The adventures of Heine
It is true that I did not blow up munition works. It is true that I
did not sink battleships like the heroic Weddigen, and that I did not
drop bombs on the Houses of Parliament. That was not my duty. That
that duty was ably performed I can prove by documents in my
possession, notably one from the illustrious and High Admiral von
Tirpitz, signed by his own hand, and I also adduce the statement of
that saviour of Germany, the excellent and illustrious Prussian
Field-Marshal von Hindenburg, who on one occasion mentioned me by
name, as I can prove, and stated that for all he knew I might be one
of the most useful men in the German service. All these things have
been said to me and I only repeat them in self-defence. I do not
boast. We Germans never indulge in frivolous talk nor do we use
sport-terms. Otherwise I would say that these attacks by the gutter
scourings of Altonia were not bally cricket, to use an English
expression. I admit there have been lamentable errors, and possibly in
the course of these memoirs I shall have to admit others by which
_interfering and unofficially appointed amateurs have fallen a prey to
their own arrogant ill-informedness_.
As for me I can look the whole world in the face and say humbly that
with no thanks for reward, and no hope of gain, facing an ignominious
death from hour to hour, I have served the Fatherland. It does not
matter to me whether I receive the Order of the Red Eagle, as I have
been half-promised, or whether I do not. I feel my superiors must make
some acknowledgment of my whole-hearted services on an inadequate and
miserably insufficient salary.
And if you dare to suggest, as this ink-slinging rascal on the
_Vorwarts_ has done, that I have made large sums of money out of the
expenses which the empire allow me for propaganda work, I fling the
accusation in your teeth. I admit I am well off, but that is due to my
private speculations on the Stock Exchange in the year 1914.[6] But
to return to my work and to an adventure which was, to say the least,
out of the ordinary.
In the summer of 1915, I received a request from Berlin which somewhat
surprised me. I was instructed to send to Holland as many good maps of
London as I could buy, and I was told also to prepare one special map,
marking the areas the street-lamps of which had been darkened. This
was followed (or it may have come in the same dispatch, I forget) by a
request that I should instruct my men to discover how it was that the
British Government knew we contemplated an air-raid on London.
I myself wondered what information the British Government had secured,
and how they had secured it. For months the streets had been lit as
gaily as in pre-war days. The theatre signs glowed and flashed, the
West End streets were bathed in radiance, and then, almost as by a
touch of the magician’s wand, London “went dark.” Street lamps were
shaded, the light signs outside the theatres were extinguished, and it
was almost impossible to pick your way through the streets.
I suppose my excellent friend, the High-Born Baron von
Hertz-Missenger, would have said, “English Secret Service.” He reminds
me of a character in Charles Dickens, the great English poet, who
invariably thought that his head was the head of King Charles II!
The explanation I offered was, that some of our too impetuous airmen
must have betrayed the fact by shouting with haughty insolence to the
English airmen they met in the air. As this has never been denied, it
is probably true. At any rate I set myself to work upon a map. It was
a long business, and very unsatisfactory, because the whole of London
was dark, and no place was more light than another. This I reported,
forwarding the maps by special courier.
And then I received a request from our Headquarters that I should
arrange light-signals which should be seen by Zeppelins. The idea was
to post three lights so that they formed a triangle, one near Albany
Park, one near Maidstone Road, and a third in the east, near
Shepherd’s Junction. The triangle thus made would contain all the
valuable city area which it was our Zeppelins’ intention to utterly
destroy.
Of the first raid in September, it is not necessary for me to tell. Of
how the cowardly Englishmen trembled beneath the midnight hail of
bombs, you have read.
I myself did not witness the raid, because, on receiving information
in the afternoon, Zeppelins were due, I had left London for Cornwall.
Since it was impossible for the brave fellows who piloted our good
Zeppelins to distinguish between a patriot and a hateful enemy, I
thought that in the interest of the Fatherland, it was necessary that
I should be as far away as possible when the dread visitation came.
I returned to London the next morning and arrived at eleven o’clock. O
what consternation there was. O what vile language these unkultured
Londoners used, what epithets, what adjectives, the A’s, and B’s, and
C’s, and D’s, they called us--but of that anon!
I was in some anxiety before my journey’s end was reached as to
whether I should have to walk a part of the journey, and I was greatly
relieved on questioning the conductor to learn that Paddington Station
had escaped the holocaust. When I arrived at Paddington everything was
going on as usual. To my amazement buses were running and cabs were
plying for hire.
“Where was the raid?” I asked.
“In the East End and the City,” was the reply.
So, I thought, my triangle had proved efficacious, and calling a cab,
I said:
“Will you please drive me to the ruined area?”
The poor, ignorant fellow thought at first that it was the name of a
public-house, and I had to enlighten him.
“Where the bombs struck,” I said.
“Oh, yes,” he said, brightening up, “I will ask a policeman where they
fell.”
“Do you mean to tell me,” I inquired, “that you don’t know? Perhaps
you haven’t been to the City?”
“Yes, sir,” he replied in the true boorish cabman spirit. “I’ve been
to the City three times, but I ain’t seen no place where the bombs
fell.”
This of course was “eye-wash.” For my part I had removed all my
archives from my office, and as that was on the edge of the City, I
drove there first and was pleased to find that my office had not been
touched. I drove up Ludgate Hill and apparently everything was as
usual, and it was not until we had driven farther on and had
penetrated a side street that I saw the wreckage of a house. It was
pleasing and yet disappointing. A number of windows had been smashed,
one house was in ruins and there was a big hole in a court-yard, but
the damage was such as might have been caused by an explosion of gas.
It took me a long time before I found the second place where a bomb
had fallen, and here again the results were not as I expected. I spent
the whole of that day wandering about looking for devastation. I went
east and south, and north, and although I saw some damaged houses, the
results of our gallant Zeppelins’ visit left much to be desired.
Returning to my office I was called on the ’phone and a code message
was sent through to me. As I expected, it was from Berlin asking for
full particulars of the damage done, and very faithfully I described
what I had seen, coded it and passed it on to the proper quarters.
To my wrath and humiliation, the next evening brought a peremptory
demand from Berlin. It had been sent by radio, picked up off the coast
by a little steamer flying the flag of----, and was brought to me from
an East Coast port by one of the couriers we employed for that
purpose.
The message was, as I say, peremptory, and there were tears in my
eyes, tears of sorrow and injury as I read it.
“Cannot understand your message. Our pilots report Westminster Abbey
was bombed. Whole streets of the City are in flames, Houses of
Parliament partly destroyed, also London Bridge and Tower of London.
Several ships in docks hit and sunk. Please personally investigate and
report.”
Of course there was a chance that these cunning English had, by means
of scene painters and workmen labouring through the night, removed all
sign of the destruction, but I walked over London Bridge without any
difficulty, and as far as I could see the Tower of London was
uninjured.
I reported the same, and three days later, had this message back:
“Be on south side of Three Mile Wood, north-north-east Saffron Walden,
at eleven o’clock on the night of October 7th.”
I could not understand this message, and my new assistant, who had
arrived from America, Herr Wilhelm Peters, was as much puzzled as I.
However, on the 7th of October, I journeyed to Saffron Walden, which
is a little town in Essex, and by studying a map I discovered that
Three Mile Wood was inaccurately named because it was about seven
miles from the town. I decided to walk, and arrived in the
neighbourhood of the wood at about ten o’clock at night. Having
ascertained by consulting my compass which was the south side, I made
my way across fields and muddy ditches to a big meadow which was
exactly placed to the south of the sparsely-wooded little forest.
It was a clear night with a thin ground haze and was rather cold. I
had brought one of those walking-sticks, the top of which forms a
seat, and this I found very comfortable; for the inner man I had a
flask of brandy and some liver sandwiches, and I settled myself down
to my vigil, wondering what on earth had induced Headquarters to send
me upon this wild adventure.
Then suddenly my heart began beating at a tremendous rate as I divined
the reason! It was intended this night for our airships to reach
London, and they desired that I should be a witness. What folly! What
folly! What incomparable insanity to risk the life of a high Officer
of Intelligence, to place him in such horrible jeopardy.
I felt myself grow pale, but then with an effort I braced up. I was a
German! We Germans fear God and nothing else, and, besides, I thought
there might not be an air-raid after all.
But what satisfaction I got out of that thought was quickly
dissipated. Suddenly an ominous sound came to me. A double “boom!” far
away and to the east, was followed by three staccato explosions.
Another bomb fell, and suddenly the whole of the eastern sky was
illuminated by the tracing fingers of searchlights.
“Boom!” the sound was growing nearer and my mouth was dry. I felt
choking. I loosened my collar and wiped the sweat from my forehead and
stood up, my knees trembling.
I have thought the matter over since and I have come to the conclusion
that my agitation might be explained in this way, that I was trembling
with pride in the fearless exploits of our gallant airmen, those
intrepid messengers of death who sailed the midnight skies fearless of
foe; that I perspired because the liver sandwich was perhaps a little
too highly flavoured. Anyway, the cursed things were coming closer and
who knows what mistakes a blundering fool of a pilot might make. The
searchlights were suddenly extinguished, the guns were silent, and for
ten minutes I heard no sound save a faint but ever-growing-nearer hum
of an engine in the sky. Then there was a shrieking whistle, a crash
that seemed to shake the very earth, a blinding fan of flame and then
silence. In my rage I shook my fist at the sky.
“Stupid jackasses, miserable, bat-eyed swine-hound!” I cried. “Have
you not the highest instructions in your pockets to avoid bombing an
Intelligence Officer?”
The cursed thing passed overhead. It was roaring like a railway train
passing through a tunnel. I saw the bulk of it outlined against the
stars and then I saw something else, a little black dot that moved and
swayed against the sky.
I thought it might be some infernal machine and I nearly fainted.