Best Short Stories - [8]

‘Slowly, with infinite caution and patience, they crept closer and closer, seeing no more of the cliffs than an evanescent dark loom with a narrow border of angry foam at its foot. At the moment of anchoring the fog was so thick that for all they could see they might have been a thousand miles out in the open sea. Yet the shelter of the land could be felt. There was a peculiar quality in the stillness of the air. Very faint, very elusive, the wash of the ripple against the encircling land reached their ears, with mysterious sudden pauses.

‘The anchor dropped, the leads were laid in. The commanding officer went below into his cabin. But he had not been there very long when a voice outside his door requested his presence on deck. He thought to himself: “What is it now?” He felt some impatience at being called out again to face the wearisome fog.

‘He found that it had thinned again a little and had taken on a gloomy hue from the dark cliffs which had no form, no outline, but asserted themselves as a curtain of shadows all round the ship, except in one bright spot, which was the entrance from the open sea. Several officers were looking that way from the bridge. The second in command met him with the breathlessly whispered information that there was another ship in the cove.

‘She had been made out by several pairs of eyes only a couple of minutes before. She was lying at anchor very near the entrance — a mere vague blot on the fog’s brightness. And the commanding officer by staring in the direction pointed out to him by eager hands ended by distinguishing it at last himself. Indubitably a vessel of some sort.

‘“It’s a wonder we didn’t run slap into her when coming in,” observed the second in command.

‘“Send a boat on board before she vanishes,” said the commanding officer. He surmised that this was a coaster. It could hardly be anything else. But another thought came into his head suddenly. “It is a wonder,” he said to his second in command, who had rejoined him after sending the boat away.

‘By that time both of them had been struck by the fact that the ship so suddenly discovered had not manifested her presence by ringing her bell.

‘“We came in very quietly, that’s true,” concluded the younger officer. “But they must have heard our leadsmen at least. We couldn’t have passed her more than fifty yards off. The closest shave! They may even have made us out, since they were aware of something coming in. And the strange thing is that we never heard a sound from her. The fellows on board must have been holding their breath.”

‘“Aye,” said the commanding officer, thoughtfully.

‘In due course the boarding-boat returned, appearing suddenly alongside, as though she had burrowed her way under the fog. The officer in charge came up to make his report, but the commanding officer didn’t give him time to begin. He cried from a distance:

‘“Coaster, isn’t she?”

‘“No, sir. A stranger — a neutral,” was the answer.

‘“No. Really! Well, tell us all about it. What is she doing here?”

‘The young man stated then that he had been told a long and complicated story of engine troubles. But it was plausible enough from a strictly professional point of view and it had the usual features: disablement, dangerous drifting along the shore, weather more or less thick for days, fear of a gale, ultimately a resolve to go in and anchor anywhere on the coast, and so on. Fairly plausible.

‘“Engines still disabled?” inquired the commanding officer.

‘“No, sir. She has steam on them.”

‘The commanding officer took his second aside. “By Jove!” he said, “you were right! They were holding their breaths as we passed them. They were.”

‘But the second in command had his doubts now.

‘“A fog like this does muffle small sounds, sir,” he remarked. “And what could his object be, after all?”

‘“To sneak out unnoticed,” answered the commanding officer.

‘“Then why didn’t he? He might have done it, you know. Not exactly unnoticed, perhaps. I don’t suppose he could have slipped his cable without making some noise. Still, in a minute or so he would have been lost to view — clean gone before we had made him out fairly. Yet he didn’t.”

‘They looked at each other. The commanding officer shook his head. Such suspicions as the one which had entered his head are not defended easily. He did not even state it openly. The boarding officer finished his report. The cargo of the ship was of a harmless and useful character. She was bound to an English port. Papers and everything in perfect order. Nothing suspicious to be detected anywhere.

‘Then passing to the men, he reported the crew on deck as the usual lot. Engineers of the well-known type, and very full of their achievement in repairing the engines. The mate surly. The master rather a fine specimen of a Northman, civil enough, but appeared to have been drinking. Seemed to be recovering from a regular bout of it.

‘“I told him I couldn’t give him permission to proceed. He said he wouldn’t dare to move his ship her own length out in such weather as this, permission or no permission. I left a man on board, though.”