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 a.s.sure 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 a.s.sure 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 G.o.ddess 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 a.s.sure 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 w.a.n.geroog--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 sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e.
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."