CHAPTER SEVEN
In the Locks
“Sandy, we’re sinking!”
Jerry James’s forehead was wrinkled with concern beneath his jet-black
hair as he uttered those words. It was the first thing either youth had
said since they had returned to the galley and gone to work preparing
the evening meal.
An hour ago, they had been shivering beneath their blankets. Now, the
exertion of working in that overheated room, where the hard aluminum
fixtures only served to refract the heat, had forced them to strip to
the waist. Even so, their bodies glistened with sweat.
“I said we’re sinking, Sandy,” Jerry repeated, somewhat nervously.
Sandy nonchalantly swung the oven door shut as though his friend had
said nothing more upsetting than, “It’s raining outside.” Smiling, he
took off his asbestos glove and laid it on the stove top.
“You know, Jerry, I believe you’re right.”
“But, Sandy, I’m not joking! I tell you, I can feel the ship going
down.”
“Of course you can,” Sandy said easily. “Let’s go watch it.”
Then Sandy grinned—and Jerry James clapped his hands to his forehead in
dismay and cried, “Of course; we’re in the locks!”
“Right the second time,” Sandy laughed. “And I’ll bet if we had been
going uplake, you would have sworn that we were flying! Come on, let’s
go topside.”
They clambered above and feasted their eyes on one of the strangest
sights they had ever seen.
The _James Kennedy_ was floating in what can only be described as a
long, narrow tub—almost a quarter mile in length and with about ten or
fifteen feet clearance on either side of the sixty-foot-wide ship. What
amazed Sandy and Jerry was that there were at least four more of these
enormous, man-made tubs, some as large, others smaller. All of them held
vessels of about the same size as the _Kennedy_. Some even held two of
them.
The tubs were formed by huge water gates at either end. Behind their
boat, Sandy and Jerry could see the water level of Lake Superior. What
astonished them was that it seemed to be higher than they were!
And it was.
At that very moment, as the two friends glanced over the side, they
could see that water was being pumped out of their tub. They were, as
Jerry James had said, sinking! The level of the water in their tub was
dropping so fast that more and more of the water gate behind them became
visible. Now, they could see, it had actually become a dam, holding out
the waters of Lake Superior that rose above them.
One of the strangest sensations was to turn and glance at another one of
the locks—for that is what these tubs are called—to see a boat that was
headed upstream rising higher and higher in the air. Its tub was filling
with water, making it float higher and higher until it would reach the
same level as Lake Superior, and then it would sail out.
“Boy, oh, boy,” Jerry said, rolling his eyes. “I’m getting the same
dizzy feeling you get in a department store. You know, Sandy—when you’re
on the down escalator and you pass somebody on the up escalator.”
Sandy nodded in silence. He was too intent upon what was happening to
bother to talk.
He craned his neck over the side to see what was happening up forward.
Sandy saw that the _James Kennedy_ was now well over ten feet below the
level of Lake Superior. Suddenly, the water gates at the forward end of
the lock swung open.
They sailed out!
Sandy shook his head in amazement, and then he heard a friendly voice
beside him say, “Pretty tricky, hey?” Turning around, Sandy saw one of
the seamen who had helped pull Cookie out of the water. He was short but
well-built, with dark-red hair and warm brown eyes. Sandy knew that the
other men called him Sam.
“Did you ever sail through the Soo before?” Sam asked.
He seemed pleased when Sandy shook his head, as though he was delighted
to have someone he could explain things to. As he began to talk, Jerry
joined them.
“First off, boys,” Sam said, “I want you to know that the men all feel
that was a mighty brave thing you did this afternoon. Don’t feel too bad
about what the skipper said, either. He has his good days and his bad
ones, and I guess today was one of the bad ones.”
Sandy and Jerry both bobbed their heads politely, hiding the grins that
sprang to their faces when they realized that they were both thinking it
was about time for Captain West to have one of his good days!
“Now,” Sam said, with a note of pride in his voice, “I’ll bet you didn’t
know that you’ve just passed through the biggest shipping highway in the
world.”
“Oh, no,” Jerry argued. “You don’t mean that the Soo is bigger than the
Panama Canal.”
“And the Suez, too?” Sandy asked.
“Bigger’n both, boys. Of course, I mean more ships pass through these
locks. Look,” he said, turning to survey the scene that was rapidly
falling behind them. “Just look at that.”
Sandy Steele and Jerry James did take a long look, and when they had
finished, they were inclined to agree with Sam. In all, there must have
been fifty of those peculiar long boats passing through the locks at one
stage or another, their stubby smokestacks sending thin columns of smoke
into the darkening sky.
“Boy, oh, boy,” Jerry said. “And to think I never knew there was such a
place two weeks ago.”
“You weren’t the only one, Jerry,” Sam said, smiling. “There aren’t too
many Americans who know what you mean when you say Sault Sainte Marie.”
“What does that mean, anyway?” Sandy asked.
“Simple. It’s French for Rapids of St. Mary. You see, where we’re
sailing now, the St. Mary’s River dropped twenty feet in less than a
mile. With all of Lake Superior pouring through here down into Huron,
that made for mighty rapid rapids. The Indians used to carry their
canoes around the rapids. So did the Frenchies. Of course, as soon as
commerce started springing up between the Lakes cities, and as soon as
they started tapping all that ore up north, they had to have a way into
Lake Superior that was safe for the big boats. So they built the locks.”
Neither youth opened his mouth to speak. They were impressed. But Sam’s
reference to the ore deposits had also recalled to their minds the fact
that this was no ordinary summer’s voyage for them. During the hard work
of the day, and the excitement of pulling poor Cookie out of the water,
they had forgotten their resolve to inform Mr. Kennedy of the good news
that Captain West was treacherously keeping from him.
But now that Sam had spoken of ore, they remembered it, and Sandy asked
the seaman, “Where are we headed now, Sam?”
“Well, now we’re on Lake Huron. We’ll head downlake for Detroit.”
“I didn’t know Detroit was on the Lakes.”
“It isn’t. Not properly, anyway. It’s on the Detroit River, but that’s
just the waterway where Huron narrows and empties into Lake Erie.”
“Oh. Will we lay over there?”
“Well—” Sam grinned—“if we don’t—then I’m going to have a mighty
disappointed wife and kids.”
“Oh, you live there. Well, thanks, Sam. Come on, Jerry—we’d better be
getting back to work.”
The two friends went below. As they entered the galley and began setting
up dinner, Sandy said to Jerry, “Maybe Captain West will let us go
ashore in Detroit, tomorrow. If he does, we can telephone Mr. Kennedy.”
Jerry pursed his lips. “You know, Sandy, I’ve been thinking. We don’t
really know that the skipper is working for that rival firm. I mean, all
we have to go on is the fact that you saw him writing a letter addressed
to a Mr. Paul Chadwick. That could just be coincidence.”
“Pretty tall coincidence.”
“Well, yes. But then again, Captain West might just happen to know Mr.
Chadwick. It might be a personal letter.”
“That’s worse! Don’t you remember what Mr. Kennedy said about Chadwick?
He said he wasn’t the sort of man he’d like to sit down to dinner with.
He said he was only selling out because it was good business to accept
his offer. If Captain West’s a friend of Chadwick’s, then he’s no friend
of Mr. Kennedy’s!”
Sandy Steele was becoming excited. As usual, he had to keep brushing
back the cowlick that kept falling in his eyes as he talked.
“Be reasonable, Jerry. Don’t you remember how Mr. Briggs talked so
insultingly of Mr. Kennedy when we first came aboard? ‘Ma Kennedy’ he
called him. Then, when I was in Captain West’s cabin, he kept calling
him ‘Old Man Kennedy.’ Doesn’t sound like much respect for their
employer. And this afternoon, when we came on deck with Cookie, the
skipper tried to pump me.”
Jerry’s eyes flew open.
“That’s right,” Sandy rushed on. “I didn’t have time to tell you before.
But he pretended to be friendly, just so he could find out how much I
knew about Dad’s discovery of the high-grade ore deposits.”
Sandy Steele’s lips tightened.
“No, Jerry,” he said grimly. “Captain West is not to be trusted.”
Then, to the horror of both youths, they heard an ugly, mocking voice
saying, “You don’t say?”
Sandy Steele and Jerry James turned and looked straight into the leering
face of Captain West’s mate.
He stood in the doorway of the galley. His slender, tall body swayed
slightly, and from the glazed expression of his eyes, Sandy and Jerry
could guess that he was drunk. There was a bottle bulging in his hip
pocket, and Sandy recognized it as the one from which someone had poured
that drink of rum for him abovedecks.
“So!” Mr. Briggs lisped in a drink-thickened voice. “So Ma Kennedy’s
little chicks don’t trust their skipper, eh?”
“You’d better get some sleep, Mr. Briggs,” Sandy said evenly.
The mate flushed angrily.
“Don’t tell me what to do, you double-crossing little show-off!” he
grated. “Here, stand aside there, and let a man pass.”
He stepped into the galley, grinning wickedly, plainly unaware of how he
wavered on his feet and disgusted, rather than frightened, the two
youths. He all but fell as he moved to the little table on which Cookie
had served them their breakfasts that morning. He sat down at it and
pulled out the nearly empty bottle of rum and stood it at his elbow.
“So you’re going to run and tell tales out of school, hey? Going to
tattle on us, are you?” He brought his hand down on the table top with a
crash. “Not if I can help it!”
The rum bottle jumped and nearly fell to the floor. But Mr. Briggs
grabbed it just in time. He threw back his head and tilted the bottle to
his lips. “Ahhhh!” he said. “Now, serve me my dinner!”
Neither Sandy nor Jerry moved.
“You hear me?” the mate yelled angrily. “I’m mate aboard this scow.
Bring me my dinner!”
Reluctantly, Jerry moved to obey. Mr. Briggs watched him, scowling. Then
he banged the bottle on the table and said, “Have a drink, Blackie.
That’ll put some zip into those lazy legs of yours.”
“My name’s Jerry,” Jerry replied hotly. “And I don’t drink.”
“Don’t drink, hey? Regular sissy, aren’t you? Well, I’m mate aboard this
scow, and when I tell a man to drink, he drinks!”
Mr. Briggs lurched to his feet. Still swaying, he seized the bottle by
its neck and moved toward Jerry.
Sandy Steele moved quickly to head him off. He well knew Jerry’s
split-second temper and he wanted to stop the mate before he did
something he would regret.
“Please, sir,” he pleaded. “Don’t! He’s getting your dinner. Now, if
you’ll just sit down—”
The mate shouldered Sandy roughly aside.
“Out of my way,” he mumbled. “Here, you,” he said to Jerry, swinging the
bottle up in an arc, “take a drink like I ordered you to.”
As Mr. Briggs brought the bottle up with a speed that might have dug the
mouth of it deep into Jerry’s throat, the youth raised his own arm to
defend himself. The bottle struck him on the forearm. A jet of rum came
streaming out. It fell on the open flame of the stove, and a sheet of
blue flame leaped up into the air.
It came dangerously close to the reeling mate. Frightened, Mr. Briggs
brought his right arm around as though to shield his face from the
flames. But he had forgotten that he still held the bottle. His gesture
emptied the remainder of the bottle onto the stove and another jet of
flames leaped toward him. This time, the fire reached one of the roasts
standing on the stove.
With a popping and sizzling, the roast came alight, and now the panicky
Mr. Briggs lunged for the roasting pan to remove it from danger. But all
he succeeded in doing was to overturn a pan of grease, into which, in
terror, he dropped the flaming roast.
In an instant, Cookie’s beloved galley had become a roaring caldron of
flames.
“Fire!” he shrieked, and charged blindly into the passageway, covering
his face with his hands.
“Fire! Fire! All hands on deck! Captain, Captain—come quick! Those
blasted boys of Kennedy’s have set the ship on fire!”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Fire!
For a split second, Sandy and Jerry stood rooted in helpless anger.
It was bad enough that the drunken, clumsy mate had set the galley
ablaze. But now he had shifted the blame to them! The injustice of it
was an outrage, and for the space of that split second, the two youths
were so stunned that they could not move.
Then they sprang into action.
And to Jerry James’s amazement, Sandy Steele turned and ran from the
flaming room.
“Sandy!” Jerry called. “Sandy, come back!”
But Sandy Steele kept on running up the passageway, and Jerry could not
believe what he saw. Then, when Sandy disappeared into the cabin where
Cookie had been placed, Jerry understood. “Good old Sandy,” he said
proudly, and then he whirled and dashed down the passageway in the other
direction—hunting for a fire extinguisher.
Cookie was half out of his bunk when Sandy rushed through the opened
door. The little man had heard Mr. Briggs’s shout, and he had
immediately dragged himself from his pillows. He was going to help put
out the fire!
But he was too weak to get very far, and he lay half in, half out of his
bed, panting, when Sandy burst in on him.
“Quick, Cookie!” Sandy said. “The galley’s on fire.”
“I know, boy,” Cookie gasped. “I heard the mate.” His eyes were sad as
he gazed at Sandy. “How could you do it, Sandy?”
“I didn’t!” Sandy gritted between clenched teeth, as he stooped to wrap
blankets around Cookie, before coming erect in the fireman’s carry.
“But the mate said—”
“He did it, not us!” Sandy replied. “Come on, Cookie—there’s no time for
explanations.”
Gently supporting the little man on his right shoulder, Sandy hurried
from the room. He took him to the cabin farthest from the blaze. Once
inside, he placed Cookie on the bunk. The weakened little man looked
around him in astonishment.
“This is the mate’s quarters,” he burst out. “You can’t put me in here,
boy.”
“Never mind that,” Sandy said grimly. “I’d put you in the captain’s
quarters, if I thought it would be safer. I’m not taking any chances on
your getting trapped by the fire, Cookie.”
“Is it really that bad?”
“I don’t know, but I’ll soon find out! Now, you just stay put while I go
back and help fight the fire.”
Without another word, Sandy turned and raced back down the passageway.
A wild scene greeted Sandy’s eyes.
Thick, greasy clouds of smoke—from the roasts and the other cuts of meat
that had caught fire—rolled from the galley. Through the smoke, he could
see the red and yellow of the flames. Sometimes a sheet of fire would
lance out through the smoke, and there would be a hissing and a
crackling that would warn the smoke-grimed and panting fire fighters
that another big can of lard had exploded and caught fire and was now
making their task even harder.
All along the passageway lay thick lines of hose. They were crisscrossed
and intertwined, and, sometimes, when they leaped under the pressure of
the water coursing through them, they gave the passageway the look of a
snake pit.
Crewmen wearing fire helmets dashed up and down, helter-skelter, some of
them with fire extinguishers in their hands, others carrying fire axes.
A bucket brigade had been formed among the spare crewmen, and Sandy saw
the buckets passing from hand to hand with the precision of an assembly
line in a factory. The empty buckets would be passed up the ladder to be
refilled by a man who fastened them to a rope and then lowered them into
the lake.
From what Sandy could see, most of the fire seemed to be centered in the
middle of the galley, next to the stove. Luckily, Cookie had wisely
insisted that his old grease-soaked wooden cabinets be replaced by
nonflammable metal ones, otherwise the fire would have been
uncontrollable. As it was, it was bad enough. Flames shot higher and
higher from the meat-chopping table. Here, the thick slab of wood had
become thoroughly soaked by the overturned grease. Beneath the terrible
roaring sound it gave off as it burned, Sandy could hear the hissing and
snapping of the grease.
Above all the sound and fury of the fire itself, and the excited babble
of the men as they rushed here and there to prevent the flames from
spreading to the mess hall, Sandy could hear the booming of Captain
West’s voice.
“You, there!” he shouted at Jerry James. “You with the fire
extinguisher—over here! Now, then, through the smoke here onto that
table!”
With his head picturesquely swathed in an undershirt which he kept
removing to soak with water, Captain West was a romantic figure as he
rushed up and down the passageway directing the fire fighting.
“Water!” he would thunder. “More water!” Or else: “You ax men, get busy
in the mess hall! Chop up those tables and benches and get the wood
abovedecks!”
Seeing him, hearing him, Sandy wished that Captain West was as loyal as
he was commanding.
But there was little time for Sandy to waste in admiration of the
skipper. All of these things that he witnessed passed through his mind
in one swift, crowding instant—and then he too leaped into action.
The moment that Sandy rushed up there had been a loud explosion in the
galley, and one of the ax men was thrown back against the bulkhead by
the force of it. He slumped to the deck, unconscious, and his ax slipped
from his hand.
Quick as a flash, Sandy seized the ax and joined the men at work in the
mess hall, while two others quickly jumped to obey the skipper’s orders
to remove the stricken man to a safe place. With a thrilling surge of
confidence in the strength of his lean-muscled body, Sandy Steele began
to swing his ax. His first stroke went whistling through the air and the
ax blade bit deep into the thick wood of a bench. With a wrench
requiring all of his power, Sandy yanked it free. Once again, he drove
the blade downward.
Swish! Crack!
The bench split in two. Quickly, shortening his grip on the ax handle
like a batter dragging a hit, Sandy stroked twice, backward and forward,
and the bench had become a neatly stacked pile of kindling. With a
glance of admiration, one of the crewmen scuttled forward, seized the
bundle of sticks in his arms and carried them topside.
Meanwhile, as the men with the axes steadily demolished the mess-hall
furniture, getting it safely out of harm’s way, the fire in the galley
seemed to rage higher and higher. The heat in the passageway was now
intense. The naked torsos of the fire fighters gleamed in the reflected
light of the flames, and rivulets of sweat marked their course down
flesh blackened by the greasy smoke. As the roar of the flames grew
louder and louder, the expression of concern on Captain West’s face grew
deeper.
He was thinking of the coal bunkers directly beneath the galley. If the
fire should ever get to them, that would be the end!
Anxiously, Captain West peered through the smoke. It stung his eyes and
made them water. He had to wind a wet cloth around his mouth to keep
from choking. But he saw what he wanted to see.
That chopping table was still blazing away like an enormous torch. In
fact, it was a torch—for the grease had prepared it for burning as
completely as any stick dipped in pitch. But Captain West had seen that
the fiery table had been partially burned through at the point where it
was fastened to the wall. If he could chop it the rest of the way, the
table would fall down. Then it could be pulled out into the passageway
with hooks and the hoses could play upon it with full force.
In that way, Captain West reasoned, he could attack the fire at its very
heart. Immediately, the skipper called for one of the ax-bearing crewmen
to attempt the job. There was no time to lose. Another five or ten
minutes, and the coal would go up!
The crewman slipped quickly into a heavy raincoat to shield his body
from the flames. He saturated a cloth with water, wound it around his
lower face, and plunged into the smoke.
In an instant, he came reeling back—choking and sputtering.
“It’s too much, sir,” he gasped. “No man can go into that stuff and
live.”
Before Captain West could reply, Sandy Steele had raced down the
passageway from the mess hall.
“Let me have that raincoat,” he said to the astounded man. “I think I
know a way to get that table out.”
Still choking, the man took off his coat. Captain West opened his mouth
to protest, but then, seeing that Sandy was dead serious, he closed it
again and let the determined youth take over.
“Jerry!” Sandy called to his chum. “Quick! You get one on, too. Then,
you protect me with the fire extinguisher while I swing the ax.”
Jerry James nodded. Like his friend, he garbed himself in one of the
heavy black slickers, covered his nose and mouth with a soaked cloth,
and preceded him into the smoke. Jerry held his extinguisher like a
soldier wielding a light machine gun, spraying the flames with a
constant stream of thick, white chemicals.
Behind him moved Sandy Steele, grasping his ax.
The combination that worked so well on the playing fields of their home
state of California was now going into action far, far from home, and in
a far more serious cause. But it was working just as well!
Choking, sputtering, staggering, all but blinded, Sandy Steele charged
to the reddish blur he could see a few feet ahead of him in the smoke.
Waves of heat rolled against his body and he felt himself going weak.
But he lowered his head and struck on.
Once, a tongue of flame seemed about to gather in volume and leap toward
him from the roaring chopping-block. Just in time, a jet of thick white
liquid streamed out toward it and smothered it before it could get
started. Good old Jerry, Sandy thought.
At last, he had made it to within a few feet of the burning table!
It was as close as he dared go.
Without hesitation, Sandy Steele raised his ax and brought it down,
hard.
Crash!
The table seemed to sway. Sandy raised his arms again, wondering if he
would have the strength for another blow. He was thoroughly sick,
now—nauseated by that sickening, grease-laden smoke. The effort of his
first mighty stroke had all but sapped his strength. Yet, he could not
falter now! He had to do it! One more stroke would slice through the
remaining wood. Calling upon all his reserves, Sandy Steele rocked
backward on his heels, rose on his toes and brought the ax down upon the
wood.
It was a blow that rang out even above the roar of the flames! Even the
weary men gathered in the passageway could hear it.
And it severed the table from the thick bolt that had held it to the
bulkhead.
Sandy Steele jumped back just in time.
With a loud crash and a flashing of sparks and a shooting of flames, the
table fell toward him.
The momentum of Sandy’s jump sent him staggering backward, off balance.
That was how he emerged from the cloud of smoke that separated the
excited, yelling crewmen from the fire inside the galley.
Behind Sandy, running low and gasping, but still clutching his fire
extinguisher, came Jerry James.
If someone had not caught Sandy, he would have gone sprawling. As it
was, he was having difficulty keeping his legs under him. They seemed to
have gone all rubbery from his ordeal. But he clenched his teeth and
stayed erect, watching as the crewmen began to drag the blazing table
from the galley into the direct play of massed hoses and extinguishers.
It sizzled and smoked and sent off clouds of steam as though it were a
small volcano, but the fire was at last put out.
Then, one by one, all of the other burning articles within the galley
were separated from the main body of the fire and doused. The hoses sent
streams of lake water splashing against the now-smoldering and smoking
bulkheads. The bucket brigade was disbanded, for it was no longer
needed.
And then, as Sandy Steele felt the youthful vigor of his body swiftly
returning, his eyes fell on an object that he dearly wished to preserve
for the eyes of Captain West.
It was the rum bottle.
It lay beside the stove, almost at the exact point where it had fallen
from the hand of Mr. Briggs.