Ruth Fielding did not close her eyes all that trying night. Morning
found her as wakeful in her stateroom as when she had been nailed into
it by Boldig, the leader of the German mutineers.
The situation of the _Admiral Pekhard_ was not difficult; and although
she was without steerage-way she was in no danger. There was a heavy
swell on from a storm that had passed somewhere to the northward; but
the night remained quite calm, if dark.
The thumping of the pumps continued until dawn. Then the water was
evidently cleared from the fireroom, and the men could go to work
cleaning the grates and making ready to lay new fires in all but the
damaged boiler.
There was much to do about the engine, however, to delay the putting of
the ship under steam. The water, rising as high as it had, had seeped
into the machinery and must be wiped out and the parts thoroughly oiled.
Thus far the signals by radio had not been answered by the approach of
the submarine that Boldig had reason to expect. As Ruth had heard him
boast, the big German submarine, No. 714, must be lurking near, awaiting
news of the British steamship from Brest.
The Germans had taken a big chance. Of course, the ship and the
submersible might not meet at all. Instead, a patrol boat might hail the
_Admiral Pekhard_, or catch her wireless calls. The Germans would be in
trouble then without doubt.
Of course they had the motor boat in which they had got away from the
ship in the first place. They could pile into that and make for some
port where they knew they had friends. There were such ports to the
south, for Spain was not as successfully neutral as her government would
have liked to be. German propaganda was active in that country.
Ruth was not in much fear at present as to her own treatment. The
mutineers had their hands full. What would finally happen to her if the
Germans carried their plans to fulfilment, was a question she dared not
contemplate.
Dowd and Rollife she presumed would be removed to the submarine and
taken back to Germany--if the submarine ever reached her base again. But
there were no provisions on submarines, she very well knew, for
women--prisoners or otherwise.
This uncertainty, although she tried to crowd the thought down, brought
her to the verge of despair when she allowed the topic to get possession
of her mind. And she despaired of Tom Cameron, as well. What had become
of him--if he was the passenger the unfortunate Ralph Stillinger had
taken up into the air with him on his last flight?
Had Tom really been killed? Had Helen learned his fate by this time?
Ruth wished she was back in Paris with her chum that they might
institute a search for Tom Cameron.
Nor was the girl of the Red Mill free from worry regarding those at
home. Uncle Jabez's letter, which she had received before leaving the
hospital, had filled her heart with forebodings. She had written at once
to assure him and Aunt Alvirah that she was returning soon.
But now the time of that return seemed very doubtful indeed. If she was
sent to Germany as a prisoner--or kept aboard this steamship which the
Germans intended to make into a "mother ship" for U-boats--it might be
long months, even years, before she reached home.
Tom had said the war would soon be over; but there was no surety of
that. It was only a hope. Ruth might never again see the dear little old
woman whose murmured complaint of, "Oh, my back! and oh, my bones!" had
become the familiar quotation of Ruth and her young friends.
Aunt Alvirah was dear to Ruth. The girl desired more strongly than ever
before in her life to be with the poor old woman again.
She could no longer hear the snapping of the radio, now that daylight
had come. Either Krueger, the assistant and traitorous radio operator,
had managed to communicate with the commander of the German U-boat 714,
or further effort to this end was considered useless now. Another
attempt might be made again when night came. Ruth knew it to be a fact
that the German submersibles seldom rose to the surface of the sea and
put up their radio masts except at night.
It was during the dark hours that those sharks of the sea received
orders from Nauen, the great German radio station, and communicated with
each other, as well as with such supply ships as might be working in
conjunction with the submarines.
If these mutineers were successful in carrying out their plan, and made
a junction with the U-boat that carried a crew to supplement those
Germans already aboard the _Admiral Pekhard_, the enemy might succeed in
putting into commission a craft that would greatly aid in the submarine
warfare.
Thus far it had been so daringly conceived and well carried through that
the conspiracy promised to rise to one of the very greatest German
intrigues of the war. Its final success, however, rested on time and
place. The submarine and the stolen steamer must come together soon, or
the latter would surely run across one of the innumerable patrol ships
with which the Allies were scouring this part of the Atlantic.
It was noon before the beat of the _Admiral Pekhard's_ propellers
announced that she was again under control. The rolling motion that had
finally become nauseating to even as good a sailor as Ruth, was now
overcome. The ship plowed through the sea steadily, if slowly.
Occasionally the girl heard a footstep pass her stateroom window; but
she kept the port nearly closed so that nobody could peer in. Some time
after the screw had started a man came and knocked on the pane.
She smelled coffee and heard the rattle of dishes; so she opened the
window.
The man thrust in to her a pot of coffee and a platter of ham and
eggs--coarse fare, but welcome, for Ruth found she had a robust appetite.
She placed a piece of silver in the man's palm and heard a muttered
"Thank you!" in German.
She felt that it might be well to make a friend among the mutineers if
she could do so.
It was not long after she was fed that another footstep halted at her
open port. The voice of Boldig, the recreant officer of the ship came to
her ear.
"Do you want anything, Miss Fielding?" he asked.
At first she would not speak; but when he repeated his question, adding:
"You know, I can draw those nails in your door as well as I could hammer
them in," she hastened to reply:
"I want nothing."
He laughed most disagreeably. "You might as well be good natured about
it, my dear," he said. "No knowing how long we shall be shipmates. I am
quite sure the commander of the submersible will not take _you_ aboard
his craft; so I fear you are apt to remain with us."
She said nothing. The threat was only what she had feared. What could
she do or say? She was adrift on a sea of circumstances more terrifying
than the ocean itself.
Boldig went away laughing; she threw herself upon her berth, trembling
and weeping. All her spirit was broken now; she could not control the
fears that possessed her.