The badly scared Teuton in the following story was obviously not using a top naval code but the principles of his secret dispatches were much the same. There is also a significant similarity between the German psychology here and in the second World War; the story, moreover, is one of the few sinister accounts of unrestricted warfare which still manages to include a broad streak of humor.
1
On a bright morning, early in the year 1917, Herr Sigismund Krauss, secret agent for the German Government, stopped at the entrance of Harrods’ Stores, looked at himself in one of the big mirrors, thought that he really did look a little like Bismarck, and adjusted his tie. To relieve the tension, let it be added that this scene was not enacted in London, but in the big branch of Harrods’ that had recently been opened in Buenos Aires.
Nevertheless, it was because it looked so very much like the London branch that it had rasped the nerves of Herr Krauss. He was in a very nervous condition, owing to the state of his digestive system, and he was easily irritated. He had been annoyed in the first place because the German houses in Buenos Aires were unable to sell him several things which he thought necessary for the voyage he was about to take across the Atlantic. He had been almost angry when the bald-headed Englishman who had waited on him in Harrods’ advised him to buy a safety waistcoat. All that he needed for his safety was the fraudulent Swedish passport, made out in the name of Erik Neilsen, which he carried in his breast pocket.
“I am an American citizen,” he said, complicating matters still further. “I am sailing to Barcelona on an Argentine ship, vich the Germans are pledged nod to sink.”
“This is the exact model of the waistcoat that saved the life of Lord Winchelsea,” said the Englishman. “I advise you to procure one. You never know what those damned Germans will do.”
Here was a chance of raising a little feeling against the United States, and Herr Krauss never lost an opportunity. He pretended to be even more angry than he really was.
“That is a most ungalled-for suggestion to a citizen of a neutral guntry,” he snorted. “I shall report id to the authorities.”
These mixed emotions had disarranged his tie. But he had obtained all that he wanted, and when he emerged into the street the magic of the blue sky and the brilliance of the sunlight on the stream of motor cars and gay dresses cheered him greatly. After all, it was not at all like London; and there were still places where a good German might speak his mind, if he did not insist too much on his allegiance.
He was in a great hurry, for his ship, the Hispaniola, sailed that afternoon. When he reached his hotel he had only just time enough to pack his hand luggage and drive down to the docks. His trunk had gone down in advance. It was very important, indeed, that he should not miss the boat. There was trouble pending, which might lead to his arrest if he remained in Argentina for another week; and there was urgent—and profitable—work for him to do in Europe.
In his cab on the way to the docks he examined the three letters which had been waiting for him at the hotel. Two of them were requests for a settlement of certain bills. “They can wait,” he murmured to himself euphemistically, “till after the war.”
The third letter ran thus:
Dear Erik: Bon voyage! Most amusing news. Operation successful. Uncle Hyacinth’s appetite splendid. Six meals daily. Yours affectionately,
Bolo.
This was the most annoying thing of all. Herr Krauss knew nothing about any operation. He knew even less about Uncle Hyacinth; and in order to interpret the message he would require the code—Number Six, as indicated by the last word but two, and the code was locked up in his big brass-bound steamer trunk. It was not likely to be anything that required immediate attention. He had received a number of code messages lately which did not even call for a reply. It was merely irritating.
When he reached the docks he found that his trunk was buried under a mountain of other baggage on the lower deck of the Hispaniola, and that he would not be able to get at it before they sailed. He had just ten minutes to dash ashore and ring up the German legation on the telephone. He wasted nearly all of them in getting the right change to slip into the machine. A most exasperating conversation followed.
“I wish to speak to the German minister.”
“He is away for the week-end. This is his secretary.”
“This is Sigismund Krauss speaking.”
“Oh, yes.”
“I have received a message about Uncle Hyacinth.”
“I can’t hear.”
“Uncle Hyacinth’s appetite!” This was bellowed.
“Oh, yes.” The voice was very cautious and polite.
“I want to know if it’s important.”
“Whose appetite did you say?”
“Uncle Hyacinth’s!” This was like Hindenburg himself thundering.
There seemed to be some sort of consultation at the other end of the wire. Then the reply came very clearly:
“I’m sorry, but we cannot talk over the telephone. I can’t hear anything you say. Please put your question in writing.”
It was an obvious lie for anyone to say he could not hear the tremendous voice in which Herr Krauss had made his touching inquiry; but he fully understood the need for caution. He had tapped too many wires himself to blame his colleagues for timidity. He had only a minute to burst out of the telephone booth and regain the deck, before the gangplanks were hoisted in and the ship began to slide away to the open sea.
He was more than annoyed, he was disgusted, to find that half the people on board were talking English. Two or three of them, including the captain, were actually British subjects; while the purser, a few of the stewards, and several passengers were citizens of the United States.
It was late that evening and the shore lights had all died away over the pitch-black water when the brass-bound trunk belonging to Mr. Neilsen, as we must call him henceforward, was carried into his stateroom by two grunting stewards. The mysterious letter could be of no use to the Fatherland now, and he certainly did not expect it to be important from a selfish point of view. Also, he was hungry, and he did not hurry over his dinner in order to decode it. It was only his curiosity that impelled him to do so before he turned in; but a kind of petrifaction overspread his well-fed countenance as the significance of the message dawned upon him. He sat on a suitcase in his somewhat cramped quarters and translated it methodically, looking up the meaning of each word in the code, like a very unpleasant schoolboy with a dictionary. He was nothing if not efficient, and he wrote it all down in pencil on a sheet of note-paper, in two parallel columns, thus:
Bon voyage U-boats
Most Instructed
Amusing Sink
News Argentine
Operation Ships
Successful Destruction
Uncle Hyacinth’s Hispaniola
Appetite Essential
Splendid Cancel
Six Code Number
Meals Passage
Daily Immediately
Perhaps to make sure that his eyes did not deceive him Mr. Neilsen wrote the translation out again mechanically, in its proper form, at the foot of the page, thus:
U-boats instructed sink Argentine ships. Destruction Hispaniola essential. Cancel passage immediately.
It seemed to have exactly the same meaning. It was ghastly. He knew exactly what that word “destruction” meant as applied to the Hispaniola. He had been present at a secret meeting only a month ago, at which it was definitely decided that it would be inadvisable to carry out a certain amiable plan of sinking the Argentine ships without leaving any trac
es, while an appearance of friendship was maintained with the Argentine Government. Evidently this policy had suddenly been reversed. There would be a concentration of half a dozen U-boats, a swarm of them probably, for the express purpose of sinking the Hispaniola, just as they had concentrated on the Lusitania; but in this case there would be no survivors at all. The ship’s boats would be destroyed by gunfire, with all their occupants, because it was necessary that there should be no evidence of what had happened; and necessity knows no law. There was no chance of their failing. They would not dare to fail; and he himself had organized the system by which the most precise information with regard to sailings was conveyed to the German Admiralty.
He crushed all the papers into his breast pocket and hurried up on deck. It was horribly dark. At the smoking-room door he met one of the ship’s officers.
“Tell me,” said Mr. Neilsen, “is there any possibility of our—of our meeting a ship—er—bound the other way?”
The officer stared at him, wondering whether Mr. Neilsen was drunk or seasick.
“Certainly,” he said; “but it’s not likely for some days on this course.”
“Will it be possible for me to be taken off and return? I have found among my mail an important letter. A friend is very ill.”
“I’m afraid it’s quite impossible. In the first place we are not likely to meet anything but cattle ships till we are in European waters.”
“Oh, but in this case, even a cattle ship—” said Mr. Neilsen with great feeling.
“It is impossible, I am afraid, in any case. It is absolutely against the rules; and in wartime, of course, they are more strict than ever.”
“Even if I were to pay?”
“Time is not for sale in this war, unfortunately. It’s verboten,” said the officer with a smile; and that of course Mr. Neilsen understood at once.
He was naturally an excitable man, and his inability to obtain his wish made him feel that he would give all his worldly possessions at this moment for a berth in the dirtiest cattle boat that ever tramped the seas, if only it were going in the opposite direction.
He returned to his stateroom almost panic-stricken. He sat down on the suitcase and held his head between his hands while he tried to think. He was a slippery creature and his fellow countrymen had often admired his “slimness” in former crises; but it was difficult to discover a cranny big enough for a cockroach here, unless he made a clean breast of it to the captain. In that case he would be incriminated with all the belligerents and most of the neutrals. There would be no place in the world where he could hide his head, except perhaps Mexico. He would probably be penniless as well.
At this point in his cogitations there was a knock on the door, which startled him like a pistol shot. He opened it a cautious inch or two—for his papers were all over his berth—and a steward handed him a telegram.
“This was waiting for you at the purser’s office, sir,” he said. “The mail has only just been sorted. If you wish to reply by wireless you can do so up to midnight.” The man was smiling as if he knew the contents. There had been some jesting, in fact, about this telegram at the office.
A gleam of hope shot through Mr. Neilsen’s chaotic brain as he opened the envelope with trembling fingers. Perhaps it contained reassuring news. His face fell. It simply repeated the former sickening message about Uncle Hyacinth. But the steward had reminded him of one last resource.
“Yes,” he said, trying hard to be calm; “I shall want to send a reply.”
“Here is a form, sir. You’ll find the regulations printed on the back.”
Mr. Neilsen closed the door and sank, gasping, on to the suitcase to examine the form. The regulations stated that no message would be accepted in code. This did not worry him at first, as he thought he could concoct an apparently straightforward and harmless message with the elaborate vocabulary of his Number Six. But the code had not been intended for agonizing moments like these. It abounded in commercial phrases, medical terms, and domestic greetings; and though there were a number of alternative words and synonyms it was not so easy as he had expected to make a coherent message which should be apparently a reply to the telegram he had received. After half an hour of seeking for the mot juste which would have melted the heart of a Flaubert, he arrived at the purser’s office with wild eyes and handed in the yellow form.
“I wish to send this by Marconi wireless,” he said.
The purser tapped each word with his pencil as he read it over:
Splendid. Most—amusing. Use—heaps—butter. Congratulate—Uncle Hyacinth. Love. Erik.
“I beg your pardon, sir,” said the purser, “but we can only accept messages en clair.”
“It is as clear as I can make it,” said Mr. Neilsen; and he was telling the truth. “It is the answer to the telegram which was handed to me on board.”
“It looks a little unusual, sir.”
“It is gonnected with an unusual operation,” said Mr. Neilsen, who was getting thoroughly rattled, “and goncerns the diet of the batient.”
The steward departed on his errand. Captain Abbey took another sheet of paper and laboriously, with tongue outthrust, constructed a sentence, consulting the purser’s two columns from time to time, and occasionally chuckling as he altered or added a word.
The purser slapped his thighs with delight as he followed the work over the captain’s shoulder; and when the form arrived he wrote out the captain’s composition in a very large, clear hand, with the fervor of a man announcing good news. Then he licked the flap of the yellow envelope, closed it, addressed it and handed it to the steward.
“Give this wireless message to Mr. Neilsen in half an hour. Tell him it has just arrived. If there is any reply tonight he must send it before twelve o’clock.”
“I ’ope that will make ’im sit up and think,” said Captain Abbey. “I’ll consider what steps I’d better take to save the ship; and then I shall probably ’ave a wireless or two of my own to send elsewhere.”
Mr. Neilsen was greatly excited when the steward knocked at his door and handed him the second wireless message. He opened it with trembling fingers and read:
Still more successful. Uncle Hyacinth’s tonsils removed. Appetite now colossal. Bless him. Taking large quantities frozen meat.
He could hardly wait to translate it. He sat down on his suitcase again, and spelled it out with the help of his Number Six, word by word, refusing to believe his eyes, refusing even to read it as a consecutive sentence till the bottom of the two parallel columns had been reached, thus:
Still Impossible
More Total
Successful Destruction
Uncle Hyacinth’s Hispaniola
Tonsils Von Tirpitz
Removed Advises
Appetite Essential
Now Squadron
Colossal Twenty
Bless him Submarines
Taking Waiting
Large Appropriate
Quantities Death
Frozen Good
Meat German
Best Enviable
Greetings Position
This was hideous. He remembered all that he had done all over the world in the interests of the Fatherland. He remembered the skilful way in which long before the war he had stirred up feeling in America against Japan, and in Japan against both America and England. He remembered the way in which he had manipulated the peace societies in the interest of militarism. He had spent several years in London before the w
ar, and he believed he had helped to make the very name of England a reproach in literary coteries; so that current English literature, unless it went far beyond honest criticism of English life, unless indeed it manifested a complete contempt for that pharisaical country and painted it as rotten from head to foot, lost caste among the self-enthroned British intellectuals.
It was very easy to do this, because, though English editors paid considerable attention to their leading articles, some of them did not care very much what kind of stuff was printed in their literary columns; and they would allow the best of our literature; old and new, and the most representative part of it, to be misrepresented by an anonymous Sinn Feiner in half a dozen journals simultaneously. The editors were patriotic enough, but they didn’t think current literature of much importance. He had been able, therefore, to quote extracts from important London journals in the foreign press.
He had been helped, too, by lecturers who drew pensions from the British Government for their literary merits, and told American audiences that the one flag they loathed was the flag of the land that pensioned them. He had reprinted these utterances, together with the innocent bleatings of the intellectuals, and scattered them all over the world in pamphlet form. He had marked passages in their books and sent them to friends. Thousands of columns were devoted to them in the newspapers of foreign countries, while the English press occasionally referred to them in brief paragraphs, announcing to a drugged public at home that the vagaries of these writers were of no importance. He had carried out the program of his country to the letter, and poisoned the intellectual wellsprings.
No grain of poison was too small. He had even written letters to the newspapers in Scotland, which had stimulated the belief of certain zealous Scots that whenever the name of England was used it was intended as a deliberate onslaught upon the Union. There was hardly any destructive force or thought or feeling, good, bad or merely trivial, which he had not turned to the advantage of Germany and the disadvantage of other nations. Then when the war broke out he had redoubled his activities. He was amazed when he thought of the successful lies he had fostered all over the world. He had plotted with Hindus on the coast of California, and provided them with the literature of freedom in the interests of autocracy. He worked for dissension abroad and union in Germany. He was hand-in-glove with the I. W. W. He was idealist, socialist, pacifist, anarchist, futurist, suffragist, nationalist, internationalist, and always publicist, all at once, and for one cause only—the cause of Germany.
The Big Book of Espionage Page 32