AUSTIN FINDS A CLUE
The grey light was growing clearer, and the mangroves taking shape among
the fleecy mist, when Austin stood looking down upon the creek in the
heavy, windless morning. There was no brightness in the dingy sky, which
hung low above the mastheads, but the water gleamed curiously, and no
longer lapped along the steamer's rusty plates. It lay still beneath her
hove-up bilge, giving up a hot, sour smell, and Jefferson, who came out
of the skipper's room, touched Austin as he gazed at it.
"The stream should have been setting down by now. Something's backing up
the ebb," he said. "A shift of wind along the shore, most likely. The
rain's coming!"
Austin glanced up at the lowering heavens, but there was no change in
their uniform greyness, and no drift of cloud. The smoke of the
locomotive boiler went straight up, and the mist hung motionless among
the trees ashore. Still, there was something oppressive and portentous
in the stillness, and his skin was tingling.
"If it doesn't come soon we'll not have a man left," he said. "It isn't
in flesh and blood to stand this much longer."
"Then," said Jefferson drily, "the sooner we get to work the better.
There's a good deal to do, and you're not going to feel it quite so much
once you get hold of the spanner."
The pump had just stopped, and Tom came towards them, rubbing his greasy
hands with a cotton rag, as they moved in the direction of the engine
room. The lower part of it was dripping when they went down, and a foot
or two of water still lay upon the floor-plates where they met the
depressed side, but it was evident that another hour's work of the big
pump would leave the place almost dry. Austin sat down on a tool-locker
lid, with Jefferson standing beside him, but Tom floundered away towards
the stoke-hold, and they could hear him splashing in the water. When he
reappeared with a blinking lamp he crawled up the slippery ladder as
though working out a clue, while it was several minutes before he came
back and leaned against a column opposite Jefferson with the look of a
man who had not found quite what he had expected.
"Sea-cocks shut!" he said. "Ballast tank full-way cock is screwed up,
too. Of course, they could have closed that with the overhead
screw-gear. You'll remember that manhole cover was off the forward
section."
Jefferson glanced at Austin, though it was Tom he spoke to. "Did you
expect to find them open?"
"Well," said the donkey-man, "to be quite straight, I did."
"I wonder why?"
Tom glanced at him with a little suggestive grin. "She has two plates
started, but with the boiler blowing away half her steam we haven't very
hard work to run all that came in that way down, and her bilge pump
would have kept her clear. What I want to know is, what all that water
was doing in her?"
"Ah," said Jefferson, "you must ask another. I guess nobody's going to
find the full answer to that conundrum. There are only two or three men
who could have told us, and we're not going to have an opportunity of
worrying them about it, unless we get the fever, too."
"Well," said Tom, "the mill's looking good, but it's about time we made
a start on her and got the cylinder covers off and hove the pistons up.
It's quite likely we'll want to spring new rings on them. There should
be some of the spanners in that locker, Mr. Austin."
Austin rose and lifted the lid, while Tom held the lamp, but the first
thing he saw was a sodden book. He drew it out, dripping, and opened it;
but while a good many of the pulpy pages had fallen out, there were
enough left to show that it was one of the little tables of strengths
and weight of materials an engineer often carries about with him. There
was a rather wide margin round the tabulated figures, and as he vacantly
pulled out one of the wet pages he noticed a little close pencil writing
upon a part of it.
"Hold that light nearer, Tom. Here's something that looks interesting,"
he said. "'Buried Jackson this morning--memo hand his share over to Mary
Nichol.'"
He signed Tom to move the light again. "There follows an obliterated
address, and the words, 'scarcely think she'll ever get it. My left
arm's almost rotten now.'"
He stopped again a moment, and his face had grown hard when he went on:
"You see, the thing--is--contagious, and that devil Funnel-paint, or
somebody, has played the same trick before. I wonder if the man who
wrote this looked quite as bad as the nigger did."
"Hold on!" said Jefferson sharply. "I guess none of us have any use for
that kind of talking, and you swilled yourself with permanganate, any
way."
"The result will probably be the same, whether one thinks of it or not.
You will, however, notice that the man's name was Jackson, and the
woman's Mary Nicol."
It was evident that this was a forced attempt to break away from the
subject, and though Tom grinned, it was in a sickly fashion.
"That's no how astonishing. She was the last," he said. "Hadn't you
better turn over, and see if there's any more of it?"
Austin contrived to lift another of the pulpy pages, and once more the
close writing appeared, but it was difficult to make out, and their
faces were close together when Tom lowered the lamp. They showed
curiously grave, as well as hollow, in the smoky light, for there was
reason for believing that the man who had made those notes was dead, and
it was clear that the horrible thing which had stricken him might also
come upon them.
"The last of the bags buried this afternoon," Austin read. "Watson took
a new bearing. W. half N. to the cottonwood, with twist of creek in
line. Forty paces--he made it thirty-nine. Graham says one packet left
in the old place where the niggers got scent of it, and the quills on
the second islet; memo, it makes AL50 to me."
He dropped the book, and Tom came near letting go the lamp, while for a
moment or two afterwards they stared at one another. Austin was
quivering a little, but Jefferson made a restraining gesture as he laid
a hand upon his shoulder.
"Steady! I guess we've got the clue," he said. "There are two islets two
or three leagues back down the creek. You passed them coming up. Still,
what do they put up in quills?"
"Gold-dust! The niggers bring it down from the Western Soudan, and I
believe they're ostrich quills. One of the trader fellows told me a good
deal about them over a dinner at the Metropole. A bushman had once stuck
him with a lot of brass filings. Are you going down to look for them?"
Jefferson, it was evident from his face, laid a strong restraint upon
himself.
"No," he said, with curious quietness. "Funnel-paint knows nothing about
these islets yet, or he wouldn't have come to you, and it's my first
business to heave this steamer off. To do it we'll want her engines, and
there's a heavy job in front of us before we start them. The rains won't
wait for any man."
He broke off, for a glare of blue light fell through the open frames
above and flooded the engine room. It flickered on rusty columns and
dripping, discoloured steel, and vanished, leaving grey shadow behind
it, amidst which the smoky lamplight showed feeble and pale. Then there
was a crash that left them dazed and deafened, and in another moment was
followed by a dull crescendo roar, while a splashing trickle ran down
into the engine room. The glass frames quivered under the deluge, and
one could almost have fancied that the heavens had opened. Jefferson
whirled round and gripped the donkey-man's arm, shaking him as he stood
blinking about him in a bewildered fashion.
"If you tell any of the rest what you have heard, I'll fling you into
the creek! And now up with you, and bring every man who is fit to work.
There's no time to lose," he said.
Tom made for the ladder, and Austin, who went with him, carrying the
book, was drenched before he reached the skipper's room. The air was
filled with falling water that came down in rods, and blotted out the
mangroves a dozen yards away. Steam rose from the sluicing deck, the
creek boiled beneath the deluge, but there was no longer any trace of
the insufferable tension, and he stood a moment or two relaxing under
the rush of lukewarm water that beat his thin clothing flat against his
skin. Then he splashed forward to the forecastle, where Tom had little
difficulty in rousing the men. They crawled out, gaunt and haggard, in
filthy rags, some of them apparently scarcely fit to stand, for the rain
had come, and every inch the water rose would bring them so much nearer
home. There was no need to urge them when they floundered into the
engine room, and hour after hour they strained and sweated on big
spanner and chain-tackle willingly, while the big cylinder-heads and
pistons were hauled up to the beams. The one thought which animated them
was that the engines would be wanted soon.
It mattered little that platform-grating and slippery floor-plates
slanted sharply under them, and each ponderous mass they loosened must
be held in with guy and preventer lest it should swing wildly into
vertical equilibrium. That was only one more difficulty, and they had
already beaten down so many. So day after day they worked on sloping
platforms, slipping with naked feet, and only grinned when Tom flung
foul epithets, and now and then a hammer, at one of them. Much of what
he said was incomprehensible, and, in any case, he was lord supreme of
the machinery; and Bill, whose speech was also vitriolic, acted as his
working deputy. The latter had served as greaser in another steamer, and
for the time being even Jefferson deferred to him.
They stripped her until the big cylinders stood naked on their columns,
and the engine room resembled the erecting shop of a foundry, and then
the work grew harder when the reassembling began. Since the skeleton
engines slanted, nothing would hang or lower as they wanted it, and they
toiled with wedge and lever in semi-darkness by the blinking gleam of
lamps, while the rain that shut the light out roared upon the shut-down
frames above. It was very hot down in the engine room, and when a small
forge was lighted to expand joints they could not spring apart, and to
burn off saponified grease, men with less at stake would probably have
fancied themselves suffocated. Still, each massive piece was cleaned and
polished, keyed home, or bolted fast, and, when the hardest work was
over, the slope of the platforms lessened little by little as the
_Cumbria_ rose upright. It was evident to all of them that the water was
rising in the creek.
In a month her deck was almost leveled, but the muddy flood that gurgled
about her still lay beneath her corroded water line, and Jefferson
seized the opportunity of laying out an anchor to heave on before the
stream ran too strong. The launch's boiler had given out, and they
lashed her to the surfboat, with the hatch covers as a bracing between,
but they spent an afternoon over it before Jefferson was satisfied, and
the thick, steamy night was closing in when they warped the double craft
under the _Cumbria_'s forecastle. It rose above them blackly, with a
blaze of flickering radiance over it where the blast-lamp hurled a shaft
of fire upwards into the rain. Floundering figures cut against the
uncertain brilliancy, voices came down muffled through the deluge, and
there was a creaking and groaning as the ponderous stream anchor swung
out overhead.
Austin stood, half naked, on the platform between launch and surfboat,
with the water sluicing from him, and though he had toiled since early
dawn, he was sensible only of a feverish impatience, and no weariness at
all. He had had enough of the dark land, and what they were about to do
was to ensure a start on the journey that would take them out of it. It
grew rapidly darker, the long hull faded, and the flare of the lamp
alone cut, a sheet of orange and saffron, against the blackness above
them. Jefferson's voice fell through it sharply.
"Stand by!" he said. "We'll ease her down!"
There was a fresh groaning and creaking. Something big and shadowy that
racked the complaining chain descended towards them, and then there was
a scuffle and a shout on the deck above. Austin heard the rattle of
running chain and a hoarse cry.
"Jump on it!" Jefferson's voice ran out, fierce with alarm. "Nip the
slack around the bollard. Hang on! Oh, hang on, until he gets a turn!"
Feet shuffled about the light, there was stertorous gasping, another
cry, and a scream, and again Jefferson's voice broke through the
confused sounds:
"Stand from under--for your life!" it said.
The warning was unnecessary, for the Canarios were already crouching
forward in the surfboats bottom, and as Austin sprang in among them
there was a whirr and a crash. The craft swayed beneath him; he could
feel her dipping in the flood, but she rose with a staggering lurch,
slanted slightly, and held down by something huge and heavy.
"Are you still on top there?" Jefferson asked.
"We seem to be," said Austin. "Something's gone, but it's too dark to
see. How d'you come to let her go with a run?"
"Wall-eye let her surge too soon," said Jefferson. "He was getting an
extra turn on, and nipped his hand in. She has 'most wrung it off him.
Handspike your anchor where you can tilt her clear before we slack
cable."
They contrived to do it somehow, with the flare that was lowered from
the cat-davit dropping blazing oil about them, and then coiled down a
length of the ponderous cable. One of the twin craft was tilted to the
water's edge now, and still the massive iron links came clanking down.
Then, as the last fell with a crash, Jefferson leaned out over the rails
above.
"Bend the wire on below the break. You'll want a clear link for the
shackle when we couple her up," he said. "Hang on to your anchor until
you're in the mangroves on the other bank. We want to heave towards deep
water out in the stream."
More barefooted men came swinging down the hanging wire, and they slid
away into the blackness, bumping against the steamer's plates. The twin
craft were top-heavy, and lurched in the grip of the stream. It was a
minute or two before they had cleared the _Cumbria_, and by then they
were almost under her quarter; while when they had crept away from her a
fathom or two all of them knew there was a task in front of them that
would severely tax all their strength.
They had the uncoiling wire rope to drag them back into line, the stream
swept them down a fathom for every one they made ahead, and, as ill luck
would have it, bore upon the launch's pressed down side so that they
could hear the water gurgling into her in ever faster swirl. Still, they
had to reach the opposite bank, or be hauled back to commence the task
again, and, gasping and panting, they heaved on the wet rope that led
into the rain ahead. Most of them were used to work of that kind, but
during the first five minutes Austin felt his arms grow weary and
nerveless, and the veins distend on his forehead, while a curious
singing commenced in his ears. He choked with every fresh grasp he laid
upon the rope, and a Canario behind him gasped out breathless snatches
of Castilian obscenity.
Still, in spite of all they could do, the blaze of red light leaping in
the rain showed that they were making nothing, and now and then the rope
ran out again through their clinging hands. There was no sign of the
mangroves on the opposite bank, while the tilt of the platform grew
steeper, and it was evident that the launch was filling under them.
Then, little by little, the wire rope that ran out into the darkness
astern commenced to curve--they could hear the swirl of the stream
across it--and after another five minutes' tense effort they swung into
a slacker flow or reflex eddy. There was, however, no slackening of the
strain, and it was not until a dim, black wall rose up above them that
Austin loosed his grasp upon the rope, and, floundering and stumbling in
the rain and darkness, they strove to clear the anchor.
It went over with a mighty splash, the platform rose with a jerk under
them; then, as they backed clear, there was a rattle of cable, and they
seized the wire. The lashed craft swung like a pendulum athwart the
stream, the rattling winch hauled them back fathom by fathom to the
_Cumbria_, while, when he had crawled on board her, Austin dropped
limply, and a trifle grey in face, on to the settee in the skipper's
room.
"Well," he said, "that's done, though I think a little more of it would
have made an end of me. It is rather an astonishing thing, but while I
felt fiercely anxious to get that anchor out before we started, it
hardly seems worth the trouble now."
"We couldn't heave her off without it," said Jefferson. "That means
going home--eventually."
"I suppose it does," said Austin, with a little mirthless smile. "Still,
I haven't any home, you see, and I'm not sure that a lazar hospital of
some kind isn't what is awaiting me. You will remember the encouraging
words that fellow left--'My arm's almost rotten now.'"
Jefferson slowly clenched one scarred hand. "That's a thing we are
neither of us strong enough to think about. It's a little too
horrible--it couldn't happen!"
"It's scarcely likely in your case, at least. He didn't put his arm
round you, and I had nothing worth mentioning on that night. Men do die
rotten, and I fancied once or twice I felt a suggestive tingling in my
skin."
Jefferson seemed to be holding himself in hand with a struggle, but
Austin smiled.
"Well," he said, "if it comes at all, it will get the right one. I'm not
going home to be married. In fact, I was told that it would be rather a
graceful thing to come back upon my shield, though I don't know that I
would like to do so looking as that nigger did. In the meanwhile, I had,
perhaps, better see to Wall-eye's hand."
He went out into the darkness, and Jefferson stood still, with his lips
set tight, leaning on the table. He was, in some respects, a hard man,
and his sojourn in Africa had not roused his gentler qualities, but just
then he felt an unpleasant physical nausea creeping over him again.