In the Sunshine
“I’m kind of glad you could run down, Peter. I’ve put that report
through to our people. This is the message I handed ’em.”
Ivor McLagan held out the copy of the message he had despatched
from Beacon, and, while his assistant read it, he stood with
narrowed eyes gazing down upon the wrecked vessel standing high out
of the waters of the bay below.
He had not long returned from Beacon, and Peter Loby had made a
special trip down the river to meet him. Deeply as McLagan was
concerned for any further news his subordinate might have brought
from the camp on the river, the wreck below had lost none of its
interest for him. In fact, for some unexplained reason, it had
taken even a firmer hold upon his imagination.
Curiosity had by no means a prominent place in his psychology.
Ordinarily he was not seriously concerned for happenings which
had no intimate relation to the affairs of his life. He was
sufficiently self-centred in the work that was his to leave such
a thing as the sudden appearance of a derelict of the sea, flung
almost on his doorstep, a thing without more than passing interest,
after he had ascertained that no human life stood in need of his
succour. But strangely enough the vessel lying upon its deathbed
below him, claimed him with greater force than he would have cared
to admit. His mind had been full of it on his journey into Beacon.
Its memory had remained with him and deeply increased its spell, as
he made his report to Alan Goodchurch, and his journey back to his
home on the cliffs had been made with haste inspired by the strange
feeling of unrest with which the thought of those last moments he
had spent on the deck of the vessel had filled him.
Now the wreck was standing out amidst its rugged surroundings,
under a blaze of sunshine, and, as his gaze took in its details,
his mind was full of questioning and unease. The condition of the
vessel had apparently changed very little. The tides that had
passed since his first visit to it had left it wholly undisturbed.
Its sails were in worse shape, and their tattered remains fluttered
and whipped furiously in the breeze and sent the gulls screaming as
they sought to find resting place on the creaking yards. But he was
not thinking of any of these things. No, he was thinking----
Peter looked up from his reading.
“That’s a good report, McLagan,” he conceded with a grin. “It’s a
deal better done than mine. I surely guess that’ll set our folks
smiling a mile wide.” He drew a deep breath. “Well, they can keep
right on grinning. They’re on a bonanza, or I’m all sorts of a
mutt.”
He gazed up into the face of his chief as he offered his frank
comment and passed back the copy of the message.
“It makes me feel good,” he went on quickly, “standing around out
here, perched right up on this darn rock breathing good sea air an’
soaking in elegant sunshine with our play coming right. Makes the
world seem right someway. Makes me sort of feel I want to holler
like a school kid on Thanksgiving Day. Oil? It’s the most crazily
wonderful thing in the world--when you strike it.”
“Yes.”
McLagan’s response was without a shadow of the other’s enthusiasm
and Peter turned questioningly. Instantly he realised the direction
of his chief’s gaze and the meaning of his preoccupation. He
chuckled.
“I’d forgot that crazy barge,” he said. Then he added: “You handed
Goodchurch the dope?”
The difference in the attitude of these men was profoundly marked.
The lean, practical oil man was alert and thrilling with the
prospect lying ahead of the work they were both engaged upon.
The wreck and the atmosphere of mystery which it had originally
impressed upon him had entirely passed out of his concern. He had
witnessed the wreck. He had explored it. He had shared in the risk
of that first approach. But none of these things, not even the
vision of the deserting rats, had been sufficient to persist in
a mind absorbed in his lifetime’s pursuit of oil. The affairs of
the oil prospect were paramount with him, first, last and all the
time. And the report he had just perused represented something
approaching the crowning of his life’s work. But at that moment,
oil and coal were the two things farthest from McLagan’s mind.
The latter moved away and approached the edge of the wide ledge
upon which his hut was set. Peter moved up beside him and bit a
chew of tobacco from the disreputable fragment of plug tobacco
which he carried in his hip-pocket.
As McLagan nodded his gaze was still upon the wreck below.
“Surely,” he said. “I handed it the best I could, and Goodchurch
guessed things would need looking into. He took down the name of
the ship and its port of registration. He’s wiring right away to
the proper authority and promised to get it broadcast by wireless.
I asked him for that. You see, I kind of got a hunch the folks who
quit that vessel might be glad to locate her--if they’re alive. He
reckons we’ll likely get word from the owners. You know, Peter, I
feel ther’s a mighty queer story lying back of that wreck.”
“You mean--the boats--and----”
McLagan shook his head. He was gazing out to sea now and stood
abstractedly filling his pipe.
“No,” he said. Then his eyes came back again to the scene of the
wreck with the screaming sea-birds circling about it. “Psha!” he
cried impatiently. “What’s the use? Yes, the boats if you like.
It’s the whole darn thing. It’s got me guessing, so I can’t forget
it.”
Peter chuckled.
“That’s all right,” he said. “It don’t worry me a thing. It’s oil
for mine. You can play around with all the wrecks if you fancy that
way. I’m beating it right back to camp.”
McLagan nodded.
“Yes. It’s oil, not wrecks, for you an’ me,” he said, as though
striving to convince himself. “I know that. But--yes, you beat it
right back to camp and I’ll be along up the moment I touch the
answer our folks send to that report. I’ll just wait around for
that. I’m figgering there’ll be a big move on that new field when
we get word. The drilling we’re doing now looks like it’ll be a
circumstance to the thing coming. Maybe I’ll even have to run down
to Seattle, after I’ve made my own inspection. Still, that won’t
be till the late fall.”
Peter agreed, his keen eyes lighting afresh.
“That’s how it looks to me,” he said.
“Yes. Are you stopping around to eat?”
“No. I’ll make camp on the river. I’ll pass up on slack water and
grab the tide later.” Peter laughed and nodded down at the wreck.
“You’ll get another look at that while you’re waiting reply from
our folks,” he observed slily.
“Sure I will.” McLagan looked round quickly as he thrust his pipe
into the corner of his mouth, and his strong jaws shut tight on its
well-bitten stem. “Just as soon as you beat it.”
“I thought so.” Peter was chuckling. “Well, it doesn’t rattle me
a thing. The only thing worrying me is the yarn lying back of the
coal belt we’ve located. I’m sure crazy to get after that. So--I’ll
beat it. So long.”
McLagan smiled at the other’s thrust.
“So long, boy.”
He stood gazing after the slim figure of his lieutenant as he
hurried towards the head of the pathway down from the ledge on
which they were standing. He waited till the last of his cloth cap
vanished below the level. Then he lit his pipe and turned again to
his absorbed contemplation of the mystery boat below.
* * * * *
The breeze was dead flat. It was low water. In something under an
hour the tide would be starting its flood again. Meanwhile, the sky
had clouded over. But it was without any storming threat. It was
only the fleecy shading which came so frequently with the change of
tide.
Sasa Mannik’s eyes had curiously widened as they gazed up into
the face of the man he served. They were alight with all the
superstitious fear of his kind. He had just concluded a long
and almost incoherent protest which his boss’s demand for his
assistance aboard the wreck had brought forth.
McLagan’s face was frowning. His eyes were coldly contemptuous. He
stood a towering figure over the sturdy little man who was in open
revolt.
“You’re worse than a darn fool, Sasa,” he said sharply. “You’re
a low, miserable coward. You’re the worst coward I know. You’re
such a coward you’d run a mile from a jack-rabbit. You make me
sick to death, and I feel like sending you to hell out of my
service. I tell you there’s not a thing to this poor darn wreck to
scare a buck louse. There’s not a thing. She’s dead and done, and
there’s not a living soul aboard.” Then he changed his tone from
condemnation to derision. “What the hell scares you about her? What
d’you think she’s got aboard her? Devils or--what?”
The half-breed turned away. He glanced down at his own boat lying
half out of water on the smooth surface of the rocks on which it
had been hauled up. Perhaps he desired to reassure himself it was
still there for his safe retreat. A moment later he turned again to
the white man, and from him he gazed up at the high sides of the
great vessel which loomed monstrously as they stood on the slippery
rocks below it. And as he gazed up at the hated object his eyes
further widened, and he spoke in a tone that was almost a whine.
“Maybe, boss,” he said. He shook his dark head vigorously. “This
thing bad. So bad. I see him same lak you see him, too. I know. It
in your eye when you look. You scare, too, plenty. You not know. I
know. I much coward this thing. Nothing else I scare lak him dis. I
not go aboard. Never.”
McLagan’s gaze was compelling. He held the other while he put his
question.
“This thing? What did you see?” he asked sharply.
The half-breed shifted his position uneasily. He sought to avoid
the white man’s questioning eyes. He turned away. But his fearful
eyes came swiftly back to those they had sought to avoid.
“I not speak this thing,” he said in a low, surly tone. “It bad.
What you ask him? You see. Oh, yes. I know.”
He made a movement. It was almost like a shudder. Then without
waiting he passed down to his boat.
“Sasa!”
McLagan’s voice brought the terrified creature to a standstill.
He turned and waited. And then he heard the white man laugh as he
flung his final orders.
“You take your boat and go back to the beach. You wait there till
I hail you. If you leave that beach till I hail you I’ll beat the
life out of you. Now go.”
* * * * *
McLagan had made no further attempt at investigation of the secrets
of the wrecked vessel. It was with an unusual feeling of repulsion
that he climbed up through the gloomy precincts of the forepeak.
And somehow the memory of the half-breed’s accusation stung him
sharply, as, involuntarily, his searching gaze sought to penetrate
the darkness surrounding him. In his heart he felt the man was not
without justification in his charge. From the moment he had set
foot on the ladder a strange sensation took hold of him, and, with
every upward step, he wondered what revelation the next would yield.
Once on deck, however, the uncanny sensation passed. Here was
daylight. Here were the things he knew and recognised. But somehow
he did not want to use the forepeak again, and forthwith he set
about discovering some other means of reaching the deck.
He found it quickly. It was there lying amidst some sprawled gear
upon the deck, besides a stack of lumber. It was a long rope
companion ladder with broad teakwood steps. It was still secured
to the down haul cleats against the ship’s rail near the main mast
where it had evidently been flung by some previous user. And he
dropped it over the vessel’s side, and saw that it reached almost
to the rocks below.
His view was out over the bay. And from where he stood he could see
his hut perched high on the cliffs, and, below, the long, low line
of the distant beach. He smiled to himself as he beheld the figure
of Sasa busy mooring his fishing boat. He knew that for all his
rebellious mood, the half-breed would very literally obey his final
orders.
He turned away. His searching gaze took in the deck in every
direction. It was the same, precisely, as he had found it on his
first visit. The litter of gear was in evidence everywhere. The
stacked lumber. There was the canvas-sheathed winch with its
close-hauled raking arm. The galley with its steel door ajar. Then
the closely battened main hatch, and, beyond it, the break of the
small poop-deck above, with its two alleyways, one to the cabin,
and one to the half-deck on the starboard side. Yes. It was all
just as he had left it, and he glanced quickly up at the sky.
There was a thin overcast of cloud, but still without any threat of
storm. Even the restless ocean breeze had flattened out, and the
usually protesting gear above him was completely silent.
McLagan had told himself that he wanted to explore the hundred and
one details which he knew must have escaped him at his first visit.
There were the battened holds. There were those cabins which Peter
and the half-breed had looked into. There were the pantry, and the
half-deck. All these things he had promised himself to look into.
It was his excuse for his visit. But he knew that in reality they
had little enough to do with his coming now. It was that other
thing which had brought him there. That thing which had inspired
terror in the half-breed’s heart, and---- He moved over to the
cabin alleyway and leant against the break of the poop. And he
stood gazing down the deck in the direction of the winch as he had
stood there once before.
For all Sasa’s challenge McLagan’s nerve was completely unruffled.
He was a man of cool courage and utterly ungiven to vain
imaginings. Imagination was by no means lacking, but it was under
the perfect control of a completely healthy mind.
He remained for some time in the position he had taken up, and
smoked contentedly for all the expectancy in his eyes. But after
awhile, wearying of his vigil, he moved away, and squatted himself
on the battened hatch in precisely the position which Sasa Mannik
had once occupied. Here he hunched himself with his arms locked
about his knees, and sat regarding the long prospect of the
littered deck.
The trend of his thought had remained unchanged. And the look in
his eyes retained its unvarying expectancy, even when now and
again he turned them skywards searching the summer shading. Time
seemed to concern him not at all. That presently the flood tide
would begin, and there might be difficulty for Sasa to bring his
boat alongside, did not seem to enter his thought. He sat there
completely preoccupied with the thing that was in his mind, and
luxuriating in the comfort of his pipe.
Suddenly he started. And his watchful eyes changed from expectancy
to a flashing alertness. A sound had broken up the perfect quiet.
It was a sound that had no relation to creaking gear, or the flap
of sail cloth, or the raucous screaming of sea-fowl. Seemingly
it had no relation to anything he understood. For he remained
precisely where he was, waiting, while his eyes focussed on the
spot whence the sound came.
It came from nearby to the main-mast. It came from somewhere just
abreast of the carefully covered winch. There was the galley
entrance there, and beyond that a stack of stowed lumber----
He started to his feet, and the look in his eyes had changed again.
He was smiling. A head had appeared over the vessel’s rail. It was
a head adorned by a woman’s modish hat, with, underneath it, a face
the sight of which filled him with nothing but delight. He hurried
down the deck.
“Why, say, Claire,” he cried. “How did you---- Here, wait. Get a
grip on my hand. You shouldn’t have----”
There was a moment of effort while McLagan took firm hold of
the girl’s two small hands. Then after a struggle, a little
breathlessly, she jumped lightly down from the rail and stood
beside him on the deck.
“I just had to come, Ivor,” she cried, gazing curiously about her
while she made her explanation. “I heard about it in town, and set
out right away. Mum’s back there with the car on the hill road,
and I came along down to the beach where I saw your man with his
boat.” She laughed. “He didn’t want to, but I made him. I asked
for you, and he said you were aboard here. I asked him why, and he
said because you were ‘dam fool white man.’ Then I guess I offered
him five dollars to bring me across, and he nearly threw a fit. He
refused. But I insisted. It cost me ten before I was through, and
the threat you’d beat him if he didn’t. Even then he tried to dodge
it and guessed you’d beat him if he left the beach. But I got my
way. And----”
“As you mostly do.”
McLagan was thinking rapidly and with sudden deep concern. This
girl was all the world to him, and her presence, her proximity
filled him with a wild sensation of joy that he was powerless to
deny, that he made no attempt to deny. But, of a sudden, he had
become horrified as he contemplated the real purpose of his own
visit to the derelict. In a moment his mind was made up. By some
means he must get her off the ship--before----
There was no smile in his eyes now.
“I kind of wish you hadn’t, Claire. I guess I’ll have to deal with
Sasa for disobeying his orders. He was told not to quit that beach
for--anything.”
The girl looked up into the man’s face and the flash of hot
resentment in her eyes was unmistakable. But she shook her head
and refused the impulse his roughness, his downright rudeness had
stirred in her. Somehow she always found it easy to make excuse for
him.
“The same. Always the same,” she said impatiently, for all the
smile she forced herself to. “Some day, Ivor, you’ll wake up and
wonder the reason you were built with a rough tongue and a foolish
grouch.”
The man glanced quickly at the sky. Then he indicated the main
hatch where he had been squatting and led the way towards it. He
seated himself and left the girl standing. And promptly seized
on the opening she had given him, and sought to drive home his
purpose. At all costs he must get her away before----
“There’s times when a rough tongue’s needed. When a grouch is
surely dead right,” he said, without any softening. “Is it right
for women to give way to a sort of low curiosity to look into the
trouble and bad luck helpless folk are up against? You came for
that, Claire,” he said deliberately; “it was a swell drive out of
Beacon to pass an idle time. I kind of wouldn’t have thought it of
you.”
It was one of those moments when the engineer felt that somehow he
ought to have done better. He wanted to drive this girl away. And
on the spur of the moment it was the only thing he could think of.
He wanted to get her off that vessel without explanation. And so
he designed to anger her as the simplest, most direct method of
achieving his purpose.
But the whole thing missed fire for the reason that Claire was
shrewd, and knew him, and because her reason for coming was
something which had far deeper object than the idle curiosity of
which he accused her.
The blaze of anger he had expected was not forthcoming. Claire’s
colour heightened, and her soft blue eyes were less wide as she
gazed down into his plain, unsmiling face. Then the corners of her
mouth dropped. And somehow her whole expression suggested distress
to the man who so absolutely worshipped her. She shook her head
slowly.
“Not curiosity, Ivor,” she said. “Not that.” Then a shadowy smile
lit her eyes. “And as for the swell drive to pass an idle time, I’d
have said you knew the Beacon trail better than that. If you don’t,
why, just ask Mum, and get a look at the tires of our automobile.
If you’d had some one you guessed the sun rose and set in who was
travelling home to you in a ship that’s never been heard of since
she handed out an S.O.S., why, it seems to me you’d feel like
chasing the ends of the earth to get a look at any old wreck that
blew in on to the rocks from Australia to the Arctic. Curiosity?”
she cried scornfully. “Well, you can call it that way if you fancy
it. I’m here because I couldn’t live with peace in my mind till I
knew this boat wasn’t the one that should have brought our Jim back
to us.”
The girl’s reply drove a wave of contrition surging through the
man’s heart. He felt as though he had struck her a blow in the
face. He felt as though he wanted to flee before the gentle
reproach he interpreted in the look in her half-smiling eyes. And
yet---- He glanced uneasily up at the sky.
“Your Jim’s ship was the _Imperial_ of Bristol, Claire. You told
me that months back,” he expostulated. “This is the _Limpet_ of
Boston. Your Jim wouldn’t have been aboard a coaster like this.
Beating it from Australia he’d have been on a swell ocean-going
vessel. Goodchurch knew all about this wreck. You must have got
its name. I’d handed him the story myself and all the details. He
should have told you and saved you from the Beacon trail. Say,
little girl, I’m sorry I handed you that. I didn’t think, or----
You see, I know all your brother meant to you. We’ve talked about
it, you and me, and maybe I ought to have guessed right away when I
saw your dandy face peeking over that darn old rail.”
Again he looked anxiously up at the sky as a crack of the tattered
sails warned him that the breeze was springing up with the flood
tide.
“But I just tell you we daresn’t stop around here. You don’t know
this bay like Sasa and I do. The tide’s setting in, and in a few
minutes ther’ll be no getting off these rocks in Sasa’s boat or
any other. It’s the most devilish place in the world. It was that
current that caught and drove this poor blamed barge high and dry.
We must get away right---- Eh?”
The girl had suddenly reached out a pointing finger. She had
clutched his arm violently.
“My God! What’s--that?”
The cry broke from her in a low, almost inarticulate fashion. She
was standing facing down the deck, her horrified gaze fixed on a
spot on the deck in line with the canvas-sheathed winch. Her face
had blanched to ashen whiteness, and the arm held out pointing was
shaking like an aspen.
McLagan was on his feet beside her, and somehow her clutching hand
had fallen into one of his. He held it tightly as he, too, gazed
down the deck in the beam of sunlight which had broken through the
haze of cloud which the breeze had stirred.
“What do you see?” he cried quickly, in a low, suppressed tone.
“Tell me, Claire. I want to know. I can see it, too. But I want to
know the thing you see.”
“It’s--it’s the shadow--of a man. See?” The girl was staring
straight in front of her and her voice was faltering. But the arm
she still held out had steadied under the influence of McLagan’s
presence and touch. “Oh,” she went on, with a gasp. “He’s coming
towards us. I--I can’t stand it. He’s big, too, and--and--Oh,
God!--for pity’s sake, Ivor, take me away--take me away!”
But the man made no attempt to obey her. Instead his words came
gently and full of confidence and encouragement.
“Stand your ground, little girl,” he urged. “Quit your scare. I’m
right here, and nothing’s going to do you hurt. It was this I was
trying to save you from. The sight of it. It’ll pass with the sun.
It’s just a queer shadow, and doesn’t mean a thing--to hurt. I’ve
seen it before, and know about it. It’s the sun makes us see it.
But it’s queer. It hasn’t a thing to do with the gear above. Look.
Its outline’s in the air. An’ its shadow’s on the deck. See? It’s
the outline of a man, a big man. He’s carrying something in two
hands. You can’t see what it is. You can’t see any face. Just an
outline. And he’s walking this way and don’t come any nearer. Isn’t
it queer? What is it? A spook, or--or a trick of the sun? Say, it’s
queer. Ah!” He drew a deep breath. “Look, it’s fading out. It’s
going with the sun. Look! That’s better. Now--now it’s gone.”
The sun had suddenly passed behind the clouds again. And as it did
so the shadow had completely disappeared.
Claire drew a deep sigh. On the instant the man’s arm was flung out
to her support. But it was unnecessary. For all the ghastly hue
of her cheeks, the utter pallor of her lips, the girl was not of
the fainting sort. He watched the slow return of her colour with
anxious, troubled eyes.
Suddenly she spoke. Her eyes were still on the spot where the
terrifying shadow had moved so meaninglessly.
“Let’s--let’s get away, Ivor,” she said, in a low, hushed tone.
“It--it was a ghost--a--I--I----”
McLagan resorted to the only thing his mind suggested. He laughed.
He felt it was the only thing in face of the girl’s condition.
“I guess it’s a mighty harmless spook, anyway,” he said lightly.
“The poor darn thing’s pinned right down to that spot. He hasn’t
moved a yard since I first located him days back. But maybe you’re
right though, kid. There’s no sort of use standing around gawking
at a fool spectre that hasn’t sense but to stand around waiting
to show himself when the sun shines. He ought to know better.
Moonlight’s his playtime. Yes, come right along, and we’ll beat it
back to your Mum.”
For all the man’s banter he hurried the girl down the deck,
carefully avoiding the spot where the shadow had stood. They stood
for a moment at the down-haul cleats, and Claire looked back over
the deck. She felt safer here. There was McLagan, big and smiling.
And there, beside her, was the means of retreat.
“I guess I’m not brave, Ivor,” she smiled a little pathetically.
“When it comes to that sort of thing I’m like dead mutton. I’m not
scared of a thing living. But the dead----”
“Dead?”
Claire nodded.
“Sure. Some one was killed right there. A big man. Do you wonder
this vessel blew right in here without a soul on board? I don’t.”
She turned to the rail, and the man moved to her assistance.
“Can you manage that ladder, Claire?” He had no comment to offer
concerning her summing up of the thing they had both witnessed. His
only desire at the moment was her safe departure from the mystery
boat and its haunting. “Can you?” he went on.
Then of a sudden he reached out and caught her slight body in his
arms. In a moment he had lifted her on to the rail and held her
safely while she set her feet on the rungs of the ladder beyond
it. He waited while she lowered herself step by step. He was still
holding her warm, soft hands firmly in his when her now smiling
thankful eyes came on a level with his.
“It’s all right, Ivor,” she nodded. “Guess I’m safe now. But, but
you’re strong lifting me that way. You’re coming right along down,
too.”
“Yes,” he said. “Sure I am.” For an instant the blood surged to his
head. The pretty eyes, the sweet face were so near, so very near to
his. But slowly it receded, and, as the girl passed below the rail,
McLagan drew a deep breath. He turned abruptly. His gaze was down
the deck where the shadow had been. Then he glanced at the sky. The
next moment he passed over the ship’s rail and followed the girl.