“Make a trial hole first,” suggested the doctor. “Try boring through the bulkhead.”
“What with?”
“This,” replied his companion. “Feel for it. It’s an auger. It’s sharp.”
“Good business!”
Raxworthy didn’t waste words by asking how the doctor had come by it.
“There’s a tool chest,” volunteered the latter, by way of explanation. “When we turned turtle it nearly smashed my leg. If only we had a light.”
They hadn’t, so perforce had to work in the dark, and the midshipman had only a vague idea of the lay-out of the junk.
He set to work with the auger, boring through the bulkhead at a point a few inches from which was the deck, now the roof of their prison.
The woodwork was of teak, as sound as a bell. In about five minutes the auger was through. Gingerly Raxworthy withdrew it. To his unbounded relief no gush of water followed.
“Keep clear!” he cautioned. “I’m going to swing the axe!”
Klip, klop; klip, klop!
The midshipman knew how to use an axe. It was one of the many useful things he had been made to learn in the workshops at Dartmouth. Even in the darkness he struck hard and true, bringing each stroke of the blade obliquely to the preceding one. Splinters flew, and the hitherto noxious air now reeked of the oily and pleasant scent of freshly cut teak.
“Through!” he exclaimed, breathless but triumphant.
A gleam of pale green light streamed through the jagged gap.
Looking through the aperture Raxworthy saw a strange sight. It was akin to being in a cave and looking towards the entrance, with water instead of solid rock for a floor.
Actually the roof consisted of about twenty feet of deck that terminated in a jumble of rent and riven planks. Between this edge and the level of the water was a height of from two to four feet—it was constantly varying as the wreckage rose and fell on the long sullen swell of the sea.
Owing to the dip of the wreckage the depth of water nearest the bulkhead was only a few inches, but increased for’ard until it was over six feet.
“We’ve ample margin,” declared the midshipman, preparing to renew the attack.
“Let me give you a spell,” suggested his companion.
“Can you?”
The doctor laughed—the first time he had laughed since the capture of the Ah-Foo. It was a good sign, anyway.
“I spent two years in a lumber camp,” he explained. “My muscles may be a bit flabby, but I’ll make a show, I think.”
He did; using the axe with his uninjured arm in a workmanlike manner, until by the time Raxworthy called “spell-ho!” the hole had been enlarged almost sufficiently for them to squeeze through.
Then Raxworthy resumed the task and in a few minutes more the way to escape lay open; but would escape mean freedom?
“A wetting for each of us, it seems,” remarked his companion.
“If that’s all it means I’m not grousing,” replied the midshipman. “Will you lead on?”
The doctor squeezed through the gap and dropped into the water. A few strokes and his feet touched the underside of the deck. There he had to duck to avoid hitting his head, for there was only a mean distance of six inches between the water level and the extremities of the jagged, blackened planks.
“All O.K.!” he shouted.
“Right! I’ll be with you,” rejoined Raxworthy.
They clambered upon the curved, teredobored planks until they were astride the keel. It was the highest point of vantage. Seaward there was nothing in sight, but the land looked too near to be pleasant. It was perhaps four miles away, and in all probability inhabited by Chinese depending chiefly upon piracy.
Now that they were free, for the time being at least, the pangs of thirst and hunger assailed them. Raxworthy would cheerfully have eaten of the mess of fish and rice similar to the dish of which he had partaken so reluctantly on the previous day. Quite likely there were provisions and water stowed under the poop; but these were almost as remote as the poles, as far as the two survivors were concerned, since the poop was ten or fifteen feet under water.
The fragment of the junk, which somewhat resembled the roof of a house that had been tilted, showed no sign of sinking. There was precious little freeboard—about nine feet from the water’s edge to the heel of the keel. It was a precarious refuge even in calm weather. Should the breeze pipe up and a sea develop, the two men would stand very little chance. And if sleep overcame them, what then? It was only by holding on to the wide keel that they were able to prevent themselves from slipping into the shark-infested sea.
It was now high noon and the sun’s rays were oppressively powerful. The hitherto saturated planking emitted clouds of vapour, the noxious fumes of which added to the survivors’ distress. Overhead, large sea-birds wheeled and soared as if waiting until their intended prey was in no condition to resist the vicious pecks of those formidable beaks.
The doctor’s arm was giving trouble. The wound had reopened and was bleeding freely. He made light of it, however; but Raxworthy noticed that he was looking pretty ghastly.
“You’d better have a caulk, Doc,” he suggested.
“Young man, you’re as much in want of sleep as I am.”
The midshipman caught sight of a rope trailing overboard. It gave him an idea.
“Look here,” he declared. “We’ll get hold of that rope and bend it round our waists. There’s nowhere else we can make fast to. Then you get one side of the keel and have a doss, and I’ll do the same on the other side.”
Clambering down the jagged planking, the midshipman secured the rope. Most of it was sound, although one end had been charred by the explosion. Deftly he made a couple of bowlines at a distance of three or four feet apart, and the two survivors took up their positions as Raxworthy had suggested.
Although they were reclining on a slope, the intervening keel prevented them from slipping and soon they were dozing in spite of the heat.
Some time later, Raxworthy opened his eyes and sat up. Everything seemed to have taken a reddish hue, but through the blur he thought he saw smoke some distance away.
The mist cleared before his eyes and he realized that he had not been mistaken. Coming towards the wreckage was a destroyer.
“Wake up, Doc!” exclaimed the midshipman. “We’re saved!”
“Sure?” asked his companion, rubbing his eyes; for he, too, was suffering from blurred vision, caused by the terrific glare.
“Sure.”
They waited in silence.
The oncoming vessel was travelling at high speed, and throwing up a huge bow wave. Then, when within a cable’s length, she reversed engines and lost way. A boat was lowered and brought alongside the remains of the junk.
A sub-lieutenant in the stern sheets shouted to the two survivors to jump for it.
Raxworthy was able to do so, but his companion was not. He had fainted through exhaustion and loss of blood.
The midshipman recognized the young officer in the boat.
“Hello, Cartwright!”
“Who in the name of fortune are you?” demanded the sub, staring at the ragged, sun-baked youth who had addressed him. “Why, it’s young Raxworthy!”
“What’s left of him. Bear a hand to get the doctor into the boat. He’s from the Ah-Foo.”
Two bluejackets scrambled upon the side of the wreckage. By means of the rope the unconscious man was lowered into the boat, and then, without assistance, the midshipman followed.
But when he gained the stern-sheets he promptly collapsed. He’d gone beyond the limit of human endurance.
An hour later Raxworthy recovered consciousness. He was safe on board the destroyer Buster, and lying on one of her officers’ bunks.