"I would not bank on their patriotism, my friend, when there is much
Boche gold to be won and much beer to be drunk."
"And who said that I did bank upon it?" cried Dawson testily, forgetting his noble, words of two minutes earlier. "I wouldn't trust one of them out of my sight. I have two dozen of my own men working alongside of those dockyard hands, watching them by night and day. We know if a man drinks two glasses of beer when he used to drink one, and takes home to his wife eighteenpence above his ordinary wage. Do you take me for a fool?"
"You'll be a bigger fool than I take you for if you do not play straight this time with me, and tell me your plans in detail. I have to work with you, and I cannot give service blindfold."
"You are not a bad fellow, Froissart," said Dawson thoughtfully—the name in his mouth became Froy-zart—"and I will tell you here and now more of my mind than I have yet shown even to the great Chief of us all. It will take all your brains—for you have some brains—and all of mine to keep the secret of those battle-cruisers."
* * * * *
In the morning the newspapers published the meagre details of the disaster in the South Seas, and the Three Towns were shaken to their foundations. For when naval ships go down, they take with them crews of whom half have their homes in Devon. The disaster meant that eight hundred families in the West mourned a son or a father. Ever since the days of the Great Queen—whose name in the West is not Victoria, but Elizabeth—Devon has paid in the lives of its best men the price of Admiralty. The Three Towns mourned with a grief made more bitter by the realisation that the disaster was one which never should have happened. Bad slow English ships had been sent against good fast German ships, and had been sunk with all hands without hurt to the enemy. The Three Towns know the speed and power of every fighting ship afloat, British or foreign, as you or I before the war knew the public form of every leading golfer or cricketer. In every bar where sailormen met one another, and met, too, the brothers and fathers of sailormen, the Lords of the Admiralty were weighed and condemned. It is a thing most serious when in the cradles of the Navy, Portsmouth and the Three Towns, faith in the wisdom of Whitehall becomes shaken. One may muzzle the Press, but no muzzle yet devised can close the mouths of sailormen and their friends in dockyard towns.
In the afternoon of the same day, while the news of the disaster was still fresh, there came a whisper, which gained in loudness and in precision of detail as it passed from mouth to ear and from ear to mouth, that the worst had not yet been told. There had been not one, but two disasters. Two battle-cruisers, it was declared, had been sunk in the Channel by German mines or submarines. What were their names? inquired the white-faced women. The names were not yet known, but they would soon come. A little later the severity of the rumour became softened. The battle-cruisers had not, it appeared, been sunk, but severely damaged. They were at that moment on their way to the Sound, crippled sorely, yet afloat. Men groaned. Two battle-cruisers blown up in the Channel; what in God's name were two battle-cruisers doing in the mine-strewn Channel when their proper place was in one of the safe eyries overlooking the North Sea? A plausible explanation was offered. The two battle-cruisers had been coming to Plymouth to take in stores that they might speed away south to avenge those other two cruisers sunk by the Germans as had been told in the morning's papers. If this were indeed true, the news was of the worst; England's prestige afloat was gone. She could not spare two other whole battle-cruisers to proceed upon a mission of vengeance to the South Seas while the Germans' Battle Squadrons in the North Sea ports were still undefeated. Meanwhile the Germans far away to the south could do what they pleased; they could sink and burn our merchant steamers at will. The command of the Pacific had passed from England to Germany, and the White Ensign hung draggled and shamed for all the world to sneer at. The Three Towns almost forgot their personal grief for drowned friends in their horror at the disgrace which had come to their own sacred Service.
It was still light, though late in the afternoon, when the anxious watchers upon the Hoe made out, beyond Drake's Island, two big ships coming in round the western end of the breakwater. Though deep in the water they towered above their escort of destroyers and fast patrol boats. The leading ship was listing badly, her tripod mast with its spotting top hung far over to port, and she was towing stern first a sister ship whose bows were almost hidden under water. The Three Towns, which can recognise the outlines of warships afar off, rapidly pronounced judgment. "That's the Intrepid" they declared, "and the one she's towing is a battle-cruiser of the same class—the Terrific or Tremendous. They're both badly holed." "Gawd A'mighty," cried a grizzled longshoreman, who might have sailed with Drake or Hawkins—as no doubt his forbears had done—"look to the list of un! And thicky with her bows down under, being towed by the stern to keep her from swamping entire. If it worn't for them bulk'eads un wouldn't never have made the Sound." It was plain to those who had glasses turned on the damaged ships that they were drawing far too much water to be brought into the Hamoaze and over the sill of the dry dock at Devonport, so that no one felt surprise when the battle-cruisers were seen to pull out of the deep fairway and make towards the shore. The purpose was plain to read. They were to be put aground under Mount Edgcumbe, patched up, and pumped dry, and then would go into dock for repairs. It was a job of weeks, and during all that time the Fleet would be short of two battle-cruisers which might have swept the South Seas clear of the German Ensign. It was cruel luck, and the Three Towns had enough to talk of to keep them occupied for many days. Presently more news came, authentic news, and passed rapidly from mouth to mouth. The vessels were the Intrepid, the flagship of Admiral Stocky, and her sister the Terrific, a pair of fast Dreadnought cruisers. They had, as was surmised, been speeding down from Scotland to dock at Plymouth on their way to clean up the mess made in the far South. They had come safely through the Irish Sea and round the Land's End, but when near their journey's end off Fowey they had run into a patch of mines laid by German submarines. The Terrific had had her bow plates ripped into slivers of ragged steel, and the three fore compartments flooded. The Intrepid had picked up the wire of a twin mine, got caught badly on the port side, but had luckily escaped to starboard. She had taken her crippled sister in tow, and brought her in safely. Both ships could easily be repaired, but it would take time. The voyage to the South Seas was off. Nothing could have been more convincing than the story which quickly got about; the ships had been seen and recognised by the Three Towns—there was no concealment and no mystery. For once the Silent Navy appeared to be talkative. The hearts of German agents in the Towns swelled with pride and joy. Here was convincing proof of the kindly hand of the Prussian Gott. If the great news could be carried through to the Kaiser and von Tirpitz, there would be much ringing of church bells in the Fatherland. But these English, since the war began, had become very watchful, very suspicious. The problem was: how to get the glad news through.
* * * * *
It was two o'clock in the morning and very dark. The big dry docks at Devonport were deserted except for a few picked hands, not more than two score at the outside, told off on night shift for special duty. Against all workmen who had not been warned for this duty the big gates would be closed for two whole days. There were important jobs awaiting completion, but they must wait. One hundred and twenty men, working in three eight-hour shifts per day—forty at a time—could do all that was needed to the Intrepid and Terrific, and not one man was included who had not served at Devonport for at least ten years. Dawson had been very firm, and the Commander-in-Chief had backed him with full authority. "Don't make any mistake," said Dawson. "Among even one hundred and twenty, though picked in this way, there will be some few who would sell us if they could. One would have to go back more than ten years to weed out all those whom the Germans have corrupted. But out of this lot there should not be more than two or three swine, and I can look after them." He did not say that he had already been in touch with the Scotland Yard officer at Devonport, and had arranged that a dozen out of his precious twenty-four counter-spies should be put among the chosen hundred and twenty. Dawson never did allow his left hand to know the wiles of his right.