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Updated: May 1, 2025
"Well, sir, there was three loads brought in altogether, an' the Christmas dinner we had on the for'ard deck of that steamer's hull was about the jolliest one that was ever seen of a hot day aboard of a wreck in the Pacific Ocean. The cap'n kept good order, an' when all was ready the tops was jerked off the boxes, and each man grabbed a can an' opened it with his knife.
Of twenty ships and a group of destroyers the night before, not one now. It was his signal-officer who thought it out first. "U-boats thick last night, sir, and the convoy must 'a' got orders to disperse or else change course," he said to the doctor. "That sounds like good dope to me too." He turned to the steamer's captain. "Where were you bound, sir?" "To Havre."
An hour later the sky was overclouded; and in the darkness the Malays came crowding up by hundreds, evidently ready for an assault, while most ominous of all was the fact that numbers of them bore bundles of light wood, and some lumps of dammar ready to continue the task they had had to give up, consequent upon the steamer's return.
The hot and sleep-inviting day had rolled slowly by; never had the river looked brighter and clearer, or more keenly reflected the rays of the sun. Far down in its pure depths the middy had watched the darting about of the fish, which seemed to seek the shadow beneath the steamer's hull for their playground.
He did so, and they held up in full view of the steamer's bridge a large blackboard showing in six-inch letters the formula: "Lat. 41-20. Lon. 69-10. Mag. Co. W. half S."
"The boat sails in an hour. Please don't come back until she's gone." We went to the moving picture palace next door, but I doubt if the thoughts of any of us were on the pictures. For after an hour, when from across the quay there came the long-drawn warning of a steamer's whistle, we nudged each other and rose and went out.
The doctor, without looking up, said: "All right." "Shall I tell the steamer's captain, sir?" This time Doc looked up. "Why, of course, tell him. Why not? Why do you ask me that?" "You are the ranking naval officer aboard here, sir. I take orders from you now, sir." For about four seconds Doc neglected his patient. That was so; so he was. "Yes, tell the captain."
"That makes no difference," he replied; "your luggage must be examined." I then appealed to the captain, who stated that, in consequence of the steamer's being obliged to enter the Baltic waters for two or three hours between Södertelje and Söderköping, the law took it for granted that we might have boarded some foreign vessel during that time and procured contraband goods.
The last, the very last one, he pulled halfway-out of its envelope and looked at it a moment; then he burned also that, without taking out the ring. The little clock on the wall struck four. A steamer's whistle sounded. Ole went away from the fireplace. His face was full of anguish; every feature was distorted; the veins around his temples were swollen.
The sun had sunk and the high land cut, harshly blue, against a saffron glow; the sea was shadowy and colorless in the east. Presently Jake, who sat facing aft, called out: "There's a steamer's masthead light coming up astern of us. Now I see her side lights, and by the distance between them she's a big boat."
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