THE DEATH OF THE SPY
The inability of Lieutenant Mackinson to add a single word of further
information to what he had said as he regained consciousness on the
promenade deck increased the mystery.
The young lieutenant, it seemed, had been following a trail which he
believed was leading him closer and closer to the object of the hunt,
and it was in forging the links of this chain of circumstantial evidence
that the young officer was led into the lower depths of the ship.
"From a sailor who did not know why I was inquiring," he told the
captain, "I learned that on the night the unknown man invaded the
battery room this sailor had seen another member of the crew, presumably
from the engine or boiler room, throw aside something as he hurried
along the passageway leading from the wireless room. He was in his
undershirt.
"The sailor said he was about to investigate when he saw us come along,
and you stooped to pick up whatever it was that had been thrown away.
"While I was talking to him another member of the crew, evidently also
from the boiler or engine room, brushed by us. He had disappeared when
the sailor said to me, 'I think that was the fellow--the one that just
went by.' Not wanting to arouse his suspicions, I ended the conversation
with a casual remark, and then strolled away until I was out of the
sailor's sight, and then hurried as fast as I could toward the engine
room.
"I do not know that part of the ship well, and it was very dark down
there. I was groping my way along when I thought I heard steps just
ahead of me. I stopped to listen, and when the sound was not repeated I
proceeded onward.
"All of a sudden I was grasped by the neck and one arm from behind, and
thrown into that closet. Before I could utter a word I was a prisoner
behind a locked door. I called several times, and, receiving no
response, realized that I must be some distance from anyone else and
that the noises of the engines completely drowned out my voice.
"Every moment it became more stifling in there, and I had no doubt that
I had walked directly into a death-trap. It was then I began signaling
on the steam-pipe. I guess it was a mighty lucky thing for me that Slim
Goodwin strolled out on deck just at the time he did."
And that was all that Lieutenant Mackinson could tell. The mysterious
stranger remained what he had been from the first--a desperate and
dangerous and unknown spy, lurking somewhere upon the American transport
_Everett_ with the evident intention of making the ship's position known
to German U-boats when the _Everett_ and her convoy of cruisers and
destroyers entered the danger zone.
Then it was, with the lieutenant temporarily disabled as a result of his
experience, that the three boys from Brighton, who seemed somehow to
have been selected by Fate as the despoilers of all the spy's plans, put
their heads together to devise a scheme of capture.
"We've got more than one good reason for wanting to get this fellow,"
Slim reminded the others with considerable warmth, during the course of
their deliberations. "First and foremost, of course, is our plain duty
to our country, to which he is an enemy and a traitor.
"But, in addition to that, there is that knockout that he handed to Joe,
and the midnight scare he gave Jerry and me, and finally his effort to
kill Lieutenant Mackinson by slow suffocation, not to mention the nerve
of the fellow in coming back the way he has."
"Yes," added Jerry, "we owe him a lot, and it is up to us to figure out
how we can square the debt."
"Well," said Joe, "I think I've got a plan that will work; but we've got
to remember that we are dealing with a very shrewd man."
"Well, what's your suggestion?" Slim demanded.
"That we divide our forces," answered Joe solemnly, "lie in wait and try
to ambush the foe."
"Right!" cried Jerry. "Joe, you'll be a general before this war's over."
"Along what lines do we disperse our forces, General?" asked Slim.
"Along what lines would His Royal Stoutness suggest?" demanded Jerry.
"Oh, you don't have to keep reminding me that I'm a trifle heavy," Slim
replied in a peevish tone.
"A trifle heavy! Get that, will you," echoed Jerry with a gale of
laughter. "A trifle heavy! Oh, my!"
"You'll find out if I sit on you," Slim threatened, in a belligerent
tone.
"Come now," said Joe, "this isn't making any progress toward capturing
the spy."
"No," Jerry responded, "and that's our first duty, even if it is a
trifle heavy."
"I've warned you," Slim snapped out.
"Quit it now," ordered Joe. "Let's get down to serious business."
"All right," agreed Jerry. "Shake, Slim, just to show there's no hard
feelings."
"Won't do it," Slim muttered.
"Oh, yes, you will," counseled Joe. "Shake hands, the two of you."
Slim's good nature overcame his feigned reluctance, but as Jerry grasped
his hand he gave Jerry a jerk that nearly took him off his feet.
"Now we're square," said Slim, as Jerry rubbed his nearly dislocated
shoulder.
"Well, that pull _was_ a trifle heavy," muttered Jerry, determined to
have the last word.
"Now my plan is this," said Joe, facing the other two seriously. "The
nearer we come to the zone of the German submarines, the more this man
will try to arrange to notify them of our presence, and to do that he
will have to use the wireless somehow. It seems likely that he would
make his effort at night, because then it is easier for him to escape
detection.
"Now if we let Lieutenant Mackinson sleep during the day we could so
divide up the work as for all of us to get some sleep, and then all
could do watch at night.
"The lieutenant could be in the wireless room, and one of us in the
battery room, while the other two did duty outside. If one of us should
hide under that stairway at the upper end of the passage, and the other
in that alcove at the other end, no one could reach the wireless or
battery rooms without our seeing.
"It would be tiresome and monotonous work, all right, but it might
accomplish the result."
"I'm willing," said Jerry, "but you and I will have to do the outside
work. Slim's a trifle heavy to get into either one of those hiding
places."
"Well, I'll cover the battery room," said Slim, ignoring Jerry's
remark.
"Let's see Lieutenant Mackinson, then," suggested Joe, and they went to
find the young officer who was convalescing from his encounter with the
spy. When he had approved the plan they got the O. K. of the captain.
And so it was, four hours later, with the lieutenant in the wireless
room, and Slim in the battery room adjoining, and Joe and Jerry stowed
away in the hiding places selected, their long night vigil began.
Hour after hour dragged itself by without a development, the intense
silence broken only by the sounds of the engines and the wash of the sea
against the ship. To the three boys, unable to see or talk to each
other, and Joe and Jerry scarcely daring to move, the minutes lagged
like hours, and the hours like dull, black, endless nights.
Dawn came, and with it new activities in all parts of the vessel, but
without a reward for their watch, and as the two lads crawled from their
places of concealment at either end of the passage, to join Slim and
Lieutenant Mackinson, there were mutual feelings of disappointment, but
none of weakened determination.
"What luck?" asked the captain, coming in at that moment.
"None, sir, at all," the lieutenant responded.
"Very well, then, try it again to-night," the commander ordered. "But in
the meantime all of you get some sleep. You may get better results
to-night, for by then we will be coming to the outer fringe of the
submarine zone. I will arrange for another man to stay in the wireless
room during to-day, and if an emergency arises he will call you."
So the four young men went to bed for some much-needed rest and sleep,
and when they awakened it was almost time for mess--directly after which
they were to take up their night watch again.
"I hardly think we will be troubled with U-boats to-night," the captain
told them, "for it is perfectly clear and there will be a full moon. The
sea is calm and we readily could discern a periscope a long distance
away."
Truly it was a beautiful night. And it was in this alluring quiet of
seemingly absolute peace that one of the tragedies of war soon was to be
enacted.
The Brighton boys and their friend and superior officer, the lieutenant,
had been in their appointed places hardly more than an hour when Joe
and Jerry at the same instant caught the sounds of some sort of scuffle
on the deck above.
It came nearer and clearer until finally, as it reached a point near to
the top of the stairway under which Joe was concealed, the latter could
discern the fog-horn voice of the first assistant engineer.
"G'wan with ye, now," he commanded, breathing heavily, as though from
some violent physical exertion. "G'wan with ye, I say, or ye'll be
findin' it mighty unhealthy fer ye. It's meself that'll be moppin' up
the deck with ye if ye try to get gay once more."
The first assistant engineer was a mighty mountain of a man, but his
voice broke off as the commotion started again. Certainly he must have a
rough customer to deal with, thought Jerry, if he, with all his great
physical strength, could not entirely quell him.
"Ye will, will ye?" hissed the voice of the engineer again. "Thry to
bite me, eh?" and there was the terrible smash of a fist, and the
unmistakable sound of a man falling upon the deck. "Ye dirty hound, I've
a mind to boot ye into the sea."
And then there were other voices. Jerry heard the captain demanding an
explanation, and the ship's doctor spoke.
"I found him tamperin' with the wires near the dynamos," the first
assistant engineer was saying. "I niver liked his looks annyway, if
ye'll pardon me, sir, fer sayin' it. And whin I asked him what he was
about, he thried to git away. I grabbed him, and he showed fight. I
guess I give 'im all he wanted, though, that last time."
"So?" said the captain, in a voice so stern it made Joe wince. "And what
does this fellow do aboard the ship?"
"He's a third-class machinist, sir," the engineer replied. "But if ye'll
excuse a word from me, sir, I think he's a first-class crook."
"Yes, and I believe he's worse than that," the captain added; and then,
in a voice which seemed to shake the vessel: "Stand up!"
There was a strained silence for a moment. Then--
"Get Lieutenant Mackinson and those boys," the captain continued, and
the ship's surgeon started down the stairway to find that Joe and Jerry
already were summoning Slim and the lieutenant.
"It looks as though we'd caught the man," the doctor whispered.
As the four reached the deck where the captured man stood between the
first assistant engineer and the captain, who had by this time taken out
his revolver, there was a gasp of astonishment from Joe, followed by a
louder "Holy smoke!" from Slim.
"Do you recognize this man?" the captain asked in a sharp tone.
"I should say I do, sir," Joe responded. "_He is the man who was
planting ammunition in the waters near the navy yard that night before
we sailed_!"
"The very same one, sir!" Slim exclaimed, with equal positiveness.
The ship's surgeon, who had followed the others upon deck, stepped
closer for a better inspection of this enemy. At the same instant the
prisoner, striking out with both hands, knocked the captain's revolver
hand into the air, and thrust the engineer from him. Before anyone could
interfere he was dashing down the deck toward the stern.
Just as he took a wild, headlong leap over the rail the captain fired.
While the captain, through a speaking tube, was instructing the man in
the pilot house to signal below "Reverse engines," the others rushed to
the stern of the ship.
Far behind them in the foamy trail left on the moonlit water by the
vessel they saw what seemed to be the head of a man bobbing up and
down--and then it entirely disappeared. The ship was turned, and that
portion of the sea searched, but without avail.
"Gone," said the captain in tones of very evident relief. "Well, it was
death for him, one way or another, and he took his choice."
As the captain and surgeon moved away from the stern rail of the
_Everett_, the three lads and the lieutenant still stood there, gazing
far out to sea.
"The man who made me nearly freeze to death in the water," spoke Joe, as
though thinking aloud.
"And pummeled my stomach until it was sore for three days," echoed Slim,
in sad reminiscence.
"And made me run a mile in nothing, flat," added Jerry.
"And fought me to a knockout finish later," mused Joe.
"And nearly smothered me to death," spoke the lieutenant.
"And was finally corralled by an Irish engineer!" said Slim.
"Gone," concluded Jerry, "and no one here will mourn his departure."