Читать книгу Eve's Island - Edgar Wallace - Страница 5

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The privilege of interviewing Ernest George Stuckey was granted by the Secretary of Home Affairs. The interview took place in the large prison in a suburb of London known as Wormwood Scrubbs. Here in the presence of two warders Stuckey told me his end of the story. A tall good-looking man, of smart appearance despite the hideous khaki of his prison clothes, the man looked what he was—an ex-soldier. He sat at the end of a ten-foot deal table and I at the other. The warders sat midway between us, one at each side of the table.

"I WAS at one time messenger at the Admiralty, but I am now undergoing sentence of twelve months' hard labour for a crime under the Official Secrets Act. Prior to my entering the service of the Admiralty," said Stuckey, "I was a corporal in the Artillery. I know the record room in the old Admiralty buildings, and was for some time in charge. There were many documents filed for reference to which I had access. They were confidential documents, but 'confidential' is only a phrase, so far as certain army and navy documents are concerned, and is frequently added to a form or letter merely in accordance with regulations, when the contents are of no especial value either to the sender or the recipient.

"I have often amused myself by looking through some of the dockets, but I have seldom found anything worth the search. I might explain to you that my only object was to gratify an idle curiosity and to fill in the time.

"I remember reading Captain Ford's report on Tatham Island. It was numbered Ch. 7743, 1897. I believe the 'Ch' stands for 'Charter,' the name of the ship commanded by the Captain. This report interested me very much, as I am naturally of an imaginative and romantic disposition, and I have spent many hours 'making up' impossible stories about the island, and dreamt all kinds of wonderful dreams regarding its possibilities. I knew, and know Captain Ford's report by heart, and I could draw a plan of the island almost blindfolded. It was in 1899 that I first saw the chart, and became interested in it. Towards the end of that year the South African War broke out, and I was mobilized with the reserve and proceeded to South Africa on board the Drayton Grange.

"We were attached to General French for the greater part of the campaign, but towards the end, when the condition in the Cape Colony became serious, I was sent down with half a battery, under Captain Powell, of the Royal Horse Artillery, to join Henniker's column.

"It was very hard work, for Henniker kept us going day and night. He had half a regiment of a newly raised corps of irregulars with us, Kitchener's Fighting Scouts, as tough a lot as you could imagine, but tip-top fighters. That is where I first saw Captain Tatham.

"He was a tall man with a ready laugh, and eyes that looked you through and through, yet with a curious amused look, as if you were a new kind of caterpillar. He was a rare man when it came to fighting. He never seemed to know what fear was.

"I think he had been one of the original Rhodesian pioneers. I liked the look of him the moment I saw him, and, although he was an officer and I was one of the rank and file, we got quite chummy after a bit.

"This may sound strange, but it must be remembered that on active service, discipline, or what I might call ceremonial discipline, becomes relaxed; and then again, an officer of an irregular force is not so strict in his relations with men as is an officer of the standing army.

"In the course of a chat with him one night I mentioned the Ford report, and he was very much interested. He got me to tell him half a dozen times over, and then I drew the map for him and gave him some rough idea as to the pictures that were taken by the kite.

"The 'highly mineralized' paragraph in the report excited him most, and the next night he wrote down as much as I could remember of Captain Ford's statement in his field pocket-book.

"I thought he was American by his accent, and I was pretty sure I was right when he told me that he was a 'cosmopolitan,' because that is the name the Americans give themselves when they know little of their own country.

"He told me he had done a lot of prospecting, and could 'smell gold.' As far as I remember he commanded No. 2 Squadron of the Scouts, and his men were devoted to him. They were all his own men, men he had trekked with, and prospected with, and gone hunting with, and he used to call them by their Christian names, and more often than not they called him 'Ned.'

"What struck me about him was his extraordinary power of concentration. I've seen him sitting by his fire for hours on end, staring into the flame, with a look on his face such as I have seen on those of Buddhist priests in Burma.

"When he had finished thinking you could see he had whatever plan his mind was working at all cut and dried, and with no single detail unprovided for, and, whether it was a farm raid, or a bit of scouting, or a pitched battle, he had reviewed every possible combination of circumstances and provided for every contingency.

"This is how he struck me. I was brigaded with him until about six months before the end of the war, when he was sent with his regiment into the Pietersburg district, which is north of Pretoria, and I did not see him again until after the war.

"I heard rumours through some of his men whom I met at Wynberg Hospital—I was wounded in a fight with De Wet—that he was quarrelling with the Government over looted cattle.

"It appeared that there was a dispute as to his share of the prize money. I guess it was not his personal share that affected him, as much as the thought that his men were being unjustly treated. The upshot of it was that the Government behaved rather badly, and he came out of the business much poorer than when he went in.

"It was in June, 1902, that I met him again. I had taken my discharge, and was back again at the Admiralty, when I received a note from him asking me to meet him at Fregiloni's Restaurant off the Strand.

"He was still his old careless self, but looked curiously unnatural in his civilian clothing. He is the sort of man you cannot imagine out of riding-boots and slouch hat. I noticed that he appeared to be very poor. His boots were patched; the edge of his collar was frayed, and his suit was obviously a ready-made one. We had a modest dinner, for which he paid, tipping the waiter handsomely. He told me he was in London with one of his men trying to raise money for an 'expedition.'

"The remainder of his squadron was at Cape Town waiting to hear from him. I asked how much money he wanted, and he said carelessly, 'About fifty thousand dollars'—which is one thousand pounds.

"Apparently he did not know a soul in London, and so far he had found no capitalist willing to advance him the money, or indeed any money at all.

"He also informed me that he had been offered a curious kind of a job by a Spanish-American firm in the City. He did not specify what it was, or what was its particular character. He had gone to the firm in the hope of raising the money, and they had apparently offered him an alternative adventure.

"I gathered this much from the scraps of talk he let fall. Apparently he had entertained the idea and had almost accepted, for he had gone into the matter very deeply, and there was a scene when he backed out, and a most solemn exchange of promises of secrecy. It sounded very mysterious, and at one time I thought Captain Tatham was romancing.

"He said he was returning to the Cape in a week, but there were one or two things to be done. I told him that I had a little money saved, some £20 in all, and that I was willing to lend him that, and, to my consternation, he accepted my offer readily. 'Every little helps now,' he said. The next day I sent the money to an address he gave me, and he sent back a receipt and a promissory note for £20.

"I did not see him again. Two days later I saw a paragraph in the evening papers that was headed 'A Remarkable Theft.' It was to the effect that some carmen engaged by Thomas Stence and Company, the balloon makers, had been instructed to deliver a small balloon at Hurlingham to the order of Count Castini, the famous aeronaut.

"Whilst the carman was taking his tea at a coffee shop in Brentford High Street, two men extracted the bale in which the little balloon was packed and made off with it.

"As one of the men wore the leather apron of a carter, the bystanders did not suspect anything, and the two thieves were allowed to go unchallenged. A full description of the men was published, and I had no difficulty in recognizing in the 'carman with the leather apron,' Captain Tatham.

"A week later he sailed, and I got a note from him, posted at Southampton, in which he remarked that 'despite almost overwhelming difficulties, we are slowly acquiring the equipment necessary to the successful issue of our expedition.' I was a little bewildered at the time, but very soon I began to realize the significance of his theft. I did not see Captain Tatham again. I have never seen him since.

"On October 28, 1906, a few days after the sensational victory of 'The Scout' in the Cesarewitch, I received by District Messenger a parcel despatched from the Chancery Lane Branch. Opening it, I discovered yet another parcel done up in wax paper. On the outside was fastened a label which read, 'It shall be returned to ye a hundred-fold—Ned Tatham.'

"Unwrapping the inner parcel I found a hundred banknotes each for £20. They were done up in bundles of fifty, and there were two such bundles. In December, of last year, in consequence of what transpired at Tatham Island, there was a departmental inquiry, as a result of which I was charged under Section 3 (c) of the Official Secrets Act—

"'Being entrusted in confidence with any document or information relating to... the military or naval affairs of His Majesty, and wilfully and in breach of such confidence communicating the same, when in the interest of the State it ought not to be communicated.'

"I was tried at the New Bailey, and sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment with hard labour.

"I have not since received any communication from President Tatham, nor have I ever heard of Mr. Hackitt or of the girl Eve Smith.

"The money he sent me is at my bank, the Court having decided that the payment was in relation to my loan to Tatham, and not to be regarded as remuneration for information received."