The Best Short Stories of 1917 Part 48

Neville's men had been on duty only a few minutes when the engineer came to the end of the pa.s.sage and called Larry.

"That's right," Dan growled; "run along, you engineer's pet, leavin'

your work for me to do!"

Larry gave him no answer as he hurried away.

"Make fast any loose thing you see here," Neville ordered.

Larry went about the machinery-crowded room securing every object that a lurching s.h.i.+p might send flying from its place. When he returned to the fire-room he heard the water-tender shouting:

"Sullivan, you're loafin' on your job! Get more fire under that boiler!"

"An' ain't I doin' double work, with that d.a.m.n Mouse forever sneakin' up to the engine-room?"

Larry, giving no sign that he had heard Dan's growling answer, drove his scoop into the coal, and with a swinging thrust spread its heaped load evenly over the glowing bed in the fire-box. He closed the fire-door with a quick slam, for in a pitching boiler-room burning coal can fall from an open furnace as suddenly as new coal can be thrown into it.

"So, you're back," Dan sneered. "It's a wonder you wouldn't stay the watch up there with your betters."

Larry went silently on with his work.

"Soft, ain't it, you jellyfish, havin' me do your job? You eel, you--."

Dan poured out a stream of abusive oaths.

Still Larry did not answer.

"Dan's ravin' mad," a man on the port boilers said. "Will he soak the Mouse to-night, I wonder."

"Sure," the stoker beside him answered. "An' it's a dirty shame for a big devil like him to smash the little un."

"You're new on this s.h.i.+p; you don't know 'em. The Mouse is a regular mother to that booze-fighter, an' small thanks he gets. But wait, an'

you'll see somethin' in a minute."

Dan's temper, however, was not yet at fighting heat. He glared a moment longer at Larry, then turned sullenly to his boiler. He was none too steady on his legs, and this, with the lurching of the s.h.i.+p, made his work ragged. After a few slipshod pa.s.ses he struck the door-frame squarely with his scoop, spilling the coal to the floor.

"d.a.m.n your squint eyes!" he yelled. "You done that, Mouse! You shoved ag'in' me. Now sc.r.a.pe it all up, an' be quick about it!"

Without a word, while his tormentor jeered and cursed him, Larry did as he was told.

"Ain't you got no fight at all in your shriveled-up body?" Dan taunted as Larry finished. "You're a disgrace to Ireland, that's what you are."

Larry, still patient, turned away. Dan sprang to him and spun the little man about.

"Where's the tongue in your ugly mouth?" Dan was shaking with rage.

"I'll not be havin' the likes of you followin' me from s.h.i.+p to s.h.i.+p, an'

sniffin' at my heels ash.o.r.e. I won't stand for it no longer, do you hear? Do you think I need a nurse? Now say you'll leave this s.h.i.+p when we makes port, or I'll break every bone in you."

Dan towered above Larry, his arm drawn back ready to strike. Every man in the room stopped work to watch the outcome of the row.

At the beginning of the tirade Larry's thin shoulders had straightened; he raised his head; his lower jaw, undershot, was set hard. The light from the boiler showed his near-sighted eyes steady on Sullivan, unafraid.

"Get on with your work, an' don't be a fool, Dan," he said quietly.

"A fool, am I!"

Dan's knotted fist flashed to within an inch of Larry's jaw. The Bunker Mouse did not flinch. For a moment the big stoker's arm quivered to strike, then slowly fell.

"You ain't worth smas.h.i.+n'," Sullivan snarled, and turned away.

"Well, what d'yer know about that!" the new stoker cried.

"It's that way all the time," he was answered; "there ain't a trip Dan don't ball the Mouse out to a fare-you-well; but he never lays hand to 'im. None of us knows why."

"You don't? Well, I do. The big slob's yeller, an' I'll show 'im up."

The stoker crossed to Sullivan. "See here, Bo, why don't you take on a man your size?" He thrust his face close to Dan's and shouted the answer to his question: "I'll tell you why. You ain't got sand enough."

Dan's teeth snapped closed, then parted to grin at his challenger.

"Do you think you're big enough?" The joy of battle was in his growl.

"Yes, I do." The man put up his hands.

Instantly Dan's left broke down the guard; his right fist landed squarely on the stoker's jaw, sending him reeling to the bunker wall, where he fell. It was a clean knock-out.

"Go douse your friend with a pail of water, Mouse." Dan, still grinning, picked up his shovel and went to work.

When Neville's watch went off duty, Larry found the sea no rougher than on countless other runs he had made along the Atlantic coast. The wind had freshened to a strong gale, but he reached the forecastle with no great difficulty.

Without marked change the _San Gardo_ carried the same heavy weather from Barnegat Light to the Virginia capes. Beyond Cape Henry the blow began to stiffen and increased every hour as the freighter plowed steadily southward. Bucking head seas every mile of the way, she picked up Diamond Shoals four hours behind schedule. As she plunged past the tossing light-s.h.i.+p, Larry, squinting through a forecastle port, wondered how long its anchor chains would hold. The _San Gardo_ was off Jupiter by noon the third day out, running down the Florida coast; the wind-bent palms showed faintly through the driving spray.

Neville's watch went on duty that night at eight. As his men left the forecastle a driving rain beat against their backs, and seas broke over the port bow at every downward plunge of the s.h.i.+p. To gain the fire-room door, they clung to rail or stanchion to save themselves from being swept overboard. They held on desperately as each wave flooded the deck, watched their chance, then sprang for the next support. On freighters no cargo s.p.a.ce is wasted below decks in pa.s.sageways for the crew.

When Larry reached the fire-room there was not a dry inch of cloth covering his wiry body. He and his fellow-stokers took up immediately the work of the men they had relieved, and during the first hours of their watch fired the boilers with no more difficulty than is usual in heavy weather.

At eleven o'clock the speaking-tube whistled, and a moment later Neville came to the end of the pa.s.sage.

"What are you carrying?" he shouted to the water-tender. "We've got to keep a full head of steam on her to-night."

"We've got it, Mr. Neville--one hundred and sixty, an' we've held between that and sixty-five ever since I've been on."

"The captain says we've made Tortugas. We lost three hours on the run from Jupiter," Neville answered, and went back to his engine.

During the next hour no one on deck had to tell these men, toiling far below the water-line, that wind and sea had risen. They had warnings enough. Within their steel-incased quarters every bolt and rivet sounded the overstrain forced upon it. In the engine-room the oiler could no longer move from the throttle. Every few minutes now, despite his watchfulness, a jarring s.h.i.+ver spread through the hull as the propeller, thrown high, raced wildly in mid-air before he could shut off steam.

At eleven-thirty the indicator clanged, and its arrow jumped to half-speed ahead. A moment later the men below decks "felt the rudder"

as the _San Gardo_, abandoning further attempts to hold her course, swung about to meet the seas head on.

Eight bells--midnight--struck, marking the end of the s.h.i.+ft; but no one came down the ladders to relieve Neville's watch. The growls of the tired men rose above the noise in the fire-room. Again Neville came through the pa.s.sage.