Here are some more reports published in the Times on 17th August 1914, with regard to the action of spies. It is obvious that not all relate to spies, but the story of the boat across the Medway is priceless soldiers firing at policemen who couldn’t hear them is great. “Sentry Wounded at Brooklands Private Robertson of the Royal West Surrey Regiment, while guarding the aviation sheds at Brooklands Aerodrome early yesterday morning, was shot by a supposed spy. Robertson stated that he challenged the man three times and the fired. The man immediately returned the fire, wounding Robertson severely in the arm. The aerodrome was searched without success, although a man was seen to disappear in the woods as the motor car conveying Robertson was on its way to hospital. While patrolling the railway on Friday night after the last train to Portsmouth had passed, two members of the Civil Guard at Worthing found a body on one of their comrades, named A.G. Wright, lying by the side of the line a few yards from the edge of the station platform, with a fractured skull. It is believed that he may have been struck by an open carriage door of a train entering the station. A police patrol which was rowing in a boat across the Medway was fired on by a guard of soldiers stationed on Rochester Bridge. It is stated that the police did not hear the challenge of the soldiers who, on the other hand, could not see the occupants of the boat. No one was hit. The occupants of a compartment on a train from Whitstable which reached Faversham on Saturday morning stated that the train had been shot at just as it entered the marshland at Graveney. The windows were broken. A railway “chair” 13 inches long, was found on Saturday near Glenboig on the main railway line, over which many military trains are running at present. It was cut in two, the larger half having been carried yards as the result of an impact with an express train.” http://outofbattle.blogspot.com/search/label/Anecdotes
