Sonnie-Boy's People Part 40

Andie unfolded his arms and faced around. "Eh? Oh! How do you do, sir?

He comes to me, Mr. Lavis--an' 'twas somethin' beyond the fear o' death was in his eyes--an' he says: 'Andie, your work's done. 'Twas her death-blow they give her, an' she'll not live much longer now. Go above you now, Andie,' he says, 'and I'll stay here.' 'If you don't mind, I'll stay with you, sir,' I says. 'Don't be foolish, Andie,' he says.

'There's small reputation goes with eight pounds in the month. There's none will be lookin' in the papers to see did you desert your post, but there's many will be sayin' what a grand fool you was you didn't go when you could.'

"'I know you mean that, sir, for the wharf-rats that s.h.i.+ps an' s.h.i.+rks for one voyage, and stays drunk ash.o.r.e for three more,' I says. 'I've no call to leave this s.h.i.+p while one pa.s.senger is aboard of her. An' more, Mister Linnell, many an' many's the watch I've stood under you, an', 'less you forbids it, I'll stand this last watch wi' you. Only, if you won't forbid me, sir, I'll go up on deck at the last, an' have a look at G.o.d's own sky before she goes.'"

"And what did he say to that, Andie?"

"He said naught to that, sir, excep' to shake hands wi' me. I was that embarra.s.sed wi' the grup o' the hand he gave, I takes out my pipe an'

baccy from the locker where the sea wasn't yet reached to, an' I cuts myself a pipeful an' lights up. An' he says, smilin'-like: 'Andie, is it the same old Buccaneer brand you're smokin'?' An' I says: 'The same, sir.' 'Well,' says he, 'I've always maintained it was the most outrageousest-smellin' baccy ever was brought into an engine-room. An' I won't change my opinion now, but if you will spare me a pipeful I'll risk my health to ha' a smoke wi' you now, Andie.'

"An' while we was smokin', sir, man to man like he says: 'Andie, did ever you get it into your head you'd like to be marryin'?' And I answers, 'I did, sir,' an' I told him o' the Brighton la.s.s I'd once courted, un.o.btrusive-like, between voyages, goin' on two year, and I would 'a' been most pleased to marry her, till of an evenin' we was sittin' out by the end o' the long pier, wi' the little waves from the Channel cooing among the pilin's where the long skelps o' sea-gra.s.s was clingin' to 'em under the planks at our feet. She was a doctor's wife's maid. An' I axed her, an' she says: 'The marster, an' my missus, too, says when ye're gettin' your twelve pound in the month, Andie, I'm to marry you.'

"'Wherever will I be findin' twelve pound in the month?' I says. 'Your danged old doctor himsel' is collectin' but little more nor that of his bills in the month, him wi' his red herrin' an' oatmeal porridge for breakfast every mornin' of his life!' I says. She'd told me herself o'

the red herrin'. An' I left her clickin' her fancy high heels together under her penny chair, an' I'd paid tuppence each for the two of us at the gate comin' in. 'But you wasn't ever thinkin' o' gettin' marrit yourself, Mr. Linnell?' I says.

"'Maybe you noticed a large photograph, Andie, above my desk whenever you come to my room?' he asks. I said as how I did. 'And you had no suspicions?' he says. 'Well, sir,' I says, 'I did make suspicion it wasn't altogether by way of exercisin' o' your muscles you dusted the gold frame of it so frequent.'

"'I was only waitin',' he says, 'till I'd made a bit more reputation, and only to-night it was, me makin' my rounds, that I was thinkin' at last I had made it.' And he stop there, an' lets his pipe go out the while he looks down at his beautiful engines, an' then he has the loan of another match of me, an' he says: 'Andie, but it does seem hard that your life an' mine must be smashed through the misbehavior of others.'

An' I thought myself it was, without meanin' to cast blame, sir, on others.

"An' we finished our pipeful together, an' he stands up an' says, 'Good luck to you, Andie, lad,' and I knew he was wishful to be alone. An' so, 'Good luck to you, Mister Linnell,' I says, an' we gave each other another long grup o' the hand. I was wantin' to tell him he was the best chief ever I worked under, but he wasn't ever the kind, you see, sir, to be praisin' to his face. An' at the top of the ladder I looks down, an' there he was wi' his arms folded across the s.h.i.+ny bra.s.s railin', an'

he lookin' down, aweary-like, at his engines."

Lavis took Andie's hand. "A good man, Andie. And a good man yourself, Andie. Good-by, and G.o.d bless you!"

"Thank you, sir. Good-by, sir. And the same to you." Andie turned to the rail and with folded arms set his face to the impa.s.sive sea.

Lavis pa.s.sed on to where from a tarpaulined hatch a Catholic priest was saying a litany, while around him a body of kneeling men and women were responding. He had donned his ca.s.sock, and a s.h.i.+ning silver crucifix was on his breast, and his biretta at his feet. His voice was even and unhurried, his features composed.

"Lamb of G.o.d, Who takest away the sins of the world----"

"_Spare us, O Lord!_" came the response.

"Lamb of G.o.d, Who takest away the sins of the world----"

"_Graciously hear us, O Lord!_"

"Lamb of G.o.d, Who takest away the sins of the world----"

"_Have mercy on us!_"

"Pray for us, O Holy Mother of G.o.d----"

"_That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ!_"

The priest rose from his knees. "And bear in mind, my children, that no matter what sin you may have committed, G.o.d will forgive you. No one born into this world of sin but has sinned at some time, so do not despair. Offer up your prayers, your heart, to G.o.d. He will hear you. He could save us, any one of us, or every one of us even now, if he so willed. If he does not, it is because it is better so. But merely to be saved in the body--what is that? A pa.s.sing moment here, but the next world--for eternity. It is your soul, not your body, which is to live in eternity. Prepare your soul for that. And now our time is growing short, compose your minds and your hearts, and all kneel and say with me an act of contrition: O my G.o.d----"

"_O my G.o.d_--" came from them like a chanted hymn.

"I am most heartily sorry for all my sins----"

"_I am most heartily sorry for all my sins_----"

Lavis knelt and prayed also. When he rose from his knees it was to go to the side of the Polish woman, who was also kneeling at the edge of the crowd. He found her weeping.

"Why do you weep? Do you fear death so very much?"

"I weep for my baby."

"But your baby is safe--out there in the boat. They will bring him to his father, who will be there waiting on the dock in New York."

"Yes, yes; but who will be there to give him the breast when he wakes?"

"Who will give--Father in heaven! Come--come with me." Lavis helped her to her feet.

VI

Cadogan looked into the smoking-room. Lavis was gone. He hesitated, wheeled quickly, returned to the deck, sought the nearest gangway, and rapidly descended four decks. He traversed one pa.s.sageway, another, and entered what looked like a carpenter's shop, where, he knew, was a thick-topped wooden table with its legs held by small angle-irons to the wooden planking over the steel-deck floor.

Cadogan crawled under the table, hunched his shoulders, straightened his legs, and had the table up by the roots. He stepped out from under it, grasped it across the beam, raised it high, brought two of the legs down against the deck, once, twice; reversed the ends and brought the other two legs down to the deck, once, twice. The legs were gone.

He set the table top on his head. A man stood in the doorway. Cadogan motioned him out of the way. "Where yuh goin' with that?" snarled the man. Cadogan set the end of his plank against the man's chest, walked straight ahead, and stepped over the man's body. In the pa.s.sageway some one seized his table from behind. Cadogan let go entirely, wheeled sharply, caught the man by the collar and trousers, smashed him against the bulkhead, and, as the other dropped his hold of the table top, threw him a dozen feet down the pa.s.sage. The man, rising to his feet, ran the other way. Cadogan picked up his plank and resumed his way.

At a place where a boat-falls dropped past the s.h.i.+p's rail Cadogan laid down his burden. This was on the lowest open deck, where not many people would be coming to bother him; but, to reduce the chance of loss, he set his table top up on edge in the shadow of the rail, while he went off for an armful of steamer chairs.

He needed las.h.i.+ngs for his chairs. A transverse pa.s.sageway opened on to the deck near by. Staterooms opened off either side of the pa.s.sage. The door of the nearest room was locked. "Bright people," he muttered, "who didn't intend anybody should steal anything while they were gone!" He set one foot under the door-k.n.o.b, rested his back against the bulkhead across the narrow aisle, and straightened his leg. The lock gave way; the door swung open. "When they return I hope you won't miss the fine bed sheets," he murmured, and swished them--one, two--from the berths, with the blankets and one pillow. He slit the hemmed edges of the sheets and tore them into strips lengthwise. With these strips he lashed his chairs compactly together. The chairs in turn he lashed to the heavy plank.

Cadogan had taken off dinner coat, waistcoat, collar, tie, and linen s.h.i.+rt to work more freely. Now he looked about for the coat. All the while he had been working he was not unaware that forms of men had flitted by him, and that more than one had stopped as if curious to know what he was at. He knew that more than one of these were now prowling within leaping distance and that from them were coming m.u.f.fled words of comment. Also he was not unaware that the s.h.i.+p was nearing her end. He could detect the first pitching of her hull, the settling of the deck under his feet, even as he could hear the half-tones of the menacing voices from out of the shadows. He was aware, too, that a despairing mult.i.tude were ma.s.sing on the decks above him.

Up there, he knew, they were preparing to meet the end in a hundred different fas.h.i.+ons. Up there would be those who smiled and those who cried, those who joked or moaned, who prayed or blasphemed, those who were going with pity in their hearts and consumed with bitterness others; forgiving whoever it was that had brought it on, or wis.h.i.+ng, the others, that they had the negligent ones to coldly and calmly wring their necks before they went themselves.

Cadogan, having found his coat, laid it on a bitt near by while he should launch his little raft. He balanced it on the rail, inserted a hook under one of his las.h.i.+ngs at each end, folded his blankets on top, and, a boat-falls in each hand, paid out carefully, slowly. He could not have lowered a human body more tenderly. Easily, gently, he felt it settle on the bosom of the sea. He took a turn of his falls around the bitt, and, always with one eye peeping sidewise into the shadows, reached for his coat. In the pocket of that coat was the photograph of his beloved.

"You've everything fixed nicely, have you, matie?"

Cadogan had had his eye out for him, and was expecting some such salutation; and the revolver within two feet of his head was also not unexpected. A man could not attend to everything at once.

"Everything nice, yes," responded Cadogan, now with his coat in his hand.

"I'm glad o' that, matie, because, you see, I'm needing it."

"Would you take that from a man after all the work he put in on it?" He was kneading the coat into a ball in his right hand. With his left hand he was taking in a hole or two in his belt.

"You _are_ a soft un! And a swell toff, too. You'll 'ave to st'y aboard, matie. I'm needing that tidy little floatin' thing you've moored below, and I'm plannin' to take it."

"Well, why don't you take it?"

"No larkin'. I'm fightin' for my life."