This was the corporal of the guard, who rushed at me and began abusing me with every name he could lay his tongue to for being here without permit. I tried to explain that I was merely a harmless pa.s.senger by the train coming out to stretch my legs, and had never noticed his rotten old guns? But he quickly shoo"d me back into the station.
I betook myself once more to the carriage, got out my field gla.s.ses, and continued my investigations from the inside of the carriage, where I had quite a good view of the guns outside the station, and was able to note a good deal of information painted on them as to their weight, calibre, etc. Suddenly in the midst of my observations I found the view was obscured, and looking up, I found the face of the corporal peering in at me; he had caught me in the act. But nothing more came of it at the moment.
My farmer friend presently returned to his place, the whistle sounded, and the train lumbered on.
When I resumed conversation with the Colonist I remarked on his invalid appearance and enquired about his health. The poor man, with tears running down his cheeks, then confessed to me it was not illness of body, but worry of the mind that was preying upon him.
He had utterly failed in his attempt at making a successful farm, and had entered the train with the idea of cutting his throat, and would have done so had I not been there to prevent him. Life was over for him, and he did not know what to do. I got him to talk about his losses, and offered suggestions to him based on the experiences of a friend of mine who was also a farmer in that country, and who for ten years had failed until the right method came to him in the eleventh year, and he was now making his business a huge success.
This put hope at once into my volatile companion. He bucked up and became cheerful and confidential. Finally he said:
"You have done me a good turn. I will do something for you. I know that you are a German spy, and I know that you are going to be arrested at the station where this train stops for the night. You were spotted by a non-commissioned officer at the last station, and while I was in the telegraph office he came in and sent a telegram to the Commandant of the terminal station, reporting that a German spy had been examining the guns and was travelling by this train in this carriage."
I at once laughed genially at the mistake made, and explained to him that I was not a German at all. He replied that that would not avail me--I should be arrested all the same if I went on to the end of the journey.
"But," he suggested, "I shall be getting out myself at the very next station to go back to my farm, and my advice to you is to get out there also. You will find a good inn where you can put up for the night, and to-morrow morning the early train will take you on clean through that very station where the military commandant will be on the look-out for you to-night."
I replied that, as an Englishman, I had nothing to fear, and I should go on.
At the next station accordingly he got out, and after an affectionate farewell, I went on. But there was yet another station between this and the night stop, and on arrival there I took the hint of my friend and got out and spent the night at the little inn of the place.
Following his advice still further, I took the early train next morning and ran through the place where they had been looking out for me. I had not got out when he invited me to at his station lest his invitation might merely have been a trap to test whether I was a spy; had I accepted it, no doubt he might have had friends at hand to arrange my arrest. As it was, I came away scot free with all the information I wanted about the new gun.
HOODWINKING A TURKISH SENTRY.
A big new Turkish fort had been recently built, and my business was to get some idea of its plan and construction. From my inn in the town I sauntered out early one morning before sunrise, hoping to find no sentries awake, so that I could take the necessary angles and pace the desired bases in order to plot in a fairly accurate plan of it.
To some extent I had succeeded when I noticed among the sandhills another fellow looking about, and, it seemed to me, trying to dodge me. This was rather ominous, and I spent some of my time trying to evade this "dodger," imagining that he was necessarily one of the guard attempting my capture.
In evading him, unfortunately, I exposed myself rather more than usual to view from the fort, and presently was challenged by one of the sentries. I did not understand his language, but I could understand his gesture well enough when he presented his rifle and took deliberate aim at me. This induced me to take cover as quickly as might be behind a sandhill, where I sat down and waited for a considerable time to allow the excitement to cool down.
Presently, who should I see creeping round the corner of a neighbouring sandhill but my friend the "dodger"! It was too late to avoid him, and the moment he saw me he appeared to wish to go away rather than to arrest me. We then recognised that we were mutually afraid of each other, and therefore came together with a certain amount of diffidence on both sides.
However, we got into conversation, in French, and I very soon found that, although representatives of different nationalities, we were both at the same game of making a plan of the fort. We therefore joined forces, and behind a sandhill we compared notes as to what information we had already gained, and then devised a little plan by which to complete the whole scheme.
My friend took his place in a prominent position with his back to the fort and commenced to smoke, with every appearance of indifference to the defence work behind him. This was meant to catch the sentry"s eye and attract his attention while I did some creeping and crawling and got round the other side of the work, where I was able to complete our survey in all its details.
[Ill.u.s.tration: _A sketch showing how I and another spy managed to obtain drawings of a fort absolutely under the eyes of a sentry. The spy on the right of the picture is doing nothing more than attracting the attention of the sentry while on the left of the picture I am making the necessary drawings._]
It was late that night when we met in the "dodger"s" bedroom, and we made complete tracings and finished drawings, each of us taking his own copy for his own headquarters. A day or two later we took steamer together for Malta, where we were to part on our respective homeward journeys--he on his way back to Italy.
As we both had a day or two to wait at Malta, I acted as host to him during his stay. As we entered the harbour I pointed out to him the big 110-ton guns which at that time protected the entrance, and were visible to anybody with two eyes in his head. I pointed out various other interesting batteries to him which were equally obvious, but I omitted to mention other parts which would have been of greater interest to him.
He came away from Malta, however, with the idea that, on the whole, he had done a good stroke of business for his Government by going there, and convinced of his luck in getting hold of a fairly simple thing in the shape of myself to show him around.
It was my good fortune to meet him a few years later, when perhaps unwittingly he returned the compliment which I had done him in Malta.
He was then in charge of a large a.r.s.enal in one of the colonies of his country. This was situated in a citadel perched on a high ridge with a rapid river flowing around the base.
My orders at that time were to try and ascertain whether any organisation existed in this colony for mobilising the natives as a reserve, should the regular troops be called away for action elsewhere. Also whether there was any means arranged for arming these natives; if so, in what way and in what numbers.
Knowing that my friend was quartered in the place, I called upon him as the first step, without any definite plan in my mind as to how I was to set about getting the information. He was kind enough to take me for a tour of inspection round the town, down to the river, and up in the citadel.
By a lucky chance I got on to the idea that the citadel ought to be lit with electric light since the water power produced by the torrent below could work a dynamo at very low cost if properly engineered.
This was so much in my thoughts that as we went through the barracks and buildings in the fort, I kept pointing out how easily and inexpensively places might be wired and lit. And I gradually persuaded him that it was a matter that he should take up and suggest to his superior.
Finally, when he had seen almost everything, my friend remarked: "I don"t suppose you would care to see inside the a.r.s.enal, it is so much like many others you must have seen before." But I a.s.sured him that it would interest me very much; in fact, it was rather essential to forming any approximate estimate for the lighting; and so he took me in.
There was gallery after gallery filled with racks of arms, all beautifully kept, and over the door of each room was the name of the tribe and the number of men who could be mobilised in the event of their being required, and the number of arms and the amount of ammunition that was available for each.
After taking me through two or three rooms, he said: "There are many more like this, but you have probably seen enough." But I eagerly exclaimed that I must see the others in order to judge of this electric lighting scheme. If there were many more rooms it might necessitate an extra sized dynamo, therefore a greater expense, but I hoped that by due economy in the number of lamps to be able to keep down to the original estimate which I had thought of.
So we went steadily through all the rooms, looking at the places where lamps might be most economically established, and I made calculations with pencil and paper, which I showed him, while I jotted on my shirt cuff the names of the tribes and the other information required by my superiors at home--which I did not show him.
The armament of native auxiliaries and their organisation and numbers were thus comparatively easily found out--thanks to that little stroke of luck which I repeat so often comes in to give success whether in scouting or spying.
But a more difficult job was to ascertain the practical fighting value of such people.
TEA AND A TURK.
Reports had got about that some wonderful new guns had been installed in one of the forts on the Bosphorus and that a great deal of secrecy was observed in their being put up. It became my duty to go and find out any particulars about them.
My first day in Constantinople was spent under the guidance of an American lady in seeing the sights of the city, and when we had visited almost all the usual resorts for tourists she asked whether there was anything else that I wanted to see, and to a certain extent I let her into my confidence when I told her that I would give anything to see the inside of one of these forts, if it were possible.
She at once said she would be delighted to take me to see her old friend Hamid Pasha, who was quartered in one of them and was always willing to give her and her friends a cup of tea.
When we arrived at the gate of the fort the sentry and the officer in charge would on no account allow us to pa.s.s until the lady said that she was a friend of the Pasha, when we were at once admitted and pa.s.sed to his quarters.
He was a charming host, and received us with the greatest kindness, and after showing us his own quarters and the many curiosities he had collected he took us all round the fort and pointed out its ancient and modern devices for defence, and finally showed us its guns. Two of these, in a somewhat prominent position where they could easily be seen from outside, were covered with canvas covers.
My excitement naturally grew intense when I saw these, and I secretly begged the lady to persuade him to allow us to look at them, and he at once acquiesced, thinking I was an American, and, grinning all over his face, said, "These are our very latest development."
I almost trembled as the covers were drawn off, and then I recognised guns, truly of a modern make but not very new nor powerful, and then he gave away the whole secret by saying: "Of course, we are trying to impress a certain power with the idea that we are re-arming our forts, and therefore we are letting it be known that we are keeping these guns a dead secret and covered from view of any spies."
On another occasion it fell to my lot to inspect some of the defences of the Dardanelles, and I found it could best be done from the seaward. This involved my taking pa.s.sage in an old grain steamer running between Odessa and Liverpool, and my voyage in her was one of the most charming and original that it has been my lot to take.
A tramp steamer loaded down with grain until its cargo is almost running out of the ventilators is--contrary to all expectations--quite a comfortable boat for cruising in. The captain and his wife lived in comfortable cabins amidships under the bridge; the after deck was stocked with pigs and chickens, which fed liberally on the cargo. The captain"s good lady was a Scotch woman, and therefore an excellent cook.
Everything was most clean and comfortable, and the captain most thoroughly entered into my various schemes for observing and examining the defences of the coast as we went along.
He allowed me practically to take command of the ship as regards her course and anchoring. From side to side of the Dardanelles we wandered, and when we came abreast of one of the forts that needed study we anch.o.r.ed ship.
Our erratic procedure naturally invited investigation, and when a Government pilot boat put off to enquire our reason for anchoring in a certain bay he came to the conclusion that our steering gear was not in very good order and that we had stopped to repair it.
While the ship was at anchor a boat was lowered and I whiled away the time, nominally in fishing, but really in cruising about close to the forts and fishing for information rather than for fish by observing the different types of the guns employed and sketching their position and the radius of fire allowed to take them by the splay of their embrasures; also we took soundings where necessary and made sketch maps of possible landing places for attacking or other purposes.
SORE FEET.