No Man's Island/Chapter 3
III
FONG looked in upon the conference of two, his moon face at the full, clear shining with the information he divulged that he had won “slixty dolla at Chinese lottely.” Manning looked at the clock.
It was a quarter after three. For hours they had talked and planned, Hooper going over his narrative to the smallest details at the diver’s request. As Fong entered Hooper was telling where the pearls were hidden.
“They had locked Thompson and me in the traderoom after the crew got in the boats and started. Steiner went to the raider for further orders concerning us, I suppose; perchance to confirm his own plan of keeping Thompson and me aboard the schooner. They hadn’t searched us as yet but I was taking no chances of their overlooking that. And I got busy, with Thompson.
“There was tobacco on the traderoom shelves, package stuff in leadfoil, And we stripped a lot of that off and put the tobacco in an empty tin. There were crackers in waxed paper inside their cartons and we took the paper and left the crackers. One of my best-bet trading-gifts had been rubber hot-water bottles. There is a lot of toothache and bellyache in the islands and once I had introduced a chief to the comfort of a hot-water bag, they were all crazy for them. There were two or three of these along.
“I made up the pearls in long slim packages that would go down the neck of the bag and I wrapped them, first in waxed paper and then in leadfoil. I screwed down the metal stopper hard and fast and Thompson sealed it up with sounding-wax while I got his kit of tools and went to work on the floor.
“The hull ran under the traderoom, which was amidships. There was a hatch used mostly for ventilation and I lifted this. It was framed for the width of the traderoom floor, and the space between that and the hull ceiling, where it had been furred down between the beams. That was the risky part, for I was afraid some one would rubber through the skylight at us. Thompson kept a lookout and they didn’t think of it.
“So I carefully pried out one side of the frame and knocked out the furring till I could reach in to a transverse beam. Thompson, while he watched, took his oilskin that hung in the room and ripped the seams. He wrapped up the rubber bag in the back and then pulled the two sleeves over that, making a package of it. I muffled my hammer-head in my handkerchief and spiked that package to the transverse beam, replaced the frame and chucked the rest of the oilskin out of the port. Then my empty belt. Ten minutes later Steiner came in with two men and went through us and the traderoom. They took everything of value we had, including all papers. They took the stores away. Steiner lifted the hatch and peered into the hold. They fastened the ports and then the skylight and went away again.
“The pearls are safe, Manning. Those transverse beams won’t rot, even under water, for fifty years. They are selected oak. The rubber might rot a bit but it will hang together in the oilskin package and the foil and wax paper will preserve the pearls. Even if they dull a trifle, we can bring back the full luster by contact with a healthy body or, at the worst, they can be skinned. And their price is going up all the time.
“The upper deck blew up a bit under air-pressure when she went down but the traderoom floor is in place. They are safe and waiting for us.”
“Good!”
Manning picked up a sheet of paper on which he had made some memoranda and read it over.
“I’ll attend to the money end of it first thing in the morning,” he said. “Or, I should say, later this morning. While you see Thompson and refit yourself a bit. Then we’ll go after the ship, the stores and the crew.”
“It isn’t going to be easy to find ship or men, I’m afraid,” said Hooper. “But we may have luck. You, Fong and your three men will be practically passengers. I’ll try and land a mate to share watch and work with me on the navigation end. Eight sailormen, if we can scare up that many, will be enough. With Thompson, that brings the crew to sixteen. I’d like to get a few more men who would be good in a scrap. There’s Tiburi and there are Steiner and his crowd. They don’t know the war’s over and they may show fight. They would probably try to capture us and take over our ship. They wouldn’t be apt to let us dive peaceably. Steiner is smart enough to figure that we were after something worth while.
“You said there were twenty-three of them,” said Manning. “Half of them armed.”
“Seven rifles and five automatics in the bunch. Steiner has two of the pistols himself.”
Hooper began to laugh, silently at first, then in a hearty peal.
“What’s the joke?” asked Manning.
“I’m thinking of Steiner, interned or marooned, whichever you please, knowing nothing of what has happened. He may figure the war is over by this time but he’ll figure it his way. That Germany owns the earth and is putting a fence around it. I’m laughing at the thought of his face when the news sinks in. Manning, I’m going to get hold of a bunch of newspapers, back numbers. I’ll pick the ones that’ll rub it in and I’ll see he gets them, first thing after we arrive. It may stop a nasty fight. They may kamerad it. Though I doubt it. But I want to watch Steiner reading those papers. It’ll be funny. Now let’s turn in.”
They were both down-town at eight o’clock, Hooper visiting his sick supercargo, whose convalescence took an immediate upward trend at the news, and then rehabilitating' himself at the Fort Street stores with money advanced by Manning. When the latter met him, close to noon, he saw a different Hooper in the tall, lean man, straight as a plumb-line, striding briskly in a suit of stiff pongee silk and a Panama. He was still the sailor but now he was eminently the commander.
“Hooper of Huapai, all right,” commented Manning to himself. “I’ll warrant Butler would have listened to him if he had gone to him in those duds. And the sentry would have passed him. Their loss is my gain.”
“What luck?” Hooper hailed him.
“Men are scarce but you’ll be better able to handle that than I can. But I doubt if we’ll be able to pick our crew. I cabled my bank in San Francisco. The money will be here by noon. And I’ve got word of a schooner. Of course I’m no judge of what will suit us but it seems the only one available, if we can charter it. I have let slip a hint that we are on the track of a guano island. I thought it might be as well not to be too secret. Questions are bound to be asked. We can be mysterious about it and let it appear that we are trying to cover up the leak.”
“Good!” said Hooper. “Tell me about the schooner.”
“It’s the Mary L. Was a pleasure craft. Well fitted. About ninety tons. Belonged to a man who was killed in the war. His widow has no use for it. One or two have spoken about buying it for island yachting, but it is too big for most of them. It has an auxiliary engine and a wireless.”
“Fine. We don’t need the wireless but we do the engine. Talk price?”
“I’m to see the owner this afternoon. But perhaps you’ll do that.”
“Not me. You do the negotiations. I’ll look over the Mary L. Sounds pretty good. We evidently can’t afford to be fussy.”
The Mary L. suited Hooper. She was pretty luxuriously fitted up aft but she was roomy and she had good lines for speed.
“If they’ll let us put up a temporary partition in the main cabin to give us some privacy aft,” he told Manning, “she’ll suit first rate if they don’t want a fortune for the charter.”
“They want three thousand dollars for six months,” answered Manning. “They won’t take less money or shorten the time of the charter. And I shall have to put up a bond for seven thousand more in case we don’t bring her back.”
Hooper whistled.
“The lady is some financier,” he said. “Not that the charter price is so much but she seems business-like.”
“She talked with her business adviser over the phone before she’d give me an answer. Her brother-in-law. I can manage the bond easily by putting up some California real estate as security. I talked with the man myself. Who do you suppose it is?”
“Who?”
“Your friend Butler.”
Hooper whistled again.
“There’s an element of humor in that,” he said. “More than one element. I suppose he doesn’t know I’m in on the deal. But he may guess, and he’s bound to find out. The main joke is that Butler owns a fertilizer-mill; he supplies the plantations with fertilizer and if he gets wind of the guano yarn you started, he’ll be wild. Wouldn’t wonder if he tried to horn in, after all.”
“The joke is on him, at all events,” said Manning. “Then I’ll get in touch with him and we'll start cabling about the security. We may have to wait till the deeds arrive on the next steamer.”
“That’s all right. The schooner has got to go on the marine railroad. She’s foul. It will take several days to outfit and get the crew together. I’ll start Thompson on the provisioning end in a couple of days. He’s well enough now to make out lists. See if you can get permission to start cleaning the schooner right away. They can’t lose on that. If the charter money is put up they ought not to kick. And I’ll scout for men.”
MEN came slowly though they offered big wages. Two Hooper practically shanghaied from a ship in the harbor. Others dribbled in. Few of them could have been described as able seamen but Hooper saw promise enough in them for him to sign them. Sometimes a good man showed after an indifferent one had been taken, but the partners decided that an extra man or so would do no harm.
They were a mixed-pickle lot, the sailors, American, English, Finn, Swede, Dutch, negro and Kanakas. Fong supplied an engineer for the kicker engine that was capable of eight knots and meant much in crossing windless patches of sea on both sides of the equator, and bucking currents. The engineer was also Chinese, a man who had run into tong trouble and was glad to get away. His name was Ling and Fong guaranteed him, which was enough for Manning, who knew a good deal about engines himself.
But, with the bond provided for, the Mary L. off the marine railroad, outfitted, ready to start, they were still short of their complement. They had almost decided to sail short-handed when the man named Edwards appeared upon the scene. Hooper and Manning were aboard the schooner, now moored to the lading-wharf. Thompson was supervising stowage and the mate that Hooper had turned up was having the standing rigging overhauled.
This mate, Andersen, had had a row with his skipper and he was a lush when he could get hold of liquor. But the Mary L. was to be a prohibition ship and the man was a good sailor who could handle men and work out a reckoning.
The partners stood in the bows talking when Edwards boarded, spoke to Andersen and then made his way forward, cap in hand, deferential, capable-looking. He addressed himself to Hooper, who was now in skipper’s serge, brass-buttoned, peak-capped.
“I understand you are looking for men, sir?” he began.
“Well?” Manning surveyed the applicant approvingly, and Hooper seemed to endorse his attitude. “What capacity?”
“Steward, for myself, sir. With willingness to make myself generally useful. I can take my trick at the wheel, I can handle that wireless for you, I can wait on table and I don’t mind helping out in the galley.”
“Why are you out of a berth?”
“I’ve been trying it ashore, sir. I have been head luna on a plantation, that is a head foreman of the bosses of the Japanese cane-gangs. It don’t suit me. I can give plenty of references, sir. I was head steward on the Moana, one time. And I can turn up a few men for you. I have understood”—he lowered his voice—“that you needed them for some sort of guard-duty. I can get you four good men, lunas who have been under me.”
It was plain he had heard the guano rumor that was current and thought that guards might be left on the island to hold off other comers. The idea struck the partners favorably. The steward was a frank-looking chap, glib, but that was not out of the way in his profession, neatly dressed. They had not thought of a steward but Fong would have his work cut out in the galley. The four lunas provided an inducement.
“When can you turn up these men?” asked Hooper. “And what wages do they want?”
“I’ll bring them down tomorrow, sir. They’ll be off duty. They’re fair sick of handling Japs. I fancy your wages will suit.”
“And what’s your name?”
“Edwards. Williams Edwards.”
The upshot of it was that the five were engaged and the complement completed. Twenty-one all told.
The start had been originally scheduled for the early morning flood but a delay in important stores threatened to put it off, until the afternoon. Hooper fumed silently while Thompson went up-town to find out the trouble. Everything was shipshape aboard the Mary L. There was a stiff breeze blowing outside the harbor when the halt came. Hooper paced the wharf impatiently with Manning.
“It’s the dynamite,” he said. “I’ve half a mind to sail without it but it’s apt to come in uncommonly useful in more ways than one. I’m not sure about the opening in the inner reef, for one thing. We may have to blast it. But this delay’s bad for discipline; looks as if we had slipped a cog in our arrangements. We can hardly get it now unless Thompson jimmies his way into the store. He might do that. Tommy’s a handy lad when he gets going. But he’ll have to have it down here inside of an hour or we lose the tide. And we can’t have the crew loafing. Andersen hasn’t got the initiative of a drowning cat.”
He went aboard and Manning heard him issuing orders, to which the crew jumped with feverish energy, polishing brass and coiling down sheets and halyards anew. It was a few minutes after six o’clock. No stores or warehouses would open for almost two hours. They would lose the tide. Yet he held a faint hope in Thompson’s ability to deliver. The supercargo had gone off at boiling-point.
A car came down the water-front and braked at the wharfhead. Out of it stepped Butler, the factor, and Manning stared at him in amazement to see him out at such an hour, evidently with business on the Mary L. For a moment he wondered if anything had turned up against them. Butler was not the sort of gentleman to turn out at dawn merely to say good-by to the men who had chartered his sister-in-law’s schooner yacht. He might have begun to change his mind about Hooper, but Manning did not think Butler the sort to make an apology.
The object of the visit flashed in his mind suddenly. Butler had heard about the guano. He either wanted to get into partnership at the last moment, or, more likely, get an option on their supposed prospect. Manning chuckled silently as Butler approached him with an evident pose of trying to appear as if an early-morning trip to the water-front was his usual appetizer. Hooper had gone below.
“Good morning. Going out on this tide? I happened to hear that you were expected to clear this morning. I see you have left the wireless?” added Butler, looking up to where the delicate aerials stretched between the fore and main.
“Yes. It was specified in the contract that nothing was to be dismantled, if you remember,” said Manning dryly.
“Was it? I just glanced through it. Well, it doesn’t interfere. Wanted to wish you good luck.”
“Good of you to turn out for that.”
Manning did not bother to cover up the sarcasm he felt. With the deal closed, he had scant use for the factor, remembering how he had treated Hooper. And just then Hooper came on deck and to the gangplank, staring at Butler with cold eyes but not halting his stride toward Manning.
“My partner, Captain Hooper, Mr. Butler. Captain Thomas Hooper of Huapai.”
Hooper nodded curtly but Butler was too clever a business man to show confusion.
“I met Captain Hooper some days ago,” he said, “and I have met him before. But I didn’t recognize him and I told him so rather bluntly. You can’t blame me, Hooper,” he went on with a show of frankness that if it was insincere, was admirably acted. “I’m sorry, but you looked like anything but the man I met at Tahiti. If there is anything I can do now?”
“I don’t think so,” returned Hooper. “Thank you just the same. I did look like a derelict. In a way, I was.” The two measured glances.
“Look here, you two,” said Butler. “I understand you’re after guano. You’ve tried to keep it dark, naturally, but I picked it up. If you land what you’re after come and see me, I’ll talk business with you and I’ll see if I can’t treat you better this time, Hooper. I can make it an object. If you want capital to develop, or will sell out right, give me the first chance. I’m interested in fertilizer two ways: making it and selling it. We need the urates, oxalates and phosphates in the stuff. Bring me samples and an idea of the depth of the deposits and maybe I can make my peace with you for the interview we had the other morning. I’m sorry for that.”
Manning left the talking to Hooper. It was his affair. There was no hint of a twinkle in Hooper’s eyes as he answered.
“If we find anything good in that line I’ll come to see you, Butler,” he said.
“Fine. Nothing else I can do for you?”
“I think not.” A figure came hurrying down the wharf. It was Thompson, his face scarlet with mortification and anger.
“Nothing doing,” he exclaimed. “The stuff’s there, marked and ready, but it got left over last night. Found the watchman but he wouldn’t loosen. Butler and Company have got a fine system, I don’t think.”
“Coming from Butler’s was it, Thompson?”
“Yes. Only place in town we could get the stuff.”
“Well, this is Mr. Butler.” There was a twinkle in Hooper’s eyes now. “We’re held up on this tide by some boxes your warehouse failed to deliver, Mr. Butler. Wonder if you could help us out?” He looked toward the car. “They are neither big nor heavy.”
“Of course,” said the factor promptly. “Let your man come up with me and point them out. I’ll bring them down myself. Glad to oblige.”
He turned to Manning as Thompson went off with Butler.
“I’ll bet you an even hundred Butler doesn’t come down with the dynamite,” he offered.
Manning laughed and shook his head.
“He may not even risk his car. But I think he’ll do that much. He seems to want that guano badly. And he’ll imagine dynamite will be used for blasting to determine the depths of deposit. I wish he had to hang by his feet till we showed him the samples.”
“You don’t like him?”
“No. He’s a cutthroat in business.”
“There are others.”
IN FIFTEEN minutes the car, which had gone off at high speed, came back gingerly on to the wharf, Thompson alone in the tonneau with the boxes of explosive.
“Butler had an appointment up-town,” he said. There was a trace of a grin on the face of Butler’s driver.
“Hustle them aboard, Tommy. We’ll make the tide after all.”
Edwards had been standing by the rail. He touched his steward’s cap as Hooper and Manning went aboard.
“How soon will you have breakfast, sir?” he asked. He had already served them hot coffee.
“Soon as we clear the bell-buoy. Make it half an hour.”
“Very good, sir.”
“Capable man, that,” Hooper said to Manning.
“Yes. Gets on well with the crew. Got a vein of good humor that’s catching. But Fong don’t like him.”
“No? Too nosey about the galley perhaps. What’s Fong’s verdict?”
“Too slick.”
They laughed as they watched the careful stowage of the dynamite.
“The men are going to wonder about that,” Manning went on. “Are you going to let them stick to the guano idea?”
“Might as well for the present. All ready, Tommy? All right, Mr. Andersen.”
Ordered bustle took place. The spring cables were cast off, the canvas hoisted and the Mary L., heeling to the wind a little, started to slide down-channel with the breeze aft, gathering way, sailing past the channel lighthouse with a fine burst of speed. The keeper waved them a friendly greeting.
“She can walk,” said Hooper. “Good lines to her. Easy entry and a sweet run. But I’m glad she’s got an engine aboard, for all that.”
Once about the bell-buoy the partners went down to breakfast. The partition that had been put up in the overlarge main cabin gave them privacy. There was a door in it through which Edwards served their meal from the ’midships galley. Andersen, who ate at their table, had the deck.
“The course to Schwarzklippen is almost due southeast,” said Hooper. “I’ve set it sou’east by east to clear Kauna Point; that’s the southwest cape on Hawaii. Once round the Bib Island and we’ll start on our best point of sailing, a long, long reach with a short leg now and then to fetch up leeway. And we’ll go kiting. The Mary L ’ll do better than twelve.”
He spoke with enthusiasm and Manning shared it. They were off at last and all obstacles seemed cleared until they reached the island. The little turn with Butler had furnished a happy to touch. Each had an after stateroom to himself. The spare room was occupied in Manning’s quarters by his diving-suits, which he had to overhaul, and which he kept under his own eyes when at sea.
The rest of his apparatus was stowed forward. Hooper had the rifles and automatic pistols with their ammunition stowed in his spare berth and under it. The crew’s quarters were a bit cramped but the weather was fair and they would spend most of their time on deck. The one problem that seemed to vex Hooper was to find occupation for the men who had shipped as guards. They were a roughish lot but they seemed fit.
“I don’t like idleness. It brews too much loose talk,” he said. “Your men are different, Manning, but those chaps are practically passengers. I’ll have to keep them busy. One thing will be target practise. I want to see how they can shoot. We may be able to pacify Tiburi; the news of the papers I brought along may change the attitude of Steiner, but it is as well to be prepared.”
He said this while Edwards was in the galley. Ultimately they would have to mention the pearls, as a valuable package be longing to Hooper that was to be salved from a wreck. It seemed likely the men might anticipate trouble with natives on the supposed guano island. There had been talk of it already and neither Hooper nor Manning had contradicted it. The ex-lunas did not seem afraid of the prospect.
“You said you fancied that you were the first white men who had touched on the island,” said Manning.
“Pretty sure of it.”
“Then I’d surely be the first diver?”
“Yes. Why?”
“I’m not quite ready to tell you. But I’ve got a scheme browsing round inside my head,” said Manning. “Something in connection with Tiburi.”
Hooper nodded. He was getting used to Manning’s slow but sure methods.
“Coming on deck?” he asked as he pushed back his coffee-cup; and they went up together.
The northeast trade blew strong and steady and they sailed fast all day. At nightfall Molokai was well behind. Abeam of them were Lanai and Kahoolawe with the loom of Maui’s ten-thousand-foot dead crater back of them. Manning and Hooper paced the afterdeck together, the latter in charge of the deck until midnight.
Behind the great mountain there showed the shimmer of the rising moon. The sky was bright, studded with stars, the Southern Cross just above the horizon, to lift higher for every night of their voyage. The schooner went easily shouldering through the seas, the wind abaft the beam, sheets well in, with the boom ends to the leeward rail, topsails set.
Hooper was not satisfied however. The man at the wheel did not suit him.
“A good helmsman has the thing by instinct,” he said to Manning. “This chap sails by the card and he hasn’t got the feel of her. He wants to keep her full and she’s making too much leeway. I’ll have to try them all out but I don’t believe we’ve got a first-class steersman aboard, barring Andersen, and I don’t want a mate taking a trick. We’re losing time with that sort of chap. No good talking to him either.”
The moon, like a disk of illuminated pearl, topped the fire-blasted peaks of Haleakala, poised there as if for flight and then soared upward. Manning watched the glory of it as Hooper turned toward the taffrail, impatient at the helmsman. Down in the cabin a clock chimed six bells. A sailor came aft and reported.
“Make it six bells,” said Hooper, and walked to the ship’s bell, forward of the main companion, and struck the time.
Edwards appeared from below and stood waiting. Manning noted the weatherwise way in which the steward cocked art eye at the topsails, then the wake. Hooper came aft again.
“Would you like coffee served on deck, sir?”
“None for me. I want to sleep when I turn in. How about you, Manning?”
“You’d have to put laudanum in it to keep me awake, but I don’t want any, thank you, Edwards.”
The steward lingered.
“If you’d like me to take a trick at the wheel, sir,” he said, “I think I could get a little more out of her.”
“You do, eh?” Hooper eyed him sharply. “Not tonight. You’ve been on your feet all day. But, if you can handle the spokes, I may use you, if it doesn’t interefere with your other work.
“Yes, sir? Thank you, sir,” replied Edwards incuriously, and went below.
“I wouldn’t wonder if he could steer,” said Hooper. “He’s a capable chap.”
“Too slick,” quoted Manning.
Hooper laughed, looking aft. He suddenly left Manning and went to the companionway where the night-glasses hung on a hook at the head of the stairs.
“See that sail back there?” he asked his partner as he hooded the lenses and focused them.
Manning saw something that looked like a silver of pearl, far astern.
“Been trailing us all day. Overhauling us too. She’s got the legs of us.”
“What is your idea?”
Manning fancied that Hooper did not like the prospect. The skipper stood with his legs apart, balanced to the pitch and steady heave of the deck as the schooner lunged through the seas.
“Think they are following us on purpose?”
“Can’t say. Some one might think they could hang on to us with a faster craft until we head up for the guano island and then beat us to it for possession and nine points of the law. Ten points in such a game.”
“You mean Butler?”
“I don’t really mean any one. Just an idea. We’ll know before long. But I’m off Butler. I saw a bit of the real man in his office that morning. He wants guano, it seems. Better than gold-mining these days. He might be playing both ends to the middle. Grab it off if he can or arrange for an option from us if he can’t do any better.”
“Only there isn’t any guano.”
“True enough. But I don’t like it.”