The Man Who Ended War

“Quiet enough there, I presume,” answered Tom, following, to my surprise, my spoken thought. “You know men who sought for sunken treasure ships have found things quite unmoved, after centuries have rolled away. Save for the covering of sand or silt, the boat which reaches the bottom may leave its bones for centuries unchanged.”

My mind travelled a step farther, from normal shipwrecks to abnormal ones, and then turned swiftly to those catastrophes which were never far from my mind, the beginning and in one sense the end of our mission, the battleships which disappeared. “If Dorothy’s belief is correct, and the engines of destruction used by ‘the man’ affect metal only, then I suppose the crews of the Alaska and the rest went to the bottom.”

“Undoubtedly,” answered Tom laconically.

One by one, as in a naval review, the Alaska, the Dreadnought Number 8, La Patrie Number 3, the Kaiserin Luisa and the Kaiser Charlemagne imaged themselves upon the tablets of my brain, and with the last appeared a film of Portsmouth Harbor where the great engine of war anchored for the last time. I straightened up suddenly and leaned across to Tom, who now sat gazing peacefully at space.

“Tom,” I exclaimed quietly, but earnestly, “I can tell you the next move. We’ll send down to the bottom of the sea, and find out what record remains there of the work done by ‘the man.’”

Quick as a flash Tom was all attention. “By George,” he ejaculated, lowering his voice an instant later, as he saw that his exclamation had startled the bridge players opposite. “I believe that is the scheme. It ought not to take us very long, and we might get a bully clue from it. How shall we go about it?”

Swiftly I unfolded my plan, the ideas rushing in upon me as I proceeded. “We land at Southampton, anyway, and it’s only an hour’s run down Southampton Water to Portsmouth. We won’t go up to London at all; we’ll go straight to Portsmouth and put up there. Then we’ll find out just where the Kaiser Charlemagne or the Kaiserin Luisa stood, and get some divers to go down and report.”

“That’s a great idea,” said Tom reflectively. “It resolves itself really into two parts, – finding out just exactly where one of the German ships stood, and getting down to the bottom there. It ought not to be so very difficult. I wonder nobody has thought of it. But if they had, I imagine, we should have heard of it, because the wireless newspaper on board is giving news of that kind pretty well in full. I’ll tell you one thing though,” he went on, “I wish Dorothy could have been with us instead of having to wait over a couple of boats to straighten out that Boy’s Club business of hers. I’d like mighty well to get her opinion.”

“Same here,” I remarked forcefully.

Two days later saw us safely through the English Customs and rolling along over the little line which runs past old Clausentrum, relic of the days when Rome with bloody hand made peace in Britain, to Portsmouth and its harbor, with the Isle of Wight forming the foreground to the broad blue reaches of the Channel.

No greater hum of business could have been found all Britain over than in this seaport town. Jackies hurried to and fro with orders. Marines marched in companies to the wharves. Officers in service dress scurried by in motor cars. Tommies for once moved swiftly, without even a sidelong glance at the red-cheeked nurses in the Park. Everything gave the impression of activity, of preparation pushed to the last degree of haste. Whatever the prospects of war might be, Portsmouth was as busy as if war were on.

Though we reached Portsmouth at noon, it was more than two o’clock before we could secure rooms. Every hotel was crowded. Scarcely could we get a word from the busy clerks, and at last we were driven to lodgings. Throwing ourselves on the mercy of a cabman we wandered up and down, thoroughly thankful when we obtained some clean, decent rooms in a little house in the Portsea region.

Somewhat to our surprise, our quest proved difficult. We drove to the dockyard. “No admittance without special orders from the admiralty,” stared us in the face, – an order made yet more effective by the gruff silence of the sentinels. We tried the harbor authorities and the Town Hall. Both had been turned into governmental bureaus, and both refused admittance on any terms. Vainly I pleaded my connection with the press. That move only increased the suspicious reserve which surrounded us. Vainly we tried the soothing effect of the golden sovereign. We were rebuffed at every turn, till forced to temporary inaction, we gloomily turned back towards our lodgings.

“There’s nothing doing so far as the authorities are concerned,” remarked Tom, as we walked along. “We’ve got to try some other tack. If we could only find somebody here in town who wasn’t an official, and yet who would know where either of those ships stood. None of the dealers in ships’ stores would know, because the German boats would have received their stores at the wharf. By Jove, though, here’s an idea.” He brightened up. “If, by any lucky chance, they took on fuel here, we might get some light on the place from the coal man. Here’s a chemist’s shop, let’s look up a directory.”

We entered, and ran rapidly over the names of dealers in the business directory that was handed us. Dealer after dealer, whose name appeared therein, sold goods that belong with the sea. Ship chandlery, plumbing for yachts and vessels, calkers, sailmakers. Ah, here it was! Fuel supplied to vessels. There were some fifteen names on the list. I copied them off, and turned to the young man behind the counter. “Which of this list,” I asked, “would be entirely capable of coaling a large merchantman immediately?” The clerk ran his eye down the list. “This, and this, and this firm,” he answered briefly, pointing at three.

The office before which we finally stopped looked peculiarly businesslike as we reconnoitred through its broad window. “Looks just like home,” murmured Tom, as we gazed at the smart young man in dapper tweeds dictating to a stenographer whose pompadour, though like a single tree in a forest had it been on lower Broadway, yet seemed a rare exotic in this English seaport town. The Remington machine at one side, the brightness of the office furniture, the whole atmosphere, in short, was a stage picture, a sudden revival of the world we had left less than a week ago.

“He is,” exclaimed Tom, without the slightest apparent connection. “See that life insurance calendar on the wall!”

A flaming, big-lettered, American calendar appeared at the end of his pointing finger.

“May as well play it boldly, anyway,” murmured Tom, pushing open the door. “Pardon me,” he said, as he entered. “We’re Americans, and want to know something about coal.”

Our dapper friend from behind the desk was on his feet in a moment, stepping towards me with outstretched hand. “Mr. Orrington, I’m proud to see you here.” I looked at him in complete surprise, while Tom looked on in equal amaze. The stenographer sitting behind her keys raised one hand to pat her hair, and stared in undisguised and interested wonder.

“I’m afraid you have the advantage of me,” I remarked.

“That’s not surprising,” answered the young man with a smile. “You never saw me before, but look here.”

I followed blindly around his desk, and waited while he pulled open a drawer at the side. “Exhibit Number one,” he remarked as he took out an American illustrated weekly bearing an imprint of my features. It had appeared just after my second signed story came out.

“Oh,” I remarked briefly and lucidly.

“Exhibit Number two,” our friend went on, bringing to my astonished gaze a file of my own paper, whereupon my own stories showed their large familiar headlines at the top.

“That’s what it is to be famous,” said a laughing voice over my shoulder. “Now, I could travel the world over and never find anybody to recognize me.”

“Then it’s up to me to bring you into the limelight,” I said, recovering. “This is Prof. Haldane, Mr. – ?”

“Thompson, at your service,” supplied the manager. “From New York, sent over here to take charge of this end two years ago, likewise a sincere admirer of your work. Now, what can I do for you?”

I glanced at the stenographer meaningly.

“Say anything you please; it will go no farther, gentlemen. Let me introduce Mrs. Thompson.”

We rose and bowed.

“We were both in the same office there,” explained the manager, “and when they gave me this berth we decided to come together.”

“I am over here on business,” I began.

“Still after the man who is trying to stop all war?” interrupted Thompson.

“Yes,” I answered. “What we want now is to find out just where the Kaiser Charlemagne or the Kaiserin Luisa went down. If we can find that, we shall get divers and go down to the bottom. As we could get no news at any of the government offices, we thought we would try to find some dealer here who might have supplied either of the boats with coal.”

“Hit it first time trying,” said Thompson, with a smile. “The Kaiser Charlemagne took on no liquid here, but the Kaiserin Luisa took a thousand barrels the day before she sunk.” Tom let out a long whistle. “That’s one reason why the Kaiserin Luisa, the Alaska, and the rest went down without a sound. Extraordinary that I never thought of that before. They all burn hydrocarbons instead of coal, and the new hydrocarbon fuels would disappear in the water.

“Not a modern warship left to-day which doesn’t burn liquid fuel, and most of it’s ours,” said Thompson enthusiastically. “They had to come to it, especially when we put out our new boiler attachment by which they could change their furnaces over to use liquids without changing any other part of the machinery.”

Tom nodded appreciatively. “I see,” he said. “Now as to the main question. How can we find out just where the Kaiserin Luisa went down?”

Thompson turned to his wife. “Lulu, will you telephone down and see if Cap’n McPherson is at the wharf. If he is, have them send him here at once.”

A moment’s low conversation in the telephone booth, and Mrs. Thompson returned. “He’ll come right up,” she said, and, turning to her machine, was soon pounding away at the keys with a practised hand.

“Remarkable woman, my wife,” said Thompson, swelling with intense pride behind the shelter of his rolltop desk. “Took a medal for speed in an open competition. Smart as they make ’em in any deal. Never lets family relationships stand in the way of business. B. F. T. S. I call her, ‘business from the start.’” He would have gone on, but the door opened, and a huge grizzled sailor with an officer’s cap in his hand lumped in. His massive bulk loomed above us for a moment, as Thompson motioned him to a chair.

“You put the liquid on board the Kaiserin Luisa the day before she disappeared, didn’t you?” asked Thompson.

“Aye, sir,” came the deep answer from the depths of the Captain’s chest.

“Can you tell us just where she lay?” the manager went on.

Captain McPherson stirred uneasily as he looked at us. “I’ve heer’d said we were to say naught of that unfort’nit ship,” he rumbled, turning half round to regard us with a fixed stare.

“That’s all right, Cap’n,” said Thompson. “These gentlemen have been sent here to investigate the matter, and you are to tell them all you know.”

The Captain evidently felt misgivings, but the habit of obeying the orders of his superiors was not lightly to be broken. “If ye go straight out from the carstle till the Ry’al Jarge buoy’s in line with three chimneys t’gether on the shore, ye’ll have the spot where she lay when we were ’longside.”

“Thank you, Cap’n, that’s all,” said Thompson.

Whereupon Captain McPherson rose and lumbered off as heavily as he had come.

“I’ve seen the castle,” I remarked, “but how on earth can I find the Royal George buoy, and what is it?”

“Queer thing that,” said Thompson. “That’s where the Royal George went down, with all on board, a hundred and thirty years or so ago. Now the Kaiserin Luisa disappears, in the same place. It’s a red buoy right off Smithsea, you can’t miss it.”

“Right,” said Tom. “So far so good. Now, you haven’t a couple of divers in your desk drawer, have you?”

Thompson laughed. “Sure thing,” he said. “At least I can send you to one, Joe Miggs, who has done more or less work for us. There’s the address,” he said, writing it on a card. “Come and see us before you go.”

Exultantly we left the office, looking back through the window to see our compatriot waving farewell, while his wife, patting her pompadour with one hand, fluttered her handkerchief with the other. By dock and arsenal, through sounds of clanging furnaces and roar of forges, we passed to the street we sought and to the house, a house of mark which bore proudly upon its front a life-size picture of a diver completely apparisoned, with the words “J. Miggs, Diver,” in very small letters below. The low, dark door gave entrance to a small shop, where a man, whistling cheerfully, was using a small soldering tool on a diver’s helmet, assisted by a boy clad in a ticking apron. The man was J. Miggs. Our friend Thompson’s card brought a sudden stop to the cheerful whistle, and it was with a somewhat troubled face that J. Miggs rose, sending his young assistant from the room. The boy out, he locked both doors to the shop carefully, and returned to us.

“Mr. Thompson says that you want a diver,” said Miggs, in a low voice. “I’d do anything I could for Mr. Thompson. Many’s the good job he’s got for me, but I can’t, I absolutely can’t. We’ve been forbidden to take any jobs at all. Notice was served on every diver in town, and me and my partner can’t risk it.”

“What’s your regular rate for going down here in the harbor?” asked Tom.

“Two pounds a day, sir, for each of us. Four pounds for the two, if me and my partner work together.”

“I’ll give you ten pounds apiece for one night’s work,” said Tom.

The man wavered. “I’ve no money for a fortnight, sir, and I’d like to do it, but I dare not; the officers would put me out of business, and I’ve got to support my family.”

Tom persisted. “I’ll give you ten pounds for your family, and ten pounds more when you go down.”

J. Miggs took thought, hesitated, wavered, and at length capitulated. “I’ll do it, sir,” he said, “if you’ll do one thing. If they take my diving rig away, will you agree to pay for a new one?”

“I will,” said Tom, “and I’ll leave the price of it with Mr. Thompson to-night.”

His last scruples vanished, and J. Miggs was ours. “We’ve got two suits over at Brading Harbor, on the Isle of Wight, where we were working. If you’ll tell me your place, we’ll meet you to-night where you’re staying, take you across in the motor boat, get the suits, and get back in time to have five or six hours to work, wherever you say. But it must be to-night. To-night’s the last night without a moon.”

Leaving J. Miggs our address, we went back to our lodgings, by way of Southsea Castle and the piers, to take a preliminary observation of the buoy of the “R’yal Jarge.” We had swallowed a hasty supper, laid in a good store of clothing for the chill of night on the water, and were waiting patiently for the call, when there was a knock at the door. As it opened, there entered not J. Miggs, but his small boy helper, whom we had seen earlier.

“Miggs’s been jugged,” he cried breathlessly. “He and Joe Hines. The bobbies come and took ’em an hour ago. He told me, when he saw ’em comin’, to run and tell you.”

CHAPTER IX

The engines of the motor boat slowed, gave a final chug, and stopped. “Brading Harbor,” remarked our boy guide laconically, as he threw the anchor, and stepped to the stern to pull in the skiff that trailed after us. Before us lay the estuary of the Yar, its black water scarcely differentiated in color from the dark shores that rose above it. A huddle of buildings lifting on our left changed from blots of blackness into shadowy outlines, sprinkled here and there with light, as we rowed in. The lad pulled steadily, with but an occasional glance at the shore. The steady strokes of the oar slowed down, the blackness ahead seemed to rush towards us more swiftly, and the boat ran silently up on to the sand. I jumped out, the little anchor in my hand. We were at Brading Harbor.

Without a word, the boy pulled up the boat, dug the flukes of the anchor deep into the sand, and started off into the darkness.

“Come on, Tom,” I said laughing. “This is an Arabian Night Expedition headed by one of the mutes of Haroun Al Raschid. Hustle up, or we’ll be left behind.” About three hundred yards from our landing-place our guide suddenly disappeared; we came abruptly on the corner of a small brick building, and rounded it to find him working on the padlock of a broad, low door.

“Bee’s here,” remarked the boy, flinging the door open as we came up.

We stepped just inside and paused. The scratch of a fusee, the clatter of a lifted lantern, and the low room sprung into light.

A weird sight met our eyes. On a shelf three great diving helmets, with shining cyclopean eyes of heavy glass, reflected back the lantern’s flame, and showed barred side windows looking like caged ear-muffs. On the shelf below three pair of huge shoes, with leaden soles, seemed ready for some giant’s foot, rather than for the use of man. As the light shifted, the armor on the wall came into view; copper breastplate and twilled overalls, hosepipe and coils of safety line; a veritable museum of diving paraphernalia.

Tom turned to the boy. “You’ll have to show us very carefully how to run the safety line and the air pump, while you’re down.”

“I don’t go down,” said the boy. “Heart’s wike loike. Niver go down.”

Tom and I stared at each other in consternation. With one accord we turned to the boy again.

“Who is going down?” I cried.

“Ayther of you thot loikes,” responded the boy calmly.

“I’ll be the one to go, Tom,” I cried, “I’ve got to see it with my own eyes to write it up properly.”

“Why can’t we both go?” exclaimed Tom eagerly. “I don’t want to be out of this.”

The boy broke in. “Needs two men oop on rope and poomp.”

“Oh pshaw!” said Tom disgustedly, “I don’t see why I shouldn’t be in this. I tell you what we’ll do,” he went on, his face brightening, “you go down first, and then come up, and I’ll go down after you.”

“All right,” I said. “It’s a go.”

The boy had stood motionless while our discussion had gone on.

“How’ll you get the stuff down?” I asked.

“Tike it on a barrow,” he replied briefly, turning to bring a big wheelbarrow forward.

“Tike they two,” he said, pointing to the two helmets on the right and the shoes below them. Tom and the lad took a helmet, and placed it on the barrow. I took a pair of shoes, and nearly dropped them. “Great Scott,” I ejaculated, “they weigh a ton.”

“Twinty pund,” corrected the lad, without a smile. “You’ll need it on bottom.”

We loaded till the boy said “stop,” then took our burden to the skiff, carried it out to the boat, returned for a second load, shipped that, locked the door, and came down to the shore through the still night. We had neither seen nor heard any one during our visit.

As we started out of Brading Harbor, Tom remarked, “I’ll take the wheel, boy, I’ve got the course. Get the armor on Mr. Orrington.”

Never did I experience such a strange toilet. The dress of tan twill, interlined with sheet rubber, and the copper breastplate were clumsy and awkward enough. The shoes, twenty pounds to each foot, were no winged sandals of Mercury, but the huge helmet was worst of all. I seemed to be prisoned in a narrow cell and, despite myself, I could not wholly keep from wondering what would happen, if the air pipe should break, or the rope snap. The big lens, the bull’s-eye that was the window of the front of the helmet, was left open till I went down, and I took in the salt air in huge breaths through the orifice, expanding my chest to its full capacity, while the lad silently plied his wrench on the nuts that clamped the helmet water-tight. At length the suit was adjusted, and the safety line tied securely round my waist. Then the boy spoke.

“Up one, down two. That’s all ye need.” He jerked the rope in my hand once, twice, and then started forward to take the wheel. We had been racing swiftly across, towards the lights of Portsmouth, as I made my diving toilet, but my thoughts, far swifter, had gone thousands of miles more. Suppose I never came up? If I did not, would Dorothy ever know? Had I made a mistake in not speaking before? Unavailing regret tore at me. Yet stronger than any regret or any weakness was my determination to fulfil my mission. Here was the next step. I must see what lay below the waves. As I sat there, in my cumbrous raiment, I tried to analyze my sensations. No danger I had heretofore encountered had ever caused me anything but a pleasing excitement. Why should this have a disquieting effect upon me, when Tom was so eager to go. The answer came like a flash, in Lord Bacon’s words, “He that hath wife and children, hath given hostages to fortune.” I had neither as yet, but my whole heart was set on having them. My feeling was not cowardly fear. Rather, it was instinctive regret at taking the chance of going and leaving Dorothy behind. I breathed easier when I had worked that out, and gradually, as my mind quieted, the uneasiness gave away to a sense of eager expectation. The shore lights were growing brighter, and Tom, leaving his place at the bow, came down the boat towards my seat in the stern.

“We’re almost there, old man,” he remarked jubilantly. “The lad has the bearings. He’ll put us over the exact spot, and then you can go overboard. It’s a chance of a lifetime.”

Just as he spoke, the lad turned. “Bee’s there,” he said, as he stopped the motor and threw out an anchor. The great coil of rope ran swiftly down for a considerable distance, and brought the boat up with a jerk. The boy came back towards us.

“Screw up t’ bull’s-eye now an’ start t’ poomp,” he directed.

“Good luck, old man,” said Tom, wringing my hand, as he started up the air pump.

“Same to you. I go with leaden steps,” I remarked, waving my lead-soled shoe as I spoke.

Tom’s hearty laugh was the last thing I heard. The bull’s-eye shut, and I found myself breathing fast. To my surprise the air supply was ample, no trace of taint, – good, wholesome air. “Come,” I said to myself. “This is not half bad.” Aided by the boy, I clambered clumsily over the bow and went down the little ladder. As I entered the water, the weight of my suit went from me, I was borne up as if I were in swimming, but, as I sank slowly, I began to feel a strange earache, increasing in intensity till I thought I should cry out with the agony. My forehead above my eyes seemed clamped in a circlet of red hot iron, and the bells of a thousand church spires seemed ringing and reverberating through my head. I could see dimly the black water about me, and I gripped the metal case of the electric lamp that I held in my hand, till I feared it would crush into fragments. All of a sudden I touched bottom, and the pain ceased. The relief was so great that for a moment or two I stood motionless, luxuriating in the respite and, as I started to go on, I realized that a slight depression was the only unusual bodily feeling left. I turned the switch of my lamp and looked about me. Nothing but clean, white sand, nothing to show which way I should turn. “Straight ahead is the best course,” I decided, and I started forward, my boots and dress, heavy and dragging on the surface as they were, of but the slightest inconvenience here. Fortunately for me, the tide was no serious hindrance, and I was to windward of the boat. Before moving I turned my lantern in every direction. One thing was sure. There was no huge hulking shadow, such as a warship lying on the bottom would make. My lamp but dimly outlined the lane of light on the sand along which I started forward. Now that I was about my work, and had safely reached the bottom, the strangeness of the situation began to wear off. I went ahead twenty measured steps, casting my light in every direction. No result. I paced back the same number to keep my position even. Turned to the right, and repeated the maneuver. Turned to the left, and did the same. No sign. Apparently the depths had remained untouched since the Royal George had been cleared from the harbor, back about 1840. Returned from my last trip, I turned off my lantern, to save its current, and stood in the darkness pondering. I did not want to go backward from the place where I was. Such a step would put me to leeward of the boat, and the lad had warned me against such a move, saying that it might be hard for me to make progress against the tide. There was nothing to be done save to try a further cast of fortune, so I pushed on twenty paces forward and started to count twenty more. Just as I was reaching the limit, the lantern gleam showed a shadow ahead of me. I hurried on till the object came into the full light. There, peacefully as if sleeping in his quiet bed at home, lay a midshipman in his blue uniform. He could not have been fifteen years of age. His golden hair, that a mother might often have kissed and caressed, swayed with the slight movement of the waters. His arm lay naturally beneath his head. As I knelt beside this childish victim of a dread mission, a wave of bitter rebellion passed over me. I cried out in very intensity of feeling. The sound reverberating through the helmet to my ears seemed a mighty roar, and, surprised into realization, I braced myself to my work and looked more closely. There was something strange about the uniform, something different from that on the youngsters I had seen about German harbors. I studied the form before me for a minute before I saw what it was. At last I placed it. The buttons, the brass buttons were gone. I looked more narrowly. Not a glint of metal showed. Rising, I passed on, and entered on a city of the dead beneath the waves. Officer and sailor, steward and electrician lay in quiet rest. They lay all around me, as if sleeping on a battlefield, ready for the struggle of the morning. I had paced many steps before I reached the end. A thousand men lay there. Not one had even a shadow of surprise, of premonition of death, upon his brow. All lay as if ready for the reveille, the reveille which would not sound for them. It seemed no thing of earth. Rather a scene from some unearthly vision where I, a disembodied spirit, walked among the forgotten shells of other souls. I wakened with a start, as I came sharp up against a mass which gave way at my approach. I flashed my lamp upon it. A heap of crockery, broken and shattered, met my eye. One plate in ornate gold showed the double eagle and below “Kaiserin Luisa.” That heap of broken crockery and this city of the dead were all that remained of as fine a battleship, of as magnificent a result of human ingenuity and skill, as ever sailed the seas. I must not linger, though, I had work enough to do, to find all I could of the reasons for the catastrophe, and give place to Tom before the dawn could come. Just beside me lay an officer. I could not tell his rank, for all insignia had disappeared. I stooped to look for metal, when suddenly I felt myself rising steadily. I was being drawn to the surface, though I had given no signal. Indignantly I jerked the rope twice again and again. The men above paid no heed to my commands, and I mounted steadily upwards.