CHAPTER XVII
The Sandinsel Tunnel
After their recapture Hamerton and Detroit were shut up in separate cells, the former in the same place as before, while the American was lodged in a disused casemate of the Bucket Horn Battery.
Their captors left nothing undone to guarantee the safety of the prisoners. Hamerton's cell had been recemented over the original floor to a depth of four inches of solid concrete. The bars of his window had been removed and others of considerably greater thickness securely let into the stonework. An observation hole had been cut in the doorway, and the jailers were given instructions to visit the prisoners' cells every two hours, day and night.
Every few hours wireless messages came from Torpedo-boat-destroyer S174. They brought slight consolation to Von Wittelsbach's peace of mind. The long-sought-for yacht still remained alongside the quay at Delfzyl.
Then came the news that an English newspaper had published the information that the spies were Sub-Lieutenant John Hamerton and Oswald Detroit, an American subject.
Von Wittelsbach was for the time being speechless with rage and mortification. He anticipated the order to proceed to Berlin to give an explanation, and ere he set out he gave instructions that the prisoners should be removed to Sandinsel.
It was late at night when a file of marines entered Hamerton's cell. The sergeant in charge roughly ordered him to get up and dress. Although still weak with the effects of his brief spell of liberty, the Sub was rapidly recovering. Two days' rest was sufficient to banish the pain in his neck caused by his involuntary dive into the secret gunpit of the Breit Horn battery. His bruised fingers gave him considerable inconvenience, so that he took a long time over his dressing operations.
"Hasten," ordered the sergeant more than once, but Hamerton paid scant heed. He was resolved not to retard the healing of his hand by unnecessary haste, since he might even yet have an opportunity of eluding his captors.
The fragments of the prepared cotton from the fireproof Zeppelin he still retained in his shoes, but the steel spike which had served him so well had been discovered and taken away by his jailers soon after his recapture.
"Roll your blankets," ordered the non-commissioned officer gruffly. You are to take them with you."
"Evidently I am off on a long journey," thought the Sub at this stage of the proceedings. "What's up now, I wonder? Judging by the elaborate alterations they have made to my quarters I thought they meant to keep me here for a very long time."
"March!" ordered the sergeant, pointing to the door. "No tricks, mind. Our rifles are loaded."
Along the corridor, down the steps, and out into the open the file of marines conducted their prisoner. Then the gates in the outer wall were thrown open, and the Sub found himself in the street.
Turning sharp to the left the party marched along the broad, even road leading towards the Zeppelin station. It did not take them long to arrive at the barbed-wire fence. Hamerton could not help contrasting the time it took with the tedious, cautious crawl over that very ground only a few nights before.
Here the marines were challenged by a sentry. The sergeant advanced, whispered the password, and received permission to proceed.
A large extent of the fence had been levelled, and over the barbed wire were placed the metal coverings Hamerton had noticed during his tour of investigation.
Down the familiar incline the Sub was hurried, till the marines halted within twenty yards of the circular expanse out of which opened the caves for the giant aircraft.
Everything was now in darkness, but by the presence of numbers of soldiers and seamen Hamerton concluded that one of the Zeppelins was about to be hauled out for a nocturnal flight. He wondered vaguely if he were to be an involuntary passenger.
A sliding door opened in the cliff, revealing a long passage lit at regular intervals with electric incandescent lights. A waft of hot, moist air greeted the Sub as he entered.
"By the right—march!" ordered the sergeant.
The tunnel was only wide enough to admit of two men walking abreast. Along the ground ran a narrow-gauge tram line. At every twenty-five yards or thereabouts was a niche, intended as a refuge for foot passengers upon the approach of any rolling stock. For the first hundred yards the tunnel was on the downgrade, then it was horizontal in direction. Overhead, and above the hollow tramp of his escort, the Sub could hear a dull, muffled roar: it was the sea. The tunnel, then, was passing under a portion of North Haven.
Hamerton calculated that he had gone quite a mile through the tunnel ere the upward gradient commenced. One hundred and twenty paces more and the prisoner and his escort were confronted by a steel door. On either side was a deep recess. In one of them stood a portly soldier in the uniform of the fortress artillery. Apparently he had already received his instructions, for, with a familiar nod to the non-commissioned officer in charge of the party, he unlocked and rolled back the sliding door.
For half a minute or so Hamerton could see nothing. The sudden transition from the well-lighted submarine tunnel to the blackness of the night temporarily deprived him of his sense of sight.
He gradually became aware that he was in a stone gallery open to the heavens, but additionally protected by mounds of earth and sand piled well above the level of the enclosing walls. To bind the soil, thorn bushes had been planted. These also served to screen the gallery from observation, while as a protection from shell-fire traverses had been provided.
Just above the summit of one part of the mound Hamerton could see a quaintly-shaped iron tower, the light from which was occulted every three seconds.
Now he knew exactly where he was. The opening of the tunnel was about a hundred yards north-west of the North Beacon of Sandinsel. Where the latest British Admiralty chart showed an expanse of sand covered at high water, his sense of vision told him that a vast extent of artificial ground had risen from the sea.
Another thing struck him in a very forcible manner: on either side of the gallery were hung rectangular steel plates, measuring roughly ten feet by six, and painted in a medley of colours. It was like the so-called "invisible" colouring on the guns and gun-shields of British fortifications, the idea being that at a distance the various hues would blend and form a neutral tint. But in this instance the metal plates were hinged at the top edge. They could be raised by means of levers, and thus form a V-shaped covering to the gallery, presumably as a protection from high-angle fire or from explosives dropped from a hostile airship.
But Hamerton had little leisure to observe these things. The sergeant waited until he had received the password for the Sandinsel portion of the fortress, and then gave the order to march.
The enclosed way seemed interminable. For one thing, it never ran in a straight line for more than twenty yards at one time. Here and there other galleries branched both to left and right—the majority to the right. In places huge armoured bridges crossed the concealed way. On one a travelling crane, electrically propelled, was in the act of crossing.
The whole place seemed alive, judging by the sounds. The Sub could hear the sharp rattle of pneumatic riveters, the peculiar scroop of electric drills, and the thud of ponderous hammers, punctuated by the deafening hiss of compressed air. From a greater distance came the monotonous grinding sounds of a fleet of dredgers at work. There was no mistaking that: Hamerton had seen and heard dredgers at work in the principal naval ports at home. The groaning, rasping noise as the heavily-laden buckets come jerkily up the "ladder", the succession of dull thuds as bucket after bucket throws its contents of mud, sand, and larger stones down the shoot into the hopper, could not be mistaken for anything else.
Hamerton was puzzled. A fleet of dredgers—or even a solitary one—could be heard miles off. Yet during his enforced detention at Heligoland he had never heard the faintest sound that suggested operations of that nature.
"Well, it's either one of two things," he thought. "Either the cliffs of Heligoland possess strange acoustic properties, and deflect the sound entirely, or else these vessels have started work to-night for the first time—at least, since I set foot upon the island."
His musings were cut short by his escort coming to an abrupt halt outside a postern. Here, in front of the neutral-grey-coloured sentry-box—which had recently superseded the parti-coloured diagonal lines for which the German military authorities had a predilection—stood a sentinel with his bayonet at the "ready".
Even when the sergeant of the escort gave the password he was not permitted to pass the gateway until the rest of the corporal's guard had been turned out. Those responsible for the safety of the West Kalbertan Battery had evidently made up their minds to take no chances.
Hamerton saw very little of the interior of the fort that had only recently been constructed on foundations formed of ferro-concrete piles sunk twenty feet through the sand and another thirty feet in the stiff clay that composed the subsoil.
The West Kalbertan Battery had been well placed. Its armament, consisting of six fifteen-inch guns and a number of light quick-firers, commanded the only approach to North Haven from the north. It was one of a chain of six batteries—the others being the East Kalbertan, the Krid Brunnen, the Düne, the Aar de Brunnen, and the Sud Sandinsel—that were supposed to render Sandinsel impregnable. It was this heavy fortifying of the former sandbank that caused the German engineers to mount nearly all their heavy guns on Heligoland on the south-west side.
Then, although the guns of Heligoland commanded the approaches to the Elbe and the Weser, the batteries of Sandinsel were actually the key of the position. Whoever was master of Sandinsel was master of Heligoland.
Hamerton was lodged in the upper story of a building within the fort which was mainly devoted to non-combustible stores. The walls were not so thick as those of his former prison, the floors were planked, while the ceiling was of ordinary plaster. The solitary window was fairly large, glazed, and protected by iron bars that had apparently only been placed in position a few hours before, for the cement was barely dry.
Almost immediately on the departure of the escort a lieutenant, accompanied by two non-commissioned officers, entered the room. The officer was a fair-haired youth of about twenty. His rounded features and blue eyes gave him almost a girlish appearance, which his incipient moustache failed to destroy.
"Ach! Herr Smidt," he began in tolerable English, "I hope you give no trouble. You cannot escape you out of here—you take my word. If no trouble, then perhaps we allow you insignificant privileges. So."
The Sub looked at the speaker. The German officer seemed a decent little chap, he decided.
"I had a rough time of it when I broke out of prison before," he replied. "Perhaps I may not have the opportunity or the inclination to do so, especially as I am promised certain privileges if I behave. But, Herr Lieutenant, let me inform you that I do not answer to the name of Smith."
The lieutenant smiled and tapped his forehead in a significant manner. The act irritated Hamerton almost beyond endurance, but the thought suddenly struck him that perhaps after all the German really thought he had to deal with a prisoner whose brain had become affected.
"No; my name is not Smith," continued the Sub earnestly. "I'm Hamerton, an officer of the British Navy. Don't you believe me?"
The German shook his head.
"I tell you this," he said. "Herr Hamerton sailed from here in his yacht. He was lost at sea; his comrade also. You will do yourself no good if you acclaim yourself as Herr Hamerton. Smidt you are, and I believe you know it. Now be good, and no trouble give."
With that the lieutenant took his departure, and Hamerton was left in the dark and to his own resources. There was nothing further for him to do at present, he reflected; so, unstrapping his blankets, he turned in and was soon fast asleep.
When he awoke the sun was shining brightly, and by its position he knew that his window faced north-east. He had barely completed his toilet when his breakfast was brought in.
"Evidently they mean to treat me better than they did at Heligoland," he reflected, as he looked at the larger cup of coffee, the long roll, a pat of butter, and a couple of fried mackerel. "This seems too good to last."
He set to with a will, for he had a healthy appetite. As he ate he could not help thinking of his conversation with the German lieutenant. The man seemed perfectly open about the matter, as if he really believed the prisoner was under a hallucination.
Then his thoughts turned to Detroit. What had they done with him? Had he been brought to Sandinsel, or was he still in solitary confinement in Heligoland?
His meal ended, Hamerton crossed over to the window. The outlook was not particularly extensive. Immediately below was a kind of courtyard, with triple lines crossing it in several directions. This system enabled heavy wagons to be run over the broad gauge, and lighter trucks to use one of the outer rails and the intermediate one.
The outer space was bounded by the inner part of the fortifications—an almost blank wall pierced by a few doorways and apertures for ventilation.
Hamerton could not see over the wall, but he knew by the presence of a screen of furze and gorse that the face of the fortifications was composed of earth and sand, the best material for minimizing the effects of heavy projectiles.
There his range of vision ended, save for the expanse of blue sky overhead. He might sit at the window for days at a stretch and still see nothing of a confidential nature. Save for an occasional fatigue-party and the passing of a carefully-covered-in train of trucks drawn by electric tractors, the courtyard was deserted. Everything in connection with the actual working of the guns was concealed under the wide mound of earth and sand on the other side of that stone wall.
"A truly cheerful prospect," thought the Sub. "To gaze upon this outlook is a rare intellectual treat. I must make the best of it, I suppose. It is only in old romances that the governor's daughter, or at least the jailer's daughter, takes compassion upon the hapless captive, provides him with a safe disguise, collars the keys from her parent, and releases the object of her affections. This fortress is controlled by men of blood and iron. Sentiment and romance find no place in this modern German Gibraltar. Well, it's no use moping I'll have a look round the room."
It did not take Hamerton long to make a careful examination of the interior of his prison. With a steel tool in his possession he would be able to cut his way out with far less exertion than he had to spend on his previous attempt. The window was but fifteen feet from the ground; with his strength he felt confident that he could bend the long iron bars sufficiently to allow him to squeeze through. Failing that, five minutes of uninterrupted work would be enough for him to knock a hole in the plastered ceiling and make his escape on to the roof. But to what purpose?
He was surrounded by the formidable walls of the West Kalbertan Battery, and, even should he be able to scale the ramparts and evade the sentries, there was not a place of shelter in the whole of Sandinsel where he could hope to remain hidden for even an hour.
"The Monte Cristo wheeze is played out," he mused. "It might be possible to knock down the jailer and put on his clothes, if it were not for the fact that there are always two men waiting outside. Besides, there is the password, which I haven't got. That suggestion is no good. I remember reading of an authentic case of a man in a debtor's jail getting hold of a strip of raw liver and laying it across his throat. The jailer, thinking his prisoner had put an end to himself, ran out of the cell, and in his fright forgot to close and lock the door. The prisoner made good his escape. That was a neat trick; but then that was not within the walls of a modern fortress. It's a case of wait and see, only with more of the waiting and considerably less of the seeing, I fancy."
Yet he did not fall a victim to black despair. He was eminently of a very sanguine disposition, and, recognizing the truth of the saying that "while there's life there's hope", he made up his mind to keep bodily fit, so as to be able to take full advantage of any chance that fortune might throw in his way.
The Sub looked about him for some object to practise with. The chair caught his attention. It was a solid oak one with a rush bottom, just the thing to use as a bar bell and keep his muscles pliant.
His still tender fingers caused him some misgiving, but with very little effort he raised the chair above his head. To his great delight he found that the stiffness of his neck and shoulders was hardly noticeable.
Up and down he swung the chair. For one thing, it killed time; it also kept him in training. He revelled in the exertion.
Suddenly the door opened, and the soldier detailed to act as his jailer entered. Hamerton faced round, his improvised gymnastic apparatus still poised above his head.
With a yell the fellow dropped the earthenware basin on the floor and backed hurriedly out of the door, shouting at the top of his voice that the Englishman had gone mad.
A picket was hastily told off, and, accompanied by the fair-haired lieutenant and a surgeon, the soldiers entered the Sub's room, to find Hamerton calmly sitting on the chair.
"Is this the way you promise to behave?" questioned the lieutenant. "What have you done?"
"I was taking exercise," replied Hamerton.
"Exercise? Mein Gott, your form of exercise very remarkable is, Herr Smidt. Now you be sensible. I give you one more chance. If you behave not, then I report to Herr Major Kohn, and you will be put in far worse place."
The lieutenant and the surgeon walked out of the room, followed by the men; but half an hour later another jailer appeared with a pile of books, "for the use of Herr Smidt, with the compliments of Lieutenant Schaffer."