“You’re not going to jump overboard?” she cried.
“We are going to just step overboard,” he explained. “It’s the only chance. Throw off your fur cloak. You see, if we stay a moment later we shall be dragged down after the steamer. We must get clear while we can.”
“I can swim,” he answered quickly, throwing off his coat and waistcoat. “This thing will support me easily. Believe me, Geraldine, there’s nothing to be frightened about. We can keep her afloat for half-a-dozen hours, if necessary, with this only don’t let go of it. Keep your arms through, and—by God! Quick!”
A huge wave broke right over their heads. The boat, which had nearly reached the level of the water, was overturned, and the air seemed full of the screaming of women, the loud shouting of orders from the bridge, where the captain was standing with his hands upon the fast sinking rail. The water was up to their waists now. In a moment they ceased to feel anything beneath their feet. Geraldine found herself suddenly buoyant. Thomson, swimming with one arm, locked the other in their raft.
“Push yourself away from everything as well as you can,” he whispered, “and, Geraldine—if anything should happen to us, I never changed—not for a moment.”
“I don’t believe I ever did, either,” she sobbed, holding out her hand.
Another wave broke over them. They came up, however. He gripped her wet hand for a moment. All around them were articles of ship’s furniture, broken planks, here and there a man swimming. From close at hand came the shriek of the vanishing siren.
“Look!” Geraldine cried.
Barely fifty feet away from them was the submarine. The captain and four or five of the men were on deck. Thomson shouted to him.
“Can’t you save some of these women?”
The answer was a laugh—hoarse, brutal, derisive. The submarine glided away. Thomson’s face as he looked after it, was black with anger. The next moment he recovered himself, however. He had need of all his strength.
“Don’t listen to anything, Geraldine,” he begged her. “They will nearly all be saved. Can’t you hear the sirens already? There are plenty of ships coming up. Remember, we can’t go down so long as we keep hold here.”
“But you’ve no lifebelt on,” she faltered.
“I don’t need it,” he assured her. “I can keep afloat perfectly well. You’re not cold?”
“No,” she gasped, “but I feel so low down. The sky seems suddenly further away. Oh, if some one would come!”
There were sirens now, and plenty of them, close at hand. Out of the mist they saw a great black hull looming.
“They’re here all right!” he cried. “Courage, Geraldine! It’s only another five minutes.”
Thirty miles an hour into a fog of mist, with the spray falling like a fountain and the hiss of the seawater like devil’s music in their ears. Then the haze lifted like the curtain before the stage of a theatre, and rolled away into the dim distance. An officer stood by Conyers’ side.
“Hospital ship Princess Hilda just torpedoed by a submarine, sir. They’re picking up the survivors already. We’re right into ’em sir.”
Even as he spoke, the moonlight shone down. There were two trawlers and a patrol boat in sight, and twenty or thirty boats rowing to the scene of the disaster. Suddenly there was a shout.
“Submarine on the port bow!”
They swung around. The sea seemed churned into a mass of soapy foam. Conyers gripped the rail in front of him. The orders had scarcely left his lips before the guns were thundering out. The covered-in structure on the lower deck blazed with an unexpected light. The gun below swung slowly downwards, moved by some unseen instrument. Columns of spray leapt into the air, the roar of the guns was deafening. Then there was another shout—a hoarse yell of excitement. Barely a hundred yards away, the submarine, wobbling strangely, appeared on the surface. An officer in the stern held up the white flag.
“We are sinking!” he shouted. “We surrender!”
For a single second Conyers hesitated. Then he looked downwards. The corpse of a woman went floating by; a child, tied on to a table, was bobbing against the side. The red fires flashed before his eyes; the thunder of his voice broke the momentary stillness. In obedience to his command, the guns belched out a level line of flame,—there was nothing more left of the submarine, or of the men clinging on to it like flies. Conyers watched them disappear without the slightest change of expression.
“Hell’s the only place for them!” he muttered. “Send out the boats, Johnson, and cruise around. There may be something else left to be picked up.”
The word of command was passed forward and immediately a boat was lowered.
“A man and a woman clinging to a table, sir,” an officer reported to Conyers. “We’re bringing them on board.”
Conyers moved to the side of the bridge. He saw Geraldine lifted into the boat, and Thomson, as soon as she was safe, clamber in after her. He watched them hauled up on to the deck of the destroyer and suddenly he recognised them.
“My God!” he exclaimed, as he dashed down the ladder. “It’s Geraldine!”
She was standing on the deck, the wet streaming from her, supported by a sailor on either side. She gasped a little when she saw him. She was quite conscious and her voice was steady.
“We are both here, Ralph,” she cried, “Hugh and I. He saved my life. Thank heavens you are here!”
Already the steward was hastening forward with brandy. Geraldine sipped a little and passed the glass to Thomson. Then she turned swiftly to her brother. There was an unfamiliar look in her face.
“Ralph,” she muttered, “don’t bother about us. Don’t stop for anything else. Can’t you find that submarine? I saw them all—the men—laughing as they passed away!”
Conyers’ eyes blazed for a moment with reminiscent fury. Then his lips parted and he broke into strange, discordant merriment.
“They’ll laugh no more in this world, Geraldine,” he cried, in fierce triumph. “They’re down at the bottom of the sea, every man and dog of them!”
She gripped him by the shoulder—Geraldine, who had never willingly hurt and insect.
“Ralph,” she sobbed, “thank God! Thank God you did it!”
CHAPTER XXXIV
Table of Contents
It was towards the close of an unusually long day’s work and Major Thomson sighed with relief as he realised that at last his anteroom was empty. He lit a cigarette and stretched himself in his chair. He had been interviewed by all manner of people, had listened to dozens of suspicious stories. His work had been intricate and at times full of detail. On the whole, a good day’s work, he decided, and he had been warmly thanked over the wires by a Brigadier-General at Harwich for his arrest and exposure of a man who had in his possession a very wonderful plan of the Felixstowe land defences. He lit a cigarette and glanced at his watch. Just then the door was hurriedly opened. Ambrose came in without even the usual ceremony of knocking. He held a worn piece of paper in his hand. There was a triumphant ring in his tone as he looked up from it towards his chief.
“I’ve done it, sir!” he exclaimed. “Stumbled across it quite by accident. I’ve got the whole code. It’s based upon the leading articles in the Times of certain dates. Here’s this last message—’Leave London June 4th. Have flares midnight Buckingham Palace, St. Paul’s steps, gardens in front of Savoy. Your last report received.’”
“‘Leave London June 4th,’” Thomson repeated, glancing at his calendar,—“to-day! ’Have flares,’—Zeppelins, Ambrose!”
The clerk nodded.
“I thought of them at once, sir,” he agreed. “That’s a very plain and distinct warning in a remarkably complicated code, and it’s addressed—to Sir Alfred Anselman.”
A smouldering light flashed in Thomson’s eyes.
“Ambrose,” he declared, “you’re a brick. I sha’n’t forget this. Just find out at once if the Chief’s in his room, please.”
There followed half an
hour of breathless happenings. From the Chief’s room Thomson hurried over to the Admiralty. Here he was taken by one of the men whom he had called to see, on to the flat roof, and they stood there, facing eastwards. Twilight was falling and there was scarcely a breath of air.
“It’s a perfect night,” the official remarked. “If they start at the right time, they’ll get here before any one can see them. All the same, we’re warning the whole coast, and our gun-stations will be served all night.”
“Shall we have a chance, do you think, of hitting any of them?” Thomson asked.
The sailor winked.
“There are a couple of gun-stations I know of not far from here,” he said. “I tell you they’ve got armament there which will make our friends tear their hair’ shells that burst in the air, mind, too, which you needn’t mind letting ’em have as quick as we can fire ’em off. I shall try and get on to one of those stations myself at midnight.”
“What time do you think they’d attack if they do get over?”
The other took out his watch and considered the subject.
“Of course,” he reflected, “they’ll want to make the most of the darkness, but I think what they’ll aim at chiefly is to get here unobserved. Therefore, I think they won’t start until it’s dark, probably from three or four different bases. That means they’ll be here a little before dawn. I shall just motor my people up to Harrow and get back again by midnight.”
Thomson left the Admiralty, a little later, and took a taxi to Berkeley Square. The servant hesitated a little at his inquiry.
“Miss Geraldine is in, sir, I believe,” he said. “She is in the morning-room at the moment.”
“I shall not keep her,” Thomson promised. “I know that it is nearly dinner-time.”
The man ushered him across the hall and threw open the door of the little room at the back of the stairs.
“Major Thomson, madam,” he announced.
Geraldine rose slowly from the couch on which she had been seated. Standing only a few feet away from her was Granet. The three looked at one another for a moment and no word was spoken. It was Geraldine who first recovered herself.
“Hugh!” she exclaimed warmly. “Why, you are another unexpected visitor!”
“I should not have come at such a time,” Thomson explained, “but I wanted just to have a word with you, Geraldine. If you are engaged, your mother would do.”
“I am not in the least engaged,” Geraldine assured him, “and I have been expecting to hear from you all day. I got back from Boulogne last night.”
“None the worse, I am glad to see,” Thomson remarked.
She shivered a little. Then she looked him full in the face and her eyes were full of unspoken things.
“Thanks to you,” she murmured. “However,” she added, with a little laugh, “I don’t want to frighten you away, and I know what would happen if I began to talk about our adventure. I am sorry, Captain Granet,” she went on, turning towards where he was standing, “but I cannot possibly accept your aunt’s invitation. It was very good of her to ask me and very kind of you to want me to go so much, but to-night I could not leave my mother. She has been having rather a fit of nerves about Ralph the last few days, and she hates being left alone.”
“Captain Granet is trying to persuade you to leave London this evening?” Thomson asked quietly.
“He wants me very much to go down to Lady Anselman’s at Reigate to-night,” Geraldine explained. “I really accepted Lady Anselman’s invitation some days ago, but that was before mother was so unwell. I have written your aunt, Captain Granet,” she continued, turning to him. “Do please explain to her how disappointed I am, and it was very nice of you to come and ask me to change my mind.”
There was brief but rather curious silence. Granet had turned away form Geraldine as though to address Thomson. He was meeting now the silent, half contemptuous challenge of the latter’s eyes.
“Captain Granet is showing great consideration for your comfort and safety,” Thomson remarked.
Granet for a moment forgot himself. His eyes flashed. He was half angry, half terrified.
“What do you mean?” he demanded.
Thomson made no immediate answer. He seemed to be pondering over his words, his expression was inscrutable. Geraldine looked from one to the other.
“There is something between you two which I don’t understand,” she declared.
“There is a very great deal about Captain Granet which I am only just beginning to understand,” Thomson said calmly. “You should find his solicitude about your movements this evening a great compliment, Geraldine. It arises entirely from his desire to spare you the shock of what may turn out yet to be a very lamentable catastrophe.”
“You two men are quite incomprehensible,” Geraldine sighed. “If only either of you would speak plainly!”
Thomson bowed.
“Perhaps I may be able to indulge you presently,” he observed. “Since you have failed to persuade Miss Conyers to leave London, Captain Granet,” he went on, turning towards the latter, “may I ask what your own movements are likely to be?”
“You may not,” was the passionate reply. “They are no concern of yours.”
“They are unfortunately,” Thomson retorted, “my very intimate concern. This, you will remember, is your ninth day of grace. It is not my desire that you should suffer unduly for your humane visit here, but I might remind you that under the circumstances it is a little compromising. No, don’t interrupt me! We understand one another, I am quite sure.”
Granet had taken a step backwards. His face for a moment was blanched, his lips opened but closed again without speech. Thomson was watching him closely.
“Precisely,” he went on. “You have guessed the truth, I can see. We have been able, within the last few hours, to decode that very interesting message which reached your uncle some little time ago.”
Geraldine’s bewilderment increased. Granet’s almost stupefied silence seemed to amaze her.
“Hugh, what does it all mean?” she cried. “Is Captain Granet in trouble because he has come here to warn me of something? He has not said a word except to beg me to go down into the country tonight.”
“And he as begged you to do that,” Thomson said, “because he is one of those privileged few who have been warned that to-night or to-morrow morning is the time selected for the Zeppelin raid on London of which we have heard so much. Oh! He knows all about it, and his uncle, and a great many of the guests they have gathered together. They’ll all be safe enough at Reigate! Come, Captain Granet, what have you to say about it?”
Granet drew himself up. He looked every inch a soldier, and, curiously enough, he seemed in his bearing and attitude to be respecting the higher rank by virtue of which Thomson had spoken.
“To-morrow, as you have reminded me, is my tenth day, sir,” he said. “I shall report myself at your office at nine o’clock. Good-bye, Miss Conyers! I hope that even though I have failed, Major Thomson may persuade you to change your mind.”
He left the room. Geraldine was so amazed that she made no movement towards ringing the bell. She turned instead towards Thomson.
“What does it mean? You must tell me!” she insisted. “I am not a child.”
“It means that what I have told you all along is the truth,” Thomson replied earnestly. “You thought, Geraldine, that I was narrow and suspicious. I had powers and an office and responsibilities, too, which you knew nothing of. That young man who has just left the room is in the pay of Germany. So is his uncle.”
“What, Sir Alfred Anselman?” she exclaimed. “Are you mad, Hugh?”
“Not in the least,” he assured her. “These are bald facts.”
“But Sir Alfred Anselman! He has done such wonderful things for the country. They all say that he ought to have been in the Cabinet. Hugh, you can’t be serious!”
“I am so far serious,” Thomson declared grimly, “that an hour ago we succeeded in decoding
a message from Holland to Sir Alfred Anselman, advising him to leave London to-day. We are guessing what that means. We may be right and we may be wrong. We shall see. I come to beg you to leave the city for twenty-four hours. I find Granet on the same errand.”
“But they may have warned him—some personal friend may have done it,” she insisted. “He is a man with world-wide friends and world-wide connections.”
“They why didn’t he bring the warning straight to the Admiralty?” Thomson argued. “If he were a patriotic Englishman, do you think that any other course was open to him? It won’t do, Geraldine. I know more about Captain Granet than I am going to tell you at this moment. Shall we leave that subject? Can’t we do something to persuade your mother to take you a little way from town? You can collect some of your friends, if you like. You ought to take Olive, for instance. We don’t want a panic, but there is no reason why you shouldn’t tell any of your friends quietly.”
The door was suddenly opened. The Admiral put his head in.
“Sorry!” he apologised. “I thought I heard that young Granet was here.”
“He has been and gone, father,” Geraldine told him. “You’d better see what you can do with father,” she added, turning to Thomson.
“What’s wrong, eh? What’s wrong? What’s wrong?” the Admiral demanded.
“The fact is, Sir Seymour,” Thomson explained, “we’ve had notice—not exactly notice, but we’ve decoded a secret dispatch which gives us reason to believe that a Zeppelin raid will be attempted on London during the next twenty-four hours. I came round to try and induce Geraldine to have you all move away until the thing’s over.”
“I’ll be damned if I do!” the Admiral grunted. “What, sneak off and leave five or six million others who haven’t had the tip, to see all the fun? Not I! If what you say is true, Thomson,—and I am going straight back to the Admiralty,—I shall find my way on to one of the air stations myself, and the women can stay at home and get ready to be useful.”
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