“Hand over that two-fifty!” I said at last. “I guess it’s not as bad as murder, anyway.”
“No murder about it, Cap’n,” he said. “Just a little business on the way across, and if you hand the Engineer a hundred, he’ll never open his talkin’ trap, an’ that’ll mean nine hundred for your own bank-roll. Here you are, Cap’n!”
“And if a British cruiser drops on me while I’m selling gasoline out there across the counter?” I said as I counted and examined the notes. “Pleasant for me! I’ll be liable to be shot on sight.”
He shrugged his shoulders as he rose from the table.
“Naturally, Cap’n,” he said, yawning, “that’s your lookout. As you said just now, a thousand quid takes a bit of earning, not to mention those letters! Anyway, I’ve got your word, and I guess you’ve been known to keep it.”
“Yes,” I said, sighing a bit. “I keep my word, Mister, and I’d advise you to keep out of my way from now onward. I don’t feel friendly to you, not by a whole lot.”
“Ah! Just so,” he said, grinning. “I’m not aching to hang round your neck. So long, Cap’n!”
* * * *
There you have the mess I’m into. I hate it like poison, but talk is easy! I’m into it, and I suppose I’ve got to go through with the business. Darn that sneak-spy! If ever I get my hands on him, after I’ve got those letters safe, I guess he’ll know a thing or two that’ll help to fit his soul for the Milky Way.
November 6th, night. North Sea.
We’re underway at last. The whole day’s been a nightmare, thinking about things. But I can see no way of getting hold of those letters, except by meeting the submarines. And, of course, I’ve given my word now. I make a point always of sticking to what I promise.
The two circles of blue celluloid were brought down aboard by a messenger-boy just before we cast off. It s pretty plain everything’s been cut and dried.
November 7th.
I had to fix things up with old Mac (my Chief Engineer). I just told him the whole business. Honesty’s the best policy sometimes, even when you’re bucking head-foremost into a mess, like I’m doing. I handed Mac over the whole of the two hundred and fifty I’ve already drawn, as his share, and he’s just arranging things in the engine-room so that no one’ll suspect anything. I don’t know just what he’s done, but he’s cut our speed down by a good three knots an hour, and I reckon that should land us off the Texel Light any-where between eleven and twelve tomorrow night. And, meanwhile, I’m feeling a bit easier, for I’ve been, I’ll admit frankly, in the deuce of a funk lest any of the engine-room gang might guess we were cutting her speed down on purpose. And once let them get that notion into their head, they’ll be sure to smell a rat, and I guess I can’t afford any unneccessary suspicion just now. But once I’ve got those letters back, and safely burnt, I don’t doubt I’ll feel different. I was a fool ever to write them, but plotting and planning to go one better than the Customs forces a man to take risks with his personal liberty now and again. After all, it’s true enough that a man gets what he’s sown. Anyway, that’s how I feel this trip.
Same day, evening.
A big British destroyer overhauled us this afternoon and sent a boat aboard to look at our papers. Believe me, I’m sweating still with the cold shivers I got when the lieutenant in charge of the boat’s crew asked me what our engine-power was, and remarked that we steamed like she was an old tub.
“She’s not steaming up well at all this trip,” I told him. “Mr. MacGallen, my Chief Engineer, was only saying this morning that she’ll want to have her cylinders re-bored if they’re going to keep expenses down and shove her speed up. He’s right.”
Mac hadn’t said anything of the sort, as you will understand, but I’d got to say something, and anyway, I knew the man wasn’t an Engineer officer, or he’d not be doing boarding-duty; so I suppose he’d swallowed it all right, though he was inquisitive enough to take a look into the engine-room and chat a bit with Mac.
When he’d gone, and told us to go ahead again, Mac came along to have a word with me.
“What like was yon chap, Cap’n?” he asked me straight away.
I shrugged my shoulders.
“I guess you know just as much about it as I do, Mac,” I told him. “What’s at the back of your mind that sets you thinking, my son?”
“Just naethin’, Cap’n,” he replied. “I were just wonderin’ how a plain, ignorant sailorman, same as you’d reckon him to be, come to know sae darned much aboot engines.”
“What?” I said. “What’s that, Mac? What makes you think he knew anything about engines?”
“Well, Cap’n,” said Mac, in his quiet, dry way, “you spun him a little yarn aboot oor needin’ oor cylinders re-bored. Ye’d been wiser to ha’ left th’ leein’ to me, I’m thinkin’, for it needs an expert. I refer to ma profession, ye’ll unnerstan’. Nae ignorant sailorman can lie aboot engines wi oot running risks, and that’s what ye were doin’, Cap’n, when ye passed oot yon yarn aboot oor needin’ oor cylinders re-borin’.”
“But what makes you think he knew anything more about engines than any intelligent sailorman is likely to know?” I asked the old beggar, feeling a bit yellow.
Mac, however, was in one of his short moods, and turned away. But after three steps he paused and spoke over his shoulder.
“Sailormen, Cap’n, are just plain ignorant, as any Engineer well kens,” he said. “Yon laddie kenned th’ relationship between firin’ an’ boiler-pressure, not to speak o’ piston-speed and throttle-openin’, juist to mention th’ plain alphebeet o’ the rudiments o’ engin’ runnin’. Man, a blind mule could deferentiate between the runnin’ o’ an engine that needed re-borin’ an’ one that’s pairfectly steam-tight, same as mine. The deeference fair shouts. An’ I’m na ower sure yon laddie couldna read the signs. Anyway, if ought happens, ye’ll ken it werena’ my fault, an’ I’m wish-ful ye should ken it richt now.”
And with that he left me with a fresh infernal worry to add to all my others.
November 8th, evening.
I’m feeling more comfortable in my mind. This business seems to be going right. I fancy old Mac got fancying things about that naval officer. Anyway, there’s nothing in sight now, and we’re shaping nicely to be off the Texel by midnight.
This time tomorrow the whole beastly strain will be over, and I shall have those letters if the Germans mean to play straight with me. And there’ll be a matter of seven hundred and fifty quid as well. Not to be sneezed at these days!
But I’ll not forget the chap that mixed me up with all this. I’ll even up with him one of these days, and, meanwhile, the thing is to do what I’ve got to do without being caught, for that will certainly mean a firing-party, and not even the confounded letters would matter then.
November 9th, early morning.
I kept my promise and saw to it that no light was shown through any of our ports, except three, one each side of my cabin. Also, I fixed the circles of blue celluloid in the middle port on each side.
We were off the Texel Light, about seven miles from the coast, at exactly 11:45 p.m. I rang to dead slow, and then went down and fixed up the ports, as per directions. After that it was just a case of wait.
At 12:25, we were hailed in good English from some vessel on the landward side of us.
“This is the oil ship Ganymede from London to the Hook,” I sung out. “Who are you?”
I was sweating a bit, for I knew that only a war vessel of some kind would be messing round with no lights showing, and the hail had been in such perfect English, I couldn’t swear that it wasn’t a British naval officer who was singing out to us. In that moment the last thing in this wide world I wanted to see was a British sea scout. I guess you can imagine my feelings.
And then, you know, I heard something that put heart into me. It was a German voice talking. I knew then (at least, I was practically certain) that it was one of the German submarines that had found us.
Imm
ediately afterwards the man who had hailed us sung out again:
“We’re coming alongside. Don’t try any tricks, or we’ll make a mess of you!”
I said nothing. The thing was so typically German in sentiment that I knew it was meant literally. It came from the heart.
And then from the port side came another hail in English, though this time with a distinct German accent:
“What ship is that?”
“The oil ship Ganymede, from London to the Hook,” I said. “What do you want?”
“Are you Captain Gault?” asked the voice.
“I am,” I answered. “What about it?”
“We’re coming alongside, Captain,” replied the voice. “Try no tricks, or from the water we shall blow you!”
“Sweet lot!” I said to myself. “They’re keen on blowing! Politeness not on the list of extras at their little boarding establishments!”
“That you, Catty?” called the first voice from the submarine on our starboard side. This was in German. Then sotto voce to some companions:
“It’s Catty, in the S24. We’ll make him wait. We got alongside first.”
I stirred a bit as I heard what he said, for I knew very well that the “S” submarines are the new 1,200-ton type of sea-going boats just completed by Germany for the express purpose of smashing up our merchantmen and so trying to starve our little British tummies.
Then, simultaneously, both on the port and starboard bows, there came fresh hails, also in English, but both somewhat Germanic:
“Vat sheep is dat?” said the one from broad away on the starboard bow in a long drawn-out hail.
“Gif me ze name of dat sheep!” bellowed the voice on the port bow, but from close at hand.
“It’s Schulze and old Grunwald,” said the man who had first hailed me, in violently idiomatic German, to his unseen companion; though for that matter, I couldn’t see any of ’em. The night was too dark for that, though the sea was as still as a pond, pretty near.
The hails were repeated in a somewhat wrathy fashion, and the first-comer sung out to them, in German, to “Speak English! Herr Captain does not understand you!” This with unkind sarcasm, whereat there was laughter from the sea all round the ship, so it seemed to me; and in the same moment I had two further hails, one of them in first-rate English.
“What ship is that?” they asked.
I repeated my text like a kindergarten school chorus.
“And you?” I asked in turn. “How many of you are there? And what on earth do you want, anyway?”
“I guess we want juice, Cap’n,” they told me. “We’re willing to pay for it, and maybe we’ll be able to make you a present of something you’ll be glad to have. But let me tell you straight, if there’s any funny biz, we’ll blow you out of the water!”
“Good Lord!” I said. “Another blower! For the Lord’s sake, quit your threats. What you’re all going to do to this old packet of mine, if I happen to breathe without permission, is likely to injure her constitution! I s’pose a German’s not happy if he’s not blowing up something!”
“You’ll find out all about that if you talk too much, Captain Gault,” he said in a grim sort of way.
It was queer how they had my name at the ends of their tongues. Shows how the whole thing had been planned from back to front. Some big spying going on around out coasts, that’s fairly plain.
“The commodore’s here,” I heard the first-comer saying to his companion in German.
Then the man who spoke perfect English said:
“We’ll come alongside now, three on each beam, Cap’n, and start filling up. We’ll be away inside of two hours, if you act sensible and do your part like a wise man. Tell your Engineer to have the gasoline pipes rigged. The sooner we’re filled up and away, the better for us and for you, too, Cap’n; so get a move on you!”
Ten minutes later they were all fast alongside, and six different pipes were pumping their petrol-tanks full as hard as our pumping engine could run.
And they could just hold some essence, too, I can tell you! We put a hundred and thirty tons of liquid into each of them (they were all the new ocean-going model “S” boats) before they sang out to us to “cut off” and take the hoses back aboard.
And they ran no risks, either. They drew off and tested the stuff from each tank as we tapped it, drawing a full bucketful of essence through each hose, and trying it for density and “gassing.” The last was done with a curious little spray pump and a sparkling contact breaker connected with a dry battery. They were a smart, cute lot of men right enough. But they were painfully uncivil, and I thought once my temper was going to get the better of me, only I needed those letters badly, not to mention my life.
But, to show the breed, they commandeered all my cigars (all, that is, that they could find) and all the liquer whisky in my cabin. Nor did they offer to pay for it when I remonstrated, but had the infernal impudence to tell me that the £750 they were going to hand over to me was sufficient to cover the “smokes and the drinks.” I realised then how true is the saying that you can make an efficient man out of a German, but never a gentleman!
However, the six commanders, having drunk the Kaiser’s health in my whisky, paid me the £750, as agreed upon, and then the one they called the commodore handed me a packet of letters, which I pounced on. I ripped the cord away and opened and looked them through. Yes, they were the letters all right; but there should have been eight, and I had been given only six.
“Six,” I said, turning to the commodore. “There should be eight of these letters. You have given me only six.”
The beggar wasn’t at all ashamed. He didn’t even deny it.
“I’ve the other two in my pocket, Captain,” he said. “We may want your services again in the future, and these” (he slapped the breast of his coat) “may be an inducement to make you run risks where a cash payment alone might fail. Not that Captain Gault has not always got his price, of course.”
Now that’s the exact place where I nearly let my temper go. The darned measliness of hauling me into a mess like they had done, and then slamming that into my face, nearly pulled the lid right off my steam-box. But, fortunately, I kept hold of myself, or I’d not be alive now, I dare swear.
Instead, however, of doing anything rash, I realised that I had worked largely in vain in trying to get hold of those confounded letters. And now the only thing to do was to get the officers out of the ship before I lost control of my temper and started the beginning of a bad mess.
“Gentlemen,” I said, as soon as I could keep my voice fairly steady, “you had better be going. Every minute you stay here increases the risks both for yourselves and for me. It is plainly useless to—”
“B-a-n-g!” went the roar of a great gun from somewhere quite near; and then, in the same instant, three successive booms of sound and a great crash of an explosion alongside, which seemed to shake the vessel.
“Mein Gott!” shouted several of the German officers, and there was a dash for the decks.
The whole night seemed to be one blaze of light. There were at least twenty odd searchlights playing on the ship from both port and starboard. Everything aboard of us was as bright as day.
The German officers rushed, shouting, to the sides. I ran to the port side and started over. The foremost submarine was just disappearing in a smother of oil and broken water. She’d been hit. The two others on that side had shut down the hatches of their conning-towers, and were rapidly submerging themselves.
As I stared, there flicked out half a dozen fierce red flashes from below the searchlights to port, and instantly the whole sea roared to the crashes of bursting shells and heavy gunfire, whilst the port side of the old Ganymede, forrard of me, seemed to splash into volcanoes of fire and flying iron.
And then—C-R-A-S-H!—the whole of the forrard decks, everything, roared heavenwards in a spout of flame. The shells had slapped right through into the forrard oil containers. The entire fore part of the ship bumped,
just as if a giant had kicked her from underneath; then she rolled over slowly to starboard, and I saw that already there were about a dozen power launches pelting for us at full speed, plain to see in the tremendous light all about us.
I went tumbling down the slope of the decks, struck the rail with my body, a brute of a thump, and flopped over like a sack into the sea. I was vaguely conscious, as I went, that all about me others were doing the cascading trick in similar style.
I wasn’t stunned, or seriously damaged in any way, and as soon as I hit the water, it was so beastly, freezingly, brutal cold, I had all my wits about me in a moment. I ploughed up to the surface at the rate of knots, got the water out of my eyes and nose, and yelled to everybody near me to swim away from the old Ganymede before she took the final dip.
Then I did some tall swimming on my own, and in the midst of it, I guess, the Ganymede went; for there was a terrific explosion, and showers of burning drops of oil fell all over the sea for hundreds of yard round.
The next thing I knew, a launch was coming for me full speed, and I had to roar at the fools to shut off or steer wide, one or the other.
Two minutes later they hauled me aboard, and just about one hour after that, aboard one of the British light cruisers. I was the centre, or shall I say the vortex, of as lively a bit of moral disagreement as ever I’ve experienced.
I had been given some rum, a towel, and a change of clothes, and finally, just as a sort of finish to the general tout ensemble, I s’pose, a pair of hand-cuffs and a firm invitation to accompany two particularly muscular and hefty-looking gentlemen to the Captain’s cabin.
I did not know the name of the cruiser till I entered the cabin; but there I saw it, the A— (censored), beautifully inlaid in solid silver on a bronze shield, let into the forrard bulkhead. And, anyway, I was worrying less about that than the things I had to say to the Captain of that particular cruiser.
Boats of the Glen Carrig and Other Nautical Adventures Page 47