“The pepper-tin!” Jumbo whispered, and found Larry ready with it at his elbow. “Thanks!” he said, and poured a couple of ounces of the stuff down upon the powder, having first rewadded it very loosely.
“Now,” he whispered, “I guess we’ll just shift whoever’s on the roof, my son.”
He stepped forward under the holes and listened to the noise of the auger, trying to decide the position of the man who was boring. At that instant, however, the auger ceased to work, and in the succeeding silence he caught Larry’s voice, whispering urgently:—
“Quick, Jumbo! Fire! They’ve spotted you! Get from under the holes! Get from under the holes!”
But the warning came too late, for at the same moment there came a spurt of fire down through the last hole bored, and something seemed to scald Jumbo’s left shoulder horribly, while the bang of the revolver sounded tremendous. Jumbo raised the big pistol, but there came two more shots from above and he was wounded again, one bullet ripping along the whole length of his right arm and the other taking the skin and flesh off his middle knuckle.
“Come back!” shouted Larry, and caught him by his wounded arm and dragged him out of range. “Jumbo,” he continued, “are you hurt much? Tell me quick!” For big Jumbo looked ghastly, and the blood was running down both sleeves, whilst the big pistol lay unfired upon the deck of the berth.
“Hey! hey! hey!” they heard the wounded Second Mate laughing, brutally, through the auger-holes. “We’re going to shoot you down like rats! Go ahead with the auger, Chips. You needn’t bother to be quiet now. The Bo’sun and I will keep them away.”
“My gracious!” said Bullard, who, with Kinniks and Jones, had jumped out of his bunk when the Second Mate fired. “What has he done to you, Jumbo? What has he done? Get him on a chest, Larry!” He took the big ’prentice in his arms and steadied him to the chest, for the young man had grown utterly sick and dizzy.
“Oh, you brute!” he shouted, fiercely, up to the Second Mate. “You vile brute! You’ve killed Jumbo!”
The only reply was a blind succession of shots into the berth, which hit no one, as no one was in view of the auger holes. The result, however, on Bullard was to make him stoop swiftly for the big horse-pistol upon the floor. Then, in a kind of mad rage, he made one spring right under the holes and thrusting the muzzle of the big weapon up against one of them, he fired. It was all done in an instant of time, with the quickness of a wild cat leaping. From the top of the house there came a terrible scream in the Second Mate’s voice: “I’m blinded! I’m blinded! Oh, good heavens, I’m blinded!”
They heard nothing further for a number of seconds; for every one of the lads was taken with tremendous paroxysms of sneezing, owing to an enormous quantity of pepper being in the air of the berth; for some had spurted out at the sides, at the juncture of the hole and muzzle.
Abruptly, as the effect of the pepper was easing from them, there came a gigantic sneeze from behind the curtains of Connaught’s bunk, and the next instant his curtains were violently switched aside and he sat up—waked out of his long lethargy, sneezing and sane.
Above them, on the roof of the little house, they caught the moaning of the Second Mate, intermingled with violent sneezings from the Bo’sun and Chips.
“What’s happened?” asked Connaught, utterly bewildered, and staring at the group of lads about the bleeding Jumbo. “What’s happened?” he asked again, and went off once more into a burst of sneezes. But none of the lads had any time to reply to him, for they were all busy with the senior, Larry and Bullard cutting off his coat, and Kinniks and Harold Jones getting water in the berth basin and tearing up shore-going handkerchiefs for bandages.
Presently they had him bound up as well as they could, and so lifted him into his bunk. Above them they heard the staggering, limping steps of the Second Mate and his constant groaning, as the Bo’sun and Chips helped him across the roof-deck of the house and down the little steel ladder to the main-deck. They heard him go staggering aft.
“Now!” said Larry. And they took the teak washboard and, having bored holes in it with a brace and bit which Bullard had in his chest, they screwed it up over the auger-holes and so felt safe once more.
They got Connaught something to eat and drink, for he was ravenous, and explained things to him as well as they could. Afterwards they settled down round the table to talk, anxiously and nervously; for the realisation of serious injuries received and given was weighing upon them, with a dread of consequences. From time to time one or other would tiptoe quietly to Jumbo’s bunk, to see how he felt. Fortunately, his wounds were not in any way vitally serious. They were, literally, furrows, or gouges. Yet poor old Jumbo lost a tremendous lot of blood, and was some time before he felt quite his old self again.
It was arranged now, between Bullard, Tommy Dodd, Connaught, Harold Jones, and Mercer Kinniks, that there should be a regular watch kept every night in future, so as to preclude any further chance of a successful surprise. And so, having performed their nightly task of dumping anything not required in the berth through one of the ports out on to the main-deck, they had a final look at their three invalids, and so turned in, all except the watchman.
At times, as can be imagined, the berth got fearfully oppressive and stuffy, with doors, ports, and ventilator all closed; so that, some times at night, having turned out the lamp, the lad who was acting as watchman would open one or two of the ports very cautiously and give the berth a blow through.
It was on the following night when Bullard, the watchman at the time, was doing this very same thing, that he discovered there was some new plan “in the wind” for breaking into the berth. For, instead of the quietness of the decks at night, with the wind steady and only the silence apparent, he heard, away for’ard, a constant subdued bustle and the murmur of voices speaking in low tones.
He listened a long while, trying also to stare through the gloom; and eventually heard the Bo’sun speaking, evidently busy with some of the watch. A little later he heard and saw Captain Beeston go for’ard, tiptoeing past the house, and later on there came a loud crash and a hoarse shout of pain in the fore-part of the ship, as if something very heavy had fallen on to the deck and hurt one of the men. That this was to some extent a correct surmise, Bullard discovered soon; for one of the men came limping aft, supported by two others, and moaning and groaning with every step.
Bullard began to think it time to call the other ’prentices, which he did, and after telling all that he had seen, the lads were stationed at various ports to keep watch about the decks and report anything unusual that they might see, without a moment’s loss of time; for it was impossible to say what form this new attack might take, or from what quarter it might come, or when.
It must have been just after four bells (ten o’clock) when Bullard first discovered that something was afoot; and the five boys stood watching and listening at their ports until seven bells had struck before anything definite was reported. Then it was young Larry Edwards who gave the word, in an excited whisper.
“Look!” he said. “On the port side! Don’t you see? They’ve got bare feet; they’re sneaking aft! They’re dragging something. Listen!”
There was an absolute silence in the berth whilst the lads listened with all their might. Then they heard what young Larry meant—a dull, vague, heavy rumbling sound that came and went intermittently.
“My goodness!” said Bullard. “What is it?”
No one answered. The three other lads had left their stations, and were crowded now round the two for’ard ports, where Bullard and Tommy Dodd were watching. Very slowly the black, indistinct huddle of figures on the port side of the deck came nearer; and all the time the strange, heavy sound grew more ominous.
“What is it? What is it?” Bullard asked again, in complete and frightened bewilderment. “What can it be?”
“Gracious!” said Larry Edwards, suddenly, and burst away from his port, through the ’prentices at his back, and darted to his bunk. He
was back in a moment with a pair of good night-glasses, which he possessed.
“What a fool I was! What a fool I was!” he kept muttering, as he adjusted them hastily.
He put them to his eyes and stared along the port side of the main-deck.
“Great Scot!” he cried. “It’s the cannon! They’re bringing the signal-gun aft! They’re going to blow the door in! The brutes mean to kill us! They’re mad! They’re absolutely mad!”
III
A short but awful silence fell upon the lads on hearing the news concerning the cannon; then Larry’s voice broke in again:—
“They’re sluing it ’round, muzzle this way.” He tailed off into silence, staring. The others could make out no more than a vague muddle of moving shadows for’ard, under the lee of the fore deck-house.
“Jumbo’s rifle!” said Bullard, suddenly, and ran from his port into the darkness of the berth, groping where the weapon lay in beckets along the inside of Jumbo’s bunk.
Jumbo, who was in a sort of feverish sleep, groaned uneasily and gave a little cry of pain; for Bullard must have touched one of his wounds as he leant into the bunk. Then Bullard had the rifle, and was dodging round the table, back to his port, cocking the weapon as he went.
He reached the port just as a general burst of frightened exclamations came from the others. A little flame had spurted out suddenly in the darkness on the port side of the deck.
“Stop that!” shouted Larry, shrilly, out of his port; for the light was that of a match in the Bo’sun’s hand, and was being extended to the primed touch-hole of the cannon. “Stop!” he shouted again, and in the same second there came the crack of the rook-rifle; for Bullard had aimed at the light, heedless as to whether his shot brought actual death to any among the attacking crowd or not. He realised that the war between them and orthodox authority had reached such a pitch of bitterness that the Captain and the Second Mate had really lost their heads for the time being, and would literally stick at nothing to have them at their mercy. As for the Bo’sun, the man was a brute, and capable of anything, so long as he was countenanced in his actions by those in charge.
The crack of the light rifle was followed by a queer, half-gasping cry; and the light went out on the instant.
“We’ll shoot again if you try to fire that gun!” Larry shouted, shrilly, out of his port. For’ard, to leeward of the other house, there was a curious, disagreeable gasping, and a quick sound of thudding on the deck, that came plainly to them in the succeeding moments of utter silence that followed the shot.
Bullard whitened suddenly in the darkness as he realised what the sound meant; one of the men was lying on the deck, probably kicking the life out there in the darkness by the side of the fore-house. Beyond the broken gasps and the queer drumming there was, as I have said, no sound from the group of men, away in the darkness at the back of the cannon.
Then, abruptly, there came Captain Beeston’s voice, mad with half-drunken rage: “Blow the young fiends to blazes!”
There was the flash of another match in the darkness, followed by the sudden scampering for’ard of bare feet, as if some of the watch were running, in fear of another shot. Then, in the berth, the sharp click of the lock of the rifle and a frightened curse from Bullard. “It’s empty! It’s empty!” he cried, apprehension in his voice.
In the same instant Kinniks fumbled the big, old fashioned horse-pistol into Larry’s hand. Larry saw the flame of the match being shielded down to the dark, low bulk on the deck that he knew to be the cannon. He thrust the heavy weapon at arm’s length through the open port and pulled the trigger. There was a burst of fire and a huge report, followed almost in the same moment of time by a great flash for’ard and a bang that seemed to shake the ship. With the report something roared over their heads with a vast whooping noise, and there was a crash far away aft and a hoarse screaming.
“They’ve hit the man at the wheel!” shouted Kinniks, in a voice shrill with excitement and fright. “They’ve hit the man at the wheel!”
For’ard, there was a riot of shouts of pain, curses, and the noise of a man actually crying, “O-hoo! O-hoo! O-hoo!” and sobbing hoarsely, in a horrible fashion. In addition there was a constant noise of footsteps, as if somebody were running ’round and ’round in a circle.
“Good heavens!” said Bullard, in the utter silence of the dark berth. “We’ve fixed them!” He broke off in a dumb blank.
“They asked for it! They asked for it! We had to do it to save ourselves!” Larry managed to get out. “Serve them right!” he added in a strange voice, trying to get his courage and nerves under control again. And therewith he broke down hopelessly into a dry sobbing; and curiously enough it was the somewhat nervous Kinniks who attempted to console him, and ease him of his sudden burden of dread responsibility, by preaching vehement justification aloud into the darkness of the berth.
“Shut up, all of you,” said Bullard, a little later. “It’s done now, and we had to do it. They’re mad, and we’re being forced to do horrible things to save ourselves. And, anyway, if anyone’s killed I’ve done it with Jumbo’s rifle. Those bb’s that Larry fired wouldn’t be so likely to kill. But they won’t try anything more tonight. They’ve all gone for’ard into the fo’c’sle.”
They spent a time further, listening at the ports; but hearing nothing more, beyond the hum of voices coming vaguely aft from within the fo’c’sle, they shut and fastened both the ports and the iron doors that covered them. Then they lit the lamp, sat ’round the table, and talked. After a while, Harold Jones lit the little Rippingille and made some tea; and so, with tea and talk, they managed to get themselves back again into a more normal state.
Later—a long time after midnight—someone struck eight bells, and then corrected it by striking four. It was two o’clock in the morning. At times the whispering lads heard odd footsteps pass the little house very quietly. And once towards the four in the morning, they heard Mr. Jenkins, the First Mate, arguing something in a loud, angry voice. They caught his final words: “I shall have nothing to do with it, Mister. This is going to be a jailing job. I’d have you to mind that I’ve stood out of it all along!”
This seemed to be followed by sounds as of a scuffle or fight; but, though Bullard opened the after port-cover to have a look, he could see no one at all on the fore part of the poop, which was all that the angle of sight allowed them to see, on account of the port being so much lower than the poop.
As he stood staring he saw the Captain’s face come into sight as he came for’ard along the poop-deck. The man saw him in the same moment, and shouted out an obscene oath as to what he meant to do. Then, before Bullard could get away from the port, Captain Beeston had whipped a revolver from his coat-pocket and fired at him. The bullet struck the side of the house, making it ring; and Bullard dodged quickly. In the same instant the drink-unbalanced Master fired again, and hit the glass of the port at the edge, making a perfectly clean hole through it. The bullet passed right under the lad’s chin (at least, so they judged afterwards) and struck the other side of the berth, where it flattened in among some rivets in the steel side.
Bullard dropped completely out of sight, and reached up a hand to the iron cover, which he slammed and proceeded hastily to screw up.
“You’re not hurt!” whispered Tommy, anxiously. “The old man must be mad drunk. You’re sure you’re not hurt?”
“No,” said Bullard, and finished screwing up the metal cover; yet, when he turned away and came towards the lamp, all the lads exclaimed, for blood was running down his face. An examination showed that the whole of his left cheek, from the corner of his mouth to the temple, was raw with the finely pulverized glass which had been driven in a shower over him by the entrance of the bullet. The wound was not in any way deep or apparently dangerous; but it took an extraordinarily long time to heal; and it was a mercy that his left eye was untouched.
All the early part of that day the lads sat about in the berth, listless and upset, and taking
very little notice of the sounds that went on around them about the decks. At four bells, however, they heard a rustle at the for’ard door of the berth, and a piece of old cardboard was pushed in, between the edge of the door and the side of the house. On picking it up, they found a roughly-pencilled message, which—although, of course, I cannot pretend to give it exactly—ran like this: “Look out the old devils goin’ to blow the door in they bust the wheel last night and carried away 3 of Jock’s fingers here’s luck us for’ard ain’t havin’ no more.”
This does not, as I have said, pretend to be an exact duplicate of the extraordinary note; but as far as my memory goes, it gives the true sense and spirit of it, and something of its legal sublimity of punctuation.
As may be thought, the lads in the berth were tremendously excited, and grew sullenly fierce, as they realised how indifferent and callous the Master had grown as to the risk to their lives and limbs, in his attempts to force the berth.
The rifle was reloaded from a box of .22’s, which Jumbo had in his chest, and Larry’s monstrosity of a pistol was heavily charged with powder and several brass rollers out of patent sheave-blocks; for he had fired away his supply of bb’s. Then the port-covers were cautiously opened a little, here and there, from time to time around the house, and a constant watch kept about the decks. Yet never a sign could the lads see of anything unusual on hand. One thing only at last struck Edwards as being curious: there was not a man in sight anywhere about the main-decks.
The thing for which they were watching so blindly came, as might be thought, all unexpected. Larry had just opened the iron cover of the starboard for’ard port, and peeped out along the decks, when he started back, crying: “Great Scot! Look out!” He slammed the cover fiercely and screwed it home with might and main, shouting, “They’ve lowered a shell thing from aloft. It’s burning just outside the door! The—” There came a tremendous stunning thud of sound and force, just without, and a blinding reek of smoke poured into the berth through the interstices about the for’ard door. Many of the lads shouted aloud with fright and shock, and there was a stampede to the after end of the little house, where they clustered for a few moments, waiting, unreasoning.
The Ghost Pirates and Other Revenants of the Sea Page 26