"Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea Part 7

Ahead of her, and turning to port, was the flag-s.h.i.+p _Obdorsk_, also slowed down; but she promised to be fully occupied with the _Atholl_, _Sutherland_, and _Montrose_, who had wheeled in their tracks, no longer obliged to traverse a circle to reach an enemy.

On rushed the _Argyll_, and when nearly up to the _Warsaw_, the latter gave steam to her engines. Breast to breast the gladiators charged across the sea, roaring, flaming, and smoking. A torpedo left the side of the _Warsaw_, pointed diagonally ahead, to intercept the _Argyll_.

But it was badly aimed, and the hissing bubbles pa.s.sed under her stern.

Before another could be discharged, the torpedo-room, located by the _Argyll's_ officers, was enlarged to the size of three by the succeeding bombardment and the explosion of the remaining torpedoes.

Twelve-inch armor cannot keep out thirteen-inch armor-piercing sh.e.l.l, and torpedoes cannot explode on board without damage to machinery, steering-gear, and vital connections. The _Warsaw_ yawed, slackened speed, and came to a stop, her turret-guns still speaking, but the secondary guns silent. The _Argyll_ circled around her, sending her thirteen-, eight-, and six-inch sh.e.l.ls into her victim with almost muzzle energy. The two military masts of the _Warsaw_ sank, and dead men in the fighting-tops were flung overboard. The forward turret seemed to explode; smoke and flame shot out of the ports, and its top lifted and fell. Then the _Argyll_ turned and headed straight for her side.

There was little need of gun fire now; but the forward-turret guns belched once during the charge, and the more quickly handled eight- and six-inch rifles stormed away while there was time to reload. Smoking, rolling, and barking,--ten thousand tons of inertia behind a solid steel knife,--she pounced on her now silent enemy. There was a crunching sound, m.u.f.fled and continuous. The speed of the _Argyll_ seemed hardly checked. In went the ram farther and farther, until the slanting edge began cutting above the water. Then the _Warsaw_, heeled far over by the impact, rolled back, and the knife cut upward. The smooth plates at the _Argyll's_ water-line wrinkled like paper, and the pile of shattered steel which had once been her forward deck and bulkheads was shaken up and adjusted to new positions; but not until her nose was actually buried in the wound--until the _Warsaw_ was cut half in two--did the reversed engines begin to work. The _Argyll_ backed out, exposing for a moment a hole like a cavern's mouth; then the stricken s.h.i.+p rolled heavily toward her, burying the sore, and, humming and buzzing with exhausting steam and rus.h.i.+ng air, settled rapidly and sank, while out from ports, doors, and nearly vertical hatches came her crew, as many as could. They sprang overboard and swam, and those that reached the now stationary _Argyll_ were rescued; for a cry had gone through the latter from the central station in her depths: "All hands on deck to save life! Bring ladders, life-buoys, and ropes' ends!"

The battle was ended; for, with the ramming of the _Warsaw_, the _Obdorsk_ struck to the three s.h.i.+ps circling around her. They had suffered, but the battle-s.h.i.+p _Argyll_ was reduced to a monitor. Her superstructure and the bow and stern above the water-line were shattered to a shapeless tangle of steel. What was left of her funnels and ventilators resembled nutmeg-graters, and she was perceptibly down by the head; for her bow leaked through its wrinkled plates, and the forward compartment below the protective deck was filled. Yet she could still fight in smooth water. Her box-like citadel was intact, and standing naked out of the wreck, scarred and dented, but uninjured, were the turrets, ammunition-hoists, and conning-tower. In the latter was the brain of the s.h.i.+p, that had fought her to victory and then sent the call to her crew to save the lives of their enemies.

Two men met on a level spot amids.h.i.+ps and clasped hands. Both were bare-waisted and grimy, and one showed red as a lobster under the stains. He was the chief engineer.

"We've won, Clarkson," he said. "We've won the hottest fight that history can tell of--won it ourselves; but he'll get the credit."

"And he's drunk as a lord--drunk through it all. What did he ram for?

Why did he send two millions of prize-money to the bottom? O Lord! O Lord! it's enough to make a man swear at his mother. We had her licked.

Why did he ram?"

"Because he was drunk, that's why. He rang seven bells to me along at the first of the muss, and then sent word through young Felton that he wanted full speed. Dammit, he already had it, every pound of it. And he gave me no signal to reverse when we struck; if it wasn't for luck and a kind Providence we'd have followed the _Warsaw_. I barely got her over. Here, Mr. Felton; you were in the central, were you not? How'd the old man appear to be making it? Were his orders intelligible?"

A young man had joined them, hot, breathing hard, and unclothed.

"Not always, sir; I had to ask him often to repeat, and then I sometimes got another order. He kept me busy from the first, when he sent the torpedoes overboard."

"The torpedoes!" exclaimed Mr. Clarkson. "Did we use them? I didn't know it."

"He was afraid they'd explode on board, sir," he said. "That was just after we took full speed."

"And just before he got too full to be afraid of anything," muttered the lieutenant. "Why don't he come out of that?" He glanced toward the conning-tower. Other officers had joined them.

"We'll investigate," said Mr. Clarkson.

The door on the level of the main-deck leading into the mast was found to be wedged fast by the blow of a projectile. Men, naked and black, sprawled about the wreckage breathing fresh air, were ordered to get up and to rig a ladder outside. They did so, and Mr. Clarkson ascended to the ragged end of the hollow stump and looked down. Standing at the wheel, steering the drifting s.h.i.+p with one hand and holding an empty bottle in the other, was a man with torn clothing and b.l.o.o.d.y face. In spite of the disfigurement Mr. Clarkson knew him. Jammed into the narrow staircase leading below was the body of a man partly hidden by a Gatling gun, the lever of which had pierced the forehead.

"Finnegan," yelled the officer, "how'd you get there?"

The man at the wheel lifted a bleary eye and blinked; then, unsteadily touching his forehead, answered: "Fe' dow'-shtairs, s.h.i.+r."

"Come out of that! On deck there! Take the wheel, one hand, and stand by it!" Mr. Clarkson descended to the others with a serious look on his grimy face, and a sailor climbed the ladder and went down the mast.

"Gentlemen," said the first lieutenant, impressively, "we were mistaken, and we wronged Captain Blake. He is dead. He died at the beginning. He lies under a Gatling gun in the bottom of the tower. I saw Finnegan hanging to that gun, whirling around it, when the mast blew up. It is all plain now. Finnegan and the gun fell into the tower.

Finnegan may have struck the stairs and rolled down, but the gun went down the hollow within and killed the captain. We have been steered and commanded by a drunken man--but it was Finnegan."

Finnegan scrambled painfully down the ladder. He staggered, stumbled, and fell in a heap.

"Rise up," said Mr. Clarkson, as they surrounded him; "rise up, Daniel Drake Nelson Farragut Finnegan. You are small potatoes and few in the hill; you are shamefully drunk, and your nose bleeds; you are stricken with Spanish mildew, and you smell vilely--but you are immortal. You have been a disgrace to the service, but Fate in her gentle irony has redeemed you, permitting you, in one brief moment of your misspent life, to save to your country the command of the seas--to guide, with your subconscious intelligence, the finest battle-s.h.i.+p the science of the world has constructed to glorious victory, through the fiercest sea-fight the world has known. Rise up, Daniel, and see the surgeon."

But Finnegan only snored.

THE WIGWAG MESSAGE

As eight bells sounded, Captain Bacon and Mr. Knapp came up from breakfast, and Mr. Hansen, the squat and square-built second mate, immediately went down. The deck was still wet from the morning was.h.i.+ng down, and forward the watch below were emerging from the forecastle to relieve the other half, who were coiling loosely over the top of the forward house a heavy, wet hawser used in towing out the evening before. They were doing it properly, and as no present supervision was necessary, the first mate remained on the p.o.o.p for a few moments'

further conversation with the captain.

"Poor crew, cap'n," he said, as, picking his teeth with the end of a match, he scanned the men forward. "It'll take me a month to lick 'em into shape."

To judge by his physique, a month was a generous limit for such an operation. He was a giant, with a giant's fist and foot; red-haired and bearded, and of sinister countenance. But he was no more formidable in appearance than his captain, who was equally big, but smooth-shaven, and showing the square jaw and beetling brows of a born fighter.

"Are the two drunks awake yet?" asked the latter.

"Not at four o'clock, sir," answered the mate. "Mr. Hansen couldn't get 'em out. I'll soon turn 'em to."

As he spoke, two men appeared from around the corner of the forward house, and came aft. They were young men, between twenty-five and thirty, with intelligent, sun-burnt faces. One was slight of figure, with the refinement of thought and study in his features; the other, heavier of mold and muscular, though equally quick in his movements, had that in his dark eyes which said plainly that he was wont to supplement the work of his hands with the work of his brain. Both were dressed in the tar-stained and grimy rags of the merchant sailor at sea; and they walked the wet and unsteady deck with no absence of "sea-legs," climbed the p.o.o.p steps to leeward, as was proper, and approached the captain and first mate at the weather rail. The heavier man touched his cap, but the other merely inclined his head, and smiling frankly and fearlessly from one face to the other, said, in a pleasant, evenly modulated voice:

"Good morning. I presume that one of you is the captain."

"I'm the captain. What do you want?" was the gruff response.

"Captain, I believe that the etiquette of the merchant service requires that when a man is shanghaied on board an outward-bound s.h.i.+p he remains silent, does what is told him cheerfully, and submits to fate until the pa.s.sage ends; but we cannot bring ourselves to do so. We were struck down in a dark spot last night,--sandbagged, I should say,--and we do not know what happened afterward, though we must have been kept unconscious with chloroform or some such drug. We wakened this morning in your forecastle, dressed in these clothes, and robbed of everything we had with us."

"Where were you slugged?"

"In Cherry Street. The bridge cars were not running, so we crossed from Brooklyn by the Catherine Ferry, and foolishly took a short cut to the elevated station."

"Well, what of it?"

"What--why--why, captain, that you will kindly put us aboard the first inbound craft we meet."

"Not much I won't," answered the captain, decidedly. "You belong to my crew. I paid for twenty men; and you two and two others skipped at the dock. I had to wait all day in the Horseshoe. You two were caught dead drunk last night, and came down with the tug. That's what the runners said, and that's all I know about it. Go forrard."

"Do you mean, captain----"

"Go forrard where you belong. Mr. Knapp, set these men to work."

Captain Bacon turned his back on them, and walked away.

"Get off the p.o.o.p," snarled the mate. "Forrard wi' you both!"

"Captain, I advise you to reconsider----"

The words were stopped by a blow of the mate's fist, and the speaker fell to the deck. Then a hoa.r.s.e growl of horror and rage came from his companion; and Captain Bacon turned, to see him dancing around the first officer with the skill and agility of a professional boxer, planting vicious blows on his hairy face and neck.

"Stop this," roared the captain, as his right hand sought the pocket of his coat. "Stop it, I say. Mr. Hansen," he called down the skylight, "on deck, here."