“Their money, Miss,” Fritz told her. “There’s a heap of money in it. When I finish the voyage, though, I’m going to get back to the States. I’m through with all this then. I’ll have money enough to open a shop of my own.”
“And do you suppose you will be welcome at home, when people know of your treachery?” asked Ruth indignantly.
“No, Miss. I won’t be welcome if they know it. But they won’t. I ain’t fool enough to tell ’em.”
In ten minutes Ruth had learned all that was necessary for her to know about the cooking quarters and the tools she had to work with. There was a good fire, as Fritz had said, and she at once went to work on baking powder biscuit—and she made a heap of them. She knew that thirteen men (counting the two prisoners aft) could eat a lot of bread. In the cold storage room was fresh meat and plenty of bacon and ham. She had to work alone, for the Germans had all they could do to steer the ship, keep lookout, stoke the fires and run the engines properly. She wondered that they got any sleep at all, and Fritz admitted to her that they were only allowed two hours’ relief at a time.
Boldig was a driver; but he was just the sort of man to head such a piratical expedition as this. He worked hard himself, and knew how to get every ounce of work possible out of those under him.
He looked in at Ruth working in the kitchen, and spoke quite nicely to her. Perhaps the great plate of biscuits, pork chops, and French fried potatoes she gave him to take up to the wheelhouse, caused him to consider her wishes to a degree.
Later she insisted that Mr. Dowd and Rollife, the radio man, should have their share. She made one of the men go to Boldig for the keys to their rooms, and she piled a tray high with good things for the prisoners to eat. Boldig would not let her go herself to the men in durance. He would not trust her to talk with them.
She washed her dishes, banked her fire, and laid out what she purposed to cook for breakfast. Then, very tired indeed and with the lame shoulder fairly “jumping,” she retired to her stateroom. It was then ten o’clock, and having had no sleep at all the night before Ruth was desperately tired.
She entered her room, locked the door, and pushed the bed as she had planned between the door and the stationary washstand. Then she went to bed, feeling that she would be safe.
But nobody had to wake her in the morning. The sea had become rough over night, and at the slow pace she was traveling the Admiral Pekhard rolled a good deal in the roughening waves.