Air Service Boys Flying for France/Chapter 5
CHAPTER V
THE SECRET SAILING
Jack showed signs of excitement when his comrade made such a startling announcement. He stared after the departing taxicab and acted as though more than half inclined to dash away in pursuit.
"Oh, what a shame that we have to let him get away in that fashion, Tom!" he exclaimed in a disappointed tone. "Where can that detective be hanging out, not to be able to find the German spy? If only we could have him nabbed, perhaps we might be able to recover that paper."
"It was out of the question, you see, Jack," the other told him sadly. "There, the taxi has disappeared now in the ruck of vehicles, all trying to get in and out of the pier here, where everything is being rushed like fury. But even if I had Adolph Tuessig arrested, what charge could I make against him, when we haven't a shred of real proof that he was the one who entered our house?"
"I guess you're right there, Tom," admitted the other dejectedly. "I'm always ready to do things on impulse, but you have a reason back of you every time you act. He's gone for good now, anyhow, so nothing can be done. But it roiles me to think of our seeing him just when—Oh, Tom!"
"What's struck you now?" demanded the other, seeing Jack's face lighten up all of a sudden.
"Why should Adolph Tuessig be coming down to this steamer if he hadn't meant to go aboard?" continued Jack, again showing excitement. "Seeing us frightened him off, apparently, but then he may come back again later, and sneak aboard."
Tom looked serious, as though digesting the suggestion advanced by his chum.
"Well, there might be some truth in that idea, Jack," he finally remarked.
The two youths went aboard the steamer. The passengers were looking rather subdued, and while there were affecting leave-takings, little of the customary merriment connected with these sailings for Europe was manifested.
The reason was not difficult to understand, for even the neutral gray color of the once jet black steamship told of perils of the sea entirely foreign to such ordinary things as gales and floating icebergs. Vessels went into that barred zone with the nerves of those aboard keyed up to a tense pitch and sleep was a stranger to their eyes for perhaps two whole nights of terror and anxiety.
The boys meant to stand watch until the steamer left her dock, some time toward the middle of the night. They wished to discover whether Adolph Tuessig really came aboard and if they were fated to have him as a fellow passenger on their voyage across.
"In one sense it would be a good thing for us," Tom remarked, as they stood by the rail and watched the bustling scenes going on below, where the dock was crowded by a jostling throng of stevedores, porters hurrying baggage aboard, passengers still arriving, friends leaving sorrowfully, some of them weeping as though heartbroken.
"Tell me what you mean," demanded his companion.
"Well, if Tuessig had picked on this vessel on which to cross, we might count it as a sort of insurance that nothing unusual was going to happen to us. If he is, as we strongly suspect, a secret agent of the German Government, he would be apt to know just what special steamers the subs were ordered to try to catch napping. Perhaps this one isn't loaded with the munitions they aim to sink whenever they can."
"But I'm afraid we'll never be able to keep watch here for hours, Tom. Already I'm beginning to shiver like everything, on account of that chilly wind coming down the Hudson River. And besides, it's about time dinner was announced; for we were told we'd get that meal aboard."
Just as they were about to turn away and seek the warm saloon Jack pointed to a large and handsome motor car that had managed to force its way through the tangle of vehicles and rolling trucks, and from which some people, evidently intending passengers, were alighting.
"As pretty a young girl as ever you set eyes on, Tom," he hastened to say. for Jack was much fonder of girls' society than his chum had ever shown himself to be. "I hope we shall get to know her before the voyage is over. Just take a peep and tell me if she hasn't got other girls beaten a mile for good looks."
To please his chum Tom did glance that way. He saw a diminutive girl who could hardly have been more than twelve years of age, and scarcely looked even that; but she was remarkably attractive, so far as rosy cheeks, dancing eyes, and a wealth of golden hair went. In spite of her apparent lack of years, there was a grown-up air about her that some girl babies seem born with and that makes friends for them among older people from the start.
"Yes, she is as pretty as a peach, for a fact," Jack's chum admitted. "I suppose I'll see little of your company if ever you get to be on speaking terms with such a fairy. But there goes the call to dinner," he added as a steward was seen hurrying to a number of the passengers bending over the rail and watching the busy scene below, to say something to each in turn, and point toward the companionway leading to the dining saloon.
Later on, before the boys were through eating dinner, they discovered the girl again. She was given a seat at the same table as the boys, and Jack could consequently feast his eyes on her pretty face to his heart's content.
There was a man with her, who may have been her father, though Tom made up his mind that there could be very little real affection between the two, for the girl acted as though she secretly feared her guardian, while on his part the man with the snappy eyes and rather cynical cast of features frowned often when speaking to his young companion.
Somehow Tom was himself becoming mightily interested in the girl, a fact which would be apt to surprise Jack when he learned it. He wondered what the relationship between man and girl could be, and why they were taking these desperate chances to cross to the other side at a time when no one dreamed of making a pleasure voyage.
Again the two chums sought the outer air. It was even more disagreeable than earlier in the evening, and they could not stay very long. A raw wind whistled down the broad North River, as the Hudson is called at New York City, and seemed to bring with it reminders of fields of ice that were still lingering far up toward the border of the Catskills.
"We'd better give it up as a bad job," suggested Tom after awhile, "and keep in where it's warm. Either he's safe aboard by this time, or else he doesn't mean to sail on this boat, now that he knows we're going."
"Yes," admitted even the sanguine Jack, "he may take a notion we'll give him away to the British authorities, and cause his arrest as a German spy. Though I've no doubt he's clever enough to have a false passport that describes him as a Swede, or perhaps a Swiss going home to do his bit in guarding the Alpine frontier against the Huns. But we can keep our eyes open all the time, Tom, while we're aboard."
When the other passengers learned the nature of their mission many of them expressed the most intense interest in the two chums. More than one mature man declared he stood ready to take off his hat to such brave lads, and wished them all manner of good luck.
They sat up until a late hour, and were thrilled when it was learned that the vessel was even then being towed out from her berth into mid-stream by a fleet of powerful tugs. Even these usually noisy little monsters seemed to have their mufflers on, for they accomplished their work with but a fraction of the customary whistling and puffing and snorting.
The boys bundled up and went on deck to watch what took place. Leaving an American port during wartime was an entirely different thing from what it had been in other days. Silence and mystery had taken the place of whistle-blowing and music and loud salvos of cheers. Now the spectators stood and strained their eyes for a last look at those friends aboard the departing steamship, whom possibly they were fated never to see again in this world.
Tom and Jack stood on deck and looked back toward the overhead light that marked the torch in the hand of the Statue of Liberty. Long they stayed and paced the deck when chilled by the night air. Now and then they turned to look back to where the great city slept, secure, by reason of the vast ocean's width, from aerial bombardments and guarded against attacks from hostile battleships by the eternal vigilance of the Allied fleet by which the Germans were bottled up in their home waters at Kiel.
Ahead of them lay the broad Atlantic. They were now headed for the danger zone. Presently they would come to that sector which the German high command had marked as the cruising ground for their insatiable submarine rovers. Behind each and every rolling billow might lie a concealed peril, but the hearts of those two chums felt no fear as they looked forward with confidence to the work to which they had dedicated their lives.