Blow The Man Down Part 47

"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 pa.s.senger. 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 s.p.a.cious depths of the steamer, a bugle sounded long-drawn notes and the monotonous calls of stewards warned "All ash.o.r.e!"

The gangways were withdrawn with dull "clackle" of wet chains over pulleys, and Captain Mayo, after a swift glance at his watch, to make sure of the time, ordered a quartermaster to sound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 a.s.surance 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 hoa.r.s.e, 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.

It was up to him!

XX - TESTING OUT A MAN

Now the first land we made is call-ed The Deadman, The Ramhead off Plymouth, Start, Portland and Wight.

We sail-ed by Beachy, By Fairlee and Dungeness, Until we came abreast of the South Foreland Light.

--Farewell and Adieu.

With starboard engine clawing her backward, and the port engine driving her ahead, the Montana swung her huge bulk when she was free of the penning piers. The churning propellers, offsetting, turned her in her tracks. Then she began to feel her way out of the maze of the traffic.

The grim, silent men of the pilot-houses do not talk much even when they are at liberty on sh.o.r.e. They are taciturn when on duty. They do not relate their sensations when they are elbowing their way through the East River in a fog; they haven't the language to do so.

A psychologist might make much out of the subject by discussing concentration sublimated, human senses coordinating sight and sound on the instant, a sort of sixth sense which must be pa.s.sed on into the limbos of guesswork as instinct.

The man in the pilot-house would not in the least understand a word of what the psychologist was talking about.

The steamboat officer merely understands that he must be on his job!

The _Montana_ added her voice to the bedlam of river yawp.

The fog was so dense that even the lookout posted at her fore windla.s.ses was a hazy figure as seen from the pilot-house. A squat ferryboat, which was headed across the river straight at the slip where her sh.o.r.e gong 'was hailing her, splashed under the steamer's bows, two tugs loafed nonchalantly across in the other direction--saucy sparrows of the river traffic, always underfoot and dodging out of danger by a breathless margin.

Whistle-blasts piped or roared singly and in pairs, a duet of steam voices, or blended at times into a puzzling chorus.

A steamer's whistle in the fog conveys little information except to announce that a steam-propelled craft is somewhere yonder in the white blank, unseen, under way. No craft is allowed to sound pa.s.sing signals unless the vessel she is signaling is in plain sight.

Captain Mayo could see nothing--even the surface of the water was almost indistinguishable.

Ahead, behind, to right and left, everything that could toot was busy and vociferous. Here and there a duet of three staccato blasts indicated that neighbors were threatening to collide and were crawfishing to the best of their ability.

Twice the big steamer stopped her engines and drifted until the squabble ahead of her seemed to have been settled.

A halt mixes the notations of the log, but the mates of the steamer made the Battery signals, and after a time the spidery outlines of the first great bridge gave a.s.surance that their allowances were correct.

Providentially there was a shredding of the fog at h.e.l.l Gate, a sh.o.r.e-breeze flicking the mists off the surface of the water.

Then was revealed the situation which lay behind the particularly emphatic and uproarious "one long and two short" blasts of a violent whistle. A Lehigh Valley tug was coming down the five-knot current with three light barges, which the drift had skeowowed until they were taking up the entire channel. With their cables, the tug and tow stretched for at least four thousand feet, almost a mile of dangerous drag.

"Our good luck, sir," vouchsafed the first mate. "She was howling so loud, blamed if I could tell whether she was coming or going. She's got no business coming down the Sound."

Captain Mayo, his teeth set hard, his rigid face dripping with moisture, as he stood in the open window, stopped the engines of his giant charge and jingled for full speed astern in order to halt her. He had no desire to battle for possession of the channel with what he saw ahead.

At that moment Manager Fogg came into the pilothouse, disregarding the "No Admittance" sign by authority of his position. He lighted a cigar and displayed the contented air of a man who has fed fully.

"You have been making a pretty slow drag of it, haven't you, Captain Mayo? I've had time to eat dinner--and I'm quite a feeder at that! And we haven't made the Gate yet!"

"We couldn't do a stroke better and be safe," said the captain over his shoulder, his eyes on the tow.

"What's the matter now?"

"A tug and three barges in the way."

"Do you mean to say you're holding up a Vose liner with eight hundred pa.s.sengers, waiting for a tugboat? Look here, Mayo, we've got to hustle folks to where they want to go, and get them there in time."

"That tow is coming down with the current and has the right of way, sir.

And there's no chance of pa.s.sing, for she's sweeping the channel."

"I don't believe there's any law that makes a pa.s.senger-boat hold up for scows," grumbled Fogg. "If there is one, a good man knows how to get around it and keep up his schedule." He paced the pilot-house at the extreme rear, puffing his cigar.

He grunted when Mayo gave the go-ahead bells and the throb of the engines began.

"Now ram her along, boy. People in these days don't want to waste time on the road. They're even speeding up the automobile hea.r.s.es."

Captain Mayo did not reply. He was grateful that the dangers of h.e.l.l Gate had been revealed. The mists hung in wisps against North Brother Island when he swung into the channel of the Gate, and he could see, far ahead, the shaft of the lighthouse. It was a stretch where close figuring was needed, and this freak of the mists had given him a fine chance. He jingled for full speed and took a peep to note the bearing of Sunken Meadow spindle.

"Nothe-east, five-eighths east!" he directed the quartermaster at the wheel.

The man repeated the command mechanically and brought her to her course for the Middle Ground pa.s.sage.

After they had rounded North Brother, Whitestone Point tower was revealed. It really seemed as if the fog were clearing, and even in the channel between Execution Rocks and Sands Point his hopes were rising.

But in the wider waters off Race Rock the _Montana_ drove her black snout once more into the white pall, and her whistle began to bray again.

The young captain sighed. "East, a half nothe!"