by Mark Hodder
“At one time, long years ago,” explained their host hurriedly, “the house was a fashionable inn, famous for its wines. That was before the quarter fell into disrepute. Now all is gone long ago.”
They hurried along through the dust and the cobwebs, now branching off at right angles, now apparently doubling on their tracks, till even Blake lost all sense of direction. Their guide, however, never hesitated for an instant, and in the end brought them to another rugged set of ladder-like steps similar to those by which they had descended.
He went up these, beckoning to the others to follow, and pushed open the trap. On emerging, they found themselves in what was really no more than a large cupboard built into the thickness of the wall, apparently.
The man passed the candle to Blake, and whispered to him to hold it, while he himself, after a little fumbling, slipped back a small slide in the door, revealing a peephole, to which he placed his eye. Blake noticed a glimmer of light coming through the aperture and shine on the man’s cheekbone as he did so.
Evidently there was some sort of living-room beyond.
A brief scrutiny seemed to satisfy the man, for he rapped three times with his knuckles on the panels, and then slipped a spring lower down and swung the door open.
The room beyond was a small one, panelled in old Flemish oak, though the rest of the appointments were meagre enough in all conscience—a bare deal table covered with a coarse cloth, a cheap, shaded lamp, and a few wooden chairs. On the table stood a flask of rough country wine, half a loaf of black bread and some onions, and an earthenware pot of some kind of vegetable soup. As the door opened, a man who had been seated at the table sprang to his feet, with an exclamation of surprise not unmingled with alarm.
Their guide stepped forward, his finger pressed to his lips.
“Hist! Caillaux, it is I!” he whispered. “There are the two Britishers who brought the papers you know of. We expected only one, but two were thought safer. And”—his voice broke—“Monseigneure is dead. The Bosches killed him to-night.”
The man Caillaux rapped out a savage oath. He was a dark, swarthy, powerfully-built man, and Blake saw his grip tightened on the knife he was holding till the skin over the knuckles showed white.
“Monseigneure!” he gasped, and the other nodded. “His house is burning to the ground even now. These British escaped across the beam to my house. But there is a search being made all down the street, so we were forced to come here through the cellars. Get us food and wine, for there is much to be done, and we are hungry. Here is money.”
Caillaux nodded and went out.
“Now, messieurs,” he said to the other two, “you have the paper. Do you know where to take it, and how?”
“The duke spoke before he died,” said Blake gravely. “If I mention the one word ‘Stiltz’ it should be sufficient to show you that we know where. The question of how is another matter. But I think I have a way.”
Their guide nodded.
“If so, good! If not, or you are in trouble, you can rely on Caillaux. He is rough, but he is trustworthy.”
Just then Caillaux returned with a basket of wine and provisions of the poorer kind, including some cheese, and dumped them on the table.
“You will look after these brave British,” said the elder man, “and help them in every way you can. They have to go to a house in Stiltz. If they need you you must. Now I must go quickly. No, not that way. By the street. If I do not return home at once I shall be suspected—if I am not suspect already. I shall go straight to the German commandant and make a complaint. It is the wisest course. I have dined at a restaurant with a friend. When I come back I find my house broken into and ransacked—by German soldiers, so they tell me—and I am come to ask why.
“That will be my story, but it must be told quickly, so now adieu!”
He shook hands with Blake and Tinker, and vanished into the darkness.
They, for their part, set to ravenously on the coarse fare, for it was long since they had broken their fast. Then they determined to set out for the docks and find their old friend Bogo. He would not be able to sail until after the markets opened, but they hoped to be able to find a hiding-place on the hogaast, and persuade him, by the offer of a good round sum, to take them up to Stiltz through the canals.
They found the boat easily enough lying at her old berth alongside the quay, and dropped noiselessly on board.
Bogo was sound asleep on his bunk in the cabin. As soon they had roused him he put a piece of heavy sailcloth over the skylight of the cabin as a matter of precaution, and lighted the swinging lamp.
Blake explained the position briefly, whilst Bogo nodded gravely and smoked.
“The markets open at five,” he said at last. “If I do not take my goods for sale it would be suspicious. At six I shall be back. Then we will make sail as you say, and as soon as—”
He broke off suddenly, for there was a trampling of feet on the quay overhead, and a hoarse shout of command in German.
“Name of a dog!” he said in a whisper. “Hear that? It is an order to search all vessels lying alongside! You will be found! Quick! Into the sail-locker you goes! It is the one chance! These German pigs know little about boats. They may not find you.”
Blake and Tinker slipped into the big sail-locker forward right up in the bows under the deck, and hid beneath some piles of old worn sails and musty canvas. Bogo slipped the sliding panels to, and they could hear him industriously rolling casks of apples in front of it and piling up crates of vegetables.
Then he went back to the cabin, put out the swinging lamp, and, flinging himself on his bunk, snored lustily. For such a stolid-looking man, his acting was a fine piece of work.
Heavy boots resounded on the deck above, and the clang of grounded rifles. A voice bellowed an imperious summons down the open companion-way, but Bobo snored peacefully on. There came more heavy footsteps and the clank of a Sabre, and an officer and two men entered the cabin with lanterns.
“Hi, you!” bawled the officer, shaking him roughly. “Wake up, you drunken pig!”
Bogo condescended to wake.
“Name of a dog!” he said, blinking in the lantern-light. “Can’t a man have a bit of sleep after supper—and I, who have to be up at four in the morning, as I’m a Dutchman? It’s barely time for a man to sleep off his liqueur!”
“Dutch are you?” said the officer doubtfully.
He had strict orders to behave in as friendly a manner as he could to all Dutchmen.
“Of course I’m Dutch, and full of good Dutch brandy at that!” He essayed a hiccup. “Try a spoon for yourself, captain, to keep the cold out. The bottle’s there beside you.”
The office looked longingly, but shook his head.
“My orders are to search the ship, captain,” he said, a trifle more civilly.
Bogo poured himself out a good stiff peg and drank it down.
“Search away,” he said, yawning. “You’ll find plenty of cockroaches. What on earth do you want to search for at this time of night?”
“Two Britishers, captain.”
Bogo grunted.
“What do I want with verdamned Britishers? You can’t eat ‘em, you can’t drink ‘em, and you can’t sell ‘em!”
He poured himself out another glass, and this time the officer accepted the offer, whilst his men made a lumbering search in, to them, unfamiliar regions. Needless to say, they found nothing, not knowing where to look, and came in to make their report, looking rather crestfallen.
The officer drained his glass and signed to them to go on ahead.
“No boat is to leave her moorings till further orders,” he said, with a tinge of his former truculence. “To-morrow the search will be resumed. Also, no boat may ascend the river beyond this point. They are at liberty to ply between here and Flushing after the search has been completed. The penalty for disobedience will be a fine and the destruction of the boat.”
With that he clanked off, and Bogo heard him and his
men go clattering along the quay.
He gave a sigh of relief, and mopped the sweat from his forehead.
Then he closed the hatch, relit the lamp, and hurried forward to roll aside the barrels and crates.
“You heard?” he asked anxiously, as he opened the locker door.
“Partly,” said Blake. “We must be off. They’ll make a thorough search by daylight, and as you can’t go up-river you’ll only be running risks for nothing. The sooner we are off the better. We must go at once.”
Bogo nodded.
“Over the dock wall,” he said. “They will have left sentries at the gates. Good luck go with you!” He shook them both by the hand and watched them till they were out of sight.
“We must get back to Caillaux, and by another way,” said Blake, as they hurried along the dark streets, “although for the life of me I can’t think of a plan, the net seems to be drawing tighter.”
They made their way to Caillaux, and gave a prearranged knock—a short, two long, and a short.
Caillaux was apparently half expecting them, for he was still fully dressed, and opened the door immediately.
Blake explained matters, and Caillaux nodded.
“I feared as much,” he said. “A man came here half an hour ago and said that the boats were being searched, so I waited up for more news. This is a bad business. Wait you here. I will see what can be done.”
In a little under twenty minutes he was back.
“I have a plan,” he said slowly; “not a great plan, but the best I can think of. My cousin has a cart—one of the little country carts—and two dogs. Also he has a pedlar’s licence countersigned by the commandant, which allows him to sell his things in the villages round about.
“At five in the morning he will be here with his cart and the dogs, also rough clothes like his own. You will go with him. You are to be a travelling tinsmith, with black smudges on your face and hands. The young British must walk with a limp and a crutch, as though lame. If you once pass the barrier I think that all will be well. The lame boy will pass as my cousin’s nephew, who helps him, and who is really lame. They have often been seen travelling about together, and the young Britisher can be made to look like him. Also the Bosches will be looking out for a party, not of three, but of two. Now you had better rest while you may, for you will have to start early and you will have far to walk, for you must travel by a roundabout way little frequented.”
“It’s a good plan,” said Blake. “Risky, of course, but the best we can do. I’ll take your advice and turn in.”
“At five,” said Caillaux, “I will call you. Have no fear.”
A little after that hour next morning they set out. There was a cold drizzle of rain, and except in the vicinity of the market-places there was hardly a soul stirring. Even the German sentries were more than half asleep, and huddled, sheltering in the doorways.
Caillaux’s cousin was called Jean, a keen-eyed, shrewd-looking man of about forty, with a pronounced hump, in spite of which he had the reputation for being enormously strong.
Blake wore a rough peasant smock, a peaked cap drawn well down over his eyes, and his face and hands were liberally blackened with soot. He had a three days’ growth of beard, and smoked a big Belgian pipe full of coarse tobacco.
Tinker, as the lame boy, also wore the rough clothes of the country, and was about as tousled and disreputable an object as could be well imagined.
At the barrier Jean produced his pass. It was for two, but Blake had skilfully altered the two into a three and added a hieroglyphical sort of signature.
The sentry at the barrier glanced at it casually, nodded, and knocked it contemptuously aside, and the next moment they were in the open country, trudging through the rain and mud, with the dogs straining at their harness.
Blake heaved a sigh of relief, and as soon as they were well out of sight he tucked away the big, foul-smelling pipe under his blouse and lit a cigarette.
The most dangerous and difficult part of their journey was, as he believed, past.
They straggled through one or two villages, and came out on a bare, open plain, with nothing to be seen but endless rows of poplars.
Suddenly from behind a copse a party of three Uhlans[5] came swirling down on them, with a brief command to halt. There was nothing for it but to obey, so they halted in the middle of the road. Blake’s hand slipped unobserved beneath his blouse, and he gripped his automatic. Even then all might have been well, but one of the men with a particularly brutal face spurred his horse up against Tinker, with the idea of baiting a cripple, as he supposed, and making him hop aside.
Tinker, taken by surprise, cried out angrily in English without thinking, and, as bad luck would have it, the trooper understood English well.
“Ach!” he cried. “An infernal British spy!” And, stooping in the saddle, he snatched off Tinker’s cap. The next instant he had drawn his revolver and aimed it straight at Tinker’s head.
There was no time to hesitate, and Blake’s automatic rang out first. The man reeled and dropped, and the other two men charged with drawn swords.
Again Blake’s pistol snapped, and Tinker fired at the same time. To miss at that range was impossible, and both saddles were emptied. Jean, with great presence of mind, caught the horses before they could escape and held them.
“Here’s a pig’s mess,” said Blake. “It was them or us, though. Jean, you’d better leave us. If you’re seen with us after this you will be shot for certain; alone you will be safe enough.”
“Three Bosches!” said Jean, without a trace of compunction. “Lay them in the ditch there and cover them with brambles and branches whilst I see to the horses.”
Blake looked round anxiously. In all the broad stretch of plain there was nothing to be seen but the spire of a village church three miles off.
“We’d better carry them to that thicket there and hide them as best we can. It will be safer than the ditch, and you can tether the horses there as well. With any luck we ought to be miles away before they are discovered.”
Jean nodded. It was a gruesome task, but finally they got the bodies sackwise onto the horses. Jean whistled to the dogs to follow him with the cart, and they made for the copse fifty yards away.
Here they hastily made three rough graves and laid their burdens in them. The horses they tethered amongst the trees some little distance away. Had they let them loose they would have gone careering back to the stables, and an outcry would have been raised at once.
The great thing to do now was to put as much distance between them and the scene of the tragedy as possible. They would have avoided the village if they could, but there was no other road available, and the dogs couldn’t drag their cart across country. So they were compelled to go on and risk it. They would have passed straight through if they could, but bad luck seemed to dog their steps.
Just as they were passing the principal inn two men who knew Jean well called out to him to come and have a glass of wine. To have refused would have seemed unnatural, so there was no help for it.
Some Uhlans were standing near the door of the inn, to make matters worse, drinking out of great tankards, and could hear every word that was said clearly.
Jean went forward, inwardly cursing his friends. Tinker and Blake remained by the cart, pretending to rearrange the things on it.
“Hallo!” cried one of the men. “Who have you got there? That’s not your nephew. And who is the other, with the black smudge on his face?”
“Acquaintances,” said Jean gruffly. “Surely a man may have acquaintances if he likes! We travel the same road, and we have a permit to travel together.”
At the word “permit” a sergeant of Uhlans pricked up his ear.
“So, then,” he said harshly, “let us this permit of yours examine. There are too many of your sort travelling with these permits, and half of you are spies. If I had my way I’d soon make an example of one or two of your sort, I can tell you. A tree and a bit of rope would be
my permit, and you wouldn’t want it renewed, either.”
He guffawed hoarsely at his own wit, and held out his hand for the paper.
“So,” he said, “you come from the city, from Antwerp? Did you meet any of our men on the way? There was a patrol of three. They should have been back a long time ago. Did you see them?”
Jean scratched his head perplexedly and spat thoughtfully.
“Hi, Pierre,” he called to Blake, “did we see any Bosches on the road?”
The sergeant scowled at the name and strode up to Blake.
“Did you see any? Answer sharp!” he ordered.
Blake, who had relighted his foul-smelling pipe before entering the village, also spat thoughtfully. It is a natural custom of the Belgian peasant classes.
“Yes, Herr,” he said slowly, in broad patois; “we saw three, I think it was.”
“Which way were they going?”
“Towards the city, Herr.”
“How far away?”
“It maybe an hour or an hour and a half’s journey,” replied Blake, using the usual method of the country in reckoning distances by time instead of miles.
“Teufel!” said the man. “They were ordered not to go beyond the wood. And you”—he turned suddenly on Tinker—“how far do you say it was?”
For Tinker to have attempted to answer would have been fatal. The man would have detected his English accent at once.
Blake intervened hastily. He pointed to his ears, and then nodded at Tinker.
“He is wrong here, Herr,” he explained. “And here also,” he added, pointing to his throat.
Tinker, taking his cue, made a sort of gurgling noise like a dumb man trying to speak, whereupon the sergeant dealt him a savage kick.
“Guard, turn out!” roared the sergeant. “Seven men to patrol the road at once. Orders have come in to have it carefully watched. Two English spies are supposed to be trying to escape that way. The telephone came in an hour ago.”
Everything was instantly bustle and confusion as men buckled on sword-belts and ran for their horses.
Suddenly the sergeant turned on Blake.
“You saw nothing of them, I suppose?” he asked, in perfect English, eyeing him keenly the while.
