For the Freedom of the Seas/Chapter 1
FOR THE
FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
CHAPTER I
THE WAY OF THE HUN
THE three-masted schooner Jonas Clinton was loafing along in a six-knot breeze some five hundred miles off the coast of France. For the time of year, the middle of October, the Atlantic in those latitudes was unusually docile and there was scarcely enough swell to slant the schooner's deck. Overhead, a moon in its first quarter was playing hide-and-seek in a bank of purple-black clouds. The night—the ship's clock in the cabin had just struck five bells—was so mild that the helmsman had not yet troubled to button his heavy reefer.
Light winds, or no wind at all, had been the Jonas Clinton's fortune for a month. The eastward voyage had been made in twenty-two days, Boston to Havre, but once rid of her cargo of lubricating oil for the armies in France, she had been forced to swing at anchor for two weeks. At last, despairing of a fair wind, Captain Troy had had the schooner towed across to Falmouth, England. Another wait had followed, a delay especially regrettable when ships were scarce and freight rates high. But at last a brisk breeze had started the Jonas Clinton on her homeward voyage only to peter out at the end of the second day, leaving the skipper, who, as half owner in the ship, was deeply concerned in her fortunes, decidedly glum. The skipper's frame of mind was reflected by everyone else aboard, from Mr. Cupples, the mate, down to the latest addition to the crew of eight, the tall, raw-boned Nova Scotian lad who, whatever his real name might be, was known as "Bean Pole"; though the gloom extended in a lesser degree to two inhabitants of the four hundred ton craft, Nelson Troy and Pickles.
These two were at the moment seated side by side on the forward hatch, as though awaiting this introduction. Nelson, Captain Troy's son, was seventeen, a well-built, nice-looking lad who was making his second voyage in his father's ship. He was down on the ship's papers as apprentice, since a merchant vessel may not carry passengers, but his position as a member of the crew was nominal rather than actual. Not, however, that he didn't take a hand when there was something to be done, (or he had picked up a fair amount of sailoring, and, perhaps, had inherited a taste for it. He was a broad-shouldered, healthy boy, full of fun and very fond of Pickles.
Pickles was—well, Pickles was just Pickles. First of all, he was a dog. Beyond that I hesitate to go. Leo, the big, two-fisted Swede who had sailed with Captain Troy for seven years, declared that "he ban part wolf-dog an' part big fool." But that was scarcely fair to Pickles, because, no matter how mixed he was in the matter of breed, he was certainly no fool. Even Terry, the cook, acknowledged that. No dog capable of stealing a piece of mutton as big as his head from right under the cook's nose can rightly be called a fool. And Terry didn't call him a fool, although he applied several other names to him! Visibly, Pickles was yellow as to color, shaggy as to coat, loving and faithful as to disposition. For the rest, he was long-legged and big in the shoulders, and just too much for a lapful.
Captain Troy, keeping the first watch, came along the deck from the stern, a tall, rather gaunt figure in the dun light, and paused where Nelson and Pickles sat. The captain was well on toward fifty and had followed the sea, boy and man, for more than thirty years, just as his father and his father's father before him had followed it. Several generations of Troys had been born within sight and sound of Casco Bay and had taken to the sea as naturally and inevitably as ducks take to water. The captain was a slow-speaking man, with a deep and pleasant voice that could, when occasion demanded, bellow like a liner's fog-horn. He was a good Master, stern but never unjust, and a good father to the boy who sat there holding the front half of the dog across his knees. Nelson not only loved his father very deeply—how deeply he was very soon to realize—but he both admired and respected him. No one could make two trips over and back with Captain Troy, watching his handling of his ship, his behavior in moments of peril and his attitude toward the men under him, without feeling admiration and respect for the simple-minded, big-hearted, cool-thinking man. The fact that Nelson's mother had died when he was eight years of age had focused all his affection on his father, and, since Nelson was an only child, had, on the other hand, concentrated all the captain's love on him. Besides being father and son they were excellent companions, and neither was quite contented when away from the other.
The captain gazed up at the half-filled foresail. "I'm fearing it's to be light winds all the way across," he said. "I hate the thought of going into steam at my time of life, but there's no denying that a couple of screws aft there would be a big help just now. If I knew where to pick up a small steamship I'm not sure I wouldn't take her over, son, for the next voyage. It's maddening to think of all the cargoes awaiting bottoms back home, and us wallowing along at five or six knots; and in ballast, at that!"
"Mustn't be greedy, dad," answered the boy, smiling up in the dark. "We made a pile of money this trip, didn't we?"
"Money? Yes, we did pretty well," replied the captain with satisfaction. "I've been blowing east and west, north and south most of my life, son, and this is nearly the first time that big money has come my way. We ain't rich, and I'd like to see a bit more in the bank before I quit. You'll be needing some, and so'll I when I join the fireside fleet."
"You needn't worry about me, dad. I'm going to earn my own money in a year or two."
"Maybe, but not so soon as that. You're going to finish your education first, I'm hoping. I want you to have all the trimmings before you take the wheel. Have you thought any more about that college?"
"Not much," owned the boy. "There have been so many other things to think about, you see." His tone if not his words implied that the other things were far more interesting. "Anyway, there's time enough. I'll have to put in another year in high school, I suppose." His voice dropped dismally at the end, and the captain chuckled.
"I guess you're like all the Troys. There never was one of 'em I ever heard tell of that was much of a scholar. Your great-uncle Joab got to be a Judge of the Supreme Court, but I always suspicioned that he did it by keeping his mouth clamped down and not letting on to how little he really knew about the Law! That's one trait the Troys have generally possessed, and it's a good one."
"What, not knowing much?" laughed the boy.
"Not saying much. There's more men have talked themselves out of their jobs than you can shake a stick at. Just you remember that, son, and every time you're tempted to say something when you ain't got anything to say, you just clap the hatch on. And then," he added, "sit on it, just as you're doing now!" The captain craned his head a little for a look at the dim spread of the jib. "I'll feel a sight easier," he muttered, "when we're five hundred miles further west."
"You aren't afraid of U-boats, are you, dad?" asked Nelson, smiling as he pulled at the dog's ears.
"I'm not exactly afraid of them, no, but 'accidents' have happened before this, and I'm kind of fond of this little ship."
"But, dad, we're not at war with Germany. They wouldn't"
"Well, there was the William P. Frye," replied the captain dryly. "They got her, didn't they? And we weren't at war with her then, neither. Any more than we were when they sank the Lusitania," he added bitterly.
"But I've always thought that was—was different," said Nelson, vaguely. "She was British, dad, and"
"I know," interrupted his father roughly. "She was British, but she had American citizens aboard, and Germany knew it. I'd rather you didn't try to excuse Germany for that deed, son; I—I'm likely to lose my temper. Well, ain't it most time you turned in? Or are you considering taking the graveyard watch to-night?"
"Oh, it isn't really late yet," laughed the boy. "It's such a peachy night that I hate to go below. So does Pickles, don't you, you old rascal?"
Apparently he did, (or he wagged a stiff tail enthusiastically and burrowed his nose further into the crook of the boy's arm.
"Well, don't make it too late," advised his father, turning away. "If I find you on deck at seven bells I'll put you in the lazaret on hard tack and water for the rest of the voyage." With which dire threat Captain Troy strode off toward the stern.
Left to themselves, boy and dog sat a few minutes longer, and then, finding that the breeze was seeking them out, arose. Nelson yawned deeply and Pickles wagged his tail, as they went sleepily aft to the companion. As Nelson's head dropped below the deck level he caught an uncertain glimpse of his father's form by the helmsman and a glowing speck that showed that Leo's pipe was drawing well. Nelson shared his father's cabin, and twenty minutes later he was sound asleep there, while Pickles, half under the bunk and half out, twitched his legs and made little sounds, dreaming, perhaps, that he was doing battle royal with some long-whiskered, squeaking denizen of the hold.
Seven bells had struck some time ago, when Nelson was midway between sleeping and waking, and now it was close on midnight. From across the passage came the deep snores of Mr. Cupples. The mate was a vigorous, hearty man even when he slumbered. In the dimly lighted captain's cabin Pickles, having vanquished his adversary, sighed and stretched his long legs into new positions, without waking, and the boy above, dreaming, too, doubtless, muttered faintly in his sleep. And then
And then he awoke to chaos!
The first disturbing sound had been a dull, crackling thud from somewhere forward, and the schooner had reeled and shivered with the shock as though she had driven head-on to a reef. The second sound had followed so close on the heels of the first that it had been virtually but a continuation of it. Nelson was never certain that he had heard the first sound at all, for he came fully awake with his ears fairly splitting with the awful concussion that shook the ship. The noise was beyond imagination, and yet so peculiar that he knew instinctively what it meant.
An explosion!
Confused, frightened, too, if the truth mast be told, he struggled from his berth. The light was out. Somewhere in the darkness Pickles was whimpering. On deck were shouts and the rushing of heavy feet. The cabin floor slanted amazingly and Nelson, groping for the passage, found the door swung wide and had to pull himself through the aperture with a hand on each side of the frame. He remembered the dog then and called. But his heart was beating too loudly for him to know whether Pickles followed as, clinging to whatever his groping hands encountered, he made his way to the companion. As he set foot on the lowest step another rending shock shook the Jonas Clinton, and there was the sound of splintering wood and the crash of yards and tackle to the deck above.
He knew then. His father's half-felt fear had not been unwarranted, it seemed. Nelson's fright gave way to a swift flood of anger, and as he hastened on deck, he trembled with the tempest of his wrath.
Even in the moonlit darkness the little schooner presented a pitiable sight. She was already far down at the head. Her foremast was broken short off and the great foresail shrouded the deck and dragged over the side. The first shell from the unseen enemy had entered the hull aft the galley and just above the water-line and the succeeding explosion had opened the seams wide and piled the fore part of the ship with destruction. The second shot had gone high and taken the foremast ten feet from deck. As he looked, spellbound at the head of the companion, the schooner's bowsprit disappeared under the surface and the stern, with its idly swinging, deserted wheel, rose higher against the purple-black sky. Amidship on the starboard side there was confused shouting and the squeak of tackle where a boat was being lowered. Nelson hurried toward it just as with a whine, a third shell passed the stern.
There were but four men at the boat. One was Mr. Cupples, the mate, and one was Leo. The other two were sailors whom the boy didn't identify until later. He caught Mr. Cupples' arm.
"Where's dad?" he cried anxiously.
"Lower away! What? Is that you, Nelson? Are you hurt?"
"No, sir. Where's father, sir?"
"In with you, quick, lad! There'll be another shell on us in a minute."
"But I want to know where dad is! I don't see him!"
"He's coming," said Mr. Cupples gruffly. "Skippers stand by to the last, lad. Over you go now."
"Well!" And then Nelson remembered Pickles. He called him but got no answering bark nor sound of scampering feet. Pickles, then, was still below! He turned, deaf to the cries of the mate and the others, and hurried up the canted deck and plunged again into the after cabin.
"Pickles!" he called. "Pickles! Where are you?" And then he heard a whine, and went stumbling, falling into the little compartment where the floor was already an inch deep in sea water. For a moment he couldn't find the dog, but then another whine led him right and he gathered the frightened animal in his arms and hastened out again, sobbing reassurances and endearments, and all the time panic-stricken with a terror he couldn't formulate, but that had to do with the amazing fact that his father had not come for him. On deck again, he sped to the side. The little boat was in the water and as his head showed over the rail Mr. Cupples called to him to jump.
"Catch Pickles," he answered, and dropped the dog. "Is father down there? Are you there, dad?"
But it was Leo who answered. "Sure, he ban here in boat. Yump, Nels!"
Oars dashed at the water and the boat headed away.
"He isn't here! You lied to me! Where is he?" he cried.
An arm pulled him back to the seat and Mr. Cupples' voice came to him from the dimness, broken and husky.
"We couldn't find him, Nelson. He must have been forward when the first shot hit us. I think he was—I'm afraid" The mate's voice trailed off into silence. A fourth shot struck the schooner. They could see the brief scarlet glare of the bursting shell and hear the havoc caused by the flying shrapnel. But Nelson neither saw nor heard. He was staring dumbly, agonizedly into the night, while Pickles, clasped close in his arms, whimpered his sympathy.