Over There with the Canadians at Vimy Ridge

by G. Harvey Ralphson

The spy delivered his requisition for a soldier's uniform and was given in turn an order on the supply house and directions how to reach it. Then he left the building and took a car for the place where he was to get his suit.

Blau took the same car, but the "shadow" he had been ordered to "shadow" was not there unless he had disguised himself so successfully that Irving was unable to recognize him. The operative appeared to be somewhat puzzled, too, but he made no sign of recognition to the soldier in enemy uniform, and the latter maintained a like pretense of unacquaintance.

An hour later the spy was clad in a first lieutenant's uniform and on his way back to the hotel. Blau kept within hailing distance of him, but his shadowing seemed to be futile, for the "middle-aged man in civilian clothes" had not appeared in any recognizable guise or disguise. Indeed, Irving was certain that nobody except the operative had followed him since he came out of the quartermaster's office and started for the store-rooms.

The applicant for an army uniform was required to enlist for service in the army before it could be supplied. Irving was not surprised at this, but he was very much surprised by the kind of uniform given him. It bore the insignia of a first lieutenant's rank.

"That's certainly generous on the baron's part," he said to himself. "I don't understand it. I didn't read his note to the quartermaster, nor the quartermaster's order. Maybe they would have afforded some explanation. Maybe I shall have to earn my rank and meanwhile will go about like an automobile for which a license has not been issued but bears a tag 'license applied for.' Maybe that's my case here--first lieutenant's commission applied for. It looks kind of irregular, but I suppose 'the baron' knows his business. Anyway, mine is a special case all around, however one looks at it."

When he filled out his enlistment papers, of course Irving signed the name of Adolph Hessenburg, late of Toronto, Canada, and on the "history sheet" that he had to fill out he entered data given him by the boy of the original tattooed cubist-art message. Then he was granted the use of a room where he discarded his Canadian uniform and put on his new Prussian military disguise.

He felt that he was disguised now as he at no time had hoped to be since planning his spy expedition into the heart of the kaiser's kingdom. He surely must have the full confidence of the Prussian officials with whom he had come into contact, or he would not have been elevated to the military rank and position of trust that now were virtually his.

Irving was particularly pleased with the ease he had experienced in picking up the idioms of the German language. He had an excellent memory and scarcely a word or a phrase that was taught to him at school or behind the Canadian lines, or that he had heard since landing with a parachute on territory held by the Prussian armies, had failed to make a lasting impression on his mind. Moreover, he was very quick to put ideas together and in that way get their associated significance; so that he skillfully "figured out" the meaning of not a few words that he had never heard before they were used in conversation with him by "the baron" and other persons with whom he came in contact. And he was almost as quick and skillful in his use of those same words for the expression of his own ideas.

After leaving the quartermaster's supply depot, Irving visited a haberdashery and bought several suits of underwear, shirts, collars, and socks, and then returned to the hotel. As he entered his room and deposited his bundles on the bed a funny thing happened.

He stopped short--true, he could not have gone much farther without falling over the bed, but nevertheless there was a decided "shortness" to his "stop."