Molly Brown of Kentucky

“There is no telling what may happen,” he said to the young Kentuckian, Jim Castleman, with whom he had struck up an acquaintance on the train. “Gold won’t melt in the water if we do get torpedoed, and if I have it next me, whoever wants it will have to do some tearing off of clothes to get it. And what will I be doing while they are tearing off my clothes?”

“Good idea! I reckon I’ll do the same – not that I have enough to weigh myself down with.” Castleman was on his way to France to fight.

“I don’t give a hang whether I fight with the English, French, Serbs or Russians, just so I get in a few licks on the Prussians.” He was a strapping youth of six feet three with no more idea of what he was going up against than a baby. War was to him a huge football game and he simply meant to get into the game.

The Hirondelle was a slow boat but sailing immediately, so Kent and his new friend determined to take it, since its destination, Havre, suited them.

“I like the name, too,” declared Kent, who shared with his mother and Molly a certain poetic sentiment in spite of his disclaimer of any such foolishness.

There were very few passengers, the boat being a merchantman. Kent and Jim were thrown more and more together and soon were as confidential as two school girls. Kent had been rather noncommittal in his replies at first to Jim’s questions as to what his business was in the war zone at such a time if it were not fighting. As their friendship grew and deepened, as a friendship can on shipboard in an astonishingly short time, Kent was glad enough to talk about Judy and his mission in Paris.

“She sounds like a corker! When is it to be?”

“I don’t know that it is to be, at all,” blushed Kent. “You see, we are not what you might call engaged.”

“Your fault or hers?”

“Why, we have just drifted along. Somehow I didn’t like to tie her down until I could make good – and she – well, I believe she felt the same way; but of course I can’t say. She knows perfectly well that I have never looked at another girl since I saw her at Wellington when she and my sister graduated there. She has – well, – browsed a little, but I don’t think she ever meant anything by it. We get along like a house afire, – like the same things, – think the same way, – we have never talked out yet.”

“Well, if you’ll excuse me, I think you were an ass not to settle the matter long before this.”

“Do you think so? Do you think it would have been fair? Why, man, I owed some money to my mother for my education in Paris and did not even have a job in sight!”

“Pshaw! What difference does that make? Don’t you reckon girls have as much spunk about such things as men have? If I ever see the girl I want bad enough to go all the way to Paris to get her, I’ll tell her so and have an answer if I haven’t a coat to my back.”

“Perhaps you are right. I just didn’t want to be selfish.”

“Selfish! Why, they like us selfish.”

Kent laughed at the wisdom of the young Hercules. No doubt they (whoever “they” might be) did like Castleman selfish or any other way. He looked like a young god as he sprawled on deck, his great muscular white arm thrown over his head to keep the warm rays of the sun out of his eyes. His features were large and well cut, his hair yellow and curly in spite of the vigorous efforts he made to brush it straight. His eyes were blue and childlike with long dark lashes, the kind of eyes girls always resent having been portioned out to men. There was no great mentality expressed in his countenance but absolute honesty and good nature. One felt he was to be trusted.

“Doesn’t it seem strange to be loafing around here on this deck with no thought of war and of the turmoil we shall soon be in?” said Jim one evening at sunset when they were nearing their port. “We have only a day, or two days at most, before we will be in Paris, and still it is so quiet and peaceful out here that I can hardly believe there is any other life.”

“Me, too! I feel as though I had been born and bred on this boat. All the other things that have happened to me are like a dream and this life here on the good old Hirondelle de Mer is the only real thing. I wonder if all the passengers feel this way.”

There were no women on board but the other passengers were Frenchmen, mostly waiters from New York, going home to fight for la France. The cargo was pork and beef, destined to feed the army of France.

“What’s that thing sticking up in the water out yonder?” exclaimed Kent. “It looks like the top of a mast just disappearing.”

“A wreck, I reckon!” exclaimed Jim.

Kent smiled at his countryman’s “reckon.” Having been away from the South for many months, it sounded sweet to his ears. The “guess” of the Northerner and “fancy” of the Englishman did not mean the same to him.

The lookout saw the mast-like object at the same time they noted it, and suddenly there was a hurrying and scurrying over the whole ship.

“Look, it’s sunk entirely out of sight! Jim Castleman, that’s a German submarine!”

The shock that followed only a moment afterwards was indescribable. It threw both of the Kentuckians down. They had hastened to the side of the vessel, the better to view the strange “thing sticking up out of the water.”

The boats were lowered very rapidly and filled by the crazed passengers and crew. The poor waiters had not expected to serve their country by drowning like rats. As for the crew, – they were noncombatants and not employed to serve any country in any way. They were of various nationality, many of them being Portuguese with a sprinkling of Scandinavians.

“Here’s a life preserver, Brown! Better put it on. This ain’t the Ohio.”

“Good! I’ll take my chances in the water any day rather than in one of those boats. Can you swim?”

“Sure! I can do three miles without knowing it. And you?”

“Hump! Brought up within a mile of the Ohio River and been going over to Indiana and back without landing ever since I was in pants.”

“Well, let’s dive now and get clear of the sinking boat. If anything happens to me and you get clear, you write my sister in Lexington – she’s all I have left.”

“All right, Jim! Let’s shake. If I give out and you get through, please go get Judy and take her back to my mother.”

“That’s a go! But see here, there is nothing going to happen to us if endurance will count for anything. Have you got on your money belt?”

“Yes; and you?” said Kent, feeling for the gold he carried around his waist.

“I’m all ready then.”

The boats, loaded to their guards, were putting off. Our young men felt it was much safer to trust to themselves than to the crazy manning of the already overloaded boats. They were singularly calm in their preparations as they strapped on the life preservers.

“Jim, throw away the papers you have, recommending you to that French general. We may get picked up by the submarine, and as plain, pleasure-seeking Americans we have a much better chance of being treated properly than if one of us was going to join the Allies.” Kent had inherited from his mother the faculty of keeping his head in time of peril.

“Good eye, old man! They are in my grip and can just stay there. I reckon I’m a – a – book agent. That won’t compromise me any.”

“All right, stick to it! And here goes! We must stay together.”

The Kentuckians dived as well as the bulky life preservers would permit and then they swam quietly along side by side. The ship was rapidly settling. The last boat was off, so full that every little wave splashed over its panic-stricken passengers.

CHAPTER XII.

TUTNO

The sea was comparatively calm and quite warm. If it had been anything but a shipwreck, our young men would have enjoyed the experience. They congratulated themselves that they had trusted to their own endurance and the life preservers rather than to the crazy boats when they saw one of the overloaded vessels come within an ace of turning turtle.

The submarine was now on top of the water and was slowly steaming towards the scene of disaster. The boats made for the opposite direction as fast as the oarsmen could pull. They had not realized that all the submarine wanted was to destroy the pork and beef cargo. The hungrier the French army got the sooner they would be conquered by the Germans.

“Well, my friend the book agent, what do you think about swimming in the direction of the enemy? Remember we are Americans, just plain Americans with no desire to do anything in the way of swatting Prussians. – Neutral noncombatants!” said Kent, swimming easily, the life preserver lifting him so far out of the water that he declared he felt like a bell buoy.

“Yes, I’ll remember! My line is family albums and de luxe copies of Ruskin. I hope those poor devils in the boats will make land or get picked up or something.”

“Me, too! If the sea only stays so smooth they can make a port in less than a day, if they don’t come a cropper. We are almost in the English Channel, I should say, due south of the Scilly Islands.”

“Well, I feel as though I belonged on them – here we are shipwrecked and floating around like a beach party, conversing as quietly as though it were the most ordinary occurrence to book agents and damsel seekers!”

“There is no use in getting in a stew. I have a feeling that the Germans are going to pick us up. They are heading this way and I don’t reckon they will let us sink before their eyes. If they don’t pick us up, we are good for many hours of this play. I feel as fresh as a daisy.”

“Same here!”

“Thank God, there weren’t any women and children on board!” said Kent fervently.

“Yes, I was feeling that all the time. I’d hate to think of their being in those crazy boats.”

The German boat was quite close to them now. The deck was filled with men, all of them evidently in great good humour with themselves and Fate because of the terrible havoc they had played with the poor Hirondelle de Mer, who was now at her last gasp, the waves washing over her upper decks.

“Wei gehts?” shouted Jim, raising himself up far in the water and wigwagging violently at the death dealing vessel.

It was only a short time before the efficient crew had Kent and Jim on board, in dry clothes and before an officer. The fact that they were Americans was beyond dispute, but their business on the other side was evidently taken with a grain of salt by the very keen looking, alert young man who questioned them in excellent English.

Jim was quite glib with his book agent tale. He got off a line of talk about the albums that almost convulsed Kent.

“Why were you going to Paris to sell such things? Would a country at war be a good field for such an industry?”

“But the country will not be at war long. We expect the Germans to have conquered in a short time, and then they will want many albums for the snapshots they have taken during the campaign. I have been sent as an especial favor by my company, who wish to honor me. I hate to think of all my beautiful books being sunk in the Hirondelle.” Jim looked so sad and depressed that the young officer offered him a mug of beer and urged him to try the Bologna sausage that was among the viands waiting for them.

Kent’s reason for going to Paris was received with open doubt. It was very amusing in a way that they should be completely taken in by Jim’s ingenuous tale of albums while Kent, telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, should be doubted.

“Going to Paris to bring home a young lady? Is she your sister?”

“No, she is a friend of my sister,” answered Kent, feeling very much as though he were saying a lesson.

“Do you know Paris?”

“Yes, I studied architecture at the Beaux Arts last winter.”

“Ah, then your sympathies are with France!”

“I am an American and my nation is remaining neutral on the war.”

“Yes, your nation but not the individuals! What were your intentions after finding the young lady?”

“To take her back to United States as fast as we could go.”

“Well, well! I am afraid the young lady will have to content herself in Paris for some weeks yet, as we are bound for other ports now. Make yourselves at home,” and with a salute the officer left them to the welcome meal which had immediately been furnished them after their ducking.

If the Kentuckians had had nothing to do but enjoy life on that submarine, no doubt they could have done it. They were treated most courteously by officers and men. The food was plentiful and wholesome, the life was interesting and conversation with the sailors most instructive, but Jim was eager to strike that blow against Prussia and it was extremely irksome to him to have to keep up the farce of being a book agent. Kent was more and more uneasy about Judy, realizing, from the sample of Germans he now came in contact with, that ruthlessness was the keynote of their character. They were fighting to win, and win they would or die in the attempt; by fair means or foul, they meant to conquer the whole world who did not side with them.

“Gee, if I don’t believe they can do it,” sighed Jim, as he and his friend were having one of their rare tete-a-tetes. “They have such belief in their powers.”

“Yes, they seem much more stable, somehow, than the French. Did you ever imagine anything like the clockwork precision with which this monster is run?”

“When do you reckon we will get off of her? We have been on a week now and I see no signs of landing us. I am always asking that human question mark, Captain von Husser, what he is going to do with us, and he just smiles until his moustache ends stick into his eyes, and looks wise. I feel like Hansel and Gretel and think maybe they are fattening us to eat later on. I am getting terribly flabby and fat,” and Jim felt his muscles and patted his stomach with disapproval.

“I’d certainly like to know where we are. You notice they never tell us a thing, and since we are allowed only in the cabin and on a certain part of the deck, we never have a chance at the chart. I wish they would let us bunk alone and not have that fat head in with us. This is the first time they have let us talk together since we got hauled in, and I bet some one is to blame for this.”

Kent had hardly spoken before a flushed lieutenant came hurriedly up and with ill-concealed perturbation entered into conversation with them.

“Gee whiz!” thought Kent. “I wish Jim Castleman and I knew some kind of a language that these butchers did not know. But the trouble is they are so terribly well educated they know all we know and three times as much besides.” Suddenly there flashed into his mind a childish habit the Browns used to have of speaking in a gibberish called Tutno. “I wonder if Jim knows it! I’ve a great mind to try him.” Putting his hand on his friend’s arm, he said quite solemnly: “Jug i mum, sank a nun tut, yack o u, tut a lul kuk, Tutno.”

“Sus u rur e!” exclaimed Jim, delightedly.

The lieutenant looked quite startled, wigwagged to a brother officer who was passing and spoke hurriedly to him in German. As German was worse than Greek to Kent and Jim (they had studied some Greek at school but knew no German) they did not know for sure what they were saying, but from the evident excitement of the two officers they gathered they had quite upset the calculations of their under-sea hosts.

“Gug o tot, ’e mum, gug o i nun gug, sus o mum e!” exclaimed Kent with such a mischievous twinkle in his eye that the two officers bristled their moustaches in a fury of curiosity.

“Yack o u, bub e tut!” was Jim’s cryptic rejoinder.

For the benefit of my readers who have never whiled away the golden hours of childhood with Tutno or who have perchance forgotten it, I reckon (being a Southerner myself, I shall say reckon) I had better explain the intricacies of the language. Tutno is a language which is spoken by spelling and every letter sounds like a word. The vowels remain the same as in English but the consonants are formed by adding u and then the same consonant again. For instance: M is mum; N is nun; T is tut; R is rur. There are a few exceptions which vary in different localities making the language slightly different in the states. In Kentucky, C is sank; Y is yack; J is jug. Now when Jim exclaimed: “Yack o u bub e tut!” he conveyed the simple remark: “You bet!” to Kent’s knowing ears.

Kent had opened the conversation by the brilliant remark: “Jim, can you speak Tutno?” and Jim had answered: “Sure!” Then Kent had come back with: “Got ’em going some!”

The Kentuckians were in great distress when they realized that no doubt the sinking of the Hirondelle de Mer had been reported in the United States and that their families must be in a state of doubt as to their whereabouts. They had requested the Captain to let them send a message if possible, and he had told them with great frankness that in war time the women must expect to be uncertain. Two more ships had been sunk since they had been taken on board, but they were kept in ignorance as to what ships they were or what had been the fate of the crew or passengers. They knew that some men had been added to the number of prisoners on board, but as they were kept in a compartment to themselves, they never saw them.

Between operations, when the submarine came up on top of the water and all on board swarmed on deck to smoke and enjoy the fresh air and sunshine, Kent and Jim were politely conducted down into the cabin after they were deemed to have had enough, and then the other prisoners, whoever they were, were evidently given an airing.

After our young men started their Tutno game they were never left alone one minute. Such a powwowing as went on after it was reported was never beheld. It was evidently considered of grave international importance. Once they found their keeper taking furtive notes. Evidently they hoped to gain something by finding out what the Americans were saying.

The plentiful food that had at first been served to them was growing more meagre and less choice. There was nothing but a small portion of black bread with very bad butter and a cup of coffee for breakfast; a stew of a nondescript canned meat and more black bread for dinner, and for supper nothing but black bread with a smearing of marmalade.

Jim’s superfluous flesh began to go and Kent got as lean as a grey hound.

“Pup rur o vuv i sus i o nun sus, lul o wuv, I rur e sack kuk o nun!” said Jim, tightening his belt.

It had been more than two weeks since the sinking of the Hirondelle and the young men were growing very weary of the life. Their misery was increasing because of the uncertainty they knew their families must be in. No respite was in sight. They could tell by the balmy air when they were allowed on deck that they were further south than they had been when they were struck, but where, they had not the slightest idea.

“The water looks as it does around Burmuda, but surely we are not over there,” said Kent in Tutno.

“The Lord knows where we are!” answered Jim in the same language.

“I wish the brutes would let us telegraph our folks, somehow. They could do it if they chose. They can do anything, these Prussians.” When Kent said Prussians in Tutno: “Pup rur u sus sus i nun sus,” the young officer whose turn it was to guard them whipped out his note book and examined it closely.

“Sus often repeated!” he muttered.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE “SIGNY.”

“The orders of the Commander are for the Americans to disembark!”

A lieutenant clicked his heels in front of our friends and saluted.

“Bub u lul lul yack!” shouted Jim. “Where? When?”

“Immediately!”

The submarine was on the surface of the water, but Jim and Kent had been ushered below, evidently to give their mysterious fellow prisoners a turn at the deck. They were never allowed to see them, and to this day are absolutely ignorant as to who they were or how many or of what nationality.

It turned out that a Swedish vessel, the Signy, had been sighted thirteen miles off the Spanish port of Camariñas. She was signaled and ordered to take aboard the Kentuckians and land them. Explicit commands were given the captain of the Signy that she was to land the young men immediately.

Kent and Jim were too glad to get off the submarine to care where they were being landed. They only hoped it was not in South America.

“Gug o o dud bub yack!” shouted Jim to the grinning crew of the German vessel.

The young lieutenant of the inquisitive mind made another note in his little book as the life boat from the Swedish ship bore the young men away.

They were very cordially received on board the Signy but not allowed to stay a moment longer than was necessary. The ship steamed to within a few miles of the Spanish port, all the time being followed up by the submarine, then the boats were lowered again and Kent and Jim rowed to shore. They were given a good meal in the interim, however, one that they were most pleased to get, too, as black bread and canned stew had begun to pall on these favored sons of Kentucky.

“Where in the thunder is Camariñas?” queried Kent. “I know it is Spain, but is it north, south, east or west?”

“Well, I reckon it isn’t east and that’s about all I know.”

It proved to be in the northwest corner and after some mix-ups, a person was found who could speak English. The American Consul was tracked, cablegrams were sent to Kentucky apprising their families of their safety, and at last our friends were on the train en route for Paris.

It was a long and circuitous journey, over and under and around mountains. They would have enjoyed it at any other time, but Kent was too uneasy about Judy to enjoy anything, and Jim was too eager to get in line to swat the Prussians, as he expressed it, to be interested in Spanish scenery. They traveled third class as they had no intention of drawing too recklessly on their hoarded gold.

After many hours of travel by day and night, they finally arrived in Paris. It was eleven at night and our young men were weary, indeed. The hard benches of the third class coaches had made their impression and they longed for sheets and made-up beds.

“A shave! A shave! My kingdom for a shave!” exclaimed Kent, as they stretched their stiffened limbs after tumbling out of the coach in the Gare de Sud.

“Don’t forget I am a stranger in a strange land, so put me wise,” begged Jim.

“I know a terribly cheap little hotel on Montparnasse and Raspail where we can put up, without even the comforts of a bum home, but we can make out there and it is cheap. The Haute Loire is its high sounding name, but it is not high, I can tell you.”

“Well, let’s do it. I hope there is some kind of a bath there.”

“I trust so, but if there isn’t, we can go to a public bath.”

The Kentuckians were a very much dishevelled pair. They had purchased the necessary toilet articles at Camariñas, but sleeping for nights in suits in which they had already had quite a lengthy swim did not improve their appearance. The submariners had pressed their clothes after their ducking, but Jim’s trousers had shrunk lengthways until he said he felt like Buster Brown, and Kent’s had dried up the other way, so that in walking two splits had arrived across his knees.

“We look like tramps, but the Haute Loire is used to our type. I don’t believe we could get into a good hotel.”

“Are you going to look up your girl – excuse me, I mean Miss Kean, before you replenish your wardrobe?”

“Why, yes, I must not wait a minute. I would like to do it to-night.”

“To-night! Man, you are crazy! Get that alfalfa off your face first. One night can’t get her into much trouble.”

“Perhaps you are right. I am worn out, too, and a night’s rest and a shave will do wonders for both of us.”

Paris looked very changed to Kent. The streets were so dark and everything looked so sad, very different from the gay city he had left only a few weeks before. The Haute Loire had not changed, though. It was the same little hospitable fifth class joint. The madame received the exceedingly doubtful looking guests with as much cordiality as she would had they been the President of the Republic and General Joffre.

There were no baths that night, but tumbling into bed, our Kentuckians were lost to the world until the next day. What if the Prussians did fly over the city, dropping bombs on helpless noncombatants? Two young men who had been torpedoed; had floated around indefinitely in the Atlantic Ocean; had been finally picked up by the submarine that had done the damage; had remained in durance vile for several weeks on the submarine, resorting to Tutno to have any private conversation at all; and at last been transferred to a Swedish vessel and dumped by them on the northwest coast of Spain – those young men cared little whether school kept or not. The bombs that dropped that night were nothing more than pop crackers to them. The excitement in the streets did not reach their tired ears.