“Haven’t you heard about him? He’s a German submarine commander who does all sorts of stunts, if you believe what you hear, like landing on the coast hereabouts once and going into Cork and living there a couple of days. And he leaves messages tacked on the Channel buoys, they say. Of course it’s probably all yarns. That boat’s pretty close to the surf, Nep.”
They listened in silence a moment. Then Nelson said: “I think they’re probably Irish rebels; Sinn Feiners, don’t they call them?”
“Oh, that’s all over with, I guess. Besides, what would they be doing in a boat off-shore?”
“Landing rifles or ammunition, or both,” responded the other. “I don’t believe that trouble is all over, either, Mart. They threw stones at our sailors in Cork only a few weeks ago.”
“At our men? What for?” asked Martin in an indignant whisper.
“Because we’re fighting the Germans, and the Sinn Feiners are pro-German, or pro-anything that’ll make trouble for England. There they come!”
From below came the sound of a boat’s keel grating on the sand, and the unmistakable tramp of feet within it, followed by a splashing noise as someone leaped out and guided the bow out of water. After that the silence was over. Low voices murmured. Feet scuffled softly on sand or shingle. Although they could see nothing, their imaginations pictured the busy scene below: men, perhaps a half-dozen all told, bearing burdens from boat to shore, splashing through the ripples, grinding over the shingle, disappearing somewhere beneath, perhaps into a cave. The old tales of smuggling in the British Isles returned to memory and they had visions of a great, high cavern running back from the edge of the beach, a cavern piled with mysterious boxes and bales. But the cavern theory was quickly dissipated, for of a sudden footsteps sounded near at hand and they heard the labored breathing of men as they made their way up some unseen pass from below, and, once, a muttered exclamation and the trickling fall of a dislodged stone. It seemed to the boys that the men must be almost upon them, and they prepared themselves for flight, but the footsteps crunched past a dozen feet away and became soundless as they reached the rough turf of the summit. Then others followed. Whatever the burdens were that they bore up the cliff they must have been fairly heavy, for breathing was labored and the scuffling sound of the booted feet suggested that they labored under considerable weight.
For a number of minutes Nelson and Martin lay and listened, and in that time, they gathered, three loads were brought up, and the first bearers began their descent again. Now and then a low word was spoken, but the hearers failed to gather the sense of it. Martin tugged at Nelson’s sleeve.
“Listen for the last of them to go back,” he whispered. “Then follow me and we’ll see where they’re taking the stuff. Better keep in touch so we won’t get lost. Ready now?”
They crept back from the edge and then, arising to their feet, left the cliff behind and made their way as quietly as possible into the darkness. When they had gone some thirty yards or so Martin drew Nelson down beside him. “We’ll wait here until they come back,” he said. “Maybe we can hear where they go.”