"It's only one of the porters. Why did the fool run! I wouldn't have fired if he had stood." Sebastian wanted to ask him where Rosa was. He wanted to explain that Rosa was his wife, that he loved her,
and that he had come to find her.
He concentrated his vision on Kyller's face as it hung over him,
and he SUmmoned his school-boy German, marshalling the sentences in his mind.
But as he opened his mouth the blood welled up in his throat and choked him. He coughed, racking, and the blood bubbled through his lips in a pink froth.
"Lung shot!" said Kyller, and then to the guards as they came up,
"Get a stretcher. Hurry. We must take him down to the sick-bay." There were twelve bunks in Blitcher's sick-bay, six down each side of the narrow cabin. In eight of "them lay German seamen; five malaria cases and three men injured in the work of repairing her bows.
Rosa Oldsmith was in the bunk farthest from the door.
She lay behind a movable screen, and a guard sat outside the screen. He wore a pistol at his belt and was wholly absorbed in a year-old variety magazine, the cover of which depicted a buxom blonde woman in a black corset and high boots, with a horse whip in one hand.
The cabin was brightly lit and smelled of, antiseptic One of the malarial cases was in delirium, and he laughed and shouted. The medical orderly moved along the rows of bunks carrying a metal tray from which he administered the morning dosages of quinine. The time was 5 a.m.
Rosa had slept only intermittently during the night. She lay on top of the blankets and she wore a striped to welling dressing-gown over the blue flannel nightgown. The gown was many sizes too large and she had rolled back the cuffs of the sleeves. Her hair was loose on the pillows, and damp at the temples with sweat. Her face was pale and drawn, with bluish smudges of fatigue under her eyes, and her shoulder ached dully where Fleischer had struck her.
She was awake now. She lay staring up at the low roof of the cabin, playing over in her mind fragments from the happenings of the last twenty-four hours.
She recalled the interrogation with Captain von Kleine.
He had sat opposite her in his luxuriously furnished cabin, and his manner had been kindly, his voice gentle, pronouncing the English words with blurring of the consonants and a hardening of the vowel sounds. His English was good.
"When did you last eat? "he asked her.
"I am not hungry," she replied, making no attempt to conceal her hatred. Hating them all this handsome, gentleman, the tall lieutenant who stood beside him, and Herman Fleischer who sat across the cabin from her, with his knees spread apart to accommodate the full hang of his belly.
I will send for food." Von Kleine ignored her protest and rang for his steward. When the food came, she could not deny the demands of her body and she ate, trying to show no enjoyment. The sausage and pickles were delicious, for she had not eaten since the previous noon.
Courteously von Kleine turned his attention to a discussion with
Lieutenant Kyller until she had finished, but when the steward removed the empty tray he came back to her.
"Herr Fleischer tells me you are the daughter of Major O'Flynn,
the commander of the Portuguese irregulars operating in German territory?"
"I was until he was hanged, murdered! He was injured and helpless. They tied him to a stretcher..." Rosa flared at him,
tears starting in her eyes.
"Yes," von Kleine stopped her, "I know. I am not pleased.
That is now a matter between myself and Commissioner Fleischer. I
can only say that I am sorry. I offer you my condolence." He paused and glanced at Herman Fleischer.
Rosa could see by the angry blue of his eyes that he meant what he said.
"But now there are some questions I must ask you..
Rosa had planned er replies, for she knew what he would ask. She replied frankly and truthfully to anything that did not jeopardize
Sebastian's attempt to place the time fuse aboard Blucher.
What were she and Flynn doing when they were captured?
Keeping the Blucher under surveillance. Waiting to signal her departure to the blockading cruisers.
How did the British know that Blucher was in the Rufiji?
The steel plate, of course. Then confirmation by aerial reconnaissance.
Were they contemplating offensive action against Blitcher?
No, they would wait until she sailed.
What was the strength of the blockade squadron?" Two cruisers that she had seen, she did not know if there were other warships waiting over the horizon.
Von Kleine phrased his questions carefully, and listened attentively to her replies. For an hour the interrogation continued,
until Rosa was yawning openly, tied her voice was slurred with exhaustion. Von Kleine realized that there was nothing to be learned from her. What she had told him he already knew or had guessed.
"Thank you," he finished. "I am keeping you aboard my ship.
There will be danger here, for soon I will be going out to meet the
British warships. But I believe that it will be better for you than if
I handed you over to the German administration ashore." He hesitated a moment and glanced at Commissioner Fleischer. "In every nation there are evil men, fools and barbarians. Do not judge us all by one man."
With distaste at her own treachery, Rosa found that she auld not hate this man. A weary smile tugged her mouth and she answered him.
"You are kind."
"Lieutenant Kyller will see you to the hospital.
I am sorry I can offer you no better quarters, but this is a crowded vessel." When she had gone, von Kleine lit a cheroot and while he tasted its comforting fragrance, he allowed his eyes to rest on the portrait of the two golden women across the cabin. Then he sat up in his chair and his voice had lost its gentleness as he spoke to the man who lolled on the couch.
"Herr Fleischer, I find it difficult to express fully my extreme displeasure at your handling of this affair..
After a night of fitful sleep, Rosa lay on her hospital bunk behind the screen and she thought of her husband. If things had gone well Sebastian must by now have placed the time charge and escaped from
Blitcher. Perhaps he was already on his way to the rendezvous on the
Abati river. If this were so, then she would not see him again. It was her one regret.
She imagined him in his ludicrous disguise, and she smiled a little. Dear lovable Sebastian. Would he ever know what had happened to her? Would he know that she had died with those whom she hated?
She hoped that he would never kno, that he would never torture himself with the knowledge that he had placed the instrument of her death with his own hands.