THE MISSING BOAT
There was nothing to be done except to wait for another wireless call
for help from the unseen vessel in distress. The first message included
some figures which seemed like a frantic attempt to give the latitude
and longitude of the stranger, but they were as puzzling as the rest of
it.
"That wireless operator must be rattled, whoever he is," said one of
the liner's officers. "Maybe his coat-tails are on fire."
Beckoning David to follow him to the chart room he added, with a
gesture of dismay:
"Here _we_ are, and I'm blessed if _his_ figures don't put him
somewhere in the middle of Canada, high and dry on a mountain range. As
if we didn't have troubles enough!"
Captain Thrasher was irritable for the first time in this ill-fated
voyage of the _Roanoke_, as he exclaimed from the bridge:
"I can't go in search of the confounded lunatic even if he is afire.
What right has he to ask help of me when my bows are caved in like an
old hat, with no chance at all of getting under way before night, and
my ship half full of water? I'm trying to find help myself."
It was perhaps a half hour later when another message came winging
its way through space. Captain Thrasher read it aloud, with frowning
earnestness:
_Fire spreading aft. Must abandon ship before long. Lives in
danger. Help! Help!_
The figures of latitude and longitude were repeated at the end of the
message, and the previous mistakes corrected. The chart showed that the
burning vessel lay about forty miles to the south-east of the helpless
_Roanoke_.
"Why doesn't he say who and what he is?" growled Captain Thrasher. "If
he is a big passenger steamer he _is_ in a bad fix and no mistake. Tell
the operator to ask him more about it, quick. And tell him we are in
no shape to go after him. My own people have to come first."
Captain Thrasher was more anxious than surprised. He had long since
learned that nothing was too improbable to happen at sea, and he took
it almost as a matter of course that collision and fire should occur
fifty miles apart in the same twenty-four hours. It went sorely against
his training to leave these other victims of disaster to shift for
themselves, and he walked the bridge with restless tread until a third
message was brought to him. It read:
_Yacht "Restless." New York for Cherbourg. Owner on board. This
may be last message. No hope of saving vessel. For God's sake pick
us up._
"I have seen that steamer somewhere in port," said Captain Thrasher.
"She must carry a crew of forty or fifty men. Well, I can't pick 'em up
if the gilt-edged owner sends me a million dollars by wireless. Give
them our position again and tell them we will keep a sharp lookout for
their boats till nightfall and maybe longer."
As if in answer to the captain's words a final call came from the
_Restless_:
_Owner give you million dollars to come at once. Good-by. I'm off._
"He's a cheerful sport, that wireless gentleman," observed Captain
Thrasher. "But I wonder if he got our position. I'm afraid not. I pray
the good Lord their boats got away in time."
While the liner was by no means out of danger, the situation of the
_Restless_ people fairly tore at the captain's heartstrings. He was not
a man to confess himself beaten in any crisis without trying to find a
way out. He pored over the charts, studied the weather signs, tugged at
his beard, and muttered savagely to himself. But he did not decide to
act until the fog had vanished before a pleasant breeze in the early
afternoon. The sun came out and the sea danced blue to the far horizon.
Then the captain delivered his orders with stern directness. Calling
the third officer, he said:
"Mr. Briggs, you will take the number three boat and stand about
fifteen miles to the sou'-east. If the _Restless_ boats are heading
for us, you should be able to pick them up before nightfall and show
them the way. Otherwise they may miss us. I shall expect you aboard by
nine o'clock, at the latest. Watch for our rockets."
Mr. Briggs saluted, and mustered his crew. David Downes belonged in the
number three boat, and Mr. Briggs grinned as the lad hurried up. He
had not forgotten the trip to the wreck of the _Pilgrim_. As the boat
was lowered, Captain Thrasher gazed grimly overside, realizing that he
might need all his men and boats before night. But he had staked his
judgment on being able to keep the liner afloat, and he was ready to
face results without flinching.
The breeze dimpled the lazy swells and sail was hoisted in the boat.
The men lounged on the thwarts while the stout craft bore away to the
southward, and David fell to thinking of that other rescue during his
first voyage. This was like a summer pleasure cruise with no danger
in sight. Mr. Briggs at the tiller took a different view, which was
colored by his arduous years at sea.
"There's nothing as bad as fire," said he, as if talking to himself. "A
crew thinks it can master it until it is too late to get away in any
kind of shape. I was in a bark that burned and my boat was adrift a
week, without food or water to speak of. We never thought of quitting
ship till the decks blew up and we had to go overboard, head first."
"This wireless is like talkin' to the bloomin' ghosts of dead men,"
muttered an English seaman. "You cawn't make me believe there's any
burnin' vessel out 'ere till I sees it. We might as well go chasin' a
bad dream, that's wot it is."
The crew became silent, while the boat hissed through the long seas,
and the black hull of the _Roanoke_ dropped lower and lower behind
them. Wireless telegraphy was too recent an aid to sea-faring to seem
real to these simple sailors; this was the first time its workings had
touched their lives, and they were not ready to take the burning yacht
on faith unseen.
After three hours had slid past Mr. Briggs began to sweep the sea with
his glasses, standing in the stern-sheets, with the tiller between
his knees. He had run down his fifteen miles of southing, but the blue
horizon line was without a speck to mar it.
He decided to risk stretching his orders a bit by keeping on his course
for another hour or so. The breeze still held and he could stand back
for the _Roanoke_ with free sheets and oars out. He knew that if the
boats of the _Restless_ should drift beyond the steamer lanes or
trans-Atlantic routes, days and even weeks might pass without their
being sighted or picked up.
The perplexed officer was on the point of giving up the search when his
keen eye caught sight of a faint smudge between sea and sky. It looked
like a tiny fragment of cloud, but it might be smoke. He ordered his
men to their oars, and the boat increased her speed.
"If it is a steamer's smoke she may have rescued them," said he; "if
not, it may be the yacht, still afloat."
The ashen-colored smudge of smoke grew in size as they steered toward
it until it became a trailing banner.
"No funnels could make all that mess," shouted Mr. Briggs, as he
flourished his glasses. "That is the bonfire, and it must be pretty
near the end of it. I'm surprised that she's stayed afloat this long."
He was a good prophet, for while he stared, the smoke suddenly spread
skyward like a huge fan, hung for a moment, and then vanished, except
for tattered fringes of vapor that drifted slowly to leeward.
"That's the end of her," cried Mr. Briggs. "She blew up and sank with
one big puff. Her boats ought to be sighted before long."
There was no more thought of returning to the _Roanoke_ empty-handed.
The men rowed like mad, as if they were matched in a race for life, not
realizing that the smoke had been sighted a good ten miles away. It
was near sunset when Mr. Briggs had a glimpse of a white dot far ahead
which he took to be a boat. As they pulled nearer, he saw that it was
a life-raft covered with men who were paddling with oars and bits of
plank. It was easy work to get alongside and pass them a line in such
calm weather as this.
[Illustration: It was easy work to get alongside and pass them a line.]
The grimy, blistered men who cheered as the boat prepared to take them
aboard had no belongings to hamper the transfer. Some of them were half
naked and it was plain to read that they had left their vessel in the
most desperate haste, after fighting fire to the last moment. First
over the gunwale was a very stout derelict in dripping blue trousers,
who puffed like a porpoise as he sputtered:
"Can't swim a stroke, but floated like a cork. How's that? Me the
owner? Not on your life. I'm the wireless juggler that sent you the
holler for help. No more life on the ocean wave for Willie. I've been
eating smoke and spitting cinders since yesterday."
While this undismayed survivor babbled on as if his tongue were hung in
the middle, David was trying to drag from the raft a ragged man who lay
limp and face downward. The task was too heavy for his strength, and
with great difficulty two pairs of arms heaved and lifted until they
rolled their burden inboard. Without pausing to look him over, David
lent a hand elsewhere until the _Restless_ party, twenty strong, was
stowed aboard and the life-raft cast adrift.
Most of them were able to sit up and talk. The man who seemed to be
worst off was the first one who had been helped aboard by David. The
late chief officer of the yacht made his way toward this huddled and
senseless figure and called to Mr. Briggs:
"Here's the owner, all in a heap. Looks like his heart has gone back on
him, for he wasn't in the water more than five minutes."
As he lay propped against a thwart the owner's back was toward David
at his oar. The cadet had no idea that he had ever clapped eyes on him
before, and he listened with eager interest to the answers which the
other men gave to Mr. Briggs's questions.
"The rest of us are in two boats, somewhere to the eastward, sir," they
explained. "No, there was nobody left on board. The way it was, the
captain and them others was fightin' the fire aft, and they got cut
off from us who was driven clear up into the bows of her before we got
through. She was just a solid blaze amidships, understand, and there
was no getting back to each other. The other crowd stood it as long
as they could, and then when it was take to the water or be frizzled
where they stood, they pitched the boats over and got away. The fog
hadn't begun to lift then. They were going to lay by and wait for us,
but the blazin' heat below set her engines goin' in a kind of dying
flurry and she ran a while before she stopped for good. We couldn't
get below to stop her, and we couldn't go overboard for fear of bein'
chewed up by the screw, and so there we stuck up forward till we could
get the raft over. The two boats lost us in the fog, and you know the
rest of it."
"The owner's boy was with the captain's crowd aft. Mr. Cochran put him
in the skipper's charge when things looked desperate," explained the
mate of the _Restless_. "When Mr. Cochran got separated from the lad
and couldn't get aft to him, and saw him drift out of sight in the fog,
he just threw up his hands and went clean off his head."
"Mr. Cochran! The owner's boy!" gasped David Downes. He leaned over and
raised the pallid face of the owner of the _Restless_. Yes, although
sadly changed, it was the once pompous and lordly man of millions
who had rescued, befriended, and then forsaken him in New York. And
Arthur, the slim, delicate lad with the shy, confiding smile who had
been so fond of the cadet--poor lad, he was adrift in an open boat
beyond help from the _Roanoke's_ boat. David forgot all the resentment
he had cherished against the father, as he tried to heave him into a
more comfortable position and anxiously searched his face for signs of
life.
"He was a fine boy. Heart as big as a cork fender," said a _Restless_
seaman. "God bring him safe to port, say I. Will we be after goin' in
search of the boats, do you know?"
Mr. Briggs shook his head reluctantly. He must return to the _Roanoke_
with all haste.
"We have done all we can," he answered slowly. "Our own ship needs
us, and we are lucky to have done this much. It is awful tough on Mr.
Cochran, I know, to leave his boy adrift, but we wouldn't have one
chance in a million of finding them to-night."
These words seemed to awaken the dulled understanding of the father. He
roused from his stupor and hoarsely quavered:
"Where is Arthur? Leave the boy adrift? What did I hear? What do you
mean? There's some mistake. Look for him till you find him, I tell you.
Oh, my boy, my boy, I never meant to forsake you."
David patted him on the shoulder and wiped the clammy face with the
sleeve of his jersey. The great man was no more than a sodden lump
of sorrowing humanity, crushed and useless, and David wished that he
might somehow comfort him. Mr. Cochran had fallen back speechless and
exhausted, and he did not come to himself again until the boat was well
on her way toward the _Roanoke_. His wits were clearing, and with a
trace of his old domineering manner he addressed Mr. Briggs:
"Keep up the search until you find him, my man. Ten thousand dollars
for you and your men if you give me back my boy."
"We have been headed the other way for an hour," replied the third
officer, with pity in his voice. "I am obeying my orders. That is all I
can do."
"What? You have abandoned the yacht's boats?" Mr. Cochran almost
screamed. "Turn about with you, instantly. Don't you understand? I'll
make every man of you rich for life."
He tried to struggle to his feet, but muscular hands gripped his
heaving shoulders and he fell back lamenting:
"The hardship will kill him. What shall I say to his mother? Oh, what
shall I tell her?"
It was the first time that David had heard Arthur's mother mentioned.
He felt a deeper pang at the thought of her. But, alas, Mr. Stanley P.
Cochran had to learn in this cruel hour that his millions could not buy
a way through all difficulties. He fell to abusing the chief engineer
of the _Restless_, who crouched in front of him.
"You let the yacht run away from them," he stormed. "Why didn't you
stop your engines, you worthless, cowardly scoundrel?"
The engineer raised a pair of hands which were raw with burns, and felt
of his blistered face. With unexpected patience he responded:
"I was the last man to come on deck. I cooked the hide off me to leave
things right below. Heaven only knows what started her up again. There
was no getting down there again, you know that."
The owner once more fell to mourning.
"How can I show my face anywhere? I am saved and Arthur is lost. Why
couldn't it have been the other way?"
"He was takin' the lad abroad for a vacation trip," explained a harsh
voice in David's ear. "The sea voyage was for the lad's health, and
the old man was coaxed into pryin' himself loose from his business for
once. _We're_ sorry it _wasn't_ the swelled-up money-grubbin' swine
that went adrift instead of his boy."
Other men of the _Restless_ grunted approval of their comrade's
verdict. But David had glimpsed a new side of Mr. Cochran's nature. He
would indeed have sacrificed himself to save his son. The truth of it
was in his trembling voice, in the very pose of his drooping shoulders.
It was hard to believe that this was the father who had fairly dragged
his son away from David in the room of the hospital in New York. As Mr.
Cochran began to pull himself out of his collapse, he managed to twist
around so that he was looking up into David's face, which was in the
light thrown by a boat-lantern. For several minutes the father stared
at the tanned young seaman, as if bewildered and groping in his memory.
Then he burst out with a kind of surprised snarl:
"It's the boy that had no manners or decency, the young cub that made
me sick of him. What are you doing here, alive and well, with my son
lost and dying out yonder, lost at sea? How can such things be?"
"I helped pick you up at any rate," faltered David, taken all aback.
"And I'd gladly stay out here a week to help you find Arthur."
"_You_ safe and well!" repeated Mr. Cochran, "and my Arthur abandoned.
It's all a nightmare. It must be that."
His anger veered against Mr. Briggs, and he bombarded him with threats,
bribes, and pleadings, until the rockets from the _Roanoke_ soared into
the clear night and the yacht's people shouted at the welcome sight.
Then Mr. Cochran clutched at a new hope. He declared that he would buy
the ship if only he might persuade the captain to search for the lost
boat until he found it.
The liner was almost ready to limp on her way when the boat rejoined
her. Repairs had been made with better success than Captain Thrasher
hoped for. His anxious scrutiny convinced him that, with fair weather,
his shattered bow could withstand the sea, and he had determined
to proceed very slowly on his course toward New York. He had been
in wireless communication with two steamers, one of which stood by
until dusk, when the liner sent word that she would not transfer her
people. The captain had also told them to look out for the boats from
the burning yacht. This news was carried to Mr. Cochran, who feebly
tottered forward in breathless haste to find the commander. David saw
the bedraggled magnate swaying against the door of the captain's room
as he begged:
"But I'll reimburse the company. I don't care what it costs. What if
it does cost you your position? I'll pay you double the salary to do
nothing for the rest of your life. It's my only boy, Captain. Your ship
won't run any risk."
The voice of Captain Thrasher rose in response:
"I have said my last word. Do you think I'll stake the lives of two
thousand people against one or twenty? Go below and get some rest. I
can't talk to you to-night."
When David went aft in the late evening with the fourth officer to set
the log over the stern, the liner was vibrating to the steady thrust of
her engines, and her broad wake foamed white in the starlit darkness.
Against the rail beside them leaned a portly man, his face hidden in
the shadows. He was gazing toward the southward over the ocean which
rolled away in mystery, vast and obscure.
David answered, "Ay, ay, sir," in reply to an order, and the man at the
rail turned at sound of the lad's voice. As the mate raised his lantern
to read the log-dial, Mr. Cochran exclaimed:
"It's you again, is it? I am sorry I spoke to you as I did to-day. I
am grateful for your part in saving me and my men, and I was out of my
head, I guess."
This strangely softened mood was new to David, but his sympathetic
heart was quick to meet it, and to let bygones be bygones.
"I wish I could help you, sir," he returned. "But I am just chockfull
of hope that we will hear from Arthur. He may be picked up before we
are landed. We'll have him back again. You can bet your life on that."
The father gazed again across the darkened sea. He was leaving his only
son behind him, and all the pride of wealth and self and power had been
stripped from him. All he could think of to say as he shook hands with
David was:
"Arthur was very fond of you, and I am sorry that I came between you
two."