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HURRICANE ISLAND
by
H. B. MARRIOTT WATSON
Author of "Captain Fortune," Etc.
[Illustration: "'May the Lord help you,' says he in his voice of
suet."]
A. L. Burt Company,
Publishers, New York
Copyright, 1904, by
H. B. Marriott Watson
Copyright in Great Britain
Copyright, 1905, by
Doubleday, Page & Company
Published, February, 1905
TO
RICHARD BRERETON MARRIOTT WATSON
MY KEEN YET APPRECIATIVE CRITIC,
WHO PLEADED
ON BEHALF OF THE VILLAINS,
THIS TALE OF ADVENTURE BY SEA
IS DEDICATED WITH LOVE BY
ITS AUTHOR AND HIS
[Transcriber's Note: The dedication is incomplete.]
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. "The Sea Queen" 3
II. In the "Three Tuns" 15
III. Mademoiselle Trebizond 30
IV. An Amazing Proposition 45
V. The Wounded Man 57
VI. The Conference in the Cabin 73
VII. The Rising 89
VIII. The Capture of the Bridge 105
IX. The Flag of Truce 123
X. Legrand's Wink 135
XI. The Lull 144
XII. In the Saloon 157
XIII. The Fog 169
XIV. Barraclough Takes a Hand 179
XV. The Fight in the Music-Room 193
XVI. Pye 205
XVII. The Third Attack 222
XVIII. At Dead of Night 237
XIX. The Tragedy 250
XX. The Escape 267
XXI. On the Island 278
XXII. Holgate's Last Hand 295
HURRICANE ISLAND
CHAPTER I
"THE SEA QUEEN"
Pember Street, E., is never very cheerful in appearance, not even in
mid-spring, when the dingy lilacs in the forecourts of those grimy
houses bourgeon and blossom. The shrubs assimilate soon the general air
of depression common to the neighbourhood. The smoke catches and turns
them; they wilt or wither; and the bunches of flowers are sicklied over
with the smuts and blacks of the roaring chimneys. The one open space
within reach is the river, and thither I frequently repaired during the
three years I practised in the East End. At least it was something to
have that wide flood before one, the channel of great winds and the
haunt of strange craft. The tide grew turbid under the Tower Bridge and
rolled desolately about the barren wilderness of the Isle of Dogs; but
it was for all that a breach in the continuity of ugly streets and
houses, a wide road itself, on which tramped unknown and curious lives,
passing to and fro between London and foreign parts.
Unless a man be in deadly earnest or very young, I cannot conceive a
career more distressing to the imagination and crushing to the ambition
than the practice of medicine in the East End. The bulk of my cases
were club cases which enabled me to be sure of a living, and the rest
were for the most part sordid and unpleasant subjects, springing out of
the vile life of the district. Alien sailors abounded and quarrelled
fiercely. Often and often have I been awakened in the dead hours to
find drunken and foreign-speaking men at my door, with one or more
among them suffering from a dangerous knife-wound. And the point of it
that came nearly home to me was that this career would not only lead to
nothing, but was unprofitable in itself. I had taken the position in
the hope that I might make something of it, but I found that it was all
I could do to maintain my place. I made no charge for advice in my
consultations, but took a little money on the medicine which I made up.
Is any position to be conceived more degrading to a professional man?
The one bright time in my week was of a Saturday, when I donned my best
coat and gloves, took down my silkiest hat, and, discarding the fumes
and flavours of the East, set out for Piccadilly. I still remained a
member of a decent club, and here I lunched in my glory, talked with
some human creatures, exchanged views on the affairs of the world,
smoked and lolled in comfortable chairs--in short, took my enjoyment
like a man-about-town, and then went back to earn my next week's
holiday.
Punctually to a minute I must be in the surgery in Pember Street at six
o'clock, and the horrid round must begin to circle again. I will
confess that there was a time when I could have loved that career as a
saunterer in West End streets. It appealed to me at five-and-twenty
almost as a romantic profession. Other young men whom I had known, at
school and college, had entered it, and some were, or appeared to be,
signal stars in that galaxy of wealth and beauty. My means, however,
denied me access, and at thirty I would have been content, after my
experience of hardships and poverty, to settle in some comfortable
suburb, not too distant from the sphere of radiance. As it was, I was
in chains in the slums of Wapping, and re-visited the glimpses of
Piccadilly once a week.
When I rose on an evening in November to go down to the river almost
for the last time, it was not a Saturday, but a Thursday, and the West
End seemed still a long way off. I had finished my round of cases, and
had sat waiting in my dingy surgery for patients. But none had come,
and in the enforced meditation that ensued, as I reviewed my past and
my prospects, my soul sickened in me. I wanted to breathe more
freely--I wanted more air and something more cheerful than the low
surgery lamp and the dismal lights that wagged in the street. I put on
my hat and passed down to the river.
It was quite dark, and the easterly drift had obscured and dirtied the
sky, so that when I came out by a landing which I knew now familiarly,
I could see only the lights across the water, and some tall spars and
funnels in the foreground. But the river at full tide champed audibly
against the wharves, and the various sounds of that restless port
assailed my ears--the roar of the unseen traffic behind me, the fluting
and screaming of whistles, the mingled shouts, oaths, and orders in the
distance, and the drone of that profound water under all.
I had stood for some minutes, drinking in the better air, when there
were voices near, suddenly risen out of the flood, and I perceived two
men had landed. They paused by me for one to relight his pipe, and in
the flash of the match I gathered from the dresses that they were
stevedores, newly come, no doubt, from unloading some vessel. But my
attention was taken off them unexpectedly by a great flare that went up
into the sky apparently in mid-channel. It made a big bright flame,
quite unusual in that resort of silent lights, and one of the
stevedores commented on it.
"That'll be her," he said; "she was coming up round the Dogs in a
la-di-da fashion. Maybe she'll fly rockets in another minute."
"Them steam-yachts are the jockeys to blue the money," responded his
companion. "Nothink's good enough for them."
"What is it?" I asked.
"Only a Geordie brig straight from winning the America Cup, sir," said
the first man with a facetious smile. "What did they make her out,
Bill?"
Bill hesitated. "I think it was the _Sea Queen_," he said doubtfully,
and added, in harmony with his companion's mood:
"They don't want to make themselves known, not by a long chalk."
With which, the flare having died down, they tramped away into the
night with a civil leave-taking.
I followed them presently, moving along the road in the direction of
the docks. When I reached the entrance I paused, and the gatekeeper
addressed me.
"Going in, doctor? Got a call?"
I recognised him in the dimness of his lamp as a man whom I had
attended for an accident, and I gave him good evening.
"No," said I, "but I want some air. I think I will, if you don't mind."
"Welcome, sir," said he cheerily, and I found myself on the other side
of the gateway.
I walked along the vacant stretch of ground, lit only by dull
gas-lamps, and, passing the low office buildings and storing sheds,
came out by the water-basins. Here was a scene of some bustle and
disorder, but it was farther on that the spectators were engaged in a
knot, for the caisson was drifting round, and a handsome vessel was
floating in, her funnel backed against the grey darkness and her spars
in a ghostly silhouette. The name I heard on several sides roused in me
a faint curiosity. It was the stranger I had observed, the _Sea Queen_,
the subject of the stevedores' pleasantries.
"A pretty boat," said I to my neighbour. "What is she?"
He shook his head. "_Sea Queen_ out of Hamburg," he said, "and a
pleasure yacht from the look of her. But what she does here beats me."
The caisson closed, and the steam-yacht warped up slowly to the pier.
There was little or no noise on her, only a voice raised occasionally
in an authoritative command, and the rattling of chains that paid out
through the donkey-engine. Idly I moved to the stone quay when the
gangway was let down, but only one man descended. The passengers, if
there had been any, had long since reached town from Tilbury, saving
themselves that uninteresting trudge up the winding river-lane.
I moved on to where a steamer was being loaded under the electric
lights, and watched the same for some time with interest; then, taking
out my watch, I examined it, and came to the conclusion that if I was
to see any patients that evening at all I must at once get back to my
unpalatable rooms. I began to go along the pier, and passed into the
shadow of the _Sea Queen_, now sunk in quiet, and drab and dark. As I
went, a port-hole in the stern almost on the level of my eyes gleamed
like a moon, and of a sudden there was an outbreak of angry voices, one
threatening volubly and the other deeper and slower, but equally
hostile. It was not that the altercation was anything astonishing in
human life, but I think it was the instantaneous flash of that light
and those voices in a dead ship that pulled me up. I stared into the
port-hole, and as I did so the face of a man passed across it 'twixt
the light and me; it passed and vanished; and I walked on. As I turned
to go down to the gates I was aware of the approaching fog. I had seen
it scores of times in that abominable low-lying part of the town, and I
knew the symptoms. There was a faint smell in the air, an odour that
bit the nostrils, carrying the reek of that changeless wilderness of
factories and houses. The opaque grey sky lost its greyness and was
struck to a lurid yellow. Banks of high fog rolled up the east and
moved menacingly, almost imperceptibly, upon the town. For a moment
there were dim shadows of the wharves and the riverside houses, with a
church tower dimmer still behind them, and then the billows of the fog
descended and swallowed up all.
I moved now in a blackness, but bore to the right, in which direction I
knew were the dock sheds and safety. I seemed to have been feeling my
way for a long time--quite ten minutes--and yet I did not come upon
anything. I began to be seized with the fear of a blind man who is
helpless in vacancy. Had I left the basin in my rear, or had I somehow
wandered back towards it, and would another step take me over into the
water? I shrank from the thought of that cold plunge, and, putting out
my stick on all sides, tapped and tapped, and went on foot by foot. I
was still upon the stone, when I should have reached the sheds, or at
least have got upon the earth again, with the roadway running to the
gates. Angry at my own folly for lingering so long about the ships, I
continued cautiously forward, trying each step of the way. Presently I
heard a sound of footsteps before me, and then a voice raised in a
stave of song. There followed a loud oath and the splash of a heavy
body in water.
Plainly the basin was, then, in front of me, and some one had fallen
in. The poor wretch was doomed to drown in that horrid and impenetrable
darkness. I shuddered at the thought of that fate, and moved faster
under the whip of impulse. The next moment I brought sharply up against
a stone post by which ships were warped in and fastened. Below was the
water, and now I could hear the sound of splashing, and a voice raised
in a cry of terror. Round the post was coiled a heavy rope which I
loosened as rapidly as was possible and began to lower over the edge of
the basin.
"This way," I called; "make this way. Here is the pier," but the
splashing continued, and a smother of sound came to me, as if the
swimmer were under water, and his voice stifled. Almost without
thinking, I gripped the thick, tarry rope and let myself over the
basin, until I had reached the surface of the water.
"This way," I called; "if you can get here, I can save you."
The noise seemed to come from some little distance out, and now I was
in the water myself, with the cable in my hand, striking out feverishly
and awkwardly in the direction of the struggling man. I came upon him
in a dozen strokes, and the first news I had of him was a kick in the
shoulder that almost tore me from my rope. The next moment I had him by
the collar and without more ado was retracing my way, towing a violent
mass of humanity behind me. It was only by dint of hard work and by
propping him in my arms that I at last landed him on the pier, and then
I succeeded in following myself, very sore and stiff and cold.
The first words that sprang from the prostrate figure on the quay were
some incoherent oaths, which ultimately took form. "Curse Legrand,
curse him!"
"Come," said I; "if you are well enough to swear you are well enough to
travel, and we are both of us in a case for treatment."
"I can't see you," said a voice, in a grumbling way, "but you saved me.
Pull along, and I'll do my best to follow. Where the dickens are we?"
I groped and helped him to his feet. "Give me your arm," said I; "we
can't afford to go in again, either of us."
"Were you in too?" he asked stupidly.
"Well, what do _you_ think?" I replied with a little laugh, and began
to walk, this time, determinately at right angles from the basin.
He said nothing more, but hung on my arm pretty limp, as we struggled
through the darkness, and presently we both fell over a bale of goods.
"So far so good," I said, picking him up; "we must be in the
neighbourhood of the sheds. Now to find them, and creep along in their
protection."
We struck the buildings immediately after, and I had no difficulty in
working my way to the end. That took us to dry ground, or, at least, to
the sloppy ground at the bottom of the docks. By good fortune we now
hit upon the roadway, and it was to me a delight to hear the ring of
the hard macadam under our squelching boots. I was now almost cheerful,
for I was sure that I could not wander from the road, and, sure enough,
we were advertised of our position and heralded all the way by the
meagre lamps at intervals. Soon after we reached the gates, which were
opened by my friend.
He peered into our faces. "It was a call, sure enough," said I,
laughing. "And here's my patient."
When we got into the road the fog had slightly lifted, and I had less
difficulty in picking my way home than I had anticipated. Once in the
surgery, I turned up the lamp and poked the fire into a blaze, after
which I looked at my companion. It was with a sense of familiarity that
I recognised his face as that which I had seen flitting across the
port-hole of the _Sea Queen_. He sat back in the chair in which I had
placed him and stared weakly about the room. The steam went up from
both of us.
"Look here," said I, "if we stay so, we are dead or rheumatic men"; and
I went into my bedroom, changed myself, and brought him some garments
of my own. These he put on, talking now in the garrulous voice I had
heard on the yacht, but somewhat disconnectedly.
"It's awfully good of you ... a Good Samaritan," and here a vacant
laugh. "I wonder if these things.... How did I go over? I thought I was
going straight. It must have been that infernal fog.... Where the
dickens are we?"
"You are in my house," said I, "but you might be at the bottom of the
basin."
"Good heavens!" he said, with a laugh. "I feel mighty shivery. Don't
you think a drop of something----"
I looked at him closely. "I think it wouldn't be a bad idea in the
circumstances," I said.
"Oh, I know I had too much to carry!" he said recklessly. "It made me
quarrel with that wretched Legrand, too--a fat-headed fool!"
I rang for water, and mixed two hot jorums of whisky, one of which he
sipped contentedly.
"You see, we had a rousing time coming over," he observed, as if in
apology. I looked my question, and he answered it. "Hamburg, in the
_Sea Queen_. The old man skipped at Tilbury, and Barraclough's a real
blazer."
"Which accounts for the blaze I saw," I remarked drily.
"Oh, you saw that. Yes, it was that that made Legrand mad. He's
particular. But what's the odds? The boss has to pay."
His eyes roamed about the shabby room--shabby from the wretched
pictures on the walls to the threadbare carpet underfoot, and, though
he was not a gentleman, I felt some feeling of irritation. Perhaps if
he had been a gentleman I should not have been put out at this scrutiny
of my poverty.
"You saved me, and that's certain," he began again. "Say, are you a
doctor?"
I admitted it.
"Well, can you recommend another glass of toddy?" he asked, smiling,
and his smile was pleasant.
"In the circumstances again--perhaps," I said.
"Oh, I know I played the fool," he conceded. "But it isn't often I do.
I must have gone off in the fog. How did you get at me?"
I told him.
"That was plucky," he said admiringly. "I don't know two folks I'd risk
the same for."
"There wasn't much risk," I answered. "It was only a question of taking
a cold bath out of season."
"Well!" he said, and whistled. "There's white people everywhere, I
guess. Business good?"
The question was abrupt, and I could not avoid it. "You have your
answer," I replied, with a gesture at the room, and taking out my
cigar-case I offered him one.
He accepted it, bit off the end, and spat it on the floor, as if
preoccupied. His brow wrinkled, as if the mental exercise were unusual
and difficult.
"The _Sea Queen_ is a rum bird," he said presently, "but there's plenty
of money behind. And she wants a doctor."
"Well," said I, smiling at him.
"We left a Scotch chap sick at Hamburg," he continued. "The boss is a
secret beggar, with pots of money, they say. We chartered out of the
Clyde, and picked him up at Hamburg--him and others."
"A pleasure yacht?" I inquired.
"You may call it that. If it ain't that I don't know what it is, and I
ought to know, seeing I am purser. We've all signed on for twelve
months, anyway. Now, doctor, we want a doctor."
He laughed, as if this had been a joke, and I stared at him. "You
mean," said I slowly, "that I might apply."
"If it's worth your while," said he. "You know best."
"Well, I don't know about that," I replied. "It depends on a good many
things."
All the same I knew that I did know best. The whole of my discontent,
latent and seething for years, surged up in me. Here was the wretched
practice by which I earned a miserable pittance, bad food, and low
company. On the pleasure yacht I should at least walk among equals, and
feel myself a civilised being. I could dispose of my goodwill for a
small sum, and after twelve months--well, something might turn up. At
any rate, I should have a year's respite, a year's holiday.
I looked across at the purser of the _Sea Queen_, with his good-looking,
easy-natured face, his sleek black hair, and his rather flabby white
face, and still I hesitated.
"I can make it a dead bird," he said, wagging his head, "and you'll
find it pretty comfortable."
"Where are you going? The Mediterranean?" I asked.
"I haven't the least idea," he said with a frank yawn. "But if your
tickets are all right you can bet on the place."
"I'm agreeable," I said, in a matter-of-fact voice.
"Good man!" said he, with some of his former sparkle of interest. "And
now we'll have another to toast it, and then I must be off."
"Don't you think you'd better stay here the night?" I asked. "I can put
you up. And the fog's thicker."
"Thanks, old man," he replied with easy familiarity, "I would like a
roost, only I've got an engagement. I wired to some one, you know." And
he winked at me wickedly.
"Very well," said I. "If you have an appointment, I would suggest that
we leave over the toast."
"You're right," he said ingenuously. "But it was a nasty bath. All
serene. I'll fix that up. By the way," he paused on his road to the
door, "I haven't your name."
"Nor I yours," I answered. "Mine's Richard Phillimore."
"Mine's Lane," he said. "Qualified?"
"M.B. London," I replied.
"Good for you. That'll make it easier. I suppose I can go in your
togs."
"You're welcome," I said, "though they don't fit you very well."
"Oh, I'm a bit smaller than you, I know, but all cats are grey in the
dark, and it's infernally dark to-night! Well, so long, and I'm much
obliged to you, I'm sure."
He swung out of the door with his free gait, and I stopped him.
"One word more. Who's your owner?"
"The boss? Oh, Morland--Morland, a regular millionaire."
With that he was gone.