CHAPTER XXISearching the Sea
The Jetta was built for both speed and rough weather. She was fifty feet long, and her other proportions carried with them lines of beauty and grace, as well as “a good pair of heels.” She had a six-cylinder, 200-horse power gasoline engine, capable of driving the yacht, on a smooth sea, at the rate of 22 miles an hour.
Architecturally the little vessel was designed with a view to practical use of all the space within her. Just back of the fore peak was the galley, with sink, ice box, cooking stove, and various other “food factory” accessories and conveniences. Abaft this layout was a large cabin, with Pullman berths on either side. Amidships were two staterooms, with lockers and berths, and back of these was the engine room, flanked by two large fuel tanks and locker batteries. Overhead was a large well-glazed deck house, connecting directly with the galley and serving conveniently as a combined observation cabin and dining saloon. A forward portion of the deck house was partitioned off for the pilot and contained steering wheel, engine controls, chart case, log, ship’s clock, thermometers, barometer, compass and sextant.
There was little conversation on board the Jetta for several hours following her midnight departure. After getting her started and seeing that all was running well, Walter turned the engine over to Tony and returned to his wireless instruments. There, with receivers to his ears, he waited eagerly for new messages regarding the wrecked steamer and her passengers. Occasionally he would call down through the speaking tube to find out if everything was going well in the engine room, and Tony would always inquire if he had caught any new messages of importance. Finally Walter, in reply to one of these questions, revealed his hopeful secret by remarking casually:
“Nothing new of much importance. There’s a steamer hurrying to the rescue, but she’s over a hundred miles away from the Herculanea, and it’ll take her several hours to reach the wreck. By that time it’ll be all over, and all they can do is pick up the boats.”
“It’ll take us two days and one night at least to reach the wreck,” said Tony. “What do you expect to find then?”
“To tell the truth, I don’t really expect to find anything. But I’m going to search the sea all around, and if we’re unsuccessful, we’ll at least have the satisfaction of knowing we did our best.”
But Walter did not tell Tony all that was in his mind. He had a great fear that he would find a number of rafts supporting the bodies of many passengers who had succumbed to starvation and exposure, and that two of them would prove to be his mother’s and Guy’s. He preferred, however, to keep this fear to himself, for he knew that neither Tony nor Det could offer him any reassurance.
The wireless information regarding the Herculanea was too clear and definite to allow of much doubt. The operator had said that a great hole had been blown by some mysterious explosion in the forward part of the ship and that she was rapidly filling and going down. At first it was believed that she had struck an iceberg, as the Titanic had done, but investigation proved this impossible and indicated almost beyond question that a floating contact mine had caused the disaster.
During the night the Jetta kept well out from the shore in order to avoid running onto rocks. True, there was a strong head-light in the bow, but Det did not wish to depend on this and his limited knowledge of the coast to carry them on safely. In the daytime they continued along in sight of the shore until they reached Halifax, where they stopped for gasoline and some additional provisions. They also inquired for news regarding the Herculanea and were astonished at the ignorance of everybody to whom they spoke on the subject. Walter bought a copy of every newspaper he could find but not a line did any of them contain concerning the wreck. Deeply mystified, he returned to the yacht.
From Halifax they proceeded northward and in a few hours were out of sight of land. Shortly before noon Walter caught several messages from the rescue ship, which had reached the scene of the disaster, picked up several boats and rafts loaded with passengers and was making for New York. This was good news in itself, but was accompanied with the announcement that a considerable number of the passengers and crew had perished.
Then followed a long succession of messages from the rescued to relatives and friends ashore. Walter listened eagerly to these, hoping to catch one from his mother and brother. For half an hour he suffered the keenest of hoping and despairing suspense: then came the following, addressed to Mr. Burton:
“Mrs. Burton safe. Guy missing.”
A great thrill of joy leaped into Walter’s heart and mind as he read the first three words of this message; then the reaction of the last two words depressed him almost as violently. What had become of his brother? The message gave no hint. How he longed to be able to flash back a message to his mother that he was racing over the sea to search for Guy!
After leaving Halifax, no more land was sighted on the outward course. Fortunately the sea was not very rough any of the time. On the second night a rather stiff breeze blew from the north, but the waves did not rise very high, and the progress of the Jetta was little impeded. Next day and the following night the wind blew still stronger, but the yacht still rode jauntily over the swell of the ocean.
On the second day they reached, as they believed, the vicinity of the disaster, but darkness gathered before they could make any headway with their search. Then they arranged to pass the night in much needed rest and sleep. Det had the first watch, Tony the second, and Walter the third. Before daybreak Walter prepared breakfast and then called his companions. By the time they had eaten, it was light enough to begin their hunt for survivors of the wreck.
From one of the lockers in the cabin, Walter produced a pair of strong binoculars, and with these he swept the ocean in all directions, but found nothing of interest. There was a little ice here and there, but no icebergs were discovered. Then Det made calculations again and decided that they ought to proceed thirty miles to the southeast in order to reach the exact latitude and longitude specified by the Herculanea operator.
The course of the Jetta was accordingly set in that direction. On account of the increasing amount of ice, it was deemed safest to run at a moderate rate of speed so that three hours elapsed before the old sailor announced that they had reached approximately the locality sought for. Meanwhile Walter continued to sweep the sea with the glasses and discovered a large iceberg off to the southwest and several smaller ones to the east and northeast.
“That’s a whopper off there,” declared Det, as he gazed through the glasses at the largest one. “I think we’d better make toward it. The wireless messages mentioned a big iceberg near the wreck, you say.”
“Do you think that’s the one?” inquired Tony.
“More’n likely. You see, the wreck happened about here, and the wind is from the north. So it couldn’t ’a’ been any of those to the east or northeast.”
“But what’s the use following the iceberg?” Tony asked. “The wind wouldn’t blow them in that direction unless they had a sail.”
“That’s true; but what’s to have prevented them from rigging up a sail? Anyway, it’s the most likely direction for them to take as it’s toward home. I’ve got an idea that if we find anybody at all, we’ll find ’em on the other side o’ that berg.”
The element of doubt in Det’s words, made Walter gloomy. The vision of so much sea with nothing else in sight but ice and icebergs and a birdless sky rendered him the more susceptible of hopelessness.
“If we find anything—” he began, and then stopped. He had had in mind to conclude the sentence, “it’ll be dead bodies,” but a lump came up in his throat, and he could go no further.
And before they had proceeded much farther, his fear was realized. Presently Walter’s glasses brought to his vision numerous small dark objects on the water, and in less than half an hour they were moving among half a hundred human bodies buoyed up with life jackets.
There was little conversation now on board the Jetta. Tony, utterly discouraged, remained in the engine room most of the time. Walter and Det looked at each other with dull, heavy eyes. Must they examine all those bodies, or many of them, until they discovered the one whom they had come to rescue?
“I can’t do it,” was all that Walter could say. “Let’s hunt farther, go around to the other side of that iceberg and then come back here if—if—we have to.”
Det’s only reply was a reduction of speed. Then he looked ahead carefully to avoid striking any of the floating bodies. Pretty soon Walter observed a small raft—the only raft in sight—a hundred feet distant, with two bodies lying on it. The face of one was toward him, and a chill of dread seized him as he recognized, or thought he recognized, the features.
He signaled his suspicion to Det, who nodded his head. The yacht ran close to the raft and stopped, and Tony rushed on deck to see what had happened. Walter leaned over the rail and gazed at the face. Then he straightened up and announced with evident relief:
“That isn’t Guy.”
Det and Tony also agreed that the body of the young man on the raft was not that of their missing friend. But it was of about the same size, and the facial contour, though not the features, was similar to that of Walter’s brother.
Det put on full speed again. The run around the berg was uneventful, except that it revealed to them, far to the southward, another and far greater mountain of ice, which they had not observed before. Walter scanned the sea as far as his glasses would reach, south, east, and west, but without fruitful result. Then he said:
“We’ve got just about enough time to go back and examine those bodies before dark. Let’s do that and in the morning start toward home, running farther to the south than we ran on our way here.”
Just as they were about to start back for the sea-surface graveyard, Tony reported trouble with the engine, and Walter and Det made an investigation. The engine was spitting and coughing and behaved as if something was choking it. An examination of the carburetor disclosed that the latter was flooding and considerable gas was being wasted.
Walter turned off the petcock on the feed line and then set to work to find out what was the cause of the flooding. He removed the carburetor and took it apart. Then he and Det looked over each part carefully to discover if there was any dirt or other interference preventing the closing of the needle valve. No trouble of this nature was disclosed. Walter then substituted a new needle valve, reassembled the carburetor, and put it back in position. As he turned on the gasoline, everything seemed to be O K; so he started the engine, but half a minute later it choked again.
In this manner they worked over the engine several hours, taking the carburetor apart half a dozen times. The last time they discovered the real cause of the trouble, which consisted of several metal filings in the hole in which the needle valve was intended to fit.
All this consumed much precious time, and when at last they had the engine apparently in good working order again, it was dark; so they decided to defer the examination of the bodies of the shipwreck victims until morning. After supper they arranged watches and prepared to pass the night as comfortably as might be under the circumstances.
Although the boy skipper instructed his companions to call him for the last watch, they did not obey his command. After he had turned in, they altered the program, dividing the night into two watches, one for each. They knew that Walter was in need of mental and physical rest and determined that he should have it in spite of himself. And so the latter was much surprised, though refreshed, when he was awakened at daybreak with the announcement that breakfast was ready.
After breakfast it was discovered that more work was needed on the engine. Several of the spark plugs were dirty, and the oil had thickened in the commutator, resulting in poor contact between the roller and the points. Hence, the sun was several hours high before they got back to the area of floating bodies.
The examination of these bodies consumed more than an hour, and the relief of all may be realized as a look into the face of the last established the fact that Guy was not among them.
“I might have known we wouldn’t find him here,” Walter declared. “Guy’s not the boy to die without making a mighty big effort to save himself, and I bet we’ll find him yet—alive.”
“There’s one thing I’ve been wondering about,” Tony remarked; “and that is why there isn’t a regular regiment of sharks here devouring these bodies.”
But he had hardly spoken when he wished he had not given utterance to the thought. A pained expression on Walter’s face indicated plainly the suggestion that was moving in his mind. Perhaps a number of sharks already had been there and departed and Guy’s body was one of those that had been devoured, or possibly he had been eaten alive!
Det offered no expert explanation of Tony’s “wonder.” He felt that the subject had better be dropped; so he said:
“Well, now that we’ve finished, let’s go and find Guy floating on a raft or in a boat.”
This was a cheerful suggestion, and Walter, with an effort, drove the shark theory out of his mind. The yacht was turned to the southwest, and the journey in search of a live brother was begun. They had not proceeded many boat-lengths, however, when Det stopped again at the side of the raft on which lay the body which had appeared so much like that of Guy on the day before.
“What’s the matter?” Walter inquired apprehensively.
“Nothing,” replied the old sailor; “only I’m a little curious about that note book. I saw it there yesterday, but thought it a waste of time to look into it.”
As he finished speaking, he stepped over the rail and onto the raft and took from the rigid left hand of the corpse a small, red-leather-bound book. Then he stepped back onto the deck of the Jetta and examined the object of his curiosity. The leather was welted and warped as a result of wetting. The leaves were celluloid, and there was pencil writing on them.
Walter looked over Det’s shoulder as the latter turned the leaves and read. Tony also stood near and watched the proceeding. Presently he started forward in wondering eagerness when he saw the young skipper’s eyes almost pop out of his head with joy. The latter unable longer to contain his ecstasy, exclaimed:
“Det! Tony! I know where Guy is. He’s on the big iceberg that was near the Herculanea when she went down.”