Britain's Deadly Peril: Are We Told the Truth?Le Queux, William
History
Britain's Deadly Peril: Are We Told the Truth?
Le Queux, William
Secret service -- Germany; Spies; World War, 1914-1918
In the fourteen exciting days and nights which followed, I motored many
hundreds of miles over Surrey, Sussex, and Kent, instituting inquiries
and making a number of amazing discoveries, not the least astounding of
which was that, only one hour prior to the reception of that message
on the first evening of our vigil--"H. 5"--five German aeroplanes
had actually set out from the Belgian coast towards England! That
secret information was being sent from the Kent coast to London was
now proved, not only at one point, but at several, where I have since
waited and watched, and, showing signals in the same code, have been at
once answered and repeated. And every night, until the hour of writing,
this same signalling from the coast to London is in progress, and has
been watched by responsible officers of His Majesty's Service.
After the first nights of vigilance, I had satisfied myself that
messages in code were being sent, so I reported--as a matter of
urgency--to the Intelligence Department of the War Office--that
department of which Mr. McKenna, on March 3rd, declared, "There is no
more efficient department of the State." The result was only what the
public might expect. Though this exposure was vouched for by experts in
signalling, men wearing His Majesty's uniform, all the notice taken of
it has been
_War Office,
Whitehall,
S.W._
27th February 1915.
_The Director of Military Operations presents his compliments to_ Mr.
W. Le Queux, _and begs to acknowledge, with thanks, the receipt of his
letter of the_ 25th inst. _which is receiving attention_.
a mere _printed acknowledgment_--reproduced above--that my report had
been received, while to my repeated appeals that proper inquiry be made
I have not even received a reply!
But further. While engaged in watching in another part of Surrey on the
night of March 3rd, certain officers of the Armoured Car Squadron, who
were keeping vigil upon the house of mystery, saw some green and white
rockets being discharged from the top of the hill. Their suspicions
aroused, they searched and presently found, not far from the house in
question, a powerful motor-car of German make containing three men.
The latter when challenged gave no satisfactory account of themselves,
therefore the officers held up the car while one of them telephoned to
the Admiralty for instructions. The reply received was "that they had
no right to detain the car!" But, even in face of this official policy
of do-nothing, they took off the car's powerful searchlight, which was
on a swivel, and sent it to the Admiralty for identification.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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