‘If the captain wasn’t easily available,’ I asked, ‘would the third officer take your orders—just for a moment?’
‘Yes—if it looks like something political.’
‘And the first officer, who will be on the bridge?’
Yes, he would too. What I had in mind was beginning to take solid shape, though as yet it could hardly be called a plan. Too much depended on the timing.
‘You know Elias Thomas Conger?’
He let himself go on the subject of Elias Thomas, who was pest enough to make one sorry for any security officer having the care of him. He had been carrying his loud and jolly voice into the crew’s quarters and everywhere else, and seemed to think he had a special mission to report on the conditions of Russian ships. He couldn’t speak a word of Russian or any foreign language, but that did not deter him.
‘Are any of the passengers about after midnight?’ I asked.
‘Not normally,’ he replied. ‘They are very serious.’
I took pencil and paper, and drafted out his orders. After a lot of alteration they ran, if I remember, something like this:
1. Lieutenant Karlis will make an appointment with Elias Thomas Conger to attend a meeting of the ship’s political committee. At 0015 hrs Mr Conger will trip and fall overboard.
2. Karlis will immediately give the alarm, and see that the launch is ordered away.
3. At 0016 hrs Karlis will report to the captain’s cabin. He will state that he fears Howard-Wolferstan has escaped and dived overboard. He will desire the captain to come at once and examine Howard-Wolferstan’s cabin.
4. At 0020 hrs the captain is shut in Howard-Wolferstan’s cabin. Karlis will immediately return to the deck. Howard-Wolferstan will proceed to deck independently.
5. Gangway will be already outboard for pilot. Presumably it will be lowered to receive rescued man. If not, Karlis will order it to be lowered. Karlis is to show marked anxiety over fate of Conger. Though a lousy Menshevik, Conger is an important personage.
6. When launch is alongside and Conger has been carried up gangway, Karlis will order the third officer out of the boat and as many of the crew as he can. Orders should be agitated and mysterious. The objective is to leave one man only on board the launch, who will presumably be hanging on with boat-hook.
7. Karlis and Howard-Wolferstan will descend gangway. Howard-Wolferstan stumbles against hand with boat-hook. Karlis takes wheel and opens throttle.
The tone and to some extent the matter of my scribbling appeared to bring out the best in Karlis. The Scandinavian in him was glad to raise his head for a moment above the limitations of bureaucracy. All the same, he found difficulties.
‘The first,’ he said, ‘is that Conger, Elias Thomas, may be drowned.’
I couldn’t see at once that it mattered. I pointed out that politicians had at least one thing in common with the proletariat. They replaced themselves.
‘But if he is drowned,’ Karlis objected, ‘the launch may not return for half an hour. It may then be hoisted straight on board. The pilot may arrive. Nothing will go according to plan.’
‘Then you’d better prepare a couple of lifebelts and have them ready to throw after Conger. Where will you do it?’
‘Right aft on the main deck. The deck-house will cover us and he will fall clear of the propellers. But the rest is harder than you think.’
‘Beyond your powers?’
Karlis had no doubt that his orders, in anything which concerned Conger, would be accepted so long as the captain was out of the way. He had special instructions to humour the man, and everyone knew it. His chief objection was that it would be very difficult for me to hide within reach of the gangway, and perhaps impossible for me to get on deck at all. Where I lived was not exactly known to crew and officers, but they were all on the look-out for a mysterious prisoner who must not on any account be allowed free.
‘The stewardesses,’ I suggested at last. ‘If it were a question of searching a cabin, would they take your orders?’
‘Of course.’
I reminded him of the tall American and her easily recognizable cloak.
‘Can you get that out of her cabin before she turns in?’
He bothered over the cloak more than anything else. The humanities of policemen are most curious. He was so attracted by the grace of its owner that he felt the deliciously gallant cloak was sacred.
‘You are much too broad for it,’ he said.
‘It will do to get me on deck so long as I am careful not to meet anyone face to face—and for running down the gangway in hysterics, eh?’
‘Suppose she notices it has gone?’
‘The stewardess will be instructed,’ I answered patiently, ‘to say she borrowed it to take the measurements. She wants one made like it. And get me a pair of her stockings and her bedroom slippers.’
‘They are much too small for you,’ he protested.
I doubted it. The American’s feet were long for a woman, and mine are remarkably small for a man. But on such delicate ground it seemed best to give way.
‘The stewardess’s bedroom slippers will do,’ I compromised.
Karlis went off about his business, and I did not see him again until he brought my evening meal. He rushed out again with an air of importance and mystery. He was getting very weary of being dominated by me.
About ten he came in and reported progress. Whatever he had been grumbling to himself, he had failed to think up any useful variation on my plan. The appointment with Conger had been arranged, and two lifebelts were in position. He had stowed his suitcase and my pack in a locker of the launch, for we could not run down the gangway carrying any sort of baggage. He brought me the American’s cloak and nylons, and a magnificent pair of shabby, fur-trimmed mules. Money he could not supply, or so he said. He had a few pound notes of his own, but he would not risk embezzling official funds. He wanted to leave all his papers and money in proper order so that there could be no question of his return being demanded on the grounds that he was a common criminal.
We rehearsed the captain’s excited entry into my cabin, and our exact movements; it seemed pretty certain, even to Karlis, that he could be ushered straight into the trap. The lieutenant’s nerves were ragged. He had worked himself into a much higher opinion of his shipmates’ intelligence than was justifiable.
When he had gone it was my turn to worry. The two hours while I waited in my coffin of a cabin were hard to pass. I had an uneasy feeling that I might look back on them with pleasure as the final period of my life in which any illusion of liberty had remained to me. The hard glare of the light suggested to me that an infinity of such cells lay ahead. My only comfort was a lively bluebottle which had followed some tray of mine in from the kitchen. Its energy, though purposeless, was soothing; and its hum recalled the irrepressible gaiety of the insect world—not a quality that I have ever appreciated when I myself was the handiest food, yet one which dances through all my tropical memories.
Meanwhile I wondered if it had occurred to Karlis that he would do far better to escape without me. No doubt it had. On the other hand he needed the assistance of an able spy when landing in a very foreign country. And then two of us could, with luck, manage the seizure of the launch while one could not.
At midnight I put on the nylon stockings—or what was left of them after I had stretched them over my calves—and the stewardess’s slippers. My trousers were tied round my waist. As for my legs, should anyone catch a quick and distant glimpse of them beneath the cloak or when the wind caught it, the masculine imagination of seamen could be trusted to supply all the alluring details which in fact were not there. Then I took up my position in Karlis’ cabin behind the open wardrobe door. It swung back against the wall and concealed me adequately.
Zero hour passed without incident. The ship’s engines continued to drive us nearer and nearer
to the Thames Estuary and the pilot. There was nothing remarkable, I assured myself, in a little delay. It was most unlikely that Conger, Elias Thomas, would permit himself to be pushed overboard at 0015 hrs precisely.
After a very long ten minutes the ship slowed and stopped. At 0032 (or thereabouts) the captain, followed by Karlis, rushed into the cabin, went straight through the wardrobe and flung back the sliding door of the inner cabin. When he was inside, Karlis slid the door home again. There was nothing to it. We then shut the door of the wardrobe. Practically nothing could be heard of the captain’s rage. When he began to ring the bell, Karlis disconnected the wire.
‘Did Conger get to the lifebelt?’ I asked.
‘It hit him on the shoulder,’ Karlis replied gloomily. ‘He went under. It is the end of us.’
‘And the launch?’
‘Hopeless. The first officer went in it. He was with the captain. They think it is you who went overboard.’
Poor Karlis had found it impossible to let the first officer think that Conger had gone overboard, while telling the captain that I had. The presence of the first officer in the captain’s cabin had complicated the plot. All the same, I embraced Karlis with enthusiasm and told him he had made a fine start.
So he had. The position was rather more fluid than I intended, but you cannot expect any imaginative plan to work out in exact detail. All you can ask is that details should conform to the general pattern.
‘If you cannot get on board the launch, I must go without you,’ he warned me.
That, too, was fairly in the pattern. One death wouldn’t be enough for him if he did not get clear of the ship. The MVD would have to revive hanging, drawing and quartering for his special benefit.
I said that I would leave the cabin then and there. He put his head round the door, ordered a steward away and told me when the alleyway was empty. I pulled the hood over my head and bolted.
This time I avoided the main stairs and went up two companions fairly far aft. They were carpeted and I could move quietly. I only saw a belated passenger returning from the bathroom and slipped across behind him.
I found myself in the ship’s lounge or smoking-room. It was empty, and all the lights were out except that in the bar steward’s pantry. Looking aft through the windows, I could see the launch in the beam of the bridge searchlight, which was sweeping the sea around and ahead of it. On the promenade deck was a small group of crew off duty, including what looked like purser and bar steward. They all had their backs to the lounge and me. It was a fair bet that, on the boat deck above, would be a similar group staring aft out to sea and most unlikely to turn round.
The shutters of the bar were down, but the door was open. Evidently the steward had been interrupted in the course of washing-up and checking stock. Glasses were drying. The sink was full of hot, soapy water. In a corner were empty champagne and whisky bottles. I expect the passengers, under Conger’s jovial leadership, had been celebrating their last night on board. Such a voyage, after all, was worth a party. That gallant Diana of an American would be able to dine out on her story for years. I can’t believe that she has ever grudged me her cloak.
The till was half open. One couldn’t expect much. After all, the ship was no Atlantic liner. Still, fifteen pounds and some odd silver were likely to be useful. I also selected a bottle of rum. I should have preferred whisky, but the rum bottle was flat and would fit in a pocket.
My next task was to reach the boat deck where, among ventilators and deck-houses, I could remain unnoticed until the launch returned. I poked out a cautious head to the port side of the promenade deck. It was empty, with that desolate air which a liner takes on when the passengers are in bed, the officers on the bridge and the watch inconspicuous at their stations. I ran daintily up to the boat deck and was at once caught in the ranging beam of the light on the bridge. I was thankful for the cloak and hood which were familiar to everyone. The only reaction on the bridge was, I like to think, regret that I should have chosen an hour when everyone was busy to visit the boat deck alone, in need of comfort and without my husband.
As I expected, there were figures looking aft, and among them two passengers. That was awkward, for I could not at a moment’s notice find a spot where I should be hidden from any of them who might turn round, and at the same time from the bridge. The only place was under the bridge itself.
I walked forward. I could not use my own masculine stride, but I was sure that any little feminine trippings would be equally wrong. I tried to invent for my long-legged American an honest walk which would yet be as seductive as possible. In daylight I should probably have looked like an owlishly drunk movie star; but I was in the shadows alongside the beam, and soon beneath it. My wretched acting sufficed, for Howard-Wolferstan, the spy, the sole reason for the return of the ship, was known to have escaped overboard. No one had time to bother with the peculiar walk of North Americans who ought to be in bed.
I took station in a dark corner, almost under the companion which led to the bridge. There I was pretty safe, for traffic passed over my head and away from me, down the next companion to the promenade deck. Close to me was the gap in the line of boats where the launch had hung, the davits turned outwards and the ropes hanging down.
I could not understand what was being said above me, but undoubtedly much of the coming and going was connected with the search for the captain. If that launch did not return soon, it would be assumed that the captain had gone overboard as well, or was locked in a life-and-death struggle with Howard-Wolferstan. However, Karlis was doing his stuff. I once heard his voice, quiet but with an undertone of menace. He was putting the fear of God and the Arctic into the second and third officers while the MVD going was still good.
Voices were suddenly raised and excited. The beam shifted. Conger, not Howard-Wolferstan, had been picked up. There was a cheer from one of the passengers aft. It sounded half-hearted. Possibly he had been sitting next to Elias Thomas at meals. The light was extinguished.
The group at the other end of the boat deck broke up and ran down to a lower level. Certainly they were all bound for the head of the gangway, to watch the arrival of the launch. There, too, would be the idlers whom I had seen outside the lounge. The position suddenly alarmed me. How on earth could I push through the crowd and reach the gangway as soon as Conger had been carried up?
The boat deck, being now empty and in comparative darkness, could be thoroughly explored so long as my movements did not attract the attention of the bridge. Someone up there did hail me, but I satisfied him with one of those charmingly debonair American gestures—half wave, half blowing of a kiss—and vanished behind the funnel. Reaching the boats on the starboard side over dead ground, I looked down between two of them and saw that the head of the gangway was on the level of the main deck. Worse than ever. It probably opened into the vestibule by the main staircase, and had to be approached through the alleyways of the passenger accommodation. No quick rush across the open spaces of a deck was possible at all.
I tried the companion up which I had come. Halfway down it, I saw all the lights blazing in the lounge. I had a vision—probably correct—of passengers up in their dressing-gowns and calling for drinks, of the bar steward discovering his empty till, of the genuine American in something diaphanous and dashing, of a general state of wild excitement in which comrades and capitalists alike would be chasing every shadow that moved and howling for my comparatively innocent blood.
I floated gracefully back to the boat deck. Two damned idle seamen, with nothing to do but watch the launch, were in position between the boats exactly where I wanted to be. It was impossible for me to lean over and see what Karlis was up to.
There were only two moves open: to stay helplessly in hiding on the boat deck, or to risk going down to the port promenade deck. That was still empty. Of course it was. The entire blasted ship’s company—those who were awake—were over on the starb
oard side. I went down and scurried along the port rails like little Red Riding Hood about to be wolfed. The ropes from the launch davits hung over the sea. There was nothing for it but to accept their offer. I was not prepared to engage myself among crowds in the well-lit alleyways. It was better to swim round under the stern and watch the launch from there. I should probably find myself adrift in the Thames Estuary, but my nerve for bluff was shattered.
Cloak, hood and all, I slid down the hanging rope and took to the water. I swam aft along the side of the ship without being noticed and took refuge, a frightened barnacle, under the bulge of the stern. Treading water, I stepped on the uppermost blade of the starboard propeller. That completed my panic. I had to make a serious speech to myself in English and Spanish—for I find that in moments of childish unreason I naturally think in my mother’s tongue—and assure myself that the ship’s engines would not start until the launch was hoisted up. It took the combined efforts of both maritime languages to make me stay where I was.
I could see the gangway. Elias Thomas Conger was walking up it and declaiming. He was in no sort of doubt that he had been pushed overboard. The first officer assisted him, deprecating with fatherly gestures so gross a libel on the ship. Then I saw Karlis run down the gangway and into the launch. He addressed the bridge like a sergeant-major. Somebody, presumably the second officer, gave an order; and up came the boat’s crew, leaving, as we had foreseen, a man with a boat-hook.
It was about the only exact detail which we had foreseen. But the framework of the plan had been solid enough—just—to hold whatever might be rammed into it by circumstance. The next move was obvious. With my feet on the propeller blade, I jumped as high as I could, hit the water with an honest smack and screamed.
The beauty of the ship was overboard. Floating cloak bobbed up and down. Wet hood clung to my face as I splashed incompetently. The ball was in Karlis’ court and an absolute gift to him if he kept his head. After a moment’s hesitation—he told me afterwards that he was wondering what to do if I turned out to be the real American—he started the engine of the launch. The hand who had held the boat-hook leaned out to pick me up. Karlis tipped up his heels and flung him a grating. We were away.
Fellow Passenger Page 11
