Books: Harrigan
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Max Brand >> Harrigan
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"What oath could I swear that you'd believe?"
"Your hand in mind for a pledge--I ask no more."
He held out his hand. The lean, strong fingers fascinated Harrigan.
"I'd rather take your throat than your hand, McTee--an' mebbe I
will--an' mebbe I will!"
He caught the hand in his own cracked, stained, black palm. The smile
of McTee was like the smile of Satan when he watched Adam driven from
the Eden.
"Strip to the waist," he said, and turned on the crew.
"You know me, lads. I've tried to break Harrigan, but I've only bent
him, and now he's going to stand up to me man to man, and if he wins,
he's free to do as he likes and never lift a hand till we reach port.
Aye, lick your chops, you dogs. There's none of you had the heart to
try what Harrigan is going to try."
If they did not actually lick their chops, there was hunger in their
eyes and a strange wistfulness as they watched Harrigan strip off his
shirt, but when they saw the wasted arms, lean, with the muscles
defined and corded as if by famine, their faces went blank again. For
they glanced in turn at the vast torso of McTee. When he moved his
arms, his smooth shoulders rippled in significant spots--the spots
where the driving muscles lay. But Harrigan saw nothing save the throat
of which he had dreamed.
"This is to the finish?" said McTee.
"Aye."
"And no quarter?"
Harrigan grinned, and slipped out to the middle of the deck. Both of
them kicked off their shoes. Even in their bare feet it would be
difficult to keep upright, for the _Mary Rogers_ was rollicking through
a choppy sea. Harrigan sensed the crew standing in a loose circle with
the hunger of the wolf pack in winter stamped in their eyes.
McTee stood with his feet braced strongly, his hands poised. But
Harrigan stole about him with a gliding, unequal step. He did not seem
preparing to strike with his hands, which hung low, but rather like one
who would leap at the throat with his teeth. The ship heaved and
Harrigan sprang and his fists cracked--one, two. He leaped out again
under the captain's clubbed hands. Two spots of red glowed on McTee's
ribs and the wolf pack moistened their lips.
"Come again, Harrigan, for I've smelled the meat, not tasted it."
"It tastes red--like this."
And feinting at McTee's body, he suddenly straightened and smashed both
hands against the captain's mouth. McTee's head jarred back under the
impact. The wolf pack murmured. The captain made a long step, waited
until Harrigan had leaped back to the side of the deck to avoid the
plunge, and then, as the deck heaved up to give added impetus to his
lunge, he rushed. The angle of the deck kept the Irishman from taking
advantage of his agility. He could not escape. One pile-driver hand
cracked against his forehead--another thudded on his ribs. He leaped
through a shower of blows and clinched.
He was crushed against the rail. He was shaken by a quick succession of
short arm punches. But anything was preferable to another of those
long, driving blows. He clung until his head cleared. Then he shook
himself loose and dropped, as if dazed, to one knee. McTee's bellow of
triumph filled his ears. The captain bore down on him with outstretched
hands to grapple at his throat, but at the right instant Harrigan rose
and lurched out with stiff arm. The punch drove home to the face with a
shock that jarred Harrigan to his feet and jerked McTee back as if
drawn by a hand. Before he recovered his balance, Harrigan planted half
a dozen punches, but though they shook the captain, they did not send
him down, and Harrigan groaned.
McTee bellowed again. It was not pain. It was not mere rage. It was a
battle cry, and with it he rushed Harrigan. They raged back and forth
across the deck, and the wolf pack drew close, cursing beneath their
breath. They had looked for a quick end to the struggle, but now they
saw that the fighters were mated. The greater strength was McTee's; the
greater purpose was Harrigan's. McTee fought to crush and conquer;
Harrigan fought to kill.
The blows of the captain flung Harrigan here and there, yet he came
back to meet the attack, slinking with sure, catlike steps. The heel
and pitch of the deck sometimes staggered the captain, but Harrigan
seemed to know beforehand what would happen, and he leaped in at every
opening with blows that cut the skin.
His own flesh was bruised. He bled from mouth and nose, but what was
any other pain compared with the torture of his clenched fists? It made
his arms numb to the elbow and sent currents of fire through his veins.
His eyes kept on the thick throat of McTee. Though he was knocked
reeling and half senseless, his stare never changed, and the wolf pack,
with their heads jutting forward with eagerness watched, waited. The
"Ha!" of McTee rang with the strength of five throats. The "Wah-h!" of
Harrigan purred like a furious panther's snarl.
Then as the frenzy left Harrigan and the numbness departed from his
arms, he knew that he was growing weaker and weaker. In McTee's eyes he
saw the growing light of victory, the confidence. His own wild hunger
for blood grew apace with his desperation. He flung himself forward in
a last effort.
A ponderous fist cracked home between his eyes, fairly lifting him from
his feet and hurling him against the base of the wheelhouse. Then a
forearm shot under his shoulder and a hand fastened on the back of his
neck in an incomplete half-Nelson. As McTee applied the pressure,
Harrigan felt his vertebral column give under the tremendous strain. He
struggled furiously but could not break the grip. Far away, like the
storm wind in the forest, he heard the moan of the wolf pack.
"Give in! Give in!" panted McTee.
"Ah-h!" snarled Harrigan.
He felt the deck swing and jerked his legs high in the air. He could
not have broken that grip of his own strength, but the sway of the deck
gave his movement a mighty leverage. The hand slipped from his neck,
scraping skin away, as if a red-hot iron had been drawn across the
flesh. But he was half loosed, and that twist of his body sent them
both rolling one over the other to the scuppers of the ship--and it was
McTee who crashed against the rail, receiving the blow on the back of
his head. His eyes went dull; the red hands of Harrigan fastened on his
throat.
"God!" screamed McTee, and gripped Harrigan's wrists, but the Irishman
heaved him up and beat his head against the deck.
McTee's jaws fell open, and a bloody froth bubbled to his
lips; his eyes thrust out hideously.
"Ah-h!" snarled Harrigan, and shifted his grip lower, his thumbs
digging relentlessly into the great throat. This time the giant limbs
of the captain relaxed as if in sleep. Then through the fierce singing
in his ears the Irishman heard a yell. He turned his head. The wolf
pack saw their prey pulled down at last. They ran now to join the kill,
not men, but raging devils. Harrigan sprang to his feet, catching up a
marlinspike, and whirled it above his head.
"Back!" he shouted.
They shrank back, growling one to the other savagely, irresolute. There
came a moan at Harrigan's feet. He leaned over and lifted the bulk of
the captain's inert body. As if through a haze he saw the chief
engineer and the two mates running toward him and caught the glitter of
a revolver in the hands of the first officer. The Irishman's battered
lips stretched to a shapeless grin.
"Help me to the captain's cabin," he said. "He's afther bein' sick."
CHAPTER 8
And the four of them went aft carrying McTee's body. On the promenade
they passed Kate Malone. She shrank against the rail, her eyes blank
and her face white.
"He's dead!" she cried.
"He's just beginnin' to live," said Harrigan.
The captain was muttering faintly as they laid him on the bunk in his
room. "Now get out," commanded Harrigan. "I will be alone with him when
he wakes up. I have something to whisper in his ear."
"Is it safe?" said the first mate to the chief engineer, gesturing with
his weapon.
Harrigan snatched it away and waved it like a club above his head.
"Get out, or I'll bash your skull in."
His face was hideous, cut and blood-stained, starved with the long
hunger and lighted with the victory. They slunk from the cabin, backing
out as if they expected him to rush them. Harrigan locked the door and
started to tend the captain. He washed McTee to the waist, cleansed the
cut places carefully, and covered them with narrow strips of adhesive
tape which he found in a small medicine chest. As the heavier breathing
of the captain indicated that he was about to recover his senses,
Harrigan performed the same services for himself. It was slow work, for
now that the stimulus of action was gone, his weakness grew on him in
recurrent waves. Finally a sound made him turn to see McTee propping
himself up on the bunk with one elbow; his eyes, unconfused and steady,
looked brightly out at Harrigan.
"You beat me?"
"It was the swing of the deck that rolled you over and broke your grip.
I've stayed to tell you that."
"Chances or no chances, you beat me."
"Man, you'd have busted my back if it hadn't been for that buck of the
ship. When your hand came away, it took the skin with it."
"And that's why you didn't finish me?"
"Aye."
"You'll never have the chance again."
"I want no chances; I want no help except my own strength as it was
before you withered me with your hellfire."
"When we stand up again, I'll kill you, Harrigan."
"When we stand up again, I'll break you, Black McTee--like a rotten
stick."
"Lie down here," said the captain, rising quickly. "You're sick."
He forced Harrigan onto the bunk and stretched him out at full length.
The Irishman clenched his hands and fought against the sleep which
crept over his senses.
"There's fire in my brain," muttered Harrigan, "an' it's trying to burn
its way out."
McTee dipped a towel in cool water.
"I kept the rest of them away," went on the Irishman. "When you woke
up, I wanted you to hear why I didn't finish you."
He raised his shaking hands and gripped at the air.
"Ah-h! When me ould silf is back, I'll shtand up to ye. Tis a promise,
McTee. Black McTee, Black McTee--I'll make ye Red McTee--red as the
palms av me hands."
McTee tied the cold, wet towel around Harrigan's forehead.
"I'll kill you by inches, Harrigan. You'll read hell in my eyes before
your end. Drink this!"
He raised Harrigan's almost lifeless head and forced the neck of a
whisky bottle between his teeth.
"Ah-h!" said Harrigan, blinking and coughing after the strong liquor
had burned its way down his throat. "The feel av your throat under me
thumbs was sweeter than the touch av a colleen's hand, McTee! I'm dead
for shlape!"
And instantly his eyes closed; his breathing was deep and sonorous. The
captain watched him for a long moment, then sat down and laying a hand
on the sleeping man's wrist, he counted the pulse carefully. It was
irregular and feeble.
"Time is all he needs," muttered McTee to himself, and he sat staring
before him, dreaming. "A fool can live well," he was thinking, "but it
takes a great man to die well. Harrigan will make a fine death." In the
meantime the big Irishman slept heavily, and Black McTee tended him
well, keeping the towel cool and wet about his forehead. The pulse was
gaining rapidly in strength and regularity; sleep seemed to act upon
Harrigan as food acts upon a starved man. At times he smiled, and McTee
could guess at the dream which caused it. He was dreaming of killing
McTee, and McTee sat by and understood, and smiled with deep content.
He, also, was tasting his thoughts of the battle-to-be when, without
any warning rap, the door swung open and the burly form of Bos'n
Masters appeared.
"The first mate--" he began.
"Did you knock?"
"I've got no time to waste, the first mate--"
McTee rose. In the frank, bold eyes of the bos'n he read the open
revolt, and understood. He had been beaten in open battle; his crew
felt that they were liberated by the victory of their champion.
"Who told you to enter without knocking?" he broke
in.
"I don't need telling," said the dauntless bos'n. "The first mate's
drunk an'--"
The heavy fist of McTee landed on Masters's mouth and hurled him in a
heap into the corner of the cabin. The captain seized him by the nape
of the neck and jerked him back to his feet, blinking and gasping,
thoroughly subdued.
"Get out and come in as you should."
The bos'n fled. A moment later a timid knock came at the door and McTee
bade him enter. He stepped in, cap in hand, his eyes on the floor.
"The first mate's drunk, sir, an' runnin' amuck with the ship. He's at
the wheel an' he won't leave it. We've nearly scraped one reef already.
You know this ain't any open sea, sir. There's green water everywhere."
"Go up and give the fool my orders. Tell the second officer to take the
wheel."
The bos'n retreated, but he returned within a few moments.
"He won't leave the wheel," he reported. "He said you could take your
orders to the devil, sir."
"I'll tie him to the deck and skin him alive," said McTee calmly. "Stay
here and watch Harrigan while I--"
He was jerked from his feet and hurled across the room, crashing
against the cabin wall. When his senses returned, he was sitting on the
floor staring stupidly into the white face of the bos'n, who was in a
similar posture. Harrigan, who had been flung from the bunk, staggered
to his feet.
"What the deuce is up?" asked the Irishman.
A chorus of piercing yells rose in answer from the deck outside.
"The end of the _Mary Rogers_," said McTee. "Stay with me, Harrigan."
He caught the latter by the arm and dragged him out onto the deck. The
hull of the ship at the bow must have been literally ripped away by the
impact against the reef; already the deck sloped sharply to the bows.
McTee raised a voice that rang like a trumpet over the clamor as he
gave his orders to clear away the boats. If he had been a moment
earlier, he might have succeeded in getting at least one of them safely
launched, but now the _Mary Rogers_ was settling to her doom with a
speed which made the crew senseless with terror. A half-gale which
promised to swell soon into a veritable hurricane seemed to be lifting
the freighter by the heel and driving her nose into the sea. The quick
settling twilight of the tropics made the waters doubly cold and dark.
Not till the bows of the _Mary Rogers_ were deep below the waves and
her propeller humming loudly in the air did the captain desist from his
efforts to bring order out of the panic of the crew. Half a dozen men,
with the Chinaman at their head, had cut one boat from its davits, but
plunging into it before it fairly struck the water, they tipped it far
to one side. It filled instantly and sank, leaving its occupants
struggling on the surface. The Chinaman, who apparently could not swim,
gave up the struggle at once. He threw his clutching hands high above
his head and went down; his scream was the first death cry of the wreck
of the _Mary Rogers_.
McTee, with Harrigan at his heels, rushed for the second lifeboat.
Under the directions of the captain, pointed and emphasized by blows of
his fist, the boat was swung safely from the davits and lowered to the
sea. The instant that it rode the waves, bouncing up and down on the
choppy surface, the crew began leaping in, the drunken mate being the
first overside.
The lifeboat was loaded from stem to stern, and only Harrigan, McTee,
and half a dozen more remained on the ship when the boat swung a dozen
feet away from the _Mary Rogers_ and with the next wave was picked up
and smashed against the freighter. Its side went in like a matchbox
pressed by a strong thumb, and it zigzagged quickly below the surface.
The yells of the swimmers rose in a long wail. McTee caught Harrigan by
the shoulder and shouted in his ear: "Stay close and do what I do."
"Miss Malone!" yelled Harrigan in answer, and pointed.
She stood by the after-cabin, clinging to the rail with one hand while
she attempted to adjust a life preserver with the other. The _Mary
Rogers_ lurched forward, a long slide that buried half of the ship
under the sea. A giant wave towered above the side and licked the
wheelhouse away.
"Let her go!" roared McTee. "Save ourselves and let her
go."
It was a matter of seconds now before the last of the _Mary Rogers_
should disappear. They clambered up to the after-cabin.
"For the love av God, McTee, she's a woman!"
The Irishman struggled up the deck toward the girl, but the captain
caught him and held him fast.
"There's one chance," shouted Black McTee, and he pointed to the litter
of the wrecked wheelhouse which tossed on the waves. "Overboard and
make for a big timber."
But the eyes of Harrigan held on the form of the girl. They could only
make out the shadow of her form with her hair blowing wildly on the
wind. Then as swift as the sway of a bird's wing, a mass of black water
tossed over the side of the _Mary Rogers_. When it was gone, the
shadowy figure of the girl had disappeared with it.
"Now!" thundered McTee.
"Aye," said Harrigan.
CHAPTER 9
They climbed the rail. Plainly Harrigan had made them delay too long,
for now they had not time to swim beyond the reach of the swirl that
would form when the ship went down. The _Mary Rogers_ lurched to her
grave as they sprang from the rail. A wave caught them and washed them
beyond the grip of the whirlpool; another wave swung them back, and the
waters sucked them down. Such was the force of that downward pull that
it seemed to Harrigan as if a weight were attached to either foot. He
drew a great, gasping breath before his head went under and then struck
out with all his might.
When his lungs seemed bursting with the labor, he whirled to the
surface again and drew another gasping breath. The storm had torn a
rift in the clouds and through it looked the moon as if some god were
peering through the curtain of mist to watch the havoc he was working.
By this light Harrigan saw that he was being drawn down in a narrowing
circle. Straight before him loomed a black fragment of the wreckage. He
tried to swing to one side, but the current of the water bore him on.
He received a heavy blow on the head and his senses went out like a
snuffed light.
When consciousness returned, there was a sharp pain in both head and
right shoulder, for it was on his shoulder that McTee had fastened his
grip. The captain sprawled on a great timber, clutching it with both
legs and one arm. With the free hand he held Harrigan. All this the
Irishman saw by the haggard moonlight. Then they were pitched high up
on the crest of a wave. As Harrigan grappled the timber with arms and
legs, it turned over and over and then pitched down through empty
space. The wind had literally cut away the top of the wave. He went
down, submerged, and then rose to a giddy height again. As he caught a
great breath of air, he saw that McTee was no longer on the timber.
A shout reached him, the sound being cut off in the middle by the noise
of the wind and waves. He saw McTee a dozen feet away, swimming
furiously. He came almost close enough to touch the timber with his
hands, and then a twist of the wave separated them. Harrigan worked
down the timber until he reached the end of the stanchion which was
nearest Black McTee. All that time the captain was struggling, but
could not draw closer. The wood was drifting before the wind faster
than he could swim.
When he reached the end of the timber, Harrigan wound his long arms
tightly around it and let his legs draw out on the water. McTee, seeing
the purpose of the maneuver, redoubled his efforts. On a wave crest the
storm swept Harrigan still farther away; then they dropped into a
hollow and instantly he felt a mighty grip fall on his ankle. They
pitched up again with the surge of a wave so sharp and sudden that what
with his own weight and the tugging burden of McTee behind him,
Harrigan felt as if his arms would be torn from their sockets. He kept
his hold by a mighty effort, and the tremendous grip of McTee held fast
on his ankle until they dropped once more into a hollow. Then the
captain jerked himself hand over hand up the body of Harrigan until he
reached the timber. They lay panting and exhausted on the stanchion,
embracing it with arms and legs.
Sometimes the wind sent the timber with its human freight lunging
through a towering wave; and several times the force of the storm
caught them and whirled them over and over. When they rose to a wave
crest, they struggled bitterly for life; when they fell into the
trough, they drew long breaths and freshened their holds.
Save once when Harrigan reached out his hand and set it upon that of
Black McTee. The captain met the grip, and by the wild moonlight they
stared into each other's faces. That handshake almost cost them their
lives, for the next moment the full breath of the storm caught them and
wrenched furiously at their bodies. Yet neither of them regretted the
handclasp, for all its cost. If they died now, it would be as brothers.
They had at least escaped from the greatest of all horrors, a lonely
death.
It seemed as if the storm acknowledged the strength of their
determination. It fell away as suddenly as it had risen. A heavy ground
swell still ran, but without the wind to roughen the surface and
sharpen the crests, the big timber rode safely through the sea. The
storm clouds were dropping back in a widening circle beneath the moon
when, as they heaved up on the top of a wave, Harrigan suddenly pointed
straight ahead and shouted hoarsely. On the horizon squatted a black
shadow, darker than any cloud.
All night they watched the shadow grow, and when the morning came and
the tropic dawn stepped suddenly up from the east, the light glinted on
the unmistakable green of verdure.
With the help of the steady wind they drifted slowly closer and closer
to the island. By noon they abandoned the timber and started swimming,
but the submerged beach went out far more gradually than they had
expected. The last hundred yards they walked arm in arm, floundering
through the gentle surf.
Then they stumbled up the beach, reeling with weariness, and sprawled
out in the shade of a palm tree. They were asleep almost before they
struck the sand.
It was late afternoon when they woke, ravenously hungry, their throats
burning with thirst. For food McTee climbed a coconut palm and knocked
down some of the fruit. They split the gourds open on a rock, drank the
liquor, and ate heartily of the meat. That quelled their appetites, but
the sweet liquor only partially appeased their thirst, and they started
to search the island for a spring. First they went to the center of the
place to a small hill, and from the top of this they surveyed their
domain. The island was not more than a thousand yards in width and
three or four miles in length. Nowhere was there any sign of even a
hut.
"Well?" queried Harrigan, seeing McTee frown.
"We can live here," explained the captain, "but God knows how long it
will be before we sight a ship. Our only hope is for some tramp
freighter that's trying to find a short cut through the reefs. Even if
we sight a tramp, how'll we signal her?"
"With a fire."
"Aye, if one passes at night. We could stack up wood on the top of this
hill. The island isn't charted. If a skipper saw a light, he might take
a chance and send a boat. But how could we kindle a fire?"
They went slowly down the hill, their heads bent. At the base, as if
placed in their path to cheer them in this moment of gloom, they found
a spring. It ran a dozen feet and disappeared into a crevice. They
cupped the water in their hands and drank long and deep. When they
stood up again, McTee dropped a hand on Harrigan's shoulder. He said:
"You've cause enough for hating me."
"Pal," said Harrigan, "you're nine parts devil, but the part of you
that's a man makes up for all the rest."
McTee brooded: "Now we're standing on the rim of the world, and we've
got to be brother to each other. But what if we get off the
island--there's small chance of it, but what if we should? Would we
remember then how we took hands in the trough of the sea?"
Harrigan raised his hand.
"So help me God--" he began.
"Wait!" broke in McTee. "Don't say it. Suppose we get off the island,
and when we reach port find one thing which we both want. What then?"
Harrigan remembered a word from the Bible.
"I'll never covet one of your belongin's, McTee, an' I'll never cross
your wishes."
"Your hair is red, Harrigan, and mine is black; your eye is blue and
mine is black. We were made to want the same thing in different ways.
I've never met my mate before. I can stand it here on the rim of the
world--but in the world itself--what then, Harrigan?"
They stepped apart, and the glance of the black eye crossed that of the
cold blue.
"Ah-h, McTee, are ye dark inside and out? Is the black av your eye the
same as the soot in your heart?"
"Harrigan, you were born to fight and forget; I was born to fight and
remember. Well, I take no oath, but here's my hand. It's better than
the oath of most men."
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