The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-05-20

things that would have meant a court martial for them if he had been their commanding general. Skillfully these women led the con- versation around to the size of our guns, to the number of the men Tn the batteries, when they came over, and to other various timely topics that would be of interest to the Ger man high command. Greene, listen . | ing intently, believed that here was the source of the leak. Were not these women far toe inquisitive for innocent French society leaders? Must there not he some sinister mo- tive behind it all?
 On the following night they enter tained other officers and the same program was carried out-a good dinner, plenty of wine. and the same clever questioning.
 C;roene's first report to us con yinced us that we had made no mis- take in starting our investigation of Madame Boudin, Madame Fountain and Mile Brisson. When his second report came in, 1t crYstallzed our 1 half-formed suspicious that these three danes were far deeper than they appeared from a superficial ob-
 servation.
 Night before last" read Greene s i report. these women entertained an officer who apparently knows all about our transport satlings mo- ticed. as the wine began to flow free ly. that Madame Boudin did not 1olh in with the others. The result was that as Madame Fountain and Mile. Ifrfsson piled the officer with wine and his wits became fuddled. Madame Boudin, by careful questions and insinuations, finally wormed from this officer the fact that con yoy of ships from the states was eX- pected within the next three days' As he became more and more uhuer the influence of the wine he began to brag that the American navy had driven the German submarines orr the seas; that they did not dare attack the American transports; that the Port of Bordeaux was cleared rom the menace of the submarine, and that our ships could now come ana gC without fear of trouble.
 q had all l could do to hold my self in check when I knew, in my own heart that this fool officer was ieopardizing those brave men who were bringing across the seas the supplies for our troops.
 Bordeaux is not on the coast. but lies about 90 miles up the Gronde river For centuries the river mas been carrying down and dtpositlng d there is mud bar across the en- trance which prevents the deep sea steamers from passing except at hlSh tide Our transports laying by, Walt ing for the tide to come in, were an easy mark for the German subna- rines.
 Even as we were reading Greene's report, we were informed that the subs had sunk two of the convoy mentioned by that fotl officer. HIS hostesses, if they were responsible for this, had certainly worked fast
 our department had been criticized for not turning the information at hand over to the French so that they could arrest them and prevent them from doing any more damage. ouspl cion and proof are vastly different things and if we had turned these wCmen over to the French our proof would not have been sufficient to have convicted them. We had not d1s- covered how they operated; and un- til we could close the trap on the en- fire, group we must of necessity walt. Our hearts said:
 "Stop these women from doing any more damage" Our judgment re- piled:
 What good will that dc unless we get them all. If we take these three, three more will spring up to take their places and carry on the work. Wait until we can catch the master minds"-and judgment won.
 They all roomed together in No. ~. That was another suspicious circum- stance, seeing that they were such fine ladies. The French are economl- cal, to be sure, but perhaps this was more the economy of the German government? In any case 1t helped us. It made it the easier to follow their private conversation. A dlcta- graph was placed in their room, ana for hours at stretch Greene sat Tn the adjoining room with the receivers glued to his ears waiting for word that would disclose the method and who was behind it all. But if these women ever talked over their plans in their rooms, they did it in so low q tone of voice that the machine would not register. However, if only some of those officers who had prided themselves on their conquests could have heard what Greene heard when listening, they would have had far different opinion of their ability as social lions. so uncomplimtntary were their remarks.
 One night Greene was sitting on his window ledge studying the windows of Madame Boudin's room when all at once he discovered that she was using a powerful flashlight and ap- parently was signalling across the bay; but even with his glasses he could not see an answering flash. This was the way they passed the information on to the next station. Closely watching the flashes. Greene discovered that they were just a se- res of two flashes. then three, then two, and again three and so on; they were not using a Stsndard code.