Vague stupefaction replaced the scowl upon the countenance of the
commander. He swayed, a hand faltering to his forehead, where dark blood
was beginning to well from a cleanly drilled puncture. Then he collapsed
completely, falling prone across the raised sill of the bulkhead opening. A
convulsive tremor shook savagely his huge frame.
Thereafter he was quite still.
The report of that one shot had reverberated stunningly within those narrow
walls of steel. Momentarily Lanyard looked to see the alarmed anchor watch
appear; so too, apparently, the lieutenant, who remained immobile, pistol
poised in a hand for the moment strangely steady, gaze fixed upon the mouth
of the alleyway.
But through a long minute no other sounds were audible than that ceaseless
dripping from frames and seams, with that muted, terrible mouthing of
waters on the plates.
Unable either to fathom or forecast the workings of the drink-maddened
mentality masked by that rat-like face, Lanyard waited with a hand covertly
grasping the automatic in his pocket. There was no telling; at any moment
that murderous mania might veer his way. And he was not content to die, not
yet, not in any event by the hand of a decadent little beast of a Boche.
Slowly the arm of the lieutenant dropped, lowering the pistol till its
muzzle chattered on the top of the table: a noise that broke the spell upon
his senses. He looked down in dull brutish wonder, then roused and with a
gesture of horror let the weapon fall clattering.
His glance shifting to the body of his commander, he started violently,
backing up against the plates to put all possible distance between himself
and his handiwork. His lips moved, framing phrases at first incoherent,
presently articulate in part:
"... _done it at last!... Knew I must soon_...."
Abruptly he looked up at Lanyard.
"Bear witness," he cried: "I was provoked beyond human endurance. He
insulted me in your presence ... me!... that scum!"
Lanyard said nothing, but met his gaze with a blank, non-committal stare,
under which the eyes of the lieutenant wavered and fell.
Then with a start he realised anew the significance of that still figure at
his feet, and tried to shake some of the swagger back into his wretched,
fear-racked being.
"A good job!" he muttered defiantly. "And you will stand by me, I know....
Only there is nothing in that, of course, no justification possible before
a court martial. Even your testimony could not save me ... I am done for,
utterly...."
He hung his head. Lanyard heard whispered words: "_degraded," "dishonour,"
"firing squad_"....
A chronometer in the central operating compartment tolled eight bells.
With a sharp cry the lieutenant dropped to his knees. "He can't be dead!"
he shrilled. "It is all play-acting, to frighten me!"
Frantically he sought to turn the body over.
Lanyard's hand shot swiftly out, capturing the automatic on the table. With
rapid and sure gestures he extracted and pocketed the clip, drew back the
breech, ejecting into his palm the one shell in the barrel, and replaced
the weapon, all before the Prussian gave over his insane efforts to
resurrect the dead.
"He is dead enough," he announced, eyeing Lanyard morosely--"beyond
helping.... Look here; are you with me or against me?"
"Need you ask?"
"I count on you, then. Good. I think we can cover this up."
He checked and stood for a while lost in thought.
"How?" Lanyard roused him.
"Simply enough: I go on deck, send the watch ashore on some trumped-up
errand. They suspect nothing, thinking the commander and I have you in
charge. If they heard that shot, I will say one of us dropped a bottle
of champagne, and it exploded.... When they are gone, I bring the dory
alongside; and with your help it should be an easy matter to carry this
body up, weight it, row it out to the middle of the lagoon, dump it
overboard. Then we return. Our story is, the commander followed the anchor
watch ashore; if later he wandered off, got lost in the woods in his
alcoholic delirium, that is no affair of ours. Do you understand?"
"Perfectly," said Lanyard with a look of fatuous innocence. "But how about
the water--is it deep enough?"
The Prussian took no pains to dissemble his scorn of this question,
seemingly so witless. "To cover the body? Why, even here there is
sufficient depth at low tide for us to submerge completely, barring the
periscopes. And it is deeper yet in the middle."
"Thanks," Lanyard replied meekly.
"Have another drink? No?" The Prussian tossed off a half cupful of
undiluted brandy, and shuddered. "Then stop here. I'll be back in a--"
"Half a minute." The lieutenant halted in the act of stepping across the
body. Lanyard levelled a hand at the automatic. "Do you mind taking that
with you? I have no desire to be found here with it and a dead man, should
anything prevent your return."
With a sickly grimace the murderer snatched up the weapon, thrust it in its
holster, and hurriedly departed.
Lanyard watched him pass through the alleyway and turn toward the companion
ladder, then followed quietly.
As the lieutenant climbed out on deck, Lanyard ascended to the conning
tower and waited there, listening. He could not quite make out what was
said; but after a few brusque words of command two pair of boots rang on
the gangplank and thumped away down the stage. At the same time Lanyard let
himself noiselessly out through the hatch.
As soon as his vision grew reconciled to the change from light to darkness,
he discovered the slender figure of the lieutenant skulking on tip-toe
after the retreating anchor watch; about midway on the landing stage,
however, he paused and bent over one of the piles, apparently fumbling with
the painter of a small boat moored in the black shadows below.
At this Lanyard began to move along the deck, one by one working the
mooring lines clear of their cleats and dropping them gently overboard,
till but two were left to hold the U-boat in place.
Throughout he kept watch upon the manoeuvres of the lieutenant--saw him
drop over the side of the stage, heard a thump of feet as he landed in a
boat, and a subsequent creak of oar-locks.
The small boat was rounding the bows of the submarine when the adventurer
ducked back through conning tower to hold.
He was standing where he had been left when the lieutenant came below.
"It's all right," this last announced with shabby bravado as he stepped
over the body in the doorway. "We are rid of that damned watch for a time.
They won't return within half an hour at least. I have the dory moored
amidships. If we are lively, this dirty job will be over in no time at
all."