MY ADVENTURES AS A SPY

BY

LIEUT.-GEN. SIR ROBERT BADEN-POWELL, K.C.B.

Illustrated by the Author’s Own Sketches

1915

SCOUTING FOR BOYS.

A Handbook for Instruction in Good Citizenship. 7th Edition.
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SCOUTING GAMES.

A splendid collection of Outdoor and Indoor Games specially
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games, or, for that matter, by the playing of the games
themselves.”—Spectator.

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CHIEF CONTENTS

MY ADVENTURES AS A SPY

It has been difficult to write in peace-time on the delicate
subject of spies and spying, but now that the war is in
progress and the methods of those much abused gentry have been
disclosed, there is no harm in going more fully into the
question, and to relate some of my own personal
experiences.

Spies are like ghosts—people seem to have had a
general feeling that there might be such things, but they did
not at the same time believe in them—because they never
saw them, and seldom met anyone who had had first-hand
experience of them. But as regards the spies, I can speak with
personal knowledge in saying that they do exist, and in very
large numbers, not only in England, but in every part of
Europe.

As in the case of ghosts, any phenomenon which people don’t
understand, from a sudden crash on a quiet day to a midnight
creak of a [pg 10] cupboard, has an affect of
alarm upon nervous minds. So also a spy is spoken of with
undue alarm and abhorrence, because he is somewhat of a
bogey.

As a first step it is well to disabuse one’s mind of the
idea that every spy is necessarily the base and despicable
fellow he is generally held to be. He is often both clever and
brave.

The term “spy” is used rather indiscriminately, and has by
use come to be a term of contempt. As a misapplication of the
term “spy” the case of Major André always seems to me to have
been rather a hard one. He was a Swiss by birth, and during the
American War of Independence in 1780 joined the British Army in
Canada, where he ultimately became A.D.C. to General Sir H.
Clinton.

The American commander of a fort near West Point, on the
Hudson River, had hinted that he wanted to surrender, and Sir
H. Clinton sent André to treat with him. In order to get
through the American lines André dressed himself in plain
clothes and took the name of John Anderson. He was
unfortunately caught by the Americans and tried by court
martial and hanged as a
spy.

As he was not trying to get information, it seems scarcely
right to call him a spy. Many people took this view at the
time, and George III. gave his mother a pension, as well as a
title to his brother, and his body was ultimately dug up and
re-interred in Westminster Abbey.

THE DIFFERENT DEGREES OF SPIES.

Let us for the moment change the term “spy” to
“investigator” or “military agent.” For war purposes these
agents may be divided into:

1. Strategical and diplomatic agents, who
study the political and military conditions in peace time of
all other countries which might eventually be in opposition to
their own in war. These also create political disaffection and
organise outbreaks, such, for instance, as spreading sedition
amongst Egyptians, or in India amongst the inhabitants, or in
South Africa amongst the Boer population, to bring about an
outbreak, if possible, in order to create confusion and draw
off troops in time of war.

2. Tactical, military, or naval agents, who
look into minor details of armament and terrain in peace time.
These also make tactical [pg 12] preparations on the spot,
such as material for extra bridges, gun emplacements,
interruption of communications, etc.

3. Field spies. Those who act as scouts in disguise
to reconnoitre positions and to report moves of the enemy in
the field of war. Amongst these are residential spies and
officer agents.

All these duties are again subdivided among agents of every
grade, from ambassadors and their attachés downwards. Naval and
military officers are sent to carry out special investigations
by all countries, and paid detectives are stationed in likely
centres to gather information.

There are also traitor spies. For these I allow I have not a
good word. They are men who sell their countries’ secrets for
money. Fortunately we are not much troubled with them in
England; but we have had a notorious example in South
Africa.

STRATEGICAL AGENTS.

The war treason—that is, preliminary political and
strategical investigation—of the Germans in the present
campaign has not been such a success as might have been
[pg 13] expected from a scheme so
wonderfully organised as it has been. With the vast sums
spent upon it, the German General Staff might reasonably
have obtained men in a higher position in life who could
have gauged the political atmosphere better than was done by
their agents immediately before the present crisis.

Their plans for starting strikes at a critical time met with
no response whatever. They had great ideas of stirring up
strife and discontent among the Mahommedan populations both in
Egypt and in India, but they calculated without knowing enough
of the Eastern races or their feelings towards Great Britain
and Germany—more especially Germany.

They looked upon the Irish question as being a certainty for
civil war in Britain, and one which would necessitate the
employment of a large proportion of our expeditionary force
within our own islands.

They never foresaw that the Boer and Briton would be working
amicably in South Africa; they had supposed that the army of
occupation there could never be removed, and did not foresee
that South Africa would be sending a contingent against their
South [pg 14] African colonies while the
regulars came to strengthen our army at home.

They imagined the Overseas Dominions were too weak in men
and ships and training to be of any use; and they never foresaw
that the manhood of Great Britain would come forward in vast
numbers to take up arms for which their national character has
to a large extent given them the necessary qualifications. All
this might have been discovered if the Germans had employed men
of a higher education and social position.

TACTICAL AGENTS.

In addition to finding out military details about a country,
such as its preparedness in men, supplies, efficiency, and so
on, these agents have to study the tactical features of hills
and plains, roads and railways, rivers and woods, and even the
probable battlefields and their artillery positions, and so
on.

The Germans in the present war have been using the huge guns
whose shells, owing to their black, smoky explosions, have been
nicknamed “Black Marias” or “Jack Johnsons.” These guns require
strong concrete foundations for them to stand upon before they
can be [pg 15] fired. But the Germans
foresaw this long before the war, and laid their plans
accordingly.

They examined all the country over which they were likely to
fight, both in Belgium and in France, and wherever they saw
good positions for guns they built foundations and emplacements
for them. This was done in the time of peace, and therefore had
to be done secretly. In order to divert suspicion, a German
would buy or rent a farm on which it was desired to build an
emplacement. Then he would put down foundations for a new barn
or farm building, or—if near a town—for a factory,
and when these were complete, he would erect some lightly
constructed building upon it.

There was nothing to attract attention or suspicion about
this, and numbers of these emplacements are said to have been
made before war began. When war broke out and the troops
arrived on the ground, the buildings were hastily pulled down
and there were the emplacements all ready for the guns.

Some years ago a report came to the War Office that a
foreign Power was making gun emplacements in a position which
had not before been suspected of being of military
[pg 16] value, and they were
evidently going to use it for strategical purposes.

I was sent to see whether the report was true. Of course, it
would not do to go as an officer—suspicions would be
aroused, one would be allowed to see nothing, and would
probably be arrested as a spy. I therefore went to stay with a
friendly farmer in the neighbourhood, and went out shooting
every day among the partridges and snipe which abounded there.
The first thing I did was to look at the country generally, and
try to think which points would be most valuable as positions
for artillery.

Then I went to look for partridges (and other things!) on
the hills which I had noticed, and I very soon found what I
wanted.

Officers were there, taking angles and measurements,
accompanied by workmen, who were driving pegs into the ground
and marking off lines with tapes between them.

As I passed with my gun in my hand, bag on shoulder, and dog
at heel, they paid no attention to me, and from the
neighbouring hills I was able to watch their proceedings.

When they went away to their meals or returned to their
quarters, I went shooting over
[pg 17] the ground they had left, and
if I did not get a big bag of game, at any rate I made a
good collection of drawings and measurements of the plans of
the forts and emplacements which they had traced out on the
ground.

So that within a few days of their starting to make them we
had the plans of them all in our possession. Although they
afterwards planted trees all over the sites to conceal the
forts within them, and put up buildings in other places to hide
them, we knew perfectly well where the emplacements were and
what were their shapes and sizes.

This planting of trees to hide such defence works
occasionally has the other effect, and shows one where they
are. This was notably the case at Tsingtau, captured by the
Japanese and British forces from the Germans. As there were not
any natural woods there, I had little difficulty in finding
where the forts were by reason of the plantations of recent
growth in the neighbourhood of the place.

RESIDENTIAL SPIES.

These men take up their quarters more or less permanently in
the country of their [pg 18] operations. A few are men in
high places in the social or commercial world, and are
generally nouveaux riches, anxious for decorations
and rewards. But most of the residential spies are of a more
insignificant class, and in regular pay for their work.

Their duty is to act as agents to receive and distribute
instructions secretly to other itinerant spies, and to return
their reports to headquarters. For this reason they are
nicknamed in the German Intelligence Bureau “post-boxes.” They
also themselves pick up what information they can from all
available sources and transmit it home.

One, Steinbauer, has for some years past been one of the
principal “post-boxes” in England. He was attached to the
Kaiser’s staff during his last visit to this country, when he
came as the guest of the King to the opening of Queen
Victoria’s memorial.

A case of espionage which was tried in London revealed his
methods, one of his agents being arrested after having been
watched for three years.

Karl Ernst’s trial confirmed the discoveries and showed up
the doings of men spies like Schroeder, Gressa, Klare, and
others.

Also the case of Dr. Karl Graves may be still in the memory
of many. This German was arrested in Scotland for spying, and
was condemned to eighteen months’ imprisonment, and was shortly
afterwards released without any reason being officially
assigned. He has since written a full account of what he did,
and it is of interest to note how his correspondence passed to
and from the intelligence headquarters in Germany in envelopes
embellished with the name of Messrs. Burroughs and Wellcome,
the famous chemists. He posed as a doctor, and sent his letters
through an innkeeper at Brussels or a modiste in Paris,
while letters to him came through an obscure tobacconist’s shop
in London.

One of these letters miscarried through having the wrong
initial to his name. It was returned by the Post Office to
Burroughs and Wellcome, who on opening it found inside a German
letter, enclosing bank-notes in return for services rendered.
This raised suspicion against him. He was watched, and finally
arrested.

He states that a feeling that he was being followed dawned
upon him one day, when he noticed in his lodgings that the
clothes which [pg 20] he had folded on a chair had
been since refolded in a slightly different way while he was
out. With some suspicion, he asked his landlady whether
anyone had entered his room, and she, in evident confusion,
denied that any stranger could have been there. Then he
suggested that his tailor might have called, and she agreed
that it was so. But when an hour or two later he interviewed
his tailor, he, on his part, said he had not been near the
place. Graves consequently deduced that he was being
followed.

The knowledge that you are being watched, and you don’t know
by whom, gives, I can assure you, a very jumpy
feeling—especially when you know you are guilty.

I can speak feelingly from more than one experience of it,
since I have myself been employed on this form of scouting in
peace time.

OFFICER AGENTS.

It is generally difficult to find ordinary spies who are
also sufficiently imbued with technical knowledge to be of use
in gaining naval or military details. Consequently
[pg 21] officers are often employed
to obtain such information in peace time as well as in the
theatre of action in war.

But with them, and especially with those of Germany, it is
not easy to find men who are sufficiently good actors, or who
can disguise their appearance so well as to evade suspicion.
Very many of these have visited our shores during the past few
years, but they have generally been noticed, watched, and
followed, and from the line taken by them in their
reconnaissance it has been easy to deduce the kind of
operations contemplated in their plans.

I remember the case of a party of these motoring through
Kent nominally looking at old Roman ruins. When they asked a
landowner for the exact position of some of these he regretted
he had not a map handy on which he could point out their
position. One of the “antiquarians” at once produced a large
scale map; but it was not an English map: it had, for instance,
details on it regarding water supply tanks which, though they
existed, were not shown on any of our ordnance maps!

In addition to the various branches of
[pg 22] spying which I have
mentioned, the Germans have also practised commercial
espionage on systematic lines.

COMMERCIAL SPYING.

Young Germans have been often known to serve in British
business houses without salary in order to “learn the
language”; they took care to learn a good deal more than the
language, and picked up many other things about trade methods
and secrets which were promptly utilised in their own country.
The importance of commercial spying is that commercial war is
all the time at the bottom of Germany’s preparations for
military war.

Carl Lody, a German ex-officer, was recently tried in London
by court-martial and shot for “war treason”—that is, for
sending information regarding our Navy to Germany during
hostilities. (“War treason” is secret work outside the zone of
war operations. When carried on within the zone of operations
it is called spying or “espionage.”) Carl Lody’s moves were
watched and his correspondence opened by the counter-spy police
in London, and thus all his investigations and information were
known to the War Office long before he was
arrested.

The enormous sums paid by Germany for many years past have
brought about a sort of international spy exchange, generally
formed of American-Germans, with their headquarters in Belgium,
and good prices were given for information acquired by them.
For instance, if the plans of a new fort, or the dimensions of
a new ship, or the power of a new gun were needed, one merely
had to apply and state a price to this bureau to receive fairly
good information on the subject before much time had
elapsed.

At the same time, by pretending to be an American, one was
able to get a good deal of minor and useful information without
the expenditure of a cent.

GERMANY’S INVASION PLANS.

On getting into touch with these gentry, I was informed of
one of the intended plans by which the Germans proposed to
invade our country, and incidentally it throws some light on
their present methods of dealing with the inhabitants as apart
from the actual tactical movements of the troops.

The German idea then—some six years ago—was that
they could, by means of mines and submarines, at any time block
the traffic [pg 24] in the British Channel in the
space of a few hours, thus holding our home fleets in their
stations at Spithead and Portland.

With the Straits of Dover so blocked, they could then rush a
fleet of transports across the North Sea from Germany, to the
East Coast of England, either East Anglia or, as in this plan,
in Yorkshire. They had in Germany nine embarking stations, with
piers and platforms, all ready made, and steel lighters for
disembarkation purposes or for actual traversing of the ocean
in case of fine weather.

They had taken the average of the weather for years past,
and had come to the conclusion that July 13th is, on an
average, the finest day in the year; but their attempt would be
timed, if possible, to fall on a Bank Holiday when
communications were temporarily disorganised. Therefore the
nearest Bank Holiday to July 13th would probably be that at the
beginning of August; it was a coincidence that the present war
broke out on that day.

The spies stationed in England were to cut all telephone and
telegraph wires, and, where possible, to blow down important
bridges and [pg 25] tunnels, and thus to
interrupt communications and create confusion.

Their idea of landing on the coast of Yorkshire was based on
the following reasons:—

They do not look upon London as strategically the capital of
England, but rather upon the great industrial centres of the
north Midlands, where, instead of six millions, there are more
like fourteen millions of people assembled in the numerous
cities and towns, which now almost adjoin each other across
that part of the country.

Their theory was that if they could rush an army of even
90,000 men into Leeds, Sheffield, Halifax, Manchester, and
Liverpool without encountering great opposition in the first
few hours, they could there establish themselves in such
strength that it would require a powerful army to drive them
out again.

Bringing a week’s provisions with them, and seizing all the
local provisions, they would have enough to sustain them for a
considerable time, and the first step of their occupation would
be to expel every inhabitant—man, woman, and
child—from the neighbourhood and destroy the towns. Thus,
within a few hours, some fourteen millions of people would
[pg 26] be starving, and wandering
without shelter over the face of the country—a
disaster which would need a large force to deal with, and
would cause entire disruption of our food supplies and of
business in the country.

The East Coast of Yorkshire between the Humber and
Scarborough lends itself to such an adventure, by providing a
good open beach for miles, with open country in front of it,
which, in its turn, is protected by a semi-circle of wolds,
which could be easily held by the German covering force. Its
left would be protected by the Humber and the right by the
Tees, so that the landing could be carried out without
interruption.

That was their plan—based on careful investigation by
a small army of spies—some five or six years ago, before
our naval bases had been established in the north. If they had
declared war then, they, might have had no serious interference
from our Navy during the passage of their transports, which, of
course, would be protected on that flank by their entire fleet
of warships.

At first glance, it seems too fanciful a plan to commend
itself to belief, but in talking it over with German officers,
I found they fully [pg 27] believed in it as a practical
proposition. They themselves enlarged on the idea of the use
that they would thus make of the civil population, and
foreshadowed their present brutality by explaining that when
war came, it would not be made with kid gloves. The meaning
of their commands would be brought home to the people by
shooting down civilians if necessary, in order to prove that
they were in earnest, and to force the inhabitants through
terror to comply with their requirements.

Further investigations on the subject proved that the
embarkation arrangements were all planned and prepared for. At
any time in the ordinary way of commerce there were numerous
large mail steamers always available in their ports to
transport numbers even largely in excess of those that would be
assembled for such an expedition. Troops could be mobilised in
the neighbourhood of the ports, ostensibly for manoeuvres,
without suspicion being aroused.

It is laid down in German strategical textbooks that the
time for making war is not when you have a political cause for
it, but when your troops are ready and the enemy is unready;
and that to strike the first blow is the best way to declare
war.

I recounted all this at the time in a private lecture to
officers, illustrated with lantern slides and maps, as a
military problem which would be interesting to work out on the
actual ground, and it was not really until the report of this
leaked into the papers that I realised how nearly I had
“touched the spot.” For, apart from the various indignant
questions with which the Secretary of State for War was
badgered in the House of Commons on my account, I was assailed
with letters from Germany of most violent abuse from various
quarters, high and low, which showed me that I had gone nearer
the truth than I had even suspected.

“You are but a brown-paper general,” said one, “and if you
think that by your foolish talk you are to frighten us from
coming, you are not right.”

FIELD SPIES.

It is difficult to say where exactly a spy’s work ends in
war, and that of a scout begins, except that, as a rule, the
first is carried out in disguise.

The scout is looked up to as a brave man, and his expedients
for gaining information are
[pg 29] thought wonderfully clever,
so long as he remains in uniform. If he goes a bit further,
and finds that he can get his information better by adopting
a disguise—even at the greater risk to himself through
the certainty of being shot if he is found out—then he
is looked down upon as a “despicable spy.” I don’t see the
justice of it myself.

A good spy—no matter which country he serves—is
of necessity a brave and valuable fellow.

In our Army we do not make a very wide use of field spies on
service, though their partial use at manoeuvres has shown what
they can do.

In “Aids to Scouting” I have stated: “In the matter of
spying we are behind other nations. Spying, in reality, is
reconnaissance in disguise. Its effects are so far-reaching
that most nations, in order to deter enemies’ spies, threaten
them with death if caught.”

As an essential part of scouting, I gave a chapter of hints
on how to spy, and how to catch other people spying.

CATCHING A SPY.

Spy-catching was once one of my duties, and is perhaps the
best form of education [pg 30] towards successful spying. I
had been lucky enough to nail three and was complimented by
one of the senior officers on the Commander-in-Chief’s
staff. We were riding home together from a big review at the
time that he was talking about it, and he remarked, “How do
you set about catching a spy?” I told him of our methods and
added that also luck very often came in and helped one.

Just in front of us, in the crowd of vehicles returning from
the review-ground, was an open hired Victoria in which sat a
foreign-looking gentleman. I remarked that as an instance this
was the sort of man I should keep an eye upon, and I should
quietly follow him till I found where he lodged and then put a
detective on to report his moves.

From our position on horseback close behind him we were able
to see that our foreigner was reading a guide book and was
studying a map of the fortifications through which we were
passing. Suddenly he called to the driver to stop for a moment
while he lit a match for his cigarette. The driver pulled up,
and so did we. The stranger glanced up to see that the man was
not looking round, and then quickly slipped a camera from under
the rug which was [pg 31] lying on the seat in front of
him, and taking aim at the entrance shaft of a new
ammunition store which had just been made for our Navy, he
took a snapshot.

Then hurriedly covering up the camera again he proceeded to
strike matches and to light his cigarette. Then he gave the
word to drive on again.

We followed close behind till we came to where a policeman
was regulating the traffic. I rode ahead and gave him his
instructions so that the carriage was stopped, and the man was
asked to show his permit to take photographs. He had none. The
camera was taken into custody and the name and address of the
owner taken “with a view to further proceedings.”

Unfortunately at that time—it was many years
ago—we were badly handicapped by our laws in the matter
of arresting and punishing spies. By-laws allowed us to
confiscate and smash unauthorised cameras, and that was
all.

“Further proceedings,” had they been possible, in this case
would have been unnecessary, for the suspected gentleman took
himself off to the Continent by the very next
boat.

But it took a good deal to persuade my staff-officer friend
that the whole episode was not one faked up for his special
edification.

It is only human to hate to be outwitted by one more clever
than yourself, and perhaps that accounts for people disliking
spies with a more deadly hatred than that which they bestow on
a man who drops bombs from an aeroplane indiscriminately on
women and children, or who bombards cathedrals with infernal
engines of war.

Nobody could say that my native spy in South Africa, Jan
Grootboom, was either a contemptible or mean kind of man. He
was described by one who knew him as a “white man in a black
skin,” and I heartily endorse the description.

Here is an instance of his work as a field spy:—

Jan Grootboom was a Zulu by birth, but having lived much
with white men, as a hunter and guide, he had taken to wearing
ordinary clothes and spoke English perfectly well: but within
him he had all the pluck and cunning of his race.

For scouting against the Matabele it was never wise to take
a large party, since it would
[pg 33] be sure to attract attention,
whereas by going alone with one man, such as Grootboom, one
was able to penetrate their lines and to lie hid almost
among them, watching their disposition and gaining
information as to their numbers, supplies, and whereabouts
of their women and cattle, etc.

Now, every night was spent at this work—that is to
say, the night was utilised for creeping to their positions,
and one watched them during the day. But it was impossible to
do this without leaving footmarks and tracks, which the sharp
eyes of their scouts were not slow to discover, and it very
soon dawned upon them that they were being watched, and
consequently they were continually on the look-out to waylay
and capture us.

One night Grootboom and I had ridden to the neighbourhood of
one of the enemy’s camps, and were lying waiting for the early
dawn before we could discover exactly where they were
located.

It was during the hour before sunrise that, as a rule, the
enemy used to light their fires for cooking their early morning
food. One could thus see exactly their position, and could
rectify one’s own, so as to find a place where
[pg 34] one could lie by during the
day and watch their movements.

On this occasion the first fire was lit and then another
sparkled up, and yet another, but before half a dozen had been
lighted Grootboom suddenly growled under his breath:—

“The swine—they are laying a trap for us.”

I did not understand at the moment what he meant, but he
said:—

“Stop here for a bit, and I will go and look.”

He slipped off all his clothing and left it lying in a heap,
and stole away in the darkness, practically naked. Evidently he
was going to visit them to see what was going on.

The worst of spying is that it makes you always suspicious,
even of your best friends. So, as soon as Grootboom was gone in
one direction, I quietly crept away in another, and got among
some rocks in a small kopje, where I should have some kind of a
chance if he had any intention of betraying me and returning
with a few Matabele to capture me.

For an hour or two I lay there, until presently I saw
Grootboom creeping back through the grass—alone.

Ashamed of my doubts, I therefore came out
[pg 35] and went to our rendezvous,
and found him grinning all over with satisfaction while he
was putting on his clothes again. He said that he had found
as he had expected, an ambush laid for us. The thing that
had made him suspicious was that the fires, instead of
lighting up all over the hillside at different points about
the same time, had been lighted in steady succession one
after another, evidently by one man going round. This struck
him as suspicious, and he then assumed that it was done to
lead us on, if we were anywhere around, to go and examine
more closely the locality.

He had crept in towards them by a devious path, from which
he was able to perceive a whole party of the Matabele lying low
in the grass by the track which we should probably have used in
getting there, and they would have pounced upon us and captured
us.

To make sure of this suspicion he crept round till near
their stronghold, and coming from there he got in among them
and chatted away with them, finding out what was their
intention with regard to ourselves, and also what were their
plans for the near future. Then, having left them, and walked
boldly [pg 36] back towards their
stronghold, he crept away amongst some rocks and rejoined
me.

His was an example of the work of a field spy which,
although in a way it may be cunning and deceitful, at the same
time demands the greatest personal courage and astuteness. It
is something greater than the ordinary bravery of a soldier in
action, who is carried on by the enthusiasm of those around him
under the leadership of an officer, and with the competition
and admiration of others.

The pluck of the man who goes out alone, unobserved and
unapplauded, and at the risk of his life, is surely equally
great.

The Boers used field spies freely against us in South
Africa.

One English-speaking Boer used to boast how, during the war,
he made frequent visits to Johannesburg dressed in the uniform
taken from a British major who had been killed in action. He
used to ride past the sentries, who, instead of shooting him,
merely saluted, and he frequented the clubs and other resorts
of the officers, picking up such information as he required
from them first hand, till evening came and he was able to ride
back to his commando.

CONVEYING INFORMATION.

On our side various methods were adopted of conveying
information in the field. My spies employed native runners
(especially the most astute cattle-thieves) to take their
despatches to me.

A SECRET MESSAGE.

These hieroglyphics contain a secret message which can be
easily read by those who know the semaphore signalling code.
This signalling consists of swinging two arms in different
positions, either singly or together. The dots indicate where
the letters join. For example: The semaphore sign for N
consists of both arms pointing downwards at an angle of 90
degrees ^. The letter I is shown by both arms pointing to the
left at the same angle >. The next N is shown again, and the
letter E is a single arm pointing upwards on the right at an
angle of 45 degrees /.

In each word you start at the top of the signs and read
downwards.

This form of secret message was frequently used in the
South African
War.

These were in every case naturally written in cypher or
secret code, in Hindustani written in English characters, and
so on. They were rolled up into pellets and pressed into a
small hole bored in a walking-stick, the hole being then
plugged with clay or soap. Or they were put into the bowl of a
pipe underneath the tobacco, and could thus be burnt without
suspicion if necessary, or they were slipped in between the
soles of the boots, or stitched in the lining of the bearer’s
clothing. These natives also understood the language of
smoke-fires—signalling by means of little or big puffs of
smoke as to the enemy’s moves and strength.

SECRET SIGNALS AND WARNINGS.

The native despatch-runners whom we sent out to make their
way through the enemy’s lines carried the letters tightly
rolled up in little balls, coated with sheet lead, such as tea
is packed in.

These little balls they carried slung round their necks on a
string. The moment that they saw an enemy coming near they
dropped the balls, which then looked like so
[pg 39] many stones, on the ground,
and took bearings of the spot so that they could find them
again when the coast was clear.

Then there were fixed points for hiding letters for other
spies to find. Here are some of the most frequently used:

This little mark, scratched on the ground or on a tree
trunk or gate-post, was used by one scout for the information
of another. It means: “A letter is hidden four paces in this
direction.”

A sign used to warn another scout that he is following a
wrong direction. It means: “Not this way.”

This is another sign from one scout to another and means:
“I have returned
home.”

The “blaze” on the tree trunk and the two stones, one on
the other, are simply to show that the scout is on the right
trail.

The other three sketches are to show the direction in
which the scout should go. The arrow is marked on the ground.
The upper part of the sapling or bush is bent over in the
direction which the scout should take, and the same is the case
with the bunch of grass, which is first of all knotted and then
bent.

SPIES IN WAR TIME.

The Japanese, of course, in their war with Russia in
Manchuria made extensive use of spies, and Port Arthur, with
all its defects of fortification and equipment, was known
thoroughly inside and out to the Japanese general staff before
they ever fired a shot at it.

In the field service regulations of the German army a
paragraph directed that the service of protection in the
field—that is to say, outposts, advanced guards, and
[pg 41] reconnaissances—should
always be assisted by a system of spying, and although this
paragraph no longer stands in the book, the spirit of it is
none the less carried out.

The field spies are a recognised and efficient arm.

Frederick the Great is recorded to have said: “When Marshal
Subise goes to war, he is followed by a hundred cooks, but when
I take the field I am preceded by a hundred spies.”

The present leader of the German army might well say the
same, though probably his “hundred” would amount to
thousands.

We hear of them dressed in plain clothes as peasants, and
signalling with coloured lights, with puffs of smoke from
chimneys, and by using the church clock hands as
semaphores.

Very frequently a priest was arrested and found to be a spy
disguised, and as such he was shot. Also a German chauffeur in
a French uniform, who had for some time been driving French
staff officers about, was found to be a spy, and so met his
death.

Early in the present war the German field spies had their
secret code of signs, so that by drawing sketches of cattle of
different colours [pg 42] and sizes on gates, etc.,
they conveyed information to each other of the strength and
direction of different bodies of hostile troops in the
neighbourhood.

As a rule, these are residential spies, who have lived for
months or years as small tradesmen, etc., in the towns and
villages now included in the theatre of war. On the arrival of
the German invaders they have chalked on their doors, “Not to
be destroyed. Good people here,” and have done it for some of
their neighbours also in order to divert suspicion. In their
capacity of naturalised inhabitants they are in position, of
course, to gain valuable tactical information for the
commanders of the troops. And their different ways of
communicating it are more than ingenious.

In some cases both spies and commanders have maps ruled off
in small squares. The watchful spy signals to his commander,
“Enemy’s cavalry halted behind wood in square E15,” and very
soon a salvo of shells visits this spot. A woman spy was caught
signalling with an electric flash lamp. Two different men (one
of them an old one-legged stonebreaker at the roadside) were
caught [pg 43] with field telephones hidden
on them with wire coiled round their bodies. Shepherds with
lanterns went about on the downs at night dodging the
lanterns about in various ways which did not seem altogether
necessary for finding sheep. Wireless telegraphs were set up
to look like supports to iron chimneys.

In the South African Campaign a Dutch stationmaster acted as
field spy for the Boers for a short time. It was only a very
short time. His town and station were captured by my force,
and, in order to divert suspicion, he cut and pulled down the
telegraph wires, all except one, which was left in working
order. By this wire he sent to the Boer headquarters all the
information he could get about our forces and plans.
Unfortunately, we had a party of men tapping the wire, and were
able to read all his messages, and to confront him with them
shortly afterwards.

Another stationmaster, in our own territory, acted as spy to
the enemy before the war began by employing enemies as gangers
and platelayers along the line with a view to the destruction
of bridges and culverts as soon as war was declared. There was
also found in his office a code by which the different arms
[pg 44] of the service were
designated in terms of timber for secretly telegraphing
information. Thus:

THE PLUCK OF A SPY.

Except in the case of the traitor spy, one does not quite
understand why a spy should necessarily be treated worse than
any other combatant, nor why his occupation should be looked
upon as contemptible, for, whether in peace or war, his work is
of a very exacting and dangerous kind. It is intensely
exciting, and though in some cases it brings a big reward, the
best spies are unpaid men who are doing it for the love of the
thing, and as a really effective step to gaining something
valuable for their country and for their side.

The plea put forward by the German spy, Lieut. Carl Lody, at
his court-martial in London, was that “he would not cringe for
mercy. He was not ashamed of anything that
[pg 45] he had done; he was in honour
bound not to give away the names of those who had employed
him on this mission; he was not paid for it, he did it for
his country’s good, and he knew that he carried his life in
his hands in doing so. Many a Briton was probably doing the
same for Britain.”

He was even spoken of in our House of Commons as being “a
patriot who had died for his country as much as any soldier who
fell in the field.”

To be a really effective spy, a man has to be endowed with a
strong spirit of self-sacrifice, courage, and self-control,
with the power of acting a part, quick at observation and
deduction, and blessed with good health and nerve of
exceptional quality. A certain amount of scientific training is
of value where a man has to be able to take the angles of a
fort, or to establish the geological formation, say, of the
middle island under the Forth Bridge, which was shown by Graves
to be readily adaptable for explosion purposes.

For anyone who is tired of life, the thrilling life of a spy
should be the very finest
recuperator!

TRAITOROUS SPYING.

Quite another class of spy is the traitor who gives away the
secrets of his own country. For him, of course, there is no
excuse. Fortunately, the Briton is not as a rule of a
corruptible character, and many foreign spies in England have
been discovered through their attempts to bribe officers or men
to give away secrets.

On the other hand, we hear frequently of foreign soldiers
falling victims to such temptation, and eventually being
discovered. Cases have only recently come to light in Austria
where officers were willing to sell information as regards a
number of secret block-houses which were built on the frontier
of Bukovina last year. Details of them got into the hands of
another Power within a few days of the designs being made.

Apparently when suspicion falls upon an officer in Austria
the case is not tried in public, but is conducted privately,
sometimes by the Emperor himself. When the man is found guilty,
the procedure is for four friends of the accused to visit him
and tell him what has been discovered against him, and to
present him with a loaded revolver and leave him. They then
remain watching the house, in
[pg 47] order that he shall not
escape, and until he elects to shoot himself; if he fails to
do so, in reasonable time, they go in and finish him off
between them.

THE GERMAN SPY ORGANISATION.

The espionage system of the Germans far exceeds that of any
other country in its extent, cost, and organisation. It was
thoroughly exposed after the war with France in 1870, when it
was definitely shown that the German Government had an
organisation of over 20,000 paid informers stationed in France,
and controlled by one man, Stieber, for both political and
military purposes.

To such completeness were their machinations carried that
when Jules Favre came to Versailles to treat about the
surrender of Paris with the headquarter staff of the German
army he was met at the station by a carriage, of which the
coachman was a German spy, and was taken to lodge in the house
which was the actual headquarters of the spy department.
Stieber himself was the valet, recommended to him as “a
thoroughly trustworthy servant.” Stieber availed himself of his
position to go through his master’s pockets
[pg 48] and despatch cases daily,
collecting most valuable data and information for
Bismarck.

Somehow, on the surface, suspicion of the German spy methods
seemed to have subsided since that date, although at the time
widely known throughout Europe. But their methods have been
steadily elaborated and carried into practice ever since, not
in France alone, but in all the countries on the Continent, and
also in Great Britain.

THE VALUE OF BEING STUPID.

Fortunately for us, we are as a nation considered by the
others to be abnormally stupid, therefore easily to be spied
upon. But it is not always safe to judge entirely by
appearances.

Our Ambassador at Constantinople some years ago had the
appearance of a cheery, bluff, British farmer, with nothing
below the surface in his character, and he was therefore looked
upon as fair game by all his intriguing rivals in Eastern
politics. It was only after repeated failures of their
different missions they found that in every case they were
out-intrigued by this innocent-looking gentleman, who below the
surface was as cunning as a fox and as clever a diplomat as
could be found in all the
service.

And so it has been with us British. Foreign spies stationed
in our country saw no difficulty in completely hoodwinking so
stupid a people; they never supposed that the majority of them
have all been known to our Secret Service Department, and
carefully watched, unknown to themselves.

Few of them ever landed in this country without undergoing
the scrutiny of an unobtrusive little old gentleman with tall
hat and umbrella, but the wag of whose finger sent a detective
on the heels of the visitor until his actual business and
location were assured and found to be satisfactory.

For years the correspondence of these gentry has been
regularly opened, noted, and sent on. They were not as a rule
worth arresting, the information sent was not of any urgent
importance, and so long as they went on thinking that they were
unnoticed, their superiors in their own country made no effort
to send more astute men in their place. Thus we knew what the
enemy were looking for, and we knew what information they had
received, and this as a rule was not of much account.

On August 4th, the day before the declaration
[pg 50] of war, the twenty leading
spies were formally arrested and over 200 of their minor
agents were also taken in hand, and thus their organisation
failed them at the moment when it was wanted most. Steps
were also taken to prevent any substitutes being appointed
in their places. Private wireless stations were dismantled,
and by means of traps those were discovered which had not
been voluntarily reported and registered.

It used to amuse some of us to watch the foreign spies at
work on our ground. One especially interested me, who set
himself up ostensibly as a coal merchant, but never dealt in a
single ounce of coal. His daily reconnaissance of the country,
his noting of the roads, and his other movements entailed in
preparing his reports, were all watched and recorded. His
letters were opened in the post, sealed up, and sent on. His
friends were observed and shadowed on arriving—as they
did—at Hull instead of in London. And all the time he was
plodding along, wasting his time, quite innocent of the fact
that he was being watched, and was incidentally giving us a
fine amount of information.

Another came only for a few hours, and was
[pg 51] away again before we could
collar him; but, knowing his moves, and what photographs he
had taken, I was able to write to him, and tell him that had
I known beforehand that he wished to photograph these
places, I could have supplied him with some ready made, as
the forts which they recorded were now obsolete.

On the other hand, the exceedingly stupid Englishmen who
wandered about foreign countries sketching cathedrals, or
catching butterflies, or fishing for trout, were merely laughed
at as harmless lunatics. These have even invited officials to
look at their sketch-books, which, had they had any suspicion
or any eyes in their heads, would have revealed plans and
armaments of their own fortresses interpolated among the veins
of the botanist’s drawings of leaves or on the butterflies’
wings of the entomologist. Some examples of secret sketches of
fortresses which have been used with success are shown on the
following pages.

This sketch of a butterfly contains the outline of a
fortress, and marks both the position and power of the guns.
The marks on the wings between the lines mean nothing,
but those on the lines show the nature and size of the
guns, according to the keys below.

The marks on the wings reveal the shape of
the fortress shown here and the size of the guns.

FORTRESS GUNS.

FIELD GUNS.

MACHINE GUNS.

The position of each gun is at the place inside the
outline of the fort on the butterfly where the line marked with
the spot ends. The head of the butterfly points towards the
north.

Shows where big guns are mounted if a
vein points to them.

Shows “dead ground,” where there is
shelter from fire.

Shows machine
guns.

[pg 54]

A. Kaponiers with machine guns.

B. 15 cm. gun cupola.

C. 12 cm. guns cupolas.

D. Q.-F. disappearing guns.

E. Howitzer cupolas.

F. Searchlight.

Having done this, I would consider the best method of
concealing my plans. In this case I decided to transform
the sketch into that of a stained glass window, and if you
will carefully examine the picture above you will see how
successfully this has been done. Certain of the decorations
signify the sizes and positions of the guns. These signs
are given below, together with their meaning.

[pg 56]

CONCEALING A FORT IN A MOTH’S HEAD.

Another example of this method of making secret plans is
shown here.

This sketch was made, giving all the particulars that I
wanted. I then decided to bury it in such a way that it could
not be recognised as a fortress plan if I were caught by the
military authorities. One idea which occurred to me was to make
it into the doorway of a cathedral or church, but I finally
decided on the sketch of the moth’s head. Underneath in my
note-book I wrote the following words:—

“Head of Dula moth as seen through a magnifying
glass. Caught 19.5.12. Magnified about six times size of
life.” (Meaning scale of 6 inches to the
mile.)

BUTTERFLY HUNTING IN DALMATIA.

Once I went “butterfly hunting” in Dalmatia. Cattaro, the
capital, has been the scene of much bombarding during the
present war.

More than a hundred years ago it was bombarded by the
British fleet and taken. It was then supposed to be
impregnable. It lies at the head of a loch some fifteen miles
long, and in some parts but a few hundred yards wide, in a
trough between mountains. From Cattaro, at the head of the
loch, a zig-zag road leads up the mountain side over the
frontier into Montenegro.

When the British ships endeavoured to attack from the
seaward, the channel was [pg 58] closed by chains and booms
put across it. But the defenders had reckoned without the
resourcefulness of the British “handyman,” and a few days
later, to the utter astonishment of the garrison, guns began
to bombard them from the top of a neighbouring mountain!

The British captain had landed his guns on the Adriatic
shore, and by means of timber slides rigged up on the mountain
side he had hauled his guns bodily up the rocky steeps to the
very summit of the mountain.

He fixed up his batteries, and was eventually able to
bombard the town with such effect that it had to surrender.

It was perhaps characteristic of us that we only took the
town because it was held by our enemies. We did not want it,
and when we had got it we did not know what to do with it. We
therefore handed it over to the Montenegrins, and thus gave
them a seaport of their own. For this feat the Montenegrins
have always had a feeling of admiration and of gratitude to the
British, and, though by terms of ulterior treaties it was
eventually handed over to Dalmatia, the Montenegrins have never
forgotten our goodwill towards them on this
occasion.

But other batteries have since been built upon these
mountain tops, and it was my business to investigate their
positions, strength, and armaments.

I went armed with most effective weapons for the purpose,
which have served me well in many a similar campaign. I took a
sketch-book, in which were numerous pictures—some
finished, others only partly done—of butterflies of every
degree and rank, from a “Red Admiral” to a “Painted Lady.”

Carrying this book and a colour-box, and a butterfly net in
my hand, I was above all suspicion to anyone who met me on the
lonely mountain side, even in the neighbourhood of the
forts.

I was hunting butterflies, and it was always a good
introduction with which to go to anyone who was watching me
with suspicion. Quite frankly, with my sketch-book in hand, I
would ask innocently whether he had seen such-and-such a
butterfly in the neighbourhood, as I was anxious to catch one.
Ninety-nine out of a hundred did not know one butterfly from
another—any more than I do—so one was on fairly
safe ground in that way, and they thoroughly sympathised with
the mad Englishman who was hunting these
insects.

They did not look sufficiently closely into the sketches of
butterflies to notice that the delicately drawn veins of the
wings were exact representations, in plan, of their own fort,
and that the spots on the wings denoted the number and position
of guns and their different calibres.

On another occasion I found it a simple disguise to go as a
fisherman into the country which I wanted to examine.

My business was to find some passes in the mountains, and
report whether they were feasible for the passage of troops. I
therefore wandered up the various streams which led over the
hills, and by quietly fishing about I was able to make surveys
of the whole neighbourhood.

But on one occasion a countryman constituted himself my
guide, and insisted on sticking to me all the morning, showing
me places where fish could be caught. I was not, as a matter of
fact, much of a fisherman at that time, nor had I any desire to
catch fish, and my tackle was of a very ramshackle description
for the purpose.

I flogged the water assiduously with an impossible fly, just
to keep the man’s attention from my real work, in the hope that
he would [pg 61] eventually get tired of it
and go away. But not he! He watched me with the greatest
interest for a long time, and eventually explained that he
did not know anything about fly fishing, but had a much
better system of getting the fish together before casting a
worm or slug-among-them.

His system he then proceeded to demonstrate, which was to
spit into the water. This certainly attracted a run of fish,
and then he said that if only he had a worm he could catch any
number.

I eventually got rid of him by sending him to procure such,
and while he was away I made myself scarce and clambered over
the ridge to another valley.

HOW SPIES DISGUISE THEMSELVES.

Spying brings with it a constant wearing strain of nerves
and mind, seeing that it involves certain death for a false
step in war or imprisonment in peace. The Government promises
to give no help whatever to its servant if caught. He is warned
to keep no notes, to confide in no one, to use disguises where
necessary, and to shift for himself
entirely.

[pg 63]

The matter of disguise is not so much one of a theatrical
make-up—although this is undoubtedly a useful
art—as of being able to assume a totally different
character, change of voice and mannerisms, especially of gait
in walking and appearance from behind.

This point is so often forgotten by beginners, and yet it is
one of the most important.

I was at one time watched by a detective who one day was a
soldierly-looking fellow and the next an invalid with a patch
over his eye. I could not believe it was the same man until I
watched him from behind and saw him walking, when at once his
individuality was apparent.

For mannerisms, a spy has by practice to be able to show an
impediment in his speech one day, whereas the next a wiggle of
an eyelid or a snuffling at the nose will make him appear a
totally different being.

For a quick change, it is wonderful what difference is made
by merely altering your hat and necktie. It is usual for a
person addressing another to take note of his necktie, and
probably of his hat, if of nothing else, and thus it is often
useful to carry a [pg 64] necktie and a cap of totally
different hue from that which you are wearing, ready to
change immediately in order to escape recognition a few
minutes later.

[pg 65] found myself close up to my
interviewer, when he was re-telling the incident to a
brother journalist, who was also eager to find me. “He is
down there, in one of the last carriages of the train. You
will know him at once; he is wearing a green Homburg hat and
a red tie, and a black coat.”

Fortunately I had a grey overcoat on my arm, in which was a
travelling cap and a comforter. Diving into the waiting-room, I
effected a “quick change” into these, crammed my hat into my
pocket, and tottered back, with an invalid shuffle, to my
carriage. I re-entered it under the nose of the waiting
reporter without being suspected, and presently had the
pleasure of being carried away before him unassailed.

On a recent occasion in my knowledge a man was hunted down
into a back street which was a cul-de-sac, with no exit
from it. He turned into the door of a warehouse and went up
some flights of stairs, hoping to find a refuge, but, finding
none, he turned back and came down again and faced the crowd
which was waiting outside, uncertain which house he had
entered.

By assuming extreme lameness in one leg,
[pg 66] hunching up one shoulder, and
jamming his hat down over a distorted-looking face, he was
able to limp boldly down among them without one of them
suspecting his individuality.

In regard to disguises, hair on the face—such as
moustache or beard—are very usually resorted to for
altering a man’s appearance but these are perfectly useless in
the eye of a trained detective unless the eyebrows also are
changed in some way.

[pg 67]

[pg 68] that ‘improved’ eyebrows
alter the expression of the face more than any beards,
shaving, etc. Tattoo marks can be painted on the hands or
arms, to be washed off when you change your disguise….
Disguising by beginners is almost invariably overdone in
front and not enough behind…. Before attempting to be a
spy first set yourself to catch a spy, and thus learn what
faults to avoid as likely to give you away.” [Aids to
Scouting, p. 136.]

It fell to my lot at one time to live as a plumber in
South-east London, and I grew a small “goatee” beard, which was
rather in vogue amongst men of that class at that time.

One day, in walking past the Naval and Military Club in
Piccadilly in my workman’s get-up, I passed an old friend, a
major in the Horse Artillery, and almost without thinking I
accosted him by his regimental nickname. He stared and
wondered, and then supposed that I had been a man in his
battery, and could not believe his eyes when I revealed my
identity.

I was never suspected by those among whom I went, and with
whom I became intimate. I had nominally injured my arm in an
[pg 69] accident and carried it in a
sling, and was thus unable to work, or what was also a
blessing, to join in fights in which my friends from time to
time got involved. My special companion was one Jim Bates, a
carpenter. I lost sight of him for some years, and when next
I met him he was one of the crowd at a review at Aldershot,
where I was in full rig as an Hussar officer. It was
difficult to persuade him that I was his former friend the
plumber.

Later on, when employed on a reconnaissance mission in South
Africa, I had grown a red beard to an extent that would have
disguised me from my own mother. Coming out of the post office
of a small country town, to my surprise I came up against the
Colonel of my regiment, who was there for an outing. I at
once—forgetting my disguise—accosted him with a
cheery “Hullo, Colonel, I didn’t know you were here,” and he
turned on me and stared for a minute or two, and then responded
huffily that he did not know who I was. As he did not appear to
want to, I went my ways, and only reminded him months later of
our brief meeting!

[pg 70]

THE SPORT OF SPYING.

Undoubtedly spying would be an intensely interesting sport
even if no great results were obtainable from it. There is a
fascination which gets hold of anyone who has tried the art.
Each day brings fresh situations and conditions requiring quick
change of action and originality to meet them.

Here are a few instances from actual experiences. None of
these are anything out of the common, but are merely the
everyday doings of the average agent, but they may best explain
the sporting value of the work.

One of the attractive features of the life of a spy is that
he has, on occasion, to be a veritable Sherlock Holmes. He has
to notice the smallest of details, points which would probably
escape the untrained eye, and then he has to put this and that
together and deduce a meaning from them.

I remember once when carrying out a secret reconnaissance in
South Africa I came across a farmhouse from which the owner was
absent at the moment of my arrival. I had come far and would
have still further to go before I came across any habitation,
[pg 71] and I was hard up for a
lodging for the night.

After off-saddling and knee-haltering my horse, I looked
into the various rooms to see what sort of a man was the
inhabitant. It needed only a glance into his bedroom in this
ramshackle hut to see that he was one of the right sort, for
there, in a glass on the window-sill, were two
tooth-brushes.

I argued that he was an Englishman and of cleanly habits,
and would do for me as a host—and I was not mistaken in
the result!

THE VALUE OF HIDE-AND-SEEK.

The game of Hide-and-Seek is really one of the best games
for a boy, and can be elaborated until it becomes scouting in
the field. It teaches you a lot.

I was strongly addicted to it as a child, and the craft
learned in that innocent field of sport has stood me in good
stead in many a critical time since. To lie flat in a furrow
among the currant bushes when I had not time to reach the
neighbouring box bushes before the pursuer came in sight taught
me the value of not using the most obvious cover, since it
would at once be searched. The hunters
[pg 72] went at once to the box
bushes as the likely spot, while I could watch their doings
from among the stems of the currant bushes.

Often I have seen hostile scouts searching the obvious bits
of cover, but they did not find me there; and, like the
elephant hunter among the fern trees, or a boar in a cotton
crop, so a boy in the currant bushes is invisible to the enemy,
while he can watch every move of the enemy’s legs.

This I found of value when I came to be pursued by mounted
military police, who suspected me of being a spy at some
manoeuvres abroad. After a rare chase I scrambled over a wall
and dropped into an orchard of low fruit trees. Here squatting
in a ditch, I watched the legs of the gendarmes’ horses while
they quartered the plantation, and when they drew away from me
I crept to the bank of a deep water channel which formed one of
the boundaries of the enclosure. Here I found a small plank
bridge by which I could cross, but before doing so I loosened
the near end, and passed over, dragging the plank after me.

On the far side the country was open, and before I had gone
far the gendarmes spied me,
[pg 73] and after a hurried
consultation, dashed off at a gallop for the nearest bridge,
half a mile away. I promptly turned back, replaced my bridge
and recrossed the stream, throwing the plank into the river,
and made my way past the village to the next station down
the line while the horsemen were still hunting for me in the
wrong place.

Another secret that one picked up at the game of
Hide-and-Seek was, if possible, to get above the level of the
hunter’s eye, and to “freeze”—that is, to sit tight
without a movement, and, although not in actual concealment,
you are very apt to escape notice by so doing. I found it out
long ago by lying flat along the top of an ivy-clad wall when
my pursuers passed within a few feet of me without looking up
at me. I put it to the proof later on by sitting on a bank
beside the road, just above the height of a man, but so near
that I might have touched a passer-by with a fishing-rod; and
there I sat without any concealment and counted fifty-four
wayfarers, out of whom no more than eleven noticed me.

The knowledge of this fact came in useful on one of my
investigating tours. Inside a great high wall lay a dockyard in
which, it was [pg 74] rumoured, a new power-house
was being erected, and possibly a dry dock was in course of
preparation.

It was early morning; the gates were just opened; the
workmen were beginning to arrive, and several carts of
materials were waiting to come in. Seizing the opportunity of
the gates being open, I gave a hurried glance in, as any
ordinary passer-by might do. I was promptly ejected by the
policeman on duty in the lodge.

I did not go far. My intention was to get inside somehow and
to see what I could. I watched the first of the carts go in,
and noticed that the policeman was busily engaged in talking to
the leading wagoner, while the second began to pass through the
gate. In a moment I jumped alongside it on the side opposite to
the janitor, and so passed in and continued to walk with the
vehicle as it turned to the right and wound its way round the
new building in course of construction.

I then noticed another policeman ahead of me and so I kept
my position by the cart, readapting its cover in order to avoid
him. Unfortunately in rounding the corner I was spied by the
first policeman, and he immediately
[pg 75] began to shout to me (see
map). I was deaf to his remarks and walked on as
unconcernedly as a guilty being could till I placed the
corner of the new building between him and me. Then I fairly
hooked it along the back of the building and rounded the far
corner of it. As I did so I saw out of the tail of my eye
that he was coming full speed after me and was calling
policeman No. 2 to his aid. I darted like a red-shank round
the next corner out of sight of both policemen, and looked
for a method of escape.

[pg 76] above me, and a ladder led
upwards on to it. Up this I went like a lamplighter, keeping
one eye on the corner of the building lest I should be
followed.

I was half-way up when round the corner came one of the
policemen. I at once “froze.” I was about fifteen feet above
sea level and not twenty yards from him. He stood undecided
with his legs well apart, peering from side to side in every
direction to see where I had gone, very anxious and shifty. I
was equally anxious but immovable.

Presently he drew nearer to the ladder and, strangely
enough, I felt safer when he came below me, and he passed
almost under me, looking in at the doorways of the unfinished
building. Then he doubtfully turned and looked back at a shed
behind him, thinking I might have gone in there, and finally
started off, and ran on round the next corner of the building.
The moment he disappeared I finished the rest of my run up the
ladder and safely reached the platform of the scaffolding.

The workmen were not yet upon the building, so I had the
whole place to myself. My first act was to look for another
ladder [pg 77] as a line of escape in case
of being chased. It is always well to have a back door to
your hiding place; that is one of the essentials in
scouting.

Presently I found a short ladder leading from my platform to
the stage below, but it did not go to the ground. Peering
quietly over the scaffolding, I saw my friend the policeman
below, still at fault. I blessed my stars that he was no
tracker, and therefore had not seen my footmarks leading to the
foot of the ladder.

Then I proceeded to take note of my surroundings and to
gather information. Judging from the design of the building,
its great chimneys, etc., I was actually on the new
power-house. From my post I had an excellent view over the
dockyard, and within 100 feet of me were the excavation works
of the new dock, whose dimensions I could easily estimate.

I whipped out my prismatic compass and quickly took the
bearings of two conspicuous points on the neighbouring hills,
and so fixed the position which could be marked on a large
scale map for purposes of shelling the place, if
desired.

[pg 78]

Meantime my pursuer had called the other policeman to him,
and they were in close confabulation immediately below me,
where I could watch them through a crack between two of the
foot-boards. They had evidently come to the conclusion that I
was not in the power-house as the interior was fully open to
view, and they had had a good look into it. Their next step was
to examine the goods shed close by, which was evidently full of
building lumber, etc.

One man went into it while the other remained outside on the
line that I should probably take for escaping, that is, between
it and the boundary wall leading to the gateway. By accident
rather than by design he stood close to the foot of my ladder,
and thus cut off my retreat in that direction. While they were
thus busy they were leaving the gate unguarded, and I thought
it was too good a chance to be missed, so, returning along the
scaffolding until I reached the small ladder, I climbed down
this on to the lower story, and, seeing no one about, I quickly
swarmed down one of the scaffolding poles and landed safely on
the ground close behind the big chimney of the
building.

[pg 79]

Here I was out of sight, although not far from the policeman
guarding the ladder; and, taking care to keep the corner of the
building between us, I made my way round to the back of the
lodge, and then slipped out of the gate without being seen.

SPYING ON MOUNTAIN TROOPS.

I was once in a country where the mountain troops on their
frontier were said to be of a wonderfully efficient kind, but
nobody knew much about their organisation or equipment or their
methods of working, so I was sent to see if I could find out
anything about them, I got in amongst the mountains at the time
when their annual manoeuvres were going on, and I found numbers
of troops quartered in the valleys and billeted in all the
villages. But these all appeared to be the ordinary type of
troops, infantry, artillery of the line, etc. The artillery
were provided with sledges by which the men could pull the guns
up the mountain sides with ropes, and the infantry were
supplied with alpenstocks to help them in getting over the bad
ground. For some days I watched the manoeuvres, but saw nothing
very striking to
report.

[pg 80]

Then one evening in passing through a village where they
were billeted I saw a new kind of soldier coming along with
three pack mules. He evidently belonged to those mountain
forces of which, so far, I had seen nothing. I got into
conversation with him, and found that he had come down from the
higher ranges in order to get supplies for his company which
was high up among the snow peaks, and entirely out of reach of
the troops manoeuvring on the lower slopes.

He incidentally told me that the force to which he belonged
was a very large one, composed of artillery and infantry, and
that they were searching amongst the glaciers and the snows for
another force which was coming as an enemy against them, and
they hoped to come into contact with them probably the very
next day. He then roughly indicated to me the position in which
his own force was bivouacking that night, on the side of a high
peak called the “Wolf’s Tooth.”

By condoling with him on the difficult job he would have to
get through, and suggesting impossible roads by which he could
climb, he eventually let out to me exactly the line which
[pg 81] the path took, and I
recognised that it would be possible to arrive there during
the night without being seen.

So after dark, when the innkeeper thought I was safely in
bed, I quietly made my way up the mountain side to where the
“Wolf’s Tooth” stood up against the starry sky as a splendid
landmark to guide me. There was no difficulty in passing
through the village with its groups of soldiers strolling about
off duty, but on the roads leading out of it many sentries were
posted, and I feared that they would scarcely let me pass
without inquiring as to who I was and where I was going.

So I spent a considerable time in trying to evade these, and
was at last fortunate in discovering a storm drain leading
between high walls up a steep bank into an orchard, through
which I was able to slip away unseen by the sentries guarding
the front of the village. I climbed up by such paths and goat
tracks as I could find leading in the direction desired. I
failed to strike the mule path indicated by my friend the
driver, but with the peak of the Wolf’s Tooth outlined above me
against the stars, I felt that I could not go far
wrong—and so it proved in the
event.

[pg 82]

It was a long and arduous climb, but just as dawn began to
light up the eastern sky I found myself safely on the crest,
and the twinkling of the numerous camp fires showed me where
the force was bivouacked which I had come to see.

As the daylight came on the troops began to get on the move,
and, after early coffee, were beginning to spread themselves
about the mountain side, taking up positions ready for attack
or defence, so as it grew lighter I hastened to find for myself
a comfortable little knoll, from which I hoped to be able to
see all that went on without myself being seen; and for a time
all went particularly well.

Troops deployed themselves in every direction. Look-out men
with telescopes were posted to spy on the neighbouring hills,
and I could see where the headquarters staff were gathered
together to discuss the situation. Gradually they came nearer
to the position I myself was occupying, and divided themselves
into two parties; the one with the general remained standing
where they were, while the other came in the direction of the
mound on which I was lying.

Then to my horror some of them began to ascend my
stronghold.

[pg 83]

I at once stood up and made no further efforts at
concealment, but got out my sketch book and started to make a
drawing of “Dawn Among the Mountains.” I was very soon noticed,
and one or two officers walked over to me and entered into
conversation, evidently anxious to find out who I was and what
was my business there.

My motto is that a smile and a stick will carry you through
any difficulty; the stick was obviously not politic on this
occasion; I therefore put on a double extra smile and showed
them my sketch book, explaining that the one ambition of my
life was to make a drawing of the Wolf’s Tooth by sunrise.

They expressed a respectful interest, and then explained
that their object in being there was to make an attack from the
Wolf’s Tooth on the neighbouring mountain, provided that the
enemy were actually in possession of it. I on my part showed a
mild but tactful interest in their proceedings.

The less interest I showed, the more keen they seemed to be
to explain matters to me, until eventually I had the whole of
their scheme exposed before me, illustrated by their own sketch
maps of the district, which were
[pg 84] far more detailed and
complete than anything of the kind I had seen before.

In a short time we were on the best of terms; they had
coffee going which they shared with me, while I distributed my
cigarettes and chocolates amongst them. They expressed surprise
at my having climbed up there at that early hour, but were
quite satisfied when I explained that I came from Wales, and at
once jumped to the conclusion that I was a Highlander, and
asked whether I wore a kilt when I was at home.

In the middle of our exchange of civilities the alarm was
given that the enemy was in sight, and presently we saw through
our glasses long strings of men coming from all directions
towards us over the snows. Between us and the enemy lay a vast
and deep ravine with almost perpendicular sides, traversed here
and there by zig-zagging goat tracks.

Officers were called together, the tactics of the fight were
described to them, and in a few minutes the battalion and
company commanders were scattered about studying with their
glasses the opposite mountain, each, as they explained to me at
the time, picking out [pg 85] for himself and for his men a
line for ascending to the attack.

Then the word was given for the advance, and the infantry
went off in long strings of men armed with alpenstocks and
ropes. Ropes were used for lowering each other down bad places,
and for stringing the men together when they got on to the
snows to save them from falling into crevasses, etc. But the
exciting point of the day was when the artillery proceeded to
move down into the ravine; the guns were all carried in
sections on the backs of mules, as well as their ammunition and
spare parts.

In a few minutes tripods were erected, the mules were put
into slings, guns and animals were then lowered one by one into
the depths below until landed on practicable ground. Here they
were loaded up again and got into their strings for climbing up
the opposite mountains, and in an incredibly short space of
time both mules and infantry were to be seen, like little lines
of ants, climbing by all the available tracks which could be
found leading towards the ice fields above.

The actual results of the field day no longer interested me;
I had seen what I had come
[pg 86] for—the special troops,
their guns, their supply and hospital arrangements, their
methods of moving in this apparently impassable country, and
their maps and ways of signalling.

All was novel, all was practical. For example, on looking at
one of the maps shown to me, I remarked that I should have
rather expected to find on it every goat track marked, but the
officer replied that there was no need for that; every one of
his men was born in this valley, and knew every goat track over
the mountain. Also a goat track did not remain for more than a
few weeks, or at most a few months, owing to landslips and
washouts; they are continually being altered, and to mark them
on a map would lead to confusion.

POSING AS AN ARTIST.

My mountain climbing came into use on another occasion of a
somewhat similar kind. A map had been sent me by my superiors
of a mountainous district in which it had been stated that
three forts had recently been built. It was only known
generally what was the situation of these forts, and no details
had been secured as to their size or armament.

On arriving at the only town in the
[pg 87] neighbourhood, my first few
days were spent strolling about looking generally at the
mountains amongst which the forts were supposed to be. I had
meantime made the acquaintance through my innkeeper of one
or two local sportsmen of the place, and I inquired among
them as to the possibilities of partridge or other shooting
among the mountains when the season came on.

I told them that I enjoyed camping out for a few days at a
time in such country for sketching and shooting purposes. I
asked as to the possibilities of hiring tents and mules to
carry them, and a good muleteer was recommended to me, who knew
the whole of the countryside, and could tell me all the likely
spots that there were for camping grounds.

Eventually I engaged him to take me for a day or two in
exploring the neighbourhood, with a view to fixing on camping
grounds and seeing the view. We went for a considerable
distance along a splendid high road which led up into the
mountains. As we got into the high parts he suggested that we
should leave the road and clamber down into the ravine, along
which we could go for some distance
[pg 88] and then reascend and rejoin
the road higher up.

He then explained that this was a military road, and that it
would be desirable to leave it for a space in order to avoid
the guard-house upon it, where a sentry was posted with orders
to allow no one beyond that point.

We successfully evaded the guard-house according to his
direction, and eventually found ourselves on the road again, in
a position well up towards the top of the ridge; but on our
left as we progressed up the road was a steep minor ridge which
we presently proceeded to ascend.

When we were near the top he said to me with a knowing
grin:—

“Now if you look over there, you will see before you exactly
what you want.”

And as I looked over I found below me one of the new forts.
It was exactly what I wanted to see spread before my eyes like
a map. I simply had to take a bird’s-eye view of it to get its
complete plan.

Beyond it on another ridge lay another fort, and almost
behind me I could see part of the third, while beyond and above
were still more forts up on the heights. I had got into a
[pg 89] regular nest of them. My
position on the ridge gave me a splendid view of mountains,
and referring to them I said:—

“Yes, indeed, you have brought me to exactly the right
spot.”

But he grinned again maliciously, pointing down to the fort,
and said:—

“Yes, but that is the best view of all, I think.”

He seemed to grasp my intentions most fully. Far below the
forts lay the straits which they were designed to protect for
the vessels steaming through them. I started at once to make a
sketch of the panorama, carefully omitting that ground where
the forts lay, partly in order to disarm my friend’s
suspicions, and partly to protect me in the event of my
arrest.

Presently my companion volunteered to go down to the fort
and bring up his brother, who, he said, was a gunner stationed
there, and could give me every detail that I could wish about
their guns, etc.

This sounded almost too good to be true, but with the
greatest indifference I said I should be glad to see him, and
off went my friend. The moment that he was out of sight
[pg 90] I took care to move off into
a neighbouring kopje where I could hide myself in case of
his bringing up a force of men to capture me.

From here I was able to make a pretty accurate sketch of the
fort and its gun emplacements on the inside of the lining of my
hat, and when I had replaced this I went on as hurriedly as
possible with my sketch to show that I had been fully occupied
during the guide’s absence.

Presently I saw him returning, but as he was only
accompanied by one other man, I crept down again to my original
position and received them smiling.

The gunner was most communicative, and told me all about his
guns and their sizes and what were their powers as regards
range and accuracy. He told me that once a year an old vessel
that was about to be broken up was towed along behind a steamer
down the straits to afford a target to the defence forts as she
passed on. He said regretfully:—

“We are number three fort, and so far, no vessel has ever
successfully passed one and two—they always get sunk
before they reach us”—and he gave me the exact range and
the number of rounds fired, which showed that their shooting
was pretty good.

[pg 91]

Many other details I found out as to the number of the men,
their feeding and hospital arrangements; and a few days later I
was able to take myself home with a good stock of valuable
information and the good wishes and hopes of my various friends
that I some day would return to shoot the partridges. But I am
certain that one man was not taken in by my professions, either
as an artist or as a sportsman, and that was the muleteer.

FOOLING A GERMAN SENTRY.

On another occasion I wanted to ascertain what value there
was in the musketry training of a foreign infantry. Also it had
been reported that they had recently acquired a new form of
machine gun which was a particularly rapid firer and very
accurate in its effects. Its calibre was known, and its general
pattern (from photographs), but its actual capabilities were
still a matter of conjecture.

On this occasion I thought the simplest way would be to go
undisguised. Without any concealment I went to stay in garrison
towns where I happened to know one or two officers. I obtained
introductions to other officers, and gradually became their
companion at meals [pg 92] and at their evening
entertainments. They mounted me on their horses, I rode with
them on their rounds of duty, and I came to be an attendant
at their field days and manoeuvres; but whenever we
approached the rifle ranges I was always politely but firmly
requested to go no further, but to await their return, since
the practice was absolutely confidential. I could gain no
information from them as to what went on within the
enclosure where the rifle range was hidden.

Two of my English friends one day incautiously stopped at
the entrance gate to one of the ranges, and were promptly
arrested and kept in the guard-room for some hours, and finally
requested to leave the place, without getting much satisfaction
out of it. So I saw that caution was necessary. Little by
little, especially after some very cheerful evenings, I
elicited a certain amount of information from my friends as to
what the new machine gun did and was likely to do, and how
their soldiers could of course never hit a running target,
since it was with the greatest difficulty they hit the standing
one at all. But more than this it was impossible to get.

However, I moved on to another military
[pg 93] station, where as a stranger
I tried another tack. The rifle ranges were surrounded by a
belt of trees, outside of which was an unclimbable fence
guarded by two sentries, one on either side. It seemed
impossible to get into or even near the range without
considerable difficulty.

One day I sauntered carelessly down in the direction of the
range at a point far away from the entrance gate, and here I
lay down on the grass as if to sleep, but in reality to listen
and take the rate of the shooting from the sound and also the
amount of success by the sound of the hits on the iron target.
Having gained a certain amount of data in this way, I
approached more nearly in the hope of getting a sight of what
was going on.

While the sentry’s back was turned I made a rush for the
fence, and though I could not get over, I found a loose plank
through which I was able to get a good view of what was
happening.

While engaged at this, to my horror the sentry suddenly
turned on his tracks and came back towards me. But I had been
prepared against such eventualities, and jamming back the plank
into its place, I produced from my
[pg 94] pocket a bottle of brandy
which I had brought for the purpose. Half of it had been
already sprinkled over my clothes, so that when the man
approached he found me in a state of drunkenness, smelling
vilely of spirits, and profuse in my offers to him to share
the bottle.

The above sketch shows the writer in a tight place.
He was discovered in close proximity to a rifle range by a
German sentry. He pretended to be intoxicated, and so
escaped. But it was a close shave.

[pg 95]

He could make nothing of me, and therefore gently but firmly
conducted me to the end of his beat and thrust me forth and
advised me to go home, which I did in great content….

A SPY IS SUSPICIOUS.

The practice of spying has one unfortunate tendency: it
teaches one to trust no one, not even a would-be benefactor. A
foreign country had recently manufactured a new form of field
gun which was undergoing extensive secret trials, which were
being conducted in one of her colonies in order to avoid being
watched. I was sent to find out particulars of this gun. On
arrival in the colony I found that a battery of new guns was
carrying out experiments at a distant point along the
railway.

The place was by all description merely a roadside station,
with not even a village near it, so it would be difficult to go
and stay there without being noticed at once. The timetable,
however, showed that the ordinary day train stopped there for
half an hour for change of engines, so I resolved to see what I
could do in the space of time allowed.

We jogged along in the local train happily
[pg 96] enough and stopped at every
little station as we went. At one of these a Colonial farmer
entered my carriage, and though apparently ill and doleful,
we got into conversation on the subject of the country and
the crops.

At length we drew up at the station where the guns were said
to be. Eagerly looking from the window, my delight may be
imagined when I saw immediately outside the station yard the
whole battery of guns standing parked.

Everybody left the train to stretch their legs, and I did
not lose a moment in hurrying through the station and walking
out to have a closer look at what I had come to see.

The sentry on the guns was on the further side from me, and
therefore I was able to have a pretty close look at the breech
action and various other items before he could come round to my
side. But he very quickly noticed my presence, and not only
came himself, but shouted to another man whom I had not so far
seen behind a corner of the station wall.

This was the corporal of the guard, who rushed at me and
began abusing me with every name he could lay his tongue to for
[pg 97] being here without permit. I
tried to explain that I was merely a harmless passenger by
the train coming out to stretch my legs, and had never
noticed his rotten old guns? But he quickly shoo’d me back
into the station.

I betook myself once more to the carriage, got out my field
glasses, and continued my investigations from the inside of the
carriage, where I had quite a good view of the guns outside the
station, and was able to note a good deal of information
painted on them as to their weight, calibre, etc. Suddenly in
the midst of my observations I found the view was obscured, and
looking up, I found the face of the corporal peering in at me;
he had caught me in the act. But nothing more came of it at the
moment.

My farmer friend presently returned to his place, the
whistle sounded, and the train lumbered on.

When I resumed conversation with the Colonist I remarked on
his invalid appearance and enquired about his health. The poor
man, with tears running down his cheeks, then confessed to me
it was not illness of body, but worry of the mind that was
preying upon him.

[pg 98]

He had utterly failed in his attempt at making a successful
farm, and had entered the train with the idea of cutting his
throat, and would have done so had I not been there to prevent
him. Life was over for him, and he did not know what to do. I
got him to talk about his losses, and offered suggestions to
him based on the experiences of a friend of mine who was also a
farmer in that country, and who for ten years had failed until
the right method came to him in the eleventh year, and he was
now making his business a huge success.

This put hope at once into my volatile companion. He bucked
up and became cheerful and confidential. Finally he said:

“You have done me a good turn. I will do something for you.
I know that you are a German spy, and I know that you are going
to be arrested at the station where this train stops for the
night. You were spotted by a non-commissioned officer at the
last station, and while I was in the telegraph office he came
in and sent a telegram to the Commandant of the terminal
station, reporting that a German spy had been
[pg 99] examining the guns and was
travelling by this train in this carriage.”

I at once laughed genially at the mistake made, and
explained to him that I was not a German at all. He replied
that that would not avail me—I should be arrested all the
same if I went on to the end of the journey.

“But,” he suggested, “I shall be getting out myself at the
very next station to go back to my farm, and my advice to you
is to get out there also. You will find a good inn where you
can put up for the night, and to-morrow morning the early train
will take you on clean through that very station where the
military commandant will be on the look-out for you
to-night.”

I replied that, as an Englishman, I had nothing to fear, and
I should go on.

At the next station accordingly he got out, and after an
affectionate farewell, I went on. But there was yet another
station between this and the night stop, and on arrival there I
took the hint of my friend and got out and spent the night at
the little inn of the place. Following his advice still
further, I took the early train next morning and ran through
[pg 100] the place where they had
been looking out for me. I had not got out when he invited
me to at his station lest his invitation might merely have
been a trap to test whether I was a spy; had I accepted it,
no doubt he might have had friends at hand to arrange my
arrest. As it was, I came away scot free with all the
information I wanted about the new gun.

HOODWINKING A TURKISH SENTRY.

A big new Turkish fort had been recently built, and my
business was to get some idea of its plan and construction.
From my inn in the town I sauntered out early one morning
before sunrise, hoping to find no sentries awake, so that I
could take the necessary angles and pace the desired bases in
order to plot in a fairly accurate plan of it.

To some extent I had succeeded when I noticed among the
sandhills another fellow looking about, and, it seemed to me,
trying to dodge me. This was rather ominous, and I spent some
of my time trying to evade this “dodger,” imagining that he was
necessarily one of the guard attempting my
capture.

[pg 101]

In evading him, unfortunately, I exposed myself rather more
than usual to view from the fort, and presently was challenged
by one of the sentries. I did not understand his language, but
I could understand his gesture well enough when he presented
his rifle and took deliberate aim at me. This induced me to
take cover as quickly as might be behind a sandhill, where I
sat down and waited for a considerable time to allow the
excitement to cool down.

Presently, who should I see creeping round the corner of a
neighbouring sandhill but my friend the “dodger”! It was too
late to avoid him, and the moment he saw me he appeared to wish
to go away rather than to arrest me. We then recognised that we
were mutually afraid of each other, and therefore came together
with a certain amount of diffidence on both sides.

However, we got into conversation, in French, and I very
soon found that, although representatives of different
nationalities, we were both at the same game of making a plan
of the fort. We therefore joined forces, and behind a sandhill
we compared notes as to what information we
[pg 102] had already gained, and
then devised a little plan by which to complete the whole
scheme.

My friend took his place in a prominent position with his
back to the fort and commenced to smoke, with every appearance
of indifference to the defence work behind him. This was meant
to catch the sentry’s eye and attract his attention while I did
some creeping and crawling and got round the other side of the
work, where I was able to complete our survey in all its
details.

[pg 103] A day or two later we took
steamer together for Malta, where we were to part on our
respective homeward journeys—he on his way back to
Italy.

As we both had a day or two to wait at Malta, I acted as
host to him during his stay. As we entered the harbour I
pointed out to him the big 110-ton guns which at that time
protected the entrance, and were visible to anybody with two
eyes in his head. I pointed out various other interesting
batteries to him which were equally obvious, but I omitted to
mention other parts which would have been of greater interest
to him.

He came away from Malta, however, with the idea that, on the
whole, he had done a good stroke of business for his Government
by going there, and convinced of his luck in getting hold of a
fairly simple thing in the shape of myself to show him
around.

It was my good fortune to meet him a few years later, when
perhaps unwittingly he returned the compliment which I had done
him in Malta. He was then in charge of a large arsenal in one
of the colonies of his country. This was situated in a citadel
[pg 104] perched on a high ridge
with a rapid river flowing around the base.

My orders at that time were to try and ascertain whether any
organisation existed in this colony for mobilising the natives
as a reserve, should the regular troops be called away for
action elsewhere. Also whether there was any means arranged for
arming these natives; if so, in what way and in what
numbers.

Knowing that my friend was quartered in the place, I called
upon him as the first step, without any definite plan in my
mind as to how I was to set about getting the information. He
was kind enough to take me for a tour of inspection round the
town, down to the river, and up in the citadel.

By a lucky chance I got on to the idea that the citadel
ought to be lit with electric light since the water power
produced by the torrent below could work a dynamo at very low
cost if properly engineered. This was so much in my thoughts
that as we went through the barracks and buildings in the fort,
I kept pointing out how easily and inexpensively places might
be wired and lit. And I gradually persuaded him that it was
[pg 105] a matter that he should
take up and suggest to his superior.

Finally, when he had seen almost everything, my friend
remarked: “I don’t suppose you would care to see inside the
arsenal, it is so much like many others you must have seen
before.” But I assured him that it would interest me very much;
in fact, it was rather essential to forming any approximate
estimate for the lighting; and so he took me in.

There was gallery after gallery filled with racks of arms,
all beautifully kept, and over the door of each room was the
name of the tribe and the number of men who could be mobilised
in the event of their being required, and the number of arms
and the amount of ammunition that was available for each.

After taking me through two or three rooms, he said: “There
are many more like this, but you have probably seen enough.”
But I eagerly exclaimed that I must see the others in order to
judge of this electric lighting scheme. If there were many more
rooms it might necessitate an extra sized dynamo, therefore a
greater expense, but I hoped that by due economy in the number
[pg 106] of lamps to be able to keep
down to the original estimate which I had thought of.

So we went steadily through all the rooms, looking at the
places where lamps might be most economically established, and
I made calculations with pencil and paper, which I showed him,
while I jotted on my shirt cuff the names of the tribes and the
other information required by my superiors at home—which
I did not show him.

The armament of native auxiliaries and their organisation
and numbers were thus comparatively easily found
out—thanks to that little stroke of luck which I repeat
so often comes in to give success whether in scouting or
spying.

But a more difficult job was to ascertain the practical
fighting value of such people.

TEA AND A TURK.

Reports had got about that some wonderful new guns had been
installed in one of the forts on the Bosphorus and that a great
deal of secrecy was observed in their being put up. It became
my duty to go and find out any particulars about them.

My first day in Constantinople was spent
[pg 107] under the guidance of an
American lady in seeing the sights of the city, and when we
had visited almost all the usual resorts for tourists she
asked whether there was anything else that I wanted to see,
and to a certain extent I let her into my confidence when I
told her that I would give anything to see the inside of one
of these forts, if it were possible.

She at once said she would be delighted to take me to see
her old friend Hamid Pasha, who was quartered in one of them
and was always willing to give her and her friends a cup of
tea.

When we arrived at the gate of the fort the sentry and the
officer in charge would on no account allow us to pass until
the lady said that she was a friend of the Pasha, when we were
at once admitted and passed to his quarters.

He was a charming host, and received us with the greatest
kindness, and after showing us his own quarters and the many
curiosities he had collected he took us all round the fort and
pointed out its ancient and modern devices for defence, and
finally showed us its guns. Two of these, in a somewhat
prominent position where they could easily be seen
[pg 108] from outside, were covered
with canvas covers.

My excitement naturally grew intense when I saw these, and I
secretly begged the lady to persuade him to allow us to look at
them, and he at once acquiesced, thinking I was an American,
and, grinning all over his face, said, “These are our very
latest development.”

I almost trembled as the covers were drawn off, and then I
recognised guns, truly of a modern make but not very new nor
powerful, and then he gave away the whole secret by saying: “Of
course, we are trying to impress a certain power with the idea
that we are re-arming our forts, and therefore we are letting
it be known that we are keeping these guns a dead secret and
covered from view of any spies.”

On another occasion it fell to my lot to inspect some of the
defences of the Dardanelles, and I found it could best be done
from the seaward. This involved my taking passage in an old
grain steamer running between Odessa and Liverpool, and my
voyage in her was one of the most charming and original that it
has been my lot to take.

A tramp steamer loaded down with grain until its cargo is
almost running out of the
[pg 109] ventilators
is—contrary to all expectations—quite a
comfortable boat for cruising in. The captain and his wife
lived in comfortable cabins amidships under the bridge; the
after deck was stocked with pigs and chickens, which fed
liberally on the cargo. The captain’s good lady was a Scotch
woman, and therefore an excellent cook.

Everything was most clean and comfortable, and the captain
most thoroughly entered into my various schemes for observing
and examining the defences of the coast as we went along.

He allowed me practically to take command of the ship as
regards her course and anchoring. From side to side of the
Dardanelles we wandered, and when we came abreast of one of the
forts that needed study we anchored ship.

Our erratic procedure naturally invited investigation, and
when a Government pilot boat put off to enquire our reason for
anchoring in a certain bay he came to the conclusion that our
steering gear was not in very good order and that we had
stopped to repair it.

While the ship was at anchor a boat was lowered and I whiled
away the time, nominally
[pg 110] in fishing, but really in
cruising about close to the forts and fishing for
information rather than for fish by observing the different
types of the guns employed and sketching their position and
the radius of fire allowed to take them by the splay of
their embrasures; also we took soundings where necessary and
made sketch maps of possible landing places for attacking or
other purposes.

SORE FEET.

Bosnia and Herzegovina were under Austrian protection and
were supplying a new contingent of infantry to the Austrian
army. This force was said to have most marvellous powers of
marching and endurance, something hitherto unheard of among
European nations. I was told off to ascertain how great these
powers might be and what was the secret of their success.

I visited them in their own country. But before I arrived
there I had passed through Montenegro, and I had there received
reports from Montenegrins, which to some extent discounted the
high praise given to them. When I asked a Montenegrin his
opinion of his neighbours in the matter of marching and hill
climbing, he could only contemptuously spit.
[pg 111] And then he explained to me
that any fool can go uphill, but a Montenegrin is the only
man who can go downhill.

He pointed to the round tower in Cettinje, and told me
within it lay several piles of Turks’ head, for the reason that
every Montenegrin who could show a heap of nine Turks’ heads
gathered by himself was entitled to a gold medal from the
Prince.

Their method of gaining Turks’ heads was this:

A party of them would make a raid into Turkish territory and
get a few cattle or women. They would then be pursued by the
Turks into the mountains, and they would make their way
hurriedly up the mountain side just sufficiently far ahead to
lead the Turks on to pursue them eagerly. When the Turks had
become well strung out in the pursuit, the Montenegrins would
suddenly turn on them and charge down the mountain side.

There was no escape for the Turks. They were only ordinary
mortals, and could not run downhill. And he showed me his great
bare knee, and slapping it with pride, he said: “That is what
takes you downhill, and no
[pg 112] other nation has a knee
like the Montenegrins. And as for the Bosnians—” then
he spat!

However, as the Bosnians were reported to be doing such
great things in the marching line for the Austrian army, my
next step was to visit the Austrian manoeuvres and watch
them.

It is usual for a military attaché to be sent officially to
watch such manoeuvres, and he is the guest of the Government
concerned. But in that position, it is very difficult for him
to see behind the scenes. He is only shown what they want him
to see. My duty was to go behind the scenes as much as possible
and get other points of view.

I accordingly attached myself to a squad of infantry, with
whom I spent a couple of days and nights. I had come to a
certain town, and could find no room in the place where I could
sleep. The hotels were crammed, and even in the shops men were
billeted to sleep on and under the counters, as also in every
garret and archway in the place.

Finally, I went to the station and asked the stationmaster
if I could sleep in a railway carriage. He informed me that all
these were filled with troops; but one of the railway men
[pg 113] who came from the
signal-box a short way down the line took pity on me, and
told me if I liked there was his cabin, which I could share
with his brother, who was a corporal, and his squad of men,
and that I might find room to lie down there.

I gladly climbed the steps into the signal-box, and was made
welcome by the corporal and his men in sharing their supplies,
and after supper and a chat I bedded down amongst them.

It was interesting to see how conscientiously this little
party did its work. At every hour during the night the corporal
went out and inspected his sentry, just as if on active
service, and patrols were frequent and reports handed in,
although no officer ever came near the place.

During the next two days we had plenty of experience of
marching and counter-marching, firing and charging; but going
along in the rear of the immense mass of troops one soon
realised what enormous wastage there is in stragglers, and
especially those with sore feet. So much so was this the case
that wagons came along, picked up the sore-footed men, and
carried them back to the railway, where
[pg 114] every evening a special
train was in attendance to convey them back to their
garrison.

A few that were missed out by this operation on the field
were collected into their field hospitals, and thus the numbers
shown every day to the general staff of men admitted to
hospital for sore feet was very small indeed compared with the
number that were actually put out of action from that
cause.

It was soon quite evident that my friend the Montenegrin had
not spat without reason, and that the Bosnians were no harder
in their feet than the other nationalities in that variegated
army.

AUSTRIAN OFFICERS.

I had a very strong fellow feeling for the Austrian army and
its officers. They were so very much like our own, but far more
amateurish in their knowledge and methods of leading; as
old-fashioned as the hills, and liable to make mistakes at
every turn.

The only one who seemed to realise this was the aged Emperor
himself, and when he came flying along it was very like the
Duke of Cambridge at his best with a thunderstorm raging.

The army was then commanded by Arch-Dukes,
[pg 115] aged men as a rule, and all
intensely nervous as to what the Emperor would think of them
when he came along. One could tell when he was coming by
watching the feathers in their helmets. An Arch-Duke would
look very brave in all his war paint, but if you watched the
green feather above him closely you might notice it
trembling with a distinct shiver when the Emperor was
anywhere in the neighbourhood.

Their old-fashioned methods and amateurish leading seem to
be paying a heavy price in the present campaign.

AN INTERESTING TASK.

A new method of illuminating the battlefield at night had
been invented on the Continent.

A chemical substance had been manufactured which enabled the
user to turn on a strong light over a wide space at any
moment.

Rumour said that it was as powerful as a searchlight, and
yet could be carried in your pocket. But great secrecy was
observed both regarding its composition and its experimental
trials.

In the same army a new kind of observation balloon was said
to be on trial equipped with some very up-to-date
apparatus.

[pg 116]

Also it was reported that, in addition to these aids to
effective reconnaissance, a new method of swimming rivers by
cavalry had been invented by which every man and horse in a
cavalry division could cross wide rivers without difficulty or
delay.

Owing to political strain going on in Europe at the time
there was the possibility that these rumours might have been
purposely set on foot, like many others, with a view to giving
some moral prestige to the army concerned.

It became my duty to investigate as far as possible what
amount of truth lay in them.

ENCOUNTER WITH THE POLICE.

It was a difficult country to work in owing to the very
stringent police arrangements against spies of every kind, and
it looked to be a most unpromising task to elicit what I wanted
to know, because one was sure of being watched at every turn.
As I afterwards discovered, it was through this multiplicity of
police arrangements that one was able to get about with
comparative ease, because if one went boldly enough it
immediately argued to the watchful policeman
[pg 117] that someone else was sure
to be observing you.

Moreover, spies generally do their work single-handed, and
on this occasion I was accompanied by my brother, and this made
it easier for us to go about as a pair of tourists interested
in the country generally. A man travelling alone is much more
liable to draw attention upon himself, and therefore to go
about under suspicion.

Our entry into the country was not altogether fortunate,
because while yet in the train we managed to get into trouble
with the guard over a window which he insisted on shutting when
we wanted it open. In the same carriage with us was a gentleman
of some standing in the country, and in a fit of
absent-mindedness I made a little sketch of him. I had just
completed it when an arm reached down over my shoulder from
behind and the picture was snatched away by the observant guard
of the train and taken off to be used as evidence against
me.

The guard of a train in this country, I may say, ranks
apparently much the same as a colonel in the army, and
therefore is [pg 118] not a man to be trifled
with. On our arrival at the terminus we found a sort of
guard of honour of gendarmes waiting for us on the platform,
and we were promptly marched off to the police office to
account for our procedure in the train by daring to open the
window when the guard wished it closed, and for drawing
caricatures of a “high-born” man in the train.

We made no secret as to our identity and handed our cards to
the commissary of police when we were brought up before him. He
was—till that moment—glaring at us fiercely,
evidently deciding what punishment to give us before he had
heard our case at all. But when he saw my brother’s name as an
officer in the Guards, he asked: “Does this mean in the Guards
of her Majesty Queen Victoria?” When he heard it was so his
whole demeanour changed. He sprang from his seat, begged us to
be seated, and explained it was all a mistake. Evidently Guards
in his country were in very high repute. He explained to us
there were certain little irritating rules on the railway which
had to be enforced, but, of course, in our case we were not to
be bound by such [pg 119] small bye-laws, and with
profuse apologies he bowed us out of the office, without a
stain upon our characters.

SUCCESS WITH THE BALLOON.

We did not live long without the stain. Our first anxiety
was to find where and how it would be possible to see some of
this equipment for which we had come to the country. Manoeuvres
were going on at a place some fifty miles distant, and there,
as tourists, we betook ourselves without delay. We put up at a
small inn not far from the railway-station, and for the next
few days we did immense walking tours, following up the troops
and watching them at their work over a very extended area of
country.

At last one day we sighted a balloon hanging in the sky, and
we made a bee line for it until we arrived at its station. When
it was hauled down and anchored to the ground the men went off
to the camp to get their dinners, and the balloon was left
without a soul to guard it. It was not long before we were both
inside the car, taking note of everything in the shape of the
instruments and their makers’ names,
[pg 120] and so had all the
information it was possible to get before the men came
back.

HOW TO ENTER A FORT.

Our next step was to see this wonderful illuminant for night
work, and in the course of our wandering’s we came across a
large fort from which searchlights had been showing the
previous night. There were notice boards round this fort at a
distance of about twenty yards apart stating that nobody was
allowed within this circle of notices, and we argued that if
once we were inside any sentry or detective would naturally
suppose we had leave to be there.

We tried the idea, and it worked splendidly. We walked
calmly through camps and past sentries without a tremor and not
a question was asked us. Once within this line we were able to
get directly into the fort, and there we strolled along as if
the place belonged to us.

There is a certain amount of art required in making yourself
not appear to be a stranger in a new place.

In the minor matter of hat, boots, and necktie it is well to
wear those bought in the country you are visiting, otherwise
your [pg 121] British-made articles are
sure to attract the attention of a watchful policeman.

In the matter of demeanour you behave as a native would do
who was accustomed to being there.

Walking into a strange fort must be carried out much on the
same lines as you would adopt in entering a strange town, only
more so. You walk as if with a set purpose to get to a certain
part of it, as though you knew the way perfectly, and without
showing any kind of interest in what is around you. If you pass
an officer or dignitary whom you see everybody saluting, salute
him too, so that you do not appear singular. When you want to
observe any special feature you loaf about reading a newspaper
or, if in a town, by looking at all you want to see as
reflected in a shop window.

The penalty for spying in this country was five years
without the option of a fine, or even of a trial.

Having walked in like this, and having successfully walked
out again—which is quite another matter—we felt
elated with our success and hung about till nightfall and
[pg 122] tried it again after dark.
This was no easy job, as the place was surrounded by
outposts very much on the qui vive for an enemy that
was to make a manoeuvre attack during the night. By keeping
to leeward of the general position one was able to quietly
creep along, sniffing the breeze, until one could judge
where there was an outpost and where there was open ground,
and in this manner, smelling our way as we went, we were
able to creep through between the outposts and so gained the
fort.

HOW WE GOT THE SECRET LIGHT.

This time it meant slipping through unperceived as far as
possible, and in this we succeeded equally well. By good
fortune we arrived just before experiments commenced with the
illuminating rockets. Everybody’s attention was centred on
these and no one had time to notice or observe what we were
doing. We watched the preparations and also the results, and
having studied the routine and the geography of the practice we
were in the end able to help ourselves to some of the rockets
and the lighting composition, and with these we eventually made
off. Without delay we [pg 123] placed our treasures in the
hands of a trusty agent who transferred them at once to
England.

HOW THE BIG RIVER WAS SWUM.

Our next step was to see how crossing the river was carried
out by the cavalry. From information received we presented
ourselves at a certain spot on the river at a little before ten
one morning. The official attachés had received notice that a
brigade of cavalry would swim the river at this point at ten
o’clock, and at ten o’clock their special train was due to
arrive there.

We were there, fortunately, half an hour beforehand, and we
saw the whole brigade come down to the river and file across a
fairly deep ford, where the horses got wet to some extent, but
they did not swim.

On the far bank a few men were left behind. These, as it
turned out, were all the men and horses who could actually swim
well, and as the train arrived and the attachés disembarked on
to the bank they found the major part of the brigade already
arrived, dripping wet, and the remainder just swimming over at
that moment.

Of course in their reports they stated that
[pg 124] they had seen the whole
brigade swimming over. But this is how reports very often
get about which are not strictly true.

CAUGHT AT LAST.

Emboldened by our success in getting into the fort by day
and night, we then continued the experiment for several nights
in succession, watching the further practice with searchlights,
star shells, and light rockets. We had, however, collected all
the information that was necessary, and there was no need for
us to go there again. But news reached us that there was to be
a final show for the Emperor himself, and I could not resist
the temptation of going once more to the fort, as I expected
there would be a grand pyrotechnic display for this
occasion.

I got there in good time before the Emperor’s arrival, and
made my way into the place as usual, my brother remaining
outside to see the effect of the lights from the attacker’s
point of view. Inside, however, all was not quite the same as
it had been on previous occasions. There were a very large
number of officers collected there, and a too larger number of
police, officers for my liking. I,
[pg 125] therefore, repented of my
intention and took myself out again.

Then as I walked back along the road in the dark I noticed
the lights of the Emperor’s cortege coming along towards
me. As the first carriage passed me I did the worst thing in
the world I could have done at such a moment—I turned my
head away to avoid being recognised in the lamplight. My action
made the occupants of the first carriage suspicious. They were
some of the staff officers of the Emperor.

In a moment they stopped the carriage, rushed at me, and
with scarcely a word, seized and hustled me into the carriage
with them, and drove back to the fort again. They asked me a
few questions as to who I was and why I was there, and on
arrival at the fort I was handed over to some other officers
and again asked my business.

I could only say that I was an Englishman who had been
looking on at the manoeuvres as a spectator and was anxious to
find my way to the station (which was some ten miles away).
This was all fairly true, but not quite good enough for them,
and they presently packed me into a carriage and sent me
back—in [pg 126] charge of an
officer—to the station, with a view to my being handed
over to the police and removed to the capital.

It was in the days of my apprenticeship, and I had been
exceedingly foolish in taking a few notes, which, although
undecipherable, perhaps would none the less be used as evidence
against me.

Therefore, so soon as we were under way I made it my
business to quietly tear these notes up into small pieces, and
to drop them out of the carriage window whenever my guardian
was looking the other way. When we arrived at the station there
was some little time to wait, and I asked if I might go to the
inn and collect my belongings. Permission was granted to me,
and I was taken there under the charge of a police officer.

Hastily I packed my bag, and the good officer endeavoured to
help me, packing up anything he could see in the room and
thrusting it in with my things. Unfortunately he kept packing
my brother’s things in as well, and so when his back was turned
I thrust them back into my brother’s bed, for I did not want it
known he was about there too.

Having finally filled my portmanteau, my
[pg 127] next care was to leave a
warning lest he too should be entrapped. So while ostensibly
paying the bill to the landlord of the house, who had been
called up by the police, I wrote a warning note on a scrap
of paper, which I jammed on the candle, where my brother
could not fail to find it when he came home later on, and
then I went off to the station, and was taken back to the
capital by a Hussar officer of congenial temperament.

With all good feeling and the true hospitality of his kind,
he insisted on buying half a dozen bottles of beer for my
consumption—since I was an Englishman—and he helped
me with the ordeal during the small hours of the morning.

On reaching the capital I was put into a hotel, my passport
taken from me, and I was told that I should be expected to
remain there until called for. In the meantime I might go about
the city, but was not to take myself away without permission. I
very soon found that I was being watched by a detective told
off for the purpose, and then it was that I made the
acquaintance of a foreign spy who was acting as waiter in the
hotel. He was so well informed on higher politics, as well as
on [pg 128] military matters, that I
guessed he must be an officer of the intelligence staff, and
he was most helpful and kind to me in my predicament.

He pointed out to me who were the detectives in the hotel
staff, and informed me that their duty was merely to watch me,
to ascertain what my moves were day by day, and to report them
by telephone to the head police office. He advised me before
going out each day to inform the hall porter, thereby letting
the detectives overhear what were my plans; they would then
telephone to the police, who would have their own detectives
watching me while I was out.

THE ESCAPE.

Within a short time my brother rejoined me from the
manoeuvre area, but by doing so he at once came under
observation and under suspicion, and we were practically a pair
of prisoners. So much was this the case that a few days later
we received a visit at daybreak one morning, from a friend in
power, who was also in touch with the police, and he advised us
that the best course we could take was to escape from the
country while it was possible, he undertaking quietly to make
arrangements [pg 129] for us. The idea was that
we should slip away to a seaport, where we could get on to a
British steamer as two of the crew and so pass out of the
country.

That was the scheme. But the difficulty was how to play it
off. A ship was found whose captain was willing to receive us
provided that we could get to him without being observed. With
the aid of our friendly waiter, we let the detective at the
hotel understand that we were tired of being under suspicion,
and that we were boldly going to take the train and leave the
country.

At ten o’clock a cab was to come round to take us and our
luggage to the station, and if anybody interfered with
us—why, we were freeborn British, and subject to no man’s
rule, and the Ambassador and all the rest of the Powers should
hear about it! This was for the information of the detective,
and he merely telephoned it to the police office at the railway
station, where we should be arrested at the point of our
departure.

We got into our cab and drove off down the street towards
the station until we were out of sight of the hotel. Then we
called to our driver and said we should like to go to a
[pg 130] different station. This
course involved our going to the river-side and taking the
ferry.

It was an anxious time. Had we been spotted? Should we be
missed? Were we being followed?

These questions would answer themselves as we progressed
with our plot. The answer, when it came, would mean a
tremendous lot to us—triumph or five years’ imprisonment;
so we had every right to be fairly anxious. And yet, somehow, I
don’t think we were worrying much about the consequences, but
rather were busy with the present—as to how to evade
pursuit and recapture.

Arrived at the ferry we paid off our cabman and made our way
to the quay-side. Here we found a boat which had already been
arranged for; and we made our way safely off to the ship, which
was waiting under steam in midstream to start the moment we
were on board.

At this supreme moment my brother had the temerity to argue
with the boatman over the fare. Being now in the last stage of
tender-hooks, I adjured him to give the man double what he
asked, if only to be free. But the brother was calm, and for
once—he was [pg 131] right! His display of want
of all anxiety quite diverted any kind of suspicion that
might have attached to us, and in the end we got safely on
board and away.

CONCLUSION.

Such are some of the minor experiences which, though not
very sensational in themselves, are yet part of the every-day
work of an “intelligence agent” (alias a spy), and while
they tend to relieve such work of any suspicion of monotony,
they add, as a rule, that touch of romance and excitement to it
which makes spying the fascinating sport that it is.

When one recognises also that it may have invaluable results
for one’s country in time of war, one feels that even though it
is a time spent largely in enjoyment, it is not by any means
time thrown idly away; and though the “agent,” if caught, may
“go under,” unhonoured and unsung, he knows in his heart of
hearts that he has done as bravely for his country as his
comrade who falls in battle.

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[pg 132]

Books for War Time.

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FIRST FROM THE FRONT. By HAROLD ASHTON. War
Correspondent of the Daily News. Crown 8vo. Cloth. Price
2/6 net. (Postage 4d. extra.)

“Gives vivid glimpses of the Western Campaign up to the
time when the battle of the Aisne drifted northwestward and
became the present battle on the
frontier.”—Times.

AN ENGLISHWOMAN’S ADVENTURES IN THE GERMAN LINES. By
GLADYS LLOYD. Crown 8vo. Paper Wrapper. With Portrait and Map.
Price 1/- net. (Postage 3d. extra.)

“She describes in the simplest way her experiences in
Belgium, her talks with the villagers and the Uhlans;
frightened, but resolute to hide all show of fright, she
stands up splendidly to them and speaks her mind at the
very muzzles of their revolvers; but she never loses her
courage, nor does she lose her sense of
humour.”—Athenæum.

THE SPECIAL CONSTABLE: His Duties and Privileges.
Price 1/- net. (Postage 2d. extra.)

“The ideal handbook for Special Constables…. Here is a
modest shilling manual which exactly meets the occasion….
The book is heartily to be recommended.”—Police
Review.

LORD KITCHENER: The Story of his Life. By HORACE G.
GROSER. New Edition brought down to date. With Foreword by T.P.
O’CONNOR, M.P. Paper Wrapper, Price 1/- net. Cloth
Boards, Price 1/6 net.

“A very telling, though quite popular and untechnical,
story of the life of this truly great
man.”—Western Morning News.

LORD ROBERTS: The Story of his Life. By ROY VICKERS.
Crown 8vo. Cloth. With Three-colour Portrait on Cover and Two
Half-tone Illustrations. Price 1/- net. (Postage
3d. extra)

“A thrilling tale of the adventures of the great
Field-Marshal … is well written and makes a suitable gift
book.”—Daily Call.

ADMIRAL JELLICOE. By ARTHUR APPLIN. Crown 8vo. Cloth,
with Portrait in Three Colours on Cover, also Two Half-tone
Illustrations. Price 1/- net.

Mr. Applin has received considerable assistance from
Lady Jellicoe, who has kindly placed letters and other
materials at his disposal, and has read the MSS. before
printing. The volume may therefore be considered
authoritative.

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C. ARTHUR PEARSON, LTD.

HENRIETTA STREET, LONDON, W.C.