Part 12 (2/2)

He did not care so much now about being Sherlock n.o.body Holmes--he had had enough of that. And no matter what they thought of ”Yankee Doodle Whitey,” _he_ knew that he was loyal. Let them think that all his talk of Uncle Job and the flag and his father's patriotism was just bluff--let Frenchy think he had been just deceiving him--he could stand anything, if only his brother would be like a brother to him now that they were alone together.

It was a strange, unreasonable feeling.

Once, only once, in the long night, he tried to make his brother understand.

”Maybe you won't believe me, but I'm sorry,” he said; ”if you ain't asleep I wish you'd listen--Bill. Now that I told 'em I feel kind of different--I _had_ to tell 'em. I had to decide quick--and I didn't have n.o.body--anybody--to help me. Maybe you think I was crazy---- Are you listenin'?”

There was no response, but he knew his brother was not asleep.

”It ain't because I wanted 'em to think I was smart--Bill--if you think it was that, you're wrong. And anyway, it didn't show I was so smart--you was smarter, anyway, if it comes to that. I got to admit it.

'Cause you thought about it first--about using the dish. It served me right for thinking I could deduce, and all like that, anyway. You ain't asleep, are you?”

”Aw, shut up!” his brother grunted. ”You could 'a' kept me out o' this by keepin' yer mouth shut. But you had to jabber it out, you----. And they'll plug me full of lead.”

A cold shudder ran through Tom.

”I got to admit I'm a kind of a (he was going to say _traitor_, but for his brother's sake he avoided the word). I got to admit I wasn't loyal, too. I wasn't loyal to you, anyway. But I had to decide quick, Bill. And I saw I _had_ to tell 'em. You got to be loyal to Uncle Sam first of all. But--but---- Are you listening, Bill? I ain't mad, anyway. 'Cause Adolf Schmitt's most to blame. It ain't--it ain't 'cause I want to get let off free either, it ain't. I wouldn't care so much now what they did to me, anyway. 'Cause everything is kind of spoiled now about all of us--our family--being so kind of patriotic----”

His brother, goaded out of his sullenness, turned upon him with a tirade of profane abuse, leaving the boy shamed and silent.

And all the rest of that night Tom Slade, whose hand had extinguished the guiding light, perhaps, to some lurking submarine; who had had to ”think quick and all by himself,” and had decided for his Uncle Sam against his brother Bill, sat there upon the leather settee, feeling guilty and ashamed. He knew that he had done right, but his generous heart could not feel the black, shameless treason of his brother because his own smaller treason stood in the way. He could not see the full guilt of that wretched brother because he felt mean and contemptible himself. Truly, the soldier had hit the nail on the head when he said, ”You're all right, Whitey!”

And now, suspected, shamed, sworn at and denounced, even now, as his generous nature groped for some extenuation for this traitor whose scheme he had discovered and exposed, he found it comforting to lay the whole blame and responsibility upon the missing Adolf Schmitt.

”Anyway, he tempted you,” he said, though he knew his brother would neither listen nor respond. ”Maybe you think I don't know that. He's worse than anybody--he is.”

_You're all right, Whitey!_

CHAPTER XVI

HE SEES A LITTLE AND HEARS MUCH

Toward morning, he fell asleep, and when he awoke the vibration of the engines had ceased, and he heard outside the door of his prison a most uproarious clatter which almost drowned the regular footfalls of the soldier.

He had heard linotype machines in operation--which are not exactly what you would call quiet; he had listened to the outlandish voice of a suction-dredge and the tumultuous clamor of a thres.h.i.+ng machine. But this earsplitting clatter was like nothing he had ever heard before.

The door opened and he was thankful to see that the soldier outside was not one of his particular friends. He was silently escorted to the wash room, in the doorway of which the guard waited while Tom refreshed himself after his sleepless night with a grateful bath.

The vessel, as he could see, was moored parallel with the abrupt brick sh.o.r.e of a very narrow ca.n.a.l, with somber, uninviting houses close on either hand. It was as if a s.h.i.+p were tied up along the curb of a street. Up and down the gang planks and back and forth upon the deck hurried men in blouses with great, clumsy wooden shoes upon their feet and now Tom saw the cause of that earsplitting clatter; and he knew that he had reached ”over there.”

Down on the brick street below the s.h.i.+p, a mult.i.tude of children, all in wooden shoes, danced and clattered about, in honor of the s.h.i.+p's arrival, and the windows were full of people waving the Stars and Stripes, calling ”Vive l'Amerique!” and trying, with occasional success, to throw loose flowers and little round potatoes with French and American flags stuck in them, onto the deck.

All of the houses looked very dingy and old, and the men in blouses who pushed their clods about on this or that errand upon the troops.h.i.+p, were old, too, and had sad, worn faces. Only the children were joyful.

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