West Wind Drift

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Carrie Fellman

WEST WIND DRIFT

By George Barr McCutcheon

WEST WIND DRIFT

On a bright, still morning in October, the Doraine sailed from a
South American port and turned her glistening nose to the northeast.
All told, there were some seven hundred and fifty souls on board;
and there were stores that filled her holds from end to end,--grain,
foodstuffs, metals, chemicals, rubber and certain sinister things
of war. Her passenger list contained the names of men who had
achieved distinction in world affairs,--in finance, in business,
in diplomacy, in war, besides that less subtle pursuit, adventure:
men from both hemispheres, from all continents. It was a cosmopolitan
company that sailed out to sea that placid day, bound for a port
six thousand miles away.

Her departure, heavy-laden, from this South American port was
properly recorded in the then secret annals of a great nation; the
world at large, however, was none the wiser. For those were the
days when sly undersea monsters of German descent were prowling
about the oceans, taking toll of humanity and breeding the curse
that was to abide with their progenitors forever.

Down through the estuary and into the spreading bay slid the
big steamer; abreast the curving coast-line she drove her way for
leagues and leagues, and then swept boldly into the vast Atlantic
desert.

Four hundred years ago and more, Amerigo Vespucci had sailed this
unknown southern sea in his doughty caravel; he had wallowed and
rocked for months over a course that the Doraine was asked to cover
in the wink of an eye by comparison. Up from the south he had come
in an age when the seas he sailed were no less strange than the
land he touched from time to time; the blue waste of sky and sea as
boundless then as now; the west wind drift as sure and unfailing;
the waves as savage or as mild; the star by which he laid his course
as far away and immutable,--but he came in 1501 and his ship was
alone in the trackless ocean.

The mighty Doraine was not alone; she sailed a sea whose every
foot was charted, whose every depth was sounded. She sailed in an
age of Titans, while the caravel was a frolicksome pygmy, dancing
to the music of a thousand winds, buffeted today, becalmed tomorrow,
but always a snail on the face of the waters. Four hundred years
ago Vespucci and his men were lost in the wilderness of waves. Out
of touch with the world were they for months,--aye, even years,--and
no man knew whither they sailed nor whence they came, for those
were the days when the seven seas kept their secrets better than
they keep them now.

Into the path traversed by the lowly caravel steamed the towering
Doraine, pointing her gleaming nose to the north and east.

She was never seen again.

Out from the lairs of the great American navy sped the swiftest
hounds of the ocean. They swept the face of the waters with a
thousand sleepless eyes; they called with the strange, mysterious
voice that carries a thousand miles; they raked the sea as with
a fine-tooth comb; they searched the coast of a continent; they
penetrated its rivers, circled its islands, scanned its rocks and
reefs,--and asked a single question that had but one reply from
every ship that sailed the southern sea.

For months ships of all nations searched for the missing steamer.
Not so much as the smallest piece of wreckage rewarded the ceaseless
quest. The great vessel, with all its precious cargo, had slipped
into its niche among the profoundest mysteries of the sea. Came the
day, therefore, when the Secretary of the Navy wrote down against
her name the ugly sentence: "Lost with all on board."

Maritime courts issued their decrees; legatees parcelled estates,
great and small; insurance companies paid in hard cash for the
lives that were lost, and went blandly about their business; more
than one widow reconsidered her thoughts of self-denial; and ships
again sailed the course of Amerigo Vespucci without a thought of
the Doraine.

For months the newspapers in many lands speculated on the fate of
the missing liner. That a great ship could disappear from the face
of the waters in these supreme days of navigation without leaving
so much as a trace behind was inconceivable. At first there were
tales of the dastardly U-boats; then came the sinister reports of
treachery on board resulting in the ship being taken over by German
plotters, with the prediction that she would emerge from oblivion
as a well-armed "raider" cruising in the North Atlantic; then the
generally accepted theory that she had been swiftlv, suddenly rent
asunder by a mighty explosion in her hold. All opinions, all theories,
all conjectures, however, revolved about a single fear;--that she
was the victim of a German plot. But in the course of events there
came a day when the German Navy, ever boastful of its ignoble deeds,
issued the positive and no doubt sincere declaration that it had
no record of the sinking of the Doraine. The fate of the ship was
as much of a mystery to the German admiralty as it was to the rest
of the puzzled world.

And so it was that the Doraine, laden with nearly a thousand souls,
sailed out into the broad Atlantic and was never heard from again.

CHAPTER I

The Captain of the liner was an old man. He had sailed the seas for
two-score years, at least half of them as master. At the outbreak
of the Great War he was given command of the Doraine, relieving
a younger man for more drastic duty in the North Sea. He was an
Englishman, and his name, Weatherby Trigger, may be quite readily
located on the list of retired naval officers in the British
Admiralty offices if one cares to go to the trouble to look it up.

After two years the Doraine, with certain other vessels involved
in a well-known and somewhat thoroughly debated transaction, became
to all intents and purposes the property of the United States of
America; she flew the American flag, carried an American guncrew
and American papers, and, with some difficulty, an English master.
The Captain was making his last voyage as master of the ship. An
American captain was to succeed him as soon as the Doraine reached
its destination in the United States. Captain Trigger, a little
past seventy, had sailed for nearly two years under the Amercan
flag at a time when all Englishmen were looking askance at it and
wondering if it was ever to take its proper place among the righteous
banners of the world. It had taken its place among them, and the
"old man" was happy.

His crew of one hundred and fifty was what might be aptly described
as international. The few Englishmen he had on board were noticeably
unfit for active duty in the war zone. There was a small contingent
of Americans, a great many Portuguese, some Spaniards, Norwegians,
and a more or less polyglot remainder without national classification.

His First Officer was a Scotch-American, the Second an Irish-American,
the Chief Engineer a plain unhyphenated American from Baltimore,
Maryland. The purser, Mr. Codge, was still an Englishman, although
he had lived in the United States since he was two years old,--a
matter of forty-seven years and three months, if we are to believe
Mr. Codge, who seemed rather proud of the fact that his father had
neglected to forswear allegiance to Queen Victoria, leaving it to
his son to follow his example in the case of King Edward the Seventh
and of King George the Fifth.

There were eighty-one first-cabin passengers, one hundred and nineteen
in the second cabin,--for the two had not been consolidated on the
Doraine as was the case with the harried trans-Atlantic liners,--and
approximately three hundred and fifty in the steerage. The first
and second cabin lists represented many races, South Americans
predominating.

The great republics in the lower half of the hemisphere were cut
off almost entirely from the Old World so far as general travel was
concerned. The people of Argentine, Brazil and Chili turned their
eyes from the east and looked to the north, where lay the hitherto
ignored and sometime hated continent whose middle usurped the word
American. A sea voyage in these parlous days meant but one thing
to the people of South America: a visit to an unsentimental land
whose traditions, if any were cherished at all, went back no farther
than yesterday and were to be succeeded by fresh ones tomorrow. At
least, such was the belief of the Latin who still dozed superciliously
in the glory of his long-dead ancestors. Not having Paris, or London,
or Madrid, or Rome as the Mecca of his dreams, his pilgrimage now
carried him to the infidel realities of the North,--to Washington,
New York, New Orleans, Newport and Atlantic City! He had the money
for travel, so why stay at home? He had the money to waste, so why
not dissipate? He had the thirst for sin, so why famish?

There were lovely women on board, and children with and without the
golden spoon; there were men whose names were known on both sides
of the Atlantic and whose reputations for integrity, sagacity,
intellect, and,--it must be confessed,--corruptness, (with the
author's apology for the inclusion); doughty but dogmatic university
men who had penetrated the wildernesses as naturalists, entomologists,
mineralogists, archaeologists, explorers; sportsmen who had forsaken
the lion, rhinoceros, hartebeest and elephant of Africa for the
jaguar, cougar, armadillo and anteater of South America; soldiers
of fortune whose gods had lured them into the comparative safety
of South American revolutions; miners, stock buyers and raisers,
profiteersmen, diplomats, priests, preachers, gamblers, smugglers
and thieves; others who had gone out for the Allies to buy horses,
beeves, grain, metal, chemicals, manganese and men; financiers,
merchants, lawyers, writers, musicians, doctors, dentists,
architects; gentiles and Jews, Protestants and Catholics, skeptics
and infidels,--in short, good men, bad men, beggar men, thieves.

The world will readily recall such names and personalities as
these: Abel T. Landover, the great New York banker; Peter Snipe,
the novelist; Solomon Nicklestick, the junior member in the firm of
Winkelwein & Nicklestick, importers of hides, etc., Ninth Avenue,
New York; Moses Block, importer of rubber; James January Jones, of
San Francisco, promoter and financier; Randolph Fitts, of Boston,
the well-known architect; Percy Knapendyke, the celebrated naturalist;
Michael O'Malley Malone, of the law firm of Eads, Blixton, Solomon,
Carlson, Vecchiavalli, Revitsky, Perkins & Malone, New York; William
Spinney, of the Chicago Police force, (and his prisoner, "Soapy"
Shay, diamond thief); Denby Flattner, the taxidermist; Morris Shine,
the motion picture magnate; Madame Careni-Amori, soprano from the
Royal Opera, Rome; Signer Joseppi, the new tenor, described as
the logical successor to the great Caruso; Madame Obosky and three
lesser figures in the Russian Ballet, who were coming to the United
States to head a long-heralded tour, "by special arrangement with
the Czar"; Buck Chizler, the famous jockey,--and so on.

These were the names most conspicuously displayed by the newspapers
during the anxious, watchful days and weeks that succeeded the
sailing of the Doraine from the port in the Tropic of Capricorn.

Dozens of cities in the United States were represented by one or more
persons on board the Doraine, travellers of both sexes who, being
denied the privilege of a customary dash to Europe for the annual
holiday, resolved not to be deprived of their right to wander, nor
the right to return when they felt inclined. Whilom, defiant rovers
in search of change, they scoffed at conditions and went their way
regardless of the peril that stalked the seas. In the main they
were money-spending, time-dragging charges against the resources
of a harassed, bewildered government, claiming protection in return
for arrogance.

Far to the south, off the Falkland Islands, at the bottom of the
sea, lay the battered hulls of what ware supposed to be the last
of the German fighting-ships in South Atlantic waters. Report had
it, however, that several well-armed cruisers had either escaped
the hurricane of shells from the British warships, or had been
detached from the squadron before the encounter took place. In any
event, no vessel left a South American port without maintaining a
sharp lookout for prowling survivors of the vanquished fleet, and
no passenger went aboard who did not experience the thrill of a
hazardous undertaking. The ever-present and ever-ready individual
with official information from sources that could not be questioned,
travelled with remarkable regularity on each and every craft that
ventured out upon the Hun-infested waters. In the smoke-room the
invariable word went round that raiders were sinking everything
in sight. Every ship that sailed had on board at least one
individual who claimed to have been chased on a former voyage by
a blockade-breaker,--(according to the most reliable reports, the
Germans were slipping warships through the vaunted British net
with the most astounding ease and frequency,)--and there was no one
with the hardihood or desire to question his veracity; indeed, it
was something of a joy to believe him, for was he not a living and
potential document to prove that the merchant marine could outwit,
outrace and outshoot the German pirates?

The Doraine was barely twenty-four hours out from port and ploughing
along steadily through a choppy sea when Mr. Mott, the First Officer,
reported to Captain Trigger that a stowaway had been found on board.

"German?" inquired Captain Trigger tersely.

"No, sir. At least, he doesn't look it and, what's more, he doesn't
act it. Claims to be American born and bred."

"That's what a great many Germans are claiming these days, Mr.
Mott. We can't take any chances, you know. Where was he found?"

Mr. Mott cleared his throat. "Ahem! He wasn't what you might call
found, sir. As a matter of fact, he applied in person to the Chief
Engineer about half an hour ago and asked for a job. He said he
was perfectly willing to work out his passage home. Mr. Gray had
him conducted to me, sir,--rather sharply guarded, of course,--and
he--"

"Fetch him here at once, Mr. Mott," commanded Captain Trigger.
"I'll hear what he has to say first hand."

"Very well, sir." Mr. Mott started away, hesitated, rubbed his chin
dubiously, and then came back. "He's having a bit of breakfast,
sir, and has asked for the loan of Mr. Codge's razors--"

"What?" roared the captain.

"I informed him he would have to appear before you at once, sir,
and he said he was quite willing to do so, but would it be possible
for him to tidy up a bit beforehand. I am obliged to confess, sir,
that I have never encountered a more interesting stowaway in all my
career, which leads me to confess still further that I gave orders
to feed him,--he hasn't had a mouthful to eat since we left port,
owing to the fact, he says, that his luggage shifted the first
day out and try as he would he couldn't locate it without a match,
or something to that effect,--he rather stumped me, sir, with the
graceful way he lies,--and then Mr. Codge agreed to let him take
one of his razors, and when I left him below, sir, it seemed quite
certain that Mr. Gray was on the point of lending him a shirt and
a change of underwear. I--"

"Good God, sir!" gasped Captain Trigger, with something more than
emotion in his voice. "What is this you are telling me?"

"He seems a most likeable chap," explained Mr. Mott lamely. "Quite
a courteous fellow, too, sir. I forgot to mention that he sent
his compliments to you and asks for an interview at your earliest
conven--"

"Asked for an interview? Drag him here at once--by the heels, if
necessary. Tell him I shan't keep him waiting an instant," said
the captain ironically.

Mr. Mott still hesitated. "In the event, sir, that he is in the
midst of shaving--"

"I don't care a hang what he's in the midst of," exclaimed Captain
Trigger. "Even in the midst of changing shirts. Present my compliments
to him, Mr. Mott, and say that he needn't dress up on my account.
I am an old-fashioned sailor-man. It is nothing new to me to see
men who haven't shaved in a fortnight, and others who never change
shirts."

"Very well, sir," said Mr. Mott, and departed.

Presently he reappeared with the stowaway in charge.

Captain Trigger beheld a well set-up young man of medium height,
with freshly shaven chin and jaws, carefully brushed hair, spotless
white shirt and collar, and,--revealed in a quick glance,--recently
scrubbed hands. His brown Norfolk jacket was open, and he carried
a brand new, though somewhat shapeless pan-ama hat in his hand.
Evidently he had ceased fanning himself with it at the moment of
entering the captain's presence. The keen, good-looking face was
warm and moist as the result of a most violent soaping. He wore
corduroy riding-breeches, cavalry boots that betrayed their age in
spite of a late polishing at the hands of an energetic and carefully
directed bootblack, and a broad leather belt from which only half
an eye was required to see that a holster had been detached with a
becoming regard for neatness. His hair was thick and sun-bleached;
his eyes, dark and unafraid, met the stern gaze of the captain
with directness and respect; his lips and chin were firm in repose,
but they might easily be the opposite if relaxed; his skin was so
tanned and wind-bitten that the whites of his eyes were startlingly
defined and vivid. He was not a tall man,--indeed, one would have
been justified in suspecting him of being taller than he really
was because of the more or less deceiving erectness with which he
carried himself. As a matter of fact, he was not more than five
feet ten or ten and a half.

Captain Trigger eyed him narrowly for a moment.

"What is your name?"

"A. A. Percival, sir."

"Your full name, young man. No initials."

The stowaway seemed to add an inch to his height before replying.

"Algernon Adonis Percival, sir," he said, a very clear note of
defiance in his voice.

The Captain looked at the First Officer, and the First Officer,
after a brief stare at the speaker, looked at the Captain.

"It's his right name, you can bet, sir," said Mr. Mott, with conviction.
"Nobody would voluntarily give himself a name like that."

"You never can tell about these Americans, Mr. Mott," said the
Captain warily. "They've got what they call a keen sense of humour,
you know."

Mr. Percival smiled. His teeth were very white and even.

"I am a first and only child," he explained. "That ought to account
for it, sir," he went on, a trifle defensively.

Captain Trigger did not smile. Mr. Mott, however, looked distinctly
sympathetic.

"You say you are an American,--a citizen of the United States?"
demanded the former.

"Yes, sir. My home is in Baltimore."

"Baltimore?" repeated Mr. Mott quickly. "That's where Mr. Gray hails
from, sir," he added, as a sort of apology to the Captain for the
exclamation.

The Captain's gaze settled on the stowaway's spotless white shirt
and collar. Then he nodded his head slowly.

"Mr. Gray is the Chief Engineer," he explained, with mock courtesy.

"Yes, sir,--I know," responded Percival. "He comes of one of the
oldest and most highly connected families in Baltimore. He informs
me that his father--"

"Never mind!" snapped the Captain. "We need not discuss Mr. Gray's
antecedents. How old are you?"

"Thirty last Friday, sir."

"Married?"

"No, sir."

"Parents living?"

"No, sir."

"And now, what the devil do you mean by sneaking aboard this ship
and hiding yourself in the--by the way, Mr. Mott, where was he
hiding?"

Mr. Mott: "It doesn't seem to be quite clear as yet, sir."

Captain Trigger: "What's that?"

Mr. Mott: "I say, it isn't quite clear. We have only his word for
it. You see, he wasn't discovered until he accosted Mr. Shannon on
the bridge and asked--"

Captain Trigger: "On the bridge, Mr. Mott?"

Mr. Mott: "That is to say, sir, Mr. Shannon was on the bridge and
he was below on the promenade deck. He asked Mr. Shannon if he was
the Captain of the boat."

Captain Trigger: "He did, eh? Well?"

Mr, Mott: "He was informed that you were at breakfast, sir,--no
one suspecting him of being a stowaway, of course,--and then, it
appears, he started out to look for you. That's how he fell in with
the Chief Engineer. Mr. Gray informs me that he applied for work,
admitting that he was aboard without leave, or passage, or funds,
or anything else, it would seem. But, as for where he lay in hiding,
there hasn't been anything definite arrived at as yet, sir. He
seems to have been hiding in a rather wide-spread sort of way."

Mr. Percival, amiably: "Permit me to explain, Captain Trigger.
You see, I have been obliged to change staterooms three times.
Naturally, that might be expected to create some little confusion
in my mind. I began in the second cabin. Much to my surprise and
chagrin I found, too late, that the stateroom I had chosen,--at
random, I may say,--was merely in the state of being prepared for
a lady and gentleman who had asked to be transferred from a less
desirable one. I had some difficulty in getting out of it without
attracting attention. I don't know what I should have done if the
steward hadn't informed them that he could not move their steamer-trunk
until morning. There wouldn't have been room for both of us under
the berth, sir. If the gentleman had been alone I shouldn't have
minded in the least remaining, under his berth, but he--"

Captain Trigger: "How did you happen to get into that room, young
man? The doors are never unlocked when the rooms are unoccupied."

Mr. Percival: "You are mistaken, sir. I found at least three stateroom
doors unlocked that night, and my search was by no means extensive."

Captain Trigger: "This is most extraordinary, Mr. Mott,--if true."

Mr. Mott: "It shall be looked into, sir."

Captain Trigger: "Go on, young man."

Mr. Percival: "I tried another room in the second cabin, but had
to abandon it also. It had no regular occupant,--it was Number 221
remember,--but along about midnight two men opened the door with
a key and came in. They were stewards. I gathered that they were
getting the room ready for someone else, so when they departed,--very
quietly, sir,--I sneaked out and decided to try for accommodations
in the first cabin. I--"

Mr. Mott: "Did you say stewards?"

Mr. Percival: "That's what I took them to be."

Captain Trigger: "You are either lying, young man, or plumb crazy."

Mr. Percival, with dignity: "The latter is quite possible,
Captain,--but not the former. I managed quite easily to get from
the second cabin to the first. You'd be surprised to know how simple
it was. Running without lights as you do, sir, simplified things
tremendously. I found a very sick and dejected Jewish gentleman
trying to die in the least exposed corner of the promenade deck.
At least, he said he didn't want to live. I offered to put him to
bed and to sit up with him all night if it would make him feel a
little less like passing away. He lurched at the chance. I accompanied
him to his stateroom, and so got a few much-needed hours of repose,
despite his groans. I also ate his breakfast for him. Skirmishing
around this morning, I found there were no unoccupied rooms in the
first cabin, so I decided that we were far enough from land for
me to reveal myself to the officer of the day,--if that's what you
call 'em on board ship,--with a very honest and laudable desire
to work my passage home. I can only add, Captain, that I am ready
and willing to do anything from swabbing floors on the upper deck
to passing coal at the bottom of the ship."

Captain Trigger stared hard at the young man, a puzzled expression
in his eyes.

"You appear to be a gentleman," he said at last. "Why are you on
board this ship as a stowaway? Don't you know that I can put you
in irons, confine you to the brig, and put you ashore at the first
port of call?"

"Certainly, sir. That's just what I am trying to avoid. As a
gentleman, I am prepared to do everything in my power to relieve
you of what must seem a most painful official duty."

Mr. Mott smiled. The Captain stiffened perceptibly.

"How did you come aboard this ship?" he demanded.

"As a coal passer, sir. Day before yesterday, when you were getting
in the last lot of coal. I had a single five dollar gold piece in
my pocket. It did the trick. With that seemingly insignificant
remnant of a comfortable little fortune, I induced one of the
native coal carriers,--a Portuguese nobleman, I shall always call
him,--to part with his trousers, shirt and hat. I slipped 'em on
over my own clothes, stuffed my boots and socks inside my shirt,
picked up his basket of coal, and walked aboard. It isn't necessary,
I suppose, to state that my career as a dock-hand ceased with that
solitary basket of coal, or that having once put foot aboard the
Doraine, I was in a position to book myself as a passenger."

"Well, I'm damned!" said Captain Trigger. "Some one shall pay for
this carelessness, Mr. Mott. I've never heard of anything so cool.
What did you say your name is, young man?"

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