they left the top side here, and, anyway, I'm no torpedo-layer. Let
me see now ... that _Ulfrida Crump_ is doing about eight point five
... I'll give her two degrees."
With which decision he made cautious readjustments of his
compass-deflecting wire, and set about training the submarine to the
angle he sought. Then he threw over the switch to the bow tube.
The incredible happened. The Germans--the methodical, plodding,
scientific Germans--had left the connections of the deck control
intact. A 20-inch torpedo jumped out of the bow tube with a
splutter, and sped away, leaving a vivid wake of soda-water.
The Germans on the _Ulfrida Crump_ saw her, and howled. They tried
to change course and stop engines, but had no time to do either
effectively. The steel fish hit them on the quarter with a
shattering explosion. It carried T.N.T. enough to have blown up a
battleship, and so made small bones of a trumpery steam trawler. And
apparently the trawler carried a hefty wad of munitions for her
friend the submarine. These went off piecemeal as the bits of her
sank.
Captain Kettle lit another of the German captain's cigars, and felt
that he was once more in the swim of things.
"All right, Miss," he called down to the motorboat, "you may sit up
and look round now. There's nothing objectionable afloat. I'm sorry
for the fish, that's all. Men that laugh like those men did aren't
wholesome. Phew! haven't these fancy new explosives a bad smell to
them? Well, there's one comfort, our fine tin yacht here is taking
us quickly out into sweet air again. Haven't they whooped up the
speed since we buzzed off that cracker?"
"What's their idea? Where do they think they are going?"
"If this compass was acting as Nature and Lord Kelvin intended, she'd
be heading for the Wolf Rock, and then round the corner and down
Channel for happy Dutchland. Oh, they've picked up navigation all
right, these Dutchmen, and no error about that. You don't catch
these new swine making an error of thirty minutes in their
observations a matter of habit like the old crowd did.
But--ahem!--they sleep unconscious of the wire, that goes about their
tower higher."
Captain Kettle coughed and blushed, and looked rather coyly for Dr.
Mary Brown's comment. That young woman, however, had not the vaguest
idea of what he was talking about--be it remembered she "always found
compasses detestable." She was horribly shocked at what had
occurred. "And you've killed them all!" she lamented.
"I'm sorry there were so few, Miss. If you feel any qualms, try and
remember those fishermen who got laughed at because they couldn't
swim in top-boots. A lot of those would be married men with wives to
support at home, and likely enough a parcel of youngsters. You know
what fishermen are in that way, Miss. It doesn't do to let Dutchmen
laugh at Britishers. It gives them ideas above their station."
"But you're not going to kill the poor fellows in the submarine?
You'll take them prisoners?"
The sailor pulled doubtfully at his red torpedo beard. "A dozen
years back I'd have said yes, Miss. But these modern Dutchmen have
learnt to shoot, and don't mind doing it. Besides, we haven't such a
thing as a pair of irons about your ship."
"You'll have to take their parole."
"I'm afraid that's a French word, Miss, that they don't understand,
and it would be a bit too much of a strain to teach them at this time
of day."
"Well," said Dr. Brown doggedly, "you will own, Captain, that I
thought out the whole of this scheme. What I want, and what you must
help me to do, is to see that submarine sail into port under the
suffragette flag, and her crew taken ashore under a suffragette
guard. This means a great deal to me, Captain."
"Yes, Miss," said Kettle politely, "I see you're set on it."
"And don't you agree with me that what I've mapped out is the proper
course? Say honestly, now."
Captain Kettle, in his humble way, set Great Britain first, but he
was not a man to put such a ridiculous idea into bald words.
Instead, he got rather redder than nature had already made him, and
said a little haltingly that they "must see," and, as an
afterthought, added that he was sure they would both of them do their
little best. And Dr. Brown pitied his hesitating speech, but felt
sure he meant what he said. The worst of these merchant service
captains was that they had such a pitiful lack of expression, thought
Dr. Mary Brown.
The submarine was drawing a foot more water than Kettle had reckoned
on, and so grounded before he expected. She was doing her fourteen
knots at the time, and the jolt was severe. Captain Kettle was
within an ace of being shot overboard, and, as it was, dinged himself
rather shrewdly on the conning-tower rail. The motor-boat stubbed
violently on her painter, and Dr. Brown received a most indecorous
tumble, which the sailor was too polite to notice till she had
readjusted herself angrily on to her feet. The vessels lay on a
narrow beach of sand at the foot of cliffs.
"Now, Miss," said Kettle, throwing away the sodden stump of his last
cigar, "here's the place where you can be really useful. Can you fix
up an electric fuse for a bomb?"
"What for?"
"Well, you see, Miss, I've found quite a store of nice little handy
bombs in one of this conning-tower's lockers--the sort they blow up
surrendered steamers with. It's a regular Swiss Family Robinson's
ship this, for handy stores."
"But it was arranged we were to set the crew free, on parole. I
ordered you to do that not ten minutes ago. You can't have
forgotten."
"Quite so, Miss. But I'm just wanting to get ready a little stand-by
in case of accidents. It's just possible these Dutchmen may give
their parole easily enough, and then forget all about it when they
see there are only two of us."
"Oh, if you doubt them beforehand----"
"Nothing unpleasant meant, Miss, believe me. But I am a family man,
and expected home again, and one can't afford to take unnecessary
risks. The question is, can you fix up an electric exploder on to
one of these bombs? It's out of my line, but I suppose with your
college learning it will come as easy to you as boiling a saucepan of
tea."
"I know nothing whatever about the subject," said Dr. Mary Brown
shortly.
"Well, Miss," said the sailor with a sigh, "I suppose I must worry it
out myself. I only hope I don't blow off any fingers in the process.
These detonators are nasty things for an ordinary man to play about
with."
Thereafter for the next hour he was busied over mysterious devices to
this end, only breaking off once to shed his German cap and overcoat,
and again to attend to some other enthusiast who had found another
hack-saw, and was once more attempting to cut through the wire that
secured the conning-tower hatch.
When his labours were complete, Captain Kettle got over the
submarine's side and found the outboard ends of the broadside torpedo
tubes. The boat had grounded on a falling tide, and he was able to
work, standing on the sand, with the water just above his middle. He
took it for granted that a live torpedo was ready inside each port,
and slung bombs so that an explosion would set these off. He was a
man who always liked full effects for his firework displays. Then he
completed his wiring, took tests, and went ashore with the balance of
the wires to where the motor-boat lay high and dry beside a tidy lump
of rock on the beach.
"Now, Miss," said he, "as soon as you have got half a mile away I
will get things moving."
Dr. Mary Brown put her chin in the air. "I shall stay here," she
announced, "and take the surrender myself."
There was a silence. She turned slowly, and saw beside her a
truculent-looking man, who was very different from the little sailor
who had blushed so readily and done her bidding with such politeness.
"Get out of this, one-time," he ordered.
Dr. Brown did as she was told.
The sailor waded back to the submarine, climbed on board, climbed to
the conning-tower top, and inquired for the officer in command.
"I am Captain Kettle. Who are you?"
A name and rank were given.
"I want your unconditional surrender."
"I give it. I have no alternative."
"You are to come up one by one, unarmed, go ashore, and attempt no
retaliation. Do you promise that?"
"Again I have no alternative. I promise."
"In the name of yourself and crew?"
"In the name of all of us. I swear it on my honour."
"Good. Keep that promise in memory. I am casting off the down-haul
on this hatch. In two minutes' time you may come out, unarmed,
remember, one by one, and go off as instructed. Got all that?"
"Perfectly."
Captain Kettle waded ashore, walked to the motor-boat, uncoupled one
of the terminals, switched on the trembler, and stood by with the
loose terminal in his hand. "Come along," he hailed. "Come along,
the first man."
A bearded officer shot up through the hatch, glared around him, and
called below. Then he hailed the landscape generally. "Who do I
surrender to?"
Captain Kettle bowed politely.
"You! You are not even Navy? You are alone?"
"Quite."
"Then I take back what I said."
"I felt sure you would," said Captain Kettle. "But I'll blow you and
your whole outfit to the place you came from if you don't do exactly
as I ordered."
"Pig-face!" yelled the German, and bawled down the hatch. A gush of
armed men answered him, and then Captain Kettle connected the loose
terminal.
* * * * *
When the sailor came to his senses Dr. Mary Brown had his head on her
arm, and was looking down at him with more tenderness than he
considered wholesome for a married man.
"I thought the end of the world had come," she told him. "I never
dreamt such an explosion could be possible. There is no vestige of
anything left. And the cliff has fallen down on the top of where it
was."
"I told you, Miss," said Kettle rather faintly, "I was a poor hand at
arranging these sort of things."
"You are wounded, too. Let me examine you."
Captain Kettle pulled himself together, and stood up. "Oh, that's
all right, thank you, Miss. I've only got a bit of a dint in the
forearm."
"Well, I'll cut away your coat, and we'll see how bad it is."
The sailor stepped back, and took off the garment himself, and then
felt in a pocket and produced a small old-fashioned pewter flask.
"I'm glad that's not hurt, anyway, Miss. It is full of Horner's
Perfect Cure, the best thing in the world for cuts and stomachic
troubles."
"But, my dear Captain, you must not use a patent medicine at a time
like this. You are really wounded, and, though you keep on
forgetting it, I am really a doctor. I will dress it for you."
"I am sure you are what you say," said Captain Kettle soothingly.
"But you see, Miss, this wound is rather a personal matter, and I
wish it properly attended to. I am going to dress it with Horner,
and I am going to drink half the rest of the flask. Then all will be
well. I will give you what is left, and if you use it with judgment,
believe me, you will lay the foundation of a really valuable medical
practice. With Horner's Perfect Cure, Miss, you can tackle
everything that comes into the biggest hospital in London or South
Shields. It's the last word in medicine, and, mark you, I know.
I've tried everything that's advertised.
"I believe, by the way, Miss, I never told you where that submarine
was getting her fuel oil from. They had it stored in a couple of old
marine boilers from some wreck which were lying just under the
surface of the bay. I could see them quite clearly."
VI
REJOINING AT ONCE
We will call him Plough--Lieutenant John B. Plough, R.N.--because
that name is not in the Navy List, and his own is. He had been on
special leave at Marienbad "on urgent private affairs," which in less
technical English might be explained as an expedition to that German
health resort with a view of inspecting a girl he had danced with
twice at home, and trying to persuade her that her mission in life
was to become Mrs. Plough. And from this idyllic occupation he had
been torn by a bald telegram which commanded him to "Rejoin at Once."
He wondered vaguely what was up. He had not seen an English paper
for a week, and could not read German, and had heard no word about
the threatened war. But he was too good an officer to question such
an order. He packed his traps, saw the girl, explained the case to
her in ten words, kissed her rapturously, much to her surprise, and
just caught the 5.40, without having time to register his luggage.
Thereafter began his troubles.
The train lagged minutes, and half-hours, and hours behind scheduled
time, and finally gave up its attempt altogether. An order was
passed for "All turn out." The line was commandeered for troops.
Civil traffic must go round by so-and-so and so-and-so, which were
apparently German junctions further east, but nobody seemed to have
heard of them before. A train for that route would leave in six
hours' time.
It was fifteen hours before that train got started, and even when it
was under way a mule tram could have beaten it for speed. John B.
Plough, being a Naval man, arrived in the train clean-shaven,
well-fed, and rested. The balance of the passengers were
be-draggled, and cross, and tired. Plough gave up his window seat in
a first-class carriage to a middle-aged Englishwoman with a capable
face, and went and stood in the corridor.
The train travelled on single lines through a country unknown to
English tourists, and stopped at innumerable stations at which the
platforms were all full of excited people. But progress northwards
to the coast was sure if it was slow. At intervals officials, not
belonging to the railway, came into the carriages and stared rudely
at the passengers. They passed insolent eyes over all
non-Germans--especially the women--and made notes in pocket-books
which seemed to amuse them. Certain of the fathers and husbands and
brothers got annoyed, and said things, though this did not in the
least abate the nuisance. J.B. Plough said nothing. He wanted to
get home.
Finally the train drew in to the outskirts of a Port--what Port must
be left vague here, for reasons which will appear--and official
vigilance increased. A spectacled man in uniform--everybody seemed
to be in uniform here--came into the carriage with six aggressively
armed soldiers at his heels.
"Passports?"
They none of them had one. An American, with dry humour, explained
that Cooks had told him passports were only needed now in the
uncivilized parts of Europe.
"Arrest all these pig-dogs," said the official, and went on to the
next carriage. And arrested they were--children, women, and men.
Thereafter came a most galling part of the exodus. The streets of
the Sea Port were crammed with people, troops for the most part, and
all jeered and hooted as the prisoners were marched through them.
The officer of their escort seemed to possess little of the boasted
German order and method. He dragged them from office to office, and
from prison to prison, arguing and expostulating with the keepers of
each, and every time being sent on somewhere else. The prisoners
lagged and expostulated, but the bayonets of the escorts pressed them
into movement, and the weak ones limped along as best they could.
Plough had a child on his back, and the middle-aged Englishwoman he
had talked to in the train, on his arm, by the time they reached a
destination that seemed a final one.
This looked a private house, was in the Wilhelm Strasse, and turned
out to be their captor's personal residence. He proceeded to arrange
the forty prisoners in front of him and pompously to examine them.
The majority claimed to be, and probably were, Americans, and
produced letters and other documents to prove it. Also being tired
and angry, they told him exactly what the little old United States
would do when their President got busy, and woke up to the fact of
his insignificant existence.
This being patently true, probably frightened Jack-in-Office, but
like Pharaoh of old it also hardened his heart, and he refused to let
them go. So they were herded apart for the time being in another
room, with a couple of fixed bayonets to keep them soothed. The
French were similarly filtered out, insulted, and set apart. There
remained Plough, and the middle-aged woman of the train whose name he
did not know.
"Names?" They gave them.
"English?" Certainly.
"What relation to one another?"
"None," said Plough.
"Liar," said Jack. "You are son and mother. I have seen you arm in
arm."
"Evidence seems hardly conclusive," suggested the Naval man, who was
used to sifting testimony.
The lady coloured with annoyance at being thought old enough to have
such a strapping son.
"Zo! You show confusion, because I haf der truth discovered. You
shall be shut up together, and if I had my way, on to-morrow you
should be shot, you treacherous pig-dogs of English that dare to make
war on Germany. Away with dem."
Shut up together they were, in a small bare room at the top of the
house, but the supply of bayonet-bearers having run out of stock, a
locked door was considered enough for them.
Plough went to the window. "Phew! four stories from the ground, and
not so much as a fall-pipe to climb down by. And we're at war with
Germany, by gad, and I'm here."
"And you're in the Navy?" said madam.
"How did you find that out?"
"Well, for one thing you carry your trade mark about with you
plainly, and for another you were walking about Marienbad with a
young lady who is a customer of mine, and I asked who you were and
got told."
"Sorry I didn't see you at Marienbad."
"Not at all. We are in different sets, and likely to remain so. But
we've got an interest in common. We both want to get out of here.
You, I presume, wish to rejoin your ship. I have a big millinery
business in Bradford that will go to pieces if I'm not there to look
after it; and I've two daughters, too, who will want me, though," she
added as a tart afterthought, "they aren't anywhere near so old as
you."
"Eh?" said Plough, who didn't quite follow this last on the spur of
the moment. "Oh, I see. Yes, it was pretty beastly rude of that
bumptious ass downstairs. Now, if he'd only guessed us as brother
and sister, what?"
"That would have been quite as impossible as the other," said madam
uncompromisingly. "Let's get to the point. You, I suppose, would
risk a good deal to get home?"
"I'd risk my neck," said the sailor simply. "But I don't see any way
out of this room."
"Well, I do. The question is, if I help you out of here will you
take me along with you as far as you go?"
"I shouldn't care to risk it. You see, pardon my putting it bluntly,
but you're a woman."
"I've reason to suspect it. But when it isn't a case of walking,
which I frankly admit I can't do in these absurd shoes, I'm tougher
than most men. Come now, Mr. Plough, I know the way out and you
don't. Will you take me?"
Lieutenant John B. Plough hesitated for a moment, frankly looking
madam over. Then, "it's a deal," said he, "and if anything happens
to you--well, it'll have happened to me first. Now, where's the way
out?"
"Through that door."
"Door. Why, my good lady, that's wall."
"Also door. It's papered like the rest of the wall, but I noticed
the keyhole, and whilst you were staring out of window I opened it.
It leads to the next house."
"And after we get there, what then?"
"I leave that to you, partner," said madam, giving him the State
curtsy she taught to customers who bought Presentation Gowns.
John B. Plough's grin wrinkled up his face. "Madam," said he,
"you're a daisy. The Lord, He only knows what amount of
Hoch-der-Kaisers there are in the next house, and if we're caught
we're liable to be tried for anything between simony and arson; but
if you're game to come with me, I'm game to take you. And, blow me,
if you'll teach me stitching I'll teach you sailoring."
"Go on into that house," said madam, "and don't talk twaddle. I want
to get home to my work."
The passage of the next house proved to be the easiest thing
imaginable. They went inside, found the stair, and crept down it
like cats to the next landing. They were undisturbed. They crept
down the next flight, and the next, and--the next, and stood in a
barbarously furnished hall, full of light from raw electrics. There
was not a sound or a whisper in the whole house.
"All out bean-feasting," said Plough, "and arranging which estates
they'll have when they have taken England. Come along, partner."
"Madam, please," said the lady, and pulled the latch of the front
door.
"Half a minute. Do you know this city?"
"I don't even know the name of it."
"H'm, I'm ahead of you there. It's----. Now let me worry out where
we are and how the river-front lies. Don't speak for at least
fifteen seconds.... Right, I've got it. We must bear east with a
bit of north in it. Salt water's my pigeon, and as we've got to
cross it to get home, we may as well make for it at once. Now let me
open that door, part--madam, and we'll get under way."
Wilhelm Strasse, when they stepped out into it, closing the house
door behind them, was a mere crowd of people. All were talking, and
most looked important. A German occupies far more standing-room for
an ordinary conversation than is sufficient for the Briton, by reason
of his language being obscure and the necessity of eking it out by
dumb show, and when his hand semaphoring is cramped by a crowd, it is
enough to irritate him at once.
"Madam," said John B. Plough with an explanatory wave that was really
a very passable imitation of the genuine article, "you've got to
carry in your head the bed-rock fact that these people are all as mad
as hay, and if they drop to the fact that you come from Bradford,
England, they're just as likely as not to lynch you. Do you speak
German?"
"Not a word."
"Quite right. It's a filthy language. But you mustn't let any one
hear a word of even your worst English. Happy thought--we're both
deaf and dumb."
"I don't even know the deaf and dumb alphabet."
"Nor do I. But we're the educated kind with a sort of Admiralty code
of our own. Madam, I'm not joking; you must look serious and keep it
up."
The next street was quieter; and the next street after which they
branched into was quieter still.
"I do feel lonely out of that crowd," muttered Plough. "This is just
the place for some busy ass to spot us for what we are. Keep it up,
madam. Here are two heroes coming across the road to ask why and
wherefore."
Two men came and planted themselves firmly across the pavement, and
put questions in rapid German. Plough replied in his best imitation
deaf and dumb. One of the Germans rocked with laughter. The other
said spitefully: "Zo! English spies. We will take you to the polis."
"I doubt it," said John B. Plough, and laid stringent hands on the
outside ear of each, and bumped their heads violently together.
The two inquirers collapsed into a limp heap on the pavement. Plough
plucked the lady by the arm, and ran with her round the next corner,
and the next corner after that.
And then: "You really must try and talk more realistic deaf and dumb,
madam," said he, "or you will get us into bad trouble presently."
"That's right, lay the blame on me," said she rather breathlessly.
"How like a man!"
"I'm sorry your first wasn't a success," said John B. Plough with a
grin, "but there may be better times coming. Cheer up, madam.
Here's the water front. Now we'll begin to move."
They stood on the string-piece of a wharf, looking upstream and down,
through an opalescent river-mist; and to them, up some weed-covered
steps, there suddenly arrived a man in uniform. He stopped, stared
at them, and then cried: "Zo, und again, Eenglish."
"Well, don't make a song about it," said Plough.
"You admeet? Zo! Den you come along mit me."
"Got an appointment elsewhere," said Plough, and clipped the man
under the jaw. He tripped backwards over the string piece, and fell
with a splash into the river.
"He'll drown," said madam, shivering.
"He probably will if he can't swim," said Plough philosophically.
"He should have thought of that before he started being impertinent
to a comparative stranger. These Germans always are so unmannerly.
But he's left a boat tied up at the bottom of these stairs, and I
guess we'd better use it. Mind your skirts against the weed and the
mud, and for the Lord's sake don't skid."
"You go first," said madam, "and help me down."
The boat, once it was cast off from the stairs, swung down stream,
and in the charge of a strong ebb, sped away towards the river's
mouth. They whirled past half a dozen destroyers, which blazed with
light, and were alive with men.