“Och, leave the boy be!” grunted the Scot.
Possibly, had his victim remained impervious, the Cockney might have paid heed. But, on repetition, Otto had grasped ‘Scandanoovian.’ And the words ‘German’ and ‘fifth column’ were plain enough. He was badly startled. He set down the chisel he was using and sat upright and stared at Bates. He hoped that his face was not betraying him by pallor. Half his mind knew that this was a clumsy, malicious joke—but the other half told him that such jokes can be deadly. He said nothing, wondering what to do.
The Cockney, encouraged by this reaction, rose to histrionic heights. His beady little eyes were cruel and twinkling. He began to gesticulate. He said:
“Didn’t fool me for a minute, you didn’t! I knew yer the minute yer set foot aboard; I reckernized yer by the shipe of yer ’ead. ‘Oh-oh!’ I says to meself, ‘A German, eh? Boche, eh? A bleedin’ fiver!’”
Otto decided what Nils would do.
“Don’ be a dom fooil!” he said, grinning and using his broadest accent.
The Scotsman looked up, studying the pair with lacklustre interest. “Gin I waur you, London, I’d be leavin’ yon laddie bide.” He spoke quietly, as if it were small matter to him whether his words were heard or not.
They certainly had no effect upon Bates, now playing to a gallery of three deck-hands who had stopped to listen appreciatively.
“So yer don’t like bein’ rumbled, eh?” He came a step nearer and stood directly over the half-prostrate Otto. “Don’t worry, cockie, they proberly won’t shoot yer—they’ll jest shove yer in a ’ternment camp f’r about six mumffs—till we’ve settled ’Itler’s ’ash! . . .”
Otto did not look up again—but neither did he continue his work. He was still desperately wondering what to do; striving to make no mistakes with Nils Jorgensen’s reactions.
“An’ by the bye——” Bates was lashing himself to yet greater efforts—“’Ow was the Fury when you last ’ad haudience with ’im? I mean, before ’e sent you orf on this ’ere job? . . .”
The three deck-hands drew closer, all smiling broadly. The Scotsman, more intently now, watched Nils Jorgensen.
Bates worked swiftly to his climax—an imitation which he had rendered with unvarying success in many fo’c’sles and more bars. “I c’n jest picture the touchin’ scene when ’e gives you yer orders. . . .” He had whipped out a little black pocket comb and, while he was speaking, had combed down over his bony forehead a lank streak of dark, greasy hair. “Somethin’ like this, it must of bin.” He now held the comb in his left hand with only an inch or so of it visible, and he suddenly pressed this inch to his upper lip, where it showed beneath his nose like a smudge of moustache. As, simultaneously, he thrust out his right hand in the Nazi salute, the resemblance to cartoons and even photographs of Adolf Hitler was undeniably strong. And the harsh, whining shout in which he began to render double-talk German completed a parody of very considerable effect.
“Doss picklehausen!” he bawled. “Ee puddingfelt ei picknoser! . . . Voo puddpuller ee kintergarten wass grummiter keifet! . . .”
The deck-hands clutched each other in an ecstasy of mirth—and the Scot set down his hammer.
Each muscle in Otto Falken’s body was like a coiled spring: Nils Jorgensen was fast fading into the machine-made limbo from which he had sprung. . . .
But Bates—even if he sensed danger—was too much enamoured of his own performance to stop.
“Dee droonkentramps ee kiesterflogger! . . .” he roared—and broke off with a strange sound which was half scream, half gurgle.
For the lèse majesté was too much for Otto Falken. Incredibly, he came up from the deck and his lying position in one smooth, catlike movement so fast that the eyes of the watchers could barely follow it. And his right hand took Bates by his scrawny throat while the left took iron grip upon the belt around the man’s middle. . . .
“Hey!” said the Scot, and scrambled to his feet.
“Ugg!” said Bates—or something like that. He was now above Otto’s head, held parallel with the deck at the full stretch of Otto’s arms—and very near was a yawning companionway which led down steeply to the second-class saloon. . . .
“Hey, Swede!” shouted the Scot—and began to move. But he was too late. Otto, still with his burden kicking and struggling above his head, took four steps—and flung the burden from him, a weirdly waving mass of arms and legs, down the companionway. . . .
There was trouble. There was bound to be, although the wiry Bates escaped with nothing more than a great fright, complete loss of wind and a badly bruised back.
But his story had lost nothing in the telling—and Otto was confined, awaiting appearance before the Captain, to the cramped amidships quarters below ‘C’ deck which he shared with the Scot and two stewards. He would, on a normal cruise, have been in the brig—but on the Vulcania now there was no such thing: like every other inch of available space, it was housing units of the cargo.
Otto sat on the edge of a lower bunk. His elbows were on his knees and his chin was cupped in his hands. He stared unseeingly at his feet and, his heart no higher than his ankles, reviled himself for a headstrong and utterly incompetent fool who was so little fitted for his work that he must betray himself, forsooth, because he could not tolerate the apings of a moronic enemy; apings which were merely malicious chaff. . . .
He seemed to have been endless hours in confinement—but actually only half the middle watch had passed since they put him there. He wondered, hopelessly, when the Captain would see him—and what would happen after that. It seemed inevitable to him, now, that he should be recognized for what he was. . . . He thought of prison-camps, and courts-martial, and firing parties—and the utter unworthiness of Otto Falken. . . .
He wondered why they kept him waiting so long—and thought it must be to break him down. Well, they wouldn’t break him down. They could do what they liked to him, he wouldn’t slip again: for what it was worth he would maintain to the end steadfast adherence to the character and self of Nils.
He jumped up and from its corner pulled his duffel bag and undid it and dragged out the battered strong-box. He unlocked this and found the oilskin-covered package of photographs and papers: it could do no harm to have with him the ‘proofs’ of Nils’ identity which the Machine had provided, from birth certificate to the yellowed old snapshots.
He locked the box again and put it back in the duffel bag and slipped the oilskin packet inside his shirt. He began to pace the little cabin: he would not let this waiting break him down, he would think of other things; things which Nils might think of—anything and everything except the fact that he was Otto Falken. . . .
It was weary, uphill work—but he made some sort of showing at last, by asking himself Nils-like questions, then giving the answers. Why, for instance, if England were sending women and children away because things were so bad, did they not properly escort the ships which carried these women and children? And what was a boat bound from Southampton to New York doing in Lisbon, which the Portuguese so foolishly called Lisboa? And why should the voyage from Lisbon to New York be supposed to take eight days upon a ship of this class, when six should be more than enough? And who and what was the English Quartermaster who had got him aboard? . . .