The Cruise of the Dry Dock/Caradoc Shows His Mettle
Caradoc stands the acid test.
CHAPTER XI
CARADOC SHOWS HIS METTLE
Heat, that grew more terrific as the dock drifted southward; hunger, that gnawed like rats at the empty stomachs of the crew; withering heat, aching hunger, growing despair—that was life on the floating dock.
Of all the crew only Gaskin remained in good condition. It would have required more than a hero to cook food and go hungry, but the crew made no such allowances. They berated the dignified Gaskin, they eyed each other's scant portions jealously. Their quarrels over food at last forced Madden to weigh each man's allowance to the fraction of an ounce.
The nerves of the crew frayed out in the heat. By night they slept amid tantalizing dreams of food; by day they sprawled in dreary silences under awnings which held heat like sweat boxes. The high metal walls of the dock caught the sun's rays and threw out a furnace heat. The men endured it in net undershirts clinging to dripping bodies; their eyes ached against the glare, their stomachs rebelled, their brains sickened with monotony and despair.
The men developed little personal traits that exasperated their mates unreasonably. Mulcher had a way of breathing aloud through his coarse lips that chafed Hogan's temper. For hours at a time the Irishman would stare at those flabby spewing lips, filled with a desire to maul them. Yet before this isolation, he had never observed that Mulcher breathed aloud.
The only occupation the men had now was to stare at, listen to and criticise each other. All painting had ceased, for work consumes energy, and energy consumes food.
Caradoc Smith found peculiar and private grievance in the fact that Greer often whistled to himself in a windy undertone. The tune Farnol chose for these unfortunate performances was an American ragtime, that repeated the same strain over and over.
Caradoc strove not to listen to this dry whistling. Sometimes he left his awning and climbed up the walls through the sapping sun's rays to escape it, but his ears caught the faintly aspirated air at remarkable distances.
One day he said to Madden: “I don't see how you stand that Greer fellow's eternal whistling,” and Leonard answered:
“Does Greer whistle?”
“Whistle! He whistles everlastingly, abominably—one of those confounded American rags. He's at it now—what is that thing?”
Madden had to listen very carefully before he caught the faint blowing between Farnol's lips. Presently he identified it.
“That's ‘Winona, Sweet Indian Maid.’”
This reply seemed to arouse an irrational anger in the Briton.
“'Winona, Sweet Indian Maid'—sweet Indian Maid!” he snorted. “Did an Indian write such a nightmare? Is it a war song? Do they murder each other by it, or with it?”
Madden grinned with fagged appreciation, thinking the remark meant for humor, but Caradoc grimly chewed his blond mustache.
It was noon, three days later when Caradoc's endurance broke down.
“Greer!” he snapped with all his pent-up irritation in his voice, “will you never stop mouthing that beastly tune?”
The stolid fellow looked around in the blankest surprise. “Tune?”
“No, groaning, wheezing! You spew it out all day long! What do you think you are? A tree frog, a locust, a katydid? Doesn't your mouth get tired? Does that hideous tinkle go through your hollow head all day long?”
The Englishman's long face was a dusky red. He had not intended to be insulting when he first spoke, but all the sarcastic and abusive epithets that he had thought during the long super-heated days of nerve-racked listening, now rushed out like steam from a boiler.
Farnol stared straight at the nervous fellow. “Are you insane?” he asked in wondering contempt,
“A wonder I'm not—with that diabolical wheezy spewing boring in my brain—you never stop a minute—over and over——”
“Have you run out of stolen whiskey again?” interrupted Greer with cool malice.
The whole crew came to hushed attention. Caradoc seemed to collect himself with a great effort. The blood ebbed from his face, leaving it the color of clay.
“Stolen?” he asked in a contained voice. “Yes, isn't there another medicine case for you to steal?”
“Greer!” cried Madden reproachfully. The American knew it was hunger, heat and nerves that were nagging these two miserable men to quarrel.
“I believe he said I was no gentleman,” pronounced Greer sarcastically, “because I didn't know a little French. I say he's a thief.”
Caradoc was drawing long breaths through dilated nostrils. “Mr. Greer,” he said with cold evenness, “it is impossible to obtain swords or pistols on this dock. We will have to fight with our hands. Choose a second!”
Greer nodded shortly. Both men got to their feet and both glanced at Madden.
The American shook his head. “I can't serve for either of you. I'm in command here. I'm impartial.”
“Will you oblige me, Mr. Deschaillon?” asked Smith with a set face.
The Gaul arose, saluted, military fashion, with a clicking of heels. “Eet ees an honor, M'sieu!”
Greer stared around dourly. “Hogan?”
The Irishman leaped to his feet joyfully. “Oi'm wid ye, Misther Greer, and we'll bate th' long face off th' spalpeen, though I hate to hit Frinchy Dashalong, who is a good frind o' mine.”
All the men were up now circling about the principals.
“You don't have to do no fightin', 'Ogan,” explained Galton, “you simply stand by and 'old up for your man, an' 'elp fan 'im 'twixt rounds.”
“Rounds!” exclaimed the disgusted Irishman. “I thought they were choosin' sides for a free-for-all.”
Caradoc began methodically stripping to the waist and Greer followed suit. The Englishman presented his watch to Madden with a slight bow.
“If you'll be so kind as to keep time,” he suggested, “that's a neutral position. We fight four minutes and rest one.”
Madden considered the warlike preparations askance. He wondered if he ought not to stop it. The Englishman might suffer another sunstroke. However, he took his station at the ringside, and glanced at the watch, which had a coat of arms carved on the inside of its hunting case.
There was a striking contrast between the two fighters. The Englishman was a beautiful taper from his great shoulders to his small aristocratic feet. His muscles were long, graceful and knitted across his arms, chest, and stomach like lace leather. He was built for swift enduring action and could only have sprung from a race of men who had spent their lives in play and luxury.
Farnol Greer, on the other hand, was as heavily moulded as a bulldog. His arms were short and blocky; his shoulders welted with brawn; his chest was two hairy hills, like a gorilla's, while across his stomach muscles lay ridged like ropes. His waist was thick with pones of sinew bulging over the hips, as one sees in the statue of Discobolus. It was plain that Greer had labored tremendously all his life and that his strength was simply wonderful.
It struck Madden as a strange coincidence that these two extreme types of luxury and labor should meet in this furnace on the Sargasso and fight for the trivial reason that one offended the other's sense of music.
“All ready!” called Leonard.
The two men squared away at each other, Caradoc smiling sarcastically, Greer grim as a gallows. Utter silence fell over the crowd. The fighters crouched, bare fists up, staring at each other over the tips of their guards.
For a moment Smith shifted around his man on his toes. He seemed as light as a cat. Greer stood solid and merely turned on his flat feet. Suddenly Caradoc's long right whipped out with a crack against the shorter man's forehead. Greer made no sign of having received a blow, although a dull red splotch slowly formed on his frontal. Caradoc led another right, which Greer blocked, then the Englishman bored through with a stinging left to the hairy chest.
“Go afther him! Kill him!” cried Hogan to his principal. “Nixt toime he thries to hit ye, knock off his head for his impidence!”
“Aye, 'it 'im! Don't take nothin' off of 'im!” advised two of the cockneys. Sympathy lay with the smaller man.
Smith continued his tiptoe dance and led a straight right. Instantly his massive enemy ducked, leaped in under his guard, and there came the dull thud of in-fighting; Greer's black head jammed up against Caradoc's chin, his great muscular back bent half double, his tremendous arms working like pistons.
The crew howled at this sharp unexpected attack. Caradoc rescued himself by shoving open palms against the big bulging shoulders, and pushing himself away from this battering ram. Smith bumped into some onlookers, and got behind his guard some ten feet away from Greer. The Englishman's fine-grained stomach was covered with pink welts from his punishment. He had ceased smiling and was watching his man carefully. As a matter of fact, he had expected to dispose of Greer easily—as a gentleman disposes of a clod-hopper. But the heavy-set boy's method of fighting was new and effective. Likewise there seemed to be a certain grim system about it.
“First round is over!” called Madden.
“Phwat a shame!” cried Hogan.
With English love of fair fight, the cockneys divided themselves impartially between the battlers and converted themselves into impromptu rubbers and handlers. There was perhaps not a man in the crowd who liked Caradoc; nevertheless they hustled him to his awning, put him down on a box, procured towels, water, sponges from somewhere, and set up a vigorous fanning and rubbing, all out of a desire to see fair play. At the end of a minute they carried their champions back and set them facing each other like human game cocks.
Farnol dashed in at once, whipping right and left hooks to Smith's sides. Caradoc tore himself away and played for distance, stabbing at Farnol's head at long range. The short youth accepted with indifference punishment that cut cheeks and lips. He made rush after rush, driving Caradoc into the crowd, who immediately shifted back and made room. Time and again he landed terrific short arm jolts over heart and kidneys.
The sweating bodies of the fighters glistened in the roasting sunshine. Both were bruised, Smith's body, Greer's head and shoulders. Caradoc's mouth felt slimy and he spit at nothing.
The fighting went in spurts, Greer rushing Land Smith dancing away and stabbing. The two gangs of rubbers bawled encouragement to their men.
“Land on 'is nose there, Smith!” shouted Mulcher. “Don't let 'im to ye! Play away, play away, me boy! Now huppercut 'im! Huppercut 'im, I say!”
On the other side, Galton was shrieking hoarsely, “Bore in, Greer! Bore in, me lad!” and Hogan, “G'wan and mash the spalpeen's ribs! Br-reak his long nick! Cr-rush him! Why don't ye hit him on th' head and lay him out?”
“Time's up!” announced Madden.
During the following rounds, Caradoc stuck to the long range English method of fighting, but over and over Farnol broke through his guard and his short-arm jabs spread a sick numb feeling over Caradoc's sides and chest.
The Briton deliberately worked for Greer's eyes. His first round with the silent man convinced him that he would never be able to stop that massive steel body with a knock-out. On the other hand Greer covered up tightly and lunged like a tiger after Smith's stomach and endurance.
Two or three weeks before, Caradoc could never have withstood that terrific bombardment, but his hard life on the dock, his abstinence from alcohol, and the fact that tobacco had long ago run out, all this had armored his body with hard flesh.
The opening of the twelfth round found both fighters blown, bleeding and filled with a desperate determination to end the contest. They formed a ghastly sight when they were pitted in what proved to be the final clash. Greer's face was chopped and bleeding, while Caradoc's ribs were a mass of bruises, as mottled as a leopard's skin.
To Caradoc, the whole dock seemed unsteady. The sun bored into the back of his head. The men had ceased yelling, and the circle silently swayed back and forth to give the battlers room. The whole scene was hazy and fantastic. The Englishman put up his hands automatically when he faced his enemy, and the next moment black-haired blocky bull of a fellow charged furiously. Smith tried to stop him with a heavy right hand smash, but his fist glanced off the man's sweaty shoulder. The next moment, Greer's right landed in a fierce solid jolt on Smith's hip bone. A sickening pain went through the Englishman. He sagged away and went down on a knee, hunched forward, trying to protect his face with his gloves. Greer Started another rush, when Madden jumped in, put a hand on his shoulder.
“You can't hit him while he's down!” he shouted in the bull's ear, and then the American began counting: “One, two, three…”
Caradoc rested with his broad chest panting convulsively up and down till the count of eight. Then he sprang backwards away from his enemy. Curiously enough, Greer did not press his advantage home. The heavy lad came forward but stood away from Caradoc, attempting nothing but left-hand jabs.
In an instant Smith saw what was the matter. That blow on the hip had ruined Greer's right hand, strained it, perhaps broken it. Greer's rushes had stopped, and Smith, who was a boxer, not a fighter, could stand off and peck at his man's eyes or jaw without danger to himself.
He hitched wearily up to his enemy, blocked Greer's left hand and let his right have a full swing at his exposed body. Farnol went through the motion of striking, but his blow was a mere tap and caused the heavy fellow to cringe with pain.
Caradoc swung a light blow to the neck. Greer countered fiercely with his left, but it was parried easily.
Suddenly the crowd understood what had happened.
“Put 'im out!” “Finish 'im!” “Put 'im to sleep!” bawled a chorus. “He hit you below th' belt w'en 'e broke 'is 'and!”
Farnol continued his chopping one-armed fight. “Put me out! Put me out!” he bubbled furiously. “I said ye was a thief! You are a thief! You're a thief!” and he accented his charges with stabs.
Smith side-stepped the harmless attack, letting it slide first to one side then the other, men were so tired they could hardly keep their feet. The Englishman looked down on the stubborn fellow, with his chopped, bleeding face and blackened, defiant eyes. A hard swing at unprotected jaw would stretch him out in broiling heat, but he did not make the blow. Instead he pushed the frothing fellow away from him.
“Go to your corner and cool off,” he panted. “Yes, I'm a thief. Go on away; I don't want knock you out.”
He turned his back deliberately and walked to his own awning. The crowd stared, absolutely dumfounded by this unexpected turn of affairs. Greer himself stared, then moved forward automatically to continue his onslaught, when Hogan grabbed him.
“Come on back,” cried the Irishman. “Th' scoundrel has lift ye no ixcuse to fight him any more. He says he's a thafe, but I don't belave it. Come git a wash and let's wrap up yer hand.”
At that moment the dignified voice of Gaskin came from the forward pontoon. The crew hushed their hot comments on the fight to listen.
“A sail,” called the cook. “A sail to th' sou'west, sir!”
Instantly every man moved forward. The fight was forgot in the great hope of a rescue. Even the gory looking principals hurried forward to see if such welcome news could be true.