The tactic taught him two things; one, that his house was evidently being watched; the other, that the hyphenated-folk would go to quite some lengths to get what they wanted.
The old butler’s taxi was rammed by a powerful car on the way to the docks, and the next thing Harpentwater learned was that the butler was in hospital, badly hurt, and that the portmanteaux had vanished. They were, however, recovered a week later by the police from an empty house in Belles Avenue. Nothing was missing; but the portmanteaux were literally cut to pieces. Evidently someone had searched earnestly for something; and Harpentwater found it easy enough to guess just what that was.
A little later, he engaged a new butler and caught him prying the first day. He said nothing, but kept an eye on him. About that time, my ship hit Baltimore, and a mutual friend reminded him that I have something of a penchant for tackling, shall I say, evasive little jobs. I have always found that if one puts one’s mind to it, people are not difficult to deceive. Even the U.S.A. Customs people are not quite so obstinately opposed to this view as they used to be.
Well, Mr. Harpentwater sent for me, and I agreed to tackle the job. The rest you know—or most of it. The evening of that same day saw us at sea.
Harpentwater was promptly on time with his box, but the German organization was a jolly sight more prompt; for about a dozen men (of surprisingly hefty build) came down that forenoon, to take a passage home in the old Bandanga, and I couldn’t refuse good passage-money; for that wouldn’t be fair to my owners. However, you can bet your boots I took one or two little precautions. If they thought to start a rough-house in my ship as soon as we were away to sea, well I just fancy they’d have got hauled up with a round-turn!
The box was brought alongside by a boatman, just before one o’clock, and there was the whole two dozen (twenty-three, to be exact) of those German-American passengers of mine knocking around the decks, trying to seem as if they weren’t looking for something. Well, I guess if they thought those plans and the model were theirs, just because their beastly butler-spy put them wise to our little plot, why… well, you’ll see, that’s all! I could carry that job through comfortably, Germans or no Germans, and I shouldn’t need a squad of U.S.A. Militia to help me, either. God helps those who help themselves is as true as ever it was, and truer still if you stop the other fellow helping himself! Anyway, I was not going to hand back that thousand dollars. I was going to keep ’em and earn ’em! You bet.
First of all, I had word with my two Mates, Mr. Alty and Mr. Truss, and then I sent for Vinner, the First Engineer, and had a word with him. After that, I went down to my cabin and sat a bit, thinking out the best hiding place for that box of valuables.
Half an hour later I’d hit on the very place, and the box was safe out of sight.
The following day, things were still quiet, but there was mischief brewing, and my two Mates and I were walking about like blessed arsenals! I’d a big Colt automatic in each jacket pocket, in addition to my waist-coat pocket pet; and both Mr. Alty and Mr. Truss sported large-calibre revolvers of old but efficient pattern.
I’d had a further consultation with the Chief, and he and his three Engineers were all carrying guns; not to mention that they’d rigged a steam hose as a sort of “last stand” notion. The Chief told me I could depend on his holding the engine-room, and I believed him; but, all the same, twenty-three armed Germans—and I was quite sure they were armed—was a hefty problem for the seven of us to tackle.
After thinking things over, I sent for Keller, the bo’sun, and told him how matters lay. He begged to get the men and the stokers and join a rush on the Germans; but I pointed out that we could not move a finger until they did something illegal; and that any rushing of them would probably mean simply plain murder to any unarmed shell-back who might try it on.
In fact, as I proceeded to explain to the bo’sun, the reason I’d taken him into my confidence was to make sure of the men’s safety. For, if and when the trouble did start, he was to send every man into the fo’cas’le, and make them shut the steel doors and keep out of the way. You see, we had only six A.B.s all told, and they couldn’t do much, even if they were armed, which, as I’ve made clear, they were not. And Vinner’s stokers were in the same hole, for there was not a gun in the ship except those that the four Engineers and my two Mates and I were carrying.
What the Germans had got, of course I didn’t know; but I guessed from the look of them, they were all trained soldiers in mufti, and they would sprout guns like an arsenal when the time came!
Anyway, I made it clear to the bo’sun that I expected him to run the men and keep them free of any row with the Germans. I instructed him to keep a man at the wheel unless the Germans actually ordered otherwise. But whatever he did there was to be no chance given the enemy to pot the men. I felt sure, if they kept quiet and did not meddle, the Germans would be glad enough to leave them alone.
The trouble came on during the first day watch.
It began when one of the passengers, a Herr Deberswynch came to my cabin and asked for a word with me. After a little humming and hawing around the mulberry bush, he quit all pretense at finesse, and told me he knew the plans and model were aboard, and that he was empowered to offer me five thousand dollars for them cash down, and no trouble.
“There’ll be no trouble in any ship I command unless I start it!” I told him.
“There are twenty-three of us, Cap’n!” he said, in a way that was plainly an ugly threat.
“There are, are there!” I answered, and was going to make one jump at him; only right then someone knocked at the door of my cabin, and three more of the passengers shoved in their heads.
“Well, Deberswynch,” said one of them, as if I didn’t exist, “what’s the Cap’n say?”
“He says get out of this cabin and do it now!” I ripped out, boiling. “All of you! Get!”
They tried to argue for a minute, but Deberswynch shepherded them out, then turned to me at the door. “We’ll give you a few minutes to think it over, Cap’n,” he said. “I guess you’ll maybe see your way to touching that five thousand dollars, as soon as you get looking hard and plain at all the facts. If not, of course—” he grinned, and slapped his coat pocket in a way that told what was in it. “We’re all trained soldiers, you know, Cap’n” he added quietly, “and we mean to have what we want if we have to shoot you all, sink the ship, and go back in one of the boats. That’s plain talk.”
“Very,” I said. “I guess I’d better have a word with my two Mates. I’ll give you your answers in ten minutes.”
“That’s the idea, Cap’n,” he agreed. “I thought you’d see it was no use going against us.”
Then they all cleared off, and I went up on to the bridge.
My two Mates were both up there, chatting after the “tea relief,” and as soon as they heard my step on the bridge, they turned toward me.
I gave a quick look at them; then jerked my head towards my chart-house, which is steel-built, doors and all, and lies just aft of the wheel-house.
“The game’s started!” I said, as they came up to me. “Get into the chart-house smart, both of you. Mr. Truss, screw up the steel covers of the after ports, and you, Mr. Alty, phone down to Mr. Vinner and warn him. Tell him to keep the engines going at half-speed unless he hears from me.” I jumped for the wheel-house door and pulled it open.
“Pelter,” I said to the man at the wheel, “get right forrard and tell the bo’sun the passengers have started ructions. Then take your orders from him till further notice.”
“Aye, aye, Sir,” said the A.B., but he hesitated, unable at first to comprehend that I meant him actually to leave the wheel untended, even for a minute.
“Smart now!” I said. “You’ll have to leave the wheel. The bo’sun’ll send you aft again, as soon as you’ve given him my message.”
“Aye, aye, Sir,” he said again; then hesitatingly loosed the wheel-spokes and went off on his errand. Probably it was the first time in
his life he had ever seen the wheel deserted at sea.
I left the wheel-house and went out on to the bridge again. Away aft there was a bunch of Germans grouped around Herr Deberswynch, who saw me and waved his hand to signify that he was coming for his answer.
He started to come forward, along with the whole lot of them, and I walked to the after side of the bridge. There I waited for them, close to the starboard door of my chart-house, which Mr. Truss, my Second Mate held open, ready for me to bunk to cover.
“Well, Cap’n?” said Herr Deberswynch, as soon as they had all climbed up on to the bridge-deck, just below the after part of the bridge.
“What do you want?” I asked, pretending that I refused to take any notice of what he had said earlier.
“Come off the roof, Cap’n,” he replied. “We’ve come for your answer. Are you going to hand those plans and the model over quietly, or are you going looking for trouble?”
“Don’t talk rot,” I said. “You couldn’t get that box inside of a month’s search. And if you think I’m going to help you, you’re a bigger owl than you look; and that’s putting it strong!”
“Quit that, Cap’n!” he said in a way that showed he was ready to get ugly the next moment. “Just answer out straight; is it peace or war? If it’s war, the Lord help you; for inside of five minutes I’ll have you down here on your knees, begging like a toy dog. Now then, what is it?”
“Well,” I said, speaking very slowly and in a thoughtful-sounding way so as to hide the fact that I was planning to act mighty quick. “Well, Mister Deberswynch, I’m not great on spelling long words… I guess I’ll take the three-letter one.”
He grabbed my meaning quicker than the rest and hauled out a full-sized Mauser pistol with a quick jerk from inside his coat; but I beat him on the draw, for I had both hands in the side pockets of my coat, gripping my two big Colts, and I fired slam through the pockets… I sounded like a hefty sort of Fifth of November.
My shooting was not half bad, considering the handicap; though, of course, I’ve practiced that sort of trick-shooting before and burnt many a good coat. I plugged Herr Deberswynch through the right shoulder, and again through the left forearm. And then, before any one of the others could get a gun on me, I’d shoved ten more shots down among their legs. I reckon I got six or seven of ’em between the ankle and the hip.
And then I made one prize jump sideways into the chart-house, and Mr. Truss slammed and bolted the door. As he did so, the whole steel starboard side of the house thudded and pinged with bullets; and for a full half-minute, we couldn’t hear each other speak well. “My oath!” I said, when it eased off, “I’m just as well pleased to be in out of the rain!”
“Good Lord, Sir!” said Mr. Truss, “that was cutting it fine. Did you kill many of them?
“Nary a one, Mister,” I told him. “And let me make it plain right now that if we can put this business through, minus corpses, home or foreign, it’ll be better all round. Shoot to hurt as much as you like, but not for the undertaker. We don’t want old Uncle Sam shoving his nose into this business; and I reckon I can tame that little lot outside without killing ’em. They’ve a deal to learn yet; and I’m going to do the teaching…. Mr. Alt, you phoned Mr. Vinner?”
“Yes, Sir,” said the First Mate. “He’s waiting for ’em now.”
“Get him again,” I said, “and tell him not to shoot to kill, if he can avoid it. Tell him I’ll get a talk in with him in a bit…. Now, Mr. Truss, give me a hand here with these forrard port-covers before the beggars get at them!” The fusilade had ended now, and while Mr. Alty rang up the Chief Engineer, the Second Mate and I completed the screwing up of the steel port-covers. Then I switched on the lights and told the two Mates not to make a sound, while I listened.
For ten minutes, none of us moved; but we could not hear anything beyond the faint croak of the bulkheads, as the vessel rolled a little.
“Looks as if you’d scared ’em into taking cover,” said Mr. Truss. “I s’pose you’re sure you didn’t make a mistake an’ kill ’em all off, Sir?”
As he made his joke, he got his answer, and a pretty rough answer it was, too. There came a thundering crash that made me think, for a moment, the ship had blown up. The whole air of the house seemed literally to jolt, and for a second or two I felt a sort of dizzy, head-pressure kind of feeling which cleared and left me feeling rather sick.
“You two all right?” I heard myself saying in a dull-sounding, far-away sort of voice. And then, without seeming to expect them to answer, I stared round at the starboard door. It was bowed in, like a bent sheet of tin that’s been kicked. I could see a gap between the lower half of the door-edge and the jamb, big enough to shove my arm through; and up through this a bluish smoke was curling in thin streams.
As I stared, I realized that a queer singing had gone suddenly out of my ears; and in place of it a cotton-wooly sort of quietness. I could hear the odd ship sounds again. I heard the Mate’s voice behind me saying, very slowly, and somehow tonelessly:
“I’m all right, Sir.”
And then the Second Mate’s voice, more alive: “I’m not hurt, Sir. Are you all right? The brutes tried to blow us up. I’d….”
As he spoke, through the bowed-in space between the edge of the bent door and the jamb, I saw a face come into view, very slowly and cautiously, round the after end of the house. I watched it come more and more into sight. Then another came, and then another, and after that a fourth. They tiptoed nearer to the bent door, and I could see them staring with a queer sort of fearful curiosity, more like boys who’ve been in mischief than grown men.
“It’s not fallen in,” I heard one of them say.
“Do you think the air-shock will have snuffed them?” said another voice.
“Likely enough!” said someone more to the left. “They’re quiet enough, anyhow. Try the door, Dussol.”
I got up quickly, tiptoed over to the switch, and put out the lights. I beckoned to the Mates not to move; and then I pulled out my two Colts, put them on the table and started reloading them quietly. There was just enough light coming into the place, through the space round the bent door, to enable me to see what I was doing.
As I did so, I heard the bent door creak and whine where it still hung on its hinges and the upper of the two heavy bolts. The lower bolt-hasp had been blown clean away.
“It’s fast yet,” said the man who had been called Dussol. “Good stuff to stand that Mark X stuff. Pity we’ve only another. Anyway, I guess it’s put them all to sleep for good; and that’s something done.”
“Serves the fools right!” said the man who had just spoken. “There’s eight of us drilled through the legs and Herr Deberswynch has got all he’ll want for a week or two. That guy couldn’t half use a gun! Damn him! Try the door again; all of us together now!”
There was much grunting, denoting physical effort, and the door whined and creaked weirdly; but it was good Tyne steel, and it “stayed put.”
They gave it up at last.
“Get some of those things that go in the capstans,” said the voice of the man who seemed to be giving all the orders. “I’d use that other Mark X canister, but if the box is inside, we might smash it up too much. And anyway, we’ll want that to sink the darned ship when we leave her!”
I had finished loading my Colts, and I tiptoed over to where the two Mates sat.
“Mr. Alty,” I said to the First Mate, “I’m going out on deck to do a bit of sniping if I can. You keep your eyes on the starboard door, and when they bring those caps’n bars, give it to ’em in the legs. I’ll pepper ’em, then run from behind the big ventilator… Mr. Truss, you come and open the port door for me. Stand by it with your guns so as to let me in smart when I sing out. And don’t get losing your head and loosing off at me in mistake. Come along!”
The First Mate moved across to where he could cover the big open place along the bolt-edge of the door, and Mr. Truss, the Second Mate, came across and let me out through
the port doorway.
There was just the first grey of the dusk in the air, which suited me very well, and I slid down on to my hands and crept quickly along by the coaming of the house until I’d reached the ventilator, which came up in two canvas-covered wire winches.
Here I squatted, pretty safe for the moment, with my guns ready in my fists. I could hear the Germans talking on the other side of the house; and then one of them sung out to the men who had gone for the capstan bars to hurry up.
“Coming right now!” I heard a man singing out, and as he spoke there came a shot from somewhere forrard of me. At first I thought it was the Mate firing through the burst edge of the starboard door; and then there came another shot and shouting down on the main well-deck. And immediately afterwards, a dozen shots, or more, fired in an irregular sort of volley.
“What the deuce is up, down there?” I thought to myself, and the same moment I realized that the Germans on the other side of the chart-house were racing towards the forrard end of the bridge deck to see what was up. Directly after that, there was a whole lot more shooting, and I thought it was time to make myself useful, especially as a way aft I could see four more of the passengers coming forrard along the after well-deck; and all of them showing marked and varied limps. I’m afraid I smiled a little unkindly, but I was careful not to let them see me; for they all had Mauser pistols in their hands, and I knew they’d be hankering to get a good square pot at me. They were obviously coming to take a turn in whatever new trouble was on.
I didn’t wait to admire them anymore; but went down on to my hands and knees again, and crept quickly forrard along by the side of the house, until the after break of the bridge-deck hid me from the coming “limpers” on the after main-deck. Then I stood up and ran on tiptoe to the forrard break and looked down on to the fore well-deck.
It was Keller, the bo’sun! I might have known a man with a name like that couldn’t keep out of a fight. He was in his little steel half-deck and firing through one of the ports, with what I guessed was an old navy revolver that he must have had in his sea-chest. It had a bark like a four-inch gun; and it was plain that my bo’sun was vastly enjoying himself; though with a lot more courage than brains; for they’d have had him inside of another minute if I hadn’t come along right then. But it was an interesting little scene right enough.
Boats of the Glen Carrig and Other Nautical Adventures Page 49