Nothin' doing Saturday nights at the office, tug crews all ashore, but the port will get a move on Monday. Trust grown men to know more'n a mere boy. Keep a stiff upper lip, cheer up and have a drink. The glass is down, the gulls is flying inland, thar's weather brewing. I seen in my mind the sprays lash over the wreck.
It was dark when I went to the wharves with Captain McGaw to see the Pluribus Unum. He'd show me a tug cheap at ten thousand cash—stores all complete, steam up, engineer on the premises, though he'd stepped ashore for a drink. Cute cabin he'd got on the bridge, cunning little glory-hole forrard. Why, everything was real handy, so that I only had to bat him behind the ear with a belaying-pin, and he dropped right down the fore hatch. All I wanted now was a navigating officer I could trust.
Which brings me to Mr. McMillan, our own second mate, buying a dozen fried oysters in a card box with a wire handle, all for twenty-five cents, though the girl seemed expecting a kiss.
"Hello, Frankie," says I, slapping him on the back. A foremast hand can make his officer act real dignified with less. "Say, Mac! D'ye know what Greed done?" I grabbed his oysters. "Greed, he choke puppy," says I, and in my mind I seen the gulls wheel round the wreck, where something's lying huddled. "Come on, puppy!" says I, waving Frankie down street with them oysters, so all the traffic pauses to admire, and our second officer is running good. More things I said, escorting him maybe a mile aboard of the Pluribus Unum. And there I ate them oysters while he was being coarse and rude, but all the time I seen the wreck heave sick and sodden on the swell of the gulf, the circling gulls, and how they dove down, pecking at a huddle of torn clothes beside the wheel.
Up thar on the tug's masthead I was owning to being in the wrong, while Frankie Mac was promising faithful to tear my hide off over my ears when I'm caught.
"Please, sir," says I, "it ain't so much the oysters worries me. It's this yer Cap'n McGaw I done embezzled. Cayn't call it kidnaped 'cause he's over sixty, but I stunned him illegal with a belaying-pin, and I hears him groaning—times when you stops to pant."
But Frankie Mac wouldn't believe one word until he went down in the fore peak to inquire, while I applied the hatch, and battened down.
So you see I'd got a tug, and the crew aboard, so the next thing was to take in the hawsers, shove off, and let her drift on the ebb.
It's a caution to see how many taps and things besets an engine-room, all of 'em heaps efficient. The first thing I handled proved up plenty steam, for my left arm was pink and blisters for a week. Next I found a tap called bilge-valve injection, which lets in the sea when you wants to sink the ship. I turned him full, and went to sit on the fore hatch while I sucked my arm, and had a chat with the crew.
They was talkative, and battering at the hatch with an ax, so I'd hardly a word in edgeways. Then they got scared we'd blow up before we drowned. Allus in my mind I'd see them gulls squawkin' around the wreck, and mother fighting them. That heaped thing by the wheel was dad, for I seen the whites of his eyes as the ship lurched him. An' the gulls—