Eventually, the Second Mate came down into the saloon, to ask whether he was supposed to be in sole charge of the ship, or what. And, at that, the head officer had to give orders to his men to release us. A precious fool he must have felt; and, as I explained to him, I was not at all sure that I had not got a case against him for assault and false imprisonment! For he had certainly made prisoners of the Mate and me in my own saloon.
However, I told him that I was inclined to mercy; and that, no doubt, when he was older, he would look back with gratitude to the old sea-Captain who was too soft-hearted to ruin the career of a young, though insolent, Customs officer, merely to gratify a feeling of indignation, however righteous! Finally, I insisted on shaking hands with him, which he submitted to in a stupefied sort of way.
“What’s your name, Mister?” I asked him.
“Grey,” he answered, still in a dazed kind of fashion. You see, he’d been so certain sure of finding the stuff down aft; and, I daresay, my friendly way rather staggered him!
“Well, Mr. Grey,” I said, “away and do your duty. There’s all the rest of the ship to search yet; and as you say I’ve two hundred thousand cigars aboard, you shouldn’t have much trouble in locating them!
“When you come to think of it, two hundred thousand cigars would take up a lot of room; why, they’d pretty well fill a whole cabin from deck to deck—eh? Now, don’t you see, Mister, the whole foolishness of what you’ve been told? No ship-master, in his senses, would try to run a cabinful of cigars through the Customs. It couldn’t be done. Some joker’s been pulling your leg! But if you still think I’m clever enough to magic wholesale orders of that kind past you, why, just turn to on the ship again; and afterwards, when you’ve found nothing (for I’m betting that’s all you will find!), come along aft, and own up you’ve been fooled!”
But my little talk never stopped him one bit. He seemed to get a fresh notion, and went racing up on deck to test it, and I went after him, to see what it was.
As you know, I’d given the Second Mate orders to start sending down the upper yards, so as to be ready for out trip up the ship canal. Well, what did your Mister Customs Officer do but have the plugs taken out of all the hollow steel yards that had been lowered, to make sure that I’d not packed them with cigars.
Of course, there was nothing in them; but that didn’t satisfy him. He sent his men aloft, and they took out the cross-bolts and worked out the plugs from the ends of every yard aloft. And when they found nothing there, they examined the hollow steel topmasts and lower masts. Then they came down to the hull again, and tried the spare wooden topmast and royal masts, that were lashed along under the bulwarks. But they were just plain, sound natural wood.
They were still at it last evening, when we tied up in Ellesmere Port, in the Canal. I could see that the Customs must have had pretty certain information, to waste time like that.
Last night they kept a watch of two men aboard; and today they’ve had more men down, to tackle the three holds, and they’re simply proving to themselves that the cigars are not aboard.
November 3, Evening.
The Customs have at last assured themselves that I’m neither as illegal as a magician nor as big a liar as the man who cabled them misleading cigar-shaped news from Havana.
They gave up the search last night, after three agitated days of it. During these three days I’ve got quite friendly with the head officer; and when he gave me a clean sheet, and called his men off to something more useful, I invited myself ashore with him, for I was going into Liverpool for the evening.
“Look here,” I said, as we climbed out at Liverpool, “you’re off duty, now, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” he replied, “my time’s my own now, till tomorrow— Why?”
“Well,” I told him, “if you’re off duty, I guess we can bury the hatchet. So come and have a quiet dinner with me, and I’ll tell you a bit of a yarn, as between man and man.”
He came, and this is the yarn I told him, over the wine—
“A friend of mine, just a plain, ordinary seafaring man, shipped two hundred thousand cigars aboard, on the strict Q.T. When he reached England, he got word that the Customs had received ‘certain information’; the said information being horribly correct.
“My friend thought for a while; then he acted. He broke open a number of cigar boxes, and hid all his personal smokes in the saloon. He pitched the boxes out through the after port-holes, for he knew that sharp eyes were sure to be watching his ship; but he left nothing to chance. He had a quiet word or two with his Steward.
“‘Steward,’ he said, ‘when the Customs House officers come aboard, you can let them know, in a friendly sort of way, that there are possibly some cigars hidden in the saloon. Also, if I should chance to tell you to your face just what a damned thief you are, you need not bother to be as polite as courage might suggest. Got that?’
“‘Yes, Sir,’ said the Steward. ‘I s’pose there’ll be something in it for me if I does it all right and proper?’
“‘Five quid, my lad,’ he told him.
“‘I’ll earn ’em, Sir,’ said the Steward fervently.
“And so, it happened that when the Customs officers boarded my friend’s ship, they had not only the information which the floating cigar-boxes had given them of cigars hastily hidden, but they were aided in their search by timely suggestions from the Steward.
“My friend was careful to declare the exact number of cigars that the officers would be likely to find, and offered to produce them, if they would vacate the saloon for a while; which, of course, he knew they would not do.
“He then shouted for his First Mate, who had been carefully primed. The First Mate came racing down into the saloon, without waiting even to drop the capstan-bar which he had in his hands. This studied omission imparted a warlike effect to him; yet there was no intention of (or need for) violence; but the head officer of the Customs searchers saw intentions to offer fight, and he whistled for all his men to come to his rescue.
“They did so, and my friend and his First Mate were somewhat roughly handled. They received further rough treatment when they evinced an unnatural desire to chastise the insolence of the Steward.
“But finally, when no cigars were discovered, over and above those which had been declared, the Customs House officer had to order the release of my friend and his First Mate.
“For three days the Customs infested the vessel; and at last had to admit that there was no such thing as a secret consignment of cigars aboard, and that they had been misled, through acting upon ‘uncertain’ information!
“And yet the two hundred thousand cigars were aboard.
“You will remember that my friend acted peculiarly in the cabin, hiding no more cigars than he intended to declare. Also, his calling for the First Mate was curious, and their united and earnest desire to hammer the Steward was also somewhat, shall I say, abnormal.
“You will be able to understand the plot better when I tell you that, at the very moment when my friend and his First Mate and Steward were ‘entertaining’ the whole of the Customs officials in the saloon, the two hundred thousand cigars were being hoisted over the side, under the superintendence of the Second Mate, into a launch, which my friend had arranged to run alongside on a given signal from the deck.
“You will see now that all that went on in the saloon was nothing more than a lure and a ruse, intended to get all the Customs men aboard below, and keep them interested there whilst the two hundred thousand cigars were being transhipped to the launch.
“You might ask, however, how it was that none of the watchful eyes ashore noticed this somewhat unusual act of unloading. And would not the Engineer who was left in the Customs launch think there was something wrong?
“The explanation is simple. My friend was safe from suspicion, either from those ashore, or from the Customs Engineer, through the following causes: First, because the official watchers ashore would not suspect a vessel which had the Custom
s launch alongside, and the officers actually aboard. Second, the Engineer never saw the other launch, because it came up on the opposite side of the vessel. Third, because no cases were lowered over the side; for the two hundred thousand cigars were all hidden, in sixteen tin cases, inside a dummy ‘spare’ topmast, in which they were actually shipped aboard out abroad. And as the Second Mate was lowering spars from aloft, there was nothing particularly noteworthy of the fact that one of the spars at the end of his tackle happened to be that genuine-looking, but exceedingly valuable, spare topmast.
“And, of course, as soon as it was in the water, the launch took it in tow, and went off, away and away-oh!
“Neat of my friend, wasn’t it?” I asked.
“You cunning devil!” said the Customs Officer.
The German Spy
S.S. Galatea, July 22.
There’s one thing about taking charge of a tramp steamer,” I said yesterday to Mr. MacWhirr, the Chief Engineer, “one does get some variety; and if the pay is rather watery, there are little ways of making ends meet!”
This was when I was explaining what I wanted him to do.
I am drawing just seventeen-ten a month in this boiler, and that’s a rise on the last Skipper, who was getting only fourteen-ten; but I stuck at that!
I told Mr. Johnson, our owner, it wouldn’t pay my washing, tobacco, and wine bills. He laughed at the joke, as he thought it; but there’s more truth in it than he could ever understand.
The little commissioned piece of work I was talking over with MacWhirr comes off tonight. I am just jotting this down, while I have a quiet smoke, before getting busy.
We shall be off Toulon at 10:30. La Seyne comes after that, and I reckon to be off Sanary before 11:30. That’s the place where I’ve got the £500 commission. There’s a German ashore there, one of those spies, I suppose; and he’s got plans that I’m to buy from him for the tidy sum of £2,000, in English bank-notes. And how I do hate the spy brand, that haven’t even the decency to spy for their own Fatherland; but do the dirty work of any confounded country that’ll pay them a good figure.
I’ve my own idea what the plans are, and I shall keep an eye skinned for them, too.
I’m to get the German aboard and land him safe in Spain. I’m to meet him (his name is Herr Fromach) on the Point Issol at 12:30, exactly. If he is not there I am to wait half an hour. If he has not turned up then, I am free to come away, as it may be presumed (from what I can understand) that Herr Fromach will by then have been captured, and will be probably inspecting the inside of some kind of French lock-up. I expect he’ll get a private leathering, too, from the men who catch him; for I understand it is generally known ashore that the plans have been stolen by this same Herr, and feeling is running high among the Frenchmen; and there are search parties loose on all the mountains round Sanary, for they’ve got word he’s hiding somewhere about there.
If I don’t get him tonight, he’ll almost certainly be caught; but I’ve given my word to do my best; and £500 isn’t to be sniffed at!
There will be some risk attached, as people don’t offer five-hundred-pound commis-sions merely for the trouble of embarking a casual passenger aboard a cargo tramp!
* * * *
I had a wireless tonight from a “mutual friend” ashore. (I have fitted up a two-hundred-mile-radius installation aboard here at my own expense.) He warned me, as a friend, that the search is getting so hot and close I had better drop the whole business and not come ashore at all; for there has been a leakage somewhere, and the authorities know that Herr Fromach is to attempt an escape from Sanary Bay tonight.
All this was, of course, in cypher, and I replied, in cypher, that I had promised to be on the Point Issol, near the Old Mill, from 12:30 midnight to one o’clock, and that nothing short of a gun-boat would stop me from being there. I nearly told him that seventeen-ten a month was badly needed supplementing, or else I should have to go unlaundried; but I thought it better not to muddle him; for it might prove a puzzling point of view to French minds.
He wirelessed me again, remonstrating; but I told him that Herr Fromach, acting upon instructions, had previously left the Bandol arrondissement (or district), where he had been hiding while the Sanary district was being searched, and had passed into the Sanary district, before the route de Bandol was closed, by the search parties.
All this I received by wireless yesterday, from another “mutual friend.” And I made it clear that now the news had leaked out that Herr Fromach was certainly in the Sanary arrondissement, he must be got off tonight, or he would inevitably be captured, probably before morning. I explained that we might pretend to have a break-down in the engine-room, and this would account for our hanging about, off Sanary, if any official inquiry should be made. I had to repeat this, twice, before the strength of my reasoning was fully appreciated; and after that, I suggested that perhaps it would be safer to stop “sending” until I had either got my man away, or failed. I asked him first, though, about the landing on the point, and the position of the mill.
He replied that the Point Issol came down into the Mediterranean on the western side of the Sanary Bay (which, of course, I knew from the chart!), and that it “concluded” (which amused me) in a long, low snout of black rock, which could be boarded, as the night was calm, right at the point end, with a little scrambling. The mill, he told me, lay right up on the brow of the point.
He went on to remind me (as if I did not know!) that there was practically no tide in the Mediterranean, as along the shores of “Angleterre,” and so I need make no “mathematics” of this—in which I agreed with him!
After climbing upon the Point, I must go up the “snout” until I came among the trees, and here I would find a central road, which would lead me right down into Sanary. The rest, he must leave to me; but if I gave any “vocal” signal, he would advise the croaking of a bull-frog, which is sufficiently common not to attract undue attention.
I replied that Herr Fromach had already arranged with me, to answer the howl of a dog, three times repeated, for dogs, I understand, are plentiful among the farms on the land side, and so this kind of signal will not be noticeable.
* * * *
July 23.
We arrived off Sanary last night, at 11:15, and I went below into the engine-room to interview Mister MacWhirr.
“Have you arranged that breakdown, Mac?” I asked him.
“Is it Mister MacWhirr you’re askin’, or plain MacTullarg, the greaser, ow’r yonder?” he questioned. That’s just the way of him, and we understand each other very well.
“Mister MacWhirr,” I shouted, in a way that made the engine-room ring, “have you fixed up that—”
Mr. MacWhirr thrust out an oily hand at me.
“Whist! For all sakes, whist, mon!” he whispered. “Do ye want to tell all the stokehold what we’ve gotten planned?”
“That’s better, Mac,” I said. “If you’re ready, I am. We’re off Sanary now, and you’d better hurry the breakdown. What’s it to be?”
“I’m thinking,” whispered MacWhirr, over the back of his hand, “as yon bar-iron as I’ve leaned so casual like near by the valve guide of the low pressure’ll maybe shift with the vessel rollin’ so heavy” (the vessel was as steady as a rock!). “An’ the guide’ll sure get a wee bent. Oh, aye, we’ve a spare; but I’ll no charge it to the ship, Captain; for I’m not thinkin’ as yon would be justice to Mr. Johnson, as is a fair man to work for, an’ a countryman though I’m not sayin’ as he’s not a wee inclined to meaness, for a Scotsman. But I’ll no ha’ yon on ma conscience. If the guide’s to go ashore to be straightened, then the cost must be shared by yon an’ me, Cap’n, in the proportion of oor shares o’ the siller we make this night.”
“That’s all right, Mac,” I said, laughing a little. “Your conscience shall be kept pure and undefiled. I’m going up on the bridge now, so get a move on with the accident.”
I went up on to the bridge, and I had been there scarcely more
than a minute when there was a muffled jar from the engine-room, and the screw stopped turning. I’m pretty sure that Mac had throttled down handsomely, before he let the “rolling of the vessel” roll the bar-iron into the guides, so as to ensure the gentlest sort of “accident” possible.
I heard him now, shouting at the top of his voice, cursing and making the very kind of a hullaballoo that he would never have made had there been much the matter.
“Which of ye left yon bar-iron there?” I heard him roaring. “I’d gie ma heid to know; for I’d bash the man into hell an’ oot again, I wad that!… Mac, away doon, an’ tak’ two of the men an’ rouse out the spare guide, an’ get a move on ye. There’s two an’ maybe three hours’ work here for us!”
I ran down off the bridge, and met MacWhirr at the foot of the ladder.
“I’m feared ye’ll ha’ to anchor, Cap’n,” he said, in a voice you could have heard fore and aft. “There’s yon fool greaser, though he’ll no own to it, made a store closet o’ ma engine-room, an’ stood a two-inch bar of mild steel on end in a corner, like you might in a fittin’ shop ashore; an’ the ship’s juist rolled it slam into the valve guide o’ the low pressure an’ we’ll ha’ two, or maybe three, hours’ work to fit the spare. Heard ye ever the like o’ such damned aggravatingness, Cap’n!”
I assured him that I hadn’t, and ran forrard to put the anchor over.
Now, I had scarcely done this, and the sound of our chain cable ceased echoing across the quiet water, when there was a hail out of the darkness, and a voice, speaking fair English, though with a strong French accent, asked—
“What vessel is that?”
“What the devil’s has that to do with you?” I asked. “Who are you, anyway?”
“I’m Lieutenant Brengae, of the destroyer Gaul,” said the voice. “You are not very civil, Captain, are you? It is the Captain, is it?”
“I apologise, Monsieur Brengae,” I said hur-riedly…. (It was evident that there was a warship in the Bay itself!) “But Monsieur will understand that I am annoyed, when I explain that we have just had a breakdown in our engine-room.”
Boats of the Glen Carrig and Other Nautical Adventures Page 37
