The days dragged on, each longer than its predecessor. Once his sister was allowed to see him. But he was anxious and eager to face his judges, to hear what false evidence the prosecution had to offer, and to refute the foul lies that had evidently been uttered against him. The authorities, however, seemed in no hurry to act, and it almost seemed as though they had forgotten all about him.
One day he received a letter—the one welcome gleam of hope—a letter from Elise, who told him to bear up, to take courage, and to look forward to an early freedom.
“You surely know, Jack,” she wrote, “that I do not believe you to be a spy. Surely I know how strenuously you have worked in order to ferret out and expose the horde of spies surrounding us, and how you constantly helped poor Dr Jerrold.”
Those words of hers cheered him, yet he deeply regretted that she should have referred to the dead man’s name. The prison authorities had read that letter, and mention of Jerrold would, in the circumstances, probably be registered as a point against him.
The weeks thus lengthened, until the middle of February.
On the night of the 21st of that month—the night on which the Admiralty issued its notification that a British fleet of battleships and battle cruisers, accompanied by flotillas, and aided by a strong French squadron, the whole under the command of Vice-Admiral Carden, had begun the attack on the forts of the Dardanelles—Charles Trustram dined early with Lewin Rodwell at the Ritz.
Rodwell was due to speak at a big recruiting meeting down at Poplar, and after their meal the pair drove in his car eastwards to the meeting, where he was received with the wildest enthusiasm.
A well-known retired Admiral was in the chair—a man whose name was as a household word, and whose reputation was that of one who always hit straight from the shoulder with the courage of his own convictions. The hall was crowded. The speech by the chairman was a magnificent one, well calculated to stir the blood of any Briton of military age to avenge Germany’s piracy “blockade.” He spoke of the low cunning of the “scrap-of-paper incident,” of the introduction of the red phosphorus poison-shells a month before, and the terrible barbarities committed in Belgium. That East-End audience were held spellbound by the fine patriotic speech of the grey-haired Admiral, who had spent his whole life at sea ever since he had left the Britannia as a midshipman.
Trustram, seated near the front, saw Lewin Rodwell rise deliberately from his chair on the platform, and became electrified by his words—fiery words which showed how deep was the splendid patriotic spirit within his heart.
On rising he was met with a veritable thunder of applause from that huge expectant working-class audience. They knew that Lewin Rodwell, being in the confidence of the Cabinet, would tell them something real and conclusive about the secret war-facts which the hundred-and-one irresponsible censors, in their infinite wisdom, forbade the long-suffering press to publish. Lewin Rodwell always regaled them with some tit-bits of “inside information.” It had been advertised up and down the country that he was on golfing terms with the rulers of Great Britain, and the words of a man possessing such knowledge of state-secrets were always worth listening to.