THE LAST VOYAGE OF JOHANN HAPPS
There was a story, one which Billy had often heard Captain Saulsby tell,
of a ship that had driven on the rocks outside the harbour of Appledore
during one of the terrible winter tempests. No boat could hope to reach
her, so gigantic were the seas, and the crew had clung in her rigging
all night, waiting for the wind to fall and help to come. The fisherfolk
of the village had gathered on the shore, had built fires to signal to
the desperate sailors that friends were watching and ready to give aid,
and had tended their beacons all night long, so that some spark of hope
might still live in the hearts of the drowning men. When morning broke
and the wind went down, they were all rescued, “seventeen men and the
ship’s cat.”
Appledore saw a similar scene tonight, with the long red line of signal
fires blazing the length of the beach, and with every man and woman
toiling to keep them burning. Yet it was not to friends they were
signalling this time, but foes; to a lurking, treacherous enemy whose
one safety lay in secrecy and darkness, and who read the message of
defiance and drew off silently into the night.
Hour after hour passed, the wind rose higher and higher, sweeping great
clouds of smoke and sparks along the beach. The tide came in and the
seas rose, until even the harbour became a circle of tossing waves and
thundering breakers.
“They’ll not be trying to send any boats ashore now,” one of the
fishermen said to Captain Saulsby. “I think Joe Happs is safe enough
from any danger of their coming after him.”
The Captain nodded gravely as he sat there on the sand.
“I believe you can let the fires go out,” he said, “and you have surely
done a good deed for Johann this night. He would thank you if he could,
but it is pretty plain that just now he can’t. I wonder what he is going
to do.”
The people went away homeward one by one, the fires burned down to heaps
of blazing coals, the surf came roaring in, higher and higher as the
wind and tide rose together, and the call of Appledore sounded deep and
loud through all the growing tumult. Long ago Sally Shute had been
dragged away to her bed, protesting loudly, but led by a determined
mother. Johann Happs had wandered aimlessly off in the direction of his
little house, so that only Billy and Captain Saulsby were left still
sitting on the sand. The old man could not be persuaded to go home, nor
would Billy leave him. After some time Johann reappeared again, coming
silently out of the dark and seating himself beside them without a word.
The three said very little for a time, as the Captain’s thoughts seemed
to be busy with the past, Johann’s to be bent on the problem of his
future, while Billy’s whirling wits were trying to cope with the
present. Where was the yacht? What was she doing? Were German eyes still
fixed upon their fires in the dark? Would morning bring some bigger
adventure, or would it show an empty harbour and that victory was with
the watchers of Appledore?
The night wore past, the blackness faded to grey, by slow, slow creeping
hours the morning came. Captain Saulsby seemed to know just the moment
when it was light enough for observation, for he pulled the glasses from
his pocket, adjusted them, and looked long and earnestly out to sea.
Then he handed them to Billy.
“Sight straight across the point,” he directed, “above that scrub pine.
What do you make of it?”
Billy looked and gave an unrestrained shout of joy. Within the dancing
field of the glasses he could see the big, white yacht plunging through
the heavy seas, while on either side and just ahead of her three dark
vessels were swiftly drawing in.
“I wondered why they were so slow there at the Naval Station when I sent
my message,” remarked the Captain. “I see now that they were taking no
chances, but were seeing to it the yacht was headed off this time.
Hark!” The wind had shifted and was blowing hard in shore. It carried to
them a faint sound—“boom,” and then again—“boom.”
“They are firing on her,” shouted Billy, dancing up and down with
excitement. Johann had the glasses now, and was looking through them
intently.
“She is lying to,” he said quietly at last. “She sees she can’t make
it.”
“No? Give me that glass.” Captain Saulsby fairly snatched it out of his
hand. “Well, it’s true,” he went on after watching the vessels for a
moment. “She hasn’t even the spirit to get herself respectably sunk.
They’ll bring her into port, I suppose, and put the whole lot in jail.
Harvey Jarreth will be glad to see them.”
He got up slowly and stiffly.
“I guess the show is over,” he said, “and I, for one, begin to remember
that there is such a thing in the world as sleep. We ought all of us to
turn in. Johann Happs, you look like a ghost, man; you should be taking
some rest. When those rascals are brought up in court, the authorities
will be needing your evidence. You must get yourself pulled together
somehow.”
“Yes—yes, I will go home at once.”
Billy thought that Johann seemed to be paying very little attention even
to his own words, but he said nothing. He was weary himself, yet still
too excited to feel sleepy. Johann left them at Captain Saulsby’s door,
but Billy went inside and remained to help the old man prepare a
breakfast of bacon and coffee, which tasted most delicious and was badly
needed by both of them.
It was still very early, with the sun only just coming up when he
started homeward. He had borrowed the binoculars and went first down to
the point, hoping to have another view of the captured yacht. The wind
was blowing fiercer and fiercer, and the spray dashing up in columns
between the rocks. The yacht and two of her captors had disappeared, it
was plain that they had made for some port other than Rockford. The
third ship, however, was headed in his direction, probably planning to
make for Rockford or possibly Piscataqua. She passed so close that Billy
could see, through the glass, as plainly as though he were alongside,
her wave-swept deck, her weary wind-buffeted crew, even the worn faces
of the officers on her bridge.
They had had a night of it, just as he had, but he was going to rest and
to recover himself in peace and ease, while they had probably another
day and night of just such toil and watching before them, and another,
and another. That was what war was! No gathering of great fleets for
battle, no spectacular deeds of glory, no frequent chances for the
winning of undying fame. It was to be hard work, unwearying vigilance,
dull days of patrolling and long, long nights of watching. So America
was to be guarded, so her Allies were to be given aid. It would take
many men to do it, and each last one must bear his full part. He went
back along the point and up the beach path, thinking deeply.
What was his surprise on seeing Johann Happs again; he who should have
been at home sleeping was, instead, hurrying toward the wharf with a
bundle under his arm. When Billy called to him he did not stop, merely
hastened on the faster. Finally, however, Billy’s flying feet overtook
him, the boy’s hand was laid upon his arm and he was forced to turn
about.
“Oh, it’s you!” he exclaimed in evident relief, “I thought it might be
some one else.” He fumbled in his pocket. “The hotel clerk had this
message for you; I told him I would deliver it and had almost forgotten
all about it.”
He drew out an envelope and handed it to Billy. It was a cablegram, the
answer to the dispatch he had sent to his father the morning before. He
held the paper with difficulty in the wind and finally managed to read
its contents.
“Give consent reluctantly,” it ran.
When he had cabled he had thought of enlisting only as a distant
possibility, now, with the permission in his hand, with the vivid
impression still in his mind of what the naval service stood for, he
felt the desire surge up within him to enlist now, without a moment’s
delay.
“Father may cable again to say I can’t,” he reflected as he stood there,
buffeted by the wind. “They are so far away, he and mother might not
understand how things really are. If I can send a message saying I have
applied, before they can send word to me again, that I know would settle
it. It would take months to get my father’s signature to the papers
giving consent, but he could cable authority to some one to sign for
him. The great thing is to hurry.”
Where was the nearest recruiting office, he began to wonder. Certainly
not on Appledore Island, no, nor even at Rockford. The nearest was at
Piscataqua and—wait, what was it they had told him there? That the
number was nearly full and that probably the place would be closed in a
day or two. In that case he might have to go to Boston; there would be
delay, it might be too late.
“Johann,” he asked, suddenly coming down to earth and calling to his
companion who had begun to move off down to the wharf, “Johann, where
are you going?”
“I am going over to the mainland,” returned Johann, turning around and
bending backward against the wind that caught him with full force where
he stood.
“Then wait,” said Billy; “I am going with you. When does the boat
start?”
“She is not going out today, the wind is too bad,” was the reply. “I
have just been to ask her captain.”
“Then how are you going?” asked Billy, “and, Johann—why do you go?”
The lad looked down, shuffled his feet uneasily and seemed at a loss for
an answer.
“And when are you coming back?” Billy pursued. “Tell me, I must know.”
“I am never coming back,” Johann broke forth with sudden vehemence. “Do
you not see, can you not understand? Those Germans they are bringing in
will be tried and I will have to testify. Every one will hear of it,
will know how Johann Happs, of Appledore, let them tempt him, let them
try to drive him, nearly let them carry him away to fight for Germany.
Will any person ever trust me again, think you? When I wish to serve my
country, my own country, and offer myself, will they not say, ‘Ah, you
are Johann Happs; no, no, we take no such men as you.’ So I am going
away to lose myself, to change my name, to be an American with no memory
of what my father was. Those men who are to be tried will be convicted
anyway. Harvey Jarreth, Captain Saulsby, you, can all give evidence
enough for that. There will be no need for Johann Happs, so he is going
to vanish forever.”
“I could stop you,” said Billy slowly. “I ought to stop you. Do you
think I ought to, Johann?”
“I have been weak and a coward,” the other replied, “but somehow in this
night I have learned to be a man. Would you rob me of my chance to prove
it? Will you not believe in me and let me go?”
Billy thought harder for a moment than he had ever thought in his life
before.
“Yes, I believe in you,” he said at last. “And if you are going I am
going too. But how will we cross?”
“I have arranged with Sanderson to let me have his boat,” returned
Johann. “I own a half interest, so if I sink her I will not be doing
wrong. But you should not go with me.” He looked at the storm-tossed
harbour and the angry sea outside. “No,” he finished mildly, “it would
not be wise.”
“If you can, I can,” was Billy’s decree. “Wait two seconds while I get
my things.” He dashed wildly up to the hotel and was back again almost
before Johann had loosed the dory that was to carry them out to
Sanderson’s boat. The rocking and pitching were so great that it was
difficult to embark, but Johann had managed it and Billy was just
preparing to follow, when a firm hand took him by the arm.
“What are you two boys doing, starting a suicide club?” growled Captain
Saulsby’s voice in his ear.
Billy turned quickly.
“You can’t keep us,” he exclaimed desperately; “you needn’t try.”
“I’ll hear first where you are going, thank you,” returned the Captain,
“though to be going anywhere with such a wind coming, is rank lunacy.”
As briefly and as earnestly as he could, Billy explained their
respective errands and the need of both of them for haste. More than
once he had to shout to make himself heard above wind and water.
“I’ve got to enlist,” he ended; “to delay now may mean waiting months.
And it takes a long time to train a good sailor; I must begin now! I
must! And you need not say anything, because we are both bound to go.”
“Well, I’m not saying anything, am I?” the old sailor answered. Then he
bent forward and spoke close to Billy’s ear to make absolutely certain
of being heard. “I wouldn’t stop any one’s going into the Navy, surely
not at a time like this. But if you go in at the bottom, remember the
mistake I made and, for all you are worth, aim at the top. And when you
get to be something big, that every one salutes and says ‘sir’ to, why,
you might remember once in a while that it was old Ned Saulsby of
Appledore Island that launched you. That is all, only—only—God bless
you.”
He actually took Billy’s arm and pushed him toward the boat. “There is
no one but Johann Happs would stand a chance of getting across in the
face of such a storm,” he added, “but I believe he can make it. I will
explain to your Aunt. Now drop in the tender, and I will push you off.”
People tell on Appledore Island today, and will tell for many a year to
come, of the great storm of April, nineteen seventeen. They will show
you just how far up the shore the waves broke at high tide; they will
tell you the maximum velocity of the wind, and will point out the broken
wreckage of two fishing boats that dragged their anchors and were thrown
upon the beach. And they will always end by saying—
“And would you believe it, there were two boys that put out to sea right
in the face of it? Boys, mind you, and one of them not born and bred to
sailing a boat. A little craft, they had, too; Sanderson’s Echo; you can
see her at anchor over yonder by the wharf.”
[Illustration: “Would you believe it, there were two boys that put to
sea right in the face of it?”]
Only the utter recklessness of two headlong boys could have conceived
such an expedition; only the almost uncanny skill of one and the blind
obedience of the other could ever have carried it through. Billy, who
did not yet know all that there was to be learned of sailing, could
still realize that never had he seen a boat handled as was the little
Echo with Johann Happs at the helm. He himself made a better assistant
than he had on the day when he and Captain Saulsby capsized; he knew
what to do when he could help, and how to keep out of the way when he
could not.
The harbour of Appledore faced the open sea, so that it seemed more than
once that the furious wind must blow them back upon the beach or dash
them against the rocks as they sought to clear the point. Then they were
past it at last, and flying before the wind toward the distant shore.
Billy had one last glimpse of the Island as they rose on the crest of a
wave, then a curtain of rain descended and blotted it from his sight.
Yet even above the wind he could hear the strange, deep humming voice of
Appledore calling aloud to speed them on their way.
“This wind is nothing to what is coming,” Johann shouted.
Except for this remark and for the orders he issued from time to time,
he scarcely spoke throughout their long and perilous voyage.
White-faced, determined, with eyes that seemed to be seeing far visions,
rather than the hungry seas about him, he stood at the tiller and, by
main strength of will it seemed, drove the little boat upon her course.
To Billy it appeared that at any moment one of the vast, green mountains
of water that ran beside, must sweep in upon them with its overwhelming
flood, but always the boat lifted just in time and slipped over the
crests in safety.
He crouched in the bottom, drenched, shivering, blinded by the flying
spray, thinking of nothing but Johann’s next order and whether he could
carry it out. Dimly he realized that the wind shrieked ever louder
through the rigging, that the great waves were becoming greater, that
the squalls of rain were sharper and more frequent. Yet he never doubted
the outcome; he felt certain that Johann’s skill would not fail them,
that the wind might roar as it pleased, and the threatening waves rise
as high as they willed, that it all would bring them only the more
swiftly to the desired haven.
There was no way of telling how long their voyage lasted. Sometimes it
seemed to Billy that it was only a few minutes since they had set out,
and he strained his ears to hear if Appledore were calling still.
Sometimes it seemed that they had been sailing for days and that they
must go on forever, soaked, dazed, worn out to the utmost, but
determined still.
A dim grey shape loomed up through the rain at their right hand.
“Andrew’s Point,” announced Johann tersely. Billy felt an almost
imperceptible change, the wind struck them a shade less fiercely, the
seas were not so heavy, their speed began to slacken. Johann spoke
suddenly once more as a dark line showed vaguely before them.
“That’s Rockford breakwater,” he said. “We’re nearly in.” Then—“Here,
take her, Billy; I’m done!”
He collapsed all at once, sinking to his knees, yet managing somehow to
steady the tiller until Billy’s hand fell upon it. Then, with a queer,
gentle sigh, he dropped upon his face and lay inert, thrown to and fro
as the boat pitched, while the water they had shipped washed back and
forth over him. Billy could do nothing to aid him, for all his attention
and all of his strength were needed to handle the plunging boat. How had
Johann ever stood it so long he wondered, out there in the gale where it
seemed, now, that it was only by a miracle they had lived at all? Could
he manage to round the breakwater unassisted? He felt that he could not
possibly do it, but that he must.
It was accomplished at last and they were in nearly quiet water,
speeding toward the wharf. Three members of the Life-Saving Crew, who
had been watching from the pier, came rowing out to meet them and showed
Billy where he could pick up a mooring and make the Echo fast.
“I thought it was boys!” ejaculated one when first they came alongside.
“There’s no grown man would be fool enough to cross over from Appledore
Island in such weather, and you didn’t get in one second too soon. The
way the wind is now off Andrew’s Point, no boat like yours could last
five minutes.”
They lifted Johann into their dory and brought the two boys ashore.
“He’ll be all right in a bit when he’s got dry and warm again,” said one
of the men, “and as for you, young skipper, you are not in a much better
state yourself.”
“I’m not the skipper,” explained Billy quickly. “It was he that sailed
her all the way over, and only gave out when we got to the breakwater. I
don’t think any one else on earth could have put us across. If you will
take care of him a little I will be so thankful. I have to go on.”
“In that state?” the man exclaimed, but Billy could not be persuaded to
wait. His water-soaked watch had stopped, but a clock in one of
Rockford’s steeples was striking the hour.
“I can only just make the Piscataqua train,” he said. “Telephone back to
Appledore, won’t you please, that we are safe. No, don’t stop me, I have
to go.”
Johann had opened his eyes and now managed to hold out a wet hand to say
farewell.
“You’ll never see Johann Happs again,” he whispered weakly, but even
under his breath the tone was joyous. He was to live to forget his
weakness and his mistakes, Billy knew, and, under some other name, to
become a firm and loyal American.
It was not until he had climbed aboard the jerky, bumpy little train,
that he realized what a plight he was in. Water dripped from his clothes
and splashed in his shoes, his hair was wet, he had lost his hat. There
were not many passengers on the Piscataqua accommodation, but what few
there were stared at him unceasingly and discussed him in whispers
through the whole period of the journey.
Every farmhouse, every crossroads, seemed to be a stopping place for
this especial train; precious minutes were wasted that began to grow
into precious hours.
“Suppose the recruiting place is closed,” he kept thinking. “Suppose
they are closing it now! Suppose the last man they need is just applying
and the officer in charge is saying, ‘Shut the doors!’”
They bumped to a stop at Clifford’s Junction, three miles from
Piscataqua and waited ten minutes—fifteen—twenty.
“How long is this going to last?” Billy finally appealed to the
brakeman.
“We’ve got to wait here for the Boston train and she’s an hour late,”
was the easy reply. “Don’t fuss, young man, she’ll be along by and by.”
“I’ll walk,” returned Billy, and flung himself down the steps.
There was no town at the Junction, no place where a conveyance was to be
had, so walk Billy did. The road was rough and rutty, it seemed
eternally climbing up hills and never going down them; the distance
seemed thirty miles instead of three. The rain clouds cleared and the
sun came out, hot and steaming, to beat mercilessly upon his uncovered
head. His shoes were heavy and stiff from their salt-water soaking,
there was salt, too, in his hair, his eyes and in his parched throat. He
stumbled on, knowing vaguely from the shortening shadows that it was
nearly noon, that the time was flying and that even now it might be too
late.
He began to pass small houses, he crossed the bridge that spanned
Piscataqua’s tide-river, he came into the town itself. He threaded his
way up and down several narrow, crooked streets until he came out at
last upon a broader one, with a feeling that he had seen it before. Yes,
there ahead of him was the recruiting station, he could not mistake it.
His head was swimming with heat and weariness, he could hardly lift his
feet; people stopped and looked strangely at him, but he pressed on. The
flag was still flying, a bluejacket was standing on the step, the door
was open, he was in time.
The sailor held out a hand to help him as he stumbled over the
threshold, but Billy shook it off. What he was about to do he was going
to do alone. Inside a uniformed officer was sitting behind a desk; he,
too, looked up anxiously as he caught a glimpse of the boy’s exhausted
face, and half rose to aid him. Mutely Billy shook his head; he did not
want assistance. He held to the back of a chair and stood up very stiff
and straight before the desk.
His throat was queer and sticky and his lips so dry that at first he
could not speak. When at last the words came, they sounded strange in
his own ears, even though he had rehearsed them a hundred times as he
came along the road.
“I want to enlist in the Navy,” he said.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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books for boys and girls.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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