The two men went to the door of the villa, and stood outside in the garden. It seemed the interview was over, and the agreement made. But indeed the interview as Hillyard had planned it had hardly begun. He had a series of promises which might be kept or broken, and the keeping or breaking of them could not be checked. José Medina was very likely to be holding the common belief along that coast that Germany would surely win the war. He was in the perfect position to keep in with both sides were he so minded. It was not to content himself with general promises that Hillyard had brought the Dragonfly to Palma.
He turned suddenly towards José Medina with a broad laugh, and clapped him heartily upon the back.
“So you do not remember me, Señor José?”
Medina was puzzled. He took a step nearer to Hillyard. Then he shook his head, and apologised with a smile.
“I am to blame, señor. As a rule, my memory is not at fault. But on this occasion — yes.”
Through the apology ran a wariness, some fear of a trick, some hint of an incredulity.
“Yet we have met.”
“Señor, it must be so.”
“Do you remember, Señor José, your first venture?” asked Hillyard.
“Surely.”
“A single sailing-felucca beached at one o’clock in the morning on the flat sand close to Benicassim.”
José Medina did not answer. But the doubt which his politeness could not quite keep out of his face was changing into perplexity. This history of his first cargo so far was true.
“That was more than thirteen years ago,” Hillyard continued. “Thirteen years last April.”
José Medina nodded. Date, place, hour, all were correct. His eyes were fixed curiously upon his visitor, but there was no recognition in them.
“There were two carts waiting, to carry the tobacco up to the hills.”
“Two?” José Medina interrupted sharply. “Let me think! That first cargo! It is so long ago.”
Medina reflected carefully. Here was a detail of real importance which would put this Señor Hillyard to the test — if only he could himself remember. It was his first venture, yes! But there had been so many like to it since. Still — the very first. He ought to remember that! And as he concentrated his thoughts the veil of the years was rent, and he saw, he saw quite clearly the white moonlit beach, the felucca with its mast bent like a sapling in a high wind, and the great yard of the sail athwart the beam of the boat, the black shadow of it upon the sand, and the carts — yes, the carts!
“There were two carts,” he agreed, and a change was just faintly audible in his voice — a change for which up till now Hillyard had listened with both his ears in vain. A ring of cordiality, a suggestion that the barriers of reserve were breaking down.
“Yes, señor, there were two carts.”
Medina was listening intently now. Would his visitor go on with the history of that night!
And Hillyard did go on.
“The tobacco barrels were packed very quickly into the carts, and the carts were driven up the beach and across the Royal road, and into a track which led back to the hills.”
José Medina suddenly laughed. He could hear the groaning and creaking of those thin-wheeled springless carts which had carried all his fortunes on that night thirteen years ago, the noise of them vibrating for miles in the air of that still spring night! What terror they had caused him! How his heart had leaped when — and lo! Hillyard was carrying on the tale.
“Two of the Guardia Civil stepped from behind a tree, arrested your carts, and told the drivers to turn back to the main road and the village.”
“Yes.”
“You ran in front of the leading cart, and stood there blocking the way. The Guardia told you to move or he would fire. You stood your ground.”
“Yes.”
“Why the Guardia did not fire,” continued Hillyard, “who shall say? But he did not.”
“No, he did not,” José Medina repeated with a smile. “Why? It was Fate — Fortune — what you will.”
“You sent every one aside, and remained alone with the guards — for a long time. Oh, for a long time! Then you called out, and your men came back, and found you alone with your horses and your carts. How you had persuaded the guards to leave you alone — —”
“Quien sabe?” said Medina, with a smile.
“But you had persuaded them, even on that first venture. So,” and now Hillyard smiled. “So we took your carts up in to the mountains.”
“We?” exclaimed José. He took a step forward, and gazed keenly into Martin Hillyard’s face. Hillyard nodded.
“I was one of your companions on that first night venture of yours thirteen years ago.”
“Claro! You were certainly there,” returned José Medina, and he was no longer speaking either with doubt or with the exaggerated politeness of a Spaniard towards a stranger. He was not even speaking as caballero to caballero the relationship to which, in the beginning, Hillyard had most wisely invited him. He was speaking as associate to associate, as friendly man to friendly man. “On that night you were certainly with me! No, let me think! There were five men, yes, five and a boy from Valencia — Martin.”
He pronounced the word in the Spanish way as Marteen.
“Who led the horse in the first cart,” said Hillyard, and he pointed to his visiting card which José Medina still held in his hand. José Medina read it again.
“Marteen Hillyard.” He came close to Hillyard, and looked in his eyes, and at the shape of his features, and at the colour of his hair. “Yes, it is the little Marteen,” he cried, “and now the little Marteen swings into Palma in his great steam yacht. Dios, what a change!”
“And José Medina owns two hundred motor-feluccas and employs eighteen thousand men,” answered Hillyard.
José Medina held out his hand suddenly with a great burst of cordial, intimate laughter.
“Yes, we were companions in those days. You helped me to drive my carts up into the mountains. Good!” He patted Hillyard on the shoulder. “That makes a difference, eh? Come, we will go in again. Now I shall help you.”
That reserve, that intense reserve of the Spaniard who so seldom admits another into real intimacy, and makes him acquainted with his private life, was down now. Hillyard had won. José Medina’s house and his chattels were in earnest at Martin Hillyard’s disposal. The two men went back through the house into a veranda above the steep fall of garden and cliff, where there were chairs in which a man could sit at his ease.
José Medina fetched out a box of cigars.
“You can trust these. They are good.”
“Who should know if you do not?” answered Hillyard as he took one; and again José Medina patted him on the shoulder, but this time with a gurgle of delight.
“El pequeño Martin,” he said, and he clapped his hands. From some recess of the house his wife appeared with a bottle of champagne and two glasses on a tray.
“Now we will talk,” said José Medina, “or rather I will talk and you shall listen.”
Hillyard nodded his head, as he raised the glass to his lips.
“I have learnt in the last years that it is better to listen than to talk,” said he. “Salut!”
CHAPTER XIV
“Touching the Matter of Those Ships”
IT HAS BEEN said that Hillyard joined a service with its traditions to create. Indeed, it had everything to create, its rules, its methods, its whole philosophy. And it had to do this quickly during the war, and just for the war; since after the war it would cease to be. Certain conclusions had now been forced by experience quite definitely on Hillyard’s mind. Firstly, that the service must be executive. Its servants must take their responsibility and act if they were going to cope with the intrigues and manœuvres of the Germans. There was no time for discussions with London, and London was overworked in any case. The Post Office, except on rare occasions, could not be used; telegrams, however ingenious the cipher, were dangerous; and even when Lond
on received them, it had not the knowledge of the sender on the spot, wherewith to fill them out. London, let it be admitted, or rather that one particular small section of London with which Hillyard dealt, was at one with Hillyard. Having chosen its men it trusted them, until such time as indiscretion or incapacity proved the trust misplaced; in which case the offender was brought politely home upon some excuse, cordially thanked, and with a friendly shake of the hand, shown the door.
Hillyard’s second conclusion was that of one hundred trails, ten at the most would lead to any result: but you must follow each one of the hundred up until you reach proof that you are in a blind alley.
The third was the sound and simple doctrine that you can confidently look to Chance to bring you results, probably your very best results, if you are prepared and equipped to make all your profit out of chance the moment she leans your way. Chance is an elusive goddess, to be seized and held prisoner with a swift, firm hand. Then she’ll serve you. But if the hand’s not ready and the eye unexpectant, you’ll see but the trail of her robe as she vanishes to offer her assistance to another more wakeful than yourself.
In pursuit of this conviction, Hillyard steamed out of Palma Bay on the morning of the day after his interview with José Medina, and crossing to the mainland cruised all the next night southwards. At six o’clock in the morning he was off a certain great high cape. The sea was smooth as glass. The day a riot of sunlight and summer, and the great headland with its high lighthouse thrust its huge brown knees into the water.
The Dragonfly slowed down and dawdled. Three men stood in the stern behind the white side-awning. Hillyard was on the bridge with his captain.
“I don’t really expect much,” he said, seeking already to discount a possible disappointment. “It’s only a possibility, I don’t count on it.”
“Six o’clock off the cape,” said the captain. “We are on time.”
“Yes.”
Both men searched the smooth sea for some long, sluggish, inexplicable wave which should break, or for a V-shaped ripple such as a fixed stake will make in a swiftly running stream.
“Not a sign,” said the captain, disconsolately.
“No. Yet it is certainly true that the keeper of that lighthouse paid an amount equal to three years’ salary into a bank three weeks ago. It is true that oil could be brought into that point, and stored there, and no one but the keeper be the wiser. And it is true that the Acquitania is at this moment in this part of the Mediterranean steaming east for Salonika with six thousand men on board. Let’s trail our coat a bit!” said Hillyard, and the captain with a laugh gave an order to the signal boy by his side.
The boy ran aft and in a few seconds the red ensign fluttered up the flagstaff, and drooped in the still air. But even that provocation produced no result. For an hour and a half the Dragonfly steamed backwards and forwards in front of the cape.
“No good!” Hillyard at last admitted. “We’ll get on to the Acquitania, and advise her. Meanwhile, captain, we had better make for Gibraltar and coal there.”
Hillyard went to the wireless-room, and the yacht was put about for the great scarped eastern face of the Rock.
“One of the blind alleys,” said Hillyard, as he ate his breakfast in the deck-saloon. “Next time perhaps we’ll have better luck. Something’ll turn up for sure.”
Something was always turning up in those days, and the yacht had not indeed got its coal on board in Gibraltar harbour when a message came which sent Hillyard in a rush by train through Madrid to Barcelona. He reached Barcelona at half past nine in the morning, took his breakfast by the window of the smaller dining-room in the hotel at the corner of the Plaza Cataluña, and by eleven was seated in a flat in one of the neighbouring streets. The flat was occupied by Lopez Baeza who turned from the window to greet him.
“I was not followed,” said Hillyard as he put down his hat and stick. Habit had bred in him a vigilance, or rather an instinct which quickly made him aware of any who shadowed him.
“No, that is true,” said Baeza, who had been watching Hillyard’s approach from the window.
“But I should like to know who our young friend is on the kerb opposite, and why he is standing sentinel.”
Lopez Baeza laughed.
“He is the sign and token of the commercial activity of Spain.”
From behind the curtains, stretched across the window, both now looked down into the street. A youth in a grey suit and a pair of orange-coloured buttoned boots loitered backwards and forwards over about six yards of footwalk; now he smoked a cigarette, now he leaned against a tree and idly surveyed the passers by. He apparently had nothing whatever to do. But he did not move outside the narrow limits of his promenade. Consequently he had something to do.
“Yes,” continued Baeza with a chuckle, “he is a proof of our initiative. I thought as you do three days ago. For it is just three days since he took his stand there. But he is not watching this flat. He is not concerned with us at all. He is an undertaker’s tout. In the house opposite to us a woman is lying very ill. Our young friend is waiting for her to die, so that he may rush into the house, offer his condolences and present the undertaker’s card.”
Hillyard left the youth to his gruesome sentry-go and turned back into the room. A man of fifty, with a tawny moustache, a long and rather narrow face and eyeglasses, was sitting at an office table with some papers in front of him.
“How do you do, Fairbairn?” Hillyard asked.
Fairbairn was a schoolmaster from the North of England, with a knowledge of the Spanish tongue, who had thrown up schoolmastering, prospects, everything, in October of 1914.
“Touching the matter of those ships,” said Hillyard, sitting down opposite to Fairbairn.
Fairbairn grinned.
“It worked very well,” said he, “so far.”
Hillyard turned towards Lopez and invited him to a seat. “Let me hear everything,” he said.
Spanish ships were running to England with the products of Cataluña and returning full of coal, and shipowners made their fortunes and wages ran high. But not all of them were content. Here and there the captains and the mates took with them in their cabin to England lists of questions thoughtfully compiled by German officers; and from what they saw in English harbours and on English seas and from what secret news was brought to them, they filled up answers to the questions and brought them back to the Germans in Spain. So much Hillyard already knew.
“A pilot, Juan de Maestre, went on board the ships, collected the answers, made a report and took it up to the German headquarters here. That Ramon Castillo found out,” said Fairbairn. “Steps were taken with the crew. The ships would be placed on the black list. There would be no coal for them. They must be laid up and the crews dismissed. The crew of the Saragossa grasped the position, and the next time Juan de Maestre stepped on board he was invited to the forecastle, thumped, dropped overboard into the salubrious waters of the dock and left to swim ashore. Juan de Maestre has had enough. He won’t go near the Germans any more. He is in a condition of extreme terror and neutrality. Oh, he’s wonderfully neutral just now.”
“We might catch him perhaps on the rebound!” Hillyard suggested.
“Lopez thinks so,” said Fairbairn, with a nod towards Baeza.
“I can find him this evening,” Baeza remarked.
The three men conferred for a little while, and as a consequence of that conference Lopez Baeza walked through the narrow streets of the old town to a café near the railway station. In a corner a small, wizened, square man was sitting over his beer, brooding unhappily. Baeza took a seat by his side and talked with Juan de Maestre. He went out after a few minutes and hired a motor-car from the stand in front of the station. In the car he drove to the park and went once round it. At a junction of two paths on the second round the car was stopped. A short, small man stepped out from the shadow of a great tree and swiftly stepped in.
“Drive towards Tibidabo,” Baeza directed the driver, a
nd inside the dark, closed car Baeza and Juan de Maestre debated, the one persuading, the other refusing. It was long before any agreement was reached, but when Baeza, with the perspiration standing in beads upon his face, returned to his flat in the quiet, respectable street, he found Martin Hillyard and Fairbairn waiting for him anxiously.
“Hecho!” he cried. “It is done! Juan de Maestre will continue to go on board the ships and collect the information and write it out for the Germans. But we shall receive an exact copy.”
“How?” asked Hillyard.
“Ramon will meet a messenger from Juan. At eight in the morning of every second day Ramon is to be waiting at a spot which from time to time we will change. The first place will be the cinema opposite to the old Bull Ring.”
“Good,” said Hillyard. “In a fortnight I will return.”
He departed once more for Gibraltar, cruised up the coast, left his yacht once more in the harbour of Tarragona and travelled by motor-car into Barcelona.
Fairbairn and Lopez Baeza received him. It was night, and hot with a staleness of the air which was stifling. The windows all stood open in the quiet, dark street, but the blinds and curtains were closely drawn before the lamps were lit.
“Now!” said Hillyard. “There are reports.”
Fairbairn nodded grimly as he went to the safe and unlocked it.
“Pretty dangerous stuff,” he answered.
“Reliable?” asked Hillyard.
Fairbairn returned with some sheets of blue-lined paper written over with purple ink, and some rough diagrams.
“I am sure,” he replied. “Not because I trust Juan de Maestre, but because he couldn’t have invented the information. He hasn’t the knowledge.”
Lopez Baeza agreed.
“Juan de Maestre is keeping faith with us,” he said shortly, and, to the judgment of Lopez Baeza, Hillyard had learnt to incline a ready ear.
“This is the real thing, Hillyard,” said Fairbairn, pulling at his moustache. “Look!”
He handed to Martin a chart. The points of the compass were marked in a corner. Certain courses and routes were given, and fixed lights indicated by which the vessel might be guided. There was a number of patches as if to warn the navigator of shallows, and again a number of small black cubes and squares which seemed to declare the position of rocks. There was no rough work in this chart. It was elaborately and skilfully drawn, the work of an artist.
Complete Works of a E W Mason Page 545