THE BAY OF WHALES
The sun was up and away to port lay California, lifting her hills to
heaven against the morning splendour, to starboard, a mile or so away,
a big freighter, in ballast and showing the kick of her propeller, was
pounding along north with the sunlight on her bridge canvas. Even at
that distance George could hear the thud of her screw like the beating
of a heart.
A Chinaman was at the helm of the _Wear Jack_, Champagne Charley no
less, and forward another celestial was emptying a slush tub over the
port rail.
George nodded to the helmsman, and then, taking his seat on the
skylight edge, contemplated the coast.
George’s yachting experience had been mainly confined to the Bay. He
could steer a boat under sail, but of deep sea work and cruising in
big yachts he knew practically nothing. Still, even to his uninitiated
mind, this thing seemed wrong. Candon and Hank had evidently left
the deck at the beginning of the morning watch, that is to say four
o’clock, leaving the Chinks to run the show. They had been running it
for three hours or so and doing it satisfactorily, to all appearances.
Still it didn’t seem right.
He determined to go for the other two and give them a piece of his mind
and then, when, a few minutes later, they came on deck yawning and
arrayed in their pyjamas, he didn’t. They seemed so perfectly satisfied
with themselves and things in general that it was beyond him to start
complaining. Instead he went down and tubbed in the bathroom. An hour
later, as he was seated at breakfast with the two others, his whole
attitude of mind towards “Chinks” had changed, for the schooner was
running on her course with scarcely a tremor of the tell-tale compass,
the breakfast was set as if by a parlour-maid, and the ham and eggs
were done to perfection. More than that, they were waited upon by a
waiter who knew his business, for when he had done handing things
round, he vanished without a word and left them to talk.
“Oh, that’s nothing,” said Candon, in reply to a remark of George’s.
“Those Chinks could run this packet by themselves. When a Chinaman
signs on as an A. B., he is one. He doesn’t pretend to be what he
isn’t, not on a ship running out of ’Frisco anyhow, and he’s more,
every Chinaman’s a cook and a laundress and it’s ten to one he’s a
tailor as well. I tell you, when I think of what one Chink can do and
what one white man generally can’t, I get frightened for the whites.”
Hank was cutting in, and an argument on the colour question between
these two was prevented only by George remembering something of more
immediate moment.
“Look here,” said he to Candon, “can’t you tell us more about
Vanderdecken now we’re out. What I mean to say is the plans you have
about him. Where are we going, anyway?”
“South,” said Candon.
“I know that,” said George, “but where south? South’s a big place.”
“It is,” said the other; “too big for guessing, but now we’re out
and I’m going to put you wise. First of all, I promised you to put
this guy’s boodle into your hands, and second I promised you the guy
himself. I hung off from telling you the location till you’d done your
part of the contract and got me out away from the McGinnis crowd. Well,
you’ve done your part and here’s mine. The place I’m taking you is
known by the Mexicans as the Bay of Whales.”
“The Mexicans!” said George.
“Yep. We’ve got to turn the corner of Lower California, that’s to say
Cape St. Lucas, then out across the Bay of California for the Mexican
coast and the Bay of Whales. It’s away above Jalisco. It’s worth
seeing. I don’t know how it is, maybe it’s the currents or the winds or
just a liking for a quiet burying ground, but every old sulphur bottom
that’s died between here and Timbuctoo seems to have laid his bones
there. There’s a Mexican superstition about the place, maybe on account
of the bones, but no one ever goes there. It’s the lonesomest place on
God’s footstool, the shore-along ships keep clear of it and it’s all
reefs beyond the sand of the bay so you don’t get ships putting in. I
tell you, you could photograph the lonesomeness. Well there the boodle
is and there you’ll put your hands on the guy you want.”
Said Hank: “Look here, B. C.”—Candon had come down to initials after
the manner of ’Frisco. “How did old man Vanderdecken make out, anyway.
What I’m getting at is this: I figured his fishing grounds to be the
Channel Islands and north and south of there, but that’s a good long
way from St. Lucas.”
“That’s so,” said Candon. “Well, I’ll tell you, right along till near
the end he used to keep the stuff he got aboard his own hooker. You’re
right, his lay was the Channel Islands. But finding he’d made the place
too hot for himself all right along down the American seaboard, and
expectin’ to be searched, he did a dive for the bay I told you of and
there he cached the stuff, and I’m the only man beside himself that
knows where the cache is.
“There, I’ve told you that much. I’m not going to say how I got so
thick with him as to know his plans and dispositions. I just ask you to
take B. C.’s word that the goods are according to the manifest.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” said Hank, “I don’t want to dig into your
business, all I want’s the Dutchman, and to put my hand on his
shoulder.”
“And so you shall,” said B. C., “’less he dies before we get there.”
They came up and, Candon taking the wheel, the two Chinamen who were
holding the deck dived below. An hour later, the Chinks being called
up, watches were picked, George falling to Hank, Champagne Charley to
Candon.
Candon being the most knowledgeable man and the best sailor, it was
agreed that he should work the ship.
“You can’t have two heads,” said Hank, “and I reckon yours is better
than mine where navigating her is concerned.”