Ruth Fielding Homeward Bound; A Red Cross Worker's Ocean Perils

She sought her own chair, which had been placed in a favored spot by the deck steward, and wrapped herself as well as she could in her rug, having only one hand to use. Nobody came to offer aid. She was being quite ostracized.

From where she sat she had a good view of the main deck and of all the ship forward of the smoke stacks. The sea remained calm and the Admiral Pekhard plowed through it with some speed. Not a sail nor a banner of smoke was visible. They were a good way from land by now, and it was evident, too, that they were in no very popular steamship lane. With the submarines as active as they were, unconvoyed ships steered clear of well-known routes, where the German sea-monsters were most likely to lie in wait.

With nobody to distract her attention, Ruth took considerable present interest in the conning of the ship and the work of the seamen about the deck. She looked, too, for some figure that would suggest the flaxen-haired man she had seen talking with Miss Lentz at dawn.

Dykman was on duty as watch officer now. Ruth felt that he must be one of the conspirators. Otherwise he could not have so blandly denied knowledge of the flaxen-haired man who talked German.

The Admiral Pekhard was a well-furnished boat, as has been said. Besides the lifeboats swung at her davits, there were nests of smaller boats forward. And just in front of where Ruth Fielding sat there was a canvas-covered motor craft of small size. There was a larger motor launch lashed on the main deck astern of where Ruth’s chair was established.

She noted, after a time, that some of the points lashing the canvas cover of the small launch forward of her station were unfastened. Everything else about the covered craft was taut and shipshape. Ruth wondered at the displacement of the loosened cords.

And then, vastly to her surprise, she saw the canvas stir. Something, or somebody, was beneath it. Whatever it was under the canvas cover, its movements were made with extreme caution.

Ruth was more puzzled than alarmed. She had heard of people stowing themselves away upon steamships, and she wondered at first if such were the explanation of the unknown, lying in the motor launch.

Should she speak to Mr. Dowd about this? Then, considering what had followed her interference in circumstances that happened at dawn here on the deck of the steamship, she hesitated to do so. She did not wish to get into further trouble.

But she watched the opening in the canvas cover. More than once within the next hour she observed the boat cover wrinkle and move, as whatever was beneath it squirmed and crept about.

Then, quite expectedly, she saw a face at the opening. The canvas was lifted slightly and a forehead and pair of eyes were visible for a moment.

The fact that somebody was hiding in the launch could not be denied. Yet it really was none of Ruth Fielding’s business. This might have nothing at all to do with Miss Lentz, the flaxen-haired man, and Dykman.

She watched the place warily. If the man under the canvas saw her watching he would be warned, of course, that his presence was discovered. She must speak to Mr. Dowd most casually if she desired to inform the first officer of this mysterious circumstance.

Nor could she get up and look for the first officer. While she was gone the man in the motor boat might slip out and escape. Ruth did not propose to put herself a second time in a position where her word might be doubted.

While she remained in her chair the person hiding in the boat would surely not come out. She did not wish to send a message to Mr. Dowd in such a way that her motive for bringing him here would be suspected.

The first officer was not on the bridge; so it was not his watch on duty. Ruth beckoned a deck steward, tipped him, and requested him to bring her a pencil, a sheet of paper, and envelope from the ship’s writing room. She was taking no chances with a verbal message.

The man fulfilled her request. Meanwhile nobody else seemed to notice the man peering out from the canvas cover of the motor boat. Indeed, the fellow had disappeared now and was lying quiet.

Ruth penciled the following sentences on the paper: “There is a stowaway in the small motor boat forward of where I am sitting. I will not move until you can come and investigate. R. F.”

She sealed this in the envelope, doing it all in her lap so that she could not be observed from the boat. Then she wrote Mr. Dowd’s name upon the envelope.

The steward came back and she whispered to him to take the note to Mr. Dowd and deliver it into the first officer’s own hand – to nobody else. As the man started away Ruth for some reason turned her head.

Across the deck stood Irma Lentz. Her black eyes flashed into Ruth’s, and the woman seemed about to start toward her. Then she wheeled and swiftly went forward.

Had she seen the letter Ruth had sent to the chief officer? Did she suspect to whom Ruth had written – and the object of the note? And, above all, did she suspect that Ruth had discovered the man hiding in the motor boat?

CHAPTER XIII – IT COMES TO A HEAD

As the minutes passed, lengthening into first the quarter and then the half hour, Ruth Fielding’s impatience grew. The steward did not come back to the deck. Nor did Chief Officer Dowd return any reply to her note.

The situation became more and more irksome for the girl of the Red Mill. She believed that Irma Lentz considered her a personal enemy. Perhaps the woman had influence over the steward with whom the note to Mr. Dowd had been entrusted. Ruth began to feel that she was surrounded by spies, and that serious trouble would break out upon the Admiral Pekhard within a short time.

If she left her seat to search for Mr. Dowd, or to confer with anybody else, the man she believed was hiding in the motor boat not ten yards from her chair might escape. Who he was she could only suspect. Why he was hiding there was quite beyond her imagination.

It was Captain Hastings who appeared first upon the open deck. He did not go immediately to the bridge, nor did he bow right and left to the ladies as was usually his custom. He came directly past Ruth and stared at her through his little squinting eyes in no friendly fashion. Ruth did not speak to him.

Captain Hastings took up a position by the rail not twenty yards from the girl’s chair. Several passengers gathered about him; but she saw that the commander of the Admiral Pekhard did not lose sight of her. He was there for a purpose – that was sure.

She wondered if the steward, playing her false, had given her note addressed to Mr. Dowd to Captain Hastings? She felt that apprehension nearly all feel when “something is about to happen.” In fact, she had never felt more uncomfortable mentally in her life than at that moment.

The sun was going down now, for she had spent most of the afternoon since luncheon in her chair. The watches had been changed long since and she knew that on a sailing vessel this would be the second dog watch. Some of the crew were at supper. The bugle for the first-cabin call to dinner would soon sound.

She desired to go to her stateroom to freshen her toilet for dinner; yet, should she desert her post? Was Mr. Dowd merely delayed in coming to answer her note? Should she take the bull by the horns and tell Captain Hastings himself of the presence of the stowaway in the motor boat?

In this hesitating frame of mind she lingered for some time. Although the sea was calm, there was a haze being drawn over the sky as the sun disappeared below the western rim of the ocean, and it bade fair to be a dark evening. The wind whistled shrilly through the wire stays. There was a foreboding atmosphere, it seemed to Ruth Fielding, about the great steamship.

A dull explosion sounded from somewhere deep in the hold of the Admiral Pekhard. The ship trembled from truck to keelson. Screams of frightened passengers instantly broke out. Captain Hastings, at the rail, whirled to look toward the engine-room companionway.

Out of this door, just ahead of a volume of smoke or steam, dashed one of his officers. Ruth, who had got out of the reclining chair as quickly as her injured shoulder would allow, saw that this excited man was Dykman.

“An explosion in the boiler room, sir!” he cried, loud enough for everybody in the vicinity to hear him. “The engines are out of commission and I think the ship is sinking.”

It seemed as though any ship’s officer with good sense would have told the commander privately of the catastrophe. But immediately the full nature of the disaster was made known to the excited and terrified passengers.

“My heavens, Dykman!” squealed Captain Hastings, “you don’t mean to say it is a torpedo? We’ve seen no periscope.”

“I don’t know what it is; but the whole place is full of steam and boiling water. We could not see the entire extent of the damage; but the water – ”

He intimated that the water was coming in from the outside. Then, suddenly, the bugles and bells began, all over the ship, to signal the command for “stations.” The engines had stopped and the steamship began to rock a little, for there was quite a swell on. Some of the passengers began screaming again. They thought the Admiral Pekhard was already going down.

The tramp of men running along the decks, the shouts of the officers, and the continued screaming of some of the passengers created such a pandemonium that Ruth was confused. She knew that Captain Hastings had leaped to the bridge ladder and was now giving orders through a trumpet regarding the preparation of the boats for lowering.

One gang of men was unlashing the large motor boat and carrying davit ropes to it. That was the captain’s boat, and it would hold at least forty of the ship’s company.

Ruth began to wonder what boat she would go in. She realized that she was quite alone – that there was nobody to aid her. Tom had foreseen this. He had wished to accompany her across the ocean to be able to aid her if necessity arose.

And here was necessity!

Ruth saw some of the passengers running below, and was reminded that she was not at all prepared to get into an open boat and drift about the sea until rescued. There were several important papers and valuables in her stateroom, too. She moved toward the first cabin entrance.

Stewards were bringing the helpless wounded up to the deck on stretchers. No matter how small Ruth’s opinion might be of Captain Hastings as a man, he seemed neglecting no essential matter now that his ship was in danger.

From the bridge he directed the filling and lowering of the first boats. He ordered the crew and stokers who came pouring from below, to stand by their respective boats, but not to lower them until word was given. Each officer was in his place. The stewards were evacuating the wounded as fast as possible and were to see that every passenger came on deck.

But Ruth did not see Mr. Dowd. The Chief Officer, who should have had a prominent part in this work, had not appeared. The girl went below, wondering about this.

As she approached her stateroom, Irma Lentz, well-coated and bearing two handbags, appeared from her stateroom. The black-eyed woman did not seem very much disturbed by the situation. She even stopped to speak to Ruth.

“Ah-h!” she exclaimed in a low tone. “Your friend, Mr. Dowd, fell down the after companionway and is hurt. They took him to his room. Perhaps you would like to know,” and she laughed as she passed swiftly on toward the open deck.

The information terrified Ruth. For the first time since the explosion in the boiler room, the girl of the Red Mill considered the possibility of this all being a plot to wreck the Admiral Pekhard– a plot among some of the ship’s company, both passengers and crew!