9 
Clandestine Beacon

Even as Charles Rutherford was bound north by sea, on England’s opposite coast, Irishman Doyle McCrogher and Charles’ friend and former parliamentary colleague Chalmondley Beauchamp sat high in a lighthouse situated on a coastal plateau on North Hawsker Head east of the Yorkshire moors. These were times which made of men both heroes and traitors, and Beauchamp had chosen for his personal destiny the latter.

McCrogher was at the light’s controls. Beauchamp was studying the code book he had managed to pinch from the Admiralty before defecting from London. It gave the disposition of many of the fleet’s ships as well as depth charts for all its harbors, along with the secret codes for passing on the information.

The mist on England’s east coast had lifted, and they had climbed the whitewashed column of the slender lighthouse about thirty minutes before. At present they were the only two inhabitants of the red-roofed house which sat below. It would be the scene, however, of many comings and goings in the months ahead—activity which they would do their best to keep out of the London Times. With England at war, the sorts of people who would be coming here would definitely not want their presence known.

Built to keep vessels from disaster on the shoals and reefs of the Yorkshire coastline at night and during storms upon the North Sea, it might have seemed peculiar that the unlikely pair were so busy shortly after noon on a calm day with the sun high in the sky. It was indeed an odd time for a lighthouse to be about its business. But the objective of this particular lighthouse was not to warn ships off the rocks, but to guide German U-boats toward their destinations, and signal instructions to be relayed to their counterparts in Germany and Austria.

A few minutes after McCrogher’s initial message, a series of return lights flashed back in code.

“They say they’ve got a bloke what’s needin’ t’ come ashore,” said McCrogher.

“Do they say who?” asked the Englishman.

“One o’ their spy blokes that’s wantin’ t’ fetch that book o’ yours there.”

“Anything else—is anyone coming ashore to stay?”

“Don’t know, Mr. Bee’ch’m.”

“Right. Well, I suppose we’ll find out soon enough. Signal them back, then get down to the dinghy and go out for him.”