Tom Slade with the Colors Part 13

"Let him in," laughed one of the Secret Service men, and as he spoke he pulled Tom's pockets inside out in a very perfunctory way and slapped his clothing here and there. It was evident that young Archer was a favorite. As for Tom, he felt very important.

"Didn't I tell you I was lucky?" Archer said, as he and Tom together lugged the big valise down the pier. "Spiffy's a good sketch--but they're getting more careful all the time. Next sailing, maybe, when we're taking troops over, President Wilson couldn't get by with it....

You heard what he said about all the pa.s.ses being taken? That means all hands are on board. It don't mean we'll sail to-day--or maybe not to-morrow even. We'll sneak out at night, maybe."

Tom had never been in close proximity to an ocean steamer even in peace times, and the scene which now confronted him was full of interest.

Along the side of the pier rose the great black bulk of the mighty ship, beneath the shadow of which people seemed like pygmies and the great piles of freight like houses of toy blocks.

The gangways leading up to the decks were very steep and up and down them hurried men in uniforms. Near a pile of heavy, iron-bound wooden cases several soldiers in khaki strolled back and forth. Tom wondered what was in those cases. Hanging from a mammoth crane was part of the framework of a great aeroplane. Several Red Cross ambulances and a big pile of stretchers stood near by, and he peered into one of the ambulances, fascinated. Tremendous spools, fifteen or more feet in diameter, wound with barbed wire, stood on the pier; there were fifty of them, as it seemed to Tom, and they must have carried miles of barbed wire. There were a lot of heavy, canvas-covered wagons with the letters _U.S.A._ on them, and these were packed with poles and rolls of khaki-colored canvas, which Tom thought might be tents. There were automobiles bearing the same initials, and shovels by the thousand, piled loose, all similarly marked.

There was no doubt that Uncle Sam was getting his sleeves rolled up, ready for business.

At the foot of one of the gangways Archer had to open his bag again to gratify the curiosity of another man who seemed to know what he was about and who, upon Archer's statement of Tom's errand, slapped Tom here and there in the vicinity of his pockets and said, "All right, Tommy,"

which greatly increased Tom's veneration for the sagacity of Secret Service men.

"He just meant he knew you wasn't German," said Archer.

He led the way along the deck, down a companionway and through a pa.s.sage where there were names on the doors, such as _Surgeon, Chief Steward, Chief Engineer, First Mate_, etc. They entered the chief steward's cabin, where a man in uniform sat at a desk with other men standing all about, apparently awaiting orders. When his turn came, Archer said:

"Do you remember, Mr. Cressy, you said you wished you had more youngsters like me in the steward's department? I got you one here. He's a friend of mine. He's just like me--only different."

"Well, thank goodness for _that_," said the chief steward, sitting back and contemplating Archibald with a rather rueful look. "_Did_ I say that?"

"Yes, sir, you did. So I brought him; Tom Slade, his name is, and he wants a job. He'd like to be chief engineer, but if he can't be that----"

"Maybe he'd be willing to be butcher's a.s.sistant," concluded the steward. "Archer," he added, as he reached for one of several speaking tubes near his desk, "if I thought you'd sink, I'd have you thrown overboard.--How'd you enjoy your visit home?"

A brief talk with some unseen person, to which Tom listened with chill misgivings, and the steward directed his young subordinate to take Tom to the purser's office and, if he got through all right there, to the ship's butcher. He gave Tom a slip of paper to hand to the purser.

The purser's cabin was up on the main deck, and it was the scene of much going and coming, and signing and handing back and forth of papers. A young man sat on a stool before a high desk with a huge open book before him.

"He's the third purser," whispered Archer; "don't you be afraid of _him_."

It was to the third purser that Tom told the history of his life--so far as he knew it; where he was born and when, who his parents were, where they had been born, when and where they had died; whether Tom had ever worked on a ship, whether he had any relatives born in or living in Germany or Austria, whether he had ever been employed by a German, and so on and so on.

All this went down in the big book, in which Tom had a page all to himself, and the last question left a chill upon him as he followed his young companion from the cabin--_Whom to notify in case of accident_.

"Accident," he thought. "That means torpedoing."

But against this was the glad news that for the round trip of presumably a month, he would receive one hundred and sixty dollars, forty dollars payable on arrival in a "foreign port," the balance "on return to an American port."

There would be no call upon this stupendous sum, save what he chose to spend in the mysterious, unknown foreign port, and as Tom reflected on this he felt like the regular story-book hero who goes away under a cloud of suspicion and comes back loaded with wealth and glory.

CHAPTER XV

THE EXCITED Pa.s.sENGER

"They'll turn you down if you have a German-silver watch in your pocket," commented Archer, as they descended another companionway; "or if you had the German measles. Didn't I tell you I'd get you through all right? You stick on the job, and they'll sign you up for transport service--then you'll see some fun."

"I got to thank you," said Tom.

"You notice _I'm_ not afraid of any of them?" Archer boasted; "I know how to handle them--I've got them all eating out of my hand--all but the captain. We're like a big family here; that's on account of the danger and there not being many pa.s.sengers. I understand," he whispered significantly, "that there's some soldiers on board--a few of Pershing's men, I guess."

The butcher's domain seemed to be a long way below decks. It had all the appurtenances of a regular store--chopping block, hangers, etc.--and the butcher himself was a genial soul, who took Tom in hand without any ceremony after the usual banter with the flippant young Archibald, who here took his departure, leaving Tom to his fate.

"Come up to five-ninety-two on the promenade deck and you can bunk with me--I'll fix it with the deck steward," said Archer; and he was as good as his word, for later Tom joined him in an airy stateroom, opening on the main deck, where they enjoyed a sumptuousness of accommodation quite unusual in the ordinary state of things, but made possible by the very small pa.s.senger list.

Indeed, Tom was soon to find that, while discipline was strict and uncompromising, as it always is at sea, there was a kind of spirit of fraternity among the ship's people, high and low, caused no doubt, as Archer had said, by their partic.i.p.ation in a common peril and by the barnlike emptiness of the great vessel with freight piled on all the pa.s.senger decks and in the most inappropriate places. There was a suggestion of camping about all this makeshift which seemed to have gotten into the spirits of the ship's company and to have drawn them together.

"Now I'll take you down," said the butcher, "and show you the store-rooms and refrigerators--you'll be running up and down these steps a good part of the time."

They were no steps, but an iron ladder leading down from the butcher's apartment to a dark pa.s.sage, where he turned on an electric light.

"Now, these three doors," he said, "are to the three store-rooms--one, two, three."

Tom followed him into one of the rooms. It was large and delightfully cool and immaculately clean. All around were rows of shelves with screen doors before them, and here were stored canned goods--thousands upon thousands of cans, Tom would have said.

"You won't touch anything in here," his superior told him. "None of this will be used before the return trip--maybe not then. Come in here."

Tom followed him through a pa.s.sage from this room into another exactly like it. Along the pa.s.sage were great ice box doors. "Cold storage," his superior observed. "You won't have to go in there much."

"Now here's where you'll get your stuff. It's all alphabetical; if you want tomatoes, go to T; if you want salmon--S. Just like a dictionary.

If I send you down for thirty pounds of salmon, that doesn't mean thirty cans--see?"

"Yes, sir," said Tom.

"Make up your thirty pounds out of the biggest cans--a twenty and a ten.

There's your opener," he added, pointing to a rather complicated mechanical can-opener fastened to the bulkhead. "Open everything before you bring it up."

"Yes, sir."

He led Tom from one place to another, initiating him in the use of the chopping machine, the slicing machine, etc. "You won't find things very heavy this trip," he said; "but next trip we'll be feeding five thousand, maybe. Now's the time to go to school and learn.--Here's the keys; you must always keep these places locked," he added, as he himself locked one of the doors for Tom. "They were just left open while they were being stocked. Now we'll go up."

That very night, when the great city was asleep and the busy wharves along the waterfront were, for the night's brief interval, dark and lonesome, two tug-boats, like a pair of st.u.r.dy little Davids, sidled up to the great steel Goliath and slowly she moved out into midstream and turned her towering prow toward where the G.o.ddess of Liberty held aloft her beckoning light in the vast darkness.

And Tom Slade was off upon his adventures.

Indeed, the first one, though rather tame, had already occurred. He and Archer, having received intimations that the vessel might sail that night, had remained up to enjoy her stealthy nocturnal departure, and the fact that they did not know whether she would leave or not had only added zest and pleasant suspense to their vigil.

They were leaning over the rail watching the maneuvering of the tugs when suddenly a man, carrying a suitcase, came running along the deck.

"We're not sailing, are we?" he asked excitedly, as he pa.s.sed.

"Looks that way," said Archer.