canvas, and at the same time struggled out of reach of the men above
him. The man he had pulled overboard regained his strength, and,
grasping the life belt with one hand, grabbed at the package with the
other. The package tied to the life belt could not be gotten out of
his reach, and Junard was struggling with one hand and fighting and
grasping alternately at the life belt with the other.
"Give it up, you scoundrel!" hissed the fellow. "What do you know about
this package? Give it to me--do you hear?"
"I hear well enough," snarled Junard, struggling farther out of the
reach of those in the motor boat. "But I'm the captain of that ship
there--and the papers are in my care. Let go, or I'll do you harm!"
The man glared at him savagely. Then he turned to the men above him in
the boat, now a dozen feet away.
"Shoot, Jim--shoot quick--kill the fool if he won't let go!" he said.
The man addressed was a tall, dark fellow with a sinister look. That
he was Colombian, Junard knew from his accent and appearance. The
other, who had stopped the engine, and who seemed to be the engineer,
looked askance. He evidently did not like the shooting part. This man
was also a Colombian, but his features were those of a man who works
outdoors at a simple trade. The other two looked like desperate men,
and Junard felt that they would stop at nothing to get the papers from
him. The man who was called Jim hesitated, and then, seeing the small
boat approaching from the steamer, reached behind his back and brought
forth a long, blue revolver. Junard waited until the barrel came within
a line with his eye; then he ducked, and swung the life belt around,
coming up with it in front of him, and raising it partly before his
face. The pistol cracked sharply, and the bullet tore through the cork.
Junard let go the package, and seized the man in the water with both
hands, whirling him about and holding him squarely in front of himself.
"Start that engine!" called the man, struggling vainly to get away.
The man who had stopped it whirled the wheel over again, and the rumble
of the motor began. The two waited, without throwing on the clutch.
Junard grasped the man firmly, and forced him down under the sea, going
under with him, and holding his breath to the limit of his great lungs.
When he came up again the man was choking, gasping for air. Junard
only waited long enough to fill his own lungs with a breath, and then
ducked again, the crack of the revolver ringing in his ears as he went,
pulling his antagonist down with him.
The next time he came up the fellow could not talk, but choked and
gasped for air. Junard held him with a giant's grip, his long, powerful
arms encircling him like those of a gorilla. The fellow let go the life
belt and the package. Junard took in more air, and dropped down again,
while a bullet tore through his hair, cutting his scalp.
This time when he came up the fellow was limp. Junard held him before
him, and the man with the pistol was afraid to fire, as the captain's
eyes just showed above the man's neck. The captain struggled farther
and farther away from the boat, getting fully twenty feet distant. The
man at the engine threw on the clutch, and the boat shot ahead, swung
sharply around, and headed for the floating men.
Junard saw the mate standing up in the stern of the ship's boat, and
knew he was doing all he could to reach him. The shots had made him
aware of the desperate situation, and the men were bending their backs
with a will to the oars. Jameson yelled harshly, the men in the motor
craft saw that to remain longer would mean capture. They swung off and
headed for the steamer, leaving their companion in Junard's grip. The
next moment the mate came tearing up, and, leaning over, grasped his
commander and hauled him aboard the boat.
Junard came over the side, and immediately reached for a boat hook. He
stabbed at the cork jacket, and hauled it alongside, dragging it aboard
before the boat lost her headway. The body of the exhausted man sank
before either he or Jameson could get another hold of him.
"To the ship--quick!" gasped the captain.
"What's the matter? What's up?" questioned the mate.
"Never mind--swing her, quick!"
The boat turned around and headed back, the captain urging the men to
their utmost. The fishing boat, with her motor going full speed, left
them far behind. They were unable to get near the craft.
Junard, watching them, saw the boat come close under the ship's stern.
A form of a woman leaped from the rail of the lower deck. The splash
threw spray almost into the boat as she went past, and they saw the
tall Colombian reach over and drag the girl aboard. The boat shot
around the steamer's stern and disappeared for a few moments; and when
Junard saw her again she was a quarter of a mile distant, and making
rapid headway for the shoal water of the island. He started after her,
when the shots from the revolver began to strike about the craft, and
Junard ordered his men to stop rowing. He knew he could not capture
her, unarmed as he was, and he had his precious papers safe in his
mighty hands. To follow was only to invite trouble.
The fishing boat ran quickly out of range, and Junard watched her for a
few minutes. Then he headed his boat back to the ship.
The rail was crowded as he came alongside, the purser watching him, and
half the passengers were on deck to see what was taking place.
"What was it? What's the matter?" asked a score at once.
"Man overboard--that's all," said Jameson.
"H'ist her up," said Junard, and he clambered up the swinging ladder
thrown over to him, taking the life belt and the package under his arm.
Mr. Dunn was on deck, and Junard gave him his orders.
"Full speed ahead--on her course, north to west," he said, and went
into his room. The door closed behind him. Then he switched off the
lights, for it was now broad daylight, and then he opened the package.
The papers were all there and intact, the water not reaching them at
all. The safe was opened, and they were placed within. Then Junard
stripped and turned in for a few hours of dreamless, quiet sleep.
He had saved the papers of his company, documents that were valued at
more than a million dollars--and not a soul aboard knew what had really
happened. Even Jameson was never quite sure.
The purser asked no questions about cholera, the ship headed along upon
her course toward New York, and the warm day took its routine without
further incident. Junard appeared very happy, and told many interesting
stories at the dinner table that day. He answered no questions
concerning the affair of the night.
He brought in his papers, delivered them in person, and a great
political change took place without any one but a few select souls ever
knowing how near the verge of revolution a prominent South American
republic had been. Junard was offered a medal for risking his life
trying to save that of a man overboard--but he refused it. The shots
from the fishing boat were explained as signals for help. That was all.
IN THE WAKE OF THE ENGINE
I had been transferred to the old _Prince Albert_, one of
the freighters on the Jamaica run, and the skipper was Bill
Boldwin--Boldwin who was once in the Amper Line, but who had a
monstrous thirst and a reckless disposition--too reckless for
first-class passengers. The "old man," as all captains are called,
having these failings, had also a mighty poor education, and his
navigation was mostly, "Let her go and trust to the sun."
"Compasses?" said Bill. "How'd they get along before they had 'em, hey?
Steer the course, or thereabouts; you'll git thar or somewheres nigh to
it--if you don't fetch up."
"But the company?" I said in amazement.
"The company be blowed! Take life easy--it's short. Don't let the
company worry you to any great extent. They'll give you a job as night
watchman at twenty per month after they get out of you all there is in
you."
At the same time Bill, who was my "old man," and who, by the way,
was ten years younger than myself, would not stand for any too much
carelessness on the part of his first officer. I was his chief mate.
He knew what I had to do, and hated to tell me. I confess I seldom gave
him a chance. The second greaser was a little, short squarehead named
Andersen; at least we called him that, going on the principle that
it was a sure thing that if he was a squarehead he was either named
Andersen or Johnson. There are no other names in Sweden, and a man
naturally just has to be one or the other. They're good enough.
Andersen knew his business and was an able seaman, learning his little
book in the old sailing ships where they teach you something not always
taught in steam. He had the bos'n in with him, and what the bos'n
didn't know about handling the steam winches would be hard to tell. But
that's all the bos'n knew. Not a thing else. If he had he wouldn't have
rammed greasy rags in behind the ceiling of the after deck house in a
hurry to get his grub at knock-off time.
No, that was the failing of the bos'n; he lacked knowledge, and was as
good a navigator as you might find in a young lady's finishing school.
He had paws on him like a loggerhead's flippers, nearly a foot across,
and each finger was a marline spike, and every thread of his hair,
where he wasn't clean bald, was a rope yarn. He knew sailoring--nothing
else.
He was about as much afraid of anything in this world or the next as
a hungry shark is of beef; in fact, he seemed to take to trouble with
about the same sort of appetite. In six months I never had a chance to
tell him anything except the routine.
The chief engineer was McDougal, and the second was Mac something--all
of our engine-room force went under the same name of Mac, just plain
"_Mac_," and if they were not Scotchmen, I never saw one in my life.
Scotchmen are born engine men, take to a machine like a dago does to
a knife. The rest of the fireroom bunch were the old-style Liverpool
Irishmen, and I'll tell you something, they were hard ones all right.
They were the toughest lot of coal tossers I ever sailed with, and even
the donkey man, O'Hare, was a peach of a Donegal Irishman with Galways
of reddish hue that stuck out from under his shirt collar, pointing
upward as if they were growing some husky on his throat.
That was the principal part of our crew. There were some twenty others,
including the cooks, galley boys, seamen, and quartermasters.
We cleared for Antonio, and were soon running out over the Western
Ocean in the lazy, tiresome routine of ship's duty. We were licensed to
carry passengers and had a few waiters aboard, a steward, and a lady of
about thirty signed on as stewardess.
As there were no passengers this voyage out--no one ever went out
with us if he could help it, but came back when there were no other
ships--the cabin crowd had an easy time, regular yachting trip; and if
Miss Lucy Docking had a stupid time, it was because she wouldn't talk
to the rest.
"Stuck-up and sassy," they said aft, but I never could tell, never
getting a chance to talk with her without a dozen or more listening.
At the same time I didn't like to blame the girl just because she
didn't like the set of lovers the ship furnished free of charge. "Let
her pick her own," said I, "it's like enough she'll make a mistake,
anyways, without your help." I never had a big opinion of women,
anyhow, for the only one I ever proposed marriage to fell down and
nearly died laughing at me, and that after I had been dreaming of her
and thinking her the greatest angel in the world.
Miss Lucy was all right with me, because I let her alone, except in
the mid-watch, when I was cold and thirsty. Then she used to get me a
cup of cocoa or chocolate or coffee, and I tell you the man who stands
the mid-watch on the old freighters is earning all he gets, whether it
comes by way of the stewardess or by way of the front office.
We crossed the Western Ocean in the usual manner. I had my order book
to sign, and I saw that the second greaser didn't get gay with it. Days
and days of the old routine passed, and we were in the edge of the
trade when the first thing happened to show what a wild lot of yaps we
had in that ship.
The bos'n stuffed his oiled rags in behind the ceiling of the after
house, and it was about three days afterward we struck the hot weather.
The rags promptly caught fire--they always do when snugged in from the
air--and we hove the old hooker to in the teeth of the trade with the
after deck a roaring furnace. If you think we didn't have a time of
it putting that deck house out, throwing it overboard in pieces, you
should look up Lloyd's. Well, the way I talked to that bos'n would have
given heart disease to most men, but the beggar didn't see it at all.
"Rags is rags," he says, "and what for don't I put them behaind
something?"
"Because if you do it again we'll toss you overboard with twenty pound
of kentledge to your feet," I told him, and it was the only reason he
could get through his bullet head. It didn't scare him at all. He only
looked upon the matter as closed, for he would not mutiny. He was too
good a sailor for any foolishness.
"Rags is rags," he would repeat as we chopped the blackened wreck away
the day after, when all hands had been near the port of missing ships
and were tired and nervous, having been on duty for fifty hours without
a break. "Rags is rags, an' some son of a sea-cook set fire to 'em--no
rags I ever seen ever took fire of themselves. Does a ship run herself,
hey? Answer me that! Does a ship run her own engines, steer her own
course, what? Some one of you sons of Ham did that dirty trick and I'll
get you for it yet!"
"But rags do fire themselves, even if a ship don't," said the old man,
"and you are the leading bonehead not to know it. You don't rate a
brass boy in anything but a coal barge, and if you don't look out I'll
have to train you some."
"Rags is----"
Only the size and look of the bos'n's hands prevented the old man from
committing murder right there. But the bos'n took it out on the men.
What he didn't do to them that voyage was never logged.
Miss Docking stood the test well. She stayed on deck and watched the
fracas and never turned a hair, so to speak, waiting for the word to
take to the boats with as cool a nerve as anything I ever saw. She
was billeted for my boat, Number One, and I confess I was somewhat
disappointed when the blamed deck house burned to the steel and the
danger of leaving the ship was past.
Boldwin was always taking it easy, and he never even took that real
hard, although it would cost him something to explain how he did the
damage when the underwriters asked him.
"Don't do it again," was all he said to me.
"No, not until we get another deck house at least," I said. "Maybe I
can see that they don't set fire to the anchor or burn up the windlass,
or eat the coir hawser, or----"
"Well, see that you don't. That's your business--you're mate," he
snapped back, and started for the chart house.
Andersen came to me. "I tank I sign de order book for sou'west half
sou'--here we bane running eastb'no'th. How I tell de truth wid sech a
t'ing--hey?" said he.
"If you always tell the truth in this line of packets you'll soon get a
job hoeing potatoes in Essex! What's the matter with you? Do you want
the company to get wise that we fought a fire set in with oiled rags by
a fool of a bos'n and had to run the ship fifty miles off her course?
Who'll pay for the coal? Who'll square the old man? Who'll tell the
passengers that we don't always have a bonehead bos'n to wreck us, and
that if they'll promise to come again we'll see that it don't happen
often--no, not often?"
Andersen went on duty with a queer look in his eyes. He had seen
something and it amazed him--just why I never could tell, for he had
been in steamers before and ought to have known something of a ship's
officers' duties before coming into the Prince Line.
The truth in many lines is sacred. Absolutely sacred. Too sacred
entirely to shift about the deck like a bag of dunnage and leave lying
around for some fools to play with. No, never play with the truth in
some lines of shipping. Do your duty. That's all you've got to do, and
if it's so logged, why, then you're all right. If it isn't, why, then
you better get to driving a truck or peddling peanuts.
Well, Boldwin was a pretty good sort, as I have said. He mostly saw
that all of us did our duty--in the log book, in the order book, and
with the company officers. We went along slowly on our course after
that, and were in the latitude of Watlings when bad weather came on.
It was nothing much, just a cyclone of the usual order, coming as it
did in the hurricane season; but we were a full-powered ship of six
thousand tons, and it wouldn't have delayed us to any extent--except
that we didn't count on the donkey man from Donegal.
You see, the _Albert_ had one of those underwater ash-chutes. The pipe
came down through the bilge, about fifteen feet below the water line.
It was a foot in diameter, and was supposedly bolted to the skin and as
solid as the keel or garboards.
The metal of the pipe was half an inch in thickness, and was braced and
bolted so that the top which showed above the water line could be hove
on and shut off in a seaway. The top had a sliding cover working with
a lever, and when the ashes were to be fired out the cover was thrown
back, the bucket dumped, and a jet of steam blew the mass out through
the ship's bottom, making no dirt or dust at all, and doing away with
the everlasting firing over the side.
It was a good invention. It saved the company many dollars in paint,
and it kept the ship, which was always short-handed, looking better
than most vessels that used the old way over the side.
It would have lasted forever if the man from Donegal hadn't been of an
inquisitive turn of mind, and started exploring it with a monkey wrench
the week before the storm. As it happened he broke several of the
bolts which had rusted in the bottom, and the metal, having been much
worn and corroded, the first thing Mac knew was a torrent of sea water
pouring into the after compartment, coming as it did through a pipe
hole about a foot in diameter and fifteen feet below the sea level.
It caught the firemen unawares. The donkey man was with them and
let out a yip that brought every coal passer, oiler, and fireman
to the chute. A wild burst of water tore through that hole, and the
compartment was flooded in less time than it takes to tell about
it--and that compartment ran the whole length of the engine room and
aft of it until it brought up in the wake of the machinery, where the
bulkhead of the tail-shaft room shut off the stern.
The donkey man managed to get out with the rest, and the fires in
starboard boilers swamped, nearly blowing up the ship as the water
flooded them. It was only because there was enough water to prevent the
making of steam to any great extent that saved us from having the whole
midsection blown in the air.
And all the time I was holding to the bridge rail with a cyclone
snoring down upon us at the rate of seventy miles an hour. Luckily the
ash pipe stayed partly bolted to the skin of the bottom. That alone
saved us from total loss.
Of course I knew something was wrong the minute the boilers went
smothered. The terrific roar of steam and the easing of the engines
told me that sure enough trouble was coming, and all the time I had
been wondering how we would hold the hooker up to that gale with the
full power in her.
"What's the matter--bottom blow away?" howled Boldwin, coming from the
pilot house and yelling in my ear.
"God knows--anything might happen to us after last week," I howled in
return, but the force of the hurricane blew the words away, and the
old man went staggering and pulling himself along the rail until he
managed to get below. For the next fifteen minutes on that bridge I did
some small bit of thinking. Looked like all day with us. Not a sign
could I get from anywhere, and of course I dared not leave the bridge.
Once I thought she had blown up with powder. Next I thought the engines
had gone through the bottom. And all the time I could feel her settling
in that whirlwind sea--a sea torn white with the blast of the squalls
that were now coming faster and faster each minute.
"Well, I'm mighty glad I'm not married, anyway," I said to myself, for
it looked like the long sleep coming fast. And then I somehow thought
of that Miss Docking below there in the comfortable cabin waiting for
the finish. It gave me a bit of a turn, and I tried to imagine what
that cabin would look like in a few minutes when the sea water swept
through it with all its transoms and cushions, piano and carpet----
"Hard a starboard, sir," came the cry.
It was most welcome. Anything but that standing there waiting for the
next minute to follow the last. I saw that the quartermaster swung the
wheel over quickly. It was steam steering, and the ship fell off in the
trough of the sea in a few minutes, the weight of the gale driving her
bodily to leeward and heeling her over to quite a list.
"Heave her to," came the order passed up from the old man, and I put
the wheel hard down and waited to see if she would stay without coming
up. She lay easily drifting off, and while I watched her for trouble
the old man sent for me. Andersen came up and took my place, and I ran
down, half blown, half crawling to the shelter of the deck house, and
from there below to see what had happened.
Bill Boldwin was standing at the ash chute swearing at the man from
Donegal. The donkey man was trying to tell what he didn't know about
his business, and all the time the water flowed freely through the
one-foot pipe until it so filled the compartment that nothing more
could come up through it. It was a good thing! If the whole Atlantic
Ocean had been delegated to flow through that pipe, nobody was there
to stop it, not a soul to say why not. And then I was aware of the
stewardess standing in the press of faces, looking scared but cool.
"Why don't you ram something in it?" she asked.
Simple? Sure it was simple. No one had tried to do such a thing, but
there she was asking why.
"The pipe'll break away--you can't shove anything down it," said
Boldwin.
"No? But why don't you shove something from the outside?" said Miss
Docking.
"Go to your room," snarled the old man.
"She's right--we'll stop it in a jiffy--from the outside," I yelled.
The skipper thought I was crazy. He looked at me.
"How'll you get anything over the outside in this seaway, you
bonehead?" he asked.
"Get me the hand lead," I yelled to the bos'n, "and a stick of light
wood--big piece, big enough to float a man."
The bos'n ran for the stuff. That was one good point in that bos'n.
He'd do what he was told even when he hadn't the slightest idea what
he was doing. He came back in a few minutes with a long piece of white
pine and the hand lead. I looked them over for a moment to judge the
weight and floating power of the tools. Then I quickly hitched the lead
to the piece of pine and left the bight of the line so that as soon as
I jerked it hard the lead would free itself and go hell bent for Davy
Jones, leaving the Pine line fast to the lead line to float up and away.
To the end of the chute I now quickly made my way. The Donegal man
wanted to help, and faith! he was a good man when it came to doing
things he understood. He showed me where the upper end of that chute
was in that roaring surge of filthy water, and the beggar actually got
a hold of the lever that worked the cover and jammed it open.
I instantly dropped the lead, the wood, and the line through, and had
the satisfaction of feeling the line going fast to the bottom out
through the hole in the bilge. When the line had gone about ten fathoms
I gave the sudden jerk. Off comes the lead and the line stops running
out.
"Get to windward and grab that plank," I yelled, and even the old man
followed the bunch that struggled to the rail and watched the sea
where we drifted bodily off. In a minute the bos'n saw it. In five more
he had the plank back aboard and a three-inch line fast to the lead
line. This I hauled quickly but cautiously back through the ash pipe
until I got a good hold of the end.
"Now," I yelled, "give me mattresses, beds, canvas, fearnaught, or
oakum--anything so long as you get it here quick."
The stewardess had already anticipated my work. I caught her eye back
of the line of men.
"Here they are," she said quietly.
The bos'n got a Number Double O hatch cover. I wrapped the mattresses
in it, and then quickly hitched the three-inch line carefully about the
middle.
"Over the side with it," I shouted. Over it went, and as it did so I
got the line hauling through the pipe. Two men helped me. We hauled the
plug jam up tight against the ship's bilge, and then surged upon the
line and made it fast.
"Now go ahead and pump her clear, Mac, pump her out--she's tight as a
drum," I said, and the old man looked at me with a peculiar smile.