Those who sit in chairs in Whitehall take their regular fat salaries and periodical distinctive honours as a matter of course. They are the men who watch the wheels revolving. They collect and hand over results, the fruit garnered in by others working in the twilight which shades their individuality. With the Powers-that-be these men (the gentlemen who sit in chairs) are ever in the official limelight, whilst the reckless, devil-may-care workers over the horizon, the men who carry their life in their hands and who go right into the lion's den to collect facts and data which often mean success or defeat in battles raged elsewhere, or who manipulate and pull the strings on the spot, seem to be ignored and forgotten. The secrecy of the Service is so absolute that no mention of the way their work is accomplished may be made. The cloak of mystery is drawn so completely over the whole department that no matter what sacrifice a member may make for his country's sake, no matter what bravery he may have exhibited in almost every instance alone and unsupported, probably in an enemy's domain as one man facing a host of his country's enemies, his deeds are unrecorded, unhonoured and unsung. Whilst he is in the Service he is merely a cypher, a unit, an atom. When he has left it he is hardly remembered as once a member. What of it? He only did his duty. Now he is out of the Service he is no longer interesting, he ceases to exist. The big wheel of life continues to revolve. The B.S.S. Department is but a very minute little wheel which cogs into the larger machinery of State in its own respective corner. As the rim of this very minor wheel comes up from the dark recesses of the working world and the separate cogs become revealed, those in authority who sit watching each and every cog, upon the stamina and reliability of which so much depends, from time to time find one that cannot stand the strain, because it is hurt or damaged, either in body, or in mind, or in fortune. It is at once removed. We are at war. Sentiment is dead and buried, except with the weak, who in life's battles are crushed and accordingly find themselves forced to the wall. Any cog believed to show signs of weakness is instantly extracted, and those who sit and watch the wheels revolve seek another piece of tougher and believed to be better material which may come to hand, and which they force into the vacant space created. For a second perhaps the discarded hard-used cog is looked at with admiration for past and valued service when knowingly driven at highest pressure; or with regret at having to part with such a tried and trusted friend; then it is hurled into outer darkness, on to the scrap-heap of broken and forgotten humanity. The new cog is pushed in and hammered home, it is smeared with the grease of experience, and the wheel continues its monotonous revolution.
Such is a good similitude of the short and exciting life of a Secret Service agent.
FOOTNOTES:
[5] "So far from co-operating, the Army and the Navy were rival purchasers of aircraft."—Mr. Ellis Griffith, House of Commons, February 16th, 1916. See also Air Defence Debate in House of Commons, March 22nd, 1916. At Hull, which was under military control, it was rumoured that a certain naval officer, in command of a small warship lying in the Humber at the time of one of the first of the Zeppelin raids, was court-martialled because he fired at and hit one of the Zeppelins whilst it was bombarding the town, without having first received an order from the Military permitting him to do so. Annals of Red-tapeism, June, 1915.
[6] This fact refutes the theoristic argument that Germany was forced at the eleventh hour to invade Belgium.
[7] Reports of House of Commons.
CHAPTER III INITIATION TO ACTIVE WORK
Crossing the North Sea—A Memorable Meeting—Instructions—On a Cargo Boat—Snowstorms—False Alarm—Danish Profiteers—English Consul Profiteering in food to Germany—Horse-Smuggling—Meeting my C.O.—Blooded.