‘That scraping and clinking, do you mean?’
‘Just that. I got as close as I dared, and it looked like road-mending, as far as I could make out. There were three men, and they seemed to be emptying buckets of broken stone or gravel on the embankment, levelling it with shovels and trampling it in. Funny, ain’t it? We must have a look at that. But hang me if I know how to manage it, with their telescope on us all day, and the men themselves there after dark.’
‘Meanwhile, what are we to do? Go on with the ballasting?’
‘Of course. We must stick to our usual routine, now of all times. They mustn’t notice anything. But we mustn’t sail tonight, unless you can leave me behind … Can you and ’Kiah get her across to Erith without me, think?’
‘If it’s necessary, I daresay we can. Weather seems to promise fair enough.’
‘Then that’s what we’ll do. We’ll get away tonight and you shall put me ashore down river, somewhere between here and Flushing. I must be here on the spot for a bit. Cheyne’s worse than useless, and I’m getting nervous.’
‘What about?’
‘Well … I’ll tell you. Did you notice any electrical apparatus down there last night?’
‘Some glass cells and coils of wire? Yes, I did. In the corner, between the telescope and the desk.’
‘That’s right. That’s what I’m nervous about.’
‘Why?’
‘I can’t understand it—and, as you ought to know by now, when I can’t understand things they worry me to death. And the road-mending, too … No, there’s more than buying and selling dynamite going on down there, and I must get at it, or—’
‘Or what?’
‘Ah! That’s what I’d like to know,’ said he. ‘No good talking any more about it. Come up and get this ballast aboard, and off we go.’
We worked till dusk fell, got the hatches on, and began to wait for tide. Voogdt was so nervous, walking up and down and peering into the growing darkness, that he infected me; but I know questions would only bother him, and went about the usual business of getting ready for sea. He only spoke once, and then it was in a low tone.
‘Bet you what you please Van Noppen’s here before we cast off,’ he said. ‘And, what’s more, he’ll make sure we’re all three aboard when we sail.’
‘Think so?’
‘I shall be disappointed in him if he doesn’t,’ said he, and, even as he spoke, Van Noppen’s voice hailed us from the embankment.
‘Sailin’ tonight, Captain?’ he called.
‘In an hour’s time,’ I shouted back.
‘Ah! Shall I come aboard?’
‘You’re very welcome,’ I said. ‘Sorry we can’t offer you a drink, but this is a dry ship.’
‘Dat’s all right,’ he said cheerfully. But instead of coming aboard he sat down on a bollard at the wharf-side and lit a cigarette. Anybody would have thought he had come after a drink, and stayed ashore because we couldn’t give him one. But as all three of us were on deck, Voogdt’s conjecture wasn’t impossible, either.
Cheyne came down shortly after, and the two of them were walking up and down the little wharf when we left. Even after they were out of sight in the darkness, their voices came together across the water to wish us fair weather and a good voyage.
Voogdt went below to pack as soon as we were well away, and I went to interview ’Kiah at the wheel. It was impossible to put Voogdt ashore without his knowledge, and for the first time we had to take the risk of letting him see a departure from our usual routine. I gave him no explanations, only telling him he was to land Voogdt in the dinghy at Hoogplaat, a village on the south side of the river about six or seven miles before we came to Flushing, and further, that he was to hold his tongue about it.
He asked questions, of course.
‘’Ave ’e been doin’ anything?’ he inquired curiously.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well … up there? Up to pub?’ He jerked his head over his shoulder. ‘I heered there was a bit of a barney when you was up there, night ’fore last.’
Nothing was more natural than that he should think Voogdt had got drunk and come into collision with the police, and he couldn’t have got any idea into his thick head that would have served our purpose better.
I winked at him by the light of the binnacle lamp. ‘Ask no questions and you’ll be told no lies,’ I said, very knowingly. ‘If you don’t know you can’t tell, can you? You put him ashore quietly, and if anybody wants to know where he is, you can say you don’t know—and that’ll be the truth.’
’Kiah, full of delight at being admitted to a part in such high intrigue, winked back at me, gave over the wheel into my charge and got the dinghy alongside with the air of a conspirator. After dropping anchor in midstream, I went below and found Voogdt sitting at the cabin table, writing letters. He was still in his filthy working clothes, but had another suit and some belongings tied up in a parcel of sailcloth.
‘All ready?’ I asked.
‘In half a minute.’ He went on writing for a while until he had licked and addressed the last of his envelopes. For a moment he sat looking at them, chin on hand, and then turned to me.
‘Sit down, Jem. I want a talk with you. I’ve been thinking out arrangements … If you want to write me, address Post Office, Erith. I’ll have my letters fetched from there daily. Date, but don’t sign your letters, and don’t head them with any address—nothing but the date. Be as non-committal as possible, but never fail to let me know date, place and destination of every sailing from English ports. I shall report myself to you to the same address every other day. If I don’t there’s something wrong, and you must come and look for me.’
‘Where?’ I asked, with new misgivings at his earnestness.
‘Down at the German sheds. I shall be thereabouts, dead or alive. Don’t look so scared, man. I take a bit of killing.’
‘I won’t have it,’ I cried. ‘D’you think I’m going to leave you like this?’
‘Don’t be an ass. You’re doing your share of the work and I’m doing mine. I’m giving orders and you must obey them.’
‘I won’t. Let’s chuck the whole job, Austin. We’re got enough out of it by now.’
He put his hand on my shoulder, looking very serious.
‘Old man,’ he said, ‘believe me, we can’t chuck it. Unless I’m mistaken it’s more serious than we’ve thought’ up to now. For a lark I told those fellows in London that if I wanted them it was for a Secret Service job, and I tell you the same thing now in all seriousness. I’ve nothing more definite to go on now than I had then, but on my honour I believe that that German explosive company is no more a trading company than we are. But they’re better men than we. They aren’t out for private gain—they’re working for national ends, I’ll swear; and it’s up to us to do the same. So you must sail the Luck and Charity across and leave me here. Tell Ward all this if you see him, but don’t write letters and don’t breathe a word to a single soul else.’
‘You’re risking your life,’ I said.
‘And so are you. If these people are what I think, then your life’s in danger as much as mine—and has been all along. It may be worth their while at any moment to have you run down or blown out of the water, and if it is they’ll do it. Be sure of that. But man, all’s risk at sea—or ashore either, for that matter. How would you rather finish—in a sudden and interesting scuffle, or in a wreck, helping to do this job for the benefit of the little island over across there, or in a bed at home? … There! Enough said! I’ve got action and risk, you the same risk with inaction. Mine’s the more sporting job of the two, isn’t it?’
He laughed straight into my eyes. Going off like that, to risk his life on beastly mud-flats in the dark, he laughed like a schoolboy going out to play. I couldn’t say anything to him—couldn’t speak, even.
‘Now, here’s your final orders. The minute you get to Erith stamp and post these letters. They’re to my crew. You won’t mind their comi
ng now, will you? They’ll report themselves within twelve hours of hearing from you. And I think that’s all. All correspondence with me via Erith Post Office, remember. Goodbye, old man. Good luck.’ He shouldered his bundle, ran up the companion, and was gone.
CHAPTER XVIII
OF A NONDESCRIPT CREW
THAT was a trip, that crossing. I don’t ever remember a more miserable time in all my life. The weather was fine, and the wind fair, but light and fluky, so that we drifted rather than sailed from Flushing as far as the Girdler light. And all the time I was dancing mad with impatience to get to Ward and set a better brain than my own working on Voogdt’s behalf.
There was next to nothing to do aboard, and I spent half the time tramping up and down our tiny deck, thinking, thinking, thinking of Voogdt out alone on those beastly mud-flats till my head ached. If I had left him in a hill country, with some cover about, I don’t think I should have felt so bad about it; but, with the feeling of helplessness I’d experienced on that slippery, sliding jaunt still in my mind, it seemed to me there wasn’t a dry place for him to hide in, in all west Flanders.
’Kiah made it worse. He was one perpetual covert snigger at the idea of helping to dodge the Dutch police, and went about his work more cheerfully than usual, carrying a face like a summer morning, whilst I was stamping up and down deck, whistling for a wind, mad to get to Erith for news, and making a poor job of trying to conceal my anxiety.
I never for a moment doubted that it was dangerous. Voogdt’s word was enough for me. If he’d said Van Noppen was Commander-in-Chief of the German forces I should have believed it, I expect. The way he’d got at the secret of this wolframite business had shown me enough of his quality to ensure me trusting his judgment for ever after. By comparison with Voogdt I was like a blind man—blind and deaf. And the courage of him! To go off single-handed at night, ashore in an unknown district, with clever, sharp-eyed men looking out for him, quite ready to lay him out if they caught him—that was beyond me altogether. And here was I, who had left him to dangers of all sorts, and all unknown, dawdling across Channel in comfort as if I were out on a yachting cruise on a millpond, with that simpering fool ’Kiah for company. I could have drowned myself for the sheer shame of it.
It was a Wednesday night when we left Terneuzen, and we tied up at Erith at midnight of the following Friday. The post office was closed, of course, but I got some stamps at the dock office, posted Voogdt’s letters before I turned in, and next morning was at the office again before eight o’clock waiting for it to open.
There was nothing from him as yet, and I went back aboard almost in a fever. Ward had gone away—to Birmingham, I suppose—and I was too worried to go out and see if Pamela Brand was at her lodgings. There was no sign of our last consignment of wolframite at our last berth, so I imagined Ward had managed to remove the cargo all right.
With only two of us aboard it had been impossible to put any of the present cargo in bags; but I took the risk of declaring it as coprolites instead of ballast, and wrote Ward to say I’d done so. Very likely I was running the risk of inquiries, but I’d got past worrying about that. By this time I didn’t care if the whole business came out. The partners had all they wanted; they had said so; and as for me, I didn’t care for anything beyond getting Voogdt back with a whole skin. Meanwhile the yarn about coprolites would save this one cargo from being taken away, and that was as much as I could do. I wasn’t up to working out further ways and means of stealing wolframite just then.
My letter to Ward was curt—almost rude, I suppose, for I felt savage with the whole concern; but, reflecting that I couldn’t do without his help, I put an urgent postscript at its foot, saying I was in trouble and that he must come and see me at once.
The first of Voogdt’s crew came aboard that afternoon. I became aware of him standing on the quayside—a sturdily built, clean-shaven man in decent blue serge, with a round sailor’s cap and ribbon and the initials of the Southern and Orient Mail in white across the breast of his guernsey. I took him for a quarter-master of that line on a holiday, putting in his time hanging about the waterside, and not even when he hailed me did I guess who he was.
‘You Cap’n West? Can I come aboard?’
Busy at the hand-winch, mechanically helping ’Kiah wind up tubs of mud from the hold, and with the back of my mind busy about Voogdt’s affairs, I scarcely heard the chap, but absent-mindedly grunted out some sort of permission. He jumped into our rigging like a monkey and slid to the deck beside me.
‘Can you give me a job, Cap’n?’ he asked.
‘What sort of a job do you want?’ I demanded, with surprise. A liner’s quartermaster asking for a job on a coasting ketch! It was as though a Harley Street specialist had applied for a billet as assistant to a country vet. or a K.C. begged to be allowed to conduct a five-shilling claim in a county court. I looked the man up and down, thinking he was guying me. ‘What sort of a job do you want?’ I asked again.
‘’Fore the mast,’ he said. He spoke in a brisk, jerky way, but his manner was respectful enough. ‘Or maybe mate, if you want a mate. Can I show you my discharges, Cap’n? In your cabin?’
Then I guessed what he was at, and glanced round at ’Kiah out of the corner of my eye. Fortunately he wasn’t paying any attention, having his work cut out hanging on to the full weight of the winch. A tub was in mid-air, and for the moment I had taken my weight off the handle at my end.
‘Wait a minute,’ I said. ‘Go aft and wait for me.’
The tub once swung ashore, I beckoned a quay lumper to take my place, and then went back to where the stranger stood by the companion, looking about him, and motioned him below.
When we reached the cabin it was he who asked the first question.
‘You really are Captain West?’ he said.
I showed him one or two envelopes addressed to me, and then, seeing he still hung in the wind as if doubtful, took down a book from my little shelf and opened it to show the name on the fly-leaf. It was one Austin had given me, and his name and mine together clinched the matter.
‘“James Carthew-West from Austin Voogdt,”’ he read. ‘Good enough. That’s all right. You’ll know the writing on my testimonial, skipper,’ and he handed me a sheet of letter paper. It bore a short note with neither signature, date nor address—just half-a-dozen lines in Voogdt’s writing on a half-sheet of paper. ‘Report yourself at once to James Carthew-West, skipper, ketch Luck and Charity, Erith. Ship with him in any capacity he thinks fit until you receive further instructions. Trust him entirely.’
‘All right?’ he asked, when I had done reading and handed back the paper.
‘It seems all right. But what the deuce am I to do with you? Quartermasters from liners don’t ship on packets like this without exciting remark.’
‘Hum,’ said he, and then laughed a little. ‘My nautical attire was pitched in the wrong key, eh? I’ll tell you. The S.O.M. intermediate boats call at Antwerp. I’m going there to join one, and am working my passage with you to save my fare. How’s that?’
The idea was good enough, and I nodded in approval.
‘But you can’t do coaster’s work in clean serge.’
‘I’ve brought overalls. Am I to berth in the fo’—castle? What sort of a chap’s that hand of yours?’
‘A sound man—good as gold.’
‘H’m. Has he got fleas, I wonder … All right, no offence meant. It’s no matter, anyway. Fleas won’t kill me: I’ve had ’em before. Now I’ll get my bag aboard and change, and then I’ll come and bear a hand with the winch.’ And, sure enough, in half-an-hour’s time his traps were in the fo’castle and their owner in filthy dungarees, was sweating at the winch in my place, joking with ’Kiah as if he’d known him for months. I began to think Voogdt hadn’t been far out when he said there was some difference between his wasters and my remittance men, for no remittance man that ever I knew would have turned to like that. He’d have stuck up his nose in the air at the idea of associat
ing with ’Kiah, and wanted me to go ashore and cement our acquaintance over a whisky bottle.
When we knoked off for dinner I had a word or two with him whilst ’Kiah was dishing up.
‘What’s your name?’ I asked.
‘Eh? Oh, I don’t know—anything you please. D’ye want my real-name?’
‘I don’t care,’ I said, rather stiffly, for I didn’t altogether like his casual manner. ‘I only want to know what I’m to call you.’
‘Oh—Sellick’ll do, won’t it? Dick Sellick.’
No such name had been on any of the envelopes I had posted, and I said so at once.
‘Never mind. One name’s as good as another … I say, where’s Austin?’
‘I wish to heaven I knew,’ I said, with sincerity.
‘Don’t you? Straight? No? When did you see him last?’
‘Wednesday night.’
‘Where, then? I say, skipper, shut me up if I’m asking too many questions.’
‘I don’t mind your questions if he’s a friend of yours.’
‘Friend, eh? Well, you know him, don’t you? And he stood by me when I was down with enteric at Bloemfontein. Yes, I guess he’s a friend all right.’
‘Well, on Wednesday night ’Kiah—our man there—put him ashore at a crib called Hoogplaat on the south side of the Scheldt, and, if you want to know, I’m scared of my life as to what may have happened to him since.’
‘He’s all right. I’ve seen Austin Voogdt in tight places before … How much does your man know?’
‘Nothing. He thinks he was trying to dodge the Dutch police, who wanted him for a drunken row. That’s all.’
‘How did this letter come to be posted here?’
‘I did that at his instructions.’
‘Any other letters?’
‘Any more questions?’ I said. He laughed.
‘All right,’ said he. ‘Enough said. Only I was curious to know whether we should have any more company across.’
‘As to that, I don’t know any more than you do,’ I said; and ’Kiah coming aft with my dinner brought the conversation to an end.
The Mystery of the Mud Flats Page 21