No Man's Island/Chapter 4

OOPER had the morning watch, splitting deck duty with Andersen in default of a second mate. When Manning came on deck at seven he found the skipper watching the trailing vessel of the night before. She had gained considerably in the night. Hooper handed Manning the glasses just as the pursuer, if that was her purpose, came about and tacked across the stem of the Mary L. about half a mile away.

Through the powerful lenses Manning got a fine view of her, a schooner with a black hull, pointing high into the wind and creaming through the crisp waves, sheets well in for the tack, canvas unwrinkled—a beautiful sight. Brass twinkled here and there on her decks. Working up, she tacked again, the crew tailing on to the sheets with yachtsman-like precision. She did not falter in the eye of the wind but swung to her course and came charging down after the Mary L., to leeward now but eating up the distance.

“Smart ship and smartly handled,” said Hooper. “See how she came about. No fuss with her headsails.”

“Looks like a private craft,” suggested Manning. “A yacht. She may be racing with us for the fun of it.”

“Soon find that out. She can go ahead all she wants to. Though I hate to be passed at that rate. If I had the Moanamanu I’d show her a thing or two. But I’ll be glad when she gets off our horizon. She isn’t a yacht, for all her brass. Her rigging is too business-like and her canvas too heavy. Look at her come.”

The stranger, sailing a parallel course, forging up abeam, carried a private signal at her gaff and a triangle of flag at her peak. This last showed plainly, a white star in a blue circle on a scarlet ground.

“She’s a yacht, after all,” said Manning. “That’s the flag of the Hawaii Yacht Club. I’ve seen it too many times at Pearl Harbor to be mistaken.”

Hooper shook his head.

“She’s not a yacht. Name’s Seamew,” he read off through the glasses. “But she may be harmless. She’s dipping her flag.”

He turned and shouted an order to return the salute. The Seamew tacked again, as if satisfied to have displayed her speed and not wishing to humiliate the Mary L. by crossing her bows.

“Sporting,” said Hooper.

“Breakfast is ready, sir.”

Edwards stood there, with eyes that watched the Seamew. He had a faculty of appearing suddenly, without noise, a steward’s attribute that, to Manning, always was a trifle uncanny and annoying. With him was Andersen, ready to take over the deck.

“Know anything of that boat, Edwards? The Seamew?” asked Hooper.

“Yes, sir. Know her well. I’ve been aboard her, sir. A fast one. Belongs to Mr. Huddersleigh of Fanning Island. On her way home. Mr. Huddersleigh makes regular trips to Honolulu every few months, sir. I knew she was in the harbor, sir. But she was over toward Iwilei. You might not have noticed her, sir.”

“Ah!”

Hooper’s exclamation held relief in which Manning shared. There was no especial risk in any one trailing them down to Schwarzklippen but neither fancied the espionage.

“I’ve heard of Huddersleigh,” said Manning. “King of Fanning Island. Exports shagreen mostly. For pocketbooks and polishing, until lately. Now sharkskin has gone up. They’re using it for boots.”

“He’ll be on the same course as we are till we hit the line,” said Hooper at breakfast. “Decent of him not to show us up too much. Gad! That chap can make fourteen knots on his best point of sailing. Sail rings round us on any wind. Doubt if we see much of him after today.”

But they did. Hooper discovered unexpected talent in steering in two of the sailors, one of the Hawaiians and the Finn. The Mary L. developed latent speed as the skipper found out her best points. The Seamew had a good start of them, but on the third day they picked her up again, hull down, and from then on kept intermittent company. In lighter winds the Mary L. had the better of it. The men scented a race and entered into the spirit of it as Hooper set a big fisherman’s staysail between main and fore and the Mary L. showed what she was really capable of.

He massed the men and crew at the rail and shifted them about to preserve the center of effort and, what with varying airs and Hooper’s skill, matters evened up.

“Keeps the loafers doing something,” he remarked to Manning. “Plenty of time for target practise later on.”

Ten degrees north of the equator, the breeze began to falter and threaten to fail altogether. Fong’s compatriot had overhauled the engine and Hooper prepared to abandon canvas for gasoline.

“We can take our time about coming back,” he said. “We’ve got plenty of gas and we can strike a dead course for Schwarzklippen. We’ll bid good-by to the Seamew now. She’s due to change her course for Fanning anyway.”

At noon that day the wind blew out altogether and they started up the engine. The Seamew lay a mile away, rolling in the calm. Hooper dipped his ensign in farewell salute and the Fanning’s Island boat answered. Then they saw her canvas coming down, smartly smothered and reefed. Through the glasses a white wake showed at her stern as she swung off and took course approximately south-southwest.

“She’s got a kicker, too,” said Hooper. “Well, that’s the last of her.”

On divergent courses, the two schooners were soon out of sight of each other. The Mary L., as Thompson put it, commenced to taxi across the line for her destination. At the evening meal Fong himself appeared to serve the after cabin.

“Where is Edwards?” asked Manning.

“That steward all time this afte’noon foolee too much with Ling along that engine, along that dynamo,” said Fong in hid singsong pidgin-English. “He say he fixee wi’less.”

Hooper frowned.

“Has he been interfering with Ling?” he asked.

Fang shrugged his shoulders.

“Too slick,” he said just as Edwards entered.

“I have been testing the wireless, sir. Thought you might like to use it.”

“What for?”

“I thought it best to have it in readiness, sir, so I overhauled it. I told you I could handle it when I joined, sir, and, as you said nothing to the contrary, I assumed it was a part of my duties. I waited for the engine to be started regularly.”

“We’ll not need it. Is it in shape?”

“I believe so, sir. I have no means of knowing whether my test sending was received, of course. It would not mean anything. And I have not picked up any message. Hardly likely to in these latitudes. But I think I can say it is in shape, sir. We might intercept some news once in a while if we had a regular operator.”

He had taken overplus duties from Fong, who left a plain impression on his exit that he did not think much of the energetic Edwards.

But the opinions of Fong and Ling, naturally a unit, were not shared by the others aboard. It began to get almost unbearably hot in the windless spaces. What breeze the schooner herself furnished, as she forged steadily ahead, averaging a hundred and sixty miles a day, seemed to come out of an oven. The putty wrinkled and crumbled in the seams, the brass was blistering and general lassitude held all hands by day, enhanced by the fact that there was little to do. But as soon as the, sun dropped blazing into the sea and some relief came with night, Edwards organized entertainment.

He got together a quartet and he told tales that created breathless interest, broken by peals of laughter from the groups that surrounded him on deck, smoking through the long hours when sleep was hard to coax.

Prickly heat and loss of appetite, all the conditions that make for peevishness under such circumstances, were nullified by the ubiquitous steward. He seemed to have the capacity for making a personal friend out of every one aboard, saving the Chinamen. Often the afterguard, Manning, Hooper, Andersen and Thompson, regretted the dignity of office that forbade them joining in the after-dark amusement sessions.

By day, target practise went on with an hour set apart for it. Several of the men bid fair to become good shots; others proved hopeless and Hooper weeded them out as wasters of cartridges. The four ex-lunas and Edwards himself were evidently familiar with the use of firearms. Manning’s steady nerves brought him to the forefront and Hooper was already an excellent marksman with either pistol or rifle. Two of Manning’s assistants also shaped well.

The target practise began to invest the expedition with an earnestness of purpose that brought about more or less talk, much of it in a jesting strain, of the duties that they might have to perform. The general opinion among the crew prevailed that they would have trouble with the natives on landing and that some of them might be left as an armed guard against them or other interference if the guano-deposits proved satisfactory for exploitation. This impression Hooper and Manning allowed to stand for the present. Manning overhauled his diving-suits and that diversified the talk and provided fresh speculation.

HERE was a change in the two leaders as they steadily neared Schwarzklippen. Manning, seldom over talkative, grew taciturn, and Hooper began to flame with an eagerness that manifested itself in his eyes, in his nervous pacing of the deck, working out the daily position, his scanning of the horizon that he knew must, as yet, yield no results. The entire man emanated force and at times, Manning, patching the rubber of his diving-dress, would think of him as a racing engine, constantly evolving unapplied power.

When they reached the borders of the south equatorial current, a hundred and fifty miles south of the line, the southwest trade began to blow with increasing steadiness and soon they were able to shut off the engine and forge ahead with increased speed under canvas. Hooper came below one upon to work his reckoning, his eyes gleaming.

He and Andersen compared and agreed and Hooper took out his chart and dividers.

“We should lift Schwarzklippen by dawn tomorrow, Manning,” he said with a triumphant note.

The news spread about the schooner and all that afternoon watch on deck and watch below, with the idlers, gathered in groups and looked eagerly ahead, hours before there was any possibility of sighting land. Meanwhile there was oiling of weapons and a growing alertness in word and action.

With the exception of Fong and Ling, every soul aboard was on deck at the commencement of the morning watch. One of the Hawaiians was perched in the foremast spreaders before the sun leaped up and day suddenly blazed over the sea and sky. The wind strengthened with the dawn, blowing well aft of the beam, and the schooner surged along at a fast clip through curling, sharply faceted waves of sapphire, dazzling where they caught the sun.

Flying fish soared out of the sea, pursued by dolphins that leaped after them. Two bells came and then three and four. Fong brought up steaming coffee for the men and Edwards served the afterguard.

As the last stroke of five bells sounded the deep voice of the Hawaiian came floating down and back from the fore.

“Land-ho!”

They strained forward into the bows and the port rail, gazing to where the look out pointed, a few degrees aport. Hooper handed the glasses to Manning and sprang to the mainmast, going up it like a cat, barefooted, as he had come on deck, his toes clinging to the rings, clasping the halyards.

A purple speck showed on the horizon’s rim and gradually lifted from the sea, grim, desolate, uncharted. A cheer went up; breakfast was forgotten fore and aft as they crowded to the rail. Aside from Manning and Hooper, it meant little to them materially; they were not in the true secret of the voyage. But no one can sail for leagues across the ocean stretches where there is no plume of smoke, gleam of sail or promise of land, and raise an island unplaced upon the maps, without sharing the thrill of the discoverer.

Landfall, in such circumstances, ever partakes somewhat of the miracle; it heats the blood and rouses the spirit of adventure. There were risks ahead, they knew, fighting against odds with savages, where the penalty of defeat meant cruel death and horrid burial, and the ship’s company faced it with an eagerness that brought a nod of approval from Hooper as he slid down the halyards and regained the deck.

He glanced at Manning triumphantly, as if he had vindicated his story, justified the diver’s investment, but Manning only nodded back and put out his great powerful hand to grip the other’s nervous fingers.

“Congratulations are almost in order,” said Hooper. “We can make a landing this afternoon, if they’ll let us. We’ll land anyway,” he added, his lips tightening. “I must overhaul that budget of newspapers for Steiner.”

From his seniority of some ten years, Manning smiled a little tolerantly at Hooper as the skipper dived below. There was a good deal of the boy in Hooper’s virile manhood, he thought, and then a burst of youth welled up in him and this time he laughed aloud, so that Andersen looked at him in wonder.

For the Goddess Adventure, who reckons time and the calendar and birthdays as a joke as long as a man’s heart beats sturdily and he is able to stand on his hind legs, had taken Manning by the hand like a fairy godmother and he was young again. His blood tingled to his fingertips and he felt the glow of danger and achievement. For the first time, too, the pearls in the lagoon took on material value, material prospects. Hooper had said that they should be fully worth three hundred thousand dollars in the present market and a third of that was to be Manning’s own.

With a score of years of hard work undersea, much of it dull and laboriously wearing, he had had thoughts of retiring somewhere near the sea with Fong as factotum, to sail a sloop, to dig in a garden and grow roses. Something like that. Now fresh vistas opened. The world was wide. And he was in the full strength of his prime.

A thought came to him and he followed Hooper.

“What about letting the crew in a little deeper on this thing?” he asked. “Telling them about Steiner and his men, at all events? The war is over but Steiner doesn’t know it and I take it he won’t be waiting on the beach for you to deliver him those papers. He won’t be in any too good a humor after he reads them. And I suppose they’ll be sighting us soon. Maybe making smoke from that signal-fire you spoke of. And, just exactly what are you intending to do with our Germans when we bag them, peaceably or otherwise?”

“March them in to that commandant at Honolulu,” said Hooper. “Right past that cocky sentry who challenged me for a tramp. It will be up to him to extradite ’em or otherwise dispose of them. The ending of the war evens me up with Steiner personally. His conceit’ll shrivel, like a kid’s balloon when it’s pricked. Though there have been times when I had other ideas of handling him. But I’ll get the men aft and talk to them.”

His speech was short and to the point.

“There is no guano, to speak of, on that island, men,” he said. “My schooner was taken by a German raider and I and Mr. Thompson kept prisoners aboard of it under a German crew. Later one of our own cruisers chased us and we were wrecked in a storm on the island. The schooner lies in ten fathoms in the lagoon, just beyond an inner reef. There are belongings of mine hidden in her that Mr. Manning and his men will dive for. That is what we came after. The Germans are still there. They don’t know the war is over.”

There was a guffaw from the men.

“I got away in a whale-boat with Mr. Thompson. We were picked up at sea and brought to Honolulu. There are natives on the island who are a Melanesian tribe, not friendly to whites. We may have to pacify them. That is why I have brought you along, with arms. The Germans may need some explaining to before they accept the situation. We shall have to act as circumstances guide us. If we succeed in getting back my valuables there will be a bonus paid to every man aboard of two hundred and fifty dollars over and above his wages, Mr. Manning and I being partners in this trip.”

He looked toward Manning, who confirmed the bonus with a nod. The men cheered, led by Edwards.

“We shall try and treat with Steiner, leader of the Germans, and tell him where Germany now stands,” continued Hooper. “We shall try and treat.with Tiburi, chief of the tribe. We do not wish to start bloodshed if we can avoid it. You have been prepared for a certain amount of trouble. But any landing-parties in the face of danger will be made up of volunteers.”

Edwards led another salvo of cheering and one of the men he had furnished stepped forward.

“These ain’t any of our crowd goin’ to back down, skipper,” he said. “Not for Heines nor for cannibals.”

“I thought not,” said Hooper. “That is all.”

He turned to Manning as the men filed forward, talking it over.

“Good spirit there,” he said. “They took it all easily enough.”

“Didn’t even seem to be surprized,” commented Manning. “But they’ll do a lot of jawing about the nature of your valuables from now on. That bonus was a good idea.”

“It cuts into the pile considerably, and we’ll have to sell some of the pearls to raise it, but it seems only fair to give them some sort of a share in the deal.”

“Fair enough. You might offer to sell some of the pearls to Butler, instead of guano,” said Manning with a laugh.

HE island grew, showing the crater, but hiding the green cone back of it. Frowning from the sea, it fitted the name that Steiner had given it. It looked like a barren volcano, water less, incapable of providing for life. Yet the heart of it was thick with vegetation, Hooper promised. No smoke of signal-fire showed and, as they came closer, Hooper trained his glass upon the upper cliffs with a frown.

“Funny,” he muttered. “There’s no flag and the staff has gone.”

“Might have been blown down?” said Manning.

“Fancy they’d have set it up again. I don’t quite like the look of it. They may have smelled a mouse when they sighted us. If they thought I had got clear—but then they would have expected a cruiser rather than a schooner.”

“They may have got heart after you started and built some sort of a raft or craft.”

“Possible. But I don’t believe it. They were getting too soft. Life suited them. No, sir, don’t think they had the guts to tackle that. Things were too easy. But I don’t like it.”

“Can we see their camp, sailing past the open end of the crater, or are you going to go through the reef into the lagoon?”

“We couldn’t see it plainly enough to be sure. And I don’t care to risk that second reef-opening. I told you I thought it would have to be blasted. It’s too narrow between the reefs for much maneuvering. Can’t tackle it on the ebb, anyhow. My idea is to get in touch with Tiburi. If we can keep the fear of the white man in his heart he won’t bother us after some gifts, the promise of more, and good care on our part to cover ourselves. We’ll head up a bit and sail round.”

The course was slightly shifted and they coasted the black, sheer cliffs of the volcanic crest, fissured and fluted here and there, devoid of all life save the wheeling gulls that rose and settled and soared out to meet the schooner, screaming at intrusion. The narrow promontory that joined crater to cone opened up and the sight of the latter, covered with verdure, a green jewel rising from a ring of ivory surf, heartened all of them and lightened the oppression of that silent, grim crater.

Still there was no sign of life, though they swept the beach and the outstanding ledges of the cliffs with glasses. No natives gathered on the sand, no canoes put out to sea. No wisp of smoke showed signs of habitation. Only the birds wheeling and wheeling overhead.

“Looks as if the whole place was deserted,” said Manning. “Some sort of plague might have swept them, or they may have killed each other off, like Kilkenny cats, German against cannibal.”

“Not likely. But there’s something wrong,” returned Hooper. “The natives would not be frightened into hiding by us. If they were frightened, and they are not that breed of cats, they would still be curious. Something wrong! If they are there they are not friendly. Steiner may have won out and be setting a trap with the idea of getting hold of the schooner for his getaway. That’s the most likely thing.”

“Or might be in league with Tiburi?”

Hooper shook his head.

“No. Tiburi is too sore about that woman deal. Steiner kidnaped his daughter. No! Tiburi might pull some treachery in a pretended pact, but Steiner would be too foxy. I— Listen.”

They were now to the south of the island and the wind blew from it. Manning caught a booming note, distinct from the surf. It was followed by another and another, at pulsing intervals. It was the beat of a drum. And it was punctuated by a queer moaning sound, like the hoot of an enormous owl.

“War-drums,” said Hooper. “War-drums and conch shells. Tiburi’s out against us. This is not going to be duck soup. They are waiting for us to make a landing. Then they’ll tackle us from ambush. That bush is full of warriors now, waiting for their chance. Too many odds. Not more than two or three places to land.”

“What’s your plan?”

“It’s close to sunset. Nothing tonight. We’ll tack out and hold council of war.”

“No moon tonight, is there?”

“No. Why?”

“Then I’ve got a plan,” said Manning. “And I think it will work with Tiburi.”.