Adventure Magazine Cover — page 54: what you’re looking at

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

44 Then the skipper did the amazing thing. “Pilot, Pll take charge. You are re- lieved,” he said. For ten seconds there was silence; then as the pilot repeated the order doubtfully, a clamor arose from beneath us, and Rat- face made the greater part of it. The skip- per called down the tube for all the steam available, paused but a breath to shove Rat-face back down the ladder which he had mounted in fury, then took the wheel himself as if utterly to absolve every body else from blame. . The Solander throbbed as she gathered greater speed, and to a hard-over helm cir- cled around close to the: Flamingo’s labor- ing stern. Then she straightened out and started to overhaul the cripple. Slowly we drew.up until our stem was nosing the Flamingo’s quarter. Our own propeller was churning up the mud of the flats, and on the Flamingo’s bridge a ha- rassed officer waved us off excitedly. But our old man carried on as if bent upon steaming clean through the other fellow’s bridge. Then we came together with a smash; I heard something go—I-think it was our forward boat, which we carried swung out—and as the splinters began to fly the skipper shouted to me to get aft and range out a stern anchor and wire in case of need. As I hung over the after hatch, directing the work, davits and boats, ventilators and rails, port glasses and wind-chutes began to carry away with one long tearing smash. Furious voices rang out on our decks; others as mad sang out from the Flamingo de- manding where in some place we green- truck farmers were coming; but I noticed that we held a hard starboard helm, and while the débris rained about our ears we were shoving that long-necked old bally- hoo out into the fairway, clear of the Rip. “Keep her going! You're all right now!” bawled Captain Basil, ignoring a capering figure which shook a heavy fist at him. The long, crazy red funnel, the Flamingo’s neck,~ tottered as two guys parted, and smoke poured out from the torn plates near the fiddley. But the other guys held, the steamer was clear and in deep water, and something seemed to tell her skipper that he had been hauled out.of a bad mess by design and not by accident. I had got the small kedge up and the wire was coming over the hatch-coaming Adventure when we struck ourselves, right on the tail of the bank, and listed over until anchor and men fetched away to leeward. The Flamingo started to turn clumsily, as if to stand by, but our old man bawled to them to carry on, that we were all right, then had the engines reversed, shifted his helm and waited for results. For some moments it was doubtful whether we had struck badly or only just clipped the edge of the flats; but as it hap- pened, and I think the old man counted on it, our draft was too deep for us to catch on the real ledge, and we simply grazed the outer overfall of the soft mud. The Fla- mingo, with ten feet less draft, must have slipped right up on to the flats themselves but for the skipper’s amazing exploit. However, there we were. We slipped off in no time, and the carpenter reported the hull tight as a bottle. But our upperworks and topsides were a sight. Another sight was that group of directors standing under the bridge, surrounding the deposed pilot and bombarding him, with questions and assertions. And loudest of all was the acid voice of Rat-face, charging deliberate in- tention to cast away the Solander and threatening all sorts of dire penalties. The pilot interjected short, snappy scraps of speech which seemed at first to be merely his ineffectual effort to get into the noisy confab; but soon a new note was discernible in the loud denunciations of Rat-face. He swung around and raved at the pilot, who stood his ground stubbornly, blazing out at the angry little man; and presently the other directors demanded that the pilot re- peat some charge he had just made. He did so, in spite of Rat-face’s furious inter- ruption; and one of the directors left the group, saying tersely: ‘We'll soon find out! Ill send a wireless ashore and have an inquiry cabled. We'll get a reply long before we hit the dock, gentlemen.” He went to the radio-room, and soon the spark began :to crackle overhead. When he rejoined his party Rat-face was standing apart from the rest, who were apparently deep in some story the pilot was spinning them. One glance I took at Rat-face and decided that something the pilot had said or was saying hadn’t agreed with his stomach, and vaguely, for no reason that — I knew, I felt that what was bad for Rat-face could not be other than good for Captain ‘S Gomichoo (C@