Web of Discord

by Norman Russell

  ‘No problems here, Mr Boniface,’ he said. ‘These are all old friends. I’ll use three of them simultaneously to open communication with Berlin, St Petersburg and Paris. They’re all equipped with Morse keys. Then it’s up to you to send news of the truth in the necessary languages.’

  Kershaw signalled to Box to leave the two men to their task. They picked their way through the broken glass and went into one of the mess-rooms at the front of the building.

  ‘Sir,’ said Box, ‘are these people really part of the Eidgenossenschaft? Bleibner’s little more than a deranged murderer, and those men in the cable station – they seemed nonentities to me. They’re a lifetime away from the likes of Count and Countess Czerny.’

  ‘Bleibner and the others, Box, are the leavings from a very unpleasant meal, but they are lethal, none the less, because they know there will be nowhere for them to hide. German public opinion has shifted away from the secret gangs. That’s why those men made a last hopeless stand here before they were taken. And that’s why—’

  There came a sudden shout of alarm from the telegraph room. In a moment Mr Boniface had burst in upon them from the passage.

  ‘Sir!’ he cried. ‘The Lermontov – she’s suddenly appeared off the point. Perhaps she’s trying to make her escape.’

  ‘The Lermontov,’ muttered Kershaw. ‘I’d rather hoped that that particular nest of rats had deserted the sinking ship. But evidently she’s not sunk yet. Escape? I think not.’

  From the wide window of the transmission room they could all see the rogue ship steaming rapidly along the Baltic shore, little more than a hundred yards from where they were standing. Black hulled and with a dark red funnel belching black smoke, the old iron ship had tall masts fore and aft, with tightly-furled sails on the spars. There appeared to be no signs of life on deck.

  Crash! Something hit the upper floor of the cable station with resounding force, followed immediately by a deafening explosion. Part of the ceiling near the door collapsed, destroying the first of the telegraph engines.

  Box had glimpsed the angry flare of red from the fore deck of the Lermontov, and had flung himself to the floor before the shell had hit the building. He got to his feet, and saw that Mr Boniface and Bob Jones had returned to one of the two remaining engines. Jones busied himself with various terminals and dials while Boniface’s fingers worked frantically on the Morse key.

  Box moved cautiously to the window, and peered out. The Lermontov still lay menacingly offshore, with no sign of life on the decks. She seemed to be waiting for the right moment to resume her attack on the station. To the right, and beyond the headland, Box could see a long strip of coast, clad to the shoreline in thick pine forest. Right on the water’s edge stood a solitary church tower, its gilded onion dome catching the morning sun. It was the very scene that Mr Boniface had described to Kershaw in the lodge at the Crystal Palace. Box turned away from the window.

  ‘Sir,’ he said, ‘couldn’t we send those messages later? We’ll be pulverized if we stay here.’

  ‘Well, you see, Mr Box,’ said Kershaw, who was crouching on the floor near the further door, ‘those rotten remnants aboard the Lermontov have got their own telegraph system aboard. I’m quite sure that before they sailed out of hiding on the other side of the Rundstedt Channel, they would have spliced into the land line and started feeding false information into the Prussian State Telegraph system. They’ll report this battle and its aftermath as the expected Russian invasion of Prussia. Before the day’s done, Germany will have declared war.’

  Crash! The rear window exploded in a thousand shards of glass and timber, and a gaping hole appeared in the far wall of the room. At the same time, the upper storey of the cable station began to collapse inward with a deafening roar. It took them less than a minute to scramble through the wreckage and out on to the grass.

  ‘Did you manage to send anything?’ asked Kershaw curtly.

  ‘I sent the agreed message to Paris—’

  ‘Paris, Paris! Why didn’t you make Berlin your priority?’

  ‘There was static on the Berlin line, sir,’ said Boniface. ‘I think the enemy had made certain that communication with Berlin would be closed until they chose to open it.’

  A further tremendous report shattered the calm, as the Lermontov continued its work of destruction and retribution. The echoes reverberated across the inlet, and were thrown back by the hills to the west. The wing of the station to the left burst into flame.

  14

  A Gift from the Gods

  ‘We must do something!’ cried Kershaw. ‘Mr Jones, make your way as quickly as you can up to Major Kerner. Tell him to cable immediately to the naval base at Königsberg to send an armed vessel to stop this damned juggernaut—’

  Even as Kershaw was speaking, a new and frightening sound came to their ears. It seemed to hang in the sky, a vibrating whine with a terrifying pulse behind it, like the beating of a heart. They stood petrified, and looked as one man towards the far coast of Russian Lithuania, from which the spectral sound seemed to emanate.

  The pine trees of the forest rising behind the solitary church were shaking and trembling, even though there was no wind to stir them. The vibrating whine became louder, causing the militiamen halfway up the slope to freeze in their tracks, shading their eyes to look across the waters of the Baltic.

  Then, above the trees, there rose into sight an enormous aerial ship, the like of which no man there had ever seen. Cigar-shaped, and covered in some material that had been painted a shining metallic silver, it moved slowly but with seemingly malign purpose up over the forest and across the sky, towards the Prussian coast. Each side of the great craft was blazoned with elegant Cyrillic letters, followed by a stencil of the Imperial Russian eagle.

  ‘My God!’ Kershaw whispered. ‘The Phoebus-Apollo.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Mr Boniface’s voice held a mixture of awe and delight ‘Just look at it…. Two hundred and sixty-two feet long, air displacement twelve tons. In a minute, you’ll see the suspended carriages. The long one’s for the navigator and the bombardier. There! You can see it now. And behind it is the smaller carriage, with the three-bladed propeller, driven by a specially built single-cylinder steam engine. Look through your binoculars, sir, and you’ll see the racks where the bombards are stored.’

  It suddenly came to Box like a revelation that Mr Boniface could only have known these details if he had been actually invited to inspect the aerial boat by the Russian authorities. That could only have been as the result of one of Colonel Kershaw’s secret and subtle wiles.

  ‘What is it doing here, Boniface?’ asked Kershaw quietly.

  ‘Perhaps it’s come to finish the Lermontov’s work for it, sir.’

  ‘You’re not thinking clearly, Boniface. The people on that cable ship are no friends of Russia.’

  The great aerial vessel had what appeared to be a ship’s rudder, and they saw the device move eerily as the Phoebus-Apollo, shimmering in the bright sun, turned towards the shore. Box watched, enthralled. He’d heard of hot air balloons, though he’d never seen one, but this awesome machine was no mere balloon. One part of his consciousness wondered what it was going to do. Another part already knew the answer.

  The Phoebus-Apollo hovered menacingly over the Lermontov. Then Kershaw spoke. ‘The bombardier is out on the racks.’ They could see the man, now, a small figure in uniform with his hands on a lever, which he suddenly pushed forward.

  Three massive silver shells plunged silently downward through the still air, their metal casings glinting in the sunlight. They fell simultaneously on to the decks of the Lermontov, where they exploded with an almost unendurable roar of destructive power. The stricken ship erupted into flames, and through the dense pall of smoke Box could see the tall funnel crinkle and shrivel to nothing, like a ball of newspaper tossed into a fire. The shattered masts and spars were flung about on the churning water, and through the thick black cloud of smoke they could all discern the red-hot glow o
f the iron decks. A further violent explosion told them that the ship’s hidden magazine had yielded to the fierce blaze.

  In another quarter of an hour, during which Box and the others had stood in awed silence, the blazing wreck began to capsize with an almost animal groan of protest. What was left of its structure was torn apart by the force of the water, and the Lermontov sank from view beneath the waters of the Baltic.

  ‘There will be no survivors, sir,’ said Box, his voice subdued with awe.

  ‘There were no survivors of the Berlin Star, Box,’ said Kershaw. ‘This evens things up a little.’

  Mr Boniface had felt in his pocket for his unlit pipe, which he placed between his teeth. He was still gazing upward at the great aerial boat.

  ‘Those were three hundred-pound high-explosive bombards, Colonel Kershaw,’ he said. ‘Perhaps we have witnessed here this morning the dawn of modern warfare.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Kershaw replied. ‘And if so, then I’m glad that I’ll not be alive to see its sunset. It’s a remarkable invention, I’ve no doubt, but I can see no future for it in warfare. It’s time for you and Mr Jones to inspect what’s left of the cable station. Are any of the engines useable? There’s work still to be done.’

  Without a word, the two experts turned their backs on the scene of triumph, and hurried across the grass towards the wrecked building.

  Softly at first, and then louder, the cheers of the German soldiers came to Box and Kershaw as they stood on the grass sward, gazing up into the sky. Box looked up the slope, and saw the men throwing their hats into the air, and waving their arms in greeting to the stupendous Russian aerial boat, which was slowly turning in the sky for its journey back to its Lithuanian forest base. Two of the German officers had raised their swords in salute.

  ‘Do you know what I think, sir?’

  ‘What’s that, Box?’

  ‘I think Captain Adams had something to so with that show.’

  Kershaw looked with appreciation at Arnold Box.

  ‘I wouldn’t be surprised, Box, if you’re right. That kind of thing is Adams’s cup of tea. Look – the aerial boat has finished its cruise, and reached the Lithuanian forest again. That’s what eleven miles an hour can achieve. See how the trees are writhing in protest! There, it’s sunk out of sight.’

  Kershaw turned as Mr Boniface and Bob Jones came up to them from the wrecked building. Both men were smiling.

  ‘Sir,’ said Mr Boniface, ‘the telegraph engines in the main transmission room have all been destroyed, but the right wing of the station’s undamaged, and in it we found a brand-new Muirhead Siphon Recorder, complete with all the necessary transmission apparatus—’

  ‘Another gift from the gods, in fact! Well, gentlemen, now is the time for you to send those vital messages to Berlin and St Petersburg, announcing the completely changed political situation in Europe. Give full praise where it’s due, particularly to the bravery of the Russian authorities, who sent up that frightening craft at the risk of who knows how many lives. Be sure to demand acknowledgements. Don’t leave the engines until you’ve received them.’

  Box and Kershaw walked a little way beyond the cable station, and sat on a low stone wall near the bank of the Rundstedt Channel. The April sun shone warm and bright, and the waters of the Baltic seemed as smooth as glass.

  ‘This scene today, sir – this cheering of the Russians by the German troops – once that gets into the papers, ordinary people will realize that what the diplomats are saying is true.’

  Colonel Kershaw did not reply. He was looking through his field-glasses across the sea towards the wooded shore of Russian Lithuania, then pointed across the water.

  ‘See, Box,’ he said, ‘There’s an open steam launch approaching. I expect this will be a Russian delegation, coming over to tell the Germans what their intentions were.’

  ‘Sir,’ said Box, who had been gazing intently at the rapidly approaching launch, ‘one of the three men in that vessel is Captain Adams. I knew he had something to do with what happened this morning.’

  As the steam launch neared the little dock across the Rundstedt Channel, the whole unit of militiamen swarmed down the slopes to greet the visitors. The cheering was renewed, and then the men fell into line, their officers standing to attention in front of them.

  ‘Box,’ said Kershaw, ‘the time has come for the likes of you and me to make ourselves scarce. Let’s join the others in that undamaged section of the cable station. Once the fraternization down there is completed, Captain Adams will come up here, I have no doubt, to seek us out.’

  As Kershaw had predicted, Captain Adams came to them in the cable station once the initial civilities between the Russians and the Germans had been completed. Major Kerner and his militia had conducted the Russian delegation back to the barracks at Gehrendorf. Without waiting to be asked, Adams told them his story.

  ‘It was my own decision to leave the military train when we reached the bridge at Frankenberg,’ said Adams, ‘I felt that it was vital to let the Russians know what was afoot, and, as you see, I made the right decision. I used the regular train service from Königsberg into Lithuania, travelling on my civilian passport, and with the necessary visé. I made my way directly to the restricted area in the Grosny Forest, and by a combination of bullying and wheedling had myself taken to the commandant. I told him who I was, mentioned both you and Boniface as colleagues, and then I told him the whole saga of the Eidgenossenschaft and its nefarious aims. He believed me.’

  ‘That doesn’t surprise me, you know,’ said Kershaw. ‘You are not entirely unknown to the Russian intelligence authorities.’

  Box glanced at Kershaw, and recognized a particular expression of inscrutability that he had seen once or twice before. It told him that Kershaw, in some devious way known only to himself, had alerted the Russian commander in Lithuania to Adams’s impending visit. He wondered if Adams himself realized what Kershaw must have done.

  ‘The Phoebus-Apollo was undergoing tests to the steam engine,’ Adams continued, ‘and when the Lermontov began its assault on the cable station, the officer in charge immediately ordered the aerial boat into action. It had not been tested in the air, and it was a very brave thing to do. Fortunately, its mission – the sinking of the rogue ship – was entirely successful.’

  ‘Well, Adams, with the destruction of the Lermontov, our work here is done. What do you propose to do now?’

  For answer, Captain Adams turned to look at Arnold Box.

  ‘You say our work here is done, Colonel Kershaw. I wonder whether Inspector Box here agrees?’

  ‘Well, Captain Adams,’ said Box, ‘I must confess that my work isn’t done! I came all this way to arrest Bleibner for murder and attempted murder. Once again, he’s been too quick for me—’

  Captain Adams held up a hand to stop the indignant Box in mid-flow.

  ‘Let me reassure you, Mr Box, that with patience you will get your man. I am setting out immediately to stalk Bleibner, or Karenin, as he called himself, and expose him in his lair. It was he who followed me across Northern Europe from this very place, putting me in fear of my life, and eventually tracking me down to poor Gabriel Oldfield’s shop in Falcon Street. Well, he’s going to earth, now; but I know the path he’ll take, and I’ll be only a few steps behind him. We’ll get him, Box, never fear.’

  They emerged from the devastated cable station, and stood on the trampled and bloodstained grass, debating how best to return to the militia barracks at Gehrendorf. As they talked together, they became aware of something curious happening a mile to the west of where they were standing. On the rim of the western horizon a disturbance in the air was taking place, as though immense clouds of dust were rising, and then resettling, and then the desolate scene was redefined as a landscape with figures.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ said Kershaw, ‘I rather think that we are being approached by a regular unit of the German Army. They’ll be on their way to Gehrendorf, I expect. Perhaps we can persuade them to let
us accompany them.’

  What they had heard as a dim drumming now turned into a veritable thunder of hooves. Soon, they could distinguish the grey and scarlet uniforms of the mounted soldiers, and see the lances and pennons carried by the flanking outriders. The dust continued to rise in clouds from the dry, unmetalled road, and now, in the midst of what Kershaw declared to be a company of the Prussian Lancers, they saw a single closed coach, with a civilian driver up on the box.

  When it seemed that the smart troop of men would be upon them, the Lancers veered away to the left, cantering steadily up the sloping field of the recent battle towards the wooded Klagenfurt road. The dusty coach came to a halt just feet away from them, the coachman climbed down on to the grass, opened the door, and pulled down the steps. A man in a long black cape emerged from the coach, and raised his tall silk hat in greeting.

  ‘I thought it would be an idea to come in person, Kershaw,’ he said. ‘From what I hear, you and your colleagues would benefit from a complete change of surroundings.’

  ‘Count von und zu Thalberg! This is an unexpected pleasure. What on earth are you doing in this God-forsaken wilderness?’

  ‘This,’ said Count von und zu Thalberg, waving an embracing arm in a vague circle around him, ‘is Thalberg. Oh, didn’t you know that? I told you in Wiltshire that I was going back home to visit my estate. Well, this is it. And that’s the reason why I’m here so opportunely. Or at least, it could be the reason, always supposing that I had to give one.’

  Colonel Kershaw shook his head in rueful amusement.

  ‘Upon my word, Thalberg,’ he said, ‘I’m not often caught napping, but I must confess you’ve won this particular little battle of wits! So this is Thalberg. It’s not – well, it’s not very prepossessing, is it?’

  ‘It serves its purpose, Kershaw I’m not often here, preferring my two houses in Berlin, where I’m of more use to Germany. But come, let me gather you all up and take you away from this graveyard of the Eidgenossenschaft, to Petershalle, my manor house a mile from here across the heath.’