HEROES OF THE SECRET SERVICE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 12243, 6 January 1902, Page 7

HEROES OF THE SECRET SERVICE.

(Pearson's Weekly.) When, at the beginning of last year, Mr Balfour announced that the vote for Secret Service was to ho increased from £30,000 to £05.000, a great many people felt surprised. The majoiity of folks had long seriously believed, that tho British Secret Service oxisted only in the pages of the novel. As a matter ol fact, however, it is a very livo organisation indeed. Bui, from their very nature, its workings seldom ccme into the glare of publicity. No delails are ever or given, provided the Ministers responsible for the expenditure of tho fund take the following oath: — " I swear thc.t the money "aid to rue for foreign secret service, or for detecting, preventing, nnd defeating conspiracies against' the State, has been bona tide applied to tho said purpose and no other." Occasionally a few facta leak out, but it is very seldom. Only last January it became of vital importance that our own Admiralty should obtain certain information about the French submarine boats. For months past the French naval authorities had been trying to l throw dust in our eyes by the publication I iu Fiench engineering journals of misleading plans. >It was recognised that there was only one remedy—a secret service agent must be employed. The selection ■of this man was no light task. His identity is to this day known only to a few. His employers may have been the Admiralty, or the warship contractors. Messrs A'ickcis, Sons, and Maxim. I This matters little. His ipialifications were a thorough knowledge of engineering, tho capacity to speak French like a native, and the ability to obtain tho necessary billet as a mechanic in Cherbourg dockyard. HOW WE GOT HKU.EVII.U', BOILERS. j Within a few months of bis appointment he had furnished us with tho most valuable information. Everything was going swimmingly, when suddenly— he was silent. From that day to this he has been as one dead. There is a rumour at Cherbourg that a British spy was recently caught redhanded, and secretly sentenced to life-long fortross labour. But—that is all. Gqvernnicnts do not refer to these matters officially, and tho spy who fails is lost. Rather less than ten years ago a goodhumoured looking little, man bearded one of tho Messagories Maritime: mail steamers plying between France and Australia, and speedily fraternised with its chief engineer. Ho was the new under-enginerr, and ho evinoed an interest in his work that put him very high in the estimation of his chief. Early and lato he was to lie found hovering round the vessel's " Belleville*," anxiously watching temperatures, pressures and feed valves, and always ready to lend a hand at the slightest hitch. He made two voyages out and home, and then suddenly quitted the service. A few hours later Edouard Gaudin, a native of Guernsey, who spoke French and English with equal facility, and than whom the British navy had no more loyal engineer officer, had told Sir John Dtirston, Engineor-iu-Chief of the British navy, all there was to know about tho water-tube boiler. He spoke of its wonderful capacity for raising steam at a few hours' i-ul'iec, of its safety in case of accident, of the thousand and ono advantages of the, new typo of steam raiser. Perchance he dwelt, too, upon its disadvantages. imii;Eitr sTorpnn 14.000 French soldiers. Be that a3 it may, it is not too much to say that the intrepid engineer took his life in his hands when he entered tho French company's fervicc. Had his identity been discovered ho would have probably "fallen overboard," or been "crushed in the crank pit," or mot with one of those thousand and one little disasters winch—accidentally, of course—happen to unpopular people on the high seas. English history teems with incidents of successful secret service, not always to our own advantage. Tho failure of the h:\itoric French invasion of Ireland, in 1796, was largely due to a judicious use of the secret service funds. Tho expedition, which was under the command of General Hocho and the notorious Wolfe Tone, comprised 43 ships and 14,000 soldiers, besides heavy siege artillery and largo quantities of arms and ammunition. With its arrival off Bantry Bay, a heavy tempest and snowstorm not only prevented an immediate landing, but drove inany of the vessels out to sea. Amongst them was the General's shin, the Frstemile. Three weeks later she ran into La Rnchollo without her cohorts, who, after vainly waiting their General's return, reluctantly returned to France. The invasion had failed. But the failure was not so much due to tho warring elements cited by the Fratcrnitc's captain as to that gentleman's venial proceeding in accepting a heavy British bribe to delay the landing of the expedition by every means in his power. On the evening of June 15, 1815, an officer in t}ie uniform of the 7th HiKsarn rode* into a little village nrar Waterloo, in which some _ British regiments were quartered. Chocking his horse outside an inn door, he called to some artillerymen, who were lounging near, and demanded to sen their officer, Major Loathes. He was informed that the officer in question was not in tho village. He then thoroughly catechised the gunners as to their strength in horses, men, and gnus, in order that he might determine whether Lord I'xbridgo could stable there an additional 200 horses for the night. After bullying the local mayor, and ordering the men right and left, ho gracefully remounted his pony and rode out of the village, just as Major Leathcs entered it from the opposite direction. Eventually it transpired that he was a member of Napoleon's celebrated secret service. But, so boldly had he played his part, that none felt mure pleased at his escape than the Tommies ho had so cleverly hoaxed. Those who havo read Feiiimore Cooper's fictitious "Spy." and have followed the fortunes of the gallant young British spy, Major Andre, who wrus shot by Washington's order, must he numbered by millions. But it is a curious fact that tho most usefill spy over employed by a British general died in poverty-, practically unknown to tho nation he had benefited. THE GREATEST SPV WE EVER HAD. The man in question was Colquhoun Grant, who throughout the Peninsular war was Wellington's most trusted intelligencer. His faculty for spying out an enemy's- plans and strength was that of n "8.P.," whilst his escapades belittled those of a De Rougcmout. His watchword was "Thorough," and to this he, owed most of his great successes, of which one incident must suffice. On a certain occasion when the French occupied Tntnanie.s, they began to openly prepare for the storming of Rodrigc. Their officers made no secret of the fact that Marmoid intended to move agair.st that town on tho earliest passible occasion. Wellington, however, had his suspicions of this embarr.isjing frankness, and Grant was despatched to ferret out the truth. He concealed himself in a wood near Tamames, where the road branches to Rodrigo and Pcrales. Shortly afterwards tho French moved out to the assault. Regiment after regiment, gun after gun, waggon after waggon, trampled down the Rodrigo road, until Grant calculated that practically the whole French force had passed. Nine men out of ton would have returned "post haste to headquarters, and reported the imminent assault of Rodrigo. But Grant was one of the tenth. His eagle oye had not been so dazzled by the huge force, the siege artillery, and tho direction of the march, but that it had missed ono indispensable adjunct of an assault. He rapidly doubled back to Tamames, found tho town empty, save for the Frenchmen's sealing ladders, and forthwith was able to rcnort that the investment was only a feint. It is this eye for detail that marks the dividing line, between the great spy and the mere gasbag.