"All hands to the boats!"
There was no need for the order to be repeated a second time. The men,
who knew quite well what was coming, were only waiting for the word.
Indeed, in one part of the ship, the captain's orders had been
anticipated by no less a person than Rudolf Stork.
There is little doubt that--had the submarine not appeared when it
did--the days of Rudolf Stork had been numbered, then and there. Had
Captain Crouch found Stork upon the poop, signalling to the enemy, he
would have shot him like a dog, without a moment's hesitation. But,
during the brief space of time whilst Jimmy was in the captain's cabin,
the submarine had drawn quite close to the "Harlech"; and in the
immediate presence of this new and more certain peril Crouch--and Jimmy
also--forgot all about the ship's carpenter who had betrayed all on
board.
There is every reason to suppose that Stork knew well enough the plans
of the German commander. Possibly, he had known all along that the
"Harlech" was doomed. He understood that the so-called submarine
blockade was to be carried out with ruthless energy and perseverance,
and that the lives of neutrals, even of women and children, were not
likely to be held of much account.
He was therefore in the greater haste to get quit of the ship; and for
this his position on the poop--the stern part of the vessel--offered him
an opportunity which he was not likely to refuse.
Hoisted alongside the demolished round-house, where most of the ship's
stores were kept, was a small gig, not much larger than a dinghy, used
as a rule for harbour work. It so happened that when all hands were
called on deck by the shrill note of the boatswain's whistle, the cook
and the cook's mate had hastened from the galley to the poop; and it was
these two men that Stork summoned to his assistance.
Without much difficulty, they lowered the dinghy, and had even launched
it in the water, before Crouch had given the order for the boats to be
manned. To lower a rope was the work of a minute; and before any one
was aware that the ship's carpenter had left the ship, Stork and the two
cooks were rowing frantically for the shore. There was no question but
that they would reach the coast in safety. The dinghy was quite
seaworthy; the damage done to the ship's boats during the bombardment
from the "Dresden" had been repaired upon the voyage. The night was
clear, the sea perfectly calm, and the shore--as we have said--not far
away.
In the meantime, the German commander continued to issue his orders.
Crouch still remained upon the bridge.
"Lower a gangway!" cried the German.
"A gangway!" echoed Crouch in open derision. "Do you think that we're a
pack of school-girls that can't swarm down a rope? For why should we
want a gangway?"
For some reason or other this seemed to infuriate the German.
"Do as you are told," he roared; "and don't argue the point with me.
Lower a gangway at once. Do you imagine I intend to waste one of our
finest Krupp torpedoes on a cargo ship of not five thousand tons! No,
sir, we are not such fools in Germany. As soon as you and your crew are
off, it will be short work, with such a cargo as you carry, to send her
sky high with a bomb."
Crouch said nothing more, but came down from the bridge like a beaten
man. It was when he gained the main-deck that he remembered Rudolf
Stork, and went aft, with a set look upon his face and a loaded revolver
in his hand.
When he reached the poop, he was furious when he saw what had happened.
Not only was the dinghy gone, but the rope--by means of which Stork and
the two cooks had managed to escape--was dangling at the ship's side.
"The rascal!" Crouch hissed between his teeth. Then, thrusting his
revolver into a coat pocket, he clenched his fist, and shook it at the
stars.
"If ever I get the chance," he muttered, "I'll be even with that rogue.
I've been a blind fool, all along."
He returned to the main-deck, and supervised the lowering of the boats,
in which there was ample accommodation for the crew. This work was
carried out in the utmost haste; all on board knew well enough that the
submarine commander would hold to his word, that they had five
minutes--and not a second longer--in which to make good their escape.
Still, there was not much time to spare when the four boats were rowed
round to the foot of the gangway steps, down which filed the crew, the
ship's officers and engineers, each one with a bundle under his arm, in
which he carried his most prized possessions.
Grim resolution, smothered anger, and deep sullen dejection--these were
the sentiments that were imprinted on the face of every man. They were
helpless, and they knew it. The German had spoken truly; the submarine,
fragile, slender and evil-looking, was the absolute master of the
situation. The will of the submarine commander was the law, immutable
and rigid. They had no option but to obey, without question and in
haste.
Crouch remained on deck until--as he thought--every man had descended to
the boats. Then he himself took his place on the stern seat of the last
boat to leave the ship. One after the other, they rowed away in the
darkness, the rhythmic plashing of the oars growing fainter and fainter
in the distance, and seeming to strike upon the silence of the night a
note of sadness that was not out of keeping with the scene: the gentle
moonshine on the water, the distant, rugged hills, and the
ship--forsaken, listless, doomed. Some such thought may have entered
into the mind of the German officer himself, standing on the
conning-tower of the boat that he commanded, miles away from the
Fatherland he loved and the lighted cafes of Berlin.
However that may be, he had evidently no intention of failing in what he
conceived to be his duty. The submarine drew slowly alongside the
gangway steps. The commander ascended to the main-deck, followed by a
seaman who carried in his hand a great egg-shaped thing, from the top of
which protruded the head of a fuse. It was a bomb, timed to explode
precisely two minutes after the lighting of the fuse. Of a certainty,
the "Harlech," of the house of Jason, Stileman and May, was doomed,
sentenced to be destroyed.
None the less, the German officer was in no haste. Leaving the sailor
at the head of the companion-ladder, he entered the captain's cabin,
overhauled the ship's papers, and even helped himself to a box of cigars
which had been given to Crouch by Mr. Jason, Junior, on the day he left
New York.
At the very moment this was happening, Captain Crouch himself, holding
the tiller ropes in his hands, sat in the stern seat of the last boat
like a man who is in a dream. Stern and hard as he was, accustomed to
rule both circumstance and men by sheer force of will, he found this
great calamity by no means easy to bear. It was no simple matter to
realize the full extent of what had happened. He had been specially
chosen to carry out a difficult and dangerous mission; and he had
failed. It was not in his nature to think of what excuse he should
make; he was prepared to take the blame. He knew now that he had made
an irreparable mistake, that he had been deceived. And that brought
back his mind to Rudolf Stork.
From Stork his thoughts turned naturally to Jimmy Burke; and then it was
that he remembered, with the suddenness of an electric shock, that he
had not seen the boy go on board any one of the boats. He thought it
over quickly. Jimmy could not be in the dinghy, for he had caught sight
of the boy on the main-deck after the dinghy had been launched. He was
also equally certain that Jimmy had not descended the gangway when the
crew manned the boats.
For once in his life--probably the only time on record--Captain Crouch
was alarmed. He knew now that he had wronged the stowaway, and in the
deep dejection of the moment was inclined to be unjust to himself,
forgetting that, from the first, the circumstantial evidence had been
all against the boy.
As he sat silent, motionless and downcast, he turned, and looked back at
the dark outline of the forsaken, stricken ship. And little did he
dream of the deed of unexampled heroism, of the scene of such vital and
dramatic interest that even then was being enacted on board.
As the German officer tested Crouch's best cigars, lifting one after the
other to his ear to see that they were dry, a face appeared at the
porthole on the port side of the ship. It was the face of Jimmy
Burke--a white, scared face, upon which, however, was the cast of
resolution.
The German went out on to the main-deck on the starboard side, where he
took the bomb from the sailor's hands. Thence he passed down the
companion-ladder, along the alley-way to the engine-room, where he
descended the trellised stairway, step by step.
On the floor of the engine-room, in the very base of the ship, he
deposited his bomb, and then, stooping, struck a match and lit the end
of the fuse.
At that, he ran up the steps, dashed out upon the forward well-deck, and
hastened down the gangway. And at the very moment he set foot on board
his submarine, Jimmy Burke appeared suddenly in the alley-way, from the
direction of the engineers' mess-room, where he had been hiding.
Thence, he ran to the engine-room, and at the top of the steps paused a
moment to look down.
In the midst of the vast machinery, now idle and seemingly inert, but
still droning from the effect of compressed, wasted steam, upon the
black, oily floor, lay the egg-shaped German bomb. A little spurt of
blue smoke was issuing in coils from the burning fuse, of which not more
than two inches now remained.
With a loud cry that he was not able to suppress, the boy dashed down
the stairs.