CHAPTER XXV
WHEN morning came we were in the field of our search, provided the calculations of the harbor-master had been well-founded, and now spread out as widely as possible, steaming abreast at ten knots speed. Hour after hour passed without success, until at noon we drew within reach of one another and held a conference. The captain of the Nelson was of the opinion that we were too far to the westward; but the Yankee skipper worked out so plausible a theory of the disturbance of land-currents, even in the midst of a hurricane, that we decided to adopt his plan, making a broad sweep to the south, and running a gridiron course to the east again. At three o'clock in the afternoon we were convinced that these hopes also had been exhausted, and therefore took the advice of the Nelson's master and headed toward the north-east. By this time the sea had resumed its normal smoothness with that strange, abrupt change of face which characterizes the Caribbean, which seems forever in an immoderate mood, being either surpassingly smooth or surpassingly violent.
We were being driven to a conviction that our search was useless and that in all probability nothing of Mike Cochrane or the barge would ever be seen again, when the ship sailing on the eastern wing suddenly sent up a signal by a daylight rocket. Our little squadron swung toward her. Having the tallest mast, fitted with a whaler's crow's-nest, she had the largest horizon of any of us, and had marked an object almost directly ahead toward which we steamed. The first view that we aboard the Nelson had was of nothing more than a short staff with an object lashed to it. It proved to be Cochrane's jumper, flying as a flag of distress from the deck of the barge, which, stripped clean by the tempest, was floating soddenly in the water, as if on the point of foundering. Her cranes were entirely gone, and of all the steel cylinders, on which we had depended to give buoyancy to the Esperanza, but two were left, the ones that had been chained amidships to eye-bolts through the main-deck beams. As we came down toward the derelict the nearest steamer turned loose her siren, and we strained our eyes toward the wreck for a sign of life, but nothing appeared. My hopes of saving Cochrane's life were at low ebb, and yet I could not understand the distress signal had he not been alive at least after the storm. The Nelson, having a better turn of speed than any of the others, was the first to reach the waterlogged barge, and lowered away a boat. I took my seat in it by the request of the British skipper, who with blunt courtesy declared that it was I who was the rescuer, and therefore entitled to be the first man to step aboard.
The men gave way on the oars, as if eager to discover any secret that might be aboard the battered victim of the storm, and the barge was resting so low in the water that I had but little trouble in leaping upward, catching a ring bolt, and thus gaining her deck. Gaping holes here and there, some of the twisted steel of the wrecked cranes, broken stanchions of the deck-house that had been twisted off as if made of matchwood, and every foot of her deck testified to the fury through which she had passed. Cochrane's distress signal had been hoisted upon a strip of deck planking, and thrust through and lashed to the chains holding the two remaining cylinders; but I could see nothing of him on that side. I made my way around the ends of the cylinders, and discovered what appeared to be an inert bundle of rags, lying beneath one of the big, round overhangs, as if, at the last, he had crawled there for shelter. I fell on my knees, got him by the feet, and dragged him out. Apparently he was dead. His eyes were closed, and his face, through tan and stubble, was of an ugly pallor. I put my hand into the opening of his shirt, and anxiously sought the beating of his heart. It struggled faintly, as if I had come but to feel its last strokes. Fortunately I had put a pocket-flask of brandy in my coat for such an emergency, and now got his head on my knees, and poured a few drops of it on his swollen tongue. One of the men from the boat clambered aboard, bringing with him a canteen of water, and we trickled some of this down Cochrane's throat. He opened his eyes, but with no sign of recognition. Again we resorted to the stimulant, and were delighted when he automatically swallowed. We gave him more water after a short interval, and this time he avidly seized the canteen when we tried to withdraw it from his lips, and we knew that he was perishing from thirst as well as starvation. We got him to a sitting position before he recovered his senses, feebly croaked my name, muttered something unintelligible, then mumbled, " I stuck to her, I did."
I patted him on the back, told him to keep quiet, and we picked him up and lowered him into the boat. A cheer broke out from the four watching ships about us, to which my rowers responded enthusiastically, as we conveyed Cochrane to the Nelson, where the first mate insisted on relinquishing his own stateroom.
There was quite a gathering on the deck of the barge after Cochrane had been safely bestowed, and I was greeted by the Yankee skipper with "Well, Captain Hale, your barge isn't so bad. She's not making any water just now, and I have an idea that we can send over men from all the boats with hand-pumps and get the best of it. Enough so that we can tow this bit of salvage back for you, if you want it."
"Want it? Of course he does," growled the master of the Nelson. "I've got a new hawse-line and the bits of the barge are still sound. Why not each of us put a pumping gang aboard and in the meantime I will come up forward, get our line across, and make for port. The pump crews can tow their boats behind, so that if the barge founders under the strain, they will be safe enough."
I had not expected so much kindness and generosity. I made a feeble protest which they promptly overruled, and proceeded to carry out their own plans. So, when darkness fell, the Nelson was keeping a tight hawse-line on an unwieldy, sluggish barge behind, from which came the steady clanging of hand-pumps, emptying water into the sea. Once in the night we stopped and sent over a relief for the workers, and had the gratifying news that the barge was clearing herself, thus proving that much of the water taken aboard had been through the broken decks, and the indications were that not many of the seams of her hull were badly sprung.
The master of the Nelson, who had a considerable knowledge of seafaring medicine, had sternly debarred every one, including myself, from disturbing Cochrane, and it was not until the following morning that I was permitted to talk to him. When I entered the stateroom where he was lying, it was immediately apparent that the skipper of the Nelson had given me a most fulsome send-off, because Cochrane, from sheer weakness and gratitude, could not speak when I entered, but shoved a hand toward me, and when I held it, shut his eyes, and I saw that tears were trickling down his face. I talked to him as I might have done to a mere boy, for, after all, he wasn't much more.
"There, there, don't worry, you are all right now," I said soothingly, and it broke the ice.
"It's all right," he declared, with an Irish embellishment. "But, by the Holy Virgin, I would have died if I had had any other man than Captain Hale for a master. Four ships of them there were, big ships—all out cruising the seas, looking for one poor devil of an oiler who had gone adrift and was passing out. Four of them, looking for one man."
"Why not?" I demanded, with assumed gruffness that I didn't feel in such an awkward moment. "The boys brought me your message. You told them to tell me that you were going to stick. Well, you stuck by me, so why should not I stick by you? Why, Mike Cochrane, if we hadn't been able to save you, I should have felt all my life that I had helped to murder you. You did the best you could, and it was a pretty good best, too."
"I tried to save her for you, sir," he said, "but I couldn't. When she went adrift I still hoped that she could ride it out, but the sea-anchor I tried to rig on her was washed away, and then the seas began to pound her, until she could not be held up any more, and piece after piece went. When the last crane fell, taking up part of the deck with it, and leaving a hole, I thought it was all off, and was almost washed overboard while trying to spike a piece of canvas over it; then the canvas went. When the little deck-house was carried away, I was left without food or water. 'Twas the loss of the water that was worst, sir, and I got that dry that I stood and dreamed of it where I had lashed myself to one of the big chains alongside one of the 'midships cylinders. Then the storm went down, and I was almost like a man in a haze when I rigged up that signal, and I didn't seem to remember much more, and I was cold and wet. Then I got hot and dry and the sun was fierce. I lost track of everything, and gave up; but I was quite happy, sir, when I crawled under the bilge of the big cylinders to die, in thinking that, anyhow, I had got even with you and Mr. Martin, at last, and that now I was gone maybe sometimes you and he would think of Mike Cochrane and forget the dirty trick I tried to play you that time you broke my arm when you should have broken my neck."
By this time he had again so broken down with emotion and weakness that I thought it best to leave him. I pretended to pull a blanket up over him, and to lift the pillow under his head, but made it an excuse to give him a pat on the shoulder.
"I think you have talked enough," I said. "But of one thing you can be assured, Mike Cochrane, that neither Jimmy Martin nor I are ever again going to think of what happened aboard the Esperanza. You are one of us, and if I ever get anywhere, you are not going to want for a friend. You can bet your life on that!"
Again he clutched my hand, this time in both of his, and gripped it until I had to pull it away.
The kindness of the four allied ship-masters when we gained port had got to the point where they seemed eager to do more; for when we dropped anchor and Cochrane had been removed to a room in the hotel and put under a doctor's care, I returned to find that they had voluntarily rigged steam pumps across to the barge, and were sucking her dry, and that each had contributed his ship's carpenter to repair the damage as far as possible. They were four good fellows, were these ship-masters, and I am proud to say that they are still my friends. We had another dinner, this time with a considerably augmented crowd at the conclusion of which we went into a business session; and if the owners of those four ships could cruise as economically as was indicated by the bills which I demanded, and which the four ship-masters submitted, all records of economy, so far as I knew, in the maritime history of steamships, were badly broken by those four. They cleared port on the following morning, and some of them I was not to see again for some years; but we have never lost touch.
It was nearly a week later when all repairs we could possibly make were done, and Jimmy and I took stock of our enterprise. The Sea-Gull was now again worthy of her name; but the damage to our outfit was irreparable. We had the Hector, the Sea-Gull, a barge without cranes or power, and two steel cylinders. We had no pontoons with which to continue our salvage operations, but we did have fair and settled weather. There seemed but one course left open, the one that we at last decided upon, which was that we must at least forestall any one else on the scene, hold possession of the ground, and in the meantime send the tug under Rogers on a northward cruise to purchase a new barge with full auxiliary equipment. I trusted him implicitly and had no hesitancy whatever in giving him full responsibility to purchase as best he could. The Sea-Gull could tow the barge to the sunken Esperanza, where we could anchor her securely, although aware that if another hurricane arose we should have to abandon her to her fate. She was comparatively useless for our purpose save as a floating platform from which to work. The Sea-Gull could then make for Key West, and there try to learn the nearest point where a salvage outfit, suitable for our needs, could be obtained. Inadequate as were all these plans, they were the best we could do, and we did not propose to run risks of some other wrecking outfit preempting our claims.
We succeeded in buying a wheezy old boiler and a winch, which we fastened to the deck of the barge, and enough chain and pieces of steel cable to fix our remaining cylinders to the wreck.
In the ten days while these preparations were being effected, Cochrane completely recovered, and was duly appointed captain of the barge on that day when the Sea-Gull took her under tow and we headed out of the harbor to renew the fight in which, so far, we had invariably been worsted. Jimmy Martin somewhat expressed my own thoughts when, aboard the Hector, and running light, we too cleared the harbor, and headed northward.
"There is one blessed sure thing," he said, "which is, that nothing more can happen to us than has already happened, so far as I can see. We started with that gold to land it in France; first, that treacherous dog, Klein, did us out of our ammunition; then we were torpedoed; then we barely saved the plans of my invention; then we thought we could never buy a submarine, to try it on; then, when we thought we had everything our own way, we had to get the best of that fellow Vennemann; then the sea got to work and handed us a storm, which looked like a knock-out; and yet, by Heavens, we are still on the job! If we are licked in the end, it is a cinch it won't be because we gave up, eh?"
"Every bad lane has to come to an ending some time," I declared. "Bad luck can't last always; but it does seem to me as if we have had all that was coming to us, and that now we are out to win."
The day itself was beautiful, and the sea so propitious that a wooden man would have felt himself exhilarated and hopeful by merely living on it. The spirits of everybody aboard the Hector seemed at top-notch. I could hear one of the men, lounging on the exposed deck of the submarine beneath the bridge, from which we were steering, humming a ditty, and the voices that came up from the interior of the boat sounded cheerful and confident. The engines themselves seemed singing a song of strength and power. We caught up with the Sea-Gull and her tow, and the men of the Sea-Gull gave us a cheerful salute with their whistle. We ran ahead, dropping the tug-boat behind, and in my tiny cabin I was making my calculations for distance when a man came rushing below.
"A ship dead ahead, sir, direct on our course.
For a moment, so confident was I of our luck, I didn't give it more than a second thought, and went ahead with my task; but again I was interrupted.
"Mr. Martin's compliments, sir, but he thinks you would perhaps like to come to the bridge; because the ship seems standing still."
This time, alarmed, I hastened after him, and found that a strange and watchful silence had taken the place of careless well-being that had prevailed on the deck of the Hector when I went below. Twisted Jimmy, with a dour face, handed me a glass.
"Somebody else on the job," he grunted. "It's another wrecking outfit, as sure as I am Jimmy Martin."
But already I had discovered this for myself. There could be no mistake. A huge sea-tug was lolling idly about the surface of that portion of the seas that we thought belonged to us, while a great, ungainly salvage outfit, made unmistakable by its huge cranes, was evidently anchored for the time being, and waiting while submarine explorations were being made. Nothing could have been more annoying. Here we were, with full knowledge of our own inability and with a not completely established claim to the Esperanza, threatened with a deadlock by some other outfit that had everything at its command. And then it dawned upon me that, unless the newcomer had some method equally as good as our own, we still had the immense advantage possessed by us in the Hector, and our ability to work beneath the waters as effectually as might any others who came in competition. All right, we would make another fight for it! But first of all we would find out whether this was to be a fair and square conflict, or whether we should be compelled to come to open warfare, as we had with Count von Vennemann and his crew.
As we drew closer, we discovered that this was no pigmy contestant, for the cruising boat itself was not a mere blue-water tug, but was a squat, powerful steamer, big enough to pull a liner across the Atlantic. Moreover, her appearance betokened a most exceptional fitting and care, for her deck-houses were large, and spick and span with white paint, and she looked as clean and well-kept as if she were actually a Lady of the Seas. She had an inordinately large bridge and was of an odd construction, inasmuch as she had a superstructure that indicated a commodious chartroom and commander's cabins behind it. Her appearance proved that she had been specially built by some one who not only had knowledge of the work she was to perform, but also means to provide luxuries and comfort for her owners. It took but an ordinary nautical eye to pick out all these details, and I could but admire her build. We were "up against" some one who was no novice in the art of salvage. This was no fight with a retired officer from the German Navy. Whoever brought this outfit down was no experimentalist, chasing a hidden bonanza, but one who knew the difficulties to be met, and who had carefully made preparations to overcome them.
"We are not going to find this crowd asleep," Jimmy declared. "They know what we have come for. It will be a merry little party. What are you going to do?"
"Go aboard at once, of course," I said, "and find out whether it is to be a fight or a fair and decent game, in which honors to the first winner are conceded, and the beaten man withdraws. If we are going to have trouble, the sooner we know it the better."
"You are right about that," he said, "but it does seem rotten luck that everybody in the world is taking a chance on robbing us of our ship, for she is ours, after all. Hello! They are getting ready to hail us."
"All of which is useless," I replied grimly, "because I am not going to converse through a megaphone in a show like this. I have got to get close enough to talk face to face." And I immediately ordered our little boat made ready.
Evidently this preparation was also observed and noted aboard the intruder, because we were not given the accustomed greeting, and I saw that the men on the bridge waited for us. Three of them were plainly veteran mariners, and unaccustomed to anything approaching naval discipline, for they stood with their hands in their pockets, conversing together, as I boarded our little collapsible and put off. We rowed forward until I was almost beneath the port wing of the bridge, when I looked upward and saw the same gnarled three leaning over on their elbows and waiting for me to introduce myself.
"Storthing, ahoy," I called upward, as my men rested on their oars.
"You have it right," one of the gnarled three called down; "but who are you?"
"From the Hector, of New London," I replied. "May I come aboard?
"Certainly! Why not?" roared this ancient mariner, with total disregard for all the prevailing forms of intercourse of the sea. "You will find a side ladder over there to starboard. Pull around."
I did so, and climbed up the teak steps. The three old men were waiting at the top with their fists still shoved into the pockets of their jackets. They were as nondescript a trio as one could well imagine, for there was nothing about them to indicate rank, and their spokesman, a man bearded as fiercely as a Norseman, wore a battered old derby hat, jammed down on his cranium. One of his companions, a gray-haired, twinkling-eyed man, had for a top piece a flapping sou'wester, and the third member of the party wore what looked like a cross between an ancient Cunard steward's cap and something that a golfer might have cherished as a mascot.
"Well, what can we do for you?" demanded their spokesman, half-belligerently.
"I am Captain Hale, the master of the Hector—the submarine you see over there," I said, by way of introduction, "and I should like to talk to the master of the Storthing."
"You are talking to him now," rumbled the bearded one. "I am Captain Bebbs, who happens at this time to be in charge of the Storthing, out to salvage the Esperanza, a ship that was lost hereabout when the war was on."
I could not have asked for more explicit information. He had given me everything in a nutshell. I saw no use in evading any issue, and so with equal bluntness retorted, "That's what we came for, to salvage the Esperanza. She was my ship."
"Your ship! Your ship! What was this you said your name was? Hale? Tom Hale? I wonder if you are a son of old Tom Hale, who owned the Esperanza line?"
Again a mental picture of my father came before me, and I answered with pride, "The same; a son of old Tom Hale, who lost his life in Cotuit Bay."
The three ancient mariners interchanged looks, and their spokesman rumbled at me, as he scrutinized me from head to foot: "Oh! You must be the son of his that went into the Navy. You look all right; but I'll lay my head against a strand of rope yarn that you will never be half the man your dad was. I knew him, I did. But what did you come aboard to talk about?"
"Just this," I responded, not ill-pleased with what I took to be a tribute to my father's memory, "that as we are both out to salvage the ship I lost, and what there is aboard her, I want to know whether it is to be fair give-and-take, or whether we have got to fight it out between us as to which one first puts his mark aboard her. You may not believe it, but I have got mine already."
He grunted at me satirically, and was on the verge of uttering his views concerning the situation, when an unmistakable voice was heard that impelled me to whirl on my heels and come to an erect position.
"Lord! There is the owner," one of the veterans exclaimed, as he, too, turned, and I saw coming toward me, with her old free stride, and with the light of the free seas in her eyes, the girl I had known as Marty Sterritt, the woman of my dreams.