CHAPTER VI
AFTER some difficulty Chips, the carpenter, lighted the boat's lantern. Two of the men stepped the mast and rigged the small lug-sail while the others rowed to keep her from broaching to the seas. The captain held a roll-call. In spite of war training, which nearly all the men had had in one form or another, they had not mustered to their proper boat stations, so that instead of a correct crew there were only five men and the steward.
As the boat got way on, the captain came about and began to tack across the spot where the Hesperus had gone down. As they came up in the wind they saw a glimmer of a light from the other boat. When they were within hail the voice of the second mate reported to the captain:
“Seven men and myself, sir. The mate's boat capsized. I think she must have been rushed. No survivors found yet. 'Sparks' went with them.”
Sparks was the seamen's nickname for the radio operator. The suddenness of his death precluded the possibility that he had had time to send off any wireless appeals for help.
At that moment a man in the bow shouted that they were approaching something in the water that looked like a man clinging to a piece of wreckage. They dragged on board a fireman, who said that he had been in the mate's boat, which, as the Second had just suggested, had been overcrowded in the general confusion and capsized. For some time the two beat about with their lanterns lighted, finding no trace of any other survivor.
“But they can't all have been sucked down with the Hesperus, could they?” queried Vi.
“Mebbe, and mebbe—sharks,” said her uncle grimly.
He tacked over to the other boat and, ordering the second to keep as close as possible, turned and ran before the wind. Then the captain had an examination made of the food-supplies and water. The keg fastened in the middle of every boat and supposed to be kept constantly replenished, a matter seldom attended to in tramps before the war, proved to be only three-quarters full and leaking.
A case of emergency rations was missing. Whether in the general confusion it. had been lost overboard or whether it had been omitted by the mate whose duty it was to see that it was placed there, they could not know. The captain said nothing, but in the light of the lantern Vi saw his face become very grave until a meek voice murmured apologetically—
“Chi Loo catch um some, but not velly muchee.”
“Not velly muchee” for nine mouths was true, but at any rate the seven-pound tin of biscuits, a ham and apparently an apronful of canned goods snatched at hazard were better than nothing. The water was the more serious problem. Captain Kelvett immediately ordered all the food to be placed in the locker of the stern-sheets on which he sat, and a man was specially told off to guard the precious keg in such a position that the drips would fall into the bailer.
“Are you all right, Vi?” queried her uncle when at last the men had been divided into watches.
“Yes, uncle. But where are we making for?” questioned Vi.
“Andaman Islands,” he replied.
“Oh. How far from land are we now, then?”
“Ssh!” warned the captain in a low voice. “Nearly two thousand. Unless we pick up a boat that means ten days with the breeze—if it holds.”
“But can't we make for Africa, cap'n?” inquired Selwyn.
“No. Can't attempt to beat against this monsoon although it's so much nearer; and besides there's no likely port from Djibouti to Mombasa.”
“But haven't we enough food?” began Selwyn.
“There's no need to discuss that yet, Mr. Selwyn,” put in Captain Kelvett. “We're sure to pick up a boat. We're more or less right in the shipping lane. Now you'd both better try to get some sleep before dawn.”
DESPITE the hardness of the thwarts and the excitement of the catastrophe Vi was lulled by the heave and sinking sigh of the boat running before the breeze. She awoke to stare in bewilderment at a triangle of sepia against a glare of crimson cut by a swaying line of sapphire. Below this mass developed slowly the head of a man with an enormous mustache above a garment which insisted upon being a woolen nightshirt, as was conclusively proven by one hairy leg. The leg projected over a rim of white upon blue and a fantasy of bodies sprawling in a confined space which heaved in rhythm with the crimson world. An excruciating pain in the center of her spine insisted upon recognition.
As swiftly and as crudely shadowed as a picture upon a screen, reality returned. She was made conscious of the actuality that she was pillowed within the arms of Selwyn, staring bewilderedly at the profile of her uncle against the pallid stars of retreating night.
“Don't!” she exclaimed sharply and sat up.
“Well, your uncle's steering and you were falling off the thwart,” he said sharply.
She stared at him, noticing the unshaven jaw and dirty face, the expression of which seemed somehow to have changed, to have become more serious with a hard line, savage, around the mouth. The boat was still running before the breeze to the steady seethe of the foam behind her, toward the crimson glare, which was rapidly changing to pallid gold. Save for the other boat to the South, there was nothing beneath the vast bowl of the sky.
Two thousand miles, her uncle had said—ten days; and a shudder of apprehension shook her as she recalled the state of the larder and water-supply. Stories of shipwreck and the sufferings of abandoned sailors clamored-at her mind. But that nervousness passed quickly, for her mind had been dulled to horror in the past five years.
She smiled and, feeling in her pocket, she extracted a cigaret-case, to find five left. This time she really did sigh a pang of despair. However, she proffered one to Selwyn—one can't continually snub a creature whose arms one has been lying in in an open boat, she reflected—and lighted one herself.
Presently she noticed that the other boat was coming up on a tack to cut across their bows. As she grew near she could see the fair head of the second mate in the stern-sheets. Sweeping round, he came up under their stern and was presently running level. Carnell reported that all so far was well, but to a further inquiry responded:
“There was about a cup of water in the keg, sir. Leaked out. And we haven't any provisions at all.”
The lines on the captain's forehead contracted. The men began to mutter among themselves and to stare at the eight occupants of the other boat. Selwyn looked at the captain and then at the mate and scowled. They all appeared to be awaiting to hear what the Old Man had decided, although they knew.
“Mr. Carnell.”
“Aye, aye, sir!”
“You're much faster than we are. We'll board you and abandon this boat. Come alongside.”
“Very good, sir.”
“Eh!” burst out one man immediately. “Wot's the e's up to?”
“Be quiet there,” commanded Captain Kelvett. “When Mr. Carnell comes alongside you men will board the other boat one by one. You hear? Chi Loo, hand biscuits and food each time. Savee?”
The small, dark man who had been the first to grumble looked ugly, but as none of his mates seemed inclined to back him up he sat quiet. Each time the Second's boat surged alongside Chi Loo and a man threw aboard cans of meat and two or more of the men scrambled over.
When Vi's turn came, to her annoyance the Second handed the tiller to another man and stood up to catch her as the two boats bumped. She protested, but he caught her deftly and set her down.
The captain was the last to leave, putting over his tiller and leaping most agilely for his years as his boat swerved away. With a feeling of regret Vi saw the abandoned boat yawning wildly to the wind and the sea. Like two alien herds of animals in the same cage, the men of the captain's boat, which, thanks to Chi Loo, had the food, seemed deliberately to huddle apart from the others, as if they had never been shipmates. Of these symptoms both the captain and the second mate were aware.
In a whisper the latter asked the former whether he had a gun with him. The Old Man, like every one else, had been forced to quit the ship in the utmost haste and so had had no time to retrieve the weapon from the drawer in his berth where he habitually kept it.
Carnell glanced gravely at Vi. Selwyn moved restlessly and scowled. Some of the men began to mutter among themselves, but beyond grumbling and anxious looks at the horizon they made no protest. After Chips had calked the seams of the leaking water-keg with some oakum, which fortunately he had in his pocket, the captain apportioned a ration of food and water to each man while the Second steered.
BEFORE the war, in the British merchant marine the stokers and sailors—deck-hands rather than the sailors—were for the most part composed of all nationalities; but now there were very few foreigners. The little dark man, one Gregory, was a sea-lawyer, the one who in almost any crowd is apt from divers motives, sometimes from merely a cussed strain, to cause trouble.. When the captain made the rationing of food and water Gregory did not make any open protest, but began in the manner of his kind to grumble and argue with his mates. Carnell, knowing the type of man from experience, and knowing, too, the danger he was in emergencies, roughly bade him to hold his tongue. Gregory obeyed, but in a sulky, vindictive manner.
After each man had received his share the captain proffered his niece another ladle of water. Vi refused. The captain insisted and Carnell urged her. Vi turned upon them both.
“You're doing this because I'm a woman, I suppose, uncle?”
“Well, yes, dear. But it is right that you should.”
“It is nothing of the sort!”
“But, Vi”
“But, Miss Kelvett—” Carnell began to protest.
“For how long have you enough water for all hands?” demanded Vi.
“Oh, we may pick-up a boat at any minute,” returned Captain Kelvett evasively.
“May! May!” snapped Vi. “In future I have half the ordinary food ration and the usual water. These men want more food and water than I do; I've got a smaller system to keep going and they may need all the strength they've got to row if the wind gives out, and you know it.”
“But, Miss Kelvett—” began Selwyn.
“I was not addressing you, Mr. Selwyn,” retorted Vi quietly. “You are not an officer. Oh, why on earth,” she added, made angry at the expression of admiration in Carnell's eyes, “can't you understand that the day of the harem is past and done with!”
“Ain't she a plucked 'un!” commented one of the men, chewing canned beef and biscuit.
Indignantly Vi stared across the tumbling waters.
“Oh!” she cried, raising herself on her knees. “Look! Look!” And, pointing to the southeast: “A ship! A ship!”
And against the golden glare of the rising sun was a tiny black spike.
“A ship! A sail!” echoed the men.
“I believe it is!” ejaculated the Old Man; and one of the men, swarming up the short mast, cried—
“And a steamer, sir; a steamer, sir!”
Pulling the boat round a couple of points to the south, the captain ran straight for her, hoping against hope that she was not on a southern course, in which case they would probably never succeed in overtaking her or getting close enough to signal. However, within half an hour her funnel and two masts were distinct under the steel plate of the sun.
“Queer,” remarked Carnell about ten minutes later. “She's broadside on, sir.”
“That's so,” admitted Captain Kelvett.
In another quarter of an hour they could distinctly make out that she was a fairly big boat—about ten thousand tons or more.
“She must have broken down,” remarked Carnell.
“Yet there are no signals,” commented Selwyn.
“Oh, mebbe just nothing serious,” suggested the Old Man.
“Or perhaps she's seen us!” suggested Vi.
“Oh, no, dear. She'd steam toward us if she had. Anyway we'll know in a few minutes.”
As they approached Carnell, who had the keenest sight, made out a green star on the black funnel.
“She's a Leonard & Black; Green Star Line; Liverpool, Calcutta and China ports.”
“Undoubtedly broken down,” commented the captain.
“ good luck for us!” commented Vi.
There certainly was something wrong, for the great bulk lay broadside to the wind, disdaining to acknowledge the monsoon by the slightest roll. Closer in, Carnell reported that he could not distinguish anybody on the bridge.
“Good God!” exclaimed Captain Kelvett at last. “She looks like an abandoned ship! If these were in the Hun pirate days I could understand it; but—now?”
They came down to windward of her, ran close alongside without discovering a sign of life from the forecastle to the poop under the awning. As they swooped under the stern with the names “Monsoon, Liverpool,” enscrolled on the counter, they hailed in unison:
“Ahoy-o! Monso-on aho-o-y!”
Not a vestige of movement of any sort.
“ queer!” muttered the old man. “Mebbe bit of a job to board her. Well, unreeve that tackle and use the halyards. Out oars, men!”
WHILE the men pulled laboriously against the wind the Second arranged the tackle and the boat's anchor. Under the leeward side of the counter he succeeded in getting the makeshift grappling-iron caught in the poop-railings at the third attempt and swarmed up, followed by half a dozen of the men.
“Send one of the men to get a rope ladder,” commanded Captain Kelvett. “See if she is abandoned and report.”
“Aye, aye, sir!”
The men scattered over the silent ship. Presently one came hurrying back, dragging a rope ladder.
“Can't see no one, sir,” he reported. “Seems queer, it do that.”
As Vi clambered on to the long bridge amidships, which was broad and fitted with benches and a few deck-chairs as if she carried passengers, Carnell hurried up to the captain and spoke rapidly in a low tone with a grave expression.
“All right,” assented Captain Kelvett, and, turning to Vi—
“Wait here a moment, dear.”
“Why?” demanded Vi.
“I won't be a minute,” added her uncle, and without waiting hurried after Carnell.
“What on earth's all this mystery?” exclaimed Vi, and very naturally followed them down the companionway with Selwyn at her heels. By the door of the saloon Carnell heard her and turned abruptly, crying:
“Oh, please, Miss Kelvett! Go back!”
“Nonsense!” ejaculated Vi.
“But it isn't fit for”
Impatiently Vi pushed him aside and entered the saloon, inside the door of which Captain Kelvett stood staring.
At the head of the dining-table a man with a gray, pointed beard and mustaches in the uniform of a ship's captain was sitting with his head buried in his arms. On one side of the table in chairs were two men in white duck, a stout woman and a child; on the other side upon the locker-cushions were three persons and a young girl with a mass of red hair; and each and every one was in the same position.
Vi thought that they were all praying. Yet who would pray amid the litter of a breakfast table? She had just noticed that the yolk of an overset egg was a spot of color on the white cloth when she realized the truth—they were dead.