The Clammer and the Submarine Part 3

"In that motor-boat. Don't you see it? Head on."

He whistled shrilly. The launch had been lying idly before us, her engine stopped, and Miss Radnor sat upon the deck with her feet dangling over the side. At the whistle she glanced down the bay, then looked around at us and waved her hand. Then she simply straightened out and slipped into the water feet first, and disappeared.

"Captain Fergus," asked Eve, "how can you possibly tell who is in that boat? I can hardly see the boat."

He laughed. "I can't tell," he said, "of course, because I can't see any of her crew; but I know the boat, and Ogilvie should be in it."

"But how can you know the boat? One motor-boat looks much like another at that distance--to me."

"I don't know how, but I know the boat. How do you know your friends as far off as you can see them?"

And Eve laughed, and she went on marvelling. But Miss Radnor, who had disappeared so quietly, had not reappeared, and Mrs. Fergus seemed to be getting anxious. She looked at her husband.

"d.i.c.k," she began, "I wish Elizabeth wouldn't stay under so long. Where--"

At that moment a red cap bobbed up on the surface of the gla.s.sy water almost at the side of the yacht, and Miss Radnor laughed up at us. She swam to a boat swinging at the boom, climbed in and up the little rope ladder to the boom, and so on deck.

"Sorry," she called, "to drip on your deck, but I want to dive."

And she went up the rigging as far as she could go, which was not far--was not far enough, it seemed.

"You should have the mainsail up," she said. "I could go up on the rings. It is such a disappointment! I wanted to try it from the spreaders."

"I'll send you up in a sling." And forthwith two sailors came running, and unhooked a halliard from somewhere, and got out a boatswain's chair, and hooked it on, and she put her legs through, and they hoisted her up to the spreaders. She looked very small up there, as she held on to the spreader, and gingerly got herself out of the chair, and stood up, holding by the stay. And, still holding on carefully, she pulled on the halliard with her free hand, until the boatswain's chair was far enough down again to go down of its own weight. Then she edged out to the end of the spreader, and got her feet clear of the stay, though how she did it I could not imagine, holding on to the stay behind her back. But she did it, and I could see her moving her feet ever so slightly, to get the right grip. Then, suddenly she let go, and swung her arms up slowly, and shot outward in a beautiful swan dive that rivalled Annette Kellerman at her best; and she struck the water as straight as a pikestaff. There was not much spray when she struck. It reminded me of scaling stones in the way we used to call "cutting the devil's throat." Her slender body entered the water with much the same kind of a noise.

There was nothing shallow about that dive, for she did not come up for a long time. At last I saw a shadow in the water shooting slowly toward the launch, and the red cap came floating to the surface as if it were only a red rubber balloon; and a white arm shot out, and the hand grasped the gunwale, and again Old Goodwin helped her aboard, and she sat on the deck and dabbled her feet in the water, as she had before, but this time she sat beside Olivia. And Jack Ogilvie--if it was he--in his motor-boat was almost in. I could see the crew of the boat pretty well, and there was none among them who looked like Ogilvie, except the one in an ensign's uniform, and Ogilvie was not an ensign. Then the boat was abreast of the launch, and Elizabeth Radnor turned her head, and waved and called, and beckoned.

"h.e.l.lo, Elizabeth!" the ensign called in return, and the boat began to turn. "Sorry I wasn't nearer to see your dive, but I saw it pretty well. You couldn't repeat it for my benefit, I suppose?"

Elizabeth laughed and shook her head. "Not to-day, Jack."

So Ogilvie was an ensign. Eve had noted that too.

"He must be twenty-one, Adam," she whispered, "and he must have had a birthday. I wish we had known it. I would have had a party for him."

"Is it too late?" I asked.

"I'll see about it," she answered, smiling. Eve likes Ogilvie.

But the motor-boat had stopped not far from the launch. They were near enough for us to hear pretty well over that quiet water. Ogilvie's crew tried not to show undue interest.

"h.e.l.lo, Olivia," said Ogilvie, standing very straight. He looked rather wistful, I thought.

"h.e.l.lo," she said, neither turning her head nor lifting her eyes. It was the essence of indifference. "What are you doing here?"

It was more than indifference. It was as if Ogilvie bored her. My gorge began to rise, and my color rose a little, I am afraid, and I moved my chair, so that Eve looked over at me. I felt, I suppose, much as Captain Fergus did, when he said that Elizabeth was more of a favorite of his than some others.

Ogilvie seemed to be familiar with that att.i.tude of Olivia's, for he smiled faintly, and stepped back.

"Nothing much," he said; "just cruising--cursing about the bay. Like Captain Cook, who went cursing about the Pacific Ocean. That's what you said in school, Olivia. Remember?"

"If I don't," Olivia flung back petulantly, "it isn't because I haven't been reminded of it."

Elizabeth raised her head and sent forth a merry peal of laughter.

"Oh, Olivia, did you really? When was it? Oh, that's too good to keep."

Olivia was picking at the deck of the launch. There may have been a speck of dust there.

"I suppose I did. It was when I was very small, and the teacher asked me what Captain Cook did, and 'cruise' looked like 'curse' to me. But if you ever tell, Elizabeth," she flared out, "I'll never forgive you."

Once more Elizabeth's laughter rang out.

"Oh, Olivia! It won't be necessary for me to tell, but I'd almost be willing to be never forgiven." Then she heard Ogilvie give orders to start. "Wait, Jack. I can't do my dive over again, but Olivia and I will show you some aquaplaning. Won't we, Olivia?"

Olivia shook her head. "I don't believe I want to."

"Very well, then. I'll do it all by myself. I see you've got it, Jack. Congratulations!"

At that Olivia looked up. "Got what? Oh, a new uniform. Captain Ogilvie, I suppose."

But Elizabeth had slid into the water, and Olivia slid in from the other side of the launch, and Ogilvie waited, but the launch did not. Elizabeth was swimming under water, as seemed to be her habit, and the launch had quite a little way on before the red cap emerged. She had heard it, of course, and had calculated very nicely, and came to the surface just as the aquaplane was going by; and she seized it and swung herself upon it, and landed standing on her feet. It was like the centre ring in a circus; and it made me think more and more of that centre ring, and of great white horses cantering around it, as Elizabeth went through the most extraordinary feats of agility and skill, diving off and jumping on again as it seemed with but a quirk of her wrist, making the aquaplane do the work for her. And to end the exhibition the launch, which had been doing a modest ten miles an hour, went up to twenty-five, and the aquaplane stood nearly straight, and bounced around, with sudden sidewise jumps and swerves and jerks. It was no longer the great white horse cantering around the ring, but a balky, bucking horse that gave Elizabeth some trouble. I could see how carefully she was balancing with bent knees that gave to every jump, and brought it back again. But when the launch began to twist and turn and loop she could not keep her balance for very long. She knew she could not, and before she had more than begun to lose it she laughed aloud, and she gave a spring straight up, and turned backward in the air, and entered the water behind the aquaplane, straight and true. As a backward dive it surpa.s.sed Olivia's as you would expect the finished performance of a professional acrobat to surpa.s.s the best attempts of an amateur.

In watching Elizabeth's performance I had entirely forgotten Olivia, and so had all the others, unless Ogilvie had not. I cannot speak for him. If he had forgotten he was quickly to be reminded, for suddenly about half a bucket of water shot up and drenched his cap and his new uniform.

He smiled quietly, and bent forward and looked into the mocking eyes of Olivia.

"Thank you, Olivia," he said, the water dripping from his cap and his coat. "Was that intended as a christening?"

Olivia made no reply, but turned and swam to the launch. Elizabeth was climbing aboard, and sat in her old place on the deck, her feet dangling.

"Was it a good show, Jack?"

"It was worthy of you, Elizabeth. I can't give any higher praise. Thank you very much. You have given me a great deal of pleasure. You are always giving other people pleasure. Good-bye."

And he waved his hand to the launch and then to us, and his motor-boat went on her business up the harbor, whatever that business was.

Captain Fergus looked after him thoughtfully.

"Now, I wonder," he remarked, "why he didn't come aboard. He ought to want to see me."

I had got up with him, and we were standing at the gangway. The launch came nosing around, with the two girls enveloped in raincoats. Olivia had recovered her spirits. She stood up, and saluted with a stiff finger.

"Here's a load of lumber for you, Captain Fergus," she said. "Will you have it aboard? Where will you have it stowed?"

Captain Fergus looked grimly at her, and shook his head slowly, but his eyes, looking out from the shadow of the shiny visor of his old blue cap, were pleasant and smiling and humorous. The little wrinkles about them deepened.

"Don't you know better," he growled sternly, "than to bring me wet lumber? I can't take it. You'll have to take it ash.o.r.e and dry it."

"Aye, aye, sir," said Olivia; and she sat down, and I regret to say that she giggled.

I had gone down the steps, and I was regarding a red rubber cap and a dun-colored raincoat. The red cap was pulled well down over the ears, concealing entirely the colors of Eve's great beaver m.u.f.f. I spoke.

"Miss Radnor," I said, "what have you done with Bobby?"

She looked up quickly, and her eyes met mine frankly. They--hers, not mine, my eyes being nothing to look at, only to see with; but hers--they were hazel, I should guess, and they were veiled mischief as they looked into mine.

"Bobby?" she asked. "Mr. Leverett? Oh, we transferred him yesterday. We took him down in the Arcadia. We'll take you some day soon."

I have no wish to be transferred. But I do not wonder that Bobby is much taken with Elizabeth Radnor.

V.

Tilling the soil, if the man who tills be working alone, tends to reflection,--provided that man possesseth wherewith to reflect,--and it promotes straight and simple thinking, thoughts which may be straight and true or they may not; but the thoughts of the tiller of the soil are more likely to be straight and true than the thoughts of the same man riding in a motor-car or working on the twenty-fifth floor of an office building. If such a man be the president of the company it is one thing; he may be puffed up with the pride of a little brief authority or he may be the simple, true man that Old Goodwin is. His sense of the values of things must be warped and distorted unless he tills the soil at times or does something that is equivalent, like sailing the deep blue oceans, where there is so very little between him and the workings of nature; and I do not mean sailing as a pa.s.senger in an ocean steamer or a yacht, in which he will have as little to do with the workings of nature as he would in a great hotel.

In such a man the sense of values must be distorted nearly as much, though in a different way, as that of a man who sits at one of an interminable row of desks, on another floor of the same office building, from eight-thirty in the morning until five in the afternoon, with an hour for luncheon; and knows himself to be but a cog in a huge machine, a cog which can and will be replaced as soon as it gives a sign of running unsmoothly. What a dreadful thought that you are but a cog in a machine! How very dreadful it must be to realize that you are growing old and are still nothing but a cog! How pregnant of rebellions, little futile rebellions! And how it must tear the very soul of that man to know beforehand that his rebellions must be little and futile! I can understand that a man in that state would welcome death; that he would be stood up against a wall and shot rather than go back to that desk of the interminable row--number thirteen, it might be. But there is n.o.body to stand him up against a wall. They will have none of him. He is too old. Too old to be shot, although he may have fighting instincts stirring fiercely within him. So they take his son, it may be, and he goes back to his desk. There is no escape for him. They will not even let him die as a man should in these times. Life is a series of disappointments, and the last is the most bitter. Hope takes herself away until he can hardly see her through the fog.

I was thinking such thoughts as these, leaning on my hoe. I had come out early to work in my garden, and I would start the planting of a row, and the next thing I knew I would find myself standing--or squatting, in accordance with my most recent activity--and gazing out over the waters of the bay, dreaming and musing of the bitterness of disappointment, or of little souls clothed with authority, or of Old Goodwin, and of men like him--if there are such. Old Goodwin's is not a little soul. The first time that I thought on such things and lost myself in thinking, I was using my wheel hoe on the ground between the rows of corn and peas and beans. A wheel hoe is not a thing to lean on, but it fails you when you most need its support, and gives way under you and brings your thoughts to earth with a thump--and you as well, if you are not used to its vagaries and careful. So I took my hand hoe. It is friendly and will bear me up.

It was the twenty-sixth of May, and I had much planting to do, but I did not do it. I thought upon what had happened in the past few days, and I worked my wheel hoe. Wheel-hoeing does not interfere with my thinking. I believe I could do it in my sleep. I have only to walk along slowly, and to work my arms back and forth at every step, and unless the ground is very hard I can think perfectly. My corn showed as little yellowish-green tubes about an inch and a half long, just poked through a couple of days before, it was so cold early in the month; and it has not come up well. As I ran the hoe along beside the row, it was a rank of soldiers--soldiers of the first line. There were great gaps in the line. There have been many gaps, and there will be many more. It has not chanced to hit any friends of mine yet, but it will.

Then I thought upon the report of ten days before, that seven German submarines had been destroyed at sea on their way over here. It was gratifying to know that they had been destroyed, but the report was strangely disquieting to me. If they had sent a fleet of seven, they might send as many more. There was food for thought in that. I had seen no further mention of the matter in the papers, and most probably the report was untrue, but it set me thinking, and I wondered whether the information would not be considered of value to the enemy. If no report of their destruction had been published, Germany might not have known of it for weeks. Weeks of freedom for us knocked in the head by the newspapers.

And I was through with the corn, and had come to the beans, strange grotesque, misshapen things, pushing out of the ground like toads. Some of them were not through yet, but were raising great clods of earth, leaving holes which looked for all the world like toad-holes. There were two that looked like sinking ships. And I thought upon the report of a great naval battle, with many of our ships sunk. I do not believe it. In fact, I have heard vaguely of a denial by our Navy Department. And my eye was caught by a flash of scarlet near some trees by my wall, and there was a tanager. I stopped my hoeing and stood still and watched. It is some years since I have seen a tanager. He flew about in little short flights, aimlessly it seemed, from one low branch to another, then upon the ground, then back to a tree again, paying no attention to me standing like a scarecrow in my garden. Then he perched high and sang his cheerful song, very like a robin's. If I were not noticing nor thinking about it, I might think it a robin's--if I gave it a thought. I have heard that tanagers have been seen this spring in places where they have never been seen before. I have never seen one here, and I hoped this one would stay.

And then that talking machine of my neighbor's began reciting something in a loud voice--"Cohen at the telephone" or some such thing--and my tanager flew away, and I went savagely to my hoeing again. And I thought again of that obsolescent man who is too old to be shot, but not too old to be condemned to a ball and chain; and whose son they have taken while they have scornfully rejected him. And he would fight if they would let him. How he would fight! For there is nothing left for him but to choose the best death he can get. He may not be free even to do that. The father of Jack Ogilvie may be just such a man. I stopped again, and stood holding the handles of my hoe and looking off to sea, and thought of Ogilvie and Bobby and Jimmy Wales going to and fro upon the waters seeking that which is not.

I grasped my hoe handles more tightly, and turned my head, and looked at the dirt before me, and pushed my hoe savagely. What care I how they go to and fro upon the waters? I wander the sh.o.r.es, and I dig my clams, and I am content. But am I? And as I had got to this point in my meditations, from my neighbor's window came the rich voice of Harry Lauder singing "Breakfast in bed on Sunday morning." I smiled to myself--there was n.o.body to see me if I chose to smile at an absurdity--and my hoe went more and more slowly, for there was no power behind it. And I listened shamelessly to Harry Lauder's last whisper and his last mellow laugh, so that I did not hear the light steps behind me; but I heard the voice that I loved.

"Adam! Adam!" said the voice, chiding. "Listening to Harry Lauder--and enjoying it! Take shame to yourself."

And I turned, and saw Eve, and Tidda with her. Eve was smiling, and I smiled back at her.

"Surely, Eve," I said, "a man may rest when he is weary. And if my neighbor choose to have a talking machine spouting out of his window, I cannot stop him. I wish I could. Imagine Judson with a talking machine!"

"I can imagine it very easily. The dear old man would have enjoyed it, I am sure. And if it gives them pleasure, Adam--why, some of the things give you pleasure. You needn't try to deny it."

"I don't, Eve. I deny nothing. But some of the things are--"

Eve nodded. "Yes," she said, "some of them certainly are. But they needn't bother you much."

At that moment we heard a giggle from somewhere on the other side of the wall, and something came whizzing. It was nothing but an old rotten piece of wood, and it fell short, but it stirred Tidda.

"I'm going after that Sands girl," she cried. "She shan't fire old pieces of wood at us." And she set off at top speed straight for the wall. Tidda is not becoming obsolescent.

I would have stopped her.

"No," Eve said. "Let her go. It can't do any harm." She dismissed the matter from her mind. "Tell me, Adam, what made you so savage as we were coming up. What were you thinking about?"

I laughed rather shamefacedly. "It was of no consequence, Eve. I was thinking that life, for some people, is just one disappointment after another." I must remember that Eve has pacifist tendencies.

Eve looked up at me with sober eyes.

"Were you thinking of anything in particular?"

"Of the unimportant men in a great office with long rows of desks and endless routine; especially of men who are growing old in it and can see no escape. I was thinking of the same thing, I remember, on Wednesday, down on the sh.o.r.e. It was a driving drizzle from the northeast, and gray, with rolling seas. It made the round of an office seem so futile and so useless. I envied Jimmy and Bobby and Ogilvie, off on patrol. I would have liked to be on patrol myself."

"Would you?" asked Eve. There was speculation in her eyes--and something else that I had seen there before. I could not fathom it. "How many of the men in the office--the men who are growing old--would exchange the comforts of the office for a driving drizzle out of the northeast, and gray and rolling seas--and a motor-boat? Not one in ten."

"It was that one I was thinking of."

Eve looked away from me and nodded slowly.

"Can't you leave your gardening? Come and sit down."

So I left my tools in the field, as a poor farmer leaves his tools where he has last used them in the fall, the plough beside the furrow, and the mowing-machine and the horserake at the edge of the meadow; and in the spring he is sorrowful, and wonders and bemoans the winter. And Eve took my hand in hers, and we went to my great pine and sat us down upon the bench. And, behind us, came Tidda over the wall, dragging the reluctant Sands girl, who giggled and held back; and they sat by the hole that is scooped in the ground and lined with great stones, for they would play at having a clambake. The chatter of our daughter's tongue was like an accompaniment; and n.o.body pays any attention to an accompaniment.

"Now, Adam," said Eve, "for the important business. You know we decided that Jack Ogilvie must have had a birthday, or he would not have got his commission. I have been making inquiries. He did; and I find that everybody can come next Sat.u.r.day, probably,--a week from to-day."

Eve looked thoughtful and counted up on her fingers, which I released for the purpose--"the second of June. Do you think, Adam," she went on, "that clams will be ripe on the second of June?"

I laughed. "We can see. But many things will be lacking which belong to a clambake. Do you want me to issue a call to the Clam Beds Protective Company?"

"Oh, yes, Adam. How will it run? To a.s.semble, at their armory,--that is the bank above the clam beds,--in uniform, with arms and accoutrements, an hour before low tide. When will that be? But never mind. And shall I tell father?" She glanced toward the hole scooped in the ground. "He will be glad to--but mercy on us, Adam, where is Tidda?"

She sighed and started to her feet. I laughed, and pointed along the sh.o.r.e.

"Stole away," I said. Tidda and the Sands girl were picking their way among the great pebbles of the sh.o.r.e, Tidda with light feet skipping from pebble to pebble, the Sands girl going more cautiously and clumsily.

Eve sighed again. "We may as well follow. There is no knowing what they will be up to next."

So I rose and we turned to follow, and there was Elizabeth Radnor not ten steps away, smiling and regarding us with friendly eyes. As she drew near her eyes looked gray-green, not hazel, calm and humorous and knowing. Perhaps they are of the changeable kind. I have seen changeable eyes before. I would like to know what thoughts lie behind those eyes to give them their peculiar light. And at a guess I think that Bobby would give something to know. But they were friendly eyes, and they gave you a look that was straight and true.

"Oh, Elizabeth,"--Eve has got that far with her, which is in her favor. I have never yet known Eve to be deceived in people--"Oh, Elizabeth, we have to go after Tidda, just along the sh.o.r.e. Will you come? Tidda leads us a chase. Her spirit of adventure will lead her into trouble."

Elizabeth laughed. We were descending the steep path to the sh.o.r.e.

"I'm afraid I had a spirit of adventure as great as Tidda's," she said; "fortunately no disaster happened to me, although I must have been rather a trial to my mother. And as to going into the water when I shouldn't--why, I was in the water all the time--whenever I could get in. You see the unhappy result. We were poor, you know; in what is called straitened circ.u.mstances. My father died when I was a little tot, and we never had a maid until a few years ago. You go on in your own way. It is pretty sure to be right."

I do not know whether Eve thought Elizabeth was referring to the path, but she turned and began to descend again.