In Secret Part 23

"Of course you won't. Don't worry. Sh.e.l.ls make a lot of noise when they explode on deck. All that tinpan effect we heard was probably a ventilator collapsing--perhaps a smokestack."

After a silence punctured by the flat bang of the deck-guns:

"You ARE cured, aren't you, Kay?"

"Yes."

She repeated in a curiously exultant voice: "You ARE cured. All of a sudden--after that black crisis, too, you wake up, well!"

"You woke me."

"Of course, I did--with those guns frightening me!"

"You woke me, Eve," he repeated coolly, "and my dream had already cured me. I am perfectly well. We'll get out of this mess shortly, you and I. And--and then--" He paused so long that she looked up at him in the bluish dusk:

"And what then?" she asked.

He did not answer. She said: "Tell me, Kay."

But as his lips unclosed to speak a terrific shock shook the saloon--a shock that seemed to come from the depths of the ship, tilt up the cabin floor, and send everybody reeling about.

Through the momentary confusion in the bluish obscurity the cool voice of an officer sounded unalarmed, giving orders. There was no panic. The hospital units formed and started for the deck. A young officer pa.s.sing near exchanged a calm word with McKay, and pa.s.sed on speaking pleasantly to the women who were now moving forward.

McKay said to Miss Erith: "It seems that we've been torpedoed. We'll go on deck together. You know your boat and station?"

"Yes."

"I'll see you safely there. You're not afraid any more, are you?"

"No."

He gave a short dry laugh. "What a rotten deal," he said. "My dream was--different.... There is your boat--THAT one!... I'll say good luck. I'm a.s.signed to a station on the port side. ... Good luck....

And thank you, Eve."

"Don't go--"

"Yes, I must.. We'll find each other--ash.o.r.e--or somewhere."

"Kay! The port boats can't be launched--"

"Take your place! you're next, Eve."... Her hand, which had clung to his, he suddenly twisted up, and touched the convulsively tightening fingers with his lips.

"Good luck, dear," he said gaily. And watched her go and take her place. Then he lifted his cap, as she turned and looked for him, and sauntered off to where his boat and station should have been had not the U-boat sh.e.l.ls annihilated boat and rail and deck.

"What a devil of a mess!" he said to a petty officer near him. A young doctor smoking a cigarette surveyed his own life-suit and the clumsy apparel of his neighbours with unfeigned curiosity!

"How long do these things keep one afloat?" he inquired.

"Long enough to freeze solid," replied an ambulance driver.

"Did we get the Hun?" asked McKay of the petty officer.

"Naw," he replied in disgust, "but the destroyers ought to nail him.

Look out, sir--you'll go sliding down that slippery toboggan!"

"How long'll she float?" asked the young ambulance driver.

"This ship? SHE'S all right," remarked the petty officer absently.

She went down, nose first. Those in the starboard boats saw her stand on end for full five minutes, screws spinning, before a m.u.f.fled detonation blew the bowels out of her and sucked her down like a plunging arrow.

Destroyers and launches from some of the cruisers were busy amid the wreckage where here, on a spar, some stunned form clung like a limpet, and there, a-bob in the curling seas, a swimmer in his life-suit tossed under the wintry sky.

There were men on rafts, too, and several clinging to hatches; there was not much loss of life, considering.

Toward midday a sea-plane which had been releasing depth-bombs and hovering eagerly above the wide iridescent and spreading stain, sheered sh.o.r.eward and shot along the coast.

There was a dead man afloat in a cave, rocking there rather peacefully in his life-suit--or at least they supposed him to be dead.

But on a chance they signalled the discovery to a distant trawler, then soared upward for a general coup de l'oeil, turned there aloft like a seahawk for a while, sheering in widening spirals, and finally, high in the grey sky, set a steady course for parts unknown.

Meanwhile a boat from the trawler fished out McKay, wrapped him in red-hot blankets, pried open his blue lips, and tried to fill him full of boiling rum. Then he came to life. But those honest fishermen knew he had gone stark mad because he struck at the pannikin of steaming rum and cursed them vigorously for their kindness. And only a madman could so conduct himself toward a pannikin of steaming rum. They understood that perfectly. And, understanding it, they piled more hot blankets upon the struggling form of Kay McKay and roped him to his bunk.

Toward evening, becoming not only coherent but frightfully emphatic, they released McKay.

"What's this d.a.m.n place?" he shouted.

"Strathlone Firth," they said.

"That's my country!" he raged. "I want to go ash.o.r.e!"

They were quite ready to be rid of the cracked Yankee, and told him so.

"And the boats? How about them?" he demanded.

"All in the Firth, sir."

"Any women lost?"

"None, sir."

At that, struggling into his clothes, he began to shed gold sovereigns from his ripped money-belt all over the cabin.

Weatherbeaten fingers groped to restore the money to him. But it was quite evident that the young man was mad. He wouldn't take it. And in his crazy way he seemed very happy, telling them what fine lads they were and that not only Scotland but the world ought to be proud of them, and that he was about to begin to live the most wonderful life that any man had ever lived as soon as he got ash.o.r.e.

"Because," he explained, as he swung off and dropped into the small boat alongside, "I've taken a look into h.e.l.l and I've had a glimpse of heaven, but the earth has got them both stung to death, and I like it and I'm going to settle down on it and live awhile. You don't get me, do you?" They did not.

"It doesn't matter. You're a fine lot of lads. Good luck!"