The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers Part 39

"Yes, but--"

"I don't want to hear your excuses or your reasons. That's mutiny,"

the lieutenant said, simply. Then, turning to the captain, he said,

"Do you accuse him of mutiny?"

"Yes," the master answered, "he mutiny."

"Put the irons on him, Quartermaster," said the lieutenant, and handcuffs were snapped on the first mate's wrist.

[Ill.u.s.tration: STRANDED! AFTER STORM HAS CEASED AND TIDE HAS EBBED.

The end of a gallant bark driven on a lee sh.o.r.e, but from which the Coast Guard rescued every one on board.

Courtesy of U.S. Coast Guard.]

"Any more of your men mutiny, Captain?" asked the lieutenant.

"I tell you whole story," the shipmaster answered. "You speak Italian?"

"French," the Coast Guard officer answered, "but not Italian."

"French? Fine!" the captain replied, and stepping forward, he told the story of the trip. It appeared that the ship had part of her cargo consigned to Vera Cruz, consisting of cartridges, designed for the Mexican government. The mate had practically seized the ship and demanded that the captain sail her to Puerto Mexico, one of the southern ports, in the hands of the Zapatistas. The Mexican rebel general was to pay a good price for the ammunition, and then the captain was to be allowed to proceed with the ship unmolested on the rest of his cruise.

As the ammunition had been shipped from an American port, the Coast Guard lieutenant realized that complications might ensue. Accordingly, since it was only a few hours' run to Apalachicola, and the wind was fair, the lieutenant advised the Italian captain to run for that port and deal with the question of the mate and the other three mutineers before the proper court.

A file of men, under command of Gunner Sternow, was left on board the bark to preserve order. The mate and the three other mutineers were thrust in irons into the carpenter's shop, which was converted into a prison for the purpose, one of the cutter's men standing on guard. The following morning, the harbor authorities of Apalachicola having been notified by wireless, a tug came off bearing authority for the formal arrest of the four men, who were taken ash.o.r.e and put in prison, pending action by the Italian consul and the civil authorities.

"I suppose this mutiny business is rather rare," said Eric to Homer, as the _Miami_ swung out of Apalachicola Bay.

"Not so rare as you'd fancy," his friend answered. "There's not a season goes by that some of the cutters don't have to take a hand in settling mutiny. Why, only last year, a crew seized a vessel, in the real old-fashioned pigtail and tarred-trousers style, imprisoned the master in the cabin, and started to sail the ship back to the United States on their own hook."

"Where were they bound for?"

"'Frisco, from Philadelphia, round the Horn. She was the _Manga Reva_, an American full-rigged ship with a crew of twenty-three men. She was about 600 miles out when the men mutinied and sailed her back to Delaware Breakwater. The master succeeded in running up a distress signal, which was reported to the _Onondaga_. You know her station is just north of Hatteras. The _Onondaga_ put an armed crew on board, and took the mutineers on board the cutter, steamed up the river to Wilmington, Delaware, where they were turned over to the Federal authorities to await trial."

"What did they get?"

"Pretty heavy terms of imprisonment," the other answered; "mutiny on the high seas is a mighty ticklish thing."

"What do you suppose this mate we collared will get?"

"Hard to say," the other answered. "After all, he's an Italian, sailing under Italian colors. Uncle Sam's always careful about international law. But the Italian maritime laws are very strict, and if he's sent back to Italy, I'm sorry for him."

For the next two months, little of adventurous importance occurred. The _Miami_ disposed of several more dangerous derelicts in the gulf of Mexico. She a.s.sisted a small steamer belonging to the Public Health Service of Key West, which had anch.o.r.ed in an exposed position, and towed her to safe moorings. She rescued two men in a small motor boat, out of sight of land, who had drifted after the machinery had broken down. In addition to this, she floated and towed to harbor three sailing-vessels which had struck on the treacherous reefs of the waters of the Florida Keys. The work was constant, and the Coast Guard cutter was on the job without ceasing, but there was little to stir the complement to their utmost.

Then came trouble. From the wireless station,--that continuous recorder of difficulty and disaster, came word that a Norwegian steamer was ash.o.r.e on Twisted Cay, and asking for immediate a.s.sistance against native wreckers. The _Miami_ immediately started for the scene of the disaster, and about noon of the next day arrived in sight of the vessel.

"They've been having trouble of some sort," said Eric, as the cutter steamed up to the scene of the wreck. "And look at the nerve of them; they don't seem to pay any attention to us!"

The boats' crews were ordered out, and Eric, as before, was in the smaller craft. The two boats pulled to the side of the vessel, and the boy accompanied the second lieutenant on board. The steamer was lying with her head to the southward and westward, with a decided list to starboard. Twenty or thirty small sailing-boats were cl.u.s.tered round her, like ants round a piece of sugar. What was still more daring, while most of the wreckers had left the stranded steamer on the arrival of the cutter, others actually stayed on board. They were an evil-looking lot, and heavily armed.

The scene on board was a striking one. The first thing noticed by Eric was the presence of two men propped up against the starboard rail, pale and roughly bandaged.

"Where's the captain?" was the lieutenant's first question.

"I'm Captain Jorgsen," was the reply, as a finely built, ruddy middle-aged man advanced. "Glad to see you on board."

"Good morning, Captain. You reported by wireless having trouble with these wreckers," the Coast Guard officer remarked; "are these men of yours badly hurt?"

"One of them is," the captain answered. "Have you a doctor in your party?"

"We've one aboard. Mr. Swift," he continued, turning to Eric, "will you please take the boat and bring Dr. Fuhrman here?"

Eric saluted and was in his boat almost on the instant. The doctor, guessing that possibly the call might be for him, was waiting at the ladder with his instrument-bag in case he should be needed. Formalities were unnecessary, so that when the boat pulled alongside and Eric, looking up, saw the doctor at the rail he called,

"Couple of patients for you, Doctor."

"Right you are," was the answer, and the surgeon came down the ladder as nimbly as Eric could have done himself. On arriving at the wrecked steamer, it was found that the injuries were knife-wounds, one of them deep and necessitating an immediate operation.

As there was a good deal of likelihood that the steamer might go to pieces on the reef if a storm blew up, it was decided to take the two injured men to the _Miami_, where the doctor could give them better attention. Owing to the difficulty of the steamer's position on the reef, with the surf breaking over her to the windward and the rocks to lee, this trans-shipment of the injured men was not accomplished without difficulty, but by three o'clock in the afternoon, the men were safely on board the cutter.

Meantime the lieutenant had been trying to place the responsibility for the crime, but this was impossible. All that the captain of the steamer could say was that, during a fight with the wreckers the preceding night, these two men had been knifed. In response to questions, Captain Jorgsen expressed the hope that some of the wreckers had got hurt themselves, but he regretted that his crew had been defenseless, with nothing but belaying pins and such like weapons for their protection. As the belaying pins in question were iron and twice as heavy as a policeman's club, Eric could not help smiling at the suggestion of inoffensiveness that the captain conveyed.

At the request of the captain of the steamer, the _Miami_ agreed to lie by her through the night, until the arrival of a wrecking tug from Havana, a message having been received by the _Miami_ that the tug had started for the scene of the disaster. Steam had been kept up on the wrecked steamer for the handling of the winches and so forth.

Suddenly, in the middle of the night, about two bells in the middle watch, a succession of short, sharp whistles from the steamer pierced the darkness. The first lieutenant of the _Miami_ was on the deck in a few moments. Meantime, the officer of the watch had ordered the searchlight thrown on the steamer.

The light revealed the deck a struggling ma.s.s of men. In the darkness all the wreckers had gathered to board their victim, and at a given signal not less than a hundred and fifty men had swarmed on to the vessel's decks.

The crew was pinned back into two groups, fighting like wild-cats. Most of them, powerfully built Scandinavians, were sweeping aside the natives before them, but the odds were overpowering. The negroes shouted and yelled as they tried to beat the sailors down. Already the main hatch had been forced open and a stream of men was pouring down, for the wreckers knew of valuables which formed a part of the cargo.

A few sharp orders, and the cutter's boats were off to the wreck, the crews armed, their rifles loaded with ball. At the same time, one of the six-pounders was let loose and sent a few shots whistling over the steamer, illumined only by the patch of intense white light thrown by the searchlight of the _Miami_.

The boats were half-way across to the steamer, where there was a sudden cessation of the fighting, and over the side of the vessel the wreckers came swarming like rats leaving a sinking ship. But the _Miami's_ men had been too quick for all to escape and more than a dozen of the natives were pinned on board.

As soon as the wreckers had heard the _Miami's_ guns and fled, the tide of battle turned, and on the dozen which remained, the crew of the steamer had taken a swift vengeance. None of them was seriously hurt, but they had been beaten up in a way that they would remember to the end of their days. Captain Jorgsen, who had been in the thick of the fight, was to the front when the cutter boats landed.

"I wish you'd put a hole in every one of those thieving boats," he growled.

"They deserve it, all right," the Coast Guard officer answered, "but I doubt if the Department would approve."

"If I had a gun like yours," said Captain Jorgsen, grimly, "I'd fire at 'em an' keep firing until I didn't have a shot left in the locker."

"I'm afraid we can't very well send you over one of our six-pounders,"

said the other, "but it seems to me you have a right to protect yourself from being boarded in this way. I'll send over some small-arms and ammunition in the morning and we'll stand by you and keep these black rascals in order. But I wanted to ask you, Captain Jorgsen, how did you come to be so far out of your course?"