Читать книгу The Return of Grey Shadow - George E. Rochester - Страница 4

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The night was dark and bitterly cold. Outside a dimly-illumined hangar, somewhere behind the lines in France, a D.H.9 stood with engine ticking quietly over.

Inside the little flight office, warm and stuffy because of the glowing stove, four men were gathered—or, rather, three men and a youth.

One of the men was Major Lester, leader of the Secret Squadron, a band of German-speaking British pilots who carried out dangerous tasks on the other side of the lines. Another was Captain Cox, the squadron adjutant, and the third was Beefy Bates, a pilot of the Secret Squadron. The youth was Captain John Scott—Scotty to his pals—the youngest pilot of the squadron.

Unlike his three companions, Scotty was not in uniform. Beneath a long and ragged overcoat, which reached almost to his ankles, he was wearing the shabby attire of a German peasant.

“You know your orders, Scott,” said Major Lester. “Bates will take you over and land you on the moors south of Saarburg. From Saarburg, or from the most convenient railway station, you will proceed to Hamburg, where you will call on Johann Litz in the Nordstrasse. Litz is a sick man, and his call for assistance is urgent, so you will waste no time in getting to Hamburg.”

“I understand, sir,” nodded Scotty.

“Then good-bye and good luck,” said Major Lester, holding out his hand. “You will report back here when Litz is sufficiently well enough to carry on with his duties.”

A few moments later Scotty and Beefy Bates were walking through the darkness towards the hangars where the D.H.9 was warming up.

“Who exactly is this fellow Litz?” demanded Beefy curiously.

“A British Secret Service agent whose real name is Captain Weston,” said Scotty. “He runs a little ship chandler’s shop down by the docks in Hamburg, and he’s engaged in spying on the movements of German warships in the Elbe. He’s fallen ill and has sent a message through in code for someone to come and help him until he’s fit enough to get about again.”

“And you’ve clicked for the job, eh?” said Beefy. “Who’re you supposed to be when you arrive in Hamburg, anyway?”

“Emil Litz, Johann’s nephew from Ansbach,” replied Scotty. “I’m exempt from service with the colours owing to my lungs being groggy. The forged identification papers I’ve been given are stamped to that effect by the German military tribunals of Nuremberg and Munich.”

“Well, it sounds a straightforward enough job,” said Beefy. “But, all the same, I wish they’d chosen somebody else for the job instead of you.”

“Why?” demanded Scotty.

“Because the German anti-espionage service is getting as hot as mustard and there’s a reward of one hundred thousand marks on your head, dead or alive,” said Beefy grimly. “You’ll have to watch your step in Hamburg, old hoss, every minute of every hour of every day.”

“You can trust me for that,” said Scotty quietly. “I’ll be careful for Johann Litz’s sake, as well as my own.”

They reached the D.H.9, and, buttoning his leather flying coat up about his neck, Beefy swung himself up into the forward cockpit, whilst Scotty climbed nimbly up into the rear cockpit.

Running his engine up on brief but searching test, Beefy signalled to the waiting mechanics to whip away the chocks from in front of the undercarriage wheels. Next moment the D.H.9 was roaring across the darkened aerodrome to lift and go soaring up and up into the night.

Swinging on the climb, Beefy headed eastwards towards the trenches. They came into view, a long and tortuous line lit by star-shells and Verey lights, with here and there the slowly sweeping horizontal beam of a searchlight picking out the tangled barbed wire and shell-pocked shambles of No Man’s Land.

At eight thousand feet the D.H.9 roared across the line. And now the darkness was split by the golden beams of German searchlights which came stabbing up through the night, wheeling and scissoring in an attempt to pick up the fast-flying raider.

To port and starboard of the machine came the vivid, crimson flash of exploding shrapnel from the German anti-aircraft guns far below. But as yet they were firing blindly, for no searchlight had succeeded in picking up the raiding Englander.

Suddenly a darting, golden beam caught the machine, passed on, then whipped back to bathe the raider in brilliant illumination. Other searchlight beams flashed swiftly across the sky to concentrate on the D.H.9, but already Beefy had whipped forward his control-stick and was going earthwards in a screaming, twisting dive which shook off the golden beam.

Then back came the control-stick, the nose of the machine lifted, and as Beefy and Scotty roared on into Germany, the searchlights and anti-aircraft batteries began to close down one by one behind them. The D.H.9 was safely through the first barrage.

Not a light showed anywhere on the ground far below as the D.H.9 thundered on, for the Germans had long since learned by bitter experience to keep all lights shrouded from the hawk-like eyes of the British night flyers. Not that Beefy was engaged on a bombing raid this night. His job was to ferry Scotty safely across the lines into Germany and land him on the lonely moors south of Saarburg.

It was necessary to fly entirely by watch and compass, but every pilot of the Secret Squadron was an expert navigator, and at length the D.H.9 came gliding silent down through the darkness with engine ticking over, to land on the night-enshrouded moors.

“Well, here we are, old hoss!” exclaimed Beefy, when the machine had come bumping and jolting to a stop. “I’ll give you fifteen minutes to get away from here before I rev up and take off. Cheerio, and the best of luck!”

Scotty took Beefy’s hand in quick, firm clasp, then swung himself stiffly to the ground. For a moment or two he stood staring about him with eyes which by this time had become well attuned to the darkness. But nothing moved, nothing stirred, and not a sound broke the hushed and brooding stillness save the quiet hum of the gently running engine.

Satisfied that their secret landing had gone unobserved, Scotty spoke a final word of farewell to Beefy, then moved away from the machine and was swallowed up in the darkness.

Some fifteen minutes later, as he was tramping sturdily along a moorland road which led in the direction of Saarburg, Scotty heard the distant mounting roar of the D.H.9’s engine as Beefy opened up the throttle for the take-off.

The sound increased in volume, lifting up and up into the night sky; then, as Beefy swung westwards towards the far-distant trenches, the roar of the engine died gradually away, leaving the moors enwrapped once more in the silent pall of night.

Beefy had gone, and Scotty was alone in enemy country. It was far from being the first time the young pilot had played the dangerous rôle of spy, but as he trudged on towards Saarburg Scotty knew that until his mission was over Death would be always at his elbow waiting to pounce should he make one single false step.

It was dawn when Scotty reached Saarburg. Even at that early hour there was bustle and activity in the streets, factory workers commencing and leaving shifts mingling with grey-clad German soldiery.

None took any notice of Scotty slouching along in his peasant’s garb and ragged overcoat, and he reached the railway station unaccosted. In the booking-hall he paused a moment to stare with quizzical eyes at a notice plastered on the wall:

“REWARD!

ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND MARKS!

“The above reward will be paid to anyone giving information which will lead to the arrest of Captain John Scott, of the British Secret Squadron, who is known to engage in espionage work within the frontiers of Germany.

“Anyone found guilty of wilfully withholding any such information will be shot.

“By Order of

The German High Command.”

“Ah, a bad one, him!” said a wheezy voice at Scotty’s elbow. “It will be a good day for the Fatherland when he is taken and shot!”

Scotty turned to look at the speaker, a ragged, unshaven old derelict of the streets, much too old for work and for military service.

“It’s a sin and a shame the things he’s done,” went on the old fellow, switching his bleary eyes from the notice to Scotty. “Or, at least, the things they say he’s done. Blowing up Zeppelin sheds and railway bridges and such like. And they do say that once he led his own aeroplanes into Germany and pretended they were all Germans. He and his friends stayed here in Germany for weeks, and blew up dozens of munition works and factories and did no end of damage. Ah, but he’s a low-down, cunning villain, that Englander, I’m telling you!” His voice dropped to a whine. “I come and look at that notice every day and wonder what it would be like to have a hundred thousand marks to spend, because I have not a pfennig, and I have not eaten for two days——”

Scotty cut short the whining discourse by pressing a small coin into the old beggar’s hand, this obviously being what the latter had been leading up to. Then, drifting away towards the booking office, Scotty took a ticket for Hamburg, and inquired how best he could get there in these days when the military and military requirements took precedence over every other form of traffic.

Finding there was a train leaving within thirty minutes, he passed on to the platform, where two grey-clad non-commissioned German officers were seated at a table by the barrier of the departure platform.

“Your papers!” said one of the pair harshly to Scotty as the young pilot tendered his ticket.

Scotty knew perfectly well there was nothing to be alarmed at in this demand to see his identification papers, for it was a military order in Germany that all travellers must produce their papers and state their business on demand.

So, producing the expertly forged identification papers which described him as being Emil Litz, farm labourer, of Ansbach, and exempt from service with the Colours owing to lung trouble, Scotty handed them over.

Taking them, the German non-commissioned officer commenced to scan them. Watching him with apparent bovine patience, Scotty could have sworn that the man’s fingers suddenly tightened on the papers. The involuntary movement was scarcely perceptible—if indeed it was a movement at all, but, all the same, it rendered Scotty vaguely uneasy.

For another long minute the German continued to scan the papers; then, raising his head, he stared hard at Scotty, obviously to see if he answered the description penned on the papers.

“What takes you to Hamburg?” he demanded.

“My uncle, Johann Litz, lies ill there, and I go to help him with his little shop until he is well again,” answered Scotty glibly.

The German grunted and picked up a rubber stamp. Thumping the stamp down on the papers, he returned them to Scotty.

“Very well, pass through!” he growled.

Pocketing his papers and ticket, Scotty passed through the barrier towards where the train was waiting drawn up alongside the platform.

But, in spite of being passed through the barrier, his uneasiness was persisting, for he couldn’t rid his mind of that slight involuntary tightening of the German’s fingers when the man had been examining the papers.

What had caused that sudden, almost imperceptible movement? Scotty asked himself. Was it something to do with the papers? It must have been. Yet the papers were in perfect order and the man had not questioned them.

Pausing at the open door of a compartment, Scotty glanced covertly back along the platform. Only one German non-commissioned officer was now seated at the table by the barrier. The other—the one who had dealt with Scotty’s papers—had evidently gone off somewhere, for his chair was vacant and he was nowhere to be seen.

His eyes grim and his face set, Scotty stepped into the compartment and settled himself down in a corner seat. There was something about this business that he didn’t like. Forced as he was to be on the look-out for danger at every turn, he knew he might well be imagining peril where none existed; for if the Germans suspected him of being other than he professed to be, the chances were that he would have been detained at the barrier and held for interrogation and further identification.

On the other hand, however, the Germans were no fools, and if they were suspicious of him, they might easily be giving him sufficient rope in anticipation of his hanging himself with it.

The compartment in which Scotty was sitting began to fill up, and he took covert but careful stock of his fellow-travellers. There was a stout old lady accompanied by a small boy with a close-cropped head and a perpetual sniff; a couple of young soldiers evidently going on leave from the garrison; and a severe-looking lady of the schoolma’am type.

Nothing much to worry about in that bunch, thought Scotty. But just before the train started a heavily built man carrying a carpet bag got into the compartment and slumped himself down on the seat opposite Scotty. Unfolding a newspaper the man commenced to read, and a few moments later the train jolted into motion, sliding out of the station on the first stage of its run to Frankfurt, where Scotty was to change trains for Hamburg.

To Scotty, the carpet-bagger looked like a commercial traveller, but he wished he could be sure. There was certainly nothing in the man’s attitude to arouse the slightest suspicion, for after digesting the contents of his newspaper he folded his hands across his paunch and appeared to doze off.

He came out of his doze as the train was running into Frankfurt, and on descending to the platform, Scotty heard him inquiring in a loud voice for the train to Erfurt. But not until he had watched the man board the Erfurt train and seen the train actually pull out of the station with the man aboard, was he satisfied that he wasn’t being shadowed.

What Scotty had failed entirely to see, however—what, in fact, it had been practically impossible to see—was the merest glance of the eyes which had passed between the carpet-bagger and another man on the crowded platform.

This second man, limping as though crippled and poorly dressed as an artisan, followed Scotty unobtrusively to the Hamburg train and got into the same compartment, which soon filled up with passengers. Like the carpet-bagger, this man took not the slightest notice of Scotty, and scarce once glanced in his direction during the long run northwards to Hamburg.

It wasn’t until after midnight that the train eventually pulled into Hamburg, and passing through the barrier, Scotty turned the collar of his ragged overcoat up about his ears and walked out into the street.

Save for an occasional military or naval patrol and a few soldiers and sailors out on late pass, there were few about at that late hour. Boldly accosting a policeman, who stared suspiciously at his ragged attire, Scotty inquired the way to the Nordstrasse. Following the directions given him, he eventually arrived at a mean and narrow street down by the docks where, above a little shop with dirt-grimed windows, he read in the feeble illumination of a street lamp: