The Wireless Officer Part 18

"Mr. Preston," he sang out.

"Ay, ay, sir,"

"Fresh orders," announced the Old Man. "Here you are: 'I have received telegraphic instructions from your owners for you to proceed straight to Bulonga, where you will unload steelwork, proceeding thence to Port Sudan'. Bring me the chart of the Mozambique coast, Preston, and let's see where we are--and the sailing directions while you are about it."

The Acting Chief hastened to fetch the required articles.

"Bulonga--that's in Mozambique," commented the Old Man. "What the blazes the Kilba Protectorate people want to have the steelwork dumped there for goodness only knows. However, it's my place to carry out instructions, Mr. Preston."

"Ay, ay, sir," concurred the Acting Chief without enthusiasm. He had no love for the Portuguese East African ports. A long spell there meant mosquitoes; mosquitoes meant malaria and other evils in its train. And there was simply nothing to see or do in these ports.

Preston had "had some" before to-day.

"They give no reason for the alteration, sir?" he inquired. "I suppose by any chance we haven't got the signal incorrectly?"

"No reason, Mr. Preston," replied Captain Bullock. "And here is the signal in duplicate. Mostyn took that precaution, so I can stake my boots on its accuracy."

The two officers spent some time in poring over the chart and reading up the description of Bulonga harbour and its approaches, as set down in the Admiralty sailing directions for the east coast of Africa.

"It'll be a tight squeeze for our draught," commented the skipper.

"It'll mean a Portugee pilot, worse luck. I know those gentry of old.

I hope there's a British agent there to take over the Brocklington Company's consignment."

Had Captain Bullock known that Peter was down with a severe bout of malaria he would not have wagered his footgear so readily, for Mostyn had made a mistake in taking in the signal. More, he had duplicated the mistake when he received the repet.i.tion at his own request.

With his head buzzing like a high-pressure boiler Peter had read D (--..) for B (--...), his temporarily disordered sense of hearing failing to detect the slight but important difference.

Consequently, instead of the _West Barbican_ shaping a course for Rangoon, which in the code signal appeared as AELB, she was making for the comparatively unimportant harbour of Bulonga (AELD).

The while Ludwig Schoeffer's seven-day watch was silently ticking out the seconds, minutes, and hours in the _West Barbican's_ baggage hold.

The German agent was sublimely ignorant of the change in the s.h.i.+p's plans. He was still at Durban, awaiting the news that the _West Barbican_ was overdue and believed missing. He would have been considerably surprised had he known that there was every likelihood of the s.h.i.+p sinking in Bulonga Harbour, where at low tide she would have barely enough water to lie alongside the quays.

If he had only known the vital difference that the omission of a "dot"

in the spurious signal was to cause!

CHAPTER XIX

Peter's Progress

Peter Mostyn's attack lasted a full twenty-four hours, but at seven the next evening he felt well enough to go down to dinner in the saloon.

That function had become a mere shadow of its former self. On the run to Cape Town the chairs round the long tables were generally filled, once the pa.s.sengers had grown accustomed to life afloat and had regained their temporarily lost appet.i.tes.

Now, the saloon looked almost deserted. Captain Bullock was in his customary place at the head of the table, most of the officers not on duty were present--a mere handful all told. Of the pa.s.sengers only eight remained. Of these, five were to be landed at Beira and taken on to their destinations by a "Bullard" boat. The remaining three were Mr. and Mrs. Shallop and Olive Baird.

Since Mrs. Shallop's encounter with the skipper she had fought shy of the saloon when the Old Man was present, and was in the habit of having her evening meal in the seclusion of her cabin. Although this arrangement was contrary to the Company's rules and regulations Captain Bullock winked at it; the rest of the saloon congratulated themselves, and even Shallop, away from the disturbing influence of his wife's presence, seemed a different man. In fact, on several occasions his dry and somewhat humorous remarks set everyone laughing.

The temporary retirement of Mrs. Shallop had given Olive much more leisure. At first the selfish woman had tried her level best to compel the girl to share her self-imposed seclusion, but Olive had firmly declined to submit. She had already endured considerable discomfort on her employer's behalf, and had borne the almost continuous "nagging"

without a murmur; but now the breaking-strain had been exceeded, and the bullying woman had to admit defeat.

Consequently Peter saw Olive a good deal. They were firm pals. There was nothing sloppishly sentimental about the girl. She was merely a jolly little person emerging from the temporary cloud of reserve caused by the depressing influence of the naval captain's daughter.

She had been fully initiated into the mysteries of the wireless-room; she had taken equal interest in the complicated machinery of the engine-room; and, since leaving Cape Town, Captain Bullock had given her permission to go on the bridge whenever she wished. She had coaxed Anstey into showing her how to "shoot the sun" and to use the _Nautical Almanac_ in order to work out the s.h.i.+p's position. Even the _secuni_ in the wheelhouse so far forgot his duty as to allow the Missie Sahib to take the wheel.

But undoubtedly her interest was keenest in sailing. Both Preston and Anstey had promised to give her a run in one of the _West Barbican's_ sailing-boats while the s.h.i.+p was at Durban. This promise they severally performed, but to a certain extent the beat to windward and the run home on the s.p.a.cious but shallow water of the harbour was a disappointment to Olive--since neither man had offered to let her take the tiller.

Dinner over--Peter had very little appet.i.te--Olive Baird went on deck, and somehow, whether by accident or design, Mostyn found her standing on the starboard side of the promenade-deck, gazing at the moon as it rose apparently out of the Indian Ocean.

"What a topping evening, Mr. Mostyn," observed the girl. "Just fine for a sail."

She gave a glance at one of the quarter-boats, an eighteen-foot gig fitted with a centre-board.

"'Fraid it can't be done," remarked Peter, with a laugh. "Stopping vessels in mid-ocean for the purpose of giving lady pa.s.sengers a spin in one of the boats isn't usual. Might work it when we arrive at Bulonga. You're fond of sailing, I notice."

"I love it," declared the girl enthusiastically. "Do you?"

"Yes, rather," agreed Peter; "so long as there's not too much of it."

"There never could be too much as far as I am concerned," protested Olive. "What do you mean by too much?"

"Well, for instance, a two-hundred mile run in a boat of about that size," replied the Wireless Officer, indicating the centre-board gig.

"I tried that sort of thing once, but the boat never reached her destination."

"Tell me about it," commanded Miss Baird. "Were you single-handed?"

"No," replied Peter. "There were three fellows and a girl. We got wrecked."

For nearly three-quarters of an hour Olive listened intently to Mostyn's account of the escape from the pirate island in the North Pacific; the narrator with his natural modesty touching but lightly upon his share of the desperate enterprise.

"And where is the girl now?" inquired Olive.

"She married my chum Burgoyne," replied Peter. "I had a letter from him when we were at Cape Town. Burgoyne is a jolly lucky fellow."

"We had a sailing-boat of our own once," said Olive, her mind going back to those far-off days before she had a stepmother to make things unpleasant for her. "I used to sail quite a lot on the Tamar when we lived at Saltash."

"Bless my soul!" exclaimed Peter to himself. "I felt certain I'd seen her before, but I couldn't for the life of me say where."

For a few moments he remained silent, making a mental calculation.

"Was it in 1913?" he inquired. "Didn't you have a bright, varnished boat with a teak topstrake and a red standing lugsail? And you were about eight or nine then. You used to have your hair bobbed, and wore a white jersey and a scarlet stocking cap?"

"However did you know that?" asked Olive in astonishment.

"Because we had a yacht moored just above the red powder hulks. My father held an appointment at Keyham Dockyard, you see; and whenever he had a home billet he kept a yacht or boat of some sort. Sailing was his favourite pastime."

But Olive was paying scant heed to the description of Mostyn _pere_ as set forth by Mostyn _fils_. Her thoughts too were flying back to those halcyon days before the war.