A STRANGE LIFE BOAT
It was night, a night of storm. The wind had come sweeping in from the
sea, bringing rain and rolling waves. It was not a typhoon, but a
straight-on nor’wester of great violence. By the aid of an improvised
capstan, the two boys had dragged the “Dust Eater” high up on the beach,
and, with ropes and wooden stakes had guyed her there.
The storm was now at its height. The wind set the dark clumps of palms
swishing and moaning in a dismal fashion. Great sheets of rain beat
against Johnny’s face as, wrapped to the chin in a slicker, he went from
the cabin close to the cliff where they had taken refuge, down to the
beach, to make sure that the guys to the plane were holding firm.
When he had assured himself that all was well, he paused for a moment to
gaze out to sea. He was half afraid that the two native boats had not
reached their harbor before the storm broke.
“Keeping them off this island is one thing, driving them into the teeth
of a storm another; wouldn’t want to be responsible for their deaths,” he
mumbled. Then he started.
“What’s that? A light?”
There had come a lull in the storm. The rain had ceased. It seemed to him
that, as he strained his eyes to gaze seaward, he made out a light. Now
appearing, now disappearing, it seemed to be upon some craft bobbing up
and down with the waves that were rolling high.
“Can’t be the natives. No canoe could ride this storm. It might be—” This
second thought sent him hurrying across the beach toward the cabin. His
companions were asleep, but this was important; he would waken them.
“They’re taking an awful risk,” he explained to Pant and the Professor, a
few moments later, as they stood upon the brow of the cliff watching the
now unmistakable light of a ship out to sea. “They’re too close in now
for safety. Shoals out there, and it seems to me they’re coming closer.”
“Lost their bearings,” suggested Pant.
“Think a beacon fire would help?” asked the Professor.
“Probably would only mislead them,” said Johnny. “Besides, I think it’s
rather too late. Unless I mistake their position, they’re due to go
aground any minute.”
With strained and expectant faces the three stood watching the bobbing
light. Now it appeared, now it was lost to sight, but at each new
appearance it seemed to gleam more brightly, as if coming nearer.
They were troubled by this new turn of affairs. There could be little
doubt but this was the ship they had seen struggling in the grip of the
typhoon, the ship which had come to dismantle the wreck. If she went
aground, it would be their duty to assist the unfortunate sailors in
every way possible, yet, in doing so, they would doubtless be bringing
disaster down upon their own heads. These were rough, unscrupulous men.
They would at once suspect the two boys and the Professor of treachery.
After that, what would happen? Who could tell? Yet, they were men and, in
time of disaster, they must be given every assistance.
The three of them had scarcely thought this through, each in his own way,
when Johnny exclaimed suddenly:
“There she goes!”
They caught their breath and waited. The light had disappeared. For a
moment they looked in vain for it; then it reappeared, rose higher than
ever before, then hung gleaming there like a fixed star.
“Hard aground!” exclaimed Johnny.
“And likely to break up at any minute,” answered Pant.
A moment later there burst out above the ship a ball of fire, then
another and another.
“Sending up rockets,” said Pant. “I wonder how they expect to get aid
from these desolate shores? No ship could come near them without going
aground. No lifeboat could ride such a sea.”
“And yet,” said Johnny, “we must try to give them assistance. If we don’t
there’ll not be a man of them alive by morning. Their ship is out where
the breakers are rolling strongest, not sheltered by the point, as the
Chinese ship was.”
“It’s true,” said the Professor, “we must render them some assistance,
but how?”
“The ‘Dust Eater,’” said Johnny.
“Couldn’t ride that sea, even if she could the storm,” said Pant. “What’s
your idea?”
“Might not work,” said Johnny, “but in times like these, anything’s worth
trying. C’m’on.”
They hastened down to the beach where the “Dust Eater” was straining at
her moorings.
“You and the Professor prop up the boat and set the wheels under her,
while I work at something else,” said Johnny.
He rushed into the cabin of the “Dust Eater” to return at once with two
great balls of stout hempen twine. This was a reserve supply to be used
for lashing the wings of the plane in case of accident.
There were quantities of drift timber from the wreck of the Chinese craft
scattered about on the beach. After gathering up several of these, Johnny
began splitting them into pieces a foot in length and about the size of a
broom handle. These, as fast as he had split them, he tied into one end
of a ball of cord, leaving a space of six or more feet between each two.
When he had worked at this for some time, he at last turned to his
companions.
The “Dust Eater” was supplied with a set of starting wheels which might
be attached to the beam of her boatlike body. These were for use only
when an emergency made it necessary to take a start-off from land. Such
an emergency was now at hand. Whether, with the gale blowing, they would
be able to make a successful flight, remained to be seen. They were now
in a position to make the attempt, for Pant and the Professor had
completed their task.
“Now each of you go to a guy behind her and loosen it, but do not let
go,” said Johnny. He stepped forward and loosened the two in front.
“Take a snub ’round a stake,” he cautioned, as an afterthought. “Are you
ready? There’s two balls of twine on the beach there. I’ve tied some
sticks to one end of one of them. The other end of that one is tied to an
end of the second one. I’m taking the end with the sticks on in with me.
When we get away, Professor, you must attempt to play the line out to us
as we fly. Don’t let it break if you can help it. We’re going to try to
take them a line. They must have rope enough to reach shore, and pulleys
to make a flying car. We can get them ashore if it works. Do you get
that?”
“Yes,” came the answer.
Johnny nodded approval.
“All right. Pant, give your guy rope to the Professor. Keep it snubbed,
though.”
Pant, understanding his part, climbed into the pilot’s seat.
“Now, Professor, ease away. Give her the dust,” he breathed to Pant.
The engine thundered. They were away with the storm. A wild circle
brought them perilously near the cliff, but they missed it.
Johnny felt the slowly growing strain on the cord and knew that the
Professor was succeeding with his task.
“Right over her, if you can,” said Johnny.
The wind caught them, nearly dashing them into the sea. The line tangled
with the braces, but Johnny managed to drag it free.
“Now, now—right over!” shouted Johnny. The next moment he sent the
wood-weighted end of the cord whirling toward the ship. The line burned
his fingers, but he clung to it as it played out.
It was a fortunate cast; almost a miracle, was Johnny’s mental comment,
for at once he felt a tug on the cord such as mere water could not give,
and that instant he let go.
“Can’t help but find it,” he told Pant through the tube. “Back to the
island now. It’ll take all of us to draw their line in.”
It was a difficult landing. The beach was narrow and none too long; the
waves washing it from end to end. Three times they soared low, but did
not dare attempt it. The fourth time, driving straight against the wind,
they sank lower and lower, at last to feel the welcome bump-bump on the
sand. The next moment they were out of the plane and guying her fast.
“Made it!” was Johnny’s brief comment, as they finished. “Now for that
line.”
Pant did not follow at once; he was looking intently out to sea, where a
light was blinking, brightening, then dimming, then lighting up again.
“Get that?” he shouted to Johnny.
“What?”
“It’s a signal. The message they sent says, ‘Haul away!’”
“That’s good. That means they have our line. We can’t haul a heavy wet
rope across the water and up the cliff by hand; have to have a capstan
for that. Guess the one we used this evening will do.”
Finding the capstan, they dragged it up the side of the cliff. Here they
anchored it firmly. Then began the task of pulling in the line. It came
in quite freely at first; Johnny was beginning to think the cord had
broken, when the back-pull began to stiffen.
“Got ’em all right,” he panted, as they redoubled their efforts.
Fathom after fathom the line was reeled in. So tight grew the strain that
they felt sure it must break. But it did not. Presently they came to a
knot and the end of a heavier line.
Attaching this to the capstan, they reeled in rapidly until they came to
the place where the line was double, the added strand much larger than
the other.
“Big one’s for the pulley to ride on; the little one’s to pull them in
by,” explained Pant. “Now, all together, let’s draw her tight!”
Round and round went the capstan. Up—up—up rose the dripping rope until,
at last, it swung entirely free from the sea.
Seizing a lantern, Pant alternately dimmed and brightened it. This he
repeated several times.
“Giving them the signal for O. K.,” he explained.
He then watched their light as it dimmed and brightened.
“They say,” he smiled, “‘Haul away.’”
This time by hand they reeled in the smaller cord. Length after length of
it was drawn in and coiled on the rocks. When, for a moment, there was a
heavy back-pull, they knew that the men on the swaying rope-hung pulley
had been dipped beneath a giant wave. They redoubled their efforts, and
presently had the pleasure of seeing five half-drowned men drop down by a
line from the pulley to the sandy beach.
This time it was Pant’s turn to signal “Heave away.”
The signal was obeyed. The swinging car was hauled back and loaded once
more with human freight.
This was repeated over and over again until the last man was ashore. When
this last man cupped his hands and shouted up to them, “All safe,” the
two boys dropped down upon the rocks exhausted.
“Well,” said Johnny, after a time, “we’ve got them. Question is, what are
we going to do with them?”
“More than likely it is, ‘What are they going to do with us?’” grumbled
Pant. “There are twenty or more of them to our three. Their ship is a
hopeless wreck. It will, half of it, be on the beach in pieces by
morning. We have the only means of transportation. The only way to leave
the island is by plane. Question is, what will they do about that?”
It was, indeed, a serious situation. Johnny’s brow wrinkled as he took in
the full significance of it.
“Might as well go down and mingle with them,” he said, presently.
“There’s no better way to judge of a man’s character than by listening to
what he says in the dark.”
They found the men rough and boisterous. Some of them were smashing up
all available timber and building fires under the brow of the cliff.
Others had crowded the little cabin to an unbearable degree.
Pant and Johnny crept into a dark corner beneath the cliff and facing a
blazing fire.
“Pretty rough,” was Johnny’s only comment.
Soon he became conscious of the presence of a little man who appeared to
stand aloof from the others. He was a clean, decent appearing fellow.
“Pretty close one,” Johnny said, by way of starting conversation.
The little man turned and gave him a sharp look.
“You from that airplane?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll say it was close.” The man lowered his voice. “Wouldn’t ’ave
’appened but they was quarrelin’ over ’ow they’d divide the plunder, them
officers was.”
“The plunder?” said Johnny.
“Yes, didn’t you know?” the sailor whispered. “That wreck don’t belong to
them. It belonged to a company in China. The captain of ’er fergot to set
a line to ’er and attach it to the shore, as is the law of the sea, so
she’s fair salvage to those ’as gets to ’er first—just plunder, I’d call
it.”
“But they claimed her.”
“Sure, so’s no other ship wouldn’t come fer ’er. They was sharp ones,
them officers!”
“And worse than I thought,” said Johnny.
“Worse, did you say? They’re a ’ard lot. Know what they done to me?
Shanghaied me, they did. ’Ere I is in the ’arbor with no money and no
place to sleep, and they says to me, ‘Sleep in the ship. We can’t sail
fer four days,’ an’ that night, up they ’eaves anchor and out to sea they
blows, an’ me a-sleepin’ sound. That’s ’ow they ships me. An’ no
agreement to pay ’er nothin’. Say,” he whispered, “if they’s a show-down,
or anything, between you and them, you count me in on your side. But
don’t you fight them if you can ’elp it, fer, as I say, they’s a ’ard
lot.”
Johnny thanked him, then lay for a time listening to the low murmur of
voices. At last he fell into a half-sleep from which he awakened to find
that day was breaking.
He scrambled down from the rocks to the beach. There he met a short,
broad-shouldered man with beady rat-like eyes.
“I’m Captain Hicks,” said the stranger. “That your seaplane?”
“Yes,” Johnny answered, trying to smile.
“Fine plane. Luck, I call it. Our purser is a licensed pilot. Soon’s
weather clears, I’ll have him take me over to another island in that
plane.”
Johnny gasped. He was about to protest. Then the hopelessness of the
situation came to him.
“I suppose,” he said slowly, “that he is accustomed to handling all kinds
of motors?”
“Knows ’em like a book,” the captain chuckled as he passed on.
“All the same,” said Pant, some time later, when he had been told of the
conversation, “I’ll wager he’ll have some difficulty in getting old ‘Dust
Eater’ to perform for him. These dust-eatin’ birds are particular who
rides on their backs!”