The False Faces Part 22

"You are discouraging!" Lanyard complained. "I see I may as well go below and be good. It's a dull life."

"Tell you what," giggled the lieutenant, leading his prisoner to the conning-tower hatch and lowering his voice: "do just that, go below and be nice, and presently I will come back and we'll split a bottle. What do you say to that, eh?"

"Colossal!"

"Not a bad notion, is it? I like it myself. One gets weary for the society of a gentleman, you've no idea.... As soon as my commander is drunk enough, I will slip away. How's that?"

"Grossartig!" Lanyard approved, turning to descend.

"Wait. You shall see for yourself what it means to have the friendship of a man of my stamp." The lieutenant raised his voice, addressing the anchor watch: "Attention. Heed with care: this gentleman is my friend. He is detained merely as a matter of form. I do not wish him to be annoyed. Do you understand? You are to leave him to himself as long as he remains quietly below. But he is not to come on deck again till I return. Is all that clear, imbeciles?"

The imbeciles, saluting mechanically, indicated glimmerings of comprehension.

"Then below you go, Dr. Rodiek. And don't get impatient: I will rejoin you as soon as possible."

"Don't be long," Lanyard implored.

As he lowered himself through the hatch he saw the Prussian stumble down the gangplank and reel sh.o.r.eward.

Well satisfied with his diplomacy, Lanyard lingered a while in the conning tower, closely studying and memorising the more salient features of the Island of Martha's Vineyard and its adjacent waters and mainland as delineated on a most comprehensive large-scale chart published by the German Admiralty from exhaustive soundings and surveys of its own navigators and typographers, with corrections of as recent date as the first part of the year 1917.

Here the breach in the south coast line which permitted the utilisation of what had formerly been an extensive fresh-water pond as this secret submarine base, was clearly shown. And a single glance confirmed the lieutenant's statement concerning its remote isolation from settled sections of the island.

Somewhat dismayed, Lanyard descended to the central operating compartment and scouted through the hold from bow bulkhead to stern, making certain he enjoyed undisputed privacy. And it was so; every man-jack of the U-boat's personnel--jaded to the marrow with its cramped accommodations, unremitting toil and care, unsanitary smells and forbidding a.s.sociations--having naturally seized the earliest opportunity to escape so loathsome a prison.

Lanyard, however, was anything but resentful of condemnation to this solitary confinement. His interest in the interior arrangements of submersibles seemed all but feverish, as intense as sudden; witness the minute attention to detail which marked his second tour of inspection. On this round he took his time. He had all night in which to work out his salvation; the wildest schemes were revolving in his mind, the least fantastic utterly impracticable without accurate knowledge of many matters; and such knowledge might be gained only through patient investigation and ungrudging expenditure of time.

It was now something past ten by the chronometers. He could hardly do much before dawn, lacking the instinct of a red Indian to guide him through that night-bound waste of woodland. So he felt little need to slight his researches through haste, except in antic.i.p.ation of his lieutenant's return. And as to that, Lanyard was moderately incredulous: he expected to see nothing more of this new-found friend, unless the infatuation of the Prussian proved far stronger than his head.

Turning first to the private quarters of the commander, a somewhat more commodious cubicle than that across the alleyway in which Lanyard had been berthed, his interest was attracted by a small safe anch.o.r.ed to the deck beneath the desk.

To this Lanyard addressed himself without hesitation, solving the secret of its combination readily through exercise of the most rudimentary of professional principles. The problem it offered, indeed, was child's play to such cunning of touch and hearing as had made the reputation of the Lone Wolf.

Open, the safe discovered to him a variety of articles of interest: some five thousand dollars in English and American banknotes of large denomination, several hundred in American gold; three distinct cipher codes, one of these wholly novel in Lanyard's experience and so, he believed, in the knowledge of the Allied secret services; the log of the U-boat and the intimate diary of its commander, both in cryptograph; a compact directory of German agents domiciled in Atlantic coast ports; a very considerable acc.u.mulation of German Admiralty orders; together with many doc.u.ments of lesser moment.

Rapidly sorting out the more valuable of these, Lanyard disposed them about his person, then confiscated the banknotes as indemnity for his stolen money-belt, replaced the rejections, and reclosed and locked the safe.

His next interest was to arm himself. After several disappointments he discovered arms-lockers beneath the berths for the crew in the forward compartment just aft of that devoted to torpedo tubes. Here he selected a latest pattern German navy automatic pistol with three extra cartridge clips and, after some hesitation, a peculiarly devilish magazine rifle firing explosive bullets. The latter he placed handily, yet out of sight, near the foot of the companion ladder. The pistol fitted snugly a trousers pocket, its bulk hidden by the sag of his sweater....

Some time later the lieutenant, slipping down the ladder, found Lanyard studying with a convincing aspect of childlike bewilderment the complicated combinations of machinery which crowded the central operating compartment.

Fresh from a bath and shave and wearing a clean uniform, the Prussian showed vast improvement in looks if not in equilibrium. But his mouth twitched fitfully, his eyes wandered and disclosed a disquieting superabundance of white, and his tongue was noticeably thicker than before.

"Well, my friend!" he said--"you are truly disappointing. The watch said you had made no sound since going below. I was afraid of another of those famous naps of yours."

"With the prospect of a bottle with you? Impossible! I have been waiting and waiting, with my tongue hanging out."

"Too bad. Why did you not look around, help yourself? Why not?" the lieutenant demanded. "Have I not given you freedom of ship? It is yours, everything here 'yours!"

"I want nothing but an end to this great thirst," Lanyard protested.

"Then--G.o.d in Heaven!--why we standing here? Come!"

Releasing the handrail the Prussian took careful aim for the alleyway door, launched himself toward it, slipped on the greasy metal grating, and would have fallen heavily but for Lanyard.

Cursing pettishly, he stood up, threw off Lanyard's arms without thanks, and made a new attempt, this time shooting headlong through the alleyway, to bring up against the wing table in the third forward compartment, the kitchen and messroom in one.

"A great pity," he muttered, opening a locker and fumbling in its depths--"rotten pity...."

"What?"

"Keep you waiting so long. Not my fault." The lieutenant brought forth two bottles of champagne and one of brandy. "You open them, Herr Doctor, like 'good fellow," he said, placing the three on the table. "I just wish you 'understand no discourtesy meant ... unavoidably detained ... beastly commander ... drunk. Give 'my word, hopelessly drunk. Poor fool...."

"If my judgment is sound," Lanyard said, "this n.o.ble vessel will soon need a new commander."

"True. Quite true." The Prussian placed two aluminium cups upon the table and half filled one with brandy, then brimmed it with champagne. "Try that," he said thickly, "That will keep your tail up, my friend."

"Many thanks," Lanyard protested, filling another cup with undiluted champagne. "I prefer one thing at a time."

"Unfortunate ... don't know what is good ... King's peg ... wonderful drink. No matter. To 'new commander--prosit!"

He drained his cup at a gulp.

"To the new commander!" Lanyard echoed, and drank judiciously.

"Excellent.... How long can he last, do you think, at this pace?"

"No telling--not long--too long for my liking. Shall I tell 'something?"

He filled his cup again, half and half, and sat down, his wicked, rat-like face more than ever pale and repulsive. "Not 'whisper of this, mind--though I think 'crew sometimes suspects: he's going mad!"

"Not that Bavarian?"

The lieutenant nodded wisely. "If 'knew him as I know him, 'never be surprised, my friend. You think too much drink. Yes, but not entirely. He keeps seeing things, hearing them, especially by night."

"What sort of things?"

"Faces." The Prussian licked his lips, glanced furtively over his shoulder, and drank. "Dead faces, eyes eaten out, seaweed in their hair.... And voices--he's forever hearing voices ... people trying to talk, 'can't make him understand because 'mouths 'full of water, you know. But they understand one another, keep discussing how to get at him.... He tells me about it ... I tell you, it is h.e.l.l to hear him talk ... especially when submerged, as last night. Then he hears them fumbling all over the hull with their stumpy fingers, trying to find 'way in, talking about him. And he tells me, and keeps insisting, till sometimes I seem to hear them, too.

But I don't. Before G.o.d, I don't! You don't believe I do, do you?"

His eyes rolled wildly.

"Why should you?"

"Just so: why should I?" The lieutenant's accents rose to a shrill pitch.

"I have not his record ... still in training when he sent _Lusitania_ to the bottom. Yes: it was he, second-in-command, in charge of torpedo tubes.

His own hand fired that torpedo...."

He fell silent, staring moodily into his cup, perhaps thinking of the number of torpedoes it had been his own lot to discharge upon errands of slaughter.

And the dead silence of the ship was made audible by a stealthy drip-drip of water from the seams, and the furtive slaver of the tide on the outer plates.