Complete Works of Stephen Crane

by Stephen Crane

  There may never be a captain whose crew can’t sniff his misgivings. They scent it as a herd scents the menace far through the trees and over the ridges. A captain that does not know that he is on a foundering ship sometimes can take his men to tea and buttered toast twelve minutes before the disaster; but let him fret for a moment in the loneliness of his cabin, and in no time it affects the liver of a distant and sensitive seaman. Even as Flanagan reflected on the Foundling, viewing her as a filibuster, word arrived that a winter of discontent had come to the stokeroom.

  The captain knew that it requires sky to give a man courage. He sent for a stoker, and talked to him on the bridge. The man, standing under the sky, instantly and shamefacedly denied all knowledge of the business. Nevertheless, a jaw had presently to be broken by a fist because the Foundling could only steam nine knots and because the stokeroom has no sky, no wind, no bright horizon.

  When the Foundling was somewhere off Savannah a blow came from the northeast, and the steamer, headed southeast, rolled like a boiling potato. The first mate was a fine officer, and so a wave crashed him into the deckhouse and broke his arm. The cook was a good cook, and so the heave of the ship flung him heels over head with a pot of boiling water and caused him to lose interest in everything save his legs. “By the piper!” said Flanagan to himself, “this filibustering is no trick with cards.”

  Later there was more trouble in the stokeroom. All the stokers participated save the one with a broken jaw, who had become discouraged. The captain had an excellent chest development. When he went aft roaring, it was plain that a man could beat carpets with a voice like that one.

  II

  One night the Foundling was off the southern coast of Florida and running at half-speed toward the shore. The captain was on the bridge. “Four flashes at intervals of one minute,” he said to himself, gazing steadfastly toward the beach. Suddenly a yellow eye opened in the black face of the night, and looked at the Foundling, and closed again. The captain studied his watch and the shore. Three times more the eye opened, and looked at the Foundling, and closed again. The captain called to the vague figures on the deck below him. “Answer it.” The flash of a light from the bow of the steamer displayed for a moment in golden color the crests of the in-riding waves.

  The Foundling lay to, and waited. The long swells rolled her gracefully, and her two stub masts, reaching into the darkness, swung with the solemnity of batons timing a dirge. When the ship had left Boston she had been as encrusted with ice as a Dakota stagedriver’s beard; but now the gentle wind of Florida softly swayed the lock on the forehead of the coatless Flanagan, and he lit a new cigar without troubling to make a shield of his hands.

  Finally a dark boat came plashing over the waves. As it came very near, the captain leaned forward, and perceived that the men in her rowed like seamstresses, and at the same time a voice hailed him in bad English. “It’s a dead sure connection,” said he to himself.

  At sea, to load two hundred thousand rounds of rifle ammunition, seven hundred and fifty rifles, two rapid-fire field guns with a hundred shells, forty bundles of machetes, and a hundred pounds of dynamite, from yawls, and by men who are not born stevedores, and in a heavy ground swell, and with the searchlight of a United States cruiser sometimes flashing like lightning in the sky to the southward, is no business for a Sunday school class. When at last the Foundling was steaming for the open, over the gray sea, at dawn, there was not a man of the forty come aboard from the Florida shore, nor of the fifteen sailed from Boston, who was not glad, standing with his hair matted to his forehead with sweat, smiling at the broad wake of the Foundling and the dim streak on the horizon which was Florida.

  But there is a point of the compass in these waters which men call the northeast. When the strong winds come from that direction they kick up a turmoil that is not good for a Foundling stuffed with coal and war stores, In the gale which came, this ship was no more than a drunken soldier.

  The Cuban leader, standing on the bridge with the captain, was presently informed that of his men thirty-nine out of a possible thirty-nine were seasick. And in truth they were seasick. There are degrees in this complaint, but that matter was waived between them. They were all sick to the limits. They strewed the deck in every posture of human anguish; and when the Foundling ducked and water came sluicing down from the bows, they let it sluice. They were satisfied if they could keep their heads clear of the wash; and if they could not keep their heads clear of the wash, they didn’t care. Presently the Foundling swung her course to the southeast, and the waves pounded her broadside. The patriots were all ordered below decks, and there they howled and measured their misery one against another. All day the Foundling plopped and foundered over a blazing bright meadow of an ocean whereon the white foam was like flowers.

  The captain on the bridge mused and studied the bare horizon. “Hell!” said he to himself, and the word was more in amazement than in indignation or sorrow. “Thirty-nine seasick passengers, the mate with a broken arm, a stoker with a broken jaw, the cook with a pair of scalded legs, and an engine likely to be taken with all these diseases, if not more! If I get back to a home port with a spoke of the wheel gripped in my hands, it’ll be fair luck!”

  There is a kind of corn whiskey bred in Florida which the natives declare is potent in the proportion of seven fights to a drink. Some of the Cuban volunteers had had the forethought to bring a small quantity of this whiskey aboard with them; and being now in the fireroom and seasick, and feeling that they would not care to drink liquor for two or three years to come, they gracefully tendered their portions to the stokers. The stokers accepted these gifts without avidity, but with a certain earnestness of manner.

  As they were stokers and toiling, the whirl of emotion was delayed, but it arrived ultimately and with emphasis. One stoker called another stoker a weird name; and the latter, righteously inflamed at it, smote his mate with an iron shovel, and the man fell headlong over a heap of coal, which crashed gently, while piece after piece rattled down upon the deck.

  A third stoker was providentially enraged at the scene, and assailed the second stoker. They fought for some moments, while the seasick Cubans sprawled on the deck watched with languid, rolling glances the ferocity of the scuffle. One was so indifferent to the strategic importance of the space he occupied that he was kicked in the shins.

  When the second engineer came to separate the combatants, he was sincere in his efforts, and he came near to disabling them for life.

  The captain said, “I’ll go down there and — —”

  But the leader of the Cubans restrained him. “No, no,” he cried; “you must not. We must treat them like children, very gently, all the time, you see, or else when we get back to a United States port they will — what you call — spring? — yes, spring the whole business. We must — jolly them. You see?”

  “You mean,” said the captain, thoughtfully, “they are likely to get mad and give the expedition dead away when we reach port again, unless we blarney them now?”

  “Yes, yes,” cried the Cuban leader; “unless we are so very gentle with them they will make many troubles afterward for us in the newspapers, and then in court.”

  “Well, but I won’t have my crew — —” began the captain.

  “But you must,” interrupted the Cuban. “You must. It is the only thing. You are like the captain of a pirate ship. You see? Only you can’t throw them overboard like him. You see?”

  “Hum,” said the captain, “this here filibustering business has got a lot to it when you come to look it over.”

  He called the fighting stokers to the bridge, and the three came, meek and considerably battered. He was lecturing them soundly, but sensibly, when he suddenly tripped a sentence and cried: “Here! Where’s that other fellow? How does it come he wasn’t in the fight?”

  The row of stokers cried at once, eagerly: “He’s hurt, sir. He’s got a broken jaw, sir.”

  “So he has, so he has,” murmured the captain,
much embarrassed.

  And because of all these affairs, the Foundling steamed toward Cuba with its crew in a sling, if one may be allowed to speak in that way.

  III

  At night the Foundling approached the coast like a thief. Her lights were muffled so that from the deck the sea shone with its own radiance, like the faint shimmer of some kinds of silk. The men on deck spoke in whispers, and even down in the fireroom the hidden stokers, working before the blood-red furnace doors, used no words, and walked tiptoe. The stars were out in the blue velvet sky, and their light, with the soft shine of the sea, caused the coast to appear black as the side of a coffin. The surf boomed in low thunder on the distant beach.

  The Foundling’s engines ceased their thumping for a time. She glided quietly forward until a bell chimed faintly in the engine room. Then she paused, with a flourish of phosphorescent waters.

  “Give the signal,” said the captain. Three times a flash of light went from the bow. There was a moment of waiting. Then an eye like the one on the coast of Florida opened and closed, opened and closed, opened and closed. The Cubans, grouped in a great shadow on deck, burst into a low chatter of delight. A hiss from their leader silenced them.

  “Well?” said the captain.

  “All right,” said the leader.

  At the giving of the word it was not apparent that any one on board the Foundling had ever been seasick. The boats were lowered swiftly — too swiftly. Boxes of cartridges were dragged from the hold and passed over the side with a rapidity that made men in the boats exclaim against it. They were being bombarded. When a boat headed for shore, its rowers pulled like madmen. The captain paced slowly to and fro on the bridge. In the engine room the engineers stood at their station, and in the stokehole the firemen fidgeted silently around the furnace doors.

  On the bridge Flanagan reflected. “Oh, I don’t know,” he observed; “this filibustering business isn’t so bad. Pretty soon I’ll be off to sea again, with nothing to do but some big lying when I get into port.”

  In one of the boats returning from shore came twelve Cuban officers, the greater number of them convalescing from wounds, while two or three of them had been ordered to America on commissions from the insurgents. The captain welcomed them, and assured them of a speedy and safe voyage.

  Presently he went again to the bridge and scanned the horizon. The sea was lonely, like the spaces amid the suns. The captain grinned, and softly smote his chest. “It’s dead easy,” said he. It was near the end of the cargo, and the men were breathing like spent horses, although their elation grew with each moment, when suddenly a voice spoke from the sky. It was not a loud voice, but the quality of it brought every man on deck to full stop and motionless, as if they had all been changed to wax. “Captain,” said the man at the masthead, “there’s a light to the west’ard, sir. Think it’s a steamer, sir.”

  There was a still moment until the captain called, “Well, keep your eye on it now.” Speaking to the deck, he said, “Go ahead with your unloading.”

  The second engineer went to the galley to borrow a tin cup. “Hear the news, second?” asked the cook. “Steamer coming up from the west’ard.”

  “Gee!” said the second engineer. In the engine room he said to the chief: “Steamer coming up to the west’ard, sir.”

  The chief engineer began to test various little machines with which his domain was decorated. Finally he addressed the stokeroom: “Boys, I want you to look sharp now. There’s a steamer coming up to the west’ard.”

  “All right, sir,” said the stokeroom.

  From time to time the captain hailed the masthead. “How is she now?”

  “Seems to be coming down on us pretty fast, sir.”

  The Cuban leader came anxiously to the captain. “Do you think we can save all the cargo? It is rather delicate business. No?”

  “Go ahead,” said Flanagan. “Fire away. I’ll wait for you.”

  There continued the hurried shuffling of feet on deck, and the low cries of the men unloading the cargo. In the engine room the chief and his assistant were staring at the gong. In the stokeroom the firemen breathed through their teeth. A shovel slipped from where it leaned against the side, and banged on the floor. The stokers started, and looked around quickly.

  Climbing to the rail and holding on to a stay, the captain gazed westward. A light had raised out of the deep. After watching this light for a time, he called to the Cuban leader, “Well, as soon as you’re ready now, we might as well be skipping out.”

  Finally the Cuban leader told him: “Well, this is the last load. As soon as the boats come back you can be off.”

  “Shan’t wait for the boats,” said the captain. “That fellow is too close.” As the last boat went shoreward the Foundling turned, and like a black shadow stole seaward to cross the bows of the oncoming steamer. “Waited about ten minutes too long,” said the captain to himself.

  Suddenly the light in the west vanished. “Hum,” said Flanagan; “he’s up to some meanness.”

  Every one outside the engine rooms was set on watch. The Foundling, going at full speed into the northeast, slashed a wonderful trail of blue silver on the dark bosom of the sea.

  A man on deck cried out hurriedly, “There she is, sir!” Many eyes searched the western gloom, and one after another the glances of the men found a tiny black shadow on the deep, with a line of white beneath it.

  “He couldn’t be heading better if he had a line to us,” said Flanagan.

  There was a thin flash of red in the darkness. It was long and keen, like a crimson rapier. A short, sharp report sounded, and then a shot whined swiftly in the air and blipped into the sea. The captain had been about to take a bite of plug tobacco at the beginning of this incident, and his arm was raised. He remained like a frozen figure while the shot whined, and then, as it blipped into the sea, his hand went to his mouth, and he bit the plug. He looked wide-eyed at the shadow with its line of white.

  The senior Cuban officer came hurriedly to the bridge. “It is no good to surrender,” he cried; “they would only shoot or hang all of us.”

  There was another thin red flash and a report. A loud whirring noise passed over the ship.

  “I’m not going to surrender,” said the captain, hanging with both hands to the rail. He appeared like a man whose traditions of peace are clenched in his heart. He was as astonished as if his hat had turned into a dog. Presently he wheeled quickly, and said: “What kind of a gun is that?”

  “It is a one-pounder,” cried the Cuban officer. “The boat is one of those little gunboats made from a yacht. You see?”

  “Well, if it’s only a yawl, he’ll sink us in five more minutes,” said Flanagan. For a moment he looked helplessly off at the horizon. His under jaw hung low. But a moment later something touched him like a stiletto-point of inspiration. He leaped to the pilothouse, and roared at the man at the wheel. The Foundling sheered suddenly to starboard, made a clumsy turn, and Flanagan was bellowing through the tube to the engine room before anybody discovered that the old basket was heading straight for the Spanish gunboat. The ship lunged forward like a draught horse on the gallop.

  This strange maneuver by the Foundling first dealt consternation on board. Men instinctively crouched on the instant, and then swore their supreme oath, which was unheard by their own ears.

  Later the maneuver of the Foundling dealt consternation on board the gunboat. She had been going victoriously forward, dim-eyed from the fury of her pursuit. Then this tall, threatening shape had suddenly loomed over her like a giant apparition.

  The people on board the Foundling heard panic shouts, hoarse orders. The little gunboat was paralyzed with astonishment.

  Suddenly Flanagan yelled with rage, and sprang for the wheel. The helmsman had turned his eyes away. As the captain whirled the wheel far to starboard, he heard a crunch, as the Foundling, lifted on a wave, smashed her shoulder against the gunboat, and he saw, shooting past, a little launch sort of a thing with men o
n her that ran this way and that way. The Cuban officers, joined by the cook and a seaman, emptied their revolvers into the surprised terror of the seas.

  There was naturally no pursuit. Under comfortable speed the Foundling stood to the northward.

  The captain went to his berth chuckling. “There, by God!” he said. “There, now!”

  IV

  When Flanagan came again on deck, the first mate, his arm in a sling, walked the bridge. Flanagan was smiling a wide smile. The bridge of the Foundling was dipping afar and then afar. With each lunge of the little steamer the water seethed and boomed alongside, and the spray dashed high and swiftly.

  “Well,” said Flanagan, inflating himself, “we’ve had a great deal of a time, and we’ve come through it all right, and thank Heaven it is all over.”

  The sky in the northeast was of a dull brick-red in tone, shaded here and there by black masses that billowed out in some fashion from the flat heavens.

  “Look there,” said the mate.

  “Hum,” said the captain. “Looks like a blow, don’t it?”

  Later the surface of the water rippled and flickered in the preliminary wind. The sea had become the color of lead. The swashing sound of the waves on the sides of the Foundling was now provided with some manner of ominous significance. The men’s shouts were hoarse.

  A squall struck the Foundling on her starboard quarter, and she leaned under the force of it as if she were never to return to the even keel. “I’ll be glad when we get in,” said the mate. “I’m going to quit then. I’ve got enough.”

  “Hell!” said the beaming Flanagan.

  The steamer crawled on into the northwest. The white water sweeping out from her deadened the chug-chug-chug of the tired old engines.

  Once, when the boat careened, she laid her shoulder flat on the sea and rested in that manner. The mate, looking down the bridge, which slanted more than a coal chute, whistled softly to himself. Slowly, heavily, the Foundling arose to meet another sea.