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A CADET OF THE BLACK STAR LINE
* * * * *
THE SCRIBNER SERIES FOR YOUNG PEOPLE
EACH WITH ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOR
BOOKS FOR BOYS
THE MODERN VIKINGS By H. H. Boyesen
WILL SHAKESPEARE'S LITTLE LAD By Imogen Clark
THE BOY SCOUT and Other Stories for Boys
STORIES FOR BOYS By Richard Harding Davis
HANS BRINKER, or The Silver Skates By Mary Mapes Dodge
THE HOOSIER SCHOOL-BOY By Edward Eggleston
THE COURT OF KING ARTHUR By William Henry Frost
WITH LEE IN VIRGINIA
WITH WOLFE IN CANADA
REDSKIN AND COWBOY
UNDER DRAKE'S FLAG, a Tale of the Spanish Main
By G. A. Henty
AT WAR WITH PONTIAC By Kirk Munroe
TOMMY TROT'S VISIT TO SANTA CLAUS and
A CAPTURED SANTA CLAUS By Thomas Nelson Page
THE FULLBACK By Lawrence Perry
BOYS OF ST. TIMOTHY'S By Arthur Stanwood Pier
KIDNAPPED
TREASURE ISLAND
BLACK ARROW By Robert Louis Stevenson
AROUND THE WORLD IN EIGHTY DAYS
A JOURNEY TO THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH
FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON
TWENTY THOUSAND LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA By Jules Verne
ON THE OLD KEARSARGE
IN THE WASP'S NEST By Cyrus Townsend Brady
THE BOY SETTLERS
THE BOYS OF FAIRPORT By Noah Brooks
THE CONSCRIPT OF ISIS By Erckmann-Chatrian
A CADET OF THE BLACK STAR LINE
THE STEAM-SHOVEL MAN By Ralph D. Paine
THE MOUNTAIN DIVIDE By Frank H. Spearman
THE STRANGE GRAY CANOE By Paul G. Tomlinson
THE ADVENTURES OF A FRESHMAN By J. L. Williams
JACK HALL, or, The School Days of an American Boy
By Robert Grant
BOOKS FOR GIRLS
THE RAIN-COAT GIRL By Jennette Lee
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES By Josephine Daskam
ROSEMARY GREENAWAY
ELSIE MARLEY By Joslyn Gray
THE HALLOWELL PARTNERSHIP By Katharine Holland Brown
MY WONDERFUL VISIT By Elizabeth Hill
SARA CREWE, or, What Happened at Miss Minchin's
A FAIR BARBARIAN By Frances Hodgson Burnett
NEXT-BESTERS By Lulah Ragsdale
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
* * * * *
[Illustration: "She can't last much longer. Lay into it, my buckos!"
[Page 22]]
A CADET OF THE BLACK STAR LINE
by
RALPH D. PAINE
Author of "College Years," "The Head Coach,"
"The Fugitive Freshman," etc.
Illustrated by George Varian
New York
Charles Scribner's Sons
1922
Copyright, 1910, by
Charles Scribner's Sons
Printed in the United States of America
[Illustration: Logo THE SCRIBNER PRESS]
CONTENTS
Chapter Page
I. Oil Upon the Waters 3
II. The Sea Waifs 23
III. The Fire-Room Gang 43
IV. Mr. Cochran's Temper 63
V. Mid Fog and Ice 83
VI. The Missing Boat 102
VII. The Bonds of Sympathy 121
VIII. Yankee Topsails 140
IX. Captain Bracewell's Ship 161
X. The Call of Duty 179
ILLUSTRATIONS
"She can't last much longer. Lay into it, my buckos!" _Frontispiece_
Facing page
Some one was kneeling on his chest, with a choking grip on
his neck 50
It was easy work to get alongside and pass them a line 110
David gazed down at the white deck of the _Sea Witch_ 194
A CADET OF THE BLACK STAR LINE
CHAPTER I
OIL UPON THE WATERS
The strength of fifteen thousand horses was driving the great Black
Star liner _Roanoke_ across the Atlantic toward New York. Her promenade
decks, as long as a city block, swarmed with cabin passengers, while
below them a thousand immigrants enjoyed the salty wind that swept
around the bow. Far above these noisy throngs towered the liner's
bridge as a little world set apart by itself. Full seventy feet from
the sea this airy platform spanned the ship, so remote that the
talk and laughter of the decks came to it only as a low murmur. The
passengers were forbidden to climb to the bridge, and they seldom
thought of the quiet men in blue who, two at a time, were always
pacing that canvas-screened pathway to guide the _Roanoke_ to port.
Midway of the bridge was the wheel-house, in which a rugged
quartermaster seemed to be playing with the spokes set round a small
brass rim while he kept his eyes on the swaying compass card before
him. The huge liner responded like a well-bitted horse to the touch of
the bridle rein, for the power of steam had been set at work to move
the ponderous rudder, an eighth of a mile away.
A lad of seventeen years was cleaning the brasswork in the wheel-house.
Trimly clad in blue, his taut jersey was lettered across the chest
with the word CADET. When in a cheerful mood he was as wholesome and
sailorly a youngster to look at as you could have found afloat, but
now he was plainly discontented with his task as with sullen frown and
peevish haste he finished rubbing the speaking-tubes with cotton waste.
Then as he caught up his kit he burst out:
"If my seafaring father could have lived to watch me at this fool kind
of work, he'd have been disgusted. I might better be a bell-boy in a
hotel ashore at double the wages."
The quartermaster uneasily shifted his grip on the wheel and growled:
"The old man's on the bridge. No talkin' in here. Go below and tell
your troubles to your little playmates, sonny."
Young David Downes went slowly down the stairway that led to the boat
deck, but his loafing gait was quickened by a strong voice in his ear:
"Step lively, there. Another soft-baked landsman that has made up his
mind to quit us, eh?"
The youth flushed as he flattened himself against the deck house to
make room for the captain of the liner who had shrewdly read the
cadet's thoughts. As he swung into the doorway of his room the brown
and bearded commander flung back with a contemptuous snort: "Like all
the rest of them--_no good_!"
It was the first time that Captain Thrasher had thought it worth while
to speak to the humble cadet who was beneath notice among the four
hundred men that made up the crew of the _Roanoke_. From afar, David
had viewed this deep-water despot with awe and dislike, thinking him
as brutal as he was overbearing. Even now, as he scurried past the
captain's room, he heard him say to one of the officers:
"Take the irons off the worthless hounds, and if they refuse duty again
I will come down to the fire room and make them fit for the hospital."
The cadet shook his fist at the captain's door and moved on to join
his companions in the fore part of the ship. He was in open rebellion
against the life he had chosen only a month before. Bereft of his
parents, he had lived with an uncle in New York while he plodded
through his grammar-school years, after which he was turned out to
shift for himself. He had found a place as a "strong and willing boy"
in a wholesale dry-goods store, but his early boyhood memories recalled
a father at sea in command of a stately square-rigger, and the love
of the calling was in his blood. There were almost no more blue-water
Yankee sailing ships and sailors, however, and small chance for an
ambitious American boy afloat.
Restlessly haunting the wharves in his leisure hours, David had
happened to discover that the famous Black Star Line steamers were
compelled by act of Congress to carry a certain number of apprentices
or "cadets," to be trained until they were fit for berths as junior
officers. The news had fired him with eagerness for one of these
appointments. But for weeks he faced the cruel placard on the door of
the marine superintendent's office:
NO CADETS WANTED TO-DAY
At last, and he could hardly believe his eyes, when he hurried down
from the Broadway store during the noon hour, the sign had been changed
to read:
TWO CADETS WANTED
Partly because he was the son of a ship-master and partly because of
his frank and manly bearing, David Downes was asked for his references,
and a few days later he received orders to join the _Roanoke_ over the
heads of thirty-odd applicants. Now he was completing his first round
voyage and, alas! he had almost decided to forsake the sea. He was
ready to talk about his grievances with the four other cadets of his
watch whom he found in their tiny mess room up under the bow.
"I just heard the old man threaten to half kill a couple of firemen,"
angrily cried David. "He is a great big bully. Why, my father commanded
a vessel for thirty years without ever striking a seaman. Mighty little
I'll ever learn about real seafaring aboard this marine hotel. All you
have to do is head her for her port and the engines do the rest. Yet
the captain thinks he's a little tin god in brass buttons and gold
braid."
An older cadet, who was in his second year aboard the liner, eyed the
heated youngster with a grim smile, but only observed:
"You must stay in steam if you want to make a living at sea, Davy. And
as for Captain Stephen Thrasher--well, you'll know more after a few
voyages."
A chubby, rosy lad dangled his short legs from a bunk and grinned
approval of David's mutiny as he broke in:
"There won't be any more voyages for _this_ bold sailor boy. Acting as
chambermaid for paint and brasswork doesn't fill me with any wild love
for the romance of the sea. We were led aboard under false pretences,
hey, David?"
"Me, too," put in another cadet. "I'm going to make three hops down the
gangway as soon as we tie up in New York."
"So I am the only cadet in this watch with sand enough to stick it
out," said their elder. "You _are_ a mushy lot, you are. I'm going on
deck to find a _man_ to talk to."
As the door slammed behind him, David Downes moodily observed:
"He has no ambition, that's what's the matter with _him_." But after
a while David grew tired of the chatter and horse-play of the mess
room and went on deck to think over the problem he must work out for
himself. Was it lack of "sand" that made him ready to quit the calling
he had longed for all his life? Would he not regret the chance after he
had thrown it away? But the life around him was nothing at all like the
pictures of his dreams, and he was too much of a boy to look beyond the
present. His ideas of the sea were colored through and through by the
memories of his father's career. He had come to hate this ugly steel
monster crammed with coal and engines, which ate up her three thousand
miles like an express train.
As he leaned against the rail, staring sadly out to sea, the sunlight
flashed into snowy whiteness the distant royals and top-gallant sails
of a square-rigger beating to the westward under a foreign flag. The
boy's eyes filled with tears of genuine homesickness. Yonder was a
ship worthy of the name, such as he longed to be in, but there was no
place in her kind for him or his countrymen. A brown paw smote David's
shoulder, and he turned to see the German bos'n. The cadet brushed a
hand across his eyes, ashamed of his emotion, but the kind-hearted old
seaman chuckled:
"Vat is it, Mister Downes? You vas sore on the skipper and the ship,
so?"
David answered with a little break in his voice:
"It is all so different from what I expected, Peter."
"You stay mit us maybe a dozen or six voyages," returned the other,
"and you guess again, boy. I did not t'ink you vas a quitter."
"But this isn't like going to sea at all," protested David.
"You mean it ist not a big man's work?" shouted the bos'n. "Mein Gott,
boy, it vas full up mit splendid kinds of seamanship, what that old
bundle of sticks and canvas out yonder never heard about. I know. I vas
in sailin' vessels twenty years."
The bos'n waved a scornful hand at the passing ship. But David could
not be convinced by empty words, and long after the bos'n had left him,
he wistfully watched the square-rigger slide under the horizon, like a
speck of drifting cloud.
There had been bright skies and smooth seas during the outward passage
to Dover and Antwerp, and although the season was early spring the
_Roanoke_ had reached mid-ocean on her return voyage before the smiling
weather shifted. When David was roused out to stand his four-hour
watch at midnight, the liner was plunging into head seas which broke
over the forward deck and were swept aft by a gale that hurled the
spray against her bridge like rain. The cadet had to fight his way to
the boat deck to report to the chief officer. Climbing to the bridge
he found Captain Thrasher clinging to the railing, a huge and uncouth
figure in dripping oil-skins. It was impossible to see overside in the
inky darkness, while the clamor of wind and sea and the pelting fury of
spray made speech impossible.
The cadet crouched in the lee of the wheel-house while the night
dragged on, now and then scrambling below on errands of duty until four
o'clock sounded on the ship's bell. Then he went below, drenched and
shivering, to lie awake for some time and feel the great ship rear and
tremble to the shock of the charging seas.
When he went on deck in daylight, he was amazed to find the _Roanoke_
making no more than half speed against the storm. The white-crested
combers were towering higher than her sides, and as he started to
cross the well deck a wall of green water crashed over the bow, picked
him up, and tossed him against a hatch, where he clung bruised and
strangling until the torrent passed. It was the sturdy bos'n who
crawled forward and fetched the boy away from the ring-bolt to which he
was hanging like a barnacle. As soon as he had gained shelter, David
gasped:
"Did you ever see a storm as bad as this, Peter?"
"It is a smart gale of wind," spluttered the bos'n, "and two of our
boats vas washed away like they vas chips already. But maybe she get
worse by night."
On his reeling bridge Captain Thrasher still held his post, after an
all-night vigil. The cadet was cheered at the sight of this grim and
silent figure, no longer a "fair-weather sailor," but the master of the
liner, doing his duty as it came to him, braced to meet any crisis. The
men were going about their work as usual, and David began cleaning the
salt-stained brass in the wheel-house.
When he looked out again, the chief officer was waving his arm toward
the dim, gray skyline, and at sight of David he beckoned the lad to
fetch him his marine glasses. Captain Thrasher also clawed his way to
the windward side of the bridge and stared hard at the sea. The two men
shouted in each other's ears, then resumed their careful scrutiny of
the tempest-torn ocean in which David could see nothing but the racing
billows. Presently the chief officer shook his head and folded his arms
as if there was nothing more to be said or done.
After a while David made out a brown patch of something which was
tossed into view for an instant and then vanished as if it would never
come up again. If it were a wreck it seemed impossible that any one
could be left alive in such weather as this. As the _Roanoke_ forged
slowly ahead, the drifting object grew more distinct. With a pair of
glasses from the rack in the wheel-house, David fancied he could make
out some kind of a signal streaming from the splintered stump of a
mast. Captain Thrasher was pulling at his brown beard with nervous
hands, but he did not stir from his place on the bridge. Presently he
asked David to call the third officer. There was a consultation, and
fragments of speech were blown to the cadet's eager ears: "No use in
trying to get a boat out.... God help the poor souls ... she'll founder
before night...."
Could it be that the liner would make no effort to rescue the crew of
this sinking vessel, thought David. Was this the kind of seamanship
a man learned in steamers? He hated Captain Thrasher with sudden,
white-hot anger. He was only a youngster, but he was ready to risk his
life, just as his father would have done before him. And still the
liner struggled on her course without sign of veering toward the wreck
whose deck seemed level with the sea.
The forlorn hulk was dropping astern when Captain Thrasher buffeted
his way to the wheel-house and stood by a speaking-tube. As if he were
working out some difficult problem with himself, he hesitated, and said
aloud:
"It is the only chance. But I'm afraid the vessel yonder can't live
long enough to let me try it."
The orders he sent below had to do with tanks, valves, pipes, and
strainers. David could not make head or tail of it. What had the
engineer's department to do with saving life in time of shipwreck?
Stout-hearted sailors and a life-boat were needed to show what
Anglo-Saxon courage meant. The cadet ran to the side and looked back
at the wreck. He was sure that he could make out two or three people
on top of her after deck house, and others clustered far forward. They
might be dead for all he knew, but the pitiful distress signal beckoned
to the liner as if it were a spoken message. When David went off watch
he found a group of cadets as angry and impatient as himself.
"He ought to have sent a boat away two hours ago," cried one.
"I'd volunteer in a minute," exclaimed another. "The old man's lost his
nerve."
The bos'n was passing and halted to roar:
"Hold your tongues, you know-noddings, you. A boat would be smashed
against our side like egg-shells and lose all our people. If the wedder
don't moderate pretty quick, it vas good-by and Davy Jones's locker for
them poor fellers."
But the cadets soon saw that Captain Thrasher was not running away from
the wreck, even though he was not trying to send aid. The _Roanoke_
was hovering to leeward as if waiting for something to happen. It
was heart-breaking to watch the last hours of the doomed vessel. At
last Captain Thrasher was ready to try his own way of sending help.
The oldest cadet who was in charge of the signal locker came on deck
with an armful of bunting. One by one he bent the bright flags to a
halliard; they crept aloft, broke out of stops, and snapped in the
wind. David, who had studied the international code in spare hours, was
able to read the message:
_Will stand by to give you assistance._
Only the iron discipline that ruled the liner from bridge to fire room
kept the cadets from cheering. David expected to see a boat dropped
from the lofty davits, but there were no signs of activity along the
liner's streaming decks. It looked as if Captain Thrasher would let
those helpless people drown before his eyes.
After a little the _Roanoke_ began to swing very slowly off her course.
Then as the seas began to smash against her weather side, she rolled
until it seemed as if her funnels must be jerked out by the roots.
Inch by inch, however, she crept onward along the arc of a mile-wide
circle of which the wreck was the centre. Even now David did not at
all understand what the captain was trying to do. The great circle had
been half-way covered before the cadet happened to notice that a band
of smoother water was stretching to leeward of the steamer, and that as
if by a miracle the huge combers were ceasing to break. An eddying gust
brought him a strong smell of oil, and he went to the rail and stared
down at the sea. The _Roanoke_ heaved up her black side until he saw
smears of a yellow liquid trickle from several pipes, and spread out
over the frothing billows in shimmering sheets.
Slowly the _Roanoke_ plunged and rolled on her circular course until
she had ringed the wreck with a streak of oily calm. But still no
efforts were made to attempt a rescue. The night was not far off.
The gray sky was dusky and the horizon was shutting down nearer and
nearer in mist and murk. Once more the liner swung her head around as
if to steer a smaller circle about the helpless craft. In an agony
of impatience David was praying that she might stay afloat a little
longer. Clear around this second and smaller circuit the liner wallowed
until two rings of oil-streaked calm were wrapped around the wreck. Now
surely, Captain Thrasher would risk sending a boat. But the bearded
commander gave no orders and only shook his head now and then, as if
arguing with himself.
Then for the third and last time the _Roanoke_ began to weave a
path around the water-logged hulk, which was so close at hand that
the castaways could be counted. One, two, three aft, and three more
sprawled up in the bow. One or two of them were waving their arms in
feeble signals for help. A great sea washed over them, and one vanished
forever. It was cruel beyond words for those who were left alone to
have to watch the liner circle them time after time.
The stormy twilight was deepening into night when this third or inner
circle was completed. The onset of the seas was somewhat broken when
it met the outside ring of oil. Then rushing onward, the diminished
breakers came to the second protecting streak and their menace was
still further lessened. Once more the sea moved on to attack the wreck,
and coming to the third floating barrier the combers toppled over in
harmless surf, such as that which washes the beach on a summer day when
the wind is off shore.
It was possible now for the first time to launch a boat from the lee
side of the liner, if the help so carefully and shrewdly planned had
not come too late. Landlubber though he was, and convinced beforehand
that there was no room for seamanship aboard a steamer, David Downes
began to perceive the fact that Captain Thrasher knew how to meet
problems which would have baffled a seaman of the old school. But even
while the third officer was calling the men to one of the leeward
boats, the sodden wreck dove from view and rose so sluggishly that it
was plain to see her life was nearly done. The hearts of those who
looked at her almost ceased to beat. It could not be that she was going
to drown with help so near. As the shadows deepened across the leaden
sea, David forgot that he was only a cadet, forgot the discipline that
had taught him to think only of his own duties, and rushing toward the
boat he called to the third officer:
"Oh, Mr. Briggs, can't I have an oar? I can pull a man's weight in the
boat. Please let me go with you."
The ruddy mate spun on his heel and glared at the boy as if about to
knock him down. Just then a Norwegian seaman hung back, muttering to
himself as if not at all anxious to join this forlorn hope. The mate
glanced from him to the flushed face and quivering lip of the stalwart
lad. Mr. Briggs was an American, and in this moment blood was thicker
than water.
"Pile in amidships," said he. "You are my kind, youngster."
Mr. Briggs shoved the Norwegian headlong, and David leaped into the
boat just as the creaking falls began to lower her from the davits. The
boat swung between sea and sky as the liner rolled far down to leeward
and back again. Then in a smother of broken water the stout life-boat
met the rising sea, the automatic tackle set her free, and she was
shoved away in the nick of time to escape being shattered against the
steamer.
As the seven seamen and the cadet tugged madly at the sweeps and the
boat climbed the slope of a green swell, Mr. Briggs shouted:
"She can't last much longer. Lay into it, my buckos. Give it to her.
There's a woman on board, God bless her. I can see her skirt. No, it's
a little girl. She's lashed aft with the skipper. Now break your backs.
H-e-a-v-e a-l-l!"