Читать книгу Submarine U93 - Gilson Charles - Страница 9

It was the face of Rudolf Stork. It was the same face that Jimmy had seen on that other occasion when he had been discovered hiding in the cupboard in Rosencrantz's office-with this difference, Stork had now grown a beard.

It was a black beard-coal black, and short and crisp-that made the man look more villainous than ever. Though it hid the cruel wrinkles about his mouth, it made it seem as if his lower jaw protruded like a gorilla's. Before, Stork had looked both fierce and cunning; he now gave one the impression of being akin to a savage beast.

"It's you!" cried Stork, and repeated the words several times as if unable to believe the evidence of his eyes. "It's you! By thunder, what's the game?"

"A stowaway," said Jimmy.

"A stowaway!" said the man. "I don't need telling that when I find you skulking here at dead of night, and the ship two days from port."

"Take me to the captain," said the boy. "I am ready to take the penalty for what I have done."

"You are?" said Stork. Then he must have remembered something, for thrusting his tongue into his cheek, he rolled his eyes. "Easy now," said he. "These cards must be carefully played. A stowaway!" he cried. "I'll not believe it."

"I have not denied it," answered Jimmy.

"Because you're something worse," let out the other.

"Worse!"

"Yes, worse. We're on the high seas, where a man can speak his mind without fear of contradiction; and if I choose to lay a charge who's to gainsay me? Answer me that."

"I don't understand," said Jimmy Burke.

"Ye don't, and small credit to your wits. Here's me, Rudolf Stork, a ship's carpenter, and an honest man, who goes into the hold on right and lawful business. And there what do I find prying among the cargo, like a muzzled ferret in a ditch, but a brat of a German spy, caught red-handed at his work."

Stork pointed at the packing-case upon which he had laid his chisel and hammer.

"But these tools are yours!" cried Jimmy, who now felt his cheeks burning in indignation.

"Just so," said Stork. "I left them here this morning."

Jimmy gasped. It was not easy to believe that such outrageous perfidy were possible. Indeed, it took him some little time to realize the full meaning of the man's words. But the more he thought of it the more apparent it became that he would find it extremely difficult to prove his innocence. How was he to convince Captain Crouch of the truth-that it was Stork himself who was a spy? The captain would laugh in his face. Such a retort is the common experience of fools. The cry of "You're another!" is the wit of the gutter-snipe that can never carry conviction. Jimmy recognized, with a growing sense of alarm, that in all probability he would shortly find himself in the position of an accused man who had no evidence to call on his own behalf.

"Do you mean to say," he exclaimed, "that you intend to accuse me of the very crime of which you yourself are guilty?"

"I'm here," said Stork, quite calmly, "to bandy words with no one. If I say you're guilty, then guilty you are, unless you can prove contrariwise. Which isn't likely so far as I can see."

Upon the man's face there was an expression of half-amused contempt. He had the appearance of being wholly confident and quite unperturbed. A sort of half-smile played about his lips. This augured ill for Jimmy, who realized that in Rudolf Stork he had an opponent who was both without a sense of honour and well practised in the art of deceiving others.

The man picked up his lantern, which, whilst speaking to Jimmy, he had set down upon the ground, and then turned to go. It was then that the boy made a quick movement forward in the direction of the iron ladder that led to the deck above.

"We'll go together," he cried. "Your story and mine are not likely to agree."

At that, Stork whipped round with a kind of snarl, and without a word of warning, and clenching his fist, he dealt the boy a swinging blow in the face that sent him reeling backward.

Jimmy staggered, stumbled and fell. For a moment he was half dazed. He could still see-but indistinctly, as if through a gauze screen-the flare of Stork's lantern which swung up and down, as the ship rolled from side to side.

By the time the boy had recovered his senses sufficiently to scramble to his feet he was again in utter darkness. The great boxes and bales of cargo were only just discernible in the dim light that came through the opened hatchway above. There, he could see a few stars, appearing at odd moments, to vanish almost immediately behind the narrow, long-drawn clouds that streaked a wind-blown sky. He could hear the waves, one after the other, beating violently against the sides of the ship, the water washing over the decks and along the scuttles, the rigging creaking, and the long chain of the steam steering-gear jolting, from time to time, as the great strain of a heavy sea was brought to bear upon the rudder. And then four bells rang out; it was two o'clock in the morning.

Jimmy, crossing the hold, reached the iron ladder, and set foot upon the bottom rung. The very moment he did so the figures of two men appeared upon the well-deck above, one of whom Jimmy recognized at once as Stork.

"He's in there?" asked a voice.

"Aye, aye, sir," answered Stork. "I found him at work among the cargo like a half-starved rat."

"Get down," said Captain Crouch, for the other voice was his; "go down and fish him out."

Stork was not slow to obey the captain's orders; and a moment later the stowaway found himself upon the deck, standing ankle-deep in running water, face to face with a man who was not so tall as the boy himself, and who was clothed in a suit of bright red pyjamas, the trousers of which were rolled up to his knees, so that the lower part of his legs was bare.

"Bring him along to my cabin," said Crouch. "I'll not stand talking here; it's a trifle too cold, I'm thinking, for a man who has spent a good slice of his life in the equatorial parts."