"Now," exclaimed Froissart, "I will tell to you, my friend Dawson, the true _histoire_ of my exploits so tremendous and unapproachable. I reached the station at Plymouth at ten hours, my spy was upon the platform. I knew him, for those who had kept him under watch had informed me of him. I had with me two police officers _en bourgeois_, what you call plain clothes, and I distributed them with the ac.u.men of a strategist. It was _un train a couloir_. The spy disposed himself in a compartment. I placed one of my officers in the same compartment with him, the other in the compartment _contiguee_ towards the engine, myself in that _a derriere_. He was thus the meat in our sandwich. If he pa.s.sed into the corridor and walked this way or that he was seen by me or by my man in advance; all his movements while within his own compartment were supervised every moment. So we travelled. He did himself well that spy so atrocious. He partook of his _dejeuner_ in the _buffet du train_, and we all three took our _dejeuner_ there also. That was the last meal of which I ate before this my supper here. The journey was without incident, but when he arrived at Waterloo the trouble began. He was not taking risks, that spy. He knew not that he was under watch, but he took not risks. He began to perform a voyage designed to throw any man, except one of the vigilance and resource of Froissart, completely off his track. I was not learned in your Metropolitain before this day, but now I know your Tubes as if a map of them were printed in colours upon my hand. At Waterloo that spy, so astute, burrowed into the earth and entered a train of the railway called Bakerloo, in which he journeyed to Golder"s Green. Then he crossed a _quai_ and returned to the town called Camden. Again he descended, pa.s.sed through tunnels, and emerging upon another _quai_ proceeded to Highgate. All the while we three followed, not close, but so that he never escaped from under our eyes. At Highgate he turned about and returned to Tottenham Court Road. Thence he departed by another line to the Bank, and, rising in and _ascenseur_, emerged upon the pavements of your City. He looked this way and that, not perceiving us who watched, walked warily to the Lord Maire"s station of the Mansion House, boarded the District Railway, and did not alight till Wimbledon. It was easy to follow, but my friend, the billets, the tickets, were _une grande difficulte_. I solved the problem of tickets by my genius so _superbe_. We at first tried to take them, but _apres_ we abandoned the project so hopeless and travelled _sans payer_. When asked at the barriers or in the lifts, we offered pennies, and the men who collected took them joyfully, asking not whence we came. It was _une procedee tres simple_. It is possible that these wayward uncounted pennies dropped into their own pockets. They rejoiced always to receive them. From Wimbledon we returned to Earl"s Court, and then, descending by an electric staircase, which moved of itself, again found ourselves in the Tubes. I loved that _escalier electrique_; one day I will return and ascend and descend upon it for hours. From Earl"s Court we went to Piccadilly Circus; there we made another change for Oxford Circus; there we again got out, and at last, after penetrating the bowels of your London, travelled to Liverpool Street. By this time it had become dark, and the spy"s pa.s.sion for underground travel had spent itself.
He crossed the street, descended to the grand station of the Eastern Railway, and took a ticket for Burnham-on-Crouch. Exhausted, but ever vigilant, Froissart and his faithful men took also tickets for Burnham-on-Crouch.
"I will not weary you more with our wanderings, but after many hours, at ten o"clock, we at last arrived at this place. The spy was met upon the _quai_ by another villain, with whom he held converse, and the pair of them, ignorant that the vengeance of Froissart overshadowed them, marched heedlessly, openly, to the river side and entered a large house of which the gardens ran down to the water. I left there my two faithful but weary ones on watch, and hastened to the _salle de police_. There an Inspector and a young _officier anglais_--a sub-lieutenant of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve--were awaiting my arrival with impatience. To them I told my story with the brevity that I now recount it to you. They were intrigued greatly, and the _sous_-lieutenant struck me violently upon the back and said, _ma foi_, that I was a "downy old bird," It was a compliment _tres "bizarre mais tres aimable._ I was, it appeared, an old bird of the downiest plumage. I had noted the name of the house, and the Inspector seized a Directory. "We have suspected that house for some time," said he. There is a big boat-house at the bottom of the garden containing a large sea-going motor-boat. The proprietor calls himself English, but does not look like one. He is doubtless a snake, one whom they call _naturalise_, a viper whom we English have warmed in our bosoms." So spake the Inspector. The Sub-Lieutenant whistled. He said only, "Send for little Tommy; it is a job for him." A call was sent forth, and there came into the room a sc.r.a.p of an infant, habited in short pantaloons and a green shirt. The child carried a long pole and stood stiffly at attention. "_Ma foi_, do I see before me a Boy Scout?" I asked. "You do," replied the Sub-Lieutenant. "This is little Tommy, the patrol leader of the Owls." "_Mon Dieu_" I cried, "an Owl! _Un Hibou_! Is he then stupid as an owl?" I could see that the Tommy so small frowned savagely, but the Sub-Lieutenant laughed. "You will see presently if he is stupid. I have forty miles of coast to watch, and I do it all with Boy Scouts like this one." "_Nom d"un chien_," I cried.
"You English are a great people." "We are," agreed the Sub-Lieutenant, "devilish great." Tommy grinned.
"Then the officer so youthful--his age could not have exceeded nineteen years--gave orders to the little Tommy. He was to go to the house, to enter the garden, to squeeze his tiny person into the boat-house, and watch. When the spy and his a.s.sociates went towards the boat, Tommy was to warn us with a hoot--like an owl--and we were to take charge. At least so I understood the orders given in a strange sea language. Tommy saluted, and vanished. If he had ten years, I should be astonished; but he was a man, every inch of him. Wait till I have finished.
"We followed quickly behind Tommy, but saw him not, and joined my men, who still watched the house. The Sub-Lieutenant and I moved warily, climbed over the wall of the garden, and crept along the gra.s.s, soft like moss to our feet, till we could see the boat-house stand out against the dull shine of the river. There was no sign of the presence of _le pet.i.t Hibou_. Suddenly the door of the house, which gave upon the garden, opened, and four men walked down to the boat-house and entered stealthily. My heart turned to water--what a calamity if they should find and slay the pretty little Owl! The minutes pa.s.sed, perhaps five, perhaps ten, and then quite close we heard the soft low hoot of an owl. The Sub-Lieutenant hooted a reply, and from among some bushes there came out that serene, intrepid infant with the pole! He joined us, and whispered eagerly to the officer. I could not hear what he said. Afterwards the Sub-Lieutenant told me that the men had entered, three had got into the boat, one remaining on land. It was a forty-foot boat, reported Tommy--who seemed of wisdom and knowledge encyclopaedic--it had a big cabin forrard, the engine was a Wotherspoon, ten cylinders set V-fashion, the power a hundred horses.
So Tommy had observed and reported, and so I repeat to you. As we watched we saw the boat push out into the river, turn towards the sea; the engine so powerful buzzed like a million bees, a wave curled up in front, and it sped away for Holland like the shot of an arrow. The night was fine, the sea calm; it would complete the voyage in safety.
But upon return what a surprise has been prepared for that motor-boat and its detestable owner! What a surprise, _ma foi_. I yearn to hear of the denouement.
""We will nab the fourth man who has stayed behind," whispered the officer, and we crept towards the boat-house. We were ten yards away when he issued forth and turned to lock the door. Then we sprang upon him. He was very quick--like the big snake that he was. He heard us, spun round, and struck two blows of his fist. The Sub-Lieutenant got one upon his beautiful nose; I got the other here under the jaw. We were shot, sprawling, upon the gra.s.s, one to each side, and the villain, springing between us, started to flee. I was struck down, but not stunned; I was alert, undefeated, eager to resume the battle. I rose to my knees. I saw the villain fleeing up the gra.s.s. Ah, he would escape! But I had not reckoned upon the patrol leader, the little Owl, the _Hibou_ of a Boy Scout so deft and courageous. The spy fled, but into his path sprang the tiny figure of the Owl, his pole in rest like a lance. They met, the man and the little Owl, and the shock of that tourney aroused the echoes of the night. The man, hit in the belly by the point of the pole, collapsed upon the gra.s.s, and the Owl, driven backwards by the weight of the man, rolled over and over like _un herisson_. He was no longer an Owl; he was a round Hedgehog! I was consumed with admiration for the gallant Owl. I got to my feet, I jumped across the lawn, and fell with both knees hard upon the carcase so foul of the spy whom I had pursued all day. He lay groaning from the grievous pain in his belly, and I put upon him the handcuffs before that he could recover. The little Tommy, the Hedgehog, picked himself up, staggered to the body of his enemy, and there, leaning upon the admirable pole which he had not released in his somersaults, gave forth a hoot of victory. It was the Day of Tommy. But for that morsel of a wise Owl the spy would have escaped. I embraced Tommy, who wriggled with discomfort; the Sub-Lieutenant shook his hand, which he appreciated the more. "Good work," said the officer. "Thank you, sir,"
said Tommy. That was all; no emotion, no compliments, no embraces.
"Good work." "Thank you, sir." _Ma foi_, what a people are the English!
"We locked up the spy. The Sub-Lieutenant told me that wireless orders had gone out to the patrols spread far over the seas. The boat, of which we had the name and description, would arrive at Holland, but upon its return on the morrow it would be seized and escorted to Harwich. If by mischance it eluded the patrols, it would be captured when it arrived in the river Crouch. All was provided for. The false news has gone to Holland, and Froissart has done good work. I ask for no reward; I will be like the English--cold, implacable. When the officer said at parting to me, "Good work, M. Froissart, we are much obliged to you," I replied calmly, "Thank you, sir," I had, you will observe, modelled myself upon the little Owl.
"And you, Mr. Dawson," concluded Froissart, wiping his face, for the effort of talking so much English had brought out the sweat upon him, "have you also succeeded?"
"Yes," said Dawson curtly, "I have also done my work, but it was not exciting. My man was no spy, and the real news about the _Intrepid_ and _Terrific_ will not get through to Germany."
"Saved," roared Froissart, springing to his feet. "We are colleagues most perfect. We have done work of the most good. _Embracons nous, mon ami_." Then occurred that deplorable incident which has already been related. Froissart in his enthusiasm embraced the unresponsive Dawson, and was laid out by a short-arm jab upon the diaphragm. It was really too bad of Dawson; but then, as I have said, his temper was atrocious.
The two battle-cruisers remained upon the shoals of Picklecombe Point all through November and well into the following month. The great salvage steamer with the arc light went away, but others remained.
Work seemed to proceed, though it was unaccountably slow in producing a result. The Three Towns lost interest in the derelicts until one evening there fell upon them a blow which set them gasping for coherent speech. The newsboys were crying in the streets a Special Edition, very Special. Set in dirty type in an odd column, headed with the mysterious words "Stop Press," appeared an announcement by the Admiralty that far away in the South Seas the battle-cruisers _Intrepid_ and _Terrific_, under the command of Vice-Admiral Stocky, had met and sunk the lately victorious German Squadron! It was glorious news, but the Three Towns thought little at the moment of the glory. They urgently hungered for an explanation of the inscrutable means by which two battle-cruisers, mined and cast upon the shoals below Mount Edgec.u.mbe under their very eyes, could race hot foot to the South Seas and there lay out a German squadron. As soon as the winter dawn broke an immense crowd surged upon the Hoe gazing into blank s.p.a.ce. The two battle-cruisers, which for a month had lain helpless before them, were gone! Gone, too, were the salvage steamers and the patrol boats. The waters which had been so active and crowded were void! Then the Three Towns understood; they grasped, men, women and children, the great spoof of which they had been the interested victims, and their approving laughter rose to Heaven. For in all that appertains to the Royal Navy every one born within the circuit of the Three Towns is very wise indeed.
PART IV
_THE CAPTAIN OF MARINES_
CHAPTER XV
DAWSON REAPPEARS
I had seen nothing of Dawson during my intimate a.s.sociation with Madame Gilbert. He had written to me copiously--for a very busy man he was a curiously voluminous letter-writer. He always employed the backs of official forms and wrote in pencil. His handwriting, large and round, was that of a man who had received a good and careful Board School education, but was quite free from personal characteristics.
Dawson"s letters in no respect resembled the man. They were very long, very dull, and very crudely phrased. He had evidently tried to put them into what he conceived to be a literary shape, and the effect was deplorable. One may read such letters, the work of unskilled writers, in the newspapers which devote s.p.a.ce to "Correspondence." The writers, like Dawson, can probably talk vividly and forcibly, using strong nervous vernacular English, but the moment they take the pen all thought and individual character become swamped in a flood of turgid, commonplace jargon. I was disappointed with Dawson"s letters, and I am sure that he will be even more disappointed when he finds none of them made immortal in this book. His purpose in sending them to me will have been ruthlessly defeated.
A week after Madame had vanished down my lift for the last time, Dawson--in the make-up with which I was most familiar--called upon me at my office. He also came to say good-bye, for a turn of the official wheel had come, and he was ordered south to resume his duties at the Yard. He was, he told me, taking a last tour of inspection to make certain that the Secret Service net, which he had designed and laid, would be deftly worked by the hands of his subordinates. "I shall not be sorry," said he, "to get back to my deserted family and to be once more the plain man Dawson whom G.o.d made."
"You have so many different incarnations," I observed, "that I wonder the original has not escaped your memory."
He smiled. "If I had forgotten," said he, "my wife would soon remind me. She always insists that she married a certain man Dawson and declines to recognise any other."
"So if I come south to visit you, I shall see the original?"
"You will."
"Thanks," said I; "I will come at the earliest opportunity."
"I don"t say that if you call at the Yard you will see quite the same person whom you will meet at Acacia Villas, Primrose Road, Tooting."
"That would be too much to expect. But under any guise, Dawson, I am always sure of knowing you."
"Yes, confound you. I would give six months" pay to know how you do it."
"You shall know some day, and without any bribery. Now that you are here, talk, talk, talk. I want to get the taste of those rotten letters of yours out of my mouth."
He looked surprised and hurt. He looked exactly as a famous sculptor looked who, when a beautiful work of his hands was unveiled, wished me to publish a descriptive sonnet from his pen. I bluntly refused. He was an admirable sculptor, but a dreadful sonneteer. Yet in his secret heart he valued the sonnet far above the statue. In this strange way we are made.
I did not conceal from Dawson my interest in Madame Gilbert, and he rather rudely expressed strong disapproval. He suggested that for a married man I was much too free in my ways. "That woman is full of brains," said he, "but she is the artfullest hussy ever made. She will turn any man around her pretty fingers if he gives way to her. She has made a nice fool of you and of that a.s.s Froissart. She even tried her little games with me--with me indeed. But I was too strong for her."
I regarded Dawson with some interest and more pity. The poor fellow did not realise that Madame had for years moulded him to her hands like potter"s clay. She had mastered him by ingenuously pretending that he stood upon a serene pinnacle far removed from her influence.
He had preened his feathers and done her bidding.
"We are not all strong--like you, Dawson," said I mildly.
I switched Dawson off the subject of Madame Gilbert, and directed his mind towards the contemplation of his own exploits. When handled judiciously he will talk freely and frankly, giving away official secrets with both hands. But his confidences always relate to the past, to incidents completed. When he has a delicate job on hand, he can be as close as the English Admiralty, even to me. He has no sense of proportion. Again and again he has recounted the interminable details of cases in which I take not the smallest interest, and has ignored all my efforts to dam the unprofitable flood of narrative and to divert the current into more fruitful channels. He looks at everything from the Dawson standpoint, and cares for nothing which does not add to the glory of Dawson. Unless he fills the stage, an incident has for him no value or concern. Happily for me the most startling of his exploits, that of bending a timid War Committee of the Cabinet to his will in the winter of 1915-1916, and of bluffing into utter submission nearly a hundred thousand rampant munition workers who were eager to "down tools," fulfils all the Dawson conditions of importance. He and he alone filled a star part, to him and to him alone belonged the success of an incredibly bold manoeuvre.
I have drawn Dawson as I saw him, in his weakness and in his strength.
I have revealed his vanity and the carefully hidden tenderness of his heart. In my whimsical way I have perhaps treated him as essentially a figure of fun. But though I may smile at him, even rudely laugh at him, he is a great public servant who once at least--though few at the time knew--saved his country from a most grievous peril.
In the early weeks of 1916, when work for the Navy, and work in the gun and ammunition shops which were rapidly being organised all over the country, were within a very little of being suspended by a general strike of workmen, terrified for their threatened trade-union privileges, the strength and resource of Dawson put forth boldly in the North dammed the peril at its source. In spite of the penalties laid down in Munition Acts, in spite of the powers vested in military authorities by the Defence of the Realm Regulations, there would have been a great strike, and both the Navy and the New Army would have been hung up gasping for the ships, the guns, and the supplies upon which they had based all their plans for attack and defence. The danger arose over that still insistent problem--the "dilution of labour." The new armies had withdrawn so many skilled and unskilled workmen from the workshops, and the demands for munitions of all kinds were so overwhelming, that wholly new and strange methods of recruiting labour were urgent. Women must be employed in large numbers, in millions; machinery must be put to its full use without regard for the restrictions of unions, if the country were to be saved. Many of the younger and more open-minded of the trade-union officials had enlisted; many of those older ones who remained could not bend their stiff minds to the necessity for new conditions. They were not consciously unpatriotic--their sons were fighting and dying; they were not consciously seditious, though secret enemy agents moved amongst them, and talked treason with them in the jargon of their trades. They simply could not understand that the hardly won privileges of peace must yield to the greater urgencies of war.
Civilians came north to examine the position on behalf of the Ministry of Munitions; they came, wrung their hands, and reported in terror that if dilution were pressed, a hundred thousand men would be "out."
Yet the risk had to be taken, for dilution must be pressed. Dawson was hard at work sweeping into his widespread net all those whom he knew to be enemy agents and all those whom he suspected. It was not an occasion for squeamishness. With the consent of his official superiors, he picked up with those prehensile fingers of his many of the most troublesome of the union agitators, and deported them to safe spots far distant, where they were constrained to cease from troubling. Still the danger increased, and he saw that a few days only could intervene between industrial peace and war. Already the manufacture of heavy howitzers for the Spring Offensive had been stopped--by a cunning embargo upon small essential parts--and the moment had arrived for a trial of strength between authority and rebellion. He made up his mind, plainly told his chiefs what his plans were, obtained their whole-hearted concurrence, and went south by the night train. By telegram he had sent an ultimatum which struck awe into the official mind. "Unless," he wired, in code, "the Cabinet wants a revolution, it had better meet at once and call me in. Unless it does this at once I shall not go back here. I shall resign, and leave the Government in the soup where it deserves to be."
Such a message from a man who in official eyes was no more than a Chief Inspector of Police was in itself a portent. It revealed how completely war had upset all official standards and conventions.
To the Chief, his Commissioner, he opened his mind freely. "I am about fed up with politicians and lawyers," said he. "There is big trouble coming, and not a man of them all has the pluck to get his blow in first. I have always found that men will respect an order--they like to be governed--but they despise slop. What the devil"s the use of Ministers going North and telling the men how well they have done, and how patriotic they are, when the men themselves all know that they"ve done d.a.m.n badly and mean to do worse? I could settle the whole business in twenty-four hours."
"They are frightened men, Dawson," said the Chief. "That is the matter with the Government. They have been brought up to s...o...b..r over the public and try to cheat it out of votes. They can"t tell the truth.
When hard deadly reality breaks through their web of make-believe, they cower together in corners and howl. I doubt if you will get a free hand, Dawson. What do you want--martial law?"
"Yes. That, or something like it. If I have the threat of it at my back, so that it rests with me, and me alone, to put it into force, I shall not need to use it. But I must go North with the proclamation in my pocket or I shall not go North at all. Here is my resignation."
Dawson tossed a letter upon the table, and laughed. The Chief picked it up and read the curt lines in which Dawson delivered his last word.
"Good man," commented he; "that is the way to talk. They can"t understand how any man can have the grit to resign a fat job before he is kicked out. They never do. They compromise. You may put starch into their soft backbones, but personally I doubt the possibility. But at least you will get your chance. There is to be a meeting of the War Committee the first thing to-morrow morning and you are to be summoned. I told the Home Secretary that I should resign myself if they did not give you a full opportunity to state your case. I will support you as long as I am in this chair."
Dawson held out his hand. "Thank you," he said simply. The two men clasped hands and looked into one another"s eyes. "It is a good country, Dawson," said the Chief--"a jolly good country, and worth big risks to oneself. It will be saved by plain, honest men if it is to be saved at all. Our worst enemies are not the Germans, but our flabby-fibred political cla.s.ses at home. The people are just crying out to be told what to do, and to be made to do it. Yet n.o.body tells them. Don"t let the Cabinet browbeat you, and smother you with plausible sophistries. Just talk plain English to them, Dawson."