“She isn’t a big ship, sir,” urged Kavanagh. “If you could let me have half a dozen hands I could manage her all right.”
Captain Harrison pulled a minute longer at his ragged beard; then broke out hurriedly, as if afraid that his own indecision might get the better of him again: “Well, have it your own way—your own responsibility, mind—and you’ll have to ask for volunteers. I’m not going to order men away on a job like that. Madness, you know, really. I oughtn’t to do it—oughtn’t to do it——”
There was, as it turned out, no need to order. Out of the twenty-six hands comprising the deck department of the “Gairloch” a dozen volunteered at once, and Kavanagh had a hard job to pick his salvage crew.
Truth to tell, there wasn’t much to pick among them! Only two had had a brief experience in sail. As for the rest, what they lacked in knowledge they made up in enthusiasm. The donkeyman unexpectedly manifested a romantic yearning to “’ave a trip in one o’ them there,” but him Captain Harrison, resolute for once, flatly declined to spare.
Kavanagh was hard put to it to hide a rueful grin when he saw his crowd ranged up before him. They were a scratch lot if ever there was one! He foresaw that it would be up to him to combine as best he could the duties of mate, second mate, bos’n, and general bottle-washer with those of temporary skipper of “‘Maria’—Genoa.”
Scratch lot or not, however, the salvage crew were mightily pleased with themselves as they pulled away for the barque, and they raised a highly creditable cheer by way of farewell to their shipmates lined up along the bulwarks of the “Gairloch.”
One of the last things Kavanagh saw was Ferguson’s hairy countenance thrust over the rail.
“Every yin to his taste!” bawled the engineer. “Ah wouldna trust ma precious life to thon bluidy auld windbag in the gale o’ wund that’s gaun to blaw the nicht!”
His last words were caught up and whirled away on one of the short, fierce gusts which blew out of the west at ever shorter intervals, and Kavanagh heard no more.
A scene of chaos welcomed him as he climbed aboard the “Maria.” She had a big deck-load of lumber, which had broken adrift, and lay piled up against the temporary topgallant rail, together with an empty hencoop, a stove-in barrel, and a number of other miscellaneous items. That in itself was enough to account for the list of the vessel. Aloft she was in better case than a casual glance suggested. Her spars were all intact, in spite of the bad dusting she had evidently been through, but every sail had been blown out of the bolt-ropes, with the exception of the fore-lower topsail, and that was split from head to foot. The gale had evidently struck her when she was carrying a fair amount of canvas, and Kavanagh conjectured that the crew had turned panicky and made no attempt to save the ship, but had jumped at the chance of being taken off by some passing vessel.