Chapter XXIV The Meeting on the Cliff
“Beautiful view from here,” remarked the stranger, dropping the stub of his cigarette on the pavement of the esplanade. “I should say it must be sharming in der spring, ven der gorse vos all in bloom. It minds me of Scotland.”
He spoke very softly, with a slightly Scotch accent—or was it merely broken English? Mr. Croucher took it to be Scotch; but he was not very quick at recognising accent, and perhaps it was the reference to Scotland which gave him the idea.
“Yes,” he agreed, “nice, pure air, too. It’s what I call clean air.”
“But in ze vinter,” the stranger resumed, “it is probable ze beople in dese houses get much more air than zey vant.”
Mr. Croucher turned with his back to the sea and contemplated the houses referred to. They had a new interest for him this morning. It was the first time he had seen them since the visit of the German raiders. The house directly opposite him was as seriously damaged as if an earthquake had shaken its foundations. The windows were smashed and boarded up, a large part of the roof had fallen in; the gable end was in ruin, and some of the bulging walls were shored up with beams of wood.
The stranger also had turned and was regarding the wrecked dwelling curiously, with his watery, blue eyes blinking through gold-rimmed spectacles.
“You have had a fire here, it seems,” he casually observed, standing slightly back so that Mr. Croucher should not look into his face and penetrate its disguise.
It was a flabby, clean-shaven face, with a double chin which was partly hidden by the wide, turned-up collar of his heavy overcoat. He was a tall, robust man. At first sight of him Mr. Croucher had supposed him to be a naval officer in mufti.
“No,” explained Mr. Croucher, “it wasn’t a fire. All that devastation is the result of the bombardment the other morning. It was awful while it lasted. They started firing just opposite here,” he pursued; glad to have a listener, and proceeded to give an ample account of the bombardment and its results, concluding with a reference to the sinking of submarine H29. “Her commander, Lieutenant Ingoldsby, lived in the very house we’re now looking at,” he added.
From Green Croft the stranger transferred his attention to Sunnydene, a little farther towards the end of the cliff.
“That house wasn’t touched,” Mr. Croucher informed him. “They didn’t aim at it. You see, it belongs to a German, the brother of one of the Kaiser’s admirals, and of course they had instructions to do it no harm. I don’t know what amount of truth there may be in it, but it’s whispered in the town that German spies were busy along here on the night before the raid.”
“Indeed?” The stranger had taken out his cigarette-case and opened it. He took one for himself and politely held the case in invitation towards Mr. Croucher.
“Thank you, but I don’t smoke,” said Mr. Croucher, watching the other strike a light.
Just for an instant, as the man turned to shield the flaming match from the wind, it occurred to Mr. Croucher that there was something not altogether unfamiliar in his face and figure. And surely it was not the first time that he had seen that same fat hand with its diamond ring, holding a flaming match and lighting a cigarette in that same way! But he dismissed the idea as impossible. No, this was a perfect stranger.
“Spies? But you amaze me!” the other exclaimed, dropping the dead match. “Have not all alien enemies been interned—as certainly they should be? Or are some of our own beople vorking for Germany?”
This expression of concern for the Empire’s safety gave Mr. Croucher confidence.
“No,” he declared warmly. “They have not by any means all been interned. That very house along there—Sunnydene—has been a nest of plotting spies all along. Hilliger and that secretary of his—a fellow named Seligmann—had caused no end of mischief before Seligmann was arrested.”
A look of eager interest leapt into the stranger’s face, which, however, he contrived to conceal from Mr. Croucher.
“So?” he said, controlling his excitement. “They arrested him, did they? Ven vos dat?”
“Two or three nights ago,” Mr. Croucher innocently answered. “The night before the bombardment, it was. In the ordinary course of things, I suppose he would have been tried and hanged as a spy. He was imprisoned in Haddisport gaol; but the next morning, when the German battleships were bombarding the town, one of their shells struck the police-station, burying him in the ruins, and he was taken out dead.”
“Dear me!” exclaimed the stranger; and with surprising abruptness he saluted and went off, walking very quickly towards the end of the cliff, where he turned inland and disappeared among the bushes beyond Sunnydene.
He had been gone only a few moments when Mark Redisham and Seth Newruck came along, with telescopes under their arms. They were on coast-watching duty.
“I wish you two Scouts had been here five minutes ago,” said Mr. Croucher, as they drew near him. “There was a stranger in conversation with me very much interested in the bombardment. You might have been able to tell him more about it than I could—especially about the arrest of Seligmann.”
“I don’t see what a stranger could want to know about Seligmann,” said Mark. “What was he like? Was he English?”
“English? I suppose so; either English or Scotch. He spoke with a sort of accent. He was tall, fair, rather stout, and wore spectacles.”
“Are you sure he wasn’t German?” questioned Seth. “Perhaps he was a spy—a friend of Seligmann’s wanting to know what had become of him.”
“Nonsense,” objected Mr. Croucher.
“He lighted a cigarette, didn’t he?” said Mark, observing a dead match on the pavement.
“How do you know it wasn’t a pipe or a cigar?” asked Mr. Croucher sharply. He was always being tripped up by these Sea Scouts, who seemed to know things by an extraordinary instinct.
“Because there’s the fag end of a cigarette lying at your feet, with some ash beside it that the wind hasn’t yet blown away,” Mark Redisham quietly answered.
He had the curiosity to pick up and examine the fragment before handing it to his companion.
“What do you make of it, Seth?” he inquired meaningly.
“Crumbs!” cried Seth. “Why, it’s the same brand as those we found in the silver cigarette-case—marked ‘Vafiadi, Cairo’! I wonder if the stranger was Herr Hilliger?”
“That’s just what I was wondering, too,” nodded Mark. “It’s possible.”
Mr. Croucher stared at the two Scouts indignantly.
“Do you suppose I shouldn’t have known him?” he demanded. “Herr Hilliger wears a beard and has long hair. This man was clean-shaven, and his hair was quite short. Besides——”
“It wouldn’t be impossible to shave off a beard and get a short crop,” declared Mark. “Which way did he go?”
Mr. Croucher indicated the direction. The two Scouts went off hurriedly. Mark led the way across the warren to the Alderwick road and the little cross lane.
“It was just here that we captured Seligmann,” he explained.
They searched the ground and discovered in the soft mud the newly impressed marks of the tyres of a motor-car and of a man’s boots.
It was useless, of course, for them to attempt to track the car. Had they been able to do so, the trail would have led them many miles away, through village after village and town after town, northward along the coast. They might have run the car to earth at last on a desolate stretch of moorland where it had halted. Thence they might have followed Heinrich Hilliger’s tracks to a pile of ruins—the ruins of an old-world castle—on the edge of a steep precipice overlooking the sea.
At the foot of the precipice was a tiny bay of deep, clear water, fringed with rocks. Between two of the rocks a small boat was drawn up on the shingle—a curious, collapsible boat made of water-tight canvas stretched on a steel frame. A pair of sculls lay across the thwarts. Nobody was in charge of it.
Heinrich Hilliger looked down into the depths and saw the boat as he passed along the edge of the cliff and made his way through the heather to the ruin. He gave a long, low whistle and a whistle came back to him in response.
“You have managed it, then!” cried a young voice; and from beyond a corner of the grey stone wall his son Max ran out, dressed in the uniform of a German naval officer.
The father and son embraced. Then Max laughed, looking at his father in amusement.
“It’s as well you gave me the signal,” he said, speaking in German. “I should hardly have known you without your beard. Well, you have been to Haddisport? What news of Fritz?”
“The worst news,” answered Herr Hilliger. “He was caught. He was taken to prison. More than that, when we bombarded the town, one of our shells struck the prison-house and poor Fritz was killed! It seems like fate.”
“Killed! By our own guns! Father, are you sure?”
“Absolutely. It is in the newspapers, and I have had confirmation of it from Old Croucher, whom I met outside Sunnydene. He did not recognise me; but he saved me the risk of showing myself in the town.”
Max clenched and unclenched his hands.
“This is what comes of the silly, useless notion of bombarding open towns!” he declared. “What good has it done, to knock a few shops and hotels to pieces, to smash the windows of a few seaside villas, and to take the lives of a lot of innocent women and children? There was no military advantage in it! You have not even frightened the English people. They are only laughing at us for using our battleships to fire their shells into unfortified places instead of going out boldly to face the enemy in a fair and open fight!”
“You forget, my son,” returned Herr Hilliger, “we sank a British submarine; we sowed many hundreds of explosive mines. There was some good in that, eh?”
“Not that I see,” retorted Max. “The commander of that submarine was once my friend. He has dined at your own table. And from what I understand, the English mine-sweepers exploded all the mines before the day was out. I don’t agree with sowing explosive mines on the high seas. It’s not playing the game.”
“Bah! Don’t talk to me about playing the game, my dear Max. It is not a game; it is war. If we mean to beat the English we must not be hampered by any childish ideas of fair play. As for the killing of Fritz, it is of course unfortunate; but it could not have been foreseen. We must get some one to take his place, yourself, perhaps.”
“No.” Max shook his head resolutely. “I am not a spy. I shall do nothing underhand. Let us fight fairly and openly, not hit below the belt. I have my duties on the submarine, and I don’t want to set foot in England until the war is over. I should not be here now, but that I have come to take you away—to give you a passage back to Wilhelmshaven. Are you ready? The submarine is lying submerged in the next bay, waiting for my signal.”
“My dear Max,” returned Hilliger, “I cannot go back with you. My place is here, in England, where I have been stationed. Since Fritz is dead, it is all the more important that I remain on this side. Our Zeppelins are preparing to come over, only waiting until I shall send a message to say that the wind and weather are suitable. When the time is favourable I must be on the spot with a car to guide them by its light to the places where they shall drop their bombs.”
Max curled his lip contemptuously.
“And you call that war, I suppose,” he sneered—“dropping fire-bombs on farmhouses and in kitchen-gardens! I could see some sense in it if we aimed at their aeroplane sheds, their dockyards, or their ammunition factories, or if we sank some of their Dreadnoughts and troopships. Why, if every house and inhabitant of Haddisport were destroyed, it wouldn’t make a pin’s difference in the progress of the war.”
Herr Hilliger shrugged his shoulders and turned the subject by saying:
“I see, my dear Max, that you are wearing the Iron Cross. I congratulate you. I am proud. No doubt it is a reward for sinking those three British cruisers?”
Max nodded. “We shall sink others, too,” he averred. “I shall not be satisfied until we have put a torpedo into one of their great battleships—one of their boasted Dreadnoughts.”
He strode to the edge of the cliff and looked down into the water. The submarine was emptying her ballast tanks and was already in the awash condition. He moved his arms, signalling by semaphore to Lieutenant Körner standing on the conning-tower platform. Then, again embracing his father, he climbed down the difficult slope of the cliff to the collapsible boat, stepped into it, and pulled out to the submarine.