Submarine U93

"How do you know that?" said Crouch.

This seemed to anger the German, for he shouted even louder than before.

"I am not here to answer questions, but to ask them. Please understand that I am master of the situation: I have but to give the order, and a torpedo puts an end to you all."

"Do what you like," said Crouch. "We've no means of self-defence, as you can see."

"You have contraband goods on board," said the other.

"That may, or may not, be."

The German laughed.

"I know it," said he. "And now, I give you fair warning: you and your men have precisely five minutes in which to leave the ship. If you are not gone by the end of that time, you will pay the penalty of death, for the ship goes to the bottom."

Captain Crouch knit his brows in a frown. This was the first time in the life of the little man that he had met with anything in the shape of failure. As we have already pointed out, he was one who had made a success of most things. He had risen from extreme poverty and small beginnings to be a man of note-one whose name was well known in the four quarters of the globe. Just now, he felt as if he would never be able to hold up his head again, to look in the face the old friends who had followed him through thick and thin, who had always thought so highly of their leader.

Still, if he felt all this, he showed it neither in the expression of his face nor in the tones of his voice. In much the same manner as he would have given an everyday and simple order, he raised a hand to his mouth, and shouted at the full power of his lungs-

"All hands to the boats!"

CHAPTER XIV-The Doomed Ship

"All hands to the boats!"

There was no need for the order to be repeated a second time. The men, who knew quite well what was coming, were only waiting for the word. Indeed, in one part of the ship, the captain's orders had been anticipated by no less a person than Rudolf Stork.

There is little doubt that-had the submarine not appeared when it did-the days of Rudolf Stork had been numbered, then and there. Had Captain Crouch found Stork upon the poop, signalling to the enemy, he would have shot him like a dog, without a moment's hesitation. But, during the brief space of time whilst Jimmy was in the captain's cabin, the submarine had drawn quite close to the "Harlech"; and in the immediate presence of this new and more certain peril Crouch-and Jimmy also-forgot all about the ship's carpenter who had betrayed all on board.

There is every reason to suppose that Stork knew well enough the plans of the German commander. Possibly, he had known all along that the "Harlech" was doomed. He understood that the so-called submarine blockade was to be carried out with ruthless energy and perseverance, and that the lives of neutrals, even of women and children, were not likely to be held of much account.

He was therefore in the greater haste to get quit of the ship; and for this his position on the poop-the stern part of the vessel-offered him an opportunity which he was not likely to refuse.

Hoisted alongside the demolished round-house, where most of the ship's stores were kept, was a small gig, not much larger than a dinghy, used as a rule for harbour work. It so happened that when all hands were called on deck by the shrill note of the boatswain's whistle, the cook and the cook's mate had hastened from the galley to the poop; and it was these two men that Stork summoned to his assistance.

Without much difficulty, they lowered the dinghy, and had even launched it in the water, before Crouch had given the order for the boats to be manned. To lower a rope was the work of a minute; and before any one was aware that the ship's carpenter had left the ship, Stork and the two cooks were rowing frantically for the shore. There was no question but that they would reach the coast in safety. The dinghy was quite seaworthy; the damage done to the ship's boats during the bombardment from the "Dresden" had been repaired upon the voyage. The night was clear, the sea perfectly calm, and the shore-as we have said-not far away.

In the meantime, the German commander continued to issue his orders. Crouch still remained upon the bridge.

"Lower a gangway!" cried the German.

"A gangway!" echoed Crouch in open derision. "Do you think that we're a pack of school-girls that can't swarm down a rope? For why should we want a gangway?"

For some reason or other this seemed to infuriate the German.

"Do as you are told," he roared; "and don't argue the point with me. Lower a gangway at once. Do you imagine I intend to waste one of our finest Krupp torpedoes on a cargo ship of not five thousand tons! No, sir, we are not such fools in Germany. As soon as you and your crew are off, it will be short work, with such a cargo as you carry, to send her sky high with a bomb."

Crouch said nothing more, but came down from the bridge like a beaten man. It was when he gained the main-deck that he remembered Rudolf Stork, and went aft, with a set look upon his face and a loaded revolver in his hand.

When he reached the poop, he was furious when he saw what had happened. Not only was the dinghy gone, but the rope-by means of which Stork and the two cooks had managed to escape-was dangling at the ship's side.

"The rascal!" Crouch hissed between his teeth. Then, thrusting his revolver into a coat pocket, he clenched his fist, and shook it at the stars.

"If ever I get the chance," he muttered, "I'll be even with that rogue. I've been a blind fool, all along."

He returned to the main-deck, and supervised the lowering of the boats, in which there was ample accommodation for the crew. This work was carried out in the utmost haste; all on board knew well enough that the submarine commander would hold to his word, that they had five minutes-and not a second longer-in which to make good their escape.

Still, there was not much time to spare when the four boats were rowed round to the foot of the gangway steps, down which filed the crew, the ship's officers and engineers, each one with a bundle under his arm, in which he carried his most prized possessions.

Grim resolution, smothered anger, and deep sullen dejection-these were the sentiments that were imprinted on the face of every man. They were helpless, and they knew it. The German had spoken truly; the submarine, fragile, slender and evil-looking, was the absolute master of the situation. The will of the submarine commander was the law, immutable and rigid. They had no option but to obey, without question and in haste.

Crouch remained on deck until-as he thought-every man had descended to the boats. Then he himself took his place on the stern seat of the last boat to leave the ship. One after the other, they rowed away in the darkness, the rhythmic plashing of the oars growing fainter and fainter in the distance, and seeming to strike upon the silence of the night a note of sadness that was not out of keeping with the scene: the gentle moonshine on the water, the distant, rugged hills, and the ship-forsaken, listless, doomed. Some such thought may have entered into the mind of the German officer himself, standing on the conning-tower of the boat that he commanded, miles away from the Fatherland he loved and the lighted cafés of Berlin.

However that may be, he had evidently no intention of failing in what he conceived to be his duty. The submarine drew slowly alongside the gangway steps. The commander ascended to the main-deck, followed by a seaman who carried in his hand a great egg-shaped thing, from the top of which protruded the head of a fuse. It was a bomb, timed to explode precisely two minutes after the lighting of the fuse. Of a certainty, the "Harlech," of the house of Jason, Stileman and May, was doomed, sentenced to be destroyed.

None the less, the German officer was in no haste. Leaving the sailor at the head of the companion-ladder, he entered the captain's cabin, overhauled the ship's papers, and even helped himself to a box of cigars which had been given to Crouch by Mr. Jason, Junior, on the day he left New York.

At the very moment this was happening, Captain Crouch himself, holding the tiller ropes in his hands, sat in the stern seat of the last boat like a man who is in a dream. Stern and hard as he was, accustomed to rule both circumstance and men by sheer force of will, he found this great calamity by no means easy to bear. It was no simple matter to realize the full extent of what had happened. He had been specially chosen to carry out a difficult and dangerous mission; and he had failed. It was not in his nature to think of what excuse he should make; he was prepared to take the blame. He knew now that he had made an irreparable mistake, that he had been deceived. And that brought back his mind to Rudolf Stork.

From Stork his thoughts turned naturally to Jimmy Burke; and then it was that he remembered, with the suddenness of an electric shock, that he had not seen the boy go on board any one of the boats. He thought it over quickly. Jimmy could not be in the dinghy, for he had caught sight of the boy on the main-deck after the dinghy had been launched. He was also equally certain that Jimmy had not descended the gangway when the crew manned the boats.

For once in his life-probably the only time on record-Captain Crouch was alarmed. He knew now that he had wronged the stowaway, and in the deep dejection of the moment was inclined to be unjust to himself, forgetting that, from the first, the circumstantial evidence had been all against the boy.

As he sat silent, motionless and downcast, he turned, and looked back at the dark outline of the forsaken, stricken ship. And little did he dream of the deed of unexampled heroism, of the scene of such vital and dramatic interest that even then was being enacted on board.

As the German officer tested Crouch's best cigars, lifting one after the other to his ear to see that they were dry, a face appeared at the porthole on the port side of the ship. It was the face of Jimmy Burke-a white, scared face, upon which, however, was the cast of resolution.

The German went out on to the main-deck on the starboard side, where he took the bomb from the sailor's hands. Thence he passed down the companion-ladder, along the alley-way to the engine-room, where he descended the trellised stairway, step by step.

On the floor of the engine-room, in the very base of the ship, he deposited his bomb, and then, stooping, struck a match and lit the end of the fuse.

At that, he ran up the steps, dashed out upon the forward well-deck, and hastened down the gangway. And at the very moment he set foot on board his submarine, Jimmy Burke appeared suddenly in the alley-way, from the direction of the engineers' mess-room, where he had been hiding. Thence, he ran to the engine-room, and at the top of the steps paused a moment to look down.

In the midst of the vast machinery, now idle and seemingly inert, but still droning from the effect of compressed, wasted steam, upon the black, oily floor, lay the egg-shaped German bomb. A little spurt of blue smoke was issuing in coils from the burning fuse, of which not more than two inches now remained.

With a loud cry that he was not able to suppress, the boy dashed down the stairs.

CHAPTER XV-The Penitence of Captain Crouch

It can scarcely be denied that danger, and even death itself, are more terrible from a distance than when they actually stare us in the face. The truth is that, in moments of intense nervous strain, there is little time for the imagination to run riot; and-as the greatest of all poets has told us-it is imagination, more than anything else, that causes fear and panic. A time of emergency is a time for action, when it is better to do than to think. And always is it wiser and more manful to strive for success than to pause to consider, even for a single instant, the possibilities of failure.

Jimmy Burke, as he hastened down the engine-room steps, was concerned with one thing only: to reach the bomb before it was timed to explode. Had he waited to consider what would happen should he be too late, it is more than probable that he would have failed; he would never have lived to tell the tale. As it was, breathless and expectant, with a cold perspiration broken out upon his forehead, and his heart thumping violently against his ribs, he reached the infernal machine in the very nick of time. Seizing the burning end of the fuse between a thumb and finger, he crushed it out: and thus was the "Harlech" saved.

None the less, to make doubly sure of success, he carried the bomb up the staircase to the alley-way, where he threw it down an ash-shoot into the sea.

In the meantime Captain Crouch, seated on the stern seat of the last boat to leave the ship, found himself-as the saying goes-between the hammer and the anvil, between Scylla and Charybdis. He was anxious to make amends for the fatal mistake that he had made; to save, if possible, the life of the boy who was still upon the ship. And on that account, he found himself in something of a dilemma.

If he put back to the "Harlech," he imperilled the lives of every man in the boat; and he felt some doubt as to whether he was justified in doing that. He thought over the matter quickly, and then resolved to speak the truth.