“Yes, sir,” was the reply. “I tested just before six—as soon as I got up. Mr Stendel is on duty on the other side. He asked Ted if we’d seen you lately, and ’e told ’im you ’adn’t been down this week.”
“Did he want to speak to me?”
“Yes, sir. I think ’e did.”
Old Small did not know the Morse code, except the testing signals, but young Ted had, before the war, been sent for a course to a wireless and cable-school in Glasgow, on the pretext that he wanted to act as wireless operator on board a Grimsby trawler. Therefore Ted always transmitted and received messages.
When they wanted to speak urgently from Wangeroog, the German operator rang up Ted and informed him. Then Ted would walk into Huttoft, Alford, Chapel St. Leonard’s, or one or other of the neighbouring villages where there was a telegraph-office, and despatch a perfectly innocent-looking message addressed to either the chauffeur Penney, or to Mrs Kirby, such as “Received your letter—Small,” “My daughter left yesterday—Small,” “Thanks, am writing—Ted,” or “Will send fish to-morrow—T. Small.” The wording of the message did not matter in the least; as long as Rodwell received the name “Tom,” “Ted,” or “Small,” he knew that he was wanted at the end of the secret cable.
The gentleman from London passed into the stuffy little bedroom, drew aside the old damask curtain and took off the top of the big tailors’ sewing-machine displaying the instruments beneath. Through the little window the grey, dispiriting light grew brighter as the dawn spread. The tide was out, and there was very little wind. The sea lay unusually calm in the morning mist. In the air was a salt smell of seaweed, and when he seated himself upon the old rush chair he could hear the low, monotonous lapping of the waves up and down the beach. That February morning was raw and chill upon the bleak, open coast of Lincolnshire, and while old Tom bustled about to get “Muster Rodwell” a slice of cooked bacon, the spy of the “All Highest of Germany” busied himself in looking through the intricate-looking array of cable instruments, the hidden batteries of which he had recharged a week ago, spending a whole night there working in his shirt-sleeves and perspiring freely.
Presently, settling himself down to his work, he touched the ebonite tapping-key and in dot-and-dash he sent under the sea the letters “M.X.Q.Q.,” the German war-code for “Are you ready to receive message?” Thrice he despatched the letters, and then awaited the answering click.
There was no response.
“Stendel is always so slow!” he growled to himself. Already the appetising smell of frying bacon had greeted his nostrils. Old Tom’s daughter was away. Indeed, he kept her away as much as possible, as Mr Rodwell had no desire to have women “poking their noses into things that did not concern them”—as he once remarked.
Thrice again did the man at the end of that unsuspected cable tap out those four code-letters.