10Early in December 1917 Dirk Brandt strolled up the Höhestrasse in Cologne to meet Max von Bodenheim at the Germania and found him more than usually pleased with life.
“Somebody’s done a good job,” he said.
“Oh, good,” said Dirk. “What is it?”
Von Bodenheim unfolded an English paper and handed it over. “You will find this easier to read than I,” he said. “My English is rusty.”
Dirk read, with suitable signs of delight, the account of a ship, loaded with high explosives, blown up at Halifax, Nova Scotia. How a Belgian steamer lying near by had caught fire, and how the explosion had raised a huge tidal wave that rushed up the beaches and tore down houses, wrecked trains and street-cars and tore up the roads. How an American warship fifty miles out at sea saw the flash and, long after, h
