WHAT HAPPENED TO JACK
Although the cabin had seemed but poorly lighted, the contrast to the
darkness of the promenade deck was very pronounced. Clouds covered
the sky, and so what light might have come from that source was shut
off to a great extent. Then, too, the shadow cast by the overhanging
hurricane-deck above added to the general gloom.
At random, Tom started forward. It seemed as though the chances of
coming upon his comrade would be stronger if he took that direction.
People were more apt to saunter toward the stern of the boat; and
besides, the crew of the quick-firing three-inch gun usually gathered
there, close to their “pet,” which was covered at times with a
tarpaulin, though ever ready for instant use in emergency.
The agitated girl kept at his side. Tom never once doubted the genuine
nature of Bessie Gleason’s emotion. She had hugged her fears to her
heart until they could no longer be endured in solitude, and had then
insisted on coming up from below, in company with the kind Red Cross
nurse, to find her new friends and warn them of the impending peril.
The pair were soon well up forward, at least as far as the promenade
deck was now open to the passengers. In ordinary times it would have
been possible to go along to the captain’s cabin and the wheel room,
and look down upon the lower deck.
Tom’s eyes were not those of a cat to see well in the dark; but by this
time he had grown a little accustomed to the semi-gloom. Besides, the
clouds overhead chanced to lighten, as if in sympathy with his eager
desire to see, and so it came that he suddenly discovered a dark object
lying on the deck that moved a little even as he looked.
The girl too had been straining her eyes, and just as he noticed the
object she whispered close to Tom’s ear:
“Look! Oh, look there! Isn’t that something moving, Tom?”
Before Tom could make any reply they both distinctly caught what
sounded like a groan.
“Jack, is that you?” exclaimed Tom feverishly, still advancing as he
spoke.
“Guess so, as far as I can tell,” came the reply, that filled his
chum’s anxious heart with sudden relief.
Two seconds later the two searchers were alongside the other. Jack
crouched on the deck. He was holding one hand to his head as though it
ached; the other continued to move over his person after the manner of
a person counting his ribs to make sure they were all there and intact.
Tom slipped an arm about his chum.
“What happened, and are you badly hurt, Jack?” he breathed, full of
sympathy, while the girl, saying nothing, started to pat Jack on the
head, as if mutely to express her feelings, though she seemed hardly to
realize what she was doing.
“That’s just what I’m trying to find out,” muttered Jack, and then gave
a sudden quiver as he continued: “Gee! that’s a sore place on the back
of my head! As sure as anything, the scoundrel did whack me there, just
as I thought! I warrant there’ll be a lump as big as a hen’s egg and I
won’t be able to get that cap of mine on during the rest of the voyage!
Awful luck!”
Tom hardly knew whether to feel alarmed by the seriousness of the
occasion or to chuckle at his chum’s sad lament. The idea of bothering
about the fit of a cap when there were such momentous things at stake!
“I’ll fix that lump business all right as soon as I can get you to our
room, Jack,” Tom hastened to assure his chum. “But for goodness’ sake
tell us what happened to you! Bessie came to me, and said she feared
there was some plot afoot to pounce on me in the dark, and when she
learned that you were on the promenade deck she became more than ever
alarmed. So we hurried out to find you.”
“Well, I think you came along just in time to scare ’em off,” said
Jack hesitatingly, as if his wits were gradually returning after his
rough experience. “I have a dim recollection of hearing one fellow
say something to the effect that it wouldn’t be safe to stay around
any longer as someone was coming. They must have slipped across the
barricade here, and gone down the ladder to the lower deck.”
“Then you know there were _two_ of them do you, Jack?” continued the
other.
“Well, one man wouldn’t talk to himself that way,” observed Jack, still
touching his head softly. “But there may have been a dozen for all I
know.”
“You didn’t see them, of course?”
“Hardly, when I got that blow on my head as suddenly as if a rock
had fallen from the sky! But hold on, I do remember feeling some one
grabbing me, and--well, my vest has been torn open, so I guess they
must have been starting to search me when your coming scared the bunch
away.”
“You were lucky, I tell you, Jack. And I hope after this you’ll be
satisfied to take your constitutionals in the daytime. This dark deck
isn’t a very safe place these times, when they douse the glim mostly,
and try to keep every light from showing, so no lurking sub can locate
us.”
“Oh, I’ve had my lesson, all right! Believe me, I don’t mean to try it
a second time. Honest now, do you think they would have tossed me over
the side after going through all my pockets and finding nothing worth
while?”
Jack’s voice had a perceptible tremble to it, as though the idea were
appalling to him, for which no one surely could blame the boy.
“I don’t know what to say to that,” Tom told him. “It seems monstrous;
but then these German spies hold life cheap enough. See what some
of them have been doing in America--putting bombs in the holds of
passenger and freight steamers that carry munitions or food for the
Allies, and which are timed to explode days later, perhaps sending the
whole crew down to watery graves.”
“That’s so,” muttered Jack. Then following up the subject with feverish
eagerness, as if it had a strange and horrible fascination for him
after his own recent narrow escape, he added: “And they blow up
munition plants, regardless of the helpless men and women who may be
working there, set fire to grain elevators, and are ready for anything
that will strike a blow against the enemies of their old Fatherland.”
“But come, suppose you let me help you get on your legs again Jack.
Then we’ll go to our room and I’ll bathe your head with that witch
hazel I have in my bag. And you musn’t forget to thank Bessie because
you owe everything to her. It was her alarm and her hunting me up to
tell me that brought us out to look for you.”
“I’ll never forget it, never,” said Jack in a low tone, as he managed
to find the hand of the girl and squeeze it warmly. “And I guess I’m a
lucky fellow to have such good friends looking after me. But see here,
Tom, do you think they mistook me for you when they tackled me in the
dark here?”
“I shouldn’t wonder if that were the truth,” his chum assured him,
“seeing that you say you felt some one running his hands over your
person as if trying to find a hidden paper or something of the sort.
Even such clever chaps as we have come to believe these German spies
to be can make blunders it seems. This Adolph Tuessig has queered his
game in a number of ways, starting with his not finding more than a
part of my father’s papers.”
Tom put an arm about his chum, and together they made their way along
the deck.
“Where’s Bessie?” suddenly asked Jack, noticing the absence of the girl.
“I think she must have fled from beside us,” replied Tom; “though
I didn’t see her go. Perhaps she feared that her guardian might be
concealed somewhere around and might learn of her presence. She is
afraid of Mr. Potzfeldt, you know. How her people ever came to leave
her in charge of such a man, I can’t imagine, for she says they were
English and French, and he-- Well, we believe him to be thoroughly
pro-German, even if he has become an American citizen.”
“He’s a relative of her mother’s she told me,” Jack explained. “And he
had such an influence over the poor lady that after her death it was
found he had been made Bessie’s guardian, and had control of the money.
I told Bessie I was sure that man must have been able to hypnotize her
sick mother, to cause her to make such a will. I hate his queer eyes;
they give me a strange feeling whenever he looks at me.”
When the boys made their way inside the dimly lighted cabin Jack
insisted on walking alone. He did not want to attract attention.
Once below, and locked in their room, Tom quickly got to work. He found
his chum did have quite a large lump on his head, which he bathed until
it felt much easier. Jack declared he had had his lesson, and was
through with walking a darkened deck.
The vessel was now passing through the danger zone and more caution
than ever was necessary in order to avoid the ever imminent submarine
attacks. So it was that, jeopardized by danger from the sea outside and
by perils from within the ship itself, the two youths flung themselves
into their berths and were soon asleep.