Chapter XVII: Aboard the Sundsvall

“Submarine broad off the starboard beam!” sang out the lookout at the bow. A tall, yellow-bearded Viking in a dirty blue uniform turned swiftly and followed the sailor’s pointing hand. Then he raised binoculars to his eyes and, steadying himself on the swaying bridge, focussed them on a tiny dark speck that danced into sight and out again two miles to the southward. A look of perplexity came over his face and he made a motion toward the engine-room telegraph beside him. Then he paused and again viewed the object. A second man joined him, a short, squat figure in the dress of a ship’s mate. He spoke in a language that was not English whatever it may have been.

“What do you make it?” he asked.

“A boat, I think, Carl,” replied the first man, in the same language, “and yet――――”

“Let me look.” The man set the glasses above a red, tilted nose and for a moment gazed in silence. At last: “Not a sub, at all events,” he decided. “Nor yet a small boat. Probably a piece of wreckage.”

The other accepted the glasses back and shrugged his broad shoulders. “I think we had better have a nearer look at it, however.”

The mate nodded, and presently the steamer, a small cargo boat bearing the legend SWEDEN and the Swedish flag along each side of her hull, slowly turned a blunt nose toward the puzzling object. Aloft, the lookout called again:

“Floating mine, I make it, sir, with something dragging.”

“Mine, you say?” The captain again raised the binoculars. “That is right,” he said, turning to the mate. “It is a floating mine. There is a piece of canvas, I think, or possibly seaweed attached. Shall we pick it up?”

“Why not, if it is of use to us? We can find a better place for it than this.” He smiled faintly.

And so it happened that at shortly after six bells that afternoon the steamer _Sundsvall_ stopped her engines, lowered a gig and added to her possessions one rusty mine and to her complement one half-drowned American seaman.

The mine was lifted aboard by means of a small crane, the seaman came up lying in the bottom of the gig as she was swung to her davits. That the seaman came at all was no foregone conclusion. The captain had spoken most discouragingly of the project of including the American in the salvage.

“Let him go,” he had advised. “He’s as good as dead already. If he comes around he will be in the way and eat our precious food. Better hit him on the head now and drop him back where he came from.”

But the mate demurred. “Give him a chance,” he suggested. “If he proves troublesome we can throw him over later. There’s life in him yet, and we can drop him in port tomorrow. He’s American, Flink,” he added. “I like to hear them talk. Besides, my wife’s sister is married to one of them and lives in a place called Chicago.”

“Have it so, then.” The captain shrugged and turned on his heel. “But see that he is kept in the fo’castle. He mustn’t see――anything.”

“He will be in no condition to see much,” replied the mate. “Take him for’ard and put him in a bunk, a couple of you, and tell Mr. Heilsberg to have a look at him.” He turned back to the captain. “A thing I never saw before,” he went on. “A man lashed to a mine in mid-ocean. What do you make of it?”

“Nothing. Who knows it is not some infernal Yankee trick?”

“Not likely. More probably the fellow fell overboard in the gale of yesterday and found the mine by luck. He had passed the cuff of one sleeve through the eye of a ring-bolt and held it so by his pocket-knife thrust through the cloth. He would have torn loose in another hour or so, I think.”

“Pity he didn’t,” growled the other. “Take the ship. I must look over that chart again. Pass the word to the lookouts to keep their eyes peeled.”

Below, in a smelly bunk in an even smellier forecastle, Joe, under the grunting administrations of a bewhiskered second mate who had a smattering of medicine, was opening his eyes.

“Where am I?” he muttered perplexedly.

“You are safe, my young friend,” replied the mate in fair English. “Swallow this. It will choke and burn you and do you much good.”

Joe obeyed, and the first part of the promise was fulfilled. “Water!” he gasped. “Water!”

“Ach, to be sure! You shall have it.” The mate disappeared muttering, while Joe, his salt-scorched throat smarting horribly, writhed and gasped. In the dim light clothing on hooks swayed to and fro and the beat of the engines was deafening. The water, insipid and warm, was like nectar, and Joe let his head fall with a long sigh of relief.

“What ship is this?” he asked faintly.

“_Sundsvall._”

“German?” he asked in quick dismay.

“_Nein!_ No, no! It is Swedish.”

“But you――are German,” Joe persisted.

“No, I am, too, Swedish. We are all Swedish this ship hereon.”

“Oh!” Joe closed his eyes. “Thanks. I think――I’ll――go to sleep.”

“So! That is well. Sleep is good for you, my friend. I come again later. Sleep well.”

But Joe didn’t hear, for he was already slumbering.

When he awoke next it was night, for a dim electric light shed a wan glow overhead. A sailor was darning a woolen sock nearby and several others lolled in bunks or sat beside the table that stretched, knife-scarred, stained and littered, between two iron stanchions. They talked a language Joe could not understand, although it sounded throaty, like German. Some words held a close similarity to German, just as the men themselves, slow, phlegmatic, looked like Germans. The _Sundsvall_ was evidently running slowly, and her forecastle was a most uneasy place. Joe remained silent, his mind busy in a drowsy way with the events of the day.

That it was still less than twenty-four hours since he had been washed from the deck of the _Warren_ was difficult to believe, and he was greatly inclined to suspect that he had floated around with that friendly mine for two days instead of one until he realised that had he done that he would not now be alive. The last he could recall was talking to a gull that had circled closely and inquisitively around him. That must have been just short of noon. That he had absolutely talked, he doubted, for he remembered how painfully swollen his tongue and lips were, but he recollected trying gravely to warn the gull that if it tried to peck one of the “horns” of the mine and explode it, he――Joe――would pull its tail-feathers out! Previous to that, unable to keep his wet, chilled fingers locked about the ring-bolt, he had laboured for what must have been the better part of a half-hour to get the cuff of his sleeve through the eyelet and secure it there by running his knife through it, and had finally succeeded. By that time he was raging with thirst and his legs had lost sensation. And, although he didn’t know it, he had been slightly out of his head and had talked a great deal of nonsense――or tried to――to the mine. Now, stripped of his wet clothes and lying between soiled but gratefully warm blankets, he felt sleepily thankful for his rescue and, presently, hungry.

Later he was fed a sort of stew by a grinning, slant-eyed boy in a questionably white jacket who talked a strange patter of pidgin-English which Joe understood scarcely better than the Swedish he had listened to. The stew was greasy and somewhat tasteless, but Joe consumed it and felt better. Refusing a pannikin of something the boy called tea, he turned over and went to sleep again.

He awoke to the touch of a hand on his shoulder and looked confusedly up into the face of the squat first mate. The mate, speaking fair English, asked how he had happened to be floating around on a mine, and Joe told his story. The mate nodded from time to time, closing his eyes like a wise owl. Then he inquired: “The _Varren_, you said? Ah, and she iss an American ship, yes?”

“Yes, sir.”

“She iss perhaps on duty hereabouts?”

Joe nodded.

“If we could find the _Varren_ we should give you to her back.” The mate smiled genially. “Perhaps you could tell us where to look for her?”

“No, sir.” Joe shook his head. “We aren’t allowed to know her patrol district. I guess it will be all right if you’ll just land me somewhere or hand me over to one of the Allies’ ships.”

“Yes, but it would be so much better for you could we find your own ship. You do not know where she iss?”

“No, sir, I don’t.”

“She iss perhaps convoying?”

“I don’t believe so.”

“Or perhaps looking for something? A submarine or――or something?” The mate’s eyes closed slightly, although the grin remained. Joe, scenting danger, again shook his head. Then he replied carelessly:

“No, she isn’t looking for anything, sir. She’s just doing patrol.”

“Well――――” The mate seemed slightly disappointed. “Then we will land you at the first port or perhaps put you aboard one of your own ships, my man. You live in America?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Where, please?”

“New York.”

“Ah, New York. And you perhaps have been to Chicago?”

“No, sir, I’ve never been there.”

“So? The sister of my wife is married to a man that lives in Chicago. She writes in letters that it iss a very big city. Some day I shall see your America and visit this Chicago. And your New York, too. Yes, maybe it will be before long, also.”

Again came the odd closing of the eyes, and Joe experienced a sudden antagonism. But he didn’t let the fact appear as he asked: “Where is this ship bound, sir?”

“Santander.”

“That’s in Spain?”

“Yes. We go in ballast but we return with much cargo for our starving country.”

“Oh, is Sweden starving, sir?”

“Sweden? Yes, Sweden has but little food now since the blockade. It is dreadful! My poor suffering country! But she does not complain. She remains at peace with all countries. It is the war.”

He took his departure. As he vanished the half-dozen occupants of the forecastle exchanged growling remarks, one of which produced a laugh that sounded extremely unpleasant to Joe. As he closed his eyes again he said to himself: “You’re just about as much Swedish as I am, and I hope that if ever the _Warren_ runs across this tub she’ll have a look at your papers. The _Sundsvall_ may be Swedish, but her officers aren’t, and if she’s taking food to Sweden it doesn’t stay there. I guess it’s up to me to see what’s going on here.”

He lay with closed eyes for a long time, thinking it over. The clothes he had worn had been dried in the galley and were now lying across the bottom of his bunk. He decided to await his chance and put them on. But the chance didn’t come readily, for of the watch below someone was always awake. He heard four bells strike and was sorely tempted to yield to the demands of sleep. In fact, he had reached a condition on the borderland of slumber when he was awakened by a voice at the companion. The words it spoke were Greek to him, but the meaning was as clear as though they had been: “All hands on deck!” From the bunks here and there a grumbling figure appeared, stretched, yawned and stumbled away. After waiting a minute or two Joe sat up and peered around. So far as he could determine the forecastle was empty of occupants other than he. To make quite certain he waited another few minutes, but then, fearing that someone might return before he had accomplished his object, he swung his feet over the edge of the bunk and, supporting himself against the side, for he felt pretty weak and wobbly and the ship’s motion, while much less than earlier in the evening, was still erratic, hurriedly drew on his clothes. There was, he told himself, no reason why he shouldn’t dress and go on deck, but nevertheless he knew that such a thing was not included in the officers’ plans for his conduct, and he realised that it would be just as well to keep out of sight.

From the forecastle a short central passage led to the companion-way, past the open door of the galley, on one side, and a second door, closed, on the other. The galley was deserted, and a single lamp burned above the simmering stove. Cautiously Joe climbed the ladder and peered out. The ship was in darkness. The bridge, however, showed against the sky, as did a figure which stood motionless at one end of it. Well up on the foremast what appeared to be a lookout made a blotch of darker black. Joe hesitated an instant and then slipped out on deck and, accommodating himself to the roll of the ship, scurried to the starboard rail. The _Sundsvall_ was three-housed, cut low between forecastle and bridge and between bridge and after-cabin. The sea had abated a good deal, but the ship still rolled and plunged. There was a faint light from the engine-room hatch and he could hear the engine slowed down to headway only turning slowly over below. He had wisely left off his shoes, which made progress more certain and more quiet. Half-way along the deck he heard voices and, his eyes accustoming themselves to the darkness, made out forms. He slipped into the shadow of a boat and listened.

Whatever was going on was enlisting the entire working force of the ship, since, excepting the man on the bridge and the lookout on the foremast, no one else was to be seen or heard forward of the after deck. The sound of chain and the muffled blow of a hammer came to him, and then the squeaking of a tackle-block. He left his hiding place and slipped nearer, keeping to the deeper gloom of the house. Overhead a few stars showed faintly, but gave no perceptible light. From his new position he could discern dimly many figures at work along the port rail and could hear low voices. The notion came to him then that they were lowering a boat, but presently, in the quick, tiny light of a hand torch, flashed on and off in the fraction of a second, he saw the boat still lying in her chocks. A dozen explanations of the secrecy of the work came to him only to meet rejection. Then once more the hand torch gleamed and the mystery was a mystery no longer.