Читать книгу Cappy Ricks Retires: But That Doesn't Keep Him from Coming Back Stronger Than Ever - Peter B. Kyne - Страница 10

Table of Contents

While the Narcissus was loading, the Fates were keeping in reserve for Cappy Ricks, Matt Peasley and Mr. Skinner a blow that was to stun them when it fell. About the time the Narcissus, fully loaded, was snoring out to sea past Old Point Comfort, Matt Peasley came across Seaborn & Company's telegram in the unanswered-correspondence tray on his desk. Five times he read it; and then, in the language of the poet, hell began to pop!

Cappy Ricks came out of a gentle doze to find his big son-in-law waving the telegram under his nose.

“Why didn't you tell me?” Matt Peasley bawled, for all the world as if Cappy was a very stupid mate and all the canvas had just been blown out of the bolt-ropes.

“Why didn't you ask me, you big stiff?” shrilled Cappy. He didn't know what was coming, but instinct told him it was awful, so he resolved instantly to meet it with a brave front. “Don't you yell at me, young feller. Now then, what do you want to find out?”

“Why didn't you tell me the Narcissus was to drop in at Pernambuco for orders?” roared Matt wrathfully.

Cappy pursed his lips and calmly rang for Mr. Skinner. He eyed the general manager over the rims of his spectacles for fully thirty seconds. Then:

“Skinner, what the devil's wrong with you of late? It's getting so I can't trust you to do anything any more. Tut, tut! Not a peep out of you, sir. Now then, answer me: Why didn't you tell me, Skinner, that the Narcissus was to call in at Pernambuco for orders?”

“I read you the telegram, sir,” Mr. Skinner replied coldly, and pointed to the notation: “O.K.—Ricks,” the badge of his infernal efficiency. “I read that telegram to you, sir,” he repeated, “and asked you if I should close. You said to close. I closed. That's all I know about it. You and Matt are in charge of the shipping and I decline to be dragged into any disputes originating in your department. All I have to say is that if you two can't run the shipping end and run it right, just turn it over to me and I'll run it—right!”

Completely vindicated, Mr. Skinner struck a distinctly defiant attitude and awaited the next move on the part of Cappy. The latter, thoroughly crushed—for he knew the devilish Skinner never made any mistakes—looked up at his son-in-law.

“Well,” he demanded, “what's your grouch against Pernambuco?”

“Forgive me for bawling you out that way,” Matt replied, “but I guess you'd bawl, too, if somebody who should have known better had placed a fine ship in jeopardy for you. It just breaks me all up to think you may have lost my steamer Narcissus—the first steamer I ever owned too—and to be lost on her second voyage under the Blue Star flag—”

“Our Narcissus, if you please,” Cappy shrilled. “You gibbering jackdaw! Out with it! Where do you get that stuff—lose your steamer on her second voyage! Why, she's snug in Norfolk this minute.”

“If she only is,” Matt almost wailed, “she'll never be permitted to clear with that German crew aboard. Pernambuco for orders! Suffering sailor! And you, of all men, to put over a charter like that! Pernambuco! Pernambuco! Pernambuco—for—orders! Do you get it?”

“No, I don't. It's over my head and into the bleachers.”

“I must say, my dear Matt,” Mr. Skinner struck in blandly, “that I also fail to apprehend.”

“Didn't you two ever go to school?” Matt raved. “Didn't you ever study geography? Why under the canopy should we waste our time and burn up our good coal steaming to Pernambuco, Brazil, South America, for orders? Let me put it to you two in words of one syllable: The Narcissus is chartered to carry a cargo of coal from Norfolk, Virginia, to Batavia or Manila. At the time of charter—and sailing—the charterers are undecided which port she is to discharge at, so they ask us to step over to Pernambuco and find out. Now, whether the vessel discharges at Batavia or Manila, her course in the Atlantic Ocean while en route to either port is identical! She passes round the Cape of Good Hope, which is at the extreme south end of Africa. If her course, on the contrary, was round Cape Horn or through the Straits of Magellan there might be some sense in sending her over to the east coast of South America for orders. But whether she is ordered to Manila or Batavia, the fact remains that she must put in to Durban, South Africa, for fuel to continue her voyage; so why in the name of the Flying Dutchman couldn't the charterers cable the orders to Mike Murphy at Durban? The Narcissus is worth a thousand dollars a day, so you waste a few thousand dollars worth of her time, at the very least, sending her to Pernambuco when a ten-dollar cablegram to Durban would have done the business! I suppose all you two brilliant shipping men could see was a ten-dollar-a-ton freight rate. Eh? You—landlubbers! A-a-g-r-r-h! I was never so angry since the day I was born.”

While Matt ranted on, Mr. Skinner's classic features had been slowly taking on the general color tones of a ripe old Edam cheese, while at the conclusion of Matt's oration Cappy Ricks' eyes were sticking out like twin semaphores. He clasped his hands.

“By the Twelve Ragged Apostles!” he murmured in an awed voice. “There's a nigger in the woodpile.”

“I very greatly fear,” Mr. Skinner chattered, “that you are mistaken, Mr. Ricks. Something tells me it's a German!”

“Well, well, well!” Matt Peasley sneered. “Skinner, take the head of the class. Really, I believe I begin to pick up signs of human intelligence in this sea of maritime ignorance.”

“Oh, Matt, quit your jawing and break the news to me quickly,” Cappy pleaded.

“Haven't you been reading the papers, sir? Australian and Japanese warships have been hunting for the German Pacific fleet for the past few weeks, and the Germans have been on the dodge. Therefore, they've been burning coal. They are only allowed to remain in a neutral port twenty-four hours, and can only take on sufficient coal and stores to enable them to reach the nearest German port. Consequently, since they have been afraid to enter a neutral port, for fear of giving away their position, it follows that they've had to stay at sea—and naturally they have run short of coal. A few steamers have cleared from San Francisco with coal, ostensibly for discharge at Chilean or Mexican ports, but in reality for delivery to the German fleet at sea, but even with these few deliveries, there is a coal famine. And now that the Pacific is getting too hot for it, the general impression is that the German fleet will try to get through the Straits of Magellan, for, once in the Atlantic, coal will be easier to get. More ships, you know; more ship-owners willing to take a chance for wartime profits—and they say Brazil is rather friendly to the German cause. We will assume, therefore, that the German secret agents in this country realize it is inevitable that Von Spee's fleet must be forced into the Atlantic; hence, in anticipation of that extremity, they are arranging for the delivery of coal to those harassed cruisers. The agent in Pernambuco is probably in constant communication with the fleet by wireless; the fleet will probably come ranging up the coast of South America, destroying British commerce, or some of the ships may cross over to the Indian Ocean and join the Emden, raiding in those waters. So the German secret agents charter our huge Narcissus, load her with ten thousand tons of coal—”

Matt Peasley paused and bent a beetling glance, first at Cappy Ricks and then at Skinner.

“Was she to carry soft coal or anthracite?” he demanded.

“I don't know,” Mr. Skinner quavered.

“Search me!” Cappy Ricks piped up sourly.

“I thought so. For the sake of argument we'll assume it's soft coal, because anthracite has not as yet become popular as steamship fuel. Well, we will assume our vessel gets to Pernambuco. If, in the meantime, the German admiral wirelesses his Pernambuco agent, 'Send a jag of coal into the Indian Ocean,' to the Indian Ocean goes the Narcissus, and presently she finds a German warship or two or three ranging along in her course. They pick her up, help themselves to her coal, give Mike Murphy a certificate of confiscation for her cargo, to be handed to the owners, who in this case will be good, loyal sons of the Fatherland and offer no objection—”

“I see,” Cappy Ricks interrupted. “And if, on the other hand, the German admiral says, 'Send a jag of coal to meet us in a certain latitude and longitude off the River Plate,' and Mike Murphy objects, that German crew on our Narcissus will just naturally lock Mike Murphy up in his cabin and take the vessel away from him! When they're through with her they'll give her back—”

“I'm not so certain they'll have to lock him up in his cabin in order to get the ship,” Mr. Skinner struck in, a note of alarm in his voice. “Mike Murphy is so pro-German—”

“Ow! Wow! That hurts,” Cappy wailed. “So he is! I never thought of that. And now that you speak of it, I recall it was his idea, getting that crew of Germans aboard! He said it would cut down expenses. Holy mackerel, Matt; do you think it was a frameup?”

“Certainly I do, but—Mike Murphy wasn't in on it. You can bank on that. No piratical foreigner will ever climb up on Mike Murphy's deck except over Mike Murphy's dead body. According to the president emeritus there is more than one kind of Irish, but I'll guarantee Mike Murphy isn't the double-crossing kind.”

A boy entered with a telegram. It was a day letter filed by Mike Murphy in Norfolk that morning, and Matt Peasley read it aloud:

“Sailing at noon. Regret your failure take me into your confidence when deciding withdraw vessel from neutral trade. If orders send me to either of ports named in charter party and I am overhauled en route, that is your funeral. If orders conflict with charter party, as I suspect they may, that may be my funeral. Regretfully I shall resign at Pernambuco. You know your own business, and I cannot believe you would go it blind; if you change your mind before arrival Pernambuco, cable care American Consul and will do my best for you.