A STRANGE ENCOUNTER
Instantly all was in confusion in that part of the sleeping quarters
where the three friends were berthed. Jerry leaped up, followed by
Ned, and the tall lad flashed on the scene the gleam from his pocket
electric torch.
He saw a strange sight. Bob was struggling in the grasp of a
white-robed figure. The two were tumbling about, each one seemingly
trying to get an advantageous grip on the other. And all the while the
figure in white was shouting:
“I’ve got him! I’ve got him! I’ll kill him now! I’ve got him!”
While Bob, exerting himself to the utmost, could only gasp:
“Let up now! What’s the matter! Ned! Jerry! He’s killing me!”
Ned’s answer to this appeal was to leap on the back of the man who had
Bob in what might prove to be a death-grip, while Jerry moved about to
get in position where he, too, could help his chum. Meanwhile, the
tall lad kept his pocket electric lamp glowing.
“Who is he? What’s he fighting you for, Bob?” cried Jerry, while
many other soldiers, awakened by the commotion, gathered about the
struggling twain.
The only answer from the stout youth was a grunt, and a gasp.
“It’s _le cochon_!” cried Ned. “That’s who it is! The same fellow who
acted so rotten in the restaurant, Jerry! He’s trying to kill Bob! He
must be crazy!”
At first, as Jerry admitted afterward, this was his thought also. But
a second look at Bob’s midnight assailant told a different story. This
man had a shock of red hair, while the other had been almost bald. And
there was a great difference in the physique of the two.
Ned was doing his best to pull the fellow away from Bob by a rear
attack, and to this end Jerry likewise lent his aid. Other soldiers
also joined in to separate the two struggling ones, and they worked to
such good advantage that the desperate grip on Bob’s throat was broken,
his attacker pulled away and his arms held behind him.
[Illustration: NED WAS DOING HIS BEST TO PULL THE FELLOW AWAY FROM BOB.]
“Why it’s Meldon!” some one shouted. “It’s Meldon of the Twenty-seventh.
He was in the hospital!”
And Meldon, if that was the name of the man in white pajamas, looked
wonderingly about him, passed his hand over his eyes as if in a daze,
and murmured:
“Where am I? What happened?”
“Lots happened, old man,” answered Ned, himself panting from the
violence of the struggle.
“Are you all right, Bob?” he asked his chum.
Bob carefully and tenderly felt of his throat before answering.
“I--I guess so,” he replied, after a pause. “But what’s the idea of
giving me the once-over like that?” he demanded of his assailant.
The latter acted most strangely. He looked from one to the other of
those about him, including those who held him tightly, and again, he
passed his hand over his forehead, one arm having been released when it
was seen that he was going to offer no more resistance.
At that moment, when every one was wondering what it all meant, a nurse
came hurrying in.
“Here he is!” she called to a doctor who followed. “Is he hurt?” she
asked the soldiers about the pajama-clad one.
“No,” answered Jerry. “But he came near----”
“Did he attack any one?” interposed the surgeon quickly.
“You might call it that,” answered Bob, with an attempt at a smile.
“Just what I feared!” exclaimed the medical man. “We’ll have to keep
him under closer restraint.”
“Who is he, sir?” asked Jerry, saluting the surgeon, who bore the rank
of major. “All we know is that we heard a commotion in the dark, and
found my chum here, Bob Baker, struggling with this man.”
“Meldon is a private suffering from shell shock,” answered the doctor.
“He has violent spells, and then gets up and imagines he’s attacking a
German.”
The soldier in pajamas seemed to have become completely quiet now. He
gently shook himself loose from those holding him, and, advancing to
Bob, held out his hand.
“I’m all kinds of sorry, old man,” he said in a cultured voice. “These
spells come on me before I know it, but they’re getting less frequent.
All I know is that I went to sleep in my usual berth and woke up having
a dickens of a fight. I can’t tell you how sorry I am. But it must have
come on me in my sleep, and I thought I was back again fighting the
Huns.”
“Well, as long as you did your share of that I’ll call it square,” said
Bob, with a laugh. “At first I thought you were----”
He stopped, with a significant look at Ned and Jerry.
“Did you think I was a Boche, too?” asked the soldier who had caused
the commotion.
“Well, not exactly,” Bob answered slowly, for he had been about to say
that he had thought his assailant was none other than the queer little
man--a thought shared by Ned and Jerry.
“Well, I hope it doesn’t happen again,” said the afflicted one. “And
I’m sure it won’t. I’m getting better, I know.”
“We’ll keep him a little more confined than we have been doing,” said
the doctor to Jerry and his friends, when the nurse had led away the
shell-shocked individual. “This is the second or third time he has
gotten loose in the night and started a fight. Fortunately, none of
them ended seriously. Better let me look you over,” the medical major
suggested to Bob. “He didn’t bite you anywhere, did he?”
“Not a bite!” answered Bob, with a laugh. “Though he did gouge me a bit
on the neck.”
Bob’s throat was scratched by the other’s finger nails, and an
antiseptic wash was applied to prevent any possible bad effect. Then
such quiet as was possible under the circumstances replaced the
midnight excitement.
“At first I thought it was _le cochon_,” remarked Ned in a low voice to
his chums, as they turned in to get what sleep they could.
“That was my first idea when I awoke and found him choking me,”
admitted Bob. “Though I couldn’t form any good reason why he should
want to put me out of business.”
“There’s something queer about _le cochon_,” declared Jerry. By common
consent the boys had adopted that name for the strange little man.
“Why should he be on board here where no civilians--or at least none
unless specially qualified--are permitted? And why should he have such
a feeling against Professor Snodgrass?”
“Those are questions I’d like to have answered,” said Ned. “Did either
of you ever hear our professor speak of an individual who somewhat
resembled him?”
“If he ever knew such to be a fact,” declared Jerry, “he’d never give
it a thought or remember to tell us. All he thinks of is bugs, bugs,
and then more bugs.”
“Guess you’re right,” assented Bob. “But this man must know our
professor, and also have no liking for him, or he wouldn’t have called
him such names as he did.”
“We oughtn’t to have stood for that!” said Ned vigorously.
“No,” agreed Jerry. “But it was better to let the thing go as it did.
No use having too much of a row. Now let’s go to sleep. I’m tired.”
Next day the _Sherman_ was many miles further out to sea on her
homeward-bound voyage. Jerry and his chums inquired for the soldier
who had attacked Bob, and learned that he was progressing toward
recovery as well as could be expected.
It was the third day out that, as Ned, Bob and Jerry were coming
back from the “sick bay,” or hospital, where they had been to call
on Meldon, and when they were walking along a dimly-lighted passage,
they saw some one approaching them. As the passage was narrow they all
squeezed back against the wall to let the person who was nearing them
pass. But the latter, at the sight of the three boys, seemed to change
his plans.
Instead of passing he turned suddenly, and, with a muttered exclamation,
swung back. Not before, however, Jerry had time to notice that he
carried a black object under one arm. And as soon as the tall lad
observed this Ned exclaimed:
“What’s that funny smell? Isn’t it like a burning fuse?”