The Cruise of the Dry Dock/An Interrupted Meeting
CHAPTER IV
AN INTERRUPTED MEETING
Convinced that there was nothing else to be done on the big dock, Madden went to his cabin, threw himself on the bunk, and there tumbled and tossed through the stormy night, sleeping brokenly and dreaming of the missing Vulcan.
Finally a bleary dawn whitened his cabin ports and the lad scrambled into damp clothes, picked up the mate's battered telescope and went on deck.
He fully expected to see the Vulcan lying close by, but as he glanced around in the dull light, an extraordinary scene shunted all thoughts of the tug from his mind. The wind had lulled, but there still rolled high a most unusual ocean. As far as he could see moved a long solemn procession of hills covered with splotches and serpentine lines of grays, olives, yellows—an ocean in motley. The great waves wove these sinuous markings up and down, in and out, confusing the eye with changing mazes.
Madden went forward and studied the nearer formations under the dock's prow. This astonishing effect was caused by seaweed. It was the seaweed spray of this seaweed ocean that had whipped him during the night.
A glance toward the stern of the dock solved the mystery of the balky steering gear. The temporary sheathing was choked with the slimy stuff. Tons of it had beaten over into the dock so that there was a week's work of cleaning ahead. The whole interior of the pontoons looked gutted; empty kegs, barrels had gone overboard, boats had been washed away, the big coal pile was scattered like pebbles and some half of it lost. And one odd trifle gripped Madden's heart—the fresh paint over which the crew had toiled so patiently looked old and dingy.
As he studied the scene, two seasick navvies tottered out on deck to sniff the clean air. They dismally surveyed the traces of the storm. Then they moved weakly toward the boy, who was now scrutinizing the horizon with his glass.
“See any sign of 'er, sir?” asked Galton saluting.
Madden took down the binoculars. “Not a trace—feel better?”
“Some better, sir, but my stomach is still like th' hocean, sir, a bit unsettled. May I arsk where we are, sir? I never saw such streaky water before.”
“Sargasso Sea,” replied Leonard.
Galton grunted and stared at the spangled waves. Under its load of seaweed, the sea was falling rapidly, and presently other seasick navvies came on deck. A dismal lot they made, pasty and sick and draggled.
“You fellows that are able,” Madden addressed the group, “get buckets and shovels and pile up that scattered coal. The exercise will make you feel better. When the sea is smoother, we'll rig a jury mast on the forward bridge for a signal.”
A few of the men were still too sick, but most of the crowd shuffled off to work. Some of the laborers drew off their pea jackets as they went, for the murky day was filled with a rising humid warmth.
Coal piling was just getting under way in the heaving dock, when the door to Caradoc's cabin swung open and the Englishman stepped out.
A glance at the tall fellow told Madden how he fared. The narrow-set eyes were inflamed, the long bronze face had lost firmness and seemed inclined to sag in lines.
“Smith,” called Madden friendlily, “you may help pile coal if you feel like it.”
“I—that demijohn that you took last night,” began the Briton nervously.
“Yes,” Madden became serious.
“I want it, if you please.”
Madden looked at the unstrung fellow. “Can't get it, Smith; you've had too much already.”
“Can't get my own property?” demanded Caradoc, raising his voice so all the men could hear.
“No,” snapped Madden, “you know sailors are not allowed to keep liquor in their dunnage.”
“That's my demijohn and I'll——”
“I smashed it, and the pieces washed overboard long ago.”
“Overboard!” cried the big fellow. He turned hot eyes seaward as if searching the waters, then for the first time noticed the fantastic ocean around him. He stared at it with a strange expression.
“What—what is that—where are we, Madden?” he asked with a catch in his breath.
The fellow's tremulous condition touched the American. “Tug broke away last night—we're adrift in the Sargasso.”
A look of relief came over the long face, but he still gazed at the serpentine patternings. “I—I thought I was seeing—ugh, isn't it horrible!”
“You're unstrung, Caradoc; better go lie down,” suggested Madden in considerate tones.
The mood of the Briton underwent a characteristic quick shift. “Me lie down?” he rasped. “I'll have my property. You're grabbing authority fast enough, but you'll learn Englishmen don't submit to impositions. Threw it overboard!” he laughed with sour incredulity. “Bet you have it in your cabin.”
The men stopped work, gaping at the insubordination. Madden flushed under the implication. He stepped forward to smash the long insolent face and white mustache, but it was plain the Englishman was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
Madden caught himself, stood drawing short breaths through expanded nostrils. “Go to your bunk, Caradoc, and wait till you're sane,” he ordered in fairly even tones, then turned abruptly, leaving the big fellow scowling and biting his choppy mustache.
The navvies turned back to their work, distinctly disappointed; they had expected a fight.
Within the next few days the crew dropped into the routine of derelict life. When the sky cleared and the sea flattened, it left the big dock amid breathless heat beneath a molten tropical sky.
As far as the eye could reach, the castaways saw no signs of life, not a sail, not a smoke, not a gull, not even the ripple of a wave; nothing but gaudy, motionless markings from one flat horizon to the other, dead traceries that swiftly became uninteresting, then monotonous, then disagreeable, then maddening in the aching eyes of the crew.
As much for the mental health of the men as anything else, Leonard worked them steadily. The day's work was divided into morning and evening watches, because during the midday the iron barge reached a temperature where labor was impossible. During the cooler watches, the men painted desperately to cover the black expanse of the dock with red in order to reflect part of the palpitating heat rays.
Through the idle noon periods, the crew lay about on gunny sacks under improvised awnings, with a man posted on the forward bridge as lookout.
The colorful mazes of the Sargasso were as irritating as flowered wall paper in a sickroom. Even Hogan's and Deschaillon's spirits sagged under the brilliant sweltering sameness. The navvies moved about half naked, and burned brown as nuts. The men fought over trifles. Caradoc became a raw mass of nerves. Once or twice Madden attempted to make things pleasanter for his former friend, but was repulsed rabidly.
Near sunset one day, the American was in the mate's cabin trying to work out his daily reckoning. According to the lad's inexpert calculations, the dock was drifting southeast at the rate of some six or seven miles each day. The dock was a prisoner in that vast central swirl between the North and South Atlantic, that was swinging in stagnating circles when Columbus sailed for the new world; it lay exactly the same when the Norsemen beat down the coasts of Europe; it would continue as long as Africa, Europe, and the Americas deflected ocean currents to produce its motion. Its vast flaring dial was the clock of the world, marking the passing ages. In all that stretch of time the Sargasso must have received strange prey, triremes, caravels, galleons, schooners, men o' war, derelicts ancient and modern, but certainly never before had the art of man placed such a colossal and extraordinary fabric within its swing.
Some such thoughts as these passed through Madden's mind as he pursued his reckoning through trigonometric tables. The light fell redder and dimmer through the ports and he hurried to finish his work before darkness required a lamp in the steamy cabin. A furnace-like breath, laden with malodorous ship smells, drifted in upon him. Madden's thin undershirt clung sweatily to the muscular ridges down his back and moulded the graceful deltoid at the shoulder.
Madden pushed back his figures as Gaskin entered with a tray. The cook's face was scarlet and dripping.
“How much provisions have we on board, Gaskin?”
“Another month's supplies, sir—most of the stores was on theVulcan, sir.” Gaskin was dignified even in the heat.
Leonard turned to his map showing the drift of the dock; she was swinging farther and farther out of the trade routes every day. The probability of a rescue steadily decreased.
“In the future, Gaskin, cut rations one third.”
The cook covertly swabbed his fat jowl. “Yes, sir—are we about to—” he checked his question. “Yes, sir,” he agreed instead.
“Yes,” said Leonard, answering the half question, “it's a very necessary precaution, and I hope this small reduction will be sufficient.”
“Thankee very much, sir.” Gaskin made a little bob and withdrew ceremoniously. Madden knew that Gaskin would continue to bob and thank as long as he had strength to do either.
Reducing the rations was not a sudden impulse with Madden. Ever since the first expectation of the Vulcan's return had lost its immediate edge, the American knew that the hope of final rescue depended upon conserving their food supply.
The Sargasso Sea is a great oblong whorl in the Atlantic some four hundred miles wide and fifteen hundred long. Trade routes cut along its northern boundaries, and skirt its southwestern boundary. The dock might very well traverse two thousand miles without seeing a sail. At a rate of six miles a day, it would take eleven months to reach waters in which a rescue might be hoped.
In the meantime, the men grew more and more intractable and insubordinate. That day, when Madden had ordered Heck Mulcher to paint in a certain place, the navvy had grumbled out a "That's all very well for you, sir," and the rest was lost in a mutter.
The uncertain discipline of his men made Madden hesitate to cut the rations more decidedly. He felt that his command was questioned by the sailors.
As the boy gloomily dispatched his own supper, his ear caught a faint persistent tapping on the iron wall which faced the mate's cabin. At first he paid no attention to it, assuming it was the contraction of the iron in the cooling temperature of the oncoming night that made the popping. But as he ate it was at last borne in that these taps came in the irregular but orderly sequence of a telegraphic code.
With this thought in mind, he listened attentively. In his work as engineer he had had occasion to study up Morse in heliographing.
It proved one of the most senseless messages the boy had ever translated:
“Tiny arm, men plan mu.” Then it was repeated, “Tiny arm, men plan mu.” This odd sentence was retapped four or five times and at last ceased. It was perhaps some beginner learning the code, but who in that crew could be working out the telegraphic code? Leonard thought over the men, one by one, but struck nobody who appealed to him as an incipient telegrapher.
The American continued thinking over the incident idly, the odd time the telegrapher had chosen to practice his art, the queer message he had rapped out, when suddenly the message whirled around in his mind, and he perceived he had begun listening in the middle of a very alarming sentence, and had been reading from one middle to the next. The message was: “Men plan mutiny—Arm!” “Men plan mutiny—Arm!”
Madden got to his feet with nervous quickness, and stood listening intently. The question of who sent the message now became of sharp importance. If the men planned mutiny, he could rely upon the telegrapher—perhaps.
There was still enough light in the steamy cabin to discern objects. The American began rummaging through table drawers, lockers and racks for some effective weapon, preferably a revolver.
At that moment he heard footsteps approaching his cabin door. An instant later the shutter swung open without the formality of a knock and two dark figures entered.
“Well?” inquired the American sharply.
“It's us!” put in two voices at once.
“What do you want?”
“It's a bit of a disthurbance, Mister Madden, that's——”
“Zat Smeeth,” put in a pinched French accent excitedly, “he says zare ees no mate, zat you——”
“Be quiet, Dashalong; th' gintilman can't understhand yer brogue. Smith siz ye have no authority by rights; that we should run things as we plaze; that th' bhoys should have all they want to ate; that we should have rum with aitch male, sor.”
“And have you two fellows come to get these things?” inquired Leonard in a hard voice.
“No, no, no,” trilled out Deschaillon. “Eem-possible!”
“We sthrolled around to till ye, and bide wid ye a bit, and whiniver th' romp starts, me and Dash here ar-re going to swing partners, eh, Dash?”
“Oh, beg pardon,” apologized Leonard frankly, “but I had just been warned and I was looking for trouble—”
“Thot's all r-right, Misther Madden. We ar-re wid ye. I am always for law and ordher, Misther Madden, aven whin I am most disordherly,”
“That ees true, he ees,” nodded Deschaillon.
“And I always fight on th' wakest side no matther whether it's roight or wrong.”
“Hogan ees a chevalier, no matter eef he does have to paint,” corroborated the Frenchman.
“Are all the other boys in with Smith?”
“In with him, sor? Fr-rum th' way they stick around him ye'd think he was a long-lost rilitive come back wid a million pounds.”
“I'm glad you fellows are with me, Mike. I was just looking for a gun, but if you'll stand by me—”
“Oh, don't pull a pistol, Misther Madden. A man who would pull a gun in a free-for-all—why he would smash th' fiddles at a dance.”
“As you deed not fight zee day Smeeth said you stole zee whiskey, zee men—”
“Think ye'll be aisy,” finished Hogan.
“I've just ordered a change in diet,” observed Madden dryly.
“Oh, thin ye're goin' to give in to th' spalpeens?”
“No, I've cut rations one-third—and that goes!” There was a finality about the dictum that reassured his allies.
“Uh-huh, Dashalong, I towld ye Misther Madden wasn't no——”
The sentence was interrupted by more feet approaching outside, then a heavy knocking at the door. The two men automatically moved over to Madden's side and faced the entrance.
“Light a lamp, Deschaillon,” directed Madden crisply,
“Yis, two of 'em—I want to watch 'em fall out o' th' tail o' me eye.”
The Frenchman struck a match for his task. Madden invited the men to enter.
The whole crew came through the door in an orderly but somewhat embarrassed manner. A few of the men had on shirts, some undershirts, others were stripped to the waist, their torsos shining with moisture, Deschaillon's hand trembled slightly as he lighted two bracket lamps, Hogan's little eyes sparkled in anticipation.
“What is it, Galton?” Madden picked out the nearest man bruskly.
Gallon shuffled his bare feet on the hot boards. “We hev been thinkin',” he began in a throaty cockney voice, “that since ye was not mate to begin with——” he looked back over the crowd toward the real leader, Caradoc, for moral support.
The men gave Smith an opening toward the American. In the oppressive heat of the crowded, lamp-lit room everyone was crimson and dripping except Caradoc, whose face was curiously bloodless beneath its sunburn.
“If you are spokesman, Smith, what do you want?” demanded Leonard with rising inflection.
“We are all workmen together,” began Caradoc with an obvious effort, panting in the heat. “We're working together, living together, roasting together in this awful furnace. Your authority was only meant for a few days. Now the Vulcan is gone. Nobody knows for how long. We think all men should share and share alike.”
“All this demonstration to tell me you want me to eat at the regular mess?”
“No,” quivered Caradoc, “it's not just eating. We are not pigs. We want a hand in running things, and we want a portion of rum served at meals, as every decent ship allows. We want—“
“Oh, so it's drink, not eating,” satirized Madden.
“Rum's our right as sailormen,” mumbled Galton.
“Rum in this climate?” Ridicule tinctured the American's tone. “Smith, I believe you once proposed to write an article on Climate and Alcoholism.” He turned to the men. “Do you fellows want to build a fire inside yourselves when your lungs and hearts are strained to breaking already?”
“It cools you off in hot weather,” answered a voice in the crowd.
“Cools nothing! It heats you up.” He leaned forward and tapped the table decisively at each word, “It won't be served, y'understand!” His last tap was a thump. “I'm boss here—no rum! And I'll tell you right now, I'm going to cut your rations one-third, too—hear? Now, get out, all of you—move out o' my cabin!”
There was a shuffling among the navvies toward the arrowy lad who confronted them. Deschaillon balanced himself on one leg, French boxing fashion, ready to kick out with the deadly accuracy of an ostrich. Hogan gave a brief happy laugh, broken by his jump, the crack of his fist against some jaw and the stumbling of a man.
As the fight flamed down the sweating line, Farnol Greer suddenly rushed through the door. “This is mutiny!” he shouted aloud. “Every man-jack will hang for it by the ship's articles! I'm for you, Mr. Madden!” and he made a surprising assault from the rear.
Madden and Caradoc squared away at each other. The Englishman headed his men, his long face sinister in the lamplight. But he had hardly taken a step when an absolute pallor whitened his countenance, he halted, shaking, gasping, then flung back an arm to Galton.
“I—I'm fizzled out!” he stammered with twitching lips. “Go ahead—fight!”
“You'll hang—you'll hang for it!” bawled Greer, mauling at the men behind.
Caradoc crumpled down on the floor. The navvies, with an English dread of legal authority, hesitated, thinking perhaps Caradoc had deserted them purposely to clear his own skirts in the mutiny.
Madden instantly caught up the loose ends of his raveling authority.
“Lay him on the bunk, Galton!” he commanded.
Galton obeyed instinctively, half carrying the long sagging form to the bunk.
“Hogan!” he thundered at the cyclone on his right, “you and Mulcher stop that! Stop it, Mulcher!” he turned to some of the men. “Part 'em there! Stop 'em!”
Six navvies, three to the man, jumped and grabbed the combatants.
“Just look, will you?” Madden pointed to Caradoc on the bunk. “You fools have followed a man half mad with a sunstroke! He has blown his nerves all to pieces with a rum bottle, and you bunch of mush-heads have mutinied to give him more rum so he could finish the job!”
The leaderless insurgents stared at Caradoc's still form, then began filing out of the cabin.
“Deschaillon, get that medicine chest out of my bag!”
The Frenchman moved toward the bag indicated, when Madden remembered.
“Here, come back, every one of you!” he cried.
The mutineers flowed in again, entirely subdued now.
Madden was loosening what few clothes Smith wore. He twisted about, facing the crew.
“Some of you fellows stole my medicine chest,” he accused boldly. “I want it! The man who has it bring it here!”
The men stood very still, looking from one to the other uneasily.
“Listen, men,” repeated Leonard intensely, “I've got to have it—understand? I don't mind your stealing it. I won't say a word to you about that, but I'll manhandle the scoundrel that's keeping it now!”
There was a growled chorus of protests. Madden quivered at his impotence to put his hand on the thief in the crowd.
One of the navvies caught the expression on Madden's face, and blurted, “If I 'ad it, I'd bring it back—'onest!”
Leonard suddenly recalled his suspicions. He looked at Farnol Greer, whose timely shouting and attack had practically quelled the rising. For a moment Madden's old friendship for Smith and his new gratitude for this silent unknown youth struggled, then he said:
“Greer, do you know anything about that chest?”
A look of blank surprise, then indignation went over Greer's heavy serious face, then he said bitingly:
“You sure stand by your pal, all right,” and moved out of the cabin without another word.
Caradoc lay dry and burning on the hot bunk, his big hands pressed to his forehead, eyes clenched shut.
“I don't know what to do!” cried Madden miserably. “Hogan, Deschaillon, for God's sake, if you know anything about that medicine chest, tell me—I'm not accusing anybody!”
“Sure, sure,” cried Hogan sympathetically, “Oi'm sorry Oi ain't got it. If Oi only had me chance again I'd stole it long ago!”
“I'm sorree, but I never stole eet either, Meester Madden.”
“If I only had bromide!” growled the American, watching Smith's broad hairy chest lift and drop in short breaths.
The Englishman opened his hot red eyes. “What's that to you, Madden?” he asked thickly. The choppy white mustache pulled down in a sneer. “I might as well die now—I'm nothing but a remittance man. A remittance man,” he repeated the term with mingled self contempt and bravado. “My people have shipped me—flung me away, broken, no use,” he flung out a long hot hand at Madden. “Why do you try to pick up the pieces?” He laughed thickly, which sent wild pains through his head and stopped him suddenly.
Madden stared penetratingly at this outbreak.
“Pour water over him, Deschaillon, Hogan,” commanded the American briefly.
As his two helpers hurried out after buckets, Leonard came close to the sufferer.
“Where is it?” he asked shortly.
“Where—what?”
Madden stooped over him. “Where's that medicine chest? What did you do with it? You wouldn't have started that tirade unless you had it.”
“You Americans—very keen,” panted Caradoc in the midst of his rackings. “Think you're d-deuced smart—it's in my bag's lining—there was some alcohol in it, so I took it—let it go—don't do anything—for—me.”
Deschaillon entered with a bucket of seawater. They stretched the sick man on the floor, and a moment later, the Englishman shuddered under the deluge.
“This ought to be an ice pack,” observed Madden, then: “I believe I remember laying that medicine case in my old cabin; I'll see,” and he walked out of the mate's room into the darkness.