Dictator's Way

by E. R. Punshon

  “Can you trust your men?” Bobby asked in a low voice.

  “They can’t trust the Redeemer, anyhow,” retorted Peter and then added: “That’s a mean way to put it. Yes, I can trust them and they me, for there is not one of us counts his life the value of a match stalk against our cause.”

  He lapsed into silence. The winking light ceased suddenly.

  “Giving us half an hour to think it over,” said Peter. “Good. Half an hour saved is half an hour gained.”

  Beneath the increasing force of wind and wave the tiny boat was tossing so violently that Bobby had to crouch down in what shelter he could obtain – and that was little – and, by Peter’s advice, made himself fast with rope against the risk of being thrown overboard by some specially violent jerk or being swept away by one of the waves that now and again cascaded across the deck. Olive had been on deck for some time, moving to and fro by the help of the life-lines that had been rigged up. She had brought food with her and hot coffee in vacuum flasks, whisky as well, and had been busy distributing it, and urging them to eat, though indeed few of them had much appetite for food. The hot coffee was welcome, though, and so was the whisky. Her task done, Peter brought Olive back to where Bobby crouched, since that was the most sheltered spot there was, or rather the least exposed.

  “May as well stay on deck,” he said, “better stop up here than risk being trapped down below.”

  He made fast a rope to secure her by and then brought them two life-belts.

  “Put ’em on if you like,” he shouted, for the roar of the wind and the splash of the waves was beginning to make hearing difficult, “but I can’t say I advise ’em. Drowning’s easier quick than slow.”

  He went away again then and they were left alone, crouching side by side in the darkness and the storm. No lights were showing and all around reigned the black night, save for the beam of the searchlight that crossed it between the two boats, a gleaming bridge as it were. Now and again they could see members of the crew moving silently to and fro, crouching, bending low, swaying to the storm and guiding and supporting themselves by the lifelines. The air was full of spray, now and again a heavy splash, a rush of water along the deck showed that a wave had broken on board. Then the little yacht would reel and stagger beneath the blow and shake herself free and rise again, buoyant and light as before, to meet the menace of the next oncoming wave. The searchlight still followed them. Sometimes it lost them for a moment or two and then it swept to and fro, like a probing finger till again it picked them out, showing them clearly in a tiny pool of light against that enormous background of the tossing seas, the racing clouds above.

  Olive had brought the rest of the sandwiches and coffee with her. She gave them to Bobby and offered him whisky from a flask, but that he refused. This was not the time, he felt, for soporifics – a drink of whisky and soda might be all very well as a night-cap, to help sleep to come, but not now. The coffee, however, had been a welcome stimulant, welcome and warming. Though where they crouched together was the most sheltered position on deck, they were both by now drenched to the skin, drenched indeed as thoroughly as though they had been bodily immersed. It was fortunate the season was summer and the wind comparatively warm. In winter they would probably both have frozen to death. Once, owing to some change in the relative position of the boats, the searchlight picked them out as the lime-light picks out the leading actor in a play. Then it moved further back and Olive said:

  “Peter’s taken the wheel.”

  They could see him in the tiny wheel-house. But as they were watching he beckoned to a companion to take over the steering and came along the deck. As he passed them, bending to the wind, holding to a life-line, he shouted:

  “Half-hour’s up.”

  One of the crew joined him. They talked to each other, shouting to make themselves heard, but speaking Etrurian so that Bobby could not understand. But Olive said:

  “It’s about trying to shoot. It’s Louis Peter’s talking to and Louis understands guns.”

  “Is there a gun?” Bobby asked, and Peter heard and answered:

  “No, only a rifle and only about a dozen rounds of ammunition. Louis wants to take a few pot shots and try to smash the searchlight. What a hope, when we’re pitching and rolling the way we are.”

  The searchlight switched off suddenly and the signalling began again.

  “The final summons,” Peter said. “We’ll answer this time. There’s an old Etrurian song every child in the country knows – almost like your British ‘Rule Britannia’. The first line is ‘Etrurians were not born to be serfs’. We’ll signal that back. It always,” explained Peter, “makes the Redeemer and his pals so beastly cross. They can’t very well forbid it because it celebrates the great national uprising nearly a hundred and fifty years ago, but they do hate it so.”

  He went back to the wheel. Bobby put out his hand and took Olive’s. It was very cold. She let it lie in his. They pressed closely against each other. It gave them a little more warmth, a sense of comradeship. Bobby said:

  “That coffee was jolly good. Is there any left?”

  Olive gave him what remained. She said:

  “Peter’s very clever. I’ve heard them say he can do anything with a boat except make it talk.”

  Bobby was conscious of an absurd thrill of jealousy. He wished he could hear her speak of him in that tone of confidence and trust. But of course she never would, why should she? He was no sailor, knew nothing of handling boats. It surprised him indeed that he was not prostrate with sea-sickness, but he supposed that the tension and excitement were too great for that. Presumably an imminent risk of death is enough to cast out even sea-sickness. “You’re cold,” he said, feeling her shiver.

  “No, only afraid,” she answered.

  A great glow of tenderness and pity filled him. He did not know what to say. There was nothing to say. He heard himself mutter:

  “I suppose there’s not much hope.”

  Then he was sorry he had said that and after a pause he heard Olive reply:

  ‘‘In God alone.”

  The signalling ceased. The searchlight flashed out again, a long finger of light, searching to and fro till it found them, as a child’s finger pokes to and fro till it has found the scurrying ant trying to escape. At the same moment Louis, lying in the stern behind the wheel-house, began to fire. The searchlight gave a sudden jerk, as if startled, and then came back and rested on the stern and the man lying there. Little spurts of flame, too, began to come from the other yacht. The rifle fire was being returned. It was all about as useful and as sensible as throwing stones would have been. Not one chance in a million existed of bringing off the direct hit that alone mattered.

  “They’re getting ready now,” Olive whispered.

  “They’re dropping behind,” Bobby said, surprised.

  “That’s to get up more speed, more room to work up full speed to ram,” Olive explained. She said again: “I'm afraid.”

  Her voice was steady enough but all at once Bobby saw that she was crying silently. Tears were running down her cheeks, all wet and cold already with the driving spray. She was in his arms. He held her closely, pressing her hard to him. He whispered:

  “Oh, my dear, my own dear.”

  She yielded to his embrace. She seemed to find a comfort in the strength of his arms that held her fiercely to him. She said:

  “We shall be drowned soon.”

  “Not yet,” he answered passionately, and at that moment life surged so strongly in him that for them both death seemed impossible. It was almost as though he felt within him the power to snatch her from that scene of black desolation, the sea around, the sky above, from the ominous dark thing that was rushing upon them out of the wind and the storm, taking to itself shape in the night, looming up huge and terrible as now it was near and nearer still.

  One moment it towered above them, lifted on the crest of a wave. Olive’s face was hidden against Bobby’s coat, for she dared not look. With
despair he watched. The deck heaved beneath them, grew suddenly alive. It was as though a giant hand wrenched the little yacht aside. But for the ropes by which they were secured, both he and Olive would have been jerked overboard. Bobby found himself flat on his face but he was still holding Olive closely to him. Vaguely he was aware of, rather than saw with his eyes, a shape, a form, a something that plunged by in that wild waste of waters so near to them he thought he could have touched it. Vaguely he was aware, too, of shouts, of futile, spitting flames. But one bullet there was that took effect, the only one all through that night that found a billet other than the depths of the sea. It struck the wireless transmitter and put it out of order, so that all hope of sending further messages was ended. Up till now it had been sending out those intended for Etruria, long, apparently harmless somewhat pedantic harangues against dictatorships and abstract praises of democracy that nevertheless contained within themselves, according to a previously arranged code, secret instructions and information for those in Etruria itself in sympathy with those others outside the country who were planning the contemplated rising. The wireless operator came scrambling out of his cabin, crawling on all fours on the tossing deck.

  “That’s settled that,’’ he shouted in English to Bobby and Olive. “Got most of the stuff through, though.” He began to laugh. “Good work, good steering,” he said, “pulled her from under at the last moment and now they’ll have to come about and find us again.”

  But that was not difficult, nor did it take too long, for ever that inexorable searchlight swung backwards and forwards till it found them, settled on them, held them. In the stern Louis put his rifle aside, useless now, for there was no more ammunition.

  “A pea-shooter would have been as much good in this weather,” he grumbled.

  “Well, they can’t hit us either – if they could, they would be picking off the man at the wheel,” someone else told him consolingly.

  Indeed, their enemies, too, seemed to have given up firing, for no more little spurts of flame were visible from the other yacht. But it was following, gaining, and once more, borne on the crest of a wave, it came straight at them, fierce and direct on the surface of the sea as any fish in the depth beneath darting on its prey. And once more at the last moment Peter wrenched his boat aside, so that the other plunged harmlessly by.

  Bobby said:

  “Olive, do you know I love you?”

  “Yes, I know,” she answered, “but what a time to choose to say so.”

  “It’s why,” he explained.

  “Yes, I know,” she said again, and then: “They’re coming again. They won’t always miss us.”

  This time, however, Peter avoided their attacker by a much wider margin, for a fortunate wave swept them apart at the very moment when impact seemed inevitable.

  One of the crew came crawling by, clinging to a lifeline, for by now the sea had increased to such a degree that the pitching and rolling of the little yacht made keeping footing almost an impossibility. Coming close to them to make himself heard, he shouted:

  “God Almighty couldn’t have handled her better.” He added, still shouting: “Keep your life-belts handy, the skipper says to tell you. He’s working in to run ashore if he can. Our best chance.”

  With that he crawled away, again to take the same message to others. The searchlight held them still, and, though time had been gained, their pursuer was circling round once more so as to get again into position to ram. But yet once more when she was close upon them Peter wrenched round the wheel to take advantage of a following wave. The little boat leaped aside like a living thing that knew itself its peril, and so another time their pursuer missed them, but by a margin so narrow that the two boats actually scraped against each other and each lost some gear. Then at the moment when impact seemed certain but that the sea flung them apart, as so easily it might have flung them together, a small dark object fell and lay close to where Olive and Bobby crouched. Bobby put out his hand and picked it up and threw it overboard. The sea seemed to split where it fell, the night to divide, a flame roared up and vanished in the waste of water. The yacht trembled, a cataract of water that had been flung into the air came down upon them as from a broken waterspout. Olive said:

  “That was only one; they’ll throw more next time.”

  Bobby did not answer. He was thinking ruefully that not much was being left untried. First ramming, and now a bomb, and what next? Olive said to him suddenly:

  “Will you kiss me? I should like it if you will. It’s because I’m so afraid.”

  “It is because I love you,” he answered and their lips met.

  She gave a little sigh of content and he found himself wondering if ever before love had been first spoken of in such circumstances, in such surroundings, in storm and peril, to the accompaniments of bombs and rifle fire, for again there had been an angry spurt of flame running along the side of their enemy, and of these continued attempts to ram and sink.

  Peter came by again. For some reason he had given the wheel for the moment to another of the crew and he was walking forward. He was not crouching or creeping as most of the others found themselves forced to do. He walked upright and easily, bending indeed to the plunging of the boat as she rose and dipped to each successive wave, but sure of himself, magnificent against that turmoil of wind and rain and the rush of the blinding spindrift; with one hand only he held the stretched life-line, lightly, more as if from courtesy than of necessity.

  “Not so bad so far,” he said to them as he returned, a momentary lull in the gale making it easier to stop and speak. “They’ll come again, of course, to have another try, but it’s not so easy to bring it off in this weather and they’ve got to hit us the way they want or they might sink themselves as well. That was a bomb they threw?”

  “I hope they’ve got no more,” Bobby said.

  “Probably a box full,” Peter answered. “No expense grudged. What happened, though?”

  “He threw it overboard before it went off,” Olive explained. “It fell quite close and he picked it up and threw it away.

  “Oh, good egg,” applauded Peter. “We can’t be so far from shore now. Scotland. I’ve been working in as much as I could. I’ll run her slap ashore if I can – fox bolting to earth. Thank heaven, they won’t be able to dig us out. If it wasn’t for that searchlight, it would be pie to dodge them in weather like this.”

  The searchlight even as he spoke came again, focused full upon them. He stood in the full glare, balancing lightly on the swaying, leaping, dancing boat, indifferent to rain and wind and flying spray that was about him like a golden cloud in the bright clear searchlight beam. Then he was gone, back to take the wheel once more, and once more their pursuer closed them at full speed, turning herself again into the very missile aimed to strike them down.

  CHAPTER 24

  WRECK

  This time again avoidance was not difficult, for the fickle waves, the changing wind, proved once more true allies, and swept the two boats apart before ever the critical moment arrived.

  Thus further respite was obtained, for each time the attack failed their assailant had to manoeuvre in the teeth of the gale to get back into position to launch a fresh assault. And of every gain of time thus secured Peter made use to draw in nearer to land, for he knew the Scottish coast must lie somewhere ahead, though indeed by now he had little idea of their exact position.

  For they all knew their one hope was to reach the shelter of the land, since they could not hope that there would always continue that mingling of luck and skill by which so far they had escaped so many attempts to sink their boat.

  “A race,” Bobby thought grimly, “between getting sunk at sea and wrecked on shore.”

  The hours passed and still this strange and desperate hunt persisted, the bigger pursuing yacht attempting continually to ram, failing now by a wide margin, now by one so narrow that it seemed inches was the measure, a struggle unique perhaps in all the long history of the enmities of men f
ought out at sea, for though in older days galleys might try to ram each other, never did they engage in chase, avoidance, and escape like this, and though to-day the submarine may be a victim to the ram, that effort, too, is over in a minute, hit or miss.

  But this long agony and effort, pursuer and pursued, lasted all through the bitter night; and all through the night Peter stood by the wheel, alert and watchful, ready hand and ready eye, waiting for that instant when by desperate twist and turn he must snatch himself, his ship, his companions from the poised destruction.

  By keeping absolute control of his will and nerves, by a patient, still endurance, that leaped at the necessary instant into a passion of activity, by an exact judgment of the one moment when that activity had to spring to such fierce life, again and again Peter succeeded in baffling the efforts of their pursuers, though more than once it was only the fantasy of wind and wave and flowing tide that saved them. Nevertheless, of this, too, of the incalculable vagaries of the weather and the tide, it seemed to his watching crew, as to their enemies, that somehow Peter knew how to draw advantage, like a man inspired, as though the ancient gods of the sea were by his side to advise him and to guide. More than once, too, the moment of danger passed, the gale seemed to take an ironic pleasure in bringing both vessels together again, to run for a time almost side by side, and once Peter only just succeeded in avoiding smashing their own bows into the other’s starboard side.

  “Smashed her up a bit, but us more,” Peter remarked, “and no good dodging being run down in order to let the gale get us.”

  One piece of luck they enjoyed that was perhaps decisive. Some time after midnight the searchlight began to function erratically. Once it remained pointing straight upwards to the sky for some time before being switched off, not to appear again for five or ten minutes – an interval Peter made good use of by changing course as much as he dared and could in that weather and so for a little throwing off their pursuers. Once or twice again after that had happened the beam failed to keep them in its focus, as though its direction could not be changed quickly. Peter shrugged his shoulders as he noticed this.