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

sight.
Captain Mayo could see nothing--even the surface of the water was almost indistinguishable.
Ahead, behind, to right and left, everything that could toot was busy and vociferous. Here and there a duet of three staccato blasts indicated that neighbors were threatening to collide and were crawfishing to the best of their ability.
Twice the big steamer stopped her engines and drifted until the squabble ahead of her seemed to have been settled.
A halt mixes the notations of the log, but the mates of the steamer made the Battery signals, and after a time the spidery outlines of the first great bridge gave assurance that their allowances were correct.
Providentially there was a shredding of the fog at Hell Gate, a shore-breeze flicking the mists off the surface of the water.
Then was revealed the situation which lay behind the particularly emphatic and uproarious "one long and two short" blasts of a violent whistle. A Lehigh Valley tug was coming down the five-knot current with three light barges, which the drift had skeowowed until they were taking up the entire channel. With their cables, the tug and tow stretched for at least four thousand feet, almost a mile of dangerous drag.
"Our good luck, sir," vouchsafed the first mate. "She was howling so loud, blamed if I could tell whether she was coming or going. She's got no business coming down the Sound."
Captain Mayo, his teeth set hard, his rigid face dripping with moisture, as he stood in the open window, stopped the engines of his giant charge and jingled for full speed astern in order to halt her. He had no desire to battle for possession of the channel with what he saw ahead.
At that moment Manager Fogg came into the pilothouse, disregarding the "No Admittance" sign by authority of his position. He lighted a cigar and displayed the contented air of a man who has fed fully.
"You have been making a pretty slow drag of it, haven't you, Captain Mayo? I've had time to eat dinner--and I'm quite a feeder at that! And we haven't made the Gate yet!"
"We couldn't do a stroke better and be safe," said the captain over his shoulder, his eyes on the tow.
"What's the matter now?"
"A tug and three barges in the way."
"Do you mean to say you're holding up a Vose liner with eight hundred passengers, waiting for a tugboat? Look here, Mayo, we've got to hustle folks to where they want to go, and get them there in time."
"That tow is coming down with the current and has the right of way, sir. And there's no chance of passing, for she's sweeping the channel."
"I don't believe there's any law that makes a passenger-boat hold up for scows," grumbled Fogg. "If there is one, a good man knows how to get around it and keep up his schedule." He paced the pilot-house at the extreme rear, puffing his cigar.
He grunted when Mayo gave the go-ahead bells and the throb of the engines began.
"Now ram her along, boy. People in these days don't want to waste time on the road. They're even speeding up the automobile hearses."
Captain Mayo did not reply. He was grateful that the dangers of Hell Gate had been revealed. The mists hung in wisps against North Brother Island when he swung into the channel of the Gate, and he could see, far ahead, the shaft of the lighthouse. It was a stretch where close figuring was needed, and this freak of the mists had given him a fine chance. He jingled for full speed and took a peep to note the bearing of Sunken Meadow spindle.
"Nothe-east, five-eighths east!" he directed the quartermaster at the wheel.
The man repeated the command mechanically and brought her to her course for the Middle Ground passage.
After they had rounded North Brother, Whitestone Point tower was revealed. It really seemed as if the fog were clearing, and even in the channel between Execution Rocks and Sands Point his hopes were rising. But in the wider waters off Race Rock the _Montana_ drove her black snout once more into the white pall, and her whistle began to bray again.
The young captain sighed. "East, a half nothe!"
"East, a half nothe, it is, sir!"
At least, he had conquered East River, the Gate, and the narrows beyond, and had many miles straight ahead to the whistler off Point Judith. He was resolved to be thankful for small favors.
He hoped that with the coming of the night and on account of the prevalence of the fog he would find that shipping of the ordinary sort had stopped moving. However, in a few minutes he heard telltale whistles ahead, and he signaled half speed. A lumbering old lighter with a yawing derrick passed close aboard. An auxiliary fisherman, his exhaust snapping like a machine-gun, and seeming to depend on that noise for warning, was overtaken.
"Can you leave that window for a minute, Captain Mayo?" asked the general manager.
The captain promptly joined Mr. Fogg at the rear of the spacious pilot-house.
"See here, Cap," remonstrated his superior, "I came down through these waters on the _Triton_ of the Union line the other day, and she made her time. What's the matter with us?"
"I'm obeying the law, sir. And there are new warnings just issued." He pointed to the placard headed "Safety First" in big, red letters. "The word has been passed that the first captain who is caught with the goods will be made an example of."
"Is that so?" commented Fogg, studying the end of his cigar. His tone was a bit peculiar. "But the _Triton_ came along."
"And she nigh rammed the _Nequasset_ in the fog the last trip I made up the coast. It was simply touch and go, Mr. Fogg, and all her fault. We were following the rules to the letter."
"And that's one way of spoiling the business of a steamboat line," snapped Fogg. He added, to himself, "But it isn't my way!"
"I'm sorry, but I have been trained to believe that a record for safety is better than all records for speed, sir."
"I let Jacobs go because he was old-fashioned, Mayo. This is the age of taking chances--taking chances and getting there! Business, politics, railroading, and steam-boating. The people expect it. The right folks do it."
"You are general manager of this line, Mr. Fogg. Do you order me to make schedule time, no matter what conditions are?"
"You are the captain of this boat. I simply want you to deliver up-to-date goods. As to how you do it, that is not my business. I'm not a sea-captain, and I don't presume to advise as to details."
Captain Mayo was young, He knew the 'longcoast game. He was ambitious. Opportunity had presented itself. He understood the unreasoning temper of those who sought dividends without bothering much about details. He knew how other passenger captains were making good with the powers who controlled transportation interests. He confessed to himself that he had envied the master of the rushing _Triton_ who had swaggered past as if he owned the sea.
Till then Mayo had been the meek and apologetic passer-by along the ocean lane, expecting to be crowded to one side, dodging when the big fellow bawled for open road.
He remembered with what haste he always manouvered the old _Nequasset_ out of the way of harm when he heard the lordly summons of the passenger liners. Was not that the general method of the freighter skippers? Why should he not expect them to get out of his way, now that he was one of the swaggerers of the sea? Let them do the worrying now, as he had done the worrying and dodging in the past! He stepped back to his window, those reflections whirling in his brain.
"This is no freighter," he told himself. "Fogg is right. If I don't deliver the goods somebody else will be called on to do it, so what's the use? I'll play the game. Just remember--will you, Mayo--that you've got your heart's wish, and are captain of the _Montana_. If I lose this job on account of a placard with red letters, I'll kick myself on board a towboat, and stay there the rest of my life."
He yanked a log-book from the rack and noted the steamer's average speed from the entries. He signaled to the engine-room through the speaking-tube.
"Give her two hundred a minute, chief!" he ordered.
And fifteen seconds later, her engines pulsing rhythmically, the big craft was splitting fog and water at express speed, howling for little fellows to get out from underfoot.
Down in the gleaming depths of her the orchestra was lilting a gay waltz, silver clattered over the white napery of the dining-room, men and women laughed and chattered and flirted; men wrote telegrams, making appointments for the morrow at early hours, and the wireless flashed them forth. They were sent with the certainty on the part of the senders that no man in these days waits for tide or fog. The frothing waters flashed past in the night outside, and they who ventured forth upon the dripping decks glanced at the fan of white spume spreading into the fog, and were glad to return to cozy chairs and the radiance of the saloon.
High up forward, in the pilot-house, were the eyes and the brains of this rushing monster. It was dark there except for the soft, yellow gleam of the binnacle lights. It was silent but for the low voice of a mate who announced his notations.
Occasionally the mates glanced at each other in the gloom when a steamer's whistle sounded ahead. This young captain seemed to be a chap who carried his nerve with him! They were used to the more cautious system of Captain Jacobs.
The master did not reduce speed. He leaned far out, his hand at his ear. The third time an unknown sounded her blast he took a quick glance at the compass.
"Two points shift--so she shows," he said aloud. "We'll pass her all right."
The change in the direction of the sound had assured him. A few minutes later the whistle voiced a location safely abeam. But the next whistle they heard sounded dead ahead, and increased in volume of sound only gradually. They were overtaking a vessel headed in the same direction.
Captain Mayo pulled the cord oftener and sounded more prolonged, more imperious hoots. He ordered no change in his course. He was headed for the Point Judith whistler, and did not propose to take chances on fumbling by any detours. The craft ahead at last seemed to recognize the voice of its master. The sound of the whistle showed that it had swung off the course.
The mate mumbled notations.
"All ears out!" ordered the captain. "We ought to make that whistler!" And in the next breath he said: "There she is!" He pointed a wet hand ahead and slightly to port. A queer, booming grunt came to them. "You're all right, old girl," he declared. "Jacobs wasn't over-praising you." He reached over the sill and patted the woodwork of his giant pet. He turned to the quartermaster. "East, five-eighths south," was his direction.
"East, five-eighths south, sir!"
"What's the next we make, captain?" asked the general manager from the gloom at the rear of the pilot-house.
"Sow and Pigs Lightship, entrance of Vineyard Sound, sir."
"Good work! I'm going to take a turn below. See you again! What can I tell any uneasy gentleman who is afraid he'll miss a business appointment in the morning?"
"Tell him we'll be on time to the dot," declared the captain, quietly.
Mr. Fogg closed the pilot-house door behind himself and chuckled when he eased his way down the slippery ladder.
Mr. Fogg sauntered through the