THE CASTAWAYS
The following morning, at eight bells, those of the crew not on duty or
on the sick-list were assembled upon the forward hatch. Many of them had
heads or limbs in bandages, and they were as meek as little lambs. As
the ship's bells were struck, Calamity mounted the bridge, accompanied
by the mate, and walked up to the rail.
"I'm not going to waste my breath by telling such a crowd of doss-house
and prison scum as you are what I think about you," he said in a harsh,
grating voice, that seemed to emphasise the insults. "What I want to say
is this: the first man who raises a murmur about anything or hesitates
in carrying out an order, that man I'll string up at the end of a
derrick with a hawser for a collar. And remember this: I like a cheerful
crew, and if I see a man who doesn't look as cheerful as he ought, by
God, I'll clap him in the bilboes. Now get out of my sight."
The Captain stepped back from the rail and turned to the mate.
"I always believe in exercising patience and in using persuasion, Mr.
Dykes," he said. "If, however, we should have any more trouble--and I
don't somehow think we shall--it will become necessary to deal
drastically with the offenders."
Without waiting for a reply, he walked into the chart-room, leaving Mr.
Dykes and the second-mate gasping.
"What in thunder would he call 'drastic,' I'd like to know?" inquired
the former. "He's already maimed half the crew and calls that
persuasion. The Lord stand between me and his persuading, that's all I
say."
"He's a bloomin' knock-aht, swelp me Bob," replied the second-mate in a
tone of subdued admiration. "I thought the yarns I'd heard about him was
all kid, but now--help!"
Later on, when Mr. Dykes conveyed his impressions to the chief engineer,
the latter merely nodded without evincing the slightest surprise.
"I told ye he was a michty quare mon," he remarked calmly. "I wouldna
advise ye to run athwart him even if ye've got liquor as an excuse."
"You bet I won't, not after this. I guess I'll have to load up pretty
considerable on liquor before I try to hand him a song and dance."
"Talkin' about liquor, ye'll find a bottle o' rum under the pillow o' my
bunk, Meester Dykes. We'll jest have a wee drappie an' I'll tell ye hoo
I marrit me fairst wife."
"Your first wife?" repeated the mate. "Say, how many have you had?"
"I couldna tell ye off-hand, mon. Ye see, the saircumstances in mony
cases were compleecated, if ye ken me," answered McPhulach thoughtfully.
"Me fairst, now ..."
Mr. Dykes listened for some time to the engineer's account of his
matrimonial complications and then turned in. For the first time since
leaving Singapore, he closed his eyes without an uneasy suspicion that
he and the rest of the officers might have their throats cut before the
morning. Indeed, the crew might henceforward have served as a model for
the most exacting skipper that ever sailed the seas. The men could not
have turned out for their respective watches with more promptitude had
they been aboard a battleship, and their language on such occasions was
such that even the boatswain's mate had no cause for complaint. And they
were cheerful, laboriously cheerful. Whenever Calamity happened to
approach a man, that man would start to hum a tune as if his life
depended on it; he'd smile if he had a ten-thousand-horsepower
toothache; everybody was happy, and only the ship's cat led a dog's
life.
"It's a bloomin' wonder," said the second-mate to Mr. Dykes, "that the
old man don't put up a blighted maypole and make all us perishers dance
round it."
For two days the _Hawk_ kept the smoke-trail of the German gunboat in
view, but made no attempt to overhaul her. Every one agreed that the
_Hawk_, with her four-inch guns, could sink the German. They were
puzzled, therefore, as to the Captain's seeming reluctance to engage
her. But never a word of wonder reached Calamity, never a hint or a
question from his officers; every one was certain that he knew his
business, or, if they weren't, carefully kept it to themselves. And the
Captain himself vouchsafed no explanation.
On the third morning the look-out reported that the gunboat was chasing
a large steamer. Immediately afterwards the men, even those who were not
on watch, came tumbling up on deck, in the hope that at last they were
going to sniff the promised booty. But not a word was spoken, not a man
so much as glanced at the bridge where the skipper stood with his
glasses focussed on the chase. They were patiently cheerful.
Presently there came the faint echo of a shot and the steamer lay-to,
apparently waiting for the pirates to board her. At her stern fluttered
the red ensign of the British Mercantile Marine.
The _Hawk_ had slowed down to quarter speed, and Calamity, through his
glasses, continued to watch events. In a remarkably short space of time
the Germans transferred a portion of the cargo, whatever it might be, to
their own vessel, after which the steamer was allowed to pursue her way.
One thing seemed clear, which was that the Germans cared less for
sinking enemy ships than for laying hands on the more valuable and
portable articles of cargo they happened to carry. The gunboat, having
captured and dismissed her prey, continued on her course, and so also
did the _Hawk_.
Calamity, no doubt, had fully developed his plans, but he appeared,
also, to have developed a very bad memory. For the instructions
accompanying his commission contained, among numerous other clauses, one
which laid it down that "if any ship or vessel belonging to us or our
subjects, shall be found in distress by being in fight, set upon, or
taken by the enemy ... the commanders, officers, and company of such
merchant ships as shall have Letters of Marque shall use their best
endeavours to give aid and succour to all such ship and ships...."
Which, of course, for reasons known only to himself, the Captain of the
_Hawk_ had not done, nor attempted to do.
The morning had been unusually hot, even for such latitudes, and, as the
day advanced, the heat became almost unbearable. The pitch boiled and
bubbled up between the deck-seams and the exposed paintwork became
disfigured with huge blisters. An awning had been rigged up over the
bridge, but, despite this and the fact that it was high above the decks,
the atmosphere was like that of a super-heated bakehouse, dry and
shimmering, nor was there a breath of wind to stir it. Occasionally a
whiff of hot, oily vapour came up through the engine-room gratings and
helped to make the air still more heavy and oppressive. Even the sea,
calm as a pond, looked oily and hot under the glare of a burning noonday
sun set in a sky of metallic blue.
Then, towards eight bells in the afternoon watch, a faint breeze sprang
up; the sky changed imperceptibly from blue to grey, and the sun became
a red, glowing disc with a slight haze round it. The sea had taken on a
yellowish-green tint and angry little wavelets began to chase each other
and to dash themselves viciously against the _Hawk's_ sides. Presently
the breeze died away as suddenly as it had arisen, but the sky became
more and more overcast and the wavelets grew into boulders,
white-crested and threatening. The sun disappeared behind a bank of
black, evil-looking clouds, while the atmosphere became still more
oppressive and the decks and awnings steamed. A strange, uncanny silence
had settled over everything, so that the least noise sounded curiously
distinct. The throb of the engines, usually mellow and subdued, came now
in sharp, staccato beats; the clang of the furnace-doors and the rattle
of rakes and shovels in the stokehold could be plainly heard on the
bridge.
"Strike me pink, if we ain't in for a bloomin' typhoon, a reg'lar
rip-snorter," muttered the second-mate as he mopped his perspiring
forehead.
The quartermaster set his teeth and gripped the wheel more
tightly--something was going to happen. A moment later, Calamity stepped
on to the bridge and gave a quick, comprehensive glance around him.
"Everything lashed up and made secure, Mr. Smith?" he asked.
"Yes, sir," answered the second, and added: "We're runnin' into a proper
blazer; none of your bloomin' twopenny-ha'penny breezes this time."
Already the awnings had been taken in, spars and loose gear made fast,
derricks secured, and ports screwed down. Every moment it grew darker
and the _Hawk_ was beginning to roll in an uncomfortable fashion.
Suddenly the sky was split by a blinding flash of lightning followed by
a crashing peal of thunder that seemed to shake the vessel from stem to
stern. There was a moment's interval, during which rain-spots the size
of pennies appeared on the deck and a grey haze settled over the sea.
Then came another flash of lightning, a terrific roar of thunder, and
the storm burst in all its fury. The rain came down now in solid sheets
of water, pouring off the bridge and deck-houses in cascades and
flooding out the scuppers which could not drain it fast enough. The sea
had gained in fury with the hurricane and now broke over the bulwarks,
mounted the forecastle, and swept along the decks from bow to stern. One
great wave even leapt up to the bridge, tearing away the awning spars,
smashing the woodwork to splinters, and very nearly wrenching the wheel
from the quartermaster's hands.
Another great roller struck the _Hawk_ amidships and she reeled till her
port bulwarks were under water. Gradually she righted, her funnel-guys
twisted into a mass of tangled wire, her boats carried away or stove in,
her decks, fore and aft, littered with wreckage and gear which had been
swept loose. Between the deafening peals of thunder, the shouts and
curses of the poor wretches in the stokehold could be heard as they were
thrown against the glowing furnace doors, or the firebars slipped out,
shooting great masses of red-hot coal and clinker among their half-naked
bodies.
Sometimes a wave would catch the vessel under the stern, lifting her so
that her bows plunged forward into the boiling sea ahead, her propeller
racing high in the air until the plates quivered with the vibrations. Or
she would lift her nose to an oncoming billow, and, rising with it, bury
her stern in the seething vortex till the wheel-house disappeared from
view beneath the turbid, foaming water. It seemed impossible that any
ship could live through such a storm.
But at last the lightning began to grow less vivid, the thunder
gradually died away in the distance and the sea, little by little,
subsided. Firemen, black from head to foot, staggered along the deck to
the forecastle and threw themselves just as they were upon their bunks;
the second engineer came off duty, a bloody sweat-rag twisted round his
head, and reeled, rather than walked, to his cabin. Then McPhulach
appeared at the fiddley, mopping his face with a lump of oily waste.
"Are you all right below?" shouted Calamity from the bridge.
"Aye, but some of the puir deils will carry the mairks o' this day upon
their bodies as long as they live," answered the engineer. "Hell must
be a garden party to what it was down yon a wee while aback."
As he spoke, two injured firemen, the upper parts of their bodies
wrapped round with oil-soaked waste, were brought on deck and carried to
the forecastle. Their faces, which had evidently been wiped with
sweat-rags, were of a corpse-like whiteness that was accentuated by the
circles of black coal-dust round their eyes.
"Half roasted," said McPhulach, indicating with a jerk of his head the
two injured men. "If they hadna rinds like rhinoceros hide, they'd be
dead the noo. Mon, the stokehold smelt like a kitchen wi' the stink o'
scorching meat."
The engineer disappeared and Calamity turned to Mr. Dykes, who had
relieved Smith on the bridge.
"Serve out a tot of rum to all hands," he said. "It's been a trying
experience."
"Trying experience!" echoed the mate. "It was as near hell as ever I
touched, sir."
The Captain was about to make some remark when he suddenly snatched a
pair of binoculars out of the box fastened to the bridge-rail. He
focussed them upon the seemingly deserted waste of tossing grey waters
and then handed them to the mate.
"What do you make of that, Mr. Dykes?" he asked, indicating a point on
the port quarter.
The mate stared through the glasses for some minutes, then handed them
back to the Captain.
"It's a boat with a man and a woman in it, or I'm a nigger," he said.
"So I thought," answered the Captain.