Secret Operative K-13

by Joel Townsley Rogers

  Other officers were coming up, plodding over the thick black sod around the edge of the carp pond. Most of them seemed to be bigger and fatter and more important personages than the young lieutenant of Guards. At one time, Dick could count not less than four major-generals all together, in addition to brigade, regimental and company commanders enough to load two box cars. He hadn’t realized quite what a buzzing rattlesnake nest he had stepped into.

  A grave, middle-aged officer, as tall as Dick himself, with a flaming red beard and a bandaged head, shouldered his way forward.

  “I am Colonel the Count Von Kleinhals,” he said in excellent English, “the Chief of Communications. I will see that you are not mistreated.”

  Quickly, he ran through the packet of papers that Captain Face had given Dick.

  “We will see the general at once,” he said.

  * * * * *

  Lieutenant-General Paul von Schmee sat in striped silk pajamas behind his huge desk of carved Flemish oak. His little eyes were bloodshot and furious, and still heavy-lidded with sleep. The midnight was striking as Dick Fahnestock was pushed into his presence. Someone poked an elbow into Dick’s flank.

  “Salute!”

  Dick twisted in the grasp of his captors and glared at von Reuter behind him. The smooth-cheeked young Prussian jabbed him curtly again.

  “Salute His Excellency, Englishman!”

  “Go take a flying leap at the moon!” growled Dick.

  “Ach, is it so?” von Reuter hissed in his ear. “You are no deserter. You are a spy. Your heart is with the enemy. Salute His Excellency!”

  The huge, black-bearded man in pajamas that didn’t quite meet around his middle looked more like a Turkish bath rubber than an Excellency to Dick. There was something Oriental in the look of von Schmee, with his flat nose, his flat cheekbones, his small, gleaming eyes. He might have passed for a modern reincarnation of Genghis Khan, the scourge of nations, sitting at midnight in his Tatar tents, greasy with fat and half naked, plotting his bloody victories.

  Colonel von Kleinhals leaned over and whispered in the general’s ear.

  “Confidential, from Number Two!” Von Schmee nodded imperceptibly. He waved a big black-haired hand.

  “You will retire, gentlemen,” he said.

  In a moment, the room was cleared of his crowding aides, division officers and sentries, with the exception of Kleinhals and the young Prussian Guardsman. Dick stood before the general. In a corner of the vast room, a yellow-haired, green-eyed woman sat curled up in an easy chair, wrapped in a pink silk dressing gown. She put a finger in a book she was reading and watched Dick curiously.

  “Salute, Englishman!”

  Von Schmee folded his paws over his gaudily clad stomach. He stared at Dick with those sharp, scheming eyes. The skin on his shaven head was corrugated with thought. Whatever indictments might be read against his appearance and his morals, Paul Friedrich Hermann von Schmee was a bold, fierce, sagacious man. The brain beneath his naked skull was large. It was ruthless and very cunning. A man does not become commander of six divisions of Prussian shock troops by being a fool.

  “He says his name is Fahnestock, Excellency,” explained von Reuter. “By nationality, American. By rank, a sub-lieutenant of the British Flying Corps. He claims to be a deserter.”

  Von Schmee ran through the papers that had been handed him by Kleinhals.

  “Your story, Englishman?” he said.

  Dick moved his quid to a corner of his mouth. More and more, he was becoming oppressed with the gravity of his situation. It was a fatal enterprise he had so rashly embarked on. Yet he must bluff it out as long as he could. He leaned his knuckles on von Schmee’s desk, and spoke the lesson he had learned.

  “I am German-American,” he said. “My mother came from Berlin. My father’s people were Hamburg men. I enlisted with the English because I like to fight. But the English didn’t treat me right. I got to thinking you fellows were the fellows I ought to be with. Tonight, I broke loose. I cracked the headquarters safe and rifled it of some papers that I thought might be useful to you—us—the Germans. I got into the air and kept on flying till I saw this hospital cross. Then I came down.”

  “His story has the ring of sincerity, sir,” said Colonel von Kleinhals. “We can check it up, of course, by Number Two.”

  “Do you know our operative, Number Two?” said von Schmee.

  “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure,” said Dick.

  “Do you know the English spy, K-13?” put in von Kleinhals quickly.

  “No, sir!” said Dick.

  He stared at Kleinhals with honest brown eyes. He was glad to be able to speak the truth for a change.

  Von Schmee sorted over the papers.

  “These appear,” he said, “to give a detailed disposition of the enemy forces confronting us. I may assume they are duplicates of the reports transmitted to us this afternoon by Number Two, and lost by blundering stupidity. If so, this Englishman has rendered us an incalculable service. In forty-eight hours, we shall cut the English line like a piece of rotten string. I will examine these reports thoroughly. It is good.”

  He rubbed his hands. His small red eyes lingered on Dick almost with a look of affection.

  “Decode this report of Number Two,” he said.

  He handed papers to von Reuter. The Prussian, clicking his heels and bowing, sat down at a big code book. Von Schmee pulled his beard, continuing to survey Dick curiously.

  “From America, eh?” said Colonel von Kleinhals. “My wife is an American. She came from Milwaukee. Her name was Bertha Schmalz. You must have heard of her?”

  “No, sir,” said Dick.

  The colonel showed his disappointment.

  “The Schmalzes are one of the first families of America, I have been led to understand,” he said.

  “I come from Missouri,” explained Dick.

  “Oh! I thought you were an American.”

  Dick chewed quietly. So far, not so bad. Only the stormy-eyed young Prussian seemed to have suspected him. Von Kleinhals was actually friendly. The green-eyed woman in the corner had resumed the reading of her book.

  “How is the morale in the English flying service?” asked Kleinhals.

  “Well,” said Dick guardedly, “all the boys seem sure they’re going to win. It doesn’t do much good trying to argue them out of it, either.”

  Von Kleinhals shook his red head.

  “The English air force is bad, very bad,” he said. “They act like crazy men. There is no discipline, no orderliness, in their way of fighting. They are giving us much trouble. For instance, single ships of them diving headlong into our squadron formations. It is not scientific warfare. We have lost many ships that way by surprise.”

  “It’s hard to get them to fight scientific in the air,” said Dick. “Most of them just mix in and blaze away whenever they see some Jerries—Germans. I suppose something ought to be done to teach ’em better.”

  “Warfare is a science, not a football game,” said Kleinhals, waggling his crimson beard. “That is the trouble with the English. They can never be serious. They have not German Gründlichkeit, Vollständigkeit und Regelmässigkeit.”

  “No, sir,” said Dick respectfully. “And the joke of it is the poor boobs don’t even know what they’re missing.”

  “That is it,” said Colonel von Kleinhals, lifting a finger. “How can you deal with men who will not act according to any rules? It is absolutely bad military tactics to engage in battle against superior forces, as is well known. Therefore, we send up our airmen in scientific formations. But the English spoil it all, because of this very pernicious habit of attacking single-handed. They can find no justification in Clausewitz’s nor von Bernardi’s treatises on the art of war, for such tactics. I can likewise cite Cæsar’s “De Bellis Gallicis” against them. They simply have not a leg to stand on.”

  “You said a mouthful, Colonel,” declared Big Dick. “I’d like to see you having a debate with ’em s
ometime. I’ll bet you would argue them all over the lot and then some.”

  “There is one English flier who exemplifies this unscientific trait to the extreme,” said Kleinhals. “A report is at hand of how this afternoon he attacked four of our combat ships ten miles within our own lines, sending one down in flames, and breaking up the formation so that the remainder had to beat an orderly retreat. Is that science? Is that sound military practice? No. Furthermore, this same crazy man has performed identical tactics innumerable times before. Our pilots refuse to meet him on such unscientific grounds. They laugh at him. He has made himself ridiculous. They call him the jackass, because of a picture of that animal which he is accustomed to have painted on the ships he flies.”

  “It ain’t a jackass, it’s a mule,” said Dick.

  “Ah, you know him, said Kleinhals.

  “I’ve heard of him,” said Dick. “His name is Big.”

  “What a fool!” said Kleinhals.

  General von Schmee scratched his hairy stomach. His sharp eyes had not left Dick’s face.

  “What are you eating?” he demanded.

  “Old Horse Plug,” said Dick.

  “Vot iss dat?” said the general in English.

  “Dünger,” said Dick.

  The yellow-haired lady with the book looked up at the sound of the few English words that had been spoken. She patted a pretty yawn.

  “Will you translate, Paul?” she asked the general.

  “It iss not bolite,” said the general firmly.

  She arose and strolled over to him, stretching herself like a cat that arches its back. Her book she dropped on the floor. It was a copy of H. G. Wells’ Mr. Britling Sees It Through, a popular English war novel of the day.

  She perched on the arm of the general’s chair. He patted her little knee. She rumpled his bristly beard with an absentminded gesture. Yet, all the time, her eyes, Dick noted, her pale eyes that were as green as ice and as cold as phosphorescent glow, were on the handsome young Guards officer who sat with head bent in oblivious concentration, decoding the message.

  “Have you finished, Herr von Reuter?” demanded von Schmee.

  Von Reuter laid down his pencil. He arose slowly, standing at stiff attention. His stormy blue eyes flashed on Dick and then on Vrow Alys Dervanter.

  “Read,” said von Schmee.

  “Confidential,” muttered von Reuter, quirking a penciled eyebrow.

  “This fool understands no German,” said von Schmee, with a fond arm around Vrow Alys. “And the Englishman—will have no opportunity to make use of what he hears in this presence. Read. My eyes are tired.”

  “To the end, Excellency?”

  “To the end.”

  “Zu Befehl!”

  Ritter von Reuter bowed from the hips. He put his monocle to his eye.

  “From Number Two,” he said. “As follows—”

  He read the decoded message in a quick, clear voice. A smile was quirking at the corners of his smooth, curved lips, a smile as smooth as red satin.

  Excellency:

  I beg to submit further details on the strength and positions of the British artillery. Also duplicates of the valuable reports entrusted to Colonel the Count von Kleinhals at Oldemonde this afternoon. This provides you with an analysis exact and complete. As will be evident to Your Excellency’s eye when you have digested these reports, the British line, attentuated by French withdrawals toward the Verdun sector, offers three certain points for a complete piercing through.

  The English have acquired knowledge that Number Two is operating with their air forces. I credit the phenomenal cunning of the English K-13 for this disclosure. While no suspicion has been directed toward myself, I have deemed it advisable to create a decoy. This decoy I have established in the person of one Richard W. Fahnestock, sub-lieutenant, R.F.C., who has been inflicting atrocious destruction on our own brave and devoted airmen. I regard the obliteration of the said Fahnestock as equal to the wiping out of an average enemy squadron.

  Said Fahnestock being of German descent and American birth, I have endeavored to implant in both officers and men of the enemy a presupposition that he is one of us. I have induced said Fahnestock to flee to Your Excellency’s command with every appearance of desertion. The activity of the enemy Intelligence will therefore be centered on said Fahnestock, insuring my own position.

  With all emphasis, I beg you, Gracious Excellency, to run down and destroy without delay—

  The reader cleared his throat and looked up. “‘Without delay’ is understood, Excellency,” he said.

  “Read on!” Von Reuter read on.

  Destroy without delay the English K-13. It is of the utmost imperativeness—äusserst Befehlendkeit. Information of highest authenticity has reached me that K-13 is operating at Your Excellency’s own headquarters. I yet lack any clue to his identity, but am close upon the source. I trust to be able to transmit to Your Excellency a complete description of this most dangerous spy before the lapse of another twenty-four hours.

  When dealing with K-13, however, as I do not need to warn Your Excellency, twenty-four hours is enough to cause us incalculable destruction. Respectfully, I beg and implore Your Excellency neither to sleep nor to let any person whatsoever who may be around you—”

  Lieutenant von Reuter coughed huskily into his handkerchief.

  “A drink of water, please,” he said.

  Vrow Alys Dervanter jumped up like a frightened bird. She had apparently interpreted the simple German words. If not, she had read the desire expressed in that handsome face on which her eyes languished.

  “I will bring you a drink off water,” she said.

  “Was sagt sie?” demanded von Reuter, watching her with narrowed eyes and head aslant.

  “Sie sagt, sie wird ein Trank Wasser bringen,” translated General von Schmee, with the ponderous pride of a bilingualist.

  Von Reuter examined his script again. “‘Any person whatsoever who may be around you’ is heavily underscored, Excellency,” he said in a lowered voice. “It would seem to indicate—”

  “I am not a fool,” growled von Schmee. “Read on!”

  Neither sleep nor allow any person whatsoever who may be around you to make a move unknown to you before K-13 is unescapably in your fist. For the ferreting out of K-13’s identity, I beg to suggest to Your Gracious Excellency that this American fool, said Fahnestock, may be serviceably utilized. He has been charged by me to make himself known as an English spy to K-13, and if carefully watched, yet left apparently unsuspected, may succeed in making a contact which will betray—

  “Read no more!” said General von Schmee.

  Lieutenant von Reuter sipped a water tumbler that Vrow Alys had brought him. He bowed his thanks stiffly and disentangled his fingers from her hand, which was wound still around the glass.

  “There is no more to read, sir,” he said. “‘—will betray the damned English spy to us’. Signed, ‘Number Two.’”

  He handed the code original and the translation to the general with a flourish. And his red satin smile was like the smile of angels as he glanced mockingly at Big Dick.

  Big Dick Fahnestock leaned heavily on his fists. He stood staring at the little crimson flame of von Schmee’s eyes. The room rocked and reeled about him. He could see nothing else. Von Schmee stacked all the papers together quickly and thrust them into his safe. He pressed a buzzer.

  “It’s a double cross!” Dick mouthed hoarsely. “All that this little squirt here has read is lies! He doesn’t like rue, and he’s made it up! I tell you, I’m a damned deserter! I busted open the squadron safe, and grabbed those papers from it and hopped away! You can ask ’em all if I didn’t crack the safe, and knock old Fairy Face for a loop—”

  “Who?” said von Schmee.

  “Captain Tillinghast Wainwright Oakley Face, R.F.C.!” yelled Dick.

  “The initials, again?” said von Schmee.

  Dick opened up his mouth and screeched. It was a big mouth, and a big scr
eech.

  “Captain T.W.O. Face!” he bellowed.

  Then a great light hit him on the head like a falling mountain. He leaned against the desk edge heavily. In the profound silence, his ears roared. But not so loudly that they drowned out the mocking sound of Lieutenant von Reuter’s sudden, wild, uncontrollable laughter.

  Dick snatched up a wine bottle then, and surged over the desk at von Schmee. But the sentries who had come in response to von Schmee’s buzzer signal had him about the arms and body. He hurled the wine bottle, and von Schmee dropped down behind the desk. He fought with fists and knees, with his head, with any missile he could snatch up. Rifle butts were crashing at his face. He heard Vrow Alys Dervanter screaming in all the dialects of the Low Countries. He fought on, and they downed him.

  “Hock the Kaiser!” he croaked. “Two bits for the whole Hun army! Come on, the rest of you—”

  He was on the floor now, beneath the boots and the rifle butts. Still, the woman was screaming. It was a bloody business before they’d got him.

  Chapter V

  K-13

  Sometime between midnight and the dawn, Colonel the Count von Kleinhals, accompanied by his aide, Lieutenant von Reuter, and two orderlies, entered the guardhouse where prisoners were incarcerated. Both German officers wore their swords and full dress regalia, for they had come about a grave matter.

  “Arouse the English spy,” ordered von Kleinhals.

  “You bring an order to release him, Herr Oberst?” demanded the guard officer.

  “Not at all,” said von Kleinhals curtly. “He will be shot at sun-up. I present you here with written orders to that effect. Detail your firing squad.”

  “Zu Befehl, Herr Oberst.”

  “I wish to examine the Englishman thoroughly and in private now,” said von Kleinhals.

  He and his aide were conducted into the narrow whitewashed cell where Dick Fahnestock lay sleeping like an ox. Chairs and an electric spotlight were brought. The sentries on guard at the grilled iron door were withdrawn. Colonel von Kleinhals marched quickly across the cell, past the sleeping man, and examined the settings of the window bars. He appeared to be satisfied. For an instant, he stared out at the naked stars.