"You do not know my system if you think that," remarked Dawson, frowning.
"And if I do not, of whom is the fault?" inquired Froissart blandly; "for, my faith, you never tell what you would be doing."
"A secret," said Dawson sententiously, "is a secret when known to one only. If two know of it there is grave danger. If three, one might as well shout it from the housetops. Therefore I keep my own counsel."
"That is just what I said," cried Froissart triumphantly. "If the secret of these _grand croiseurs_ is known to one hundred, two hundred, _le bon Dieu_ knows how many hundreds of dockyard hands, one might as well print it in these dull English _journaux_. You attempt the impossible, _mon ami_."
"They are Englishmen," proclaimed Dawson, who felt compelled to uphold the character of his countrymen in the presence of a foreigner. "They are patriots. Not a man of them would sell his country."
"I would not bank on their patriotism, my friend, when there is much Boche gold to be won and much beer to be drunk."
"And who said that I did bank upon it?" cried Dawson testily, forgetting his n.o.ble, words of two minutes earlier. "I wouldn"t trust one of them out of my sight. I have two dozen of my own men working alongside of those dockyard hands, watching them by night and day. We know if a man drinks two gla.s.ses of beer when he used to drink one, and takes home to his wife eighteenpence above his ordinary wage. Do you take me for a fool?"
"You"ll be a bigger fool than I take you for if you do not play straight this time with me, and tell me your plans in detail. I have to work with you, and I cannot give service blindfold."
"You are not a bad fellow, Froissart," said Dawson thoughtfully--the name in his mouth became Froy-zart--"and I will tell you here and now more of my mind than I have yet shown even to the great Chief of us all. It will take all your brains--for you have some brains--and all of mine to keep the secret of those battle-cruisers."
In the morning the newspapers published the meagre details of the disaster in the South Seas, and the Three Towns were shaken to their foundations. For when naval ships go down, they take with them crews of whom half have their homes in Devon. The disaster meant that eight hundred families in the West mourned a son or a father. Ever since the days of the Great Queen--whose name in the West is not Victoria, but Elizabeth--Devon has paid in the lives of its best men the price of Admiralty. The Three Towns mourned with a grief made more bitter by the realisation that the disaster was one which never should have happened. Bad slow English ships had been sent against good fast German ships, and had been sunk with all hands without hurt to the enemy. The Three Towns know the speed and power of every fighting ship afloat, British or foreign, as you or I before the war knew the public form of every leading golfer or cricketer. In every bar where sailormen met one another, and met, too, the brothers and fathers of sailormen, the Lords of the Admiralty were weighed and condemned. It is a thing most serious when in the cradles of the Navy, Portsmouth and the Three Towns, faith in the wisdom of Whitehall becomes shaken.
One may muzzle the Press, but no muzzle yet devised can close the mouths of sailormen and their friends in dockyard towns.
In the afternoon of the same day, while the news of the disaster was still fresh, there came a whisper, which gained in loudness and in precision of detail as it pa.s.sed from mouth to ear and from ear to mouth, that the worst had not yet been told. There had been not one, but two disasters. Two battle-cruisers, it was declared, had been sunk in the Channel by German mines or submarines. What were their names?
inquired the white-faced women. The names were not yet known, but they would soon come. A little later the severity of the rumour became softened. The battle-cruisers had not, it appeared, been sunk, but severely damaged. They were at that moment on their way to the Sound, crippled sorely, yet afloat. Men groaned. Two battle-cruisers blown up in the Channel; what in G.o.d"s name were two battle-cruisers doing in the mine-strewn Channel when their proper place was in one of the safe eyries overlooking the North Sea? A plausible explanation was offered.
The two battle-cruisers had been coming to Plymouth to take in stores that they might speed away south to avenge those other two cruisers sunk by the Germans as had been told in the morning"s papers. If this were indeed true, the news was of the worst; England"s prestige afloat was gone. She could not spare two other whole battle-cruisers to proceed upon a mission of vengeance to the South Seas while the Germans" Battle Squadrons in the North Sea ports were still undefeated. Meanwhile the Germans far away to the south could do what they pleased; they could sink and burn our merchant steamers at will.
The command of the Pacific had pa.s.sed from England to Germany, and the White Ensign hung draggled and shamed for all the world to sneer at.
The Three Towns almost forgot their personal grief for drowned friends in their horror at the disgrace which had come to their own sacred Service.
It was still light, though late in the afternoon, when the anxious watchers upon the Hoe made out, beyond Drake"s Island, two big ships coming in round the western end of the breakwater. Though deep in the water they towered above their escort of destroyers and fast patrol boats. The leading ship was listing badly, her tripod mast with its spotting top hung far over to port, and she was towing stern first a sister ship whose bows were almost hidden under water. The Three Towns, which can recognise the outlines of warships afar off, rapidly p.r.o.nounced judgment. "That"s the _Intrepid_" they declared, "and the one she"s towing is a battle-cruiser of the same cla.s.s--the _Terrific_ or _Tremendous_. They"re both badly holed." "Gawd A"mighty," cried a grizzled longsh.o.r.eman, who might have sailed with Drake or Hawkins--as no doubt his forbears had done--"look to the list of un! And thicky with her bows down under, being towed by the stern to keep her from swamping entire. If it worn"t for them bulk"eads un wouldn"t never have made the Sound." It was plain to those who had gla.s.ses turned on the damaged ships that they were drawing far too much water to be brought into the Hamoaze and over the sill of the dry dock at Devonport, so that no one felt surprise when the battle-cruisers were seen to pull out of the deep fairway and make towards the sh.o.r.e. The purpose was plain to read. They were to be put aground under Mount Edgc.u.mbe, patched up, and pumped dry, and then would go into dock for repairs. It was a job of weeks, and during all that time the Fleet would be short of two battle-cruisers which might have swept the South Seas clear of the German Ensign. It was cruel luck, and the Three Towns had enough to talk of to keep them occupied for many days. Presently more news came, authentic news, and pa.s.sed rapidly from mouth to mouth. The vessels were the _Intrepid_, the flagship of Admiral Stocky, and her sister the _Terrific_, a pair of fast Dreadnought cruisers. They had, as was surmised, been speeding down from Scotland to dock at Plymouth on their way to clean up the mess made in the far South. They had come safely through the Irish Sea and round the Land"s End, but when near their journey"s end off Fowey they had run into a patch of mines laid by German submarines. The _Terrific_ had had her bow plates ripped into slivers of ragged steel, and the three fore compartments flooded. The _Intrepid_ had picked up the wire of a twin mine, got caught badly on the port side, but had luckily escaped to starboard. She had taken her crippled sister in tow, and brought her in safely. Both ships could easily be repaired, but it would take time. The voyage to the South Seas was off. Nothing could have been more convincing than the story which quickly got about; the ships had been seen and recognised by the Three Towns--there was no concealment and no mystery. For once the Silent Navy appeared to be talkative. The hearts of German agents in the Towns swelled with pride and joy. Here was convincing proof of the kindly hand of the Prussian Gott. If the great news could be carried through to the Kaiser and von Tirpitz, there would be much ringing of church bells in the Fatherland. But these English, since the war began, had become very watchful, very suspicious. The problem was: how to get the glad news through.
It was two o"clock in the morning and very dark. The big dry docks at Devonport were deserted except for a few picked hands, not more than two score at the outside, told off on night shift for special duty.
Against all workmen who had not been warned for this duty the big gates would be closed for two whole days. There were important jobs awaiting completion, but they must wait. One hundred and twenty men, working in three eight-hour shifts per day--forty at a time--could do all that was needed to the _Intrepid_ and _Terrific_, and not one man was included who had not served at Devonport for at least ten years.
Dawson had been very firm, and the Commander-in-Chief had backed him with full authority. "Don"t make any mistake," said Dawson. "Among even one hundred and twenty, though picked in this way, there will be some few who would sell us if they could. One would have to go back more than ten years to weed out all those whom the Germans have corrupted. But out of this lot there should not be more than two or three swine, and I can look after them." He did not say that he had already been in touch with the Scotland Yard officer at Devonport, and had arranged that a dozen out of his precious twenty-four counter-spies should be put among the chosen hundred and twenty.
Dawson never did allow his left hand to know the wiles of his right.
Under the thick cover of the autumn night two ma.s.sive silent forms, which had crept with all lights out into the Sound after their long fast voyage from the northern mists, were warped into dock; the supporting sh.o.r.es were fitted, and the water around them run out. Long before the flagship _Intrepid_ stood clear and dry on the dock floor, Dawson, in his uniform of a private of Marines--"A Marine can go anywhere and do anything," he would say--had slipped on board and shown the Commander credentials from the Board of Admiralty which made that hardened officer open his eyes. "My word," exclaimed he, "you must be some Marine! Come along quick to the Admiral." So Dawson went, not a little nervous--the moment his foot trod the decks of a King"s ship all his a.s.surance dropped off, his old sense of discipline flowed back over him, and an Admiral became a very mighty potentate indeed.
Ash.o.r.e Dawson could face up to the Lord Jacquetot himself; on board ship a two-ring lieutenant was to him a G.o.d! He followed the Commander, and was ushered into the Admiral"s presence. "What!" cried Stocky, stern in manner always, but very kindly at heart towards those whom he found to be true men. "A private of Marines with plenary powers from the First Lord? Take the papers off him and chuck the d.a.m.ned comedian into the ditch. We have no time here for the First Lord"s humour." The Commander drew near and whispered. "What!
Authority endorsed by Jacquetot? There is something queer about this.
Look here, my fine fellow, who the devil are you? Are you a Marine, or a too clever German spy, or what? Make haste. There is still enough water left over the side to pitch you into without breaking your dirty neck."
Dawson knew his man. He had served in the same ship with Stocky when that officer had been a lieutenant; he had waited upon him in the wardroom. He had felt the rasp of his tongue in old days. He approached, and without saying a word handed the letters given him by the First Lord and Jacquetot, adding his official card. The Admiral read the papers slowly and came at last to the card. Then his frowning brows softened, and he smiled. It was the old smile of Lieutenant Stocky. "Why, it"s Dawson who was my servant in the old _Olympus_; now Chief Inspector of Scotland Yard. That explains all. But why the h.e.l.l, man, do you dress up as a Marine?"
"Once a Marine, always a Marine," replied Dawson, who felt happier now that the Admiral had recognised him. "I can"t keep out of the uniform, sir. Besides, it"s very useful when I want to be about the docks."
"My orders," said the Admiral, "are to dock, clean, coal, and be off.
I am expecting more detailed instructions, but they have not yet come.
These letters say that you will explain the programme here, and that you have been charged with full responsibility for keeping our movements secret. I am to give you all possible a.s.sistance. All right.
Go ahead. What do you want of us?"
Dawson rapidly told how the two dummy battle-cruisers had come stumbling into the Sound in the afternoon, and how the Three Towns believed that the _Intrepid_ and _Terrific_ were at that moment lying on the shoals out of service for weeks to come. "No one must guess,"
he concluded, "that the real _Intrepid_ and _Terrific_ are here safe in dock, that they will go out two days hence in the middle of the night, and dash away south to wipe Fritz"s flag off the seas. We have picked the dockyard hands with the greatest care, and have them under watch like mice with cats all about them. If a single one of your officers or men goes out of the dock gates the game will be up and I won"t answer for the consequences. Everything rests with you, sir.
Will you give orders that no one, no one, not even you yourself, shall leave either of the battle-cruisers while they are in dock--no one, not for a minute."
The Admiral laughed, and the officers in his room respectfully joined in. "So we have been mined and are aground somewhere yonder on the mud surrounded by sorrowing patrols. And the Three Towns are dropping salt tears into their beer. It is a fine game, Dawson. I didn"t believe much in Lord Jacquetot"s dummies, but they"ve come in darned useful this time. Are you going to keep Plymouth and Devonport in the dumps for long?"
"Until you"ve done your work, sir," said Dawson.
"So until then the _Intrepid_ and _Terrific_ will lie crippled in the Sound for all the world to see and for Fritz to believe. If this very bright scheme is yours, Dawson, we will all drink your health down south as soon as our work has been done. For the credit will be yours rather than ours. I will help you all I can; it is my duty and my very keen desire. A man who can make so brilliant a plan for confounding the enemy"s spies is worth a statue of gold. He is even worth the sacrifice of two day"s leave while one"s ship is in dock. What do you say, gentlemen?"
"I never thought," said the Flag Captain, "that I would willingly spend two days shut up in a smelly dock, but you may count me in, sir.
I won"t head a mutiny when all leave is refused."
"You shall have your way, Dawson. All leave stopped in both ships. Not a man is to go ash.o.r.e on any pretence, no matter what the excuse. The mothers of the lower decks may all die--they always do when a ship is in port--but not a man shall leave to bury them. Give the orders in the _Intrepid_, and ask the captain of the _Terrific_ to be so good as to come aboard."
"So far, good," exclaimed Dawson when he got back to his hotel and found Froissart sitting up for him. "The ships are in and no one is to be allowed ash.o.r.e. I shall be in a fever till both of them are away again. We are on very thin ice, Froissart. It is lucky that the dockyard is on the Hamoaze, out of sight even of most of Devonport, and far away from Plymouth and Stonehouse. I have seen all the foremen of the dockyard myself, told them the whole trick which we are playing on the Huns, and put them on their mettle to tackle their men. They will pitch it fine and strong on the honour and patriotism of complete silence, but not neglect to throw in a hint of the Defence of the Realm Act and penal servitude. Never threaten an Englishman, Froissart, but always let him know that behind your fine honourable sentiments there is something devilish nasty. Preach as loud as you can about the beauty of virtue, but don"t forget to chuck in a description of the fiery h.e.l.l which awaits wrongdoers. I don"t depend much either on the sentiments or the hints of punishment. I"ve got every man of that hundred and twenty on my string, and if one of them asks leave, within the next day or two, to go and bury his mother on the East Coast, he shall go--but I shall go with him, and he shall have a jolly little funeral of his own. Every letter which they write will be read, every telegram copied for me, every message by "phone taken down. They are on my string, Froissart--every man."
"You do everything, Mr. Dawson," grumbled Froissart. "Where do I come in?"
"You have helped me a lot already," replied Dawson handsomely. "You being a foreigner make me talk very simple and plain, and think out my plans so that I can explain them to you. One sees the weak points of a scheme when one has to make it clear to a foreigner. You don"t always twig my meaning, Froissart, and sometimes your remarks are a bit foolish; but you mean well, and, for a Frenchman, are quite intelligent. I will say that for you, Froissart--quite intelligent."
"_Sacre nom d"un chien_--" began Froissart hotly; but Dawson paid no heed. He just went on talking, and Froissart, realising that Dawson could not understand his French, and that he himself could not give words to his feelings in English, relapsed into wrathful silence. Much as I respect and admire Dawson, I should not care to be his subordinate.
"We must keep the cinema show going nice and lively for the Three Towns," went on Dawson. "A big salvage steamer is coming down to-morrow to give an air of verisimilitude to the proceedings. Patrol boats will buzz about the Sound, and the potentates, naval and civil, will gather from all parts. The unfortunate wrecks out at Picklecombe Point will be guarded so that no sh.o.r.e boat can get within half a mile. They won"t bear a very close inspection. I hope that none of the guns will break loose and float about the harbour. That would be what you might call a blooming contretemps. I shall be pretty busy all the next two days myself. Though I am a strict teetotaller, I shall get into sh.o.r.e rig and spend my days in the public bars. I must know what the Three Towns are talking about, and whether any suspicion of the truth gets wind. I don"t think that it can; at least, for some time.
The stage management has been too good. Later on there may be some wonderment because none of the men from the _Intrepid_ and _Terrific_ are allowed ash.o.r.e. A lot of wives and families must be around here, especially as the _Intrepid_ is a Plymouth ship. Of course it must be given out that they are all needed to help with the salvage operations, and no leave is allowed. You, Froissart, might spend your time reading copies of all telegrams sent out from the Towns. If any German agent wants to get news of the damage to the battle-cruisers over to Holland, he will probably travel up to the East Coast and send a wire on ahead. That is what I hope for. You shall then follow him up, and make smooth the path of crime. Half our trouble will be lost unless we can help the spoof news over to the Kaiser, bless him. The job, at first, will be pretty dull for you, Froissart, and not over lively for me. I hate pubs, yet for two days I must loaf about them, pretending to drink. You can read the telegrams, but you can"t understand English well enough to pick up the gossip of the bars. I must do that myself."
"You have stopped all leave on the battle-cruisers--the real ones, I mean--but what about the dockyard men," inquired Froissart. "Are they to be allowed to go to their homes when they come off their shifts?"
"I have thought of that and weighed both sides. It will be safer to let them go home as usual. If we locked them all up in the dockyard till the _Intrepid_ and _Terrific_ were both safe away, there would be no end of curiosity and gossip. What so very special, people would ask, could be going on in the yard that no one was allowed out for two days. I don"t want wives and families and neighbours to come smelling round those dockyard gates. They might see the spotting tops of the cruisers inside. Of course there is a regular forest of masts and gantries showing, and a couple of spotting tops more or less might not be noticed. But my general idea is to concentrate attention on those dear old dummies down at Picklecombe Point. They are the centre of interest, the eye of the picture--the cynosure, as a scholar would say. I am not a bad scholar myself. I pa.s.sed the seventh standard, and went to school all the time I was in the Red Marines. I was a sergeant, which takes a bit of doing. But see here, Froissart,"
exclaimed Dawson, looking at his watch, "it is five o"clock, and we must get quick to bed so as to be bright and lively in the morning."
Dawson carried out his programme. Though a strict teetotaller, he pa.s.sed hours at public houses, especially in the evenings, listening to the talk of the port. It was all about the disaster in the South Seas, the heavy casualties suffered by the Three Towns, and the rotten ill-luck of the avenging battle-cruisers running upon the German mines. Not a whisper could Dawson hear of suspicion that the ships beached under Mount Edgc.u.mbe were other than the genuine article. The salvage steamer with her big arc lights glowing through the darkness had been the last artistic touch which brought complete conviction.
Gold-laced officers, including the Commander-in-Chief himself, had been coming and going all day; the acting of the Navy had been perfect. Dawson blessed the four bones of old Jacquetot, who, when he tackles a job, does it very thoroughly indeed. "I should not be surprised," thought he, "if the Mountain, as that young Jackanapes called him, came trotting down here himself just to make the show complete." And sure enough he did, accompanied by the Fourth Sea Lord who had worked out all the convincing details. Dawson was ordered to meet them in the Admiral"s quarters of the _Intrepid_. He went, looking a very different person from the private of Marines of some thirty hours earlier, and had the honour of being invited to luncheon.
That lunch was the one scene in the comedy upon which he dwelt in telling the story to me. "Lord Jacquetot," he said, "clinked gla.s.ses with me and wished me the best of luck and success. It was as much as he could do, he said, to keep the First Lord from coming down and monkeying the whole affair. Luckily there was a debate in Parliament that he wanted to figure in, and so couldn"t get away. Lord Jacquetot said that the First Lord had grabbed the whole scheme as his very own, and forgotten that I had any part in it. I don"t mind. The Secret Service never gets any credit for anything. If it did, it wouldn"t be Secret very long."
"No credit," I remarked, "and not much cash I expect."
"Little enough, sir," replied Dawson. "I suppose we do the job for the love of it. There"s no sport like it. Our real work never gets into the papers or the story-books."
"Never?" I asked slily. "What about that story of mine in the _Cornhill Magazine_, which you still carry about next your heart?"
Dawson changed the subject. He never will appreciate chaff.
At midnight of the day of the luncheon party the _Intrepid_ and _Terrific_, clean and fully loaded, cleared out of dock and slipped off into the darkness attended by their destroyer escort, whose duty it was to see them safe round Ushant. Eight hours later Dawson came down to breakfast and found that Froissart, satisfied with his _pet.i.t dejeuner_ of coffee and rolls, had already gone out. Dawson felt satisfied with himself, and was confident now that his work in the Three Towns had been well and truly done. The rest could be left to the Navy, and to his Secret Service agents. He sat down to a hearty meal, but was not destined to finish it. First came a messenger from the Officer in charge of the Dockyard, who handed over a sealed note and took a receipt for it. Dawson broke the seal. "Dear Mr. Dawson,"
he read, "You will be interested to learn that one of the hands engaged upon the work we know of has asked for three days" leave--that he may bury his mother in Ess.e.x. She died, he says, at Burnham. I await your views before granting the leave asked for. The man has been in our service for sixteen years, and bears the best of characters."