HE HEARS SOME NEWS AND IS CONFIDENTIAL WITH FRENCHY
The next morning there was a rumor. Somebody told somebody who told somebody else who told a deck steward who told Tom that a couple of men had gone very stealthily along the dimly lighted passageway outside the forward staterooms below, looking for a lighted stateroom.
“There was never so much as a glint,” the deck steward volunteered.
Instantly Tom thought of his experience of the previous night and there arose in his mind also certain passages from one of the letters he had turned over to Mr. Conne.
Acting on his benefactor’s very sensible advice, he had not allowed his mind to dwell upon those mysterious things which were altogether outside his humble sphere. But now he could not help recalling that this ship had been the Christopher Colon on which somebody or other had thought he might be able to sail. Well, in any event, the ship’s people had those things in hand, and after his disturbing experience of the night before, he would not dare speak to one of his superiors about what was in his mind. But he was greatly interested in this whispered news.
“The electric lights are turned off in the staterooms, anyway,” he said.
“Yes, but that bunch is always smoking—them engineers,” said the deck steward, “and a chap would naturally stick his head out of the port so as not to get the room full of smoke. All he’d have to do is drop his smoke in the ocean if anyone happened along. It’s been done more’n once.”
“Then you don’t think it was spies they suspected or—anything like that?”
The deck steward, who was an old hand, hunched his shoulders. “Maybe, and maybe not. You can’t drum it into some men that a cigarette is like a searchlight on the ocean.”
“Yet the destroyers signal at night—even here in the zone,” Tom said.
“Not much—only when it’s necessary. And the transports don’t answer. It’s just a little brown kind of light, too. They say the tin fish[1] can’t make it out at all.”
“Is that where the engineers sleep—down there?” Tom asked.
“The chief and the first assistants up on deck; third and fourth and head fireman are down there, and two electricians. The carpenter’s there, too.”
“Well, they didn’t find anything, anyway,” said Tom. “Is that all they did?”
“Did? They opened every room on their way back and searched every nook and corner. Not so much as a pipe or a cigarette or a cigar could they find—nor a whiff of smoke neither. Besides, the port windows were locked shut and the steward had the keys! They’re takin’ no chances in the zone, you can bet.”
“I was thinking, if it was a spy or anyone like that, he might have had a flashlight,” said Tom, “and thrown it out if he heard anyone coming.”
“With the glass locked shut?”
“No, that spoils it,” said Tom.
“They searched every bloomin’ one of ’em,” said the deck steward. “Charlie was two hours making up the berths again after the way they threw things around. But nothing doing. They found a mess plate with a little black spot on it and he said they thought it might have been from a match-end being laid there, but I heard they told the captain there was nothing wrong down there.”
“What made them think there was?” asked Tom.
The deck steward shrugged his shoulders. “You can search me. But they’re mighty particular, huh?”
He went about his duties, leaving Tom to ponder on this interesting news, and though admittedly nothing had come of that stealthy raid which had exposed neither rule breakers nor spies, still Tom thought about it all day, more or less, and he was glad that Uncle Sam was so watchful and thorough. It made him realize, all the more, how absurd and preposterous it would be for him, the captain’s mess boy, to concern himself or ask questions or say anything about serious matters which were none of his business.
All day long they ran a zigzag course, taking a long cut to France, as Pete Connigan would have said, the general tension relieved by the emergency drills, manning the boats and so forth.
In the afternoon hours of respite from his duties he met Frenchy, whose patience had been a little tried by some of Uncle Sam’s crack jolliers, and they sat down on the top step of a companionway and talked.
“Zis I cannot bear!” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “To be called ze Hun! Ugh!”
“They’re only kidding you,” said Tom; “fooling with you.”
“I do not like it—no!”
“But if you hadn’t become an American before the war,” said Tom, “you couldn’t have enlisted on our side because you really were a German—a German citizen—weren’t you?”
“Subject, yess! Citizen, no! All will be changed. Alsace will be France again! We go to win her back! Yess?”
“Yes,” said Tom. “I only meant you belonged to Germany because you couldn’t help it.”
“You are a lucky boy,” Frenchy said earnestly. “Zare is no—what you say?—Mix-up; Zhermany, France, America—no. You are all American!”
“I got to remember that,” said Tom simply. “I know some rich fellers home where I live. They let me join their scout troop, so I got to know ’em. One feller’s name is Van Arlen. His father was born in Holland. They got two automobiles and a lot of servants and things. But anyway my father was born in the United States—that’s one thing.”
“Ah,” said Frenchy, enthusiastically, “zat is ever’ting! You are fine boy.”
His expression was so generous, so pleasant, that Tom could not help saying, “I like France, too.”
“Listen, I will tell you,” said Frenchy, laughing. “It is ze old saying, ‘Ever’ man hass two countries; hees own and France!’ You see?”
In the warmth of Frenchy’s generous admiration Tom opened up and said more than he had meant to say—more than he ever had said to anyone.
“So I got to be proud of it, anyway,” he said, in his honest, blunt fashion. “Maybe you won’t understand, but one thing makes me like to go away from Bridgeboro, kind of, is the way people say things about my folks. They don’t do it on purpose—mostly. But anyway, all the fathers of the fellows I know, they call them Mr. Blakeley and Mr. Harris, and like that. But they always called my father Bill Slade. I didn’t ever hear anybody call him Mister. But anyway, he was born in the United States—that’s one sure thing. And so was my grandfather and my grandmother, too. Once my father licked me because I forgot to hang out the flag on Decoration Day. That shows he was patriotic, doesn’t it? The other day I was going to tell you about my uncle but I forgot to. He was in the Civil War—he got his arm shot off. So I got a lot to be proud about, anyway. Just because my father didn’t get a job most—most of the time——”
“Ah!” vociferated Frenchy, clapping him on the shoulder. “You are ze—how you say—one fine boy!”
Tom remained stolid, under this enthusiastic approval. He was thinking how glad and proud he was that his father had licked him for forgetting to hang out the flag. It had not been a licking exactly, but a beating and kicking, but this part of it he did not remember. He was very proud of his father for it. It was something to boast about. It showed that the Slades——
“Yess, you are a fine boy!” said Frenchy again, clapping him on the shoulder with such vehemence as to interrupt his train of thought. “Zey must be fine people—all ze way back—to haf’ such a boy. You see?”
[1] Submarines.