Told in the East, Talbot Mundy [crime books to read .txt] 📗

“He says he wants a tow for that boat of his,” reported the sublieutenant. “Said it in English, too—seems he knows more than he pretends.”

“Missed it, by gad, by just about five minutes!” said the commander aloud but to himself. “Well—the bargain's made, so it can't be helped. That boat's sinking! Throw 'em a line, quick!”

The pilot's crew displayed no overdone affection for their craft, and there was no struggle to the last to leave it. One by one—whichever could grab the line first was the first to come—they were hauled through the thundering waves and their boat was left to sink. Then, before they could adjust their unaccustomed feet to the different balance of the Puncher's heaving deck, the gongs clanged and the destroyer leaped ahead like a dripping sea-soused water beetle, into her utmost speed that instant.

All conscious of his new-won dignity, and utterly regardless of his boat, the pilot had found the bridge at once. He clung to the rail there and braced one naked foot against a stanchion. To him the ship's speed seemed the all-absorbing thing, for either Mr. Hartley had forgotten just how many revolutions would make fifteen knots or else he had underestimated his engine-room's capacity. The Puncher split the waves and spewed them twenty feet above her, racing head-on for the reef, and Curley Crothers was too busy at his wheel to pass the pilot the surreptitious insult he intended.

The gongs clanged presently, and the Puncher swallowed half her speed at once, giving the pilot courage.

“This exceedingly damn dangerous place, sah!” he remarked.

“No bottom at eight!” sang Joe Byng in the chains.

Three words passed between the commander and Crothers, and the Puncher hove a weed-draped underside high over the crest of a beam-on roller as she veered a dozen points, ducked her starboard rail into the trough of it, and sliced her long thin nose, sizzling and swirling, into the welter ahead. It was growing weedier and dirtier each minute.

“No bottom at eight!” chanted Joe Byng.

And at the sound of his voice the pilot hauled himself up by his leverage on the rail and found his voice again.

“This most exceedingly damn dangerous place, sah!”

But the commander was too busy acting all three L's—Log, Lead and Lookout—his shrouded figure swaying to the heave and fall and his eyes fixed straight ahead of him on the double line of boiling foam. He had conned his course and had it charted in his head. There was no time to argue with a pilot.

“Port you-ah hel-um, sah! Port you-ah hel-um!”

“By the mark—seven!” sang Joe Byng from the chains.

“Port you-ah hel-um, sah!” yelled the pilot in an ecstasy of fright.

“Starboard a little,” came the quiet command.

Curley Crothers moved his wheel and the Puncher's bow yawed twenty feet, as if Providence had pushed her.

“Gawd A'mighty!” murmured Joe Byng, gazing open-mouthed at fifty feet of jagged rock that grinned up suddenly three waves away.

The pilot braced both feet against a stanchion and tried to take the weigh off her by pulling.

“Half speed, sah! Go slow, sah! Go dead slow, sah! You'll pile up you-ah damn ship, sah! Ah tell you, sah, you'll pile her up as suah as hell, sah! 'Bout a million sharks round he-ah, sah! For the love o' God, sah—Captain, sah—”

“Oh, muzzle him, some one!” ordered the commander, and the jiggling, complaining engines danced ahead, the horrid gray beneath the pilot's ebony notwithstanding.

“By the deep—four!” warned Joe Byng in a level sing-song. The two gongs clanged like an echo to him, and the Puncher's speed was reduced at once to her point, of minimum stability. She rolled and quivered like a living thing in fear, falling on and off, nosing out a passage on her own account apparently, and seeming to be gathering all her strength for one tremendous effort.

“That's bettah, sah! That's bettah, Captain, sah! Go astern! This he-ah's the bar, sah—damn bad place, the bar, sah! Go astern, sah. Captain, sah, d'you he-ah me—go astern! Try again, 'nother place further up, sah. Captain, sah! Over that way; that way thar—that way, sah!”

He pointed through the sky-flung spray with a trembling finger and his voice was rich with doleful emphasis, but the commander held his course and carried on. There seemed neither sympathy nor understanding on that unsteadiest of ships. Curley Crothers, solemn-faced as Nemesis and looking half as compassionate, moved his wheel a trifle. Joe Byng in the chains kept up his even sing-song, expressionless, as if he were an automatic clock that did not care, but must record the truth each time his dripping pendulum touched bottom.

“And a half—three!”

White foam was boiling in among the dirty welter, and the Puncher's bow pitched suddenly as the first big bar wave lifted her; a second later her propellers chug-chug-chugged in surface spume as she kicked upward like a porpoise diving.

“Oh, lordy, lordy, lordy!” groaned the pilot. “This he-ah watah's full of sharks, an' that's the bar! You're on the bar now, Captain, sah!”

“By the mark—three!” Byng chanted steadily.

“Starboard a little more,” said the commander leaning forward and shoving the pilot away to leeward at the same time. Then he shouted to the fo'castle head, where a bosun's mate and his crew had climbed and were awaiting orders in evident and most unreasonable unconcern.

“Get both anchors ready!”

“Aye, aye, sir!” came the answer, and efficiency controlled by experts proceeded at kaleidoscopic angles to defy the elements. The big steel hooks were ready in an instant.

“Stop her!” ordered the commander.

The gongs clanged out an alarm and the throbbing ceased.

“Hard astern, both engines!”

Again there was a clangor under hatches, and the suffering bearings shrieked. The Puncher dropped her stern two feet or so, and the foam boiled brown round her propellers. The shock of the reversal pitched the pilot up against the forward rail, where he clung like a drowning man.

“For the love o' God, sah! Captain; sah, we've struck! Ah told you so; Ah said—”

“And a half-three!” chanted Joe Byng.

“Stop her! Starboard engine ahead! Port engine ahead! Ease your helm! Meet her! Half speed ahead!”

The Puncher pitched and rolled, kicking at the following monsoon that thundered at her counter and tossing up the foam that seethed about her bow. She trembled from end to end, as if the pounding of the water hurt her.

“Helm amidships!” ordered the commander suddenly.

“'Midships, sir!”

“Full speed ahead, both engines!”