Voyage of the Dreadnaught: Four Stella Madison Capers

by Lilly Maytree

  This so Stuart could see to the sudden banging noises that were coming from his engine, and the Colonel—by sheer size and strength—struggled with the wheel to keep their ship bucking through the waves instead of getting trapped in the troughs between. All of which presented itself to Stella (even though she was scared-stiff, and wet to the bone in spite of rain-gear) as such a display of courage and cooperation that she would remember it for the rest of her life.

  One particular scene, especially.

  It was the expression on the Colonel’s face (when she looked up at him through the wheelhouse window) after the mainsail suddenly tore in half and began flapping like thunder, causing the lines to go slack, and send them tumbling toward the rail when the boat began to roll. With the determination of a weight-lifter contending for Olympic gold, He clamped onto the wheel and began to inch the giant hull back up by brute force, in order to save them from shipwreck.

  But it wasn’t enough.

  ***

  At the same time, down in the engine room, the Captain knew exactly what was happening, topside, by the way his vessel made the sudden roll to starboard and sent him crashing into the bulkhead. Now, they had it, he thought to himself, because not one of them up there knew what to do next. “Haul up that jib!” he hollered, even though no one could hear him from down there. “Get some way on before we lose her in this--”

  BOOM! There was the loud bang of rigging as the boat wallowed over onto her other side, caught in the steep trough between waves. Which gave him a decision to make. Take the few minutes to replace the broken belt and get the engine going, again, or leave it to dash topside, and pull the foresails up so the boat would at least have enough steerage not to founder. “God help me!” he cried, heaving himself to his feet. “I’m at sea with a bunch of idiots!”

  It was at that moment a dark form darted past him, and he distinctly heard, “Fix the belt-- I got the sails!” in a tone of such confidence that his old Navy days kicked back in, and he found himself “snapping to” without so much as a care who it was.

  He only knew he had a bona fide seaman aboard, after all, and a flood of relief washed over him. In the nick of time, too. Then it occurred to him he had never had such immediate attention from the Almighty in his entire life. Something which led to the disturbing conclusion that, either an angel had just passed by, or…

  The Dreadnaught had gone down, already, and he was about to meet his maker.

  6

  A tumult of thoughts ran through Stella’s mind during those moments. It wasn’t the first time she had faced death, but it was the first time she had ever been able to stand up to that terror with such peace and utter clarity. What happened next, played out before her in a sort of dreamlike slow motion, giving her plenty of time to react.

  The first thing she did was to grab hold of Millie as she tumbled by, and pull her to the safety of the rail, where she could hold on. Then as the boat began to roll in the opposite direction, she felt the line she had dropped begin to whistle away over her feet, and picked it up. Just in time to wind it around a nearby cleat (why, she had never managed the task that fast before!), and stop the free-swinging boom from plowing into Mason, who had his back to it, trying to tie off from the other side. Disaster avoided. Almost like a miracle.

  Which is just what she was thinking when she saw the dark stranger come running past her, right out onto the bowsprit that hung over all those wildly tossing waves. He peeled the canvas back with quick agility on yet another sail that was stashed there, and began hauling it up the stays. Only to be stopped by a tangle of tattered mainsail that had wound itself round the thick wire, about a third of the way up, when the big one had torn loose.

  “Lou!” called a familiar masculine voice. “Ninja ladder!”

  The girl was beside him in an instant, and what Stella saw next was amazing.

  He bent down long enough for her to climb up onto his shoulders and grab hold of the bunched up sail, in order to pull herself along the wire as he slowly stood up, again. Still standing on his shoulders when she reached the place the tattered pieces were wrapped around, he snatched a knife from his belt and handed it up to her.

  The wire was attached at the top of the foremast, slanting down at an angle to the very tip of the bow. Another miracle. If the obstruction had been any higher, she wouldn’t have been able to reach it. As it was, she had the offending tatters cut away and was back on deck in a mere few moments.

  At which point, Cole DeForio (Stella recognized him the minute Lou Edna climbed up and down over him with such confidence and familiarity), quickly finished hauling up the large jib sail, while Mason pulled the trailing line attached to it around a nearby winch-drum and tied it off. The boat immediately headed back up into the wind, and regained enough control for the Colonel to have steerage, again.

  They were saved!

  Less than five minutes after that, the engine sputtered back to life, and the Dreadnaught continued to plow steadily through the storm toward the nearest harbor, where they could drop anchor and wait the thing out. A place not far off from Alert Bay (which was not on their list of official stops), and not a sign of civilization was in sight. But it was well protected and safe. And more welcoming to the exhausted adventurers than any waterfront town could have been.

  The young couple disappeared almost immediately after they got there, giving everyone else time to collect themselves, and their thoughts, down in the galley. They all needed to recuperate before the inevitable confrontation. At the very least, there was a lot of explaining to do.

  “I take back every critical thing I’ve said about Shortcake,” said Mason, holding one of the large mugs of hot bullion Millie was handing out to everyone who meandered in after changing into dry clothes. “Any girl who will hop-to like that in an emergency is all right by me.”

  “She lied to us, again, Mason.” The Colonel was not one to give quarter to dishonesty. “Been hiding that young man, all along. Where--I have no idea--considering how thoroughly those officials went over this boat when we came through customs. Imagine what could happen if they had found a stowaway.”

  “I shudder to think about it,” agreed Stella (another narrow escape!). She was sitting next to him at the table, wearing a matching knit hat and scarf (periwinkle blue), with her still-chilled hands hugging her own mug of bullion. Would she ever be truly warm, again?

  “When you’re in love, you do crazy things,” said Millie.

  “When you’re in love, you aren’t ashamed of it,” Mason added. “So, he must be in some kind of trouble. Again.”

  “So…” The Colonel took a deep breath. “We’ve been smuggling a criminal through Canada.”

  This just as Gerald dragged in, still somewhat wobbly, and so pale Millie immediately poured a large splash of brandy into his bullion before handing it to him. “Better sit down before you fall down, Gerry,” she whispered.

  “E-gads…” He sank onto the seat beside Stella. “Lou didn’t bring any drugs aboard, did she?”

  “Of course not!” huffed Millie. “She’s too good a mother to get wrapped up in that stuff. Look how she quit drinking the minute she found out she was pregnant. And she’s as loyal as my own daughter, too. In her own way.”

  “We could sit here guessing, all day.” Mason got to his feet. “Let’s get them in here, and talk, so we can decide what’s the best thing to do.”

  “Can’t see as there is a best thing,” said the Colonel. His cheeks were growing rosy from the warmth of the stove. Then again, he did have a bit more insulation than everyone else, with all those extra pounds turning to muscle, Stella mused. “Wouldn’t be right to dump him off in a foreign country,” he went on, “and he definitely did the right thing when he had to.”

  “Dump who off?” Gerald handed his empty mug back toward Millie (who had just bent down to re-twist the yellow towel she had wrapped around her wet hair), and knocked it out of his hand against her hip, instead. “Tell Stuart I need a little more tim
e, Mil—I’m doing my level best!”

  “Not you, Gerald. Our stowaway. Lou smuggled Cole DeForio, aboard, and now we’re all accomplices.” She snatched up the mug and refilled it, again.

  “E-gads!” he replied, and took it.

  At which point, Mason returned with the contrite young couple following behind, whose youthful good looks seemed absolutely striking in contrast to their bedraggled elders. Lou Edna’s blonde hair was gathered into a band at the nape of her neck, she hadn’t a speck of make-up on, and she was beautiful.

  “Well, it was a snap decision,” she began before anyone even asked them a question. “There were some bad people after him, and I had no choice.”

  “One always has a choice,” said the Colonel. “There are other ways to help besides breaking more laws.”

  “Let’s get something straight, right off.” Cole met the Colonel’s gaze and pointed to his own chest for emphasis. “I wasn’t the one who broke the law.”

  “Do you have a passport, or don’t you?” Mason asked him.

  “To begin with I didn’t break any laws,” the young man corrected himself. “Like she said, it was a snap decision. I just didn’t have enough time to get one.”

  “Bad people aren’t usually interested in border regulations. What’s Shortcake talking about, here?”

  “It was me that talked him into it, Pop. I told him we could get good money at pawn shops for those pictures.”

  “What pictures?” asked Millie.

  “The crazy art collection.”

  “What?”

  “E-gads, Lou…” Gerald moaned. “The ones painted by E.J.’s first wife? They’d be worth a small fortune at Christie’s, by now How much did you sell them for?”

  “Nothing, they disappeared.”

  “After she spent the money they already gave us for a down payment, too.” Cole wiped a trickle of water off the side of his face that was coming from his wet hair. “You don’t cross those kind of people. They’ll come after you for stealing peanuts.”

  “Those kind of people don’t usually do payments,” Mason said.

  “They paid seven hundred and fifty dollars, based on the preliminary artist sketches,” Lou informed them. “The ones in that portfolio. I needed some things for the trip if we’re going to be gone so long. You know I spent a hundred and fifty just in diapers? Then baby food and—a bunny suit, of course. Three of them, in fact. The Senator’s crawling around so much, now, he’s got one wore out, already.”

  “Don’t change the subject,” said Mason. “We all know how money disappears.”

  Millie sat down on the other side of the table, next to Mason, with a heavy sigh. “You should have asked us, Lou. Those paintings weren’t ours to sell. After everything J.D. did for us, too.”

  “But you said yourself they were garbage, Mil. And the whole place was going to be knocked down, anyway. I didn’t think anybody would even notice.”

  “They weren’t our things.”

  “Wrong’s wrong, even if it helps you” quoted Gerald, before he got up to refill his mug, again. “You got taken on the sketches, too. They’d have brought a strong five thousand at auction.”

  “Yeah, well I don’t happen to know any fancy art collectors,” Cole pointed out. “And, by that time, we were in a hurry.”

  “You’re lucky you didn’t let go of the paintings, or we’d all be in a fix.” Mason rubbed a hand over his unshaved chin. “Long as they’re back at the house, we’re safe. I’ll deal with J.D. about the sketches. He’s reasonable enough.”

  There was such a long silence that he glanced around the entire table. Now, everyone looked guilty. “They are at the Villa… right?”

  “Pop…” Lou Edna shook her head in disbelief. “They just… disappeared! We looked everywhere for them!”

  “What? Holy--” BOOM! His fist banged down with a resounding thump. “This whole situation’s getting worse by the minute!”

  “Hold on, Mase…” The Colonel raised his hand to interrupt the outburst. “It just so happens Stella found them.”

  Such a unanimous exclamation of relief burst forth from everyone at the same time, it sounded staged. Except for Stella. She tried nudging the Colonel under the table but he spoke out too soon.

  “I found them, all right,” she finally confessed. “They were in the dumbwaiter.”

  “That’s right where I hid them, but they weren’t there when we went back. Those guys were waiting for us, and when we didn’t show up, they kept calling. They said they were coming over to deal with us. We had to lock Millie in the cellar, too, because I just didn’t have enough time to explain.”

  “You know I almost had a heart attack down there?” Millie accused. “I was in there for hours!”

  “But you were out by the time we got back,” the girl reasoned.

  “A lot of this is my fault, “said Stella. “You see, I had a bit of extra time before we moved onto the boat and mailed them off to the pawn shop they were addressed to. As a favor to Millie because her return address was on there.”

  Now, a unanimous gasp of horror escaped everybody.

  “My pills!” Millie reached into the pocket of her pink housecoat, in search of them. “My heart pills! Oh, Mase—I’m going to faint!”

  “Wait!” This time, it was Lou Edna who raised her hand. “It’s OK—it’s OK! Oh, this is all too funny!” She leaned her head back to indulge in a moment of nervous laughter. “If you mailed them just the way they were, we’re OK!”

  “You have the weirdest sense of humor, Lou.” Cole got up and poured himself a cup of coffee, realized it wasn’t coffee, and poured it down the sink, instead. “I’ve never felt this stupid in my life, and we still have major problems, here.”

  “J.D.’s going to be wondering where those pictures are!” Millie complained. “I gave him our forwarding address, too.” She moaned at her own stupidity. “Now, when they turn up on the black market, somewhere, any investigator with half a brain will be able to trace things back to me. The real crooks will get away, scot-free, and I could end up in women’s prison, after all! Lou—how could you do this to me!”

  “I didn’t do anything that bad, Millie. I addressed them to Peabody’s Peculiar Treasures—J.D.’s antique place—not the pawn shop we were dealing with. In case you found them in the dumbwaiter before we could actually make the deal. Didn’t want to give you another heart attack.”

  “You mean, I didn’t send them to the mafia, after all?” Stella was so relieved she leaned her forehead against the Colonel’s shoulder and sighed. “Oh, thank heaven!”

  “Mr. Peabody’s probably had them for days, now,” the girl assured. “So—other than harboring an illegal allien--”

  “Oh, Lou Edna!” Millie dropped her face into her hands. “If you aren’t the death of me, one of these days, I will be a lucky woman!”

  “Shortcake, we can handle.” Mason jerked a thumb toward Cole. “It’s him we got to figure out what to do with, now.”

  “I’ll tell you what we’re gonna do with him!” The booming voice of Captain Stuart echoed from the companionway leading down to the engine room. He ducked smartly into the galley, with his hair all slicked back, and a clean shirt on. It had a small rip at the left shoulder, and only smelled faintly of diesel.

  “Yeah, I knew this was coming sooner, or later, so…” Cole stood up straighter and looked him in the eye. “Let’s have it, Old Man.”

  “You’re promoted to First Mate.”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “You will remain aboard this vessel—without shore leave—all the way to Alaska. Where you will immediately apply for a passport. And the rest of you…” Stuart looked them all over with a warm appreciation shinning in his eyes, and pronounced, “Are hereby released from idiot-status. By the Almighty—you performed like regular sailors, out there. Every last one of you!”

  7

  That night, as Stella sat tucked beneath her rose-colored throw, reading before a pleasantly
crackling fire, it suddenly occurred to her how far they had all come, working together as a team. Why it had literally saved them! And—without the many miracles she was so sure she had experienced that day—they could all be dead. In fact, she was beginning to feel like something of a cat with nine lives, lately, the way she had been escaping so many disasters.

  Now, here she was in her safe little home, in this quiet harbor, halfway to Alaska. Could it be that God truly cared for her—in a personal way—and took a “divine hand” in all things concerning her? Why, if that were true… a person could do just about anything. An ordinary person would be capable of doing extraordinary things.

  Maybe even great things.

  All at once, an incredible sense of peace and contentment settled over her. She wondered if it wasn’t truly the most wonderful feeling she had ever experienced. What’s more, for the first time in her entire life, she had someone to share it with. A person who understood such things. She looked over to where the Colonel was working away contentedly on his next book of heroes.

  “Oliver?”

  “Yes, my dear?” he replied without looking up right away. Stella loved it when he got involved in his work. His face went through so many different expressions it was almost like watching a movie.

  “I just thought you might like to know something.”

  He looked over at her then. “Yes?”

  “I’m sixty-three.”

  “I thought so, Stel. You know that’s just what I thought? It’s a wonder they don’t ask you to prove it whenever you renew your driver’s license. It really is.”

  “When you have white hair, that’s all anyone really notices about you.”