“The fog is lifting—I see dykes and the open sea. I’ll go around on the other side and wait by his door. I won’t let him out. You try this side and see if you can find any of his pals. There were two or three of them. Perhaps they didn’t all come aboard.â€�
“Is there any way we could wireless MacKeenon?�
“Too late for that. The ship will put into Denmark early in the afternoon.�
She watched him disappear through the door and glide toward the stern. Arranging her hat in the mirror and frowning at her disheveled appearance, she hurried to the deck and started forward.
Two skulkers by an outswung life-boat turned their faces away and pretended to watch the shore. She saw that they were Germans and that their shoes were caked with marsh-mud. She turned at the pilot-house and glanced back. They were eyeing her sharply.
Fay stood by the rail directly in front of Dutch Gus’s cabin. He raised his cap as she hurried in his direction. A steward and a deck hand had nailed a barricade before the shattered door. No sound came from inside the cabin.
“All right,� said Fay, without moving his lips. “He is trapped. They think he’s crazy. He can’t get out, but we can’t get in. The captain says he’ll call the port officers when we reach Denmark.�
“And some of them will be German agents.�
Fay admitted this by a slow nod. He backed against the rail, hooked his heel into a netting and eyed the door for all the world like a man who was there to stay.
She realized what was passing in his mind. The time was slipping by. Already the open water had been reached. The ship would soon be in the North sea. A slight rocking foretold the seas to come.