The Clammer and the Submarine Part 9

I was afraid to look at her lest she guess, and I was not ready to tell her. I might never be ready.

"It is nothing, Eve," I said: "nothing of importance. It is not worth a minute's worry." And that was true too.

"Foist it upon somebody else then," she answered quickly. "There are persons to decide those things."

I looked at her then. "I cannot believe that I get your meaning. You could not know. Truly there are persons to decide those things, but Heaven knows whether they are competent to decide anything. No doubt they would cheerfully and light-heartedly consign me to--what I should not do."

I stopped abruptly. I had almost told her that which I had determined not to tell her--yet. I looked into her eyes, and there I saw laughter and joy and hope and great love; and I saw the same tender wistfulness that I had seen so many times in the past weeks. But joy and laughter conquered.

"I hear Elizabeth coming," she said, "and I hope you may read your riddle. Now we must be most proper. Are you proper, Adam?"

And Elizabeth came while I was yet straightening my hair, and getting it into a comfortable condition. It feels most uncomfortable when it is rumpled and each separate hair taking a different direction, like the brush that is used to black the stove. It feels as that brush looks.

Elizabeth laughed at me unfeelingly. And she turned to Eve. But people always turn to Eve. "I'm going to take Pukkie, Eve, if you don't mind. Captain Fergus did not ask him, but I'm going to take him anyway. I've told him."

And Eve smiled and said nothing, and we started, and Pukkie came running, his face expressing his delight. And when we were in the launch and starting from the landing, Eve wished me once more the proper reading of my riddle, and she threw a kiss to us, and stood there until we were aboard the Arcadia; then we saw her wending up the slope toward the great house.

The sails were already hoisted and the anchor hove short. Elizabeth and Captain Fergus and Pukkie and I were settled in chairs along the rail, and the crew went about their business so quickly and so quietly that the first I knew of our being under way was the gentle canting of the deck beneath my feet. We had slipped out.

The wind was very light, but it was making rapidly, and there was a long, heaving swell from the Atlantic--perhaps two hundred feet from crest to crest--which made the big Arcadia pitch gently and bury her bow to the eyes. At last one of these seas, higher than most of those which made up the great procession, crept up higher yet and slopped over upon the deck. And her bows rose, and there was a rush of water along the deck, and there came the noise of falling water from hawse pipes and scuppers.

Pukkie laughed with delight, and Captain Fergus looked up.

"Crack on," he said; and they set more sail.

Presently there came another of those mighty rollers. She took it over her bows, a flood of green water, and it came roaring aft. Again there was the sound of many waters, more mighty yet, as hawse pipes and scuppers spouted forth their loads.

Captain Fergus looked up at the masts. "Crack on," he said again. And he got up and wandered to and fro across the deck, gazing up at the masts and at the men setting the light sails.

"She'd do better," he said, stopping for an instant by my chair, "if I hadn't had to put that confounded engine in her. You wouldn't believe what a drag a screw is, even when it is feathering."

She was doing well enough. All her light sails were set, and she was furnished forth with all her frills and furbelows, so that there was no place where she could carry another st.i.tch. She bent to her business and sailed. And Captain Fergus smiled a smile of satisfaction--in spite of that dragging screw.

Pukkie had left his comfortable chair, and was leaning against my knee, saying nothing, but looking back at me now and then, his face a study. It was a pleasure just to watch him. Captain Fergus seemed to find it so, and Elizabeth had been watching him for some time.

"Come, young man," Captain Fergus said suddenly. "Don't you want to walk a while with me--to pace the deck with measured tread, while what-you-may-call-it on the dead? Eh?"

And Pukkie smiled more than ever--if that were possible--and jumped and joined him; and they walked--paced the deck with measured tread for some time in solemn silence. Captain Fergus would glance aloft, and Pukkie would glance aloft; and at last I smiled and Elizabeth laughed.

"Don't you feel like pacing the deck with measured tread?" I asked.

And she got up as if she had been sitting on a spring, and we paced the deck in solemn silence behind those other two.

Captain Fergus turned suddenly. "This young man ought to have a uniform," he said. "I've got one that he could wear. Steward!"

And the steward, having come instantly and received his instructions, vanished below, and immediately reappeared, bearing an ensign's coat and cap. These were fitted upon my son. They were too large, but he could wear them.

"But, Captain Fergus," said Elizabeth, laughing, "the regulations!"

"Jigger the regulations!" remarked Captain Fergus, smiling. "I pay mighty little attention to regulations when I'm on my own vessel. Pukkie's my first officer."

My little son beamed at this, and turned to show me his uniform.

"When you command that yacht of Mr. Goodwin's," said Elizabeth, "you'll have to pay some attention to the regulations."

"Have to sleep in my uniform, like as not," Captain Fergus growled. "According to the order we are not to unb.u.t.ton a b.u.t.ton of the coat on any occasion. If that doesn't mean sleep in your uniform, what does it mean?"

"You can't have Pukkie for your first officer then," Elizabeth pursued. "Can you?"

"I suppose not. Probably some yachting chaps who have been prominent socially and got their pictures in the papers. I hope not, though. There are some good men in the Reserve. I only hope they may give me men who have had experience in steamers. I don't want any of these pets who have commissions merely because they had influence, or because they were rich enough to give a boat."

I said nothing. I had the light that I was looking for, although it did not illumine my problem, but was what I had supposed it would be. After all, if a man do but use the sense that G.o.d gave him and stand by his judgments, he will do well enough. I would have none of Old Goodwin's steamer. What was I, to be officer on a great steamer? I might command a rowboat, or a yacht like Pukkie's if need were.

"You do not have a very high opinion," I said, "of the navy?"

"What?" he said. "High opinion? Oh, yes, I have. Good men and fine vessels, many of them. It's a sailor's right to growl at the service he's in. You mustn't take what he says too seriously."

"Would you advise a man to enroll in the navy?"

"Depends on the man. If he has a taste for the sea, he'd be more contented in the navy than in the army, but many men have a strong distaste for it. I'd advise your man to get the best rank he can, and to have no modesty about it. If he doesn't get it some other fellow will who is not troubled by modesty."

And Captain Fergus took up his pacing the deck again, and Pukkie walked beside him, taking as long a stride as he could. Elizabeth watched them, a smile of affection in her eyes.

"Isn't he fine in his uniform?" she whispered. "But he would be happier if he could wear his old blue coat and his old blue cap."

He was fine, and he looked the sailor and the fighter. But I knew that old blue coat and that old blue cap, hanging in his cabin. The sun had shone caressingly upon them many times, and seemed to like them almost as well as he liked them; and they had changed their colors, as everything does under the caresses of the sun, until they were blue no longer, but of a purplish cast, shot with red.

The wind grew, as winds will, until two or three in the afternoon, and the sea grew with it, but always there were those great rollers coming in from the Atlantic. And the Arcadia was doing her twelve knots, bowing majestically and buffeting the great seas, tearing the tops from them and sending sheets of spray, which rattled upon her deck or upon the surface of the water like hail; and the water hissed past the rail, and there was the gentle cluck of blocks, deep in their throats, with the heave of the sea, and there was the sound of wind in the rigging and of ropes beating on taut sails. Altogether it made glad my heart; and Elizabeth seemed to like it, and Pukkie's heart was swollen almost to bursting. And the captain paced to and fro, saying nothing, or he stood by the rail looking out over the waters, his cap pulled down low, an unquenchable light in his deep blue eyes and a happy smile on his lips.

We had pa.s.sed the colored cliffs of Gay Head shining in the sun, and we were pa.s.sing Nomansland, and the great rollers were greater yet. There was fog out beyond, lying in wait. Captain Fergus nodded to Elizabeth.

"Better see if we can pick them up," he said.

She turned to go below, and stopped at the companionway.

"Look," she said.

We looked where she pointed. There, on the surface of the sea, about two miles away, was some great thing glistening in the sun, the water washing over it. A thick haze, or the advance guard of the fog, made it hard to see anything clearly except the glisten of the sun.

"Oh," cried Pukkie, "I see it. Is it a submarine?" And he looked up at the captain.

"More likely a whale," the captain answered, smiling; "but we will see."

And the course of the Arcadia was changed a little so that she was heading straight for it. She kept on for it, and now and then the sunlight caught it and made it to shine like the windows of a house at sunset, and again it was a dark body with the water washing over it, and we could scarcely make it out, lying there in the sea. As we approached my breath came quicker and my eyes glistened, and I smiled. I know it, for Elizabeth glanced at me and laughed. It was a mysterious thing, lying there in that thick haze. It seemed as if it might be a submarine, although reason told me it was not.

"What do you mean to do?" I asked.

"Ram him," answered the captain promptly, "if it is a submarine and we can get there in time. A fast sailing vessel is better, for he could hear our screw. But it is no submarine. It looks more like a vessel's bilge. There! Ha!"

The glistening body moved, and great flukes suddenly reared on high, and the body disappeared.

"A sleeping whale," Captain Fergus observed. "Another submarine report gone wrong."

"Are there any over here?"

"Not now, I am reasonably sure. Don't believe there will be, although I may be mistaken. They can use them to better advantage on the other side. But there may be, in time, unless Germany blows up first. We don't know what is happening in Germany. They may blow up at any minute, and they may not. Shouldn't be surprised--and I shouldn't be surprised if they kept going for a year or two longer. Look at the Russian army, just got well going and they have mutiny and lose it all. Too bad! I'd like to see any crew of mine try it!"

Elizabeth laughed and went below, and Captain Fergus began again his walking to and fro. Presently Elizabeth came up and spoke to him, and the course was changed, and in an hour we had sighted a steamer making for us.

It was the Rattlesnake; and the two vessels lay quiet on that rolling sea while our tender went over with a package of papers, and came back with Bobby. And the Rattlesnake turned about and we soon lost her in the haze, and we turned about and headed for home.

Bobby was not talkative on the way back. Indeed, Bobby has not been himself for some weeks; not the Bobby that I knew of old. I cannot fix the date at which the change occurred, but it was some date that had to do with Elizabeth. Every date has to do with Elizabeth, so far as he is concerned. And though he spoke to her when he came over the side--spoke gravely, I suppose he thought--it seemed more like petulance to me--he said no word more to her, but sat in his chair and gazed moodily out over the water. And Elizabeth sat in her chair, and she gazed at Bobby under lowered lids, and she smiled her smile of suppressed amus.e.m.e.nt. And presently, her thoughts being unguarded, she raised her lids a little, so that I saw all the lights of the sea playing in her eyes, that were yet regarding Bobby, and there came into them a tender light that was more than all the light on sea and sky. And she glanced at me, and she saw that I had seen, and she flushed slowly, and got up and went below.

"Bobby," I said, "are you not ashamed of yourself?"

He started. "Ashamed of myself?" he answered, looking at the companionway down which Elizabeth had disappeared. "No doubt I should be. I do things enough to be ashamed of. But why?"

"You have not seemed to notice the honor that has befallen my family. My son is made ensign or lieutenant commander or something, and you have not remarked the event. I am afraid that you have hurt his feelings."

Bobby laughed as though he was relieved.

"So he is--ensign or something, as you say. And I did not observe it. I ask his pardon, Adam, and yours." And he called to Pukkie, who was following Captain Fergus about like a pet dog; and Pukkie came, and Bobby felicitated him upon his promotion. And Pukkie smiled until I feared lest his face crack.

"It is a trifle large," Bobby remarked, referring to the uniform, "but he will grow to it."

"It is not so much too large as it was," I said. "You should have seen him swell--like a toad-grunter."

"Daddy," protested the aggrieved Pukkie, "I'm not like a toad-grunter."

The toad-grunter is a much despised fish.

"No, Puk," said Bobby, "you're not. I think your father should apologize."

"I apologize, Pukkie," I said hastily, for I would not wound my son. "You are not. And, Bobby, can't you find any? Is that why you are out of sorts?"

"Find any what?" asked Bobby, puzzled. "Any toad-grunters? I hope not. Who wants to find 'em? You speak in riddles, Adam."

"It was submarines I meant."

Bobby smiled seraphically. "Your traps, Adam, are no good. But I'm going to find some submarines pretty soon. Pret--ty soon, you mark my words."

"Words marked. But what do you mean?"

"What I say. Now, Puk, what do you say to a walk about the deck? Or would you rather follow your captain?"

And Bobby strolled off with Pukkie. They went up forward, where the Arcadia was shouldering aside the great seas. We had the wind on the quarter, and there was no longer the sound of spray like rolling musketry. And presently Elizabeth looked out of the companionway, and seeing me alone, she came and sat in the chair next to mine, and she put out her hand.

"Adam," she said with a pretty flush.

"Elizabeth," I answered, with no flush, but I watched hers flaming.

"Adam, don't you tell," she said, looking shyly at me. Elizabeth is not given to shy looks, but to honest ones, eye to eye. "Promise me that you will never tell. Give me your hand on it."

I took her hand. It was a pretty hand and soft enough, with tapering fingers, but it was not such a pretty hand as Eve's.

"Elizabeth," I said to her, "I do not know anything to tell--anything that would be of interest. But--but you do not mind if I tell Eve, do you? And," I finished lamely enough, "I hope it--it will."

She laughed and sighed, and gave my hand a squeeze.

"Thank you," she said. "But Eve knows, I think."

Captain Fergus was standing by the rail, sniffing the wind and gazing out at the waters, and at the little swirls of foam that raced by, and at the bank of fog that chased us in. He was happy. I almost envied him. He had done his part, and he was doing it.

"Will you walk?" I asked Elizabeth. And we got up and walked, saying nothing.

The afternoon pa.s.sed, and the wind died. As we drew near to the lighthouse that stands like a sentinel on its rock just within the entrance to the bay, the sun was far down in the west, the breeze was but the gentlest breath, and the surface of the water moved in slow, oily undulations. I stood with Elizabeth close beside the rail, and we gazed at the water that was red and gold.

The shadow of the tall lighthouse was thrown high on the sails, and pa.s.sed slowly aft. The red sun was sitting on a distant hill bearded with cedars. The little oily waves were splotched with vermilion and blue and purple and gold, and the gold dazzled our eyes.

Not a ripple marked our pa.s.sage. I gazed at the red sun, and he gazed back at me; and his red disc was half down behind the hill, and I could see it sink. And the sun sank behind the hill and had winked his last, and a broad smooch of red lay upon the western horizon. We watched the red fade to orange, then to saffron and to green, while two little saffron clouds with edges of flame floated high above, and the fog crept in stealthily below. And I heard Elizabeth sigh, and I looked down and she looked up.

"If you find this sad," I said, "and as if it were the end of all things, turn about. The sight will fill your soul with peace."

So we turned about. And the sky toward the east was of a lovely soft, warm pearl-gray, and the water the same pearl-gray with tints of rose and of a light blue here and there. The distance was veiled in an impalpable haze, and water and sky merged into a soft grayish blur toward the horizon, as if smeared with a dry brush. The water, gray with its rose tints and its blue, seemed to dimple softly, like a baby smiling as it sank to sleep. It soothed my soul; it was the very breath of peace.

I heard another sigh beside me, and I turned, and there was Bobby.

"Submarines in that!" he said, and smiled.

We began to turn slowly, and were come to our anchorage, and there was Old Goodwin's great steamer not far away, and Old Goodwin himself, with Eve, on his landing, waiting for us.

As we were about to go ash.o.r.e, Captain Fergus spoke to me.

"About that man of yours," he said. "Tell him to go to Newport, and to put himself in their hands over there. It is the best thing he can do."

And I thanked him, and said I would tell my man. And we were walking from the landing, Old Goodwin and I and Eve--Bobby had to walk with Elizabeth, with Pukkie between them, for there was none other thing that he could do, but they said nothing that I could hear.

"I am going to take Cecily over to Newport to-morrow," Old Goodwin observed. "She has not seen Tom for five days. Don't you want to come along, Adam?"

XI.