SIGHTING THE WRECK.
The captain wheeled suddenly. His eyes focused on Jack.
“Operator!”
“Aye, aye, sir!”
“Have you had any calls from a ship in distress?”
“No, sir. I should have reported any message to you at once.”
“Of course. I’m not used to this wireless business, although it seems to
be useful.”
“There—there’s a ship in distress yonder, sir?” Jack ventured to ask.
“Yes, they’re badly off.”
The captain tugged at his brown beard which glistened with spray.
“Call the third officer. He is in his cabin.”
Jack hastened aft and soon returned with Mr. Brown, the third officer of
the _Ajax_, an alert, active little man. Jack ventured to linger on the
bridge while they talked. His heart was filled with pity for whoever
might be on board the storm-tossed derelict. He wanted to know what the
captain proposed to do.
Fragments of speech were blown to the young operator’s ears as the three
officers talked.
“Hopeless—Boat wouldn’t live a minute in this sea—she’ll go before eight
bells—Yes, bound for Davy Jones’ locker, poor devils.”
Jack’s pulses beat fast as he heard. Could it be that the _Ajax_ was to
make no effort to rescue the crew of the wreck? His heart throbbed as if
it would choke him. He felt suddenly angry, furiously angry with the
three men on the bridge, who stood so calmly talking over the situation
while, less than a mile away, there was a wrecked ship wallowing in the
mighty seas without a chance for her life.
Had he dared, he would have stepped forward and volunteered to form part
of a boat’s crew, no matter what the risk. His father’s seafaring blood
ran in his veins, and he could recall hearing both Captain Amos Ready
and his Uncle Toby recounting to each other, over their pipes, tales of
sea-rescues.
“Uncle Toby is right,” thought the boy, with a white-hot flush of
indignation; “seamanship is dead nowadays. The men who go to sea in
these steel tanks are without hearts.”
They rose on the top of another mountainous wave and Jack had his first
good view of the forlorn wreck. She was evidently a sailing vessel,
although of what rig could not be made out, for her masts were gone. A
more hopeless, melancholy sight than this storm-riven, sea-racked
derelict could not be imagined. Her bowsprit still remained, and as she
rose upward on a wave with the star pointed to the scurrying gray
clouds, Jack’s excited fancy saw in it a mute appeal for aid.
And still the three officers stood talking, as the _Ajax_ ploughed on.
No attempt had been made to veer from her course.
“They’re going to leave her without trying to help her,” choked Jack,
clenching his hands. “Oh! the cowards! the cowards!”
The boy made an impulsive step forward. In his excitement he was
reckless of what he did. But, luckily, he came to his senses in time.
Checking himself, he gloweringly watched the captain step to the
wheel-house. As he did so, the commanding officer beckoned to Jack.
“I suppose he’s going to haul me over the coals for standing about
here,” muttered the boy to himself; and then, impulsively, “but I don’t
care. I’ll tell him what I think of him if he does!”
With defiance in his heart, Jack, nevertheless, hastened forward to obey
Captain Braceworth’s motioned order.
Within the wheel-house the hub-bub of the storm was shut out. It was
possible to speak without shouting. The captain’s face bore a puzzled
frown as if he were thinking over some difficult problem. As Jack
entered the wheel-house, he swung round on the boy:
“Oh, Ready! Stand by there a moment. I may have an order to give you.”
He stepped over to the speaking tube and hailed the engine-room.
“He’s going to give some order about saving that ship,” said the boy to
himself.
But no. Captain Braceworth’s orders appeared to have nothing to do with
any such plan. Jack felt his indignation surging up again as the
commander, in a steady, measured voice, gave a lot of orders which, so
far as Jack could hear, had to deal with pipes, pumps and something
about the cargo. At all events, the boy caught the word “oil.”
“Well, if that isn’t the limit for hard-heartedness!” thought the lad to
himself as he heard the calm, even tones. “What have a lot of
monkey-wrench sailors like those fellows in the engineers’ department to
do with saving lives, I’d like to know! If this was my dad’s ship, I’ll
bet that he’d have a boat on the way to that wreck now.”
He gazed out of a port-hole. The wreck was still visible as the _Ajax_
rode the high seas. From one of the stumps of the broken masts fluttered
some sort of a signal. Jack fancied it might be the ensign reversed, a
universal sign of distress on the high seas. But what ensign it was, he
could not, of course, make out.
It seemed to him, too, that he could distinguish some figures on the
decks, but of this he could not be certain.
“They may all be dead while this cowardly skipper is chatting with the
engine-room,” he thought angrily.
“Ready!”
“Yes, sir.” It was with difficulty that Jack spoke even respectfully. He
felt desperate, disgusted with all on board the “tanker.”
“I want you to stand by your wireless. Try to pick up some other
steamer. Tell them there is a ship in distress out there. Wait a
minute,—here’s the latitude and longitude. Send that, if you chance to
pick anybody up.”
“Yes, sir.”
Fairly bursting with anger, Jack hurried off. He did not dare to let the
captain see his face. He was naturally a frank, honest youth and his
emotions showed plainly on his countenance when his feelings were
strong.
So, after all, this miserable skipper was going to run off and desert
that poor battered wreck! He was going to leave the work for somebody
else, for some other ship, for some captain braver than himself to
undertake.
As he was entering his wireless room, he encountered Raynor.
“What’s up? You look as black as a thunderstorm,” said the young
engineer.
“No wonder,” burst out Jack, his indignation overflowing; “we’re
deserting a wreck off yonder. The old man’s lost his nerve, that’s what.
I’d volunteer in a moment. He ought to have launched a boat an hour
ago.”
“Hold on, hold on,” said Raynor, laying a hand on the excited lad’s
shoulder; “we couldn’t do anything in this sea, anyhow. The old man’s
all right.—Ah! Look! What did I tell you!”
From the signal halliards above the bridge deck, a signal had just been
broken out. The bits of bunting flared out brightly against the leaden
sky.
“We will stand by you,” was the message young Raynor, who knew something
of the International Code, spelled out.
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