Adventure Magazine Cover — page 153: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

sealed and cae and ee like every- ing to break her cable and pile herself up ashore. I could see the skipper was doing some tall hcaking about this time; he had a worried look. I bet right down in his heart he wished he’d got inside somewheres sooner. He’d played too long outside, then had to take what was handy. es 4 We were up against a stiff game with the cards page against us. — “No watches on deck tonight, of course,” } ie says when the anchor was down. “But I = want every man to keep his clothes on and be _ ready to jump in case she starts to drag. oatswain, detail two men with each quarter- | naster for bridge lookout and have them re- ‘ lieved every half-hour. Cook, make up a big es = Ss of hot coffee and break out br The boatswain was second in command. He : t told off two men to me and two to Bill Hanson, the other quartermaster. No sleep for me that ght, I figured. It didn’t matter I had half- | ur watches, though; a man would have a _ fine chance to pound his ear with his hammock a, nging and twisting like a leaf in a cyclone. watch and fought their way up to the bridge. Me and my two men sat down on deck and out our pipes. Up above the wind was howling and scream- ing and the big seas were slapping her sides Soe ind thundering down on deck to make a noise ke the roar of a big gun. Sometimes she rolled 23 - $0 far over the deck seemed to stand on edge; —. then we'd have to grab root or go sliding away a on the seat of our pants. Walk? Not much; eS _ ‘we had to crawl. Heaven save me from a little 2 sees big peo. ee eS . THAT half-hour below passed all too E 4 quick to suit me; but it did pass, and eS me and my two men pulled on our oil- ~ skins and mitts and went up the forward hatch. ~ It was fearful up there on deck. Dark as pitch, =: cold as ice, with the wind and sea fighting like _ demons to see which one could suck us up and = . heave us overboard. , “How goes it, Bill?” I says when the three of us finally made ‘the bridge. _.. The wind was howling and screaming so*he didn’t hear me, and I put my mouth to his ear . and said it again. “The wind’s done blowed all the stars out of the sky,” he yelled back. “Barometer’s fallin’ an’ the sea still on the make.” “Anchor holding all right?” I screamed. “Think so, though you’d better watch ’er; | thought I felt her dragging a couple of times.” He went below with his men and left us with “~ The Devil a Man Would Be » ~ Hanson and his two men drew the first bridge ; braced our backs against the bulkhead and got | - around like cans in a crate. the watch. No use trying to tell you what it was like there on the bridge; you’d have to go ~ through it to understand. People who live ashore don’t know what a real storm is. As you can see for yourself, sir, her free- board ain’t very high. The floor of the bridge is only twenty-three feet above water-line. A sea like was running that night makes a fool’ of her. If her forecastle was clear of water a full minute hand running I didn’t see it. there the sea was boiling and foaming, groaning and grunting to beat everything. It wasn’t spray that came flying over the Down — bridge now like it had been that afternoon. | It was solid sheets of water, and when it hit it - was freezing cold. We weren’t on the bridge five minutes before we were soaked to the skin, even through our oilskins, and caked with ice, .We couldn’t talk, we couldn’t smoke, we couldn’t walk, nor we couldn’t even chew to- bacco on account of spitting. We couldn’t do anything but get a grip on something and hold tight, keeping alert for a dragging anchor. —— only knows how she held cn with all that pounding. And so it went, half an hour on the bridge freezing stiff with the bitter cold and half an- hour below in the engine-room thawing out again, with mugs of steaming hot coffee warm- ing the insides of us. By midnight it was worse than ever, tho you'd think it couldn’t get any worse. The loose gear on the lower decks was rattling bunkers was having conniption fits. Dishes fell out of the racks in the-galley and smashed. Pots, pans and kettles broke their moorings and crashed and banged. 3 At first the forward hatch was hooded with double-ought duck, strong as a bull’s hide, but the heavy seas pounding down on it split it The coal in the wide open after a while; and now the seas came — cascading down the ladder till the berth-deck was running ankle-deep: with water. “Benson,” sergeant in charge of the prisoners when we were getting ready to take a turn on the bridge, “T think you’d better release your men and give them the run of the ship. They’re not likely to run away tonight.” He tried to laugh at his joke, but it fell flat. That wasn’t any time to laugh. Our skipper was grit clear through; he was a good one. . But he better than anybody else realized that we had overlooked the play. He didn’t say why the prisoners should be released, though that was an easy guess. If any thing happened we had a bare chance, ith the irons on them the prisoners wouldn’t have the ghost of a show. The skipper wanted everybody to have the same chance, you see, little as it was. With the wind, blowing ninety or a hundred COMmicooOoks the skipper said to the marine ea ‘- 3\) | cay heh pad! as A ih sa Te uh wid Hi mW as : rad ae PAP RUIN RE Inca eC ATION ALS ONT ep IA TAME PETS ae LRP IY Ste aN PLR Se oe AMS rh « ¥ a P. S I 5 « hs oe “—‘s ee -~S a ~ = “< . — = s % a4 + & a ~ a a x ~ ne Wi ti ad, tel side gray Wer? Ne Cer meres ie! he