Captain Scraggs Part 24

"What's for breakfast, Scraggsy, old kid?" asked Mr. Gibney.

"Fried eggs," said Captain Scraggs, remembering Mr. Gibney's partiality for that form of nutriment in the vanished days of the green-pea trade. "Ham an' fried eggs an' a sizzlin' pot o'

coffee. Thought a way out o' our mess, Gib?"

"Not yet," replied Mr. Gibney as he rolled out of bed, "but eggs is always stimulatin', and I don't give up hope on a full stomach."

An hour later they were tied up under the coal bunkers, and at Mr. Gibney's suggestion some twenty tons of sacked coal were piled on top of the fo'castle head and on the main deck for'd, in case of emergency. They lay in the harbour all day until about four o'clock, when Mr. Gibney, by virtue of his authority as supercargo, ordered the lines cast off and the _Maggie_ steamed out of the harbour. Off Point Loma they veered to the south, leaving the Coronado Islands on the starboard quarter, ten miles to the west. Mr. Gibney was below with Captain Scraggs, battling with the problem that confronted them, when the mate stuck his head down the companion-way to report a large power schooner coming out from the lee of the Coronados and standing off on a course calculated to intercept the _Maggie_ in an hour or two.

Captain Scraggs and Mr. Gibney sprang up on the bridge at once, the latter with Scraggs's long gla.s.s up to his eye.

"She was hove to under the lee of the island, and the minute we came out of the harbour and turned south she come nosin' after us," said the mate.

"Hum!" muttered Mr. Gibney. "Gasoline schooner. Two masts and baldheaded. About a hundred and twenty ton, I should say, and showin' a pretty pair of heels. There's somethin' up for'd--yes--let me see--ye-e-es, there's two more--_holy sailor! it's a gunboat!_ One of those doggoned gasoline coast patrol boats, and there's the Federal flag flying at the fore."

"Let's put back to San Diego Bay," quavered Captain Scraggs.

"I'll be durned if I relish the idee o' losin' the _Maggie_."

"Too late," said the philosophical Gibney. "We're in Mexican waters now, and she can cut us off from the bay. The only thing we can do is to run for it and try to lose her after dark. Tell the engineer to crowd her to the limit. There ain't much wind to speak of, so I guess we can manage to hold our own for a while.

Nevertheless, I've got a hunch that we'll be overhauled. Of course, you ain't got no papers to show, Scraggs, and they'll search the cargo, and confiscate us, and shoot the whole bloomin'

crowd of us. I bet a dollar to a doughnut that fellow Lopez sold us out, after the fashion of the country. I can't help thinkin'

that that gunboat was there just a-waitin' for us to show up."

For several minutes Mr. Gibney continued to study the gunboat until there could no longer be any doubt that she intended to overhaul them. He made out that she had a long gun for'd, with a battery of two one-pounders on top of her house and something on her port quarter that looked like a Maxim rapid-fire gun. About twenty men, dressed in white cloth, could be seen on her decks.

Presently Mr. Gibney was interrupted by Captain Scraggs pulling at his sleeve.

"You was a gunner once, wasn't you, Gib?" said Captain Scraggs in a trembling voice.

"You bet I was," replied Mr. Gibney. "My shootin' won the trophy three times in succession when I was on the old _Kearsarge_. If I had one good gun and a half-decent crew, I'd knock that gunboat silly before she knew what had hit her."

"Gib, I've got an idee," said Captain Scraggs.

"Out with it," said Mr. Gibney cheerfully.

"There was four little cannon lowered into the hold the last thing before we put on the main hatch, and the ammunition to load 'em with is stowed in the after hold and very easy to get at."

Mr. Gibney turned a beaming face to the skipper, reached out his arms, and folded Captain Scraggs in an embrace that would have done credit to a grizzly bear. There were genuine tears of admiration in his eyes and in his voice when he could master his emotions sufficiently to speak.

"Scraggsy, old tarpot, you've been a long time comin' through on the imagination, but you've sure arrived with all sail set. I always thought you had about as much nerve as an oyster, but I take it all back. We'll get out them two little jacka.s.s guns and fight a naval battle, and if I don't sink that Mexican gunboat, and save the _Maggie_, feed me to the sharks, for I won't be worthy of the blood that's in me. Pipe all hands and lift off that main hatch. Reeve a block and tackle through that cargo gaff and stand by to heave out the guns."

But Captain Scraggs had repented of his rash suggestion almost the moment he made it. Only the dire necessity of desperate measures to save the _Maggie_ had prompted him to put the idea into Mr. Gibney's head, and when he saw the avidity with which the latter set to work clearing for action, his terror knew no bounds.

"Oh, Gib," he wailed, "I'm afraid we better not try to lick that gunboat after all. They might sink us with all hands."

"Rats!" said Mr. Gibney, as he leaped into the hold. "Bear a light here until I can root out the wheels of these guns. Here they are, labelled 'cream separator.' Stand by with that sling to----"

"But, Gib, my _dear_ boy," protested Captain Scraggs, "this is _insanity_!"

"I know it," said Mr. Gibney calmly. "Scraggsy, you're perfectly right. But I'd sooner die fightin' than let them stand me up agin a wall in Ensenada. We're filibusters, Scraggsy, and we're caught with the goods. I, for one, am goin' down with the steamer _Maggie_, but I'm goin' down fightin' like a bear."

"Maybe--maybe we can outrun her, Gib," half sobbed Captain Scraggs.

"No hope," replied Mr. Gibney. "Fight and die is the last resort.

She's eight miles astern and gainin' every minute, and when she's within two miles she'll open fire. Of course we won't be hit unless they've got a Yankee gunner aboard."

"Let's run up the Stars and Stripes and dare 'em to fire on us,"

said Captain Scraggs.

"No," said Mr. Gibney firmly, "my old man died for the flag an'

I've sailed under it too long to hide behind it when I'm in Dutch. We'll fight. If you was ever navigatin' officer on a Colombian gunboat, Scraggs, you'd realize what it means to run from a Mexican."

Captain Scraggs said nothing further. Perhaps he was a little ashamed of himself in the face of Mr. Gibney's simple faith in his own ability; perhaps in his veins, all unknown, there flowed a taint of the heroic blood of some forgotten sea-dog. Be that as it may, something did swell in his breast when Mr. Gibney spoke of the flag and his scorning to hide behind it, and Scraggs's snaggle teeth came together with a snap.

"All right, Gib, my boy," he said solemnly, "I'm with you. Mrs.

Scraggs has slipped her cable and there ain't n.o.body to mourn for me. But if we can't fight under the Stars and Stripes, by the tail of the Great Sacred Bull, we'll have a flag of our own," and leaving Mr. Gibney and the crew to get the guns on deck, Captain Scraggs ran below. He appeared on deck presently with a long blue burgee on which was emblazoned in white letters the single word _Maggie_. It was his own houseflag, and with trembling hands he ran it to the fore and cast its wrinkled folds to the breeze of heaven.

"Good old dishcloth!" shrieked Mr. Gibney. "She never comes down."

"d.a.m.ned if she does," said Captain Scraggs profanely.

While all this was going on a deckhand had reeved a block and tackle through the end of the cargo gaff and pa.s.sed it to the winch. The two guns came out of the hold in jig time, and while Scraggs and one deckhand opened the after hold and got out ammunition for the guns, Mr. Gibney, a.s.sisted by the other deckhand, proceeded to put one of the guns together. He was shrewd enough to realize that he would have to do practically all of the work of serving the gun himself, in view of which condition one gun would have to defend the _Maggie_. He had never seen a mountain gun before, but he did not find it difficult to put the simple mechanism together.

"Now, then, Scraggsy," he announced cheerfully when the gun was finally a.s.sembled on the carriage, "get a sizeable timber an'

spike it to the centre o' the deck. I'll run the trail spade up against that cleat an' that'll keep the recoil from lettin' the gun go backward, clean through the opposite rail and overboard.

Gimme a coupler gallons o' distillate and some waste, somebody.

This cosmoline's got to come out o' the tube an' out o' the breech mechanism before we commence shootin'."

The enemy had approached within three miles by the time the piece was ready for action. Under Mr. Gibney's instructions Captain Scraggs held the fuse setter in case it should be necessary to adjust with shrapnel. Mr. Gibney inserted his sights and took a preliminary squint. "A little different from gun-pointin' in the navy, but about the same principle," he declared. "In the army I believe they call this kind o' shootin' direct fire, because you sight direct on the target." He scratched his ingenious head and examined the ammunition. "Not a high explosive sh.e.l.l in the lot,"

he mourned. "I'll have to use percussion fire to get the range; then I'll drop back a little an' spray her with shrapnel. Seems a pity to smash up a fine schooner like that one with percussion fire. I'd rather tickle 'em up a bit with shrapnel an' scare 'em into runnin' away."

He got out the lanyard, slipped a cartridge in the breech, paused, and scratched his head again. His calm deliberation was driving Scraggs crazy. He reminded Mr. Gibney with some asperity that they were not attending a strawberry festival and for the love of heaven to get busy.

"I'm estimatin' the range, you snipe," Gibney retorted. "Looks to be about three miles to me. A little long, mebbe, for this gun, but--there's nothin' like tryin'," and he sighted carefully.

"Fire," he bawled as the _Maggie_ rested an instant in the trough of the sea--and a deckhand jerked the lanyard. Instantly Mr.

Gibney clapped the long gla.s.s to his eye.

"Good direction--over," he murmured. "I'll lay on her waterline next time." He jerked open the breech, ejected the cartridge case, and rammed another cartridge home. This shot struck the water directly under the schooner's bow and threw water over her forecastle head. Mr. Gibney smiled, spat overboard, and winked confidently at Captain Scraggs. "Like spearin' fish in a bath tub," he declared. He bent over the fuse setter. "Corrector three zero," he intoned, "four eight hundred." He thrust a cartridge in the fuse setter, twisted it, slammed it in the gun, and fired again. The water broke into tiny waterspouts over a considerable area some two hundred yards short of the schooner, so Mr. Gibney raised his range to five thousand and tried again. "Over," he growled.

Something whined over the _Maggie_ and threw up a waterspout half a mile beyond her.

"Dubs," jeered Mr. Gibney, and sighted again. This time his shrapnel burst neatly on the schooner. Almost simultaneously a sh.e.l.l from the schooner dropped into the sacked coal on the forecastle head of the _Maggie_ and enveloped her in a black pall of smoke and coal dust. Captain Scraggs screamed.

"t.i.t for tat," the philosophical Gibney reminded him. "We can't expect to get away with everything, Scraggsy, old kiddo." The words were scarcely out of his mouth before the _Maggie's_ mainmast and about ten feet of her ancient railing were trailing alongside. Mr. Gibney whistled softly through his teeth and successfully sprayed the Mexican again. "It breaks my heart to ruin that craft's canvas," he declared, and let her have it once more.

"My _Maggie's_ tail is shot away," Captain Scraggs wailed, "an' I only rebuilt it a week ago." Three more shots from the long gun missed them, but the fourth carried away the cabin, leaving the wreck of the pilot house, with the helmsman unscathed, sticking up like a sore thumb.

"Turn her around and head straight for them," the gallant Gibney roared. "She's a smaller target comin' bows on. We're broadside to her now."