CHAPTER XXIX
DAYBREAK
JOAN took no lantern with her for fear that the Germans might still be lurking somewhere about the Shoal. She groped her way down the pier and felt for the boat's mooring-rope. In her haste she knocked down an oar, and was appalled by the echoing clatter. She rowed away steadily in the direction of the mainland, knowing that she could make better time by landing at any point along the shore and running up the beach than by trying to row directly to the Coast Guard Station. Before her lay impenetrable night, sky and water merged into one dark wall; astern, the light of Silver Shoal burned white and clear. Joan felt solitary, helpless, in the midst of the dark and unseen waters. That light, hung between sea and sky, meant for her at that moment hearth and home and security. She was leaving it, heading for a black, unfamiliar shore. But below that steady, watchful eye, growing ever more distant, she knew that Garth lay, alone and afraid, twisting his fingers in the edge of the blanket and listening for something. She remembered Jim's saying once: "The biggest sort of courage is being afraid to do something—and doing it."
Joan had lost all idea of how long she had been rowing when a long swell rose suddenly under the boat. She felt it hang poised on the crest of the roller; then it slid up the beach, drenching her as the stern swung around. She leaped out before the backwash could sweep the boat into the surf again, and dragged it up the sand. Dripping, she stood for a moment to get her bearings, then ran into the darkness up the shore. The wind soughed and rustled in the stiff grass on invisible dunes; the light surf hissed and rattled among loose pebbles. A great bittern rose suddenly from the beach-plum bushes, startling Joan as he flapped away with a raucous cry. She stumbled and slid in the deep, cold sand. Sometimes she splashed through the edge of a silently gliding wave. Her wet skirt clung to her, making every step more difficult.
If only she could see! The darkness seemed to weigh on her, to choke and smother her. It wrapped about her like a horrible clinging web which she could not push aside. On and on she ran, through the loose, shifting sand, into the endless dark. And at last she felt the bulk of the Coast Guard Station looming ahead, and shouted before she reached it.
Running toward the door, she stumbled over something that moved and groaned faintly. It was the limp form of a man, huddled against a post on the beach. Joan did not stop. She hammered on the door of the Station and shouted again.
The captain came downstairs in his shirt and trousers, blinking and running his big hands through his stiff, grizzled hair. He looked very much as though he were seeing a specter. Joan poured out her story as intelligibly as she could, and the captain, wide awake now, gave quick orders to the men who were tumbling out, pulling on their coats. The place woke to rapid and efficient action. The crew dashed to the boathouse, each man in his place, and made a record launching of the big power surf-boat. The injured patrolman was carried into the Station, where he sat rubbing his head and little by little recovering his senses. One of the men ran up the beach, with lantern bobbing, to find the other patrol, who must also have been attacked and knocked unconscious by the Germans.
"You come along with us!" the captain shouted to Joan, who stood beside the boathouse ways, uncertain what to do next. "We'll drop you off at the Light on our way out." He picked her up bodily and, splashing through the surf, swung her into the boat.
"Beatin'est business I ever heard tell of," he said, as the power-boat plunged out through the inshore swell, her searchlight sweeping the foamy waves. "They was smart, all right; thought of everything. Maybe you don't know how we work this night patrol?"
Joan had no very clear idea of the system.
"Well, there ain't nobody on watch in the tower at night, y' see, but there's one of the boys sets in the Station, and he punches what we call a clock—a time-detector, it is—to show he's attending to business. In seven and a half minutes he goes out to a post on the beach in front of the Station and takes a look around and punches another clock. 'Nother seven and a half minutes he hits the one inside again, and he keeps that up for two hours. Well, now, whilst he's doing that, there's another feller that's going up the beach. When he gets up about two mile, there's a little shack up there where he telephones back to the Station to show he's on the job, and he punches his own clock. It takes him about two hours to get up there and back, and when he gets in, why he takes the watch in the Station, and the other feller takes the beach-patrol in the opposite direction, down the shore. See, ma'am?" Joan did.
"Well, then," said the captain, "you see that if them Germans caught them fellers just at the beginning of their watch, and knocked 'em both out, they'd have a full four hours to do their dirty tricks in, and nobody'd be none the wiser till 't was time to change the watch. And it ain't been but three hours since them boys went on their watch."
Joan understood the explanation, but she was too tired to answer the captain's vigorous comments on the spies' plot and German treachery in general. The nearer she drew to Silver Shoal, the more her thoughts were of Garth, and of Garth only. What if something had happened during this time? Calmer reasoning could not check her growing fear. Would the boat never, never reach the lighthouse? To her weary brain the lamp which shone across the water seemed now a great formless flame burning close at hand, now a tiny point of fire on the horizon.
The captain's voice broke her lethargy.
"Well, here you are, ma'am. Your light's a-going fine now, all right. You certainly deserve a power of credit for what you and the boy done. Don't you be uneasy; the daylight'll be coming before long to help us, and we'll get the folks all right, if they're anywheres round."
The big boat churned away from the landing as Joan, calling out her thanks, ran up to the house. The searchlight cut a silver arc in the night and swept across the dark water. Joan had left a lamp in Garth's room, lighted and turned low. From the foot of the stairs she could see its gentle glow faintly filling the doorway. Now that relief from her fears was within reach, they seemed to crowd upon her with redoubled fierceness. Her heart beat with suffocating violence as she went blindly up the stairs. The door of his room at last!
She had come up very quietly, and he had not heard her step. In the dusky light she could see his tired eyes fixed steadfastly upon the wavering yellow ring on the ceiling. She spoke very softly, in order not to startle him, and he half sat up and then held out his arms to her.
It was really not until she sank down beside him that she realized how great her anxiety had been. Feeling his arms about her, hearing the sound of his voice, was almost more than she could bear. She hid her face on his shoulder, and he smoothed her hair.
"Joan," he said suddenly, "you're all wet! Your jumper and everything! Did the boat capsize?"
She told him of her landing through the surf, and he made her go and change into dry things. She sat beside him then, telling him of the journey to the Coast Guard Station and trying to keep him as much as possible from talking. Finally his great weariness mastered his anxiety for his parents, and he drifted off into an uneasy sleep, holding Joan's hand. Exhausted, herself, her own head drooped lower and lower, till her cheek lay against Garth's hand, and she slept fitfully.
Faintly, dawn began to break, and the first light shouldered darkness away from the horizon. Through the quiet air came the unmistakable rhythm of the surf-boat's big motor. Joan, awake instantly, tiptoed from Garth's room and flew down the stairs. She heard a cheery voice saying, "You go along in now; we'll moor your boat for you," and against the wan, gray light in the doorway saw Jim and Elspeth. She hugged them both in her relief and excitement, and drew them into the living-room. Outside, just visible in the dawn, the crew of the surf-boat were mooring the Ailouros. Jim had a torn handkerchief about his forehead and looked rather haggard and strained.
"Don't talk very loudly," Joan whispered. "He's asleep—at last, at last. Oh, there's so much to hear and tell!"
"We know well enough that the Light went out, and why," Jim said; "but we've been hearing wild tales as to how it was lighted again. How much of Captain Blake's story is true?"
Joan told it all, quickly and vividly, from the beginning. Elspeth stood beside the little shelf where the knife had lain, and her hands were clasped very tightly. A strange look came into Jim's eyes; his mouth was set in a stern line. He stooped and picked up the telescope, which lay under the table, and put it back slowly on the shelf without a word. But presently he said in a distant, detached voice, as though he hardly knew what he was saying:
"Who proceeded to grapple the Ailouros without delay"
"I did nothing," said Joan. "Any one could have lighted the lamp. He made it all possible, and one minute later would have been too late. Did you see the transport? Where were you? What happened?"
Jim seemed to adjust himself, then spoke in almost his usual voice.
"We'd started back from Quimpaug," he said, "and were sailing up toward Trasket for a bit of a jaunt, when we saw a motor-boat bearing straight down on us. There were two men in it, neither of whom I'd ever seen, who proceeded to grapple the Ailouros without delay. Trasket hid us from the mainland, and they were perfectly open in their actions. One of the men promptly knocked me out—"
"He fought them both with the boat-hook for a good fifteen minutes," Elspeth broke in.
"Elspeth did good execution, herself, with an oar," Jim said. "But when they hit me, of course she could do nothing with the two of them. When I came to, we were both in the motor-boat, tied up thoroughly. They seem to have been fond of that method. We weren't gagged, but the men informed us that we'd regret attempting to shout. We were lying around off Hy Brasail, with the Ailouros in tow, and our captors entertained us with vivid accounts of exactly what would happen to the transport, to you, and—if we didn't behave—to us. There we stayed. The sun set, and we saw Silver Shoal light up and knew that you were 'competent.' And there was absolutely no way to warn you, to get you word. We hoped against hope that something would happen to stop the Count—his beastly name is Grussmann, by the way—from carrying out his end of the scheme. But the hours went on. Then we saw the Light vanish."
"You can imagine what we were feeling!" Elspeth put in.
"Our men began to be nervous then. Their plan was, apparently, that the Count—Grussmann, I should say—and Schmidt were to join us, and they were all to make some sort of getaway. We were to be marooned on Hy Brasail or somewhere, I imagine. But Grussmann didn't appear. More time dragged on, and then Silver Shoal blazed out again. We had no notion of how it happened, or why. Do you remember all the theories, Elspeth, ours and theirs? Our beasts were very much disconcerted; they were stupid creatures that Grussmann had wound completely round his finger with his flaming ideas of duty to the Fatherland. I don't know where they came from. Then we saw the transport go up. And finally Grussmann came upon the scene, his boat limping along and himself furious.
"It appears that first he'd had trouble with his engine and had drifted about for any amount of time with not enough intelligence to repair it; then, running with no idea of bearings and without Silver Shoal to guide him, he'd missed his course and wandered about in all directions before he reached Hy Brasail. He's not an expert spy. Just as the flotilla of their two motor-boats and the poor old Ailouros got under way—bound Heaven knows where—Captain Blake and his crew came boiling along out of the darkness and held them all up. Schmidt and Grussmann and the two accomplices are in the surf-boat being adequately attended to, and we're—here."
"And," said Elspeth, "you and—Garth are here."
'Our adventures can't compare with yours," Jim said, trying to laugh. His eyes had been turning again and again to the stairway, and now he broke off suddenly and went upstairs very quietly, followed by Elspeth and Joan.
As his father and mother bent over him, Garth opened his eyes and looked up at them vaguely, as though he were still dreaming. Then he caught his breath with a little unbelieving gasp. Joan turned away and began diligently untangling the knotted rope which still hung from the eye-bolts. But Garth said, "I want Joan, too." So she came and stood beside Elspeth, and she was very happy.
"No," Elspeth said, in reply to Garth's excited questioning; "you shall hear what happened to us later on. Now you are going to sleep. But we have heard your adventures, beloved."
"Joan saved the transport," he said, "just in time. Oh, think of it!"
"Joan lighted the lamp," said Jim, "and she was very, very brave, going to the Coast Guard Station and all; but it was you who saved the transport."
Garth shook his head, but Elspeth and Joan nodded theirs.
"Yes," Jim said. "What you did was as big a thing, for you, as a man could do. Though you were a captain of the seas, you couldn't have done more bravely."
"Fogger—no!" said Garth. "I didn't—" and wept at last.