The Cruise of the Dry Dock/The Get-Away
CHAPTER XVII
THE GET-AWAY
Both lads leaned against the machinery, limp, dripping cold perspiration. Caradoc was the first to speak.
“Didn't have its war head in!”
Leonard mumbled something through the slime in his mouth.
“I ought to find the connection and explode it,” repeated Caradoc doggedly.
Madden moved weakly over beside him. “No you won't. You aren't going to murder us all… not going to do it!”
Caradoc remained motionless, his long face gray under the electric lights. “I fail—at everything,” he mumbled.
Leonard sat down on the edge of the torpedo case and looked at the long, slender destroyer. He had a watery feeling, as if just arising from a long illness.
“Let's get out of here,” he breathed.
“Wait… we must seem normal. You—you look blue—spotted.”
“I feel blue and spotted. I was scared—never was so scared in all my life.”
“Sit here till you get over your j-jolt.”
“What are you going to do?” asked the American apprehensively as Smith arose.
“I must disable this machinery and give the tug a chance to escape.”
“Still got that in your head?”
“I must do something—I ought to explode that torpedo!”
“You're not going to do that, Caradoc. You're not! I have no—no appetite to be a martyr.”
The Englishman made no reply, but began moving around among the machinery with the crowbar. Leonard stirred himself to follow.
“You—you're not up to anything—not going to blow us up?”
“No, I'm not going to blow you up. That's my word.”
Oddly enough, Madden accepted it very simply, and went back and sat on the torpedo case. He fell to stroking the smooth steel flank of the thing as if it were some animal. The thing had, as it were, refused to blow him to bits at Smith's request.
The Englishman walked about busily, thrusting his bar in among dial connections, snapping brass pipes, wrecking the telephone connections. He laid about him viciously, knocking, crashing, smashing. Then he hurried back into the rear compartment, knocked to pieces the bearings and valves of the Deisel engine, tangled up the wiring of the storage batteries and the dynamo, beat off her brushes, disrupted the clutch on the crank shaft.
It was shocking to Madden to see Caradoc smash and destroy such delicate and costly machinery. He went about his task with a kind of bottled ferocity, and in a short time the submarine looked as if it had let loose a cyclone. Presently the youth paused in his vandalism and glanced about with satisfaction.
“All right,” he said in a more normal tone, “if you are ready to go, get a wrench and a cold-chisel, smudge your face with a little oil and iron black, and we'll get away from here.”
Madden saw the importance of completing his disguise in this manner. He splotched his face, found the tools indicated by Smith in the locker, then walked out through the manhole into the passageway once more.
There was no one in sight as they came out. They passed up through the cool refrigerating room and through the machine shop with its contented workmen. Madden wondered how those men would feel if they knew that a few minutes past, they were hanging on the fringe of eternity.
The two smudged tool-bearers, who walked rather shakily to the upper deck, did not even provoke a questioning glance from the workmen. A few minutes later the boys emerged once more from the sleeping deck onto the boat deck. It was still deserted save for the solitary guard who paced back and forth in stiff military fashion.
Caradoc moved down to the hanging laundry and paused under the port hood. He tapped it gently. From the interior came Malone's thick whisper. Smith passed in the tools and whispered.
“Force the door open gently. Walk out as if you were sailors. Close the door and pretend to lock it. Meet me out here at the head of the ship's ladder, where the guard is stationed.”
“Very well, sir,” came a whisper.
Then Madden and Smith strolled on down toward the man with the gun. As they walked, Smith whispered:
“When you hear me clear my throat, get within striking distance. When I cough, silence him. I'll help you.”
Madden nodded slightly, and the two drew near the pacing guard. Caradoc lifted hand to forehead as they passed and a little later seated themselves on the rail near the ladder. Madden looked down curiously and thought he could make out the shape of the dinghy below, but was not certain.
The American's nerves still tingled from the torpedo incident, and now he glanced out of the tail of his eye at the guard, whom he would probably have to fight.
The fellow was a broad-chested, short-necked German, armed with rifle and bayonet. The bayonet had a bluish gleam under the incandescent.
It was a queer thought to Madden to know that within the next fifteen minutes, he would perhaps be under rifle fire, rowing or swimming away through the black night, or he might be dead. Dead, and the world would end for him, and the war of the world or the peace of the world would be all the same for him.
Madden shrugged his shoulders, drew a long breath and stared out in the direction of theVulcan. He could see nothing of the tug. The moon had sunk and the stars burned with a more vivid fire. The musing boy noted the position of the Hydra, and fancied it might be somewhere near midnight. Just then his guess was confirmed by four double strokes of the bell. There would be a change of guards. Perhaps the next man would not be so unsuspecting.
Just then Madden observed another deck gang coming up the promenade. He wondered how often they scrubbed deck on this vessel. He hoped this crew would soon pass, as it would make escape impossible if their men made a break while the sweepers were in hearing. Their slow approach made him nervous. Suppose one of them suspected something wrong?
Just then Caradoc yawned and cleared his throat. Madden looked around at his friend with a slight start. The Englishman did not see the approaching sailors. Madden frowned conspicuously, but Smith's long face was placid, and he cleared his throat again.
The guard was now about to pass Madden. The American shifted his legs slightly for a position to jump, nevertheless frowning warningly at Caradoc. The scrubbers were fairly close now. Caradoc arose negligently and coughed.
In the teeth of the scrub gang, Madden leaped headlong at the guard and his fingers gripped the man's throat. At the same instant, Caradoc ducked under his legs. As the foremost of the scrub gang wrenched the rifle from the guard's hands, Madden saw with joy that they were Malone and his men. The three fell with a dull thumping on the deck. The guard tore at Madden's fingers which crushed in his throat. From underneath, Caradoc panted in sharp whispers:
“Overboard! Down the ladder! Quick!”
As he snapped out his orders, the Englishman was working his hold up past the floundering guard's waist. Madden's grip was about to break under the strain the Teuton put on it, but his fingers clung desperately to the fellow's throat, for one shout would bring a hornet's nest around the fugitives. Just then Malone whispered hoarsely:
“They're all overboard, sir.”
Leonard caught the soft stir of oars in the water below.
“Shall Hi stick 'im, sir?” whispered Malone, grabbing the guard's bayoneted rifle. “Yonder, comes the new guard!”
Caradoc, who had been willing to blow up a whole shipful of men, panted out a sharp “No!” Just then the Englishman's long fingers slipped up on the tendons that ran down the guard's neck from his ears. He pinched them sharply. The struggling man suddenly gasped and lay still. Caradoc leaped to his feet. Madden scrambled up. Both were dripping with sweat. A man with a rifle was running down the deck toward them. The fellow raised his rifle.
“Overboard!” gasped Caradoc and took a sudden leap over the rail into the night. Madden followed, trusting not to hit the dinghy and kill himself. Malone was already scrambling down the rope ladder as fast as he could go.
While a dive of one or two hundred feet is not uncommon, still Madden's thirty-five foot drop sent chill tickly sensations through his chest and throat. It seemed as if he would never stop falling through the darkness, but at last he struck the water and went down, down, down.
When he finally kicked himself back to the surface and thrust his head out, he heard a violent whispering among the excited boatmen. A moment later an oar struck him under the armpit. Madden seized it, whispered his own name and scuttled in over the gunwale. The men were shoving desperately at the ship's side in an effort to get the dinghy under way.
From the deck overhead came guttural shouts in German and fainter answers. Fortunately the guard did not take upon himself the responsibility of shooting down into the boat, and in a minute or two the refugees had assembled the oars and were rowing furiously from the mother ship.
In the dim zone of light that belted the promenade, Madden could see a number of hurrying figures. Then came a sharp command, and a rifle stabbed the darkness with a knife of fire and a keen report.
Immediately came another, then another, then several. Bullets chucked viciously into the water about the dinghy.
Under the straining arms of four oarsmen the little boat moved briskly out of its perilous position. Jammed between two sailors, the boy sat staring back at the men gathering on the promenade. The flashing of many rifles kept a constant streak of light along a considerable section of the deck. Bullets seemed to whine within an inch of his ears. The dinghy appeared to be retreating at a snail's pace, and the frightened boy gripped furiously at the gunwale in an absurd effort to speed it up. He twisted about, trying to keep his shoulders in a line with the flashing rifles so as to offer the thinnest target. A man in the stern of the dinghy groaned, and slumped down into the bottom.
Just then a searchlight leaped into play from the top deck of the ship. Its long ray shot out in a trembling cone through the darkness. It switched here and there with appalling swiftness. The crew in the little boat stared at it, holding their breaths. When that leaping ray fell on the dinghy it would be followed by a rain of steel.
The firing on the promenade deck ceased, Waiting for the searchlight to direct their aim. Just then the beam fell on the Vulcan with dazzling brilliance. The tug stood out sharply against the night, and she proved to be much closer than Leonard had fancied. The little rowboat had been traveling faster than he thought.
Then the brilliant circle left the tug and, began crawling carefully over the water toward the dinghy.
The crew stared at the approaching light as stricken birds in a snake's cage. Just then Caradoc said in a low tone. “Let every man slide into the water and swim for the Vulcan.”
The men in the stern slipped into the sea first with muffled splashes. The men amidship climbed over the side and went in headfirst. The oarsmen shipped their oars and took the water. Madden made a long dive over the side and shot well away from the little boat. When he came up, he looked around. The fringe of light was just playing on the bow when Caradoc leaped. According to English traditions, he was the last man to leave his vessel, even though it were only a dinghy.
An instant later, a queer metallic ripping sound broke out in the mother ship. Madden looked back quickly. From the top deck there was a jet of fire, as if someone were turning a hose of flame in the direction of the small boat. Leonard looked back at the dinghy. It appeared as if the ray of light were beating the little vessel into splinters. It seemed to crumble into itself, to wither, to go to dust, and the water beneath it beat up in a froth through its shattered hull.
A head bobbed up near Madden, and Caradoc's voice observed collectedly.
“They're chewing it up with a machine gun. You'd better dive again—travel most of the way to the tug under water. They'll be picking us up, one at a time, in a moment, with the same stream of steel.”