The Red Book Magazine/Volume 1/Number 1/The Hostage

by Morgan Robertson

 

The
Hostage

By
Morgan
Robertson

THAT Captain Jackson was at no time quite certain as to the true personality of Sinful Peck and his thirteen mutinous shipmates is an admitted fact. He knew that they had been delivered aboard his ship in New York harbor, helplessly stupefied, but signed to the articles for the voyage to Shanghai and home again. He knew their claim, that they were victims of Sinful Peck's nefarious plottings. He knew that their speech was that of reading men.

But Mr. Peck explained everything by the fact that these were lake sailors instead of salt-water men, and that, consequently, they had the advantage of daily newspapers ever at their command. Furthermore, the bland and buoyant little man had saved the captain's life when they of the extravagant claims had the upper hand of the ship. Therefore, the voyage southeastward across the Atlantic, through the Indian Ocean, and into the China Sea, was drawing near an end, with Sinful Peck complacent as third mate, and the riotous thirteen in irons in the lazarette.

The lazarette on board ship is the space within the poop, or quarterdeck, and is usually entered by a small hatch on the starboard side, abaft the cabin trunk, which latter is built up from the main deck and extends above it to give room for windows and companionways. The alley at each side of the house, and the open part abaft containing the wheel and binnacle, are duplicated below, and the forward ends of the lazarette alley, or “wings,” can be entered by two ports under the poopsteps, closed and caulked at sea, and secured from within by ringbolts and bars. In the median lines of the alleys arise in the after part, abreast of the wheel, the quarter-bitts—strong posts for mooring the ship—which are also built up from the main deck and extend above it.

The lazarette is a handy place to stow coils of rope, spun yarn, and marline, bolts of canvas, bales of oakum, and similar stores in the mate's department. It is also a good place to stow unruly sailors, and in this regard has but one drawback—its contiguity to the cabin, through the thin walls of which may filter profanity and disrespectful opinions of the captain and officers. And when there are as many as thirteen unruly sailors confined in the lazarette—thirteen aggressive, reckless,—self-respecting Americans reduced to the happiness of desperation, the noise they can make, the language they can use, and the songs they can sing at unseemly hours of night, give this drawback the importance of a positive menace to health.

Captain Jackson had not slept for forty-eight hours following the incarceration of the mutineers, and his consequent irritability was not decreased by the cheerfulness of his third mate, who sleeping in the port forward corner of the cabin with the first mate, had with selfish sagacity, when given the work, stretched the heavy chain to which the prisoners were manacled along the starboard alley from the quarter-bitt to the ring-bolt in the port. To this chain he had moored the unruly thirteen when conquered and docile; but now, rested and mutually encouraged, with the certainty of jail in Shanghai ahead of them, and nothing to be lost by further violence, they assumed an attitude that made their shifting over to the other side a task at which Captain Jackson hesitated.

It had been found manifestly impracticable to confine by the hands so many men, who must eat and drink; so, excepting for one, leg irons had been substituted for wrist irons, and their arms were left free. These arms were powerful levers terminating in vises or hammers, according to their owner's intent.

Of the fourteen men from Cleveland who had sailed from New York in that ship's forecastle, Sinful Peck alone had escaped the physical upbuilding coming of fresh air, hard work, and simple fare. Stoop shoulders had straightened, knotty muscles had grown on frames long burdened with fat, obesity was gone from them, sunken eyes had filled out and brightened, many wrinkles had left their faces, and it even seemed that there were less gray hairs in their heads. In appearance they were twenty years younger, and in behavior, thirty.

But though Sinful Peck, round as a ball at the start, had lost flesh on the passage out, and become as slim and active as in youth, since his promotion at Singapore he had shown surprising recuperative power, and the plentiful fare of the cabin table and the lesser demand for active movement had increased his girth to nearly the original dimension. There was not an ounce of fat on the bodies of the whole thirteen. Sinful seemed all fat; he waddled as he walked, and when standing leaned far back to bring his center of gravity over his feet. Captain Jackson, coming out from breakfast through the forward cabin door, looked with tired eyes at the rotund figure of his third mate as he rolled about among the men, drying the deck amidships, and called to him.

“Mr. Peck,” he said, with a little asperity, “you are getting too fat. You eat too much and sleep too well. Better trade rooms with me; then I'll have some sleep and you”ll reduce a little. What'll you do with all that fat when your thirteen friends catch you ashore?”

“They won't dare lay hands on me at home, sir,” answered Sinful, soberly. “I stand too high in Cleveland, and can jail them all under the habitual criminal law if they make a move—all but Seldom Helward. He has money.”

“The one you made your bet with? Ten thousand, or a voyage with me, wasn't it? Looks as though you'd pay it all right. But if they're such a tough lot at home, how was it that they came down to see you off—you, a lawyer and a physician—an educated man?”

“O,” answered Sinful, airily, “I waived all that. We were sailors and shipmates in the old days, and it was a sort of reunion arranged by Seldom. He gathered up the riff-raff and paid their way to New York to have a laugh at me.”

“And you arranged with the crimp to shanghai the lot,” said the captain with a smile. “Well, it's rather funny; and you seem to have engineered me into it, too. I'm fairly committed to jail them and take them to sea again; I can't weaken and let 'em go now.”

“Don't think of it, sir,” answered Sinful, earnestly. “They're good sailor men if properly kept down, and hard to replace.”

“Did you search them well? Sure they have no files or implements to break loose with?”

“Sure, sir. There isn't a toothpick among them; and the irons are of hardened steel, too hard to file. I tested them.”

“How are the cripples getting on?”

“Fairly well, sir. Gunner Meagher and Moccassey Gill are the ones I shot, you know, and the bullets passed through. Poopdeck Cahill's broken head is mending, but he isn't quite sane yet. We have him fast by the wrists close to the quarter-bitt, and the other two moored next him on the chain, where I can 'tend them without getting in reach of the others.”

“Look out for that. They could choke you to death. Have your gun handy when you go down, and sing out if they make any breaks.”

“I'm not afraid of them, sir,” said Sinful, smiling confidently; “and Capt'n,” he added, “in regard to my overweight, why, if you object to it, I can take it down. It's all a matter of fasting. I've fasted two weeks many a time, and can do it again.”

Illustration: “Sinful Peck seemed all fat.”

“No, no, not at all. I was only joking.”

“Thank you, sir. Then I'll go to breakfast as usual. But I'll take a look at my patients first.”

The two climbed the poopsteps and walked aft, the captain, his dignity forbidding any interest in the occupants of the lazarette, halting at the binnacle, while Sinful passed on to the hatch and descended. Mr. Becker, the first mate, joined the captain a moment later, and volunteered some remarks on the state of the weather and the incompetency of the non-mutinous portion of the crew, which were not answered. The captain was listening to Sinful's cheery voice arising from below.

“Well, Gunner, old man,” it said, “and how's the arm? Pretty sore yet? You'll be all right soon, but keep away from bullets and bad company. You've worn out the seat o' your pants backsliding so much. And Moccassey, you're all right. You're born to be hung—couldn't kill you with an axe. Here, Poopdeck, that's a bad position to get into with congested brain—heels up in the air. Straighten out, man. Want more slack? Get your feet down, and keep your head up. Here, take this oakum for a pil—”

The rest was a gasp followed by a shriek.

Captain Jackson and the mate sprang to the hatch and looked down. Sinful was not in sight, though choked expostulations in his voice could be heard faintly from the darkness forward in the alley. Almost directly beneath, flat on his back, with his manacled wrists uplifted to the chain, and his knees drawn over his stomach, was the demented Poopdeck Cahill, his countenance twisting with the emotions of a disordered brain. Next to him, sprawled athwartships and fastened to the chain by the ankles, were the two wounded men; farther on was the indefinite figure of another; beyond this was darkness, and from far along in this darkness came the sound of Sinful's gasping voice.

“Mr. Peck,” called the captain, lowering his head beneath the combing, “what's happened? Where are you?”

“He's here,” answered a determined voice from the alley. “We've got him, and we've got his gun. I've got a bead on your head—” the captain quickly raised it—“that's right, stay up there,” went on the voice. “We can talk just as well. D'ye want to make terms?”

“What terms,” asked the captain. after a moment's anxious thought. “Who is the man that's talking?”

“Me, Bigpig Monahan, d—n you.”

“And I'm talking, too,” came another harsh voice, which the captain knew as Seldom Helward's. “We've got your pet, and we'll keep him till you let us out o' this. Pass that spun yarn this way, Moccassey.”

Moccassey Gill wearily raised himself and pushed a coil of spun yarn to the next man; it disappeared in the darkness.

“Make him fast, hand and foot, Bigpig,” said Seldom. “And now, Capt'n,” he called, “here he stays till you unlock us—hold on, wait. Search him Bigpig. Maybe he has the keys in his pocket. He locked us.”

“Search all you like,” came Sinful's angry voice. “They're in my room.”

“Are you hurt, Mr. Peck,” called the captain. “How did it happen?”

“No, sir. Not hurt yet, and they won't dare hurt me—O-o-o-ow-ow.”

“What are you doing to Mr. Peck down there,” asked the captain, sternly.

“Pinching him, Capt'n,” said Bigpig. “He's fat, and good to pinch. Go get the keys and I won't pinch. If you want to know what happened, why, Poopdeck kicked him over three of us and the fourth got him. Isn't that so, Sinful, my son?”

Another howl from Sinful told of more pinching.

“No keys on him, Seldom,” said Bigpig. “He's told the truth for once.”

“Let up on this, curse you all,” said Sinful. “What do you gain by torturing me. I haven't got the keys.”

“Perhaps not, Sinful; but you're good to pinch. It's a real pleasure. Reach over here, Tosser, and take a bite. Shiner, can you get at his leg. O, he's so good.”

Captain Jackson could hear a scrambling and shuffling from the dark, and the chain visibly tautened, indicating that more than those named were reaching for Sinful. His howls of agony soon attested their success. Men that pull ropes for a living may pinch hard.

Captain Jackson looked his first mate in the eyes.

“What do you think of this, Mr. Becker?” he added.

“I think, sir,” answered the mate, a vicious expression coming to his hairy face, “that there's but one thing to do. Get Mr. Brown, and the three of us jump down together with shotguns.”

“One of us would be shot surely; they have Mr. Peck's pistol. But that would not deter me if my ship were in danger, or his life. But they will do no more than misuse him. Can you shoot men in irons?

“If need be. Why not, sir? You needn't take a hand. I'll do it.”

“You will not,” said the captain, angrily. “Go down and get the keys. I don't know what to do. I want to think. Get Mr. Brown up here.”

The mate departed, returning a few minutes later with the news that the keys were not in sight, and followed by Mr. Brown, the second mate, whose working jaws indicated his interrupted breakfast. He was told the situation, but, like the captain, did not approve of Mr. Becker's suggestion

“Mr. Peck,” called the captain down the hatch, “where did you leave the keys?”

“On a nail over my desk, sir, answered Sinful. “But keep 'em there, Capt'n. Keep these brutes locked up. They can't kill me—they don't dare—”

“Change your tune, my son,” came Bigpig's voice, and Sinful's rose in a scream of pain.

“Now, little man, just ask your dear friend, the capt'n, to get the keys and let us out. Ask him nice—say please. Say, 'Please, Capt'n, go get the keys.'”

“I'll see you in h—l first,” stuttered Sinful. Then he broke forth into incoherent profanity, punctuated by yells; this subsided into a quavering moan at last, and finally, in response to Bigpig's repeated injunction to “say please,” he called out, brokenly, “Oh, my God, capt'n, I can't bear it!”

“Say 'please,' my son,” said the pitiless Bigpig.

“Please, Capt'n,” groaned the conquered Sinful. “Please get the keys.”

Captain Jackson straightened up, with kindling eyes, and said to his first and second mate, “Go, both of you, and find those keys. Ask the steward.” Then down the hatch, “Men, I have sent for the keys.”

“That's right, Capt'n. You'll unlock us all, and promise to give us our discharge at Shanghai, so we can get home to business. Now, while you're waiting, and before you unlock us, just listen. You're pet is in a truthful mood to-day, and he wants to tell you something. Sinful, my son, you've admitted doping us all at a wine supper in New York, and crimping us aboard with you, but you've neglected to warn Captain Jackson of what may happen to him at home. What's my business in Cleveland?”

“You're a dock-rat—O-o-o-my God, my God!”

“What's my business in Cleveland?”

“Don't, in the name of heaven! Stop—yes—a steamer capt'n.”

“Correct, Sinful. What else?”

“Managing owner.”

“What's my rating at Dun's?”

“I don't know.”

“You knew when you sued me for fifty thousand five years ago. What was it then?”

“Half a million.”

“What's Seldom's occupation at home?”

“I'm not his biographer.”

“Yes you are, and a maker of history. What's Seldom at home?”

“The same scoundrel he is here—Oh, don't, do-o-on't!—yes, he's a skipper, too.”

“Got as much money as I have, or more?”

“More.”

“What's Gunner Meagher, the man you shot down?”

“A minister of the Gospel.”

“More shame to you. What's Poopdeck Cahill?”

“An author.”

“Shiner O' Toole, Ghost O'Brien, and Sorry Welch, what are they?”

“Liars and thieves.”

“You mean business men, don't you, Sinful?”

“Yes, business men.”

“Got money, haven't they?”

“Yes, other people's money. Take your hands off me and I'll give you all away.”

“Listening up there, Capt'n,” called Bigpig. “Taking this in?”

“I'm listening,” answered the captain. “But what's this to me?”

“A little, if you're wise. Sinful, my son, tell the skipper what the firm of Welch, O'Toole & O'Brien can do in the way of raising ready money. How big a check could they sign on a pinch?”

“O a million, I suppose.”

“Two million, maybe. Who is Yampaw Gallegher when he's dressed up?”

“Colonel in the army.”

“Influential at Washington?”

“I suppose so.”

“Turkey Twain. What's Turkey at his best?”

“A discredited politician.”

“Wrong, Sinful. He was our mayor for two terms, and we'll send him to Congress yet. What are General Lannigan and Moccassey Gill on the Lakes?”

“Vessel brokers and owners.”

“Own a big fleet?”

“Yes, big. The Irish get on well in this country.”

Illustration: “Tosser Galvin.”

“Jump Black. What's Jump besides an able seaman?”

“Newspaper man.”

“You mean managing editor, don't you?'”

“I suppose so.”

“Don't suppose. Give facts. Managing editor of what?”

“The Register.”

“Big, powerful daily paper, eh? What's Moccassey Gill?”

“An all-'round sharper.'

“You mean a syndicate promotor, don't you?”

“Yes.”

“Tosser Galvin. Who's he?”

“Another sharper.”

“You are becoming too flippant in your answers, Sinful—” the howl of agony again began, rose to a scream, and sank to a moan—“who did you say Tosser was at home?”

“Oh, Monahan, don't kill me by inches! Let go.”

“Who's Tosser, and what?”

“A banker and a broker, and a promoter, too. Yes, and a vessel owner, and a tug-owner—”

“That's enough. Who's his best friend in Cleveland? Needn't name him—the skipper wouldn't know him. What's his political position?”

“Chairman of the National Republican Committee.”

“Strong man at Washington, eh, Sinful? Now, Capt'n Jackson,” called Bigpig, “if you still think there are any thugs and dock-rats in this crowd, you are welcome to your opinion; but it'll cost you something.”

“I have no opinion,” answered the captain. “I only know that you signed articles as sailors, that I have punished you for insubordination, and that, in holding Mr. Peck under restraint, you are still insubordinate, and amenable to further punishment.”

“What more can you do?” came Seldom's rasping voice. “You've reached the limit, and the next thing must be to kill us. The first man o' you to come down that hatch on that errand 'll be shot 'fore he can move. We've got six bullets here.”

“That's right,” yelled others. “We'll hang for old sheep. played your last card, Skipper. You've more thunder left.”

“As I told you,” said the captain, “I have sent for the keys; but you are not yet released. Be careful how you threaten.”

“O go to the devil,” said Bigpig. “We'd as soon stay here; but we'll keep this little fat shyster with us for amusement. '”

“That is, you'll torture him?”

“We'll amuse ourselves.”

Another protesting cry in Sinful's voice came up the hatch.

“Mr. Peck;” called the captain, “how are you situated? Can you stand it where you are?”

“They've tied me hand and foot, Capt'n,” wailed Sinful, “and made me fast to the ring-bolt in the port. Four o' them have their hooks into me now. I could stand it if they will let me alone, sir.”

Captain Jackson's face was troubled as he straightened erect. And the news brought by the two mates and the steward, who now appeared before him, did nothing to clear away the trouble. The keys could not be found. Another call to Sinful brought no light on their whereabouts. He had been careful to hang the keys in a safe place, he said, in view of this very exigency.

The captain headed another search of the whole forward part of the cabin, of the booby hatch, bosun's locker, and the deck itself. The men forward were questioned, but none had seen the keys, and summoning the carpenter, with files and steel saws, they marched aft to the poop.

“As a matter of fact,” explained the captain to Mr. Becker, on the way, “I would welcome any reasonable excuse to release those men and get them to work. There's weather coming, as you can see—perhaps a typhoon. And what can we do with half of the crew in irons and the other half incompetent? And then, too, Mr. Peck once saved my life, and I can't condemn him to such punishment.”

Which may, or may not, have been the real reason of Captain Jackson's complaisance. But the pedigree of his prisoners, given by Sinful, was extremely improbable, to say the least.

Chips tried a few strokes of file and saw on the leg irons of Moccassey Gill, and gave up the task.

“No use, sir. They're hardened jus' so they can't be filed. Wrist irons are softer. Will I file off them, sir?” he asked, pointing to Poopdeck's manacles.

But Poopdeck's distorted face and incoherent language made this inadvisable at present. It would not avail. Neither would it avail to release both ends of the chain—even though the forward end had not been secured to the ring bolt by a hardened steel ankle iron—and bring them on deck in a string. They would still be prisoners. Yet the captain offered them this. The soft iron chain could be cut. They received the proposition with yells of derision.

“But the keys are lost, men,” said the captain. “I am willing to release you on your promise of good behavior, and discharge you at Shanghai; for there is a storm coming up, and I'll need you. Mr. Peck may be able to find the keys. Let him out, and my promise is good.”

They were utterly unreasonable. They gave him the lie; he was up to some trick; he had broken his promise before; he had winked at Sinful's ill-treatment of them which had resulted in their mutiny and incarceration; he was neither man nor gentleman; on the contrary, he was several other things that cannot be named here.

And over the hubbub Sinful's shrieks of pain arose high and shrill. They were amusing themselves.

Neither Mr. Becker nor Mr. Brown had heard Sinful's enforced description of his fellow-voyagers, and the little man had not saved their lives, or in any other way put them under obligations; so they naturally could not approve of the captain's hesitation and leniency. Mr. Becker again suggested the shot-gun policy, and Mr. Brown advised smoking them into subjection. Both propositions were impatiently over-ruled. It was the listening steward who solved the problem. When the captain had despairingly turned away from them, he asked, gently, “Shall I feed 'em the same grub, sir?”

Captain Jackson sprang to the hatch, a new light in his eyes.

“Mr. Peck,” he called, “how long did you say you could go without eating, to reduce flesh?”

“Two weeks, sir, and longer if necessary.”

“Very well. Men, you will get neither food nor drink until you release the third mate, and I retract my promise to release you when the keys are found, and to discharge you at Shanghai.”

There was silence for a moment, then a volley of invective belched up the hatch, of such voltage that they involuntarily shrank back a step or two. Then it calmed, and they heard Bigpig's deep voice grumbling out of the darkness, “All right; but you'll hear your baby's bugle every hour you starve us, and if it comes to it, we'll eat him.”

“He must stand it,” said the captain, determinedly, to the others.

“We'll make the Yangtse-Kiang in less than two weeks, and a man-of-war can settle the matter. It's better than shooting men in irons.”

“Now, Mr. Becker,” he added, with a look at a cloud bank gathering in the west, “begin with the kites, and don't stop until you have the ship under storm canvas. I shall turn in. Call me when it blows hard.”

With but twelve half-trained men, the shortening down of his two-thousand-ton ship was begun none too soon. It took the whole day, and through it all the captain slept—soundly because of his utter exhaustion, and in Sinful's bunk to escape the pandemonium in the starboard alley.

But it was his last sleep in bed until, nearly three weeks later, a Yangtse-Kiang pilot boarded the ship off the Saddle Islands, and took charge. By good seamanship and forethought, even with his reduced crew, he had weathered the gale, which, before it ended, blew his ship nearly to the coast of Japan; but early in the first night he lost his first and second mate.

There had been urgent need of a reef earring to smother and lash down a portion of the maintopmast staysail that was blowing out of the netting, and the unthinking second mate had sprung down into the lazarette, where they were kept. He did not come up, and Mr. Becker, who had seen him descend, and who lacked nothing of physical courage, sang out to the captain his suspicions, and followed Mr. Brown with drawn revolver. Neither did he come up. The captain, who had not understood his words over the noise of the gale, but who heard a pistol shot as he hastened aft, listened at the break of the hatch to the explanations roared at him by Tosser Galvin, next man on the chain to the wounded Gunner and Moccassey.

They had caught the second mate and disarmed him. They were then prepared for further action, and on the appearance of the first mate with his gun had shot him 1n the leg, secured him and his pistol as he fell, and lashed him, with Mr. Brown, to the chain forward, next to Sinful. They would all starve together until Captain Jackson chose to release them. And he was cordially invited to come down the hatch and join them.

Nothing could be done but to send down bandages for Mr. Becker's wound, which they humanely passed along.

Illustration: “Sinful Peck.”

Every fifth day, however, Captain Jackson yielded to the extent of lowering to them a bucket of water and a biscuit for each man, hoping that his officers would get their share, and that the taste of food in the mouths of the others would induce them to liberate their captives. Neither result was attained. They ate the food, drank the water, cursed him furiously, and demanded the keys, strangely enough denying the truth of the assertion that the keys were lost, and believing that of Sinful, that he had left them in his room.

It was only when an armed boat's crew from an American cruiser at Shanghai had sprung into the lazarette that their judgment was shaken. There was no further need of resistance, and they quietly relinquished their three weapons to the jackies, and permitted them to cut the bonds of the captives. Mr. Becker and Mr. Brown were lifted up the hatch—living skeletons, subjects for hospital treatment. Sinful followed, and though slow in his movements, with less need of assistance. His fat was gone, his eyes were bright and full, his skin, where not disfigured by a black or blue spot, or hidden by the dirt of the deck, was pink, smooth, and healthy. It was easily inspected, for most of his clothing was torn from him. He sat upon the deck, smiling benignly, and tossed a bunch of keys down to the ensign in charge of the boat's crew.

“They'll unlock the rest, sir,” he explained.

Captain Jackson studied him in speechless wonder as the human wrecks were lifted up the hatch and laid out—harmless now—on the deck.

Fasting had been good for Sinful, for the two wounded men, and for the crazed Poopdeck, in reducing surplus fat on the first, and aiding the recovery of the others; but it had nearly been fatal to Mr. Becker, Mr. Brown, and the rest, who, with no reserve store to draw upon, were barely alive.

“Peck,” said the captain, “in the name of God, what manner of man are you, anyway?”

“Why, I fed on my fat, Capt'n,” he answered, with an innocent look upward.

“But the keys, man. Where did you find them?”

“Capt'n, if I had told you where the keys were, you'd have let these plug-uglies out, wouldn't you, sir?”

“Plug-uglies? Then—are they not—”

“Rich men? Business men? Able to make trouble? No, sir. They're just what I always told you—rowdies and toughs. Every reply in my catechism was whispered into my ear while they had their fingers and thumbs buried in my flesh. It was like so many dogs, biting hard. I couldn't stand it. But—you'd have let 'em out if you had had the keys, wouldn't you, Capt'n?”

“Y-y-yes—think I would.”

“I knew you would—and have kept your promise and discharged 'em here, and had the laugh on you. Now, you can jail the scoundrels.”

“And that's just what I'll do,” answered the captain, bitterly, as he looked at his two officers tearing at some bread which the steward had brought. “But the keys? Where were they?”

“In my pocket when I went down, sir. I was at fault; so, before they tied me, and at their first mention of making terms, I took 'em quietly out and laid them on the deck, close to the cabin trunk. They've been there ever since, and I picked 'em up on the way out.”