Secret Operative K-13

by Joel Townsley Rogers

  “Wake up, Englishman! Attention, and salute!” ordered von Reuter in a high, clear voice, pressing his fingers into the prisoner’s shoulder.

  Dick struggled to arouse, with the spotlight glaring at his face. He sat up on his cot, scratching his tousled head with difficulty. Irons were about his wrists and ankles, extending to a ring in the wall. In the shadows behind the brilliant light, he beheld the tall, red-bearded colonel seated with his aide. Dick blinked against the spotlight. He could not shift his head out of its beam.

  He recognized the setting. He chewed grimly.

  “The well-known third degree, huh?” he said.

  “Who is K-13?” von Kleinhals snapped.

  “Oh, go sit on a tack!” yelled Dick wearily. “Bring on the rubber bludgeons and the fire hose! I know more tricks than you two sauerkraut-sniffers ever heard of. My uncle’s a precinct captain on the St. Louis force, and they don’t make ’em any tougher than that bird. Go on and strut your stuff. But let me tell you something—only a rat falls for the strong-arm stuff. If I won’t open my trap, you can’t pry it open!”

  “What does he say?” von Reuter asked in German.

  The colonel translated.

  “You’re wasting your time,” said Dick. “Go on to bed and get yourself a lot of nice, quiet beauty sleep. It’ll improve your looks one hundred per cent. And even then you wouldn’t be causing any riot in a Ziegfeld chorus.”

  “Who is K-13?”

  “I don’t know!” Dick yelled.

  “That is incredible,” said von Kleinhals.

  “I don’t lie,” said Dick. “And I don’t take kindly to being called a liar by whiskery pretzel-peddlers. Take these irons off me, and I’ll explain my objections in more detail.”

  The colonel was staring closely at him with keen eyes from the darkness. Von Kleinhals was a suspicious man. He trusted no one—as was befitting a high officer of the great and secret Nachrichtenamt. Yet the square-rigged face of Big Dick Fahnestock, brilliantly illuminated, was as honest as a babe’s. Colonel von Kleinhals had learned already that the wild American giant was not a good liar, nor even a passable one.

  “If I knew who K-13 is, I’d be glad to tell you so,” said Dick grimly, “and then let you try to dynamite it out of me. You two liverwurst-lizards would have to use more high explosive than would blow up the whole of France. Now, douse your headlight and run along. I crave sleep.”

  The colonel turned to his aide.

  “He says he doesn’t know,” he translated. “What do you think?”

  Ritter von Reuter yawned. He had been manicuring his nails with delicate attention. He set the nailfile down on a washstand beside him and uncrossed his elegantly booted legs.

  “All Englishmen are liars,” he said. “They are very clever fellows. But this dummkopf—well!”

  He shrugged.

  “Maybe I am a dumbhead,” Dick growled in von Reuter’s language. “But I’m a man. I’m not a canary-voiced female parading around in soldiers breeches.”

  The young Prussian leaped up, lithe as a tiger from the darkness. He drove his fist full into Dick’s already battered mouth before there was time to dodge the blow. Colonel von Kleinhals snatched the raging subaltern quickly back, with a sharp admonition.

  “That’s a dirty German trick,” said Dick quietly, “to paste a guy when he’s down. Eine gemeine Deutsche Eigenheit! Rap me with a blackjack if you feel the urge, or kiss me with a brick. But—don’t—hit—me—with your fist. That’s something I never could stand for, see? I’m liable to get kind of irritated, and pull this whole damned hoosegow down. If ever I get hold of you, von Reuter, I’m going to half break you in two. I’m warning you.”

  Von Reuter stood twitching with rage—well out of Dick’s reach, however, against the opposite wall. His hand was reaching for his sword. It looked like murder right there, and with cold steel.

  “Do not forget yourself, Herr von Reuter,” admonished the colonel gravely. “This Englishman is a prisoner, and must be protected. His doom is set already.”

  With a low oath, von Reuter strode out the door. In the corridor beyond, Dick heard him muttering instructions to the sentries.

  Von Kleinhals leaned over quickly, as if he were about to communicate something in confidence to Dick, now that they were alone. His lips were partway open. His suspicious glance strayed all around him. He listened. But he thought better of it. He extracted a handkerchief from his breast pocket, wiping his forehead.

  There was a faint tinkle on the floor. Some other object had been pulled forth with the handkerchief. It dropped to the floor beside Dick’s cot with that almost inaudible metallic clink. Quickly and unobtrusively Dick put his foot on it.

  “Did I lose something?” von Kleinhals muttered, patting all his pockets.

  He stooped and examined the floor, then his pockets again. He shrugged, and resumed his position of scrutiny.

  “If you do not know K-13,” he said, “how did you expect to make contact with the spy?”

  “By using my bean, if I have any,” said Dick.

  “Ah, yes,” agreed von Kleinhals with an ironical laugh “If you have any.”

  “Don’t hand me any more of those cracked guffaws,” said Dick. “It sounds like a bearing was busted in your throat.”

  “You persist in refusing to give me any information, Mr. Fahnestock?” said the colonel softly. “There are ways, you know, of making even the most stubborn tongues—”

  “You can make a mule kick, but you can’t make it bray,” said Dick grimly.

  Again Colonel von Kleinhals shrugged. He glanced at his watch.

  “It is my duty to inform you,” he said, “that you will be executed by a firing squad in one hour and twenty minutes. At sun-up. That occurs at 5:15, precisely. If there are any communications you care to make, it would be best to make them now. We should like to know your age and education. Your civil and military honors. Your next of kin. These matters for our records. I will send in a chaplain before I depart. Do you wish a pastor or a priest?”

  “When was the court-martial pulled off, according to the forms of war prescribed?” said Dick. “Who were the judges? Where was my defense?”

  “The occasion seemed to General von Schmee hardly to necessitate the legal formalities,” said von Kleinhals delicately. “You are a spy, caught red-handed. You stand convicted by your own statements. There would be no advantage in prolonging matters, in running through a rigamarole of judicial technicalities and red tape.”

  “In this uniform, I am a prisoner of war,” said Dick. “I am a sub-leftenant of the British Army, captured in full military apparel. If you try to shoot me for a blasted spy, hell will be turned loose on this place, and on every man within it.”

  “Ah, yes,” said von Kleinhals, blowing his bright silken beard away from his lips with a quiet laugh. “In civil life, I am a lawyer—ein Ratgeber. I recognize the theoretical merits of your case. Why do you not procure a writ of habeas corpus? Or perhaps protest to the American ambassador? Or you might write a book about it. In case you decide to seek the services of legal counsel, inform him that his client is the nameless man in a German prisoner’s uniform, buried in the sixth grave from the end of the old brick wall, ten paces from the manure pit down behind the stables. That may help to identify you when he seeks his writs and injunctions.”

  “I hope you’ve dug the hole big enough,” said Dick with a cold grin. “It’s going to have to be mighty big and deep to hold me.”

  “How big and deep it will be is for you yourself to determine,” said Colonel the Count von Kleinhals. “You will be marched out at a half hour before sun-up—that is, in forty-five minutes—to perform the necessary labor.”

  “Much obliged to you, sir, and to the Butcher, and all of ’em,” said Dick. “When the Fighters hear of this, they’ll be coming over to drop down a few posies in memory of me. And those flowers won’t be forget-me-nots or lilies. They’ll be bouquets of Vickers’ fire and TNT that will
blow up every living thing in Oldemonde, and blow the whiskers off your face and the head off your shoulders. When the Fighters hear of this,” he said, “they’ll blow up hell in Oldemonde. And it would be better for you if you were dead deep in the ground than facing them.”

  A bony-faced German soldier peered around the edge of the grilled cell door. His deep-set, cadaverous eyes stared at Dick a moment before he vanished; Dick felt a sense of depression he could not shake off at sight of that deathly look. He had seen the man creeping around before, walking silently, vanishing stealthily, like this.

  Von Kleinhals sprang up.

  “Just a moment! I want to speak to you, Sergeant Wolf.”

  He slammed the cell door hastily behind him. He went down the corridor in pursuit of the bony-faced soldier. For the moment, Dick was left alone.

  Dick lifted up his foot cautiously from the little metal object that had fallen from von Kleinhals’ pocket. It was a key, of a size that might fit his handcuffs!

  The bright light glared in his face. He heard the voices of von Kleinhals and several other men not far away down the corridor. They went mumbling and mumbling on. They seemed engaged in a profound debate that lasted indefinitely.

  Dick shuffled up softly and snapped out the light. That should have brought von Kleinhals or the sentries. But nothing happened immediately. The Germans were too deeply engrossed in their argument. The sudden darkness in his cell had not been noticed. But the absent-mindedness of suspicious-eyed Colonel von Kleinhals could not last much longer now.

  “O God, only let me get my fists free!” Dick prayed. “That is all I’m asking you.”

  The key slipped into the lock of his handcuffs. The lock was clumsy and old-fashioned. If the key did not precisely fit, still, it seemed to be moving the tumblers. Dick heard the feet of men shifting about, as though they were preparing to return. His thick fingers seemed imbued with a sense of marvelous delicacy. In an instant, with a soft grating sound, the handcuffs slipped loose.

  The leg irons came more easily.

  He was free now, and sweating with nervous exhaustion. That excruciating instant had worn him out more than an hour of the hardest labor. But his hands were free now. They would not be locked again while he was alive.

  Silent and wary, he crept to the cell door. It was on the latch, indicating von Kleinhals’ intention of making an immediate return. He heard von Kleinhals out in the guardroom, issuing final orders regarding a firing squad. He heard the sound of rifle butts as they met a floor smartly, low laughter and the shuffling of feet. He even heard the striking of a match, so near to him was the guardroom.

  “You will dress the Englishman in a regulation prison uniform,” said von Kleinhals. “The blindfold may be omitted if he desires it. But keep the irons on him to the end.”

  “Za Befehl, Herr Oberst.”

  “He is an extraordinarily dangerous man, both because of his physical strength and his simulated air of innocence. He is very sly. Do not relax your precautions in the slightest until the medical officer pronounces life extinct. Lieutenant von Reuter has requested the privilege of commanding your firing squad. It is a personal matter with him. If convenient to you—”

  “Gladly, Colonel. It’s a work I could never quite stomach.”

  “Better have your digestion looked into, then,” growled von Kleinhals. “Spies are to be shot. Summon the chaplain.”

  On his toes quick as a flash, Dick searched about him for some weapon. His hand closed on a nail file that the elegant von Reuter had left on the washstand. It was long and of unusual strength; a stiff rasp as sharply pointed as a dagger. Dick Fahnestock, like most other Americans, knew what a German or an Englishman never knows—he knew the use of cold steel. It is an inheritance from the Indian Wars that has become a part of the national psychology.

  He took a stand by the door. The first man who came in that door would not go out again. Nor the next, nor perhaps the next.

  “Are you done with the prisoner, Herr Oberst?” asked the officer of the guard.

  “Not yet,” said von Kleinhals in a lowered voice. “He’ll betray K-13 to me before I’m through with him. That reminds me of a story. Have you heard that Madame Alys Dervanter—stop me if you’ve heard this one—”

  Whispers now. Von Kleinhals and the guard officer suddenly burst into roars of laughter together.

  Still, Dick’s partial liberty had not been discovered. Von Kleinhals was so sure of him. This luck could not hold out much longer. It was far too good to be true. After all, von Kleinhals had been away hardly a minute. Perhaps not thirty seconds. Perhaps not half of that. Time means nothing when a man is face-to-face with death.

  Dick slipped to the window. With all the strength of his powerful shoulders he tugged at the bars. There were two of them that he could feel move faintly and gratingly in their cement settings.

  Now with the nail file! Quick!

  The guardhouse had been converted from an old servants’ lodge of the château of Oldemonde by the installation of cellblocks and window bars. It was adequate for the purposes of a military calaboose, imprisoning soldiers convicted of minor infractions of discipline. Yet, undeniably, the work on it had been hastily and transiently done, like much of the work of wartime. The cement in which the bars were set, for instance, was not of good texture. It had become friable through weathering. Beneath the desperate picking of the steel file, it loosened in grains and clots.

  “At 5:15 then, Herr Hauptmann,” von Kleinhals was droning to the officer of the guard. “I shall probably be present as an official witness. I gave you the death warrant?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I will now bid my adieus to the Englishman.”

  The step of Colonel von Kleinhals in the corridor! Dick Fahnestock had one bar removed by then. But he could not squeeze his broad shoulders through.

  “Ah, wait, there is the chaplain,” said von Kleinhals.

  His slow steps moved away again. Dick worked desperately.

  “Guten morgen, sehrwürdige Kaplan!” said von Kleinhals with a hearty laugh.

  “Well, we have a little business for you. An English spy. I will present you to him, and allow you to wrestle with his soul.”

  Again his laughter.

  “Erlöst oder unerlöst, Herr Oberst?”

  “Unredeemed, I’m afraid,” said von Kleinhals. “He comes from America, where the Christian religion is unknown. They are mostly redskins there, you know, and worship idols.”

  “Ja. So I’ve heard,” said the chaplain. “I will instruct him in the creed and a few fundamentals.”

  “Wait,” said von Kleinhals. “Did I ever tell you the story about—”

  Dick had two bars out of their sockets then, and he could have pinched his way through. Yet, for an instant, he stood by the window, staring out at the silent starry night, at shadows that moved among the cedar trees, at dew that glistened darkly on the grass.

  It seemed to him that there was someone out there watching him.

  And it seemed to him that Colonel the Count von Kleinhals—high officer of the great secret Nachrichtenamt, keen and shrewd-witted Chief of Communications of this devil’s nest—far from having forgotten him or being absent-minded about him, was actually procrastinating his return so as to give Dick time to escape. Colonel von Kleinhals wanted him to go!

  Why?

  Suddenly, Dick saw on the window ledge a bit of paper no larger than a cigarette paper. And when he picked it up, he saw that was what it was. A message in English was written on it with microscopic black letters. He was in no hurry now to be gone. He read the words closely by the light of the stars.

  Big boy, don’t let these Jerries put one over on you. You are being allowed to escape by von Schmee’s orders. From the moment you leave, you will be trailed, in expectation that you will meet, and so betray—

  K-13

  Big Dick spat into the darkness. He chewed the flimsy bit of paper up and swallowed it.

  Beyond his c
ell window were a few massive beech trees, shadowing a smooth sward. Beyond them, a hundred yards or more away, was a cedar wood, black as the pit. The silence stirred, and no sentry moved.

  Who had put that message there?

  In a moment, the form of a peasant girl appeared from out the darkness of the cedar wood and moved across the grass. She walked demurely as a cat that has just eaten cream. She turned and blew a kiss to someone unseen in the wood behind her.

  “Till tomorrow, Hans, sweetheart!” came her clear, laughing whisper through the night.

  Suddenly, she looked up at the guardhouse. As if moved by an impulse of idle curiosity, she strolled toward it, humming softly to herself.

  Her hair seemed golden or flaxen-colored in the night, hanging in two long, thick braids over her shoulders. Her bodice was black velvet, laced. Her light- colored skirts were short and full. She was wearing clumsy wooden shoes. Yet her bare brown legs were slender and well shaped, which was something that could not be said for all the peasant daughters of Hainaut in Belgium. Big Dick Fahnestock believed that a man is not dead until he stops noticing good-looking legs. If he had been facing von Reuter’s firing squad in that moment, so long as there was life in him, he still would have admired the looks of hers.

  “Boy,” he whispered to himself, “those are some jambes!”

  She approached, a dim, ethereal figure, across the shadowed grass. She stooped and plucked something from the ground. Perhaps it was a four-leaf clover or a dandelion. She was sauntering from a rendezvous, Dick surmised, with some German soldier. Sweet little traitress! Well, who could blame her? Some of these Hun brass hats were handsome rascals.

  Far be it from me, sister, Dick thought, to throw the asparagus.

  A long distance off through the silent night came a sentry’s sharp challenge to some late wayfarer.

  “Wer geht?”

  “General-Major Ferdinand Oberling Kaiser Schmid!”

  “Advance, General Schmid, and be identified!”