Dutch Courage and Other Stories Page 7

  TO REPEL BOARDERS

  "No; honest, now, Bob, I'm sure I was born too late. The twentiethcentury's no place for me. If I'd had my way----"

  "You'd have been born in the sixteenth," I broke in, laughing, "withDrake and Hawkins and Raleigh and the rest of the sea-kings."

  "You're right!" Paul affirmed. He rolled over upon his back on thelittle after-deck, with a long sigh of dissatisfaction.

  It was a little past midnight, and, with the wind nearly astern, we wererunning down Lower San Francisco Bay to Bay Farm Island. Paul Fairfaxand I went to the same school, lived next door to each other, and"chummed it" together. By saving money, by earning more, and byeach of us foregoing a bicycle on his birthday, we had collectedthe purchase-price of the _Mist_, a beamy twenty-eight-footer,sloop-rigged, with baby topsail and centerboard. Paul's father was ayachtsman himself, and he had conducted the business for us, pokingaround, overhauling, sticking his penknife into the timbers, and testingthe planks with the greatest care. In fact, it was on his schooner,the _Whim_, that Paul and I had picked up what we knew aboutboat-sailing, and now that the _Mist_ was ours, we were hard atwork adding to our knowledge.

  The _Mist_, being broad of beam, was comfortable and roomy.A man could stand upright in the cabin, and what with the stove,cooking-utensils, and bunks, we were good for trips in her of a week ata time. And we were just starting out on the first of such trips, and itwas because it was the first trip that we were sailing by night. Earlyin the evening we had beaten out from Oakland, and we were now off themouth of Alameda Creek, a large salt-water estuary which fills andempties San Leandro Bay.

  "Men lived in those days," Paul said, so suddenly as to startle me frommy own thoughts. "In the days of the sea-kings, I mean," he explained.

  I said "Oh!" sympathetically, and began to whistle "Captain Kidd."

  "Now, I've my ideas about things," Paul went on. "They talk aboutromance and adventure and all that, but I say romance and adventure aredead. We're too civilized. We don't have adventures in the twentiethcentury. We go to the circus----"

  "But----" I strove to interrupt, though he would not listen to me.

  "You look here, Bob," he said. "In all the time you and I've gonetogether what adventures have we had? True, we were out in the hillsonce, and didn't get back till late at night, and we were good andhungry, but we weren't even lost. We knew where we were all the time. Itwas only a case of walk. What I mean is, we've never had to fight forour lives. Understand? We've never had a pistol fired at us, or acannon, or a sword waving over our heads, or--or anything....

  "You'd better slack away three or four feet of that main-sheet," he saidin a hopeless sort of way, as though it did not matter much anyway. "Thewind's still veering around.

  "Why, in the old times the sea was one constant glorious adventure,"he continued. "A boy left school and became a midshipman, and in a fewweeks was cruising after Spanish galleons or locking yard-arms with aFrench privateer, or--doing lots of things."

  "Well--there _are_ adventures today," I objected.

  But Paul went on as though I had not spoken:

  "And today we go from school to high school, and from high school tocollege, and then we go into the office or become doctors and things,and the only adventures we know about are the ones we read in books.Why, just as sure as I'm sitting here on the stern of the sloop_Mist_, just so sure am I that we wouldn't know what to do if areal adventure came along. Now, would we?"

  "Oh, I don't know," I answered non-committally.

  "Well, you wouldn't be a coward, would you?" he demanded.

  I was sure I wouldn't and said so.

  "But you don't have to be a coward to lose your head, do you?"

  I agreed that brave men might get excited.

  "Well, then," Paul summed up, with a note of regret in his voice, "thechances are that we'd spoil the adventure. So it's a shame, and that'sall I can say about it."

  "The adventure hasn't come yet," I answered, not caring to see him downin the mouth over nothing. You see, Paul was a peculiar fellow in somethings, and I knew him pretty well. He read a good deal, and had a quickimagination, and once in a while he'd get into moods like this one. So Isaid, "The adventure hasn't come yet, so there's no use worrying aboutits being spoiled. For all we know, it might turn out splendidly."

  Paul didn't say anything for some time, and I was thinking he was out ofthe mood, when he spoke up suddenly:

  "Just imagine, Bob Kellogg, as we're sailing along now, just as we are,and never mind what for, that a boat should bear down upon us with armedmen in it, what would you do to repel boarders? Think you could rise toit?"

  "What would _you_ do?" I asked pointedly. "Remember, we haven'teven a single shotgun aboard."

  "You would surrender, then?" he demanded angrily. "But suppose they weregoing to kill you?"

  "I'm not saying what I'd do," I answered stiffly, beginning to get alittle angry myself. "I'm asking what you'd do, without weapons of anysort?"

  "I'd find something," he replied--rather shortly, I thought.

  I began to chuckle. "Then the adventure wouldn't be spoiled, would it?And you've been talking rubbish."

  Paul struck a match, looked at his watch, and remarked that it wasnearly one o'clock--a way he had when the argument went against him.Besides, this was the nearest we ever came to quarreling now, thoughour share of squabbles had fallen to us in the earlier days of ourfriendship. I had just seen a little white light ahead when Paulspoke again.

  "Anchor-light," he said. "Funny place for people to drop the hook. Itmay be a scow-schooner with a dinky astern, so you'd better go wide."

  I eased the _Mist_ several points, and, the wind puffing up, wewent plowing along at a pretty fair speed, passing the light so widethat we could not make out what manner of craft it marked. Suddenly the_Mist_ slacked up in a slow and easy way, as though running uponsoft mud. We were both startled. The wind was blowing stronger thanever, and yet we were almost at a standstill.

  "Mud-flat out here? Never heard of such a thing!"

  So Paul exclaimed with a snort of unbelief, and, seizing an oar, shovedit down over the side. And straight down it went till the water wethis hand. There was no bottom! Then we were dumbfounded. The wind waswhistling by, and still the _Mist_ was moving ahead at a snail'space. There seemed something dead about her, and it was all I could doat the tiller to keep her from swinging up into the wind.

  "Listen!" I laid my hand on Paul's arm. We could hear the sound ofrowlocks, and saw the little white light bobbing up and down and nowvery close to us. "There's your armed boat," I whispered in fun."Beat the crew to quarters and stand by to repel boarders!"

  We both laughed, and were still laughing when a wild scream of rage cameout of the darkness, and the approaching boat shot under our stern.By the light of the lantern it carried we could see the two men in itdistinctly. They were foreign-looking fellows with sun-bronzed faces,and with knitted tam-o'-shanters perched seaman fashion on their heads.Bright-colored woolen sashes were around their waists, and longsea-boots covered their legs. I remember yet the cold chill which passedalong my backbone as I noted the tiny gold ear-rings in the ears of one.For all the world they were like pirates stepped out of the pages ofromance. And, to make the picture complete, their faces were distortedwith anger, and each flourished a long knife. They were both shouting,in high-pitched voices, some foreign jargon we could not understand.

  One of them, the smaller of the two, and if anything the morevicious-looking, put his hands on the rail of the _Mist_ andstarted to come aboard. Quick as a flash Paul placed the end of the oaragainst the man's chest and shoved him back into his boat. He fell in aheap, but scrambled to his feet, waving the knife and shrieking:

  "You break-a my net-a! You break-a my net-a!"

  And he held forth in the jargon again, his companion joining him, andboth preparing to make another dash to come aboard the _Mist_.

  "They're Italian fishermen," I cried, the facts of the case breaking inupo
n me. "We've run over their smelt-net, and it's slipped along thekeel and fouled our rudder. We're anchored to it."

  "Yes, and they're murderous chaps, too," Paul said, sparring at themwith the oar to make them keep their distance.

  "Say, you fellows!" he called to them. "Give us a chance and we'll getit clear for you! We didn't know your net was there. We didn't mean todo it, you know!"

  "You won't lose anything!" I added. "We'll pay the damages!"

  But they could not understand what we were saying, or did not care tounderstand.

  "You break-a my net-a! You break-a my net-a!" the smaller man, the onewith the earrings, screamed back, making furious gestures. "I fix-a you!You-a see, I fix-a you!"

  This time, when Paul thrust him back, he seized the oar in his hands,and his companion jumped aboard. I put my back against the tiller, andno sooner had he landed, and before he had caught his balance, than Imet him with another oar, and he fell heavily backward into the boat. Itwas getting serious, and when he arose and caught my oar, and I realizedhis strength, I confess that I felt a goodly tinge of fear. But thoughhe was stronger than I, instead of dragging me overboard when hewrenched on the oar, he merely pulled his boat in closer; and whenI shoved, the boat was forced away. Besides, the knife, still in hisright hand, made him awkward and somewhat counterbalanced the advantagehis superior strength gave him. Paul and his enemy were in the samesituation--a sort of deadlock, which continued for several seconds, butwhich could not last. Several times I shouted that we would pay forwhatever damage their net had suffered, but my words seemed to bewithout effect.

  Then my man began to tuck the oar under his arm, and to come up alongit, slowly, hand over hand. The small man did the same with Paul. Momentby moment they came closer, and closer, and we knew that the end wasonly a question of time.

  "Hard up, Bob!" Paul called softly to me.

  I gave him a quick glance, and caught an instant's glimpse of what Itook to be a very pale face and a very set jaw.

  "Oh, Bob," he pleaded, "hard up your helm! Hard up your helm, Bob!"

  And his meaning dawned upon me. Still holding to my end of the oar, Ishoved the tiller over with my back, and even bent my body to keep itover. As it was the _Mist_ was nearly dead before the wind, andthis maneuver was bound to force her to jibe her mainsail from one sideto the other. I could tell by the "feel" when the wind spilled out ofthe canvas and the boom tilted up. Paul's man had now gained a footingon the little deck, and my man was just scrambling up.

  "Look out!" I shouted to Paul. "Here she comes!"

  Both he and I let go the oars and tumbled into the cockpit. The nextinstant the big boom and the heavy blocks swept over our heads, themain-sheet whipping past like a great coiling snake and the _Mist_heeling over with a violent jar. Both men had jumped for it, but in someway the little man either got his knife-hand jammed or fell upon it, forthe first sight we caught of him, he was standing in his boat, hisbleeding fingers clasped close between his knees and his face alltwisted with pain and helpless rage.

  "Now's our chance!" Paul whispered. "Over with you!"

  And on either side of the rudder we lowered ourselves into the water,pressing the net down with our feet, till, with a jerk, it went clear,Then it was up and in, Paul at the main-sheet and I at the tiller, the_Mist_ plunging ahead with freedom in her motion, and the littlewhite light astern growing small and smaller.

  "Now that you've had your adventure, do you feel any better?" I rememberasking when we had changed our clothes and were sitting dry andcomfortable again in the cockpit.

  "Well, if I don't have the nightmare for a week to come"--Paul pausedand puckered his brows in judicial fashion--"it will be because I can'tsleep, that's one thing sure!"