Command Part 32

"She hasn't got steerage way," said the mate.

"What do you mean by steerage way?" he inquired sarcastically.

"Do you know where you are?" demanded Mr. Spokesly, steadily, "or is it your intention to run her ash.o.r.e? I'm only asking for information."

Captain Rannie forced himself into the chart room and putting on his gla.s.ses examined the chart afresh. Mr. Spokesly followed him in and shut the door.

"I won't have this," the captain began rapidly, laying his hand on the chart and staring down at it. "I won't have it, I tell you. You force yourself in upon me and I am obliged to speak plainly."

"I only want to tell you," said Mr. Spokesly, "that you are too far to the westward. The current is setting you this way," he tapped the chart where a large indentation bore away due south, "and by daylight you won't have sea room."

"I don't believe it!" exclaimed the captain, who meant that he did believe it. "I have taken the log every quarter of an hour."

"Well," said Mr. Spokesly, who was perfectly at ease in this sort of navigation, "the current won't show on the log, which is away out any way. I tell you again, she's going ash.o.r.e. And it's deep water all round here, as you can see. It won't take a very heavy wallop to send her to the bottom with her bows opened out and the fore peak bulkhead leaking already. Put her about. If you don't," said the mate with his hand on the door and looking hard at his commander, "do you know what I'll do?"

He did not wait for an answer but went out and closed the door sharply.

He picked up the telescope and examined the horizon on the port bow. He could discern without difficulty the lofty silhouette of a rocky promontory between the ship and the faint beginnings of the dawn. He turned to the helmsman.

"Hard over to port," he said quietly, and reaching out his hand he rang "Full ahead" on the telegraph. It answered with a brisk scratching jangle, and a rhythmic tremor pa.s.sed through the vessel's frame, as though she, too, had suddenly realized her peril.

"You do what I say," he warned the man at the wheel, who did not reply.

He only twirled the spokes energetically, and the little ship heeled over as she went round. Mr. Spokesly looked again at the approaching coast. There was plenty of room. He heard the door open and the captain come out.

"Easy now," Mr. Spokesly said. "Starboard. Easy does it. That's the style. Well, do you believe what I say now, Captain?"

"I'll report you--I'll have you arrested--I'll use my power----" he stuttered, stopping short by the binnacle and bending double in the impotence of his anger. "Remember, I can tell things about you," he added, pointing his finger at the mate, as though he were actually indicating a visible mark of guilt.

"Shut up," said Mr. Spokesly, staring hard through the telescope. "Hold her on that now, Quartermaster, till I give the word. There will be enough light soon."

Captain Rannie came up to his chief officer's shoulder and whispered:

"You're in this as deep as I am, remember."

"I'm not in it at all and don't you forget it," bawled Mr. Spokesly. The man at the wheel said suddenly in a querulous tone:

"I can't see to steer."

Captain Rannie had fallen back against the binnacle and the sleeve of his coat covered the round hole through which the compa.s.s could be seen.

"You threaten me?" he whimpered. "You threaten the master of the ship?"

"Threaten!" repeated Mr. Spokesly, looking eagerly through the binoculars. "Couple of points to starboard, you. I reckon she's all right now," he muttered to himself, "but we'll go half speed for a bit,"

and he pulled the handle. At the sound of the reply gong and the obsequious movement of the pointer on the dial Captain Rannie was galvanized into fresh life. It was as though the sound had reminded him of something.

"You've been against me ever since you came aboard," he announced. "I noticed it from the first. You had made up your mind to give me all the trouble you possibly could. I don't know how it is, I'm sure, but I always get the most insubordinate and useless officers on my ship. You go in these big lines and get exaggerated ideas of your own importance, and then come to me and try it on here. How can a commander get on with officers who defy him and incite the crew to mutiny? Don't deny it. What you're doing now is mutiny. It may take time, but I'll do it. I'll get you into all the trouble I possibly can for this. I--I--I'll log the whole thing. I'm sorry I ever shipped you. I might have known. I suspected something of the sort. A manner you had in the office.

Impudent, insubordinate, self-sufficient. On the beach. Not a suit of clothes to your back. Had to borrow money--_I_ heard all about it. And then bringing a woman on the ship. Told some sort of tale to the owner.

All very fine. I might as well tell you now, since you've taken this att.i.tude, that I knew we wouldn't get on. If it had been a regular voyage I wouldn't have had you. It's been nothing but trouble since you came. The other man was bad enough, but you...."

"Starboard, Quartermaster. Go ahead, Captain. That's one thing about you. Nothing matters so long as you can go on talking. Fire away if it eases your mind. But I'm taking this ship in. See the fairway? If you make anything out of this trip, and I dare say you'll make it all right, don't forget you owe it to me. You had me rattled a bit when you ran into that ship last night. I thought you knew what you were doing. And you were just scared. Sitting over there on that life-belt, blowing up that patent vest of yours. Thought I didn't notice it, eh? So busy blowing it up you couldn't answer me when I called you. Master of the ship! Yah!"

Captain Rannie was visible now, a high-shouldered figure with one hand in his pocket and the other resting on the corner of the chart house.

During the night he had put on a thick woollen cap with a small k.n.o.b, the size of a cherry, on the point of it, and it made him look like some fantastic creature out of an opera. It was as though he had materialized out of the darkness, an elderly imp foiled in his mischievous designs.

He stood there, looking down at the deck, his mouth working over his toothless gums, silently yet frantically marshalling the routed forces of his personality.

"All right!" he exclaimed. "You take her, I hold you responsible, mind that. I wash my hands of you. You incited my crew to mutiny. Defied my orders."

Mr. Spokesly turned suddenly and Captain Rannie rushed to the ladder and descended halfway, holding by the hand-rail and looking up at Mr.

Spokesly's knees.

"Don't you attack me!" he shrilled. "Don't you dare...." He paused, breathing heavily.

Mr. Spokesly walked to the ladder.

"You'd better go down and pull yourself together," he said in a low tone. "You're only making yourself conspicuous. I can manage without you. And if you come up here again until I've taken her in, by heavens I'll throw you over the side."

He walked back quickly to the bridge-rail, and stared with anxious eyes into the stretch of fairway. He could not help feeling that something tremendous was happening to him. To say that to the captain of the ship!

But he had to keep his attention on the course. Looking ahead, it was as though he had made the same error of which he had accused the Captain, of running into the land. On the port side the low sh.o.r.e in the half-light ran up apparently into the immense wall of blue mountains in the distance. A few more miles and he would see. He looked down at the torn strakes draggling in the water alongside, at the smashed boat, and the tangled wreckage on the fore-deck. She was very much down by the head now, he noted. Yet they were making it. It would be any moment now when the land would open out away to the eastward and he would give the word to bear away.

And as the sun came up behind the great ranges of Asia and touched the dark blue above their summits with an electric radiance so that the sea and the sh.o.r.e, though dark, were yet strangely clear, he saw the white riffle of contending currents away to port, and got his sure bearings in the Gulf. And as he rang "Full speed ahead" he heard a step behind him and felt a quick pressure of his arm.

She was wearing the big blue overcoat, which was Plouff's last demonstration of his own peculiar and indefatigable usefulness, and her face glowed in the depths of the up-turned collar. The morning breeze blew her hair about as she peered eagerly towards the goal of her desire.

"See!" she cried happily, pointing, one finger showing at the end of the huge sleeve. "See the town?" She s.n.a.t.c.hed the gla.s.ses and held them to her eyes. "Giaour Ismir!"

"You don't want to get into the boat after all," he said, putting his arm about her shoulders.

"Me? No! That fool said the ship would go down. Look! Oh, _quelle jolie ville_!"

"Where?" he said, taking the gla.s.ses.

"See!" She pointed into the dim gray stretch of the waters that lay like a lake in the bosom of immense mountains. He looked and saw what she meant, a spatter of white on the blue hillside, a tiny sparkle of lights and cl.u.s.ters of tall cypresses, black against the mists of the morning.

And along the coast on their right lay a gray-green sea of foliage where the olive groves lined the sh.o.r.e. Range beyond range the mountains receded, barring the light of the sun and leaving the great city in a light as mysterious as the dawn of a new world. Far up the Gulf, beyond the last glitter of the long sea wall, he could see the valleys flooded with pale golden light from the hidden sun, with white houses looking down upon the waters from their green nests of cypresses and oaks.

"Why don't they come out?" he wondered half to himself. "Are they all asleep?"

"Oh, the poor ones, they must come out in a boat. They have no coal,"

she retorted. "Look! there is a little ship sailing out! Tck!"

He looked at it. Well, what could they do? He held her close. She must be interpreter for him, he said. Oh, of course. She would tell them what a hero he was, how he had brought them safely through innumerable dangers for her sake. They would live, see! Up there. He had no idea how happy they would be!

The little sailing boat was coming out, her sail like a fleck of cambric on the dark water.

He said there was no need to tell them he was a hero.

"They will know it," she said, "when they see the poor ship. Oh, yes, I will tell them everything. I will tell them you did this because you love me."

"Will they believe it?" he asked in a low tone, watching the city as they drew nearer.

"Believe?" she questioned without glancing at him. "It is nothing to them. What matter? I tell them something, that is all."