And this was the gratitude of the—of the—swine! Well, he would teach them a lesson. God in heaven! There was only one thing he could do to save his skin. He would send them an ultimatum! It was their last chance. He shivered to think that it might be his own!
But it was not so easy as he thought it would be to burn all his boats. It cost him two days and two nights of tortuous thinking before he could bring himself to the point. At eleven o’clock on the third night the purser brought the captain a new message, which Mr. Neilsen had just handed in to be despatched by wireless. It ran as follows:
Continue treatment. Vastly amusing. Uncle Hyacinth’s magnificent constitution stand anything. Apply mustard. Try red pepper.
The group that met to consider this new development included three passengers, whom the captain had invited to share what he called the fun. They were a Miss Depew, an American girl who was going to Europe to do Red Cross work; and a Mr. and Mrs. Pennyfeather, English residents of Buenos Aires, with whom she was traveling. The message, as they interpreted it, ran as follows:
Unless instructions to sink Hispaniola countermanded, shall inform captain. No alternative. Most important papers my possession.
“Good!” said Captain Abbey. “ ’E’s beginning to show symptoms of blackmail. I’d send this message on, only we’re likely to make a bigger bag by keeping quiet. We’ll let ’im ’ave the reply tomorrow morning. What shall we do to ’im next?”
“Shoot him,” said Miss Depew with complete calm.
“Oh, I want to ’ave a little fun with ’im first,” said Captain Abbey. “I’m afraid you ’aven’t got much sense of humor, Miss Depew.”
“Do you think so?” she said. She was of the purest Gibson type, and never flickered an innocent eyelash or twisted a corner of her red Cupid’s bow of a mouth as she drawled: “I think it would be very humorous indeed to shoot him, now that we know he is a German.”
“Well, after ’is trying to leave us without warning ’e deserves to be skinned and stuffed. But we’re likely to make much more of it if we keep ’im alive for our entertainment. Besides, ’e’s going to be useful on the other side. Now, what do you think of this for a scheme?”
The heads of the conspirators drew closer round the table; and Mr. Neilsen, wandering on deck like a lost spirit, pondered on the tragic ironies of life. The thoughtless laughter that rippled up to him from the captain’s cabin filled him with no compassion toward any one but himself. It was merely one more proof that only the Germans took life seriously. All the same, if he could possibly help it, he was not going to let them take his own life.
2
There was no radiogram for Mr. Neilsen on the following day; and he was perplexed by a new problem as he walked feverishly up and down the promenade deck.
Even if he received an assurance that the Hispaniola would be spared, how could he know that he was being told the truth? Necessity, as he knew quite well, was the mother of murder. It was very necessary, indeed, that his mouth should be sealed. Besides, he had more than a suspicion that his use was fulfilled in the eyes of the German Government, and that they would not be sorry if they could conveniently get rid of him. He possessed a lot of perilous knowledge; and he wished heartily that he didn’t. He was tasting, in fact, the inevitable hell of the criminal, which is not that other people distrust him, but that he can trust nobody else.
He leaned over the side of the ship and watched the white foam veining the black water.
“Curious, isn’t it?” said dapper little Mr. Pennyfeather, who stood near him. “Exactly like liquid marble. Makes you think of that philosophic Johnny—What’s-his-name—fellow that said ‘everything flows,’ don’t you know. And it does, too, by Jove! Everything! Including one’s income! It’s curious, Mr. Neilsen, how quickly we’ve changed all our ideas about the value of human life, isn’t it? By Jove, that’s flowing too! The other morning I caught myself saying that there was no news in the paper; and then I realized that I’d overlooked the sudden death of about ten thousand men on the Western Front. Well, we’ve all got to die some day, and perhaps it’s best to do it before we deteriorate too far. Don’t you think so?”
Mr. Neilsen grunted morosely. He hated to be pestered by these gadflies of the steamer. He particularly disliked this little Englishman with the neat gray beard, not only because he was the head of an obnoxious bank in Buenos Aires, but because he would persist in talking to him with a ghoulish geniality about submarine operations and the subject of death. Also, he was one of those hopeless people who had been led by the wholesale slaughter of the war to thoughts of the possibility of a future life. Apparently Mr. Pennyfeather had no philosophy, and his spiritual being was groping for light through those materialistic fogs which brood over the borderlands of science. His wife was even more irritating; for she, too, was groping, chiefly because of the fashion; and they both insisted on talking to Mr. Neilsen about it. They had quite spoiled his breakfast this morning. He did not resent it on spiritual grounds, for he had none; but he did resent it because it reminded him of his mortality, and also because a professional quack does not like to be bothered by amateurs.
Mrs. Pennyfeather approached him now on the other side. She was a faded lady with hair dyed yellow, and tortoise-shell spectacles.
“Have you ever had your halo read, Mr. Neilsen?” she asked with a sickly smile.
“No. I don’t believe in id,” he said gruffly.
“But surely you believe in the spectrum,” she continued with a ghastly inconsequence that almost curdled the logic in his German brain.
“Certainly,” he replied, trying hard to be polite.
“And therefore in specters,” she cooed ingratiatingly, as if she were talking to a very small child.
“Nod at all! Nod at all!” he exploded somewhat violently, while Mr. Pennyfeather, on the other side, came to his rescue, sagely repudiating the methods of his wife.
“No, no, my dear! I don’t think your train of thought is quite correct there. My wife and I are very much interested in recent occult experiments, Mr. Nielsen. We’ve been wondering whether you wouldn’t join us one night, round the ouija board.”
“Id is all nonsense to me,” said Mr. Neilsen, gesticulating with both arms.
“Quite so; very natural. But we got some very curious results last night,” continued Mr. Pennyfeather. “Most extraordinary. The purser was with us, and he thought it would interest you. I wish you would join us.”
“I should regard id as gomplete waste of time,” said Mr. Neilsen.
“Surely, nothing can be waste of time that increases our knowledge of the bourne from which no traveler returns,” replied the lyric lips of Mrs. Pennyfeather.
“To me the methods are ridiculous,” said Mr. Neilsen. “All this furniture removal! Ach!”
“Ah,” said Mr. Pennyfeather, “you should read What’s-his-name. You know the chap, Susan. Fellow that said it’s like a shipwrecked man waving a shirt on a stick to attract attention. Of course it’s ridiculous! But what else can you do if you haven’t any other way of signaling? Why, man alive! You’d use your trousers, wouldn’t you, if you hadn’t anything else? And the alternative—drowning—remember—drowning beneath what Thingumbob calls ‘the unplumbed salt, estranging sea.’ ”
“Eggscuse me,” said Mr. Neilsen; “I have some important business with the captain. I must go.”
Mr. Neilsen had been trying hard to make up his mind, despite these irrelevant interruptions. He had received no assurance by wireless, and he had convinced himself that even if he did receive one it would be wiser to inform the captain. But there were many difficulties in the way. He had taken great care never to do anything that might lead to the death penalty—that is to say, among nations less civilized than his own. But there was that affair of the code. It might make things very unpleasant. A dozen other susp
icious circumstances would have to be explained away. A dozen times he had hesitated, as he did this morning. He met the captain at the foot of the bridge.
“Ah, Mr. Neilsen,” said Captain Abbey with great cordiality, “you’re the very man I want to see. We’re ’aving a little concert tonight in the first-class dining room on behalf of the wives and children of the British mine sweepers and the auxiliary patrols. You see, though this is a neutral ship, we depend upon them more or less for our safety. I thought it would be pleasant if you—as a neutral—would say just a few words. I understand that they’ve rescued a good many Swedish crews from torpedoed ships; and whatever view we may take of the war we ’ave to admit that these little boats are doing the work of civilization.”
Mr. Neilsen thought he saw an opportunity of ingratiating himself, and he seized it. He could broach the other matter later on. “I vill do my best, captain.”
“ ’Ere is a London newspaper that will tell you all about their work.”
Mr. Neilsen retired to his stateroom and studied the newspaper fervently.
The captain took the chair that evening, and he did it very well. He introduced Mr. Neilsen in a few appropriate words; and Mr. Neilsen spoke for nearly five minutes, in English, with impassioned eloquence and a rapidly deteriorating accent.
“Dese liddle batrol boads,” he said in his peroration, “how touching to the heart is der vork! Some of us forget ven ve are safe on land how much ve owe to them. But no matter vot your nationality, ven you are on the high sees, surrounded with darkness and dangers, not knowing ven you shall be torpedoed, vot a grade affection you feel then to dese liddle batrol boads! As a citizen of Sweden I speak vot I know. The ships of my guntry have suffered much in dis war. The sailors of my guntry have been thrown into the water by thousands through der submarines. But dese liddle batrol boads, they save them from drowning. They give them blankets and hot goffee. They restore them to their veeping mothers.”
Mr. Neilsen closed amid tumultuous applause, and when the collection was taken up by Miss Depew his contribution was the largest of the evening.
The rest of the entertainment consisted chiefly of music and recitation. Mr. Pennyfeather contributed a song, composed by himself. Typewritten copies of the words were issued to the audience; and a very fat and solemn Spaniard accompanied him with thunderous chords on the piano. Every one joined in the chorus; but Mr. Neilsen did not like the song at all. It was concerned with Mr. Pennyfeather’s usual gruesome subject; and he rolled it out in a surprisingly rich barytone with the gusto of a schoolboy:
If they sink us we shall be
All the nearer to the sea!
That’s no hardship to deplore!
We’ve all been in the sea before.
Chorus:
And then we’ll go a-rambling,
A-rambling, a-rambling,
With all the little lobsters
From Frisco to the Nore.
If we swim it’s one more tale,
Round the hearth and over the ale;
When your lass is on your knee,
And love comes laughing from the sea.
Chorus:
And then we’ll go a-rambling,
A-rambling, a-rambling,
A-rambling through the roses
That ramble round the door.
If we drown, our bones and blood
Mingle with the eternal flood.
That’s no hardship to deplore!
We’ve all been in the sea before.
Chorus:
And then we’ll go a-rambling,
A-rambling, a-rambling,
The road that Jonah rambled
And twenty thousand more.
“Now,” said Mr. Pennyfeather, holding out his hands like the conductor of a revival meeting, “all the ladies, very softly, please.”
The solemn Spaniard rolled his great black eyes at the audience, and repeated the refrain pianissimo, while the silvery voices caroled:
With all the little lobsters
From Frisco to the Nore.
“Now, all the gentlemen, please,” said Mr. Pennyfeather. The Spaniard’s eyes flashed. He rolled thunder from the piano, and Mr. Neilsen found himself bellowing with the rest of the audience:
The road that Jonah rambled
From Hull to Singapore,
And twenty thousand, thirty thousand,
Forty thousand, fifty thousand,
Sixty thousand, seventy thousand,
Eighty thousand more!
It was an elaborate conclusion, accompanied by elephantine stampings of Captain Abbey’s feet; but Mr. Neilsen retired to his room in a state of great depression. The frivolity of these people, in the face of his countrymen, appalled him.
On the next morning he decided to act, and sent a message to the captain asking for an interview. The captain responded at once, and received him with great cordiality. But the innocence of his countenance almost paralyzed Mr. Neilsen’s intellect at the outset, and it was very difficult to approach the subject.
“Do you see this, Mr. Neilsen?” said the captain, holding up a large champagne bottle. “Do you know what I’ve got in this?”
“Champagne,” said Mr. Neilsen with the weary pathos of a logician among idiots.
“No, sir! Guess again.”
“Pilsener!”
“No, sir! It’s plain sea water. I’ve just filled it. I’m taking it ’ome to my wife. She takes it for the good of ’er stommick, a small wineglass at a time. She always likes me to fill it for her in mid-Atlantic. She’s come to depend on it now, and I wouldn’t dare to go ’ome without it. I forgot to fill it once till we were off the coast of Spain. And, would you believe it, Mr. Neilsen, that woman knew! The moment she tasted it she knew it wasn’t the right vintage. Well, sir, we shall soon be in the war zone now. But you are not looking very well, Mr. Neilsen. I ’ope you’ve got a comfortable room.”
“I have reason to believe, captain, that there will be an attempt made by the submarines to sink the Hispaniola,” said Mr. Neilsen abruptly.
“Nonsense, my dear sir! This is a neutral ship and we’re sailing to a neutral country, under explicit guarantees from the German Government. They won’t sink the Hispaniola for the pleasure of killing her superannuated English captain.”
“I have reason to believe they intend to—er—change their bolicy. I was not sure of id till I opened my mail on the boad; but—er—I have a friend in Buenos Aires who vas in glose touch—er—business gonnections—with members of the German legation; he—er—advised me, too late, I had better gancel my bassage. I fear there is no doubt they vill change their bolicy.”
“But they couldn’t. There ain’t any policy! The Argentine Republic is a neutral country. You can’t make me believe they’d do a thing like that. It wouldn’t be honest, Mr. Neilsen. Of course, it’s war-time; but the German Government wants to be honorable, don’t it—like any other government?”
“I don’d understand the reasons; but I fear there is no doubt aboud the facts,” said Mr. Neilsen.
“Have you got the letter?”
“No; I thought as you do, ad first, and I tore id up.”
“Was that why you wanted to get off and go back?” the captain inquired mercilessly.
“I gonfess I vas a liddle alarmed; but I thought perhaps I vas unduly alarmed at the time. I gouldn’t trust my own judgment, and I had no ride to make other bassengers nervous.”
“That was very thoughtful of you. I trust you will continue to keep this matter to yourself, for I assure you—though I consider the German Government ’opelessly wrong in this war—they wouldn’t do a dirty thing like that. They’re very anxious to be on good terms with the South American republics, and they’d ruin th
emselves for ever.”
“But my information is they vill sink the ships vithoud leaving any draces.”
“What do you mean? Pretend to be friendly, and then—Come, now! That’s an awful suggestion to make!”
At these words Mr. Neilsen had a vivid mental picture of his conversation with the bald-headed Englishman in Harrods’.
“Do you mean,” the captain continued, waxing eloquent, “do you mean they’d sink the ships and massacre every blessed soul aboard, regardless of their nationality? Of course I’m an Englishman, and I don’t love ’em, but that ain’t even murder. That’s plain beastliness. It couldn’t be done by anything that walks on two legs. I tell you what, Mr. Neilsen, you’re a bit overwrought and nervous. You want a little recreation. You’d better join the party tonight in my cabin. Mr. and Mrs. Pennyfeather are coming, and a very nice American girl—Miss Depew. We’re going to get a wireless message or two from the next world. Ever played with the ouija board? Nor had I till this voyage; but I must say it’s interesting. You ought to see it, as a scientific man. I understand you’re interested in science, and you know there’s no end of scientists—big men too—taking this thing up. You’d better come. Half past eight. Right you are!”
The Big Book of Espionage Page 33
