Blow the Man Down, Holman Day [e ink epub reader TXT] 📗

trunks, avant couriers of the passengers.
He went aboard by the freight entrance and found his way to the row of officers' staterooms. He recognized the gray-bearded veteran who was pacing the alley outside the pilot-house, though the man was not in uniform; it was the deposed master.
"Good morning, Captain Mayo," he said, without any resentment in his tones. "I congratulate you on your promotion."
"I hope you understand that I didn't go hunting for this job," blurted Mayo.
"I believe it's merely a matter of new policy--so Manager Fogg tells me. Understand me, too, Captain Mayo! I harbor no resentment, especially not against you."
He put out his hand in fine, manly fashion, and was so distinctly the best type of the dignified, self-possessed sea-captain of the old school, that Mayo fairly flinched at thought of replacing this man.
Captain Jacobs opened the door lettered "Captain." "All my truck is out and over the rail. I'll sit in with you, if you don't mind, until Mr. Fogg arrives. You're going to have a thick passage, Captain Mayo."
"It doesn't seem right to me--putting a new man on here in this fog," protested Mayo, warmly. "I ought to have her in clear weather till I know her tricks. In a pinch, when you've got to know how a boat behaves, and know it mighty sudden in order to avoid a smash, one false move puts you into the hole."
"They seem to be running steamboat lines from Wall Street nowadays, instead of from the water-front," said Captain Jacobs, dryly. "It's all in the game as they're playing it in these times. There's nothing to be said by the men in the pilot-house."
"I'm a sailor, and a simple one. I think I know my job, Captain Jacobs, or else I wouldn't accept this promotion. But I've got no swelled head. It's the proper and sensible thing for you to take the _Montana_ out tonight and let me hang around the pilot-house and watch you. If I can prevail upon Mr. Fogg to allow it, will you make another trip?"
"I would do it to help you, but I'll be blasted if I'll help Fogg--not if he would get down now and beg me," declared Captain Jacobs, showing temper for the first time. "And if you had been pitchforked out as I've been after all my years of honest service you'd feel just as I do, Captain Mayo. You don't blame me, do you?"
"I can't blame you."
"You know the courses, and you'll have the same staff as I've had. You'll find every notation in the log accurate to the yard or the second. She's a steady old girl and, knowing tide set and courses, as you do, you can depend on her to the turn of a screw. You have my best wishes--but I'm done."
He put the fervor of final resolve into the declaration. But, with sailor's fraternal spirit of helpfulness he sat down and went into the details of all the Montana's few whims. He called in the mates and introduced them to the new master. They seemed to be quiet, sturdy men who bore no malice because a new policy had put a new man over them.
Then arrived General-Manager Fogg, and in this strictly business presence Mayo did not presume to voice any of his doubts or his opinion of his inefficiency.
The rather stiff and decidedly painful ceremony of speeding the former commander was soon over, and Captain Jacobs departed.
"Why haven't you put on your uniform?" asked Fogg. "You have fixed yourself out with a new one, of course?"
"Yes, sir." Mayo's cheeks flushed slightly when he recollected how he had strutted before the mirror in his room at the hotel. But he had been ashamed to hurry into his gilt-incrusted coat in the presence of Captain Jacobs.
"Get it on as soon as you can," ordered the general manager. "I want you to make a general inspection of the boat with me."
They made the tour, and in spite of his misgivings, when he saw the mists sweeping past the end of the pier Captain Mayo, receiving the salutes of respectful subalterns, felt the proud joy of one who has at last arrived at the goal of his ambition.
Master of the crack _Montana_, queen of the Vose fleet, at the age of twenty-six!
He glanced into each of the splendid mirrors of the great saloon to make sure of the gold letters on his cap.
The thick carpet seemed grateful to his step. The ship's orchestra was rehearsing in its gallery.
If only that devilish fog would lift! But still it surged in from the sea, and the glass, down to 29.40, promised no clearing weather.
"Safety to the minutest detail--that's my motto," declared Manager Fogg. "Order a fire drill."
It was accomplished, and Mr. Fogg criticized the lack of snap. He was rather severe after the life-boat drill, was over. He ordered a second rehearsal. He commanded that the crew do it a third time. The warmth of his insistence on this feature of shipboard discipline was very noticeable.
"And when you put those boats back see to it that every line is free and coiled and every cover loose. It costs a lot of good money if you kill off passengers in these days." Then he hurried away. "I'll see you before sailing-time," he informed Captain Mayo.
The new skipper was glad to be alone and to have leisure for study of the steamer's log-books. He had been accustomed to a freighter's slower time on the courses. He did a little figuring. He found that at seventy-five revolutions per minute the _Montana_ would log off about the same speed that the freighter made when doing her best. He resolved to make the fog an excuse and slow down to the _Nequasset's_ familiar rate of progress. He reflected that he would feel pretty much at home under those circumstances. He was heartened, and went about the ship looking less like a malefactor doomed to execution.
When General-Manager Fogg, bustled on board a few minutes prior to the advertised sailing-time at five o'clock, he commented on Captain Mayo's improved demeanor.
"Getting one of the best jobs on this coast seemed to make considerable of a mourner out of you. Perhaps a mirror has shown you how well you look in that new uniform. At any rate, I'm glad to see you have chirked up. And now I'll give you a piece of news that ought to make you look still happier: I'm going along on this trip with you. If you show me that you can do a good job in this kind of weather you needn't worry about your position."
The expression on Captain Mayo's face did not indicate unalloyed delight when he heard this "good news." Unaccustomed as he was to the ship, he could not hope to make a smooth showing.
"And still you refuse to cheer up!" remonstrated the manager.
"I am glad you are going along, sir. Don't misunderstand me. But a sailor is a pretty serious chap when he feels responsibility. I'm undertaking a big stunt."
"It's the best way to find out whether you're the man for the job--whether you're the man I think you are. It's a test that beats sailing ships on a puddle."
"I'm glad you're aboard," repeated the captain. "It's going to shade down my responsibility just a little."
"It is, is it?" cried Manager Fogg, his tones sharp. "Not by a blamed sight! You're the captain of this craft. I'm a passenger. Don't try to shirk. You aren't afraid, are you?"
They were standing beside the dripping rail outside the pilot-house. Far below them, in the spacious depths of the steamer, a bugle sounded long-drawn notes and the monotonous calls of stewards warned "All ashore!"
The gangways were withdrawn with dull "clackle" of wet chains over pulleys, and Captain Mayo, after a swift glance at his watch, to make sure of the time, ordered a quartermaster to sound the signal for "Cast off!" The whistle yelped a gruff note, and, seeing that all was clear, the captain yanked the auxiliary bell-pulls at the rail. Two for the port engine, two for the starboard, and the _Montana_ began to back into the gray pall which shrouded the river.
Captain Mayo saw the lines of faces on the pier, husbands and wives, mothers and sweethearts, bidding good-by to those who waved farewell from the steamer's decks. He gathered himself with supreme grip of resolve. It was up to him! He almost spoke it aloud.
Tremors of doubt did not agitate him any longer. It was unthinking faith, nevertheless it was implicit confidence, that all those folks placed in him. They were intrusting themselves to his vessel with the blind assurance of travelers who pursue a regular route, not caring how the destination is reached as long as they come to their journey's end.
The hoarse, long, warning blast which announced to all in the river that the steamer was leaving her dock drowned out the shouts of farewell and the strains of the gay air the orchestra was playing.
"See you later," said General-Manager Fogg. "I think I'll have an early dinner."
Captain Mayo climbed the short ladder and entered his pilot-house.
It was up to him!


XX ~ TESTING OUT A MAN
Now the first land we made is call-ed The Deadman,
The Ramhead off Plymouth, Start, Portland and Wight.
We sail-ed by Beachy,
By Fairlee and Dungeness,
Until we came abreast of the South Foreland Light.
--Farewell and Adieu.
With starboard engine clawing her backward, and the port engine driving her ahead, the Montana swung her huge bulk when she was free of the penning piers. The churning propellers, offsetting, turned her in her tracks. Then she began to feel her way out of the maze of the traffic.
The grim, silent men of the pilot-houses do not talk much even when they are at liberty on shore. They are taciturn when on duty. They do not relate their sensations when they are elbowing their way through the East River in a fog; they haven't the language to do so.
A psychologist might make much out of the subject by discussing concentration sublimated, human senses coordinating sight and sound on the instant, a sort of sixth sense which must be passed on into the limbos of guesswork as instinct.
The man in the pilot-house would not in the least understand a word of what the psychologist was talking about.
The steamboat officer merely understands that he must be on his job!
The _Montana_ added her voice to the bedlam of river yawp.
The fog was so dense that even the lookout posted at her fore windlasses was a hazy figure as seen from the pilot-house. A squat ferryboat, which was headed across the river straight at the slip where her shore gong 'was hailing her, splashed under the steamer's bows, two tugs loafed nonchalantly across in the other direction--saucy sparrows of the river traffic, always underfoot and dodging out of danger by a breathless margin.
Whistle-blasts piped or roared singly and in pairs, a duet of steam voices, or blended at times into a puzzling chorus.
A steamer's whistle in the fog conveys little information except to announce that a steam-propelled craft is somewhere yonder in the white blank, unseen, under way. No craft is allowed to sound passing signals unless the vessel she is signaling is in plain