CHAPTER VIIITAPPING THE CABLE
Thefirst thing that Danny noticed was something that had not been there before when he had explored the passage. It was something that had happened since the German had gone away with the light.
It was a great crack in the stone wall!
A huge stone—the very one he had been pushing and rubbing against to cut his bonds—had shifted its position. Here, surely, was the opening to a secret way out of the passage! Pushing the stone gently Danny found that it swung round on a pivot, just allowing room for a man to pass.
Stepping through, he flashed his light about him. He was in a great, arched vault.
Hanging on a pillar just in front of him wasa lantern, containing a candle end, and a box of matches. Thankfully Danny took this down from its hook, for already the light was getting faint—the battery was giving out. Lighting the lantern he held it aloft. As its yellow light flickered in the dark corners, and between the massive pillars, a sight met his eyes that sent a thrill of horror and excitement through his heart.
Standing in the narrow aperture of the secret door, Danny gazed in fascinated horror at the scene.
Before him a great, low hall stretched away into the darkness, so that he could not see the end of it. Massive pillars supported the vaulted roof, which was not more than eight feet high. And amid the dust, and the sense of old days long gone by, of a dead, forgotten past, he had come all unexpectedly on war and its most deadly instruments lurking, hiding, and, somehow, terribly alive and modern.
There lay a vast store of machine gunsThere, row upon row, shining, perfect, ready for use, lay a vast store of machine guns.
There, row upon row, shining, perfect, ready for use, lay a vast store of machine guns.
There, row upon row, shining, perfect, ready for use, lay a vast store of machine guns.
For there, row upon row, shining, perfect,ready for use, lay a vast store of machine guns. In the yellow light of the guttering candle they seemed to fix a hundred black and hollow eyes upon the boy, like so many traitors startled in their hiding-place. Belts of ammunition lay like piles of coiled snakes; cases, boxes, rose in pyramids to the roof. Rifles were stacked against the wall.
A kind of helpless horror filled Danny. It was all so tremendous, so prepared, so very, very unexpected. His knees knocked together, his heart seemed to thump against his ribs. A great lump rose in his throat. And then, as he gazed with a kind of numb horror, the truth crept into his mind that this great army of death-dealing implements was not alive; was, in fact, weak, useless, powerless. Thathewasalive! That he, in his small self, had more power than all these guns, for he had life, will, a human brain, and courage. These traitorous slaves of Germany must cower before him; he had found them out; and surely he had found them outin time!
The detective instinct in him tempted him to explore the vault. But the voice of duty had become the loudest in Danny’s ears at last. Curiosity and ambition must have no say. He had been trusted with a momentous secret. Over England hung the possibility of a great catastrophe. Here was his duty—to get out of this place without a single moment’s delay, to make his report as clearly as possible to those who could take action. With his life he would guard this secret; and if the carrying of it, the delivering of it, cost him his life, he would not be afraid to offer it. He had not taken his chance when it was easy. Now that it was hard, nothing would hold him back. But caution as well as courage was necessary. Turning round, he entered the passage once more and began to walk quickly and as silently as possible in the wake of the German spy.
A mile of passage lay before him. At the end of it the steps descended, as he knew, into the chill waters of the pool. He would haveto descend these steps. Gradually the water would creep up to his knees, his waist, his neck. A big breath, a duck, four, five, six strong strokes, and his head would be above the surface, he would be breathing the pure air of the upper world; he would be free!
And yet, what lay between him and this freedom? He knew not at all. He dared not try to imagine. But bracing up his spirit with a brave determination to forget self and put duty first, he pressed on. If his heart quailed, it was at the thought of entering the black water. What if he met an enemy down there? So intent was his mind upon this possible horror that he was startled and taken aback at the strange sight and sound that reached him simultaneously as he rounded a sharp bend in the passage.
“Buzz, buzz, buzz-buzz, buzz!” broke on his ears. And there, some twenty yards away, stood the German who had captured him an hour ago. He was standing half-turned away, wholly intent upon an apparatus fixed on thewall. From this the buzzing sound proceeded. Several wires rose from it, up the wall, disappearing through the round hole that Danny had discovered before as the drain pipe by which the spies talked together through the speaking-tube.
Now he realised at once that something far worse was on foot than a mere conversation with a fellow-spy in a ditch. The man was using a telegraph apparatus. He was doing that which the police had feared might happen, and which the Scouts had been called out to prevent, namely, tapping the cables—listening here in his safe hiding-place to the secret communications of England’s statesmen; substituting in their place false messages.
A kind of impetuous rage filled Danny. He clenched his fists, and his whole body quivered with a desire to throw himself, tooth and nail upon this spy, eavesdropping, sucking in England’s secrets. But what was he, a little boy, against this man—armed, as he knew, with a revolver? Yes, there lay the sinisterlittle weapon on the shelf that held the candle.
Danny’s first impulse on seeing the enemy had been to drop to the ground, at the same time extinguishing his candle. Now he squatted hidden by the darkness, his eyes fixed in fascinated horror on the scene. Following up the wires with his eyes to where they disappeared through the pipe, he asked himself how they could be connected with the cable. Then, like a flash, he remembered the telegraph-pole that rose from out a mass of nettles quite close to the drain. Before him rose the picture of the artist-spy, on that sunny morning at 5A.M., coming along the road with a piece torn off his coat, and the finding of the piece hooked on the nail in the post a few minutes later. That was the day before war was declared.
Clue was fitting into clue like the pieces of a jig-saw puzzle. The detective’s heart beat fast with excitement. Then, like a cold hand crushing the hope out of him, came the realisationthat the man with the buzzer stood full in his path, preventing him from reaching the end of the passage with the steps and the water that led to freedom. He was balked!
Never before in his life had Danny so longed to be a man, to be big and strong and a match for this spy. Then he would have crept up the passage and, springing on the man, grappled with him, flinging him to the ground there to leave him, bound and helpless while he made his escape, and bore his secret safe with him.
But what chance would a boy have against this enemy? Danny did not lack courage for the attempt, but he well knew that it would be a throwing away of all possible chance of escape. To sacrifice himself thus would do no good whatever. The spy would be free to go on with his terrible enterprise. The secret Danny alone knew, would die with him. It would be much wiser to retire, and seek for some other way of exit from the passage.
Sometimes action, with its element ofexcitement, with the invigorating spirit of sacrifice that accompanies it, is much easier than a safer, wiser course. It was hard for Danny to turn his back on this dangerous enemy of his country, to leave him unmolested at his eavesdropping, and to creep back along half a mile of passage. Yet, to seek for every possible chance of getting out and making known the facts to the military was his clear duty. He had not yet explored the vault; there might possibly be a way of escape through this.
Pushing the heavy stone of the secret entrance to the vault, Danny crept once more into the mysterious place, holding aloft his lantern. On every hand guns, rifles, cases of ammunition surrounded him. All was so silent and horrible, and yet so sinister and alive. Suddenly he started, a gasp of horror rising in his throat.
There, in the yellow light of his candle, he saw a prostrate figure, lying motionless, upon what looked like a low, stone bench. It wasclothed in a long, crimson robe; gold glittered here and there upon it. Drawing nearer, and struggling with his fear, he saw, to his relief, that it was but an image—a carving of some saintly bishop long dead, his white hands folded peacefully upon his breast, his mitre on his head.
This, then, was the crypt of the Abbey Church. Danny drew near, and looked reverently at the carving of the peaceful holy old face. Here, too, lay a prince, in blue and ermine and a crown. There, behind a pillar, was the effigy of a white-robed father—a pile of rifles had been propped against his tomb. Further on was a little chapel, the altar still standing.
Somehow it all comforted Danny, making him feel less alone, giving him a sense of unseen protection. Filled with a new courage and confidence he stepped forward.
How strange in this holy place to find a store of German weapons! Five hundred years it had laid hidden, to be discovered at last bythe enemy and used as a storehouse of munitions of war. Quietly Danny began his search for a way out, and before long he was rewarded.
A wooden door, in the corner of the crypt, stood ajar. Passing through this, Danny found himself in a small room.
From it led what once must have been the staircase up into the church. But this was now broken, and completely choked with stones and pieces of fallen masonry. On the opposite side of the room the wall was cracked and broken. In one place a crevice yawned, wide enough to let a man creep through into the darkness beyond. Leaning through this, Danny strained his eyes to try and pierce the gloom. There was nothing to see, but against his hot face he felt a cool wind blowing. It was altogether different from the heavy, suffocating atmosphere of the passage and crypt. Instead of the mouldy smell that had reached his nostrils, Danny was conscious of the pungent, salty odour that is borne on a sea breeze!
It filled his heart with hope. Holding aloft his lantern, he climbed through the opening, and stepped forward over the rough and stony floor.