THE TRENCH DAYS: The Collected War Tales of William Le Queux (WW1 Adventure Sagas, Espionage Thrillers & Action Classics). William Le Queux
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well-dressed man lolling in his chair, smoking as he listened, made a mental note of those names, and grinned with satisfaction at Trustram’s indiscretions.
Yet, surely, the Admiralty official could not be blamed, for so completely had Lewin Rodwell practised the deception that he believed him to be a sterling Englishman, red-hot against the enemy and all his knavish devices.
“I suppose you must be pretty busy at the Admiralty just now — eh? The official account of the Battle of the Falklands in to-night’s papers is splendid reading. Sturdee gave Admiral von Spee a very nasty shock. I suppose we shall hear of some other naval successes in the North Sea soon — eh?”
Trustram hesitated for a few seconds. “Well, not just yet,” was his brief reply.
“Why do you say ‘not yet’?” he asked with a laugh. “Has the Admiralty some thrilling surprise in store for us? Your people are always so confoundedly mysterious.”
“We have to be discreet,” laughed Trustram. “In these days one never knows who is friend or foe.”
“Well, you know me well enough, Trustram, to be quite certain of my discretion. I never tell a soul any official information which may come to me — and I hear quite a lot from my Cabinet friends — as you may well imagine.”
“I do trust you, Mr Rodwell,” his friend replied. “If I did not, I should not have told you the many things I have regarding my own department.”
Lewin Rodwell smoked on, his legs crossed, his right hand behind his head as he gazed at his friend.
“Well, you arouse my curiosity when you say that the Admiralty have in store a surprise for us which we shall know later. Where is it to take place?”
Again Charles Trustram hesitated. Then he answered, with some reluctance:
“In the North Sea, I believe. A certain scheme has been arranged which will, we hope, prove effectual.”
“A trap, I suppose?”
Trustram laughed faintly.
“I didn’t tell you so, remember,” he said quickly.
“Ah, I see! — a trap to draw the German Fleet north — up towards Iceland. Is my surmise correct?”
Trustram’s smile was a silent affirmative. “This is indeed interesting,” Rodwell exclaimed. “I won’t breathe a word to anyone. When is it to be?”
“Within a week.”
“You mean in a week. To-day is Wednesday — next Wednesday will be the sixteenth.”
Again Trustram smiled, as Rodwell, with his shrewd intelligence, divined the truth.
“It’s all arranged — eh? And orders have been sent out to the Fleet?” asked the financier.
Again Trustram laughingly replied, “I didn’t say so,” but from his friend’s manner Lewin Rodwell knew that he had learnt the great and most valuable secret of the true intentions of the British Navy.
It was not the first piece of valuable information which he had wormed out of his official friends. So clever was he that he now pretended to be highly eager and enthusiastic over the probable result of the strategy.
“Let’s hope Von Tirpitz will fall into the trap,” he said. “Of course it will have to be very cunningly baited, if you are to successfully deceive him. He’s already shown himself to be an artful old bird.”
“Well — without giving anything away — I happen to know, from certain information passing through my hands, that the bait will be sufficiently tempting.”
“So we may expect to hear of a big naval battle about the sixteenth. I should say that it will, in all probability, be fought south of Iceland, somewhere off the Shetlands.”
“Well, that certainly is within the range of probability,” was the other’s response. “All I can tell you — and in the very strictest confidence, remember — is that the scheme is such a cleverly conceived one that I do not believe it can possibly fail.”
“And if it failed?”
“Well — if it failed,” Trustram said, hesitating and speaking in a lower tone — “if it failed, then no real harm would occur — only one thing perhaps: that the East Coast of England might be left practically unguarded for perhaps twelve hours or so. That’s all.”
“Well, that would not matter very much, so long as the enemy obtains no knowledge of the British Admiral’s intentions,” remarked Lewin Rodwell, contemplating the end of his cigar and reflecting for a few seconds.
Then he blurted out:
“Gad! that’s jolly interesting. I shall wait for next Wednesday with all eagerness.”
“You won’t breathe a word, will you? Remember, it was you who obtained the information by suggestion,” Trustram said, with a good-humoured laugh.
“Can’t you really rely on me, my dear fellow, when I give you my word of honour as an Englishman to say nothing?” he asked. “I expect I am often in the know in secrets of the Cabinet, and I am trusted.”
“Very well,” replied his friend. “I accept your promise. Not a word must leak out. If it did, then all our plans would be upset, and possibly it would mean the loss of one, or more, of our ships. But you, of course, realise the full seriousness of it all.”
“I do, my dear Trustram — I do,” was the reassuring answer. “No single whisper of it shall pass my lips. That, I most faithfully promise you.”
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