Blow The Man Down: A Romance Of The Coast
name--Daniel Boyle. And never tell anybody until you hear from me that
your name is David Boyne. That freighter leaves to-night for Barbados
with sugar machinery. You'll have a nice trip.”
“I don't care how far away I get,” declared Boyne, rather bitterly. “I
have done a tough trick. I'm pretty much of a renegade. No, I don't care
how far I go.”
“Nor I, either,” agreed Fogg, but a smile relieved the brutality of the
speech. “You see, son, both of us have special reasons why it's just as
well for you to be away from these diggings for a time. If some folks
get hold of you they'll bother you with a lot of foolish questions. When
you get tired of Barbados go ahead and pick out another nice trip, and
keep going, and later on we'll find a good job for you up this way. Keep
me posted. Good-by.”
The tug had docked and he hurried off and away.
“It's quite a game,” reflected Mr. Fogg. “I've bluffed a pot with one
two-spot. Work was a little coarse because it had to be done on short
notice. The work I do with my second two-spot is going to be smoother,
and there won't be so much beefing after the pot is raked in. Too much
hollering, and your game gets raided! I can see what would happen to
me--Julius Marston doing it--if I give the strong-arm squad an opening.
But if they see the little Fogg boy slip a card in the next deal he's
going to make--well, I'll eat the _Montana_, if that's the only way to
get rid of her.”
Boyd Mayo lost no time in obeying his orders to report in New York. He
gave his name to a clerk at the offices of the Vose line and asked to
see Mr. Fogg. He presented himself a bit timorously. He was not at all
sure of his good fortune. It is rather bewildering for a young man to
have the captaincy of a twin-screw passenger racer popped at one as
carelessly as tossing a peanut to a child. He crushed his cap between
trembling palms when he followed the clerk into the inner office.
Mr. Fogg rose and greeted Mayo with great cordiality. “Good morning,
captain,” said the manager. “Allow me to hope that you're going to be as
lively in keeping to schedule time as you have been in getting here from
Norfolk.”
“I didn't feel like wasting much time, considering what was promised
me,” stammered Mayo, not yet sure of himself.
“Afraid I might change my mind?”
“It seemed too good to be true. I wanted to get here as soon as I could
and make sure that I had heard right, sir. Here are my papers.”
He laid them in the manager's hand. Fogg did not unfold them. He fanned
them, indicating a chair.
“Sit down, Captain Mayo. You understand that new management has taken
hold of the Vose line in order to get some life and snap into the
business. We have strong competition. A big syndicate is taking over
the other steamship properties, and we must hustle to keep up with the
procession. I'm laying off freighters that are not showing a proper
profit--I'm weeding out the moss-covered captains who are not up with
the times. That's why I'm putting you on the _Montana_ in place of
Jacobs.”
“He's a good man--one of the best,” ventured Mayo, loyalty to his kind
prompting him. “I'll be sorry to see him step aside, as glad as I am to
be promoted--and that's honest.”
“That's the way to talk; but we've got to have hustle and dash, and
young men can give us what we're after. It doesn't mean that you've got
to take reckless chances.”
“I hope not, Mr. Fogg. My training with Captain Wass has been the other
way. And if you could only give him--”
“Captain, you've got your own row to hoe. Keep your eye on it,” advised
the general manager, sharply. “I'm picking captains for the Vose boats,
and I think I understand my business. Now what I want to know is, do you
have confidence in me? Are you going to be loyal to me?”
“Yes, sir!” affirmed Mayo, impressed by his superior's brisk, brusque
business demeanor.
“Exactly! And the only talk I want you to turn loose is to the effect
that you believe I'm doing my best to make this line worth something to
the stockholders. Where are you stopping?”
Mayo named a little hotel around the corner.
“I'll put you aboard the _Montana_ just as soon as I can arrange the
details of transfer. I may let Jacobs make another trip or so. Report
here each morning at nine. For the rest of the time keep within reach of
the hotel telephone.”
Mayo saluted and went out.
Fogg called the observer at the weather bureau on the telephone and
asked some questions. He was informed that the wind had swung into the
northwest and that the long-prevailing fog had been blown off the coast.
Mr. Fogg appeared to feel somewhat peevish over this sudden departure
of the weather phenomenon which bore his family name. He slammed the
receiver on to the hook and said a naughty word. A person overhearing
might have wondered a bit, for here was a steamboat manager cursing the
absence of the fog instead of preserving his profanity to expend on the
presence of the demoralizing mists. But the reign of the north wind in
late summer is never long; three days later the breeze shifted, and the
gray banks of the fog marched in from the open sea.
Mayo was awakened early by the clamor of the whistles of river craft,
for the little hotel was near the water-front. He saw the fog drifting
in shredded masses against the high buildings, shrouding the towers.
He had been waiting his call to duty with much impatience, finding the
confinement of the hotel irksome in the crisp days of sunlight, eager to
be out and about this splendid new duty which promised so much.
It was the _Montana's_ sailing-day from the New York end.
He had gone to sleep thrilling with the earnest hope that he would be
called to take her out. But when he looked out into that morning, saw
the draping curtains of the stalking mists, heard the frantic squallings
of craft in the harbor, frenzied howls of alarm, hoarse hootings of
protests and warnings, he was suddenly and pointedy anxious to have
his elevation to the pilot-house of the _Montana_ deferred. Better the
smoky, cramped office of the little hotel where he had been chafing in
dismal waiting. He was perfectly willing to sit there and study
over again the advertising chromos on the walls and gaze out on the
everlasting procession of rumbling drays. But at eight o'clock the
telephone summoned him.
“This is General-Manager Fogg,” the voice informed him, though he did
not require the information; he knew those crisp tones. “I am speaking
from my apartments. Please proceed at once to the _Montana_. I'll come
aboard within an hour.”
“Do you expect me to take command--to--take her out to-day?” faltered
Mayo.
“Certainly. Captain Jacobs will transfer command as soon as I get down.”
Mayo had just been rejoicing in his heart because Jacobs would be
obliged to bear the responsibility of that day's sailing; he had been
perfectly sure that a new man would not be summoned under the conditions
which prevailed. He wanted to suggest to Manager Fogg that making
the change just then would be inadvisable. He cleared his throat and
searched his soul for words. But a sharp and decisive click told him
that Mr. Fogg considered the matter settled. He came away from the
telephone, dizzy and troubled, and he was not comforted when he
recollected how Manager Fogg had received meek suggestions in the past.
He paid his modest account, took his traveling-bag, and started for the
Vose line pier.
When he saw her looming in the fog--his ship at last--he felt like
running away from her incontinently, instead of running toward her.
Mayo had all of a young man's zeal and ambition and courage--but he had
in full measure a sailor's caution and knowledge of conditions; he had
been trained by that master of caution, Captain Zoradus Wass. He was
really frightened as he stared up at the towering bow, the mighty
flanks, the graceful sweep of superstructure, and realized that he must
guide this giant and her freightage of human beings into the white
void of the fog. In his honesty he acknowledged to himself that he was
frightened.
The whole great fabric fairly shouted responsibility at him.
He was confident of his ability. As chief mate he had mastered the
problems of courses and manoeuvers in the fog along that same route
which he must now take. But until then the supreme responsibility had
devolved upon another.
Men were rushing freight aboard on rattling trucks--parallel lines of
stevedores were working. There were many trunks, avant couriers of the
passengers.
He went aboard by the freight entrance and found his way to the row of
officers' staterooms. He recognized the gray-bearded veteran who was
pacing the alley outside the pilot-house, though the man was not in
uniform; it was the deposed master.
“Good morning, Captain Mayo,” he said, without any resentment in his
tones. “I congratulate you on your promotion.”
“I hope you understand that I didn't go hunting for this job,” blurted
Mayo.
“I believe it's merely a matter of new policy--so Manager Fogg tells me.
Understand me, too, Captain Mayo! I harbor no resentment, especially not
against you.”
He put out his hand in fine, manly fashion, and was so distinctly
the best type of the dignified, self-possessed sea-captain of the old
school, that Mayo fairly flinched at thought of replacing this man.
Captain Jacobs opened the door lettered “Captain.” “All my truck is out
and over the rail. I'll sit in with you, if you don't mind, until Mr.
Fogg arrives. You're going to have a thick passage, Captain Mayo.”
“It doesn't seem right to me--putting a new man on here in this fog,”
protested Mayo, warmly. “I ought to have her in clear weather till I
know her tricks. In a pinch, when you've got to know how a boat behaves,
and know it mighty sudden in order to avoid a smash, one false move puts
you into the hole.”
“They seem to be running steamboat lines from Wall Street nowadays,
instead of from the water-front,” said Captain Jacobs, dryly. “It's all
in the game as they're playing it in these times. There's nothing to be
said by the men in the pilot-house.”
“I'm a sailor, and a simple one. I think I know my job, Captain Jacobs,
or else I wouldn't accept this promotion. But I've got no swelled head.
It's the proper and sensible thing for you to take the _Montana_ out
tonight and let me hang around the pilot-house and watch you. If I can
prevail upon Mr. Fogg to allow it, will you make another trip?”
“I would do it to help you, but I'll be blasted if I'll help Fogg--not
if he would get down now and beg me,” declared Captain Jacobs, showing
temper for the first time. “And if you had been pitchforked out as
I've been after all my years of honest service you'd feel just as I do,
Captain Mayo. You don't blame me, do you?”
“I can't blame you.”
“You know the courses, and you'll have the same staff as I've had.
You'll find every notation in the log accurate to the yard or the
second. She's a steady old girl and, knowing tide set and courses, as
you do, you can depend on her to the turn of a screw. You have my best
wishes--but I'm done.”
He put the fervor of final resolve into the declaration. But, with
sailor's fraternal spirit of helpfulness he sat down and went into
the details of all the Montana's few whims. He called in the mates and
introduced them to the new master. They seemed to be quiet, sturdy men
who bore no malice because a new policy had put a new man over them.
Then arrived General-Manager Fogg, and in this strictly business
presence Mayo did not presume to voice any of his doubts or his opinion
of his inefficiency.
The rather stiff and decidedly painful ceremony of speeding the former
commander was soon over, and Captain Jacobs departed.
“Why haven't you put on your uniform?” asked Fogg. “You have fixed