“If something goes wrong, Briggs, if I see you so much as look at another bottle, I’ll flay that hide of yours from one end of the Lakes to the other. I’ve got too much at stake to fool around! Paul Chadwick wants those Kennedy boats and I want him to get them. If it’s the last thing I do, I’m going to be chief captain of the combined Chadwick and Kennedy lines—and no high school kids are going to get in my way by telling Old Man Kennedy about those high-grade ore discoveries. So, remember that, Briggs—and now get out of here and let me get some sleep.”
Still trembling, the shaken mate crept from Captain West’s quarters and closed the door softly behind him. Then he slipped down the passageway toward the tiny cabin occupied by Sandy Steele and Jerry James.
The moment Mr. Briggs vanished from sight, the door of the cabin adjoining the skipper’s came stealthily open. Then, slowly, the figure of a little bald-headed man emerged. He shut the door carefully behind him, and then glanced swiftly up and down the corridor.
On tiptoe, he slipped over to Captain West’s door. He bent his head to listen. Then he backed off carefully and raised both clenched fists to shake them in a gesture of anger and defiance, before he whirled silently and made his way out of sight.
The little bald-headed man was Cookie.
He had heard every word spoken in the captain’s cabin since Sandy and Jerry had made their appearance there. Every inch of his little frame burned with determination to come to the rescue of his young friends and help thwart the schemes of the crafty Captain West.
In their own cabin, meanwhile, the two friends had just climbed wearily into their bunks.
Suddenly they shot erect as they heard a rattling and clanking outside their door. But they knew in the next instant what the noise meant. It was Mr. Briggs “dogging down” the heavy outside handle.
“Well,” Jerry said, “now we’re prisoners.”
“Yes,” Sandy said, “but I have a funny feeling that things are going to start to get better.”
“Why?”
“Because,” Sandy said grimly, “they couldn’t possibly get any worse.”
Unfortunately, Sandy Steele was wrong.
Things could get worse, and they did.
They worsened, not only for the two youths from Valley View, California, but for everyone aboard theJames Kennedy—to say nothing of all those other thousands of human souls who sailed the lower Lakes on that memorable summer morning.
For it was on that morning that a freak summer storm that had been rushing down from the north, roared like a scourge across Lake Huron before bursting in all its fury upon the shallow waters of Lake Erie. It was a storm that blew with shattering force across a body of water notorious for rough weather.
There are no storms so sudden and so strong as those that fall upon the Great Lakes, and Sandy Steele and Jerry James were about to witness one of the worst within the memory of the grizzled sailors of “the unsalted seas.”
There are the treacherous gales, and sometimes hurricanes, of late fall or early winter—those wailing winds that sheathe a ship in fresh-water ice, before driving it to its destruction.
In the days of sailing ships, there have been single storms upon the Lakes in which as many as a hundred ships—with thousands of sailors and passengers—have perished within twenty-four hours. Steam-driven freighters, and motorships, too, have sunk to the bottom of these cold waters—and more than a few of the ocean liners that have managed to make their way to the Lakes via the St. Lawrence River have gone to a fresh-water grave.
The very first ship to sail the Lakes was the bark,Griffon, of the famous French explorer, LaSalle. It set sail from Buffalo on August 7, 1679, reached the shores of Lake Michigan, and then disappeared completely on its return voyage.
From Superior to Ontario, the floors of the Lakes are littered with all manner of ships that have gone down in these storms—with their cargoes, their jewels, their gold, their stacks of currency still undamaged in safes.
And it is above the surface of Lake Erie, the body of water toward which theJames Kennedywas placidly steaming, that the Great Lakes storms blow the worst and the wildest. For Lake Erie is the shallowest of all the lakes. Its average depth is only 70 feet, compared to that of 250 for the rest of them. At its deepest, it is only 210 feet—compared to 1,180 feet on Lake Superior.
Erie is a shallow saucer, a basin, and when the winds go whistling across its surface they create something of the effect that a boy might make by blowing onto a shallow saucer of water—but on a much, much greater scale. The winds whip up mountainous waves that can break a freighter in two. There have been storms on Lake Erie as freakish and furious as that recorded by the veteran mariner who had moored his vessel on the Canadian shore opposite Buffalo. To his amazement, the wind blew so savagely that it drove the water out and away from his ship’s hull and left him sitting there, high and dry!
Even today, in our modern age, there have been freighters that have ventured into Erie storms, from whom nothing has been heard except a last, despairing message: “We are breaking up.”
So it was on Lake Erie that this unusual summer storm struck with such violence, only a few hours after theJames Kennedyhad left the Detroit River and swung its prow east by north for Buffalo.
Oddly enough, Captain West was elated when the storm broke.
He would not have been quite so overjoyed had he known how terrible it would become. But his first reaction to the gale was simply that this would probably keep theJames Kennedy, and the two youths, out on the Lakes until well after Mr. Paul Chadwick had finished his deal with Mr. Kennedy.
In fact, Captain West had decided against going ashore in Detroit for much the same reasons. He had suddenly realized that it might be risky to place Sandy Steele and Jerry James within reach of a big city—with its telephones and telegraphs, and, worse, its buses and railroads. They might, in some way, get off the ship. Then they would be free to warn Mr. Kennedy.
So Captain West had left orders to make downriver past Detroit and out into Lake Erie.
He awoke to the shudder and roll of his ship. In his ears, he could hear the whine of a rising wind. When he gazed out of his porthole, his eyes fell on a slate-gray sea.
“A storm!” he cried, grinning with wicked delight. “Oh, ho, Captain West’s luck is running good. This’ll close that deal for good and all!”
Pleased as could be, the skipper sprang from his bunk and began putting on his foul-weather clothing. He strode briskly from his cabin. About to make topside, he paused at the mate’s door. He swung it open and leaned in.
“Briggs, I think you’d better unlock those boys.”
The mate gawked as though he couldn’t believe his ears, but Captain West held up a thick, hairy paw when he opened his mouth to protest.
“Do as I say! They’re not going anywhere, especially in this storm. It’s one thing to keep them locked up like that under the pretext of facing charges, Briggs. But it’s another to have them trapped below decks during a storm.”
The mate nodded obediently, and Captain West wheeled and headed for the ladder. Moving along the passageway, he was surprised to find that he had to stretch out flat against the bulkhead to keep from falling. TheJames Kennedywas bucking that much!
Clambering up the ladder, he needed all his strength to keep from being thrown below. When he got on deck, the wind seemed to whistle through his ears, and he pursed his lips in a whistle of his own when he observed the huge, rising seas and the dirty clouds scudding low and threatening above him.
Glancing over the side, Captain West whistled again.
There was a good two feet less of freeboard already, and theJames Kennedyseemed to be plunging deeper into the steely, rain-dimpled waves. Captain West pulled his cap lower on his forehead and thrust one powerful shoulder ahead of him as he bucked into the screaming wind. The rain came slanting at him in sheets and raked his face. He ducked his chin deeper into his shoulder, not quite so jubilant a skipper as he had been upon awakening.
For this, indeed, was the start of a real blow!
Below decks, Sandy Steele and Jerry James were awake, too. They had been so for perhaps a half hour before Captain West, roused from a deep sleep by the unfamiliar pitching of the vessel. Now they sat on the lower bunk. Both boys had deeply serious expressions on their faces. Sandy was not even aware of the cowlick that hung forward on his forehead, and Jerry James’s brow was a mass of wrinkles. They were listening to the steady clanking and groaning of theJames Kennedy’s steel fibers as the laden ore boat rolled in the rising seas. Even below, they could hear the thin wailing of the winds above.
“Sounds like a real storm, Sandy.”
“Yes, and do you realize what this could mean?”
“Well, I guess it could mean anything—that is, if it got bad enough.”
“Oh, I don’t mean sinking or anything like that. I mean it could keep us from reaching Buffalo in time.”
“Oh,” Jerry said, in a small, glum voice, and for a time neither youth spoke. Then they heard a rattling at their door.
It opened, and the unfriendly face of Mr. Briggs peeped in. The two youths leaped to their feet.
“Stay where you are!” the mate snapped. “You ain’t going anywheres.” He grunted, pushing the door back and securing it against the bulkhead. “Skipper says he wants your door open. Can’t say as I agree with him, but he’s the skipper.”
“Can we go out?” Sandy asked.
“No.”
“How about some food?” Jerry queried, rubbing his stomach.
The mate snickered. “You’ll get the same as the others—biscuits and water.” He snickered again. “That’s all the food that’s left after what you two boobs done to the galley.”
“Whatwedid!” they chorused, indignantly.
“Yes, you!” the mate snarled, backing into the passageway. “And don’t try to come it over me with that innocent-angels business.”
Sandy and Jerry exchanged glances of amazement, and then, again, they burst out laughing.
“Boy, oh, boy,” Jerry breathed, to the annoyance of the mate, “when our Mr. Briggs tells a story, he sticks to it!”
The mate’s mouth flew open for an angry reply, but then, it just remained agape and not a sound issued forth.
The mate seemed to be rising in the air, towering over the two youths in the cabin. He lost his balance and fell. His mouth still yawning and his hands frantically clawing for a hold on the smooth steel deck, he began to slide toward them.
Then the boys were hurled backward against the bulkhead. They struck it with a crash and slithered to the floor, all but stunned.
For one long dreadful moment, it seemed to all three of them that theJames Kennedywould never return from that sickening roll to starboard. There was that bottomless instant when it appeared that the heavily burdened vessel would never stop heeling over until it had turned turtle and plunged to the bottom.
Then, it stopped.
It seemed to hang in the air.
Sandy and Jerry drew their breath in sharply. They had the terrible sensation that there was nothing beneath theJames Kennedyto support it, and that once this long, hanging pause had ended—it would drop, drop, drop. Slowly, they let their breath out.
The vessel had begun to right itself.
With the same slow, deliberate, rolling motion, it heeled over to port, and now it was Sandy and Jerry who rose in the air above the mate and who felt themselves sliding toward him. Again, it seemed that theJames Kennedywould overturn, and the hanging sensation was repeated. But when the vessel had righted itself this time, it seemed merely to shiver—before plowing straight ahead.
Scrambling erect, the two youths stared at Mr. Briggs. The mate’s face had been drained of color and his little eyes glistened with fear.
“That,” he said, in a voice hoarse with awe and disbelief, “was a wave!”
Up above, in the pilothouse, Captain West had watched that monster swell come and go, and now even he was a trifle shaken as he mopped his brow in relief. He wondered what would have happened if that wall of water had struck them fore and aft, rather than abeam.
He gazed through his windows and wagged his head gravely. The winds still rose in violence. They whipped at theJames Kennedyfrom every quarter, seeming to change direction every other moment like a cyclone gone mad. The seas were a battering confusion. The waves ran this way, the wind another. Between them, they tore at the ship’s superstructure and thundered against her sides. Sometimes two great waves would dash at each other from opposite directions, colliding with a great roar and a shattering shower of spray.
Captain West saw with alarm that the waves were increasing in height. They were already well past ten feet. They would go on to twenty, of that he was disturbingly certain—and after that?
After that, Captain West knew, waves and running seas of that height would batter the long, narrow, shallowJames Kennedyuntil she broke in two. He no longer placed such great importance on staying out of port to make sure of Mr. Chadwick’s deal. He would have given anything, just then, to be safe and snug behind the breakwater at Buffalo.
Peering through his rain-splashed windows, the skipper sought a glimpse of some other vessel. But his visibility had been greatly reduced by the sheets of rain and the darkening skies. The unearthly light that had greeted him when he came on deck had been slowly subsiding. Now, as the clock raced on toward noon and the storm raged on in unabated fury, he could see only the clashing seas around him and hear that high-pitched wailing of the wind.
He shook himself.
“This is bad, very bad,” he said to Sam, who had taken over as wheelsman.
“Aye, aye, sir,” Sam said. “I’ve been through some bad ones on the Lakes—but I’ve not seen any worse than this one. And it’s just starting, if I read the signals right.”
The captain bobbed his head in unhappy assent. TheJames Kennedystaggered and seemed to shake herself as she drove forward into a wall of lake water, and he embraced a stanchion to keep his feet. He waited until the vessel had steadied herself, and then he lurched across the pilothouse to the rear windows to stare with dismay at the spectacle below him.
Grayish seas were swamping the decks of theJames Kennedy, and the crewmen were frantically at work trying to secure the hatch of one of the holds. Wind and water had torn at a corner of the steel hatch and had peeled it back as though a giant can opener had been at work. Each time theKennedydug into one of the heavy seas swinging toward it, the crewmen would seize the rails and hang on for dear life while the water swept down on them.
Then, while the vessel rose high again and the waters ran off the sides, they would resume the battle against the hatch—battering away at it with sledge hammers in an attempt to seal the hold.
One look at this scene was enough for Captain West. He could see at a glance that more men were needed.
“Mr. Briggs!” he shouted at his mate through the speaking tube. “Get every available man up on deck to Number Four hatch!”
The mate’s voice wailed hollowly in reply: “They’re all up there already, sir—every man that can be spared.”
“Nonsense, Briggs! Who else have you got down there?”
“Just myself and those two high school brats.”
Captain West fell silent. He frowned. The ship shuddered and he was forced to grab Sam’s shoulder for support. Below, he could see the angry waters sweeping down the decks while the crewmen clung in terror to the rail. Many of them, he noticed, had wrapped lines around their waists and secured them to the railing. But there just weren’t enough of them—and that hatch, yawning like a fatal hole in the ship’s armor, just had to be closed! If it was not, if it grew larger, then the lake water would pour through. It would saturate the tons and tons of ore that lay in the typical ore freighter’s single huge hold. The weight of theJames Kennedywould be at least doubled, and the merest ripple or slightest breeze might suffice to send her plunging to the bottom!
No, that hatch must be sealed! Every available hand was needed to do it, and quickly, even though they might belong to the most troublesome pair of youths Captain West had ever known.
“Send them up, Mr. Briggs,” he ordered, and turned to give additional orders to the wheelsman, Sam.
Below, Mr. Briggs aimed a thumb at his “prisoners” and grunted, “Get up to Number Four hatch on the double. You heard the captain, so you know what’s wanted. Take a crowbar there, and you both better have a line.” He leered. “If you want to get to Buffalo, you’d better tie yourself to the rail up there and hang on tight.”
Without a word, Sandy Steele and Jerry James seized coils of rope from hooks along the passageway. Then Sandy grasped a crowbar and the two hastened topside.
Sandy could not suppress a gasp of astonishment the moment he emerged on deck and felt the smashing power of that screaming wind, and sensed, rather than felt, the awesome force of those mountainous seas thundering down on theJames Kennedywith the crunching sound of huge boulders colliding. There was water everywhere, pelting down from above in the rain and rising in great shafts of spray and spume as the waves cracked and crashed on the wallowing freighter.
Jerry James was aghast. He opened his mouth and shouted something at Sandy, but the wind tore the words from his mouth. The two boys were forced to talk in gestures. Sandy laid down his crowbar, placing a foot on it to keep it from rolling over the side. Then he pointed to the rail. He wound his rope around his waist. Next, he looped it over the railing, before fashioning a good strong slipknot. He backed off a few feet, the muscles of his calves straining to maintain a purchase on the slippery, heeling decks. Carefully, he tugged. The rope held. He nodded at Jerry and his friend followed suit. Once, just before Jerry had finished, the black-haired youth looked up and saw, in fright, a huge wave bearing down on them amidships. It struck the side just as theJames Kennedyrolled away from it—luckily for the two youths.
The impact of that wave sent a long shiver through the 600-foot length of their freighter and what seemed a very wall of water shot high into the air before it fell on them with a drenching crash. It drove them to their knees.
So great was the shock, that neither Sandy nor Jerry could remember the sensation of coldness or wetness. All they could think of was that mighty weight that flattened them, almost driving the breath from their bodies.
Then the water began to wash away, and Sandy Steele felt an almost irresistible tug. Quickly, he wound his arms around the line he had only just fastened to the railing. He tried to stand up, but the rushing water knocked his legs out from under him. He seemed immersed in a whitish, greenish froth, but then, as his eyes and ears cleared he saw the low clouds swinging overhead and the lake water boiling by beneath him, and heard the despairing cry of his friend:
“Help, Sandy! Help, I’m going!”
Too late, Jerry James had rushed to finish tying his slipknot. But he had it only half finished when the wave struck. The water swept him up like a chip and now it was rushing him toward his destruction, over the side.
Sandy Steele saw his friend’s peril.
Without hesitation, he released his own grip on the line and dove for Jerry’s body.
He dove against the water and he struck Jerry with a waist-high tackle.
As his wiry arms closed around his friend’s middle, Sandy snapped his own body around in a half-twist, whirling himself against the pressure of the rope. It was well that he did, for the receding wave was pushing him in the other direction. That way, the rope would have unwound and the two boys would have rolled over the side and drowned.
But Sandy Steele’s split-second thinking applied the pressure in the right place and the rope held.
Gasping, the two lay on the deck. They could see the angry, running seas beneath them, and then, as theJames Kennedyheeled away, the rim of the lake and then only the clouds.
They were saved.
But they were too weak to congratulate each other, and all that Jerry James could do to show his gratitude was to flop his hand weakly on his friend’s back. Now, as they blew lake water from their mouths, they were aware of the cold, of their drenched clothing clinging to their goose-pimpled flesh, and of the chill breath of the wind.
“Let’s go!” Sandy finally shouted. “If we stand here, we may get socked with another one.”
Jerry nodded and quickly secured himself to the rail, glancing up every now and then as though he expected to see another great black wave racing toward him. Then they made their way forward to the Number Four hatch where the little band of lake sailors struggled bravely to keep the lake out of theJames Kennedy’s hold.
There were nine deck hands and one deck officer, a tall, serious-looking man named Davis. Through his water-filled eyes, Sandy could see that Mr. Davis had taped his spectacles securely to his temples, for fear they would be washed away. He remembered Sam saying that Mr. Davis was “as blind as a bat” without his glasses. Sam was with the group, too—ordered down from the pilothouse by Captain West. That was probably because the skipper wanted to make good use of the great strength that lay in Sam’s deep chest and thick shoulders. Sam swung a heavy sledge hammer, as he and two other men—one of them a blond, Swedish giant named Gunnar—attempted to batter the sprung steel hatch cover back into place. Sandy could hear the metallic clanging of their blows above the wind and sea as he and Jerry approached, both of them side-stepping along the rail while they clung to their ropes.
Then Mr. Davis yelled, “All hands to the rails!”
To his horror, Sandy saw that theJames Kennedy’s prow had plunged into a wall of water that reared before it. The bow sliced into it as theVof a plow might pierce a snowbank—and though the boat itself remained steady, that parted wave was now flowing around either side of the forward cabins and sweeping down the decks!
Swiftly, the men whirled and scurried for the rails. They dove for them, in fact! They curled around them and bent and turned their heads away from the onrushing water, and Sandy noticed that the hammer-swingers had fastened their tools to their wrists by thick lengths of rope.
Then the water hit.
It was far worse than the wave that had nearly carried Jerry James to his death.
But it did not last as long. It struck with swift savagery, lifting Sandy and Jerry and the rest of them from their feet. It sought to tear them free of the rail and drive them aft and into the water. But that great crushing blow and terrible tug was only of a few seconds’ duration, and then it was gone.
Sandy looked around. Water was spilling back over the sides of theJames Kennedy, but at the rail, where there had been ten men, there were now only eight.
Two men had been washed overboard, one of them a hammer man.
But there was little time to dwell upon the horror of those missing figures at the rail.
Mr. Davis had lost his glasses. The wave had torn them from his head. The tall deck officer peered wildly about him. He had backed from the rail, digging furiously at his eyes to clear them of water. Now, as he looked around him on the deck of the heaving ship, it was plain that he had lost his bearings. He took a step forward. Another. Then, rapidly, two more. He was walking toward the rail!
Involuntarily, Sandy and Jerry took two steps toward him. But they were too far away.
Their friend Sam wasn’t.
The stocky seaman with the muscles like steel hawsers swiftly shot out a clutching hand and stopped his superior officer before he drowned himself.
“You’ll have to go back, sir!” Sam shouted above the wind. “You can’t stay out here blinded like that. Here,” he shouted at one of the men, “help Mr. Davis below.”
The man wound a guiding arm around the deck officer, and together, they made their way aft along the rail.
Sam glanced at Sandy Steele and Jerry and shouted, “You two—we need your help. Come over here. That’s right, pay out the line.”
The two lads let go their tight hold on their safety lines and came over to the torn hatch, turning around and around to unwind their ropes.
“Now,” Sam shouted again, cupping his hands so that he could be heard above the storm and the rattling of the ship. “Now, we can’t waste any more time rushing over to the rail every time we ship a little water. That last wave must have poured a couple of tons of water into the hold. A few more like that, and we’ll be down in Davy Jones’s locker. Here’s what we’re going to do.
“We’ve got eight men left and two sledge hammers. So, Gunnar here takes one hammer and I take the other. While we’re hammering down the hatch cover, you three hold Gunnar,” he said, pointing to a trio of seamen, “and you three hold me.” He pointed to Sandy and Jerry and a fourth seaman. “If the water comes over the side again, well, we’ll just have to ride it out. You men secure yourselves to those bits. And for gosh sakes,” he yelled, his husky voice rising to full volume, “don’t anybody let go of Gunnar or me when the water hits!”
Quickly, Sandy and Jerry did as they were ordered. They fastened themselves to those stubby, mushroom-shaped iron pegs that are called bits. Then, Jerry and the other seaman wound their arms around Sam’s powerful legs and Sandy, because he was the tallest, grabbed him by the waist.
Sam and Gunnar got to work.
Their hammers clanged rapidly against the stubborn steel, forcing it down at a steady but agonizingly slow pace. Sandy marveled to feel the strength surging through Sam’s hard torso, as he hugged the sturdy seaman with all his might. Sam’s chest heaved and the muscles of his back bunched as he brought the heavy hammer up and down, up and down.
Soon, Sandy’s own body ached from the strain of holding Sam erect against the swaying and staggering of theJames Kennedy. And the hole was being closed so slowly!
Once, a fair-sized wave swept suddenly over them. Sandy felt Sam go down under its onslaught, but he held him fast even though his body screamed in pain from the effort. The seaman and Jerry held on, too, and when the waters had spilled back into Lake Erie, a grinning Sam spat contemptuously and scrambled to his feet and swung his hammer again.
The resumed clanging of the hammer swung by Gunnar, the Swede, told Sandy that his crew had held fast as well.
Now, the hatch was closed. Sam and Gunnar were swiftly and skillfully pounding the steel snugly into place when a sudden gust of wind spun Sam around just as he was bringing his hammer down for the final blow.
Unable to stop himself, Sam now had his whistling sledge hammer aimed directly at the unsuspecting head of Gunnar! In a fraction of a second, the iron hammerhead would drive deep into Gunnar’s skull. It would smash it open as easily as an eggshell, with Sam’s great strength propelling it.
In that tiny interval of time, Sandy Steele swiftly sat down. He buckled his legs and dragged Sam back with him, and as he did, he heard a familiar voice beneath him yelp with pain. There was a loud metallic clang—like the sound of a firebell—as Sam’s sledge hammer swished harmlessly past the back of Gunnar’s head and struck the steel deck with terrific force. But the big Swede had been saved, even if Sandy’s friend Jerry seemed to have wound up a casualty.
He lay writhing on the deck and Sandy had to bend quickly to make sure the rolling of the ship didn’t roll him over the side.
“What’s wrong?” he shouted in Jerry’s ear.
“My ankle,” Jerry yelled back, grimacing. “I think it’s sprained. When you fell on me, I guess.”
Sandy groaned. He was sorry that his friend had been hurt, of course, but now, he realized, he would have to go it alone. He glanced up and saw the Swede staring down with a puzzled look on his face. His gaze wavered from Jerry to the spot where Sam’s hammer had struck, making him jump in surprise. Now Sam was waving his arms wildly and shouting an explanation of what had happened. As he spoke, Gunnar’s mouth came open and his blue eyes grew round.
When Sam had finished, Gunnar came over to Sandy. He leaned down and yelled in his ear, “Tanks. You ban safe my life. You goot poy.”
Sandy nodded, embarrassed. Then he said, “Can you help me move my friend? I think he’s sprained his ankle.”
Gunnar bent and lifted Valley View High School’s husky right end as easily as a child. “Ay take him below,” he said simply, shifting Jerry’s weight to one side and supporting him with one huge arm, while with the other he held fast to the rail. He staggered off.
Sam grinned at Sandy. “Nice work, Sandy,” he said, shouting through cupped hands again. “You sure made a friend today.”
Sandy nodded. He had glanced up to see Captain West staring down at him from the pilothouse. It recalled to him that the most important mission of his voyage still lay ahead of him, and that his dependable friend, Jerry, probably would no longer be of help.
“I sure hope so, Sam,” Sandy said. “Because I think I may be needing one.”
Then Sandy Steele and Sam swayed aft with the rest of theJames Kennedy’s weary deck hands.
Jerry James’s ankle seemed swollen to twice its normal size by the time the big seaman, Gunnar, had carried him below and gently deposited him on the bottom bunk of Sandy’s and Jerry’s cabin.
“It’s yust a sprain, Ay tank,” Gunnar mumbled as he peered at the ankle after having removed Jerry’s dripping clothing and wrapped him in blankets.
“Does it hurt much, Jerry?” Sandy asked anxiously.
Jerry tried to smile and shrug it off. But it was obvious to Sandy that his friend was in great pain. He turned around, bumping into Sam, who had also jammed himself into the tiny room. Outside the open door, Mr. Briggs stared in at the scene with eyes of unpitying curiosity.
“Have you got any medicine, Sam?” Sandy asked. “I mean, something to kill his pain a little.”
Sam shrugged. “Best thing that we can do is give him some rest and try to get that swelling down. He’ll need a doctor’s care when we get to port.” He paused as theJames Kennedybegan to heel over in a long roll. Everybody reached for support, and Sam grinned and added, “Ifwe get to port.”
“We will,” the mate butted in. “Captain just called down to say the wind’s going down.”
“Py yiminy,” said the big Swede, beaming, “Ay tank Ay live long enough for farm, after all.”
Sam smiled fondly at Gunnar. “You big galoot,” he said, good-humoredly. “You can’t stand to be ashore two days without getting landsick.” He turned his gaze back to Jerry James. “You know,” he said, “I think I’ve got just the thing to take down that swelling some and ease the pain, too.”
“What’s that?” Sandy asked.
“Well, seeing as how you must have swallowed a couple of bucketfuls of it yourself not long ago, I’ll tell you. It’s lake water!” He leaned out into the passageway and called, “Hey, one of you lads, get up above and fetch us a bucket of lake water, hear?” Then he grinned, plainly enjoying himself. “All you have to do is stand on deck until the first wave comes along!”
In another five minutes, Jerry James had been carefully lifted into a sitting position by Gunnar and his sprained right foot had been thrust into a bucket of cold Lake Erie water. Jerry had winced at his first contact with it, but he soon grew accustomed to it. In half an hour more, the swelling had gone down considerably and Jerry was able to turn in with his ankle swathed in strips of sheeting soaked with water.
“Keep dousing it with water every hour or so,” Sam had suggested to Sandy.
Then Sam and Gunnar had trudged back to the barren mess hall to join the rest of the crewmen who squatted glumly against the bulkheads, munching the hard biscuits and cold water passed out to them by a Cookie who seemed to have lost his usual cheerful spirits.
Up above, meanwhile, Captain West saw, to his alarm, that he had been mistaken about the storm. The winds had indeed died down, but only for a time.
Now, with the coming of darkness, they were again rising. What had resumed as the gentlest of whispers was now a wild screaming and hammering around the pilothouse that threatened to smash in even those stoutly reinforced windows. The seas were again pounding. TheJames Kennedyseemed to be weakening. No longer did she plow ahead, straight and true, with the passage of each successive wave. Now she was wallowing in the troughs—and the thundering seas battered her mercilessly. Each time, she staggered and drove on. But each time, she seemed to drive on a little less powerfully.
The waves roared at her in combinations now—sometimes two waves following quickly upon another, frequently three.
Alone in his pilothouse, Captain West realized that a few hours more of such punishment would mean the end of his ship and all aboard her. Below, in the mess hall, the veteran sailors realized it, too. But they said nothing, merely exchanging fearful glances. Only God could save them now, they knew. In such a storm, even the most superb seamanship was useless.
Captain West knew it, too. He wondered if he should radio for help. But what good would that do? Who could get to him? Besides, Captain West had no wish to make contact with the mainland. The storm had given him his perfect excuse for arriving in Buffalo too late to communicate with his employer, Mr. Kennedy. He wished to stay out of contact with the Kennedy offices for as long as possible.
But something had to be done. Quickly, Captain West bent over his chart. His eyes swept over it, eagerly searching for some island or outcropping of land to which he might run for shelter. All around him now were the voices of insane power, the clashing and crashing of that surging sea, the wailing of the wind. As Captain West bent his head, a great wall of water gathered before theJames Kennedy’s bow.
It rose, black and awful, to the height of Captain West’s pilothouse—and then it struck.
It fell with a roar. Captain West dove for a stanchion. He threw his arms around it and held on. The water burst the bulkheads of the pilothouse. It flattened those steel walls as though they were made of paper. It swept away the pilothouse as easily as a wave washing away a fruit crate.
Captain West heard that wrenching roar, and then the lake water poured over him. He clung desperately to the stanchion. He felt that monstrous weight—hundreds and hundreds of tons—driving theJames Kennedydown and down, and he wondered if the vessel would ever re-emerge from it.
Down below, in his tiny cabin, Sandy Steele held his breath as he felt that wave strike the ship and drive it down.
But theJames Kennedycame up.
Buried though she had been, the gallant vessel shook herself like a soaked and weary mastiff, and her bow popped out of the frothing white seas, streaming water from every side—and she gave a long shudder and drove forward again.
A concerted sigh of relief broke from the throats of the lake sailors huddled in the mess hall.
Sandy Steele felt the light film of perspiration that had gathered on his forehead, and he involuntarily squeezed the arm of his friend.
Captain West slowly released his grip on the stanchion.
They had been through the worst of it, he knew now.
The wind was dropping as swiftly as it had risen. Above him, the clouds were thinning out. A ghostly glow seemed to illuminate the scene as the moon shone palely through them. In its light, Captain West could see the dark seas running around him, glittering like polished black glass.
Captain West surveyed the damage to his pilothouse. The compass was destroyed. The steering gear was so badly damaged that it would be impossible to make any headway against a strong wind. But the wind was falling to a murmur. He would be able to steer, and he would navigate by hand compass from one of the lifeboats.
He decided to wait another few minutes to be certain that the storm was over. Then he would go below to fetch Sam and the big Swede, Gunnar. He couldn’t call them. The speaking system was ruined, too.
Captain West removed his hat and began to wring it dry. If he lived to be a hundred, he told himself, he would never see another wave like that one.
The men in the mess hall were in an ugly mood.
They knew that the worst was over, and so they had begun to grumble. With nothing to fear, they had time to complain. Mr. Briggs was quick to seize upon their discontent and turn it to his own ends.
He had been listening to two of them grumble bitterly about the fact that they had had nothing solid to eat since lunch the day before. The smaller of the pair, a man with sharp features and untidy, mouse-colored hair, had begun to talk louder and louder.
“Thirty-six hours, Dick,” he complained. “Thirty-six hours since we’ve had a real bite or a hot sup. Nothing but hard biscuits and stale water.”
“Aye,” said his friend heavily. “And whose fault is it? What are we doing out on Erie at a time like this, when we could be ashore in Detroit? We could be drinking our coffee nice and easy in some restaurant right now. Whose fault is it? That’s what I want to know.”
Mr. Briggs’s little eyes roved rapidly over the mess hall. He saw with satisfaction that Sam and Gunnar had dozed off. He sidled over to the two discontented men, who had begun to cast dark, threatening glances about them as though they sought the author of their misfortunes.
“Who’s to blame, you say?” Mr. Briggs whispered, glancing quickly around him. “I’ll tell you.” He pointed down the passageway. “It’s those snippy brats of Old Man Kennedy’s, that’s who’s to blame!” he burst out.
“Oh, come, now,” the little man named Bogert said. “Don’t tell me that a couple of vacationing high school boys have anything to do with running this ship.”
“Just listen to me!” Mr. Briggs said fiercely. “Who do you think caused that fire in the galley last night? It was those two blasted brats tomfoolin’ around, that’s who it was! If you’re wondering who you’ve got to thank for your empty bellies, it’s those kids down the way. Especially the blond one. Every last scrap of decent food was burned up in that fire. That’s why you’re getting biscuits and water.”
The two men exchanged angry glances. Seeing that he had convinced them, Mr. Briggs rushed on.
“And why are we out on Lake Erie instead of being berthed in Detroit? That’s their fault, too! The skipper didn’t want to make for Buffalo so soon. But he had to. With a couple of firebugs like them aboard, he said he couldn’t take any chances!”
The big man named Dick let out a low growl.