“And high time too!” he cried. “Scheidemann is my Staff Captain—he’s not an interpreter. I told the Major-General himself that if prisoners were to be interrogated on the spot, the Corps would have to detail special officers….What’s the fellow’s name?”
“It’s not in the message, Herr Oberst…but the Corps telephoned just now. Rittmeister von dem Holzweg is the name!”
“Well, he’ll be welcome whoever he is!” grunted the Colonel, and started talking to me about the tanks. He was particularly anxious to know whether our people were satisfied with their results.
“If you are willing to admit, mon Colonel,” I answered, “that you are dissatisfied with our tanks, I should be better able to judge.”
An orderly came in and spoke to the Adjutant, who, muttering an apology, got up and went out.
“Well answered!” cried the Colonel. “I must tell the Doctor that.” And he translated question and answer for the benefit of the Stabsarzt, who, it appeared, was inordinately interested in the tanks. The Doctor burst into a hurricane of laughter (as, doubtless, he was expected to do), and the Colonel roared with him until the room fairly shook with noise.
In the middle of the din the door opened suddenly. Lucius stood there looking into the room.
V
He was dressed in the service uniform of a captain of Uhlans, grey-green tunic buttoned across the chest, grey-green breeches with the broad crimson stripe of the Great General Staff down the leg, chapka (the Uhlan helmet), strings and all. An eyeglass was firmly screwed in his left eye, and through it he calmly surveyed the room, whilst bowing stiffly, his right hand raised in salute to his helmet.
He was the Prussian officer to the life, impassive of feature, angular of movement. By some trick of the actor’s art he actually seemed to have added that touch of woodenness to the face which is the hallmark of the Prussian officer.
His eye rested on me for the fraction of a second as his gaze travelled round the room. But his face remained immobile. As for me, I felt the blood rush to my head and I literally felt my heart thumping in jerks. The room seemed to swim and I grasped with twitching hand at my empty coffee cup and took a long draught of nothing…anything, anything, I felt, to cover my bewilderment. The nerve of the man! The cheek of it all!
A voice that seemed a long way off was speaking German in clipped nasal tones.
“Captain von dem Holzweg, 23rd Uhlan Regiment, sent by the Corps, Herr Oberst…they telephoned….”
It was Lucius who was speaking in German. Behind him I saw the rotund form of the Adjutant.
Pushing back his chair, the Colonel rose and gave the Uhlan his hand.
“Delighted, Herr Rittmeister,” he said. “Have you breakfasted?”
Lucius held up a white-gloved hand in assent.
“Then,” the Colonel went on, looking at the Adjutant, “it’s high time that you and I, Gelbhammer, went up to the headquarters of the 390th. If they are coming out to-night, I must see Colonel Krome. In the meantime,” he added, waving his hand towards me, “since you are here, we have an excellent specimen for you to practice your arts on. You speak English, of course?”
“A-oh yes, sir,” said Lucius in English, with a nicely graduated shade of German accent.
On that, after many deep bows and much saluting, the Colonel picked up his steel helmet and riding-crop from a chair and stumped out, the Adjutant at his heels. The rest of the party, with the exception of von Scheidemann and Lucius, followed suit. These two last were conferring in an undertone in a corner.
“We can use the Colonel’s room,” von Scheidemann said presently, “he won’t be back before two or three o’clock this afternoon…it’s the second door on the left…perhaps you’ll take our friend in there. I’ll just go along to the office and get the forms; I shan’t be a minute.”
He led the way out into the corridor, and pushing a door open, showed us a small room with the usual long, slanting air-shaft, with plain deal walls covered with maps, and plain, roughly carpentered deal table and chairs. On the wall was a telephone. As we went into the room I noticed a sentry just turning a bend in the corridor. I wondered if he was always on duty outside the C.O.’s room or whether he was posted for my benefit.
Von Scheidemann clanked off down the corridor, leaving us alone. I observed that he left the door open and that Lucius made no attempt to shut it.
“Cigarette?” said Lucius, handing me his case.
As I stretched across to take it, he whispered swiftly:
“Don’t ask questions: don’t be surprised at anything. Just sit down at the table there and listen to me. When I stop talking answer…anything…anything banal and unsuspicious.”
He walked back to the door and, with his back to me and his face towards the door, began studying a map hanging on the wall. Then he spoke in a rapid undertone:
“Billie, old man, I’m right plumb up against it this time. It’s eight o’clock now and I’ve got just one hour and a quarter before the man I am impersonating can turn up. I bagged his car and he can’t possibly get here before 9:15, I think. If he turns up before that time, then I’m dished. Look out!”
A step sounded on the echoing timbers of the corridor.
“…it entirely depends on the visibility prevailing at the time,” I said quite irrelevantly, as the sentry hove into view in the opening of the door.
“Himmel Sakrament!” swore Lucius in German, “did one ever hear such lies?” Then he went into English and his voice was loud and clear:
“You must know that weather conditions have nothing to do with the use of tanks! Esel!” he added in German.
On that he switched back into English in the same rapid undertone as before:
“I should have got clear of the German lines last night, only I was held up. By a miraculous chance I stumbled upon this man Holzweg’s special mission to these headquarters, so I made for this point. It’s my only chance to get clear away, but a slender one at that. Billie, do you know where you are?”
I shook my head. Then, hearing the sentry again, I took up the thread of my imaginary interrogation until the man had passed the door once more.
“In front of this village,” Lucius went on, “is the Stettiner Redoubt. I dare say you know it!”
Know it? I should say I did. The toughest nut to crack on the whole of this part of the enemy line, a fortress bristling with machine-guns that had hitherto defied all attempts at capture.
“Our fellows are attacking it at eight…no preliminary bombardment but full orchestra when they pop. Hark! They’re off!”
I listened for the roar of guns, but heard nothing. Only I suddenly noticed that the atmosphere was vibrating and that the timber of the air-shafts, of floors and walls and ceilings, was oscillating as leaves shaken by the wind.
“The village where we are now is the final objective: our lads are due to be here about five minutes after nine. If they take the Stettiner Redoubt, they should get here all right: if they’re held up, well, I shall be properly for it, for no power on earth can prevent my being unmasked!
“That’s the whole bag of tricks,” Lucius concluded, “and you and I must make it our business to prolong our sitting with Scheidemann here until 9:05 at all costs. After that, it doesn’t matter much what happens!”
“But Holzweg?” I queried in a whisper; “won’t he wire through and have you laid by the heels?”
“I left him tied up in a barn in a fairly desolate region at least three miles from the nearest unit. There is always the chance that he might be able to attract the notice of a passing car, but I’m risking that: one must hazard something in this game!”
Then there was a step in the corridor, and Scheidemann came in. He looked very harassed. As he entered, Lucius very swiftly and almost imperceptibly got between him and the door.
> “Can we start the examination of this officer?” Lucius said in an annoyed kind of voice. “I seem to have been kept waiting for a very long time.”
“You will not be able to examine this officer, Herr Rittmeister,” Scheidemann answered coldly; “there has been a telephone message about you.”
“About me?” said Lucius, who was standing, legs apart, hands behind his back, in front of the door.
“Yes. If you will come with me to the office, I will show you the message.”
The Staff Captain stepped towards the door and Lucius stood aside to let him pass. As von Scheidemann drew level with him, however, Lucius raised his right arm like a flag; something descended heavily on the Prussian’s head, and he crashed backwards into me.
“Catch him!” cried Lucius in a hoarse whisper. But I had forestalled him. The Staff Captain was prostrate in my arms.
We laid him down on the floor. I looked inquiringly at Lucius. He appeared to be listening intently. From within now reverberated distinctly the rumble and thud of artillery but blended with it the trample of feet echoing along the subterranean passages, hoarse cries and commands. Then flying footsteps came along the corridor.
Lucius sprang forward and put his weight against the door. Some one rattled the handle.
“Herr Hauptmann! Herr Hauptmann!” a voice cried, raucous with excitement, “they’re all retreating. Zurück, zurück!”
The door-handle was twisted vainly for a second or two. We could hear the unseen messenger breathing heavily at the other side of the door. Peering over Lucius’s shoulder I looked at his watch. It pointed to eight o’clock.
I shook Lucius by the arm, pointing.
He stared at the watch, then grinned cheerfully up in my face.
“Stopped, by God!” he said.
Hardly had he uttered the words when a loud detonation rang out quite close at hand, followed by another and another.
“Bombs!” I whispered, “they’re here, they’re here!”
The heavy breathing at the keyhole stopped. I heard a sharp cry of astonishment, a shout, a loud report, a heavy thud. And then the whole of that vast rabbit-warren seemed to break out into long reverberations of noise. Bombs crashed, shots pinged through the echoing spaces, voices shouted in a medley of languages, and there was a great blowing of whistles…then I heard a voice say at the very door of our room—and the voice was the voice of Lancashire:
“ ’Ere be another of ’em, laads!” and a rifle-butt smashed through the panels of the door.
Lucius turned to me with a smile. “You see I have my uses, Billie Boy!” he said.
I motioned to him to stand behind me, then plucked the door wide.
The next moment the little tomb-like place was full with a jostling, steel-helmeted, bloodstained, begrimed mass of British soldiers….
VI
Lucius wanted a lot of explaining. I met a fellow I knew in the little crowd that had squeezed out this nest and he went bail for me. But nothing I could say availed to get permission for old Lucius to accompany me down to the rear. So I left him in charge of a corporal’s guard, waiting for some Divisional Brass Hat to come and interrogate him. In the midst of all that khaki, I must say old Lucius looked his part.
“Not a word to any one!” was his parting injunction to me.
I was sorely tempted to disobey him when, six weeks later, he came to see me. Our Division was again in rest, and one afternoon Lucius turned up in his Vauxhall, spruce and immaculate as ever. I ran into him at the door of the mess, where he was inquiring for me.
Whilst we stood and chatted, old Blinkers passed along the village street. He recognized Lucius at once, and there was the unspoken reproach of “Shirker” in every line of the cold scrutiny of his glance. I was about to speak when Lucius squeezed my arm.
“Don’t spoil my joke!” he pleaded.
So I held my peace and we both went in to lunch.
THE LINK
MICHAEL ANNESLEY
UNDER THE PSEUDONYM Michael Annesley, the prolific author Frederick Annesley Michael Webster (1886–1949) wrote sixteen espionage thrillers, while under his real name, bylined F. A. M. Webster, he wrote mysteries, fantasy novels for adults, works about sports, and science fiction aimed at young readers.
In a biographical sketch, Webster was described as “one of the most important names in the history of athletics in the twentieth century in Britain” and, with no evidence to suggest otherwise, it seems a reasonable statement, even if written by his grandson, Michael Webster.
F. A. M. Webster wrote more than thirty books on sports, was active in creating and leading several important sports organizations, and was the British National Champion in the javelin throw both in 1911 and 1923. As a journalist, he was a special correspondent at five Olympic Games and other major events, and had an international reputation as an authority on the history and technique of sports. In spite of his terrific skill on the field at school and on army teams, he was unable to serve in battle because of a knee damaged on the soccer field.
Among his fictional works as Michael Annesley were a series of espionage novels about Lawrie Fenton that appeared from 1935 (Room 14; published in the United States as Fenton of the Foreign Office) to 1950 (Spy Island, which was set on Cyprus). Other books in the series were set in Paris, Lithuania, Germany, Poland, and other international locations.
As F. A. M. Webster, his best-known mysteries featured Old Ebbie Entwhistle, who appeared in scores of short stories in such collections as Old Ebbie: Detective Up-to-Date (1923), Old Ebbie Returns (1925), and The Crime Scientist (1930).
Webster’s nonseries crime and adventure stories were often set in exotic locales, such as Nairobi (The Hill of Riches, 1923), Africa (Beyond All Fear, 1934), and India (East of Kashgar, 1940).
I have been unable to trace the original publication of this story. It was collected in My Best Spy Story, edited anonymously (London, Faber & Faber, 1938).
THE LINK
MICHAEL ANNESLEY
STOUT MYNHEER LEIPSCHITZ came and went, much at his own sweet will, between his home at Zutfen and the towns of Western Germany which lie reasonably close to the frontier of the Netherlands. His unfailing kindliness endeared him to his fellow Dutchmen. He was well liked in Germany for a certain quiet, concentrated hatred of the British, which he had harboured since receiving, in the Boer War, a bullet wound which still caused him to walk with a pronounced limp.
In the spring of 1914 an accident had laid him abed for some weeks and then, despite his hatred of the British, he had gone to London for treatment. Certain high officials at the Marinamt smiled knowingly when they heard that story, for there had been occasions when Paul Leipschitz had rendered valuable service to the German Intelligence Department. Some weeks prior to the outbreak of the Great War he returned to the house in which he lived alone at Zutfen and resumed his journeys into Germany; but, even after the outbreak of hostilities, the frontier guards, Dutch and German alike—paid but the most perfunctory attention to his comings and goings.
Quite a number of people took to visiting him at outrageous hours of the night, but he showed no signs of annoyance at being thus disturbed and more often than not after his mysterious visitors had departed took a stroll to the loft where lived the carrier pigeons which had provided him with a hobby for quite a number of years.
His business seemed to be conducted mainly in Dortmund, Essen, and Düsseldorf; but sometimes he went as far as Cologne, and very occasionally to Berlin. In the German capital he ceased to be the provincial business man and became the intimate of important people in Government circles.
For the first few months of the war the luck was with him, although the character he bore was entirely different on opposite sides of the frontier. In Germany he was regarded as a valuable Secret Service agent, for news that came from him regarding the plans of
the Allies was always reliable, although not so invariably useful. But, as he explained, it was not always possible to send information as promptly as he would wish to do.
In Holland he had not yet attracted the attention of the Dutch Government for he continued to play to perfection the part of an industrious business man. Early in 1915 he left Zutfen, presumably because the frequent visits paid by women to his lonely house at night had scandalized his fellow townsmen. The real cause of his removal to a small office in Rotterdam may have been a hint dropped by one of his furtive visitors that certain people in Berlin were growing suspicious and might take steps to interrogate him the next time he should cross the frontier.
Once he was in Rotterdam it did not take Paul Leipschitz long to find out who were the heads of the various Counter-Espionage Services located in the city. As a Dutch neutral he had no difficulty in making friends with most of them and having taken up his residence at the Maas Hotel, which was overrun with German agents, he re-established himself with the Berlin authorities by keeping up a regular supply of accurate information, which would have been invaluable had it arrived in time, or had not the British authorities changed their plans at the last moment, or taken steps to forestall any possible source of leakage.
Up to that time it had been surprisingly easy for the British, Belgian, and French Secret Services to get information out of Belgium, on account of the hundreds of Belgian refugees who had settled in Holland. But, shortly after the arrival of Paul Leipschitz in Rotterdam, Germany created a singularly effective barrier against the passage of information by erecting a deadly high-voltage wire fence along the Dutch-Belgian frontier. This fence was guarded by a cordon of sentries each within sight of the other and, further, was constantly patrolled by German Secret Police in plain clothes.
The erection of this barrier put a period to the activities of both Dutch and Belgian free-lance agents, but from some mysterious British headquarters in Rotterdam lines radiated to courier centres for frontier agents at Terneuzen, Tilburg, and Eindhoven in Holland and were carried on to Maastricht in Belgium. People were established as “letter-boxes” in Belgium at Wachtebeke, Brussels, Antwerp, and Liège; there were a dozen frontier passages; boatmen bore messages along the Rivers Scheldt and Meuse; the habitual smugglers below Sittard brought information out of Germany and but few of the promeneurs, passeurs, and train-watchers sent into Belgium to gather information regarding German activities were apprehended—for a time.
The Big Book of Espionage Page 38