The False Faces Part 21

Lanyard relaxed. The man was too far gone in drink to be crafty, too sure of his absolute power of life and death to imagine a need for craft. Since his hand had not immediately sought the holster, it would not.

Turbid accents uttered the name of Dr. Rodiek.

Lanyard stepped forward alertly. "Yes, Herr Captain?"

"New York says it had no knowledge of your intention to leave England on the _a.s.syrian_, but that you may well have done so. The Wilhelmstra.s.se will know, of course. It has already been telegraphed. Pending its reply, I am to detain you."

"How long?" Lanyard demurred.

"As you know, transatlantic communications must now go by land telegraph to the Border, by hand into Mexico, thence by radio via Venezuela to Berlin.

All that takes time. Also, we may not signal New York but at stated times of night. You will be detained another twenty-four hours at least, possibly longer."

"My errand cannot wait."

"It must."

"You will obstruct the business of the Imperial Government at your peril."

"I would incur still greater peril did I let you go," the commander replied nervously. "With these swine-dogs at war with the Fatherland, our lives are not worth _that_ should this base be betrayed."

"Do I understand America has declared war?"

"Two days since. Did you not know?"

"The _a.s.syrian's_ wireless room was under guard: the captain published no bulletins whatever."

The Bavarian gave a gesture of impatience.

"You will remain on board for the night," he announced heavily.

"Pardon!" Lanyard insisted with every evidence of anxious excitement.

"What you tell me makes it more than ever imperative that I reach New York without an hour's avoidable delay. I warn you, think well before you hinder the discharge of my duty."

"It is not necessary that I think," the commander replied. "My thinking has all been done for me. Me, I obey my orders; it is not my part to question their wisdom. Moreover, Herr Doctor, to my mind your insistence is to say the least suspicious. Even had I discretion in the matter, I should hold you. Therefore, you will keep a civil tongue in your head, or go below in irons immediately!"

He swung on his heel, showing an insolent back while he conferred with his subaltern.

And Lanyard shrugged appreciation of the futility of more contention against such mulishness. Not that the Bavarian was not right enough! As to that, one had really hoped for no better issue; but every shift is worth trial till proved worthless; and he was no worse off now than if he had submitted without complaint. Still one had Chance to look to for aid and comfort in this stress; and Chance, the jade, is not always unkind to her audacious suitors.

Even now she flashed upon Lanyard a provoking intimation of her smile.

He began to divine possibilities in this overt ill-feeling between the officers; advantage might be made of the racial hostility of Prussian and Bavarian.

The commander's att.i.tude and tone were consistently overbearing, if his words were inaudible to Lanyard. The lieutenant quite evidently submitted only in form; his salute was punctiliously correct and curt; and as the commander lumbered off down the landing stage, he grumbled indistinctly in Lanyard's hearing:

"Dog of a Bavarian!"

"The good Herr Captain," Lanyard suggested pleasantly, "is not in the most agreeable of tempers, yes?"

The high and well-born lieutenant spat comprehensively into the darkness overside. After a moment of hesitation he moved nearer and spoke in confidential accents. And the fragrant air of the night was tainted with the vinous effluvium of his breath.

"Always he prattles of his precious duty!" the Prussian muttered. "d.a.m.n his duty! Look you, Herr Doctor: months we have been on this cruise, yes, more than three months out of Heligoland, penned together in this ramshackle stinkpot, or isolated here in this G.o.d-forgotten hole, seeing nothing of life, hearing nothing of the world but what little the radio tells us--sick of the very sight of one another's faces! And now, when we have accomplished a glorious feat and have every right to look for prompt recall and the rewards of heroes, orders come to remain indefinitely and operate against the North Atlantic fleet of the contemptible Yankee navy! The life of a dog! And that n.o.ble commander of mine pretends to welcome it, talks of one's duty to the Fatherland--as if he liked the work any better than I!--solely to spite me!"

"But why?"

"Because he hates me," the lieutenant snarled pa.s.sionately--"hates me even as I hate him--he knows how well!"

He interrupted himself to define his conception of the commander's character in the freest vernacular of the Berlin underworld.

Lanyard laughed amiably. "They are like that," he agreed--"those Bavarians!"

Which inspired the Prussian to deliver a phosph.o.r.escent diatribe on the racial traits of the Bavarian people as comprehended by the North German junker.

"To be cooped up G.o.d knows how long in this putrescent death-trap with such cattle," he concluded mutinously--"it pa.s.ses all endurance!"

"I wonder you stand it," Lanyard sympathised--"a man of spirit and good birth, as one readily perceives. Though the life of a secret agent is not altogether heavenly either, if you ask me," he added gratuitously. "Regard me now, charged with a mission of most vital moment--more than ever so since the Yankees have shown their teeth--delayed here indefinitely because your excellent Herr Captain chooses to doubt my word."

"Patience. Maybe your release comes quickly. Then he will regret--or would had he wit enough. There is no cure for a fool." The sententiousness of this aphorism was unhappily marred by a hiccough. "Anybody with eyes in his head could see you are what you are...."

The last of the operating-room crew piled up the hatchway, saluted, and hurried ash.o.r.e to join in noisy jubilations. There remained on the U-boat only the lieutenant with Lanyard, and two base guards detailed as anchor watch.

"I must go," the lieutenant volunteered. "And believe me, one welcomes a change of clothing and a dry bed after a week in this reeking sieve. As for you, my friend, if it lay with me, you should receive the treatment due a gentleman." A wave of maudlin camaraderie affected him. He pa.s.sed an affectionate arm through Lanyard's and was suffered, though the gorge of the adventurer revolted at the familiarity. "I am sorry to leave you. No, do not be astonished! No protestations, please! It is quite true. I know a man of the right sort when I meet one, the sort even I can a.s.sociate with without loss of self-respect. It is a great pity you may not come with me and make a night of it."

"Another time, perhaps," Lanyard said. "The night may yet come when you and I shall meet at the Metropole or the Admiral's Palace.... Who knows?"

"Ah!" sighed the Prussian, enchanted. "What a night that will be, my friend!... But now, it is too bad, I really must ask you to step below.

Such are my silly orders. I am made responsible for you. What do you think of that for a joke, eh?"

He laughed vacantly but loudly, and, attempting to poke a derisive thumb into Lanyard's ribs, lost his balance.

"What a responsibility!" said Lanyard gravely, holding him up.

"Nonsense, that's what it is. You have no possible chance to escape."

"Suppose I make one--tip you overboard, take to my heels--?"

"You would be shot like a rabbit before you got half way to the sh.o.r.e."

"Ah, but grant, for the sake of argument, that these brave fellows, the guards, aim poorly in this gloom?"

"Where would you go? Into the forest, naturally. But how far? You may believe me when I tell you, not a hundred yards. It's a true wilderness, scrub-oak and cedar and second growth choked with underbrush, almost trackless. In five minutes you would be helplessly lost, in this blackness, with no stars to steer by. We need only wait till daylight to find you walking in a circle."

"You can't mean," Lanyard pursued, learning something helpful every moment, "there is no communicating road?"

"The main woods road, yes: but that is far too well patrolled. Without the countersign, you would be caught or shot a dozen times before you reached the end of it."

"Ah, well!"--with the sigh of a philosopher--"then I presume there's no way out but by swimming."

"Over to the beach you mean? Well, what then? You have got a twenty-mile walk either way through deep sand sure to betray your footprints. At dawn we follow and bag you at our leisure."