Chapter XV Treasure Trove
“In the very probable event of an invasion,” asserted Mr. Croucher, addressing a group of four Sea Scouts who had gathered at the lookout station on the sea-front, “in the very probable event of an invasion, we are totally unprepared and defenceless. As I was saying to Mrs. Daplin-Gennery only the other day, we ought to have big guns stationed at intervals all along the coast. A few newly-enlisted Territorials are billeted in the town; but what good will they be when the Germans come over here in force?”
“They could give the alarm, sir,” suggested Ned Quester, whose brother was a Territorial.
“Give the alarm?” repeated Mr. Croucher with contempt. “And what then? No amount of alarm would repel an invading army. We want guns—guns, and men who can handle them. Civilians are not allowed to take up arms. Look at what has happened in Belgium! We ought to have realised long ago that the Germans intended to make war on us. They’ve been planning it for years. My argument is that we ought to have batteries posted all along the coast.”
“Aren’t warships, that can move about, as good as fixed batteries, sir?” questioned Darby Catchpole.
“Warships are no good against Zeppelins,” declared Mr. Croucher. “Take my word for it, the enemy have got many more airships than we’ve any idea of; and every one of them capable of carrying a company of soldiers with heavy artillery. Then they have their flat-bottomed barges; hundreds of them, which they will use as transports.”
“But we have our battleships and submarines, sir,” interposed Mark Redisham, “and it isn’t at all likely that the enemy can get past them.”
“Don’t be too sure, Redisham,” urged Mr. Croucher. “Don’t be too sure. They can slip past them in a sea mist and land troops here on Haddisport beach. And when they do, we shall be annihilated. It’s no good thinking that our dwelling houses are any protection. One shell from a German cruiser, one explosive bomb from a Zeppelin, would smash any of the houses along this esplanade. I wonder people are so callous as to live in houses that are little better than targets to be aimed at from both sea and air!”
Darby Catchpole ran his eye along the exposed dwellings.
“Sunnydene is about the best target of the lot,” he smiled. “It would be funny if the enemy were to bombard the property of the brother of one of their own admirals!”
Mr. Croucher shook his head wisely.
“They won’t bombard Sunnydene,” he affirmed. “Young Max Hilliger, who, it seems, was rescued with his uncle from the Schiller, will see to it that the house is not harmed.”
“In that case, Sunnydene would be a safe refuge for us,” Mark Redisham declared. “At the first alarm we ought to round up all the women and children and corral them in the grounds.”
“The chances are that the Germans would batter Sunnydene to bits in aiming at your own house, Mark,” laughed Darby.
“For my own part,” resumed Mr. Croucher, “I am getting a man to dig a refuge trench in my back garden. He’d nearly finished it yesterday, only unfortunately in the heavy rain last night the sides fell in for want of supports. The corporation ought to have proper trenches dug on the denes where the inhabitants could fly in case of danger.”
“And get killed while they’re flying,” mischievously suggested Seth Newruck.
“Mrs. Daplin-Gennery is going to have one dug in her kitchen-garden,” observed Mark Redisham. “Her gardener has enlisted, however, so we Scouts are going to do a good turn by digging it. Indeed, we are now on our way down to the beach to have a bit of practice and plan out the thing.”
“Ah!” said Mr. Croucher, “I expect you’ll do it so well that you’ll have all the neighbourhood asking you to dig trenches in their gardens. Well, it’s for the good of the community. If the War Office and the Admiralty together won’t look after us, we must look after ourselves.”
Mark got three spades from his own tool shed and borrowed another from Mrs. Daplin-Gennery’s chauffeur. Armed with these implements, he and his companions went down to the foot of the cliff.
It was useless to think of digging even an experimental trench in the loose sand of the beach, so they selected a piece of more solid ground between the foreshore and the grass land. They chose the spot almost at random. Even Darby Catchpole did not realise at first how near they were to the groin from which Max Hilliger had escaped into the boat with his case of charts.
Mark Redisham staked out the ground and they began to dig, piling the soil on the side nearest the sea. It was decided that when the trench was deep enough, it should be roofed in with cross planks and brushwood, upon which the soil should be heaped to resist the impact of bombs from the air or shells from the sea; but at present the work was only undertaken as practice in excavation. The cross planks, the sap trench, and the means of entrance and exit would be properly applied when the dug-out came to be made in Mrs. Daplin-Gennery’s garden.
They had been digging for about half an hour, when Seth Newruck’s spade chipped against something that was neither soil nor stone. He looked down at the thing in wonder, then grabbed at it.
“Darby! Mark!” he cried. “See what I’ve found! A cigarette case! It’s silver!”
His companions all crowded up to him to look at it over his shoulder. Certainly it was a silver cigarette-case, and a very handsome one. There was a monogram engraved in the centre of its chased surface.
“It isn’t even tarnished,” declared Mark Redisham. in surprise. “It’s almost new. It can’t have been buried very long. How deep did you find it?”
“Just here,” Seth explained, pointing out the spot about two feet down.
“That’s queer!” resumed Mark. “I can’t understand—unless some one has been digging here before us, quite lately, and dropped it by accident. Some of the Territorials, perhaps.”
“Now that I come to think of it,” said Darby Catchpole, “the ground did look as if it had been disturbed. There was no grass growing on top.”
Mark Redisham had opened the case. It contained three cigarettes, held in place by a band of blue elastic. He took one of them out and examined it.
“I’ve seen a cigarette like this before,” he averred. “They’re Egyptian, see! ‘Vafiadi, Cairo.’ Who was it that I saw smoking one? Not Lieutenant Ingoldsby: not Captain Damant.” He looked again at the monogram, and gave a long, low whistle of astonishment. “Oh, I know, I know now! Keep on digging, you chaps,” he ordered. “Here you are, Seth. Findings are keepings.”
He seized his spade and continued digging until his back ached and the perspiration rolled down his sunburnt cheeks. He moved from place to place in the trench, keeping it at a uniform depth. They had got below the dark soil to the soft sea sand.
“You’re making it too wide, Mark,” Darby objected.
Mark went down on his knees and began to sniff about.
“Don’t you smell something?” he questioned, scratching at the sand with his hands. Then he pulled and tugged at something heavy. “Eureka!” he shouted. “Look here, Darby! Petrol! a tin of petrol! two tins—a whole lot of them!”
Darby leant over from the side of the trench and saw the exposed tops of a number of square red canisters.
“Enough to keep a motor-car going for a year,” he declared.
“Yes,” added Mark, “or a German submarine for a month.”
“Why German?” Darby asked.
Mark laughed.
“Because,” he answered, “I don’t suppose Herr Hilliger would have been so considerate as to keep a secret store of petrol for the accommodation of his enemies. Yes, you may stare. But even if the letters ‘H.H.’ on that silver case didn’t stand for Heinrich Hilliger, I should still have known that the cigarettes were of the same brand as the remains of one that I found on the floor of his pigeon-loft.”
He vaulted out of the trench.
“Newruck and Quester will keep watch here,” he said to Darby. “I want you to come along with me to the naval base.”