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  THE

  CHIEF MATE'S YARNS

  _TWELVE TALES OF THE SEA_

  BY

  CAPT. MAYN CLEW GARNETT

  [Illustration]

  G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY
  PUBLISHERS      NEW YORK




  COPYRIGHT, 1911, 1912, BY
  STREET & SMITH

  COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY
  G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY

  _The White Ghost of Disaster_




CONTENTS


                                     PAGE

  THE WHITE GHOST OF DISASTER           5

  THE LIGHT AHEAD                      42

  THE WRECK OF THE "RATHBONE"          76

  THE AFTER BULKHEAD                  105

  CAPTAIN JUNARD                      123

  IN THE WAKE OF THE ENGINE           148

  IN THE HULL OF THE "HERALDINE"      172

  A TWO-STRANDED YARN--PART I         198

  A TWO-STRANDED YARN--PART II        234

  AT THE END OF THE DRAG-ROPE         263

  PIRATES TWAIN                       279

  THE JUDGMENT OF MEN                 310

  ON GOING TO SEA                     333




THE WHITE GHOST OF DISASTER


We had been sitting in at the game for more than an hour, and no life
had entered it. The thoughts of all composing that little group of five
in the most secluded corner of the ship's smoking room were certainly
not on the game, and three aces lay down to fours up.

The morose and listless ship's officer out of a berth, although he
spoke little--if at all--seemed to put a spell of uneasiness and unrest
on the party. The others did not know him or his history; but his looks
spelled disaster and misfortune.

At last Charlie Spangler, the noted journalist, keen for a story or
two, threw down his cards, exclaiming: "Let's quit. None of us is less
uneasy than the rest of the ship's passengers."

"Yes," chimed in Arthur Linch, the noted stock-broker. "We have
endeavored to banish the all-pervading thought, 'will the ship arrive
safely without being wrecked,' and have failed miserably. Cards will
not do it." This seemed to express the sentiments of everybody except
the morose mariner, whose thoughts nobody could read or fathom. He sat
there, deep in his chair, gazing at a scene or scenes none of us could
see or appreciate.

"Well! Since we cannot take our thoughts off'shipwreck,' we may as
well discuss the subject and ease our minds," added the journalist
again, still hot on the scent of the possible story which he felt that
the ship's officer hoarded.

The mariner, however, did not respond to this, and continued with his
memories, apparently oblivious of our presence.

Under the leadership of the journalist the discussion waxed warm for
some time, until the stock-broker, ever solicitous for the welfare of
the stock-market and conforming his opinions thereto, exclaimed loudly:
"The officers and the crew were not responsible for the collision with
the berg. It was an 'act of God!' and as such we are daily taking
chances with it. What will be, will be. We cannot escape Destiny!"

"Destiny be damned!" came like a thunderbolt from the heretofore
silent mariner, and we all looked to see the face now full of rage and
passion. "What do you know of the sea, you land pirate? What do you
know of sea dangers and responsibility for the safety of human lives?
Man! you're crazy. There is no such thing as Destiny at sea. A seaman
knows what to expect when he takes chances. If you call that an 'act of
God,' you deserve to have been there and submitted to it."

The face of Charlie Spangler was glowing. His heart beat so fast when
he heard this sea clam open up, that he was afraid it might overwork
and stop. "Our friend is right!" he exclaimed. "I infer that he speaks
from knowledge and experience. We are hardly qualified to discuss such
matters properly.

"You have something on your mind, friend. Unburden it to us. We are
sympathetic, you know. Our position here makes us so," saying which,
Spangler filled the mariner's half-empty glass and looked at him with
sympathy streaming out of his trained eyes. We all nodded our assent.

Having fortified himself with the contents of the glass before him, the
mariner spoke: "Yes, gentlemen, I am going to speak from knowledge and
experience. It was my luck to be aboard of the vessel which had the
shortest of lives, but which will live in the memory of man for many a
year.

"It is my misfortune to be one of its surviving officers. I am going
to give you the facts as they happened this last time, and a few other
times besides. It is the experiences through which I have passed that
make me wish I had gone down with the last one. I must now live on with
memories, indelibly stamped on my brain, which I would gladly forget.
Your attention, gentlemen--"

       *       *       *       *       *

Captain Brownson came upon the bridge. It was early morning, and the
liner was tearing through a smooth sea in about forty-three north
latitude. The sun had not yet risen, but the gray of the coming
daylight showed a heaving swell that rolled with the steadiness that
told of a long stretch of calm water behind it. The men of the
morning watch showed their pale faces white with that peculiar pallor
which comes from the loss of the healthful sleep between midnight and
morning. It was the second mate's watch, and that officer greeted the
commander as he came to the bridge rail where the mate stood staring
into the gray ahead.

"See anything?" asked the master curtly.

"No, sir--but I smell it--feel it," said the mate, without turning his
head.

"What?" asked Brownson.

"Don't you feel it?--the chill, the--well, it's ice, sir--ice, if I
know anything."

"Ice?" snarled the captain. "You're crazy! What's the matter with you?"

"Oh, very well--you asked me--I told you--that's all."

The captain snorted. He disliked the second officer exceedingly. Mr.
Smith had been sent him by the company at the request of the manager of
the London office. He had always picked his own men, and he resented
the office picking them for him. Besides, he had a nephew, a passenger
aboard, who was an officer out of a berth.

"What the devil do they know of a man, anyhow! I'm the one responsible
for him. I'm the one, then, to choose him. They won't let me shift
blame if anything happens, and yet they sent me a man I know nothing of
except that he is young and strong. I'll wake him up some if he stays
here." So he had commented to Mr. Wylie, the chief mate. Mr. Wylie had
listened, thought over the matter, and nodded his head sagely.

"Sure," he vouchsafed; "sure thing." That was as much as any one
ever got out of Wylie. He was not a talkative mate. Yet when he knew
Smith better, he retailed the master's conversation to him during a
spell of generosity engendered by the donation of a few highballs by
Macdowell, the chief engineer. Smith thanked him--and went his way
as before, trying to do the best he could. He did not shirk duty on
that account. Wylie insisted that the captain was right. A master was
responsible, and it was always customary for him to pick his men as far
as possible. Besides, as Wylie had learned from Macdowell, Brownson had
a nephew in view that would have filled the berth about right--so Wylie
thought--and Smith was a nuisance. Smith had taken it all in good part,
and smiled. He liked Wylie.

Brownson sniffed the air hungrily as he stood there at the bridge rail.
The air was chilly, but it was always chilly in that latitude even in
summer.

"How does she head?" he asked savagely of the man at the steam-steering
gear. The man spoke through the pilot-house window in a monotone:

"West--three degrees south, sir."

"That's west--one south by standard?" snapped Brownson.

"Yes, sir," said Smith.

"Let her go west--two south by binnacle--and mark the time accurately,"
ordered Brownson.

He would shift her a bit. The cool air seemed to come from the
northward. It was as if a door in an ice box were suddenly opened and
the cold air within let out in a cold, damp mass. A thin haze covered
the sea. The side wash rolled away noisily, and disappeared into the
mist a few fathoms from the ship's side. It seemed to thicken as the
minutes passed.

Brownson was nervous. He went inside the pilot house and spoke to the
engineer through the tube leading to the engine room.

"How is she going?"

"Two hundred and ten, sir; never less than two and five the watch."

"Well, she's going too almighty fast--shut her down to one hundred,"
snapped Brownson. "She's been doing twenty-two knots--it's too
fast--too fast, anyhow, in this weather. Ten knots will do until the
sun scoffs off this mist. Shut her down."

The slowing engines eased their vibrations, and the side wash rolled
less noisily. There was a strange stillness over the sea. The silence
grew as the headway subsided.

The captain listened intently. He felt something.

There is always that strange something that a seaman feels in the
presence of great danger when awake. It has never been explained. But
all good--really good--masters have felt it; can tell you of it if they
will. It is uncanny, but it is as true as gospel. The second officer
had felt it in the air, felt it in his nerves. He felt--_ice_. It was
danger.

Smith stood there watching the haze that seemed to deepen rather than
disperse as the morning grew. The men turned out and the hose was
started, the decks were sluiced down, and the gang with the squeegees
followed. Two bells struck--five o'clock. Smith strained his gaze
straight into the haze ahead. He fixed and refixed his glasses--a pair
of powerful lenses of fifteen lines. He had bought them for fifty
dollars, and always kept them near him while on watch.

A man came up the bridge steps.

"Shall I send up your coffee, sir?" he asked.

"Yes, send it up," said Smith, in a whisper. He was listening.

Something sounded out there in the haze. It was a strange, vibrating
sound, a sort of whispering murmur, soft and low, like the far-away
notes of a harp. Then it ceased. Smith looked at the captain who stood
within the pilot-house window gazing down at the men at work on the
deck below. The noise of the rushing water from the hose and their low
tones seemed to annoy him. They wore rubber boots, and their footsteps
were silent; but he gruffly ordered the bos'n to make them "shut up."

"Better slow her down, sir--there's ice somewhere about here," said the
second mate anxiously. He was thinking of the thousand and more souls
below and the millions in cargo values.

"Who's running this ship--me or you?" snarled Brownson savagely.

It was an unnecessary remark, wholly uncalled for. Smith flushed
under his tan and pallor. He had seldom been spoken to like that. He
would have to stand it; but he would hunt a new ship as soon as he
came ashore again. It was bad enough to be treated like a boy; but to
be talked to that way before the men made it impossible, absolutely
impossible. It meant the end of discipline at once. A man would retail
it, more would repeat it, and--then--Smith turned away from the bridge
rail in utter disgust. He was furious.

"Blast the ship!" he muttered, as he turned away and gazed aft. His
interest was over, entirely over. He would not have heard a gun fired
at that moment, so furious was the passion at the unmerited insolence
from his commander.

And then, as if to give insult to injury, Brownson called down the tube:

"Full speed ahead--give her all she'll do--I'm tired of loafing around
here all the morning." Then he rang up the telegraph, and the sudden
vibrations told of a giant let loose below.

The _Admiral_ started ahead slowly. She was a giant liner, a ship of
eight hundred feet in length. It took some moments to get headway upon
that vast hull. But she started, and in a few minutes the snoring of
the bow wave told of a tearing speed. She was doing twenty-two and a
half knots an hour, or more than twenty-five miles, the speed of a
train of cars.

The under steward came up the bridge steps with the coffee. Smith took
his cup and drank it greedily, almost savagely. He was much hurt. His
feelings had been roughly handled. Yet he had not even answered the
captain back. He took his place at the bridge rail and gazed straight
ahead into the gray mist. He saw nothing, felt nothing, but the pain
of his insult.

"Let him run the ship to hell and back," he said to himself.

There was a puff of colder air than usual. A chill as of death itself
came floating over the silent ocean. A man on lookout stood staring
straight into the mist ahead, and then sang out:

"Something right ahead, sir," he yelled in a voice that carried like
the roar of a gun.

Brownson just seized the lever shutting the compartments, swung it,
jammed it hard over, and screamed:

"Stop her--stop her--hard over your wheel--hard over----"

His voice ended in a vibrating screech that sounded wild, weird,
uncanny in that awful silence. A hundred men stopped in their stride,
or work, paralyzed at the tones coming from the bridge.

And then came the impact.

With a grinding, smashing roar as of thousands of tons coming together,
the huge liner plunged headlong into the iceberg that rose grim and
silent right ahead, towering over her in spite of her great height. The
shock was terrific, and the grinding, thundering crash of falling tons
of ice, coupled with the rending of steel plates and solid planks, made
chaos of all sound.

The _Admiral_ bit in, dug, plowed, kept on going, going, and the
whole forward part of her almost disappeared into the wall of white.
A thousand tons of huge flakes slammed and slid down her decks,
burying her to the fore hatch in the smother. A thousand tons more
crashed, slid, and plunged down the <DW72>s of the icy mountain and
hurled themselves into the sea with giant splashes, sending torrents
of water as high as the bridge rail. The men who had been forward were
swept away by the avalanche. Many were never seen again. And then, with
reversed engines, she finally came to a dead stop, with her bows jammed
a hundred feet deep in the ice wall of the berg.

After that it was panic. All discipline seemed to end in the shock
and struggle. Brownson howled and stormed from the bridge, and Smith
shouted orders and sprang down to enforce them. The chief mate came
on deck in his underclothes and passed the word to man the boats. A
thousand passengers jammed the companionway and strove with panic and
inhuman fury to reach the deck.

One man clad in a night robe gained the outside of the press, and,
running swiftly along the deck, flitted like a ghost over the rail, and
disappeared into the sea. He had gone crazy, violently insane in the
panic.

Brownson tied down the siren cord, and the roar shook the atmosphere.
The tremendous tones rose above the din of screaming men and cursing
seamen; and then the master called down to the heart of the ship, the
engine room.

"Is she going?" he asked.

"Water coming in like through a tunnel," came the response. "Nearly up
to the grates now----"

That was all. The man left the tube to rush on deck, and the captain
knew the forward bulkheads had gone; had either jammed or burst under
that terrific impact. The ship was going down.

Brownson stood upon the bridge and gazed down at the human tide below
him. Men fought furiously for places in the small boats. The fireroom
crew came on deck and mingled with the passengers. The coal dust showed
upon their white faces, making them seem strange beings from an inferno
that was soon to be abolished. They strove for places in the lifeboats
and hurled the weaker passengers about recklessly. Some, on the other
hand, helped the women. One man dragged two women with him into a boat,
kicking, twisting, and roaring like a lion. He was a big fellow with a
red beard, and Brownson watched him. The mate struck him over the head
with a hand spike for refusing to get out of the boat, and his interest
in things ended at once and forever.

The crew, on the whole, behaved well. Officers and men tried to keep
some sort of discipline. Finally six boats went down alongside into
the sea, and were promptly swarmed by the crowds above, who either
slid down the falls or jumped overboard and climbed in from the sides.
The sea was as still as a lake; only the slight swell heaved it. Great
fields of floating particles of ice from the berg floated about, and
those who were drenched in the spray shivered with the cold.

The _Admiral_, running at twenty-two knots an hour, had struck straight
into the wall of an iceberg that reached as far as the eye could see in
the haze. It towered at least three hundred feet in the air, showing
that its depth was colossal, probably at least half a mile. It was a
giant ice mountain that had broken adrift from its northern home, and,
drifting southward, had survived the heat of summer and the breaking of
the sea upon its base.

Smith had felt its dread presence, felt its proximity long before he
had come to close quarters. The chill in the air, the peculiar feeling
of danger, the icy breath of death--all had told him of a danger that
was near. And yet Brownson had scoffed at him, railed at his intuition
and sense. Upon the captain the whole blame of the disaster must fall
if Smith told.

The second officer almost smiled as he struggled with his boat.

"The pig-headed fool!" he muttered between his set teeth. "The
murdering monster--he's done it now! He's killed himself, and a
thousand people along with him----"

Smith fought savagely for the discipline of his boat. His men had
rushed to their stations at the first call. The deck was beginning
to slant dangerously as the falls were slacked off and the lifeboat
lowered into the sea. Smith stood in the press about him and grew
strangely calm. The action was good for him, good for the burning fury
that had warped him, scorched him like a hot blast while he had stood
silently upon the bridge and taken the insults of his commander. Women
pleaded with him for places in the boat. Men begged and took hold of
him. One lady, half clothed, dropped upon her knees and, holding his
hand, which hung at his side, prayed to him as if he were a deity, a
being to whom all should defer. He flung her off savagely.

Bareheaded now, coatless, and with his shirt ripped, he stood there,
and saw his men pass down sixteen women into his craft; pass them down
without comment or favor, age or condition. Thirty souls went into his
boat before he sprang into the falls and slid down himself. A dozen men
tried to follow him, but he shoved off, and they went into the sea. His
men got their oars out and rowed off a short distance.

Muttering, praying, and crying, the passengers in his boat huddled
themselves in her bottom. He spoke savagely to them, ordered them under
pain of death to sit down. One man, who shivered as he spoke, insisted
upon crawling about and shifting his position. Smith struck him over
the head, knocking him senseless. Another, a woman, must stand upon the
thwarts, to get as far away as possible from the dread and icy element
about her. He swung his fist upon her jaw, and she went whimpering down
into the boat's bottom, lying there and sobbing softly.

Furiously swearing at the herd of helpless passengers who endangered
his boat at every movement, he swung the craft's head about and
stood gazing at his ship. After a little while the crowd became more
manageable, and he saw he could keep them aboard without the certainty
of upsetting the craft He had just been debating which of them he
would throw overboard to save the rest; save them from their own
struggling and fighting for their own selfish ends. He was as cold
as steel, hard, inflexible. His men knew him for a ship's officer
who would maintain his place under all hazards, and they watched him
furtively, and were ready to obey him to the end without question.

"Oh, the monster, the murdering monster!" he muttered again and again.

His eyes were fixed upon the bridge. High up there stood Brownson--the
captain who had sent his liner to her death, with hundreds of
passengers.

Brownson stood calmly watching the press gain and lose places in the
boats. Two boats actually overloaded rolled over under the immense
load of human freight. The others did not stop to pick them up. They
had enough to do to save themselves. The ship was sinking. That was
certain. She must have struck so hard that even the'midship bulkheads
gave way, or were so twisted out of place that the doors failed. The
chief engineer came below him and glanced up.

As he did so, a tremendous, roaring blast of steam blew the
superstructure upward. The boilers had gone. Macdowell just gave
Brownson a look. That was all. Then he rushed for a boat.

Brownson grinned; actually smiled at him.

The man at the wheel asked permission to go.

"I'm a married man, sir--it's no use of me staying here any longer," he
ventured.

"Go--go to the devil!" said Brownson, without interest. The man fled.

Brownson stopped giving any more orders. In silence he gazed down
at the press of human beings, watching, debating within himself the
chances they had of getting away from that scene of death and horror.

The decks grew more and more steep. The liner was settling by the
head and to starboard. She was even now twisting, rolling over; and
the motion brought down thousands of blocks of ice from the berg. The
engines had long since stopped. She still held her head against the ice
wall; but it would give her no support. She was slipping away--down to
her grave below.

Brownson gazed back over the decks. He watched the crowd impersonally,
and it seemed strange to him that so much valuable fabric should go to
the bottom so quickly. The paint was so clean and bright, the brass
was so shiny. The whole structure was so thoroughly clean, neat, and
in proper order. It was absurd. There he was standing upon that bridge
where he had stood so often, and here below him were hundreds of dying
people--people like rats in a trap.

"Good Heaven--is it real?"

He was sure he was not awake. It must be a dream. Then the terrible
knowledge came back upon him like a stroke; a blow that stopped his
heart. It was the death of his ship he was watching--the death of his
ship and of many of his passengers. Suddenly Brownson saw the boat of
the second mate, and that officer standing looking up at him.

The master thought he saw the officer's lips move. He wondered what the
man thought, what he would say. He had insulted the officer, made him a
clown before the men. He knew the second mate would not spare him. He
knew the second mate would testify that he had given warning of ice ten
minutes before they struck. He also knew that the man at the wheel had
heard him, as had the steward who brought up the coffee, and one or two
others who were near.

No, there must be no investigation of his, Brownson's, blame in the
matter. The master dared not face that. He looked vacantly at Smith.
The officer stood gazing straight at him.

The liner suddenly shifted, leaned to starboard, heeled far over,
and her bows slipped from the berg, sinking down clear to her decks,
clear down until the seas washed to the foot of her superstructure
just below Brownson. Masses of ice fell from her into the sea. The
grinding, splashing noise awoke the panic again among the remaining
passengers and crew. They strove with maniac fury to get the rafts and
other stuff that might float over the side. Two boats drew away full
to the gunwales with people. The air below began to make that peculiar
whistling sound that tells of pressure--pressure upon the vitals of the
ship. She was going down.

Brownson still stood gazing at his second mate.

Smith met the master's eye with a steady look. Then he suddenly forgot
himself and raised his hand.

"Oh, you murdering rat, you cowardly scoundrel, you devil!" he roared
out.

Brownson saw the movement of the hand, saw that it was vind