Слике страница
PDF
ePub

the power to employ and discharge all clerks, employees, and agents. Responsibility and authority were now united in Hurley alone. Admiral Capps shortly after resigned, on account of ill health; Hurley appointed Admiral Harris General Manager, and after Harris's resignation a few weeks later gave the General manager's duties over to Charles Piez, of Chicago. At last, after many months, the Shipping Board's organization was unified.

Other obstacles have delayed the production of ships. There have been numerous difficulties over the terms of contracts; it is not easy to agree upon an equitable rate of compensation when so many factors wages, cost of materials, labor supply, etc. are uncertain. Several times the specifications for wooden ships had to be changed once because they did not provide adequate strength, and once again because timbers as large as they called for were not available. Many a promising contract was never translated from paper into steel; ship-building is a difficult business to learn, and has its proportion of failures. And there have been a whole flock of troubles connected with labor.

Up to last Christmas there had been 596,992 working days lost through strikes the equivalent of twenty thousand men out for thirty days. The difficulty of lighting the yards so as to make possible the employment of two or three shifts has been a stumbling-block. So has been the lack of an adequate system of proper employment agencies to take care of the shifting demands for shipyard labor. So also has been the continuing opposition of the unions to plants for the dilution of labor; the unions will allow mechanics to be recruited from allied skilled occupations such as the building trades, but will not countenance the training of unskilled or semi-skilled men, because they spoil the market for expert labor and tend to bring down wages. Labor must be housed; yet the Shipping Board was for a long while uncertain whether it had a legal right to finance the housing of workmen building ships for private companies which had Government contracts-and the houses had to wait.

More perplexing still has been the attitude of labor in the yards. Wages have been greatly increased to secure the mechanics so sorely needed. The increase has brought about a general slackness on the job; many men prefer to work only four days a week, since they can earn more money now in four days than they used to be able to earn in six. The number of rivets driven every day by each man has fallen off too-fallen off as much as forty or fifty per cent, according to some estimates. The shipyards are filled with a floating industrial population whose restlessness has again and again been aggravated by the employers themselves, many of whom persist in bidding against each other for men, sometimes even sending their foremen to wait at the gates of the next plant and offer high wages to the workmen coming out. The war spirit has not spread to the yards. One at least of the biggest ones in the country and I do not know how many others are in the same class-is quiet from Saturday at one o'clock until Monday morning. Three shifts? They are not even working Saturday afternoons. The men can afford not to work, and the company cannot afford to make them. Meanwhile the war depends on ships; the lives of these men's brothers and sons and friends, and the future of their country, depend on ships. This is the toughest problem that Mr. Hurley has to face.

To look back upon the progress of the Shipping Board from April to February is to realize that it has been going through the preliminary stage of growth and experiment. It has been largely concerned with cutting a path through thicket after thicket of difficulties and obstructions. It has been building up the necessary industrial machinery to perform its gigantic task. Progress has been necessarily slow. We are aiming at a produe tion of six million tons a year. At present the rate of production appears to be something like three million. This is a great fleet to turn out in a year. It is three times as big as the Hamburg American fleet was in 1914, and the Hamburg-American was the biggest merchant fleet then in existence. But it is not big enough. Yet there is light ahead. Authority is now centralized in Mr. Hurley, a man of energy and ability and common sense. He has built up his organization. The new ships are beginning actually to go into service; forty-nine of those commandeered on

the ways on August 3 had gone into the water by December 21. Others are being added every week; and since late in November almost every week has seen the launching of a brand-new vessel, entirely built on contract with the Emergency Fleet Corporation.

At last the housing programme is under way, and the Shipping Board is assured adequate funds for it. A ship-builders' Plattsburg is being conducted at Newport News-a school to train skilled mechanics to teach the shipyard trades to other mechanics who are skilled in allied occupations. And on February 1 began a campaign for the enrollment of mechanics all over the country as United States Shipyard Volunteers; the theory of this campaign being that, while it is fatal to call mechanics to shipyards where housing conditions are inadequate or expansion is not immediately contemplated, an enrollment of skilled mechanics will locate these men so that as the need and the opportunity arise they may be moved to the yards, each one being directed to a 'definite job at a particular place, and being assured of adequate housing on his arrival.

The State and County Councils of Defense and the Public Service Reserve of the Department of Labor are conducting this campaign for the Shipping Board. They aim to enroll several hundred thousand men, so that traveling examiners may later select two hundred and fifty thousand who are up to the standard of the yards: expert acetylene and electrical welders, blacksmiths. boiler-makers, carpenters, chippers and calkers, electrical workers, foundry workers, laborers, loftsmen, machinists, painters, plumbers, ship fitters, and structural iron workers-men of expert technical skill and of character-men who will do a full day's work.

A full day's work. That is the heart of the problem. Probably enough mechanics of one sort or another will be enrolled. But will they be men who are willing to do a full day's work six days in the week? Earnest men who realize that the outcome of the war depends on the number of rivets they drive each day? One by one the Shipping Board has rolled the rocks out of its road; one stone still squarely blocks the way-the spiritlessness of labor. While the Board can compel the owners of any yard to do its bidding by commandeering the yard and putting them under Government orders, it cannot compel labor : any student of the industrial situation will acknowledge this. The Board has instituted on the Pacific Coast a ten per cent premium to those men who work full time. Although this is one way of getting a man to work six days a week when he can afford to work three or four, and it may be a way of getting him to drive 300 rivets a day instead of 150, it is not the best way. The best way is to convince him that the job is worth doing, and that the drafted man who gets thirty dollars a month has a right to expect honest service from his brother in the yards who gets from five to twelve dollars a day and whose work is so immeasurably important.

How shall we convince him of this?

The answer is that he must feel behind him the moral compulsion of a united community. He must know that the public is watching his work day by day, fully aware that on the energy with which he applies himself to his job depends, more than on anything else, the outcome of the war. He must feel that people everywhere are talking ships, ships, ships, and demanding speed from every riveter and steamfitter in the yards. The moral compulsion of a united community is what sells Liberty bonds and swells the membership of the Red Cross and makes the operation of the draft a possibility. Nobody dares swim against the stream; few even think of doing so. The same current must sweep us toward completion of the shipping programme. The man in the yard must feel a soldier's pride, a soldier's sense of duty. The ship-builder's badge must be a badge of honor to him-as full of meaning as a uniform. He must feel that every Tom, Dick, and Harry in his town honors him for his place in the first line of offense against the submarine and wants to see him do his job like a man. Community sentiment is contagious, and the right kind will build ships.

If we are to give the men in the shipyards this kind of sup port, we ourselves must see the shipping situation in its true proportion. We must accept these undeniable facts, and base all our thinking of the war upon them:

That we have not this winter sufficient available tonnage under

[ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors]

THE OUTLOOK

the American flag to provide food, materials, and supplies for
our present army in France and for the needs of our allies.
That even with the assistance of British merchant tonnage we
have not yet enough to maintain one million men in France.
Mr. Hoover is trying to keep starvation at bay for the hungry
people of Europe, and to this end he has called upon us to save
food; without ships this conservation will go to waste. The
munitions plants of the United States are working overtime
to turn out the guns and shells upon which hang the fate of the
western battle-line; without ships these munitions will not save
the day. Without ships the supplies of clothes and tents and
blankets and everything else urgently needed in France are
useless; they will merely pile up on our docks. Mr. Hurley
himself has told us that shortage of ships has been largely

T

20 February

responsible for the present congestion on the Eastern seaboard, and thus indirectly for the Garfield fuel order. Without ships our hope of winning the war in the air vanishes, and the great new aircraft industry is rendered futile.

Without ships Pershing's army is endangered, and the rest of our great military force will have to resign themselves to training and drilling and waiting in American cantonments. Secre tary Baker's confidence that the War Department can have an army of five hundred thousand men in France this spring is based upon the hypothesis that ships can be obtained. The date of the second draft, and the effectiveness of this second half million as a weapon against Germany, depend upon ships. Ships are more than a means of victory; they are an absolute condition of victory.

LONDON ETCHINGS

BY GRACE BOYNTON MONKS

I-BATTERSEA NIGHTS

December 15, 1916.

NO-NIGHT the searchlights were up, and I rode across Battersea Bridge on the top of a bus and walked back to watch them. Some were like golden fishes swimming in the sky, and others great streaks of light. Suddenly there was a remarkable effect. Two very powerful searchlights were thrown across the sky from different points in London, making a perfect cross. One bar of light extended above the river, parallel with it, and the other stretched its great arms over London. The symbolism was unmistakable. It was symbolic of a whole city, and a whole country, and a whole nation, and a great alliance of nations crucified. We live, indeed, in an age when many men are offering up their lives in divine sacrifice.

II-SUFFERING

December 17, 1916.

The day I went to register with the police I waited in the courtyard of the police headquarters. The walls were of dreary yellow brick stained with soot, and the court was paved with bricks of the same color. There is no building material more depressing than yellow, soot-stained London bricks.

The only occupant of the court besides myself was a small dog chained to a kennel. He was of no special breed; he was small, brown and yellow in coloring, with large eyes capable of expressing the deepest misery. As a dog he wasn't much, but as an expression of canine, or it is not too much to say human, suffering he was the whole thing. It is several weeks now since I saw him, but the expression of those eyes remains with me, and will continue to do so as long as my understanding of suffering continues to exist. He sat shivering on the pavement, yellow and soot-stained like the bricks about him. He had an eagerness of soul which made him prick his ears at every footfall in the hope that his master had come to claim him, but his eyes expressed resignation. He had that wonderfully rare combination of qualities, eternal hope and eternal resignation. Life had dealt evilly with him. He had nowhere to sit but the cold, damp bricks of a police courtyard.

A policeman came through the court, and I told him I believed the dog felt cold. The bobby not ungently told the small shivering creature to go into the kennel. The dog politely complied. As soon as the policeman's back was turned, however, out he crept and renewed his shivers on the pavement. The bit of straw was no consolation for the wider range of scent and vision which the open court afforded. I crossed over to him and patted him and tried to express my sympathy. Again he showed his innate politeness, but no enthusiasm. There was one person in all London whose voice and scent the dog would recognize instantly, and the sight of whom would make him wag his tail wildly and emit quick, happy barks. That person did not come. Why? The little dog with the wonderful eyes was nearer to solving the mystery than I am.

[blocks in formation]

sail, and the lines of the sail and the cords by which it was fas tened made a beautiful outline. The night was fine; the lights on the fireboat shone brightly; a tug was moving swiftly up the river, her stern light shining like a ruby.

The policeman who stands guard at the end of Battersea Bridge knows me now. He used to keep a keen eye on me, and wouldn't allow me out of his sight. I am sure he thought I had serious intentions of hurling myself into the river, and didn't want it to happen on his beat. Since I have taken him into my confidence he is a different man, and allows me to stand perfectly still gazing at the river as long as I like. I told him found the river beautiful at night, and he said he did too, so now we understand one another.

IV-BALLOONS IN THE SKY

December 27, 1916.

When I turn into Cheyne Walk I always stop to look at Battersea Bridge and my beloved Four Chimneys. Yesterday was fine, and the sky was unusually blue. All at once I saw a balloon in the sky, and then another, and then another. They Battersea, just disappearing into a cloud. They were patrolling were crossing the river in a procession. I counted five, one over the sky. Thus do balloons keep watch over London in war time.

To-day, when the wind was blowing from the west, I saw another balloon, a single one this time. The combination of the blue sky and the white balloon was one of those supremely beautiful things, the kind of beauty which leaves one as speechless as love. I felt as if I could never stop looking at it. There was a peculiarly beautiful quality in the atmosphere, and a great fascination about that white ball floating in the blue sky.

V-A CONFERENCE FOR DISCUSSING THE POSSIBILITY OF COMMUNICATING WITH THE LIVING

January 3, 1917.

I have just come home from a conference in which the possi bility of communicating with the dead was discussed. I would prefer a conference in which the possibility of communicating with the living came under discussion. Why not first try to perfect ourselves in the art of communicating with our fellows on this earth before we try to communicate with those beyond? Why would not a person who could truthfully say that he was able to make his meaning clear to his friends be more qualified to communicate with the dead than would a person with mediumistic powers in a cabinet hung with black velvet?

"We stand on islands shouting to one another across a sea of misunderstanding." I wonder how often people understand the exact meaning of what we say, I wonder how often we state our meaning exactly, and I wonder in how many cases we ourselves are perfectly sure of what we mean? Are not these subjects for discussion and research and thought? The Society for Psychical Research should be a graduate school for those who have made a thorough and successful research of the things of every day. I confess the phenomenon of every-day life appeals night the chairman gave a very eloquent plea for personality as to me more than the phenomenon of ghosts. At the meeting last being the greatest thing in life and also in death. This is

undoubtedly true, and perhaps those people who have been able to solve the mystery of personality in the living may be able to do so in the dead.

VI-BATTERSEA DAYS

January 17, 1917. This morning I stood at my window and looked at the sun and watched the copper-colored path of light it made across the river. Sometimes a sea-gull flew over the dancing copper waves and dragged his feet in the water and became part of the glowing, fiery path. Consciously I was thinking of the beauty of the river, and subconsciously, as always, my thoughts were on the suffering of the war. If God makes nature so glowing and perfect, he must, at the end of the struggle, intend something equally glowing and perfect for man.

2

VII- HELSEA SUNSET

February 4, 1917.

There was now glow in the sky-the yellow glow Turner has painted so often. Four Chimneys were black and still in the yellow haze, and the sun, red and mysterious, looked between them. He shot an all-embracing glance down the Embankment at the Sunday afternoon crowd and knew us all. I, for one, realized that my secrets were in his keeping. As always, he kept his own counsel. The Greeks knew more of him than we do, but even for them he preserved his mystery. The sky was full of charm and power and passion-yellow, black, and red.

VIII-BATTERSEA NIGHTS

February 11, 1917. I walked up and down, up and down, the Embankment late into the night. I crossed and recrossed Battersea Bridge, and walked to Ŏakly Bridge and crossed the river there for a change. The night was clear; a half of the moon hung over the river. There would be no Zepps that night. The side streets looked unusually black in contrast to the light over the river. The street lamps had been painted a wonderful green. For once the city authorities had hit on a really beautiful color. Lamps glowed like emeralds at the corners of black little streets, and once I caught sight of a lamp half-way down a side street shining with an intensely green light in absolute blackness. Walking down a London street is like walking down a railway track through a black forest with all-clear signals ahead.

The only blazing lights I encountered came from inside a coffee-stall which stood just below Oakly Bridge. Here a man in a green jacket sold steaming coffee and damp cakes to a crowd of pale-faced boys. It was late when I returned to Battersea Bridge. The moon was approaching Four Chimneys. The river or the night, or both together, had thrown a light mist over Four Chimneys, veiling but not concealing their great strength and power.

IX-BATTERSEA NIGHTS

April 7, 1917.

A tug woke me up early this morning. It was screaming in mid-river and trying to get up enough steam to move three barges away from Battersea Landing. I never draw my curtain at night, so that I may be sure not to miss anything that goes on on the river. I was thankful to the little tug for waking me up and calling my attention to the beauty of the river at that particular hour of the morning. Day was just breaking. There was a gray veil of mist over the river. Everything was graygray vibrating with the life of coming day.

The tug was pushing and nosing three barges, one at her bow and two at her stern. She pushed and snorted and wheezed, and seemed to say, "Get along with you, you lazy beggars! Don't expect to be sleeping at the wharf all day." Slowly they swung out into the river and moved down stream. Two yellow lights shone out from the barges at the tug's bow and a red light burned through the gray mist at the tug's stern. The last barge was still a part of the general grayness. I could just discern a man's figure pulling at a long oar.

[blocks in formation]

exertion seem to have merged themselves into one long period of exertion. I look out on the river at two or three in the morning, and it is as busy as the river at midday. Barges are being towed up and down and goods being shipped from the wharves. Huge vans rattle along the road beneath my window and the streets are as full of people at night as they are in the daytime.

At Woolwich Arsenal there are two twelve-hour shifts, and as much work is done at night as by day. The other evening I motored from the Manorway Gate of the Arsenal to the entrance of the danger buildings and returned just as the night shift were going in to work. The chauffeur had to go at a snail's pace, blowing his horn continually. The broad roads which run between the buildings were crowded from side to side, swarming with workers, principally women. They had to crowd together at the side of the road to make room for the car to pass. These women were going in on a twelve-hour night shift-some whose work would be purely mechanical, others who would have difficult operations to perform, and many who worked in actual danger. Those who were going to the buildings from which I had just come knew that unless they took the utmost care there as danger of an explosion, and had a night and a succession of nights and days to look forward to when they would be breathing in yellow powder in spite of veils and all the precautions the Government can provide. I knew them by their yellow hair and faces. Occasionally a head in that vast mob of faces nodded to me or a hand waved, for I have friends among them.

XI-BATTERSEA AFTERNOONS

April 29, 1917. This Sunday afternoon there is a strangely fascinating string of barges between Putney Bridge and here. They are strung out in a zigzag line, black masses separated by light streaks of water. The way the bargemen have moored them is singularly satisfactory. If one bargeman with the soul of an artist had stood on the shore and yelled to his companion in mid-river where to moor each boat to secure the best artistic effect, the result could not have been better, and probably would not have been half so good.

I have just been out to Richmond. The river was very gay. It is said that Richmond is the gayest spot in England. It is so gay as to be almost French. I saw many French there this afternoon. The river was full of life-officers home on leave rowing good-looking women, and good-looking women rowing officers recovering from wounds; people who had never been on the river in a boat before, and people thoroughly accustomed to the water. It was all very gay and pleasant in the height of the afternoon, but I prefer my window and the silent line of barges, black in the fading light.

XII-MAY DAY

May 1, 1917.

I remember landing in England on May Day, 1903. The Liverpool streets were so gay that their freshness remains with me still. Out of that very sordid town had sprung the gayety of spring. The horses were bright with ribbons and wore rakish straw hats, and their drivers were full of pride. Their love of animals is the only love the English are not ashamed of showing. The carter who would feel disgraced if he showed any tenderness for his wife does not mind patting his horse and smiling at one's words of admiration.

The May Day of peace times was a charming expression of the joy of spring. To-day-May, 1917-there are fewer horses decorated. The men who decorated them are at the front or buried in French graves, and the horses, too, have many of them been requisitioned. Horses that had their manes braided and wore straw sunbonnets in Merry England have the spring flowers of France growing over their graves. What a terrible connotation the dates 1914, 1915, 1916, 1917, have for those of us who are alive to-day! They will always ring in our ears to the rattle of shrapnel, the bursting of bombs, and the anguish of the dying. But, thank God, they also ring with cheers of cour age. May, 1903, was full of the joy of spring in England, and May, 1917, is full of the joy of sacrifice, for there is a joy in fearing nothing and giving all.

C

WHOSE PRISONER?

THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF ARNOLD ADAIR'

III-ARNOLD'S ESCAPE TO AMERICA

BY LAURENCE LA TOURETTE DRIGGS

APTAIN PIERON had read Adair's letter as far as the point where, after his strange reunion with his old friend Reinhardt von Bruck, the intrepid lieutenant had at length come to realize that he was lying concealed in the German headquarters of a little Alsatian town, if he was not actually Reinhardt's prisoner! The captain continued his reading of Arnold's letter with breathless interest:

The whacking and banging below me, in the garage of the barn where I was hidden, continued, but, in spite of the racket and the torture of my disappointment, I slept intermittently, my wet handkerchief over my face and a camouflage of hay over it. Finally the buzzing of a motor awoke me, and I turned my face to the wall in anticipation of being dragged from my cot, as usual, by a relentless orderly. No such luck, however. Five unyielding straws jabbed me simultaneously. I came to with a start.

Creeping to the window, I saw a smart touring car back out of the garage and pass up the driveway toward the house. The rear of the house alone was visible. I looked at my watch. Six o'clock! I had slept all the afternoon!

Spending an hour or so in gloomy meditation, occasionally twisting and rubbing some of the pains out of my damp back and legs, I turned over the situation in my mind. Well! Here we all were. Domaz, Von Bruck, and Adair-classmates all, of the old Verney School. Separated for five years, and now suddenly all three thrown unhappily together within the confines of the carefully guarded domicile of his Highness. One of the three would cheerfully remove himself from the August Presence without arguing about it but how? Conflans lay halfway between Verdun and Metz. I was a good thirty miles away from No Man's Land-that impassable barrier stretched across France. And I was on the wrong side of that impassable barrier. Impassable-save by the air! No use thinking about the air route now, however.

Bunny was gone. Well, I couldn't blame him. He could do nothing else. He certainly couldn't have assisted me to escape. His efforts in that direction could not have benefited me and would inevitably have ruined him.

I descended the ladder and cautiously examined the premises. In the garage end of the barn I found a magnificent Daimler car, apparently tuned up into the pinkest of condition. I even plumbed the petrol tank, and found it full to the top!

Deep regret filled me as I considered the pros and cons of a quiet little joy ride by myself, and finally reluctantly decided it wouldn't do. The very lack of sentries inside the premises indicated an exceptionally strong guard without. We had dropped into the center of the circle from above. I must learn something about that circle before attempting to break through. I appropriated a linen duster hanging over the rail in the tonneau, and put it on. No edibles apparently were kept in the garage for sudden emergencies such as mine. I decided to pay another visit to the vineyard. It was not quite dark.

Provoking recollections of prisoners' fare at Karlsruhe entered my mind. Two of our aviators were there now. They had written home descriptions of their food, and it had not appealed greatly to any of us. Grapes were enough for me while they lasted. I wondered how long they would last as I gathered a dozen bunches and sat down under cover to eat them. I should need water, too. Well, there was my lake; I found it. I should go down there directly for a drink and a cigarette. I could do for myself very well there in the holy sanctorum of the enemy camp. Things were really very comfortable there.

See The Outlook for February 6 and February 13 for previous installments in this series.

Suddenly I jerked up my head. A low whistle had sounded The old Verney call! Bunny, by Jove!

In another minute I am in his arms. He was sitting beside the tiny trenches we had been filling with grape skins when we parted this morning.

66

Quiet now, old Chingachgook "-he spoke in German; "there are a dozen men down by the lake. They'll be by pres ently, and then we've got a little maneuvering to do."

"I've got a big Gotha three-seater down there, and it's all ready for a hop. My two mechanics flew it over here to take me home in. They had a bit of trouble getting the Mercedes engine out of that pond. It took me half an hour's diving to fix it so they would. And now they're going to let it go until morning. All but Zimmer will be along in a couple of minutes. I told him to stay to guard the machine."

"But what's your immense plan?" I asked.

"Please remember you're my prisoner, Arnold, and don't. be impertinent."

The sound of voices reached our ears. We pressed close to each other silently and waited. As the group of men passed up the road Reinhardt rose to his feet and counted them.

"Now we are all right. Eleven of them have gone," said my captor, as he sat down again by my side.

"How did you know I would be here, Bunny? Tell me about this morning. How did you discover that you were among the among your friends?"

"Friends! These Prussians? I never knew one I'd call my friend. But I saw one of them-our dear old schoolfellow Domaz-come out of the house and walk to the garage. I was just behind you when you left the vineyard, but I didn't dare call to you. Then I saw you jump the hedge and walk, like an ass, right into their arms. Before I could get over to stop you I saw you making for the garage. There was only one thing for me to do then. I walked in and told him who I was.'

[merged small][merged small][ocr errors]

"Uncommon good idea of yours to get out of that hay when you did, Arnold. That squad is going to sleep there to-night." Bunny, have you seen Domaz since the day of our last boat race at Verney?""

66

"Yes, and had a whacking good duel with him too, at Heidel berg. But I'll tell you about that later. I didn't know he was attached to the Staff here. But come, let's go."

Reinhardt was up and off towards the lake before I could put another question about his plans. As we hurried along he cautioned me to keep silent. Reaching the edge of the orchard, he stopped and considered me a moment.

"Where did you get that duster?" he whispered.
"I borrowed it."

"Turn up the collar and put on your helmet and goggles! Now come along and climb into your seat without speaking a word. I'll do the talking."

We walked quickly along the border of the meadow, Reinhardt narrating the details of some imaginary air attack on Verdun as we approached within hearing distance of the Gotha three-seater. His mechanic saluted and regarded us stupidly. I turned my back to his lantern. Reinhardt spoke to him sharply:

"Zimmer, go up and sleep at the barn to-night. Be back at daylight."

The mechanic saluted and left us.

I climbed into my seat, trembling with an excitement I'd never expected to experience again. A greasy-handled mechanic's hammer lay on the spot where I sat. I swore at it nervously and shoved it back of the cushion. Bunny swung into the front

[blocks in formation]

his

"Lieutenant Adair, I believe," sneered Domaz, extending weapon within a yard of my nose. "So sorry not to have met you earlier to-day." His evil face wore an exulting smile that infuriated me. "Don't move, either of you, until you're told, or I'll kill you both-with much pleasure.' "What's the meaning of this?" demanded Reinhardt, vainly endeavoring to control his voice. "Put down that pistol, Lieutenant Domaz! Obey me!"

[ocr errors]

"Who have you got with you, captain, in there?" inquired the gloating Prussian, switching his weapon over to Bunny's face. "You ask what this means? This means that you are my prisoners. Yes, you too, Captain von Bruck. You and your spy friend, Arnold Adair, of the French Flying Corps, whom you are assisting to escape. Do you care to lie about it, my captain?" taunted the loathsome wretch. "I would like you to deny it come now!"

"How do you know it is Arnold?" inquired Reinhardt, feebly.

"Because I found his wrecked machine alongside yours in that pond, you damn fool!" shouted Domaz. "And his rotten name's painted across the length of it. I suppose you didn't know it was Adair! I suppose you don't know he has been in hiding here all day as a spy, and now is being taken back by you-damned traitor! Well, I knew it, and I knew you'd try to save him. So I have waited around all the evening to catch you in the act. Now what have you to say?"

"He saved my life in that pond to-day, Félix." Bunny!" I cried, in horror. "You're not going to beg mercy from this hound! We'll take our medicine."

[ocr errors]

Yes, Lieutenant Adair has it, exactly. You will take your medicine. If I were not so certain of what that medicine is to be, I would pay you what I owe you myself. Now get out of that machine," he snarled. "This side! You first, von Bruck. Stand here where I can cover you both."

Bunny obeyed in tragic silence. He was too overwhelmed with the sudden revealing of his impending dishonor to think of resistance,

I stood up behind Reinhardt as he let himself down onto the lower step. Domaz cursed him as he watched him guardedly, As I threw my left leg over the edge of the cockpit I grabbed the slippery-handled hammer in my right hand. With. one furious leap past Bunny's shoulder I launched myself across the wing of the airplane, head first, at the odious figure beyond. He fired at me point blank, while I was in the air-and missed. I smashed my two-pound hammer full in his ugly face before I touched the ground, and we both fell in a heap under the edge of the Gotha's tail.

Lieutenant Félix Domaz didn't move as I flung myself upon his prostrate body. Bunny stooped down and picked up the pistol. I got to my feet and stood over our fallen enemy with the hammer.

We presented a memorable picture as we stood there motionless in the starlight. I know I shall never forget it.

Reinhardt spoke first.

"I am not a traitor, Arnold, as that beast said. You are no spy. You could have killed me, but instead of that you came down here to save me. And you pulled me out of certain death in there." Bunny nodded towards the water. "But what he said is true. I was aiding an enemy to escape. I know I am right in getting you out of this, but nobody else would believe it. He sneaked around here alone in the hope of catching me in the act. Well, he succeeded!" Bunny concluded, miserably.

Only too clearly did I follow Reinhardt's meaning. What we both construed as decent and sporting would avail us nothin; against Domaz's story before a court martial. And this cursed officer's duster! I began to unbutton it frantically.

"What's the use?" said Reinhardt, sadly. "He's seen you in it. Technically you are a spy. You covered up your enemy uniform. Oh, it's all my fault!"

"Bunny," I said, savagely, "I'll never let you suffer for this. You are innocent of any real wrong. Get into your machine and go. This wretch is the only person who has seen me in this duster. He has captured me. Well, let him fight me when he wakes up. I promise you he will never testify against you." Bunny pulled himself together before I had finished. Stooping over, he seized the prostrate Domaz by the feet.

66

Quick, Arnold! We forgot about his shooting. Some sentry will be here on the run in a minute. Up with him. Put him in the seat with you. Is he dead?”

"Unfortunately not," I replied.

"Well, we couldn't leave him here to be found, anyway,' said Reinhardt. "In with him."

None too tenderly we slid our unwelcome passenger over the edge onto the floor of the fuselage. I was beside him in a jiffy, and before I had my safety belt around me both motors had begun to hum.

Still gripping my miraculous hammer, I poised it conveniently over the Prussian's head, as the huge biplane swept forward like an express train, and with a powerful leap left the ground and soared away into the starry sky.

"There are no impassable barriers now," I thought, as I looked below and caught the last reflection of innumerable stars in the mirror-like surface of the lake that I most fervently hope I never shall see again.

At 11 P.M. on that eventful September day, my dear Captain Pieron [the letter went on], old Frederick, the waiter of forty years' dignified service at the Trois Couronnes, near my old school at Verney in Switzerland, was insisting that it was altogether too late to serve the complet at this hotel. No such extraordinary midnight order had been given him since -since

"Since the farewell party on the terrace to old Chingachgook, eh, Freddy?" said Bunny, patting the old fellow affectionately. "Well, Arnold is paying off a bet to-night, and we haven't much time. Run along now, my son, and mind you bring plenty of grape jam for Arnold-he's taking the grape cure again.

"Monsieur Arnold! Monsieur Reinhardt! Mon Dieu!" Mon Dieu!" The old man sank into a chair, regarding us out of staring and then streaming eyes. With trembling hands he fumbled in his capacious pocket and produced before us a gold watch and chain, a parting gift from Bunny and me. Opening the lid, he pointed to our inscribed names and the date. "Five years last June! And to think the old man didn't know you you!"

"Frederick, not a soul is to know you have seen us to-night. In fact, you must forget it yourself as soon as you have fetched us some hot coffee," said I, pressing our old friend's hand. “We will tell you all about it when you come back. Hurry! We are half frozen, both of us. Bring what food you can get quickly."

The terrace was deserted. Evil days had obliterated the well-remembered entertainments dispensed to its overflowing guests by the Trois Couronnes before the war. Only an occasional soft light now shone from the windows of the hotel above us, where formerly scenes of gayety lighted up the entire façade until long after the midnight hour.

Bunny and I sought our old bench in a secluded corner of the terrace. We had discarded our flying equipment to avoid attention. We stretched out our legs under the table, exhibiting side by side the rival colors of the two enemy air forces. Thus, quietly concealed under the shade of the dear familiar plane trees of the terrace, we silently watched the moonbeam path shining across the wide surface of Lake Geneva, until, gradually narrowing in the distance, it faded from view under the looming shadow of the Dents du Midi.

"Still worrying about Domaz, Bunny?" I inquired, as the dear boy heaved a tremendous sigh.

“I can't see any way out of this mess," returned Reinhardt,

« ПретходнаНастави »