The Spy in Black by J. Storer Clouston

Author:J. Storer Clouston [Clouston, J. Storer]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Tags: Spy stories, Germans -- England -- Fiction, Germany. Kriegsmarine -- Officers -- Fiction
Publisher: Standard Ebooks
Published: 2025-07-29T16:54:28+00:00

IV

What Happened on Sunday

That evening when we had the house to ourselves, I joined Tiel in the parlour, and we had a long talk on naval matters, British and German. He knew less of British naval affairs than I did, but quite enough about German to make him a keen listener and a very suggestive talker. In fact I found him excellent company. I even suspected him at last of being a man of good birth, and quite fitting company for a German officer. But of course he may have acquired his air of breeding from mixing with men like myself. As for his name, that of course gave no guide, for I scarcely supposed that he had been Tiel throughout his adventurous career. I threw out one or two “feelers” on the subject, but no oyster could be more secretive than Adolph Tiel when he chose.

That night I heard the wind wandering noisily round the old house, and I wakened in the morning to find the rain beating on the window. Tiel came in rather late with my breakfast, and I said to him at once—

“I have just remembered that this is Sunday. I wish I could come and hear your sermon, Tiel!”

“I wish you could, too,” said he. “It will be a memorable event in the parish.”

“But are you actually going to do it?”

“How can I avoid it?”

“You are so ingenious I should have thought you would have hit upon a plan.”

He looked at me in his curious way.

“Why should I have tried to get out of it?”

I shrugged my shoulders.

“Personally, I shouldn’t feel anxious to make a mock of religion if I could avoid it.”

“We are such a religious people,” said he, “that surely we can count on God forgiving us more readily than other nations.”

He spoke in his driest voice, and for a moment I looked at him suspiciously. But he was perfectly grave.

“Still,” I replied, “I am glad the Navy doesn’t have to preach bogus sermons!”

“Ah,” said he, “the German navy has to keep on its pedestal. But the secret service must sometimes creep about in the dust.”

His eyes suddenly twinkled as he added—

“But never fear, I shall give them a beautiful sermon! The text will be the passage about Joshua and the spies, and the first hymn will be, ‘Onward, Christian Sailors.’ ”

He threw me a humorous glance and went out. I smiled back, but I confess I was not very much amused. Neither the irreverence nor the jest about the sailors (since it referred apparently to me) struck me as in the best of taste.

That morning was one of the dreariest I ever spent. The wind rose to half a gale, and the fine rain beat in torrents on the panes. I wrote diligently for some time, but after a while I grew tired of that and paced the floor in my stockinged feet (for the sake of quietness) like a caged animal. My one consolation was that tomorrow would see the end of my visit.

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