OIL ON TROUBLED WATERS.
At intervals along the bridge we have mentioned as running between bow
and stern superstructures, were tall standpipes connected with pumps in
the engine-room. These were used in discharging the cargo at Antwerp.
The valves of these pipes had been opened while the boys were in the
wireless room, and now, as the pumps were started, jets of thick,
dark-colored oil spouted from them.
As the oil spread on the sea, the wind drove it down in a great band of
filmy smoothness toward the tossing wreck. As the oil spread, the big
combers ceased to break dangerously, and a shimmering, smooth skin of
oil spread over them till they merely rolled beneath it.
It was like magic to see the way in which the oil calmed the troubled
sea.
“Well, I’ve heard my father tell of skinning a sea with oil-bags,” said
Jack, “but I never expected to see it done.”
“You’ll see stranger things than that if you stay long enough in this
business,” said Raynor sententiously.
The _Ajax_ slowly cruised around the floundering wreck under reduced
speed, with oil spouting constantly from the standpipes. At last all
about the hulk there was spread a sort of magic circle of smooth, oily
water.
Jack looked on in an agony of impatience.
“Surely he’ll send a boat now,” he said to Raynor.
But the young engineer shook his head.
“Braceworth isn’t a skipper who holds with doing things in a hurry,” he
said; “wait a while.”
“Surely it is smooth enough to launch a boat now,” pursued Jack.
“If the skipper thought so, he’d do it,” rejoined Raynor.
The call to dinner came without Jack having secured communication with
any other ship. He could only account for this by the supposition that
the atmospheric conditions were bad. The wireless was evidently
suffering from an attack of “atmospherics,” as the professional
operators call it.
Before going down to his meal, Jack went forward to report to the
captain. He found the burly commander with a sandwich in one hand and a
cup of coffee in the other. He was having a snack on the bridge in the
shelter of the weather-cloth.
Jack, despite himself, felt a quick flash of admiration for a man who
could face such discomforts so dauntlessly for the sake of his duty.
The boy would have liked to ask some questions, but he did not have the
courage. So he stood in silence while the skipper pondered a full
minute.
“Don’t bother about it any more,” he said at length. “I think we will be
able to do without help.”
Jack could contain himself no longer.
“Oh, sir, do you think we’ll be able to get those poor fellows off?”
The captain looked at him sharply.
“I don’t know anything about it,” he said. “Don’t pester me with foolish
questions. It is eight bells. Be off to your dinner.”
Jack, abashed, red-faced and angry at what he felt was an undeserved
snub, obeyed. At dinner he told Raynor all about it.
“Well, if you had been on the bridge all night, maybe you would feel
none too amiable, either,” said his companion.
“On the bridge all night!” exclaimed Jack, who had no idea that while he
was snug in his bunk the captain had been facing the storm.
“Of course. Captain Braceworth never leaves the bridge in bad weather,
even if this is only a freighter and not a dandy passenger boat with
pretty ladies and big swells on board,” retorted Raynor.
“I—I didn’t know that,” said Jack, rather shamefacedly. “If I had, I
wouldn’t have spoken as I did.”
“I know that, youngster,” said Raynor. “And now let’s hurry through grub
and get up on deck again and see what’s doing. I’ve a notion we’ll see
something interesting before very long.”
When the lads returned on deck, they found that the _Ajax_ had made
another complete circle of the wreck, this time covering the first film
of oil with a thicker one. They were much closer to the wreck now. Jack
could count two figures in the bow and three astern.
But even as they looked, both boys gave a cry of horror. A huge wave had
swept clear over the floundering hulk, and when it vanished one of the
men in the stern had vanished, too.
“Oh! That’s terrible!” exclaimed Jack. “Why don’t we launch a boat?”
“No use sacrificing more lives,” said Raynor, with forced calmness,
although he was white about the lips. “Braceworth knows what he’s doing,
I reckon.”
“Yes, but to watch those poor fellows—it’s—it’s awful!”
Jack put his hands over his eyes to shut out, for an instant, the
frantically waving arms of the men on the wreck. They were making
desperate appeals. Plainly they could not understand why the liner kept
circling them.
“Brace up, youngster,” said Raynor kindly. “I guess the skipper feels as
bad about it as you do, but he won’t act till he can do so safely.”
The afternoon began to close in. The stormy twilight deepened into dusk
and found the nerve-wracking waiting still going on. On the great gray
seas the black steamer, with a wind-blown plume of smoke pouring from
her salt-encrusted funnel, still solemnly circled the foundering hulk,
while the storm clouds raced past overheard.
But the wind had dropped slightly and the coat of oil that now covered
the waves prevented their breaking. The _Ajax_, already crawling up on
the weather side of the wreck, appeared to reduce speed.
“There’s going to be something doing now,” prophesied Raynor.
On the bridge the captain had summoned Mr. Brown, the third officer.
“Brown,” he said, “I’m going to make a try to get those fellows off.
That craft won’t last till daylight and we could never tackle the job in
the dark.”
“Just what I think, sir,” rejoined the third mate.
“Very well; take one of the stern boats. Be very careful. If you hit the
side, she’ll smash like an egg-shell and we could never pick you up in
this. I’ll come in as close as I dare, to give you the lee water. Now be
off with you and—good-luck.”
Mr. Brown hurried aft. He collected his boat crew as he went. The boat
he selected was the one hung on patent davits above the wireless room.
Young Raynor had been summoned to the engine-room and Jack stood there
alone watching the preparations. The blood of his seafaring ancestors
stirred in his veins. Mustering his courage he stepped forward.
“Mr. Brown, can I go, sir? I can row. Let me go, won’t you?”
The mate, angry at being disturbed, spun on his heel and glowered at the
young wireless boy.
“What do you know about a boat?” he demanded. “You’re only a sea-going
telegraph operator——”
At that instant the doughty little mate’s eye fell on a hulking big
seaman who was hanging back. Plainly enough the man was afraid. He was
muttering to himself as if he did not like the prospect of breasting
those giant seas in the small boat.
The man was a Norwegian seaman, and Mr. Brown, who was an American, made
a quick, angry spring for him as if to grip him bodily and compel him to
go. Then he suddenly recollected Jack.
“Well, lad, since that hulking coward is afraid, I’ll give you a chance.
Get in and look slippy. We’ve no time to lose.”
Jack shoved the big sailor aside while the fellow scowled and swore.
“Get forward, you!” roared little Mr. Brown. “I’ll attend to you when we
get back. Now, youngster.”
But Jack was already in the boat. There was a shouted order and the
falls began to creak in the quadrant davits. For an instant they hung
between wind and water. Mr. Brown watched with the eye of a cat the
proper moment to let go.
Suddenly the _Ajax_ gave a roll far out to leeward. The boat dropped
like a stone. The patent tackle set her free.
“Give way, men!” shouted the officer; and in the nick of time to avoid
being shattered against the steel side of the tank by a big sea, the
boat put forth on its errand of mercy.
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