Books: Harrigan
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Max Brand >> Harrigan
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"Yes."
"Then I forgive you for it. Angus, I got a sort of a desire to shake
hands with you. There's nothin' but swine an' snakes aboard the Heron.
I'd like to feel the grip of a man's hand."
They fumbled in the dark and then their hands met. They retained that
grasp till the ship sank twice to the deep shadow of the trough and
swung up again to the crest.
"There's no peace between us till she's out of the way," muttered
Harrigan at last. "What d'you say, Angus?"
"Harrigan, there are times when you're a poet. Strip!"
The Irishman was tearing off his shirt, when three crashing, rattling
explosions sent a shudder through the Heron, and his arms dropped
nervelessly.
"Where was it?" gasped Harrigan.
"Forward," answered McTee.
"Kate!" they cried in the same breath, and rushed for the main cabin.
CHAPTER 30
The decks were already thick with half-dressed sailors. Here and there
lanterns gleamed, and what they showed was the three lifeboats of the
Heron--two on one side of the cabin and one on the other--blown into
matchwood. Only shapeless fragments and bundles of kindling wood
dangled from the davits. Captain Henshaw, cool and calm in his white
clothes, stood with folded arms examining the wreckage on one side.
The sailors from the forecastle went here and there, muttering,
growling surlily; for a shrewd blow had been struck at their plan of
mutiny, the last item of which was to abandon the Heron off a deserted
coast and then row ashore in the lifeboats. Over their clamor and
cursing broke two voices, one accusing in a deep bass and the other
protesting innocence in a harsh treble. It was the third mate, Eric
Borgson, who approached carrying little Kamasura under his arm like a
bundle.
"Here's the little devil who done the work," he snarled, and flung
Kamasura at the feet of White Henshaw.
The Japanese are a brave people, but in that dreadful presence Kamasura
made no effort to regain his feet, but remained on his knees, groveling
and clinging to the hands of the captain, while he shrieked out an
explanation. To remove his hands from those clinging fingers, Henshaw
simply raised his foot, laid it against the breast of the Jap, and
thrust out. The kick sent Kamasura rolling head over heels till he
crashed against the rail. He lay partially stunned by the impact, and
Eric Borgson, bellowing his enjoyment of this pleasant jest, collared
poor Kamasura and dragged him back before White Henshaw. The Jap was
now inarticulate with terror and pain.
"I was comin' down out of the wheelhouse," said the mate, "to get a
bite of lunch--this bein' a night watch--when I seen this little yellow
rat sneakin' down the deck like a thief. I didn't think nothin' much
about it, supposin' he'd just lifted some chow, maybe, and then I heard
them explosions. They knocked me off my pins, but I scrambled over an'
collared this fellow. He showed he was guilty right off the bat by
yellin' for mercy."
"Captain, captain!" screamed Kamasura. "Lies, lies-all lies. I go down
the deck--"
The heavy hand of Eric Borgson smashed against Kamasura's mouth. The
Jap sagged back, was jerked upright, and the mate's clubbed fist jarred
home again.
"Lies, are they?" thundered Borgson. "I'll teach you to say that word
to Eric Borgson, ha!"
And he struck the half-conscious Jap again full in the face. There was
a slight commotion in the back of the gathering crowd of sailors.
Harrigan was urging forward, but he was caught by the iron hands of
McTee and held back.
"For the love of Mike," moaned the Irishman softly, "let me at that
swine of a mate!"
"Shut up!" cautioned McTee savagely, but in a whisper. "That's the Jap
who tried to knife you!"
"I will--I'll shut up," sighed Harrigan, panting, "but ah-h, to get in
punchin' distance of Borgson for one second!"
"What shall we do with him?" Borgson was asking.
"Captain!" begged the husky voice of Kamasura, fighting his way back to
semi-consciousness.
"If he tries to speak again, smash his mouth in," said Henshaw without
raising his voice. "Tonight put him in irons. I'll tend to him
tomorrow. Go get the irons. Hovey, take Kamasura below."
"Aye, aye, sir," said Hovey, and caught the Jap by the arms behind.
That touch quieted Kamasura, and as he was led off, he began to whisper
quickly.
The moment they were away from the crowd, Hovey said: "Say it slow--no,
you don't have to beg me to help you. I'll do what I can. You know
that. Now tell me what you saw."
"Cap'n McTee--behind the wireless house--holding the hand of Harrigan.
They were talkin' soft--like friends!"
"By God," muttered Hovey fiercely, "an' yet McTee told me he wanted
Harrigan put out of the way. He's double-crossin' us. They're teamin'
it together. What did they say?"
The Jap spat blood copiously before he could answer: "I could not
hear."
"You ain't worth your salt," responded Hovey.
"I cannot help--I am crush--I am defeat. Do not let them bring me
before Henshaw. To look at him--it puts the cold in my heart. I cannot
speak. I shall die--I--"
"Keep your head up," said Hovey. "There's nothing I can say that'll
help you--just now. Later on you'll be able to deal with Henshaw and
Borgson just the way they dealt with you. Does that help any?"
"Ah-h," whispered the Jap and drew in his breath sharply with delight.
"I might start the boys--I might turn them loose on the ship," went on
Hovey, "but the time ain't come yet for that. We're too far from the
coast. Whatever happens, Kamasura, can you promise me to keep your face
shut about the mutiny?"
"Yes-s."
"Even if they was to tie you up an' feed you the lash? Henshaw's equal
to that."
Kamasura stammered, hesitated.
"Don't make no mistake," said Hovey fiercely, "because we'll be
standin' close, some of us, an' the first tune you open your damned
mouth, we'll bash your head in. Get me?"
The entrance of Eric Borgson made it impossible for the Jap to answer
with words, but his eyes were eloquent with promise. Hovey started back
for the forecastle; he had much to say to the sailors, and thereafter
life on the Heron would be equally dangerous for both Harrigan and
McTee.
The two, in the meantime, were making their way aft shoulder to
shoulder. When they reached the stretch of deck behind the wireless
house, McTee said: "Harrigan, what's it to be? Are you for fighting it
out?"
"I'm with you in anything you say," retorted the dauntless Irishman,
and then with a changed voice, "but I'm feelin' sort of sick inside,
Angus. Did ye see that murtherin' dog smash the mouth of that Jap when
he hadn't the strength to lift his head? Ah-h!"
"I'm sick, too," said McTee, "but not because of the Jap. It's
something worse that bothers me."
"What?"
"It's the thought of White Henshaw, Dan. The brain of that old devil is
going back on him. I think he loves death more than life. His memories
of what he's done put him in hell every minute he lives."
"Go easy, McTee," said Harrigan. "D'you mean to say that Henshaw blew
up those boats--an' his ship still in the middle of the Pacific?"
"I say nothing. All I know is that he talked damned queerly of how
wonderful it would be if a ship in the middle of the sea put her nose
under the waves and started for Davy Jones's locker. Yes, if she went
down with all hands--dived for the bottom, in fact."
"What can we do?"
"I don't know, but I'm beginning to think that this ship--and our
lives--would be safer in the hands of Hovey and his gang of cutthroats
than they will be under White Henshaw. Queer things are going to happen
on the _Heron_, Harrigan, mark my word."
"You think Henshaw blew up the boats so not one of the crew could
escape?"
"It sounds too crazy to repeat."
"McTee!"
"Yes, I'm thinking of her, too."
"Between the mutiny and the crazy captain, Angus, it'll take both of us
to pull her through."
"It will."
"Then gimme your hand once more, cap'n. We're in the trough of the sea
once more, an' God knows when we'll reach dry land, but while we're on
the _Heron_, we're brothers once more. For her sake I'll forget I hate
you till we've got the honest ground under our feet once more."
"When the time comes," said McTee, "it'll be a wonderful fight."
"It will," agreed Harrigan fervently. "But first, McTee, we must let
her know that we're standin' shoulder to shoulder to fight for her.
Otherwise she won't give us her trust."
"You're right again. We'll go to her cabin now and tell her. But don't
give her a hint of all that we fear. She already knows about the
mutiny--and she knows about your part in it."
"You saw to that, McTee?" said Harrigan softly, as he pulled on his
shirt.
"I did."
"Ah-h, Angus, that fight'll be even better than I was afther thinkin'."
And they went forward, walking again shoulder to shoulder. It was
Harrigan who stood in front at her door and knocked. She opened it
wide, but at sight of him started to slam it again. He blocked it with
his foot.
"I've not come for my own sake," he said in a hard voice, "but the two
of us have come together."
He jerked his thumb over his shoulder, and she made out the towering
form of McTee. At that she opened the door, glancing curiously from one
to the other. The eyes of Harrigan went from her face to McTee, and his
eyes flamed.
"Speak up, McTee," he said savagely. "Tell her you lied about me."
The Scotchman glowered upon him.
"I'll tell her what I've just found out," he answered coldly, and
turned to Kate. "We were mistaken in what we thought when we overheard
Hovey talking with Harrigan. Dan was simply playing a part with them--
he was trying to learn their plans so as to use them against the
mutineers when the time came."
There was a joyousness in her voice that cut McTee like a knife as she
cried: "I knew! I knew! My instinct fought for you, Dan. I couldn't
believe what I heard!"
"What you both heard?" he said bitterly. "I remember now. It was when I
talked with Hovey in front of this cabin?"
"Ask no more questions," said McTee. "I'm seeing red now."
"Black! You see nothin' but black, ye swine! The soot in your soul is a
stain hi your eyes, McTee."
They turned toward the door, but she sprang before it and set her
shoulders against the boards.
"Sit down--you too, Dan."
They obeyed slowly, McTee taking the edge of the bunk and Harrigan
lowering his bulk to the little campstool, which groaned beneath his
weight. She sat on a chair between them, while she looked from face to
face.
"When you came in you were friends," she said, "and the only thing that
could bring you to friendship was danger. There is danger. What?"
They exchanged glances of wonder at this shrewd interpretation.
"There is danger," said McTee at length, "and it's a danger which is
something more than the mutiny, perhaps."
"I will tell it," said Harrigan.
He drew his chair closer to Kate and leaned over so that his face was
near hers. She knew at once that he had forgotten all about the
presence of McTee.
"Kate, I will not lie to ye, colleen"--here McTee set his teeth, but
Harrigan went on--"I hate McTee, and it's for your sake that I hate
him. And it's for your sake that I'm goin' to forget it for a while.
There's throuble abroad--there's a cloud over this ship an' a curse on
it--"
"What he means to say," broke in McTee, and then he became aware that
she had not heard him speak, and he saw her smiling as she drank in the
musical brogue of the Irishman.
"A curse on it, acushla, an' a promise av death that only two shtrong
men can save you from--an' McTee is shtrong--so I've put away desire av
killin' him till we get you safe an' sound to the shore, colleen,
acushla; but ye must trust in us, an' follow us as ye love your life
an' as I love ye!"
She straightened in her chair and turned her eyes toward McTee.
"And you cannot tell me what the danger is?"
"We cannot," he answered, "but you must pay no attention to anything
that happens or to anything that is said to you by others. There are
only two men on the _Heron_ whom you can trust--and here we are. But
there may be wild happenings on the _Heron_. Keep your courage and
trust hi Angus McTee and--"
"And Harrigan," broke in the Irishman quickly, with a glare at the
captain.
She reached an impulsive hand to both of them, and they met the clasp,
keeping, as it were, one eye upon her and one eye of hate upon each
other.
She said, and her voice was low and musical with exultation: "I've no
care what happens. I know we shall pull through safely. The three of
us--Dan, Angus--we lived through the storm when the _Mary Rogers_ sank,
we lived on the island and survived, we reached the _Heron_ in safety,
and as long as we stay together, we'd be safe if the whole world were
against us. Don't you feel it?"
She rose, and they stood up, towering above her, while she went on in a
voice trembling somewhat: "But we must not be seen together if all
these dangers threaten us; they must not know that the three of us are
like one great heart."
They stepped back, and McTee pulled open the door, but still she
retained their hands, and now she raised them both to her lips with a
gesture so swift that they could not resist it.
"Both of you," she said; "God bless you both!"
CHAPTER 31
She released their hands; the door closed upon them; they stood facing
each other on the deck in the dark.
"McTee," said Harrigan with deep emotion, "we're swine. We were about
to fight before--her."
"Harrigan," said McTee, "we _are_ swine. But when the time comes, we'll
make up for it to her. If you hear a word in the forecastle, let me
know about it; if I hear a word in the captain's cabin, I'll send for
you. I may be wrong. Henshaw may be in his right senses. We'll see. In
the meantime there are just the two of us, Harrigan, and against us
there's a mutinous crew on one side and a mad captain, I think, on the
other."
"There's no use in thinkin'," said Harrigan; "when the time comes,
we'll fight. So long, Angus. When the trouble starts, our assemblin'
point is Kate."
And he went forward to the forecastle. In the morning he discovered
what he wanted to know. The men were aloof from him. He was conscious
of eyes upon him whenever his back was turned, but while he faced them,
no one would meet his glance.
In some way Hovey had learned that Harrigan was no longer to be trusted
as a member of the mutineers, and he must have spread his tidings among
the rest of the sailors. What he sensed in those covert glances,
however, was not an immediate danger, but rather a waiting--an
expectancy, and he deduced rightly that they would not attempt to lay a
hand upon him until the mutiny was started. Then he would be reserved
for some lingering death as a traitor doubly dyed.
While they were eating breakfast, Hovey came in late with the word that
during the night someone had tampered with the dynamo, and the result
was that the ship must complete her voyage without electric lights
and--far more important--without the use of the wireless. Sam Hall
started to blurt a comment on this, but a glance from Hovey silenced
him. It was plain that the bos'n would risk no conversation from his
blunt sailors while Harrigan was in earshot. The Irishman hurried
through his breakfast and took his bucket and scrubbing brush toward
the bridge, for he had many questions to ask McTee. He had scarcely
left the forecastle when Hovey said to Garry Cochrane: "Watch the door.
I've got something important to say."
Cochrane took up the designated position, and Hovey went on: "Lads,
I've bad news, bad and good news together. The boats are gone--though
who the devil destroyed them we don't know--and now the wireless is
destroyed. The boats are a big loss, for now we'll have to rig up some
sort of a raft to make shore when we beach the _Heron_. The busting of
the wireless almost balances that loss. Now we're sure they can't slip
out any quick wireless call that would bring a dozen ships after us.
Bad news and good news together; and here's some more of the same kind.
"Henshaw has made up his mind to give Kamasura the whip. You know what
that means? Well, I'll tell you. It means that after the first dozen
strokes--as Borgson will lay them on--Kamasura will break down and tell
everything we don't want him to say. Understand? With the cabin warned
of what we're going to do, what chance would we have to take them? So
we'll hang around close, lads, and the minute Kamasura opens his face
to say the wrong thing, we'll rush 'em--are you with me? And go for two
men first--Black McTee and Harrigan. With them out of the way we'll
simply chew up the rest. Try to take the others alive, but don't waste
any time with McTee and the Irishman. You can lay to it before you
start that they'll never be taken till they're dead."
For some minutes he talked on, appointing to each man or group of men
the work he would be expected to perform when Hovey gave the signal to
attack, which would be one long blast on his whistle.
While they planned, Harrigan had reached the bridge and found McTee
impatiently awaiting him.
"You're late," frowned the Scotchman. "What's happened in the
forecastle?"
"Black looks on all sides, and no talk," said Harrigan.
"A falling barometer," nodded McTee, "and things are just as bad in the
cabin. You've heard about the wireless breaking?"
"I have. What does it mean?"
"It may have been done by the mutineers. I doubt it. But that isn't all
that's happened. This is a pretty cool day for the tropics."
Harrigan stared at him, baffled by the sudden change of the
conversation.
"It is cool," he assented.
"But in the fireroom it's hotter than it's been at any time since the
_Heron_ started on this trip. The second assistant came up to complain
to Henshaw, and I heard them.
"'There's something wrong with the air shafts,' he said to White
Henshaw.
"'Look here,' said Henshaw, 'I've had enough grumbling from the
fireroom. Put a fan in the air shaft, and don't come up here again with
any nonsense. D'you expect to find cool breezes in the South Seas? No,
they're hot as fire--hot as fire--hot as fire!'
"He repeated those words three times over in a way that made my flesh
creep, and then he laughed. Even the second saw that something was
wrong. He took a long look at Henshaw, and then he went out with his
head down."
"What did it all mean?" asked Harrigan.
"I don't know. I don't dare think what it means. But if my guess is
right, then the _Heron_ is a lot nearer hell than even you and I
expected. Look, there goes Fritz Klopp, the first assistant engineer.
I'll wager he's got another complaint about the heat in the fireroom."
They watched Klopp go into the captain's cabin, waited a moment, and
then the door flew open and Klopp sprang out and fled aft like a man
pursued. Henshaw came to the open door and peered after the engineer
and laughed silently.
McTee muttered: "That's the way the devil laughs when he watches the
damned souls pass by."
Here Henshaw glanced up and saw them watching him from the bridge. His
face altered suddenly to a malevolence so terrible that both the men
stepped back. Harrigan was trembling like a hysterical girl. He looked
in the face of McTee and saw that the Scotchman had blanched. For a
long moment they exchanged glances, and then McTee went down from the
bridge and entered the cabin.
Henshaw was not there. He had evidently gone into the inner room, and
McTee sat down to wait. The time had come for him to ask questions, and
he was nerving himself for the ordeal. His plans were disturbed by a
muffled sound from the inner cabin, a sound so unusual that McTee
stiffened in his chair with horror and then rose slowly.
Tiptoe he stole across the floor and laid a hand lightly on the knob of
the door of the captain's private room. It turned easily without any
creak, and the door opened a few inches. There sat Henshaw with his
back to McTee, leaning over a table. Gold pieces were spilled loosely
across the surface of the wood--possibly the contents of three or four
of those small canvas bags--and Henshaw leaned forward with his
forehead resting upon the glittering yellow coins and one hand
clutching a quantity of them. His other hand held a photograph of the
dead Beatrice. The sound continued. It was the low sobbing of the
captain, a hoarse and horrible murmur.
McTee closed the door and went back onto the deck, for he suddenly
understood the futility of questions. Harrigan, in the meantime, had
waited for the return of McTee, and when the latter did not come, the
Irishman lingered on the bridge for an hour or more, pottering about
with his brush in a pretense of finishing up a perfect job. His
attention was drawn then by a gathering crowd and bustle in the waist
of the ship between the wheelhouse and the forecastle. The entire crew
of the _Heron_ seemed to be mustering, with the exception of those
needed to keep the engines running. They stood in a circle, leaving the
cover of the hatch clear.
He hurried down to witness the ceremony, and as he reached the waist,
he saw Henshaw take up his position with folded arms in the very center
of the hatch. A moment later Kamasura was led up by Eric Borgson and
Jan Van Roos.
The two mates, under the direction of Henshaw, lashed the Japanese face
down upon the hatch, pulling his arms and legs taut with ropes that
fastened to the bolts on all sides of the hatch cover.
When he was securely tied, Kamasura was stripped to the waist, and then
Harrigan saw Borgson, grinning evilly, step up with a long whip in his
hand. It was a blacksnake, heavily loaded and stiff at the butt and
tapering gradually to a slender, supple, snakelike body, with a thin,
sinister lash. Borgson whirled the whip around his head to get its
balance. Henshaw stepped back, still with folded arms.
"This fellow Kamasura," he announced to the crew, "has blown up the
boats of the _Heron_. There's no doubt of it. Borgson caught him almost
in the act. I could do worse things than this to Kamasura, but I've
decided to flog him until he confesses."
There was not a word of answer from the crew; they waited, hushed,
ominous. A whisper sounded in the ear of Harrigan, who stood with
gritting teeth and clenched hands.
It was McTee who murmured: "Hold onto yourself, Harrigan. Our time
hasn't come."
"I'll hold onto myself all right," said Harrigan, "but look at the
crew."
In fact, there was something more deadly than any snarling of a crowd
in this unnatural silence of many men. Also they were not looking at
Kamasura; they were staring, every man, at the bos'n, who stood with
his whistle hanging from a cord around his neck.
"Begin!" said Henshaw.
The blacksnake whistled around the head of the third mate and there was
a long scream from Kamasura--but the blacksnake only cracked loudly in
the air. Borgson laughed with a hideous delight. Harrigan, sickly
white, bowed his head. Again the blacksnake whirled and again it
cracked, but this time on naked flesh, and the scream of Kamasura was
like the cut of a knife.
Again, again, and again the blacksnake fell, and now Kamasura twisted
his head toward the captain and cried in a voice made thin by pain and
rage at once: "I confess! Captain, let me speak!"
At a gesture from Henshaw, the third mate reluctantly stepped back,
drawing the lash of the blacksnake slowly through his hands with a
caressing touch. Van Roos, the color completely gone from his usually
blooming cheeks, cut the ropes, and Kamasura rose, facing the captain.
He extended a naked, trembling arm toward Hovey.
"Mutiny!" he yelled. "The whole crew--the whole forecastle--mutiny,
Cap'n Henshaw! I know--"
The piercing whistle of the bos'n cut into his speech, and the crew
rolled forward over the hatch with a single shout that might have come
from one throat except for its shrill volume.
CHAPTER 32
"It's come!" cried Harrigan to McTee. "Kate!"
But even as he whirled, two sailors leaped on him from behind and bore
him to the deck. At the same time a gun flashed in the hand of Henshaw,
and he fired twice into the onrushing host. Two men crumpled up on deck
and the others gave back a little--they were glad to turn to the easier
prey of Van Roos and Borgson, who were instantly overpowered, while
Henshaw, with brandished revolver, made his way toward the main cabin.
The second and smaller rush of the mutineers had been toward Harrigan
and McTee, where the two men stood together. Harrigan, taken from
behind, went down at once and then grappled with his assailants before
they could use their knives. McTee stood over the struggling three and
smote right and left among the mutineers. A knife caught his shirt at
the shoulder and ripped it to the waist; a club whizzed past his head,
but his great fists smashed home on face and head and sent men
staggering and sprawling back. The confusion gave him an instant of
freedom in a small circle, and he leaned and caught one of Harrigan's
assailants by the heels. It was a little man, a withered fellow
scarcely five feet tall and literally dried up by the tropic heat. He
was wrenched from his hold, heaved into the air, and then whirled about
the head of McTee like a mighty bludgeon. As the sailors rushed again,
that living club smashed against them and flung them back. Even to the
herculean strength of McTee it was a prodigious feat, but the danger
gave him for the moment the power of a madman. Twice he swung the
shrieking little sailor, and twice that body smashed back the attack,
while Harrigan leaped to his feet in time to knock down a man who
sprang at McTee from behind with a brandished knife.
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