Captain Calamity Part 14

The two vessels were still fencing and manoeuvring, getting a shot in when and wherever they could. But at last both the commanders tired of these fruitless tactics, and then the engagement began in real earnest.

The yacht was armed with lighter guns than those of her opponent, but she had more of them, and, in addition, possessed the advantage of speed, being capable of answering her helm twice as quickly as the privateer. This enabled her to swing round at all angles, catch the _Hawk_ broadside-on and sweep her decks fore and aft. Notwithstanding this, she by no means had it all her own way, for the privateer kept up a steady, well-trained fire that made things aboard her adversary more than lively.

As only those men who served the guns were allowed on deck, the casualties were relatively small on the _Hawk_. Whenever a man fell, his place was taken by another from the reserve men in the foc'sle and thus unnecessary losses were avoided. A hospital of sorts had been rigged up in the for'ad hold and here the wounded men were carried and placed on mattresses until such time as they could be attended to.

Calamity had thrown off his jacket, and, with arms bared to the elbows, was working the quick-firer on the bridge, three of the gun's crew having been killed or wounded.

"Hit her amids.h.i.+ps, in the engine-room!" he shouted to Mr. d.y.k.es, who had charge of the gun on the p.o.o.p.

A minute or two later there was a loud explosion on the yacht, owing to one of her guns being hit while loaded, by a sh.e.l.l from the _Hawk_. A wild cheer went up from the privateers' men, and Calamity, thinking he might board his adversary in the confusion, bellowed an order to the quartermaster.

"Hard a starboard! Quick, d.a.m.n your eyes!"

"Hard a----" the quartermaster started to echo, but before he could finish a fragment of sh.e.l.l struck him, and Calamity, swinging round to see what had happened, was bespattered with blood and brains. He sprang to the wheel, and, pus.h.i.+ng aside the dead body with his foot, altered the helm. But it was too late, the other had divined his purpose and was drawing off. Instantly the _Hawk_ started in pursuit, but, as she came round in the yacht's wake, a ricocheting sh.e.l.l dropped through the engine-room skylight and there was an explosion below which shook the vessel from stem to stern. Volumes of hissing steam ascended through the gratings and ventilators, while, above the roar, came the agonised shrieks of some wretched firemen who were being scalded to death in the stokehold.

A man, his face a wet, shapeless, raw ma.s.s of flesh, stumbled out of the fiddley, staggered a few paces, and fell sprawling on the deck. Another followed whose hair, still attached to the skin, was falling off in lumps, and he, too, collapsed on the deck. At the same moment the steady throb of the engines ceased and the _Hawk_ began to lose way. Meanwhile the German had drawn off, and, for the time being, firing ceased on both sides. The enemy, it would seem, was in little better condition than the privateer, for she was steaming at a rate of certainly not more than five knots. Calamity, watching her from the bridge, cursed aloud as he saw his hoped-for prize slowly but surely getting away while he was unable to prevent her or to go in pursuit.

"Send for McPhulach!" he cried; but, before anyone could obey, the chief-engineer mounted to the bridge.

"I'm sair dootin' we'll hae to bide where we are," he remarked placidly.

"Do you mean to say the engines are wrecked?" demanded Calamity.

"I wouldna go sae far as tae say that," answered the engineer. "Ye micht speak o' them as a.s.sorted sc.r.a.p-iron."

The Captain laid a firm hand on McPhulach's arm.

"You've got to repair those engines," he said quietly.

"Eh!"

"You heard me."

"Losh presarve us, mon, the A'michty Himsel' couldna do it!"

"The Almighty's not chief engineer of the _Hawk_, so you needn't worry about that. Get those engines going or I'll string you up at the end of a derrick."

"Guid G.o.d, are ye mad, mon!" gasped the engineer.

"Mad or sane, I'll do what I say."

"I tell ye the engine-room's like a steam-laundry," wailed McPhulach.

"There isna a pipe that isna squairting steam out of some crack or itha, and it'll take all the cotton-waste in the s.h.i.+p to bind up the leaks.

It's a plumber's job, no' an engineer's."

"Well, if you can't do your job, I'll undertake to do mine," said the Captain grimly.

McPhulach emitted a groan, then took from his pocket a short and very rank briar pipe. A look of phlegmatic resignation had come over his face.

"Maybe ye're richt, skipper," he said. "Hae ye got sic a thing as a plug o' tobaccy on ye'r pairson?"

Calamity handed him a pouch of tobacco. McPhulach filled his pipe, and, remarking that he might run short, also put some tobacco loose in his pocket.

"Gin ye hae a match, I'll go below and see what can be done," he said.

The Captain produced a box of vestas. The engineer lit his pipe, and, absent-mindedly dropping the matches into his own pocket, left the bridge.

The mate, meanwhile, had been superintending the removal of the wounded and the was.h.i.+ng down of the decks. Three men had been killed, not including two firemen scalded to death in the stokehold, and the wounded numbered eleven. The latter were made as comfortable as possible in the hold and the former were carried into the wheel-house pending burial.

Gradually the commerce-destroyer became smaller and smaller, until, by evening, all that was visible of her was a feathery smoke-trail on the horizon.

Soon after eight bells that night, McPhulach succeeded in performing a miracle--the _Hawk's_ engines began to move.

CHAPTER XII

A DESPERATE VENTURE

Slowly, like a convalescent taking his first walk and as yet doubtful of his strength, the _Hawk_ began to push the seas aside and move ahead.

The engines, instead of working with rhythmic regularity, were banging and thumping in jerky spasms--still, they were working--the bridge shook with their ponderous vibrations, while the wire funnel stays tautened and slacked as the smokestack quivered.

The first duty accomplished after the clearing up of the decks was the disposal of the dead, which were placed in canvas bags weighted with firebars to ensure their sinking. There were no prayers, services, or ceremonies of any kind; they were simply dropped over the side....

In the hold Calamity and the mate were at work with their coats off and s.h.i.+rt-sleeves rolled up. Some of the hatch-covers had been removed to secure better ventilation and a couple of lanterns suspended from the girders flickered feebly in the semi-twilight. Against the bulkheads were two rows of mattresses arranged so as to leave a pa.s.sage between them, and on some of these lay wounded men, each with a coa.r.s.e, black blanket thrown over him. The Captain, a.s.sisted by Mr. d.y.k.es, was attending to the more serious cases in a manner which caused the mate considerable secret astonishment. He had expected to see the skipper perform the duties of surgeon in a rough and ready if not a brutal way, and had felt a strong sympathy for his prospective victims. Instead, Calamity handled the men with almost professional skill, performing even serious operations with deft, quick fingers, and without either nervousness or hesitation. A smile, a cheery word of encouragement, a full-flavoured joke worked wonders, and a man, even in excruciating pain, would grin feebly at some broad jest uttered by the Captain.

Dora Fletcher, who had thought better of her first hasty decision, was dressing some of the minor wounds. To her, Calamity's new role came as a startling revelation of a hitherto unsuspected phase of his character.

She, who had seen him commit acts of unquestionable brutality, now watched him pa.s.s from bed to bed with an air of quiet a.s.surance that inspired even the worst cases with new confidence and hope. Men flinched apprehensively as he approached to examine their injuries, but his touch, though firm, was as gentle as a woman's, and their fears were quickly set at rest.

He scarcely even glanced at the girl, and when he did so it was to give some curt directions as from a surgeon to a nurse. Yet she felt strangely happy and triumphant, for at last he had been forced to recognise and to demand her a.s.sistance. She felt herself necessary to him, and the terse orders, involving her co-operation in the work of succour, seemed to her a tacit admission of the fact. Henceforth she would at least be an ent.i.ty in his eyes; he would have to acknowledge her existence, even if he resented it.

After the Captain and Mr. d.y.k.es had gone; throughout the whole night, indeed, the girl remained at her post. She found plenty to do; giving cooling drinks to those whose throats were parched with fever, readjusting dressings which had worked out of place, and performing the hundred and one offices which fall to the lot of a watcher of the sick.

At intervals during the night the mate or Smith would enter the dim hold, which now reeked with the pungent odour of antiseptics, to proffer their services, and once Mr. d.y.k.es tried to persuade her to turn in. But she rejected the suggestion indignantly, and ordered him out of the place, whereupon he departed sheepishly. At about five o'clock in the morning Calamity looked in again and seemed surprised to find her there.

"How long have you been on watch?" he asked.

"Since you left," she answered.

"Then you'd no right to. d.y.k.es or Smith should have told off a man to keep watch. Get off to your bunk. I don't want a sick woman aboard."

Without a word she left the sick-bay, and then, for the first time, realised how exhausted she really was. Without troubling to undress, she flung herself upon the bunk and was asleep almost before her head touched the pillow.

All that day and the next as well, the _Hawk_ chugged her way in a northerly direction, her speed never exceeding six knots and sometimes falling below that. How McPhulach had contrived to patch up her engines sufficiently to do even so much was a mystery no one but himself could have explained. Still, they might break down again at any moment, and it was absolutely necessary to find some port where the repairs could be carried out more thoroughly, and with the proper appliances. In the meantime much of the damage sustained in the encounter with the yacht had been repaired. Paint and canvas had done much to cover the effects of shot and sh.e.l.l, and outwardly, at least, the _Hawk_ had resumed her normal appearance. But it was merely superficial, like the creams and cosmetics used by a faded beauty to hide the ravages of time. In fact she was, as Smith put it, "a whited bloomin' sepulchre."

On the second morning, as Miss Fletcher was going down to the hold, she met Mr. d.y.k.es.

"The skipper's orders are that you're to take four-hour watches, so that you'll have a rest between each spell," he said.