CHAPTER XIIThe Wreck
Mrs. Burton, also awakened by the alarm, was out of bed almost as soon as her son. The latter threw open the door between their rooms and called out to his mother, who replied that she was dressing. Hurriedly the boy drew on a few articles of clothing, and then turned to the electric button to “push” on the light. The button “pushed” all right, but the room remained dark.
“Put on the light, Guy,” said Mrs. Burton in strange, hollow tones. Evidently she was laboring under a dreadful emotion.
Guy tried again. He pushed the “off” button and the “on” again, but without success.
“It won’t work, mother,” he said. “Something’s wrong with the current.”
At this moment there was another heavy knocking at the door and a voice called:
“Hey, Burton! Are you getting out? Hurry up; the ship’s filling with water. This is Gunseyt.”
Guy flung the door open, and the knocker entered.
“Are you about ready?” inquired the latter. “Hurry up and I’ll help get your mother in a lifeboat.”
“A lifeboat!” cried Mrs. Burton.
“Oh, there’s no immediate danger,” replied Gunseyt reassuringly. “The ship’ll probably sink, but not for some time yet. Everybody’ll be saved. Got any valuables you want to take along?”
“I don’t know,” said Guy in some confusion. “We didn’t bring anything very valuable with us, did we, mother?”
“Throw open your trunks and look your things over in a hurry,” suggested Gunseyt. “I’ll help you carry anything you want to the boat. I’ll strike some matches and hold a light.”
“You’re very kind,” said Guy appreciatively, as he opened his mother’s trunk and his own, they being unlocked.
“Turn everything out,” continued Gunseyt, striking a match and holding it for a torch. “Take only a few of your most valuable things or keepsakes. There won’t be room for much in the boat. Here, what’s this?”
“Only those ‘wireless shoes’ I showed you,” replied the boy. “Don’t bother with them.”
“It’s too bad to let a present like that go to the bottom. If you haven’t got too much to lug, you might take ’em out of the box and stick ’em in your pocket. Or I’ll take care of them for you. All I’ve got is an overcoat. It’ll be cold in the boat.”
“I’ll take my rubber coat,” said Guy. “Mother, you take your raincoat and muff and a scarf for your head.”
Guy observed in the light of Mr. Gunseyt’s matches that the latter wore a life jacket under his unbuttoned overcoat, and this observation enlivened him to the full seriousness of the situation. But he kept his head, lest he throw his mother into a panic, and quietly took down two cork jackets hanging from pegs on the wall. One he fastened around himself and the other he carried in his hand, intending to slip it on his mother when he found opportunity to do so without alarming her too much.
Mrs. Burton remained silent most of the time, working energetically and courageously with her son, while Gunseyt held lighted matches over them. Presently the vessel began to list perceptibly, warning them not to waste any more time. Then something else happened that added a wilder confusion to the critical conditions.
Hitherto the helper of Guy and his mother appeared to be inspired not only with great generosity, but with remarkable courage. Although he had urged the woman and her son to make haste, his voice and manner had been steady and reassuring. For this the boy was thankful. He was certain that he would not lose control of himself under any circumstances, but feared lest his mother become panic stricken.
With the lurching of the ship, however, the “brave” Mr. Gunseyt was the first to show signs of consternation. A cry of alarm escaped him, and he turned and ran from the stateroom, shouting back to the others:
“Come on—quick—to the boats! No time to lose!”
Guy and his mother followed, the former carrying his rubber coat and a life jacket for his mother and the latter wearing her mackintosh and muff and a scarf around her head. Outside the stateroom, they found their way lighted with a few lanterns that had been substituted for electric bulbs, whose current was now dead. Gunseyt was twenty feet ahead, making with his best speed for the exit to the outer deck. In one hand he carried the box of “wireless shoes” and in the other a tennis racket.
“He must be crazy,” Guy said to himself. “That explains his strange actions. Otherwise he would have waited to help me get mother to a boat.”
But it was hard for the boy to remain convinced of this interpretation. Gunseyt had not appeared to be the sort of person at all likely to lose his mental poise under any circumstances, however severe. Indeed, he had seemed to possess unusual nerve. What, then, could be the explanation of his present actions?
The question seemed unanswerable. As he ran, the man put the racket under one arm, opened the box, took out the shoes, threw the box away, and pushed the “radio footgear” into his overcoat pockets. Then he disappeared through the cabin exit.
When Guy and his mother reached the open deck, their late would-be helper had disappeared. But other matters of more pressing importance were before them just now, and they dismissed him from their minds. They started to run aft in the hope of finding someone who could tell them what to do, when a passenger rushed past them, crying:
“No boats here, Burton—top deck.”
It was Glennon. He recognized Guy at a glance and tossed him the information as he would toss a life buoy to a drowning man. Then, realizing his passenger friend’s predicament, he stopped and said:
“Hello, is this your mother, Burton? Let me help you.”
Without waiting for uttered consent, Carl Glennon seized Mrs. Button by one arm, and together the two boys almost lifted her over the carpeted deck to the stairway and up to the boat deck. There they found two or three hundred men assembled in the stern and watching a boat as it was about to be lowered into the water.
Glennon appreciated the situation at a glance. It was the last boat in this quarter and possibly the only opportunity for saving Guy’s mother. Several seaman were manning the block and tackle and were about to lower away, when a voice called out:
“Wait, haven’t you room for one more woman?” It was Carl who spoke.
“All full,” shouted back a seaman. “Heave away.”
“No, for God’s sake, don’t do that,” insisted Guy’s friend. “You’ve put all the other women in boats. Don’t leave this one to perish alone.”
Glennon was mistaken in this regard, but he believed it was true. The appeal was effective. There was general hesitation. The ropes were slackened. Then one of the few men whose lot it had been to enter the boat rose to his feet and stepped out. He said not a word, but waived the woman to his place. It was Watson, the secret service operative.
Guy could hardly restrain a sob at the unselfishness of the man, in view of the criminal charge the woman’s son had made against him. But Mrs. Burton was not disposed to submit tamely to the substitution when she saw Guy was not going to follow her into the boat. She thanked Watson profusely for his kindness and begged him to return to his place, as she could not think of going without her son.
But the operative’s generosity was not half-hearted. Instead of accepting this as final, he approached the woman and said:
“Don’t be foolish, Mrs. Burton. Your son can get along much better without you. If you stay here, you may be the cause of your both being drowned. If he’s alone, he will probably be able to save himself.”
This was an argument that could not be gainsaid, and Mrs. Burton kissed Guy affectionately and was assisted into the boat, which was so full of passengers that there was little comfort for any.
“I’ll be all right,” Guy assured his mother. “I’m a good swimmer if it comes to that, and, besides, I’ve got this cork jacket on. Here’s one for you. Take it and put it on, though probably won’t need it. We’ll probably find something to float on before the ship goes down. There ought to be a lot of rafts here somewhere.”
While the boat was being lowered, the boy’s gaze followed his mother with an appearance of more courage and confidence than he felt. As it touched the water Carl laid a hand on his shoulder and said:
“Come on, Burton. We’ve got to get busy. We don’t want to depend on our life jackets to save us in that cold water.”
A dozen men were calling down to wife or daughter or other relative or friend in the boat, and Guy was unable to make his voice reach his mother intelligibly. So he waved his hand to her and turned to follow Glennon and Watson.
This was not an occasion for much detailed observation of surroundings, but there were certain conditions and circumstances that impressed themselves on Guy’s mind so indelibly that he may never forget them. It was a clear cold night. There was no moon, but the stars shone brightly. The ship was listing heavily to starboard and many of the passengers were moving nervously here and there in the hope of finding a boat or raft not yet launched. The forward end of the vessel was sinking rapidly. Fortunately few women and children were left on the ship, so that there was little individual helplessness to hamper the most hopeful activities under the circumstances.
Apparently everybody still on the sinking vessel was now on the boat deck. The first few boats that were launched had been loaded from the promenade, but as the ship sunk lower there was a general migration to the boat deck. There it soon became evident that although the liner had been equipped with enough lifeboats and rafts for an emergency of this kind, yet half the boats were useless because the listing of the vessel rendered it impossible to lower them.
Naturally, in spite of the imminent danger that confronted all on board there was a good deal of curiosity as to the cause of the sinking of the Herculanea. At first it appeared to be another Titanic disaster, for near the ship loomed a monster iceberg, so immense, indeed, that it appeared more like a “mainland of ice” than an island of frozen water. The word was circulated among the passengers that the liner had struck a submerged projection of this huge berg.
But Guy heard this report positively contradicted by one of the officers, who declared that an explosion had opened a great gap in the steamer below the water line. This officer expressed the opinion that the vessel had struck a floating mine probably laid by a German submarine after the United States declared war.
Although there was general good order on board, one could not help seeing that the feeling everywhere was tense, and little more would be required to create a panic. The captain stood on the bridge, issuing orders through a megaphone. He exhorted the passengers to preserve order for their own sake. The throbbing of the big engines had ceased, but all the mechanical power had not been killed, for one or more of the dynamos still worked supplying electric current to some of the lighting wires and to the wireless apparatus. From an open window of the radio house came the thrilling sounds of the current leaping the spark gap and eager high pitched voices. Ever since the fatal blow doomed the steamer to a watery grave, the operator had been flashing a continuous stream of distress messages. And this he continued to do as long as the electric current lasted. Meanwhile assurance was passed among the remaining passengers that a liner had caught the Herculanea’s “S. O. S.” and was racing to the rescue. But nobody could dodge the fearful importance of this question—Would she arrive before the sinking steamer went down?
“Are all the boats gone?” inquired Guy, as he and Carl Watson turned to look about them for some means of escape from the doom that seemed to be theirs.
“Your mother was the last person to enter the last boat,” replied Watson solemnly.
“Thanks to your great generosity,” said Guy, scarcely able to control his emotion of gratefulness.
“Look down there,” interrupted Carl, pointing toward the after end of the main deck. “Those fellows seem to have found a supply of rafts. Let’s go down and see what’s doing.”
“That’s a good idea,” said Watson. “This vessel is going to sink head down, and the farther toward the stern we can get, the safer we’ll be, even though we’re on the lowest deck.”
“We may be caught in a trap if we go down an inside stairway,” Guy suggested.
“No danger of that yet,” replied Watson. “The ship isn’t going to sink for another half hour. Come on. Even if we have to jump into the sea, that’s the best place to jump from because it’s the lowest.”
They ran through an entrance and down the nearest stairway. The cabin rooms were deserted. One could almost believe, save for the listing of the ship, that the vessel was tied up at a dock and resting after a long cruise. Down on the main deck near the elevator Guy observed a solitary figure seated on a cushioned bench. An incandescent bulb was burning a few feet away, and Guy recognized the man. It was Gunseyt.
The boy almost gasped for breath; then quickly remembered his recent suspicion that this strangely acting passenger was insane. Now he was fully convinced of the truth of his suspicion, for the fellow seemed to have no interest in saving himself. On the bench beside him, Guy beheld the “wireless shoes” that Gunseyt had taken from the boy’s room, and in his hands he held the tennis racket that Guy had seen in his possession as the fellow was deserting him and his mother. Even as young Burton gazed at him, this remarkable man strained the handle of the racket across one knee and broke it.
Attributing this act to nothing more than the giddy working of a disordered mind, Guy hastened on after his companions. As they passed out onto the open deck, they were greeted by a heavy roaring sound, like a mighty clap of thunder, only it came not from the sky, but from the hold of the ship. Every beam seemed to be shaken loose, and the great vessel trembled as with a terrible convulsion.
“We’re going down—the boilers have exploded—we’re going down!” screamed a terror-stricken passenger, as he rushed to the side of the ship and leaped overboard.
Panic followed.