Caught!

: The World Peril Of 1910

The events of that memorable night formed a most emphatic contradiction

to the prophecy in Macaulay's "Armada":





"Such night in England ne'er had been, nor e'er again shall be."





The speeches in the House of Commons and in the House of Peers were

being printed even as they were spoken; hundreds of printing-presses

were grinding out millions of copies of newspapers. Thousand of

newsboys were running along the pavements, or with great bags of new

editions slung on their shoulders tearing through the traffic on

bicycles; but all the speeches in the two Houses of Parliament, all the

reports and hurriedly-written leaders in the papers just represented to

the popular mind one word, and that word was war.



It was true that for over a hundred years no year had passed in which

the British Empire had not been engaged in a war of some kind, but they

were wars waged somewhere in the outlands of the earth. To the

stop-at-home man in the street they were rather more matters of latitude

and longitude than battle, murder, and sudden death. The South African

War, and even the terrible struggle between Russia and Japan, were

already memories drifting out of sight in the rush of the headlong

current of twentieth-century life.



But this was quite another matter; here was war--not war that was being

waged thousands of miles away in another hemisphere or on another side

of the globe--but war within twenty-one miles of English land--within

two or three hours, as it were, of every Englishman's front door.



This went home to every man who had a home, or who possessed anything

worth living for. It was not now a case of sending soldiers, militia and

yeomanry away in transports, and cheering them as they went. Not now, as

Kipling too truly had said of the fight for South Africa:





"When your strong men cheered in their millions, while your

striplings went to the war."





Now it was the turn of the strong men; the turn of every man who had the

strength and courage to fight in defence of all that was nearest and

dearest to him.



As yet there was no excitement. At every theatre and every music-hall in

London and the great provincial cities and towns, the performances were

stopped as soon as the news was received by telegraph. The managers read

the news from the stage, the orchestras played the first bar of the

National Anthem, the audiences rose to their feet, and all over the

British Islands millions of voices sang "God save the King," and then,

obeying some impulse, which seemed to have inspired the whole land,

burst into the triumphant psalm of "Rule Britannia."



And when the theatres and music-halls closed, men and women went on

their way home quietly discussing the tremendous tidings which had been

officially announced. There was no attempt at demonstration, there was

very little cheering. It was too serious a matter for that. The men and

women of Britain were thinking, not about what they should say, but

about what they should do. There was no time for shouting, for

to-morrow, perhaps even to-night, the guns would be talking--"The

drumming guns which have no doubts."





The House rose at half-past eleven, and at ten minutes to twelve

Lieutenant Denis Castellan, came into the smoking-room of the Keppel's

Head Hotel, Portsmouth, with a copy of the last edition of the Southern

Evening News in his hand, and said to Captain Erskine:



"It's all right, my boy. It's war, and you've got the Ithuriel. Your

own ship, too. Designer, creator, captain; and I'm your First Luff."



"I think that's about good enough for a bottle of the best, Castellan,"

said Erskine, in the quiet tone in which the officer of the finest

Service in the world always speaks. "Touch the button, will you?"



As Denis Castellan put his finger on the button of the electric bell, a

man got up from an armchair on the opposite side of the room, and said,

as he came towards the table at which Erskine was sitting:



"You will pardon me, I hope, if I introduce myself without the usual

formalities. My name is Gilbert Lennard."



"Then, I take it, you're the man who swam that race with my brother

John, in Clifden Bay, when Miss Parmenter was thrown out of her skiff.

But he's no brother of mine now. He's sold himself to the Germans, and,"

he continued, suddenly lowering his voice almost to a whisper, "come up

to my room, we'll have the bottle there, and Mr Lennard will join us.

Yes, waiter, you can take it up to No. 24, we can't talk here," he went

on in a louder tone. "There's a German spy in the room, and by the piper

that was supposed to play before Moses, if he's here when I come back,

I'll throw him out."



Everyone in the smoking-room looked up. Castellan walked out, looking at

a fair-haired, clean-shaven little man, sitting at a table in the

right-hand corner of the room from the door. He also looked up, and

glanced vacantly about the room; then as the three went out, he took a

sip of the whisky and soda beside him, and looked back on to the paper

that he was reading.



"Who's that chap?" asked Erskine, as they went upstairs.



"I'll tell you when we're a bit more to ourselves," replied Castellan;

and when they had got into his sitting-room, and the waiter had brought

the wine, he locked the door, and said:



"That is Staff-Captain Count Karl von Eckstein, of the German Imperial

Navy, and also of His Majesty, the Kaiser's, Secret Service. He knows a

little more than we do about every dockyard and fort on the South Coast,

to say nothing of the ships. That's his district, and thanks to the most

obliging kindness of the British authorities he has made very good use

of it."



"But, surely," exclaimed Lennard, "now that there is a state of war,

such a man as that could be arrested."



"Faith," said Denis Castellan, as he filled the glasses. "Law or no law,

he will be arrested to-night if he stops here long enough for me to lay

hands upon him. Now then, what's the news, Mr Lennard? I'm told that

you've just come back from the United States, what's the opinion of

things over there?"



Such news that Lennard had was, of course, even more terrible than the

news of war and invasion, which was now thrilling through England like

an electric shock, and he kept it to himself, thinking quite rightly

that the people of England had quite enough to occupy their attention

for the immediate present, and so he replied as he raised the glass

which Denis had filled for him:



"I am afraid that I have no news except this: that from all I have heard

in the States, if it does come to death-grips, the States will be with

us. But you see, of course, that I have only just got back, and this

thing has been sprung on us so suddenly. In fact, it was only this

morning that we got an aerogram from the Lizard as we came up Channel to

say that war was almost a certainty, and advising us to get into

Southampton as soon as we could."



"Well," said Erskine, taking up his glass, "that's all right, as far as

it goes. I've always believed that it's all rot saying that blood isn't

thicker than water. It is. Of course, relations quarrel more than other

people do, but it's only over domestic matters. Let an outsider start a

row, and he very soon sees what happens, and that's what I believe our

friends on the other side of the Channel are going to find out if it

comes to extremities. Well, Mr Lennard, I am very pleased that you have

introduced yourself to us to-night. Of course, we have both known you

publicly, and therefore we have all the more pleasure in knowing you

privately."



"Thanks," replied Lennard, putting his hand into the inside pocket of

his coat and taking out an envelope. "But to be quite candid with you,

although of course I am very pleased to make your acquaintance, I did

not introduce myself to you and Mr Castellan only for personal reasons.

I have devoted some attention to the higher chemistry as well as the

higher mathematics and astronomy, and I have also had the pleasure of

going through the designs of the cruiser which you have invented, and

which you are now to command. I have been greatly interested in them,

and for that reason I think that this may interest you. I brought it

here in the hope of meeting you, as I knew that your ship was lying

here."



Erskine opened the envelope, and took out a sheet of notepaper, on which

were written just a few chemical formulae and about forty words.



Castellan, who was watching him keenly, for the first time since they

had sailed together through stress and storm under the White Ensign, saw

him start. The pupils of his eyes suddenly dilated; his eyelids and

eyebrows went up for an instant and came down again, and the rigid calm

of the British Naval Officer came back. He put the letter into his hip

pocket, buttoned it up, and said, very quietly:



"Thank you, Mr Lennard. You have done me a very great personal service,

and your country a greater one still. I shall, of course, make use of

this. I am afraid if you had sent it to the Ordnance Department you

wouldn't have heard anything about it for the next three months or more;

perhaps not till the war was over."



"And that is just why I brought it to you," laughed Lennard. "Well,

here's good luck to you and the Ithuriel, and all honour, and God save

the King!"



"God save the King!" repeated Erskine and Castellan, with that note of

seriousness in their tone which you can hear in the voice of no man who

has not fought, or is not going to fight; in short, to put his words

into action.



They emptied their glasses, and as they put them down on the table

again there came a knock at the door, sharp, almost imperative.



"Come in," said Erskine.



The head waiter threw the door open, and a Naval messenger walked in,

saluted, handed Erskine an official envelope, and said:



"Immediately, sir. The steam pinnace is down at the end of the Railway

Quay."



Erskine tore open the envelope and read the brief order that it

contained, and said:



"Very good. We shall be on board in ten minutes."



The messenger, who was a very useful-looking specimen of the handy man,

saluted and left the room. Castellan ran out after him, and they went

downstairs together. At the door of the hotel the messenger put two

fingers into his mouth, and gave three soft whistles, not unlike the

sounds of a boatswain's pipe. In two minutes a dozen bluejackets had

appeared from nowhere, and just as a matter of formality were asked to

have a drink at the bar. Meanwhile Denis Castellan had gone into the

smoking-room, where he found the sandy-haired, blue-eyed man still

sitting at his table in the corner, smoking his cigar, and looking over

the paper. He touched him on the shoulder and whispered, in perfectly

idiomatic German:



"I thought you were a cleverer man than that, Count. Didn't I give you a

warning? God's thunder, man. You ought to have been miles away by this

time; haven't you a motor that would take you to Southampton in an hour,

and put you on the last of the German liners that's leaving? You know it

will be a shooting or a hanging matter if you're caught here. Come on

now. My name's Castellan, and that should be good enough for you. Come

on, now, and I'll see you safe."



The name of Castellan was already well known to every German

confidential agent, though it was not known that John Castellan had a

brother who was a Lieutenant in the British Navy.



Captain Count Karl von Eckstein got up, and took his hat down from the

pegs, pulled on his gloves, and said deliberately:



"I am very much obliged to you, Mr Castellan, for your warning, which I

ought to have taken at first, but I hope there is still time. I will go

and telephone for my motor at once."



"Yes, come along and do it," said Castellan, catching him by the arm.

"You haven't much time to lose, I can tell you."



They went out of the smoking-room, turned to the left, and went into the

hall. Then Castellan snatched his hand away from Eckstein's arm, took

him by the shoulders, and pitched him forward into the middle of the

semicircle of bluejackets, who were waiting for him, saying:



"That's your man, boys. Take him down to the pinnace, and put him on

board. I'll take the consequences, and I think the owners will, too,

when they know the facts."



Von Eckstein tried to shout, but a hand about half the size of a

shoulder of mutton came down hard over his mouth and nose. Other hands,

with grips like vices, picked him off his feet, and out he went, half

stifled, along the yard, and up to the Railway Pier.



"Rather summary proceedings, weren't they, Castellan?"



Denis drew himself up, formally saluted his superior officer, and said,

with a curious mixture of fun and seriousness in his voice:



"That man's the most dangerous German spy in the South of England, sir,

and all's fair in war and the other thing. We've got him. In half an

hour he'd have been aboard a fast yacht he's got here in the harbour,

and across to Dieppe, with a portmanteau full of plans and photographs

of our forts that would be worth millions in men and money to the people

we've got to fight. I can't say it here, but you know why I know."



Captain Erskine nodded, and did his best to conceal an unofficial smile.



"That's right, Castellan," he said. "I'll take your word for it. Get

that chap on board, lads, as quick as you can. We'll follow at once."



Ship's Corporal Sandy M'Grath, the huge Scotsman, whose great fist had

stifled Count von Eckstein's attempt to cry out, touched his cap and

said: "Awa' wi' him, boys," and out they went at a run. Then Erskine

turned to Lennard, and said:



"We can do all this that you've given me on board the Ithuriel. It

isn't quite regular, but in consideration of this, if you like to take a

cruise, and see your own work done, I'll take the responsibility of

inviting you, only mind, there will probably be some fighting."



Even as he spoke two deep dull bangs shook the atmosphere and the

windows of the hotel shivered in their frames.



"I'll come," said Lennard. "They seem to have begun already."



"Begorra they have," said Denis Castellan, making a dash to the door.

"Come on. If that's so, there'll be blood for supper to-night, and the

sooner we're aboard the better."



The next moment the three were outside, and sprinting for the end of the

Railway Pier for all they were worth.