“Shanghaied him, by thunder!”
Ed Davis grinned down at the sleeping Tom. TheSadiewas dancing to the lilting ground swells, at dawn, far out beyond Catalina Island.
“Below there!” rang the voice of Clem, on deck above. “Ed, rouse that fellow up, or I’ll do it myself!”
Ed, who was about to turn in, after standing watch all night, shrugged his shoulders and grinned. Then he caught the sleeping Tom Saunders by the leg, hauled him roughly out of the bunk, and, planting two stinging blows, sent him up the tiny companionway with a kick.
Furious, half awake, cursing, Saunders gained his balance on the deck and stared at the ocean in blank bewilderment. Clem, at the wheel, let out a roar.
“Wake up, you slob! Take one o’ them buckets and a broom, an’ wash down the decks!”
Tom stared at the pilot house, saw Clem’s battered features, and comprehended at last. His heavy face contracted in anger.
“By thunder, I’ll make you sweat for this!” he burst forth, and came on the run.
Clem slipped a loop over the wheel and met Tom halfway. Nor did he waste any time or sympathy, for he was a captain, and his crew was in mutiny. Before Tom could get within fighting distance, Clem smashed him across the head with the butt end of a gaff. He reeled back, caught at the rail, and clung there weakly.
“I’ve a word to say to you, Tom Saunders,” remarked Clem quietly, watching him for signs of further trouble. “You think you’re something of a boss scrapper, and a deuce of a sporty chap. You’re not. You’re a cheap, low-down drunken loafer!
“You keep away from your old father and mother as much as you can, and you loaf around the water front, gambling and fighting and drinking. Well, you’re going to get your fill o’ fighting this trip, believe me! You’re going to realize that you got a blamed sight better home than any pool room will furnish——”
Tom, partly recovered from that stunning blow, leaped in again.
Clem raised the gaff, then dropped it.He saw that Tom was a glutton for punishment, and determined to administer it. Yet he admired deeply the dogged courage of the other.
Cool, confident, smiling, for a good ten minutes he smashed Tom Saunders about the deck. At the end of that time Tom collapsed, both eyes pulling, and his face hammered black and blue. Clem caught up a canvas bucket, trailed it over the side, and sluiced Tom with cold salt water until Tom sat up, gasping and half drowned.
“If you’ve had enough, get busy and clean them decks!” snapped Clem.
Tom had not had enough, as his curses showed, but he set to work cleaning the decks. During breakfast, he eyed Clem in sullen silence, and after breakfast Clem set him to work cleaning out the fish boxes and untangling lines and leaders.
Shortly afterward, Clem caught sight of a flock of gulls far to the south, and headed theSadiefor them. Where the gulls were there were yellowtail, and skipjack also. Calling Tom, he put him to work at the outriggers.
These were long ten-foot poles, set into sockets just abaft the pilot house, and projecting over the rails. From each pole were set out three hundred-yard lines, the outermost of which bore automatic strikers, the others bearing hooks and minnows.
Five minutes later they got the first strike, and then the fun waxed fast and furious. Clem let out a yell for Ed Davis, and they began to haul in fifteen and twenty-pound yellowtail as fast as the trolling lines could be drawn taut. As Clem and Tom hauled in the fighting, darting, leaping fish, Ed gaffed them.
By noon they had over twenty, with a few barracuda and skipjacks. Then Clem hauled about for San Clemente, looped the wheel, and settled down with the others to lunch.
“When you get the dishes washed up, Tom,” said Ed Davis, “you’d better clean one of them barracuda for supper. Then give that cabin a good cleaning and then——”
“Say, you fellers are almighty fresh!” said Tom Saunders, feeling his black-and-blue eyes tenderly. “How long is this thing goin’ to last?”
“Until we get ready to quit,” said Davis, grinning pleasantly. “Your proud spirit needs a whole lot o’ chastening, friend Tom.”
“Well, what’s the idea? What have I ever done to you guys?”
“Nothing,” broke in Clem coldly. “But you’re becoming a pretty worthless sort of citizen, Tom. If I had a father and mother like yours, I’d try and make something of myself, instead of hanging around——”
“Yes, you’re a beaut!” sneered Tom. “’Cause you’re a city guy, now, you’re all stuck up, hey?”
“I don’t think you quite understand.” Clem smiled slightly. “You’re out of proportion with the real facts of life, Tom. Your outlook is warped. Instead of seeing things as they are, you see them from the viewpoint of your pool-room and saloon friends. Well, when we get back to Pedro you’ll have forgotten all your dreams of being a tough fighter and gambler and drinker. You’re really such a splendid chap at bottom, Tom——”
With a snarl of fury, Tom Saunders leaped to his feet. Unobserved, he had worked himself into position by the rack holding the fish gaffs. With the rapidity of lightning, he seized one of the ten-foot poles and made a vicious lunge for Clem.
Clem ducked. The curved, sharp, unbarbed steel missed his shoulder by a hair’s breadth and tore through his flannel shirt. It would have gone through his flesh quite as easily.
Before Tom could extricate the weapon Ed Davis was on him in one leap.
Let it be understood that it was contrary to the natures both of Davis and of Clem Frobisher to treat any one with the brutality which they were displaying toward Tom Saunders. Yet it was not brutality. They were both thinking, not of Tom, but of the two old people in the vine-wreathed cottage.
Ed had mapped out a course, Clem had approved it, as had Captain Ezra Saunders, and now the two partners were following it rigidly. If it turned out badly, Tom would get no more than he deserved; if it turned out well, so much the better.
Blinded though he was, however, Tom gave the lanky Iowan the fight of his life. It was full seven minutes before Ed had his opponent on the deck, and even then Tom still lashed out blindly at the figure sitting on his chest. Not until Clem doused him anew with bucket after bucket of water did he give in.
“All right,” he mumbled, rising unsteadily. “All right! You guys wait till I can see, that’s all!”
“There’s no waiting aboard this hooker!” snapped Clem. “You get for’ard and clean that fish, and do it right, see?”
“I’ll do nothin’ o’ the sort!” returned Tom through his split lips. “You can beat me up all you want—I ain’t goin’ to stir a foot.” A volley of oaths escaped him.
Clem, his lips tight clenched, inspected him for a moment, then turned to Ed.
“Get that bit of line out o’ the locker aft, Ed—the rope’s end that’s tarred. Go after this guy, and give him a taste of deep-sea sailors’ life.”
For the rest of the afternoon Tom Saunders worked like a horse. A bit of thin rope, tarred into a stiff club, is a wonderfully effective inducement, when properly applied. Poor Tom made close acquaintance with it.
“We’ll be off San Clemente at dawn, Ed,” said Clem that evening. He and Ed Davis were eating fried barracuda while Tom conned the helm. “It’ll be watch and watch all night, and we’ll have to keep him awake and working till he drops.”
“Haze him, eh?”
“Haze him until he’s darned near dead!” And Clem compressed his lips. “Ed, it’s an awful thing to do—but by golly it’s a whole lot more awful to think o’ him breakin’ poor old Ma Saunders’ heart!”
“We’ll breakhim!” said Ed, nodding as he spoke. “We’ll kill or cure, Clem—and I ain’t right sure which it’ll be.”
Neither was Clem, unfortunately.