Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  Out of Cuxhaven — Cuxhaven! where lay the German submarines! — A pike, and young! A parent ship and submarines!

  The last link was forged; the chain complete — not quite — not entirely. The Japanese dancing girl? And under the number of the sketch, 3, — were three symbols. They were junks with latten sails.

  Perhaps there were three Japanese battleships at Lough Swilly. It didn’t matter; the chain was complete enough for him.

  CHAPTER XI

  STRATEGY

  As he rose from the sofa, stretching his arms to ease his cramped muscles, Guild became conscious that he was very tired.

  He had had little sleep the night before and none at all this night. He glanced at his watch; it was four o’clock in the morning. He went to the port, unscrewed it, and looked out into pitch darkness. There was not a light to be seen on the sea, no flare from any headland, no spark which might indicate a lighthouse, not a star overhead, not a sparkle save for the splintered reflection of the vessel’s own lights running over the water alongside, through which foaming, curling waves raced and fled away into the black obscurity astern.

  He turned and looked gravely at Karen. The girl still lay unstirring among the pillows on the sofa. One arm covered her head as though to shield it from some blow.

  He bent beside her, listening to her breathing. It was quiet and regular, and on her cheek was a flush like the delicate colour of a sleeping child.

  He had no mind to disturb her, yet he could not make her more comfortable without awaking her.

  All he dared do was to unbutton her spats very cautiously, and slip off the little brown suede shoes.

  Over her he laid the blankets from the bed, lightly, then opened wide the port.

  His own toilet for the night was even simpler; he folded together the batch of damning papers, originals, his own notes, the forged passports, strapped them with an elastic band, buttoned them inside his breast pocket, reached over and extinguished the electric globe, and, fully dressed, lay down on the stripped bed in darkness.

  They had been traveling sixteen hours. Allowing for their detention by the ill-omened Wyvern, they should dock at Amsterdam in five or six hours more.

  He tried to sleep; but his nerves were very much alive and his excited brain refused to subscribe to the body’s fatigue.

  All that had happened since he first saw Karen Girard he now went over and over in his mind in spite of himself. He strove to stop thinking, and could not; and sometimes the lurid horror of the Wyvern possessed him with all its appalling details made plain to his imagination — details not visible from the liner’s decks, yet perhaps the more ghastly because hidden by distance and by the infernal glare that fringed the doomed ship like a very nimbus from hell itself.

  This obsessed him, and the villainous information which he had wrested from the papers which this young girl had been carrying — information amply sufficient to convict her and to make inevitable the military execution of the man Grätz and the grinning chauffeur, Bush.

  And if the wretched maid, Anna, had been arrested with papers similar to these on her person, her case, too, was hopeless. Because the very existence of England depended upon extinguishing forever people who dealt in secret information like that which lay folded and buttoned under his belted coat of tweed.

  He knew it, knew what his fate must have been had the satchel been searched on Fresh Wharf — knew what Karen’s fate must have been, also, surely, surely!

  And had those papers been taken aboard the Wyvern it had not been very long before the simplicity of the cipher had been discovered by anybody trained in code work.

  For, in spite of its surface complexity, the cipher was a singularly simple one, even a stupid code, based on simple principles long known and understood in all of their hundreds of variations.

  And all such ciphers, granted time and patience, could be solved by the same basic principles. The only function of that kind of code was to so multiply its intricacies and variations that, with a time limit for delivery understood, measures could be taken at the other end to minimize the effect of discovery, the elapsing of the time limit serving as an automatic warning that message or messenger were under forcible detention within the enemy’s lines.

  Yes, it had been a stupid cipher, and an easy one.

  A trained man would have solved it in half the time he had required.

  Nothing about the message remained really obscure except the Japanese dancing girl playing with her butterfly and fan, and the lack of information concerning the “fleet” at anchor or cruising near “Lough Swilly” on the Irish coast.

  As far as the fleet was concerned, Guild was very confident that he understood. The whereabouts of the British battleship fleet was not known, had been carefully guarded. Without a doubt Lough Swilly was its rendezvous; and the German spy system in England had discovered it and was sending the information to Berlin with a suggestion that submarines “follow the birds,” i. e., take that dotted course around the northern Scottish coast, slip south into Lough Swilly, and attack the first line of battle squadron where it had been supposed to lurk in safety, awaiting its call to action. That was as clear as daylight, but the Japanese figure he could not understand.

  He was utterly unable to sleep. After an hour’s staring into the darkness he rose cautiously, opened the stateroom door and stepped into the lighted corridor.

  Here he lighted a cigarette against regulations and began to pace up and down.

  Presently the sharp nose of a steward detected the aroma of tobacco, and he came prowling into the corridor.

  So Guild nodded and tossed the cigarette out of the open port at the end of the corridor.

  “We ought to dock by nine,” he said.

  “About nine, sir.”

  “We’re lucky to have run afoul of nothing resembling a mine.”

  “God, sir! Wasn’t it awful about the Wyvern! I expect some passenger steamer will get it yet. Mines by the hundreds are coming ashore on the coast of Holland.”

  “Have you had any news by wireless?” asked Guild.

  “A little, sir. They’ve been fighting all night south of Ostend. Also, we had a wire from London that a German light cruiser, the Schmetterling, is at Valparaiso, and that a Japanese cruiser, the Geisha, and a French one, the Eventail, have been ordered after her.”

  Guild nodded carelessly, stretched his arms, yawned, and returned to the stateroom, knowing that now, at last, he was in possession of every item in the secret document.

  For the Japanese dancing girl was the Geisha, the fan in her hand was the French cruiser Eventail and the butterfly fluttering about her was the German light cruiser Schmetterling — which in that agreeable language means “butterfly,” and which no doubt had made an attempt upon the Geisha and had been repulsed.

  And this warning was sent that the Schmetterling had better keep her distance, because the Eventail had now joined the Japanese ship, and the two meant mischief.

  As for the drawing of the Pike, perhaps on the German naval list there might have been a vessel named the Hecht. He did not know. The symbol of the most ferocious fresh-water fish in Europe was sufficient to indicate the nature of the craft even had the flight of the “birds” not made it unmistakable. There could be no doubt about it that the Hecht with the three little Hechts following had been explicitly invited to cruise in the North Sea and have a look-in at Lough Swilly. And that was quite enough to understand.

  He turned on the cabin light, went to Karen’s side and looked at her.

  She had moved, but only in her sleep apparently. The back of one hand lay across her forehead; her face was turned upward, and on the flushed cheeks there were traces of tears.

  But she still slept. He arranged her coverings again, stood gazing at her for a moment more, then he extinguished the light and once more lay down on the bare mattress, using his arm for a pillow.

  But sleep eluded him for all his desperate weariness. He thought of Grätz and of Bush and of the
wretched woman involved by them and now a prisoner.

  The moment he turned over these papers to the British Consul in Amsterdam the death warrant of Grätz and Bush was signed. He knew that. He knew also that the papers in his possession were going to be delivered to British authority. But first he meant to give Grätz and Bush a sporting chance to clear out.

  Not because they had aided him. They cared nothing about him. It was Karen they had aided, and their help was given to her because of von Reiter.

  No, it was not in him to do the thing that way. Had he been a British officer on duty it had been hard enough to do such a thing.

  As it was he must give them their chance and he knew of only one way to do it. This point settled he dismissed it from his mind and, with a slight sigh, permitted his harassed thoughts to lead him where they seemed always now inclined to lead him when permitted — back to the young girl he had known only a few hours, but in whose company it seemed to him that he had already lived a century.

  He was not a man given to easy friendships, not a man in whom sensations were easily stirred. Under ordinary circumstances, perhaps, neither the youthful beauty of this girl, nor her talents and accomplishments had stirred him to more than an amiably impersonal interest. He had known many women and had been friends with a few. But on his part the friendships had not been sentimental.

  Women of all sorts and conditions he had known: fashionable idlers, professional women, domesticated women; women with ideas, women without them, busy women with leisure for mischief, mischievous women whose business was leisure, happy women, unhappy ones, calm ones, restless ones, clever ones, stupid ones and their even more irritating sisters who promised to amount to something and never did, all these varieties of the species he had known, but never a woman like this.

  Usually he could place a woman after seeing her move and hearing her speak. He could only place Karen on a social par with any woman he had ever known, and he was afraid she didn’t belong there, because well-born German Mädchens don’t interne themselves in nun-like seclusion far from Vaterland, Vater, and maternal apron-strings, with intervals of sallying forth into the world for a few months’ diversion as a professional actress on the stage.

  At least Guild had never heard of any girls who did such things. But there remained the chance, of course, that Karen Girard was a perfectly new type to him.

  One fact was evident; her father was a Prussian officer and belonged to the Prussian aristocracy. But gentlemen of these castes do not permit their daughters the freedom that Karen enjoyed.

  There was a mystery about the matter, probably not an agreeable one. Antecedents, conditions and facts did not agree. There was no logic in her situation.

  Guild realized this. And at the same time he realized that he had never liked any woman as much — had never come to care for any woman as easily, as naturally, and as quickly as he had come to care for Karen Girard.

  It stirred him now to remember that this young girl had responded, frankly, fearlessly, naturally; had even met him more than half-way with a sweet sincerity and confidence that touched him again as he thought of it.

  Truly he had never looked into such honest eyes, or into lovelier ones, — two clear, violet wells of light. And Truth, who abides in wells, could not have chosen for her dwelling place habitations more suitable.

  She seemed to possess all qualities as well as all accomplishments and graces of mind and body. The quality of courage was hers — a courage adorable in its femininity. But there was nothing hard about it, only firmness — like the white firmness of her skin. And her intuitive generosity was as quick and melting as the exquisite motives which prompted it.

  Never could he forget that in the dreadful peril of the moment, she had tried to give him a chance to escape the consequences of his companionship with her, — had tried to send him ashore at the last moment so that she alone might remain to face whatever there was confronting her.

  It was a brave thing to do, generous, self-forgetful, merciful, and finely just. For though she had not tried to deceive him she had gradually realized that she herself might be deceived, and that she was in honour bound to warn him concerning her suspicions of the satchel’s contents.

  And now — in the end — and after danger was practically over, how did they stand, he and she? How had they emerged from the snarl of circumstances?

  Had his gentle violence killed forever a very wonderful beginning of what they both had spoken of as friendship? And she — he reddened in the darkness as he remembered — she had begged him in the name of friendship not to violate it — had spoken of it, in the excitement of emotion, as more than friendship.

  It had been the most difficult thing he ever had had to do.

  Was it true that her friendship had turned to hatred?

  He wondered, wondered at the dull unhappiness which the thought brought with it. And, wondering, fell asleep.

  In the grey of dawn Karen sat up, wide-eyed, still tremulous from the dream of death that had awakened her.

  Through the open port a grey sky glimmered. She rose to her knees and gazed out upon a grey waste of water heaving to the horizon.

  Then she turned and looked across at the bed where Guild lay, his blond head cradled on one arm, asleep.

  Her eyes rested on him a long while. Then she caught sight of her shoes and spats on the floor — looked down at the blankets and covers that had kept her warm. The next moment her eyes fell on her satchel where it stood open, the key still in the lock, and her silver toilet articles glimmering dully inside.

  The vague tenderness in her blue eyes vanished; he had done this, too! — shamefully, by force, treading mercilessly on the frail bud of friendship — ignoring everything, sacrificing everything to a dull, obstinate determination which he had characterized as duty.

  She turned and looked at the man who had done all this, her eyes darkly beautiful, her lips stern.

  Duty? He had not considered the duty she owed. He had not respected her promise to bring back what had been intrusted to her. And when the discussion had tired him — when her warnings, pleadings — even her appeals in the name of the first friendship she had ever given — had been ignored, he had coolly used violence.

  Yes, violence, although, perhaps, the violence had not been very violent. But it was force — and hateful to her who never before had been obliged to endure the arrogance which her caste only knew how to dispense.

  “So brauch’ Ich Gewalt!” kept ringing in her ears like a very obsession as she knelt there, sitting back on her own supple limbs, and watching the sleeping man out of beautiful hostile eyes.

  That man! That American — or Belgian — whatever he was — with his clear grey eyes and his short yellow hair and that mouth of his which could be faintly humorous at times and, at times be so ugly and set — what was there about him that she liked — or rather had liked?

  Not his features; they were only passable from an ornamental point of view — not his lean but powerful figure, which resembled many other figures she had seen in England — not his manner particularly — at least she had seen more deferential attitudes, more polish of the courtly and continental sort, more empressement.

  What was it she liked, — had once liked in this man? Nothing! Nothing! — the tears suddenly glimmered in her eyes and she winked them dry, angrily.

  And to think — to remember in years to come that she — she had pleaded with that man in the name of friendship — and of something more than friendship! — The hot colour mantled face and throat and she covered her eyes in a sudden agony of mortification.

  For a few moments she remained so, then her hands fell, helplessly again.

  And, as she knelt there looking at him through the increasing daylight, suddenly her eyes narrowed, and her set face grew still and intent.

  Crowding out of the shallow breast pocket of his Norfolk where he lay were papers. Her papers!

  The next instant, lithely, softly, soundlessly on her unshod feet, sh
e had slipped from the lounge and crossed the stateroom to his side, and her fingers already touched the edges of the packet.

  Her papers! And her hand rested on them. But she did not take them. There was something about the stealth of the act that checked her, — something that seemed foreign, repugnant to her nature.

  Breathless, her narrow hand poised, she hesitated, trying to remember that the papers were hers — striving to aid herself with the hot and shameful memory of the violence he had offered her.

  Why couldn’t she take them? This man and she were now at war! War has two phases, violence and strategy. Both are legitimate; he had played his part, and this part was strategy. Why shouldn’t she play that part? Why?

  But her hand wavered, fell away, and she looked down into his sleeping face and knew that she could not do it.

  After a moment his eyes opened and met hers, pleasantly.

  She blushed to her hair.

  He said: “Why didn’t you take them, Karen?”

  “You couldn’t understand if I told you,” she said with youthful bitterness.

  He looked very grave at that. She turned, picked up shoes and spats, and seated herself on the sofa.

  So he got up, opened the door and went up on deck, leaving her the stateroom to herself.

  At the office of the wireless station the operator seemed to have no objection to sending a message for him to the British Consul in Amsterdam, and obligingly looked up the address. So Guild sent his message and prepaid reply.

  Then he went into the smoking-room and lit a cigarette.

  He was dozing when a steward awoke him with a reply to his wireless message:

  Kervyn Guild

  On board S. S. Feyenoord

  Will call at American Consulate. Many thanks.

  Churchill, Consul.

  He sat thinking for a few minutes. Then remembering that he did not know where the American Consul was to be found, he went again to the wireless office and procured the address.