Cappy Ricks entered his office at the unheard-of hour of eight-thirty. On his way to his sanctum at the end of the long suite of offices Cappy paused in the lair of Mr. Skinner, who looked up, amazed.
“Hello!” he saluted the president emeritus. “What brings you down on the job so early this morning, Mr. Ricks?”
“I've got a hen on,” Cappy replied briskly. He glanced at Skinner and rubbed his hands together. “Skinner, my dear boy,” he continued, “this is a one-horse concern.”
“Three sawmills with a combined output of a million feet a day on a ten-hour shift—not to mention a billion feet of stumpage—isn't my idea of a one-horse concern,” Mr. Skinner retorted with some asperity.
“Tut, tut, Skinner! I'm not referring to the lumber end at all; so don't get touchy. I'm referring to the Blue Star Navigation Company. It's a dinky proposition.
“Forty-two vessels—windjammers, steam schooners and foreign-going freighters—” began Mr. Skinner; but Cappy cut him short:
“Foreign-going grandmothers! We've got theNarcissusand theTillicum.”
“How about my boat—theJohn P. Skinner?”
“Oh, yes! That one we scraped up off the bottom of Papeete Harbor,” Cappy answered maliciously. “Well, that makes three; and really theSkinnerand theNarcissusare the only vessels built to go foreign. Remember, Skinner, we built theTillicum, for the coast-wise lumber trade, even though she's so big our competitors thought when we launched her we were crazy to build such a whale for that trade.”
“Well, Mr. Ricks?”
“We ought to have more big bottoms, Skinner. We'll have hell-cracking freight rates during the war and for a long time thereafter—and here we sit round like a lot of dubs, too conservative to help ourselves to the gravy. Why, you and Matt Peasley ought to be knitting socks in an old ladies' home, for all the progressiveness you're displaying.”
“I am not in charge of the shipping end, Mr. Ricks.”
“No; but you've got a tongue in your head, haven't you? You were practically in charge of the Blue Star for more than six months—during the entire period Matt was at sea in theRetrieverand we thought he was a goner. Why, dog-gone you, Skinner, even when you thought Matt was dead you didn't suggest increasing the fleet. I'm surprised, Skinner, my boy, that in my old age, after gathering a lot of young fellows round me to carry on the business, I've still got to be the bell mare!”
Mr. Skinner had nothing to say to this; if he had it is doubtful whether he would have said it, for he had been too long with Cappy Ricks not to know the signs when the old gentleman took the bit in his teeth and declared for a new deal.
“I'm going into my office to do some tall thinking, Skinner,” Cappy continued. “Remember! No visitors until I've threshed this whole business out to my satisfaction. I'm not in to anybody.”
Cappy retired to his office, sat down on his spine in his upholstered swivel chair, swung his thin old shanks to the top of his desk, bowed his head on his breast, and closed his eyes. Scarcely had he done so when the door opened and Matt Peasley thrust his head in.
“Well, Matt?” Cappy queried without opening his eyes.
“I have an offer of forty thousand dollars for our old barkAltair, Cappy. What do you think we ought to do?”
“Take it!” Cappy shrilled. “You jibbering jackdaw! Grab it! She's been a failure since the day I built her; never balanced, always burying her nose in the seas, and drowning a sailor about once a year. If we keep that ship much longer she'll sail herself under some day and we'll be out the forty thousand.Altair!Fancy name! Skinner got it out of Ben Hur. He'd been in the shipping game ten years then and hadn't learned that was the name of a star! We should have called her theWater Spaniel. Sell her, Matt, and we'll put the money into a steamer that can run foreign.”
“If you can tell me where we can buy, even at three times her intrinsic value, a steamer that will run foreign, I'm willing to consider selling theAltair. Just at present she's earning big dividends; and until we can find a place to invest her selling price, the money will earn six per cent instead of sixty, as at present.”
“Clear out and let me think!” Cappy commanded, and Matt Peasley retired to Mr. Skinner's office.
“Have you noticed the old gentleman lately?” he inquired of Skinner. “Ever since his grandson arrived grandpa has been paying attention to business.”
“He's dissatisfied with his own and our efforts thus far. He thinks he's been a piker and that you and I are his first-assistant pikers. He has ships on the brain.”
“He's getting pretty cocky,” Matt agreed; “but, at that, I guess he has a license to be.”
“I've been with him twenty-six—yes, twenty-seven—years; and I know him, Matt. He's cooking up something prodigious—and it will soon be done.”
The door of Cappy's office opened and Cappy stood in the entrance.
“Skinner,” he ordered, “get me a letter of credit for about twenty thousand dollars. I'm going travelling.”
“Where?” Matt and Skinner queried in chorus.
“To Europe.”
“You're not!” Matt Peasley declared. “You're liable to be torpedoed en route.”
“I know, but then, too, I'm liable not to be; and if I am, why, I'm an old man, and I'll only be cheating the devil by a few years or a few months. Come in here, you two dead ones.”
They followed him into his office.
“We need some steamers,” Cappy announced. “Every shipyard in the United States that could build the kind of steamer we want is full up with contracts for the next three years; so I'm going to Norway or Sweden or Denmark, or some non-belligerent European country, and see whether I can't place some contracts there for a couple of real freighters. Then, too, I may be able to pick up good vessels over there at a reasonable price. Under the Emergency Shipping Act we can get them provisional American registry—and that's all we need. Before a great while Uncle Sam is going to turn his antiquated shipping laws inside out, and any foreign-built boats we may acquire now will be given the right to run in the coastwise trade also.”
“See here, Cappy,” Matt reminded the old man; “you're retired and I'm in charge of the destinies of the Blue Star Navigation Company. I don't want you working yourself to death.”
“You mean you don't want me butting in. Nonsense! What's the use of having a grandson if a fellow doesn't hustle up something for the boy to sharpen his teeth on when he grows up? Here I've been living from day to day, just marking time on the road to eternity and figuring life wasn't worth while because the stock was going to die out with me. Up until recently I was content with a little old one-horse business; but now, by the Holy Pink-Toed Prophet, boy, we've got to get out and shake a leg! Freighters! That's what we want. Big, well-decked tramps, flying the Stars and Stripes in every port on earth. Why, what kind of a nation are we getting to be, anyway? We're a passel of mollycoddles, asleep on the job. We haven't half enough ships to coal our navy. In the event of war it would take us a week to dig up ships enough to transport the New York Police Department. I tell you, Matt, when I'm gone you'll have to have something for that grandson of mine to do or he'll grow up into one of these idle-rich, ne'er-do-well, two-for-a-quarter dudes. You bet I've been doing a deal of thinking lately. We can't send that boy to college, and spoil him before he's twenty-five. We'll run that young man through high school; just about that time he'll begin to get snobbish and we'll take that out of him by sending him to sea as a cadet on one of our own ships. We'll teach him democracy—that's what we'll teach him. When he's twenty-one he'll be a skipper like his forebears and you'll be only about forty-six. Good Lord! To think of you two young fellows running my Blue Star ships—and not enough ships to keep you busy! Preposterous! I can't consider—Well, Hankins, my dear boy, what's troubling you?”
Mr. Hankins, the secretary, had entered.
“I wanted to see Mr. Skinner a moment. I'll wait. Didn't know you were busy.”
And he started to retire. Cappy checked him: “Finish with Skinner, Hankins. He'll be in consultation here with Matt and me for an hour yet.”
“I just wanted to know, Mr. Skinner, whether all those cablegrams to Captain Landry, of theAltair, are to be charged to general expense, Captain Landry's personal account, or to theAltair.”
“It seems to me you should charge them to Captain Landry, Hankins,” Mr. Skinner spoke up. “It isn't ship's business and it isn't Blue Star business. If he wants this office to cable him every day about his family—”
“Here! What's this you're talking about, Skinner?” Cappy interrupted.
“When Captain Landry sailed for Callao his wife didn't accompany him—”
“Lucky rascal! He told me he was expecting an heir.”
“And he's still expecting that heir.”
“Naturally,” Mr. Hankins explained, “he's been anxious for news; and ever since his arrival in Callao he's cabled us every other day—latterly every day—asking whether the baby has been born, and whether it's a boy or a girl.”
“A very pardonable human curiosity, my boy. Proceed.”
“Unfortunately the baby appears to be held up on demurrage and I think we've spent at least fifty dollars cabling to Landry that the youngster has failed to report. I imagine the skipper has spent twice that sum inquiring for news—”
“Of course! It's his first baby, isn't it? You must allow for human nature.”
“I thought we would—for the first half dozen cablegrams; but after it became a habit it appeared that Landry ought to pay for his fancies.”
“He should,” Mr. Skinner declared firmly. “Charge the cablegrams to Landry.”
“Nothing doing!” piped Cappy. “Charge 'em to general expense. Dang you, Skinner, I despair of ever breaking you of that habit of operating on the cheap!”
“Oh, very well, sir—only the expense is getting to be quite an item.”
“I'm just about to send him another cablegram,” Mr. Hankins declared fretfully. “TheAltairis due to sail from Callao and the baby is still unborn; it will be two months old, at least, before the skipper gets any further news.”
“Let's see your cablegram,” Cappy ordered, and Mr. Hankins passed it over. Cappy read it. “Holy suffering sailor!” he cried. “Why this concern isn't in the hands of a receiver is a mystery to me.” He looked up at Mr. Hankins with blood in his eye. “Here you are, Hankins, trying to saddle a bill of expense on a poor, heartbroken, anxious, embryo parent-to-be. Knowing full well that he only makes a hundred and fifty dollars a month, you admit to an endeavor to stick him for fifty dollars' worth of cablegrams from this end, not to mention those from his end. If you had spent your time, sir, figuring out a way to cut down that cable expense, instead of discovering a rotten way to get rid of it—Why, look here! You can use your code book and save a couple of dollars.”
“Code book!” Mr. Hankins protested indignantly. “Why, who ever heard of a code book for cabling on baby business?”
“Use your shipping code. Here; hand me that code book. There's bound to be something to fit the occasion—there always is. Hum-m-m! Ahem! Harumph-h-h! Let us see what we shall see under the head of cargoes; Loading! Discharging! Demurrage! Ahem! That won't do. He'd be liable to confuse it with the ship's business. Harumph-h-h! Arrivals. Now we have it. Landry has been asking of an expected arrival, hasn't he?” Cappy ran his index finger down the page. “Here you are, Hankins. Hum-m-m! Afilamos—meaning no new arrivals. Naturally Landry will say to himself: 'Well, for heaven's sake, when will that child arrive?' We should enlighten him on that point.”
“We cannot.”
“Very well, then. Say so. Here you are. Affumicata—meaning: We cannot guarantee time of arrival. Hankins, have you talked with Mrs. Landry's physician in order to get the latest ringside reports?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What does he say?”
“Well, he says he thinks it will be twins, in a couple of days at the most.”
“Good news! Here you are. Afilaba—meaning: Heavy arrivals expected shortly. Now then, Hankins, he'll want some news of his wife, won't he? How about her?”
“She went to the hospital this morning.”
Cappy closed his eyes and pondered; then once more took up the code book. Followed a silence. Then:
“Bully! He'll understand perfectly, being a sailor. Desdoble—meaning: Is now in dry dock. And, of course, Landry will want to know whether his wife is in any danger. Danger! Danger! Ships are sometimes in danger. When? When they're wrecked, of course. Let us look under the head of wrecks... No; nothing seems to fill the bill. Wreck, wrecked, worse, writ, write, wrong—ah, I have it! Wohlgemuth—meaning: There is nothing wrong.” He looked up at Mr. Hankins. “Now there's the kind of cablegram to send—even on baby business. Those four code words translated mean: No new arrivals; heavy arrivals expected shortly; is now in dry dock; there is nothing wrong. Literally translated it means: Baby not born yet; twins expected shortly; your wife now in hospital; everything lovely! I suppose, Hankins, you have carbon copies of all these cablegrams you've been sending?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Code them all, so far as possible, and ascertain how much money you might have saved the Blue Star by the exercise of a little common sense; then charge the cablegrams, on the coded basis, to our general expense, and charge to your personal account the sum you might have saved by the exercise of the ingenuity and efficiency I have a right to expect of a man who draws down as fat a salary as you do.”
Mr. Hankins withdrew, greatly crestfallen, and the despot of the Blue Star office turned to his trusted lieutenants.
“Well,” he declared, “one after the other you have to come to the old man to be shown. I guess I've proved to you two boys this morning that I'm to be trusted with buying a few ships and letting contracts for a few more, haven't I?”
“I don't like the idea of Cappy Ricks on a steamer that's likely to be torpedoed. I don't want you to go to Europe alone—”
“I'm not going alone. Captain Mike Murphy, our new port captain, is going with me. I wouldn't think of buying a steamer unless that splendid fellow O.K.'d the hull. And Terry Reardon, our new port engineer, will accompany me also. Terry has to O.K. the engines. Between the three of us, it's going to take a smart trader to sell us any junk, I'm telling you!”
“I ought to go with you,” Matt suggested.
“You have your work at home, attending to the fleet. It isn't much of a fleet, I'll admit; but such as it is it requires some attention. I'll be the chief scout of this organization and see whether I can't rustle up some major-league vessels from some of those bush-league European owners.”
“I've had a fine time getting good men to take their places in theNarcissussince you promoted Mike and Terry in my absence!” Matt complained. “Mike and Terry know her well—and she's such a big brute to handle.”
“Where is theNarcissus, by the way?”
“Loading nitrate at Tocopilla and Antofagasta, Chile. This is her last voyage under the old charter.”
“Got any new business in sight for her?”
“I won't have the slightest difficulty getting another nitrate charter and at a rate double what she's been getting.”
“Every vessel taken off the nitrate run stiffens the freight rate in these days, when they have to have so much nitrate in the manufacture of war munitions,” the astute Cappy declared. “If I were you, Matt, I'd find her a good outside cargo or two, and then slip her back in the nitrate business again. Freights may have advanced in the interim.”
“I have a mighty profitable cargo offered me this morning, Cappy. An agent of the British Government called on me and offered a whopping price for carrying a cargo of mules and horses from Galveston to Havre. I think I shall turn the proposition down. It's too dangerous, Cappy.”
“You mean we might have our ship blown up by a German submarine?”
Matt nodded.
“Well, we'd collect our freight in advance, wouldn't we? And the British Government will guarantee to reimburse us if the ship is lost, will it not? Well, then, where's the risk?”
“There's the danger to the crew.”
“Any man that goes to sea knows he has to take a chance. Bet you Mike Murphy could take that cargo of livestock across and bring another cargo back. He's luckier than a cross-eyed coon. And another thing, Matt: If you accept that business we can kill two birds with one stone—yes, three—because Mike and Terry and I will cross over on theNarcissusand save the price of transportation from here to New York, and from New York to Liverpool. Then, while theNarcissusis discharging and taking on another cargo, we'll go scouting for available steamers.”
“It might be done, though I hate to think of it Cappy. If we lose the vessel they'll pay us a million and a half for her, of course—and she cost us less than three hundred thousand a year ago. And, as you say, we'll collect the freight in advance. They're very anxious to get theNarcissus. She's a whopping big boat, and that's the kind of a vessel they need for a horse transport.”
“Yes; and, by the Holy Pink-Toed Prophet, it will be a bully vacation, and a bully vacation is something I haven't had since the night of the big wind in Ireland. Moreover, I combine business with pleasure, which is always desirable; and, if that isn't excuse enough, I want to tell you it's cheaper to travel dead-head on our own boats than to pay for three round-trip tickets to Europe on a Cunard liner.”
“But suppose a German submarine—”
“Matt, all my life I've played a quiet, safe, sane, conservative game. I've always longed for adventure and never had it. Why, just consider a moment what a tiresome thing life would be were it not for the prospect of death at any moment! That's all that keeps us hustling, my boy—trying to put over a winning run before the game is called on account of darkness. Hell's bells! Don't try to scare me with a sheet and the rattle of old bones. Suppose they do blow us up? We don't lose a dollar; in fact, we make money—and we can take to the boats, can't we?”
“They only give you fifteen minutes—”
“We'll have the boats swung overside, provisioned and ready, two days ahead.”
“But they don't care how far out to sea they leave you. I spent two weeks in an open boat once and I know you can't stand two days. The exposure—”
“When we get down to Galveston,” Cappy interrupted triumphantly, “I'll have Mike Murphy buy a nice, staunch little secondhand motor cruiser, thirty-eight or forty feet long, with plenty of power and comfortable living accommodations for half a dozen people. Mike will arrange for extra oil and gasoline tankage, and we'll swing this cruiser in on the main deck and let it rest there in a cradle, with the slings round it, ready to lift overside with the cargo derricks at a minute's notice. I'll be as snug in that little cruiser as a bug under a chip—and we'll tow the lifeboats. So that settles it—and if it doesn't I'd like to know who's the boss of this shebang, anyhow!”
Mr. Skinner glanced covertly at Captain Matt Peasley and shook his head almost imperceptibly, as who should say: “Better give in to him, Matt. I know him longer than you do; he'll have his way if it kills him.” And Matt took the hint, with the result that some six weeks later Cappy Ricks, accompanied by his faithful port captain and his equally faithful port engineer, cleared for Galveston aboard the Sunset Limited. And at Galveston began the only real vacation Cappy Ricks had ever had.
To begin, there was the task of superintending the installation of the accommodations for the cargo of mules and horses. Cappy was particularly interested in the ventilating system below decks, for he was fond of horses and had resolved to deliver the cargo without the loss of a single animal. Of no mediocre turn of mind mechanically, he, assisted by Terry Reardon, made a few suggestions that the British veterinaries in charge were very glad to accept.
The real enjoyment of the trip, however, Cappy found down at the breaking corrals where the horses were detraining. They were all young and full of life, and fully ninety per cent of them had only been halter-broken. In the lot was many an outlaw whose ancestors had run wild for generations in Nevada; and as the delivery contract specified that a horse to be accepted must be broken—God save the mark!—as Terence Reardon remarked after seeing one passed as broken, following five minutes of furious pitching and squealing—Cappy Ricks was one of the first at the corral and the last to leave. Perched on the topmost, rail, he piped encouragement to the lank, flat-bellied border busters who, a dozen times a day, risked life and limb at five dollars a bust.
Mike Murphy and Terence Reardon, who had ridden more than one China Sea typhoon and West India hurricane, marvelled that men should take such risks for any amount of money. Privately they considered Cappy Ricks an accessory before the fact, inasmuch as Cappy hung up at least five hundred dollars in small prizes for the vaqueros. Whenever they had a “bad one” they could always induce Cappy to offer ten dollars for staying two minutes and five dollars a minute for each minute over the limit—which seldom reached two minutes. Also, Cappy was willing to furnish two silver dollars whenever some adventurer thought he could put a dollar between each leg and the saddle and have the dollars there when the horse surrendered. They ran in a couple of trained buckers on Cappy and depleted his bank roll considerably before he began to smell a rat.
To these plainsmen, charged with the destinies of the mounts for the young British soldier, Cappy Ricks was known familiarly as Cap. Before the last of the horses had been passed as broken and hustled aboard the bigNarcissus, Cappy knew each horse wrangler by his first name or nickname, and had learned the intricacies of many hitherto unheard-of games of chance that flourish along the Rio Grande. He was an expert at cooncan, and Pangingi fascinated him; then they taught him Mexican monte, and one worthless individual stole an ace out of the deck, whereupon all hands had a joyous hack at Cappy, who, when informed privately by his friend, Sam Daniels, foreman of the outfit, that he was in bad company and being skinned alive, went uptown and bought some specially constructed dice, which he introduced brazenly into a crap game, thereby more than catching even. He was the last man in the world a gang of wicked cowboys would suspect of guile; all of them, quite foolishly, thought he had more money than brains.
Eventually, however, theNarcissuswas loaded, Cappy moved into the owner's suite, and his new-found friends bunked in a temporary deck house forward when they weren't busy below decks playing chambermaid to the cargo. And with Cappy's motor cruiser swung in the cradle, ready for launching from the main deck aft, theNarcissusslipped out of Galveston and went snoring across the Gulf of Mexico, bound for Le Havre.
Mike Murphy was not happy, however. He resented Cappy Ricks, who would persist in going below to inspect the cargo and in consequence smelled like a hostler. Moreover, Michael was the port captain of the Blue Star Navigation Company now and not the master of the ship; and theNarcissuswasn't out of sight of land before Mike made the discovery that the boatswain of the ship was absolutely inefficient, that the cook was wasteful, that the first officer was too talkative, and the skipper too easy-going.
And these conditions, on a ship he had once commanded, irked Murphy exceedingly. Terence Reardon was in much the same state of mind. Being port engineer, he investigated the engine room and found that his favorite monkey wrench had been lost; there were two leaky tubes in the main boiler; the ash hoist was out of kilter; his successor in theNarcissuswas carrying ten pounds of steam less than Terence used to carry; and there was something not quite right with the condenser. The engine room crew Terence characterized to Mike Murphy as a gang of “vagabones,” and hinted darkly at sweeping changes when the ship should get back to the United States. Once he went so far as to state that he might have expected as much when, upon leaving theNarcissusto become port engineer, he had given her to his old first assistant; since he had never known a first assistant, barring himself, to make a good chief!
On the very day theNarcissusleft Galveston the German submersible V-l4 left her base at Zeebrugge, with oil and torpedoes sufficient to last her on an ordinary three weeks' cruise, and promptly headed for that section of the Atlantic where information and belief told her commander the hunting would be good. And it was—so good, in fact, that to the very great disgust of her crew she had just two torpedoes in stock when the man on watch at her periscope reported a large freight steamer to the west. Promptly the V-l4 submerged and proceeded on a course calculated to intercept the freighter, which presently was discovered to be the U.S.S.Narcissus.
The captain of the V-l4 almost licked his chops. He had heard of theNarcissus. The neutrality laws of the United States had prevented him from hearing of her by wireless when she cleared from Galveston, but he had been on the lookout for her, just the same, ever since a Dutch steamer from New York, with an alert German chief mate, had touched at Copenhagen, from which point the dispatches that mate carried had gone underground straight to the office of the German Admiralty. The information anent theNarcissushad been brief but illuminating: She had been chartered to carry horses for the British Government from Galveston to Le Havre, and the word to get her at all hazards had been passed to the submarine flotilla.
Captain Emil Bechtel, of the V-l4, did not possess an Iron Cross of any nature whatsoever, and as he studied the oncomingNarcissusthrough the periscope he reflected that this big brute of a boat would bring him one, provided he was lucky. He remembered he had but two torpedoes left, and under the circumstances he paused to consider.
Clearly—since theNarcissuswas laden with horses and mules for the enemy she was carrying contraband—she must not escape. On the other hand, there had been a deal of unpleasantness of late because President Wilson had been protesting the sinking of vessels without warning—and theNarcissuswas a United States steamer. Consequently if he torpedoed her without warning the temperamental Kaiser might make of Captain Emil Bechtel what is colloquially known as the goat; whereas, on the other hand, should he conform to international law and place her crew in safety before sinking her, there was a chance that her wireless might summon a patrol boat to the vicinity—Bechtel had sighted one less than an hour before—and patrol boats had a miserable habit, when they sighted a periscope, of shooting it to pieces.
Then, too, it was just possible that the perfidious English had mounted a couple of six-inch guns on her after getting to sea—and the German knew a six-inch shell, well-placed, would send his vessel to the bottom. Moreover, it was sunset; in half an hour it would be twilight; he had no knowledge of the speed of theNarcissusand she might try to make a run for it, thus forcing him to come to the surface and shell her should he miss with his torpedoes. Further, if he attacked her and she escaped, there was an elderly gentleman with whiskers back in Berlin who would do things to him if the Kaiser didn't.
There was, however, one course open to the German. To his way of thinking, during the exciting diplomatic tangle with the United States, he would be damned if he did and damned if he didn't; but if he did, and nobody could prove it, old Von Tirpitz would ask no questions.
“I'll let her have it,” Captain Emil Bechtel concluded; and he passed the word to get ready.
A minute later Cappy Ricks, smoking his after-dinner cigar on the bridge of the Narcissus with her skipper and Mike Murphy, pointed far off the port bow.
“There's a shark or a swordfish, or something, breaching,” he said. “I can see his wake.”
Mike Murphy took a casual glance in the direction Cappy was pointing, while the master of theNarcissusreached for his marine glasses and lazily put them to his eyes.
“Shark be damned!” yelled Murphy. “It's a torpedo or I'm a Chinaman! Hard-a-starboard!”
He leaped for the engine-room telegraph and jammed it over to Full Speed Astern; then dashed into the pilot house and commenced a furious ringing of the ship's bell, summoning the crew to boat drill, the while his anxious eye marked the swift progress of the white streak coming toward them. What wind there was happened fortunately to be on the vessel's port counter, and as the helmsman spun the wheel the big vessel fell off quickly and easily, while the rumble of her shaft, suddenly reversed, fairly shook the ship. To Cappy Ricks it seemed that the vessel must be brought up standing, like one of the broncos he had seen ridden with a Spanish bit; but a big ship under full headway is not stopped very abruptly, and theNarcissusswept on, turning as she went in order to offer as little target as possible to the torpedo.
“Will we make it, Mike?” Cappy Ricks queried in a very small, awed voice.
Mike Murphy turned and found his owner at his elbow.
“I hope it hits her forward,” he replied. “That motor cruiser is cradled aft and we might save it. They never hailed us—ah-h-h, missed!”
The torpedo flew by, missing the big blunt bow by less than three feet.
“I guess they'll get us just the same,” Mike Murphy murmured quietly; “but we're going down fighting.”
And, disregarding the master of theNarcissus, who was staring vacantly after the flying torpedo, he rang for Full Speed Ahead, and called down the speaking tube to the chief to hook her on for all he had; then, with his helm still hard-a-starboard, he swung the ship in as small a circle as possible and headed her at full speed back over the course so recently traveled by the torpedo.
“That was a beautifully timed shot—that last one,” he informed Cappy Ricks admiringly. “If we'd sighted it thirty seconds later—”
“Where the devil are you going, man?” Cappy yelled frantically.
“I'm going to give that fellow a surprise,” Murphy growled. “He expected us to run for it after that first one missed—and I'm running for him! He may not get me with the next one if I come bows on—and I might ram him! I'll take a chance. Keep your eyes open for his periscope.”
Aboard the V-l4 Captain Emil Bechtel said nothing, but thought a great deal—when he saw that his first torpedo had missed its prey. He was in for it now; he had started something and he had to go through. And, anticipating that theNarcissuswould show him her heels and steer a zigzag course, he immediately launched his last torpedo as the horse transport lay quartering to him.
To his disgust, however, the steamer, having avoided the first torpedo, did not run as he had anticipated. Instead, she continued to turn round on her heels, each revolution of her wheel lifting her out of the course of the second torpedo, since the submarine had fired slightly ahead of the vessel, knowing that if she continued for two minutes on the course he expected her to take she would steam fairly across the path of the huge missile. So he missed again—the torpedo slid under her stern—and here was that demon horse transport bearing down on him at full speed and with a bone in her teeth.
“The jig is up,” murmured Bechtel, and gave the order to submerge deeper, for he would not risk showing his periscope to the keen eyes on that bridge.
For ten minutes he waited, while the submarine scuttled blindly out of the path of the onrushing transport; then, concluding that theNarcissushad passed him, he came up and took a look round. He was right. A cable length astern and another off his port quarter the steamer was plunging over the darkening sea, and Captain Emil Bechtel knew he had her now; so promptly he came to the surface.
Mike Murphy, glancing off his starboard quarter, saw her periscope come swiftly up; then her turret showed; then her turtle deck flashed for a moment on the surface, like a giant fish, before she rose higher and the water cascaded down her sides.
Cappy Ricks' anxious face turned a delicate green; he glanced up at his bully port captain as if in that rugged personality alone could he hope for salvation. Murphy caught the glance, shook his head, walked over to the engine-room telegraph and set the handle over to stop.
“No use, sir,” he informed Cappy. “That Dutchman is out of torpedoes, so he's coming up to shell us. We'll heave to and save funeral expenses.” He turned to the master of theNarcissus. “Captain, I'll stay on the bridge and conduct all negotiations with that fellow; get your mates, round up everybody and prepare to abandon the ship in a hurry. Get the motor cruiser overside first.”
As the captain hurried away, Terence Reardon came up on the bridge. The port engineer's gloomy visage portended tears, but through his narrowed lids Cappy Ricks saw not tears, but the light of murder. Terence did not speak, but thoughtfully puffed his pipe, and, with Murphy and Cappy Ricks, watched the booby hatch on the submarine's deck slide back and her long, slim, three-inch gun appear, like the tongue of a huge viper.
Heads appeared round the breech of the gun; so Michael J. Murphy seized a megaphone and shouted:
“Nein! Nix!” accompanying his words with wild pantomime that meant “Don't shoot!”
Captain Emil Bechtel was vastly relieved. He was not an inhuman man, even if, on occasion, as has already been demonstrated, he could, for the sake of national expediency, sink a ship without warning. Having missed with both torpedoes, he could now, in the event of national complications, enter a vigorous denial of any affidavits alleging an attempted breach of international law, and his government would uphold him. This knowledge rendered him both cheerful and polite, as he hove to some hundred yards to starboard of theNarcissusand informed Captain Michael J. Murphy that the latter had just fifteen minutes in which to save the ship's company; whereat Michael J. proved himself every inch a sailor, while Terence P. proved himself a marine engineer. If there was a word of opprobrium, mundane or nautical, which the port skipper didn't shout at that submarine commander, the port engineer supplied it. In all his life Cappy Ricks had never listened to such rich, racy, unctuous abuse; it lifted itself about the level of the commonplace and became a work of art. Cappy was horrified.
“Boys! Boys!” he pleaded. “This is frightful!”
“What do you expect from a German, sir?” Murphy demanded. “Frightfulness is his middle name.”
“I mean you two—and your language. Stop it! You'll contaminate me.”
“Well, sor,” Terence Reardon replied philosophically, “I suppose there's small use cryin' over spilt milk—musha, what are they up to now?”
“They're dragging a collapsible boat up from below,” Mike Murphy declared. “That means they're going to board us, place bombs in the bilges, and sink us that way. They know blamed well we've wirelessed for help and a patrol has answered; so that—”
“No profanity!” Cappy shrilled.
“So he has decided he won't try to sink us by shell fire with such a small gun. It'll be dark in five minutes and he's afraid the flame of the discharge or the reports of the gun may guide the patrol boat here before he's finished his job. Oh, wirra, wirra!”
Murphy's surmise proved to be correct, for he had scarcely finished speaking before the submarine commander hailed him and ordered him to let down his gangway. Terence P. Reardon's eyes flamed with the lust for battle.
“Be the great gun av Athlone,” he cried, “if they're comin' aboard sure we can get at them!”
Murphy's rage vanished as suddenly as it had gripped him; he smiled at Terence affectionately, approvingly.
“You with your monkey wrench, eh, Terry, my lad? And they with automatic pistols and wishful of an excuse to use them, not to mention the nitroglycerin and guncotton bombs they'll be carrying—a divilish bad thing to have kicking round in a free-for-all fight?” he queried.
Terry's face showed his deep disappointment.
“They'll see us all in the boats,” Murphy continued; “then they'll go below, set the bombs, light a slow fuse to give them time to get back to the submarine—and then—”
“With all these poor dumb beasts aboard?” Cappy Ricks quavered. “Horrible! Horrible! I could kill them for it.”
“I could kill them for a greater crime than that,” his port captain reminded him. “Didn't they try twice to sink us without warning? Damn them! They're forty fathoms outside the law this minute.”
For the first time in his life Cappy Ricks was in financial and physical danger coincidently. Old he was, and a landlubber, for all his courtesy title; but in his veins there coursed the blood of a long line of fighting ancestors. It occurred to him now that in all his life he had never cried “Enough;” that always, when cornered and presumably beaten, he had gone into executive session with himself and, fox that he was, schemed a way out. In this supreme moment there came to him now the words of the gallant Lawrence: “Don't give up the ship!” They inspired him; his agile old brain, benumbed by the shock of the exciting events of the last quarter of an hour, threw off its paralysis; his little five-feet-four body thrilled with the impact of a sudden brilliant idea.
“I have it!” he piped. “By the Holy Pink-Toed Prophet, it might be done! Mike, the submarine lies to starboard. Tell the mate to lower the port gangway.”
Murphy ran out on the end of the bridge and bawled the order. Then he came back, and he and Terence and Cappy Ricks put their heads together while in brief, illuminating sentences Cappy Ricks unfolded the fruit of his genius.
“Tell me,” he pleaded when he had finished, “is that scheme practicable?”
“It might be done, sir,” Mike Murphy assented.
“I'll thry anything the wanst,” Terry Reardon almost barked.
“It means some fighting—probably some killing.”
“Sorra wan av me'll feel broken-hearted at killin' the likes av that Dutchman,” Terry answered. “Shtill, we'll be needin' some help, I'm thinkin'.”
“We'll get it, or I'm no judge of human nature. Mike, pass the word for Sam Daniels, the boss of muleteers and broncho busters. Sam used to be a Texas Ranger.”
Accordingly Sam Daniels was sent for and arrived on the jump.
“Sam, my dear boy,” said Cappy calmly, “I'm enlisting volunteers to raise hell with that submarine. They're going to put bombs in the bilges and blow up the ship.”
“Count me in, Cap,” Sam Daniels replied laconically. “Want me to rustle up a couple of the boys?”
“Yes, about three real ones—boys that are handy with a six-shooter.”
“I guess most of the boys from the border have their guns in their war bags. I'll go get them together.”
He did—in about three minutes; by which time the collapsible boat from the submarine had been launched and was pulling toward theNarcissus. While her master directed them to pull round to the port gangway, Sam Daniels slipped down unobserved into Number Three hatch, two of his horse wranglers disappeared with an equal lack of ostentation down the gangway into Number Two hatch, and a third man went forward and down Number One. The trap was set.
A stout young lieutenant clad in soiled dungarees, his uniform cap alone denoting his rank, came briskly up the companion, followed by four jackies carrying the bombs. A fifth man remained in the boat, fending it away with a boat hook from the tall black side of theNarcissus.
“Who commands here?” the German demanded in most excellent English.
“I do,” the master of theNarcissusreplied, and stepped a pace forward.
“Then hurry and get your boats overside. We're going to bomb the ship, and if anybody remains aboard when those bombs explode it will be his fault, not ours.”
The motor cruiser had already been dropped overboard, and the life-boats, having been for two days swung out in the davits, were quickly filled and lowered away. As each boat pulled clear of the ship the man in charge of it was ordered by the submarine lieutenant to stay to port of theNarcissus, and to pull well clear of the ship before proceeding to pass the towing painters to the cruiser.
“Are all your men off the ship?” the officer queried of the skipper as the latter entered the last boat and gave the order to lower away.
“All off; I've accounted for all of them,” was the answer.
The German waited until the boat had slipped away in the gloom before turning to his command.
“Proceed!” he said briefly; and, followed by his four men, he led the way down the cleated temporary gangway built diagonally down Number Three hatch to accommodate the horses when they had been led aboard.
The better to facilitate their progress, Terence Reardon had turned on all the electric lights in the ship, and the detail proceeded quickly to the lower hold, where they set two bombs and piled double-compressed baled hay round them, with the fuse leading out from under the bales. In addition to blowing a hole in the ship they were taking the added precaution of setting her afire after the explosion.
From the spot where the bombs were set a long alleyway, lined on each side with the rumps of horses, each neatly boxed in a stall just wide enough and long enough to inclose him firmly and hold him on his feet in the event of rough weather, led forward and aft to the bulkheads. And in one of these stalls, close up against the rump of a horse he could trust, Sam Daniels, the ex-Texas Ranger, crouched, with one eye round the corner of the stall, calmly watching the grim proceedings. Something told him that, having arranged the bombs in that hold, the enemy would not light the fuses until he had set similar bombs at the bottom of the other hatches; then, all being in readiness, a man would be sent into each hold to light the fuse, scurry on deck, descend to the waiting boat, and be pulled clear of danger before the fuses should burn down to the fulminating caps.
So Daniels waited until the men were about to pick up the remaining bombs and ascend to the deck; whereupon he stepped quietly out into the alleyway, a long-barreled forty-five in his hand, and pussyfooted swiftly toward the Germans, whose backs were now turned toward him. Halfway down the alleyway, on one of the heavy six-by-six-inch uprights temporarily set in to support the weight of the hundred mules on the deck above, was the electric switch controlling the circuit in that hold—and Sam Daniels reached up and turned it down. Instantly the hold was in darkness; and then the horseman spoke:
“Hey, you Dutchies! Stay right where you are! I want to have a little powwow with you before you go any farther.”
Having said this, the astute Mr. Daniels, out of a vast experience gained while fighting Mexicans and outlaws in the dark, promptly lay down. In case the enemy should become rattled and fire at the sound of his voice he preferred to have plenty of room for the bullets to pass over him.
“Who's there?” the lieutenant demanded in English; and by the firm, resolute voice the Texan knew that the German was not rattled and that his men would not fire unless he gave the word.
“Great thing, this naval discipline!” Mr. Daniels soliloquized. Aloud he replied:
“The fastest, straightest little wing shot with a six shooter that ever was, old-timer!”
“What do you purpose doing, my friend?”
“I purpose giving you some good advice; though whether you accept it or not is a matter of indifference to me. You will observe that this hold is in comparative darkness. I say comparative, because through the hatch space a certain amount of light is projected from the deck above, and you and your men are standing in that light, whereas I am in the dark. I can see you and you cannot see me. I have a forty-five caliber revolver in my hand and another in reserve. There are five of you fellows, constituting a fair target—and I seldom miss a fair target. I can kill all five of you in five seconds. Of course some of you may manage to fire at the flash of my gun and accidentally kill me; but—make no mistake about it, son—I'll get you and your gang before I kick the bucket. Now, then, which do you want to do—live or die? I'm going to be fair to you fellows and give you some choice in the matter—which is more than you did when you launched those two torpedoes at us. Speak up, brother! I'm a nervous man and dislike suspense.”
The German lieutenant glanced at his men, who had not yet touched the other bombs and were looking stolidly at him for orders. He licked his lower lip and scowled, sighed gustily—and made a swift grab for his automatic. A streak of flame came out of the dark alleyway and the German's arm hung limp at his side. He had a bullet in his shoulder.
“Told you I was a wing shot!” the plainsman cautioned him pleasantly. “I would have put that one through your heart if I didn't need an interpreter. I imagine these roustabouts with you only speak their mother tongue.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Well, first, I want you to leave that high explosive right where it is. Then I want you to deposit all your sidearms on the floor, and have your men do likewise.”
The German had had his lesson and arrived at the conclusion that valor without discretion is not good business. He slipped his belt off and let it drop to the floor; at a word from him his men did likewise, whereupon Daniels stood up, threw on the electric switch, and revealed himself and his artillery to the gaze of the invaders.
“Forward; in a bunch, up the gangway!” he ordered.
They obeyed. As the Texan passed the little heap of belts, with the automatics in the holsters attached, he gathered them up and followed. Just before the procession reached the main deck he halted them and whistled—whereupon Michael J. Murphy, Terence P. Reardon and Cappy Ricks came to the edge of the hatch and peered over.
“Well, look who's here!” Cappy exclaimed maliciously. “Five nice little pirates, who would sink myNarcissuswithout so much as a be-damned to you! Mike, bring the irons. Terence, my boy, restrain yourself. If you use that monkey wrench until I give the word the Blue Star Navigation Company will have a new port engineer. Undress these fellows. Just remove their caps and outer garments—and be quick about it.”
“Tell them to molt—muy pronto!” Sam Daniels ordered the lieutenant, who relayed the order in a voice that had in it a suspicion of tears.
In three minutes they were undressed and handcuffed together; leg irons were put on them, and they were expeditiously gagged and chained to a stanchion.
“Now then, Terence, I have work for you and your monkey wrench,” Cappy continued. “You're about the same size as this officer. Into his dungarees and uniform cap; and don't forget to slip on his belt, with the automatic.”
“In two shakes av a lamb's tail, sor. What next?”
“As you run down the gangway to the waiting boat, hold your handkerchief over that Irish mug of yours. Pretend you're blowing your nose. The man in the boat won't recognize you until you're on top of him.”
“Wan little love tap—no more!” Terence breathed lovingly.
“When Terence has tapped him, Sam,” Cappy continued, “you go down and help to get him out on the landing stage. He'll be off our hands there and the submarine people cannot see what's happened to him. They're still lying on our starboard beam.”
Terence and the deadly Samuel disappeared, to return presently and report all well. Thereupon Michael J. Murphy retired to the port side of the house, lit a kerosene torch he had brought up from the engine room and waved it. He waited. Presently, in the gloom off to port, he saw the red and green side lights of the little cruiser. For a moment both lights were visible; then the master of theNarcissus, now in charge of the cruiser, ported his helm and showed his red only. Murphy waited, and presently both red and green showed again.
“Starboard now, and show your green,” Murphy pleaded.
The red went out and the green alone showed; so Mike Murphy extinguished his torch and rejoined Cappy Ricks, Terence and the ubiquitous Mr. Daniels.
“Sam, my dear boy,” Cappy was saying as Murphy came up, “Mike and Terence own in theNarcissusand they work for me—hence their alliance. You owe me no fealty—”
“The hell I don't, Cap!” Sam retorted lightly. “You're a fine old sport, and I'm for you till the last dog is hung.”
“Sam, I am deeply grateful. Your friendship is very dear to me indeed. I have a twenty-two-thousand acre ranch down in Monterey County, California—don't know why I bought it, unless it was because it was a bargain and ranch property in California is bound to increase in value—and you're my foreman if we ever get out of this with a whole skin. I'll make it the best job you ever had, Sam.”
“Thank you, Mr. Ricks!” A moment before it had been Cap. “If you never saw a man fight for a good job before, just watch me!”