The Wireless Officer Part 44

"We are well rid of him," remarked Mostyn.

"Yes," agreed the girl thoughtfully. Then, after a pause, she added frankly. "But if it had not been for Mrs. Shallop I might never have met you, Peter."

Mostyn departed radiantly upon the voyage on which depended the fate of the Brocklington Ironworks Company's contract.

It was not until the day following that Davis, in his official capacity, completed the inspection of the dhow. When he came to knock off the lid of the box in which Mostyn had nailed up the gold and silver coins, he found that, although the seals were intact, the money had vanished.

Davis gave a low whistle.

"That stuff's been lifted before the dhow put into Pangawani," he declared to his a.s.sistant. "The seals being intact proves that."

His companion laughed.

"After sneaking 30,000 friend Skeets wouldn't scruple to lift that little lot," he remarked.

"S'pose so," conceded Davis. "We'll go and report the loss; but I'm afraid that Mrs. Shallop has got well away with it this time."

Which was exactly what had happened. As far as the authorities at Pangawani were concerned Benjamin Skeets had vanished, seemingly into thin air. Although the daily train from Pangawani up-country had been rigorously searched at every intermediate station, soon after the flight of the much wanted man was made known, no one unable to give a good account of himself or herself had been discovered. With the exception of the _Quilboma_ no vessel had left the port during the previous twenty-four hours. Native police and trackers had scoured the bush for miles in the vicinity of Pangawani without picking up any traces of the fugitive.

Meanwhile Peter Mostyn was speeding south on board the S.S. _Quilboma_.

From the moment the harbour launch had placed him on the deck of the tramp outside Pangawani bar, he was entirely cut off from news of the rest of the world. The _Quilboma_ was not fitted with wireless, her owners, since the relaxation of Board of Trade regulations on the termination of the war, having dispensed with what they considered to be an unprofitable, expensive, and unnecessary outfit.

The tramp was only of 1500 tons gross register, and with a speed of nine knots. Her engines were of an antiquated, reciprocating type, while her coal consumption was out of all proportion to her carrying capacity. Had she been plying in home waters she would never have pa.s.sed the official re-survey; consequently her owners, one of whom was her skipper, took good care to confine the _Quilboma's_ activities to the Red Sea and Indian Ocean.

In fine weather, and aided by the current constantly setting southward through the Mozambique Channel, the _Quilboma_ was actually making between eleven and a half and twelve knots "over the ground". Three days after leaving Pangawani she arrived at the entrance to Bulonga Harbour.

Six hours elapsed before she was berthed alongside the rotting wharf, to dry-out in a bed of noxious mud as the tide left her.

Mostyn got to work promptly, and with his accustomed enthusiasm. He had the good luck to find the Portuguese agent on the spot. The preposterous storage charges were discussed, haggled over, and settled; gangs of native workmen were hired, and the task of loading up the _Quilboma_ with her bulky but precious cargo began.

It was now that Peter met with a sudden and unexpected check, for, on inspecting the metalwork, he found that even in a comparatively short time the moist, tropical atmosphere had attacked the steel in spite of the coating of oxide it had received before leaving England.

To deliver it in this state meant a possible, nay, probable rejection by the consignees; but fortunately the skipper of the _Quilboma_ rose to the occasion.

"I've a couple o' kegs of oxide aboard," he announced. "Put the n.i.g.g.e.rs on to it, and let 'em give the stuff another coat."

"Over the rust?" queried the conscientious Peter,

The Old Man winked solemnly.

"Who's to know?" he asked. "Paint's like charity: covers a mult.i.tude of defects."

"That won't do for me," declared Peter. "I'll have every bit of the scale chipped off before the least flick of paint is put on."

The skipper shrugged his shoulders but refrained from audible comment.

Although in his mind he considered his charterer to be a silly young owl, especially as he was bound to a time limit, he had to confess that Mostyn was doing the right thing.

It took the native workmen two days of unremitting toil (Peter and the Portuguese agent took care that it was unremitting) to clean the steelwork and recoat it with oxide. Then the loading commenced.

With the perspiration pouring down his face, Mostyn supervised the removal of the ponderous girders from the enclosure, the Chief Mate being responsible for the storage of the material in the hold.

Presently the Old Man, puffing like a grampus, hurried up to Mostyn.

"Those four long bits won't stow," he announced. "Our main hold ain't long enough, not by five feet."

"Will they stow on deck?" asked Mostyn.

"And capsize the old hooker in the first bit o' dirty weather we run into?" rejoined the skipper caustically. "You don't catch me doing that, my dear sir. We'll have to leave 'em behind, and the _Thylied_ can pick 'em up. She's about due to leave Port Elizabeth, and ought to be here in a week's time."

"Look here, Skipper," said Peter firmly. "You contracted to bring this consignment from Bulonga to Pangawani. I gave you the dimensions of the longest girders before we came to terms, and you declared to me that you could stow the whole of the consignment. And you'll have to do it."

"It ain't a matter of life an' death," expostulated the Old Man. "I'll make a liberal abatement in the freightage charges and--

"You won't," declared Mostyn firmly. "You won't, because you've got to ship every bit of that steelwork; so get busy."

The skipper of the _Quilboma_ was one of those easy-going, obliging sort of fellows who can rarely make up their minds and act unless dominated by a person of strong, individual character. He was inclined to let things drift, and would a.s.suredly choose the line of least resistance regardless of the consequences. As a navigator he was pa.s.sable; as a seaman he lacked the alertness and decision necessary to shine at his profession. For years he had been in command of the _Quilboma_, and not once in that time had he found himself in a really tight corner. It was luck--pure luck--which might at a very inopportune moment let him down very badly.

"What do you suggest then?" he growled.

"I suggested deck cargo," replied Peter. "You turned it down. I don't question your authority or your wisdom on that point. The rest is up to you."

"A' right," rejoined the Old Man. "You just hang on here and keep these n.i.g.g.e.rs up to scratch. I'll fix it up somehow."

And "fix it up somehow" he did; for when at sundown Mostyn returned to the ship he found that the long, heavy girders _were_ stowed. The Old Man had had the bulkhead between the main hold and the boiler-room cut through--it did not require much labour, so worn and rusty were the steel plates of that bulkhead--with the result that one end of each of the troublesome girders was within six inches of the for'ard boiler.

At length the loading-up was completed. Steam was raised in the wheezy boilers; the Portuguese customs officials were "suitably rewarded", and clearance papers obtained; and at four in the afternoon the _Quilboma_ crossed the bar of Bulonga Harbour, starboarded helm, and shaped a course for Pangawani.

Head winds and an adverse current made a vast difference to the speed of the old tramp. She had taken but three days to run south; five days still found her plugging ahead with Pangawani a good fifty miles off.

The _Quilboma_ was now making bad weather of it. Her foredeck was constantly under water, as she pitched and wallowed against the head seas. The gla.s.s was falling rapidly. Unless the ship made harbour before the threatened storm broke, it would be impossible to cross the bar until the weather moderated.

The Old Man began to look anxious.

At midday Peter was with the skipper on the bridge when the Chief Engineer approached the Old Man.

"Coal's running low," he reported without any preliminaries.

"How long can you carry on for, Mr. Jackson?" inquired the captain.

"For five hours; less maybe," was the reply. "She's simply mopping up coal on this run. Goodness knows why, 'cause I haven't been pressing her overmuch."

The Old Man nodded. He quite understood. To run the antiquated engines at anything approaching full speed ahead might easily result in the patched-up boilers refusing duty altogether.

"Five hours'll about do," he declared. "Keep her at it, Mr. Jackson."

The Chief Engineer departed. He was not so sure that he could "keep her at it". Under normal conditions the coal taken on board at Pangawani ought to have been more than enough for the round trip.