Adventure Magazine Cover, March 20, 1925 — page 165: what you’re looking at

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

The Atlantic Takes a Hand Schwartz day and night the whole voyage, drink with him, travel to Paris with him, become his buddy and win his confidence. To do that he must be a quartermaster, as Schwartz is.” “‘Which means you want me to make my- self a kind of uncle to a Judas,” Captain Willett growled, chewing on his cigar in disgust. “Well, all right. I can’t say no, much as I’d like to. But what kind of a sailor is this operative of yours? I’vea duty to my owners as well as to Uncle Sam, and I don’t fancy helmsmen that steer over half the North Atlantic. Wastes too much coal. Who’s your man?” “Meet Harry Young, Captain!” The in- spector beamed with the effusive geniality of a man who has just obtained his own way. Willett wheeled in his chair, and measured the candidate with a deliberate, hostile glance. Slowly the captain’s lips pursed, and he uttered a low prolonged whistle, plainly audible to every one in the room. ‘““Maybe he’s a good detective,” Willett grunted as an after-thought. ‘But I'll have to tell the mate he’s my sister’s son, ’cause it’s a cinch he ain’t a sailor!” The young man who was the subject of these aspersions flushed painfully. He knew that he looked like a consumptive clerk bet- ter fitted to measure ribbon than to follow the sea. , His face came to a point in a large, long and prominent nose. Above it rose a sloping forehead, two pale blue eyes and a thin little thatch of yellow hair. Below lay a receding chin and a mouth with promi- nent teeth like a rabbit’s. “T’ve been practising steering at the Sea- man’s Institute,’ he muttered. He hadn’t wanted this assignment, but the shrewd old inspector had insisted. “Lucky,” Willett commented drily. “‘It’d be luckier for you if you’d learned something about it.” THAT the captain had not over- 4 stated the case became apparent as soon as the Sachem put to sea and Young began to stand his regular two-hour trick at the wheel. In calm weather his lessons ashore made him a passable helms- man, but months and years of steering are needed to develop that sensitiveness to the buffeting interplay of forces between ship, wind and sea which enables a skilled quar- termaster to steer a vessel as if he were guiding a living thing. 147 Young’s steering was mechanical. The fault became obvious one morning when the Sachem was off the Grand Banks and Cap- tain Willett was peering over Young’s shoul- der into the binnacle, preparing to put the ship on the great circle course for Brest. It would be the largest and most important change of course on the voyage. He could sense the nervousness of the inexperienced quartermaster as the ship’s head started to swing. In his excitement Young put the helm too far over. “Meet her!”’ Willett grunted. It was too late. Young threw the helm hard astarboard, but still the momentum of the turning ship swung her head to star- board, a point beyond the course. There the hard-over helm checked her sharply, and she swung to port again so rapidly that she yawed widely before Young was able to steady her on the proper point. Willett snorted. “‘Ain’t you got no feel for a ship, Young?” he demanded with bored irritation. “You'll never make a helmsmen!”’ “She got to swinging,” the detective muttered. “Of course she did! Can’t you feel her under your feet? Do you have to look at the lubber’s point to see what she’s doing? Man, by the time it shows on the card she’s begun to swing, and it takes too much helm to stop her. You ain’t as bad as I figured you’d be, but you steer like a wooden dummy.” Young’s narrow shoulders stiffened obsti- nately, but he made no answer, and the skipper strolled out on the bridge. The chap wasn’t so bad as he had expected at first, at that, he reflected. For a corre- spondence school sailor—Willett grunted with the contempt of the skipper who has fought his way up step by step from the forecastle—Young showed up pretty well. He’d be the kind they liked in the Navy, probably. Intelligent. Oh, yes. A bit too nervous and anxious to please. And drat it all, his first impression of the boy had been wrong. Already it seemed likely that Young would put handcuffs on Schwartz before the Sachem nosed into New York again. Not that he had unearthed any clues in the first few days at sea, but because, to the unconcealed amazement of the skipper, Young had already made himself Schwartz’s buddy. Off watch the two were always OO