_ BOOK VII. AT THE SHIPYARD
CHAPTER V
Days of harrowing restiveness followed, Mamise starting at every word spoken to her, leaping to her feet at every step that passed her cottage, springing from her sleep with a cry, "Who's there!" at every breeze that fumbled a shutter.
But nothing happened; nobody came for her.
The afternoon of the Liberty Loan drive was declared a half-holiday. The guards were doubled at the gates, and watchmen moved among the crowds; but strangers were admitted if they looked plausible, and several motor-loads of them rolled in. Some of them carried bundles of circulars and posters and application blanks. Some of them were of foreign aspect, since a large number of the workmen had to be addressed in other languages than English.
Mamise drifted from one audience to another. She encountered her team-mate Pafflow and tried to find a speaker who was using his language.
At length a voice of an intonation familiar to him threw him into an ecstasy. What was jargon to Mamise was native music to him, and she lingered at his elbow, pretending to share his thrill in order to increase it.
She felt a twitch at her sleeve, and turned idly.
Nicky Easton was at her side. Her mind, all her minds, began to convene in alarm like the crew of a ship attacked.
"Nicky!" she gasped.
"No names, pleass! But to follow me quick."
"I'm right with you." She turned to follow him. "One minute." She stepped back and spoke fiercely to Pafflow. "Pafflow, find Mr. Davidge. Tell him Nicky is here. Remember,
Nicky is here. It's life and death. Find him."
Pafflow mumbled, "Nicky is here!" and Mamise ran after Nicky, who was lugging a large suit-case. He was quivering with excitement.
"I didn't knew you in pentaloons, but Chake Nuttle pointet you owit," he laughed.
"Wh-where is Jake?"
"He goes ahead vit a boondle of bombs. Nobody is on the
Schiff. Ve could not have so good a chence again."
Mamise might have, ought to have, seized him and cried for help; but she could not somehow throw off the character she had assumed with Nicky. She obeyed him in a kind of automatism. Her eyes searched the crowd for Larrey, who had kept all too close to her of recent days and nights. But he had fallen under the hypnotism of some too eloquent spellbinder.
Mamise felt the need of doing a great heroic feat, but she could not imagine what it might be. Pending the arrival from heaven of some superfeminine inspiration, she simply went along to be in at the death.
Pafflow was a bit stupid and two bits stubborn. He puzzled over Mamise's peculiar orders. He wanted to hear the rest of that fiery speech. He turned and stared after Mamise and noted the way she went, with the foppish stranger carrying the heavy baggage. But he was used to obeying orders after a little balking, and in time his slow brain started him on the hunt for Davidge. He quickened his pace and asked questions, being put off or directed hither and yon.
At last he saw the boss sitting on a platform behind whose fluttering bunting a white-haired man was hurling noises at the upturned faces of the throng. Pafflow supposed that his jargon was English.
Getting to Davidge was not easy. But Pafflow was stubborn. He pushed as close to the front as he could, and there a wall of bodies held him.
The orator was checked in full career with almost fatal results by the sudden bellowing of a voice from the crowd below. He supposed that he was being heckled. He paused among the ruins of his favorite period, and said:
"Well, my friend, what is it?"
Pafflow ignored him and shouted: "Meesta Davutch! O-o-h, Meesta Davutch. Neecky is here."
Davidge, hearing his name bruited, rose and called into the mob, "What's that?"
"Neecky is here."
When Davidge understood he was staggered. For a moment he stood in a stupor. Then he apologized to the speaker. "An emergency call. Please forgive me and go right on!"
He bowed to the other distinguished guests and left the platform. Pafflow found him and explained.
"Moll, the passer-boy, my gang, she say find you, life and death, and say Neecky is here! I doan' know what she means, but now I find you."
"Which way--where--did you--have you an idea where she went?"
"She go over by new ship
Mamise--weeth gentleman all dressy up."
Davidge ran toward the scaffolding surrounding the almost finished hull. He recognized one or two of his plain-clothes guards and stopped just long enough to tell them to get together and search every ship at once, and to make no excitement about it.
The scaffolding was like a jungle, and he prowled through it with caution and desperate speed, up and down the swaying, cleated planks and in and out of the hull.
He searched the hold first, expecting that Nicky would naturally plant his explosives there. That indeed was his scheme, but Mamise had found among her tumbled wits one little idea only, and that was to delay Nicky as long as possible.
She suggested to him that before he began to lay his train of wires he ought to get a general view of the string of ships. The best point was the top deck, where they were just about to hoist the enormous rudder to the stern-post.
Nicky accepted the suggestion, and Mamise guided him through the labyrinth. They had met Jake at the base of the falsework, and he came along, leaving his bundle. Nicky carried his suit-case with him. He did not intend to be separated from it. Jake was always glad to be separated from work.
They made the climb, and Nicky's artistic soul lingered to praise the beautiful day for the beautiful deed. In a frenzy of talk, Mamise explained to him what she could. She pointed to the great hatchway for the locomotives and told him:
"The ship would have been in the water now if it weren't for that big hatch. It set us--the company back ninety days."
"And now the ship goes to be in the sky in about nine minutes. Come along once."
"Look down here, how deep it is!" said Mamise, and led him to the edge. She was ready to thrust him into the pit, but he kept a firm grip on a rope, and she sighed with regret.
But Davidge, looking up from the depth of the well, saw Nicky and Mamise peering over the edge. His face vanished.
"Who iss?" said Nicky. "Somebody is below dere. Who iss?"
Mamise said she did not know, and Jake had not seen.
Nicky was in a flurry. The fire in Davidge's eyes told him that Davidge was looking for him. There was a dull sound in the hitherto silent ship of some one running.
Nicky grew hysterical with wrath. To be caught at the very outset of his elaborate campaign was maddening. He opened his suit-case, took out from the protecting wadding a small iron death-machine and held it in readiness. A noble plan had entered his brain for rescuing his dream.
Nuddle, glancing over the side, recognized Davidge and told Nicky who it was that came. When Davidge reached the top deck, he found Nicky smiling with the affability of a floorwalker.
"Meester Davitch--please, one momend. I holt in my hant a little machine to blow us all high-sky if you are so unkind to be impolite. You move--I srow. We all go up togedder in much pieces. Better it is you come with me and make no trouble, and then I let you safe your life. You agree, yes? Or must I srow?"
Davidge looked at the bomb, at Nicky, at Nuddle, then at Mamise. Life was sweet here on this high steel crag, with the cheers of the crowds about the stands coming faintly up on the delicious breeze. He knew explosives. He had seen them work. He could see what that handful of lightning in Nicky's grasp would do to this mountain he had built.
Life was sweet where the limpid river spread its indolent floods far and wide. And Mamise was beautiful. The one thing not sweet and not beautiful was the triumph of this sardonic Hun.
Davidge pondered but did not speak.
With all the superiority of the Kultured German for the untutored Yankee, Nicky said, "Vell?"
Perhaps it was the V that did it. For Davidge, without a word, went for him. _