his white, well-manicured and expert hand was upon the key again, as the Smalls returned to their living-room, and he swiftly tapped out the message in German:
“I am Rodwell. Are you Stendel? Put me through Cuxhaven direct to Berlin: Number Seventy: very urgent.”
“Yes,” came the reply. “I am Stendel. Your signals are good. Wait, and I will put you through direct to Berlin.”
The “sounder” clicked loudly, and the clockwork of the tape released, causing the narrow paper ribbon to unwind.
“S.S.” answered Rodwell, the German war-code letters for “All right. Received your message and understand it.”
Then he took from his pocket his gold cigarette-case, which bore his initials in diamonds on the side, and selecting a cigarette, lit it and smoked while waiting for the necessary connections and relays to be made which would enable him to transmit his message direct to the general headquarters of the German Secret Service in the Koeniger-gratzerstrasse, in Berlin.
In patience he waited for a full ten minutes in that close little room, watching the receiving instrument before him. The angry roar of the wintry sea could be heard without, the great breakers rolling in upon the beach, while every now and then the salt spindrift would cut sharply across the little window, which rattled in the gusty wind.
Click – click – click! The long letter T repeated three times. Then a pause, and the call “M.X.Q.Q. – J.A.J.70.”
By the prefix, Rodwell knew that he was “through,” and actually in communication with the headquarters of the German espionage throughout the world; that marvellously alert department from which no secret of state, or of hostile army or navy was safe; the department formed and controlled by the great Steinhauer, who had so many times boasted to him, and perhaps with truth, that at the Koeniger-gratzerstrasse they knew more of England than even the English themselves knew.
True, the British public will never be able to realise one hundredth part of what Germany has done by her spy-system, or of the great diplomatic and military successes which she has achieved by it. Yet we know enough to realise that for years no country and no walk of life – from the highest to the lowest – has been free from the ubiquitous, unscrupulous and unsuspected secret agents of whom Lewin Rodwell was a type.
In Germany’s long and patient preparation for the world-war, nothing in the way of espionage was too large, or too small for attention. The activity of her secret agents in Berlin had surely been an object-lesson to the world. Her spies swarmed in all cities, and in every village; her agents ranked among the leaders of social and commercial life, and among the sweepings and outcasts of great communities. The wealthiest of commercial men did not shrink from acting as her secret agents. She was not above employing beside them the very dregs of the community. No such system had ever been seen in the world. Yet the benefits which our enemies were deriving from it, now that we were at war, were incalculable.
By every subtle and underhand means in her power, Germany had prepared for her supreme effort to conquer us, and, as a result of this it was that Lewin Rodwell that night sat at the telegraph-key of the Berlin spy-bureau actually established on British soil.
He waited until the call had been repeated three times with the secret code-number of the Koeniger-gratzerstrasse, namely: “Number 70 Berlin.”
Then, putting out his cigarette, he drew his chair forward until his elbows rested upon the table, and spreading out the closely-written document before him, tapped out a signal in code.
The letters were “F.B.S.M.”
To this kind of pass-word, which was frequently altered from time to time, he received a reply: “G.L.G.S.” and then he added his own number, “0740.”
The signals exchanged were quite strong, and he drew a long breath of relief and satisfaction.
Then, settling down to his dastardly work, he began to tap out rapidly the following in German:
“On Imperial War Service. Most Urgent. From 0740 to Berlin 70. Transmitted Personally.
“Source of information G.27, British Admiralty. Lieutenant Ralph Beeton, Grenadier Guards, British secret agent, is at present staying at Kaiserhof Hotel, Berlin, as James B. James, an American citizen, of Fernville, Kansas, and is transmitting reports. Captain Henry Fordyce, British Navy, is at Park Hotel, Düsseldorf, as Francis Dexter, iron merchant of New Orleans, and has sent reports regarding Erhardt’s ordnance factory. Both should be arrested at once. Lieutenant George Evans, reported at Amsterdam on the 5th, has gone to Emden, and will probably be found at the Krone Hotel.”
Then he paused. That message had, he knew, sealed the fate of three brave Englishmen who had dared to enter the camp of our enemies. They would be arrested within an hour or so, and most certainly shot as spies. His face broadened into an evil grin of satisfaction as the truth crossed his mind.
He waited for an acknowledgment that his report had been received. Then, having listened to the answering click – clickety – click, he sent a second message as follows: —
“British Naval Dispositions: Urgent to Q.S.R.
“Source of information H.238. To-night, off the Outer Skerries, Shetlands, are battleships King Charles (flag), Mole, Wey, Welland, Teign, Yare, Queen Boadicea, Emperor of India, King Henry VIII; with first-class cruisers Hogue, Stamford, Petworth, Lichfield, Dorchester; second-class cruisers Rockingham, Guildford, Driffield, Verulam, Donnington, Pirbright, Tremayne and Blackpool; destroyers Viking, Serpent, Chameleon, Adder, Batswing, Sturdy and Havoc, with eight submarines, the aircraft-ship Flyer, and repair-ship Vulcan. Another strong division left Girdle Ness at 4 p.m. coming south. The division in Moray Firth remains the same. Trusty, Dragon, Norfolk and Shadower left Portsmouth this evening going east. British Naval war-code to be altered at midnight to 106-13.”
The figures he spelt out very carefully, repeating them three times so that there could be no mistake. Again he paused until, from Berlin, they were repeated for confirmation.
Afterwards he proceeded as follows:
“Ruritania leaves Liverpool for New York at noon to-morrow, carrying bullion. Also liners Smyrna, Jacob Elderson, City of Rotterdam and Great Missenden leave same port for Atlantic ports to-morrow. Submarines may be advised by wireless.”
Once more he paused until he received the signal of acknowledgment, together with the query whether the name of one of the ships mentioned was Elderson or Elderton. But Lewin Rodwell, with keen interest in his fell work of betraying British liners into the hands of the German pirate submarines, quickly tapped out the correct spelling, repeating it, so that there should be no further mistake.
After yet another pause, the man seated in the fisherman’s stuffy little bedroom grasped the telegraph-key and made the signals – “J.O.H.J.” – which, in the German war-code, meant: “Take careful note and report to proper quarter instantly.”
“All right,” came the answering signal, also in code. “Prepared to receive J.O.H.J.”
Then, after a few seconds, Rodwell glanced again at the closely-written sheet spread before him, and began to tap out the following secret message in German to the very heart of the Imperial war-machine:
“Official information just gained from a fresh and most reliable source – confirmed by H.238, M.605, and also B.1928 – shows that British Admiralty have conceived a clever plan for entrapping the German Grand Fleet. Roughly, the scheme is to make attack with inferior force upon Heligoland early on Wednesday morning, the 16th, together with corresponding attack upon German division in the estuary of the Eider and thus draw out the German ships northward towards the Shetlands, behind which British Grand Fleet are concealed in readiness. This concentration of forces northward will, according to the scheme of which I have learned full details, leave the East coast of England from the Tyne to the Humber unprotected for a full twelve hours on the 16th, thus full advantage could be taken for bombardment. Inform Grand Admiral immediately.”
Having thus betrayed the well-laid plans of the British Admiralty to entice the German Fleet out of the Kiel canal and the other harbours in which barnacles were growing on their keels, Lewin Rodwell, the popular British “patriot,” paused once more.
But not for long, because, in less than a minute, he received again the signal of acknowledgment that his highly interesting message to the German Admiralty had been received, and would be delivered without a moment’s delay.
Then he knew that the well-organised plans of the British Fleet, so cleverly conceived and so deadly if executed, would be effectively frustrated.
He gave the signal that he had ended his message and, with a low laugh of satisfaction, rose from the rickety old chair and lit another cigarette.
Thus had England been foully betrayed by one of the men whom her deluded public most confidently trusted and so greatly admired.
