Tom Slade with the Colors Part 14

"Where's the gangway? Down that way?" the man asked, not waiting for an answer.

"He'll have a good big jump to the gangway," said Archer. "I guess he was asleep at the switch, hey? What d'you say if we go down--just for the fun of it?"

"Come ahead," said Tom.

At the opening where the gangway had been several men, including the excited pa.s.senger, were gathered. The rail had been drawn across the s.p.a.ce, and the ship was already a dozen feet or so from the wharf. Tom and Archer paused in the background, wisely inconspicuous.

"Certainly you can't go ash.o.r.e--how are you going to get ash.o.r.e--jump?"

asked an officer good-humoredly.

"You can have the gangway put up," insisted the man.

"You're talking nonsense," said the officer. "Can't you see we're out of reach and moving?"

"You'd only have to back her in a yard or two," said the man excitedly.

"What, the ship?" asked the officer, in good-natured surprise; and several other men laughed.

"There's no use my starting without my _a_paratus!" said the pa.s.senger, his anger mounting. "It will be here to-morrow morning; it is promised!

I was informed the ship would not sail before to-morrow night. This is an outrage----"

"I'm sorry, sir," said the officer.

"There's no use my going without my belongings," the man persisted angrily. "I demand to be put ash.o.r.e."

"That's impossible, sir."

"It is _not_ impossible! This is an unspeakable outrage!"

"The wharf closed this afternoon; notice was posted, sir," said the officer patiently.

"I saw no notice!" thundered the man. "It's of no use for me to go without my belongings, I tell you! I cannot go! This is outrageous! I cannot go! I demand to be put ash.o.r.e!"

By this time the vessel was in midstream, his "demands" becoming more impossible every moment and his tirade growing rather wearisome. At least that was what most of the by-standers seemed to think, for they sauntered away, laughing, and the two boys, seeing that nothing sensational was likely to happen, returned to the forward part of the ship.

"Do you think he was a German?" said Tom.

"No, sure he wasn't. Didn't you hear what good English he talked?"

"Yes, but he said _a_paratus," said Tom, "instead of saying it the regular way. And he was sorry he said it, too, because the next time he said _belongings_."

"You make me laugh," said Archer.

"There's another thing that makes me think he's a German," said Tom, indifferent to Archer's scepticism.

"What's that?"

"He wanted the ship brought back just on his account."

CHAPTER XVI

TOM MAKES A DISCOVERY

Tom slept fitfully in his upper berth, thinking much of home and the troop and the people back in Bridgeboro. He realized now, as he had not before, the seriousness of the step he had taken. It came home to him in the quiet of the long night and tinged his thoughts with homesickness.

Once, twice, in his restlessness, he clambered down and looked out through the bra.s.s-bound port-hole across the deserted deck and out upon the waste of ocean. Not a single reminder was there of the old familiar life, not a friendly light in the vast, watery darkness.

He began to regard what he had done as a kind of wilful escapade, and though not exactly sorry for the action, he felt strange and lonesome, and his thoughts turned wistfully to the troop meeting which he knew was now over. He thought of Pee-wee, with his trusty belt-axe, going scout-pace up Main Street on his journey homeward; of Roy leaving Mr.

Ellsworth where the street up Blakeley's Hill began; of the office and Margaret Ellison, and of his accustomed tasks.

No, he was not exactly sorry, but he--he wished that the vessel had not started quite so soon, and so suddenly. He had never dreamed that the momentous and perilous step of crossing the ocean was begun with so little ceremony.

This train of thought suggested the pa.s.senger who had wished to go ash.o.r.e, and as Tom lay in his berth, wakeful but pleasantly lulled by the slow, steady vibration of the great ship, he wondered who the man was and why he couldn't sail without his belated luggage. He recalled how the man had said _a_paratus once and how, after that, he had said _belongings_. Then he recalled young Archer's laugh at his suspicion, and he decided that it was only his own imagination that had given rise to it. He thought rather wistfully how Roy had often called him Sherlock n.o.body Holmes.

To be sure, the man's apparent willingness to have the world turned upside down for his personal convenience had quite a German flavor to it, but it was not, after all, a very suspicious circ.u.mstance, and the cheerful light of morning found Tom's surmise quite melted away. It needed only the memory of Roy's taunting smile to turn his thoughts to sober realities.

"When you get through, come aft and we'll jolly the gun crew," said Archer, as Tom left the little room.

He made his way along the deck, bent on his new duties, bucking the brisk morning breeze, and holding on to the peaked service cap which he had been given, to keep it from blowing off. The steel-colored water rolled in a gentle swell, reflecting the bright sunlight, and little flaky clouds scurried across the sky, as if hurrying to their day's tasks also. Far off toward the horizon a tiny fleck of white was discernible, but no other sign of life or of man's work was visible in the illimitable waste.

To Tom it did not seem an angry ocean, but, like the woods which he knew and loved so well, a place of peace and quietude, a refuge from the swarming, noisy land. And across the vast waste plowed the great ship, going straight upon her business, and never faltering.

The door of the wireless room was thrown open as he pa.s.sed, and the young operator was sitting back, with the receivers on his ears and his feet on the instrument shelf, eating a sandwich.

"H'lo, kiddo," said he.

In this strange environment Tom was glad to hear the operator say, "H'lo, kiddo," just as he might have said it on the street. He paused at the door for a moment and looked about the cozy, ship-shape little room with its big coil and its splendid, powerful instrument.

"Do you live in here?" he asked.

"Nope," said the operator; "but I'm doing both shifts, and I s'pose I'll have to sleep right here with the claps on this trip."

"Isn't there another operator?" Tom asked.

"Yup--but he didn't show up."

Tom hesitated, not sure whether he ought to venture further in familiar discourse with this fortunate and important young man, whom he envied.

"The man at the gate said everybody was on board," he finally observed; "he said all the pa.s.ses were taken up."

The operator shrugged his shoulders indifferently. "I don't know anything about that," said he.

"_I_ got a wireless set of my own," Tom ventured. "It's just a small one--for boy scouts. It hasn't got much sending power."

"_He_ used to be a boy scout," said the operator pleasantly. "That's where he first picked it up."