-- Miles N.E. of Dockyard. Half-closed redoubt for infantry--Platforms for machine-guns at angles--Wrought-iron palisading at bottom of ditch.
G (in plan.) "Ferry Hills" Fort--Earth and concrete--Very deep ditches, flanked by counterscarp galleries and a stone caponier--Casemated--Probable armament--Two 9.2-inch guns, six 7.5-inch guns--Wrought-iron fraise below counterscarp.
H (in plan). Evidently intended for use against torpedo-boats and destroyers--To mount ten 4-inch quick-firing guns--Wrought-iron palisading in ditch well covered from seaward--Gorge closed by stone wall (two tiers of loopholes for musketry), flanked by caponiers with machine-guns.
I. A large and formidable work armed with--
Portion of translation of the German spy's report upon the new naval base at Rosyth.
After Sir Archibald had put the questions in the House, the purport of which most readers will remember, he had been the recipient of many letters pointing out the presence of spies--letters which, if published, would have no doubt created a great sensation. Many of these statements Ray and I had, during the past two months, closely investigated on the spot, and what we had discovered held us both amazed and alarmed. Indeed, we had secured evidence that although spies were openly at work in certain of our eastern counties collecting all sorts of information which would be of incalculable importance to an invader, yet the chief constables of those counties had actually been instructed from head-quarters to close their eyes to the movements of inquisitive foreigners!
In the investigations upon which Ray Raymond had embarked with such enthusiasm, and which I am now permitted to chronicle in these pages, he had taken only two persons into his confidence--myself and Vera, the pretty, fair-haired daughter of Vice-Admiral Sir Charles Vallance, the Admiral-Superintendent of Portsmouth Dockyard, to whom he was engaged.
Indeed, from the first I suspected that it had been her influence that had roused him to action; she who had promised him her assistance, and who had pointed out how, by watching and unmasking the spies, he might render his King and country signal service.
At dusk that day we had, on arrival from King's Cross, left our baggage with the hall porter of the North British Hotel in Edinburgh, had travelled from the Waverley Station to Dalmeny, and descending the hundred or so steps to the comfortable Hawes Inn, at the water's edge, had dined there. Thence we had taken the old ferry-boat over to North Queensferry, on the opposite shore, where, in the rather bare parlour of the little Albert Hotel, directly beneath the giant arms of the Forth Bridge, we were resting and smoking.