The purser waited to hear no more. In another minute he was in the wireless house. “I hear you have done a fine piece of work, Roy,” he said. “I congratulate you. Everybody is talking about it.”
There was no joy in the face Roy turned to his friend. “Everybody but the captain, perhaps,” he sighed. “He gave me thunder again. Is there anything that would satisfy him? I’ve worked my head nearly off on this trip and he will barely speak to me. Now I have helped prevent a theft and if what the captain says is true, I have helped keep him out of difficulty. And what do I get for it? A reprimand before the entire crew.”
“How’s that?” demanded the purser, as though it were news to him. “Tell me what happened.”
After Roy had related the entire incident in detail, the purser said sympathetically, “That does seem rough. But perhaps you don’t fully understand the captain’s position, Roy. You see, he’s responsible for any smuggling that goes on in this ship. If smuggling is done and the revenue officers discover it, the captain may be punished. Naturally, when he is aboard and smugglers are discovered at work, he wants to know about it. You wouldn’t want a sailor from the forecastle sending out important despatches for you, particularly if you were aboard, would you?”
“You bet I wouldn’t,” promptly answered Roy. “It might get me into a heap of trouble with the Marconi people.”
“Well, that’s exactly the way the captain saw the matter. What was going on below might have gotten him into no end of trouble with the government. He was here to handle the matter himself. Instead of calling him, a boy with no experience attempts to manage the affair. Do you see how it appeared to the captain?”
“I do,” said Roy soberly, “and I don’t blame him. But he might at least have asked why I didn’t call him. There were reasons why I couldn’t.”
“Ah! That is another matter, Roy. That is where the captain was too hasty. It is always dangerous to jump at conclusions. But you must remember that the captain’s whole training has been to act and act quick. When things go wrong on a ship or the craft is in danger, the captain has to do something and do it quick. When you are half a thousand miles from land and your ship is in danger of going to the bottom, you can’t sit around and think or hold courts of inquiry, Roy. You have to do something instantly. The captain has been doing that for thirty years and it has become a habit. Just wait until we get in some tight pinch. You’ll be so glad we have a captain aboard who knows what to do and how to do it quick that you’ll forgive all the overhasty things he does in times of quiet.”
“I’m glad you told me all this,” said Roy. “I still think the captain was unjust, but I feel differently about the matter. And I’ll feel more so if they prove to be smugglers instead of plain thieves.”