Though my facts were vouched for by three officers and a signaller, and four civilians. I, at first, did not even receive the courtesy of a reply to what I had declared to be a matter of extreme urgency.
Two nights after sending in my report, some officers of the Royal Naval Air Service discovered a powerful car containing two men reconnoitring certain main roads in a Surrey valley actually beneath the residence of one of the enemy signallers, and they naturally stopped it. The strangers were questioned, so suspiciously were they acting, while in the meantime one of the officers reported by telephone to the Admiralty and asked for instructions. But the amazing reply received was that they had no authority to stop the car! As for myself, I again wrote to the Intelligence Department of the War Office, but after eleven days all they would deign me was a mere printed notice informing me that my report had been received. To this I replied, asking that immediate steps might be taken to investigate and arrest the signallers as dangerous to the State—more dangerous perhaps even than the cyclist without his back-lamp—but to that letter I have not even received an acknowledgment! Another instance may perhaps be of interest. I discovered that, among the Belgian refugees from Antwerp who had received charitable aid in one of our biggest seaports, were two men upon whom considerable suspicion had fallen. One posed as a smooth-tongued priest, and wore that garb, while the other was a “friend,” apparently somewhat lower in the social scale. The priest asserted that he had been head of a college near Antwerp; and in consequence of his pious profession, he was, as was but natural, made much of by the ladies in the city in question. One day this priest, who it had been noted had been unusually inquisitive, and had been constantly strolling round the extensive docks and quays, and had watched the military preparations in case of a raid, suddenly applied to the local Belgian Relief Committee for money to return to Antwerp. Questioned, he told rather a lame story about some of his pupils having returned, while his friend, who also applied at the same time for leave to return, gave as excuse that he had to go to look after his cows! One wonders how many the Germans had left him. Or, perhaps he was a humorist, and meant the Black Cows—those mystic signs employed by Von Kluck’s spies. The Relief Committee, apparently, were not exactly satisfied with the stories; nevertheless, they eventually granted the pair money for their journey back to Belgium.
A report of this I furnished immediately to the Intelligence Department, offering to send them information when the pair left the seaport, in order that they might be met on arrival in London and questioned, and I also supplied them with the time of the train by which they were to leave London for Flushing. The whole matter was ignored, and an official acknowledgment, printed, of course, was sent to me three days after the fair had gone across to Flushing—full of most important information, as was afterwards discovered! Here is yet another instance. In Liverpool the special constables were performing most excellent work in hunting out alien enemies and sending them to internment-camps, when, of a sudden, an order came—whence nobody appears to know—to arrest no one further, for, as the order put it, “such action may create public alarm.” Why is it, too, that men of wealth and influence, bankers, brokers, financiers and Birthday-baronets, German-born Privy Councillors, and other alien enemies who happen to possess money, are caressed and given such latitude to exert any evil influence they may like upon us? Why, also, was Baron von Ow-Wachendorf, a lieutenant in the Yellow Uhlans of Stuttgart, just under thirty years of age, permitted to practise running in Hyde Park so as to fit him for his military duties: and why was he—on March 1st—allowed to leave Tilbury for Holland to fight against us?
These are questions upon which the public should demand satisfaction, and to arraign those responsible.
I here wish to state, most emphatically, that I am not a politician, neither am I criticising, for one moment, the splendid military administration of Lord Kitchener. If the spy-peril were placed in his capable hands—with complete power to act, to arrest, and to punish—then I would, at this moment, lay down my pen upon the question. Yet, as one who was among the very first—perhaps the first—to discover the secret plans of Germany and to report them, I consider it my duty, as a lover of my country, to warn the public.
The time has passed for mincing matters, or for the further protection of traitors in our midst. I here cast no reflection upon any single person, and further, any person mentioned in this article is beyond the pale of my statement, but I here assert that I have had, in my possession, a list—actually shown to me by a friend at Wilhelm-strasse, who was their paymaster—of persons in England and America who have been in receipt of German money, and who, by dint of it and of secret influence, have risen to high degree, and, in some instances, to places with fat emoluments. Motives of patriotism alone prevent me from revealing that list at this hour of our national crisis.
The many truths contained in the following chapters of this book must surely reveal to the reader the edge of the volcano upon which we are now sitting. Notwithstanding all the false official assurances, the sleepiness of the much-vaunted Intelligence Department, and the fettered hands of the police—both Metropolitan and Provincial—must surely give the man-in-the-street to pause. Spies are to-day among us in every walk of life, and in almost every town in Great Britain. Every single man and woman among them is impatiently awaiting the signal for the destruction of our homes and the ruin and massacre of our dear ones, and yet we are actually asked to believe that no danger exists!
The same kid-gloved policy which, at a cost of 13,000 pounds has provided a pleasant mansion with charming grounds, and a staff of valets, servants, etc, for German officers, many of whom were responsible for the barbaric outrages on innocent women, and the massacre of children in Belgium, has also placed a protecting hand upon our alien enemies. Assuredly this is an injudicious policy, for it has already created a very grave suspicion and distrust in the public mind.
The “authorities”—whoever the persons in real authority may be—know full well how, with every outgoing mail to Holland or Scandinavia, there goes forth a mass of information concerning us, collected by spies, and forwarded to neutral countries, where it is again collected by German secret-agents, and forwarded to the German Secret Service in Berlin.
These letters are generally written, either in invisible ink or in cipher-ticks, upon newspapers or magazines, which are merely placed in unsuspicious-looking wrappers addressed to somebody, usually with an English name, in Holland, Denmark, or Sweden. I have before me two such letters posted in Hertfordshire. Further, we have undoubted communication existing nightly from the sea to London by means of the line of signal-lights which I have described, and further, these, it has lately been proved, extend north, from the neighbourhood of Harrow, right up to Leeds, Manchester, and Liverpool. There are other fixed lights, too; brilliantly-lit windows and skylights, which show each night, and are intended as beacons for the guidance of the enemy’s aircraft. Yet, all the time, we pursue the foolish policy of trying to hide London by darkening it, and, at the same time, shine searchlights at the self-same place and at the same hour each night—apparently to betray to the enemy our most vulnerable points.