Kitabı oku: «The Ocean Wireless Boys on War Swept Seas», sayfa 3
CHAPTER VIII
LAND HO!
But the strange cruise of the Kronprinzessin Emilie was not destined to come to an end then, although, for an instant, it appeared so. Whether the Britisher was mutually astonished, and in the confusion the right orders were not given, or whatever the cause was, before they had more than glimpsed her grim, dogged outlines, she faded away in the fog and was blotted out.
“Phew! A few more close shaves like that and I’d be looking in the mirror to see if my hair hasn’t turned gray,” said Jack.
“I wonder they didn’t take some action,” commented Bill, “although I’m glad they didn’t.”
“Perhaps zey was so astonished zey forgot to fire zee gun,” suggested de Garros.
“I guess that was it,” agreed Jack, “but just the same it was a mighty lucky thing for us they didn’t come to their senses sooner.”
“Yes, this thing of playing tag in the fog gets on my nerves,” muttered Bill.
By nightfall, they had steamed through the fog belt, but every eye was anxiously turned astern as if their owners expected at any moment to see the ram-shaped bows of the black British sea bulldogs come poking put of the mist.
But nothing of the sort happened, however, though late that night, far to the eastward of their course, they could see the glowing fingers of the cruisers’ searchlights pointing in every direction across the sea. The next day passed without any untoward happenings, and when, the morning following, Jack gazed from the wireless coop he saw, in the first faint light of dawn, that they were steaming along a strange, unfamiliar, rugged coast.
By the time the passengers were astir, the outlines of the coast had become dotted with cottages and houses, and in the midst of breakfast they steamed into a harbor, and the anchor was dropped with a roar and a rumble. Like a flash, the tables in the saloon were deserted. There was a general rush for the deck.
“Why, that house over there looks just like my home at Bar Harbor,” cried one woman.
Ten minutes later her words were confirmed. It was Bar Harbor, Maine, into which the sorely-harried liner had taken refuge under the neutral protection of the Stars and Stripes. Not daring to run into New York or Boston, the captain had selected the world-famous summer resort as a harbor that the English cruisers would be the least likely to watch, and his judgment proved sound. And so ended the cruise of the “gold ship,” in whose strange adventures the boys were ever proud of having participated. An hour after the great liner’s arrival, she was almost deserted by her passengers who were choking the telegraph wires with messages.
The wireless disseminated far and wide the news of her safe arrival, and they learned, ashore, that for days the fate of the “gold ship” had been the puzzle of the country. All sorts of wild guesses had been printed as to her whereabouts. She had been reported off the coast of Scotland and again in the English Channel. One rumor had it that she had been captured, another that she had been sunk and most of those on board lost.
Not one of these guesses, however wild or probable, came within striking distance of the extraordinary truth of the “gold ship’s” flight across the war-swept seas. The day after their arrival, and while the town was still seething with excitement over the great liner’s presence in the harbor, Jack received a telegram at the hotel where he, Raynor and de Garros had taken up temporary quarters. The message was from Mr. Jukes and read as follows:
“Learned by the papers of your safe return. Kindly call at my office as soon as possible after your arrival in New York. Important.”
“What’s in the wind now?” exclaimed Jack to Bill Raynor, who was with him when he got the message.
“I haven’t the slightest idea,” said Raynor; “but I have a sort of notion in the back of my head that your vacation is over.”
“If you can call it a vacation,” laughed Jack.
“Well then, perhaps experience would be a better word,” substituted Bill, also laughing.
That evening, arrangements having been made about the shipment of their baggage to New York, the boys and the young French aviator obtained their tickets from an agent of the steamship company, for the line was bearing all expenses, and took a night train for home.
Almost as soon as they reached the city, Jack visited Mr. Jukes’ office.
“Thank goodness you’ve come, Ready!” he exclaimed as soon as he had shaken hands with the lad, upon whom, since their adventures in the South Seas, he strangely came to rely; “the St. Mark sails to-morrow for Europe. I don’t know yet, in the middle of this European muddle, just what ports she will touch at. That must be settled by her captain later on.”
“But Mullen is on the St. Mark,” began Jack. “I wouldn’t wish to usurp his job and – ”
“And anyhow, it’s your vacation,” interpolated the magnate. “I know all that, Ready, and depend upon it, you won’t suffer by it if you agree to my wishes. It isn’t exactly as wireless operator I want you to sail on the St. Mark, it’s on a personal mission in part. My son, Tom, is among the refugees somewhere in France. I don’t know where. I haven’t heard a word since this war started, but the last I know he was auto touring north of Paris. He may even have gone into Belgium, for that was a part of his plan.”
“And you want me to try to find him?” demanded Jack slowly.
“Yes, I know it’s a big job, but I know that if anyone can carry it through, you can. Expense is no object, spend all you like but find the boy. This suspense is simply killing his mother and worrying me sick.”
“I’m willing and glad to take the job, Mr. Jukes,” said the young wireless man, “but, as you say, it’s a big undertaking and has about one chance in a hundred of being successful. Besides, you may have heard of him and his whereabouts even before the St. Mark reaches Europe.”
“I’ll take my chances of that,” declared the millionaire. “It’s action that I want. The feeling that something has actually been done to find him.”
“On these conditions, I’ll go and do my best,” said Jack.
“Thank you, Ready, thank you. I knew you wouldn’t fail me. Now about funds. They tell me finances are all topsy-turvy over there now. Nobody can get any American paper money or travelers’ checks cashed. That may be Tom’s fix. You’d better take gold. Here.”
He drew a check book out of a drawer and wrote out a check of a size that made Jack gasp.
“Get gold for that,” he said, as he handed it over, “and when that’s gone, Linwood and Harding, of London, are my agents. Draw on them for what you need. And, by the way, is there anybody you want to take with you?”
“I was going to say, sir,” said Jack, “that for a task like this, Bill Raynor – ”
“The very fellow. I’ll never forget him in New Guinea. A splendid lad. But will he go with you?”
“I rather think he will,” rejoined Jack with a twinkle in his eye.
CHAPTER IX
A STRANGE QUEST
Readers of earlier volumes of this series will recall Tom Jukes, who, after being cast away when his father’s yacht burned at sea, was found by Jack’s clever wireless work. This was the youth, – he was about Jack’s own age, – whom the wireless boy had been commissioned to find. Although the task appeared, as Jack had said, one almost impossible of accomplishment, still Jack was boy enough to be delighted at the prospect of traversing war-ridden Europe and possibly playing a part in the mightiest struggle of all time. As for Bill Raynor, he was wild with excitement at the idea. Uncle Toby Ready, when he was told of the intended trip, shook his head and muttered something about “playing with fire,” but he was eventually won over and presented Jack with a dozen bottles of the Golden Embrocation and Universal Remedy for Man and Beast.
“If so be as you meet up with the Kaiser, or the King of England, or the Czar, just give ’em a bottle with my compliments,” he said in bestowing the gift. “By the flying jib, it might be the means of building me up a big European trade. Think of it, Cap’n Toby Ready, P. O. H. R. H. – Physician in Ordinary to His Royal Highness. If you don’t run acrost any of them skippers of state you can just distribute it around careless like, and draw special attention to the directions and to my address in case the prescription should require to be refilled.”
Jack promised, but it is to be feared that the Golden Embrocation never got nearer Europe than the cabin of the square rigger Jane Harding, of Halifax, Nova Scotia, which happened to be in the Erie Basin unloading lumber. Captain Podsnap, of the Jane Harding, was an ardent admirer of, and believer in, Captain Toby’s concoctions which, as the compounder boasted, never were known to do harm even where they didn’t do good. To Captain Podsnap, therefore, Jack hied himself perfidiously and made over to him the gifts intended for ailing royalty.
The St. Mark was what is known as a “popular” ship. That is, she usually crossed with full cabins. But on the present trip there were a bare score of passengers in the first cabin, not many more in the second, while in the steerage were a couple of hundred travelers, mostly reservists of the various countries at war, returning to Europe to take up arms.
As they steamed down the harbor, the docks on each side of the river could be observed to be crowded with idle steamers of all sizes, from small freighters to huge four-funnelled liners. With smokeless stacks and empty decks, they lay moored to their piers, offering an eloquent testimonial to the almost complete paralysis of ocean traffic that marked the earlier days of the war. Off Tompkinsville, Staten Island, the dreadnought, Florida, swung at anchor, grim in her gray war paint, – Uncle Sam’s guardian of neutrality. It was her duty to keep watch and ward over the port to see that no contraband went out of the harbor on the ships flying the flags of combatting nations and in other ways to enforce President Wilson’s policy of “hands off.”
With dipping ensign, the St. Mark slipped by, after a brief scrutiny by a brisk young officer. Then, down the bay she steamed, which the boys had traversed only a few days before on the hunted Kronprinzessin.
“Well, Jack, old fellow,” observed Raynor, as Jack leaned back after sending a few routine messages of farewell and business of the ship, “off again on our travels.”
“Yes, and this time, thank goodness, we’re under Uncle Sam’s flag, and that means a whole lot in these days.”
“It does, indeed,” agreed the other fervently, “but have you any idea what port we are bound for?”
“Not as yet. We are to get instructions by wireless, either from the New York or London offices.”
“This a queer job we’ve embarked on, Jack,” resumed Raynor, after a pause in which Jack had “picked up” Nantucket and exchanged greetings.
“It is indeed. I only hope we can carry it through successfully. At any rate, it will give us an opportunity to see something of the war for ourselves.”
“It’s a great chance, but as to finding Tom Jukes, I must say I agree with you that a needle in a hay stack isn’t one, two, three with it.”
A heavily built man, dark bearded and mustached, entered the wireless cabin. He had a despatch ready written in his hand.
“Send this as soon as possible, please,” he said, handing it to Jack.
As his eyes met those of the young wireless man he gave a perceptible start which, however, was unnoticed by either of the boys. Raynor was paying no particular attention to the matter in hand and Jack was knitting his brows over the despatch. It was in code, to an address in New York and was signed Martin Johnson.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Johnson,” said Jack, “but we can’t handle this message.”
“Can’t? Why not?” demanded the passenger indignantly.
“Because it is in code.”
“What’s that got to do with it?”
“While the war lasts we have instructions not to handle code messages or any despatches that are not expressed in English that is perfectly plain.”
“That’s preposterous,” sputtered the passenger angrily. “This is a message on a business matter I tell you.”
“If you’ll write it out in English, I’ll transmit it,” said Jack; “that’s what I’m here for.”
The man suddenly leaped forward. He thrust a hand in his pocket and pulled out a roll of bills.
“Can I speak to you confidentially?” he asked, turning his eyes on Raynor.
“Anything you’ve got to say you can say before my friend,” said Jack.
“Then, see here – there’s a hundred dollars in that roll,” as he threw it on the desk, “forget that code rule a while and it’s yours.”
“Look here, Mr. Johnson,” said Jack coldly, “I’ve already told you what my orders are. As for your money, if it was a million it would be just the same to me.”
“Bah! You are a fool,” snapped the other, angrily snatching up the money and flinging out of the cabin, crumpling the code message in his hand.
“That infernal boy again,” he muttered, as he gained the deck outside. “This only makes another score I have to settle with him. These Americans, they are all fools. Well, Von Gottberg in New York will have to go without information, that’s all, if I can’t find some way of getting at the wireless.”
“Say, Jack,” asked Raynor, as the bearded man left the cabin, “did that fellow remind you of anybody?”
“Who, Johnson?” asked Jack idly. “Why yes, now that you come to mention it, there was something familiar about his voice and his eyes, but for the life of me I couldn’t place him.”
“Nor I, and yet I’ve a strong feeling that we’ve met him somewhere before.”
“Johnsons are as thick as blackberries,” commented Jack.
“Yes, but I don’t connect that name with this man. It was some other name altogether. Oh, well, what’s the use of trying to recall it – anyhow, Mr. Johnson, whoever he is, hasn’t got a very amiable temper. I thought he was going to swell up and bust when you refused that message.”
But further comment on the irate passenger was cut short at that moment by a beating of dots and dashes against Jack’s ears, to which one of the “receivers” was adjusted. He hastily slipped the other into place and then turned to Raynor with a grin.
“It’s our old friend, the Berwick,” he said. “She’s outside waiting for us, but this time, glory be, we’re flying Old Glory.”
CHAPTER X
UNDER OLD GLORY
Sandy Hook lay behind a dim blue line on the horizon, and the long Atlantic heave was beginning to swing the St. Mark in a manner disconcerting to some of the passengers, before they came in sight of the cruiser that had led the Kronprinzessin such a harried chase.
“Looks familiar, doesn’t she?” commented Jack, as they slowed down and the Berwick steamed up alongside, about five hundred yards off.
“If it hadn’t been for that lucky fog, she’d have looked more familiar yet,” declared Bill. “Look, they’re lowering a boat.”
From the cruiser’s side a small boat, crowded with uniformed sailors, and in the stern sheets of which sat a smart junior officer, dropped and, propelled by long, even strokes of the oars which rose and fell in perfect unison, was presently coming toward the liner. The St. Mark’s accommodation ladder was lowered, and in a few minutes the young British officer was aboard.
Every passenger was lined up in the saloon and compelled to answer questions as to their nationality, etc. All passed satisfactorily. Then came the turn of the second cabin and the steerage. From the second cabin, two admitted German reservists were taken as prisoners of war and in the steerage six more were found. They took their apprehensions stoically, although they knew that they would probably be confined at Halifax or Bermuda till the close of hostilities.
Jack and Bill Raynor watched these scenes with interest.
“I suppose it will be months, maybe years, before some of those poor fellows see their homes again,” said Bill.
“Yes, but it’s what you might call the fortune of war,” responded Jack briefly.
So expeditiously was the work of culling out the reservists done that an hour after the Berwick’s officers had boarded the liner, the last of the prisoners was off and the ship’s papers had been inspected and O.K.’d. With mutual salutes, the two craft parted, the Berwick to lie “off and on,” looking for commerce carriers of a hostile nation, the St. Mark to resume her voyage to a Europe which was even then crowded with desperate, stranded American tourists unable to obtain money or passage home.
At dinner time Muller, the St. Mark’s regular operator, relieved Jack, and he was free for the evening. He elected to spend his leisure time reading up in a text-book, lately issued, an account of the workings of a new coherer that had recently been brought out.
But the fatigues of the day had made him drowsy and he soon dropped off to sleep in the chair he had placed on the upper deck in the shelter of a big ventilator. Despite the time of year there was a cool, almost a chilly breeze stirring, and most of the small number of first-class passengers were either in the smoking room or the saloon.
How long he slept Jack did not know, but he was awakened by the sound of voices proceeding from the other side of the ventilator, which masked him from the speakers’ view. One of the voices, which Jack recognized as belonging to Martin Johnson, grated harshly on his ears.
“If it hadn’t been for that cub of a wireless boy,” Johnson was saying, “that message would have been in the hands of Von Gottberg by this time.”
“And so you haven’t been able to send word about the British cruiser?” inquired the other speaker.
“No, and from the same cause. I shall have to see what I can do with the night operator. He may not be so absurdly scrupulous, unless that young whelp who was on day duty has been talking to him.”
“Did you say, Herr Professor, that you had met him before?” asked the last speaker’s companion.
“Yes, confound him, on the Kronprinzessin Emilie. I was – er – I was trying to organize an orderly retreat to the boats after the alarm had been spread that British cruisers were after us, when this young scoundrel attacked me brutally.”
“Didn’t you report him to the captain?”
“Well, you see there were – er – reasons which made it unwise to do so.”
“You bet there were, Herr Professor Radwig, – for I know who you are now, Mr. Johnson,” muttered Jack to himself. “No wonder I thought I knew you in spite of your disguise.”
“What are your present plans?” asked Mr. Johnson’s, or rather, Herr Professor Radwig’s companion.
“I shall have to see. You understand wireless, Schultz?”
“Intimately. Why, you have some idea – ?”
“Never mind now. It is getting chilly. Let us go to our cabins. I will talk to you more about this to-morrow.”
The voices died away as the two left the upper deck. Jack, wide awake now, sprang to his feet. Clearly there was some mischief concerning the wireless in the air. But of the nature of the impending scheme he could not hazard a guess.
“Anyhow, I’ll just put Muller wise to what’s going on,” thought Jack. “He’s a decent, square fellow, who wouldn’t stand for any monkey business. How to deal with Herr Radwig is another matter. I guess I’ll sleep on it. If only those chaps on the Berwick knew who they had overlooked on their hunt for Germans, wouldn’t they be mad as hornets!”
CHAPTER XI
THE “HERR PROFESSOR” AGAIN
It was not part of Jack’s plan to apprise Muller of the identity of Mr. Johnson. He did not wish to act prematurely in any way till he had consulted Raynor and a plan of campaign had been worked out.
“That guy certainly won’t try any monkey-shines with me,” Muller assured Jack slangily, but with a sincere ring in his voice, and Jack knew he could trust him.
Then he sought out Bill, whom he found in the latter’s cabin writing letters.
“Well, Bill,” he began. “I’ve solved the mystery of Mr. Johnson.”
Bill’s writing was instantly forgotten.
“You mean that peppery chap?”
“The same person. He’s an old friend of yours. You were not mistaken when you said that you thought you recognized his voice.”
“The dickens you say?” Bill was all attention now. “And who is he?”
“Why, – as the nickel novels say, – none other than our old college chum, Herr Professor Radwig.”
“For gracious’ sake!” Bill’s expression left no doubt as to the genuineness of his astonishment. “Old Earwig turned up again, eh?”
“Yes, and from some not very complimentary remarks he made about me, Bill,” continued Jack, “I don’t think he’d be averse to doing me some mischief, if he could.”
“He’d better not try.” Bill doubled his fists pugnaciously.
“The trouble is, I didn’t overhear enough to find out just what his little game is.”
“That’s too bad. It’s a shame we didn’t know his identity earlier. We would have earned the thanks of that English cruiser.”
“We certainly would. De Garros told me that Radwig is accounted a very clever and dangerous man. He has invented explosives and is active in the entire German military movement.”
“By the way, where is de Garros?” asked Bill.
“I don’t know any more than you do. After we left him at the depot in New York on our return from Bar Harbor, I lost sight of him. In fact, things have gone on with such a rush since then, that I haven’t had time to think of him till now. He told me, though, that he would take the first ship possible to France.”
“Well, to get back to old Earwig.”
“Yes.”
“Are you going to expose him?”
“Expose him to whom?”
“The captain, for instance.”
“What would be the good? He has committed no crime. If he wants to travel under a false name that is not our business so long as he does not interfere with us.”
“That’s true, but just the same, if we are boarded by another British cruiser, I’ll have something to whisper in the boarding officer’s ear,” said Bill, truculently.
“I wish we knew who this Schultz was,” confessed Jack.
“Does that name appear on the passenger lists?”
“On none of them. Besides, if it had, the man would have been questioned by that officer from the Berwick. He quizzed everybody with a name that even sounded German.”
“That’s so,” admitted Bill; “he certainly went through the ship with a rake. I guess old Earwig’s friend has some American sounding name that will carry him safe across the ocean no matter what happens.”
Soon after, Jack sought his berth in the wireless room. As he approached the opened door of the radio station, from which a flood of yellow light issued, he saw, or thought he saw, two lurking figures in the shadow of one of the boats. But even as he sighted them, they vanished.
For an instant, Jack assumed that they were two of the boat crew but, as they scurried past an open port, he saw they wore ordinary clothes and not the sailor uniforms of the crew.
“Odd,” he mused. “Those fellows were certainly hanging around the wireless room for no good purpose. If they had been, they wouldn’t have sneaked the instant they saw me coming. I’m willing to bet a cookie one of them was Earwig and the other his precious pal who understands wireless. Jack, old boy, it’s up to you to keep your eyes open.”
“Anything doing?” he asked Muller, as he entered the wireless room.
“Not a thing. Deader than a baseball park on Christmas Day,” rejoined Muller.
“You didn’t see anything of our friend, for instance?”
“Who, Johnson? No, he hasn’t been near here.”
Jack nodded good-night and then turned in. But as the ship bored on through the darkness his eyes refused, as they customarily did, to close in his usual sound sleep.
His mind was busy with many things. It was clear that Radwig was contemplating some use of the wireless which did not yet seem quite clear. That it was his duty to checkmate him Jack was convinced, but as yet he had little to go upon except the conversation overheard behind the ventilator.
“I guess watchful waiting will have to be the policy,” he murmured to himself as he fell asleep.
