The Cruise of the Dry Dock

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"Must be up-to-date, to use submarines--a submarine would defy
detection, wouldn't it?"

"And rich--nobody but millionaire smugglers could get together all this
paraphernalia."

"I'll venture insurance is at the bottom of this fraud, Caradoc,"
hazarded Madden. "These swindlers insure a cargo, bring it to this
place, reship it, sink the vessel, or repaint and rebuild it, then
collect the insurance money--do you remember the log of the _Minnie
B_?"

"No, I didn't read it."

"It stated her cargo had been reshipped--reshipped from the Sargasso.
The entry may have been for the benefit of Davy Jones. Anyway, they are
methodical scoundrels."

The lads fell silent as the hugeness of this nefarious business
gradually dawned on them. For insurance swindlers and smugglers to work
on such a large scale, very probably the organization branched over the
whole civilized world. This vast shapeless vessel was a spider at the
center of a great network of criminality.

"Say, the Camorras are mere infants in crime compared to these men,"
shuddered Leonard. "I suppose they murder the crews--drown 'em."

"They would have to get 'em out of the way somehow."

"Then Malone and all the tug's crew are..."

There was an expressive silence.

After a while Caradoc whispered, "Well, shall we try to get aboard?"

"Wouldn't do any good."

"It won't do any good to stay here."

"No, we can't hide on the tug always, and we can't run her engines.
_You_ don't know anything about marine engines, do you, Caradoc?"

"Very little. I couldn't run one."

For several minutes, the two adventurers sat in silence, watching the
small erect figure of the guard pace and repace his short path.
Presently Madden said:

"I've thought of one chance, Caradoc, to escape being starved or
murdered."

"Yes, what's that?"

"It--it's almost too wild to propose, but it's all I can think of. As
far as I know it's absolutely our last chance."

"Go on, go on," urged the Englishman impatiently. "I don't know of any
way out whatever."

"If we could slip aboard there and--and--well, kidnap somebody who knows
how to run our engines, bring him back to the tug, fire up and make a
race to South America--but there's no sense to a scheme like that.
Captain Kidd himself wouldn't be up to it."

A long silence followed this ultimatum, then Caradoc said, "Oh, it's
possible, I suppose. The mathematical formula of possibility would work
out about ten million chances to one that we lose."

"Yes, I know it's risky."

"And how do you hope to get in past that guard?"

"We'll have to climb up the ladder right under him, hang there until he
is on his up-deck walk, then swing inside and when he turns around we
could be simply strolling up the deck toward him. There must be a lot of
fellows on such a big ship. Maybe he doesn't know them all."

"Why do you want to stroll _toward_ him?"

"Because if he saw us walking off in the other direction, he would know
we had not passed him, and so we must have come up the ladder."

Caradoc shook his head in the darkness. "I'm going to try to jump on
that guard when he turns his back, and down him."

"He'd give an alarm sure. We mustn't disturb him till we get ready to
leave, then let him yell."

"What you are planning, Madden, is simply impossible. I like to be as
conservative as possible."

"We can turn around and row back to the _Vulcan_--and starve."

"Go ahead to the accommodation ladder. However, it's impossible."

As the two moved silently nearer a murmur of machinery in the vast
fabric came to them. As their tiny boat swung in beside the high hull,
they could hear this noise quite plainly, and they trusted to this
rumble to screen their operations somewhat. They ceased paddling and
allowed the dinghy to drift against the iron side of the vessel. They
could no longer see the deck and the guard, owing to the swell in the
high metal wall. But presently they came to the rope ladder which they
anticipated hung below the guard's station.

Madden caught this and tied the dinghy to it with the crawly feeling of
a man who expects to have a gun fired at him the next moment.

Caradoc came up and the two adventurers stood in the boat's prow, both
holding to the ladder.

"I'll bet that scoundrel shoots down," whispered Leonard, "before we get
halfway up."

"Don't talk so loud--are you ready to try it?"

"What are you going to do--jump on him?" breathed Leonard.

"No, your plan. If you see he is going to shoot you before you get
inside, jump backwards and dive."

"And remember to go far enough out not to hit the dinghy."

"Good."

Madden stared up into the mysterious vessel, caught the ladder and swung
himself silently onto the rungs. Caradoc mounted close behind him. They
had mounted only two or three steps, when a sudden terrific report
thundered above their heads.

It was so unexpected, so violent, that the two boys almost tumbled into
the sea. The next instant they found themselves wrapped in an atmosphere
of hot, stifling steam. They clung to the rungs in a veritable
steam-bath that roared and plunged around them. When Madden collected
his senses, he realized that it was merely a safety discharge from the
boilers. The main steam pressure did not strike them, but they swung in
the hot wet fringe of the exhaust. Had they been ten feet farther aft,
they would surely have been boiled to death. As it was they were
immersed in uncomfortably hot vapor.

They clung, rather unnerved by the uproar, enduring the heat for four or
five minutes, when suddenly an idea occurred to Madden. He leaned down
to Caradoc and shouted in his ear.

"How about going up now? Couldn't see us in this steam."

For reply, Caradoc shoved his friend upward, and so they scrambled aloft
like two monkeys.

Fortunately for them, the night was windless and the white steam drifted
straight up and as it rose, it spread out in an impenetrable fog.
Cloaked in this vapor, the two adventurers scrambled up some thirty-five
feet to the first deck. The steam was thick inside the rail. Covered by
the noisy shriek of the exhaust, they jumped inside the promenade
without being heard or seen, and a moment later, they dropped arm in
arm, like two casual strollers, and moved up deck.

Two minutes later, when the roaring exhaust had ceased and the vapor had
cleared away, the guard with the gun could never have guessed that the
two men he saw slowly promenading the deck had drifted over the rail,
out of the night, with the clouds of the noisy exhaust.

Neither of the lads so much as glanced at the sentinel as they strolled
past him. Caradoc was saying in the low tones men use when conversing in
the darkness:

"Do you suppose that fellow knows anything about engines?"

And Madden replied just as confidentially, as he sized the gun man up
out of the tail of his eye, "No, I'm sure he doesn't. An engineer never
has to stand guard."

"How are we ever going to spot an engineer?"

For the first time since starting, a little thrill of the joy of
adventure crept into Madden's heart. He felt like a ferret venturing
into a rat's den.

"Why you can tell an engineer easily," he murmured. "You've seen 'em,
oily fellows, with black smudges."

"That describes a fireman, too."

"No, a fireman's not so oily and is more cindery--then we'll know one by
his cap."

"Certainly," breathed Smith. "I hadn't thought of that."

Notwithstanding his danger, Madden could not help smiling as he moved
along after the fashion of a careless stroller, when he was really
keenly alert for a man with an engineer's cap.

The two youths were walking up a long deck, dimly lighted by small
incandescent bulbs placed on the inner surface of the outside stanchions
about thirty feet apart. Each bulb was carefully blinded from the ocean
by a sheath, which confined its glowworm radiance exclusively to the
promenade. On the inboard side were a long series of port holes,
likewise hooded from observation. Some were aglow, others dark.

The deck, rails, cabin walls, ports, hoods, joists of the top-deck were
newly washed and scrupulously clean. Fifty yards up-deck, where
perspective and the sheer of the ship gave the promenade the appearance
of a long, up-curved tunnel, the boys caught sight of a gang of men
scrubbing down deck. A little beyond the scrubbing gang, some garments
fluttered on a line drying in the night air.

As they drew nearer, Madden perceived they were muscular men, with faces
bronzed by tropic sunshine. Some of their necks and cheeks were peeling,
as if from sunburn. On the whole they had a healthy, hearty appearance
that fitted in badly with Madden's theory of murderers and thieves.
Instead of a piratical aspect, the promenade bore a strong resemblance
to a deck scene on some crack transatlantic liner, except for the
blinded lights and ports and the armed guard.

The wanderers passed the scrub gang without trouble and came to the
drying laundry. The number of these shirts and trousers and under
clothing suggested the hulk must contain a large number of men. If these
men _were_ smugglers and insurance swindlers, they had systematized
their life after rigid military discipline.

They moved through the laundry with fading hopes of kidnapping an
engineer from such a formidable institution, when they were startled by
a human laugh. It sounded in their ears and was as unexpected as a
shriek in church. For an instant they thought they were apprehended.
Then they understood the sound came from one of the lighted ports.

They moved softly among the shirts and trousers until they reached the
suspected port. Inside they heard a very trivial conversation in
English.

"I'm after that jack of yours, Captain Cleghorne," declared a thick
voice with a laugh.

"I played low, remember that,"

A silence, then a burst of laughter.

"He ran that jick over your king!"

Leonard stood beside the port blind making a tantalizing effort to
recall something. Where had he heard the name "Cleghorne?" He repeated
it mentally several times.

"Cleghorne, Cleghorne----" of a sudden it came to him. He had never
heard it, but had seen it framed in the license that hung in the chart
room of the schooner, _Minnie B_.

With a heart thumping against his ribs at this strange and amazing
coincidence, the American ducked his head carefully under the port hood
and looked in.

For a moment his eyes were blinded by electric lights. Then he observed
a group of men sitting around a table playing cards. They were in
obviously comfortable spirits, nothing criminal or warlike. One was a
long cadaverous figure that suggested to Madden, Cleghorne, the Yankee
commander of the _Minnie B_.

When his eyes strayed across the table to Cleghorne's partner, Leonard's
knees almost crumpled in surprise. He was looking at the old commander
of the floating dock, Mate Malone.

CHAPTER XVI

CARADOC TAKES COMMAND

Notwithstanding that Madden's head was under the hood, Caradoc sensed
the fact that his friend had experienced some profound shock.

"What's the matter? What's wrong?," he whispered from the outside.

"The mate--the mate of the _Vulcan_ is in there!" gasped the
American.

"Impossible!" Smith dived under the hood for himself.

Both heads just managed to squeeze in and the two men stared at Malone
as if he were raised from the grave. The mate, however, was not
funereal. He seemed in the pink of condition, rather fatter than he had
been on the dock, and he wore the pleased expression of a man well
content with life.

As men will do when under a fixed stare, he presently glanced about and
his eyes fell on the porthole. He looked at the dim port for several
seconds intently, as if he could not quite make out their faces. Madden
frowned, jerked his head up and down in a signal for Malone to approach.

The mate's little eyes went round at the request. He made a surprised
gesture to his partner, scrambled to his feet and drew near. The whole
cabin followed his motions.

"W'ot is it?" he whispered, still peering into the half-faces seen in
the round hole.

"Madden and Smith."

"_W'ot_!"

"Yes."

"Great sharks! W'ot you lads doin' 'ere?"

"Came off the tug--what is this?"

"W'ot is w'ot?"

"This ship we're on?"

It seemed as if Malone's little eyes would pop out of his head.

"W'ot--didn't they ketch you? You don't mean to say you--you jest
straggled aboard?"

"Sure we did. Catch us? Who is there to catch us?"

Malone stared as if at two ghosts. "Say! Say!" he said hoarsely. "You
don't mean to say you ain't caught? You don't mean you run th' tug up
'ere an' boarded us! You don't mean----" He turned and whispered
hoarsely inside: "It's th' lads off th' dock, though 'ow they got 'ere,
an' w'ot they're--douse th' light, some o' you fellows."

A stifled consternation seized the card players, who crowded up to the
port. A moment later all the lights were snapped out one after another.

"Tell us who there was to catch us," begged Leonard in a whisper.

"Who? W'y a German warship, that's who! One caught us--an' Cap
Cleghorne. Caught th' Cap away hup on th' Newfoundland Banks. Caught us
first day----"

"Why should a German warship capture _us_!" demanded Leonard in a
voice that threatened to rise in excitement.

"Quiet! Quiet! 'Eavens, lad! Don't you know? Ain't you 'eard? W'y it's
war! War! War's broke out all over th' world! Everyw'ere! Ever'body!"

"War!" gasped Madden.

"War! What countries?" demanded Smith in an excited whisper.

"Hall countries! Hingland, France, Rooshia, Japan, that's one side, an'
Germany and Austria on th' other."

"America in it?" demanded Madden.

"Right enough. Canada is sendin' troops and----"

"America! America! The United States of America!"

"Oh, no, she's the only nootral in th' whole world among th' big powers!
But she'll be in soon enough!"

"What's this we're on?" inquired Caradoc. "It isn't a warship?"

"Kind o' warship. It's a mother ship for submarines--sort of floatin'
dry dock for the little sneakers. She takes 'em aboard, over'auls 'em,
gives 'em new stores and torpedoes."

"England at war!" repeated Caradoc in a maze. "I must get out of here!"

"That's th' word, war!" whispered Malone thickly. "They say Hingland's
got a tight blockade aroun' th' German ports, so th' German cruisers
bring their prizes here in th' Sargasso, load all the prize stores they
capture out o' Hinglish bottoms into submarines an' run it into Germany
_under_ th' blockade. See? That's w'y this mother ship is 'ere. She
fixes 'em up at this end for their run back."

Malone told all this in a hoarse breath.

"What do they do with their prisoners--keep them here?"

"No, ship 'em to German East Africa an' intern 'em. The _Prince
Eitel_ is due 'ere tomorrow to ship us."

So that was the explanation of all this mystery--War!

Madden fell silent with the sensation of a man who had lost his footing
on earth. All his life he had been accustomed to peace. He thought of
wars as small affairs that broke out now and then in South America or
when the American Indians got hold of whiskey. But for Germany, France,
England to fight, to hurl millions of men at each other! It was
inconceivable!

The boy's brain felt numb as if crushed beneath an enormous horror. The
world was at war!

Unless a person actually witness a murder, he cannot imagine the shock
and dreadfulness of seeing one man shot down, writhe, gasp, grow pale
and cease struggling. To picture ten men murdered simply stuns the mind.
An effort to realize hundreds, thousands, millions of men mangled,
wounded, bayoneted, crushed, blown to atoms by shells and mine--all this
becomes vague, formless, a dim, dreadful picture that is as unreal as a
dream, or history.

"What caused it?" asked Madden in a strained tone.

"I don't know," whispered the mate huskily. "They say it all started
because an anarchist killed an Austrian prince, but I don't believe
it--that sounds too onreasonable for me."

"What has an Austrian prince to do with the rest of the nations?"

"I told you I don't believe it!" repeated the mate.

Madden felt impotent at the conclusion of the narrative. As long as he
had conceived himself to be attacking a force of pirates and thieves, he
was ready to board this great vessel, hunt for an engineer, or attempt
any desperate scheme. But now when he learned that men were being
murdered, goods stolen, ships scuttled, in accordance with a kind of
wild law, called rules of war, he no longer knew what to do. The world
was mad. Its people were murdering each other.

He finally said aloud to Caradoc: "I suppose we may as well hunt up the
commanding officer, surrender ourselves and sail for Africa with the
others."

"No," interrupted Smith, "don't do that." Then he called softly inside,
"Malone!"

"Well, w'ot is it?" inquired the mate gruffly, for he persevered in his
dislike of Smith.

"Look sharp, Malone! I am an officer in the English navy--it is my right
and duty to assume command of all English seamen in case of war!"

A blank silence followed this remarkable assumption of authority. The
tone in which it was whispered prevented any doubts in the minds of his
hearers.

"Do you understand?" inquired Caradoc in a sharp undertone.

"Yes, sir," replied the mate doggedly.

"How many men have you in there?"

"Eleven Hinglishmen, sir."

"I assume responsibility for those men. From now on accept orders from
me!"

"Yes, sir."

"Pass the word around. I am going to hand in some German uniforms
through this port. Let every man put on a uniform!"

"Very well, sir!" came the dismayed reply.

Caradoc withdrew his head from the hood. In the faint gleam from the
outside incandescents, he fell to untying the strings by which the suits
were leashed to the lines. He handed eleven suits to Madden, who passed
them under the hood and Malone received them inside. Then Smith
deliberately stripped off his own clothes and drew on a pair of German
trousers.

"Get on a pair, Madden," he advised. "Civilian trousers will be
conspicuous in a bright light. You are going to see this thing through,
aren't you?"

Madden nodded and followed his companion's example. Five minutes later
the two, transformed into German sailors, walked out of the hanging
laundry.

"Don't seem, to observe anything," whispered Caradoc. "Appear to be
going somewhere, on an errand. Walk just as if you belonged aboard."

A moment later the Briton turned down a stairway that led to a shadowy
deck, which was hung with long rows of hammocks with men sleeping in
them. The air down here was remarkably cool, although Madden did not
have time to give much thought to this. Caradoc pursued his way
unhesitatingly among the sleeping sailors, and presently came to another
hatchway, out of which poured the rumble of machinery and a stream of
light.

Down this flight of steps, Smith moved with certainty, and a moment
later Madden saw they were entering a great machine shop. A full
complement of men worked at every lathe, table, drill or saw. The clang
of hammers, the guttering of drills, the whine of steel planes smote his
ears in a cheerful din of labor. The laborers worked at their tasks with
that peculiar flexibility of forearms, wrists, fingers that mark skilled
machinists. The scent of lubricating oil the faint tang of metal dust
filled the air. Strange to say, the air down here was even cooler than
that in the sleeping deck above.

All sorts of queer tasks were progressing. Here, men were working on
gyroscopes that fitted into the shells of torpedoes; there, they
fabricated little hot-air engines which propelled those instruments of
destruction. They were repairing gauges, steam connections, electrical
fittings, what not.

Madden was tempted to pause and stare about this wondershop, when it
occurred to him that if he and Caradoc were discovered they would be
executed as spies. He had not thought of this before, and the mere
suggestion somehow made him feel stiff and wooden. He was not
frightened, but he felt clumsy, as a schoolboy does when he makes his
first public speech. His arms and legs felt wooden; his head did not
seem to sit in a natural manner on his neck. He felt that if anyone
glanced at him, he would immediately betray himself. His walk, his looks
showed it. He could not imagine why some workman did not leap out, seize
his arm and yell "Spy!"

After a long stage-frightened walk, Caradoc turned down another flight
of stairs. Here Madden discovered the secret of the cool air. On this
deck was a big refrigerating plant, with frost-covered pipes leading in
all directions. The sight of this plant gave Madden some faint insight
into the thorough preparation made by the German government to carry on
their struggle by sea. Long before war was declared, Germany must have
planned a naval base in the Sargasso, and have foreseen the use of her
submarines in evading the blockade. She had chosen these untraveled seas
as a depot, then established a refrigerated machine shop in order that
the full-blooded German might work comfortably in the tropics. The plan
seemed to have been worked out with infinite detail.

From the refrigeration deck, they descended to still another deck into
the very bowels of the ship. This descent brought them to a long gallery
that was formed by a bulkhead running down the center of the ship. As
they entered this passage, three workmen came out of a small steel door
that opened into this central wall. One of the workmen carefully
rebolted the door, yawned sleepily and followed his comrades toward the
companionway. As he passed he grunted something to Caradoc. Madden's
heart beat faster lest they should be discovered at this last hour. He
had no idea what mission moved the Englishman, but he sensed that here
was his destination. Smith made some reply in German, moved briskly
ahead until he came to the small steel door. He laid his hand familiarly
upon the bolts, shot them back, swung open the door. One of the men
whirled about and stared back at this assured intruder. Smith stood
aside and with a curt military gesture motioned Madden to enter. The
American drew an uncertain breath, glanced at the three Germans out of
the tail of his eye and stepped into the dark square. Caradoc followed
him. The laborers went on updeck apparently satisfied.

An electric wire was let in through the door. Caradoc reached for it,
followed it with his hand and presently turned a switch. Next moment a
bright flood of light bathed the tubular chamber in which they stood.

Madden glanced about. He stood in a room whose roof formed a half circle
over his head. The place seemed as full of machinery as a watch case.
Fore and aft were circular partitions of steel, like drumheads. These
were penetrated with sliding shutters, which stood open. Through the
after shutter, Madden saw a large Deisel oil engine, flanked by a
compact heavy dynamo. Looking forward, he could see steel cylinders
trimmed in shining brass, and a maze of levers, gauges, dials, valves.

The central compartment in which the two stood was dominated by a little
spiral stairway leading up into a steel dome. On a shelf set in the
bulkhead was a chart, a telephone receiver, speaking tubes, dials with
red and black hands, an array of electrometers, pressure gauges.

Glancing up the stairway into the little dome, Madden saw a pilot wheel,
more levers and speaking tubes and telephone receivers, and a square of
ground glass, that was lined off with delicate cross-lines.

"Where are we?" asked Madden, amazed. "What do they do here? I never saw
so much machinery before in so small a space."

Caradoc was stooping over a heavy metal box down at the floor level at
the side of the desk. It was one of a series of such boxes. "We're
inside of that submarine you saw enter a few hours ago," explained the
Englishman shortly.

Leonard stared around with new eyes. "So this is a submarine! Do you
know anything about them? What's that spirit level for?" He pointed at a
horizontal gauge.

"Measures air pressure--it's not a level."

"What's in these steel tanks overhead?"

"Compressed air."

"What's that you are getting into?" Here Caradoc lifted the lid, and
Madden got a view. "Say, that's a torpedo, isn't it?" he asked quickly
as he saw a long needle-pointed steel cigar with propeller and rudder on
the aft end.

The Englishman made no reply. He leaned over and selected a small steel
crowbar from a tool locker, drew it out with a quick nervous movement.

"Say!" cried Madden catching the strange expression on the face of his
friend, "are you going to try to launch this and escape on it--escape on
a torpedo?"

A mirthless smile flickered over the Englishman's gray face. "Nothing so
fanciful."

A sixteen foot torpedo lay in a steel frame on a runway, just ready to
slide forward into the big expulsion tube that was the salient feature
of the forward compartment. Caradoc walked quickly to the nose of the
terrific missile. He looked at his friend and said in a strange voice:
"Madden, I'm going to wipe this German ship-trap off the map!"

A sort of spasm clutched the American's diaphragm. "You don't mean----"
he managed to gasp.

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