Blow The Man Down: A Romance Of The Coast
and swarmed on deck again. Each seemed to be animated by personal and
vital interest.
“You can't buy crews like this one with wages,” observed Captain
Candage, icicled beard close to Mayo's ear. “I reckon it was about as my
Polly said--you cast bread on the waters when you took their part on Hue
and Cry.”
The young man, clinging to a cleat and watching the struggles of their
craft, waved a mittened hand to signify that he agreed. In that riot
of tempest and ruck of sea he was straining his eyes, trying to get a
glimpse of the hulk on Razee. But the schooner had worked her way too
far off to the west, pressed to leeward by the relentless palm of the
storm.
Then at last came morning, an opaque dawn that was shrouded with
swirling snow, and all was hidden from their eyes except the tumbling
mountains of water which swept to them, threatened to engulf them,
and then melted under their keel. The captains could only guess at the
extent of their drift, but when the wind quieted after midday, and they
were able to get sail on the schooner, they were in no doubt as to the
direction in which the steamer must lie. They began their sloshing ratch
back to east.
Mayo braved nipping wind and iced rigging and took the glass to the main
crosstrees. He remained there though he was chilled through and through.
At last, near the horizon's rim, he spied a yeasty tumult of the sea,
marking some obstruction at which the waves were tussling. In the midst
of this white welter there was a shape that was almost spectral under
the gray skies. The little schooner pitched so ferociously that only
occasionally could he bring this object into the range of the glass. But
he made sure at last. He clutched the glass and tobogganed to deck down
the slippery shrouds.
“She's there, Captain Candage!” he shouted. “The teeth of old Razee are
still biting.”
They were back to her again before the early night descended. She was
iced to the main truck, and the spray had deposited hillocks of ice on
her deck, weighting her down upon the ledges which had pinioned her. But
in spite of the battering she had received her position had not changed.
They circled her--the midget of a schooner seeming pitifully inadequate
to cope with this monster craft.
“Well,” sighed Captain Candage, “thank the Lord she's still here. Our
work is cut out for us now--whatever it is we can do with her. They say
a mouse set a lion loose once by gnawing his ropes. It looks to me as if
we're going to have some blasted slow gnawing here.”
They lay by her that night in a quieting sea, and spent wakeful hours in
the cabin, struggling rather helplessly with schemes.
“Of course, it's comforting to find her here and to know that the
Atlantic Ocean will have to get more muscle to move her,” said Candage.
“And then again, it ain't so darnation comforting. Looks to me as if
she's stuck there so solid that you couldn't joggle her off if you
hove the moon at her. I reckon my hope has been what yours has been,
Mayo--salvage her whole instead of junking her.”
“I'm a sailor, not a junkman. I'd almost rather let my money go, Captain
Candage, than be a party to smashing up that new steamer into old iron.
She has fooled the guessers by sticking where she is. It has been my
hope from the first that she can be floated. She is not a rusted old
iron rattletrap. Of course, she's got a hole in her, and we can see now
that she's planted mighty solid. But she is sound and tight, I'll wager,
in all her parts except where that wound is. I suppose most men who came
along here now would guess that she can't be got off whole. I'm going
into this thing and try to fool _those_ guessers, too.”
“That's the only real gamble,” agreed the skipper. “We'd only make days'
wages by carving her into a junk-pile. A scrap-heap ain't worth much
except as old iron at half a cent a pound; but a new steamer like that
is worth two hundred thousand dollars, by gorry! if she's afloat.”
“Well, we've got to do something besides lay to here and look at
her lines. In the first place, I want to know what's the matter with
her--about how much of a hole she has got. Our eyes ought to tell us a
little something.”
And on that errand Mayo departed the next morning after breakfast.
Only a sailor, young, alert, and bold, could have scaled the side of
the steamer in that weather. Her ladder was in place, but nothing much
except an exaggerated icicle. But it was on the lee side of her, and
his dory was fairly well protected from the rush of the seas. With his
hatchet he hacked foothold on the ladder, left his men in the dory, and
notched his perilous way to the deck. The fore-hatch was open, just as
the hastily departing salvagers had left it. He went below, down the
frosted iron ladder. He was fronted with a cheerless aspect. Cargo and
water hid what damage she had suffered. The fat man had secured most of
the cargo that the water had not ruined.
He climbed back on deck and explored amidships and aft. Her engine-room
was partially flooded, for her forepeak was propped on the higher part
of the reef, and water had settled aft. Her crew's quarters were above
the main-deck, as is the case with most cargo-carriers of the newer
type. He found plenty of tinned food in the steward's domains, coal in
tie galley bunker, and there was bedding in the officers' staterooms.
Mayo scrambled back to his dory and went aboard the schooner. He
reported his findings.
“And here's the only sensible plan for the present, Captain Candage:
I'll take two men and a dory and go aboard and guard our property.
Somebody must stay here--and I don't want you to take the chances
on that wreck. You've got a daughter. You probably know more of the
shipyard crowd in Limeport than I do. That's the nearest city, and I
believe that when you report that the _Conomo_ is holding after this
storm you can hire some equipment on credit and borrow some money.”
“I swear I'll do my best. I know a lot of water-front folks, and I've
always paid my bills.”
“We need stuff for the whole wrecking game--engine, pumps, and all the
rest. You go and scout on shore and capture a few men and bring 'em out
here to look our prospect over.”
“Offer 'em a lay?”
“No, sir. We'll make this a close corporation. I don't propose to let a
lot of land sharks in here to manipulate us out of what's our own. It's
our gamble, and we want what's coming out of it. Go ashore and see what
you can do on prices and terms. Don't close anything till you and I
have conferred. I'll have a schedule of needs made up by the time you're
back.”
Half an hour later he was located on the wreck with the two men he had
selected as his companions. They carried tackle with them, with
which they hoisted after them their dory--their main bower in case of
emergency.
And the sea which Mayo surveyed was more lonely than ever, for the
_Ethel and May_ was standing off across the heaving surface toward the
main and the hulk was left alone in the expanse of ocean. He felt very
much of a pygmy and very helpless as he scrambled about over the icy
decks. He remembered that faith can move mountains, but he was as yet
unable to determine just what power would be able to move that steamer,
into whose vitals the reef of Razee had poked its teeth.
At eight bells, midnight, Mayo turned out of his berth, for he heard
something that interested him. It was a soft pattering, a gentle
swishing. As a mariner, he knew how sudden can be meteorological changes
on the coast in winter. When the north winds have raged and howled and
have blown themselves out, spitting sleet and snow, the gentler south
winds have their innings and bear balmier moisture from the Gulf Stream.
He poked his head out and felt a soft air and warm rain. He had been
hoping and half expecting that a change of weather would bring this
condition--known as a January thaw. He went back to his bunk, much
comforted.
A bright sun awoke him. Clear skies had succeeded the rain, All was
dripping and melting. Chunks of ice were dropping from the steamer's
stubby masts, and her scuppers were beginning to discharge water from
the softening mass on her deck.
He and his little crew ate breakfast with great good cheer, then secured
axes from the steamer's tool-house and began to chop watercourses in the
ice. A benignant sun in a cloudless sky had enlisted himself as a member
of the wrecking crew on Razee Reef. That weather would soon clear the
_Conomo_ of her sheathing.
This was a cheerful prospect, because rigging and deck equipment of
various kinds would be released. The steamer began to look like a less
discouraging proposition. She was no longer the icicle that had put a
chill into underwriters and bidders. Mayo lost the somberness that had
weighed upon him. The sea did not seem so lonely and so threatening. He
felt that he could show something tangible and hopeful to the parties
whom Captain Can-dage might be able to solicit.
When he saw a tug approaching in the afternoon his optimism suggested
that it brought the skipper and his party; his own hopes were so high
now that he felt that men with equipment and money would be eager
to loan it to parties who possessed such excellent prospects. In this
fashion he translated this apparent haste to get to the reef.
But it was not Captain Candage who hailed him when the tug eased herself
against the ladder, her screw churning the sea in reverse. A stranger
came out of the pilothouse of the _Resolute_, carrying a big leather
suit-case. He was plainly the passenger who had chartered her. A
deck-hand tossed a cast-line to the steamer's deck, and Mayo promptly
threw it back.
“You can't come aboard.”
“Who says so?”
“I say so. I have a bill of sale of her in my pocket.”
“I don't recognize it. The law will have something to say about that
later.”
“I don't care what the law may say later. I'm talking right now. We own
this steamer. What are you here for?”
“I left quite a lot of little personal belongings on her. I went away in
a hurry. I want to come aboard with this valise and get 'em.”
“They must be pretty valuable belongings, seeing that you've chartered a
tug to come out here.”
“A fellow's own property means more to him than it does to anybody else.
Now that I've gone to all this expense, you ain't mean enough are you,
to keep me off? This is between sailors.”
“Who are you?”
The man hesitated. “Well, if I've got to be introduced I'll say my name
is Simpson--I have been second officer aboard there.”
“You're not here with any legal papers--you're not trying any trick to
get possession, are you?”
“Take all in hearing to witness that I ain't! I'll pick up my stuff and
leave in ten minutes.”
“Come aboard, then.”
The man set down his suit-case and hitched a heave-line to the handle.
He coiled the line and handed it to a deck-hand. “Throw that to me when
I'm on deck,” he ordered. Then he came up the ladder.
“Heave, and I'll hoist up the bag,” suggested Mayo at the rail.
“Wait till I get there,” barked the visitor, still climbing. He caught
the line after he had reached the rail and pulled up the case with some
effort and great care.
“Look here, that bag isn't empty,” said Mayo.
“Who said it was? I'm carrying around in it all I own in the world. I'm
starting for New York as soon as this tug sets me ashore.”
He picked up the case and started for the officers' quarters. Mayo went
along, too.
“You afraid I'm going to steal her engine out of her? The few little
things of mine I'm after were hidden away, and that's how I forgot 'em.
Now don't insult me by following me around as if I was a thief.”
“I don't know just what you are,” muttered the young man. “There's
something that looks mighty phony about this, but I haven't got you
sized up just yet.”