Captain Scraggs Part 13

Following a b.l.o.o.d.y battle in the pilot house, he subdued the mate; following his victory he was still war mad, so he went to the engine-room hatch and abused the engineer. As a result of the day's events, both men quit when the _Maggie_ was tied up at Jackson Street wharf and once more Captain Scraggs was helpless.

In his extremity, he wished he hadn't been so hard on Mr. Gibney and McGuffey, for he realized he could never hope to get them back until their salvage money should be spent.

He had other tortures in addition. He could not afford to await the construction of a new boiler, for if he did some other skipper would cut in on the vegetable trade he had worked up, for vegetables, being perishable, could not lie on the dock at Halfmoon Bay longer than forty-eight hours. It behooved Scraggs, therefore, to place an order for the new boiler and, in the meantime, to get a gang down aboard the _Maggie_ immediately and put in at least ten new tubes. By working night and day this job might be accomplished in forty-eight hours, and, fortunately, Sunday intervened. Scraggs shuddered at thought of the expense, for in addition to being parsimonious he had very little ready cash on hand and no credit.

When Mr. Gibney and McGuffey, wrapped in the calm thrall of their new-found financial independence, arrived at the _Maggie's_ berth, they were inclined to levity. Indeed, they had come for the express purpose of spoofing their late employer; to crow over him and grind his poor soul into the dirt. Fortunately for Scraggs, he was not aboard, but sounds of activity coming from the engine room aroused McGuffey's curiosity to such an extent that he descended thereto at great risk to a new suit of clothes and discovered four men at work on the boiler. They had cut the rivets and removed the head and at sight of the ruin disclosed within, Mr. McGuffey was truly shocked--and awed. Why he hadn't been blown to Kingdom Come months before was a profound mystery.

He came up and joined Mr. Gibney on a pile of old hemp hawser coiled on the bulkhead. "Danged if I don't feel sorry for old Scraggsy, for all his meanness," he declared. "It's goin' to cost him five hundred dollars to patch up the old boiler an' keep the _Maggie_ runnin' until he can ship a new boiler. The ol' fool don't know a thing about the job himself an' there's four men down there, without a foreman, soldierin' on him an' soakin' him a dollar an' a half an hour overtime. He's in so deep now he might as well jump into bankruptcy entirely an' put in a set o'

piston rings, repack the pumps an' the stuffin-box, shim up the bearin's an' do a lot of little things the old _Maggie's_ just hollerin' to have done."

"To err is human; to forgive divine," Mr. Gibney orated. "Come to think of it, Mac, we give the old man all that was comin' to him the other day--a little bit more, mebbe. He must be raw an'

bleedin', an' it wouldn't be sporty to plague him some more."

"Durned if I don't feel like jumpin' into a suit of dungarees an'

helpin' him out in that engine room, Gib."

"Troubles always comes in a flock, Bart. The Squarehead tells me his new navigatin' officer an' the new engineer has jumped their jobs. It's a dollar to a dime he asks us to come back if he sees us half way willin' to be friendly an' forget the past."

"Well," the philosophical McGuffey declared. "Seein' as how we've reformed, even with money in bank, we might just as well be workin' as loafin'. There's more money in it. An' if it wasn't that Scraggs is so ornery there's worse jobs than me an' you had on the old _Maggie_."

"I been wonderin' if we couldn't reform Scraggsy by heapin' coals of fire on his head, Bart."

"What d'ye mean? Heapin' coals o' fire on Scraggs'd sure keep an ash hoist busy."

"Oh, I dunno, Bart. The old man has his troubles. There's Mrs.

Scraggs a-peckin' at him every time he goes home, an' the _Maggie's_ a worry, not to mention the fact that there ain't much more'n a decent livin' for him in the green-pea trade. An' he ain't gittin' any younger, Bart. You got to bear that in mind."

"Yes, an' he's been disapp'inted in his ambitions," McGuffey agreed. "On top o' that, the Ocean Sh.o.r.e Railroad is buildin'

down the coast an' as soon as the roadbed is completed over the San Pedro Mountains them farmers'll haul their produce to the railhead in motor trucks--an' there won't be no more business for the _Maggie_. Three months more'll see the _Maggie_ laid up."

Mr. Gibney nodded. "It's just the sweet tenderness of Satan we'll be flush when Scraggsy's broke, Bart."

"Dang it, Gib, I sure feel sorry for the old man after takin' a look at that engine room. She's a holy fright."

"Well, we'll make up with him when he comes back, Bart, an' if he shows a contrite sperrit--well, who knows? We might do somethin'

for him."

"He's got to have some financial help to get that engine turnin'

over again, that's a cinch."

"So I been thinkin'. We might lend him a coupler hundred bones at ten per cent., secured by a mortgage on the _Maggie_, if he's up agin it hard. Havin' money in bank is one thing but locatin' an investment for it is another. I've kidded the old man a lot about the _Maggie_, but she's worth two thousand dollars if somebody'd spend a thousand on her inner works an' give her a dab o' paint an' some new fire hose an' one thing an' another."

"We'll wait here until Scraggs shows up an' see what he says. If he still says 'Good mornin', boys,' we'll answer him civil an'

see what it leads to, Gib."

Mr. Gibney grunted his approval and Mr. McGuffey, bringing out a pocket knife, fell to manicuring his terrible finger nails and paring the callous patches off his palms. Mr. Gibney lighted a Sailor's Delight cigar and puffed meditatively, the while he watched a gasoline tug kicking the little schooner _Tropic Bird_ into an adjacent berth. From the _Tropic Bird_ came an odour of copra and pineapple and Mr. Gibney sighed; evidently that South Sea fragrance aroused in him old memories, for presently he spat overboard, watched his spittle float away on the tide, sighed again, and declared, apropos of nothing:

"When I was a young man, Mac, I was a d.a.m.ned fine young man. I had a bunch o' red whiskers an' a pair o' fists like two picnic hams. I was a wonder."

Silently Mr. McGuffey nodded an endors.e.m.e.nt of his comrade's indicated horsepower and peculiar masculine beauty in the days of the latter's vanished youth. He continued to prune his hands.

"I was six feet two in my socks, when I wore any, which wasn't often," Mr. Gibney continued. "I've shrunk half an inch since them days. I weighed a hundred an' ninety-seven pounds in the buff an' my chest bulged like a goose-wing tops'l. In them days, I was an evil man to monkey with. I could have taken two like Scraggsy an' chewed 'em up, spittin' out their bones an' belt buckles. I sure was a wonder."

"You must ha' been with them red whiskers on your face," McGuffey agreed. He refrained from saying more, for instinct told him Mr.

Gibney was about to grow reminiscent and spin a yarn, and B.

McGuffey had a true seaman's reverence for a goodly tale, whether true, half-true, or wholly fanciful.

Mr. Gibney sniffed again the subtle tang of the South Seas drifting over from the _Tropic Bird_, and when a Kanaka, scantily clad, came on deck, threw a couple of fenders overside and retired to the forecastle singing one of those Hawaiian ballads that are so mournfully sweet and funereal, Mr. Gibney sighed again.

"Gawd!" he murmured. "I've sure made a hash o' my young life."

"What's bitin' you, Gib?" Mr. McGuffey's voice was molten with sympathy.

"I was just thinkin'," replied Mr. Gibney, "just thinkin', Mac.

It's the pineapples as does it--the smell of the South Seas. Here I am, big enough and old enough and ugly enough to know better, and yet every time the _City Of Papeete_ or the _Tropic Bird_ or the _Aorangi_ come into port and I see the Kanaka boys swabbin'

down decks and get a snifter o' that fine smell of the Island trade, my innards wilt down like a mess o' cabbage an' I ain't myself no more until after the fifth drink."

"Sorter what th' feller calls vain regrets," suggested McGuffey.

"Vain regrets is the word," mourned Mr. Gibney. "It all comes back to me what I hove away when I was young an' foolish an'

didn't know when I was well off. If there'd only been some good-hearted lad to advise me, I wouldn't be a-settin' here on a hemp hawser, a blasted beachcombin' bucko mate and out of a job.

No, siree. I'd 'a' still been King Gibney, Mac, with power o'

life an' death over two thousand odd blackbirds, an' I'd 'a' had a beautiful wife an' a dozen kids maybe, with pigs an' chickens an' copra an' sh.e.l.l an' a big bungalow an' money. _That's_ what I chucked away when I was young an' n.o.body to advise me."

McGuffey made no comment on Mr. Gibney's outburst. There are moments in life when silence is the greatest sympathy one can offer, and intuitively McGuffey felt that he was face to face with a tragedy. When a shipmate's soul lay bare it was not for the McGuffey to inspect it too closely.

"Yes, McGuffey, I was a king once. Some people might try to make out as how I was only a chief, but you take it from me, Mac, I was a king. I was King Gibney, the first, of Aranuka, in the Gilberts, with the seat of government at Nonuti, which is a blackbird village right under Hakatuea. No matter which way you approach, you can't miss it. Hakatuea's a dead volcano, with ashes on top and just enough fire inside to cast a glow against the sky at night. There's a fair anchorage inside the reef, but it takes a good man to land through the surf at high tide in a whaleboat. I used to do it regular. Aranuka was a nice place, with plenty of fresh water, and some of the Island schooners, and once in a while a British gunboat would stop there. Gawd, McGuffey, but when I was king, they used to pay dear for their fresh water, except the gunboats, which of course came on and helped themselves without askin' no questions of me and parliament--which was both the same thing. I was in Aranuka first in '88 and again in '89, and I was a fool for leavin' it."

"What was you doin' in this here Aranuka?" asked Mr. McGuffey.

"In '88 I was blackbirdin' and in '89 I was--why, what d'ye expect a king does, anyhow? You don't suppose I _worked_, do you? Because I didn't. I ate and drank and slept and went in swimmin' with the court officers and did a little fishin' an' fightin'; and on moonlight nights I used to sprawl in the gra.s.s out on the edge of Hakatuea with my head in my queen's lap, rubberin' up at the Southern Cross and watchin' the rollers breakin' white over the reef. And everything'd be as still as death except for that eternal swishin' of the surf on the beach, babblin' of 'Peace! Peace!

Peace!' an' maybe once in a while the royal voice lifted in one of them sad slumber songs of the South Seas--creepy and dirgelike and beautiful. My girl could sing circles around a sky lark. I taught her how to sing 'John Brown's Body Lies A-Smoulderin' in th' Grave,'

though she didn't have no more notion o' what she was singin' than a ring-tailed monkey."

"How d'ye come to pick up with her?" inquired McGuffey politely.

"I didn't come to pick up with her," answered Mr. Gibney. "She took a fancy to them red whiskers o' mine, and picked up with me.

She used to stick hibiscus flowers in them red curtains and stand off and admire me by the hour. You can imagine how gay I used to feel with flowers in my whiskers. That was one of the reasons why I left her finally.

"But them was the days! Me an' Bull McGinty was the two finest men north or south of the Line. We was worth six ordinary white men each, and twenty blacks, and we was respected. I first met Bull McGinty in Shanghai Nelson's boarding house, over in Oregon Street, not three blocks from where we're settin' now. I was twenty years old an' holdin' a second mate's ticket, for I'd been battin' around the world on clipper ships since I was fourteen, an' I'd bit my way to the front quicker than most. Bull was a big dark man, edgin' up onto the thirty mark. His great grandmother'd been a half-breed Batavian n.i.g.g.e.r, and his father was Irish. Bull himself was nothin', havin' been born at sea, a thousand miles from the nearest land. However, that ain't got nothin' to do with the story. Bull McGinty was skipper an' owner of the schooner _Dashin' Wave_, 258 tons net register, when I met him in Shanghai Nelson's place. Also he was broke, with the _Dashin' Wave_ lyin'

out in the stream off Mission Rock with a Honolulu Chinaman aboard as crew and watchman, while Bull hustled around sh.o.r.e tryin' to raise funds to outfit her for another trip to the Islands. He'd been beachcombin' ten days when I met him, and we took to each other right off.

"'Gib,' says Bull McGinty, 'I like you an' if I ever get money enough to provision the _Dashin' Wave_, pay the clearance fee, and put a thousand or two of trade aboard her, you must come mate with me and if you should have a little money by, enough to fix us up, I'll not only give you the mate's berth, but I'll put you in on half the lay.'

"'Done,' says I. 'I ain't got ten cents Mex to my name, but I'll outfit that vessel an' get her to sea inside two weeks, or my name ain't Adelbert P. Gibney.'

"To look at me now, McGuffey, you'd never think that in them days I was one of the smartest young bucks that ever boxed the compa.s.s. I was born with a great imagination, Mac. All my life my imagination's been my salvation. The ability to grab opportunity by the tail and twist it was my long suit, so after my talk with Bull McGinty I took a cruise along the docks, lookin' for an idea, until I come to Sheeny Joe's place. He used to keep a sailors' outfittin' joint at Howard and East streets, an' as I stood in his doorway, the Great Idea sails up to Sheeny Joe's an'

lets go both anchors.

"What was this Idea? It was a waterfront reporter. It was three waterfront reporters, from three mornin' papers, an' all lookin'