The skipper knows best

by Murray Leinster

THE SKIPPER KNOWS BEST

By MURRAY LEINSTER

Author of “The Red Stone,” “Island Honor,” etc.

SKIPPER GROVER AND CHIEF ENGINEER MCGOVERN SAFELY DELIVERED THE OLD “KINGSTON” TO SHEIK ABU NAKHL OF RAS-EL-KASR—AND PROMPTLY FOUND THEMSELVES DELIVERED INTO THE HANDS OF THE PIRATICAL ABU, WHO HAD MOST EVIL DESIGNS ON THE PEARLERS OF THE PERSIAN GULF. ALL OF WHICH GAVE THE SKIPPER A CHANCE TO PROVE HE AT LEAST KNEW BEST HOW TO MAKE A NEW USE OF AN OLD ANCHOR.

Chief Engineer McGovern poked his head up through a hole in the Kingston’s deck and surveyed the shore mournfully. He sighed. It is always bad to be a young man in love. It is worse to be stuck on a tub like the Kingston out of love for the Skipper’s daughter. But to be one of the only two white men on this dilapidated tramp, and to be delivering her to a God-forsaken port like Ras-el-Kasr when her sale to a native owner had reduced the Skipper to a speechless, raging gloom—that was worst of all.

The Kingston moved slowly through the water with her engines at a quarter speed ahead. An Arab leadsman cast and coiled and cast again, singing out the soundings in astounding nasal tones, now and then interrupted by spasmodic contractions of his vocal cords. Captain Grover regarded the land, which was slowly enveloping the Kingston, with a concentrated venom.

It was perfectly familiar. The old ship had nosed into this same harbor once before. But in addition, the town of Ras-el-Kasr was, and is, and always will be the exact duplicate of innumerable other heat baked towns on the Persian Gulf. Angular, out-of-plumb houses of sundried brick and stone in the middle, mat huts on the outskirts, a mud wall, a fort with the inevitable towers and the inevitable antique artillery, and a smell.

The smell was one of those corrosive, tropical smells that thrive on heat and sunlight and an overpowering humidity. It rose to the high heavens. It was thick enough to cut. And it reached out to the Kingston and caressed it.

The Kingston moved slowly past a jetty which was obscured by a horde of btails and bakaras, angular craft with incredible sails which ought at this time in late August to be out on the pearling banks. Further on, the smell intensified. The expression of concentrated venom upon Captain Grover’s face deepened. The leadsman sang monotonously through his nose.