Part 19 (1/2)
”The boy-sticker shoved us over to a table, and there was an officer sitting with a bottle and gla.s.s, and a small chunk of a sort of black bread.”
”That stuff is made of sawdust and oatmeal, I'll bet,” said Beany. ”It was worse than we would give the pigs!”
”Well,” said Porky, ”we stood where we had been shoved, and pretty soon the officer looked up, and the boy-sticker commenced to talk to him in German.
”The officer commenced to look real bright and interested. He said, 'Goot! Goot!' three or four times, and then he said something to us in German. I shook my head, and he tried French.
He said, 'Parley voos Frongsay?' and I said, 'Wee wee!' and Beany he b.u.t.ted in and said, 'Better not be so fresh with your wees unless he's got a dictionary to lend you,' and the officer jumped and said, 'Himmel! Where have you come from?' in just as good English as that. We both said Syracuse; and he laughed, and said, 'What a small world! Why, I went to Syracuse University!'
”You would never think a guy that had chances in a real country like ours would act like he did. He kept us standing there, and he asked us all about everything back home, and just as we thought he was getting real friendly he said cool as anything, 'We saved you because we are short handed. Do as you are told. Obey. It's your one chance. We will shoot you, no doubt, when we get to port.'
”Wasn't that nice and encouraging,” asked Beany of the attentive audience. ”They made us take off all our clothes and put on those old things that had belonged to the two fellows who had died. And then we went to work. Well, he set me to fixing up the little bunk place he slept in, when he did sleep. The rest of us just laid down anywhere. There's not a lot of room in a submarine.”
”Yes, and first thing,” said Beany, ”Porky was wigwagging me to be careful what I did, and to try to keep the Captain from looking.”
”Yes, because what do you think I had found? A wad of papers that looked like plans just lying around on his locker, and a whole row of bottles. Medicines I suppose, and one of them said Anesthetique, and I made up my mind that was dope.”
”The next thing happened, he set me to oiling up the torpedoes.
Gee, it made me so mad to see those great smooth things lying there on their shelves ready to roll into the tubes and be shot at some good American s.h.i.+p! All at once it came to me what to do if I could work it. So I took that knife Mr. Leffingwell gave me, the one with a whole tool-chest in it, and I opened it behind my hand, and found a dandy screw-driver. Then I took a look over the torpedo I was fussing with, and I saw it steered by its tail.
I knew it must be carefully adjust, and I sort of memorized where all the screws were.”
”They can remember anything,” said Colonel Bright to Captain Greene. ”Go on!”
”Well, sir, that night I went to sleep, or pretended to, right under the torpedo shelves, and when I heard everybody snore, I went to work, and twisted all those screws a little.”
The Captain burst out into a roar of laughter.
”Well, son,” cried Captain Greene, ”it certainly worked! Could you see the result of your scheme?”
”No, sir, we couldn't see a thing. But I thought it must have worked because--well, I felt it must!
”Then everybody in the boat seemed to be mad at everybody else; and everything they said sounded as though they were threatening each other. Once the Captain laughed when the boy-sticker man said something to me, and he said,
”'Do you know what he said?' And I said no; and the Captain said, 'Well, it's too bad you never learned German! He was telling you just what he intends to do to you as soon as I give him leave.
He's a faithful soul, is Heinrich, and he wants you for his very own.'
”I said, 'Well, what you going to do about it? I guess it made me sort of mad to have him sit there and poke fun at me. He looked at me a minute, and then he up and s.h.i.+ed his gla.s.s at me.
It was a big heavy gla.s.s, but he was a little full as usual, and didn't aim very well.”
”It took him on the side of the head, just the same,” said Beany.
”Well, anyhow,” continued Porky, ”he looked at me and he said, 'When you speak to me say Sir or next time I'll kill you.'”
Porky grinned. ”He looked as though he meant it, too.”
”You bet he meant it!” said Beany. ”He was just aching to shoot us through the torpedo tube, the way they always get rid of dead ones. Gee, I was scared to death for Porky. That Captain seemed to pick on Porky, and he mixed us so, us looking just alike, that he put a white band around my arm, so he could tell which wasn't Porky.”
”Well, I guess you don't want to hear all this junk,” said Porky.
”We want every bit of it,” said Captain Greene.