CHAPTER IX
TOWED INTO PORT
It cannot truthfully be recorded that Craddock and Phillips were cool and collected—they weren't. It would be difficult to describe their true feelings.
They were excited at entering upon this strange adventure, and a bit scared as to the possible results. On the other hand they had implicit trust in their Scoutmaster and could be relied upon to carry out faithfully his instructions.
"Keep your weather eye lifting, Brandon!" exclaimed Mr. Grant, as the dinghy pushed off from the yacht. "Watch the fog. It may come on worse."
"Ay, ay, sir," responded the Patrol-leader.
"Way 'nough," ordered the Scoutmaster, as the cockleshell dinghy approached the tramp. He was now convinced that the abandoned craft was making little if any water. Her freeboard aft was approximately the same as when he first took stock of her.
The sea was so calm that the dinghy could lie alongside without danger or difficulty. Grasping his opportunity Mr. Grant swung himself on board.
"Righto!" he shouted reassuringly. "Push off and wait until I hail."
The Getalong was rolling slightly and sluggishly, the dull swish of the water in her hold being plainly audible as he made his way to the engine-room hatchway.
The air of the compartment was heavy with smoke and steam. For a moment the Scoutmaster hesitated. Above the sullen swirl of the imprisoned water he distinctly heard a steady trickle.
"What I expected—only more so," thought Mr. Grant, and without further ado he switched on his electric torch and descended the steel ladder.
That the Getalong was a very old type of vessel was apparent by the fact that she was without water-tight bulkheads. There was a bulkhead at the after end of the engine-room and at the for'ard end of the stokehold, but both had sliding doors communicating with the holds.
Water had poured into the engine-room—it was still coming in—and had run aft owing to the fact that the cargo in the after hold was much heavier than that stowed for'ard. That accounted for the vessel being down by the stern.
It did not take Mr. Grant long to discover the leak. A large valve in the "wings" through which water was normally admitted into the circulating pumps was wide open, while the joint of the pipe had been deliberately "broken" by unscrewing the six gun-metal bolts uniting the flanges.
"Attempted scuttling!" exclaimed the Scoutmaster as he closed the valve. "That's done the rascals in the eye this time. Can't hear any more water coming in; but it seems strange that only a little stream like that has filled her."
Ankle deep in black oily water that swirled over the bedplates, Mr. Grant groped his way to the stokehold. Here the depth of water was only a couple of feet. The still burning furnaces, from which hot cinders were continually dropping, fizzling as they came in contact with the water, showed that the Getalong had not been long abandoned.
Thence right for'ard. Here all seemed in order. Beyond the usual "weeping" of the laps of the hull-plating there was nothing to indicate a leak.
"Good enough!" exclaimed the Scoutmaster gleefully, as he made his way on deck.
"She won't sink, lads!" he shouted, as he signalled the dinghy to close.
"What did you do just now, sir?" inquired Craddock. "We saw something shoot to the surface, so we pulled towards it. It was a dead sheep."
"Then that accounts for it," decided Mr. Grant. "There was a regular torrent coming in through the valve until by a lucky chance the suction drew that dead sheep. The carcase acted as a valve and stopped or nearly stopped the inflow. Now it's safe to conclude that the vessel won't sink."
Mr. Grant looked at the Puffin. She was still in about the same place, and fairly visible in spite of the wreathing fog.
"Puffin, ahoy!" he hailed.
"Ay, ay, sir," replied Brandon.
"Close a bit."
"Ay, ay, sir."
The yacht's propeller began to churn, and the Puffin glided gently to within a dozen yards of the tramp.
"We're going to get that craft into Aberstour, lads," declared the Scoutmaster.
"Tow her in, sir?" asked Brandon.
"Hardly," replied Mr. Grant. "Our twelve horse-power wouldn't get her along at more than one mile an hour. The tide would set us well beyond Oldbury Head before that.
"No; I want you, Brandon, to take the Puffin back to Aberstour. North by west is the approximate course. Keep your lead going and mind the Medlar Shoal. When you get there tell Weatherhead, the master of the tug Stormcock, to put out to us at once. Let him know that the job's worth a hundred or more."
"Ay, ay, sir," replied the Patrol-leader, keenly alive to the possibilities of sole command.
"And another thing," continued Mr. Grant. "You may pass some boats making for the shore—boats from this vessel. If they ask for a tow do so, but on no account must any of you even hint that the Getalong is still afloat."
"And how about you, sir?" inquired the Patrol-leader.
"Craddock, Phillips and I are going to stand by," replied the Scoutmaster. "There's no danger unless we're run down by another vessel. Between us I think we can manage all right till the Stormcock arrives."
The Puffin departed on her errand.
Mr. Grant told the two Scouts to come on board and hoist in the dinghy.
"Now," he continued briskly. "There's some bilge water to be got rid of. It's lucky I know something—not much, though—of steam engines. We'll try getting the donkey engine to work."
Coals were shovelled into the foremost boiler. Slowly but surely the needle of the pressure gauge rose until the head of steam was sufficient for the work required.
In less than half an hour the steam bilge-pipes were at work, throwing huge jets of water over the side, while in a couple of hours the Getalong was again in her normal trim.
{Illustration: "THE SQUAT LITTLE TUG LOOMED UP, HER CREW AUGMENTED BY SIXTEEN WILDLY EXCITED SEA SCOUTS."
[P. 61}
That was all that could be done, at least for the time being. A tedious wait ensued, until Mr. Grant decided that they ought to anchor.
Hitherto such a precaution was hardly necessary, since the east-going tide had changed fifty minutes ago and the opposite or west-going stream was setting the Getalong back to the approximate position where the Puffin left her.
But before the three "hands" could clear away the cable and release the compression, a long-drawn wail, followed by four short blasts, announced that the Stormcock was approaching.
In reply, Craddock gaily tootled the Getalong's syren, until, grotesquely magnified by the mist, the squat little tug loomed up, her normal crew augmented by sixteen wildly excited Sea Scouts, since the Seals and the Eels had prevailed upon the good-natured Captain Weatherhead to let them "have a look in."
It did not take very long for a stout hawser to be passed on board the tramp, and by five o'clock the Getalong crossed Aberstour bar on a falling tide with less than two feet of water under her keel.
"You saw no signs of the crew?" inquired Mr. Grant as he stepped ashore.
"No, sir," replied Brandon. "The first thing we saw after we left you—sorry, sir, I didn't mean to suggest that you were a thing—was the east pier-head of Aberstour. Luck, of course," he added modestly.
"Just as well, perhaps, that you didn't fall in with the crew," commented Mr. Grant. "I think that as soon as the fog lifts we'll go for a week's cruise, otherwise the best part of our holidays will be taken up with attending police-courts.
"As a matter of fact it is lifting. Away home, lads, and tell your people we're off cruising for a few days. With decent luck we ought to be in Sablesham Harbour before sunset."