The Cruise of the Dry Dock

T >> T. S. Stribling >> The Cruise of the Dry Dock

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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.

CHAPTER V

SAIL HO!

Caradoc lay stretched out in a deck chair, on top of the broad wall of
the dock, a cool dawn breeze playing over him. He looked across the
motley sea toward an opalescent sky reddening in the east.

"No," replied Madden without great interest, from his seat on the rail,
"I've no idea what you mean by a 'remittance man.'"

The Englishman's eyes strayed wearily from the limpid dawn to the tiny
image of a lion couchant on a small blue enameled shield which he used
as a watch fob.

"Among the English--" He paused and began again: "Among a certain class
of English families," he proceeded in an impersonal tone, "when a member
goes hopelessly astray, that member is sent abroad to travel
indefinitely. Remittances are forwarded to him from place to place,
wherever he wishes to go, but--" there was a scarcely noticeable
pause--"he can't come back to England any more."

"O-o-h!" dragged out Madden in a low voice, comprehending the man before
him for the first time.

"So they are called remittance men--always remitted to." Caradoc's long
fever-worn face, that was filling out in convalescence, colored
momentarily.

"So that's what you were," said the American after a pause; "a
remittance man, simply drifting over the face of the earth, supported by
your family, boozing your life away, and always longing to see England
again?"

"You can put things so raw, Madden," responded Caradoc with a ghost of a
smile. "I _am_, not _were_."

"_Were_," insisted the American quickly. "Before your collapse you
were a confirmed alcoholic, but you are slightly different now. Your
eight days of fever, when Hogan and I had to hold you in bed, must have
burned you out, cleaned up your whole system. You are nearer normal now
than you were. You have a fresh start. It's up to you what you do with
it."

The Englishman looked at his friend with a sort of slow surprise on his
face. "I hadn't noticed it, but I don't believe I do crave drink as
keenly."

"No, sickness is often not so bad a thing as folks think. It is nature's
way of putting us right. Sometimes," he added thoughtfully, "we crumple
up in the process, but we can hardly blame the old lady for that."

"You're an odd fellow, Madden," laughed Caradoc, getting slowly out of
his chair and stretching his arms. "Well, for some reason or other, I
feel fine this morning--let's take a constitutional around the dock."

The young men walked off, side by side, and began the circuit of the
dock's quarter-mile outline. The breeze was such a rarity in the
becalmed region that the two paused now and then to take long grateful
breaths, and to watch the little wind waves ripple the glassy Sargasso
lanes.

As they walked, navvies came out with buckets brushes and set to work
painting the maze of iron stanchions that lined the long interior of the
dock.

"I'm afraid I'll have to stop that painting," remarked Leonard after
watching them a moment.

"They'll be very glad of it--but why?"

"It consumes too much energy. The men can live on less if they quit
work."

"Oh, I see."

"I think I shall have to cut their food down to half rations. We've been
adrift nearly sixteen days now and not a smoke plume from the
_Vulcan_. She has lost us--if she didn't founder."

"Any chance of meeting some other vessel?"

"Here in the ocean's graveyard?"

"Are we far in?" inquired Smith with rising concern.

"Close to three hundred miles, and getting deeper every day."

The two walked on mechanically, with the precise step of those who seek
exercise. The rim of the sun cut the edge of the ocean and a long trail
of light made the east difficult for their eyes.

"Any danger of starving?" questioned Caradoc, staring moth-like at the
blinding disc of flame.

"Perhaps not," meditated Madden. "I've been thinking about it. As a last
resort this seaweed is edible, at any rate certain species of it. The
Chinese and Japanese eat it, but that isn't much of a recommendation to
a European. Then the water is full of fish that come to nibble at the
stuff."

Caradoc was obviously inattentive to this consoling information. "Yes,"
he murmured politely, "Japanese do nibble at the fish."

Madden looked around at his abstracted friend, who was still staring
into the molten sunrise.

"When the Japanese come to nibble at the fish, we might get some food
from them," suggested Madden with American delight in the ridiculous.

"Perhaps so."

"And fans, parasols, and little ivory curios--souvenirs of the Sargasso,
when we roll up the dock and take it home."

Smith nodded soberly, still gazing.

"What are you looking at, Caradoc?" laughed the American.

"I say, Madden, just look at that sun, will you? I thought I saw a
little black fleck against it straightaway to the east right down on the
horizon."

"You're injuring your sight, that's all," the American was still
smiling. "You know black specks will dance before your eyes if you stare
at the sun too long."

"But this was shaped like a sail," persisted Smith, staring again.

"Illusion," diagnosed Madden promptly, but his eyes followed Caradoc's
eastward nevertheless.

As far as his sight could reach up the golden path, he saw the black
markings of seaweed; then his vision became lost in a mist of
illumination. However, in this region, he could distinguish things dimly
and in flashes.

Presently, in one of these clear instants, he saw flashed, like the
single film of a moving picture, the tiny black silhouette of a ship's
sail against the dazzling east. Next moment it was lost in light.

"I told you!" cried Caradoc, getting his friend's expression. "It's
there! We've both seen it! A ship, Madden!"

Then he turned with more strength than Madden thought was in him. "Sail
ho, men!" he sang out. "A sail!"

"Come up, fellows, and take a look!" chimed in Madden just as eagerly.
"We believe we see a sail!"

The crew dropped work at once, and came climbing the ladder up the deep
side of the canyon like a string of monkeys; then they came running
across the red decking.

"Where?" "Wot direction?" "Where ees eet?" came a chorus of inquiries.

The two were pointing and soon the whole crew was lined up staring into
the brilliance. Their fresh eyes caught the glimpse immediately and held
it long enough to make sure.

"A sail!" "There she is!" "Oi see her!" bellowed half a dozen voices.

The whole crew fell into tense, happy confusion, laughing, staring,
yelling, speculating, slapping backs.

"Will she see us?" cried someone.

"Do ye think she'd overlook the whole west half o' th' sea, Galton?"

"She weel run against us eef she cooms thees way."

"But she might not know we are in distress?"

"Disthress, is it ye're sayin'? We're not in disthress, ye loon. This is
th' happiest day o' me loife."

Leonard turned to the Irishman. "Hogan, go dip that flag on the jury
mast--wiggle it up and down--let 'em know something is wrong--make 'em
think we have the rickets if nothing else."

Two men ran off with Hogan to the forward bridge; the others stared,
waved, shouted and let their excitement bubble down.

"But I don't understand a sailing vessel in these waters," speculated
Leonard.

"Maybe it's a derelick?" surmised Galton. "I've 'card as 'ow this was a
great place for derelicks."

"'Ow could she be a derelick," argued Mulcher, "w'en she 'as so much
canvas aloft? You run up on derelicks an' git sunk, ever' cove knows
that."

"I carn't think of hall these things at once!" retorted Galton.

"Perhaps she ees the _Vulcan_ under sail with deesabled engines?"
suggested Deschaillon.

This explanation was accepted unanimously and joy broke out afresh.

"Why sure, th' _Vulcan_, th' good old _Vulcan_! Now, lads,
let's give three cheers and maybe it'll reach 'er!"

Madden left the men trying to reach her with their bellows and went
below after the mate's binoculars. When he returned the sun had swung up
above the rim of the ocean and the sail was plainly discernible. He
leveled his glasses and his eyes went searching among the distant
markings of seaweed, until it finally rested on the sail. The vessel was
hull down. There was nothing to see except a little canvas stretched
neatly aloft and ship-shape masts and spars. He observed her attentively
for some time. She seemed to be making very little headway. All in all,
Madden made little of the craft, so he handed the glass to Smith. The
Englishman was likewise puzzled, and the binoculars went down the line
of curious men.

There was something in the way the youth named Farnol Greer handled the
instrument that caused Madden to ask:

"What do you make out, Greer?"

"She is lying to, sir. She's backing her tops'ls flat against the
breeze, and her mains'l's reefed and drawing with it."

"Lying to!" cried three or four voices. "W'ot does she mean by that?
Looks as if she'd be bloomin' glad to get out o' such a bally place as
this!"

"Let me have another look." Madden resumed the binoculars.

Now that Madden's attention was called to this unusual disposition of
the sails, he could make out their position for himself.

This started another tide of speculation buzzing among the castaways.
Was the _Vulcan_ crippled? Had she run short of coal? But why
should she voluntarily lay-to in the very sight of her quarry?

"They're fishin'," surmised Deschaillon, "off in th' boats fishin';
they're weethout food also."

This wild surmise was the only reasonable hypothesis that had been
struck on. Another group of men rushed for the jury mast to show the
fishermen that their presence was desired. At any rate the faint breeze
was very slowly bringing the two vessels together.

If the men had been heretofore anxious that the cool breeze continue,
now their anxiety was redoubled. At any moment it might die away and
leave the _Vulcan_ stranded beyond communication. In painful
uncertainty, they watched the tug drag her hull slowly into sight, then
slowly eat her way down the long mazy lanes of the Sargasso.

Then, when she was well in view, Farnol Greer said:

"She is not the _Vulcan_, sir."

By this time all the men had their brown faces wrinkled up against the
glare of the sunshine. Now they redoubled their gaze on the distant
vessel.

"Faith, and sure enough she isn't!" cried Hogan.

Greer was right; the strange vessel was not the tug. She had a funnel
amidship and two masts, but there her resemblance to the _Vulcan_
ceased.

The crew stared, talked, speculated, until the sun swung up like a
white-hot metal ball in the sky, and the quivering heat drove them below
under the awnings. From here they could still view the stranger, but not
to so good advantage. The breeze, by good fortune lasted till deep in
the morning, but finally dropped down in the blanketing heat, with the
unknown craft a good three miles distant.

The dock's crew could make out no sign of life as they strained their
eyes through the glare of tropical brilliance. The high-lights of the
schooner's reversed topsails and the luminous shadows of her mainsail
stood out vividly against the hot copper sky. The multi-colored markings
of the ocean and the sharp line of the horizon finished a very picture
of pitiless heat.

The men stood beneath the awning, legs apart, arms held away from
bodies, and stared from under dripping brows for some signs of
recognition from the stranger.

"'Asn't she got up a single rag to show us she sees us?" puffed Galton,
swiping his hand across his forehead and flinging drops on the iron
deck, where they evaporated the moment they hit.

"Don't see none," replied the navvy who possessed the binoculars at that
moment.

"'Ave they any boats?"

"One cleated down for'ard, one slung on the midship davits, and I think
I make hout one on t'other side past the booby hatch."

"And not a soul on deck?"

"Not unless they're settin' on th' fur side o' th' superstructure."

"Wot would they want to be settin' in th' sun for?" demanded Galton
brusquely.

"'Ow do I know? If they was Eth'opians, wouldn't they set in th' sun?"

"This is as clost as we'll ever git," surmised another voice. "The night
breeze'll blow 'er back where she come from."

"Well, w'ere's that?" demanded Mulcher savagely.

"Why, Eth'opia, I reckon, if she's got a crew of Eth'opians settin' on
t'other side of 'er superstructure."

"They ain't a man-jack aboard; and you know it," snarled Galton, "or
'e'd be poppin' 'is eyes hout at such a 'orrible big sight as we must
be."

"Anyway, I'll bet she blows back w'ere she come from, to-night,"
persisted the advocate of this theory.

The men caviled on at each other endlessly, disputing, denying,
upbraiding, and once in a while coming to blows.

In order to keep any sort of discipline, Leonard and Caradoc kept to
themselves under a separate awning, for all sea-faring experience has
shown that a separation of officers and men is necessary for the
management of sailors.

However, Madden heard most of the arguments that went on under the men's
canvas, and he became convinced that the sailor was right; the evening
breeze would carry the schooner away from the dock. He measured the long
distance through the sea lanes from dock to schooner with his eyes.

"Caradoc," he said to his friend, "if we ever reach that vessel now's
our time."

"How do you hope to do it?"

For answer Madden turned to the men. "Mulcher, bring me a life buoy,
will you?"

Mulcher arose and started on his errand.

Caradoc stared. "You don't intend to _swim_ that distance--through
this heat?"

"There's a boat over there, and provisions, perhaps."

"And the crew?"

"It is quite possible that they sleep through the day which is utterly
becalmed and make some little headway at night with the slight evening
and morning breezes--it would be a task for a sailing vessel to work
herself out of the Sargasso."

"Why I never thought of that. I suppose it is possible."

Mulcher was returning with a buoy. The crew came forward behind the
navvy, on the _qui vive_ over this new undertaking.

"Faith, and hadn't ye betther sind one o' th' min, sir," suggested
Hogan, "an if he drowns, sir, Oi would take it to be a sign that it's a
dangerous swim."

"An' the sharks, Meester Madden," warned Deschaillon.

As Madden kicked off his clothes, he observed Caradoc stripping
likewise. Then Farnol Greer came running down the deck with another buoy
and a big clasp knife.

The American looked at these fellows. "Caradoc, you can't possibly hold
out that distance; you're weak."

"I've done ten miles in--at home."

Greer said nothing, but rapidly undressed.

All three kept on their hats and undershirts as protection against
sunburn. As Madden walked from the awning through the stinging sun rays,
crimping up his naked feet from the blistering deck, Galton called to
him.

"If we git a lot of grub, sir, couldn't it be hextra, and carn't we 'ave
a spread to-night, sir?"

"Something like that," agreed Madden, tossing his buoy into the water.
The two other swimmers followed example, then all three dived off the
twelve foot pontoon toward their floats. They came up shaking the water
from ears and eyes. Madden was immersed in tepid water. His men were
cheering stolidly. The schooner looked very, very far away now that he
was at the surface of the water. Between him and his goal streaked mazes
of sargassum. It suddenly struck the American that he might have trouble
getting through those barriers.

However, the three swimmers were progressing boldly.

CHAPTER VI

THE CUL DE SAC

Madden thrust head and shoulders into his float, a round canvas-covered
hoop of cork, and set off at an easy stroke. Now that he was flat on the
water, he could no longer see the lanes of seaweed, and he would be
forced to depend entirely upon signals from the dock.

Alongside Madden came Greer, and after them Caradoc. Like all Americans,
Leonard gradually increased his energy, and forged ahead at a rate
considerably faster than that required for long distance swimming. Once
or twice Caradoc warned the swimmers to go more slowly, and at each
monition Madden slowed up a trifle, but within a few minutes he would
again speed up unconsciously.

The three swimmers could form little idea of the rate they were making
in the lifeless sea. At the end of half an hour, when Leonard looked
back at Hogan on the wall for signals, the dock still loomed above him,
a vast glare of red in the dazzling sunshine. It seemed impossible to
get away from it; the featureless red flare followed him as a mountain
peak seems to follow a traveler.

The sun beat oppressively on his head and blistered his shoulders
through his net undershirt. The warm water soaked the energy out of
limbs and arms. He changed from breast to over-arm stroke, then he
shifted to the crawl and trudgen stroke.

"Perhaps we'd better rest awhile, sir," suggested Greer, who came
puffing close behind.

"Beastly hot, this sun," Leonard ducked head and shoulders under water
for relief. His hat floated off and he grudged the slight effort to
retrieve it.

"How far are we?"

"Dock looks as close as ever--where's Smith?"

Greer nodded toward a small head and shoulders bobbing behind a little
white buoy.

At that moment, they heard the Englishman's voice calling, "To the
right!"

The boys turned and struck out ahead once more. They regretted having to
leave the straight line. As far as they could see there was no algae in
sight, the water was one glassy blue. And the mysterious schooner, with
its lights and shadows exaggerated in the tropical glare, seemed to the
tired swimmers to be as remote as ever.

As Madden pressed on and on, changing strokes after the fashion of
tiring swimmers, the constant beat of the sun made his eyeballs ache;
the ocean felt like a Turkish bath; the muscles in his shoulders, back
and legs grew numb, with an occasional cramping twinge. And what
irritated him as much as anything else was the fact that he was swimming
toward the right quarter of the schooner, throwing away his energy.

Just then Caradoc gave a distant call, "To the left."

With deep relief, Madden rounded back toward his goal. He had swung
about some unseen cape of algae. He looked back toward the dock. Hogan,
a very tiny figure, held his flag straight up; that meant "dead ahead."

In relief Madden turned over on his back, laid his hat across his face,
then with hands resting on chest, he began sculling along with knees and
feet.

He did not know how long he swam in this fashion. Queer ideas drifted
through the lad's mind. He recalled standing on the bridge of the dock
as it went out of the Thames and wondering what would happen. He had
never anticipated anything like this. It seemed that he had been
swimming for days and weeks. He reminded himself of those little kicking
toys that never get anywhere. He felt as if he were a June bug buzzing
helplessly at the end of a string. He kicked, kicked, kicked under the
broiling sun, in the hot water. The sweaty smell of his hat band
disgusted his nostrils. The crown of his hat seemed to coop the heat
over his face, sweat seeped into his closed eyelids and stung his eyes.
He gave his head a little shake. The buoy slipped out and he bobbed
under the tepid water head and ears.

This jerked him out of his dreamy state. He whirled over, struck to the
surface, spat out brine, blinked his eyes. Somebody was shouting
something in an urgent voice. The noise buzzed in his waterlogged ears.

"Hey, hello! What is it?" he cried, giving his head a shake and putting
on his hat.

"School of sharks!" shouted Greer, coming toward his leader at a foamy
speed.

"School of sharks!" echoed Madden with a sharp thrill. "Where? Which
way?"

"Must be toward the dock, sir!" panted Greer driving up.

"Where's Caradoc?"

"Yonder." He pointed toward a distant twinkle in the water.

"We must get together--yell to him, warn him!"

The two lads began a strenuous chorus that further used up their
exhausted strength. Caradoc responded by a wave of his hand. Then when
he understood "sharks" he gathered speed in their direction.

By this time the dock seemed as far away as the schooner, and was in
reality probably farther. On the wall of the dock, they could see
Hogan's microscopic figure apparently having a fit, against the coppery
sky. No doubt from his height he could make out the monsters. Perhaps
Hogan could see the great fish shooting along with sinister,
exertionless ease toward these clumsy adventurers--a school of trout
striking at three awkward beetles.

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