Tom Slade with the Colors Part 22

"Help those people launch that hatch if they want to," said an officer to Tom.

Acting on the suggestion, a dozen or more men ranged themselves around the hatch and Tom helped to lift it, while others cl.u.s.tered about, ready to climb upon it.

"You'll have to clear away from here," said an officer; "sixteen is the limit for one of those hatches. There are seven more." Evidently the rescuing capacity of the hatches had already been ascertained.

The frightened people hurried along through the driving rain and the darkness, some of them slipping on the streaming deck and sliding pell-mell to the rail, which broke away with the impact in one place and precipitated several screaming persons into the ocean.

Hurriedly Tom counted those around the hatch and found that the officer had evidently included him among the sixteen who should man it.

"Do you mean for me to go too?" he asked, in his usual dull manner.

"You might as well," the officer answered brusquely.

The great vessel had lost all its pride and dignity, and seemed a poor, reeling, spiritless thing. The deck was deserted save for the little group about the hatch who strove with might and main to launch this last poor medium of rescue. The abrupt pitch of the deck made their frantic efforts seem all but hopeless, and walking, even standing, was quite out of the question. Tom could feel the ship heeling over beneath him.

Even the cheerily authoritative voice of the megaphone up on the bridge had now ceased, and there was no rea.s.suring reminder of life there--nothing but the black outline of the trestled structure, slanting at a dreadful angle with the water pouring from it.

Tom and his distracted companions were evidently the last on board.

The rail was now so low that the plunge of the hatch would not be very hazardous at all events, for the seething waters beat over the deck now and again, rolling up as on a beach at the seash.o.r.e and adding their ominous chill to Tom's already chilled body.

Out of the turmoil of the sea sounds rose, some the even tones of command, sounding strangely out of place in the storm; others which he recognized with a shudder as the last frightful gasps of drowning persons.

In a minute--two minutes--he would be plunged into that seething brine where he still might hear but could not see. Instinctively he increased his exertions with this makeshift raft which, if they could but cling to it till the sea subsided, might bear them up until succor came.

As soon as the hatch was raised, it began to slide away, and those who had lifted it jumped upon it, clinging as best they could.

From somewhere out of the darkness a man came rushing pell-mell for this precarious refuge. As he jumped upon it, clutching frantically at the moulding around its edge, Tom stepped off.

The angle of the careening ship was now so steep that he could not stand upon the deck, but as he slipped he caught hold of a vent pipe and so managed to reach the stateroom tier where all the doors hung open like the covers of so many inverted cigar boxes, flapping in the wind and rain.

The hatch had slid to the deck's edge and was held precariously by the doubtful strength of the straining rail.

"Get on!" one of the men called to Tom. "Hurry up!"

"The officer said only sixteen," he answered.

"Are you crazy?" another man called. "Get on while you can!"

"He said only sixteen," Tom called back impa.s.sively.

"It's every man for himself now and no orders!" shouted another. Perhaps it was the man who had usurped Tom's place.

"He said only----"

The rest of his answer was drowned by the crashing of the rail as the hatch went plunging from the deck into the black turmoil below. The last they saw of him, he was clinging to one of the flapping doors, his foot braced against a cable cleat, his shock of hair blowing wildly this way and that, the rain streaming from his face and soaking clothes.

He did not look at all like a hero, nor even like the picture of a scout on the cover of a boys' magazine....

CHAPTER XXIII

ROY BLAKELEY KEEPS STILL--FOR A WONDER

"Yes, that was the one trouble with Tom Slade--he couldn't obey orders."

"I think you're rather severe," said Mrs. Ellsworth.

"He had his work all cut out for him here," persisted her husband relentlessly. "He knew the part the scouts were supposed to play in the war, but he thought he knew more than I did about it. He gave me his promise, and then he broke his word. He flunked on his first duty."

Mr. Ellsworth pushed his coffee cup from him and pushed his chair back from the dining table in a very conclusive manner.

For a moment no one spoke. The young man in the soldier's uniform gazed into his empty cup and said nothing. Then he looked up at Mrs. Ellsworth as if he hoped she would answer her husband. Of the four who sat there in the Ellsworths' pleasant little dining room, Roy Blakeley was the first to speak.

"He'll make a good soldier, anyway," he said.

"A good soldier is one who obeys orders," said Mr. Ellsworth, tightening his lips uncompromisingly. "Tom Slade's war duties were very clearly mapped out for him. And, besides, he gave me his promise; you heard him, didn't you?"

"Yes, I did," said Roy reluctantly.

"All I asked of him," continued the scoutmaster, "was to do his bit as a scout with the Colors, till he was of military age. He gave me his promise--you heard him--and then he desert----"

"Oh, don't say that," said Mrs. Ellsworth; "that's a dreadful word!"

The young man in uniform bit his lip and started to move his chair back; then, as if uncertain what to do, remained where he was.

"A promise is a promise," said the scoutmaster. "You can't build up anything good on the foundation of a broken promise."

"Don't you think a person _might_ be justified in breaking a promise?"

said the soldier diffidently.

"No, sir; not if it is humanly possible to keep it.--Besides, Tom must have had to lie to get into the army."

There was a moment's pause.

"It was dreadful to think of his p.a.w.ning his Gold Cross," said Mrs.

Ellsworth; "if he had only kept his word and waited a little while----"

"He would never have had that Cross to p.a.w.n if he hadn't been brave,"

said Roy, flushing slightly.

"Good for you, Roy!" said the young soldier.

Mr. Ellsworth laughed pleasantly at Roy's unshakable faith in his absent friend.

"That's right, Roy," said Mrs. Ellsworth, with a very sweet smile. "You stand up for him."