The Saint of the Speedway

by Ridgwell Cullum

McLagan had first approached the wreck on the height of the tide. His purpose had been the simple succour of those poor souls he had expected to find on board. The adventure had been full of risk, even under the consummate skill of the half-breed, who had done his best. But the terrible tide, and the increasing wind had defeated them, and, reluctantly enough, they had been driven to a perilous stand-off while they hailed the doomed vessel.

They had shouted. They shouted again and again, seeking to make their voices heard above the roar of the ocean rollers driving down upon the vessel’s side. But the effort had been unavailing. There was not a sign or sound of life about her, and their only response was the roar of the sea and the mocking cries of the sea-fowl whirling about her protesting rigging.

So in the end, they had been forced to yield. There was no alternative. They dared not approach nearer. Under the prevailing conditions their only hope of approaching the wreck was to await the fall of the tide and make the shore upon which it was piled.

But even so, their attempt had not been wholly fruitless. They had discovered many things of deep interest. They had discovered the vessel’s name, which was set out plainly on her bluff stern. She was the Limpet, and her port of registration was the city of Boston. Furthermore, they realised that though her rudder post remained in place the rudder itself was gone. Then they understood that she had the shape and qualities of a coasting vessel of more than usual deep-seagoing type. She was built for heavy weather as well as the lighter work of her coasting trade, and they beheld, too, a wireless aerial was still in its place between her main and mizzen masts.

But in McLagan’s mind the greatest significance lay in the fact that she was still laden with a deck cargo of lumber, and all her top gear was intact, and all her sails were set, and the only signs of her distress were the inroads which the wind had made upon her canvas suiting. From the distance, when she had first been discovered, she had looked to be riding proudly, gallantly to her death under full sail. But at close quarters it was clearly evident that this had been something of an illusion. Her sails were full set, it was true, but there were many sad rents that were widening every moment, and, in many places, their clews were straining upon a last desperate hold.

Now, with the tide at its lowest ebb, standing beside her on the rocks these men were less concerned for her superstructure than for the evidence the rocks had imposed upon her. Peter Loby was staring in simple wonder at the yawning gash torn out of her bows. Sasa Mannik, in true “wrecker” fashion, was contemplating her from the point of view of his own advantage. He was a sailorman, and here were gear, ropes and canvas and possibly all the needs of his heart, for the simple process of collecting them. He had no concern for anything else. But Ivor McLagan gazed upon her wrecked bows while his mind was preoccupied by the mystery of her presence in the remote inlet where he had set up his home.

He was convinced now that she was without life on board, but the condition of her fully set sails also convinced him that her abandonment had taken place in fair weather, perhaps, even, in a dead calm. He was left quite unimpressed by her rudderless condition. He argued that this disaster must have occurred after her abandonment. For even to him it seemed impossible that any responsible shipmaster could have set full sail on a vessel without steering gear. Then, except for the almost paintless condition of her rusted hull, there was no other sign of distress about her. Her deck cargo was aboard, and her boats, as far as he had been able to judge, were snugged as though there had never been a thought of the necessity for launching them.

No, it was a curious, even mysterious visitation. He understood, he had often enough heard of a lee-shore and its dangers to a sailing vessel. Clearly something of the sort must have happened. But not in association with this vessel’s abandonment.

He turned abruptly to his subordinate and pointed at the mass of rusted cable strewn about the rocks fallen through the rent in the vessel’s side like the litter of some wounded monster’s bowels.

“That looks to me the easy way aboard,” he said sharply. “I don’t figger to know a deal when it comes to sea-craft. But it likely seems the hole that belched up that junk ought to be a way up to her decks.”