Читать книгу Partners Three - Ralph Henry Barbour - Страница 4

Table of Contents

Jack jumped to his feet, dropping two of Aunt Mercy’s best doughnuts, and looked about him. The hail came again and Jack saw Desco Benton waving from the Hetty and Grace.

“Right-o!” he called, and quickly cast loose. It took the Crystal Spring almost five minutes to half drift and half sail across to the hand-liner, and all the way Jack wondered what Desco wanted of him. When he was alongside the master of the Hetty and Grace appeared at the rail again.

“Where you been, Jack?” he growled. “I been waitin’ all the mornin’ for you.”

“I’m sorry, Desco. I saw the other boat putting out to you and I thought you’d got water.”

“Them Portuguese? Oh, I sent ’em off in a hurry. That stuff they pump ain’t water, it’s pizen. One of ’em says to me awhile back, he says, ‘Cap’n, this water’s the finest spring water in Greenhaven.’ ‘Spring water’ says I. ‘Spring water! If it is it’s last Spring water!’” And Desco leaned on the rail and laughed hoarsely at his joke. “Where’d they get that stuff, Jack?”

“Right out of the hydrant at the landing,” replied Jack with a smile. “I guess it’s all right when there isn’t a break in the main, but there usually is. Then it’s about the color of pea soup. Have a good trip, Desco?”

“Fair to middlin’! I landed ’em down to Boston. Here, give me hold o’ that pipe. How you gettin’ on, Jack?”

“About the same way—fair to middling,” answered Jack as he uncoiled the hose. “There isn’t much doing just now. Folsom’s boats get their water at the wharves these days. They had a pipe put in. I suppose it’s cheaper for them that way.”

“Huh, I cal’ate it is. An’ Folsom never was a man to waste money. Cal’ate that’s how he’s come by so much on it. I got two butts ’most empty, Jack, and the deck cask, too. Here, Manuel, lug this down to the butts and sing out when you’re ready.”

While Jack pumped the master of the Hetty and Grace leaned across the rail and talked. He was a big, broad-shouldered, yellow-bearded Nova Scotian, of thirty-five or thirty-six years, a good sailor and a lucky master. Desco Benton’s luck was proverbial around Greenhaven and it had stood him in good stead many times. “As lucky as Desco Benton” was a common saying among the fishermen. The Hetty and Grace was a small but staunch little knockabout schooner, Essex built, with the lines of a pleasure yacht. Desco owned every plank and nail in her and was immensely proud of her. She could sail, too. That fact had been demonstrated two years before when Desco had beaten every schooner in the fisherman’s race to Boston Light and back, having his anchor down and all sails snug when his nearest competitor came racing around the breakwater.

“How’s your folks?” he asked presently. “I cal’ate that sister o’ yours is quite grown up by now.”

“Faith’s thirteen, I guess,” Jack replied as he worked at the long pump handle. “She’s going to high school.”

“I want to know! An’ how about you, Jack? Wasn’t you in high school, too?”

“Last year. I had to quit when father died. Someone had to make some money and it looked like it was up to me.”

“Of course. Well, edication’s a good thing, I cal’ate, though I never had much time for it, but it don’t butter no parsnips, Jack.”

“I’m going back some day, I expect. I want to, anyway. I want to go to college if I can, too. Looks now, though, as if I might be pretty old before that happens.”

“College, eh? H’m; I had a feller sailin’ with me a couple o’ years back that was a college grad-oo-ate; name o’ Jasper Fitzwilliam. He wan’t no good at all. But I cal’ate there’s a difference in ’em. I cal’ate that young Folsom’ll have a college edication. I passed him comin’ in, him an’ another boy. They was in a motor-boat about half a mile off The Lump. Seemed to be hove to off there an’ I cal’ate they was fishin’. He’ll be a rich man some day, when his dad dies, eh?”

“I suppose so. He seems a nice chap. He was in my class at high school last year, though I didn’t know him very well. Funny place to fish, off The Lump, Desco. I never heard of anyone catching anything there, did you?”

Desco shook his head as the signal came to stop pumping. The sailor crawled up through the hatch with the hose and Desco bade him lug it forward to the small butt lashed by the deck-house. Jack began his labors again. Desco, his gaze fixed on the western sky, where a few white clouds like great bunches of cotton batting were creeping up, pointed with the stem of his pipe.

“There’s goin’ to be a thunder squall before long, Jack,” he said. “Better get your slicker out.”

Jack looked and nodded. “It feels like it too,” he answered. “I’d just as lief it didn’t come till I get this old lugger back to the Cove.”

There was a yell from the sailor at the hose and Jack stopped pumping. A few minutes later Desco dropped Jack’s line to the deck of the water boat and Jack, pushing the boom out, took the tiller again and waved good-bye to the master of the Hetty and Grace.

For two hours or more he cruised slowly about the harbor without doing any business. It was almost four o’clock, and the Crystal Spring was ambling along just inside Gull Island, when Jack saw the lighthouse tender push her snub nose around the breakwater and turn sharp into the narrow channel. The tender usually bought water when she visited Greenhaven, and Jack, casting an anxious backward glance in search of the Morning Star, hustled the Crystal Spring all he knew how. The lighthouse tender was already out of sight behind the island, although Jack could see the tips of her masts above the buildings. His first tack took him to the end of the breakwater. Then, as the water boat came around, he saw that the tender already had her mud-hook down. The Morning Star, it seemed, had for once been caught napping, and Jack smiled as he pushed the sloop along. But the smile faded a moment later, for around the farther end of the island sped the Morning Star, her eight horsepower engine puffing away at full speed. Had the Crystal Spring been similarly equipped it might have proved a very pretty race, but as it was the Morning Star had everything her own way. Before Jack had covered half the distance between him and the tender, the Morning Star was alongside the government boat. A moment later lines were passed aboard and the two Lampron brothers were manning the pump. As the Crystal Spring sailed by Tony Lampron grinned across at Jack and shouted, “Where you been some time, eh, Mister?” and his brother Frank waved a hand and laughed. Jack made no sign, but he was angry and disappointed, and at the end of the island he swung the Crystal Spring around and headed up the channel for home. It wasn’t likely that there would be any more business today. And he didn’t much care, anyhow. Besides, the thunder storm that Desco had predicted was almost at hand, and Jack could see by the angry streaky look of the clouds that there would be wind as well as rain. He didn’t care to be caught outside in a blow. The Crystal Spring was staunch enough but she was anything but dry in dirty weather. Jack resolved to get around Popple Head and at least under the lee of the Neck before the storm burst.

To be on the safe side, however, for already the thunder was rumbling, he kicked down the latch of a little locker under the poop and pulled out a yellow oilskin coat and hat. He substituted his shoes and stockings for the oilskins and slammed the locker door shut again just as the sharp detonations of an engine exhaust reached him. A stone-throw to leeward Charley Paige, leaning against the tiller of his little power boat, waved to him and pointed westward. Jack waved back and, nodding his head, luffed the Crystal Spring around through the swell of the fisherman and headed along the breakwater. The breeze had grown flukey and of a sudden a great gray cloud passed over the sun and the ocean darkened to steel color. A clap of thunder broke overhead. A puff of wind came out of the west and the boom went down as the first puff of the squall caught the big sail. Then came a drop of rain and Jack, straddling the tiller, donned his oilskins, buttoning the long coat closely about him, and pulled the sou’easter down over his head. It was evident that he was in for a wetting after all.

The Crystal Spring began to roll as the wind increased, behaving in a most frolicsome, undignified manner. Half-way between the beacon and the lighthouse point the rain began in earnest, slanting out of the west and pelting at Jack’s back vindictively. There was quite a sea by now, although the rain flattened the surface somewhat and the squall blew the tops of the waves into spume. Jack, finding himself in for it, began to whistle tunelessly, leaning against the tiller and peering out from under the brim of his sou’easter. It was too thick to see very far ahead and it behooved him to be watchful, since a fisherman might be beating his way in around Popple Head. But he sighted nothing and the lighthouse was abeam and he brought the sloop’s blunt nose around. In another minute he would be in the lee of the shore and well out of some nasty weather. The thunder still crashed at intervals and now and then the dun clouds were rent asunder by the livid flashes of lightning. The lighthouse dropped astern and the Crystal Spring, with a final impatient roll, settled back on an evener keel. And at that moment, following a crash of thunder, Jack heard a faint hail.

He shaded his eyes with his hand and peered shoreward. But as far as he could see there was no one in sight. He had about reached the conclusion that he had been mistaken when the hail came again, a mere atom of sound above the rush of rain and sea and the creaking complaint of the sloop’s timbers. Jack turned seaward and strained his eyes through the murk. At first only a blank gray wall of mist rewarded him, but as his gaze accustomed itself to the task, suddenly a darker blur, something neither rain nor sea, came to his vision for a moment and then was lost again. Half doubting, Jack hauled on the sheet and jammed the helm to starboard. The Crystal Spring came about with a resentful lunge that sent the water in her big tank swashing noisily from side to side. With his eyes fixed ahead Jack gave the sloop all she could carry and in a moment the squall caught her again as she passed out of the lee of the land and dipped the end of the long boom in the racing sea. Again came the hail, clearer this time, and seemingly from off the port bow.

Jack moved the tiller a little, peering out from under the sail. And then, almost ahead, a small boat jumped into view, a tiny craft with two figures huddled in her. Jack shouted a response and kept on, and as the Crystal Spring staggered past the smaller craft he saw that the latter was a motor boat, perhaps not over eighteen feet long, apparently broken down. In another moment she was lost to sight. It was no easy matter to bring the water boat’s head into the wind and fully five minutes passed before Jack, allowing for the drift, sighted the launch again. Then, steadying the Crystal Spring as best he could, he bore up to the disabled boat and made a trumpet of his hands.

“Stand by to catch a rope!” he shouted. There was a faint response from the launch and Jack, seizing a coil of half-inch rope from the locker, snagged the tiller with his knee and got ready to throw. The sloop wallowed up to within a dozen feet of the launch and with a sweep of his arm sent the coil hurtling across the water. It was a lucky throw and as the Crystal Spring went by Jack saw one of the occupants seize the rope.

“Make fast to the bow cleat,” he shouted back, “and haul in!”

A figure moved cautiously along the pit of the tossing launch, crawled to the deck and with fumbling fingers tied the line to the cleat. The launch had been drifting stern foremost and now Jack brought the Crystal Spring around so that the launch might come up under her lee. Aboard the latter they were hauling valiantly and in a minute the little motor boat was alongside and the occupants were climbing aboard the sloop. They were sorry-looking mariners. Both appeared to be boys of about Jack’s age. Neither wore oilskins and their blue serge suits were soaked through and through. One of the boys had lost his cap and his hair was plastered tightly to his head.

“Bring that slack with you,” Jack directed, “and make the line fast to that cleat there. That’s the ticket. Now then, I’ll have you ashore in a minute or two, but you’ll find a couple of blankets in the bunk for’ard if you want them. Open that for’ard hatch and you’ll see them.”

But the boys shook their heads as they sank to the cockpit. “We can’t get—any wetter,” said one. “We’re terribly much obliged—to you for—” He paused, and then, “Why, it’s Jack Herrick, isn’t it?” he exclaimed.

Jack nodded as he gazed ahead in search of the Cove.

“That’s me. And you’re Harry Folsom. Catch any fish?”