"Let's keep our minds on what we're watching for—the tidal bore coming up the river. I'd say it's due any moment now, the way those boats are getting ready for it."
Tugs and side-wheelers were bracing to buck the incoming tide, while the native boats were hoisting colorful sails and poising in midstream, ready to take off up the river. Biff had his movie camera with him and he began taking color pictures of the scene, including activity along the shore, where tiny craft were hastily shoving off.
"They'll have to clear those piers," Biff commented, "or they may be smashed like eggshells when the bore hits."
The other boys nodded as they scanned the deepening purple of the river. But even their keen eyes failed to detect a motion on the darkened steps of an old pier. There, a slim, furtive figure was crouched close to the water, looking out toward mid-channel.
Carefully, the huddled watcher fingered a watertight packet attached to a thin chain around his neck; then, satisfied that it was safe, he slid his sleek, brown form into the river and began swimming smoothly, swiftly toward the Northern Star. He might have been mistaken for a snout-nosed crocodile from the delta of the Hooghly, or a floating log swirling in the eddies of the changing tide. But no one noticed him, least of all the boys high on the big freighter's bow, for their attention now was fully gripped by what was happening downstream.
Distant whistles blared; their deep-throated signal was relayed by other ships closer by. Tugs added shrill blasts as a great crest of water came rushing upstream, churning the muddy Hooghly into a whitish foam. Tiny boats were tossed like match boxes by the six-foot wave that swept from shore to shore. Launches rocked, tugs jounced, and the sailing craft caught the stiff wind that accompanied the tidal bore, letting its billows carry them along.
While Biff and his companions were watching the wave surge toward them, the sleek, brown swimmer reached the bow of the Northern Star. If the arriving wall of water didn't overwhelm him, it seemed sure to crush him against the side of the big ship. But as it was almost upon him, his quick hands came up and grabbed the freighter's anchor chain. An instant later, he was out of the water and while scrambling upward like a monkey the white foam churned just beneath him.
Clinging there, he waited while the freighter strained at its moorings, because of the sudden lift. Then, satisfied that the chain would not swing him against the ship, he continued his climb, his dripping figure scarcely visible.
On the deck above, the boys had gone to the starboard side, where Biff was taking pictures of the boats that were riding upstream. None of them noticed the head and shoulders that appeared over the port rail. A sleek figure followed, slid behind a row of crates, and worked along to a companionway. There it darted swiftly up the steps to the cabin deck above.
Biff had been following the bore with his camera, until it faded, tiny sailing ships and all, beneath the towering bulk of the Howrah Bridge, which spanned the quarter-mile width of the Hooghly River.