Air Service Boys Flying for France/Chapter 8
CHAPTER VIII
PERILS WITHIN AND WITHOUT
Tom did not seem to be very much astonished when his chum made that statement.
"Well, do you know, I rather half expected that was what you were going to tell me," he observed coolly. "I wondered whether such a smart chap as Adolph Tuessig, if he is aboard this steamer, would let a chance get past him to have my trunk broken open and looked over. That was what happened, was it, Jack?"
"While one fellow watched us another must have been busy in our stateroom," explained the discoverer of the latest outrage. "These rascals seem to incline toward the burglary business, all right."
"Why not, when spying is always associated with thievery?" Tom told him plainly enough. "Did they do much damage? I purposely left the trunk unlocked so as to save them from smashing it."
"Oh! did you?" exclaimed his chum, elevating his eyebrows. "Then I warrant you they found nothing for their pains."
"How could they, when as you know I am not carrying a message to the French Government in connection with my father's invention? Neither have I a design of the new airplane stabilizer in my possession, no matter what they believe. Tell me what you found once you stepped inside the stateroom.'
"Oh, it is a sight to behold, Tom, with all your traps thrown around every which way for Sunday! They even ripped the lining of your steamer trunk in several places, trying to learn whether you could have hidden a paper under that. The fellow had to work like lightning, I guess, and couldn't afford to be particular. You'll certainly have to get that trunk fixed, once we land."
"I think I'd better go back with you and take a look," and Tom got to his feet. "Of course we can do nothing about it, because like as not no one saw the sneak thief enter or leave our room, and we couldn't very well accuse Potzfeldt of robbery on general principles."
"It makes me furious to know how our hands are tied," grumbled Jack; "because I hate a sneak like a skunk, and would like to see both of those fellows taken in hand by the British when we land. But I suppose they've fixed things so they'll be decently treated as friendly to the cause."
When shortly afterwards Tom entered their stateroom he looked around with no little concern, as well as secret amusement. Knowing that he had practically nothing to fear from thievery, he could afford to allow himself to be amused.
"Well, I should say that chap did toss my duds about with a vengeance," he told Jack, who followed him inside, and then hastily closed and fastened the door after him. "It looks as if a cyclone had struck my trunk and scattered every thing right and left regardless."
"Look and see if they took anything," Jack advised.
So the owner of the stuff proceeded to replace it once more in the small trunk that could be accommodated under one end of the lower berth, Jack's belongings in a similar receptacle taking up the remainder of the space.
"Everything seems to be accounted for," announced Tom, when he had gathered up all the clothing and such things as he carried with him to be used in his work as an aviator.
"That proves one thing," snapped Jack; "It wasn't any ordinary thief who entered this stateroom while we were on deck and searched your trunk. He was looking for something besides money or valuables. Say, he must have been pretty mad when he found he'd had all his work for nothing, and given his business away in the bargain, for of course he understood that you'd guess what it all meant."
"It strikes me," mused Tom, sitting on the lower berth, and turning toward his indignant chum, "that we're having all sorts of thrills aboard this steamer long before we get to the danger zone and the waiting subs."
"A little bit too much excitement to please me. The trouble is it's all on one side. So far we haven't been able to get a single whack at those clever scamps."
Tom was taking it very much in the light of a joke. He at least was not worrying himself because the plotters had met with such a bitter disappointment when they may have anticipated great things to come of this secret search.
"Do you think they'll be ready to give it up as a bad job, now that they've looked your trunk over, and failed to find anything?" Jack went on to ask.
"That's hard to say. They may take a notion to scatter your trunk around for a change."
"But why should they do that?" demanded Jack.
"On general principles, and because, don't you see, I might have been shrewd enough to hand the paper over for you to hide away in your trunk. Then again, if they had the nerve and could manage it, they might try to chloroform us some fine night as we slept, and search our clothes, even ripping open the fleece linings of our leather aviation coats in the hope of finding something worth while."
Of course Tom spoke half in a joking mood, but his chum took it all seriously enough. Unaccustomed to dealing with clever rogues, Jack was beginning to imagine all manner of terrible possibilities as hanging over the heads of his companion and himself.
"Say, we really ought to complain to the captain, and have this thing stopped," he burst out. "If he knew what was going on aboard his old boat he'd gladly put a man on duty day and night to watch our stateroom."
"But we ought to be able to look out for ourselves, it strikes me, Jack. Since we have no paper to be taken away from us, why should we worry? They'll give it up as a bad job presently. Besides, we're only two nights and a day out from port now, and there'll be plenty to engage our attention from now on, without borrowing trouble."
"Well, I'm going to leave my trunk unlocked, after this, so as to save them the trouble of smashing it if they should come in here again" Jack remarked sagaciously, taking a pointer from what his chum had told him.
Later on, when at the table, they found that the company seemed unusually quiet. Seldom was a laugh heard, and serious faces were the rule rather than the exception. Though those aboard might be reckoned brave men and women, or they would not have been there, the near approach to a dreaded peril was beginning to get on their nerves.
Tom decided to lounge in the cabin after the meal, and for a time Jack was willing to stay there also. But he seemed very restless, and was up and down many times inside of the next hour.
"I think I'll go outside, and take a few turns," he finally told Tom. "I feel stupid after eating so much supper, and a bracing air would serve as a tonic. See you later, Tom."
"Well, don't forget what we were talking about," the other warned him. "It's as dark as a pocket out there, because they won't allow lights, you know, and after all, the stars don't count for much. Keep away from the rail, Jack!"
"I will," the other assured him as he turned away.
After that Tom continued to keep his attention fixed to some extent on the story he was reading. Now and then he looked around, and noted that the passengers seemed loth to retire to their several quarters. They clustered in little groups in the saloon, where the lights burned dimly and the openings were duly covered with cloth, so as to prevent any escape of the scanty illumination.
Any one could easily see that their subdued spirits indicated a pervading fear lest at any minute they should hear loud excited cries, to be quickly followed by a frightful explosion that would tear a great hole in some part of the big steamer and let the sea rush in with greedy force.
Jack had been gone some little while and Tom looked for him to come inside again. In fact, he should really have done so already, his chum felt, unless he had by chance met some entertaining person outside, who had interested him so that the passage of time had been unnoticed.
Tom found himself wondering whether Bessie Gleason could have gone outside. He had noticed her looking suggestively toward Jack while at the table every time her gloomy-faced guardian turned away to speak to the neighbor on his left. Tom somehow conceived the impression that the girl wanted to see Jack again in private. Perhaps she had something further to communicate, some fresh warning to give Jack; and if she could slip away from Mr. Potzfeldt and pass out to the promenade deck in order to join Jack there—
He had just reached this point in his thoughts when he saw the girl. She had apparently just come from her stateroom, for she was in company with the Red Cross nurse. There was a half-frightened expression on Bessie's pretty, face. Still, who could wonder at such a thing, when people many times her age were looking peaked and white in those critical hours.
The girl was looking in Tom's direction now. He saw her make an involuntary gesture as if gripped by some emotion. Then she started forward—she was heading straight toward the spot where the youth sat, as though bent on speaking to him.
Tom put his magazine down. After all, the story he chanced to be reading was not one half as exciting as the conditions by which he found himself surrounded at that very moment.
"Oh, where is Jack?" asked the girl, as soon as she reached his side. "I hope he has not gone out on that gloomy deck to walk!"
"Just what he did some little time ago," Tom told her, at the same time feeling a sense of coming peril gripping his heart and thrilling his pulses. "But why do you look so anxious, Bessie?"
"Oh, I hardly know! I heard so little of what they were saying, because they talked so low!" she told him, her eyes round with newly-awakened fears. "But don't you see, they might mistake Jack in the dark for you?"
"Do you mean you have a suspicion some one intends to knock me down, if it can be done in the gloom of the night, Bessie?" he asked her.
"Yes, I am afraid it means just that! But please let us go and find Jack!" she begged, in a low, thrilling tone.
Of course Tom needed no urging. His heart was beating tumultuously as he left his chair and, followed by the eager girl, passed from the dim cabin to the utter darkness of the promenade deck. He was almost afraid of what he might find there.