And in fifteen minutes to the dot the great railroad warehouses near the
city wharf had burst into flames. Herman had watched without comment,
while Rudolph talked incessantly, boasting of his share in the
enterprise.
"About a million dollars' worth of fireworks there," he said, as the
glare dyed their faces red. "All stuff for the Allies." And he boasted,
"When the cat sits on the pickhandle, brass buttons must go."
By that time Herman knew that the "cat" meant sabotage. He had nodded
slowly.
"But it is dangerous," was his later comment. "Sometimes they will
learn, and then?"
His caution had exasperated Rudolph almost to frenzy. And as time went
on, and one man after another of the organization was ferreted out at
the new plant and dismissed, the sole remaining hope of the organization
was Herman. With his reinstatement their hopes had risen again, but to
every suggestion so far he had been deaf. He would listen approvingly,
but at the end, when he found the talk veering his way, and a circle of
intent faces watching him, he would say: "It is too dangerous. And it is a young man's work. I am not young."
Then he would pay his score, but never by any chance Rudolph's or the
others, and go home to his empty house. But recently the plant had gone
on double turn, and Herman was soon to go on at night. Here was
the gang's opportunity. Everything was ready but Herman himself. He
continued interested, but impersonal. For the sake of the Fatherland he
was willing to have the plant go, and to lose his work. He was not at
all daunted by the thought of the deaths that would follow. That was
war. Anything that killed and destroyed was fair in war. But he did not
care to place himself in danger. Let those young hot-heads do the work.
Rudolph, watching him, bided his time. The ground was plowed and
harrowed, ready for the seed, and Rudolph had only to find the seed.
The night he had carried Anna into the cottage on the hill, he had found
it.
Herman had not beaten Anna. Rudolph had carried her up to her bed, and
Herman, following slowly, strap in hand, had been confronted by the
younger man in the doorway of the room where Anna lay, conscious but
unmoving, on the bed.
"You can use that thing later," Rudolph said. "She's sick now. Better
let her alone."
"I will teach her to run away," Herman muttered thickly. "She left me,
her father, and threw away a good job--I--"