Hurricane Williams/Chapter 12

HE wind died out of the Heraldr's sails around noon the next day and mercurial curses ran fore and aft.

The crew didn't know where they were or where they were going or anything about themselves except that they were all being boiled and fried, hazed, kept hungry and abused—or thought they were. They had not the least idea of the ship's position except that it was undoubtedly in the doldrums.

McGuire, seeing the plume of black smoke now in the misty distance off the starboard beam, knew they were making for the Mariana's grave. He had thought that the Heraldr would first lay a course for Asoara and try to take Williams. That was why he and Brundage had come on her.

How that half-idiotic Finn had managed to get the position was more than he had ever been able to imagine; but had he known that the Heraldr was sailing with only notations on a scrap of almanac leaf to seek the Mariana herself, he would have remained at Honolulu and smiled drowsily as she put to sea.

Old Tom pulled at his scanty chin-beard and chewed with nervous waggling of jaw. He looked about the ocean and sky in all directions. They had, he said, just run from one calm to another. He knowed the signs, he did. They was bad.

There were plenty of sharks, too. Something had attracted a swarm of them. They lay under the ship, vanished out to sea, reappeared, leisurely, patiently staring upward with eyes too cruelly intelligent for the comfort of imaginative people. Men bantered McGuire good-naturedly, urging him to go over.

“Like to throw that Gor'lsen an' cap'n over,” a voice muttered.

“Aye,” said many voices, answering.

Sam-O and Clobb looked at each other.

“Le's throw Monty hover an' see 'f his charm's hany good,” Dicer squawked.

The sinister Frenchman faced about, a hand slipped to the crucifix and another to his knife. The earrings tinkled warningly.

McGuire knew how Monty had come by that precious cross, worthy of an abbot's breast. He had got the story out of Monty by sympathetic attentiveness as he got almost everything out of people.

There had been a shipwreck. Three persons got away: Monty, another man and a woman. The man died. There was little water and less food in the boat. Monty pretended to share the water spoonful for spoonful; but it was only a pretense. She was a woman old enough to have been his mother, a Frenchwoman, quiet, uncomplaining and deeply religious.

One afternoon Monty awoke, a cup of water to his mouth. She thought that he had fainted, and was generous, ready to give all to save him. He had been cheating her. His tears came emotionally as he confessed to her. Monty continued the pretense of sharing spoonful for spoonful with her; but for two days more he did not touch a drop of water.

A British frigate picked them up. He was half crazed; but the British doctor said if she had got a drop of water less she would not have survived.

Later a crucifix was given to Monty. It came to him in a hospital at Marseilles, a real hospital where she had placed him. Also she had sent the crucifix by one of her sons to Monty's village and had it blessed by the old priest who had baptized him. He had worn it ever since. It was a part of his life. It protected him. Whenever there was a storm, always he prayed before it—and see, he had passed through many!

But that was not all. The fine old woman, when she died, left a part of her fortune to a convent in Monty's village. He was proud of that. It was because of him.

McGuire listened and nodded gravely. He understood. He really did, though he knew very well that Monty was as bad and perhaps more dangerous than any man in the forecastle.

When Dicer questioned the value of the “charm,” as he called it, Sam-O gave him a back-handed sweep, knocking him over.

Sam-O, Shring, Clobb and Monty, no matter what quarrels had been between them, were friends now and often had their heads close together.

It was hot. The sea had a glaring sheen that hurt the eyes. A boom was run out and water continually hoisted and thrown about the deck to keep the pitch from crawling clear out of the seams.

The men were waspish. The Chinamen had got revenge by pretending that the galley had been wrecked and sent forward greasy canned stuff and nothing else.

Canvas flapped dispirited as the ship stirred on ground swells. It was very hot, as hot as the heat of the sun and the mirror of the sea could make it.

Juggins's hoarse voice bellowed with an effort at heartiness. Now and then he would snatch a scrubbing-brush from some man and show him how to use it, putting a great amount of energy into the work; but all he got even from the half-breeds was a sullen obedience; scarcely obedience at all, for they were deliberately exasperating—not quite at the point of refusing duty, but openly soldiering.

Matt Ward was on the poop, but he seemed to have lost all interest in the crew.

Dicer talked saucily to the boatswain—from behind Clobb's back. When Juggins looked toward the venomous little scrawny cheat he met Clobb's smoldering discolored eye. One eye was blinded by swelling and the torn eyebrow, and Clobb wore a strip of a black shirt around his head. He had no love for the little gambling-house rat, but had only hate for Juggins.

The big negro and Clobb managed to pass many times, muttered, went on without seeming to have spoken. Clobb was far from having been tamed.

Shring reported himself sick and refused to leave his bunk. 'Dams came forward, looked at him, asked if he was willing to work. Shring said that he was, but couldn't. The mate cursed him, but went aft without leaving orders of any kind. Shring grinned knowingly, exposing the broken black teeth through his ragged beard.

“I'm sick o' this hooker,” he said to the forecastle; and men grinned back at him approvingly.

McGuire was lazily slushing canvas buckets of water across the main deck and a group of men with brushes wearily pushed them about. A few loafed aloft. Some were on the forecastle with Swanson doing something to the fish-davit. McGuire had his trousers rolled high and managed to spill much of the water on himself. Others near him liked the feel of the sizzling creamy water on their feet and slapped about in it lazily. White frost-like brine, left by the rapid evaporation, appeared wherever the wood was not kept moistened.

The cabin must have been suffocating; but none of the women were under the awning. Matt Ward was there. Gorvhalsen stamped about, exercising. Adams kept an eye on some fellows who were taking the wrinkles off the awning which had been sloppily set.

Dicer, nursing a brush-handle inactively, whined a loud complaint for the benefit of ears on the poop. He used a humble, shrill abused voice that lamented the hunger and thirst that had come on the crew. The voice grew monotonous. Fellows about him said, “Shut up!” but Dicer whined the louder.

Gorvhalsen went below. He was no sooner out of sight than Dicer began shrilly to abuse him. The curious little wretch had an audacious under standing of human nature. He knew Ward and Adams disliked the big owner and could not help but overhear though they paid no attention to him.

“Oh, Dicer!” McGuire called, weary of the voice.

He looked around perkily and two gallons of salt water streamed into his face, into his mouth, stranglingly, almost knocking him over. Laughter went up. Dicer spluttered and squawked. He tried to appear to be dying. Men jeered him, but the jeers were cut short.

“Put that man in irons!” Ward bellowed, an arm leveled toward McGuire.

Astonishment touched the crew. Irons for a little sky-larking among themselves when every other sort of laxity was being ignored! It made them ill tempered; that is, it was another excuse to be more ill-tempered. They needed only slight ones.

McGuire knew that he was paying for the night before—for having been Gorvhalsen's guest. He tossed his emptied bucket at a scupperway and idly stepped forward to await the irons.

Adams went below and returned with short iron lengths that rattled and clinked as he swung them carelessly. He came off the poop, gave them to Juggins and stood by watching while the boatswain slipped them on to McGuire.

Brundage looked grimly from across the deck, his wrinkled face mask-like, evilly set; and his eyes repeatedly shifted from McGuire to Dicer.

Dicer talked loud. That was the way, he said, when a fellow tried to do his work well, somebody made trouble for him. McGuire was a dirty loafer anyway. He'd fix 'em; he would.

Sam-O waited until Ward's back was turned, then smote Dicer heartily in the rear with the butt of a brush, and the little scrawny fellow screeched from real pain; but on catching sight of the negro's face grew suddenly quiet and worked away in silence.

Adams saw and no doubt approved of the blow. He said nothing. Ward had wheeled at Dicer's outcry and came to the poop rail, but only glanced about.

“Where 'll hu'ave 'im put, sir?” Juggins asked.

“Any place—out of sight,” Adams answered carelessly.

Juggins started forward, a hand on McGuire's arm. McGuire smiled unconcernedly saying that he needed a rest.

Clobb moved so as to cross their path. He whispered hoarsely, for Juggins's ears, too:

“You won't be in 'em long, son—not long.”

Juggins looked up into an insolent challenge on Clobb's battered face. The boatswain did not accept it.

“Huh,” said Clobb insultingly as they passed on.

McGuire was chained to the carpenter's work bench. Chips whined in lamenting protest, but Jug gins invited him to go jump “hoverboard.” Chips went grumbling to the cabin to finish his work with the shelving.

Juggins said that he wouldn't put a dog under a hatch on a day like this; besides, he didn't think the captain would keep him in irons long. The captain, he said, wasn't a bad fellow except when he was drunk.

The afternoon wore on. McGuire experimented with numerous positions and at last, finding one that was reasonably comfortable, sleepily meditated. No one came near him. He could hear the men's indistinct voices at times and men were often passing and repassing. He knew some hours later by the clatter of voices and creaking that the yards were being hauled around, so a wind must have come up.

Suddenly he grew tense, straining. He jerked at the irons, then would pause to listen. There were cries, roars, shrieks, rushing of feet, thumping, yells, the bawling of fierce voices. The noise increased. The men were loose. The crew had mutinied.

Soon the door opened and Brundage unhurriedly came in. He had a key in his hand and there was a red smear on key and hand.

McGuire questioned him rapidly. Brundage answered without haste. All of his attention was on the key and locks. Adams was dead; Swanson, too, he thought; the crew was rushing the poop—Matt Ward would pay; and Gorvhalsen. Clobb killed Adams.

Then as the irons fell:

“Quick, boy, quick—they want the women—it started over that red one. Blast her soul!”