Читать книгу Raw Gold - James B. Hendryx - Страница 10
ОглавлениеSHIPWRECKED
On a morning, two weeks later, a smart rakish schooner in dull gray paint sailed out of one of the deep arms of the sea that indent the Alaskan coast behind the Alexanders. She cleared Capes Chacon and Muzon and cruised northward along the island-dotted coast of Prince of Wales Island, headed toward Baranof Island whereon was located Sitka, the gay capital of Russian America and the citadel of the great Russian Fur Company.
Glass in hand, Captain Bascomb paced the bridge while certain men of the crew lolled in the shade of the tarpaulin-covered guns, mounted fore and aft, at the rail.
“When d’you think we’ll sight them Rooshians?” asked Jake Valentine, anxiously. “Gosh, I hope they’ll stop when we shoot in front of ’em. But they might git mad an’ shoot back. Damn if I want to git shot with no cannon ball!”
“An’ I don’t want to go to China, neither,” answered Matthew. “But I guess we’re goin’ to. If they do shoot back we’ll give ’em as good as they send. You be damn spry with the loadin’, Jake, an’ I’ll sight her straight.”
As darkness fell, the vessel hauled seaward, and in the morning stood in toward the island-studded, rocky coast where the tide rips raced and boiled through narrow passes with unbelievable fury.
Continuing her northward course, she ran before a light breeze under shortened sail. Late in the afternoon the voice of Captain Bascomb piped excitedly from the bridge: “Sail on the port quarter! Man the guns, an’ clap on the canvas, Mr. Swile!”
The mate bellowed his orders, sailors sprang to their tasks, and the tarpaulins were jerked from the guns by their crews, while others carried rifles and pistols up from below and placed them at convenient intervals upon the deck.
As the ship gained headway Mate Swile took his position behind Matthew and Jake, who manned the port bow gun. The approaching vessel was a three-masted schooner whose course was laid to pass close to port. When less than a quarter of a mile separated the two ships, the mate growled an order to Matthew: “Fire a shot across her bow a cable’s length in front!”
“Aye, aye, sir,” answered Matthew, and sighted the gun. A moment later the piece spoke with a roar, and a fountain of white spray shot up from the blue just beyond the course of the oncoming ship. Instead of heaving to, the vessel yawed sharply, and the fore part of her deck seemed suddenly to burst into smoke. The next instant hell broke loose on the Avenger. She shuddered from stem to stern as a round shot tore through her amidship. The bridge crashed to the deck amid a hail of flying splinters, and Jake Valentine, his eyes bulging from his head, pointed to the captain, who lay in a welter of blood, cursing shrilly, as he tugged with both hands in a vain endeavor to remove a huge sliver that protruded from his chest.
“Their cannons is loaded with lumber! They shot a board clean through him!” he cried. “He’s bleedin’ like a stuck hog, an’ he’ll die!”
“So’ll you,” bellowed Matthew, “if you don’t load that gun! Hurry up! To hell with the captain!”
Their own after port gun roared, but the shot fell short and sent a fountain of spray skyward. Then the after part of the Russian’s deck belched smoke, and again the Avenger shuddered under the impact of solid round shot.
Working feverishly, Jake sprang back from the muzzle of his gun and signaled Matthew to fire. He jerked at his lanyard—but nothing happened. He noted that the Russian was no longer off the port bow. Mate Swile raced up and down the deck bellowing oaths and orders. The ship had come about, and Matthew saw the coast of Prince of Wales Island looming in the distance off the bow. Mate Swile was running away! Astern sounded a loud roar, as the Russian fired another half-broadside, and spurts of white spray shot up from the sea about them.
Men swarmed the rigging under the mate’s blasphemous orders to crowd on more sail. The Russian was giving chase! Cursing, Matthew worked at his gun, when Jake stepped close up behind him. “ ’Tain’t no use, Matt. It’s my fault. When them damn cannon balls got to whizzin’ around me, I got so scairt I put the ball in first, an’ rammed the powder down on top of it! There’s two dead a’ready, Matt—the captain, an’ a sailor that got squashed when the bridge come down. I wisht to hell we was out of here! D’you think they’ll ketch us? An’ what’ll they do to us if they do?”
“Hang us, of course,” growled Matthew. “We’re pirates, ain’t we?”
“By Cripes, they can’t hang you an’ me! We never shot at ’em. We shot way off ahead of ’em—an’ we can show ’em we couldn’t of shot ’em with the gun loaded hind side to. Let ’em go ahead an’ hang Mate Swile! An’ how about us hangin’ them fer killin’ the captain an’ that sailor?”
“Sure,” agreed Matthew, sarcastically. “That’s a fine idea, Jake. Just line ’em up under their own yardarms an’ hang ’em—an’ sail off to China with their fur.”
As the captain had said, the erstwhile Sassy Kate was a fast ship, and under added canvas she was at least holding her own against the pursuing Russian, who sent an occasional shot whistling overhead or crashing into the sea alongside. With a bone in her teeth, she was making for the high coast line that loomed ever nearer in the distance. As darkness approached, however, the Russian seemed to be slowly gaining.
With every stitch of canvas spread, the mate disappeared below, to return a few minutes later cursing like a mad man. “Man the pumps!” he roared. “We’re takin’ water!”
Matthew and Jake seized a pump handle and worked frantically as the sweat rolled off them in streams. When they dropped out from sheer exhaustion their places were taken by others.
“If we can only get in among them islands,” panted Matthew, “we can lose ’em in the dark.”
“By Cripes, Matt, we’re in a hell of a fix, any way you look at it!” opined Jake, sucking the air into his laboring lungs in great gasps. “If them Rooshians hits us with one of them cannon balls we’re goners, an’ if they ketch us they’ll hang us, an’ if we don’t kill ourselves at them damn pumps, we’ll sink, an’ if we hit a rock we’ll sink anyhow an’ drown, an’ if we don’t do neither one, the mate’ll kill us when he finds out I loaded that damn gun wrong end to. I ain’t where I want to be. Things happen too dang fast in Californy! I almost wisht I’d stayed to home!”
“Listen,” said Matthew. “You slip one of them pistols in under yer shirt. I got one under mine, an’ powder an’ ball, too. If the mate tries to kill us, we’ll shoot him. It ain’t our fault we’re here; an’ damn if anyone’s goin’ to kill me! Tonight, if we get away from the Rooshians, we’ll prob’ly heave to behind some island, an’ then me an’ you’ll watch our chance an’ swim ashore.”
“But—wher’n hell would we go to? There ain’t no town. We couldn’t git nothin’ to eat.”
“There’s bound to be varmints. An’ we’ll have the pistols. When it gets a little darker so the mate won’t miss me, I’ll slip down to the fo’c’sle an’ pour some powder in a bottle an’ cork it up so it’ll keep dry. Damn if I’m goin’ to China! There goes the mate now. I’ll slip below.”
Ten minutes later Matthew returned. “I got powder—two pint bottles of it. We’ll watch our chance, an’ over the side we’ll go.”
Land loomed close—high, and black, and forbidding. Astern the Russian showed indistinctly—a ghost ship, her sails limned against the glow in the west. From time to time red flame burst from her bow, and a dull boom roared through the fast-gathering darkness. Bellowing orders to keep the pumps going, the mate took the wheel himself. Closer and closer the black shore seemed towering to the very sky. Veering slightly, the ship headed straight for a narrow gap that showed dimly between two islands. Mate Swile was taking a desperate chance.
Almost at the mouth of the gap the Russian gun spoke again. With a rending crash and the thunder of slitting canvas, the foremast toppled overboard, smashing the rail. The vessel yawed sharply as the mast, held alongside by its tangled rigging, made a drag that rendered the rudder useless. Cries and shrieks rent the air, mingled with curses, as sailors sought vainly to disentangle themselves from the wreckage. From somewhere in the darkness came the bellowing voice of Mate Swile.
Suddenly a new motion was imparted to the ship. She spun and wallowed drunkenly as water rushed and gurgled about her helpless hull. Close at hand the high wooded shore seemed to be rushing astern, as in the grip of the furious tide rip the ship was sucked through the narrow passage.
Grasping Jake by the arm, Matthew made for a loose hatch cover. “Hang holt of this!” he cried, and hardly were the words out of his mouth than there was a mighty crash. The vessel shuddered throughout her length, heeled far over, partially righted herself, swung for a moment as if on a pivot, and slowly heeled to starboard amid a bedlam of shouts and cries. The deck canted crazily. The loose hatch cover to which Matthew and Jake clung with the desperation of utter fright shot down the slanting deck. There was the shock of icy water, endless moments of heaving and bumping amid all manner of floating wreckage, and then silence, save for the sound of rushing water, as the hatch cover with its two clinging forms shot forward through the darkness, born at lightning speed on the surface of a smooth, oily stream.
“Hang on, Jake!” implored Matthew, coughing salt water from his lungs.
“Yeah,” spluttered Jake, from the opposite side of the hatch cover. “We’re goin’ like hell—we’d ort to git somewheres!”
A few moments later the smooth, oily flow of the water was broken in a series of tossing, heaving waves that pitched the hatch cover about like a straw. The swift current seemed dissipated so that there was no consciousness of any forward movement. The tiny bit of flotsam was tossed now this way, now that.
A few stars twinkled overhead, and seemingly close at hand loomed the towering blackness of the shore line. Matthew Blunt was aware that the cold water was beginning to numb his body. “Kick out with yer feet an’ paddle with one arm,” he called to Jake. “There’s the shore. We’ve got to get to it or we’ll freeze.”
“How far is it?”
“I don’t know. Paddle like hell an’ we’ll get there.”
“We can’t build no fire. Our locofocos is all wet.”
“No, they ain’t. I put some in the bottle with the powder.”
“Cripes! You might git blow’d up!”
“Might’s well git blow’d up as drownded. Come on—paddle!”
After what seemed interminable hours of paddling with no consciousness of getting anywhere, their feet touched a gravelly bottom. With their last remaining erg of strength, they drew themselves ashore at the mouth of a small creek that burbled from a cleft in the hills.
“By Gawd, I never want to see another ocean!” chattered Jake, as a half-hour later the two sat close to a crackling fire.
