The Lost Naval Papers - Bennet Copplestone
"Dreyfus! But I will speak not of that. It is buried. We French are
one people now, one and indivisible. Though of traitors, the villain
Dreyfus was of the most horrible. Let us speak of _cet homme tres
sale_, Dawson. I do not know his plans. They will be shrewd, but
without imagination, without flair. He will watch, with his eyes of a
cat, the French and Belgian flying officers who come to London, but he
will not discover their secrets. For he does not understand, this cold
English Dawson, that secrets which endanger the neck are told only to
women."
"Yet I have heard that he has a team of women--his harem, as it is
called. I have never seen one of them."
"Bah! Englishwomen, of the large feet and the so protruding teeth! Who
would tell of his precious secrets to them!"
"Oh, come, M. Froissart. We have as many pretty women in London as you
have in Paris."
"It is possible, my friend. All things, the most improbable, are
possible. But they conceal themselves most assiduously. I have not
seen them, these so pretty Englishwomen."
"Well, well. You are a bit out of date as regards our women. But I
don't want to argue. What is the game?"
Froissart leaned forward and spoke solemnly, forcibly.
"If the man Dawson is right, and there are German spies in the French
and Belgian flying services, they will come to London to get their
orders. And they will get them from women, depend upon it, my friend.
From women who are of French education, who appear to be French, yet
who are the deadly, the most dangerous, enemies of France. Let Dawson
watch the men themselves; but watch you such women as I
indicate--women who appear to be French and yet are not French. I will
speak to the Chief, not to Dawson, but to the Great Chief of us all.
You shall be dressed in the tenue of a French flying officer; you
shall avoid French or Belgian officers who might ask questions the
most embarrassing. You shall make the acquaintance of women who appear
to be French, yet who are not French. Grip on to these, my friend,
entertain them, make yourself of the most fascinating and agreeable,
give to them attentions and love of the warmest. And when after two or
three glasses of champagne you repose at ease with your arm about
their waists, get you at their secrets. You are young, handsome, and
your eye is bold. I give you a pleasant task--the deception of
deceiving women. In my younger days what joy would I not have taken in
it."
Captain Rust became very gloomy during this speech for, though French
in education, he was by instinct an Englishman.
"I don't like the business at all. It sounds mean and grubby, ugh! Not
quite what one would ask of a gentleman."
Froissart was genuinely surprised. "What do you say, not for a
gentleman? Am I not a gentleman, I, who speak, a Froissart, a Count of
_l'ancien regime_, a Royalist almost? I offer you a task which
combines business and pleasure in the most delicious of proportions.
And you call my offer mean and grubby, _meprisable et crotte_! I do
not ask you to consort with those of the _demi-monde._ The women who
are of most danger to our countries are not _courtisanes_; they are of
the _monde_, fashionable. They meet officers in society; they humour
and flatter them; they display a melting softness of sympathy and
interest. I do not ask you, my friend, to endanger your English
virtue."
The tone of wondering contempt with which he ended brought a smile to
Rust's lips.
"I am not so very virtuous, monsieur. But I am English, and I try,
vainly perhaps, to be a gentleman. It seems to me a dirty business to
make up to women in order to wheedle out their secrets."
"We have to do worse than that in defence of our country. We have to
plot and counterplot, to lie and deceive. But we do these things, and
you must do them too, if you would be of the Secret Service. Content
yourself. Think always that it is for _la belle France_ or for _le bel
Angleterre_, for _la grande Alliance_. You have qualifications
unusual; you are young, handsome, and French in manner and speech. You
are a soldier; it is for me to command, and for you to obey. Besides,
think you; if success comes to us, picture to yourself the desolation
of Dawson!"
"Desolating Dawson is more your fun than mine. I have no grudge to
work off on the old man. Since you command, I will obey. I will do my
best, but, to be quite frank, I do not like the job."
"But you will do it. I think that you English, slow to move, do best
those things which you like least. You despise the Secret Service,
what you call dirty spying, yet you do it to admiration--with a
courage and _sang froid_ most wonderful. You hate to begin a war, and
yet when you fight you are, of all people, the most unwilling to stop.
When we French and the Russians yonder have supped of this war to the
dregs, you English will just have begun to find your appetites. Stop?
you will cry. Make peace? Be content? Why, we have just got our second
wind! It will be the same with you, my friend. You begin reluctantly,
but when the chase becomes hot, you will be on fire with zest. You
will not trouble then that _vous vous faites crottes_."
"I will do my best; I cannot say more than that."
CHAPTER X
A PROGRESSIVE FRIENDSHIP
Neither Madame Gilbert nor Captain Rust are very communicative
concerning their adventures, until they begin to speak of that day
when first they met one another in the courtyard of the Savoy Hotel.
They both then become voluble. I rather gather--though I did not
cross-examine them at all closely--that they had been a good deal
bored. Their instructions were so very vague, and the best method of
carrying them out so far from clear to their ingenious minds, that
they wandered aimlessly about the resorts most affected by officers on
leave, spent much money, made a good many pleasant acquaintances, but
progressed not at all in their researches. Madame did not meet with
any French or Belgian flying officers who seemed likely to be German
agents, and Captain Rust failed to discover a siren who appeared to be
French and yet was not French, and who aroused any plausible suspicion
that she dwelt in the central web of German intrigue. Madame began to
think that for once the impeccable Dawson had despatched her upon a
wild goose chase, and Rust became convinced that Froissart's vivid
longing to score off the detested Dawson had misled him in the
selection of the means to bring about this much-desired consummation.
They told me little of these wanderings, but when I asked for details
of their first meeting, the one with the other, and their subsequent
rather startling proceedings, they broke into eager speech. It was not
until my keen and curious eye began to penetrate the delicate
mysteries surrounding their surprising week-end visit to Brighton that
Rust again became tongue-tied. He reprehensibly slurred over the most
entertaining details. Madame Gilbert, on the other hand, revealed
everything with that plain-spoken frankness which, in any other woman,
would appear to be brazen. Madame is thirty-two; Captain Rust no more
than twenty-six. He is a modest young man in spite of his French
training; she, I am afraid, is a hussy. But I would not have her other
than she is.
Madame Gilbert was taking tea alone in the courtyard of the Savoy. She
occupied one place at a table laid for four. It was a fine afternoon
in late spring, motors and taxis ran in and out unceasingly, the
open-air restaurant began to fill up, but none ventured to approach
any one of three empty places at Madame's table. She was, as usual,
perfectly dressed--though she assures me that her clothes cost next to
nothing. "It is the wearing of them, my friend, not the cost which
counts." I fancy that her unshakable temper and her gay humour, like
her beauty, are really based, as she says, upon her complete freedom
from ailments. She loves life, and this, perhaps, is why life loves
her.
Madame Gilbert, though to the unobservant eye intent upon her tea and
cakes, saw every one who came and went. Many officers were in the
restaurant, but one only attracted her special notice. He was a young
handsome man in the field-service kit of the French Army, and upon his
sleeves and cap were the wings of the Flying Corps. This young man was
looking for a table, but could not find one that was empty. She waited
until he paused not far from her, and then, sweeping her eyes slowly
over the crowded tables, brought them to rest upon his face. He was
quite an attractive-looking young man. There was an appeal in his dark
eyes as they met hers; he was imploring her of her gracious kindness
to permit him to occupy one of her superfluous seats, and she
telegraphed to him an encouraging reply. The French officer
approached, saluted, and bowed: "Is it permitted, madame, to
inconvenience you?" he asked humbly. "The tables are very full, or I
would not venture to intrude." He spoke in careful, accurate English,
and with an accent markedly French.
"Please favour me by sitting down at once," replied Madame. "I feel
myself to be very selfish with my four places and one small person."
She spoke in careful, accurate English, and with an accent markedly
French.
"Ah!" he exclaimed, seating himself opposite to her, and breaking into
French. "Madame is of my country, is it not so?"
"But certainly," said Madame in the same language, which was to her a
second mother-tongue. "I am of Paris. If you had not been French I
should not have dared to hint to you that a place at this table might
be taken."
For a few minutes they talked together in the ceremonious style for
which the French language is the perfect medium, and then dropped into
more easy friendly speech. Madame, when she likes the look of a man,
becomes intimate at the shortest notice, and Rust, like every man born
of woman, succumbed helplessly, instantly, to the wiles of Madame.
Though she had finished tea, she urged Rust not to be hurried; there
was plenty of time, and one did not often have the happiness to meet a
French officer in this dreary London. She enveloped him in her meshes
of kindliness, and he responded by thinking to himself that she was
the loveliest, most friendly creature whom he had ever met. Madame
knows a great deal more of military details than most male civilians,
but when she talked to Captain Rust at the Savoy, her ignorance of the
Flying Corps was absolute. She asked questions, quite intelligent
questions, and he bubbled over with eagerness to answer them. Poor
Rust; I can picture the humbling scene. He made an ass of himself, of
course, but not a greater ass than I always make of myself--and I am
not far from double his age--whenever Madame gets to work upon me.
Within ten minutes she had wheedled out of him an account of his
accident. "I was out on patrol duty," he explained, "spotting for
submarines between the Straits and Zeebrugge. When the weather is fine
we can see deep down into the water, a hundred feet or so, and quite
easily make out a submerged U boat. I was testing a new plane fitted
with a 90 h.p. R.A.F. engine--" He paused and quickly glanced at her,
for he realised his blunder the instant the slip had been made. Madame
was all eager attention--what did she know of the marques of aeroplane
engines!--"It was a day of rotten luck for me. I spotted nothing, and
late in the afternoon my engine began to overheat and miss fire. I did
my utmost to struggle towards Do----, Dunkirk, but the beastly thing
gave out altogether, and down I dropped into the sea. I had an
ordinary land plane without floats, and was obliged to cut myself
clear and keep up as best I could with my air belt. It was a weary
time, waiting to be picked up, all that night and all the next day;
the cold of the water struck right through me, and I was senseless,
like a dead man, when at last, thirty hours afterwards, one of our
destroyers found me floating there, picked me up, and carried me into
Dover. I was in hospital for six weeks, crippled with rheumatic fever,
and my heart went wrong. It is much better now, and I hope soon to get
back to flying again. I am still on sick leave."
"Poor heart," sighed Madame, and smiled to herself.... "He looked at
me," she explained long afterwards, "as if there was still life in his
poor strained heart. It was a real kindness to give it some gentle
exercise."
"And when you are well you will again fly for France?" she inquired.
"Ah, yes. I yearn for the day when the obdurate doctors will permit me
to fly again--for France.... And you, madame, who are so kind to a
poor crippled soldier, is it permitted to ask--"
"I am, alas, a widow." She paused, and though demurely looking at her
empty tea cup, saw his eyes light up. ["The silly boy was pleased that
I was a widow," she explained. "As if that mattered."] "My poor
husband fell for France--at Le Grand Couronne. That was eight months
ago, and I am still inconsolable. I love to meet the brother officers
of my dear lost husband. He was killed by a shell, close beside his
general, and I do not even know where he was buried." She delicately
wiped her eyes, and Rust murmured broken words of the deepest
sympathy. Yet he was not sorry to hear that his new friend was a
widow. It must have been a most pathetic scene.
Madame recovered from her sudden rush of grief--brought on by thoughts
of that unknown grave upon Le Grand Couronne!--and began to pull on
her gloves. "And you, my friend?" she asked gently.
"No one lives who will grieve for me," he replied sadly.
"You are young, my friend, and your heart will--recover itself. I am
old, made old by illness and sorrow." She was a picture of glowing
health! "May I ask the name by which I may remember you?"
He was clean bowled, for he, foolishly, had not prepared a plausible
name. "I am called," stammered he, "Captain Rouille." It was the best
that he could do on the instant--the translation of his uncommon
English name into French.
"A strange name," she murmured, "though the sound of it is beautiful.
Rouille! It signifies, for the moment, the decay of hopes, a mould of
rust obscuring ambition. But in a little while the steel of your
courage will shine bright once more. I am Madame Gilbert; my husband
was of the Territorial Army--a Captain also." She had thought to have
made him a Colonel on General Castelnau's staff, but refrained from so
risky a flight of imagination. An obscure Captain of Territorials
might well be called Guilbert, and pass unidentified.
As they pressed hands at parting, Rust hesitated. "May one hope,
madame, to meet you again. Your kindness has been great, and I feel
that I have made a new friend."
"And I also," sighed Madame. "I often come here to drink the English
tea. It is a pleasing custom of London."
"To-morrow?" he inquired anxiously. "It is possible," replied Madame,
very graciously.
* * * * *
"Well," said I, when Madame had told me of this meeting, "I hope that
you had the grace to feel ashamed of yourself. To deceive an invalided
flying officer with your tale of the Captain of Territorials, blown up
by a shell beside his general upon Le Grand Couronne. It was
abominable."
"It was the unknown grave which fetched him," said Madame cheerfully.
"Worse and worse. Why could you not have told him the truth?"
"Because, my stupid friend, the Captain Rouille interested me, and I
was on duty. What was a captain in the French Flying Corps doing with
an aeroplane driven by a 90 h.p. Royal Aircraft Factory engine
(R.A.F.)? Why should he speak of 'our' destroyers, referring to those
of the British, when he ought to have said the 'English' destroyers as
a French officer would have done? Why again should he hesitate over
his name, and then give so impossible a one as Rouille? No, I had
discerned plainly that M. le Capitaine Rouille, whatever he might be,
was not the man he pretended that he was. He spoke French perfectly,
but he was not in the French flying service. He was English. I
recollected my instructions from the great Dawson--to stick to any one
who excited my suspicions, to let him make love to me if need be, and
to discover his secrets. I am, my friend, a martyr to duty. Besides,
le Capitaine Rouille was a handsome young man, very attractive. I was
not grieved at the thought that he might pursue me with his
attentions."
"Why," I asked in turn of Rust, "did you begin by telling lies to the
charming Madame Gilbert?"
"I was in French uniform," said he, "and I had to play my part."
"And a nice mess you made of it," said I rudely.
"I am afraid that I did. That slip about the R.A.F. engine was
unpardonable. But then how was I to know that the dear woman knew as
much about aeroplanes as I did myself? She was like Desdemona at the
feet of Othello, and, of course, I lost my head. You are as crazy
about her as I am, with less excuse. Besides, I was on duty. Before
Madame had spoken to me for five minutes, I was certain that she was
not French. She spoke perfectly, but there was a little accent, a
delightful accent, that told me she was Irish. That soupcon of a
brogue which gives so delicate a spice to her English appears also in
her French. My mother was an Irish woman, though I have never lived in
Ireland. You know that all the Irish, especially those of America or
of France, are watched most carefully by the police. Many of them hate
the English, and spy upon us. When, therefore, I perceived that
Madame, though she appeared to be French was by birth Irish, I
recollected my instructions from Froissart. It was my duty to stick to
her, to study her. If necessary to make love to her. It did not seem
wholly disagreeable to me," he added dryly, "to make love to Madame
Gilbert."
"I forgive you," said I, "though, from what I learn, you somewhat
exceeded your instructions."
* * * * *
If I were not a most serious writer, this veracious history of Madame
Gilbert and Captain Rust would tend to degenerate into comedy,
possibly to reach the depths of farce. But, to one of my grave bent of
mind, wasted deception, wasted energies, and, above all, wasted
national money, excite rather to tears than to laughter. What a
spectacle was this which I place before the reader! Here were two
trusted members of the English Secret Service pitting against one
another those treasures of intelligence, wit, and sensibility which
they were employed--and paid--to exercise in the defence of their
countries. It may be conceded that one of them was more or less
honest. Rust, I am convinced, had persuaded himself--he has no marked
ability or attractions of any kind that I can discern--that his duty
impelled him to watch Madame with exceeding closeness of attention.
That his strong inclinations marched with his duty may be allowed him
as a privilege; the plea of duty was not, I believe, merely an excuse.
But what can one say in defence of Madame, one who has stored within
her little copper-covered head enough brains to furnish a brigade,
say, of the Women's Emergency Corps? She had perceived that Rust was
an English officer masquerading as a Frenchman, yet she could not have
thought that he was a German spy. Why did she not ask him point blank
what he was doing in that galley. She has never supplied me with a
credible explanation, She pleads, with obvious insincerity, the
instructions of Dawson, which in the most reprehensible way granted to
her the vaguest of roving commissions. She parades her duty before me
in the most tattered of rags.
Upon the following afternoon, when Madame Gilbert drove up to the
Savoy in a taxi-cab at half-past four, a young man, in the uniform of
a French officer, opened the door and handed her out. It was, of
course, Captain Rust, who had waited palpitating upon the curb for
some three-quarters of an hour. He led her to a small table which he
had reserved for another charming duet of tea, cakes, and
conversation.
At this second meeting, Madame bent herself to the deft
cross-examination of Rust "Had the Captain Rouille joined St. Cyr as a
cadet officer, or had he served in the ranks of the French Army?" He
had served in the ranks, and broke into details of his training and
garrison service which convinced her that he really had served. She
became thoughtful. Rust, eager to show off his accomplishments,
explained that he had been recommended for a commission and had joined
St. Cyr. More details followed, all of a verisimilitude wholly
convincing. Madame, who knew France and the French Army up and down,
became more thoughtful and more puzzled. It was plain that Rust had
really served in the ranks of the Army, and had been at St. Cyr. Yet
he was an Englishman and an officer of the English Flying Corps! She
asked further questions, innocent, flattering questions, seeking to
discover what had happened to him after his course at St. Cyr. He did
his best, but he was of inconsiderable agility of mind and deficient
in imagination. He had been, he said, with Maunoury's Sixth Army,
which, emerging from Paris in red taxis, had fallen upon the exposed
right wing of von Kluck. His description was accurate enough, but the
lavish details of former narratives were lacking. He had been
_officier de liaison_ on the Aisne; again the little intimate touches
were lacking. He had joined the flying corps, but omitted to explain
how he had learned to fly. It had been at Farnborough, but he could
hardly admit this, and was, unhappily, quite ignorant of the French
flying grounds.
Madame's quick mind began to see daylight. "How came it, my friend,
that you were flying upon the coast when you suffered that accident,
so terrible, and paralysed that poor brave heart of yours?" Madame
asked the question in the most natural, sympathetic way. It was a
facer for Rust, who regretted that he had been so communicative at
that first meeting "I was lent to the Naval Wing," he explained, and
avoided to particularise. By this time Madame had sorted out his
service. She was quite sure that he had not been with Maunoury or upon
the Aisne, but that in some manner, as yet not clear, he had left St.
Cyr to pass into the English Army.
When in his turn Rust sought diffidently to penetrate the mystery
surrounding Madame Gilbert, she overflowed with untruthful
particulars. She resembles her master Dawson in this--it is unwise to
believe one word which she wishes you to believe. Of her early life in
Paris she spoke with emotion. She was the beloved only child of a
French doctor--ah, the most learned and pious of men! He died early
smitten by disease contracted during his gratuitous practice amongst
the friendless poor. A most noble parent! Her mother, too, a saint and
angel, had gone aloft shortly after seeing her daughter, Madame,
happily married to a maker of caloriferes (anthracite stoves). "I am
unworthy of those so noble parents," wailed Madame in broken tones. It
was not until they were about to separate that Madame Gilbert herself
threw him a bone of truth designed to test his appetite for curiosity.
"I must fly," exclaimed she; "I am a woman _tres occupee_. I work, oh,
so very hard, for my belle France and to avenge the death of my
glorious husband." The blown-up stove maker did not seem to Rust to be
a figure of glory, yet he forced himself again to express the deepest
sympathy. "Yes," went on Madame, "I would avenge him. I work,"--she
glanced round cautiously, and then whispered--"I work for the
_gouvernement anglais_. I am an _agent de police_."
"Were you not rather rash," I asked of Madame Gilbert, "to give
yourself away so completely? He might not have been so thorough an ass
as you thought."
"My friend," said Madame calmly, "I had taken tea with him twice, and
had satisfied myself that he was not, what you call, very bright. A
dear fellow, handsome, a gentleman of the English pattern, but not
bright. If I had not helped him to get a move on, I might have lunched
with him, had tea, dined with him, attended theatres, traversed in
motors your pleasant countryside, flirted, until I had become a very
old woman, and there would have been nothing to show for all my
exertions. I remembered the instructions of Mr. Dawson, I recalled to
myself my duty, I was compelled to discover who and what was this
Capitaine Rouille, and I could only succeed by forcing him to reveal
himself--to give himself away. When I said that I was an agent of the
English police, he did not believe me; but he was curious--he watched
me. I gave him much to watch and to imagine that he had discovered.
Then one began to get forward."
* * * * *
I am ignorant of the diplomatic pourparlers which led up to the
week-end trip to Brighton, that remarkable trip which ended
_l'affaire_ Rust. It must have been planned by Madame; it bears the
unmistakable imprint of her impish wit; it was, too, a bold
development of her designs for the effective speeding up of Rust. He
would have dallied all through the summer, looking feebly for an
opportunity to ravish a despatch-case which always accompanied Madame
and which had become the inseparable and ostentatious "gooseberry" at
their meetings. Madame declared that it was stuffed with papers the
most secret. "The English Government would be desolated if they passed
for one moment out of my hands." This despatch-case played parts quite
human. It was perpetually provocative of Rust's curiosity, and a
reminder that the agreeable pastime of making love to Madame was not
an end in itself, but a means whereby he might discharge his official
duties. It was, moreover, a visible sign that Madame was a woman,
_tres occupee_, and a self-styled _agent de police_; it rested always
silent at her side as a protector of innocence. Rust becomes uneasy
when that case is mentioned, but Madame bubbles over at the thoughts
of her _petite chere portefeuille, cette idee de genie_. She brags of
her genius, of her notion _si lumineuse_, of her _guet-apens si
adorable._