ladder. He slapped the shoulder of Mayo as he passed the young man.
“Here's the kind of chap we're looking for nowadays. The sooner you
report, my boy, the better for you.”
With Boyne following him, he climbed down the swaying ladder, and was
lifted from the lower rungs over the tug's rail to a secure footing.
After the lines had been cast off and the tug went floundering away at
a sharp angle, Captain Wass scuffed into his pilot-house and gave the
bells.
“She seems to feel it--honest she does!” he told Mate Mayo. “She goes
off logy. She doesn't pick up her heels. Nor could I do it when I walked
in here. Going to be scrapped--the two of us! Cuss their picking and
stealing and fighting and financing. They ain't steam-boating any
longer. They're using good boats to play checkers in Wall Street with.
Well, son,” he mourned, hanging dispiritedly over the sill of the window
and staring up the wind-swept Chesapeake, “I ain't going to whine--but
I shall miss the old packet and the rumble and racket of the old machine
down there in her belly. I'd even take the job of watchman aboard her if
he would hire me.”
“He seems to fancy me a bit. I'll ask him to hire you,” proffered the
mate, eagerly.
“I reckon you didn't get the look in his eye when he fired me,” said
Captain Wass. “I won't allow you to say a word to him about me. You go
ahead, boy, and take the job he has offered. But always remember that
he's a slick operator. See what he has done to Uncle Vose; and we
haven't been able to worm it out of that passenger how it was done,
either. Financing in these days comes pretty nigh to running without
lights and under forced draught. It gets a man to Prosperity Landing in
a hurry, providing he doesn't hit anything bigger than he is. They're
going to haul up this freighter and blame it on to me because I ain't
making money for the owners. They'll have plenty of figgers to show it.
Look out that they don't lay something worse and bigger to you. They're
going to play a game with the Vose line, I tell you! In the game of big
finance, 'tag-gool,' making 'it' out of the little chap who can't run
very fast, seems to be almighty popular.”
He slowed the freighter to a snail's pace when he approached the dredged
channel, and at last the leadsman found suitable bottom. Both anchors
were let go.
The old skipper sounded the jingle, telling the chief engineer that the
engine-crew was released. In a speaking-tube the captain ordered both
boilers to be blown off.
“And there's the end of me as master of my ship,” he said.
Mate Mayo's eyes were wet, but words of sympathy to fit the case did not
come to his sailor tongue, and he was silent.
When the tug was near Newport News, Manager Fogg took David Boyne apart
from all ears which might hear. He gave the young man another packet of
money.
“The rest of your expenses for a good trip,” he said. “You seem to be
a chap who knows how to mind his own business--and able to get at the
other fellow's business in pretty fair shape. You haven't told such an
awful lot about young Mayo, but it's satisfactory to learn that he has
lived such a simple and every-day life that there isn't much to tell.”
“I never saw a man so sort of guileless,” affirmed Boyne. “Not that I
have had a lot of experience, but in a lawyer's office you are bound to
see considerable of human nature.”
“He is no doubt a very deserving young man--and I'm glad I can use him,”
said Fogg, not able to keep all the grimness out of his tones. “Now,
son,” he went on, after a moment of pondering, “you stay on board this
tug till I have been gone five minutes. There are a lot of sharp eyes
around in these times, and some of Vose's friends would be glad to run
to him with a story about me. After five minutes, you take your bag and
walk to Dock Seven and go aboard the freighter _Ariel_--go just as if
you belonged there. Tell the captain that you are Daniel Boyle--get the
name--Daniel Boyle. And never tell anybody until you hear from me that
your name is David Boyne. That freighter leaves to-night for Barbados
with sugar machinery. You'll have a nice trip.”
“I don't care how far away I get,” declared Boyne, rather bitterly. “I
have done a tough trick. I'm pretty much of a renegade. No, I don't care
how far I go.”
“Nor I, either,” agreed Fogg, but a smile relieved the brutality of the
speech. “You see, son, both of us have special reasons why it's just as
well for you to be away from these diggings for a time. If some folks
get hold of you they'll bother you with a lot of foolish questions. When
you get tired of Barbados go ahead and pick out another nice trip, and
keep going, and later on we'll find a good job for you up this way. Keep
me posted. Good-by.”
The tug had docked and he hurried off and away.
“It's quite a game,” reflected Mr. Fogg. “I've bluffed a pot with one
two-spot. Work was a little coarse because it had to be done on short
notice. The work I do with my second two-spot is going to be smoother,
and there won't be so much beefing after the pot is raked in. Too much
hollering, and your game gets raided! I can see what would happen to
me--Julius Marston doing it--if I give the strong-arm squad an opening.
But if they see the little Fogg boy slip a card in the next deal he's
going to make--well, I'll eat the _Montana_, if that's the only way to
get rid of her.”
Boyd Mayo lost no time in obeying his orders to report in New York. He
gave his name to a clerk at the offices of the Vose line and asked to
see Mr. Fogg. He presented himself a bit timorously. He was not at all
sure of his good fortune. It is rather bewildering for a young man to
have the captaincy of a twin-screw passenger racer popped at one as
carelessly as tossing a peanut to a child. He crushed his cap between
trembling palms when he followed the clerk into the inner office.
Mr. Fogg rose and greeted Mayo with great cordiality. “Good morning,
captain,” said the manager. “Allow me to hope that you're going to be as
lively in keeping to schedule time as you have been in getting here from
Norfolk.”
“I didn't feel like wasting much time, considering what was promised
me,” stammered Mayo, not yet sure of himself.
“Afraid I might change my mind?”
“It seemed too good to be true. I wanted to get here as soon as I could
and make sure that I had heard right, sir. Here are my papers.”
He laid them in the manager's hand. Fogg did not unfold them. He fanned
them, indicating a chair.
“Sit down, Captain Mayo. You understand that new management has taken
hold of the Vose line in order to get some life and snap into the
business. We have strong competition. A big syndicate is taking over
the other steamship properties, and we must hustle to keep up with the
procession. I'm laying off freighters that are not showing a proper
profit--I'm weeding out the moss-covered captains who are not up with
the times. That's why I'm putting you on the _Montana_ in place of
Jacobs.”
“He's a good man--one of the best,” ventured Mayo, loyalty to his kind
prompting him. “I'll be sorry to see him step aside, as glad as I am to
be promoted--and that's honest.”
“That's the way to talk; but we've got to have hustle and dash, and
young men can give us what we're after. It doesn't mean that you've got
to take reckless chances.”
“I hope not, Mr. Fogg. My training with Captain Wass has been the other
way. And if you could only give him--”
“Captain, you've got your own row to hoe. Keep your eye on it,” advised
the general manager, sharply. “I'm picking captains for the Vose boats,
and I think I understand my business. Now what I want to know is, do you
have confidence in me? Are you going to be loyal to me?”
“Yes, sir!” affirmed Mayo, impressed by his superior's brisk, brusque
business demeanor.
“Exactly! And the only talk I want you to turn loose is to the effect
that you believe I'm doing my best to make this line worth something to
the stockholders. Where are you stopping?”
Mayo named a little hotel around the corner.
“I'll put you aboard the _Montana_ just as soon as I can arrange the
details of transfer. I may let Jacobs make another trip or so. Report
here each morning at nine. For the rest of the time keep within reach of
the hotel telephone.”
Mayo saluted and went out.
Fogg called the observer at the weather bureau on the telephone and
asked some questions. He was informed that the wind had swung into the
northwest and that the long-prevailing fog had been blown off the coast.
Mr. Fogg appeared to feel somewhat peevish over this sudden departure
of the weather phenomenon which bore his family name. He slammed the
receiver on to the hook and said a naughty word. A person overhearing
might have wondered a bit, for here was a steamboat manager cursing the
absence of the fog instead of preserving his profanity to expend on the
presence of the demoralizing mists. But the reign of the north wind in
late summer is never long; three days later the breeze shifted, and the
gray banks of the fog marched in from the open sea.
Mayo was awakened early by the clamor of the whistles of river craft,
for the little hotel was near the water-front. He saw the fog drifting
in shredded masses against the high buildings, shrouding the towers.
He had been waiting his call to duty with much impatience, finding the
confinement of the hotel irksome in the crisp days of sunlight, eager to
be out and about this splendid new duty which promised so much.
It was the _Montana's_ sailing-day from the New York end.
He had gone to sleep thrilling with the earnest hope that he would be
called to take her out. But when he looked out into that morning, saw
the draping curtains of the stalking mists, heard the frantic squallings
of craft in the harbor, frenzied howls of alarm, hoarse hootings of
protests and warnings, he was suddenly and pointedy anxious to have
his elevation to the pilot-house of the _Montana_ deferred. Better the
smoky, cramped office of the little hotel where he had been chafing in
dismal waiting. He was perfectly willing to sit there and study
over again the advertising chromos on the walls and gaze out on the
everlasting procession of rumbling drays. But at eight o'clock the
telephone summoned him.
“This is General-Manager Fogg,” the voice informed him, though he did
not require the information; he knew those crisp tones. “I am speaking
from my apartments. Please proceed at once to the _Montana_. I'll come
aboard within an hour.”
“Do you expect me to take command--to--take her out to-day?” faltered
Mayo.
“Certainly. Captain Jacobs will transfer command as soon as I get down.”
Mayo had just been rejoicing in his heart because Jacobs would be
obliged to bear the responsibility of that day's sailing; he had been
perfectly sure that a new man would not be summoned under the conditions
which prevailed. He wanted to suggest to Manager Fogg that making
the change just then would be inadvisable. He cleared his throat and
searched his soul for words. But a sharp and decisive click told him
that Mr. Fogg considered the matter settled. He came away from the
telephone, dizzy and troubled, and he was not comforted when he
recollected how Manager Fogg had received meek suggestions in the past.
He paid his modest account, took his traveling-bag, and started for the
Vose line pier.
When he saw her looming in the fog--his ship at last--he felt like
running away from her incontinently, instead of running toward her.
Mayo had all of a young man's zeal and ambition and courage--but he had
in full measure a sailor's caution and knowledge of conditions; he had
been trained by that master of caution, Captain Zoradus Wass. He was
really frightened as he stared up at the towering bow, the mighty
flanks, the graceful sweep of superstructure, and realized that he must
guide this giant and her freightage of human beings into the white
void of the fog. In his honesty he acknowledged to himself that he was
frightened.
The whole great fabric fairly shouted responsibility at him.
He was confident of his ability. As chief mate he had mastered the
problems of courses and manoeuvers in the fog along that same route
which he must now take. But until then the supreme responsibility had
devolved upon another.
Men were rushing freight aboard on rattling trucks--parallel lines of
stevedores were working. There were many trunks, avant couriers of the
passengers.
He went aboard by the freight entrance and found his way to the row of
officers' staterooms. He recognized the gray-bearded veteran who was
pacing the alley outside the pilot-house, though the man was not in
uniform; it was the deposed master.
“Good morning, Captain Mayo,” he said, without any resentment in his
tones. “I congratulate you on your promotion.”
“I hope you understand that I didn't go hunting for this job,” blurted
Mayo.
“I believe it's merely a matter of new policy--so Manager Fogg tells me.
Understand me, too, Captain Mayo! I harbor no resentment, especially not
against you.”
He put out his hand in fine, manly fashion, and was so distinctly
the best type of the dignified, self-possessed sea-captain of the old
school, that Mayo fairly flinched at thought of replacing this man.
Captain Jacobs opened the door lettered “Captain.” “All my truck is out
and over the rail. I'll sit in with you, if you don't mind, until Mr.
Fogg arrives. You're going to have a thick passage, Captain Mayo.”
“It doesn't seem right to me--putting a new man on here in this fog,”
protested Mayo, warmly. “I ought to have her in clear weather till I
know her tricks. In a pinch, when you've got to know how a boat behaves,
and know it mighty sudden in order to avoid a smash, one false move puts
you into the hole.”
“They seem to be running steamboat lines from Wall Street nowadays,
instead of from the water-front,” said Captain Jacobs, dryly. “It's all
in the game as they're playing it in these times. There's nothing to be
said by the men in the pilot-house.”
“I'm a sailor, and a simple one. I think I know my job, Captain Jacobs,
or else I wouldn't accept this promotion. But I've got no swelled head.
It's the proper and sensible thing for you to take the _Montana_ out
tonight and let me hang around the pilot-house and watch you. If I can
prevail upon Mr. Fogg to allow it, will you make another trip?”
“I would do it to help you, but I'll be blasted if I'll help Fogg--not
if he would get down now and beg me,” declared Captain Jacobs, showing
temper for the first time. “And if you had been pitchforked out as
I've been after all my years of honest service you'd feel just as I do,
Captain Mayo. You don't blame me, do you?”
“I can't blame you.”
“You know the courses, and you'll have the same staff as I've had.
You'll find every notation in the log accurate to the yard or the
second. She's a steady old girl and, knowing tide set and courses, as
you do, you can depend on her to the turn of a screw. You have my best
wishes--but I'm done.”
He put the fervor of final resolve into the declaration. But, with
sailor's fraternal spirit of helpfulness he sat down and went into
the details of all the Montana's few whims. He called in the mates and
introduced them to the new master. They seemed to be quiet, sturdy men
who bore no malice because a new policy had put a new man over them.
Then arrived General-Manager Fogg, and in this strictly business
presence Mayo did not presume to voice any of his doubts or his opinion
of his inefficiency.
The rather stiff and decidedly painful ceremony of speeding the former
commander was soon over, and Captain Jacobs departed.
“Why haven't you put on your uniform?” asked Fogg. “You have fixed
yourself out with a new one, of course?”
“Yes, sir.” Mayo's cheeks flushed slightly when he recollected how he
had strutted before the mirror in his room at the hotel. But he had been
ashamed to hurry into his gilt-incrusted coat in the presence of Captain
Jacobs.
“Get it on as soon as you can,” ordered the general manager. “I want you
to make a general inspection of the boat with me.”
They made the tour, and in spite of his misgivings, when he saw the
mists sweeping past the end of the pier Captain Mayo, receiving the
salutes of respectful subalterns, felt the proud joy of one who has at
last arrived at the goal of his ambition.
Master of the crack _Montana_, queen of the Vose fleet, at the age of
twenty-six!
He glanced into each of the splendid mirrors of the great saloon to make
sure of the gold letters on his cap.
The thick carpet seemed grateful to his step. The ship's orchestra was
rehearsing in its gallery.
If only that devilish fog would lift! But still it surged in from the
sea, and the glass, down to 29.40, promised no clearing weather.
“Safety to the minutest detail--that's my motto,” declared Manager Fogg.
“Order a fire drill.”
It was accomplished, and Mr. Fogg criticized the lack of snap. He was
rather severe after the life-boat drill, was over. He ordered a second
rehearsal. He commanded that the crew do it a third time. The warmth
of his insistence on this feature of shipboard discipline was very
noticeable.
“And when you put those boats back see to it that every line is free and
coiled and every cover loose. It costs a lot of good money if you kill
off passengers in these days.” Then he hurried away. “I'll see you
before sailing-time,” he informed Captain Mayo.
The new skipper was glad to be alone and to have leisure for study of
the steamer's log-books. He had been accustomed to a freighter's
slower time on the courses. He did a little figuring. He found that at
seventy-five revolutions per minute the _Montana_ would log off about
the same speed that the freighter made when doing her best. He resolved
to make the fog an excuse and slow down to the _Nequasset's_ familiar
rate of progress. He reflected that he would feel pretty much at home
under those circumstances. He was heartened, and went about the ship
looking less like a malefactor doomed to execution.
When General-Manager Fogg, bustled on board a few minutes prior to the
advertised sailing-time at five o'clock, he commented on Captain Mayo's
improved demeanor.
“Getting one of the best jobs on this coast seemed to make considerable
of a mourner out of you. Perhaps a mirror has shown you how well you
look in that new uniform. At any rate, I'm glad to see you have chirked
up. And now I'll give you a piece of news that ought to make you look
still happier: I'm going along on this trip with you. If you show me
that you can do a good job in this kind of weather you needn't worry
about your position.”
The expression on Captain Mayo's face did not indicate unalloyed delight
when he heard this “good news.” Unaccustomed as he was to the ship, he
could not hope to make a smooth showing.
“And still you refuse to cheer up!” remonstrated the manager.
“I am glad you are going along, sir. Don't misunderstand me. But a
sailor is a pretty serious chap when he feels responsibility. I'm
undertaking a big stunt.”
“It's the best way to find out whether you're the man for the
job--whether you're the man I think you are. It's a test that beats
sailing ships on a puddle.”
“I'm glad you're aboard,” repeated the captain. “It's going to shade
down my responsibility just a little.”
“It is, is it?” cried Manager Fogg, his tones sharp. “Not by a blamed
sight! You're the captain of this craft. I'm a passenger. Don't try to
shirk. You aren't afraid, are you?”
They were standing beside the dripping rail outside the pilot-house.
Far below them, in the spacious depths of the steamer, a bugle sounded
long-drawn notes and the monotonous calls of stewards warned “All
ashore!”
The gangways were withdrawn with dull “clackle” of wet chains over
pulleys, and Captain Mayo, after a swift glance at his watch, to make
sure of the time, ordered a quartermaster to sound the signal for “Cast
off!” The whistle yelped a gruff note, and, seeing that all was clear,
the captain yanked the auxiliary bell-pulls at the rail. Two for the
port engine, two for the starboard, and the _Montana_ began to back into
the gray pall which shrouded the river.
Captain Mayo saw the lines of faces on the pier, husbands and wives,
mothers and sweethearts, bidding good-by to those who waved farewell
from the steamer's decks. He gathered himself with supreme grip of
resolve. It was up to him! He almost spoke it aloud.
Tremors of doubt did not agitate him any longer. It was unthinking
faith, nevertheless it was implicit confidence, that all those folks
placed in him. They were intrusting themselves to his vessel with the
blind assurance of travelers who pursue a regular route, not caring how
the destination is reached as long as they come to their journey's end.
The hoarse, long, warning blast which announced to all in the river that
the steamer was leaving her dock drowned out the shouts of farewell and
the strains of the gay air the orchestra was playing.
“See you later,” said General-Manager Fogg. “I think I'll have an early
dinner.”
Captain Mayo climbed the short ladder and entered his pilot-house.
It was up to him!
XX ~ TESTING OUT A MAN
Now the first land we made is call-ed The Deadman,
The Ramhead off Plymouth, Start, Portland and Wight.
We sail-ed by Beachy,
By Fairlee and Dungeness,
Until we came abreast of the South Foreland Light.
--Farewell and Adieu.
With starboard engine clawing her backward, and the port engine driving
her ahead, the Montana swung her huge bulk when she was free of the
penning piers. The churning propellers, offsetting, turned her in her
tracks. Then she began to feel her way out of the maze of the traffic.
The grim, silent men of the pilot-houses do not talk much even when they
are at liberty on shore. They are taciturn when on duty. They do not
relate their sensations when they are elbowing their way through the
East River in a fog; they haven't the language to do so.
A psychologist might make much out of the subject by discussing
concentration sublimated, human senses coordinating sight and sound
on the instant, a sort of sixth sense which must be passed on into the
limbos of guesswork as instinct.
The man in the pilot-house would not in the least understand a word of
what the psychologist was talking about.
The steamboat officer merely understands that he must be on his job!
The _Montana_ added her voice to the bedlam of river yawp.
The fog was so dense that even the lookout posted at her fore windlasses
was a hazy figure as seen from the pilot-house. A squat ferryboat, which
was headed across the river straight at the slip where her shore gong
'was hailing her, splashed under the steamer's bows, two tugs loafed
nonchalantly across in the other direction--saucy sparrows of the river
traffic, always underfoot and dodging out of danger by a breathless
margin.
Whistle-blasts piped or roared singly and in pairs, a duet of steam
voices, or blended at times into a puzzling chorus.
A steamer's whistle in the fog conveys little information except to
announce that a steam-propelled craft is somewhere yonder in the white
blank, unseen, under way. No craft is allowed to sound passing signals
unless the vessel she is signaling is in plain sight.
Captain Mayo could see nothing--even the surface of the water was almost
indistinguishable.
Ahead, behind, to right and left, everything that could toot was busy
and vociferous. Here and there a duet of three staccato blasts indicated
that neighbors were threatening to collide and were crawfishing to the
best of their ability.
Twice the big steamer stopped her engines and drifted until the squabble
ahead of her seemed to have been settled.
A halt mixes the notations of the log, but the mates of the steamer made
the Battery signals, and after a time the spidery outlines of the first
great bridge gave assurance that their allowances were correct.
Providentially there was a shredding of the fog at Hell Gate, a
shore-breeze flicking the mists off the surface of the water.
Then was revealed the situation which lay behind the particularly
emphatic and uproarious “one long and two short” blasts of a violent
whistle. A Lehigh Valley tug was coming down the five-knot current with
three light barges, which the drift had skeowowed until they were taking
up the entire channel. With their cables, the tug and tow stretched for
at least four thousand feet, almost a mile of dangerous drag.