The Long Trick Part 28

A little elderly lady with a bonnet perched awry on her thin grey hair suddenly began a hymn in a high quavering soprano.

"That's right, ma'am," said the Captain approvingly, as he wrung the water out of his clothes. "There's nothing like singing to cure sea-sickness. And we shan't be here very long." He pointed to the high bows of a rapidly approaching s.h.i.+p. "One of our Armed Merchant Cruisers, I fancy." He waved to the other boats to close nearer.

He was no mere optimist; before a quarter of an hour had elapsed the boats were strung out in a line towing from a rope that led from the bows of the Cruiser. A hastily improvised boatswain's stool was lowered from a davit, and one by one the pa.s.sengers, then the crew, and finally the officers of the torpedoed liner were swung into the air and hoisted inboard while the Armed Merchant Cruiser continued her course.

The sea-sick Cecily, swaying dizzily for the second time that day between sky and water, looked down at the tumbling boats beneath her and for a moment had a glimpse of the stout American and the Fourth Officer. They were both standing gazing up after her as she was whisked skyward. Their mouths were open, and the expression on their faces gave Cecily a feeling of being wafted out of a world she was altogether too good for.

The sensation was a momentary one, however. The davit swung inboard as she arrived at the level of the rail and deposited her, a limp bundle of damp rags--in fact what Mr. Mantalini would have described as "a demmed moist unpleasant body"--on the upper deck of the Armed Merchant Cruiser. With the a.s.sistance of two attentive sailors Cecily rose giddily to her feet; most of her hair-pins had come out, and her hair streamed in wet ringlets over her shoulders. She raised her eyes to take in her new surroundings, and there, standing before her with his eyes and mouth three round O's, was Armitage.

Now Cecily had gone through a good deal since seven minutes past three that afternoon. But to be confronted, as she swayed, with her wet clothes clinging to her body like a sculptor's model, deathly sea-sick, red-nosed for aught she knew or cared, with the man who but for her firmness and mental agility would have kept on proposing to her at intervals during the past eighteen months, was a climax that overwhelmed even Cecily's self-possession.

She chose the only course left open to her, and fainted promptly.

Armitage caught her in his arms, and as he did so was probably the first and last Englishman who has ever blessed a German Submarine.

She recovered consciousness in Armitage's cabin, with the elderly lady who had sung hymns in the boat in attendance; she lay wrapped in blankets in the bunk, with hot-water bottles in great profusion all round her, and felt deliciously drowsy and comfortable. But with returning consciousness some corner of discomfort obtruded itself into her mind. It grew more definite and uncomfortable. With her eyes still closed Cecily wriggled faintly and plucked at an unfamiliar garment.

Then, slowly, she opened her eyes very wide. "What have I got on?" she asked in severe tones.

"My dear," said the elderly lady, "pyjamas! There was nothing else.

They belong to the officer who owns this cabin. I think the name was Armitage. And the doctor said----"

Cecily groaned. A knock sounded, and the s.h.i.+p's doctor entered carrying something in a medicine gla.s.s.

"Well," he asked brusquely, "how are we?"

"Better, thanks," said Cecily faintly.

"That's right. Drink this and close your eyes again."

Cecily drank obediently and fell asleep. Twenty-four hours later the Cruiser was moving slowly up a river to her berth alongside a wharf.

Cecily, clothed and in her right mind, stood aft in a deserted spot by the ensign-staff and stared at the dingy warehouses and quaysides ash.o.r.e as they slid past.

Armitage came across the deck towards her; Cecily saw him coming and took a long breath. Then, woman-like, she spoke first:

"I haven't had an opportunity to thank you yet," she said prettily, "for giving up your cabin to me--and--and all your kindness."

Armitage stood squarely in front of her, a big, kindly man who was going to be badly hurt and more than half expected it.

"There is a curious fatality about all this," he said. "It was no kindness of either yours or mine." He glanced over her head at the rapidly approaching wharf ahead and then at her face.

"For eighteen months," he said, speaking rather quickly, "I've been like the prophet Jonah--looking for a sign. I looked to you for it, Miss Cecily," he said, "and I can't truthfully say it showed itself in a single word or look or gesture." He took a deep breath. "I'm not going to let you tell me I'm labouring under any misapprehensions. But this"--he made a little comprehensive gesture--"this is too much like the hand of Fate to disregard. Miss Cecily," he said, "little Miss Cecily, you've just twisted your fingers round my heart and I can't loose them."

"Please," said Cecily, "ah, no, please don't...." Some irresponsible imp in her intelligence made her want to tell him that it wasn't Jonah who looked for a sign.

"Listen," said Armitage. He was literally holding her before him by the sheer strength of his kindly, compelling personality. "When this racket started--this war--I told them at the Admiralty my age was forty-five. It was a lie--I am fifty-two. I've knocked about the world; I know men and cities and the places where there are neither.

But I've lived clean all my life and I was never gladder of it than I am at this moment...."

Cecily had a conviction that unless she could stop him she would have to start crying very soon. But there were no words somehow that seemed adequate to the situation.

"I know, dear," he went on in his grave quiet voice, "that at your age money, and all the things it buys, seem just empty folly. But, believe me, there comes a time when being rich counts a lot towards happiness.

I'm not trying to dazzle you, but you know all mine is yours--you shall live in Park Lane if you care to--or I'll turn all wide Scotland into a deer forest for you to play in...."

He paused. "But there is one thing, of course, that might make all this sound vulgar and sordid." He considered her with his clear blue eyes. "Are you in love with anyone else?" he asked.

Cecily clutched recklessly at the alternative to absurd tears.

"Yes," she said.

Armitage stood quite still for a moment. His calm, direct gaze never left her face, and after a moment he squared his big shoulders with an abrupt, characteristic movement.

"Then he is the luckiest man," he said quietly, "that ever won G.o.d's most perfect gift."

He gave her a funny stiff little inclination of the head and walked away.

Otto von Sperrgebiet did not raise the periscope above the surface again for some hours. The Submarine, entirely submerged, drove through the water until night. After nightfall they travelled on the surface until the first pale bars of dawn appeared in the eastern sky. Von Sperrgebiet was on the conning-tower as soon as it was light, searching the horizon with his gla.s.ses.

"It is strange," he said to his Second-in-Command. "We ought to have sighted that light vessel before now." At his bidding a sailor fetched the lead line and took a sounding. Together they examined the tallow at the bottom of the lead, and von Sperrgebiet made a prolonged scrutiny of the chart. "H'm'm!" he said. "I don't understand."

Submerging again, they progressed at slow speed for some hours and he took another sounding. The sky was overcast and no sights could be taken.

This time von Sperrgebiet returned from comparing the sounding with the chart, wearing a distinctly worried expression.

The hawk-eyed seaman beside him on the bridge gave an e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n and pointed ahead.

"Land, Herr Kapitan!" he said.

"Fool!" replied his Captain. "Idiot! How can there be land there unless"--he glanced inside the binnacle half contemptuously--"unless the compa.s.ses are mad--or I am."

He raised his gla.s.ses to stare at the horizon. "You are right," he said. "You are right.... It is land." He gnawed his thumbnail as was his habit when in perplexity.

The next moment the seaman pointed again. "The Hunters," he said.

Von Sperrgebiet gave one glance ahead and kicked the man down through the open hatchway of the conning-tower. He himself followed, and the hatch closed. The helmsman was standing, staring at the compa.s.s like a man in a trance.

"Herr Kapitan," he said, as von Sperrgebiet approached, "it is bewitched." Indeed, he had grounds for consternation. The compa.s.s card was spinning round like a kitten chasing its tail, first in one direction, then in another.

"d.a.m.n the compa.s.s!" said von Sperrgebiet. "Flood ballast tanks--depth thirty metres--full speed ahead!"

He thrust the helmsman aside and took the useless wheel himself.

"Ludwig," he said, "to the periscope with you and tell me what you see."

The Second-in-Command waited for no second bidding; he pressed his face against the eye-pieces. "There are small vessels approaching very swiftly from all sides," he said. And a moment later, "They are firing at the periscope..."

"Down with it," said von Sperrgebiet. "We must go blind if we are to get through." His face was white and his lip curled back in a perpetual snarl like a wolf at bay. As he spoke there was a splutter and the lights went out.

The voice of the Engineer sounded through the low doorway from the engine-room. "There is something fouling our propeller, Herr Kapitan,"