The judgment of Johan Coull

A midsummer night was settling down. Dew was falling. But no coolness was in the air; no evening breeze had come to clear the ship of the heat with which ten days of torrid, windless weather had filled her. He responded unwillingly to the steward’s call. Dinner in that stuffy saloon had little appeal to him, and he lingered in the entrance alley, looking in at the men inside, more than ever unwilling to enter; for two engineers had joined the party, and the overcrowded place reeked with tobacco smoke.

MacArthur was telling the newcomers of the submarines; they were listening intently, now and then interrupting him with an eager question. Back to the bulkhead, his great shoulders almost on a level with the portholes, Big Jim Martin sat playing solitaire. The draught from the open portholes was playing on his beard where it lay, parted in two at the chin and pushed out of the way over his shoulders; occasionally loose strands would blow down among his fingers. To push them back again was the only movement he made apart from the playing, so completely absorbed did he appear in his game.

Stewart sat watching him from the other side of the table, but to Davis it seemed that he was far more interested in what MacArthur and the engineers were saying; and at every question asked he would twitch his head around a little, as though the better to hear the reply. Suddenly he turned and put a question himself:

“Did ye notice whether ‘Arctic’ was the only name that freighter had, MacArthur?” Stewart enquired.

Davis entered, his curiosity aroused. Stewart was a dour old Scots sailorman, who seldom spoke, seldom showed interest in anything, and never asked a question unless for a very good reason.

“Hello, Davis! Been having a squint overside at those submarines?” MacArthur remarked facetiously, as he noticed the under-manager. “What was that you said, Stewart?” he continued immediately, directing his attention to the mate. “‘Artic’ the only name?... I don’t know. It was her stern I looked at, and as she is on her starboard side, the name was pretty high up. All I saw was A-r-c-t-i--the second “c” had dropped off, I expect. Now that you have mentioned it, though, I shouldn’t be a bit surprised if there was a second name. There was plenty room for it. The lettering began well to her port side.... Jove! that would make her one of old Johan Coull’s boats. They were all the Artic-something.... Good Heavens!” he added slowly, his manner suddenly becoming solemn. “Young Johnny Coull must be lying down there, and I knew him better than I know anyone here. She must be the Arctic Queen!”

“I was thinking that,” said Stewart quietly.

STEWART turned to Big Jim, as though to say something more. Davis had never seen him so animated. But the entrance of the steward to light the lamp preparatory to serving dinner, checked him, and no one else spoke until the man--the curious fellow--had gone away.

They were eager to do so, however, or to listen. The name of Coull was more than well known to them, and MacArthur’s disclosure had suddenly made them aware that, all unwittingly, they had stumbled over the threshold of the tragedy connected with it. Old John Coull had been the owner of the Arctic Line, a famous Scandinavian line of many vessels, liners, whalers, and tramps. Although a millionaire, he had commanded several in person, and won great renown by his voyages into the world’s least frequented seas. Only two of them had been lost in the war--there lay the tragedy, his own and his son’s--the one was a whaler, the other a freighter. Hence MacArthur’s certainty that he had found the ship of his friend.

Young Johnny Coull had followed in his father’s way, and bade fair to become the greater sailor of the two. During the war, at one time when ships had almost ceased to cross the North Sea, he had persistently run the blockade to bring the coal so sorely needed by his country. A torpedo had found him in the end. Old Johan had set out in a whaler to bury his grief in the Greenland Seas. A few weeks later a British “Q”-boat had picked up a lifeboat containing all that was left of his crew; a lifeboat submerged to the gunnel, its oars and sails gone, its tanks and bottom pierced with auger holes, its eight occupants dead, save one, unconscious and dying--sure evidence to the allied world of the work of the German submarine.

What had added interest to the story to those aboard the Seabird was the fact that Big Jim had commanded that “Q”-boat, with Stewart as his second in command.

“You were going to say something,” Davis reminded the latter, as a clatter of dishes in the pantry broke the silence.

“Do you mind where we picked up that lifeboat, sir?” said the mate to Big Jim.

Big Jim nodded.

“Where?” demanded Davis.

“Just about ten miles North of where we are now,” said Big Jim quietly.

“Oh, the swine!” exclaimed MacArthur. “They must have sunk old Johan on top of his son.”

“It looks very like it,” Big Jim admitted.

He pushed away his cards, and continued in deference to their expectant glances:

“It seems a perfectly extraordinary coincidence,” he said. “And perfectly extraordinary that we, of all people, should tumble up against it. I knew Old Johan, MacArthur, even better than you knew young Johnny. But the most remarkable thing to me is those submarines being there as well. Is that coincidence?”

“No, it’s not,” said Davis. “There’s none of it coincidence at all. It’s far too extraordinary. Old Johan must have come here visiting the spot where young Johnny was drowned, and those five submarines caught and sank him. And I’ll bet my last dollar he sank them as well.”

“How?”

“I don’t know. Possibly he and his crew were taken aboard as prisoners, and they scuttled them out of revenge for young Johnny.”

“I believe you have struck it, by Jove!” burst out MacArthur. “Old Johan thought the world of young Johnny, and so did the gang who usually sailed with him. It’s just the sort of thing they would make up their minds to do as soon as they saw they were going to be collared.”

“And what do you make o’ that boat-load o’ deid folk?” asked Stewart.

“That’s the strongest link of all,” maintained MacArthur, warming up to his theory. “Those were the people who did not fancy drowning. So they hid. And the Germans simply left them with a sinking ship and stove-in boats, rather than waste time looking for them. It’s pretty convincing. Don’t you think so?”

“I doubt there is more in it than that,” grunted Stewart.

“You could test it, sir, by raising one of those submarines,” Davis suggested.

“Aye,” Big Jim agreed. “And I admit I’d like to get to the bottom of it. But do you really think it worth while?”

“Rather,” answered Davis, without hesitation. “What a story, if it is true.”

“We’ll see if the weather looks like holding tomorrow,” Big Jim promised. “After all, the Warpindi’s our game, and we must get her up while the calm lasts. Better not say anything to the hands about what we think, or there will be precious little interest left for her.... Now, steward,” he continued, raising his voice, “you have heard all we are going to say, so get the food on the table. If you let a word get for’ard, it’s in another ship you will do your next trip. Quick’s the word!”