CHAPTER II THE MYSTERY SHIP
We sailed on the following day for Wilhelmshaven, to complete our fitting out, and once arrived there, preparations were pushed on apace. Two or three specially picked, trustworthy dockyard hands, carried out such technical work as my own men were not able to deal with. Apart from this, no one was allowed to enter or leave the ship; even officers of the highest rank were refused admission.
We were screened on the landside from curious eyes, as we lay alongside the much higher and larger Möwe, which had returned shortly before from her first glorious voyage.
All the material that came on board—and there was a good deal of it—was taken over by my own men on the quay. Thus all was done that possibly could be done to keep everything about the ship secret.
We could not, of course, prevent the 'aura of mystery' with which we surrounded ourselves from arousing the curiosity of neighbouring ships, especially of our former comrades of the Outpost Flotilla, who regarded us with no small wonderment, and probably with no small envy. I had therefore told my people that they were, here and there—of course apparently with the greatest hesitation and under the usual seal of secrecy—to spread the rumour that we were going to Libau. To confirm this rumour the name Libau was painted on our bows. As a matter of fact, I did not yet know myself what our destination really was; but I was already quite certain that in any case it was not Libau.
From now onwards the mystery grew from hour to hour. One of our hatches was battened down, and for the present that hold was not to be entered by any of the ship's company, even including myself. As in Hamburg, so here, it was carefully guarded day and night.
But the most mysterious thing of all was in one of the cabins, where underneath a sofa bunk there was a secret entrance which led, by a series of invisible manholes and concealed ladders, to one of the lower holds. This secret hold reached from side to side of the ship, and there was room in it for about fifty men. One end of it was formed by an iron bulkhead, the other by a wooden dummy bulkhead, which so closely imitated the other, and was so painted, that any one would have taken it for an iron water-tight bulkhead, in which there was no opening. The initiated, however, could, from the inner side, remove a couple of planks, and so make their way out. There was a similar arrangement in a yet lower hold, which, for the present, was filled with a reserve supply of coal, the existence of which was to be concealed during the voyage.
Our mystery ship thus contained no lack of delightful surprises.