_The McMunn Brothers_ lay, with steam up, at a single anchor a mile
below the Hamburg quays. The yellow, turbid waters of the Elbe swept
past her sides. Below her stretched the long waterway which leads to
the North Sea. The lights of the buoys which marked the channel twinkled
dimly in the gloom of the summer evening. Shafts of brighter light swept
across and across the water from occulting beacons set at long intervals
among buoys. Above the steamer lay a large Norwegian barque waiting for
her pilot to take her down on the ebb tide. Below _The McMunn Brothers_
was an ocean-going tramp steamer. One of her crew sat on the forecastle
playing the “Swanee River” on a melodeon.
McMunn, Ginty, and Lord Dunseverick were together in the cabin of _The
McMunn Brothers_. McMunn, dressed precisely as he always dressed in his
office, sat bolt upright on the cabin sofa. In front of him on the table
were some papers, which he turned over and looked at from time to time.
Beside him was Ginty, in his shirt sleeves, with his peaked cap pushed
far back on his head. He sat with his elbows on the table. His chin,
thrust forward, rested on his knuckles. He stared fixedly at the
panelling on the opposite wall of the cabin. Lord Dunseverick, who had
a side of the table to himself, leaned far back. His legs were stretched
out straight in front of him. His hands were in his pockets. He gazed
wearily at the small lamp which swung from the cabin roof.
For a long time no one spoke. It was Lord Dunseverick who broke the
silence in the end. He took his cigarette-case from his pocket.
“You may say what you like about tobacco, McMunn,” he said, “but it’s a
comfort to a man when he has no company but a bear with a sore head.”
“Ay,” said McMunn, “you’ll smoke and you’ll smoke, but you’ll no make me
any easier in my mind by smoking.”
Ginty drew a plug of black tobacco from his pocket, and began cutting
shreds from it with a clasp knife. He was apparently of opinion that
smoking would relieve the strain on _his_ mind.
“I’m no satisfied,” said McMunn.
“I don’t see what you have to grumble about,” said Lord Dunseverick.
“We’ve got what we came for, and we’ve got our clearance papers. What
more do you want? You expected trouble about those papers, and there
wasn’t any. You ought to be pleased.”
“There you have it,” said McMunn. “According to all the laws of nature
there ought to have been trouble. With a cargo like ours there ought to
have been a lot of trouble. Instead of that the papers are handed over
to us without a question.”
“It’s peculiar,” said Ginty. “It’s very peculiar, and that’s a fact.”
“Then there’s the matter of those extra cases,” said McMunn. “How many
cases is there in the hold, Ginty?”
“A hundred, seventy-two.”
“And the contract was for one-fifty. What’s in the odd twenty-two? Tell
me that.”
“Pianos,” said Lord Dunseverick. “Look at your clearance papers. ‘Nature
of Cargo--Pianos.’”
“You’d have your joke,” said McMunn, “if the flames of hell were
scorching the soles of your boots.”
“It’s peculiar,” said Ginty.
“It’s more than peculiar,” said McMunn. “I’ve been in business for
thirty years, and it’s the first time I ever had goods given me that I
didn’t ask for.”
“Well,” said Lord Dunseverick, “if we’ve got an extra five hundred
rifles we can’t complain. There’s plenty of men in Ulster ready to use
them.”
“Maybe you’ll tell me,” said McMunn, “why they wouldn’t let me pay for
the goods in the office this afternoon. Did anyone ever hear the like of
that--a man refusing money that was due to him, and it offered?”
“It’s out of the course of nature,” said Ginty.
“They told you,” said Lord Dunseverick, “that you could pay Von
Edelstein, and he’d give you a receipt.”
“Ay, Von Edelstein. And where’s Von Edelstein?”
“He’s coming on board this evening,” said Lord Dunseverick. “But you
needn’t wait for him unless you like. We’ve got steam up. Why not slip
away?”
“Because it’s no my way of doing business,” said McMunn, “to slip
away, as you call it, without paying for what I’ve got. I’m a man of
principle.”
“Talking of your principles,” said Lord Dunseverick, “what did you bring
on board in that basket this afternoon? It looked to me like beer.”
“It was beer.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” said Lord Dunseverick. “Let’s have a couple of
bottles.”
Ginty took his pipe from his mouth and grinned pleasantly. He wanted
beer.
“You’ll be thinking maybe,” said McMunn, “that I’m going back on my
temperance principles?”
“We don’t think anything of the sort,” said Lord Dunseverick. “We think
that foreign travel has widened your principles out a bit. That’s what we
think, isn’t it, Ginty?”
“My principles are what they always were,” said McMunn, “but I’ve some
small share of commonsense. I know there’s a foreigner coming on board
the night, a baron and a dissipated man----”
“Come, now,’” said Lord Dunseverick, “you can’t be sure that Von
Edelstein is dissipated. You’ve never met him.”
“He’s a foreigner and a baron,” said McMunn, “and that’s enough for me,
forbye that he’s coming here under very suspicious circumstances. If
I can get the better of him by means of strong drink and the snare of
alcoholic liquors----”
“Good Lord!” said Lord Dunseverick. “You don’t expect to make a German
drunk with half a dozen bottles of lager beer, particularly as Ginty and
I mean to drink two each.”
“There’s a dozen in the basket. And, under the circumstances, I consider
myself justified I’m no man for tricks, but if there’s any tricks to be
played, I’d rather play them myself than have them played on me. Mind
that now. It’s the way I’ve always acted, and it’s no a bad way.”
“Gosh,” said Ginty, “there’s somebody coming aboard of us now. The
look-out man’s hailing him.”
He left the cabin as he spoke.
A few minutes later Ginty entered the cabin again. He was followed by
a tall man, so tall that he could not stand quite upright in the little
cabin.
“It’s the baron,” said Ginty.
“_Guten Abend_,” said McMunn.
He possessed some twenty more German words, and knew that “beer” was
represented by the same sound as in English. The equipment seemed to him
sufficient for the interview.
“I have the good fortune to speak English easily,” said Von Edelstein.
“Am I addressing myself to Mr. McMunn?”
“Ay,” said McMunn, “you are. And this is Lord Dunseverick, a baron like
yourself.”
Von Edelstein bowed, and held out his hand.
“I prefer,” he said, “my military title, Captain von Edelstein. I
believe that Lord Dunseverick also has a military title. Should I say
colonel?”
“As a matter of fact,” said Lord Dunseverick, “I’m not in the Army.”
“I understand,” said Von Edelstein. “You are in the Volunteers, the
Ulster Volunteers. But, perhaps I should say general?”
“I don’t call myself that,” said Lord Dunseverick.
“As a matter of fact, my rank is not officially recognized, in England,
I mean.”
“Ah, but here--we recognize it. I assure you, general, we regard the
Ulster Volunteers as a properly constituted military force.”
McMunn had been groping in a locker behind him. He interrupted Von
Edelstein by setting a basket on the table.
“Beer,” he said.
Von Edelstein bowed, and sat down.
“Ginty,” said McMunn, “get some tumblers. And now Baron----”
“Captain,” said Von Edelstein.
“Well get to business. What’s in them twenty-two cases that was dumped
into our hold today?”
“Ah,” said Von Edelstein, smiling. “A little surprise. I hope, I feel
confident, a pleasant surprise, for my comrades of the Ulster Volunteer
Force.”
Ginty entered the cabin carrying three tumblers and a corkscrew. The
beer was opened and poured out. Von Edelstein raised his glass.
“To the Ulster Volunteer Force,” he said, “and to the day when the
pleasant little surprise we have prepared for you may prove a very
unpleasant surprise for--the enemy.”
He bowed and drank.
“What’s in them cases?” said McMunn.
“Gentlemen,” said Von Edelstein, “something that will be of great value
to you--machine guns.”
“We didn’t order them,” said McMunn, “and I’m not going to pay for
them.”
“I am not authorized,” said Von Edelstein, “to reveal secrets of State;
but I think I may trust your discretion so far as to say that one
very highly placed desires that the Ulster Volunteer Force should be
thoroughly equipped for war. It is his wish:----”
“Baron,” said McMunn, “here’s a bill drawn on my firm for the price of
the rifles. I’ll trouble you for a receipt, and in the matter of the
contents of them cases--I don’t say they’re not machine guns, but I’ve
no way of knowing at present. If it turns out that they’re any use to us
we may strike a bargain, but I’ll no pay for a pig in a poke.”
He laid his bill and a form of receipt on the table. Von Edelstein
pushed them aside.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “between comrades in arms there is no question
of payment. It is the wish of one who is very highly placed that your
army----”
“But look here,” said Lord Dunseverick, “we are not comrades in arms, as
you call it.”
“Ah,” said Von Edelstein. “Not to-day, not to-morrow perhaps. But
who knows how soon? When the word is given, and some batteries of our
artillery land in Belfast to support your excellent infantry----”
“What’s that?” said Ginty.
“And a regiment of Prussian Guards----”
“There’ll be no Prussians in Belfast,” said Ginty, “for we’ll not have
it.”
“I am afraid,” said Lord Dunseverick, “that you’ve got some wrong idea
into your head.”
“But,” said Von Edelstein, “you cannot fight alone. You would be--what
do you call it?--you would be wiped out. Even the English Army could do
that. You have no artillery. You have no cavalry. What are you but----”
“Who said we were going to fight the English Army?” said Lord
Dunseverick.
“If you think we’re a pack of dirty rebels,” said Ginty, “you’re making
a big mistake. We’re loyal men.”
“But if you are not going to fight the English,” said Von Edelstein,
“God in heaven, who are you going to fight?”
“Young man,” said McMunn, “you’re drinking beer in my ship, a thing
which is clean contrary to my principles, though I’m putting up with it;
but you’re going beyond the beyonds when you sit here and take the name
of the Almighty in vain. I’ll trouble you not to swear.”
Von Edelstein stared at him in blank amazement. Then very slowly a look
of intelligence came over his face. He turned to Lord Dunseverick.
“I think I understand,” he said. “You do not quite trust me. You fear
that I may be a spy in the pay of infamous Englishmen. But you are
mistaken--entirely mistaken. I offer you proof of my good faith.
General, be so kind as to read my commission.”
He drew a folded document from his pocket, and spread it out before Lord
Dunseverick.
“It is signed,” he said, “as you see, by the Emperor himself. It places
my services, the services of Captain von Edelstein, of the Prussian
Guard, at the disposal of the Ulster Volunteer Force, as military
organiser.”
Lord Dunseverick glanced at the document before him. He read parts of
it with close attention. He laid his finger on the signature as if to
convince himself by actual touch that it really was what it seemed to
be.
“You see,” said Von Edelstein, “I am to be trusted. When you and I
are fighting side by side against the cursed English, your enemies and
ours----”
Von Edelstein was still smiling. What happened then happened in an
instant. Lord Dunseverick struck the German full on the mouth with his
fist. Von Edelstein’s head went back. His hands clutched convulsively at
the tablecloth. Before he had recovered, Lord Dunseverick hit him again,
beat him down on the cabin sofa, and struck blow after blow at his face.
“You infernal scoundrel,” he said, “do you take me for a traitor?”
“Quit it,” said McMunn. “Quit it when I tell you. You cannot kill the
man with your naked fists, and you’ll break the furniture.”
Ginty drew a long coil of rope from a locker. He tied up Von Edelstein
and laid him, a helpless figure, on the table.
“It’s my opinion,” said McMunn, “that we’d better be getting out to
sea.”
“I’m thinking the same,” said Ginty.
He went on deck. Soon _The McMunn Brothers_ was under way.
Lord Dunseverick looked at the prostrate Von Edelstein.
“What are we going to do with him?” he asked.
“Drown him,” said McMunn.
A trickle of blood was running down Von Edelstein’s chin. He spat out
some fragments of broken teeth.
“It appears,” he said, “that I have made a mistake about your
intentions.”
“You’ve offered an outrageous insult to loyal men,” said McMunn.
“A mistake,” said Von Edelstein, “but surely excusable. I have in my
pocket at the present moment--would you be so kind as to feel in my
breast pocket? You’ll find some papers there, and a newspaper cutting
among them.”
Lord Dunseverick slipped his hand into the prisoner’s pocket. He drew
out a number of letters and a newspaper cutting. It was a report, taken
from the _Belfast News Letter_, of the speech which he had made at
Ballymena a fortnight before. He had proclaimed the Kaiser the deliverer
of Ulster. His own words stared him in the face. McMunn took the cutting
and glanced at it. He thumped his fist on the table.
“I stand by every word of it,” he said. “We will not have Home Rule.”
“You are a curious people,” said Von Edelstein. “I thought--and even now
you say----”
“That speech,” said McMunn, “was made for an entirely different purpose.
If you thought that we wanted a German Army in Ulster, or that we meant
to fire on the British flag----”
“It is exactly what I did think,” said Von Edelstein.
“You’re a born fool, then,” said McMunn.
“Perhaps,” said Lord Dunseverick, “we ought not to drown him. Suppose we
take him home, and hand him over to the Ulster Provisional Government?”
“I wish you would,” said Von Edelstein, “I am a student of human nature.
I should greatly like to meet your Ulster Government.”
“You’ll maybe not like it so much when they hang you,” said McMunn, “and
it’s what they’ll do.”