CHAPTER XXVIII
—AND A NIGHT
Tressidar extricated himself from his uncomfortable position. Although considerably shaken, he was practically unhurt. His first thoughts upon realising that there had been a smash was for the other former occupants of the car. Some distance from and well above him the dimmed light of one of the lamps still flickered. The other had been extinguished, either by the sudden jolt or owing to the glass being fractured. He could distinguish the voices of Doris and Norah and the mild expostulation of Mr. Greenwood to the accompaniment of the bark of the Irish terrier.
He started to ascend the incline. It was so steep that he wondered why the car had not crashed to the bottom of the valley instead of lodging a mere thirty or forty feet below the road.
Before he had taken half a dozen steps his foot came in contact with a human body. It was Dr. Cardyke, still gripping the steering-wheel. The impact had snapped the steering-column like a carrot, and the doctor, describing a parabola over the shattered screen, had carried the wheel with him.
"Hurt?" enquired the sub. anxiously.
"No, only meditating," replied the imperturbable doctor. "I'll be all right in a few minutes. See to the others, please."
The two girls and the A.P. had already alighted, more or less gracefully, while Greenwood senior was wedged in between the seat and the sadly depleted hamper. All had come off lightly, but not so the car.
Its downward career had been stopped by a large boulder. The force of the impact had telescoped the fore part. The front wheels were shattered, the chassis splintered. As a car its days were ended.
"Where's Cardyke?" enquired Mr. Greenwood as he was being extricated from the wreckage.
"Nursing the steering-wheel," replied Tressidar. "He says he isn't hurt."
"Neither am I," added the doctor, who, having regained his feet, was toiling up the slope. "Sorry I landed you all in this pickle. Greenwood, I'm afraid your Ferncoombe Reservoir business is off."
"Not if I know it," resolutely replied the member of the National Guard. "I'll get there, even if I have to tramp it."
"What's the programme, sir?" enquired Tressidar, who, after having found a derelict cushion for the girls, was surveying the wreckage in the dim glimmer of the expiring lamp.
"We'll try to reach the nearest village and find a conveyance," replied the doctor. "It can't be very far. We must be almost on the edge of the moors, although I find I was mistaken just now. I certainly don't remember this place."
"May as well leave everything ship-shape as far as possible," suggested Eric. "My word, what an escape we've had!"
All hands set to work to retrieve the scattered articles. Cushions, portions of the mechanism, fishing-rods, Mr. Greenwood's rifle, the clock and speedometer and a number of other articles were picked up at varying distances from the wrecked car, some having rolled far down the valley. These were placed for safety in the car.
"By Jove, sir!" exclaimed Tressidar. "How many clocks do you carry? I've already found three."
"Three?" echoed the doctor. "Never."
"I'll prove it," continued the sub., leaning over the side door and groping for the floor of the car. This he failed to find, for the simple reason that it no longer existed. Instead was a gaping cavity through which the retrieved articles rolled out as fast as they were stowed away.
Just then the terrier gave a bark.
"Quiet!" ordered Doris. "Quiet, Mike!"
"There's someone coming," declared Eric. "Sounds like a horse and cart."
"Then, thank goodness, we'll be able to find out where we are," added Mr. Greenwood, as the whole party scaled the bank and waited in the road for the approaching vehicle.
It proved to be a pony-trap driven by a very stout farmer. The latter, recovering from his astonishment at being hailed in this out-of-the-way place, informed the doctor that they were four miles from the nearest house, five from the nearest village, and twelve from a railway-station.
"Any motor-cars to be had in the village?" asked Dr. Cardyke. "We've had a bad smash."
"Yes, there be a car o' sorts, zurr," replied the man, laying stress upon the "o' sorts." "Maybe you'll be wantin' oi' tu ax the moty tu fetch you?"
"If you would," said the doctor, "we'll be most obliged. I suppose we can rely upon it being sent?"
"You can rely on oi, zurr, tu giv' the message," was the countryman's non-committal reply, and, overcoming his curiosity to alight and examine the wrecked car, he touched the pony with his whip and drove off.
"Five miles," commented the doctor. "It will take at least an hour before the car arrives. Let's make ourselves as comfortable as possible in the circumstances. Has anyone a match?"
After another twenty minutes the conversation flagged. Everyone was more or less tired, after the day spent in the bracing air.
Presently Mike began to show signs of uneasiness, straining at his collar, through which his mistress had slipped her fingers.
"He smells a rabbit, I think," suggested Tressidar.
"Yes, and if I let him go he may not return for hours. I know him when rabbits are about," replied Doris. "Hold him, Ronald; he's tugging awfully hard."
The sub. did so, at the same time encircling the terrier's muzzle with his left hand. For the time being Mike was silent.
Stealthy footsteps could be heard on the stony road. These were the sounds that had aroused the dog, who had detected them long before the rest of the party.
With a sudden, furious twist Mike broke away from Tressidar's grasp and darted off through the darkness, in spite of insistent calls for him to come to heel.
"Dash it all, Doris!" exclaimed her father. "The brute will frighten the man into fits. If I have to pay for any damage, I'll have the animal dest——"
His threat regarding Mike's future was interrupted by a yell, followed by an oath—and the oath was uttered in unmistakable German.
"That's good enough for us, old man!" exclaimed Tressidar to the A.P. "Come along. Let's see who the Hun is."
The two officers gained the road and made their way swiftly in the direction of the indiscreet stranger, who was now having a battle royal with the terrier. On hearing footsteps approaching, he bawled,
"Call off your dog, will you? If you don't I'll——"
The words trailed off into another yell, as Mike nipped a piece out of the fellow's trousers, together with a square inch of adipose tissue.
"By Jove!" exclaimed Tressidar. "It's Jorkler."
The A.P. knew the name perfectly well. He remembered that a Jorkler was reported killed on the occasion of the loss of the "Pompey"; but he was unaware that his real name was Oberfurst and that he was a spy. Tressidar had kept his promise to the rear-admiral in that respect, but now arose the necessity for explanation.
"He's a spy," he said hurriedly. "Take care, he may be armed."
"Not likely," replied the A.P. "If he were, he would have potted the tyke by this time."
Almost before he was aware of it, Tressidar was upon the man. Oberfurst, having ascended a slight bank on the opposite side of the road, was kicking at the terrier, who with canine insistence was striving to get an opening and remove another patch of the German's clothes.
"We've got you, Oberfurst," exclaimed Tressidar. "There are four of us."
The spy recognised the sub.'s voice. Sheer astonishment on being confronted in that remote part of Dartmoor by a man whom he imagined was still interned in Denmark "took the wind out of his sails." Mike, seeing the advantage, leapt forward, only to be hurled backward by a powerful kick of the German's boot.
Simultaneously Tressidar and the A.P. threw themselves upon the spy, but they had not taken into account the slippery state of the ground owing to the heavy mist. Eric, his feet sliding from under him, fell on his face across the body of the still yelping Mike. The sub., adopting Rugby tactics, tackled his man low, but was unable to secure a hold.
In a trice the spy broke away and ran swiftly along the stony road in the direction of the doctor and the rest of the party.
Too late did Oberfurst make the discovery that there were more than two adversaries, for Dr. Cardyke and Greenwood senior gamely sought to bar the German's way.
At the first alarm Mr. Greenwood had seized his rifle. True, he had no cartridges; perhaps for his son's and Tressidar's safety it was as well that he had not.
The doctor, being slightly in advance of his friend, received the brunt of the second phase of the night operations, for the spy, using his feet in the approved Continental style, kicked Cardyke on his left knee, at the same time gripping the doctor's arm.
Then it was that Oberfurst met his Waterloo, for his palm came in contact with the formidable array of fish-hooks that the doctor still kept in his coat-sleeve. Uttering a yell as the barbs lacerated his flesh, the spy again attempted to break away. As he did so, Greenwood senior prodded him in the ribs with the butt-end of his rifle and stretched him out breathless on the road, just as Tressidar and the A.P. again appeared upon the scene.
Otto Oberfurst had been far from inactive since the "Nordby" incident. Having given the Danish skipper the slip, the spy made his way to Aarhuus, whence, having obtained false papers, he posed as a British mercantile seaman whose vessel had been mined in the North Sea.
It was his intention to return to Great Britain with the least possible delay and resume his nefarious operations. For two reasons: firstly, that he thought it unlikely that the British authorities would suspect his presence after what had occurred. The very audacity of his plan would tend to put them off the scent. Secondly, he knew full well that the Head of the German Secret Service would not overlook his blunder unless he promptly outweighed his error by a brilliant coup.
Accordingly he landed at Hull, and before twenty-four hours had elapsed was within an ace of destroying a munitions factory. Foiled, he went south, and, by blowing up two unguarded railway tunnels, delayed important movement of troops on the way to Flanders. Here, again, it was only by a sheer fluke that the troop train was not derailed.
In due course accounts of the demolished tunnels appeared in the Press, with the suggestion that the disasters had been caused by subsidences after the heavy rains, and thus public apprehension was allayed.
Having reported himself to his chief, von Schenck ordered him to the West of England to assist in the escape of three German officers from the detention camp, and to help them to cross to Ireland in readiness for a revolt of the Sinn Feiners. Already the German authorities were in full possession of the knowledge that an armed rising was imminent in Ireland, and in addition to arms being conveyed thither in Hun ships disguised as neutral merchantmen, arrangements had been made for several German officers at present prisoners of war to join the insurgents.
In this West Country detention camp it was a matter of consummate ease to communicate with the imprisoned German officers. Many of the latter were on parole (although it is generally recognised that a Hun regards the breaking of his plighted word as a smart piece of work), and were permitted to go freely into the neighbouring town on two days a week. They were also allowed to purchase English daily papers without the latter being examined when brought into the camp, and thus many a ciphered communication passed between the prisoners and their compatriots without.
Otto Oberfurst's method of getting into touch with the three Huns was simplicity itself. He would buy a daily paper and make a pinprick through those letters required to make up a word or sentence. Only by holding the paper up to the light could the minute holes be detected. Nor was it a difficult matter for the prisoners to obtain maps, pocket compasses, and small but powerful wire-cutters.
The next business was to arrange for the German officers to be taken across to Ireland. In view of the strict regulations governing the departure of British subjects from British ports, it was obviously a matter of almost impossibility to smuggle three young Teutons on board a ship lying in port. Oberfurst had thought of stealing a yacht from some unfrequented harbour, until he realised the risk of being caught by the vigilant patrols in the Bristol Channel and especially in the Irish Sea.
Eventually through an intermediary—he was too wily to negotiate direct—he arranged with the hyphenated American skipper of a Yankee tramp, that was shortly to leave Bristol for New York, to close with the North Devon coast in the vicinity of the unfrequented Hartland Point. The skipper was to heave-to and send a boat ashore at 3 a.m., and pick up the three fugitives.
Oberfurst left little to chance. A powerful motor-car took him from Exeter to a point four miles from the camp. He intended to proceed on foot to a prearranged rendezvous, await the German officers and walk with them for another four miles across the moors, and to pick up another car which was to convey the fugitives to within a short distance of the coast.
Unfortunately for him, on leaving the first car he had followed the road by which Tressidar and his companions were keeping their weary vigil, and now he was a prisoner.
In the event of his plans going awry, he had firmly decided not to be taken alive. At the same time he would make a desperate bid for freedom before proceeding to the last extremity. In this resolve he was thwarted. The intense pain of the laceration of his hand by the fish-hooks, quickly followed by Mr. Greenwood's drastic and effectual action, had completed his discomfiture before he realised that the game was up.
"Now, my fine bird," thought Tressidar as he surveyed his captive, "I'll take good care you don't slip through our fingers this time."
The spy made no movement, nor did he speak a word. Lying on the ground with his legs and arms tied and Mr. Greenwood proudly mounting guard over him, he looked helpless enough; but the sub. knew his man and took no risks. He stood by, ready at the first suspicious movement to act promptly and effectually.
At length the expected motor-car arrived. At the very most it could accommodate five, not including the chauffeur. Here, indeed, was a puzzle. Someone had to be left behind. Mr. Greenwood was on his honour to turn up at the reservoir for guard duties. Tressidar and the A.P. were necessary, being the only active male members of the party, to guard the spy, who could not very well be placed in the seat alongside the chauffeur. Doris and Norah could not be left behind, nor was it desirable for them to be in close proximity to the Hun. Dr. Cardyke was beginning to feel the effects of his tumble, and, taking in consideration his age, it was unwise to leave him exposed to the cold night air longer than could be avoided.
"Then Eric and I will remain with our old pal Oberfurst," said Tressidar. "The rest of you carry on. Don't wait if you find a train at the station. The car can come back for us. How about the wreckage, doctor?"
"Can stop," decided Dr. Cardyke firmly. "I've done with the thing. I'll send a cart in the morning to collect the luggage and things that are of value. Well, good-bye, Tressidar, Wish you luck with your capture."
The car, a wheezy, American-built one, started and was soon lost to sight and hearing in the darkness, while the two naval officers were left with their prisoner.
In an hour and a half the motor returned. Oberfurst, offering no resistance, was placed therein, Tressidar and the A.P. sitting on the seat facing him and keeping a watch on every movement.
Without incident the spy and his escort arrived at the little village. Here Oberfurst was handed over to the care of the local constabulary, the police-sergeant having been cautioned concerning the desperate character of the prisoner. The last train having gone, Tressidar and Eric were obliged to engage the chauffeur to drive home. After a tedious journey they reached the Greenwoods' house to find that the girls had not arrived, and that Mrs Greenwood was in a state of great nervous anxiety.
To make matters worse, two telegrams were awaiting the sub. and the A.P. The former's had been forwarded from his home in Cornwall. Both were of the same nature:
"Report for instant duty at Naval Barracks, Devonport—urgent."