A crowd was gathered on the dock. They were pointing at the ship and talking. Martin felt suddenly important. He always did when he was at the center of things. Every eye was on their ship. What had happened to them would become one of the many repeated stories of the islands. They were part of a legend now. The ship that had been smashed in a williwaw and had lost her Chief Engineer in a mysterious fashion.
Evans slanted the ship hard to port. They were headed for the dock. Martin saw that he was going to do one of his impressive landings. For a moment he hoped that Evans would foul up the landing. He didn’t, though.
Just as they seemed about to hit the dock Evans swung the ship hard to starboard. Easily, gracefully she glided along parallel to the dock.
One of the crew threw the heaving line onto the dock. A man caught it and pulled their bow line out of the sea. Then he threw it over a piling.
Evans cut the engines off.
“Pull the bow in,” Martin shouted to the deckhand beside the winch. Quickly the man obeyed. The ship stopped moving. Several officers who had been standing on the dock climbed aboard. Martin walked slowly toward the afterdeck. The sea gulls began to circle about the ship.
ii
“Handle that carefully, please.” The Chaplain was worried about his baggage and he did not like the looks of the man who was placing it on the dock.
“O.K., O.K., Chaplain. I got it all right. Nothing’s going to get broke.”
“Thank you.” Chaplain O’Mahoney shuddered as his duffel bag fell wetly into a puddle on the dock. Undisturbed, the man began to load the other passengers’ baggage on top of his duffel bag.