The Cruise of the Dry Dock

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

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"That's me, sir."

Greer moved instantly to the rope ladder where the dinghy was tied.
Madden followed him. Caradoc was still explaining the theory of St.
Elmo's fire to the listening men. Madden broke in on it.

"Fellows," he called, "Greer and I are going to row over there. We'll
let you know what we find."

Amid warning protests the two climbed down the ladder for the small
boat.

"I wouldn't do it, sir." "Leckricity's liable to strike you, sir."
"There's a storm comin', sir, and you won't get back, like th' mate
did." "You can see just as well from 'ere."

But the two clambered into the half-seen dinghy and pushed off. The
moment they dipped oars into water, the mystery was partially explained.
Every stroke they made created bright phosphorescent rings in the
lifeless sea. Their blades drove through the water in a flame. The
navvies cried out at this phenomenon. A sufficient disturbance of the
sea beyond the schooner would almost explain the strange light dancing
through the rigging. But what made that disturbance?

Reflections of the shining spars made a wavering path over the
weed-strewn water, and up this path the dinghy moved amid its own
flashing fires. It formed a queer spectacle, a glowworm creeping up on a
bonfire.

The fact that the two boys had just traversed the Sargasso lanes a few
hours before aided them greatly now in finding their way to the
schooner. Presently they were skirting the drift of seaweed where Madden
had come so near losing his life. As they rowed, the flashing of the
water about their oars only half convinced Madden that a similar cause
underlay the bizarre illumination on the schooner. The American's mind
clung to the idea that there was somebody on board the _Minnie B_,
a madman, possibly, who in some unknown way produced this amazing light.

He groped for some theory to account for a maniac on a deserted schooner
in these desolate seas. No doubt if a solitary man were left in these
terrible painted seas he would go insane. Madden regretted that he had
not searched the _Minnie B_ more thoroughly when he had the
opportunity.

Similar thoughts evidenly played in Greer's mind, for presently he
puffed out, between oar strokes: "Did you bring along a pistol, sir?"

"No, but there are two of us."

"They say they are tremendously stout, sir."

"We can use our oars; they'd made good clubs."

"I'm with you, sir."

By this time they had entered a long S-shaped rift that Madden recalled
led straight to the schooner. By glancing over his shoulder, the
American saw its two curving strokes drawn in pale light against the
dark field of seaweed. As they drew nearer, wild notions of what they
might encounter played through Madden's mind. What would be the outcome
of this fantastic adventure?

The dinghy was moving down the middle of the long "S" when a dull noise
from the schooner caused both oarsmen to look around. Such an
extraordinary sight met their eyes that they ceased rowing completely,
and stood up in the boat to stare at their goal.

The _Minnie B_ no longer lay at rest. Some strange and mighty
convulsion was taking place in the schooner. The lights still played
about the vessel, but her whole prow rose slowly out of the sea, while
she settled heavily by the stern. The most unexpected thing in the world
was happening.

The _Minnie B_ was foundering!

In the ghastly light, her masts and rigging swung in a slow drunken
reel. Presently she settled back to normal with a heavy crushing sound
as the water in her hold rushed forward. She seemed some mighty
leviathan weltering in agony. She lay on even keel for four or five
minutes while a hissing and spewing of air compressed in her hull told
she was slowly settling.

In the ghostly light the foundering vessel gave a strange impression of
clinging desperately to her life. She seemed striving to remain upright.
Her hissing and sucking might have been a living gasp for breath. Very
slowly she rolled over, and came the noise of many waters cascading down
over her upflung keel. Her masts crashed, yards broke, rigging popped in
the wildest confusion as they dashed into the sea. Great phosphorescent
waves dashed through the prone rigging and over the hull in liquid fire.
A sea of quicksilver leaped up to lick her down. With great bubbling and
sucking and groaning, the _Minnie B_ fought for her last gasp of
life. For several minutes she lay thus, on her side, every detail
clearly delineated as liquid fire roared down her open hatches. At last,
as she filled with water, the schooner straightened with a mighty
effort, a last stand between sea and sky, then sank slowly out of sight
in a scene of wild and ill-starred beauty. Her mainpeak disappeared in a
shining maelstrom. The convulsed water flashed and hissed, and the
circling waves here torches into the dead seaweed and moved the black
fields to a whispered sighing.

Toward the south the waves moved with great velocity and brilliance.
Indeed something seemed to be rushing away from the wreck, clad in long
winding sheets of flame. It might have been a continuation of the waves
in that direction, or it might have been some dolphin or shark flying
from the roaring vessel.

In ghastly mystification, the two watchers stared at the last weird
gleams that marked the foundered schooner. The waves reached the dinghy,
raised it and dropped it with a slow gurgling, then died away in firefly
glimmers. The sea presented once more a dim gray surface. To Madden's
mind there came, with a sharp sense of pathos, the picture of the little
sunny-haired girl he had seen in the chart room.

"Sunk," murmured Greer in a strange tone, "sunk--when she was as dry as
a chip."

"Heeled over," shivered Madden, "heeled over in a dead calm--God have
mercy on us!"

CHAPTER XI

CARADOC SHOWS HIS METTLE

Heat, that grew more terrific as the dock drifted southward; hunger,
that gnawed like rats at the empty stomachs of the crew; withering heat,
aching hunger, growing despair--that was life on the floating dock.

Of all the crew only Gaskin remained in good condition. It would have
required more than a hero to cook food and go hungry, but the crew made
no such allowances. They berated the dignified Gaskin, they eyed each
other's scant portions jealously. Their quarrels over food at last
forced Madden to weigh each man's allowance to the fraction of an ounce.

The nerves of the crew frayed out in the heat. By night they slept amid
tantalizing dreams of food; by day they sprawled in dreary silences
under awnings which held heat like sweat boxes. The high metal walls of
the dock caught the sun's rays and threw out a furnace heat. The men
endured it in net undershirts clinging to dripping bodies; their eyes
ached against the glare, their stomachs rebelled, their brains sickened
with monotony and despair.

The men developed little personal traits that exasperated their mates
unreasonably. Mulcher had a way of breathing aloud through his coarse
lips that chafed Hogan's temper. For hours at a time the Irishman would
stare at those flabby spewing lips, filled with a desire to maul them.
Yet before this isolation, he had never observed that Mulcher breathed
aloud.

The only occupation the men had now was to stare at, listen to and
criticise each other. All painting had ceased, for work consumes energy,
and energy consumes food.

Caradoc Smith found peculiar and private grievance in the fact that
Greer often whistled to himself in a windy undertone. The tune Farnol
chose for these unfortunate performances was an American ragtime, that
repeated the same strain over and over.

Caradoc strove not to listen to this dry whistling. Sometimes he left
his awning and climbed up the walls through the sapping sun's rays to
escape it, but his ears caught the faintly aspirated air at remarkable
distances.

One day he said to Madden: "I don't see how you stand that Greer
fellow's eternal whistling," and Leonard answered:

"Does Greer whistle?"

"Whistle! He whistles everlastingly, abominably--one of those confounded
American rags. He's at it now--what is that thing?"

Madden had to listen very carefully before he caught the faint blowing
between Farnol's lips. Presently he identified it.

"That's 'Winona, Sweet Indian Maid.'"

This reply seemed to arouse an irrational anger in the Briton.

"'Winona, Sweet Indian Maid'--_sweet_ Indian Maid!" he snorted.
"Did an Indian write such a nightmare? Is it a war song? Do they murder
each other by it, or with it?"

Madden grinned with fagged appreciation, thinking the remark meant for
humor, but Caradoc grimly chewed his blond mustache.

It was noon, three days later when Caradoc's endurance broke down.

"Greer!" he snapped with all his pent-up irritation in his voice, "will
you never stop mouthing that beastly tune?"

The stolid fellow looked around in the blankest surprise. "Tune?"

"No, groaning, wheezing! You spew it out all day long! What do you think
you are? A tree frog, a locust, a katydid? Doesn't your mouth get tired?
Does that hideous tinkle go through your hollow head all day long?"

The Englishman's long face was a dusky red. He had not intended to be
insulting when he first spoke, but all the sarcastic and abusive
epithets that he had _thought_ during the long super-heated days of
nerve-racked listening, now rushed out like steam from a boiler.

Farnol stared straight at the nervous fellow. "Are you insane?" he asked
in wondering contempt,

"A wonder I'm not--with that diabolical wheezy spewing boring in my
brain--you never stop a minute--over and over----"

"Have you run out of stolen whiskey again?" interrupted Greer with cool
malice.

The whole crew came to hushed attention.

Caradoc seemed to collect himself with a great effort. The blood ebbed
from his face, leaving it the color of clay.

"Stolen?" he asked in a contained voice. "Yes, isn't there another
medicine case for you to steal?"

"Greer!" cried Madden reproachfully. The American knew it was hunger,
heat and nerves that were nagging these two miserable men to quarrel.

"I believe he said I was no gentleman," pronounced Greer sarcastically,
"because I didn't know a little French. I say _he's_ a thief."

Caradoc was drawing long breaths through dilated nostrils. "Mr. Greer,"
he said with cold evenness, "it is impossible to obtain swords or
pistols on this dock. We will have to fight with our hands. Choose a
second!"

Greer nodded shortly. Both men got to their feet and both glanced at
Madden.

The American shook his head. "I can't serve for either of you. I'm in
command here. I'm impartial."

"Will you oblige me, Mr. Deschaillon?" asked Smith with a set face.

The Gaul arose, saluted, military fashion, with a clicking of heels.
"Eet ees an honor, M'sieu!"

Greer stared around dourly. "Hogan?"

The Irishman leaped to his feet joyfully. "Oi'm wid ye, Misther Greer,
and we'll bate th' long face off th' spalpeen, though I hate to hit
Frinchy Dashalong, who is a good frind o' mine."

All the men were up now circling about the principals.

"You don't have to do no fightin', 'Ogan," explained Galton, "you simply
stand by and 'old up for your man, an' 'elp fan 'im 'twixt rounds."

"Rounds!" exclaimed the disgusted Irishman. "I thought they were
choosin' sides for a free-for-all."

Caradoc began methodically stripping to the waist and Greer followed
suit. The Englishman presented his watch to Madden with a slight bow.

"If you'll be so kind as to keep time," he suggested, "that's a neutral
position. We fight four minutes and rest one."

Madden considered the warlike preparations askance. He wondered if he
ought not to stop it. The Englishman might suffer another sunstroke.
However, he took his station at the ringside, and glanced at the watch,
which had a coat of arms carved on the inside of its hunting case.

There was a striking contrast between the two fighters. The Englishman
was a beautiful taper from his great shoulders to his small aristocratic
feet. His muscles were long, graceful and knitted across his arms,
chest, and stomach like lace leather. He was built for swift enduring
action and could only have sprung from a race of men who had spent their
lives in play and luxury.

Farnol Greer, on the other hand, was as heavily moulded as a bulldog.
His arms were short and blocky; his shoulders welted with brawn; his
chest was two hairy hills, like a gorilla's, while across his stomach
muscles lay ridged like ropes. His waist was thick with pones of sinew
bulging over the hips, as one sees in the statue of Discobolus. It was
plain that Greer had labored tremendously all his life and that his
strength was simply wonderful.

It struck Madden as a strange coincidence that these two extreme types
of luxury and labor should meet in this furnace on the Sargasso and
fight for the trivial reason that one offended the other's sense of
music.

"All ready!" called Leonard.

The two men squared away at each other, Caradoc smiling sarcastically,
Greer grim as a gallows. Utter silence fell over the crowd. The fighters
crouched, bare fists up, staring at each other over the tips of their
guards.

For a moment Smith shifted around his man on his toes. He seemed as
light as a cat. Greer stood solid and merely turned on his flat feet.
Suddenly Caradoc's long right whipped out with a crack against the
shorter man's forehead. Greer made no sign of having received a blow,
although a dull red splotch slowly formed on his frontal. Caradoc led
another right, which Greer blocked, then the Englishman bored through
with a stinging left to the hairy chest.

"Go afther him! Kill him!" cried Hogan to his principal. "Nixt toime he
thries to hit ye, knock off his head for his impidence!"

"Aye, 'it 'im! Don't take nothin' off of 'im!" advised two of the
cockneys. Sympathy lay with the smaller man.

Smith continued his tiptoe dance and led a straight right. Instantly his
massive enemy ducked, leaped in under his guard, and there came the dull
thud of in-fighting; Greer's black head jammed up against Caradoc's
chin, his great muscular back bent half double, his tremendous arms
working like pistons.

The crew howled at this sharp unexpected attack. Caradoc rescued himself
by shoving open palms against the big bulging shoulders, and pushing
himself away from this battering ram. Smith bumped into some onlookers,
and got behind his guard some ten feet away from Greer. The Englishman's
fine-grained stomach was covered with pink welts from his punishment. He
had ceased smiling and was watching his man carefully. As a matter of
fact, he had expected to dispose of Greer easily--as a gentleman
disposes of a clod-hopper. But the heavy-set boy's method of fighting
was new and effective. Likewise there seemed to be a certain grim system
about it.

"First round is over!" called Madden.

"Phwat a shame!" cried Hogan.

With English love of fair fight, the cockneys divided themselves
impartially between the battlers and converted themselves into impromptu
rubbers and handlers. There was perhaps not a man in the crowd who liked
Caradoc; nevertheless they hustled him to his awning, put him down on a
box, procured towels, water, sponges from somewhere, and set up a
vigorous fanning and rubbing, all out of a desire to see fair play. At
the end of a minute they carried their champions back and set them
facing each other like human game cocks.

Farnol dashed in at once, whipping right and left hooks to Smith's
sides. Caradoc tore himself away and played for distance, stabbing at
Farnol's head at long range. The short youth accepted with indifference
punishment that cut cheeks and lips. He made rush after rush, driving
Caradoc into the crowd, who immediately shifted back and made room. Time
and again he landed terrific short arm jolts over heart and kidneys.

The sweating bodies of the fighters glistened in the roasting sunshine.
Both were bruised, Smith's body, Greer's head and shoulders. Caradoc's
mouth felt slimy and he spit at nothing.

The fighting went in spurts, Greer rushing Land Smith dancing away and
stabbing. The two gangs of rubbers bawled encouragement to their men.

"Land on 'is nose there, Smith!" shouted Mulcher. "Don't let 'im to ye!
Play away, play away, me boy! Now huppercut 'im! Huppercut 'im, I say!"

On the other side, Galton was shrieking hoarsely, "Bore in, Greer! Bore
in, me lad!" and Hogan, "G'wan and mash the spalpeen's ribs! Br-reak his
long nick! Cr-rush him! Why don't ye hit him on th' head and lay him
out?"

"Time's up!" announced Madden.

During the following rounds, Caradoc stuck to the long range English
method of fighting, but over and over Farnol broke through his guard and
his short-arm jabs spread a sick numb feeling over Caradoc's sides and
chest.

The Briton deliberately worked for Greer's eyes. His first round with
the silent man convinced him that he would never be able to stop that
massive steel body with a knock-out. On the other hand Greer covered up
tightly and lunged like a tiger after Smith's stomach and endurance.

Two or three weeks before, Caradoc could never have withstood that
terrific bombardment, but his hard life on the dock, his abstinence from
alcohol, and the fact that tobacco had long ago run out, all this had
armored his body with hard flesh.

The opening of the twelfth round found both fighters blown, bleeding and
filled with a desperate determination to end the contest. They formed a
ghastly sight when they were pitted in what proved to be the final
clash. Greer's face was chopped and bleeding, while Caradoc's ribs were
a mass of bruises, as mottled as a leopard's skin.

To Caradoc, the whole dock seemed unsteady. The sun bored into the back
of his head. The men had ceased yelling, and the circle silently swayed
back and forth to give the battlers room. The whole scene was hazy and
fantastic.

The Englishman put up his hands automatically when he faced his enemy,
and the next moment black-haired blocky bull of a fellow charged
furiously. Smith tried to stop him with a heavy right hand smash, but
his fist glanced off the man's sweaty shoulder. The next moment, Greer's
right landed in a fierce solid jolt on Smith's hip bone. A sickening
pain went through the Englishman. He sagged away and went down on a
knee, hunched forward, trying to protect his face with his gloves. Greer
Started another rush, when Madden jumped in, put a hand on his shoulder.

"You can't hit him while he's down!" he shouted in the bull's ear, and
then the American began counting: "One, two, three..."

Caradoc rested with his broad chest panting convulsively up and down
till the count of eight. Then he sprang backwards away from his enemy.
Curiously enough, Greer did not press his advantage home. The heavy
lad came forward but stood away from Caradoc, attempting nothing but
left-hand jabs.

In an instant Smith saw what was the matter. That blow on the hip had
ruined Greer's right hand, strained it, perhaps broken it. Greer's
rushes had stopped, and Smith, who was a boxer, not a fighter, could
stand off and peck at his man's eyes or jaw without danger to himself.

He hitched wearily up to his enemy, blocked Greer's left hand and let
his right have a full swing at his exposed body. Farnol went through the
motion of striking, but his blow was a mere tap and caused the heavy
fellow to cringe with pain.

[Illustration: Caradoc Stands the Acid Test.]

Caradoc swung a light blow to the neck. Greer countered fiercely with
his left, but it was parried easily.

Suddenly the crowd understood what had happened.

"Put 'im out!" "Finish 'im!" "Put 'im to sleep!" bawled a chorus. "He
hit you below th' belt w'en 'e broke 'is 'and!"

Farnol continued his chopping one-armed fight. "Put me out! Put me out!"
he bubbled furiously. "I said ye was a thief! You _are_ a thief!
You're a thief!" and he accented his charges with stabs.

Smith side-stepped the harmless attack, letting it slide first to one
side then the other, men were so tired they could hardly keep their
feet. The Englishman looked down on the stubborn fellow, with his
chopped, bleeding face and blackened, defiant eyes. A hard swing at
unprotected jaw would stretch him out in broiling heat, but he did not
make the blow. Instead he pushed the frothing fellow away from him.

"Go to your corner and cool off," he panted. "Yes, I'm a thief. Go on
away; I don't want knock you out."

He turned his back deliberately and walked to his own awning. The crowd
stared, absolutely dumfounded by this unexpected turn of affairs. Greer
himself stared, then moved forward automatically to continue his
onslaught, when Hogan grabbed him.

"Come on back," cried the Irishman. "Th' scoundrel has lift ye no ixcuse
to fight him any more. He says he's a thafe, but I don't belave Come git
a wash and let's wrap up yer hand."

At that moment the dignified voice of Gaskin came from the forward
pontoon. The crew hushed their hot comments on the fight to listen.

"A sail," called the cook. "A sail to th' sou'west, sir!"

Instantly every man moved forward. The fight was forgot in the great
hope of a rescue. Even the gory looking principals hurried forward to
see if such welcome news could be true.

CHAPTER XII

THE RETURN OF THE _VULCAN_

Etched against the horizon lay a stumpy masted vessel that seemed as
still and dead as ocean that rotted around it. She had not a sail aloft
nor a plume of smoke in her funnel. For the moment this lifelessness was
not observed by the hungry castaways. A joyous medley arose from the
dock.

"Th' _Vulcan_! Hit's th' _Vulcan_! Th' good _Vulcan_!
We'll 'ave full rations t'night, 'at will! Hurrah!"

They fell to cheering. Voices arose in confusion.

"_Vulcan_ ahoy! _Vulcan_ ah-o-oy!" they bellowed in an effort
to span the miles with human ices.

"Say, lads, she ain't movin'!" cried someone making the surprising
discovery.

"Faith and phwat's th' matter with _her_ now?" exclaimed Hogan in
exasperated wonder.

A silence fell over the boisterous group.

"Out o' coal," hazarded Galton, "that's w'y she harsn't got back no
sooner."

"W'ere's 'er sails, then?"

"A tug couldn't do nothin' with sails--she isn't made for sails!"

"It ain't w'ot ye're made for, hit's w'ot ye can git in this blarsted
sea!"

"Maybe 'er machin'ry's broke?"

"Maybe they're hall sick?"

"Or dead?"

"Maybe----"

Madden hurried to his cabin and returned with binoculars. The men
foregathered curiously about him as he scanned the vessel. He ran his
eyes over the tub from stem to poop. She stood out with absolute
distinctness in the glaring light. He could see her high prow, the
swinging buffers along her side, the wide-mouthed ventilators. He could
even make out her name in rusty letters under the wheel-house. Her small
boats were in place, but he saw neither life nor movement aboard. She
appeared as deserted as a pile of scrap iron.

"W'ot are they doin'?" queried Galton.

"Nothing." Madden was puzzled over the strange condition of the tug.

"Ain't they crowdin' to th' side, sir, lookin' at us and fixin' to come
to us?"

"Nobody's on her," replied Madden. "At least I don't see anyone."

"W'ot! W'ot! Nobody on 'er! Is she deserted, too? Just like the
_Minnie B_!" chorused apprehensive voices.

"Seems so," frowned Madden, then he made up his mind quickly and moved
over to the small boat which had been hauled up on the forward pontoon.

"Fall to, men, lower that dinghy. We'll go over and see what's the
trouble."

The crew went about their task with a sudden slump of enthusiasm.

"If the crew's gone, sir," mumbled one of the men, as he paid out the
rope, "w'ot's the use goin' across?"

"To get to the tug, of course."

"An'w'ot'll we do?"

Madden looked hard at the cockney. "Get the provisions aboard if nothing
else."

"There wasn't none on the _Minnie B_, sir."

"What's the _Minnie B_ got to do with the _Vulcan_? We're
going to run the tug and dock out of this sea, crew or no crew--ease
away on that rope, Mulcher. Let go! Now climb down, Galton, loose the
tackle and swing her in alongside the ladder."

When the cockneys obeyed, Madden ordered the whole crew into the small
boat. They climbed down the ladder one by one with a reluctance Madden
did not quite understand at the time.

Fifteen minutes later, the little boat, loaded down to her gunwales,
set out for the tug. Four oarsmen rowed, one man to the oar. The slow
clacking of shafts in tholes echoed sharply from the huge walls of the
dock as the dinghy drew away through the burning sunshine.

At some half-mile distance, the harsh outlines of the walls and pontoons
changed subtly into a great wine-red castle, that lay on a colorful
tapestry of seaweed, with a background of blue ocean and bronze sky.

As he drew away, Madden had a premonition that the dock was vanishing
out of his life and sight, that never again would he live in its great
walls. Like all crafts in this mysterious sea, it seemed completely
forsaken, deserted. With a shake of his shoulders he put the thought
from him and turned to face the future in the motionless tug that lay
ahead.

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