CHAPTER VHE MAKES A DISCOVERY AND RECEIVES A SHOCK
Soon after dusk the soldiers were ordered to throw away their “smokes” and either go below or lie flat upon the decks. Officers patrolled the rail while others strolled among the boys and reminded the unruly and forgetful not to raise themselves, and soon the big ship, with its crowding khaki-clad cargo, was moving down the stream—on its way to “can the Kaiser.” Then even the patrol was discontinued.
A crowded ferryboat paused in its passage to give the great gray transport the right of way, and the throng of commuters upon its deck saw nothing as they looked up but one or two white-jacketed figures moving about.
Tom thought the ship was off, but after fifteen or twenty minutes the throb of the engines ceased and he heard the clank, clank of the anchor winches. A little distant from the ship tiny green, red and white lights appeared and disappeared and were answered by other colored lights fromhigh up in the rigging of theMontauk. Other lights appeared in other directions and were answered by still others, changing rapidly. Tom thought that he could distinguish a dark outline below certain of these lights. The whole business seemed weird and mysterious.
In the morning he looked from the rail at a sight which astonished and thrilled him. No sign of land was there to be seen. Steaming abreast of theMontaukand perhaps a couple of hundred yards from her, was a great ship with soldiers crowding at her rail waving caps and shouting, their voices singularly crisp and clear across the waters. Beyond her and still abreast was another great ship, the surging army upon her decks reduced to a brown mass in the distance. And far off on either side of this flotilla of three, and before it and behind it, was a sprightly little destroyer, moving this way and that, like a dog jumping about his master.
Upon the nearest vessel a naval signaler was semaphoring to theMontauk—his movements jerky, clean-cut, perfect. Enviously Tom watched him, thinking of his own semaphore work at Temple Camp. He read the message easily; it was something about how many knots the shipcould make in a steady run of six hundred miles. TheMontaukanswered that she could make twenty-eight knots and keep it up for nineteen hours. The other signaler seemed to be relaying this to the transport beyond, which in turn signaled the destroyer on that side. Then there was signaling between theMontaukand her own neighbor destroyer about sailing formation in the danger zone.
It was almost like A B C to Tom, but he remembered Mr. Conne’s good advice and resolved not to concern himself with matters outside his own little sphere of duty. But a few days later he made a discovery which turned his thoughts again to Adolf Schmitt’s cellar and to spies.
He had piled the captain’s breakfast dishes, made his weather memoranda from the barometer for posting in the main saloon, and was dusting the captain’s table, when he chanced to notice the framed picture of a ship on the cabin wall. He had seen it before, but now he noticed the tiny name, scarcely decipherable, upon its bow,Christopher Colon.
So that was the ship on which somebody or other known to the fugitive, Adolf Schmitt, had thought of sailing in order to carry certain informationto Germany. As Tom gazed curiously at this picture he thought of a certain phrase in that strange letter,“Sure, I could tend to the other matter too—it’s the same idea as a periscope.”
Yet Mr. Conne’s sensible advice would probably have prevailed and Tom would have put these sinister things out of his thoughts, but meeting one of the steward’s boys upon the deck shortly afterward he said, “There’s a picture of a ship, theChristopher Colon——”
“That’s this ship,” interrupted the steward’s boy. “They don’t say much about those things. It’s hard to find out anything. Nobody except these navy guys know about how many ships are taken over for transports. But I saw a couple of spoons in the dining saloon with that name on them. And sometimes you can make it out under the fresh paint on the life preservers and things. Uncle Sam’s some foxy old guy.”
Tom was so surprised that he stood stark still and stared as the boy hurried along about his duties. Upon theMontauk’snearest neighbor the naval signalman was semaphoring, and he watched abstractedly. It was something about camouflage maneuvering in the zone. Tom took a certain pride in being able to read it. Far off, beyondthe other great ships, a sprightly little destroyer cut a zigzag course, as if practicing. The sky was clear and blue. As Tom watched, a young fellow in a sailor’s suit hurried by, working his way among the throng of soldiers. Presently, Frenchy strolled past talking volubly to another soldier, and waving his cigarette gracefully in accompaniment. A naval quartermaster leaned against the rail, chatting with a red-faced man with spectacles—the chief engineer, Tom thought.
Who were Secret Service men and who were not? thought Tom. Who was a spy and who was not? Perhaps some one who brushed past him carried in his pockets (or more likely in the soles of his shoes) the designs of the Liberty Motor. Perhaps some one had the same thought abouthim. What a dreadful thing to be suspected of! A spy!
That puzzling phrase came into his mind again:Sure, I could tend to the other matter too—it’s the same idea as a periscope.What did that mean? So theMontaukwas theChristopher Colon....
He was roused out of his abstraction by the fervid, jerky voice of Frenchy, talking about Alsace. Alsace was a part of Germany, whateverFrenchy might say.... Again Tom bethought him of Mr. Conne’s very wise advice, and he went to the main saloon and posted the weather prediction.
That same day something happened which shocked him and gave him an unpleasant feeling of loneliness. Mr. Wessel, the steward, died suddenly of heart failure. He was Tom’s immediate superior and in a way his friend. He, and he alone, had received Tom’s recommendation from Mr. Conne, and knew something of him. He had given Tom that enviable place as captain’s boy, and throughout these few days had treated him with a kind of pleasant familiarity.
He stood by as the army chaplain read the simple burial service, while four soldiers held the rough, weighted casket upon the rail; and he saw it go down with a splash and disappear in the mysterious, fathomless ocean. It affected him more than the loss of a life by torpedoing or drowning could have done and left him solemn and thoughtful and with a deep sense of loss.
Just before dark they semaphored over from theDorriltonthat they could spare the second steward for duty on theMontauk. Tom mentioned this to one of the deck stewards, and tohis surprise and consternation, an officer came to him a little later and asked him how he knew it.
“I can read semaphoring,” said Tom. “I used to be in the Boy Scouts.”
The officer looked at him sharply and said, “Well, you’d better learn to keep your mouth shut. This is no place for amateurs and Boy Scouts to practice their games.”
“Y-yes, sir,” said Tom, greatly frightened.
The next morning, when the sea was quieter, they rowed his new boss over in a small boat.
CHAPTER VIHE HEARS ABOUT ALSACE AND RECEIVES A PRESENT
That was a good lesson for Tom and a practical demonstration of the wisdom of Mr. Conne’s advice. Not that he had exactly gone outside his duties to indulge his appetite for adventure, but he had had a good scare which reminded him what a suspicious and particular old gentleman Uncle Sam is in wartime.
The officer, who had thus frightened him and, in Tom’s opinion, cast a slur upon the Scouts, made matters worse by scrutinizing him (or so he fancied) whenever they met upon the deck. But that was all there was to it, and the captain’s mess boy did his allotted tasks each day, and stood for no end of jollying from the soldiers, who called him “Whitey” and “Eats,” because he carried the captain’s tray back and forth.
This banter he shared with Frenchy, who took it as good-humoredly as Tom himself, when heunderstood it, and when he didn’t Tom explained it to him.
“Ziss—how you call—canze Kaiser?” he would inquire politely.
“That means putting him in a tin can,” said Tom.
“Ze tin can? Ze—how you call—wipe ze floor wiz him?”
“They both mean the same thing,” said Tom. “They mean beating him—good and thorough—kind of.”
Frenchy did not seem to understand but he would wave his hands and say with great vehemence, “Ah, ze Kaiser, he must be defeat! Ze wretch!”
Frenchy’s name was Armande Lateur. He was an American by adoption and though he had spent much time among the people of his own nationality in Canada, he was strong for Uncle Sam with a pleasant, lingering fondness for the region of the “blue Alsatian mountains,” whence he had come.
It was from Frenchy that Tom learned much which (if he had only known it) was to serve him well in the perilous days to come.
The day before they entered the danger zonethe two, secure for a little while from the mirthful artillery fire of the soldiers, had a little chat which Tom was destined long to remember.
They were sitting at dusk in the doorway of the unoccupied guardhouse which ordinarily was the second cabin smoking-room.
“Alsace-Lorraine is part of Germany,” said Tom, his heavy manner of talking contrasting strangely with Frenchy’s excitability. “So you were a German citizen before you got to be an American; and your people over there must be German citizens.”
“Zey are Zhermanslaves—yess! Citizens—no! See! When still I am a leetle boy, I must learn ze Zherman. I must go to ze Zherman school. My pappa have to pay fine when hees cheeldren speak ze French. My little seester when she sing ze Marsellaise—she must go t’ree days to ze Zherman zhail!”
“You mean to prison?” Tom asked. “Just for singing the Marsellaise! Why, the hand-organs play that where I live!”
“Ah, yess—Americ’! In Alsace, even before ze war—you sing ze Marsellaise, t’ree days you go to ze zhail. You haf’ a book printed in ze French—feefty marks you must pay!” Hewaived his cigarette, as if it might have been a deadly sword, and hurled it over the rail.
“After Germany took Alsace-Lorraine away from France,” said Tom, unmoved, “and began treating the French people that way, I should think lots of ’em would have moved to France.”
“Many—yess; but some, no. My pappa had a veenyard. Many years ziss veenyard is owned by my people—my anceestors. Even ze village is name for my family—Lateur. You know ze Franco-Prussian War—when Zhermany take Alsace-Lorraine—yess?”
“Yes,” said Tom.
“My pappa fight for France. Hees arm he lose. When it is over and Alsace is lost, he haf’ lost more than hees arm. Hees spirit! Where can he go? Away from ze veenyard? Here he hass lived—always.”
“I understand,” said Tom.
“Yess,” said Frenchy with great satisfaction. “Zat is how eet is—you will understand. My pappa cannot go. Zis is heeshome. So he stay—stay under ze Zhermans. Ah! For everything,everything, we must pay ze tax. Five hundred soldiers, zey keep,always—in zis little village—and only seven hundred people. Ziss is ze way.Ugh! Even ze name zey change—Dundgart! Ugh!”
“I don’t like it as well as Lethure,” said matter-of-fact Tom.
Frenchy laughed at Tom’s pronunciation. “Zis is how you say—Le-teur. See? I will teach you ze French.”
“How did you happen to come to America?” Tom asked.
“Ah! I will tell you,” Frenchy said, as a grim, dangerous look gathered in his eyes. “You are—how many years, my frien’!”
“I’m seventeen,” said Tom.
“One cannot tell wiz ze Americans,” Frenchy explained. “Zey grow so queeck—so beeg. In Europe, zey haf’ nevaire seen anyzing like zis—zis army,” he added, indicating with a sweeping wave of his hand the groups of lolling, joking soldiers.
“They make fun of you a lot, don’t they?”
“Ah, zat I do not mind.”
“Maybe that’s why they all like you.”
“I will tell you,” said Frenchy, reverting to Tom’s previous question. “I am zhust ze same age as you—sefenteen—when zey throw my seester in ze zhail because she sing ze Marsellaise.Zat I cannot stand! You see?—When ze soldiers—fat Zhermans, ugh! When zey come for her, I strike zis fat one—here—so.”
“I’m glad you did,” said Tom.
“Hees eye I cut open,so. Wiz my fist—zhust boy’s fist, but so sharp.”
“I don’t blame you,” said Tom.
“So zen I must flee. Even to be rude to ze Zherman soldier—zis is crime. So I come to Americ’. Zey are looking for me, but I go by night, I sleep in ze haystack—zis I show. (He exhibited a little iron button with nothing whatever upon it.) You see? Zis is—what you call—talisman. Yess?
“So I come to Epinal across ze border, through ze pass in ze mountains. I am free! I go to my uncle in Canada who is agent to our wines. Zen I come to Chicago, where I haf’ other uncle—also agent. Now I go to France wiz ze Americans to take Alsace back. What should I care if they laugh at me? We go to take Alsace back! Alsace!—Listen—I will tell you!
“Vive la France!A bas la Prusse!D’Schwowe mienZuem Elsass ’nuess!
See if you can say zis,“ he smiled.
Tom shook his head.
“I will tell you—see.
“Long live France!Down with Prussia!The Boches mustGet out of Alsace!”
“It must make you feel good after all that to go back now and make them give up Alsace,” said Tom, his stolid nature moved by the young fellow’s enthusiasm. “I’d like it if I’d been with you when you escaped and ran away like that. I like long hikes and adventures and things, anyway. It must be a long time since you saw your people.”
“Saw! Even I haf’ notheardfor t’ree year. Eight years ago I fled away. Even before America is in ze war I haf’ no letters. Ze Zhermans tear zem up! Ah, no matter. When it is all over and ze boundary line is back at ze Rhine again—zen I will see zem. My pappa, my moother, my seester Florette——”
His eyes glistened and he paused.
“I go wiz Uncle Sam! My seester will sing ze Marsellaise!”
“Yes,” said Tom. “She can sing it all she wants.”
“If zey are not yet killed,” Frenchy added, looking intently out upon the ocean.
“I kind of feel that they’re not,” said Tom simply. “Sometimes I have feelings like that and they usually come out true.”
Frenchy looked suddenly at him, then embraced him. “See, I will give you ziss,” he said, handing Tom the little iron button. “I haf’ two—see? I will tell you about zis,” he added, drawing close and holding it so that Tom could see. “It is made from ze cannon in my pappa’s regiment. Zis is when Alsace and Lorraine were lost—you see? Zey swear zey would win or die together—and so zey all die—except seventy. So zese men, zey swear zey will stand by each other, forever—zese seventy. You see? Even in poor Alsace—and in Lorraine. So zese, ze haf’ make from a piece of ze cannon. You see? If once you can get across ze Zherman lines into Alsace, zis will find you friends and shelter. Ah, but you must be careful. You see? You must watch for zis button and when you see—zen you can show zis. You will know ze person who wears ze button is French—man, woman, peasant, child. Ze Zhermans donot know. Zey are fine spies, fine sneaks! But zis zey do not know. You see?”
It was as much to please the generous Frenchy as for any other reason (though, to be sure, he was glad to have it) that Tom took the little button and put it in his pocket.
“Ze iron cross—you know zat?”
“I’ve heard about it,” said Tom.
“Zat means murder, savagery, death! Zis little button means friendship, help. Ze Zhermans do not know. You take this for—what you call—lucky piece?”
“I’ll always keep it,” said Tom, little dreaming what it would mean to him.
An authoritative voice was heard and they saw the soldiers throwing away their cigars and cigarettes and emptying their pipes against the rail. At the same time the electric light in the converted guard house was extinguished and an officer came along calling something into each of the staterooms along the promenade tier. They were entering the danger zone.
CHAPTER VIIHE BECOMES VERY PROUD, AND ALSO VERY MUCH FRIGHTENED
Tom’s talk with Frenchy left him feeling very proud that he was American born. He had that advantage over the Frenchman, he thought, even though Frenchy had escaped through a pass in the Alsatian mountains and made such an adventurous flight.
When Frenchy had spoken of the American soldiers Tom felt especially proud. He was glad that all his people so far as he knew anything about them, were good out-and-out Yankees. Even his poor worthless father had been a great patriot, and played theStar-Spangled Banneron his old accordion when he ought to have been at work.
Then there was poor old one-armed Uncle Job Slade who used to get drunk, but he had told Tom about “them confounded rebels and traitors” of Lincoln’s time, and when he had died in the Soldiers’Home they had buried him with the Stars and Stripes draped over his coffin.
He was sorry now that he had not mentioned these things when gruff, well-meaning Pete Connigan had spoken disparagingly of the Slades.
He was glad he was not an adopted American like Frenchy, but that all his family had been Americans as far back as he knew. He was proud to “belong” to a country that other people wanted to “join”—thathehad never had to join. And as he stood at the rail when his duties were finished that same night and gazed off across the black, rough ocean, he made up his mind that after this when he heard slurs cast upon his father and his uncle, instead of feeling ashamed he would defend them, and tell of the good things which he knew about them.
He stood there at the rail, quite alone, thinking. The night was very dark and the sea was rough. Not a light was to be seen upon the ship.
It occurred to him that it might be better for him not to stand there with his white steward’s jacket on. He recalled how, up at Temple Camp, one could see the white tents very clearly all the way across the lake.
There was no rule about it, apparently, butsometimes, when people forgot to make a good rule, Tom made it for them. So now he went down to his little stateroom (the captain’s mess boy had a tiny stateroom to himself) and put on a dark coat.
The second cabin dining saloon and dining room, which were below decks and had no outside ports, were crowded with soldiers, playing cards and checkers, and they did not fail to “josh” Whitey as he passed through. Frenchy was there and he waved pleasantly to Tom.
“Going to get out and walk, Whitey?” a soldier called. “I see you’ve got your street clothes on.”
“I thought maybe the white would be too easy to see,” Tom answered.
“Wise guy!” someone commented.
Reaching the main deck he edged his way along between the narrow passageway and the washroom to a secluded spot astern. He liked this place because it was so lonesome and unfrequented and because he could hear the whir and splash of the great propellers directly beneath him as each big roller lifted the after part of the vessel out of the water. Here he could think about Bridgeboro and Temple Camp, and Roy Blakeley and the other scouts, and of how proud he wasthat he was an American through and through, and of what he was going to say to people after this when they called his father a “no good” and Uncle Job a “rummy.” He was glad he had thought about that, for back in Bridgeboro people were always saying something.
Suddenly a stern, authoritative voice spoke just behind him. “What are you doing here?”
In the heavy darkness Tom could just make out that the figure was in khaki and he thought it was the uniform of an officer.
“I ain’t doing anything,” he said.
“What did you come here for?” the voice demanded sternly.
“I—I don’ know,” stammered Tom, thoroughly frightened.
Quickly, deftly, the man slapped his clothing in the vicinity of his pockets.
“Who are you?” he demanded.
“I’m captain’s mess boy.”
Laying his hand on Tom’s shoulder, he marched him into the saloon and to the head of the companionway where the dim light from the passageway below enabled him to get a better sight of the boy. Tom was all of a tremor as the officer scrutinized him.
“You’re the fellow that read the semaphore message, aren’t you?” the officer demanded.
“Y-yes, sir, but I didn’t notice them any more since I found out I shouldn’t.” Then he mustered courage to add, “I only went back there because it was dark and lonely, kind of. I was thinking about where I live and things——”
The officer scrutinized him curiously for a moment and apparently was satisfied, for he only added, speaking rather harshly, “You’d better be careful where you go at night and keep away from the ropes.” With this he wheeled about and strode away.
For a minute or two Tom stood rooted to the spot where he stood, his heart pounding in his breast. He would not have been afraid of a whole regiment of Germans and he would probably have retained his stolid demeanor if the vessel had been sinking, but this little encounter frightened him. He wished that he had had the presence of mind to tell the officer why he had doffed his white jacket, and he wished that he had had the courage to mention how his Uncle Job had fought at Gettysburg and been buried with the flag over his coffin. Those things might have impressed the officer.
As he lay in his berth that night, his feeling of fright passed away and he was overcome with a feeling of humiliation. Thathe, Tom Slade, who had been a scout of the scouts, who had worked for the Colors, whose whole family history had been one of loyalty and patriotism, should be even—— No, of course, he had not been actuallysuspectedof anything, and he knew that the government had to be very watchful and careful, but—— Well, he felt ashamed and humiliated, that’s all.
He made up his mind that if he should see that officer again, and he did not look too forbidding, he would mention how his mother had taught him to singAmerica, how his father had played theStar-Spangled Banneron his old accordion and how Uncle Job had died in the Soldiers’ Home. Those were about the only good things he could remember about his father and Uncle Job, but weren’t they enough?
And since the government was so very particular, Tom got up and hung his coat across the porthole, though no clink of light could possibly have escaped, for his little stateroom was as dark as pitch and even when he opened his door there was only the dim light from the inner passage.
CHAPTER VIIIHE HEARS SOME NEWS AND IS CONFIDENTIAL WITH FRENCHY
The next morning there was a rumor. Somebody told somebody who told somebody else who told a deck steward who told Tom that a couple of men had gone very stealthily along the dimly lighted passageway outside the forward staterooms below, looking for a lighted stateroom.
“There was never so much as a glint,” the deck steward volunteered.
Instantly Tom thought of his experience of the previous night and there arose in his mind also certain passages from one of the letters he had turned over to Mr. Conne.
Acting on his benefactor’s very sensible advice, he had not allowed his mind to dwell upon those mysterious things which were altogether outside his humble sphere. But now he could not help recalling that this ship had been theChristopher Colonon which somebody or other had thought he might be able to sail. Well, in any event, the ship’s people had those things inhand, and after his disturbing experience of the night before, he would not dare speak to one of his superiors about what was in his mind. But he was greatly interested in this whispered news.
“The electric lights are turned off in the staterooms, anyway,” he said.
“Yes, but that bunch is always smoking—them engineers,” said the deck steward, “and a chap would naturally stick his head out of the port so as not to get the room full of smoke. All he’d have to do is drop his smoke in the ocean if anyone happened along. It’s been done more’n once.”
“Then you don’t think it was spies they suspected or—anything like that?”
The deck steward, who was an old hand, hunched his shoulders. “Maybe, and maybe not. You can’t drum it into some men that a cigarette is like a searchlight on the ocean.”
“Yet the destroyers signal at night—even here in the zone,” Tom said.
“Not much—only when it’s necessary. And the transports don’t answer. It’s just a little brown kind of light, too. They say the tin fish[1]can’t make it out at all.”
“Is that where the engineers sleep—down there?” Tom asked.
“The chief and the first assistants up on deck; third and fourth and head fireman are down there, and two electricians. The carpenter’s there, too.”
“Well, they didn’t find anything, anyway,” said Tom. “Is that all they did?”
“Did? They opened every room on their way back and searched every nook and corner. Not so much as a pipe or a cigarette or a cigar could they find—nor a whiff of smoke neither. Besides, the port windows were locked shut and the steward had the keys! They’re takin’ no chances in the zone, you can bet.”
“I was thinking, if it was a spy or anyone like that, he might have had a flashlight,” said Tom, “and thrown it out if he heard anyone coming.”
“With the glass locked shut?”
“No, that spoils it,” said Tom.
“They searched every bloomin’ one of ’em,” said the deck steward. “Charlie was two hours making up the berths again after the way they threw things around. But nothing doing. They found a mess plate with a little black spot onit and he said they thought it might have been from a match-end being laid there, but I heard they told the captain there was nothing wrong down there.”
“What made them think there was?” asked Tom.
The deck steward shrugged his shoulders. “You can searchme. But they’re mighty particular, huh?”
He went about his duties, leaving Tom to ponder on this interesting news, and though admittedly nothing had come of that stealthy raid which had exposed neither rule breakers nor spies, still Tom thought about it all day, more or less, and he was glad that Uncle Sam was so watchful and thorough. It made him realize, all the more, how absurd and preposterous it would be for him, the captain’s mess boy, to concern himself or ask questions or say anything about serious matters which were none of his business.
All day long they ran a zigzag course, taking a long cut to France, as Pete Connigan would have said, the general tension relieved by the emergency drills, manning the boats and so forth.
In the afternoon hours of respite from his duties he met Frenchy, whose patience had beena little tried by some of Uncle Sam’s crack jolliers, and they sat down on the top step of a companionway and talked.
“Zis I cannot bear!” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “To be called ze Hun! Ugh!”
“They’re only kidding you,” said Tom; “fooling with you.”
“I do not like it—no!”
“But if you hadn’t become an American before the war,” said Tom, “you couldn’t have enlisted on our side because you really were a German—a German citizen—weren’t you?”
“Subject, yess! Citizen, no! All will be changed. Alsace will be France again! We go to win her back! Yess?”
“Yes,” said Tom. “I only meant you belonged to Germany because you couldn’t help it.”
“You are a lucky boy,” Frenchy said earnestly. “Zare is no—what you say?—Mix-up; Zhermany, France, America—no. You are allAmerican!”
“I got to remember that,” said Tom simply. “I know some rich fellers home where I live. They let me join their scout troop, so I got to know ’em. One feller’s name is Van Arlen. His fatherwas born in Holland. They got two automobiles and a lot of servants and things. But anyway my father was born in the United States—that’s one thing.”
“Ah,” said Frenchy, enthusiastically, “zat is ever’ting! You are fine boy.”
His expression was so generous, so pleasant, that Tom could not help saying, “I like France, too.”
“Listen, I will tell you,” said Frenchy, laughing. “It is ze old saying, ‘Ever’ man hass two countries; hees own and France!’ You see?”
In the warmth of Frenchy’s generous admiration Tom opened up and said more than he had meant to say—more than he ever had said to anyone.
“So I got to be proud of it, anyway,” he said, in his honest, blunt fashion. “Maybe you won’t understand, but one thing makes me like to go away from Bridgeboro, kind of, is the way people say things about my folks. They don’t do it on purpose—mostly. But anyway, all the fathers of the fellows I know, they call them Mr. Blakeley and Mr. Harris, and like that. But they always called my father Bill Slade. I didn’t ever hear anybody call him Mister. But anyway, he wasborn in the United States—that’s one sure thing. And so was my grandfather and my grandmother, too. Once my father licked me because I forgot to hang out the flag on Decoration Day. That shows he was patriotic, doesn’t it? The other day I was going to tell you about my uncle but I forgot to. He was in the Civil War—he got his arm shot off. So I got a lot to be proud about, anyway. Just because my father didn’t get a job most—most of the time——”
“Ah!” vociferated Frenchy, clapping him on the shoulder. “You are ze—how you say—onefine boy!”
Tom remained stolid, under this enthusiastic approval. He was thinking how glad and proud he was that his father had licked him for forgetting to hang out the flag. It had not been a licking exactly, but a beating and kicking, but this part of it he did not remember. He was very proud of his father for it. It was something to boast about. It showed that the Slades——
“Yess, you are a fine boy!” said Frenchy again, clapping him on the shoulder with such vehemence as to interrupt his train of thought. “Zey must be fine people—all ze way back—to haf’ such a boy. You see?”
1Submarines.
1Submarines.
CHAPTER IXHE SEES A STRANGE LIGHT AND GOES ON TIPTOE
Of course, it would have been expecting too much to suppose that the boys in khaki would overlook Tom Slade any more than Frenchy would escape them, and “Whitey” was the bull’s-eye for a good deal of target practice in the way of jollying. It got circulated about that Whitey had a bug—a patriotic bug, particularly in regard to his family, and it was whispered in his hearing as he came and went that his grandfather was none other than the original Yankee Doodle.
Of course, Tom’s soberness increased this good-natured propensity of the soldiers.
“Hey, Whitey,” they would call as he passed with the captain’s tray, “I hear you were born on the Fourth of July. How about that?”
Or
“Hey, Whitey, I hear your great grandfather was the fellow that put the bunk in Bunker Hill!”
But Tom did not mind; joking or no joking, they knew where he stood with Uncle Sam and that was enough for him.
Sometimes they would vary their tune and pleasantly chide him with being a secret agent of the Kaiser, “Baron von Slade,” and so on and so on. He only smiled in that stolid way of his and went about his duties. In his heart he was proud. Sometimes they would assume to be serious and ply him with questions, and he would fall into their trap and proudly tell about poor old Uncle Job and of how his father had licked him, by way of proving the stanch Americanism of the Slades.
In their hearts they all liked him; he seemed so “easy” and bluntly honest, and his patriotism was so obvious and so sincere.
“You’re all right, Whitey,” they would say.
Then, suddenly, that thing happened which shocked and startled them with all the force of a torpedo from a U-boat, and left them gasping.
It happened that same night, and little did Tom Slade dream, as he went along the deck in the darkening twilight, carrying the captain’s empty supper dishes down to the galley, of the dreadful thing which he would face before that last night in the danger zone was over.
He washed his hands, combed his hair, put on his dark coat, and went up on deck for an hour ortwo which he could call his own. In the companionway he passed his friend, the deck steward, talking with a couple of soldiers, and as he squeezed past them he paused a moment to listen.
It was evidently another slice of the same gossip with which he had regaled Tom earlier in the day and he was imparting it with a great air of confidence to the interested soldiers.
“Don’t say I told you, but they had two of them in the quartermaster’s room, buzzing them. It’s more’n rule breaking,Ithink.”
“German agents, you mean?”
The deck steward shrugged his shoulders in that mysterious way, as if he could not take the responsibility of answering that question.
“But they haven’t got anything on ’em,” he added. “The glass ports were locked—they couldn’t have thrown anything out. So there you are. The captain thinks it was phosphorus and maybe he’s right. It’s a kind of a light you sometimes see in the ocean.”
“Huh,” said one of the soldiers.
“It’s fooled others before. So I guess there won’t be any more about it. Keep your mouths shut.”
Tom passed them and went out upon the deck.He did not venture near the forbidden spot astern, but leaned against the rail amidships. He knew he had the right to spend his time off on deck and he liked to be alone. Now and then he glimpsed a little streak of gray as some apprehensive person in a life belt disappeared in a companionway, driven in by the cold and the rough sea.
Presently, he was quite alone and he fell to thinking about home, as he usually did when he was alone at night. He thought of his friend Roy Blakeley and of the happy summers spent at Temple Camp; of the stalking and tracking, and campfire yarns, and how they used to jolly him, just as these soldiers jollied him, and call him “Sherlock Nobody Holmes” just because he was interested in deduction and had “doped out” one or two little things.
One thing will suggest another, and from Temple Camp, with its long messboard and its clamoring, hungry scouts, and the tin dishes heaped with savory hunters’ stew, his thoughts wandered back across the ocean to a certain particular mess plate, right here on this very ship—a mess plate with a little black stain on it, where someone might have laid a burning match-end.
He caught himself up and thought of Mr. Conne. But this was his time off and he had the right tothinkabout anything he pleased. He could not be reprimanded for just thinking. Nothing would tempt him to run the risk of another encounter with one of those stern, brisk-speaking officers, but he couldthink.
And he wondered whether that black spothadbeen made by a match-end. The spot would show plainly, of course, for he knew how shiny and clean mess plates were kept. Had he not done his part in scouring and rubbing them down there in the galley?
He wondered how the mess plate had happened to be in the stateroom, anyway. Sherlock Nobody Holmes again! But the crew, as well as the troops, carried their supper wherever they pleased to eat it. So there was nothing so strange about that. If there had been, why, Uncle Sam’s all-seeing eye would not have missed it.
He fell to thinking of Bridgeboro again. And he thought of Adolf Schmitt and——
A phrase from one of those letters ran through his mind—It’s the same idea as a periscope.
For a moment Tom Slade felt just as so often he had felt when he had found an indistinct footprintalong a woodland trail.Whatwas the same idea as a periscope? What was a periscope, anyway?
Why, a thing on a submarine by means of which you could look two ways at once—you could look up through the ocean and across the ocean—all with one look.
He wondered whether Mr. Conne had noticed that rather puzzling phrase and whether the people on this ship had seen that letter. Mr. Conne had seemed to think that one the least important of the lot. Perhaps he had just told the ship’s people to look out for spies. And they would do that anyway. The names of uniformed spies in the army cantonments—names in black and white—that was the important thing—the big discovery.
But Tom Slade was only a humble Sherlock Nobody Holmes and he couldn’t get that phrase out of his head.
It’s the same idea as a periscope.
A periscope is a kind of a—a kind of a——
Tom’s brow was knit, just as when he used carefully and anxiously to move the grass away from an all but obliterated footprint, and his eyes were half closed and keen.
“I know what it is,” he said to himself, suddenly. “It means how light can be passed through a room even while the room is dark all the time—kind of reflected—and you wouldn’t have to use any match.”
He stood still, almost frightened at his own conclusion. The clean, shiny mess plate and the phrase out of that letter seemed to fit together like the sections of a picture puzzle. The black spot and the match-end (if there was any match-end) meant just nothing at all. The dim light out in the passageway down below hardly reached the dark staterooms, but——
He could not remember just how it was down there, but he knew that in the staterooms where the glass ports were locked (and that was the case with all of the crews’ quarters below) air was admitted by a slightly opened panel transom over the door.
What should he do? Go and tell an officer about his discovery? If itwerea discovery that would be all very well. But after all, this was only a—a kind of adeduction. And they might laugh at him. He had always stood in awe of the officers and since last night he was mortally afraid of them. If he told any of the soldiers oreven the steward they would only jolly him. He did not know exactly what he had better do.
He made up his mind that he would go down through the passageway where those under engineers and electricians slept and see how it looked down there. He had been through there many times, but he thought that perhaps he would notice some thing now which would help to prove his theory and then perhaps they would listen to the captain’s mess boy if he could muster the courage to speak.
He had just left the rail when he saw, some distance to starboard as it seemed, and well forward of the ship, an infinitesimal bluish brown spark. How he happened to notice it he did not know. “Once a scout, always a scout,” perhaps. In any event, it was only by fixing his eyes intently upon it that he could keep it in sight. And even so, he lost it after a few seconds. He tried to find it again, but quite in vain. It had been about as conspicuous as a snowflake would have been in a glass of milk.
“Huh, if there’s anyone on this ship can seethat, he must be a peach. Maybe up in the rigging you can see it better, though. If it’s on the destroyer, she’s quite a ways ahead of us——”
He squinted his eyes and, seeing a number of imaginary lights, decided that perhaps the other had been imaginary too. He crossed the saloon, went down the companionway and through the second class cabin dining-room where the soldiers hailed him pleasantly, and, passing the stokers’ washroom, tiptoed along the dim, narrow passageway.