Part 19 (1/2)

”She'll have carried a big boat on the top of that house amids.h.i.+ps, and that's gone, too. Well, I hope her crew have got to dry land somewhere, or been picked up, poor beggars. Nasty things, those old wind-jammers, Mr. Strake. Give me steam.”

”But there's a pile of money in her still,” said the third mate, following up his own thoughts. ”She's an iron s.h.i.+p, and she'll be two thousand tons, good. Likely enough in the 'Frisco grain trade. Seems to me a new s.h.i.+p, too; anyway, she's got those humbugging patent tops'ls.”

”And you're thinking she'd be a nice plum if we could pluck her in anywhere?” said Image, reading what was in his mind.

”Well, me lad, I know that as well as you, and no one would be pleaseder to pocket 300. But the old _M'poso's_ a mailboat, and because she's got about a quarter of a hundredweight of badly spelt letters on board, she can't do that sort of salvage work if there's no life-saving thrown in as an extra reason. Besides, we're behind time as it is, with smelling round for so much cargo, and though I shall draw my two and a-half per cent, on that, I shall have it all to pay away again, and more to boot, in fines for being late. No, I tell you it isn't all sheer profit and delight in being skipper on one of those West African coast boats. And there's another thing: the Chief was telling me only this morning that they've figured it very close on the coal. We only have what'll take us to Liverpool ourselves, without trying to pull a yawing, heavy, towing thing like that on behind us.”

Strake drummed at the white rail of the bridge. He was a very young man, and he was very keen on getting the chance of distinguis.h.i.+ng himself; and here, on the warm, windless swells abeam, the chance seemed to sit beckoning him. ”I've been thinking, sir, if you can lend me half a dozen men, I could take her in somewhere myself.”

”I'm as likely to lend you half a dozen angels. Look at the deck hands; look at the sickly trip this has been. We've had to put some of them on double tricks at the wheel already, and as for getting any painting done, or having the s.h.i.+p cleaned up a bit, why, I can see we shall go into Liverpool as dirty as a Geordie collier. Besides, Mr. Strake, I believe I've told you once or twice already that you're not much use yourself, but anyway you're the best that's left, and I'm having to stand watch and watch with you as it is. If the mate gets out of his bed between here and home, it'll be to go over the side, and the second mate's nearly as bad with that nasty blackwater fever only just off him; and there you are. Mr. Strake, if you have a penn'oth of brains stowed away anywhere, I wish to whiskers you'd show 'em sometimes.”

”Old man's mad at losing a nice lump of salvage,” thought Strake.

”Natural, I guess.” So he said quietly: ”Ay, ay, sir,” and walked away to the other end of the bridge.

Captain Image followed him half-way, but stopped irresolutely with his hand on the engine-room telegraph. On the fore main deck below him his old friend, Captain Owen Kettle, was leaning on the rail, staring wistfully at the derelict.

”Poor beggar,” Image mused, ”'tisn't hard to guess what he's thinking about. I wonder if I could fix it for him to take her home. It might set him on his legs again, and he's come low enough, Lord knows. If I hadn't given him a room in the first-cla.s.s for old times' sake, he'd have had to go home, after his trouble on the West Coast, as a distressed seaman, and touch his cap to me when I pa.s.sed. I've not done badly by him, but I shall have to pay for that room in the first-cla.s.s out of my own pocket, and if he was to take that old wind-jammer in somewhere, he'd fork out, and very like give me a dash besides.

”Yes, I will say that about Kettle; he's honest as a barkeeper, and generous besides. He's a steamer sailor, of course, and has been most of these years, and how he'll do the white wings business again, Lord only knows. Forget he hasn't got engines till it's too late, and then drown himself probably. However, that's his palaver. Where we're going to scratch him up a crew from's the thing that bothers me. Well, we'll see.” He leaned down over the bridge rail, and called.

Kettle looked up.

”Here a minute, Captain.”

Poor Kettle's eye lit, and he came up the ladders with a boy's quickness.

Image nodded toward the deserted vessel. ”Fine full-rigger, hasn't she been? What do you make her out for?”

”'Frisco grain s.h.i.+p. Stuff in bulk. And it's s.h.i.+fted.”

”Looks that way. Have you forgotten all your 'mainsail haul' and the square-rig gymnastics?”

”I'm hard enough pushed now to remember even the theory-sums they taught at navigation school if I thought they would serve me.”

”I know. And I'm as sorry for you, Captain, as I can hold. But you see, it's this: I'm short of sailormen; I've barely enough to steer and keep the decks clean; anyway I've none to spare.”

”I don't ask for fancy goods,” said Kettle eagerly. ”Give me anything with hands on it--apes, n.i.g.g.e.rs, stokers, what you like, and I'll soon teach them their dancing steps.”

Captain Image pulled at his moustache. ”The trouble of it is, we are short everywhere. It's been a sickly voyage, this. I couldn't let you have more than two out of the stokehold, and even if we take those, the old Chief will be fit to eat me. You could do nothing with that big vessel with only two beside yourself.”

”Let me go round and see. I believe I can rake up enough hands somehow.”

”Well, you must be quick about it,” said Image. ”I've wasted more than enough time already. I can only give you five minutes, Captain. Oh, by the way, there's a n.i.g.g.e.r stowaway from Sarry Leone you can take if you like. He's a stonemason or some such foolishness, and I don't mind having him drowned. If you hammer him enough, probably he'll learn how to put some weight on a brace.”

”That stonemason's just the man I can use,” said Kettle. ”Get him for me. I'll never forget your kindness over this, Captain, and you may depend upon me to do the square thing by you if I get her home.”

Captain Kettle ran off down the bridge and was quickly out of sight, and hard at his quest for volunteers. Captain Image waited a minute, and he turned to his third mate. ”Now, me lad,” he said, ”I know you're disappointed; but with the other mates sick like they are, it's just impossible for me to let you go. If I did, the Company would sack me, and the dirty Board of Trade would probably take away my ticket. So you may as well do the kind, and help poor old Cappie Kettle. You see what he's come down to, through no fault of his own. You're young, and you're full to the coamings with confidence. I'm older, and I know that luck may very well get up and hit me, and I'll be wanting a helping hand myself. It's a rotten, undependable trade, this sailoring. You might just call the carpenter, and get the cover off that smaller lifeboat.”

”You think he'll get a crew, then, sir, and not our deckhands?”

”Him? He'll get some things with legs and arms to them, if he has to whittle 'em out of kindling-wood. It's not that that'll stop Cappie Kettle now, me lad.”