CHAPTER VI
MAN OVERBOARD!
POINT CONCEPTION lay astern and the Santa Barbara Islands on the starboard beam when, for the second time since leaving San Francisco, night overtook the freighter Araby. In the heavy seas, the steamer's eleven knots an hour had become only nine.
Tod lay in his bunk, his tired eyes closed. Although the violent nausea of the day before had left him, he had not yet gained his sea legs. It had been a fatiguing day for him, for he had gone doggedly through his work without a murmur. Eight bells had just rung; he was free now until ten o'clock, when it was his nightly duty to take hot coffee and sandwiches to the officers in the cabin aft.
The forecastle was rank with tobacco smoke. Regardless of the clamour and fury of the wind without, the men in their watch below talked in fitful spasms from their tiers of bunks, or read paper-covered books by the light of two electric bulbs which were fastened in the deck head above table and doorway. Directly below Tod, Red Mitchell, a small young coal passer of uncertain age and antecedents, who bunked in the firemen's forecastle, was conversing in low tones with Swede Jorgenson across the way.
"I tell you I don't like this ship," Red complained. "For one thing, she's too old; she ain't safe. She's rotten. She ought to be tied up at Benicia. And for another, the Old Man's no good. Ain't I right, now?"
Swede Jorgenson nodded slowly.
"But it ain't only the skipper," went on the querulous voice of the visitor; "it's the whole cabin aft. If you asks me—why, they're all three sheets in the wind. 'Specially that bucko mate—that bully Hawkes. Ain't I right, now?"
Jorgenson, in the act of pulling off a soiled singlet over his head and donning another, grunted an agreement.
"This outfit's a cheap un—ain't even got a steward. And the grub's no good, either. Gotter match, Swede? Yeh, what'll they give us to eat after we hit Panama? Wormy biscuits and maggots in the prunes. Oh, I know. I've been on these tramps before, blast 'em. Hanged if I know why I signed on this one."
"Yah—but she ain'd so bad," commented Jorgenson, as he rolled into his bunk. He spoke slowly, resting between his words, as if his brain were not equal to the size of his huge body. "She might sink—yah?"
"Sure she might. And burn, too. Yuh orta see the rotten dust in the bunkers they call coal. Just th' kind t' smoke 'n' blow up."
"Do you think there's a Jonah on her?" Jorgenson whispered.
Red Mitchell lowered his voice. "Mebbe there is, and mebbe there ain't. I'm wondering, that's all. Now that cook—he's a funny one. What's he up to on this old tub? He ain't a real cook. Ain't I right, now?"
Swede Jorgenson sighed as if too much thought might bring on a headache. "Yah," he grunted, pulled his light-curtain, and began to snore softly.
Tod turned in his bunk, listening to the talk of the men above the muffled roar of the crashing seas without. What a night! He'd have to watch his step when he took the coffee to the officers' saloon.
At nine-thirty he slipped on his shoes and made his way to deck. The night was alive with the shrieks of the gale. Low in the east a single star rushed up as the ship plunged. Across a slanting deck the boy lurched. The icy wind flung him down the alleyway to the galley door. Once within, the warmth soothed him. He stirred the fire in the range, put the coffee on to boil, and began cutting thin slices of bread and cheese.
Abruptly, he became aware that voices were coming in loud tones from the cook's cabin across the alleyway. Some deck hand, probably, conversing with the Tattooed Man. Then, in a lull in the wind, a name struck him into attention. The Panama.
He waited, athrob with hope. The voice was now unmistakable. It was that of the mate, Mr. Hawkes. Tod caught his words:
"The Panama put in . . . Bordeaux. . . .
He got wise, I tell yeh. . . . You're a fool. . . . Now, listen." The mate's voice was lost as the wind whined down the alleyway.
What did it mean? The Panama put in at Bordeaux. Mr. Swickard had admitted that Neil had left at that port. Who had "got wise"? Were the two men discussing his brother? Did they know the truth of what lay back of Neil's sudden departure from the ship? Tod smiled grimly. If they did, he, Tod Moran, would find out. The veil of untruth which shrouded the dealings of the European-Pacific Steamship Company must be torn aside. Yes, even though the way was blocked by such forbidding figures as Mr. Hawkes and the Tattooed Man.
Tod could now hear only a sibilant murmur behind the door of the cook's cabin. He grasped the swinging handle of the coffee-pot and felt his way through the stinging blackness to the cabin aft.
Across the green baize of the table the commander of the Araby faced the chief engineer. The Scotchman was dealing cards for a game of coon-can. "Well, lad," he greeted Tod, "I was just thinkin' I'd no' be sorry fur a hot gless." His pink face dropped into a frown as a plunge of the ship's bows sent the screw racing furiously beneath them.
Captain Ramsey nodded over his cards. "Thick weather, to-night," he muttered. "Boy, you'd better take a hot cup up to Mr. Burton on the bridge. He'll need it."
"Yes, sir," Tod answered.
The bridge! Athrill with joy, he returned to the galley. For two days he had glimpsed the officers pacing the Olympian heights of the bridge, that shrine upon which no seaman dared venture. Now he, the mess boy, was ordered above. He rattled the stove lid merrily; he began to whistle a tune.
The song died on his lips, however, as the impression seized him that someone had entered the room. He whirled. Mr. Hawkes stood close beside him.
Beneath lowered lids, the first mate regarded him steadily. "What 'er you doin' here?" he boomed. "Why ain't the little boy in bed yet? Was you listen-in' to us—yeh?"
Tod flushed. "No, sir," he replied. "Captain Ramsey ordered me to take coffee to Mr. Burton on the bridge."
The mate turned with a laugh to the Tattooed Man, who stood in his cabin doorway. "Look, cooky, he's laming. See how he answers? Yeah, we'll larn him, cooky—you and me."
The cook grinned broadly. His strange Tartar eyes gleamed above his broad cheek bones. "Oh, Joe Macaroni ain't so bad," he chuckled, as he crossed to the galley. "I've seen 'em worse."
"Look here, cooky," pursued the mate. "You don't make him work enough. Why don't he clean the place of these cockroaches?"
"Are you trying to insult me, Mr. Hawkes?" grinned the cook. "Do you mean to say that there's a single roach in this here galley?"
"I do, Mr. Jarvis. I do."
"Then we'll have the kid get rid of them." He turned to Tod and the smile left his face. "Kid, clean up this place—and don't ever let me see another cockroach here. Understand?"
Tod stared. Were the men drunk? Were they making sport of him? "But how can I?" he blurted. "It isn't only the galley. The whole ship is—"
"What!" roared the mate. "Talk back to your boss, do you? Do you allow that, cooky?"
"Gut me, if I do!" The Tattooed Man's face became grim and hard. "Come here, kid."
Nonplussed, Tod approached him. Under Mr. Hawkes's watchful gaze the cook waited until the boy stood within arm's length. Tod saw that his shirt lay open upon his deep chest, that his breath came quickly as he drew his arm back for a blow. Hate, blind hate burned in his eyes. "Yeh think I can't even boss a mess boy?" he hissed. "Well, I'll show yeh. I've knocked men down in my day—men, you understand?"
For the length of a dozen heartbeats, Tod stood waiting for the blow. He was not surprised. No, he told himself, he would not be surprised at anything that happened upon this ship. Why was the Tattooed Man waiting? Why didn't he strike?