Sellick, as he had chosen to call himself, worked like a Trojan all the afternoon. At tea-time I noticed that his hands were galled and bleeding, and it filled me with amazement to see the way Austin could choose and use such a man. Here was he, fresh from idleness and comfort in London, ready and willing to do monotonous and heavy labour for nothing, just because Voogdt had pitched him the tale that there was danger in it. He seemed to throw himself into his part as thoroughly as Voogdt himself could have done. I heard him say to ’Kiah, as he looked at his bleeding palms, that turning a hand-winch was ‘’arder graft, matey, than spinnin’ the wheel aboard the ol’ Pondicherry.’ ’Kiah said he reckoned that was so. You could see he was very pleased at rubbing shoulders on equal terms with such a marine aristocrat as a liner’s quartermaster. That was an exalted social position which he could understand and appreciate.
After tea I went to the post office again, and was rejoiced to find a letter for me had arrived by the midday delivery. By the postmark it had come from Ghent, but it bore no address, only being headed by the date of the day after he had landed.
‘All well. Am going to Antwerp and shall be there until I hear from you. Before sailing report who has joined you to V. Austin, George Hotel, Antwerp. If you don’t hear from me to the contrary leave Mainwaring and Colley at T. with C. They can desert, if you want an excuse for leaving them behind.’
I heaved a sigh of relief. Surely he couldn’t come to much harm in big towns like Ghent or Antwerp. They weren’t like the lonely dark marshes I had been picturing in my mind all the time. One name he mentioned—Mainwaring—I had noticed on one of the letters I had posted overnight. The other was altogether strange. For all I knew, one of them might belong to this new hand, and was on my way back to the boat to ask when I met him coming up the street with ’Kiah, both of them apparently bent on spending an evening ashore. ’Kiah had cleaned himself as usual on leaving work, but Sellick still wore his dirty dungarees, and nobody could have distinguished him from anyone of the dozens of other quay lumpers and stevedores’ men coming up the street from their day’s work at the docks.
I nodded as I passed them and then turned and called him back. ‘Hi you—Sellick.’
He came back at once. ‘Yes, sir?’
‘Your name Mainwaring?’
He shook his head, looking a trifle sulky.
‘Colley?’
‘No. I say—those two bounders aren’t coming. What?’ He seemed very disgusted.
‘Voogdt advises me so.’
‘H’m. Rotters, both!’
‘D’you know them?’ I asked.
‘Sh’ think I did—the rotters! What Austin can see in that pair of fools lays over me.’
‘Don’t you get squabbling aboard my ship,’ I said.
He grinned. ‘Hardly room, eh? All right, though. No private quarrels. I understand. Anybody else coming?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Pish!’ he said. ‘Half the loafers in town, I expect. Nice sort of picnic-party. ’Kiah’s my man. I shall stick by him, and cut the rest of ’em.’
‘Don’t you go making him drunk or any nonsense like that,’ I said.
‘Not I. Milk—warm milk, in little glass bottles with rubber necks. That’s his tipple. I’ll nurse him. That all? Right. So long, skipper.’ And off he went after ’Kiah leaving me staring after him and wondering whether he meant to be impudent or no. I had half-a-mind to follow them and send ’Kiah back on board, but on consideration decided he was big enough to look after himself. Besides, if the new man’s words meant anything beyond mere cheek they implied that ’Kiah didn’t want me grandmothering after him. I can’t say I took to the chap or his ways either, and if he hadn’t been Voogdt’s selection I’d have sacked him then and there.
Having an hour at a loose end, I thought I’d go out and call at Miss Brand’s lodgings, but I had my walk for nothing. She had gone to Birmingham, the landlady thought, and would I leave any message? I gave her my name, asked her to tell Miss Brand I had called and then went back aboard feeling rather disappointed and more depressed than ever. Of course there was no shadow of reason for expecting to find her there; but remembering our last stay at Erith, this present visit seemed extra dull. What with Ward and Miss Brand gone, and with my worrying about Voogdt, and my dislike of this new member of the crew, I didn’t feel over-cheerful.
When I got back to the Luck and Charity it was dusk, and though I saw two men standing on the quayside as I went aboard I didn’t take any particular notice of them. But no sooner had I lit the lamp in my cabin than I heard feet jump on the deck and there came a light knock on the lid of the companion.
‘Who’s there?’ I called.
‘Cap’n West aboard?’ somebody called down the stair.
‘Yes. Come in,’ I answered.
The feet stumbled down the narrow stairway and two men entered the cabin. One was a tall lantern-jawed chap, with a little toothbrush of a moustache, and strong spectacles which magnified his eyes and made them look like an owl’s, large and blinking. The other was short and spare, with a pale, clean-shaven face, dark eyes and hair, and a big forehead. He looked a sulky, ill-conditioned beast, and I disliked him at sight. The tall man I rather fancied. His spectacles gave him an air of amiability, as spectacles often do; and he reminded me a little of Ward, which was all in his favour. Even in this first moment of seeing them I thought to myself that it was just as well I liked one of Voogdt’s selections, for I naturally guessed at once who they were.
‘Cap’n West?’ said the tall man, beaming through his glasses.
I took down the book that had convinced Sellick and laid the fly-leaf before them without a word. Spectacles looked it over carefully and deliberately, as though it were some wonderful old manuscript and it was a privilege to read it. The other man just glanced at it, and no more.
‘Either of you Mainwaring?’ I asked.
The spectacle man beamed and smiled again, as much as to say he was Mainwaring and very pleased about it.
‘Colley?’ I turned to the other, and got a grunt and a scowl by way of answer.
‘You must pardon my friend,’ the other cut in, waving a hand towards him like a Master of Ceremonies at a nigger ball. ‘He’s just gone through a trying time—very trying. He’s—’
The other turned towards him savagely.
‘Shut your fool head,’ he snarled, and again it struck me I’d shipped a pleasant party aboard for once.
‘I suppose you’ve got some sort of credentials or instructions?’ I asked.
‘I’ve a letter here from our mutual friend, dear old Voogdt,’ the Mainwaring man said, fumbling in an inner pocket. His smooth way began to irritate me, in spite of the liking I had taken to the look of him. Later I found everybody was a dear old chap, according to him, or a dear fellow. He was too affable, by half. After an hour or two of his dear old this and dear old that, one turned to Sellick’s jerky talk or Colley’s sulks with positive relief. We English are like that, I think. If you take to a man at first sight, it’s odds you change your mind about him later on, and very often men you dislike at the start turn out to be right good fellows at bottom.
Voogdt’s note to Mainwaring was longer than the other I had seen.
‘Go and dig up Harry Colley—I’ve forgotten his address—and the pair of you go to Erith the afternoon after you get this and find out James Carthey-West, skipper of the Luck and Charity, coasting ketch, who will give you a passage to Terneuzen, on the south bank of the Scheldt. Don’t attract notice, and obey West’s instructions to the letter.’
‘What are the instructions?’ Mainwaring asked, when I handed back the letter.
‘I’ve got to take you to Terneuzen and drop you there. That’s all I know. If necessary, you’re to desert.’
‘And what are we to do now?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Make yourselves scarce, I should think. I can’t ship three extra hands on a boat this size without people noticing it. Yo
u’d better clear out until Monday night, and then stow away forward until we sail.’
‘Three extra hands? Who’s the third?’
‘A chap who calls himself Sellick, and who joined this afternoon on Voogdt’s recommendation, like yourselves. He’s gone ashore now with my man. He knows you—both of you.’
The two men looked at each other for a moment.
‘What sort of looking chap is he?’ Mainwaring asked curiously.
‘Clean-shaven and strongly-built. About five foot ten. Wears blue serge and a Southern and Orient guernsey. Talks in jerks. Says “I say, skipper” at every third word.’
‘That fool!’ Colley cut in.
‘Oh, he’s not such a fool,’ the amiable Mainwaring protested. ‘We know him, Captain. A dear old fellow—a bit of a dilettante, perhaps, but a dear fellow.’
‘He said you were a pair of rotters,’ I remarked. I thought that would stop his flow of affability, but it didn’t.
‘The dear old boy. That’s only his pungent way of speaking—just a mannerism. And what part is he playing?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said again. ‘He’s ordered to ship with me, and I’ve shipped him. That’s all I know. I suppose I shall get further instructions at Terneuzen.’
‘And what’s he been doing since he shipped with you?’ asked Mainwaring. For all his affability, there was a tinge of annoyance in his voice.
‘Winding up a hand-winch, helping unload clay all the afternoon,’ I said.
For some reason or other that didn’t please either of them. You could see they were jealous of this Sellick for having got the start of them, and that same jealousy hung about them all the time we were together. As I found out later, Voogdt knew his men and had picked each of them for his own job. I don’t suppose anyone else could have got the work out of them he did, and he couldn’t have got it any other way than this Secret Service dodge. They were hungry to be helping in it, content to put up with cold and wet and short commons and monotonous waiting, just on the thin chance of being in real danger for once. Keen as boys playing Indians they were, or millionaires stalking big game. Here these two were as jealous as women because Sellick’s had put in three hours on a hand-winch hoisting mud out of a coaster.
‘Where’s Voogdt now?’ Colley asked. He had scarcely spoken before.
‘I don’t know any more than you do,’ I said; and then I thought it wise to tell them the whole yarn from the moment ’Kiah had put him ashore. They listened in silence, but when I had done, they both said they agreed with Sellick.
‘He’s all right. Don’t you fear for him. It’s a dark night when Austin Voogdt loses his way,’ was their verdict.
‘I think so too,’ I said. ‘But I can’t help worrying a bit. However, he’ll be safe enough in Antwerp. Now hadn’t you two better get ashore and out of sight?’
‘Time enough,’ Mainwaring said. ‘There’s nobody about. Let’s go for’ard and see our old friend Sellick, his quarters.’
They were standing up to go, and Colley had stretched a hand to the door, when we heard the thump of feet on deck again. I pushed the others aside and put my head up the companion to find it was only Sellick and ’Kiah returning from their expedition. They went below into the fo’castle and I slipped back down the stair to let the others pass. As they reached the deck I heard a tinkling break out forward—string music of sorts—and the two men stopped like pointer dogs.
‘He’s brought his mandoline,’ said Mainwaring. ‘No objection to our paying a call on our old pal, is there, Cap’n?’
‘I leave it to you,’ I said. ‘Use your own discretion. My man knows nothing remember.’
‘Oh! … Well, I don’t see why we can’t pay a call. We know Mr Sellick, A.B., or bo’sun, or whatever he calls himself. Why shouldn’t we come aboard and see him?’
‘No reason against it that I know of,’ I said.
‘Good enough, then. Come along, Colley.’ And they went forward on tiptoe, quiet as cats.
Half an hour later, feeling curious about them, I went forward and peeped down through the fo’castle companion. By the dim light of the swinging oil lamp the place looked like an old Dutch picture. Sellick had upholstered the cold stove with a couple of sacks and was sitting on it, cross-legged, picking away at the mandoline, and singing—singing rather well, too. ’Kiah sat on a box near by, smoking and looking at him with open admiration, and the other two were squatting knees to nose in the two empty bunks. The song came to an end just as I arrived, and Mainwaring praised it loudly.
‘You can play the mandoline—er—Sellick. I’ll say that for you … I should like to be shipmates with you for a trip. D’ye think the skipper of this fine commodious vessel would give us a passage across to Belgium?’
‘Holland,’ Sellick corrected him.
‘No. South side the Scheldt is Belgium.’
‘It’s Holland, I tell you. Ask matey here.’
’Kiah, the deep-sea rover, on being questioned, corborated Sellick.
‘Well Holland or Belgium, it’s no odds. Would he give us a passage, think?’
‘I daresay. He’s giving me one. Ask my mate here again.’
‘What do you think?’ Mainwaring asked ’Kiah.
‘Oh, I dunno.’ ’Kiah was too busy admiring his talented new shipmate to think of anything else.
‘What sort is he?’ Mainwaring turned again to Sellick, who was idly picking at the strings of his little instrument.
‘All right, by the look of him. Bit of a granny, I should think.’
‘’E’s a better man ’n what you are,’ ’Kiah cut in hotly. ‘A better man ’n what any of ’ee are, s’there!’
‘All right, my dear old chap. Keep cool about it,’ said Mainwaring. ‘Nobody doubts it.’
‘Then what did ’ee say ’e was a granny for? Granny! My—’ ’Kiah, excited, used worse language than I had ever discredited him with. ‘Granny! Better fit you was ’alf the granny ’e is. ’E’d take you three on with one ’and an’ knock ’ee silly, all three of ’ee.’
‘He’s big enough, and ugly enough,’ Sellick said coolly. ‘Keep your hair on, matey. Nobody’s got anything to say against your skipper. He’s a better man than I am, past a doubt.’
‘Ah! that ’e is,’ said ’Kiah, rather nonplussed by this unexpected agreement; and Sellick striking up another lively tune to end the squabble, I took advantage of the opportunity to retire unheard.
Next morning was fine and clear and, being Sunday, the docks were almost deserted. I went straight to the post office, hoping I might get a letter before it closed at ten o’clock, but nothing further had arrived, and I was on my way back to the boat when I ran right into Ward himself. He was carrying his bag from the railway station and looked tired and done up, having travelled all night, but I was mighty glad to see him, none the less, and he seemed pleased to hear me say so.
‘Come to the hotel and have some breakfast with me,’ he said. ‘Then you can tell me all about it, and we can talk it over at our leisure … Voogdt deserted, eh? Well, I expect he had his reasons. A man to trust, that, I fancy.’
After breakfast we lit our pipes and sat in easy chairs by the open window, and I told him the whole story, commencing from the moment when Cheyne had asked us to dinner with Van Noppen. He had let his pipe out before I had finished, but it didn’t want that to show he was alive to the importance of it all. He was fairly lost in interest, blinking and staring, filled with curiosity.
‘And now you know as much about it as I do,’ I said, knocking my pipe out on the window-sill. ‘Can you make head or tail of it? Because I can’t.’
‘Extraordinary!’ he said. ‘Most extraordinary!’ He got up and began to walk about the room, head down and hands behind his back. ‘What do you make of it yourself?’ He stopped suddenly to stare at me.
‘It beats me—all of it. From the moment I put my finger into Van Noppen’s glass and tasted that water, to the last thing last night, it’s like a crazy dream. I don�
�t doubt Voogdt sincerely believes—’
‘You can take it from me—if my opinion is of any value—that when your friend Voogdt sincerely believes anything, he’s got reason for it. Take our own case. This wolframite business had been running for eighteen months, and not a soul along the waterside of two maritime countries had suspected anything. Master Voogdt comes along, knowing nothing whatever of the coasting business and nothing of chemistry, and yet he gets to the heart of the whole thing inside six months. A very remarkable man, in my opinion.’
‘Then do you think he’s right in suspecting these Germans to be in the Secret Service?’
‘That I can’t say. But I do say that, if he says so, it’s an idea worth entertaining. I may be talking utter nonsense in this connection, but of course that bit of coastline from the Scheldt to the Maas is one of the most vital positions in Europe. Half a dozen important rivers—rivers navigable for miles, and tapping the very heart of central Europe—all flow into the sea amongst those forty miles of mud-banks. I know nothing of high politics, but you’ve only to look at a map of Europe to see that much. Only I don’t quite understand what a German post can be doing there at Terneuzen. The place is fortified, I know, but only for the protection of the ship canal.’
‘Fortified, is it? I never knew that.’
‘Oh, you’re not the stuff spies are made of,’ said he, smiling. ‘I don’t mind telling you I’d been there two or three times before I noticed it myself. Those embankments beyond the village—there’s a small garrison and some modern guns—but surely one or two men could examine them without exciting notice better than this cumbrous trading station business. I’m still inclined to think they’re after the wolframite.’
‘Cheyne swears they aren’t. He says nothing has left the place except barge loads of explosives.’
‘I don’t know that I should employ Willis Cheyne to go a-spying, any more than either of us two,’ Ward declared. ‘No, Voogdt’s the man, and we must back him up—at least until we’re sure he’s mistaken. If it’s a national service we must do our best to help. We’ll write him here as instructed and ask whether I shall take this information to the War Office, and I’ll go back to London and wait his instructions there. And, look here, you’ll want money for this business. You must draw on me.’
The Mystery of the Mud Flats Page 22