The true prizes, the genuine booty, you recognize by sure symptoms—Germanic faces, Teutonic accents, harsh or honeyed answers, stammered explanations. In vain do they disguise their names and hand us forged writings, their Germanic race leaks through all their pores. They are hurrying to foment rebellion in Egypt or Tripoli; they are on their way to the Balkans to do their work; to burrow underground in India or China. Invariably they have Swiss or Dutch passports, but their certificate of nationality, brand new, is fresh from the printing press, and reminds you of false coins, too new and shiny. Suspects! The officer goes down to their cabins. Under the mattress, behind the washstand, in the folds of a counterpane, lie the incriminating papers. Enemies!
From this point, one must go on decisively, gracefully, in the French fashion. The officer halts in front of the German, addresses him by name, lays a light finger on his sleeve or shoulder, and says, without raising his voice:
"I arrest you. Follow my sailor, who will take your baggage and put you into the boat."
Cries, explosions of anger, insults must not disturb him. He must add nothing. What has been said has been said.
V—STORY OF THE WIRELESS AT SEA—THE SECRET LANGUAGE
We have on board an ear that never sleeps; it is the wireless telegraph. The apparatus is buried in the depths of the hold; a padded cabin isolates the operators from the noise of the machinery and the cross-currents of discord. From watch to watch the telegraphers pass over the receiver to each other, and the finest murmurs never escape their vigilance.
The air vibrates in an uninterrupted concert. Coming from stations near or far, from ships wandering on the Atlantic or close at hand, calls, conversations seek out their way; the ether transmits them instantaneously. The powerful antennae of the Eiffel Tower, of Ireland, of Germany, of Italy, or of Constantinople dominate with their noisy throats the feeble whispers. With their full force, to any distance, they launch the official news of the great ordeal. If some one talks too loudly, 500 or 1,000 kilometers away, (300 to 600 miles,) they raise their tones, throw more strength into their voices, until the interrupters become silent.
A tacit agreement alternates their messages. The German does not obstruct the Frenchman, the Turk waits until Malta has finished. Madrid, talking to Berlin, rests while London speaks. For these great stations, controlled by their Governments, send out only announcements of the first importance, such as the whole world should know, and they wish neither to confuse nor to be confused. Reports from the front, happenings at sea, diplomatic or financial transactions, plans or insults, circulate in all languages, and you can be certain that the newspapers will not publish them. If by chance the reader of newspapers finds them in his daily sheet, it will be a week or a fortnight later, in a garbled, unrecognizable form.
Sailors hear every bell and every sound; while the rest of the world must be content with the meagre, delayed communications authorized by the censorship, the sailor already knows. His griefs and joys precede the griefs and joys of the anxiously waiting millions. Ireland announces a simple movement of Russian strategy, but Norddeich—the German post—clamors to all the echoes of a German victory, an advance, the capture of thousands of prisoners. Norddeich laconically explains some event at sea, but Eiffel sets his biggest sparks cracking, announcing to Moscow, to Newfoundland, to the Sudan and the Red Sea the disaster at sea that has befallen some Teutonic force. In how many days, with how many changes, will the public read these bits of news? At every hour of the day and night we receive them brutal and imperious.