Читать книгу The Dark Ships - Footner Hulbert - Страница 7

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As Neill rowed along with the lights of the village on his left, it was still only about nine o’clock and there was plenty of life in the place. He could see shadowy figures passing under the street lights, while the sounds of dogs barking, motor horns and male laughter from the porch of Longcope’s store reached his ears. Farther along he could hear the harsh sounds of canned music coming through the open windows of the moving-picture theater.

At Absalom’s Point he lay on his oars for a moment, debating whether it might not be better to row across the bay. It was a calm night and he could have made it in safety. Nobody would think of looking for Janet over there. But it was fifteen miles and he couldn’t possibly get back before daylight. Nor visit her there. No. Better the ships. So he turned the point and rowed on up the wide river, passing along the other side of the village.

The sight of Janet bowed and silent under her blanket wrenched him with pain. After what she had been through what could he say to her? To have tried to make light talk would sound like mockery. In the end it was Janet who spoke.

“Where was Fanning when you came aboard the yacht?”

Neill thought her mind was wandering. “Never mind him,” he said, gruffly. “He won’t trouble you any more.”

“Did you kill him?” she asked, simply.

“Don’t want to talk about it,” said Neill.

“All right,” she said, perfectly docile. “Nothing matters as long as we are together.”

He hated to think of leaving her alone in her present condition. But there was no help for that. It would be impossible to trust anybody he didn’t know to take care of her. Travis County, Maryland, was a peninsula remote from the great world and he judged that its people at the best were inclined to be suspicious of strangers. Somehow or other he must take care of Janet, and save her, too.

“I’m so thirsty!” she presently murmured, like a child.

Neill’s heart sunk for he had forgotten water. He looked along the village front. It would not be too easy for a stranger to obtain water. If he went to somebody’s well it would lead to awkward questions. And he had nothing to carry water in.

The main and only road into the village came down along the river shore before striking across the neck to the harbor in front of Longcope’s. Midway along this road he distinguished the lighted front of a store. One could always buy something to drink. In front of the store the usual little pier ran out into the river. The water was shallower on this side and it was a long pier. Janet could remain hidden in the dark at the end of it.

He hesitated. There was a terrible risk in landing now. If he were seen he would be remembered. However, it had to be taken. He rowed in and tied the skiff to the end of the pier.

“What’s this for?” she asked, nervously.

“I’m going to get water for you.”

“No. No. I don’t want water.”

“We’ve got to have water.”

“Can’t I come with you?”

“Your dress would attract too much attention.”

“Ah, don’t be long,” she said, with a catch in her breath.

He walked in over the creaking planks, climbed the bank, crossed the road, and entered the store. It was a much smaller and tidier store than Longcope’s and business was not so good. The little old man who kept it was grateful to the unlooked-for customer. Neill bought two bottles of carbonated water.

On his way out of the store a sedan coming from the direction of town passed rapidly and slid to a quick stop a short distance beyond. Neill had an uncomfortable feeling that this stop was in some way connected with himself. Somebody was looking out of the back window, the face merely a grayish blur through the glass.

There was nothing he could do about it. He hastened down the bank and out over the pier. Janet let out a shaking breath of relief at the sight of him. The car went on and turned the corner. Presently a car came back, but Neill couldn’t tell if it was the same one.

They went on, and finally passed the last houses of the village. Now there was a dark field between the road and the river. Neill had rowed upwards of two miles, but he was still only some hundreds of yards from the yacht across the neck of land. Suddenly from the dark shore a light flashed out over the water and searched the river up and down. It was evidently a strong electric torch held in somebody’s hand.

Neill pulled the skiff’s head around and rowed farther out into the river. He couldn’t be sure whether or not the light had picked them up, and a nasty anxiety attacked him. Why should anybody stand on the shore, casting his light over the water, unless he were looking for them? And who could be looking for them? Who could guess that they were about to pass that spot? The light went out, and nothing came of it, but Neill’s anxiety remained.

He rowed on, keeping about a furlong off the shore. The opposite shore was invisible in the dark. Here and there at long distances a dim light showed in the window of a farmhouse, and up river the red light of a gas buoy twinkled off and on, marking some shoal. With every pull of Neill’s oars two little eddies of phosphorescence swirled astern. A soft breeze from the south sprang up.

Janet exclaimed, “What’s that?”

Looking over his shoulder, Neill saw the masts and the funnels of the four great ships rising against the stars. “The German ships turned over to us after the war are moored here,” he said.

“Who would expect to find them here!” she murmured.

Neill thought it over. It was a desperate chance to take, but any way you looked at it their situation was desperate. If there were only four men aboard, it was not enough to keep a close watch at night. In one of the cabins below he could make Janet comfortable. Where could he hope to find a better hiding-place?

“Jen,” he said, “what would you say to going aboard one of the empty ships to hide until we can decide what’s best to be done? Would you be afraid?”

“Not if you were with me, Neill.”

He pulled up to the outermost ship. Her smooth steel side rose towering over their heads like a cliff, ghostly and awe-inspiring in the night. No sound came from aboard her.

“How could we get on?” whispered Janet.

“That’s just the question,” said Neill, with a brief laugh.

He rowed softly on around the flotilla. The big ships lay side by side and staggered; that is to say the first pointing downstream, the second upstream and so on. Each was double anchored at the bow, and further secured at the stern by steel cables running to groups of piles driven deep into the river bottom. There were no openings in the hulls, no protuberances to climb up by, no convenient ropes left dangling. The sheer bulk of the silent vessels was overpowering.

About two hundred yards separated the inside vessel from the shore. This ship had a wooden stairway let down over her side, with a platform at the bottom having several skiffs tied to it. Neill dared not use the stairway, since if a watch was kept anywhere on board it would certainly be at the head of it. High above their heads there was a light showing in the captain’s quarters on the bridge of this vessel. All else was dark.

Neill rowed on until he had completed a full circuit of the ships. He saw that he could not climb aboard by the anchor chains. They disappeared into hawse-holes in the bows and from these holes there was no way of reaching the deck. His best bet appeared to be one of the steel cables on the third ship from the shore. This cable passed under the rail of the lower deck astern, an out-of-the-way part of the ship where no watchman was likely to be lurking.

“Will you stay in the skiff while I climb aboard?” he asked.

“Can’t I come with you?” she said, piteously.

“You couldn’t climb over this cable.”

She drew a long breath to steady herself. “Very well, I will wait.”

Neill tied the skiff to the bunch of piles and, divesting himself of jacket and boots, stood on the seat and sprang for the cable over his head, his legs kicking in the air. The way seemed endless and he slowed down more and more as his arms tired. It required a powerful effort of the will to cover the last few yards. Finally he was able to grasp the rail and draw himself up.

He found himself on a little working-deck aft, much cluttered with coiled hawsers and the steam steering-gear of the vessel. In order to get forward he had to climb a ladder. This brought him to the upper promenade deck. It was an endless and ghostly promenade now, lined with dark windows that were like watching eyes. He tried every door that opened on deck, but all were locked. Even if he succeeded in bringing Janet aboard he would still have the problem of getting her under shelter. He crossed over to the outermost vessel.

Had anybody approached, there was no cover anywhere in the promenades, and he ascended by a deck ladder to the boat deck. Here, with the boats hanging from the davits, the ventilators and innumerable other objects, he had plenty of cover. In his stocking feet he proceeded noiselessly from one shadow to the next, pausing often to peer through the dark and to listen.

This vessel was the largest of the four and from the boat deck he overlooked the other ships. He searched the decks for any glimmer of light that might reveal a watchman on his rounds. Nothing showed. The windows in the captain’s quarters on the first ship were now as dark as the rest. The four great hulks lay under the stars like ships of the dead.

At the forward end of the boat deck he descended two ladders to the main deck, and explored as well as he was able in the dark. There was no sound except the endless gentle lapping of the water against the steel hulls. From this deck there was a wooden gangway over to the next vessel. The ships were kept in pretty good order, but of necessity there was a lot of spare gear of all sorts lying about the decks.

Returning to the promenade deck (this ship was pointing upstream) Neill was able to search along the port side with his flashlight, since he was hidden here both from the other ships and from the shore. On a ring-buoy hanging from the rail he read her name: Abraham Lincoln. He saw several odd-shaped bundles against the wall, and upon examining them closely discovered, to his joy, that they were rope ladders with wooden steps of the sort that sailors call “Jacob’s ladders.” Here was a way of getting Janet safe aboard.

But first he felt he must satisfy himself as to how much watching was done aboard these ships at night. He crept across the gangway to the next ship and explored the deck, watching and listening, taking advantage of every bit of cover; then to the next; and finally to the last, the one nearest the shore. He knew that this vessel was inhabited.

She was of an older type of construction and had two promenade decks, upper and lower. It was from the lower deck that the stairway led down to the small boats that gave the ships’ caretakers communication with the shore. Neill crouched at the corner and, peeping around, stretched his ears to listen.

He heard a sound. Gradually it resolved itself into a gentle snoring. He crept forward pressing his body against the wall, pausing between each step to listen. Dimly he made out the shape of a deck chair before him, with a man’s body in it, relaxed, snoring. Here was the watchman.

Noiselessly he backed away around the corner, and made haste to return across the four decks joined by gangplanks. He figured that he could have Janet aboard in a few minutes, and certainly he would get no better opportunity than now while the watchman was taking a nap.

He unrolled the Jacob’s ladder, and lashing the end to the rail, lowered it overboard. Stripping to his underclothes, he stuffed shirt and breeches behind the other ladders, and went overside. At the bottom of the ladder he let himself noiselessly into the water, and struck out toward the spot where he had left the skiff.

When the little boat loomed before him a sudden fear gripped him because he couldn’t see Janet’s figure outlined against the night sky. The skiff appeared to be empty. He caught hold of the gunwale and pulling himself up, spoke her name:

“Janet!”

She answered him from the bottom of the skiff in a scarcely audible voice: “Neill! ... O, Neill!”

He hastily climbed in. “What’s the matter, Jen? ... I can’t touch you because I’m dripping wet. Did anything happen while I was gone?”

“Somebody is watching us!” she whispered.

“How could that be out here in the dark? What makes you think so?”

“I saw him, Neill.... Another skiff stole up. It came so quietly I didn’t hear anything. I turned my head and there it was. Quite close. With a single figure in it. Watching. I thought maybe you had got a boat somewhere and I spoke your name.... He never answered....”

“Did he speak at all?”

“No. Just faded into the darkness.... I thought you would never come!”

Neill suspected that this was a hallucination. Janet had been talking wildly ever since he had found her. If anybody had become suspicious of their movements he would naturally raise an alarm. Just to hover around them, watching, wasn’t good sense.... But there might be something in it!

However, the die was cast now. It was too late to look for another hiding-place. He intended to sink the skiff, and he hoped that they couldn’t be traced aboard the ship, anyhow.

“It’s all right, Jen,” he said, with assumed cheerfulness. “Just an accidental meeting in the dark. Probably a fisherman visiting his nets.... The fact that he went right away shows that he means us no harm.”

He cast off the line and rowed back toward the ship. Before approaching the ladder he lay on his oars, listening. There was no sound, and certainly he could see as far through the dark as anybody else could. Satisfied that nobody was watching them, he rowed on and, tying the skiff to the Jacob’s ladder, started up, telling Janet to follow him.

On deck he had already picked out a coil of steel cable as heavy as he could lift, and a light rope. Tying the rope to the coil, he lowered it overboard, and hitching the rope to a stanchion, set Janet to watch at the corner of the deckhouse, and went down the ladder again. He tied the steel cable to a seat of the skiff, and thrust the oars under so that they could not float free. Then tying the box of food and the rug to the end of the rope, he stood on the gunwale of the skiff until she took water, filled and sank.

Returning to the deck, he pulled up their supplies and drew in the ladder. As he was rolling up the ladder, Janet came to him.

“There’s a man coming across the decks,” she whispered. “He has a light.”

“Take off your shoes,” said Neill.

He stood the rolled up ladder alongside the others, and snatching up their belongings, ran aft with Janet at his heels. As they reached the after ladder and went up, the light was visible up forward, but they were beyond reach of its rays. They ran forward on the boat deck. With his pocket-knife Neill cut one of the ropes that fastened down the canvas cover of a lifeboat. Helping Janet under it, he followed her into the boat.

Peeping out under the cover, he saw the light mounting the ladder astern and coming toward them. He ducked. Soon they could hear the leisurely footsteps of the watchman. He stopped alongside where they lay, and Neill held his breath. Janet’s hand convulsively gripped his. There was a moment of horrible suspense; then they heard a match struck, the watchman puffed at his pipe and moved on.

Neill quivered with inward laughter. “He might as well catch us as scare us to death,” he whispered.

Looking out under the cover, he saw the man going down the forward ladder. After giving him a moment, he climbed out of the boat and, creeping forward, peeped over the edge of the deck. He saw the watchman returning over the gangplank with his lantern, and let out a long breath of relief.