Sonnie-Boy's People Part 35

"Good! Stay by her. Pa.s.s the word to me if aught goes wrong."

He was through the bulkhead door and into the pa.s.sageway before he had completed the order.

Lavis saw Andie pout his lower lip, and with a "T-t-t--" shift his gaze to the pit. "The blind bats!" burst from him, and he spat into the pit.

"See there, sir!" he called out to Lavis.

Lavis nodded. He had already noticed it. There was a foot or so of water in the pit.

"How the devil came it there?" Andie stooped and scooped a handful of it, tasted it, and held it up for Lavis to view. "Salt! _And_ cold.

T-t-t--" Andie let his breath whistle softly through his parted teeth.

The water was rising. By and by it was over the top of the pit and crawling across the shiny deck. Andie looked about for relief.

"I'll tell him," volunteered Lavis.

"Thank you, sir. An' you might say, sir, there must be somethin' wrong wi' the bulkhead doors. They aren't closed yet."

Lavis met Linnell returning in the pa.s.sageway. "b.u.t.tons in place of eyes in their heads aloft!" he was muttering. "An' for all o' forty mechanics brought specially to set things right, they can't close the doors below."

Together they waded in to where Andie was now to his knees in water.

"Let be your levers, Andie, an' take a spell o' rest for yourself,"

commanded Linnell.

Andie slowly relaxed his fingers, pulled a bunch of waste from his hip pocket, and wiped his hands.

"She's hard hit," said Linnell to Lavis, "though there's few know it yet. And won't in a hurry."

"Then I'd better be going above?"

"That's right, do. Will you be back this way again?"

Lavis let his hand rest lightly on Andie's head. "I'm not sure." He extended his hand to Linnell. "If I don't see you again, good-by."

"Good-by, Mr. Lavis." The engineer stepped closer and whispered: "If any honest chance offers to leave the ship, leave her."

Lavis found his way through the crew's quarters to the lowest sleeping deck of steerage. Here a few old people and some children, too discouraged, too indifferent, or too helpless, were clinging to their bunks. On the next deck he found a gathering in the open s.p.a.ce surrounding a freight hatch. One whom he knew for a Polish woman, with her baby at her breast, was on the edge of the crowd, and, like most of the others, glancing up to see what was doing on the higher decks. The Polish woman was too concerned with her baby to see exactly what they were doing on that high deck where all the boats were, but another woman was telling her how it was.

Lavis stepped closer and listened. She was telling, the tall one, how there were many men running about excitedly--ship's men with only shirts above their trousers some, and others with coats b.u.t.toned up. And they were pulling and hauling and knocking away blocks. Such a clear night one could see them--see their forms--and hear, too, their blows and shouts. The woman with the baby nodded. Without looking up she could hear the blows. And now the electric light had come, resumed the tall one; she could see that many women had gathered there, and some were pushing forward and others pushing back, and now women--yes, and a man--were being put into a boat.

"And now the boat is lowered," resumed the tall one.

"I can hear them," said the young mother. "And now it is rowing away from the ship in the dark."

"And there is another," informed the tall one by and by.

"I can hear that, too, rowing away in the dark. And from the water--do you hear it, too, baby--such a lonesome cry in the darkness?"

At that moment Lavis spoke to her in her own language. The young mother greeted him warmly. "Ah-h, baby," she said, "here is the good gentleman who lives in the country where your father is waiting." She turned from the baby to ply Lavis with rapid questions in Polish.

What did that mean--the boats leaving the great ship? Surely it must be true what the men had said, the ship's men--that there was no danger?

Surely it must be true that such a monster of a ship, it could not sink?

Surely it could not! And yet why were all the rich ladies being sent away and the gates to the upper decks closed, so that the poor people in the steerage could not get out? Was it really true there was no danger?

Surely those officers would not deceive poor, friendless people! And yet here the oily men, the greasy ones who worked deep down in the ship, rushing every moment from below! And saying nothing but low-spoken words to each other, and into their rooms and out again in no time, but with more and heavier clothes upon them! Did men dress more warmly to work where the engines and hot fires were?

"Wait. I will return," said Lavis to her, and stepped over to where two stewards were on guard over a gate. One, observing him, turned to the other and remarked, with vast negligence: "A silly lot, steerage, ain't they? Always airin' a growl about something or other, as if ship's rulin's was a-goin' to be changed for the likes o' them!"

"I would like to get to the upper deck," interrupted Lavis.

"_You_ would like to get to the upper deck, would you? And who, may I ask, do you take yourself for, a-trying to speak like a toff?" The man turned his back to Lavis. "Swine!" he repeated to his mate.

Lavis glanced down at himself. He had overlooked the effect of the old linen duster and the old cap.

"When _he_ gets to 'arbor, of course there will be tugboat visitors and customs officers arskin' for 'im, won't they?"

The other cast half an eye on Lavis. "When the clarss will look down on the tops o' their heads and remark: 'What a mob of 'em there! How many of 'em did you cart along this time, Captain?' I fancy he'll have only to c.o.c.k his ear up to hear 'em."

"b.l.o.o.d.y foreigners, most of 'em."

Lavis returned to the Polish mother. "Come," he said. "There is another way out of here."

"Please, sir, the big, jolly Irisher--what is she saying?"

Lavis listened to the big, jolly Irish girl, who, however, was not now so jolly. Lavis had seen a thousand like her gathering kelp on the west Irish coast--tall, deep-bosomed, barefooted girls with black hair to the waist, and glorious dark eyes. She was standing on the covered hatch, and pointing at the moment to one of the ship's men who had pa.s.sed.

"Wet to his knees. Where is it he should be getting wet to his knees?

And another one. And where is it they are going? And is it we that has to stay here till that kind"--she pointed to the two stewards on guard at the steerage gate--"are pleased to let us out? Haven't we as much right to our lives as them that lives higher up? Five hundred of us here, women and childther, and which of them above cares whether we live or die?"

She pointed to a woman with her brood clinging to her hands and skirts.

"Look at that poor woman with her five childther. And that poor little thing"--she indicated the Polish woman--"that has a husband waiting for herself and her baby in New York. And that other one, and that one, and that one. G.o.d in heaven, mothers with their children to their b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and not to be given a chance to live at all! If 'tis a mother I was, and a child to my breast, it's not images of men in uniforms would hinder me from saving my baby this night! And myself with my baby, if my baby was in need of me, an' I could."

The two ship's men on guard were gazing, not at the steerage, but up at the higher decks, when a dozen or more of the steerage women swept across the deck. "Grand work for strong men," the Irish girl cried, "preventin' poor women and childther from looking out for themselves.

It's not even shadows of men ye are!" and with that bowled the near one over; and her companions, sweeping up behind her, bowled the other one over. The two stewards had a look up and a look down, and then, with an outraged look at each other, they flew after the disappearing steerage women.

"Come, now." Lavis took the Polish mother's hand.

"Sh-h!" she warned. "He is sleeping."

Lavis, nodding that he saw, helped her carefully to her feet, and led her through the now unguarded gate, and by way of several ladders, to that high deck where the boats were.

A boat was all but ready for lowering. The last woman had been crowded into it. The Polish woman removed her shawl and wrapped it around her baby. "Baby!" Lavis could hear her saying over and over again in Polish.

"Oh, my baby! my baby boy!" but softly, so as not to waken him. She stepped into the circle of light which surrounded the boat and the ship's people. "Sa-ave beb-by," she said in English, and held shawl and baby up at the end of her outstretched arms.

A rough hand gripped her by the shoulder.

"Stand back! Stand back, you! You've no right here! Saloon goes first, don't y' understand?"

She stepped back in discouragement.