The Men Who Wrought

"You – you were there – in the submersible?"

Vita's eyes were shining with a world of emotion. The story had caught her and swept her along with it. A great pride was in her heart. This man had risked all, everything for her father and herself.

"Oh, yes. But I wasn't by any means alone. Young Sparling and twenty of his bluejackets from the yards had been secreted aboard. But – it was deadly work. How I escaped without a scratch I don't know. Five of our men got wounded. Von Berger fought like a fury. The other, Von Salzinger, went out suddenly at the outset. I'm not sure who brought him down. Sparling and I fired simultaneously. I hope it was my shot that sent him – home. But Von Berger was wonderful. It was not until we had crushed his wrist and hand in the fighting that he was overpowered. He was a veritable Hercules."

Vita had listened almost breathlessly. Now her enquiry came in a low, eager tone.

"And Von Berger – what happened after he was overpowered?"

Ruxton hesitated.

"It was he who killed my father," Vita reminded him.

"Yes."

"Tell me."

Ruxton had no alternative.

"We had a talk – he and I. The result? He was given an alternative. The hangman's rope here ashore, or half an hour's freedom of the submersible's deck."

Vita nodded. She understood.

"And he chose?"

"The deck. You see he was a royal prince."

"Yes."

Neither seemed inclined to break the silence that followed. Each was thinking of the scenes which must have been enacted. Ruxton, as he had witnessed them. Vita, as her imagination portrayed them.

Finally it was Vita who spoke in a whisper that became almost startling.

"The others – the crew of the boat?"

"They have been all sent back to Germany – via Holland. They were all held here till the wounded had recovered. Then they went away together."

But Vita's eyes were wide with apprehension.

"But the secret. The secret of it all will reach Berlin. It will reach even to – "

Ruxton smiled.

"Precisely what was intended and – hoped. It has done so. We know that. We have had the most curious and subtle enquiries from the Berlin authorities. They dared not openly accuse. We have replied. Our Foreign Office formulated the reply. They have been told that a murder was committed upon the Yorkshire coast – the murder of a German named Von Hertzwohl. It was committed by a rascally crew of Germans, headed by one, Von Berger, and assisted by another, Von Salzinger. These seem to have been the names they were known by, though the police think they were probably aliases. Unfortunately the gang got away in boats. However, the leaders came to an untimely end in the pursuit by the police. One shot himself – the one called Von Salzinger. The other, Von Berger, who seems to have been injured, tried to escape by going overboard from the boat in which he was endeavoring to get away. The Foreign Office has regretted that it can obtain no further information which might be of use to Berlin."

"But it is a challenge," cried Vita in an awed voice.

Ruxton's smile broadened.

"So it was intended." He shook his head. "But it is a challenge they dare not take up. Furthermore, it should leave us in peace to complete the work your poor father has so well begun."

Ruxton rose from his seat on the bed. He moved away, across to the leaded window, from which the sunbeam had long since passed. He gazed out across the leafless trees of the park towards the drab of the moorland beyond. He was not unaffected by his own story. He knew how much more it must mean to Vita. He waited. He was waiting for a summons which he felt would come in Vita's own good time.

A few minutes passed and then it came. He turned about and smiled over at the sweet grey eyes which were so frankly appealing. There was a change, a great change in them. All the trouble seemed to have passed out of them. And the weary brain behind them seemed at last to have found that rest it so seriously needed.

"Ruxton," she murmured. "Can you – can you ever forgive me for – what – "

The man was at the bedside again. This time he was not sitting. He was leaning across it, and his arms were outstretched and thrust about her soft, warm body, where she leant against the cushions. His face was drawn up within a few inches of hers. His eyes were on a level with hers. They were smiling into the deeps of grey beauty before them. Nay, the tragedy of it, he was laughing into them.

"Promising to marry Von Salzinger? If I had been in your place I shouldn't have promised. I'd have married him right off if it were to save me from being murdered." Then his laugh died out abruptly. "Don't think of it, my beautiful Vita. Don't ever let the thought of it enter your dear, dear head again. If ever a poor defenceless woman went through an earthly hell, you did. Sweetheart, it's my sole purpose in life now to endeavor to place you in an earthly heaven."

He drew her to him in a passionate embrace. And so their lips met and lingered.

CHAPTER XXXI

AFTER TWELVE MONTHS

The shock which electrified London was reminiscent of the shocks to which it was submitted in the early days of the war, when the "Yellow" press ran riot, and journalists dipped deeply into their reservoirs of superlatives to generate the current of sensation which should sell their papers.

It was a misty afternoon, with an almost intangible yet saturating drizzle; a setting admirably fitting an evening newspaper thrill. Spirits were at a sufficiently low ebb for something of a screaming nature. Fleet Street did its best; a best at no time to be despised.

It came as the homeward rush began from the offices of the great metropolis. It stared out from street corners and the fronting of bookstalls. It looked up from the greasy pavements. It served to hide a portion of the rags which hung about the nether limbs of small street urchins. It came in strident, raucous tones upon the moisture-laden atmosphere. There was no escaping it. That which escaped the eyes thrust itself upon defenceless ear. And its urgent note created the necessary excitement in minds set upon the task of making the homeward journey with the least possible delay.

Then, at once, the careless eye was caught and held. "Under Water: The World Defied," cried one contents bill. "The New Submersible Merchantman," announced one of the more sedate journals. "The Great Problem Solved," cryptically suggested a buff-tinted sheet. "From Downing Street to the Deeps," smiled the more flippant pink announcement. And so on through the whole jargon of the press poster. There was no escape from it. The word "submersible" seemed to fill the whole of the wretched winter atmosphere. And, as was intended, it caught the London fancy, and deflected purpose into the channel it desired.

London was startled; and when London is startled by its press it is no niggard. Therefore the rain of coppers which set in became perilously near a deluge. The small boys snatched, and the old sinners with grey whiskers and weather-stained faces swept in their harvest. The bookstall attendants dealt out their papers in a steady, accurate stream, and, within an hour, the whole of London's democracy had formulated its definite opinion upon the new adventure, in the dogmatic manner of the British ratepayer.

Strange and mixed were many of the opinions which flew from lip to lip in the overcrowded homeward bound trains and 'buses. True, there were many who read the well-told story of the skilful journalist as they might read a sensational tale in a sixpenny magazine. They enjoyed it. They devoured it hungrily. Then they passed on to the sports page, and considered the doings of their favorites in the sporting world. But the suburban ratepayer, the householder whose responsibilities left him no alternative but to take himself seriously, was of a different calibre. He possesses to the full the stolid, fault-finding mind of the British race. He is as full of prejudice as the egg is supposed to be full of meat. He is ready at all times to hurl blame and anathema at the heads of those who conspire to extract from his pocket the necessary funds to contrive that he shall live in security and comfort in his home. He is the victim of a splendid pessimism for all things except his summer holiday. His opinions come like a shot from a gun.

He read with incredulity until he arrived at the point where he felt righteously he could open afresh the rut of his ever-ready disapproval. Then the full force of what he read percolated heavily through his fog of prejudiced incredulity, and virtuous indignation supervened.

"What was this absurd nonsense? Who ever heard of submersible merchantmen? What fresh folly of the Government was coming now? The Prime Minister on the trial trip. Why the devil didn't he stick to his job in Downing Street? The moment these fellows got their five thousand a year they didn't care a hang for the country. Playing about with these toys of some crazy inventor. It made one sick. Anyway, if the Government were concerned in the scheme, why was it kept secret? Why wasn't the taxpayer told of it? Who was making the money out of it? Somebody. There was always graft in these secret things. There was too much of this hole-in-the-corner business – entirely too much. Altogether too much disregard for the liberty of the subject," etc., etc.

But the Fleet Street chorus of "epochs" and "masterly moves" and "strokes of statesmanship" found an abiding echo amongst the optimists. They saw, with eyes wide open, that which they read. There was no grumble in them. Why should there be? That which they read told them clearly of success. It told them that never again would Britain's overseas commerce be placed in jeopardy from enemy attack in time of war; that is, if British enterprise would only rise to the opportunity afforded. That was simple enough. Of course the ship-owners would see their advantage. Germany – pah!

The men who personally felt aggrieved, however, were the professional politicians and the private Member. These men were seriously perturbed. Here was real limelight, and they were not in it! Horrible thought! Their course lay clearly before them. An attack upon inoffensive paper, by a pen, erroneously believed to be mightier than the sword, was their only hope of making up leeway. So those who had sufficient influence hurled broadcast the next morning, in their favorite daily papers, a wealth of ill-considered and valueless criticism and opinion of something which they were splendidly incompetent to judge.

And the cause of all the sensation? It was so small an incident, and yet so tremendous in its omen for the future. Just the story of a number of eminent men, Cabinet Ministers, naval and army men, and one or two great ship-builders, running a blockade of warships, and successfully shipping a cargo of pretended contraband of war from Dundee to Gravesend. The game had been played in deadly earnest. It was a test trip for a new type of submersible cargo and passenger vessel, pitting its powers against the concentrated might of a large squadron of the British Navy. It was a test of efficiency. The details were simple in the extreme. The laden vessel, carrying a thousand tons of merchandise and its burden of passengers, was lying at Dundee. Outside, watching and waiting for its appearance on the high seas, lay a powerful squadron of the British Navy. The rules laid down were that the submersible should make its way to Gravesend, and the naval squadron, under war conditions, was to capture it, or place it in such a position as to be sinkable, by any means in its power, at any point upon its journey.

The result. With all the skill and power at its command the great surface squadron had proved its helplessness. The submersible had slipped out of port under cover of darkness, and from that moment, until its arrival at Gravesend, the seas had been scoured vainly for so much as a sight of it.

It was a tremendous thought. It was a splendid victory for the pacifist hope. The dead Polish inventor had been justified beyond all question. Never had the word "epoch," such as Fleet Street loves, been better used. It was such a moment that those who made the secret journey, and witnessed the capabilities of the vessel which had been built at the Dorby yards, were flung back from all preconceived convictions of maritime affairs, established during the war, to imaginative speculation upon the vista of progress now opened up.

Not a man of them, from the Prime Minister of England down to the junior lieutenant upon the vainly striving fleet of war-vessels, but realized a picture of the doom of the magnificent and costly super-Dreadnought as the pillar of might upon which naval power must rest. Its proud office gone, it appeared to them as little greater than a means of defence against the landing of hostile man power upon Britain's vulnerable shores. The proud queens of the sea must pass from their exalted thrones to a lesser degree in naval armaments.

Nor was the realization without pity and regret. How could it be otherwise in the human heart which ever worships the actual display of might? It almost seemed as if the world had been suddenly given over to topsy-turveydom.

The facts, however, were irrefutable. As in the dim past the troublous surface of the seas had been conquered by the intrepid and skilful mariner, now at last the devious submarine channels had been turned into an almost equally secure highway of traffic by the inventor. The march of progress was continuing. It was invention triumphant. The world's sea-borne commerce was secured. It was held safe from enemy war-craft in the future. Therefore the doom of the proud battleship had been sounded.

Some day, perhaps, a new weapon would be achieved. Some day, perhaps, even the channels of the dark waters would be rendered insecure by the hand that had now made them safe. For the present, however, and probably for years to come, the sea-borne food supplies of Britain stood in no position of jeopardy.

It was well past midnight. The house in Smith Square quite suddenly displayed renewed signs of life. A closed motor had driven up, paused, and then passed on. Then appeared many lights behind the small-paned Georgian windows.

Ruxton Farlow had returned home with his wife after a strenuous and exciting day; and with them was their devoted Yorkshire father, burning with the sense of a great triumph for his beloved son, and his almost equally beloved daughter.

Their journey from Gravesend earlier in the evening had been broken that they might attend an informal dinner-party at Downing Street. It was a function entirely in honor of the masters of Dorby; and it had been arranged that Ruxton's colleagues in the country's Cabinet might tender their sincere congratulations and thanks for the work which he, and his father, and his wife had achieved privately in their country's cause.

It was over; and all three were relieved and thankful. But the note of triumph surging through their hearts was still dominant. Scarcely a word had passed between them in the brief run from Downing Street to Smith Square. Their hearts were as yet too full, and the memory of the words addressed to them by Sir Meeston and his colleagues was still too poignant to permit of normal conditions. Vita had leant back in the car, with her husband's arm linked through hers, and one of his powerful hands clasped in hers. She sat thus with thought teeming, and a heart thrilling with an unspeakable joy, and happiness, and triumph, all for the man at her side. Her own share in the events through which they had passed was entirely forgotten by her. This man at her side filled her whole focus. He was all in all to her, as she felt he was all in all to the cause in which they had worked.

It was perhaps the profoundest and proudest moment of her life. It was a moment of perfect happiness. All she had ever dreamed of was hers; and the hand of the man she worshipped was even now, warm and strong, clasped tightly in her own. Hers to keep; hers to lean on; hers never to yield so long as their lives should last.

In the house they passed up into the small drawing-room, and, for a few moments, they sat there before retiring. Slowly the spell of the day's events fell from them. It was finally Sir Andrew who released them from it.

He gazed across at Vita with twinkling eyes. His smile was full of kindly tenderness.

"Now, perhaps, I shall have time to appreciate the fact that at last I am the happy possessor of a beautiful daughter as well as a headstrong son," he said. Then, after the briefest hesitation: "Vita, my dear," he went on, in his old-fashioned manner, while his gaze took in the radiant beauty turned abruptly towards him, "it seems to me that the most wonderful thing in the world has happened to me. The long, lonely life seems to have entirely passed. I mean the loneliness which only a man can feel who is deprived for all time of the association of his own womankind. Now at last I can draw deep comfort from the reflection of Ruxton's happiness. Now, however slight my claim, I can nevertheless claim something of a woman's filial regard. The grey of life has been tinted for me since you have chosen to make my boy happy, and as time goes on I can see that tint develop into the roseate hue of a happiness I somehow never thought to feel again. Bless you, my dear, for coming into an old man's life; and you, too, my boy," he went on, turning to the smiling Ruxton, "for having given me such a daughter. I feel this is the moment for saying this. The work is done now in workmanlike fashion, and the little triumph of it all makes me want to tell you of this thing that I feel."

Vita impulsively left her husband's side. She rose from the settee and crossed over to her second father and held out both her hands.

"You have made it difficult for me to say a word – " she began, smiling down upon him with her glorious eyes. Then she seemed to become speechless.

The oriflamme of her red-gold hair shone with a delicious burnish under the shaded electric light. Her flushed oval cheek glowed with a suggestion of thrilling happiness. The old man caught and held her hands, and, the next moment, she had bent her slimly graceful body and impressed upon his rugged cheek a kiss of deep affection.

Still she remained speechless, and she turned and glanced with dewy eyes in appeal to the great husband looking on.

"Won't you help me?" she demanded wistfully.

Ruxton laughed happily.

"Help?" he said quickly. Then he shook his head. "No, no. You don't need any help. Just tell him what you once told me. You remember." His eyes became serious. "You said 'I love him almost as if he were really my own father.' He won't need more."

And Vita obeyed him, reciting the words almost like some child. But she meant them, and felt them, and at the last word her glance was full of a whimsical light as she added of her own initiative —

"And aren't you two dears going to smoke?"

Half an hour later the two men were sitting alone in Ruxton's study. The smoke of their cigars hung heavily upon the air of the room. There had come a moment of profound silence between them. They had talked of the happenings of that day: of the test of their new submersible: its simple triumph, and all it meant in the cause of humanity, of that progress towards a lasting peace among nations which mankind was yearning to achieve.

Each man had offered his own view-point for discussion, and it seemed as if the last word had at length been spoken. But they sat on in silence, and Sir Andrew watched the reflective eyes of his idealist son. He was speculating as to what deep thought still lay unvoiced behind them, and he urged him.

"Well, boy? It has been a long day. Is it bed? Or are you going to put into words that dream I see moving behind your eyes?"

Ruxton broke into a short, nervous laugh which died out with a curious, sober abruptness.

"Dreams, dreams? I wonder if they are only dreams. If they are dreams they are surely vivid enough – painfully vivid." He paused for an infinitesimal fraction. "No, no, Dad, I am no visionary in the sense that imagination runs away with me. I see many things that every other man sees, and it is only a question of different reading. What do you think the majority of people in this country will do when they really understand all that our little adventure means? They will metaphorically fling up their hats, and deride the wretched Teuton, and his merciless delight in the slaughter of innocent life upon the high seas. In a few years' time, when they see our sea-borne traffic carried by great submersibles of eight and ten thousand tons, their confidence will be unbounded, and they will reiterate again the old song 'Britannia Rules the Waves,' and – they will have justice on their side. But the questions which I ask myself, which I must keep on asking myself, are – 'Does Britannia rule the waves? Can she continue to rule the waves?'"

He shook his head, and gently removed the ash from his cigar.

"In spite of all the evidence, in spite of our wholly promising new move for protecting our overseas traffic, in spite of the brilliant manner in which our Navy has met, and defeated, every ingenious method of attack by our enemies in the past, I do not believe we can ever hope to continue indefinitely our rule of the seas, or even the safeguarding of our overseas traffic.

"Oh, yes, I know what everybody will say in answer to such a statement," he went on, in reply to the interrogatory in his father's eyes. "But they are wrong, a thousand times wrong," he declared, almost passionately. "It is no sound argument or real logic that what we have done for the past few hundred years we can continue to do. Our men are giants among the men of the sea. But they are only human. The days of 'wait and see' are over. We must not wait for trouble to arise to attempt its counter. We must look ahead with all the experience of the late war behind us. The reason we rule the seas at the moment – if we do rule them – is because we are an island country, and because our past necessities have forced us to stride far ahead in maritime affairs of all other nations, while they possessed no full realization of the value of sea power. But the late war has shown us that now, at last, every country in the world understands to the full the necessity for wresting from any one Power the dominance of the seas. Look back. Germany was fighting for sea power as greatly as she was fighting for anything else. Russia, that vast land-locked world, could only hope for an outlet to the sea as a result of all her sacrifice. The Balkan countries, their national aspirations, every one of them was a harbor on the high seas. The whole world intends to possess each its share of the great waterways, without fear of the dominance of any one nation. It is plain, plain as the writing on the wall.

"I solemnly submit that Britain's power, her domination of the seas, cannot stand for all time. And the reason – it is so simple, so terribly simple. Just as our strength now lies in the seas, so does our weakness. Every moment of our lives the threat of starvation stares into our haunted eyes, and we, like hunted men, search and search for a means to ward it off. Do you see? I could weep for those who will not see. The Germans were just not clever enough, that is all. They saw the weakened links in our armor, and endeavored to drive home the attack when they attempted their submarine blockade. But their attempt lacked adequate preparation. This is all ancient history, but it points in the direction I would have men look. The result of that has been to make us further consolidate our defences. The completion of that comes in our new submersible. But, remember, we are defending only against known forces – not the unknown. It is the unknown we have to fear. Every human defence can be destroyed by human ingenuity. That is why I say that the new principle will only serve us in itself for just the amount of time which it takes our rivals to readjust their focus, and mobilize their powers of offence. The day will come when some invention will be brought to attack underwater craft successfully. And then – what then? In spite of all our territory, our wealth, our nominal power we shall be driven to yield to the pangs of hunger. It is not a dream I am showing you. It is a reality. It is a truism which no logical mind can deny."

Sir Andrew refrained from comment for some moments as his son ceased speaking. But at last, as the silence prolonged, he urged him.