West Wind Drift Part 7

"That's a rocket, you blamed old fool!" roared the steward.

"Good G.o.d!" gasped the exasperated banker. "Are we having a celebration with fireworks?"

The dull, hapless occupants of the lifeboats watched with fascinated eyes the first of the giant rockets that whizzed and roared its way up from the deck of the ship, an endless arrow of fire piercing the night.

A loud report, the scattering of a hundred stars, and then--denser blackness than before.

Morning came. Up out of the east stole a sickly grey. It turned slowly into pink, and then suddenly the sea once more was blue and smiling.

In the heart of the dancing cordon lay the weirdly camouflaged Doraine, inert, sinister, as still and cold as death. No smoke issued from her stacks to cheer the wretched watchers; no foam, no spray leaped from her mighty bow. She was a great, lifeless thing. Waves lapped gently against her sides and fell away only to come back again in playful scorn for the vast object that had rent and baffled them so long. On high fluttered the Stars and Stripes, gay in the presence of death, a sprightly harbinger of hope flaunting defiance in the face of despair.

Men, stripped to the waist, grimy and shining with the sweat of hours, moving about in knots of three and four--always in knots of three or four as if afraid to disintegrate--leaned upon the rail and watched the approach of the crowded boats, looked down into pallid, anguished faces with their eager, hungry eyes, eyes that devoured the groups along the rail. Now and then a glad shout of joy went up from one of the boats, and a figure in the huddled ma.s.s was transformed into a responsive thing of life.

In each of the square, black openings in the hull of the ship stood men with ropes and ladders. The great steel doors lay flat against the sides, swung wide to admit this time a human cargo. From the interior of the vessel came the brisk, incessant clatter of hammers against wood and steel; from the decks broke the loud, commanding voices of men calling out directions; from the gliding, slapping boats went up the hearty shouts of understanding and obedience, the rattling of boat-hooks, the grinding of oars in the locks, the murmur of voices revived.

"Vomen and children first!" was the shrill, oft-repeated exhortation from one of the boats.

And up in the centre of another sprang a fine, imposing figure, from whose lips rolled these thrilling words:

"By G.o.d, they're great! They're great, after all! G.o.d bless Captain Trigger and every man-jack of them!"

"Get down!" roared his still unpacified critic, the steward. "You'll fall overboard, you dam' fool!"

The gaunt, coatless Mr. Mott commanded the port side of the vessel; Mr. Codge, the purser, the starboard. Fighting men in the breeches and leggings of the American Navy; blackened and bandaged stokers, sailors and landsmen comprised the motley company that stood ready to drag the occupants of the boats up into the dank, smoke-scented maw of the ship.

One by one, in regular, systematic order, the lifeboats came alongside.

There was no confusion, no bungling. They b.u.mped gently against the towering rows of plates, and, made fast by ropes with ample play, gave up in time their precious cargoes. No one lifted up his voice in rejoicing, for there were dead and injured back in the shadows; there were grief-stricken, anxious men and women crouching out there in the sunshine; there were limp, unconscious women and half-dead children; and over all still hung the ominous cloud of catastrophe fat with prophecies of perils yet to come.

They had gone out from a ship filled with a monstrous clangour and confusion, they were returning to a tomblike hulk, a lonely ma.s.s in which echoes would abound, a thing of sighs and silences, the corpse of a mammoth that had throbbed yesterday,--but never more.

Up in the curving triangle of the forward deck were two long, canvas-covered rows. The dead! Forty-six twisted, silent forms lying side by side, some calm in death, others charred and mutilated beyond all possibility of identification. Every man in the engine-room at the time of the explosion was now a mangled, unrecognizable thing.

Engineers, electricians, stokers,--all of them wiped out in the flash of an eye,--burnt, boiled, shattered. Half a dozen women, as many children, lay with the silent men.

The injured had been placed in staterooms on the promenade deck, regardless of previous occupancy or subsequent claim. There lay the score and a half of seriously injured, and there toiled the ship's surgeon and his volunteer helpers. Sailor and merchant, worker and idler, scholar and dolt, steerage and first cabin, wealth and poverty, shared alike in the disposition of quarters and shared alike in attention. There was no discrimination. One life was as good as another to the doctor and his men, the poor man's moan as full of suffering as that of the rich man, the wail of the steerage woman as piteous as that of her sister above.

Captain Trigger was one of the injured. He swore a great deal when the doctor ordered him to bed. Ribs and a broken arm? Why the devil should he be put to bed for something a schoolboy would laugh at? Mr. Shannon and two of the younger officers were killed by the explosion that wrecked the bridge and chart house. Chief Engineer Gray died in the engine-room. Cruise was blown to pieces in the wireless house. His a.s.sistant, the cripple with the charmed life, was dead.

A few seconds before the first explosion took place he blew out his brains with a big navy revolver. The last seen of Cruise was when he appeared in the door of his station, an expression of mingled rage and alarm on his face. Pointing frantically at the figure of his a.s.sistant as it shot down the steps and across the deck, he shouted:

"Get that man! Get him! For G.o.d's sake, get him!"

It all happened in a few seconds of time. The shrill laugh of the fleeing a.s.sistant, the report of the revolver, an instant of stupefaction,--and then the dull, grinding crash.

It will never be known what Cruise had heard or seen in the last moments of his life. No one on board the Doraine, however, doubted for an instant that he had discovered, too late, the truth about his misshapen a.s.sistant. They now knew with almost absolute certainty the ident.i.ty of the odd man in that devilish trio, the man whose footsteps Percival had heard, the man who stayed behind to guarantee the consummation of the hideous plot. Coward in the end, he shirked the death he was pledged to accept. He knew what was coming. Unlike his braver comrades, he took the simplest way.

The count began. Late in the afternoon it was completed. There were forty-six known dead on board the Doraine, the majority being members of the crew. Seventeen persons were missing, chiefly from the steerage.

Twenty-nine seriously injured were under the doctor's care. Some of them would not recover. A hundred or more persons suffered from shock, bruises, cuts and exposure, but only a few of them required or demanded attention. In spite of their injuries, they fell to with the spirit that makes for true heroism and devoted themselves to the care of the less fortunate, or to the a.s.sistance of the sorely-tried officers and men who strove to bring order out of chaos.

Among the survivors were two American surgeons and a physician from Rio Janeiro. They, with the nurses, all of whom had been saved, immediately went to the relief of the ship's doctor, and in short order an improvised hospital was established. There was a remarkable unanimity of self-sacrifice among the pa.s.sengers. High and low, they fell to in a frenzy of comradeship, and worked side by side in whatsoever capacity they were needed, whether fitted for it or not. No man, no woman, who was able to lift a helping hand, failed in this hour of need. The bereaved, as well as those who were untouched by a personal grief, gave all that was in them, tearfully, grimly, ardently.

Menial labour fell to the lot of the lordly but uncomplaining Landover, to Block and Nicklestick, Jones and Snipe, and even to the precious Signor Joseppi, who, forgetting his Caruso-like throat, toiled and sweated in the smoky saloon.

Morris Shine, the motion picture magnate, the while he laboured amidst the wreckage of the after deck, lamented not the cheerless task but the evil fate that prevented the making of the most spectacular film the world had ever known.

Madame Careni-Amori, Madame Obosky and her dancers; bejewelled Jewesses and half-clad emigrants; gentle women unused to toil and women who were born to it; the old and the young--all of them, without exception,--rose from the depths of despair and faced the rigours of the day with unflinching courage, gave out of a limitless store of tenderness all that their strength could spare.

And through a neglected, abandoned field of pearls and gold and precious stones, limped unchallenged the tireless figure of "Soapy" Shay, diamond thief, a b.l.o.o.d.y bandage about his head, an exalted light in his pain-stricken eyes. His one-time captor lay stark and cold in the gruesome line in the bow of the boat. It was "Soapy" Shay who staggered out of the rack and smoke with the burly, stricken detective in his arms, and it was "Soapy" Shay who wept when the last breath of life cased out through his tortured lips. For of all the company on board the Doraine, there was but one whom "Soapy" knew, but one who called him by name and shared tobacco with him,--and that one was William Spinney, the man who was taking him back to a place where mercy would not be shown.

After the sun had set and the decks were dark and deserted except for the men employed in the gruesome business, the dead were lowered into the sea, swathed in canvas and weighted with things that were made to kill,--sh.e.l.ls from the gunners' h.o.a.rd. Swiftly, methodically, one after the other, they slid down to the black, greedy waters, sank to the grave that is never still yet always silent, to the vast, unexplored wilderness that stretches around the world. The thin little missionary from the barren plateaus of Patagonia and the plump priest from the heart of Buenos Aires monotonously commended each and every one of them to the mercy of G.o.d!

The sun came up again in the morning over a smiling, happy sea that licked the sides of the Doraine with the tenderness of a dog.

CHAPTER V.

The plight of the hapless steamer could not be disguised. Even the most ignorant pa.s.senger knew that the wrecked engines could not be repaired or compounded. They knew that the Doraine was completely paralysed. The power to move at will was for ever lost, the force that had driven her resistlessly along the chosen path was still. The powerful propellers were idle, the huge stern-post wrenched so badly that the rudder was useless. She was adrift, helplessly adrift. Of what avail the wheel and a patched-up rudder to the ma.s.s that lay inert, motionless on the smiling sea?

Every one on board realized, with sinking heart, that the Doraine was to go on drifting, drifting no man knew whither, until she crossed the path of a friendly stranger out there in the mighty waste. No cry of distress, no call for help could go crackling into the boundless reaches. That was the plight of the Doraine and her people on the mocking day that followed the disaster, and unless fate intervened that would be her plight for days without end.

Mr. Mott, temporarily in command, addressed the pa.s.sengers in the main saloon, where they had congregated at his request. He did not mince matters. He stated the situation plainly. It was best that they should realize, that they should understand, that they should know the truth, in order that they might adapt themselves to the conditions he was now compelled of necessity to impose upon them. They were, so to speak, occupying a derelict. Help might come before nightfall, it might not come for days. He hoped for the best but he intended to prepare for the worst.

Without apology he laid down a rigid set of rules, and from these rules, he made it perfectly clear, there could be no deviation. The available supply of food was limited. It was his purpose to conserve it with the greatest possible care. Down in the holds, of course, was a vast store of consigned foodstuffs, but he had no authority to draw upon it and would not do so unless the ship's own stock was exhausted. Pa.s.sengers and crew, therefore, would be obliged to go on short rations. "Better to eat sparingly now," he said, "than not to eat at all later on." He concluded his remarks in this fashion:

"Remember that we are all in the same boat. We don't know how long we'll be drifting like this and we don't know where we're drifting to. It's an everlastingly big ocean we're on. We ought to thank G.o.d we're not at the bottom of it now. If we're lucky we'll be picked up soon, if not,--well, it's up to us, every one of us, to make the best of it. We're alive, and that's certainly something. We'll all find it easier if we keep ourselves busy. That's why I'm asking you, one and all, to do a good day's work regularly, one way or another, from now until relief comes.

We can't have any loafers or quitters on board this ship. That means everybody, rich and poor. You may think I'm putting a hardship on you, seeing as how you have paid for your pa.s.sage and all that, but what I'm ordering you to do ain't a marker to what you'd be doing if you were out there in lifeboats, eight hundred miles from sh.o.r.e, and--well, we won't go into that. We've got to make the best of it, my friends. We're up against it good and plenty, that's the plain facts of the case. There's no use in me saying it's all going to turn out right in a day or so, because I don't know a da--- blamed thing about it. We're in G.o.d's hands. Maybe it will help to pray, but I doubt it. All I've got to say is this: go down on your knees as much as you like, but don't lick!"

Signor Joseppi lifted his voice, but not in song. In very bad English he wanted to know how long the Captain thought it would be before they were rescued, and when he was informed that it might not be for weeks or even months, he cried out in worse English that he was ruined. He would have to violate his contract! No impressario would think of engaging him again! His wonderful American tour! If he was not rescued within a week--Oh, my G.o.d, the consequences! He did not regret the paltry two thousand a week--for thirty weeks--but to violate a contract!

Mr. Mott looked rather helpless. He appreciated the fact that Signor Joseppi was a very great personage, but what was he saying? Was it--could it be mutiny?

"I'm sorry, Mr. Joseppi," he broke in, "but if Madame Amori is willing to take her regular turn at making up berths, I guess it won't hurt you to help every now and then in the dining-room."

Signor Joseppi did not understand a word of it. He turned to the man at his elbow for enlightenment.

"What did he say?" he whispered.

"He says you have a perfectly marvellous voice and that he'd give two thousand any time to hear you sing," replied his neighbour in excellent Italian.

Whereupon the Signor favoured the severe-looking Mr. Mott with a beaming smile and as deep a bow as he could make in such close quarters.

"A most courteous officer," he said to his neighbour. "It will be a joy to serve him, my friend. We should, one and all, do what he asks of us, no matter how mean the task. I, Joseppi,--you have heard of Joseppi, my friend?--I shall be the example for all of you. Should he say, 'Wash the dishes, Joseppi,' then will I wash the dishes. I, Joseppi, who never washed a dish in his life. Should he say, 'Cook the meals, Joseppi,'

then will Joseppi, who never cooked a thing in his life, then will Joseppi cook the meals. Should he say, 'Joseppi, scrub the floor,' then will I scrub the floor. Should he say, 'Signor, steer the ship,' then will I do my best to steer the ship. I who have never steered a ship. So let me be your example, my friend."

"That's fine," said his neighbour, as they moved off together. "But supposing he asks you to sing occasionally to amuse the rest of us,--what then?"

"Amuse?" cried the Signor. "Amuse?"