The Wireless Officer Part 24

"There's Captain Bullock and Mostyn still on board, Mr. Preston," she exclaimed, in anxious tones. "Can't we put back to fetch them?"

There was no reply.

In a louder tone Olive repeated the question of entreaty.

Still there was no answer.

The lascar bowman resumed his oar, pulling the boat's head round.

Finding his companion idle he prodded him in the back with his foot, with the result that the man gave a few desultory strokes. In the utter darkness the lascars had lost all sense of direction, and, instead of pulling away from the ship, they were slightly closing with her.

Suddenly a hissing sound rent the air. It was the ship plunging beneath the waves. The boat, caught by the turmoil of the tempestuous seas, was thrown about like a cork. One of the men was hurled off the thwart by the loom of his oar striking him in the face. The oar was swept from his grasp and lost overboard.

To Olive, crouching on the bottom-boards, it seemed as if the boat were being lifted vertically. The movement reminded her of the sudden and unexpected starting of a lift. Then, heeling terribly, the boat dipped her gunwale under, and a cascade poured into her until Olive was sitting waist deep in water.

Her first act was to raise Mrs. Shallop's head. The shock of the water had caused that lady partly to recover consciousness. She was moaning and coughing.

The violent motion lasted for quite a minute, then the maelstrom subsided, and the partly waterlogged boat bobbed sluggishly on the waves. The lascars, now roused to activity, were baling furiously with their hands, since in the darkness it was impossible to find the baler which was supposed to be in the boat.

"Mr. Preston!" exclaimed Olive once more.

"Preston Sahib he dead man," was Mahmed's startling announcement, although the words were delivered with the imperturbability of the Asiatic.

The horror of the situation gripped the plucky girl. Throughout the period between the explosion and the foundering of the _West Barbican_ she had been perfectly self-possessed, her chief solicitude being for her tyrannical employer. Now the full magnitude of the disaster became apparent. She and the unconscious Mrs. Shallop were alone in the boat with three apparently incapable lascars. Preston was, presumably, dead; Mostyn she had seen standing on the bridge just before the ship sank, keeping up the traditions of the Wireless Service to remain at his post as long as the ship was afloat and the transmitting apparatus was capable of being worked.

The other boats were neither to be seen nor heard. Whether they were still standing by or whether they were making for the nearest land the girl knew not.

She would have welcomed another lightning flash, out none came. The electrical storm had pa.s.sed. Rain was now falling heavily, and the total absence of wind was ominous. It presaged a hard blow, possibly a storm, at no distant date.

Olive was thinking deeply. It was "up to her" to show the lascars that a British woman is not helpless in a tight corner.

"If only it were light," she thought.

Then she remembered that the boats usually carried an emergency equipment, an oil lamp amongst other things.

"Mahmed," she ordered, "get the boat's lamp from the stern-locker and light it."

She would have found it herself, but for the fact that Preston's body lay on the stern-gratings. She frankly admitted to herself that nothing could induce her to grope her way past that in the darkness.

The two lascars were still baling in the bows. They too were reluctant to go aft, where, by removing the stern-sheet gratings, they could deal more effectually with the water in the bilges.

Mahmed obeyed without protest. Olive could hear the search in progress; first the clatter of the detached locker-cover, as it slipped upon the stern-sheets, then the rasping of a metal-bound keg, and the metallic clank of the lamp.

"No can do, memsahib," reported Mahmed. "No light, no match."

"Look again," commanded the girl. Unless some unprincipled person had purloined them, there ought to be matches in a watertight box along with the rest of the gear in the after locker.

A further search proved futile. The boats and their gear had been inspected by the officer of the watch only that morning, and had been reported as being in good condition and fully equipped in every respect. Either Anstey, as inspecting officer, had shirked his whole duty or else, which to Olive seemed unlikely, the matches had been stolen in broad daylight.

"See if there are matches in Preston Sahib's pocket," said the girl.

But Mahmed drew the line at that. In his quaint English he explained, giving several reasons that seemed puerile.

"I suppose it's hardly fair to get him to do what I daren't do myself,"

thought the girl. Then, summoning up her resolution, she leant over the stroke-thwart, and shudderingly groped for the Acting Chief's pockets.

To her delight she found a box of Swedish matches in the breast pocket of Preston's drill patrol jacket. Before she could withdraw her hand the supposedly dead man moved slightly, but none the less perceptibly.

That altered the situation. Olive was no longer dealing with a corpse, but with a living person. Instinctively she placed her hand over Preston's heart. It was beating very feebly.

"Here are matches, Mahmed!" she exclaimed. "Light the lamp quickly.

Preston Sahib is not dead."

It seemed an interminable delay before Mahmed succeeded in getting the lamp lighted. The matches were damp, the wick wanted tr.i.m.m.i.n.g, and the colza oil was a long time before it gave out a flame.

At length the lamp was lighted, and there was quite a steady light, and the transition from utter darkness imparted confidence.

Giving a hasty look at Mrs. Shallop, to see that she was still in the recovering stage, Olive turned to the more important work in hand.

Preston looked a ghastly sight. One side of his face had been badly injured, while the concussion had caused blood to ooze from his eyes, nose, and mouth.

Olive's first step was to wash the injured man's face and moisten his lips with water. She had the good sense to use salt water for the washing process, knowing that the contents of the water-beaker were likely to be more precious than gold before the adventure was over.

Then, pillowing the patient's head on a sail and covering him with a piece of tarpaulin, she debated as to what was to be done next.

Clearly Preston's case required medical aid. Selwyn was in one of the boats, but whether they were in company or not Olive had no idea.

"Hold up the lamp, Mahmed," she ordered. "High up."

The boy obeyed, while Olive, shading her eyes from the heavy rain, peered around in case any of the other boats might be displaying a light. It was a doubtful point. Even if they had, the torrential downpour would tremendously curtail the range of visibility of the low-powered light.

In fact, held high above Mahmed's head, the rays simply illuminated a circular patch of rain-threshed water, a little more than a dozen yards in radius, Beyond was an impenetrable wall of darkness.

An involuntary cry came from Olive Baird's lips. She could hardly believe the evidence of her eyes, for floating inertly within an oar's length of the boat was a man--Peter Mostyn.

Whether he was alive or dead Olive knew not. His usually tanned features looked a ghastly greenish hue, his eyes were closed, and his head was hanging sideways. His arms were moving slightly, but the movement was purely automatic as the lifebelt-clad figure lifted to the gentle undulations of the sea.

Startled by Olive's cry, Mahmed looked in the direction to which the girl was pointing. His fright at seeing, as he thought, the dead body of his master, was almost disastrous in its result. The upheld lamp slipped from his nerveless fingers and fell clattering upon the gunwale. For an instant it seemed uncertain whether it would drop into the sea or not, but luckily a movement of the boat slid it inboard.

But the fall had extinguished the lamp. Mahmed was in too much of a blue funk to relight it. Olive settled the question by taking the box of matches from him and lighting it herself.

Neither of the two lascars for'ard would move a finger to row towards the Wireless Officer. Superst.i.tion akin to panic held them in its grip. They would not--they could not--use their oars. Every bit of courage seemed to have oozed out of them.

Seizing one of the spare oars lying across the thwarts, Olive, using the unwieldy ash paddle-wise, slowly brought the boat nearer and nearer the seemingly inanimate man. Had there been any wind the task would have been almost impossible, owing to the high freeboard of the lightly laden boat; but in the absence of even a faint breeze Olive was able to accomplish her aim.

With a sigh of relief she threw down the oar, and, leaning over the gunwale, grasped Peter by one arm.

CHAPTER XXIII