A COUNCIL OF WAR
"We are dead men," repeated Riggs, smiling grimly. "We'll never see
another day. This slick devil will be back in Manila or up the China
coast, praying his way out of the country with the gold cached somewhere
to wait until he comes for it. He can take enough of it with him to buy a
schooner--part of it is in Bank of England notes--but the Rev. Luther
Meeker will never be heard from again, because _he_ sailed in the
_Kut Sang_."
"He won't!" I raged, testing the weight of the belaying-pin. "I'll batter
my way out of here and take him by the throat if it's the last act of my
life! If you won't fight, I will!"
I braced my feet on the plunging deck of the forecastle and shook my head
like a maddened animal. The seas outside assailed our bows, and
their fury thrilled me, and seemed a part of my desire to slay. I tore
off my jacket and started for the scuttle with the belaying-pin gripped
in my hand, bent on battering down the barrier which kept us from the
upper deck.
"Not that," said Riggs, seizing me. "You'll have them down upon us, or
they'll turn the firehose down the scuttle and drown us like rats. I've
broken too many mutinies, Mr. Trenholm. You can't do that."
"But let's do something," I pleaded. "We might as well be planning
something as to be sitting here weeping over what has happened."
We stopped to listen as the hammering between decks grew louder. The
pirates were smashing the chests that held the gold, and to us in our
prison the noise of their work was ominous--as if they were building a
gallows and we were condemned men.
"They've got it," said Riggs. "When they've stowed the boats with it
they'll open her sea-valves, and down we'll go. If there was a chance in
the world, Mr. Trenholm, I'd fight; but, being a landsman, you don't
understand how these things work out. They are probably driving her
toward the coast now--we've been making an easting, as I can tell from
her roll, and, as they'll be well off the steamer-lanes by daylight, they
may wait until they can see where they will make their landing.
"But, if we give them trouble, they'll make sure of putting us out of the
way before they abandon ship. Take it calm, and we may see a way out of
it; but there is nothing to gain by opening the fight again, fixed as we
are."
"It's a dismal outlook," I confessed, impressed by his coolness in spite
of his surrender to the situation.
"You may be right, but if you will put your wits to work you may see a
way."
"If I had any cartridges--"
"Cartridges! Have you a pistol?"
He drew a heavy revolver from his pocket and dropped the empty cylinder
into his palm, and I gave a roar of joy at the sight of it, for I knew
that it would take the bullets I had found in Harris's pocket.
"A forty-four! Here! These will fit!" and I plucked a handful of the
precious cartridges which were suddenly transformed from so much useless
lead and powder into deadly missiles which might yet save our lives and
the ship.
"Our luck has turned!" I cried, slapping him on the back and putting six
of the greasy slugs into the cylinder and snapping it back into position.
"We can fight them now, captain. Only let me get sight on one of those
murderers and I'll drill him--Thirkle and Buckrow and the whole lot of
'em!"
"You won't get the chance," he said. "They are too wise to come prowling
around if there is a chance of getting a bullet, and they won't bother
their heads with us now--it's the gold they want--there they go again."
There was a shot on deck, and then we heard heavy shoes pounding over the
deck and a wild yell over our heads as a man got a bullet or jumped into
the sea.
I ran up the companion to the scuttle-hood and listened, and, with
the pistol ready, tried to make out what was going on. I could hear
Thirkle calling to Petrak, and then the screaming of Chinese, shots in
rapid succession, and the patter of bare feet scampering on the iron
deck-plates.
In a few minutes the battle seemed to be transferred to the
superstructure and the after-deck, and from then until the ports of the
forecastle became gray disks in the false dawn there was scarcely a
quarter of an hour that was not marked by a pistol-shot or the death-cry
of a victim. We knew it was a ruthless slaughter, and that Thirkle was
working out the ancient creed that dead men tell no tales.
I lingered in the scuttle, and tried my luck on it with the broken knife,
hoping that I might cut an aperture which would admit the muzzle of the
pistol, or my hand, so that I might grasp the chains on the outside and
pull them free. After an hour or more of labour I managed to split away a
small piece of board, but in the dim light from the swaying slush-lamp I
made slow progress.
In my cramped position I had to hold fast with one hand, and, swaying
with the motion of the ship, work away splinters from the thick panel
which moved from right to left in an iron groove. The scuttle was built
on an iron frame, securely bolted to the deck, and I knew it could resist
any attempt we might make to break it off by working in the narrow
companion, which was not wide enough for two men.
It was weary work, for the smoke below sought an outlet up the passage
and made my eyes ache; the wind that whirled through the cracks of the
hood brought spray with it and the water dripped constantly, and the
thunder of an occasional sea as it swept the forecastle-head made such a
dreadful noise that I was sure each visitation meant that we were
overwhelmed.
Captain Riggs crawled up to where I was, and asked me if I had solved the
problem of getting out.
"I don't guess you'll make much of a job of it," he whispered. "It's an
even bet they've got a ton of chain lashed over the hood; and, if ye dug
through the wood, ye'd need a file after that. Come on down and have a
bite. I found a sack of old sea-biscuit and a bottle of water stowed in
one of the spare bunks."
I went below with him, and we made a sorry meal of mouldy biscuit that
had been in the forecastle a year or more; and shared the water, which
was satisfying--even though warm, greasy, and unpalatable. Rajah had gone
to sleep in an upper bunk, and we ate in silence for a few minutes.
I was on the verge of despair as I saw that Riggs had given up, in spite
of my efforts to hearten him. After the stories he had been telling that
very evening about mutinies and wrecks and fights against odds, it seemed
unbelievable that he should submit so tamely to Thirkle and his men. As
he sat opposite me on the sea-chest and ate mechanically of the broken
bits of biscuits, I observed him closely, and it seemed that he had aged
twenty years in the last few hours.
His hair seemed whiter, his face grayer, the lines in his cheeks and
forehead deeper, and his chin and jaw had lost their firm set which
proved him a commander of men. As I considered all these things and saw
the pity of it I forgot his age and was angered. I was bound to make him
do something--put my youth and strength and hopefulness and fighting
spirit with his experience and knowledge of ships and find a way out.
I determined to make him do something, anything, rather than mope and
whine, even if I had to threaten him with his own pistol, which I had
taken from him without so much as asking him for it. He didn't want it,
anyway.
"Now, Captain Riggs," I began, "I know you have been a fighter all your
life, and I know you can suggest something better than--"
"That's right," he broke in, raising his hand to stop me. "I've lived too
long, and my fighting days are over. My years have come upon me all at
once, and they are a burden--too much of a burden to bear and fight, too.
I am weary from fighting. I'm older than I thought I was. I have been in
these waters too long, and these latitudes take the mettle out of a man
when he has reached my age.
"I never felt it as I do now, and I guess the owners knew it, and that's
why I didn't get one of their new boats. But this ain't my fault, Mr.
Trenholm. Don't you see it ain't my fault? I should have known what was
aboard, and then I could have been prepared. As it is, this thing is too
big for me now, and I'm ready to strike my colours. It's my honour that
frets me now."
"Your honour! It wouldn't be the first ship that's been lost, captain,
even if it is the first one you have lost, and--"
"I know what you are thinking of, boy. You think I'm afraid. Well, I'm
ready to die--that's nothing. If I thought I could save you and Rajah
here, I'd do it--it is my duty. I've been in harder places than this, and
I was a hard man to handle; and I've had my battles and mutinies and
worse, some of 'em before ye were born, lad. They all weigh me down now,
and it's not what's ahead of me that's fretting me now; but what's after
me--the things they'll say, some of 'em who don't know me well. Don't you
see, they'll think I made off with the gold?"
I hadn't considered the case in that light; but now I saw that he was
worrying of what would be said, while I was thinking only of my life--he
considered that he would lose life and honour; and, as he still had his
New England conscience, honour weighed deeper in his scales. I felt
ashamed that I had planned to make his last hours harder.
"I know how it will go," he said. "It's been done and told of before, and
the master is always blamed; and this is no decent end for me. I'm known
from Saddle Rocks to Kennebunkport as a brave man and a capable master,
even if old.
"I stayed out here because I had a good billet with the Red Funnel people
up to the time the Japs bought their ships. Then I took the _Kut Sang_,
only for a year it was to be; but I held on longer, waiting to get a big
ship to take back home, and then quit.
"My boy is a lawyer in Bangor--and smart, too--and I've got a daughter a
schoolma'am in Boston, and they've both been begging me to come home; but
somehow I hated to go back since my wife died.
"Mr. Trenholm, I don't want to bother you with all this now; but it's no
decent end for me, I say. All the men scattered over the globe to-day,
some that went as boys with me, will have to hear old man Riggs turned
pirate at the last and scuttled his own ship. That's how it will go, boy,
and you can't understand. Fight! I'd walk into hell in my bare feet, with
never a thought of the way back, if I could die with an honest name--but
this ain't no way for me to go, along with a passel o' gold!"
"Then, if you are concerned about what will be said of the mystery of the
loss of the _Kut Sang_, there must be a way to let the world know of our
end and the fate that overtook the ship, and at the same time a chance of
making trouble for our Mr. Thirkle after we are gone."
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"Some message," I said, more to find something to interest him and
brighten him. "The story of the _Kut Sang_ and the Rev. Luther Meeker,
Thirkle, the Devil's Admiral, or whatever he is called, should be told;
and, as it is my business to deal in information, I can write it all
down, and we will seal it in this bottle and set it adrift. How's that,
captain?"
"A good scheme," he said, smiling at me. "The very thing, Mr. Trenholm. I
have some papers and envelopes here in my jacket, and a stub of
pencil for the log-book, and while you are at your writing I'll fashion a
stopper for the bottle and a buoy."
We poured out the last of the water in a pannikin and kept it for Rajah,
and I ripped open a couple of envelopes and set to work on them with a
stub of pencil, while Captain Riggs took my knife and began to whittle a
piece of board.
I put down briefly but clearly the story of how the Rev. Luther Meeker,
and Buckrow, Long Jim, and Petrak came aboard the _Kut Sang_, giving
their descriptions as well as I could remember. Then I told of the
killing of Trego, and all that had happened aboard the steamer, and about
the gold and the plight we were in, "skeletonizing" the narrative, much
as if it were to be filed as a news-cable.
Then I put down the names and addresses of my relatives, and those of
Captain Riggs. It was a queer job, writing one's own obituary in the
forecastle of the old _Kut Sang_, putting down the names of streets in
Boston and Bangor and San Francisco, and making our wills--which we did
when we found the space at our disposal getting scant, although I had
little enough to give or bequeath, chiefly a pair of Chinese jingals and
a good pair of riding-boots with silver spurs.
It took a deal of time, for I wrote in the smallest possible characters,
and was careful to make them legible--no small task, considering that the
vessel was still rolling and pitching, although it grew calmer toward
morning.
We did not have any method of measuring the time, for no bells were
struck--at least, none that we heard--and Captain Riggs did not have his
watch with him, for he had not been back to his cabin from the time I saw
him leave it with Harris to explore the mysterious cargo in the
storeroom.
As I wrote I was hammering my brains for some solution of the problem
before us; for, although I took pains to make the story complete, I was
hoping that Captain Riggs would finally hit upon some scheme which would
release us from the forecastle and give an opportunity to do battle with
our captors.
I took a measure of pride in writing the story, too, for I knew there was
a good chance that it might be my last, and I had visions of it being
printed in the newspapers some day.
"I'll cut a little pennant from Rajah's _sarong_," said Riggs with a
grin, and he reached up to the sleeping boy and hacked off a bit of his
skirtlike garb. "We'll make a fancy job of it, Mr. Trenholm, while we're
at it. The backs of those sheets, with the stamps and postmarks and the
address to me, will be good proof that it is not a hoax.
"Folks don't put much stock in bottles washed up by the sea these days,
and we'll have to offer a reward for having it forwarded, say to my son,
and then he'll be sure. I guess he'd give a hundred dollars to know what
become of his old daddy--and the girl, too. Put that in, Mr. Trenholm."
"And I'll put in as a sort of P.S. that Captain Riggs intends to make a
fight for his ship as soon as he has signed this," I said.
"You better not put that in," he said wearily. "It ain't so, and I'm
something of a churchman, even if it was only to please the wife. I'm no
hypocrite, and I don't want to have anything in that sounds like a brag.
Just sign it and let it go at that."
"No, I'll put that in," I insisted, looking at him seriously. "I won't
have them say after getting this that you gave up and took your fate too
easily, which they might. You have been a fighter all your life, and I
know you don't intend to quit now.
"Here is what I'll say: 'Captain Riggs wishes it understood that, after
setting this message adrift, he and Trenholm and Rajah determined to die
fighting rather than go to their doom at the pleasure of Thirkle and his
men. As this is launched upon the waters of the China Sea, the whole
story is not told, and we are confident that the Devil's Admiral and some
of his men will yet die.'"
"Oh, that sounds like a boy, Mr. Trenholm--you better leave it out."
"No, sir. This is my story, and you will please sign it now for what it
is worth."
"It isn't the truth," he demurred.
"But it is," I said; and he signed it, and I knew that he was taking new
hope.
He unscrewed one of the ports to leeward, and, although we let much water
into the forecastle, he threw the bottle out at an opportune moment,
and then slammed the port shut again.
"Mr. Trenholm," he said, as he climbed down from the top bunk,
dripping and smiling, "I guess you were right about what you wrote there
last--I calculate that there's a bit of a fight left in Captain Riggs
yet, although I don't for the life of me see what chance I've got of
fighting anybody. But, if you're ready to try, I'm ready to see what can
be done."
"I knew it, captain!" I cried, taking his hand, "If you'll do the
planning I'll do the work, and we'll beat them yet."