SHAKING A CREW TOGETHER
The master of the Valkyrie prowled on deck for some time. The two or three men in the forecastle had ceased their noise and were presumably in their bunks. The steamer was quiet. Cary regretted that he had been compelled to tap Mr. Duff on the head, but there had been no other way out of it. Quick action had been demanded or the dandyish second mate, Mr. Panchito, might have escaped from the saloon to raise an alarm.
First impressions of Mr. Bradley Duff had been more favorable than expected. He amounted to more than a rum-eaten shell of a man. There had been no cowardice in his violent rebellion. His sense of the fitness of things had been outraged, that a chief officer left in charge of a ship should be challenged by a crazy vagabond with no credentials.
On shore Mr. Duff might be a blatant ruin. To such men, however, the sea is often the breath of salvation, and its austere traditions have power to restore, for the time, the habits of courage and fidelity.
To Richard Cary the whole adventure had taken a disagreeable slant. The flavor was spoiled. He was out of the frying-pan into the fire. The tidings of that thousand-dollar reward stuck in his throat. It hadn’t occurred to him that this Colombian crew might regard him as a treasure to be hunted with murderous enthusiasm. The shoe was very much on the wrong foot. If Señor Bazán was aware of this excessively awkward aspect, he was not letting it fret him. His confidence in the colossal Ricardo who plucked iron bars from windows and walked out of prisons was either sublime or senile.
Could anything be attempted during the night? It would be easy enough to stay under cover until after the boat-load of firemen and sailors had returned from the town. But this would not get the steamer to sea unless—unless—yes, there was a fighting chance.
Richard Cary walked the deck, trying to fit together this detail and that. He had no fatuous intentions of storming through the ship and crushing mutiny single-handed. The chief engineer, willing as he was, ought to be left below with his invalid machinery. And any disturbance on board would be certain to attract attention on shore.
While Captain Cary, with deliberate scrutiny, was weighing and testing his plans, he heard the splash of oars and the cadenced thump of thole-pins. The ship’s boat presently bumped alongside with much loud mirth and gusty argument. Cary withdrew to the wheel-house where he could watch them go forward to their quarters. They lingered in a noisy group, evidently surprised at finding no officer on watch. What was to be done with the boat? Should they hoist it to the davits or leave it in the water? One of the mates ought to be somewhere about to give orders. However, these returning mariners were weary after much liquor and dancing with the girls. They forgot the boat and stumbled forward, weaving this way and that, arms around one another, singing sentimentally.
Richard Cary counted them as well as he could. A dozen or so! Charlie Burnham must have kept a couple more on watch in the fire-room. The two or three already in the forecastle accounted for the lot. There was this to be said for this scratch crew of Colombians. They had not run wild ashore. It had been a harmless spree.
Cary went to the gangway and turned the boat adrift. It was a needless hazard to leave it tied alongside. There should be no scrambling out of the ship in the morning to arouse the police of Cartagena. One hornet’s nest was enough. Next he stole into the chief officer’s room and flashed the light on him. Alas, Mr. Duff was indisposed to be an active partner. He slumbered heavily, his crimsoned nose trumpeting like a bugle. His gray hair was slightly clotted, but the pistol butt had no more than scratched it. The effect had been more soporific than serious.
Shaking his shoulder failed to stir him, although he grunted and muttered a very profane desire to be let alone. This was disappointing. Captain Cary turned his steps to the room which harbored Señor Ramon Bazán. The steward nodded in a chair. He put a finger to his lips and whispered:
“Sleepin’ like he was rocked in a cradle, Cap’n. What kin I do foh you, sah?”
“Produce that supper you promised me, Rufus. I shall be kept up all night.”
“Right away, sah. I didn’t hear you blam no more people,” hopefully observed the steward as he ambled aft. “Th’ reason I has lived a long while an’ kep’ mah health is, ’cause I abstained mahself from fool questions. But what does you aim to do wid th’ second mate, Mr. Panchito? You done lock him in mah pantry. How kin I find suppah foh you, Cap’n?”
“Sure enough, Rufus. How careless of me! What is your opinion of Mr. Panchito?”
“He ain’t so worse, sah, tho’ dese Colombia yaller men don’t class with us Jamaica folks, in mah jedgment. Mr. Panchito was in th’ Colombia navy till th’ navy filled up an’ sunk one night, right smack in dis yere harbor, Cap’n. It got tired of stayin’ afloat. Th’ one gunboat was all the Colombia navy done was, so Mr. Panchito had to go git him another job. Um-m-m, when you come bulgin’ in to-night he was so skeered his hair mighty near unkinked. It was jes’ like a nightmare bustin’ in on him—wid all dis say-so ’bout El Diablo prancin’ an’ ravin’ through Cartagena.”
“That sounds better,” heartily exclaimed the skipper. “You have seen the owner of the vessel, Señor Bazán, and you know I am the lawful master. Can you talk to Mr. Panchito in his own lingo?”
“Yes, Cap’n. I was two years in a gen’leman’s house in Cartagena, an’ then he ups an’ dies on me.”
“Then make Mr. Panchito savvey that I am easy to get along with if he jumps lively.”
Mr. Panchito was released from the pantry, anticipating sudden death. Nothing like this had ever happened in the navy of Colombia. When invited to sit at table with a good-humored El Diablo who smiled often, he plucked up spirit and found his own voice. In his heart was dismay at the thought of losing this position as second mate, with its excellent wages, and he was anxious to do anything in his power to hold it. To annoy this giant of a captain was to be rapped on the cabeza with a pistol butt. Mr. Panchito had not the remotest idea of collecting any thousand-dollar reward.
After a refreshing supper, Captain Cary and Mr. Panchito went arm-in-arm to the wheel-house. The chief engineer sent up the information that the first assistant, two firemen, and an oiler were on watch, to keep steam in readiness for morning.
“Hold them down there, Charlie,” was the order. “Have you got a gun?”
“A sort of a one. All right, sir, I’ll hold ’em here. What’s the big idea?”
“Fetch me a hammer and spikes and some short pieces of scantling. I won’t need the rest of the crew in the morning. Can you manage to shove her as far as the Boca Chica?”
“Sure! I sling a mean shovel myself. Nail ’em up? That’s a corker.”
Soon Captain Cary went forward, with Mr. Panchito, to reconnoiter. A wooden house with large windows had been built, at Mr. Duff’s suggestion, to give the crew lodgings more livable in the tropics than the noisome kennels under the deck of the vessel’s bow. These were so leaky that rough weather would flood them, and they were foully dark. It had been cheaper to build a shelter than to make the necessary repairs.
Mr. Panchito was eager to assist the captain’s hasty carpentry by discouraging with a pistol any attempts to break out. The doors had hasps and padlocks, but these could not withstand much battering from within. Richard Cary spiked them fast with swift, powerful blows of a machinist’s hammer. The noise awoke the dozen sailors and firemen. For the moment they imagined the mate was pounding to call all hands on deck. They tumbled from the bunks, crowded to the doors, and couldn’t push them open.
Caramba! There was a commotion in this stout wooden coop. Bare toes could not kick through obstinate doors. The terrific hammering dinned at them. It was like being inside a bass drum. Fearfully they flew for the windows.
And now the rotund Mr. Panchito exhibited a frenzied agility. He bounded from one window to another, flourishing the pistol, pushing a head back, belaboring a wriggling pair of shoulders. It was like a multiplied jack-in-the-box. He caught one limber fellow by the leg as he dived for the deck. Into the window he stuffed him by main strength. Mr. Panchito was magnificent. As a second mate he was already deserving encomiums.
Laughter made Richard Cary miss a spike as often as he hit it. He too had to gallop round and round the wooden structure which seemed to have a hundred windows and as many frantic men trying to spill out of them. Never had he heard the Spanish language so molten that it actually threatened to set a building on fire. As fast as he rammed a man inside, he slapped a piece of board across a window and whacked the spikes into it.
Mr. Panchito was running himself to death. He sounded like a whistling buoy. There was no leisure for him while those infernal heads were popping out, and El Diablo was at his heels. One by one the windows were made secure enough to check the eruption. Then Captain Cary had time to spike more boards across the windows. Even if the captives should pull the bunks to pieces for battering-rams, they were safely caged for the present. In their own tongue Mr. Panchito informed them through the cracks that if they cared to live longer it was essential to be as still as mice and to beseech the goodness of God on their sinful knees.
“Mucho bueno, Capitan Cary,” exclaimed this excellent second mate whose pink shirt stuck wetly to his skin.
“One hundred per cent bueno,” was the hearty verdict. “If the Colombian navy hadn’t dropped out from under you, it would have been Admiral Panchito some day.”
“Si, señor. Now ees what?”
“Now is what? That is as bright a remark as I ever had put up to me, Mr. Panchito.” (Cary held up two fingers.) “Dos hombres! Just the two of us. We must make the old steamboat, el vapor, vamoose from Cartagena.”
“Dos hombres? Si, señor,” instantly agreed the second mate to whom nothing was now incredible.
They adjourned to the saloon where the steward was waiting with food and drink.
“Seems like I heard yo’ conquerin’ somebody else, Cap’n Cary.”
“You did, Rufus. Now I’ve knocked off. I forgot to ask you—is there a cook to be accounted for?”
“Yes, sah. He come aboard with th’ men an’ is sleepin’ it off.”
“Please turn him out for an early breakfast. Does he have to be conquered?”
“Not him. I showed one nigger who was boss yestiddy. Um-m-m, I’se his speshul brand of Yellow Tiger.”
“Then we are all checked up,” said Cary. “Now, Mr. Panchito, you can siesta yourself on those cushions for an hour or two. I’ll be on deck.”
Dawn had no more than touched Cartagena with rosy fingers when Mr. Panchito was lifted from the cushions and stood upon his feet. Captain Cary was holding a steaming cup of coffee under his nose. The second mate rubbed his kinky head with both hands, yawned, and sighed a long “Si, señor.” Gently but firmly he was led forward and escorted into the wheel-house. Did he know the channel out through the lagoon? To Cary’s gestures he nodded confident assent. Through the voice tube the chief engineer assured them that she could flop her propeller over if nobody spoke harshly to her. Leaving Mr. Panchito propped against the steering-wheel, Cary ran to the bow to handle the anchor winch himself.
He opened the valves and grasped the lever. Steam hissed from rusty connections, but the piston began to chug back and forth. Anxiously he threw the winch into gear. With a frightful clamor the drum very slowly revolved, dragging in the links of the cable. If the winch didn’t fly into fragments or pull itself out of the deck, the anchor would have to break out of the mud.
A series of protesting shrieks from the laboring winch, a dead stop, another effort, and it was taking hold in grim earnest. The cable was coming home link by link. Cary jumped to look overside. The huge ring of the anchor came surging out of the water. The Valkyrie was free. Her master let the winch revolve until the anchor hung flat against the bow. This was good enough. It could be stowed later.
He waved his hand to Mr. Panchito who had drooped himself over a window ledge of the wheel-house. The pink shirt moved over to the steering-wheel. The whistle of the Valkyrie blew no farewell to the port of Cartagena. It would have been a foolish waste of steam.
The steamer sluggishly gathered headway, riding light in ballast. It was odd to see her heading for sea without any visible crew. Two hombres were in the wheel-house. Not a soul moved on deck.
Safely she avoided the shoals and made the wide circuit to swing into the narrow fairway of the Boca Chica between the mouldering, grass-grown forts. By now Captain Richard Cary was pacing the bridge in solitary grandeur. His brow was serene with contentment. The ship was heaving under his feet as she felt the swell of the wide Caribbean. He was gazing ahead.
“ ‘Now ees what?’ ” he said to himself. A rumbling cough made him whirl about. Mr. Bradley Duff was clinging to a stanchion with one hand. The other tenderly caressed his scalp. On his puffy features was written a bitter resentment. The night’s rest had not sweetened his temper. Cary was quick to offer amends.
“I hated to have to do it, Mr. Duff. Señor Bazán was near dying in my room, and I didn’t dare jolt him with any more excitement. You refused to listen to me—”
“I went in and saw the old gentleman just now,” grumpily replied the chief officer. “He set me straight about you. I didn’t air my troubles. He has chirked up quite a bit. But what was the sense in all the hush stuff? Why didn’t the old coot tell me you were coming aboard to take command? Do you think I’d ’a’ blabbed it ashore? It was nothing to me if a big Yankee sailorman had enjoyed beating up the town.”
“You wouldn’t have blabbed when you were sober,” said Cary. “It was the Colombian crew that made Señor Bazán nervous. They had some foolish notions about me.”
“And so you boxed up the crew, Captain Cary? That is a new one on me. And now you will have to turn ’em loose. How about that?”
“Not a thing to worry about, if you feel like turning to, Mr. Duff,” was the cheery assurance.
This compliment so astonished Mr. Duff that he blew his mustache like a walrus. He tried, with no great success, to push his chest out and pull his stomach in. His bleary eye brightened as he ripped out:
“Hell’s bells, young man, we’ll show ’em who runs this ship. Of course they may refuse duty and try to make you put back. Seems to me I heard some mention of a thousand dollars reward for you. It went in one ear and out the other. I never needed money bad enough to dirty my hands by crimping a fellow Yank in a foreign port. You’ll take my word for that.”
“I believe you, Mr. Duff. Then I will release the men and set the watches, if they behave themselves.”
“One moment, Captain Cary,” growled the beach-comber. “You bent a gun over my crust last night, and I’m willing to forget that, which is very handsome of me. But you insulted me professionally and I feel hurt. You called it a filthy ship. Let me tell you, I was commanding smart vessels when you were a clumsy pup. You don’t know what I have had to contend with in this blistered old scow that ought to be scrapped. The owner hollers murder when you ask him for paint. Now you back me up and I’ll make this ship so clean you can eat off her decks. You can’t tell me one bloody word about a chief officer’s job.”
“I apologize,” smiled Cary. “It was unfair of me. I snapped it out before I thought. Go to it. Between us we’ll shake the crew down.”
The swag-bellied Mr. Duff was pacified. He looked almost pleasant. His professional instincts had been not dead but dormant. Presently he trudged forward to pull the spikes from the doors of the forecastle house. The men came piling out, hungry and hostile. Mr. Duff’s fist smote the first one under the chin. The others took the hint. They were not so rampant.
On the bridge they happened to descry the figure of a very tall and broad young man with a thatch of yellow hair that shone in the sun like spun gold. In every way he was a most unusual young man. He was looking at them with steady, untroubled eyes, as if they were no more than so many noisy insects.
This was a great surprise. The young man could be none other than the dreaded Tigre Amarillo whose capture they had so gayly discussed for the fun of spending an imaginary fortune. Last night, when the boards had been mysteriously nailed on the windows, there had been frightened surmises—the man with the hammer had been ever so much bigger and more powerful than Mr. Duff—but they had later agreed that they were drunk and their vision was untrustworthy.
Swiftly now their startled minds were adjusting themselves. Their emotions were easy to read. Sixteen men in all, if they could unite—the ship was still within sight of the Boca Chica—if they couldn’t manage to take her all the way back to Cartagena they could anchor inside and send a boat once they had gotten the upper hand of the three Americanos. The second mate and the assistant engineers were Colombians. They would be glad to aid the cause of justice. This yellow-haired monster of a man had been guilty of crimes to make one shudder.
Captain Richard Cary saw them hesitate and crowd together. He jumped down the iron ladder and shoved into the group. A knife flashed. He slapped the hand that held it. The sailor clasped a benumbed wrist. The chief officer was bravely collaring them. It was no more than a flurry. They were given no time to organize and act cohesively.
“Hustle ’em along, Mr. Duff,” said Cary. “Breakfast be hanged! Send the firemen below. Put your sailors at work. Keep all hands moving. Give me a good man to relieve the second mate at the wheel. We are too short-handed to stave any of them up. So be as easy as you can.”
“Here is a quartermaster, sir,” panted Mr. Duff, jerking his thumb at a chunky fellow with a boil on his neck.
“Aye, I’ll just take him along,” said the skipper.
With this he grasped the quartermaster around the waist, deftly flipped him head down and heels up and, thus reversed, tucked him under one arm. Encumbered in this manner, Captain Cary strode for the wheel-house where he stood his spluttering quartermaster right end up and cuffed him erect. He was shown the course on the compass card in the binnacle. He gripped the spokes with the most zealous sincerity. He had no other thought in the world than to steer an absolutely correct course. Neither to the right nor left did he glance.
The steamer’s speed increased to five knots. The chief engineer, still at his post, called through the tube:
“All the firemen came tumbling down at once, Captain Cary. They are awful sore about no breakfast. This bunch of mine would sooner eat than fight.”
“I’ll send grub and coffee down, Charlie. Can you stand by two or three hours longer? Things are smoothing out.”
“Sure I can. These engines interest me. I just sit and wonder what makes ’em go. Come down when you get a minute.”
“Right-o, Charlie boy. It looks like a happy voyage, even if we did get off to a bum start.”
Soon Mr. Duff lumbered to the bridge to report:
“I am going to feed my animals directly, sir. They are washing down with the hose and scrubbing for their lives. A smart ship, by the time we slide into the Pacific! The second mate refused to go off watch. He bounces after the men and damns their eyes if they turn their heads to spit. The only moment Mr. Panchito took off was to shift into a purple silk shirt and a necktie with yellow spots.”
The routine set in motion, Richard Cary went in to visit the invalid Señor Ramon Bazán. He was sitting up in bed. Joyously he piped:
“A life on the ocean wave, Ricardo! I am a man ten years younger. And the ship has sailed with no trouble at all. How is my fine ship and my great captain?”
“Not a care in the world,” was the genial reply. “Everybody earning his wages and the course set for the Isthmus.”
“Bend your ear down, Ricardo mine. Softly now. There is no whisper of our secret plans? They know nothing about the treasure chart and Cocos Island?”
“Not a suspicion, Papa Ramon. To Buenaventura for orders and thence with cargo.”
“What kind of a crew is it to trust when we find the six million dollars and the gold ingots? This is the only thing that has worried me, Ricardo. I could do no better for a crew in Cartagena. This chief officer, Bradley Duff. Will he be a bad egg?”
“Right as can be. You can’t always judge a man by his looks and manners. As for the crew, there will be no trouble with them.”
“El Draque has come again to the Spanish Main,” said Ramon Bazán, fondly regarding his commander. “Remember now! The treasure chart is wrapped in the rubber cloth, under my shirt, Ricardo. Now take me into my own room and you get yourself all settled comfortably in here where you belong.”
To the Valkyrie came a breathing spell. Outwardly she was an unlovely little ocean tramp which had seen much better days, plodding along the Colombian coast on some humdrum errand to earn a pittance by begging cargoes from port to port. Her discolored sides rolled to the regular impulses of the sea and the propeller blades flailed the water into foam. A banner of black smoke trailed from the shabby funnel and spread behind her in a dirty smudge.
The early morning weather had been kind to these argonauts. During the forenoon, however, Mr. Duff cocked a knowing eye at the barometer and sniffed the warm breeze. It was damper than he liked. His feet pained him more than usual. His broken arches had warned him of more than one sudden gale of wind and rain. He mentioned his misgivings to Captain Cary who received them with respect. They set about doing what they could to make things secure, swinging the boats inboard and lashing them, covering hatches, attending to odds and ends neglected in the haste of departure.
Even while they toiled, the sky grew overcast and the sea lost its sparkle. The wind veered this way and that before it began to blow strongly out of the east. It threatened to blow much harder. The crew realized that the Valkyrie was ill-prepared to endure furious weather. They laid aside all ideas of plotting mutiny. It was more essential to save themselves from drowning.
By noon the steamer was wallowing in a gray waste of raging water. She rolled with a sickening motion as if about to turn bottom up. The seas broke solid on her decks and poured through smashed skylights, through the leaky joints of deadlights, through weather-cracked doors. When pounded and submerged like this, the ship was not much tighter than a basket.
Leaving Mr. Duff on the bridge, Richard Cary went down to the engine-room. He found a red-eyed, haggard Charlie Burnham hanging to the throttle valve with both hands to ease her or to jam ahead when the indicator bell whirred like an alarm clock. Water was slashing over the greasy floor plates. The first assistant was up to his waist in the filth of the bilge, trying to clear the pumps of the loose coal which had choked the suction pipe. He was a small man limp with seasickness and bruises. When he stooped over to try to claw the coal away and free the suction strainer, the water boiled over his head as the ship rolled far down.
Cary crawled over and pulled him out of the bilge. Here was a job for a man of more height and strength. He plunged in himself and was working with the energy of a dredge when Charlie Burnham slid across the floor to yell in his ear:
“The pumps are drawing a little, sir. You can clear it if anybody can. If you don’t, it’s good-night. We’ve got to keep the water down or it will put out the fires.”
Cary wiped the floating grease from his eyes and grunted:
“I’ll do my best to clear it, Charlie, if I have to stand on my head. How is she steaming?”
“Like a dizzy old miracle. Better than she knows how. It’s lucky I held all the firemen below. They are working short shifts, but it’s banging ’em around something awful.”
Twenty minutes later, Captain Cary hauled himself out of the bilge. The pumps were sturdily pulling water, and the flood in the engine-room had been checked. He went into the stokehold. Half-naked men were staggering and tumbling to and fro in a fog of steam from the hot ashes and salt water. Red coals spilled out when a furnace door was opened. Frequently the wretched toilers lost their footing and were flung headlong. Arms were seared with burns, bodies contused.
When the captain of the ship suddenly loomed among them, they cowered from him, dropping slice-bars, letting coal fall from their shovels. Their nerves were already rasped to breaking. They were disheartened men dumbly struggling for survival against the obliterating ocean. Instead of striking and cursing them, this mighty captain was smiling like a friend. He snatched a shovel from a half-dead fireman with a bleeding shoulder and pushed him out of the way. The shovel ate into a pile of coal on the floor and swiftly fed it into a furnace door.
The captain poised himself against the wild rolling of the ship and shot the coal into that furnace like three or four men. He was all grease and grime like themselves. He was El Diablo of a stoker, setting them an example to wonder at. The word passed that he had been in the bilges, making the pumps suck to save the fires. This was a new kind of captain. It restored their hope and made them oblivious of hurts and fatigue.
For some time the captain plied the shovel or raked the fires with a long slice-bar. They had heard of his prowess with an iron bar. It was the truth. He handled this heavy bar like a straw. They watched him with the eager excitement of children. The ship was safe with such a captain. He could do anything. It was certain that he would preserve their lives.
When, at length, the captain desisted from stoking like a giant, he shouted a few words of Spanish at them. They were all muchos buenos hombres, and viva el vapor! It was a little storm, nothing to worry brave sailors of Colombia. They grinned and clapped their hands together. He was not a yellow tiger, but El Capitan Grande.
When, at length, he climbed to the bridge, the sea seemed less violent and the sky not so somber. Mr. Duff was planted beside the engine-room indicator, jockeying the ship as best he could to ward off the blows of the toppling combers. His red face was streaked with salt. A sou’wester was jammed on his gray pow. The wind whipped his oilskin coat out behind him. At a glance he was competent, a man restored to his element.
“All right, Mr. Duff,” said Cary. “We have seen the worst of it. Go below and ease your feet. You may as well snooze till I call you. There was nothing I could do up here. I left the ship in good hands.”
“Thank you for that,” beamed the chief officer. “It shook the ship up some, but, by Judas, it’s worth the damage. It shook this flighty crew together. I don’t anticipate much more trouble with them.”
“Neither do I, Mr. Duff. This gale has blown some of the nonsense out of their heads. I think we can make it a contented ship.”
Sunset found a quieting sea and a dying wind. The Valkyrie was on her course for Colon. After a while the second mate came up to relieve the captain and let him snatch a few hours of sleep. Richard Cary waited a moment. A sailor paused beside the wooden house in the bows. Upon the roof was mounted the bronze bell of the galleon Nuestra Señora del Rosario. The sailor pulled a cord and the ancient bell rang out the hour, dong-dong—dong-dong—dong-dong—dong-dong! Eight bells!
“All’s well and westward ho!” said Richard Cary, the sense of illusion stealing over him. “It’s still the same. Ships have changed, but men are the same. And the game is still worth playing.”