The Spy in Black

Part I

The Narrative of Lieutenant von Belke (Of the German Navy)

I

The Landing

If anyone had been watching the bay that August night (which, fortunately for us, there was not), they would have seen up till an hour after midnight as lonely and peaceful a scene as if it had been some inlet in Greenland. The war might have been waging on another planet. The segment of a waning moon was just rising, but the sky was covered with clouds, except right overhead where a bevy of stars twinkled, and it was a dim though not a dark night. The sea was as flat and calm as you can ever get on an Atlantic coast—a glassy surface, but always a gentle regular bursting of foam upon the beach. In a semicircle the shore rose black, towering at either horn (and especially on the south) into high dark cliffs.

I suppose a bird or two may have been crying then as they were a little later, but there was not a light nor a sign of anything human being within a hundred miles. If one of the Vikings who used to live in those islands had revisited that particular glimpse of the moon, he could never have guessed that his old haunts had altered a tittle. But if he had waited a while he would have rubbed his eyes and wondered. Right between the headlands he would have seen it dimly:—a great thing that was not a fish rising out of the calm water, and then very stealthily creeping in and in towards the southern shore.

When we were fairly on the surface I came on deck and gazed over the dark waters to the darker shore, with—I don’t mind confessing it now—a rather curious sensation. To tell the truth, I was a little nervous, but I think I showed no sign of it to Wiedermann.

“You have thought of everything you can possibly need?” he asked in a low voice.

“Everything, sir, I think,” I answered confidently.

“No need to give you tips!” he said with a laugh.

I felt flattered—but still my heart was beating just a little faster than usual!

In we crept closer and closer, with the gentlest pulsation of our engines that could not have been heard above the lapping of the waves on the pebbles. An invisible gull or two wheeled and cried above us, but otherwise there was an almost too perfect stillness. I could not help an uncomfortable suspicion that someone was watching. Someone would soon be giving the alarm, someone would presently be playing the devil with my schemes. It was sheer nonsense, but then I had never played the spy before—at least, not in wartime.

Along the middle of the bay ran a beach of sand and pebbles, with dunes and grass links above, but at the southern end the water was deep close inshore, and there were several convenient ledges of rock between the end of this beach and the beginning of the cliffs. The submarine came in as close as she dared, and then, without an instant’s delay, the boat was launched. Wiedermann, myself, two sailors, and the motor-bicycle just managed to squeeze in, and we cautiously pulled for the ledges.

The tide was just right (we had thought of everything, I must say that), and after a minute or two’s groping along the rocks, we found a capital landing. Wiedermann and I jumped ashore as easily as if it had been a quay, and my bicycle should have been landed without a hitch. How it happened I know not, but just as the sailors were lifting it out, the boat swayed a little and one of the clumsy fellows let his end of it slip. A splash of spray broke over it; a mere nothing, it seemed at the time, and then I had hold of it and we lifted it on to the ledge.

Wiedermann spoke sharply to the man, but I assured him no harm had been done, and between us we wheeled the thing over the flat rocks, and pulled it up to the top of the grass bank beyond.

“I can manage all right by myself now,” I said. “Goodbye, sir!”

He gave my hand a hard clasp.

“This is Thursday night,” he said. “We shall be back on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday nights, remember.”

“The British Navy and the weather permitting!” I laughed.

“Do not fear!” said he. “I shall be here, and we shall get you aboard somehow. Come any one of those nights that suits him.”

“That suits him?” I laughed. “Say rather that suits Providence!”

“Well,” he repeated, “I’ll be here anyhow. Good luck!”

We saluted, and I started on my way, wheeling my bicycle over the grass. I confess, however, that I had not gone many yards before I stopped and looked back. Wiedermann had disappeared from the top of the bank, and in a moment I heard the faint sounds of the boat rowing back. Very dimly against the grey sea I could just pick out the conning tower and low side of the submarine. The gulls were still crying, but in a more sombre key, I fancied.

So here was I, Conrad von Belke, lieutenant in the German Navy, treading British turf underfoot, cut off from any hope of escape for three full days at least! And it was not ordinary British turf either. I was on the holy of holies, actually landed on those sacred, jealously-guarded islands (which, I presume, I must not even name here), where the Grand Fleet had its lair. As to the mere act of landing, well, you have just seen that there was no insuperable difficulty in stepping ashore from a submarine at certain places, if the conditions were favourable and the moment cunningly chosen; but I proposed to penetrate to the innermost sanctuary, and spend at least three days there—a very different proposition!

I had been chosen for this service for three reasons: because I was supposed to be a cool hand in what the English call a “tight place”; because I could talk English not merely fluently, but with the real accent and intonation—like a native, in fact; and I believe because they thought me not quite a fool. As you shall hear, there was to be one much wiser than I to guide me. He was indeed the brain of this desperate enterprise, and I but his messenger and assistant. Still, one wants a messenger with certain qualities, and as it is the chief object of this narrative to clear my honour in the eyes of those who sent me, I wish to point out that they deliberately chose me for this job—I did not select myself—and that I did my best.

It was my own idea to take a motor-bicycle, but it was an idea cordially approved by those above me. There were several obvious advantages. A motorcyclist is not an uncommon object on the roads even of those out-of-the-way islands, so that my mere appearance would attract no suspicion; and besides, they would scarcely expect a visitor of my sort to come ashore equipped with such an article. Also, I would cover the ground quickly, and, if it came to the worst, might have a chance of evading pursuit. But there was one reason which particularly appealed to me: I could wear my naval uniform underneath a suit of cyclist’s overalls, and so if I were caught might make a strong plea to escape the fate of a spy; in fact, I told myself I was not a spy—simply a venturesome scout. Whether the British would take the same view of me was another question! Still, the motorcycle did give me a chance.

My first task was to cover the better part of twenty miles before daybreak and join forces with “him” in the very innermost shrine of this sanctuary—or rather, on the shore of it. This seemed a simple enough job; I had plenty of time, the roads, I knew, were good, nobody would be stirring (or anyhow, ought to be) at that hour, and the arrangements for my safe reception were, as you shall hear, remarkably ingenious. If I once struck the hard main road, I really saw nothing that could stop me.

The first thing was to strike this road. Of course I knew the map by heart, and had a copy in my pocket as a precaution that was almost superfluous, but working by map-memory in the dark is not so easy when one is going across country.

The grassy bank fell gently before me as the land sloped down from the cliffs to the beach, and I knew that within a couple of hundred yards I should find a rough road which followed the shore for a short way, and then when it reached the links above the beach, turned at right angles across them to join the highroad. Accordingly I bumped my motorcycle patiently over the rough grass, keeping close to the edge of the bank so as to guide myself, and every now and then making a detour of a few yards inland to see whether the road had begun. The minutes passed, the ground kept falling till I was but a little above the level of the glimmering sea, the road ought to have begun to keep me company long ago, but never a sign of it could I find. Twice in my detours I stumbled into what seemed sand-holes, and turned back out of them sharply. And then at last I realised that I had ceased to descend for the last hundred yards or more, and in fact must be on the broad stretch of undulating sea links that fringed the head of the bay. But where was my road?

I stopped, bade myself keep quite cool and composed, and peered round me into the night. The moon was farther up and it had become a little lighter, but the clouds still obscured most of the sky and it was not light enough to see much. Overhead were the stars; on one hand the pale sea merged into the dark horizon; all around me were low black hummocks that seem to fade into an infinity of shadows. The gulls still cried mournfully, and a strong pungent odour of seaweed filled the night air. I remember that pause very vividly.

I should have been reckless enough to light a cigarette had I not feared that our submarine might still be on the surface, and Wiedermann might see the flash and dub me an idiot. I certainly needed a smoke very badly and took some credit to myself for refraining (though perhaps I ought really have given it to Wiedermann). And then I decided to turn back, slanting, however, a little away from the sea so as to try and cut across the road. A minute or two later I tumbled into a small chasm and came down with the bicycle on top of me. I had found my road.

The fact was that the thing, though marked on the large-scale map as a road of the third, fourth, or tenth quality (I forget which), was actually nothing more or less than three parallel crevasses in the turf filled with loose sand. It was into these crevasses that I had twice stumbled already. Now with my back to the sea and keeping a yard or two away from this wretched track, but with its white sand to guide me, I pushed my motorcycle laboriously over the rough turf for what seemed the better part of half an hour. In reality I suppose it was under ten minutes, but with the night passing and that long ride before me, I never want a more patience-testing job. And then suddenly the white sand ceased. I stepped across to see what was the matter, and found myself on a hard highroad. It was a branch of the main road that led towards the shore, and for the moment I had quite forgotten its existence. I could have shouted for joy.

“Now,” I said to myself, “I’m off!”

And off I went, phut-phut-phutting through the cool night air, with a heart extraordinarily lightened. That little bit of trouble at the start had made the rest of the whole wild enterprise seem quite simple now that it was safely over.

I reached the end of this branch, swung round to the right into the highroad proper and buzzed along like a tornado. The sea by this time had vanished, but I saw the glimmer of a loch on my left, and close at hand low walls and dim vistas of cultivated fields. A dark low building whizzed by, and then a gaunt eerie-looking standing stone, and then came a dip and beyond it a little rise in the ground. As I took this rise there suddenly came upon me a terrible sinking of the heart. Phut-phut! went my cycle, loudly and emphatically, and then came a horrible pause. Phut! once more; then two or three feeble explosions, and then silence. My way stopped; I threw over my leg and landed on the road.

“What the devil!” I muttered.

I had cleaned the thing, oiled it, seen that everything was in order; what in heaven’s name could be the matter? And then with a dreadful sensation I remembered that wave of salt water.