Blow The Man Down: A Romance Of The Coast
At least, he had conquered East River, the Gate, and the narrows beyond,
and had many miles straight ahead to the whistler off Point Judith. He
was resolved to be thankful for small favors.
He hoped that with the coming of the night and on account of the
prevalence of the fog he would find that shipping of the ordinary sort
had stopped moving. However, in a few minutes he heard telltale whistles
ahead, and he signaled half speed. A lumbering old lighter with a
yawing derrick passed close aboard. An auxiliary fisherman, his exhaust
snapping like a machine-gun, and seeming to depend on that noise for
warning, was overtaken.
“Can you leave that window for a minute, Captain Mayo?” asked the
general manager.
The captain promptly joined Mr. Fogg at the rear of the spacious
pilot-house.
“See here, Cap,” remonstrated his superior, “I came down through these
waters on the _Triton_ of the Union line the other day, and she made her
time. What's the matter with us?”
“I'm obeying the law, sir. And there are new warnings just issued.” He
pointed to the placard headed “Safety First” in big, red letters. “The
word has been passed that the first captain who is caught with the goods
will be made an example of.”
“Is that so?” commented Fogg, studying the end of his cigar. His tone
was a bit peculiar. “But the _Triton_ came along.”
“And she nigh rammed the _Nequasset_ in the fog the last trip I made up
the coast. It was simply touch and go, Mr. Fogg, and all her fault. We
were following the rules to the letter.”
“And that's one way of spoiling the business of a steamboat line,”
snapped Fogg. He added, to himself, “But it isn't my way!”
“I'm sorry, but I have been trained to believe that a record for safety
is better than all records for speed, sir.”
“I let Jacobs go because he was old-fashioned, Mayo. This is the age of
taking chances--taking chances and getting there! Business, politics,
railroading, and steam-boating. The people expect it. The right folks do
it.”
“You are general manager of this line, Mr. Fogg. Do you order me to make
schedule time, no matter what conditions are?”
“You are the captain of this boat. I simply want you to deliver
up-to-date goods. As to how you do it, that is not my business. I'm not
a sea-captain, and I don't presume to advise as to details.”
Captain Mayo was young, He knew the 'longcoast game. He was ambitious.
Opportunity had presented itself. He understood the unreasoning temper
of those who sought dividends without bothering much about details. He
knew how other passenger captains were making good with the powers who
controlled transportation interests. He confessed to himself that he had
envied the master of the rushing _Triton_ who had swaggered past as if
he owned the sea.
Till then Mayo had been the meek and apologetic passer-by along the
ocean lane, expecting to be crowded to one side, dodging when the big
fellow bawled for open road.
He remembered with what haste he always manouvered the old _Nequasset_
out of the way of harm when he heard the lordly summons of the passenger
liners. Was not that the general method of the freighter skippers? Why
should he not expect them to get out of his way, now that he was one of
the swaggerers of the sea? Let them do the worrying now, as he had done
the worrying and dodging in the past! He stepped back to his window,
those reflections whirling in his brain.
“This is no freighter,” he told himself. “Fogg is right. If I don't
deliver the goods somebody else will be called on to do it, so what's
the use? I'll play the game. Just remember--will you, Mayo--that you've
got your heart's wish, and are captain of the _Montana_. If I lose this
job on account of a placard with red letters, I'll kick myself on board
a towboat, and stay there the rest of my life.”
He yanked a log-book from the rack and noted the steamer's average
speed from the entries. He signaled to the engine-room through the
speaking-tube.
“Give her two hundred a minute, chief!” he ordered.
And fifteen seconds later, her engines pulsing rhythmically, the big
craft was splitting fog and water at express speed, howling for little
fellows to get out from underfoot.
Down in the gleaming depths of her the orchestra was lilting a gay
waltz, silver clattered over the white napery of the dining-room, men
and women laughed and chattered and flirted; men wrote telegrams, making
appointments for the morrow at early hours, and the wireless flashed
them forth. They were sent with the certainty on the part of the senders
that no man in these days waits for tide or fog. The frothing waters
flashed past in the night outside, and they who ventured forth upon the
dripping decks glanced at the fan of white spume spreading into the fog,
and were glad to return to cozy chairs and the radiance of the saloon.
High up forward, in the pilot-house, were the eyes and the brains of
this rushing monster. It was dark there except for the soft, yellow
gleam of the binnacle lights. It was silent but for the low voice of a
mate who announced his notations.
Occasionally the mates glanced at each other in the gloom when a
steamer's whistle sounded ahead. This young captain seemed to be a chap
who carried his nerve with him! They were used to the more cautious
system of Captain Jacobs.
The master did not reduce speed. He leaned far out, his hand at his ear.
The third time an unknown sounded her blast he took a quick glance at
the compass.
“Two points shift--so she shows,” he said aloud. “We'll pass her all
right.”
The change in the direction of the sound had assured him. A few minutes
later the whistle voiced a location safely abeam. But the next whistle
they heard sounded dead ahead, and increased in volume of sound only
gradually. They were overtaking a vessel headed in the same direction.
Captain Mayo pulled the cord oftener and sounded more prolonged, more
imperious hoots. He ordered no change in his course. He was headed
for the Point Judith whistler, and did not propose to take chances on
fumbling by any detours. The craft ahead at last seemed to recognize the
voice of its master. The sound of the whistle showed that it had swung
off the course.
The mate mumbled notations.
“All ears out!” ordered the captain. “We ought to make that whistler!”
And in the next breath he said: “There she is!” He pointed a wet hand
ahead and slightly to port. A queer, booming grunt came to them. “You're
all right, old girl,” he declared. “Jacobs wasn't over-praising you.”
He reached over the sill and patted the woodwork of his giant pet.
He turned to the quartermaster. “East, five-eighths south,” was his
direction.
“East, five-eighths south, sir!”
“What's the next we make, captain?” asked the general manager from the
gloom at the rear of the pilot-house.
“Sow and Pigs Lightship, entrance of Vineyard Sound, sir.”
“Good work! I'm going to take a turn below. See you again! What can
I tell any uneasy gentleman who is afraid he'll miss a business
appointment in the morning?”
“Tell him we'll be on time to the dot,” declared the captain, quietly.
Mr. Fogg closed the pilot-house door behind himself and chuckled when he
eased his way down the slippery ladder.
Mr. Fogg sauntered through the brilliantly lighted saloon, hands in his
pockets, giving forth an impression of a man entirely at ease. Nobody
appeared to recognize the new general manager of the Vose line, and he
attracted no special attention. But if any one had been sufficiently
interested in Mr. Fogg to note him closely it would have been observed
that his mouth worked nervously when he stood at the head of the grand
stairway and stared about him. His jowls sagged. When he pulled out his
handkerchief his hand trembled.
He descended the stairs to the main-deck and peered about in the
smoking-quarters, running his eyes over the faces of the men gathered
there. All at once he lifted his chin with a little jerk and climbed the
stairs again. A big man tossed away a cigar and followed at a respectful
distance. He pursued Mr. Fogg through the saloon and down a corridor and
went into a stateroom on the general manager's heels.
“By gad, Burkett, I'm getting cold chills!” exploded Mr. Fogg, as soon
as the door was closed.
“Don't understand just why.”
“Those people out there--I've just been looking 'em over. It's monkeying
with too big a proposition, Burkett. You can't reckon ahead on a thing
like this.”
“Sure you can. I've doped it right.”
“Oh, I know you understand what you're talking about, but--”
“Well, I ought to know. I've been pilot for the re-survey party on the
shoals for the last two months. I know every inch of the bottom.”
“But the panic. There's bound to be one. The rest of 'em won't
understand, Burkett. It's going to be awful on board here. I'll be here
myself. I can't stand it.”
“Look here, governor; there won't be any panic. She'll slide into the
sand like a baby nestling down into a crib. There isn't a pebble in
that sand for miles. Half of this bunch of passengers will be abed and
asleep. They won't wake up. The rest will never know anything special
except that the engines have stopped. And that ain't anything unusual
in a fog. It's a quiet night--not a ripple. Nothing to hurt us. The
wireless will bring the revenue cutter out from Wood's Hole, and she'll
stand by till morning and take 'em off.”
“The theory is good. It's mostly my own idea, and I'm proud of it, and I
was mighty glad to find a man of your experience to back me up with the
practical details,” said Fogg, trying to fortify his faith with words
but failing. “But now that it's coming down to cases I'm afraid of it.”
“Well, it's up to you, of course, governor. I insist it can be done, and
done smooth, and you'll lay off this steamer nice, slick, and easy!
That will put a crimp into the Vose line and make them stockholders take
notice the next time a fair offer is made.”
“It's the thing to do, and I know it. The conditions are just right,
and we've got a green captain to make the goat of. All set! But it's
an awful thing to monkey with--eight hundred people, and no knowing how
they'll take it! It came over me while I stood there and looked at 'em!”
“Sand is sand, and the whole, round earth is braced up under that sand.
She can't sink. She'll simply gouge her way like a plow into a furrow,
and there she'll stick, sitting straight, solid as an island--and it
will be a devil of a while before they'll be able to dig her out. It's
a crimp for the Vose line, I say, governor!” Malevolence glowed in
Burkett's little eyes.
“Of course, the money I'm getting for this job looks good to me,
governor, but my chance to put a wallop into anything that old Vose and
his sons are interested in looks just as good. I wouldn't be in this
just for the money end of it. I'm no pirate, but when they kicked me
out of the pilot-house and posted me up and down this coast, they put
themselves in line to get what's coming to 'em from me.”
“But have you considered every side of it?” pleaded Fogg. “You're the
practical man in this proposition. What can happen?”
“If you do exactly what I tell you to do nothing can happen but what's
on our program. Just let me stiffen you up by running the thing over
once more.”
He pulled a hand-smutched, folded chart from his breast pocket and
spread it over his knees. With blunt forefinger he indicated the points
to which he made reference in his explanation.
“When he fetches Nobska horn on his port, bearing nor'west by west,
he'll shift his course. After about five miles he's due to shift again,
swinging six points to nor-rard. You'll hear the mate name the bearing
of West Chop steam-whistle. Then you walk right up to the left of the