Britain's Deadly Peril: Are We Told the Truth?

by William Le Queux

War Office,
Whitehall,
S.W.
27th February 1915.

The Director of Military Operations presents his compliments to Mr. W. Le Queux, and begs to acknowledge, with thanks, the receipt of his letter of the 25th inst. which is receiving attention.

a mere printed acknowledgment—reproduced above—that my report had been received, while to my repeated appeals that proper inquiry be made I have not even received a reply!

But further. While engaged in watching in another part of Surrey on the night of March 3rd, certain officers of the Armoured Car Squadron, who were keeping vigil upon the house of mystery, saw some green and white rockets being discharged from the top of the hill. Their suspicions aroused, they searched and presently found, not far from the house in question, a powerful motor-car of German make containing three men. The latter when challenged gave no satisfactory account of themselves, therefore the officers held up the car while one of them telephoned to the Admiralty for instructions. The reply received was "that they had no right to detain the car!" But, even in face of this official policy of do-nothing, they took off the car's powerful searchlight, which was on a swivel, and sent it to the Admiralty for identification.

This plain straightforward statement of what is nightly in progress can be substantiated by dozens of persons, and surely, in face of the observations taken by service men themselves—the names of whom I will readily place at the disposal of the Government—it is little short of a public scandal that no attempt has been made to inquire into the matter or to seize the line of spies simultaneously. It really seems plain that to-day the enemy alien may work his evil will anywhere as a spy. On the other hand, it is a most heinous offence for anybody to ride a cycle without a back-lamp!

It will be remembered that in Norfolk it has been found, by Mr. Holcombe Ingleby, M.P. for King's Lynn, that the Zeppelin raid on the East Coast was directed by a mysterious motor-car with a searchlight. Therefore the apathy of the Admiralty in not ordering full inquiry into the case in question will strike the reader as extraordinary.

This is the sort of proceeding that gives force to the contention of those supporting the motion of Mr. Joynson-Hicks in the House of Commons, that the whole matter of spies ought to be placed in the hands of a special authority devoted to it alone, and responsible to Parliament. As things stand, the country is certainly in agreement with Mr. Bonar Law in believing that the Government "have not sufficiently realised the seriousness of this danger, and have not taken every step to make it as small as possible." Most people will agree with Mr. John S. Scrimgeour, who, commenting upon the shuffling of the Government, said:

"Let the Press cease from blaming the strikers. Also let 'the men in power' cease from their censuring, for very shame. Can I, or any man in the street, believe that we are 'fighting for our lives' while the enemy lives contentedly among us? Read the debate, and take as samples mentioned therein—'Brother of the Governor of Liége,' 'German Financial Houses,' and 'Baron von Bissing.' Don't make scapegoats of these working-men, or even of the non-enlisting ones, while such is the case. Neither they, nor any one else in his senses, can believe in the seriousness of this 'life struggle' while the above state of things continues. It is laughable—or deadly."

The Intelligence Department of the War Office—that Department so belauded by Mr. McKenna—certainly did not display an excess of zeal in the case of signalling in Surrey, for, to my two letters begging that inquiry be made as a matter of urgency, I was not even vouchsafed the courtesy of a reply. Yet I was not surprised, for in a case at the end of January in which two supposed Belgian refugees, after living in one of our biggest seaports and making many inquiries there, being about to escape to Antwerp, I warned that same Department and urged that they should be questioned before leaving London. I gave every detail, even to the particular boat by which they were leaving for Flushing. No notice, however, was taken of my report, and not until three days after they had left for the enemy's camp did I receive the usual printed acknowledgment that my report had been received!"

That night-signalling has long been in progress in the South of England is shown by the following. Written by a well-known gentleman, it reached me while engaged in my investigations in Surrey. He says:

"The following facts have been brought to my notice, and may be of interest to you. In the first week of October six soldiers were out on patrol duty around Folkestone looking for spies—always on night-duty.

"One night they saw Morse signalling going on on a hill along the sea outside Folkestone. The signalling was in code. They divided into two parties of three, and proceeded to surround the place. On approaching, a shot was heard, and a bullet went through the black oilskin coat of one man (they were all wearing these over their khaki). They went on and discovered two Germans with a strong acetylene lamp, one of them having a revolver with six chambers, and one discharged, also ten spare rounds of ammunition.

"They secured them and took them to the police station, but all that happened was that they were shut up in a concentration camp! This story was told me by one of the six who were on duty, and assisted at the capture."