Chapter XIX: H.m.s. Linnet

He came to himself in darkness. A great weight lay across his body. Wondering, striving to recollect, he put forth an aching hand and pushed at the weight. His fingers pressed against something that yielded slightly. Exploring, they sensed cloth and, beneath it flesh and bone. It was a man’s arm! And with that knowledge came recollection.

The first question he asked himself was: Am I dead? Then the painful throbbing of his bruised throat, the ache of his tired muscles answered with a decisive no. But what had happened? He recalled that devastating noise that had seemed to crash his very skull in with its violence. What had it meant? Painfully he struggled from beneath the body that lay across him, and as he did so he became aware of the wind that blew about him and of strange, tangled things that littered the floor. Groping to his feet, swaying dizzily, he looked about in the darkness. From somewhere came the sound of escaping steam. The _Sundsvall’s_ engines were still. Perplexed, he groped for a stanchion and found none, but saw instead a gaping, jagged hole in the ship’s side through which he could see dimly the waves and feel the rush of the night wind! As his eyes grew used to the darkness he made out the tangled, twisted stanchions, the splintered planks about him and knew then what had happened!

For the first time he viewed near-to the effect of a three-inch shell!

“They’ve got her!” He had meant to cry it aloud joyously, but all that came from him was a hoarse croak which so surprised him that he stood open-mouthed for a second in dismay. Then, grinning to himself in the dark, he started toward the door. Half-way to it he tripped over something that, with a shudder, he realised was the form of a man. He wondered how many there were in there and whether they were all killed: wondered, too, by what freak of fortune he had escaping the flying fragments of steel and iron and wood.

In the passage all was dark. Even the light in the galley had been turned out or wrecked by the exploding shell. He stumbled up the companion ladder. Before him stood three figures. A revolver gleamed dully.

“Halt!” said a voice sharply. “Put your hands up!”

Joe obeyed with fine alacrity.

“Advance! Halt! Search him!”

One of the figures stepped forward and went over him with swift fingers.

“I am unarmed,” said Joe, in a hoarse whisper.

“We’ll see,” was the dry response. Then, with evident surprise: “How do you happen to speak English so well?”

“I’m an American, sir.”

“What!” The petty officer stepped nearer. From the patrol ship lying a few fathoms away two paths of white light led from her searchlight platform to the _Sundsvall’s_ deck, and though the nearer one did not encompass the group at the head of the companion it afforded enough light to enable the officer to see the braid and stars on Joe’s shirt collar.

“Hello!” said the officer in a very English tone. “American seaman? What are you doing aboard this ship?”

“I was washed off my ship, the destroyer _Warren_, and picked up by this ship yesterday afternoon.”

“Was it you who signalled to us?”

“Yes.”

“By Jove! What luck! Are there any more of the crew forward?”

“Several, but I think they’re either dead or badly injured. The shell came into the fo’c’sle where we were――were arguing.”

“Good! Have a look, men, and fetch ’em out if they’re worth it. You come with me, Yankee. What’s your name, eh?”

“Ingersoll.”

“Mine’s Cashell. We’re the _Linnet_, torpedo boat.”

“British?”

“Rather! Here’s the junior luff. Spin your yarn to him.” Joe’s companion saluted a young officer amidship near the starboard rail. “Here’s the man gave us the signal, sir.”

The lieutenant, turning from shouting orders to a small boat alongside, viewed Joe with swift appraisement as he returned the salutes. “American?” he demanded.

“Yes, sir.”

“What’s your ship?”

“_Warren_, destroyer.”

“Right-o! Drop into the boat. We’ll be going back in a minute.”

Joe climbed down the ladder and tumbled aboard the small boat.

“Hello, matey, where’d you drop from?” asked a voice from the bow. Joe, making out the figure of a sailor standing with boat-hook in hand, answered croakingly: “Out of the moon, Limie.”

“Ho! American, ain’t yer? What was you doing on this floatin’ lie?”

“Oh, I was in command,” said Joe.

“If you was you’ll be up agin a stone wall bloomin’ soon! Take my word for that, Yankee!”

“Stow the talk,” advised a voice from the stern, and from the deck above came the order: “Pass down the prisoners!”

They came, three of them in all, and sank onto the thwarts in listless silence. Then Joe’s acquaintance, the petty officer, followed and the boat pulled across to the _Linnet_. There the prisoners, amongst them the Viking-like captain, were marched aft, while Joe, conducted by Cashell, was taken to the presence of the Commander, a middle-aged, kindly-looking Lieutenant.

“Lieutenant Briggs’ compliments, sir,” said Cashell, “and we’ve fetched away the captain and two mates, sir. There’s sixteen left aboard, most of ’em Huns.”

“Mines?” asked the Commander.

“Ten of ’em, sir, all German. Lieutenant Briggs says if he can have five men he can manage her into Bordeaux.”

“Good! Ask Mr. Farnsworth to step here. And now, my man, who might you be?”

Joe explained. There was no time for a detailed story of his adventures then, for the Commander interrupted him to order a prize crew aboard the _Sundsvall_. “Instruct Mr. Briggs to watch those prisoners closely. He had better iron some of ’em. He won’t need them all to navigate. Tell him to make Bordeaux. We’ll keep with him as long as we can. Douse those lights up there! We’ll have the whole submarine fleet on us!” He turned to Joe again. “Report to me in the wardroom in twenty minutes. I want to hear more of this.”

“Yes, sir, but may I suggest that the Lieutenant should swing wide of the place the _Sundsvall_ was lying when you first saw her? She was dropping mines, sir.”

“Quite right.” He bawled a warning through a megaphone to the other ship, and then, addressing Joe once more, said: “Find the surgeon and get him to look after those bruises.” He went briskly forward and climbed the ladder to the bridge, and Joe, seeking the lower deck hatch on a boat that was strange to him, heard the Commander’s voice come crisply aft:

“All clear?”

“All clear, sir!”

Somewhere a bell tinkled, the _Linnet_ quivered from stem to stern and there was a mighty splashing from the propellers. When Joe reached the lower deck he could hear the water swashing fast beyond the steel hull. An oiler led him to the surgeon, a mere slip of a lad scarcely older than Joe, it seemed, and again the latter had to croak out a brief outline of his story. The surgeon said “Dear me! Dear me!” when he came to an examination of Joe’s neck. “My word, the blighter nearly did for you! You can count all ten fingers on your throat. No, nine. He only registered one thumb! Arnica will help that. You stand steady a bit.”

Joe had his first glimpse of himself in the little mirror on the white wall above the washbowl as he waited. He looked pretty fairly disreputable. His neckerchief was frayed and pulled into a hard knot, his hair had not been brushed since the night before, a place the size of a half-dollar was minus skin over his left eye, his jaw was swollen on one side and at some time his nose had bled. His knuckles were puffed and scarred, as well. Add to that that he was shoeless and hatless and that his shirt and trousers showed the results of long immersion in salt water followed by a hasty drying and you will understand that he was scarcely a model example of the United States seaman! But those things were all remedied in ten minutes. Some sort of very smelly liquid was applied to the raw places and soothed the smarting instantly, a bandage dipped in diluted arnica was placed around his throat, he enjoyed the wonderful privilege of washing face and hands and, finally, he was provided with a pair of shoes and a cap. And by that time he was due in the wardroom and, the surgeon conducting him, made his way to it.

The Commander and a Lieutenant were there when he entered, and these, with the surgeon, whose rank Joe judged to be that of ensign, were his audience when, having seated himself, by direction, at one end of the wardroom table, he told his story from the time of being washed from the deck of the _Warren_ until he had been confronted at the head of the companion-way by Petty Officer Cashell. And he had an attentive audience. He told his story modestly enough and was listened to with no interruptions from the listeners. But when he had finished they had plenty of questions to ask.

“Did you know what the _Sundsvall’s_ game was when you first got aboard?” inquired the Commander.

“No, sir, not until I crept out on deck and saw them slinging the mines over. But I suspected that something wasn’t right before that. The first mate was no more Swedish than――than I am, sir.”

“Not a bit,” replied the Lieutenant dryly. “His real name is Schmier and he’s a reservist. He was second in command of a submarine that went ashore on the coast of Holland two months back. He was interned and escaped. The captain claims to be really Swedish, and possibly he is. The crew are mostly Germans and Austrians.” He paused and looked questioningly at his superior. “It’s all right to tell this, sir? This――er――fellow is intelligent and won’t repeat what he shouldn’t, I’m sure.”

The Commander smiled and nodded. “No harm, I fancy. He deserves a bit of wardroom gossip for his service. You see, Ingersoll, we’ve all been after that ship for a month. We didn’t know what her name was or what she was like, but we knew she was doing her devilish work about here, and we wanted her. It’s a lesson to us, Farnsworth, not to take any ship’s innocence for granted these times. Ingersoll says, you see, that they were planting mines the very moment we signalled her. In a way, I’m sorry we couldn’t have sunk her at it!”

“I, too,” said the Lieutenant heartily. “But with bottoms as valuable to us as they are today, I fancy it wouldn’t have done, eh?”

“Briggs’ll be lucky if she doesn’t sink before he makes port,” said the surgeon cheerfully. “I could see a ripping old hole where that shell went in.”

“It’s too high to flood her,” said the Lieutenant. “And Briggs’ll have it patched by now.” He smiled and then chuckled. “I’ve been wondering, sir, ever since whether that hit was an accident. The order was distinct enough to fire across the bow.”

The Commander shook his head gravely. “I prefer to think it an accident, Farnsworth. If I thought otherwise I’d have to deal very severely with that gun captain. By the way, was the ship armed?”

“The _Sundsvall_? I think not, sir.” The Lieutenant looked inquiringly at Joe, and the latter shook his head.

“I saw no guns, sir.”

“I doubt if she had any,” mused the Commander. “Relied on her appearance and a set of false papers, I fancy. You heard nothing and saw nothing, my boy, to indicate the existence of other ‘neutral’ mine-layers in these waters?”

Joe answered no, and for the succeeding quarter of an hour he was kept busy replying to questions as to the ship’s course after she had picked him up, her speed and so on, the officers being anxious to learn where she had been the day before. But Joe could give little information on that subject, although he “guessed” that her speed after he had awakened in the forecastle had been about twelve knots. At last the Commander said:

“That’s all, Ingersoll. We’re very much obliged to you. That prize would have slipped out of our hands nicely had you not displayed such――ah――commendable ingenuity and bravery. I shall take pleasure in reporting your conduct to your Commander. If your pluckiness and quick thinking are to be found in the other men of your fleet I believe we’ll soon have these waters as quiet and well-behaved as Bond Street of a Sunday morning.” He reached his hand out as Joe, having arisen, now saluted and started past on his way to the door. “The thanks of the officers and men of the _Linnet_, my boy,” said the Commander, smiling.

Joe shook hands, saluted again and went out, picking his way carefully along a swaying deck to the hatch. Below he was taken in charge by a big boatswain with a fringe of red whiskers and a strong Scotch accent and introduced to the _Linnet’s_ tiny forecastle where, amidst a strange medley of bunks, tables, ditty boxes and clothing, some twenty-odd men were crowded. There, fortified by hot coffee supplied by an admiring cook, he told his story once more. When he had finished the big boatswain remarked with much conviction: “Laddie, ye were ne’er meant to be drownded! I ken that fine!”

In the small hours Joe crawled into a bunk and, with a long, tired sigh, closed his eyes for sleep. The _Linnet_ bobbed about like a cork and was filled with strange sounds, and Joe, thinking: “I believe I could be seasick if I wasn’t so sleepy,” passed into slumber.