The Promotion of the Admiral (continued 4)

"'Ere's a bloomin' pretty general average," said Joe, as he found his chest, which was also his chum's, staved in by the impact of an iron-bound one which had fetched away from its lashings. But no one growled, and no one answered him. The young second "greaser" had been liked by them. They sat and smoked in gloomy silence, and only half of the watch below turned into the driest bunks. They thought that the Pandora had begun, and though she lay to easily enough, few slept. They were afraid of their ship; she was unlucky, accursed, an evil personality. About her was the odour of death.

"Case was a good boy," they said, "and would have been a fine officer by-and-by. Well, our turn next."

Every time the Pandora bowed a wave the hawse-holes still spurted; the foc'sle deck ran wet and glimmered darkly in the feeble light from the stinking lanterns swinging on both port and starboard sides. The air was saturated with moisture, rank sweat ran down the beams, dripping blankets swayed from the edges of unoccupied bunks; the men were damp, subdued, unhappy. Now, as the ship lay to, the wind no longer swept into the foc'sle under the flapping screen by the windlass, but still eddies of swift cold air shook it, and the men shivered under their oilskins, that they wore now for warmth.

"I wish I'd never seed her," said Jack Marchmont, and Joe did not answer his mate. Not ten words were spoken till the wheel and look-out were relieved at four o'clock. Both were idle jobs, for the night was still as dark as death, and the wheel with a grummet over its spokes looked after itself.

"Oh, it's all solid comfort, this is," said Jack. "I wonder whose wet clothes will be for sale next?"

They buried the second mate in the grey waste of sea before they put the Pandora before the moderating gale. The mate read the burial service, for Captain Rayner stayed below. The steward told the men in a whisper that he was ill.

"He's all broke up," he said, "I seed him cryin' like a child. And no wonder; this is a wicked ship. I wish I'd left her in Melbourne."

And some of the men frowned. They did not like to hear him call the Pandora wicked. For the ship was, in its way, alive; it was possessed. They wished to propitiate it; superstition had them by the throat.

But they were easier when the body was committed to the deep. And the mate assumed a more cheerful air when he had carried the Prayer Book into his berth and came on deck again. They put the ship before the wind and loosed the foresail. But though the wind had taken off, the sea was very heavy, and the Pandora wallowed riotously. She took in seas over both rails. Thrice that day she filled the main-deck, and but for the life-lines rigged right from the foc'sle to the poop many men would have been washed overboard. As she ran with the wind on the port quarter, she sometimes dived as if she would never come up. The galley fire was out, and could not be lighted; the men drank water and ate biscuit.

"Hogs, dogs, and sailors," they said. Every time the vessel dived they held their breath.

The mate had a hard time, for Rayner was incapable of work, and she carried no apprentices. Forward there was no one capable of an officer's work; there was no broken skipper whom drink had destroyed, no young fellow with a second mate's "ticket." So Mr. Gamgee practically slept on deck in snatches till he slept almost as he stood under the weather-cloth in the mizzen rigging. He prayed for moderate weather, for a sight of the sun. But though the gale was less, it still blew hard, and the sky was black and the racing scud low, and the sun was not seen by day or a star by night. On the third day Gamgee staggered as he walked.

"If the old man can't come on deck soon I'll have to cave in," he thought. He shook his fist at the ship. "I wish I'd never seen her. She's a man-killer."

That night when the starboard watch was called at twelve the wind took off suddenly, and the Pandora pounded in the wallow of the sea like a bull-buffalo in a bog. She shipped seas over both rails; the racing waves astern came and slapped their crests at the man at the wheel; she scooped up the sea forward every stagger she made. She had been running under the reefed foresail and the fore and main topsails close reefed. Now they shook the reefs out. Gamgee was alert and alive, but his nerves half-betrayed him. He jumped from the poop to the main-deck, and back again. He wanted to be mate and second mate and skipper too. And as the fresh canvas took hold of her, she slapped at the rising sea, dived into it, and as the wind bellowed almost as keen as ever, the man at the wheel lost his nerve, gave her too much helm, snatched at her, gave her too much again, and almost broached her to. And then the mate was again on the main-deck.

Some one heard him say "O God!" as the Atlantic fell on board; but no one ever heard him say anything again.

The water filled her from rail to rail. She shuddered, and then lifted slowly, and as she ran once more before the wind and rolled, she poured out the sea on either side. The main-deck ports were burst outward, the gear floated in inextricable tangles, a four-hundred-gallon tank, lashed under the poop ladders, broke from its lashings and took charge of the deck. In the black darkness and the imminent danger men cried out. Some cried to their mates and were answered, some were not answered. With the mate three other men had gone.

And then she cleared herself once more, and the men came together under the break of the poop. Joe asked for Jack Marchmont; but Jack had saved any one from the expense of a tombstone.

"And I over-persuaded 'im to ship in her. Oh, she's a bloody ship."

Then one man said:

"Where's Mr. Gamgee?"

Joe ran up to the poop.

"Mr. Gamgee! sir!"

"He ain't here," said the man at the wheel. "Oh, Joe, what is it?"

"'Twas your doin'," cried Joe. "There's two gone, and Jack with 'em, and Mr. Gamgee!"

And the man at the wheel fell all ashake. His face was ashy in the feeble glimmer of the binnacle light.

"Come and take her, Joe," he implored. "Oh, the swine she is. I'm in a tremble, Joe. She's too much for me."

And tragedy heaped itself on tragedy. The steward came on deck, and heard that the mate was gone. He lost his head and ran in to the captain crying; he was ludicrous, horrible, speechless. And Rayner sat up in his bunk, and fell back without knowing what had happened. He never knew, for though the steward shook him feebly, his failing heart had failed, and brandy never brought him to. The steward ran on deck blubbering.

"I believe the captain's dead," he sobbed.

And the two boldest of the men took off their caps and went into the cabin humbly. A greater than their commander was there. They stood in silence, fiddling with their caps, and stared at the quiet white face upon its pillow.

"Oh yes, he's dead," they whispered. They backed out respectfully; they were stunned, and were adrift; they were all masterless men; authority had been removed; they faced the unknown with dread. They saw now that they had rested on others' knowledge. What did they know of the sea after all?

They gathered on the poop.

"What?" said Joe, who was at the wheel. "Him gone too. And we——"

They all understood. They were in peculiar isolation, in danger. And what would be said if they saved themselves and the ship?

"'Twill look as if we'd mutinied," said Joe. But he had a touch of natural authority in him. "As soon as it gets light we'll write out a true account of it and sign it, all of us. And we'll make for the nearest port."

They were all quiet men, Englishmen and Dutchmen, and there was no more drink in the ship than that in the medicine chest. The steward drank what remained of it. And in the morning all the remainder of the crew met on the poop. At first they had a certain natural reluctance to use that portion of the ship, but if they did not meet there the steersman could not take his share in the talk. But Joe did most of the talking.

"I reckon the nearest port is Buenos Ayres," he said. "This mornin' I took the liberty of lookin' at the chart, and there ain't nothin' 'andier as is common talk with sailormen. If we stand north we'll about 'it it off; or any ways, we'll 'it on the track of steamers makin' for it, and we might get the lend of a hofficer to take us in. What do you say, mates?"

Some nodded, some shrugged their shoulders, and some said, "Buenos Ayres? Oh yes, that'll do as well as another."

"And I've took the liberty," said Joe solemnly, "of borrowin' the log-book from down below, and I've wrote out a plain account of all this 'ere, as I said last night. For it's best put down, and it's ships' law as everythin' serious should be wrote out in the log-book, and nowheres else. Shall I read it?"

And he read out what he had written:—

"Three days back, as told in the log, Mr. Case, the second mate, fell from the foreyard as we was goin' to take in the foresail, and was killed. He was buried accordin' the next day, while we was 'ove to. And last night in the middle watch, as all 'ands was makin' sail, the wind 'avin' fallen light sudden and the sea bein' very 'eavy, we shipped an 'eavy sea over the port rail as washed Mr. Gamjy overboard with Jack Marchmont, A.B., Andrew Anderson, A.B., and Thomas Griggs, boy. And the captain bein' ill, as the log says, died sudden on 'earing it, and is now lyin' dead in 'is cabin. Whereas, there bein' no officer in the ship, all 'ands assembled as aforesaid, declares this is the truth, the 'ole truth, and nothin' but the truth, so 'elp us Gawd. And we intends makin' for bonus airs, or monty Vidyo."

And one by one the crew signed this simple statement, as it was held down on the top of the signal locker by its author. Those who could not write—and there were three who could not—made their marks when Joe signed for them.

"Whatever 'appens to this blasted 'ooker, we must keep 'old of this log," said Joe. "For supposin' any hother disaster befell us, as seems likely enough, and we took to the boats, it would look very bad for us, without a single officer."

It was a cold and unhappy day for them as they drove to the north-east, still under short canvas. But the weather broke a little, and they set the topgallant-sails at last.

"So long as we don't pile her up on the Falklands we should do," said the one other man on board beside Joe who seemed capable of taking responsibility. He was from Newcastle, and was, of course, known as Geordie. Naturally enough he and Joe divided the watches between them, and the remainder of the crowd sheltered their uneasy minds under their strength.

"I suppose if we bring her in we might get something extra," said Geordie, the day they buried the captain.

But Joe took him by the arm and led him for'ard from the wheel, at which a patient Swede stood.

"Geordie, old man, do you want to bring her in?" he asked.

"Why, yes, I suppose so," said Geordie. He stared at Joe. "What do you mean?"

Joe broke out strangely and struck his fist upon the rail.

"I want to see 'er sink," he said savagely. "I want to see 'er go where she's put so many good men. What right 'as we to save 'er to do more 'arm? It ain't alone as she's drownded my chum or the others, but she 'as a black record that ain't finished unless we finish it. She's strong, and will go on killin' for twenty years, Geordie. She'll make money for them as doesn't care, but what of the likes of us?"

He was greatly moved.

"She's caulked with men's lives, and painted with their blood!" he cried passionately. "I'd rather she sunk with me than sailed the seas any more."

And Geordie fidgeted uneasily

"That's true, mate, but——"

"Aye," said Joe, "I know. If we scuttled 'er 'twould look bad, and it's bad enough as it is; but 'tis a good deed, if we done it, and it should be done, and I'll tell you 'ow to do it."

He leant upon the rail and spoke earnestly, in a low voice.

"It won't do, I own, to scuttle 'er at sea, not even if we let on she leaked and logged it day by day. But if we sunk 'er in the Plate or in the bay at Monte Video, 'twould do right enough, and I've a plan for that. I made it out in the morning watch. 'Tis as easy as eatin', and easier a deal than eatin' ship's biscuit. Down below in the lazareet I'll bore 'oles in her, three or four, and plug 'em on the inside, about a foot below the water-line. And I'll over the side and plug 'em outside, then I'll draw the inside plugs. D'ye see?"

And Geordie saw.

"You needn't know it. I can do it my lone," said Joe. "And do it I will. If we gets off 'er safe she shan't kill no more. When we're out of her—and none of us will stay, as you know—she'll lie at anchor waitin' for a new crowd, and I'll come out to her in a boat and sink the murderin' old 'ooker right there."

"There'll be a ship-keeper on her," said Geordie.

"As like as not 'e'll on'y be a Spaniard," replied Joe simply. "And even if not——"

Even if not, one more was but one.

The next day the weather moderated, and the Pandora, being then, as they reckoned, well clear of the Falklands, stood due north for Cape Corrientes with the wind almost on the port beam. That night Joe went down into the lazaret with an auger, and bored three holes in her weather side.

"Good stuff and sound," he said, as he sweated over his task. "She might 'ave floated for hever."

When he drew out his auger he found that the sea raced past the hole and sometimes flipped water into it.

"On a level keel she'll have 'em about two foot under," he said. He plugged that hole and bored two others. When he had plugged these, he went on deck again. There was not a soul awake on her but Geordie and the man at the wheel. She was going now very sweetly, and making ten knots: they were running into fair weather. But she lay over far enough to make it easy for Joe to go over the side, while Geordie slacked him down from a pin in the rail.

"It's done," said Joe, as he came on board. "She'll kill no more."

It seemed to him that he was doing a good deed, for the Pandora was cruel.

And a week later, though they had sighted no land, the colour of the water had changed curiously, and looked a little reddish. When they drew some on board it was evidently not so salt as the sea, and they knew they were in the flood of the mighty Plate. The airs were now light and westerly; they hauled their wind and stood for the north-west. But still the man on the look-out on the main-royal-yard saw no land. In the afternoon they sighted the smoke of a steamer heading about west by south on their starboard beam. They laid their main-topsail to the mast and hoisted the Jack, union down.

That night they were at anchor off Monte Video, and in the morning they told their story to the British Consul. But one and all refused at any price and at all costs to go on board of the Pandora again. Joe spoke for all of them.

"We'll go to gaol sooner, sir," he said, as he stepped in front of his mates, twiddling his cap nervously, "though we wishes to say so respectfully, sir. She's a man-killer, and it's better a sight to be in the jug, or on the beach, than to be drownded. She's killed my own mate, and more than 'im. And so far back as hany of us ever 'eard of 'er, she's been at the same job. If you please, sir, we'd rather go to gaol."

They slept that night ashore, but not in gaol, and next day the owners cabled from England for a new crew to be shipped in her at any price. But no price could induce men to go in her. And on the third night she sank at her moorings in fifteen fathoms of water, and carried her ship-keeper to the bottom.

"I told you she'd kill another man yet," said Geordie.

But Joe shook his head.

"I done what was right. And after all, 'e was on'y a Spaniard, as I said."