CHAPTER XV
Picking up the Pilot
"Sorry, sir," said Fordyce. "I didn't attach any particular importance to the fellow's request at the time. I boomed him off, absolutely. Refused point-blank to touch his blessed diamonds."
"I am glad to hear that," said the Hon. Derek. "At the same time, it is a regrettable matter that you did not report the affair to a competent naval or military authority. I'll briefly outline the facts concerning these so-called diamonds. The stuff is actually a super-powerful explosive, a secret compound of which one ingredient is known to be obtainable only in a few isolated districts in Cornwall. Our Munitions Department has been attending to the matter for months past. The analysts have discovered that the stuff—they call it nitro-talcite—is capable of being detonated only at a temperature below -5° C. And the strange part of it is that nobody in the department has yet been able to compound the explosive. All the data has been based upon the examination of a small quantity that was seized on a vessel bound for Archangel—so Sir Josiah Sticklewood, the Admiralty explosive expert, tells me. Who the makers of the stuff are and how they get it out of the country has been a mystery."
"It's fortunate that in England the temperature rarely falls to much below freezing-point," remarked Fordyce.
"Yes, and that accounts principally for the fact that the explosive has not been used against us at home," continued the Lieutenant-Commander. "Russia, on the other hand, offers plenty of opportunities in that direction. The disaster at Archangel and the terrific explosion at Petrograd can be well attributed to the work of Extremists or German Secret Service agents—practically the same thing. What does surprise me is that Mindiggle went so far as to attempt to coerce you; only, of course, he hadn't the faintest idea that we know as much concerning nitro-talcite as we do."
"Is it too late to lay him by the heels?" asked the Sub.
"I am doubtful whether it would be advisable until we make sure of our ground," replied the Hon. Derek. "Do you happen to remember the address on the packet?"
"Rather!" said Fordyce emphatically. "And I jotted it down in my pocket-book."
"Good man! Now this is what I propose doing: to make up a dummy packet of broken glass—from all accounts broken glass is a common object in Petrograd just at present—and deliver it at Vladimir Klostivitch's house in the Bobbinsky Prospekt. We'll have to do the business entirely off our own bat. It's not the faintest use taking the Russian Government officials into our confidence at the present juncture, for the simple reason that they don't know where they are and we don't either. If Klostivitch is merely an agent, we don't get much forrarder, unless he is injudiciously communicative. If he is a principal, then we'll do our level best to lay him by the heels. It's not the first time I've done police duty ashore."
And the Hon. Derek smiled reminiscently as he recalled a certain incident in his naval career, when, with a mere handful of bluejackets, he had nipped in the bud a revolution in an obscure little republic.
Then he rose from his chair and patted the Sub on the back.
"Fordyce," he exclaimed, "I have it! You'll have to assume the character of a red-hot revolutionist, and to introduce me to this rascal Klostivitch as Comrade So-and-so, a sympathetic Englishman, who, although unable to speak a word of Russian, has made his way to Petrograd for the express purpose of congratulating Klostivitch and his friends upon their arduous work in the interests of liberty and equality."
"Isn't it a bit risky, sir?" asked Fordyce.
The Lieutenant-Commander raised his eyebrows in mild surprise.
"From a diplomatic point of view," continued the Sub.
"Not if we go to work in the right way," replied the Hon. Derek. "After we've settled with Comrade Klostivitch, I'll report the circumstances to the British Embassy—but not before. For the present we'll let the matter drop. It is yet too early to go into details."
In due course R19 arrived off the Gulf of Riga. During the run across the Baltic she had studiously avoided craft of every description, although she had several chances of successfully attacking small German vessels. Stockdale let them "carry on", not from choice but of necessity. A tremendous lot depended upon the secret arrival of a British submarine to help the Russian navy against that of the Huns. He acted upon the principle that a hunter stalking a lion will not waste a shot upon a jackal, and thus prematurely alarm the main object of his efforts.
Just before midnight R19 rose to the surface and lay motionless upon the tranquil water. She was now within sight and sound of the guns, for the German land force had thrown the Russians out of the important town of Riga, while their auxiliary vessels were busily engaged in sweeping the mine-field across the mouth of the gulf, to enable the High Seas Fleet to find a secure anchorage before attempting to discover and overwhelm the New Republic's Baltic Fleet.
Away to the south-eastward, and faintly discernible against the continuous flashes of the guns, could be seen the German mine-sweepers and their covering vessels—light cruisers and torpedo-boats. As yet the battleships and armoured cruisers had not left Kiel.
For an hour R19 remained motionless; then the order was given to dive and rest on the sea bed. The reason no one on board knew except the Hon. Derek and Lieutenant Macquare. The men could not form any satisfactory opinion of the submarine's apparent inactivity. They could not understand why they did not go for everything afloat that was German, instead of "sounding" time after time.
For three successive nights R19 popped up for the space of sixty minutes. Each time the officers carefully fixed the submarine's position by means of cross bearings and the use of position-finders.
At midnight on the fourth consecutive night of inaction Fordyce and the Lieutenant-Commander were on deck when they heard the subdued hum of an aerial propeller. It lacked the well-known sound of a British machine, nor did it make a noise like a Gotha. The two men exchanged glances.
"That's it!" exclaimed the Hon. Derek. "Pass the word for the Very's light."
It seemed a risky thing to do—to send up a couple of rockets from a British craft that was lying four or five miles only from the line of German patrol-boats—but there was no option.
A red and a green rocket blazed overhead. From the hovering sea-plane came an answering flash. Her motors were then switched off, and, with a swift volplane, she alighted upon the surface at less than fifty yards from the submarine.
Then "taxi-ing" cautiously, the sea-plane approached the lee'ard side of R19, until one of the occupants dexterously caught a rope hurled from the submarine's deck.
A greatcoated, muffled figure made its way along one of the projecting floats of the sea-plane and clambered up the bulging side of R19.
"Welcome, gentlemen!" he exclaimed in Russian.
The officer deputed by the Russian Government to pilot the British submarine through the mine-fields guarding the approaches to Cronstadt had arrived at a most opportune moment.