Blow The Man Down 21~ Bitter Proof by Morning Light
18
Literature · Romance
Blow The Man Down 21
~ Bitter Proof by Morning Light
DayEnglish
Bad news, bad news to our captain came
That grieved him very sore;
But when he knew that all of it was true,
It grieved him ten time more,
Brave boys!
It grieved him ten times more!
--Cold Greenland.
Morning brought to him neither cheer nor counsel. The winds swept the fog off the seas, and the brightness of the sunshine only mocked the gloom of Captain Mayo's thoughts.
He was most unmistakably far off his course. He took his bearings carefully, and he groped through his memory and his experience for reasons which would explain how he came to be away up there on Hedge Fence. Two of the masts of the sunken stone-schooner showed above the sea, two depressing monuments of disaster. He took further bearings and tested his compass with minute care. So far as he could determine it was correct to the dot.
It was a busy forenoon for all on board the steamer. The revenue cutters took off the passengers. Representatives of the underwriters came out from Wood's Hole on a tug. The huge Montana, set solidly into its bed of sand, loomed against the sky, mute witness of somebody's inefficiency or mistake.
Late in the day Captain Mayo and General-Manager Fogg locked themselves in the captain's cabin to have it out.
When the master had finished his statement Mr. Fogg flicked the ash from his cigar, studied the glowing end for a time, and narrowed his eyes.
“So, summing it all up, it happened, and you don't know just how it happened. You were off your course and don't know how you happened to be off your course. You don't expect us to defend you before the steamboat inspectors, with that for an explanation, Mayo?”
“All I can do is to tell the truth at the hearing, sir.”
“They'll break you, sure as a mule wags ears. There are five dead men inside that wreck yonder. Don't you reckon you'll be indicted for manslaughter?”
“I shall claim that the collision was unavoidable.”
“But you were off your course--were in a place you had no business to be in. That knocks your defense all to the devil. You are in almighty bad, Mayo. You must wake up to it.”
The young man was pale and rigid and silent.
“The Vose line is in bad enough as it is, without trying to defend you. I suppose I'll be blamed for putting on a young captain. Mayo, I am older than you are and wiser about the law and such matters. Why don't you duck out from under, eh?”
“You mean run away?”
“I wouldn't put it quite as bluntly as that. I mean, go away and keep out of sight till it quiets down. If you stay they'll put you on the rack and get you all tangled up by firing questions at you. And what will you gain by going through the muss? You've got to agree with me that the inspectors will suspend you--revoke your license. Here's this steamer here, talking for herself. If you stay around underfoot, and all the evidence is brought out at the hearing, then the Federal grand jury will take the thing up, probably. They'll have a manslaughter case against you.”
Still Captain Mayo did not speak.
“If you simply drop out of sight I don't believe they'll chase you. Personally, having watched you last night, I don't believe you are guilty of any very bad break. It simply happened wrong. We don't want all the notoriety a court trial would bring to the line. And here's what I'll do, Mayo. I'll slip you a few hundred for expenses so that you can go away and grab into the shipping game somewhere else. A fellow like you can land on his feet.”
“Mr. Fogg, a renegade steamboat man stands a mighty poor show. I may be suspended, and worse may happen to me, but I'm not going to ruin myself and my good name by running away. That's confession! It's wrecking all my prospects forever--and I have worked too hard for what I've got. I'm going to stay here and face the music--tell my story like a man.”
“It will make a fine story--and you have told me yourself that they are just waiting to make a smashing example of somebody,” sneered Fogg. “You, a cub captain, broke the navigation rules last night by running at least fifteen knots in the fog. Your log and the testimony of your mates will show that. I'm not blaming you, son. I'm showing you how it looks! You got off your course and rammed a schooner at anchor, and you didn't even stop to pick up her men. I saw that much. Mayo, the only sensible thing for you to do is to duck out from under. It will save the line from a lot of scandal and bad advertising. By gad! if you don't do that much for us, after the offer I've just made you, I'll go onto the stand and testify against you.”
“You seem to be mighty ready and anxious to make me the goat in this thing,” blazed the young man, his temper getting away from him. He had been without sleep for many hours, his soul had been crucified by the bitter experiences he had been through.
“Are you looking for a fight?”
“No, Mr. Fogg, I'm looking for a square deal. I haven't done anything intentionally to make me a fugitive from justice. I won't run away.”
“You won't be the first witness who has helped big interests by keeping out of sight and out of reach of the lawyers. It's business, Mayo.”
“It may be, Mr. Fogg. I don't know the inside of the big deals. I'm only a sailor. I associate with sailors. And I've got a little pride in my good name.”
Mr. Fogg looked at this recalcitrant with scorn. He wanted to tell this stubborn individual that he was merely a two-spot in the big game which was being played. But the expression on Mayo's face encouraged neither levity nor sneers.
“I'll give you a thousand dollars expense money for your trip and will talk job with you next year after you get your license back,” proffered the general manager.
Captain Mayo fixed flaming eyes on the tempter. “What special, private reason have you got for wanting to bribe me?” demanded the young man, with such heat that Fogg flinched. “You are making something very mysterious out of what should be open and aboveboard. That may be Wall Street tactics, Mr. Fogg, but it doesn't go with a sailor who has earned a master's papers and is proud of it.”
“Well, pass on then,” directed Fogg. “There's a tug alongside to take the underwriters back to Wood's Hole. Go along--to jail, or wherever it is you'll fetch up.”
“I shall stay aboard this ship as her captain until I am relieved according to the formalities of the admiralty law,” declared Captain Mayo, with dignity. “I don't propose to run away from duty or punishment, Mr. Fogg.”
The general manager pursed a contemptuous mouth and departed from the cabin. He went away on the tug without further word to Mayo.
During the next two days small craft buzzed about the stricken giant like flies around a carcass. There were insurance men, wreckers with plans and projects, sightseers, stockholders--and one visitor was Captain Zoradus Wass.
“Nothing else to do just now, boy, except to come and sympathize with you.” He clucked his tongue against his teeth as he looked the steamer over. It was condolence without words. “Now tell me the story of it--with all the fine details,” he demanded, after they were closeted in the captain's cabin. He sat with elbows on his knees and gazed at the floor during the recital, and he continued to gaze at the floor for some time after Mayo had ceased speaking.
“I admit that the quartermaster let her off for just a minute--less than a minute,” repeated the young man. “I had only just looked away for an instant. I helped him put her over. We couldn't have done more than cut a letter S for a few lengths. But the more I think of it, the queerer it seems. Two points off, almost in a finger-snap!”
“Tell that part of it over and over again, while I shut my eyes and get it fixed in my mind as if I had seen it,” requested Captain Wass. “Who was there, where did they stand, and so forth and et cetry. When a thing happens and you can't figger it out, it's usually because you haven't pawed over the details carefully enough. Go ahead! I'm a good listener.”
But after he had listened he had no comments to make. He went out of the cabin after a few minutes' wait which was devoted to deep meditation, and strolled about the ship, hands behind his back, scuffing his feet. A half-hour later, meeting Captain Mayo on his rounds, the veteran inquired:
“How do you happen to have Oliver Burkett aboard here?” “I don't know him.”
“You ought to know him. He is the captain the Vose line fired off the Nirvana three years ago. He gave the go-ahead and a jingle when he was making dock, and chewed up four fishing-boats and part of the pier. He had to choose between admitting that he was drunk, crazy, or bribed by the opposition. And I guess they figured that he was all three. Was he aboard here the night it happened?”
“I don't know, sir.”
“According to my notion it's worth finding out,” growled Captain Wass. “I'm not seeing very far into this thing as yet, son, and I'll admit it. But if dirty work was done to you, Burkett would have been a handier tool for Fogg than a Stillson wrench in a plumbing job. No, don't ask me questions now. I haven't got any consolation for you or confidence in myself. I'm only thinking.”
The next day the wounded Montana was formally surrendered to the underwriters.
Captain Boyd Mayo was ordered to appear before the United States inspectors, and he went and told his story as best he could. But his best was an unconvincing tale, after all. He left the hearing after his testimony and walked down to the little hotel by the water-front to wait for news.
Captain Wass came bustling down to the little hotel, plumping along at an extra rate of speed, setting his heels down hard, a moving monument of gloom.
His protégé, removing disconsolate gaze from the dusty chromos on the office walls, did not require verbal report; Captain Wass's demeanor told all.
“And you couldn't expect much of anything else,” declared the old man. “I made the best talk I could for you after you had finished your testimony and had gone out. But it was no use, son! The department has been laying for a victim. Both of us have known that right along. They have soaked it to you good and proper.”
“How long am I suspended for?” faltered Mayo.
“That's the point! Indefinitely. You were meat. Everybody watching the case. They trimmed you.”
Mayo set his hands into his thick hair, propped his head, and stared at the floor.
“Indefinitely doesn't mean forever, but there ain't much comfort in that. I'll tell you what it does mean, boy. It means that if there has been crooked work we've got to show it up in order to reinstate you. And now get a good brace on yourself. I've taken a peek in at the United States court.”
The young man, without lifting his head, gave the veteran a piteous side-glance.
“Fletcher Fogg is buzzing around the outside of that hive. He has Burkett along for an understrapper. They are marshaling in witnesses before the grand jury--those men from the Warren, and you know what they'll say, of course! Your mates and quartermasters, too! Mayo, they're going to railroad you to Atlanta penitentiary. They have put something over on you because you are young and they figured that you'd be a little green. It seemed queer to me when Fogg was so mighty nice to you all of a sudden. But they don't lay off a man like Jacobs and put in a new man just to be nice. They either felt they couldn't work Jacobs, or else they felt a green man would give 'em a good excuse for what happened.”
“But they couldn't arrange to have a schooner--”
“That was probably more than they figured on. But as long as it has happened they're going to use it to best advantage. You're going to have both tin cans tied to you, son. Every cussed bit of influence is going to be used against you. Poor devils on the outside, like you and I, don't understand just how slick the ways can be greased. Mayo, I'm going to give you good advice. Duck out!”
“Run away like a confessed criminal? That's the advice Fogg gave me. I don't think your advice is good, Captain Wass. I won't run away.”
“It may not be good advice. I ain't wise enough to know everything that's best. But if they put you behind the bars in Atlanta, son, you'll stay there till your term is up. No matter what is found out in your case, it will take money and a lot of time to get the truth before the right people. But if you ain't in prison, and we can get a line on this case and dig up even a part of the truth, then you've got a fighting chance in the open. If we can get just enough to make 'em afraid to put you onto the witness-stand, that much may make 'em quit their barking. You're a sailor, boy! You know a sailor can't do much when his hands are tied. Stay outside the penitentiary and help me fight this thing.”
“I don't know what to do,” mourned the young man. “I'm all in a whirl. I'm no coward, Captain Wass. I'm willing to face the music. But I'm so helpless.”
“Stay outside jail till the fog lifts a bit in this case,” adjured his mentor. “Are you going to lie down and stick up your legs to have 'em tied, like a calf bound for market? Here are a few things you can do if you duck out of sight for a little while. I'll go ahead and--”
Suddenly he checked himself. He was facing the window, which commanded a considerable section of street. He wasted no further breath on good advice.
“I know those men coming down there,” he cried. “They're bailiffs. I saw them around the court-house. They're after you, Mayo! You run! Get away! There must be a back door here. Scoot!” He pulled the unresisting scapegoat out of his chair and hustled him to the rear of the office.
A young man may have the best intentions. He may resolve to be a martyr, to bow to the law's majesty. But at that moment Mayo was receiving imperious command from the shipmaster whose orders he had obeyed for so long that obedience was second nature. And panic seized him! Men were at hand to arrest him. There was no time to reason the thing out. Flight is the first impulse of innocence persecuted. Manly resolve melted. He ran.
“I'll stay behind and bluff 'em off! I'll say you're just out for a minute, that I'm waiting here for you,” cried Captain Wass. “That will give you a start. Try the docks. You may find one of the boys who will help.”
Mayo escaped into a yard, dodged down an alley, planning his movements as he hurried, having a mariner's quickness of thought in an emergency.
He made directly for the pier where steam-vessels took water. A huge ocean-going tug was just getting ready to leave her berth under the water-hose. Her gruff whistle-call had ordered hawsers cast off. Mayo's 'longcoast acquaintance was fairly extensive. This was a coal-barge tug, and he waved quick greeting to the familiar face in her pilot-house and leaped aboard. He climbed the forward ladder nimbly.
“I reckon you'll have to make it hello and good-by in one breath, mate,” advised the skipper. “I'm off to take a light tow down-coast. Norfolk next stop.”
“Let her go--sooner the better,” gasped the fugitive. “I'll explain why as soon as you are out of the dock.”
“You don't say that you want to take the trip?”
“I've got to take it.”
The skipper cocked an eyebrow and pulled his bell. “Make yourself to home, mate,” he advised. “I hope you ain't in so much of a hurry to get there as you seem to be, for I've got three barges to tow.”
Mayo sat down on the rear transom and was hidden from all eyes on the pier.
There was no opportunity for an explanation until the barges had been picked up, for there was much manouver-ing and much tooting. But he found ready sympathy after he had explained.
“The law sharps are always hankering to catch a poor cuss who is trying to navigate these waters and suit the inspectors and the owners at the same time,” admitted the master of the tug. “I have read everything the papers had to say about your case, and I figured they didn't give you a fair show. Newspapers and lawyers and owners don't understand what a fellow is up against. I'm glad you're aboard, mate, because I want to hear your side, with all the details.”
The threshing over of the matter occupied many hours of the long wallow down the Jersey coast, and the tug captain weighed all features of the case with the care of a man who has plenty of time on his hands and with the zest a mariner displays in considering the affairs of his kind of folk.
“If I didn't know you pretty well, Mayo, and know what kind of a man you got your training with, I might think--just as those law sharps will probably say--that you were criminally careless or didn't know your business. But that dodge she made on you! Two points off her course! You've got to put your finger right on there and hold it! Let me tell you something. It was a queer thing in my own case. That was a queer thing in your case. Stand two queer things in our business up beside each other and squint at 'em and you may learn something.”
“She was on her course--I put her there with my own hands,” persisted Mayo.
“Sure! You know your business. If this thing was going to be left to the bunch that know you, you'd go clear. But here's what happened in my case: I had a new man in the wheel-house, here, and he almost rammed me into Cuttyhunk, gave me a touch and go with the Pollock Rip Lightship, and had me headed toward Nauset when the fog lifted. And he was steering my courses to the thinness of a hair, at that! Say, I took a sudden tumble and frisked that chap and dragged a toad-stabber knife out of his pocket--one of those regular foot-long knives. It had been yawing off that compass all the way from a point to a point and a half. When did you shift wheel-watch?”
“Before we made Vineyard Sound.”
“And no trouble coming up the sound?”
“Made Nobska and West Chop to the dot.”
“Then perhaps your general manager, who was in that pilot-house, had an iron gizzard inside him. Most of them Wall Street fellows do have!” said the skipper, with sarcasm.
“There's something going on in the steamboat business that I can't understand,” declared Mayo. “It's high up; it hasn't to do with us chaps, who have to take the kicks. Fogg brought a man aboard the old Nequasset, and he didn't bring along a good explanation to go with that man. I have been wondering ever since how it happened that Fogg got to be general manager of the Vose line so almighty sudden.”
“Them high financiers play a big game, mate. And if you happened to be a marked card in it, they'd tear you up and toss you under the table without thinking twice. If you'll take a tip from me, you lay low and do a lot of thinking while Uncle Zoradus does his scouting. What are you going to do when you get to Norfolk?”
“I haven't thought.”
“Well, the both of us better think, and think hard, mate. If the United States is really after you there'll be a sharp eye at every knot-hole. I can't afford to let 'em get in a crack at me for what I've done.”
“I'll jump overboard outside the capes before I'll put you in wrong,” asserted Mayo, with deep feeling.
That night the captain of the tug took a trick at the wheel in person.
His guest lay on the transom, smoking the skipper's spare pipe, and racking his mind for ways and means. After a time he was conscious that the captain was growling a bit of a song to relieve the tedium of his task. He sang the same words over and over--a tried and true Chesapeake shanty:
“Oh, I sailed aboard a lugger, and I shipped aboard a scow, And I sailed aboard a peanut-shell that had a razor bow. Needle in a haystack, brick into a wall! A nigger man in Norfolk, he ain't no 'count at all!”
Mayo rolled off the transom and went to the captain's side. “There's more truth than poetry in that song of yours, sir,” he said. “You have given me an idea. A nigger in Norfolk doesn't attract much attention. And I haven't got to be one of the black ones, either. Don't you suppose there's something aboard here I can use to stain my face with?”
“My cook is a great operator as a tattoo artist.”
“I don't think I want to make the disguise permanent, sir,” stated the young man, with a smile.
“What I mean is, he may have something in his kit that he can use to paint you with. What's your idea--stay there? I'm afraid they'll nail you.” >
“I'll stay there just long enough to ship before the mast on a schooner. There isn't time to think up any better plan just now. Anything to keep out of sight until I can make up my mind about what's really best to be done.”
“We'll have that cook up here,” offered the captain. “He's safe.”
The cook took prompt and professional interest in the matter. “Sure!” he said. “I've got a stain that will sink in and stay put for a long time, if no grease paint is used. Only you mustn't wash your face.”
“There's no danger of a fellow having any inducement to do that when he's before the mast on a schooner in these days,” declared the tug captain, dryly.
An hour later, Captain Boyd Mayo, late of the crack liner Montana, was a very passable mulatto, his crisply curling hair adding to the disguise. He swapped his neat suit of brown with a deck-hand, and received some particularly unkempt garments.
The next night, when the tug was berthed at the water station, he slipped off into the darkness, as homeless and as disconsolate as an abandoned dog.
