Part 15 (2/2)

It took Warrisden a full minute to realise the meaning of the captain's words. He looked at the tumbling, breaking waves, he listened to the roar of the wind through the rigging.

”The boats won't come alongside to-day,” he cried.

”Won't they?” the skipper replied. ”Look!”

Certainly some man[oe]uvre was in progress. The trawlers were all forming to windward in a rough semicircle about the cutter. Warrisden could see boat tackle being rigged to the main yards and men standing about the boats capsized on deck. They were actually intending to put their fish on board in the face of the storm.

”You see, with the gale blowing up, they mayn't get a chance to put their fish on board for three or four days after this,” the captain explained. ”Oh, you can take it from me. The No'th Sea is not a Bobby's job.”

As Warrisden watched, one by one the trawlers dropped their boats, and loaded them with fish-boxes. The boats pushed off, three men to each, with their life-belts about their oil-skins, and came down with the wind towards the fish-carrier. The trawlers bore away, circled round the _City of Bristol_, and took up their formation to leeward, so that, having discharged their fish, the boats might drop down again with the wind to their respective s.h.i.+ps. Warrisden watched the boats, piled up with fish-boxes, coming through the welter of the sea. It seemed some desperate race was being rowed.

”Can you tell me which is the boat from the _Perseverance?_” he asked.

”I think it's the fifth,” said the captain.

The boats came down, each one the kernel of a globe of spray.

Warrisden watched, admiring how cleverly they chose the little gaps and valleys in the crests of the waves. Each moment he looked to see a boat tossed upwards and overturned; each moment he dreaded that boat would be the fifth. But no boat was overturned. One by one they pa.s.sed under the stern of the City of Bristol, and came alongside under the shelter of its wall.

The fifth boat ranged up. A man stood up in the stern.

”The _Perseverance_,” he cried. ”Nine boxes.” And as he spoke a great sea leapt up against the windward bow of the cutter. The cutter rolled from it suddenly, her low bulwarks dipped under water on the leeward side, close by the _Perseverance_ boat.

”Shove off!” the man cried, who was standing up; and as he shouted he lurched and fell into the bottom of the boat. The two men in the bows pushed off with their oars; but they were too late. The cutter's bulwark caught the boat under the keel; it seemed she must be upset, and men and boxes whelmed in the sea, unless a miracle happened. But the miracle did happen. As the fish-cutter righted she scooped on to her deck the boat, with its boxes and its crew. The incident all seemed to happen within the fraction of a second. Not a man upon the fish-cutter had time to throw out a rope. Warrisden saw the cutter's bulwarks dip, the sailor falling in the boat, and the boat upon the deck of the cutter in so swift a succession that he had not yet realised disaster was inevitable before disaster was avoided.

The sailor rose from the bottom of the boat and stepped on deck, a stalwart, dripping figure.

”From the _Perseverance_, sir. Nine boxes,” he said, looking up to the captain on the bridge; and Warrisden, leaning by the captain's side upon the rail, knew the sailor to be Tony Stretton. The accent of the voice would have been enough to a.s.sure him; but Warrisden knew the face too.

”This is the man I want,” he said to the captain.

”You must be quick, then,” the captain replied. ”Speak to him while the boat is being unloaded.”

Warrisden descended on to the deck.

”Mr. Stretton,” said he.

The sailor swung round quickly. There was a look of annoyance upon his face.

”You are surely making a mistake,” said he, abruptly. ”We are not acquainted,” and he turned back to the fish-boxes.

”I'm not making a mistake,” replied Warrisden. ”I have come out to the North Sea in order to find you.”

Stretton ceased from his work and stood up. He led the way to the stern of the cutter, where the two men were out of earshot.

”Now,” he said. He stood in front of Warrisden, in his sea-boots and his oilskins, firmly planted, yet swaying to the motion of the s.h.i.+p.

There was not merely annoyance in his face, but he had the stubborn and resolute look of a man not lightly to be persuaded. Standing there on the cutter's deck, backed by the swinging seas, there was even an air of mastery about him which Warrisden had not expected. His att.i.tude seemed, somehow, not quite consistent with his record of failure.

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