voice. “I’ll take care of everything. First, we will drop them far out
of any regular shipping lanes. In addition, we will first wreck their
sails, their mast and their rigging as if it had been done by a storm.
When they are finally found, it will be too late to do anything about
them. It will just look as if a storm had wrecked them and blown them
out to sea. It’s a tidy way to operate—no messy violence—and there will
be no clues to lead to your precious island.”
Jones considered for a minute before answering. “It sounds all right to
me, if you say so. After all, you know your end of the business better
than I do.”
“Indeed I do,” the Captain answered calmly.
“Now,” Jones said briskly, dismissing the matter of the boys from his
mind, “we have my other cargo to discuss before our dealings are
finished for this trip.”
The Captain held up a thin, white hand to stop Jones. “Not now,” he
said. “Our business can wait until we have refreshed ourselves and had a
bit of dinner. Then when it is dark, you can turn over your cargo—if the
terms are satisfactory—and sail home unobserved.”
He waved his stick at the boys and motioned to two of his crew members.
“Take them below and lock them in an empty cabin. And set a close watch
on them.”
As Sandy and Jerry were led off by the two crewmen, they saw the Captain
precede Jones to the foot of the deckhouse ladder. He paused and bowed,
indicating that Jones should go first. Somehow, the courtly,
old-fashioned gesture seemed to Sandy more sinister than anything else
he had seen since the start of this day.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Escape to Danger
Stepping over the high sill of the door that led from the deck to the
passageway, Sandy and Jerry were plunged at once into gloom and
near-darkness. The throb of the freighter’s engines, barely noticeable
on deck, became a roar, and the passage was thick with the smells and
heat from the engine room below.
They were pushed and shoved along the passage, past a number of doors
which Sandy presumed were the crew’s quarters. On the other side of the
passage, an occasional door opened onto the engine room, a great cavern
of heat and noise, brightly illuminated by lights on all sides, and
crisscrossed by catwalks and ladders.
Without a word, their guides stopped before a door opposite the main
opening to the engine room. One of them produced a large key ring and,
after a moment’s searching for the right key, unlocked the door.
Motioning them to enter, the guard stood aside as Sandy and Jerry
stepped into the gloom of a small cabin. Then the door slammed behind
them, the key clicked in the lock, and they were alone. Through the
ventilating slits cut in the top and bottom of the door, they heard one
of their captors.
“You take the first watch while I go for chow. I’ll bring the kids
something to eat when I come back, then you can get yours.” The other
said something in agreement, and the speaker’s footsteps in the
passageway were soon drowned out in the roar of the engines.
Sinking to a seat on the bare springs of a bunk with no mattress, Jerry
looked up at Sandy and asked, “What now?”
“I don’t know,” Sandy admitted. “But at least we got away with the flare
gun, and we may figure out a way to use it.” He lowered himself to the
bare bunk opposite the one Jerry occupied, and surveyed their floating
prison.
The cabin offered very little promise of help. There were the two double
bunks, both bare of mattresses, four lockers, a sink in one corner and a
single porthole. Going to the porthole, Sandy tried to open it, but with
no success. The “dogs” that secured it, heavy steel latches, were welded
in place, and the glass of the porthole looked too heavy to break.
Obviously, the place had been used as a prison before. Outside of the
porthole, there was nothing but the sea. Even if the glass could be
broken, Sandy didn’t like the idea of dropping down into the black
waters below. That seemed as unpromising a position as the one they were
in now!
The lockers were the next subject of their exploration but, as they
expected, these proved as empty and bare as the cabin itself. The sink,
the only remaining thing in the room, was the source of no inspiration.
Settling himself on the bunk once more, Sandy began to roll up his pants
leg. “I guess this flare gun is our only hope at that,” he said. “We
might as well have it ready.”
He quickly undid the adhesive tape, then stuck the gun in his belt. As
he did so, an idea came to him.
“Jerry, I think I have it!” he whispered.
The plan was a simple one—almost too simple to work. But it seemed the
only chance they had. Sandy proposed to wait until the guard came with
their food, then, threatening him with the flare pistol, they would try
to overcome him, tie him up, and make their way to the deck. Once there,
they would have to find a way out. It seemed a slim hope, but what else
could they do?
Jerry agreed, and whispering quietly, they worked out the best positions
to take to make their attack good. Meanwhile, one more stroke of good
fortune came to them. Jerry found that he still had the roll of adhesive
tape in his pocket, undiscovered in Bull’s quick inspection. It would
come in handy for binding and gagging the guards, if they could once
overcome them.
Now there was nothing to do but wait. Through the porthole, they could
see the sky growing dark, and the gathering gloom in the cabin raised
their spirits. It was one more bit of aid that might fool their jailer
into thinking the flare gun was a real weapon. The last glow of day was
dying on the horizon when they once more heard voices in the passageway.
Jerry took his position by the door while Sandy readied the flare gun,
then sat on one of the bunks. The door swung open and their guards
entered, the lead man carrying a tray and his companion behind him.
As they stepped over the sill, Sandy stood up suddenly, upsetting the
tray. Hot coffee spilled over the lead man, who stepped backward with a
cry. As he did so, Jerry, from his position behind the door, reached out
and knocked the second man to the deck. At the same moment, Sandy raised
his flare gun and aimed.
“All right,” he said. “I have you covered!”
“Do what he says,” one of the sailors said. “Do you see that gun? It’s a
flare!”
Sandy was startled. If they knew it was not a real pistol, why didn’t
they charge him? Why were they cowering away? Then he realized for the
first time that the flare pistol, used as a weapon, must be an awful
thing. Anything that could send a stream of flame hundreds of feet into
the air could surely inflict a terrible wound when used against a man.
He shuddered, knowing he could never use it in this way. But as long as
the sailors didn’t know it....
It was short work to silence the men with adhesive-tape gags, and to
tape their hands firmly behind their backs. When this was done, the boys
pushed the sailors into the lockers, taped their ankles together, and
shut them in. The locker doors secured firmly with a latch. Leaving the
cabin silently, Sandy and Jerry locked its door behind them. That
certainly took care of two of their captors. Now, if the rest would just
prove this easy!
As they stepped away from the door, Sandy whispered, “Let’s get out of
this passage fast. There are too many doors here, and one might pop open
at any minute!”
They swiftly moved down the length of the passage until they reached the
bulkhead door. Outside, the deck was dark, with the complete blackness
of a night at sea, pierced only by the shaft of light that came from the
passage. Moving now as quickly as they could, they slipped out onto the
deck, and stepped back out of the light. Their shadows had been outlined
boldly against the passage light for only a second. They crouched in the
darkness and waited to be sure they had not been observed. So far, so
good.
Now that they had gotten this far, Sandy realized, their problems were
just beginning. How were they to get off the ship? And how could they
prevent being followed?
“Jerry,” he whispered, “we’ve got to see to it that we get away from
here in the fastest boat they have! I wonder if there’s a power boat
around?”
“There has to be,” Jerry answered. “Every ship carries lifeboats, and
one of them always has power so it can be used as a captain’s launch
when necessary.”
“Well, let’s find it!” Sandy whispered.
Gazing over the side, they could see no boat tied up at all. They had to
work their way to the other side of the freighter, without once more
crossing the telltale path of light from the passageway. To do this,
they had to work their way forward to the bow, and then around to the
other side of the ship. Slowly, with as much care as they could muster,
they dropped to their knees and began to crawl.
They reached the forepeak with no trouble, except the minor difficulties
of crawling over the mess of rope and ship’s gear scattered around the
disordered deck. As they started back, though, two dark forms appeared
in the light of the passage!
“Down!” Sandy whispered, and he and Jerry dropped flat on the deck
behind the protection of the windlass. Peering around the corner of the
huge machine, with its coil of giant anchor chain, they watched the
figures come nearer. Halfway between them and the deckhouse, the shadows
stopped, leaning against the bulwark, and lit cigarettes.
In the brief flare of the match, the boys recognized the grim face of
Turk. The other man with him was a sailor they had seen on deck with the
rest of the crew when they had been taken aboard the freighter. He spoke
in a thin, flat, whining voice, with a trace of a foreign accent that
might have had its origin in any country in the world, but which by now
was simply international. The first words the boys could make out came
from Turk.
“This waiting is getting on my nerves,” he rumbled. “What’s keeping us
from shoving off?”
“It’s the big businessmen up there,” the sailor whined, jerking his
thumb toward the Captain’s quarters. “Jones wants more for the phony
dough than he got last time, and the Skipper wants to give him less. The
Skipper says he rates a break in the price for getting rid of those kids
for Jones. Jones says he’s taking as much risk as the Skipper.”
“And how about us?” Turk asked. “Ain’t we in this as much as them?
Where’s the payoff for us?”
“I don’t know about you,” the sailor answered. “But the Skipper never
let _us_ down yet. He says he’s gotta have better terms so’s to pay us a
bonus. And we’ll get it,” he continued, his voice taking on a mean,
determined tone. “We’ll get it, or else!”
Sandy and Jerry, scarcely daring to breathe, lay still in the shadow of
the windlass, listening to this exchange. At each word, the black
freighter seemed less and less like a place where they wanted to stay.
Something had to be done, and fast! As each moment wore on, Jones and
the Captain were coming closer to an agreement, and when that agreement
was reached, the ship would sail. And if it sailed with them still
aboard, Sandy thought, their chance of escape would slim down almost to
the vanishing point!
For a few minutes, Turk and his friend stood silently at the rail and
smoked their cigarettes. The stillness of the scene was marked only by
the glow of coals against the black sea and sky. Then one of the
cigarettes made an arch through the night as it was flipped over the
side. The figures straightened.
“I’m going back up there,” Turk announced, “and see if I can get any
better idea what’s going on. I’ll listen at the porthole, and you stay
back on the boat deck and cover for me. If anyone comes along, start to
whistle.”
The two dark figures walked back to the deckhouse and disappeared for a
moment in the shadows. A few minutes later, Sandy saw their forms
outlined briefly against the light from a porthole on the boat deck;
then they passed once more from sight.
Turning to Jerry, Sandy whispered, “We’d better get going! If they wind
up that business talk before we’re out of here, I don’t give us much of
a chance!”
Once more, they crept in the shadows, moving with painful care over the
tangled equipment that seemed to cover the decks everywhere. At last,
reaching the ladder from the main deck to the boat deck, they paused and
took stock. Above them, showing only as a dark shape against the dark
sky, loomed the bow of the nearest of the freighter’s four lifeboats.
Slowly, and with the greatest of care, they slipped up the ladder until
Sandy’s head was at a level with the deck above. He waited and watched
to be sure the deck was uninhabited. When he was reasonably certain, he
moved ahead, slower now than before, and slid his body up onto the deck.
Jerry followed suit, and soon the two, pulling themselves forward on the
deck by the flats of their hands and the toes of their sneakers, were
sheltered by a life-jacket box below the lifeboat.
Turning over, Sandy scanned the bottom of the lifeboat, until, with a
sigh of relief, he saw what he was hoping to see—the screw of a power
boat protruding from the stern. This was the object of their search!
As he pointed excitedly to the screw, Jerry whispered with puzzlement,
“Now that we’ve found their power gig, what are we going to do with it?
It takes four men to launch these things, and even if we could launch
it, it would make such a noise that we’d have the whole crew on our
necks before it ever hit the water!”
“I didn’t figure on launching it,” Sandy said. “What I want to do is fix
it so they won’t be able to follow us in it when we make our getaway on
the sloop!”
“Smart thinking!” Jerry whispered. “There’s very little danger that they
can chase us with the freighter itself. In the first place, by the time
they could turn it around, we’d be out of sight. And if they don’t catch
up with us out here, they won’t dare come too near the harbor. The water
there isn’t deep enough for a ship this size and it would be too risky
for them. But _I_ don’t know too much about engines. How are you going
to disable this one?”
“I know a few ways,” Sandy answered, “and I’m going to use them all! If
I just put one thing out of order, they might fix it right away. But,
with the mess I’m going to make of that engine, it’ll take them a half
hour or better to get it going. And by then, I hope, we’ll have sailed
out of sight!”
Working with the greatest of care, the boys unlaced the canvas cover on
the outboard side of the lifeboat. Standing on the rail of the ship,
Sandy swung up and slid in beneath the cover, into a pitch-blackness
that made the night outside seem bright in comparison.
As Jerry joined Sandy, his added weight made the lifeboat lurch to one
side, and brought a creak from the davits in which the boat was hung. To
the boys under the canvas, it sounded as loud as a scream! Motionless in
the dark, they waited for the thud of running feet, the tearing back of
the boat cover, the glare of flashlights—but none came. The only answer
to the noise was a thin, tuneless whistle from the deck above them. It
was Turk’s fellow sailor, keeping watch for his spying friend, and he
was as afraid of passing noises as the boys were!
Not daring to move, Sandy and Jerry waited for what seemed hours until
the slight swaying of the lifeboat stopped. As cautiously as they could,
so as not to start it moving again, they changed their positions in such
a way as to balance the boat better. At last they were stationed one on
each side of what Sandy could only hope was the engine compartment.
“How can you work in the dark?” Jerry whispered. “How will you know
what’s what in there?”
“It shouldn’t be too hard,” Sandy replied. “Almost all engines have a
lot in common. If I can just get my hands on the engine, I think I’ll
know what to do.”
Working only by touch, it was not easy to find out how the lid to the
engine compartment was removed. Slowly moving his hands around the
surfaces of the box, Sandy found two hook-eyes, which he carefully
unfastened. On the opposite side of the box, he found two more, which he
also undid.
“We’re in luck,” he whispered to Jerry. “If this had been a hinged top,
I don’t think we could have opened it. There isn’t enough headroom below
this canvas to raise a boxtop this size.”
With the greatest of care, making only the smallest of scraping noises,
they removed the heavy lid and placed it across two of the lifeboat’s
seats.
“I’m ready,” Sandy said. “I’m going to be handing you some parts, Jerry.
I want you to put them in your shirt. We can’t leave them in here, and
if we threw them overboard, the splash would surely be heard. Just be
sure they don’t clank around!”
Working noiselessly, Sandy ran his hands over the engine, starting from
the top of the block. He touched and counted the spark plugs—four of
them. His own experience with assorted jalopies would come in handy
here, he thought. Carefully, he slipped the wires off the tops of the
spark plugs. Following the wires to their source, he came to the
distributor cap. Two clips held it in place. These were easily removed.
Following the wire that came from the center of the distributor cap, he
came to its end at the spark coil. A small pull removed it. Then he
handed the whole thing, which felt like a mechanical octopus, to Jerry,
who slipped it into his shirt.
A little more probing brought out two more parts from the distributor,
both quite small. One was the rotor, the other the condenser. “With any
one of these things gone,” Sandy whispered, “they won’t be able to run
this boat!”
“Great!” Jerry breathed. “Now let’s get going!”
“Not yet,” Sandy said. “We still have some more to do. I don’t want to
make it too easy for them!”
The next thing to go was the fuel pump, as Sandy unscrewed from it the
glass bowl through which the gasoline had to pass. This was followed by
a small collection of springs from the choke, the accelerator and the
carburetor.
“I think that ought to do it,” Sandy said. “Now let’s put this engine
lid back on, so they can’t tell right away that somebody’s been in
here!”
It took even more care to replace the lid than it had to take it off. It
was a tight fit, and really needed a blow on the top to make it fit
properly on the casing, but this could not be done without making far
too much noise. Finally, they decided to leave it unhooked, rather than
run the risk of giving away their presence in the lifeboat.
Getting out and dropping soundlessly to the deck was not easy either,
especially for Jerry, with the hardware stored in his bulging shirt
front. Sandy, who had gone first, helped him down, and Jerry landed
beside him with a muted clinking of metal and hard plastic. The slight
noise brought no warning whistle from Turk’s lookout.
A glance at the deck below showed them why. Their eyes, grown accustomed
to complete darkness, were now able to see quite clearly about the
freighter’s deck. Up forward, near where they had hidden below the
windlass, stood Jones and the white-uniformed little Captain, together
with Turk, Bull, and several other sailors.
Apparently the business talk was concluded and, much more to the boys’
concern, the freighter was making ready to hoist anchor and set off for
ports unknown!
CHAPTER TWELVE
The Race Begins
Even as they watched, a working light mounted on the foremast suddenly
flooded the foredeck with brilliance, bringing the shadowy figures into
sharp focus, like actors on a brightly lighted stage.
Instinctively, Sandy and Jerry shrank back into the shadow of the
life-jacket box, until Sandy realized that the bright light on the
foredeck would make the rest of the ship almost invisible to people in
its rays.
For a few seconds or more, the boys watched the tableau below them until
several of the sailors ambled over to the windlass. Then Jerry said,
“They’re getting ready to hoist the anchor now. We have to move fast if
we’re going to get to our boat before Jones gets to his!”
Still exercising the greatest care, they re-laced the canvas where they
had entered the lifeboat, then quietly crept alongside the rails under
the lifeboats until they came to the ladder connecting the boat deck to
the afterdeck.
This, fortunately, was both deserted and unlighted, the deck crew having
all gone forward to work on the windlass. The boys made their way down
to the point where they had come on board via the rope ladder, which was
still slung over the side, waiting for Jones’s departure.
Looking over the bulwark, they saw the two sloops below them, bobbing
gently in the swell that washed against the sheer side of the tall
freighter. They looked almost unbelievably peaceful, and Sandy thought
once again about Jones’s comments about the unsuspicious looks of
sailing craft. Next to their trim, small shapes, the freighter looked
every bit as sinister as it had actually proved to be!
“This is it,” Sandy whispered. “Let’s make it fast!”
He stepped over the bulwark and disappeared down the rope ladder. Jerry
was as close behind him as he could get without running the risk of
stepping on Sandy’s hands. A moment more brought them to the deck of the
sloop.
“Now comes the hard part,” Jerry whispered. “We’ve got to get our sails
up and shove off without anyone seeing or hearing us—and it’s not
exactly a quiet job. In fact, if I remember right, our slides squeak
pretty badly in their track. I noticed it when we first took it out, and
made a mental note to oil the track as soon as we got some time.”
“Maybe we’d better not risk it,” Sandy said. “Is there some way we can
get away from here without having to hoist the sails right away?”
“Well ...” Jerry said, “if there were enough current, we could drift
off, but I don’t think there is. Besides, it would take a long time, and
I don’t think we’ve got too much time to waste right now.”
“Suppose we tow it off behind the dinghy?” Sandy asked. “You know, the
way we brought it out of the harbor for the first day’s sail.”
“Good!” Jerry exclaimed. But it only took a moment’s search to assure
them that the dinghy was not with them. “Jones must have left it tied to
his mooring,” Jerry said. “That puts us back where we started.”
“I guess there’s nothing to do but try it with our sails,” Sandy said.
As he started to move forward, Jerry stopped him with a hand on his
shoulder.
“Wait a minute! I think I know a way to do this! I remember I was once
taught about sculling with the rudder. You use it like an oar. I’ve
never had to try it, but this is probably the best time. C’mon! Let’s
cast off those lines!”
Working swiftly, Sandy cast off the bow line while Jerry did the same
with the line at the stern. Then both of them pushed off from the side
of the freighter, and the little sloop drifted noiselessly away from the
scarred steel cliff of the huge hull.
The bright light from the foredeck spilled on the waters around the bow
of the ship, and seemed even to light up the sloop. Sandy only hoped
that whoever was standing lookout on the freighter was within that
circle of light. If he was in the darkness of the upper decks, even the
few dim beams that reflected from the white hull of the little sailboat
would shine out like a warning beacon against the dark waters!
Sandy worked his way aft over the cabin roof, and dropped into the
cockpit to join Jerry at the tiller. Jerry was carefully working the
tiller backward and forward, making small gurgling sounds as the rudder
swept through the water.
“Here’s the way it works,” he said. “I’m using the rudder like a single
stern paddle. Lots of boats in the old days used to be run like that. If
the paddle’s properly shaped, it will do a good job of propelling a
boat. They call a long stern oar a sweep, and it’s good enough so that
it’s still used on heavy barges in lots of places around the world.”
“Won’t it just push the stern around from one side to the other?” Sandy
asked.
“Not if you do it carefully,” Jerry replied. “What I’m doing is this: I
ease the rudder to one side, slowly, so as not to row with it. Then I
give it a strong pull toward me—like this—and then I shove it halfway
back.”
As he spoke, he hauled on the rudder, and the stern of the sloop swung
around a bit, but the return motion of the rudder stopped the swinging
action and steadied the sloop on her course. Sandy saw small ripples
form a wake behind the boat as some forward motion was gained. As Jerry
repeated the gentling, pulling and returning of the rudder, the sloop
gained a little more forward speed. Slowly, the rusted sides of the
black freighter slid by them.
“So far, so good,” Sandy said. “If we keep this up, we’ll be able to get
away before we’re spotted.”