The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume Four (20 page)

“I took a quick look around. The boat ’longside was already in the water, and there were two A.B.s with it, Fulton an’ Jaworski, it was. They had maybe thirty people in that boat, and I saw one of the stewards there, too. There was nobody else in sight, but I could hear some yelling forward.

“Just then she gave a sort of shudder, and I jumped into the boat and told the Jew to cast off. He had trouble because she was rising and falling on the water, but a woman helped him. I didn’t know who she was then, but later I found out it was that actress, Hazel Ryan.

“We shoved off, and I got oars into the water, and we started looking for others. When we got out a ways, I could see Sparks—one of them, anyway, in the radio shack.

“Then the ship gave a kind of lunge and went down by the head. She just dipped down and then slid right away, going into the water on her beam ends with all the port-side boats just danglin’ there, useless, as they couldn’t be got into the water. At the last minute, as she went under, I saw a man with an ax running from boat to boat cutting the falls. He was hoping they’d come up floating, and two or three of them did.

“All of a sudden I see a man in the water. He was a pleasant-looking man with gray hair, and he was swimming. He looked so calm I almost laughed. ‘Cold, isn’t it?’ he says, and then he just turns and swims away, cool as you please. You’d have thought the beach wasn’t fifty feet away.

“It’s things like that fairly take your wind, sir, and there I was, trying to pull the lifeboat away from the ship and hopin’ for the best.

“I turned my head once and looked back. Mostly I was trying to guide the boat through wreckage that was already afloat. When I looked back—this was just before she went under—I glimpsed somebody standin’ on the bridge, one arm through the pilot-house window to hang on, and he was lighting his pipe with his free hand.

“It just didn’t seem like it could be happening. There I was just minutes before, a-comin’ off watch, all set for a little shuteye, and now here I was in a lifeboat, and the ship was goin’ down.

“There must have been nearly a hundred people in the water and not a whisper out of any of them. Like they was all in shock or somethin’ of the kind. Once a guy did yell to somebody else. Then something exploded under water—maybe the boilers busted. I wouldn’t know. Anyway, when it was over, a lot of those folks who’d been in the water were gone. I fetched the bow of my boat around and rowed toward something white floating in the water. It was a woman, and I got her into the boat.”

“Was that Hazel Ryan?” a reporter asked.

“No, it was Lila, a stewardess. Then I held the boat steady whilst another man climbed in. He pointed out three people clingin’ to a barrel. I started for them.

“The sea was rough, and folks would disappear behind a wave, and sometimes when you looked, they weren’t there anymore. Those people were havin’ a time of it, tryin’ to hang to that barrel, so I got to them first, and folks helped them aboard. The Ryan woman was one of them.

“I’ll give her this. First moment she could speak, she asked if there was anything she could do, and I said just to set quiet and try to get warm. If I needed help, I’d ask for it.

“It was funny how black everything was, yet you could see pretty well for all of that. You’d see a white face against the black water, and by the time you got there, it was gone.

“One time I just saw an arm. Woman’s, I think it was. She was right alongside the boat, and I let go an oar an’ grabbed for her, but her arm slipped right through my fingers, and she was gone.

“Some of those we’d picked up were in panic and some in shock. That little Jewish fellow with the necktie and all, he didn’t know a thing about the sea, but he was cool enough. We moved people around, got the boat trimmed, and I got her bow turned to meet the sea and started to try to ride her out.”

“What about the radio?”

“We didn’t think about that for long. At least I didn’t. There hadn’t been much time, and the chances were slim that any message got off. It all happened too fast.

“Sparks was in there, and he was sending. I am sure of that, but he hadn’t any orders, and most shipmasters don’t want any Mayday or SOS goin’ out unless they say. If he sent it, he sent it on his own because the old man never made the bridge.”

“The man you saw lighting his pipe?”

“Jorgenson, I think. He was watch officer, but they were changing watch, so I don’t know. He wasn’t heavy enough for the old man.

“Anyway, I’d no time to think of them. The sea was making up, and I was havin’ the devil’s own time with that boat. She’d have handled a lot easier if we’d had a few more people aboard.

“Lila, she was hurting. Seemed like she was all stove up inside, and the shock was wearing off. She was feeling pain, turning and twisting like, and the Ryan woman was trying to help. She and that little Jew, they worked over her, covering her with coats, trying to tuck them under so she’d ride easier. The rest just sat and stared.”

“No other boats got off?”

“I don’t know—except that boat with Fulton and Jaworski. They were good men, and they’d do what could be done. The ship had taken a bad list, so I don’t think many of the boats on the topside could be launched at all.”

“How was the weather?”

“Gettin’ worse, sir. There was nobody to spell me on the oars because nobody knew anything about handling a boat in a heavy sea. I shipped the oars and got hold of the tiller, which made it a mite easier.

“Lila had passed out; spray was whipping over the boat. I was hanging to that tiller, scared ever’ time a big one came over that it would be the last of us. There was no way to play. You just had to live from one sea to the next.”

“How long did the storm last?”

“About two days. I don’t rightly remember because I was so tired everything was hazy. When the sea calmed down enough, I let Schwartz have the tiller. I’d been gripping it so hard and so long I could hardly let go.”

“You were at the tiller forty-eight hours without relief?”

“Yes, sir. Maybe a bit more. But after that she began to settle down, and the sun came out.”

“The boat was provisioned according to regulations?”

“Yes, sir. We’d some trouble about water later but not much.”

“How about the crew and the officers? Were they efficient in your opinion?”

“Sure. Yes, they were okay. I’ve been going to sea quite a spell, and I never have seen any seaman or officer shirk his job. It ain’t bravery nor lack of it, just that he knows his job and has been trained for it.

“Sometimes you hear about the crew rushing the boats or being inefficient. I don’t believe it ever happens. They’re trained for the job, and it is familiar to them. They know what they are to do, and they do it.

“Passengers are different. All of a sudden everything is different. There’s turmoil an’ confusion; there’s folks runnin’ back and forth, and the passengers don’t know what’s going on.

“Sometimes one of them will grab a crewman and yell something at him, and the crewman will pull loose and go about his business. The passenger gets mad and thinks they’ve been deserted by the crew when chances are that seaman had something to do. Maybe his boat station was elsewhere. Maybe he’d been sent with a message for the engineer on watch below.

“Maybe those crewmen you hear about rushing the boats are just getting there to get the boat cover off and clear the falls. This wasn’t my first wreck, and I’ve yet to see a crewman who didn’t stand by.”

“How long before she sank?”

“Fifteen minutes, give or take a few. It surely wasn’t more, though. It might have been no more than five. We’d made quite a bit of water before the cargo shifted and she heeled over. With that half door underwater—well, I figure that door gave way and she just filled up and sank.”

“Mr. Commissioner?” Winstead asked. “I’d like permission to ask this man a few questions. There are a few matters I’d like to clear up.”

“Go ahead.”

“Now, my man, if you’d be so kind. How many were in the boat when you got away from the scene of the wreck?”

“Eight.”

“Yet when you were picked up by the
Maloaha
there were but three?”

“Yes.”

“How do you account for that?”

“Lila—she was the stewardess—she died. Like I said, she’d been hurt inside. She was a mighty good woman, and I hated to see her go. Clarkson—he went kind of screwy. Maybe he didn’t have all his buttons to start with. Anyway, he got kind of wild and kept staring at a big shark who was following us. One night he grabbed up a boat hook and tried to get that shark. It was silly. That shark was just swimmin’ along in hopes. No use to bother him. Well, he took a stab at that shark and fell over the side.

“Handel, he just sat an’ stared. Never made no word for anybody, just stared. He must’ve sat that way for eight or nine days. We all sort of lost track of time, but he wouldn’t take water, wouldn’t eat a biscuit. He just sat there, hands hanging down between his knees.

“I’d rigged a sort of mast from a drifting stick and part of a boat cover. The mast this boat should have carried was missing. Anyway, the little sail I rigged gave us some rest, and it helped. Late one day we were moving along at a pretty fair rate for us when I saw a squall coming. She swept down on us so quick that I gave the tiller to Schwartz and stumbled forward to get that sail down before we swamped. With the wind a-screaming and big seas rolling up, I’d almost reached the sail when this Handel went completely off his course. He jumped up and grabbed me, laughing and singing, trying to dance with me or something.

“Struggling to get free, I fell full length in the boat, scrambled up and pulled that sail down, and when I looked around, Handel was gone.”

“Gone?” Winstead said.

“You mean—over the side?” the commissioner asked.

“That’s right. Nearest thing I could figure out was that when I fell, he fell, too. Only when I fell into the bottom, he toppled over the side.

“Rain and blown spray was whipping the sea, and we couldn’t see him. No chance to turn her about. We’d have gone under had we tried.

“For the next ten hours we went through hell, just one squall after another, and all of us had to bail like crazy just to keep us afloat.”

“So,” Winstead said, “you killed a passenger?”

“I never said that. I don’t know what happened. Whatever it was, it was pure accident. I’d nothing against the man. He was daffy, but until that moment he’d been harmless. I figure he didn’t mean no harm then, only I had to get free of him to save the boat.”

“At least, that is your story?”

“Mister, with a ragin’ squall down on us there was no time to coddle nobody. I didn’t have a straitjacket nor any way to get him into one. It was save the boat or we’d all drown.”

“Yet even with your small sail up, you might have lasted, might you not?”

Worden considered the matter, then he shrugged. “No way to tell. I was the only seaman aboard, and it was my judgment the sail come down. I’d taken it down.”

“All right. We will let that rest for the moment. That accounts for three. Now what became of the other two?”

“The Jew—Schwartz, he come to me in the night a few days later. We were lyin’ in a dead calm, and most of our water was gone. Sky was clear, not a cloud in sight, and we’d a blazin’ hot day ahead. He told me he was goin’ over the side, and he wanted me to know because he didn’t want me to think he was a quitter.

“Hell, that little kike had more guts than the whole outfit. I told him nothing doing. Told him I needed him, which was no lie. It was a comfort just to have him there because what he didn’t know he could understand when I told him. He wouldn’t accept the fact that I needed him.

“It even came to the point where I suggested I toss a coin with him to see who went over. He wouldn’t listen to that, and we both knew I was talkin’ nonsense. I was the only seaman. The only one who could handle a boat. It was my job to bring that boat back with as many people as possible. I ain’t goin’ for any of that hero stuff. That’s all baloney. Sure, I wanted to live as much as any man, but I had a job to do. It was what I signed on to do. At least when I signed on, it was to do a seaman’s job. I ain’t done nothing I wouldn’t do again.”

“I see. And what became of the other man?”

“He was a big guy, and he was tough. He tried to take charge of the boat. There’s a lot happens in an open boat like that when everybody is close to shovin’ off for the last time. People just ain’t thinkin’ the way they should. This big guy, he had more stamina than the rest of them. Most of them tried to take a hand in rowin’ the boat.

“We’d no wind, you see, and I was hopin’ we could get out of the calm into the wind again, but he wouldn’t do anything. He just sat. He said I was crazy, that I was goin’ the wrong way. He said I drank water at night when they were all asleep. Twice when I passed water forward for somebody else, he drank it.

“Then one night I woke up with him pourin’ the last of our water down his damn throat. The Ryan woman, she was tuggin’ at his arm to try to stop him, but hell, it was too late.

“It was her callin’ to me that woke me up, and I went at him. He emptied the cask and threw it over the side. I tried to stop him, and we had it out, right there. He was some bigger than me and strong, but there was no guts to him. I smashed him up some and put him between the oars. I told him to row, that he’d live as long as he rowed. First we had to circle around and pick up the cask.”

“An empty cask?” Winstead asked incredulously. “What in God’s world did you do that for?”

“Mister, it’s only in the movies where some guy on the desert an’ dyin’ of thirst throws away a canteen because it’s empty. Shows how little some of those screenwriters know. Supposin’ he finds water next day? How’s he goin’ to carry it?

“You throw away an empty canteen in the desert an’ you’re commit-tin’ suicide. Same thing out there. We might get a rain squall, and if we did, we’d need something to hold water. So we circled and picked up that cask.”

“And what happened to Dorgan?”

Tex Worden’s face was bleak. “He quit rowin’ twenty-four hours before we got picked up.”