"It looks like the second officer's boat, all right," said Wylie.
They rowed straight for her as the smoke of the steamer rose in the
east. Before they came within a mile, they saw that the steamer would
reach them before they could reach the boat. They then rowed slowly,
and watched, waiting.
"Something right ahead, sir," called a man forward.
Roberts looked over the side. He saw something floating.
"Starboard, swing her over a little," he said to the chief mate.
Roberts leaned over the side. He was nervous at what he saw. It had the
look of something he dreaded. Then the object came drifting along, and
he reached for it. Long before he grasped it, he saw it was the form of
a man holding to a cork jacket with one hand and the collar of a man's
coat with the other.
The old fellow floated high, and Smith's hand was clenched with a death
grip in his clothes. His left hand was jammed through the life jacket,
and the fingers clutched the straps. His head lay face upward, and his
teeth showed bared from his gums.
"Heavens! It's Smith himself!" exclaimed Roberts. He hauled him aboard
with the help of a man.
"It's poor Smith, all right," said Wylie sadly. The life jacket told a
tale too plainly. Wylie knew what had happened.
"It's just as well he didn't come ashore. He was guilty, all right,"
said Mr. Roberts. "A man who wrecks a liner and kills hundreds of
passengers might just as well stay out here. Shall we leave him?"
"Not if I know it," said Wylie, with sudden heat.
Within fifteen minutes they were picked up by the steamer and were
safe. The manager of the line welcomed Mr. Roberts gladly when that
gentleman came to seek him.
"I'm sorry we didn't have you that voyage, Mr. Roberts," he said. "I
don't like to say anything against a dead man; but, of course, Smith
was on duty when she struck--that is all we know."
"And I suppose you'll want me to go into the other ship, now, sir?"
asked the officer.
"Yes, you can report to Captain Wilson any time this week. How is your
sister? Did she recover from the boat ride?"
"Well, in a way, but she's forever talking about that blamed second
mate, Smith, who seemed to have a strange sort of influence over her
while she was with him in the boat. He struck her, too, the dog! It's
just as well he didn't come back," said Roberts.
"Well, she'll get over that all right. Smith was a rough sort of man;
but as we knew him, he was a first-class sailor, a splendid navigator;
and no one seems able to explain how he ran the ship against an iceberg
during daylight. It's one of those things we'll never find out. The
truth, you know, is mighty hard to fathom in marine disasters. It
must have been a terrible blow to Brownson to have to kill himself,
unable to face the shame for a mate's offense--but Brownson was always
a sensitive man, a splendid fellow; and I suppose he would not go in
a boat after what Smith had done. Brownson was captain, and might
come under some criticism. Some of the men say he shot himself after
upbraiding Smith for his crime."
"Yes. My sister tells me they had quite heated words while the liner
was sinking," said the new second mate.
And so William Smith passed out. His name was never mentioned in
shipping circles without reserve. But there are still some men who
remember him, who knew plain "Bill" Smith, the fighting second officer
of the liner that went to her end that morning off the Grand Banks. And
those who knew Smith always think of that cork jacket. They made no
comment. They knew him. It is not necessary.
THE LIGHT AHEAD
"Red light on starboard bow, sir," came the hail from forward. The man
was Jenson, a "square-head" of more than usual intelligence and of keen
eyesight.
"All right," said the mate softly, with no concern. He gazed steadily
at a point two points off the starboard bow, picked up the night glass,
and took a quick look. Then he left the pilot house where he had been,
and walked athwartships on the bridge.
He was a young man. His eyes squinted a little under the strain of
night work and showed the wrinkles at their corners. His hair was black
and curly, and his bronzed face, strong-lined and handsome, was full
of the strength and vigor of youth. He had gone to sea at fifteen. He
was now twenty-five and a chief mate in a passenger ship, a first-class
navigator, a good seaman. And the company liked him. He was a favorite,
a young man rising in the best ships. Five feet eight in his white
canvas shoes and white duck uniform, he looked short, for he was very
stout of limb; a powerful man who had gained his strength by hard work
in the forecastle and upon the main deck of several windjammers whose
records in the Cape trade were well known to all shipping men.
It was the midwatch. Mr. James had been upon the bridge about half an
hour only. It was the blackest part of the night, the time between one
and two, in the latitude north of Hatteras. James rubbed his eyes once
or twice, brushed his short mustache from his mouth with his fingers,
and felt again for the night glass just within the pilot-house window,
which was open.
"How does she head?" he asked the helmsman softly.
"West, two degrees north, sir," said the quartermaster at the steam
steering wheel.
James looked again, and, replacing the glass, walked to the bridge rail
and stopped.
The point far ahead to starboard was showing plainly. It was the red
light of some steamer whose hull was still below the horizon. Her
funnel tops just showed like a black dot, darker than the surrounding
gloom. Her masthead light was very bright, shining like a star of the
first magnitude that had just risen from a clear sky. He knew she was a
long way off. Not less than twelve miles separated the vessels. There
was plenty of time for a change of course. He began to hum softly:
"When the lights you see ahead,
Port your helm and show your red----"
"Yes," he muttered, "it's a good old saw--poetry of the night. I wonder
if _she_ knows of the poetry of--of--the sea----"
His mind went back to the days ashore, the last days he had spent upon
the beach with her.
"And I have worked up to this for you," he had told her with all the
feeling he could muster, the strong passion of a strong man asking for
what he desired most. "I have worked up to this for you, just you."
The words rang in his ears. The scene was there before him. The
beautiful woman, the woman he loved more than his life. He could tell
her no more than that--he had done all he had done just for her, just
to be able to call her his own.
The dead monotony of the life before him hung like a black pall, heavy
in the night. He saw all the lonely years he must face, all the hard
life of the sailor, for she had simply laughed lightly, looked him
squarely in the eyes--and shook her head.
"No," she had said gently. "No, you mustn't think of it--I mean it----"
And he knew that what he had done was as nothing to her, nothing at
all--what was a mate to a woman like that?
The steady vibration of the engines below made the steel rigging shake.
The low drone of the side wash as the surf roared from the bows made
a soft murmur where it reached his ears. It made him drowsy, dreamy,
and sullen. He cared for nothing now. What was a mate, after all? Any
corner groceryman was far better in the eyes of most women. Perhaps he
had been mistaken. Perhaps the position he had ideals of was not much.
Yes--that was it; he had been mistaken. And he gazed steadily out into
the dark future, and subconsciously he saw a long, dreary life of toil
and trouble, without the woman he loved to relieve the dark solitude.
Before him rose the lights. The red was now well up and rising fast.
It had been but a flickering spark at first, showing soon after the
bright headlight had risen. It was upon the port side of that vessel's
bridge and high above the sea. It was electric, for no ordinary oil
burner would show so far with color. The ship must be a liner of size,
and must be going fast. Suddenly he saw a flash of green. It was the
starboard light of the approaching ship. Then for an instant both side
lights shone brightly.
The vessel then was not crossing his bows, after all. The green was her
starboard light, and that was the one she must show. It was all right
then. He would not change the course. If she swung out, she must be
coming almost head on now, for her red had shone but two points off the
bow, and the converging courses must be drawing together.
All right then. If they crossed before the ships met it was well and
good. There would probably be a mile or more to spare, and he was even
now crossing her course, for he saw her green light, which showed him
he was right ahead of her, and his rate of speed would take him over
in a few moments. Then her green would be upon his right or starboard
side, showing that she was passing astern of him. It was simple, plain
as could be. He paid little or no attention any longer.
And then suddenly the green light faded and the red shone again. It
caused the officer to stop in his walk, which he had begun again to
keep in action.
"Port your helm a little," he ordered as he realized the positions.
"Aye, aye, sir--port it is, sir," came the monotonous response from the
pilot-house window; and the clanking of the steam gear sounded faintly
upon his ears.
The giant liner swung slowly to starboard, swung just a little; and,
as she did so, the loom of a monstrous figure rose right ahead in the
night. The glare of the bright headlight shone close aboard. The red of
her port light was a dangerous glare; and at a space to port flickered
a moment the fatal green of the starboard side light, flickered, and
then went out, shut off by the running board as the vessel swung across
the bows of the ship, where the mate stood gazing at her.
"Hard aport," he yelled savagely.
"Hard aport, sir," came the response from the wheel, and the voice
showed more or less concern now.
There was an instant of suspense, a moment of silence, and the two
giant shapes came close with amazing speed. The liner swung to her port
helm, and her bows pointed clear of the light ahead. But the speed was
awful. Both going at twenty-five knots an hour, making the closing
speed nearly a mile a minute, brought the giants too close to pass
clear.
There was a hoarse cry from forward. The mate knew he was not going
to clear, and the roar of his siren tore the night's silence. Then
the huge fabrics came in collision. There was a gigantic crash, a
thundering shock, and a tearing, ripping sound as steel tore steel to
ribbons.
The shock made the rigging sing like a giant harp under the strain,
and the "ping" of parting steel lines sounded in accompaniment to the
tumultuous crashing of wood and iron. The cries of men came faintly
through the uproar from forward, and this was followed almost instantly
by frantic shrieks from aft as the effect of the shock was felt by the
women passengers.
The liner had failed to clear, and, swinging too late to port, had cut
slantingly into the other ship's quarter and tore away the greater
part of her stern. Tearing, grinding, ripping, and snapping, the huge
shapes ground alongside for a few moments as their headway took them
along without reducing speed. Too late the reversing engines, too late
the telegraph for all speed astern. The ships had come in contact.
The mate had run into another ship that had shown him her red light
to starboard. There was no mistake about it. The cry of the seaman on
watch had been heard by fifty persons.
"Red light on the starboard bow, sir----"
It rang in the officer's ears. It sounded above the terrible din of
smashing steel and beams, and even above the roar of the sirens telling
of the death wound that had been given a marine monster of twenty-five
thousand tons register.
The awful feeling of responsibility paralyzed the mate. The terror of
what he had done numbed him; stunned him so that he stood there upon
the bridge like a man asleep. Fifteen hundred human souls were sinking
in that ship, which was now drifting off to port in the night with
their cries sounding faintly through the blackness, even rising to be
heard through the roar of the steam. He thought of it. It was ghastly.
Fifteen hundred souls; and he knew how badly he had wounded the ship.
He knew the terrific power of the blow he had delivered--shearing off
the after part of that vessel and letting in the sea clear to the
midship bulkhead. There was no chance for her to float. The wound
was too deadly. It was as bad as though he had rammed her with a
battleship's ram.
The half-dressed form of the captain rushed to him--his captain.
"What happened?" he whispered hoarsely. He seemed to be afraid to ask
the question loudly. "Great Heaven, did you hit her?"
The mate stood gazing at the huge shadow, and his tongue refused to
answer the question. Then the voice beside him seemed to gain its
power. It roared out:
"Bulkheads, there--close them, quick!" And the automatic device, worked
from the pilot house, was pulled savagely.
The captain rushed into the pilot house. The man at the wheel who had
left it to throw the lever to close the bulkheads sprang back to his
post.
"How'd you do it?" asked the master again, in a low voice full of
passion and strained to the utmost. "How'd you strike--don't you know
you killed at least five hundred men? You murdering brute--you were
asleep." Then he raised his voice again, and bawled down through the
tube to MacDougal, the chief engineer.
"How is she--quick--get the pumps going--collision--keep the firemen
cool, and for God's sake don't let them panic--keep them at their posts
until we see what's up. We've run down the express steamer _Blue Star_,
of the Royal Dutch Line----"
The master turned to the pilot house again and looked out of the
window. His chief officer was still standing where he had left him.
"In Heaven's name, Mr. James, what's the matter with you to-night?"
he broke out wildly, in passionate tones, almost sobbing. "It's all
hands--get 'em out quick!"
He was a strange creature standing there in his undershirt and drawers,
with his long gray beard streaming down across his breast. The man at
the wheel even looked at him for a moment, but did not smile. It was
tragedy, not comedy.
"Is she full speed astern?" asked the master quickly.
"Yes, sir, full speed astern, sir," said the man. His face was white,
and his hands shook a little while he held the spokes of the wheel.
There was death for many that night, and he knew it. It would be hard
to tell who would survive in the rush that was sure to come if the
ship went down. Yet his seamanship told him that much was to be hoped
from the forward bulkhead. It would hold her up if it could stand the
strain.
In two minutes there was a rush of hundreds of feet upon the decks
below the flying bridge. The second officer came up half naked, dressed
in shirt and trousers, without shoes or stockings. He was a powerful
man and short, with a tremendous voice, a real Yankee bos'n voice;
and he roared out orders for the men, who jumped to their stations
automatically.
The captain came again to the bridge and took command. He yelled to
the boat crews below, and strove to quiet the crowding passengers who
pushed and fought about the boats in spite of the after guard and
seamen.
"Get down there and wade into that mess, Wilson," said the master
to the second officer; and he jumped down and went bawling through
the press, pushing and pulling, striking here and there a refractory
passenger who would insist upon trying to fill the small boats.
"There is no danger--no danger whatever," roared the captain again
and again from the bridge. The petty officers took up the cry, and
gradually the press about the starboard lifeboats grew less. The boats
upon the port side had been all carried away or smashed to bits. Ten
boats were left.
A man rushed up the bridge steps coming from aft.
"She's sinking, sir," he panted, pointing to the dim shadow of the
rammed ship drifting astern. The steady roar of her siren told of the
danger, and seemed to be a resonant cry for help.
The master gazed aft. Then he rushed to the pilot-house window and
took up the night glass hanging there. He looked hard at the ship now
lying astern and riding with her bows high in the air. The man was
right. She was rapidly going down. Ten minutes at the most would tell
the whole story.
"Get the starboard boats out, Mr. James," called the captain in an
even tone, "and let no one but the crews in them. The first man who
attempts to get in will be shot. Go to the vessel and bring back all
you can--quick----"
But the form there had vanished before he had finished speaking. The
chief officer had awakened at last from his stupor. His responsibility
came back to him with a rush of feeling. But an instant before he had
faced the end. He had decided to kill himself at once, and was just
about to go to his room for his gun. He was too ashamed to face the
ordeal, the ordeal of the officer who has run down a ship in a clear
night. There had been literally no excuse for him. He could not plead
ignorance of the laws; his license as officer made that impossible. He
knew what to do when raising a light to starboard when that light was
red. The rules were plainly written. Every common waterman knew them
by heart. He had disobeyed them by some mischance, some mistake he
could not exactly define; but he knew that under it all was that dull,
sullen apathy from a wrong, or fancied wrong, that had caused him to be
negligent.
He would not go upon the witness stand and say that, because a woman
did not love him, he had allowed his ship to ram a liner with fifteen
hundred souls aboard her in a clear night. No! Death was a hundred, a
thousand times better than such ignominy, such a miserable, cowardly
sort of excuse. He would blow his brains out just as soon as he saw the
finish, just as soon as he knew his vessel would float. Then came the
captain's voice of command:
"Get out the starboard boats and save all you can----"
Yes, it was his duty; his above all others. He was at number one boat
before the master had finished his orders.
Six good men were at their stations. The falls were run taut, the boat
shoved clear, and down she went with a rush into the sea. Nine others
followed within a minute, and ten boats pulled away into the darkness
astern, where the roar of the siren still sounded loud and resonant--a
wild, terrible cry of death and destruction.
James met a boat coming toward him before he reached the ship. She was
full. Sixty-two men and women filled her, and she just floated, and
that was all, her gunwales awash in the smooth sea. The swell lifted
her, and she rose high above him, a dark object against the sky. Then
she sank slowly down into the trough, and disappeared behind the hill
of water that ran smoothly from the northeast in long, heaving seas.
The night was still fine, and the wind almost nothing at all. The banks
of vapor rising in the east told of a change; but the change was not
yet. James noticed the weather mechanically, as a good seaman does,
from a small boat when at sea at night; but he was thinking of the
huge shadow which now drew close aboard.
As the boat came under the port side, he could see the passengers
crowding the rail in the waist, where the lifeboats were being filled
and sent away as fast as men could work them. Seven boats were
alongside full of human beings. Two more were being lowered. Three came
from under the stern as he drew alongside.
There was a mass of people still to be taken off. He saw at a glance
that the liner had twenty large lifeboats for her complement. One was
smashed. There was every reason to believe she would send out nineteen
with at least a thousand people in them. There would be several hundred
more to take besides these. The life rafts might do it, but he knew the
danger of life rafts in the furious struggle in a sinking ship.
The thing would be to save the passengers with his own boats. This he
might do if the ship floated long enough. She was sinking fast, as he
could see by her rising bows. She was probably even now hanging solely
by her midship bulkhead, and that would most likely be badly smashed by
the collision, for he had struck the ship far enough forward to do it
damage, although his vessel had only cut into her well aft. The blow
had been slanting. A little more time, perhaps a few seconds, and the
ships would have swung clear.
He came alongside and hailed the deck.
"Send them down lively--come along now, quick!" he called up in his
natural voice. It was the first time since the collision he had
spoken. It sounded strange to hear his own tones coming natural again.
In a few moments he was crowding and seating the women and children
in his boat. Then came the men from everywhere. They crowded down the
falls, jumped into the sea, and swam alongside, begging to be hauled
aboard, or climbed over the high gunwales themselves. One powerful
young man, stripped to the waist, dived clean from the hurricane deck,
and almost instantly rose alongside. Then he swung himself into the
boat, and stood amidships hauling others in until the craft settled
down to her bearings and the men at the oars could hardly row.
"Shove off--give way," ordered James.
The boat started back slowly, the men rowing gingerly, poking and
striking the passengers in the backs with the oars until the crowd
settled itself. Then she went along slowly toward the ship, and the
women in her prayed, the men swore, and the children wept and sobbed.
And all the time the fact that he was the cause of it all impressed
James queerly. He could not understand it, could not quite see why he
had done it, and yet he knew he had. One man spoke to the athlete who
had dived.
"They should burn a man who would sink a ship like this on a clear
night; they should burn him to a stake--the drunken, cowardly
scoundrel----"
And James sat there with the tiller ropes in his hand; sat silent,
thoughtful, and knew in his heart the man had spoken the truth. If he
could only be sure of the passengers--he would not give them a chance
to say anything more. His boat came alongside his own ship. The crowd
above cheered him--they did not know--he was a hero to them, the first
boat with the rescued. How quickly they would change that cheer when
they learned the truth! He almost smiled. His set face, strong-lined,
bronzed, and virile, turned away from the people in the boat. He gave
orders in the usual tone. The passengers were quickly passed aboard.
Then he started back for another load.
By this time the sides of his ship were crowded with boats. She was
taking aboard over a thousand people, and the sea was still smooth.
The swell heaved higher as the small boat went back toward the sinking
steamer. James noticed it. The sky to the eastward was dark with a
bank of vapor. The air had the feeling of a northeaster. It was coming
along, and there was plenty of time, for it would come slowly. The last
of the passengers would be either sunk or aboard his own ship before
the breeze rose to a dangerous extent.
The men rowed quickly. They were anxious. The horror of the whole thing
had fallen upon them like a pall; but they strove mightily to do their
share. James found his boat to be the last to reach the sinking ship.
The liner was well down now by the stern and her deck was awash aft.
She rose higher and higher as he gazed at her, her decks slanting,
sloping, and she rolled loggily in the growing swell. Her siren
stopped. A dull, muffled roar from the sea, a smothered explosion told
of the end of the boilers. She would go in a moment. The passengers
were clinging, grabbing to anything to hold on. The deck slanted so
dangerously that many were slid off into the sea where they plunged,
some silently and hopelessly, others screaming wildly with the terror
of sudden death.
James watched them. He saw many die, saw many go to their end. Others
swam; and he strove to pick them up, forgetting himself in the struggle.
He picked up sixteen in this manner, steering for them as they swam
about in the night calling for help. The last one was a girl, a
beautiful girl of twenty or less. He hauled her into the boat.
A sudden, wild yelling caused him to look. The sinking liner stood upon
end, her forefoot clear of the sea. She swung loggily to and fro for a
moment, settling as she did so. Then, with a rush, she plunged stern
first to the bottom, the crash of her bursting decks as the air blew
out being the last sound he heard.