The Barren Islands/Chapter 7

HILE it was true that Lieutenant Brouillan knew Trenchard by sight, it was equally true that he did not know the schooner by sight. Few men did. None the less, as his smart little cutter steamed down at her, he thrilled to the possibility that he had caught the pirate at last.

Coming closer, he scanned her intently, studied every line of her. Brouillan was a complacent little man with a high opinion of himself and an exaggerated sense of his own ability; none the less, he was capable enough, and might be pardoned his cocksure air. It did not occur to him that this schooner might have come from the north, simply because he had been watching the inner passage. He thought that she had either come up from the south, or else had come from Delagoa Bay for Maintirano. It was evident that she was in ballast and had been freshly painted; at the same time, she was aground, her lines and spars were in slovenly shape, and her slightly canted deck was littered with everything from rock ballast to uncoiled lines.

“Only natives aboard her,” he muttered, then issued curt orders. “One man remain at bow and stern to fend off; two men remain at the gun with you, bo'sun. The rest come aboard with me.”

The men responded smartly. Brouillan laid aside his glasses and watched the deck of the schooner as the cutter came past her bow and bumped along to where Yusuf had swung over a ladder. He rose. Two of his men held the ladder, and he mounted to the deck above. The seamen followed one by one, ten of them. Brouillan surveyed the grinning Malagasys, then turned to Yusuf and swept him with a look.

“You speak French?” he demanded.

“Perfectly, M. le Capitain,” said Yusuf, with a cordial laugh that showed his white teeth. “It is a blessing that you have come to aid us, for now we shall get off this accursed reef.”

“Where is Captain Trenchard?” snapped Brouillan.

“Tren-chaird?” repeated Yusuf, with a puzzled stare. “I do not understand, monsieur. I am the rais here.”

“Your papers?”

“I have them somewhere—Hazo! Go down to my cabin and find those papers. I think they are in the upper berth.” With this careless response, Yusuf grinned again. “This is my first experience of these waters, monsieur, and I assure you I do not like it. I was engaged to bring this schooner from Mozambique to New Maintirano, you comprehend; an Arab firm there has bought her. Well—”

“What firm?” demanded Brouillan. Yusuf, with a surprised air, named one of the chief Arab traders of the port. “Continue,” said the officer.

“As I was about to say,” went on Yusuf, “we must have been forty miles north of here and at least twenty off Koraraika Bay, when we struck a shoal. In the open sea, I assure you, with not the slightest evidence of any danger! It must have been set there by Allah's providence to injure us. Our rudder broke. We drifted two days before getting it fixed, and did not know where we were.”

“You struck the Taunton Castle shoal, evidently. Continue.”

“Yesterday morning we spoke a dhow bound north. She guided us to an anchorage here, and we repaired the rudder. Then, this morning, our hawser parted, and before we realized it we had drifted on the shoal.”

Brouillan grunted. “Fine seamen, you Arabs! All hands asleep, I suppose.”

AZO appeared, bearing a dirty envelope, which Yusuf took and extended.

“Here are the papers, monsieur.”

Brouillan examined them, and found no cause for suspicion.

“Right,” he said, returning the envelope. If those papers had passed his eye, they would pass anywhere. “Your cargo?”

“There is none,” responded Yusuf. “We are in ballast. We were about to lighten the stern by shifting all the ballast forward—you observe, the hatches are off—when we saw your boat coming. Now, if you can take a hawser and give us a pull—”

It was cleverly said, cleverly acted, but Brouillan was not to be put off the scent by any such means.

Trenchard, sitting in the cabin below, listening intently to every word uttered by that penetrating voice, knew that the crucial moment had arrived. If Brouillan did not search the cabins, the game was won. If he insisted on making a thorough search, however, then there was nothing for it but to go down fighting, make a desperate effort, and take what was meted out. Trenchard rose from the table and went to the port, or close enough to look out. He saw the ruffles of cat's-paws reaching across the water, making faint ripples, and knew that the breeze was coming, and coming from the right quarter. Under his feet he sensed rather than heard a faint scraping, and knew that the rising tide was lifting the schooner. With wind and tide, in another ten minutes she could be off, if she were free. But—she was caught.

He stood there, listening.

“We'll help you off, yes. First, I want to have a look around. Four of you men go forward and take a look below. Two of you drop into the hold and take a look. The other four will remain here. Rais, suppose you show me your after accommodations. Your cabins are empty? What is that noise?”

It was a muffled, methodical thumping, followed by a subdued thud, then came a sharper and clearer rattle of iron on wood. Forillon had worked himself from his bunk, had fallen to the floor, and was beating with his handcuffs against the door of his cabin. Trenchard, knowing that it was no time to temporize, darted to the door and down the passage, unlocked the door of Forillon's cabin, and with a thrust of his foot shoved the prostrate man aside. He leaped in, picked up Forillon, and hurled the man into his bunk with a crash. Forillon lay senseless.

HEN Trenchard was back again in his saloon cabin, stifling a curse, and went to the port. He was in time to hear Yusuf's explanation—one which showed that the game was up.

“—a poor unfortunate Frenchman, monsieur, who is out of his head. His name I do not know. He never speaks, but sits all day at the cabin table, working with pencil and paper, drawing figures. The authorities at Mozambique forced me to bring him—they wanted to get rid of him.”

“Hm!” returned Brouillan. “This looks a bit queer to me. I'll take a look at your cabins and see this man. You men remain here. If I whistle, come down.”

Trenchard sat again at the table, laid down his pipe, waited. The clack of heels sounded on the ladder, sounded in the passage.

“There he is, monsieur.”

Trenchard met the gaze of Brouillan; the eyes of the two men gripped. Into the face of Brouillan flashed amazed recognition; for an instant he was too astounded to speak, but his hand slipped to the pistol at his side.

Then Yusuf struck the officer a terrible blow behind the ear.

Trenchard was out of his chair and leaping forward. Brouillan swayed, put out his hands for support, and his knees loosened. Trenchard caught him as he fell, drew out his automatic, and passed it to Yusuf. Then the two men leaped for the ladder.

Just in time! An angry cry rang out from somewhere forward, followed by a shot. Then came a burst of shouts, the bark of pistols, the clear crack of a rifle. Trenchard gained the deck to see Hovas and Frenchmen driving at each other, pistols at work, hidden rifles jerked out. Yusuf was up with a roar and loosing his automatic on the four seamen by the rail. Two of them dropped, the other two returned the fire, but Trenchard's pistol was speaking by this time. Those four were out of it.

Two were caught in the hold and died there. The other four, up forward, were firing with cool precision. Three of the Hovas lay about the deck, two more staggered away wounded; then the burst of rifle-fire broke on the French seamen. Three of them went down, the fourth gained the rail and leaped to the cutter below.

HE, meantime, was not idle. Six men in her now, she began to shove off. A Hova came to the rail and heaved up a huge chunk of the rock ballast. Three bullets from below riddled him, but a scream rang out as the great ragged rock hove down and smashed into the craft. Then, abruptly, the machine gun began to spray lead through the schooner.

Unable to elevate sufficiently to reach her deck, the three gunners depended on their comrades to cover them while they poured an unremitting stream of bullets into the devoted ship at their side. Nothing could resist those nickeled agents of death, which went through and through the schooner; they were quite capable of raking out her bottom and sinking her.

Before they could do this, however, rock ballast began to come down. Trenchard, at the rail, fired coolly, while others of his men banged away with rifles and hove down jagged chunks of ballast. Had she drawn a little away, the cutter might have won that fray, but her engines had been smashed, the bottom was riven out of her. She vomited up a great cloud of steam; her men were shot down—then she vanished suddenly at the reef-edge. There was a muffled roar; a boiling surge of steam and bloody spray shot up in the air. Trenchard, driven back by the concussion, caught in his arms the reeling figure of Yusuf, whose naked torso was spouting blood.

“Hazo!” rang out his voice. “Come here.”

The brown giant came, running. Like many of his race, he was not only a good surgeon but an unrivaled physician, and kept a large store of his native herbs aboard. He knelt beside Yusuf, dashed blood from a scalp-wound out of his eyes, and peered down.

“Will he live?” demanded Trenchard.

“If cared for, yes.”

“Then take care of him. Attend to nothing else.”

RENCHARD came to his feet, staring around. He caught a puff of cool breeze on his cheek, and knew that the wind was come. Sight of the deck, however, sickened him. Five of his own men were sprawled out dead; most of the others were somehow wounded, yet were wildly exultant and filled with savage fury of battle. They were dragging two wounded French seamen to the rail, and were about to hurl them over the side when Trenchard was upon them.

“Stop that! Get out the whaleboat—look sharp, now! Two of you take a drag on the capstan and bring in that hawser taut. We're off the reef and the wind is here. Out with the whaleboat! Put these two men into her. The officer is down in my cabin. Bring him up and put him in likewise.”

He leaned over the wounded seamen and roughly bandaged them. The others, dead, were being put overboard. The whaleboat was put out, and four of the Hovas passed down into her with the wounded men. Brouillan, still senseless, was brought up and put aboard the boat. Trenchard gave a curt order.

“Put them ashore, and return quickly.”

The brown men grunted and fell to their task. A sullen splash showed the fate of the last dead seaman. Of the vanished cutter, nothing showed but some torn and shattered fragments; the six men aboard her had gone down.

Trenchard sent his remaining two men aloft to shake out the canvas. Hazo came to him and reported that Yusuf was badly hurt, shot through the breast, but had a good chance of recovering.

“Get that foresail shaken out then,” said Trenchard. “As soon as she feels the wind, cut the kedge hawser. Let's get out of this cursed place.”

It was only a short trip to the north point of the island and back. The whaleboat returned and was somehow hauled aboard. On the northern horizon was lifting a smudge of black. Trenchard pointed to it.

“There you are, men! The Tonkin. Look alive, now! If we're out in the channel in twenty minutes, she can't catch us. If not, she'll reach us with a gun. Get to work!”

Hazo chopped the kedge hawser asunder; the other men got the canvas out. Trenchard, at the wheel, felt the breeze freshening fast, and the schooner laid over it. She drew out, wore, and then went driving off toward the open channel.

Trenchard, as the open sea spread forth ahead, gave the helm to Hazo and started below. Now was the time—no waiting for sunset. It must be done now, at once. No sentiment, real or false, could postpone the job further. He descended the ladder and walked to Forillon's door with steady tread. He threw the door open and entered.

For a long moment Trenchard stood motionless, transfixed. He was not prepared for the sight that greeted him. The blue eyes of Forillon were closed; the face was ghastly pale above its gag. Then Trenchard saw the splinters of wood, the ripped siding, the smashed port—those nickeled bullets from the cutter had riddled the ship's side through and through. A pool of scarlet confirmed the fate of Forillon.

Appalled, awed by the thing which happened here, Trenchard instinctively reached for his cap, then found himself bareheaded. After all, the decision had been taken out of his hands. Judgment had been passed; the sentence had been executed. There was nothing more to do, except to pay his debt to Forillon.

“I will pay it,” muttered Trenchard. “There is a French ensign somewhere aboard—”

He lifted his eyes and looked through the wrenched and splintered opening of the port. On the far horizon he saw a trail of black smoke.

He turned and closed the door, softly, as though loath to awaken that sleeper.