Part 3 (1/2)

But I'll tell you what happened last night, sir; them there lights showed again up yonder.”

”That is precisely what I have been sent down to investigate,” said his interrogator.

”We are all certain there's something going on,” said the sentry, ”though they ain't been seen for ten days now.”

They stood side by side looking inland, and the staff officer, with his hands behind the back of his drab mackintosh, pressed the b.u.t.ton of a tiny electric torch rapidly three times.

The sentry was only a boy, and he talked volubly, not heeding the melancholy call of a sea-bird from the water.

”Ah, well, I think we shall have them to-night,” said the staff officer.

”I see you have still got the old Mark II.?”

”Yes, sir,” smiled the unsuspecting lad. ”They took the others away from us when we came down on this job.”

”Let me look at it,” said the staff captain, holding out his hand, and the moment his fingers closed round the rifle the boy dropped senseless on to the stones, felled by a smas.h.i.+ng blow from the heavy b.u.t.t.

”You'll do!” said his a.s.sailant, and, laying the rifle down and gathering up the skirts of his mackintosh, he walked deliberately into the sea!

A collapsible boat, rowed by two men in German naval uniforms, was rising and falling on the top of the tide, and in another moment the men were pulling out into the rain blur with their mysterious pa.s.senger.

No one spoke, until the nose of the boat met the dark grey hull of the submarine waiting less than a quarter of a mile out, and as the beam of a searchlight suddenly flashed through the mist, the top of the periscope sank noiselessly beneath the waves, and Captain Von Dussel, alias Van Drissel, sank with it.

”Good luck again, Kamerad?” inquired the commander as they stood in the conning-tower.

”The best of good luck this time, Heffer,” laughed the spy. ”How soon can you put me ash.o.r.e on the other side?”

”As soon as I have accomplished a little scheme of my own,” replied the commander of the U50, with a strange glitter in his eyes. ”The boat is coming out of Folkestone now.”

”That is not my affair,” said Von Dussel.

”No, it is mine,” replied the commander haughtily. ”In less than an hour I shall send her to the bottom.”

”You will do no such thing,” said the spy in a low piercing voice, producing a Browning pistol and clapping it to his head. ”In an hour I must be in France. The news I carry is worth the loss of forty Channel steamers. Hesitate another moment, and I will shoot you like a dog!”

CHAPTER III

”At Ten o'Clock Sharp!”

”Hawke!”

”Sir!” And the marksman of A Company jumped across the floor of the trench to the door of the dug-out with surprising alacrity, as the merry laughing face of Dennis Dashwood showed in the square hole in the wall of the parados.

From the moment Bob Dashwood had made Dennis known to Harry Hawke as ”my brother,” that worthy had attached himself to the new arrival with the same devotion he showed to the captain, and the more he saw of Dennis the more devoted he became.

”Hawke,” said the subaltern, ”I'm going over to-night, and I want three old hands to go with me. The Divisional C.O. wishes the enemy wire examined, and I've put in for the job. You can come if you fancy it.

What do you say?”

”I says yus!” cried Harry Hawke, with a widening of the grin that puckered his dirty, mahogany-coloured face. ”Better let me pick you out two more, sir, what knows the game.”