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The Exploits Of Captain Gault
Contraband of War
William Hope Hodgson
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S.S. John L. Sullivan,
May 15.
One of the main-hatch slings bust again this morning, and lost a lot of heavy crated goods over the side.
This is the second time a sling has parted in the last couple of days.
"Mr. Anwyn," I said to the First Mate, "scrap every one of those confounded cargo slings at once. You ought never to have lifted another ton with them, after that one parted yesterday. I'll not have another thing hoisted out of the holds until you've new slings. Use some of that new coil of four-inch Manilla; and get some of the men on the job, smart. We're just wasting money keeping the lighters idle. You ought not to have needed me to tell you a thing like this!"
I let the Mate see what I felt in the matter, and I said what I had to say flat out before Mr. Jelloyne, the tally clerk; for there was no excuse for the thing happening twice, and I had a right to feel warm.
This unloading into lighters is a slow, weary job at best, and it will take us another week or ten days to clear the cargo out of her.
May 16.
Mr. Jelloyne, the tally clerk, is certainly a bit of a character. He was talking this morning about the government restrictions on landing war material, and the difficulty of doing it secretly.
The old chap seems quite what one might call a bit of a sport.
"Would you do it, Mr. Jelloyne, if you got a chance?" I asked him; for I was more than simply curious to find out how he looked at a thing of that kind.
He took a glance round, and then came closer to me.
"It all depends, Cap'n," he said. "There's a lot of cash in it; but getting caught is a serious business."
"But if you were practically sure of not being caught?" I suggested.
"Ah!" he said, and winked at me. "Who wouldn't undertake it, under those conditions!"
That was enough for one time, and I said nothing more to him until this afternoon, when we got talking about it again. He was contending that, apart from the disagreeables attendant upon capture, the thing was enormously difficult. He instanced some of the difficulties.
First, an "examination~~ of the ship's manifest, showing what she was carrying.
Second, the booking down (or "tallying") of every case and article hoisted out of the hold of every ship in the bay, by the clerk sent aboard every ship.
Third, the examination of every lighter-load sent ashore. If any cases went astray between the ship and the shore, a comparison of the tally clerk's tally-book with the Customs officials' checking of the load would show instantly that a case or article was missing.
Fourth, any suspicious-looking case might be opened by the authorities, to verify that its contents were as per ship's manifest.
Fifth, if any vessel tried to unload cargo secretly after dark, she was bound to be discovered, because her hatches were sealed every night by the government official on the last tug, and were broken by him each morning when he came round on the first tug.
Sixth, there was a night patrol boat, which kept an eye on things in general, and especially on any vessel that acted in any way out of the ordinary, or which did any noticeable amount of boat-traffic with the shore, or even with other vessels lying out in the bay.
"Makes it quite a pleasantly interesting mental problem to see how it might be managed," I said. "I don't think it would be very difficult.. . . One might make the tally clerk a present of a hundred quid on a big job, not to 'tally' down a case of contraband every now and again."
Old Mr. Jelloyne shook his head at that.
"No good, Captain!" he said. "No man is going to risk losing his billet for that kind of thing. Why, he'd be at the mercy of anyone who felt like talking."
"Not my notion of a clever job," I told him. "If I were the kind of man who would do things of that sort, Mr. Jelloyne, I'd try to make it interesting to carry out. For instance, one could avoid the sealing of the hatches, by cutting through into the hold from the lazarette under the main cabin. The stuff could be brought up through the cabin without ever touching the sealed hatches. That is one of the big difficulties overcome.
"What about these same cases being missing when we come to compare the tally-book with the ship's manifest?" he asked me.
"That's certainly a difficulty," I admitted; "but it would simply have to be ignored. By the time the cases were proved missing, they'd be away and away-oh, ashore.
"Then, again, I'd avoid the port risks, and minimize the chance of the patrol-boat dropping on me, by moving the ship over nearer to the north shore. There are plenty of lonely bits of quiet beach there, where I could make a quick dash with a boat-load, now and again at night, if I watched when the patrol-boat was over on the other side of the bay."
Mr. Jelloyne grinned at me in his wicked old way.
"It might do," he admitted. "It's plain and simple. Perhaps it's just as well you re not in the business, Captain!"
"My goodness!" I wanted to shout, "I've two thousand pounds' worth of rifles to smuggle ashore, if you only knew it!"
But I took jolly good care not to, as you may think.
"As you remarked just now, Mr. Jelloyne," I said, passing him my case, "it's a mighty risky business. And a sea-Captain's like the law: he should be above suspicion."
"Quite right, Captain. Quite right, Captain," he said heartily; and I let it drop at that.
May 17.
We've been riding to one anchor since we've been here; but last night there was a strong breeze from the Southeast that made us drag for nearly a mile. I let her drag; for there's plenty of room, and it suited my purpose. Then I let go the second bower, and that brought her up.
"You've dragged, Cap'n, during the night," said old Mr. Jelloyne, when he came out this morning. "That was a stiff little blow you had out here. I never thought the sea would have been quiet enough for the lighters this morning, and I'd promised myself a day off. But there's no rest for the wicked."
"Yes," I told him. "It was quite a smart little breeze. I'm going to shift over to the north side. It's nearer in, but the holding's better.
When the tug came out with the second string of lighters, I arranged with the Captain to go ahead of us, while we hove up, and then to give us a tow across to the north side, where, as I told Mr. Jelloyne, the holding is admitted to be better. . . . All the same, I had my own notion that we had dragged, simply because we must have fouled our anchor; but I did not elabourate the idea. I have waited a couple of weeks for just such a breeze, and I have been fully aware that our anchor must have been fouled for some days.
By such means as these, I have been able to bring my ship over nearer to the north shore, without exciting any unnecessary comment.
Night.
What old Mr. Jelloyne, the tally clerk, told me about the patrol-boat is quite correct. She was lying near us for some time tonight, out in the darkness, about four or five hundred yards away; I spotted her through my night-glasses. Evidently, her officer in charge wants to make sure there's nothing behind my moving the ship over here. Of course, I've simply watched the boat, and said nothing, except had a quiet sniggle to myself.
May 22.
Tonight is to be the night. I've given the patrol-boat time to get used to my ship being here.
They had the patrol-boat near the ship most of the night of the 17th, and again on the 18th; but I guessed they'd tire of that!
I just looked upon it as a mild diversion, watching them through my night-glasses. They must have been fools not to realise that a good pair of glasses must show them up plain on the water!
However, the last three nights they appear to have got settled in their minds that there's no especial need to keep their eyes glued on my ship all night long. And so tonight, the firm ashore being now ready to remove the goods, I'm going to attempt to complete my little investment in rifles. If all goes well, I stand to clear a thousand pounds to my own cheek, and the money is as acceptable as money always is to a man of my somewhat developed tastes. I've rather stretched my finances lately, buying a Guido, which I could not let pass me.
I went ashore this morning, and got into final touch with the consignees. I took elabourate precautions to insure a secrecy as perfect as ever my heart could desire, and I know that there can have been no dangerous information leaking into the wrong quarters.
The arrangements are, that if I decide, last thing, to send the stuff ashore, I am to have the House-Flag checked, when lowering it at sunset, and re-hoisted, as if the signal haul-yards had fouled and needed clearing. Then the flag can be lowered in the usual way.
This is to be taken to mean that I will bring the boat ashore, with certain cases, any time after eleven o'clock, the exact time being impossible to fix, owing to the chance of the patrol-boat being on my side of the bay at the time.
Just before I leave the ship I am to flash a bull's-eye over the rail-the signal to be two long flashes and two short.
As an additional precaution for the success of my little adventure, I have had the boat I shall use painted a dead-coloured grey, which should make it almost invisible at night; and new leathers on all the oars, to make them quieter in the rowlocks. The rendezvous is a little bit of lonely beach right opposite the ship.
May 23.
From sunset until eleven o'clock I kept an eye for the patrol-boat. She came over to our side of the bay about 10:45 but did not stay more than a few minutes; and as soon as she had gone well away towards the south side I gave word to haul up the boat, which was lying astern, and to hoist into her, four big cases, that have been snugly out of sight down in the lazarette.
It was a very dark, quiet night, and just before giving the flashes with the bull's-eye, I thought I heard somewhere, far away over :he water, and vague, the low, dull beat of a petrol-launch.
I told the men to come up out of the boat, and have a smoke for half an hour. Then I went up on to the bridge with my nightglasses, and had a good look to the Southeast; but, so far as I could see, there was no sign of anything moving out in the bay. Then I examined the water between my ship and the shore; but this was quite clear of any craft.
I put in a full half hour, listening and watching the bay; but there was not a single thing to make me uneasy, and at last I sent word for the men to lay aft again into the boat.
I gave the required lamp-flashes; then I went down into the boat, and we pulled out from the ship's side. I headed her for the dip in the cliffs that marked the beach.
"Gently, men, gently! No hurry!" I told them.
All the time, as we moved quietly shorewards, I kept my eyes about me and my ears open; but there was not a thing of any kind to bother me, that I could see or hear; yet all the time I had a vague excitement of expectancy on me, that kept me a little tense, as may be supposed.
"Easy there. In bow!" I gave the word, as we drew in under the shadow of the cliffs. "Get up in the bows with the boathook, Svensen, and stand by to fend her off."
Though I spoke quietly, the words echoed back in a soft, curious echo from the low cliffs.
"That sounded funny, Sir," said the Third Mate, who was sitting by me.
"Only the echo," I told him; and as I spoke, the boat grounded on the soft sand of the beach, and the men were tumbling out on the instant, pell-mell, to haul her up.
"Out with the stuff, men," I said, as I jumped ashore.
As the last of the four big cases was landed on the sand, the Third
Mate touched my arm.
"Hark, Sir," he said, quickly. "What was that? . . . Look, Sir, what' s that up the beach?"
I bent forward, and stared. As I did so, there was a sharp command out of the darkness up the beach.
"Hands up, or we fire!" shouted the voice.
"Copped, by the Lord!" said the Third Mate, and whirled round instinctively to the boat.
"Stop that, Mister!" I said. "Do you want to get us all filled with lead? The authorities in this part shoot first and inquire afterwards! Put your hands up, men, all of you. And leave the talking to me. "
As I spoke, I heard the pom, pom, pom, of petrol engines, and knew it was the sound of the patrol-boat coming full-tilt across the bay to cut off our retreat.
Then there came from up the beach the flash of several policelanterns; and as the beams of light circled and rested on us, I could see what a confoundedly absurd spectacle we all looked, every man with his hands reached up so earnestly to the black heavens!
"Well," I said, staring, and trying to see the men behind the lanterns, "what the devil's this mean? Are you a hold-up, or what?"
Of course, I knew it was bound to be the authorities, right enough; but I wanted badly to blow off at them, or somebody. It was plain there had been a leakage somewhere.
"Well," I said again, "what is it? What the deuce is it? I can't stand here all night!"
Then, out of the darkness behind the bull's-eye lantern, stepped the Port Officer, and informed me that I and my men were under arrest for attempting to run a cargo of rifles into the country.
"Don't talk rot," I told him. "Keep your hands still, men," I said.
"Leave this to me... . Don't you think, Officer, you and I could fix this up, without importing my men or your men into it? Let us take a quiet walk up the shore, while I put a proposition to you.
There was a roar of laughter from his own men in the darkness behind the lanterns. But the Port Officer did not laugh.
"Quit your fooling, Captain Gault," he said. "You may find yourself in extra trouble over this job, for attempting bribery, if you don't keep the lid on a bit more. Don't you get imagining you can bribe me or my men. We're not bribable."
"Go and boil your head," I advised, as mildly as the sentiment implied admitted. "You annoy me incredibly. You're troubled with a badly enlarged liver. "
"See you," he said, stepping up close to me. "If you don't drop
that sort of talk, you're going to get a hammering, right here and now."
"Not by a puffy child like you," I said; for it was part of my intention to aggravate him to the limit. And I did this sooner than I expected; for, without a word further, he hit me with the back of his hand across the mouth, while I stood helpless, with my hands above my head. I am, perhaps rather narrow-mindedly, glad to assert that he was not a countryman of mine. At the time it would not have mattered if he had been.
I just dropped my hands, and hit him as hard and solid as I could, right and left-one flat in the middle of his bread-machinery, and the other equally in the middle of his face-not scientific blows, perhaps; but they were so hearty and soundly-intentioned that he went nearly a dozen paces, spinning on his feet, before he fell.
My men shouted and dropped their hands, and I leaned quickly towards the Third Mate.
"There's going to be a rumpus," I whispered. "While it's on, collar one or two of the men, and shove those cases down into the sea. Quick, now! I don't fancy there'll be any shooting."
I was completely right; for if the Port Officer was no sportsman, his men were splendidly so. Down went their rifles with a crash, and they leaped to meet my men. I fancy there must have been a good many Irishmen among them, from the intoning of their joyous and entirely improper and separate litanies. My men were mostly
Scots, and they did very well in the fighting line (as later comparisons showed); but they were less fluent, or perhaps, to be strictly accurate, quite as persistent; but eventually a trifle monotonous!
How the fighting went on for a bit I could not tell; for every lantern had been put out in the first rush; moreover, I was dealing with the Port Officer in a way that I felt should prove memorable.
I'll admit that he made lusty objections; but I'm nearer fifteen than fourteen stone, and I never did run to fat.
*****
When at last the lanterns were lit again, I found my men all handcuffed in a row, and looking as if they had thoroughly enjoyed themselves.
There were twenty of the government men-big, hefty lads they were, too, and not one of them but had to choke a grin when I assisted the Port Officer politely to his feet.
"Now, Sir," I said, "perhaps you will kindly explain the whole of this business, and the meaning of your unwarrantable and illegal assault upon my person.
The idiot glared at me; but had not a word to say. In any case, a violent loss of teeth does not improve articulation.
"The cases!" he shouted to his men, in a thick voice.
"They've gone clean away, Sir," said one of his men, after a brief search.
He grew frantic.
"Don't you tell me that for a yarn, you blind dummies," he shouted. "Look about! Look about! They're bound to be near."
I smiled; for the Third Mate had done very well indeed. Meanwhile, he and his men searched everywhere, more and more bewildered; until at last one of them spotted the corner of one of the cases sticking up above the water, where the Third Mate and one of the men had sunk them, during the row.
It took the Officer and his men half an hour to salvage the cases, and every man was wet through by the time they were hauled ashore.
As the big cases were taken from the sea, the water rushed out of holes that had been bored in them; and one of the men remarked this to the Port Officer, who snatched a lamp and began to examine the cases.
"Knock in the top of one of them!" he said, suddenly.
One of his men brought an axe from up the beach, and in a minute he had the side of one of the boxes laid right open.
"Empty!" shouted every one of his men, and my Third Mate as well; but the Port Officer said not a word. He seemed stunned for a moment.
"The-the others!" he said, at last. "Quick!"
But the other boxes were empty also, as they could tell by lifting them, now that the sea-water had drained out.
"Perhaps now, Sir, you will take that same little stroll along the beach which I requested awhile ago," I said. "If you had courteously acceded to my request, all this melodrama might have been omitted."
He stared at me, a moment, in a kind of dazed sulkiness.
"Meanwhile," I added, "you may as well give orders for my men to be released. I don't fancy it will pay you to keep them longer in that condition; for, as things are, you stand the chances of getting into serious trouble for your action tonight, in assaulting and arresting a body of law-abiding men, who have come ashore for no other object at all than to have a quiet evening's 'gain' on the beach, with a bit of a bonfire made out of these old cases we've brought ashore, and towards which you seem to have exhibited extraordinary covetousness.
"Oh, stow it!" he muttered, wearily. "I'll come with you, and hear what you've got to say.
He beckoned to his sub.
"Unlock them!" he ordered, and turned and followed me twenty
or thirty yards up the beach.
"Now," he said, "be quick with what you wanted to tell me!"
"You've already learned, by ocular proof, as I might say, the major portion of it," I told him. "There are, however, one or two details to add. In the first place, I happened to receive information from a friend that old Mr. Jelloyne was 'one of yours,' so I outlined to him just such a little outing as tonight's, only with rifles in those cases instead of air.
"He courteously performed his share of my little plot by detailing my talk to you! I then shifted my ship over to this side, and when all was ready I went ashore and gave information, per telephone, to your office that the S.S. John L Sullivan would make certain signals this evening to inform certain confederates ashore that her Captain would land a consignment of contraband of war secretly tonight.
"I explained exactly what these signals would be, and when you grew too gratefully insistent for the name of the 'man on the 'phone', I told you it was someone who would see you personally, at the right moment, and define his reward. This is, if you will allow me to say so, the right moment.
"There are just one or two minor details unexplained. My men were not in this plot at all. The Third, however, was fooled in exactly the same way that you were; for I told him secretly that there was contraband in the cases. He must have thought it mighty light contraband!
"By the way, don't you think the painting of the boat was a splendid little touch on my part to lend actuality to my, shall I call it, practical joke?
"In many ways, this joke is almost the best part of tonight's work. You see, it was so essential to draw all official attention away from our old berth in the bay; for, some days ago, Mr. Officer, we broke (not quite by accident) a couple of slings, and there fell over the ship's side four cases of rifles, labelled sewing machines.
"These cases had been previously roped together, in couples, to facilitate a grapple finding them, and were picked up tonight (as a lantern signal informed me some fifteen minutes ago) by friends of mine ashore, while you and the patrol-launch have been attending my little burlesque here.
"Don't you think, now, it was all distinctly neat? And I stand to clear quite a thousand on the job.
"Shall we go back now? You see, dear man, there have been no
witnesses to this little talk; so you can prove nothing, and certainly nothing to your credit, while I can prove a great deal that is not to yours. Shall we call the game even?
"By the way, I can confidently recommend to you a raw beefsteak for black eyes...." |
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