THE PACKET ADMIRAL
ByWARREN ELLIOT CARLETON
Author of "The Final Test," "The Harpoon Heritage," etc.
THE TRADITION OF THE SEA DIES HARD AMONG THE YANKEE SKIPPERS OF THE OLD SCHOOL—AND THE TRADITION IS FAITHFULLY LIVED UP TO
"Jumpin' Jehossyfat! I didn't know there was that many!"
Captain Ed Pierce preened his bushy gray mustache, his brown eyes staring at the six two-masted schooners comprising the Crosby fleet. Beside him, on the deck of the Boston and Howesport packet schooner,Bessie Barker, Captain Bert Blackmer also studied them. The Crosby fleet was lying at anchor in the "cowyard," the sheltered outer harbor of the decadent Cape Cod fishing town of Howesport.
"Looks like they mean business, don't it?" Captain Ed commented. "Bert, seems like perhaps you'd be wise to sell out while the sellin's good."
Captain Bert bit his lip. There was good sense in what Captain Ed had suggested. Captain Ed was shrewd. His investments had brought him opulence, made him Howesport's wealthiest citizen. Yes, Captain Ed's opinion was always worth weighing.
Captain Bert's tall, erect, thin yet sinewy frame, legs thrust wide apart, would have graced the quarterdeck of a finer craft than even the trimBessie Barker. For twenty years he had successfully carried on the shipping business between Howesport and Boston. It was hard for him to give up now. His black hair and short beard, draping bold aquiline features, were turning gray. The old muscular strength of the days when he was in the South American trade had diminished with his increasing years, which had now piled up to sixty-four.
When he had discarded theMary Chiltonand bought theBessie Barkertwo years ago, he had thought, "She'll last a lifetime. A few years more of service, and then—life ashore. Perhaps owner of a fleet of packets——"
He had never thought of such a thing as competition. People had laughed at him when he started the packet business twenty years ago. Howesport had the railroad. At best, it was a dead port.
"He'll never make it pay," they had said, and in derision had dubbed him "the Packet Admiral."
Yet he had made it pay. It hadn't made him rich like Captain Ed, but give him a few years' lease of life and with business growing as it had lately, and—Well, hewouldbe an admiral, of a line of packets plying between various ports and bringing him a small fortune, perhaps even wealth. That was all he asked—a few more years like the last five. But now—the Crosby Company.
"They've sold stock in town, too," said Captain Bert. "Mis' Mehitable Barnes fired a broadside into my hull this afternoon by informin' me that she'd bought twenty shares of it."
"Lord sakes—that so? I didn't know she was that well-to-do."
"She ain't. Took about her last cent. Seems she knows Crosby—he used to come here summers—and he coaxed her into it. Misrepresented things to her, too. Didn't tell her they intend to operate a packet business against me and cut my throat, in addition to their regular coastwise shippin'. No; Crosby outlined it to her wholly as a fleet of coastwise schooners."
"I vum!"
"Mehitable usually tells me all her business. But she sorter kept this a secret from everybody. You know women do that—once in a while."
"Folks here have said you've been kinder courtin' her late years. Funny she ain't let the cat out o' the bag 'fore this."
"Oh—just intimate friends, that's all." Captain Bert cleared his throat. "Still, for her it may be a good investment. But cripes! The air was sizzlin' when I told her Crosby's goin' to put a packet on 'tween here and Boston to compete with me!" he chuckled.
"Didn't like it, eh?"
"She vowed she'd git rid of them shares and give Crosby a piece of her mind to boot. But I told her to hang on to 'em, that it's an ill wind that blows nobody good, and she sorter calmed down. But I left her nigh cryin'."
A stalwart fellow jumped aboard from the wharf.
"Well, nigh supper time. Guess I'll be goin'," said Captain Ed, stepping on the rail and hoisting himself on to Robbins Wharf. "Looks like you're competin' against an awful stack of capital, Bert. But keep up your courage if you do fight it out. What you told the widder 'bout that ill wind might apply to you, too."
Whistling, Captain Ed walked down the wharf.
"TheMary Chilton'sall ready, Cap'n," spoke the big newcomer in a deep voice. He pointed over his shoulder at the old schooner, unused and falling to pieces on the other side of Robbins Wharf. "Everything's ready, sir," he repeated while Captain Bert hesitated before answering.
"All right, Bill."
Bill Hyde's speech and appearance—bulldog jaw, swarthy face and curly black hair sticking out from a shabby blue yachting cap—branded him a Yankee, but foreign to the Cape. Captain Bert had hired him two weeks ago at a Boston agency, after a long list of drunkards, thieves, and even one murderer who had sailed with him as his sole companion, first on the oldMary Chilton, and subsequently on theBessie Barker. The captain liked Bill. He was frank, decisive, still exuberant with youth, and an all-round good shipmate. And the customer Bill had found him in Gloucester for the decrepitMary Chilton——
"We'll clear for Gloucester in theMary Chiltonright away," said the captain, "and come back on the mornin' train so's we can take theBessieto Boston tomorrow afternoon. You're sure, Bill, this customer you've got me ain't goin' to be disappointed in his bargain?"
"Disappointed? 'Course not. He isn't buying a yacht. Old hulks are what he always buys for hauling stone. He'll have her hull fixed up and she'll do well enough for a barge."
Across the harbor over the Herringbone a sandy strip of land running parallel to the Howesport waterfront and sheltering the outer harbor, the sun had set, only the rim of its globe now peering above the horizon. The decaying old fish piers on both sides of Robbins Wharf loomed hoary, deserted and sinister, ghosts of palmier days. Not a sound broke the silence save the squawk of a passing gull and the wash of the sea on the sides of the schooner.
Captain Blackmer still stood with a Napoleonic pose, looking out toward the vanishing sun.
"If 'twa'n't for the Widder Barnes," he remarked when its last radiance had faded and night shrouded the after-glow, "I'd be tempted to sail out and scuttle that whole Crosby fleet."
"And why stop because of the Widow Barnes?" asked Bill, suddenly interested. "I'm game to do it. I don't want to see you done out of business by that Crosby outfit. Jobs are scarce, and I'm quite satisfied with this one. Will you give me leave to dispose of those schooners for you?"
"Why, of course not! I just—was thinkin'—how anybodymightdo it—that's all."
"It would be easy as——"
"Let's drop the subject. Come on aboard theMary, Bill."
But the thought of striking underhandedly at the Crosby fleet was planted in Captain Bert's brain. The schooners had all been towed to Howesport from the shipyards by tugboats. It was doubtful whether their crews were yet organized; probably only a few men kept watch on the vessels while they lay in the Cowyard waiting for the Crosby Company to begin shipping operations.
"I've knocked around the water long enough to know that a new company like this Crosby outfit has fired all its ammunition in its opening shot," insisted Bill, while they prepared theMary Chiltonfor clearing Robbins Wharf. "Who ever heard of a new company in coastwise shipping starting out bang with six vessels? Two would be a plenty, for an opener. And they're all brand new two-masters, too. Must have cost a bunch of money. Cap'n, if we dispose of those schooners somehow, the Crosby Company is dead."
Captain Bert was silent a moment. It did seem logical. But the widow—she was so tormented scrupulous. Being honest, doing nobody wrong—that was about all he heard when he took frequent suppers and Sunday dinners with her. He had even dreamed that some day, if the packet business held good, he would make those meals permanent fixtures in his life by marrying the widow.
"Those old barrels in the hold—they're some theMary'sowner-to-be asked me to fetch him," continued Bill. "There's a lot of dunnage in there with them. Lord, theMary'sa regular floating junk shop!"
"She always was," drily commented the captain. "Leaks, rolls, and the deck is so rotten in places you'd go through if you stepped out a hornpipe. Any man who can sell her ought to be Secretary of the Navy."
It was nine o'clock when theMary Chiltoncast off and headed under full sail down the harbor toward Cape Cod Bay. There was no moon, and a thin fog blew over the water in a fair June breeze. Captain Blackmer stood aft at the wheel. Bill was puttering around, first in the foc'sle, then in the hold.
The southwesterly breeze began to pick up off-shore. Dead ahead in the fog veil loomed the six schooners. Salt water politics! Captain Bert recollected that he had played them before. There was the time, when he was an A. B., that the old barkShannon Magecrammed the Dutch brig off the Brazilian coast, and he and the rest of the crew looted her cargo. He had never told Widow Barnes about that. Then, too, there were other things he had never told her—but what she didn't know wouldn't harm her.
Bill came up from the hold. He peered off through the fog toward the Crosby fleet.
"Lordy!" he exclaimed, coming aft toward the captain. "If we'd moored them ourselves we couldn't have placed them better for disposing of 'em. Look at 'em! Less than eight fathoms between 'em. Now ain't that just like a fool tugboat skipper and a company of greenhorns!"
Captain Bert bit his lip. Was he a coward? He—guided by the silly sentiments of a woman, a woman who had never gone to sea, who didn't own a packet that was to be run out of business; a woman who had bought shares in that damned Crosby fleet.
Bill had gone back to the hold. The captain hated to think of having to give up the packet and of losing his genial new shipmate. He recalled the former mates whom he had shipped on his two schooners. He thought of how this new one had taken hold, his ability as a navigator, his reliability as a companion. Bill had suggested striking at the Crosby fleet largely to safeguard his own job. But in so doing also to stabilize the captain's packet business. And if the widow were deprived of the money she had invested in the Crosby Company, it would make her all the more willing to be his wife—when he was ready to ask her.
Out of the hold wriggled a little braid of smoke. A small cloud puffed from the open hatch, followed by a dense black column that might have streamed from the funnel of an ocean liner. Bill emerged, coughing, and the crackling of burning wood sounded from below.
"God almighty!" shouted the captain. "What have you done?"
"The small boat's close to the companion," replied Bill calmly, designating the dinghy aft. "Head for the Crosby fleet—the nearest schooner."
"You damned traitor!" snarled the captain, starting forward. Bill blocked his way.
"I'm doing this—for you," he declared. "Those empty tar barrels in the hold—theMary'sdoomed. So is the Crosby fleet. It's self-preservation for you, sir. Such things have happened accidentally before. Nobody will ever suspect that this didn't. Get out the way; give me the wheel!"
Captain Bert felt himself shoved aside by a quick-moving giant who dashed to the wheel and swung it—then the lurch of the schooner—the creaking of the boom. Flames from the hold licked out of the hatch, and smoke poured to leeward toward the fleet.
"—the wind's right—their position's right. They're fresh with paint and varnish. Good-by, old Crosby fleet!" sang the fiend at the wheel.
Captain Bert was upon him. He had been a skilled fighter in his day. He struck out with his left fist at Bill's grinning face. But the mate stepped nimbly aside, ducked, and letting go the wheel, floored the captain with an uppercut to the chin.
"No time for fooling!" Bill roared. "Stay there, and do what I tell you. I'm in command until we've seen this thing through."
The ancientMary Chiltonwas a floating tinder box above her waterline. So rapidly did the flames catch on to the decks and bulkheads, it was doubtful whether a man could stay at the wheel long enough to bear down on the first schooner of the down-wind fleet.
"She's a floating hell!" bellowed Bill above the crackle and roar of the fire. "Get on your feet, old man! I need you. This is no one-man job."
Captain Bert, still groggy, his mind clouded by the blow Bill had given him, crawled to his feet. The smoke stifled him. Yes; Bill was right—it was not a one-man job. It wasn't a job for any man. Bill's eyes ran tears. Black smoke rolling out of the companionway shrouded him.
"Here—the wheel—take it!" Bill choked. Captain Bert grasped its spokes and held it steady, holding his breath in the dense smoke as long as he could, then stepping aside to clearer air, exhaling quickly and breathing again.
The wind, as if a partner in Bill's scheme, moved the smoke off the port quarter. Dimly, but looming more distinctly, the captain discerned the first schooner ahead. By standing at the starboard side of the wheel, Bill and he could keep their eyes on the fleet.
"Look!" Captain Blackmer's eyes were focused on the bow of the first schooner. There stood a man waving his arms. Another form in oilskins stood near him.
"They're all safe," encouraged Bill. "We're getting away with it fine. Fire—the wind took us—we lost control. Hold her steady! See—they've got a dinghy in the water—" pointing at the small boat floating beside the big schooner.
"But—but look! Look at that name on her bow! Read it!"
The bow of the schooner ahead was aglow with the red light from theMary Chilton.
"Mehitable Barnes," read Bill aloud. "You damned old fool, give me the wheel!"
Captain Bert swung the wheel and held on, even after Bill had pounced on him, bearing him to the deck under his greater strength. Like rivets the captain's fingers clung, Bill clawing at them, tearing at them, to wrench them from their hold. Fire tore through the rigging. The blazing craft heeled to starboard, flames shriveling sails and snapping stays and halyards. Over the heads of the two men struggling at the wheel the crimson curtain spread, swept by the rush of the wind at the quick veering movement of the vessel.
It was sheets of flame and not canvas that carried the schooner on her course out of the shadow of theMehitable Barnes. Men shouted on theMehitable'sbow as theMary Chiltonfloundered past. Blistering heat bore down from the blazing mainsail upon the contestants for the wheel, surged up from below, like the ends of fiendish tongs, gripping the two between.
But Captain Bert did not hear the curses of his mate; did not even wince at Bill's nails clawing at his hands that grasped the wheel. All he felt—all he was conscious of—was the swirl of water from the sides of the ungainlyMary Chiltonmingled with the crackle and roar from below and overhead—her sluggish departure from the Crosby fleet lying increasingly but slowly astern. And somewhere in the distance that dim gray shore-line of the Herringbone showed faintly through illuminated fog and smoke—it seemed miles and miles away. Then the mainsail descended in a streamer of fire, and the oppressive weight of Bill rolled off his back.
The form of a man groveled at his feet. Captain Bert pulled himself up by the wheel.
"Bill!" he raved. "Bill—you damned scoundrel! I've beaten you!Beaten you!Look astern. Not a schooner of 'em even scorched. Come, Bill—your trick at the wheel now. But you can't turn back. Our canvas is all burnt away. What's left won't hold a paper-bagful of wind."
The captain's face smarted as with the stings of a thousand bees. His eyes—were they burned out? He couldn't really see now. He rather felt the presence of the crumpled mate, roasting on the gridiron of a quarterdeck. Into his arms he gathered the limp body, ran with it, he knew not where. His feet tangled in a line. He fell—and water closed over his head.
Yet was it water? The fire itself had not been so hot. He had scarcely felt the heat of the schooner's blazing wood and mainsail that had encompassed him—but this! It was boiling pitch, scalding him to the marrow. But he clung to the man in his arms, and they bobbed up to the surface together, the captain gasping for breath in the open air.
He knew it was salt water—cold salt water—that scalded his hot flesh. The man he clung to must be dead. It would do him no good even if the captain swam with him to the distant Herringbone. Was it worth while to drag a dead body with him, a body that would hinder his own chances of saving himself? Yes, he must do it. Bill was a scoundrel, but there might be a spark of life in him yet. Even a scoundrel—any human being—was worth saving. It was the law of the sea.
The line binding his leg, he kicked to disengage it. A dark shadow moved in the red light of the water. It was the boat, the dinghy which Bill had left near the companion for their getaway. Clinging to Bill with one hand, he hauled at the line with the other. Finding that he made no progress, he fastened his teeth into Bill's charred shirt and hauled on the line hand over hand. As he suspected, it was fast to the dinghy.
Over the gunwale of the small boat he threw one arm, supporting Bill with the other. To leeward, safely out of the Cowyard, drifted the glowing fragment of theMary Chilton'shull. But the other light—it was brighter. It illumined the entire wide harbor like day, from the Herringbone to the Howesport waterfront. A yellow light, almost like a big lamp.
The captain's heart sank. He clung grimly to the boat and the limp body, and turned his head toward the Crosby fleet. TheMehitable Barneswas a sheet of leaping, crackling fire from stem to stern!
The captain stared, fascinated. And even while he watched, the flames jumped to the next schooner. The wind caught the fire and swept it in a sheet of gold the length and breadth of the fleet. One after the other, four of the schooners burst into flames. The fifth and sixth, in the path of the cyclone of swirling fire, were already smoking like smoldering logs.
But he—he had a bigger proposition on his hands now than watching a fleet burn up. The inert form he supported wriggled slightly—its mouth breathed, feebly spat out water. If it weren't for Bill he could crawl over the gunwale into the dinghy, run ashore to the Herringbone—but what then? Nothing but the memory of the disaster he had caused by first putting such an idea in Bill's head. He could never look Mehitable in the eyes again. His rivalry with the Crosby Company, the mysterious sailing of theMary Chiltonat night—who would believe his story of Bill's treachery? He could end it all by letting go of the dinghy and sinking—with Bill. Yet Bill was alive. The law of the sea——
But why should he rescue Bill? Bill had deliberately planned and executed the whole disaster; planned it even before the captain had mentioned scuttling the fleet, evidenced by the tar barrels. Why should theMary Chilton'sbuyer, a stone carrier, want tar barrels? The captain had done his best to avoid theMehitable—fought for it, almost died for it. It was Bill's doing, the whole outrageous business.
Yet Bill had done it for him. Wrong, to be sure, but still out of a sort of devotion—such devotion as a savage might show to his chief. A fellow who would do that for his skipper was worth saving. Captain Bert gripped the gunwale and Bill with an iron clutch and let the waves and wind do the rest.
He knew that he must be badly burned; that Bill's burns must be even worse. Bill had been buried in the burning mainsail when it fell. Bill had caught it all on hisback, thus shielding the captain while they struggled.
There were boats headed from Howesport village to the burning fleet. On the Herringbone the captain made out lights moving back and forth. He wondered whether the men he had glimpsed on the schooner were safe. No doubt the lights on the Herringbone were those men hauling up their boats.
If he could only get Bill into his own boat, get into it himself. It would be so much easier. The strain of holding up a man and clinging to the gunwale at the same time, with that scalding water tingling through every pore of his tender body—it was telling on him. But the Herringbone looked nearer, its illumined shore-line showing white less than a mile away.
A mile! One mile or one hundred miles, Captain Bert knew that his strength was unequal to his task. The man held up by his arm locked with the captain's moaned, and his puffed eyes opened, narrow slits encased in swollen, sooty flesh.
"You—you—I thought—" he gasped. "The Crosby fleet——"
"Never mind them," said the captain tenderly. "We've got a mile to go yet. Take it easy."
"Where is she?"
"Who?"
"TheMary Chilton?"
"Oh—her!" disgustedly. "She's all right. So are the Crosby vessels."
"You lie! They're burned—every one of them!" He turned his head with a great effort and looked toward the paling flare of what had been the Crosby fleet.
But Captain Bert was interested in the gray sloop bearing down on them. He needed his strength, even that which he would spend in the effort of speaking.
"Bill," he nevertheless exclaimed, "can't you—grab the gun'le—yourself? My arm—it's about gone. My back——"
Bill groaned and stiffly raised one arm from the water, but it fell back heavily. Captain Bert gritted his teeth and his fingers tightened on the gunwale until it seemed that they must gouge into the wood.
That was what had tired him—holding on to the gunwale. It wasn't Bill's dead weight that exhausted him. It was the resistance of the jerking little boat upon which their lives depended. Either the light of the burning schooners was dimming fast, or the fog was thickening. The water rippling in the glow grew hazy. It was as if they were rising, he and Bill—rising into a cloud. Dizziness—nausea—scalding water, torturing salt water like acid—the onrushing gray sloop expanding to gigantic proportions like an inflating balloon—voices.... He couldn't stand it. His fingers fell from the gunwale, and water closed soothingly over his head.
The fog lifted ... two men were talking. Captain Bert looked into the sharp, pale features of a stranger with a small black mustache. The stranger was bending over him, daubing his chest and arms with grease. The wood the captain was lying on was the quarterdeck of Captain Ed Pierce's sloop, and Captain Ed stood nearby at the wheel.
Captain Bert felt cool. He smelt camphor. And the gladdening thought that he was not seriously burned was checked by the sight of a heap of canvas lying at his side.
"Bill!" he spoke in a far-away voice. "Where's Bill?"
But he knew well enough that the canvas hid what had been Bill.
"But why torment him? Cap'n Bert never done it," declared Captain Ed. "I've known him since we was boys——"
The stranger checked him, and addressing Captain Bert, asked, "Why did you burn the Crosby fleet?" The abruptness of the question brought Captain Bert to his senses.
"I ain't so sure I did," he replied.
"But your schooner was afire. It ran into them——"
"That's a lie!" insisted Captain Bert. "If my schooner had rammed one of the fleet, how come it she fetched up to the east'ard of the Cowyard? A burnin' schooner that rams a vessel ain't likely to recover herself and make a half-turn against the wind."
"By gum, that's right!" agreed Captain Ed. "I told ye Bert never done it——"
"And the light—did ye notice?" Captain Bert went on. "'Twas yellow and theMary'swas red. TheMehitablenever caught fire from theMary. She was set afire from the inside. Part of that yellow light was kerosene."
The stranger looked at Captain Ed and smiled.
"I admit the idea of scuttlin' the fleet come to me," Captain Bert went on, "but I never sanctioned Bill to set theMaryafire. He done it without my knowin'. Said he'd got a customer for the old hulkin Gloucester—got me to sail there with her tonight."
"A fake trip," put in Captain Ed. The stranger held up a hand to restrain him.
"I fought for the wheel when he set theMaryafire—and I got it. I sheered theMaryoff from the fleet, and 'twas while Bill and me fought for the wheel that the mains'l fell blazin' on Bill—and I done my best to save him——"
"It was that burn on his back that killed Bill," Captain Ed explained. "Mr. Clyde, as a friend of Cap'n Bert's, I forbid ye to tantalize him any longer."
"I'm accepting your orders," smiled the stranger. "Cap'n Blackmer, don't think we're blind to what you did. We were trailing theMary Chiltonin the fog. We saw everything that happened."
"You trailed us!"
"We've suspected it all along. The Crosby Company had sunk too much money in its fleet."
"That's what Bill told me." Captain Bert's eyes were wide.
"The Crosby Company was left bankrupt with a fleet it could not get rid of, although they succeeded in keeping the news from getting out. It had no capital to operate such a fleet with, but the vessels were insured up to the last dollar of their value."
"Tell him about Bill," interposed Captain Ed.
"Wait." And to Captain Bert again, "The Brisfield Insurance Company sent me as its inspector to keep the fleet under observation while it was in this harbor. Cap'n Pierce is a stockholder in the insurance company. So as soon as I got here—about an hour or so ago on the night train from Boston—I looked him up."
"I'd be in consider'ble money if ye'd come an hour or so sooner," commented Captain Ed. "But go on."
"Cap'n Ed said you were starting for Gloucester in an old hulk you'd discarded—with a new mate—and we agreed it looked suspicious. So we trailed you in his sloop."
Captain Bert sat bolt upright.
"We stayed to wind'ard of the Crosby fleet to make observations," Mr. Clyde went on. "That's why we didn't pick you up earlier. The last we saw of you and Bill, you were fighting for the wheel with fire all around you. We had to get complete evidence that the Crosby fleet was set afire from the inside of theMehitable."
"Tell him about—" insisted Captain Ed.
"Oh yes—Bill." The stranger paused and glanced at the form shrouded with canvas. "Well, Bill was Crosby's professional crook who did all his dirty work for him. You see, Crosby has done this sort of thing before—got up companies, failed, and usually ended by collecting full insurance after his establishment had burned up. This is his first marine venture. All his others were in business ashore. But we got inside information on his past record—and Bill's—that opened our eyes."
"Then Bill was workin' for him—and against me—all the time?"
"Using you for the goat, to lay the burning of the fleet on to you," said Mr. Clyde. "Bill got his just reward tonight."
"And how about the insurance?" Captain Bert's voice was husky.
"Not a cent will be paid. We saw theMehitableset on fire from her foc'sle when the Mary sheered off from her. We saw the escape of the men who did it. Our next step will be to get the goods on Crosby himself."
"But the Widder Barnes—all her money is tied up in the Crosby Company," protested Captain Bert.
"Don't worry about her," exploded Captain Ed. "It's me who's stung—not her. I bought all her shares in the Crosby Company after I left you this afternoon."
"Godfrey!"
"Serves me right, too, for judgin' the strength of that Crosby Company by the show their fleet made in the harbor. That ill wind of yourn sorter shifted, Bert, and left me becalmed.
"But you, Bert," he added with determination, "you pop the question to the widder as soon as your feet hit dry land. Say, she'd 'a' given me that Crosby stock free gratis if I hadn't had a two-thousand-dollar check all made out to her in my hand. With her luck and your judgment, you'll form a team that will make you a packet admiral yet!"