TUTNO.
The sea was comparatively calm and quite warm. If it had been anything
but a shipwreck, our young men would have enjoyed the experience. They
congratulated themselves that they had trusted to their own endurance
and the life preservers rather than to the crazy boats when they saw one
of the overloaded vessels come within an ace of turning turtle.
The submarine was now on top of the water and was slowly steaming
towards the scene of disaster. The boats made for the opposite direction
as fast as the oarsmen could pull. They had not realized that all the
submarine wanted was to destroy the pork and beef cargo. The hungrier
the French army got the sooner they would be conquered by the Germans.
"Well, my friend the book agent, what do you think about swimming in
the direction of the enemy? Remember we are Americans, just plain
Americans with no desire to do anything in the way of swatting
Prussians.--Neutral noncombatants!" said Kent, swimming easily, the
life preserver lifting him so far out of the water that he declared he
felt like a bell buoy.
"Yes, I'll remember! My line is family albums and de luxe copies of
Ruskin. I hope those poor devils in the boats will make land or get
picked up or something."
"Me, too! If the sea only stays so smooth they can make a port in less
than a day, if they don't come a cropper. We are almost in the English
Channel, I should say, due south of the Scilly Islands."
"Well, I feel as though I belonged on them--here we are shipwrecked and
floating around like a beach party, conversing as quietly as though it
were the most ordinary occurrence to book agents and damsel seekers!"
"There is no use in getting in a stew. I have a feeling that the Germans
are going to pick us up. They are heading this way and I don't reckon
they will let us sink before their eyes. If they don't pick us up, we
are good for many hours of this play. I feel as fresh as a daisy."
"Same here!"
"Thank God, there weren't any women and children on board!" said Kent
fervently.
"Yes, I was feeling that all the time. I'd hate to think of their being
in those crazy boats."
The German boat was quite close to them now. The deck was filled with
men, all of them evidently in great good humour with themselves and Fate
because of the terrible havoc they had played with the poor _Hirondelle
de Mer_, who was now at her last gasp, the waves washing over her upper
decks.
"_Wei gehts?_" shouted Jim, raising himself up far in the water and
wigwagging violently at the death dealing vessel.
It was only a short time before the efficient crew had Kent and Jim on
board, in dry clothes and before an officer. The fact that they were
Americans was beyond dispute, but their business on the other side was
evidently taken with a grain of salt by the very keen looking, alert
young man who questioned them in excellent English.
Jim was quite glib with his book agent tale. He got off a line of talk
about the albums that almost convulsed Kent.
"Why were you going to Paris to sell such things? Would a country at war
be a good field for such an industry?"
"But the country will not be at war long. We expect the Germans to have
conquered in a short time, and then they will want many albums for the
snapshots they have taken during the campaign. I have been sent as an
especial favor by my company, who wish to honor me. I hate to think of
all my beautiful books being sunk in the _Hirondelle_." Jim looked so
sad and depressed that the young officer offered him a mug of beer and
urged him to try the Bologna sausage that was among the viands waiting
for them.
Kent's reason for going to Paris was received with open doubt. It was
very amusing in a way that they should be completely taken in by Jim's
ingenuous tale of albums while Kent, telling the truth, the whole truth,
and nothing but the truth, should be doubted.
"Going to Paris to bring home a young lady? Is she your sister?"
"No, she is a friend of my sister," answered Kent, feeling very much as
though he were saying a lesson.
"Do you know Paris?"
"Yes, I studied architecture at the Beaux Arts last winter."
"Ah, then your sympathies are with France!"
"I am an American and my nation is remaining neutral on the war."
"Yes, your nation but not the individuals! What were your intentions
after finding the young lady?"
"To take her back to United States as fast as we could go."
"Well, well! I am afraid the young lady will have to content herself in
Paris for some weeks yet, as we are bound for other ports now. Make
yourselves at home," and with a salute the officer left them to the
welcome meal which had immediately been furnished them after their
ducking.
If the Kentuckians had had nothing to do but enjoy life on that
submarine, no doubt they could have done it. They were treated most
courteously by officers and men. The food was plentiful and wholesome,
the life was interesting and conversation with the sailors most
instructive, but Jim was eager to strike that blow against Prussia and
it was extremely irksome to him to have to keep up the farce of being a
book agent. Kent was more and more uneasy about Judy, realizing, from
the sample of Germans he now came in contact with, that ruthlessness was
the keynote of their character. They were fighting to win, and win they
would or die in the attempt; by fair means or foul, they meant to
conquer the whole world who did not side with them.
"Gee, if I don't believe they can do it," sighed Jim, as he and his
friend were having one of their rare tete-a-tetes. "They have such
belief in their powers."
"Yes, they seem much more stable, somehow, than the French. Did you ever
imagine anything like the clockwork precision with which this monster is
run?"
"When do you reckon we will get off of her? We have been on a week now
and I see no signs of landing us. I am always asking that human question
mark, Captain von Husser, what he is going to do with us, and he just
smiles until his moustache ends stick into his eyes, and looks wise. I
feel like Hansel and Gretel and think maybe they are fattening us to eat
later on. I am getting terribly flabby and fat," and Jim felt his
muscles and patted his stomach with disapproval.
"I'd certainly like to know where we are. You notice they never tell us
a thing, and since we are allowed only in the cabin and on a certain
part of the deck, we never have a chance at the chart. I wish they would
let us bunk alone and not have that fat head in with us. This is the
first time they have let us talk together since we got hauled in, and I
bet some one is to blame for this."
Kent had hardly spoken before a flushed lieutenant came hurriedly up and
with ill-concealed perturbation entered into conversation with them.
"Gee whiz!" thought Kent. "I wish Jim Castleman and I knew some kind of
a language that these butchers did not know. But the trouble is they are
so terribly well educated they know all we know and three times as much
besides." Suddenly there flashed into his mind a childish habit the
Browns used to have of speaking in a gibberish called Tutno. "I wonder
if Jim knows it! I've a great mind to try him." Putting his hand on his
friend's arm, he said quite solemnly: "Jug i mum, sank a nun tut, yack o
u, tut a lul kuk, Tutno."
"Sus u rur e!" exclaimed Jim, delightedly.
The lieutenant looked quite startled, wigwagged to a brother officer who
was passing and spoke hurriedly to him in German. As German was worse
than Greek to Kent and Jim (they had studied some Greek at school but
knew no German) they did not know for sure what they were saying, but
from the evident excitement of the two officers they gathered they had
quite upset the calculations of their under-sea hosts.
"Gug o tot, 'e mum, gug o i nun gug, sus o mum e!" exclaimed Kent with
such a mischievous twinkle in his eye that the two officers bristled
their moustaches in a fury of curiosity.
"Yack o u, bub e tut!" was Jim's cryptic rejoinder.
For the benefit of my readers who have never whiled away the golden
hours of childhood with Tutno or who have perchance forgotten it, I
reckon (being a Southerner myself, I shall say reckon) I had better
explain the intricacies of the language. Tutno is a language which is
spoken by spelling and every letter sounds like a word. The vowels
remain the same as in English but the consonants are formed by adding u
and then the same consonant again. For instance: M is mum; N is nun; T
is tut; R is rur. There are a few exceptions which vary in different
localities making the language slightly different in the states. In
Kentucky, C is sank; Y is yack; J is jug. Now when Jim exclaimed: "Yack
o u bub e tut!" he conveyed the simple remark: "You bet!" to Kent's
knowing ears.
Kent had opened the conversation by the brilliant remark: "Jim, can you
speak Tutno?" and Jim had answered: "Sure!" Then Kent had come back
with: "Got 'em going some!"
The Kentuckians were in great distress when they realized that no doubt
the sinking of the _Hirondelle de Mer_ had been reported in the United
States and that their families must be in a state of doubt as to their
whereabouts. They had requested the Captain to let them send a message
if possible, and he had told them with great frankness that in war time
the women must expect to be uncertain. Two more ships had been sunk
since they had been taken on board, but they were kept in ignorance
as to what ships they were or what had been the fate of the crew or
passengers. They knew that some men had been added to the number of
prisoners on board, but as they were kept in a compartment to
themselves, they never saw them.
Between operations, when the submarine came up on top of the water
and all on board swarmed on deck to smoke and enjoy the fresh air and
sunshine, Kent and Jim were politely conducted down into the cabin after
they were deemed to have had enough, and then the other prisoners,
whoever they were, were evidently given an airing.
After our young men started their Tutno game they were never left alone
one minute. Such a powwowing as went on after it was reported was never
beheld. It was evidently considered of grave international importance.
Once they found their keeper taking furtive notes. Evidently they hoped
to gain something by finding out what the Americans were saying.
The plentiful food that had at first been served to them was growing
more meagre and less choice. There was nothing but a small portion of
black bread with very bad butter and a cup of coffee for breakfast; a
stew of a nondescript canned meat and more black bread for dinner, and
for supper nothing but black bread with a smearing of marmalade.
Jim's superfluous flesh began to go and Kent got as lean as a grey
hound.
"Pup rur o vuv i sus i o nun sus, lul o wuv, I rur e sack kuk o nun!"
said Jim, tightening his belt.
It had been more than two weeks since the sinking of the _Hirondelle_
and the young men were growing very weary of the life. Their misery was
increasing because of the uncertainty they knew their families must be
in. No respite was in sight. They could tell by the balmy air when they
were allowed on deck that they were further south than they had been
when they were struck, but where, they had not the slightest idea.
"The water looks as it does around Burmuda, but surely we are not over
there," said Kent in Tutno.
"The Lord knows where we are!" answered Jim in the same language.
"I wish the brutes would let us telegraph our folks, somehow. They could
do it if they chose. They can do anything, these Prussians." When Kent
said Prussians in Tutno: "Pup rur u sus sus i nun sus," the young
officer whose turn it was to guard them whipped out his note book and
examined it closely.
"Sus often repeated!" he muttered.