The Secret Service Submarine: A Story of the Present War

Anything more utterly desolate and forlorn, even on a bright, sunlit day, than these sullen, winding waterways, so far from the habitations of man, can hardly be conceived. They were the haunt of innumerable fowl. Herons stood on the brink and transfixed flat-fish with their long, spear-like beaks. The wild duck gathered in the little bays and estuaries formed by their convolutions. The red-shank and the green-shank whistled over them at all hours.

The two largest creeks of all were known as Garstrike and Thirty Main. It was from the heads of these waters that the gun-punts started on their dangerous nightly mission, following this or that creek in and out, wherever there was water. Garstrike had always ten feet of water in it at low tide, but Thirty Main was the largest by far. It stretched straight away from the sea to the foreshore. There was always at least thirty feet of water in its black, evil-looking depths. At high tide, sixty would have been nearer the mark. It wound among the marsh, the centre of endless smaller creeks which ran into it, the great ganglion of the whole system of nerves.

It was the study of months to know the marsh. Death had come to many fowlers there who did not know its complexities and who omitted to carry an illuminated compass for night work. Many men had been cut off on an island of mud covered with the purple sea-thistles, the bronze-green marrum grass, and the rank vegetation of the saltings. And some had been waiting in a minor creek when the tide came fast and swift through all the intricate waterways, who were unable to climb the steep sides of slippery mud, and so met their fate.

We crossed the foreshore in a minute and a half and came down upon the mud. The frozen grass crackled under our boots like little rods of glass. The shallow pools were all frozen over as we made our way round the curving shore of Garstrike.

We were on the right bank, and here and there we had to go along some of the smaller creeks that flowed into it. It is no joke to walk over a twelve-inch plank in the pitch dark with a ten-foot ditch of mud and water below. As an old marshman, I was used to it, though I had known many new-comers give these bridges a miss at the first start off. But Bernard skipped over like a bird, and after a quarter of a mile or more of slow progress, aided by my illuminated compass and a faint, ghostly light from the rising moon, we got to the gun-pit marked upon the map.

Immediately to our left was a low punt-house dug into the steep mud-bank of Garstrike and entered at the shore end by a rough ladder. The pit was five feet deep; there was a rough board for a seat and there was about a foot of water in the bottom – rain-water, which had fallen during the last few days. This, however, was nothing, and we scrambled in and sat down.

I had taken my ten-bore to the Morstone Arms, but Bernard had told me to leave it there. He had given me a heavy Service pistol, which fired ten shots in as many seconds, together with an extra clip of cartridges for the magazine. He had another in the pocket of his coat.

So we sat and waited. Bent on more pleasant business, we should have had our guns ready in our hands, waiting for the sound of birds flighting overhead as the moon rose, coming from the sand-banks out at sea inland to the stubbles. But now our ears were tuned to a different music, and I am not ashamed to say that I heard some artery within me beating like a drum.

It was a solemn hour and strange indeed was the business we were upon. The whole marsh was alive with voices. There was the long, hushed roar of the sea, the fifing of the wind, and then the countless cries of the night-birds. A great heron flapped away somewhere over Thirty Main, with its hoarse "frank, frank"; there was a rustling whistle far overhead as a company of widgeon flashed by at thirty miles an hour; a paddle of duck were quacking somewhere on the other side of the creek; and then, faint at first, but growing nearer and nearer, came that sound which, to the wild-fowler, is the finest in the world and which many and many a man and woman has said to be the strangest sound in nature.

The wild geese were coming. I can never think of that sound without a tightening of the muscles, almost a lump in the throat. It is like a vast pack of ghostly hounds up in the sky, which cuts into the night like nothing else can do, and instinctively I felt for my gun. But it was not to be that night. They passed over us not more than eighty yards high – well within the range of a heavy gun – and the noise was deafening in our ears as the great wedge-shaped formation sped by.

"By Jove, that's good!" I heard Bernard whisper.

It was the one chance of the night. No more geese worked our way, and for an hour we sat motionless, growing colder and colder, but patient still.

Then, at last, there was a low whistle and a crouching figure appeared on the edge of the pit.

"I've followed him, sir. He came out of the school with his gun and went straight on to the foreshore. He walked for nearly a mile towards Cockthorpe. I crouched behind the furze bushes and he never saw me. He was walking very fast. He passed the head of Thirty Main and then went down on to the mud, following the bank until he came to the Hulk. The bridge was out and he went on board. Then he pulled it up – and there he is now. I saw a light struck and a candle lit from one of the windows in the side. Then something was pulled over it, and I came away here as fast as I could."

"The Hulk!" I said. "Of course, I might have thought of that before!"

"What is it?" Bernard asked.

"It is the hulk of an old coaster of about eighty tons. It is permanently moored in Thirty Main Creek. Upjelly bought it for twenty pounds some two years ago and has had it fitted up. In the summer he sometimes camps out there. In the winter he uses it as a base for shooting on the marshes. There are three or four on the saltings between Wells and Cromer."

"Then we must go there at once. How can we approach it?"

"It is moored some three yards from the shore – there is deep water right up to the banks on either side of Thirty Main Creek. It's reached by a light bridge and a handrail, which anyone on board can pull up after him by means of a derrick on the stem of the old main-mast. If we were to approach over the mud, we should hear nothing, but we can go by water and get to the far side. Wordingham's punt is ready in the house close by. It will take us half an hour poling up to Garstrike and then back again down the long, winding creek of Morstone Miel. That brings us out into Thirty Main Creek – which we can cross and hug the opposite side. The Hulk lies in a little bay. When we get nearly there, we shall have to paddle, just as we 'set to birds.' We shan't make a sound, and we ought to hear something or see something if there is anything to be seen or heard."

"You'll let me come with you, sir?" Dickson asked eagerly.

I shook my head. "It's a two-handed punt," I said, "and there's no room for anybody else – you ought to know what a fowling punt is by this time. It's dangerous enough for two experts. No, Dickson, you've done very well indeed and I'm proud of you. You must cut home now as quietly as possible and go to bed at the Morstone Arms. Whatever you do, don't show your face at the window in the morning. I'll come and tell you everything."

I could see the boy was very disappointed, but a word from Bernard comforted him.

"You're a first-class scout, Dickson," he said; "I wish I had you on board my ship. If you obey orders as you have been doing and anything comes of this business, I'm not at all sure that I can't promise you a billet."

If Dickson flushed under his burnt cork, I did not see it, but his voice was tremulous with joy. There was no mistake about it this time. He saluted, and in a moment more was gone.

"Now," I said, "come along. You don't understand punt work, do you, Bernard?"

"No," he said, "only shore shooting. I've been in some queer craft in my time, but here 'you 'ave me,' as the cabman said. You must be skipper of this cruise!"

We hurried over the few yards separating the pit from the punt-shed. I went down the ladder first and unlocked the door. We found ourselves in a long, narrow shed with a little landing-stage along one side and some lockers above it fixed to the wall. In the middle lay the punt, painted a dull green-khaki over its mahogany, almost invisible at night. The big gun stretched out far over the bows; everything was ship-shape and in order, for Wordingham was a tidy man, and this punt, which with its gun had cost a hundred and fifty pounds, had been given him by a wealthy fowler, an officer in the Guards, who loved to come down in peace time for a week on the waterways of East Anglia.

"Now," I said, "be careful. You get forrard and lie down on your stomach. Yes, that's it; brace yourself against the recoil piece of the gun. Lie as if you were going to fire it when we come within shot of birds on the water. That'll trim the boat. I'll punt until we get near. Then I'll in-pole and paddle. Remember you mustn't move and you mustn't make a sound."

We glided out on to the black water of Garstrike Creek. The banks sheltered us somewhat from the wind, but it was nearly high tide and every now and again a freshet sent waves lapping against the low sides of the punt; and occasionally a cupful of water or a lash of spray came over. My brother told me, long afterwards, that it was one of the strangest experiences of his life, and I suppose that the first night in a punt must indeed be that to the tyro. To me, it was ordinary enough, but my blood ran fast and free as I realised that we were out for bigger game than geese or duck to-night.

Our progress will be seen by the dotted line upon the map. We went up Garstrike, keeping close to the right bank. Then, quite suddenly, the smaller miel opened out. We made a sharp turn, and now the banks were scarcely more than two yards from us on either side, while punting was easier owing to the shallow water. At low tide, it would have been almost impossible to go from Garstrike to Thirty Main. We followed the sinuous turnings of the small creek for some twenty minutes, in and out between the black walls, like people walking in some dark alley. Then Miel Creek opened out and we shot on to the broad waters of Thirty Main.

Here we were on what seemed a wide river. There was an immediate sense of space and freedom and the sea became more choppy. Punting was impossible. I knelt down and with infinite caution stretched myself upon my stomach, my head between my brother's legs. Then I got out the paddles, which were small implements held in the hand, in shape resembling nothing quite so much as a pair of large butter pats, or shall I say a couple of ladies' hand-mirrors. With my arms over the side, I gradually propelled the punt round the curve where, in a little bay, the Hulk was lying. It is thus one approaches the "paddle" of duck or geese upon the water for the last hundred and fifty yards. Progress is by inches. The long grey punt steals noiselessly towards its quarry until the supreme moment when the gunner pulls the lanyard, the pound and a half of shot speeds upon its mission, and the punt rears like a horse.

But there was to be no roar or concussion to-night.

The moon was now high, though it was obscured by driving clouds. There was only a faint and phosphorescent radiance. This was all the better for our purpose, and anyone upon the look-out could hardly have distinguished the grey thing creeping towards the Hulk with such infinite slowness.

We drew nearer and nearer. Thirty yards … twenty … ten. Then I stopped paddling. It was full high tide, absolutely dead; that moment when flow and ebb alike are suspended.

We came alongside the high walls of the old ship without a sound, our hands fending the punt from its curved, barnacle-studded timbers. Long swathes of green weed hung from the sternpost as we edged our way round to the port side.

Now I had never visited the Doctor's Hulk. When I first went to Morstone I thought it strange that he did not ask me, but he had never done so and the matter passed from my mind. I knew nothing, certainly, of its internal arrangements. At the same time, I had been over a similar hulk moored off Wells-next-to-Sea, which belonged to a wealthy maltster there, and I knew that the same carpenter had fitted up both boats. From what I remember, there was a cabin built out on deck with a glass roof, while the hold below had been fitted up partly as a winter smoking-room and dining-room, partly as berths for sportsmen who wished to sleep after their toil.

I was quite right. The old portholes of the boat had all been done away with, but a large square window, some four feet above our heads, bulged in the side of the Hulk. No light could be seen, but the top of the window was open, and, even as we glided up, a whiff of cigar smoke came out and we heard the murmur of voices.

The murmur of voices! The Doctor was not alone upon the old coaster. Something was brewing within its sea-worn timbers. We were nearing the heart of the mystery at last!

Instinctively, we both stood up. The punt rocked perilously, but we steadied it by holding on to the lower part of the window. Once, it nearly slipped away from beneath our feet and my brother crouched down again and caught at a great clump of barnacles, motioning me to listen.

For a moment or two I could hear nothing but a guarded rumble – it was like voices heard by chance through a telephone. Then the wind happened to drop and they became quite clear.

I started with surprise, for, though I could see nothing, I was certain that there were three people on board the Hulk. Upjelly's cool, incisive tones struck immediately upon the drum of the ear. Then came another voice, a hoarse, rough voice which I did not know; and finally a third that I did.

It was the voice of Mr. Jones, and I bent down and whispered to my brother.

Then, as I rose again and listened with my very soul, I shivered with disappointment.

The people within were speaking in a language I did not understand – save only a very few words. They were speaking in German!

It seemed that Upjelly was giving instructions of some sort or other. His voice had a ring of command in it that I had never heard before. It was like a hammer on an anvil, and unless I was much mistaken, it vibrated with excitement.

The answers came quickly enough.

"Ja, gnädiger Herr," or, "Gewisz, das hab' ich gleich gethan."

That presented no difficulties whatever. Upjelly was speaking to someone, obviously an inferior, who replied, "Yes, sir," or, "Certainly, I have already done it."

Then Jones cut in, and here again I noticed an entire change in the quality of the man's voice. It was not Jones speaking now, it was the renowned Kiderlen-Waechter, of whom my brother had spoken three nights ago, or I would have eaten my hat. There was no mistaking the keen, arrogant note of command. The bland Mr. Jones never spoke like that, though the voice was the same. Then I distinctly heard the sound of a door either being shut or sliding in its grooves. There was the splutter of a match, the sound of a gurgling syphon, and, to my intense relief, Doctor Upjelly and his unseen companion began to speak in English.

"No, it's impossible. I have, in my safe at the school, all the plans. Our secret service on this coast has been working untiringly. For three days at least, after to-morrow night, the plans will hold good. In them is the station of every patrolling ship, full maps of this part of the coast, the disposition of forces – everything necessary for the Admiral. The tide to-morrow night will be even higher than it is now. The moon is waning; weather conditions point to a dark, tempestuous night to-morrow. She will come and take you away with the plans."