At least, he thought, a little wryly, this bore on him only as a friend, and he caught himself speculating on how he might feel in Lange's or von Muecke's place.
Below deck Helmuth himself was struggling over his letter.
"Darling," he began, and crossed it out as too presumptuous under the circumstances.
"My dear Miss Grey," he tried next, and slashed that off as too pompous.
"Dear Caroline," he tried next, and crossed that out for "Caroline, Dear,"
From there he was able to go on:
Captain von Mueller tells me that you are leaving soon for neutral territory and the company of your own people. Of course, neither one of us knows what the future holds, or how long this will last, or whether either one of us will live to see the end of it. We can only hope, my dear, that it will not last too long, that we will survive, and that when it is all over we will join hands again. God go with you and protect you, Caroline.
He studied it when he was finished. It seemed to him that it did not say anything near what he wanted to tell her. Yet as they were placed he could hardly say more. At length the awareness of time nudged him. He folded the flap of the envelope in, leaving it open for the Captain to censor if he felt it necessary and passed it on to von Mueller, who smiled understandingly.
"I'll try to see that she gets it, Helmuth," he promised.
In a like vein the hour that the Captain had allowed scarcely seemed enough to Bunte Lange. There was so much to say, and so little time to say it! He wrote and wrote, using official memo pads when he could no longer find any long yellow sheets, and yet he could not seem to come to an end. "I love you, Use," was the gist of his message, "and I will come to you as soon as my duty permits." But no matter how many different ways he said it, he could never quite seem to express it in just the right way. He did not tear up what he had written, but simply kept adding to it, until the ship's clock on the bulkhead struck out the bells that told him his hour was up. He closed his message hurriedly and sealed it in a ship's envelope. What he had said was for her eyes alone.
Karl von Mueller nodded seriously as he accepted the bulky packet. "We'll see that she gets it, Bunte," he promised.
At 5 P.M. shore time—two bells of the first dog watch—the ship's gongs rang, signaling supper for the watch below; also that it was time for the coaling crews and other roustabouts to go ashore. Nine hundred fifty tons of fresh coal had brought the Emden's bunkers back to bulging, and the victualers and chandlers had had to stack many provisions and supplies which could not be stored away immediately in the passageways, beside the doors to their appropriate lockers. The magazines were full. In the dispensary the Stabsarzt Doktor Luther wondered where he was going to stow all the bandages and medicines and antiseptics that had been ordered on board for him. If the engineers alone were not fully satisfied, it was only because they never were.
The coolie crews shuffled ashore, taunted by the three Chinese washermen. "Makee hoovy-boom!" the washermen jeered. "Now we go makee hoovy-boom! You stay all along home, makee bang-bang with ficlackah!"
The sailors nearby laughed loudly. Von Muecke wondered. Would they shout so bravely when the time really came to "makee hoovy-boom?"
But there were still notices on the several bulletin boards:
Any man who wants to send messages ashore should do so now. We have no way of knowing when we may have another chance. The mail detail will stand by the main gangway until four bells, when all letters will be passed ashore. After that there will be no further communication.
Around the docks, along the mole, and all through the inner anchorage, one by one the various vessels that were to accompany the Emden cast off or weighed anchor and stood down to the lower roadstead. Promptly at four bells of the evening watch, 6 p.m., von Muecke reported the ship all clear and ready for sailing. Marine Ingenieur Ellenbroek re-f>orted full steam up and the engine-room crew standing by. Temporary and auxiliary gangways, used by the different loading crews, had been swung ashore, and all save a single mooring line at the bow and another astern cast off.
Karl von Mueller received von Muecke's report on the bridge, where he was pacing restlessly. His own final dispatches had gone ashore some time since, and already the special messenger had returned with the pouch from Government House that contained final orders from the fleet, not to be opened until they were at sea.
"Thank you, KapitanleumantI" he acknowledged. "You may cast oft."
"Jawohl, Herr Kapitan!" said von Muecke correctly.
"As soon as we are clear," von Mueller went on, "I want the band mustered on the fo'c'sle and all hands to man the rails."
"Zum Befehl, Kapitan!" von Muecke replied. Yet he must have sounded questioning. It was unlike von Mueller to make much of a sailing. Von Mueller himself must have felt that the order needed some explanation. He nodded toward the dock.
"We have already gathered a number of well-wishers, Helmuth."
Von Muecke glanced downward from the wing of the bridge. He had not noticed before, but a crowd was beginning to assemble at dockside. Among the upturned faces it was possible to recognize only a few, but Hildegarde Shultz was prominent in the foreground. He hoped—though he looked and could not find her—that Caroline Grey was there, too.
The rest? The overwhelming rest? They were far too many for him to have had even a nodding acquaintance with. There were some wives, perhaps. More likely there were "friends," mistresses, in the upper brackets, and von Muecke smiled a little wryly to think how little he knew of some of his messmates' shore habits. For the rest, they were probably mostly goodhearted whores from Kuangsu Road, hard but sentimental by the very nature of their trade; ordinarily easy-come, easy-go girls, but now that war was with them as fiercely possessive of "their men" as any thoroughly wed woman—and probably as much to be missed!
There were a few men's faces scattered here and there— some on duty of course, but more who were clearly unconcerned with operations; friends, for the most part, from the Marineverein, and pinochle partners from the various clubs along the waterfront; and more than likely a good turnout of creditors who, now that it came down to the last minute, were reluctant to step forward and claim their bills!
"That's not all, Helmuth," said the Captain. He touched his arm and pointed over across the harbor, toward the long arm of the mole. "Look there."
In the light of the late sun von Muecke could see many people and the flash of reflected light on metal, but at that distance it was impossible to tell exactly what was going on with the naked eye. He lifted his glasses, and the scene came into focus: the massed bands of the garrisons—those from the forts on the heights encircling the city as well as those from the town itself—the long gray-clad lines of the regiments on duty, in brass-spiked, black leather helmets, black boots designed for the goose step, the bayonets fixed and gleaming.