Little Grey Ships/Traitor

the sound of heavy and seemingly reluctant footsteps ascending the stairs, the man at the dirty deal table in the barely furnished room pocketed a sheaf of papers and sat erect, his small, bright eyes keenly alert, his thickish lips under the heavy moustache parted in expectation. His age might have been forty, and one might have hit upon his nationality after three guesses, including that of Scottish. He had a long body on short legs, and a somewhat flabby appearance generally. Yet he spoke with a certain sharpness, as one having authority hardly in keeping with his workman's garb.

“Come!” said he, in response to a fumbling knock.

A man, big, burly, bearded, entered. Although the spring evening was chilly, there was perspiration on his forehead under his moist, greying hair. He closed the door with a careless push, and threw himself upon the only vacant chair. For a moment or two his eyes glowered sullenly at the other; then his gaze dropped to the uncleanly floor, whence it travelled to the fireplace, with its dull glow. He spat and felt in his waistcoat pocket for a match for his short clay pipe.

“Ye've been burnin' a heap o' papers, mister,” he remarked at last.

The other ignored the observation.

“You are late, Carson,” he said. “And you have been taking a dram, as they say here. You promised”

“I needed it.”

“No doubt. When did you take it?”

“On ma road here. It's nane o' your business. The job was finished.”

“That remains to be proved. Now, I suppose, you will again become the drunkard you were when I discovered and reformed you, three months ago.”

Carson paused in the act of lighting his pipe, and lifted tired, resentful eyes to the speaker.

“Maybe, he said slowly, “I was a better man when I was a drunkard.”

“When you were a drunkard you ill-treated your wife till your eldest son had to take her away to his own house. You were a dirty shirker and beyond hope in debt. The police had half-shut eyes on you”

“That's enough! The job's finished. I've come for ma pay. Twinty thoosan' marks—a thoosan' pounds in five-pun notes, accordin' to agreement, Mr. Hardy, which isna yer real name.”

Mr. Hardy—or Hardenberg, as he was known at home—smiled coldly.

“Have no fear,” he said; “the money is ready. You shall receive it to-morrow at noon.”

Carson sat up.

“I'm tellin' ye the job's finished!” he growled.

“I do not wish to offend you, and, personally, I believe that you have performed your part of the obligation; but I do not pay the money until I have the proof. You have not long to wait—only a few hours.”

Carson, his face dark, made as if to rise.

“Sit still, if you please!” said Hardenberg sharply. “You gain nothing by noise or violence. The moment I have proof that you have done the work right, the money is yours. I do not carry the notes in my pocket, and if I did, I should be able to guard them!”

“Curse ye!” Carson said, in sulky tones. “I've been riskin' ma life for ye for weeks!”

“For twenty thousand marks. Surely a good price for your life, my friend! But let us not quarrel now, when all has been so pleasantly and successfully accomplished. Bring your chair to the table; I have a few final questions to ask you.”

Slowly Carson obeyed.

“Gimme a bit o' the money the nicht,” he urged, as he reseated himself.

Hardenberg produced a paper, unfolded it with exceeding care—for it was badly worn in places—and spread it between them.

“The twilight goes,” he remarked, “but enough remains. We look at this little plan for the last time, Carson.”

“I'll see that plan on every bit o' paper I ever touch,” muttered Carson. “Oh, what made me dae it?”

“Be cheerful! The whisky will make you forget, and you can buy much whisky with a thousand pounds.”

Dinna mock at me, or it'll be the worse for ye! Ask yer questions an' mak' an end!”

“That is wisdom.”

Hardenberg peered at the plan, which an expert would have recognized as relating to marine architecture. As a matter of fact, it showed a portion of the hull (interior) of one of his Majesty's new battle cruisers. Hardenberg placed the point of a pencil in a tiny circle of red.

“You will assure me once more that the work was done precisely at this spot.”

“I assure ye once more,” Carson wearily replied, “that every slab ye gave me is packed snug under that same spot.”

“And the little box?”

“On top o' the slabs.”

“And the white powder?”

“As ye ordered, an' nae traces left.”

“You were nervous?”

“I've been watchin' ma chances, an' takin' them for ten weeks. Ay, I grant ye I got nervous at the end, mister.”

“And the sea-cock is certain to leak?”

“Certain, though it looks as if 'twas shut. Oh, ay, it'll leak right enough!”

“Well,” said Hardenberg, rising and going to the fire, “I believe I shall have to pay you the money to-morrow.”

He tossed in the plan and watched it blaze.

“Ye'll ha'e proof long afore noon,” said Carson, his head between his hands.

“The launch is timed for eleven-fifty.”

Hardenberg moved over to the window.

The room was at the top of a lofty tenement, and commanded a view of the great shipyard and winding river. In the yard the lights of the night shift were beginning to gleam; the offices and engineering shops glowed palely.

Suddenly Carson's hands fell heavily to the table.

“See here, mister! What are ye talkin' aboot? Ye ken as weel as I dae there'll be nae launch the morn!”

The other smiled absently, and took out a cigar.

Carson continued:

“The explosion'll tak' place between shifts early the morn's mornin'. Between shifts—for I bargained for that. I'll ha'e nae murder done, mind ye! What are ye grinnin' at?” He rose.

“Come here,” said Hardenberg, lighting his cigar.

Carson, a nasty look in his eyes, joined him at the window.

The other pointed with the match.

“There's your fine battle-cruiser, Carson. Where will she be at this time to-morrow?”

For a little space Carson stared dumbly at the shell of the mighty ship towering over others on neighbouring stocks. He burst out:

“What the blazes dae ye mean? She'll be where she is the noo, only wi' twa or three plates blawed oot—jist sufficient for to delay her launch for anither month or so. That's what ye wanted—that's what ye're payin' me to bring aboot, eh? Answer, wall ye?”

Hardenberg blew a ring.

“What matters to you if you get your money?”

Carson staggered slightly, and blinked.

Perhaps the two whiskies, after long abstinence, had affected him more than they would have done in the old days. He recovered himself quickly enough.

“The drink has set me thinkin',” he began.

“Not had enough. Thinking is bad for you.”

“But—but if ye've done me—if ye've deceived me” His voice rose to a roar. “Oh, I believe ye've done me, ye dirty spy!”

Hardenberg drew himself up.

“A spy serves his country, but you betray yours. Be careful! I am armed.”

“Answer! Ha'e ye tricked me?”

“If you will have it so.”

Carson was ghastly. He raised his hand and let it fall, then raised it again to his head, muttering:

“What has the sea-cock got to dae wi' it? It'll be discovered soon after she's in the water, an' onyway it wudna let in enough water to sink her in a month. But I want to ken what it's got to dae wi' the job.”

Hardenberg replied in the supercilious tone that had come with the completion of his task:

“You have not been educated in chemistry, but you may have heard that certain substances take fire in contact with water?... Your battle-cruiser will not float many minutes, and when she founders she will block that busy channel for quite a long time, I hope.... To-morrow we shall witness the launch from this window, and you shall afterwards depart with your five-pound notes so much desired. In the meantime”

He whipped something from his pocket and struck savagely at the snarling creature springing for his throat.

Carson collapsed on his knees, rolled over, and lay still.

Hardenberg looked down at his victim, saying:

“In any case I could not have let him out of my sight once he had tasted whisky. The whisky makes for repentance as well as crime. He must be kept here till all is finished. Perhaps even longer.”

The wretched man began to come to his senses in darkness. Pain was his first realization, thirst his next, then the fact that he had little freedom of movement. He lay on the floor, his wrists in handcuffs, his ankles bound together by whipcord and made fast to a stout ring in the planking. His head was nicely bandaged. Apparently Herr Hardenberg went about prepared for emergencies. As his brain cleared, he judged, from the rarity of street traffic, that it must be very late, and ere long this was confirmed by a clock striking two. Familiar noises came from the shipyard, and from another direction the pants of a train on an incline. Later the horn of a ship, armed, perhaps, negotiating the winding river. Possibly such earthly sounds were necessary to assure him that he was not yet in purgatory. His thoughts, indeed, were bitter enough for that region. Fierce hate, a rending rage, a torturing comprehension of his utter impotence, and remorse most crushing were his.

What had brought him to the doing of the vile thing? He had not started life badly. He had worked hard and faithfully and had risen—up to a certain period. Thence his career had been very gradually but very surely downward. He had a good wife, who neither nagged nor whined, four strong sons, the eldest doing well in the shipyard, the others now serving their country on land and sea. Possibly the woman still cared what happened to him, but three of his sons, at least, frankly despised and refused to support him in the idleness that so often claimed him. The outcast of his family, alone save for the false comrade ship of loafers like himself, he had nobody to blame.

A common story—almost as common as whisky. And the uncertain temper developed about middle age, the unpunctuality, the frequent and gross inefficiency, had made his name a by-word among masters and foremen. Only the coming of war—and the coming of the man who called himself Hardy—had rendered his recent employment in the shipyard possible. The war created a place even for Carson, and Hardy, who worked in a neighbouring yard, with his infinite patience and watchfulness, and his mysterious drugs, made him sufficiently fit to fill it.

Alcohol may blur and distort and stupefy a man's morality, but Hardy's drugs seemed to nullify. Carson, without being in the least grateful, accepted his help, statements, and promises, set what was left of his soul on a vision of five-pound notes, and simply obeyed, tremblingly at times, yet none the less implicitly, and with an extraordinary cunning and caution not of his real nature. A long tale it would make to record the evil work done, bit by bit, under cover of honest labour in the bowels of that steel leviathan during those weeks of early spring—the preparing of the secret receptacle at the spot where he was legitimately employed in the beginning, the subsequent sneakings back to the spot, the awful risks of self-betrayal, of incurring the suspicions of his fellows.

He could not have done it without the power of the drugs—and, perhaps, he would not, even while he believed that Hardy's scheme involved merely what Hardy called “a little moral effect on the cocksure British.” Indeed, it would seem that the whisky taken immediately the job was finished actually restored that which it had enfeebled in the past, and which the drugs had wholly suspended—freedom of will.

Carson struggled to a sitting posture, and got his back against the wall. He shouted, but his voice was weak and hoarse with thirst. His agony of mind was very great, not to be described in so many words. His repentance did not then rise to the heights; he did not think to curse himself for hurting his country and helping her enemies; but it went to the depths, for he would have given his life itself to be able to save the ship and, more than anything, the men who would man her at the launching. How many? Hundreds, maybe. They had seemed hundreds at least on board the last vessel launched from the yard, when aloft in her bow he had recognized his eldest son—the only son who had not finally denied him. Would John be up there on the morrow?

He shuddered. Sober tears came hot to his eyes, foreboding ice-cold to his soul. Lo! the hour was come, the word was given. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the battle-cruiser began to move. Less slowly, less slowly, and the untrained eye perceived that she was really going. Slip, slip, until at length her stern post touched the river. And then the brave rush, as it seemed after the sluggishness, as though she were wide awake at last, eager for her element. And the crashes of falling anchors and drag chains. And John, clinging to the flag-pole in the very bow, shouting and waving with his fellows, while the folk on land cheered amain, and the river craft bellowed and hooted. And suddenly above all rose the horrid crash, the ghastly smoke—a thing unthinkable come to pass. Destruction and death, death and destruction, all brought about by an ordinary man, once honest, patriotic, loving, lovable, for the sake of so many five-pound notes.

Carson slid sideways to the floor, and croaked incoherently to his Maker.

Hardenberg, carrying an electric lamp, entered almost noiselessly. To his victim he paid no attention, until he had filled a cup with water, into which he dropped the contents of a tiny phial.

“Be good enough to drink,” he said, advancing.

When Carson had drunk greedily of the tasteless mixture, he said huskily:

“Mister, let me gang, an' I'll never ask ye for a penny.”

The reply was prompt.

“Not for a million marks, my friend, would I let you go now. Have patience—to-morrow at noon, but not a moment before. But listen! I have brought the five-pound notes to show you. Two hundred of them. Behold!”

The lamp was turned on the fat bundle.

“Curse ye!” whispered Carson. “Keep them for yer ain use, but, for Heaven's sake, let me” His voice failed.

“Good-night. Sleep well.”

The spy departed.

Carson slept well, drugged again—mercifully.

The sun shone gaily into the dingy room. The hands of Hardenberg's watch pointed to eleven-fifty. He returned the watch to his pocket, and from his place at the window glanced over his shoulder at his prisoner.

Carson, roused from his enforced slumber but half an hour ago, sat bowed at the table. He was free of his fetters. Certainly he looked far from formidable—feverish, shivering, broken. Yet his intelligence was clearer than it had been for many a day. At his elbow stood a plate of food—untouched; also a bottle of whisky—full. The bottle would provide a weapon. But he must bide his time, he told himself—wait his opportunity. It would arrive, he thought, with the explosion. Then he would be revenged, and there would be one spy the less in the country. After that—well, there was the river, the river on whose banks he had once blithely courted the girl who fancied him the finest young chap in the world. Heaven, to what filthy end may not a once clean man come!

“It is time,” said the voice of Hardenberg. “Come to the window and watch with me. The money is almost yours.”

Carson did not move, but he said slowly, deliberately:

“Ye ha'e snared me, ye ha'e snared the soul o' me, but ye'd better tak' care when ma time comes.”

It had been ordained that the launch should take place without pomp and with the least possible ceremony, but the bank across the river was black with spectators.

“It moves!” softly remarked Hardenberg; and lit a cigar with fingers that trembled slightly. The strain was telling at last. He opened the window. A faint sound of cheering entered.

Carson put his hands over his ears.

“Save her, Heaven!” he said under his breath. “Save her, an' I'll gang to the Cross an' proclaim masel' a cursed traitor!”

“Ja! It moves!”

A long silence.

“Now faster!”

A very long silence, during which the traitor died many deaths.

Then cheering once more, a little louder than before; also a din of horns and bells.

“It is afloat!”

Hardenberg's voice was become curiously thick. From Carson came a strangled sob.

“It is afloat—afloat!” the spy repeated.

Carson's hand went out and grasped the neck of the bottle.

“Afloat,” went on the other—“afloat! And nothing happens—nothing, my friend!” he said, in a cold and bitter tone; then turned quickly and stood listening.

“Oh, my soul!” cried Carson, his face working and wet.

There was a crash. The door was burst inwards. Men, some armed, darted into the room. One of them, a young foreman from the yard, exploded at the sight of Carson.

“Ye traitorous old fool, did ye never think ye would be watched?”

Hardenberg's revolver cracked once, futilely, and was dashed from his fingers by a stroke of the bottle. He fought furiously with hands, feet, and teeth, and was only secured when half out of the window.

But Carson held out his hands for the fetters, eagerly, gratefully.