Delphi Collected Works of Max Brand US

by Max Brand

  “Hovey,” ordered McTee in his voice of thunder, “tell these fellows they must obey my voice from now on.”

  They roared, snatching at this ghost of a hope: “We will! We’ll follow

  Black McTee! Hovey has brought us to hell!”

  In a moment everyone was in frantic motion. Campbell started for the engine room to see what had caused the stopping of the ship. McTee himself, followed by Harrigan and the stokers, went down to the fireroom. It was fiery hot there, indeed. When the Scotchman swung down the ladder into the hole, it was like a blast from a furnace, and the air was foul with the nauseating odor of the smoldering wheat. The men gasped and struggled for breath, and yet they began to work without complaint.

  All hands set to. The fires were shaken down and started afresh; the coal shoveled out from the bunkers. Then a fireman collapsed without a cry of warning. They carried him out to the upper air, and brought down two of the sailors to take his place. And the sailors went without a murmur. They were fighting for the one chance in ten thousand, the chance of bringing the ship to shore before the fire burst out in flame which would lick the Heron from one end to the other within an hour.

  McTee went up to the bridge to take the bearings and lay the course. By the time his reckonings were completed, steam was up; Campbell had remedied the trouble in the engine room; the propeller began to turn, and a yell went up from the ship and tingled to heaven. When McTee came down from the bridge to the waist, leaving Hovey at the wheel, a dozen of the tars gathered about the new skipper, weeping and shouting, for in their eyes he was the deliverer, it was he who was giving them the fighting chance to live.

  And how they fought! There was something awe-inspiring and almost beyond the human in the fury with which they labored. It was in the fireroom that their chief difficulty lay. The fireroom of a large steamer is a veritable furnace, and when to this heat was added that from the hold of the ship, it was truly a miracle that any living thing could exist there.

  But Harrigan was in charge. When men wilted and pitched to their faces on the sooty, dusty floor, he trussed them under one arm and bore them up to the air. Then he went back and drove them on again. Before the end of that day, however, with the coast still a full thirty-hour run ahead of them, it became literally impossible to continue longer in the fireroom. But Harrigan would not leave. He had a hose introduced into the hold. The men worked absolutely naked with a stream of water playing on them. Now and again when one of them collapsed, Harrigan snatched the fire bar or the shovel from the hands of the worker and labored furiously until another substitute was found.

  The necessity of his presence was amply demonstrated that night. The Irishman was too exhausted to continue another minute, and the men helped him to the deck and sluiced buckets of salt water over his great, trembling body. To keep the men at work, Campbell went down in the hole.

  They had to carry him up in half an hour. Then McTee tried his hand. He stood the heat as well as Harrigan, but he could not inspire such daredevil enthusiasm in the men. They missed the raucous, cheery voice of Harrigan; they missed the inspiring sight of that flame-red hair; and they missed above all his peculiar driving force. In other words, when Harrigan came among them, they felt hope, and when a man has hope, he will work on in the face of death.

  And at last McTee came up and begged Harrigan to go back. He went, and found an empty fireroom and dying fires. He ran back to the deck, and at his shout the dead veritably rose to life. Men staggered to their feet to follow him below. Every man on the ship took his turn. Hovey came down and passed coal; McTee came down and wielded the fire bar, doing the labor of three men while he could endure.

  And the Heron drove on toward the shore. The morning passed; the afternoon wore away. It was a matter of hours now before the shore would be in sight, and McTee spread this news among the crew. He sent little Kamasura and Shida, the cabin boys, running here and there saying to every man they passed: “Four hours! Four hours! Four hours!” And then: “Three hours! Three hours! Three hours!”

  And the crew swallowed whisky neat and returned to the fireroom.

  At sunset, dim as a shadow, a thing to be guessed at rather than known, the man on the bridge sighted land. The word spread like lightning. The staggering workers in the fireroom heard and joined the cheer which Harrigan started. Then the catastrophe came.

  A torch of red fire licked up the stern of the ship; the flames had eaten their way out to the open air!

  It was the quick action of McTee which kept the panic from spreading to the hold of the ship at once and bringing up every one of the workers from the fireroom. He gathered the sailors on deck who had strength enough left to walk, and they made a line and attacked the flames with buckets of water. There was, of course, no possibility of quelling the fire at its source, for by this time the hold of the ship where the wheat was stowed must have been one glowing mass of smoldering matter. Yet they were able, for a time, to keep the course of the fire from spreading over the decks of the ship.

  With this work fairly started, McTee ran back to the forward cabin and upper deck of the Heron and set several men to tear down some of the framework, sufficient at least to build enough rafts to maintain the crew in the water. So the three sections of the work went on — the firefighting, the lifesaving, and the driving of the ship. McTee on deck managed two ends of it; Harrigan in the fireroom handled the most desperate responsibility. It seemed as if these two men by their naked will power were lifting the lives of the crew away from the touch of death and hurling the ship toward the shore.

  And now for an hour, for two hours, that ghastly labor continued. The entire stern of the Heron was a sheet of flames when the last workers staggered up from the fireroom, their skin seared and blistered by the terrific heat. Last of all came Harrigan, raving and cursing and imploring the men to return to their work. As he staggered up the deck, reeling and sobbing hoarsely, Kate Malone ran to him. She pointed out across the waters ahead of the ship. There rose the black shadow of the shore and under it a thin line of white — the breakers!

  Now by McTee’s direction the rafts were hoisted and dragged over the side of the ship, while one frail line of men remained to struggle against the encroaching flames.

  They were licking into the waist of the Heron, and the wireless house was a mass of red; White Henshaw was burning at sea, and the prophecy was fulfilled.

  The last of the rafts were hoisted overboard and half a dozen men tumbled into each. When the rest of the crew were overboard, McTee, Kate, and Harrigan, lingering behind by mutual consent, took one raft to themselves. All about them tossed the other rafts, and not one man of all the crowd had thought of the golden treasure which they were abandoning with the Heron. Each might be carrying a few gold pieces, but the wealth of White Henshaw would go back into the sea from which it came.

  They had not abandoned the flaming ship too soon. A fresh breeze was sweeping from the ocean onto the shore, and red tongues licked about the main cabin and darted like reaching hands into the heart of the sky. By these flashes they could make out the struggling rafts where the sailors cheered and yelled in the triumph of their escape. But McTee set about erecting a jury sail.

  He wrenched off two strips of board from their raft and across these he and Harrigan affixed their shirts. The same wind which had lashed the fires forward on the Heron now hurried the fugitives toward the shore. They had a serious purpose in outstripping the rest of the rafts, because when the mutineers reached the shore, the mood of gratitude which they held for Harrigan and McTee was sure to change, for these two men could submit enough evidence to hang them in any country in the world.

  Looking back, the Heron was a belching volcano, which suddenly lifted in the center with the sound of a dozen siege guns in volleyed unison, and a column of fire vaulted high into the heavens. Before they reached the tossing heart of the breakers, the Heron was dwindling and sliding, fragment by fragment into the sea.

  Through those breakers the las
t light from the ship helped them, and the wind tugging at their little jury sail aided to drive them on until they could swing off the raft and walk toward the beach, carrying Kate between them. On the safe, dry sands they turned, and as they looked back, the Heron slid forward into the ocean and quenched her fires with a hiss that was like a far-heard whisper of the sea.

  CHAPTER 38

  MEANWHILE THE SHOUTS of the mutineers rang louder and louder as their rafts edged in toward the land, so the three turned again and made directly inland. A hundred yards from the edge of the water they were in a dense jungle such as only exists in a Central American swamp region, but they waded and splashed on, and clambered over rotten stumps, slick with wet moss, and stepped on fragments of wood that crumbled under their feet. And all the time they kept the girl between them, lifting her clear of the noisome water as much as possible.

  The shouting of the mutineers, however, urged them on, and from the sound of the voices there was no doubt that Hovey and his men were combing the marsh for the fugitives. Torches had been made by the sailors, and behind them, now and then, they caught a glimpse of a winking eye of light. This drove them on, and just when the shouts of the mutineers began to die away, the marsh ended as abruptly as it had begun, and they started to climb a slope where the thicket changed to an almost open wood. The rise was not long, for after some hours of weary trudging, they reached a road.

  Down this they straggled with stumbling feet. They had not spoken for nearly two hours, as though they wished to save even the breath of speech for some trial which might still await them. Kate was half unconscious with fatigue, and McTee on her left and Harrigan on her right carried most of her weight.

  In this manner they came in sight of a light which developed into a low-roofed, broad house with a hospitable veranda stretching about it. They made directly for it, traversing a level field until they came to the door. McTee supported Kate while Harrigan knocked. There was silence within the house, and then a whisper, a stir, the padding of a slippered foot, and the door was jerked open. A tall man with a narrow, pointed beard appeared. He held a lantern in one hand and a pistol in the other; for those were troubled times in that republic. The light fell full on the haggard face of Kate, and the man started back.

  “Enter, my children,” he said in Spanish, and tossing his weapon onto a little hall table, he held out his hand to them.

  With a great voice he brought his family and servants about them in a few seconds. To a wide-eyed girl with a frightened voice, he gave the care of Kate, and the two went off together. The master of the house himself attended to the needs of Harrigan and McTee.

  There were few questions asked. This was a question of dire need, and the Spanish-American loves to show his hospitality. Talking was for the morning. In the meantime his guests would require what? Perhaps sleep? Perhaps a bath first? They answered him with one voice, for they both spoke a little Spanish, picked up in their wanderings. Sleep!

  The next day they woke about noon to find clothes laid out for them, the immaculate white clothes which the tropics require. They were led to a high-ceilinged bathroom cool with glazed, white bricks which lined it, where the two servants poured over them bucket after bucket of cold water, and the grime of the voyage and the labors in the fireroom and the mighty weariness of their muscles disappeared little by little in slow degrees. Then a shave, then the white clothes, and they were ready for presentation to Senor Jose, Barrydos y Maria y Leon and his family.

  And here was a time of many words indeed. It was McTee who told the story of the wreck, and even with his broken Spanish the tale was so vivid that Senor Jose was forced to rise and walk up and down the room, calling out upon a hundred various saints. In the end it was clear in his eyes that he had to deal with two heroes. As such they could have lived with him as honored guests forever.

  Then Kate came into the room with the daughter of the house. She wore a green dress of some light material which fluttered into folds at every move. The Spaniard straightened up from his chair. The two big men followed suit, staring wide-eyed upon her. It seemed as if some miracle had been worked in her, for they looked in vain for any traces of her helpless weariness of the night before.

  There was a color in her cheeks and her eyes were bright and quiet. To Senor Jose Barrydos y Maria y Leon she gave both her hands, and he bowed over them and kissed them both. His courtliness made Harrigan and McTee exchange a glance, perhaps of envy and perhaps of disquiet, for she accepted this profound courtesy with an ease as if she had been accustomed to nothing else all her life.

  But what a smile there was for each of them afterward! It left them speechless, so that they glowered upon each other and were glad of the soft flow of Senor Jose’s words as he led them in to the breakfast table.

  And when the meal had progressed a little and some of the edge of the novelty of the situation and story had worn away, the Spaniard said: “But is it not true? Strange news floats in the air this week.”

  “What news?” asked Harrigan. “Our wireless was out of commission for days.”

  “True! Then you must learn from me?”

  He drew a breath and stiffened in his chair, then with a gesture of apology and a smile he added: “Why should I hunt for pompous words? I can tell you in one phrase: the world is at war, gentlemen!”

  They merely gaped upon him.

  “German troops have entered Belgium; France, England, and Russia are at war with Germany and Austria!”

  He waited for the astonishment to die away in their eyes.

  Kate was shaking her head. “It is impossible,” she said. “There may be a disturbance, but the world is past the time of great wars. Men are now too civilized, and—”

  Here she stopped, for her eyes fell on the faces of Harrigan and McTee. Civilized? No; she had seen enough to know that civilization strikes no deeper in human nature than clothes go to change the man.

  “Civilized?” Don Jose had taken her up. “Ah, madam, already wild tales reach us of the Germans in Belgium.”

  “But there was a treaty,” she cried, “and the greatest nations in the world have guaranteed the neutrality of Belgium. Germany herself—”

  “True!” said Jose; “but it is because of the violation of Belgian neutrality, among other things, that England has entered the war, it is said.”

  “Ah-h!” said Harrigan, lapsing suddenly from Spanish into his Irish brogue. “Thrue for ye, man! John Bull will take the Kaiser by the throat. In time of peace, why, to hell with England, say I, like all good Irishmen; but in time av war-r, it’s shoulder to shoulder, John Bull an’ Paddy, say I, an’ we’ll lick the wor-r-rld!”

  And McTee broke in savagely. “You forget the Scotch. Without the

  Scotch, England and Ireland — what could they do? Nothing!”

  “Could they not?” said Harrigan, with rising temper. “I tell ye, ye black Highlander, that wan Irishman—”

  “Hush,” said Kate earnestly; for the Spaniard was staring at them in amaze. “It is a world war, and no time for jealousy. England — Scotland — Ireland — and America, too, in time — we will all be fighting for one purpose. And when the last test comes, the United States—”

  She stopped with a gesture of pride, and Harrigan said with deep feeling: “Aye, they’re a hard lot, the Yankees. But as for the Scotch,” he went on in a murmur which only McTee could hear— “as for the Scotch, I wouldn’t be wipin’ my feet on ’em, when it comes to the fightin’. D’ye hear me, McTee?”

  “And understand,” said McTee, smiling broadly, so that none of the rest might understand; “our time is close at hand, Harrigan. We’re on dry land.”

  “We are — thank God,” answered Harrigan, “but play the game, McTee, till the girl is cared for.”

  In the meantime Senor Jose had explained to Kate the nearness of the city — El Ciudad Grande — for she had been asking many urgent questions. The upshot of their conversation was that their host offered to take them immediately into the
town, where they could find accommodation at the one hotel — if they refused his further hospitality. So in half an hour Senor Jose’s carriage of state was harnessed and the four journeyed into El Ciudad Grande.

  Senor Jose went with them to explain to the hotel owner that these were his guests — his dear friends — his friends of many years’ standing — in fact, his relatives in close blood. In short, he recommended the party to the special care of the hotelkeeper. Business called the hospitable Spaniard away. He refused to accept any consideration for the clothes which he donated to the party, and McTee jingled a handful of Henshaw’s gold in vain. Senor Jose must depart, but he would return the next day. So the three stood alone together at last. Harrigan was the first to speak.

  “I’ve an engagement. I’m afther havin’ some important business on hand,

  Kate, colleen, so I’ll be steppin’ out.” And he turned to go.

  “Wait,” she called. “I know what your engagements are when the Irish comes so thick on your tongue, Dan. You were about to have an engagement also, Angus?”

  McTee glowered on Harrigan for having so clumsily betrayed them.

  “You are like children,” she said softly, “and you let me read your minds.”

  She bowed her head in long thought.

  Then: “Didn’t we pass the sign of the British consul down the street over that little building?”

  “Yes,” said McTee, wondering, and again she was lost in thought.

  Then she raised her head and stepped close to them with that smile, half whimsical and half sad.

  “I’m going to ask you to let me be alone for a time — for a long time. It will be sunset in five hours. Will you let me have that long to do some hard thinking? And will you promise me during that time that you will not fly at each other’s throats the moment you are out of my sight? For what I will have to say at sunset I know will make a great deal of difference in your attitude to each other.”