THE SURPRISE
They came alongside the _Wear Jack_ just as the fires of sunset began
to pale beyond the peak of San Nicolas.
“Come down below, boys,” said Candon.
They followed him to the cabin, where they took their seats, whilst he
filled and lit a pipe. Then, with the pipe in his mouth, he sat with
his arms resting on the table and his eyes fixed straight before him.
George and the rat trap inventor spoke not a word. They had come to
recognise B. C. as the better man in a lot of ways, and they had,
unconsciously or sub-consciously, chosen him for their leader in this
business that very plainly meant life or death. They were about to
attack a hornets’ nest, every hornet man-size and armed with a little
hatchet instead of a sting. They had no side arms, nothing but the
Luggers. On the leader everything would depend and they felt they could
depend on Candon.
“We’ve got an hour and a half before we need stir,” suddenly spoke B.
C., “and I’ve got the plan of how to work this business all laid out
in my head. Maybe you’ll leave it at that for I’ve taken notice that
too much talking muddles things. You’re willing to take my word to go
when the time comes and follow me?”
“Yes,” said Hank.
Candon slipped the old Waltham he wore from its chain and laid it on
the table before him.
“That being so,” said he, “I want half an hour’s talk with you two on
something that’s got nothing to do with this business. Don’t put in any
questions or say a word till I get through. For the last three days
I’ve been keeping my head shut against my better feelings, and only for
the fact that the whole three of us may be laid out before morning,
I’d have gone on, maybe, keeping it shut against my will, so to say,
for you are two of the whitest men I’ve ever fell in with. Boys, I’ve
let you down cruel. I promised you the Dutchman and you shall have him
and I promised to lead you to where he’d stowed his takings and that
promise holds. All the same, I’ve not been straight with you. I’ve got
to make things straight, right away or bust, that’s how I feel. Well,
here’s the start. We’re after a man by the name of Vanderdecken; that’s
not his name, the tom-fool newspapers put it on him, but let it hold
for a minute while I tell you. This fellow was no Dutchman; American
born he was, of decent parents, but born wild and took his hook to sea
when he wasn’t more’n fourteen. Now seeing we’re hunting him I want to
give you his character’s far as I can get it and show you maybe he’s
not such a shark as people have made out and was born for something
better than the inside of a penitentiary where he’s sure going when we
have him lugged back to ’Frisco.
“So, I’m telling you, he hadn’t been at sea more’n a year when he saved
two men’s lives from drowning and he hadn’t been more’n three years
when he got a berth as fourth officer aboard a Cape Horner. After
that he rose steady, educating himself in sea practice and land ways,
reading everything he could lay his claws on. Maybe it would have been
better if he’d kept his eyes shut and worked along blind like most
chaps. But he couldn’t stop thinking. I reckon thinking ruins more men
than drink. The world seemed all upside down to him with the rich bugs
a-top same as the fleas on a dog’s back.”
“So they are,” said Hank. “Heave ahead.”
“Well,” went on the other, “he rose, not having any use for liquor and
being a good practical sea-man, till he got his master’s ticket and
command of a full rigged packet in the Shireman line, then he lost his
ship through no fault of his and got fired. The Shiremans had a down
on him over stores he’d condemned as not fit for dogs, let alone able
seamen, and they’d got wind he was a socialist, and they crabbed him
all over the shipping companies’ offices. Y’know they’re all hand in
glove with their secret reports and so on, and Vanderdecken couldn’t
go into a company’s office unless it was to be shown out. Having to
eat he went back to the foc’sle—that was in Liverpool, and worked his
way to ’Frisco. From there he got to Nome and struck it rich in the
Klondyke and got robbed. Then he began to float up and down through
more traverses than I’ve time to tell you of till the Big War came and
he heard of the Lusitania. That drove him clean bughouse and he got
across the pond and joined up with the British in the submarine fight
and got blown up in drifters till he was nearly deaf. Then back he came
to ’Frisco, which was his port of choice, and more’n a year ago, he
joins up with McGinnis in working the _Heart of Ireland_ on all sorts
of jobs down the coast, shark fishing, sea scraping and contraband. He
was a pretty sick man, was Vanderdecken, with the world and the way it
had used him, but it wasn’t till prohibition came along that he rose.
The hull place went dry and they chucked the liquor down the drains
in Santa Barbara, all that wasn’t hid away in rich men’s cellars.
Vanderdecken wasn’t a drinking man, but one day at Santa Barbara he
saw a lot of money bugs in white ducks popping champagne corks on a
yacht and that blew him up. He went to Pat McGinnis and said he, ‘Look
here, Pat, I’ve got a notion, let’s lay for a yacht and collar their
drink and chuck it overboard.’ Pat didn’t seem to see the use of that,
nor how it would bring him profit, but he turned it over in his thick
head and the idea came to him of holding a yacht up and robbing it.
He worked up the idea and put it before Vanderdecken who fell in with
it like a fool, on the condition that the drink should be hove over.
Vanderdecken wasn’t after plunder, but he’d gone bughouse on getting
even with the champagne guys, and he had to fall in with the other
and pretend he was. Then, when everything was fixed up, Pat got cold
feet, not from virtue but fright, and nothing would have been done if
Vanderdecken hadn’t taken hold of the business and gingered the chaps
up. He took command of the whole business and then the fun began,
and when it began Vanderdecken found himself as keen on taking the
valuables as on dousing the drink. But there wasn’t much in it. D’you
know for all the hullaballoo that’s been raised, only three yachts
were raided, that’s a fact. It was a business that wouldn’t bear much
repeating and only one haul was really lucky, for the fellow had his
wife aboard and all her diamonds and jewels; anyhow, taking it all
together, the plunder didn’t amount to more’n ten or fifteen thousand
dollars leaving the jewels aside, and they might be worth ten thousand.
No knowing till they were sold. But there was a lot of fizz and claret
sent to hell, but you never heard of that. The yacht owners kept that
dark, they didn’t want to be laughed at for one thing, and another,
the rich folk are mortally afraid of the poor folk suddenly rising and
batting them over the head on the drink question, and I’ve just been
thinking, boys, that when Vanderdecken’s led back to ’Frisco, there’ll
be no penitentiary for him lest the rich man’s cellar business should
be brought too much to notice, and the guys who are poor and dry may
say, ‘Let’s do what Vanderdecken had the guts to do’. However, after
the last holdup, the _Heart of Ireland_ made for the Bay of Whales and
Vanderdecken and McGinnis cached the takings, and Vanderdecken changed
the cache unknown to McGinnis. Getting towards ’Frisco, Vanderdecken
showed his hand by hinting, like a fool, that the stolen boodle ought
to be returned to its owners. That roused McGinnis’ hair and the
bristles on the hull crowd. They thought they were going to be done.
They let Vanderdecken ashore, but a man went with him to watch him and
the first thing Vanderdecken heard was that you two were going out in a
schooner to hunt for him. He knew he’d never get away from ’Frisco and
McGinnis without a knife in his back, so, giving the chap that was with
him the slip, he hoofed it for Sullivan’s wharf, and dropped aboard the
_Wear Jack_. Boys, I’m Vanderdecken!”