With a whoop of excitement the ragged band gathered about him. They had forgotten all about me, seemingly. I had a last glimpse of Grundt, leaning heavily on his stick, holding aloft in one great hairy paw the little square of oilsilk.
Dejectedly I slunk away.
CHAPTER XIV
"DIE FÜNF-UND-ACHTZIGER"
My back view, head sunk forward, shoulders humped up, gave, I believe, a convincing picture of utter abasement as I slowly retraced my steps down the ravine. But the moment I was out of sight of the ill-favoured group about the rock, I darted into the thickest part of the jungle and, after dragging myself painfully through the undergrowth for about a hundred yards, sank down hot and breathless.
I did not care whether I was followed or not. I wanted to be alone to compose my thoughts, to think. My brain was still reeling beneath the shock of my stupendous good fortune. Five minutes since I would scarcely have given a sixpence for my chances of life. Yet here I had regained my freedom of action, had lulled old Clubfoot, by giving him an easy victory, into a false sense of security and, at the same time, had obtained the solution of the knottiest point of the whole cipher message. At the thought that it was Grundt himself who had given me the clue which, till then, I had vainly sought, I leant back and laughed.
"After the Somme and the Hindenburg Line," he had said, "our brave 'eighty-fivers' dislike you British even as much as our sailor-men do...."
"Unsere braven Fünf-und-Achtziger" .... he had used the German phrase and in a flash brought back to my mind a bit of German naval slang which I had heard so long ago that I had forgotten it! "Die Fünf-und-Achtziger!" What memories of pre-war days the phrase awakened! Dinner at Kiel in the ward-room of the German flagship, the tables ablaze with blue and gold uniforms sparkling with decorations, guest night in the mess of the Kaiser Franz Hussars at Stettin.... and always army and navy "shop" the staple theme of our table talk. To the Imperial Navy the German Army was (slightly superciliously, for the rivalry between the two was intense) "die Fünf-und-Achtziger" because the 85th Infantry Regiment composed the garrison of Kiel, Germany's premier war-harbour.
The garrison of Kiel! Clubfoot, like all his master's entourage, was in closest touch with the Fleet, the Kaiser's own creation. That scrap of navy slang came naturally to his lips and in uttering it, he had sent with a flash the cipher to my mind.