Kitabı oku: «Ruth Fielding Homeward Bound; A Red Cross Worker's Ocean Perils», sayfa 8

CHAPTER XVIII – THE CONSPIRACY LAID BARE

It was too late then for Mr. Dowd to correct his mistake. In the dark he had gone to the wrong closet in the captain’s chart room. There were loaded small arms of several kinds in one closet, while in the other were stored spare arms that were not oiled and loaded and ready for use.

The flaxen-haired man swarmed over the rail. He had a pistol in his hand. A moment later another man came up the ladder that had been put over the rail when the captain’s launch was manned for departure. This second man bore a powerful electric lamp.

“Drop that torch and your guns!” he commanded sharply. “Put up your hands!”

“It’s Dykman!” muttered Mr. Dowd. “The cut-throat villain!”

But he obeyed the command. So did Rollife. And could Ruth Fielding do otherwise? They stood in line with their hands in the air, palms outward. Dykman crossed the deck with his lamp warily, while the flaxen-haired man held the three under the muzzle of his pistol.

“What do you mean by such actions, Dykman?” demanded Dowd angrily.

“I’ll let you guess that, old man,” said the other. “But I advise you to do your guessing to yourself. We are in no mood to listen to you.”

Then he shot a question at the radio man: “Did you get those wires fixed?”

“Hanged if I don’t wish I hadn’t touched ’em,” growled the radio man.

“You’ve sent no message, then?”

Rollife shook his head.

“All right. Krueger!” shouted Dykman, who seemed to be in command of the traitors.

“I thought so!” muttered Rollife. “That squarehead never did look right to me.”

Several other men as well as Krueger came up the ladder. Their dress proclaimed them seamen or stokers. Ruth wondered if Miss Lentz was with them.

She began to feel fearful for herself. What would these rough men do, now they had possession of the ship? And what would they do to her? That was the principal query in her mind. Dykman merely patted the pockets of Dowd and Rollife to make sure they had no other arms. He gave Ruth slight attention at the moment.

“I’ll have to lock you fellows in a stateroom,” Dykman said coolly. “Can’t have you fooling around the ship. You’ll both be taken home in time and held as war prisoners.”

“By ‘home’ I suppose you mean Germany!” snorted Rollife.

“That is exactly what I mean.”

“But man!” exclaimed Dowd, “you don’t expect to get this ship through the blockade? And you’ve got to repair the damage your explosion did, too.”

“Don’t worry,” grinned Dykman. “She’s not damaged much. We opened seacocks – ”

“Oh, yes, I found that out,” admitted Dowd. “And I closed them.”

“Thanks,” said the other coolly. “So much trouble saved us. We’ll get to work at the pumps. We ought to be clear of the water by morning. Only one boiler is injured. We can hobble along with the use of the other boilers, I think.”

“Man, but you have the brass!” exclaimed Dowd. “Some of these destroyers will catch you, sure.”

“We’ll see about that,” grumbled Dykman. “We’ll put you two men where you will be able to do no harm, at least.”

“And Miss Fielding?” questioned Dowd quickly. “You will see that she comes to no harm, Mr. Dykman?”

“She is rather an awkward prisoner, considering the use we intend to make of the Admiral Pekhard. Women will be much in the way, I assure you.”

“But there is Miss Lentz,” murmured Ruth.

“Miss Lentz? She is not here. She went in the captain’s boat,” the sub-officer said shortly. “I wish you had gone with her.”

“It was your fault I did not,” said Ruth boldly.

“Perhaps,” admitted the German. “But necessity knows no law, Miss Fielding. It was said you knew too much – or suspected too much. I dislike making a military prisoner of a woman. But, as I said before, necessity knows no law. You and Dowd and Rollife had to be separated from Captain Hastings and the rest of them. There are only a few of us – at present,” he added.

“And how the deuce do you expect to augment your crew?” demanded the chief officer. “You can’t work this ship with so few hands. And you’ve got none of the engineer’s crew.”

“I am something of an engineer myself, Mr. Dowd,” returned the other, smiling with a satisfied air. “We shall have proper assistance before long.” He hailed Krueger, who had climbed to the roof of the radio house. “Is everything all right?”

“Will be shortly, Mr. Boldig,” said the assistant radio man.

Ruth started. Then “Dykman” was “Boldig,” whose name she had formerly heard mentioned between Irma Lentz and the flaxen-haired man. The man with two names turned upon Ruth.

“You had better go immediately to your own room, Miss Fielding,” he said respectfully. “I shall be obliged to lock you in, as I shall Mr. Dowd and Rollife here. I assure you all,” he added significantly, “that it is much against my will that you remain prisoners. I would much rather you had all three gone with the captain.

“By the way, Dowd, Captain Hastings was told you were in command of this small motor launch. I am afraid you will have much to explain, later. And you, too, Rollife.”

Rollife only growled in reply and Dowd said nothing. When they started aft with Boldig, Ruth followed. She knew it was useless to object to any plan the German might have in mind.

Before they left the deck she heard the spark sputtering at the top of the radio mast. Krueger was at the instrument, and without doubt he was sending a call to friends somewhere on the ocean. It would be no S O S for help in the Continental code, but in a German code, she was sure.

The jar and thump of the pumps already resounded through the ship. By the light of Boldig’s electric lamp they went below to the cabin. Ruth again produced her own torch and found her way to her stateroom, while Dowd and Rollife went the other way.

Alone once again, the girl of the Red Mill gave her mind up to a thorough and searching examination of the situation, and especially her own position.

She was the single woman with and in the power of a gang of men who were not only desperate, but who were of a race whose treatment of women prisoners had filled the whole civilized world with scorn and loathing. Ruth wished heartily that Irma Lentz had come back with the motor boat. She would have felt safer if Miss Lentz had been of the party.

Ruth realized that neither Dowd or Rollife could come to her help if she had need of them. They would be locked in their rooms at so great a distance from hers that they could not even hear her if she screamed!

One thing she might do. She hastily secured the key that was in the outside of the stateroom lock and locked the door from the inside. Scarcely had she done this when Boldig came along the corridor. He rapped on her door; then coolly tried the knob.

“Unlock the door and give me the key, Miss Fielding,” he commanded. “I will lock you in from outside and carry the key myself. Nobody will disturb you.”

“No, Mr. Boldig. I shall feel safer if I keep the key,” said Ruth firmly.

“Come, now! No foolishness!” he said angrily. “Do as you are told.”

“No. I shall keep the key,” she repeated.

“Why, you – well,” and he laughed shortly, “I will make sure that you stay in there, my lady.”

He went hastily away. Ruth waited in some trepidation. She did not know what would next happen. She wished heartily that she had a loaded weapon. She certainly would have used it had need arisen.

Soon Boldig was back, and he proceeded without another word to her to nail fast the stateroom door as he had nailed the radio room door. When this was completed to his satisfaction, he said bitterly:

“If we feed you at all, Miss Fielding, it will have to be through the port. Au revoir!”

It was with vast relief that Ruth heard him depart. The thought of food – or the lack of it – did not at present trouble her mind.

The steady thump and rattle of the pumps by which the fireroom was being cleared of water continued to sound in her ears. She laid aside her coat and hat, for the night was warm. She flashed the pocket lamp upon the face of her traveling clock. It was already nearly midnight.

The thought of sleep was repugnant to her. How could she close her eyes when she did not know what the morning might bring forth? It was not wholly that she feared personal harm. Not that so much. But there was, she felt, a conspiracy on foot that might do much harm to the Allied cause.

These Germans had played a shrewd game to get possession of the Admiral Pekhard. It was not for the purpose of sinking the transport ship that they had brought about her abandonment. No, indeed!

As Boldig – the erstwhile “Dykman” – had intimated, nothing like destroying the steamship was the intention of the plotters. The rascals had been very careful not to injure seriously the engines or any other part of the ship’s mechanism.

With the fireroom suddenly filling with water after the explosion, the dampened fires caused such a volume of steam that it was no wonder the engineer and his force were driven from their stations. As long as the panic-stricken passengers and terrified crew remained aboard the Admiral Pekhard, undoubtedly it appeared that a hole had been blown through the outer skin of the ship and that she was on the verge of sinking.

Had Mr. Dowd been on deck and in possession of his senses, Ruth was quite sure that the panic would have been stayed. Captain Hastings was not a big enough man to handle such a situation as the German plotters had brought about. He lost his head completely, although he doubtless had remained on the ship’s deck until every other soul (as he supposed) was in the small boats.

The very character of the pompous little skipper had made the success of the Hun plot possible. All that was passed now, however. Nothing could be done to avert the successful termination of the conspiracy. Or so it seemed to the girl of the Red Mill, sitting alone and in the darkness of her small stateroom.

After a time she rose and pushed back the blind at her port. She opened the thick, oval glass window, which was pivoted. She saw the phosphorescent waves slowly marching past the rolling steamship.

Suddenly she heard voices. They were of two men talking near the rail and near her window as well. One was Boldig. He said in German:

“You have shown yourself to be a good deal of a coward, Guelph. Always fearful of disaster! Look you: If you will that nothing shall balk us, no disaster will arrive. It is the will of the German people that will make them in the end the victors in this war. Remember that, Guelph.”

The other muttered something about taking unnecessary chances. Boldig at once declared:

“No chances. Krueger will pick up the U-714. Have no fear. She is one of the newest type of cruiser-submarines. She carries the crew arranged to man this Admiral Pekhard. Ha, we will make the Englanders gnash their teeth in rage!”

“We shall hope so,” said the other man. Ruth thought it must be the flaxen-haired fellow; but of this she could not be sure.

“This will be one of our greatest coups,” went on Boldig. “The cargo awaits us in a friendly port – you know where. We will sail from thence to carry supplies to the submarines that will be sent from time to time from the Belgian bases. She shall be a ‘mother ship’ indeed, and, lurking out of the lanes of travel, will make long submarine voyages possible.

“Ah, we will do much with this old tub of a steamer to increase the despair of the enemy. Rejoice, Guelph! We shall receive honor and much gold for this.”

“Huh!” growled the other, “gold is good, I grant you.”

CHAPTER XIX – TOM CAMERON TAKES A HAND

Aside from the two men he had seen shot down upon the after deck of the Zeppelin, Tom Cameron soon made out that the airplane attack upon the larger airship must have done other damage. He was glad if this was so. The regrettable fact that he had killed two men would be offset, in his mind, if the bullets of the machine gun had made difficult the sailing of the Zeppelin to London.

He had seen the chipped and dented rail and deck across which the hail of machine-gun bullets had swept. He hoped that there had been done some injury of greater moment than these marks betrayed. And he believed that there was such injury.

If not, why was the Zeppelin limping along the airways so slowly through the fog? The commander of the great machine had been called to the forward deck, and that not merely for the conning of the ship on its course, Tom was sure. Suppose he had been the means, after all, of crippling the Zeppelin?

The thought filled the young American’s heart with delight. Much as he was depressed by the death of Ralph Stillinger, the American ace, Tom could not fail to be overjoyed at the thought of setting the Zeppelin back in this attempt to reach England.

The Germans might have to return to their base for repairs. Of course, Tom was a prisoner, and there was not a chance of his getting away; still, he could feel delight because of this possibility that roweled his mind.

He tried to peer through the thick glass of the window in the forward closet of the Zeppelin cabin. Mistily he saw the hairy-coated Germans moving about on the forward deck. He could not recognize the ober-leutnant who seemed to be in command of the ship; but he saw that several of the men were at work repairing some of the wire stays that had been broken.

As the fog partially cleared for a moment, he was enabled to make out a box of a house far forward on this first deck. It was probably where the steering gear was located. Just where the motors and engines were boxed he did not know. A fellow in that pilot-house – if such it was – might do something of moment, he told himself. If he could once get there, Tom Cameron thought, he would make it impossible for the Zeppelin ever to reach England, unless it drifted there by accident.

It was a rather dispiriting situation, however, to be locked in this narrow closet. He had already tried the door and found that it was secure. Besides, anybody on the deck, by coming close to the window, could look in and see if he was still imprisoned.

An hour passed, then another. The Zeppelin’s speed was not increased, nor did he see the commander in all the time.

He believed the airship must have drifted out over the sea.

Although the cabin arrangements on the Zeppelin made the place where Tom Cameron was confined almost soundproof, the jar and rumble of the ship’s powerful motors were audible. Now there grew upon his hearing another sound. It was a note deeper than that of the motors, and of an organ-like timber. A continuous current of noise, rather pleasant than otherwise, was this new sound. He could not at first understand what it meant.

The fog was still thick about the airship. He believed they had descended several thousand feet. It was now close to mid-forenoon, and as a usual thing the fog would have disappeared by this hour over the land.

It must be that the Zeppelin had reached the sea. Whatever material injury she had suffered, the commander had by no means given up his intention of following out his orders to reach the English coast.

It was at this point in his ruminations that Tom suddenly became possessed of a new idea – an explanation of the organ-like sound he heard. It was the surf on the coast! The ship must be drifting over the French coastline, and the sound of the surf breaking on the rocks was the sound he heard.

Tom possessed a good memory, and he had not been studying maps of the Western Front daily for nothing. He knew, very well indeed, the country over which he had flown with poor Ralph Stillinger.

He had located to a nicety the spot where they mounted into the fog-cloud to escape the German pursuit-planes. Then had come the discovery of the Zeppelin beneath, and the catastrophe that had followed.

The Zeppelin had been sailing seaward, and was near the coast at the time Tom had so thrillingly boarded it; and he was sure that if it had changed its course, this change had been to the southwestward. It was following the French coast, rather than drifting over Belgium.

These ruminations were scarcely to the point, however; Tom desired to do something, not to remain inactive.

But the time did not seem propitious. He dared not attempt breaking out of his prison. And although he still had his automatic pistol, he would be foolish to try to fight this whole German crew.

He was startled from his reverie by the unlocking of the door and the odor of warm food. Nor was it “bully beef” or beans, the two staples that gladden the hearts of the American soldier.

A meek-looking German private entered with a steaming tureen of ragout, or stew, a plate of dark bread, and a mug of hot drink. He bowed to Tom very ceremoniously and placed the tray on the couch.

“Der gomblements of der commander,” he said, gutturally, and backed out of the narrow doorway.

“He’s all right, your commander!” exclaimed Tom impulsively, making for the fare with all the zest of good appetite.

The German grinned, and faded out. He closed the door softly. Tom had already dipped into the stew and found it excellent (and of rabbit) before it crossed his mind that he had not heard the key click in the lock of the door.

He stopped eating to listen. He heard nothing from the outer cabin.

“But that grinning, simple-looking Heinie may not be as foolish as he appears. The fellow may have left the door unlocked to trap me,” Tom muttered.

He continued to eat the plentiful meal furnished him, while he tried to think the situation out to a reasonable conclusion. Had the German forgotten to lock the door? Or was it a scheme to trap him? It already mystified Tom why he had not been deprived of his pistol. He could not understand such carelessness. Was the commander of the Zeppelin so confident that he was both harmless and helpless?

He remembered that when he was first seized, upon leaping aboard the aircraft, his captors had shown a strong desire to throw him off the ship. The commander’s opportune arrival had undoubtedly saved him.

And here they were feeding him, and treating him very nicely indeed! It puzzled Tom, if it did not actually breed suspicion in his mind.

“But then you can’t trust these Huns,” he told himself. “Maybe that chap is out there now waiting to shoot me if I try to slip out of this little office.”

He was not contented to let this question remain in the air. Tom was of that type of young American who dares. He was ready to take a chance.

Besides, he had in his heart that desire, already set forth, to do something to halt the Zeppelin raid over London. And he was serious in this belief that it was possible for him to do something for the Allied cause in memory of the brave American ace who had been killed almost at his side.

When he had finished the meal he glanced forward through the narrow window. At the moment there was nobody in sight on the forward deck. Tom slid along the couch to the door. He put a tentative hand on the knob.

CHAPTER XX – THE STORM BREAKS

He turned the knob very slowly with his left hand. As Tom sat upon the end of the couch he would be behind the door when he opened it. The weapon the commander of the Zeppelin had neglected to take from him was in his right hand, and ready for use.

He gently drew the door toward him. As he had supposed, it was not locked. When it was ajar he waited for what might follow.

Then, through the aperture at the back of the door, he had a view of the narrow cabin to its very end. Sufficient light entered through the several windows of clouded glass to show him that there was nobody in sight. Not even the private who had brought his lunch had lingered here.

Rising swiftly and with the pistol ready in his hand, the young American stepped out of the closet in which he had been confined. There was a small German clock screwed to the wall. It was now almost noon.

Crouching, ready to leap or run as the case might need, Tom approached the other end of the cabin. There he could see through the dim pane of the door, gaining a view of the afterdeck.

The mystery of the absence of all life forward was instantly explained. More than a dozen of the crew and officers were gathered on the afterdeck. They stood in a row along the deck, their heads bared, while the ober-leutnant read from a book.

Tom realized almost at once what the scene meant, and he shrank back from the door. The crew could not hear, of course, the words the officer pronounced; but they were all probably familiar with the service for the dead in the Prayer Book.

Somehow the ceremony affected Tom Cameron strongly. At the feet of the row of men were laid two bodies lashed in a covering, or shroud. They were the men mowed down by the machine gun which Tom himself had manipulated from the American airplane.

The Germans are sentimentalists, it must be confessed. They would take time on their way to raid an enemy city from the air in a most cowardly fashion, to read the burial service over their comrades.

For the airship was over the sea now, and, as though from the deck of a sailing ship, the dead bodies could be slid into the water. But the height from which they would fall was much greater than on any ocean vessel.

The book was closed. Two bearers at the head and two at the feet of each corpse raised them on narrow stretchers, the foot-ends of which were rested upon the rail. A gesture from the officer, and the stretchers were tipped. The bodies slid quietly over the rail and disappeared.

The officer put the Prayer Book in his pocket and adjusted his helmet and goggles. The men with him followed suit. He dismissed them, and almost at once the throbbing of the motors was increased.

Tom Cameron ran back to the closet and shut himself in. He felt sure the commander would come through the cabin to the forward deck. However, the German did not try the knob of the closet door.

Tom saw him pass along the deck to the pilot house, facing the stiff gale. His garments blew about him furiously, and it seemed that the wind had suddenly increased in violence.

The course of the airship was changed. Tom knew that, for the next time a German passed along the deck he saw that his coat-tails flapped sideways. The Zeppelin was being steered across the course of the gale.

If he could only get to the steering gear and do something to it – wreck it in some way, at least, put it out of commission for a while. What would happen to him did not matter. Tom Cameron had been taking chances for some time.

He could feel the Zeppelin stagger under the beating of the fierce gale. There was a black cloud just ahead of the flying craft. Suddenly this cloud was striped again and again with yellow lightning.

Then how it did rain! The downpour slanted across the airship, beating in waves, like those of a troubled sea, against the cabin framework. Tom felt the whole structure rock and tremble.

He felt that the ship was rising. The commander purposed to get above this electric storm. Again and again the lightning flashed. It ran along the wires, limning each stay luridly.

In addition Tom began to feel the creeping cold of the higher atmosphere searching through his clothing. He buttoned his leather coat and looked about for something of additional warmth. The cold was seeping right into the closet around the window frame.

Then it was that Tom found the blanket. He lifted the cushion on the bench by chance, and there it was, neatly folded. This closet must be used at times for a sleeping place.

He could barely see what he was about, for it had grown black outside. Only the recurrent flashes of lightning illuminated the scene. And that scene, when he stared through the window, was wild indeed.

Tom put on his helmet and the goggles fastened thereto and wrapped himself in the blanket. He lay down with his head close to the window. Slowly the Zeppelin was rising above the tempest. By and by the last whisps of the storm-cloud disappeared; but the gale still thundered through the wire stays of the ship and buffeted the great envelope above the swinging cabin and bridges.

“Such a craft might be easily torn to pieces by the wind!” The thought was not cheering, and Tom put it aside as he did all other depressing ideas.

It seemed to him that he had already gone through so much that his life was charmed. At least, he never felt less fear than he did at the present time.

The sharp gale continued. The Zeppelin had risen much higher, but it could not get above the wind-storm. Although it may have been steering to a nicety, he was sure that the huge craft was drifting off her course to a considerable degree.

After a couple of hours the commander of the Zeppelin came back from the pilot-house. He saw Tom’s face pressed close to the window and waved his hand.

When he entered the cabin Tom slipped back to the door and opened it a narrow crack. The ober-leutnant went right through the cabin and disappeared.

Was the time ripe for Tom to carry out the scheme which had been slowly forming in his mind? Was the moment propitious?

The young American hesitated. It meant peril – perhaps death – for him, whether he succeeded or failed. He knew that well enough. Such an attempt as he purposed might only be bred of desperation.

He tore off the helmet and goggles which had masked him. He rolled the blanket and laid it along the bench as his own body had lain. On to the end of the roll next the window he pulled the helmet and arranged the goggles so that a glance through the window would show a man lying apparently asleep on the cushioned bench.

Then he tied a handkerchief of khaki color over his head and prepared to steal out of the closet, his pistol in his hand.