The Wireless Officer Part 36

"Topping!" exclaimed Mostyn. "Keep your foot on that pad of canvas.

Don't press too hard or the whole gadget may carry away."

Reefing was a difficult matter, for the boat was driving heavily and the canvas was as stiff as a board. Mostyn dared not risk lowering the sail. The little craft had to carry way to prevent her broaching-to and being swamped. It seemed incredible that in the short s.p.a.ce of five or six minutes the hitherto calm sea should have worked up into a cauldron of crested waves and flying spindrift.

In the contest with the elements Mostyn temporized. Putting the helm up slightly and easing off the sheet, he released the pressure on the canvas sufficiently to enable Mahmed and the two lascars to take in a couple of reefs. At the same time the boat was travelling fast but was well under control.

"Let's hope it won't blow any harder," thought Peter. "She won't stand much more wind, and she'd break her back if she had to ride to a sea-anchor."

One of the lascars came aft and reported that the reefing operation was complete. Peter put the helm down to bring the boat back on her course, when, with a report of a six-pounder quick-firing gun, the tightly stretched canvas parted. Cloth after cloth was rent in rapid succession until the severed sail streamed banner-wise before the howling wind.

Somewhat to Mostyn's surprise and satisfaction the boat showed no inclination to broach-to. Possibly the fluttering canvas offered sufficient resistance to the wind to enable her to answer to the helm.

The next task was to set the jib as a trysail. It was almost useless to expect the lascars to do that. Their knowledge of boat-sailing was very elementary, having been gained in handling their native craft, and occasionally the ship's boats under regulation rig and in charge of their British officers.

Ordering Mahmed to take Miss Baird's place at the leaking patch, Peter handed the tiller over to the girl. There was no need to caution her as to what was to be done. She knew perfectly well that safety depended upon her ability to keep the boat's stern end on to the following seas.

Mostyn had no fears on that score. He knew the girl's capability in that direction by this time. Thanking his lucky stars that he was not dependent upon the indifferent seamanship of the lascars, he went for'ard with the jib which Preston had to relinquish as a covering.

In almost total darkness Peter found the head and tack of the sail.

Fortunately the split mainsail was still held by the luff ropes, thus enabling him to gather in the fiercely flogging fragments and secure the lower block of the main halliards.

To the latter he bent the head of the jib. It was now a fairly easy matter to hoist the diminutive triangle of canvas and sheet it home.

"She'll do," he exclaimed, as he relieved Olive at the helm.

The girl nodded in reply. She was too breathless to speak. Her brief struggle with the strongly kicking tiller had required all the strength at her command. There was, she discovered, a vast difference between the long tiller of a well-balanced sailing dingy on the sheltered waters of the Hamoaze, and the short "stick" of a heavy ship's boat on the storm-tossed Indian Ocean.

Through the long hours till morning the boat ran before the storm.

Never was day more welcome. At dawn the wind piped down and the sea moderated. The boat had made a fair amount of water, not only through the leaking patch, but over the gunwale, and, in order to keep the leak under, one of the lascars had to keep his hand down on the canvas stopper while the other plied the baler. This they had to do turn and turn about throughout the night, and by dawn they were both pretty well done up.

By nine o'clock, when the sun had gathered considerable strength, the wind had practically died away, and the sea had resumed a smooth aspect save for a long, regular swell. Only a few ragged wisps of canvas and the now almost idle and ridiculously inadequate trysail remained as a reminder of the night of peril.

In vain Mostyn looked for signs of land. Nothing was in sight save sea and sky. To make matters worse, the boat, which in that light breeze would have made about three knots under her mainsail, was now barely carrying steerage way. At that rate she might take weeks to fetch land--if she ever did so at all.

Breakfast over--it was a more substantial meal than their previous ones in the boat--Mostyn set the lascars to work to rig up jury canvas. The damaged mizzen-sail, that had served as a tent, was pressed into service, together with the tarpaulin. These were "bonnetted" together, bent to the gaff, and sent aloft as a square sail, with the result that the boat's speed increased perceptibly. Yet there was still a great difference between her normal rate and that under the jury canvas.

Smoking a cigarette after the meal, Peter let his thoughts run riot.

He wondered what his parents were doing; whether they had had by this time any report of the _West Barbican_. If so, were they mourning him as dead?

"Rather rough luck on them," soliloquized the youthful optimist; "but won't they be surprised when I roll up again?"

Then his thoughts went to the Brocklington steel contract. He wondered whether the Kilba Protectorate officials had sent to Bulonga for the consignment. It seemed to him rather an idiotic thing to do, to have the stuff dumped down in that out-of-the-way hole, when the _West Barbican_ might, with equal facility, have delivered it at Pangawani.

Perhaps, after all, it was for the best. The stuff might have gone down in the ship, in which case Captain Mostyn would be a ruined man.

The mysterious loss of the _West Barbican_ had been a source of frequent perplexity to Peter. He was thinking about it now, trying to put forward a satisfactory theory as to the cause of the explosion. As far as he was aware there were no explosives on board, a consignment of gelignite, for use on the Rand, having been landed at Durban.

His reveries were interrupted by one of the lascars shouting: "Sail on port bow, sahib!"

Peter sat up. The foot of the improvised square sail intercepted the view for'ard. It was not until he made his way to the bows and stood upon the mast thwart that he saw the craft which the lascar had indicated.

She was still a long way off, only her canvas and the upper portions of her hull showing above the sky line. At that distance it was impossible, without the aid of a telescope or binoculars (neither of which was on the boat), to distinguish her rig or in which direction she was heading. As she was a sailing craft, and, taking for granted that she carried the same wind as the boat, the chances were that she would soon disappear from sight.

Nevertheless Mostyn meant to leave nothing undone that might attract the stranger's attention. Rockets were fired in the hope that the loud detonation might be audible at that distance. The light they gave out would be unseen in the terrific glare of the sun.

At Preston's suggestion strips of canvas were soaked in lamp oil and set alight at the end of the boat-hook. These flares gave out a dense smoke that rose to an immense height in the now still and sultry air.

For the best part of half an hour these signals were repeated at frequent intervals. Then, to everyone's disappointment, the strange sail faded from view.

"It's not to be wondered at," remarked Preston. "You know what a look-out at sea is like; and, in any case, they don't keep a fellow on watch to see what's coming up astern."

"They ought to," declared Olive.

The Acting Chief was sitting up, his back supported by some spare oilskins folded over the after thwart.

At the girl's retort he winked solemnly with the eye that was not covered with bandages.

"Do we?" he asked. "Look astern now."

To the surprise of everyone else in the boat a large sailing craft was bowling along dead in their wake. She was now a little less than a mile away, and had evidently been attracted by the signals made to the craft that had so recently been sighted in vain.

"A rum sort of packet, by Jove!" exclaimed Peter.

"A dhow, my sweet youth," explained Preston. "'Tisn't often you find 'em so far south, but you'll see shoals of them up along the coast from Mozambique and Zanzibar right up to the Red Sea and Persian Gulf.

Clumsy-looking hookers, but they can shift."

It was Mostyn's first sight of an Arab dhow. He had seen plenty of Chinese junks in Shanghai whilst he was on the Pacific trade. This craft reminded him of them, only its rig was more in accord with Western ideas. End-on it was impossible to see that the masts raked at different angles, but the well-drawing lateen sails and the "bone in her teeth" indicated that she was a swift craft ably managed. Even in the light air she was moving at about six knots.

The Wireless Officer leant forward and whispered in Preston's ear.

"S'pose she's all jonnick, old man?" he asked.

"Sure," replied the Acting Chief. "The slave-dhow and the gun-runner are as dead as the dodo in these parts. Probably she's a trader from Reunion, blown out of her course by the late hurricane. Nothing to worry about, old son."

"Right-o!" rejoined Mostyn, and ordered the lascars to lower the sail and to stand by with the painter.

By this time the dhow, which was coming up "hand over fist", was about a cable's length astern. From the boat it was impossible to see the helmsman of the overtaking craft, owing to the foot of the lateen sail, but in her low bows could be discovered three Arabs intently looking in the direction of the now motionless little craft.

Presently a high-pitched voice called out an order. The hitherto listless Arabs for'ard sprang into activity. With a smartness that would have evoked admiration from the most exacting seaman, the lateen yards were lowered and squared fore and aft, while the dhow, still carrying way, ranged alongside the _West Barbican's_ boat.

"Any port in a storm," thought Peter, as the lascar for'ard threw the painter into the hands of one of the Arab crew. "I wonder what we're in for now?"

CHAPTER x.x.xII

The Dhow