by Max Brand
“Sure.”
“Poor fellow! That black captain!”
Her voice had changed from a peculiarly soft, low accent to a shrill tone that made Harrigan start.
“Poor fellow!” she repeated. “Sit down.”
The campstool creaked under the burden of his weight. She pulled up the chair in front of him and placed his left hand on her knees.
“This is peroxide. Tell me if it hurts too much.”
She spilled some of the liquid across his palm; it frothed.
“Ouch!” grunted Harrigan involuntarily.
She caught his wrists with both hands.
“Why, your whole arm is trembling! You must be in torture with this. Have you made any complaint?”
“No.”
She studied him for a moment, scenting a mystery somewhere and guessing that he would not speak of it. And she asked no questions. She said not a word and merely bowed her head and started to apply the salve with delicate touches. For the result, a confession of all his troubles tumbled up the big man’s throat to his tongue. He had to set his teeth to keep it back.
She became aware of those cold, incurious eyes studying her face as she wrapped the gauze bandage deftly around the injured palms.
“Why do you watch me so closely?”
It disarmed him. Those possibilities of tenderness came about his stiff-set lips, and the girl wondered.
“I was thinkin’ about my home town.”
“Where is it?”
He frowned and waved his hand in a sweep which included half the points on the compass.
“Back there.”
She waited, wrapping up the gauze bandage.
“When I was a kid, I used to go down to the harbor an’ watch the ships comin’ in an’ goin’ out,” he went on cautiously.
She nodded, and he resumed with more confidence: “I’d sit on the pierhead an’ watch the ships. I knew they was bringing the smell of far lands in their holds.”
There was a little pause; then his head tilted back and he burst into the soft, thick brogue: “Ah-h, I was afther bein’ woild about the schooners blowin’ out to sea wid their sails shook out like clouds. An’ then I’d look down to the wather around the pier, an’ it was green, deep green, ah-h, the deep sea-green av it! An’ I would look into it an’ dream. Whin I seen your eyes—”
He stopped, grown cold as a man will when he feels that he has laid his inner self indecently bare to the eye of the world. But she did not stir; she did not smile.
“I felt like a kid again,” said Harrigan, recovering from the brogue. “Like a kid sittin’ on the pierhead an’ watchin’ the green water. Your eyes are that green,” he finished.
Self-consciousness, the very thing which she had been trying to keep the big sailor from, turned her blood to fire. She knew the quick color was running from throat to cheek; she knew the cold, incurious eye would note the change. He was so far aware of the alteration that he rose and glanced at the door.
“Good-by,” she said, and then quite forgetting herself: “I shall ask the captain to see that you are treated like a white man.”
“You will not!”
“I beg your pardon?” she said, but the hint of insulted dignity was lost on Harrigan.
“You will not,” he repeated. “It’d simply make him worse.”
She was glad of the chance to be angry; it would explain her heightening color.
“The captain must be an utter brute.”
“I figger he’s nine tenths man, an’ the other tenth devil, but there ain’t no human bein’ can change any of them ten parts. Good-by. I’m thankin’ you. My name’s Harrigan.”
She opened the door for him.
“If you wish to have that dressing changed, ask for Miss Malone.”
“Ah-h!” said Harrigan. “Malone!”
She explained coldly: “I’m Scotch, not Irish.”
“Scotch or Irish,” said Harrigan, and his head tilted back as it always did when he was excited. “You’re afther bein’ a real shport, Miss Malone!”
“Miss Malone,” she repeated, closing the door after him, and vainly attempting to imitate the thrill which he gave to the word. “What a man!”
She smiled for a moment into space and then pulled the cord for the cabin boy.
CHAPTER 5
The cabin boy did duty for all the dozen passengers, and therefore he was slow in answering. When he appeared, she asked him to carry the captain word that she wished to speak with him. He returned in a short time to say that Captain McTee would talk with her now in his cabin. She followed aft to the captain’s room. He did not rise when she entered, but turned in his chair and relinquished a long, black, fragrant cigar.
“Don’t stop smoking,” she said. “I want you in a pleasant mood to hear what I have to say.”
Without reply he placed the cigar in his mouth and the bright black eyes fastened upon her. That suddenly intent regard was startling, as if he had leaned over and spoken a word in her ear. She shrugged her shoulders as if trying to shake off a compelling hand and then settled into a chair.
“I’ve come to say something that’s disagreeable for you to hear and for me to speak.”
Still he would not talk. He was as silent as Harrigan. She clenched her hands and drove bravely ahead. She told how she had called the red-headed sailor up to the after-cabin and dressed his hurts, and she described succinctly, but with rising anger the raw and swollen condition of his fingers. The captain listened with apparent enjoyment; she could not tell whether he was relishing her story or his slowly puffed cigar. In the end she waited for his answer, but evidently none was forthcoming.
“Now,” she said at last, “I know something about ships and sailors, and I know that if this fellow was to appeal against you after you touch port, a judge would weigh a single word of yours against a whole sentence of Harrigan’s. It would be a different matter if a disinterested person pressed a charge of cruelty against you. I am such a person; I would press such a charge; I have the money, the time, and the inclination to do it.”
She read the slight hesitation in his manner, not as if he were impressed by what she had to say, but as though he was questioning himself as to whether he should give her any answer at all. It made her wish fervently that she were a man—and a big one. He spoke then, as if an illuminating thought had occurred to him.
“You know Harrigan’s record?”
“No,” she admitted grudgingly.
McTee sighed as if with deep relief and leaned back in his chair. His smile was sympathetic and it altered his face so marvelously that she caught her breath.
“Of course that explains it, Miss Malone. I don’t doubt that he was clever enough to make you think him abused.”
“He didn’t say a word of accusation against anyone.”
“Naturally not. When a man is bad enough to seem honest—”
He drew a long, slow puff on his cigar by way of finishing his sentence and his eyes smiled kindly upon her.
“I knew that he would do his worst to start mutiny among the crew; I didn’t think he could get as far as the passengers.”
Her confidence was shaken to the ground. Then a new suspicion came to her.
“If he is such a terrible character, why did you let him come aboard your ship?”
Instead of answering, he pulled a cord. The bos’n appeared in a moment.
“Tell this lady how Harrigan came aboard,” ordered the captain, and he fastened a keen eye upon the bos’n.
“Made it on the jump while we was pullin’ out of dock,” said the sailor. “Just managed to get his feet on the gangplank—came within an ace of falling into the sea.”
“That’s all.”
The bos’n retreated and McTee turned back to Kate Malone.
“He had asked me to sign him up for this trip,” he explained. “If I’d set him ashore, he’d probably have been in the police court the next morning. So I let him stay. To be perfectly frank with you, I ha
d a vague hope that gratitude might make a decent sailor out of him for a few days. But the very first night he started his work he began to talk discontent among the men in the forecastle, and such fellows are always ready to listen. Of course I could throw Harrigan in irons and feed him on bread and water; my authority is absolute at sea. But I don’t want to do that if I can help it. Instead, I have been trying to discipline him with hard work. He knows that he can come to me at any time and speak three words which will release him from his troubles. But he won’t say them—yet!”
“Really?” she breathed.
She began to feel deeply honored that such a man as McTee would make so long an explanation to her.
“Shall I call him up here and ask him to say them now?”
“Would you do that? Captain McTee, I’m afraid that I’ve been very foolish to bother you in this matter, but—”
He silenced her with a wave of the hand, and pulled the cord.
“Bring up Harrigan,” he said, when the bos’n appeared again.
“I’ve considered myself a judge of human nature,” she apologized, “but I shall think a long time before I venture another decision.”
“You’re wrong to feel that way. It would take a shrewd judge to see through Harrigan unless his record were known.”
The door opened and the bos’n entered with Harrigan. He fixed his eyes upon the captain without a glance for Kate Malone.
“Harrigan,” said McTee, “I’ve been telling Miss Malone that you can be released from your trouble by saying half a dozen words to me. And you know that you can. You will be treated better than anyone in the crew if you will put your hand in mine and say: ‘Captain McTee, I give you my word of honor as a man to do my best to obey orders during the rest of this trip and to hold no malice against you for anything that has happened to me so far.’
“For you see,” he explained to the girl, “he probably thinks himself aggrieved by my discipline. Will you say it, Harrigan?”
Instead of answering, the cold eye of Harrigan turned on Kate.
“I told you not to speak to the captain,” he said.
“Ah,” said McTee, “you were clever enough for that?”
“Do you say nothing, Harrigan?” she said incredulously. “Do you really refuse to speak those words to the captain after he has been generous enough to give you a last chance to make a man of yourself?”
Harrigan turned pale as he glanced at the captain. Her scorn and contempt gave a little metallic ring to her voice.
“You need not be afraid. Captain McTee hasn’t told me anything about your record.”
Harrigan smiled, but in such a manner that she stepped back. “Easy,” said McTee, “you don’t need to fear him in here. He knows that I’m his master.”
“I’m glad you didn’t tell me his record,” she answered.
“I can read it in his eyes.”
“Lady,” said Harrigan, and his head tilted back till the cords stood strongly out at the base of his throat, “I’m afther askin’ your pardon for thinkin’ ye had ever a dr-rop av hot Irish blood in ye.”
“Take him below, bos’n,” broke in McTee, “and put him in on the night shift in the fireroom.”
No hours of Harrigan’s life were bitterer than that night shift. The bandages saved his hands from much of the torture of the shovel handle, but there was deep night in his heart. Early in the morning one of the firemen ran to the chief engineer’s room and forced open the door.
“The red-headed man, sir,” he stammered breathlessly.
The chief engineer awoke with a snarl. He had drunk much good Scotch whisky that evening, and the smoke of it was still dry in his throat and cloudy in his brain.
“And what the hell is wrong with the red-headed man now?” he roared. “Ain’t he doin’ two men’s work still?”
“Two? He’s doin’ ten men’s work with his hands rolled in cloth and the blood soakin’ through, an’ he sings like a devil while he works. He’s gone crazy, sir.”
“Naw, he ain’t,” growled the chief; “that’ll come later. Black McTee is breakin’ him an’ he’ll be broke before he goes off his nut. Now get to hell out of here. I ain’t slept a wink for ten days.”
The fireman went back to his work muttering, and Harrigan sang the rest of the night.
CHAPTER 6
In the morning there was the usual task of scrubbing down the bridge. The suds soaked through the bandages at once and burned his hands like fire. He tore away the cloths and kept at his task, for he knew that if he refused to continue, he became by that act of disobedience a mutineer.
The fourth day was a long nightmare, but at the end of it Harrigan was still at his post. That night the pain kept him awake. For forty-eight hours he had not closed his eyes. The next morning, as he prepared his bucket of suds and looked down at his blood-caked hands, the thought of surrender rose strongly for the first time. Two things fought against it: his fierce pride and a certain awe which he had noted as it grew from day to day in the eyes of the rest of the crew. They were following the silent battle between the great Irishman and the captain with a profound, an almost uncanny interest.
As he scrubbed the bridge that morning, McTee, as always, stood staring out across the bows, impassive, self-contained as a general overlooking a field of battle. And the temptation to surrender swelled up in the throat of Harrigan like the desire for speech in a child. He kept his teeth hard together and prayed for endurance. Only five days, and it might be weeks before they made a port. Even then the captain might put him in irons rather than risk his escape.
“Harrigan,” said McTee suddenly. “Don’t keep it up. You’re bound to break. Speak those words now that I told you to say and you’re a free man.”
Harrigan looked up and the words formed at the base of his tongue. Harrigan looked down and saw his crimson hands. The words fell back like dust on his heart.
“Take you for my master an’ swear to forget what you’ve done?” he said, and his voice was hardly more than a whisper. “McTee, if I promised you that I’d perjure blacker ’n hell an’ kill you someday when your back was turned. As it is, I’ll kill you while we’re standin’ face to face.”
McTee laughed, low, deep, and his eyes were half closed as if he heard pleasant music. Harrigan grinned up at him.
“I’ll kill you with my bare hands. There’s no gun or knife could do justice to what’s inside of me.”
His head tilted back and his whisper went thick like that of a drunkard: “Ah-h, McTee, look at the hands, look at the hands! They’re red now for a sign av the blood av ye that’ll someday be on ’em!”
And he picked up his bucket and brush and went down the deck. The laugh of McTee followed him.
Having framed the wish in words, it was never absent from Harrigan’s mind now. It made that day easier for him. He stopped singing. He needed all his brain energy to think of how he should kill McTee.
It was this hungry desire which sustained him during the days which followed. The rest of the crew began to sense the mighty emotion which consumed Harrigan. When they saw both him and McTee on the deck, their eyes traveled from one to the other making comparisons, for they felt that these men would one day meet hand to hand. They could not stay apart any more than the iron can keep from the magnet.
Finally Harrigan knew that they were nearing the end of their long journey. The port was only a few days distant, for they were far in the south seas and they began to pass islands, and sometimes caught sight of green patches of water. Those were the coral reefs, the terror of all navigators, for they grow and change from year to year. To a light-draught ship like the Mary Rogers these seas were comparatively safe, but not altogether. Even small sailing craft had come to grief in those regions.
Yet the islands, the reefs, the keen sun, the soft winds, the singing of the sailors, all these things came dimly to Harrigan, for he knew that his powers of resistance were almost worn away. His face was a mask of tragedy, and his body was as lean
as a starved wolf in winter. His will to live, his will to hate, alone remained.
Each morning it was harder for him to leave the bridge without speaking those words to the captain. He rehearsed them every day and vowed they would never pass his lips. And every day he knew that his vow was weaker. When he was about to give in, he chanced to see McTee and Kate Malone laughing together on the promenade.
It was McTee who saw Harrigan first and pointed him out to Kate. She leaned against the rail and peered down at him, shuddering at the sight of his drawn face and shadowed eyes. Then she turned with a little shrug of repulsion.
McTee must have made some humorous comment, for she turned to glance down at Harrigan again and this time she laughed. Blind rage made the blood of the Irishman hot. That gave him his last strength, but even this ran out. Finally he knew that the next day was his last, and when that day came, he counted the hours. They passed heavy-footed, as time goes for one condemned to die. And then he sat cross-legged on his bunk and waited.
The giant Negro came, bringing word that the bos’n wanted him to scrub down the bridge. He remained with his head bowed, unhearing. The bos’n himself came, cursing. He called to Harrigan, and getting no answer shook him by the shoulder. He put his hand under Harrigan’s chin and raised the listless head. It rolled heavily back and the dull eyes stared up at him.
“God!” said the bos’n, and started back.
The head remained where he had placed it, the eyes staring straight up at the ceiling.
“God!” whispered the bos’n again, and ran from the forecastle.
In time—it seemed hours—Harrigan heard many voices approaching. McTee’s bass was not among them, but he knew that McTee was coming, and Harrigan wondered whether he would have the strength to refuse to obey and accept the fate of the mutineer; or whether terror would overwhelm him and he would drop to his knees and beg for mercy. He had once seen a sight as horrible. The voices swept closer. McTee was bringing all the available crew to watch the surrender, and Harrigan prayed with all his soul to a nameless deity for strength.
Something stopped in the Irishman. It was not his heart, but something as vital. The very movement of the earth seemed to be suspended when the great form blocked the door to the forecastle and the ringing voice called: “Harrigan!”