Now every man aboard ship must ask permission to go ashore, and the officer of the deck is stationed at the gangway when the liberty parties leave, to grant such permission, but to a man performing such duties as Evans’s, requiring frequent excursions at all sorts of times, the mumbling of “Permission to leave the ship” as he steps over the rail soon becomes an empty form and is relegated to the subconscious. Furthermore, Evans was quite accustomed to climbing down into the motor-sailer from the boom in order to rig a temporary transmitter in her for testing some of the radio gear aboard the ship. For such a purpose the formal permission to leave the ship was commonly waived or completely overlooked. Therefore, it was not wholly unnatural that when Evans came on deck, in his eagerness to convey his news to Barton he simply forgot all about formalities and made for the boom. Running nimbly out on it and slipping down the ladder, he hailed the coxswain of the motor-sailer, who swung in a few feet from his course to take him aboard. Ensign Coffee was officer of the deck at the time, and witnessed the performance. This mode of leaving the ship was not for a moment to be countenanced. Seizing a megaphone this irate officer called sharply to the coxswain and ordered him to return at once to the ship, and, when she was at the gangway, ordered Evans to come aboard, then sent the motor-sailer once more on her way.
“What does this mean?” asked Coffee sternly. “Why didn’t you come and ask permission to leave the ship?”
“I came on deck after the boat had shoved off,” answered Evans, now in the position of a schoolboy caught playing truant; “I had an urgent errand on shore in connection with the radio apparatus, and as I had always been granted permission so regularly that I had come to take it as a matter of course, I simply didn’t think of it, but, in my haste, made for the boat as I saw her go by the boom.”
“Well, you won’t take it as a matter of course any more,” said Coffee. “That sounds to me like a pretty thin excuse. Go to your room and we’ll look into this matter a little further.”
Evans looked Coffee squarely in the eyes and said quietly but earnestly, “May I speak to the Captain first? It is about a matter of great importance, and there’s no time to lose.”
“I am the officer of the deck,” answered Coffee with great dignity, “and I represent the Captain as far as you are concerned. I have heard more than I wish to hear from you already. Go to your room.”
The corporal of the guard and a quartermaster were standing by watching the scene. Evans hesitated a moment wondering if there were any way of persuading Coffee that a real emergency existed, but the look of the man convinced him that he might as well talk to a pumpkin. A futile attempt would only do harm. Therefore he went to his room and sat down to think matters over.
Ensign Coffee reported this incident to the executive officer of the flagship. Fraser and Elkins were already ashore with Barton, and the executive officer knew nothing of Evans and his duties, but the incident looked to him suspicious. He therefore started inquiries as to Evans’s activities aboard the ship. When he learned that he had been making changes in the radio receiver, the exact nature of which was not fully understood by any one else on the ship, he concluded that Evans required close watching, and ordered him confined to his room with a guard at the door.
Here was a nice situation. Fraser, Elkins, and Barton away for at least twenty-four hours; Evans locked in his room with little or no hope of release till they should return. In that time Long might work untold damage to the radio room; there were hidden parts of the mechanism that he might break, which would take weeks to repair. Worse than this, he might by skillful questioning draw valuable information from the operators; he might even get hold of secret code books, and then on the pretext of making tests on the transmitter, send out signals in a code of his own that would divulge vital information to the enemy. Worst of all, he might find some clue to the secret of the stolen code and how by its aid the seven submarines had been lured to their doom. Then all that was hoped for by the further use of this talisman would be lost. In his agony of apprehension Evans became almost frantic. He racked his brains to think of some line of action. When the guard was placed at his door, he realized his utter helplessness to do anything to avert disaster. He knew that Barton had confided nothing of his unusual status to any of his colleagues in the Bureau of Intelligence; it would avail little to communicate with them even if he were able. After all, what was his status? A radio gunner, and nothing more. His private conversations with Barton were purely informal, and gave him no official claim whatever to the consideration of other officers who were not acquainted with him. Still, if he could only have an interview with some officer in the Intelligence Bureau he might be able to secure action; the emergency would justify his telling things it had hitherto been his rule to mention to none but Barton.
With an effort at composure he began talking to himself.