The Wrecking Master

by Ralph Delahaye Paine

Dan Frazier paid no attention to Captain Bruce, but ran to the stern of the Kenilworth to watch the Resolute's crew send its towing hawser aboard. Captain Jim was at his best in such an undertaking as this, and his men were obeying his shouted orders with disciplined skill and haste. The hawser writhed after the yawl like a sea-serpent and was dragged up the side of the stranded vessel by her own crew, who were jubilant at seeing active operations under way. When the line was made fast, Captain Jim bellowed through his megaphone:

"We have wasted time and lost the best of the tide, Captain Bruce, but I'm going to pull for an hour anyhow. Set your engines going full speed astern and throw your helm to port."

Captain Bruce obeyed with eager energy. He seemed to be coming to himself and honestly anxious to get his ship afloat. His broad shoulders were thrown back, and he held his head erect, while his deep voice had a tone of masterful decision. If he had made a compact with the Evil One, he acted like a man who regretted the bargain and wanted to repair the damage already done. Fate had suddenly snatched him out of the clutches of Jeremiah Pringle and perhaps he was glad of it. At least, Dan Frazier was ready to look at it in this way, and as Captain Bruce came aft to examine the hawser the lad said to himself with a wisdom born of his own experience:

"Last night he kind of behaved like a boy that had done something he was awful ashamed of, but was scared to own up to it. Now he looks as if he felt the way I do when I've decided to tell mother all about it and promise her I'll do the best I can to make things all square again."

Dan found time to take an anxious look at the weather, and a sweeping survey of sea and sky told him why Captain Jim did not want to wait for the next flood tide before beginning work. The ocean had turned from green and blue to a dull gray. The clouds were low and far-spread and the wind was seesawing in fretful gusts, now from the north-east, again from the north-west. The barometer had sought a lower level overnight, and all these signs declared that a gale was brewing. If it came out of the north-west, the charging seas would drive the Kenilworth farther on the Reef and perhaps lift her clear across the coral barrier to sink, with a broken back, in the deep water of the Hawk Channel.

The Resolute's whistle signalled that she was ready to match her power against the Reef. As she forged ahead, the sagging hawser tautened and twanged like a huge banjo string, while the sea was churned to froth in her wake. At the same time the Kenilworth's engines lent their mighty strength to the task. Her hull vibrated as if the rivets were being pulled from their steel plates, but the keel did not move an inch. Dan's faith in Captain Jim's word was so implicit that he expected to feel the steamer start seaward in the first ten minutes. At the end of the hour, however, the Resolute was still tugging away without result, like a man trying to lift himself by his boot-straps. Then she slackened up on the hawser as if to get her breath for the next tussle.

The wind was blowing with more and more violence. It picked up the white-topped seas and hurled them high against the Kenilworth, while the tug rolled and plunged amid driving foam and spray. Gulls were flying in from seaward to seek the shelter of the distant keys. But it was not yet rough enough to daunt Captain Jim Wetherly and he was evidently waiting to make a second attempt on the afternoon tide. Dan had seen these northerly gales blow themselves out in a few hours and he felt no uneasiness at being left in the Kenilworth, although he muttered to himself as he felt the helpless steamer tremble to the shock of the seas:

"I don't see why Uncle Jim left me here now that Pringle is out of the way. I guess he hasn't time to remember that he is shy one deck-hand."

There was some truth in this surmise, for Captain Wetherly was having all he could do to keep the Resolute at her station and her propeller clear of the hawser which he refused to let go because he feared the weather might make it impossible to lower the yawl for another trip to the Kenilworth. He knew what Captain Bruce was not aware of, that the steamer had been shoved on a shelving slope of the Reef where she could withstand a terrific pounding without having the bottom torn out of her, and that if she once started to move astern she would quickly slide off into deep water. Therefore Captain Jim was ready to take long chances with his tug before he would run to Key West for refuge from wind and sea.