V
On Light-ship 67, drifting broad onto the breakers, all hands were perched high in her rigging, safe above any stray seas; all but Nelson and Bowen, who were hanging on to her weather rail forward.
Bowen was the first to realize what the figure on the after end of the tug meant to them. "Heave for here!" he shouted, and Nelson, also awake to the situation, held up one of the torches for a mark.
[pg 106]
Nearer and nearer butted the tug. "Stand by!" they heard the call from the forward end of her. Looking up, they could see the shadow against the pilot-house light. "By!" came the echo, and the man astern stepped on to her open quarter and balanced himself to heave.
A note in that answering voice caught Bowen's ear. "Say, Nelson, that's not one of the tug's regular crew!"
"I don't know. I don't t'ink, but he ban a foolish man," replied Nelson—"he should lash himself."
"Stand by with the line!" came again.
"By!" echoed tensely from astern.
"Ready!"
"All ready!"
"When she lifts! Now—w—"
From the top of a sea the line came whistling down to the light-ship rail. "I'll take it," called Bowen, and, loosing his hold of the stay, he reached out and caught the flying line to his breast. "A good throw," he muttered, and hauled it in.
The hawser followed the heaving line, and Nelson and Bowen, with life-lines about them, bent the stubborn end of it around the windlass. It was heavy work, even for two men, on the tumbling, slippery deck, and, that done, they turned, anxiously, to see how the man in the stern of the tug [pg 107] was making out. He was there, back to, bending the thick stubborn bight about the towing bitts with slow, heavy motions. They saw one great sea break over him; and another: but when the seas were past there he was still working away.
"Won't he never mak' him fast?" wailed Nelson.
"Give him time," snapped Bowen. "He's doing well. He's got to do it right. If his end came loose, where would we be? Give him time."
Nelson looked significantly shoreward. "Time?"
"How's she coming, Bud?" they heard then.
"Bud? And that sounds like his voice, too," muttered Bowen.
"Wa-atch out!" Even with the roar of it Nelson and Bowen could hear the warning from the pilot-house to the man in the stern of the tug. A tremendous sea it was and the little Whist went over—over. Over until her side-lights were under. There she held for a moment, started to rise, and then a following sea caught her and overbore her and that time she rolled low enough to take salt water down her funnel.
She came back—after a time. Up, up, nobly; but when they next looked from the light-ship they could see no figure in her stern. Bowen leaned far over the light-ship's rail. Nothing there, but he called to Nelson for the torch, and Nelson let it flare out over the water.
[pg 108]
Then Bowen saw him. Almost under the bow of the light-ship he was, and the big torch was throwing a light like blood on his face. "It is him!" cried Bowen.
"Vat iss?" demanded the puzzled Nelson, and then under the light he, too, saw the face in the tossing waters.
Bowen, with a life-line under his arms was already over the side. But his plunge fell short. Nelson heard a sound as of a man's voice smothering, saw a hand raised and lowered, and then into the tossing blackness the lone figure was swept.
Nelson hauled Bowen aboard. When he recovered his first word was, "God, Nelson, that was Harty!"
"Harty, wass it? I don't know him, but he was one goot man."
The big hawser strained and groaned, chocks and bitts crooned their song of stress, the wind whistled its dirge, while out from the breakers the Whist hauled her tow.
To the wheel of the tug Baldwin glanced ahead and behind, pointed her nose for the breakwater, gave her four bells and the jingle, put his mouth to the tube, and answered, "Yes, Pete, that's right—'twas Bud went. And now it's up to you, son. Keep steam on her, and if the hawser holds and nothing else happens, she oughter stagger home all right."
[pg 109]
Nothing more happened and the Whist staggered home. The morning light saw her safe to the Navy Yard with the light-ship moored alongside.
Bowen stepped from the light-ship to the tug. Up in the pilot-house he found Baldwin. The sailor was staring through a window, staring out to sea. Bowen waited.
Baldwin turned inboard at last. "I s'pose you're wonderin' how we knew. Well, 'twas Bud passed me the word, and more than that, 'twas Bud broke me out of as promisin' a little game as ever a man sat into. Chips? Enough to fill my service cap afore me, and not all white chips either. And he comes along and just the same as yanks me up by the collar an' says, 'You got to go!' and I had to. And of course where I go Pete goes."
"And a game thing, Baldwin."
"Game hell. It's our trade—Pete's and mine. But it wasn't Bud's. But he was bound to go. And when he went under, when I woke up to it he was gone, I looked out. The sea was still rolling up to the clouds. I sticks my head out the window to cool it, and to myself I says: If there was only somebody else in this watch so I could take five minutes off somewhere and lie down and cry. That's the way I felt about it. Yes, sir, if it wasn't for you fellows behind and good old Pete below, [pg 110] I believe I'd let everything go. Yes, sir, government property or no, I believe I'd a let the old Whist roll up on the beach and been glad to roll up with her. And Bud—" Baldwin came suddenly to a full stop and stared out to sea. After a time he turned and asked: "Did you see him when he went?"
"I did. And that time I grabbed for him and missed and he went by me, he half-turned and looked at me, and I thought he said, 'I never meant it.' Just that I heard, when the sea washed over him, and when he came up again he must've thought that I didn't understand, and he waved one arm. It was like he was saying 'Good-by!'—the way he did it. Yes, he was all right—Harty."
"You betcher he was all right. An' more than all right. As for that, it's a damn poor specimen' that ain't all right when it comes to a show-down. I've known Bud—I can't remember when I didn't know Bud Harty. And, Bowen, he was a better man than you or me. Bud always let you see the worst of himself, but you had to guess at the best of him. Bud, he sure could hate a man—but, son, he could like you a lot better than ever he hated you."
The two men sat and looked out to sea in silence. At last Baldwin, with a heavy sigh? stood up, and, [pg 111] reaching into a locker, brought forth a bottle and two glasses. "I s'pose we oughter try to forget it for awhile. This stuff here, it's against regulations havin' it aboard, but lots of things against regulations never hurt anybody. It was against regulations our takin' out the Whist last night. And when the commandant's back from leave I reckon I'll get mine. For you"—he laid a forefinger against the big rating badge on his coat sleeve—"that I've been shipmates with for fifteen years—off and on—I reckon will be detached. But I've been disrated before and we'll let that pass. But you an' me and Bud, we ain't been the best of friends we used to be since—well, you know when, but you're goin' to drink for him now the toast he wouldn't drink last night, but the toast that if he was here I know he'd drink now, for it's a sure thing that when he went into the breakers he didn't go out of hate. So you drink for Bud, and I'll drink for myself. Here's to you and yours, Bowen, your wife and the baby that's comin'—"
"And that baby—if it's a boy, Baldwin, I'll name after him."
"Will you? God, but he'll like that—Bud'll sure like that. And now, here you go—
"May the wind be always fair for you
Whatever the course you sail!
[pg 112]
"An' you an' me and all of us we'll be like we used to be, an' Bud'll like it, I know. An' now one to Bud himself. I know 'twill please him to see us doin' it. Here's to Buddie, Bowen. Is it a go?"
"Let her run!"
"Run it is, and a gale behind her—Christmas to Bud!"
[pg 113]