Chapter XXIX Max Meets the Admiral
“Ach, my dear Max, how it rejoices me once again to see you!”
Ever since the perilous moment on board the doomed German battleship in the Bight of Heligoland, when Max Hilliger had saved his uncle’s life, Admiral von Hilliger had shown a peculiarly affectionate regard for his nephew. In his estimation Max was not only a relative to be proud of, but a hero worthy of high favour, an officer whose knowledge of seamanship, whose patriotism and resourcefulness made him of inestimable value in the Kaiser’s naval service.
Had Max happened to be a few years older, he might have counted upon rapid promotion; he might even, in spite of his inexperience and lack of technical training, have been given the full command of a submarine, or been appointed as a Zeppelin officer, charged with the duty of voyaging in an airship across to England to drop incendiary bombs upon enemy towns.
But owing to his extreme youth he could not at present hold a higher rank than that of midshipman, even though his actual duties were those of a sub-lieutenant.
Still, as Max himself realised, it was better to be serving as a junior officer in a submarine and doing important work for the Fatherland than to be tramping the quarter-deck of an idle battleship with no immediate chance of fighting.
They had met now, quite unexpectedly, on the quay at Brunsbuttel, at the western outlet of the Kiel Canal. Max had just come ashore from the U50, which had entered from the sea and been moored alongside of other submarines within the massive lock gates. He had been marching along the stone parapet, feeling very important in his naval uniform, with its gold lace and brass buttons, and proudly conscious of the Iron Cross which dangled conspicuously from his expanded chest.
Seamen and marines saluted him ceremoniously as he strode proudly past them; he, himself, saluted all officers of higher rank than his own. As he turned sharply round the corner of the custom-house, he came almost full tilt against Admiral von Hilliger, resplendent in gold lace, medals, epaulettes, and cocked hat, and escorted by two flag officers.
Max clipped his heels together and saluted. The admiral flung out his arms.
“Ach, my dear Max,” he cried, embracing the embarrassed midshipman, “how it rejoices me once again to see you! It is good we have met. In one hour I should have been gone across to Wilhelmshaven, and you would have missed me. Come! You will take midday eating with me. There is much that we have to say to each other.”
Max followed him and the two officers through intricate passages between huge stacks of ammunition boxes and naval stores, and across an open pavement to the front of an hotel. Here the two officers stood aside, and Max went past them with his uncle up the steps and into a little room whose windows looked out upon the grey estuary of the Elbe and the distant fleet.
Admiral von Hilliger turned the key of the door, glanced behind a curtain, and even into a cupboard, to assure himself that he was alone with his nephew; then took his stand in front of the stove and lighted a very long cigar.
“During the seven minutes before lunch,” he began, “we will talk business. What have you been doing in the past two weeks? How many more of the mischievous enemy’s ships have you sunk with your brave submarine?”
Max did not answer immediately.
“Lieutenant Körner has prepared his report,” he said presently. “I am his subordinate. It is not for me to account for what he has done. We have not been idle.”
“But Lieutenant Körner is not here,” pursued the admiral, “and I wish to know what ships have been sunk. How many of their dreadnoughts have you sent to the bottom of the German Ocean since last we met?”
“None, sir,” Max answered. “Those which we have seen have been too well guarded for us to approach them within striking distance. We sank a Swedish steamer carrying timber to the Thames, a British collier coming out of the Tyne. We lay in wait three days to torpedo a Harwich passenger boat, which slipped past us, after all. Many steamers have escaped us by their higher speed and their manoeuvring. Even the English patrol-trawlers now carry guns; but we have accounted for four of them.”
“Good,” nodded the admiral. “I would have every one of their wretched fishing boats swept off the seas. They are our worst enemies. Do not be deceived by their seeming innocence, my dear Max. While they are fishing, they are also watching and carrying information. Sink them—sink them without warning, without mercy. Naturally you have not allowed any of their crews to escape?”
Max glanced into the admiral’s red-bearded face.
“But yes,” he admitted. “In each case we have given them time to take to their boats.”
“Thunder and lightning!” exclaimed his uncle, stamping a heavy foot. “This will not do. You must not permit your ridiculous scruples of humanity to interfere with your duty—the duty of sinking every vessel you can find, with every one in her. Let none escape. Remember that every ship now sailing the seas is either an enemy or a friend of the enemy, whose purpose it is to help the hateful English and to do harm to our beloved Fatherland!”
He puffed desperately at his cigar as if with the intention of finishing it as speedily as possible.
“Listen, my dear Max,” he went on. “In future you shall put aside all scruple. Give no warning of your intentions, give no time for escape; but with gun or torpedo, sink, sink, sink without a moment’s mercy!”
Max had fixed his gaze into the glowing coals of the open stove. Suddenly he looked up once again into his uncle’s face.
“But, suppose, sir, that there are women and children in the ship; are they, too, to be sacrificed?” he quietly asked.
Admiral von Hilliger gasped in astonishment at the suggestion.
“Women?” he cried. “Will you never understand that women can be as mischievous as men? Do you not realise that our enemies’ children will grow up to be enemy men and women? Bah! Do not make such a mistake. We are engaged in war, and war has its necessities. The British people know their own danger. If they go upon the seas, it is at their own risks. We cannot discriminate between the innocent and the guilty. All, indeed, are guilty if they so much as set foot upon a British ship.”
He strode to and fro restlessly in front of the stove.
“And now,” he pursued, after a pause, “what else have you done? What have you learnt of the enemy’s navy? You have been along their coasts; you have entered their rivers and peeped into their harbours. Where are their battleships?”
“It would be easier to tell you where they are not,” returned Max. “They are not assembled in the Straits of Dover, or off the Dogger Bank, or off Haddisport. We have not been able to find them. And yet, mein Herr, I will undertake to say that if our own Great High Sea Fleet were to sally out beyond the protection of our mine-fields it would not go far before a squadron of British Dreadnoughts flashed out to give battle.”
Admiral von Hilliger laughed awkwardly.
“My dear Max,” he said with forced lightness, “I perceive that you are still tainted with your false ideas of Britain’s strength upon the seas. You must remember that our German fleet is as yet practically intact. We are as strong as we were at the beginning of the war, and as ready to meet the British whenever they choose to come out of their hiding-places. What you tell me is satisfactory, however. You assure me once again that the enemy are in close hiding and that they are afraid to come out and meet us in a pitched battle. Your remark that they will pounce upon us, once we leave the protection of our mine-fields, is very funny. Already they have proved many times that they prefer the security of their own harbours rather than the risk of facing our guns. We have given them chances; we will give them chances again. But not in the way they would wish. Listen, my dear Max, I will tell you something.”
Max went nearer to him. The admiral cautiously lowered his voice.
“Our agents have been doing good work,” he said. “Helped by your all-knowing father, they have given away information upon which the British Admiralty will act. The information, I need hardly tell you, is false and misleading. But what would you? War is war, and to deceive and mislead your enemy is one of the essentials of successful strategy. Is it not true? Well, then, we have to-day issued a secret report that a squadron of our battleships has crept out, and is now cruising off the coast of Norway. The Norwegian people have helped us by declaring that already they have heard the thunder of our naval guns at sea. An hour ago, we received word that the British Fleet has gone off in force towards Norway.”
“Yes,” Max nodded. “It has gone out on what we call a wild-goose chase, you mean? But in what way shall we benefit?”
Admiral von Hilliger puffed more vigorously than ever at his cigar.
“Is it not obvious to you, my dear?” he questioned. “By alluring them out of their harbours, we make our path clear. We take our great ships across to England and do our worst. It is all arranged. We start to-day—this evening. To-morrow morning, while their gunboats are vainly searching for a phantom fleet in Norwegian waters, our invincible battleships will be engaged in firing their shells into the fortified seaports of Newcastle and Hull.”
Max Hilliger allowed himself to smile.
“It is a mere detail that neither Hull nor Newcastle happens to be a fortified town,” he ventured. “But there will be no military advantage in such a bombardment. The sinking of one battle cruiser would be to us worth the destruction of half a dozen towns. What good did we do by smashing a few windows in Haddisport? We gained nothing to balance the waste of ammunition and the loss of one of our own ships that ran up against one of our own floating mines! Believe me, my uncle, the English people are not easily frightened. It will take more than an hour’s bombardment of their seaside villas to put them in a state of panic.”
“In that case,” returned the admiral, “we shall take yet stronger measures to convince them of our frightfulness. This time, we shall take with us our most powerful battleships. We shall show them that it is we and not they who hold command of the seas.”
He flung his unfinished cigar into the stove and drew his nephew to the window.
“Look once out there,” he said, pointing across the sea to where the Kaiser’s fleet could be dimly seen on the far horizon. “If the contemptible English could but open their eyes upon those ships, do you suppose that they would any longer dare to boast of their own paltry navy? Ach, my dear Max, wait! To-morrow you shall see!”