was refitted at Newport News, given a crew and loaded with cargo. They took her out to make a voyage to Spanish Morocco, loaded with grain and automobile tires. But she wouldn't pass the Thimble. Her rudder jammed and she piled up hard, and at high tide, too. It took four days to pull her off. They took her back to the yard and looked her steering gear over. It was okay. So they started her out again. That time she sheered out to the other side and grounded near Willoughby Spit. The third time they tried to take her out, ahe piled up in the dredged channel and blocked all shipping for hours. The yard still insisted there was nothing wrong with her steering gear and suspected sabotage—"
"I know," said the captain. "They didn't find any evidence of it."
"That's right. They gave her crew a clean bill of health and ordered to sea once more. She won't budge. She had steam up and stood a good dock trial, but once she was out in the stream her propellers quit turning over—"
"With full throttle, of course," remarked Captain Tolliver calmly.
"Yes, sir. With full pressure in the boilers and throttle wide open. All she would do was drift until she banged into a dock.
"The tugs got hold of her and tied her up again. The engineers swear her engines are all right and there is no reason why she won't run. She just won't—that's all."
A taxi rounded the corner and caught the sailor's hail. As it slid to a stop before them the captain made one final remark.
"I see. They looked up her record and found she was always that way. Except when I had command of her. Well, I know what is on that little tub's mind and what to do about. It won't be orthodox, but if they want her in service it is the only way."
"What's that, sir."
"Give her her head," said the old man cryptically, then stiffly climbed into the cab.
It was a week later that Captain Tolliver arrived at Norfolk Navy Yard. An aide of the admiral in charge of transport took him to the dock where she lay. She looked spick and span and new and a painter's stage swung under her near bow, and was to play her part in keeping supplies going Eastward in spite of havoc to the West. Tolliver climbed up onto it with some difficulty and patted one of the shiny plates of her nose.
"Up to your old tricks, eh, Sadie?" the astonished aide heard him say. "Well, everything's going to be all right now. We'll go hunting together."
Was it the wash of a passing tug that caused her to bob suddenly up and down that way? The aide shrugged his shoulders and was glad he as in the regular outfit. He would hate to have to go to sea through the war zone on a rogue ship under the command of a decrepit and senile madman of a skipper.
"I am ready to take over," announced Tolliver when he was back on the dock, "whenever those three men whose names I gave you have been replaced by others more acceptable."
83
