RAWLINS’ PROPOSAL
When Rawlins called on Mr. Pauling the following day the first thing
that greeted him was the announcement that the submarine had been found.
So excited were the boys that for some time they could not convey an
intelligible idea of the matter and before Rawlins could grasp the
details of the discovery they were plying him with questions as to his
opinion in regard to it.
“What do you think became of the men?” cried Tom.
“Do you suppose it was their boat?” demanded Frank.
“How do you think it got so far away, if it’s theirs?” put in Tom.
“We puzzled over it for hours last night and no one can explain it,”
declared Frank.
“Easy, boys, easy!” laughed Rawlins. “One thing at a time. Shorten sails
a bit and let me get my bearings. You say the destroyer found a
submarine floating just awash and absolutely deserted one hundred miles
off the coast? I don’t believe it _was_ that sub!”
“Could you identify it by a description—anything about it?” asked Mr.
Pauling.
“Well, I don’t know,” admitted Rawlins. “I know it was a German sub and
I’d recognize it if I saw it; but whether I can be sure of it by a
description depends upon the description.”
“They’re towing her in,” Mr. Pauling informed him. “She was disabled and
unable to come in under her own power. Until she arrives all we know is
that she is a German boat—one of the medium-sized craft—that she carries
torpedoes and a gun and that she is painted sea-green.”
“Fits her like an Easter bonnet,” declared Rawlins. “Under water I could
not be sure of her color, but it was not black or gray—everything takes
on a greenish look under water. Did they find anything suspicious on
her?”
“That I can’t say,” replied Mr. Pauling. “They didn’t report whether
they made any discoveries or not.”
“But if it _is_ the submarine, where are the men?” reiterated Tom.
“Search me,” replied Rawlins. “A lot of things may have happened to
them. Something may have gone wrong so they were obliged to come up and
knowing they would be captured they took the sub’s boats. Or again, they
may have decided to desert the sub and scatter—probably they knew the
chaps we got, and suspected they’d confess. It would have been an easy
matter to run in close to shore, take to the boats and land and then
sink the boats in shallow water so as to leave no trace. Or some ship
might have picked them up. By the way, I’ve been puzzling over
something. How do you suppose that sub got in and out of the West Indies
without being seen and reported. If she carried contraband in and loot
out she must have gone to some port.”
“Why, didn’t I explain that?” asked Mr. Pauling. “Must have slipped my
mind when relating the story yesterday. The prisoner told us how they
managed. The submarine never entered any port—unless you consider the
hiding place of the chief of the gang a port—but picked up her cargoes
in mid-ocean.”
“Oh, I see, transferred them from another ship, eh?” said Rawlins.
“Stupid of me not to think of it.”
“Not quite right yet, Rawlins,” chuckled Mr. Pauling. “It was this way.
A vessel would sail from a West Indian port with a cargo and would drop
it overboard at a designated spot. Then the submarine would pick it up.
If they had transferred on the surface they might have been seen and
rough weather would have interfered. Moreover, if those on the schooners
saw the submarine or knew of her they might have talked. They imagined
the things were to be grappled or brought up by divers. The head of this
bunch takes no chances.”
“Ah, now I see a light dawning!” exclaimed Rawlins. “I think that solves
several puzzles. You remember those messages you boys heard? Well, they
always, or nearly always, included numbers—‘thirty-eight fifty,
seventy-seven’ was one, I believe—and ‘good bottom’ and similar things.
I often wondered about those, but I’ll bet those were the spots where
the sub was to find cargoes dumped. Hasn’t that Russian Johnny come
across with anything more about the high Muck-a-Muck of the bunch and
where he hangs out?”
“No, I had another long session with him, but he swears he knows nothing
about it and for once I am inclined to think he is telling the truth,”
replied Mr. Pauling. “He insists that he never visited the place—never
saw the chief and does not even know who he is—except that all spoke of
him as of a supreme being or a king. His story is that only a few
men—just enough to man the submarine—including the fellow who died, went
to headquarters. That the others, including himself, were always put
ashore at a small island in the West Indies where they had a camp and
that they walked to the island from the submarine and from the shore to
their under-sea craft in diving suits.”
“That’s a probable yarn,” assented Rawlins. “Did he tell you the name of
the island?”
“He says he doesn’t know it himself, that there were a few natives there
when he first arrived, but that under orders from their superiors they
murdered the blacks in cold blood.”
“Dirty swine, I’ll say!” exclaimed Rawlins. “Well, I know the West
Indies a lot better than I know New York and if we can squeeze some sort
of a description from old pig-eye I’ll wager I can locate that hangout.
But now about that other business—those messages—have you got the notes
you made of them, boys?”
“Sure,” replied Tom, “At least, Mr. Henderson has. We gave them all to
him.”
“Well, we’ll need ’em if Mr. Pauling thinks my proposition all right,”
said Rawlins. “I hadn’t got it quite settled as to details when I came
in, but the capture of that sub—if she is the one—has cleared it all
up.”
“I can tell you better what I think of any proposal you may have after I
have heard it,” said Mr. Pauling.
“All right, here goes,” laughed Rawlins. “You see from what you told us
about that dead fellow’s confession, I am pretty sure the big ‘I am’ of
the bunch is hanging out somewhere in the West Indies. You said he was
giving you the place and had mentioned three figures of latitude and
longitude when he kicked off. Now I don’t know what those figures are,
but there are not such an everlasting lot of combinations of figures in
the islands—that is, where a man could have a secret hangout—and I know
’em like a book—better than any book in fact—and if I had those figures
I’ll bet I can locate the old Buckaroo. Not only that, but with my suits
and the boys’ radio and my submarine chamber—the same as I use for
taking under-sea pictures—we could get the loot and everything else if
he’s got any of it under water.
“I rather figured, from what you said, that might be where he’d hide it,
especially as he seems stuck on under-sea work. Why, if the old cove
himself had a house under the sea I could find him! If they used this
new-fangled radio under water up here you can bet your boots the old
guy’s using it where he hangs out and if we’re any place near we can
pick him up and the boys can locate him with that radio compass
business. You see he probably won’t be wise to any one else being on to
the radio business. I was afraid that sub might get back and give it
away, but the chances are that if the men aboard her got ashore they
either won’t dare show up down there and will just fade away or else we
can beat ’em to it.
“Taking that sub gave me another idea and a good one. We can fix up the
old boat and go scouting for old Stick-in-the-mud in that. If he or any
of his gang see her they’ll think it’s all right and that their gang’s
still in her. I know a pretty good lot about handling a sub and we can
pick up a few good ex-navy men I know. Now don’t you think that’s a
corking good scheme, Mr. Pauling?”
Mr. Pauling hesitated, thinking deeply, before he spoke.
“It has its good points,” he admitted at last, “but it’s rather a wild
scheme—just what I should expect from a boy who’ll tackle two strangers
and a submarine single-handed under water—and there’s not one chance in
ten thousand that it will succeed. You see, the West Indies are a pretty
good-sized place and you’d have to go by guess work a great deal, even
with the figures the man gave us. However, I’m willing to aid and abet
the scheme, as any chance—no matter how remote—of getting that arch
fiend is worth trying. I can get the submarine without trouble and can
secure men who can be depended upon, but who’s going with you on your
wild-goose or wild-man chase?”
“Why, we are!” cried Tom and Frank in unison.
“The dickens you are!” exclaimed Mr. Pauling. “I should say not!”
The boys’ faces fell. “Oh, Dad, please let us go,” begged Tom. “It will
be great—going in a submarine and trying to find that fellow with our
radio. Why won’t you let us go?”
“Too much risk,” replied his father. “I’ve had one fright over you and
that’s enough.”
“Well, that rather knocks out my plans, too,” declared Rawlins. “I’d
counted on the boys going to work the radio end of it—seems kind of hard
on them to let some one else do it after they invented the thing and
were responsible for getting the men and the sub. If it hadn’t been for
them I’d never have got ’em, as it was their hearing Tom yell for help
that made ’em surrender, and you’d never have thought of that block and
the garage if they hadn’t located those messages with their radio
compasses. I don’t think there’s any danger, Mr. Pauling.”
“I don’t agree with you,” declared Mr. Pauling in positive tones. “If
you go after that man there’s every danger. You can’t tell what force he
may use or how an attempt to capture him might turn out.”
“But I had no idea of attempting to get him alone,” replied Rawlins in
surprise. “My plan was to have a trim little destroyer right handy and
then, when we’d located Mr. Big Bug, we’d report to the jackies and let
them do the dirty work. The boys wouldn’t have to be where there was any
scrapping going on and that old ex-German sub is never going to be my
coffin if I can help it, I’ll tell the world. No, sir, my idea was just
to do the scouting, so to speak—secret service under the sea—and let the
boys be in on the preliminary intelligence work running the secret
service of the air as you might say.”
“Well, I suppose in that case there would be little risk,” admitted Mr.
Pauling, “and as you say, they _are_ really the ones who should be
allowed to have charge of their own apparatus as they have earned the
right to it. I’ll have to give a little more consideration to the matter
before I decide, however. Possibly I may wish to go along also—or I may
be asked to, when I put this matter before my superiors. Now here are
those figures given by the dying man and the notes made by the boys.”
Unlocking a drawer, Mr. Pauling took out a packet of papers and spread
them before Rawlins, while the two boys, now that events had taken a
more hopeful and promising turn, laughed and talked excitedly to each
other, wildly enthusiastic at the bare possibility of going on the
unique search.
For a few minutes Rawlins studied the various sheets intently and
silently, comparing the figures which the boys had heard spoken and the
ones given by the dying Irishman, and at last he glanced up.
“These numbers of the boys’ will need a lot of study,” he declared, “but
these the chap in the hospital gave are dead easy. One of ’em is
nineteen and as there’s no longitude nineteen in the West Indies, or
within two thousand miles of the islands, it must be latitude, so there
we have a clue right out of the box—nineteen north latitude. Now if we
take a map and follow along nineteen we’ll know it must be within a few
miles of it that we’ll locate old Beelzebub. It can’t be over sixty
miles north of that meridian or the man would have said twenty instead
of nineteen, and it can’t be south of it or he’d have said eighteen and
something. So we can be dead sure the old duck hits the hay somewhere in
a sixty-mile belt bounded by meridians nineteen and twenty. Now here are
the other two numbers—sixty and seventy-five. You say he sort of lost
consciousness between these and you thought he said southwest by south.
Well, sixty might be longitude—the sixtieth meridian is in the West
Indies—but he might have meant sixty anything and so, if it _is_
longitude he was getting at, it brings us down to a space six hundred
miles east and west and sixty miles north and south—quite a considerable
bit of land and water to search—about 36,000 square miles—but only a
little of it’s land, so it don’t cut such a figure. That’ll take
in—let’s see—some of the Virgins, I think, and a lot of little cays and
quite a bit of Santo Domingo, but shucks, that’s not such a heap. But
I’ll admit this seventy-five gets my nanny. It’s not minutes—’cause
there are only sixty minutes to a degree and it’s a dead sure cinch that
it’s not latitude or longitude if those other numbers are, and if it’s
latitude it would be in the Arctic instead of the Caribbean and if it’s
longitude it’ll knock calculations out for about a thousand miles and
will take in all of Santo Domingo and Haiti, a bit of Cuba and most of
the Bahamas. Looks as if we might have some jaunt. And I don’t get those
compass bearings. However, maybe when they get that sub in and search
her we’ll find some chart or something. When do you expect——”
At this moment the telephone rang and Mr. Pauling answered.
“Ah, fine!” he exclaimed. “Expect to be in within an hour! Yes, I’d be
glad to. I’m bringing some others with me—Mr. Rawlins and the boys. Yes,
queer we were just talking of it. Good.”
“It was the navy yard,” explained Mr. Pauling as he hung up the
receiver. “They say the submarine is coming in now and will be at the
yard in half an hour. The Admiral wants me to be on hand to board her as
soon as she arrives and I’d like you and the boys to come along.”
“Hurrah!” yelled the two boys. “Now we’ll see what they had on her.”
“And we’ll know if she’s the right sub,” added Rawlins. “Though it’s
dollars to doughnuts that she is—it’s not likely there’s more than one
lost, strayed or stolen sub knocking about in these waters.”
When they reached the Navy Yard the submarine was just being docked and
twenty minutes later they were entering her open hatch. The boys had
never been within a submarine before and were intensely interested in
the machinery, the submerging devices, the air-locks and the torpedo
tubes, but their greatest interest was in the radio room. But here, much
to their chagrin and disappointment, they found practically nothing.
There were a few wires, some discarded old-fashioned coils, some
microphones and receivers and a loop aërial. Everything else had been
removed and nothing was left to show what sort of instruments had been
used. The boys were about to leave when Tom noticed something
half-hidden under a coil of wire, and, curious to see what it might be,
pulled it out.
“Gosh!” he exclaimed as he saw what it was. “These chaps were using that
same single control. This is part of it. Look, Frank, the dial is just
the same as the one Mr. Henderson gave us.”
“Gee, that’s right!” agreed Frank. “But then,” he added, “after all it’s
not surprising. You know Mr. Henderson said the one he gave us came from
a German U-boat.”
“Not a thing in the radio room,” announced Tom, as the boys rejoined Mr.
Pauling. “Everything’s stripped clean, but they used the same sort of
tuner that Mr. Henderson gave us. Where’s Mr. Rawlins?”
“Somewhere under our feet,” laughed his father. “He went down to examine
the hull. Wants to be sure this is the same boat.”
A few moments later the door to the air-lock was opened and Rawlins
appeared.
“I’ll say it’s the same old sub!” he exclaimed. “There’s a dent in her
skin near the stern on the port side. I noticed it before and it’s there
all right. Found anything up here?”
“No, nothing of any value to us,” replied Mr. Pauling. “The boys say the
radio’s been stripped from her and we haven’t been able to find a chart
or a map or a scrap of paper aboard. We found two of those carriers
though—the cigar-shaped affairs you saw the divers towing through the
water; but they’re both empty. If these fellows took anything from the
garage they disposed of it before they left the submarine.”
“Were the boats on her when they found her?” asked Rawlins.
“No, no sign of them,” replied the officer who was with them. “I boarded
her first thing, but there was no sign of life aboard and no boats.”
“It’s darned funny!” commented Rawlins. “If these lads took to the boats
they did it deliberately and took mighty good care to clean the old sub
out before they left. That disposes of the theory that they were
compelled to leave. Do you know what the trouble was with her machinery,
Commander?”
“Haven’t found out yet,” replied the officer. “We’ll have the engineers
aboard as soon as Mr. Pauling is through inspection.”
“Didn’t see any signs of small boats near where you found her, did you?”
inquired Rawlins.
The officer shook his head.
“No,” he replied, “but it was pretty dark and they might have been
within a few miles—very low visibility.”
“And no other vessel that might have picked them up?” continued Rawlins.
“Not a sail in sight—except a fishing smack about ten miles off. We ran
down to her and boarded her. Thought they might have sighted the sub, or
picked up the men. They hadn’t done either. Bunch of square-heads that
didn’t seem to know what a sub was, just dirty fishermen.”
“Dead sure they were?” asked Rawlins. “Didn’t notice where she hailed
from, did you?”
The officer flushed.
“Afraid we didn’t,” he admitted, a trace of resentment at being
questioned in his tones. “She hoisted sail soon after we left her.”
“And nothing peculiar about her in any way, I suppose?” suggested Mr.
Pauling.
“Well, I didn’t see anything,” replied the commander, “but I believe one
of my bluejackets made some remark about her rig. He’s a bo’sun’s mate
and an old man-o-warsman—Britisher but naturalized citizen and served in
the British navy. Would you like to question him? I’m no expert on
sailing craft myself.”
“Better talk to him, Rawlins,” suggested Mr. Pauling.
As there seemed nothing more to be discovered on the submarine the party
left the under-sea craft and walked to the destroyer which had found
her. The sailor to whom the officer had referred proved to be a grizzled
old salt—a typical deep-sea sailor and the boys could not take their
eyes from him. Touching his gray forelock in salute, the man hitched his
trousers, squinted one eye and reflectively scratched his head just over
his left ear.
“Yes, Sir,” he said, in reply to Mr. Rawlins’ question. “She _was_ a bit
queer, Sir. Blow me ef she warn’t. Man an’ boy Hi’ve been a sailorin’
most thirty year an’ strike me if Hi ever seed a Yankee smack the like
o’ her, Sir. What was it was queer about her, you’re askin’ on me? Well,
Sir, ’twas like this, Sir. She had a bit too much rake to her marsts,
Sir, an’ a bit too high a dead-rise an’ her starn warn’t right an’ her
cutwater was diff’rent an’ her cuddy. She carried a couple o’ little
kennels to port and sta’board o’ her companion-way, Sir—same as those
bloomin’ West Hindian packets, Sir. An’ as you know, Sir, most Yankee
smacks carry main torpmas’s and no fore-torpmas’ while this e’er hooker
was sportin’ o’ sticks slim an’ lofty as a yacht’s, Sir, an’ a jib-boom
what was a sprung a bit down, Sir. But what got my bally goat, Sir, was
the crew. Mos’ of ’em was Scandinav’ans, Sir, but the skipper was a
mulatter or somethin’ o’ that specie, Sir, an’ blow me hif he didn’t
talk with a haccent what might ha’ been learnt at Wapping, Sir.”
Rawlins whistled.
“I’ll say there was something queer about her!” he exclaimed. “Anything
else? Did you note her name and port?”
Once more the old sailor scratched his head and shifted the tobacco in
his cheek before replying.
“Cawn’t say as how Hi did, Sir,” he announced at last. “You see, Sir,
she had her mainsail lowered, Sir, and a hangin’ a bit sloppy over her
stern, Sir, an’ we was alongside an’ didn’t pass under her stern, Sir.”
“What sort of boats did she carry and how many?” asked Rawlins.
“Dories, Sir, six of ’em,” replied the sailor, “anything more, Sir?”
“No, I think that’s all. Thanks for the information,” replied Rawlins
and then, reaching in his pocket he handed the man several cigars.
Touching his forelock again and with a final hitch of his trousers the
sailor turned and strolled off with the rolling gait of the true
deep-water seaman.
“Well, what do you make of it?” asked Mr. Pauling, when the sailor was
out of earshot.
“I’ll say it’s blamed funny that packet was hanging around near the
sub,” replied Rawlins. “It might be a coincidence—Bahama smacks _do_
come pretty well up here during the summer—and she might have been a
rum-runner, but putting two and two together I’d say she was waiting for
the sub and that the crew were on board her when the destroyer came up.”
“Jove!” ejaculated Mr. Pauling. “Then you think she was a West Indian
boat?”
“I don’t think, I know!” answered Rawlins. “A Bahama schooner—not any
doubt of that. Only Caribbean craft carry those two deck-houses and that
sprung jib-boom and the darkey skipper with the English accent just
clinches it. I’ll bet those square-heads were Russian Johnnies or Huns
off this darn sub. Say, if we don’t get a move on they’ll beat us to the
islands yet!”
“Gosh!” exclaimed Tom. “I’ll bet they took their radio outfit aboard.”
“I’ll say they did!” declared Rawlins. “And like as not they’ll be under
full sail for the Caribbean by now and working that radio overtime to
get word to the old High Panjandrum down there.”
“Not if I know it!” cried Mr. Pauling. “Come along, Rawlins. I’m going
to see the Admiral.”
The result of that hurried and exceedingly confidential interview was
that, as the boys and Mr. Rawlins were crossing the Manhattan Bridge in
Mr. Pauling’s car, they looked down and saw a lean, gray destroyer
sweeping down the river with two others in her wake, black smoke pouring
from their funnels, great mounds of foam about their bows and screeching
an almost incessant warning from their sirens as they sped seawards
bearing orders to overhaul and capture a Bahama schooner that, under a
cloud of canvas, was plunging southward on the farther edge of the Gulf
Stream, her mulatto skipper driving his craft to her utmost, while aloft
two monkeylike negro seamen were busily stretching a pair of slender
wires between the straining lofty topmasts.
Two days later, a black-hulled liner steamed out from New York’s harbor
and dropping her pilot also headed southward for the Bahamas. Upon her
decks stood Tom and Frank with Mr. Pauling and Mr. Henderson by their
sides, while in the Navy Yard, with a marine guard tramping ceaselessly
back and forth about her, a submarine was being feverishly fitted for a
long cruise.
After much discussion, Mr. Pauling had at last given consent to the boys
joining in the search for the mysterious master mind whose plans had so
far come to grief through their efforts, although he refused to consider
letting them go south on the captured submarine. But the boys had no
objections to this, for they did not look forward with any pleasure to
an ocean voyage in the sub-sea boat and were filled with excitement at
the thoughts of the adventures in store for them when they joined
Rawlins, and the submarine at a prearranged meeting place in the
Bahamas.
As they watched the skyline of New York fade into the mists of the
summer afternoon and the smooth gray-green sea stretched before them
beyond the Narrows, they were thinking of the adventures which had so
strangely fallen to their lot in the great city and Tom chuckled.
“Remember when we first called ourselves radio detectives?” he asked
Frank, “Gosh! we never thought we’d even strike anything the way we
did.”
“You bet I do!” rejoined Frank. “Say, wasn’t Henry sore because he
couldn’t go and wasn’t he crazy to find out what we were going for? It’s
great! And we’re real radio detectives now—working for Uncle Sam, too!”
“Rather, I should say, ‘radio secret service,’” said Mr. Henderson who
stood beside them. “But don’t talk about it. Remember the first thing
for a person in this service to learn is to hear everything, see
everything and say nothing.”
“We will!” declared the boys in unison.
“That’ll be our motto!” added Tom. “Isn’t it a bully one?”
“As Mr. Rawlins would say, 'I’ll say it is’!” said Frank.
THE END
BY A. HYATT VERRILL
THE RADIO DETECTIVES
THE RADIO DETECTIVES UNDER THE SEA
THE RADIO DETECTIVES SOUTHWARD BOUND
THE DEEP SEA HUNTERS
THE BOOK OF THE MOTOR BOAT
ISLES OF SPICE AND PALM
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
Publishers, New York