Chapter 15

"M-m--but aren't you in love with your old employer? But let's not mind common money matters. What do you think of the Johnnie Duncan for a vessel?"

"She's a dog--a dog."

"Isn't she! And the fastest, able-est and the handsomest vessel that ever sailed past Eastern Point, isn't she?"

"That's what she is."

"And who designed her?"

"Who? Let me see. Oh, yes, some local man."

"You don't know! Look up here. Who designed her!"

"Oh, yes. 'Twas a Gloucester man."

"A Gloucester man? Look up again. Now--who--de--signed--the--John--nie--Dun--can!"

"Ouch, yes. A ver-y fine and a-ble--and handsome gen-tle-man--a wonderful man."

"That's a little better. And his name?"

"William Somers--William the Illustrious--William the First--'First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of Gloucestermen'--and if you let me stand up, I'll do a break-down to show you how glad I am."

"Now you're showing something like appreciation. And now where do you suppose your friend Clancy is and your skipper?"

"Clancy? Lord knows. Maybe in a circle of admiring friends, singing whatever is his latest. 'Hove flat down' was the last I heard. If it was earlier in the day--about three in the morning--it would be pretty sure to be that."

"What a pity, and he such a fine man otherwise!"

"What's a pity?"

"Why, his getting drunk, as I hear he does very often."

"Gets drunk? Who gets drunk? Clancy? That's news to me. As long as I've known him I never saw him drunk yet. He gets mellow and loose--but drunk! Clancy drunk? Why, Nell!"

"Oh, well, all right, he's an apostle of temperance then. But Captain Blake--where is he?"

"I couldn't say--why?"

"I have a message for him."

"Did you try his boarding-house?"

"Yes. That is, Will did, and he wasn't there, hadn't been there at all, they said, since the afternoon before."

"That so? Where else did you try? Duncan's office?"

"We did, and no word of him there."

"Try Clancy's boarding-house?"

"Yes, and no word."

"Try--h-m--the Anchorage?"

"Oh, Joe, you don't think he's been loafing there since?"

"No, I don't. And yet after the way he got turned down yesterday, you know--there's no telling what a man might do."

"Well, Will looked in there, too."

"You fat little fox! Why didn't you say that at first? And no word?"

"No."

"Well, I don't know where he'd be then."

"Nor I, except--did you notice the wind has hauled to the northwest?"

"I did."

"Well. Do you know that old vessel that Mr. Withrow's been trying to get a crew for--the Flamingo?"

"M-h-h."

"Well, this morning early she went out--on a hand-lining trip to the east'ard, it is said. And Will says that he thinks--he doesn't know, mind you, because they won't tell him anything down to Withrow's--but he thinks that Maurice Blake's shipped in her."

"Wow! She won't last out one good breeze on the Banks."

"That is just what Will said. And it's too bad, for I had a message for him--a message that would make everything all right. I suppose you can guess?"

"Guess? H-m-m--I don't know as I want to."

"Well, don't get mad about it, anyway. How would you feel if you saw that horrid Minnie Arkell rush up and--Oh, you know what I mean. However, I've been pleading with Alice since yesterday afternoon. For two hours I was up in her room last evening, and poor Will walking the veranda down below. I put Captain Blake's case as I thought a friend of his would put it--as you would put it, say--perhaps better in some ways--for I could not forget that he sailed the Johnnie Duncan yesterday, and her winning meant so much to Will. Yes, and I'm not forgetting Clancy and the rest of her crew--indeed, I'm not--I felt as though I could kiss every one of them."

"Well, here's one of them."

"Don't get saucy because your mother is standing by. Go and find Maurice Blake. Go ahead, won't you, Joe? Tell him that everything is all right. She is proud."

"That's a nice sounding word for it--pride. Stuck on herself is what I'd say."

"No, she isn't. You must allow a woman self-respect, you know."

"I guess so. And it must be her long suit, seeing she's always leading from it."

"Oh, keep your fishermen's jokes for the mugging-up times on your vessel. You go and get Maurice Blake--or find Mr. Clancy and have him get him--if he hasn't gone on the Flamingo."

So I went out. On a cruise along the water front I found a whole lot of people. I saw Wesley Marrs and Tommie Ohlsen--sorrowful and neither saying much--looking after their vessels--Ohlsen seeing to a new gaff. "I ought to've lost," said Ohlsen. "Look at that for a rotten piece of wood." Sam Hollis was around, too, trying to explain how it was he didn't win the race. But he couldn't explain to anybody's satisfaction how his stays'l went nor why he hove-to when that squall struck him--the same squall that shot the Johnnie Duncan across the line. Tom O'Donnell was there, looking down on the deck of the vessel in which he took so much pride. "Two holes in her deck where her spars ought to be," he was saying when I came along. I asked him if he had seen Maurice that morning, and it was from him I learned for certain that Maurice had shipped on the Flamingo. "I didn't see her leaving, boy, but Withrow himself told me this morning. 'And I hope he'll never come back,' he said at the same time. ''Tis you that takes a licking hard. But maybe 'tis the insurance,' I says. 'If that's what you're thinking,' says he, 'she isn't insured.' 'Then it must be the divil's own repair she's in when no company at all will insure her,' I says. Sure, we had hard words over it, but that won't bring back Maurice--he's gone in the Flamingo, Joe."

I went after Clancy then, and after a long chase, that took me to Boston and back, I caught up with him. He was full of repentance and was gloomy. It was up in his boarding-house--in his room. He, looking tired, was thinking of taking a kink of sleep.

"Hulloh, Joe! And I don't wonder you look surprised, Joe. I must be getting old. Thursday morning I got up after as fine a night's sleep as a man'd want. That was Thursday. Then Thursday night, Friday, Friday night, Saturday--two nights and three days, and I'm sleepy already. Sleepy, Joe, and I remember the time I could go a whole week, and then, after a good night's sleep, wake up fine and daisy and be ready for another week. Joe, there's a moral in that if you can only work it out."

Clancy stayed silent after that, not inclined to talk, I could see, until I told him about Maurice having shipped in the Flamingo and the hard crew that had gone in her.

That stirred him. "Great Lord, gone in that shoe-box! Why, Joe, I'd as soon put to sea in a market basket calked with butter. And the man that's got her--Dave Warner! He's crazy, Joe, if ever a man was crazy. Clean out of his head over a girl that he met in Gloucester once, but now living in Halifax, and she won't have anything to do with him. He's daffy over her. If she was drowning alongside you'd curse your luck because you had to gaff her in. That is, you would only she's a woman, of course. Wants to get lost, Joe, I believe--wants to! If this was Boston or New York and in older days, I'd say that Dave and Withrow must have shanghaied a crew to man the Flamingo's kind. But you c'n get men here to go in anything sometimes. Wait a bit and I'll be along with you. We'll see old Duncan and maybe we c'n head the Flamingo off."

XXXVII

THE GIRL IN CANSO

That was Saturday evening. The crew of the Johnnie had been told just after the race by the skipper that he would not need them again until Monday. Scattering on that, some going to Boston, they could not be got together again until Monday morning, and it was not until Monday noon that we got away.

We fitted out as though for a Cape Shore seining trip, and that's what we were to do in case we missed the Flamingo or could not persuade her skipper or Maurice himself that he ought to leave her and come back on the Johnnie Duncan. It was Clancy who had the matter in charge. Indeed, it was only Clancy who knew what it was really all about.

We had a good run-off before a stiff westerly that gradually hauled to the north, and Tuesday night late saw us in Halifax Harbor. It was too late to do anything that night, but Clancy went ashore to find out what he could. Before sunrise he was back with word to break out the anchor and put to sea. He had word of the Flamingo.

"That girl of Dave's--it seems she's moved to Canso with her folks, and Dave's gone there. He's probably there before this--maybe left again. She's an old plug, the Flamingo, but she ought've made Canso before this. He only stayed a few hours here and left Monday."

It was bang, bang, bang all the way to Canso, with Clancy swearing at Withrow and the Flamingo and Dave Warner and the girl in the case--one after the other and sometimes all together. "Blast Withrow and that crazy fool Dave Warner, too. And why in the devil couldn't her folks stayed in Gloucester--or in Halifax, at least. They ought've put a few sticks of dynamite in her and blown her to pieces ages ago. She's forty years old if she's a day--her old planks rotten. They won't keep her afloat over-night if they're out in this. Why d'y's'pose people leave a good lively little city like Halifax to go to a place like Canso? Why?"

Andie Howe happened to be within hearing, and "Maybe the rent's cheaper," suggested Andie.

"Maybe it is--and maybe if you don't talk sense I'll heave you over the rail some fine day. Better give her a grain more fore-sheet. Man, but it's a wicked night."

We made Canso after the worst day and night we had had in the Johnnie Duncan since she was launched. Outside Canso Harbor it looked bad. We didn't think the skipper would try to enter the harbor that black night, but he did. "Got to go in and get news," said Clancy, and in we went. It was as black as could be--squalls sweeping down--and Canso is not the easiest harbor in the world to make at night.

I went ashore with Clancy to hear what the young woman might have to say. We found her in a place run by her father, a sort of lodging house and "pub," with herself serving behind the bar--a bold-looking young woman, not over-neat--and yet attractive in her way--good figure, regular features, and good color. "There, Joe, if you brought a girl like that home your mother would probably die of a broken heart, but there's the kind that a foolish man like Dave Warner would sell his soul for." Then Clancy explained while we were waiting for her to see us privately, "I don't know if she'll remember me, but I met her two or three times in Gloucester."

When she came in she recognized Clancy right away. "How do you do, Captain Clancy?"

"How do you do, Miss Luce? My friend, Mr. Buckley. Now what we've come for--but first, suppose we have a little something by way of sociability. A little fizzy stuff, say, and some good cigars, Miss Luce."

She brought the wine and the cigars. Clancy pulled the cork, filled both glasses, pushed one glass toward the young woman and drew one to himself.

"But, Captain, your friend hasn't any."

"My friend," said Clancy, "doesn't drink. The last thing the doctor said to him before we came away was, 'Don't touch a drop of liquor or your life will pay the forfeit.' You see, Miss Luce, he's been a dissipated youth--drink--and having been dissipated and coming of delicate people, it's affected his health."

"You don't tell me? I'm sure he doesn't look it."

"No, he don't--that's a fact. But so it is."

"Stomach?" she asked me.

"No--heart," answered Clancy for me. "What they call an aneurism. You know what an aneurism is, of course?"

"Yes-yes--oh, yes----"

"Of course. Well, he's got one of them."

"That's too bad. So he only smokes instead?"

"That's all. Here, Joe, smoke up."

"My, I always thought smoking was bad for the heart."

"It is--for everything except aneurisms. Smoking's the death of aneurisms. Have another cigar, Joe. And Miss Luce, shall we exchange a health?"

"But I never drank anything in all my life."

"Of course not. But you will now, won't you? Consider the occasion and I'm sure you won't let me drink alone. And I've come so far to see you, too--only of course not--Well, here's to your good health, and may you live long and----"

The rest of it was smothered in the gurgle. And nobody would ever think to see the way she put down hers that Miss Luce had never had a drink of wine before.

"And now, Miss Luce, may I ask how long it has been since your friend Dave Warner left----"

"Oh-h--Dave Warner? He's no friend of mine."

"Isn't he? Well, he's no particular friend of mine, either. But a friend of mine--of both of us, Joe here, too--is with Dave--Maurice Blake. Any word of him?"

"Oh, yes. A good-looking fellow, nice eyes and hair and nice manners. I do like to see refined manners in people. Now if it was him----"

"If it was him, you wouldn't have told him to go to sea and the devil take him----"

"I'd have you know, Captain Clancy, I don't swear."

"Swear? You, Miss Luce? Dear me, whatever made you think I thought that? But let's have another taste of wine. But of course you didn't encourage Dave to stay ashore here?"

"Him?--I guess not. When he said he didn't care if he never came back, I told him I was sure I didn't--and out he went."

"O woman, gentle woman," murmured Clancy in his glass, "especially real ladies. But Dave never did know how to talk to a lady."

"I should say he didn't."

"No, not Dave. And so his money gone he's----"

"Money? Why, he never had any money."

"Well, that's bad. Not even enough to open a bottle of wine to drink a lady's health?"

"Bottle of wine? No, nor a thimbleful of tuppenny ale."

"That was bad, Miss Luce. Dave ought've come better heeled----

'And so his money gone he puts out to sea-- It may happen to you or happen to me.'

And which way did he say he was going?"

"He didn't say and I didn't ask, though one of the men with him said something about going to the Grand Banks."

"Grand Banks, eh? That's comforting--it isn't more than a couple of days' sail from here to the nearest edge of it, and twenty-odd thousand or more square miles of shoal water to hunt over after you get there. Had they taken their bait aboard, did you hear, Miss Luce?"

"Yes, they had. That was yesterday afternoon late. His vessel was leaking then, I heard him say to that nice-looking man--Maurice Blake his name, did you say? A nice name Maurice, isn't it? Well, he said to Maurice going out the door, 'Well, we'll put out and I callate--I don't know how she'll get out but out we'll go to-night.' 'The sooner you go the better it will suit me,' Blake said, and they went off together."

"And how was Mr. Blake?"

"How do you mean? How did he act? My, I never saw such a man. Wouldn't open his head all night--wouldn't drink, but just sat and smoked like your friend there. Anything the matter with him?"

"With Maurice? Oh, in the way of aneurisms? Not that I know of. Oh, yes, he has heart-trouble too, come to think. But I must be getting back to the vessel."

"So soon?"

"Yes, we've got to go to sea. I'm like Dave Warner in that I'm going to sea too."

"But nobody's driving you away." She had her eyes on Clancy's face then.

He didn't look up--only stared into his glass.

She was silent for a full minute. Clancy said nothing. "Nobody's driving you away," she said again.

At that Clancy looked at her. "There's no telling," he said at first, and then hastily, "Oh, no--of course nobody's driving me to sea."

"Then what's your hurry?"

I got up and went to the door then. I heard the sound of a scraping chair and then of Clancy standing up. A moment's quiet and then it was: "No, dear, I can't stay--nobody's driving me away, I know that. I'm sure you wouldn't--not with your heart. And you've a good heart if you'd only give it a chance. But I can't stay."

"And why not? You won't, you mean. Well, I never thought you were _that_ kind of a man."

"No? Well, don't go to giving me any moral rating. Don't go to over-rating me--or maybe you'd call it under-rating. But you see, it's my friend that's calling."

"And you're going out in this gale?"

"Gale. I'd go if it was a hundred gales. Good-by--and take care of yourself, dear."

"And will you come back if you don't find him?"

"Lord, Lord, how can I say? Can anybody say who's coming back and who isn't?"

He went by me and out the door. She looked after him, but he never turned--only plunged out of the house and into the street and I right after him.

XXXVIII

THE DUNCAN GOES TO THE WEST'ARD

Getting back to the vessel Clancy was pretty gloomy. "That's settled. We can't chase them as far to the east'ard as the big banks--a three hundred mile run to the nearest edge of it and tens of thousands of square miles to hunt over after we'd got there. And it would be child's work anyway to ask Maurice to leave her on the bank. Who'd take his place even if Dave would stand for it? 'Twould mean laying up a dory or taking his dory-mate too. Maurice wouldn't leave her anyway, even if he believed he'd never get home--no real fisherman would. And yet there it is--Dave in a devil of a mood, and a vessel according to all reports that won't live out one good easterly. And there's a crazy crew aboard her that won't make for the most careful handling of a vessel. Oh, Lord, I don't see anything for it, but, thank the Lord, Maurice has been behaving himself--and that in spite of how blue he must have been feeling. By this time he's cert'nly made up his mind he's with a pretty bad crowd, but maybe he's glad of a little excitement. What I don't understand is how Dave ever left old man Luce's place without breaking up the furniture before going away. Gen'rally that's his style. Maybe Maurice being along had something to do with it--a pretty able man in close quarters is Maurice. Yes, he must be glad of the excitement, but Lord, that won't save him from being lost. Oh, oh, and now what'll we do? Let's see, the Flamingo's on the way to the Banks, and that's the end of that chase. We've got to wait now and see that she comes home--or don't come home--one or the other. I told that girl that I was going to put out--put out if it blew a hundred gales. And so I would if any good would come of it, but putting out to sea a day like this because you bragged you would--risking your vessel and crew, or making hard work for them if nothing else--that ain't good sense, is it? Besides, I had to tell her something to get away without setting up to be a model of virtue. What else could I do? Women are the devil--sometimes--aren't they, Joe? There's some are. I suppose it wouldn't do any great harm to head her for home. I don't believe there's going to be much more fish going to be seined this fall--and wouldn't she make a passage of it in this easterly? Oh, Lord, it would be the race all over again, only ten times as long a drag."

While he sat there in the cabin, smoking and meditating, letting us into his thoughts every now and then, the voices of some of our crew were heard on deck.

We all went up and got the word that was being passed around. A coast steamer had just come to anchor in the harbor with the report that just outside--about ten miles to the west'ard--was a vessel, dismasted and clean-swept, and dragging toward the rocks. They could not help her themselves--too rough--a hurricane outside--to launch a boat was out of the question. They didn't mind taking a chance, they said, but to attempt her rescue would be suicide.

It looked like a pretty hard chance going out in that gale, but Clancy didn't wait. "Nobody else seems to be hurrying to get out, and we being the able-est looking craft in the harbor, I callate it's up to us to go." He got the exact location of the distressed vessel from the coaster, and then it was up anchor, make sail, and out we went.

There were people who called Clancy a fool for ordering out his vessel and risking his crew that day--men in that very harbor--and maybe he was. But for myself, I want that kind of a fool for my skipper. The man that will take a chance for a stranger will take a bigger chance for his own by and by.

We saw her while we were yet miles away, down to the west'ard--near Whitehead and with the cruel stretch of rocks under her lee quarter. Even with plenty of sea-room she could not have lasted long, and here with these ledges to catch her she looked to be in for a short shrift. We had a good chance to get a look at her as we bore down. Everything was gone from her deck, even the house and rail. There was not as much loose wood on deck as would make a tooth-pick. Afterwards we learned that two seas hove her down so that they had to cut the spars away to right her, and then just as she was coming up another monster had caught her and swept her clean--not only swept clean, but stove in her planks and started some of her beams so that she began to leak in a fashion that four men to the pumps could just manage to keep up with.

We could just see them--the men to the pumps working desperately--with the others lashed to the stumps of the masts and the stanchions which were left when the rail went. Her big hawser had parted and her chain was only serving to slightly check her way toward the rocks.

With spars and deck gear gone and her hull deep in the water, a vessel is not so easily distinguished. But there was something familiar in this one. We had seen her before. All at once it flashed on half a dozen of us--"the Flamingo!" we said. "God! that's luck!" said Clancy.

She lay in a sort of inlet that was wide open to the gale, rocks on the better part of three sides of her, north, south and west. She was then within all but striking distance of the rocks, and the seas, high and wicked, were sweeping over her. It looked like a bad place to work out of if we should get close in, but Clancy held on.

"Not much lee-room, but plenty of water under her keel anyway," and himself to the wheel, sailed the Johnnie around the Flamingo. He hailed Maurice as he went by, waved his hand to the others, and hove a line aboard. They took the line, hauled in the hawser at the end of it, made that fast to the windlass, and then we started off with her in tow.

We were doing pretty well, what with plenty of wind and the Johnnie buckling down to her work like she was a steamer, till the hawser parted and back toward the rocks went the Flamingo again.

"No use," said Clancy, "sea's too much for any line we got. We'll try it with the seine-boat. Who'll go in the seine-boat and try to take them off? Think quick, but mind what it means."

Every man of the crew of the Johnnie Duncan said, "Here!" The cook even came out of the forec's'le and put in his "And me, too, skipper."

"You're good men," said Clancy,--"damn good men," and looked us up and down. We felt proud, he said it in such a way. "But you're taking your lives in your hands and some of you got wives and children--mothers or something. Who hasn't anybody depending on him? Which of you hasn't any woman somewhere, or little brothers or sisters?"

About twelve of the sixteen men standing on the deck of the Johnnie Duncan said "Me!"

"Three-quarters of you, at least," said Clancy, "are damn liars. Over with the seine-boat and be careful nobody gets hurt."

Somebody did get hurt, though. Andie Howe got his foot smashed and was helped below. Clancy gave the rest of us a scolding in advance. "You're not hurt yet, but some of you will be--like Andie--if you don't watch out. You'd think that some of you were out on some little pond up in the country somewhere launching a canoe off one of those club-house floats. Keep an eye out for those seas when they board. And watch out for that deckload or some of you'll have a head cut off. A man killed or a man washed over the rail--what's the difference--it's a man lost. Look out now--watch, you Steve--damn you, watch out! Over with it!"