The Hero of Panama Part 5

He motioned to Jim, and, having put his helm over, so directing the boat alongside the steamer, he called to one of the hands in the bows to hold to the companion ladder which had been dropped over her side. Casting his eyes about him, Jim was able to pierce the gloom to some extent, and became aware of the fact that a number of small boats were also lying off the vessel. In fact there were at least seven of them. Another remarkable fact was the silence which pervaded everything. A little while before there had been a deal of shouting, and some amount of confusion, no doubt; but now everything was orderly.

"Fine discipline," remarked the skipper. "The chief of this boat got his pa.s.sengers away first of all, and then set to work to repair damages.

Guess he hadn't mad Spaniards to fight. Come along, please."

He scrambled on to the companion and ran nimbly up the steps. A tall man met him when he reached the deck, and introduced himself as the captain.

"You're chief of the ship that's foundered?" he asked.

"I am," came the rejoinder. "We were badly holed, and there wasn't a chance from the very first. Then we had a horde of mad Spaniards to fight: the hounds lost their heads and struggled for the boats. After that we found, when it was too late to go near the ship, that one pa.s.senger had been left aboard; but we saved him, thanks to the pluck of a pa.s.senger. Now, sir, I'm sorry for this collision. We'll not discuss it now; the courts ash.o.r.e will deal with the evidence. I've come along to see how you fared."

"And thanks for the kind thought, sir," came the answer. "Reckon the question of who's to blame can be dealt with as you say. I congratulate you on the way you managed to come out of a difficulty. I'd have sent along; but then, you see, I wasn't sure that we weren't foundering too.

There's a hole as big as three rum casks punched in our bows, and you can see that we've shipped no end of water; but our water-tight bulkheads were closed right away and that's saved us. We've the carpenters at work this instant, and as soon as they've plugged the gap with planks and oak.u.m we'll be able to put matters a little more shipshape. Our pumps are just holding the water now; when the gap is plugged we shall gain on it. I reckon to have my pa.s.sengers aboard in half an hour; you'll bring yours along, and welcome."

Half an hour later, in fact, found Jim and his friends, together with all the pa.s.sengers and crew of the sunken steamer, aboard; while some twenty-four hours later the port of Colon had been reached.

"And here we have to start right off again," said Jim, discussing affairs with his sister. "That five hundred dollars will have to be drawn upon for clothes and other things, seeing that we lost everything with the ship. It'll mean I shall have to be quicker in getting a job when we reach New York. But don't you fear, Sadie; somehow I've a notion that our fortune is about to improve. Things are looking brighter."

They watched the steamer slowly berthed, and then made for the gangway.

Bidding farewell to the skipper and the crew, with whom they had become most friendly, they were about to make their way ash.o.r.e when the man whom Jim had rescued accosted them.

"I've fixed rooms for you all," he said. "You'll not disappoint me, will you? I've a house away up on the hill, and there's heaps of room."

"But--but we're going on direct for New York," cried Jim, astonished at the proposal.

"No doubt, sir; no doubt. But then there don't happen to be a steamer for a week, and Colon's a bad place to rest in. You'll oblige me by coming. I ain't had a chance, so far, of thanking you and the others for what you did. You'll surely give me a chance to get to know you better.

Come and stay for a week till the steamer puts into port."

It may be imagined that Jim eagerly accepted the invitation, and, accompanied by Sadie, Tom, Sam, and Ching, took up his quarters with this new friend. Not for a moment did he guess that this week's delay would make a vast change in his future. His eye at the moment was fixed on New York, where he hoped to make that fortune of which he had laughingly spoken. He never imagined for one instant that the Isthmus of Panama would detain him, and that there he would join his compatriots, the Americans, and with them would take his share in that gigantic undertaking, the Panama Ca.n.a.l.

CHAPTER IV

Relating to Phineas Barton

Phineas B. Barton was in his own way an extremely pleasant and jolly man, but he required a great deal of knowing. He was moderately tall, clean shaven, as is the typical American of to-day, fairly good-looking, and about forty years of age. When he liked he could be voluble enough, but as a general rule his conversation was chiefly noteworthy by its absence; for Phineas was undoubtedly p.r.o.ne to silence and taciturnity.

"It's like this," he explained to Jim; "I'm boss at the present time of the foreign labour we employ on the Panama Ca.n.a.l works, and guess I have to talk most all the day when I'm at work. So a fellow gets used to keeping his mouth shut at other times, so as to rest his jaw. Glad you're coming out to my quarters."

He had thanked Jim quietly and with apparently little feeling for his action in plunging into the sea to save him when the steamer foundered, and after that had said not a word. But that did not imply that Phineas was ungrateful. It was not in his nature to employ many words; he had decided to show his grat.i.tude in other ways. It was for that reason, no doubt, that he had invited our hero to his house. And, now that the whole party had disembarked, he proceeded to lead the way.

"Got any traps?" he asked.

"Not a stick," Jim answered. "We're here as we stand up."

"Then transport isn't a difficulty. It's nine miles to my quarters, and the railway will take us there quick. There's cars going one way or the other most always; come along to the terminus."

Jim and his comrades had no idea of the work which was going on on this narrow isthmus of Panama, therefore the reader may imagine that he was intensely surprised, once he and his friends had left the one-storied dwellings of Colon, to find human beings seething everywhere. Bands of labourers of every colour were working along the route where the ca.n.a.l would open into the Caribbean, while heavy smoke and the rattle of machinery came from another spot farther on.

"Where we're getting to work to cut our locks," explained Phineas, nursing his broken arm. "It's there that I broke this arm of mine two weeks ago. I was fool enough to get in the way of a dirt train, and of course, not having eyes itself, it shunted me off the track with a bang.

That's why I was on my way back to the States; but guess that holiday'll have to wait. I'm keen to get back to work."

From the open car in which the party was accommodated he pointed out the various features of the isthmus, and in particular the works of the ca.n.a.l. And gradually Jim gathered the fact that this undertaking upon which his country had set its heart was gigantic, to say the least of it.

"No one knows what we're doing save those who've been here," said Phineas, a note of pride in his voice. "Back home there's folks ready enough to criticize and shout that things aren't being done right; but they ought to come right out here before opening their mouths. You've got an idea of the ca.n.a.l, of course?"

Jim reddened. To be truthful, his own struggle to make a way in this world had occupied most of his attention. He was naturally interested in all that concerned his own country, but even though so near to the isthmus he had never been farther than Colon when the ship put into port, and whilst there had merely observed rather a large number of policemen, both white and black. Of the huge army of workmen engaged in the ca.n.a.l enterprise he had not caught a glimpse.

"It's an eye-opener, this," he admitted. "I had no idea there were so many men, or so much machinery, though if I had thought for a little I could have guessed that there must be a bustle. As to the scheme of the ca.n.a.l, I haven't more than the vaguest idea."

"And I can't give you much information here. We'll want to get aboard an inspection car and run right through. That'll be a job for to-morrow.

We'll have the inspector's car, and run along to the other side. But, see here, this ca.n.a.l's the biggest thing in ca.n.a.ls that's ever been thought of. The Suez Ca.n.a.l don't hold a candle to it. The Kiel Ca.n.a.l is an infant when compared with what this will be when it's finished.

There's fifty miles, or thereabouts, of solid dirt between Colon and Panama, and America has decided to get to at that dirt and cut a way clear through it, a way not only big enough to take ships of to-day, but to take ships of to-morrow, ships that'll make the world open its eyes and exclaim."

The very mention of the work made Jim gasp. He asked for particulars promptly. "It'll take a heap of time, I expect," he said. "Reckon a ca.n.a.l a mile long and fifty feet wide by thirty deep isn't dug in a day."

"Nor hardly in a year. But we're not digging all the way," explained Phineas. "America has selected what is known as the high-level ca.n.a.l; that is, she's not just digging a track clear through from Atlantic to Pacific, a tide-level ca.n.a.l as you might call it, for there are difficulties against such a scheme. To begin with, there's a tide to be reckoned with at Panama, while this Atlantic end has none; which means your water level at the Pacific side is different from that at the Atlantic. Then there's river water to be contended with. This isthmus gets a full share of rain, particularly near the Atlantic, and the rivers get packed with water in a matter of a few hours. Well, you've got to do something, or that flood will swamp your ca.n.a.l, wash away your works, and do other damage."

"Then the high level has fewer difficulties?" asked Jim.

"You may say so, though the job is big enough in all conscience. Shortly put, it's this. We begin the ca.n.a.l by dredging in Limon Bay, right here beside Colon, and cut our dirt away, in all for a matter of just over seven miles. Then we build three tiers of double locks, which will take any vessel, and which will float them up in steps to the 85-foot level.

Once up there the ship steams into a huge lake where there's dry land to-day. We get that lake by damming the Chagres River right there before us, at Gatun, throwing the water back into a long natural hollow, and when the work is finished we shall have a body of water there four-fifths the size of Lake Geneva. Anyway, it'll allow a steamer to get along under her own power till she arrives at the other end of the lake at Obispo. Even then she uses her own power, though she has to slow down. She enters what we call the Culebra cut, just nine miles long, where we are burrowing our way through the hills. That's one of the biggest of our jobs. You'll be interested when you see it. We've a small army of men at work, and rock drills and steam shovels are going all day, while dirt trains travel to and fro more often than electrics in the New York subway. Then comes a lock at Pedro Miguel, and another at Milaflores, which let our ships down to Pacific level. Way down at that end we've a lot of dredging to do to clear the below-sea track of the ca.n.a.l."

Indeed it was no wonder that Phineas found it a matter of impossibility to describe the gigantic, herculean task which America has undertaken.

Moreover, it may be forgiven our hero if he failed, in such a short s.p.a.ce of time, fully to comprehend what was being done. A ca.n.a.l was being fashioned, that he knew well enough, and now Phineas had given him a rough idea of its direction, and of the methods to be employed to obtain a waterway from one ocean to the other. The rest had necessarily to be left to the imagination, and to the moment when clear plans of the works could be studied.

"But you know a bit about it, and that's good for the present," said Phineas. "I'm not going to give you a bad headache right off by throwing more particulars at you, though I fancy you'd be interested to know just one or two items."

"And those?" asked Jim, by no means bored with the description. In fact, like any healthy youngster, he was intensely interested in this ca.n.a.l, and was burning with impatience to see all the machinery employed, the methods used by the engineers and their staff to bring about the various works. "I'd give something to see the lake," he admitted. "Almost as big as that of Geneva? Gee! That's a whopper."

"You may say so," agreed Phineas, again a tinge of pride in his voice.

"There'll be somewhere about 160 square miles of water in that lake, and a fleet will be able to lie to in it. Those locks at Gatun, which are to be double--one for steamers going up, and the other for ships coming down--will each give a usable length of 1100 feet, which is a good 300 feet longer than any ship yet afloat. They'll be 110 feet wide, and have a minimum depth of 41 feet. Put that all together, and remember that when the gates of the locks are shut, and water allowed to come down, the biggest battleship yet heard of will be lifted solid just about 32 feet, and then warped on into another lock as like the last as two peas.

In less than an hour we'll raise a ship up to our high-level ca.n.a.l from the Atlantic, and we'll do it, sir, as easy as you lift rowing boats down on the rivers."

Phineas went hot at the thought of the undertaking, and, looking at him, Jim could see that the man was filled with a huge pride, with a tremendous fixity of purpose, the courage and tenacity to push on with a labour which his country had begun, and which the honour of the nation demanded should be brought to a satisfactory conclusion. And in a little while Jim understood that there was not a white employee engaged on the isthmus who did not dream of the day when the ca.n.a.l would be opened, when their own countrymen, some of whom at this moment were ready to discount their labours, would be amongst the keenest admirers of the finished task.

"But guess it's time we thought of the house," said Phineas, dragging his attention away from the works before him. "I've a shanty way up the hill there, with a housekeeper to look to it for me. She'll take care of Miss Sadie."

They descended from the car and slowly trudged up the hill. Then Phineas gave them a welcome to his home.

"Looks cool and nice; don't it?" he remarked, as they ascended a flight of steps leading on to a wide veranda. "I can see you looking at my windows, young man. Well, we don't have any out here. A chap gets to live without them easily enough. There's just copper gauze right round the veranda, and the same over the window openings. Most days it's so hot one doesn't think of their absence. And if a cold spell comes, one can easily put on something warmer. Now we'll get along in and feed. Ha, Mrs. Jones, that's you again! You didn't think to see me back so soon, till I telephoned from Colon. This is Miss Sadie, and this is Jim, the young man who rescued me. We're just hungry, so we'll come right in if things are ready, and Tom here, and Sam, and Ching can get round to the kitchen. You'll find 'em useful boys."

The widow who looked to Phineas's affairs was a pleasant woman, and gave our hero and his sister a real welcome. As to the negroes, though she looked at them askance at first, she rapidly found them a blessing. For Tom installed himself as butler unasked, while Sam carried dishes to and fro. Ching settled down to the work of washing up the things as if he had been brought to the isthmus for that very purpose.

"All of which just makes things slide along as if they were oiled," said Phineas with a glad smile, as he lolled on his veranda afterwards.