The Men Who Wrought Part 13

Ruxton was startled.

"Where then?" he demanded shortly.

"To the Baltic. Mr. Farlow, you have no idea of the subtlety of the people with whom we are dealing. All eyes of the world are on Cuxhaven and Kiel. Every vulture of the foreign secret services is hovering over those places, and the forges and foundries are working to deceive them.

But the real work and preparations I speak of are not being made in Germany at all. We go to the Baltic, to the island of Borga, which is off the coast of Sweden. And there we shall find under German administration a naval 'Krupps,' and the greatest a.r.s.enal in the whole world."

CHAPTER VIII

BORGA

A grey, northern day devoid of all suns.h.i.+ne; a forbidding, rock-bound coast lost in a depressing mist; a flat, oily sea, as threatening to the mariner as the mounting hillocks of storm-swept water; a dull sense of hopelessness prevailing upon the still air. All these things marked the approach to Borga; for Nature was in a repellent mood, a thing of repugnance, of distrust and fear.

A long, low craft was approaching the gaping jaws which marked the entrance to the heart of the island, somewhere away in the distance, lost in the grey mists which seemed to envelop the whole land.

The deck was narrow, and guarded by a simple surrounding of low rails.

Amids.h.i.+ps was a curious construction which was at once the support of the periscope, the conning-tower, and the entrance to the interior of the vessel. Dotted about the deck were several sealed hatchways, and the sheen of gla.s.sed skylights. The whole thing was colored to match the surrounding grey-green waters.

Two uniformed figures were standing for'ard in the bows. One of them was beating the air with twin flags, one in each hand. The other stood by contemplating the book in his hand, and at intervals scanning the repellent sh.o.r.e through a pair of binoculars.

Presently the signaller spoke.

"One, six, four, seven, nine, three, two," he said, reciting the combination of numerals in German with the certainty of familiarity.

"One, six, four, seven, nine, three, two, it is," replied the observer, in a similar, ill-spoken tongue. "That's 'proceed,'" he added, referring to his book.

Forthwith the signaller produced a pocket telephone connected with the conning-tower by a long insulated "flex," and spoke over it. A moment later the throb of engines made itself felt, and, in response, the spume broke on the vessel's cut-water, and left a frothing wake astern.

The vessel pa.s.sed the mist-hooded granite headlands. It left them behind, and itself became engulfed in the grey threat lying between the overshadowing heights towering upwards nearly five hundred feet towards the leaden sky.

The two men on deck gave no heed to their immediate surroundings. They were men of the sea, hard and unimaginative. They were concerned only with the safety of the vessel under them. They would drive her into the very gates of h.e.l.l, if such were their orders. But they would avoid, with all their skill, the pitfalls by the way. They knew that the secrets of this gloomy abode were many, as many perhaps as those of the very Hades they would have been willing enough to face. They knew, too, that those secrets, just as the secrets of the other place, were calculated to destroy them if they diverged one iota from the laws which governed the place. So they worked exactly, and took no chances.

The channel quickly began to narrow. The vast cliffs drew in upon them in their overpowering might. The barren sh.o.r.es were visible to the naked eye, and the white line of heavy surf boomed and boomed again in its incessant attack upon the grim walls. Higher up small patches of pine trees clung desperately to insecure root-holds, like the intrepid Alpini seeking to scale impossible heights.

A few minutes pa.s.sed and a boat, a small petrol-driven vessel, like some c.o.c.kle-sh.e.l.l amidst its tremendous surroundings, shot out from the sh.o.r.e and raced towards them. It had a high, protected prow, and its great speed threw up a pair of huge white wings of water till it had something of the appearance of an enraged swan charging to the attack of an enemy. Again the signaller spoke over his telephone, and the vessel slowed down, and finally hove-to.

The patrol boat drew alongside. Two men, amids.h.i.+ps, in oilskins, held a brief conversation with those on board the intruder. Then their vessel pa.s.sed ahead, and the bigger craft was left to amble leisurely along in its wake.

The cliffs had closed down till less than half a mile of water divided them. The narrow strip of leaden sky above looked pinched between them.

For a mile and more ahead there was no change. The narrow pa.s.sage, with its racing tide, was full of hidden dangers, not the least amongst which being a crowded mine-field which lined either side of the channel.

As the journey proceeded the gloom increased. Added to the natural mists the atmosphere took on a yellow tint, which suggested an overhanging pall of smoke. There was no joy in the aspect anywhere.

The end of the pa.s.sage came at last, and the pilot boat dropped astern.

Its work was finished, and it raced back to its watching-post.

Now a complete change came over the scene. But it was scarcely a change for the better. It was only that Nature, having done her worst, left the rest in the safe hands of human ingenuity.

The frowning cliffs abandoned their threat. They ended as abruptly as they had arisen out of the sea. They fell back on either hand, carrying the sh.o.r.e with them, and merged into a mist-crowned hinterland of dark woods and wide ravines, with a wide-stretching foresh.o.r.e, upon which was built a great city, entirely surrounding what had developed into a miniature, landlocked sea.

Nature had certainly left her incomplete effort in capable hands.

Whatever beauty a brilliant suns.h.i.+ne, accompanied by a smart breeze, might have discovered upon the inhospitable sh.o.r.es of Borga in their pristine state, man's hand had contrived to destroy it. The whole prospect was sordid, uncouth, and suggested something of a nether world of lugubrious fancy. All that could be said for it was the suggestion of feverish industry on every hand. The buildings looked all unfinished, yet they were in full work under a great strain of pressure. Borga had been built in a hurry, and all connected with it suggested only haste and industry.

There were no public buildings of cla.s.sic model. There were no roads and avenues beautified by Nature's decorations. Just alleys and thoroughfares there were, and only sufficiently paved for the needs of the work in hand. The quays and docks were solid--only. The great machine shops, staring-eyed and baldly angular, suggested only the barest necessity. And though their hundreds of floors sheltered thousands of human workers, and acres of elaborate machinery, not even a cornice, or coping, or variation of brickwork had been permitted to make sightly a structure purely for utilitarian purposes. The slipways at the water's edge, and the gaunt steel skeletons they contained, were merely slipways, without other pretensions. A thousand smokestacks belched out of their fetid bowels an endless flow of yellow, sulphurous smoke upon an already overladen atmosphere. They stood up like the teeth of a broken comb, and added to the sordidness of the picture.

A faint relief might have been found for the primitive mind in the numberless blast furnaces to be detected on almost every hand by their shooting tongues of flame. Like all else in Borga they never ceased from their efforts. Theirs it was to give birth to an everlasting stream of molten metal with which to fill the crudely-wrought sand moulds for the containing of pig-iron. The rolling mills, too, might have been not without effect. Those cavernous worlds of incessant clamor rolled the hours and days away, and took no count but of the output from their soulless wombs. The homes of the deep-noted steam hammers, and the fierce puddling furnaces, where men, bare to the skin except for a loin-cloth, with greased bodies, endure under showers of flying sparks and a heat which no other living creature would face.

These sights were perhaps not without inspiration. But the sordidness of it all, its crudity, its suggestion of hideous life were on every hand; in the shrieking locomotives, with their tails of laden, protesting trucks; in the beer-drinking booths; in the vast heaps of rubbish and waste lying about in every direction; even to the almost b.e.s.t.i.a.l type of man whose brain and muscle made such a waste of industry possible.

What Nature had left unfinished, man had surely completed for her.

Borga was repellent. Its life was ugly. But ugliest of all was its purpose.

Essen had been the greatest a.r.s.enal of all time. But since the birth and maturity of Borga it had become as a village compared to a capital city. Borga was the mechanical soul of an empire. It was the iron heart of an armored giant, upon which had been wantonly lavished all the mentality and spiritual force of a nation bankrupt in every other human feeling.

The incoming vessel moved swiftly. Ahead lay a grey breakwater which formed one wall of a small harbor. An open channel clear of all s.h.i.+pping indicated its purpose. It was obviously the official landing-place. However, if the channel remained clear it was lined on either side by a swarm of naval craft, much of which was still in the hands of artificers; for here, no less than ash.o.r.e, the din of construction was going on and the busy hive remained true to its purpose.

The men on deck remained indifferent to their surroundings. Familiarity left them free to give undivided attention to their work. So the boat glided silently in between the pierheads, and, in five minutes, was lying against the landing-stage with a gangway run aboard.

Two men emerged from the conning-tower and stepped ash.o.r.e, where a small group of uniformed officers were waiting to receive them. Prince Stanislaus von Hertzwohl led the way, followed by a younger man, whose face was full of a keen intelligence, while his dark eyes were those of a dreamer. Both were dressed in the uniform of German naval officers, a uniform which particularly seemed to suit the younger man's fair hair.

But the Prince in Borga was a different man from the inventor displaying his models. Here he was an autocrat--an all-powerful, high officer in the work of the place. Therefore, with a cold acknowledgment of the salute of the junior officers, he pa.s.sed them by and stepped up to a man of elevated military rank, who, in the haughty aloofness of his position, was standing well apart from the others.

The Prince addressed him with a cold sort of familiarity.

"Ha, Von Salzinger," he cried, "but you are a troublesome people here.

You give us no peace. We are called to straighten out the muddles of Borga when our time can be ill spared from our workshops. Let me present my nephew, who is responsible for this d.a.m.nation light. Herr Leder von Bersac--the military governor of Borga, Captain-General von Salzinger."

The two men acknowledged the presentation, and their eyes met in a steady, keen regard. Then the Prince went on--

"What is it, this light? Have your engineers no thoughts in their heads but beer, or is it that they, like the a.s.ses, have grown long ears?

Come, we will go at once. You can dismiss your ceremonial," he went on, indicating the group of officers. "I have no time for that. I am an engineer, as is my nephew. Besides, I must leave here within the hour.

I must be in Berlin within two days and return to my works first.

So----"

"Certainly, Excellency," replied the Captain-General, unbending before the man whom he believed through his genius to be the most powerful influence in the country at the moment. "But I think the fault is not with us--this time. No doubt Herr von Bersac will be able to set the matter right. But an hour is short."

"Ach, so," cried the Prince, with irritation. "Then do not delay. Lead us to the--place."

Herr von Bersac, watching the scene with his dreamy eyes, noted the att.i.tude of the two men towards each other. His uncle's manner was something of a surprise to him. Nor could he help but realize the other's almost slavish deference, as, in response to the older man's order, he hastily moved off sh.o.r.ewards.

The Governor was a typical Teuton. The broad, square back of his head surmounted a thick, fleshy neck. His blue eyes were deeply set in puffy sockets. His cheeks were full, and the chin, below his bristling moustache, was square and strong. His whole appearance, in his brilliant uniform, was of cubist inspiration, and, in spite of his high rank, and the suggestion of grey about the temples of his close-cropped head, he could not have been more than midway between thirty and forty.

These things Herr von Bersac noted with almost unnecessary interest in spite of his abstracted air.

But Herr von Bersac had not had a monopoly of observation. While the Prince had been talking the military governor's small, quick eyes had not been idle. He had taken the nephew's measure to the last inch of his great height. Such observation was his habit as well as his duty.

His position in the world's greatest secret a.r.s.enal demanded that every visitor must be regarded as a possible enemy until a due examination of his credentials proved him otherwise.