“You young whippersnapper!” he roared. “If I had a brig aboard this ship, I’d put you in it—just to teach you some respect for your betters. Here,” he snarled, whirling on the men, “get back to work, you lazy louts.” He glanced at his watch. “You’ll hear about it if we’re late for the locks. All this grandstanding over a ship’s cook!” He glared at Sandy and Jerry. “You two! Down below to the galley! And remember—jumping in after your bald-headed friend may have made extra work for yourselves. While Cookie’s in bed for the next day or two, I’m going to be expecting you to do his work!”
Then Captain West spun around and rolled forward to his bridge.
As Sandy Steele and his friend went down the ladder, hardly able to believe that any man could be so unfair, they felt the ship’s engines begin to throb again.
The James Kennedy was once more making for the Soo.
CHAPTER SEVEN
In the Locks
“Sandy, we’re sinking!”
Jerry James’s forehead was wrinkled with concern beneath his jet-black hair as he uttered those words. It was the first thing either youth had said since they had returned to the galley and gone to work preparing the evening meal.
An hour ago, they had been shivering beneath their blankets. Now, the exertion of working in that overheated room, where the hard aluminum fixtures only served to refract the heat, had forced them to strip to the waist. Even so, their bodies glistened with sweat.
“I said we’re sinking, Sandy,” Jerry repeated, somewhat nervously.
Sandy nonchalantly swung the oven door shut as though his friend had said nothing more upsetting than, “It’s raining outside.” Smiling, he took off his asbestos glove and laid it on the stove top.