THE LONELY REEF
The _Wanderer_ slid into New Bedford shortly after one o’clock,
fluttered a greeting to the torpedo boat _Hollis_, lying off Fort
Point, and dropped anchor in the inner harbor. There was liberty
when dinner was over, and Nelson and a half-dozen others spent the
afternoon exploring the streets of the old whaling town. The _Wanderer_
replenished fuel tanks and stole out again shortly after dusk, just as
the lights were appearing along shore. A group of Jackies on the after
deck of the _Hollis_ cheered and shouted raillery as the little patrol
sped past so close one could have counted the chevrons of their rating
badges. Billy Masters, apprentice seaman, stopped by the forecastle
break, where Nelson was on lookout duty, and jerked his head in the
direction of the receding torpedo boat.
“I suppose those fellows think a lot of themselves because they’re on
a regular boat, eh? Bet you anything you like, Chatty, we have a lot
more fun than they do.”
“Shouldn’t wonder,” answered Nelson. “What’s that thing bucking along
there? Looks like a mine-layer, doesn’t she?”
“Yes. What do you suppose she was before they patched her up and
painted her gray? Looks like a little old tub that used to run
excursions on the river when I was a kid back home.”
“Where was that, Billy?”
“Portsmouth, Ohio. Ever there?” Nelson shook his head while his
gaze followed the little blunt-nosed, high-decked steamer that came
wallowing toward them from the open sea. Billy Masters sighed. “It’s a
swell little burg, and I wish I was back there,” he murmured. Then, as
the _Wanderer’s_ search light, atop the wheel-house, jumped into life
and sent a long inquiring path across the darkening water, he added
more cheerfully: “If I was, though, I’d want to be back here again, so
what’s the use?”
The approaching craft bellowed once hoarsely and the _Wanderer_
replied. “Sounds like she had a sore throat,” muttered Billy. “Say,
what’s up tonight?”
“Why?”
“Oh, the skipper’s sort of excited like and so’s the other. And Spuds
says the _Hollis’s_ captain was aboard this afternoon and he and our
skipper and the junior were chinning for about an hour down there.
And Ole’s wearing a sort of wise look on his ugly Swedish mug like he
knew a lot more’n he wanted to say. Let me tell you something. I don’t
believe Ole can hear a blamed thing on that wireless of his. He just
puts that black thing around his head and frowns and writes on pieces
of paper. Then he takes ’em in to the skipper and the skipper, being in
the plot, nods his old head and opens a little book and makes believe
to decode the silly stuff. Why, it stands to reason that an aerial no
bigger’n a back-yard clothes line can’t pick up much!”
Nelson laughed. “You tell that to Ole. He’ll drop you overboard.”
“Huh, I ain’t afraid of any tow-headed galoot like him, even if he did
go to school for three months and has doodaddies on his sleeve. I could
have been a radio man if I’d wanted to.”
“Why didn’t you?” asked Nelson.
“’Cause when there’s something doing I want to be in it. No sitting
around on a stool for mine, getting my head knocked off and jabbing
out, ‘Shell has just entered radio room, killing operator. Good bye!’
That may be heroic and get your picture in the paper, but it don’t get
you much else!”
The _Wanderer_ left Dumpling Rock Light on her starboard and swung her
bow more to the west. By nine o’clock, down in the “forecastle,” they
were predicting a visit to New York or Brooklyn, and Perry, first-class
shipfitter, was licking his lips in anticipation.
“I’ve got friends down there,” he said, half closing his eyes and
swaying ecstatically back and forth on the edge of a bunk in time
to the rocking of the boat. “They’ll ask me to dinner. There’ll be
chicken, like as not, and lots of pie. Maybe two or three kinds of
pie.” He looked around to see how the announcement affected the others
and was disappointed. “Maybe lemon pie with suds atop,” he added
desperately.
Lanky Staples grunted. “You can have all the pie you want,” he said.
“Me for a real feed on Broadway. I know the place, too. A stack of
wheats as high as that――――” He held his hands some fourteen inches
apart――“and about a pint of maple syrup, and two or three cups of real
coffee, not the stuff Spuds gives us――――”
“Yeah, I know the place, too,” interrupted the cook sarcastically. “You
get a couple of flies in the syrup an’ they don’t charge you a cent
for ’em! You wouldn’t know good coffee from a cup of bilge water, you
long-legged giraffe!”
“Think we’ll get liberty?” asked Endicott longingly. “I got folks out
to Flatbush.”
“We won’t get that much liberty,” replied Lanky, gently. “Maybe we’ll
get a day. Why don’t you telegraph your folks to come half-way and meet
you?”
Their dreams of the gayety of New York were doomed, however, to a sad
awakening. When the morning watch went on at four the _Wanderer_ was
swinging at anchor in a choppy sea with nothing in sight in the gray
darkness but a stretch of ghostly breakers a half-mile to the west. As
the light grew a beach became visible beyond the surf and, finally,
a low island stretched before them. Nelson, coming on deck at eight,
viewed it curiously. It appeared to be about a half-mile long and, he
guessed, scarcely more than a quarter of that in width. At no place did
it rise more than ten feet above the ocean. In the gray, cold light of
a cloudy day it was about as desolate and lonely a spot as one could
imagine. Not even a hut broke the monotony of the sky-line, but at
the farther end a cluster of low, wind-tossed, misshapen trees made a
darker blot on the expanse of sand and beach grass. There were low
bushes here and there; bayberry, probably, and sweet-gale; and in one
place, not far from the _Wanderer’s_ unquiet anchorage, a ledge cropped
a few feet above the sand. Gulls fluttered over the island, but they
constituted the only signs of life.
“What do you make of it, Chatty?” asked Cochran, gunner’s mate, ranging
alongside. Nelson shook his head. “Doesn’t look as if we’d come all
this way to picnic on the beach, does it?” He looked around in all
directions. “Where are we? That’s what I’d like to know. We’ve been
pretty well over these waters for a week or so, but I’ll swear to
goodness I never saw that cheerful looking reef before.”
“Nor I,” said Nelson. “It must be one of the Elizabeths, don’t you
think?”
“No, I know the whole bunch: Nonamesset, Uncatena, Naushon, Pasque
and Nashawena, Cuttyhunk and Penikese. Sounds like something out of
Longfellow, don’t it? ‘Hiawatha,’ maybe. No, we’re further from New
Bedford than any of those. We didn’t drop anchor until about four
bells, and we were doing fourteen most of the time. There’s some
sand banks like that――” he nodded at the desolate expanse before
them――“south of the Vineyard, I’ve heard. They get down on the charts
as reefs and then the sea kicks a lot of sand over them and they’re
islands. And maybe ten years after that they’re just rocks again. A
couple of good gales tears them all to pieces. This one looks as if
it had been here quite a spell, though.” Cochran broke the wrapper of
a package of chewing gum, proffered it to Nelson and stowed a piece
between his teeth. “Anyway,” he went on when he had got the gum working
nicely, “you can be sure of one thing, Chatty. We didn’t come down here
and slop around half the night in this nasty chop without some reason.
Maybe that island’s one of these German submarine bases you read about.”
Nelson smiled. “They might have chosen a more cheerful one, I’d say.
We’ll find out pretty quick, I guess, for there’s the Old Man now.”
But the solution of the mystery was not due to be solved just yet.
Lieutenant Hattuck, very erect and smart in his uniform, walked forward
to the bridge. Then he and the junior made their way to the bow and,
standing by the gray-jacketed gun, examined the shore through their
glasses and talked together for several minutes. Green, Ole Hanson’s
relief, climbed out of the wireless room and approached them with a
fluttering wisp of paper in his hand. Action followed closely after
the captain had cast his eye over the message and handed it to the
ensign. Up came the anchor and the _Wanderer_ crept slowly along the
shore, the ensign himself at the wheel, and Quartermaster’s Mate
Jones keeping an anxious watch at the bow. When nearly opposite the
easternmost end of the island, which curved slightly to the south, the
small boat was ordered lowered and Mr. Stowell, yielding the wheel,
gave his orders.
“Jones, pick four men for a landing party. Arm with automatics.”
“Yes, sir. Do I go along?”
“Certainly. Hustle now.”
“Right, sir! Staples, Troy, Endicott and Masters! Get a jump on! Don’t
forget your cartridge belts!”
Four minutes later they were in the little boat, her tiny engine
sending her bobbing crazily over the gray-green water. Ensign Stowell
was in the stern sheets and Jones brooded over the engine. They beached
near the little forest of twisted trees, leaped into the shallow surf
and carried the anchor ashore.
“Draw your bean-shooters,” directed the officer, “but keep the safety
on. Come ahead, keep down pretty well and don’t talk.”
It was the matter of eighty or a hundred yards to where the straggling
trees began. They climbed quietly up the sloping beach, the ensign
leading, and paused where the high tides of winter had left a ridge
of sand, loosely clad with grass and wild pea. Before them there lay
the wind-rippled surface of the island, flat and unbroken save for the
patch of trees, and beyond, the sea again. Nelson thought he could
discern what looked like land where the horizon lay, but could not
be certain. What he was certain of was a tiny dark speck that bobbed
about some two miles away to the north and could be nothing else than
a boat. Mr. Stowell gave a grunt and pulled his glasses from their
case and leveled them. After a long moment he returned them, faced
the _Wanderer_, circling slowly about off the beach, and waved an
arm semaphore fashion. The captain, watching from the deck, waved an
answer. A minute later, with her engines humming, she was standing
straight out to sea.
The officer led the way again, bearing to the right until they were
well hidden from the approaching boat by the trees. Then they went
forward and gained the edge of the tiny forest and, following the
example set by the ensign, threw themselves down on the sand amidst
the crackling branches of bayberry bushes to which a few sere
leaves and odorous gray berries still clung. The dwarfed trees ahead
were pitch pine, although here and there a leafless wild cherry was
struggling for existence. Ensign Stowell conversed in low tones with
the quartermaster’s mate and alternately peered through a vista in the
grove at the coming boat and cast roving glances about the trees, much,
thought Nelson, as though he were looking for birds’ nests!
“What’s the game, Chatty?” muttered Endicott, pulling himself nearer.
“German spies?”
“Don’t know. Tell you later.”
“Much obliged. I say, look where the _Wanderer_ is!”
Nelson looked. The patrol boat was a good three miles south and was
now running eastward at half-speed, presenting a fine imitation of a
person minding his own business. Evidently, concluded Nelson, the plan
was to keep out of sight until the persons in the small motor boat――for
that was what the craft now showed itself to be――had landed. Then,
doubtless, the _Wanderer_ would turn back. But he was still puzzled,
for the patrol boat could, naturally, run rings about the smaller one
or, if it pleased her, blow her clean out of the water. There was,
then, evidently more to the operation than just capture.
The approaching motor boat was making slow work of it, and hard,
for the sea was decidedly rough today for such small craft; but she
came pluckily on, bobbing about like a cork and, doubtless, shipping
water with every toss. They could see her occupants now, three men at
least, and possibly four. The smoke from the exhaust left a trail of
lighter gray against the gray of sea and sky. Masters was examining his
automatic with a nonchalance that didn’t deceive anyone.
The motor boat made straight for the beach on the north side of the
island, which today was also the lee side. Nelson could see her no
longer now, but he heard Ensign Stowell say softly to Jones: “Four of
them. They’re all there, then.”
Even when the boat had grounded and her crew had sprung up to their
knees in water and waded ashore with the painter they were too far off
for their features to be distinguished. Nelson squirmed a bit to the
right and found a place from which he could watch. The quartette pushed
an anchor into the sand well above the tide, and Nelson saw that a
second one had been dropped from her stern. The boat was surprisingly
tiny for such a sea and he was forced to credit the unknown crew
with a good deal of courage. They were coming up the rise of the
further beach now, one carrying a square wooden box that looked heavy
as it bumped against his leg at each stride. They walked in single
file, the man with the box bringing up the rear. The leader was not
tall, but there was something authoritative in the way he carried his
squarely-built figure. In spite of the black rain-coat which shrouded
him he looked military. The others, similarly protected from the
weather and the sea, were distinctly civilian.
Just as they left the beach and gained the higher level of the island
the leader stopped abruptly and pointed to the eastward. Nelson,
following the direction of his hand, descried the _Wanderer_, running
northward now, almost an indistinguishable gray object against the sea.
After a minute the four men came on, walking a little more hurriedly,
and entered the wood on the further side. For a moment or two they were
visible between the trees, and then they disappeared as suddenly as
though the earth had swallowed them!
Jones turned and looked inquiringly at Ensign Stowell, but the latter
shook his head.
“Wait,” he said softly.