Читать книгу The Day, or The Passing of a Throne - Fred M. White - Страница 11

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Billy Montague strolled into his club and dropped into an arm chair in the smoking room with a discontented sigh. He regarded himself as being one of Fortune's victims, but there were thousands of his own type all over the country suffering in the same way. Billy was a man of family, an old Etonian, who had seen a great deal of service with Paget's Horse during the Boer War.

"It's very rough upon me," he told his friends. "I know I am over fifty, but I am as hard as nails and I am the equal to any man half my age at anything outdoors. And yet I can't get a job because I got a bullet wound in my foot and I am not so spry as some of them. I tell you this idleness will drive me to drink."

Montague was still harping upon his favourite theme when the little knot in the smoking-room was added to by the appearance of Stuart Hallett. He did not look quite so calm and unconcerned as usual, for he was troubled in his mind over the strange disappearance of Rosslyn and his aeroplane. Two or three days had elapsed, and it was now Sunday evening, and yet no sign of Rosslyn had been seen. Nobody knew this as yet, but it would be necessary to disclose the fact before very long. So Stuart was uneasy in his mind.

"Well, how goes it, you lucky beggar?" Montague asked cheerfully. "Very fine to be fully occupied like you are. I say, old chap, can't you give us any sort of a job? Look at Pascoe yonder. He is positively starving for work."

The man called Pascoe smiled bitterly. He wondered what Montague would think if he knew how nearly he had hit the mark. For the terrible war was pressing hard upon many people who seemed to be beyond its grip. The nation had responded nobly enough to the call of the Empire in her hour of need. There were funds for those dependent on the Army and the Fleet, but no one seemed to have given heed to the vast classes of people suddenly plunged from prosperity into the abyss of semi-starvation. For these are the people who suffer in silence and feed on their pride. These are the people drawn from the ranks of the professions, solicitors, doctors, stockbrokers, and heads of mercantile houses who had woke up on that fateful Bank Holiday to find their occupations gone. Many a man who had deemed himself well off on the Saturday, was face to face with starvation on the Monday morning.

It seemed incredible, impossible, the dream of some gloomy pessimist. And yet there it was, there were thousands of hitherto luxurious households envying the peasant toiling in the fields. And Pascoe, good fellow and good sportsman as he was, smiled bitterly as he looked about the smoking room with its electric lights and liveried servants and thought how glad he would have been to exchange the choice cigar in his mouth and the liqueur by his side for a square meal of bread and cheese.

He could, of course, accept the cigar offered him by a friend, but he could not stoop to borrow a few shillings from the same generous colleague on many a sporting field. For this is one of the million little tragedies that cling to the skirts of war. The man was well dressed, apparently prosperous from tip to toe, but all the same no food had passed his lips since the previous day. Small wonder then that he looked up eager as a famished wolf when he scents the prey and waited for Hallett's reply. And Hallett knew pretty well what was passing in Pascoe's mind. He had his own sources of information.

"Oh, I have not forgotten you chaps," he said. "The papers are making a good deal of fuss about our system of dealing with German spies. Of course we don't say much, but there is a great deal more going on than we like—especially on the East Coast. Now both of you fellows speak German like natives, and I am sure you would not mind the hardships. I am enrolling a corps of spy scouts, who will have a free hand to do pretty well what they please. Of course it will be a paid job under Government control, and not without an element of danger. If you care to undertake it—"

"Oh, hang the pay," Montague cried.

"I wish I could say the same," Pascoe murmured. "I'll take on the job with pleasure, but—oh, hang it, Hallett, I have got to live somehow. Every penny of my money is invested in my brother-in-law's business in Bremen. Might just as well be at the bottom of the sea for the moment you know. And, well, I am dead broke. I'd do anything for an honest living."

"Oh, it is not a matter of money," Hallett said; he avoided Pascoe's eye for the moment. "You can draw on me for anything in reason, and don't spare expenses. Now listen—-"

Hallett dropped his voice to a whisper.

"There is something mysterious going on along the Coast between Aldeborough and Filey. I don't know what it is, and it will be your business to find it out. We have had one or two nasty Naval disasters up there, and it has got to be stopped. If I'd had my way when the War broke out I would have rounded up every German in the kingdom, registered or not registered, and packed them all off, from the millionaire in his castle down to the sweating little Jew tailor in Whitechapel. We are playing the game much too fairly."

Hallett's words found an echo in the breasts of his companions. More than once lately Britain had had cause to rue her generosity to the enemy within her gates. But that had always been her policy. Sure within the fortress of the seas and relying with a child-like faith on the Majestic Navy, it seemed to the millions at home a mean and cowardly thing to seek out the solitary unit for punishment. And deep down in the heart of the nation was, and is, a profound sympathy for the deluded German fed with lies and blasphemous philosophy and ground down under the iron heel of the greatest tyrant since the days of Caligula.

And perhaps it was because of this that the Angel of Mercy still held in check the iron hand of Necessity. London and the provinces were disposed to smile at the puny efforts of the spies that crept like flies about the face of the country. Their pinprick efforts mattered but little. London was safe, the great cities in the north were intact, people discussed the probability of an attack by air with smiles upon their faces. But there were those who knew better, and Stuart Hallett was one of them.

"That's all right then," he went on. "Now I want you to go up to Scarborough and get in touch with Inchcliffe. You know him?"

"Oh, Lord, yes," Montague exclaimed. "The latest member of the House of Lords captured by the musical hall stage. Married Daisy Otter, didn't he? Seems to have dropped out altogether."

"That's the man," Hallett said. "I am rather sorry for Inchcliffe. When he got married he went off in that big yacht of his somewhere off the map, and he managed to drift back to Southampton without hearing a word of all this trouble. Some of us thought he was shirking, anyway there was not a single job we could fit him into when he got back, and now he is brooding over his fate and cursing his unlucky star. Of course his marriage was a mistake, though Lady Inchcliffe is by no means a bad sort. Now, as you know, Inchcliffe has a master mariner's certificate and there is not a living soul who knows more of the East coast waters than he does. He has got one or two little gems in the way of electric launches, and it is one of his boasts that he can navigate the coast blindfold. Your game is to go and see him and root out these spies who are constantly signalling between Filey and Aldeborough. It will be a pretty hazardous job, but you won't mind that. I don't mind telling you that the attempt to scotch the German snake yonder has cost more than one good life already. I sent young Trevor a fortnight ago, and he has not been heard of since. He was followed by Nasmith last week, and his body was picked up in the sea not far from Harwich. We call them accidents, but you people can draw your own conclusions. I only warn you that this is going to be no child's play."

Montague nodded, and Pascoe's dark face grew serious.

"And those chaps call this war," the latter broke out angrily. "Upon my word, I don't see why we should not pay them out in their own coin. I'm a good bit of a Radical myself and I can't understand how it is that all the hoard of Socialists in the German Army submit so tamely to be driven into a war which they hate and loathe. Had we been half smart we should have had a paid spy in every German regiment preaching the doctrine of a German Republic. It'll all very well for us to live up to our ideals, but it is no end of a handicap in times like these. What's that?"

A booming sound that echoed through the smoking room and shook the windows cut off the rest of Pascoe's speech. One man looked at the other inquiringly, but nobody moved. Surely there was no danger anywhere near at hand. London was safe enough, the foe was a long way off, and the silver sheet of the Channel lay between.

A waiter with nothing to do for the moment strolled leisurely through the hall and stood on the steps gazing up into the hazy autumn sky. It was a warm night, though intensely dark, and the streets were thronged with people. Little or no news had come through from the western army for some days, and the war fever had for the moment subsided. London's teeming millions were spending their Sunday in before the outbreak of hostilities, secure in the belief of absolute safety. It is no easy matter to frighten a people whose capital has never echoed to the tramp of the conqueror's foot since her day of glory dawned. So London laughed and supped, listened to her Sunday concerts, and filled her churches. The sound of the explosion fell on deaf ears.

The waiter strolled back to the smoking room again.

"No sir, I didn't see anything, sir," he said in answer to Hallett's question. "Bit of an explosion, sir, I expect."

Then suddenly the noise came again, and every light in the smoking room shut off, leaving it in blank darkness.