The Yazoo Mystery Part 1

The Yazoo Mystery.

by Irving Craddock.

CHAPTER I

THE harbor-master entered briskly but dubiously the room of the ship's first officer.

"What about the five men for the _Domus_?" he bellowed.

"All ready to sign, sir," a.s.sured the manager of the employment agency, pointing toward two saddle colored negroes, a Spaniard, and a limp figure half asleep, slouching in the corner on a narrow bench, one hand clutching an expensive leather bag.

"It is the best I could do on such short notice," a.s.sured the agency man in an undertone, noticing that the first officer's inventory was not very encouraging.

"Get them up here to sign. We're anch.o.r.ed in the stream, losing two thousand dollars every hour we stay here. We need five more firemen--anything that looks human," he added impatiently, spreading the ship's articles on the counter that reached across the smelly water-front den.

"Come on and sign up, boys," said the agency man with a.s.sumed good nature.

While the two negroes and the Spaniard were signing, the ship's first officer went to the sleeping figure in the corner, took up his free hand and felt of the palm, then dropped it disgustedly as he took the man by the shoulders and shook him vigorously.

"Come on and sign up, Strong," he shouted into his ear.

Strong labored with himself, still holding to his bag, half staggered to the counter and signed on the line indicated--"Hiram Strong, Jr."

The signature was plain and businesslike. Evidently the Candidate had known better days.

"He's been kicked out or disowned," muttered the first officer to me while he was signing up. "He won't be worth a cuss. Look--those hands never did a lick of work--but he will fill the list," he added, walking about nervously and sizing me up with apparent approbation.

The agency man came up at once and held the pen towards me, and without hesitation I signed "Ben Taylor" on the line beneath. While I was thus engaged Hiram leaned against the counter weak and listless, his bag between his feet. We had both signed as firemen or stokers on the steamship _Domus_ for a round trip to an unnamed Gulf, or Mexican port.

Although pretty well awake by this time Strong did not resent my taking his arm and helping him a bit. He made no comment at first, but after he got used to the lively walk along the dock, he began to show signs of saying something.

"Old pal," he began, without turning his head, "I--I've got a headache--top's coming off--and my stomach is all jelly. It shakes as I walk and makes me sick," he ended under his breath.

"You'll be all right after you get some sleep."

"Y-e-s--I think--I h-h-ope so----I've had an awful time--an awful time, pardee--but this is my last--this is my last," he added, more to himself.

His bloodless face and lips, pink lids and bloodshot eyes indicated a disordered system urgently rebelling against recent abuses.

After we got aboard the harbor-master's tug, although very weak, he refused to sit down. Noting that I had found a seat, he lurched over to me.

"Old pal, everything looks yellow to me, even the sun looks yellow--sort of faded. Does it look yellow to you?" he asked, blinking at the clear setting sun, and although his power to realize was at low ebb, he picked me out evidently as being different from the others. By that act he exercised a discrimination that predestined an exciting and almost unbelievable career.

"The sun looks all right to me," I told him, smiling up in sympathy.

"I guess it's me--it's terrible--but this is the last--I'm going to work now. Little Hiram is going to work for the balance of his life--I got to, that's all," he ended, with a dogged determination that I hoped would survive after he recovered from his unsettled and polluted condition. I steadied him a little when climbing the ladder from the tug to the ship, which attention he seemed to appreciate.

"Old pal, I must go to bed. If I don't I will die," said he as we went forward to the firemen's sleeping quarters. There he tumbled into a lower bunk, not stopping to remove even the cheap cap he wore. In an incredibly short time he was "dead to the world" and snoring at a lively clip.

Upon returning to the deck I heard a loud grunt from the Siren and at once the ship began to swing out into the stream, heading toward the Statue of Liberty and that great sea beyond the Narrows.

The captain still leaned over the bridge, taking stock of his nondescript crew of firemen that loitered about, forward. His bulk evidenced a growing appet.i.te and his almond shaped eyes suggested the prenatal influence of a Chinaman. It was hard to understand how so much tallow and bone, in a florid lumpy skin, ever became master of a big ship. Such luggage as Hiram Strong, Jr. and I had brought aboard might have told him a story, but he didn't care; all he wanted was thirty-five human machines, capable of shoveling coal--in four-hour shifts--in a temperature of a hundred and twenty-five degrees. He knew that his ship was marked as a "h.e.l.l," and that no fireman would ship for a second trip.

While standing beside the rail and studying the retreating outlines of Battery Park and its wonderful skyline, I was approached by the firemen's mess steward, who wore a dirty white jacket and ap.r.o.n.

"I don't suppose that young feller will want anything to eat?"

"No--I guess sleep is better now," I replied, interpreting in his round greasy face evident good-will.

"The firemen are eating and you had better go in," he said, but seemingly in no hurry for me to tear myself away. The tip seemed a good one, so I made an opening for a better acquaintance.

"Where are we bound, steward?"

"We're bound out and back to this port, but at how many places we will call, G.o.d knows. I don't! When we start, lately, we never know when we'll get back. Sometimes we call at Key West, and usually at Galveston or New Orleans. Don't you know what you signed for?" he asked, without surprise, but grinning significantly.

"Yes," I replied, hesitating somewhat. I wondered why he continued to grin. Then he again asked:

"Are you coming down to mess yourself?"

"Yes, I will come right down."

Following him below, I crowded over on one of the nondescript crew to a seat on the end of a bench at a narrow, bare table, and received from the steward a half-gallon of thick soup dished up in an enameled pan from a galvanized-iron wash-tub. Later I was supplied from the same laundry utensil a liberal portion of what was intended for a meat stew, and a war allowance of bread. I was wondering how Hiram Strong, Jr., accustomed to uptown dining, would relish this atmosphere with its filthy service and coa.r.s.e food. The men along the bench beside me consumed the soup noisily, like Bowery b.u.ms, and bit from chunks of meat on the ends of their forks like swine with their forefeet in a trough.

Sitting at one end, I was able to size up my fellow-firemen, twenty-five of whom were devouring food with great relish as they chattered like magpies, mostly in a foreign tongue. Negroes of all shades, Mexicans, Poles, Italians, Greeks, all sweated out, thin and bleached to the shade of a cadaver. I speculated again as to how young Strong would mix with this motley crew, and why he had allowed himself to choose stoking as a means of livelihood.

After eating I went below, but Strong had not moved and it seemed that his thin white hands and expensive footwear were more out of place than ever. I wondered if he had any money left. Usually were to be found some light-fingered gentry among tramp-steamer firemen, so I took a small chain and padlock from my bag and chained his grip with mine to a bunk stanchion.

Returning to the deck, it was something of a shock to note the ship in complete darkness, no light visible save the red and green signals on either side. Later I learned that the globes were removed from the pa.s.senger cabins to prevent even a flash from the rooms of any one disinclined to obey "Lights out" at seven p. m. by order of the Naval authorities.

After clearing Sandy Hook and rounding Scotland lightship, by locating the North Star I saw that the skipper was heading a little east of south against a sharp, cold wind, close in to the Jersey coast, where lights were plainly visible. I was rather astonished to see all lifeboats lowered from their davits to the level of the steerage deck, and by edging down that way, saw they were provisioned with water, biscuits, lanterns and all necessary equipment for immediate use. Then I realized that young Strong had not only chosen an unusual occupation but a rather unpropitious time in which to sign up for duty on the high seas.

But with visions of four o'clock in the morning, the hour a.s.signed us to begin our work, I returned to the bunkroom to go to bed.

Hiram Strong had moved neither hand nor foot, but his breathing was more normal. A dark blue light was the only illumination in the place, giving to everything a mere shadowy appearance. I was glad to notice that the place was well ventilated, fairly clean, and likely to be free from vermin.

At three-thirty in the morning a heavy hand was laid on us, and we were told to roll out to go on watch. To my surprise, young Strong responded at once, with much yawning and stretching. Now and then he would sigh deeply, ending in a sort of dismal moan, hard to tell whether from resignation or abandon. He spoke for the first time after I had tumbled out and had begun pulling on my shoes. He seemed to recognize me in the uncertain light.

"Do we get anything to eat before we go to work?" he asked, leaning against his bunk dressed in the correct street attire in which he had slept.

"Yes, I think by going aft to the ship's kitchen we can get something; coffee, anyhow," I replied, stripping down to my underwear.

"Is that the way you go to work?" he asked, quickly noticing my matter-of-fact preparations.

"Yes."

"Why?" he asked, surprised.