Part 13 (1/2)
”Camouflage!” said Willie suddenly. ”Fix one of us up like a pine tree. Then he won't see us.”
”Just the idea,” said Lew laughing.
”We'll have to use the smallest boy in the bunch,” said Captain Hardy, ”and that's you, Willie. Come. We'll see what we can do with you. Go get me some samples of pine bark and needles.”
Willie speedily got the desired objects. Captain Hardy examined them critically. ”You ought to have a dark brown suit, painted with irregular stripes, like branches, and dabs of green, like foliage.”
”Don't forget his face,” cried Roy in glee. ”That will have to be painted brown and green also.”
A laugh went up. ”I'm merely telling what ought to be done, Willie,”
said Captain Hardy rea.s.suringly, ”not what we shall do. We have to guard against observation by persons other than this spy. If the neighbors saw a boy going out of here garbed the way you want Willie fixed up, Roy, they would begin to ask questions. And we don't know what the spy's relations are with his neighbors. What we shall have to do is to dress Willie in clothes as nearly the color of the tree as possible. We can get shoes, stockings, and a suit of clothes to match the tree trunk. We can get a cap the shade of these pine-needles.
That leaves hands and face. They, too, must be disguised. A pair of gloves of the proper shade will take care of the hands. But what about the face?”
”Nothing for it but to paint it,” said Roy, his eyes dancing.
”I guess you're right,” said Captain Hardy. Willie made a wry face.
The captain saw him. ”The trench raiders blacken both their hands and faces when they steal out into No Man's Land at night,” he said. ”But we won't use real paint, Willie. We'll get some theatrical paint that comes off easily. I'll get the necessary materials at once.”
He noted down the sizes needed and went out. And it was well he acted so promptly. That very afternoon a message from the secret service informed them that more transports were sailing.
”Come with me and get on your pine tree outfit, Willie,” suggested their leader. ”You other boys go to your stations at once.”
Henry's task henceforth was to trail the driver of the roadster. He hurried away to his waiting motor-cycle. Lew was at the wireless key again. Roy scurried out to the pine grove, and Willie followed his captain to be ”camouflaged.” A few moments later, dressed in his new brown clothes, and a chocolate brown in complexion, he slipped from the house and joined Roy.
Impatiently they waited for the first transport to appear. It was a long time coming. But finally Willie picked it out with his gla.s.ses, far up the Bay, as it nosed its way steadily through the rolling waves.
Behind it was another transport. As the s.h.i.+ps drew near, Willie mounted as far up in the tree as he dared, crouching behind the tops of the surrounding trees, and hugging his own tree trunk, motionless, awaiting his opportunity to climb to his ultimate post. His heart beat fast. His legs shook slightly with excitement. He was trembling all over, so eager was he to make the ascent. On came the boats. Long ago they had pa.s.sed Robbin's Reef. Now they were well into the Narrows.
Suddenly the spy appeared at his window, sweeping the channel with his gla.s.ses, his hands shutting off his vision on the sides, like blinders on a horse. Quickly Willie scurried up the tree, wrapping himself closely about the slender trunk, concealing as much of his body as he could, and snuggling behind the spa.r.s.e clumps of foliage. Then he brought his gla.s.ses to bear, and sat silently studying the spy's house.
The interior of the dwelling was as he had guessed it to be. There was no part.i.tion wall in the forward part of the building, a single column upholding the ceiling, so that, above the low sash curtains, Willie could see entirely through the gla.s.sed-in room. This was more than comfortable. Willie saw a row of low book-shelves lining the north side of the great room. There were numerous fine pictures and plaster casts here and there. A piano stood in one corner, a talking-machine in another. The light within seemed to flicker, and Willie guessed that in the rear of the room, where he could not see it, a log was burning in an open fireplace; for the days were growing very chilly.
But before Willie could complete his observations, the spy turned from the window and walked toward a large, flat desk in the centre of the room. Willie shrank close against the tree and remained as motionless as a stone image. But the spy never once glanced out of the window.
He sank into a chair before the desk, switched on an electric desk light, and began to write on a piece of paper. Evidently he was arranging his message. When this was done to his satisfaction, he reached into the desk and drew forth a dollar. Willie could see it plainly as the spy laid it on his desk blotter, under the lamp.
Intently Willie strained forward. The spy leaned forward and fumbled about the bottom of his desk. His hands and arms were hidden and Willie could only conjecture what was happening. Then Willie gave a little gasp of surprise as the spy straightened up and laid on the blotter beside the dollar a curious little thing like nothing Willie had ever seen. Evidently it was of metal for it shone under the light.
Willie screwed up his face as he strained his eyes to identify the object. It seemed to be a disc of exactly the same size as the dollar.
Yet it was not solid, because Willie could see the blotter through it.
To Willie the thing resembled nothing so much as a spider-web. What it was, Willie could not even guess.
Meantime the spy had pulled open a drawer, from which he took a slender instrument, which also Willie could not identify. But evidently it had a sharp point; for the spy, after placing the disc on the dollar, scratched the milled edge of the coin with the little instrument, then he began to make marks here and there through the little disc, on the surface of the dollar. From time to time he turned the coin, and occasionally he looked at the writing on his paper. He seemed quite expert, for he worked fast. He finished his task and leaned over behind his desk, evidently to put the curious disc in its secret repository.
Quick as a flash, Willie slid from his exposed perch and safely gained the concealing shelter of the lower tree tops before the spy straightened up again. Willie climbed on down the tree and joined Roy at the usual observation post.
”What did you see?” asked Roy eagerly.
When Willie had told him, Roy groaned. ”Gee! That makes it all the harder. Now we've got to get one of those discs as well as a marked dollar before we can discover how they send their messages.”
The grocer's boy came and went. Roy trailed him back to the store, but prudently kept out of sight. There was nothing to be gained by entering the store again. Meantime Willie scrambled up to the house and related to Lew and his captain what he had seen. And they agreed with Roy that the problem, instead of being easier, had become more difficult.
CHAPTER XIII