Chapter XIII: Under Fire

It was another day, another golden link in the wondrous chain that is life. Both Ruth and Betty were some distance away from their island home, from cottage and big summer house. Fort Skammel, with its haunting mysteries, and Witches Cove were far away in the dreamy distance and well nigh forgotten in the charm of rocks, sky, sea and summer fragrance that was all about them. They had come on a little journey all their own, these two, and for a purpose. At the present moment Ruth was seated upon a rocky ledge completely surrounded by wild sweet peas in full bloom and Betty was somewhere out to sea in a punt.

Green Island, the rugged bit of broken waste on which Ruth sat, is the home of the seagulls. No one has ever lived on that island, but, as evening falls on Casco Bay, many a seagull, weary with his day’s search for food, may be seen winging his way across the dark waters to this, his haven of rest.

Of all the spots near Portland Harbor, the rugged shoals off Green Island are best for lobster fishing. Don had set a number of traps here. Having been called to Portland, he had asked Ruth to sail the _Foolemagin_ out to the island to lift the traps and bring in the catch.

She had asked Betty to go with her. Betty had brought clams and a cod line. There is no better cod fishing to be had than on the shoals by Green Island.

Betty had asked permission to fish over the shoals from Ruth’s punt. Since the day was calm, Ruth had given consent. Such a thing is always risky, for a sudden fog or a squall may come up at any moment. But perhaps Ruth still held in the back of her head the city boy’s declaration, “Life is a joke.” At any rate, Betty had gone. The weather had continued calm and clear.

Looking out to sea, Ruth’s eye caught the gleam of Betty’s slender white figure standing up in her punt, fishing. For a time she thought of Betty and almost envied her. She had seen so much of the world and of life.

“Well, some people are lucky,” she told herself. “No use disliking them for their luck.”

At that, forgetting Betty, she sank back upon a bed of fragrant wild sweet peas, to stare dreamily at the drifting white clouds. Then, without really intending to, she fell fast asleep.

She was startled from her sleep a half hour later by a resounding boom that shook the rugged island to its base and set a thousand seagulls soaring and screaming as only seagulls can.

“Target practice,” she told herself, in no great alarm. “Ten-mile guns. Oh, listen!”

Came a loud scream as a shell passed at terrific speed through the air, and again a deafening boom.

“Closer to the island than usual,” she told herself. “Glad I’ve lifted the lobster traps. Guess I’ll get out.”

She was standing now, looking down at her staunch little motor boat that gently bumped the rocky shore of a sheltering cove.

A sudden thought struck her all of a heap. She came to earth with a jolt.

“Betty!” she thought. “Betty Bronson! She doesn’t know about the guns. She can’t. She’ll be killed, blown to bits!”

Fort McKinley is ten miles from Green Island. At certain times of the year a target is set on a raft and a schooner detailed to drag it about. When the target is in position near Green Island, a plane circling low over the water warns fishing crafts away. Then the great guns of the fort, firing projectiles weighing a thousand pounds and more, break their long silence. Ten miles from the fort, close to the drifting target, the huge projectile falls. It strikes the water with a loud report. It bounces, rises once more in air and, singing its song of hate and defiance, flies through the air to at last sink to the bottom a hundred fathoms below. Into this target practice Betty had blundered.

“I wish I could warn her,” Ruth told herself now. “The man in the seaplane should do it. But he probably does not see her at all. Little dark boat against a broad expanse of dark sea. How could he? And besides, perhaps there is no danger after all. The firing for to-day may stop any minute. The target ship may move off in some other direction.”

The firing did not cease. The target ship did not move away.

“Ought to be getting back home.” Ruth’s gaze swept a hazy sky, then fell to her staunch little sloop. “Going to storm. Can’t tell how bad. Hate to spend a night out here.” But without Betty she could not go.

Turning, she made her way down the rocky slope to the spot where her boat was moored.

Her hand was on the painter when again, closer, more terrifying, there came a Zss-Spt-Boom.

Dropping the painter, she turned and walked hurriedly back up the hill.

With strained attention her eyes sought that small white figure. It was nowhere to be seen.

“Gone!” Vast relief was expressed in her tone. “Thought she’d see how unsafe it was.”

Just to make assurance doubly sure, she took up her field glasses and swept the black waters.

One moment of silent attention and she dropped the glasses as if they were hot.

The sight that met her gaze as her eager eyes behind strong field glasses sought out the lone fisherman, set her heart beating madly. A shell, striking some distance back of the little boat, then bouncing in air again, appeared to pass over the city girl’s head.

It was then, for the first time that Betty awoke to her peril. This awakening was like the sudden ending of a dream. The very abruptness of it was her undoing. She had just succeeded in hooking a great fish. Perhaps it was a thirty-pound cod, a ray or a sunfish. She will never know, for, having brought it half way up from the depths, she was shaken to the very core of her being by this terrific boom and nerve wracking scream.

She threw herself backward, tangled with the cod line, set the boat tilting, tried in vain to recover her balance and without knowing how it had all happened, suddenly found herself free of the cod line but submerged in cold salt water and clinging frantically to the bottom of her overturned punt.

Ruth, standing on the hill, saw all this. She saw more; that the girl was still within the danger zone and that the target schooner was moving in a direction that momentarily increased her peril.

“I must go to her,” she told herself with a little gasp of fear. “There is no other way.”

With one short word of prayer for strength, the fishergirl of the Maine coast dashed down the slope, jumped into her sloop, threw over the wheel, then went pop-popping straight away toward the imperiled girl and her overturned punt. Straight on into the path of the raging terror that was intended for enemies in time of war she went, without one thought of turning back.

“One thing,” she thought more calmly, “is in my favor. My boat is white. The seaplane scout may see me. He can signal them to stop firing.”

Boom! Zing! Boom! the terror sounded again.

Her heart skipped a beat. Perspiration stood out on her nose. She felt deathly cold all over. Yet a firm and steady hand steered the motor boat straight on its course.

Of a sudden from over her head there came the thunder of motors. For ten seconds it was deafening. Then, quite as suddenly as it had started, it ceased.

Ruth’s heart stood still. “What now?” she thought. The pop-popping of her own tiny motor seemed but the discharge of a toy pistol.

She was soon enough to know what was next. Glancing up, she dodged and barely escaped leaping into the sea. The great seaplane seemed about to fall upon her.

The plane, of course, was not as close as it had seemed. It was so close that, as the motor suddenly ceased its throbbing, she caught the singing of struts as the plane went zooming on through the air. She did not hear distinctly the words that were shouted down to her, but she did catch the import of their meaning. It was a warning that she was in great danger and must get out of those waters at once. As an answer she could only shout back that a girl in an overturned punt was in far greater danger than she. She pointed in the direction of Betty and the punt. This pointing must have accomplished more than all her screams, for certainly her last words were lost in the sudden thunder of motors.

The plane was up and off again. Had he understood? Would he flash a signal that meant, “Cease firing?” She dared hope so.

Ten seconds later she realized how brave the sea scout had been. A glancing shell passed through the air at the very spot where, a few seconds before, his plane had been.

“If there is another shot?” she thought. She dared not think further.

But now, once again her eyes were upon the punt and Betty. Already she was alongside.

“Here! Give me your hand!” she said in words that came short and quick. Betty obeyed. She dropped with a thump in the bottom of the boat. Then, with all speed, they were away.

Not until they were safe on Green Island did they realize that the sea scout had flashed a message and firing had ceased.

“Well,” Ruth sighed as they dropped in the sun among the wild sweet peas, “we—we’re safe.”

“Are we?” Betty’s face still showed signs of terror.

“Yes. They never shoot at the island. But you’ve got to get out of those clothes,” Ruth added quickly.

In silence she helped Betty out of her sodden garments. After rubbing and chafing her limbs until the pink of health came to them, she wrapped her in her own storm coat and told her to lie there in the sun while she wrung her clothes out and spread them on the rocks to dry.

“You—your punt!” Betty said at last with a choke in her voice that came near to a sob.

“They’re firing again now,” said Ruth. “We may be able to get it and tow it in later. Can’t now. But didn’t you hear the guns?” she asked.

“The guns? Why, yes, I guess I did. Must have—as in a dream. They’re always booming away over at the fort. And I was having such wonderful luck! Lots of cod, one ten-pounder. And a polluk long as I am. Just hooked one so big I couldn’t land him when that terrible thing happened! But Ruth—do you truly think we can save your punt?”

“Might. I hope so. Current is strong. That will carry it away. Hope they stop soon.”

“I hope so,” said Betty dreamily. The shock, the bright sunshine, the drug-like scent of wild sweet peas were getting the better of her. Soon, with head pillowed on her arm, she was fast asleep.

As she slept Ruth thought of many things, of the seagulls soaring overhead, of her lost punt, of the booming, bursting shells, of the old ship _Black Gull_ and of the strange secret room in the depths of old Fort Skammel.

The firing ceased without her knowing it. Betty awoke and struggled into her wind-blown, sundried garments. Still she sat staring dreamily at the sea.

Then a sudden burst of sound broke in upon her day dreams.

“The plane,” she said, springing to her feet. “It’s coming close.”

“See!” said Betty. “He’s not flying. He’s scooting along on the surface of the water. He’s towing something. Oh, good!” She leaped into the air to do a wild dance.

“It’s your punt! It’s not lost! He found it! He’s bringing it in!”

This was all quite gloriously true. Very soon the seaplane came to a halt before the island. The aviator unbuckled himself; then walked back along the fusilage to drop into the punt and begin rowing shoreward.

As he came close Ruth saw that he was a young army officer with a clean, frank face.

“You’re lucky,” he said to Betty. “Lucky to have such a brave friend. You might have been killed.”

Betty’s arm stole round Ruth’s waist. Ruth’s face took on an unusual rosy tint.

“I’ve brought back your punt,” he said in apparent embarrassment. “It’s rather a long swim back to my plane.”

“I—I’ll row you out,” said Ruth, springing forward.

“I hoped you might.”

As the young officer sat in the stern and Ruth rowed him out to sea he noted with apparent pleasure the play of the splendid muscles in her brown arms.

“Some seaman,” he complimented her.

Again Ruth flushed.

As they swung in beside the seaplane the girl’s eyes took in every detail of the plane.

“Never saw one so close before,” she said.

“Want to take a ride?”

“Not now.”

“Sometime?”

“Perhaps.”

“Do you know,” she said as he stood up in the punt, “a friend of mine, my cousin, saw a plane pass Monhegan in the dead of night. Trans-Atlantic plane, wouldn’t you say?”

“Yes. Only none have crossed for a long time. Say!” he said, sitting down again. “What sort of a plane was it?”

“Large, sea-colored plane. No name. No insignia. No mark of any kind.”

“That’s queer. Listen!” He put a hand on her arm. “Keep that dark. You may have made an important discovery. Men are coming to this country that we don’t want here. Things have happened. There’s more than one way to get into America these days.”

“Strange,” he mused, “you can’t make a great discovery, invent some new thing, do a daring deed, but those who are selfish, heartless, who wish to kill, destroy, tear down, take possession of it! But I must go. Hope I see you again soon.”

“Thanks for bringing back the punt,” Ruth said.

“Don’t mention it.”

He sprang upon the fusilage. Ruth rowed away. Motors thundered. The plane glided away, rose, then speedily became a speck in the sky.

Ruth bumped the rocky shore with a crash that nearly overturned the punt. She was thinking of many things.

They did not go to old Fort Skammel that evening. It was late when they got back to their island and Betty’s nerves were pretty well shaken up by the happenings of the day.