A CHANCE ENCOUNTER
Many of the subsequent details Nelson failed to see, for he was put
aboard the _Wanderer_ and consigned to his bunk, after which Sawyer,
machinist’s mate and the nearest thing to a surgeon that the boat
boasted, made a fairly neat job of cleansing and bandaging the wound.
“The bullet’s in there yet, Chatty,” he said with what sounded like
professional satisfaction. “I can feel it and――――”
“Ouch! So can I!” affirmed Nelson.
“Sure! But a doc will have it out in no time. If it hasn’t bust the
bone you’ll be lucky, though.” With which cheering observation Sawyer
went his way and Nelson laid there and ruefully considered his luck and
tried to picture, through the evidence of his ears, what was going on
“topside.”
Half an hour after the surprise party in the cave, the four prisoners
were safely aboard, Cochran with much gusto had put a three-inch shell
through their motor boat and the _Wanderer_ was hiking back to New
Bedford. There was a conversation between the captain and Lieutenant
Haegel in the after cabin on the way back, attended by Ensign Stowell,
but what was said no one else aboard ever knew. Nelson’s personal
interest in the affairs of the four conspirators ended soon after he
had worried down a small portion of diluted broth, for he went to sleep
and slept until the _Wanderer_ reached port. It was the rattling of the
winch that aroused him. Presently Ensign Stowell entered.
“How’s the arm, Troy?” he enquired. “I was down here an hour ago, but
you were sleeping.”
“It doesn’t hurt, sir,” replied Nelson, not very truthfully.
“Good! I’m going to send you up to the hospital and have that bullet
out. You’d better stay there a few days. No use trying to use your arm
until the stiffness has gone. When they discharge you, report back on
board. We’ll be glad to see you again. I’ll send one of the men to help
you dress. Good luck, Troy.”
It was Billy Masters who appeared to act the rôle of valet, but Billy
divided between resentment at being kept out of the underground fracas
and elation over the successful outcome of the _Wanderer’s_ first
engagement with the enemy. He expressed no sympathy for Nelson, but on
the contrary regarded him with envy. While he handed Nelson his clothes
and helped him to get into them he rattled on with his news.
“Some haul that was, Chatty, believe me. This fellow with the waxed
mustache is a German army officer. He’s been living over at a place
called Oak Bluffs on Martha’s Vineyard pretending his name was Schmitt
or something. Made believe he was an American citizen and said he
was writing a book about the island and its history and all that.
The others don’t amount to much. One’s a German named Anhalt and
another’s a sort of Russian; I forget what sort. The fellow who did
the telegraphing is a poor mutt they picked up in Canada. Guess he
hasn’t got any nationality. Seems the Secret Service has been after
this Haegel guy for months but couldn’t find him. They knew he was in
the country, though, and suspected he’d be mixed up in some wireless
stunt. A couple of days ago the Canadian――if that’s what he is, which I
don’t believe, because he don’t look like any Canadian I ever saw――goes
into a drug store in New Bedford and gets a prescription filled. He had
to wait awhile for it, you see, and while he was waiting he leans on
the counter and does like this, see? Like he was working a telegraph
key. Well, the drug fellow was one of these wireless fiends before the
government put ’em out of business and he listened to what the guy was
tapping out. First he says, ‘Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up’! like that,
over and over. Then he says a lot of figures that don’t mean anything
to the drug fellow, and after that some more nonsense. And he gets
his medicine and goes out. But the drug fellow gets to thinking about
him. He’s seen the guy around for about a month and he don’t ever seem
to have anything special to do. So that evening he goes and tells his
story to a fellow he knows who’s some sort of a United States attorney
or something. The attorney hands it along to the Secret Service sleuths
who’ve been snooping around looking for a wireless station somewhere
on the Cape, do you see? After that it was easy. They find out where
this poor guy lives and watch him and they see this Anhalt fellow
come sneaking around at night and they hears ’em make a date for this
morning at four o’clock and hears ’em speak of that island back there.
The _Hollis_ got the job first, but she had another date up the coast
and so hands it over to us. What this Haegel fellow was doing was
getting news of sailings from American ports from some pal in New York
or somewhere by mail and then going over to that island and sending it
by wireless to Swedish and Norwegian ships out to sea. All they had to
do was pass it on when they got near enough the other side. Easy, eh?
Don’t you say anything about it, for no one’s supposed to know.”
“Where did you hear it?” asked Nelson.
Billy blinked and hesitated. Finally: “Well, I was leaning over the
rail aft last night after we left New Bedford and the cap and the
junior was talking it over in the cabin and it sort of floated out!”
“You made believe you didn’t know anything about it!” charged Nelson.
Billy Masters grinned.
“Sure! A fellow don’t repeat what he ain’t supposed to know, does he?”
“What are you doing now?” Nelson laughed.
“Oh, it don’t matter now. It’s all over. Gee, you’re a lucky guy,
Chatty. You get swell grub in the hospitals!”
After a week of it, however, Nelson didn’t agree with Billy. But a
minor surgical case such as he was is not likely to find hospital food
quite satisfying. After the first two days Nelson’s normally healthy
appetite returned in its full vigor and more than once he would gladly
have exchanged his rations for the solid “chow” of the _Wanderer’s_
forecastle. The bullet had slightly splintered the bone of the upper
arm. The doctor called it the “humerus,” a name for it which Nelson
entirely disapproved of. Two weeks was the period of convalescence, in
any case, and for a full fortnight Nelson mooned around the hospital
and the town. During that time the _Wanderer_ came into port but once
and Billy Masters and Lanky Staples came to see him and told him of
their doings. He hadn’t missed much in the way of excitement, however,
for the patrol boat had done nothing more adventurous than fire at a
butter firkin, narrowly escape collision with a trawler in a fog and
back into a wharf at Provincetown. Lanky expressed disgust at the
monotonous emptiness of existence and Billy hinted darkly at deserting
and enlisting in the British Army in Canada if things didn’t pick up
pretty soon.
Nelson had plenty of time for thought during that dragging fortnight,
and the more he thought the more he was inclined to agree with Lanky
and Billy. He had enlisted in the Naval Reserves because he wanted to
fight the Germans. Apprehending a spy or two might be useful work, but
it wasn’t to his mind vital enough to the matter in hand, which was
beating Germany. He had spoken very nearly the truth when he had told
Ensign Stowell that it wasn’t exactly revenge for a personal injury
inflicted that he sought, but he was, after all, quite human, and there
were times when revenge seemed very desirable to him. He still refused
to believe, in the face of all probability, that his father was really
dead, although none of his relatives up in Maine shared his confidence.
Nelson’s nearest relation now was his Uncle Peter, a mild-mannered,
elderly man who had once served as mate on a lumber schooner but who
now eked out a scant living as proprietor of a little store in the
home town. Uncle Peter firmly believed that his younger brother was
dead, and, or so it had seemed to Nelson, had taken a sort of sad
satisfaction in so believing. He had frowned on the boy’s expressed
determination of entering the Navy and had even done what little was in
his power to thwart him. After a fortnight at home, a home now presided
over by an ancient, sharp-featured woman housekeeper whom Nelson had
grown into the habit of calling “Aunt Mehitabel,” although she was no
relation, he had bidden a constrained good-bye to Uncle Peter and a
sad one to Pickles and, possessed of the munificent sum of eighty-odd
dollars, had made his way to Boston. There a cousin by marriage had
taken him in overnight and the next day he had sought advice, enlisted
in the Reserves and been sent to Newport.
The months that followed had been pleasant and busy, and he had
succeeded for whole hours at a stretch in forgetting to be lonely.
He had made many acquaintances but no firm friends. He didn’t make
friends readily, it seemed, although he was naturally affectionate
and, now that he no longer had his father to chum with, would gladly
have spent some of that pent-up affection on one of his fellows. But
that experience on the night of the fourteenth of October had sobered
him even more than he himself realized and possibly his quiet, silent
ways unintentionally held others off. He had done well at the station,
for he had more or less nautical knowledge to build on and was keen to
observe and quick to learn. He had sought to specialize in gunnery,
but owing to the crowded condition of the station at the time and to
confusion resultant on constant changes in plans and methods, he had
made only slight progress when his transference to the coast Patrol
Service came. He left the station with the rating of second-class
seaman and with a good all-around knowledge of a seaman’s duties.
As the time to report aboard the _Wanderer_ drew near he found that,
while he was impatient for duty again, existence aboard the patrol boat
appealed but little to him. He set his wits to work in the endeavor to
find some means of securing a transfer, but when the morning of his
discharge from the hospital arrived, he had failed so far to find any.
The _Wanderer_ was at Buzzard’s Bay and he was to go there by train,
arriving at four-twenty in the afternoon. Between New Bedford and
Buzzard’s Bay Fate stepped in and took a hand in his affairs.
The train was a leisurely one and stopped frequently. Nelson, hunched
in the window end of a red velvet seat, with his canvas bag between his
feet――that bag holding nearly all his worldly possessions until such
time as the slow-moving arm of the Law, set in motion by Uncle Peter,
had distributed his father’s estate――looked out on the pleasant vistas
of villages and harbors and open water warming in the May sunlight
and felt, for some reason, rather pathetic. It was what he himself
would have called “a corking day,” and yet the very “corkingness”
of it somehow depressed him. He was so busy feeling depressed that
he scarcely noticed when, after leaving one of the small stations
along the route, someone took the other half of his seat. Nelson
merely drew into himself a bit more, kicked his bag a little further
toward the window and went on being mournful. He didn’t see that the
newcomer observed him more than once with kindly interest and seemed
inclined to open a conversation. He was a man of apparently fifty
years, with a pair of very deep blue eyes behind shell-rimmed glasses,
a closely-cropped gray mustache and a sun-tanned face. He sat very
erect in his seat, a light overcoat, carefully folded, laid across
the knees of his immaculate steel-gray trousers, and at intervals ran
his gaze over a Boston morning paper which, however, failed to hold
his attention for long at a time. It was he who finally commenced the
conversation.
“Transferring?” he inquired.
Nelson looked around rather blankly. “Sir?”
The man smiled. “I asked if you were transferring. I see you have your
bag with you.”
“No, sir, I’m rejoining my boat at Buzzard’s Bay.”
The other nodded, darting a swift glance at the boy’s cap ribbon.
“_Wanderer_, eh? Patrol boat?”
“Yes, sir.” Nelson was, in turn, doing some looking, too, and there was
something about his neighbor that suggested authority. Still it didn’t
do to talk too freely. They had been plentifully warned against that.
“Been on liberty?” pursued the man.
“No, sir. Hospital.”
“Really? Nothing serious, I hope.”
“No, sir.” The gentleman looked expectant of further details, but
Nelson said no more. After a moment the former asked: “Who’s in command
of the _Wanderer_?”
“Lieutenant Hattuck.”
“Hattuck, eh?” He seemed trying to recall something. Finally: “Yes,
yes, of course. I thought I knew the name. Commanded the _Andover_
in ’98. So he’s in the Reserve, is he? How large is your boat, the
_Wanderer_?”
“Not very big,” answered Nelson, evasively. The other chuckled.
“You’re right, my boy, not to talk too much. I forget that――Hm, let me
see.” He dipped into a pocket, drew forth a case and selected from it
a card which he passed across. “Merely to reassure you,” he explained.
Nelson accepted the bit of engraved cardboard in surprise, a surprise
which increased when he read the name on it, the name of a man high in
the Naval affairs of the nation.
“Excuse me, sir, I didn’t know――――” began Nelson in some confusion.
“Naturally you wouldn’t,” laughed the other. “I’m not tagged, thank
goodness! You see, I’ve been on liberty too,” he added smiling, “but
not, I am glad to say, in hospital. I’ve been visiting my family for a
week. And now, like you, I’m going back to duty.”
“Yes, sir,” murmured Nelson. As the Navy man made no offer to take his
card back the boy held it in his hand, wondering what to do with it. “I
guess there’s plenty to do in Washington just now, sir,” he hazarded.
The other nodded. “A terrific amount of work, yes. I felt guilty
most of the time I was away; maybe I enjoyed my vacation more for
that reason,” he added with his contagious chuckle. Nelson smiled in
sympathy.
“It’s like playing hookey, sir,” he suggested.
“That’s it. How do you like the Reserve service――er――by the way, what’s
your name?”
“Troy, sir. I like it very well, only――I’d rather be on the other side.”
“I see. Yes, of course. Well, I dare say you’ll get there in time. How
long have you been serving?”
“Only about five months. I joined in November. I was at Newport until a
month ago. Do you think, sir――――”
“Well?” asked the man, encouragingly, as Nelson hesitated.
“Do you think I’d have stood a better chance to get across soon if I’d
joined the Navy instead of the Reserves, sir?”
“I don’t think that would have made much difference, Troy. You
youngsters have to wait your turns, you know. We try to select men for
the other side who have seen service, but we can’t be too particular
now, for there’s a ship asking a complement every day or two and you
new men are getting your chances fast. Navy enlistment has been slower
than we hoped for so far, but I think it will pick up. Meanwhile you
must console yourself with the knowledge that what you are doing along
the coast is just as important as what our lads are doing in British
waters. It’s very necessary work, even if it isn’t spectacular.”
“Yes, sir, I suppose it is, only I want to learn gunnery, and there
isn’t much chance on our boat. I’m hoping that if I don’t get across
pretty soon I’ll get transferred to the Atlantic Fleet.”
“Gunnery, eh?” mused the other. “I see.” He was silent a minute. Then:
“Just write your name on the back of that card, will you?” he asked.
“Here’s a pencil. That’s it, thanks. I’ll tuck this away and perhaps I
can do something for you before long. Now tell me,” he went on as he
slipped the card into a leather wallet, “about that little adventure
you had a couple of weeks ago, for I take it that it was the _Wanderer_
that brought in that German spy, Lieutenant――Haegel, isn’t it?――and his
cronies.”
So Nelson told of the incident, and afterwards, led on by his
sympathetic audience, told about everything else he knew! It was a
veritable orgy of talk for Nelson, and later on, no longer under the
spell of the other’s personality, he wondered how he had ever come to
do it! They parted at a junction soon after Nelson had completed an
account of the attack on the _Jonas Clinton_, and his new acquaintance
shook hands and said he hoped they would meet again and got off
without further reference to that half promise. But Nelson rejoined
the _Wanderer_ in quite a hopeful frame of mind and in much better
spirits than when he had left New Bedford. Of course, he reflected,
it might be that nothing would come of that encounter, but there had
been something about the Navy official suggesting that he had a good
memory, and that his half promise was as good as another man’s written
agreement.