Yes, it was his own brother, William Slade, who had left home so long ago!



CHAPTER XII

HE IS FRIGHTENED AND VERY THOUGHTFUL

And this was the triumph of Sherlock Nobody Holmes! This was the startling discovery with which he would astonish his superiors and win their approbation! It was not Sherlock Nobody Holmes who heard in a sort of daze the whispered words that were next uttered. It was just the captain's mess boy, and he hung his head, not so much in crushing disappointment as in utter shame.

"Come inside here and keep still. How'd you get on this ship? Nobody'll be hunting for you, will they? Come in—quick. What's the matter with you?"

Still clutching the dish, Tom was dragged into that dark little room. He seemed almost in a trance. The hand which had been raised in conspiracy and treason pushed him roughly onto the berth.

"So you turned up like a bad penny, huh?" whispered his brother, fiercely.

"I—I wrote you—a letter—after mother died," Tom said simply. "I don't know if you got it."

"Shut up!" hissed his brother. "Don't talk so loud! You want to get me in trouble? How'd you know about this?"

His voice was gruff and cold and seemed the more so for his frightened whisper.

"She died of pneumonia," said Tom impassively. "I was——"

"Gimme that plate!" his brother interrupted.

But this roused Tom. He seemed to feel that his possession of the plate was a badge of innocence.

"I got to keep it," he said; "it's——"

"Shh!" his brother interrupted. "Somebody's coming; don't move and keep your mouth shut! It's the second shift of stokers!"

From the companionway came the steady sound of footfalls. There was an authoritative sound to them as they echoed in the deserted passage, coming nearer and nearer. It was not the second shift of stokers.

"Shh," said Tom's brother, clutching his arm. "If they should come here keep your mouth shut and let me do the talking. They ain't got anything on me," he added in a hoarse whisper which bespoke his terror, "unless you—shhh!"

"I know what it is," Tom whispered, "and I ain't a-scared. They got a signal from the destroyer. They know the room."

"There's nothing they can find here," his brother breathed. "They were all through here last night. Put that dish down—put it down, I tell you! Shh!"

Tom let go of the plate, scarcely knowing what he did.

Nearer, nearer, came the footsteps and stopped. The door was thrown open and in the passage stood the captain, a sailor and the officer who had spoken to Tom the night before.

Tom's heart was in his throat; he did not move a muscle. What happened seemed all a jumble to him, like things in a dream. He was aware of a lantern held by the officer and of the sailor standing by the porthole, over which he had spread something black.

"Did you know this kid was mixed up in it?" the sailor asked. Tom felt that the sailor must be a Secret Service man.

"They're brothers," said the captain. "You can see that."

"He had him posted for a lookout," said the officer. "He was watching on the deck last night." Then, turning upon Tom he said brusquely, "you were supposed to hurry down here with the tip if the convoy signaled, eh?"

Tom struggled to answer, but they did not give him time.

"You're the fellow that read that semaphore message the other day, too, eh?" the officer said. "Stand up."

Tom stood trembling while the sailor rapidly searched him. "Where's your flashlight?" he demanded apparently disappointed not to find one.

"I haven't got any," said Tom, dully.

"Pretty good team work," said the sailor.

"Here you," he added, proceeding to search Tom's brother, while the captain and the officer fell to turning the little room inside out, hauling the mattress from the berth and examining every nook and cranny of the place. Tom noticed that the plate, which was now on a stool, had a sandwich on it and a piece of cheese, and he realized, if he had not realized before, his brother's almost diabolical foresight and sagacity. It looked very innocent—a harmless, late lunch, brought into the stateroom as was often done among the ship's people.

During the search of the stateroom Tom stood silently by. He watched the coverings pulled ruthlessly from the berth, moved out of the way as the mattress was hauled to the floor, gazed fascinated at the quick thoroughness which mercilessly unfolded every innocent towel and scrutinized each joint and section of the life preserver, until presently the orderly little apartment was in a state of chaos. He saw the officer move the plate so as to examine the under side of the stool. He saw the disguised Secret Service man pick up a little piece of innocent cotton waste and carelessly throw it down again.

But the turmoil about him was nothing to the turmoil in his own brain. What should he do? Would he dare to speak? What could he say? And still he stood silent, watching with a strange, cold feeling, looking occasionally at his brother, and thinking—thinking. As his brother watched him furtively, and a little fearfully, Tom became aware of a queer way he had of contracting his eyebrows, just as Uncle Job used to do when he told a joke. And there came into his mind the memory of a certain day long ago when his big brother and he had shot craps together in front of the bank building in Bridgeboro and his brother had looked just that same way when he watched the street for stray policemen. Funny that he should think of that just now. The sailor (or whatever he was) gave Tom a shove to get him out of the way so that he could crawl under the berth.

And still Tom watched them dazedly. He was thinking of something that Mr. Ellsworth, his scoutmaster, had once said—that blood is thicker than water. As nearly as he could make out, that meant that after all a fellow's own people came first—before anything else. He had great respect for Mr. Ellsworth.

The man in the sailor suit picked up the plate of food from the berth and slung the whole business into the basin. The jangle of the dish startled Tom and roused him. The others didn't seem to mind it. They had more important things to think of than a mess plate.

And Tom Slade, captain's mess boy and former scout, went on thinking.



CHAPTER XIII

HE PONDERS AND DECIDES BETWEEN TWO NEAR RELATIONS

When Tom at length did speak his own voice sounded strange to him; but he said what he had to say with a simple straightforwardness which in ordinary circumstances would have carried conviction.

"If you'd let me say something," he said, trying to keep his throat clear, "I'd like to tell you——"

"It's the best thing, sonny," said the man in the sailor suit; "you needn't be afraid of squealing. How old are you?"

"Seventeen," said Tom, "but it wasn't squealing I was thinking about. I ain't a-scared, if that's what you think."

He avoided looking at his brother, who tried to catch his eye, and the men, perhaps seeing this and thinking it might be fruitful to let him say what he would in his own way, relaxed a trifle toward him.

"While you were searching," Tom went on, hesitating, but still showing something of his old stolid manner, "I wasn't a-scared, but I was thinking—I had to think about something—before I could decide what I ought to do."

"All right, sonny," said the man in the sailor clothes. "I'm glad you know what's best for you. Out with it. You've got a key to that porthole, eh? Now where is it?"

"You had a flashlight and threw it out, didn't you?" added the officer. "Come now."

Tom looked from one to the other. His brother began to speak but was peremptorily silenced.

"It ain't knowin' what's good for me," Tom managed to say, "'cause as soon as I—as soon as I—made up my mind about that—then right away I knew what I ought to do——"

He gulped and looked straight at the officer so as not to meet his brother's threatening look.

"I had to decide it myself—'cause—'cause Mr. Ellsworth—a man I know—ain't here. Maybe a feller's own family come first and I wouldn't—I wouldn't—tell on 'em—if—if they stole—or something like that," he blurted out, twisting his fingers together. "And—and—I didn't forget neither—I didn't," he added, turning and looking his brother straight in the face, "I didn't—I——"

He broke down completely and the men stared at him, waiting.

"Anyway—anyway—I got to remember——" He broke off.

"Well, what became of the light?" the officer urged rather coldly.

"And when you saw me standing on the—deck—last night—I was thinking about Uncle Sam——" He gulped and hesitated, then went on, "and—and—that's what made me think about Uncle Sam being a relation too—kind of—and I got to decide between my brother and my uncle—like." He gulped again and shook his head with a kind of desperate resolution. "There—there it is," he almost shouted, pointing at the scattered sandwich and the mess plate in the wash basin. "You—picked it up twice," he added with a kind of reckless triumph, "and you didn't know it."

"What?" said the captain, with a puzzled look at his companions, as if he were a little doubtful of Tom's sanity.

"There it is," Tom repeated, controlling himself better now that the truth was out. "He held it—up there—so's the light would shine in the glass. There ain't anything except that. It's—it's the same idea as a periscope. He said it in a letter that I gave Mr. Conne—and—and I found out what he meant. I—I didn't know he was——"

Trying desperately to master his feeling he broke down and big tears rolled down his cheeks. "I couldn't help it," he said to his brother. "It ain't 'cause I don't remember—but—I had to decide—and I got to stand by Uncle Sam!"

"If you didn't know about this," said the captain, watching him keenly, "how did you suspect it? You'd better try to control yourself and tell everything. This is a very serious matter."

"You see that piece of cotton waste that you kicked?" said Tom, turning upon the disguised government agent. "You can see it's fresh and hasn't got any oil on it. You can see from the flat place on it how it was used to polish the dish. I ain't——" he gulped. "I ain't going to talk about my brother—but I got to tell about the papers he's got somewhere. The same person that said it was like a periscope said something about having plans of a motor. I got to tell that, and I ain't going to say any more about him. So now he can't do any more harm. And—and I want you to please go away," he burst forth, "because I—I got to tell him about how our mother died—'cause maybe he didn't—get the letter."



CHAPTER XIV

HE IS ARRESTED AND PUT IN THE GUARDHOUSE

But of course his brother had received that letter. The circumstances of his mother's death were the least of his troubles now and he must have thought his young brother very innocent and sentimental. He did not understand Tom's wanting to talk about their mother's death any more than Tom understood how Bill could be a spy and a traitor.

In short, the wily, self-seeking Bill, who would stop at nothing, probably thought his brother had a screw loose, as the saying is, and perhaps that is what the others thought also.

Tom was never very lucid in explanation, and his emotion had made his surprising story choppy and unsatisfactory. His explanation of the use of the plate and of the telltale piece of cotton which his keen eyes had not missed, seemed plausible enough, and fell like a bomb-shell among his questioners.

But they did not give him credit for his discovery nor even for his apparent innocence. It was, as the captain had said, a serious business, and Uncle Sam was taking no chances where spies and traitors were concerned. Probably they thought Tom was a weak-minded tool of his shrewder brother.

"Well," said the officer rather curtly, "I'm glad you told the truth. If you had told me the truth last night when I caught you up there, it would have been better for you. Still, confession made at bay is better than none," he said to the captain, adding as he left the room, "I'll have a squad down."

William Slade sat upon the berth, glaring at the detective who stood guarding the doorway. He looked vicious enough with his disheveled hair and sooty face and the dirty jumper such as the under engineers wore. Tom wondered when he had come east and how he had fallen in with his old patron, Adolf Schmitt.

And this was his own brother! Evidently William had been in the German spy service for some time, for he had learned the rule of absolute silence when discovered and he had even acquired some of that lowering sullenness which sets the Teuton apart from all other beings.



Presently there came the steady footfalls of soldiers in formation and a sudden fear seized upon Tom.

"They—they ain't going to arrest me, are they?" he asked, with alarm in every line of his ordinarily expressionless face.

"Put you both in the guardhouse," said the captain briefly.[2]

"Didn't you—didn't you—believe me?" Tom pleaded simply and not without some effect.

"You and your brother get your jobs together?" the captain asked.

"Mr. Conne, who's in the Secret Service, got me mine," Tom said.

"Who did he recommend you to?" asked the detective.

Tom hesitated a moment. "To Mr. Wessel, the steward," he said.

"Humph! Too bad Mr. Wessel died. You'll both have to go to the guardhouse."

Tom saw there was no hope for him. For a moment he struggled, drawing a long breath in pitiful little gulps. If he had followed Mr. Conne's advice he would not be in this predicament. But where then might the great transport be? Who but he, captain's mess boy, had saved the ship and showed these people how the light——

"It makes me feel like——" he began. "Can't I—please—can't I not be arrested—please?"

Neither man answered him. Presently the door opened and four soldiers entered. One of them was "Pickles," who had nicknamed Tom "Tombstone," because he was so sober. But he was not Pickles now; he was just one of a squad of four, and though he looked surprised he neither smiled nor spoke.

"Pickles," said Tom. "I ain't—You don't believe——"

But Pickles had been too long in training camp to forget duty and discipline so readily and the only answer Tom got was the dull thud of Pickles' rifle butt on the floor as the officer uttered some word or other.

That thud was a good thing for Tom. It seemed to settle him into his old stolid composure, which had so amused the boys in khaki.

Side by side with his brother, whom so long ago he could not bear to see "licked," he marched out and along the passage, a soldier in front, one behind and one at either side. How strange the whole thing seemed!

His brother who had gone out to Arizona when Tom was just a bad, troublesome little hoodlum! And here they were now, marching silently side by side, on one of Uncle Sam's big transports, with four soldiers escorting them! Both, the nephews of Uncle Job Slade who had died in the Soldiers' Home and had been buried with the Stars and Stripes draped over his coffin.

Two things stood out in Tom Slade's memory, clearest of all, showing how unreasonable and contrary he was. Two lickings. One that made him mad and one that made him glad—and that he was proud of. The licking that his brother had got, when he could, as he had told honest Pete Connigan, "feel the madness way down in his fingers." And the licking his father had given him for not hanging out the flag.

"Zey must be all fine people to haf' such a boy," Frenchy had said. He hoped he would not see Frenchy now.

But he was to be spared nothing. The second cabin saloon was filled with soldiers and they stared in amazement as the little group marched through, the steady thud, thud, of the guards' heavy shoes emphasized by the wondering stillness. Tom shuffled along with his usual clumsy gait, looking neither to right nor left. Up the main saloon stairway they went, and here, upon the top carpeted step sat Frenchy chatting with another soldier. He was such a hand to get off into odd corners for little chats! He stared, uttered an exclamation, then remembered that he was a soldier and caught himself. But he turned and following the little procession with astonished eyes until they disappeared.

The guardhouse was the little smoking-room where Tom and Frenchy had sat upon the sill and talked and Frenchy had given him the iron button. Into the blank darkness of this place he and his brother were marched, and all through that long, dreadful night Tom could hear a soldier pacing back and forth, back and forth, on the deck just outside the door.

FOOTNOTE:

[2] The custom of putting arrested persons in the "brig" on liners and transports was discontinued by reason of the danger of their losing their lives without chance of rescue, in the event of torpedoing. The present rule is that the guardhouse must be above decks and a living guard must always be at hand.



CHAPTER XV

HE DOES MOST OF THE TALKING AND TAKES ALL THE BLAME

Tramp, tramp, tramp—all through the endless, wakeful hours he heard that soldier marching back and forth, back and forth, outside the door. Every sound of those steady footfalls was like a blow, stinging afresh the cruel wound which had been opened in his impassive nature. He was under arrest and under guard. If he should try to get out that soldier would order him to halt, and if he didn't halt the soldier would shoot him. He wondered if the guard were Pickles.

He did not think at all about his deductive triumph now. And he did not care much about what they would do with him. He wondered a little what the soldiers would say—particularly Frenchy. But if only his brother would talk to him and ask about their mother he could bear everything else—the dashing of his triumph, the danger he was in, the shame. The shame, most of all.

He did not care so much now about being Sherlock Nobody Holmes—he had had enough of that. And no matter what they thought of "Yankee Doodle Whitey," he knew that he was loyal. Let them think that all his talk of Uncle Job and the flag and his father's patriotism was just bluff—let Frenchy think he had been just deceiving him—he could stand anything, if only his brother would be like a brother to him now that they were alone together.

It was a strange, unreasonable feeling.

Once, only once, in the long night, he tried to make his brother understand.

"Maybe you won't believe me, but I'm sorry," he said; "if you ain't asleep I wish you'd listen—Bill. Now that I told 'em I feel kind of different—I had to tell 'em. I had to decide quick—and I didn't have nobody—anybody—to help me. Maybe you think I was crazy—— Are you listenin'?"

There was no response, but he knew his brother was not asleep.

"It ain't because I wanted 'em to think I was smart—Bill—if you think it was that, you're wrong. And anyway, it didn't show I was so smart—you was smarter, anyway, if it comes to that. I got to admit it. 'Cause you thought about it first—about using the dish. It served me right for thinking I could deduce, and all like that, anyway. You ain't asleep, are you?"

"Aw, shut up!" his brother grunted. "You could 'a' kept me out o' this by keepin' yer mouth shut. But you had to jabber it out, you——. And they'll plug me full of lead."

A cold shudder ran through Tom.

"I got to admit I'm a kind of a (he was going to say traitor, but for his brother's sake he avoided the word). I got to admit I wasn't loyal, too. I wasn't loyal to you, anyway. But I had to decide quick, Bill. And I saw I had to tell 'em. You got to be loyal to Uncle Sam first of all. But—but—— Are you listening, Bill? I ain't mad, anyway. 'Cause Adolf Schmitt's most to blame. It ain't—it ain't 'cause I want to get let off free either, it ain't. I wouldn't care so much now what they did to me, anyway. 'Cause everything is kind of spoiled now about all of us—our family—being so kind of patriotic——"

His brother, goaded out of his sullenness, turned upon him with a tirade of profane abuse, leaving the boy shamed and silent.

And all the rest of that night Tom Slade, whose hand had extinguished the guiding light, perhaps, to some lurking submarine; who had had to "think quick and all by himself," and had decided for his Uncle Sam against his brother Bill, sat there upon the leather settee, feeling guilty and ashamed. He knew that he had done right, but his generous heart could not feel the black, shameless treason of his brother because his own smaller treason stood in the way. He could not see the full guilt of that wretched brother because he felt mean and contemptible himself. Truly, the soldier had hit the nail on the head when he said, "You're all right, Whitey!"

And now, suspected, shamed, sworn at and denounced, even now, as his generous nature groped for some extenuation for this traitor whose scheme he had discovered and exposed, he found it comforting to lay the whole blame and responsibility upon the missing Adolf Schmitt.

"Anyway, he tempted you," he said, though he knew his brother would neither listen nor respond. "Maybe you think I don't know that. He's worse than anybody—he is."

You're all right, Whitey!



CHAPTER XVI

HE SEES A LITTLE AND HEARS MUCH

Toward morning, he fell asleep, and when he awoke the vibration of the engines had ceased, and he heard outside the door of his prison a most uproarious clatter which almost drowned the regular footfalls of the soldier.

He had heard linotype machines in operation—which are not exactly what you would call quiet; he had listened to the outlandish voice of a suction-dredge and the tumultuous clamor of a threshing machine. But this earsplitting clatter was like nothing he had ever heard before.

The door opened and he was thankful to see that the soldier outside was not one of his particular friends. He was silently escorted to the wash room, in the doorway of which the guard waited while Tom refreshed himself after his sleepless night with a grateful bath.

The vessel, as he could see, was moored parallel with the abrupt brick shore of a very narrow canal, with somber, uninviting houses close on either hand. It was as if a ship were tied up along the curb of a street. Up and down the gang planks and back and forth upon the deck hurried men in blouses with great, clumsy wooden shoes upon their feet and now Tom saw the cause of that earsplitting clatter; and he knew that he had reached "over there."

Down on the brick street below the ship, a multitude of children, all in wooden shoes, danced and clattered about, in honor of the ship's arrival, and the windows were full of people waving the Stars and Stripes, calling "Vive l'Amerique!" and trying, with occasional success, to throw loose flowers and little round potatoes with French and American flags stuck in them, onto the deck.

All of the houses looked very dingy and old, and the men in blouses who pushed their clods about on this or that errand upon the troopship, were old, too, and had sad, worn faces. Only the children were joyful.

As Tom went back along the deck, he glanced through a street which seemed to run almost perpendicularly up the side of a thickly built-up hill, and caught a passing glimpse of the open country beyond. France! He wondered whether the "front" were in that direction and how long it would take to get there, and what it looked like. It could not be so very far. Presently he heard a more orderly clatter of wooden shoes and he saw several of the soldiers, who had not yet gone ashore, hurry to the rail.

He did not dare to do that himself, but as he walked he ventured to verge a little toward the vessel's side, and saw below several men in tattered, almost colorless uniforms, marching in line along the brick street, each with a wheelbarrow.

He heard a woman call something from a window in French.

"There's discipline for you, all right," a soldier said.

"You said it," replied another; "it's second nature with 'em."

He gathered that the little procession of laborers were German prisoners, and that the long ingrained habit of marching in step had become so much a part of their natures that they did it now instinctively.

Then he realized that he himself was a prisoner and was in a worse plight than they.

He spent the morning wondering what they would do with him and his brother. Of course they believed him to be the accomplice of his brother. They probably thought he had weakened and told in terror and in hope of clemency. He wondered if they had gone through his brother's luggage yet and whether they had found any papers.

He realized that it seemed almost too much of a coincidence that he and his brother should have happened on the same ship—and in the same stateroom, all by accident. And he knew that his coming down from the deck just after the signal from the destroyer, looked bad. He knew that back home in America Germans had gone to Ellis Island upon less suspicious circumstances than that. But what would they do with an American? In the case of an American it was just plain treason and the punishment for treason is——

A feeling almost of nausea overcame him and he tried to put the dreadful thought away from him.

"Anyway, the whole business is a kind of a mix-up," he told himself; "it don't make any difference what you do—you get in trouble. But I don't blame them so much, 'cause they judge by looks, and that's the only way you can do. Anyway, you got to die some time. I'm glad I found it out and told 'em, 'cause anyway it don't make any difference if they think I confessed or just found it out—as long as they know it. That's the main thing."

With this consoling thought he withdrew into his old stolid self, and was ready to stand up and be shot if that was what they intended to do with him. He did not blame anybody "because it was all a mix-up." If he had chosen to save his brother he might have saved himself. The great ship, with all her brave boys, would have gone down, perhaps, and his brother would have seen to it that they two were saved.

Well, the ship had not gone down, the brave boys who had jollied the life out of him were on their way across country now to die if need be, and who was he, Tom Slade, that he should be concerning himself as to just how or when he should die, or whether he got any credit or not, so long as he had decided right and done what he ought to do?

He would rather have died honorably in the trenches, but if doing Uncle Sam a good turn meant that he must die in disgrace, why then he would die in disgrace, that was all.

The point was the good turn. Once a scout, always a scout.

No one spoke to him all through the day—not even his brother. He heard the hurried comings and goings on the deck, the creaking of the big winches as bag after bag of wheat, bale after bale of cotton, was swung over and lowered upon the brick quay. The little French children who made the neighborhood a bedlam with their gibberish and the outlandish clatter of their wooden shoes; the women who sat in their windows watching these good things being unloaded, as Santa Claus might unload his pack in the bosom of some poor family; the United States officers who were in authority at the port, and all the clamoring rabble which made the ship's vicinity a picnic ground, did not know, of course, that it was because the captain's mess boy had made a discovery and "decided right" that these precious stores were not at the bottom of the ocean.

And the captain's mess boy, whose uncle had fought at Gettysburg, and whose brother was a traitor, could not see the things which were going to help win the war because he was locked up in a little dim room on board, called the guardhouse. He was sitting on the leather settee, his fingers intertwined nervously, gulping painfully now and then, but for the most part, quiet and brave. He did not try to talk with his brother now. He wished he could know the worst right away—what they were going to do with him. Then he would not care so much.

Outside, upon the deck and quay, he could hear much, and he listened with a dull interest. He knew that old Uncle Sam was out there with his sleeves rolled up, making himself mightily at home, chucking wheat and wool and cotton and sugar and stuff out of the hold, slewing it, hoisting it, and letting it down plunk onto France! The boys in khaki were on trains already. He could hear the silly, piping screech of the French locomotives. His mind was half numbed, but he hoped that all this would encourage those French people and remind them that before Uncle Sam rolled down his sleeves again, he intended to bat out a home run.

Sometimes he became frightened, but he tried not to think of what lay before him. He believed that his brother would drag him down to his own shameful punishment, but he told himself that he didn't care.

"Anyway, I did my bit. I wish—I kinder wish I could have seen Frenchy again. But I ain't scared. I just as soon—stand—up—and be—— 'Cause I ain't much, anyway——. And it ain't—it ain't for me to decide how I ought to die."



CHAPTER XVII

HE AWAITS THE WORST AND RECEIVES A SURPRISE

After a while the monotony was broken by two soldiers coming to take his brother away. Tom did not know where they were taking him; it might be to court martial and death. He knew nothing about court martial, whether it was a matter of minutes or hours or days, only he knew that everything in military administration was quick, severe and thorough. He wanted to speak to his brother, but he did not dare, and after the grim little procession was gone he listened to the steady, ominous footfalls, as they receded along the deck.

Soon they would come for him, and he made up his mind that he would be master of himself and at the last minute he would hold his head up and look straight at them, just like the statue of Nathan Hale which he had seen....

He realized fully now that he had been caught in the meshes of his brother's intrigue, and that there was no hope for him. To have saved himself he would have had to spare his brother and allow the intriguing to go on. Well, it made no difference—here he was. "And it ain't so much, anyway," he said, "if one boy like me does get misjudged, as long as the ship is saved and those papers about the motor were found."

So he tried to comfort himself, sitting there alone, twisting his fingers and gulping now and then. All his fine, patriotic memories of the Slades were knocked in the head, but even in these lonely hours he was stanch for Uncle Sam. Uncle Sam might make a mistake—a terrible mistake, as he presently would do—"but anyway he's more important than I am," he said.

Occasionally he listened wistfully to the sounds outside and they made him wish he could see as well as hear. He heard the creaking of the busy pulleys, the men calling "Yo-o-ho!" as they handled the winch-ropes, the dull thud of the heavy bales upon the quay, the cheerful, lusty calls of the workers, the loud voices of the French people, and that incessant accompaniment of all, the clatter, clatter, clatter, of wooden shoes.

Sometimes he would lose his mastery of himself and regain it only to listen again, wistfully, longingly. He hoped those German prisoners who walked as if they were wound up with a key, noticed all this hurry and bustle. They would soon see what it meant for Uncle Sam.

There were voices outside and Tom's heart beat like a hammer. Could it be over so soon? The door opened a little and he could see that someone was holding the knob, talking to a soldier. He breathed heavily, his fingers were cold, but he stood up and looked straight before him, bravely. They had come to get him.

Then the door opened wider and a familiar voice greeted him.

"H'lo, Tommy. Well, well! Adventures never cease, huh?"

Tom stood gaping. Through dimmed eyes he saw a cigar (it seemed like the same cigar) cocked up in the corner of Mr. Conne's mouth and that queer, whimsical look on Mr. Conne's face.

"Mr. Conne——" he stammered. "I didn't know—you was—here. You don't believe it, do you?"

Mr. Conne worked his cigar leisurely over to the other side of his mouth.

"Believe what?"

"That—I'm—a—a spy and—and a traitor." He almost whispered the words.

Mr. Conne smiled exasperatingly and hit him a rap on the shoulder. "Anybody accuse you of being that?"

"That's what they think," said Tom.

"Oh, no, they don't, Tommy. But they've got to be careful. Don't you know they have?"

"I got to go and—get shot—maybe."

"So? Fancy that! Sit down here and tell me the whole business, Tommy. What's it all about?"

"I—got to admit it looks bad——"

"They wouldn't have done anything with you till they saw me, Tommy. Even if they had to take you back to New York. Trouble was, Wessel's dying. How could they prove what you said about me getting you the job?"

He put his arm over Tom's shoulder as they sat down upon the leather settee, and the effect of all the dread and humiliation and injustice and shame welled up in the boy now under that friendly touch and he went to pieces entirely.

"Did you think I didn't know what I was doing when I picked you, Tommy?"

Tom could not answer, but sat there with his breast heaving, his hand on Mr. Conne's knee.

"Did you just find your brother there by accident, Tom?"

"I—I got to be—ashamed——"

"Yes," Mr. Conne said kindly; "you've got to be ashamed of him. But you see, I haven't got to be ashamed of you, have I? How'd you find out about it? Tell me the whole thing, Tom."

And so, sitting there with this shrewd man who had befriended him, Tom told the whole story as he could not have told it to anyone else. He went away back into the old Barrel Alley days, when he had "swiped" apples from Adolf Schmitt and his brother Bill had worked in Schmitt's grocery store. He told how it used to make him mad when his brother "got licked unfair," as he said, and he did not know why Mr. Conne screwed up his face at that. He told about how he "had to decide quick, kind of," when the officers confronted him in his brother's stateroom, and how the thought about Uncle Sam being his uncle had decided him. He told how he had had to keep his face turned away from his brother so that he "wouldn't feel so mean, like." And here again Mr. Conne gave his face another screw and Tom did not understand why. That was one trouble with Tom Slade—he was so thick that he could not understand a lot of things that were perfectly plain to other people.



CHAPTER XVIII

HE TALKS WITH MR. CONNE AND SEES THE BOYS START FOR THE FRONT

"What—what do you think they'll do with him?"

It was the question uppermost in Tom's mind, but he could not bring himself to ask it until his visitor was about to leave.

"Why, that's hard to say, Tommy," Mr. Conne answered kindly but cautiously; then after a moment's silence he added, "I'll strain a point and tell you something because—well, because you're entitled to know. But you must keep it very quiet. They hope to learn much more from him than he has told, but they found in his luggage a lot of plans and specifications of the 'Liberty Motor.'"

"I'm glad," said Tom simply.

"Of course, we suspected from the letters sent to Schmitt that somebody had such plans, but we had no clue as to who it was. You grabbed more than the dish when you put your hand through that transom, Tommy. You got hold of the plans of the 'Liberty Motor' too."

"I didn't take your advice," said Tom ruefully; "I got a good lesson."

"That's all right, my boy. You've got a brain in your head and you did a good job. It'll all go to your credit, and the other part won't be remembered. So you try not to think of it."

"They won't kill him, will they?"

"They won't do anything just at present, my boy. Now put your mind on your work and don't think of anything else——"

"Have I got my job yet?"

"Why, certainly," Mr. Conne laughed; "I'll see you again, Tommy. Good-by."

* * * * *

And Tom tried this time to follow his advice. He was soon released and the officer, whom he had so feared, was good enough to say, "You did well and you've had a pretty tough experience." The captain spoke kindly to him, too, and all the ship's people seemed to understand. The few soldiers who had not yet been sent forward to billets near the front, did not jolly him or even refer to his detective propensities. They did not even mimic him when he said "kind of," as they had done before.

He had little to do during the ship's brief stay in port and Mr. Conne, who was there on some mysterious business, showed him about the quaint old French town and treated him more familiarly than he had ever done before. For Tom Slade had received his first wound in the great war and though it was long in healing, it yielded to kindness and sympathy, and these everyone showed him.

And so there came a day when he and Mr. Conne stood upon the platform amid a throng of French people and watched the last contingent of the boys as they called back cheerily from the queer-looking freight cars which were to bear them up through the French country to that mysterious "somewhere"—the most famous place in France.

"So long, Whitey!" they called. "See you later."

"Good-by, Tommy, old boy; hope the tin fish don't get you going back!"

"Hurry up back and bring some more over, Whitey!"

"Bon voyage!"

"Au revoir!"

"Give my regards to Broadway, Whitey."

"Cheer up, Whitey, old pal. Kaiser Bill'll be worse off than you are when we get at him."

"N'importe, Whitey."

"I'll be there," called Tom.

"Venez donc!" some one answered, amid much laughter.

The last he saw of them they were waving their hats to him and making fun of each other's French. He watched the train wistfully until it passed out of sight.

"They seem to like you, Tommy," Mr. Conne smiled. "Is that a new name, Whitey?"

"Everybody kinder always seems to give me nicknames," said Tom. "I've had a lot of people jolly me, but never anybody so much as those soldiers—not even the scouts. I'll miss 'em going back."

"The next lot you bring over will be just the same, Tom. They'll jolly you, too."

"I don't mind it," said Tom. "But one thing I was thinking——"

Mr. Conne rested his hand on Tom's shoulder and smiled very pleasantly at him. He seemed to be going out of his way these days to befriend him and to understand him.

"It's about how you get to know people and get to like them, kind of, and then don't see them any more. That feller, Archibald Archer, that worked on the other ship I was on—I'd like to know where he is if he's alive. I liked that feller."

"It's a big world, Tom."

"Maybe I might see him again some time—same as I met my—my brother."

"Perhaps," said Mr. Conne, cheerily. "It's always the unexpected that happens, you know."

"I saw you again, anyway."

"Yes, you can't get away from me."

"And Frenchy—maybe I'll never see him any more. He's got people that live in Alsace; he told me all about them. He hasn't heard from them since the war first began.—Gee, I hope Germany has to give Alsace back to France—just for his sake!"

Mr. Conne laughed.

"Most of the people there stick up for France in their hearts, only they dasn't show it. He gave me this button; it's made out of a cannon, and it means the French people there got to help you."

"Hmm—hang on to it."

"You bet I'm going to. But maybe he wouldn't like now, even if I met him again—after what he knows——"

"Look here, Tom. You'll be sailing in a day or so and when you come back I'll probably be in Washington. Perhaps you'll wish to enlist over here soon. I'm going to give you a little button, kind of, as you would say—to keep in your head. And this is it. Remember, there's only one person in the world who can disgrace Tom Slade, and that is Tom Slade himself."

He slapped Tom on the shoulder, and they strolled up the dingy, crooked street, past the jumble of old brown houses, until it petered out in a plain where there was a little cemetery, filled with wooden crosses.

"Those poor fellows all did their bit," said Mr. Conne.

Tom looked silently at the straight rows of graves. He seemed to be getting nearer and nearer to the war.

"How far is the front?" he asked.

"Not as far as from New York to Boston, Tom. Straight over that way is Paris. When you get past Paris you begin to see the villages all in ruins,—between the old front and the new front."

"I've hiked as far as that."

"Yes, it isn't far."

"Do you know where our boys are—what part of it?"

"Yes, I know, but I'm not going to tell you," Mr. Conne laughed. "You'd like to be there, I suppose."

For a few moments Tom did not answer. Then he said in his old dull way, "I got a right to go now. I got a right to be a soldier, to make up for—him. The next time I get back here I'm going to join. If we don't get back for six weeks, then I'll be eighteen. I made up my mind now."

Mr. Conne laughed approvingly and Tom gazed, with a kind of fascination, across the pleasant, undulating country.

"I could even hike it," he repeated; "it seems funny to be so near."

But when finally he did reach the front, it was over the back fence, as one might say, and after such an experience as he had never dreamed of.



CHAPTER XIX

HE IS CAST AWAY AND IS IN GREAT PERIL

"They're more likely to spill the cup when it's empty," said the deck steward, who was a sort of walking encyclopedia to Tom.

"I suppose that's because we haven't got such a good convoy going back," Tom said.

"That and high visibility. You see, the less there is in the ship, the higher she sets up in the water, and the higher she sets the better they can see her. We're in ballast and floating like a balloon. They get better tips about westbound ships, too. All the French ports are full of German agents. They come through Switzerland."

The first day out on the voyage homeward was very rough. At about dusk Tom was descending the steps from the bridge with a large tray when he saw several of the ship's people (whose time was pretty much their own on the westward trip) hurrying to the rail. One of them called to him, "We're in for it;" but Tom was not alarmed, for by this time he was too experienced a "salt" to be easily excited.

"You can see the wake!" someone shouted.

There was a sudden order on the bridge, somebody rushed past him and then the tray, with all its contents, went crashing upon the steps and Tom staggered against the stair-rail and clung to it.

The ship was struck—struck as if by a bolt out of the sky.

He had been through this sort of thing before and he was not scared. He was shocked at the suddenness of it, but he kept his head and started across the deck for his emergency post, aft. Everyone seemed to be running in that direction.

He knew that however serious the damage, there was but small danger to life, since the convoy was at hand and since there were so very few people upon the ship; there were life-boats enough, without crowding, for all on board.

But the impact, throwing him down the steps, as it did, had caused him to twist his foot and he limped over to the rail for its assistance in walking. Men were now appearing in life-preservers, and hovering impatiently in the vicinity of the lifeboat davits, but he heard no orders for manning the boats and he was distinctly aware of the engines still going.



He hobbled along, holding the rail, intent upon reaching the davits astern, where the third officer would give him orders, when suddenly there was a splitting sound, the rail gave way, he struggled to regain his balance and went headlong over the side, still clutching the piece of rail which he had been leaning on.

He had the presence of mind to keep hold of it and to swim quickly away from the vessel, trying to shout as he swam; but the sudden ducking had filled his mouth with water and he could do little more than splutter.

He could see as he looked up that one of the upright stanchions which at once strengthened the rail and supported the deck above, was in splinters and it was this that had weakened the rail so that it gave way. Vaguely he remembered reading of a submarine which, after despatching a torpedo, had tried by gunfire to disable the steering apparatus of a ship, and he wondered if that was the cause of the shattered stanchion.

He would not have believed that one could be carried out of hearing so rapidly, but before he realized it, he was thrown down into the abysmal depths of a great sea with only a towering wall of black water to be seen, and when he was borne up on the crest of another great roller he saw the ship and her convoy at what seemed a great distance from him.

The vessels had seemed far apart from his viewpoint on deck, but now, so great was his distance from them, that they seemed to form a very compact flotilla and the hurried activities on the stricken vessel were not visible at all.

He shouted lustily through the gathering dusk, but without result. Again and again he called, till his head throbbed from the exertion. He could see the smoke now, from his own vessel he thought, and he feared that she was under way, headed back to France.

Later, when he was able to think connectedly at all, it was a matter of wonder to him that he could have been carried so far in so short a time, for he was not familiar with the fact known to all sailors that each roller means a third of a mile and that a person may be carried out of sight on the ocean in five minutes.

He could discover no sign now of the flotilla except several little columns of smoke and he realized that the damage to the Montauk could not be serious and that they were probably making for the nearest French port.

Tom was an expert swimmer, but this accomplishment was, of course, of no avail now. He was nearly exhausted and his helplessness encouraged the fatal spirit of surrender. With a desperate impulse he all but cast the broken rail from him, resigned to struggle no more with its uncertain buoyancy, which yielded to his weight and submerged him with every other motion which he made.

Then he had an idea. Dragging from the wood was part of the rope network which had been the under part of the ship's rail. It was stiff with paint. Grasping it firmly in his mouth he managed to get his duck jacket off and this he spread across the stiff network, floating the whole business, jacket underneath, so that the painted rope netting acted as a frame to hold the jacket spread out.

To his delight, he found this very buoyant, and with the strip of wood which he lashed across it with his scarf and belt it was almost as good as a life-preserver. He had to be careful to keep it flat upon the water, for as soon as one edge went under the whole thing acted like the horizontal rudders of a submarine. But he soon got the hang of managing it and it was not half bad.



CHAPTER XX

HE IS TAKEN ABOARD THE "TIN FISH" AND QUESTIONED

And then he saw it. Whether it had been near him all the time he did not know. It was in the same wave-valley with himself and seemed to be looking at him. Even before there was any sign of human life upon it, it seemed to be standing off there just looking at him, and there was something uncanny about it. It looked like the little flat cupola of the town hall at home, only it was darker, and on top of it two long things stood up like flagpoles. And it bobbed and moved and just stood there—looking at him.

A life boat might have a name instead of a number but it could not look at him like that.

Then he saw that it was nearer to him, although he could not exactly see it move. On top of it were two persons, one of whom appeared to be looking at him through a long glass. Tom wished that he could see the rest of it—the part underneath—for then it would not seem so unnatural.

Then one of the men called to him through a megaphone and he was possessed by an odd feeling that it was the thing itself speaking and not the man upon it.

"Speak German?"

"No," Tom called, "I'm American."

He waited, thinking they would either shoot him or else go away and leave him. Then the man called, "Lift up your feet!"

This strange mandate made the whole thing seem more unreal, and he would not have been surprised to be told next to stand on his head. But he was not going to take any chances with a Teuton and he raised his feet as best he could, while the little tower came closer—closer, until it was almost upon him.

Suddenly his feet caught in something, throwing him completely over, and as he frantically tried to regain his position his feet encountered something hard but slippery.

"Vell, vot did I tell you, huh?" the man roared down at him.

Tom was almost directly beneath him now, walking, slipping, and scrambling to his feet again, while this grim personage looked down at him like Humpty Dumpty from his wall. The whole business was so utterly strange that he could hardly realize that he was standing, or trying to stand, waist deep, at the conning tower of a German submarine. By all the rules of the newspapers and the story books, his approach should have been dramatic, but it was simply a sprawling, silly progress.

Of course, he knew how it was now. The U-boat was only very slightly submerged, and evidently the removable hand rail had not been stowed and it was that on which his feet had caught and which had caused his inglorious aquatic somersault. He had walked, or stumbled, over the submerged deck and now stood, a drenched and astonished figure, beneath his rescuers—or his captors.

The man lowered a rope which had something like a horse's stirrup hanging to it and into this Tom put his foot, at the same time grasping the rope, and was helped up somewhat roughly.

Upon the top was a little hatch in which the man was standing, like a jack in the box, and now he went down an iron ladder with Tom after him.

"You off der Montauk, huh?" he said.

"Yes, sir," said Tom, "I fell off."

"Vell, you haf' good loock."

Tom did not know whether to consider himself lucky or not, but it occurred to him that the domineering manner of his captors might not be an indication of their temper. And the realization of this was to prove useful to him afterward for he found that with the Germans a not unkindly intention was often expressed with glowering severity. He made up his mind that he would not be afraid of him.

The iron ladder descended into a compartment where there was much electrical apparatus, innumerable switches, etc., and two steering gears. In front of each of these was a thing to look into, having much the appearance of a penny in the slot machine, in which one sees changing views. These he knew for the lower ends of the two periscopes. There was an odor in the place which made him think of a motorcycle.

A door in the middle of this apartment, forward, led into a tiny, immaculate galley, with utensils which fitted into each other for economy in space, like a camping outfit. Here a parrot hung in a cage—strange home for a bird of the air!

Another door, midway in the opposite side of the galley, opened into a narrow aisle which ran forward through the center of the boat, with berths on either side, like the arrangement of a sleeping-car. In one of these squatted two men, in jumpers, playing a card game.

The length of this aisle seemed to Tom about half the length of a railroad car. Through it his rescuer led him to a door which opened into a tiny compartment, furnished with linoleum, a flat desk, three stationary swivel chairs and a leather settee. It was very hot and stuffy, with an oily smell, but cosy and spotlessly clean.

Directly across this compartment was another central door with something printed in German above it. The man knocked, opened this door, spoke to someone, then came back and went away in the direction from which they had come.

Tom stood in the little compartment, not daring to sit down. He seemed to be in a strange world, like that of the Arabian Nights. He did not know whether the boat had descended or was still awash, or had come boldly up to the surface. He knew that the tower through the hatch of which he had descended was about in the middle, and that he had been taken from that point almost to the bow. He thought this cosy little room must be the commander's own private lair, and that probably the commander's sleeping quarters lay beyond that door. Forward of that must be the torpedo compartments. As to what lay astern, he supposed the engines were there and the stern torpedo tubes, but the Teutons were so impolite that they never showed him and all Tom ever really saw of the interior of a German U-boat was the part of it which he had just traversed, and which in a general sort of way reminded him of a sleeping-car with the odor of a motorcycle.

Presently, the forward door opened, and a young man with a very sallow complexion entered. He wore a kind of dark blue jumper, the only semblance of which to a uniform was that its few buttons were of brass. He was twirling his mustache and looked at Tom with very keen eyes.

"Vell, we are not so pad, huh? Ve don'd kill you!"

Tom did not know exactly what to say, so he said, "I got to thank you."

The man motioned to the settee and Tom sat down while he seated himself in one of the swivel chairs.

"Vell, vot's der matter?" he said, seeing Tom shiver.

"I'm wet," said Tom; adding, "but I don't mind it."

The man continued to look at him sharply. His questions were peremptory, short, crisp.

"You had a vite jacket?"

"Yes, sir. I made a kind of a life preserver out of it."

Tom suspected that they had seen him long before he had seen them and that they had watched his struggles in the water.

"Steward's poy, huh?"

"I was captain's mess boy. The railing was broke and I never noticed it, so I fell overboard. I don't think anybody else got hurt," he added.

The man twirled his mustache, still with his keen eyes fixed on Tom.

"You bring ofer a lot of droops?" It was a question, but he did not keep his voice raised at the end, as one asking a question usually does. In this sense a German never asks a question. He seemed to be making an announcement and expecting Tom to confirm it.

"Quite a lot," said Tom.

"Two thousand, huh?"

"I couldn't count them, there were so many."

"How many trips you make?"

"This was my first on a transport," said Tom.

"Huh. You make Brest? Vere?"

"It wasn't Brest," said Tom, "and I ain't supposed to tell you."

"Vell, I ain't supposed to rescue you neither."

"If you'd asked me before you rescued me, even then I wouldn't of told you," said Tom simply.

"Huh. You talk beeg. Look out!"

And still he twirled his mustache.

"Dey catch a spy, huh?"

"Yes, they did," said Tom, feeling very much ashamed and wondering how his questioner knew. Then it occurred to him that this very U-boat had perhaps been watching for the signal light, and it gave him fresh satisfaction to remember that he had perhaps foiled this man who sat there twirling his mustache.

The commander did not pursue this line of inquiry, supposing, perhaps, that a mess boy would not be informed as to such matters, but he catechised Tom about everything else, foiled at every other question by the stolid answer, "I ain't supposed to tell you." And he could not frighten or browbeat or shake anything out of him.

At length, he desisted, summoned a subordinate and poured a torrent of German gibberish at him, the result of which was that Tom's wet clothes were taken from him and he was ushered to one of the berths along the aisle, presumably there to wait until they dried.

He was sorry that they would not let him accompany his wet clothing aft where the engines were, but he was relieved to find that he was evidently not going to be thrown back into the ocean.



CHAPTER XXI

HE IS MADE A PRISONER AND MAKES A NEW FRIEND

It was just another German mistake in diplomacy or strategy or browbeatery, or whatever you may call it. Tom had been rescued for the information which he might give, and he gave none. It was not that he was so clever, either. A fellow like Frenchy could have squeezed a whole lot out of him without his realizing it, but Captain von Something-or-other didn't know how to do it. And having failed, perhaps it was to his credit that he did not have Tom thrown back into the ocean.

Tom would have liked to know whether the boat was still awash or completely submerged. Above all, he was anxious to know what they intended to do with him. The fact that the boat did not pitch or roll at all made him think that it must be far below these surface disturbances, but he did not dare to ask.

When his clothes were returned to him he was given a piece of rye bread and a cup of coffee, which greatly refreshed him, and he lay in one of the bunks along the long aisle watching two of the Germans who were playing cribbage. Once the commander came through like a conductor and as he passed Tom he said, "Vell, you haf' more room soon."

He said it in his usual gruff, decisive tone, but Tom felt that he had intended to be agreeable and he wondered what he meant.

After a while he fell asleep and slept the sleep of utter exhaustion. When he awoke there was no one about, but he heard voices outside, talking in German. Presently a soldier in one of the familiar German helmets came in and beckoned to him.

Tom followed him up the iron ladder, out through the hatch and down another little ladder which was leaning against the outside of the conning tower. The deck was quite free of the water and already it was cluttered with tanks and cases ready to be stowed aboard. On either side, ranged sideways in a long row, as if they were ready to start on a race, were other U-boats, as many as thirty Tom thought, their low decks the scene of much activity.

On the wharf was a long line of hand trucks, each bearing what he supposed to be a torpedo, and these looked exactly like miniature submarines, minus the conning tower.

These things he saw in one hurried, bewildered glance, for he was allowed no opportunity for observation. Scarcely had he stepped off the deck when two lame soldiers took him in hand. Another soldier, who was not lame, stepped in front of him and he was directed by an officer who managed the affair and spoke very good English, to keep his eyes upon the little spire of that soldier's helmet. What he saw thereafter, he saw only through the corners of his eyes, and these things consisted chiefly of German signs on buildings.

In this formation, with Tom's eyes fixed upon the little shiny spire before him, a lame soldier limping on either side and an officer in attendance, they marched to a stone building not far distant. Here he was ushered into a room where two men in sailor suits and three or four in oilskins sat about on benches. Two crippled soldiers guarded the door and another, who stood by an inner door, wore a bandage about his head.



"Blimy, I thought I was 'avin' me eyes tested," said one of the sailors. "It's a bloomin' wonder they don't clap a pair o' blinders on yer and be done with it!"

Tom had not expected to hear any English spoken and it had never sounded so good to him before. The sailor did not seem to be at all awed by the grim surroundings, and his freedom from restraint was comforting to Tom who had felt very apprehensive. He was soon to learn that the most conspicuous and attractive thing about a British sailor or soldier is his disposition to take things as he finds them and not to be greatly concerned about anything.

"Hi, Fritzie," he added, addressing one of the soldiers, "are we for Wittenberg or carn't yer s'y?" The guard paid no attention.

"It's no difference," said one of the men in oilskins.

"It's a bloomin' lot o' difference," said the sailor, "whether you're civilian or not, I can jolly well tell you! It's a short course in Wittenberg—there and Slopsgotten, or wotever they calls it. And the Spanish Ambassador, 'e calls to inquire arfter yer 'ealth every d'y. Hi there, Fritzie, 'ave we long to wite, old pal?"

As there seemed to be no objection to this freedom of speech, Tom ventured a question.

"Is this Germany?"

"Germany? No, it's the Cannibal Islands," said the sailor, and everyone except the guard laughed.

"You're not from Blighty,[3] eh?" the sailor asked.

"I'm American," said Tom; "I was ship's boy on a transport and I fell off and a U-boat picked me up."

"You're in Willlamshaven," the sailor told him, expressing no surprise at his experience.

"He's civilian," said one of the men in oilskins. "He's safe."

"Mybe, and mybe not," said the sailor; "'ow old are yer?"

"Seventeen," said Tom.

"Transports aren't civilian," said the sailor.

"Ship's boys are not naval in American service."

"It's the ige of yer as does it," the sailor answered. "I'll wiger you me first package from 'ome 'e goes to Slopsgotten."

"What is Slopsgotten?" Tom asked.

"It's the ship's boys' 'eaven."

"I guess it ain't so good," said the man.

"It's a grite big rice track," said the sailor. "Me cousin was there afore the Yanks came in. Mr. Gerard 'e got him exchinged. They got a 'ole army o' Yanks there now—all civilian."

"Is it a prison camp?" said Tom.

"A bloomin' sailors' 'ome."

"Were you captured?" Tom asked.

"We're off a bloomin' mine l'yer," the sailor answered, including his companion; "nabbed in the channel—'i, Freddie?"

"An' I 'ad tickets in me pocket to tike me girl to the pl'y in Piccadilly that night. Mybe she's witing yet," responded Freddie.

"Let 'er wite. Hi, Fritzie, we're a-goin' to add four shillins' to the bloomin' indemnity, to p'y fer the tickets!"

Further conversation with this blithesome pair elicited the information that they had been taken by a German destroyer while in a small boat in the act of mine inspecting, and that the men in oilskins (the one who had spoken being an American) were captives taken from a sunken British trawler.

One by one these prisoners were passed into an inner room where each remained for about five minutes. When the sailor came out, he held up a brass tag which had been fastened with a piece of wire to his buttonhole.

"I got me bloomin' iron cross," he said, "and I'm a-goin' to mike me 'ome in Slops! Kipe yer fingers crossed w'en yer go in there, Yank; tike me advice!"

"I hope I go there too if you're going," said Tom, "'cause you make it seem not so bad, kind of, bein' a prisoner."

"Hi, Fritzie!" the sailor called. "I got me reward for 'eroism!"

But apparently the German soldier could not appreciate these frivolous references to the sacred iron cross, for he glowered upon the young Englishman, and turned away with a black look.

"Hi, Fritzie, cawrn't yer tike a joke?" the sailor persisted.

Tom thought it must be much better fun to be an English soldier than a German soldier. And he thought this good-natured prisoner would be able to hold his own even against a great Yankee drive—of jollying.

FOOTNOTE:

[3] England.



CHAPTER XXII

HE LEARNS WHERE HE IS GOING AND FINDS A RAY OF HOPE

It seemed to Tom that the two German officials who sat behind a table examining him, asked him every question which could possibly be framed in connection with himself. And when they had finished, and the answers had been written down, they made a few informal inquiries about American troops and transports, which he was thankful that he could not answer. When he returned to the ante-room he had fastened to his buttonhole a brass disk with a number stamped upon it and a German word which was not "Slopsgotten," though it looked as if it might be something like it.

"Let's see," said the sailor; "didn't I jolly well tell yer? Congratulations!"

"Does it mean I go to Slopsgotten?" Tom asked.

"They'll keep us there till the war's over, too," said the one called Freddie. "We'll never get a good whack at Fritzie now."

Tom's heart fell.

"We'll be wittling souveneers out o' wood," Freddie concluded.

"We'll have plenty o' wood," said his comrade. "The old Black Forest's down that w'y."

"It's just north of Alsice," Freddie said.

"A pair o' wire nippers and a bit o' French——"

"Shh," cautioned Freddie.

"We m'y be ible to s'y 'Owdy' to General 'Aig yet."

"Shh! We aren't even there yet."

Tom listened eagerly to this talk and thought much about it afterward. For one whole year he had longed to get into the war. He had waited for his eighteenth birthday as a child waits for Christmas. He had gone on the transport with the one thought of its bringing him nearer to military service. He was going to fight like two soldiers because his brother was—was not a soldier.

And now it appeared that his part in the great war, his way of doing his bit, was to lie in a prison camp until the whole thing was over. That was worse than boring sticks in Bridgeboro and distributing badges. Tom had never quarreled with Fate, he had even been reconciled to the thought of dying as a spy; but he rebelled at this prospect.

Instinctively, as he and his two philosophical companions were placed aboard the train, he reached down into his trousers pocket and found the little iron button which Frenchy had given him. He clutched it as if it were a life preserver, until his hand was warm and sweaty from holding it.

It seemed his last forlorn hope now.



CHAPTER XXIII

HE MAKES A HIGH RESOLVE AND LOSES A FAVORITE WORD

Miss Margaret Ellison, the stenographer in the Temple Camp office, had once pronounced judgment on Tom. It was that if he made up his mind to do a thing he would do it. There was something about his big mouth and his dogged scowl which made this prophecy seem likely of fulfilment.

And now, silently, he threw his challenge down before Fate, before Germany, before barbed wire entanglements—before everything and everybody. He did not know whether they ever paroled ordinary prisoners, but he hoped they would not parole him, because then he would be bound by honor. And he did not want to be bound by honor. He kept his hand in his pocket, grasping his precious button, and it was well that the German officials did not know what was in his mind.

"I ain't goin' to be cheated out of it now," he said to himself; "I don't care what."

All day long they journeyed in the box car, but Tom could see nothing of Germany save an occasional glimpse now and then when the sliding door was opened at the stations, usually to admit more prisoners. Whatever became of the men from the British trawler he never knew, but his jack-tar companions were with him still and helped to keep up his spirits. He never knew them by any other names than Freddie and Tennert—the first name of one and the last name of the other—but so great was his liking for them that it included the whole of sturdy, plodding, indomitable old England into the bargain. They never talked patriotism, and seemed to regard the war merely as a sort of a job that had to be done—just like any other job. Early in the day before the car filled up, Tom talked a good deal with them and as there was no guard inside, the conversation was free.

"When you said, 'Shh'," said Tom at one time, "I knew what you was thinkin' about. I was never in a war," he added innocently, "so I don't know much about it. But if I was sent to jail for—say, for stealing—I wouldn't think I had a right to escape."

"You'd be a pretty honorable sort of a thief," said Freddie.

"But, anyway," said Tom, "I was going to ask you about escapin' from a military prison. That ain't dishonorable, is it?"

"No, strike me blind, it ain't! But it's jolly 'ard!" said Tennert.

"It's fer them to keep yer and fer you to grease off, if you can," said Freddie. "If you give your parole, it's like a treaty——"

"A bloomin' scrap o' piper," interrupted Tennert. "They wouldn't put you on yer honor because they don't know what honor is. It ain't in Fritzie's old dictionary."

Tom was glad to think of it in this way. It's for them to keep you and for you to grease off (which evidently meant "get away"). He had great respect for the opinions of these two Britishers and his mind dwelt upon this only hope even before he had so much as a glimpse of his prison.

He meant to fight with the American forces, in spite of Fate and in spite of Germany. Germany had armed guards and barbed wire entanglements. Tom, on his side, had an iron button, a big mouth, a look of dogged determination, a sense of having been grossly cheated after he had made a considerable investment in time and a good deal of scout pluck and Yankee resource. The only thing that had stood in the way was the question of honor, and that was now settled on the high authority of the British navy! Who but sturdy old John Bull had come forward when Belgium was being violated? And now a couple of John Bull's jack-tars had told him that it was for Germany to keep him and for him to get away if he could.

He was on the point of telling them of his double reason for wanting to escape; that he had to fight for two—himself and his brother. Then he thought he wouldn't for fear they might not understand.

But he made up his mind that henceforth all his efforts and activities should be of double strength—to make up. He would think twice as hard, work twice as hard, fight twice as hard. Above all he would try twice as hard as he otherwise would have done, to get out of this predicament and get to the battlefront. He was glad of his scout training which he thought might help him a great deal now. And he would put every quality he had to the supreme test.

"Do you believe," he asked, after a considerable silence, "that a feller can do more, kind of, if he's doing his own work and—I mean if he thinks he's got to do two people's work—for a special reason?"

Freddie did not seem quite to "get" him, but Tennert answered readily, "You jolly well can! Look at Kippers wot cime 'ome fer orspital treatment arfter Verdoon. 'E lived in Chelsea. 'Is pal got sniped an' Fritzie took 'is shoes. They're awrful short o' shoes. Kippers, 'e s'ys, 'I'll not l'y down me rifle till I plunk[4] a German and get 'is shoes.' Two d'ys arfter 'e comes crawlin' back through No Man's Land and the color sergeant arsks 'im did 'e carry out 'is resolootion. 'Yes,' s'ys 'e, 'but blimy, I 'ad to plunk seven Germans before I could get a pair o' clods to fit me.' 'E was usin' 'is pal's strength too besides 'is own. Any Tommy'll tell yer a lad wot's dyin' on the field can leave 'is fightin' spunk to anyone 'e pleases."

Tom stared open-eyed. He found it easy to believe this superstition of Tommy Atkins'. And he made up his mind anew that he would square matters with Uncle Sam by doing the work of two.

* * * * *

In the afternoon this pleasant chatting was made impossible by the numbers of military prisoners who were herded into the rough box car. They had come far enough south to be abreast of Belgium now and there must lately have been a successful German raid along the Flanders front, for both British and Belgian soldiers were driven aboard by the score. All of the British seemed exactly like Tennert and Freddie, cheerful, philosophical, chatting about Fritzie and the war as if the whole thing were a huge cricket game. Some of these were taken off farther down the line, to be sent to different camps, Tom supposed.

At last, after an all day's ride, they reached their destination. But alas, there was no such place as Slopsgotten! Tom was sorry for this for he liked the name. It sounded funny when his English friends said it. Schlaabgaurtn, was the way he read it on the railroad station. He felt disappointed and aggrieved. He was by no means sure of the letters, and pronunciation was out of the question. He liked Slopsgotten. In Tennert's mouth he had almost come to love it.

It was the only thing about Germany that he liked, and now he had to give it up!

Slopsgotten!

FOOTNOTE:

[4] Kill.



CHAPTER XXIV

HE GOES TO THE CIVILIAN CAMP AND DOESN'T LIKE IT

"'Ere we are in bloomin' old Slops! Not 'arf bad, wot? Another inch and we'd bunk our noses plunk into Alsice! Wot d'ye s'y, Freddie?"

"I s'y it's the back o' the old front. The only thing in the w'y is the mountains. Hi, Yankee! You see 'em? It's the ole mountains out of the song."

Tom looked at a distant range of blue-gray heights. Crossing those somewhere was the battle line—the long, sweeping line which began far off at the Belgian coast. How lonesome and romantic it must be for the soldiers up in those wild hills. Somewhere through there years ago Frenchy had fled from German tyranny and pursuit, away from his beloved ancestral home. Funny, thought Tom, that he should see both the eastern and western extremities of France without ever crossing it.

He was much nearer the front than he had been when he talked with Mr. Conne in the little French cemetery. Yet how much farther away! A prisoner in Germany, with a glowering, sullen Prussian guard at his very elbow!

"We used to sing about them when I went to school," he said. "'The Blue Alsatian Mountains.'"

"I'd jolly well like to be on the other side o' them," said Freddie.

Tom clutched the little iron button in his pocket. Something prompted him to pull a button off his trousers and to work his little talisman into the torn place so that it would look like a suspender button. Then he turned again to gaze at the fair country which he supposed to be one of France's lost provinces—the home of Frenchy.

"There ain't much trouble crossing mountains," said he; "all you need is a compass. I don't know if they have tree-toads here, but I could find out which is north and south that way if they have."

"Blimy, if we don't listen and see if we can 'ear 'em s'ying 'polly voo Fransay' in the trees!" said Tennert.

"But a feller could never get into France that way," said Tom. "'Cause he'd have to cross the battle line. The only way would be to go down around through Switzerland—around the end of the line, kind of."

"Down through Alsice," grunted Tennert.

"'E'd 'ave a 'underd miles of it," said Freddie.

"Unless Fritzie offered 'im a carriage. Hi, Fritzie, w'en do we have tea?"

They made no secret of this dangerous topic—perhaps because they knew the idea of escape from the clutches of Germany was so preposterous. In any event, "Fritzie" did not seem greatly interested.

They were grouped at the station, a woebegone looking lot, despite their blithe demeanor. There were a dozen or more of them, in every variety of military and naval rags and tatters. Tom was coatless and the rest of his clothing was very much the worse for salt water. The sailor suits of his two companions were faded and torn, and Freddie suffered the handicap of a lost shoe. The rest were all young. Tom thought they might be drummer boys or despatch riders, or something like that. Several of them were slightly wounded, but none seriously, for Germany does not bother with prisoners who require much care. They were the residue of many who had come and gone in that long monotonous trip. Some had been taken off for the big camps at Wittenberg and Goettingen. As well as he could judge, he had to thank his non-combatant character as well as his youth for the advantages of "Slopsgotten."

When the hapless prisoners had been examined and searched and relieved of their few possessions, they were marched to the neighboring camp—a civilian camp it was called, although it was hardly limited to that. They made a sad little procession as they passed through the street of the quaint old town. Some jeered at them, but for the most part the people watched silently as they went by. Either they had not the spirit for ridicule, or they were too accustomed to such sights to be moved to comment.

Tom thought he had never in his life seen so many cripples; and instead of feeling sorry for himself his pity was aroused for these maimed young fellows, hanging on crutches and with armless coat sleeves, hollow-eyed and sallow, who braved the law to see the little cavalcade go by. For later he learned that a heavy fine was imposed on these poor wretches if they showed themselves before enemy prisoners, and he wondered where they got the money to pay the fines.

The prison camp was in the form of a great oval and looked as if it might formerly have been a "rice track," as the all-knowing Tennert had said. It was entirely surrounded by a high barbed wire fence, the vicious wire interwoven this way and that into a mesh, the very sight of which must have been forbidding to the ambitious fugitive. It was not, however, electrified as in the strictly military prisons and on the frontiers. Tom was told that this was because it was chiefly a civilian camp, but he later learned that it was because of a shortage of coal.

The buildings which had formerly been stables and open stalls had been converted into living quarters, and odds and ends of lumber gathered from the neighboring town had been used to throw up rough shacks for additional quarters.

Straw was the only bedding and such food as the authorities supplied was dumped onto rusty tin dishes held out by the hungry prisoners. Some of these dishes had big holes in them and when such a plate became unusable it behooved its possessor to make friends with someone whose dish was not so far gone and share it with him. Some of the men carved wooden dishes, for there was nothing much to do with one's time, until their knives were taken from them. The life was one of grinding monotony and utter squalor, and the time which Tom spent there was the nightmare of his life.

Occasionally someone from the Spanish Embassy in Berlin would visit the camp in the interest of the Americans, the effect of these visits usually being to greatly anger the retired old German officer who was commandant. He had a face like the sun at noon-day, a voice like a cannon, and the mere asking of a question set him into a rage.

Many of the prisoners, of whom not a few were young Americans, received packages from home, through neutral sources—food, games, tobacco—which were always shared with their comrades. But Tom was slow in getting acquainted and before he had reached the stage of intimacy with anyone, something happened. He still retained his companionable status with Tennert and Freddie, but they fell in with their own set from good old "Blighty" and Tom saw little of them.

There was absolutely no rule of life in the prison camp. They were simply kept from getting away. Besides conferring this favor upon them, about the only thing which the German government did was to send a doctor around occasionally to look down their throats and inspect their tongues. If a prisoner became ill, it behooved him to find another prisoner who had studied medicine and then wait until old General Griffenhaus was in a sufficiently good humor to give him medicines. General Griffenhaus was not cruel; perhaps he would have been pleasant if he had known how.

As fast as Tom learned the custom, he adapted himself to the lazy, go-as-you-please kind of life. He scared up a rusty tin plate, made himself a straw bed in a boarded-in box stall, got hold of an old burlap bag which he wore as a kind of tunic while washing his clothes, and idled about listening to the war experiences of others. He had thought his own experiences rather remarkable, but now they seemed so tame that he did not venture to tell them. Fights with German raiders, rescues after days spent on the ocean, chats about the drive for Paris, the "try" at Verdun, the adventures of captured aviators—these things and many more, were familiarly discussed in the little sprawling groups among which he came to be a silent listener. In a way, it reminded him of camping and campfire yarns, except for the squalor and disorder.

Of course, there was general work to be done, but the officials did not concern themselves about this until it became absolutely necessary. No one could say that the German discipline was strict. When the prisoners discovered that one or other of their number was good at this or that sort of work they elected him to attend to those matters—whether it was sweeping, settling quarrels, cooking, writing letters, petitioning "Old Griff," shaving, pulling teeth, or what not. Each prisoner contributed his knowledge and experience to make life bearable for all. The camp was a democracy, but Germany didn't seem to object. If the prisoners wished to dig a drain trench or a refuse pit, they asked for shovels. And sometimes they got them. Prisoners, ragged and forlorn, came to be known by the most dignified titles. There was the "consulting architect," the "sanitary inspector," the "secretary of state," the "chairman of the committee on kicks," etc.

And one momentous day Tom met the "chief engineer."



CHAPTER XXV

HE VISITS THE OLD PUMP AND RECEIVES A SHOCK

"It's all happy-go-lucky here," said a young American from somewhere in Kansas, who had been raked in with a haul of prisoners from a torpedoed liner. "We used the water at the pump as long as the engines worked; then we shouldered our buckets and began going down to the brook. When the buckets went to pieces, we made a few out of canvas and they're not half bad."

Tom had inquired why they went down to the end of the oval to get water when there was a pump up in the middle of the grounds.

"So there you are," concluded his informer.

"Is the engine supposed to pump water up from the brook?" Tom asked.

"It isn't supposed to do anything," said the other, "it used to be supposed to, but it's retired."

"I thought Germany was so efficient," said Tom. "I should think they'd fix it. Can't it be fixed?"

"Not by anyone here, it seems. You see, they won't let us have any tools—wrenches, or files or anything. If you mention a file to Old Griff, he throws a couple of fits. Thinks you want to cut the barbed wire."

"Then why don't they fix it?"

"Ah, a question. I suppose they think the exercise of trotting down to the brook will do us good. I dare say if the chief engineer could get hold of a file he could fix it; seems to think he could, anyway. But gas engines are funny things."

"You're right they are," said Tom, thinking of the troop's motor boat away home in Bridgeboro. "Of course, I don't mind the walk down there," he added, "only it seemed kind of funny——"

"It's tragic for some of these lame fellows."

"Who is the chief engineer," Tom asked.

"Oh, he's a kid that was a despatch rider, I think. Anyway, he's wise to motorcycles. He's had several consulting engineers on the job—Belgian, French, and British talent—but nothin' doing. He's gradually losing his head."

"You couldn't exactly blame them for not letting him have a file," Tom said, reasonably enough, "or a wrench either for that matter, unless they watched him all the time."

"Nah!" laughed his companion. "Nobody could file through that fence wire without the sentries hearing him; it's as thick as a slate pencil, almost."

"Just the same you can't blame General Griffenhaus for not being willing to give files to prisoners. That's the way prisoners always get away—in stories."

About dusk of the same day Tom wandered to the pump, which was not far from the center of the vast oval. On the earth beside it a ragged figure sat, its back toward Tom, evidently investigating the obstreperous engine. Tom had never taken particular notice of this disused pump or of the little engine which, in happy days of yore, had brought the water up from the brook and made it available for the pump in a well below.

"Trying to dope it out?" he asked, by way of being sociable.

The "chief engineer," who had half turned before Tom spoke, jumped to his feet as if frightened and stared blankly at Tom, who stood stark still gaping at him.

"Well—I'll—be——" began the "chief engineer."

Tom was grinning all over his face.

"Hello, Archer!"

"Chrr-is-to-pherr Crrinkums!" said Archer, with that familiar up-state roll to his R's. "Where in all get-out did you blow in from? I thought you was dead!"

"You didn't think I was any deader than I thought you was," said Tom, with something of his old dull manner.

"Cr-a-ab apples and custarrd pies!" Archer exclaimed, still hardly able to believe his eyes. "I sure did think you was at the bottom of the ocean!"

"I didn't ever think I'd see you again, either," said Tom.

So the "chief engineer" proved to be none other than Archibald Archer—whose far-off home in the good old Catskills was almost within a stone's throw of Temple Camp—Archibald Archer, steward's boy on the poor old liner on which he had gotten Tom a job the year before.

"I might of known nothing would kill you," Tom said. "Mr. Conne always said you'd land right side up. Do you eat apples as much as you used to?"

"More," said Archer, "when I can get 'em."

The poor old gas engine had to wait now while the two boys who had been such close friends sat down beside the disused pump in this German prison camp, and told each other of their escape from that torpedoed liner and of all that had befallen them since. And Tom felt that the war was not so bad, nor the squalid prison community either, since it had brought himself and Archibald Archer together again.

But Archer's tale alone would have filled a book. He was just finishing an apple, so he said, and was about to shy the core at the second purser when the torpedo hit the ship. He was sorry he hadn't thrown the core a little quicker.

He jumped for a life boat, missed it, swam to another, drifted with its famished occupants to the coast of Ireland, made his way to London, got a job on a channel steamer carrying troops, guyed the troops and became a torment and a nuisance generally, collected souvenirs with his old tenacity, and wound up in France, where, on the strength of being able to shrug his shoulders and say, Oui, oui, he got along famously.

He had managed to wriggle into military service without the customary delays, and in the capacity of messenger he had ridden a motorcycle between various headquarters and the front until he had been caught by the Germans in a raid while he was engaged in giving an imitation of Charlie Chaplin in the French trenches. He spoke of General Haig as "Haigy;" of General Byng as "Bing Bang;" and his French was a circus all by itself. According to his account, he had been a prime favorite with all the high dignitaries of the war, and he attributed this to the fact that he was not afraid of them. In short, it was the same old flippant, boastful, R-rolling Archibald Archer who had won many a laugh from sober Tom Slade. And here he was again as large as life—larger, in fact.