For the rest of that night, poor Jimmy lay sleepless, heartbroken and disconsolate, upon a hard forecastle bunk. Things had not happened as he had either hoped or feared. He was in the very depths of despair. He had acted rashly, he knew, in endeavouring to leave America as a stowaway on board a merchant ship. But he had acted with the best of motives, from a fitting sense of patriotism. He had dreamed of the Great War, or as much of it as he had been able to imagine from the pictures he had seen in the illustrated papers. He had dreamed of flying Uhlans, captured trenches, charging hussars and cuirassiers--and now, he had been threatened with the "cat." Assuredly, there are pitfalls for us all!
[CHAPTER IX--The "Dresden"]
Captain Crouch was a man who seldom--if ever--made up his mind in a hurry. It was his custom to consider every aspect of a question before he came to any definite decision; but, when once his opinions had been formed, he was not disposed to alter them. He was a hard man in many ways--one who, having had everything against him from the start, had had to make his own way in a world that is not so charitable as some may think. That Captain Crouch had made a great success of life, there can be no shadow of doubt; and it is equally certain that he was never indebted to any one throughout the whole course of his career-except later on (as we shall see) to Jimmy Burke himself.
In this particular case, he had made up his mind that Jimmy was a German spy. He had heard both sides of the question, and saw no reason to doubt the word of Rudolf Stork. In consequence, for more reasons than one, he was determined to have nothing to do with Jimmy. Not only did he hand over the stowaway for safe custody to Mr. Dawes the chief officer, but he gave strict injunctions that Jimmy was to keep out of his way--as far as that could be possible on a ship of not five thousand tons.
Life in the forecastle of an ocean tramp has little or no joys to one who has been brought up, if not in luxury, at least in decency and comfort. For the first week, the weather continued to be rough; it was bitterly cold, and they saw little of the sun. The boy had no friends on board; for the members of the crew--who laughed and joked together on the forward well-deck after working hours--following the example of the captain and the ship's officers, believed in their hearts that the boy was, indeed, a German spy, and treated him with undisguised and due contempt. From dawn to sunset, Jimmy went about his work practically ignored. No one spoke to him, except to give him orders; and these he received, not only from the chief officer and Stork, but also from any one else who happened to require assistance.
In these circumstances--as may easily be imagined--the boy was utterly miserable and almost broken-hearted. There were nights when he found it impossible to sleep, but lay awake, hour upon hour, writhing under the great wrong that had been done him.
He soon learnt to give up all hope of ever explaining matters to Captain Crouch. He could not fail to see that he must bear his wrongs as bravely as he might. Nor could he find any sympathizer amongst the crew; one and all, they were loyal Britishers--with the sole exception of Rudolf Stork--and as such were heartily against him. Had he been subjected to physical cruelty, had he been thrashed and kicked and beaten, his lot would have been easier to bear. He thought it all out, time and again, in the darkness of the night, while the ship was ploughing her way eastward across the great Atlantic, and always came to the same sorrowful conclusion: that there was nothing he could do, but find courage in the knowledge of his own innocence, and keep an eye upon Stork.
He knew Stork to be a spy. That no one else was likely to believe it made it none the less true that, to the boy's certain knowledge, the man's services had been engaged by Rosencrantz and the Baron von Essling. Stork, beyond doubt, was on his way to England on some secret business. It was quite possible that the man had in his possession incriminating documents and papers. Jimmy realized that, if he could but find this out for certain, he would be able to convince Crouch not only of his own innocence, but of Stork's indubitable guilt.
It was this vague hope that buoyed Jimmy's spirits during the first five or six days of the voyage. By then, they had reached mid-ocean, where the presence of the Gulf Stream, and a welcome change of weather, had raised the temperature by, at least, twenty degrees. Jimmy had already discovered that Stork kept a sea-chest under his bunk in the forecastle--a strong chest, iron-bound and made of oak, fastened both by an ordinary lock and a padlock, the keys of which Stork kept on a chain, along with a jack-knife and a whistle.
There had been times when Jimmy had thought quite seriously of forcing his way into the captain's cabin, and imploring Crouch to have this chest examined, on the off chance that thereby Stork might be proved the scoundrel he was. That the boy never decided to take a step so irretrievable and final, goes a long way to prove that he was possessed of little of the gambling instinct of his father. He saw from the first that there was a good chance that the sea-chest would contain nothing of an incriminating nature, in which case he would be in a worse plight than before. Throughout all this strange, mysterious business, so much was at stake that Jimmy felt he was not entitled to risk more than he need. And it was well for him that he resolved to be discreet; for, in a manner that was at once surprising and dramatic, Providence, for the first time, came to his aid.