staggered and seemed to shake herself as she drove forward into a wall
of lake water, and he embraced a stanchion to keep his feet. He waited
until the vessel had steadied herself, and then he lurched across the
pilothouse to the rear windows to stare with dismay at the spectacle
below him.
Grayish seas were swamping the decks of the _James Kennedy_, and the
crewmen were frantically at work trying to secure the hatch of one of
the holds. Wind and water had torn at a corner of the steel hatch and
had peeled it back as though a giant can opener had been at work. Each
time the _Kennedy_ dug into one of the heavy seas swinging toward it,
the crewmen would seize the rails and hang on for dear life while the
water swept down on them.
Then, while the vessel rose high again and the waters ran off the sides,
they would resume the battle against the hatch—battering away at it with
sledge hammers in an attempt to seal the hold.
One look at this scene was enough for Captain West. He could see at a
glance that more men were needed.
“Mr. Briggs!” he shouted at his mate through the speaking tube. “Get
every available man up on deck to Number Four hatch!”
The mate’s voice wailed hollowly in reply: “They’re all up there
already, sir—every man that can be spared.”
“Nonsense, Briggs! Who else have you got down there?”
“Just myself and those two high school brats.”
Captain West fell silent. He frowned. The ship shuddered and he was
forced to grab Sam’s shoulder for support. Below, he could see the angry
waters sweeping down the decks while the crewmen clung in terror to the
rail. Many of them, he noticed, had wrapped lines around their waists
and secured them to the railing. But there just weren’t enough of
them—and that hatch, yawning like a fatal hole in the ship’s armor, just
had to be closed! If it was not, if it grew larger, then the lake water
would pour through. It would saturate the tons and tons of ore that lay
in the typical ore freighter’s single huge hold. The weight of the
_James Kennedy_ would be at least doubled, and the merest ripple or
slightest breeze might suffice to send her plunging to the bottom!
No, that hatch must be sealed! Every available hand was needed to do it,
and quickly, even though they might belong to the most troublesome pair
of youths Captain West had ever known.
“Send them up, Mr. Briggs,” he ordered, and turned to give additional
orders to the wheelsman, Sam.
Below, Mr. Briggs aimed a thumb at his “prisoners” and grunted, “Get up
to Number Four hatch on the double. You heard the captain, so you know
what’s wanted. Take a crowbar there, and you both better have a line.”
He leered. “If you want to get to Buffalo, you’d better tie yourself to
the rail up there and hang on tight.”
Without a word, Sandy Steele and Jerry James seized coils of rope from
hooks along the passageway. Then Sandy grasped a crowbar and the two
hastened topside.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The Big Blow
Sandy could not suppress a gasp of astonishment the moment he emerged on
deck and felt the smashing power of that screaming wind, and sensed,
rather than felt, the awesome force of those mountainous seas thundering
down on the _James Kennedy_ with the crunching sound of huge boulders
colliding. There was water everywhere, pelting down from above in the
rain and rising in great shafts of spray and spume as the waves cracked
and crashed on the wallowing freighter.
Jerry James was aghast. He opened his mouth and shouted something at
Sandy, but the wind tore the words from his mouth. The two boys were
forced to talk in gestures. Sandy laid down his crowbar, placing a foot
on it to keep it from rolling over the side. Then he pointed to the
rail. He wound his rope around his waist. Next, he looped it over the
railing, before fashioning a good strong slipknot. He backed off a few
feet, the muscles of his calves straining to maintain a purchase on the
slippery, heeling decks. Carefully, he tugged. The rope held. He nodded
at Jerry and his friend followed suit. Once, just before Jerry had
finished, the black-haired youth looked up and saw, in fright, a huge
wave bearing down on them amidships. It struck the side just as the
_James Kennedy_ rolled away from it—luckily for the two youths.
The impact of that wave sent a long shiver through the 600-foot length
of their freighter and what seemed a very wall of water shot high into
the air before it fell on them with a drenching crash. It drove them to
their knees.
So great was the shock, that neither Sandy nor Jerry could remember the
sensation of coldness or wetness. All they could think of was that
mighty weight that flattened them, almost driving the breath from their
bodies.
Then the water began to wash away, and Sandy Steele felt an almost
irresistible tug. Quickly, he wound his arms around the line he had only
just fastened to the railing. He tried to stand up, but the rushing
water knocked his legs out from under him. He seemed immersed in a
whitish, greenish froth, but then, as his eyes and ears cleared he saw
the low clouds swinging overhead and the lake water boiling by beneath
him, and heard the despairing cry of his friend:
“Help, Sandy! Help, I’m going!”
Too late, Jerry James had rushed to finish tying his slipknot. But he
had it only half finished when the wave struck. The water swept him up
like a chip and now it was rushing him toward his destruction, over the
side.
Sandy Steele saw his friend’s peril.
Without hesitation, he released his own grip on the line and dove for
Jerry’s body.
He dove against the water and he struck Jerry with a waist-high tackle.
As his wiry arms closed around his friend’s middle, Sandy snapped his
own body around in a half-twist, whirling himself against the pressure
of the rope. It was well that he did, for the receding wave was pushing
him in the other direction. That way, the rope would have unwound and
the two boys would have rolled over the side and drowned.
But Sandy Steele’s split-second thinking applied the pressure in the
right place and the rope held.
Gasping, the two lay on the deck. They could see the angry, running seas
beneath them, and then, as the _James Kennedy_ heeled away, the rim of
the lake and then only the clouds.
They were saved.
But they were too weak to congratulate each other, and all that Jerry
James could do to show his gratitude was to flop his hand weakly on his
friend’s back. Now, as they blew lake water from their mouths, they were
aware of the cold, of their drenched clothing clinging to their
goose-pimpled flesh, and of the chill breath of the wind.
“Let’s go!” Sandy finally shouted. “If we stand here, we may get socked
with another one.”
Jerry nodded and quickly secured himself to the rail, glancing up every
now and then as though he expected to see another great black wave
racing toward him. Then they made their way forward to the Number Four
hatch where the little band of lake sailors struggled bravely to keep
the lake out of the _James Kennedy_’s hold.
There were nine deck hands and one deck officer, a tall, serious-looking
man named Davis. Through his water-filled eyes, Sandy could see that Mr.
Davis had taped his spectacles securely to his temples, for fear they
would be washed away. He remembered Sam saying that Mr. Davis was “as
blind as a bat” without his glasses. Sam was with the group, too—ordered
down from the pilothouse by Captain West. That was probably because the
skipper wanted to make good use of the great strength that lay in Sam’s
deep chest and thick shoulders. Sam swung a heavy sledge hammer, as he
and two other men—one of them a blond, Swedish giant named
Gunnar—attempted to batter the sprung steel hatch cover back into place.
Sandy could hear the metallic clanging of their blows above the wind and
sea as he and Jerry approached, both of them side-stepping along the
rail while they clung to their ropes.
Then Mr. Davis yelled, “All hands to the rails!”
To his horror, Sandy saw that the _James Kennedy_’s prow had plunged
into a wall of water that reared before it. The bow sliced into it as
the _V_ of a plow might pierce a snowbank—and though the boat itself
remained steady, that parted wave was now flowing around either side of
the forward cabins and sweeping down the decks!
Swiftly, the men whirled and scurried for the rails. They dove for them,
in fact! They curled around them and bent and turned their heads away
from the onrushing water, and Sandy noticed that the hammer-swingers had
fastened their tools to their wrists by thick lengths of rope.
Then the water hit.
It was far worse than the wave that had nearly carried Jerry James to
his death.
But it did not last as long. It struck with swift savagery, lifting
Sandy and Jerry and the rest of them from their feet. It sought to tear
them free of the rail and drive them aft and into the water. But that
great crushing blow and terrible tug was only of a few seconds’
duration, and then it was gone.
Sandy looked around. Water was spilling back over the sides of the
_James Kennedy_, but at the rail, where there had been ten men, there
were now only eight.
Two men had been washed overboard, one of them a hammer man.
But there was little time to dwell upon the horror of those missing
figures at the rail.
Mr. Davis had lost his glasses. The wave had torn them from his head.
The tall deck officer peered wildly about him. He had backed from the
rail, digging furiously at his eyes to clear them of water. Now, as he
looked around him on the deck of the heaving ship, it was plain that he
had lost his bearings. He took a step forward. Another. Then, rapidly,
two more. He was walking toward the rail!
Involuntarily, Sandy and Jerry took two steps toward him. But they were
too far away.
Their friend Sam wasn’t.
The stocky seaman with the muscles like steel hawsers swiftly shot out a
clutching hand and stopped his superior officer before he drowned
himself.
“You’ll have to go back, sir!” Sam shouted above the wind. “You can’t
stay out here blinded like that. Here,” he shouted at one of the men,
“help Mr. Davis below.”
The man wound a guiding arm around the deck officer, and together, they
made their way aft along the rail.
Sam glanced at Sandy Steele and Jerry and shouted, “You two—we need your
help. Come over here. That’s right, pay out the line.”
The two lads let go their tight hold on their safety lines and came over
to the torn hatch, turning around and around to unwind their ropes.
“Now,” Sam shouted again, cupping his hands so that he could be heard
above the storm and the rattling of the ship. “Now, we can’t waste any
more time rushing over to the rail every time we ship a little water.
That last wave must have poured a couple of tons of water into the hold.
A few more like that, and we’ll be down in Davy Jones’s locker. Here’s
what we’re going to do.
“We’ve got eight men left and two sledge hammers. So, Gunnar here takes
one hammer and I take the other. While we’re hammering down the hatch
cover, you three hold Gunnar,” he said, pointing to a trio of seamen,
“and you three hold me.” He pointed to Sandy and Jerry and a fourth
seaman. “If the water comes over the side again, well, we’ll just have
to ride it out. You men secure yourselves to those bits. And for gosh
sakes,” he yelled, his husky voice rising to full volume, “don’t anybody
let go of Gunnar or me when the water hits!”
Quickly, Sandy and Jerry did as they were ordered. They fastened
themselves to those stubby, mushroom-shaped iron pegs that are called
bits. Then, Jerry and the other seaman wound their arms around Sam’s
powerful legs and Sandy, because he was the tallest, grabbed him by the
waist.
Sam and Gunnar got to work.
Their hammers clanged rapidly against the stubborn steel, forcing it
down at a steady but agonizingly slow pace. Sandy marveled to feel the
strength surging through Sam’s hard torso, as he hugged the sturdy
seaman with all his might. Sam’s chest heaved and the muscles of his
back bunched as he brought the heavy hammer up and down, up and down.
Soon, Sandy’s own body ached from the strain of holding Sam erect
against the swaying and staggering of the _James Kennedy_. And the hole
was being closed so slowly!
Once, a fair-sized wave swept suddenly over them. Sandy felt Sam go down
under its onslaught, but he held him fast even though his body screamed
in pain from the effort. The seaman and Jerry held on, too, and when the
waters had spilled back into Lake Erie, a grinning Sam spat
contemptuously and scrambled to his feet and swung his hammer again.
The resumed clanging of the hammer swung by Gunnar, the Swede, told
Sandy that his crew had held fast as well.
Now, the hatch was closed. Sam and Gunnar were swiftly and skillfully
pounding the steel snugly into place when a sudden gust of wind spun Sam
around just as he was bringing his hammer down for the final blow.
Unable to stop himself, Sam now had his whistling sledge hammer aimed
directly at the unsuspecting head of Gunnar! In a fraction of a second,
the iron hammerhead would drive deep into Gunnar’s skull. It would smash
it open as easily as an eggshell, with Sam’s great strength propelling
it.
In that tiny interval of time, Sandy Steele swiftly sat down. He buckled
his legs and dragged Sam back with him, and as he did, he heard a
familiar voice beneath him yelp with pain. There was a loud metallic
clang—like the sound of a firebell—as Sam’s sledge hammer swished
harmlessly past the back of Gunnar’s head and struck the steel deck with
terrific force. But the big Swede had been saved, even if Sandy’s friend
Jerry seemed to have wound up a casualty.
He lay writhing on the deck and Sandy had to bend quickly to make sure
the rolling of the ship didn’t roll him over the side.
“What’s wrong?” he shouted in Jerry’s ear.
“My ankle,” Jerry yelled back, grimacing. “I think it’s sprained. When
you fell on me, I guess.”
Sandy groaned. He was sorry that his friend had been hurt, of course,
but now, he realized, he would have to go it alone. He glanced up and
saw the Swede staring down with a puzzled look on his face. His gaze
wavered from Jerry to the spot where Sam’s hammer had struck, making him
jump in surprise. Now Sam was waving his arms wildly and shouting an
explanation of what had happened. As he spoke, Gunnar’s mouth came open
and his blue eyes grew round.
When Sam had finished, Gunnar came over to Sandy. He leaned down and
yelled in his ear, “Tanks. You ban safe my life. You goot poy.”
Sandy nodded, embarrassed. Then he said, “Can you help me move my
friend? I think he’s sprained his ankle.”
Gunnar bent and lifted Valley View High School’s husky right end as
easily as a child. “Ay take him below,” he said simply, shifting Jerry’s
weight to one side and supporting him with one huge arm, while with the
other he held fast to the rail. He staggered off.
Sam grinned at Sandy. “Nice work, Sandy,” he said, shouting through
cupped hands again. “You sure made a friend today.”
Sandy nodded. He had glanced up to see Captain West staring down at him
from the pilothouse. It recalled to him that the most important mission
of his voyage still lay ahead of him, and that his dependable friend,
Jerry, probably would no longer be of help.
“I sure hope so, Sam,” Sandy said. “Because I think I may be needing
one.”
Then Sandy Steele and Sam swayed aft with the rest of the _James
Kennedy_’s weary deck hands.
CHAPTER TWELVE
A Web of Lies
Jerry James’s ankle seemed swollen to twice its normal size by the time
the big seaman, Gunnar, had carried him below and gently deposited him
on the bottom bunk of Sandy’s and Jerry’s cabin.
“It’s yust a sprain, Ay tank,” Gunnar mumbled as he peered at the ankle
after having removed Jerry’s dripping clothing and wrapped him in
blankets.
“Does it hurt much, Jerry?” Sandy asked anxiously.
Jerry tried to smile and shrug it off. But it was obvious to Sandy that
his friend was in great pain. He turned around, bumping into Sam, who
had also jammed himself into the tiny room. Outside the open door, Mr.
Briggs stared in at the scene with eyes of unpitying curiosity.
“Have you got any medicine, Sam?” Sandy asked. “I mean, something to
kill his pain a little.”
Sam shrugged. “Best thing that we can do is give him some rest and try
to get that swelling down. He’ll need a doctor’s care when we get to
port.” He paused as the _James Kennedy_ began to heel over in a long
roll. Everybody reached for support, and Sam grinned and added, “_If_ we
get to port.”
“We will,” the mate butted in. “Captain just called down to say the
wind’s going down.”
“Py yiminy,” said the big Swede, beaming, “Ay tank Ay live long enough
for farm, after all.”
Sam smiled fondly at Gunnar. “You big galoot,” he said, good-humoredly.
“You can’t stand to be ashore two days without getting landsick.” He
turned his gaze back to Jerry James. “You know,” he said, “I think I’ve
got just the thing to take down that swelling some and ease the pain,
too.”
“What’s that?” Sandy asked.
“Well, seeing as how you must have swallowed a couple of bucketfuls of
it yourself not long ago, I’ll tell you. It’s lake water!” He leaned out
into the passageway and called, “Hey, one of you lads, get up above and
fetch us a bucket of lake water, hear?” Then he grinned, plainly
enjoying himself. “All you have to do is stand on deck until the first
wave comes along!”
In another five minutes, Jerry James had been carefully lifted into a
sitting position by Gunnar and his sprained right foot had been thrust
into a bucket of cold Lake Erie water. Jerry had winced at his first
contact with it, but he soon grew accustomed to it. In half an hour
more, the swelling had gone down considerably and Jerry was able to turn
in with his ankle swathed in strips of sheeting soaked with water.
“Keep dousing it with water every hour or so,” Sam had suggested to
Sandy.
Then Sam and Gunnar had trudged back to the barren mess hall to join the
rest of the crewmen who squatted glumly against the bulkheads, munching
the hard biscuits and cold water passed out to them by a Cookie who
seemed to have lost his usual cheerful spirits.
Up above, meanwhile, Captain West saw, to his alarm, that he had been
mistaken about the storm. The winds had indeed died down, but only for a
time.
Now, with the coming of darkness, they were again rising. What had
resumed as the gentlest of whispers was now a wild screaming and
hammering around the pilothouse that threatened to smash in even those
stoutly reinforced windows. The seas were again pounding. The _James
Kennedy_ seemed to be weakening. No longer did she plow ahead, straight
and true, with the passage of each successive wave. Now she was
wallowing in the troughs—and the thundering seas battered her
mercilessly. Each time, she staggered and drove on. But each time, she
seemed to drive on a little less powerfully.
The waves roared at her in combinations now—sometimes two waves
following quickly upon another, frequently three.
Alone in his pilothouse, Captain West realized that a few hours more of
such punishment would mean the end of his ship and all aboard her.
Below, in the mess hall, the veteran sailors realized it, too. But they
said nothing, merely exchanging fearful glances. Only God could save
them now, they knew. In such a storm, even the most superb seamanship
was useless.
Captain West knew it, too. He wondered if he should radio for help. But
what good would that do? Who could get to him? Besides, Captain West had
no wish to make contact with the mainland. The storm had given him his
perfect excuse for arriving in Buffalo too late to communicate with his
employer, Mr. Kennedy. He wished to stay out of contact with the Kennedy
offices for as long as possible.
But something had to be done. Quickly, Captain West bent over his chart.
His eyes swept over it, eagerly searching for some island or outcropping
of land to which he might run for shelter. All around him now were the
voices of insane power, the clashing and crashing of that surging sea,
the wailing of the wind. As Captain West bent his head, a great wall of
water gathered before the _James Kennedy_’s bow.
It rose, black and awful, to the height of Captain West’s pilothouse—and
then it struck.
It fell with a roar. Captain West dove for a stanchion. He threw his
arms around it and held on. The water burst the bulkheads of the
pilothouse. It flattened those steel walls as though they were made of
paper. It swept away the pilothouse as easily as a wave washing away a
fruit crate.
Captain West heard that wrenching roar, and then the lake water poured
over him. He clung desperately to the stanchion. He felt that monstrous
weight—hundreds and hundreds of tons—driving the _James Kennedy_ down
and down, and he wondered if the vessel would ever re-emerge from it.
Down below, in his tiny cabin, Sandy Steele held his breath as he felt
that wave strike the ship and drive it down.
But the _James Kennedy_ came up.
Buried though she had been, the gallant vessel shook herself like a
soaked and weary mastiff, and her bow popped out of the frothing white
seas, streaming water from every side—and she gave a long shudder and
drove forward again.
A concerted sigh of relief broke from the throats of the lake sailors
huddled in the mess hall.
Sandy Steele felt the light film of perspiration that had gathered on
his forehead, and he involuntarily squeezed the arm of his friend.
Captain West slowly released his grip on the stanchion.
They had been through the worst of it, he knew now.
The wind was dropping as swiftly as it had risen. Above him, the clouds
were thinning out. A ghostly glow seemed to illuminate the scene as the
moon shone palely through them. In its light, Captain West could see the
dark seas running around him, glittering like polished black glass.
Captain West surveyed the damage to his pilothouse. The compass was
destroyed. The steering gear was so badly damaged that it would be
impossible to make any headway against a strong wind. But the wind was
falling to a murmur. He would be able to steer, and he would navigate by
hand compass from one of the lifeboats.
He decided to wait another few minutes to be certain that the storm was
over. Then he would go below to fetch Sam and the big Swede, Gunnar. He
couldn’t call them. The speaking system was ruined, too.
Captain West removed his hat and began to wring it dry. If he lived to
be a hundred, he told himself, he would never see another wave like that
one.
The men in the mess hall were in an ugly mood.
They knew that the worst was over, and so they had begun to grumble.
With nothing to fear, they had time to complain. Mr. Briggs was quick to
seize upon their discontent and turn it to his own ends.
He had been listening to two of them grumble bitterly about the fact
that they had had nothing solid to eat since lunch the day before. The
smaller of the pair, a man with sharp features and untidy, mouse-colored
hair, had begun to talk louder and louder.
“Thirty-six hours, Dick,” he complained. “Thirty-six hours since we’ve
had a real bite or a hot sup. Nothing but hard biscuits and stale
water.”
“Aye,” said his friend heavily. “And whose fault is it? What are we
doing out on Erie at a time like this, when we could be ashore in
Detroit? We could be drinking our coffee nice and easy in some
restaurant right now. Whose fault is it? That’s what I want to know.”
Mr. Briggs’s little eyes roved rapidly over the mess hall. He saw with
satisfaction that Sam and Gunnar had dozed off. He sidled over to the
two discontented men, who had begun to cast dark, threatening glances
about them as though they sought the author of their misfortunes.
“Who’s to blame, you say?” Mr. Briggs whispered, glancing quickly around
him. “I’ll tell you.” He pointed down the passageway. “It’s those snippy
brats of Old Man Kennedy’s, that’s who’s to blame!” he burst out.
“Oh, come, now,” the little man named Bogert said. “Don’t tell me that a
couple of vacationing high school boys have anything to do with running
this ship.”
“Just listen to me!” Mr. Briggs said fiercely. “Who do you think caused
that fire in the galley last night? It was those two blasted brats
tomfoolin’ around, that’s who it was! If you’re wondering who you’ve got
to thank for your empty bellies, it’s those kids down the way.
Especially the blond one. Every last scrap of decent food was burned up
in that fire. That’s why you’re getting biscuits and water.”
The two men exchanged angry glances. Seeing that he had convinced them,
Mr. Briggs rushed on.