That Which Hath Wings: A Novel of the Day
Engine should lie at the bottom of the North Sea, but what of his
friend, what of his friend's wife?
The keen eyes were unwontedly dim as he reached the wide Turkey-carpeted
landing, and the messenger caught a snatch of _The Flowers o' the
Forest_ whistled in slow time as his hurrying footsteps overtook the
General. Would Sir Roland please to go back, was the gist of the
message. The Minister had something further to communicate.
The War Minister was not alone. Two persons were with him--a tall man
in civilian clothes who stood looking out of the window as one who had
temporarily removed himself out of earshot, the other a slim and dapper
Naval Secretary.
The "something further" proved to be the pith of an Admiralty
communication just imparted. Early that morning a British Submarine on
North Sea Patrol duty (we will call her E-131), upon returning to the
surface to ascertain the cause of defective submergence, had discovered
a brown leather lock-strap to be entangled with her aft diving-plane on
the starboard side. A leather satchel firmly attached to the other end
of the strap was jammed under the plane, and subsequently extricated by
one of the men, from the collapsible.
Perhaps you can imagine the Lieutenant Commander stooping over the
retrieved bit of flotsam, lying under the shaded electric light hanging
over the narrow sliding table that pulled out from under his bunk in the
officer's cabin--a place of privacy again, the steel bulkhead-doors
being shut. For when you submerge they are all thrown wide so that the
Commander's eye may traverse the whole length of an elongated
engine-room, and see what every man is doing at his particular post, in
a single flash.
The Commander's eye was screwed up in the vain endeavour to see under
the flap of the locked satchel. He took up the thing and turned it in
his hands, while the strap, soaked and twisted by sea-water and
engine-power, flapped upon his knees like a long frond of wet seaweed.
"Wonder who cut the strap?" Clumsily, as though by a blunt knife
wielded by a numb hand--it had been hacked through, and the satchel
scratched badly in the process. He went on: "Looks like some rich
American globe-trotter's travelling-satchel. No picking these locks!
One might negotiate 'em with the oxygen flame-puff--if it wasn't for the
risk of damaging the wads of dollar bills that might possibly be inside.
Nothing to be done but rip or cut the leather--and that seems to be made
strengthy with metal, somehow!" He slipped the lean blade of a penknife
between the strongly stitched edges. The satchel proved to be lined
with thin plates of aluminium. "As easy to get inside as the Bank of
England!" he grumbled, and so it proved, if the Bank of England has ever
been negotiated with a bull-head tin-opener.
Inside the leather case lined with aluminium, a little sea-water had
penetrated, patching with damp a small antique portfolio of pearly,
bossy shark-skin exquisitely painted with birds and foliage by some
old-world Japanese master of Art. The quaintly feeble lock, and
corner-guards were of bronze, gold-inlaid with scowling fox-masks, and
the inevitable chrysanthemum.
The Japanese lock gave at a twist of the penknife-blade and then the
portfolio disgorged its loose sheaf of yellowed papers strung together
by a clew of faded silken twist. Drawings to scale and plans: sheets of
manuscript and pages covered with the symbols used in chemical formulas,
scribed in a clear small rounded hand.
"Great Scott!--what's this?"
The ash from the Commander's neglected cigarette fell upon the topside
of the precious manuscript. He blew it reverently off, and dug himself
into the pile:
"H'm, hum!"
"_By Me, Robert Foulis, Seaman, Tenth Earl of Clanronald, G.C.B.,
Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the British Fleet, and Marquis of
Araman, etc., etc. Invented & Conceived Not in Hatred of Mankind, but
in Defence of my Country and the Rights Beloved by Every True
Briton----_"
"Marvellous old cock! And in 1854, when he was eighty if a day, he
offers it for the fifth time to the British Government!"
"Busy, Owner? See you've got inside the prize-packet! My Christmas!
what is it? Miss Araminta's Diary; 'FOUND AFTER FORTY YEARS!' or 'HOW I
BROKE MY ENGAGEMENT WITH THE CURATE!'"
This from a young, exceedingly wet, and dirty Engineer Lieutenant, fresh
from an interview with the damaged diving-plane, and smelling potently
of castor-oil.
The Commander looked up, and strange things were in his eyes.
"You're pretty wide!" He added, speaking partly to the other man inside
the Commander: "Jolly good thing we're on the Home trip. That main
motor gives a lot o' trouble, and--suppose some purblind sailing ship
crashed into us--and sent us to the bottom with THIS aboard. Great Sea
Boots! It makes me crawl all down my back to think of it!"
The Second clattered down the steel ladder and filled the doorway with
his burly personality.
"What makes you crawl? Don't say the leg o' mutton we bought Saturday
from the skipper of that Grimsby trawler has gone back on us! Is that
what the liar means by fresh meat?"
"If I told you, you'd crawl too. Or you'd think it a case of
sunstroke--or D.T. of the deferred kind." The Commander stowed the
papers back in the sharkskin case with gingerly carefulness that
provoked the query whether he thought he had got hold of a new kind of
floating mine, and elicited the retort:
"I don't think!--I know it!"
No one got anything more out of the speaker, who, presently, declining
stewed mutton, whose wholesome savour amply certified to the moral
character of the trawler's skipper, went to the Wireless and dispatched
a pithy message to the Commander of E-131's particular Coast Defence
station, and the news was flashed to Whitehall, to go forth ere long
from thence over the world.
Sir Roland said, with that unwonted cloud dulling his bright eyes, and a
certain huskiness of utterance:
"There's no other solution of the puzzle. Remembering that I had said
to him, '_In an emergency, you might do good service to your country by
destroying this!_' my Scout took the only course open to him--and dumped
the satchel into the sea!"
The Minister admitted with characteristic reticence:
"Whether I concur with your theory or not, I must admit to you that the
report received specifies that the strap had been cut. 'Hacked through'
is the actual expression--and the back of the leather outer case
scratched as though by a knife."
"It is vital that I should examine the strap and see those scratches!"
The Minister answered:
"To-morrow morning by twelve o'clock--I can obtain you an opportunity.
The recovered valise, or wallet, or satchel, will be brought up to the
Admiralty by the officer commanding E-131. She has not yet arrived in
harbour. But the Commander will doubtless receive instructions as soon
as he reports himself." He continued, gracefully ignoring his previous
statement that the Government had decided not to interfere: "In the
absence of the Earl of Clanronald, now yachting in Northern waters, it
is obligatory that the War Office should take the matter in hand."
The very tall stranger had wheeled, and advanced to Sir Roland with a
smile and an outstretched hand of greeting. We know how great a heart
beat in its pulses. Its short, hard grip spoke sympathy and
understanding, though the voice was harsh and the light grey eyes stared
out of the brick-burned, heavily-moustached face with the old sagacious,
indomitable regard. He said after a word or two had passed, the
Admiralty Secretary temporarily occupying the attention of the War
Minister:
"By the way, you will be interested to hear something I have at
first-hand from Clanronald. He has been, as perhaps you know, cruising
with two ancient cronies, Lord Gaynor and Colonel Kaye, in his
steam-yacht _Helga_, along the Danish West Coast of Jutland. He returns
the richer by--what I may term a unique experience!"
Sir Roland said, meeting the Sirdar's eyes with great certainty:
"If I may guess at the nature of the experience, I should hazard that it
was--an attempt in the kidnapping line?"
The other gave his short, gruff laugh:
"You have hit it. They carry a Wireless installation on the _Helga_,
and sparked the story _via_ Cullercoats to Bredingley, who was stopping
a week-end at Doome. The yacht was at anchorage in the outer harbour of
Esbjorg, some twenty-eight kilometres from the frontier of
Danish-Germany. It was midnight. Everybody on board, including the
watch, seems to have been asleep except Clanronald, who was roused by
something scraping the side of the yacht. Presently he heard stealthy
footsteps on deck, and whispering. He was squatting on his bunk with a
brace of loaded revolvers and a Winchester repeating-rifle, when the
intruders opened his cabin door!"
"Did any of them survive the intrusion? If so, Clanronald has--very
much changed!"
The Sirdar returned, with the quirk of a smile lurking under the heavy
moustache whose brown was getting flecked with grey:
"Well--the _Helga_ has recently been re-enamelled, and Clanronald is
faddy on the point of his new paint. Besides"--the quirk deepened into
a laugh--"he thought it would be more useful to take them as live
specimens of the kind of material that goes to make up the crew of a
German submarine."
They looked at each other, laughing. Sir Roland inquired:
"I venture to hope that while Clanronald was about it--he collected the
submarine?"
"Unfortunately, no! And, very regrettably, the collapsible boat in
which the raiders had made their midnight visit was swamped when the two
others--there had been four of them!--jumped into her to make off.
Presumably they could swim and were picked up by the submarine--Undersea
Boat No. 14--according to the testimony of one of the prisoners. The
other of whom--an officer and leader of the foray--took poison, and was
found dead in the cabin that served for his prison-cell. The other, a
mere seaman, is too dazed with terror to be intelligible--according to
Clanronald. But the whole thing is interesting!"
"Hugely and instructively. As shedding," said the General, "a certain
light upon a mystery that baffled the wiseacres in 1913. I refer to the
mysterious disappearance of the engineer-inventor Riesl from his cabin
aboard a Hamburg Line, Leith-bound steamer. With a contract in his
pocket for the supply of crude-oil-consuming marine motor-engines to the
Navy of a Power--other than the German Government!"
"Possibly!--possibly! One never knows what forces are working beneath
the surface." The set, brick-dust face and grave sagacious eyes of the
great soldier seemed to testify to his complete innocence of anything
like a _double-entendre_.
He ended as the War Minister dismissed the secretary from the Admiralty,
and turned again to Sir Roland, saying in his most pompous tones:
"Twelve o'clock to-morrow, then, General. Meanwhile, pray convey to his
parents my admiration--in which I feel the First Lord will concur--of
the remarkable qualities manifested by young Saxham! Astonishing
devotion to duty, and courageous self-reliance! He should have
lived!--he would have made a noble man!"
Came the curt reply:
"He is alive now! I am convinced of it!"
The Minister gave the speaker a glance of incredulity. It was so very
clear to the War Secretary's logical mind that the child and the man
were drowned. But the harsh voice of the great Field Marshal, England's
most faithful friend, who was to succeed him in his place of power,
answered for him:
"One would expect you to stick to your guns, General. Should you prove
right before I sail for Egypt, bring him to see me!"
"I promise that, faithfully, my lord."