SPYING IN FOREIGN
COUNTRIES
My first essay in spying
was so interesting that I repeated the experience so soon
as I could get the opportunity.
The desire grew upon one
as strongly as the desire for drink grows on some people,
so, when quartered in England, I took every opportunity I
could of traveling abroad and learning all that I was
able to of foreign armies and their ways.
I attended maneuvers
wherever I could, as an ordinary tourist going about the
country, until finally employed for such work.
Then I visited the
Dardanelles in a tramp steamer carrying grain from
Odessa, a most comfortable ship with a delightful old
Scottish captain and his still more delightful old wife
who was an excellent cook and a motherly hostess.
The captain fully
entered into my scheme and when we arrived opposite any
fort in which I had any special interest he would come to
anchor, and lower a boat for me to go "
fishing."
Several times he was
visited by patrol boats from the forts, telling him to
clear out. He drew their attention to loud hammering
going on in the bowels of the ship, informing them that
his engines had broken down, and so soon as these were
mended he would gladly get on his way again; meantime
could they advise his nephew in the boat yonder what was
the best bait to use for fish; his "nephew
"meantime being busy angling in another sense of the
word, that is in taking the angles of the different
embrasures and facets of the forts.
Some of these forts were
reputed to be armed with a brand-new kind of gun about
which there was much question. I was able to get to the
bottom of this through a friend of mine, a lady who lived
in Constantinople and was on friendly terms with the
Turkish Commandant of one of the most important of the
defense works.
She persuaded him to
invite her to tea in his quarters, and to bring me with
her.
Strolling about the fort
after tea, I drew attention to one of these mysterious
guns all covered over with canvas sheeting, and he
laughingly explained as he lifted a corner of the cover:
"These are the same old guns that have been here for
years, but we thought it advisable, in view of some moves
by a certain neighboring power, to let them suppose that
we had rearmed ourselves with something very new and very
formidable."
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The
same old guns. |
As I have recorded in my
book, The Adventures of a Spy, I posed as an artist on
another occasion, when I was gathering information as to
the quality of the mountain troops on a difficult
frontier.
I had met with one of
these soldiers, who in conversation told me that the
force to which he belonged, consisting of infantry and
artillery, was high up on the snows carrying out field
maneuvers against a similar force acting from another
valley, and he roughly pointed out to me where his force
was bivouacked near a high peak called "The Wolf’s
Tooth."
He incidentally let out
that the maneuvers were being kept very secret and such
paths as led in that direction were guarded by the
military police.
After dark that night I
left my inn—discretely—and finding my way up a
dry water-chute I clambered up, away from all mule
tracks, simply aiming for the Wolf’s Tooth which I could
see silhouetted against the stars.
It was a tough and
arduous climb, and took me practically all night, but I
got there by dawn, and as I topped the ridge I saw one of
the most startlingly beautiful sights of my
life—sunrise on a great snow mountain above me.
Here I actually carried
out my presence of being on a sketching tour and made a
rapid water color drawing of the scene, and here I was
presently caught by an invasion of Staff Officers
directing the maneuvers
Finding in me a harmless
artist they became quite friendly, and showed me their
maps and explained the proceedings, and I spent a day
full of interest in watching the ingenious way in which
they got over the difficulties of mountain climbing with
their guns and mules, and in getting over glaciers and
snows with their men roped.
It was my sketching that
saved me from coming under worse than suspicion.
I had an exciting time
in dodging gendarmes in a new naval dockyard where I had
no business to be.
This again with the map
of the chase, I have described in my Adventures of a Spy.
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Map
of Dockyard |
I had slipped through
the dockyard gate alongside a wagon which was entering
screened by it from gendarme No. 1, but when the wagon
farther on turned to the right near No. 2, No. 1 spotted
me and called out to me. I took no notice but walked on
till I was behind the Power House, then in the course of
construction. Once out of sight I fairly bolted, and
rounding the far end I gained a ladder leading up the
scaffolding.
I was half-way up when
round the corner came one of the policemen. I at once
froze, without moving. I was about fifteen feet above sea
level and not twenty yards from him. As I had learned
from the masters at Charterhouse, unless they think of it
men very seldom look upward, and I hoped breathlessly
that this fellow would follow the fashion.
He stood undecided with
his legs apart, bending over and 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 my 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 the shed behind me, thinking I
might have gone in there, and finally he 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
quickly looking for another ladder as a line of escape,
for it is always well to have an emergency exit when you
are scouting.
I found a short ladder
but it only led from my platform to the stage below, and
not right down to the ground. Peeping quietly over the
scaffolding I saw my friend the policeman just below,
still at fault, so I sat back to take note of my
surroundings and to gather all the information I could
from this particularly good look-out place.
I realized that I was on
the new Power House, whence I had an excellent view over
the dockyard, and within a hundred feet of me was the
excavation for the new dock, whose dimensions I could
easily estimate.
With my prismatic
compass I took the bearings of conspicuous points on the
neighboring hills, and so fixed the position of the Power
House, so that it could be marked on a large scale map
for purposes of being shelled if necessary.
Through a crack between
two of the footboards I watched my pursuer and his
comrade in confabulation. They presently examined a goods
shed close by, one going inside while the other waited to
catch me if I came out, but he remained accidentally
close to the foot of my ladder.
While they were thus
busy they were leaving the main gate of the enclosure
unguarded and I saw that now was my time to get out if I
could.
So I silently moved
along the scaffolding, till I reached the short ladder,
got down on to the lower storey, and then quickly slid
down one of the scaffolding poles and landed on the
ground just out of sight of the policeman guarding the
ladder, and, keeping the corner of the building between
us, I slipped out of the gate without being seen.
I was, owing to the
carelessness of over-confidence, actually captured on one
occasion. It was in my early days—in Russia.
I had spent about a week
watching night maneuvers which embraced interesting
experiments with searchlights, and I had made myself
familiar with these and their working by actually going
into the fort from which they were shown.
It was the last night of
the maneuvers when the Tsar himself was to be present.
I had really gathered
all the information that I wanted, but as this promised
to be an extra special display I went out to see
something of it.
My brother was working
with me on this occasion and he agreed to go with the
troops which were to attack the fort while I went to
observe the defense. On entering the place I found that
this special occasion had attracted such an extra number
of staff officers and police that I thought it wiser to
clear out again—which I did.
As I walked back along
the road in the dark I saw the lights of a number of
carriages of the Tsar’s entourage coming to the fort. As
the first carriage passed me I did a stupid thing; I
bowed my head to avoid being recognized.
This made the occupants
of the carriage suspicious. They were Staff Officers.
They stopped the
carriage, promptly seized me and hustled me into it and
drove on without a word so as not to check the progress
of the rest.
Then they questioned me
as to who I was and why I was there, and finally handed
me over on arrival at the fort to some officers in the
garrison.
I truthfully told them
that I was an Englishman, that I had been looking on at
the maneuvers as a spectator and had lost my way to the
station, and I should be glad if they would direct me how
to get there.
They did that by sending
me back in charge of an officer to be handed over to the
police and removed to the capital.
Arrived here I was
placed in open arrest, that is, allowed to live in an
hotel, but not allowed to leave the town. I was there
befriended by a German officer, who was acting as waiter
in the hotel for reasons of his own, and he kindly told
me which of the hotel frequenters was the detective
specially charged with watching me.
I received warning that
I had better get away without delay, as the charges
against me would mean five years’ imprisonment without
trial, but that arrangements had been made with the
Captain of an English ship, sailing from a neighboring
port, to take my brother and myself as members of his
crew.
I evaded the attentions
of the watchful detective, and we made our way deviously
so as to put any follower off the scent, and succeeded in
getting on board ship, where we passed muster, when
passports were examined by lining up with the crew.
I have now nothing more
to add about spying, because I was apparently eventually
caught and shot as a spy during the Great War.
The following is the
complete account of my death as reported in the American
press.
The first intimation of
it was the following cable:
"Sunday papers
report Baden-Powell shot in Tower of London as German spy
upon return from Germany. Was caught with maps of
fortifications which he was trying to dispose of to the
enemy. Mr. Walterbury, returning to Pittsburgh, tells of
the above knowledge gleaned from brother, an English
officer who was present at the trial and saw him shot to
death."
The press account of the
unhappy episode reads as follows:
"BADEN POWELL
SHOT AS A SPY"
January 15th, 1916.
Pittsburgh, Pa.
Shot to death by
English soldiers on his return to England as a German
spy.
That is what
happened to Major-General Robertson Stephenson Smyth
Baden-Powell, hero of the defense of Mafeking in the
Boer War, and organizer of the Boy Scouts, when he
went back to London and was caught with papers in his
possession, showing maps of Great Britain’s
fortifications that he is said to have been selling
to the enemy of England. This statement is made by a
man who says he is a Britisher and that the execution
was witnessed by his brother.
"My story is a
true one," he declared to-night. "I can
tell you nothing else. My brother saw the execution
with his own eyes. My brother explained that
Baden-Powell marched to his place of execution
without a quiver, and, as the cover was being placed
over his eyes, said only these words: " May God
have mercy." If reports be true, and I am sure
that my brother is to be relied upon, England has put
into his last sleep one of the bravest soldiers who
ever headed her armies in foreign lands."
It was really worth
being shot as a spy to gain so sweet an epitaph as that.
Apropos this slight
mix-up of my nationality the case is rather on a par with
that of my being burned in effigy by the factory girls of
a Scottish city on the night of the relief of Mafeking
just an awkward little case of mistaken identity between
President Kruger and myself.
I have, however, quite
recently had a possible explanation of this from General
Smuts, who told me that after the Boer War an old
back-veldt Boer at Rustenburg said he was a bit confused
in his mind as to the relationship between "Oom
Pole" (Kruger) and one called "Baden
Pole."
I don’t happen to have
been in Germany during the War although I have been
assured on good authority that I was there.
A naval officer, for
instance, told me only recently that he had escorted me
home during the War when I came from Norway. He knew the
name of the ship that I had traveled in (one that I had
never heard of myself) and that his patrol boat took
special care to prevent my being captured or torpedoed en
route.
The German Staff also
knew that I was in Germany and issued some special orders
for my capture.
I think the foundation
for these rumors may probably have lain in our War
Office, where sometimes it was found useful to start a
hare to see whether and how far confidential information
leaked out.
Spies are not only used
in peace time but in the field in time of war as well. In
the Great War all fronts were teeming with them on both
sides.
I have an interesting
relic hanging on my wall in the shape of a notice board
on which was written in the three languages, French,
English and Flemish, the history of the owner, a cripple.
"Kind Friends . . .
I stood in the ice cold water and rescued a child from
drowning, and have no use of my limbs. Help me . .
."
He sat on a small
trolley in Ypres during the War and people out of pity
used to throw him an occasional franc note. One day one
of these notes blew away and a soldier of the Durham
Light Infantry picked it up and in handing it back to him
noticed that it was not a money note but a letter in
German writing.
This he reported, and
the man was found to be no cripple at all but a very
active agent or "post-box" for the German spies
of the neighborhood, whose reports he used to collect in
this way under presence of their being banknotes, and
transmit after dark to the German lines.
He was tried and shot;
and I kept his placard as a memorial of a brave man.
A tremendous lot of your
success in spying naturally turns on the disguise
adopted.
I don’t mean by that
merely the actual theatrical "make- up," but
the ability to assume a totally different character from
your own and also the repression of any little mannerisms
you may happen to have, or the adoption of some special
one for the occasion.
This may mean a limp in
your walk, a habit of sniffing, a croaky voice, etc.,
etc.
A very important point
in your make-up is to alter your appearance as seen from
behind.
I was at one time under
the surveillance of a detective who changed his
appearance each day; one day he was a soldierly-looking
man; the next an invalid with a patch over his eye; and
so on; but I recognized him as being the same man when I
watched him from behind, and saw him walk.
Sometimes it may be
necessary to make a quick change of appearance as I have
had to do more than once.
You know how, when you
are addressing a man, you notice his necktie more than
anything else—and probably his hat.
I was interviewed one
day by a newspaper man at a railway station. A few
minutes afterwards I found myself close to my interviewer
in the crowd, where he was re-telling the incident to a
brother journalist who was also anxious to find
me—and I was not anxious to be found.
"He is down there
in one of the last carriages of the train. You will know
him at once. He is wearing a green hat, a red tie, and a
blue serge suit."
Fortunately I had a gray
overcoat on my arm, in the traveling cap and 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’s shuffle, under the very nose of
the waiting reporter, into my carriage.
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Quick
change of hat, coat, tie, and trouser legs. |
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