Chapter 9

"It is not necessary that I think," the commander replied. "My thinking has all been done for me. Me, I obey my orders; it is not my part to question their wisdom. Moreover, Herr Doctor, to my mind your insistence is to say the least suspicious. Even had I discretion in the matter, I should hold you. Therefore, you will keep a civil tongue in your head, or go below in irons immediately!"

He swung on his heel, showing an insolent back while he conferred with his subaltern.

And Lanyard shrugged appreciation of the futility of more contention against such mulishness. Not that the Bavarian was not right enough! As to that, one had really hoped for no better issue; but every shift is worth trial till proved worthless; and he was no worse off now than if he had submitted without complaint. Still one had Chance to look to for aid and comfort in this stress; and Chance, the jade, is not always unkind to her audacious suitors.

Even now she flashed upon Lanyard a provoking intimation of her smile. He began to divine possibilities in this overt ill-feeling between the officers; advantage might be made of the racial hostility of Prussian and Bavarian.

The commander's attitude and tone were consistently overbearing, if his words were inaudible to Lanyard. The lieutenant quite evidently submitted only in form; his salute was punctiliously correct and curt; and as the commander lumbered off down the landing stage, he grumbled indistinctly in Lanyard's hearing:

"Dog of a Bavarian!"

"The good Herr Captain," Lanyard suggested pleasantly, "is not in the most agreeable of tempers, yes?"

The high and well-born lieutenant spat comprehensively into the darkness overside. After a moment of hesitation he moved nearer and spoke in confidential accents. And the fragrant air of the night was tainted with the vinous effluvium of his breath.

"Always he prattles of his precious duty!" the Prussian muttered. "Damn his duty! Look you, Herr Doctor: months we have been on this cruise, yes, more than three months out of Heligoland, penned together in this ramshackle stinkpot, or isolated here in this God-forgotten hole, seeing nothing of life, hearing nothing of the world but what little the radio tells us--sick of the very sight of one another's faces! And now, when we have accomplished a glorious feat and have every right to look for prompt recall and the rewards of heroes, orders come to remain indefinitely and operate against the North Atlantic fleet of the contemptible Yankee navy! The life of a dog! And that noble commander of mine pretends to welcome it, talks of one's duty to the Fatherland--as if he liked the work any better than I!--solely to spite me!"

"But why?"

"Because he hates me," the lieutenant snarled passionately--"hates me even as I hate him--he knows how well!"

He interrupted himself to define his conception of the commander's character in the freest vernacular of the Berlin underworld.

Lanyard laughed amiably. "They are like that," he agreed--"those Bavarians!"

Which inspired the Prussian to deliver a phosphorescent diatribe on the racial traits of the Bavarian people as comprehended by the North German junker.

"To be cooped up God knows how long in this putrescent death-trap with such cattle," he concluded mutinously--"it passes all endurance!"

"I wonder you stand it," Lanyard sympathised--"a man of spirit and good birth, as one readily perceives. Though the life of a secret agent is not altogether heavenly either, if you ask me," he added gratuitously. "Regard me now, charged with a mission of most vital moment--more than ever so since the Yankees have shown their teeth--delayed here indefinitely because your excellent Herr Captain chooses to doubt my word."

"Patience. Maybe your release comes quickly. Then he will regret--or would had he wit enough. There is no cure for a fool." The sententiousness of this aphorism was unhappily marred by a hiccough. "Anybody with eyes in his head could see you are what you are...."

The last of the operating-room crew piled up the hatchway, saluted, and hurried ashore to join in noisy jubilations. There remained on the U-boat only the lieutenant with Lanyard, and two base guards detailed as anchor watch.

"I must go," the lieutenant volunteered. "And believe me, one welcomes a change of clothing and a dry bed after a week in this reeking sieve. As for you, my friend, if it lay with me, you should receive the treatment due a gentleman." A wave of maudlin camaraderie affected him. He passed an affectionate arm through Lanyard's and was suffered, though the gorge of the adventurer revolted at the familiarity. "I am sorry to leave you. No, do not be astonished! No protestations, please! It is quite true. I know a man of the right sort when I meet one, the sort even I can associate with without loss of self-respect. It is a great pity you may not come with me and make a night of it."

"Another time, perhaps," Lanyard said. "The night may yet come when you and I shall meet at the Metropole or the Admiral's Palace.... Who knows?"

"Ah!" sighed the Prussian, enchanted. "What a night that will be, my friend!... But now, it is too bad, I really must ask you to step below. Such are my silly orders. I am made responsible for you. What do you think of that for a joke, eh?"

He laughed vacantly but loudly, and, attempting to poke a derisive thumb into Lanyard's ribs, lost his balance.

"What a responsibility!" said Lanyard gravely, holding him up.

"Nonsense, that's what it is. You have no possible chance to escape."

"Suppose I make one--tip you overboard, take to my heels--?"

"You would be shot like a rabbit before you got half way to the shore."

"Ah, but grant, for the sake of argument, that these brave fellows, the guards, aim poorly in this gloom?"

"Where would you go? Into the forest, naturally. But how far? You may believe me when I tell you, not a hundred yards. It's a true wilderness, scrub-oak and cedar and second growth choked with underbrush, almost trackless. In five minutes you would be helplessly lost, in this blackness, with no stars to steer by. We need only wait till daylight to find you walking in a circle."

"You can't mean," Lanyard pursued, learning something helpful every moment, "there is no communicating road?"

"The main woods road, yes: but that is far too well patrolled. Without the countersign, you would be caught or shot a dozen times before you reached the end of it."

"Ah, well!"--with the sigh of a philosopher--"then I presume there's no way out but by swimming."

"Over to the beach you mean? Well, what then? You have got a twenty-mile walk either way through deep sand sure to betray your footprints. At dawn we follow and bag you at our leisure."

"You are discouraging!" Lanyard complained. "I see I may as well go below and be good. It's a dull life."

"Tell you what," giggled the lieutenant, leading his prisoner to the conning-tower hatch and lowering his voice: "do just that, go below and be nice, and presently I will come back and we'll split a bottle. What do you say to that, eh?"

"Colossal!"

"Not a bad notion, is it? I like it myself. One gets weary for the society of a gentleman, you've no idea.... As soon as my commander is drunk enough, I will slip away. How's that?"

"Grossartig!" Lanyard approved, turning to descend.

"Wait. You shall see for yourself what it means to have the friendship of a man of my stamp." The lieutenant raised his voice, addressing the anchor watch: "Attention. Heed with care: this gentleman is my friend. He is detained merely as a matter of form. I do not wish him to be annoyed. Do you understand? You are to leave him to himself as long as he remains quietly below. But he is not to come on deck again till I return. Is all that clear, imbeciles?"

The imbeciles, saluting mechanically, indicated glimmerings of comprehension.

"Then below you go, Dr. Rodiek. And don't get impatient: I will rejoin you as soon as possible."

"Don't be long," Lanyard implored.

As he lowered himself through the hatch he saw the Prussian stumble down the gangplank and reel shoreward.

Well satisfied with his diplomacy, Lanyard lingered a while in the conning tower, closely studying and memorising the more salient features of the Island of Martha's Vineyard and its adjacent waters and mainland as delineated on a most comprehensive large-scale chart published by the German Admiralty from exhaustive soundings and surveys of its own navigators and typographers, with corrections of as recent date as the first part of the year 1917.

Here the breach in the south coast line which permitted the utilisation of what had formerly been an extensive fresh-water pond as this secret submarine base, was clearly shown. And a single glance confirmed the lieutenant's statement concerning its remote isolation from settled sections of the island.

Somewhat dismayed, Lanyard descended to the central operating compartment and scouted through the hold from bow bulkhead to stern, making certain he enjoyed undisputed privacy. And it was so; every man-jack of the U-boat's personnel--jaded to the marrow with its cramped accommodations, unremitting toil and care, unsanitary smells and forbidding associations--having naturally seized the earliest opportunity to escape so loathsome a prison.

Lanyard, however, was anything but resentful of condemnation to this solitary confinement. His interest in the interior arrangements of submersibles seemed all but feverish, as intense as sudden; witness the minute attention to detail which marked his second tour of inspection. On this round he took his time. He had all night in which to work out his salvation; the wildest schemes were revolving in his mind, the least fantastic utterly impracticable without accurate knowledge of many matters; and such knowledge might be gained only through patient investigation and ungrudging expenditure of time.

It was now something past ten by the chronometers. He could hardly do much before dawn, lacking the instinct of a red Indian to guide him through that night-bound waste of woodland. So he felt little need to slight his researches through haste, except in anticipation of his lieutenant's return. And as to that, Lanyard was moderately incredulous: he expected to see nothing more of this new-found friend, unless the infatuation of the Prussian proved far stronger than his head.

Turning first to the private quarters of the commander, a somewhat more commodious cubicle than that across the alleyway in which Lanyard had been berthed, his interest was attracted by a small safe anchored to the deck beneath the desk.

To this Lanyard addressed himself without hesitation, solving the secret of its combination readily through exercise of the most rudimentary of professional principles. The problem it offered, indeed, was child's play to such cunning of touch and hearing as had made the reputation of the Lone Wolf.

Open, the safe discovered to him a variety of articles of interest: some five thousand dollars in English and American banknotes of large denomination, several hundred in American gold; three distinct cipher codes, one of these wholly novel in Lanyard's experience and so, he believed, in the knowledge of the Allied secret services; the log of the U-boat and the intimate diary of its commander, both in cryptograph; a compact directory of German agents domiciled in Atlantic coast ports; a very considerable accumulation of German Admiralty orders; together with many documents of lesser moment.

Rapidly sorting out the more valuable of these, Lanyard disposed them about his person, then confiscated the banknotes as indemnity for his stolen money-belt, replaced the rejections, and reclosed and locked the safe.

His next interest was to arm himself. After several disappointments he discovered arms-lockers beneath the berths for the crew in the forward compartment just aft of that devoted to torpedo tubes. Here he selected a latest pattern German navy automatic pistol with three extra cartridge clips and, after some hesitation, a peculiarly devilish magazine rifle firing explosive bullets. The latter he placed handily, yet out of sight, near the foot of the companion ladder. The pistol fitted snugly a trousers pocket, its bulk hidden by the sag of his sweater....

Some time later the lieutenant, slipping down the ladder, found Lanyard studying with a convincing aspect of childlike bewilderment the complicated combinations of machinery which crowded the central operating compartment.

Fresh from a bath and shave and wearing a clean uniform, the Prussian showed vast improvement in looks if not in equilibrium. But his mouth twitched fitfully, his eyes wandered and disclosed a disquieting superabundance of white, and his tongue was noticeably thicker than before.

"Well, my friend!" he said--"you are truly disappointing. The watch said you had made no sound since going below. I was afraid of another of those famous naps of yours."

"With the prospect of a bottle with you? Impossible! I have been waiting and waiting, with my tongue hanging out."

"Too bad. Why did you not look around, help yourself? Why not?" the lieutenant demanded. "Have I not given you freedom of ship? It is yours, everything here 'yours!"

"I want nothing but an end to this great thirst," Lanyard protested.

"Then--God in Heaven!--why we standing here? Come!"

Releasing the handrail the Prussian took careful aim for the alleyway door, launched himself toward it, slipped on the greasy metal grating, and would have fallen heavily but for Lanyard.

Cursing pettishly, he stood up, threw off Lanyard's arms without thanks, and made a new attempt, this time shooting headlong through the alleyway, to bring up against the wing table in the third forward compartment, the kitchen and messroom in one.

"A great pity," he muttered, opening a locker and fumbling in its depths--"rotten pity...."

"What?"

"Keep you waiting so long. Not my fault." The lieutenant brought forth two bottles of champagne and one of brandy. "You open them, Herr Doctor, like 'good fellow," he said, placing the three on the table. "I just wish you 'understand no discourtesy meant ... unavoidably detained ... beastly commander ... drunk. Give 'my word, hopelessly drunk. Poor fool...."

"If my judgment is sound," Lanyard said, "this noble vessel will soon need a new commander."

"True. Quite true." The Prussian placed two aluminium cups upon the table and half filled one with brandy, then brimmed it with champagne. "Try that," he said thickly, "That will keep your tail up, my friend."

"Many thanks," Lanyard protested, filling another cup with undiluted champagne. "I prefer one thing at a time."

"Unfortunate ... don't know what is good ... King's peg ... wonderful drink. No matter. To 'new commander--prosit!"

He drained his cup at a gulp.

"To the new commander!" Lanyard echoed, and drank judiciously. "Excellent.... How long can he last, do you think, at this pace?"

"No telling--not long--too long for my liking. Shall I tell 'something?" He filled his cup again, half and half, and sat down, his wicked, rat-like face more than ever pale and repulsive. "Not 'whisper of this, mind--though I think 'crew sometimes suspects: he's going mad!"

"Not that Bavarian?"

The lieutenant nodded wisely. "If 'knew him as I know him, 'never be surprised, my friend. You think too much drink. Yes, but not entirely. He keeps seeing things, hearing them, especially by night."

"What sort of things?"

"Faces." The Prussian licked his lips, glanced furtively over his shoulder, and drank. "Dead faces, eyes eaten out, seaweed in their hair.... And voices--he's forever hearing voices ... people trying to talk, 'can't make him understand because 'mouths 'full of water, you know. But they understand one another, keep discussing how to get at him.... He tells me about it ... I tell you, it is Hell to hear him talk ... especially when submerged, as last night. Then he hears them fumbling all over the hull with their stumpy fingers, trying to find 'way in, talking about him. And he tells me, and keeps insisting, till sometimes I seem to hear them, too. But I don't. Before God, I don't! You don't believe I do, do you?"

His eyes rolled wildly.

"Why should you?"

"Just so: why should I?" The lieutenant's accents rose to a shrill pitch. "I have not his record ... still in training when he sent _Lusitania_ to the bottom. Yes: it was he, second-in-command, in charge of torpedo tubes. His own hand fired that torpedo...."

He fell silent, staring moodily into his cup, perhaps thinking of the number of torpedoes it had been his own lot to discharge upon errands of slaughter.

And the dead silence of the ship was made audible by a stealthy drip-drip of water from the seams, and the furtive slaver of the tide on the outer plates.

A shiver ran through the body of the Prussian. He pulled himself together with obvious effort, looked up with an uncertain grin, and passed a shaking hand across his writhing lips.

"All foolishness, of course, but 'gets on one's nerves ... constant association with man like that.... 'Know what he's doing now, or was, when I came away? Sitting up with doors and windows locked and blinds drawn, drinking brandy neat. He can't sleep by night if sober, or without 'light in the room. If he does, he knows they will get him ... people he hears crawling up from the sea, slopping round the house, mumbling, whimpering in the dark--"

He broke off abruptly, with a whisper more dreadful than a shriek--"_God_!"--and jumped to his feet, whipping the automatic from his belt.

A footfall sounded in one of the after compartments. Others followed.

Someone was coming slowly down the alleyway, someone with dragging, heavy feet.

The lieutenant waited motionless, as one petrified with terror.

The bulkhead doorway framed the figure of the commander. He paused there, louring at his subaltern with haunted eyes ablaze in a face like parchment.

"So!" he said, nodding. "As I thought. It is thus I find you, fraternising with one who may be, for all we know, an enemy to the Fatherland. You drunken, babbling fool! Get ashore!" His angry foot thumped the grating. "Get ashore, and report yourself under arrest!"

With no more warning than a strangled snarl, the lieutenant shot him through the head.

XI

UNDER THE ROSE

Vague stupefaction replaced the scowl upon the countenance of the commander. He swayed, a hand faltering to his forehead, where dark blood was beginning to well from a cleanly drilled puncture. Then he collapsed completely, falling prone across the raised sill of the bulkhead opening. A convulsive tremor shook savagely his huge frame.

Thereafter he was quite still.

The report of that one shot had reverberated stunningly within those narrow walls of steel. Momentarily Lanyard looked to see the alarmed anchor watch appear; so too, apparently, the lieutenant, who remained immobile, pistol poised in a hand for the moment strangely steady, gaze fixed upon the mouth of the alleyway.

But through a long minute no other sounds were audible than that ceaseless dripping from frames and seams, with that muted, terrible mouthing of waters on the plates.

Unable either to fathom or forecast the workings of the drink-maddened mentality masked by that rat-like face, Lanyard waited with a hand covertly grasping the automatic in his pocket. There was no telling; at any moment that murderous mania might veer his way. And he was not content to die, not yet, not in any event by the hand of a decadent little beast of a Boche.

Slowly the arm of the lieutenant dropped, lowering the pistol till its muzzle chattered on the top of the table: a noise that broke the spell upon his senses. He looked down in dull brutish wonder, then roused and with a gesture of horror let the weapon fall clattering.

His glance shifting to the body of his commander, he started violently, backing up against the plates to put all possible distance between himself and his handiwork. His lips moved, framing phrases at first incoherent, presently articulate in part:

"... _done it at last!... Knew I must soon_...."

Abruptly he looked up at Lanyard.

"Bear witness," he cried: "I was provoked beyond human endurance. He insulted me in your presence ... me!... that scum!"

Lanyard said nothing, but met his gaze with a blank, non-committal stare, under which the eyes of the lieutenant wavered and fell.

Then with a start he realised anew the significance of that still figure at his feet, and tried to shake some of the swagger back into his wretched, fear-racked being.

"A good job!" he muttered defiantly. "And you will stand by me, I know.... Only there is nothing in that, of course, no justification possible before a court martial. Even your testimony could not save me ... I am done for, utterly...."

He hung his head. Lanyard heard whispered words: "_degraded," "dishonour," "firing squad_"....

A chronometer in the central operating compartment tolled eight bells.

With a sharp cry the lieutenant dropped to his knees. "He can't be dead!" he shrilled. "It is all play-acting, to frighten me!"

Frantically he sought to turn the body over.

Lanyard's hand shot swiftly out, capturing the automatic on the table. With rapid and sure gestures he extracted and pocketed the clip, drew back the breech, ejecting into his palm the one shell in the barrel, and replaced the weapon, all before the Prussian gave over his insane efforts to resurrect the dead.

"He is dead enough," he announced, eyeing Lanyard morosely--"beyond helping.... Look here; are you with me or against me?"

"Need you ask?"

"I count on you, then. Good. I think we can cover this up."

He checked and stood for a while lost in thought.

"How?" Lanyard roused him.

"Simply enough: I go on deck, send the watch ashore on some trumped-up errand. They suspect nothing, thinking the commander and I have you in charge. If they heard that shot, I will say one of us dropped a bottle of champagne, and it exploded.... When they are gone, I bring the dory alongside; and with your help it should be an easy matter to carry this body up, weight it, row it out to the middle of the lagoon, dump it overboard. Then we return. Our story is, the commander followed the anchor watch ashore; if later he wandered off, got lost in the woods in his alcoholic delirium, that is no affair of ours. Do you understand?"

"Perfectly," said Lanyard with a look of fatuous innocence. "But how about the water--is it deep enough?"

The Prussian took no pains to dissemble his scorn of this question, seemingly so witless. "To cover the body? Why, even here there is sufficient depth at low tide for us to submerge completely, barring the periscopes. And it is deeper yet in the middle."

"Thanks," Lanyard replied meekly.

"Have another drink? No?" The Prussian tossed off a half cupful of undiluted brandy, and shuddered. "Then stop here. I'll be back in a--"

"Half a minute." The lieutenant halted in the act of stepping across the body. Lanyard levelled a hand at the automatic. "Do you mind taking that with you? I have no desire to be found here with it and a dead man, should anything prevent your return."

With a sickly grimace the murderer snatched up the weapon, thrust it in its holster, and hurriedly departed.

Lanyard watched him pass through the alleyway and turn toward the companion ladder, then followed quietly.

As the lieutenant climbed out on deck, Lanyard ascended to the conning tower and waited there, listening. He could not quite make out what was said; but after a few brusque words of command two pair of boots rang on the gangplank and thumped away down the stage. At the same time Lanyard let himself noiselessly out through the hatch.