Code

The story of a criminal ship and a warning in
By L. Paul
There was a queer feeling about the ship. “Hush,” thought the man who stood by the gangway. That was the apt word. A battered ship, a dirty craft, small, obscene, unseaworthy, of foreign register. And silent—hush! Grim faced men going about their business, sparing no word for him, though they might have talked, he guessed, had they cared to.
This man who watched wore soiled dungarees. There was a day’s stubble of beard on his thin face. His expression, when a passing man darted a look at him, was blank. His eyes fell when other eyes probed him. He looked over his shoulder at times, at the rotting dock in the small British port of Beverstock near Liverpool, where this ship, the Cora , lay. He had come aboard, nobody knew how. One moment, and the ship end of the gangway, creaking as the current swayed the little tramp, was empty. The next moment he was there. Nor did these others think it strange. They looked as if this sudden yet stealthy approach was usual, an accustomed thing, an item, strange perhaps to some, yet of little moment in their full lives.
The man in dungarees stood there till the first cheerful man he had seen aboard rolled up, the stout chief engineer.
“That’s him,” said the chief, and tapped him on the shoulder.
The man winced, turned, and saw, climbing the steep gangway, a man.
“That’s him,” repeated the stout chief. “Captain Bain.”
The man in dungarees saw a tall, glum seafarer, with graying hair, his frowsy shore going linen peeping from sleeves of shiny serge, his lapels greasy; his boots polished long after polish had become a mockery; and, topping all, a master’s cap.
This was Captain Bain, right enough. He stopped, stared at the man in dungarees and said briefly—
“Where from?”
“American Bar,” the man in dungarees replied.