Tom Slade on a Transport Part 13

As Tom went back along the deck, he glanced through a street which seemed to run almost perpendicularly up the side of a thickly built-up hill, and caught a pa.s.sing glimpse of the open country beyond. France!

He wondered whether the "front" were in that direction and how long it would take to get there, and what it looked like. It could not be so very far. Presently he heard a more orderly clatter of wooden shoes and he saw several of the soldiers, who had not yet gone ash.o.r.e, hurry to the rail.

He did not dare to do that himself, but as he walked he ventured to verge a little toward the vessel's side, and saw below several men in tattered, almost colorless uniforms, marching in line along the brick street, each with a wheelbarrow.

He heard a woman call something from a window in French.

"There's discipline for you, all right," a soldier said.

"You said it," replied another; "it's second nature with 'em."

He gathered that the little procession of laborers were German prisoners, and that the long ingrained habit of marching in step had become so much a part of their natures that they did it now instinctively.

Then he realized that he himself was a prisoner and was in a worse plight than they.

He spent the morning wondering what they would do with him and his brother. Of course they believed him to be the accomplice of his brother. They probably thought he had weakened and told in terror and in hope of clemency. He wondered if they had gone through his brother's luggage yet and whether they had found any papers.

He realized that it seemed almost too much of a coincidence that he and his brother should have happened on the same ship--and in the same stateroom, all by accident. And he knew that his coming down from the deck just after the signal from the destroyer, looked bad. He knew that back home in America Germans had gone to Ellis Island upon less suspicious circ.u.mstances than that. But what would they do with an American? In the case of an American it was just plain treason and the punishment for treason is----

A feeling almost of nausea overcame him and he tried to put the dreadful thought away from him.

"Anyway, the whole business is a kind of a mix-up," he told himself; "it don't make any difference what you do--you get in trouble. But I don't blame them so much, 'cause they judge by looks, and that's the only way you can do. Anyway, you got to die some time. I'm glad I found it out and told 'em, 'cause anyway it don't make any difference if they think I confessed or just found it out--as long as they know it. That's the main thing."

With this consoling thought he withdrew into his old stolid self, and was ready to stand up and be shot if that was what they intended to do with him. He did not blame anybody "because it was all a mix-up." If he had chosen to save his brother he might have saved himself. The great ship, with all her brave boys, would have gone down, perhaps, and his brother would have seen to it that they two were saved.

Well, the ship had _not_ gone down, the brave boys who had jollied the life out of him were on their way across country now to die if need be, and who was he, Tom Slade, that he should be concerning himself as to just how or when _he_ should die, or whether he got any credit or not, so long as he had decided right and done what he ought to do?

He would rather have died honorably in the trenches, but if doing Uncle Sam a good turn meant that he must die in disgrace, why then he would die in disgrace, that was all.

The point was the _good_ turn. Once a scout, always a scout.

No one spoke to him all through the day--not even his brother. He heard the hurried comings and goings on the deck, the creaking of the big winches as bag after bag of wheat, bale after bale of cotton, was swung over and lowered upon the brick quay. The little French children who made the neighborhood a bedlam with their gibberish and the outlandish clatter of their wooden shoes; the women who sat in their windows watching these good things being unloaded, as Santa Claus might unload his pack in the bosom of some poor family; the United States officers who were in authority at the port, and all the clamoring rabble which made the ship's vicinity a picnic ground, did not know, of course, that it was because the captain's mess boy had made a discovery and "decided right" that these precious stores were not at the bottom of the ocean.

And the captain's mess boy, whose uncle had fought at Gettysburg, and whose brother was a traitor, could not see the things which were going to help win the war because he was locked up in a little dim room on board, called the guardhouse. He was sitting on the leather settee, his fingers intertwined nervously, gulping painfully now and then, but for the most part, quiet and brave. He did not try to talk with his brother now. He wished he could know the worst right away--what they were going to do with him. Then he would not care so much.

Outside, upon the deck and quay, he could hear much, and he listened with a dull interest. He knew that old Uncle Sam was out there with his sleeves rolled up, making himself mightily at home, chucking wheat and wool and cotton and sugar and stuff out of the hold, slewing it, hoisting it, and letting it down plunk onto France! The boys in khaki were on trains already. He could hear the silly, piping screech of the French locomotives. His mind was half numbed, but he hoped that all this would encourage those French people and remind them that before Uncle Sam rolled down his sleeves again, he intended to bat out a home run.

Sometimes he became frightened, but he tried not to think of what lay before him. He believed that his brother would drag him down to his own shameful punishment, but he told himself that he didn't care.

"Anyway, I did my bit. I wish--I kinder wish I could have seen Frenchy again. But I ain't scared. I just as soon--stand--up--and be---- 'Cause I ain't much, anyway----. And it ain't--it ain't for me to decide how I ought to die."

CHAPTER XVII

HE AWAITS THE WORST AND RECEIVES A SURPRISE

After a while the monotony was broken by two soldiers coming to take his brother away. Tom did not know where they were taking him; it might be to court martial and death. He knew nothing about court martial, whether it was a matter of minutes or hours or days, only he knew that everything in military administration was quick, severe and thorough. He wanted to speak to his brother, but he did not dare, and after the grim little procession was gone he listened to the steady, ominous footfalls, as they receded along the deck.

Soon they would come for _him_, and he made up his mind that he would be master of himself and at the last minute he would hold his head up and look straight at them, just like the statue of Nathan Hale which he had seen....

He realized fully now that he had been caught in the meshes of his brother's intrigue, and that there was no hope for him. To have saved himself he would have had to spare his brother and allow the intriguing to go on. Well, it made no difference--here he was. "And it ain't so much, anyway," he said, "if one boy like me does get misjudged, as long as the ship is saved and those papers about the motor were found."

So he tried to comfort himself, sitting there alone, twisting his fingers and gulping now and then. All his fine, patriotic memories of the Slades were knocked in the head, but even in these lonely hours he was stanch for Uncle Sam. Uncle Sam might make a mistake--a terrible mistake, as he presently would do--"but anyway he's more important than I am," he said.

Occasionally he listened wistfully to the sounds outside and they made him wish he could see as well as hear. He heard the creaking of the busy pulleys, the men calling "Yo-o-ho!" as they handled the winch-ropes, the dull thud of the heavy bales upon the quay, the cheerful, l.u.s.ty calls of the workers, the loud voices of the French people, and that incessant accompaniment of all, the clatter, clatter, clatter, of wooden shoes.

Sometimes he would lose his mastery of himself and regain it only to listen again, wistfully, longingly. He hoped those German prisoners who walked as if they were wound up with a key, noticed all this hurry and bustle. They would soon see what it meant for Uncle Sam.

There were voices outside and Tom's heart beat like a hammer. Could it be over so soon? The door opened a little and he could see that someone was holding the k.n.o.b, talking to a soldier. He breathed heavily, his fingers were cold, but he stood up and looked straight before him, bravely. They had come to get him.

Then the door opened wider and a familiar voice greeted him.

"H'lo, Tommy. Well, well! Adventures never cease, huh?"

Tom stood gaping. Through dimmed eyes he saw a cigar (it seemed like the same cigar) c.o.c.ked up in the corner of Mr. Conne's mouth and that queer, whimsical look on Mr. Conne's face.

"Mr. Conne----" he stammered. "I didn't know--you was--here. _You_ don't believe it, do you?"

Mr. Conne worked his cigar leisurely over to the other side of his mouth.

"Believe what?"

"That--I'm--a--a spy and--and a traitor." He almost whispered the words.

Mr. Conne smiled exasperatingly and hit him a rap on the shoulder.

"Anybody accuse you of being that?"

"That's what they think," said Tom.

"Oh, no, they don't, Tommy. But they've got to be careful. Don't you know they have?"

"I got to go and--get shot--maybe."

"So? Fancy that! Sit down here and tell me the whole business, Tommy.

What's it all about?"

"I--got to admit it looks bad----"

"They wouldn't have done anything with you till they saw me, Tommy. Even if they had to take you back to New York. Trouble was, Wessel's dying.

How could they prove what you said about me getting you the job?"

He put his arm over Tom's shoulder as they sat down upon the leather settee, and the effect of all the dread and humiliation and injustice and shame welled up in the boy now under that friendly touch and he went to pieces entirely.

"Did you think I didn't know what I was doing when I picked you, Tommy?"

Tom could not answer, but sat there with his breast heaving, his hand on Mr. Conne's knee.