Kitabı oku: «Ruth Fielding Homeward Bound; A Red Cross Worker's Ocean Perils», sayfa 5
CHAPTER XI – DEVELOPMENTS
At ten minutes or so before noon a smart little sub-officer came to Ruth’s stateroom and asked her to accompany him to the engine-room, amidships. As a last thought the girl took a chiffon veil with her, and before she stepped into the quarters where all the shiny machinery was, she threw the veil over her head and face. It had suddenly been impressed on her mind that she did not care to have the man she had taken for a German identify her, even if she did him.
She found both Mr. Dowd and the commander of the steamship on this deck. The first officer came to Ruth in rather an apologetic way.
“I did not know,” he said gently, “that I was getting you into any trouble when I repeated what you told me to Captain Hastings. This is my very first voyage with him – and, believe me, it shall be my last!”
His eyes sparkled, and it was evident that he had found the pompous little commander much to his distaste. The captain did not seek to speak to Ruth at all. He stood at one side as the stokers filed in from forward, ready to relieve those working in the fireroom below.
“Do you see him in that line, Miss Fielding?” whispered the first officer.
She scrutinized the men carefully. Early that morning she had had plenty of opportunity to get the appearance of the German who spoke to Irma Lentz photographed on her mind, and she knew at first glance that he was not in this group.
However, she took her time and scrutinized them all carefully. There was not a single flaxen-haired man among them, and nobody that in the least seemed like the man she had in mind.
“No,” she said to Mr. Dowd. “He is not here.”
“Wait till the others come up. There! The boatswain pipes.”
The shrill whistle started the waiting stokers down the ladder into the stoke-hole. In a minute or two a red, sweating, ashes-streaked face appeared as the first of the watch relieved came up into the engine room. This was not the man Ruth looked for.
One after another the men appeared – Irish, Swede, Dane, negro, and nondescript; but never a German. And not one of the fellows looked at all like the man Ruth expected to see. Dowd gazed upon her questioningly. Ruth slowly shook her head.
“Any more firemen or coal passers down there, boy?” Dowd asked the negro stoker.
“No, suh! Ain’t none of de watch lef’ behind,” declared the man, as he followed his mates forward.
“Well, are you satisfied?” snapped the thin voice of Captain Hastings.
“Not altogether,” Ruth bravely retorted. “It might be that the man was not a stoker. I only thought so because the officer who interrupted the conversation I overheard seemed to consider him a stoker. He sent the man off that part of the deck.”
“What officer?” demanded the captain, doubtfully. “An officer of the ship? One of my officers?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Ha, you want to examine my officers, then, I presume?”
“Not at all,” Ruth said coldly. “I am not taking any pleasure in this investigation, I assure you.”
“It will be easy enough to find the officer whom Miss Fielding refers to,” said Mr. Dowd, interposing before Captain Hastings could speak again. “I know who was on duty at that hour this morning. It will be easily discovered who the officer is. And if he remembers the man on deck – ”
“Ah – yes – if he does,” said Captain Hastings in his very nastiest way.
Ruth’s cheeks flamed again. Mr. Dowd placed a gentle hand upon her sleeve.
“Never mind that oaf,” he whispered. “He doesn’t know how to behave himself. How he ever got command of a ship like this – well, it shows to what straits we have come in this wartime. Do you mind meeting me later abaft the stacks on deck? I will bring the men, one of whom I think may be the chap we are looking for. Of course he will remember if he drove a seaman or a stoker off the after deck this morning.”
Ruth did not see how she could refuse the respectful and sensible first officer, but she certainly was angry with Captain Hastings and she swept by him to the stairway without giving him another glance.
“It’s all bosh!” she heard him say to Mr. Dowd, as she started for the open deck.
Her dignity was hurt, as well as her indignation aroused. She was not in the habit of having her word doubted; and it seemed that Captain Hastings certainly did consider that there was reason for thinking her untruthful. She was more than sorry that she had taken the Red Cross man’s advice and brought this matter to the attention of Mr. Dowd in the first place.
Yet the first officer was her friend. She could see that. He did not intend to let the matter rest at a point where Captain Hastings would have any reason for intimating that Ruth had not been exact in her statements of fact.
Of course, the girl of the Red Mill had not taken so close a look at the ship’s officer who had driven the stoker off the deck, as she had at the stoker himself. But she was quite confident she would know him. She had not seen him since, that was sure.
After half an hour or so Mr. Dowd came to the place where she sat sheltered from the stiff breeze that was blowing, with a uniformed man in toll. It was not the officer whom she had seen early in the morning.
“I quite remember seeing Miss Fielding on deck at dawn,” said the young fellow politely. “But I do not remember seeing any of the crew except those at work scrubbing down.”
“This was on the starboard run, Miss Fielding?” suggested Mr. Dowd.
“Yes, sir. It was right yonder,” and she pointed to the spot in question.
“It must be Dykman, then, you wish to see, Mr. Dowd,” said the under officer, saluting. “Shall I send him here, sir?”
“If you will,” Dowd said, and remained himself to talk pleasantly to the American girl.
After a time another man in uniform approached the spot. He was not a young man; yet he was smooth-faced, ruddy, and had a smart way about him. But his countenance was lined and there was a small scar just below his eye on one cheek.
“Mr. Dykman, Miss Fielding,” Dowd said. “Is Mr. Dykman the officer whom you saw, Miss Fielding?”
Dykman bowed with a military manner. Ruth eyed him quietly. He did not look like an Englishman, that was sure.
“This is the officer I saw this morning,” she said, confidently. She felt that she could not be mistaken, although she had not noted his manner and countenance so directly at the time indicated. He looked surprised but said nothing in rejoinder, glancing at Mr. Dowd, instead, for an explanation.
“We are trying,” said the first officer, “to identify a man – one of the crew – who was out of place on the deck here this morning during your watch, Mr. Dykman. About what time was it, Miss Fielding?”
“The sun was just coming up,” she said, watching Dykman’s face.
“There were various members of the deck watch here then, sir,” Dykman said respectfully. “We were washing decks.”
“You came past here,” Ruth said quietly, “and admonished the man for standing here. You told him he had no business aft.”
The man wagged his head slowly and showed no remembrance of the incident by his expression of countenance. His eyes, she saw, were hard, and round, and blue.
“You intimated that he was a stoker,” Ruth continued, with quite as much confidence as before.
Indeed, the more doubt seemed cast upon her statement the more confident she became. She could not understand why this man denied knowledge of the incident, unless —
She glanced at Dowd. He was frowning and had reddened. But he was not looking at her. He was looking at Dykman.
“Well, sir?” he snapped suddenly.
“No, sir. I do not remember the occurrence,” the sub-officer said respectfully but with a finality there could be no mistaking.
“That will do, then,” said Mr. Dowd, and waved his hand in dismissal.
Dykman bowed again and marched away. Ruth watched the face of the first officer closely. Had he shown the least suspicion of her she would have said no more. But, instead, he looked at her frankly now that the sub-officer had gone, and demanded angrily:
“Now, what do you suppose that means? Are you positive you have identified Dykman?”
“He was the man who spoke to the stoker – yes.”
“Then why the – ahem! Well! Why should he deny it?”
“It seems to clinch my argument,” Ruth said. “There is something underhanded going on – some plot – some mystery. This Dykman must be in it.”
“By Jove!”
“Have you known the man long?”
“He is a new member of the ship’s company – as I am,” admitted Dowd.
“He may be ‘Boldig,’” said Ruth, smiling faintly.
“I will find out what is known of him,” the first officer promised. “Meanwhile do you think you would like to look over the seamen and other members of the crew?”
“I do not think there would be any use in my doing so – not at present. They probably know what we are after and the flaxen-haired man will remain hidden. The boat is large.”
“True,” Dowd agreed thoughtfully. “And as we do not know his name it would be difficult to find him on the ship’s roster. Besides, I do not believe that Captain Hastings would allow further search. You see what kind of a man he is, Miss Fielding.”
“Make no excuse, Mr. Dowd,” she said hastily. “You have done all you can. I am sorry I started this in the first place. I merely considered it my duty to do so.”
“I quite appreciate your attitude,” he said, bowing over her hand. “And I think you did right. There is something on foot that must be investigated, Captain Hastings, or no Captain Hastings!”
He went away abruptly, and Ruth had time to think it over. She did not fancy the situation at all.
CHAPTER XII – THE MAN IN THE MOTOR BOAT
She felt that she had taken hold of something bigger than she could handle just at this time. Ruth really wanted to remain quiet – on deck or in her stateroom – and nurse her injured shoulder and fix her mind on the troubles that seemed of late to have assailed her.
There was trouble awaiting her at home at the Red Mill. Aunt Alvirah must be very ill, or Uncle Jabez Potter would never have written as he had. The miserly old miller was in a greatly perturbed state of mind. He and Aunt Alvirah would need Ruth’s help and comfort. She looked forward to a very inactive and dull life at the Red Mill for a while.
After her activities in France, and in other places before she sailed as a Red Cross worker, home would indeed be dull. She loved Aunt Alvirah – even the old miller himself; but Ruth Fielding was not a stay-at-home body by nature and training.
She might have mental exercise in writing scenarios for the Alectrion Film Corporation. She had had good success in that work – and there was money in it. But it did not attract her now. Her work at the Clair hospital seemed to have unfitted her for her old interests and duties. In fact, she was not satisfied to be out of touch with active affairs while a state of war continued abroad.
The trouble at home, and the anxiety she felt for Tom’s safety, served to put her in a most unhappy frame of mind. She surely would have given her mind to unpleasant reveries had not this matter which began with Irma Lentz come up.
This racked her mind instead of more serious troubles. Perhaps it was as well. Ruth disliked having been considered unwarrantably interfering, as Captain Hastings undoubtedly considered she had been.
She answered the second luncheon call and passed Irma Lentz coming out of the saloon-cabin. The woman with the eyeglasses looked her up and down, haughtily tossed her head, and passed on. Ruth was aware that several other first cabin passengers looked at her oddly. It was plain that some tale of Ruth’s “mare’s nest” had been circulated.
And this must be through Captain Hastings. Nobody else, she was sure, could have been tactless enough to tell Miss Lentz what Ruth had said. Had the short-haired “artist” taken others of the passengers into her confidence, or was that, too, the work of the steamship’s commander?
At about this time there probably was not a steamship crossing the Atlantic of the character of the Admiral Pekhard, and with the number and variety of passengers she carried, on which there was not some kind of spy scare. So many dreadful things were happening at sea, and the Germans seemed so far-reaching and ruthless in their plots, that there was little wonder that this should be so.
It would have been the part of wisdom had Captain Hastings kept the matter quiet. Instead, the pompous little skipper had evidently revealed Ruth’s suspicions to the very person most concerned – Miss Lentz. Through her, word must have been passed to the flaxen-haired man Ruth had seen talking with her, and likewise to the officer, Dykman, who must likewise be in the plot.
What would be the outcome? If there really was a conspiracy to harm the ship, either on the sea or after she docked at New York, had it been nipped in the bud? Or would it be carried through, whether or no?
There was so little but suspicion to bolster up Ruth Fielding’s belief that she had no foundation upon which to build an actual accusation against Miss Lentz and her associates, whoever they might be.
She felt the weakness of her case. There was, perhaps, some reason for Captain Hastings to doubt her word. But he should not have revealed her private information to the passengers. That not only was unfair to Ruth but made it almost impossible for her to prove her case.
She ate her lunch with the help of the steward, for her Red Cross friend had eaten and gone. When she returned to the open deck she saw Miss Lentz the center of a group of eagerly talking passengers. There were two wounded army officers in the group. They all stared curiously at Ruth Fielding as she passed. Nobody spoke to her. There was evidently being formed a cabal against her among the first cabin passengers.
Not that she particularly cared. There was really nobody she wished to be friendly with, and in ten days or so the ship would reach New York and the incident would be closed. That is, if nothing happened to retard the voyage.
She sought her own chair, which had been placed in a favored spot by the deck steward, and wrapped herself as well as she could in her rug, having only one hand to use. Nobody came to offer aid. She was being quite ostracized.
From where she sat she had a good view of the main deck and of all the ship forward of the smoke stacks. The sea remained calm and the Admiral Pekhard plowed through it with some speed. Not a sail nor a banner of smoke was visible. They were a good way from land by now, and it was evident, too, that they were in no very popular steamship lane. With the submarines as active as they were, unconvoyed ships steered clear of well-known routes, where the German sea-monsters were most likely to lie in wait.
With nobody to distract her attention, Ruth took considerable present interest in the conning of the ship and the work of the seamen about the deck. She looked, too, for some figure that would suggest the flaxen-haired man she had seen talking with Miss Lentz at dawn.
Dykman was on duty as watch officer now. Ruth felt that he must be one of the conspirators. Otherwise he could not have so blandly denied knowledge of the flaxen-haired man who talked German.
The Admiral Pekhard was a well-furnished boat, as has been said. Besides the lifeboats swung at her davits, there were nests of smaller boats forward. And just in front of where Ruth Fielding sat there was a canvas-covered motor craft of small size. There was a larger motor launch lashed on the main deck astern of where Ruth’s chair was established.
She noted, after a time, that some of the points lashing the canvas cover of the small launch forward of her station were unfastened. Everything else about the covered craft was taut and shipshape. Ruth wondered at the displacement of the loosened cords.
And then, vastly to her surprise, she saw the canvas stir. Something, or somebody, was beneath it. Whatever it was under the canvas cover, its movements were made with extreme caution.
Ruth was more puzzled than alarmed. She had heard of people stowing themselves away upon steamships, and she wondered at first if such were the explanation of the unknown, lying in the motor launch.
Should she speak to Mr. Dowd about this? Then, considering what had followed her interference in circumstances that happened at dawn here on the deck of the steamship, she hesitated to do so. She did not wish to get into further trouble.
But she watched the opening in the canvas cover. More than once within the next hour she observed the boat cover wrinkle and move, as whatever was beneath it squirmed and crept about.
Then, quite expectedly, she saw a face at the opening. The canvas was lifted slightly and a forehead and pair of eyes were visible for a moment.
The fact that somebody was hiding in the launch could not be denied. Yet it really was none of Ruth Fielding’s business. This might have nothing at all to do with Miss Lentz, the flaxen-haired man, and Dykman.
She watched the place warily. If the man under the canvas saw her watching he would be warned, of course, that his presence was discovered. She must speak to Mr. Dowd most casually if she desired to inform the first officer of this mysterious circumstance.
Nor could she get up and look for the first officer. While she was gone the man in the motor boat might slip out and escape. Ruth did not propose to put herself a second time in a position where her word might be doubted.
While she remained in her chair the person hiding in the boat would surely not come out. She did not wish to send a message to Mr. Dowd in such a way that her motive for bringing him here would be suspected.
The first officer was not on the bridge; so it was not his watch on duty. Ruth beckoned a deck steward, tipped him, and requested him to bring her a pencil, a sheet of paper, and envelope from the ship’s writing room. She was taking no chances with a verbal message.
The man fulfilled her request. Meanwhile nobody else seemed to notice the man peering out from the canvas cover of the motor boat. Indeed, the fellow had disappeared now and was lying quiet.
Ruth penciled the following sentences on the paper: “There is a stowaway in the small motor boat forward of where I am sitting. I will not move until you can come and investigate. R. F.”
She sealed this in the envelope, doing it all in her lap so that she could not be observed from the boat. Then she wrote Mr. Dowd’s name upon the envelope.
The steward came back and she whispered to him to take the note to Mr. Dowd and deliver it into the first officer’s own hand – to nobody else. As the man started away Ruth for some reason turned her head.
Across the deck stood Irma Lentz. Her black eyes flashed into Ruth’s, and the woman seemed about to start toward her. Then she wheeled and swiftly went forward.
Had she seen the letter Ruth had sent to the chief officer? Did she suspect to whom Ruth had written – and the object of the note? And, above all, did she suspect that Ruth had discovered the man hiding in the motor boat?
CHAPTER XIII – IT COMES TO A HEAD
As the minutes passed, lengthening into first the quarter and then the half hour, Ruth Fielding’s impatience grew. The steward did not come back to the deck. Nor did Chief Officer Dowd return any reply to her note.
The situation became more and more irksome for the girl of the Red Mill. She believed that Irma Lentz considered her a personal enemy. Perhaps the woman had influence over the steward with whom the note to Mr. Dowd had been entrusted. Ruth began to feel that she was surrounded by spies, and that serious trouble would break out upon the Admiral Pekhard within a short time.
If she left her seat to search for Mr. Dowd, or to confer with anybody else, the man she believed was hiding in the motor boat not ten yards from her chair might escape. Who he was she could only suspect. Why he was hiding there was quite beyond her imagination.
It was Captain Hastings who appeared first upon the open deck. He did not go immediately to the bridge, nor did he bow right and left to the ladies as was usually his custom. He came directly past Ruth and stared at her through his little squinting eyes in no friendly fashion. Ruth did not speak to him.
Captain Hastings took up a position by the rail not twenty yards from the girl’s chair. Several passengers gathered about him; but she saw that the commander of the Admiral Pekhard did not lose sight of her. He was there for a purpose – that was sure.
She wondered if the steward, playing her false, had given her note addressed to Mr. Dowd to Captain Hastings? She felt that apprehension nearly all feel when “something is about to happen.” In fact, she had never felt more uncomfortable mentally in her life than at that moment.
The sun was going down now, for she had spent most of the afternoon since luncheon in her chair. The watches had been changed long since and she knew that on a sailing vessel this would be the second dog watch. Some of the crew were at supper. The bugle for the first-cabin call to dinner would soon sound.
She desired to go to her stateroom to freshen her toilet for dinner; yet, should she desert her post? Was Mr. Dowd merely delayed in coming to answer her note? Should she take the bull by the horns and tell Captain Hastings himself of the presence of the stowaway in the motor boat?
In this hesitating frame of mind she lingered for some time. Although the sea was calm, there was a haze being drawn over the sky as the sun disappeared below the western rim of the ocean, and it bade fair to be a dark evening. The wind whistled shrilly through the wire stays. There was a foreboding atmosphere, it seemed to Ruth Fielding, about the great steamship.
A dull explosion sounded from somewhere deep in the hold of the Admiral Pekhard. The ship trembled from truck to keelson. Screams of frightened passengers instantly broke out. Captain Hastings, at the rail, whirled to look toward the engine-room companionway.
Out of this door, just ahead of a volume of smoke or steam, dashed one of his officers. Ruth, who had got out of the reclining chair as quickly as her injured shoulder would allow, saw that this excited man was Dykman.
“An explosion in the boiler room, sir!” he cried, loud enough for everybody in the vicinity to hear him. “The engines are out of commission and I think the ship is sinking.”
It seemed as though any ship’s officer with good sense would have told the commander privately of the catastrophe. But immediately the full nature of the disaster was made known to the excited and terrified passengers.
“My heavens, Dykman!” squealed Captain Hastings, “you don’t mean to say it is a torpedo? We’ve seen no periscope.”
“I don’t know what it is; but the whole place is full of steam and boiling water. We could not see the entire extent of the damage; but the water – ”
He intimated that the water was coming in from the outside. Then, suddenly, the bugles and bells began, all over the ship, to signal the command for “stations.” The engines had stopped and the steamship began to rock a little, for there was quite a swell on. Some of the passengers began screaming again. They thought the Admiral Pekhard was already going down.
The tramp of men running along the decks, the shouts of the officers, and the continued screaming of some of the passengers created such a pandemonium that Ruth was confused. She knew that Captain Hastings had leaped to the bridge ladder and was now giving orders through a trumpet regarding the preparation of the boats for lowering.
One gang of men was unlashing the large motor boat and carrying davit ropes to it. That was the captain’s boat, and it would hold at least forty of the ship’s company.
Ruth began to wonder what boat she would go in. She realized that she was quite alone – that there was nobody to aid her. Tom had foreseen this. He had wished to accompany her across the ocean to be able to aid her if necessity arose.
And here was necessity!
Ruth saw some of the passengers running below, and was reminded that she was not at all prepared to get into an open boat and drift about the sea until rescued. There were several important papers and valuables in her stateroom, too. She moved toward the first cabin entrance.
Stewards were bringing the helpless wounded up to the deck on stretchers. No matter how small Ruth’s opinion might be of Captain Hastings as a man, he seemed neglecting no essential matter now that his ship was in danger.
From the bridge he directed the filling and lowering of the first boats. He ordered the crew and stokers who came pouring from below, to stand by their respective boats, but not to lower them until word was given. Each officer was in his place. The stewards were evacuating the wounded as fast as possible and were to see that every passenger came on deck.
But Ruth did not see Mr. Dowd. The Chief Officer, who should have had a prominent part in this work, had not appeared. The girl went below, wondering about this.
As she approached her stateroom, Irma Lentz, well-coated and bearing two handbags, appeared from her stateroom. The black-eyed woman did not seem very much disturbed by the situation. She even stopped to speak to Ruth.
“Ah-h!” she exclaimed in a low tone. “Your friend, Mr. Dowd, fell down the after companionway and is hurt. They took him to his room. Perhaps you would like to know,” and she laughed as she passed swiftly on toward the open deck.
The information terrified Ruth. For the first time since the explosion in the boiler room, the girl of the Red Mill considered the possibility of this all being a plot to wreck the Admiral Pekhard– a plot among some of the ship’s company, both passengers and crew!
The mystery of which she had caught a single thread that morning at dawn when she had observed this black-eyed woman talking with the German-looking seaman, or stoker, was now divulged.
These people – Irma Lentz, the flaxen-haired man, Dykman (if he was one of the plotters) and perhaps others, had brought them all to this perilous situation. The German conspirators had, after all, been willing to risk their own lives in an attempt to sink the British ship.
She was but one day from port; it was not improbable that the ship’s company would reach land in comparative safety. The two motor boats could tow the lifeboats, and if a storm did not arise they might all reach either the English or the French coast in safety.
Ruth was so disturbed by Irma Lentz’s statement that she did not immediately turn toward her own room. She knew where Mr. Dowd’s cabin was, and she hurried toward it.
It seemed sinister that the chief officer should have been injured just as she had sent word to him about the stowaway in the small motor boat. Ruth was convinced, without further evidence, that her discovery and attempt to reach Mr. Dowd with the information had caused his injury and had hastened the explosion.
She did not believe the latter was caused by a torpedo from a lurking submarine. The conspirators aboard the Admiral Pekhard had deliberately brought about the catastrophe.
And it smote her, too, that Mr. Dowd might now be neglected in his cabin. When the passengers and crew left in the small boats, the first officer would, perhaps, be lying helpless in his berth.
She reached the door of the officer’s cabin, and knocked upon the panel. There was nobody in sight in this passage and she heard no movement inside the first officer’s room. Again she knocked.
At last there was a stirring inside. A voice mumbled:
“Yes? Yes? Eight bells? I will be right up.”
“Mr. Dowd! Mr. Dowd!” Ruth called. “Wake up! The ship is sinking!”
“I’ll be right with you, boy,” said the officer, more briskly, but evidently not altogether himself.
“This is Ruth Fielding, Mr. Dowd!” cried the girl, hammering again on the door. “Do you need help? Come on deck quickly. The ship is sinking!”
“What’s that?”
He was evidently aroused now. The door was snapped open and he appeared at the aperture just as he had risen from his berth – in shirt and trousers. His head was bandaged as though he wore a turban.
“What is that you say, Miss Fielding?” he repeated.
“Come quickly, Mr. Dowd!” she begged. “The ship is sinking. Those people have blown it up.”
“Then there was something wrong!” cried the officer. “Did – did Captain Hastings come to you? I – I gave him your note after I fell – ”
“He did nothing but wait until those people did their worst,” declared Ruth angrily. “It is too late to talk about it now. Hurry!” and she turned away to seek her own stateroom.
It was fast growing dark outside. There were no lights turned on along the saloon deck. She saw not a soul as she hurried to her room. Everybody – even the stewards and officers – seemed to have got out upon the upper deck. She heard much noise there and believed some of the boats were being lowered.
She unlocked her stateroom door and entered. When she tried to turn on the electric light, she found that the wires were dead. Of course, if the boilers were blown up, the electric generating motors would stop as well as the steam engines. The ship would be in darkness.
She hastily scrambled such valuables as she could find into her toilet bag. Her money and papers she stowed away inside her dress. They were wrapped in oilskin, if she should be wet. Ruth was cool enough. She considered all possibilities at this time of emergency.
At least she considered all possibilities but one. That never for a moment entered her mind.
It was true that while she dressed more warmly and secured a blanket from her berth to wrap around herself over her coat, she was aware that the noise on the upper deck had ceased. But she did not realize the significance of this.
Being all alone, she had much difficulty in arraying herself as she wished. Her shoulder was stiff and she could not use her left arm very much without causing the shoulder to hurt excruciatingly. So she was long in getting out of the room again.
Just as she did so she heard a man shouting up the passage:
“Anybody here? Get out on deck! Last call! The boats are leaving!”
The shout really startled Ruth. She had no idea there was any chance of her being left behind. She left her stateroom door open and started to run through the narrow corridor.
