August i6, 1917 
LAND & WATER 
15 
Pinkerton's Great Coup 
By H. Russell Wakefield 
RAINIE should never have been d humble platoon 
officer. He had a very rare and dehnite talent, 
which in a properly constituted army should have 
brought him great distinction. On his third day 
in France he ran to earth The Terror of The Old Kent Road, 
in other words, an elderly and emaciated 'person, who sniped 
British soldiers from a cunningh' contrived roosting place 
in an oak. For. that he was christened " Pinkerton," and 
for the future was always detailed for feats demanding 
detective ability. 
Rainie it was who interpreted that ingenious code of under- 
garments and window blinds in the little house behind the 
4'5 battery near Rieppe. It was rather a famous case, but 
its history cannot be told here. It was he who seemed the 
two occupants of the elusive Rolls Royce, whose peregrinations 
caused four days' consternation to important personages. 
He was a small, sturdy, intense individual, with " chess- 
players " eyes ; (if you know any chess experts you will 
recognise what I mean). His power of synthesis and 
analysis was naturally unrivalled, and he had developed it. 
In fact, it was a shade too developed to be quite a happy 
element in a small mess, living in that atmosphere of reaction 
which active service breeds. Tension demands the lightest 
of conversational touches ; a Sherlock Holmes, who exhibits 
his unique talents on the smallest encouragement and on the 
slightest provocation is apt to be a little trjnng. None the 
less, he was liked well enough as brave, unselfish people (and 
he was both) usually are. 
By the time we left France opportunities for the exhibition 
of detective abihty were rather played out, but Macedonia is 
the sort of place good detectives should go to when they die. 
Pinkerton's spirits rose daily after he arrived. While still 
i 1 Salonika, he had reason to cut many notches on the staff 
of Fame. Those sons of Miltiades and Abraham, who earned 
a precarious livelihood by lifting officers' field-glasses, soldiers' 
trousers and Government rations found, by bitter experience, 
that our camp was a barred and deadly zone. " Early Morning 
H^te," an elderly Greek sergeant-major whose specialities 
were prismatic compasses and " greybacks^" was neatly 
apprehended red-handed, and several other notorious local 
characters had reason to feel aggrieved at being forced to 
exchange the blessed light of day for the rather rudimentary 
amenities of a Salonika lock-up. 
Eventually in the height of that terrible summer we went 
up country. At our first halt, Portach Plateau, the last out- 
post of culture, Pinkerton discovered a distributing agent 
of the Balkan News inspecting his bivouac rather closely. 
Though unable to prosecute through lack of evidence, his 
glare of suspicion* simply paralysed old " Balkan, velly goo 
noos, ruddy goo noos," as the men called him, and he was 
heard to mutter " bad Johnny " as he sloped off with his wares. 
We were the first to arrive at the Shadeless V'alley of the 
Shadow, and amongst other jobs we were given local police- 
powers over our neighbours. By common consent, Pinkerton 
was delegated to superintend them. Traffic across the lake 
was strictly forbidden for the very good reason that certain 
articles of undeniable military value had been, in the past, 
slipped across to Bulgar territory to the mutual benefit of 
everybody except the crews of tramp steamers in the .^gean 
and Eastern Mediterranean. "But little puffs of gasoline and 
creamy rings that fizz and fade, show where the One-Eyed 
Death has been." 
Pinkerton simply threw himself at his new duties. W'c. 
were camped two miles from the lake, just opposite where 
it died away in the river, and between us and its muddy old 
waves was a wild tangle of reeds and swamps and forests, 
through which ran little doubtful paths used by the fishermen 
and herdsmen. There were several debauched looking villages 
near us and dozens of little boats on the lake, so that it was 
an ideal place for the exercise of the arts of contraband. 
Pinkerton mapped out the whole area, marked down every 
possible crossing, and, with the assistance of the motor-boats, 
closed the lake to traffic. We knew, however, that stuff was still 
going across somewhere in that wilderness of swamp. At 
last Pinkerton found the main depot in Kulos, and a few days 
later, at midnight caught 15 laden ponies by the river bank, 
witli a fleet of punts ready to take the oil across. This coup 
daunted and discouraged the others and the traffic entirely 
ceased. 
Soon afterwards the Bulgars arrived, occuptd the other 
side of the lake and river, and made life very interesting and 
strenuous. Wc had posts out just clear of tlie reeds on little 
mounds. In front of them lay 1,500 yards of marsh and 1,000 
vards of water ; then the shore villages occupied by the 
enemy. It was just possible to force one's way through the 
reeds to the beach and snipe the Bulgars in the village, but the 
marsh gas was apt to knock out venturesome and enterpris- 
ing persons, and the mosquitoes, which from their dimensions 
must have been nourished on the Food of the Gods, daunted' 
even the boldest. Pinkerton spent many hours every day 
watching the foe through his .small, but very potent, telescope. 
He made several interesting discoveries which had better not 
be enlarged on liere. 
His Favourite Watch-Tower 
One day he went down to Post i about four o'clock, forced 
his way into the reeds for 500 yards, getting slightly gassed 
and severely bitten in the process, and climbed the little stump 
of a tree which was his favourite watch-tower. He 
had made it more or less comfortable, and his power of en- 
during bodily miseries was always inhuman. He settled 
himself there and put his telescope to his eye . . . The village 
straight across the lake in front of him, Rakdambos, was 
empty, save for a few donkeys and swine. He caught a 
fleeting glimpse of a cavalry patrol riding along the bottom 
of the Zanvik plateau ; smoke was rising from the direction 
of Pagista ; obviously trains were running again. That 
might be worth reporting. Everything else seemed drearily 
normal. The opposite bank of the lake was marked by a 
waving line of white, where the niynads of swan, their plumage 
caught by the sun, were resting on the mud ; the geese were 
in their usual place in the little estuary ; the duck were 
swimming about in hundreds, and the snowy plumage of the 
Little Egrets gleamed fitfully against the sluggish, shadowed 
waters. 
Pinkerton was a bit of a naturalist ; no one with his powers 
of minute observation could fail to be. F'or the first few days 
after their arrival the foe had been unable to resist the sight 
of so much food, and had gone out in punts to procure it. 
This had suggested to Pinkerton a masterly scheme. He 
had proposed to import a fleet of decoy ducks and moor 
them in a certain little comer, where the Bulgars could not 
fail to see them. Then he had proposed to take down a 
party of marksmen and wait till the appetites of the enemy 
overcame their prudence. W'hen they were well out in the 
stream, the marksmen would set to work to destroy them. 
But the plan had been " turned down." 
Pinkerton waited another half hour, and was just about 
to go off, when he thought he noticed something, and put 
his glass to his eye. Yes ! there were three men coming 
down the hill to the village. A moment later he saw they 
were in uniform. They came leisurely down to the village, 
walked through the little street, and came down to the water's 
edge. Suddenly Pinkerton saw them get into line facing 
East, and stoop down as if to pick soinething oft' the ground. 
Pinkerton started. It seemed funny that they should all 
bend down together like that. He wished he could see theni 
more dearly. Half unconsciously he noticed the swan had 
disappeared. In a flash an idea came to hnn. He looked 
to the West. That old tyrant, the sun, was just settling down 
behind the scarred and stony crest of Dclav Tepe. The 
summits of the eastern hills still shone, but their lower slopes 
were dark. 
For a moment Pinkerton kept absolutely still, and his 
eyes were the eyes of a champion engrossed in the Middle 
Game. Then he said softly and exultingly to himself, "Bowing 
to the East!" He took one more look at the three men, who 
were just disappearing into the village again. Then he climbed 
down from his perch and raced back to camp. 
* * « « * 
Those highly trained detectives who track down the move- 
ments and positions of enemy forces had " lost " two Turkish 
divisions for over a month. They might have gone to Irak, 
El Arish or Bitlis, and it was essential to rediscover them. 
Therefore, when a report came through that some subaltern 
or other had noticed three men bowing to the East at sunset 
in a remote part of Macedonia, the information was not lost 
on them. ' The sequel was seen a fortnight later when the 
Press of the world was infonned that " Turkish troops had 
recently appeared on the Front." 
By that time Pinkerton was extremely busy tracking down 
onelonides, a person of decidedly Teutonic sympathies, 
knowledge of whose whereabouts was badly wanted. Need- 
less to say, he eventually ran him to earth, or rather to 
water, for lonides was reclining luxuriously in the sulphur 
baths at Sohu, when his hour struck and he was gently 
" tapped on the shoulder." 
