Three Dutch men-of-war, with steam up, lay off Flushing, ready to defend the neutrality of their waters. All vessels were forbidden to clear from the port and enter the North Sea after nightfall, and on the sanded floor of the tap-room, in a sailors’ house of rest, our boys were impatiently scraping their feet, awaiting sunrise. In their anxiety to get away without submitting to intimate inspection, they had no desire for napping.
With their belts, these boys represented a money valuation of more than a million francs.
Since arrival in Flushing, the day before, Hans had been an active mover at the mouth of the Scheldt, and for shipping news an eager seeker.
At this particular date, the rumor among men[147] of the nautical trade was that, in the rough sea, anchored mines were often going loose, and a bobbing mine is not apt to have any discretion as to the keel with which it collides.
“I’ve heard dozens of mines explode in a single day,” said one captain to Hans. The latter had heard a few himself.
In addition to mines, the sea was crowded with torpedo boat destroyers, submarines of all sorts and descriptions, and with cruisers the waters fairly reeked. There, too, were the steam trawlers, either engaged in laying or “sweeping” for mines. These “sweepers” run in pairs. Between each pair a steel net is suspended. The theory is that mines, whether floating or anchored, will be caught by that net. Then one of the destroyers, which are constantly darting about, is signaled, and destroys the mine by a single shot.
Overhead, Zeppelins and other aircraft continually circled, dropping bombs where they would do the most harm to those whom the airmen desired to harm the most, and sometimes harm was done without intent.
Once out of the Scheldt, and trouble was likely to begin any minute, particularly for any craft considered unfriendly by the British fleet.
A narrow lane had been slashed—as a woodsman would say—through the sea. Outside of it there was danger everywhere.
[148]
Such was the situation when Hans introduced Captain Eberhardt to the restless four in the house of rest.
The captain was a man of few words, and had a firecracker way of delivering them.
He said he owned a “scow with a funnel in it,” and he was one of the pilots who were trusted to take boats through. The shoals in the shallow and muddy water of the North Sea had been well marked in times of peace, but now only here and there to be seen by the men at the wheel, for guides, were big red “war buoys.”
Henri had taken from the belts sufficient gold for even extraordinary passage money for himself and comrades, and jingled the coins on the deal table at which the party were sitting.
“We want to get out of here at daybreak, if you can swing it, captain,” he said.
The captain looked at the coins and then at his watch, a massive silver timepiece, hitched to his broad vest-front by twisted links of steel.
“Bring ’em down”—the captain addressing Hans in Dutch.
Hans nodded assent, and kept the captain company to the door, where they apparently completed arrangements.
When the cuckoo in the clock, shelved above the fancy tiled fireplace, warbled the hour of 4 a. m.,[149] Hans shook the sleepy attendant into a waking moment, and hustled him after cakes and coffee.
At 5 o’clock Hans and the boys dropped again into the boat in which they had ............