‘Ah!’ said Peter. ‘Pore little Blinker. They’ve got to pay for ’im an’ a few more like ’im.’
‘They ’ave, blarst them,’ said Jacko savagely, and dropped his hand to his bayonet haft, slid the steel half out and home again. ‘Don’t fret, chum, they’ll pay—soon or late, this time or nex’, one day or another—they’ll pay.’
THE LOST NAVAL PAPERS.
BY BENNET COPPLESTONE.
I.
BAITING THE TRAP.
This story—which contains a moral for those fearful folk who exalt everything German—was told to me by Richard Cary, the accomplished naval correspondent of a big paper in the North of England. I have known him and his enthusiasm for the White Ensign for twenty years. He springs from an old naval stock, the Carys of North Devon, and has devoted his life to the study of the Sea Service. He had for so long been accustomed to move freely among shipyards and navymen, and was trusted so completely, that the veil of secrecy which dropped in August 1914 between the Fleets and the world scarcely existed for him. Everything which he desired to know for the better understanding of the real work of the Navy came to him officially or unofficially. When, therefore, he states that the Naval Notes with which this story deals would have been of incalculable value to the enemy, I accept his word without hesitation. I have myself seen some of them and they made me tremble—for Cary’s neck. I pressed him to write this story himself, but he refused. ‘No,’ said he, ‘I have told you the yarn just as it happened; write it yourself. I am a dull dog, quite efficient at handling hard facts and making scientific deductions from them, but with no eye for the picturesque details. I give it to you.’ He rose to go—Cary had been lunching with me—but paused for an instant upon my front doorstep. ‘If you insist upon it,’ added he, smiling, ‘I don’t mind sharing in the plunder.’
It was in the latter part of May 1916. Cary was hard at work one morning in his rooms in the Northern City where he had established his headquarters. His study table was littered with papers—notes, diagrams, and newspaper cuttings—and he was laboriously reducing the apparent chaos into an orderly series of chapters upon the Navy’s Work which he proposed to publish after the war was over. It was not designed to be an exciting book—Cary has no dramatic instinct—but it would be full of fine sound stuff, close accurate detail, and clear analysis. Day by day for more than twenty months he had been collecting details of every phase of the Navy’s operations, here a little and there a little. He had recently returned from a confidential tour of the shipyards and naval bases, and had exercised his trained eye upon checking and amplifying what he had previously learned. While his recollection of this tour was fresh he was actively writing up his Notes and revising the rough early draft of his book. More than once it had occurred to him that his accumulations of Notes were dangerous explosives to store in a private house. They were becoming so full and so accurate that the enemy would have paid any sum or have committed any crime to secure possession of them. Cary is not nervous or imaginative—have I not said that he springs from a naval stock?—but even he now and then felt anxious. He would, I believe, have slept peacefully though knowing that a delicately primed bomb lay beneath his bed, for personal risks troubled him little, but the thought that hurt to his country might come from his well-meant labours sometimes rapped against his nerves. A few days before his patriotic conscience had been stabbed by no less a personage than Admiral Jellicoe, who, speaking to a group of naval students which included Cary, had said: ‘We have concealed nothing from you, for we trust absolutely to your discretion. Remember what you have seen, but do not make any notes.’ Yet here at this moment was Cary disregarding the orders of a Commander-in-Chief whom he worshipped. He tried to square his conscience by reflecting that no more than three people knew of the existence of his Notes or of the book which he was writing from them, and that each one of those three was as trustworthy as himself. So he went on collating, comparing, writing, and the heap upon his table grew bigger under his hands.
The clock had just struck twelve upon that morning when a servant entered and said ‘A gentleman to see you, sir, upon important business. His name is Mr. Dawson.’
Cary jumped up and went to his dining-room, where the visitor was waiting. The name had meant nothing to him, but the instant his eyes fell upon Mr. Dawson he remembered that he was the chief Scotland Yard officer who had come north to teach the local police how to keep track of the German agents who infested the shipbuilding centres. Cary had met Dawson more than once and had assisted him with his intimate local knowledge. He greeted his visitor with smiling courtesy, but Dawson did not smile. His first words, indeed, came like shots from an automatic pistol.
‘Mr. Cary,’ said he, ‘I want to see your Naval Notes.’
Cary was staggered, for the three people whom I have mentioned did not include Mr. Dawson. ‘Certainly,’ said he, ‘I will show them to you if you ask officially. But how in the world did you hear anything about them?’