Tom Slade with the Colors Part 21

"You didn't see any lights in the stateroom ports as you came along, did you?" Cattell asked.

"Nope; there's a sailor marching back and forth outside along the starboard tier. Everything's as dark as pitch."

They were silent for a few minutes, listening to the rising wind and to the sound of the spray as it broke over the deck. Cattell folded a despatch blank and stuffed it in the crack of the door to stop its rattling.

"It's comfortable in here, anyway," said Tom; "it's kind of like camping."

Again there was silence, broken only by the wind outside and the occasional voice of the lookout, thin and spent as from another world, and the scarcely audible, long-drawn-out answer from the bridge.

"'To the day,'" said Cattell, sticking his feet upon the shelf, "means to the day the Kaiser will own the earth--emperor of the world. In the German navy, whenever they take a drink they always say, 'To the day.'

The day that poor Austrian guy was murdered in Serbia--you know, that prince--and the Kaiser saw his chance to start the ball rolling, all the high d.i.n.k.u.ms in the German navy had a jambouree, and some old gink--von Somebody or other--said: 'Now, to the day.'

"Well, it got to be a kind of pa.s.sword or slogan, as you might say. If a German spy wants to let another German know that he's all right, he uses a sentence with those three words in. And the sub-commanders are all the time slinging it around the ocean--testing their instruments sometimes, I dare say. It don't do any harm, I suppose. Talk's cheap."

"I wondered what it meant," said Tom.

"That's all it means. When you hear that you'll know some sub-captain is taking a drink of wine or something. When the _Emden_ captured an English ship a couple of years ago, it happened there was a nice, gentlemanly German spy on board the Britisher. The German captain was just going to pack him off with the others as a prisoner when he said something with those three words in it. The German commander understood, and they didn't take any of his things, but just let him stay among the English, and the English weren't any the wiser."

"Huh," said Tom.

Again there was silence.

"I think the other operator is all right, don't you?" Tom asked.

"Sure--is or _was_. He may have been killed down there and thrown overboard. He was straight as a bee-line. You put Conne on the right track, all right."

"Do you think they'll ever find out about the rest of it?" Tom asked.

Cattell shrugged his shoulders. "Search _me_," he said.

All night long the wind blew and the swell broke noisily against the ship and beat over the rail. At intervals, when Tom climbed down and stumbled over to open the door for a glimpse of the sullen night, the slanting rain blew in his face, and he closed the door again with difficulty. It would have been a ticklish business to make one's way along the deck then, he thought.

It was a couple of hours before dawn, and Tom, lulled by the darkness, had fallen into a doze, when he was roused by a sudden shock and sat upright clutching the side of the berth.

"What is it?" he said. "Are you there, Cattell?"

Afterward, when he recalled that moment, and tried to describe the shock, he said it seemed as if the vessel were shaking herself, as a dog shakes himself. The crash, which he had so often read about, he did not hear at all; no sound except the heedless wind and the restless, beating sea. It merely seemed as if the mighty ship were cold and had shuddered.

"It ain't anything, is it?" he asked, nevertheless climbing down from his berth.

Then he became aware of something which startled him more than the shock had done. The steady throbbing which had been continuously present since that midnight when the ship first sailed, had ceased. The absolute stillness under his feet seemed strange and ominous.

"It ain't--anything wrong--is it?" he repeated.

"I think we're struck," said Cattell quietly.

For a moment Tom breathed heavily, standing just where he was.

"Can I turn on the light?" he asked. The groping darkness seemed to unnerve him more than anything else now--that and the awful stillness under his feet.

"No--put the flashlight on the clock and see what time it is."

There were sounds outside now, and amid them the doleful distant voice of the megaphone.

"Not three yet," said Tom.... "You--you sending out the call?"

"Yup."

A man in oilskins, carrying a lantern, threw open the door. The rain was streaming from his garments and his hat.

"We're struck amidships," he said.

The telephone from the bridge rang.

"Answer that; find out where we are," said Cattell.

As Tom repeated the lat.i.tude and longitude the urgent "S O S" went forth into the night. Lights were now visible outside, and the emergency gong could be heard ringing, mingled with the hollow, far-off voice of the megaphone.

"Better beat it to your post," said Cattell calmly, as his finger played the key. "I'll take care of this." He did not seem at all excited, and his quiet manner gave Tom self-control.

He went out and along the deck where the drenching rain glistened in the fresh glare of the lights. Once, twice, he slipped and went sprawling to the rail. He wondered whether it was from the roughness of the sea or because the vessel was tilting over.

All about hurried people with life preservers on, some sprawling on the deck like himself, in their haste. One man said the ship had been struck above the waterline and would float. Others said she was settling; others that she was sinking fast.

Tom's emergency post was at port davits P 27 on the promenade deck. He knew what to do, for he had gone through the emergency drill twice a day, but the tumultuous sea and the darkness and the cold, driving rain disconcerted him.

Reaching the rail by the life-boat davits, he saw at once that the ship was canting far over. The life-boat, which in the drills swung close to the vessel's side, now hung far away. It was already filled and being lowered.

Falling in line with several of the crew, Tom grasped the rope, and was surprised at the ease with which the boat was lowered by means of the multiplied leverage of the block and falls. In the drills, they had manned but never lowered the boats.

"Don't try that," some one called from the descending boat. "You can't make it, and we're crowded." The voice sounded strangely clear. "Better go up on deck," another voice said.

Tom thought that some one must be trying to reach the descending boat from one of the portholes below.

Then the rope slackened and an officer called, "All right?"

"All right," some one answered; "but she can't ride this."

Tom pressed close to the rail and looked down through the blinding rain.

He could see only dark figures and a lantern bobbing frantically.

"Pull her round crossways to the swell and get away from the side--quick!" the officer in charge called.

"She's half full of water," answered a voice amid the wind and storm.

Men came rushing from the starboard deck where they said the boats could not be launched because of the angle of the ship's side which prevented them from swinging free. They were obedient enough, but greatly alarmed when told that they must wait their turn.

The few army men on board were models of efficiency and quiet discipline, herding back the excited pa.s.sengers and trying to keep them away from the rail, for the slant of the deck was now almost perpendicular.