The adventures of Heine 12 – Wallace · Verses Across
Literature · Short Stories
The adventures of Heine 12The Passing of Heine
18
Literature · Short Stories
The adventures of Heine 12
The Passing of Heine
WallaceEnglish
The British people, in their boastful, arrogant, and frivolous way, have a saying that the British do not know when they are beaten. This betrays their folly, their short-sightedness, and their inability to grasp the obvious. We Germans, on the contrary, recognize facts. We have no illusions, knowing that by reason of our superior kultur, our educational system, our national discipline, our readiness for sacrifice, we are necessarily the highest expression of man’s development. We also are prepared to recognize our own shortcomings, such as they are. From the largeness of our eyrie-view, comprehending as it does the vast surface of known facts, we can distinguish the failings of those less favoured nations which enjoy, because of their lower attainments, a more circumscribed view. Because of this circumscription we have the folly embodied in the British maxim which I have quoted.
I had enjoyed a great innings. I had done useful work. I had served the Fatherland with a loyalty and unselfishness which I trust will be held as a shining example to the unborn generations of secret service officers who will follow in my steps.
To continue in England would be folly. There were many reasons why I should determine my residence. It was growing more and more difficult to get into communication with the Fatherland. Trading steamers, ostensibly engaged in peaceable commerce, but in reality maintained to keep the communications open between England and Germany, were constantly disappearing in the most ominous fashion. The wireless stations which we had established with so much thought were being eliminated and, worst of all, since the conviction was forced upon me against my will, I had to confess to myself that there really existed in Britain a secret service of a peculiarly deceitful kind.
I had been constantly coming into contact with its members, constantly foiled by its machinations. Its officers were to be found in all ranks and departments of public life; they included Members of Parliament, and little shopkeepers, newspaper reporters and doctors, railway officials of all grades, ships’ stewards and parsons. It was unbelievable, and it took me nearly two years to be convinced.
And now I had the feeling that a well-prepared net had been stretched and was gradually encircling me. I had a sense that I was being played with as a mouse is pawed by a cat. I notified Headquarters that I was retiring, gracefully, and one night I sat down and worked out the details of my escape.
I had four passports, and my first move was to obtain the endorsement of all these. That in itself was a difficult business, but the original owners of the passports were well chosen. It was an American, a Swede, a Chilian, and a Canadian, and had you seen the four photographs attached to those four documents, you would have observed that there was not a great dissimilarity in appearance between any of the four.
I was due to leave England on May 15th, 1916. I actually left on May 14th. On the morning of that day, I took one of those bold steps which the most daring spirits invariably find profitable.
I called at the War Office and asked to see Major Haynes, of the Intelligence Department. I sent in my name, that is to say, my Chilian name, and in a very short time I was ushered into a very large, bare office, where the gallant major sat at a table which was covered with documents of all kinds.
He rose and greeted me heartily.
“How are you, Heine,” he said, pulling a chair up for me to sit upon, “and how are our friends Kattz and Kister?”
“Kattz and Kister?” I repeated, my face a blank.
“The scientific murderers,” said the major with a cheerful laugh, “the bow-string expert and the stiletto specialist.”
In such a manner did this frivolous man speak. I know you will not believe it is possible, and many to whom I have retailed this conversation have doubted my word. I do not blame them. Flippancy and sports-language would never pass the lips of a German officer in these iron times.
“I do not understand you, dear major,” I said.
“I didn’t think you would,” said he, and pulling out a drawer removed a box.
“Have a poisoned cigar,” he said, “one of our Kattz-Kister Perfectos.”
He simply roared with laughter. Such vulgarity!
“I certainly remember the two names now you mention them. They called upon me with a hoity-toity plan which I was much too busy to discuss with them. As a matter of fact, they had not been there long,” said I with a cunning smile, “before I realized that they were members of the great (I emphasized the word “great” with a little sneer) English secret service, and I had an amusing evening pulling their several legs.”
Major Haynes winked (he was not well born).
“What I like about you, Heine,” he said (again that objectionable word, which I passed in silence), “is that you have a sense of humour. So few of your fellow countrymen possess that sense.”
I laughed politely because I felt that it was what he expected me to do.
“Why have you come now?” he asked.
I shrugged my shoulders.
“Mister Haynes,” I began.
“Major,” said he, “but go on.”
“Major Haynes,” I said, “it seems to me that my most innocent actions are misconstrued, and as I am going to-morrow to Brighton to spend a week-end, I thought it advisable to notify you, so that you may know where you can find me.”
“So you are going to Brighton, are you?” he said after a pause. “What an eccentric fellow you are!”
“Eccentric, Major Haynes!” I repeated.
“To go to Brighton, an hour’s journey from London to an ordinary man, by such a roundabout route.”
“Which way do you think I am going!” I smiled.
“I am not sure,” he said, “but, judging from the fact that most of your boxes went up yesterday to Liverpool under the name of ‘Heigl,’ I gathered that you were making a round trip of it. Still,” he said, rising and offering his hand, “I will wish you bon voyage. You have entertained me vastly. Keep clear of the mine-fields and ’ware submarines. They are dangerous little devils.”
Oh! Had he seen my mind? Had he known the embittered thoughts that flocked through my brain like a flight of wild geese? Could he have detected the harsh and cynical expressions which trembled on my tongue, I do not think this fatheaded Englishman would have seen me to the door with such awkward grace.
I saw his idea. For his own purpose he desired to keep me in England until the moment came to strike, but my friend, thought I, as I walked along Whitehall, in Heine there are four people and Liverpool is not the only gate to the “dark sea flood.”
Another man might have taken a long time to consider his plans. Mine were already made. He expected me to go back to my office, or to my flat perhaps, under the supervision of his detectives. I walked to Westminster Bridge Underground station, took a train to Charing Cross, descended the moving escalator to the Tube, and rode as far as Oxford Circus, where I changed for a city train which carried me to the Bank. Here I changed again and rode to Waterloo, came up to the surface in an elevator and caught a train on the elevated electric to Clapham Junction.
From Clapham Junction I journeyed to Willesden, from Willesden by a slow train to Rugby. Here I changed, leaving the North-Western station and joining the Central line, found myself at half-past ten at night at Sheffield.
I walked across to the station hotel, taking a packed trunk which was waiting for me at the cloak-room, registered myself, filling up the necessary form, and was conducted to Room 43.
I was no sooner in the room and was unbuckling the straps of my trunk, when there was a knock at the door. Thinking it was the chambermaid, I said “Come in,” and the door opened--and admitted Major Haynes in civilian dress.
“What time would you like your breakfast in the morning, Heine?” he asked with such savoir-faire, that you might have thought he had accompanied me and had only parted from me a few minutes before he came into the room.
Not to be outdone in coolness, I replied:
“At nine o’clock.”
“You look tired,” he said, “I think the rest at Brighton is going to do you a lot of good. When they told me you had got out at Clapham Junction I really thought and hoped that you had decided upon taking the short route. I expect it is the underground journeys that make you look so weary. Have you a headache?”
“The only thing that gives me a headache, Major Haynes, is boorish and unkultured conversation.”
I felt it was the moment to assert myself, even though it cost me my life.
“Then avoid soliloquies,” he said, and with a nod he shut the door.
There was nothing to do the next morning but to go back to London, which I did, taking my suitcase with me.
Major Haynes was on the same train, nearer the engine than I. I saw him step into a motor-car that was waiting and drive off, and I went into the buffet and had some breakfast.
My difficulty was going to be to arrive at the port of embarkation rather than the actual getting on board the steamer, and I knew that I should have to abandon both the Liverpool and the Fishguard routes and go by way of Glasgow and Greenock.
The thing was to shake off the men who by this time were watching me, and Fortune favoured me to an extraordinary extent. That night there descended on London one of those thick white mists which sometimes occur in the late spring. I packed a grip with a special kind of disguise, put the necessary documents in my pocket, and sent for a cab.
I came to the door of the front entrance of the flats, walked out bareheaded to the driver and told him that I should want him to take me to St. Pancras station to catch the 10.30 Scottish mail. I asked him how long it would take me to get to the depôt, then I walked back into the vestibule, picked up my hat, coat, and portmanteau, that were waiting in a dark corner, slipped through the back door, across the yard by which the tradesmen enter to deliver their goods, through a mews, and in a few minutes I was swallowed up in the darkness. I stood at the end of the mews and listened. There was no sound of footfall. Rapidly threading the narrow streets which lay at the back of the apartment house in which I lived, I gained a second road, hailed a taxi and instructed the man to drive me to Langley, which is a wayside station fifteen miles out of London, and lies between Slough and West Drayton. He promptly refused the fare, but I slipped a couple of notes into his hand and his views on the shortage of his petrol underwent a remarkable change. So much for the veracity and honesty of English cabmen!
On the way down I changed my mind. My appearance at so insignificant a station might excite comment, and as we cleared the patch of mist, the cabman offered no objection to taking me on to Reading. At this station a slow train from London to Plymouth leaves shortly after midnight. I reached Bristol at 3.30 in the morning, and by 5 o’clock I was on my way northward, journeying by workman’s train part of the way, until I changed on to a main line train at Worcester.
Had you stood that same afternoon on Carlisle station, you would have seen a clean-shaven clergyman with a white collar and a black soft felt hat, immaculate black garments, and the various other insignia of his holy office. You would have observed that he was drinking tea, and that under his arm was a large and serious book, and that his gold-mounted spectacles would occasionally be turned benevolently left and right, looking for Major Haynes.
In this guise I reached Glasgow, a comfortable English parson. I passed the inspection of the alien officer, my passport was stamped officially and I crossed the gangway of the ship with a feeling of malicious joy.
“Here,” thought I, “is an object-lesson which Major Haynes himself might take to heart as an example of German objectivity.”
We Germans never falter in our purpose. We set our minds upon a goal and to that goal we attain. I stepped down the crowded gangway to the purser’s office to present my ticket.
The purser looked at it and nodded.
“Take this gentleman to State Room 64,” he said to a steward, and the man gathered up my trunk and my coat, led the way to the state room I had booked, opened the door and I walked in--and there was Major Haynes sitting on the settee smoking a cigar and looking bored.
“Close the door, Heine,” he said, and shook his head, reprovingly.
“I have not had the opportunity of telling you before,” he said gravely, “but I think it is only right that you should know that a clergyman of the Church of England does not wear gaiters, unless he is a bishop, and I feel sure, Heine, that whatever you are, you are not a bishop.”
I felt I could not bandy words with him. I sat heavily down upon the settee.
“You have been getting your ideas of the clergyman,” he said, “from Simplicissimus. For example, that apron you are wearing, and which I have no doubt was supplied to you by a theatrical costumier who thought you were cast for the good clergyman in ‘The Silver King,’ is the apron that rural deans dream about, and country vicars regard as being half-way to a halo. I wonder you didn’t bring a shepherd’s crook,” he said bitterly.
“Do I understand that I am forbidden to travel on this boat?” I asked.
“Certainly. It would be no less than a scandal to allow you to misrepresent the Church of England to our good friends in America,” said Major Haynes. “Now get into some sensible clothes like a good fellow.”
“Very well,” I said.
I took up my trunk, watery at heart, walked up the companion-way and crossed the gangway on the wharf.
Oh, that journey back to London, how long, how dreary, how full of conflicting emotions! With what soul weariness did I recall every incident of the northward journey! With what respect had I been greeted in my Episcopalian character by the common people!
Major Haynes was not on the train, I am happy to say. I was too depressed to make any other attempt to escape, too weary even to formulate some alternative plan. I did not even have the energy to speculate upon the reason I was being detained, for I had not been charged, as I might have been charged, with using false passports, nor was I charged, with any of the other offences which might have been alleged against me. I was just simply let loose and given another chance of escape.
I made no pretence of going back to my flat, but drove to an hotel where I knew I should be constantly under observation. I was eating my dinner in an unhappy fashion, when I heard my name breathed, and, looking up, I recognized in the waiter a man who had given us a great deal of information, and was a worker for The Day. While he was bending over me with the menu in his hand, and apparently taking my orders, he was speaking rapidly.
“You are watched, Herr Heine,” he said under his breath.
“I know,” I replied in the same tone. “I am trying to get away from London.”
He said no more, but when he came back with the soup he whispered:
“I think I can help you.”
When the fish arrived, he added a little more information.
“When you get back to your room to-night,” he said, “ring for the sommelier. I will come up.”
I told him briefly that I had made two attempts and failed, and he nodded.
I waited till fairly late before I rang the bell, and my friend--his name deserves mention in these records, it was Gustav Stheil, a worthy fellow who, I understand, has since fallen into the hands of our hateful enemy--responded very quickly.
“In half an hour,” he said, “come out of your room and go down the service stairs. You will find them on the left. At three o’clock to-morrow morning the chimney-sweeps are coming to clean the kitchen flues. I will get an old suit of clothes for you and with a bag of soot and your face blacked you can get out of the hotel without anybody being the wiser.”
“And after that,” I said.
“I think I can get you a horse and cart. Drive to this address. It is my brother-in-law’s--he is in the country--and lay low there for a day or two and I will come and see you.”
He gave me a key and the address. It was in a place called Palmer’s Green.
The plan worked admirably. I descended without interruption or observation, made a change of clothes, and so covered my face with soot that no person would have recognized me. Gustav let me out through the service entrance and I found a light cart and a horse waiting, with a boy sitting in the seat.
“He is my son. You can trust him. Good luck, Herr Heine.”
I took a £5 note, it was somewhat dirty, I am afraid, for I had to rub it to make sure there were not two, a mistake which I had once made--and slipping it into the honest fellow’s hands, I drove off.
Picton Street, Palmer’s Green, is a street of small houses, and that house to which I went was poorly furnished but was good enough for my purpose. I washed the disguising soot from my face and lay down on the bed to finish my sleep.
It was not a comfortable day by any means, because there was no food in the house, and I was ravenously hungry that night when Gustav came bringing me provisions and busying himself at the kitchen fire preparing me coffee.
“There is a cattle-ship leaving Avonmouth in two days’ time,” he said. “A friend of mine will smuggle you on board and look after you on the voyage over.”
“How am I to get to Avonmouth?” I demanded.
“By train,” said he, but I shook my head.
“All the trains will be watched. Can you get me a motor-bicycle?”
He promised to do his best and, late as the hour was, he went out to inquire. He came back with a push-bicycle and told me I should have to do the best I could with that for one stage of the journey, and that he would arrange to have me met on the Reading-Newbury road by a good patriot with a motor-car, but that it would be necessary for me to lie in the bottom of the car and allow myself to be covered by rugs.
I will not describe the frights and apprehensions of that journey. I cycled through the night and just before daybreak I reached the Reading-Newbury road and came within sight of the tail lights of a motor-car drawn up at the roadside.
The journey was not an uncomfortable one. I descended from the car on the outskirts of Bristol and made my way to the place where friend Gustav told me I should meet the sailor. It was a little bar and from the description which Gustav had given me I was able to recognize my friend, a stalwart patriot of Finland, who despised the British even as he hated the barbarous and tyrannical Russian.
To recall even that night’s adventures and to place on record all the events which occurred between my leaving my friend’s lodgings and my arrival in the hold of the soon-leaving ship would occupy a volume. How I climbed two walls, how I concealed myself in a railway truck which was slowly shunted to the side of the ship with most uncomfortable bumpings, how I stole up the slippery side of a coal shute and lay for two hours amongst the pots and pans of the cook’s galley, how I eventually swarmed down an interminable ladder into the depths of the ship, an adequate account of these happenings might be written by a Zola, but my poor pen can neither describe the agonies of mind and body which marked my reaching the ship, nor the miseries of soul which followed when the vessel drew clear from the wharf and began to sway and heave, to jump and sink in the open seas.
I was hungry until I went on board ship, but the moment the vessel started on its voyage I felt I would never eat again. I almost wished I had not left England. For a day and a night, it seemed like two months, or even two years, I endured the agonies of sea-sickness beyond description. At the end of the second night my friend made his way to the hold and brought me up to the galley, for I should explain that he was the ship’s cook. Here I was able to wash myself in a pail and to take the little nourishment which he gave me. Just before daybreak and when I was preparing to return to my submarine dungeon, the thud of the screw ceased.
“Are we stopping?” I asked my friend, the cook.
He went out on to the deck and presently returned.
“Yes,” he said, “you had better stay here. There is an English patrol coming alongside.”
I could hear nothing but the whine of the wind and the ceaseless roar of the sea, and the first thing I heard was the sound of voices on the deck just outside the galley.
It was an English naval officer speaking.
“You have a stowaway on board, a German agent,” said the voice; “oh, yes, I know you are not aware of the fact, but he is here. You can either search the ship and bring him up or we will save you the trouble.”
I looked at the cook, and the cook looked at me.
“Herr Heine,” he said sadly, “there is only one thing to do. They will find you--they are certain to find you. This is a small ship.”
I drew myself up and straightened my shoulders. Pushing open the door I stepped out to the deck in the light of the dawn.
“I am the man you seek,” I said proudly.
I had to climb down the rope ladder on to a bobbing little motor-launch, to the well of which I was conducted. We were very near land and I supposed (and here I was right) that the land was Ireland, that down-trodden nation, the sport and mock of the misgoverning English.
The motor-launch ran into a little harbour and came up by the side of the jetty. A man in a long military overcoat was pacing up and down, but stopped when the boat reached the landing stage. I sprang on to the steps and mounted to the quay.
“Had a good time?” said the voice I hated more than all voices.
“Major Haynes,” I said with dignity, “I have not had a good time.”
“I am sorry to hear it. Anyway you have got the soot off your face, I am happy to see. You are looking quite white, Heine. Come and have breakfast.”
I accompanied him mutely to a little one-storeyed hotel which faced the landing stage.
“You had better go up and tidy yourself,” he said, “I have engaged a room for you.”
I bowed and followed the hall-porter, who was the only servant up at this hour of the morning. He opened the door and showed me into a room, and to my amazement I found all my trunks on the bed. One had been opened and my razors and shaving apparatus were neatly laid out. Over the rail of a chair hung my best suit, and my patent boots, nicely polished, stood neatly against the wall.
I shaved, washed, and changed, and in half an hour I presented myself in the dining-room where, to my surprise, a good breakfast was waiting, Major Haynes being already at the table engaged in reading what appeared to be a volume of poetry.
“Well, Heine,” he said, “your travels are nearly over, and I think that some explanation is due to you.”
I bowed again, though it was a difficult performance, since I was at that moment balancing a piece of fried egg upon my knife.
“Try the fork,” said Major Haynes.
Really this man’s inquisitive eyes saw everything.
“The fact is, Heine, we knew all about you before you arrived in England. We knew you were at the head of the organization, we knew your ways, your habits, your abnormal conceit--you don’t mind my speaking frankly, do you?”
“Not at all,” I said stiffly. “I am in your power.”
“And we knew that wherever the corpse was there would the vultures be gathered, or, to put it better, wherever was the magnet there would be the iron filings. If we kept you going and left you alone, we always knew where to look for your workers, who were ever so much more dangerous than you. We thought once or twice of taking you,” he said reflectively, “but I persuaded the power that it would pay in the long run to leave you alone. And it has paid,” he said, “all the satellites that revolve about you have been taken and destroyed. New suns will arise and attract new planets, and in course of time will be dealt with, but the period of danger has passed.”
“And now, I suppose,” said I miserably, “having no further use for me you are going to finish me off?”
“Exactly,” said Major Haynes, with great cheerfulness, “you shall go back to America, Heine, as an awful example to all spies. In that capacity you will still be useful to us. You will at least be able to tell them something of the difficulties that await a man who tried to get out of England even with a forged passport. Believe me, it is just as difficult to get in, unless we want you in.”
“You are going to let me go free?”
He nodded.
“The outward-bound Cremanic calls here by arrangement in two hours’ time. You will be taken out in a motor-launch and put on board. Your cabin is 143 and you will find it quite comfortable.”
He put his hand in his pocket and took out a flat case which he opened.
“Here is your passport,” he said.
I took the passport in my hand and read the description of myself, even my photograph was pasted on. I was described as “Heine.” “Occupation: German Spy.” “Reason for travel: By Special Deportation Order 64731. The British Government having no further need of his services.”
To my mind the cruellest thing was the photograph which showed me in that infernal clergyman’s garb. Underneath was written, “Religion: Church of England.”
I looked at Major Haynes.
“You have spared me no humiliation,” I said, and there were tears in my eyes, for remember what position I had held in the service.
“Oh, yes, I have,” said Major Haynes, “I might have taken a flashlight photograph of you as a sweep. You’ve no idea how funny you looked.”
Two hours later I stood upon the first-class passenger deck of the Cremanic watching with folded arms the land sinking slowly astern.
Farewell! False Albion! Thy doom is assured! The ever-victorious German U-boat----
I stopped suddenly and thought, then turning to a sailor I asked: “Is there any danger of being torpedoed?”
“They gets a ship sometimes, sir,” he said with callous indifference. “But when we sees ’em we shoots at ’em and that generally frightens ’em off. If every passenger keeps his eye skinned there ain’t much danger.”
I spent the rest of the voyage with my eyes skinned.
