Who Goes There!Chambers, Robert W. (Robert William)
General
Who Goes There!
Chambers, Robert W. (Robert William)
World War, 1914-1918 -- Fiction
W. A. Churchill, Esquire,
British Consulate,
Plantage Middenlaan 20,
Amsterdam,
Holland
SIR:
The following items of information should be immediately
transmitted to your home Government. The importance of the
matters in question admit of no delay.
1st. It has come to my knowledge that German spies in England
have discovered the whereabouts of a British fleet--presumably
the first line battle fleet--and have attempted to communicate
the intelligence to Berlin. One document in cipher embodying
this intelligence has been intercepted and translated. But other
communications in cipher may get through.
2d. Another document of the same sort advises the Berlin
Government to send from Cuxhaven a cruiser (parent ship) as
convoy to three submarines for the purpose of attacking the
British armoured ships.
The rendezvous of the British ships, as given in the cipher
message, is Lough Swilly, North Irish coast.
The route suggested for the German cruiser and submarines is
around the north coast of Scotland.
3d. Still a third document in cipher informs the German
Government that the light cruiser, _Schmetterling_, at or off
Valparaiso, is being pursued by the Japanese ship _Geisha_ and
the French gunboat _Eventail_.
4th. The fourth and last item of information to be transmitted
to your Government concerns an actuality witnessed by myself and
by the majority of the passengers of this steamer, now docking
at Rotterdam.
Last night, somewhere between eleven o'clock and midnight, and
somewhere off the Belgian coast, H. M. S. _Wyvern_ was blown up,
whether by mine or torpedo or by a bomb from some unseen
air-craft I do not know. She was using her searchlight on the
clouds at the time.
The ship was tilted out of the water at an odd angle when the
red glare that suddenly enveloped her made her visible. It
appears to me as though some submarine convulsion had heaved her
up out of the sea.
There was one of her officers aboard our liner when the
catastrophe occurred--Lieutenant Jamison. A boat's crew lay
alongside of us. With these exceptions it does not seem probable
that anybody aboard the _Wyvern_ could have escaped death,
although other ships were in the vicinity and their searchlights
played upon her, and I saw small boats on the way to her before
she finally blew to pieces.
This is the information which both duty and inclination impel me
to place at the disposal of the British Government.
Permit me to add that I am leaving in the hands of the United
States consul, Henry H. Morgan, Esquire, a separate packet of
papers containing full corroboration of the foregoing details.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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