Thanks to the purser’s kind and skilful ministrations, Roy’s eye was not long in returning to an almost normal appearance. But Roy had little time to worry over his looks. As the time for sailing approached, he was busy day and night. There were a multitude of unusual details connected with the maiden voyage of the Lycoming that entailed endless messages. The ship’s owners were continually sending important communications. Commanders of other Confederated liners sent congratulations to the Lycoming’s commander. Shipping agents and commercial houses fairly bombarded Captain Lansford with wireless communications. Finally passengers began to arrive and messages were sent to and by them.
Even Roy, ignorant as he still was of matters nautical and commercial, could see that things were not going right. The ship still had to be coaled, and the coal barges were badly delayed in arriving. Certain big freight shipments, which it was imperative for the Lycoming to carry, were held back by the congested condition of the railways. The first of these shipments began to arrive about the time the last should have been safely stowed in the hold. Captain Lansford was plainly disturbed. He grew sharper and sharper tempered. He drove the stevedores at an incredible pace. He made the coal-passers work at a speed past belief. But the thing that seemed to annoy him most was the continual stream of wireless messages. Every succeeding communication seemed to put a sharper edge to his temper. From the first officer down to the humblest coal-passer, every member of the crew was on the alert. At the least word from Captain Lansford they jumped to execute his command. Despite the innumerable delays and obstacles, it looked as though the ship would sail on time.
When Roy had said to himself that his job was to help keep the ship safe and on the dot, he meant it. By the terms of his employment he was required to be at his post at certain hours and to listen in at certain intervals. But Roy saw that already opportunity had come to him to be of real help to his captain. An hour’s delay in some of the messages that were arriving, he quickly saw, would make a great deal of difference to Captain Lansford and the sailing of the ship. So Roy threw aside all idea of working during prescribed hours only and stuck to his post. Indeed, he hardly left the wireless house, even for meals. Sam, the steward, was as anxious to win Roy’s good-will as Roy was to gain the captain’s, and he saw to it that Roy did not lack good things to eat or drink. It was hard to be confined so closely. And when there was so much near at hand that he wanted to see, it took real courage to force himself to stay in the wireless house. But Roy put aside his desire for sightseeing, sent and received his messages promptly, and made sure that communications for Captain Lansford were always put into the commander’s hands immediately. Especially was Roy particular to spell his words correctly, write them plainly, and get all his figures correct.
The purser had arranged to have a cabin-boy deliver the captain’s messages, and Roy was glad enough that he did not have to face Captain Lansford. As for the latter, he gave no sign that he either understood or appreciated the service Roy was rendering him. On the contrary, he lost no opportunity to condemn the innovation that had been forced on him. The cabin-boy, who disliked the task assigned to him, repeated to Roy all the harsh things that Captain Lansford said to him. But Roy only screwed his lips together a little tighter and stuck to his job. It was the only way he knew of to make good.
As the hour for sailing approached, the activities on the pier were past describing. Roy had thought the stevedores worked fast when he saw them. If he could have watched them now he would hardly have believed his eyes. Hour after hour, in unending streams they rushed down the gangplanks with their enormous loads. Drays came and went. Drivers swore frantically at their horses and at one another. Motors honked and roared. Boxes and bales crashed to the floor of the pier shed with resounding thumps. The little hand-trucks rattled incessantly over the uneven planking. Donkey-engines and steam-winches clanked and shrieked, and the derricks groaned and creaked as load after load was hoisted aboard. Every hand that could be employed in loading was working at top speed. The scene would have delighted Roy. But, like the coal-passers, the stevedores, the truckmen, the crew, and everybody else about the ship, he, too, was working at top speed. It seemed as though each one of the scores of men who were toiling about the ship was determined that the ship should sail on time, cost what it might. A very frenzy seemed to have taken possession of all these toilers. Something had gotten into them, some spirit that made it seem more important to get the Lycoming off on time than to do anything else in the world. Like everybody else aboard, Roy was too busy to think about the thing or even to comprehend that a miracle was taking place under his very nose.
Yet a miracle it was. For a few minutes before the hour for sailing arrived, the final bale of freight was stowed in the hold, some of the hatches were battened down, and the gangplanks drawn ashore. The Lycoming would sail on time.
With a frightful shriek of her great whistle, the huge ship gradually moved astern, sliding slowly out of its dock into the broad Hudson, where boats were crossing and recrossing and passing up and down like shuttles in a loom. The air was vibrant with their shrill, incessant tootings. Ponderously the huge craft, pushed by snorting little tugs, turned its nose down-stream, headed for the open sea, and with quickening speed majestically slid through the tossing waters, with Captain Lansford, erect as a pine and as motionless, watching like an eagle on the bridge.
Roy had lost none of his dislike for this harsh-tempered commander. But when he saw him standing thus at his post, like a veritable Gibraltar, Roy gained a new conception of the man’s character. Suddenly there came to him an appreciation of the fact that Captain Lansford alone had made it possible to sail on time. Men, whom money would not budge, had worked like mad at his mere command. Obstacles that were seemingly insurmountable had been overcome. Work that was apparently impossible had been accomplished. Roy did not understand it at all, yet he began to realize that there was something in his commander that rose superior to obstacles and carried his fellows with him. Instinctively Roy felt safer because of that silent, immovable figure on the bridge.
“But it makes it all the tougher for me,” he thought. “He’s got it in for me, and I know he’ll never forgive me for talking to him as I did.”
Now that the pressure was relaxed, Roy was too busy seeing things to worry about the matter, for the Lycoming was fast picking up speed.