“Just a minute, captain,” began the engineer. “You sent Harrigan down to the hole because he’s considered a hard man to handle, eh?”
Henshaw waited for a fuller explanation; he seemed to be enjoying the distress of Campbell.
“Just so,” went on the Scotchman, “but there are two ways of handling a difficult sailor. One is by using the club and the other by using kindness. The club has been tried and hasn’t worked very well with Harrigan. I decided to take a hand with kindness. The results have been excellent. I was just about—”
His voice died away, for McTee was chuckling in a deep bass rumble, and Henshaw was smiling in a way that boded no good.
The captain broke in coldly: “I’ve heard enough of your explanation, Campbell. Send Harrigan down to the hole at once. We’ll work him a double shift today, for a starter.”
Campbell was trembling like a self-conscious girl, for he was drawn between shame and dread of the captain.
“Look!” he cried, and taking the hand of Harrigan, he turned it palm up. “This chap has been brutally treated. He’s been at work that fairly tore the skin from the palms of his hands. One hour’s work with a shovel, captain, would make Harrigan useless at any sort of a job for a month.”
“Which goes to show,” said McTee, “that you don’t know Harrigan.”
“I’ve heard what you have to say,” said Henshaw. “I sent him down to work in the hole; I come down and find him singing in your room. I expect you to have him passing coal inside of fifteen minutes, Campbell.”
Harrigan started for the door, feeling that the game had been played out, and glad of even this small respite of a day or more from the labor of the shovel. Before he left the room, however, the voice of Campbell halted him.
“Wait! Stay here! You’ll do what I tell you, Harrigan. I’m the boss belowdecks.”
It was a declaration of war, and what it cost Campbell no one could ever tell. He stood swaying slightly from side to side, while he glared at Henshaw.
“You’re drunk,” remarked the captain coldly. “I’ll give you half an hour, Campbell, to come to your senses—but after that—”
“Damn you and your time! I want no tune! I say the lad has been put through hell and shan’t go back to it, do you hear me?”
Henshaw was controlling himself carefully, or else he wished to draw out the engineer.
He said: “You know the record of Harrigan?”
“What record? The one McTee told you? Would you believe what Black McTee says of a man he tried to break and couldn’t?”
“My friend McTee is out of the matter. All that you have to do with is my order. You’ve heard that order, Campbell!”
“I’ll see you in hell before I send him to the hole.”
Henshaw waited another moment, quietly enjoying the wild excitement of the engineer like the Spanish gentleman who sits in safety in the gallery and watches the baiting of the bull in the arena below.
“I shall send that order to you in writing. If you refuse to obey then, I shall act!”
He turned on his heel; McTee stayed a moment to smile upon Harrigan, and then followed. As the door closed, Harrigan turned to Campbell and found him sitting, shuddering, with his face buried in his hands. He touched the Scotchman on the shoulder.
“You’ve done your part, chief. I won’t let you do any more. I’m starting now for the hole.”
“What?” bellowed Campbell. “Am I no longer the boss of my engine room? You’ll sit here till I tell you to move! Damn Henshaw and his written orders!”
“If you refuse to obey a written order, he can take your license away from you in any marine court.”
“Let it go.”
“Ah-h, chief, ye’re afther bein’ a thrue man an’ a bould one, but I’d rather stay the rest av me life in the hole than let ye ruin yourself for me. Whisht, man, I’m goin’! Think no more av it!”
Campbell’s eyes grew moist with the temptation, but then the fighting blood of his clan ran hot through his veins.
“Sit down,” he commanded. “Sit down and wait till the order comes. It’s a fine thing to be chief engineer, but it’s a better thing to be a man. What does Bobbie say?”
And he quoted in a ringing voice: “A man’s a man for a’ that!” Afterward they sat in silence that grew more tense as the minutes passed, but it seemed that Henshaw, with demoniac cunning, had decided to prolong the agony by delaying his written order and the consequent decision of the engineer. And Harrigan, watching the suffused face of Campbell, knew that the time had come when his will would not suffice to make him follow the dictates of his conscience.
All of which Henshaw knew perfectly well as he sat in his cabin filling the glass of McTee with choice Scotch.
They sat for an hour or more, chatting, and McTee drew a picture of the pair waiting below in silent dread—a picture so vivid that Henshaw laughed in his breathless way. In time, however, he decided that they had delayed long enough, and took up pen and paper to write the order which was to convince the dauntless Campbell that even he was a slave. As he did so, Sloan, the wireless operator, appeared at the door, saying: “The report has come, sir.”
CHAPTER 23
He held a little folded paper in his hand. At sight of it Henshaw turned in his chair and faced Sloan with a wistful glance.
“Good?”
“Not very, sir.”
Henshaw rose slowly and frowned like the king on the messenger who bears tidings of the lost battie.
“Then very bad?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Very well. Let me have the message. You may go.”
He took the slip of paper cautiously, as if it were dangerous in itself, and then called back the operator as the latter reached the door.
“Come back a minute. Sloan, you’re a good boy—a very good boy. Faithful, intelligent; you know your business. H-m! Here—here’s a five spot”—he slipped the money into Sloan’s hand—“and you shall have more when we touch port. Now this message, my lad—you couldn’t have made any mistake in receiving it? You couldn’t have twisted any of the words a little?”
“No mistake, I’m sure, sir. It was repeated twice.”
“That makes it certain, then—certain,” muttered Henshaw. “That is all, Sloan.”
As the latter left the cabin, the old captain went back to his chair and sat with the paper resting upon his knee, as if a little delay might change its import.
“I am growing old, McTee,” he said at last, apologetically, “and age affects the eyes first of all. Suppose you take this message, eh? And read it through to me—slowly—I hate fast reading, McTee.”
The big Scotchman took the slip of paper and read with a long pause between each word:
Beatrice—failing—rapidly—hemorrhage—this—morning—very—weak.
The paper was snatched from his hand, and Henshaw repeated the words over and over to himself: “Weak—failing—hemorrhage—the fools! A little bleeding at the nose they call a hemorrhage!”
McTee broke in: “A good many doctors are apt to make a case seem more serious than it is. They get more credit that way for the cure, eh?”
“God bless you, lad! Aye, they’re a lot of damnable curs! Burning