to talk to the Mongolians--tell them they must keep the ports shut.
But I don't like leaving them on deck, even if it is hot enough to
roast potatoes on the deck planks. How's the glass, sir?"
"Bottom dropped out of it somehow; mercury concave and 'way down.
There's some unusual disturbance knocking about this sea. There's
trouble ahead--typhoon season, you know. Nothing but wind moves that
awful swell. Look at that!"
A hill of water rolled majestically onward, catching us under the
counter, and sending us along its great, smooth crest, then dropping us
again as we had hardly steering way under the short canvas.
"I'd like to know which way it's coming--lay our course to drift out
of it, or run, but who knows--who knows before it strikes? I wish you
would see to the gear forward. I don't want things to get loose. And
take charge. No, sir; don't let anything out of the way happen while
you're on deck."
I saw the old man was getting nervous. The low pressure and the
sultriness were telling on him. He knew what was coming well enough,
and fretted under it. It was hard waiting, even for an old seaman like
himself. Slade came on deck, and puffed carelessly at his pipe, gazing
about, and then going aft to chat with the ladies. He was always ready
to cheer them up. Nothing would happen--positively nothing. There
was no use of their getting nervous at the heavy swell. It had often
happened before--a heavy swell and no wind, 'way out here in the middle
of the Pacific. No telling where the storm might be, but, of course it
wouldn't be near us--oh, no.
Oleson came aft to me.
"Shall I lock in the Chinks?" he asked.
"Yes," I answered. "Lock 'em up, put a padlock on both doors, and see
that they don't get loose again until this is over."
Oleson went to Komuri. The Jap listened to him, and then repeated the
order, passing the word like a seaman should, without comment. The
Chinks followed him into their quarters in the alleyways, and Oleson
locked the doors on the outside, putting extra padlocks on them. The
alleyways were upon the main deck, and shut off from the lazaret by a
bulkhead.
"If honorable mate will let me open those ports inside, Chinese men
will be able to breathe better--air very hot in there," said Komuri.
"All right, king; go ahead. And if she lists over and drowns them like
rats in a trap you'll be the man to loose them--see?" I warned him.
"I'll take care them, me," said Komuri. "If honorable ship, she turns
over, me, Komuri, will see to ports. Very hot inside there."
I turned away and watched the horizon. The haze was thickening, and the
squalls were beginning to come with more force than before. A sudden
spurt of wind sang hoarsely in the rigging, and a drift of spray flew
upward.
The men were still at work making things snug when I heard a murmuring,
a moaning, vast, filling the air, then dying away again. It was all
about us, seemingly upon all sides. Then again I heard a harplike note
of great volume. The horizon disappeared in the southeast, and the
blue-steel bank of vapor shut off the sunlight. It grew dark and gloomy.
"She's coming along all right in a few minutes," said Slade, who came
near to me and passed on to his room. He came on deck in a couple of
minutes, with an oilskin coat buttoned fast about him, and he sweltered
in its heat. I still stood at the weather rigging.
"Go get your rain clothes on," he said, coming to relieve me.
"Nix! Let her go as it is--better wet with salt water than sweat," I
replied.
The skipper came forward. He suggested that the two passengers go
below, and Jack, the steward, with Komuri to assist him, managed to get
them below without protest, although it was something like ninety-six
or seven in that saloon.
A white streak spread upon the sea. The squall struck, snoring away
with a vigor that told of more coming. The spumedrift flew over us.
Then another, and another furious blast of wind bore down upon the
schooner, and she lay slowly over until her rail was submerged.
In five minutes the hurricane was roaring over us, and the _Tanner_ lay
upon her beam ends while we struggled with the mizzen, and held the
wheel hard up to throw her off, the weight of the wind holding her down
with a giant hand.
Yelling and struggling, all hands now tried to get that mizzen in. It
was a waste of time. I saw the skipper clinging to the boom and using
his knife upon the canvas, and did likewise. With a thundering roar the
sail split, torn to ribbons. We could not make ourselves heard in the
chaos of sound, but waved frantically our orders and helped as only
good seamen can.
But the _Tanner_ refused to go off. She lay flat out with her
cross-trees in the lift of the sea, and she hung there. The
forestaysail burst with a crack that we heard aft, and vanished as if
it had been snow in a jet of steam. The bonneted foresail held with the
wind roaring over the top of it, spilling away, but still keeping full
enough to keep from slatting and bursting. It was the heaviest canvas
and brand new, and all the time squall after squall bore upon the
straining ship, roaring, screaming with the blast of a gun as the puffs
came and went.
That wind was like a wall of something solid. To move in it was
enough to tax the strength. It pressed one against what was to
leeward--pressed him, held him and bore upon him like a weight of
something solid. To let go meant to run the risk of being blown bodily
away into the sea.
We clung along the weather rail, and hung on with both hands, watching
the white smother fore and aft, but unable to look to windward for an
instant against the blast. The outfly and uproar was so tremendous that
all sounds were lost in it. I found myself near Slade and the old man,
all three clinging to the rail, and gasping for breath. The skipper's
gray head shone bare in the blast, and the white foam flecked it, and
dripped from his beard, his ruddy cheeks glowing red in contrast. His
teeth were set, and he was just holding on.
For a long time we three hung there, and did nothing but try to survive
the fury of that hurricane. The forward part of the schooner was
blotted out, and I just remember that to leeward, where I could look,
the surge boiled and foamed clear up to the hatch coamings.
I thought of the women below, and knew they were safe for the time
being. Then I remembered the starboard alleyway, and the ports that
Komuri had left open to give the Chinks air. The alleyway was now
completely submerged; the ports far below the surface of the sea, the
Chinamen were caught there like rats in a trap.
The narrow space must even now be filling up, and I thought of the poor
coolies struggling against that door the carpenter had so securely
locked and fastened upon them. They could never break it open, for upon
it we had placed our safety against another uprising, and the double,
two-inch planks bolted crossways would stand more than the weight of
the crowd that would be able to surge against it. The alleyway could
fill entirely without any water getting below.
I grabbed Slade by the arm, and pointed at the lower deck.
"The Chinks--below--can't get out!" I roared against the hurricane.
Slade grinned a sickly grin and nodded. Then he ducked his head
against the wind and bellowed back:
"Can't help it--can't go there--sure death!"
I fancied I could hear the outcries of the imprisoned men, but the
deep, bass undertone of the hurricane roared away overhead and swept
away the impression.
It was sickening to think of it. Fully twenty men were in that
alleyway, and the four eight-inch ports were letting in four streams of
sea water, for the Chinamen would not know enough to jam them full of
clothes or anything they could get hold of, being little better than
animals in point of intelligence.
If the schooner would only pay off she would right herself and let the
openings come above the sea level; but she hung there dead, beaten down
by a blast so terrific that it seemed like a solid wall of something
heavy tearing upon her and crushing her life out. It took the breath
away, and I found myself gasping, trying to get air to breathe, sucking
in the flying drift and spray, and choking, holding one hand over my
nose and mouth to keep from actually drowning in the smother.
It seemed as if we had already been hove down a full hour, and I was
tiring. The schooner held doggedly broadside in the trough of the
sea, which was now appalling in height, and was breaking solidly over
her high rail and upturned side. We could not last much longer in the
dangerous position, and I began to believe we were lost. Our hatches
were closed, and no water could get below unless something gave way,
but it was certain something would go before long under that strain.
I looked hopelessly at the man at the wheel, who had passed a lashing
upon his waist, and was straddling the shaft, clinging to the spokes
with desperation. I wondered if he still held the wheel hard up, but
knew that in her present knocked-down state it would make little
difference, for she would not steer without some headsail to swing her
out and off that mighty sea.
I crawled along the rail, fighting my way hand over hand, passing the
skipper and gaining the edge of the poop. I yelled to Douglas, who was
the man straddling the wheel shaft, but he only shook his head and
ducked from the squalls.
While I bawled for him to tell me what helm she carried, I was aware
of a figure crawling from the companionway to the after cabin. It
came creeping up just under me, up the almost perpendicular deck, and
it looked like a big monkey until it came right into me, and then I
recognized Komuri, our little steward.
Komuri was yellow, a pasty yellow, and his wrinkled face looked old and
haggard. He was only partly dressed, and he clawed the rail frantically
for a hand hold. He looked the worst-scared Jap I had ever seen or
dreamed of. He climbed close to me.
"Men locked in--all die--ports open," he screeched in my ear.
"I know--can't help it--door under water--no tools," I yelled in
reply, and he howled something that ended in a screech that was
unintelligible, for over it all sounded that deep, bass roar,
thundering, booming, vibrating into chaos all sounds.
I watched him, and he climbed past me, making his way forward with
amazing speed, considering he was crawling along a wall which had been
the deck. He made the break of the poop, and disappeared, going in the
direction of the forward house, although how he ever expected to get
there was beyond reason.
Something made me follow him, and soon Slade and myself were at the
edge of the poop, and gazing down at the partly submerged door of the
starboard alleyway. While we looked, Komuri came climbing along the
rail of the ship, disappearing now and then under the solid water that
swept her, but, to our amazement, still keeping hold of the pins, and
gaining slowly toward us.
In one hand he held Oleson's ax, and he was coming toward us, coming to
do a piece of work we had already given up as impossible.
No word was spoken as Komuri struggled up to where we clung and gasped
for breath, half drowned in the rush of water.
I passed the end of a line about him after a fashion, and he dropped
off to starboard down the steep slant, and instantly went under as a
huge sea fell over the schooner.
We held the line. Then we saw him again, and he was hacking away at the
door, chopping at the lock and staple while he swung scrambling with
his feet against the planks. Slade thoughtfully dropped down other
lines, and made them fast.
I could see little of what was going on. The seas were breaking over
us now with tremendous volume, and it seemed only a question of a few
minutes before the schooner must go down, anyhow, for she couldn't lie
on her beam ends very long without something giving way.
The work of getting at those Chinks appeared to me now a useless labor.
We would all be where there was no caste, no coolies, in a short time.
And yet such is the habit of a seaman, he works on against certain
failure at times, when ordinary folk would accept the verdict and quit.
I held Komuri until my arms were nearly paralyzed, and I was fainting
with exertion and lack of air. The first thing I knew of what he had
done was when a Chink came climbing monkey fashion up one of the lines,
followed by another and another, their yellow faces pasty and drawn,
and their pigtails streaming after them. They clung along the weather
side, and lashed themselves fast to whatever they could find. I saw the
dark figures of a couple fade away in the smother to leeward, and knew
they had gone to where all Chinks go sooner or later, but the rest came
up and clung for life there in the strident breath of the typhoon, and
the booming roar drowned out even their shrieks and yelps.
I tried to haul Komuri up again, but could not. I howled for Slade
to help me, but he was separated by a row of Chinks, and couldn't
reach me. I hammered the nearest Chinaman over the head in frantic
desperation to make him haul line and save the little Jap, but the
fellow only ducked the blows, which were too weak to hurt much.
Komuri, exhausted, could not climb back. He could no longer help
himself; and he was trusting to me to get him up from the white smother
beneath that was drowning him. The madness of my weakness came over
me. I had been a bucko mate with ready hand, and could take them by
and large as they came from the dock to the forecastle, but here I was
weakening, holding to a line at the end of which was the bravest little
man I had even seen, the gamest little fighter--Komuri, son of Samurai,
the fighting class of the Japanese.
And Komuri was going to his death because I couldn't help him. On and
on I struggled with the line, bellowing curses, but I could get little
or no line over the pin, and I was growing surely weaker and weaker.
Then I stopped, and tried to see if there was any chance to help, any
chance to save the little hero. I saw Komuri dangling in the foam, his
face upturned to me, and a smile upon his yellow, wrinkled visage. He
waved feebly to me, and I knew he was signaling for me to haul him
up--and was wondering why I didn't.
"Oh, my God, you poor little devil!" I howled. "It's too bad--too bad!"
A gigantic sea crashed over the schooner, a mountain of water. I passed
the line about my waist, and snatched a turn to keep from being washed
away. That was the last I remembered for some time.
When I regained my senses I was lying on the deck, and Slade was
dragging me by the arm toward the cabin doors. The roar of the
hurricane still boomed over us--the wild rush of the sea--but it came
from aft now, and I knew they had at last got her off the wind, and
were running her either to hell or safety.
Ten minutes later I was struggling up the companionway again to the
deck, where the old man was now conning her, and watching her run
seventeen knots an hour before a series of hurricane squalls that
simply lifted her almost bodily out of the sea.
I saw we had passed the center of the cyclone, for we had the wind
almost directly opposite from where it was when we lay knocked down. I
got to the shelter of the mizzen, and from there watched the men at the
wheel hold her as she ran. Some one had loosed a bit of canvas forward,
but it had blown away, and the ribbon streamers stretched and cracked
until they vanished in the blast.
"How'd you do it?" I yelled to Slade, who clung in the lee.
"Squalls let up sudden--hit the center--she righted, and then ran off
when we hit the other side of it!" howled the mate.
"Where's Komuri?" I howled.
"Don't know--must have gone to leeward. Some Chinks gone, too--you came
near going."
That was all I could get from Slade. But I knew all that was
necessary. Komuri had gone to the port of missing ships. He had died
as a Samurai should, facing his end fearlessly, fighting to the last
for others in the hope to save them, the ones he had tried to help by
giving them air and leaving their ports open when they should have
been closed. He had known his responsibility, and had done what we had
failed to do.
There were three Chinamen missing, but our own men were safe. They had
got under the side of the engine house, where they were protected from
both the sea and wind. They clung there until the vessel righted, and
then turned to with a will to save the ship.
We ran the _Tanner_ all that day and the following night, keeping her
before a mighty sea that almost overran us. She steered well once she
got off before it, and after we got canvas on her forward she was safe
enough. It had been a close squeak for all hands, and we breathed
easier as she ran out of the disturbance and came again upon her
course. A week later we ran her in behind the reef of Guam, and came to
anchor off the town of Agaña, where we were to discharge part of our
cargo and the Chinese.
In behind the barrier we ran her without further incident, and as
the wind fell we rolled up the canvas and let her drift into fifteen
fathoms before letting go the hook.
The ladies came on deck for the first time since the typhoon, and gazed
happily at the beautiful island crowned with green, tropical foliage--a
welcome relief to the eye that had seen only the blue water for so
long. They were to leave us here, and we were to go on to Manila,
coming later to take them back upon the return voyage. It would give
them three months on Guam.
"Where is our little Jap, Kamuri--we haven't seen him for a week?"
asked Miss Aline. "He was nice about getting our things together--we
really must have him help us ashore."
"Hasn't Slade told you?" I said.
"No. What do you mean?" she asked in surprise.
"Komuri is dead--lost in the typhoon--he saved the Chinks," I answered.
Both women gasped their surprise.
"I am so sorry!" exclaimed the younger.
"And he was so good," said her aunt. "I wondered why Mr. Slade hadn't
spoken of him before. I suppose it's because Mr. Slade feels that he is
now to be your guardian and must protect you from all ill news--oh, I
forgot--you hadn't heard. Yes, Mr. Slade is the man. He saved Aline's
life, you know, and they are to be married after we get back. Strange
he didn't tell you."
I thought so, too. Slade was a sly dog--and he had used my collars,
also, in his wooing. I was--well, I was ready to congratulate any man
who could make up his mind to marry.
But I turned away so abruptly that I thought I had to apologize to
Slade afterward, to keep from getting in a row with him. But Slade
understood, and squeezed my hand.
"There's some of that port left over below," he said, and he led the
way down.
He filled two glasses to the brim, handing me one.
"To your health--and that of Miss Aline," I said stiffly, feeling that
there was something to say, or do.
"No," said Slade slowly, thoughtfully, "to the best man."
"Sure--to me, the best man at the wedding?" I said, in feigned surprise.
"Oh, no," corrected the mate. "Not at all--although you are not so bad,
old chap." He raised his eyes and looked straight into mine. "We drink
to the best man in the ship--who was in the ship--to Komuri."
And we drained our glasses.
AT THE END OF THE DRAG-ROPE
There were five men all told in the fishing schooner _Flying Star_.
I had known them all well, and had been shipmate with four of them.
Captain Johnny Sparks was a Dutchman, a "squarehead," but a good
seaman, and he had fished on the Hatteras Banks during three bluefish
seasons. His vessel was a Provincetown specimen--what used to be termed
the "Gloucester fisherman" type, before the decadence of that port in
the industry which once made it famous had ended its shipbuilding.
She was a small vessel, much smaller than the modern Provincetown
fisherman, which has a short foremast, a mainmast planted almost
amidships, and sweeping canoe bows with overhang. No, she was of the
old type--two sticks stuck upright in her at almost equal distances,
marking her into three almost equal parts; a main-topmast sprung well
forward and stayed well aft to steady the "whip" of long and continuous
plunging into a lifting head sea. She was "chunky" in model, bows
rather bluff, almost like a coaster, and her stern was of the old-time
sawed-off pattern, sunk low in the water, an ugly stern for running in
a heavy sea when the lift is quick and fast.
She was not worth over two thousand dollars, but Captain Johnny owned
half of her, and he had no criticisms to make of her behavior in heavy
weather. With a long, straight keel and full under-body, she was an
excellent sea craft, provided she was properly handled.
I was mate of the passenger ship _Prince Alfred_ with Bill Boldwin,
running from New York to the West Indies, and as we ran on schedule we
often fell in with the Hatteras fishermen twice during a voyage.
Johnny was fishing three miles north of the Diamond Shoal Lightship
as we passed him on our voyage out. He stood upon his quarterdeck
and waved to me. I was on the bridge, and bawled out I would have
some fruit for him on the return trip. He nodded and waved his hand
in appreciation, and his cook poked his head out of the galley and
grinned. His boats were scattered along the shoal, all hauling up
bluefish as fast as they could.
Four other vessels from New York were on the grounds, but I recognized
none of them. Our passengers gazed at the small boats tossing as only
light-built dories can toss in a lively sea; and they commented on the
fishing.
As a rule, the average landsman thinks all fishing is done on the Grand
or George's Banks. They get the idea from writers who know these waters
well, and it never enters their heads that the northern banks are but
a very small part of the great Atlantic fishing grounds, where the
professional fisherman must toil to wrest his living from the salt sea.
It was due to a Gloucester Yankee, though, that the great fishing
of Campeche Bank became known. Hove-to in a vicious norther a few
score miles off Galveston, the "cod-hauler" was driven gradually
off shore until he was far away from the land. Suddenly from a
fathomless gulf--he had had the perseverance to keep his lead going
at intervals--he fetched the ground in thirty fathoms, and gradually
shoaled his water.
With a hook just above the lead, he soon began to haul up snappers, and
he came running into port a few days later with his schooner loaded to
her bearings with as prime fish as ever came out of the sea.
Captain Johnny had fished there a year, but owing to the slowness of
the _Flying Star_ he had given it up until the steam patrol boat had
been put on to make the rounds and buy the fish on the grounds. It was
Johnny who had gone into Sabine once for water when Dick Hollister was
marshal.
Hollister was a saturnine chap, who wore a heavy Colt with seven
notches in the handle, each notch meant for some beggar he had been
forced to perforate in the course of his strenuous career. He was
accounted one of the most fearless and able marshals in Texas. One
morning he visited the _Flying Star_, apparently looking for a man he
wanted for a certain episode in horses. He swaggered about the decks
with his Colt in full view, and caused so much interest that he
impeded the work.
Johnny spoke softly to him--he always had a soft way of speaking--and
told him he must get ashore. The marshal turned and gazed at the little
"squarehead" in disdain; but Captain Johnny, who was sitting on his
hatch-combing, looked up with gentle gray eyes and pointed to the jetty.
"You get avay--get oudt wid you, my friend. I don't got no time fer
wastin' wid circus-actor mens wid funny fringes and artillery dragging
mid dere waist belts--git!"
And as the marshal didn't move, Johnny shied a coiled line at him,
hitting him somewhat violently in the body.
Instantly Hollister drew his Colt.
"You blamed little shrimp! if you do that again I'll plug you," he said
quietly, wiping the fish scales and salt water from his clothes. "Don't
make any mistake; I'm not your friend."
Captain Johnny was especially blue and sad that morning, so he gazed at
the marshal, while his hand reached for a heavy sinker.
"If you ain't my friend, fire away not; if you are mine friend, you
shoot me, for I'm tired enough wid dis business, an' I don't vant do be
livin' always, forever, yet. Shoot, mein dear friend, shoot--or if not
mine friend, den take dis!"
And he tossed the pound lead with such precision that it stretched
Hollister flat upon the deck before he could take good aim to do more
than rip the collar off Johnny's coat with his fire. When he came to,
Johnny was bathing his head where the sinker had cut him, and pouring
good whisky down his throat.