Читать книгу The Man in the Twilight - Cullum Ridgwell - Страница 5

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The calm waters of Farewell Cove lay a-shimmer under the slanting rays of the sun. A wealth of racing white cloud filled the dome of the summer sky, speeding under the pressure of a strong top wind. Even the harsh world of Labrador was smiling under the beneficence of the brief summer season.

Leslie Standing stood for a moment before passing down the winding woodland trail on his way to the water-front below. The view of it all was irresistible to him in his present mood, and he feasted his eyes hungrily while the resolve he had taken yielded an inflexible hardening.

Bat Harker was less affected by the things spread out before him. He was concerned only for the mood of the man beside him. So he waited with such patience as his hasty nature could summon.

"It's all good, Bat, old friend," Standing said, after a moment's silent contemplation. "It's too good to lose. It's too good for us to stand for interference from—Nathaniel Hellbeam."

Bat grunted some sort of acquiescence. He was gazing steadily out over the spruce belt which covered the lower slopes of the hillside. His keen deep-set eyes were on the shipping lying out in the cove, watching the fussy approach of the bluff packet boat.

It was a scene of amazing natural splendour which the works of man had no power to destroy. Farewell Cove was a perfect natural harbour, deep-set amidst surrounding, lofty, forest-clad hills. It was wide and deep, a veritable sea-lake, backing inland some fifteen miles behind the wide headland gateway to the East, which guarded its entrance from the storming Atlantic. Its shores were of virgin forest, peopled with the delicate-hued spruce, and all the many other varieties of soft, white, long-fibred timber demanded in the manufacture of the groundwood pulp needed for the world's paper industry.

Far as the eye could see, in every direction, it was the same; forest and hill. And, in the heart of it all, the great watercourse of the Beaver River debouched upon the cove which linked it with the ocean beyond. It was a world of forest, seeming of limitless extent.

But the feast that had inspired Leslie Standing's words was less the banquet which Nature had spread than the things which expressed the labours he and his companion had expended during the past seven years. He was concerned for the endless forests. He appreciated the great waterfall to the west, where the Beaver River fell off the highlands of the interior and precipitated itself into the cove below. These were the two things in Nature he had demanded to make his work possible. For the rest, the rugged immensity of scenery, the mighty contours of the aged land about him, the vastness of the harsh primordial world, so inhospitable, so forbidding under the fierce climate which Nature had imposed, made no appeal. It served, and so it was sufficient. The lights and shades under the summer sunlight were full of splendour. No artist eye could have gazed upon it all and missed its appeal. But these men lived amidst it the year round, and they had learned something of the fear which the ruthless northland inspires. To them the beauty of the open season was a mockery, a sham, the cruel trap of a heartless mistress.

It was on the wide southern foreshore, just below where the falls of the Beaver River thundered into the chasm which the centuries of its flood had hewn in the granite rock, that Standing had founded his great mill. It lay there, in full view from the hillside, amidst a tangle of stoutly made roads, where seven years ago not even a game track had existed. He had set it up beside his water-power, and had given it the name which belonged to the ruined trading post he had found on the southern headland of the cove when first he had explored the region. Sachigo. A native, Labrador word which meant "Storm." The trading post had since been re-built into a modern wireless station, and so had become no longer the landmark it once had been. But Standing's whim had demanded the necessity for preserving the name, if only for the sake of its meaning.

In seven years the translation of the wilderness had been well-nigh complete. Its vast desolation remained. That could never change under human effort. It was one of the oldest regions of the earth's land, driven and beaten and desolated under a climate beyond words in its merciless severity. But now the place was peopled. Now human dwellings dotted the forest foreshore of the cove. And the latter were the homes of the workers who had come at the mill-owner's call to share in his great adventure.

Then there was shipping in the cove. A fleet of merchant shipping awaiting cargoes. There was a built inner harbour, with quays, and warehouses. There were travelling cranes, and every appliance for the loading of the great freighters with all possible dispatch. There were light railways running in every direction. There were sheltering "booms" in the river mouth crammed with logs, and dealt with by an army of river men equipped with their amazing peavys with which they thrust, and rolled, and shepherded the vast mass of hewn timber towards the slaughterhouse of saws. Then, immediately surrounding the mill, there was a veritable town of storehouses and offices and machine shops of every description. There were power-houses, there were buildings in the process of construction, and the laid foundations of others projected. It was a world of active human purpose lost in the heart of an immense solitude which it was nevertheless powerless to disturb.

"Yes, it's all too good to have things happen, Bat," Standing went on presently. "Hark at the roar of the falls. What is it? Five hundred thousand horsepower of water, summer and winter. Listen to the drone of the grinders." He shook his head. "It's a great song, boy, and they never get tired of singing it. There's only thirty-six of 'em at present. Thirty-six. We'll have a hundred and thirty-six some day. Look down there at the booms." He stood pointing, a tall, lean figure on the hillside. "Tens of thousands of logs, and hundreds of men. We'll multiply those again and again—one day. It's fine. The freighters lying at anchor awaiting their cargoes. Some day we'll have our own ships—a big fleet of 'em. See the smoke pennants floating from our smoke stacks. They're the triumphant pennants of successful industry, eh? We can't have too many such flags flying. One day we'll have trolley cars running along the shores of the cove to bring the workers in to the mill. It'll be like a veritable Atlantic City. Oh, it's a great big dream. There's nothing amiss. No."

"Only the Lizzie getting in."

Bat was without apparent appreciation. He was thinking only of the message they had received, and the threat it contained.

Standing glanced round at the sturdy figure beside him. A half smile lit his sallow features. Then he turned again and sought out the tubby vessel approaching the wharf below. But it was only for a moment. Some subtle thought impelled him, and he glanced back at the house on the hillside he had just left, the house he had erected for the woman whose devotion had taught him the real meaning of life.

It was a long, low, rambling, gabled building. It was an extensive timber-built home with a wide verandah and those many vanities and conceits of building that would never have been permitted had it been intended for bachelordom. He remembered how Nancy and he had designed it together. He remembered the delight with which they had looked forward to its completion, and ultimately their boundless joy in the task of its furnishing. He remembered how Nancy had insisted that it should contain not only their home, but his own private office, from which he could control the great work he had set his hand to. It had been her ardent desire to be always near him, always there to support him under the burden of his immense labours. And remembering these things a fierce desire leapt within him, and he turned again to the man at his side.

"Yes, she's getting in, Bat," he said. "But I just wanted to get a peek at things. Well, I've seen all I want, old friend. Now I'm ready. Fight? Oh, yes, I'm ready to fight. Come on." And he laughed as he hurried down the woodland trail to the water-side.

* * * * *

The two men had reached the quay-side, which was lined with bales of wood-pulp stacked ready for shipment. Farther down its length the cranes were rattling their chains, swinging their burdens out over the holds of the vessel taking in its moist cargo. The stevedores were vociferously busy, working against time. For, in the brief open season, time was the very essence of the success demanded for the mills. The noise, the babel of it all was usually the choicest music to Standing and his manager.

But just now they were less heeding. Their eyes were turned upon the small steamer plugging its deliberate way over the water towards them. It was a small, heavily-built tub of a vessel calculated to survive the worst Atlantic storms.

Bat's face was without any expression of undue emotion. But the hard lines about his clean-shaven mouth were sharply set. Standing was asurge with an excitement that fired his dark eyes. His wide-brimmed hat was thrust back from his forehead, and he stood with his hands thrust deeply in the pockets of his moleskin trousers. His nervous fingers were playing with loose coins and keys which they found irresistible.

The Lizzie came steadily on.

"We'll know the whole game in minutes now."

Standing could keep silent no longer. Bat nodded.

"Yep."

Orders from the bridge of the packet boat rang out over the water. Then Standing went on.

"I want to find Idepski aboard," he said. He was scarcely addressing his companion. "It would be good to get Master Walter here, fifty-three degrees north." A short, hard laugh punctuated his words. Then he turned abruptly. "Who's running No. 10 camp?"

Just for an instant Bat withdrew his gaze from the approaching vessel. He flashed a keen look of enquiry into the eyes of the questioner.

"Ole Porson," he said.

"I thought so. He's a good boy. He'll do."

Standing nodded. The cold significance of his tone was not lost on his companion. Maybe Bat understood the thing that was passing in the other's mind. At any rate he turned again to the broad-beamed tub steaming so busily towards them.

"I see old Hardy on the bridge," Standing went on a moment later. Then he added: "Fancy navigating the Labrador coast for forty years. No, I couldn't do it. I wouldn't have the—guts."

Bat still remained silent. He understood. The other was talking because it was impossible for him to refrain.

"They're standing ready to make fast," Standing said sharply. He drew a quick breath. Then his manner changed and his words came pensively. "Say, it's a queer life—a hell of a life. The sea folk, I mean. It's about the worst on earth. Think of it, cooped within those timbers that are never easy till they lie at anchor in the shelter of a harbour. I'd just hate it. Their life? What is it? It's not life at all. Hard work, hard food, hard times, and hard drinking—when they're ashore—most of them. I think I can understand. They surely need something to drown the memory of the threat they're always living under. No, they don't live. They exist. Here, let's stand clear. They're coming right in."

* * * * *

The bustle of landing was in full swing. Even with so small a craft as the Lizzie there was commotion. Orders flew from lip to lip. Creaking cables strained at unyielding bollards. Gangways clattered out from deck, and ran down on to the quay with a crash. Hatches were flung open and the steam winches rattled incessantly.

Standing and Harker were looking on from a vantage point well clear of the work of unloading. The captain of the vessel, "Old Man" Hardy, was with them. The seaman was beaming with that satisfaction which belongs to the master when his vessel is safely in port.

"Oh, I guess it ain't been too bad a trip," he was saying. "Takin' the 'ins' with the 'outs,' I'd say it was a fairish passage, which is mostly as it should be, seein' it's my last voyage in the old barge. Y'see, you folks are kind of robbing me of this blessed old kettle," he explained, with a grin that lit up the whole of his mahogany features. "Y'see we're loaded well-nigh rail under with stuff for your mill, which don't leave a dog's chance for the other folks along the coast. The Company guesses they got to put on a two thousand tonner. The Myra. I haven't a kick comin'. She's all a seaboat. Still, I'm kind of sorry, don't you know. I've known the Lizzie since she came off the stocks, which is mostly forty years, and we're mighty good friends, which ain't allus the way. I'd say, too, I'm getting old for a change. Still—."

Standing shook his head.

"What do they say? 'Hardy' by name, 'Hardy' by nature. The toughest and best sailorman on the Labrador coast! Well, I'm sorry you don't feel good about it. But," he added with a smile, "it means a good deal to us getting a bigger packet."

Captain Hardy nodded.

"Thankee kindly. It's good to know folks reckon a fellow something more than just part of a kettle of scrap like this old packet. But I'd have been glad to finish my job with her. Still, times don't stand around even in Labrador." He finished up with something in the nature of a sigh.

The work going forward was full of interest. But it was not the work that held Standing, or the watchful eyes of Bat Harker. Their sole interest was in the personality of the crew and the five passengers, mostly "drummers," from the great business houses of Quebec and Montreal, who were struggling to land their trunks of samples and get them off to the offices of the mill so as to complete their trade before the Lizzie put to sea again. Not one of these escaped their observation.

"You seem to keep much the same crew right along, Hardy," Standing said pleasantly. "I suppose they like shipping with a good skipper. I seem to recognise most of their faces."

"Oh, yes. They're mostly the same boys," Hardy agreed, obviously appreciating the compliment. "But I guess I lost four boys this trip. They skipped half an hour before putting to sea. It happens that way now and then, if they're only soused enough when they get aboard. They're a crazy lot with rye under their belts. I just had to replace 'em with some dockside loafers, or lie alongside another day."

Standing nodded. A man was moving down the gangway bearing a large, grey, official-looking sack on his shoulders. He was a slight, dark man with a curiously foreign cast about his features.

"The mail?" he enquired. And a curious sharpness flavoured his demand. Then he added, with studied indifference. "One of your—dockside loafers?"

Captain Hardy laughed. He continued to laugh as he watched the unhandiness of the man staggering down the gangway under his burden.

"Yep. The mail," he said. "And I'd hate to set that feller to work on a seaman's job. He's about as unhandy as a doped Chinaman. I'd say Masters is playing safe keeping him from messing up the running gear while we're discharging. Say, get a look at it."

A great laugh accompanied the old man's words as the foreign-looking creature tripped on the gangway, and only saved himself from a bad fall by precipitating his burden upon the quay. There was no responsive laughter in Standing. And Bat Harker's features remained rigidly unsmiling. Standing turned sharply.

"Maybe you can spare that boy to run those mails up to my office," he said. "It's a good healthy pull up the hill for him, and my folks are full to the neck with things. I'd be glad."

"Sure he can." Captain Hardy was only too delighted to be able to oblige so important a customer of his company. He promptly shouted at the landing officer.

"Ho, you! Masters! Just let that darn Dago tote them mails right up to Mr. Standing's office. He ain't no sort of use out of hell down here—anyway."

The mate's reply came back with an appreciative grin.

"Ay, sir," he cried, and forthwith hurled the order at the mail carrier with a plentiful accompaniment of appropriate adjectives.

"Thanks," Standing turned away. His smiling luminous eyes were shining. "I'll get right along up, Captain. There's liable to be things need seeing to in that mail before you pull out. You'd best come along, too, Bat," he added pointedly.

Standing hurried away. A sudden fierce passion was surging through his veins. Nisson was right. He knew it—now. And in a fever of impatience he was yearning to come to grips with those who would rob him of the hopes in which his whole being was bound up.