Salvage — Background and Themes

r a salvage company. Drake told the man to get on shore-going clothes and come with him, and the twain disappeared. The man returned that afternoon accompanied by a truck, which duly unloaded and brought aboard a collection of stuff that made even Catlin scratch his head, and caused conjectures for’ard as to whether The Old Hyena was going into the wrecking business. It consisted of a complete diving outfit--air pumps and all--as well as huge collision mats and handling gear. Drake did not appear until evening, and seemed unusually speechless, and he dined and waited for Christophe.

The latter came at last, grinning with self-satisfaction, and was at once closeted with Drake, who asked: “Well, what did you learn?”

“That Rhodialim, she sail day after to-morrow. She got most her cargo aboard now. But it’s funny, captain, sir, she got one man who knew this sea same as me. Long time ago he fisherman, then go away, and been down Smyrna where not got too good name. Good man, when sober, but too much drink, so never get good job. That man I see in saloon. He most full and---- You owe me thirty drachmas, I spend on him get him fuller, so he talk. Bymeby he borrow fifty drachmas from me, which also you owes me. He brag some and say pretty soon he pay back. Pretty soon, maybe two weeks, he come back with plenty money in pockets. But he shut up like oyster when I ask how make this so much money, and he say nobody but him ever goin’ know that. Now what you wish me make?”

“You go home and keep on keeping your mouth shut. Come aboard at noon to-morrow. We sail to-morrow afternoon.” Drake was suddenly decided in his movements.

“How long be gone from my old woman?” Christophe asked.

“Can’t tell. Maybe one week, maybe two. Not likely to be longer, I think. But all you’ve got to do is to come aboard and I’ll tell you then where we’re bound. I’m going to clear for Smyrna. There will be no secret about that.”

On the following morning when Captain Eli went ashore he took with him the chief engineer. The latter returned with two big machine cases and armored, high-pressure hose, together with a case of fittings. Late that afternoon the _Malabart_ slipped out and away, so palpably light that other sea captains who observed her shook their heads with understanding. A ship putting to sea in ballast in dull times evokes the sympathy of the seawise. Aboard the _Malabart_ there was an air of gloom among the crew.

The captain and owner, walking the bridge, said to Catlin:

“Well, Bill, I’m taking a gamble--thousand to one shot, that’s all.”

When dusk fell the island of Thermia lay close in to starboard, and the man at the wheel stood ready to port his helm and bring her over from the sou’-east-by-east to an easterly course to round the island, that being the route toward Smyrna; but old Christophe, standing behind him, took the wheel, rang for slow speed and groped in toward the island. It loomed up about them, a rocky point, before he said over his shoulder to Captain Eli:

“Here’s where we can lay to, sir. Good anchorage here in this cove, and no risk of wind.”

All that night she rocked there, gently; on a sea that was almost without a swell. And when morning came, to the crew’s further curiosity, she brought in her hook, swung about, and headed due west, plodding along at slow speed and apparently purposeless. A liner came out of the north and gave her a passing hoot. Christophe, eyeing the other boat, said to Captain Eli:

“She be for Messina way, and now not likely be another ship along here for ten days. That’s what those mens know. If I make good guess, that’s why they clear Piræus to-day, after big ship go, sir.”

“And when will we make that Island of Hydra?” Drake asked, staring to the westward.

“Just about sunset, captain, sir. Then we slip round it and there are small islands between it and mainland, and entrance into Nauplia which so long and so big it is like long gulf. We lay behind them islands, sir, and--see what shall see about midnight, I think, sir.”

Drake caught his dry, knowing grin, but did not entirely share his confidence as to the outcome of their strange voyage.

The pilot’s prediction as to progress was fulfilled; just as a hazy sunset colored the tips of the high, bleak mountains behind which the day disappeared, they passed the isle with its abandoned and obsolete fortifications, and hove to in waters that seemed to have been deserted since the time of ancient wars. Night fell with a thin, low-lying fog that seemed to sweep down from the great bastions of Nauplia and rest on the still waters. The stars were obscured and a new depression engulfed Drake.

“The weather’s against us,” he said gloomily, to the storm-beaten old pilot. “They could pass us at a couple of cable lengths and we’d never know it.”

“Not if we were out in a small boat, listening,” Christophe said. “In small boat hear everything. On ship, no--not so quite well. We must put out boat and get out maybe two three miles and wait. Yes, maybe fog too bad, one way, but very good, other. When they pass we get course then slip quiet, very quiet, same way, with _Malabart_, eh?”

Drake pondered. There seemed no other method. He cursed the fog, but ordered a boat away with Catlin and the pilot aboard, the latter assuring him that he could find his way back to the ship if the night were as black as the pits of Satan. A long wait followed after the boat had disappeared. The gloom of the darkened _Malabart_, the lack of the bell striking the hour, the absolute stillness of the ship, were all upsetting. The very lifelessness of the protected water where she lay was annoying, for there was not the slightest lapping whisper of a wave against her hull. Down in the engine room even the stokers who kept up steam had been cautioned against the clanging of a furnace door or the ring of a shovel. Had one passed the _Malabart_ within ten yards he might have thought her the ghost of some long-abandoned ship. Drake listened from the outer wing of the bridge, bending over, sometimes with a hand cupped to his ear, until he was tired. He had about decided that his voyage and expenditure had been born of folly, when he heard a faint creak, followed a minute later by another. Then Catlin’s voice below hailed softly, and the boat pulled around to the side ladder, which had been lowered and swung barely above the water.

“All right, sir. She passed so close that she almost ran us down. She had doused her lights and was not doing more than five or six knots. Christophe says there could be no mistake. She was the Rhodialim, all right.”

The pilot joined in with: “About a mile and a half out. Long row back.”

“It won’t do for us to follow too closely on their heels, anyway,” Captain Eli said. “But are you certain that you can pick her up again, Christophe, in all this murk?”

“I know the course she will take. I think so, with luck,” the pilot said. “They not alter course again. Too much else business think of, I expect. Just keep straight on about five, six miles; then stop. They not want go much farther. Might meet small fishin’ boats out of Nauplia. Not take chance of that, eh?”

Captain Eli stood blockily, a dim figure in the darkness, and seemed making mental calculations.

“I don’t think we’d best be in too much of a hurry,” he said at last. “We’ve got to take the chances of being too late. If the crew are in on it with the commander, mate and engineer, there’ll be no time wasted. If they’re not, the boats won’t be ready to lower, and besides he’ll have to put up a bluff at saving the ship, to fool the crew. We’d best give them at least an hour and a half.”

“That crew, captain, sir, are the scum of the water front,” Christophe put in.

“But just the same, we don’t know that they’re in on it,” Drake replied. “Bill Morris don’t like to cut too many in on his crooked work. Seems to me more likely that he’ll try to stampede ’em into the boats after putting up a great show to save the ship. He’ll call on his engineer for steam and announce that they must beach her. The engineer will either pretend to start the engines, or swear that he can’t turn ’em over. That would stampede the crew, if they’re the sort one picks up in these parts. I think we’ve got to risk it, and give ’em an hour and a half, certain. After that it depends on how quickly we can pick her up. Beltramo tells me that she’s fitted with two sea cocks only into her main hold, because her engines are set well aft. So she’s not likely to fill within some hours after they’re opened, and I’ve got it doped out from what I know of Morris’ work that’s the way he’ll put her under, if that’s what he intends to do; but it’s only little things that are queer which makes me think that’s what he’s up to. Big gamble, but----”

“Must be. If not, why he not go on to east’ard?” the pilot asked. “I’m sure of it, captain, sir.”

But Drake was still doubtful when, still in blackness and running at slow speed, the _Malabart_ nosed out into the sea with the pilot himself at the wheel and keeping an eye on both time and compass as he took up the trail. To the commander’s ears it seemed that with the ship so light that her blades were barely under water the thrash of the slow-turning screw must be audible for miles. He saw the wheel slowly revolving under Christophe’s hands and sensed that the pilot was now where he thought they might find the sinking ship.

Captain Eli knew that both Catlin, and the second mate, Giles, and nearly all the crew were forward peering into the dimness ahead, but it seemed impossible to see anything on such a night. It was a matter of luck, and he felt a dawning apprehension that his luck was out. Watching the compass over the pilot’s shoulder he saw that the ship had made one complete circle and was now holding dead ahead. The wheel again whirled, and they began another circle, a mile deeper in that huge bay surrounded by high and forbidding mountains, when there came a soft whistle from forward and a pattering of bare feet. Catlin’s muffled voice came from below:

“Hold her, sir, hold her. I think we’ve sighted the Rhodialim about two points off the port quarter.”

Drake jumped to the engine tube--it having been arranged that a man was to stand by to obviate the use of bells, inasmuch as the sound of an engine bell might carry far in such stillness--and now the _Malabart_ lost way and came to a stop. The boat, which was swinging barely above the water, was lowered, and Drake, Catlin, and two men tumbled in and fell to the oars. They rowed quietly.

“There she is, sir,” Catlin whispered.

Exercising still more caution, they drew down on the dim shape that lay inert and heavy on the water. They came alongside and listened for voices, but caught no sound. They found the boat davits hanging idly over the water, and went up the falls noiselessly, and stood on the deck. Together they ran here and there, making a search for any human being. Not until then were they confident that she had been abandoned. Listening down the main cargo hatch they could hear the swirling and gurgling of water and the soft bumping of empty cases and crates.

“Get back to the ship, Bill, and rush across all the men that can be spared; so that if that gang are standing by waiting for the Rhodialim to sink, we can knock ’em overboard. Tell Christophe to bring the _Malabart_ alongside twenty minutes after you’ve gone. That’ll give you time to be back here ahead of her; so if we have to repel boarders, we’ll have the men to do it. Be as quiet as you can and get a move on.”

Catlin slipped away and over the side like a ghost. After he had gone Drake listened attentively for a few minutes, then went back and again bent over the open hatch. Afterward he tried, by leaning far over the rail, to estimate how deeply the scuttled ship had already sunk. It seemed to him that she couldn’t last very much longer. Taking an electric torch from his pocket, he went below. She was a fairly deep ship, of good draft, and he was pleased to observe that the cabin floors were not yet damp. He decided that if the sea cocks were of the diameter given by Giuseppe, the former engineer, she had at least an hour and a half longer to float. He knew that her fires must have been drawn, because Morris would not run the risk of the sound of a boiler explosion drawing attention to the spot, if there chanced to be any boat within hearing.

“He knows this business of scuttling ships better than any one I ever heard of,” Drake soliloquized. “But if he cleared off this time, without waiting to see her under, he made one hell of a mistake.”

He looked at his watch in the light of his torch and meditated: “If Bill moves lively and doesn’t lose his way, he should be back here in half an hour from now. If he loses his way in this blamed fog--I’m afraid we cut it pretty short!”

He climbed back to the deck, went to the port side, from which the boat had put off, and listened, prepared to answer a hail, if Catlin returned groping and had to shout to learn his bearings. Then from the opposite side of the ship, he heard a single telltale thump, as if an oar in clumsy hands had slipped from an oarlock and brought up with a bang.

Drake ran across to the starboard rail just in time to hear a muttered imprecation, in colloquial Greek:

“Quiet there, you lubber! If the skipper and those two pets of his are hanging around, we’ve a fine chance of getting away with anything.”

Drake pursed his lips into a silent whistle, and through his mind ran the thought: “It’s the crew of this craft come back. Probably suspected something and are trying somehow to double-cross Morris, Simmons and whoever they’ve let in on it with ’em. I’m a fool. Should have kept at least one man with me for such an emergency.”

Quick as was his thought, his action was quicker. He jerked off his boots and threw off his jacket. He ran aft in the direction that he was certain the boat must take to board, and leaned over the rail just as a man started to climb upward.

“Get back into that boat and sheer off,” he called down. “This ship is abandoned and is salvage.”

The man hesitated, and a voice from below ordered:

“Go on up! We’ll talk this over on deck.”

“Like hell you will!” Captain Eli declared. “And if any man tries to come on this ship, he’s looking for trouble. Sheer off, if you want a talk. If you want a fight, come ahead.”

The man holding the boat fall climbed up and got a foothold on the strake. He threw a hand inward and caught a rail stanchion and swung upward, encouraged by muttered comments.

“All right! If you will have it----” Drake growled.

And leaned far over, and struck. In the gloom and darkness he had not struck well, and instead of knocking his man overboard into the boat below, he merely shifted him outward just beyond reach of a second blow. Drake threw himself over the rail and hanging by one hand struck again with the other. It was a body blow, but the man was tenacious, clung to the rope, swayed like a pendulum, and, as he swung back, kicked at Drake with his heavy sea boot. But this time Drake’s fist smashed home, and the boarder grunted, loosened his grip on the boat fall, and went slithering down among his companions. Drake climbed back over the rail just in time to feel a stunning smash on the back of his head, and was not until then aware that while he had engaged one assailant, another had climbed up the opposite boat fall with a monkey-like agility, and had come behind him.

Infuriated by the attack, he whirled, seized the man, lifted him as if he were a bundle of waste, and, with a giant’s heave, threw him far outward. The man shouted as he fell, but Drake did not hear the splash; for now he found himself fighting desperately with two other dark shapes who charged silently. Even as Drake fought, he recalled what he had overheard, which convinced him that these men also had no wish to recall Morris and his fellow conspirators. Drake grinned at the humor of that situation--a scalawag crew trying to steal aboard the ship they had abandoned, Morris and his fellows somewhere out there in the dark, himself battling for the salvage like a dog for a bone, and all the time, down there in the hold, the sea cocks flooding the sinking ship.

The number of his assailants increased. They were urged on by the leader in a hoarse mutter:

“He’s alone. He must be alone, because no one else comes. Down him! Down him, because he’s probably got a boat coming!”

Drake fought desperately. Two of his assailants went to the deck and lay there struggling, as they tried to recover their senses. Veteran fighter that he was, the participator in events which had earned for him the sobriquet of The Old Hyena, he used his head coolly, his fists heavily, and as he moved here and there slipped out of the dangers of being cornered and fought for time.

Then came the accident. Retreating, his heels caught over a coil of rope that had been carelessly left on the deck. He struggled vainly to recover his balance, but they were on him like a pack of wolves. And in a fighting, struggling group came to the deck, where they twisted and turned as he tried to regain his feet, was pulled down, tried again, was struck heavily over his eyes, saw stars, shook his head like an enraged bull, and felt himself pinioned to the deck while one of the men he had previously knocked down arrived in time to kick him in the ribs. He was now roaring with fury, heedless of all alarms and thinking of nothing but revenge.

He did not hear the angry shout of Catlin and his men coming on deck. The hold on him suddenly relaxed. He sat up, rubbing his bruised side and clearing the blood from his eyes, heard Bill Catlin’s fighting oaths and got to his feet. Both forward and aft shadowy forms of men in flight flitted across the decks. He heard Catlin’s shout:

“Don’t let ’em get back to their boat! Knock ’em out and hold ’em. They’ve probably killed the skipper. If Drake is dead, we’ll drown the whole damn lot!”

“Yes, don’t let ’em get away, Bill,” Drake shouted, climbing to his feet and regaining his full senses. “I want ’em. Particularly that fleabitten rat who gave me the boots. Lash ’em up and get ’em together. Quick! The ship may sink under us at any time.”