The crew of the Orient lost their grins, as the sailors from the cutter hustled up the rigging. “Nothing here,” called down the sailor who had mounted to the after crow’s-nest. The man on the forward mast did not answer so promptly. He was measuring with eye and arm the inner and outer dimensions of the big crow’s-nest. Suddenly his eye caught sight of a nail, bent like a hook, that projected above the flooring at one edge of the crow’s-nest. He crooked a finger under it and pulled. The whole floor came up. Beneath it, packed tightly together, were enough cans of opium to fill several suit-cases.
“The stuff is here, Captain,” called the sailor.
CHAPTER XXI
AMONG THE ICEBERGS
After the discovery of the opium, Captain Hardwick took his sailors back to the Iroquois, along with the confiscated drug, leaving the custom inspectors aboard the Orient, to search the sealed cargo holds at the pier. Off Staten Island the Iroquois dropped behind the freighter and was soon swinging once more at her anchor.
For some time she lay there undisturbed. The seas were calm and no emergency calls came to the little cutter. Henry was delighted at that, for Willie had returned, and the two boys and Roy now were able to see each other frequently. At any of his four-hour periods off duty Henry was free to slip over to Manhattan, and so cordial was the feeling now existing among the wireless men on the Iroquois, that either Jimmy Belford or the chief electrician was willing enough to work overtime on occasion to give Henry a bit more freedom. They knew well enough that he would gladly reciprocate when need arose. Many a night now saw the three boys from Central City happy together in the snug wireless cabin of the Lycoming. It was, indeed, a great joy to them to be so near one another.
Winter came, and with it winter cruising. For periods of a week or ten days the Iroquois and her sister cutters cruised on the open sea, some patrolling along the shores to prevent the landing of alcoholic drink, some standing off dangerous coasts, to be on hand should vessels become endangered. No unusual storms arose that winter, but all the time it was boisterous out on the ocean, for the winds never ceased, and the sea was in perpetual turmoil.
Christmas found Henry thus at sea. For him it was a memorable Christmas, too, because it was the first one he had ever spent away from home. He felt a bit blue about it, but fought down the touch of homesickness that came to him. Perhaps the sea helped him to do that. On this particular day the ocean was tremendously rough. The cutter had worked far to the northward, and all day long had pitched about as Henry had never seen her pitch before. The cooks had prepared a goodly Christmas dinner, but it could not be served at the table. Instead it was passed out in chunks, to be eaten from one hand, while with the other hand each man clung to anything that offered support. The sea was so rough one could hardly stand without a prop.
It was a foretaste of what was to come in the following spring, when the Iroquois went to the Grand Banks, on ice patrol. When the great ice fields of the frozen north disintegrate, and huge icebergs float south, passing through the steamer lanes, and so endangering steamship traffic, it was part of the work of the Coast Guard to protect shipping from these menacing mountains of ice. One Titanic disaster was enough for the world.
When it came time for the Iroquois to relieve the Oneida in the ice fields, the ship was made ready and the long voyage begun. At Halifax the cutter touched to refill her water tanks and renew her stores. Then she headed northeast into the region of fog and storm and tremendous moving mountains of ice.
As long as he lives, Henry will never forget that journey through the tossing, fog-shrouded sea. For days on end the sun had not shone. No stars were visible at night. The dull gray sea and the dull gray clouds, with the thick shrouded mists, lent a leaden tone to life which was like nothing Henry had ever known. Onward, league after league, day after day, the little cutter rolled and pitched, tossed by a sea the like of which Henry had never imagined.