Part 25 (2/2)

The really important part of the _English_ Channel is about to become German. For a little time we leave you the surface, but Germany will own the rest. Your navy is about to receive a horrible surprise. We've caught you napping. While Britain was ruling the sea we Germans have been experimenting with it. Our visible fleet is good, but not good enough, so we allowed your naval superiority to keep you quiet until we had perfected our invisible fleet. We are ready now. We possess three submarines to your one; and can build more, and bigger, and better under-sea boats than you. Do you realise what that means? Already we have sunk four of your best cruisers, and they never saw the vessel that destroyed them. We are playing havoc with your mercantile marine.

Britain is girdled with mines and torpedoes. No s.h.i.+p can enter or leave any of your ports without incurring the almost unavoidable risk of----”

A rat scampered across one of the speaker's feet, and startled him.

He swore, dropped the cigarette, and lighted another, the third. Like every junior officer of the German _corps d'elite_, he had sedulously copied the manners and bearing of the commissioned ranks in the British army. But your true German is neurotic; the rat had scratched the veneer. Meanwhile the rope rose quickly half-way to the trap-door; it fell again when Von Halwig donned the prophet's mantle once more.

”We can not only ruin and starve you,” he said exultantly, ”but we have guns which will beat a way for our troops from Calais to Dover against all the s.h.i.+ps you dare ma.s.s in those waters. We have you bested in every way. Each German company takes the field with more machine-guns than a British regiment. We have high explosives you never heard of. While you were playing polo and golf our chemists were busy in their laboratories.”

His voice rose as he reeled off this litany of war. His perfect command of English was not proof against the guttural clank and crash of German. He became a veritable German talking English, rather than an accomplished linguist using a foreign tongue. Oddly enough, his next tirade showed that he was half-aware of the change. ”Old England is done, Captain Dalroy,” he chanted. ”Young Germany is about to take her place. The world must learn to speak German, not English. Six months from now I'll begin to forget your makes.h.i.+ft language. Six months from now the German Eagle will flaunt in the breeze as securely in London as it flies to-day in Berlin and Brussels, and, it may be, in Paris. If I'm lucky, and get through the war----_Gott in Himm_----”

With a sudden vicious swoop the noose settled on Von Halwig's shoulders, and was jerked taut. A master-hand made that cast. No American cowboy ever placed la.s.so more neatly on the horns of unruly steer. At one instant the rope was swinging back and forth noiselessly; at the next, rising under the impetus of a gentle flick, it whirled over the Prussian's head and tightened around his neck. He tore madly at it with both hands, but was already lifted off his feet, and in process of being hauled upward with an almost incredible rapidity. There was a momentary delay when his head reached the level of the trap-door; but Dalroy distinctly saw two hands grasp the struggling arms and heave the Guardsman's long body out of sight.

An astounding feature of this tragic episode was the absence of any outcry on the victim's part. He uttered no sound other than a stifled gurgle after that half-completed exclamation was stilled. Possibly, his dazed wits concentrated on the one frantic endeavour--to get rid of that horrible choking thing which had clutched at him from out of the surrounding obscurity.

And now a thick knotted rope plumped down until its end lay on the floor, and a rough-looking fellow, clothed like Maertz or Dalroy himself, descended with the ease and agility of a monkey. He was just the kind of s.h.a.ggy goblin one might expect to emerge from any such hiding-place; but he carried a slung rifle, and the bewildered prisoner, taking a few steps forward to greet his rescuer, realised that the weapon was a Lee-Enfield of the latest British army pattern.

”'Arf a mo', sir,” gurgled the new-comer in a husky and cheerful whisper. ”I'll 'old the rope till the next of ahr little knot 'as s.h.i.+nned dahn. Then I'll cut yer loose, an' we'll get the wind up ahtside. Didjever 'ear such a gas-bag as that bloomin' Jarman? Lord luv'

a duck, 'e couldn't 'arf tork! But s.h.i.+ney Black, one of ahrs, 'as just shoved a bynit through 'is gizzard, so _that_ c.o.c.k won't crow agine!”

Dalroy owned only a reader's knowledge of colloquial c.o.c.kney. He inferred, rather than actually understood, that several British soldiers were secreted in the loft, and that one of them, named ”s.h.i.+ney Black,”

had closed Von Halwig's career in the twinkling of an eye.

By this time another man had reached the ground. He seized the rope and steadied it, and a third appeared. The first gnome whipped out a knife, freed Dalroy, unslung his rifle, and picked up the electric torch, which he held so that its beam filled the doorway. Man after man came down.

Each was armed with a regulation rifle; Dalroy, for once thrown completely off his balance, became dimly aware that in every instance the equipment included bayonet, bandolier, and haversack.

The cohort formed up, too, as though they had rehea.r.s.ed the procedure in the gymnasium at Aldershot. There was no muttered order, no uncertainty.

Rifles were unslung, bayonets fixed, and safety catches turned over soundlessly.

Conquering his blank amazement as best he could, Dalroy inquired of the first sprite how many the party consisted of, all told.

”Twelve an' the corp'ral, sir,” came the prompt answer. ”The lucky thirteen we calls ahrselves. An' we wanted a bit o' luck ter leg it all the w'y from Monze to this 'ole. Not that we 'adn't ter kill any Gord's quant.i.ty o' Yewlans when they troied ter be funny, an' stop us----Here's the corp'ral, sir.”

Dalroy was confronted by a clear-eyed man, whose square-shouldered erectness was not concealed by the unkempt clothes of a Belgian peasant.

Carrying the rifle at ”the slope,” and bringing his right hand smartly across to the small of the b.u.t.t, the leader of this lost legion announced himself.

”Corporal Bates, sir, A Company, 2nd Battalion of the Buffs. That German officer made out, sir, that you were in our army.”

”Yes, I am Captain Dalroy, of the 2nd Bengal Lancers.”

Corporal Bates became, if possible, even more clear-eyed.

”Stationed where last year, sir?”

”At Lucknow, with your own battalion.”

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