Drowned Gold/Chapter 22

HE two men aboard the wrecker were suddenly startled into a most amusing activity. One of them ran to the rail, looked over, shouted something, and together they raced to the platform aft and looked down into the water, which by this time was beginning to curl ahead of them as, under the sturdy pull of the Hector, she was getting under full headway. It was as if a spell had been broken; for now we could hear loud cries, and men seemed to swarm aft from all directions. They ran pell-mell, this way and that, some to the rails, some forward, and one man even began to climb one of the stumpy masts, as if hoping from that altitude to discover what had bewitched their ship.

"They'll start their engines now," chuckled Jimmy, and I hastily ordered our own power shut off. We then reversed for a short distance, to give full slack to the towline, lest the cable, being tight, although midway between the two damaged propellers, be accidentally struck by one of the huge pieces as it broke away, thus cutting our line.

It was not a moment too soon, for immediately afterward Vennemann's ship turned her engines. She wavered for an instant, and then began to draw ahead.

"Good Lord!" exclaimed Jimmy, anxiously, as he stood by me. "Suppose she doesn't lose her screws?"

"But she will," I declared confidently; "she must. Wait till she tries full speed ahead." And then I called down to the man beneath and told him to go ahead at very slow speed. Before I could lift my head Jimmy gave an exultant yell.

"She's lost one," he roared, and looking out I saw that the wrecker was yawing badly, indicating that her starboard screw had given way, parted from the shaft, and dropped into the sea.

"We'll have to take a chance on the other screw cutting our cable," I declared, "lest we foul our own propellers." I gave orders for full speed and the Hector, with her wheel thrown so that we could swing our towline well out to starboard of the crippled ship, thus reducing the danger of a cut towline as much as possible, began to swing; but before this manœuvre was more than under way the second screw of the wrecker gave, and now the shouts from her rose to a confused yell. Instantly we altered our course, until again we took the full strain on the tow, enduring in the meantime considerable suspense concerning the safety of our line. We gradually increased speed, until it was being tested to the utmost, and convinced us then that it had been unscathed by the fall of the big pieces of bronze. Aboard the wrecker a powerful shaft of white light came into being, swept through the air, and like the lash of a whip thrown from the heavens above us, struck with blinding intensity. They had brought a searchlight into play from the platform astern. Hastily we closed the hatch of the conning-tower, and submerged a little deeper into the water, deliberately leaving but a portion of the top, which would afford but a small target, exposed, so that we might learn whether the Gretchen was armed. She tried her anchors, and they failed to reach bottom. For a full half-hour we ran thus, waiting in suspense for the sound of an explosion near us; but none came, and again we cautiously emerged and opened the hatch. Scarcely had we done so when an impotent volley of rifle bullets spattered against us. I decided to come completely to the surface, where we could use our Diesels.

Under this new power we forged steadily ahead through the night with the searchlights still upon us, and for a long time, until assured of the futility of rifle-fire, the men aboard the Gretchen kept up an aimless bombardment. We now swung eastward, until we had cleared the Point des Salines, off Martinique, and reached the open Atlantic, where we set our course due north, and those of us who were off watch calmly retired.

When I awoke it was broad daylight, and the sun was shining brilliantly over the surface of the sea. My first glance at the Gretchen showed me that her men were working doggedly at some makeshift contrivance on the platform astern, whose use I could not for a time conjecture, and then I discovered that they were evidently planning an apparatus by which they evidently hoped to grapple the tow, attach it to one of their powerful cranes, drag the line upward until it could be taken on by the winches, and then haul us into close or fighting quarters. There were two ways of stopping them, one by maintaining a steady rifle fire with the half-dozen rifles which luckily happened to be aboard the Hector, and the other to run such a bluff on Vennemann as to chill his enterprise. With but one man to assist me, and sheltered behind the armored conning-tower, I made my way out to the deck of the Hector, and elevated our wireless mast. During the whole of this proceeding they fired at us constantly, and one of the bullets, by some strange deflection, cut through the sleeve of my coat. We then retreated to the interior, where I went to the wireless room, and called the Gretchen until I got a response. I sent this message:

Of course it was sheer bluff, but I was depending upon the psychology of my opponent to swallow it whole. I knew that he would regard the situation as it would be if reversed, and was convinced that, had the situation been reversed, and with torpedoes aboard, he would have had no compunction whatever in using them. Furthermore, he was in no position to judge whether we did have torpedoes. Although in emergency we could cut our towline, and leave him derelict in the open sea, this did not at all answer my purpose, because I wished to make certain of his removal from any further interference in our proposed salvage expedition.

There was a wait of not more than three or four minutes, before this reply came back over the wireless:

I snapped back the following:

In exactly nine minutes after my first ultimatum I saw from the top of the conning-tower his men swarming aft and beginning the work of dismembering the contrivance through which he had hoped to humble me. Swinging out to the side we saw the ends of the anchor chains slip from their channels into the sea. My bluff had won. Furthermore, as if to assure me that he had completely surrendered, he ran up a white flag astern. Fearing treachery, however, none of us ventured out upon the deck of the Hector until well along in the afternoon. Our fears proved groundless, for not a shot was fired. The crew of the Gretchen wandered aimlessly about the decks, like sullen, discontented animals, imprisoned, and very plainly I could see yon Vennemann himself tramping angrily to and fro on his bridge, the picture of discomfiture. The sight gave me much pleasure. It was he who had thrown the challenge. He had wanted a fight and had got it in the most unexpected way.

At about 16° 7' N., 61° 5' W., off the Leeward Islands are what is known as the Petite Terre keys and shoals, an intricate and seldom visited group of islands off the eastern coast of Guadeloupe. The nearest port to them of any importance is Pointe-à-Pitre, some thirty miles to the westward. These islands were my destination, for among them I determined to maroon the Gretchen with her crew. She drew thirty-four feet of water, whereas the Hector, running light, drew but twelve feet, giving an advantage in draft of twenty-two feet. A study of my charts, with which we were perfectly equipped, disclosed the fact that there was a passage in the very middle of the keys through which the Hector could pass with ease, but upon which the Gretchen must ground herself. I had calculated the tides to a nicety for my purpose, and found that the time would prove fairly opportune for my purpose, extreme high tide being at about eight o'clock in the evening, which would leave me, after my purpose was accomplished, sufficient light to make my somewhat tortuous way in safety through the maze of islands and shoals, and reach the open sea before utter blackness intervened. We had to slow down to time our arrival with this tide, and for some hours barely sauntered through the water, on which we had not sighted a single sail.

I do not think that up to the very last moment Count von Vennemann had the remotest idea of what I proposed to do; but when the group of tropical islands came into sight on that beautiful southern evening, he must have believed that I was going to display toward him a most unexpected generosity, by taking him into some fine port of refuge where he could begin his machinations anew. I was not such a fool, nor was there the slightest tinge of kindliness in my heart for this man who had thwarted me so frequently, and had at last proven anything but a fair sportsman; for the sportsmanship of the seas is, after all, as well defined in its rules of conduct as any that were ever inaugurated upon land. Indeed, I thought I was treating him with remarkable leniency, and still think so. It was not until we had entered the maze of islands that he exhibited any signs of alarm, and then he signaled us to go to the wireless. I was too busy with manœuvring the ship to respond to it, but Twisted Jimmy, who had picked up much of the art, went below with a grin on his face to hear the count's protestations:

Jimmy somewhat painfully snapped back to him, and I read the message from where I stood on the temporary bridge from which we were steering, and knew that it was time for all of us to get off the deck. I gave orders and we did so with remarkable celerity; but not before the count, at last alive to our intentions, had himself tried to pot a few of us with a rifle, which he had evidently seized from his chart-house. Knowing that we were armored heavily enough to be in no danger from his somewhat aimless anger, we let him expend his wrath before again sending him a message, which read:

In response to this he re-hoisted the white flag, which some one had pulled down, and it took no very strong imagination on my part to picture his angry humiliation.

We came to a landmark that was clearly indicated, and knew that we were within a mile of the point where the end of our tow would be reached, and now gave the Hector full speed ahead, until she was tearing through the water with her towline taut as a rigid bar of steel. Naturally we were taking chances too, for the charts were of more than three years' age, and there were possibilities that the depth of water above the shoals was no longer what it had been prior to the war. The light was still sufficiently strong, so that we could observe through the clear water the increasing shallowness, and every man on watch stood waiting breathlessly for commands. We threw ourselves forward across the shoals, straining to the utmost, and then I ordered half-speed, and gave the signal for cutting the towline with the automatic shears. We could neither hear nor feel the vicious click with which they did their work; but when I rang for speed again the Hector bounded forward as if glad to be liberated from the drag, and I knew that we were free. Again we slowed down, while the huge bulk of the Gretchen rushed forward under her own impetus to the climax. For a moment she seemed bent on overtaking us, and riding us down. And then, so abruptly that she reeled from stem to stern, her stubby masts and huge cranes wavering in the air and trembling with the impact, she jambed herself heavily into the sands beneath. She appeared to stagger as from a blow, while men on her decks were thrown from their feet. She struggled forward still farther, as if stricken to death, and came to a full stop. A chorus of angry shouts came to our ears, and the Gretchen's crew acted like a lot of madmen, shaking their fists and screaming impotently, and again I saw von Vennemann, distraught, running out on the bridge with a rifle in his hand. We sheltered ourselves behind the conning-tower and laughed. The bullets ripped the water about us in a fusillade as other men joined him, until they were firing volleys at us. We could afford to laugh. The space between us widened, and the islands on either side seemed to drop their austerity and to assume a pleased appearance, as if participating in this human joke. Behind us, as immovable as the islands, the shape of the crippled, grounded Gretchen, driven solidly upward upon the shoals, lost definition and became but a black, ugly blur, that was slowly swallowed in the shades of dusk. We crept forward more cautiously, taking soundings now and then to insure ourselves against a similar disaster, twisting and turning, dodging here and there, perpetually conning our way until we reached the open sea, and with immense jubilance turned our nose southward toward our rendezvous with the barge.

In due time, and without mishap, we entered the little cove where the tug and her convoy waited us. So convinced had all the waiting men been of our ability to carry through our strange task, they had not so much as worried about us. Some of them had been ashore, visiting friends in the little port, where, as shipwrecked mariners, we had waited until the Queen of the Seas came along to take us from the island.

We lost no time in setting forth for our salvage endeavor, and came to deep anchorage over almost exactly the place where, to our then consternation, the Gretchen had been found; but over her we had the vast advantage of Jimmy's invention in our quest for the wreck.

We submerged on that bright morning, and began the search over the floor of the sea for the good old Esperanza, that had served us so well. To me the search was tinged with considerable sadness; as if I were seeking the corpse of a friend; for I had conceived a great affection for the first steamship I ever owned, that had served me as faithfully as a friend and with obedient fidelity. Time and again, traversing that submarine space, both Jimmy and I thought we had come upon her; but each time our hope proved faulty and ill-founded. It was on the second day of our quest that we were driven to the conclusion that we were at fault concerning the depth at which she lay, for it seemed that we had inspected every foot of the shoals for miles around. We found one feature that was disturbing, which was that the shoal, well defined, dipped abruptly away from shallow fathoms to considerable depths. The sea floor was exactly as if one traversed a section of moorland, ending in a brow of cliffs against whose feet sand had deposited itself. For indefinite miles it stretched away in a highland on one side, and a valley on the other, into whose depths we had not explored. We were slowly traversing this when we came upon a singular mark. It was like a scar in a hillside. We stopped the Hector, shut off the light with its roaring sound, and held a consultation there in the narrow confines of our little observatory.

"That scar," declared Jimmy, "if not a natural slip of the shoal, indicates that the Esperanza came to the sea floor on the edge of this plateau, and then, slowly, of her own weight, slid downward to some place where she had to stop. I think it's worth our while following it downward as deep as we can. How does it strike you, Tom?"

"But," I objected, "would such a scar remain so long a time, unless it were merely a natural phenomenon?"

"Of course it would," he assented. "Why, do you know that down in these Caribbean waters, particularly on the run from Manzanillo westward to Batabano, where it is rather shallow, ships have made a road that is as clearly defined in the silt beneath as any road ever laid upon land? I myself have seen it, and have stood in the bows of a ship where I could look down through the water and trace the course of those boats as clearly as I could see highways in front of me. And, what is more, those tracks were made by the turning of the screws, that disturbed the soft silt at the bottom, and not by the actual contact, as would be the case if the scar we see outside there were made by the gradual slipping of the Esperanza as she slid down that declivity. In any event, we can easily follow it downward for fifty fathoms. That we are sure of, because we have been that deep in this same boat, and got safely back to the surface afterwards. As far as I am concerned, I am positive this is about our last chance to find her."

"Distressing, but true," I assented; for indeed we were at that point.

We resolved to take the risks to assure ourselves that we were either on a hopeful lead or facing defeat. We took every precaution for safety, notified the men aboard of what we were about to try, and began letting the water into our tanks. Very slowly and steadily we descended. I stood at the indicators and gauges, and gave the orders, while Jimmy remained alone in his compartment, manipulating his light and signaling, when need arose for change in the downward course. We slid steadily into the depths, with men stationed at every vulnerable point to give an alarm in case we reached a depth too great for the resistance of the Hector's steel hull. My own anxiety and suspense were almost unbearable when the gauges in front of me indicated a depth of fifty fathoms, and we were still descending, directing our course by that ever-present trail which Jimmy alone was observing. I was hypnotized by the moving finger of the dial in front of me, and saw it pass on from fifty to fifty-two, fifty-four, fifty-six, and fifty-eight fathoms, and then wild conjectures absorbed me as to whether we should ever be able to overcome the enormous pressure now being heaped and piled upon every inch of the steel hull around us, and reach the surface. It was quite true that the pumps and valves had been tested to fifty-seven fathoms pressure in the Laurenti docks, but suppose that these tests had been inaccurate, or that they had on that occasion been strained to a point where they might never so effectively operate again? We had beneath us a keel that could be released, granting us some tons more buoyancy, but there had been sadly proven cases where faulty clutches had failed to work, and the keel had not detached itself.

The black finger in front of me traveled at decreasing speed, but now wavered above the figures sixty, and was slowly moving upward to sixty-one. It had become a duel between Twisted Jimmy Martin in his compartment, and me, commanding the vessel's submergence, as to which would be first to surrender. What on earth was the value of gold compared with one's life? Suppose we fought that duel to the end, was it our right to imperil the lives of twelve men whom we had aboard, and who were blindly trusting us to lead them no farther than the bounds of safety dictated?

I confess that my nerve had reached its limit, and I was ready to throw up my hands and cry "Enough." I was actually reaching hurriedly to the telephone to order halt and the turning-on of the powerful pumps that would either prove ineffective at so great a depth or bring us to the surface, when I got a request from Jimmy to back slowly on a level keel, then followed a call to sink still deeper.

I was about to call a halt when Jimmy signaled for it, much to my relief. The indicators came to a stand, and we were motionless at sixty-two fathoms, a most unprecedented depth, never before attained by any living man. We were actually surrounded by a pressure of nearly one hundred and sixty-two pounds per square inch upon our hull—a pressure beneath which a human being would have been crushed to a pulp! More than ten times the normal pressure of the atmosphere upon the human body at sea level! And yet no man on watch had cried a warning to tell us that the steel plates about us, buckling and bending though they were under this enormous strain, had betrayed a leak or the possibility of disaster. In that profound silence which pervades a submarine when submerged at great depths and when all machinery has stopped, I heard the sound of heavy, clumping boots over steel gratings, and Jimmy Martin's voice roaring excitedly:

"Tom! Tom! We have got her. We are at the bottom, and if you will come forward, you can have a look at our ship. It's the Esperanza sure enough!"