CHAPTER V

STORM AND STRESS

Out into the sparkling waters of the Gulf of Mexico the sturdy cruiser, _Porto Bello_, ploughed her way. Laying her course in a quartering slant, partly South and partly East, Bill Sanders, who was agreed by all to be in command, shaped up a plan to round the nose of Yucatan, passing between it and the more Eastward island of Cuba.

There they turned South, and giving the reefy, island studded coast of Yucatan a wide berth because of the jagged rocky formation and the heavy surf close to shore, they forged steadily ahead. Their boat was not fast, but she was steady in heavy seas and had a good reserve of power in her heavy motor.

Henry Morgan knew the coast line very well, and Bill often consulted his judgment. They did not try to make landings or lie-to during the nights, preferring to hold on their course, well out in deep water, for every one on board was anxious to get to the coast of Honduras as quickly as possible. Tom and Nicky supplemented the work of Bill and of Henry as deckhands and sailors, watching and keeping everything clean and ship-shape. Cliff, who had a good deal of mechanical ability, soon made himself indispensable to Joe Anderson, the engineer, who was a quiet, rather moody Scotchman. The boys, without any intention of disrespect, promptly named him “Andy.” He accepted the new name without comment and, commandeering Cliff’s services in the engine room, soon had as clever an assistant as he could desire, although he gave few signs of his inward appreciation. Mr. Gray spent most of his time arranging the numerous glass beads and other tawdry, cheap ornaments and fancy trifles which would be very dear to the untutored Indians and would serve as trade items and presents to the chiefs of various tribes. The youths made a gay jaunt of their trip.

There was only one thing that clouded their delight: that was the misconduct of Henry Morgan.

“I don’t like the way Henry does, very much,” Tom confided to his two chums, as they rubbed up the brass work in the small wheelhouse, while Tom held the wheel, giving and taking a spoke or two as the little vessel felt the heavy surge of the Caribbean swells, rolling in great, lifting pulsations from the East, and heeled under the strong thrust of the trade wind. “Almost as soon as we left port I caught him with a bottle——”

“I know,” broke in Nicky. “He told me it was a ‘Mexican Tonic’ to keep him from being seasick.”

“But we know better,” Cliff spoke the thought in all three minds.

“Listen to him, now,” Tom said, disgustedly.

From the after deck came a strident, but husky roar:

“For, I’m a buccaneer, oh, A rowdy-dowdy Buccaneer. I cuts ’em down and I shoots ’em down ’Cause why?—I’m a buc—ca—nee-e-e-e-e-r!”

“Buccaneer, my hat!” said Tom, “Bill,” to their clean-living, high-principled friend as he sauntered to the doorway of the steering room, “Why don’t you throw Hen’s ‘Mexican Tonic’ overboard?”

“I can’t find it,” Bill said, “or I would, in a minute. We’re getting into Caribbean waters and it won’t be long before we are in among the tricky rocks. We have to steer down through the Gulf of Honduras and pick up the reefs outside the Rio Patuca, and that is no place to be ‘half-seas-over,’ let me tell you. Henry knows the course and he can navigate pretty well when he’s ‘straight’ but I don’t like him in his present condition——”

“——A rowdy-dowdy Buccane-e-e-e-er!” sang Henry.

“He’s a rowdy in his actions, and, goodness knows! he’s dowdy enough in his clothes and habits,” said Tom. “Nicky, why did you ever let him look at that book about pirates? He thinks he’s one.”

“I thought he would be interested, having a name the same as one of the most notorious pirates,” Nicky replied. “It isn’t the book that’s to blame, it’s the ‘Tonic.’”

“I’m going down in the cabin and have another good look,” Tom said, letting Bill take over the wheel, and indicating the course as Henry had last given it to him. “Cliff’s father is very nervous about Henry but he says not to argue with him, but to make the best of it.”

He did not find anything: Henry, whatever his failings, was of a cunning nature when it came to his own desires and he seemed to know of places on the boat that the chums could never think of. As Tom searched, he felt the boat rising and falling more violently, and lurching in a half-roll, half-plunge that was not very pleasant. The cabin was stuffy and close, and he opened the portholes, wrinkling his nose at the unpleasant odor in the small space; but a dash of salt spray flung itself in his face and hastily he closed the small brass-bound port glasses and fastened them securely, then went on deck, clinging to the companion rail to avoid being thrown down.

“She’s blowing up for a storm,” said Henry, clinging to the port rail as Tom came into view, and lurching wildly. “We’re due for a storm, my hearty! Oh—I’m a buc—buc——”

“You’d better stop being a ‘buc’ and get up to the wheel house,” Tom said snappishly. “Maybe the course ought to be changed.”

“What do I care?” Henry cried with a hoarse, choking guffaw. “Many’s the pirate has piled up on the rocks. ’Cause—— ’Cause Why? I’m a rowdy-dowdy buc—ca——”

Just then a comber, its green crest froth-flecked, reared its great top on their starboard quarter. “Look out!” yelled Tom. “Grab something!” for Henry was starting in a lurching gait toward the enclosed cabin companionway.

Tom, himself, caught a stanchion and clung, holding his breath. The _Porto Bello_ lurched and staggered under the impact of a huge wave, and there came a gurgling yell, cut short, the surge of powerfully dragging water rushing at Tom.

Before it struck, almost burying him, tugging at his arms, he saw Henry meet the wave, spinning around in a mad, fruitless effort to clutch at the cabin coaming.

Down went Henry, and along the deck he was washed by the wave. Tom, at the risk of being himself torn loose and washed away, released one hand. He made a swift, reaching grab. His fingers caught Henry’s coat, in the surging inferno of water that swung along the deck. It seemed as though his arm would be torn from its socket: his face was stung and flailed by spume and great gouts of hard-flung water.

He braced and clung as the washing water swung Henry along: the check of his clutch slowed Henry’s body and Tom’s arms ached with the pull. He dared not let go until the wave should pass. Henry, caught off his guard, and with his brain befuddled, was helpless.

Came the thud of the companion door as Mr. Gray slammed it shut in bare time to prevent the cabin from being inundated.

From the wheelhouse door, now beyond the higher wash of the receding water, Bill leaped, with Cliff at his heels, Nicky clinging madly to the spokes of the wheel and fighting to hold the cruiser on her way, nose to wind and wave.

Gripping every foot and hand hold, Bill and Cliff fought through the swirl of water, while Tom clung grimly. The water receded and Henry was dumped, inert and gasping, onto the deck just as the hold Tom had was broken by the strain. Swiftly Bill grasped Henry’s shoulder and began to drag him toward the cabin companionway, while Cliff caught Tom and steadied him.

Another huge wave was rearing its white curl to the quarter. In the wheelhouse Nicky, a little frightened at his responsibility, and yet manfully rising to the occasion, knew that the boat must not be allowed to pay off so that she would catch the waves on her side—she would be rolled over, and over. He bore with his whole weight on the spokes, holding the rudder hard over as the valiant craft struggled against the rush of waters and the roar of the swiftly rising wind.

With Cliff aiding him, while Bill dragged at the gasping Henry, Tom got to the cabin. His father opened the door, and all three grasped Henry and fairly flung him in through the door and down the several steps. Then in they plunged, and just in time to close the door before the tumult of water was over the decks again.

The brave little vessel shuddered and groaned under the water, and Nicky said a little prayer for strength to hold the wheel against his enemies of wave and rushing air. Tom sputtered and got rid of some water he had taken in, while Henry, sitting up, gulping and choking, began to thank him.

“You saved my—” he began.

Totally unconscious that he was taking the command, or that his words rang with the authority of anger and just censure, Tom cried, “Never mind. Get yourself together and get to that wheel. Nicky’s alone there. Joe’s calling. Cliff, go help Joe. Bill, you drag this Henry up to that wheel and stand over him. Cliff’s father is battening down the ports. We’re all safe inside, but we don’t know what’s going to happen. Get going, you Henry!”

As if every one of them recognized the voice of command, Bill caught Henry’s collar and almost yanked him to his feet. Henry, sobered and now beginning to recover himself, and with the just rebuke and the evident menace of their position clearing his mind, obediently staggered along with Bill, while Cliff raced past them on the other side of the churning, coughing engine, to help Joe.

“What will you do, Tom?” asked Mr. Gray, thrusting home a heavy steel bar across the companion door, although, being aft, it was not subjected to the crushing force of the waves.

“I’ll find that Henry Morgan’s ‘tonic,’ if it’s my last act!” cried Tom and began flinging things out of the lazarette, or storage cubby in the floor, where their food was kept.

He had no success there, but he began on the bunks lining the sides of the long, low, narrow cabin, at whose forward end was the wheel, with the engines just a little aft of amidships.

Still the storm, sudden and furious, mounted in ferocity. The vessel plunged and reared, rolled and twisted; her timbers creaked and her decks echoed to the roar and thunder of waves. Cliff and “Andy” stuck, one on either side of the motor, oiling, wiping, Andy watching the gasoline pressure glass, and the oil flow, Cliff jumping, clinging to the bunks, to bring a rag, or to steady Andy while he made an adjustment of the carbureter to compensate for the slight and occasional “miss” in one cylinder.

Forward, Bill, Nicky and Henry clung to the wheel, all swinging together at Henry’s order, or releasing a spoke or two to pay off for more way between the great, onrushing combers.

“Are we close in, yet?” gasped Nicky, half out of breath.

“No,” said Henry, between his teeth. “I’m going to swing her around if I can get steerage way in some minute when it’s quieter—we’d better run before it—but I das’sent try now—’cause why? She’d roll like a barrel and maybe dive under!”

“A drop of oil on that propeller shaft bearing,” shouted Andy to Cliff.

“Right!” cried Cliff, above the thud of water and the groan of the timbers and the thrashing pulsation of the propeller, racing as it was lifted from the surging water. “Ease her when she races, Andy,” but he knew that Andy did so before his young aide spoke.

“If we could get a chance to swing her around,” choked out Henry, a thoroughly sober and frightened man.

“Hold her as she is,” Nicky urged. “It’s too wild to turn here!”

“I’ve found it!” exulted Tom, rising from an old airtight waste can, bolted down aft of the engine; it had been filled with oily waste and old wiping rags, and he had found, at the bottom, the bottles Henry had concealed there. “Mr. Gray—don’t say a word. I’ll put them back until this storm blows by and then I’ll break them on the rocks when we get in to shore.”

With the suddenness which characterizes tropical storms of certain sorts, less than hurricanes, the wind began to drop, and soon to fall to the steady trade wind velocity, while the clouds broke, the rain squalls ceased, blue sky appeared, and only the lifting heave of the turbulent Caribbean remained of the time of stress. They all breathed a sigh of relief; but the respite was brief.

“We’re closer in than I thought!” shouted Henry, at the wheel. “Quick, somebody, get forward with the lead. Half-speed, Andy! We may be close on a reef!”

Tom flung aside the brace of the after door, and with Nicky at his side, leaped on deck while Mr. Gray closed the door. Bill was already out of the side door to port, while Andy and Cliff stood by their engine.

“Reverse—back water!” cried Henry. “We’ve got to fight her off the shore and stand off and on until we can see what we’re doing.”

At the same minute came an agonized cry from Tom.

“Port—port—hard a-port! Rocks dead ahead!”

Henry flung his weight on the small wheel. Over it swung.

Before their bow, disclosed by an onrushing comber which had obscured them, great black fangs of rock held their bared teeth in readiness to crunch joyously, grimly, as the _Porto Bello_ staggered and strove to claw around!