On the Borderland

by F. Britten Austin

The S. S. Upsal, 2,000 tons, the Swedish ensign at her taffrail, her one black-spouting funnel still daubed with remains of war-time camouflage, lifted and plunged doggedly into the teeth of the September south-west gale that lashed her with cold rain from the streaming gray clouds which curtained close the foam-topped gray-green waves into which she crashed with recurrent walls of spray high above her forecastle, and which mingled in an indistinguishable whelm with the dirty murk of beaten-down smoke low upon the track of her bared and racing propeller. The men upon her bridge crouched, oilskins to their ears, behind the soaked canvas of the “dodger” which protected them, peering into the mist from which at any moment might emerge the towering bulk of a liner hurrying up-channel to the hungry ports of Europe. They were silent. Conversation was a futile effort in the buffeting blasts that stopped the words in their mouths. The only sounds were the crash and thud of green water that slid off in foaming cascades from the forecastle to the well, the harp-like moaning of the wind-tautened stays, and, in brief lulls, the sizzling of rain and spray upon the heated funnel and the creaking of boat-gear whose serviceable character in such a humble “tramp” was a phenomenon reminiscent of unwonted marine perils that had but recently ceased. No longer did her look-out scrutinize every flitting patch of foam in apprehension of the dreaded periscope. The violences of sea and sky were dangers as of yore. From the depths came now no menace.

The group upon her bridge was more numerous than is customary on a cheaply run little freighter of her class. In addition to the second officer whose watch it was, and the look-out man on the opposite corner of the bridge were three others. Two of them, young men oilskin-clad like their companions, stood close together in an attitude which indicated a personal acquaintanceship independent of the working of the vessel. The third man held himself aloof, his back to them, staring over the troubled sea to a point on the starboard quarter. Somewhere in that direction, wrapped in the mists of rain and trailing cloud the last rocky outposts of England whitened the waves which surged and fell back about them in ceaseless and ever-baffled attack.

The buoyant twist and roll which accompanied the lift and plunge of the Upsal, the frequent racing of her propeller, indicated that she was running in ballast. Almost for the first time in her drab, maid-of-all-work career, indeed, the Upsal carried no cargo. She was on a special mission. A Scandinavian salvage syndicate, having come to an arrangement with the underwriters of a few out of the hundreds of vessels which strew the bottoms of the entrances to the British seas, had chartered her to locate and survey a group of promising wrecks, preparatory to more extended operations. The two young men were their technical engineers; Jensen, the taller of the pair, and Lyngstrand, his assistant.

The third man, who stood aloof from them, was Captain Horst, the master of the ship. He was, of course, primarily responsible to his owners and not to the syndicate who had chartered his vessel. Until they reached the location of the wrecks the submarine engineers were merely passengers. Reticent and sombre as he had been since the commencement of the voyage, he ignored them now, stood apparently lost in abstract contemplation of the gray waste of sea. But one who could have looked into his face would have been impressed and puzzled by his expression. The cruel mouth under the little red moustache was curiously twisted. In the haggard eyes which roved around the restricted horizon was an oddly apprehensive uncertainty, unexpected in such a determined countenance. His glance looked down, apparently fascinated, upon the seas which raced below him as the Upsal lifted on yet another crest, as though there were something strange in being so high above them—and then jerked up, automatically, to the horizon as in swift, instinctive doubt of impunity. A psychologist would have suspected that he allowed a fear of some kind, so long abiding as to have become a subconscious mental habit, the relief of free play when he knew himself unwatched.

The two submarine engineers paid no attention to him. They gazed across the untenanted sea ahead to where the white spray leaped, almost lantern-high, in unsuccessful embraces of the tall column of The Bishop. Then, when the lighthouse, loftily unmoved above the eager seas, ascetically alone in the wide desolation of foam-streaked gray, had slipped abeam, had receded into the mist behind them, when there was no object to claim the eye on all the tumultuous stretch of ocean ahead, Jensen turned to his companion and pointed downward. Lyngstrand nodded assent, and they both staggered across the wet, reeling bridge toward the ladder which led below.

The skipper, staring aft, his back on them, blocked their passage. Jensen touched him on the shoulder. He swung round abruptly, with a startled curse. Then, recognizing them, he moved aside grudgingly. His face was turned from them as they passed.

The two young men descended to the deck below. They were berthed in the saloon under the poop, but they took their meals in the charthouse immediately beneath the bridge, in company with the skipper who slept there. In addition to meal-times, the charthouse was a convenient refuge from the weather common to all of them. It was their objective now, and, just dodging a flying sea that fell with a heavy far-scattered splash upon the deck, they flung themselves inside and shut the door. Then, removing and hanging up their dripping oilskins, they slid round to a final seat upon the leather-covered lockers which filled the space between two sides of the walls and the screwed-down centre table.

“Filthy weather!” said Jensen, producing pipe and tobacco-pouch. “But we ought to get there to-night. We’re changing course now to the north-west. Feel it?”

In effect, even as he spoke the Upsal swung round to starboard. A long lurching roll substituted itself for the corkscrew plunges which had been the predominant motion, and the spray flung itself viciously at the port side of the ship to the exclusion of the other.

Jensen, having lit his pipe, produced a type-written sheet of paper from his pocket. It was a list of ships, followed by indications of latitude, longitude, and other particulars.