Chapter X Darby Catchpole’s Discovery
“I expect she has been putting a torpedo into some German mine-layer,” said Darby, speaking to Constable Challis, who stood beside him. “It’s the H29.”
“Ah!” nodded Constable Challis, “that’s the submarine that Lieutenant Ingoldsby’s in command of, isn’t it? I wish I’d known when I saw his aunt, Mrs. Daplin-Gennery, along the parade just now.”
Turning to see if that lady were still in sight, he saluted an elderly gentleman who was hobbling past with the aid of two sticks and with a folded newspaper under one arm.
“Good-evenin’, Mr. Croucher,” he said. “Any news in the evenin’ newspaper, sir?”
“Worse and worse,” responded Mr. Croucher, coming to a stop. “Liège has fallen. It will be Namur next, and then Paris. France hasn’t a chance. Neither has Russia.” He gazed searchingly across the sea. “And then, if the enemy’s ships slip out from the Kiel Canal, we’re doomed.”
“You think so, sir?” questioned Challis, easing the collar of his tunic as if it choked him.
“Think so?” cried Mr. Croucher almost resentfully. “I know! There is nothing more certain. Don’t you make any mistake, constable. We’ve lived long enough in a fool’s paradise. I tell you, the Germans have been preparing for this for years and years, only awaiting their chance. And they’ve got it, now. Nothing can stop them—nothing! Look how they’re sweeping through Belgium! Those siege guns of theirs are simply awful. No fortress can resist them, and their naval guns are even greater. What our people have been thinking of over here I don’t know. They don’t seem to realise our danger. Why, we’ve no home army worth speaking of, now that the only soldiers we had have gone over to France, leaving us defenceless. We’re at the enemy’s mercy, Challis.”
Constable Challis glanced aside at Darby Catchpole, who was closing his telescope, the submarine having passed beyond sight.
“And how could we hope to prevent their landing on an open coast like this?” pursued Mr. Croucher, bending forward on the support of his two sticks. “I tell you, if their ships break through the cordon of our fleet, we’re doomed.”
“Indeed, sir?” said Challis with composure. “I wasn’t reckonin’ on the Germans comin’ over here to Haddisport, sir. How will they land their cavalry and artillery through shoal water? They can’t bring transport liners across Alderwick Sands.”
“Liners?” repeated Mr. Croucher. “Who spoke of liners? They’ve got hundreds and thousands of flat-bottomed barges lying in the shallows behind the Frisian Islands, ready to be filled with troops and towed over here and beached. They don’t need any liners.”
Darby Catchpole here ventured to intervene. “And are our Dreadnoughts and cruisers going to hang back while the enemy troops are crossing, sir?” he inquired. “Won’t our submarines have a chance?”
“Strictly between ourselves,” observed Constable Challis, “I don’t believe that a single German soldier will ever set foot in England, except as a prisoner of war.”
“Nonsense, Challis, nonsense!” retorted Mr. Croucher. “I’ve no patience with such childish hopefulness. We’re at war against the greatest army the world has ever known, and we’re not prepared for it. The Germans will treat us just as they are now treating the Belgians. We’ve got no army capable of facing them. Even our navy is weaker than it ought to be. The Germans have their Dreadnoughts as well as we, and quite as powerful. They’ve got crowds of them, and——”
“Not like the Iron Duke,” Challis interrupted. “Not like the Queen Elizabeth or the Lion. What about our 13.5 and 15-inch guns, sir?”
“Our guns are not much good against explosive mines and submarines,” rejoined Mr. Croucher. “Look what the enemy have done already with their mines! Catchpole, here, can tell you about the loss of the Atreus. And now one of their submarines has sunk another cruiser—the Pathfinder. Didn’t you read about it in the paper? They’ve got their spies everywhere, too. They know what we’re doing as well as we know it ourselves! Spies, Challis? Why——” He lowered his voice as he glanced along the cliff to the turrets and gables of Sunnydene. “I’ve been watching that house,” he went on, mysteriously. “It’s supposed to be empty. No postman goes there, no trade-carts stop at the gate, no gardener looks after the grounds. And yet, only yesterday there was smoke from one of the chimneys—puffs of white smoke, long and short. What was the meaning of it? Signals, Challis, signals!”
“Was there any ship passing, to take up the message, sir?” questioned Darby Catchpole.
Mr. Croucher looked at the boy severely.
“Do you think they’d make signals to seagulls?” he asked. “Of course, there were ships—plenty of them—tramps, coasting schooners, fishing boats. Any one of them might take a message over to Heligoland, telling secrets about the movements of our warships. The house is a perfect nest of spies, in the pay of the enemy. It’s all very well for them to pretend to have gone away to Germany. But they haven’t. Depend upon it they’re living in some subterranean chamber, where they’ve stored arms and munitions of war, lying low there to join the enemy troops when they come over to murder us all. I tell you, we’re doomed, Challis—doomed!”
“Strictly between ourselves,” said Constable Challis, when the old man had gone beyond hearing, “I’m not so sure he isn’t right about Sunnydene. Mrs. Daplin-Gennery declares she’s seen Herr Hilliger prowlin’ around at night, likewise his son, Max, who’s supposed to be drowned. And young Mark Redisham, who’s a Sea Scout like yourself, has found out a thing or two in the pigeon-loft. Strictly between ourselves, I may tell you that we made a raid on the place a few nights ago. Somebody had been there in front of us, however, and cleared everything suspicious away. You may take it from me, as that somebody was either Herr Hilliger or his son.”
Darby could have said something concerning his own suspicions of a message sent by pigeon post; but he knew that Constable Challis was a gossip, and he held his own counsel. Nevertheless, he thought it in some way his duty as a Sea Scout to keep an eye upon Sunnydene, and he seldom passed the house without glancing up at the windows and the chimneys to see if there were any sign of habitation.
He was beginning to be assured in his belief that there was no real foundation for further suspicion, when, returning one moonlight night along the cliff from the Alderwick Coastguard Station, he saw something which renewed all his doubts.
During his absence, several tramps and coasters had anchored for the night in the roads; for the coastwise navigation lights were not now lighted to guide ships on their way, and general traffic on the sea ceased after dusk.
Amongst other vessels lying in the fairway inside of Alderwick Knoll, one in particular attracted his notice. It was a foreign-looking ketch. The moon was not high, and he could see the vessel plainly outlined against the track of light across the waves.
At night time, one ketch-rigged boat is very much like another; but there was something in the angle of her bowsprit, in the rake of her two masts, as well as in the clumsy lines of her hull which made him almost certain that she was the Thor—the same Dutchman in which Max Hilliger had sailed for Germany hardly more than a fortnight ago. Furthermore, she was anchored in precisely the same spot as on the earlier occasion, directly opposite Sunnydene, and visible from any one of the many front windows. Her riding-light was hung low on her foremast, and there was a second light abaft her mizzen.
Having no pressing need to get home to his supper, Darby lingered, anxious to make certain of the identity of the ketch. He could get into the town as easily by walking along the beach as going by the cliff path or the main road.
For some minutes he stood by the side of a tall gorse bush. Nothing happened. But at length as he watched, the vessel’s stern light went out, then reappeared and continued to go in and out with curious regularity.
A person ignorant of the Morse code might have believed that a message was being flashed; but Darby Catchpole knew that it was only that one of the crew was pacing the deck and passing to and fro in front of the lantern.
While he waited in the silence, however, he heard the unmistakable sound of a boat’s keel crunching on the shingle. He turned and glanced back at Sunnydene. Only the roof and towers could be seen over the edge of the cliff; but from a small window in the east gable there came a quick flash of light. Was it a signal?
Darby crept upwards a few feet and watched for a repetition of the flash. How long he waited he did not know; but when he stepped back three or four paces he again saw the light and almost laughed aloud when he discovered that it was no more than a reflection of the moon in the glass. Yet it had seemed to move. He was not sure even now that it was not a signal to the ketch.
Wondering if the casement were swinging loose on its hinges, he mounted to the top of the cliff and crossed the road to get the window between him and the light of the moon. An owl flew silently over the tops of the intervening fir trees. The house seemed indeed to be deserted. The idea that there still were alien enemies living in it was, after all, ridiculous, and it was only a waste of time to hang around the place any longer.
Beyond the long front garden wall was a pathway leading amongst the gorse and bracken to the main road. Darby determined to take this way back to the town.
He turned into the dark shadows of the path; but stopped abruptly, hearing the click of a gate latch. Some one was coming out by the side gate of Sunnydene. Quick footsteps were approaching, rustling in the dry bracken. He drew back and looked out from his ambush to see a cloaked figure dart past him in the clear light of the moon.
“Max!”
Darby leapt forward, clutching at a wing of the cloak. But it was wrenched violently away, and the hand beneath it was flung out, striking him a blow in the face that sent him reeling to the ground, while Max Hilliger, with a tin case full of maps and charts under his arm, stole downward to the beach.