Blow The Man Down 19~ the Prize Package from Mr. Fogg
18
Literature · Romance
Blow The Man Down 19
~ the Prize Package from Mr. Fogg
DayEnglish
Our captain stood on his quarter-deck,
And a fine little man was he!
“Overhaul, overhaul, on your davit tackle fall,
And launch your boats to the sea,
Brave boys! And launch your boats to the sea.”
--The Whale.
A slowing, tug, tooting fussy and staccato blasts which Captain Wass translated into commands to hold up, intercepted the Nequasset in Hampton Roads.
Mr. Fletcher Fogg was a passenger on the tug. In a suit of natty gray, he loomed conspicuously in the alley outside the tug's pilot-house. He cursed roundly when he toilsomely climbed the ladder to the freighter's deck, for the rusty sheathing smutched the knees of his trousers.
“I'm doing a little better than I promised you, captain,” he stated when he arrived finally in the presence of the master. “I said Philadelphia. But here I am. Do you know me now?”
“Your name is Fogg,” returned Captain Wass, exhibiting no special delight.
“And I'm manager of this line. As it seems to be pretty hard for you to get anything through that thick nut of yours, I'll ask you to glance at a paper which will save argument.”
The paper was an attested notification, signed by the directors, stating in laconic legal phrase what Mr. Fogg had just declared.
“You recognize my authority, do you?”
“Your bill o' lading reads O. K.,” assented the skipper.
“Very well! Exactly! Then you take your orders. Proceed to an anchorage off Lambert Point below Norfolk, pick a berth well off the channel, and put down both hooks. The boat is going out of commission. I find you're not making any money for the owners.”
“It ain't my fault. With charters at--” began the master, indignantly.
“I haven't any time for a joint debate. You are laid off. Bring your accounts to the main office as soon as you have turned the steamer over to the caretaker--he'll come out from Norfolk.” Manager Fogg turned on his heel to meet Mate Mayo. “You will report at the main offices, too, Mr. Mayo. Have you master's papers?”
“I have, sir--Atlantic waters, Jacksonville to East-port.”
“Very good--you're going to be promoted. I shall put you aboard the passenger-steamer Montana as captain.” He looked about sharply. “Where is my agent?”
“There, in the quartermaster's cabin. We gave him that,” replied Captain Wass, gruffly. “I'm glad I'm out of steamboating. I've learned how to run a boarding-house and make money out of it.”
Mr. Fogg did not understand that sneer, and he paid no attention to the captain's manner. He started for the cabin indicated.
“Well, you can swell around in gold braid now and catch your heiress,” observed Captain Wass to his mate.
“I'm sorry, skipper,” said the young man, with real feeling. “You are the man to be promoted, not I. It isn't right--it doesn't seem real.”
“There isn't any real steamboating on this coast any longer. It is--I don't know what the devil it is,” snarled the veteran. “I have been sniffing and scouting. I'd like to be a mouse in the wall of them New York offices and hear what it is they're trying to do to us poor cusses. Ordered one day to keep the law; ordered the next day to break the law; hounded by owners and threatened by the government! I'm glad I'm out of it and glad you've got a good job. That last I'm specially glad about. But keep your eye peeled. There are queer doings round about you!”
Fogg entered the cabin and shut the door behind him. He found Boyne sitting on a stool and looking somewhat apprehensive. “Hiding?” inquired Fogg.
“I thought I wouldn't show myself till I was sure about who was on that tug,” said the young man.
“That's the boy, David,” complimented Fogg, with real heartiness. “You're no fool. Nothing like being careful. Pack your bag and go aboard the tug.” He marched out.
“Philadelphia charter has been canceled, eh?” asked Captain Wass. The tone of his voice did not invite amity.
“It has, sir.”
“Seems queer to turn down a cargo that's there waiting--and the old boat can carry it cheaper than anybody else, the way I've got expenses fined down.”
“Are you trying to tell me my business?”
“I have beep steamboating forty years, and I know a little something about it.”
Mr. Fogg looked at the old mariner, eyes narrowed. He wanted to inform Captain Wass that the latter knew altogether too much about steamboating for the kind of work that was planned out along the coast in those ticklish times.
“Then I ain't to expect anything special from now on?” asked the skipper. In spite of his determination to be crusty and keep his upper lip stiff, he could not repress a little wistfulness, and his eyes roved over the old freighter with affection.
“Not a thing, sir!” Mr. Fogg was blunt and cool. He started for the ladder. He slapped the shoulder of Mayo as he passed the young man. “Here's the kind of chap we're looking for nowadays. The sooner you report, my boy, the better for you.”
With Boyne following him, he climbed down the swaying ladder, and was lifted from the lower rungs over the tug's rail to a secure footing.
After the lines had been cast off and the tug went floundering away at a sharp angle, Captain Wass scuffed into his pilot-house and gave the bells.
“She seems to feel it--honest she does!” he told Mate Mayo. “She goes off logy. She doesn't pick up her heels. Nor could I do it when I walked in here. Going to be scrapped--the two of us! Cuss their picking and stealing and fighting and financing. They ain't steam-boating any longer. They're using good boats to play checkers in Wall Street with. Well, son,” he mourned, hanging dispiritedly over the sill of the window and staring up the wind-swept Chesapeake, “I ain't going to whine--but I shall miss the old packet and the rumble and racket of the old machine down there in her belly. I'd even take the job of watchman aboard her if he would hire me.”
“He seems to fancy me a bit. I'll ask him to hire you,” proffered the mate, eagerly.
“I reckon you didn't get the look in his eye when he fired me,” said Captain Wass. “I won't allow you to say a word to him about me. You go ahead, boy, and take the job he has offered. But always remember that he's a slick operator. See what he has done to Uncle Vose; and we haven't been able to worm it out of that passenger how it was done, either. Financing in these days comes pretty nigh to running without lights and under forced draught. It gets a man to Prosperity Landing in a hurry, providing he doesn't hit anything bigger than he is. They're going to haul up this freighter and blame it on to me because I ain't making money for the owners. They'll have plenty of figgers to show it. Look out that they don't lay something worse and bigger to you. They're going to play a game with the Vose line, I tell you! In the game of big finance, 'tag-gool,' making 'it' out of the little chap who can't run very fast, seems to be almighty popular.”
He slowed the freighter to a snail's pace when he approached the dredged channel, and at last the leadsman found suitable bottom. Both anchors were let go.
The old skipper sounded the jingle, telling the chief engineer that the engine-crew was released. In a speaking-tube the captain ordered both boilers to be blown off.
“And there's the end of me as master of my ship,” he said.
Mate Mayo's eyes were wet, but words of sympathy to fit the case did not come to his sailor tongue, and he was silent.
When the tug was near Newport News, Manager Fogg took David Boyne apart from all ears which might hear. He gave the young man another packet of money.
“The rest of your expenses for a good trip,” he said. “You seem to be a chap who knows how to mind his own business--and able to get at the other fellow's business in pretty fair shape. You haven't told such an awful lot about young Mayo, but it's satisfactory to learn that he has lived such a simple and every-day life that there isn't much to tell.”
“I never saw a man so sort of guileless,” affirmed Boyne. “Not that I have had a lot of experience, but in a lawyer's office you are bound to see considerable of human nature.”
“He is no doubt a very deserving young man--and I'm glad I can use him,” said Fogg, not able to keep all the grimness out of his tones. “Now, son,” he went on, after a moment of pondering, “you stay on board this tug till I have been gone five minutes. There are a lot of sharp eyes around in these times, and some of Vose's friends would be glad to run to him with a story about me. After five minutes, you take your bag and walk to Dock Seven and go aboard the freighter Ariel--go just as if you belonged there. Tell the captain that you are Daniel Boyle--get the name--Daniel Boyle. And never tell anybody until you hear from me that your name is David Boyne. That freighter leaves to-night for Barbados with sugar machinery. You'll have a nice trip.”
“I don't care how far away I get,” declared Boyne, rather bitterly. “I have done a tough trick. I'm pretty much of a renegade. No, I don't care how far I go.”
“Nor I, either,” agreed Fogg, but a smile relieved the brutality of the speech. “You see, son, both of us have special reasons why it's just as well for you to be away from these diggings for a time. If some folks get hold of you they'll bother you with a lot of foolish questions. When you get tired of Barbados go ahead and pick out another nice trip, and keep going, and later on we'll find a good job for you up this way. Keep me posted. Good-by.”
The tug had docked and he hurried off and away.
“It's quite a game,” reflected Mr. Fogg. “I've bluffed a pot with one two-spot. Work was a little coarse because it had to be done on short notice. The work I do with my second two-spot is going to be smoother, and there won't be so much beefing after the pot is raked in. Too much hollering, and your game gets raided! I can see what would happen to me--Julius Marston doing it--if I give the strong-arm squad an opening. But if they see the little Fogg boy slip a card in the next deal he's going to make--well, I'll eat the Montana, if that's the only way to get rid of her.”
Boyd Mayo lost no time in obeying his orders to report in New York. He gave his name to a clerk at the offices of the Vose line and asked to see Mr. Fogg. He presented himself a bit timorously. He was not at all sure of his good fortune. It is rather bewildering for a young man to have the captaincy of a twin-screw passenger racer popped at one as carelessly as tossing a peanut to a child. He crushed his cap between trembling palms when he followed the clerk into the inner office.
Mr. Fogg rose and greeted Mayo with great cordiality. “Good morning, captain,” said the manager. “Allow me to hope that you're going to be as lively in keeping to schedule time as you have been in getting here from Norfolk.”
“I didn't feel like wasting much time, considering what was promised me,” stammered Mayo, not yet sure of himself.
“Afraid I might change my mind?”
“It seemed too good to be true. I wanted to get here as soon as I could and make sure that I had heard right, sir. Here are my papers.”
He laid them in the manager's hand. Fogg did not unfold them. He fanned them, indicating a chair.
“Sit down, Captain Mayo. You understand that new management has taken hold of the Vose line in order to get some life and snap into the business. We have strong competition. A big syndicate is taking over the other steamship properties, and we must hustle to keep up with the procession. I'm laying off freighters that are not showing a proper profit--I'm weeding out the moss-covered captains who are not up with the times. That's why I'm putting you on the Montana in place of Jacobs.”
“He's a good man--one of the best,” ventured Mayo, loyalty to his kind prompting him. “I'll be sorry to see him step aside, as glad as I am to be promoted--and that's honest.”
“That's the way to talk; but we've got to have hustle and dash, and young men can give us what we're after. It doesn't mean that you've got to take reckless chances.”
“I hope not, Mr. Fogg. My training with Captain Wass has been the other way. And if you could only give him--”
“Captain, you've got your own row to hoe. Keep your eye on it,” advised the general manager, sharply. “I'm picking captains for the Vose boats, and I think I understand my business. Now what I want to know is, do you have confidence in me? Are you going to be loyal to me?”
“Yes, sir!” affirmed Mayo, impressed by his superior's brisk, brusque business demeanor.
“Exactly! And the only talk I want you to turn loose is to the effect that you believe I'm doing my best to make this line worth something to the stockholders. Where are you stopping?”
Mayo named a little hotel around the corner.
“I'll put you aboard the Montana just as soon as I can arrange the details of transfer. I may let Jacobs make another trip or so. Report here each morning at nine. For the rest of the time keep within reach of the hotel telephone.”
Mayo saluted and went out.
Fogg called the observer at the weather bureau on the telephone and asked some questions. He was informed that the wind had swung into the northwest and that the long-prevailing fog had been blown off the coast.
Mr. Fogg appeared to feel somewhat peevish over this sudden departure of the weather phenomenon which bore his family name. He slammed the receiver on to the hook and said a naughty word. A person overhearing might have wondered a bit, for here was a steamboat manager cursing the absence of the fog instead of preserving his profanity to expend on the presence of the demoralizing mists. But the reign of the north wind in late summer is never long; three days later the breeze shifted, and the gray banks of the fog marched in from the open sea.
Mayo was awakened early by the clamor of the whistles of river craft, for the little hotel was near the water-front. He saw the fog drifting in shredded masses against the high buildings, shrouding the towers. He had been waiting his call to duty with much impatience, finding the confinement of the hotel irksome in the crisp days of sunlight, eager to be out and about this splendid new duty which promised so much.
It was the Montana's sailing-day from the New York end.
He had gone to sleep thrilling with the earnest hope that he would be called to take her out. But when he looked out into that morning, saw the draping curtains of the stalking mists, heard the frantic squallings of craft in the harbor, frenzied howls of alarm, hoarse hootings of protests and warnings, he was suddenly and pointedy anxious to have his elevation to the pilot-house of the Montana deferred. Better the smoky, cramped office of the little hotel where he had been chafing in dismal waiting. He was perfectly willing to sit there and study over again the advertising chromos on the walls and gaze out on the everlasting procession of rumbling drays. But at eight o'clock the telephone summoned him.
“This is General-Manager Fogg,” the voice informed him, though he did not require the information; he knew those crisp tones. “I am speaking from my apartments. Please proceed at once to the Montana. I'll come aboard within an hour.”
“Do you expect me to take command--to--take her out to-day?” faltered Mayo.
“Certainly. Captain Jacobs will transfer command as soon as I get down.”
Mayo had just been rejoicing in his heart because Jacobs would be obliged to bear the responsibility of that day's sailing; he had been perfectly sure that a new man would not be summoned under the conditions which prevailed. He wanted to suggest to Manager Fogg that making the change just then would be inadvisable. He cleared his throat and searched his soul for words. But a sharp and decisive click told him that Mr. Fogg considered the matter settled. He came away from the telephone, dizzy and troubled, and he was not comforted when he recollected how Manager Fogg had received meek suggestions in the past. He paid his modest account, took his traveling-bag, and started for the Vose line pier.
When he saw her looming in the fog--his ship at last--he felt like running away from her incontinently, instead of running toward her.
Mayo had all of a young man's zeal and ambition and courage--but he had in full measure a sailor's caution and knowledge of conditions; he had been trained by that master of caution, Captain Zoradus Wass. He was really frightened as he stared up at the towering bow, the mighty flanks, the graceful sweep of superstructure, and realized that he must guide this giant and her freightage of human beings into the white void of the fog. In his honesty he acknowledged to himself that he was frightened.
The whole great fabric fairly shouted responsibility at him.
He was confident of his ability. As chief mate he had mastered the problems of courses and manoeuvers in the fog along that same route which he must now take. But until then the supreme responsibility had devolved upon another.
Men were rushing freight aboard on rattling trucks--parallel lines of stevedores were working. There were many trunks, avant couriers of the passengers.
He went aboard by the freight entrance and found his way to the row of officers' staterooms. He recognized the gray-bearded veteran who was pacing the alley outside the pilot-house, though the man was not in uniform; it was the deposed master.
“Good morning, Captain Mayo,” he said, without any resentment in his tones. “I congratulate you on your promotion.”
“I hope you understand that I didn't go hunting for this job,” blurted Mayo.
“I believe it's merely a matter of new policy--so Manager Fogg tells me. Understand me, too, Captain Mayo! I harbor no resentment, especially not against you.”
He put out his hand in fine, manly fashion, and was so distinctly the best type of the dignified, self-possessed sea-captain of the old school, that Mayo fairly flinched at thought of replacing this man.
Captain Jacobs opened the door lettered “Captain.” “All my truck is out and over the rail. I'll sit in with you, if you don't mind, until Mr. Fogg arrives. You're going to have a thick passage, Captain Mayo.”
“It doesn't seem right to me--putting a new man on here in this fog,” protested Mayo, warmly. “I ought to have her in clear weather till I know her tricks. In a pinch, when you've got to know how a boat behaves, and know it mighty sudden in order to avoid a smash, one false move puts you into the hole.”
“They seem to be running steamboat lines from Wall Street nowadays, instead of from the water-front,” said Captain Jacobs, dryly. “It's all in the game as they're playing it in these times. There's nothing to be said by the men in the pilot-house.”
“I'm a sailor, and a simple one. I think I know my job, Captain Jacobs, or else I wouldn't accept this promotion. But I've got no swelled head. It's the proper and sensible thing for you to take the Montana out tonight and let me hang around the pilot-house and watch you. If I can prevail upon Mr. Fogg to allow it, will you make another trip?”
“I would do it to help you, but I'll be blasted if I'll help Fogg--not if he would get down now and beg me,” declared Captain Jacobs, showing temper for the first time. “And if you had been pitchforked out as I've been after all my years of honest service you'd feel just as I do, Captain Mayo. You don't blame me, do you?”
“I can't blame you.”
“You know the courses, and you'll have the same staff as I've had. You'll find every notation in the log accurate to the yard or the second. She's a steady old girl and, knowing tide set and courses, as you do, you can depend on her to the turn of a screw. You have my best wishes--but I'm done.”
He put the fervor of final resolve into the declaration. But, with sailor's fraternal spirit of helpfulness he sat down and went into the details of all the Montana's few whims. He called in the mates and introduced them to the new master. They seemed to be quiet, sturdy men who bore no malice because a new policy had put a new man over them.
Then arrived General-Manager Fogg, and in this strictly business presence Mayo did not presume to voice any of his doubts or his opinion of his inefficiency.
The rather stiff and decidedly painful ceremony of speeding the former commander was soon over, and Captain Jacobs departed.
“Why haven't you put on your uniform?” asked Fogg. “You have fixed yourself out with a new one, of course?”
“Yes, sir.” Mayo's cheeks flushed slightly when he recollected how he had strutted before the mirror in his room at the hotel. But he had been ashamed to hurry into his gilt-incrusted coat in the presence of Captain Jacobs.
“Get it on as soon as you can,” ordered the general manager. “I want you to make a general inspection of the boat with me.”
They made the tour, and in spite of his misgivings, when he saw the mists sweeping past the end of the pier Captain Mayo, receiving the salutes of respectful subalterns, felt the proud joy of one who has at last arrived at the goal of his ambition.
Master of the crack Montana, queen of the Vose fleet, at the age of twenty-six!
He glanced into each of the splendid mirrors of the great saloon to make sure of the gold letters on his cap.
The thick carpet seemed grateful to his step. The ship's orchestra was rehearsing in its gallery.
If only that devilish fog would lift! But still it surged in from the sea, and the glass, down to 29.40, promised no clearing weather.
“Safety to the minutest detail--that's my motto,” declared Manager Fogg. “Order a fire drill.”
It was accomplished, and Mr. Fogg criticized the lack of snap. He was rather severe after the life-boat drill, was over. He ordered a second rehearsal. He commanded that the crew do it a third time. The warmth of his insistence on this feature of shipboard discipline was very noticeable.
“And when you put those boats back see to it that every line is free and coiled and every cover loose. It costs a lot of good money if you kill off passengers in these days.” Then he hurried away. “I'll see you before sailing-time,” he informed Captain Mayo.
The new skipper was glad to be alone and to have leisure for study of the steamer's log-books. He had been accustomed to a freighter's slower time on the courses. He did a little figuring. He found that at seventy-five revolutions per minute the Montana would log off about the same speed that the freighter made when doing her best. He resolved to make the fog an excuse and slow down to the Nequasset's familiar rate of progress. He reflected that he would feel pretty much at home under those circumstances. He was heartened, and went about the ship looking less like a malefactor doomed to execution.
When General-Manager Fogg, bustled on board a few minutes prior to the advertised sailing-time at five o'clock, he commented on Captain Mayo's improved demeanor.
“Getting one of the best jobs on this coast seemed to make considerable of a mourner out of you. Perhaps a mirror has shown you how well you look in that new uniform. At any rate, I'm glad to see you have chirked up. And now I'll give you a piece of news that ought to make you look still happier: I'm going along on this trip with you. If you show me that you can do a good job in this kind of weather you needn't worry about your position.”
The expression on Captain Mayo's face did not indicate unalloyed delight when he heard this “good news.” Unaccustomed as he was to the ship, he could not hope to make a smooth showing.
“And still you refuse to cheer up!” remonstrated the manager.
“I am glad you are going along, sir. Don't misunderstand me. But a sailor is a pretty serious chap when he feels responsibility. I'm undertaking a big stunt.”
“It's the best way to find out whether you're the man for the job--whether you're the man I think you are. It's a test that beats sailing ships on a puddle.”
“I'm glad you're aboard,” repeated the captain. “It's going to shade down my responsibility just a little.”
“It is, is it?” cried Manager Fogg, his tones sharp. “Not by a blamed sight! You're the captain of this craft. I'm a passenger. Don't try to shirk. You aren't afraid, are you?”
They were standing beside the dripping rail outside the pilot-house. Far below them, in the spacious depths of the steamer, a bugle sounded long-drawn notes and the monotonous calls of stewards warned “All ashore!”
The gangways were withdrawn with dull “clackle” of wet chains over pulleys, and Captain Mayo, after a swift glance at his watch, to make sure of the time, ordered a quartermaster to sound the signal for “Cast off!” The whistle yelped a gruff note, and, seeing that all was clear, the captain yanked the auxiliary bell-pulls at the rail. Two for the port engine, two for the starboard, and the Montana began to back into the gray pall which shrouded the river.
Captain Mayo saw the lines of faces on the pier, husbands and wives, mothers and sweethearts, bidding good-by to those who waved farewell from the steamer's decks. He gathered himself with supreme grip of resolve. It was up to him! He almost spoke it aloud.
Tremors of doubt did not agitate him any longer. It was unthinking faith, nevertheless it was implicit confidence, that all those folks placed in him. They were intrusting themselves to his vessel with the blind assurance of travelers who pursue a regular route, not caring how the destination is reached as long as they come to their journey's end.
The hoarse, long, warning blast which announced to all in the river that the steamer was leaving her dock drowned out the shouts of farewell and the strains of the gay air the orchestra was playing.
“See you later,” said General-Manager Fogg. “I think I'll have an early dinner.”
Captain Mayo climbed the short ladder and entered his pilot-house.
