The manager looked at Bob in despair. "You see how it is, sir. I daresay you are right. London is just infested with them, and in spite of all our precautions they just laugh at us."
Bob went back to his chambers and tried to reflect on what he had heard. On reconsideration he supposed there was not so much in it all, but he was much disturbed nevertheless. He supposed every government had its secret information service, but the fact that this man calling himself Count von Weimer had by lies and fraud found his way into Admiral Tresize's house, and thereby obtained valuable information about our Navy, staggered him. From the conversation of the two men, moreover, it was evident that Germany had always meant to go to war with England, and had for years been preparing for it. The German army had evidently been built up for the express purpose, not of defence, but aggression. They had been waiting for years for a favourable opportunity, and then, when the time was ripe, to force the pace.
Oh, the madness, the criminal madness of it all!
But it was worse than madness. There was an awful danger about it all.
He opened the evening paper he had just bought, and read the staring headlines.
GERMAN ARMY WITHIN A FEW MILES OF PARIS. FRENCH GOVERNMENT REMOVED TO BORDEAUX.
Of course all sorts of theories were propounded. This was all strategy on the part of General Joffre and Sir John French. They were trying to draw the Germans from their base of supplies, and that done, would pounce upon them, and annihilate them.
All this, however, was very unsatisfactory. The truth was, the German
Legions were sweeping all before them.
He turned to an article copied from an American paper, written by a man who had been admitted into the German lines, and who had gone into the very heart of the German Headquarters. Bob found his muscles hardening as he read. The article in graphic language described the countless hordes in the German army. It told how the writer rode hour after hour in a swiftly moving motor-car, always through this great seething mass of the best-trained soldiers in the world. They were not ill-fed weaklings, either; but young, stalwart, well-fed, strong, the flower of the German nation.
The camp was a vast moving city of fighting men. Everything was perfectly arranged to the minutest detail. Nothing was lacking. Every need was supplied as if by magic. The discipline and order were perfect. The soldiers were confident and happy.