The adventures of Heine
way to the hold and brought me up to the galley, for I should explain
that he was the ship’s cook. Here I was able to wash myself in a pail
and to take the little nourishment which he gave me. Just before
daybreak and when I was preparing to return to my submarine dungeon,
the thud of the screw ceased.
“Are we stopping?” I asked my friend, the cook.
He went out on to the deck and presently returned.
“Yes,” he said, “you had better stay here. There is an English patrol
coming alongside.”
I could hear nothing but the whine of the wind and the ceaseless roar
of the sea, and the first thing I heard was the sound of voices on the
deck just outside the galley.
It was an English naval officer speaking.
“You have a stowaway on board, a German agent,” said the voice; “oh,
yes, I know you are not aware of the fact, but he is here. You can
either search the ship and bring him up or we will save you the
trouble.”
I looked at the cook, and the cook looked at me.
“Herr Heine,” he said sadly, “there is only one thing to do. They will
find you--they are certain to find you. This is a small ship.”
I drew myself up and straightened my shoulders. Pushing open the door
I stepped out to the deck in the light of the dawn.
“I am the man you seek,” I said proudly.
I had to climb down the rope ladder on to a bobbing little
motor-launch, to the well of which I was conducted. We were very near
land and I supposed (and here I was right) that the land was Ireland,
that down-trodden nation, the sport and mock of the misgoverning
English.
The motor-launch ran into a little harbour and came up by the side of
the jetty. A man in a long military overcoat was pacing up and down,
but stopped when the boat reached the landing stage. I sprang on to
the steps and mounted to the quay.
“Had a good time?” said the voice I hated more than all voices.
“Major Haynes,” I said with dignity, “I have not had a good time.”
“I am sorry to hear it. Anyway you have got the soot off your face, I
am happy to see. You are looking quite white, Heine. Come and have
breakfast.”
I accompanied him mutely to a little one-storeyed hotel which faced
the landing stage.
“You had better go up and tidy yourself,” he said, “I have engaged a
room for you.”
I bowed and followed the hall-porter, who was the only servant up at
this hour of the morning. He opened the door and showed me into a
room, and to my amazement I found all my trunks on the bed. One had
been opened and my razors and shaving apparatus were neatly laid out.
Over the rail of a chair hung my best suit, and my patent boots,
nicely polished, stood neatly against the wall.
I shaved, washed, and changed, and in half an hour I presented myself
in the dining-room where, to my surprise, a good breakfast was
waiting, Major Haynes being already at the table engaged in reading
what appeared to be a volume of poetry.
“Well, Heine,” he said, “your travels are nearly over, and I think
that some explanation is due to you.”
I bowed again, though it was a difficult performance, since I was at
that moment balancing a piece of fried egg upon my knife.
“Try the fork,” said Major Haynes.
Really this man’s inquisitive eyes saw everything.
“The fact is, Heine, we knew all about you before you arrived in
England. We knew you were at the head of the organization, we knew
your ways, your habits, your abnormal conceit--you don’t mind my
speaking frankly, do you?”
“Not at all,” I said stiffly. “I am in your power.”
“And we knew that wherever the corpse was there would the vultures be
gathered, or, to put it better, wherever was the magnet there would be
the iron filings. If we kept you going and left you alone, we always
knew where to look for your workers, who were ever so much more
dangerous than you. We thought once or twice of taking you,” he said
reflectively, “but I persuaded the power that it would pay in the long
run to leave you alone. And it has paid,” he said, “all the satellites
that revolve about you have been taken and destroyed. New suns will
arise and attract new planets, and in course of time will be dealt
with, but the period of danger has passed.”
“And now, I suppose,” said I miserably, “having no further use for me
you are going to finish me off?”
“Exactly,” said Major Haynes, with great cheerfulness, “you shall go
back to America, Heine, as an awful example to all spies. In that
capacity you will still be useful to us. You will at least be able to
tell them something of the difficulties that await a man who tried to
get out of England even with a forged passport. Believe me, it is just
as difficult to get in, unless we want you in.”
“You are going to let me go free?”
He nodded.
“The outward-bound _Cremanic_ calls here by arrangement in two hours’
time. You will be taken out in a motor-launch and put on board. Your
cabin is 143 and you will find it quite comfortable.”
He put his hand in his pocket and took out a flat case which he
opened.
“Here is your passport,” he said.
I took the passport in my hand and read the description of myself,
even my photograph was pasted on. I was described as “Heine.”
“Occupation: German Spy.” “Reason for travel: By Special Deportation
Order 64731. The British Government having no further need of his
services.”
To my mind the cruellest thing was the photograph which showed me in
that infernal clergyman’s garb. Underneath was written, “Religion:
Church of England.”
I looked at Major Haynes.
“You have spared me no humiliation,” I said, and there were tears in
my eyes, for remember what position I had held in the service.
“Oh, yes, I have,” said Major Haynes, “I might have taken a flashlight
photograph of you as a sweep. You’ve no idea how funny you looked.”
Two hours later I stood upon the first-class passenger deck of the
_Cremanic_ watching with folded arms the land sinking slowly astern.
Farewell! False Albion! Thy doom is assured! The ever-victorious
German U-boat----
I stopped suddenly and thought, then turning to a sailor I asked: “Is
there any danger of being torpedoed?”
“They gets a ship sometimes, sir,” he said with callous indifference.
“But when we sees ’em we shoots at ’em and that generally frightens
’em off. If every passenger keeps his eye skinned there ain’t much
danger.”
I spent the rest of the voyage with my eyes skinned.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE U-BOAT ADVENTURE
I have often remarked to good friends of mine that there is evidence
of the fact that Providence has a special interest in my welfare. We
Germans are naturally a devout and religious people, and I need only
remind you that Luther, the Father of the Reformation, was a German,
to bring home to you the fact that in the ground of the Fatherland,
piety and solemn-view-taking flourish like the green bay tree.
Charity, forbearance, lawfulness and lovingkindness are as the breath
of good German nostrils, and he who disputes this statement is a liar
and a rascal.
As for the editors of the English and Scottish press, by heavens! I
would that I had my way on them. I would flog them till they all but
died and brand them with hot irons “liar,” turning them loose to beg
their way from door to door. Woe to ye, Scribes and Pharisees, if
Heine ever sits in London as Administrator of the Hostile Press!
Such a thing is not unlikely.
When you received my last, did you not hourly expect to find me
knocking at your door? I told you of Major Haynes, the so-called
Intelligence Officer, and of how he put me on a ship sailing for
America. But he little knew his Heine! He little realized that the
modest and unassuming man who bade him a courteous farewell and walked
with careless dignity to the waiting boat was turning over certain
schemes in his head.
As I stood on the broad deck of the English steamer and shook my fist
at Perfidious Ireland, I realized in a flash what my beloved
Fatherland was losing by my departure from a land in which I had
rendered Germany so many signal services. Oh, thou Bride of the Rhine!
Thou Iron Child of Valour, I, Heine, the least of Thy Servants shed a
tear of sorrow that thou hast endured the loss of one loyal heart,
faithful and restless in his efforts against a World of Enemies!
Prosper, beloved of the Gods! Let Victory be added unto Victory!
“Keep your eye skinned for submarines,” said a kindly meaning mariner,
and these words brought me to the alert. My situation was serious. It
could not be known in Berlin that I had sailed, and the stupid fools
of U-boat commanders would be ignorant of my presence on the British
ship.
At the thought a cold shiver of horror percolated through my spinal
column.
What tragedy if such be the end of a splendid career. I skinned my
eyes throughout the day and twice by my loud cries saved disaster,
once from a floating mine shaped like a wooden barrel (such is the
supreme cunning of our race) and once from a U-boat which constantly
came up and dived.
The stupid English said that the first was only a barrel and that the
up-and-down-diving U-boat was a porpoise, but Heine’s eyes are sharp.
I did not attempt to make friends for the voyage, and rejected with
scorn the suggestion of a frivolous American that I should play poker.
Imagine playing poker in the midst of a great war! I asked him if he
could play skat, but he knew nothing of that splendid and truly German
game.
I can give a great deal of information about the methods that are
employed to convoy ships through what is called the Danger Zone, and
in due course I may write a report on the subject, or rather I should
have written a report but for circumstances which I will reveal at a
much later stage. Of how we zig-zagged about, first east and then
west, then north and then south, of the balloons and aeroplanes and
torpedo boats that watched us there seemed no end.
My German heart swelled with pride as I thought that all these
precautions were forced by our incomparable U-boats.
I was sitting on the deck waiting for the sound of the dinner-bell,
thinking out how superior the German race is to all its kind and how
it must inevitably, sooner or later, conquer the world, when one of
the ship’s officers passed by. I took off my hat to him and bowed and
he gave me a little jerk of his head and passed on. Suddenly, however,
he stopped.
“You want to keep your eyes skinned,” he said with that brutal
gruffness which is so characteristic of the English.
“Sir,” I said with a little smile, “my eyes are so thoroughly skinned
that I can hardly shut them at night.”
Instead of laughing at this little jest, he made a grunting, pig-like
noise.
“There’s a U-boat somewhere about here,” he said, “the patrols have
lost sight of it. I see you are prepared.”
I was wearing an unsinkable waistcoat, which I had purchased from the
steward, the life-belt, which we are compelled to wear, but which I
should have worn under any circumstances, a pair of thick waterproof
boots, and my pockets were filled with brandy flask and sandwiches, in
case of accident. We Germans are prepared for anything, as I have
remarked before.
“Do you mean to say,” I said in alarm, “that there is a chance of--of
unpleasant happenings?”
“A big chance,” he said, “fortunately we have got very few passengers,
so I am not disguising the fact to many of them that we are in some
danger.”
“But,” I protested indignantly, “what about the boasted patrol boats?
Where are your many vaunted aeroplanes? Why are we not preceded by
warships to take the shock, which, according to the lying statements
in the daily papers, is the custom?”
“Probably they didn’t know you were coming on board,” he said with
true British insolence, and passed on.
The dinner-bell rang, but I remained on deck. I would take no risks.