The Cruise of the Dry Dock

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

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"How long have you been like this?" he asked at last.

"Been bad two or three years. Drank some all my life. My governor taught
it to me when I was a baby. Then when I got older if I went too far he
kicked. Naturally I intended to stop in time, till I slipped in deep."

Leonard nodded understandingly. "It always gets a nervous high-strung
fellow. The better stuff you are the harder it hits you."

Caradoc stared moodily seaward as he continued his recollections.

"The governor kept warning me. I don't believe he'd ever have kicked me
out, but he died. Then they cashiered me--took my commission--and my
family let me go, too... Well, I can't blame 'em."

"Your commission--in the army?"

"Navy."

"What were you?"

"Second lieutenant."

Madden looked at his friend curiously. Here was a queer pass for an
English naval officer. This revelation explained a good deal about
Smith, his autocratic manner, his many-sided education, his emotion at
leaving England. It even explained why he had expected Malone to place
him in charge of the dock.

"Is there any hope of getting back in?" asked Leonard sympathetically.

"Instauration! Never knew of such a thing in our navy. If I ever get out
of here I'll go in trade somewhere."

"In South America?"

"I had British Honduras in mind, or Canada. I'd like to keep in the
Empire."

A noise below interrupted the conversation. The two youths looked down.
The deck plan of the tug lay flat and empty save for the inert form of
Gaskin. The noise came from inside the cabin and arose to a shouting. It
was a drunken ribald sound. A suspicion flashed on Leonard's mind.

"Those pigs below are wasting the stores," he declared.

"They ought to be stopped."

"I couldn't stop them without a fight. They were about to court martial
me when they happened to think of something else."

Caradoc stared down in the direction of the noise, "I might talk them
into sense if Greer isn't drunk and wanting to fight again."

"He said he never drank--I don't know."

Caradoc nodded, "I'll go down and send them forward," he asserted with
conviction, and started to climb out of the barrel.

Madden looked at the Englishman with a certain apprehension, "Caradoc,
if you go down there where they are drinking, won't you----"

"No, I'm not going to drink."

"It will be a temptation."

"I have myself in hand now. This talk has done me good. No, I'm all
right." He swung out of the barrel and started down the ratlines.

Leonard watched him anxiously, not at all sure of the outcome of his
mission, not at all sure that the hot smell of rum in the galley would
not again overcome his resistance.

The sun was just dipping into the sea and its last light spread out of
the west to the zenith like a huge red-gold fan. Purplish shadows had
already begun to dim the tug and dock and ocean.

Fifteen or twenty degrees above the sunset shone a pale crescent moon in
the burnished sky. The sight of the moon somehow cheered Madden. He
recalled a childish superstition that it was good luck to see the new
moon clear. At any rate, as the sky darkened, the clear new moon brought
Leonard comfort and renewed hope.

With a grateful feeling of the providence of an Almighty that hung out
moon and stars, the youth glanced around the darkening horizon and
presently observed a tiny light far to the south. He stared at it quite
surprised, and then he chanced to see a star just above it. It was the
reflection of Sirius in Canis Major.

The beam of a star must lead any thoughtful soul into endless reveries.
Beneath its calm and infinite light, all human troubles fade to the
brief complaining of a child in the night. Death becomes a small,
unfeared thing, and life itself, the trail of a finger writing an
unknown message upon water.

Filled with such musings, the American noted with surprise that the
light on the sea which he had fancied to be the reflection of Sirius was
moving. It was not the reflection of a star.

It was a light moving in the gathering darkness.

What sort of light could it be? A Will o' the Wisp? A Jack o' Lantern,
some phosphoric phenomenon rising in the exhalations of rotting seaweed?

Ten minutes before, his excited imagination would have conjured up
hydras and dragons; now he scrutinized the mysterious illumination
unexcitedly. It winked out occasionally, then presently reappeared. But
it did not move in an aimless fashion, after the manner of gaseous or
electrical phenomena. It pursued a straight line toward the
_Vulcan_. That was why Madden had not observed its movement sooner.

Although it had crept only a little way down from the horizon, the
wondering boy could discern its progress plainly among the dark masses
of seaweed that blotched the graying water. The light was moving toward
the _Vulcan_ and at a high rate of speed.

As he watched it, the enigmatical light suddenly disappeared. The youth
blinked his eyes, looked again. It was gone. Then he became a little
uncertain whether or not he had ever observed any such phenomenon. He
glanced down on the dark deck and could faintly discern the form of the
cook.

"Gaskin!" he called sharply, "Gaskin!"

To his surprise the drunken fellow stirred and made some mumbling reply.

"Get up. I want to know whether or not you can see anything."

Came a sluggish stirring from below, and then Gaskin's voice, in which
deference struggled with a bad headache, "Yes, sor, I can see
hever'thing as usual, sor."

"I thought I saw a light to the south. Just take a look in that quarter,
will you?"

The dopy cook scuffled to his feet and stumbled over to the rail, hung
there, peering intently southward. At that moment, there burst out of
the sea a brilliant illumination that fairly blinded Madden. Shocked
into spasmodic action, the American jumped from barrel to ratlines.

He hardly knew how he got down, as much of a fall as a climb. Strange
fearsome thoughts chased through his head. The men were right about
something attacking the _Minnie B_. Now the same thing had attacked
the _Vulcan_. The _Vulcan_ would be sunk. He must rush the men
out of the galley into the small boat. He must race back to the dock.
The dock apparently was safe. What the startling apparition was, he had
no time to speculate. When he touched the deck he sprinted for the
cabin.

As he passed Gaskin the light vanished as mysteriously as it had
appeared, and left the tug in inky darkness.

Madden heard the cook give a deferential cough and then say, "Yes, sor,
Hi saw it, Mr. Madden, saw it quite plainly, sor."

A moment before Leonard reached the cabin door, someone flung the
shutter open violently and shouted his name in the utmost alarm.

"Mister Madden! Mister Madden! Come quick, sir!"

The American lunged through the dark aperture straight into the fellow's
arms. In the darkness he could not make out who it was.

"Don't be afraid! Did you see it? Where are the rest of the men?"

"In the galley, sir, with him!" stammered the sailor,

"Are they in a funk?" gasped Madden, feeling that he himself was in one.

"Oh, they are that, sir."

"Why don't they come on out? We must get 'em out!"

"They're with him, sir, 'fraid to touch 'im!"

"With who?"

"Mr. Caradoc, sir."

"Afraid to touch him--why, what's the matter?"

"'E's dead, sir."

A feeling as if ice water had been dashed over his body shivered through
Leonard. The black cabin seemed to swing under his feet. His arms
dropped down and he stood perfectly still staring into the blackness
from whence came the sailor's voice.

"You--you don't mean he's _dead_?" he asked in a shocking whisper.

"That I do, sir, dead as a lump o' seaweed."

Madden turned and walked with a queer light feeling toward the galley.
He was in no hurry now. If that strange light sank them, drowned them,
it made little difference. An idea came into his mind.

"Did--did you fellows kill him--murder, him?" he asked in a hard
undertone.

The tenseness of his voice seemed to scare the sailor, "No, sir, no,
sir, no, sir!" repeated the cockney over and over.

"For I'll shoot the man down like a dog! I'll hang him! I'll--I'll----"

"We--we didn't touch 'im!" cried the sailor in hoarse alarm. "'E done
it 'isself, sir. Went clean crazy, kilt hisself--'orrible!" As the
sailor gasped out "horrible" they entered the cook's galley where a dim
light burned and a group of silent, sobering men stood in a knot over
some object.

Madden shoved through to where two men stooped over a long body, dimly
seen on the decking. The two men were Hogan and Deschaillon.

With his strange feeling still strong upon him, Madden knelt between the
two. Caradoc lay limp and motionless, with a dark stain slowly spreading
on the boards under his head.

"Tell me about this," commanded Leonard, thrusting a hand under the
prostrate man's shirt and feeling for his heart. The request set loose a
babble.

"'E did it 'isself, sor!" "Split hopen 'is own 'ead, right enough!"
"W'ack, 'e took 'isself, w'ack!" "Aye, that 'e did, sor!" "It sounds
queer, an' it looked queerer, but 'e did, sor!"

Madden made a sharp angry gesture for silence, "One at a time. Mulcher,
what happened?"

"'E comes in, Mr. Madden," began the cockney more composedly, "an' says,
'Forward, men, lively now,' an' Galton 'e turns an' says, 'Ye may take
that, ye--'"

Again came the irrepressible chorus, "Aye, that 'e did, sor!"

"If a man speaks before I address him, I'll brain him!" shouted Madden.
"Hogan, what happened?"

"If you plaze, Misther Madden, Misther Smith came in and asked iv'rybody
to stip forward and quit atin' up th' grub. Galton was mad innyway, an'
had a glass o' whiskey in his hand. 'Quit atin'!' yills Galton. 'A
officer niver wants nobody to ate but himself.' Then, 'Take thot!' he
yills, and flings his whiskey straight into Smith's face.

"Av cour-rse, we ixpected to see him smash Galton to smithereens, him
being dhrunk--Galton, I mane--but he stood still as a post, sir, and
tur-rned white as a sheet. I filt sorry for th' gintilmin--him putting
up sich a good foight this avening--so Oi thought if he didn't want to
fight, I'd help him pass it off aisy. I had a glass o' liquor in me own
hand. I offers it to him. Says I, 'Pay no attention to th' spalpeen at
all, Misther Smith,' says I; 'he's a fool to be throwin' away good
liquor loike that; and have this dhrink on me, and if he does it again
Oi'll pitch him out o' the port.' With that I handed him me glass.

"Well, sir, he took it, an' I belave there was niver another face on
earth loike his, whin he hild up that glass to th' lamp. His hand shook
so some of the sthuff shpilled. His face was loike a corpse. He shtarted
to dhrink. Put it to his lips. Thin of a suddint, loike it had shtung
him, he yills out, 'God 'a' mercy!' flings down th' glass, which smashes
all over th' floor, lowers his head an' plunges loike a football tackle,
head fir-rst, roight into th' sharp edge o' that locker there where ye
see th' blood an' hairs stickin'. Down he wint, loike he's hit wid an
axe, wid his skull broke in siv'ral pieces no doubt. Mad as a hatter,
sir, fr-rom th' hate. Though it's sich an onrasonable tale, sir, I won't
raysint it if ye call me a liar to me teeth."

Madden had found the Englishman's heart still beating. He pressed his
fingers in the long bloody wound on his head and the skull appeared
sound enough under the long gash.

"Get him out on deck," he ordered sharply, in an effort to keep his
voice from choking in his throat.

"Out on deck! He's not dead! Get him in fresh air!"

Hogan, Deschaillon, and two navvies caught him by the legs and arms.
Madden lifted the bleeding head from which the blood still ran in a
steady trickle. The crowd gave back and the five men with their grewsome
burden passed through the galley's door into the dark passage.

Just then a sudden vibration went through the whole ship, as if the
_Vulcan_ had been struck by some enormous force. The men carrying
Smith staggered. There burst out a blare of confusion, amazed cries,
shouts of terror. There was a stampede in the narrow passage. Flying men
bumped into the bearers of the sick man. They were shrieking, "We're
struck! We're foundering! Th' sea sorpint's got us!"

"Launch the small boat and stand by till we get there!" bellowed Madden.

All the carriers dropped Smith's body and bolted in the panic. Madden
braced himself against the rush of the crew and held up the senseless
man lest he be trampled on in the blackness. The uproar in the passage
was terrific as the men tried to squeeze through all together. Every
moment Madden expected a rush of sea water down the passageway. Just
then, he felt someone else lift at Caradoc.

"Go on," said Farnol Greer's voice. "Let's get him out, sir."

CHAPTER XV

TOWED!

When the American pushed outside with his burden, a breeze swept the
deck of the _Vulcan_ with an unexpected coolness. The vibrations
had almost ceased, but there was a slight hissing of water from
somewhere, and a feeling of movement. The men were in a hubbub on the
port side where the small boat lay tied.

Filled with the idea that the ship was about to founder, Madden stared
about. To his vast astonishment, he discovered the tug was not sinking,
but moving. The _Vulcan_ was under way. The noise he heard was the
swift displacement of water. For some unaccountable reason, the vessel
glided southward at a speed of eight or ten knots.

In the uproar forward, Madden heard the cries: "Th' dinghy's swamped!"
"We carn't reach 'er!" "Cut 'er loose and jump!" "We couldn't right 'er
in th' water!" "Cut 'er and jump! Quick! 'Eaven knows w'ot's got us!"

"Steady! Steady, men!" bawled Madden, laying Caradoc down on the deck
and hurrying across to his panicky crew. "What's moving us?"

"We don't know, sir! Th' sea sorpint! Grabbed our cable and made off!"

"Can you see it?"

"Just make it out, sir, ahead!"

"Cut th' cable!" cried another voice; "that'll get us loose!"

"Yes, get an axe--Quick!"

A dim figure came running aft past Madden for the axe. The American
shouted at him: "Come back! Don't touch that towing line! Let things
alone!"

"Yes, but this'll drag us to the bottom!" chattered one of the men
forward.

"We'll get in the dinghy when the ship goes down!"

"We might row to the dock from here!"

The men stood in a string along the rail, below them in the hissing
water the dinghy tossing topsy turvy.

"What's towing us? I don't see it?" cried Madden.

Several arms pointed forward. Leonard peered through the gloom. The
crescent moon and the stars filtered down a tinsel light. The faint
shine merely made the darkness more evident Madden seemed to catch a
glimmer of a bulk at the end of the anchor line some hundred yards
distant. He listened but heard only the gurgle of the _Vulcan's_
wake and the creak of her plates.

When the sheer panic of surprise had worn away somewhat, the weirdness
of the uncanny voyage came upon the crew with tenfold force. They stood
gripping the rail, staring ahead with the feeling of condemned prisoners
on their way to the gallows.

"We're 'eaded for the 'ole in th' sea!" muttered Mulcher.

"We'll go down tug an' hall," mumbled Galton unsteadily. "Fish bait,
that's w'ot we are!"

"I've heard sea serpents can sting a man and numb him so he won't live
or die," shivered Hogan, "like a spider stings a fly."

They spoke in half whispers under the influence of the unknown terror.

"If anything happens, I shall keel myself," declared Deschaillon, with
nervous intensity, "but I shall see it first."

"That's w'ot went with the other two crews--killed theirselves,"
chattered Mulcher.

Another silence fell. The cool breeze came as a sort of mockery of their
unknown peril. For the first time since the storm every man was
thoroughly comfortable physically.

"Boys," planned Hogan, "whin th' thing comes aboard, we'll put up th'
best foight we can!"

"It don't come aboard--it bites a 'ole in th' 'ull."

"Aye, like th' _Minnie B_."

Just then a figure approached the men unsteadily, and Madden saw that
Caradoc had recovered consciousness and was able to walk. As the tall,
gaunt figure approached, the crew eyed him as if he were some new
danger, then he asked.

"What is this? Are we moving?"

"Yes we're off," replied Madden.

"Under our own power?" he inquired, turning around and staring at the
smokeless funnel.

"No, we're being towed."

"Towed! Towed!" exclaimed Smith in a weak voice. "What's towing us?"

"We don't know, sor," replied a cockney.

There was a silence in which Caradoc stood tall and cadaverous as a
ghost. "Am I dreaming this, Madden?" he muttered finally. "Did you say
we were being _towed_?"

"That's right."

"What's towing us--not--not the dry dock--don't say the dry dock's
towing us!"

"We don't know, sor," repeated the cockney.

"Where are we going?"

"To be killed, sor."

Caradoc moved slowly over to the rail and sat against it near Madden.

"A cool breeze," he murmured gratefully.

The American was lost amid the wildest speculations as to the mysterious
agent that had the _Vulcan_ in tow. He was trying to think
logically, but found it hard in that atmosphere of terror. The utter
weirdness of the whole affair defied analysis. The towing of the
_Vulcan_ by an unknown power was the very climax of the fantastic.
No hypothesis he could form even remotely approached an explanation.

It could not be some sea monster surging steadily at the tow line of
the _Vulcan_. That theory was untenable. A monster might attack;
it would never tow.

But any other, attempt to account for the strange predicament fell
equally as flat. What human agency would operate so mysteriously in this
hot, stagnant sea? Why should any group of men entrap the helpless crew
of the _Vulcan_ with such a display of mystery and power? It was
useless. It was ridiculous. It was shooting a mosquito with a field gun.

All his thoughts ended in utter absurdity. He felt that he had run up
against some vast power. The schooner _Minnie B_, the tug
_Vulcan_, were but trifling units in the enigma of this deserted,
weed-clogged sea. It must be some power whose operations were
ocean-wide.

Why such a spot should be chosen?--Why a power that sank one ship out of
hand and towed another mile after mile?--Why it operated only at
night?--What lay at the heart of this brooding fabric of terror--he
could not form the slightest conception. Outlawry, piracy, smugglery,
were all goals too small for such operations.

His thoughts seemed to be physical things trying to clamber up the
smooth polished side of an enormous steel plate. They made not the
slightest progress. The more he thought, the more unaccountable all
phases of the question became.

In absolute perplexity, he turned to the Englishman at his side. He
could just make out the blur of Caradoc's face.

"Have you a theory about this, Smith?" he asked in a low voice.

The Englishman nodded in silence.

"What is it?"

"I--I got my head hurt awhile ago. I believe I'm delirious--dreaming."

Leonard thought this over without any feeling of amusement. "That
doesn't explain why I see it too," he objected gravely. "Nothing wrong
with my head--that I know of." He tried the time honored experiment of
pinching himself.

"I shall assume that I am awake," he decided after he had felt his
pinch. "I may not be, but I'm going to act as if I were."

Madden had an impression that Caradoc was smiling in the darkness. Just
then Gaskin began laughing shrilly in a queer metallic voice.

"Quit that!" snapped half a dozen thick voices at once, as if his
laughter had violently shocked their tense nerves.

Gaskin pointed a stumpy arm off the starboard bow, "Look! Look!" he
gasped. "It's that rotten whiskey! Whiskey done it! Whiskey made me see
that! Look w'ot whiskey done!"

Leonard had no idea that anything could be added to the nightmarish
quality of the adventure, but there off the starboard arose a great
bulk, blotting out the stars. It was not a ship; it was not a barge;
there was not a light on it, but it seemed somehow dimly illuminated. It
was as shapeless as death.

"The Flyin' Dutchman!" shuddered Galton.

"It burns a blue light!" corrected Hogan with chattering teeth.

"Th' ship o' the dead!" shivered Mulcher.

A sudden explanation flashed into Madden's head. "You fools are afraid
of our own dry dock," he whispered briefly. "We've traveled in a circle
and reached the dock again."

"Oh, no, sor, it ain't that! Tain't th' dry-dock, sor!" aspirated
several fear-struck voices.

The crew held their breaths as if the apparition might vanish as
suddenly as it appeared.

By this time the moon lay flat on the sea, throwing a faint shining
streak across the dark Sargasso. This vague light was enough to show
Madden, when he took a close look, that it was not the dock.

The thing he saw was an enormous mass without the severe angular shape
of the great dock. Its outline rose crude and shapeless, as well as he
could trace it among the canopy of stars, and gave not the slightest
intimation as to what use it could be.

As they stared, the speed of the _Vulcan_ slackened sensibly. The
faint rippling of water under the prow ceased. The breeze fell away into
a dead blanket of heat. It was as if a sweatbox had been cooped over the
crew.

"The thing's cut loose from us," said a weary voice.

Hogan laughed shortly: "Everybody out--fifteen minutes for
refrishmints."

"Yonder goes that thing!" cried Galton. "Hi can see it!"

Indeed, by peering carefully, Madden could follow the slender outline of
the mysterious craft that had towed the _Vulcan_ to this uncanny
spot. It had now left the tug and was gliding away to the great
misshapen fabric that sprawled on the sea.

Every eye strained to see the outcome of this strange maneuver, when
suddenly from the gliding vessel there shot a dazzling light that spread
over the bulky mass. Under the beating illumination every detail of the
huge vessel stood out garishly. She was immense, with a broad flat prow
like a railway ferryboat. She stood high in the water and seemed to have
three promenade decks around her.

There was no mast, no rigging, no outside gearing. One squat funnel
amidship told that she used steam for some purpose, and out of this
funnel black masses of smoke rose slowly in the motionless air. She
resembled no craft Madden had ever seen.

Notwithstanding her enormous size, everything about the vessel impressed
Madden that she was built for secrecy. She was squat, considering her
length and breadth. It was as if her designer were trying to make a
craft invisible at sea. As near as Madden could determine in the strange
light, she was painted a pale sky-blue. During the day, no doubt, she
melted into the sky like a chameleon.

As the smaller craft approached its huge mate, its circle of light
contracted until it finally concentrated into a dazzling white spot
centered on the prow of the monster. This spot diminished to an intense
point, like an electric arc between carbons. A sharp reflection of this
point streaked the water between the tug and the mysterious vessels.

Then, under the unbelieving eyes of the crew, the little vessel ran
completely into the larger one and was gone. The light vanished
instantly. Utter blackness fell over the dazzled eyes of the watchers.

There were gasps, explosive curses of bewilderment, amazement. The
little boat had disappeared into the larger. Impossible! Gaskin began
his shrill laughter again. Then he gurgled in the darkness as if
somebody's fingers had clamped his windpipe.

Madden's mind attacked more violently than ever the incomprehensible
motives behind this inscrutable mystery. What was the key to this
incredible affair? In the midst of his mental struggle, he felt a hand
on his arm, Caradoc said in his ear,

"What do you say we get in the small boat and pay them a visit?"

"It's a big risk. I daresay we'll get our heads blown off."

"I had thought of that," agreed Caradoc.

"Come on," said the American, and the two moved across the deck to see
if they could still use the dinghy, which had been trailing along all
this time.

Nearly an hour later, the two boys in the dinghy approached the puzzling
craft with muffled oars. As Madden and Caradoc drew near, the vast size
of the strange ship grew more striking. The faint impression of light
which they had first received grew stronger and Madden saw that the
decks were illuminated by long bands of diffused light, although he
could not guess its origin.

On the lowest deck, the American made out the small figure of a man
marching back and forth with a gun.

At this sight, both boys stopped rowing, lifted the oars from tholes and
began paddling noiselessly, canoe-fashion.

"That must be the accommodation ladder," whispered Madden, "where the
guard is."

"Who are they afraid will board them?" queried Caradoc. "Mermaids?"

"It is a strange precaution to take in the Sargasso," agreed the
American. "It is going to make our entrance difficult."

They ceased paddling now and drifted silently toward the monster.

"I wonder if they aren't smugglers," hazarded Caradoc,

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