Somewhere in the Caribbean/Chapter 3

As Dorgan came for me I realized that I had chosen the worst possible place for a try-out battle with a man who outclassed me as much as he did. Though at that time I tipped the scale at a husky hundred and seventy pounds and was as fit as a hard working outdoor life could make me I knew that nothing but cleverness and skill could avail me in a fight with a man who certainly outweighed me by forty or fifty pounds and whose brute strength was commensurate with his size. And when in addition to that he had me cramped for room, I saw myself beaten before the battle was begun. For not even a past master of prize-ring footwork could have done anything in that cluttered engine hold.

As luck would have it I got in only one blow with the caught-up wrench and that one Dorgan took on a warding arm. Before I could swing at him again he had closed with me across the motor with his huge hands gripping my throat and if he could have kept his hold I should have been a dead man in the few seconds or minutes that one may live in a garroting clutch that shuts off both breath and blood.

But fortunately for me the engine was between us and its cylinders were still so hot from the long drive we had made that they burned whatever they touched. It was the discovery that they would burn that saved me. Clawing and struggling to break the strangle hold I happened to get a knee against the hot cylinders and in all the agony of starting eyeballs and bursting lungs I was still able to catch at the straw of advantage.

With a foot braced against the motor I pulled the giant over upon the hot machinery. He stood it for a second or so and then let go with a bellowing oath. This gave me a chance for a bit of short-arm work but the choking had left me half paralyzed and the blows which should have purchased me a brief breathing space were little more than feeble gestures—there was no punch in them. In a flash he had clutched me again but this time I contrived to dodge the strangle hold and, locked in a mad grapple that neither dared to break, we swayed back and forth over the hot engine, each trying to drag the other down upon the scorching barrier.

In such an awkward wrestling match the lighter man was naturally bound to get the worst of it. Shifting his grip in spite of all I could do to pinion his arms Dorgan finally got the body squeeze he wanted and crushed me until I made sure I could hear my ribs, crack—until the lantern-lit den turned first blood red and then black for me. And when I came to I was lying on the floor and Dorgan was starting the motor.

I watched him adjusting spark and throttle, expecting nothing but that he would pick up the dropped wrench and brain me with it when he was ready. But he didn't. After he had the motor running to please him—and that was at its thumping best—he climbed the ladder and clapped on the hatch, having paid mo more attention to me than if I had been a dog which he had first choked and then kicked aside out of his way.

This appeared to be the end of things, for the time being at least. The schooner was evidently running away; down the coast to the southward, I judged, since the breeze had come quartering from the land and the slant of the vessel proved that she was on the starboard tack. And she seemed to be making capital speed; much better than her above-water lines would lead one to expect of her. I could hear the water racing under her counter and the dip to lee ward showed that the breeze was freshening.

Painfully I crawled to the cracker-box seat and pulled myself up on it, groping tenderly with investigative fingers to try to determine if Dorgan had broken any ribs in that last life-extinguishing bear hug. He hadn't. Though I was as sore as if I had been beaten with flails I was still whole as to bones. Dorgan was too much for me in a rough-and-tumble, as he had amply proved; yet in all the keen humiliation of the moment I was burning with a fierce desire to get at him in the open, under conditions where the inequality in bulk and weight would not give him such a terrific advantage.

Perhaps this is as good a place as any to say that I come of Scottish stock, as my father-name would imply. That blood, as all the world knows, is slow to anger; but not easily satisfied with its beatings. Crouching there upon the box seat, with every drawn breath a dagger to stab me, it was not strange that I lost sight of everything but a mad determination to wreak vengeance upon the two scoundrels who for a bribe had robbed me of liberty and were making me a football to be kicked hither and yon at their pleasure. Then and there I began to plan to get square in some fashion that would count.

For a weary time, while I studied and plotted, the schooner held on without shifting a sail or starting a sheet, and from her yawing and heeling and the occasional kicking of the lightly buried propeller out of water it was apparent that the breeze had grown still fresher and was rising to a half gale. I could only guess that we were making rapid southing. Unless the direction of the wind had changed, which seemed unlikely, the Vesta could hardly be headed otherwhere than down the Florida coast.

Having no means of knowing at what point the news-bearing motor boat had reached us I could form no idea of the schooner's position from hour to hour, but that was a small matter. In any event I had lost all hope of getting in touch again with the Waikiki and Alison. Doubtless the yacht was by this time well on its way to Havana; with Alison reproachfully concluding that I had failed her in whatever extremity she was facing. All of which made me plot the harder; and perhaps it was the thought centering upon that remark Of Peggy Sefton's—that she wouldn't wonder if there would be a wedding in Havana—that finally made me strike hands with a plan as mad as any vaporing of the unbalanced. But of that, more in its place.

In due time the remainder of the night wore away and in spite of the aches and pains and other untoward hamperings I got some sleep. When the engine-hold hatch was finally opened again I saw that a new day had come and that the sun was shining. It was Dorgan's ogreish face that looked at me through the square of daylight and his greeting was an oath followed by a command to come up and take my turn at the cook's galley for breakfast.

Stiff and sore, I climbed the steep ladder and stepped out on deck. The first few breaths of good clean fresh air after such a long confinement in the stifling hold nearly knocked me over, but the reviving reaction came quickly and I looked around to take in the new situation. The half gale of the night had subsided to a fair sailing wind and the Vesta was still on the starboard tack, headed west by south, as I guessed from the position of the sun, and with a goodly spread of canvas drawing. There was no land in sight but off the port bow I saw the smoke of a distant steamer, apparently westbound, as we were.

Far astern there was another smoke and now I understood what Dorgan had said to the news bearer in the motor boat; that in the dodging run the other was urging the schooner would be in a frequented steamer lane. That lane could be no other than the strait running between Florida—or the Florida Keys—and Cuba. What was the new destination toward which the Vesta was heading? I only knew that it couldn't be Cuba or any of the islands. The United States was the only country in which the liquor cargo could be unloaded at a profit.

Coming to matters nearer at hand I saw that Brill was at the schooner's wheel and that he was getting the last life of speed out of the straining canvas. Dorgan stood at the after rail with a pair of binoculars and a glance showed that he was trying to make out the following vessel whose smoke was blowing in a long plume to leeward. Forward, squatting on deck with their backs against the starboard bulwark, were the two Minorcans. One of them was smoking and the other seemed to be asleep.

In the cook's galley I found some remains of breakfast, and these, with a can of coffee, hot, thick and black, went some distance toward making up for the effects of the manhandling I had taken in the night. While I was eating Dorgan came and looked in on me scowling, and I saw that one of his hands was bandaged with a dirty rag; evidence that I had contrived to mark him in the tussle across the hot motor.

“Think you got enough of it last night to do you for a while?” he demanded with an ugly leer.

“It will answer for the present. But I'll take you on again when I can have decent footing and a little more room,” I said.

“Oho—you will, will you? Well, lemme tell you; the next time I'm goin' to twist the damn' neck off you! Get that?”

“If you are man enough,” I thrust in. Then: “When are you going to put me ashore?”

“When we get damn' good and ready. And that won't be to-day n'r t'-morrah.”

“Where are we now?” I inquired, having no idea he would tell me. But he did, crabbedly.

“In the straits. Come night we'll be off Key West if the wind holds.” And with that he went aft again.

Now my work on the drainage canal had made me fairly familiar with the geography of the Florida peninsula. If we were going to be off Key West at nightfall it meant that we were to make our landing somewhere on the western or Gulf side of the peninsula. Thoughtfully I passed the possible landing places in mental review. Of course a town wasn't necessary for the bootlegging purpose but a road over which trucks could be driven was; and I knew of no practicable road south of Punta Rossa at the mouth of the Caloosahatchee River, a few miles below Fort Myers. This was a full hundred miles up the coast from the Keys or possibly a hundred and fifty as the crow flies from Key West.

At the shortest this would mean two or three days more of the floating prison for me; or even a longer time if the wind should remain in its present quarter and the schooner had to beat up the Gulf from Key West. At the prospect the desperate plan I had formulated in the bad hours of the night came up for a calm daylight weighing and measuring. Under favoring conditions the beginning of it at least seemed feasible. But I couldn't see through to the end of it. That part would be on the knees of the high gods.

Tobacco hunger, denied now for some thirty-six hours, accounted for my next outreaching. Since I couldn't or wouldn't beg Dorgan or Brill for a smoke I strolled forward to where the two sailors were crouched under the weather bulwark.

“Either of you fellows speak English?” I asked.

“Me, I spik leetle bit,” replied the one with a pipe.

“I'm about dead for a smoke,” I said. “Does that mean anything to you?”

Ginning good-naturedly he fished in his pocket and brought out another pipe and a sack of tobacco.

“I smoke—you smoke,” he said, passing me the necessaries; whereupon I squatted beside him and filled and lighted.

For a time I held my peace. I could see Dorgan watching us furtively and I didn't want to give him an excuse to come and drive me aft. Taking a moment when he was again training the glass upon the steamer astern I ventured a question.

“Do you and your partner like this ship?”

The pipe lender shrugged. “No ver' mooch; too many damn-damn.”

“I don't like it very much, either,” I agreed.

“You been—how you say eet?—shanghai? What for? You no sailormans.”

“Money,” I said shortly. “Somebody paid them.”

Dorgan had marked me down and was striding forward.

“Get the hell out o' here!” he growled when he came up. “Get back in your hole and look out for that gasoline pipe.”

The temptation to try it out with him again was pretty strong as I scrambled to my feet but the prudent Scottish blood got in its word in time. Though I knew that Brill couldn't leave the wheel to chime in I wasn't sure of the Minorcans as yet. So I returned the borrowed pipe and followed the big man aft, dropping into the engine hold when I came to its hatchway, but not before I had taken another look at the sternward steamer which was slowly overhauling us.

That look sent me below with the blood jumping in my veins. Though the overhauling ship was still too far away for identification, even with a glass, there was one thing that could be seen quite plainly. It was painted white!

Naturally, of course, I jumped immediately to the conclusion that it was the Waikiki and that was what started the grateful circulation and made me forget my aches and pains in a fine frenzy of excitement. Then all at once I remembered that the steamers of the Fruit Line were also painted white and the excitement died down. Still, there was a bare chance, and after I had tightened up the leaky gasoline connection and had killed time enough to make the sweltering heat of the engine hold a plausible excuse for escaping from it I climbed the ladder and swung myself up to sit on the edge of the hatchway. A quick glance over the stern showed me the white steam vessel apparently in about the same relative position, still too far away for identification.

When I had gone below at Dorgan's command Brill was at the schooner's wheel; but now one of the Minorcans—my pipe lender—had it and neither Dorgan nor Brill was to be seen. I supposed they were down in the little box cabin of the hooker and I wondered a little at the fact that they should both leave the deck at the same time. The deck-house companion slide was open and I could hear a murmur of voices. With a nod to the friendly little foreigner at the wheel I crept forward.

As the murmur of voices had assured me, the two rum runners were in the cabin, and when I broke in as a listener they were talking about me. Pruned of the thickly interlarding profanity, this is what I heard.

“I told you, night afore last when you made that dicker with the bloke fr'm the yacht, that we'd ort to stick to our own knittin'”—this from Brill. “This here kidnapin' side line's goin' to get us into a hell's mess o' trouble afore we're through with it. How do we know who this chap is or what sort of a rumpus we've kicked up by runnin' off with him?”

“Meanin' that the other bird lied to us?” said Dorgan.

“Sure he lied. Anybody can see with half an eye that this feller we've crimped ain't no prison dodger.”

“Well, what if he ain't? Haven't we got the money?”

“That's all right. But there's more a-comin'. You take it fr'm me, this chap ain't fallin' for all this as easy as it looks. I don't like the cut of his jib. I believe if he thought it would get him anywhere he'd scrap both of us in a holy minute.”

“Huh!” Dorgan sneered; “you've got cold feet, Isra'l—that's all that's the matter with you. Ain't I tellin' you I got his goat last night?”

“Maybe you did and then ag'in maybe you didn't. Then you had to make it worse by nobbin' his watch and money,” Brill fumed discontentedly. “You listen to what I'm sayin'. The minute we put him ashore there's goin' to be hell to pay. If he don't make us lose our divvy on this cargo it'll be because we don't give him a chance.”

There was silence for a little time and then Dorgan broke it.

“Maybe you're right, after all. We ain't had to pull any graveyard stuff in this game yet but I reckon there's got to be a first time for everything. He'll do it himself if we give him the right office. He's dead crazy to get ashore. It's my notion that there's a heap more to this shanghai business than what floated to the top o' things night afore last.”

“Well, what's the play?” Brill asked.

“Short and sweet. Along about dark we can beat up to'ard the keys and show him the land close to—short swim, we'll say. He'll fall for it and go overboard in a hurry. All he wants is a chance. And after he jumps in, the straits current'll do the rest.”

“But what if he don't jump?”

I heard Dorgan give his snarling chuckle.

“If he shies you can stub your toe agin' something and stumble over onto him, carelesslike.”

I could hear Brill draw his breath with a sound that was almost as shrill as a whistle.

“Me?” he gulped.

“Yes, you, Isra'l; you're used to bumpin' folks off—or leastwise to scuttlin' ships under 'em; and you're the one that's scared to hang onto him till we take port.”

After this there was another interval of silence and it was thick enough to be cut with a knife. It gave me a chance to grasp the full meaning of what I had heard. These two kidnapers were coolly planning to drown me!—that is, if I should refuse to drown myself. It was one of those things that couldn't be believed and yet had to be believed. And the motive was so callously inadequate. At the worst the most they had to fear from me was that I might talk after I got ashore and so put a crimp in their liquor smuggling.

While the schooner heeled to the drag of her canvas and the wind sang in the cordage I listened again, ready to retreat if I should hear them stirring to come on deck. But there was no sound save the crackle of a match as one of them lighted his pipe. Finally Brill spoke again.

“Didn't make out that smoke boat that's comin' up astern, did you?”

“Not yet,” Dorgan grunted. “She looks like one o' the Fruiters.”

“Not to me,” Brill countered. “Not enough top works. I don't like the way she's hangin' onto us.”

Dorgan swore morosely.

“Hell! You've got a streak o' the yellow a mile long! S'posin' she's anything you please; s'posin' she a revenue cutter—which she ain't. Can't nobody touch us till we get within the three-mile. There ain't nothin' to you, Isra'l, but a little bit of the know-how about handlin' a windjammer. You'd jump out o' your skin if you was to hear a mouse gnawin'!”

I drew a breath of relief. This was comforting, as far as it went. It assured me that I had at least one truckling coward to deal with. It also told me something else; that while Dorgan was the captain and leader, Brill was the one who knew what little either needed to know about navigating the schooner. The obstacles were clearing away for me, a little at a time. After a bit I heard Brill again.

“I'm nigh about dead for sleep; I reckon that's what makes me so jumpy. S'pose you could keep her from broachin' to while I turn in for a spell? West and by south's the course.”

“Sure I can!” said the giant; and knowing that this was my signal to retreat I edged away from the companion slide and was sitting in the open engine-hold hatchway again when Dorgan made his appearance on deck.

As I expected he would, the bully came straight for me.

“Didn't I tell you to get down in that hold and stay there?” he roared.

“It's too hot down there,” I retorted.

“You'll find it a heap hotter in hell,” he flung back at me as he went on to check the schooner's course with a stare into the binnacle. Evidently the little Minorcan at the wheel was not steering fine enough, for Dorgan broke out in a blast of profanity and struck him a blow in the chest that would have knocked him down but for his hold on the spokes of the wheel. The somber-faced little man took the blow without a murmur but I saw his dark eyes blaze with suppressed rage as Dorgan went to the after rail and once more focused his glass upon the following steamer.

The giant's prolonged scrutiny of the overtaking vessel gave me leave to do the same. One of the things field engineering does for a man is to train his eyes to long distance sight and it is quite likely that I saw as much with my naked eyes as Dorgan did with his glass. The steamship was creeping up on us gradually but it was apparent that she was proceeding only at loafing speed. As her course lay she was headed to pass us to leeward at a distance of perhaps half a mile. But at the rate she was steaming I thought some considerable time would elapse before we should have her abeam of us.

With Israel Brill's remark about her top works to prompt me I studied her as well as I could, shading my eyes from the glare of the sun upon the water. It was plain that she was not a passenger ship of any type that I was familiar with; she was too low in the water and as Brill had said there was a total absence of top works such as a modern passenger ship carries. Also, if the distance wasn't deceiving me, I thought she was too small to be a liner.

It is odd that the truth didn't occur to me at this time, but it didn't. While I was still straining my eyes to get a better view of the white boat a smell of raw gasoline came up through the open hatchway in which I was sitting and I swung down to find that the leak had started again and was this time beyond curing by any temporary tinkering. That being the case and the safety of the schooner being an essential part of my double-headed plan for vengeance and escape I set to work to make the needed repair in a workmanlike manner and was so long about it that the next time I climbed to the ladder head the noonday sun was blazing pretty nearly overhead and the short-sleeved undershirt which was the only body garment I had kept on while working in the hot hold was more than I needed.

Coming so suddenly out of the gloomy underdepths into the glaring sunshine it was perhaps half a minute before I could wink the dazzling blindness out of my eyes. Blurringly I saw that the smaller of the two Minorcans was still at the wheel and that Dorgan was pacing a slow sentry go up and down the weather side of the deck.

As the perspective cleared I looked astern to find the white steamship. It had disappeared as completely as if the sea had swallowed it. For a moment I did not understand what had happened. Then I crouched to look to leeward under the boom of the half-winged mainsail. As the schooner lifted on a swell the vista to port and forward widened and I had a nerve-tingling shock that nearly made me lose my hold upon the hatchway coaming and tumble into the hold. At a distance that I judged to be something less than a half mile, and steaming slowly on her course, was the white vessel with the curious lack of top hamper. The one chance in a thousand had tipped the beam. She was the Carter yacht—the Waikiki!

I knew then that my time was upon me—and it had come some hours too soon. Briefly, the plot I had so laboriously concocted during the waking hours of the night, and had perfected later, after Dorgan had told me where the schooner was and where she was going to be, was this: with the coming of darkness I would watch for my chance of slipping into the deck-house cabin while both of the bullies were on deck and rummage for arms, which I made no doubt I should find on board of a vessel given over to the risky business of liquor smuggling. With a pistol or a rifle I could and would bring Dorgan and Brill to terms. Since the schooner would then be off Key West it would by the same token be off Havana where, as I had prefigured, the Waikiki would already be berthed. And when I had gotten the whip hand of them I meant to make my captors change their course and land me at the Cuban city—to force them to do it at the point of a gun.

But the sight of the Waikiki steaming along almost within hailing distance fired a train of determination that blew the more prudent plan to shards. Alison, in trouble and depending—or so she had said—upon me, was in that near-by ship. And there, if the might of a single pair of hands could bring it to pass, I should presently be, too, and that before the slipping chance should escape.

Taking it for granted that Brill was still asleep in the cabin I stole a look at the steersman. What I meant to do would be done only if he failed to give the alarm, since he was facing me and could mark every move I should make. A hand waved at him when Dorgan's back was turned brought a nod and a smile. That was enough. Anxiously I watched the giant, expecting to see him turn at the forward end of the deck house and come pacing aft again. But he did not. Instead he kept on going forward, stopping only when he reached the foremast from which point he could stare across at the Waikiki under the after leach of the schooner's bellying staysail.

This was my chance and I caught at it. The companion slide was open and the padlock was hanging in its hasp. Bounding up I closed the slide noiselessly and snapped the lock. That disposed of Brill for the time being. With a quick glance back at the little steersman—a glance that assured me that I had nothing to fear from him—I crouched under the lee of the deck house and waited for Dorgan to come aft.